Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Pfizer Steps Up Advertising for Its ‘Blockbuster’ Drug to Treat Heart Conditions…

… Including Those Caused by COVID Vaccines

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 24, 2022

Two major pharmaceutical companies chose February, the month of love — or hearts — to launch an advertising campaign urging people experiencing heart issues for the first time to visit their doctors.

Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) this month revived the “No Time to Wait” ad campaign, spending $1.28 million on TV ads alone.

The campaign warns anyone experiencing palpitations and shortness of breath that they may be at increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation (AF), deep vein thrombosis (DVT), other types of blood clots and strokes — the same types of cardiovascular ailments found among people who have received COVID-19 vaccines.

The campaign urges viewers to seek early medical attention in order to reduce the risk of these serious complications.

“Early medical attention” could include prescription drugs — including Eliquis, developed and marketed by none other than Pfizer and BMS.

According to industry publication Fierce Pharma :

“The aim is to get patients back into their doctors’ offices — and of course, if needed, be diagnosed with any relevant condition that may require them to take a blood thinner, such as Eliquis.”

Eliquis, described as a “blockbuster blood thinner and atrial fibrillation (AF) drug,” is a major revenue generator for the Pfizer-BMS alliance, delivering more than $9 billion in annual revenue — far more than competing drugs such as Xarelto (produced by Bayer in conjunction with Johnson & Johnson), and Pradaxa, produced by Boehringer Ingelheim.

Pfizer and BMS relaunched the “No Time to Wait” campaign in conjunction with several advocacy organizations and medical societies, including World Thrombosis Day, which expressed support for the Pfizer-BMS initiative as a means of “educating” the public.

Characterized as a “surround-sound campaign,” Pfizer-BMS use television, radio and social media to deliver the “No Time to Wait” message to the public.

As part of the campaign, a DVT and pulmonary embolism (PE) television advertisement debuted on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14. The ad showed two patients describing how they “didn’t wait” to speak to their doctors about the AF, DVT and PE symptoms they had begun to experience while performing everyday activities.

Speaking to the camera, the two actors describe symptoms, such as shortness of breath and a racing heart, which are potential indicators of AF, DVT and PE.

Official campaign literature urges the public to take action:

“Right now, people may be weighing a decision to visit a healthcare provider. However, symptoms like swelling, pain, tenderness or redness in the leg, thigh or pelvis can possibly be related to a potentially serious condition such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT). It’s critical to not brush off these symptoms.”

BMS, via its spokesperson, described the reasons for relaunching the campaign:

“We received so much positive feedback from patients and advocates on the impact this campaign had on patients, we knew it was our responsibility to continue to evolve the program and further get the message out.

“In the middle of 2021, we decided to evolve the campaign, with new insight that symptomatic people at risk for AFib or DVT/PE can often dismiss their symptoms or misattribute [emphasis added] them to other health and lifestyle factors.”

Could “misattribute,” in this instance, actually refer to cases where those who had recently received a COVID vaccine experienced the onset of heart-related conditions, in some cases leading to their deaths?

Is Pfizer benefitting from vaccine-induced ailments?

Could the relaunching of the “No Time to Wait” campaign represent an effort by Pfizer to engage in damage control from the increase in vaccine-induced heart conditions — while benefiting from the sale of a drug used to address those same ailments?

There are several objectives Pfizer and BMS could accomplish with the campaign.

First, by launching an advertising campaign warning people they may be at risk of certain heart conditions, Pfizer and BMS are in a sense “naturalizing” heart ailments in young and/or healthy individuals.

Second, by “naturalizing” the prevalence and likelihood of such heart conditions, these companies may deflect blame for these conditions from COVID vaccines, including the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Third, by referring patients to their doctors, the Pfizer-BMS alliance may directly benefit financially from the increased prevalence of heart ailments and conditions in the vaccinated public — as doctors prescribe more Eliquis, the top-selling blood thinner and AF drug, to treat their symptoms.

‘Normalizing’ heart conditions in young and healthy

According to Pfizer and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even “the healthiest athletes” are now at risk for blood clots, as stated in an urgent warning issued this month.

The media and health authorities in recent months have proffered multiple explanations for why healthy people are developing blood clotting and heart conditions, blaming everything from weather and energy bills to cannabis use — but not COVID vaccines.

Here are some examples:

  • September 2021: The Times of India ran a story on a “doctors’ reminder” that “nobody is too young for a heart attack.”
  • September 2021: A study indicated that cannabis use doubled the risk of heart attacks in young adults.
  • October 2021: The New York Post reported on “[t]he little-known heart attack that’s striking ‘fit and healthy’ women as young as 22.”
  • November 2021: British tabloid The Sun reported on “[t]he ways cold weather can affect your body — from winter vagina to blood clots.”
  • November 2021: A Times of India report asked why heart attacks are “becoming common in ‘seemingly’ fit people.”
  • November 2021: Healthline reported e-cigarettes can raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.
  • December 2021: Another British tabloid, Express, warned about the “healthy” diet that “may ‘increase’ your risk of having a heart attack.”
  • January 2022: Norton Health informed us that “[p]reventing heart disease in children is becoming more urgent as more kids develop heart disease.”
  • January 2022: A report is published warning that “sports can break your heart in more ways than one.”
  • January 2022: A report by CT (Connecticut) Insider indicated more people were suffering from heart disease and strokes “after COVID.”
  • January 2022: The Daily Mail warned the “[r]isk of heart problems could be increased even if you drink less than NHS weekly units,” referring to recommendations made by the UK’s National Health Service.
  • January 2022: The Sun ran a report claiming weather can “harm” one’s health, leading to heart attacks, stroke or gout.
  • January 2022: Another report by The Sun warned 300,000 Brits were “living with [a] stealth disease that could kill within 5 years.” The “stealth disease” in question is aortic valve stenosis, a condition where the heart’s aortic valve narrows.
  • February 2022: Nature magazine reported the risk of heart disease “soars after COVID — even with a mild case.”
  • February 2022: A doctor interviewed on the UK’s ITV warned an increase in energy bill amounts may cause heart attacks and strokes.

Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University and founder of News from Underground compiled a list of reports like those listed above.

