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Most Countries Side With Russia in Ukraine Conflict While US’s Credibility Slips – Hersh

Sputnik -12.06.2023

Most of the world’s population supports Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, while the United States lost its credibility, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said on Sunday.

“The percentage of the [countries], particularly of the African and Central Asian and South Asian countries, that have changed from being pro-America to being pro-Russia is really quite dramatic. Much more than a half of the world’s population supports Russia in the war and not the United States. This was never the way it was,” Hersh said in an interview with talk show host George Galloway.

The journalist opined that “things are not as good as they used to be in Russia” amid Western sanctions, but “the idea that they are desperate is just wrong.”

Hersh also argued that Washington “lost so much credibility around the world,” citing Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic rapprochement with Iran as an example.

“It’s happened because, I think, because of Ukraine and dislike of the war. Saudi Arabia, by the way, they’re selling 25% of [their] oil to China, as I have mentioned, but the Saudis immediately cut a deal. And the Iranians immediately responded … They have a lot of control in Yemen over the Houthi tribes,” Hersh said.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, following calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The world has split into those who support Moscow and accuse NATO of provoking the conflict, and those who condemn Russia’s actions and impose sanctions on the country, while also ramping up their financial and military aid to Kiev. Some countries have avoided taking sides in the conflict.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | 1 Comment

Asia-Pacific is where China-Russia “no limits” partnership will be put to test

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JUNE 11, 2023 

The power dynamic in Northeast Asia is undergoing a dramatic change against the backdrop of the “no limits” strategic partnership between China and Russia. Ukraine’s defeat in the war with Russia may compel the Biden administration to put “boots on the ground” triggering a global confrontation and, equally, the US-China relations are at their lowest point since their normalisation in the 1970s, while Taiwan issue may potentially turn into a casus belli of war. To be sure, the Northeast Asian theatre is going to be a crucial arena in the brewing big power confrontation.    

Symptomatic of the cascading tensions, Russian foreign ministry summoned the Japanese ambassador on Friday and a protest was lodged in extraordinarily harsh language, as it came to be known that the 100 vehicles that Tokyo innocuously promised last week to Ukraine would in reality be armoured vehicles and all-terrain vehicles. Apparently, Tokyo was dissimulating, since Japan’s export rules ban its companies from selling lethal items overseas! 

Tokyo is crossing a “red line” and Moscow is not amused. The foreign ministry statement on Friday “stressed that the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida should be ready to share responsibility for the deaths of civilians, including those in Russia’s border regions… (and) driving bilateral relations even deeper into a dangerous impasse. Such actions cannot remain without serious consequences.”

Significantly, on Friday, in a video conference with General Liu Zhenli, Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, the Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence General Valery Gerasimov expressed confidence in the expansion of military cooperation between the two countries and noted, “Coordination between Russia and the People’s Republic of China in the international arena has a stabilising effect on the world situation.” 

The Chinese media later reported that the two generals agreed that Russia will participate (for the second time) in the Northern/Interaction-2023 exercise organised by China, signalling a new framework of China-Russia joint strategic exercises alongside the  joint air patrol over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea by their strategic bombers. By the way, the sixth such joint air petrol was conducted on Tuesday since the practice began in 2019. 

The big picture is that the shift in Japanese policies through the past year — close alignment with the US regarding Ukraine; copying the West’s sanctions against Russia; supply of lethal weaponry to Ukraine, etc. — has seriously damaged the Russo-Japanese relationship. On top of it, Japan’s re-militarisation with American support and its  growing ties with the NATO (which is lurching toward the Asia-Pacific) makes Tokyo a common adversary of both Moscow and Beijing. 

The imperative to push back this resurgent US client is strongly felt in Moscow and Beijing, which also has a global dimension since Russia and China are convinced that Japan is acting like a surrogate of American dominance in Asia and is subserving western interests. On its part, in a turnaround, Washington now actively encourages Japan to be an assertive regional power by jettisoning its constitutional limits to rearmament. It pleases Washington that Japan pledged a long-term increase of over 60 percent in defence spending. 

What worries Moscow and Beijing is also the ascendance of revanchist elements — vestiges of Japan’s imperial era — in the top echelons of power in the recent period. Of course, Japan continues to be in denial mode as regards its atrocities during the period of its brutal colonisation of China and Korea and the horrific war crimes during World War 2. 

This trend bears striking similarity to what is happening in Germany, where too the pro-Nazi elements are reclaiming habitation and a name. Curiously, a German-Japanese axis is present at the core of Washington’s strategies against Russia and China in Eurasia and Northeast Asia. 

The German Bundeswehr is expanding its combat exercises in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and will deploy more naval and air force units to the Asia-Pacific region next year. A recent German report noted, “The intensification of German participation in Asian-Pacific regional manoeuvres is taking place at a time when the United States is carrying out record-breaking manoeuvres in Southeast Asia, in its attempts to intensify its control over the region and displace China as much as possible.”

