Is a New Korean War in the Offing?
BY GREGORY ELICH | COUNTERPUNCH | FEBRUARY 5, 2024
In recent days, U.S. media have been proclaiming that North Korea plans to initiate military action against its neighbor to the south. An article by Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried S. Hecker, neither previously prone to making wild assertions, created quite a splash and set off a chain reaction of media fear-mongering. In Carlin’s and Hecker’s assessment, “[W]e believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.” They add that if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is convinced that engagement with the United States is not possible, then “his recent words and actions point toward the prospects of a military solution using [his nuclear] arsenal.” [1]
U.S. officials have stated that while they do not see “an imminent risk of a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula,” Kim Jong Un “could take some form of lethal military action against South Korea in the coming months after having shifted to a policy of open hostility.” [2] How do these sensationalist claims stack up against the evidence?
It is no secret that lately, the stance of the United States and South Korea has hardened against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the formal name for North Korea). Since the centerpiece for suggesting that war may be on the horizon is Kim’s speech at the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, its content is worth examining in some detail. [3] What strikes one when reading the text is that mainstream media have taken quotes out of context and ignored much of the content of Kim’s speech, creating an impression of unprovoked belligerence.
Also generally absent from media reporting is the speech’s relationship to the backdrop of events since the far-right Yoon Suk Yeol became president of South Korea in May 2022. Yoon came into office determined to smash every vestige of the improved inter-Korean environment established during his predecessor’s term. Instead, Yoon prioritized making South Korea a subordinate partner in the Biden administration’s hyper-militarized Indo-Pacific Strategy.
To fully understand Kim Jong Un’s speech, one must also consider the nature of the Biden administration’s rapid military escalation in the Asia-Pacific. The United States conducts a virtually nonstop series of military exercises at North Korea’s doorstep, practicing the bombing and invasion of that nation. One South Korean analyst has counted 42 joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises conducted in 2023 alone, along with ten more involving Japan. [4] Those totals do not include exercises that the U.S. and South Korea engaged in outside of Northeast Asia, such as Exercise Talisman Sabre in Australia and Exercise Cobra Gold in Thailand. Moreover, U.S. actions on the Korean Peninsula must also be situated within the broader geopolitical framework of its hostility towards China.
Last year, in an act of overt intimidation, the United States conducted seven exercises with nuclear-capable bombers over the Korean Peninsula. [5] Additional flights involved the B-1 bomber, which the U.S. Air Force says “can rapidly deliver massive quantities of precision and non-precision weapons.” [6] Through its actions, the United States sends far more provocative messages than anything that could be honestly construed in Kim’s speech. But then, we are led to see nothing amiss in such aggressive behavior from the United States. Nevertheless, the threat is real and unmistakable from the targeted nation’s perspective.
It also has not gone unnoticed in Pyongyang that U.S. and South Korean military forces regularly conduct training exercises to practice assassinating Kim Jong Un and other North Korean officials. [7] Just this month, U.S. Green Berets and soldiers from South Korea’s Special Warfare Command completed training focused on the targeted killing of North Korean individuals. [8] The Biden administration avers that it harbors no hostile intent toward the DPRK, but its actions say otherwise, loud and clear.
North Korea, with a GDP that the United Nations ranks just behind that of Congo and Laos, is considered such a danger that the U.S. must confront it with substantial military might. An inconvenient question that is never asked is why the DPRK is singled out for punishment and threats when the other nuclear non-members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty – each armed with ballistic missiles — are not. What distinguishes North Korea from India, Pakistan, and Israel? How is it that North Korea is regarded as a threat to peace but not Israel, notwithstanding mounting evidence to the contrary? The essential distinction is that North Korea is the only one of the four that is not a U.S. ally; moreover, one which the U.S. wishes to retain the ability to bomb, whether or not it ever exercises the option to do so.
It is a tribute to the persuasiveness of propaganda that the United States, with its record of multiple wars, bombings, and drone assassinations in recent decades, can convince so many that the DPRK, which has done none of these things during the same period, is a danger to international peace and stability. Yet, such towering hypocrisy goes largely unnoticed. It would appear that there is no principle involved in targeting only North Korea and not the other nuclear-armed non-members of the NPT — unless outrage over a small nation following an independent path being able to defend itself can be regarded as a principle.
Predictably, Washington think tank analysts and media commentators are throwing more heat than light on the subject of Kim’s pronouncements, and they are always ready with a cliché at hand. Some, like Bruce W. Bennett of RAND Corporation, let their imagination run wild, conjuring bizarre absurdities. Bennett suggests that armed with more nuclear weapons in the years ahead, North Korea “could threaten one or more U.S. cities with nuclear attack if the United States does not repeal its sanctions against North Korea.” Or perhaps, he suggests, the DPRK could threaten the U.S. with a limited nuclear attack “unless it abandons its alliance with [South Korea]” or “disengage from Ukraine.” As for South Korea, Bennett warns that Kim might insist that it “pay him $100 billion per year and permanently discontinue producing K-pop…” [9] This is what passes as expert analysis in Washington.
The military section of Kim’s speech was at root defensive, pointing out that North Korea’s “security environment has been steadily deteriorated” and that if it wants to take “the road of independent development,” it must be fully prepared to defend itself. Kim quotes specific threats made by U.S. and South Korean leaders to emphasize his awareness that his nation is in the crosshairs.
At one point in his speech, Kim suggested that the constitution could specify “the issue of completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming the ROK [Republic of Korea, the formal name for South Korea] and annex it…in case war breaks out…” He added, “There is no reason to opt for war, and therefore, there is no intention of unilaterally going to war, but once a war becomes a reality facing us, we will never try to avoid it.” Such a war, he warned, “will terribly destroy the entity called the Republic of Korea and put an end to its existence” and “inflict an unimaginably crushing calamity and defeat upon the U.S.” Kim continues, “If the enemies ignite a war, our Republic will resolutely punish the enemies by mobilizing all its military forces including nuclear weapons.” Harsh language, indeed, intended to remind the war hawks in Washington and Seoul not to imagine that their nations are invulnerable if they attack the DPRK. Note also the conditional phrasing, which tends to get downplayed in Western media.
Even less attention is paid to more direct clarifying language, such as Kim’s statement that the DPRK’s military is for “legitimate self-defense” and “not a means of preemptive attack for realizing unilateral reunification by force of arms.” And: “Explicitly speaking, we will never unilaterally unleash a war if the enemies do not provoke us.”
It was entirely predictable that Western media would put the worst spin on Kim’s blunt language that mirrored earlier South Korean pronouncements. The month before Kim’s speech, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik warned, “North Korea has only two choices – peace or destruction. If North Korea makes reckless actions that harm peace, only a hell of destruction awaits them.” [10] A few days later, Yoon ordered his military to launch an “immediate and overwhelming response” to any provocation by the DPRK. [11] Yoon and South Korean military officials use the term ‘provocation’ so loosely as to encompass almost any action the DPRK takes that they do not like, including what is normal behavior for other nations – or for South Korea itself, for that matter. South Korean and North Korean rhetoric identifying each other as enemies and destruction in the event of war differ in that the former preceded the latter. By ignoring the fact that North Korea is reacting to prior South Korean statements, mainstream media can portray Kim’s language as unprovoked.
