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Slovakia faces energy crisis by next winter after Ukraine shut off Russian gas, president warns

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | January 10, 2025

Slovakia faces a looming energy crisis next winter unless an alternative method of gas importation is established, following the cessation of supplies through Ukraine, Slovak President Peter Pellegrini warned on Friday.

Speaking in the village of Nemecká, Pellegrini highlighted the gravity of the situation and called for urgent solutions to secure the nation’s energy stability.

While gas supplies for this winter are stable in terms of price and capacity, Pellegrini emphasized the underlying vulnerabilities. “We are currently consuming more gas than we are receiving, relying heavily on reservoirs filled to maximum capacity earlier this year,” he said. However, the president expressed concern that these reserves would not suffice for the next heating season if the supply deficit is not addressed.

The gas supply disruption stems from Ukraine’s decision on Jan. 1 to halt the transit of Russian gas to Slovakia. Kyiv justified the move as a measure to cut off revenue that could support Russia’s ongoing war effort, asserting that alternative suppliers had been made available and supplies to the European Union had been maintained. The move has enraged some member states heavily reliant on the gas route.

Pellegrini lamented the failure to reach a compromise with Ukraine, saying, “I regret that an agreement could not be found. Ukraine’s decision to shut off the gas has exposed Slovakia to a serious challenge in the coming months.”

The Slovak president revealed the challenges of importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from other countries, citing limited capacity at European terminals. “The import of LNG runs into significant bottlenecks in northern and southern Europe. These terminals cannot fully replace the current shortfall,” he noted, stressing the urgency of finding alternative sources to make up for the lost capacity.

Prime Minister Robert Fico, speaking after discussions with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen on Thursday, hinted at retaliatory measures should the situation persist. Fico suggested that Slovakia might cut off aid to Ukraine and use its veto in the European Council to block further EU support for Ukraine’s war effort.

“There is nothing — neither international law nor sanctions — that prevents the transit of gas through Ukraine,” Fico stated in Brussels. He also warned of the broader implications for the European Union, noting that rising energy prices could undermine the bloc’s competitiveness. “If the damage to the EU and Slovakia becomes permanent, we will take reciprocal measures,” he added.

January 10, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Slovakia threatens to block Ukraine aid over gas transit dispute – media

RT | January 10, 2025

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has warned that Bratislava may block the European Union’s financial and humanitarian aid to Kiev if the cessation of Russian gas transit through Ukraine is not resolved, Reuters has reported. Fico made the statement after talks with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen on Thursday.

Fico cited potential losses from the blocked transit as the reason for his threat.

“There is nothing – not international law or sanctions – that prevents the transit of gas through Ukraine,” Fico told reporters in Brussels, as quoted by Reuters.

Slovakia has seen the complete cessation of Russian gas flows via Ukraine, a route that previously provided Bratislava with significant transit fees and also provided the gas for its domestic consumption.

According to Fico, Slovakia stands to lose $515 million annually in transit fees and could face an additional $1 billion in increased gas prices due to the disruption.

“If this problem is not resolved, the government of the Slovak Republic will take strict reciprocal measures in the near future,” Fico said.

The prime minister outlined potential retaliatory measures, including exercising Slovakia’s veto power within the European Union on Ukraine-related issues.

He also threatened to suspend humanitarian aid to Ukraine, scaling back support for Ukrainian refugees in Slovakia, and halting emergency electricity supplies to the country.

Fico’s remarks follow recent discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, during which the Slovak leader secured assurances of direct gas supplies to Slovakia despite the transit halt.

A meeting initially scheduled between Slovak, Ukrainian, and European Commission officials to address the gas transit issue was canceled after Ukraine declined to participate. Slovakia and the European Commission have since agreed to form a working group to assess the crisis and explore potential EU interventions.

Ukraine has not yet publicly responded to Fico’s latest statements. When the Slovak PM first threatened to cut off electricity to Kiev last month, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said he didn’t think that Bratislava would go through with the threat.

