German FM slammed by Brazilian internet users for comments on Ukraine
By Ahmed Adel | June 14, 2023
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was severely criticised on Brazilian social media for saying during her official visit to Brazil that poor mothers in the Latin American country do not care about international conflicts because they focus “on the price of rice and beans in the supermarket.”
During her speech at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in São Paulhhfo, Baerbock suggested that low-income Brazilians would not be concerned about international events as they were focused on guaranteeing their subsistence.
“I would like to say clearly: I fully understand that you here in Latin America perceive the threat of this war differently than we do in Europe, but also question, ‘Where is Ukraine again?’ I fully understand that a mother from Itaquera or Campinas says: ‘For me, the price of rice and beans in the supermarket this week is more important than what happens in a country 11,000 kilometres away’,” said Baerbock.
The reaction was immediate on social media and YouTube channels, with Brazilians applauding the mothers of Itaquera and Campinas for focusing on maintaining life and not sending weapons to sow death.
An article in Folha de São Paulo, in turn, questioned the European commitment to Latin America: “Funny that Europe remembers that Latin America exists only when they are roasting from global warming or are at war. Apart from that, we know very well how they see us.”
Robinson Farinazzo, a Reserve officer of the Brazilian Navy, joined the outrage on his Arte da Guerra channel. He criticised the German minister’s attempt to commit Brazil to the European conflict.
“The West invested $124 billion and gathered a coalition of 28 countries against Russia, sending all kinds of weapons, mercenaries, satellites and, even so, they do not solve the problem. And now they are trying to push the problem to Brazil? Have pity,” said Farinazzo.
“Europe’s problems are not the world’s problems. These stuck-up people, with their noses in the air, have to understand that,” he added.
The reserve officer also noted that Baerbock “left Brazil empty-handed” since she was not even received by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who was on an official trip to France.
Baerbock fulfilled her agenda in São Paulo and Brasília by meeting with the Secretary General of the Itamaraty (Brazilian Foreign Ministry), Maria Laura da Rocha. The Itamaraty published a joint communiqué expressing commitment to bilateral cooperation and the fight against climate change, demonstrating that Baerbock could not win any concessions from Brazil regarding Ukraine.
During the trip, the German foreign minister called on Brazil to align with Western countries on geopolitical matters, particularly the Ukraine war and China. In return, a closer relationship with Europe was offered. However, this blackmailing is useless since China, and not Germany, is Brazil’s leading trade partner.
“Security and development are not opposites. They depend on each other,” Baerbock said at the Digital Democracy Festival in São Paulo, pointing to the global impact of rising food prices due to the war.
“Let’s reach out and shape a future together that all of us can benefit from,” she added.
The EU-Mercosur trade deal has not been ratified despite being in the works since 1999. Baerbock said at the festival that the main keys to the rapprochement of “like-minded democratic states” would “make it clear that democracies when they work together, can solve global challenges.”
A summit of European, Latin American, and Caribbean leaders on July 17 could invigorate the fruition of the EU-Mercosur trade deal, and it is clear that Baerbock is attempting to leverage this against Brazil so it capitulates and provides aid to Ukraine. However, Brazil is unlikely to be pressured into changing its foreign policy course.
The EU- Mercosur agreement is expected to be signed by the end of this year, whether Baerbock attempts to add unofficial clauses or not. This was effectively confirmed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her meeting with Lula in Brasília on June 12.
During this meeting, Lula drew attention to the fact that Europe has adopted unilateral laws and rules to impose sanctions on international trade without considering previously established strategic partnerships, as in the case of Brazil. Von der Leyen sidestepped this point and praised Lula, saying he “brought Brazil back to where it belongs – a major global player, a leader in the democratic world.”
In any case, Lula and Brazil do not need platitudes from Germany and the EU. Brazil will instead steer its course without being beholden to any power. This will frustrate the West, but as Latin America’s biggest power, Brazil is responsible for leading by serving its interests first and not the West’s. For this reason, Brasília’s relations with Moscow and Beijing will remain strong despite constant Western pressure.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
The Exact Moment That ‘Permanent Washington’ Decided To Send Trump To Prison
Full Transcript:
The Biden Administration arrested Donald Trump this afternoon. They had him arraigned and fingerprinted in a Miami Courthouse, like the accused felon he now technically is.
These were the first steps in a process that is designed to put Donald Trump behind bars for the rest of his life.
Cable news carried every moment of it live “it’s unprecedented” they told us with what looked like shock. But they weren’t shocked they knew this was coming. Everyone who’s paid attention knew it was what just happened was always going to happen.
It’s been inevitable since February 16 2016. that’s the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history which would be the federal government.
Despite what you may remember it wasn’t anything that Trump had said about immigration, or trade with China, or rapists from Mexico – those are the stories that dominated the headlines that year – “Trump’s a racist they scream stop him.”
But inside Washington that was just noise none of it really rated identity politics doesn’t mean much to permanent Washington what matters – then and now – is foreign policy the invasions and occupations and proxy wars: the decisions that determine which global populations will thrive and which will die. The policies that come with trillion dollar price tags, the ones that over time have made the counties around DC the richest suburbs in the world.
In Washington that’s what actually matters and it’s obvious when you look carefully. When there’s a debate about anything else for example the debt ceiling, both sides take their assigned positions and they start yelling. But when Congress decides to start a war – no matter how foolish or counterproductive or obviously disconnected from America’s core interests that war may be – when that happens the leaders of both parties automatically jump behind it like circus clowns.
And then they stay there, sometimes for decades. They defend that war relentlessly against all evidence, until somebody finally Rings the all clear Bell and they can begin to admit that actually maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. We meant well but it just didn’t work out the good news is we’ve learned a lot of important lessons.
In the end they usually do say something like that, but only after emotions have cooled and the damning details have begun to fade from collective memory. It’s an apology that’s not actually an apology, much less repentance and it’s years too late to matter in any case.
But until then that’s all you’re getting, until then no dissent is allowed – that’s the first rule of Washington.
But somehow Trump didn’t bother to follow it. He is from out of town so maybe he didn’t know it was a rule or maybe he just didn’t care. Either way, seven and a half years later we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:
“we should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”
We should never have been in Iraq, Trump said. We destabilized the Middle East. Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.
Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silenced stunned. Can he say that? Well he said it anyway and by saying that he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.
Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so was Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.
After that it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives. Everything depended on it, many of them said so publicly. But others didn’t say so publicly; in fact the stealthier ones took another path – they ran toward Trump not away from him. They sucked up to him, they ingratiated themselves- the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery which Trump is, and they did this in order to subvert his new Administration from the inside.
There were a number of these and you could spot them immediately: they were flatterers. Invariably the ones who flattered Trump the most hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences; they were there slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a God.
It was a scene from the ottoman Court – it was filthy and decadent and it was false. Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in the Congress. They all called Trump a Visionary genius… up until the moment he lost power and then they unsheathed their real agenda – as always the neocon war agenda – and they piled on with maximum Force.
Here’s Mike Pompeo for example on Fox news this morning:
“President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them. And then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that for whatever reason… when somebody identifies that you got to turn them in. So that’s just inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers sailors, airmen and marines… and if the allegations are true some of these were pretty serious important documents… so that’s wrong”
May future historians hoping to unlock the mysteries of late empire Washington study that clip, because it will reveal everything. That very same Mike Pompeo – the one who’s sneering at Donald Trump on TV this morning – that guy served Donald Trump as both CIA director and as Secretary of State. Those are the two most powerful jobs in the federal government and as he worked in those jobs, Pompeo promised – in fact he swore – to support the president’s agenda.
Why? because that’s the way a democracy works: you vote for a candidate in the belief that his appointees will carry out the policies that you voted for. It’s not about the president, it’s about you the voter.
