Some protests are torrid affairs. Others can prove enlightening. The march last Saturday in the heart of Oxford was the latter.
Attendees rocked up nearly 2 hours before the scheduled meet, poised with their homemade placards, ready to dissent. It was truly an eclectic mix. Tweed jackets juxtaposed grey baggy trackies, edgy high-tops contrasted brown Chelsea boots, dreadlocks neighboured crew cuts, with all unified under one mission – to say no to Oxfordshire County Council’s creeping authoritarianism.
Last year, the Council announced plans to impose Low Traffic Neighbours (LTN) across the city. Councillors justified the £6.5 million schemes by declaring that they will “greatly reduce” motor vehicle traffic in residential streets. They purport to achieve this by two means. First, bollards will be placed to block off certain streets. Second, LTN zones will be designated and monitored by cameras recording license plates, so if residents drive in zones they have not purchased a permit for, they will be fined. Upon that fine being ignored, they would likely be jailed.
Multiple consultations were then held late last year. The response from locals was overwhelming. 65% of them wholly disapproved. Only 7% endorsed the proposals in another consultation. With some notably citing, the schemes would make certain journeys up to 10 times longer. Acclaimed actress Florence Pugh’s father, who owns a shop in a LTN-designated area, revealed the council failed to consult local shop owners like him. He likewise expressed frustration over footfall decreases since lockdowns and how LTN’s were almost guaranteed to worsen the situation.
At 1pm on the dot, the speeches began. Several speakers took the stage but one 12-year-girl stole the show. The anti-Greta, if you will. There she stood, impressively reading out a pre-written speech that progressively exposed the irrationality behind the council’s plans point-by-point. Crowd members clapped intermittently. And then came the punchline, “To Klaus Schwab…”, she paused, “how dare you!”. Everybody loved it. Children in politics should really be a no no. But to witness an anti-woke one actively fighting to preserve her freedom rather than simping for the current political vogue, by God it was refreshing.
Admittedly, we may or may not have popped to the pub to down a quick ale at this point before rejoining. So we missed the start of the march. When we rejoined, we were confused. The crowd had nearly quadrupled in size.
Chants of freedom rang aloud for the better part of the next 2 hours. Plenty of bypassing youths looked perplexed. Some took videos with disapproving smirks. You could almost see them twitching their thumbs in anticipation of posting about the Alex Jones loons they’d just seen. Several cab drivers beeped their horns in support, smiling and waving vigorously as they did. It was an out and out, peaceful success.
Only the next day did we see coverage of Antifa agitators. Apparently a dozen or so turned up but were quickly cordoned off by police and dispersed after a bloke trolled them with a hearty rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life”. Then came the barrage of articles from various local and legacy media journalists.
The Oxford Mail tainted marchers by highlighting that a “Neo-Nazi” was in attendance. LBC’s James O’Brien labelled everyone attending “conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers”. But one journalist, Dave Vetter, went further and purveyed in what can only be called live gaslighting. According to Vetter, live-tweeting his perspective, it was an “intoxicating mix of far-right conspiracy slogans, antisemitism and really terrible hip-hop”. He concluded “the rally is, at heart, a climate denial protest”.
In reality, while there were some radical deductions espoused, these were minute, the vast majority of people were simply expressing their desire not to be restricted by local government. No signs we saw referred to Jewish people. And the hip-hop was a sheer sight better than what Vetter is probably capable of. Tellingly, Vetter only mentioned the word freedom once in his thread, which is slightly strange, provided it was the most common word featured on placards. Instead, the likes of the Oxford Mail, O’Brien, and Vetter focused on sporadic elements, deploying typical guilt-by-association devices designed to reassure readers that all these crackpots aren’t to be taken seriously.
Vetter then linked a “video explainer” at the end of his thread to show how 15-minute-cities are a “win for everyone”. From the get-go, again, the presenter gaslights. Ominously, we are told a strain of opposition (virus-connotations likely intended) is growing that is fatally misunderstanding these schemes for “open air prisons enforced by a police state from their enclosed zone”. So let’s recap. Oxford Council proposes plans to restrict and regulate traffic in the city. They ignore locals’ obvious rejection. Planned rollouts of the scheme continue with the council investing in cameras to monitor and fine those in breach of the scheme – sounds quite authoritarian to me. Again, there was no mention of infringements on freedom. Nor was there any reference to the clear subversion of local democracy, which is more or less a facade nowadays.
