Whenever I get off the bus at Oxford city centre, I see the monument to the Oxford martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, who were burned at the stake in Broad Street in 1555, and Thomas Cranmer, who suffered a similar fate the following year. The three refused to renounce their Protestant beliefs during the reign of Catholic Mary Tudor, and died the most horrific deaths as a result.
I have often thought, when passing the monument and the commemorative plaque set in the wall of Balliol College opposite, that these men could have saved themselves simply by recanting, an option that was open to them and indeed, Archbishop Cranmer did recant before reaffirming his belief in Protestantism.
Now, I see more clearly that, whatever the consequences, they could not in all conscience revert to a faith they no longer believed in. We like to think we live in more civilised times and no longer burn people at the stake for not conforming to the religious orthodoxy of the time – but do we? The history of the last three years has been an updated version of martyrs being consigned to the flames for their beliefs, but this time the rejected articles of faith are the Covid vaccines.
They have become the new religion, with fervent advocates even among church and spiritual leaders. Instead of enjoining us to believe in God, they have urged us to save ourselves by having the vaccine. Their sermonising on the matter has even acquired the status of holy writ as, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Jesus would have wanted us to have the vaccine. The Dalai Lama urged his many followers to ‘be brave and come forward to be vaccinated’ after having the jab himself.
So, as the faithful line up for their sixth jab, the vaccine can be considered the secular equivalent of Holy Communion. The point of Holy Communion is to partake of the body and blood of Christ to absolve us from our sins, and the mRNA vaccine is supposed to protect us against bodily ills. In both cases, the idea is to keep the devil out by a ritual and oft-repeated observance.
Those of us who have done our research, and cannot in all honesty believe in the magical power of the vaccine to ward off the devil of Covid infection, are the heretics of today who deserve to be burned at the stake, or in today’s equivalent to be cast out of polite society and ridiculed as anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, tinfoil hat wearers and covidiots. Doctors have lost their jobs for refusing to accept the supremacy of the vaccine and the (very) few politicians who have spoken out against it have been ostracised and marginalised.
Of course, when it comes to Protestantism or Catholicism, it is a question of belief. Yet we know how the vaccines work, and have proof that they are harmful and can set up a variety of adverse reactions in the body. As such, those of us who know the truth cannot recant whatever the cost, as to do so would be to accept the lie that the mRNA vaccines have been a wonderful success story the world over, saving millions of lives.
But even as evidence of severe damage and sometimes death from the vaccine mounts up, as reported on TCW, this continues to be brushed aside, discounted and even denied. Indeed, those who question the holiness of the mRNA to protect us from all ills do so at our personal and professional peril. Whenever a vaccine-related serious side effect or death is reported, it is dismissed in the media as ‘extremely rare’ and insignificant compared with all the good the rollout has accomplished.
And when a fully-vaccinated individual catches Covid anyway, the believers’ standard response is to allege that, but for the multiple jabs, their illness would have been much worse. Vaccines have become, one might say, the holy water of our times.
We may live in a largely secular age, but we have substituted belief in God for a belief in science, and most especially medical science, or what passes for it these days. We have come to worship Big Pharma with the kind of adoring reverence we used to reserve for God and Jesus, and this persists even when the so-called science fails us.
The religious fervour goes even further. The ever-increasing number of vaccines administered to babies can be considered analogous to a holy baptism. For just as baptisms and christenings were supposed to cast out original sins before the baby had time to commit any, so today the many vaccines are supposed to cast out devils in the shape of measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, or prevent them from entering. Once again, the supposedly protective substances are injected long before the baby has had time to develop any of the infections.
Belief in the efficacy and safety of vaccines is so devout that nobody is allowed to raise a dissenting voice, and anybody who dares to do so, such as Dr Andrew Wakefield, risks not only being discredited, but struck off the medical register and not allowed to practise. More recently, Dr Sam White was suspended for ‘spreading misinformation’ about the efficacy of the Covid vaccine. Robert F Kennedy Jr, a challenger for the American presidency, is routinely attacked for promoting anti-vaccine propaganda. Yet to their eternal credit these people will not be silenced.
The search is now on to find a vaccine for every ill that flesh is heir to, including cancer and malaria. Living in Oxford, I am always getting alerts from the Oxford Vaccine Group to be a volunteer for one of their new studies. If vaccines cannot actually deliver eternal life, they can, we are led to believe, confer the next best thing, which is eternal health.
At one time, those who did not believe in God were considered wicked. Nowadays, you are labelled an apostate if you don’t believe in the almighty power of the vaccine.
So I wonder whether I would be prepared to concede, under extreme torture, that the mRNA vaccine was safe and effective. Thankfully, my conviction that it is neither has not been put to such a severe test but pondering on the issue has given me a new understanding as to why Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer were prepared to die horribly for what they believed was true, rather than recant.
We know now that it was the sacrifice of these men, and particularly that of Cranmer, which made England a Protestant country. By the same token, I can only hope that those who have had the courage to speak out against the mRNA vaccine, and who because of this have been marginalised, ridiculed and in some cases lost their livelihood, will enable the tide to be turned at last.