Slovakia, which has a contract with Russia’s Gazprom, requires between 4 billion and 5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually to meet its energy needs. Prior to the transit halt, it had been receiving around 3 billion bcm from Russia through Ukraine. In response to the disruption, SPP, Slovakia’s state-owned gas company, is now sourcing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from international suppliers, including BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, Eni, and RWE.

January 10, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

NATO pledges $2 billion in military aid for Ukraine at Ramstein meeting

By Ahmed Adel | January 10, 2025

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in Germany that participants in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group had approved a plan for eight areas of military cooperation with Kiev until 2027. Austin’s announcement was followed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that he had secured an additional $2 billion in military assistance to help continue the futile war effort against Russia.

As Zelensky said after the meeting in Ramstein, home to a NATO Airpower headquarters, 34 countries had pledged support in different aspects to continue the 34-month-old war, including covered air defence, information technology, demining, naval forces, air forces and artillery.

“We had a very good meeting, a very good result. There was $2 billion in additional packages of support to Ukraine,” he said in a video posted on the Telegram account. “Earlier today, a meeting of the coalition leaders’ group was held with the participation of representatives of 15 countries. They approved a plan for ‘coalitions of opportunity’ until 2027. This way, partner countries can continue to provide assistance to Ukraine on the battlefield.”

As revealed in a joint statement released by the Pentagon ahead of the Ramstein meeting, the Western allies and Kiev intended to define how to meet Ukraine’s goals and military needs in the short and long term through contributions, procurement, investments, and efforts to expand defence capabilities.

In this regard, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated ahead of the session’s start that the Atlantic Alliance should do everything in its power to allow Ukraine to continue fighting.

“We need to do everything possible to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, in terms of training and equipment, to prevail in this fight,” Rutte stressed.

According to him, it is also important to demonstrate at the session the involvement of all NATO countries in providing support to Kiev.

“The global context is that we have to bring Ukraine in the best possible position. That one day, when talks would start, at the initiative of Ukraine, on how to resolve this conflict, that they are in the best possible position to do that. And then when these talks end, it will be looked at, in a sense, whether there’s a good deal or not […] The whole world is watching. So, we have to make sure that Ukraine is in the best possible position. And we should not forget that there is this geopolitical context at stake here,” said the NATO Secretary General.

For his part, Zelensky, during his address at the session, asked the allies for air defence systems and the deployment of a Western military contingent.

“Last year, France came up with the idea of ​​deploying a contingent of partners in Ukraine to bring peace closer […] That is why our goal is to find as many instruments as possible to force Russia to peace. I believe that such a deployment of partners’ contingents is one of the best instruments. Let’s be more practical in making this possible,” he said.

According to him, representatives of Great Britain have also spoken out in favour of deploying a foreign contingent in Ukraine. Zelensky did not mention any specific names or positions.

It is recalled that on February 26, 2024, after an international meeting on support for Ukraine held in Paris, Macron said he did not rule out the possibility of European troops being deployed in Ukraine. Then, three days later, during the grand opening of the Olympic Village, Macron emphasized that his position on the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine was balanced and well-thought-out. Nonetheless, nearly a year later, nothing has progressed from Macron’s suggestion, and it is unlikely that the British will act alone or convince partners to embark on such a reckless initiative.

Although Zelensky urged his Western allies to “not to drop the ball” and to continue providing long-term military support to his embattled country, he acknowledged that “a new chapter starts for Europe” once Donald Trump returns to the White House on January 20.

Zelensky securing only $2 billion in military aid once again demonstrates how Western support for Ukraine is waning, despite the rhetoric at the Ramstein meeting of supporting the country until victory over Russia is achieved.

Realistically, $2 billion will make absolutely no difference to Ukraine’s war effort, especially as Russia continues its slow but methodical advance across the front, with Ukrainian forces unable to mount any serious defence, making the whole meeting at Ramstein nothing more than performative that has achieved nothing substantial.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

January 10, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Scholz’s Cabinet Blocks $3 Billion Urgent Aid Package to Ukraine – Reports

Sputnik – 10.01.2025

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet is blocking the provision of additional military aid to Ukraine, a move backed by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the Spiegel newspaper reported.