Entirely absent from almost all coverage is the money that Oxfordshire County Council stands to make. According to citizen journalist, Dulwich Clean Air, Southwark council issued 37,006 PCN fines to drivers going through 5 ANPR cameras (same as Oxford intends to use) in Dulwich’s LTN zone in only 65 working days in May 2021. That amounted to £4,810,780, which is £74,012 per day. Oxford has an estimated population of about half that of Southwark. That equates to roughly £37,000 in fines per day and £13,505,000 a year.
No wonder Oxfordshire Council want to join the party…
What the protest really showed, however, is as much as national governments are guilty of a mission creep towards a kind of plastic moral governance, so are local councils. Per Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for travel and development strategy, Duncan Enright’s own words, these schemes are “going to happen definitely” (whether the public like it or not).
In short, we know better. So the herd must follow our moral plans even if they disapprove. It is the same existential issue afflicting government at the national level. Turns out, it has captured government at the local level too. The ends justify the means for these legislators. Until that is reversed at both macro and micro-level, these protests will grow in number.
Dozens upon dozens of councils across the UK, meanwhile, announce similar traffic schemes to dissenting choruses.
February 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
We are in the midst of history’s greatest wealth transfer. Government subsidized wind systems, solar arrays, and electric vehicles overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy members of society and rich nations. The poor and middle class pay for green energy programs with higher taxes and higher electricity and energy costs. Developing nations suffer environmental damage to deliver mined materials needed for renewables in rich nations.
Since 2000, the world has spent more than $5 trillion on green energy. More than 300,000 wind turbines have been erected, millions of solar arrays were installed, more than 25 million electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold, hundreds of thousands of acres of forest were cut down to produce biomass fuel, and about three percent of agricultural land is now used to produce biofuel for vehicles. The world spends about $1 trillion per year on green energy. Government subsidies run about $200 billion annually, with more than $1 trillion in subsidies spent over the last 20 years.
World leaders obsess over the need for a renewable energy transition to save the planet from human-caused global warming. Governments deliver an endless river of cash to promote adoption of green energy. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided $370 billion in subsidies and loans for renewables and EVs. But renewable subsidies and mandates overwhelmingly favor the rich members of society at the expense of the poor.
Wind systems receive production tax credits, property tax exemptions, and sometimes receive payments even when not generating electricity. Landowners receive as much as $8,000 per turbine each year from leases for wind systems on their land. Lease income can be quite high for a landowner with many turbines. In England, ordinary taxpayers pay hundreds of millions of pounds per year in taxes that are funneled as subsidies to wind companies and wealthy land owners.
In the US, 39 states currently have net metering laws. Net metering provides a credit for electricity generated by rooftop solar systems that is fed back into the grid. Solar generators typically get credits at the retail electricity rate, about 14 cents per kilowatt-hour. This is a subsidized rate, which is more than double the roughly five cents per kilowatt-hour earned by power plants. Apartment residents and homeowners that cannot afford to install rooftop solar pay higher electricity bills to subsidize homes that receive net metering credits. Rooftop solar owners also receive federal and state tax incentives, another wealth transfer from ordinary citizens.
US federal subsidies of up to $7,500 for each electric car purchased, along with additional state subsidies, directly benefit EV buyers. The average price of an EV in the US last year was $66,000, which is out of reach for most drivers. A 2021 University of Chicago study found that California EV owners only drive 5,300 miles per year, less than half the mileage for a typical car. Most electric cars in the US are second cars for the rich.
A mid-size electric car needs a battery that weighs about a 1,000 pounds to provide acceptable driving range. Because of battery weight, EVs tend to be about 50 percent heavier than gasoline cars, which causes increased road damage. But EVs don’t pay the road tax included in the price of every gallon of gasoline. EVs should pay higher road taxes than traditional cars, but today this cost is borne by everyday gasoline car drivers.