But Pompeo didn’t do that he didn’t even try to do that. In fact he undermined Trump’s often stated commitment to peace and non-intervention abroad at every turn; his every waking hour was devoted to fomenting war in some Far Away foreign country or other. Iran, Syria Russia, North Korea… the list goes on but rather than telling Trump that he disagree with his ideas as a man would, Pompeo toadied up to Trump – a man he despised – in the oiliest, most over-the-top way imaginable.
Ask anyone who worked in that white house at the time who is the appointee most likely to tell Donald Trump on a daily basis that he was handsome, virile, sleek and powerful. “Mike Pompeo” that will be the consensus answer. Those of us who saw firsthand Pompeo’s relentless cow Towing will never forget it – it was indelibly repulsive. No one with self-respect could do something like that, but Mike Pompeo did it effortlessly with relish and Verve. Now this same person is telling Fox News viewers that he fears for the safety of our military, our soldiers “Sailors Airmen and Marines” in the approved phrase, because Donald Trump took some classified documents home and didn’t immediately return them to the National Archives.
What a lie that is: Mike Pompeo knows that’s a lie. He spent his entire life in Washington. Washington is a city where internal memos about Labor Day are classified because everything is classified. Your government has classified more than a billion Federal documents most of them boring and pointless and a danger to no one, and locked them away in secret. You can’t see them because you may be an American citizen, but not really… and therefore you don’t have the necessary clearances to know what’s going on.
And by the way none of this is done in order to make America safer any more than Covid restrictions were designed to keep you healthy. No it’s a caste system that’s the point, and you’re the Untouchable in this hierarchy.
Mike Pompeo knows that, everybody who works in Washington knows that.
How many secret documents do you think Dick Cheney took home with him while he was running the Iraq War? How many did his wife read? She never had a clearance. We’ll never know the answer because there is no chance Dick Cheney will ever be investigated, or his staffers will be told to wear wires in his presence. He will never be indicted for this.
Of course not: Dick Cheney is a neocon Donald Trump is not. Dick Cheney supports war with Russia, Trump does not. That’s the difference: the rest is just a distraction.
The prosecution of Donald Trump is transparently political. He’s literally Joe Biden’s main political opponent. He’s polling over 60 percent among Republican voters right now. So Joe Biden is doing what no president has ever dared to do. He’s using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival: that’s happening right now, and anyone who denies it’s happening is lying to you.
But actually it’s worse than that Trump’s prosecution isn’t just political, it’s ideological. Nobody with Trump’s views is allowed to have power in this country. Criticize our Wars and you’re disqualified, if you keep it up we’ll send you to prison.
That’s the message Washington is sending, not just the Democratic party is sending but both parties are sending.
Like so many Republicans, for example, the supposedly conservative governor of Texas Greg Abbott spent yesterday totally ignoring the destruction of the American justice system. Instead, he signed a highly important bill called the crown act which according to the celebratory tweet Abbott sent commemorating it will “prohibit discrimination based on Textures and hairstyles historically associated with race.” In other words in Texas cornrows are now protected by law, having unapproved views about Ukraine is not.
That’s fine with most elected Republicans: they find Trump tiresome and embarrassing, their donors hate him; they will not be sad if he dies in jail.
But what about voters: what are they learning from this spectacle? Well mostly they’re learning that they have no power at all because nobody cares about them.
But they already knew that. Unlike so many of our elected leaders, they have been to America recently. They know what it looks like. Have you seen it? If you’ve got a few days this summer find out take a road trip and see for yourself Drive 500 miles in any direction and then come home. How are things looking? Well they should look great – the federal government spent six and a half trillion dollars last year. That’s more than any government has ever spent ever. So at the very least you would expect pristine public roads. Oh no that’s not what you see when you drive around this country – there are potholes and Jersey barriers everywhere. Looks like Tegucigalpa before the Chinese decided to rebuild the infrastructure of Honduras. We don’t have China buying our roads so they’re falling apart.
You’d think the people you would pass on your road trip would look happy and prosperous; again this is a very rich country. But a lot of them don’t. Quite a few appear to be strung out on drugs. You see them shuffling by shuttered storefronts in small towns. And you wonder as you see all of this where did all the money go, it’s certainly not here?
Well, it’s in Washington, it’s in Fairfax, in Loudoun counties, and in leafy perfectly manicured Northwest D.C. And of course a huge chunk of it went to Ukraine to Zelenski and his friends. Not because you voted for that; you didn’t vote to give it to them you never would, but because Joe Biden and his many allies from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan and every single news anchor on all of Television all of them believe that Ukraine its borders its future its infrastructure are all more important than the town that you live in.
They sincerely think that, and it’s obvious everyone in power thinks that… except for Donald Trump.
Whatever else you say about him, Trump is the one guy with an actual shot of becoming president who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless War agenda. And for that that one fact they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him and that should upset you more than anything that’s happened in American politics in your lifetime.
Even if you don’t plan to vote for Donald Trump, even if you would die before voting for Donald Trump – which is your right and a lot of good people feel that way – even still, the destruction of our democracy which is the right of Voters to support any candidate they want, even candidates who don’t want war with Russia, the destruction of that should keep you up at night.
Yes, Donald Trump was a flawed man but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.
In this life we don’t get to choose our Martyrs we can only choose our principles… and America’s are at stake.
NATO Drills Serve as Cover for ‘Less Publicized Actions’ Like Nord Stream Sabotage
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 12.06.2023
On June 12, the Western military bloc that already fans the flames of the Ukrainian conflict by supplying vast quantities of weapons and military hardware to Kiev launches a massive military exercise in Germany that may well become NATO’s biggest drill ever.
As US Ret.Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski explained to Sputnik, NATO is a “military alliance of disparate equipment, national procedures, and language,” and thus needs to conduct such exercises in Europe because so far, the bloc’s joint operations have been taking place “outside of Europe proper.”
Noting that the exercise will “practice defense (as NATO defines it) and conduct forward eastern operations as a 15 plus member fighting bureaucracy,” Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, also observed that such events may also serve another purpose.
“All publicized military and government exercises and activities always provide cover for other activities that are less well publicized, as we have seen with last summer BALTOPS 22, and the subsequent remote detonation of pre-planted explosives designed to sever both Nordstream gas pipelines,” she said.
When asked why NATO intends to essentially showcase so much military equipment during the exercise, Kwiatkowski suggested that the military bloc has been pushing a propaganda narrative portraying Ukraine as “Europe’s last stand against a crazed Russian invader set to sack the cities of western Europe,” and that this display is supposed to show that NATO members have the gear to resist such imagined invasion.
“In a sense, it is a NATO propaganda effort made necessary by a previous propaganda effort. NATO member states and their voting populations are beginning to realize what is really happening to their actual independent ability to defend their borders as they bleed stockpiled weapons systems, ammunition and artillery into Ukraine for free, and now face increased military budgets to replenish and upgrade their NATO and national systems,” Kwiatkowski mused.
According to her, this exercise may be an attempt to “shore up European confidence that the Ukraine proxy war has in fact not depleted their defensive capability.”
While Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerharz, commander of Germany’s Air Force, previously described NATO’s exercise as purely “defensive in nature,” the bloc’s leadership “is, and has been for decades, confused about the meaning of the terms ‘defensive’ and ‘promise’,” Kwiatkowski argued.
“It is easier to understand NATO strategy in the big picture if one accepts that NATO is about continuing to expand its mission, its budget, and importantly, its dominance as a European organization more powerful and important than the EU itself,” she said. “As the EU has lost membership, NATO aggressively signs on new countries and demands its share of the national budgets.”
The ex-DOD analyst also lamented that while “aging and declining” Europe would have probably been better off opting for diplomacy and a “repair of relationships,” what we see instead is a “massive waste and risky military behavior on the part of its generals and politicians.”
CNN Admitted That Kiev Lost Around 15% Of Its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles In A Week
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 12, 2023
Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive is off to a rough start after losing around 15% of its Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in a week according to CNN’s latest report. The outlet cited a Dutch open-source intelligence website that’s collected visual evidence of each side’s military equipment losses since the start of Russia’s special operation. While Ukrainian supporters are celebrating the recapture of some long-contested villages along the Line of Contact, these were pyrrhic victories considering the costs.