Japan’s motivations are easy to fathom. Apart from Japanese  revanchism which fuels the nationalist sentiments, Tokyo is convinced that a settlement with Russia over Kuril Islands is not to be expected now, or possibly ever, which means that a peace treaty will not be possible to bring the World War 2 hostilities to an end formally. Second, Japan no longer visualises Russia to be a “balancer” in its  troubled relationship with China. 

Third, most important, as Japan sees the rise of China as a political and economic threat, it is rapidly militarising, which in turn creates its own dynamic in terms of both upending its power position in Asia as also integrating itself with the West (“globalising”). Inevitably, this translates as promoting NATO in the Asian power dynamic, something that cuts deep into Russia’s core national security and defence strategies. Consequently, whatever hopes the strategists in Moscow had nurtured in the past that Japan could be weaned away from the US orbit and encouraged to exercise its strategic autonomy have evaporated into thin air. 

Arguably, in his zest to integrate Japan into the US-led “collective West”, Prime Minister Kishida overreached himself. He behaves as if he is obliged to be more loyal than the king himself. Thus, on the same day that President Xi Jinping visited Moscow in March, Kishida landed in Kiev from where he went to attend a NATO Summit and openly began lobbying for establishment of a NATO office in Tokyo. 

Kishida followed up by hosting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Tokyo and giving him a platform to berate China publicly from its doorstep. There is no easy explanation for such excessive behaviour. Is it a matter of impetuous behaviour alone or is it a calculated strategy to gain legitimacy for the ascendance of revanchist elements whom Kishida represents in the Japanese power structure?

To be sure, Northeast Asia is a priority now for China and Russia, given their overlapping interests in the region. NATO expansion to Asia and the sharp rise in the US force projection bring home to the defence strategists in Beijing and Moscow that the Sea of Japan is a “communal backyard” for the two countries where their “no limits” strategic partnership ought to be optimal. The Chinese commentators no longer downplay that the Russian-Chinese military ties “serve as a powerful counterbalance to the US’ hegemonic actions.” 

It is entirely conceivable that at some point in a near future, China and Russia may begin to view North Korea as a protagonist in their regional alignment. They may no longer  feel committed to observe the US-led sanctions against North Korea. Indeed, if that were to happen, a host of possibilities will arise. The Russian-Iranian military ties set the precedent. 

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s Second Indictment Shows Democrats Uninterested in ‘Fair’ 2024 Election

Sputnik – 10.06.2023

The federal indictment against former US President Donald Trump was unsealed earlier Friday and revealed he was being charged with 37 felony counts, 31 of which were for violating the Espionage Act through his “willful retention” of classified records. The remaining offenses were for false statements and obstruction of justice.

The latest indictment filed against former US President Donald Trump highlights how much Democrats are uninterested in holding a “fair election” ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle, Ethan Ralph, a conservative political commentator and host of the Killstream, told Sputnik.

Ralph noted that “Democrats don’t seem to be interested in a fair election.”

“The increase in lawsuits, indictments, and other legal assaults on Trump is directly related to the viability of his 2024 candidacy,” the commentator said. “The Democrats themselves do not seem to think that they can beat Trump in a fair fight. Just look at their actions.”

The latest indictment filed against Trump centers around classified documents retrieved by FBI agents during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence. Although Trump has stated records were unclassified prior to him leaving office, his claims have not proven concrete as he did not follow government protocol.

Prior to this week’s indictment, Trump was previously hit with a 34-count indictment in New York for business fraud in April, and was later found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in early May in relation to a civil case filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Asked whether the indictment had the potential of affecting the former president’s chances at returning to the Oval Office, Ralph admitted it was not likely Trump would wind up behind bars before the election kicked off.

“The latest federal indictment could hurt him with independents and other potential voters, but the polarization of the electorate and hardened views on Trump himself mean that it’s unlikely to hurt him very much,” he pointed out.

Not long after records were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, classified documents began to turn up in the possession former US Vice President Mike Pence and US President Joe Biden.

In Biden’s case, several documents had been found at his Delaware home and office, as well as the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC. However, unlike steps taken at Trump’s Florida residence, both the Biden and Pence cases did not involve a full blown raid and they haven’t received the same treatment in the media.

Ralph pointed out that “it’s particularly egregious” in how American media treated the cases – specifically that involving Biden. He noting that if outlets are going to cover the topic, it’s best to “have an equal playing field for Trump and non-Trump alike.”

“Last night on the cable news, you heard them making excuses for Biden’s behavior. But the fact remains; he mishandled classified material,” he pointed out. “It’s my opinion that this is a pretty common thing that goes on. It seems to cross both parties. It would be better not to politicize it to this degree.”

In the hours since Trump first revealed via a Truth Social post that he had been indicted, multiple political figures have come forward to condemn what they see as the weaponization of the US justice system against the former commander-in-chief.

Among the critics are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who said late Thursday that it was “unconscionable” that Biden indicted “the leading candidate opposing him” in the 2024 election.