Renewable systems require huge amounts of special metals. Electric car batteries need cobalt, nickel, and lithium to achieve high energy density and performance. Magnets in wind turbines require rare earth metals, such as neodymium and dysprosium. Large quantities of copper are essential for EV engines, batteries, wind and solar arrays, and electricity transmission systems to connect to remote wind and solar sites. According to the International Energy Agency, an EV requires about six times the special metals of a gasoline or diesel car. A wind array requires more than ten times the metals of a natural gas power plant on a delivered-electricity basis. The majority of these metals are mined in developing countries.
Almost 70 percent of cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Indonesia produces more than 30 percent of the world’s nickel. Chile produces 28 percent of the copper. China produces 60 percent of the rare earth metals. These nations struggle with serious air and water pollution from mining operations. Workers in mines also suffer from poor working conditions and the use of forced labor and child labor practices. But apparently no cost is too great so that rich people in developed nations can drive a Tesla.
To top it off, the European Union recently approved a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The CBAM will tax goods coming from poor nations which aren’t manufactured using low-carbon processes. CBAM revenues will be a great source of funds for Europe’s green energy programs that benefit the wealthy.
In January, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Washington proposed a wealth tax on billionaires. It’s interesting to note that all seven of these states mandate and heavily subsidize wind and solar arrays and electric vehicles, which transfer wealth from poor and middle-class residents to those same billionaires.
February 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | European Union, UK, United States |
Leave a comment
The policies of the administration of US President Joe Biden have become a key factor in Europe’s decline amid the Ukraine conflict, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has claimed, as reported by local media.
According to the newspaper Magyar Nemzet, Orban made the remarks at a closed meeting with members of the ruling right-wing Fidesz-KDNP coalition on Wednesday. During the session, he reportedly identified the main opponents of the alliance, which include “pro-war international interest groups, which consist of the Biden administration, pro-war Brussels bureaucrats, and pro-war politicians.”
The report says Orban claimed that “Europe has weakened over the past year because the Biden administration is asserting its interests in Brussels without limits at the expense of European interests.”
The Hungarian prime minister is said to have added that the response to the Ukraine conflict and “the tsunami of sanctions” have taken a toll on Europe’s economy, while the US, which has enough cheap energy, has steered clear of these challenges.
Orban went on to say that Europe has lost its independence, and economic and military power in just one year, insisting that Hungary must protect its own interests to weather the storm, as quoted by the newspaper.
To achieve this, Budapest must “defend the pro-peace position against the Biden administration and Brussels,” protect the Hungarian economy by fighting inflation, and strengthen its military, he reportedly said.
The prime minister is also said to have stated that Budapest does not support anyone in the Ukraine conflict, because “there can be no winner in this war.” Moscow cannot win because of the assistance the West is providing to Kiev, while Russia is a nuclear power, and “a nuclear power cannot be cornered,” he reportedly explained.
Hungary has on numerous occasions urged Russia and Ukraine to immediately agree to a ceasefire, while repeatedly expressing opposition to the sanctions the West has imposed on Moscow. On Sunday, Orban claimed that the restrictions have failed to end the hostilities, but have instead damaged Europe’s economy.
February 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | European Union, United States |
Leave a comment
Germany’s inflation rate rose 8.7% on the year in January and 1% on the month, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported on Wednesday.
According to data that confirmed provisional results, consumer prices, harmonized to compare with other European Union countries, jumped by 9.2% year-on-year. Compared with December, prices increased by 0.5%.
“Following a slowdown at the end of last year, the inflation rate thus remains at a high level,” said Destatis President Ruth Brand. “We are observing price rises for many goods and, to an increasing degree, also for services. Households paid higher prices in particular for energy and food also in January,” she added.
The report indicated that prices for energy products in January were 23.1% higher in annual terms despite relief measures. A particularly large increase was again recorded for household energy prices, which were up 36.5% on the year, Destatis said.
Food prices soared 20.2% in January from a year ago. “The rate of food price increase thus was more than twice the overall inflation rate again,” according to the report.
Service prices were up 4.5% in January 2023 on the same month of the previous year. Above-average price increases were recorded for the maintenance and repair of dwellings (+16.9%), and catering services in restaurants, cafes, and the like (+10.9%).
The EU’s largest economy suffered record inflation last year due to a surge in energy prices brought about by a drop in natural gas deliveries from Russia amid Ukraine-related sanctions. Issues with pipeline maintenance and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines further exacerbated tight supplies. Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Germany would avoid a sharp economic decline but is set to enter a technical recession.
