By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 26, 2023
Last week, before he left Fox News, Tucker Carlson delivered a commentary on corrupt media, corrupt politicians and “truth-telling.”
According to Carlson, the question to ask when assessing public figures isn’t, “Who is corrupt?” — because there are “too many to count.”
“The question is, Who is telling the truth?” Carlson said. “There are not many of those.”
Carlson singled out Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children Health Defense’s chairman-on-leave who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, as one of the few truth-telling public figures.
“It’s nice to have a truth-teller around,” Carlson said. “It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” He added:
“Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed.
“Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right — unequivocally right. But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored.”
Carlson — who later on his show interviewed Kennedy — said mainstream media channels other than Fox News “maligned” Kennedy for his skepticism of the COVID-19 products.
“The other channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shilled for their sketchy products on the air — and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products,” he said.
Carlson pointed out that Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy — who sought the U.S. presidency 55 years ago — said things “you weren’t supposed to say” and were “hated” by some for their honesty.
For instance, Kennedy Sr. spoke out against the Vietnam War because “he believed — with a lot of evidence — that it was not helping the United States in any way,” Carlson said.
Similarly, Carlson showed his viewers a clip from Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Democratic presidential campaign announcement speech, in which Kennedy said the U.S. government’s involvement in Ukraine appears to be “prolonging” the war rather than “shortening” it.
Carlson also showed clips from mainstream media outlets’ coverage of Kennedy’s April 19 announcement, in which news commentators called him “extreme” and “dangerous.”
“Notice,” Carlson said, “not there, not anywhere is a point-by-point rebuttal of his [Kennedy’s] actual points.”
“They never engage him on the actual facts. They can’t — they would lose. Instead, they impugn his character,” he said.
Now that Kennedy is Biden’s leading primary opponent, Carlson said, the media’s message to him is, “shut up — you’re not allowed to talk.”
Carlson said he did not find Kennedy to be “extreme,” but instead “rational and calm and well deliberated.”
“He [Kennedy Jr.] is deeply insightful and — above all else — he is honest, no matter what you think of the substance of what he says,” Carlson added.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
Leave a comment
Implementing all the tasks outlined in Australia’s defense review is a challenge that will take plenty of time, Professor Joe Siracusa, US political expert and dean of Global Futures at Curtin University, told Sputnik.
Australia has rolled out its new defense strategic review, billed by the government as the most significant update of its military planning in nearly 40 years.
The document outlined at least six “priority areas for immediate action,” including the development of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine capability and longer-range strike capacity, speeding up the integration of new technologies into the military, defense workforce retention and recruitment, plus improving strategic cooperation between Canberra and its key partners in the Indo-Pacific.
“These are major changes which are going to take a great deal of effort to realize, because they have neither the capability to produce the boats right now or the ability to manufacture the missiles unless they buy them off the shelf from the Americans,” Siracusa said, referring to nuclear-powered submarines.
The expert argued that the review “does two things: shows that [Australia’s] Labor [Party] is changing the battle plan for the country, and number two, that it’s serious about funding it.”
“It’s been very hard to get this kind of money up in Australia because Australians don’t like to pay a lot of money for defense. […] And so this is a major decision. And once again, it’s a decision taken by a government on a proposal that will take years to come to fruition, when and if it does. This defense plan is sort of a promissory note,” Siracusa claimed.
Joseph Camilleri, emeritus professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne and one of Australia’s leading international relations scholars, in turn, told Sputnik that the goal of the country’s new defense review is “to equip Australian military forces to support the US in any future military confrontation with China.”
According to him, the Australian government looks “to demonstrate that it remains a close ally of the United States and that it will side with it in any future conflict with China.”
Camilleri was echoed by Scott Burchill, Honorary Fellow in International Relations at Deakin University and author of The National Interest in International Relations Theory and Misunderstanding International Relations.
He recalled that the review stipulates a shift in Australian defense policy towards a closer alignment with the US military in the Asia-Pacific outlined under the AUKUS arrangements, which he said “is an incremental rather than a revolutionary change.”
“The emphasis on greater ‘self-reliance’ is welcome and sensible, but the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines and the ‘interchangeability’ foreshadowed under the AUKUS procurements suggest Australia is heading in the opposite direction: to an even closer alignment with US maritime interests in the region,” Burchill pointed out.
He said that Canberra deciding to side with Washington is “a development that will not be lost on the other countries of the region, Australia’s neighbors, who will again question the sincerity of Australia’s desire to more fully integrate with the Asia-Pacific.”
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Australia, China, United States |
Leave a comment
Stand Up and Emulate his Pursuit of Truth
No, not financially. He makes $20 million a year while producing $77 million in advertising revenue for Fox annually.
And no, not in terms of popularity. His daily audience was just south of four million viewers and now that he has been fired by Fox executives, he is among the most famous people in America, at least in this news cycle.
We may resemble him in one respect however: his truth-seeking. Yes, he got some things wrong. Unless we’ve lived a life of total perfection, the same can be said for us.
We admit to being annoyed at times by the extent to which he personally insulted people as being fat or stupid (one need not state the obvious). In a world sagging under the weight of vulgarity he should have maintained a higher standard of civility and decorum.
His hyperbole was frequent. Too many events, people, crimes and grievances became in Tucker’s parlance, the worst or the greatest in “all of history,” which is the conceit of pundits and philosophers of every age, who are tinctured with eschatological notions. The preceding examples are however, peccadilloes rather than discrediting offenses.
The one occasion on which he did cross the line was February 22, 2021 when he was fed disinformation about the late Wellesley College Prof. Tony Martin (1942-2013) and heedlessly parroted the character assassination on his show, as part of an attempt to discredit Kristin Clarke, Biden’s Assistant United States Attorney General, with a guilt-by-association slander.
When she was a student at Harvard University, Clarke invited Martin to speak on campus. That was enough for someone at Fox to persuade Tucker to denounce Dr. Martin. Tucker complied, calling him a “noted Trinidadian anti-semite” and, “the author of a “self-published manifesto called The Jewish Onslaught… He attacked Jews and Judaism as a religion. Tony Martin spent his final years giving speeches to holocaust denial organizations on topics such as ‘tactics of organized Jewry in suppressing free speech.’ Kristin Clarke strongly approved of Tony Martin.”