Note: I hold no particular brief for either Protestantism or Catholicism but am just pointing out that the ultimate sacrifice from a few brave people can change beliefs – and society.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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Robert Califf, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hell bent on ridding the internet of misinformation.
In a series of public appearances, Califf has claimed that “misinformation is now our leading cause of death.”
When I asked the FDA for evidence to support his claim, the agency drew a blank, admitting that Califf’s statement “cannot be proven.”
Califf has since made attempts to tweak his public statement.
This week, CBS News reporter Alexander Tin pressed him for an explanation, to which Califf replied, “I want to modify my statement. And I’ll keep working on this, to try to get it right. I would say I actually believe it is the leading cause of premature death…”
Jessica Adams, an expert in drug regulatory affairs said, “It’s ironic. Califf is spreading misinformation about the leading cause of premature death in the US, while promoting the need to counter misinformation.”
“It’s unbelievable for him to make these assertions with no scientific backing,” she added.
Adams said it’s not the FDA’s job to police medical misinformation online.
“The FDA should be assessing drug approvals, overseeing post-marketing studies and ensuring product labels are up to date – not promoting vaccines and antivirals as if it’s the marketing arm of the drug industry,” said Adams.
The FDA sent me its website providing Califf’s reasoning for why he believes misinformation is the leading cause of premature death. It states:
“Most of the COVID-19 deaths since vaccines and antivirals became available were preventable if people had gotten updated on their vaccination status and, if high risk and infected, had they been treated with an authorized antiviral.”
“He’s failed to cite any sources to substantiate his claims and Califf keeps saying that it is just his ‘belief’…Are we supposed to just accept that?” said Adams, criticising his “obsession” over the boosters.
“It’s as if the FDA thinks that people don’t want the vaccines because they are misinformed, when it might just be that they are not persuaded by the data,” she added.
Adams also said the FDA is misinforming the public by “over-inflating” the benefit of the more recent bivalent vaccines.
“They’re now promoting the bivalent boosters which are based on much less data than the original [monovalent] vaccines and authorised on the basis of antibodies, which is not a fully validated correlate of protection,” said Adams.
This is not the first time the FDA has made misleading scientific claims to the public.
In August 2021, the FDA attempted to dissuade people from using ivermectin as an off-label, early treatment for COVID-19 by suggesting it was a livestock drug. The agency tweeted “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
But critics were quick to condemn the misinformation by pointing out that ivermectin is not only a medicine used to deworm livestock, it is also FDA-approved for parasitic treatment in humans.
Califf also spread misinformation in a Nov 2022 tweet which stated, “preliminary epidemiological findings point to the distinct possibility of the bivalent vaccines and antivirals reducing risk of long Covid.”
Vinay Prasad, Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a practicing Haematologist Oncologist at San Francisco General Hospital wrote a scathing criticism of the tweet.
“For bivalent vaccines, he’s making things up. There are no relevant clinical data in human beings for bivalent vaccines, certainly not for the end points of long covid symptoms. Ergo that claim is 100% false; essentially a lie,” wrote Prasad.
“For antivirals, such as Paxlovid, this endpoint has not been assessed in randomized control trials. There are some poorly done observational studies that conflate ICD-10 codes with long covid symptoms and make bold, unsupported claims, but there is no robust evidence,” he added.
Traditionally, the FDA has regulated health misinformation to protect consumers from misbranded and adulterated products, but this new proposed “misinformation oversight” seems to extend to overseeing any online health-related issue.
“The FDA has always maintained that it does not want to regulate the practice of medicine, but lately it’s behaving as if it’s the Surgeon General – America’s doctor – making drug recommendations and promoting vaccines,” said Adams.
If the FDA wants to curb the spread of misinformation, it should start by looking at its own behaviour.
Despite the criticism, Califf remains defiant. Recently, he boasted to a crowd of journalists that he is “relatively impervious to critique.”
Perhaps, that’s where he is going wrong.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, FDA, United States |
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Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the censorship of speech arguing that, “there is no time in history where the people censoring speech were the good guys.”
In an interview with Breitbart News host Joel Pollak, Kennedy discussed censorship of alleged “misinformation.” Kennedy has experienced censorship first-hand for questioning measures taken during the pandemic.
“I’m wondering if you can make a pitch to our audience about a common cause that you, running as a Democrat, may have with many conservatives who feel that they’ve been canceled or otherwise censored or marginalized in public discourse,” Pollak asked.
“It’s more than a personal aggrievement. It’s really just a direct assault on our democracy,” Kennedy said.
According to Kennedy, when the founding fathers drafted the Bill of Rights, they “put the right to free expression in the First Amendment because all the other rights depended on it—because the government that has the power to silence its critics has license for any kind of atrocity.”
“They also understood just theoretically that the whole basis for democracy was the free flow of information,” he continued, adding that one great benefit of democracy over dictatorship is that “through the free flow of information, the best policies can triumph in the marketplace of ideas.”
“We’re now in this situation where without free speech, democracy just withers and dies. Free speech is the fertilizer; it’s the sunlight; it’s the water for democracy,” he added. “There is no time in history where the people who were censoring speech were the good guys. They’re always the bad guys because, of course, that is the first and last step of totalitarianism: silencing critics.”
Kennedy further noted that misinformation and falsehoods are protected speech.