In looking at incidents and reports during the week of Feb. 8-14 alone, Crispin told readers:

“Before we note all those whose ‘sudden deaths’ made news just this past week — ‘unexpected deaths’ with no reported cause, or due to heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, cardiac arrest or swift, aggressive cancers (all known to be ‘adverse events’ post-‘vaccination’) — let’s review how this unprecedented global spike in sudden death has been deliberately obscured by ‘our free press.’”

Miller highlighted an ABC News report, “‘Broken heart’ cases surge during COVID, especially among women.”

In another example, Science magazine reported geneticists found the answer to “sudden unexplained child deaths.”

Downplaying of the connection between the COVID vaccines and serious heart conditions often has involved high-profile athletes.

For instance, 33-year-old soccer star Sergio Aguero of FC Barcelona was forced to announce his retirement in December 2021, after suffering chest pains and dizziness during a match in October 2021. He never played again.

According to Aguero’s cardiologist, the vaccine was not the reason for his ailment and retirement.

However, Aguero himself, in a Twitter question-and-answer session earlier this month, did not reject this possibility, stating: “I don’t know if Covid or [the] vaccine caused my retirement.”

Media, however, continue to promote the narrative that vaccines have nothing to do with the surge in sudden illnesses or deaths among athletes.

For example, Miller cited a Feb. 1 Washington Post article describing stories of athletes dying due to COVID vaccination as a “falsehood.”

Miller then compared what he described as the “disgraceful” Washington Post report with a documented timeline of athletes who suffered from heart failure between March 2021 and January 2022.

This string of incidents is further illustrated and detailed by the Real Science blog, which found 707 such incidents as of this writing and demonstrated in graphical form the sharp increase in heart failure incidents involving athletes over the course of 2021 and into 2022, as COVID vaccination uptake increased.

Nevertheless, Politifact, in December 2021, assured the public “[t]here’s no proof athletes collapsed with heart issues because of COVID-19 vaccination,” while in November 2021, U.S. News & World Report warned “COVID may trigger [a] heart condition in young athletes.”

As reports of vaccine-induced heart ailments rise, studies confirm link

Multiple studies and reports have confirmed a link between COVID vaccines and heart ailments.

These reports include:

  • September 2021: A report found adolescent boys are at higher risk of hospitalization from the Pfizer vaccine than from COVID.
  • November 2021: Renowned cardiologist Dr. Steven Gundry warned the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines “dramatically increase” the risk of heart attacks.
  • January 2022: Data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) indicates myocarditis tops the list of COVID vaccine injuries for 12- to 17-year olds.

Meanwhile, reports continue to grow of previously healthy people who develop heart conditions following COVID vaccines.

Here are just a few examples:

  • June 2021: A 13-year-old Michigan boy died three days after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
  • June 2021: An athlete who received the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine developed myocarditis, triggered by the vaccine.
  • August 2021: A 14-year-old boy developed myocarditis after receiving the Pfizer vaccine.
  • October 2021: A 17-year-old developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome and myocarditis after receiving the Pfizer vaccine.
  • December 2021: A 26-year-old’s death from heart inflammation was found to have “probably” been caused by the Pfizer vaccine.
  • January 2022: An autopsy found the death of another 26-year-old from myocarditis was the direct result of receiving the Pfizer vaccine.
  • February 2022: A six-year-old developed vaccine-induced myocarditis, leaving him unable to walk.
  • February 2022: Autopsies showed that the deaths of two teenage boys who died soon after receiving the Pfizer vaccine were directly caused by the vaccine.

Reports and studies like those listed above have led to increasing calls for the vaccination of minors to be reassessed or outright halted, including:

  • January 2022: More than 30 experts called on UK regulators to reassess COVID vaccination for 12- to 15-year olds.
  • January 2022: Data revealed reports of heart disease following COVID vaccines had increased 15,600% in young people under the age of 30, compared to the previous 31 years of heart injuries reported following receipt of FDA-approved vaccines.

They’ve also triggered calls for further scrutiny on the part of health authorities, which appear to have had some effect, at least in certain instances.

For example:

  • October 2021: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed a decision on green-lighting the administration of the Moderna vaccine to adolescents, citing heart problems (however, the Pfizer vaccine was nevertheless approved for the same age group).
  • October 2021: Health authorities in Denmark and Sweden paused administration of the COVID vaccine to younger age groups, citing reports of myocarditis.
  • December 2021: The CDC was monitoring eight cases of heart inflammation reported in 5- to 11-year-olds who received the Pfizer vaccine.

Nevertheless, in January 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  refused to investigate the case of a 13-year-old who died of myocarditis days after receiving the Pfizer vaccine, while in August 2021, doctors “downplayed” the connection between the onset of myocarditis in a 25-year-old, and receipt of the Moderna vaccine.

‘No Time to Wait’ campaign spending indicative of broader Big Pharma marketing expenditures

Big-dollar ad spending is par for the course for Big Pharma companies such as Pfizer, as previously reported by The Defender.

For instance, a 2019 Forbes article reported Pfizer spent twice as much on marketing/selling as it spent on research.

Pfizer’s heavy advertising is also evident in its most recent quarterly report, for the fourth quarter of 2021. The report indicates a 10% increase — a total of $12.7 billion — in 2021 “SI&A expenses,” which include marketing and advertising, as compared to 2020, when there was no COVID vaccine available.

The report also projects Pfizer’s SI&A expenses will range between $12.5 and $13.5 billion in 2022.

BMS, in turn, spent $990 million in advertising and marketing in both 2020 and 2021 — after spending $633 million in 2019.

In sum, pharmaceutical ad spending totaled $6.58 billion in 2020, and was expected to surpass $11 billion by the end of 2021 — including $3.9 billion in spending on television advertisements alone.

In addition to “traditional” advertising and marketing campaigns, pharmaceutical companies adopted some more creative ways to promote their products — and perhaps purchase further goodwill on the part of media outlets.

In an October 2021 article, The Defender highlighted several examples of Pfizer sponsoring television news programs and segments, ranging from “Good Morning America” to “Anderson Cooper 360°” to “CBS HealthWatch.”