Last December, Yoon heightened the risk of conflict when he visited an infantry division near the border and gave them an order: “In case of provocations, I ask you to immediately retaliate in response and report it later.” [12] Vague in defining neither “provocation” nor the appropriate response level and delegating to lower-level commanders to decide those questions, this formula potentially can transform a minor clash of arms into a conflict of wider impact.
Kim’s statements are presented in Western media as tantamount to a plan to start a war. Earlier statements of a similar nature by the Yoon administration that created an acrimonious atmosphere are rendered invisible or uncontroversial. It is fair to say that given North Korea’s longstanding practice of responding in kind, Kim may have adopted more restrained phrasing without South Korean officials setting the tone.
Western media have raised concerns over Kim’s labeling of South Korea as a “principal enemy.” We are not reminded that nearly one year before, South Korea had re-designated the DPRK as “our enemy” in its Defense White Paper. [13] Under Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, the defense paper dropped the reference to North Korea as an enemy. [14] The general pattern has been for liberal presidents to shun that tag in the interests of inter-Korean relations and for conservative presidents to embrace it as one element in their project to undo progress. Yoon himself frequently refers to North Korea as the enemy, and his administration’s National Security Strategy document describes the Kill Chain system, which is designed to launch preemptive strikes on North Korea. [15] In omitting such details, cause and effect are inverted, reinforcing the media-constructed Orientalist image of an irrational leader at the helm of the DPRK, prone to unpredictable statements and rash acts.
Patience has run thin in Pyongyang, as Biden’s trilateral alliance with South Korea and Japan, “buoyed with war fever,” as Kim put it, sharply escalates military tensions in the region. In a sharp reversal, North Korea has abandoned its longstanding policy of seeking improved inter-Korean relations and working toward peaceful reunification. Any headway achieved in the past has quickly been undone in South Korea whenever the conservative party came to power. Still, Yoon has taken matters further than the norm, not only willfully dynamiting inter-Korean relations but also deliberately raising the risk of military conflict. Inter-Korean relations have reached such a nadir under Yoon that the DPRK sees no hope of progress in the current circumstances. The North Koreans are not wrong in that perception.
Sadly, in a clear signal of its exasperation with Yoon, North Korea demolished the Arch of Reunification in Pyongyang, and all governmental bodies responsible for reunification planning and projects were shut down. The latter steps are not inherently irreversible, however. But as long as Yoon remains in power, there is no conceivable possibility of progress on reunification. Yoon has slammed the door shut on inter-Korean relations.
One would never know it from Western reports, but more than two-thirds of Kim’s speech focused on economic development. “The supreme task,” Kim announced, “is to stabilize and improve the people’s living as early as possible.” Peace is an essential prerequisite for the realization of that goal. North Koreans are well aware of American and South Korean military capabilities, and a war would not only wipe out new economic projects but most of the existing infrastructure as well.
Immense damage has been done to the DPRK’s economy by sanctions designed to target the entire population and inflict as much suffering as possible. [16] The period when North Korea closed its border with China in response to the COVID-19 pandemic added to economic challenges. Reversing direction is imperative. In his speech, Kim called for “a radical turn in the economic construction and improvement of the people’s living standard” and said that progress is being made “despite unprecedented trials.” Kim enumerated industrial, power, housing, and other ongoing projects.
Kim admitted there have been internal challenges in economic development. “It is a reality that the Party and the government yet fail to meet even the simple demand of the people in life…” In particular, regional and urban-rural economic imbalances have plagued the North Korean economy for decades. “At present,” Kim continued, “there is a great disparity of living standards between the capital city and provinces and between towns and the countryside.” Kim acknowledged that these issues have not been adequately addressed in the past, but it “is an immediate task” to do so now.
Kim took the occasion to officially unveil the launch of the Regional Development 20×10 Policy. This ambitious plan calls for substantially raising material and cultural standards in twenty counties over the next ten years, including constructing regional industrial factories and establishing advanced educational institutions. In particular, emphasis is to be given to scientific and technological development. The aim is to even out regional imbalances and to accelerate overall development.
None of this can be achieved if the U.S. and South Korea are showering the DPRK with high explosives, and the Regional 20×10 Policy makes nonsense of Western scaremongering that Kim has decided to go to war. As usual, though, when it comes to reporting on North Korea, assertion substitutes for evidence, and we can expect Washington think tanks, U.S. media, military contractors, and the Biden administration to capitalize on the manufactured image of a war-mad Kim Jong Un to accelerate the military buildup in the Asia-Pacific, aimed against the DPRK and the People’s Republic of China. For his part, Yoon can be expected to amplify military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and sharpen his war on South Korean progressives. What is not in the cards is militarism abating in the foreseeable future.
Notes.
[1] Robert L. Carlin and Siegfried S. Hecker, “Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War,” 38 North, January 11, 2024.
[2] Edward Wong and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. is Watching North Korea for Signs of Lethal Military Action,” New York Times, January 25, 2024.
[3] “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Policy Speech at 10th Session of the 14th SPA,” KCNA, January 16, 2024.
[4] http://www.minplusnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=14494
[5] Chae Yun-hwan, “S. Korea, U.S. Stage Joint Air Drills with B-52H Bombers Over the Yellow Sea,” Yonhap, November 15, 2023.
[6] https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104500/b-1b-lancer/
[7] Jeongmin Kim, “Drills on Assassinating Kim Jong Un Remain an ‘Option,’ ROK Defense Chief Says,” NK News, December 19, 2023.
[8] Lee Yu-jung and Esther Chung, “Kim Jong-un Instructs North Korea’s Navy to Prepare for War,” JoongAng Ilbo, February 2, 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQJF7tbzwfY
Donald Kirk, “U.S. to Enrage Kim Jong Un with Assassination Dry Run,” Daily Beast, August 19, 2022.
[9] Bruce W. Bennett, “Is North Korea Really Getting Ready for a War Against America?” The National Interest, January 17, 2024.
[10] Chae Yun-hwan, “Defense Chief Warns N. Korea of ‘Hell of Destruction’ in Event of Reckless Acts,” Yonhap, December 13, 2023.
[11] “Yoon Orders Swift, Overwhelming Response to N. Korean Provocation,” KBS World, December 18, 2023.
[12] Kim Han-joo, “Yoon Orders Military to Retaliate First, Report Later in Case of Enemy Attacks,” Yonhap, December 28, 2023.
[13] Kwon Hyuk-chul, “S. Korea’s First Defense White Paper Under Yoon Defines N. Korea as ‘Enemy’”, Hankyoreh, February 17, 2023.
[14] Yosuke Onchi, “South Korea No Longer Calls Pyongyang ‘Enemy’ in Defense Paper,” Nikkei Asia, January 16, 2019.
Josh Smith, “South Korea Doubles Down on Risky ‘Kill Chain’ Plans to Counter North Korea Nuclear Threat,” Reuters, July 25, 2022.
[16] https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/19/trumps-war-on-the-north-korean-people/
FOR WESTERN MEDIA, ISRAEL’S BOMBING OF GAZA IS NOT ‘DEADLY’
Right across the Anglo-American mainstream media, the killing of Palestinians is seen as normal. It’s only Israeli lives that matter.
BY DES FREEDMAN | DECLASSIFIED UK | JANUARY 30, 2024
Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in Gaza on 22 January. Mainstream media outlets around the world reacted in unison: that this was the “deadliest day” for Israel since 7 October.
