Over 5,000 Israeli soldiers injured since Oct. 7, with 58% seriously: Israeli media
MEMO | December 9, 2023
More than 5,000 Israeli soldiers have been injured in Gaza since the conflict began on Oct. 7, with more than 2,000 officially recognized by the Ministry of Defence as disabled, an Israeli newspaper revealed on Saturday, adding that more than 58% of those injured suffered serious harm to their hands and feet, necessitating amputations.
“More than 5,000 wounded soldiers arrived in hospitals in Israel,” the daily Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.
“More than 2,000 were officially recognized by the Ministry of Defense as disabled,” the daily added.
“We have never experienced anything similar to this. More than 58% of the wounded we receive have serious injuries to their hands and feet, including amputations,” Limor Luria, deputy director general and head of Israel’s Ministry of Defense’s Rehabilitation Department, told the newspaper.
“About 12% of injuries are internal consisting of damage to the spleen, kidneys, and rupture of internal organs,” Luria said.
“About 7% suffer from psychological distress, a number we know will rise sharply,” the official said.
The Israeli army said at least 420 soldiers have been killed since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict on Oct. 7.
Israel resumed its military offensive against the Gaza Strip on Dec. 1 after the end of a weeklong humanitarian pause with the Palestinian group, Hamas.
At least 17,487 Palestinians have been killed and more than 46,480 others injured in relentless air and ground attacks on the enclave since Oct. 7 following a cross-border attack by Hamas.
The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, according to official figures.
Biden regime touts ‘year of suffering’ for Russian troops
RT | December 8, 2023
The White House wants to keep funding Ukraine in its conflict with Russia because it believes that in a year Moscow may be willing to concede to Kiev’s demands, an aide to Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said in an interview on Tuesday.
Jon Finer, Sullivan’s principal deputy, discussed the White House Ukraine strategy at an event hosted by the Aspen Institute, an influential US think-tank. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s request to allocate over $110 billion in foreign security aid, including for Ukraine, was blocked from a vote in the Senate.
Finer made a case for releasing the funds despite Kiev’s inability to secure any major successes on the battlefield during its summer counteroffensive. He said he disagreed with the notion that the operation “not going as far as people wanted reflects some degree of Ukrainian failure.” If Washington keeps bankrolling Kiev’s war effort for the next year, the Ukrainian government will maintain “a degree of parity” with Russia, he promised.
“Another year of funding and another year in which Russia will have to suffer on the battlefield is fundamentally a better position than we are in today without that funding,” Finer said. “I think there is no way to dispute that.”
By the end of 2024, Western nations will have ramped up arms production and be helping Ukraine do the same, the White House expects. Then Russia will have to either “come to the negotiating table on terms that would be acceptable to Ukraine” or face a stronger opponent, according to Finer’s expectations.
Kiev’s demands for peace include full control over pre-2014 Ukrainian territory, war reparations and a tribunal for the Russian leadership, as detailed last year by President Vladimir Zelensky. Moscow has dismissed it from the start as detached from reality.
Moscow has cited NATO expansion in Europe and the promised inclusion of Ukraine into the US-led military bloc as a threat to its national security. Preventing that outcome is imperative, senior Russian officials have said.
In the first weeks of hostilities, Ukraine and Russia came to a preliminary agreement on a truce, which would have seen Kiev drop its NATO aspirations and pledge neutrality. Then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Kiev to “make war instead,” David Arakhamia, who led the Ukrainian delegation at the talks in Istanbul, confirmed in a recent interview.
What Would Happen If the US Stopped Supporting Ukraine?
By Connor O’Keeffe – Mises Wire – 12/06/2023
Over the weekend, border-policy negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans fell apart. The talks were meant to firm up Republican support for the president’s massive $105 billion military support proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote by including additional funds for border security in the spending package. Now, with no imminent approval of further aid to Ukraine, hawks in government and the media are trying to stoke panic about what will happen if Kyiv is cut off from US support.
In a letter to Congress Monday, White House budget director Shalanda Young told Congress the funds will dry up by the end of the year:
I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks. There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money—and nearly out of time.