February 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Germany |
Leave a comment
By Igor Chudov | February 22, 2023
According to Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum, ongoing global warming threatens to destroy humanity. Methane, coming from the belches and farts of cows, is a greenhouse gas (GHG). So, cows are a problem!
Fortunately, Bill Gates has a solution for us, explained in this video. We need to stop growing cattle and switch to lab-grown synthetic beef.
Bill Gates made sizable investments in “synthetic meat” manufacturers, expecting to turn a nice profit.
The World Economic Forum expects we will eat “synthetic meat” in 16 years.
Continue reading
February 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, Video |
Leave a comment
WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden and senior White House and State Department officials are leading the United States and the world into nuclear annihilation, former FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley told Sputnik.
Russian President Vladimir Putin officially announced Moscow was pulling out of its long-running talks with the United States for a new START treaty during his Tuesday address to the Federal Assembly. He also accused the United States of developing new types of nuclear weapons and considering new nuclear weapons tests.
“The neocons’ hell-bent plans for ‘full spectrum dominance’ have been a long time in the making, having even been publicly announced decades ago, but now… we’ve truly reached the eve of destruction,” Rowley, a Time magazine Whistleblower of the Year, said.
In addition to Biden, senior State Department official Victoria Nuland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and White House security aide Jake Sullivan, are leading oblivious Americans right into “nuclear Armageddon,” Rowley added.
The United States was far closer to catastrophic global war than the American people realized, Rowley said.
“The situation is just so 11th hour and 59 minutes’ bad,” she warned.
Earlier in the day, Biden described Russia’s decision as a “big mistake” as the presidents of Romania, Slovakia and Poland greeted him at the Bucharest Nine meeting. This came after Biden earlier in the week delivered a fiery speech in Poland intended to rally NATO to back Ukraine against Russia.
New START, in effect since February 5, 2011, is the last remaining legally binding arms agreement between the United States and Russia – the two countries with the largest nuclear capabilities.
Under the treaty, the United States and Russia have been required to reduce their nuclear arsenal to a total of 700 missiles, 800 launchers, and 1,550 deployed warheads.
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Russia, United States |
Leave a comment
Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder at a Political Ash Wednesday event in Passau, Germany, February 22, 2023. © Global Look Press / IMAGO / Frank Hoermann / Sven Simo
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz must “stop” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock before she becomes a “security risk” and pushes Berlin towards a conflict with Moscow with her “thoughtless statements,” Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Soeder said on Wednesday during a German political festival.
The foreign minister and her party – Alliance 90/The Greens – are talking themselves into a “war frenzy” amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Soeder told a crowd of cheering supporters during what is known in Germany as Political Ash Wednesday. Having originated in Bavaria, the 100-year old event allows German politicians to vent and pull no punches about the perceived shortcomings of their political rivals.
Soeder referred in particular to when Baerbock told the European Council back in January that the EU was “fighting a war against Russia,” words that sparked uproar at the time. In mid-February, Baerbock herself conceded that the remark was a mistake.
“A foreign minister has to be careful what she says,” Soeder warned during the event in Bavaria’s Passau, adding that “an escalation of words can quickly lead to the escalation of violence.” Germany is helping Ukraine but is not at war with Russia, he maintained.
“Mr. Scholz, finally stop Ms. Baerbock,” Soeder said, adding the foreign minister’s “thoughtless statements” are often “to the detriment of our country.”
Baerbock has emerged as one of the most hardline supporters of Kiev in the German government, repeatedly arguing for increased military aid to Ukraine and criticizing Chancellor Olaf Scholz for supposedly not doing enough. She has also supported tougher sanctions against Russia and opposed any compromises with Moscow.
In October 2022, she said that any concessions to Russia in the ongoing conflict would be “naïve.” The minister also maintained that the West should not settle for any peace agreement that would result in Ukraine losing to Russia any territory that it recognizes as Kiev’s.
Soeder, who has been a prominent figure in the German opposition, previously criticized Berlin for prioritizing military aid to Ukraine over the nation’s own security. In particular, he argued that Germany should not have sent IRIS-T air defense systems to Ukraine and should have instead used them to enhance its own national defense.
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Russophobia | Germany |
Leave a comment
Top Clinton adviser Mark Middleton was found hanging by an electrical cord from a tree with his chest blown out by a shotgun blast last May, in an alleged suicide, but there was no gun found anywhere at the scene, according to a Perry County, Arkansas sheriff’s report made public by the Daily Mail on Tuesday.
Written by Perry County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lawson, who said he was called to the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas when an employee found Middleton’s vehicle abandoned on the grounds, the report reveals that a gun case and three boxes of 12 gauge buckshot were found in the black BMW SUV – but no gun.
While early reports of his death claimed the businessman hanged himself with the help of a “makeshift gallows,” lugging a table onto the farm owned by animal charity Heifer International some 30 miles from his house, the police report does not mention a table.
Instead, Lawson describes glimpsing “what at first appeared to be a man sitting near a tree,” which gradually resolved to include “a rope of some type going from the tree limb to the male.” The “rope” was determined to be an extension cord.
Sheriff Scott Montgomery admitted at the time he had no idea why Middleton would have “picked that location to commit suicide,” telling Radar Online that “to our knowledge, he had never been there before.” Nor did the businessman leave a suicide note, Montgomery said.
Still, the sheriff initially stated the cause of death was suicide. “He found a tree and he pulled a table over there, and he got on that table, and he took an extension cord and put it around a limb, put it around his neck and he shot himself in the chest with a shotgun.”
Middleton’s family also insists he killed himself, arguing he was suffering from depression. They successfully sued to stop the release of photos depicting the scene of death.
However, one former business associate told Radar Online it was “physically impossible for Mark to have killed himself,” insisting “He knows nothing about guns! He hated guns; he couldn’t have tied a noose to save his life.”
Middleton is known to have signed sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein into the Clinton White House on at least seven of the 17 occasions he was known to have visited, and also flew on the pedophile’s ‘Lolita Express’ private plane.
Update, Feb. 23:
Police change story on Clinton aide ‘suicide’
A shotgun was found near the body of former Bill Clinton aide Mark Middleton, who was discovered hanging from a tree at the Heifer Ranch last May with his chest blasted out, a report seen by the Daily Mail on Thursday claims. This contradicts an earlier report seen by the paper which said no firearm was found at the scene.
According to the Mail, Perry County Sergeant Keenan Carter, said a Stoeger 12-gauge coach shotgun, was discovered 30 feet from Middleton’s body. They also say that the former Clinton aide had texted his wife Rhea shortly before pulling the trigger to say he had found “the perfect place for a nap in the sun” and reassure her she was “a great Mom and wife.”
According to Sergeant Carter’s report, Middleton “pulled the trigger on the firearm casing [sic] it to discharge and strike him in the chest and then he fell from the bench causing the extension cord to become tight cutting off his breathing.”
The gun was found so far from the body “due to recoil from the discharge and the height and angle of the ground,” Carter explained, insisting there was no “evidence to indicate that there was anyone present with Mr. Middleton at this scene or any evidence that there was any type of struggle and/or foul play.”
In the original report, Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lawson writes that he and an employee of the property owner discovered Middleton’s dead body hanging from a tree by an electrical cord. Searching Middleton’s vehicle turned up boxes of ammo and a gun case, but no gun. The initial report did not mention any gun found at the scene.
The Arkansas state medical examiner concluded that Middleton died by “suicide” from a “contact shotgun wound of chest and hanging” in his autopsy report, the first page of which was published by the Daily Mail on Thursday. The nine-page report reportedly mentions Middleton’s “history of depression.”
Middleton, a special adviser to Bill Clinton during his first term as US president, infamously signed sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein into the Clinton White House at least seven of the 17 times he was known to have visited and flew with Clinton on the pedophile’s ‘Lolita Express’ private plane.
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | Bill Clinton, United States |
Leave a comment
Newly released NZ Government figures demonstrate that mRNA boosters have had a deadly impact, increasing all-cause mortality.
The information concerning mortality in 2021, 2022 and 2023 correlated with vaccination status was released by Health New Zealand following a Freedom of Information request. The figures are signed off by Astrid Koornneef, Interim Director of Prevention, National Public Health Service. You can see them here.
The released figures include all NZ registered deaths by month. The figures show that for the last six months of 2022, 80 per cent of all people dying in New Zealand had received Pfizer mRNA booster shots. According to official government figures updated February 14 2023, 73.2 per cent of those eligible (18+ years) have received a booster. Of those dying, 1.8 per cent were under 18, and so had not received a booster. Adjusting for this, recipients of booster shots have at least an 11 per cent increased chance of dying in 2022 compared with all other groups, including the double vaccinated, partially vaccinated and unvaccinated. This equates to 3,040 additional 2022 deaths among the boosted when compared with other groups.
According to the figures, 39,313 persons died in 2022. This number may be subject to increase as the process of compiling 2022 death totals continues. The total number of deaths in 2019 (before the pandemic) was 34,260. The 2022 interim total is an increase of 15 per cent or 5,053 deaths on 2019.
An article in the NZ Herald erroneously claims that this spike in deaths is due to the effect of Covid 19 on an ageing population. This is not supported by data. According to the Government Covid portal a total of only 1,599 people have died with Covid described as the official cause of death, most of which occurred in 2022. This is insufficient to account for 5,053 extra deaths in 2022. Moreover the article fails to take account of the fact that the extra deaths are disproportionately occurring among people of all ages who have received booster shots. This would not be happening if increased deaths were a result of a knock-on effect of Covid or an effect due to ageing. In either case, death rates would be equally shared among the various vaccination status groups, but they are not. From a statistical point of view nothing could be clearer – booster shots increase your chance of death from any cause.
Corroborating data is available from the UK which we covered in our February 13 release. An analysis of 300 UK administrative districts shows that those with boosters have a progressively increasing risk of death in the months following their shot. Further UK information indicates elevated incidence of heart disease and liver disease are factors.
The latest Freedom of Information figures show that the continued insistence in mainstream media that NZ has benefited from a net reduced death rate due to Government pandemic policy is untenable. The policy of encouraging booster shots should cease immediately. Further investigation into figures of hospital admissions and deaths by category should be undertaken urgently. This will shed light on the mechanisms whereby Covid boosters are causing excess deaths.
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, New Zealand |
Leave a comment
Ten Palestinians have been killed and over a hundred wounded this morning following an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.
The Israeli occupation’s military stormed the city with armoured vehicles and blocked off all entrances before surrounding a home with two wanted Palestinians inside. Hossam Isleem and Mohammad Abdulghani, who were both killed.
The Israeli forces demolished the building while the two were inside; their bodies were later identified by the occuption’s forces. Israeli military sources claim the two Palestinians were involved in numerous resistance attacks against illegal Israeli settlements and in the death of a soldier last October.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that ten people were killed and 102 others were wounded as a result of gunfire by Israeli occupation soldiers.
Palestinian victims among the dead include 72-year-old Adnan Saabe Baara, 61-year-old Abdul Hadi Abdul Aziz Ashqar, 16-year-old Mohammad Farid Shaaban, 25-year-old Mohammad Khaled Anbousi and 33-year-old Tamer Nimr Minawi.
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
Leave a comment
While American interventionists remain stone-cold silent about the way that the Pentagon, operating through its old Cold War dinosaur NATO, knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally provoked Russia into invading Ukraine, it’s instructive to remind ourselves that this wasn’t the first time that the Pentagon provoked Russia into invading another country.
Let’s go back to 1979, when the Pentagon was still waging its old Cold War racket. That was the year that U.S. officials devised a successful plot to provoke the Soviets into invading Afghanistan.
Now, before you exclaim, “Conspiracy theory, Jacob!” which is the standard official response whenever someone criticizes dark-side activities on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, permit me to disclose something important: There is a confession.
Yes, you read that last part correctly. There is a confession on the part of the national-security establishment that that is precisely what they did. Even for those who are loath to ever acknowledge that the national-security establishment engages in evil, dark-side activity, a confession is rather persuasive evidence that takes matters out of the realm of “conspiracy theory” and places them squarely in the realm of an actual conspiracy.
The confessor was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as President Jimmy Carter’s national-security advisor in 1979. He confessed that the U.S. knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally provoked the Soviets into invading Afghanistan.
Mind you, Brzezinski didn’t confess until 1998, some 20 years after the Soviet invasion. Therefore, it stands to reason that if anyone raised the possibility in 1979 that the U.S. provoked the invasion, the standard response would have been “Conspiracy theory!” This is especially true given that U.S. officials were playing the innocent after the invasion. With the same degree of indignation and outrage they are displaying with respect to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they castigated and condemned the Russians for their act of aggression against Afghanistan. They even canceled U.S. participation in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Russia, as a way to punish the Russians for invading Afghanistan.
In 1998, Brzezinski gave an interview to a French newspaper in which he confessed all. You can read the interview here. (For a full context of Brzezinski’s confession, see an article at Aljazeera entitled “Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam.”) He stated that U.S. officials began arming extremist Muslim elements in Afghanistan who were attempting to oust the pro-Russia regime that was controlling Afghanistan. By doing this, the hope was that the Soviets would invade Afghanistan to put down the anti-Russia Jihadists.
The planned worked. The Soviets invaded, and U.S. officials were ecstatic. Brzezinski proudly stated that the plan had now given the Soviets their own Vietnam. What he was referring to was the 10-year-plus U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which had sacrificed more than 58,000 American soldiers for nothing. U.S. officials were now celebrating the fact that thousands of Russians soldiers were also now going to get sacrificed for nothing.
Just as U.S. officials had hoped, over the next 10 years more than 14,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. (Some estimates go as high as 26,000). Another 53,753 were wounded.
Needless to say, the deaths of Russian soldiers made U.S. officials extremely happy because the deaths were degrading the Soviet regime.
What kind of regime does this sort of thing? What kind of regime provokes another regime into invading a country knowing that this will bring massive death and destruction on both sides? What kind of regime celebrates and revels in the fact that foreign soldiers, all of whom have families or friends back home, are being killed and wounded?
I’ll tell you what kind of regime engages in those sorts of things: An evil regime. There is no better way to describe it.
When Brzezinski was asked about the potential consequences of arming extremist Jihadist groups in Afghanistan, he replied, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular | Afghanistan, United States |
Leave a comment
Those who’ve been manipulated by the Golden Billion’s hypocritical information warfare narratives into thinking that Russia’s special operation is illegal and immoral should reconsider their stance. Had the Kremlin let the West’s grand strategic scheme unfold without interference, then more ethnic cleansing and genocide would have taken place in Donbass. NATO’s gradual erosion of Russia’s national security red lines and nuclear second-strike capabilities would also have turned it into a vassal state.
One of the weaponized information warfare narratives that the US-led West’s Golden Billion is propagating against Russia is that its ongoing special operation in Ukraine is inherently immoral because the use of force is supposedly never an acceptable way to resolve disputes. Putting aside the obvious hypocrisy of the most warmongering civilization in centuries claiming that about another after the West itself is responsible for countless civil wars, coups, hybrid wars, and invasions, the point itself is invalid.
President Putin reminded everyone of this when he said during his annual address on Tuesday that “they were the ones who started this war, while we used force and are using it to stop the war.” This statement of fact builds upon prior such ones that he shared across the past year, most recently during his unexpected press conference in late December. It’s important enough to elaborate upon at this moment in time since many in the West either forgot about it or were never informed in the first place.
The run-up to Russia’s special operation was preceded by the then-Ukrainian Civil War dragging into its eighth year due to Moscow being the only signatory of the Minsk Accords that seriously attempted to implement them. It’s now known from former German Chancellor Merkel that everyone else was just exploiting them to buy time for Kiev’s rearmament ahead of a preplanned NATO-organized “Operation Storm”-like invasion of Donbass for conclusively ending the conflict.
Observers shouldn’t forget that the Ukrainian Civil War broke out in the immediate aftermath of the Western-backed fascist coup in early 2014 that followed months of urban terrorism. The Golden Billion overthrew that country’s international recognized government as part of its grand strategic scheme to gradually erode Russia’s national security with a view towards facilitating their ultimate goal of coercing it into a series of never-ending unilateral concessions aimed at turning it into a vassal state.
Crimea’s democratic reunification with Russia right after that regime change spared the peninsula’s residents from being forced under the fascists’ yoke and also deprived NATO of geostrategic Black Sea bases that could have then threatened all of that targeted country’s southern regions. Donbass wasn’t so fortunate since the Kremlin remained reluctant to recognize its desire to join Russia, however, which was predicated on Moscow’s intentions to peacefully resolve the conflict instead of escalate it.