The first line of Russia’s multilayered defenses in the Zaporozhye Region has yet to even be reached, which suggests that Kiev’s already very high losses will likely spike the closer that its forces get to there. Russia’s Ministry of Defense earlier shared footage showing some of the same Bradley vehicles that CNN later confirmed were indeed destroyed, which also included a German Leopard tank. Observers should therefore assume that there’s truth to Moscow’s claims that some of the latter were destroyed too.
Kiev’s loss of such American and German “wunderwaffen” was to be expected since it was never realistic that either piece of equipment would reshape the military-strategic dynamics of the NATO-Russian “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that have been trending in Moscow’s favor since the start of this year. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian and Western publics were misled by their governments’ information warfare campaigns into pinning their hopes of victory on those two and others.
The deep disappointment that they’d inevitably feel after seeing footage of them being destroyed by their opponents explains why Kiev released a propaganda video last week urging everyone to remain tight-lipped about the counteroffensive and not to share any unconfirmed claims about it. This narrative context makes it all the more surprising that CNN just informed their global audience that Ukraine lost around one out of every seven Bradley vehicles before it even reached the first line of Russia’s defenses.
Kiev will obviously be displeased by this, but there isn’t anything that it can do in response. According to Semafor, the regime has already threatened, revoked, or denied the credentials of Western journalists in the country over their coverage of this conflict, including CNN’s. That outlet’s latest report, however, was derived from third-party open-source intelligence and not its own sources on the ground. In fact, CNN might even have published it as a form of protest against Kiev’s censorship of its journalists.
After all, they usually toe the Western line on this conflict, which is why their report stands out so much. CNN didn’t have to inform their global audience about the scale of Kiev’s losses thus far just one week into the counteroffensive and contrary to that side’s demand not to share any unconfirmed claims. For this reason, it can be seen not only as an act of protest against Kiev, but also against that regime’s Western patrons who support their proxy’s censorship of foreign journalists like CNN’s by their silence.
Kiev and its patrons should therefore have expected that some of these same Western outlets whose journalists’ work the regime impeded would eventually rebel and do so in a way that embarrasses them. Both would have preferred for proof of these “wunderwaffens’” destruction to be kept under wraps, but now there’s no denying this after CNN’s latest report. They can’t reflexively claim that this is “Russian propaganda” either since no Westerner believes that this outlet is under Moscow’s control.
The public’s artificially manufactured hopes that the Bradley vehicles and Leopard tanks would lead to a speedy victory for Kiev have thus been shattered, but most will likely cope with this by taking false comfort in the recapture of some long-contested villages. Those whose eyes have finally been opened by CNN’s surprising report, however, might rightly fear what could happen in the event of a direct NATO-Russian conflict since it’s clear that the West can’t rely on these “wunderwaffen” to win.
Kiev’s NATO-Backed Counteroffensive Is The West’s Most Important Military Campaign Since WWII
More Than Meets The Eye
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 11, 2023
Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive has captivated the world’s attention as everyone watches to see whether it’ll push Russia out of the territory that Ukraine claims as its own. Progress on that direction would likely lead to continued Western support, while the failure to fulfill expectations might lead to the aforesaid being curtailed and ceasefire talks commencing. Either outcome is important, but what many observers have overlooked is the historical significance of this campaign.
The Unexpected Proxy War
It’s the first time since World War II that the West has conventionally fought a military peer, albeit indirectly in this case since they’re fighting Russia via their Ukrainian proxy. The US envisaged transforming that former Soviet Republic into a platform for threatening Russia through conventional, hybrid, and unconventional means with the aim of coercing it into never-ending concessions. The goal was to strategically neutralize then Balkanize it in order to facilitate doing the same to China afterwards.
While Ukraine was cooperating with NATO to this end prior to the start of Russia’s special operation, including through the secret hosting of that bloc’s bases as well as joint biological and nuclear weapons programs, everything was supposed to accelerate after its planned reconquest of Donbass in early 2022. President Putin narrowly preempted his opponents’ first move once he concluded that the West didn’t want to resolve their problems through peaceful means after they rejected Russia’s security requests.
Mutual Surprises Lead To A Stalemate
The fast-moving events that were set into motion caught both sides by surprise. The West didn’t really expect a large-scale intervention, predicting instead that Russia would likely concentrate its forces in Donbass in the unlikely scenario that it got involved, but they still secretly dispatched plenty of anti-air and -tank missiles to Ukraine ahead of time just in case. Likewise, Russia didn’t expect such formidable resistance from Ukraine, but the West was also surprised that Russia didn’t collapse due to sanctions.
Neither side has thus far been able to defeat the other as a result of the NATO-Russian “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that Secretary-General Stoltenberg finally admitted in mid-February has been going on this whole time. His bloc continued pumping Ukraine full of increasingly higher quality arms and training more of its troops to NATO standards exactly as it planned to do had Donbass been reconquered, while Russia partially mobilized its trained reservists and ramped up its military-industrial production.
The New York Times Spills The Beans
Instead of settling for the present stalemate by seeking to freeze the Line of Contact via a Korean-like armistice, the West saw the opportunity to put its proxy war plans against Russia into action ahead of schedule. Had Donbass been reconquered by Ukraine last spring like NATO envisaged, then Kiev would have been armed to the teeth and extensively trained for years prior to provoking a crisis over Crimea, but the decision was made to test it now since it’s partially ready and the pretext already exists.
The New York Times (NYT) hinted at this motivation in their recent article titled “As Ukraine Launches Counteroffensive, Definitions of ‘Success’ Vary”, which revealed that “Essentially, the United States and its allies will be looking at the counteroffensive for evidence that their plan of remaking the Ukrainian army into a modern force that fights with NATO tactics, and that can use complex maneuvers and advanced equipment to allow a smaller force to defeat a larger one, is sound.”
The West’s Reality Check
The influx of over $165 billion worth of military support to Ukraine from NATO proved too tempting of an opportunity for the bloc’s most hawkish decisionmakers to pass up in terms of finally testing their arms and strategies against a peer competitor. Considering the likelihood of Russia entrenching itself even deeper into those territories that Ukraine claims as its own and recalling the neck-and-neck NATO-Russian “race of logistics”, the decision was made to test it now instead of face greater difficulties later.
The NYT reported that expectations are tempered as a result of this newfound context: “Privately, U.S. and European officials concede that pushing all of Russia’s forces out of occupied Ukrainian land is highly unlikely. Still, two themes emerge as clear ideas of ‘success’: that the Ukrainian army retake and hold on to key swaths of territory previously occupied by the Russians, and that Kyiv deal the Russian military a debilitating blow that forces the Kremlin to question the future of its military options in Ukraine.
The outlet then proceeded to indicate some tangible benchmarks for “success” such as “retaking some parts of the Donbas or pushing Russia out of agricultural and mining areas in southeastern Ukraine”, “Seizing the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia”, and/or “cut[ting] off, or at least squeez[ing], the so-called land bridge.” These moderate goals are a far cry from the maximalist one that’s officially being pursued by NATO and Ukraine, which shows what a reality check the past 15 months of fighting have been.
NATO’s Utter Humiliation By Russia
Even worse for them is that Russia didn’t just destroy a sizeable amount of their so-called “wunderwaffen” over the past few days, but even released videos proving its accomplishments, thus utterly humiliating NATO. The bloc’s most hawkish decisionmakers were so eager to receive large-scale battlefield data from their Ukrainian proxies’ fielding of NATO equipment against the West’s Russian peer competitor that they arrogantly overlooked all the signs that this risked tremendously backfiring.
It was wrongly thought after Russia’s pullbacks in Kharkov and Kherson Regions late last year that the entire front would collapse if it was pushed strongly enough by NATO-trained Ukrainians fielding some of that bloc’s most famous equipment during the planned counteroffensive over half a year later. This assessment ignored the particularities of those two situations and assumed that Russia was incapable of learning from its prior shortcomings, which directly led to the West’s disaster over the past few days.