For example, an Oct. 4, 2021 tweet posted on CNBC’s official Twitter account portrayed Pfizer in glowing terms, accompanied by the text: “paid post for Pfizer.”

And a March 15, 2021 tweet by Pfizer expressed pride in the release of a National Geographic documentary, “Mission Possible: The Race for a Vaccine.”

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Financial conflicts within government advisory groups

JCVI – don’t bite the hand…

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | February 25, 2022

There’s a well known expression “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” It can be taken literally – if an animal bites the hand that feeds it, it won’t get fed. In the business or academic world, it means don’t upset your funder. It’s obvious really – if you do, they won’t fund you anymore. The bigger the amount received, the less of a good idea it is to upset the funder.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) “advises UK health departments on immunisation.”[i] The JCVI has a sub-committee specifically to advise on COVID-19 vaccines. The chair of the JCVI, Professor Andrew Pollard, recused himself from all JCVI COVID-19 meetings because he is involved in the development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine at Oxford University – where he works. This was done to avoid any “perceived conflict of interest.”  

Professor Lim Wei Shen was appointed chair of the JCVI sub-committee on COVID-19 vaccines. In August 2021, he stated categorically that 12-15 year olds would not be offered COVID-19 vaccines.[ii] Barely 6 weeks after that statement, 12-15 year olds were offered jabs.[iii] Barely 6 months later, on February 16th, 2022, the sub-committee issued a statement saying that, although 5-11 year olds are “generally at very low risk of serious illness from the virus”, they would be offered 2 doses of the Pfizer mRNA jab.[iv] This recommendation occurred despite the trials in children not being due for completion until May 2026.[v] We have previously noted that Professor Lim has a substantial conflict of interest: he has direct responsibility for material levels of funding received by his department from Pfizer.

At the time of writing, the most recent minutes for the sub-committee meetings are from May 2021. The sub-committee and main JCVI minutes report “Declarations of Interest” for the committee members. The Code of Practice describes the JCVI as “an independent Departmental Expert Committee and a statutory body.”[vi] Independent being the word of interest. One would expect this to mean “free from conflicts of interest”, but a closer look revealed that this was not the case.

The COVID-19 sub-committee of the JCVI has 15 core members (1 lay member). None of the members of this sub-committee declared conflicts of interests. Five of the 14 non-lay members provided additional information in their ‘non-declaration’ that revealed conflicts of interest. One, for example, declared funding from “the National Institute for Health Research, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”, but didn’t consider any of that vaccine funding as a conflict of interest. A cursory search on the remaining nine members revealed that six had conflicts of interest – from running a COVID-19 vaccine trial to being their organisation’s representative for Pfizer. One member failed to declare that he leads the Pfizer Vaccine Centre of Excellence in Bristol.

The members work for organisations, which collectively have received approximately $1,000,000,000 – one billion dollars – from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation aims to “accelerate the development and commercialization of novel vaccines and the sustainable manufacture of existing vaccines.”[vii] No doubt the Gates Foundation would have welcomed the sub-committee’s decision.

The majority of the COVID-19 JCVI sub-committee members have conflicts of interest. These members don’t seem to realise that their research or institution receiving huge sums of money from pharmaceutical companies and/or the Gates Foundation is a conflict of interest.

Has this committee truly been able to provide an independent assessment of the risk and reward of the main products of interest of the Gates Foundation? Or has it made a decision to not bite the hand that feeds it?

Read full article here:

  • [i] https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation#conflict-of-interests
  • [ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RS1v7jN94w
  • [iii] https://www.england.nhs.uk/2021/09/nhs-rolls-out-covid-19-jab-to-children-aged-12-to-15/
  • [iv] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-updates-advice-on-vaccinations-for-5-to-11-age-group
  • [v] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04816643
  • [vi] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/224864/JCVI_Code_of_Practice_revision_2013_-_final.pdf
  • [vii] https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-health/vaccine-development-and-surveillance

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Iraq, Russia, Syria and Iran discuss counter-terrorism

MEMO | February 25, 2022

Iraqi National Security Adviser, Qassem Al-Araji, yesterday met the ambassadors of Russia, Syria and Iran as part of the Quartet Centre for Information Exchange in Iraq’s capital city, Baghdad, to discuss counter-terrorism.

Local media reported that the meeting had discussed recent developments along the Iraqi-Syrian border, as well as the latest security developments in the region.

Al-Araji said that cooperation and joint action with the three countries had led to “strong and deterrent blows to terrorism and its leaders,” adding that the Centre was playing a “role in informing and resolving many issues.”

He pointed out that his country would not allow the presence of terrorist groups along its borders, stressing that Baghdad would only deal with “legitimate, sovereign states and governments.”

He reiterated that the Centre was strengthening the “close relationship between the countries that participated in this Centre in difficult and sensitive circumstances, and Iraq will respect those who stood by it during the difficult days.”

“There is a concern that there is a plan for the return of terrorists and their spread in the region, which could lead to instability,” he said.

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter Says It Will Consider Censoring “Emerging Narratives” About Ukraine War

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | February 25, 2022

Twitter announced that it was monitoring “emerging narratives” about the Ukraine war that will be censored if they represent a violation of the company’s policies.

The announcement was made in response to Twitter deleting tweets and suspending accounts that had posted videos of Russian tank divisions and helicopters heading to Ukraine.

After users complained, Twitter acknowledged that it had targeted the accounts in “error” and they were later restored.

However, a statement by a Twitter spokesperson is likely to cause alarm amongst free speech advocates.

“We took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error,” the statement said, adding, “We’ve been proactively monitoring for emerging narratives that are violative of our policies.”

The use of the term “emerging narratives” suggests that Twitter will begin censoring certain perspectives on the conflict in the context of their policy on “misinformation.”

These problematic “narratives” are almost certainly likely to be ones that question narratives being put out by the Biden White House and NATO sources.

Similar rules were applied to skepticism expressed towards COVID vaccines as well as the lab leak theory, which was once deemed to be ‘harmful misinformation’ but is now widely accepted as the most likely explanation for the pandemic.

The potential for the Russian attack on Ukraine to be exploited to push for further censorship and blacklisting of free speech in the west is a clear danger.