While the Biden White House has claimed it only found out about the indictment through the media, Ralph stated that the weaponization of federal law enforcement by Democrats is unlikely to ease up.

“I think as we move forward, the real danger is not just political retribution that the parties take on each other, but the retribution they eventually try to take on the other side’s voters,” Ralph said. “If empowered by a reelection and perhaps gains elsewhere, there’s a likelihood they take things further.”

“The useless US media certainly won’t do anything other than cheerlead the moves,” he concluded, pointing out that the “trend is towards repression by the West.”

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Trump Indictment: FBI Veteran Raises Red Flags Over ‘Abnormal’ Mar-a-Lago Raid

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 11.06.2023

A senior FBI official charged with executing the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last year has raised a red flag about “abnormalities” and apparent violations in the Justice Department’s handling of the case.

Former Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) Steven D’Antuono has reached out to the US Congress citing concerns and frustration with the manner President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice arranged the August 2022 raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan unveiled the damning testimony earlier this week and sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding answers.

First, D’Antuono, who had two decades of FBI experience, drew attention to the fact that the bureau’s headquarters made the decision to assign the execution of the search warrant in Trump’s Miami residence to… the Washington Field Office. As per D’Antuono, it looked strange given that the search occurred in the territory of the Miami Field Office, which should have been assigned with the task under the bureau’s rules.

Second, the DoJ failed to assign a US Attorney’s Office to the investigative matter of that magnitude which was “unusual” as per the FBI veteran. This triggered D’Antuono’s deep concerns as it was “out of the ordinary.” He noted that he “never got a good answer” from DoJ with regard to this decision.

Third, the FBI did not first seek consent to effectuate the search. D’Antuono recalled that at the meeting between FBI and DoJ officials, the Department of Justice pushed the bureau to execute the search warrant as quickly as possible. Referring to his experience, the FBI veteran underscored that the agency should have sought consent to search the premises prior to the raid. D’Antuono suggested that either AG Garland or FBI Director Christopher Wray made the decision to seek a search warrant despite “opposition” from the agents working on the case in the WFO. D’Antuono pointed out that “there was a good likelihood that [Trump’s legal team] could have given consent.”

Fourth, the FBI refused to wait for Trump’s attorney to be present before the raid, as per D’Antuono. The bureau veteran claimed that the FBI sought to exclude Trump’s lawyers from the search, which again sounded an alarm for the senior officer.

The FBI veteran’s testimony has prompted US Republican lawmakers to make a repeated request for bureau documents and information concerning the raid. In his latest letter to AG Garland, Jordan pointed out that a previous request regarding the matter was rejected by the Department of Justice.

The alleged expose of DoJ misconduct during the August raid comes after the department indicted Republican presidential candidate Trump earlier this week, charging him with 37 counts including the mishandling of classified materials. The charges further include obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements, as well as one charge under the Espionage Act.

“The Department [of Justice] will indict President Donald Trump, despite declining to indict former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information and failing to indict President Biden for his mishandling of classified information,” Jordan wrote. “The indictment creates, at the minimum, a serious appearance of a double standard and a miscarriage of justice.”

The latest row between House Republicans and the DoJ erupted amid the congressional investigation into the apparent “preferential treatment” of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who has been probed for tax crimes since at least 2018. The House GOP is also presently looking into an uncorroborated report about Joe Biden receiving a $5 million bribe, which has recently been provided by the FBI to lawmakers.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , | 1 Comment

A Prospective Study of the Incidence of Myocarditis/Pericarditis and New Onset Cardiac Symptoms following Smallpox and Influenza Vaccination

Spontaneous Reporting Grossly Underestimates True Incidence

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | June 11, 2023

We have been barraged by government agency statements and peer-reviewed publications from academic medical centers asserting that serious complications from COVID-19 vaccination are “rare.” Often, investigators take a number of spontaneously reported events from a data system, and in error, divide that number by the total injections given in a period of time. This is incorrect since not all individuals who took the vaccine were assessed for the outcome and we cannot assume they are OK.

Engler et al from Military Vaccine Agency-Vaccine Healthcare Centers Network (currently Defense Health Agency, Immunization Healthcare Branch), make this point with an analysis of myocarditis after smallpox and trivalent influenza vaccination. Both study cohorts were evaluated during a pre-immunization visit and up to 2 post-vaccine visits (day 5–8 and/or day 9–28). Baseline data including age, race/ethnicity, sex, cardiac risk factors, atopic/medical history, and fitness assessments as measured by physical training abilities, were collected on the day of the SPX or TIV immunization. Clinical data including cardiac symptoms with visual analogue scale rating (0–10) of severity, 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECG), and troponin-T were collected at baseline and at between days 5 and 30.