“There are certain kinds of speech that are not protected. But, you know, those things are.
“What we really ought to be looking at is why? What is the cause of this blizzard and tsunami of misinformation that everybody is worried about? And if you look at why this is happening, it’s clear that it’s happening because people don’t trust the government anymore, and they don’t trust it because the government lies, and the media lies.
“Twenty-two percent of Americans now trust the government, and about 22 percent trust media. That’s the lowest level in our history. And the reason they don’t—there’s a very good reason—is that the government and the media, the mainstream media, the corporate-owned media, they are now lying just as a matter of course. And because of that, people are looking for other sources of information. And when those other sources challenge government orthodoxies, the government’s response is to censor them or to label them as misinformation and say that they’re dangerous.”
Listen to the full interview here.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, United States |
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WASHINGTON – Twitter said on Tuesday that it received more than 16,000 government information requests for user data from over 85 countries in the first half of 2022 alone.
“Twitter received over 16,000 government information requests for user data from over 85 countries during the reporting period. Disclosure rates vary by requester country,” the social network said in a press release.
The United States, France, Japan, Germany and India were the top five requesting countries for the period, the release said.
Twitter also received about 53,000 legal requests from governments around the world to remove content, with the majority of requests coming from Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and India, the release added.
In the first half of 2022, Twitter required users to remove 6,586,109 pieces of content that violated the company’s rules – an increase of 29% from the second half of 2021, according to the release.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Germany, Human rights, India, Japan, United States |
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Something fishy here.
First, corporate executives don’t give away $787 million of shareholders’ money without a test of the claim in court. The uncontested amount is so large that one wonders if Fox News itself paid it or whether this almost $800 million was a gift funneled through an uncontested lawsuit to fund Dominion by our ruling elites. Once elections are determined by how voting machines are programmed, the people are disenfranchised.
Second, it is not defamation to report the news. Tucker Carlson reported the claims of experts. That is news reporting. Dominion’s defamation lawsuit should have been filed against the experts. It wasn’t, because the experts had the evidence.
Third, Experts supplied evidence that the Dominion voting machines could be programmed to count votes differently from how the votes were cast; experts supplied evidence that the machines could be hacked; experts supplied evidence that the voting machines were connected to the Internet. Fox News could have called these experts as expert witnesses. By agreeing to settle, Fox News refused the evidence its day in court. Why?
A possible explanation is that Fox News, voluntarily or involuntarily, participated in an orchestration that established the precedent that reporting news different from the narrative, or news that is unfavorable to a person, company, or government institution, is defamation. Think about what this means. A prosecutor who charges a person with a crime has defamed the person. Truth becomes unreportable. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh could be charged for defamation, and for being a Russian agent, for reporting that the US government destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline.
When we see the few truth-tellers who are the stars of their organizations jettisoned–Tucker Carlson from Fox News, Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone, Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept, James O’Keefe from Project Veritas, President Trump charged under a non-existent law, and Wikileaks’ Julian Assange imprisoned for a decade without due process, we must face the fact that there is an organized conspiracy to suppress truth. We are experiencing the completion of The Matrix in which expressed doubt or even unspoken suspicion of official narratives are criminal offenses.
Truth-tellers receive almost nonexistent support. The inescapable conclusion is that in the Western world truth has no future.
Tyranny is upon us.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | United States |
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We recently discussed how stories of North Korean weapons shipments to Russia were now being proven by saying things like, “Here’s a train with weapons on it; you can’t see them, but believe us, they’re inside.” But John Kirby, the coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, showed that he was more than qualified. On March 30, 2023, he said:
- North Korea is working to send dozens of kinds of weapons and munitions to Russia to be used in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine
- North Korea seeks to secure food supplies in exchange
- The potential arms deal is being arranged through a Slovakian arms dealer, identified as Ashot Mkrtychev, against whom the US Department of Treasury has imposed sanctions.
Kirby voiced fear “that North Korea will continue to back Russian military activities against Ukraine,” despite the lack of proof that North Korea sent huge quantities of ammunition to Moscow late last year.
Kirby emphasized that any arms deal between North Korea and Russia would directly violate a series of UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting the sale of weapons to and from the North.
What do we see when we look at it this way? The fact that the loud discourse of alleged deals was stated by an influential person should apparently be deemed evidence, and no more corroboration is required. Despite the fact that any clarifying inquiry of the class, “how exactly the DPRK sends such large quantities of weaponry to Russia,” leaves no stone unturned. As the author is already being ironic, Kirby is only credible if one believes the DPRK invented teleportation.
In reality, Defense Department Spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder tried to soften his tone, he was actually disputing what Kirby had said. According to him, “there currently was no indication that additional weapons or munitions have been delivered to Russia, but we continue to keep a close eye on it.”
An examination of the name of the US sanction recipient indicates the types of arguments Washington is employing to sever military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. To begin with, Mkrtichev was described as a “Slovakian citizen with Azerbaijani roots” in various Russian-language periodicals recognized by the Russian Federation as foreign agents (hence no references). This amount of investigation recalls an old joke about how to spell Iran or Iraq? Given the tense relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the fact that the person’s first and last names are both plainly Armenian makes us laugh.