Young goes on to forecast disaster for Ukraine if more money isn’t allocated. But is that really accurate? Are the Ukrainian people doomed if Washington stops funding the war?
If we’re going to understand what might happen in the absence of US involvement in Ukraine, we must first understand Washington’s actual effect on the war, the true nature of which has been laid out brilliantly in a series of recent columns by Ted Snider.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began with a bombardment of cruise missiles on February 24, 2022. Later that day, infantry and armored divisions rolled in from Russia, Belarus, and Crimea while paratroopers dropped in around the capital city of Kyiv.
Days later, as the shock and confusion of the initial offensive began to dissipate, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to set up indirect talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Zelensky called then–Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and asked him to contact Putin and to serve as a mediator. Bennett agreed.
Over the next week, Bennett had a series of phone calls with Putin before traveling to Moscow and Berlin to help organize diplomatic communication channels. His effort culminated in a March 10 meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Turkey.
In the series of talks that followed, Bennett described both sides as making “huge concessions” in pursuit of a ceasefire.
But Kyiv’s Western backers were resistant to the truce. At a special summit on March 24, NATO decided not to support or approve the peace negotiations. Still, Zelensky and Putin kept at it. And on March 29, the two sides reached an agreement.
According to a draft unsealed this past June, Russia had agreed to pull its forces back to prewar boundaries. In exchange, Ukraine had agreed it would not seek NATO membership.
So why didn’t it happen? Well, it may have started to. In early April, Russia withdrew its forces from northern Ukraine, around Kyiv—an action Putin later said was related to the Istanbul agreement.
But then, according to Bennett, former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and the leader of the Ukrainian delegation to the talks, David Arakhamia, the West pressured Zelensky to abandon negotiations and fight.
Assuming the best intentions, it’s possible officials in Washington and Brussels believed the Ukrainians could win enough battles to improve their leverage in future negotiations. But that is not what happened.
Instead, Washington bankrolled a horrifying twenty-one-month war of attrition that has cost the people of Ukraine greatly in land, lives, and limbs. After talks broke down, Russia laid permanent claim to tens of thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory that it had earlier agreed to relinquish.
Last summer, Ukrainian forces began attempting to retake this land by force in the so-called counteroffensive. But they have since lost more territory than they have gained. Ukraine keeps its casualty count classified, but by the end of August US estimates had put it north of two hundred thousand. And it has likely climbed substantially with the ongoing struggle to break through heavy Russian minefields.
As their supply of military-aged men has dwindled, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier has climbed to forty-three. And now there is a push within the Ukrainian government to lower the draft age to begin conscripting those who have so far been too young to be eligible.
The Ukrainian people are being put through hell. And now even senior Ukrainian military officials admit there is no military path out.
If the purpose of stifling the Istanbul agreement was to help the Ukrainians gain more leverage, the West must admit failure before Ukraine loses even more.
And if Washington’s intentions were more nefarious—as comments from officials like Mitch McConnell, who have framed the war as an easy way to burden Russia without spilling American blood, suggest—that’s all the more reason to call off this horrific project.
That brings us back to the original question. What would happen if the United States stopped supporting Ukraine? We already know. Ukraine and Russia would work toward a deal. It won’t go as well for Ukraine as it did almost two years ago when they were stronger. But it’s not a path to fear. Because the alternative is that the White House gets its way and this brutal, unnecessary war carries on. And that’s so much worse.
UK special forces secretly operated in Ukraine – media
Ukrainian soldiers getting training from British troops in South East England, February 24, 2023. © Leon Neal / Getty Images
RT | December 6, 2023
British special forces operators were embedded with Ukrainian troops in the early days of the conflict, Declassified UK reported on Wednesday, citing the newly published book by Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz.
Parafianowicz is the Ukraine correspondent for the Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. His latest work, ‘Polska na Wojnie’ (Poland at War), examines Warsaw’s role in the neighboring conflict.
According to Declassified, at one point, a Polish government minister – who is not named – told Parafianowicz about a time in March 2022 when he was traveling from Kiev to Zhitomir.
“It was a time when the Russians were still standing in Bucha, and the route was a gray zone. It was possible to run into Russians. We passed the last checkpoint. The Ukrainians told us that we continue at our own risk,” the unnamed minister reportedly said. “Well, and who did we meet next? Ukrainian soldiers and … British special forces. Uniformed. With weapons.”
