Who Would Ukraine Supporters Support if the U.S. Invaded Cuba?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 23, 2023
American statists cannot understand why the Russian people continue to support their president Vladimir Putin and their government’s invasion of Ukraine. For American statists, the issue is very simple: Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia bad. Russians should oppose Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime. End of story.
Fair enough. But let’s engage in a hypothetical.
Let’s assume that Russia establishes military bases and installs nuclear weapons in Cuba. The U.S. government declares, “No way, bud! We are just not going to permit you to do that. Remove them or experience the wrath of our all-powerful military machine.”
Suppose Russia takes the same position as Ukraine and says, “We are not budging. We have the right to enter into an alliance with Cuba, just as Ukraine has the right to join NATO. Moreover, Russia has the same right to establish military bases and install nuclear missiles in Cuba that NATO has to establish military bases and install nuclear missiles in Ukraine.”
A far-fetched hypothetical?
Well, not exactly.
In January 2022, Putin stated that he was thinking of sending Russian troops to Cuba. The U.S. reaction was immediate. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan exclaimed, “If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”
What Sullivan meant by that statement was that the U.S. would issue an immediate demand that Russia cease and desist. If it refused to do so, a U.S. invasion of Cuba would follow.
In other words, the U.S. government was threatening to do to Cuba what Russia has done to Ukraine.
In fact, if we go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, that is what happened then. The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba. The U.S. government demanded that they be removed. If they refused to remove them, the U.S. government declared that it would do exactly what the Russian government has done to Ukraine. It would bomb and invade Cuba.
So, my hypothetical clearly falls within the realm of reasonable possibility.
Given such, the question naturally arises: What would American statists who are exclaiming against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine do if that were to happen? Would they oppose the U.S. invasion of Cuba and come to the support of Cuba and Russia?
I think not. I think they would immediately come to the support of the U.S. government and its invasion of Cuba, just as most Russians have come to the support of their government and its invasion of Ukraine.
Hang All the Members of the Liars’ Club?
By Victor Davis Hanson | American Greatness | May 15, 2023
Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictment of U.S. Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) on a host of charges, including misuse of federal campaign funds and wire fraud, almost all of them resulting from his pathological lies.
Certainly, Santos deserved the attention of prosecutors for lying on federal documents and affidavits that may have helped him win a congressional seat as well as personal lucre.
But if that’s the case, why haven’t federal prosecutors also gone after Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)? She clearly lied her way into a Harvard Law School professorship and an erstwhile presidential candidacy by claiming, in part, quite falsely she was a Native American, supposedly Harvard’s first indigenous law professor.
Her Senate colleague, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), flatly lied (he said “misspoke”) about being a Vietnam War veteran. He never confessed to “misspeaking” about his résumé until caught. Both senators, apparently like Santos, gained political traction in their various campaigns from such lies, but the two apparently never put them in writing, or at least not as blatantly as did Santos.
New Federal Standards?
Are federal and states prosecutors now setting a new moral and legal standard by criminalizing Santos’ lies? If true, congratulations—it is long overdue.
Now can we please extend the long arm of the law to reach far beyond a bit player like Santos?
Why not reboot with the really big liars? Their lies far more undermined the integrity of our key agencies and indeed our national security.
So let us start with John Brennan, the former CIA director. He lied on two separate occasions, in one case while under oath before the U.S. Senate. His untruths were not mere campaign finance fabrications. They involved falsely swearing that the CIA did not spy on the computers of Senate staffers (“Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate.”). He also lied that U.S. drone missions in prior years had not killed innocent bystanders (“There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”).
Brennan, only when caught, admitted to both lies. But he faced zero consequences and, in fact, was soon rewarded with an on-air analyst job at MSNBC.
Then we come to James Clapper, the former director of the Office of National Intelligence. Like Santos, he lied. But unlike Santos, Clapper was under oath to Congress. And further unlike Santos, Clapper was not a small fish, but a whale in charge of coordinating the nation’s intelligence bureaus.
Clapper’s lies mattered a great deal, especially when he swore to Congress that the National Security Agency did not spy on Americans. (“No, sir. Not wittingly.”) When caught, Clapper confessed that he gave “the least untruthful answer.” (“I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying ‘no.’”). He faced zero consequences for his perjury. And like Brennan, he marketed his anti-Trump phobias into a comfortable cable news gig.