But what was the mysterious Ashot up to? According to a press release from the US Department of the Treasury, Mkrtychev, 56, a resident of Bratislava, worked with DPRK officials between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 to buy more than two dozen weapons and ammunition for Russia in exchange for items like commercial airplanes, raw materials, and goods to be shipped to the DPRK. More precisely, he “might be involved in the organization of deals.” “Schemes like the arms deal pursued by this individual show that Putin is turning to suppliers of last resort like Iran and the DPRK.” An individual has been sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for seeking to arrange arms sales between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Now the questions. First, it is not very clear who Mkrtychev is. If he had even a passing knowledge of the armaments trade, the US Treasury’s statement would have likely indicated this for propaganda purposes. This “no name” was going to organize an epic transaction on an epic magnitude. Therefore, how was he to supply commercial aircraft as opposed to a large quantity of raw materials and goods? The author would like to recall a few important details. First, the North continues to be isolated, and trade across the border with the DPRK occurs in a number of places that are tracked by satellites. On the Russian-DPRK border, for example, there is just a train bridge. Ships cruising around the DPRK that could be used to dodge sanctions are also being monitored, and the UN panel of experts report gives specific data on ships that often trade coal by turning off transponders and regularly accessing Chinese ports. Mkrtychev must possess the ability of a James Bond 007 secret agent in order to organize the aforementioned plot.
Now the question is, why do we need an obscure middleman from Slovakia for two countries who share a geographical border and direct diplomatic ties, even if Russia and North Korea are interested in backdoor deals? Previous Kirby stories were a little more realistic in such a context.
Furthermore, it is not at all evident from the American comments whether any of the deals Mkrtychev mediated were successfully executed. Yet, a failed attempt to do business with the DPRK, from an American perspective, should be penalized in the same way as a successful one, because intent is punishable…
This prompts the author to consider the following points.
As part of their so-called “open source intelligence” operation, the US deploys neural networks to search the unprotected Internet for relevant content using a keyword system, providing them access to data on a variety of forums or chat rooms. Therefore, it seems possible that American “intelligence” discovered a method of getting around the sanctions by compiling a list of a few pertinent statements. Added to that is a misunderstanding of the context, as previously stated, when the author of a telegram channel about the secrets of Russian domestic politics in general may be a schoolboy fantasist.
Finally, this situation reminds him of the preparation for a fraudulent plan, which he had recently encountered on multiple occasions. The fact is that various fraudsters periodically try to cash in on the situation of DPRK. Such people come in contact with North Korea, depict themselves as sympathetic to the country’s situation, and occasionally reach Pyongyang to be photographed with a number of important people. Then they come in contact with a “third party” and try to buy or sell anything while appearing as someone with the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and Kim Jong-un’s personal trust. As middlemen, they receive commissions for risky and difficult work, which accounts for the majority of their earnings when a deal fails for whatever reason, even though the scale closely resembles the American reports.
I would venture to guess that we have dealt with something similar. However, any fraud of this nature provides the US State Department with a good excuse to impose sanctions. Although it is unlikely that such a person will visit the United States, it is not difficult to add a new victim to the sanctions list.
In order to better keep track of them and to be more critical of the loud propaganda remarks, I want to highlight three points as I draw to a close another text regarding flaws in evidence.
- When a high-ranking individual states a fact, the evidence for that fact is not that it was uttered by the “respected person” but, at the very least, some other form of confirmation, like “Yesterday I was in a cab, and the driver told me that…” Even a mention of an unnamed but knowledgeable “expert” is better than none at all.
- When an act is offered to you, it makes sense to try to understand the technical intricacies of it because, usually, it is ignorance of the details that makes an act physically impossible. Consider “mortar shootings,” the exchange of urine samples stored in canisters that require identification to open, or the immeasurable amounts of armament shipments.
- Remember that fabricated stories follow specific literary canons when the story being presented is too evocative of a blockbuster storyline. Reality can also be unrealistic, but not in the same way as the proven plot. Provocation is indicated by overdramatization.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Ukraine, United States |
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By Lucas Leiroz | April 26, 2023
A prominent Slovakian politician recently stated that the Atlantic military alliance must stop raising “false hopes” in Ukraine about NATO membership in the future. The parliamentarian’s words reinforce what had already been said for a long time about the infeasibility of accepting the entry of a country under military conflict into the western coalition. It remains to be seen whether NATO leaders will actually observe the Slovak request.
The statement was made by the speaker of the Slovak parliament, Boris Kollar. He warned that the alliance should make clear the impossibility of a Ukrainian membership, given that Kiev is currently in a military conflict. Kollar said that welcoming Ukraine into the alliance would be “unacceptable” for most member countries. He also stated that he considers the absence of a definitive answer on the topic to be irresponsible, as this would generate “false hopes” in the candidate country.
“A country in the midst of a military conflict cannot possibly join NATO. It is unacceptable. I think it would never be ratified by the member states. It is very irresponsible to raise false hopes about it,” Kollar said during an interview to a Slovak news channel.