According to Parafianowicz’s source, the British and the Ukrainians worked together, driving around the countryside with artillery tracking radars, “learning about this war.”
The same official also said that Polish special forces based in Lublin had been in Brovary, a suburb of Kiev, “on the first day” of the hostilities. Poles – along with Brits and Americans – had been training the Ukrainian special forces since 2014, the minister said. According to Parafianowicz, Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) had trained President Vladimir Zelensky’s security detail as well.
Another source, identified only as a high-ranking Polish officer, said that these commandos did not return to Poland, but “went in the opposite direction” – to Kharkov and parts of Donbass controlled by Ukrainians.
“They cooperated with the British,” the officer said. “Later, we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.”
According to Declassified, some of these Polish commandos may have trained members of the neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ movement – specifically the ‘Kraken’ unit based in Kharkov – in the use of British-supplied NLAW rocket launchers. Social media posts identified them only as “instructors from NATO countries.”
Parafianowicz’s book appears to confirm previous media reports about NATO commandos fighting alongside Ukrainian troops. In April 2022, the French daily Le Figaro claimed that SAS and Delta Force operators had waged a “secret war” on behalf of Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s military operation. Shortly after those revelations, The Times said a number of SAS operators had returned to Ukraine to teach Kiev’s soldiers how to operate British-made anti-tank rockets. Last December, a British military publication admitted that up to 300 Royal Marines had been deployed to Ukraine for “discrete operations.”
Classified Pentagon documents that were leaked in April this year also showed at least 50 British special forces operators were still active in Ukraine as of March.
Analyst: US Claims to Desire Peace With China ‘Nullified’ by ‘Extraordinarily Belligerent’ Behavior
By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 06.12.2023
The US is pushing the Philippines into adopting a belligerent stance in a small territorial dispute with China as part of longstanding plans to weaken Beijing by starting a war in the South China Sea, an essential sea lane to the Chinese economy, a regional expert told Sputnik.
The monthslong standoff over Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea has continued to simmer as China and the Philippines challenge the other’s claim of sovereignty over the submerged coral reef and the United States inserts itself into the dispute.
On Monday, Beijing said that the American littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords “illegally intruded” in the waters near the shoal, which the US Navy claimed was “conducting routine operations in international waters … consistent with international law.”
Such maneuvers are called “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FONOPS) and are designed to show US contempt for what it considers the “excessive” maritime claims of other nations according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a treaty the US has never ratified.
“The US deliberately disrupted the situation in the South China Sea, seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and seriously violated international law and basic norms governing international relations, fully demonstrating that the US is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea,” the southern command of the People’s Liberation Army said in a statement on the episode.
KJ Noh, a scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the Asia-Pacific, and a member of Veterans for Peace, told Sputnik on Tuesday that the US had thrown its weight behind Manila in the dispute in the hopes of turning what should be a small, peacefully-resolved territorial dispute into a casus belli with Beijing, allowing it to deal a mortal blow to the Chinese economy.
Noh referred to a recently published article in a Hong Kong-based newspaper highlighting how the US is violating international law in its purported push to “stop China from violating international law.”
“So what Alex Lo in the South China Morning Post is pointing out is that the US always talks the talk that, you know, that it is following the ‘rules-based international order’ – which is essentially US hegemony, it has nothing to do with international law. And at the same time, it is always criticizing and decrying China’s violations of the UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. And what Alex Lo is pointing out is that as the US encircles China with myriad bases and weaponizes them in order to create this massive threat projection platform, it is breaking the law, left, right and center.”
“And so, for example, he points out that in the Cocos Islands, which are possessed by Australia, the understanding is that the caucus islands are not supposed to be militarized. But even as we speak, the Australians are turning it into a platform to launch both submarines and planes. And so this is in direct violation of the understanding that Australia has with the United Nations.”