Engler RJ, Nelson MR, Collins LC Jr, Spooner C, Hemann BA, Gibbs BT, Atwood JE, Howard RS, Chang AS, Cruser DL, Gates DG, Vernalis MN, Lengkeek MS, McClenathan BM, Jaffe AS, Cooper LT, Black S, Carlson C, Wilson C, Davis RL. A prospective study of the incidence of myocarditis/pericarditis and new onset cardiac symptoms following smallpox and influenza vaccination. PLoS One. 2015 Mar 20;10(3):e0118283. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118283. PMID: 25793705; PMCID: PMC4368609.

While there were no myopericarditis events with the influenza vaccine, there were 5 cases with the smallpox shot. Compared to historical rates of spontaneous reporting, there was a fourfold increased incidence of cardiac symptoms when assessed prospectively.

In vaccine safety research, we should not trust any assertions of “rarity” unless it is a prospective cohort study in which all recipients are checked. We should focus on the absolute number of serious adverse events which are the crude data. These numbers cannot be argued with our understanding that they indeed happened, but are likely to be a gross underestimate of reality.

If you find “Courageous Discourse” enjoyable and useful to your endeavors, please subscribe as a paying or founder member to support our efforts in helping you engage in these discussions with family, friends, and your extended circles.

Engler RJ, Nelson MR, Collins LC Jr, Spooner C, Hemann BA, Gibbs BT, Atwood JE, Howard RS, Chang AS, Cruser DL, Gates DG, Vernalis MN, Lengkeek MS, McClenathan BM, Jaffe AS, Cooper LT, Black S, Carlson C, Wilson C, Davis RL. A prospective study of the incidence of myocarditis/pericarditis and new onset cardiac symptoms following smallpox and influenza vaccination. PLoS One. 2015 Mar 20;10(3):e0118283. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0118283. PMID: 25793705; PMCID: PMC4368609.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive Is The West’s Most Important Military Campaign Since WWII

More Than Meets The Eye

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 11, 2023

Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive has captivated the world’s attention as everyone watches to see whether it’ll push Russia out of the territory that Ukraine claims as its own. Progress on that direction would likely lead to continued Western support, while the failure to fulfill expectations might lead to the aforesaid being curtailed and ceasefire talks commencing. Either outcome is important, but what many observers have overlooked is the historical significance of this campaign.

The Unexpected Proxy War

It’s the first time since World War II that the West has conventionally fought a military peer, albeit indirectly in this case since they’re fighting Russia via their Ukrainian proxy. The US envisaged transforming that former Soviet Republic into a platform for threatening Russia through conventional, hybrid, and unconventional means with the aim of coercing it into never-ending concessions. The goal was to strategically neutralize then Balkanize it in order to facilitate doing the same to China afterwards.

While Ukraine was cooperating with NATO to this end prior to the start of Russia’s special operation, including through the secret hosting of that bloc’s bases as well as joint biological and nuclear weapons programs, everything was supposed to accelerate after its planned reconquest of Donbass in early 2022. President Putin narrowly preempted his opponents’ first move once he concluded that the West didn’t want to resolve their problems through peaceful means after they rejected Russia’s security requests.

Mutual Surprises Lead To A Stalemate

The fast-moving events that were set into motion caught both sides by surprise. The West didn’t really expect a large-scale intervention, predicting instead that Russia would likely concentrate its forces in Donbass in the unlikely scenario that it got involved, but they still secretly dispatched plenty of anti-air and -tank missiles to Ukraine ahead of time just in case. Likewise, Russia didn’t expect such formidable resistance from Ukraine, but the West was also surprised that Russia didn’t collapse due to sanctions.

Neither side has thus far been able to defeat the other as a result of the NATO-Russian “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that Secretary-General Stoltenberg finally admitted in mid-February has been going on this whole time. His bloc continued pumping Ukraine full of increasingly higher quality arms and training more of its troops to NATO standards exactly as it planned to do had Donbass been reconquered, while Russia partially mobilized its trained reservists and ramped up its military-industrial production.

The New York Times Spills The Beans

Instead of settling for the present stalemate by seeking to freeze the Line of Contact via a Korean-like armistice, the West saw the opportunity to put its proxy war plans against Russia into action ahead of schedule. Had Donbass been reconquered by Ukraine last spring like NATO envisaged, then Kiev would have been armed to the teeth and extensively trained for years prior to provoking a crisis over Crimea, but the decision was made to test it now since it’s partially ready and the pretext already exists.

The New York Times (NYT) hinted at this motivation in their recent article titled “As Ukraine Launches Counteroffensive, Definitions of ‘Success’ Vary”, which revealed that “Essentially, the United States and its allies will be looking at the counteroffensive for evidence that their plan of remaking the Ukrainian army into a modern force that fights with NATO tactics, and that can use complex maneuvers and advanced equipment to allow a smaller force to defeat a larger one, is sound.”

The West’s Reality Check

The influx of over $165 billion worth of military support to Ukraine from NATO proved too tempting of an opportunity for the bloc’s most hawkish decisionmakers to pass up in terms of finally testing their arms and strategies against a peer competitor. Considering the likelihood of Russia entrenching itself even deeper into those territories that Ukraine claims as its own and recalling the neck-and-neck NATO-Russian “race of logistics”, the decision was made to test it now instead of face greater difficulties later.