During a European interparliamentary conference in Prague, Kollar also warned about the risks of war and unprecedented violence in Europe, since the entry of Ukraine would lead to the alliance immediately triggering the collective defense clause, creating a scenario of world conflict. Therefore, Kollar stated that the matter should not be considered appropriate for now, but that there would be no objections if peace was achieved in Ukraine.
Kollar’s words come as a response to a recent statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in which the leader stated that Kiev would be part of the “Euro-Atlantic family” and that all member states had agreed that “Ukraine will become a NATO member.” The pronouncement seems untrue and somewhat hypocritical, since, despite not ruling out Kiev, the alliance has avoided moving forward with the membership process, delaying as much as possible the discussions around the issue. However, there are a number of reasons why Stoltenberg and other alliance leaders are continuing to hold these “false hopes” for Kiev.
Indeed, the possibility of admission to NATO is a central factor in keeping the Ukrainian war machine active. Kiev’s armed forces continue to fight the Russians because they have the hope of full integration into the West. There is a strong belief among Ukrainians that the deployment of regular NATO troops will also become a reality in the future, as they really believe in the existence of an international alliance against “Russian aggression”, being deceived by their own propaganda.
Regardless of the viability of Ukrainian membership in the alliance, these hopes need to be maintained, otherwise Ukrainian soldiers will certainly feel “betrayed” and “abandoned”, resulting in phenomena such as mass surrender, desertions and disobedience of orders from superiors. This would be Ukraine’s “moral defeat” and would lead in the short term to defeat on the battlefield as well. So, to avoid this kind of situation and keep the troops’ morale high, the West needs to keep giving Kiev hope.
For Western public opinion, the situation is a little more complicated. Although exposed to every form of pro-Kiev propaganda – added to the censorship of pro-Russia content – ordinary citizens of NATO and EU countries do not want to engage in a world-scale war, which is why Ukrainian membership would face high popular resistance, possibly leading to waves of mass protest and crises in the legitimacy of local governments. However, at the same time, if NATO officially rules out Ukrainian membership, it is possible that public opinion, which is constantly brainwashed by pro-Kiev media, will also react badly and feel that their governments “betrayed” Ukraine.
For these reasons, the discourse is uncertain, ambiguous and focused on maintaining “false hopes”. Stoltenberg makes it clear that he agrees with the Ukrainian membership, but says that this will happen “in the future”, keeping the project as something distant and not in need of immediate discussion. The problem is that this ambiguity and uncertainty does not please the leaders of member countries of lesser relevance in the alliance, as in the case of Slovakia and some others. These states do not participate in the bloc’s superstructure and their voices are rarely heard by NATO’s central command. In practice, the result of this is that these nations really do not know whether or not in the near future they will be forced to send their troops to war against Russia.
In this sense, the words of the top Slovakian parliamentarian express the real desire of some NATO countries: to obtain the certainty that they will not need to get involved in a big war in the near future. While they want to integrate with the West and support Kiev, these states are not willing to accept their own annihilation just to fulfill the promise of Ukrainian membership.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and a researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Ukraine |
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South Africa’s recent flipflopping on its membership in the “International Criminal Court” (ICC) proves that its neutrality in the New Cold War is under threat from Western pressure. President Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that “the governing party has taken that decision that it is prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC” due to its “unfair treatment” of certain countries. Shortly after, however, his office claimed that he misspoke and reaffirmed South Africa’s commitment to the ICC.
Nevertheless, there are reasons to suspect that this isn’t the case, especially since Ramaphosa exuded supreme confidence in sharing Tuesday’s announcement about his country’s plans to pull out of that global body. It’s therefore unlikely that he simply misspoke and much more probable that Western diplomats immediately intervened behind the scenes to pressure him into walking back this policy. They presumably acted so swiftly due to the strategic significance of everything that’s at stake right now.
South Africa will host this year’s BRICS Summit in late August, but the ICC’s warrant for President Putin’s arrest complicates his participation in person. Had Ramaphosa initiated the process for withdrawing his country from that organization on the legitimate pretext that he earlier claimed would be employed, then there’d be no ambiguity about the Russian leader’s safety if he showed up there. Since this policy was just walked back, however, there are reasons to suspect a Western provocation if he appears.
Even though South Africa declined to arrest former Sudanese leader Bashir despite the ICC having previously demanded that all members do so if he sets foot on their territory, President Putin’s security can’t in good conscience assume that they’ll make an exception for him too. The most responsible decision amidst that summit host’s latest flipflopping might therefore be for him to participate virtually in order to not take a chance that something terrible could happen.
While the organizational proceedings would still likely unfold as planned in that scenario with only few modifications, very serious and potentially even irreparable damage might be inflicted on BRICS as a result. China and India could conclude that South Africa is an unreliable partner seeing as how it would have capitulated to Western pressure, while they’d also expect Brazil to do the same since it’s a party to the ICC too and its top diplomat earlier implied that his country might arrest President Putin if he visits.
BRICS in its present form can theoretically continue to function as the engine of financial multipolarity in spite of the Russian leader being unable to visit either of those two member states for its summits, but the organization might struggle to attract new members whose countries aren’t part of the ICC. After all, the leaders of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye could potentially be served similarly politicized warrants one day too that would preclude their participation in BRICS summits hosted by ICC states.