Note well that both Clapper and Brennan likely lied again when they signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, with a wink and nod suggesting it was a hallmark example of “Russian disinformation.”
Then we come to the former interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He is also currently working as a cable news commentator. McCabe admitted to lying—according to the inspector general, “done knowingly and intentionally”—four separate times to federal investigators, three times under oath. McCabe misled the country in matters that concerned a national election, more specifically lying that he had not leaked to the media to massage media narratives about the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation.
Then there is James Comey, another former FBI head, who confirmed McCabe had lied. He simply claimed on 245 occasions to House investigators and members that he either had no memory or had no knowledge, when asked under oath to explain some of the wrongdoing of the FBI during his directorship. Remember, Comey and the FBI signed off on the authenticity of Steele document material to obtain a FISA warrant, when they knew it was unreliable and Steele was not credible. Comey also likely leaked to the media a confidential memo officially memorializing a private conversation with the president of the United States.
Should we include yet another former FBI director? Robert Mueller swore under oath to Congress that he knew little about Fusion GPS (“I’m not familiar with that”) and more or less had ignored the Steele dossier. (“It’s not my purview.”) Mueller’s claims cannot be true because revelations about both were the very catalysts that prompted his own special counsel appointment.
Will the Santos prosecutors go after Anthony Fauci, the recently retired head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases?
Fauci seemingly lied under oath to the Senate when he preposterously claimed the money he channeled through a third party to the Wuhan virology lab did not entail support for gain-of-function virology research. (“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”) Many virologists were aghast at Fauci’s claims, since they knew gain-of-function research conducted in China—the point being to skirt U.S. laws—was precisely what the U.S.-subsidized researchers in China were doing.
The Bidens
Prosecutors are currently looking at the various shenanigans of Hunter Biden, whose lies may even be a match for those of George Santos. Joe Biden’s son apparently lied on his firearms background check affidavit when applying for a handgun purchase—so far, with impunity.
When asked point blank on national television whether his lost laptop was his own—he had signed a receipt for it at the repair shop—Biden refused to give a yes or no answer.
Hunter Biden has apparently de facto lied for years when he purportedly did not report either his entire income or his real business expenses accurately, or that he was the father of a child he conceived with an ex-stripper in Arkansas.
If Hunter’s lies do not match the number of Santos’ prevarications, his were at least far more significant. His lie that the laptop was not his prompted current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a former top Biden 2020 campaign aide, to call up Mike Morell, former interim CIA director. Morell’s mission was to round up as many intelligence authorities as he could to lie on the eve of a presidential election that the laptop had “all the hallmarks” of “Russian disinformation.” He found 51, including himself. Apparently, some active members of the CIA pitched in as well to lend the letter additional authenticity.
Note that Morell swears Blinken called him to solicit signers of the bogus letter, while Blinken claims he did not. So either the current secretary of state or the former interim director of the CIA is lying—or they both are. Again, among the first to sign the fraudulent intelligence letter were Brennan and Clapper. They apparently had earned a reputation as team players, given that both men had been willing to lie under oath to Congress. Misleading the nation again about the laptop to aid Joe Biden’s campaign was small potatoes.
Biden, on spec, promulgated the lie when he said in his second debate with Trump, “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it, except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”
A subsequent poll suggested the Bidens’ concocted laptop lies may have influenced voters to side with Biden in the election. If true, that was a lie that should be of far more interest to current federal prosecutors than Santos’ crazy fairy tales.
The Lies of the “Big Guy”
So we come to the greatest prevaricator of all.
Joe Biden flat-out lied on numerous occasions, such as when he claimed that he never discussed the family shake-down business with Hunter Biden.
Joe Biden, in fact, turns up on the laptop as someone deeply connected to Hunter Biden’s quid pro quo companies (“10 [percent] for the Big Guy”). Tony Bobulinksi, a former business associate of Hunter’s, has sworn that Joe and his brother Jim Biden were deeply involved in their foreign leveraging efforts.
A photo shows Joe Biden with Hunter’s “business” associates. Will the current Santos prosecutors turn their attention to the Oval Office occupant’s financial records to determine whether his lavish private homes and lifestyle were viable under his reported stated income?
Biden lied to Americans dozens of times to get elected. The tragic death of his wife in a car accident was not due to the drunkenness and fault of a truck driver. That was a horrific smear designed to shift blame onto an innocent man and gain sympathy for himself.