Baerbock and Pistorius, of the Green Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), respectively, reportedly want to mobilize 3 billion euros ($3.09 billion) in emergency aid for Ukraine before parliamentary elections scheduled for February 23. Scholz’s office, however, is blocking the plan, the newspaper said.

It added that the foreign and defense ministries intend to ask the German parliament’s budget committee for additional funds because the planned budget does not include money for Kiev’s urgent needs and because of the uncertainty surrounding the incoming US administration’s Ukraine policy.

Scholz’s cabinet, in turn, explains its veto of the plan with the unwillingness to present the government that will be formed after the elections with an already decided fact, the newspaper said.

Another possible motive behind the Chancellor’s stance could be the fear of scaring the SDP voters with another expensive aid package.

In late December, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he had decided to dissolve the Bundestag and call early elections for February 23.

Scholz suggested Steinmeier dissolve parliament after a majority of lawmakers supported a no-confidence vote in his government on Dec. 16. Of the 717 lawmakers who took part in the vote, 394 voted against Scholz as chancellor, while 207 voted in favor and 116 abstained. A minimum of 367 votes in favor or against was required for a vote of confidence or withdrawal of confidence.

Russia has said that the West’s arms deliveries to Ukraine hinder the settlement of the conflict and directly involve NATO countries in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia.

January 10, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Lebanon parliament elects Aoun as president, ending two years of deadlock

Press TV – January 9, 2025

Lebanese lawmakers have elected army chief Joseph Aoun as Lebanon’s new president, putting an end to a two-year-long political deadlock in the crises-hit Arab country.

Legislators on Thursday chose Aoun after two rounds of voting in the 128-member parliament of the small Mediterranean country, which has been without a president since the end of the tenure of former president Michel Aoun, who is not associated with the newly-elected president, in October 2022.

Political neophyte Aoun, 60, is widely regarded as the favored candidate of the United States and Saudi Arabia, on whose financial support Lebanon relies as it works to recover from a 14-month bombardment by Israel mostly against the Arab country’s southern parts where the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement is based.

Hezbollah, which had exchanged daily fire with the occupying regime from October 2023 until a ceasefire in November, had previously supported Suleiman Frangieh, the leader of a small Christian party in northern Lebanon, as its preferred candidate.

However, Frangieh announced his withdrawal from the race on Wednesday and threw his support behind Aoun, seemingly paving the way for the army commander.

Aoun secured 99 out of 128 votes in Lebanon’s deeply divided parliament, with support from across the political spectrum, including Hezbollah legislators and their rivals. His election ended a prolonged leadership vacuum that had stalled key reforms and heightened fears of a broader collapse amid the nation’s multiple crises.

Following his election as president on Thursday, Aoun, who had served as the 14th Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces since 2017, formally stepped down from his military role. He entered parliament to take the oath of office dressed in civilian attire.

Aoun will need to oversee the implementation of the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon while also establishing a new government capable of addressing postwar reconstruction.

In November, the World Bank provided a preliminary assessment estimating the war’s physical damage and economic losses at $8.5 billion.

However, any rebuilding efforts will be hindered by Lebanon’s severe economic crisis, a five-year downturn that commenced with a liquidity crisis in Lebanese banks. Since then, the country’s GDP has contracted by over a third.

Before Thursday’s parliamentary sessions, 12 attempts to elect a president had failed over the past two years.

Since October 2022, the small Mediterranean country has been functioning without a formal government, which has worsened a financial crisis that prompted Lebanon to default on $30 billion in Eurobond debt some five years ago.

Lebanon’s divided sectarian power-sharing system is often susceptible to deadlock due to both political and procedural challenges. The country, which is currently struggling with its crises, has experienced multiple prolonged presidential vacancies, including the longest one, which lasted nearly two and a half years from May 2014 to October 2016, ending with the election of former President Aoun.