The preceding reads like a press release from one of the thought police organizations that are today celebrating Tucker’s removal. Tony Martin was not “anti” any ethnicity. He was a gentle Catholic scholar, a self-made man and a native of Trinidad who became an English barrister, a PhD., an authority on Marcus Garvey, and professor of African history at Wellesley, where he placed a book, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, on his class reading list, from which sprang most of his troubles, including the subsequent “onslaught” which he scrupulously documented in his book. The Secret Relationship is one of the most banned books in America (we surveyed it here).
Prof. Martin endorsed its thesis as historically valid. What should have been a matter of rational debate between scholars was turned into the familiar “no debate with hate” hysteria too often used as a cover for denouncing a work of merit which self-appointed arbiters of approved history have not the scholarly means to challenge. The irony is that Tucker permitted himself (albeit briefly), to be a tool of the political correctness which ultimately cost him his employment with the Murdoch dynasty.
We believe that had Tucker known the facts about Tony Martin he would not have broadcast the segment. Unlike Sean Hannity and other Fox News talking heads, Tucker seldom trafficked in callous anti-Palestinian rhetoric or Israeli government talking points. On that score he will be walking on thin ice if he signs with the Newsmax television network, which is at least as beholden to the hasbara public relations of war Zionism and racist Israeli settler violence as any media outlet, Right or Left.
After years of broadcasting five nights-a-week Tucker was probably bound to blunder on occasion, as he did in wronging Prof. Martin. Nonetheless, the good he did far outweighed his mistakes.
In a comment briefly published on the website of the Wall Street Journal and then removed for “violating community standards,” we wrote:
“Ad hominem attacks on Tucker do not impress. His investigation of the death of Jeffrey Epstein in federal custody was brilliant. Part of his investigation included an exposé of Trump’s Attorney General William Barr on whose watch Epstein’s death occurred. Epstein’s molestation network included some of the most powerful and wealthy men on earth. If he was murdered in federal custody, this is an indication of profound corruption, and deserves the highest possible media scrutiny; and yet it was primarily Tucker who shined a light.”
To his credit, Tucker traveled to Las Vegas and broadcast his show from that city to focus attention on the anomalies in the 2017 slaughter of 60 Country and Western music fans blamed by the Federal government and it’s mouthpiece media on gambler Stephen Paddock (see our investigation, “The Route 91 Harvest Massacre” in Twilight Language).
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” was the only major news program to undertake a skeptical examination of the official story of the Las Vegas mass murder. Glenn Greenwald points to some of Carlson’s other valiant investigations:
“Tucker was the cable host who most opposed US proxy war in Ukraine; denounced CIA, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security for systemic lies and corruption; devoted himself to a pardon for Julian Assange; objected to regime change efforts in Cuba; criticized the Trump administration’s militarism.”
(He also exposed the U.S. government’s role in the sabotage of the Baltic Sea Nord Stream pipeline, and helped to kindle the memory of the largely forgotten Christian victims of the Nashville school shooter).
Two authoritarians, New York Senator Schumer, the Democrat leader in the senate, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had demanded the government ban Carlson from the airwaves.
The Dominion Lawsuit
On her podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Kelly, a Fox News alumnus, stated in connection with Tucker’s firing and Fox Corpation’s $787.5 million out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems:
“This is a terrible move by Fox and it’s a great thing for Tucker Carlson. I don’t know what drove Fox News to make this decision, and it was clearly Fox News’ decision because they’re not letting him say goodbye. That’s my supposition. That’s not inside knowledge.
“The irony here is that — how did they get in trouble with Dominion? They called Arizona too soon, felt their critics, and ultimately that proved to be the case. They were under pressure by their audience to reverse the call.
“The audience started to leave them in droves because they felt betrayed. Like they didn’t understand the mission of Fox News, which is to be fair to especially the Republicans who don’t get a fair shake on other channels. And they (Fox) went into a panic as their audience started to flee. Then they over-corrected by covering the bulls**t claims about Dominion as though they were plausible and gave way too much credence to some of those claims on the air. He was not the reason for that $800 million settlement.
“So what do they do now in the wake of that settlement? They get rid of Tucker. Talk about misjudging your audience yet again. I think this is a massive error. I think this is a massive misjudgment of what their audience wants. If you are — this is a reaction to the Dominion lawsuit — why is Maria Bartiromo there? Why is Jeanine Pirro still there? Why is (Fox CEO) Suzanne Scott still there?”
Tucker’s Thought Crimes according to the New York Times
The New York Times, one of Mr. Carlson’s frequent targets after he stopped obsessing over small fry like CNN, could barely conceal its glee as Tucker was shafted by the “conservative” Murdoch family for whom he had made hundreds of millions of dollars. The Times haughtily charged him with begetting “misinformation.” This is a laugh coming from a newspaper that repeatedly states as an article of faith a lie of Brobdingnagian proportions: that individuals possessing xy chromosomes are “women.” It’s on that hill that the credibility of the New York Times has died and is buried.
The Times (here and here) inventoried Tucker’s thought crimes:
“He seemed to shrug off his on-air popularization of a racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement’ … When Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr. Carlson’s show frequently promoted the Kremlin’s point of view, attacking U.S. sanctions and blaming the conflict on American designs for expanding NATO… Carlson warned his viewers that they were under assault from liberal elites and unchecked immigration, borrowing some of his central themes from the white nationalist and far-right web and polishing them up for a more mainstream audience.”
The New York Times doesn’t offer reasoned rebuttal to refute Carlson’s theses. The paper generates shabby guilt-by-association inculpation. If Carlson believes the billions spent on Ukraine would be better spent at home, that the U.S., in the wake of costly no-win wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, should halt its role as world policeman, and that risking nuclear war with Russia while undermining peace talks flirts, with planetary conflagration— well, he’s not articulating common sense, he’s promoting “the Kremlin’s point of view.” The prestigious Times is the master of the cheap shot.