“And then the other very, very egregious violation is the Chagos Archipelago. Now, once again, you know, the Chagos Islands, the UK forced the Chagos Islanders off – essentially did an ethnic cleansing threatening them with genocide – and then force them off the islands and turned it into a base which it turned over to the United States. And this land, the Chagos Islands, should be given back to the Chagos Islanders. This was the ruling of the legitimate international courts, and the US and the UK have refused to do that.”
“And so all of this goes to show that the United States claims that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea applies to China, but in fact all the rulings and all the agreements that are part of international law the US routinely violates in order to escalate to war against China. So this is just a very, very good example of pointing out the extraordinary hypocrisy of the United States as it prepares for war.”
“The US actions are continually ratcheting up, continual escalation, continually accelerating the material conditions for war. All of this is direct preparation for war. And so whatever the US says in public or in diplomatic venues means nothing. It’s completely nullified by these extraordinarily belligerent – and as Alex Lo points out illegal – actions that the US is currently engaging in.”
“As the US escalates to war with China, the South China Sea, along with Taiwan Island in the East China Sea, and then the Korean Peninsula, will be the three main battlegrounds. The US is preparing these for kinetic war and in order to prepare this for kinetic war, the idea is to choke off the South China Sea. And once thier shooting war starts in the South China Sea, it doesn’t matter if the US wins it or not, just the disruption to trade and traffic will be enough to bring China down. China’s economy will shrink by 25 to 35% because $5.3 trillion worth of goods and most of China’s oil travels through the South China Sea. So this is the game plan.”
“And what they are doing is they’re weaponizing the Philippines as its key provocateur against China. And so inside that larger context, what the Philippines has done is they’ve run aground a rusting ship, the Sierra Madre, on the Second Thomas Shoal, which China claims – and that entire area that China claims, it’s actually contested between four countries, and these contestations would have been resolved peacefully, except for that the United States got involved on the part of the Philippines and then created this fraudulent tribunal by which it now claims that it has legitimate rights.”
“So since the Philippines has run aground a rusting ship on the Second Thomas Shoal in order to squat it, essentially they’re claiming squatter’s rights and they leave a bunch of sailors in there for months at a time. These sailors cannot get off the ship, you know, the reef is not self-sustaining, it’s mostly submerged. And the Chinese want them to leave and they want them to get that junked ship off the Thomas Shoal. It’s like if you were to leave your junked car on my lawn in order to claim it as yours. I mean I think you might be a little bit upset there.”
“So this is the essential contestation that’s happening. The Chinese assert that the Sierra Madre should be removed and the Philippines should not squat in that area, and the US is threatening to use this as a kind of casus belli that, you know, if China does anything against the Philippines, then the US will use the mutual defense treaty to get involved. So it’s a very delicate situation and essentially the US is trying to provoke war in the South China Sea.”
“We have to understand geostrategic and global war in terms of choke points: who controls the choke points determines who has strategic advantage. And in this case, the US is trying to gain or leverage strategic advantage by initiating a shooting war in the South China Sea. The US doesn’t have to win it, all you need is the congestion, that congestion will damage China. That’s the game plan that’s mapped out by Rand in their 2015 war document.”
UK nuclear site ‘leaking’ – The Guardian
Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility November 26, 2001 in Cumbria, England © Getty Images / Graham Barclay/BWP Media/Getty Images
RT | December 5, 2023
Sellafield, regarded as the most hazardous nuclear site in Europe, has developed a leak in a massive radioactive waste silo that has prompted concerns about the facility’s safety measures, as well as potential dangers to the public and the environment, The Guardian has reported.
The two-square-mile (6km sq) plant, located in Cumbria in England’s northwest, is responsible for the storage and decommissioning of nuclear waste from nuclear weapons programs and power generation. It was previously used to generate nuclear power from 1956 to 2003.
However, the decades-old facility, Europe’s largest nuclear site, has a catalog of safety issues, the newspaper said, including asbestos and fire hazards. Perhaps more concerningly, though, are cracks in storage silos which have prompted diplomatic squabbles with affected countries, including the US, Norway and Ireland.
Damage to one silo of toxic radioactive waste has caused a leak of “potentially significant consequences,” The Guardian said on Tuesday, citing official documents seen by the outlet. It adds that the leak, which it says is likely to continue until 2050, could contaminate groundwater should the situation worsen further.
Scientists are attempting to assess the full risks of the leak using “ongoing radiological dose assessments” and statistical modeling, the newspaper added. In June, the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ORR) said in a report that the risk presented by the leak is “as low as reasonably practicable.” However, the nuclear regulator remained concerned by the full impact of the leak and at what rate, if any, it may affect groundwater.
An unnamed expert who sits on a committee that monitors Sellafield and other nuclear sites told The Guardian : “It’s hard to know if transparency is put aside because no one’s brave enough to say ‘we simply don’t know how dangerous this is – other than certainly dangerous.’”
An EU report in 2001 warned that an accident at Sellafield could be more hazardous than that of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which exposed about five million people in Europe to radiation. Sellafield contains substantially more radioactive material than the Chernobyl facility did at the time.
Reports of Sellafield’s crumbling facade have sparked US concerns about the safety standards at the site, according to diplomatic cables seen by the publication. It has also led to complaints from the governments of both Ireland and Norway – with Oslo worried about the potential of radioactive particles being carried towards its territory by winds across the North Sea.
Health problems brought on by exposure to nuclear radiation depend on the dose but can range from nausea and vomiting to cardiovascular disease and cancer. Extremely high exposure is, in most cases, fatal.
Top Defense Official: US Can Handle Middle East, Russia and China All at Once
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 5, 2023
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said the Pentagon was prepared to fight a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, aid the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, and arm Taiwan for a potential war with China. The Admiral argued all the military efforts could be completed simultaneously and the Navy was not stretched thin.
At an Atlantic Council event, Grady said, “You look at what is required to support Ukraine, look at what might be required to support our partner in Israel, and then, of course, you put Taiwan on top of that—we have the construct that we do with combatant commanders and the rest that should allow us to command and control those three things all at one time.” He continued, “It’s part of our campaigning process, which is central to the national defense strategy. Is it challenging? Sure.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Biden administration pledged to give Ukraine the weapons needed to win the war. Over the past 19 months, Washington has sent Kiev tens of billions in arms.
Over the past two months, Washington has sent Tel Aviv 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells. Israel has targeted civilian homes with American-made bombs. However, the White House has refused to place any conditions on the aid it sends to Tel Aviv.
The transfers have stretched American weapons depots to their redline levels. The shortage has led the White House to send cluster variants of artillery shells to both Ukraine and Israel.
In addition to arms transfers, the US has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to Eastern Europe to train Ukrainian troops and facilitate weapons shipments to Kiev. In the Middle East region, the White House deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups.
Grady’s belief that the US could fight a three-front war is White House policy. President Joe Biden is pushing Congress to pass a $106 billion funding package to fund arming Ukraine, Israel, and a military buildup in the Asia-Pacific.
The Admiral also indicated that military-to-military talks between the US and China may start soon. “So we’re ready when they are and I suspect we’ll see that shortly, “he said.
During a meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, the two leaders agreed to resume military-to-military communications. However, the US has engaged in a pair of provocative naval maneuvers in the South China Sea to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims.
US House Speaker issues Ukraine ultimatum to Biden
RT | December 5, 2023
Getting the Republican-majority House of Representatives to approve additional funding for Ukraine would require first securing the US border with Mexico, Speaker Mike Johnson told the White House on Tuesday.
The Louisiana Republican was responding to Monday’s public letter from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young, who warned that the US was “out of money—and nearly out of time” in terms of aid to Ukraine and Israel. Young argued that cutting off US aid would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” and increase the “likelihood of Russian military victories.”
Johnson first addressed Israel, noting that the House approved the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act (HR 6126) on November 2, but that Democrats who control the Senate “voted to block consideration of the bill.”
As for Ukraine, Johnson wrote, the Republican position has remained unchanged since his meeting with Young and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on October 26, when he laid out “two essential prerequisites: security at our border, and critical answers regarding the funds requested.”
Six days prior, President Joe Biden had announced the proposal to bundle the funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and immigration and border enforcement in a $106 billion package, of which about $60 billion would go to Kiev.
Additional funding for Ukraine is “dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” Johnson wrote on Tuesday. The House passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (HR 2), “more than six months ago,” he noted, but the Senate Democrats have “refused to act” on it.
Pointing to over 6.5 million “illegal alien encounters” along the southern US border since Biden took office, of which 294 involved people “on the terrorist watchlist,” Johnson called the situation “an unconscionable and unsustainable catastrophe.”
In addition to “madness” on the border, Johnson noted that the White House still owed Congress “a full accounting of how prior US military and humanitarian aid” to Ukraine was spent “and an explanation of the president’s strategy to ensure an accelerated path to victory.” He accused Biden of “failure thus far to present clearly defined objectives,” and to provide Kiev the weapons it needed on time.
“Rather than engaging with Congressional Republicans to discuss logical reforms, the Biden Administration has ignored reality, choosing instead to engage in political posturing,” the House speaker said.
Talks on a border security bill in the Senate collapsed earlier in the day, as Democrats denounced the Republican proposal as “extreme,” claiming it would “end asylum as we know it.”
Peace Talks With Russia? UK & US Seeking Quick Face-Saving Exit From Ukraine Debacle – CIA Vet
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 05.12.2023
There is a rumor in British diplomatic circles about forcing Ukraine to negotiate a way out of the conflict with Russia, per the UK podcast Politics at Jack and Sam’s. Could the reported chatter be real, and if so, what’s behind it?
The Western press is citing Ukrainian politicians expressing criticism with regard to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive, with British observers suggesting that the Kiev regime could soon be forced to sit down with Russia and hold talks. As it recently turned out, it was then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who encouraged Zelensky to tear up the preliminary peace agreement with Moscow in 2022. Is London’s position on Ukraine changing?
“Well, their opinion is going to have to change, because the events on the ground are going to dictate it, with Ukraine losing militarily and neither the US nor the UK being in a position to supply any kind of significant weaponry,” retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik. “And even if they did, who’s going to use it? That’s Ukraine’s fundamental problem right now – it’s a lack of manpower. And over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen more and more stories, more independent evidence that Ukraine has just suffered massive losses, both killed and wounded, that are incapable of returning to the fight. So, I think this flood of information will keep pouring out. And each day it’s going to add to the problems that Zelensky faces in trying to hang on to power.”
This is not the first time the rumor of potential Russo-Ukrainian negotiations has made its way to the press. In late November, the German newspaper Bild alleged a plot between Washington and Berlin to twist Zelensky’s arm into holding talks with Russia by substantially diminishing military aid to Kiev. According to the German publication, there is also a plan B envisaging a frozen conflict that would solidify a new “quasi-border” between Ukraine and Russia along the contact line.
Per Johnson, even if the West is ready for negotiations over Ukraine, they should bear in mind that nobody in Russia would allow them to fool Moscow after the derailed Istanbul talks of March 2022 and the Bucha hoax widely circulated by the Western press. However, it’s still unclear what the US and its NATO allies really want: a sustainable peace, or merely a frozen conflict.
“Well, again, this is the problem,” the former CIA analyst pointed out. “There has been no negotiation of any substance between the United States and Russia for now more than two years. The last time Putin entered into negotiations to negotiate a peace – that was a year ago, in April. And the West, Biden, Boris Johnson, they sabotaged it. They destroyed it. They made sure that the Ukrainians knew that they were not to agree to any deal. And that’s how they treat it. My own perception is that the Russians are still smarting over that betrayal, because they legitimately thought they had an agreement in place. And then within days, as they’re pulling back their forces from north of Kiev, the tank forces, the United States and the United Kingdom launched this propaganda campaign, accusing Russia of war crimes in Bucha. It was a blatant lie, it wasn’t true. But again, the truth didn’t matter anymore.”
Meanwhile, The Economist, a British magazine, has drawn attention to the fact that Zelensky’s approval rating is in free fall after the botched counteroffensive attempt, while Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny commands 70% support. Per the media, the two are at odds, as Zelensky apparently fears that Zaluzhny may be picked as his successor.
“Well, the Americans are trying to figure out how to get rid of Zelensky,” Johnson said. “And I think this is just a natural outgrowth of the various plotting and scheming. I think part of it is wishful thinking on the part of Americans. They launched this war as a proxy war against Russia, fully expecting Ukraine to defeat Russia. It was going to cause the collapse of Vladimir Putin and could ultimately lead to the breakup of Russia. And instead, it’s not turned out that way at all. It has completely backfired.”
“So what you’re getting now are these, let’s call them crazy ideas. People keep thinking that, ‘Okay, we can engineer this in such a way that maybe we will replace Zelensky with Zaluzhny.’ [… ] But these are the kinds of rumors that are circulating. What’s clear is that Zelensky does not have a secure hold on the presidency in Ukraine. And right now, there is a meeting underway in Washington with, I guess, the next in line for the presidency, probably because Zelensky himself didn’t feel secure leaving Ukraine right now to go beg for more money. And so he’s sticking close to home in order to just, I think, try to preserve his position.”
The Real Problem With US Foreign Policy…
By Ron Paul | December 4, 2023
Over the weekend Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained to the American people what’s really wrong with US foreign policy. Some might find his conclusions surprising.
The US standing in the world is damaged not because we spent 20 years fighting an Afghan government that had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11. The problem has nothing to do with neocon lies about Iraq’s WMDs that led untold civilian deaths in another failed “democratization” mission. It’s not because over the past nearly two years Washington has taken more than $150 billion from the American people to fight a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine.
It’s not the military-industrial complex or its massive lobbying power that extends throughout Congress, the think tanks, and the media.
Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California’s Simi Valley, Austin finally explained the real danger to the US global military empire.
It’s us.
According to Secretary Austin, non-interventionists who advocate “an American retreat from responsibility” are the ones destabilizing the world, not endless neocon wars.
Austin said the US must continue to play the role of global military hegemon – policeman of the world – because “the world will only become more dangerous if tyrants and terrorists believe that they can get away with wholesale aggression and mass slaughter.”
How’s that for reason and logic? Austin and the interventionist elites have fact-checked 30 years of foreign policy failures and concluded, “well it would have been far worse if the non-interventionists were in charge.”
This is one of the biggest problems with the neocons. They are incapable of self-reflection. Each time the US government follows their advice into another catastrophe, it’s always someone else’s fault. In this case, as Austin tells us, those at fault for US foreign policy misadventures are the people who say, “don’t do it.”
What would have happened if the people who said “don’t do it” were in charge of President Obama’s decision to prop-up al-Qaeda to overthrow Syria’s secular leader Assad? How about if the “don’t do it” people were in charge when the neocons manufactured a “human rights” justification to destroy Libya? What if the “don’t do it” people were in charge when Obama’s neocons thought it would be a great idea to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically-elected government?
Would tyrants and terrorists have gained power if Washington did NOT get involved? No. Tyrants and terrorists got the upper hand BECAUSE Washington intervened in these crises.
As Austin further explained, part of the problem with the US is democracy itself. “Our competitors don’t have to operate under continuing resolutions,” he complained. What a burden it is for him that the people, through their representatives, are in charge of war spending.
In Congress, “America first” foreign policy sentiment is on the rise among conservatives and that infuriates Austin and his ilk. He wants more billions for wars in Ukraine and Israel and he wants it now!
And our economic problems? That is our fault too. Those who “try to pull up the drawbridge,” Austin said, undermine the security that has led to decades of prosperity. Prosperity? Has he looked at the national debt? Inflation? Destruction of the dollar?
There is a silver lining here. The fact that Austin and the neocons are attacking us non-interventionists means that we are gaining ground. They are worried about us. This is our chance to really raise our voices!
NATO chief admits Ukrainian failure
By Lucas Leiroz | December 4, 2023
Increasingly, military leaders are admitting Ukraine’s inability to carry out the fight under its current military circumstances. In a recent statement, the head of the alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, stated that the West needs to be prepared to receive “bad news” from Ukraine, belatedly recognizing the reality that many analysts had already reported before.
Stoltenberg made pessimistic comments, lamenting Ukraine’s poor military progress. According to him, Moscow has a great advantage in the conflict, in addition to accumulating a large number of weapons for the military scenario in the winter. The secretary stated that the Russian defense industry is producing weapons “on war footing”, operating in an accelerated manner in order to achieve the country’s military results.