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

150 EU officials expected to monitor Elon Musk conversation with Alice Weidel, possible ban on the table

Remix News | January 9, 2025

The European Union’s outrage is only growing over a planned interview hosted by Elon Musk later today with Alternative for Germany (AfD) party co-chair Alice Weidel. Now, Politico is reporting that 150 EU officials are expected to attend the conversation between Musk and Weidel for the purpose of learning whether X is complying with EU rules. In addition, French politicians are already talking about an EU-wide ban.

The claim is that there are fears that Musk’s team will manipulate the algorithm to provide the interview more attention. However, Musk has over 200 million followers and nearly all of his posts receive millions and often tens of millions of views, which makes it certain that the interview, which has also been widely advertised, will receive significant attention.

Weidel has also taken to X about the surveillance of the upcoming interview.

“Big Brother is watching you: 150 EU officials are supposed to monitor my conversation with @elonmusk. An EU that uses its bureaucracy to exercise censorship on social media is instilling the spirit of unfreedom. The #dsa threatens democracy!” she wrote

The officials overseeing the interview are “given relatively extensive power,” according to Politico. They will be able to use, among other things, the Digital Services Act (DSA) to monitor how the algorithm works and how content is being displayed to users.

Politico writes that Musk allegedly pushed certain posts in the past, including one about the Super Bowl in the past. The alleged reason was that Musk was mad that one of President Biden’s posts were getting more attention.

The EU officials are working with experts from the European Center for Algorithmic Transparency” in Seville to determine if such an action will occur once again. However, they will not release this information immediately. Instead, it will like be added to a general procedure against X.

A wide range of EU leaders fear losing power due to shifting public sentiment, and Musk’s X represents their top threat. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, on Wednesday, called for a decisive stand against political influence. When asked whether a ban on X, in the same style as Brazil, was possible, he responded: “That is possible under our laws.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also claimed Musk was pushing “hate” and warned against the rise of fascism in Europe.

SPD General-Secretary Matthias Miersch said that Musk’s influence on Germany’s elections now “call into question the foundations of democracy.”

However, Musk is unlikely to manipulate the algorithm in favor of Weidel especially when enough people are already likely to watch the interview without any interference. Absent some overt manipulation, it is unclear what could possibly be illegal about such an interview. Musk is allowed to interview Weidel. That is his right and her right. The bigger problem would be if he censored anyone who criticized such an interview or manipulated the algorithm to suppress this criticism, which is undoubtedly what the old Twitter regime did before his purchase — all of which the EU actively supported

The head of Germany’s Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, appeared to take a more measured approach to the issue.

“Not everything that you get upset about is also illegal,” said Müller on Thursday morning on Deutschlandfunk. “In election campaigns, you also have to put up with things that you personally find inappropriate, indecent or unacceptable.” Freedom of expression always means “the freedom of those whose opinion you do not share.”

He said that the excitement over the Musk interview was “understandable” but it must first be observed whether any laws are actually broken during the process. He noted, however, that people could choose simply not to listen to the interview.

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Pro-Western Georgian ex-president appointed to US fellowship

RT | January 9, 2025

Former Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has become a fellow at the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, the US academic institution has said. Georgia’s parliament speaker has slammed the appointment, asserting she is going back to “the entity that employed her.”

Zourabichvili, who was born in France and maintained a pro-Western stance during her term, has been chosen for the 2025 Kissinger Fellowship, named after former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the McCain Institute announced in a statement on Monday.

Commenting on the offer earlier this week, the speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, drew parallels between Zourabichvili’s appointment and former President Mikhail Saakashvili’s past academic tenure abroad.

“Almost 12 years ago, a similar gesture was extended to … Saakashvili, at Tufts University,” he wrote on X on Tuesday. “Despite having pledged allegiance to Georgia alone, Saakashvili later became a Ukrainian citizen and Zourabishvili too, eventually, is likely to return to her native France.”

Papuashvili concluded that neither had truly served Georgia, returning instead “to the entity that employed them.”