For weeks, leftists have been trying to smear Tucker Carlson as being guilty of “treason” over him accusing the Biden administration of exploiting tensions between Russia and Ukraine to distract from the president’s dreadful handling of domestic issues.

The word “traitor” also trended on Twitter yesterday in response to Nigel Farage suggesting that NATO should share some blame for Putin’s actions.

In a related story, the official Twitter Ukrainian government also lobbied Twitter to ban the official Russian government Twitter account.

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine’s hybrid war is mutating

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 25, 2022

The first signs of the dual track in Russia’s hybrid war in Ukraine have surfaced. By Thursday evening, the Kremlin held out an olive branch to the Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Succinctly put, President Vladimir Putin expressed his preparedness to engage in discussions with his Ukrainian counterpart with a focus on obtaining a guarantee of neutral status for Ukraine and the promise of no offensive weapons on its territory. 

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said without elaborating, “The president formulated his vision of what we would expect from Ukraine in order for the so-called ‘red-line’ problems to be resolved. This is neutral status, and this is a refusal to deploy weapons.” 

Putin had made it clear in a nation-wide address Thursday morning announcing the launch of the military operation that the Russian objective narrowed down to “demilitarisation” and “denazification” of Ukraine. The latter refers to the ascendant neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine who have been acting as a state within the state and perpetrated atrocities against the ethnic Russian population. 

The Kremlin offer didn’t come out of the blue. A group of Ukrainian MPs also came out yesterday with an appeal calling on Zelensky, in an open letter, to start negotiations with Moscow. Interestingly, the group is led by Vadim Novinsky – a Ukrainian billionaire and one of the co-leaders of the Opposition Bloc, an association of over dozen political parties. The group also proposed direct consultations between the parliaments of the two countries. 

But what lends enchantment to the view is that Zelensky on his own also requested French President Emmanuel Macron to convey a message to Putin directly. Macron has since disclosed that he has had “a quick, direct and frank conversation on a request from President Zelensky.”

Macron said the aim of the conversation was a request from Kiev “to end hostilities as soon as possible.” The Kremlin confirms that Putin held a “frank” conversation with Macron. 

Macron’s role is important, since it was he who first floated with Putin the idea, in the course of a conversation recently, that one way out of the impasse could be that Kiev unilaterally gave up any intention to join the NATO. Subsequently, in an interaction with the Russian media at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin also mentioned this idea. 

Zelensky himself said (after Macron’s conversation with Putin) in an emotional video address to the nation after midnight Thursday, “We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid.” He went on to disclose that he had heard from Moscow that ”they want to talk about Ukraine’s neutral status.” 

Quite obviously, Zelensky realises by now that the cavalry is not coming from Washington or Brussels to salvage his government. In fact, Zelensky’s request to Macron followed the repeated categorical affirmations by US President Biden that there is no question of American intervention in Ukraine or of US troops engaging Russian military. 

Meanwhile, Russian Defence Ministry highlighted on Thursday that Moscow’s strategy will be to hit military targets and avoid civilian casualty. Ukraine’s air defence system has been rendered non-functional. Moscow is encouraging Ukrainian soldiers to surrender or simply return to their families, the intention being to minimise any fighting. 

All this suggests that a political track is on standby. The Russian game plan is to force Zelensky to see the writing on the wall. Ukraine’s capitulation is a matter of days only. This hybrid war would have the following elements: 

  • Russia will no doubt systematically vanquish the neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine (especially within the military such as the Azov Brigade) who have Russian blood on their hands. These elements so far acted with impunity because of covert western support for their anti-Russian disposition.
  • Russia estimates, rightly so, that any crackdown on the neo-Nazi elements will only strengthen Zelensky’s hands. Lacking a power base of his own, he has been a hostage of extreme nationalists. 
  • On the other hand, Western powers have retrenched in panic from Kiev, and an embittered Zelensky is left to fend for himself. But, paradoxically, this also makes Zelensky a reasonable interlocutor, liberated from the US’ vice-like grip.
  • Zelensky has been acting under immense external pressure and fear of extreme nationalists who enjoy “street power.”(The coup in February 2014, scuttling an orderly constitutional transition from President Viktor Yanukovich, was organised by the ultra-nationalists with overt US support.) 
  • Zelensky’s massive mandate (over 73% of votes) in the 2019 election was largely due to whole-hearted support from Russian voters who were attracted to his platform of dialogue with Russia and the promise of a negotiated settlement in Donbass with Moscow’s help. But in the event, he became a captive of extreme nationalists and a victim of western manipulation. 
  • Nevertheless, Zelensky has been sporadically signalling to Moscow his desire for an exit route, sensing he was on a road to nowhere. Lately, he voiced dissatisfaction over the war hysteria in Washington. At least during one telephone conversation with Biden recently, they had a heated exchange, according to the CNN. 

Russia’s tentative offer appears to be that Ukraine could opt for a status of neutrality on the lines of Austria and Finland with a self-imposed ban on its NATO membership. Conceivably, Zelensky would be open to such an idea. Now, what is there in it for him? 

First, Russia will forthwith call off or at least suspend the military operation. That will strengthen Zelensky’s standing. Second, Russia’s direct involvement holds the key to easing of tensions in the Donbass. Moscow had been dodging such a role.

Third, Zelensky could resume his links with the pro-Russian constituency in Ukraine, which was his mainstay of support in the 2019 election. This would have implications for his bid for a second term in the 2023 election. 

Fourth, Russia enjoys extensive networking within Ukraine, which has a chaotic political environment driven by corruption and venality, oligarchs and mafia and so on. Russia still wields influence with the power brokers who have at one time or another enjoyed Moscow’s patronage. Thus, Zelensky would see that Russian help can also heal Ukraine’s fragmented political economy.

As for Russia, out of the conditions for security guarantee that it had projected to the US in mid-December, where Moscow drew a blank, Putin may succeed in reaching his objectives at least partially if Ukraine were to turn its back on NATO membership and terminate western military deployments on its soil. 

Given the profound civilisational links between Russia and Ukraine, enduring people-to-people relations and family kinships, there is a reservoir of opinion in Ukraine favouring improvement of relations with Russia. Ukraine’s economy is also closely aligned with Russia — even today, Russia is Ukraine’s number one export market. Russia has been a generous donor too. The transit fee for transportation of pipeline gas to Europe alone exceeded 1 billion dollars annually! 