He lied that his son, Beau, died while serving in Iraq.
Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after he was caught lying about his college records and plagiarizing a speech from a British politician.
So we know that in the past, Joe Biden’s lies have left a mark on history in a fashion that Santos’ never will.
When Biden prefaces his whoppers with “No joke!” or “This is the God’s honest truth!” and especially when he swears, “My word as a Biden!” then it is a fair bet that he is lying.
When Biden entered office, he lied about the number of Americans previously vaccinated under the Trump Administration and preposterously claimed there had been no COVID vaccine available.
He lied that his loan forgiveness amnesty passed Congress by two votes. In fact, Biden simply declared amnesty by fiat and never submitted the request to Congress at all.
He repeatedly lies that billionaires pay only three percent of their income in taxes on average. He lies about minor details, from giving his Uncle Frank a purple heart to matters of national concern, such as the price of gas when he entered office. It was most certainly not $5 a gallon!
Biden constantly lies about his résumé. He was never a long-haul truck driver. Nor was he a star athlete almost headed for the Naval Academy on a sports scholarship if only Dallas Cowboys legend Roger Staubach had not beat him out. “I was appointed to the academy in 1965 by a senator who I was running against in 1972. I didn’t come to the academy because I wanted to be a football star. And you had a guy named Staubach and Bellino here. So I went to Delaware.”
His house was never almost destroyed by a fire. He was never raised “politically” as a Puerto Rican. Biden never pinned the Silver Star on a Navy Afghanistan war hero for bringing back the body of a fellow soldier from a deep ravine. He was never arrested, either in South Africa or in Atlanta, for demonstrating on behalf of civil rights.
No foreign leader can believe Biden. He never traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He lied about his own Amtrak travel. He lied about his record on inflation and economic growth. He lied about upping Social Security payments. (It was a larger-than-usual automatic cost-of-living increase spurred by his inflationary policies.) He lied about the nature of the Trump tax cuts.
Biden keeps lying that the southern border is “secure” even as nearly 2 million people have crossed illegally on his watch and tens of thousands more are massed to enter the country as Title 42 restrictions are lifted.
He insists that five police officers died at the hands of protestors on January 6, 2021. In truth, the one person we know for certain who died violently that day was Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police lieutenant with a checkered record, whose identity was suppressed for months while Babbitt’s past was sullied by the press.
Biden’s defenders hint that either he is cognitively compromised and thus not responsible—as if he has told the truth the last 40 years when he was hale!—or his lies are mere “exaggerations” unlike the “lies” of Trump—as if lying about the death of one’s spouse or son or school record or resume or major legislation or his presidency is a mere “exaggeration.”
As a general rule, since 2015, if any federal bureaucrat or elected official lied in service of opposing Donald Trump, he was exempted from consequences. If not, he was properly held responsible for his lying. So the more that the fake Steele dossier, the Russian collusion hoax, and the Russian disinformation laptop lie warped the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the more the promulgators of those falsehoods never faced any consequences for their untruths.
So, yes, let federal prosecutors go after the lying George Santos to set a precedent that the lying of government officials has consequences.
But in the great scheme of lying things, Santos is a prevaricating minnow who was snagged to great acclaim because the lying sharks swim and circle with impunity.
Khrushchev Exposed the Hypocrisy of U.S. Interventionists
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 16, 2023
For American interventionists living today, all that one needs to know is that Russia invaded Ukraine. End of story. Black and white. Russia bad. Ukraine good. Support Ukraine with U.S. taxpayer-funded cash and armaments. America good.
If we go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, we find that things are not so simple, especially for American interventionists, even if they don’t realize it.
The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba that had the capability of hitting U.S. cities along the Eastern seaboard, including Washington, D.C., and New York City. The crisis lasted from October 16 through October 29, 1962.
President Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove their nuclear missiles from Cuba and take them back to the Soviet Union. The Pentagon was exerting enormous pressure on Kennedy to immediately initiate a surprise bombing attack on the suspected missile sites, followed by a full-scale regime-change military invasion of the island. In other words, they were pressuring Kennedy to do to Cuba what Russia has done to Ukraine. In fact, the pressure they placed on Kennedy was so intense that Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother, secretly told Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin “If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.”
On October 27 — two days before the crisis was resolved — Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy stating the following:
But how are we, the Soviet Union, our Government, to assess your actions, which are expressed in the fact that you have surrounded the Soviet Union with military bases; surrounded our allies with military bases; placed military bases literally around our country; and stationed your missile armaments there? This is no secret. Responsible American personages openly declare that it is so. Your missiles are located in Britain, are located in Italy, and are aimed against us. Your missiles are located in Turkey.
You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is 90 miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But Turkey adjoins us; our sentries patrol back and forth and see each other. Do you consider, then, that you have the right to demand security for your own country and the removal of the weapons you call offensive, but do not accord the same right to us? You have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Turkey, literally next to us. How then can recognition of our equal military capacities be reconciled with such unequal relations between our great states? This is irreconcilable.
Do you see the problem? Khrushchev was pointing out the hypocrisy of the U.S. position, a position that American interventionists today simply cannot recognize, owing to their blind allegiance to the U.S. national-security establishment.
The fact is that the Soviets had the legal authority to place their nuclear missiles in Cuba, just as Ukraine has the legal authority to join NATO. Cuba, like Ukraine, is a sovereign, independent country and, therefore, had the legal authority to permit the Soviets to install their missiles in Cuba, just as Ukraine has the legal authority to permit the U.S. and NATO to install their nuclear missiles in Ukraine.
But even though such legal authority exists, no one, including both Russians and Americans, likes to have nuclear missiles pointed at himself, especially from just a few miles away. This is the point that Kennedy was making when he stood fast during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With the full support of the Pentagon and the CIA, he was willing to risk all-out nuclear war to force the Soviets to remove those missiles, even though he knew that the Soviets had the legal authority to install them in Cuba. He, the Pentagon, and the CIA simply did not like the fact that those missiles were so close to the United States.
But that’s precisely how the Soviets felt as well, which is what Khrushchev was expressing in his letter to Kennedy. He was essentially saying, “Hey, you don’t like our missiles in Cuba because they are so close to your country. That’s exactly how we feel as well, not only about your missiles over here that are painted at us but also about all your military bases with which you have surrounded us. How come you can’t understand that?”
Well, Kennedy did come to understand that. That’s how he and Khrushchev were able to strike a deal, one that infuriated the U.S. national-security establishment as well as American interventionists.
The deal consisted of two major parts: First, Kennedy vowed that he would not permit the Pentagon and the CIA to again invade Cuba and, second, Kennedy agreed to withdraw U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey that were pointed at Russia.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff were livid. They considered Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis to be the worst defeat in U.S history. They compared his actions during the crisis to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich.
For their part, American interventionists were also furious over Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis. As far as they were concerned, the Pentagon and the CIA had the “right” to install their nuclear missiles wherever they want and the Soviets did not have the “right” to do the same. It’s a position that American interventionists still hold today.
Can you see why American interventionists hated Kennedy so much and why the Pentagon and the CIA ultimately concluded that he constituted a grave threat to “national security”?
On Korea, Joe Biden Is Choosing Every Bad Option
By Ted Galen Carpenter | The Libertarian Institute | May 15, 2023
Joe Biden has managed to embrace nearly all of the worst, most dangerous options with respect to U.S. policy on the Korean Peninsula. Washington’s policy toward North Korea is utterly sterile and ineffective. The glimpses of hope during Donald Trump’s administration that the United States might adopt a fresh approach instead of clinging to its longstanding, unattainable demand that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program have vanished. Biden abandoned even Trump’s modest policy deviations. Instead, his administration has resumed the insistence on Pyongyang’s complete denuclearization, along with placing strict limits on the country’s ballistic missile capabilities. North Korea continues to test missiles with ever longer ranges as U.S. leaders fume impotently.
At the same time, the Biden administration shows no inclination to re-examine the risk-reward calculation with respect to Washington’s alliance with South Korea, even as Pyongyang is now acquiring the capability to strike the American homeland. Indeed, administration officials are moving in the opposite direction, emphasizing the U.S. defense commitment to its longstanding dependent and discouraging any hints that Seoul may wish to take greater responsibility for its own defense—especially if such an initiative includes the acquisition of an independent nuclear deterrent. Instead, U.S. leaders are working to enlist South Korea as a pawn in a geostrategic chess match directed against China in exchange for a more robust U.S. commitment to defend Seoul against its North Korean adversary.