After much thought and observation, if an American honestly has arrived at the conclusion that President Biden’s far-Left open border immigration policies are disastrous for the country, then according to the New York Times that American is “borrowing central themes” of “the white nationalist and far-right web.” It is the brazen unfairness of that flimsy linkage, tossed recklessly for maximum effect, which Tucker shredded night after night amid peals of his own laughter. He was a merry warrior and his mirth was contagious.
The Times also avers that Carlson is guilty of the “racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement.” That concept puts forth the proposition that the U.S. government is conspiring to replace white Americans with a large immigrant population from south of the border. If that is a fact, it is not racist. Truth is not bias. The same obtains for statements of fact concerning our border. When you see facts subjected to politics you are in the presence of a commissar, not an individual interested in the advancement of knowledge.
Furthermore, the white nationalists enamored of the “You will not replace us!” slogan are in search of scapegoats to conceal their own failure. It is white people themselves who are at fault for voluntarily contracepting and aborting themselves out of existence. There’s no law in our nation that limits the size of one’s family, such as existed in Communist China. Get married; have at least three children. Train them up in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Quit whining.
The smear that “Carlson backs white racist talking points about replacement theory” is actually a matter of prerogative. The media does not grant to Carlson the prerogative it grants to the ADL, the thought cops they rely upon for lists of dissidents to libel with impunity. It appears that the ADL is somehow, without so much as denting its brand, entitled to promote a replacement theory of its own. In 2010 the ADL went on record warning against the replacement of Israelis by Arabs. The New York Times does not disclose that fact when it is lauds and relies upon the ADL for data.
The Times also reported that in March one of Carlson’s former producers filed a lawsuit against him, claiming that he “ran a toxic workplace.” The producer, Abby Grossberg, said in her suit that “she endured an environment ‘where unprofessionalism reigned supreme, and the staff’s distaste and disdain for women infiltrated almost every workday decision.’ She also accused her former colleagues on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ of making antisemitic remarks… she accuses Mr. Carlson of presiding over a misogynistic and discriminatory workplace culture. Ms. Grossberg said… that on her first day working for Mr. Carlson, she discovered the work space was decorated with large pictures of Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit.”
If this suit is as frivolous as it appears to be, then it is little more than harassment. The opinionated charges it raises are subjective at best and more suited to a talkshow scream session than a courtroom. As a basis of litigation, unflattering photos of Pelosi are a nullity.
We Are All Tucker
The illusion factory seeks to project an image of justice, democracy and decency. Those who penetrate their veil of hypocrisy are stigmatized as little better than demons, haters and Fascists.
The ideal of dialogue and debate is increasingly delegitimated because, as the tenets of our Overlords become ever more preposterous, they can be readily exposed by granting a voice to doubters and dissenters. For most of us not in Tucker’s league, the suppression of us translates into censorship, online deplatforming and demonetization.
Many of us began our Internet outreach using YouTube to broadcast our discussions and lectures across America and around the world, and Paypal to efficiently process credit card orders for our book sales. When YouTube and Paypal were controlled by libertarians with a respect for the free marketplace of ideas which is critical to the advancement of knowledge, the free enterprise system was largely untrammeled on the relatively new Internet. By 2017 however, Paypal was under new ownership and began to deny service to dissidents. YouTube has also purged tens of thousands of independent researchers and scholars. The anti-monopoly aspect of the Internet, competing as it does with the corporate media, had to be curtailed for the sake of the success of the Novus Ordo Seclorum.
The potential of the Internet was being obstructed prior to the recent inauguration of the Rumble video service, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the podcasting host Transistor, and the emergence of Substack. These four are paving the way back to the original promise of the Internet as expressed in 1996 by one of its pioneers, the Electronic Freedom Foundation’s John Perry Barlow:
“I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us… a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth… a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”
Tucker Carlson’s domain was the old media. He had a position within it that gained him nearly four million direct viewers and who knows how many others who obtained bits and pieces of his reporting from barber and breakfast shop conversations, podcasts, tweets and e-mail.
The Cryptocracy and its auxiliary, the Deep State, have a morbid fear of any opposition, however small, a trait visible in all totalitarian regimes, whether that of Lenin, Hitler, Stalin or Mao. As big as Tucker’s position was on cable television—and his footprint was huge—he was sacrificed to the gods of woke. “Thou showest the difference ‘twixt ourselves and thee, in this thy barbarous damned tyranny.” (Christopher Marlowe).
Even in this Revelation of the Method era where the crimes perpetrated against the people have been made manifest to such an extent that we are exhausted by the truth, even the slightest chance that Tucker might spark a peaceful populist uprising, militant in character and knowledgeable concerning the depth of media and government deception, had to be terminated.
The billions of dollars in the company’s coffers that Fox News chief executive Lachlan Murdoch commands were not enough to keep him from caving to the relentless pressure to can Tucker. This is not only a display of pusillanimity but of spiritual weakness. It serves as a tool for demoralizing us. A fearsome lesson has been reinforced, “Don’t buck the system. We are invincible.”
There has been a good deal of whistling in the dark in the aftermath, suggesting that Tucker will be better off and he’ll be going on to bigger and better things. We hope so. Godspeed, Tucker.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Nothing online or at the relatively puny and Zionist-compromised Newsmax can equal an hour in primetime five nights a week, on a television network like Fox that is viewed on almost any TV in America. The awesome power of that plugged in presence remains unequaled. Any job Tucker takes with any alternative will diminish his reach, though not, we trust, his message.
In that sense, Tucker Carlson, for all his accomplishments and the good he has done, is in the same boat with those of us who have been kicked off YouTube, Facebook and Paypal, had those who host our websites harassed, and our credit card acceptance terminated. It’s all one war on alternatives to the System, and for that reason we are all Tucker Carlson. For this week at least, he shares what we have experienced as veterans of the war of ideas.
…..
How did this come about? How do our enemies exhibit such solidarity and unwavering loyalty to their cause? Their cleverness, exertion, skill, planning and organization are generally outstanding.
It seems that the adherents of the diabolic can oft-times exhibit more dedication than the purported followers of Jesus. They are effective, tenacious and willing to suffer massive losses for their infernal cause; while with many of us, it is not that way. We will go only so far for Jesus and then, when our struggle for truth threatens our bank account or reputation, we meekly withdraw, with regret to be sure. Our absence from the field of battle strengthens the enemy immeasurably. “What treachery was used? No treachery, but want of men and money” (Shakespeare).
Jesus drew our attention to this ignominy 2,000 years ago when he observed, “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” (Luke 16:8).
Obviously, He who declared that all power in heaven and earth was given unto Him (Matthew 28:18), did not intend for those who love and follow Him to be powerless.
In Luke 16:8 Jesus was pointing out the perennial tendency of the diabolic to effectively fight the godly when we fail to use the instruments Jesus has placed before us for battle.
When we rise to our destiny by defending and invoking His holy name and recalling that our time on this earth is meant for spiritual battle, and that our rest is in the grave, then we will begin to equal and surpass the devotion and discipline of God’s opposers.
In the sight of the betrayal represented by Tucker’s defeat at the hands—not of his enemies, but of the people he served—we soldier on. We know that Jesus Christ has dominion and nothing happens on planet earth unless he allows it.
We help to curb evil when, seeing a truth-teller assaulted or overcome, we re-dedicate ourselves to the Cause and fill their shoes.
Let us put the Cryptocracy on notice that every time they take down a Tucker Carlson, millions of us will stand up to emulate his pursuit of truth. We are on firm ground here for the gospel of Jesus Christ is always and in every age, counter-cultural. Woe to us when we curry favor with men and the media speak well of us (cf. Luke 6:26).
Because we are God’s people we reject demoralization. We remain more than ever resolved and stalwart in the face of what transpired at Fox News on the morning of April 24.
Hope is the virtue that expects God’s help. Truth is the witness we bear in order to receive it.
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE CONTRA CANCEL CULTURE
Michael Hoffman is the author of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (2001), The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome (2017), Twilight Language (2021) and six other books, including two translated and published in Japan, and one in France. He hosts the podcast, Michael Hoffman’s Revisionist History®
Twitter: @HoffmanMichaelA
Copyright ©2023 by Independent History and Research
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | New York Times, United States |
Leave a comment
Having formally joined NATO earlier this month, Finland has recorded its highest year-on-year spike in defense spending since 1962, the height of the Cold War.
Finland, which shares the longest border with Russia in Europe at 1,300 kilometers, recorded the most drastic spending boost in the EU (36 percent), underpinned by a number of costly purchases, such as a new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter jets from US weapons company Lockheed Martin. The 10-billion-euro procurement was billed as the single largest splurge in the Nordic country’s history.
During the late Cold War-era, Finland spent approximately 1.9 percent of its GDP on defense, yet saw its spending plummet in the subsequent years and reach its lowest in 2001 at 1.1 percent of GDP. Barely two years earlier, the defense expenditure still stood at a meager 1.3 percent of GDP. However, last year alone, Finland’s outgoing five-party government led by the Social Democrats agreed to add more than 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in defense spending, citing hostilities in Ukraine as a pretext.
In doing so, Finland notably eclipsed its fellow European nations, such as Lithuania, Sweden and Poland, which saw the next biggest spikes in their defense budgets at 27 percent, 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
As a new-fledged NATO member, Finland has emerged as one of the top military spenders in the alliance, spending about 2 percent of GDP. In 2022, only the US (3.5 percent of GDP), Poland (2.4 percent), Estonia (2.3 percent) and the UK (2.1 percent) spent more on defense per capita than Finland. Despite NATO’s spending goal of 2 percent, many nations fall well below this target. For instance, Finland’s neighbor Norway had a spending level of just 1.55 percent. Its neighbor Sweden, with which it filed a joint NATO bid only to part ways later on, has pledged to reach the bloc’s target of military spending “as soon as possible,” whereas Denmark seeks to reach NATO’s target within a decade, by 2033.
Meanwhile, global military expenditure rose to a record high last year amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which spurred European nations and, broadly, the West, into reaching spending levels unseen since the Cold War. European military spending alone shot up 13 percent last year.
According to an estimate by researchers from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), last year’s total global military spending rose by 3.7 percent in real terms to $2.24 trillion. SIPRI stressed that the hike rests on multi-year plans to boost spending from several governments, which is why it is reasonable to expect military expenditure in Central and Western Europe to keep rising in the years to come.
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | NATO |
Leave a comment
WASHINGTON – The United States should not send additional assistance to fund a “proxy war” in Ukraine, and an audit must be conducted on US aid already provided to Kiev, Congressman Paul Gosar told Sputnik on Monday.
“Biden and Congress have already wasted nearly $200 billion American taxpayer dollars funding a proxy war in Ukraine. We should not send another dime to Ukraine and we should audit the money already sent there,” Gosar said in a statement.
The Republican lawmaker recently joined a group of other party lawmakers to introduce a resolution demanding an audit of the funds appropriated by Congress to Ukraine.
Gosar’s spokesperson told Sputnik that to-date the Biden administration has yet to provide Congress with copies of all documents and any financial statements detailing purchases, recipients, and government expenditures related to congressionally appropriated funds given to Ukraine.
US journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh recently told Russian media that countries in the West are aware of the fact that some of the weapons sent to Ukraine are ending up in illicit markets, but their media are deliberately silent about it.
Months after the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, there were concerns about reselling of advanced man-portable air defense missiles the West had sent to Ukraine, the journalist said, adding that US broadcaster CBS had wanted to publish a story about it but was forced to retract it.
Hersh also said, according to his source, that the CIA estimates Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has embezzled at least $400 million from US aid sent to Ukraine.
Western countries have been supplying military aid to Ukraine since the start of hostilities in February 2022. The aid evolved from lighter artillery munitions and training in 2022 to heavier weapons, including tanks, later that year and in 2023. For the past several months Ukraine has been pushing to be supplied with fighter jets. The Kremlin, in turn, has repeatedly warned against continued arms deliveries to Kiev.
April 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism | Ukraine, United States |
Leave a comment
Seongju – South Koreans have been protesting against a US missile base south of the capital, Seoul. They want the base, and US troops, gone as tensions grow with the North on the Korean Peninsula.
Peace activists and local leaders in South Korea opposed to a US anti-ballistic missile base have been demonstrating outside the Presidential office in Seoul.
The system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, was deployed in early 2017.
US officials say it protects against missiles fired from North Korea. Local residents argue it generates warlike tension and want it removed.
Anti-THAAD protestors have held a rally near the base in Seongju, 250 kilometers south of Seoul.
The government has indicated it would make the base permanent, and President Yoon Suk-yeol has suggested the country may get a second THAAD system.
“These villagers and their supporters recognize that hosting a missile base makes their home a prime target. Not only for North Korea, but also for China, as Thaad’s radar also reaches into Chinese territory.”
The THAAD base occupies a former mountain golf course and is near a Won Buddhist temple, whose monks also oppose the missile base.
Protests have disturbed the operation of the base with occasional blockades, as recent US-South Korean military discussions suggested routine and unfettered access had been lacking.
April 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | Korea |
Leave a comment
By Drago Bosnic | April 24, 2023
In yet another move set to cement the European Union’s status as a geopolitical pendant of the United States, its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell openly stated that he wants the armed forces (or, in this particular case, navies) of EU countries to patrol the increasingly contested Taiwan Strait to “help protect” Taiwan. Borrell gave a more detailed account of the plan for the first time in an opinion piece he authored for the French weekly Journal Du Dimanche. He insisted that the “peace and stability” of China’s breakaway island province is of “crucial importance” for the EU. Borrell also added that the island “concerns us economically, commercially and technologically” and reiterated the “urgency for the EU navies to ensure its protection”.
Borrell’s exact words were: “I call on [the EU] navies to patrol the Taiwan Strait to show Europe’s commitment to freedom of navigation in this absolutely crucial area.”
This comes mere days after a delegation from the US, including the bulk of its MIC (Military Industrial Complex) announced they would visit Taiwan and “discuss its defense“. Even more interestingly, Borrell mentioned “the economic, commercial and technological importance” of Taiwan, which falls perfectly in line with what a Republican congressman from Texas, Michael McCaul, recently said on air with Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press, when asked about why the US should “defend Taiwan”. McCaul bluntly stated that the US would go to war over China’s breakaway island province on the basis of “protecting the world’s semiconductor supply“, although he was quick to revert to the official narrative after Todd tried to clarify it.
However, Borrell’s comments are significantly more consequential, as McCaul, despite his extremely powerful position as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, doesn’t directly shape US foreign policy. On the other hand, Borrell is one of the troubled bloc’s top officials and such statements will surely not be taken too kindly in Beijing. China has never meddled in the internal affairs of a single EU member state, in stark contrast to Brussels. For its part, the EU has directly meddled (and still does) in the questions of Hong Kong, Xinjiang and now Taiwan. All three areas are China’s provinces with varying degrees of autonomy and Beijing (rightfully) considers them to be a matter of its internal affairs.
Borrell’s controversial (at best) statements seem to be indicative of a major (and rapidly growing) divide between the EU as a (geo)political entity and its top member states. The EU’s head diplomat might have been seeking a counterargument to French President Emmanuel Macron’s recently revealed stance voiced earlier in the month that boils down to the EU essentially minding its own business, taking care of its own numerous issues and just leaving China alone. At the time, coming off a visit to Beijing where he met with the Chinese leadership, including President Xi Jinping himself, Macron had stressed that Europe must not be “a direct vassal” of US policy on Taiwan and that it has to achieve the goal of its own “strategic autonomy”.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron stated, adding: “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction… … If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up… … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals.”
The traditionally Russophobic Poland took this as a sign of “capitulating” to “Putin’s ally” China, as Warsaw is a staunch supporter of US interests in the EU. Recently, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki slammed Macron’s “controversial” comments on Beijing, made just after he met Xi Jinping. At the time, Morawiecki openly mocked the French President’s call for “strategic autonomy”. And while Macron’s stance can hardly ever be considered “pro-Chinese” (provided he even had honest intentions), still, even a semblance of anything that could remotely be seen as “anti-American” is virtual “heresy” in Warsaw. As previously mentioned, this only reinforces the notion of just how divided the EU is.
Obviously, as already stated, Borrell’s comments serve to counterbalance Macron’s stance, but the way in which the EU’s top diplomat chose to do that is as geopolitically unwise as it could possibly be. How is Beijing supposed to react to such rhetoric, particularly in light of US plans to deliver 400 anti-ship missiles to the government in Taipei and accelerate the delivery of over $19 billion worth of other weapons? And this is to say nothing of the effective forming of a “global NATO” or at the very least its Asia-Pacific version in the form of AUKUS, which at some point might even see more active participation of other US vassals and satellite states, including the EU itself. Coupled with NATO aggression against Russia, calling the foreign policy framework of the political West unwise can only be described as an understatement.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
April 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | China, European Union |
Leave a comment
The US evacuated a little less than 100 of its diplomats, their families, and a “small number” of other countries’ diplomats from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Saturday. The mission was launched from a base in nearby Djibouti, refueled in neighboring Ethiopia, and then spent less than an hour on the ground before departing that war-torn country. That could have closed the book on the US’ military involvement in Sudan had a senior Pentagon official not told reporters about what’s being planned next.
CNN reported that Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Chris Maier said the following in a call with journalists sometime after the evacuation ended:
“In the coming days, we will continue to work with the State Department to help American citizens who may want to leave Sudan. One of those ways is to potentially make the overland routes out of Sudan potentially more viable.
[The Department of Defense] is at present considering action that may include use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to be able to observe routes and detect threats.
Secondly, the employment of naval assets outside the port of Sudan to potentially help Americans who arrive at the port, and third, the establishment at the US Africa Command in Stuttgart deconfliction cell focused particularly on the overland route.”
Instead of washing its hands of this “deep state” war that risks turning into a civil and even international war, the US is getting drawn into “mission creep” on the pretext of evacuating its remaining citizens.
CNN mentioned in their report that “Officials told staffers (from the State Department) that there could be an estimated 16,000 Americans in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals.” This means that foreign-born US citizens who returned to their homeland for whatever reason are being exploited as the “justification” for redirecting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities there, possibly deploying naval assets to its main port, and creating a “deconfliction cell” for managing events.
In simple English, the Pentagon will likely use a combination of drones, electronic means, and satellites to spy on the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) Rapid Support Forces (RSF) opponents, after which they’ll dispatch warships to Port Sudan that’ll be organized by AFRICOM’s newest (warfighting) “cell”. Those vessels can either carry armed aid (irrespective of whether it’s disguised as humanitarian aid) for the SAF and/or be capable of conducting their own offensive actions against the RSF under certain conditions.
The so-called “overland routes out of Sudan” that the Pentagon wants to “make… potentially more viable” could be sold to the public as a “humanitarian corridor” but will in reality function as a means for supplying the SAF. The “deconfliction” element of this equation purely refers to the contact that the US also has with the RSF, whom Undersecretary of State for Management John Bass said on Saturday “cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on our service members in the course of the operation.”
In the emerging context of “mission creep”, the Pentagon could simply warn the RSF not to impede the creation of these “overland routes out of Sudan” just like they stayed out of the way during Saturday’s evacuation under threat of being bombed on “humanitarian” pretexts if they don’t. The American public could easily be manipulated into supporting this action if they’re misled to believe that “Russian-/Wagner-backed insurgents/terrorists are holding approximately 16,000 US citizens hostage in Africa”.
Therein lies the importance of the latest narrative being pushed by the Mainstream Media (MSM) suggesting that this entire conflict is Russia’s fault, the false claims of which were reviewed and analyzed in this piece here. Basically, the US sees an opportunity to proverbially kill multiple birds with one stone on a Russophobic basis, which could ultimately result in them putting Moscow on the backfoot in Africa and securing a symbolic victory in this little-discussed but hugely significant New Cold War front.
Policymakers don’t truly care about those Americans that are stranded in Sudan, especially since the majority of them are thought to be dual nationals, but they see a chance to exploit the “humanitarian” optics as part of a larger power play against Russia. The first step was to safely evacuate US diplomats since it’s those citizens who lives are truly valued by the government after it invested a considerable sum in each of them over the course of their careers. Everyone else is expandable in their view.
Now that its “VIPs” are out of harm’s way, the US can up the ante in Sudan on a “humanitarian” pretext as part of its latest anti-Russian proxy war. There’s still the possibility that it’ll reconsider, but events are quickly moving in that direction as evidenced by what the earlier mentioned senior Pentagon official revealed to the media on Saturday about the US’ impending “mission creep”. If it goes ahead with this scenario, then precedent shows that Sudan might become the next Libya, or perhaps even worse.
April 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Africa, Sudan, United States |
Leave a comment
The much-vaunted Anglo-American “special relationship” is gaining a new dubious meaning as Britain emerges as an adept agent provocateur for inciting a wider NATO war against Russia.
Warmongering British lawmakers are this week demanding a more robust NATO response over an alleged “act of war” by Russia involving a Royal Air Force spy plane and a Russian fighter jet.
Recent documents leaked from the Pentagon have indicated that a British recon plane was nearly shot down by a Su-27 over the Black Sea. Following the incident last September, the British Ministry of Defense played down the encounter as a “technical malfunction”.
It appears now, however, that the British RC-135 spy plane was fired on by the Russian jet, but that the missile missed. It may have been a deliberate warning shot as the British surveillance aircraft is understood to have been near the Russian territory of Crimea. The British and the Americans are supplying the Kiev regime forces with targeting information. So Russia is arguably entitled to take defensive measures against belligerents, as it did when an American MQ Reaper drone was intercepted last month over the Black Sea. The U.S. has reportedly restricted its surveillance flights in the area since that incident.
Now that it is being reported that a Russian missile was fired, some British politicians are demanding a response to “an act of war”.
This particular incident may well blow over. But it raises concern that British forces are playing an incendiary role in the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. With that country already pumped up with NATO weapons, and the Black Sea and Baltic region packed with NATO forces conducting massive war maneuvers over the next weeks and months, the danger is heightened for an accidental or even intended escalation. Given NATO’s common defense commitments, an incident involving one member of the military alliance would inevitably trigger the other 30 members into an all-out war-footing.
Britain’s treacherous role has recently taken on a routine, calculated character in Ukraine.
As NATO has stepped up arms supplies to Ukraine over the past year, it is London that seems to have upped the ante all the way. It was the British that broke the taboo over sending battlefield tanks when they announced earlier this year the supply of Challenger 2 tanks. That move then put the onus on Germany and the United States to accede to supplying the Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.
The Brits then went a step further by announcing they would supply Ukrainian forces with depleted uranium artillery shells. Russia condemned that move for its known environmental contamination hazards as well as breaching the line for using radiological/nuclear weapons. Moscow and others contend that depleted uranium shells are a form of “dirty nuclear bomb”.
In any case, technical quibbling aside, the move to supply depleted uranium weapons by London is seen as a particularly gratuitous provocation toward Russia.
The recent Pentagon leaks, which appear to be authentic albeit distorted by U.S. media spin, also confirmed previous separate claims that NATO special forces are operating on the ground in Ukraine fighting against Russian military.
Significantly, it is the British who have deployed the biggest number of special forces compared with other NATO members. What these commandoes are doing in Ukraine is not clear. As the BBC reported:
“According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the U.S. (14) and the Netherlands (1). The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.”
Without a hint of irony, the BBC added: “UK special forces are made up of several elite military units with distinct areas of expertise, and are regarded to be among the most capable in the world.”
Distinct areas of expertise, most capable, indeed! That’s classic British euphemism for you.
It is alleged that British operatives have been helping Ukrainian artillery hit the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant – Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power plant – as a way to escalate the war.
It is also alleged by Moscow that it was members of the British Special Boat Service (SBS) that orchestrated the mass drone attack on Russian bases in Crimea last November. The air raid was thwarted by Russian defenses, but if it had succeeded the response from Russia would have been geopolitically explosive.
It should also be recalled that even before Russia launched its military intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there was a serious provocation involving a British warship in the Black Sea.
HMS Defender infringed on Russian territorial waters south of Crimea on June 23, 2021. After ignoring Russian verbal warnings, the British destroyer was fired on. A Russian Su-24 fighter jet dropped bombs in the ship’s path.
Similar to the more recent incident involving the Royal Air Force RC-135 spy plane, the British Ministry of Defense tried to play down the naval incident. But it later transpired from secret documents that London sought to deliberately provoke Russia in a show of support for Ukraine.
For the most part of the past century, the failed British empire was assigned the junior role as the butler to service the needs of the American empire. This special relationship involved London giving political and diplomatic cover for its American boss, as well as military services when required for one dirty war or another.
It is axiomatic that a dying empire is a dangerous beast, liable to lash out to salvage its waning power. The American empire has reached its death throes moment. But perhaps more dangerous than a dying imperial power is a dying imperial side-kick flunky.
Today, Britain is a broken-down impoverished de-industrialized wasteland whose shocking numbers of poor are like an army of living dead. It has long ago lost former colonies to parasite off. But there is one former colony – the United States – that might just be stupid enough to allow Perfidious Albion to manipulate a catastrophic war.
The tensions over the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with Russia are a powder-keg situation. And the British dirty-tricks brigade are the past masters that merit being closely watched.
April 23, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Russia, UK |
Leave a comment
Republic of Korea (ROK) President Yoon Suk-yeol told Reuters on Wednesday that his country was considering the dispatch of lethal aid to Ukraine if the humanitarian situation descends into a deeper crisis as a result of alleged Russian war crimes. In his words, “If there is a situation the international community cannot condone, such as any large-scale attack on civilians, massacre or serious violation of the laws of war, it might be difficult for us to insist only on humanitarian or financial support.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that “any weapons supplies would imply a certain involvement in this conflict.” That same day, former Russian President and incumbent Deputy Chair of the National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote the following on social media: “I wonder what the residents of this nation would say when they see the newest example of Russian weapons in possession of their closest neighbors, our partners from the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea]?”
The ROK’s Yonhap News Agency then cited an unnamed senior presidential official on Thursday to report that “Decision on lethal aid to Ukraine depends on Russia’s actions”. According to their source, “The reason we are not taking such action voluntarily is because we want to simultaneously and in a balanced manner fulfill the task of stably maintaining and managing South Korea-Russia relations while actively joining the ranks of the international community in defending the freedom of the Ukrainian people.”
The larger context within which the latest ROK-Russian spat is playing out concerns President Yoon’s upcoming trip to the US next week, during which time it’s expected that US President Joe Biden will request that his country participate in some sort of arrangement for dispatching lethal aid to Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared in mid-February that his US-led military bloc is in a so-called “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia in Ukraine, and it’ll struggle to win without help.
Its members have already depleted a considerable amount of their stockpiles over the past 14 months, yet the conflict still continues raging on. Without maintaining the pace, scale, and scope of their lethal aid to Ukraine, that country might soon be at a major disadvantage vis-à-vis Russia, which could further delay its planned NATO-backed counteroffensive and possibly create the conditions for a ceasefire if Moscow is able to then consolidate its on-the-ground gains in the territories that Kiev claims as its own.
This explains the urgency with which the US is searching across the world for additional ammunition to arm Ukraine. Considering the ROK’s enormous shell stockpile that it’s built up over the decades in preparation of possibly fighting the DPRK once again, it makes sense why the US is approaching it. Nevertheless, Seoul’s compliance with Washington’s request could lead to Moscow arming Pyongyang with “the newest example of Russian weapons” exactly as Medvedev warned on social media.
For that reason, ROK officials remain divided on this ultra-sensitive issue as proven by the latest Pentagon leaks, yet they’ll ultimately have to do something since the resultant dilemma is unsustainable. President Yoon will probably be forced to make a choice during his upcoming trip to the US. On the one hand, directly arming Ukraine per the US’ wishes could prompt Russia to arm the DPRK, yet declining to dispatch lethal aid to that Eastern European country could lead to Seoul falling out of Washington’s favor.
Objectively speaking, the second scenario is much more aligned with the ROK’s national interests than the first, though President Yoon might end up trying to reach a so-called “compromise” under heavy US pressure. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki proposed precisely that in an interview with the New York Times earlier this month where he suggested that Biden convince his ROK counterpart to indirectly supply Ukraine with much-needed artillery shells via Poland.
Poland and the ROK signed a $5.8 billion artillery and tank deal last summer, and the latter’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration’s (DAPA) technology control bureau already approved a license for the export of partially ROK-built Krab howitzers to Ukraine last year according Kim Hyoung-cheol. He’s the director of the Europe-Asia division of the International Cooperation Bureau and confirmed this fact when talking to Reuters last month.
The precedent is therefore established at least in principle for the ROK to ship shells to Poland prior to their re-export to Ukraine under US supervision, but the relevant license would obviously first have to be approved, which will likely be discussed during President Yoon’s upcoming meeting with Biden. If that happens, however, then Russia might react furiously and even possibly arm the DPRK because these shell shipments would be much more strategically significant in the present context than the Krabs were.
It was certainly an unfriendly move for the ROK to approve the export of those systems that it partially built, but that development’s importance in shaping the dynamics of the present conflict pales in comparison to what could occur if it facilitates the massive re-export of artillery shells at this time. Doing so would enable Ukraine to remain in the so-called “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, while declining to participate in this scheme could create the conditions for a ceasefire with time.
Assessed from this perspective, it can therefore be concluded that President Yoon’s decision could be a game-changer since his country can either contribute to perpetuating this conflict by keeping Ukraine in its aforesaid military-industrial competition with Russia or play a decisive role in drawing it to a close. He’s clearly under immense pressure from the US to do the first-mentioned so it would be an impressive display of strategic autonomy if the ROK ends up doing the second by refusing to send shells to Ukraine.
April 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | Korea, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
Leave a comment
Russia suspended its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in late February in the wake of Ukrainian drone attacks on an airbase used by Russian strategic aviation. Before that, Washington unilaterally scrapped multiple agreements designed to ensure strategic stability, including the ABM and INF treaties.
The global arms race, including in the area of strategic missile weaponry, is spinning out of control, with the US and its allies seeking to achieve superiority over Russia and China, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Grigory Mashkov has said.
Mashkov, the former chairman of the Missile Technology Control Regime, a multilateral grouping of nations seeking to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology, warned in a Friday interview with Russian media that in today’s world, “in essence, we are witnessing a missile arms race with consequences that are very difficult to predict.”
“Tens of billions of dollars are being invested in improving missile technologies. This process is becoming uncontrollable,” the diplomat said.
At the same time, he noted, efforts are being made by some states to redistribute the strategic balance of power related to intercontinental ballistic missiles. “The buildup of weapons, primarily missiles, by the United States and its allies is aimed at achieving global superiority over potential rivals – China and Russia. Two vectors of a long-term military confrontation with a consolidated Western world have already clearly emerged – the European and the Asian,” Mashkov said.
“Strategic offensive weapons are being modernized at a rapid pace. The People’s Republic of China is actively building up its missile capabilities. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has recently broken into the club of ICBM powers. The ‘threshold’ countries – Israel, India, Pakistan – have not abandoned the idea of creating missiles with a range beyond 5,500 km,” Mashkov said.
According to the strategic weapons specialist, Moscow needs to be prepared for “any scenarios” after the expiration of the New START Treaty in 2026, including the possibility that a new agreement is not reached to replace it. “It cannot be ruled out that after the expiration of the New START Treaty in February 2026, a vacuum could form over the long term when it comes to international legal instruments designed to maintain stability.”
On top of that, Mashkov said, given the security challenges Russia is facing, Moscow has an obvious need to build up its missile potential, including tactical and intermediate-range weapons. The diplomat pointed out that in the wake of the US decision to rip up the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 2019, a logical question arose about “how far we have fallen behind other countries which possess this type of weapon over the 30 years of our participation in the treaty, and what needs to be done first and foremost to eliminate the imbalance that exists here.”
“There is an obvious need for Russia to build up its tactical missile potential and further increase the effectiveness of its use and stockpiling of missile weaponry in order to effectively respond to any challenges to national security, including in Kaliningrad, where NATO has set out to threaten Russian territory using American MLRS weapons,” Mashkov added.
The diplomat also warned that Moscow may have to rethink its voluntary commitment not to be the first to deploy medium and long-range missiles in western Russia, given the potential challenges to the country’s strategic security by the US and NATO. Russia, he noted, is also forced to “remain vigilant” on its eastern frontiers, given that it cannot be ruled out that the West will try to draw Russia into new conflicts against its will.
“Another area where questions arise relates to tactical missile systems, their preemptive and reactive potential for solving problems on the battlefield,” Mashkov said. “Therefore, it’s important to understand what kinds of threats are forming in this direction, how to counter them, as well as what we expect from our international partners in this regard, what kinds of compromises they may be prepared to make. It’s important to approach this not only from the perspective of resolving the current problems in Ukraine, but also ensuring long-term national security in the post-conflict period,” the diplomat said.
The past two decades have witnessed the dismantling of almost the entirety of the post-Cold War security architecture. In 2002, the Bush administration unilaterally scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a major weapons agreement restricting the number and types of anti-missile missile defenses the nuclear superpowers could develop. In 2019, the Trump administration pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibited the creation of ground-based nuclear-capable missile systems in the 500-5,500 km range. In 2020, the US pulled out of the Treaty on Open Skies – a major post-Cold War agreement with Russia and nearly three dozen other countries which provided for military aerial surveillance flights over treaty party nations, and designed to facilitate confidence in one another’s peaceful intentions. All of this proceeded as NATO engaged in an eastward expansion, swallowing up every former member of the former Warsaw Pact, plus over half a dozen members of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and setting its sights on expanding into Ukraine and Georgia, which Moscow warned constituted its “red lines.”
Earlier this year, Russia suspended its participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (but committed to continue to abide by its limitations on missiles and nuclear weapons), citing Washington’s creation of new strategic weapons, as well as attacks by America’s client state – Kiev, on a base hosting elements of the aerial prong of Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent. Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Moscow’s decision “really unfortunate and very irresponsible.”
April 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Russia, United States |
Leave a comment
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has cast doubt on NATO’s purportedly universal support for accepting Ukraine into the US-led bloc.
Orban took to Twitter on Friday to share an article by Politico on NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Kiev, where he proclaimed Ukraine had a “rightful place” within the bloc.
Commenting on the article, Orban simply wrote: “What?!”
Stoltenberg made a surprise appearance in Kiev on Thursday, in a first visit to the country since the beginning of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022.
During a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Stoltenberg praised the continuous military aid flowing from NATO member states to Ukraine. He also insisted a multi-year support initiative for Kiev was “testament to NATO’s long-term commitment” to the country.
“Allies are now delivering more jets, tanks, and armored vehicles, and NATO’s Ukraine fund is providing urgent support… All of this is making a real difference on the battlefield today,” Stoltenberg asserted. He further claimed that Kiev has a “rightful” place within the bloc.
Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help to make this possible.
However, the secretary-general failed to provide a specific timeframe for Ukraine’s potential accession into the alliance. Zelensky, for his part, urged Stoltenberg to “overcome the reluctance” of some NATO members to supply long-range rockets and modern fighter jets to Ukraine.
Hungary has repeatedly said it will not support Ukraine’s applications to either NATO or the EU. Budapest has refrained from providing military aid to Kiev, as well as refusing to allow such shipments to travel through its territory and onto Ukraine.
Budapest and Kiev have long been at odds over the latter’s attitude towards the ethnic Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in modern Ukraine, primarily in the Transcarpathian region. Kiev’s efforts to crack down on Russian speakers following the 2014 Maidan coup have affected other minorities as well, including Hungarians. Kiev, meanwhile, has repeatedly accused Budapest of meddling in its internal affairs, particularly by granting citizenship to Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians.
April 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism | Hungary, NATO, Ukraine |
Leave a comment
Aletho News 