Russia’s main gain will be that in geopolitical terms, Ukraine regains its sovereignty and ceases to be a de facto American colony. Russia calculates that a neutral Ukraine will de facto take the Ukraine matrix to its priori history before the 2014 coup. 

What is of crucial importance will be that Zelensky is somehow enabled to navigate his path toward dialogue with Putin. The good part is that Russian military operations will throw radical nationalists into disarray, and, secondly, it is improbable that Biden is raring to resume the shenanigans in Ukraine. American politics is increasingly riveted on the mid-term in November and public disfavours Washington taking sides between Ukraine and Russia. 

Will the US acquiesce with the nascent processes? There is hope that  Macron can mediate. Conceivably, he is in touch with Biden. 

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Counter-sanctions against West to hit its ‘weak spots’– Moscow

RT | February 25, 2022

Moscow will respond to sanctions imposed by the US and its allies over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the head of the Russian Senate, Valentina Matviyenko, told journalists during her visit to Tajikistan on Friday.

“As for the reciprocal sanctions … they are ready,” Matviyenko said, adding that Russia’s response would not mirror the restrictions imposed by Washington and its allies but would instead hit the western nations where it hurts.

“We are well aware of the West’s weak spots and we have drafted an entire package … a series of potential sanctions to be used against those nations that announced sanctions against Russia,” the Senate head has said, adding that “the West has many soft spots.”

The official has not elaborated on any details of the drafted sanction proposals. She only said that the measures would be designed so as not to hurt Russia itself. The Russian government has taken “all the threats stemming from sanctions” into account and developed “safety mechanisms.”

Matviyenko has also said that Russia will remain a reliable gas supplier for Europe despite measures taken by the US and Germany against the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. Berlin decided to put an immediate halt to the certification of the project even before Russia launched its operation in Ukraine. The decision was taken following the official recognition by Moscow of the two breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk Republics earlier this week.

The Russian Senate head’s words also come after US President Joe Biden imposed “long-term impact” sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine on Thursday. The measures targeted Russia’s banking sector, as well as the nation’s ability to do business in dollars, pounds, or yen. The restrictions did not involve cutting Russia off from the SWIFT system, though.

Later on Thursday, the EU followed suit by also targeting “70% of the Russian banking market, but also key state-owned companies, including the field of defense,” as the EU Commission head, Ursula von der Leyen, put in her statement.

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

WHO still pushing Global Vaccine Passports

The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | February 24, 2022

Whilst many countries have been making noises about removing Covid passes, they still remain for a lot of international travel. It has been obvious from the beginning, with the amount of money and effort spent on them, that vaccine passes wouldn’t disappear without a fight.

Today, this concern has been reinforced with the World Health Organization (WHO) signing a contract with T-Systems (a Deutsche Telecom subsidiary) for the production of a global QR system to make digital vaccination certificates easier to introduce in the future. The press release in TotalTelecom says that the WHO is setting up a gateway to enable QR codes on electronic vaccination certificates to be checked across national borders.

The head of WHO’s Digital Health and Innovation Department, Garrett Mehl said that they would be “supporting member states in building national and regional trust networks and verification technology. The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems. It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records”.

T-Systems have already developed the EU’s Digital Covid Certificates which are used by more than 60 countries already. They also developed the German tracing app which had event check-ins and universal certificate storage. With WHO membership comprising of 194 Member States, this Covid certification scheme looks to be massively expanded.

Furthermore, even if Covid won’t allow them to roll-out their certification scheme, the WHO already states that it wants the system to serve as a standard procedure for other vaccinations such as polio or yellow fever.

Now is not the time to let one’s guard down. Freedoms are being returned with one hand whilst being further curtailed with the other. Instead of celebrating the return of freedoms that should never have been removed in the first place, a continued effort should remain to ensure all restrictions are gone and can never be reinstated in the future. This new global vaccination passport should be the next thing to be scrapped, how every much money it wastes.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

27 page letter from 8 industrial hygienists complaining about flawed CDC mask guidance

The people who know this stuff the best (the industrial hygienists) weigh in on the flawed CDC mask guidance

By Steve Kirsch | February 22, 2022

Eight industrial hygienists, including my friends Stephen Petty and Tyson Gabriel, wrote a 27-page letter to the CDC, NIH, and other top US government officials that points out serious flaws in the CDC mask guidance.

The key points in their letter

The letter starts out with:

They made four key points :

  1. Recommending N-95 type masks is inappropriate for the general population and children
  2. CDC has issued harmful guidance for masking children that contradicts manufacturer’s recommendations, world-wide standard practice and CDC’s own guidance, and without appropriate risk-benefit analysis
  3. The CDC continues to ignore the fact that COVID-19 is primarily spread by aerosols (not droplets) making mask use mostly ineffective
  4. CDC’s position for masks used by the general public lacks proper scientific justification and creates potential harm based on a false sense of security:

They also sent email to scientificIntegrity@cdc.gov

They also emailed scientificIntegrity@cdc.gov the following:

We have conducted a peer review of the CDC’s “Types of Masks and Respirators” that was updated on January 28, 2022. Our findings have shown that this publication does not meet the scientific integrity that we have come to expect from HHS and all affiliated agencies. Please review the findings in our report. We strongly encourage your team to remove this publication from use and publish an acknowledgement of the concerns. We are willing to discuss our findings further at your request. We appreciate your time and look forward to a response.

However, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t any scientific integrity left at the CDC and there will be nobody there to answer their complaint.

Their conclusion

The CDC is doing enormous damage to science and scientists by allowing politics to dictate public health policy rather than actual science. Increasingly, and for good reason as we have illustrated, the public does not trust the CDC and its science; this must change.

Their offer to help

We recognize that it is easy to judge from afar and know that you and your team are under tremendous stress during this period. Our desire is to see the CDC and our country succeed in these efforts. As such, instead of just being critical, we want to offer our time to your organization to find solutions together. We would be willing to collaborate in the creation of a competent plan that will be based on the Hierarchy of Controls and will be tailored to various work and living environments. We will also help develop data points we can use to monitor and measure this program to enable proper adjustments as needed.