Russia’s grand strategic goal up to the eve of its special operation last year was to employ the Minsk Accords for that purpose, which was expected to stabilize Ukraine simultaneously with enabling it to function as the geo-economic point of convergence between the EU and the Eurasian Union. That would have in turn advanced Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP), which was envisaged as transforming it into the bridge between Europe/EU and Asia/China and thus accelerating its economic development.
The primary calculation upon which the Kremlin’s expectation of a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian Civil War was predicated concerned its belief that the US would prefer to wrap up the European front of the New Cold War with Russia in order to more robustly “Pivot to Asia” to “contain” China. This was a strategically sound prediction but didn’t reflect the reality of US decisionmakers being ideologically driven and instead preferring to “contain” Russia first so as to facilitate China’s “containment” after.
The result is that they and their vassals exploited the Minsk Accords for the earlier mentioned purpose of buying time for Kiev’s rearmament ahead of a preplanned NATO-organized “Operation Storm”-like invasion of Donbass for conclusively ending the Ukrainian Civil War that the US itself provoked in 2014. Russia ultimately wised up to these objectively existing military-strategic dynamics in late 2021, ergo why it put forth its security guarantee requests at that time.
To remind the reader since they might either have forgotten or never been fully informed of them to begin with, Russia asked that: 1) Ukraine return to its constitutional neutrality and finally implement the Minsk Accords; 2) NATO stop expanding eastward; 3) strike weapons be removed from Russia’s borders; 4) the 1997 Russian-NATO Founding Act be revived; and 5) serious talks begin on negotiating a truly indivisible security mechanism for Europe. Suffice to say, the US, NATO, EU, and Ukraine rejected them.
In such a situation, Russia had only two courses of action. The first was to let Kiev launch its preplanned NATO-organized “Operation Storm”-like invasion of Donbass for conclusively ending the Ukrainian Civil War, which would have resulted in ethnic cleansing and genocide. Furthermore, NATO’s clandestine expansion into Ukraine would have continued unimpeded, thus further eroding Russia’s national security red lines, especially concerning its second-strike capabilities via more “missile defenses” there.
The second scenario was to preemptively thwart the aforementioned imminent offensive while also expanding the scope of its military operations beyond Donbass in an attempt to advance some of its other national security interests that were previously explained. The first element of this two-pronged strategy would serve to protect lives while the second was expected to create the conditions for improving Russia’s negotiating position regarding those other issues.
As a self-respecting Great Power that will never voluntarily subjugate itself to being anyone else’s vassal, which is precisely what the Golden Billion was aiming to gradually do to it via the clandestine expansion of NATO into Ukraine, Russia understandably decided upon the second scenario via its special operation. Returning to the point mentioned in the introduction to this analysis, it therefore truly is the case that Russia is using force to end the war that the West started, which thus makes its cause legal and moral.
Those who’ve been manipulated by the Golden Billion’s hypocritical information warfare narratives into thinking that Russia’s special operation is illegal and immoral should therefore reconsider their stance. Had the Kremlin let the West’s grand strategic scheme unfold without interference, then more ethnic cleansing and genocide would have taken place in Donbass. NATO’s gradual erosion of Russia’s national security red lines and nuclear second-strike capabilities would also have turned it into a vassal state.
With time, Moscow would have been coerced through nuclear and other forms of blackmail into undertaking a never-ending series of unilateral concessions that might have culminated in the worst-case scenario with its “Balkanization” and/or transformation into an anti-Chinese proxy state. Russia has the UN-enshrined right to defend its national interests, which is the legal basis upon which the special operation was commenced, while its leadership has the moral responsibility to defend its people.
Failing to use force to end the war that the West started would therefore have been an abdication of Russia’s moral responsibility to its people and the voluntary surrendering of its international legal rights. Those folks who’ve been manipulated by the Golden Billion’s information warfare campaign into becoming radical “peaceniks” are thus actually functioning as “useful idiots” of neo-imperialism since Russia would have been submitting to such a scenario by not launching its special operation.
February 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
Leave a comment