The NYT reported that expectations are tempered as a result of this newfound context: “Privately, U.S. and European officials concede that pushing all of Russia’s forces out of occupied Ukrainian land is highly unlikely. Still, two themes emerge as clear ideas of ‘success’: that the Ukrainian army retake and hold on to key swaths of territory previously occupied by the Russians, and that Kyiv deal the Russian military a debilitating blow that forces the Kremlin to question the future of its military options in Ukraine.

The outlet then proceeded to indicate some tangible benchmarks for “success” such as “retaking some parts of the Donbas or pushing Russia out of agricultural and mining areas in southeastern Ukraine”, “Seizing the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia”, and/or “cut[ting] off, or at least squeez[ing], the so-called land bridge.” These moderate goals are a far cry from the maximalist one that’s officially being pursued by NATO and Ukraine, which shows what a reality check the past 15 months of fighting have been.

NATO’s Utter Humiliation By Russia

Even worse for them is that Russia didn’t just destroy a sizeable amount of their so-called “wunderwaffen” over the past few days, but even released videos proving its accomplishments, thus utterly humiliating NATO. The bloc’s most hawkish decisionmakers were so eager to receive large-scale battlefield data from their Ukrainian proxies’ fielding of NATO equipment against the West’s Russian peer competitor that they arrogantly overlooked all the signs that this risked tremendously backfiring.

It was wrongly thought after Russia’s pullbacks in Kharkov and Kherson Regions late last year that the entire front would collapse if it was pushed strongly enough by NATO-trained Ukrainians fielding some of that bloc’s most famous equipment during the planned counteroffensive over half a year later. This assessment ignored the particularities of those two situations and assumed that Russia was incapable of learning from its prior shortcomings, which directly led to the West’s disaster over the past few days.

That’s not to say that Ukraine’s counteroffensive might not achieve some success despite the enormous physical costs that this would certainly entail, but just that global perceptions about Western power have just been shattered after Russia shared videos of it destroying their “wunderwaffen”. If more sober-minded decisionmakers had the final say in whether the counteroffensive should go ahead, they might have calculated that it’s better to preserve the illusion of dominance than risk having it dispelled.

Great Power Competition

It might have been inevitable in hindsight that the greenlight would be given to Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive, however, when remembering that the US has been planning to test its new proxy war model against a peer competitor since at least December 2017. The National Security Strategy that was released at the time declared that “great power competition has returned”, specifically identifying China and Russia as the two that the US must actively contain.

Despite Trump continuing to arm Ukraine and impose sanctions against Russia during his tenure, he appears to have sincerely wanted to strike a deal with the Kremlin in order to then focus entirely on containing China, but he was thwarted by his permanent bureaucracy. Upon Biden coming to power, the Democrats’ plot to have Kiev reconquer Donbass as part of their grand strategic plan to contain Russia before China was once again back in play, which would have happened earlier had Hillary won in 2016.

The Biden Administration’s Gamble

The West didn’t expect Russia to stop them, let alone intervene far beyond Donbass in the unlikely scenario that it got involved, and then they wrongly predicted that it would soon collapse under sanctions. They were wrong on all three counts, which led to them being pulled by rapidly accelerating mission creep into waging a proxy war against Russia a lot earlier than they planned. Instead of being satisfied with their test data and freezing the conflict, they want even more at a much larger scale.

The most hawkish decisionmakers downplayed Russia’s proven military improvements since its pullback from Kherson last November and authorized the counteroffensive for this purpose since they were convinced that Ukraine’s NATO-trained and -armed forces would smash through the entire front. They couldn’t resist the chance to finally test their arms and strategies against a peer competitor at this scale after NATO poured over $165 billion worth of military aid into their proxy these past 15 months.

Concluding Thoughts

Awareness of these real motivations explains why the counteroffensive is the West’s most important military campaign since World War II, which was the last time that they conventionally fought a military peer. Even though they’re only doing so by proxy right now, they’re still receiving the large-scale data that they require in order to fine-tune their plans ahead of possibly waging a direct war against one. What the West has learned over the past few days, however, is that they shouldn’t take victory over Russia for granted.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Ukraine reaches out to Africa

By Bakhtiar Urusov – New Eastern Outlook – 11.06.2023

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba began a tour of African countries in a desperate attempt to enlist the support of the countries of the continent to put pressure on Russia, as well as in search of new economic opportunities for Kyiv, which is financially still in a state of clinical death and is only alive thanks to the ongoing (as of yet) emergency rehabilitation assistance from Western sponsors.

This is the second African tour of the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Kuleba made his first trip to the countries of the continent in October 2022, visiting Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Kenya, however, without visible results. This time, he began the trip from the north of the continent, visiting Morocco, which has been the first visit of a Ukrainian Foreign Minister since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries. This is by no means accidental. After all, Morocco is the first state on the African continent to supply weapons to Ukrainians. These were Soviet at the disposal of the Moroccans. Other African countries refrain from direct involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, rightly believing that this will not bring any serious dividends and will definitely add problems.