That’s not to say that Ukraine’s counteroffensive might not achieve some success despite the enormous physical costs that this would certainly entail, but just that global perceptions about Western power have just been shattered after Russia shared videos of it destroying their “wunderwaffen”. If more sober-minded decisionmakers had the final say in whether the counteroffensive should go ahead, they might have calculated that it’s better to preserve the illusion of dominance than risk having it dispelled.
Great Power Competition
It might have been inevitable in hindsight that the greenlight would be given to Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive, however, when remembering that the US has been planning to test its new proxy war model against a peer competitor since at least December 2017. The National Security Strategy that was released at the time declared that “great power competition has returned”, specifically identifying China and Russia as the two that the US must actively contain.
Despite Trump continuing to arm Ukraine and impose sanctions against Russia during his tenure, he appears to have sincerely wanted to strike a deal with the Kremlin in order to then focus entirely on containing China, but he was thwarted by his permanent bureaucracy. Upon Biden coming to power, the Democrats’ plot to have Kiev reconquer Donbass as part of their grand strategic plan to contain Russia before China was once again back in play, which would have happened earlier had Hillary won in 2016.
The Biden Administration’s Gamble
The West didn’t expect Russia to stop them, let alone intervene far beyond Donbass in the unlikely scenario that it got involved, and then they wrongly predicted that it would soon collapse under sanctions. They were wrong on all three counts, which led to them being pulled by rapidly accelerating mission creep into waging a proxy war against Russia a lot earlier than they planned. Instead of being satisfied with their test data and freezing the conflict, they want even more at a much larger scale.
The most hawkish decisionmakers downplayed Russia’s proven military improvements since its pullback from Kherson last November and authorized the counteroffensive for this purpose since they were convinced that Ukraine’s NATO-trained and -armed forces would smash through the entire front. They couldn’t resist the chance to finally test their arms and strategies against a peer competitor at this scale after NATO poured over $165 billion worth of military aid into their proxy these past 15 months.
Concluding Thoughts
Awareness of these real motivations explains why the counteroffensive is the West’s most important military campaign since World War II, which was the last time that they conventionally fought a military peer. Even though they’re only doing so by proxy right now, they’re still receiving the large-scale data that they require in order to fine-tune their plans ahead of possibly waging a direct war against one. What the West has learned over the past few days, however, is that they shouldn’t take victory over Russia for granted.
Ukrainian Counteroffensive Runs Into Defensive Wall
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 10.06.2023
Over the course of the past few days, Ukraine has thrown two of its best-trained, best-equipped mechanized brigades into offensive operations against entrenched Russian defenders in the Zaporozhye sector of the front lines.
These two brigades had been hand-picked for this job, having been equipped with modern Western tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, supported by Western-supplied artillery, and using NATO-specific tactics shaped by NATO-provided intelligence and NATO operational planning. In short, these two brigades represented a top-level NATO-level capability, the epitome of the nexus between Ukraine and the Collective West in their ongoing war to destroy Russia.
They failed.
As the world comes to grips with the imagery of destroyed US-manufactured M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and German-made Leopard 2A6 tanks abandoned and burning on the Ukrainian steppe, the harsh truth regarding the futility of its larger designs—the strategic defeat of Russia—is starting to sink in.
The reality, however, is that Ukraine was never going to achieve its stated objective of punching through the Russian defenses to sever the land bridge connecting Crimea with Russia proper. This was pie-in-the-sky thinking promulgated by Ukraine’s Western supporters to motivate the Ukrainians into committing the equivalent of mass suicide to inflict similarly prohibitive casualties among the Russian defenders.
The Western hope was that Russia would become demoralized by these casualties and accept a negotiated end to the conflict on terms acceptable to both Ukraine and its Western allies.
So far, Ukraine and its Western allies have failed.
The genesis of this failure can be traced to two things. First, the low-opinion Ukraine and their NATO allies had regarding the combat capabilities of the Russian army, and in particular those forces deployed in the Zaporozhye region, and second, the unrealistic expectations assigned to NATO training and equipment that had been provided to the Ukrainian forces assigned the task of breaking through the Russian defenses.
The area selected by Ukraine and its NATO partners as the focus of effort for the counteroffensive was held by the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division, part of the 58th Combined Arms Army. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank with close ties to US and NATO, claimed that the troops of the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division “are predominantly comprised of mobilized recruits and volunteers and are therefore likely to face some problems with poor training and discipline.”
Moreover, it accused at least one of the subordinate regiments—the 70th motorized rifle regiment—of performing poorly during the initial phases of the Special Military Operation in 2022.
It is therefore reasonable to believe that NATO and Ukrainian military planners, using intelligence assessments that highlighted perceived command and control weaknesses and poor morale among the Russian forces which, when combined with poor past performance, believed that the Russian defenses in the Zaporozhye sector manned by the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division would collapse under the weight of a NATO-style assault, allowing Ukrainian forces to penetrate deep into the Russian defenses.
While the fighting in Zaporozhye is not yet finished, the initial results on the battlefield show that, contrary to the expectations of Ukraine and its NATO partners, the men of the 42ndGuards Rifle Division performed their tasks in a professional manner, decisively defeating the Ukrainian assault forces. The 70th Motorized Rifle Regiment has been singled out as performing very well under difficult circumstances. The same can be said of the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment and the 71st Motorized Rifles Regiment, along with special forces soldiers from the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade. Analysts from ISW, in assessing the initial successes of the Russian defenders, noted that “Russian forces appear to have executed their formal tactical defensive doctrine in response to the Ukrainian attacks.”
This, of course, should have taken no one by surprise, since the individual in command of Russian forces in the Zaporozhye area is Colonel General Alexander Romanchuk, the man who is responsible for conceiving modern Russian defensive doctrine. In April 2023 Romanchuk, who at that time was serving as the Rector of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (the equivalent of the United States Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth), co-authored an article titled “Prospects for Improving the Efficiency of Army Defensive Operations.”
In the article, Romanchuk noted that the main mission of a defending force “is to neutralize the initiative of the advancing enemy, i.e., to bring him to the state of impossibility to continue advancing with deployed forces. Ultimately, this allows you to reduce his activity and seize the initiative by going over to a decisive counter-offensive to defeat the enemy with shock groups.”
This represents a restatement of Soviet-era doctrine. Indeed, Romanchuk draws upon the defeat of German offensive operations in the vicinity of Lake Balaton in March 1945 as representing an ideal implementation of this doctrine, underscoring “a bold maneuver of the reserves… especially artillery, the skillful use of anti-tank reserves, vigilant detachments of obstacles and the arrangement of fire ambushes” by the Russian forces in defeating the German attack.
Romanchuk, however, did not simply reiterate old doctrine in his paper. Instead, he emphasizes the concept of “dispersed forces” in building a defensive scheme capable of prevailing on the modern battlefield. “A dispersed defensive operation should become a logical response to a superior enemy,” Romanchuk writes.
Such an operation “is based on the retention of important areas, objects and transport hubs in separate most important directions,” and is “characterized by an even distribution of forces and resources in areas, and decentralized use of formations and military units of the armed forces and special forces.”
Romanchuk then went on to describe the ideal deployment scheme for these “dispersed forces” — one which focuses on three separate “zones of defense responsibility” separated by distances of between 8 and 12 kilometers. These gaps are covered by Russian artillery. The first “zone” is the “cover” zone, whose task is to define the main axes of the enemy’s advance. The next “zone” is the “main line of defense”, which is designed to halt enemy attacks using obstacle belts and fire power (artillery and air strikes). The last “zone” is the “reserve”, which is responsible for mounting counterattacks designed to push the attacking forces back to their original positions.
Romanchuk’s doctrine was the blueprint for the Russian defensive scheme employed in Zaporozhye. Indeed, Romanchuk was pulled from his teaching position at the Combined Arms Academy and put in command of the Zaporozhye sector. In other words, the place chosen by NATO and Ukrainian intelligence as the “weak spot” in the Russian defensive scheme was designed by Russia’s top specialist in defensive combat and placed under his direct command.
NATO and Ukraine gambled that Russia lacked the military capacity to successfully implement its own military doctrine, believing that Russian command staffs lacked the communications necessary to coordinate the complex operations necessary to implement this doctrine, and that the Russian forces—especially those who were recently mobilized—lacked both the training and morale needed to perform well under stressful combat conditions.
They were wrong on both counts.
NATO and Ukraine’s poor assessment of Russian military capability mirrored their own exaggerated assessments of Ukrainian units tasked with attacking the Russian defenses in Zaporozhye, namely the 33rd and 47th Mechanized Brigades. Both units were the recipients of modern NATO equipment, including Leopard tanks (the 33rd) and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (the 47th). The officers and men of both units had been provided with the best training NATO could provide regarding modern combined-arms operations, including weeks of specialized training in Germany which focused on platoon, company, and battalion tactics and operations integrating firepower and maneuver while undertaking offensive operations.
The Ukrainian troops, working side by side with their NATO instructors, started by using computer simulations to introduce them to the complexities of the modern battlefield, before moving to the field for realistic hands-on training using the very NATO-provided equipment they would use against the Russians.
US “experts” like Mark Hertling, a retired US Army general believed that the combination of advanced western military equipment and superior NATO-style tactics “will allow Ukraine’s emerging combined-arms teams to conduct high-tempo maneuver” capable of overwhelming the Russian defenders in Ukraine.
He was wrong.
Hertling and his active-duty NATO brethren would have done well to listen to the words of General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, when speaking before a Swedish defense conference this past January.
“The scale of this war [i.e., the Russian-Ukraine conflict] is out of proportion with all of our recent thinking,” Cavoli noted.
The takeaway from this revelation is that NATO is neither trained nor equipped to fight the kind of fight they are demanding Ukraine execute against Russia.
The sad truth of the matter is that there are no NATO forces capable of successfully executing the offensive tasks that have been assigned to Ukraine. No one doubts the courage and commitment of the Ukrainian forces which have been thrown against Colonel General Romanchuk’s defensive barrier. But courage and commitment cannot overcome the reality that NATO lacks the ability, both in terms of equipment and doctrine, to successfully defeat Russia in a force-on-force confrontation, especially one which has Russia playing to its doctrinal strength (defensive operations) while NATO seeks to do something (an assault against prepared defenses) that it has no experience in doing.
Moreover, NATO and the Ukrainian high command threw the Ukrainian brigades into the teeth of the Russian defensive buzzsaw without adequate fire support, meaning that the Russians were free to maximize their superiority in artillery and air power to neutralize and destroy the Ukrainian attacking forces before they could generate the momentum expected from “high-tempo maneuver.”
The end result: Russian reality trumped NATO theory on the battlefield, and it is Ukraine’s military that once again paid the heaviest price. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that this situation will change anytime soon, if ever, a fact that bodes poorly for the future of Ukraine and NATO going forward.
US & NATO’s Ultimate Goal is to ‘Take Over Ukrainian Land, People and Resources’
By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 10.06.2023
Shortly after the fabled Ukrainian counteroffensive finally started, it became increasingly apparent that NATO military equipment and training won’t be enough for the Kiev regime forces to penetrate Russian defensive lines.
With the Ukrainian offensive now underway, Kiev so far has virtually nothing to show in the way of gains, whereas images of wrecked Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles used by Ukrainian troops have already started circulating on social media.
Even though the United States and its allies have been generously supplying Ukraine with armaments and military vehicles during the ongoing conflict, it appears that Ukrainian forces are “institutionally and operationally unable to successfully absorb the wide and inconsistent variety of equipment and weaponry” while “under fire and duress,” said US Ret.Lt.Col Karen Kwiatkowski.
“This is the fault of the US and NATO which seeks to ride the back of Ukrainian patriotism in order to both confront and harass Russia, with an aim to take over Ukraine’s land, people and resources once there is little Ukraine left – in a kind of mini-Marshall Plan, this time completely and wholly managed and conducted by US and international crony capitalists, like Black Rock,” Kwiatkowsky, a former US Department of Defense analyst, told Sputnik.
She suggested that the United States and Britain were likely the ones who actually needed Kiev to launch this counteroffensive and that it would seem “as if Western governments see Ukraine little more than a snuff film, for their entertainment and profit.”
“Clearly, what Ukraine needs is to find a way to get out from under the US political cycle and NATO’s organizational expansion obsession, and make peace,” Kwiatkowsky mused, postulating that such a deal would likely entail the separation of the “Russian side of the former Ukraine” from the “Ukrainian side.”
She did point out, however, that so far the US and the UK politicians have been quick to suppress any attempts by the Ukrainian side to “make peaceful signs or noises.”
Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former CIA station chief Phillip Giraldi has observed that some Western media outlets have been trying to make it look like the Ukrainian counteroffensive is succeeding and that Kiev regime forces are “overrunning the Russian positions.”
Commenting on this development, Giraldi suggested that politicians in the US, the UK and Germany “need to be able to speak positively about what is occurring” in Ukraine, since the public in their respective countries is starting to turn against the conflict “as it grinds on and on consuming hundreds of billions dollars worth of equipment.”
He further suggested that people in the United States, Britain and Germany are none too thrilled about their governments directly backing the regime in Kiev, which he described as “a regime that nearly everyone concedes is hopelessly corrupt.”
“There is talk here in Washington that the Ukrainian generals might depose Zelensky and enter into negotiations with Moscow,” Giraldi added.
Germany squandering billions on Israel’s Arrow-3 missile defence system
MEMO | June 10, 2023
Germany squandering almost 4 billion euros ($4.30 billion) on Israel’s Arrow-3 missile defense system is a prime example of financial mismanagement. Astonishingly, the government plans to request advance payments of up to 560 million euros from lawmakers, revealing a complete disregard for responsible spending. The Arrow-3 system, supposedly designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the earth’s atmosphere, is nothing more than an overpriced addition to Israel’s already extensive missile defense arsenal.
Despite its lofty claims, the Arrow-3 merely serves as the extravagant crown jewel of Israel’s defense array, spanning from the unnecessary short-range rocket interception capabilities of Iron Dome to the extravagant long-range missile destruction capabilities of Arrow-3. Germany’s acquisition of this system showcases a distorted sense of priorities and a blatant waste of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
The government aims to finalize a government-to-government deal with Israel by the end of the year, leaving little room for rational decision-making or exploring alternative, more sensible options. Astonishingly, the procurement documents prepared for parliament reveal that Germany will forfeit part or all of its advance payments if the deal falls through, essentially guaranteeing compensation to Israel for costs they may incur. This reckless arrangement further burdens German taxpayers and highlights the government’s lack of fiscal prudence.
Even more concerning is the fact that Germany’s air force is expected to take delivery of the Arrow-3 system, now costing a staggering one billion euros more than initially planned, by the fourth quarter of 2025. Such an inflated expenditure raises serious questions about the government’s judgment and its ability to allocate funds responsibly.
It is worth noting that Germany’s justification for this extravagant purchase, using Russia’s conflict in Ukraine to argue for a shortage of ground-based air defense systems, is nothing more than a flimsy pretext. While medium-layer defense systems like Raytheon’s Patriot units or the more recent IRIS-T system provide sufficient coverage, Germany’s decision to acquire the Arrow-3 demonstrates a foolish preoccupation with unnecessary high-layer defense.
By indulging in such a costly acquisition, Germany jeopardizes the allocation of funds for crucial areas such as infrastructure, social programs, and economic development. The government’s skewed priorities raise serious concerns about its commitment to the well-being of its citizens and the prudent management of public resources.