Summary

The industrial hygienists are right. The CDC is wrong.

I predict that the CDC isn’t going to admit they are wrong. When was the last time you saw that happen?

And they aren’t going to accept help from the experts who know this stuff because it would be a tacit admission that they’ve been giving out crappy advice through the entire pandemic that has made the problem worse.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

CA Bill would punish Doctors over COVID ‘Misinformation,’ as other states move to protect Doctors’ rights

By David Charbonneau, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 23, 2022

Before the U.S. Supreme Court last month blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for large employers and allowed the mandate for healthcare workers to stand, all eyes were on the feds when it came to COVID-related policies.

But state lawmakers also have been busy drafting bills in an effort to shape COVID policies closer to home.

The California Assembly, for example, introduced over the past six months a flurry of bills designed to strengthen vaccination mandates and regulate treatment options for patients.

For example, Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) last month introduced legislation proposing COVID vaccine mandates for all K-12 students in California schools.

And this month, Assembly Member Evan Low (D-Campbell) introduced legislation (AB 2098) that, according to the Los Angeles Times, would “make it easier for the Medical Board of California to discipline doctors who promote COVID-19 misinformation by classifying it as unprofessional conduct.”

The bill defines “unprofessional conduct” as any action a physician or surgeon takes “to disseminate or promote misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”

Under the bill, disciplinary action could be brought against a physician for disseminating information that “resulted in an individual declining opportunities for COVID-19 treatment or prevention that was not justified by the individual’s medical history or condition.”

Additionally, doctors could be disciplined for “misinformation or disinformation” that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to an extent where its dissemination constitutes gross negligence” by the physician.

Commenting on the criteria, Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert in epidemiology and vaccine injury and member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee, said:

“I think this is clearly an attempt to legislate that the government of California or the Medical Board of California will define what is truth and what is misinformation, and medical providers will have to follow lockstep with that definition.

“This, of course, is the same thing as the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s “1984,” and if the California legislature actually votes for this bill, the intent of the  action will be to enforce a one and only truth.

“Nowhere does this legislature define what is misinformation and disinformation. They do talk about contemporary scientific consensus but as we know in the last two years, the so-called scientific consensus — or the public health agency consensus — on masks, on vaccination, on boosters, etc. has flip-flopped all over the place. So we have adequate examples that the concept of “contemporary scientific consensus” is basically meaningless in this context.”

Contrary to typical board practice, under AB 2098, physicians could also be disciplined for public speech, including social media posts, unrelated to the actual treatment of patients.

Supporters of Low’s bill insist the legislation does not impinge on doctors’ freedom of speech.

“This isn’t a call for a policing of free speech,” Nick Sawyer, an emergency room doctor who founded a group called No License for Disinformation, told the LA Times. “This is a call for protecting the public against dangerous misinformation, which patients are parroting back to us in our emergency room departments every day.”

Nass disagreed:

“The result is removing options from doctors and patients. And the longer-term consequence is that doctors will become irrelevant if they are not needed to assess each individual’s personal risks and benefits from each type of medical care.

“The government and its partners in the healthcare industries can simply prescribe one-size-fits-all healthcare for everyone.”

Low’s bill, introduced as part of a larger effort by a group of Democratic state legislators to strengthen vaccination laws, set off a contentious debate over how far the state should go in pursuing COVID mandates.

Other COVID-related bills introduced in California include:

  • Assembly Bill 1993, authored by Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would require employees and independent contractors to be vaccinated against COVID as a condition of employment unless they have an exemption based on a medical condition, disability or religious beliefs.
  • Assembly Bill 1797, introduced by Akilah Weber (D-San Diego), allows California school officials to more easily check student vaccine records by expanding access to a statewide immunization database.
  • Senate Bill 866, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would let children 12 and older be vaccinated without parental consent.

Other states pursue efforts to support alternative treatments

In contrast to California, several state legislatures are moving to provide legal support for off-label prescriptions and alternative approaches supported by physicians.

In New Hampshire, legislators last month held public hearings on a bill that would allow for over-the-counter dissemination of ivermectin at pharmacies, provided certain treatment plan requirements were met.

New Hampshire HB 1022 would permit pharmacists to dispense the ivermectin by means of a standing order entered into by licensed healthcare professionals.

Sponsors of the bill argued many healthcare workers are unable to prescribe ivermectin, either because of hospital politics or outside professional pressures.

The bill has support from Dr. Paul Marik, who traveled from Virginia to testify at the public hearing.

A former professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Marik sued the hospital he worked for after it banned physicians from prescribing ivermectin for COVID patients.

Marik resigned late last year in protest of the ban.

During his testimony in New Hampshire, Marik described ivermectin as “cheap, exceedingly safe and exceedingly effective.”

“If ivermectin had been promoted at the beginning of this pandemic, we would not be sitting here today,” Marik said.

Kansas lawmakers last month advanced a bill supporting the prescribing of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. The model legislation, also introduced in Tennessee, would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the off-label use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

In direct contrast to the California legislation, the Kansas bill also would mandate that doctors not be subject to disciplinary action for any “recommendation, prescription, use or opinion … related to a treatment for COVID-19, including a treatment that is not recommended or regulated by the licensing board,” Kansas Department of Health and Environment or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Such actions,” the bill states, “could not be considered unprofessional conduct.”

Kansas lawmaker Sen. Mark Steffen (R-Hutchinson) supports the bill. Steffen, an anesthesiologist, said he’s under investigation by the University of Kansas Health System with which he is affiliated for prescribing ivermectin to COVID patients.

Dr. Festus Krebs III, a physician representing the Catholic Medical Association of Kansas City, also spoke in favor of the bill:

“With ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, we now have 76 ivermectin COVID-19 controlled studies which show 66 percent overall improvement and 57 percent decreased mortality.”

Meanwhile, in Florida, legislation that would extend protection for hospitals against patient lawsuits over COVID care sits on the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, awaiting signature or a veto.

And in New York, the state’s comptroller — citing the investment of the state’s public pension plan in Spotify — sent a letter to the company asking it to increase its screening of “misinformation” on their platform.