Kuleba’s itinerary also includes Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania. The purpose of the trip, along with “increasing the number of supporters” of Volodymyr Zelensky’s “peace formula,” was also stated as establishing business cooperation. But Kyiv’s main problem in implementing its plans is that it actually has nothing to offer Africans for their potential sacrifices in the name of Ukraine, especially in the current conditions, when the country is disintegrated and is in a state of deep political, financial and economic crisis.

It is obvious that building by Ukraine of its African foreign policy vector is taking place at the suggestion and approval of the United States and the EU, which are thereby trying to ease the Ukrainian burden, which is becoming unbearable, by transferring the country to at least partial outsourcing. Today, the role of African countries in world geopolitics has grown. This, in particular, is due to the fact that there are 54 states on the continent that are represented in the UN and other international organizations, and, accordingly, have their own voice in world affairs. Ukraine is tasked with enlisting this support and isolating Moscow from the African corner as much as possible.

Meanwhile, an ostensibly ridiculous piece of news appeared recently in the media that Ukraine decided, due to an acute shortage of professional diplomats, to advertise for ambassadors. The corresponding page was created on the website of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where anyone can declare their candidacy for a high post. Foreign Minister Kuleba called such a move an attempt to find a “precious drop” to “feed” the diplomatic service. However, the problem is systemic and has deep roots. The shortage of foreign policy personnel in Ukraine was largely man-made and arose after the 2004 Orange Revolution, when many experienced employees were dismissed from the diplomatic service for political reasons. No one bothered to recruit and prepare worthy replacements for them. As a result, Ukrainian foreign policy is fraught with scandals. At one point Zelensky had to recall the ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, for his insulting remarks about the leadership of the Federal Republic of Germany, and at another he had to fire the head of the diplomatic mission in Kazakhstan, Pavel Vrublevsky, for his calls to exterminate as many Russians as possible.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

The Latest Twist In Germany’s Nord Stream II Investigation Puts More Pressure On Poland

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 11, 2023

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Germany is now investigating whether Poland played a role in last September’s terrorist attack against the Nord Stream II pipeline. This latest twist builds upon the narrative that was introduced a few months back alleging that ‘rogue Ukrainian saboteurs’ were responsible, which came after Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published a detailed report in February citing unnamed US sources who accused Biden of personally planning a very different American-led operation than the one that Germany is looking into.

President Putin publicly endorsed his interpretation of events, which could explain why the alternative one exculpating the US and blaming a ‘rogue’ Ukrainian faction was introduced shortly thereafter. It was analyzed at the time that this new narrative might be a back-up plan consisting of false “evidence” that was planted in advance in order to be “discovered” if America was ever implicated in this attack. As surreal as it sounds, this partially anti-Ukrainian spin might thus be a pro-US disinformation campaign.

Whatever the truth might be, the importance of the latest development is that it puts more pressure on Poland at the worst time possible for its ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party. A few days prior to the WSJ’s report, the European Commission announced that it’s suing Poland over its newly formed “Russian influence commission” that both the EU and the US earlier criticized. That country’s top two partners expressed deep concern that it might be exploited to persecute the opposition ahead of fall’s elections.

President Duda then introduced an amendment removing the possibility of barring alleged “Russian influence” agents from holding office in an attempt to assuage their concerns, suggesting that PiS will settle for branding those found guilty of this with a scarlet letter instead. The German-led EU wasn’t satisfied and subsequently sued Poland, which prompted Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets to unleash a torrent of criticism against that country.

As a case in point, CNN headlined a piece over the weekend declaring that “Poland is a key Western ally. But its government keeps testing the limits of democracy”, which is meant to precondition the public into suspecting that PiS’ potential victory in the upcoming elections might be partially due to fraud. When combined with the European Commission’s latest lawsuit and the WSJ’s most recent report, the perception that’s being shaped by powerful forces is that Poland is a so-called “rogue state”.

The West’s ruling liberal–globalist elite despises PiS for its stance towards abortion, immigration, and LGBT, which is why they’d prefer to have it replaced by the “Civic Platform” (PO) opposition that shares their position towards these issues. Germany has more of a stake in this than anyone else since it fiercely opposes PiS’ ideologically driven plans to restore Poland’s long-lost “sphere of influence” over Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) throughout the course of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.

This geopolitical plot poses the greatest challenge yet to Germany’s continental hegemony, but it could be stopped if PiS is replaced by PO, which is regarded as being pro-German. Poland could then be resubordinated into Germany’s “sphere of influence”, thus putting an end to any chances of breaking Berlin’s grip over the EU. The East-West divide that PiS sought to exacerbate between conservative-nationalists and liberal-globalists would be bridged upon Poland’s return to Germany’s camp via PO.

Even if PiS remains in power, the three latest developments – the European Commission suing Poland over its newly formed commission, the MSM then warning about Poland’s ‘illiberalism’, and the WSJ’s latest Nord Stream II report – set the basis for isolating and possibly sanctioning that party. The West would go along with this for ideological reasons related to its ruling elites’ interests in fearmongering about conservative-nationalists despite PiS being partial sellouts to that cause as explained here.

If Germany’s investigation continues suggesting that Poland was complicit in the Nord Stream terrorist attack even if no evidence is ever found or manufactured in support of this theory, then public opinion across Europe could decisively shift against that country. Should this happen before fall’s elections, then it could influence third-party and undecided Polish voters to cast their ballot for PO in order to depose PiS, while coming after PiS’ potential victory could set the basis for possibly sanctioning its officials.

In either scenario, the primary one of which can’t be taken for granted since there’s no guarantee that Germany’s investigation will retain its newfound focus on Poland, the European public could be made to believe that PiS played a role for ideological reasons. It could be implied that its conservative-nationalist views inspired the party to collude with ‘rogue Ukrainian saboteurs’ out of equal hatred for Russia and Germany, thus exculpating Kiev and Washington while pinning the blame on PiS.

This narrative would also serve to redirect populist anger across Europe over the soaring cost of living towards that party and away from the US, which is responsible for provoking this proxy war in the first place and then pressuring the EU to impose the sanctions that spiked prices across the board. Furthermore, the conservative faction among these same populists would also have their cause discredited by partial ideological association with PiS, thus dividing the EU’s growing peace movement.

Germany’s disproportionately influential Greens also stand to benefit from this too since they can then claim that any remotely right-wing political force is a threat to the environment if PiS is implicated in the Nord Stream terrorist attack that damaged the Baltic Sea’s ecology. The narrative predictions from the preceding three paragraphs show how advantageous it would be for the West’s liberal-globalist elite and Germany’s geopolitical interests in CEE if the latter’s investigation stayed focused on Poland.

Even if it doesn’t for whatever reason, which would be cogently accounted for in a follow-up analysis in the event that attention shifts in another direction, the latest lead still puts pressure on Poland at the worst possible time for its ruling party. The fast-moving sequence of events over the past few days shows that powerful forces are shaping the perception that this country is a “rogue state”, which could set the basis for isolating and possibly sanctioning PiS if it ekes out a victory in the upcoming elections.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Poland refutes Nord Stream sabotage claim

RT | June 11, 2023

Poland had nothing to do with last September’s explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, high-ranking security official Stanislaw Zaryn has stated. Reports alleging Warsaw had a role in the sabotage are aimed at distracting the public’s attention from what actually happened, he added.

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal claimed that German investigators were seeking to establish if Poland was somehow involved in the attack on the undersea pipelines, built to deliver Russian natural gas to Europe via Germany.

According to the paper, officials in Berlin suggested that Ukrainian saboteurs could have used the country as an operational base before the explosions. They reached this assumption based on the fact the Andromeda yacht, which could have been used in the attack, had been chartered through a Ukrainian-owned travel agency in Warsaw, and that the suspects arrived at a German port, where they boarded the vessel on a van with Polish license plates, the report claimed.

“Poland had no connection with the blowing up of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2,” Zaryn wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

Attempts to link Poland to those events are “baseless,” the official, serves as Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland and as acting deputy of the minister coordinator of Special Services, insisted.

The recent spreading of theories on who might have destroyed a key component of Europe’s energy infrastructure “resembles the tactics of information noise, the aim of which is to distort the true picture of events,” he argued.

“The hypothesis that the blow-up was committed by Russia, which had the motive and the ability to carry out such an operation, remains valid,” Zaryn said.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations made by some in the West that it blew up its own pipelines. It has also rejected claims that a “pro-Ukrainian” group was responsible for the sabotage, saying such stories were aimed at distracting attention from a bombshell article by veteran reporter Seymour Hersh, who insisted in February that Nord Stream had been destroyed by American operatives.

According to an informed source who talked to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the explosives were planted on the pipelines in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the cover of a NATO exercise and detonated two months later on the order of US President Joe Biden.

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , | 2 Comments

What are UFO Disclosure Gatekeepers Acclimating the Public To?

By Susan A. Manewich and Jefferey Jaxen | IET Evolve | June 10, 2023

The public received another drop of military intelligence agency-led ‘disclosure’ this week. Vetting the story was, well, impossible. Why? Because it’s classified.

Unlike whistleblowers like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, both revealing actual evidence, David Grusch’s ‘whistleblowing’ storytelling and ‘evidence’ are two different things altogether.

Grusch is alleging there is a secret UFO retrieval program.

Interviewer, “Do we have bodies? Do we have species?” Grusch replies, “When you recover something that has either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots.”

Interviewer asks, “We have spacecraft from another species?” Grusch replies, “Yes, we do.”

Was he (Grusch) part of that program? No.

Did he (Grusch) see the craft or bodies himself? No.

Grusch says, “we’re definitely not alone.”

There are two major points here; first is the continuity of media chosen to release these type of stories and second is the progression of a narrative through the same media sources.

Breaking the story first on June 5th, in written form, was Leslie Keane and Ralph Blumenthal. It was NewsNation who did the first sit-down recorded interview of Grusch, also released on the same day with a pre-recorded appearance by Keane. Coincidently on the same day, June 5th, a live panel discussion at one of the largest UFO conferences in the world also picked up the story and excitedly integrated it into their segment with Danny Sheehan and Richard Dolan giving a live synopsis.

NewsNation claimed they have not seen or verified the alleged proof Grusch claims he provided to investigators. They also state that Grusch has not seen photos of the alleged craft himself but has talked extensively with other intelligence officials who have.

Keane and Blumenthal were the journalists who kicked off the intelligence agency-led ‘disclosure’ in their co-authored article which appeared in the NY Times on December 16, 2017 titled Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program which featured former Pentagon official Lue Elizondo.

Then, three days later, CNN added to the intelligence agency-led ‘disclosure’ on December 19, 2017. “My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone,” says Lue Elizondo.

So who is NewsNation? Owned by Nexstar Media Group, America’s largest local TV and media company boasting a record $1.26 billion in first quarter revenue of 2023, NewsNation is also the platform the untrusted former CNN notable Chris Cuomo now leads. There is a continuity of media shepherding the story throughout the past six years. Albeit, the facing organizations of it have changed.

Elizondo’s statement in 2017 “My personal belief is that there is very compelling evidence that we may not be alone.” And Grusch in 2023, “we’re definitely not alone” hint at the building of a narrative in lockstep.

Embedded within this current disclosure narrative are both subtle and not so subtle directives. First, if we don’t know what is ‘out there,’ the military, and by extension, the public must treat it as a threat. Second, the focus should be on the mechanistic and materialist aspects of this phenomena, nothing more because that’s what the military is looking at. How does it maneuver? What material are they made of? Can we back-engineer it?

Are forces at work crafting this narrowly defined disclosure narrative?

Keane said in an interview three days after the Grusch story was released, “It’s a matter of strategically bringing out aspects one step at a time and letting people acclimate to that.”

That sounds like gatekeeping of information.

Who’s making the decisions to strategically pick and choose what parts of this huge story the public gets to ‘acclimate to?’ And to what is the public acclimating? Acclimating to this type of narrative of disclosure? The words used, whom they are from and the authoritative voice has an ongoing psychological impact to how the public formulates their thoughts, emotions and values approaching the UFO and ET conversation.

If we are being told that now these flood gates have opened and individuals within the government and ex government want transparency for the American people around this topic, because the public “has a right to know” why the strategic drip on a narrow perspective?

The fallout from this story particularly has seen several credible journalists and pundits checking basic due diligence and scrutiny at the door to parrot stories and talking points from intelligence agencies that have been rightfully discredited in previous reporting of the last few years, sometimes by their own hand.

Things the current military intelligence agency-led ‘disclosure’ doesn’t seem to want to address at this stage, is that there is a long history of the U.S. government actively working to discredit and neutralize researchers and citizen information around these topics.

And what about the large community of people around the world who have multifaceted experiences of contact with these alleged craft and intelligence which the government has actively sought to disrupt, ignore, and ridicule?

Furthermore, what about individuals who, in some cases, speculate that it has been the U.S. government itself responsible for the negative abduction experiences American citizens have reported?

Whipping up humanity into fear of a purportedly unknown, uncontrollable threat that could appear at any moment from anywhere poses a greater, more immediate concern. As evidenced from the pandemic response of the last three years, there is now a well-trained reflex from the political, scientific and military communities, acting in concert, to lockdown populations and suspend civil liberties, Constitutional rights and wage all-out psychological and information warfare on their populations at the hint of any threat you are told is dangerous.

Is there another lens to view this subject matter from besides fear and threat? Besides technology and material from the craft?

In the 2018 book Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non-Human Intelligence several PhD researchers surveyed thousands of people around the globe who claimed to have contact with non-human intelligences and they paint a very different picture than what the slow drip of disclosure is attempting. The respondents overall main points were that, the planet is energetically changing and so are us human beings as a species. Our consciousness is primary. The capacity to heal ourselves from fear and traumas and to spiral up to a more loving species is necessary for this next phase in humanity’s evolution. Beings that many people reported in their encounters were teachers assisting in guiding this evolutionary process.

When you look up at the sky, do you think about the government first? Do you fear human beings are no longer top of the food chain in a predatory system? Or is your wonderment still intact towards something infinite, beautiful and expansive where you are a part of this next phase in co-creation?

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | 3 Comments

CANCERS & DEATH ON THE RISE: IS THE COVID VAX TO BLAME?

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | June 8, 2023

June 11, 2023 Posted by | Video | | 1 Comment