Where Do 2024 US Presidential Candidates Stand on Ukraine?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 09.06.2023
Over a dozen US presidential candidates have tossed their hats into the 2024 ring. Sputnik has analyzed what the contenders’ attitude to Washington’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine is.
The Russo-Ukraine conflict remains one of the focal points of the 2024 election campaign. Republican and Democratic hopefuls are striving to rally support from the American public which appears to have grown impatient with the overseas standoff.
Despite roughly a half of Americans still backing the provision of military aid to Ukraine, a marked drop in the public’s willingness to pay a cost in terms of higher energy price, inflation, and plummetting living standards has been registered by pollsters over the last several months. Per Brookings, the realization that there is no end in sight for the conflict has seemingly become sobering to US voters.
Do US presidential candidates – who are polling at 1% or above in recent Ipsos polls and thus having a chance of coming out on top – meet the American people’s expectations when it comes to the Ukraine conflict?
Democratic Party
Joe Biden
Incumbent US President Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that he would support the Kiev regime for the long haul. The Biden administration is the most vocal advocate of fuelling the unfolding standoff and imposing a “strategic defeat” on Russia. To that end, Joe Biden has announced over $100 billion worth of Ukraine aid packages since the onset of the conflict.
“Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never,” Biden told a crowd in Warsaw, Poland, on February 21, 2023.
During his June 8 meeting with UK Prime Minister Sunak, the US president signaled his readiness to continue providing the Kiev regime with weapons together with London. Simultaneously, Team Biden is stirring up the waters of the Pacific by beefing up US military presence in close proximity to China. Biden is continuing to go all in on the dual standoff with Moscow and Beijing, even though this policy is backfiring both on the US and its European allies.
Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson, the author of “A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles” (1992), former “Spiritual Leader” for the Church of Today and political candidate, has called for closing over 800 US military installations in over 80 countries in her May 27 Substack op-ed denouncing them as “nothing more than a continuation of the excessive militarization of American foreign policy.” She also condemned Washington’s “imperialistic ventures”, “actions regarding NATO, and putting Aegis missiles in Poland”, as exacerbating the situation vis-à-vis Russia.
Still, that does not mean that the US is “responsible” for the Russo-Ukraine conflict, “nor does it mean that our larger interests, the interests of the people of Ukraine or the interests of the rest of the world, are best served by our withholding support from Ukraine now,” insists Williamson. In short, the author is advocating further arming the Kiev regime.
Robert Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late US attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy, formally launched his presidential campaign on April 19, 2023. In contrast to his Democratic rivals, Kennedy does not support the US proxy war in Ukraine.
In his lengthy May 3 tweet, RFK pointed out that it was US neocons, who crossed all “red lines” and dragged Russia and Ukraine into the conflict:
“[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky almost certainly could have avoided the 2022 war with Russia simply by uttering five words — ‘I will not join NATO’; But pressured by neocons in the Biden White House, and by violent fascist elements within the Ukrainian government, Zelensky integrated his army with NATO’s and allowed the US to place nuclear-capable Aegis missile launchers along Ukraine’s 1,200-mile border with Russia.”
“[US neocons] wanted war as part of their strategic grand plan to destroy any country such as Russia that resists American imperial expansion,” RFK Jr. reiterated on May 25 on Twitter.
Republican Party
Donald Trump
Former US President Donald Trump has made it clear that as president he would stop the Russo-Ukraine conflict in 24 hours after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
“When I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours,” Trump said in a CNN town hall on May 11, adding that both Moscow and Kiev have their “weaknesses” and “strengths.”
Trump avoided answering the question, which country he would prefer to win: “I don’t think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people. I want everybody to stop dying,” the former president told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
Ron DeSantis
In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote: “While the US has many vital national interests, becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
In April, DeSantis reiterated his stance: “It’s in everybody’s interest to try to get to a place where we can have a ceasefire,” told Nikkei Asia. “You don’t want to end up in a [Battle of] Verdun situation, where you just have mass casualties, mass expense and end up with a stalemate.”
The Ukraine issue was not even mentioned in DeSantis’ campaign launched on Twitter in May.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy, an American entrepreneur and politician, also stands for ending the Ukraine conflict. On June 6, Ramaswamy outlined his foreign policy vision in a Twitter post, condemning President Joe Biden’s Ukraine support for “pushing Russia into a closer military alliance with China.”
The politician proposes “a Korean war style armistice agreement” between Russia and Ukraine, “which would cede most of the Donbass region to Russia”; suspend any US military assistance to the Kiev regime; establish “a permanent moratorium on Ukraine joining NATO”; lift sanctions against Russia; withdraw NATO troops from Ukraine and close all their bases in Eastern Europe; and accept Russia into the security infrastructure of Europe.
In return, per Ramaswamy, Russia should cease all sorts of technical military cooperation and security partnerships with China; withdraw its nuclear weapons and delivery capabilities from Kaliningrad and Belarus; pull out Russian security specialists from Latin America; and re-enter into the New START Treaty.
“I’ve offered a clear & specific path to end the war in Ukraine now while dismantling the Russia-China alliance. No other GOP candidate has touched this with a 10-foot pole,” Ramaswamy summed up.
Nikki Haley
Nikki Haley, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, has taken a stance which is the polar opposite: “This is bigger than Ukraine,” she stated during the CNN town hall on June 4. “This is a war about freedom and it’s one we have to win.”
Haley said if Russia is allowed to achieve its stated goals of demilitarization and de-Nazifying of Ukraine, a world war would be round the corner:
“China says Taiwan’s next, we better believe them. Russia said Poland and the Baltics are next, if that happens, we are looking at a world war. This is about preventing war.”
The former UN ambassador fell short of specifying the sources behind her claims of Moscow and Beijing’s plans of “invading” Poland, the three Baltic nations and the island which the People’s Republic of China has always considered its inalienable part.
Mike Pence
Former US Vice President Mike Pence’s stance on Ukraine aligns him with his fellow party member, Nikki Haley. Still, instead of predicting a world war in case Russia wins, Pence has suggested that Washington is fighting for “freedom” in Ukraine. The ex-veep has also subjected Trump and DeSantis to criticism over their attitude to the Ukraine conflict.
Having filed the paperwork to run on June 5, he expressed willingness to support the Kiev regime during Wednesday’s CNN town hall in Iowa:
“I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal, and I know who needs to win the war in Ukraine,” Pence said. “And it’s the people fighting for their freedom and fighting to restore their national sovereignty in Ukraine. And America – it’s not our war, but freedom is our fight. And we need to give the people of Ukraine the ability to fight and defend their freedom.”
Tim Scott
US Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina has signaled strong support for arming Kiev since the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine conflict. According to Scott, Biden has done “a terrible job” articulating to the Americans “what is America’s vital, national interest in Ukraine”, which, according to the presidential candidate, is “degrading the Russian military.” Judging from Scott’s words, he expects Russia to attack the US one day.
“The more we degrade the Russian military, the less likely there is to be an attack on our sovereign territory,” Scott told NBC News on May 22. “And it protects our NATO partners. I think that we should be in Ukraine. I believe that the truth is simple, that degrading the Russian military is in America’s best interest. And the more we do that, the faster we get it done, the better off the entire world is.”
Chris Christie
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched his presidential nomination campaign with a June 6 town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire. Prior to that, Christie called Trump a “coward” and “a puppet of Putin,” over the former president’s stance on the Ukraine conflict.
Speaking to GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on May 11, Christie claimed that Washington should have done more to support the Kiev regime from day one of the conflict and insisted that the US should remain a global leader in providing weapons to Ukraine.
“In the end, we are in a proxy war right now with China, whether we like it or not, and their support of Russia in Ukraine is proof of that,” claimed the former New Jersey governor. “We have to make sure we send a very clear message, not only to the Chinese, but to our own allies that America’s not going to be a cut and run country.”
Doug Burgum
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum is another Republican presidential contender advocating support for Kiev. When the Russo-Ukrainian conflict erupted, he expressed solidarity with the Kiev regime, stating that “the United States and its allies must stand together in support of Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked attacks.”