© 2022 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | Leave a comment

Follow the Data, They Said, and Then Hid It

By Jeffrey A. Tucker | Brownstone Institute | February 24, 2022

Never before has the public had access to so much data on a virus and its effects. For two years, data festooned the daily papers. Dozens of websites assembled it. We were all invited to follow the data, follow the science, and observe as scientists became our new overlords, instructing us how to feel, think, and behave in order to “flatten the curve,” “drive down cases,” “preserve capacity,” “stay safe,” and otherwise deploy all the powers of human will to respond to and manipulate disease outcomes.

We could watch it all in real time. How beautiful were the waves, the curves, the bar charts, the sheer power of the technology. We can look at all the variations and the trajectories, assemble them by country, click here and click there to compare, see new cases, total cases, unvaccinated and vaccinations, infections and hospitalizations, deaths in total or death per capita, and we could even make a game out of it: which country is doing better at the great task, which group is better at complying, which region has the best outcomes.

It was all quite dazzling, the power of the personal computer combined with data collection techniques, universal testing, instant transmission, and the democratization of science. We were all invited to participate from our laptops to bone up on statistics, download and look, assemble and draw, manipulate and observe, and be in awe of the masters of the numbers and their capacity for responding to every trend as it was captured and chronicled in real time.

Then one day, writing at the New York Times, reporter Apoorva Mandavilli revealed the following:

For more than a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collected data on hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the United States and broken it down by age, race and vaccination status. But it has not made most of the information public…. Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.

Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”

Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.

At the appearance of this story, my data science friends who have been digging through the databases for nearly two years all let a collective: argh! They knew something was very wrong and had been complaining about it for more than a year. These are sophisticated people at Rational Ground who keep their own charts and host data programs of their own. They have been curious all along about the exaggerations, the poor communication regarding the gradients of risk, the lags and holes in the demographic data on hospitalization and death, to say nothing of the strange way in which the CDC has been manipulating presentations on everything from masking to vaccination status and much more.

It’s been a strange experience for them, especially since other countries in the world have been absolutely scrupulous about collecting and distributing data, even when the results do not comport with policy priorities. There can be little doubt, for example, that the missing data bears on the issue of vaccine effectiveness and very likely demonstrates that the claim that this was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is completely unsustainable, even from the time when it was first made.

In the New York Times story, many top epidemiologists were quoted expressing everything from frustration to outrage.

“We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran Covid Tracking Project, an independent effort that compiled data on the pandemic till March 2021. A detailed analysis, she said, “builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on.”

Well, if public trust is the goal, it’s not going so well. In addition to the failings revealed here, there are many other questions concerning cases and whether and to what extent the PCR testing can really tell us what we need to know, to what degree did the misclassification problem affect death attribution, and so much more. It seems that with each month that has gone by, what seemed to be these beautiful pictures of reality have faded into a murky data quagmire in which we don’t know what is real and what is not. And ever more, the CDC itself has urged us to ignore what we do see (VAERS data, for example).

Dr. Robert Malone makes an interesting point. If a scientist at a university or a lab is found to have deliberately buried relevant data because they contradict a preset conclusion, the results are professional ruin. The CDC, however, has legal privileges that allows it to get away with actions that would otherwise be considered fraud in academia.

There are many analogies between economics and epidemiology, as many have noticed over the last two years. The attempt to plan the economy in the past has suffered from many of the same failures as the attempt to plan a pandemic. There are collection problems, unintended consequences, knowledge problems, issues of mission creep, uncertainties over causal inference, a presumption that all agents obey the plan when in fact they do not, and a wild pretense that planners have the necessary knowledge, skill, and coordination required to presume to replace the decentralized and dispersed knowledge base that makes society work.

Murray Rothbard called statistics the Achilles heel of economic planning. Without the data, economists and bureaucrats couldn’t even begin to believe they could achieve their far-flung dreams, much less put them into practice. For this reason, he favored leaving all economic data collection to the private sector so that it is actually useful for enterprise rather than abused by government. In addition, there is simply no way that data alone can provide a genuine full picture of reality. There will always be holes. It will always be late. There will always be mistakes. There will always be uncertainties over causality. Moreover, all data represents a snapshot in time and can prove extremely misleading with changes over time. And these can be fatal for decision making.

We are seeing this play itself out in epidemiological planning too. The endless streams of data over two years have created what Sunetra Gupta calls “the illusion of control” when in fact the world of pathogens and its interaction with the human experience is infinitely complex. That illusion also creates dangerous habits on the part of planners, which we’ve seen.

There was never a reason to close schools, lock people in their homes, block travel, shut businesses, mask kids, mandate vaccines, and so on. It’s almost as if they wanted human beings to behave in ways that better fit their own modeling techniques rather than allow their knowledge base to defer to the complexity of the human experience.

And now we know that we’ve been denied information that the CDC has kept in hiding for the better part of a year, undoubtedly to serve the purpose of forcing the appearance of reality to more closely conform to a political narrative. We only have a fraction of what has been accumulated. What we thought we knew was only a glimpse of what was actually known on the inside.

There is no shortage of scandals associated with pandemic policy over two years. For those who are interested in finding out precisely what caused the lights to be dimmed or even turned out on modern civilization, we can add another scandal to the list.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Write about your experience with vaccination

eugyppius | February 24, 2022

Because available statistics have been so terrible, I’ve not written very much about vaccine injuries, but evidence is mounting, from sources beyond the American VAERS database, that they are vastly more frequent and severe than anybody will acknowledge.

Many of my readers have not been vaccinated, but many others have been. I’d like to compile a post or two of reader experience with the vaccines. If you have something to report, please write to me at containment@tutanota.com. I’m not only interested in severe side effects; reports of mild reactions will help to build a full picture. I’m also interested in infection following vaccination, and any other related matters you deem of interest. It’s most helpful if you can report about your own direct experiences, that is to say, things that happened to you or to people you know personally.

Otherwise, to complete yesterday evening’s hasty update, I provide a translation of Andreas Schöfbeck’s letter to the Paul Ehrlich Institute, on the underreporting of vaccine side effects in Germany. Apparently the PEI has responded, but exactly what they’ve said has yet to be released, as far as I know.