This exact phrase was used in headlines on 23 January carried by news agencies such as Reuters and AFP, and major broadcasters including the BBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC and ITV News.
The exact same phrase was also used by leading news titles including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, Daily Telegraph, the Sun, Jerusalem Post, Guardian, London’s Evening Standard, Financial Times, Independent and Yahoo News.
On the same day, Israeli forces killed almost 200 Palestinians in Gaza including at least 65 people in Khan Younis alone.
These deaths received no headlines in the above outlets. Where they were reported, they were listed as part of the regular daily round-up of events in an unfolding genocide that has now seen more than 26,000 people killed in Gaza.
How is it possible that the world’s media could embrace exactly the same phrase in relation to Israeli victims but largely ignore the identities of the much higher number of Palestinians killed?
Why would 22 January be described as “deadly” for one group of people but not for another?
Unequal value
You might expect that editors took the “deadliest day” phrase from press statements from the Israeli government or military.
Yet Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari did not use this phrase in his statement and neither did the IDF Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi, who instead simply called it a “difficult day”.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanhayu also described it as “one of the most difficult days” while Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, spoke of “an unbearably difficult morning”.
He used the same language as both Knesset speaker Amir Ohana and minister Benny Gantz, both of whom referred to a “painful morning”.
Of course, it is possible the phrase was used in private and informal briefings to the press on the morning of 23 January. It is, however, equally conceivable that this was a trope that came “naturally” from a deep-rooted idea in the western media that the lives of Israelis and Palestinians are not of equal value.
And, therefore, that measuring the “deadliness” of a particular day should only be done for Israelis (where every life matters) and not for Palestinians (whose individual lives clearly appear to count for less).
‘Deadliest day’
Indeed, a search of the Nexis database of UK national and local news (including BBC broadcast bulletins) reveals that there were 856 uses of the phrase “deadliest day” from 7 October 2023 until 25 January 2024, none of which directly referred to evidence of Palestinian deaths in Gaza.
The only exception to this were some BBC bulletins on 25 October which mentioned “Palestinians reporting the deadliest day in Gaza” (emphasis added).
Otherwise, there was not a single reference during this period across the British media to “the deadliest day for Palestinians” or “for the people of Gaza”.
The other approximately 850 references directly related only to Israeli casualties. Some 28 per cent of them focused on the killing of IDF soldiers on 22 January.
The vast majority referred to the events of 7 October, described either as “the deadliest day for Jews” or “the deadliest day for the Jewish people” which accounted for some 25% of all references.
Many of these stories were focused on the words of US president Joe Biden who, in a much publicised speech to Jewish leaders at the White House, described the Hamas attack on 7 October as the “deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust”.
Biden’s words alone make up 20% of all references to the “deadliest day” trope.
Perhaps Biden’s words were on the minds of editors across the world as they listened to Israeli spokespeople on the morning of 23 January and that the deaths of 24 IDF soldiers merited such a phrase when talking about Israeli lives.
Framing the war
But why has the phrase not been used in relation to Palestinians and, indeed, why is there so little preoccupation with days when particularly large number of Gazans are killed?
Precisely because the war is not framed in a way which recognises the equal worth of all those affected – in other words, a situation where every instance of significant Palestinian casualties would deserve a headline – it’s hard to be certain of which have been the very deadliest days for the residents of Gaza.
However, it’s clear that the period immediately after the temporary ceasefire in the last week of November saw particularly intense airstrikes and there were, according to Al Jazeera, at least 700 Palestinians killed on 2 December alone.
Yet there was no mention in the UK media about this being the “deadliest day” for Palestinians. Instead, the Guardian simply ran with a headline of “‘Israel says its ground forces are operating across ‘all of Gaza’” while the Sunday Times wrote that “Fears for hostages as Gazans say bombardment is worse than ever”.
According to the Mail Online, “Israel says it is expanding its ground operations against Hamas’ strongholds across the whole of the Gaza Strip as IDF continues to bomb territory after terrorists broke fragile truce”.
The BBC’s TV news bulletins on 3 December carried distressing footage of casualties but also featured a quote from an adviser to Netanyahu saying that “Israel was making the ‘maximum effort’ to avoid killing civilians” without carrying an immediate rebuttal of this outrageous claim.
In other words, despite the fact that 30 times more Palestinians were killed on 2 December than when the 24 IDF soldiers were killed, there was no recognition of the “deadliness” of that day.
Instead, the framing was all about the strategic plans of the Israeli military rather than the mass slaughter of Palestinians.
‘Intensive strike’
On 26 December, a further 241 people were killed by Israeli bombs. Britain’s “newspaper of record”, The Times, responded with the headline: “Israel-Gaza war: Palestinians hit by ‘most savage bombing’” with a sub heading that “Israel launches most intensive strike since Hamas attack on October 7”.
You could be forgiven for thinking that there was nothing deadly about this episode because, after all, Palestinians were only being “struck” as opposed to brutally killed.
But this was hardly an exceptional day given that Oxfam reported earlier this year that Israel’s military was killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, a figure it said exceeded the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years.
There is clearly a brutal politics to counting the dead. The New York Times ran an article on 22 January headlined “The Decline of Deaths in Gaza” arguing that average daily deaths across a 30-day period have now fallen below 150.
For the NYT, it is “plausible that a lower percentage of deaths are among civilians now that Israel’s attacks have become more targeted and the [average] daily toll has declined”.
Not only, however, is there little evidence that the IDF is in any way opposed to killing civilians but the idea that casualties are declining at a time when we are soon likely to see a total of 30,000 Palestinian deaths is profoundly shocking.
Any slowdown in the rate of killing is hardly a consolation to the millions who still live in fear of IDF raids and rockets.
Media consensus
The media consensus that only Israelis are the victims of the “deadliest days” in the region and not Palestinians, despite the latter accounting for 95% of deaths since 7 October, is one of the many illustrations of the unequal and profoundly distorted coverage of this war.
Until the South African government submitted its partially successful claim to the International Court of Justice, news organisations were unwilling even to investigate the genocidal language of Israeli political and military leaders.
The media also routinely uses dehumanising and differential language where Israelis are “massacred” while Palestinians simply “die”. This illustrates the awful role of the mainstream media in paving the way for the ethnic cleansing we are currently seeing.
The real reason you don’t see or hear the media talk about a “deadly day” for Palestinians is that every day is deadly when you live in Gaza.
Western Media’s Blackout of Israeli’s “Hannibal Directive”
By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | January 30, 2024
In the time since the October 7 invasion of Israel there have been suggestions both from within Israel and from alternative media elsewhere that Israel used a version of a military protocol known as “The Hannibal Directive” that day, and perhaps has continued to operate upon that protocol since.
The “Hannibal Directive” is a military order which was created in 1986 in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli Defense Forces soldier in Lebanon. The premise of the original order is that in this circumstance, the IDF can prioritize stopping the kidnappers even if it endangers the hostage. The example that those within the Israeli government like to give is sniping the tires of the escape car knowing it may cause an accident which endangers the hostage, while ruling out an airstrike on the car. This highly controversial protocol was repealed in 2016 and replaced with an order whose text has remained secret. However, there is a growing body of evidence that on October 7 Israel issued a sort of “mass Hannibal Directive on steroids,” where an unknown number of Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF to prevent their becoming hostages. While there has been much discussion of this topic within Israel media, there is a near-total blackout on the topic in corporate media in the United States and United Kingdom.
Many who were already aware of the Hannibal Directive became suspicious of Israel’s actions quickly, most of all because of one particularly egregious instance which brought friendly fire casualties to light. At the Kibbutz Be’eri in what is known as “Pesi’s House,” after the owner, Hamas had taken fifteen Israelis hostage. One Hamas member ran out of the house releasing a hostage, who informed them that there were fourteen Israelis remaining in the house. A commander made the decision to fire two “light” tank shells at the house regardless, killing all but one of the hostages. The released hostage and the survivor both confirmed the same story, so it came out rapidly that Israel had knowingly shelled the house. This got a lot of press within Israel because it is such a horrible story, and people immediately referenced the Hannibal Directive. More recently, Israel’s leading news website Ynet released a large investigation which alleges that an IDF-wide Hannibal Directive-like order went out, and that Israel destroyed seventy cars returning to Gaza without regard to whether there may be hostages inside.
Some of Israel’s most prominent voices want to know if Benjamin Netanyahu’s government implemented a Hannibal Directive on October 7. The lead author of the IDF’s Code of Ethics, Asa Kasher, explained in Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record, that the incident at Kibbutz Be’eri needs to be investigated immediately. The Haaretz editorial board demanded an immediate investigation in an editorial published on January 8. These are among many other references to the issue within Israeli media. The Ynet investigation is extremely thorough and damning. The Hannibal Directive has also been mentioned by media sources throughout the Muslim world. However, despite the importance of this issue, and that discussion of the topic is readily available in Haaretz, there has not been any mention in any context in several major U.S. news sources since this new round of conflict began.
We are all used to the media lying and shaping narratives, but this is the most thorough campaign of ignoring news I have seen since the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by the New York Post, so at least one “mainstream” source in American media was trying to talk about it. I checked several major, diverse news sources for mentions of the Hannibal Directive and did not find any which presented the question of if Israel had used this protocol. The New York Times last mentioned it in 2016 when the original order was repealed. There has been no discussion of it in The Washington Post, USA Today, or the magazine Foreign Policy. The Guardian has a single reference from October 11, where a woman says the hostility of politicians to recovering the hostages reminds her of the Hannibal Directive, but it is a random opinion, not a suggestion they used it on October 7. Tablet Magazine, a prominent American Jewish periodical, shows no search results on its website, though by using Google’s advanced search functions one can find a single mention since October 7. A Google News search finds many foreign sources, but the only American reference is from Briahna Joy Gray at The Hill, a far-left host who has been constantly attacked as an anti-Semite and is far out of the mainstream, though she happens to work for a mainstream publication. I wrote a Twitter thread documenting my attempt to find references to the Hannibal Directive in American and British media.
Those who happen to have learned about the Hannibal Directive, either from reading Israeli media or from alternative media or social media in the West, can and will draw many conclusions about what happened on October 7. But the suppression of this topic is a story in and of itself. I doubt it is any sort of explicit conspiracy. Instead, people who come to be in prominent positions in corporate media get to where they are because they know which way the wind blows and have a good instinct for what they should or shouldn’t print. The culture within American media is one where no one wants to cover this story, and if asked they would probably tell you they fear it will “empower extremists” or “promote conspiracy theories.” Most Haaretz articles which mention it seem to spend as long hemming and hawing about that concern as they do discussing the issue, but they still cover the story (even if carefully framed). These revelations greatly change how a person understand the events of October 7, and since the American government continues to support Israel, Americans deserve to know—but they certainly won’t learn about it from the corporate media.
The Libertarian Institute’s Executive Director Scott Horton recently spoke with Brad Pearce about the subject of this article and Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Their interview can be found here.
Germans expected to make their own bomb shelters – Bild
RT | January 28, 2024
Germans will be expected to turn their homes into bomb shelters in case a major war breaks out in Europe, newspaper Bild reported on Saturday, citing a draft document from the country’s Defense Ministry.
According to the report, the ministry is set to complete the work on the classified ‘Operational Plan’ (OPLAN) by April. The draft envisions Germany as a “transit country” crucial for the delivery of weapons and equipment rather than a state with an active frontline. For that reason soldiers would be tasked with securing key highways, railway stations and ports, Bild said.
At the same time, the state would have to rely on civilians to step in and cover some duties typically assigned to the military and police, including the protection of power plants.
There are only 579 functional bomb shelters in Germany, so the plan reportedly sees citizens setting up their own shelters in places such as basements and garages. Bild quoted the head of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance, Ralph Tiesler, as saying that building new shelters is “no longer feasible” due to time constraints.
Germany has been looking for ways to boost its army, citing the threats stemming from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The government set the goal of increasing the size of the Bundeswehr from 183,000 soldiers to 203,000 by 2031.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius stated this month that Russia could attack a NATO country “within five to eight years.” He later somewhat adjusted his assessment, telling Bild on Friday, “At the moment, I don’t see any danger of a Russian attack on NATO territory or on any NATO partner-country.”
Russia has repeatedly accused NATO of fearmongering and stoking tensions in Europe. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, recently dismissed the claims that Moscow is planning an attack on NATO as “informational warfare.”
Top Democrat-linked PR firm tapped by pro-Israel groups to control Gaza war narrative
By Kit Klarenberg | MintPress News | December 29, 2023
On December 6, it was announced with much fanfare that the 10/7 Project, a new “centralized communications operation to promote continued US bipartisan support for Israel; push for accurate, complete coverage of the Israel-Hamas war,” and achieve a “stronger” media “focus” on the victims of October 7’s Al-Aqsa Flood would be launched, by a quintet of the largest Israeli lobby groups on U.S. soil.
Who and what is funding the 10/7 Project isn’t at all clear. Publicity material spoke vaguely of an unnamed “coterie of philanthropists” and the organization’s interest in sourcing “more philanthropic support” moving forward. Future formal financial disclosures may make for fascinating reading, but its founders offer some clues.
The five comprise the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. This is quite the rogue’s gallery of Zionist entities, several of which have deplorable track records of actively whitewashing, if not outright facilitating, Israeli apartheid propaganda activities that have become turbocharged since October 7.
As such, the 10/7 Project’s professed mission of countering “disinformation” about October 7 and “Israel’s response” to the events can only be considered highly disquieting, especially given its target audience is “key media and government influencers.” In reality, of course, the organization is just the latest salvo in the Zionist state’s long-running information war against Palestinians and the Western world. This pitched battle has recently become ever more treacherous, specifically due to Tel Aviv’s genocidal “response” to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
One could be forgiven for thinking the 10/7 Project had already floundered in its objectives. After an initial ripple of mainstream interest, primarily from Israeli outlets and Zionist news platforms, the organization has seemingly vanished without a trace from the media landscape – or at least, its name has. As we shall see, though, it’s evident that in the manner of an iceberg, the 10/7 Project’s public footprint represents but the visible tip of something far larger and considerably more destructive.
‘STRANGLEHOLD ON CONGRESS’
While the 10/7 Project may not be directly making headlines daily, its parent organizations certainly are. The ADL has since October 7 published a steady stream of reports, lapped up by the media largely without question, testifying to an explosion of “anti-Semitic incidents” across the Western world in the wake of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Shocking stuff, one might think. Yet, as an investigation by MintPress News Senior Staff Writer Alan MacLeod revealed, the ADL is producing such staggering figures by categorizing anti-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies and corresponding chants at both as individual “anti-Semitic incidents.” Despite the exposure of its embarrassing, Enron-style accounting, the League continues to pump out the same bogus “research” at regular intervals. On December 12, it claimed “anti-Semitism” in the US was now up 337% in the wake of October 7, “an all-time record.”
It is far from the first time ADL definitions of anti-Semitism have failed to pass muster. For example, in December 2022, The Grayzone’s Alex Rubinstein revealed that the League did not categorize Ukraine’s openly Neo-Nazi paramilitary Azov Battalion to be the “far right group it once was.” This, despite the fact that Azov’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen,” as articulated by founder Andriy Biletsky, remains unchanged.
Meanwhile, the infamous AIPAC – accurately described by U.S. political scientist John Mearsheimer as “a de facto agent for a foreign government, [with] a stranglehold on Congress” – has made clear its significantly intensified mission to rid Washington DC of any elected official possessed of even vaguely anti-war, pro-Palestinian views, by declaring war on lawmakers such as Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
When AIPAC moves against, or in favor, of particular politicians, they mean business – and depressingly, the organization usually wins. Annually, the organization publishes a report on its “policy and political achievements” that year. Its 2022 installment boasts, among other things, of bagging $3.3 billion “for security assistance to Israel, with no added conditions” and having gifted $17.5 million – the most of any U.S. PAC – to “pro-Israel candidates,” 98% of whom won their elections, in the process defeating 13 anti-Israel challengers.
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
The official website of the 10/7 Project is spartan in the extreme. Visitors are offered a “contact us” form, a link to subscribe to its regular newsletter, and a “what we do” section listing purported activities. This includes informing the public “with credible, real-time information about events in Israel and Gaza,” highlighting “excellent reporting,” calling out “biased coverage,” holding “biased media accountable,” and offering “expert spokespeople for press and broadcast outlets.”
Unmentioned anywhere is that the 10/7 Project is represented by a trio of notorious PR and political consultancies – CKR Solutions, OnMessage Public Strategies, and SKDK. Together, they move in the shadows to advance the organization’s interests and messaging publicly and on Capitol Hill. SKDK’s contribution will inevitably be the most insidious and impactful.
Since its founding in 2004, the company has careened from damaging scandal to damaging scandal yet consistently secures major, big-ticket clients. The reason for this is clear. SKDK was founded by and employs a retinue of high-ranking, well-connected Democratic operatives. Among them is Anita Dunn, Barack Obama’s White House Communications Director, credited as the “mastermind” of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win and widely regarded as a key member of the President’s “inner circle.”
Joe Biden speaks with SKDK’s Anita Dunn ahead of his State of the Union address in February 2023. Adam Schultz | White House
Ever since Obama’s 2008 election win, SKDK has been plausibly accused of selling privileged access to the White House to clients despite failing to register as a lobbying firm. This means major corporations have a direct means of encouraging – and bribing – the Oval Office to offer tax breaks, shred regulations, dump legislation, smash unions, and generally harm the U.S. public interest with total impunity and in absolute secrecy.
SKDK’s expansive Rolodex also helps politicians get out of serious trouble. In 2018-2019, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan paid the company $200,000 for “crisis communications” assistance after one of his campaign workers sued him for harming her professionally when she complained of sexual harassment by one of his top aides. Meanwhile, in August 2021, it was revealed a senior SKDK staffer personally intervened to suppress negative media coverage of sexual harassment allegations against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Even more perversely, it’s since been revealed that at the same time, SKDK was advising Madigan on how to navigate his public controversy, the company was also helping his former campaign worker bring a lawsuit against the aide who’d sexually harassed her. A more perfect demonstration of the DC blob’s incestuous nature and SKDK’s total lack of ethical and professional scruples one would be hard-pressed to find. And both are highly competitive categories.
SKDK played a pivotal role in Biden’s 2020 presidential bid, decisively reversing his fortunes after abysmal performances in various caucuses. While the mainstream media primarily praised the miraculous work of the company and Dunn – his de facto campaign director – there has also been fierce controversy surrounding its electioneering activities. For example, SKDK fired off daily “Misinformation Briefings” to major tech and social media firms, including Google, Meta and Twitter, requesting that specific content be suppressed or removed.
In most cases, the recipients complied, meaning SKDK exerted extraordinary influence over what voters did and did not know and could and could not see during the controversial 2020 Presidential election. Which surely at least partially accounts for Biden’s victory. To make matters even worse, the company was simultaneously. reaping a $35 million windfall from the government of California by running the state’s supposedly bipartisan “get-out-the-vote” campaign. The contract, originally to be financed by local taxpayers, was mysteriously awarded to SKDK on a “no-bid” basis.
‘DICTATE TERMS’
Clearly, the 10/7 Project was intended to be a very public affair. In an early promotional interview, executive director Josh Isay – perhaps unsurprisingly, until August 2022 SKDK’s longtime CEO – boasted about the “widespread enthusiasm” with which the organization’s “efforts to set the record straight and combat misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies” had so far been received:
We look forward to continuing to do the critically important work of providing policymakers and the American public with reliable information about Israel and Hamas, and uplifting the stories of the innocent victims of the October 7th massacre.”
Yet, there is no obvious sign of those ambitions bearing fruit to date. A partial explanation for this failure may lie in the 10/7 Project’s wish to transform the “innocent victims” of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood into human interest stories and atrocity propaganda while elevating the organization’s eponymous date to the position of 9/11 in the American public’s mind.
In the weeks since the 10/7 Project’s inception, it has become ever-increasingly clear the Zionist narrative of what unfolded when Hamas breached Gaza’s armored concentration camp walls – unquestioningly regurgitated over and again for weeks after that by the Western media – is completely and grotesquely fraudulent.
For example, on December 15, it was reported based on social security data that Tel Aviv’s claim that 1,200 civilians died in the initial assault was greatly exaggerated. In reality, just 695 lost their lives. The previous figure was itself a revision from an initial civilian casualty “estimate” of 1,400.
Every civilian death in a warzone is an extremely grave crime. It is surely for this reason that Tel Aviv on December 12 desperately argued “it would not be morally sound” to investigate “friendly fire” incidents in “kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities” during Operation Al Aqsa Flood – civilians killed by Israeli Occupation Forces. Nonetheless, the numbers involved are avowedly “immense.”
Among the “stories of the innocent victims of the October 7th massacre” selected by the 10/7 Project for public “uplifting” in service of whitewashing and justifying the Gaza genocide will have been a great many individuals slaughtered in cold blood by indiscriminate, excessively violent IDF actions. This is all but inevitable. Urgently casting those victims into obscurity while ensuring the entire issue of Zionist “friendly fire” is not examined is now of paramount importance.
More significantly, though, the exposure – and occasional admission – of Tel Aviv’s brazen lies has fundamentally shifted mainstream narratives and sympathies away from Israel and towards the Palestinians. Audiences of every extraction globally can witness the monstrous reality of the genocide in Gaza and learn of Zionist abuse of the Palestinians even before the colonial entity’s founding in 1948 with their own eyes and ears.
Israeli deceit has been so relentless and so readily exposed that even typically subservient Western news networks and their featured pundits are treating official claims with enormous skepticism. Similarly, Zionist violence is so constantly unremitting and wantonly sadistic that graphic reports of carpet bombs maiming and slaughtering every generation of Palestinians are now commonplace.
Meanwhile, developments such as the revelation that IDF soldiers killed three shirtless Israelis waving a white flag, speaking Hebrew and seeking their assistance have traveled widely, in turn highlighting prior examples of identical “peacetime” atrocities inflicted upon Palestinians. By contrast, there has to date been no “misinformation spouted by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel allies” to combat at all.
A LOSING BATTLE
As a result, the 10/7 Project and its founders are placed in the invidious position of having to publicly defend the indefensible – namely, a modern-day genocide unfolding on television screens and front page headlines the world over. In such circumstances, overt and unashamed advocacy work is best conducted behind the scenes. Yet, it is precisely in this context that the 10/7 Project may be most dangerous and potent due to its open-door Oval Office access.
Tireless solidarity efforts by European activists, protesters, citizen journalists, and civil society organizations have produced significant results. Paris went from mulling legislation criminalizing anti-Zionism in November to now leading global pressure for a ceasefire. Multiple governments and opposition leaders are likewise changing their tune. Senior British officials openly warn Netanyahu to drastically rein in his unquenchable bloodlust if he wishes to retain any international support.
Stateside, however, while the crusading work of grassroots pro-Palestine voices and groups has been redoubtable, the Biden administration’s commitment to facilitating, encouraging, and exacerbating the Gaza genocide, however it can, remains undimmed. While the President has demanded Netanyahu’s slaughter be wrapped up by the new year, there is no indication material, financial, and diplomatic support upon which the new Nakba depends is being curtailed. On December 18, during an official visit to Tel Aviv, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a bloodcurdling oath:
This is Israel’s operation, and I’m not here to dictate timelines or terms. Our support [for] Israel’s right to defend itself is ironclad, as you’ve heard me say a number of times, and that’s not going to change.”
One way greater pressure could be brought to bear against the Biden administration might be for citizens to demand their elected representatives in Washington to disclose what dealings they may have had with the 10/7 Project or its representatives since its launch.
To ascertain whether and how White House policy and public pronouncements are being directly informed, if not explicitly dictated, by the wishes and wills of a shadowy and unaccountable lobbying coalition with indeterminate but no doubt intimate political and financial connections to the perpetrators of a 21st century Holocaust.
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
Norway’s Top General Urges Defense Spending Hike Amid NATO Fearmongering
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 24.01.2024
The specter of a “Russian threat” ostensibly looming is being invoked in the West increasingly loudly as justification for ramping up military spending, with Norway’s top brass the latest to lap up this tenuous narrative.
Norway has only a small window of opportunity to ramp up its defense spending in the face of a “looming threat” of military conflict with Russia, the head of the Norwegian Armed Forces has warned.
Jumping on the bandwagon driving the cynical “Russian bogeyman” narrative, General Eirik Kristoffersen claimed in a recent interview that Norway needs to build up its defenses before it is too late.
“The current window of opportunity will remain open for a year or two, perhaps three, which is when we will have to invest even more in our defense,” General Kristoffersen said in an interview with the local outlet Dagbladet. He added:
“We do not know what will become of Russia in three years. We need to prepare a strong national defense to be able to meet an uncertain and unpredictable world.”
The Norwegian general lamented the fact that Moscow was reportedly building up its weapons stockpiles at a greater speed and efficiency than NATO allies had expected.
Currently, NATO member Norway lags behind the alliance’s defense spending requirement of two percent of GDP per year. While originally setting itself the timeline of achieving that goal by 2026, apparently the raucous peddling of the concocted “Russia threat” is forcing Norway’s generals to lose sleep over the ominous forebodings.
“This is a calculated risk. If the danger was imminent right now, then we could not have given so many weapons [to Ukraine]. But that is not the case,” Kristoffersen said, while adding that Ukraine needs to be supported for as long as it takes.
Norway’s chief of defense also went as far as to urge Norwegians to begin stockpiling food, saying that “What the Norwegian population should think about is their own preparedness.”
These remarks by Kristoffersen echo those of his Swedish colleague. Commander-in-Chief Mikael Byden told Swedes to “prepare themselves mentally” for an open conflict with Russia. Another warmonger, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the NATO Military Committee chief, stated in Brussels last Thursday:
“We have to realize it’s not a given that we are in peace. And that’s why we [NATO forces] are preparing for a conflict with Russia.”
Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, claimed earlier that Russia may choose to attack a NATO country within “five to eight years.”
While pumping Ukraine with billions’ worth of weapons for its proxy conflict with Russia, the US-dominated alliance has upped the Russia threat narrative in recent months. The rants have been particularly timed to the growing “Ukraine fatigue” and dwindling support for continuing to aid the Kiev regime. Pistorius’ comments echoed a report in the German daily newspaper Bild. Quoting a “confidential Bundeswehr document,” it claimed that a conflict between NATO and Russia could erupt as soon as the summer of 2025.
The Kremlin has dismissed the report as “fake news,” with spokesman Dmitry Peskov doubting Bild’s credibility. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova compared the leaked plan to a “powerful horoscope,” saying she wouldn’t be surprised if the scenario was provided to the German military by the Foreign Ministry and its notoriously Russophobic chief, Annalena Baerbock.
They Think We are Stupid, Volume 6
Everything you need to know about our ruling class’s opinion of you
By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | January 22, 2024
Britons Mock Warmongering Lecture by UK Defense Secretary
Sputnik – 17.01.2024
The United Kingdom’s Defense Secretary Grant Shapps warned of potential war with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea within the next five years in a widely mocked speech in London this week.
Shapps delivered the address to promote greater investment in military spending in the UK and its European allies.
“The era of the peace dividend is over,” said Shapps in remarks he also shared on his profile on the X social media platform. The so-called “peace dividend” was a proposed reinvestment of government finances toward domestic concerns after the end of the Cold War.
The comment may leave many Britons wondering when exactly they enjoyed a peace dividend, as the British government has imposed a policy of economic austerity for a number of years. The UK was also perhaps the US’ strongest ally in the so-called “War on Terror,” which led to the deaths of more than 4.5 million people across the Middle East according to some estimates.
The comments come as European media is reporting on supposed “leaked documents” that allege Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning to launch an attack on Germany and other NATO members in the near future. The claims were dismissed as “fake news” by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Britons greeted Shapps’ remarks with ridicule, with multiple posts by the defense minister being “ratioed” on the X platform, meaning they received more comments than likes as users piled on to jeer the jingoistic speech.
“Obviously, the best way to deter enemies and lead allies is by pouring billions of pounds into the military industrial complex,” responded one user sarcastically.
“You do know we were involved in bloody and unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?” added another. “Can you explain how British soldiers killed in Helmand or in Basra were at all beneficiaries of this so-called era of the peace dividend?”
“The people need to prepare for a new era of conflict with you bastards,” wrote user John Wight, expressing widespread antipathy towards governing elites in the West. “Wars happen when the government tells you who your enemy is. Revolution happens when you work it out for yourself.”
Fact Check: Is Russia Really Getting Ready to Invade NATO?
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 15.01.2024
NATO is getting ready for Russian aggression against the alliance’s eastern flank, Bild says, citing a “secret Bundeswehr document” about preparations for the possible flashpoint. But what’s the actual chance of a Russian attack on NATO, and which side, historically, has dreamt about and planned for a World War III scenario in Eastern Europe?
The German military is reportedly getting ready for a hot war between Russia and NATO, with a conflict scenario imagined in a classified Bundeswehr document envisioning a gradual escalation of tensions from February onwards, culminating in the buildup of hundreds of thousands of Russian and NATO troops around the Baltics and potential clashes by the summer of 2025.
The document lays out a scenario in which Russia, emboldened by Ukraine fatigue among NATO countries, kicks off a successful spring offensive over the coming months, chipping away at the Ukrainian army, and then – for reasons known apparently only to Bundeswehr planners, starting a campaign of “cyber attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare” against the Baltic states to stir up unrest among the ethnic Russian minority there.
The so-called ‘Suwalki Gap’ – the 100 km long Polish strip of land separating Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, is deemed by the Bundeswehr to be the focal point of a possible Russia-NATO clash, with the scenario envisioning the transfer of some 300,000 NATO troops to Eastern Europe to “deter” Moscow from aggression. The scenario ends ambiguously, with its authors leaving open whether the tensions and troop buildup ends in a potentially world-ending shooting war.
Russian officials scoffed at Bundeswehr planners’ rich imagination, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova comparing the leaked plan to a “powerful horoscope” on Monday and saying she wouldn’t be surprised if the scenario was provided to the German military by the Foreign Ministry and its notoriously Russophobic chief, Annalena Baerbock.
The German Defense Ministry attempted to walk back the report, with a spokesperson assuring Bild that “considering various scenarios, even if they are extremely unlikely, is part of everyday military practice, especially during army training” while nevertheless emphasizing that it takes “threats” from Russia seriously.
‘Various Scenarios’
The German MoD wasn’t wrong in mentioning the military’s propensity to plan for “various scenarios” when it comes to the idea of an all-out conflagration between Russia and NATO. What it left out, however, is that historically, many of the most outlandish declassified conflict scenarios seem to involve the idea of a preemptive attack against Russia by Western powers, not the other way around.
In the spring of 1945, for example, just weeks after the end of WWII in Europe, and while the war against Japan was still raging, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill commissioned a secret plan for an invasion of the Soviet Union by the Western Allies, including the combined forces of the US and the UK, plus 10-12 German divisions created from the remnants of the Wehrmacht – the same force tens of thousands of American and British troops died fighting to liberate Western Europe from the Nazis.
The plan, dubbed “Operation Unthinkable,” had the objective of imposing “upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire,” and included “the occupation of such areas of metropolitan Russia” to “render further resistance impossible.” Fortunately, the contingency was never realized, with its existence revealed to the public in 1998 after many decades under wraps. Some historians believe the Soviet leadership learned about the plan ahead of time, with Red Army forces in Eastern Europe inexplicably reorganizing in late June of 1945, just before the July 1 hypothetical attack date.
From 1945 until 1949, the US enjoyed a global monopoly in the possession of nuclear weapons as Soviet scientists scrambled to catch up. During this brief window of time, the Pentagon developed at least nine separate plans to target its erstwhile WWII Soviet allies using nukes. Most famous among them was Operation Dropshot – a 1949 proposal calling for the bombardment of some 100 Soviet cities with 300 nuclear bombs and 250,000 tons of conventional munitions, plus chemical and bacteriological weapons, followed by a ground campaign to ensure “complete victory” over the USSR and its allies across Eurasia. The plan, which signed off on by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on December 19, 1949, was declassified in 1977, sparking disbelief among many ordinary Americans owing to its brutality.
In 1988, at the twilight of the Cold War, while President Reagan was visiting Moscow to schmooze with General Secretary Gorbachev and to announce that he no longer saw the USSR as an “evil empire,” the US Naval War College was playing out a strategic wargame modeling surprise offensive operations against Soviet air defenses, military-industrial complex, and naval assets in Asia.
After the Cold War ended and the USSR broke apart, the Pentagon continued to plan for scenarios of unprovoked aggression against Moscow – even as US leaders spoke of Russia as their ‘partners’ in the “new world order” announced by President George H.W. Bush in his State of the Union address in January 1991. In the early 2000s, while Bush’s son George W. Bush gushed about looking into President Putin’s eyes to “get a sense of his soul,” Pentagon planners were busy coming up with Prompt Global Strike – a scenario proposing the massed launch of precision-guided conventional missiles to decapitate the Russian leadership and declaw its nuclear forces.
The concept, still around and now called ‘Conventional Prompt Strike’, proposes the use of thousands of conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as air and space assets, either in place of or in coordination with nuclear weapons. The US began to develop the Prompt Global Strike idea at the same time that the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, with that move, combined with NATO encroachment on Russia’s western borders from 1999 onward, forcing Moscow to invest significant resources into the development of fundamentally new strategic weapons, including hypersonic missiles.
The above examples serve to demonstrate that whatever the geopolitical climate at the time – and whether Moscow is an erstwhile ally in the fight against German Nazism and Japanese militarism, an adversary at the start of the Cold War, a newfound friend at its end, or a trusted ‘partner’ at the dawn of the 21st century, US and allied military planners will find cause to come up with scenarios for a war of aggression against Russia. The historical detour adds a dose of context to reporting on purported Russian plans to attack NATO without provocation, with such plans seemingly being more the alliance’s forte.
Tactical Blindspots
The Bundeswehr’s fearmongering about the potential for “Russian aggression against NATO” in the Suwalki Gap isn’t new. In fact, Sputnik has been reporting on and poking holes in similar claims since at least 2015, when Pentagon officials first began warning that Russia might attempt to close the gap, thus cutting off the Baltics from Poland and the West. Then, as now, the US and its allies never bothered to explain what on Earth would motivate Russia to attack NATO.
In 2017, following another dose of fearmongering related to Russia and the Suwalki Gap in the Wall Street Journal, political observer Yevgeny Krutikov said that NATO’s fears were nothing short of “stupidity,” pointing out that most of the Suwalki Gap area consists of woodland, lakes and swamps, including a national park, and that the region lacks any major roads. “It does not even cross anyone’s mind that tanks can’t pass through the Suwalki woods,” Krutikov stressed at the time.
Strategic Fallacies in Logic
Seven years later, the Suwalki Gap has reemerged in the minds of Western military planners as the place where Russia-NATO tensions could go hot. Leaving aside tactical considerations, the question Sputnik and others have asked, and which NATO have never been able to answer, is why Moscow would launch what amounts to an unprovoked invasion of Poland – a NATO member, and proceed to attack three more NATO allies (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), thus triggering World War III in the process.
Russia’s military demonstrated its capabilities against Ukraine in the proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, with the country’s troops, equipment and military production capabilities more than a match for an army trained, armed and funded by the Western bloc, and even earning the ranking of number one in the world militarily – above the United States, in a recent US report.
That said, a direct confrontation with NATO could very quickly turn against Russia’s favor, with the alliance having more than four times the total military personnel and active duty troops, three times the number of paramilitary reserves, nearly five times as many aircraft, six times as many armored vehicles, 3.5 times more warships, and over six times the population.
Russian Foreign Ministry graphic of NATO defence spending compared to that of Russia and the rest of the world.
Under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, members are required to come to the defense of members in the event of enemy aggression, and at least in theory, are under obligation to deploy weapons up to and including nuclear weapons, if necessary. That, combined with Washington’s carefree approach to nukes (including allowing their use on a first strike basis and even against non-nuclear-armed adversaries), means a Russian attack on the Baltics would very likely put the planet on a rapid ride to a world-ending World War – something Russian political and military leaders have repeatedly demonstrated they are not interested in.
“The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia no reason, no interest – neither geopolitical interest, nor economic, nor political, nor military – to fight with NATO countries,” President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Russian media last month. Moscow and the bloc “have no territorial claims against each other,” Putin stressed, adding that Moscow would prefer peaceful coexistence to confrontation with bloc members.
Perhaps if the alliance spent more time listening to what the Russian president has been saying and living up to decades-old promises to Moscow not to expand eastward instead of antagonizing the country by fueling a proxy war against it in Ukraine, Bundeswehr planners wouldn’t have to worry about paranoid scenarios involving having to fight the Russian army hundreds of kilometers east of Germany.
Scholz pushes fake Russian threats to distract Germans from economic problems
By Ahmed Adel | January 15, 2024
Germany is preparing for a war between NATO and Russia, which, according to the scenario of the German Defence Ministry, could begin in the European summer of 2025 after the defeat of the Ukrainian Army, reported Bild with reference to a secret document of the Bundeswehr. This is evidently a desperate attempt by the German chancellor to distract citizens from their economic woes.
According to the newspaper, citing a classified German military document, the escalation could begin as early as next month with the start of an active Russian offensive against the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
According to Bild, the German military considers the Suwałki Gap between Belarus and the Russian region of Kaliningrad to be the most likely site of confrontation. A situation could escalate in October if Russia deploys troops and medium-range missiles to Kaliningrad, and from December 2024, an artificially induced “border conflict” and “clashes with numerous casualties” could unfold as Russia would take advantage of political chaos in the US following the presidential election.
“The actions of Russia and the West are described precisely, indicating the location and month, and will culminate in the deployment of hundreds of thousands of NATO troops and the imminent start of war in the summer of 2025,” writes the article.
However, the article’s authors leave open the question of how this hypothetical escalation will end.
This is, of course, a ridiculous suggestion by the German Defence Ministry, especially as Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it does not want conflict with NATO or anything beyond its special military operation in Ukraine. Rather, this is an attempt by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to instil an unjustified fear in German society as his popularity continues to plummet in the context of a stuttering economy and continued failed policies.
More than 70% of Germans are dissatisfied with Scholz, according to a survey carried out by the INSA Institute for Bild. Specifically, 72% of voters do not approve of his performance, which is three percentage points more than at the beginning of December. Only one in five, 20%, think that Scholz has done a good job.
According to the researchers, 76% of those surveyed are generally dissatisfied with what the federal government does, whilst only 17% of citizens are satisfied. It is the worst indicator of the ruling coalition since it was formed in December 2021, Bild noted.
In 2023, the Scholz-led government faced numerous economic and leadership challenges that undermined public trust. Persistent inflationary pressures, exacerbated by fiscal policy, undermined household budgets, which caused widespread discontent. The lack of strategic direction and perceived indecision on critical issues, such as energy policy following the adoption of sanctions against Russia, further fuelled scepticism among voters. The leadership crisis, characterised by internal conflicts and disagreements, damaged the effectiveness and cohesion of the German government.
What especially frustrates Germans is the fact that sanctions were imposed on Russia, which has become the fifth-largest economy in the world by volume, whilst Germany is in recession. With a public budget deficit estimated at around 60 billion euros, the very model of the German economy appears to be threatened.
Germany is officially in recession and is expected to have ended 2023 with a drop in GDP of around 0.3%, according to a forecast from the European Commission. This is one of the worst economic results in the bloc, given that the growth forecast for the entire European Union in 2023 is 0.6%. Among the causes is the energy crisis that has hit Germany harder than the rest of the European bloc, mainly because the Germans slashed their supply of Russian energy after the start of the special military operation in February 2022.
Furthermore, with the increase in energy prices resulting from sanctions against Russia, Germany has also suffered an increase in general price inflation in the economy, forcing the European Central Bank to raise interest rates, thus affecting the population’s purchasing power and impacting consumption. Consequently, German companies have not only lost international competitiveness with the application of sanctions against the Russians, but now the country runs the risk of entering a process of deindustrialisation.
Under these conditions, the extreme right is experiencing a resurgence. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has hit an all-time high approval rating of 24% and has the potential to gain a few more percentile points with the immense failure of the ruling coalition.
What is undeniable is the fact that Germany is experiencing a rapid decline, all spurred on by the reckless policies of Scholz that prioritised American interests instead of German, and he is now resorting to a fake Russian threat in a desperate attempt to distract citizens from their social and economic problems that he is responsible for.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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Guaido’s True Colors: “President” to Fix Venezuelan Relations with Israel
By Jim Carey | Geopolitics Alert | February 13, 2019
Caracas – In an interview over the weekend, “interim President” of Venezuela Juan Guaido promised he would work on restoring relations with Israel.
Despite not actually having a government or being in any type of official position of power within Venezuela Juan Guaido is still somehow making big promises. Last week it was the promise to sell oil he doesn’t control to the US and this week he is setting foreign policy for a state, a military, and a diplomatic core that he doesn’t have.
Regardless of Juan Guaido’s material position, Israel has been more than willing to indulge in the US fantasy in Venezuela and was one of the early states to recognize the fraud as “interim President.” Now it seems Guaido is more than willing to repay the favor should he ever actually hold office.
Guaido made this promise in a recent interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper where he told the interviewer that he was “very happy to announce that the process of stabilizing relations with Israel is in full swing.” While what exactly that means when you’re a President with no power is rather ambiguous, for some reason Guaido has said restoring relations “is very important for us.”
Regardless of all these factors, there are still several reasons the new President has made this a high priority. Even without any actual diplomatic staff recognized by the state, Guaidó has still been in contact with Israel and has even discussed opening a new Venezuelan embassy in Israel, saying it “is one of the subjects we are talking about.”
Another reason Guaidó claims he wants to restore relations with the Zionists is due to the fact that there “are many Venezuelans in Israel and many Jews in Venezuela.”
According to Guaidó, this Venezuelan Jewish community “is very active and prosperous”… continue
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- When Greenland divides the North Atlantic allies, the world is astonished!
- If Americans Knew
- Another baby dies of cold in Gaza, as Rafah crossing remains locked down – Not a ceasefire Day 103
- Brutal Beatings, Arson, and Impunity: A Palestinian Plant Nursery Becomes a Target for Settler Pogroms
- On Iran’s protests, Israeli hypocrisy knows no limits
- A Cease-fire for Israelis and a War for Palestinians
- ‘When will Baba come back?’ Gaza’s widows and orphans struggle to survive
- Genocide research institute levels accusations against Germany for denying Israel’s genocide against Palestinians
- Over 1,200 Israeli truce violations in Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 102
- Trump has created a monster: Gaza Board of Peace – Not a ceasefire Day 101
- As world leaders squabble over controlling Gaza, another baby freezes to death – Not a ceasefire Day 100
- Trump “Board of Peace” for Gaza is stacked with Israel supporters – Not a ceasefire Day 99
- No Tricks Zone
- As German Gas Storage Dips Dangerously Low…Shortage Hardly Avoidable
- New Study: Brazil’s Relative Sea Level Was 2+ Meters Higher And SSTs 3-4°C Warmer 6000 Years Ago
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
- Berlin’s Terror-Blackout Enters 4th Day As Tens Of Thousands Suffer In Cold Without Heat!
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