The US has an obvious interest in dissuading them and others from joining BRICS as official members, and its speculative behind-the-scenes pressure on South Africa to remain committed to serving the ICC’s arrest warrant against President Putin could have a powerful deterrent effect on candidate countries. This year’s summit is supposed to see its incumbents reach a consensus on expanding their organization, which is incredibly urgent to do considering that at least 19 states are vying to join.
The larger context in which South Africa just flipflopped on its ICC commitments is therefore of outsized importance not just for BRICS’ future, but by extrapolation, also for the emerging Multipolar World Order as well due to that group’s function as the engine of financial multipolarity. With this in mind, it can be concluded that the US’ clandestine pressure campaign is a major power play in the New Cold War aimed at impeding BRICS’ ability to collectively challenge the dollar anytime soon.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | BRICS, ICC |
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The newly elected president of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel is an unusual European politician. He is the second president in his country with a military background but the first without political experience.
He never saw combat duty and is an arm chair military strategist but lionised as a “senior NATO leader” — whatever that may mean. The high noon of Pavel’s professional career in the military was reached in 1993 when while serving in the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, he led a team of 29 soldiers to evacuate a French military outpost under siege by Serbian soldiers, which he executed after overcoming obstacles that slowed down the operation such as fallen trees which his soldiers had to remove from the road. France decorated Pavel.
At any rate, the 61-year old soldier-politician has hit the road running when barely 7 weeks into his new job as head of state, Pavel threw a curve ball claiming China cannot be a reliable mediator between Russia and Ukraine due to Beijing’s secret craving for “more war.”
Pavel assessed that China gets cheap oil, gas, and other resources from Moscow in exchange for promises of “partnership” and its interest lies in prolonging the status quo “because it can push Russia to a number of concessions.”
These remarks could have been dismissed as those of a greenhorn but for his fame as a “senior NATO leader” and the Czech Republic’s reputation as a chattel and cats-paw of Washington. Hence the big question: What is the Biden administration up to?
The obvious thing will be that Pavel’s remark on “cheap” oil and gas from Russia to China is a gross simplification of a complicated story. Europe was receiving Russian gas and oil for decades at low prices on the basis of long-term contracts until the EU, under American pressure, took the idiotic decision to sanction Russia.
Whereupon, Russia turned to other markets, principally Asian, China being one of them. The rest is history. What’s the point of sitting upon the ground and telling sad stories?
Europeans should feel worried that even after the war ends, once Russia diversifies its export markets, they may never again get “cheap” Russian gas. (By the way, China is not the only beneficiary, as Europeans who continue to buy Russian oil and petroleum products from Indian companies at much higher prices would know!)
Pavel spoke in the context of the expected announcement by Joe Biden seeking the presidency once again in 2024. One hugely consequential part of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday is that the prospect of the Ukraine war ending between now and 2024 November elections in the US can now be deemed as practically nil.
The only way it can happen otherwise is if the US outright wins the war and candidate Biden claims victory. But the reaction from Moscow shows that what is in the cards is an escalation in Ukraine that is fraught with great risk of a direct conflict between Russia and the US.
Top Kremlin officials came out on Tuesday with a spate of statements on an impending showdown with the Biden administration. The Russian media disclosed that Russia’s new state-of-the-art Armata T-14 main battle tank has been deployed on the Ukrainian front lines.
Moscow anticipates large scale US interference in Russia’s internal politics to create conditions that would undermine the country’s stability, as part of a grand design to trigger a break-up of the Russian Federation, as had happened to the former Soviet Union. (here)
Moscow estimates that the Biden administration will try hard to bring about a regime change in the Kremlin. Above all, Moscow no longer rules out that the US escalation in Ukraine may aim to create conditions posing grave threat to the Russian state. ( here)
The former president Dmitry Medvedev vividly spoke of such a scenario warning explicitly that Russia may be compelled to resort to first use of nuclear arms if its existence is threatened, underscoring that paragraph 19 of the country’s nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons “can be used when aggression is carried out against Russia with the use of other types of weapons that endanger the very existence of the state. It is essentially the use of nuclear weapons in response to such actions. Our potential adversaries should not underestimate this.”
Specifically, with reference to Biden’s mental health and failing faculties, Medvedev also tweeted: “Biden has made the decision, after all. A daring geezer. In place of the American military, I would immediately make a fake trunk with false nuclear codes in case he wins, so as to avoid fatal consequences.”
On the other hand, the spectre that haunts the Biden administration is that Europe cannot easily extricate itself from its relationship with China and it is the interests of Old Europe’s economic heartlands that will ultimately determine EU policy.
Make no mistake, just 3 countries of Old Europe — France, Italy and Germany — account for more than a half of EU’s GDP and they also happen to be China’s largest trading partners in the EU. Amidst the brouhaha over French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent endorsement of a close industrial relationship with China, what has gone unnoticed is that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is on the same page as Macron. Equally so with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The European industry is also loathe to lose China as a privileged trading partner, after having lost Britain and Russia.
New Europeans like Pavel may have different priorities, being the strongest trans-atlanticists in the EU, but East Europe makes up just 10% of the EU’s GDP and does not speak for the EU, despite the media hype its leaders have lately enjoyed as “frontline states”, due to Anglo-American patronage.
Suffice to say, there is trepidation in the American mind as to whether the EU will follow the US into a confrontational position with China in the coming months, or would strive to become more independent of the US, with all the consequences that would ensue. Equally, from the viewpoint of Old Europe, the gnawing doubt is whether a future US administration would want to align with Europe even if Europe were to align with the US.
On balance, it is difficult to visualise the EU fully aligning with the US in an all-out conflict with China over Taiwan, agree to freeze Chinese official reserves as it did last year with Russia, and stop investing in China.
The EU economy is simply not built for cold-war style relations, as it has become too dependent on global supply chains. All things taken into account, therefore, the strong likelihood is that the pro-China lobby in Germany will win this debate. In fact, in the process, the Franco-German alliance may be rekindled, too.
Pavel’s demonisation of China as an evil spirit stalking Europe can be put in perspective. His is a surrogate voice mouthing Biden’s angst that as the Ukrainian military is comprehensively ground down in the battlefields by the Russian forces in the months ahead, Europe may join hands with China to bring the war to an end.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, France, Germany, NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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By Drago Bosnic | April 26, 2023
When talking about various reasons as to why Russia launched its counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe the points usually revolve around historical and strategic/geopolitical aspects of the Ukrainian conflict. And while those points certainly stand regardless, there are other crucial reasons, almost entirely overlooked or even censored by mainstream media. One of those is the aspect of NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons in Ukraine, all of which fall under the category of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The topic of “biological research facilities“, as infamous neocon warmonger Victoria Nuland ever so euphemistically put it, received a significant amount of attention from media around the world, while the mainstream propaganda machine tried suppressing it. On the other hand, by far the most overlooked aspect of the Ukrainian conflict has been the covert transfer of US nuclear technologies to the Neo-Nazi junta. CNN, the infamous US neoliberal mouthpiece, was the first major mainstream propaganda outlet that broke the story last week.
According to the report, Washington DC has “sensitive nuclear technologies” in at least one (former) Ukrainian nuclear power plant (NPP). CNN claims that “the US has already warned Russia not to touch them”, citing a letter Department of Energy (DoE) allegedly sent to Moscow’s Rosatom corporation. CNN supposedly reviewed the letter (dated March 17) in which the director of DoE’s Office of Nonproliferation Policy, Andrea Ferkile, told Rosatom that the Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar “contains US-origin nuclear technical data that is export-controlled by the United States Government”.
Firstly, the idea that Russia is in any way intimidated by a third-rate US bureaucrat who allegedly “ordered it not to touch anything” is simply absurd. Secondly, both Washington DC and its Kiev puppets are parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which means that transferring “sensitive nuclear technologies” to the Neo-Nazi junta is a direct violation of that agreement. Worse yet, the US is now (supposedly) threatening Russia through a director of its Office of Nonproliferation Policy, an institution that was supposed to prevent “sensitive US nuclear technologies” from ever reaching Ukraine.
This blatant hypocrisy is only matched by the sheer magnitude of US irresponsibility and WWIII brinkmanship for even considering the possibility to transfer such technologies to an unstable, genocidal and deeply corrupt regime in the middle of a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed superpower next door. What’s more, CNN admits that the “sensitive US nuclear technologies” in question “could be used in a way that undermines US national security interests”. Once again, this is disturbingly similar to US claims about the so-called “biological research labs”.
“It is unlawful under United States law for non-authorized persons, including, but not limited to, Russian citizens and Russian entities such as Rosatom and its subsidiaries, to knowingly and willfully access, possess, control, export, store, seize, review, re-export, ship, transfer, copy, manipulate such technology or technical data, or direct, or authorize others to do the same, without such Russian entities becoming authorized recipients by the Secretary of the US Department of Energy,” the alleged letter reads.
Once again, the US is trying to enforce the self-proclaimed exterritoriality of its laws. However, in the case of Russia, this practice is not only legally void, but is also impossible to implement, especially after the city of Energodar and the Zaporozhye oblast (region) where the NPP is situated voted to join Russia last year. Obviously, CNN’s motivation to report the story was anything but altruistic, as it revolved around an attempt to portray US “demands” to Russia as anything more than a laughing matter to Moscow.
However, what surely isn’t a laughing matter is the seriousness of Russia’s approach to the situation. And for good reason, given the fact that the Kiev regime boasted about its intentions to acquire nuclear weapons nearly a decade before the start of the SMO (special military operation). As early as March 2014 and as late as February 2022, the Neo-Nazi junta has been openly declaring its intention to get WMDs, specifically nuclear weapons, to say nothing of the constant grumbling of many Kiev regime politicians about how they “made a big mistake for giving up on nuclear weapons in 1994”.
This only shows their lack of knowledge on the subject, as Ukraine itself never actually had nuclear weapons, because all those deployed there were Russian-made/controlled. However, this doesn’t stop the Neo-Nazi junta from claiming this Soviet/Russian legacy as its own, despite rabidly Russophobic disdain for all things Soviet. Another important segment of Russian legacy they were happy to harness is its world-class missile technology that Kiev is using to produce strike weapons with possible nuclear warheads to target major Russian cities, including Moscow.
Although Russian air defenses have been successful in downing such missiles, the Neo-Nazi junta could still use other Soviet legacy assets to target the Eurasian giant. Or worse yet, these could be provided by the US/NATO or any of its vassals and satellite states. The fact that the Kiev regime never publicly renounced its intention to acquire nuclear weapons that could be used to arm such missiles is quite telling. It’s also yet another confirmation that Russia’s SMO was the only way to prevent the Neo-Nazi junta from going ahead with its plans. And even if such guarantees were ever given, with the diplomatic scandal surrounding EU/NATO lies about the Minsk agreements, Moscow could hardly ever take them seriously.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Nuclear Power, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Russia has condemned the UK’s decision to send depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, saying the move marks an “all-out escalation” after the British Defence Ministry confirmed the radioactive weapons were already in Kiev’s hands.
Moscow’s UK embassy issued a statement on Tuesday after senior official James Heappey acknowledged that the British DU munitions had arrived on the battlefield, to be fired from Challenger 2 tanks also supplied to Ukraine.
“James Heappey’s comments are a grim testament to the ruthlessness of the Anglo-Saxons’ policy of all-out escalation of the ‘proxy conflict’ they themselves unleashed in Ukraine,” it said. “He cynically stated that London is not monitoring the deployment of these weapons and has no obligation to eliminate the consequences of their use following the end of the conflict.”
“It has by now become self-evident that the West intends this country to become not only an anti-Russian military “shooting range,” but also a radioactive landfill – with all the ensuing grave consequences for the health of local residents and the environment in the region.”
The embassy went on to say that the British government would be responsible for the effects of the “toxic ammunition” and could not escape accountability by passing them off to Ukrainian forces.
In an interview with RT last week, Russia’s envoy to Britain, Ambassador Andrey Kelin, warned that DU munitions will be a “terrible thing… for the agriculture and for the people” of Ukraine, saying radioactive residue could contaminate the country’s water and soil “for at least six generations.”
Both UK and US officials have disputed the purported health hazards associated with DU shells – which use a dense uranium core to improve their armor-piercing capabilities – and deny allegations that the weapons were linked to a spike in cancer and birth defects in Iraq.
Heappey has claimed depleted uranium carries only “low” health and environmental risks, pointing to a 2007 government study. He later added that the Defence Ministry would make no effort to track where Ukrainian forces use British-supplied DU rounds, and had “no obligation” to assist clean-up efforts after the conflict.
However, according to Doug Weir, an expert with the Conflict and Environment Observatory, uranium munitions generate “chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate” when they strike hard targets, adding that the dust poses “an inhalational risk to people.” Other recent research has also indicated the weapons could produce “adverse health outcomes” given the “chemotoxic and radiotoxic” properties of DU.
Moscow has urged foreign powers to cease all weapons shipments to Ukraine, arguing the aid would not deter its military aims but only prolong the conflict. After the UK announced its decision to supply depleted uranium rounds to Kiev last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Western nations would like to “see Ukraine completely destroyed” and are acting with “absolute recklessness, irresponsibility and impunity.”
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Russia, UK, Ukraine |
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By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 26, 2023
Last week, before he left Fox News, Tucker Carlson delivered a commentary on corrupt media, corrupt politicians and “truth-telling.”
According to Carlson, the question to ask when assessing public figures isn’t, “Who is corrupt?” — because there are “too many to count.”
“The question is, Who is telling the truth?” Carlson said. “There are not many of those.”
Carlson singled out Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children Health Defense’s chairman-on-leave who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, as one of the few truth-telling public figures.
“It’s nice to have a truth-teller around,” Carlson said. “It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” He added:
“Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed.
“Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right — unequivocally right. But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored.”
Carlson — who later on his show interviewed Kennedy — said mainstream media channels other than Fox News “maligned” Kennedy for his skepticism of the COVID-19 products.
“The other channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shilled for their sketchy products on the air — and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products,” he said.
Carlson pointed out that Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy — who sought the U.S. presidency 55 years ago — said things “you weren’t supposed to say” and were “hated” by some for their honesty.
For instance, Kennedy Sr. spoke out against the Vietnam War because “he believed — with a lot of evidence — that it was not helping the United States in any way,” Carlson said.
Similarly, Carlson showed his viewers a clip from Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Democratic presidential campaign announcement speech, in which Kennedy said the U.S. government’s involvement in Ukraine appears to be “prolonging” the war rather than “shortening” it.
Carlson also showed clips from mainstream media outlets’ coverage of Kennedy’s April 19 announcement, in which news commentators called him “extreme” and “dangerous.”
“Notice,” Carlson said, “not there, not anywhere is a point-by-point rebuttal of his [Kennedy’s] actual points.”
“They never engage him on the actual facts. They can’t — they would lose. Instead, they impugn his character,” he said.
Now that Kennedy is Biden’s leading primary opponent, Carlson said, the media’s message to him is, “shut up — you’re not allowed to talk.”
Carlson said he did not find Kennedy to be “extreme,” but instead “rational and calm and well deliberated.”
“He [Kennedy Jr.] is deeply insightful and — above all else — he is honest, no matter what you think of the substance of what he says,” Carlson added.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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