US democracy ‘a facade’ – Russian security chief
RT | March 27, 2023
The US is not really a democracy, nor does it seek to promote democracy in its relations with other nations, contrary to Washington’s claims, senior Russian security official Nikolay Patrushev has said. He made the remarks while commenting on the upcoming ‘Summit for Democracy’ hosted by the US government.
Patrushev, who is the secretary of the Russian Security Council, described the US economy as “dependent on corruption and lobbying connections going to the White House and Capitol Hill.”
Corporate interests have hijacked the levers of political power in the US and use the country’s international clout to pursue their own agenda, he said in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, to be published in full later today.
Their democracy is a pretty facade for the political system, which serves to hide the neglect of the rights of ordinary Americans.
Washington pursues the same approach in the international arena, where it claims to be the champion of democracy but disregards other nations’ sovereignty, Patrushev said. He believes that this “hypocrisy” will be on display at the Summit for Democracy, which will kick off this week in Washington.
The event will be “a gathering to support a world order in which Washington wants to play the central role forever. Dissenters will be labeled ‘undemocratic states,’” he predicted. The US, which “appointed itself the dictator of the world, will harass the nations whose sovereignties and democracies were undermined,” by Washington.
The reality is that “Washington has long been a leader in violating the sovereignty of other nations, in the number of wars and conflicts it has unleashed,” the security chief said. He called the nations that support this arrangement “vassals” that are constantly “humiliated” in their abusive relationships with the US.
The international event, which is being held for the second time, is meant to promote democracy against what Washington increasingly sees as assertive “authoritarian” states. The US reportedly invited all participants of the first summit, which was held in 2021, including the administration of the self-governed Chinese island of Taiwan. NATO members Hungary and Türkiye were snubbed once again, according to Foreign Policy magazine.
The EU is losing relevance in the emerging new world
By Timur Fomenko | RT | March 27, 2023
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met in Moscow last week, and Western circles predictably responded by accusing Russia of becoming “subservient” or even a “vassal state” to China.
MEP Guy Verhofstadt, a Euro-fantasist and former prime minister of Belgium, jeered on Twitter, “Putin’s appalling legacy now includes turning Russia more and more into a Chinese vassal state,” oblivious to the irony of his own words. As the United States took the lead in denouncing China’s peace plan for the Ukraine conflict, publicly setting out the conditions on which it should end, the European Union was nowhere to be seen, or at least had nothing original to say.
This makes Verhofstadt’s comments a damning display of lacking self-awareness. Russia and China are setting out their vision for a new multipolar world, while the US struggles against them in seeking to maintain its hegemonic position. Meanwhile, the European Union has been reduced to the status of a mere bench player in it all, and has become effectively irrelevant. The failure of EU countries to stake out their own will and position amidst the larger powers, as well as their total subservience to the US, has made a mockery of the “strategic autonomy” concept once championed by Emmanuel Macron.
“Strategic autonomy” is a principle of European integration where the EU should be an actor in a multipolar world, which advocates for its own interests and pursues its own agenda. Supporters of this principle insist that the EU should not blindly follow the will of the US when it comes to every foreign policy issue, but should be proactive and enhance its role on the world stage. Therefore, they should not, as is commonly demanded by Washington, take sides on matters such as a new Cold War with China. The term gained growing traction during the years of the Trump administration, when Europe’s relations with the US hit a low due to his particular interpretation of the “America first” doctrine.
However, the practical reality of “strategic autonomy” is that the EU is not a unitary state, but a loose intergovernmental organization of states which, while seeking to establish common positions on a principle of unity, do not truly have a unified foreign-policy-making mechanism. The intra-institutional politics of the EU are often a messy compromise and battle of wills between different levels of actors, including the states themselves, the European Commission, and the European Parliament. This combines with the reality that “European integration” has been a broken process since 2008. Challenges such as the Eurozone financial crisis, Brexit, Covid-19, and internal conflicts with various states such as Poland have all weakened and fractured the EU.
As a result, the EU has been ill-suited to deal with what is, despite media misdirection, the single most explicit source of foreign influence and interference against it, the US. Washington has multiple channels whereby it exerts control over the EU’s many foreign policy actors. Firstly, it uses a web of government-funded think tanks and associated journalists to control public opinion and steer EU countries towards supporting its objectives. Secondly, the US has an extraordinarily political hold over the former Soviet bloc states to the east of the EU (with the exception of Hungary), which it uses to foment increased antagonism against Russia and China, and therefore undermines the attempts of the bloc’s most “autonomous” and powerful states – Germany and France – to pursue more reconciliatory foreign policies.
Thirdly, the US uses the United Kingdom as its primary cheerleader in Europe (be it from within or without the EU) to project its political will onto the continent and override the will of any defiant member states. An example of this is the BBC World Service acting as a massive propaganda machine to push narratives in line with Washington’s foreign policies. Additionally, the US has shown an ability to work with and weaponize the intelligence services of member states against their own countries, such as using Danish intelligence to spy on other European leaders.