Still, Burgum views the conflict as a chance for the US to step up energy production in the first place (which is quite understandable given that North Dakota is one of the top oil-producing states in the US):
“This international crisis underscores the importance of US energy security and increasing American production so we can sell energy to our friends and allies versus buying it from our enemies,” he stated on February 24, 2022.
He reiterated his stance on Wednesday while announcing his 2024 bid: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin only dared to invade Ukraine because our allies in Western Europe are all dependent on Russian energy,” Burgum claimed.
Who’s Commanding Most Support?
Biden has gotten the most backing among Democratic and Democratic leaning voters with a staggering 60%; while 20% support Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and 8% would vote for author Marianne Williamson, according to SSRS Political and Election Polling, released on May 25. However, pollsters warn about a decline in Biden’s nationwide approval over the past six months from 42% in December 2022 to 35% on May 25, 2023.
To date, former President Donald Trump has commanded the largest support in the Republican 2024 primary polls, as per Project FiveThiryEight survey aggregator. The national average support as of June 8 indicates that Trump got 53.8%; DeSantis (21.3%); Mike Pence (5.4%); Nikki Haley (4.5%); Ramaswamy (3.5%); Сhris Christie (less than 3%); Tim Scott (2.2%); and Doug Burgum (1%).
Austrian Censorship of Peace Conference Is An Outrage
By David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War; Kathy Kelly, President of World BEYOND War; John Reuwer, Board Member of World BEYOND War; Brad Wolf, Director of Peace Action, Lancaster, PA | June 8, 2023
Forty-eight hours before a global peace conference in Vienna, Austria, was to begin, the venue host abruptly cancelled. Peace, it seems, cannot be discussed, especially peace in Ukraine.
This news is a disturbing step in a growing trend.
Owners of the venue which was to host the Summit for Peace in Ukraine, announced on Wednesday, 7 June, 2023, their decision to cancel the agreement holding the summit on their premises. Fortunately, a new location was secured in Vienna (and anyone on Earth can sign up to take part online), but not before a smear campaign against the summit had been launched.
The venue owners reportedly explained: “We have decided to comply with the wishes of Ukraine and its embassy operating in Austria and have cancelled the rental of all rooms in the ÖGB catamaran for the event ‘International Summit for Peace in Ukraine’ next weekend.”
This was not just one venue taking this position. “On Wednesday, the Press Club Concordia also refused to make its premises in a central location in downtown Vienna available for a press conference of the ‘summit’.”
Supporters of the summit note the chilling innuendo caused by the abrupt cancellation of the summit. Speakers widely regarded for their moral and intellectual guidance have been undermined in statements intended to justify objections to the summit.
This is not an isolated incident. Western liberal ideals have long asserted that the best answer to mistaken speech was wiser speech and more of it. We now have a rapidly growing liberal consensus in favor, instead, of censoring media outlets, canceling speaking events, and forbidding people with unwanted points of view from even gathering together. Powers are being granted to governments, social media platforms, and other tech corporations that believers in democratic self-governance spent centuries claiming nobody should have.
Those who turn against free speech are often groups afraid they cannot win an honest debate. And so, they take up censorship. The movement for peace in Ukraine can take this as a compliment. Governments fear such a discussion of peace and instead smear this peace summit and the speakers.
An Austrian press report announced on Thursday that the venue (ÖGB Catamaran) had been withdrawn because the event was “under suspicion of propaganda.” What sort of propaganda? Well: “According to its own statements, the ‘International Summit for Peace in Ukraine’ wanted to show ways out of the war.” Under international law, propaganda for war is illegal and must be banned. Not a single nation on Earth complies with that requirement, raising up the value of free speech as trumping the rule of law. But speaking in favor of bringing a war to an end has now acquired the status of forbidden propaganda.
Moreover, the report explains, “some announced participants have no current fear of contact with the media of the aggressor.” In other words, if talk of negotiating peace is shut out of the media controlled by only one side of a war, speaking to media controlled by the other side — even to say exactly what one would have said to any other media outlet — is grounds for not only censorship but a ban on meeting and strategizing.
The report gives some specifics: “The internationally prominent U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs, for example, as well as Anuradha Chenoy, ex-dean of India’s Jawarharlal Nehru University and an important representative of global civil society networking, have given interviews to the TV station Russia Today (RT). The channel has been blocked across the Union for Russian war propaganda in the wake of EU sanctions. Sachs also answered questions from Russian TV host and war advocate Vladimir Solovyov in December 2022. Solovyov has often called for attacking Germany and Great Britain as well.”
The “Press Club Concordia” also explained that the problem was that Jeffrey Sachs might do an interview on Russian media.
Not only is diplomacy shunned, but speaking to members of the media with whom one disagrees is equated with advocating whatever those journalists have advocated. This can only contribute to distrust, enmity, and war without end.
Not only did the venue say it was doing the wishes of the Ukrainian embassy, but the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria tweeted that peace activists were the fifth column and henchmen of the Russian government.
And who created the idea that the whole world must obey the wishes of the government of Ukraine? The government of the United States — a country where little time passes these days without news of some event cancelled to fulfill the wishes of the government of Israel.
Further, “Noam Chomsky, who will speak at the summit via video, for example, believes that NATO has ‘marginalized’ Russia for too long.” Whether that fact is in dispute, or merely the acceptability of stating it out loud, was not explained.
“Also physically present in Vienna, according to the program, should be Clare Daly, an Irishwoman and member of the EU Parliament and the parliamentary group Die Linke. Daly also spoke repeatedly to RT about the West’s ‘complicity’ in the war in Ukraine. She believes the sanctions are wrong: they would not harm Russia and would not help Ukraine. In the EU Parliament in early 2023 Daly voted against a resolution holding Russia legally responsible for the war. Daly said she does support those parts of the text that condemn Russia for the invasion and call on the government in Moscow to immediately cease all military action and withdraw from Ukraine. However, she said she opposes providing weapons to Ukraine and expanding NATO’s presence in the region.”
So, opposing both sides of a war is just as unacceptable as opposing one side, in the view of these censors.
This is where we have arrived. Proposing to negotiate peace — without even suggesting what those negotiations should arrive at — is so unacceptable to proponents of war, that it cannot be discussed — not in any large gathering. And yet, despite the wars being waged in the name of “democracy” it is not clear how such censorship is driven by democracy or in alignment with democratic values. Nor is it clear how many steps, if any, remain between the varieties of censorship we have now and hardcopy book burnings of the past.
RFK Jr. Reveals Terrible Truth About Ukraine Pentagon ‘Concealed From Americans’
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 08.06.2023
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has characterized the Russia-US proxy war in Ukraine as an “abattoir” that has killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian troops for a geopolitical goal which has “nothing to do with Ukraine.”
“What we’re doing in Ukraine now is just a massive assault on Ukrainians. We have trapped Ukraine in a proxy war against [Russia] and they are being devoured by the geopolitical machinations of neocons in the White House who have this comic book depiction that a lot of Americans have swallowed about what is happening,” RFK Jr. said, speaking to Canadian psychologist and media commentator Jordan Peterson.
Explaining what separates his position on Ukraine from that of the incumbent, Joe Biden, RFK Jr. said that although he understood many ordinary Americans’ support for Ukraine out of “compassion” and as a “humanitarian mission,” in reality, “every step we have taken, every decision we have made appears to have been intended to prolong the war and to increase the bloodshed.”
RFK Jr. recalled Joe Biden’s slip of the tongue that the US’s real goal in Ukraine was to cause regime change in Moscow – an aspiration which he recalled neoconservative advisors in Washington have been pushing for “decades” now.