He also said that the front lines have remained almost unchanged in recent months, but that it is necessary to be prepared for bad news regarding Ukrainian positions. However, for him, support for Ukraine is vital and must be maintained, even if expectations are negative.
“We have to be prepared for bad news. Wars move in phases, but we must stand by Ukraine in good and in bad times alike”, he said.
Another interesting topic commented on by Stoltenberg was the inability of Western countries to produce enough weapons to support Ukraine. He admitted that the West is weakened industrially, unable to meet Ukrainian demands.
He compared the capabilities of Russian and European industrial production and concluded that Moscow is working better in this sector, which explains some difficulties of the Ukrainian military in achieving good results on the battlefield. In addition, the secretary stated that the Russians plan to continue attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure in order to harm the country’s ability to produce weapons and equipment domestically during the winter.
“I think one of the main problems that we must address is the fragmentation of the European defense industry. We are not capable of working so closely together as we should (…) Russia has amassed a large missile stockpile ahead of winter, and we see new attempts to strike Ukraine’s power grid and energy infrastructure”, he added.
In fact, Stoltenberg’s words come at a serious moment, in which the vulnerability of Ukraine can no longer be hidden. The country is suffering many losses since its failed “counteroffensive” attempt. Also, the mainstream media is running out of arguments to disguise the defeat of the Kiev regime, which makes the speeches of Western propagandists become more realistic.
In addition, there is another important factor to understand this process, which is the escalation in Palestine. With Israel suffering from various problems on the battlefield and in need of broad Western support, NATO needs to take the focus of public opinion away from Ukraine and begin to justify a policy of support for the Zionist state. For this reason, it is already becoming commonplace for Western leaders and media to be realistic about the Ukrainian situation. The objective is to explain that this war is impossible to be won, having no longer any need to maintain unrestricted support.
In other words, Western officials and journalists are preparing public opinion for the unavoidable defeat of the neo-Nazi regime and trying to focus on Israel as a new “emergency.” In addition, excuses such as “low industrial production” or “Russian attacks on infrastructure” are inappropriately used to try to justify Ukraine’s situation. But, indeed, the real reason is simply Russian military superiority.
In fact, the West has proven unable to produce weapons fast enough to defend Ukraine. In the same sense, Moscow has launched several heavy artillery and aviation strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure. But these are only a few factors that do not fully explain the outcome of the war. Kiev’s failure is mainly due to the factor that the Russians are militarily much superior and have a more efficient military strategy. Even at times when Kiev was receiving large amounts of weapons from NATO on a daily basis the regime’s forces were not able to achieve positive results because the Russians always had a greater military power and a more appropriate strategy. So, Stoltenberg does not explain the real reasons for the defeat by talking only about industrial production.
Finally, it must be emphasized how admitting defeat is also a moral blow against the West. NATO is clearly demoralized due to the frustration in Ukraine. The pro-Kiev propaganda machine has not been able to substantiate any of its narratives, having now to admit that its predictions were wrong. It is very likely that the mainstream media and Western officials will lose their credibility, with public opinion simply ceasing to believe what is said by them.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
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Woolsey Fire started at Santa Susana Field Lab — where “radioactive materials released were never accurately measured”
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | November 30, 2018
In my Nov. 16 column, I reported on potential radiation risks posed by California’s Woolsey wildfire having burned over parts or all of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory—south of Simi Valley, Calif., 30 miles outside Los Angeles—site of at least four partial or total nuclear reactor meltdowns.
The field laboratory operated 10 experimental reactors and conducted rocket engine tests. In his 2014 book Atomic Accidents, researcher James Mahaffey writes, “The cores in four experimental reactors on site … melted.” Reactor core melts always result in the release of large amounts of radioactive gases and particles. Clean up of the deeply contaminated site has not been conducted in spite of a 2010 agreement.
Los Angeles’s KABC-7 TV reported Nov. 13 that the Santa Susana lab site “appears to be the origin of the Woolsey Fire” which has torched over 96,000 acres. Southern Calif. Public Radio said, “According to Cal Fire, the Woolsey Fire started on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 8 … on the Santa Susana site.” … continue
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