Through all these factors, both past and present, the US has been able to keep Europe divided, conflicted, and seemingly unable to pursue any foreign policy which actually meets European interests, as opposed to those of the US. This has culminated even to the extent of literally destroying the Nord Stream pipelines and then propagating a false narrative that Ukraine was responsible. The Ukraine war has ultimately only accelerated the isolation and irrelevance of Europe, which has strengthened the hold of the military-industrial complex over the continent, undermined its energy industries, and thus converted the term “strategic autonomy” into a laughing stock.
One might ask, who is truly the vassal? If a new multipolar world is emerging, it’s fair to say, Europe simply isn’t part of it. Russia, China, and America are the drivers of current events, the EU is but a passenger.
Why is the West Paranoid About the Putin-Xi Summit?
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 26.03.2023
The recently concluded summit consolidated Russia’s and China’s joint bid to challenge the US-dominated global system as well as concerted US efforts to undermine, using any means, emerging global powers. That the push to challenge this system is gaining momentum, evident from the support that both Russia and China continue to receive from the non-Western world, has left the West – especially, the US – paranoid about the future of the system they created after the Second World War. This growing paranoia is at the heart of an arrest warrant that the International Criminal Court issued last week against Putin. Ridiculous as this may sound, such actions only reveal the West’s inner anxieties about the failure of their combined efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine.
On the contrary, even as reports in the mainstream US media show, assembling enough military strength from within NATO countries for Ukraine against Russia has become an extremely difficult task, as more and more NATO countries are becoming “worried” about their own ammunition stockpiles. In addition to this, as reports in the US media show, there are growing differences between Washington and Kyiv as well with regard to the conduct of the war. How will Russia be defeated in such a case? For many Western powers – especially, the US and its old allies (the UK) – this is nothing short of a nightmare.
This nightmare is exacerbated by the Russia-China alliance. China, as it stands, has more manufacturing capacity today than the US-Europe combined. And, it is strong enough a military power to confront any western power in the Pacific or beyond. What can the West do to break this alliance? There is virtually no way the West can do any damage to this alliance; hence, the growing paranoia.
In fact, the West’s combined failure to defeat Russia has given a bit more confidence to the Russia-China alliance to pursue its politics of creating a multipolar world. For decades, the combined West projected its supposed superiority over the non-West. China’s rapid emergence as a global power and Russia’s success against the combined strength of NATO has unambiguously proven this sense of superiority to be false. Xi, in an article he wrote for Russian media, minced no words to express the same fact:
“The international community has recognized that no country is superior to others, no model of governance is universal, and no single country should dictate the international order. The common interest of all humankind is in a world that is united and peaceful, rather than divided and volatile.”
Reinforcing the same, Putin said,
“Our countries, together with like-minded actors, have consistently advocated the shaping of a more just multipolar world order based on international law rather than certain ”rules“ serving the needs of the “golden billion.” Russia and China have consistently worked to create an equitable, open and inclusive regional and global security system that is not directed against third countries.”
For the West, this agreement is nothing short of a shock, as many western politicians and media political pundits are known to have argued for years regarding some underlying – and seemingly irreconcilable – differences between Russia and China. These differences, the argument goes, were supposed to be exacerbated by the military conflict in Ukraine. Clearly, yet another western prediction has proven to be utterly wrong and self-defeating.
Now that Russia and China are not only allies but have no-limits friendship too, the West stands petrified.
This alliance is not passive. It is active and dynamic and is working to reshape the world. While Russia is facing off the combined military strength of NATO in Ukraine, China recently found a big success in the Middle East where it was able to broker a peace deal between two arch-rivals: Saudi and Iran. This deal has allowed the Russia-China alliance to expand the strength of the alliance into other countries and regions, thus squeezing the space for the US and its allies.
China is seeking to play the same role between Russia and Ukraine. The recent peace proposal Beijing offered is promising. Although the West has so far ignored it, the political message that this peace proposal contains is very hard for many non-western powers to ignore. In fact, its opening lines reflect the very world that China and Russia are seeking to build. The message is not only powerful but also enticing. It says:
“The sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld. All countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the international community. All parties should jointly uphold the basic norms governing international relations and defend international fairness and justice. Equal and uniform application of international law should be promoted, while double standards must be rejected.”
Why would countries that have traditionally been mistreated by the west reject this message and the principle of equality? Granted that absolute equality – especially in material terms – may not be possible even in the multipolar world that Russia and China are trying to build, it seems fair to emphasise that no international system can work when a few countries are able to bend rules to suit their own interests at the expense of other states. Indeed, the Iraq war would not have happened if the US had not decided to undermine the UN and act unilaterally on the basis of concocted evidence about Iraq’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. NATO’s intervention in Libya destroyed a stable system, a fact that the British Parliament’s foreign affairs committee admitted years after completely destroying the country. Who is responsible for this destruction? Will the ICC act against the proven culprits?
For the West – especially, the US – the Russia-China bid to create a new world order will create a space in which Western unilateralism would become extremely costly, especially if directed against their competitors. For them, the end of “their” world must be prevented at any cost. But the problem lies in their consistent failure in preventing this from happening and in the success of Russia and China in pushing ahead.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
EU warns of response to Belarus nuclear move
RT | March 26, 2023
The EU will respond with further sanctions if Belarus presses ahead with hosting Russian nuclear weapons on its soil, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has stated. Borrell called the decision to transfer tactical weapons to Belarus “an irresponsible escalation” by Moscow.
“Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security,” Borrell tweeted on Sunday. “Belarus can still stop it, it is their choice,” he continued, adding that “the EU stands ready to respond with further sanctions.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed on Saturday that his country’s tactical nuclear weapons will arrive in Belarus as early as this summer. Putin said that he made the decision after the UK announced it would transfer toxic depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, a move he described as a sign of London’s “absolute recklessness.”
Belarus has already been extensively sanctioned by the EU and US since the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine last February. Brussels has blacklisted more than 20 Belarusian officials, cut five of the nation’s banks off from the SWIFT system, and imposed numerous trade restrictions.
Prior to 2022, the EU banned Belarusian flights from operating in its airspace and imposed five separate sets of sanctions in response to President Alexander Lukashenko’s 2020 election victory, which the EU deemed fraudulent.
In his announcement on Saturday, Putin explained that any nuclear weapons transferred to Belarus would remain under Russian control.
“There is nothing unusual,” about this arrangement, Putin stated, explaining that “the United States has been doing this for decades” by keeping its own nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye.
“They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies,” he said. “We agreed that we will do the same, without violating our international obligations on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
Mexican President Says Trump Arrest is About Keeping Him Off the Ballot
Agencia Press South via Getty Images
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | March 23, 2023
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador slammed the Biden administration for accusing him of corruption while abusing the justice system in America to engage in a political witch hunt against Donald Trump “so that he doesn’t appear on the ballot”.
AMLO made the comments in response to a U.S. government report that accused his an administration of “human rights violations,” a charge which he asserts is a tissue of “lies”.
Over the weekend, Trump said he expects to be arrested in connection with a potential indictment for ‘hush money’ payments made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
“Right now, former President Trump is declaring that they are going to arrest him,” said AMLO, adding, “If that were the case… it would be so that his name doesn’t appear on the ballot.”
Obrador said he sympathized with Trump because he too had been targeted with “the fabrication of a crime, when they didn’t want me to run.”
“And this is completely anti-democratic… Why not allow the people to decide?” said AMLO.
The president also shot down claims that he was responsible for the mistreatment of journalists by pointing to America’s treatment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, adding that the report criticizing his administration, “should not be taken seriously.”
“Let’s see, human rights? Why don’t you release Assange?” he asked. “If you are talking about journalism and freedom, why are you holding Assange?”
Obrador also said the U.S. had no right to browbeat him about violence given their alleged role in blowing up the Nord Stream oil pipelines.
“If you talk about acts of violence, how is it that an award-winning United States journalist tells us that the United States government sabotaged the Russian-European gas pipeline?” the president stated.
“Why is a cartel, or several cartels, allowed to operate in the United States, freely distributing the fentanyl that does so much harm to young people in that country?” he asked.
AMLO said the U.S. should stop trying to “be the government of the world” when their own behavior is rife with inconsistencies.
Last night, a letter written by Michael Cohen’s attorney said that Cohen acted alone when paying off Stormy Daniels in 2016, with the case against Trump looking increasingly flimsy and more likely to collapse altogether.
China gives US advice on Ukraine
RT | March 22, 2023
The US should stop “fanning the flames” of the conflict in Ukraine instead of making accusations against Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin has said.
During a briefing on Wednesday, Wang responded to a statement by US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who said the previous day that he didn’t think “you can reasonably look at China as impartial in any way” when it comes to the fighting between Moscow and Kiev.
Beijing has failed to condemn Russia’s military operation, while continuing to buy energy from the country, he stated. Chinese President Xi Jinping “saw fit to fly all the way to Moscow” this week, but has never even talked on the phone to his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, Kirby added.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman rejected Kirby’s claims, stating that the US was itself too deeply involved in the conflict in Ukraine to accuse Beijing of being biased.
“The US side claims that China’s stance isn’t impartial. But is it impartial to continuously supply weapons to the battlefield? Is it impartial to constantly escalate the conflict? Is it impartial to allow the effects of the crisis to spill over globally?” Wang said, referring to the Biden administration’s policies.
“We advise the American side to rethink its own stance on the Ukraine issue, turn away from the erroneous path of adding fuel to the fire, and stop shifting the blame to China,” he said.
Beijing has “no selfish motives on the Ukraine issue, has not stood idly by… or sought profit for itself,” the spokesman insisted. “What China has done boils down to one thing, that is, to promote peace talks.”
As for Xi’s trip to the Russian capital, which took place between Monday and Wednesday, Wang pointed out that this was “a journey of friendship, cooperation and peace, which has aroused positive responses in the international community.”
The Ukrainian crisis was among the top issues discussed between Vladimir Putin and Xi in Moscow, with the Russian president stressing that many provisions of the Chinese peace proposal were “consonant with the Russian stance and can be taken as a foundation for a peaceful settlement when they are ready for it in the West and in Kiev.” However, Putin pointed out that Moscow currently didn’t detect readiness from either the US, its allies or the Ukrainian government.
Send in the Clowns
Yellen and Garland perform back-to-back surprise visits to Ukraine
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MARCH 21, 2023
Sometimes I think that the script being used by the Biden Administration to manage its foreign and national security policies has been written by George Orwell, though I am not sure if it based on 1984 or Animal Farm. Maybe it is a combination of the two. Either way, it would help explain why there is something seriously wrong here. For example, at the end of February Congress, confronted by a debt ceiling, began discussing cutting Medicare and Social Security while more recently a banking sector crisis seems to be developing so Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen decided to go off doing photo-ops in Kiev embracing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky shortly after handing him the keys to the US economy. She explained to Zelensky how the White House had approved an additional $12 billion in aid to Ukraine during the previous week, including $2 billion for the military and $10 billion to support Zelensky’s government and other infrastructure needs. The US Treasury is now de facto the source of the Ukraine government’s entire annual budget. In addition, Yellen described glowingly how the Treasury and State Departments will implement a new round of sanctions against more than 200 entities and individuals with ties to Russia’s military, high-technology industries, and its metals and mining sectors. The US Department of Commerce is also enforcing export restrictions on materials and technology, including semiconductors, sold by American companies to customers in Russia and China.
In defense of her grand mission, Yellen penned an op-ed for the always compliant New York Times explaining the importance of Ukraine to the United States. She wrote how in Ukraine “… Russia’s barbaric attacks continue — but Kyiv stands strong and free. Ukraine’s heroic resistance is the direct product of the courage and resilience of Ukraine’s military, leadership and people. But President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainians would be the first to admit that they can’t do this alone — and that international support is crucial to sustaining their resistance. I’m in Kyiv to reaffirm our unwavering support of the Ukrainian people. Mr. Putin is counting on our global coalition’s resolve to wane, which he thinks will give him the upper hand in the war. But he is wrong. As President Biden said here last week, America will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes… Ukrainians are fighting for their lives on the front lines of the free world. Today, and every day, they deserve America’s unyielding support.”
The Yellen op-ed drones on with a lie so large that it is astonishing that the New York Times would even print it: “When confronted with scenes of brutality and oppression, Americans have always been quick to stand up and do the right thing. Our strength as a nation comes from our commitment to our ideals — and our capacity to see in others the same desires that animated our own struggles for freedom and justice.” But then she tops that with assurances from “President Zelensky, [who] has pledged to use these funds in the ‘most responsible way.’ We welcome this commitment, as well as his longstanding agenda to strengthen good governance in Ukraine.” Huh?
And here is Yellen’s version of “Why We Fight!”: “Our support is motivated, first and foremost, by a moral duty to come to the aid of a people under attack. We also know that, as President Zelensky has said, our assistance is not charity. It’s an investment in ‘global security and democracy.’ Let’s look at the strategic impact of our support for Ukraine so far. Mr. Putin’s war poses a direct threat to European security, as well as to the laws and values that underpin the rules-based international system.”
So, Americans have a “moral duty” apparently up to and including sending their sons and daughters to die supporting Ukraine. And ah yes, it’s all about the “free” world, democracy and the notorious rules based international system! Has anyone yet cited Hegel’s observation that the President Joe Biden Administration’s foreign policy has already “repeated itself, first as a tragedy in Afghanistan, second as a farce”? Meanwhile one suspects Zelensky was laughing all the way to the bank as Yellen disappeared over the horizon to come up with the cash, as that old expression goes, and he probably already has one of his buddies shopping for a new villa on the French Riviera to supplement his other real estate! But wait! The story became even more exciting the following week, involving another visit to Mr. Z by America’s nearly invisible Attorney General Merrick Garland, a man who can literally look Z in the eye as they are both very short. Garland is generally engaged in chasing white supremacists and requiring all new FBI hires to learn all about how to identify and pursue antisemites, but he has made two trips to Kiev to meet mano-a-mano with the brave olive drab t-shirt clad warrior who is already being beatified as the twenty-first century’s Winston Churchill.
Garland was in town to do the other thing that engages his sense of law and order, which is to set up a tribunal to arrest, prosecute and punish Russian war criminals after Ukraine emerges triumphant from its conflict with the unimaginably evil President Vladimir Putin. It would be modeled on the Nuremberg Tribunals that tried leading Nazis after the Second World War, and Garland has cited his family’s escape from the so-called holocaust to explain why he is intent on personally being involved in delivering what he describes as “justice.” A Justice Department spokeswoman described Garland’s mission as being in Kiev to personally “reaffirm America’s commitment to help hold Russia responsible for war crimes committed in its unjust and unprovoked invasion against its sovereign neighbor.”
Garland had several meetings with President Volodymyr Zelensky and foreign law enforcement officials including Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin while attending what was billed as the “United for Justice Conference.” Zelensky elaborated that the purpose of the conference was to hold Russia’s leadership accountable for the alleged atrocities carried out by its army. “The main issue of all these meetings is accountability,” he said. The US Justice Department is reportedly actively engaged in the gathering of evidence to indict the Russians. During Garland’s first visit to Ukraine in June 2022 he announced the appointment of Eli Rosenbaum, an Office of Special Investigations prosecutor best known for going after former Nazis, to direct American efforts to identify and track Russian war criminals.
Garland laid it on thick, as was expected from someone responsible for prosecuting the rest of the world when it steps out of line. He told his hosts that “Just over twelve months ago, invading Russian forces began committing atrocities at the largest scale in any armed conflict since the Second World War. We are here today in Ukraine to speak clearly, and with one voice: the perpetrators of those crimes will not get away with them. In addition to our work in partnership with Ukraine and the international community, the United States has also opened criminal investigations into war crimes in Ukraine that may violate US law.” He concluded by throwing out the complete bullshit party line much beloved by Joe Biden and Tony Blinken, that “The United States recognizes that what happens here in Ukraine will have a direct impact on the strength of our own democracy.”
Of course, there is more than a little bit of irony in all this, not to mention top level hypocrisy, as the United States has killed more people directly or indirectly while committing more crimes against humanity dished out in various ways over the past twenty years than any other country, except, predictably, Israel, which currently is committing crimes against humanity on a nearly daily basis. Curiously, however, the normally tone-deaf White House and Pentagon seem to understand, on a certain level, that opening up Pandora’s box might not be a good idea when it comes to war crimes. Last week Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin refused to share US information on alleged Russian crimes with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. The Pentagon is blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence with the ICC collected by American intelligence agencies regarding Russian activities in Ukraine because helping the court investigate Russians might set a precedent that could help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans. Washington does not recognize the ICC, fearing that it might well seek to examine the sorry record of US military crimes in Asia and Africa. Israel similarly does to recognize the court for roughly the same reason.
So here we are, two top level officials from the Biden regime sneak into Kiev to give an arch crook money and unlimited moral support, together with a pledge that more cash is on the way as are arms and war crimes tribunals await those nasty Russians. And guess what? It is all packaged as being good for America! This sounds like a song that was sung previously in places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and it was a tissue of lies then just as it is now. Yellen ought to have stayed home to tend to the banking system and should be giving the billions of dollars earmarked for Zelensky back to the American people. If Garland wants to investigate anyone it should be the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, and Congress. And yes, his own FBI! And don’t forget how the Bidens and Clintons became multi-millionaires! And then there is the destruction of Nord Stream. Funny how every time one turns over a rock in and around the US government something really smelly surfaces.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
U.N. Is A Climate “Disinformation Threat Actor”
By Michael Shellenberger | March 20, 2023
The United States government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), within the Department of Homeland Security, is raising the alarm about the threat of “foreign influence” that is “leveraging misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.” CISA defines “malinformation” as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” In 2021, CISA, along with the White House and private sector partners, successfully persuaded Facebook and Twitter to censor accurate information about the origins of the SARS-2 coronavirus and covid vaccines.
And yet CISA is failing to do its job when censoring malinformation, misinformation, and disinformation about climate change, including by “threat actors,” often funded or employed by foreign governments. A Google survey of over 2,300 people conducted last year by the nonpartisan research organization Environmental Progress, which I founded and lead, found that 53% of people surveyed in the U.S. agree with the false statement, “Climate change is making hurricanes more frequent,” while 46% agree with the false statement, “Climate change threatens human extinction.”
I strongly oppose efforts by the U.S. government to censor American citizens by ordering social media platforms to remove content, sometimes while threatening to end Section 230, the federal law that makes companies like Facebook and Twitter possible. Such censorship is a violation of the First Amendment. The journalist Matt Taibbi, former State Department official Mike Benz, and I have all pointed to the emergence since 2016 of a censorship-industrial complex operated and funded by the U.S. government. It should be defunded.
But it’s notable that the censorship-industrial complex has shown no interest in censoring climate misinformation that has led people to believe that climate change is making hurricanes more frequent and threatening human extinction. “An example of malinformation is editing a video to remove important context to harm or mislead,” writes CISA. And yet that is precisely what foreign disinformation threat actors like Greta Thunberg, her allies at the German government-funded Potsdam Institute, and even the U.N.’s own Secretary-General Antonio Guterres routinely do when they share videos of people in poor countries suffering from flooding, which is a direct result of lack of flood management infrastructure, not slightly more precipitation from climate change.
Moreover, the censorship-industrial complex has sought to censor accurate information about climate change and energy. Last June, former Biden Administration Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy demanded censorship of those who criticized the failure of weather-dependent renewables during the blackouts in Texas in February 2021, even though such criticisms were factual. “The tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation,” said McCarthy.
In her interview, she went on to falsely claim that critics of renewables are funded by “dark money” fossil fuel companies — the same false claim that Democrats made of the world’s most influential scientist studying hurricanes and climate change, Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado. As such, McCarthy spread disinformation in order to undermine the legitimacy of her opponents.
The U.N. continues to wage its disinformation campaign against the people of the world, as today’s headlines about its new report show. “‘The climate time-bomb is ticking,’” reads the CNN headline. “Scientists release ‘survival guide’ to avert climate disaster,” says BBC. “Earth to hit critical warming threshold by early 2030s, climate panel says.” The U.N. most journalists are implying that scientists have determined that a temperature increase beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would be catastrophic.
The U.N. report is malinformation. The supposed 1.5-degree “threshold” is political, not scientific, as Pielke and others have shown. Global warming causes incrementally greater risk. Temperatures are expected to rise less than most thought as recently as 10 years ago, thanks to abundant natural gas. And humankind’s physical security is assured, given our success at adapting to more extreme weather and producing more food on less land.
All of this raises a question. Why, if the U.N. and U.S. governments are so committed to censoring disinformation, are they themselves spreading it? Why, in other words, do U.N. officials perfectly fit their own definition of “disinformation threat actors,” and often foreign ones at that?
ICC Has Been ‘Weaponized to Buttress US Imperialism’ & ‘Deserves to be Abolished’
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 18.03.2023
By issuing “warrants of arrest” against two senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has revealed its flagrant Western bias, Professor Alfred de Zayas, former UN independent expert on international order, has stated.
The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek indictment of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin “may be the last nail in the coffin of the ICC’s credibility,” according to Professor Alfred de Zayas, former UN independent expert on international order.
Based in the Dutch city of The Hague, the ICC on March 17 purported to charge Putin, as well as his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, with “unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population” over reports that Ukrainian children were taken from parts of western Russia that had previously seceded from Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation. Moscow has dismissed the ICC’s “warrants of arrest,” with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly stating that Russia is not a party to the ICC and its jurisdiction is not recognized by Moscow.
“No one from the West was ever indicted” after the establishment of the ICC in 2002, Alfred de Zayas pointed out to Sputnik.
“In 20 years it only indicted Africans and for that reason it was rightly called neo-colonial. Now it indicts Putin, revealing its flagrant Western bias. Since the entry into force of the Rome Statute there have been thousands of war crimes under the responsibility of NATO governments… War crimes have been documented in NATO wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Why has no one ever been indicted there?” the author of 10 books, including “Building a Just World Order,” asked.
At this point, the professor rolled off several names that he believed deserved indictment for a plethora of war crimes.
“If the ICC indicts Putin, why not Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Barack Obama (the king of the drones), Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Joe Biden…”
The current prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan KC, a British lawyer specializing in international criminal law who has served in the post since 2021, has blatantly “demonstrated his bias by discontinuing investigation of war crimes by the US in Afghanistan, but continuing investigations against Taliban,” Professor Alfred de Zayas clarified.
The prolific author also deplored the fact that while in his previous publications he had advocated for the establishment of the International Criminal Court, he has now been made aware of how the ICC has been “politicized and made irrelevant.”
“The ICC would only serve a purpose if it were rigorously independent, objective and professional. The weaponization of the ICC to buttress US imperialism is painful… After 20 years of largely political, not strictly legal activity, the ICC deserves to be abolished. Justice means Justice for all, not only for privileged countries,” Professor de Zayas summed up.
After the International Criminal Court issued its “warrants of arrest” against President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced on Friday that, “Decisions of the International Criminal Court have no significance for our country, including from a legal point of view… Russia is not a party to the ICC’s Rome Statute and bears no obligations under it.”
As for the purported “unlawful transfer” of Ukrainian children, Western officials and media, along with Kiev regime officials, have been claiming for months that Russia has been “stealing” these minors by relocating them from the conflict zone’s front lines. Moscow has repeatedly explained that the civilians are threatened with regular shelling attacks by Ukrainian forces – hence the relocation.
“We do our best to keep young citizens in families, and in cases of the absence or death of parents and relatives, to transfer orphans to guardianship. We are ensuring the protection of their lives and well-being,” the Russian Embassy in the US said last month.
MQ-9 Drone Incident: Biden’s Dangerous Escalation
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik -16.03.2023
A US surveillance drone crashed off the coast of Crimea after an encounter with a Russian fighter aircraft. What does this incident say about the current state of the war in Ukraine and where Russia and the US might go from here.
In 2015, the United States established a permanent training facility in Yavoriv, western Ukraine, for the express purpose of training Ukrainian soldiers for combat against Russia.
At that time the conflict in Ukraine was an internal affair, pitting the Ukrainian Army against Ukrainians of ethnic-Russian background who had rebelled against a US-backed coup which, in February 2014, saw the constitutionally elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych replaced by a pro-American government.
This new Ukrainian government, hand-picked by the US, was deeply infused with radical ultra-nationalism linked to the ideology of Stepan Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, which fought alongside Nazi Germany during the Second World War and whose members were responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Many of the Ukrainians being trained by the US military were affiliated with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, an organization which many in the US Congress at the time found so odious that the passed an amendment to the defense authorization act prohibiting US taxpayer dollars from being used to train its members.
These restrictions aside, there can be no doubt that the purpose of the US training mission in Ukraine was to prepare the Ukrainian military to go to war against Russia. That the US training not only instructed the Ukrainians troops on modern combined arms maneuver warfare, but also sought to elevate the Ukrainians to the same standard used to train the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), provided the first inkling that any future conflict between Ukraine and its disenfranchised ethnic Russian population that involved Russia would be far more than a simple confrontation between two regional neighbors, but a larger war between Russia and the US and NATO—the so-called “collective west”, using Ukraine as a proxy.
This reality was amplified further with the provision by the US and NATO of advanced anti-tank missile systems and other lethal military assistance.
Even before Russia initiated the Special Military Operation, in February 2022, the United States, the United Kingdom, and NATO began a program of intelligence sharing with the Ukrainian armed forces at the highest levels. Once the Russian troops moved across the border, the nature of this intelligence relationship shifted away from providing indications and warning of an impending attack, to the provision of operational and tactical intelligence about Russian military disposition, capabilities, and intent that was used by Ukraine to target Russian forces.
While the US and its NATO allies are understandably reticent about the nature of this intelligence, and the sources from which it is derived, over time it has become clear that every available intelligence collection platform is being used to gather relevant data about Russian military operations in support of the Special Military Operation.
It is also clear that this intelligence is used by joint operational planning cells comprised of US/NATO/Ukrainian forces to develop targets in real time, which are then transmitted to Ukrainian forces.
One of the more ubiquitous intelligence resources employed by the US in support of Ukraine is the MQ-9 Reaper. The MQ-9 is a large a large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operated by the Air Force. It is remotely operated by a two-person team from a ground control station that is connected to the MQ-9 using satellite equipment. The team includes a qualified pilot who is responsible for flying the aircraft and an enlisted aircrew member who is charged with operating any onboard sensors or weapons the MQ-9 might be carrying.
The MQ-9 has a wingspan of 66 feet, is 36 feet long, 12 feet high, and weighs approximately 4,900 pounds. It is capable of flying at altitudes as high as 50,000 feet and has a range of some 1,400 miles. It can carry a wide variety of weapons and intelligence collection pods. Each MQ-9 costs about $32 million. The MQ-9 Reapers operating over the Black Sea are flown out of a Romanian Air Force base in Campia Turzii by members of the US Air Force’ Detachment 1, 31st Expeditionary Operations Group.
On March 14, 2023, an MQ-9 Reaper operating out of Campia Turzii was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea, west of Crimea. This was a standard flight profile for the MQ-9 Reaper, one that had the Russians concerned, given its proximity to sensitive Russian military installations.
Ukraine had a history of launching operations against Russian forces in Crimea using aerial and underwater drones, and the potential for intelligence collected by the MQ-9 Reaper being used in support of such attacks was very real. For this purpose, the Russian military had declared certain areas off the coast of Crimea as being off limits.
The US, however, does not recognize Russia’s claim to Crimea, or for that matter the four new territories of Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk, that joined the federation following referendums held in September 2022 and, as such, does not recognize any claim regarding the establishment of no-fly zones by Russia in support of its ongoing military operations against Ukraine. The decision to fly the MQ-9 Reaper was made knowing Russia would object, or worse.
Indeed, Russia dispatched a pair of Su-27 fighter aircraft to intercept the MQ-9 Reaper. After making 19 passes at the Reaper, the Su-27’s conducted what can only be described as aggressive maneuvering designed to either compel the MQ-9 Reaper to depart the area, or else bring it down. After one particular incident, which may or may not have involved one or more Su-27 aircraft dumping fuel onto the Reaper, the MQ-9 lost control and crashed into international waters off the coast of Crimea.
It is believed that Russian forces dispatched from Crimea recovered most, if not all, the wreckage, including the top-secret intelligence pod that had been mounted under the left wing of the aircraft. If this is the case, critical US intelligence collection capabilities would have been compromised, allowing Russia to better protect itself from sensors like the one carried onboard the downed MQ-9 Reaper aircraft.
While the US State Department has declared that the US will continue to fly missions in international airspace, the Commander of US forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli has ordered all MQ-9 Reaper operations to be halted pending a review of the incident and a decision on how best to proceed.
The fact that the US is using the MQ-9 Reaper to fly in direct support of Ukrainian military forces make the aircraft a direct participant in the conflict, and as such a legitimate target for Russia. Russia’s decision not to shoot the MQ-9 down, but rather provide multiple opportunities for the US aircraft to disengage and leave the contested airspace, is indicative of Russia’s desire to avoid unnecessary escalation of the conflict, especially one that could have US and Russian forces engaged in direct combat.
One of the options that the US could consider would be to fly the MQ-9 with a US fighter escort. But this would be contested by Russia, leading to the possibility of a dogfight that could result in casualties on both sides, and the probability of escalation. At the end of the day, the US will probably seek to fly an MQ-9 Reaper on a course that comes close to, but does not violate, a declared Russian no-fly zone, after which MQ-9 Reaper flights along the Crimean coast will probably be discontinued.
There are other ways to collect the intelligence that the MQ-9 Reaper gathers which do not put US military assets at risk, and which do not provide the possibility of military escalation between the US and Russia.
Such a decision would be a sharp departure from the confrontational stance taken to date by the US when it comes to intelligence collection targeting Russia. However, the devolving military situation in Ukraine, with the Ukrainian military facing a decisive defeat in Bakhmut and in general, alters the risk-gain analysis that accompanies the decision to fly missions such as the one that resulted in the downed MQ-9 aircraft. With little chance of a Ukrainian victory in sight, the US will be looking for ways to deescalate, rather than escalate, its involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.
Whether or not the MQ-9 Reaper incident will result in a top-down review of incidents of this nature, for example prompting the Biden administration to reflect on the apparent hypocrisy of the US approach toward responding to the Chinese balloon “threat”, namely by shooting the balloon down, while condemning the more restrained approach taken by Russia in responding to a genuine military threat on its borders in an active warzone, is yet to be seen. Such an abut-face would be unlikely, given the current political climate, where Russophobia runs rampant.
The fact remains that as long as the US is engaged in the implementation of a wartime policy that seeks the strategic defeat of Russia, the possibility for rational, logic-based policy formulation and implementation on the part of the US is almost nil.
The shortest path for the normalization of US-Russian relations lays in a decisive victory being achieved by Russia over Ukraine and the collective west in the shortest time possible. Such an outcome would force the US and its NATO allies to reexamine their approach toward Russia based upon the new realities that would accrue from such an outcome.
The U.S. War of Aggression Against Iraq
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 16, 2023
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, whose 20th anniversary occurs this month, provides a perfect demonstration of why so many people around the world believe that the U.S. government suffers from a very grave case of hypocrisy. While U.S. officials decry Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with great vehemence, they somehow block out of their minds their own deadly and destructive invasion, war of aggression, and long-term occupation of Iraq.
Not only have U.S. officials not even offered an apology for what they did to the Iraqi people, they still expect the American people to thank the troops for what they did to the people of Iraq.
Let’s keep one important, undisputed fact in mind: Iraq never attacked or invaded the United States. It was the United States that was the invader and the aggressor. That’s why I use the term “war of aggression.” It is a term that was used at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal to convict and condemn German officials who did the same thing to other countries in World War II that the U.S. did to Iraq.
That means that under international law, U.S. troops had no legal authority to kill even one Iraqi. Yet, they killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We are still expected to thank the troops for their “service” in killing an enormously large number of people they had no right to kill.
There is another important, undisputed fact to keep in mind: Congress never declared war on Iraq. Yet, our Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war before the president can legally wage war with his army against another nation. That makes the U.S. invasion, war of aggression, and occupation illegal under our own form of government.
Thus, the killing, maiming, injuring, or torturing of Iraqi citizens was illegal under our own form of government. Yet, we are still expected to thank the troops for their “service.”
U.S. officials have long claimed that their invasion of Iraq was based on an innocent mistake. They say that they honestly thought that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction.”
But there is a serious flaw in that justification: The U.S. government had no legal authority to enforce WMD resolutions that had been enacted by the United Nations. Only the UN has the legal authority to enforce its own resolutions. It is undisputed that the UN never authorized an invasion of Iraq to enforce its WMD resolutions.
Equally important, the WMD claim was clearly a lie on the part of U.S. officials to garner American support for the invasion. After all, if it was truly an innocent mistake, once it became clear that there were no WMDs U.S. officials would have apologized for their deadly and destructive invasion and ordered the troops to return home. Instead, they keep the troops in Iraq, who continued killing, injuring, maiming, and torturing Iraqis.
Moreover, once it became clear that there were no WMDs, U.S. officials quickly shifted their justification for their invasion, war of aggression, and occupation to bringing “freedom” to the Iraqi people. That’s why they called their war of aggression “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” But under international law, a nation is prohibited from invading another nation for the purpose of bringing “freedom” to the invaded country. Moreover, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, all those hundreds of thousands of Iraqis they killed are not enjoying “freedom” because they are dead.
Moreover, notice something else of importance: There has never been an official U.S. investigation — not even by Congress — into whether the WMD claim was, in fact, an innocent mistake or an intentional, deliberate, and knowing lie. Even while U.S. officials cry out for war-crimes indictments of Russian officials for supposed war crimes in Ukraine, they steadfastly oppose any indictments or even criminal investigations of U.S. officials who ordered and presided over the U.S. invasion, war of aggression, and long-term occupation of Iraq.
It is always easy to point out the faults, failures, and misdeeds of foreign regimes. It is much more difficult to focus on the faults, failures, and misdeeds of one’s own regime. We should bear in mind that when U.S. officials point their accusatory finger at Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and other regimes, there are three more hypocritical fingers pointing back at them.
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How Europe’s New Political Class Began Rejecting Reality
By Glenn Diesen | October 26, 2024
Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat, and NATO has openly stated its intention to make Ukraine a member state after the war. Without a political settlement that restores Ukraine’s neutrality, Russia will therefore likely annex the strategic territories it cannot accept ending up under NATO control and then turn what remains of Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. As the war is being lost, the rational policy for the Europeans would therefore be to offer an agreement based on ending NATO’s eastward expansion to save Ukrainian lives, territory and the nation itself. Yet, no European leader has been able to even suggest such a solution publicly. Why? … continue
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