“Zbigniew Brzezinski… their doyen and philosopher said that US strategy should be to suck Russia into a series of wars in little countries where we can then exhaust them. Lloyd Austin, who is president Biden’s defense secretary, in April 2022 said our purpose in being in Ukraine is to degrade the Russian army, to exhaust it and degrade its capacity to fight anywhere in the world. Well that is the opposite of a humanitarian mission. That is a war of attrition, and that’s what it’s turned out to be. We have now turned Ukraine into an abattoir that has devoured 350,000 young Ukrainians. They are lying about how many people have died, they’re concealing it from us – the Pentagon’s concealing it from the American people. Ukraine is concealing it from their people… We have turned that poor little nation into a killing field for these idealistic young kids in order to advance a geopolitical agenda that has nothing to do with Ukraine,” RFK Jr. said.
The candidate also characterized the conflict as a “money-laundering scheme” for the US military-industrial complex.
Asked what he would do as president to bring the Ukrainian crisis to a close as president, RFK Jr. said the solution was “obvious,” and that he would work to achieve it on “day one.”
“The Russians have wanted to settle this from the beginning and they’ve been very clear about what they want. They want NATO to make a pledge to not come into Ukraine, which we should have done. We shouldn’t have put NATO into fourteen countries [in Eastern Europe, ed.]. We told the Russians when they dismantled the Soviet Union in 1991 and they moved 400,000 troops out of East Germany, and they allowed NATO to reunify Germany under NATO – and they said ‘our condition for doing that for this tremendous conciliation that we’re making is that you never move NATO to the East’. And George Bush told them ‘we will not move NATO one inch to the East’. And in 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski laid out the plan which is that we moved it not one inch but a thousand miles to the East, 14 nations and then we put AEGIS missile systems in Poland and Romania which are nuclear capable. So they’re a few minutes from Russia – they can decapitate the entire Russian leadership if we wanted to start a preemptive war. That is inexcusable,” RFK Jr. said.
The candidate pointed out that Washington wouldn’t let a foreign power do anything similar in the Western Hemisphere, recalling that his uncle, John F. Kennedy “didn’t live with that” during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the USSR and the USA were brought to the brink of war over Soviet missiles in Cuba, and US missiles in Turkiye.
RFK Jr also briefly delved into the roots of the Ukrainian crisis, recalling that Washington “overthrew the democratically government of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014,” and “spent $5 billion – CIA, through USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, to violently overthrow that government – which was democratically elected. So we destroyed this democracy and put in our own government which we now know the neocons in the White House – Victoria Nuland selected two months before in a telephone [call]. We handpicked the new government before the coup. We put a new government in that immediately makes a civil war against the Russian population of Donbass, killing 14,000 of them, that bans the Russian language and then starts training with NATO.”
RFK Jr. is running as peace candidate in the 2024 race for the Democratic nomination for president. This week, his campaign’s press team told Sputnik that in addition to working to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, the politician would seek to sign new arms control treaties with Moscow if elected.
Kennedy’s stance on foreign policy, plus his attacks against White House Medical advisor Anthony Fauci and fierce criticism of mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, have led to mainstream media censorship and smear campaigns against his campaign. The Biden campaign has indicated that it will not hold primary debates against Kennedy and Marianne Williamson, the other Democrat who has thrown her hat into the 2024 race so far. Kennedy has characterized this no debate policy as a grave mistake on Biden’s part, saying it’s not only undemocratic, but would leave the incumbent vulnerable against his prospective Republican rivals, particularly former president Donald Trump.
Swiss parliament supports arms re-export to Ukraine and breaks image of “neutrality”
By Ahmed Adel | June 8, 2023
A bill in Switzerland calls into question its neutrality in the Ukrainian conflict because the country’s Senate approved the amendment authorising the re-export of arms to Ukraine, according to a statement from the parliament. This effectively breaks Switzerland’s long-held image of a “neutral” country.
The Senate of Switzerland voted on June 7 to adopt an amendment to the law on re-exporting weapons to countries involved in armed conflict. Buyer states of Swiss armaments and military equipment will now, under certain conditions, have the right to transfer weapons to countries where a war is being waged.
Responding to this development, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “I thank the Swiss parliament’s upper house for an important move to unblock the re-export of Swiss-made weapons. We are looking forward to the next steps. I am grateful to Switzerland for its solidarity with Ukraine while upholding its neutrality.”
Nonetheless, the press release about the bill specifies that since certain deputies from the left, centrists and the People’s Party voted against it, the members of the National Council (lower house of parliament) will therefore have to look again at the question. For these deputies, the right of neutrality is called into question with this bill.
“This project is mainly targeted to support the arms industry rather than to help Ukraine,” said Mathias Zopfi, MP for the canton of Glarus and member of the Greens group.
According to him, the retroactive nature of this solution is also problematic, which is why making changes to exports that have already been carried out risks undermining legal certainty.
MP Jean-Luc Addor of the Swiss People’s Party, which holds the most seats, was one of the main opponents of this proposal, saying: “Accepting this initiative means committing oneself to one of the protagonists (…) and therefore violating neutrality.”
With 22 MPs favouring the bill, 17 against, and four abstaining, the decision demonstrates that Switzerland is no longer a neutral country.
It is recalled that in May, Germany requested to purchase 25 Swiss Leopard 2 tanks to send to Ukraine, which won the support of Switzerland’s government. Switzerland announced that it was in favour of decommissioning the tanks and selling them back to their maker Rheinmetall AG, as requested by Berlin.
More recently, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte asked Switzerland to deliver 96 non-operation Leopard 1 battle tanks stored in Italy to Ukraine. Swiss officials declined to comment on Rutte’s request.
The action by the Swiss Senate comes only a week after Switzerland’s President Alain Berset met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky at the European Political Community summit in Moldova. Swiss public radio RTS reported that the two leaders discussed the arms re-export question and cited Berset as saying that “The Ukrainians very well understand Switzerland’s position and role” and that he had a “productive meeting with Mr Zelensky about the situation on the ground, Swiss humanitarian aid and reconstruction.”
Given Switzerland’s famed neutrality, it appears that the country is moving on from it, considering that they already imposed sanctions against Russia and are pushing for weapons transfers. A February poll published by Neue Zürcher Zeitung found that 55% of the Swiss population would support third-party delivery of weapons purchased from Switzerland.
Other polls show that Swiss support for neutrality is still overwhelming. A survey for the government indicated that support for Swiss neutrality fell from 97% to 89% between January 2022, before the Russian special military operation began, and June 2022. The same poll found that support for limited cooperation with NATO, which would supposedly not imply joining the Alliance, also increased from 45% to 52%.
Now the Swiss cannot present a façade and rhetoric of neutrality as they simultaneously want increased cooperation with NATO and allow weapon transfers to Ukraine whilst sanctioning Russia. Although Switzerland is surrounded by European Union member states, therefore warping its worldview into a Eurocentric one, non-European countries are certainly noticing the behaviour of the Alpine country, which in turn will change perceptions of supposed neutrality.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky will appeal to the Swiss parliament via video call on June 15, as announced recently by the speaker of the National Council, Martin Candinas. Thomas Aeschi, the leader of the parliamentary group of the Swiss People’s Party, lambasted the decision for Zelensky to speak, highlighting that it is an attempt to influence the debate on the supply of weapons and ammunition before stressing that most of his faction will not attend the speech.
How influential Zelensky’s speech will be remains to be seen. But as often said, to be neutral, you have to remain neutral, something Switzerland has not been since it first imposed sanctions on Russia in March 2022. Although Switzerland will appease and align with its immediate neighbourhood, it has effectively destroyed its image as a trustworthy international banking hub.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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The New Baghdad Pact
By Dr Bouthaina Shaaban | February 23, 2017
A recently declassified CIA document prepared in 1983, and released on 20 January 2017, shows that the United States had at the time encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack Syria, which would have led to a vicious conflict between the two countries, thus draining their resources.
The report, which was then prepared by CIA officer Graham Fuller, indicates that the US tried adamantly to convince Saddam to attack Syria under any pretense available, in order to get the two most powerful countries in the Arab East to destroy each other, turning their attention away from the Arab-Israeli conflict. … continue
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