Dear Prof. Dr. Cichutek,

the Paul Ehrlich Institute has issued a press release announcing 244,576 suspected cases of adverse reactions to the Corona vaccines for the calendar year 2021.

Our company has data that give us reason to believe that there is a very pronounced under-reporting of suspected adverse reactions following Corona vaccination. I attach an analysis to this letter.

Physicians’ billing data provide the basis for this analysis. We have sampled data from the anonymised records of company health insurers, totalling 10,937,716 insured persons. So far, we have billing data for the first half of 2021, and about half of the billing data for the third quarter of 2021. We queried this data for the ICD codes valid for vaccination side effects. Although we do not yet have the complete data for 2021, our analysis of the available data reveals 216,695 treated cases of vaccination side effects following Corona vaccination. If these figures are extrapolated to the whole year and to the total German population, perahps 2.5 to 3 million people have received medical treatment for side effects following Corona vaccination.

For us, this is a serious wake-up call, that must be considered for the further administration of vaccines. We think it would be relatively easy and quick to confirm these figures, by asking the other health insurers (AOKs [general regional insurers], the alternative insurers, etc.) for a corresponding anylsis of their data. Extrapolated to the number of vaccinations across Germany, this would mean that about 4-5% of the vaccinated have been treated by a doctor because of side effects from the vaccines.

We believe that vaccine side effects are being substantially under-reported. It is crucial to identify the reasons for this as soon as possible. Since there is no remuneration for reporting adverse reactions to the vaccine, our primary assumption is that doctors often neglect to report adverse reactions to the Paul Ehrlich Institute, because of the effort involved. Doctors tell us that reporting a suspected vaccine injury takes about half an hour, which means that 3 million suspected cases of adverse reactions would require doctors to work 1.5 million hours. That would correspond to the annual labour of around 1,000 doctors. This should also be quickly confirmed. A copy of this letter will also be sent to the German Medical Association and the Federal Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.

The Central Association of Health Insurers will also receive a copy of this letter with a request to obtain corresponding data analyses from all health insurers.

Since we cannot rule out the danger to human life, we ask you for your report on your response by 6pm on 22 February 2022.

Regards,

Andreas Schöfbeck

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

How Many Chicken Hawks Are in Ukraine?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 24, 2022

How many American chicken hawks are in Ukraine? I could be wrong but my hunch is zero. That’s right: Not one single American chicken hawk is over there helping the Ukrainians to defend their country against Russia’s attack. They are all sitting here at home, safely ensconced in their living rooms or offices.

How many American chicken hawks are there? That’s, of course, impossible to say. But you can find lots of them in Congress and in the executive branch. You can also find them on the commentary pages of America’s mainstream newspapers.

Oh, yes, they are exclaiming against the horrors of the invasion. They are expressing their deepest sympathies with the people of Ukraine. They are calling on President Biden to impose maximum sanctions on Russia. But they are all still here at home rather than over there helping the Ukrainian people in their hour of need.

It would not have been difficult during the past month to catch a flight to Europe and make one’s way to Ukraine. Chicken hawks could have gone over as a gigantic group and offered their services to the Ukrainian military or just to the government. But no, the chicken hawks have chosen to remain here at home.

The New York Times reports, “Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, called on all Ukrainian civilians to join the fight and enlist with territorial defense units.”

Such being the case, I will guarantee you that Reznikov and the Ukranian people would welcome the personal assistance and support of American chicken hawks. Alas, they choose to remain here at home.

Why won’t America’s chicken hawks travel to Ukraine and offer a helping hand to the Ukranian people?

Three possible reasons come to mind.

One is that they’re simply scared. Going into battle against the Russian army is no doubt a frightening prospect for many American chicken hawks.

Another possible reason is that the chicken hawks simply place a higher value on their comfortable lives here at home than they place on risking their lives in a very uncomfortable situation in Ukraine.

A third possibility — the one I think is the most likely — is that deep down they know that it’s the Pentagon that has manipulated and designed this crisis by placing Russia in a position of having to make a difficult choice: (1) Let NATO absorb Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon to establish military bases, missiles, troops, tanks, and weaponry on Russia’s border or (2) Invade Ukraine and take over the reins of power, which would thereby prevent the Pentagon from establishing its bases, missiles, troops, tanks, and weaponry on Russia’s border. (See my article “The Evil and Malevolence of the Pentagon’s Brilliant Strategy in Ukraine.”)

Given that it was the Pentagon that designed and precipitated this crisis, it would stand to reason that American chickenhawks might be reluctant to risk their lives by traveling to Ukraine and helping people resist the Russian invasion.

Interestingly, the New York Times reports that at least one Ukrainian understands fully the role that the Pentagon and NATO have played in designing and precipitating this crisis. A woman named Lyubov Vasilyevna, 75, stated, “It’s our scoundrels in Ukraine who listen to NATO and the Pentagon, which are pushing them into war.”

My hunch is that there are lots of other Ukrainians who understand this truth. My hunch also is that even though they would never say it publicly, as Lyubov Vasilyevna has, lots of American chicken hawks know this truth as well.

It is important that we keep in mind that none of this had to be. When the Soviet Union unilaterally dismantled itself and ended the Cold War, it was clear that Russia wanted nothing more than establishing peaceful and friendly relations with the West.

But the U.S. national-security establishment would have nothing to do with that plan. Rather than dismantling NATO, the Pentagon decided to keep that Cold War dinosaur in existence. Even worse, the Pentagon had NATO begin moving eastward toward Russia by absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact.

Anyone could see where this scheme was headed. Once NATO signaled that it intended to absorb Ukraine, Russia drew the line. It was not about to permit an aggressive regime like the U.S. government (e.g., the Pentagon’s brutal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) to establish military bases, offensive missiles, tanks, troops, and weaponry on Russia’s border, any more than the Pentagon would permit Russia (or China or North Korea) to do the same thing in Cuba.

And so now the Pentagon has succeeded in converting Russia into a new (and old) official enemy. With its evil machinations and scheming, it has also now cost the lives of countless Ukrainians.

No wonder not one single American chicken hawk is in Ukraine helping the Ukrainian people.

February 24, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »