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How NATO Helped Trigger the War in Ukraine and Then Did Nothing to Foil It

By Leo Ensel | In Depth News | January 18, 2024

Two years ago, in December 2021, Russia formulated its security interests in separate letters to NATO’s Secretary General Stoltenberg and to US President Biden in no uncertain terms. The West’s reaction: no response! There is much to suggest that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have been prevented if the West had negotiated and ruled out the country’s membership of NATO, writes Dr Ensel.

OLDENBURG, Germany | 18 January 2024 (IDN) — Western reporting about the war in Ukraine has many remarkable blank spots about the events that led to the war. Hardly anybody in the West knows that Boris Yeltsin, who was otherwise very close to the West, threatened back in March 1997 the then US President Bill Clinton that if Ukraine joined NATO, it would cross a red line for Russia. This was at the time of NATO’s first eastward expansion and long before Vladimir Putin came to power. It shows that Western plans for NATO expansion into Ukraine dated back to the 1990’s and that Russia had vehemently opposed this for just as long.

The Minsk II agreement was, with the obvious acquiescence of the West, never implemented by the Ukrainian government. The constitutional reforms agreed on in Minsk to provide the Donetsk and Luhansk regions with a special status (like the South Tyrol solution) were ignored by the end of 2015. At the end of 2022, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed what ‘evil tongues’ had long suspected: The two Minsk Agreements were only to gain time to get the Ukrainian army in shape. Later, France’s former President François Hollande and Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko confirmed this.

It is also little known in the West that in 2021—long before the Russian invasion—Ukraine intensified its attacks against rebel positions in Donetsk with Turkish Bayraktar TB2 combat drones that had “proven their worth in the Karabakh War 2020”. It was also negotiating with Turkey a license to produce them in Ukraine.

Virtually unknown among the Western public is also the fact that since mid-1990, the US armed forces conducted annual military manoeuvres with Ukrainian troops inside the territory of western Ukraine under the code name “Rapid Trident” (formerly named “Peace Shield”). The last US-Ukrainian manoeuvres took place in September -October 2021, together with forces from Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Jordan, Moldova, Pakistan, and Poland. Since 1997, US naval manoeuvres code-named “Sea Breeze” have regularly taken place off the coast of Ukraine in the Black Sea. In the summer of 2021, these naval manoeuvres involved naval forces from 32 countries.

What would have been the reaction of the West if Russia, together with soldiers from Belarus, Serbia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and other countries, had conducted regular military exercises in Mexico and held annual naval maneuvers in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida?

Who knows that on March 24, 2021—exactly eleven months before the Russian invasion—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed Decree No. 117 for a “Strategy for the de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol”? It aimed to prepare all necessary military measures to “end the temporary occupation” of Crimea and the Donbas.

On August 30, 2021, the USA and Ukraine signed a treaty on military cooperation and, on November 10, 2021, concluded a treaty on “Strategic Partnership”. This treaty stated, among other things: “The United States intends to support Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russia’s armed aggression, including through the maintenance of sanctions and the application of other relevant measures, pending the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.” Had the Ukraine, with US encouragement, prepared for war just months before Russia attacked?

And this was not all:

All this took place on the background of other activities that Russia must have seen as existential threats to its security. In 1999 and 2004, NATO expansion brought it directly to the Russian border when 14 Eastern European countries joined the military organization.

By 2001, the US Government under Bush Jr. began dismantling virtually all arms reduction treaties and confidence-building measures with Russia: In 2001, it cancelled the A-CFE Agreement on the Disarmament of Armed Forces and Weapons Systems in Europe and the ABM Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems; in 2019, it allowed the phasing out of INF Treaty prohibiting the production and deployment of land-based missiles and cruise missiles with a range of between 500 and 5.500 kilometres and in 2020 it cancelled the Open Skies Treaty, which was intended to create a ‘glasnost’ for both sides in the sense of confidence-building measures through overflight rights. In 2023, Russia responded by suspending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals. The US had never ratified the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

NATO conducted its own wars of aggression, ignoring the UN Charter. In 1999, it attacked illegally the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and was forced to hand control of Kosovo, formally an autonomous province of Yugoslavia, to NATO forces. In 2003, the US attacked Iraq under false pretext and without a UN mandate. In 2011, it attacked Libya, also under false pretext, ignoring the limitations set in the UN mandate. In a highly “creative” interpretation of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, it began to station NATO troops in countries bordering Russia in 2016. In 2016, the US Aegis Ashore Site became operational in Romania, and in 2023, the US Aegis Ashore Site in Poland became operational. They are all directed against Russia and designed to undermine Russia’s ability to respond to any nuclear attack.

What Russia proposed to NATO and the USA…

On December 17, 2021, Russia sent NATO and the USA a draft treaty to establish legally binding security guarantees for both sides. Are the proposals so absurd and unrealistic as claimed by the US and other NATO states? Was the West justified in ignoring Russia’s security concerns and in taking the position that “Ukraine’s NATO membership is not up for negotiations”? Had NATO fulfilled its obligation under the UN Charter to negotiate any conflict to find a diplomatic solution as and when it arises to prevent war?

In summary, the draft treaty addressed to NATO contained the following proposals:

  • Both sides should confirm not to regard each other as adversaries;
  • Return to the principles of “equal and indivisible security” (Paris Charter);
  • Renunciation of the use and threat of force;
  • Refraining from creating situations that one side could regard as a threat to its national security;
  • Restraint in military planning and exercises to avoid “dangerous brinkmanship”, especially in the Baltic Sea region and in the Black Sea;
  • Revitalization of the NATO-Russia Council and other bilateral and multilateral discussion formats;
  • Transparency in military exercises and manoeuvres;
  • Establishment of hotlines for emergency contacts (revitalization of the “red telephone”);
  • Withdrawal of Western armed forces and weapons systems to the level prior to NATO’s first eastward expansion;
  • No deployment of land-based short- and medium-range missiles in areas from which they could attack the territory of the other party;
  • No further expansion of NATO (in particular not to include Ukraine);
  • NATO to refrain from military activities on the territory of Ukraine and other states in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia;
  • Establishment of a largely demilitarized corridor between NATO and Russia.

In summary, the draft treaty addressed to the USA also contained the following proposals:

  • Reaffirmation of the declaration that nuclear war can have no victor and that every effort must be made to avert this danger;
  • Renunciation of measures aimed at preparing for war against the other side on the territory of third countries;
  • Renunciation by the USA of establishing military bases and bilateral military cooperation in and with the states of the post-Soviet space that are not NATO members;
  • Both sides refrain from stationing armed forces and weapons systems outside their territories, which the other side might regard as a threat to its national security;
  • Refraining from flights of heavy bombers and the presence of surface combatants in regions from which they could strike targets in the territory of the other Party;
  • Refraining from stationing nuclear weapons outside its own territory and returning such weapons systems, and destroying the corresponding infrastructure to third countries;
  • There is no training of personnel in the use of nuclear weapons and no military exercises for their use in countries that do not possess them.

As always, the devil is in the details, and all proposals would have required intensive scrutiny by security policy and diplomatic experts. Moreover, the ‘package demands’ and the ultimate tone of the two letters were highly undiplomatic. Nonetheless, NATO and the USA should have taken the two proposed draft agreements seriously as a clear formulation of Russian security interests, examined them carefully and used them as a basis for negotiations aimed at significantly improving the security situation of all signatory states by finding a negotiated solution to the security concerns of Russia and Ukraine. This would have probably prevented the war, saved the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of mostly young men, and left Ukraine as a sovereign state intact.

… and how NATO responded

On January 7, 2022, an extraordinary digital conference call among all 30 NATO foreign ministers took place to work out a common NATO position on how to react to the Russian proposals. NATO’s response was disappointing: They decided not to negotiate any of the core issues raised by Russia.

At the subsequent press conference, Secretary General Stoltenberg—like US President Biden later—responded in the usual fashion: NATO would continue to support Ukraine and Georgia; and that every country, regardless of its size and the concern of its neighbours, had the right to choose its own alliances. However, by claiming that every member of the OSCE, regardless of its neighbours, has the right to become a NATO member, Stoltenberg and Biden contradicted the spirit of the 1990 OSCE “Charter of Paris” for a New Europe and the Istanbul Document of the 1999 OSCE Summit with its stated principles: “Each participating State has an equal right to security… They will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States.”

Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, the former and well-informed ARD correspondent in Moscow, responding to such a claim, said the necessary things about the alleged general right to NATO membership: “All states have the right to apply to NATO for membership. But NATO has every right in the world to reject applicants if overriding political considerations speak against it!”

Adding further to the tensions, Stoltenberg took this opportunity to call on Finland and Sweden to join NATO blatantly—“the partners with whom we are working more and more closely. NATO’s door remains open!”

Six weeks later, Russia launched its military intervention into Ukraine.

Dr. Leo Ensel (“Look at the other side!”) is a conflict researcher and intercultural trainer focusing on the post-Soviet space and Central/Eastern Europe. He has published about “Fear and Nuclear Armament”, the social psychology of German reunification and studies on images of Germany in the post-Soviet space. In the new West-East conflict, his main concern is overcoming false narratives, de-escalation and the reconstruction of trust. The author attaches great importance to his independence. He feels exclusively committed to the topics mentioned and not to any national narrative.

March 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Fearful Electioneering Turbo Charges Western Warmongering

Strategic Culture Foundation | March 8, 2024

Western states are facing an acute political crisis whereby their established governing parties and leaders are fighting for survival amid a grave loss in legitimacy in the eyes of their electorates.

In the United States, incumbent President Joe Biden is vying for reelection in November with historically lowest poll numbers ever for an occupant of the White House.

Meanwhile, across the European Union, governing parties and leaders are braced for a drubbing from parliamentary elections in June.

The roots of this unprecedented loss of legitimacy among Western political establishments are manifold. But surely one cause is the rank hypocrisy of Western leaders that has now been laid bare. How can political figures expect to have any moral authority when they are seen to be inveterate liars and shamelessly corrupt?

Western governments and their servile media lecture about “democracy”, “human rights” and upholding “law and order”. They claim to be motivated by such principles in their support of Ukraine against alleged Russian aggression. Yet these same governments are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza through their unwavering support for the Israeli regime.

Western leaders have been fatally exposed and compromised by the conflict in Ukraine and Gaza. The contradiction is terminal.

That’s not just because of the blatant double standards and duplicity. Western voters are increasingly disgusted by the relentless financial and military support funneled into Ukraine to prop up a scamming regime comprised of NeoNazi ideologues. Under Joe Biden and the incumbent European politicians, the West has flooded Ukraine with weapons and hundreds of billions of dollars in what is the biggest war racket ever.

This is while Western populations, workers, farmers, and businesses are hard-pressed with numerous social and economic burdens.

Western governing parties are rightly seen as elitist and serving powerful minority oligarchic interests such as the military-industrial-corporate-financial nexus. Their declared vows about democracy are a contemptible joke.

The war in Ukraine is increasingly understood by voters to be a disastrous proxy war of choice that was pushed by U.S. and Western imperial objectives to confront Russia.

Despite the squandering of public money to propagate the war, the U.S.-led NATO axis has lost its “great game”. The proxy war has devastated Ukraine, causing up to 500,000 military deaths in two years, as well as destabilizing the rest of Europe from increased migration, fiscal impact, deindustrialization, and the shattering of agricultural industries.

Western populations are furious with their political leaders for having inflicted such chaos and waste of resources – as well as wantonly provoking tensions in international relations with Russia. Western politicians have pushed the world to the brink of an all-out war between nuclear powers. All this crazed folly is based on utter lies and deception – as the horror of Gaza and Western complicity illustrates.

In this cauldron of electoral revolt, Western political leaders are only digging a deeper hole for their eventual collapse.

American President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address this week made a disingenuous pitch to voters. He portrayed the world as facing an existential crisis from Russian “tyranny” and simultaneously claimed the fate of US democracy was under threat from his election rival Donald Trump.

In a dangerous and desperate move, Biden is conflating Trump with alleged Russian aggression. The Democrat president is fighting for political survival against Republican presumptive nominee Trump primarily because Biden is so deeply unpopular among American citizens. To boost his election prospects, Biden is making out that the country is facing an “inflection point” that requires rejection of Trump because he is “bowing down” to Russia.

Trump and many within the Republican Party are opposed to continuing the proxy war in Ukraine, recognizing that it is futile.

Biden and the Democrats, who are more aligned with the U.S. foreign policy establishment, are therefore trying to make the election about an existential “defense of world democracy and peace”. Biden claimed in his State of the Union address that if the U.S. does not supply Ukraine with another $60 billion more in military aid then Russia will overrun the rest of Europe. Biden even invoked the memory of Roosevelt supposedly facing down Nazi Germany in 1941.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the same warmongering high-stakes ruse is being pushed by French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron is calling for the deployment of NATO ground troops in Ukraine to prevent a Russian victory and an alleged threat to the rest of Europe.

The French head of state has become almost hysterical in recent weeks with war talk. He told other French political leaders this week that there would be “no limits” to France’s support for Ukraine against Russia.

What’s lying behind Macron’s belligerent rhetoric are his fears of political defeat from opposition parties in the forthcoming EU parliamentary elections. It is not just Macron who is anxious. All incumbent European leaders are dreading an expected widespread revolt by the electorate.

That is why the French president and his ruling-class ilk like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are seeking to dominate the public narrative with war talk and the alleged danger of Russian expansionism.

The irony is that the more the Western establishments pursue militarism and war in Ukraine the worse their states become from economic mismanagement and the more their legitimacy sinks into the gutter. They are seen more and more as a warmongering clique that has not a shred of ethical concern because of their reckless warmongering in Ukraine and their despicable complicity in the genocide in Gaza.

Elections in Western states are over-rated. As the saying goes, if voting changed anything, it would have been banned years ago. The array of current opposition figures and parties facing incumbents is not going to deliver any solutions to the endemic problems of Western systemic failure. Nevertheless, the forthcoming U.S. presidential election and the European parliamentary ballots are shaping up to deliver grievous blows of repudiation to the political establishments.

To offset the political doomsday, charlatan Western leaders like Biden, Macron, Scholz, and Von der Leyen are doing their last-ditch best to talk up war with Russia and the “threat to democracy” as a way to burnish their electioneering efforts. But such cynicism is not turbocharging their prospects. It will backfire.

The U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine is facing a historic debacle from defeat. But that makes the desperate reaction by Western incumbents scurrying for political survival a dangerous time in the next few months.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

March 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What the Western Press Didn’t Say About the Leaked Luftwaffe Conversation

By Eduardo Vasco | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 8, 2024

On March 1, the editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya group, journalist Margarita Simonyan, revealed, on her Telegram channel, a 38-minute audio in which officers from the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) discussed the possibility of sending missiles long-range Taurus to Ukraine and whether they would be able to reach the Crimean bridge in the Kerch Strait, which connects the peninsula to the mainland and is Russian territory.

The Russian press, naturally, made much of the revelation. This forced the mainstream Western media – especially German ones – to report the leak. But whoever thought that a miracle would happen, that is, that the Western press would finally raise the issue of NATO’s military threats against Russia… well, those people are simply very naive.

The Western mass media, as always, tried to manipulate the news and hide the main issue.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, Die Welt and Der Spiegel published 39 articles on the topic on their respective websites between the time the news was revealed and the evening of March 6th (when I write these lines).

The two North American newspapers did not want to highlight the matter. The Post published two reports and the Times only one. The three expressed concern about the fragility of German intelligence security systems in the face of Russian espionage.

The Europeans, as has been the case for some time, carried much more propaganda against Russia. The BBC published four articles, all referring to the failure to protect Luftwaffe communications. The Guardian published five articles. The majority warns of the Germans’ failure and treats the Russians as great, threatening villains. However, it is necessary to make an honorable mention of Simon Jenkins’ column, the only one who was allowed to say that the leaked conversations demonstrate that NATO is threatening Russia with an escalation in the conflict.

As we all know, this drop of water in the middle of the ocean has no chance of counterbalancing the flood of war propaganda and fake news from the British press against Russia. Newspaper owners only allow freedom of expression when it is harmless – and try to isolate minimally independent opinions.

Now let’s talk about German newspaper coverage. Die Welt published 18 pieces about the leak scandal, and treated it as such. Of course, the main reason for the scandal was – for German war propagandists – the interception and dissemination of the conversation, not its content.

The entire reportage of Die Welt revolves around failures in the security system of the German armed forces and Russian espionage. The possibility of Olaf Scholz sending the Taurus to Zelensky is briefly discussed and it is even stated that Germany is putting its Western allies in danger by allowing the interception of conversations that may mention confidential and compromising information – such as the participation of British soldiers in Ukraine, as mentioned in the conversation in question.

A single Die Welt report presents a “dissident” opinion, which is not “Russian propaganda”: the brief speech of a member of the AfD – who, however, is branded a Russian agent by the German state and its agents, such as the press.

The article signed by Pavel Lokshin has the following title: “Kremlin is using Taurus leaks to threaten war against Germany”. Of course, it was the Russians who considered blowing up a bridge in German territory, right?

In turn, Der Spiegel, in its nine articles on the case, reproduces the same speech as Die Welt about the failures in German security and the danger of Russian espionage. It also disqualifies the Kremlin’s claims that the conversation is clear proof of NATO’s direct involvement in the war in Ukraine and how much this threatens Russian national security.

Christina Hebel’s analysis is the only piece in these two German outlets that takes the accusations of the Russian government and German involvement in the war more seriously, but it would be an exaggeration to say that this publication would be in the sphere of journalism.

In short, the coverage of these newspapers – and the coverage of other mass media outlets in the West is no different – is absolutely biased and manipulated. In fact, as always happens, they reverse roles: Germany, which threatened to blow up a bridge in Russia, is the victim, while Russia is the villain!

If at least one of these newspapers really were a journalistic tool, and not a propaganda tool, it should publish an article with a title like “German officers considered blowing up bridge in Russia” or “Audios reveal discussion of attack on Russia with German weapons”.

After all, which is more serious: the leak of the audio by Russian intelligence or the discussion among senior German officials about a military attack on Russia? No honest person would choose the first option. But we are not dealing with honest people when we talk about “journalism” in Europe and the United States.

I can’t help but wonder: what if it were the other way around? What if a conversation between Russian officials discussing the explosion of a bridge in Germany had been revealed? Would Western press coverage also treat the leak as something more serious than threats of military attack?

Of course not! If it were Russia considering attacking Germany, there would not be 39 articles in these vehicles, but rather 3,900. Russia would be portrayed as a threat to human civilization (more so than it is portrayed today), chaos would be wreaked in German and Western society, and the drums of war against Russia would be beaten at the top of their lungs. Meetings would be urgently called at the UN Security Council, unilateral sanctions would increase absurdly, all the lackey governments of the USA and the European Union would speak out publicly condemning Vladimir Putin’s madness.

They are real hypocrites. Against Russia, anything goes.

And, although the majority of these media outlets are private, they all act as government bodies, under the strict control of their respective States, as true spokespeople for those in power. But Russia is the one who controls the press, Russia is the one spreading propaganda and Russia is the one disinforming, right?

The leaked audio proves that the war in Ukraine is not a war between Russia and Ukraine, but rather a war between Russia and NATO. The Western press strengthens this claim by propagandizing war against Russia and encouraging attacks against Russia.

The press, according to Western discourse, would be a protector of the public interest against the discretion of those in power. That’s idle talk. The press, in fact, even private companies, are tools of these same rulers to control and oppress the governed.

A growing number of Germans oppose the shipment of weapons to Ukraine and Germany’s participation in a war against Russia, but they are systematically deceived and betrayed by their government and the mass media.

March 9, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The ICC: A Tool of Western Aggression

By Christopher Black – New Eastern Outlook – 09.03.2024 

The new charges made by the International Criminal Court against two Russian military officers, Sergey Kobylash, commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ Long-Range Aviation, and Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Viktor Sokolov, reinforces the role of the ICC as a tool of Western propaganda and aggression and makes a mockery of its claimed role as an international court.

Mr. Khan, the latest iteration of ICC prosecutor, is a British lawyer who apparently never learned about the role of justice when he attended law school. His March 5th statement claims that the ICC has jurisdiction over Ukraine and Russia and that the officers charged directed attacks on civilian infrastructure, all of which is false. His political bias is established with the following statement,

“In our application for these warrants, my Office again underlined that these acts were carried out in the context of the acts of aggression committed by Russian military forces against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, which began in 2014.”

That statement is a bald-faced lie. It was not Russia that committed aggression against Ukraine in 2014. It was the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, France and the other NATO allies who committed aggression against Ukraine and its people by staging a coup d’état in 2014; overthrowing the elected government and installing in its place a NATO puppet regime riddled with Nazis. That alone should shock the world. Yet in the West, nothing is said about it.  Many do not even know it took place. The facts have been suppressed and distorted by the propaganda they concocted to cover their crime of aggression, so they have labelled the brave resistance to the NATO-Nazi coup by the citizens of Ukraine located in the eastern provinces, as “Russian” aggression. Only a charlatan, having regard of all the facts, could come to that conclusion. It is the war begun by the Kiev regime against the Ukrainian people that Russia was finally forced to step in order to stop it.

But Mr. Khan seems undismayed that he will be labelled a charlatan, since this is the second set of charges he has filed against Russians, the first set being against President Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian Ombudswoman for Children’s Rights, some months ago.

The rapidity with which Mr. Khan has acted against Russia stands in stark contrast to the complete refusal by the ICC to lay charges against Israeli leaders and military officers for the genocide they are committing against the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, despite the fact on November 17, 2023 Mr. Khan, on receipt of referrals from South Africa and other states that Israel was committing war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the Occupied territories, as far back as 2006, stated that his office was investigating the matter. Yet, despite the International Court of Justice ruling that there is plausible evidence that Israel is committing genocide, despite the referrals from other nation states since then, as well as many individual complaints by world citizens and groups demanding charges be laid, he has done absolutely nothing. In effect, by his refusal to charge Israel leaders and officials, he aids and abets their actions by granting them immunity from prosecution.

Yet, in the case of Russia, over which the ICC has no jurisdiction, he acts with the utmost speed, ever ready to please his masters in the West, who need something, anything to pull the wool over the eyes of their citizens in the face of the great defeat they are suffering in their war against Russia in Ukraine. He is always ready to oblige them.

The fundamental problem of the ICC is that it is not a world court. It only claims to be, while representing the interests of the nations that promoted it, even the USA, which refuses to subject its citizens to its jurisdiction. It is a “court” to be used for western interests, no other. It was not created by a world government. It was created by a treaty drafted by representatives of a group of nations referred to as the Assembly of States Parties. The process of drafting the treaty was long and complex; however, it is necessary to point out that it is recognised that no single nation could purport to create such a court claiming to have international jurisdiction, and what a single nation cannot do, no group of nations, however composed, has the authority to create such an entity either.

The claim of the ICC to universal jurisdiction is a consequence of its ability to assume jurisdiction even in matters concerning individuals who are citizens of nation states that are not parties to the treaty. We have seen this with the charges laid against Russians for crimes allegedly committed in Ukraine. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is a Party to the Treaty of Rome, and therefore the ICC has no jurisdiction over the citizens of either state. However, the Ukrainian government, established by the NATO coup-d’état of 2014, invoked the Acceptance of Jurisdiction clause in the ICC Statute to afford the ICC with jurisdiction over Russia. Article 12 of the Statute states,

“Article 12

Preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction

3. If the acceptance of a State, which is not a Party to this Statute, is required under paragraph 2, that State may, by declaration lodged with the Registrar, accept the exercise of jurisdiction by the Court with respect to the crime in question. The accepting State shall cooperate with the Court without any delay or exception in accordance with Part 9.”

This has two effects. Firstly, the phrase “crime in question” means that, in the case of Ukraine, for example, the ICC accepted a letter from the regime installed by the coup-d’état, granting the ICC limited jurisdiction-only over the alleged crime that was referred to the ICC by Ukraine. The crimes of Ukraine in the conflict, committed for ten years against the peoples of the Donbass and against civilians in Russia, are conveniently ignored. The Kiev regime states the ICC has no jurisdiction to consider them, and the ICC accepts this farce.

The result of accepting a letter of limited jurisdiction, that is a letter purporting to grant jurisdiction to the ICC over Russian “crimes,” while refusing to grant the ICC jurisdiction over Ukrainian crimes, is the selective prosecution of citizens of one state while granting immunity from prosecution of the other state. This is a legal and moral absurdity. The very idea of justice, in the sense of equality before the law, is negated, but more, it affords the Ukrainian regime an immunity from prosecution which provides encouragement to commit further crimes of its own on its claimed territories and in Russia. Once again, as in the Israeli case, we see that the ICC is acting as an enabler of war crimes instead of bringing to justice those committing them.

On May 21, 2023, the Russians charged the prosecutor and judges of the ICC for crimes involved in the issuance of the ICC warrants against Russians. The Russian Investigative Committee stated that,

“The ICC prosecutor is charged under part 2 of article 299, part 1 of article 30, and part of article 360 of the Russian Criminal Court (criminal prosecution of a person known to be innocent, as well as preparation for an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection in order to complicate international relations). The judge is charged under part 2 of article 301, part 1 of article 30, and part 2 of article 360 of the Russian Criminal Court (knowingly illegal detention and preparation for an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection in order to complicate international relations).”

“Both have been put on a wanted list.”

We can expect further charges to be laid against Mr. Khan and the judges concerned.

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events.

March 9, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The special military operation, Avdeyevka, and Gaza

By Yuriy Zinin – New Eastern Outlook – 09.03.2024 

The name Avdeyevka, which is known to few in the Arab world, has featured prominently in the Middle Eastern media in recent weeks. Media commentators have examined the battle to liberate this city, its significance, and discussed the opinions of political analysts and observers on the future course of military operations in the conflict, including its international impact.

A number of military observers quoted in the media have referred to this event as “a turning point in the course of the war,” similar in significance to the conquest of Bakhmut by Russian forces last year, with both cities being of similar strategic and symbolic value.

For example, Rizk Al-Hawalda, a retired brigadier general and military expert from Jordan, believes that the capture of Avdeyevka will allow Russian forces to further strengthen their position in Ukraine, and increase their combat capability to defend the territories under their control.  For the Ukrainian forces, however, the capture means that their ability to retake what they have lost has been thwarted, leaving them to face the fact that this land has now become Russian territory, and that this loss is irreversible.

Other authors believe that the capture of this city will allow Russian forces to control the space around Donetsk and create logistical corridors to expand the scope of their operations.