In December, Georgian MPs elected as president former Manchester City football player Mikhail Kavelashvili from the People’s Party, which together with the Georgian Dream form the ruling coalition.

However, Zourabichvili refused to recognize Kavelashvili as her successor, claiming that the parliamentary election in October that brought a convincing victory for Georgian Dream had been rigged.

Despite failing to provide any proof of fraud, the pro-Western opposition protested for weeks after the vote, demanding a rerun of the election. They were fully backed by Zourabichvili, who herself appeared among the demonstrators. The 72-year-old also threatened to not leave the presidential palace in Tbilisi, but eventually departed in late December.

Georgia is a parliamentary republic in which the prime minister and government wield executive power, while the president’s position is ceremonial.

The McCain Institute said that during her presidency between 2018 and 2024 Zourabichvili “forcefully defended Georgia’s path to EU and NATO integration and supported democratic reform, famously vetoing the Georgian Dream government’s Kremlin-modeled ‘foreign agent law’ and standing against the party’s autocratic turn.”

In her new role, the former Georgian president “will use her vast diplomatic, leadership, and policymaking experience to push for new elections and a democratic path forward in her country,” it said.

In May, the parliament in Tbilisi overturned Zourabichvili’s veto and adopted legislation that required NGOs, media outlets and individuals that get more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents and disclose their donors.

The Georgian political opposition strongly criticized the bill, labeling it a “Russian law” and accusing the ruling party of basing it on legislation enacted in Russia in 2012. The ruling party, meanwhile, maintained that the law was inspired by the US Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, emphasizing that the Georgian version is actually far more lenient than its American counterpart.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said last month that the law had helped to avert a coup that had been planned in Georgia with the use of “foreign funding.”

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine offers to replace Hungary in EU

RT | January 9, 2025

Ukraine is ready to take Hungary’s place in the European Union, the Foreign Ministry in Kiev said on Wednesday. Budapest recently blasted Ukraine for blocking the transit of natural gas from Russia to the European Union.

Earlier this week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto accused Kiev of creating “artificially reduced supply,” emphasizing that its unilateral decision to stop the transit of Russian gas, coupled with EU sanctions, had sent prices soaring.

“If the Hungarian side prioritizes strengthening of Russia instead of the EU and the US, it should openly admit it,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Ukraine will be ready to fill any vacant seat in the EU and NATO, if Hungary decides to vacate it in favor of membership in the CIS or the CSTO.”

The CIS, short for the Commonwealth of Independent States, is a bloc uniting several post-Soviet countries. The CSTO, or Collective Security Treaty Organization, is a military alliance that currently includes Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Ukraine chose not to prolong a five-year transit contract with Russia’s Gazprom at the end of 2024, cutting off several EU member states from Russian gas supplies, including Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Italy, and Moldova. The halt immediately sent prices in the region soaring to more than €50 per megawatt hour, a level unseen since October 2023.

Hungary’s Szijjarto stated that the higher prices undermine the EU’s competitiveness and disproportionately burden citizens of the bloc. The minister further alleged that Ukraine had breached its EU Association Agreement by halting transit shipments.

Kiev’s decision has also been slammed by Slovakia, which relies on Russian pipelines for about 60% of its energy needs. Last week, Slovak Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok characterized the move as a “betrayal of trust” and a threat to energy stability in the region.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this month that the US was the only beneficiary of the situation, charging that Washington is the “main sponsor of the Ukrainian crisis.”

Moscow was willing to prolong the transit contract and maintain gas shipments through Ukrainian territory beyond 2024. President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev of “punishing” EU member states with its decision, predicting that it would result in higher energy prices. During his annual press conference on December 19, he said the halt would have minimal impact on Russia, however.

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Hungarian news portal calls Biden’s decision to sanction minister ‘a slap in the face’

Remix News | January 9, 2025

In the wake of the United States sanctioning Antal Rogán, the minister in charge of Prime Minister Orbán’s cabinet office, the Mandiner news portal assesses the case as highly unusual.

The official statement from the U.S. Treasury Department quotes Bradley T. Smith, the Treasury Department’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, as saying: “The United States will not hesitate to hold accountable individuals, like Rogan, who use the power of their office to illicitly enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of their country and their fellow citizens.”

The justification does not contain specific cases, but writes about general corruption, referring to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. This index was prepared by Transparency International (TI), which receives support from organizations affiliated with the United States Department of State and George Soros, among others.

The sanctions action taken by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was based on Presidential Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

The Magnitsky Act allows the United States to impose sanctions on individuals for either corruption or human rights abuses. As Human Rights First describes it, the U.S. Congress passed the original Magnitsky Act in 2012 in response to the death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax consultant who exposed a massive tax fraud scheme. The Magnitsky Act authorized the United States to impose sanctions on Russians involved in Magnitsky’s brutal detention and other human rights abuses against activists. Interestingly, the law does not define exactly what corruption means.

Between 2017 and 2023, the United States sanctioned 650 foreign individuals citing the law.

Even the soon-to-be-departing Pressman admitted that Antal Rogán’s sanctioning was unprecedented: “It is not common for the United States to designate a sitting minister.  Even less common to do so in an Allied country.”

How unprecedented the case is, is well illustrated by the company in which the Biden administration placed the Hungarian minister.

People are usually put on the sanctions list for very serious reasons. Former Afghan parliamentarian Ajmal Rahmani, for example, was sanctioned in 2023 for allegedly mismanaging U.S. government aid intended for the reconstruction of his war-torn country and then building an extensive business and real estate empire in Germany and Dubai.

Under the Trump administration, a European politician was sanctioned as well. In December 2019, the U.S. government sanctioned Latvian politician Aivars Lembergs for money laundering, embezzlement, bribery, and abuse of office. Four entities owned or controlled by Lembergs were also designated, including the Ventspils Freeport Authority, which operated a major international port.

In 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against three Bulgarian individuals: former parliamentarian Delyan Peevski, prominent businessman Vasil Bozhkov, and former national security official Ilko Zhelyazkov. In addition, 64 entities allegedly associated with them were also sanctioned, Radio Free Europe reported.

Each of the cases mentioned above clearly shows that usually when someone is put on a sanctions list for corruption, their accomplices are also sanctioned, as well as the companies involved.

The Biden administration has a history of using the Justice Department and Democratic prosecutors against its own political opponents, so it is not surprising that it is using sanctions against the Hungarian government. The timing of the sanctions is also telling, as Joe Biden’s government will leave in two weeks, so this decision can be interpreted as a diplomatic slap in the face.

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

UK special forces had ‘golden pass’ to get away with murder – officer

RT | January 8, 2025

British SAS operatives were given a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder” in Afghanistan, a former UK Special Forces officer has told a government inquest. Other witnesses described routine executions of unarmed civilians by British forces.

The officer’s statement was given behind closed doors to the UK’s Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan earlier this year, and included in a trove of documents published by the inquiry on Tuesday.

The former officer raised concerns about the killing of unarmed civilians in 2011, claiming that the SAS was covering these crimes up. The officer said that higher-ups within UK Special Forces – which comprises the Special Air Service (SAS), the Special Boat Service (SBS), and four other clandestine branches of the British military – had no interest in investigating the killings, and that SAS operatives had essentially been handed a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder.”

The Afghanistan Inquiry is probing night raids carried out by British special forces between 2010 and 2013, when the alleged killings took place.

A junior officer told the inquest that “all fighting age males” were killed in these raids, regardless of whether they were armed or not. SAS personnel sometimes carried weapons to drop beside dead bodies after the killings in order to make them appear as combatants.

Prisoners were sometimes executed after they had been restrained, the witness recounted. “In one case, it was mentioned a pillow was put over the head of an individual before being killed with a pistol,” the document noted.

The inquiry is investigating the killings of at least 80 prisoners.

”I suppose what shocked me most wasn’t the execution of potential members of the Taliban, which was of course wrong and illegal, but it was more the age and the methods and, you know, the details of things like pillows,” the officer said, noting that some of the victims were “100%” aged 16 or younger.

The officer said that he was afraid for his own safety after testifying.

”Basically, there appears to be a culture there of ‘shut up, don’t question’,” another officer told the inquiry.

Claims of war crimes committed by British special forces in Afghanistan have surfaced before, with BBC Panorama, the Sunday Times, and other outlets claiming that civilians were routinely killed on night raids. In one case, the American military reportedly had video footage of one massacre, but mysteriously lost the footage when pressed by a British court.

Late last year, the BBC reported that one of the UK’s most senior generals had withheld from the latest inquiry evidence of soldiers executing handcuffed detainees in Afghanistan.

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Jimmy Carter’s Hypocritical Olympic Boycott

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 8, 2025

According to an article in the Washington Post, Gene Mills, a U.S. citizen who was one of the top amateur wrestlers in the world, stated, “He stole my life. That was my life. He took it away from me.”

Mills was referring to President Jimmy Carter, who recently passed away at the age of 100. It was Carter who ordered U.S. athletes to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Russia. The reason? Carter used the boycott to protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

There were two at least two big problems with Carter’s order, however.

One problem is that in a genuinely free society, people have the right to travel wherever they want and interact with anyone they want. If people want to compete in sporting events in foreign lands or just be spectators, that’s part of living the life of a free person. It’s none of the government’s business.

That wasn’t Carter’s mindset. His order reflected the reality of the American condition in modern times. In the United States, citizens no longer have the God-given, natural right of freedom of travel or freedom to interact with people in foreign lands. American citizens are subject to the orders, dictates, and edicts of their political masters. Once the president issued his order prohibiting them from competing in the Olympics, American citizens were expected to obey. I’ve sometimes wondered what U.S. officials would have done to U.S. athletes who decided to disobey Carter’s edict. No doubt Carter and his federal henchmen would have figured out ways to smash them.

Thus, the irony was that in issuing his boycott order to protest Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan, Carter was demonstrating that the United States was now founded on at least one of the principles of the communist Soviet Union — that freedom of travel is not a fundamental, God-given right here in the United States any more than it is in communist, totalitarian nations.

Of course, things haven’t changed a bit. If American citizens travel to Cuba, for example, and spend money there without the official permission of their U.S. masters, they are immediately indicted upon their return to the U.S., prosecuted, convicted, fined, and sentenced to prison.

Another big problem is that it was Carter and his national-security establishment who intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately provoked the Soviets into invading Afghanistan in the first place. Yes, you read that right. While Carter pontificated about the evil Soviet empire’s invasion of Afghanistan — and used American athletes as pawns in his protest against the invasion — the fact is that Carter himself, as well as the U.S. national-security establishment, wanted the Soviets to invade Afghanistan and, in fact, provoked them into doing so.

This evil little scheme was later confirmed by Carter’s national-security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. The scheme called for supporting Afghanistan opponents of Russia in the hopes of provoking the Soviets into invading the country. The scheme worked brilliantly. And when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Carter, Brezinski, and other U.S, officials were as exultant as U.S. officials would be many years later when they succeeded in provoking Russia into invading Ukraine.

Why such exultation? As Brezinski put it, they had now given the Soviets their “own Vietnam.” In other words, Russia would now be bogged down in a war that would entail the killing of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, just like the 58,000 American soldiers that U.S. presidents, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA sacrificed in Vietnam for nothing. What a warped and perverted thing to be excited about.

Thus, here you had Carter protesting against the invasion of Afghanistan by those evil Russians when it was Carter himself who desired the invasion, provoked it, and was exultant about it when it happened. He then had the audacity to use innocent U.S. athletes, who had nothing to do with any of these machinations, as pawns to protest against the invasion that Carter wanted, provoked, and got. Is it really difficult to understand why so many people around the world, including here in the United States, hate the hypocrisy of the U.S. government so much?

January 9, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

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