The Egyptian Al Qahera News edition sees the capture of Avdeyevka as an “important victory” achieved by Russian troops just before the second anniversary of the start of the special military operation. They outnumber the enemy on the battlefield, both in terms of troop numbers and equipment, giving them an advantage when attacking Ukrainian formations, which are short on weapons and soldiers amid cracks in the West’s military support for Kiev.

These changes are also evident in the range of media responses from the Middle East. In general, they adopt a balanced tone when discussing the results of fighting after two years of the special military operation, and the political and economic consequences of the combat.

For example, the influential Saudi newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat opines that Washington and its allies have miscalculated. It is referring to the West’s imposition of anti-Russian sanctions, its attempts to undermine Russia’s economy, deprive it of revenues from hydrocarbon exports, and isolate it in the international arena, etc.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculations, it suggests, are based on common sense and are absolutely correct. He has carefully avoided the traps laid out for him and been able, with skill and step by step, to dismantle the economic blockade declared against his country, and the authors also admire the undeniable victories of Russian troops on the military frontlines.

A number of other Arab publications take a similar line. A review of the events in Ukraine, as they see it, teaches a number of lessons. One is that a state’s policy should not be based on promises of support from outside, and should be founded first and foremost on its own interests. Now, the West’s promises of support have failed.  The former media rhetoric that Ukraine is bulwark for Europe is on the wane.

Europeans are suffering from interruptions to the supply of Russian gas, supply chain disruption, inflation and interest rate hikes, etc. The European countries see resolving their own economic crises as their priority, and do not wish to suffer because of Ukraine. In short, the credibility of the Western coalition supporting Ukraine has fallen, and, as the present author notes, it looks as if Ukraine will have to go into the third year of the war alone.

Significantly, such assessments are increasingly being reflected in public opinion in the Middle East. Recently, Akhbar Al Aan, a leading news platform in Dubai (UAE) conducted a poll among its readers about Western military aid for Ukraine. To the question: would this help rescue Kiev, 85% of respondents answered “no” and just 15% answered “yes”.

Today, a number of political observers in the Middle East are drawing parallels between the conflict in Ukraine and the war in Gaza and reaching their own conclusions. In particular, they note the similarity of behavior styles of the leaders of the two countries: Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu. They conclude that both are characterized by a pathological desire to deny reality and are stubbornly following their chosen courses, despite the obvious failures of their strategies….

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky showed no sympathy for the Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza. He did not hesitate for a second, but supported the Israeli war machine, Akhbar Al Aan claims.

Other authors criticize the “blindness” of those countries that oppose Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine but are unable to see what Israel has been doing in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.

In their view, one of the lessons of the Gaza conflict involves the issue of trust in the West. It promotes and continues to proclaim its values and principles as universal, applying to all people regardless of religion, race or nationality. But these trumpeted values have not been applied in Gaza.

Many political observers share this view. The disillusionment with Western values that has emerged in the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip has left a deep wound in the hearts and minds of Arab elites who had placed their hopes in an engagement with Western civilization. This will push the Arab nations’ Islamic civilization, and the civilization of the Global South in general, further away from the West, Arab media commentators predict.

Yuri Zinin, senior researcher at the Center for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

March 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Cowardly warmongers vote for the German Green Party, and polling proves it

By John Cody | Remix News | March 6, 2024

The German Green Party was once known for its anti-NATO and pacifist stance during the party’s early days. However, it has since transformed into an Atlanticist arm known for its hawkish positions, calling for more weapons for Ukraine and a continued battle with Vladimir Putin.

However, this pro-war position is not out of step with the Green Party’s base, a base that is pretty revolting when the data is actually examined.

Two separate polls paint an unflattering picture of these voters.

According to a survey by ARD, 52 percent of German voters are against the delivery of the Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Germany’s parliament actually just voted against sending these missiles, but Germany continues to be under extreme pressure to deliver them. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has expressed fear of direct war with Russia if the missiles are delivered, as they can reach distances of up to 500 kilometers, which means they can also reach Russian territory. Only 36 percent of Germans are in favor of sending these missiles, and 12 percent did not have an answer.

However, the poll also looked at the different opinions of party supporters. The data shows that 68 percent of the Green party supporters are in favor of delivery and 23 percent are against it. This party had the highest number of supporters in favor of the missile deliveries, while AfD supporters were the most critical, with only 18 percent in favor.

Green party supporters are very gung ho about sending weapons to Ukraine and ensuring the conflict goes on against Russia, but while these voters want Ukrainians to continue dying and fighting against Russia by the thousands, these same voters are outright cowards themselves. That is not an opinion, but something they freely admit.

According to another poll conducted by Forsa for Stern magazine, only 9 percent of Green Party supporters say they would “definitely” defend Germany with weapons. In fact, Green Party supporters were the “least likely” of any party’s supporters to actually say they would defend Germany with weapons. Their willingness is far lower than AfD supporters, with 28 percent saying they would “definitely” defend Germany with arms.

In other words, while Green Party supporters are the most likely to say Germany should send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, and in general, are arguably the biggest advocates for continued war against Russia, they themselves are the least likely to want to take up arms to defend their own country.

It has to be said. These people are not just cowards, but elitist cowards, who want other people to fight their wars. Putin is a bogeyman to them who must be defeated, but instead of traveling to Ukraine to fight him themselves, they want to live their effete lifestyles, attending concerts, art galleries, climate protests; drinking organic fair trade coffee; and living in “Altbau” apartments in trendy neighborhoods.

The front is far away, and their lives are comfortable. They are among the wealthiest voters in all of Germany.

If Russia were to theoretically invade Germany, these would be the first people to flee to San Francisco, London, and Paris, leaving mostly AfD supporters, apparently, to man the frontlines. In their fever dreams, Putin is knocking at the doorstep, but the reality, thankfully, is that Russia will not invade Germany, and even if it did, it would have to go through Poland first. The Green Party supporters would have no compunction in sending waves of Poles up against the Russians either while making TikTok videos in support of the effort.

These people are not very reflective or handle cognitive dissonance well, so even if confronted with this data, most could not possibly internalize it. This is not to say that all Green Party voters are cowards or bad-intentioned, but the data does present a narrative that is worth contemplating. It has led some anti-war German columnists to call for reinstating mandatory military service, saying that paradoxically, a draft would put the wealthiest Germans and their children, back in the crosshairs of a potential war, and make them more hesitant about warmongering.

March 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

ICC issues arrest warrants for top Russian military commanders

RT | March 5, 2024

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for Lieutenant-General Sergey Kobylash and Admiral Viktor Sokolov, accusing the two top Russian military commanders of committing war crimes amid the Ukrainian conflict.

The two top officers, serving as the commanders of Russia’s Long-Range Aviation and Black Sea Fleet respectively, are accused of committing “the war crime of directing attacks at civilian objects,” causing “excessive incidental harm to civilians,” as well as perpetrating a “crime against humanity,” the ICC said in a press release.

The alleged crimes are said to have taken place during a campaign of missile strikes “against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March 2023,” the court claimed.

The Hague-based tribunal has repeatedly taken hostile steps against Moscow amid the Ukraine conflict, most notably by issuing an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin last spring. Putin is accused of “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Moscow has rebuffed the ICC claims, stating that the children in question were merely evacuated form the warzone, and could be returned to Ukraine should their legal guardians request it. Russia has also taken retaliatory steps against the ICC itself, launching a criminal case against the court’s principal prosecutor and judges, ultimately issuing arrest warrants against them.

Like many other countries, including the US, Moscow does not recognize the authority of the Hague-based tribunal and its actions have no legal validity in Russia. The body has been repeatedly accused of being Eurocentric and biased towards the West.

March 5, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Lies about China’s Uyghur Oppression

Tales of the American Empire | February 29, 2024

Americans see news reports about the plight of Uyghurs. They are told these Muslims living in the western China province of Xinjiang are abused by the ruling Han Chinese and over a million are imprisoned in camps where they are forced to perform slave labor. As a result, China must be constantly denounced for this abuse and sanctions imposed on any Chinese business exploiting this slave labor. This is false and based on lies promoted by the American CIA.

Note: We are told to pronounce Uyghur as “WEE-gur” even though it has no W. In the province of Xinjiang and in their language it is pronounced “OO-gur” and should be in English since it starts with a U! So I adopted Dr. de Zayas’ correct pronunciation to reject whoever decided we should call them something weird in English.

___________________________________________________

“I Saw ZERO Evidence of Uyghur Repression In China”; Jimmy Dore Show; YouTube; September 30, 2023;    • “I Saw ZERO Evidence Of Uyghur Repres…  

“What’s it REALLY like to travel in Xinjiang, China?”; Cyrus Janssen; YouTube; May 1, 2021;    • What’s it REALLY like to travel in Xi…  

“No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims”; Ben Norton; The Grayzone; August 23, 2018; https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/23/un…

“Was There Really a Massacre in Tiananmen Square–or Was It an Illusion Fabricated by U.S. Politicians and Corporate Media to Make Americans Hate China?”; Jeremy Kuzmarov; Covert Action Magazine; August 7, 2023; https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023…

“US efforts to strangle China & reassert hegemony”; The Duran; YouTube; September 16, 2023; https://theduran.com/us-efforts-to-st…

Related Tales: “The American War on China”:    • The American War on China  

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Schools in German capital ordered to distribute leaflets describing 1948 Nakba Day as ‘myth’

Palestinians flee the village of Qumiya during the Nakba in 1948
Press TV – February 24, 2024

Schools in the German capital Berlin have been ordered to distribute leaflets describing the Nakba Day as a “myth”, 76 years after Zionist paramilitaries forcibly removed two-thirds of the Palestinian population from their ancestral homes.

Germany’s leading Social Democratic Party (SPD) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party – and the opposition Christian Democratic Party (CDU) have asked high schools in Berlin’s borough of Neukolln to distribute brochures titled “The Myth of Israel #1948”, the London-based Middle East Eye website said in a report on Friday.

The report cited a motion that was passed during a public meeting of the borough’s council on Wednesday stating that “the district office is asked to advocate the use of the brochure ‘Myths#Israel1948’ in Neukolln’s secondary schools to confront existing anti-Semitic narratives within the educational framework of the school.”

“The expanded definition of anti-Semitism of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) and the German government should also be communicated,” the motion further read.

More than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly removed from their ancestral homes in Palestine and 500 villages and towns were destroyed by Zionist militias before the Israeli regime declared its illegal establishment. Palestinians are still enduring the repercussions of this catastrophe to this day. The systematic ethnic cleansing occurred between 1947 and 1949.

The incident is known among Palestinians as the Day of Nakba, or the Day of Catastrophe, and it is commemorated every year on May 15.

The leaflet distributed among high school students in Berlin’s Neukolln borough flatly rejected, among others, this catastrophe as a “myth” despite the fact that ample credible evidence in favor of the occurrence of the incident are impossible to ignore.

Based on such overwhelming evidence, the United Nations, for the first time in its history, commemorated the 75th anniversary of Nakba Day back on May 15 last year.

The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), at the time, organized a high-level special meeting.

It was presided over by the chairman of the committee, Ambassador Cheikh Niang of Senegal, and included a keynote address by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Senior UN officials and representatives of regional groups and civil societies also made statements to commemorate Nakba.

The leaflet stresses that criticism of illegal Israeli settlements is anti-Semitic.

According to the report, while Germany stands out with its unwavering political and military support for Israel, the German left is split over its stance on Palestine.

February 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hypocrisy and Genocide: Here’s who the West should really be ‘decolonizing’

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | February 24, 2024

The hypocrisy of the US-led West regarding how it reacts to Russia, a geopolitical opponent, on one side, and to Israel, a favorite with special privileges, on the other, is so flagrant that even The Guardian has noticed. While the West uses rhetoric about “rules” and “values” to cloak its proxy war against Russia via Ukraine, it tolerates and supports Israel’s genocidal attack on the Palestinians in Gaza. That even the United Nations’ top court, the ICJ, has by now found genocide a plausible possibility, simply makes no real difference.

This is a failure that goes beyond cynical political elites. During the war between Russia and Ukraine (and de facto the West), many Western academics, journalists, and experts have not been able to get enough of displaying their rhetorical toughness. While badly misled Ukrainians have been doing all the dying, going to verbal extremes was all the rage among the West’s chairborne brigade.

Some tried to accuse Moscow of genocide. Others felt that the least they could do was demand that Russia cease to exist. That fantasy of disintegrating a geopolitical rival was usually dressed up as a call to “decolonize Russia,” also disparaged as “the last empire.” These labels were handy because they implied three fashionable – if silly – ideas: First the claim that the modern, post-Soviet Russian Federation consists of a colonizing center and colonized peripheries. Second, the wish that Russia simply must fall apart because all empires do (never mind it’s not an empire). And third, that Ukraine can be recast as a victim of imperialism on par with, say, the Belgian Congo or Vietnam fighting off first the French and then the Americans.

None of the above makes sense. Russia is a federation, its population features more than one ethnic identity, and there are imbalances. If you think that’s the definition of colonialism, go right ahead and take apart Great Britain or France. As for a “last empire,” maybe try the US first. After all, that is the one country on Earth that considers itself officially “indispensable,” thinks the whole globe is its God-given (literal) sphere of influence, has just used up Ukraine as a proxy in Europe, and is reducing its EU vassals to penury, sponsoring an ongoing genocide in the Middle East, and gearing up for a big war in Asia to defend its “primacy.”

But the inherent absurdity of these clearly politically – propagandistically, really – motivated charges is not really their most interesting aspect. For one thing, it’s just too obvious. What is really intriguing is something else, and it has happened only recently. We are now in the fifth month of witnessing – 24/7 and in real-time – the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. That is the outcome of Israel’s very structure, its Zionist source code: that of a classical European settler colony whose existence in its current form is premised on the removal of indigenous populations.

And yet, the same brave voices courageous enough to loudly shout what every political leader (and editor, and employer) in the West has wanted to hear about Russia – where are they now? Where are their demands to “decolonize Palestine,” that is, free the Palestinians from Israeli oppression and mass murderous violence? Where are their demands to end the “last settler colony”?

And, make no mistake, ending Israel as it is now, a state based on persistent violence, in permanent violation of UN rules with impunity, does not require or imply indiscriminate mass violence against Israelis. It simply means that this state – not its Jewish population – commits the very imperialist crimes Western talking heads keep accusing Russia of.

Where is the concern for Palestine, a country that, clearly, is a real victim of imperialist violence at the hands of Israel and the West? Where are the calls for arming the Palestinian Resistance with the best of NATO’s arsenals? Transferring tens of billions of euros and dollars to the Palestinians so they can sustain their fight against Israeli aggression? Nothing. With very few exceptions, the silence of the Western intellectuals is deafening.

The contrast with past grandiloquence is stark, even grotesque. Take, for instance, the Washington Post op-ed “What’s happening in Ukraine is genocide. Period.” of April 5, 2022. Authored by Eugene Finkel, a political scientist originally from Lviv in Ukraine and based at Johns Hopkins University, the piece argued what its title would make you expect: Finkel had no doubt that he was able to identify a clear-cut case of genocide. He has not been silent with regard to Gaza either: On November 16, 2023, he used an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times to tell us about “a bout of violence that includes atrocities, indiscriminate targeting, bombings and hostage taking, leading to claims about a potential genocide or genocidal massacres committed by the warring parties.”

Spot the difference? Whereas Finkel rushed to the far-fetched conclusions he wanted with regard to Russia, he is careful to speak only of “claims” when it comes to Israel and Gaza – and, of course, he both-sides the Israeli perpetrators and Palestinian victims. And yet, Israel has clearly and deliberately targeted civilians with a strategy of forcing ethnic cleansing. The methods of warfare used by Israel – for instance, systematic starvation blockade; the publicly encouraged mistreatment of civilians, including children and women, as combatants and of combatants as without any rights; the destruction of all medical infrastructure and the systematic murder and abuse of medical staff; the systematic mass slaughter by bombing – have no parallel in Russia’s fighting in Ukraine. And, for Israel, there can be no doubt about “intent,” which is a key factor in proving genocide.

If Finkel were remotely honest and unbiased, the very least he would have to do is invert his position: The case of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is crystal clear; the case for accusing Russia of this crime in Ukraine is anything but.

Regarding “decolonization,” there’s Janusz Bugajski, a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington and author of “Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture.” Bugajski has been an ardent advocate of disintegrating Russia, urging Western policy-makers to get ready for Moscow’s defeat and collapse, and then “capitalizing on Russia’s de-imperialization.” He has, unsurprisingly, also reveled in the “falling empire” cant. His ability to get his facts and predictions ridiculously wrong is one thing. Poland, whose glorious strategic future his next book will predict, may worry about that.

So, what about Bugajski’s take on the Gaza Genocide? Simple: It’s Moscow’s fault, of course. Or, at least, what we must think about is not the Israeli genocide but Bugajski’s contention that Russia somehow benefits from this crisis. As to what is actually happening on the ground, Bugajski can only spot “Israel’s retaliation against Gaza to eliminate the terrorist threat.” Genocide? What genocide? He has, to be fair, noticed that the US faces “international condemnation” for its support of Israel. But that fact as well he can only mentally process as yet another “win” for nefarious Moscow.

We could add more examples. But the problem should be clear by now: Too many Western intellectuals are betraying the first obligation of their professions: to at least strive to be honest. The almost compulsive urge to weaponize themselves, their positions, and reputations against Russia has overcome any respect for facts and consistent standards. That alone is a sad picture of ethical decline. But their response – or often complete failure to respond – to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, however, is so much worse again. It is at that point – that is now – that their blatant disregard for the Palestinian victims and their needs and rights reveals them not only as biased careerists and ideologues, but as bereft of conscience and compassion.

Tarik Cyril Amar is an historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul.

February 24, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Wikileaks Reveals Alexei Navalny’s US Funding as Washington Exploits His Death

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 24.02.2024 

News of the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison very quickly spread across the Western media, while condemnation of Russia over his death emanated from behind the podiums of Western leaders. Before any investigation could possibly be mounted, the collective West concluded that the Russian state was responsible for Navalny’s death.

The disproportionate concern US President Joe Biden showed for a Russian citizen dying in a Russian prison versus President Biden’s silence over the death of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in a Ukrainian prison, raises questions over the motivation behind this “concern.”

Far beyond hypocrisy, the US and its allies are less concerned about Navalny’s death than they are about how it can be leveraged to advance their foreign policy objectives vis-à-vis Russia.

The New York Times, in an article titled, “Navalny’s Death Raises Tensions Between U.S. and Russia,” would claim:

President Biden blamed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia personally on Friday for the reported death of the imprisoned Russian dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, and cited the case in pressing House Republicans to approve military aid to Ukraine in its war with Moscow.

As part of the process of exploiting Navalny’s death, not only are the circumstances surrounding it being distorted, so too are the events of Navalny’s life.

Many news articles ran with headlines like CNN’s article, “Putin saw an existential threat in Navalny, the opposition leader whose name he dared not mention,” the BBC’s article, “Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most vociferous Putin critic,” or Al Jazeera’s article, “Alexey Navalny: An archenemy Putin wouldn’t name and Kremlin couldn’t scare.” These articles all contain different variations of virtually the same narrative that Navalny was a prominent opposition figure, a successful politician, and an “existential” threat to the current Russian administration.

Yet, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Despite being active in Russia, Navalny’s largest support base was actually located in Washington, D.C. And it is the Western media itself that has revealed this.

Even with Al Jazeera’s recent article attempting to convince readers Navalny was the “archenemy” of the Russian government, further down in the article it admits:

Only 19 percent of Russians approved of Navalny’s work and 56 percent disapproved of what he did, according to a February 2021 survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center polling organisation.

How does an opposition figure with only a 19% approval rating in any way threaten a government whose leader, President Vladimir Putin, enjoys an approval rating over 80%?

Some may question the polling data, after all, the Levada Center producing both numbers is based in Moscow. However, the Levada Center is actually funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), according to the NED’s own website.

The US NED funds political opposition groups around the globe with the ultimate objective of achieving regime change in targeted countries and producing resulting client regimes that pursue US interests, even at the cost of the targeted country’s own interests.

We know this because the Western media admitted this as well.

The Guardian in a 2004 article titled, “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” in regard to street protests in Ukraine admitted:

… the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.

Funded and organised by the US government, deploying US consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties and US non-government organisations, the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milošević at the ballot box.

Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze.

Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in Central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko.

The article admits that the US government used the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, both subsidiaries of the NED, to organize this political interference.

If the US government was funding organizations all along Russia’s borders, the next question is: Who was the US government funding inside Russia itself?

The answer is Alexei Navalny and the network of political opposition surrounding him. The many obituaries published recently across the Western media list the names of political organizations Navalny founded, including “Democratic Alternative” or “DA!”

US diplomatic cables, made available by Julian Assange and his Wikileaks project, revealed “Democratic Alternative” was being funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy.

In a November 2006 cable titled, “A Guide to Russian Political Youth Groups: Part 1 of 2,” it’s admitted that:

Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.

“Democratic Alternative,” founded by Navalny, headed by Gaydar, was funded by the US government through the NED, and was part of opposition networks the US was setting up to do in Russia what the Western media admits the US already did in neighboring Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia.

“Part 2 of 2” of the US diplomatic cable would even mention Russian government efforts to “hasten to irrelevancy” opposition groups, including NED-funded “Democratic Alternative,” because Moscow was “intent on avoiding the orange- and rose-colored revolutions of its neighbors,” in reference to the US government regime change operations in Ukraine and Georgia.

The Western media itself admits that Alexei Navalny founded “Democratic Alternative.” US cables admit “Democratic Alternative” was being funded by the US government through the NED. The Western media itself admits the US government funded organizations like this to implement regime change inside targeted countries – in this case Russia.

Alexei Navalny was aiding in Russia what the US government had already done in Georgia in 2003, leading eventually to NATO-trained troops attacking Russia in 2008, and did again in Ukraine in 2014, leading to NATO-armed and trained forces killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians along Russia’s borders and threatening to attack Crimea following a 2014 referendum resulting in its return to Russia.

Another key element of the West’s attempts to exploit Navalny’s death is an effort to depict him as a pro-democracy, progressive liberal activist, when in reality – and again – according to the Western media itself – he was nothing of the sort.

In fact, this is admitted even by US government-funded media like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In their 2021 article, “Navalny’s Failure To Renounce His Nationalist Past May Be Straining His Support,” they admit:

On February 23, the prominent NGO Amnesty International withdrew Navalny from its list of “prisoners of conscience,” a designation reserved for people imprisoned for who they are or what they believe. Amnesty said Navalny, who is in prison on what he and his supporters call trumped-up charges aimed at silencing him, fell short of its criteria because of past statements the rights watchdog perceived as reaching the “threshold of advocacy of hatred.”

Much of the attention focuses on Navalny’s unabashed endorsement of nationalist causes in the late 2000s, including his appearances at the Russian March, an annual event that gathers ultranationalists of all stripes in Moscow but has dwindled in size in recent years. In response, the liberal Yabloko party expelled Navalny from its ranks, but under the banner of a new group called the National Russian Liberation Movement in 2007 he released YouTube videos describing himself as a “certified nationalist” and advancing thinly veiled xenophobia.

And by “ultranationalists,” the US government-funded media organization means Neo-Nazis.

This is the very unflattering reality of Navalny’s politics and “activism,” a reality the Western media previously admitted, and a reality the same Western media is now trying to paper over.

The true story of Navalny’s political life was one of unpopular and unsuccessful foreign-funded sedition using toxic ideologies incompatible to the values the West claims it represents. Following Navalny’s death, his US sponsors are attempting to wring out any remaining value Navalny might serve in advancing the US policy of encroaching upon, encircling, and eventually overthrowing the current Russian government – a policy not of “freedom and democracy,” but one of violence, interference, and subjugation.

Only by papering over the truth, can the collective West hope to successfully use Navalny’s death to depict Russia as a threat to the civilized world. By exposing who Navalny really was in life, the West’s attempts to exploit him in death can instead serve as a warning against US foreign policy as the real threat to the civilized world.

February 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Protect the First Amendment: Impeach Joe Biden!

By Ron Paul | The Libertarian Institute | February 20, 2024

Protecting democracy and the Constitution from Donald Trump and the “MAGA extremists” is a major theme of President [Joe] Biden’s reelection campaign. As is often the case in American politics, President Biden is just as, if not more, guilty of posing an “existential threat” to the Constitution as those he smears as “extremists.” For example, President Biden and members of his administration have waged a campaign to undermine the First Amendment by “encouraging” companies to suppress the expression of “unapproved” views online.

The latest example of the administration trying to get a private internet company to censor Americans may be the most outrageous of all. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan recently released a series of emails between Biden administration officials and Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer. The government officials wanted Amazon to remove from its online catalog books containing “misinformation” regarding the safety and effectiveness of covid vaccines, meaning anything questioning the government’s pro-vaccine propaganda.

While Amazon did try to push back some against the administration, it did remove at least one “anti-vaccine” book from its online catalog. Amazon also manipulated its search results to make sure books expressing skepticism of vaccines were buried under books touting the pro-vaccine line. The company probably hoped that by “burying” these “dissident” books Amazon could make the administration happy without actually removing all books that question the covid vaccines. The company also promised the administration that it would expand use of a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warning for books promoting “anti-vaccine” narratives.

Some libertarians say that Amazon should not be criticized for its decisions. These libertarians point out that, as a private company, Amazon has the right to decide what books to sell and also has the right to decide to make it difficult to find books expressing viewpoints the company finds dangerous or distasteful. This is true but ignores one important fact: Amazon’s decision to suppress books critical of covid vaccines was not done to attract consumers who would not shop at a site that sells “anti-vaccine propaganda” or “conspiracy theories.” Instead, Amazon acted at the behest of government officials who were seeking to prohibit Americans from accessing alternative views.

Amazon may have been eager to cooperate with the government to avoid being subjected to antitrust litigation. At the very time the administration was demanding Amazon suppress covid dissidents, President Biden was preparing to appoint Lina Khan, an advocate for antitrust litigation against Amazon, to lead the Federal Trade Commission.

It is clear that the U.S. government has been a major spreader of covid disinformation, while those challenging the government’s pro-mask, pro-vax, and pro-lockdown propaganda have been the truth-tellers. Covid is an example of why protecting the First Amendment is vital to protecting not just liberty, but also our prosperity and health.

Congress should prioritize its investigation into the Biden administration’s efforts to silence Americans because of their views. Congress should then impeach all high-level federal officials, including President Biden, who took action to violate Americans’ First Amendment rights.

February 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

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