The continuing, if not intensifying, patron-client relationship between the United States and South Korea was underscored in the joint declaration that Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol issued following their April 26, 2023, summit meeting; “The ROK has full confidence in U.S. extended deterrence commitments and recognizes the importance, necessity, and benefit of its enduring reliance on the U.S. nuclear deterrent.” If that wasn’t enough to emphasize South Korea’s continuing security dependence on the United States, the declaration added, “President Yoon reaffirmed the ROK’s longstanding commitment to its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of the global nonproliferation regime.”
Perpetuating America’s risk exposure in that fashion was bad enough, but Biden went out of his way to rattle sabers at North Korea:
“President Biden reaffirmed that the United States’ commitment to the ROK and the Korean people is enduring and ironclad, and that any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the ROK will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response. President Biden highlighted the U.S. commitment to extend deterrence to the ROK is backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.”
Such statements were decidedly unhelpful, given the already tense environment on the Korean Peninsula. But Biden managed to inflame the situation further. “Going forward, the United States will further enhance the regular visibility of strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula, as evidenced by the upcoming visit of a U.S. nuclear ballistic missile submarine to the ROK.” North Korea’s regime is notoriously prickly and prone to engage in saber rattling of its own. However, even a more sedate government likely would feel threatened by such a provocative U.S. deployment in its immediate neighborhood.
Washington needs to adopt the opposite course to the one it is pursuing toward both North and South Korea. The Biden administration’s ossified policy toward Pyongyang is especially frustrating and dangerous. The president’s commitment to the futile zombie policy of trying to isolate North Korea was confirmed when Washington imposed new sanctions following a new round of tests in January 2022. If the administration does not change course, it is likely just a matter of time until Pyongyang resumes testing not only ICBMs, but nuclear weapons. In early February 2022, China’s ambassador to the United Nations correctly emphasized that the United States needs to come up with “more attractive and more practical” policies and actions to reduce tensions with North Korea and avoid a return to a “vicious circle” of confrontation, condemnation and sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile program.
U.S. leaders should seek ways to establish a normal bilateral relationship with North Korea. That means easing and eventually eliminating the vast array of economic sanctions that have been imposed over the decades. It also means negotiating a treaty formally ending the Korean War and establishing full diplomatic relations between the two countries. If such actions are not taken, the United States faces the imminent prospect of having no meaningful relations with a country that has an expanding nuclear arsenal combined with delivery systems capable of striking the American homeland. One would be hard pressed to identify a more dangerous situation.
The drastically changed nuclear weapons environment also underscores why the United States needs to remove itself from the front lines of the tense situation between North and South Korea. U.S. leaders should encourage South Korea’s greater strategic autonomy, not try to stifle independent initiatives. Even the decision about acquiring nuclear weapons should be made in Seoul, not Washington. There is no question that South Korea can provide for its own defense. It has an economy 40 to 50 times greater than North Korea’s, and it is a technological juggernaut. Keeping a weak, vulnerable Seoul as a U.S. strategic dependent was a highly questionable policy even during the early decades of the Cold War. Keeping a strong, fully capable South Korea as such a dependent, despite rapidly escalating risks to the United States, is monumentally foolish.
President Biden’s Korea policy risks the worst possible scenario. Continuing to treat North Korea as a pariah increases the likelihood of rash, desperate behavior on Pyongyang’s part, which could rekindle the dormant Korean War. Continuing to treat Seoul as a U.S. protectorate makes it certain that if an armed conflict between the two Koreas does break out, the United States would be hopelessly entangled. It would be a challenge to identify a more dangerous, bankrupt policy than the one the Biden administration is pursuing.
Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow at the Libertarian Institute and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. Dr. Carpenter also served in various policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. He is the author of thirteen books and more than 1,200 articles on international affairs and the threat that the U.S. national security state poses to peace and civil liberties at home and around the world. Dr. Carpenter’s latest book is “Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy” (2022)
Why I’m ALMOST Ready to Vote for Trump
By Kevin Barrett | May 14, 2023
Donald Trump is, in many ways, an odious figure. A narcissistic semi-literate scoundrel who doesn’t even pretend otherwise, his primary redeeming qualities are a talent for channeling populist outrage and a certain reluctance to engage in bloody, pointless wars.
Normally I only vote for people I like (i.e. Cynthia McKinney and RFK Jr.) which is why I’ve never voted for a major-party candidate in a general election. I doubt very much that my first-ever vote for a mainstream candidate will be for the loathsome Trump. But the fake-left oligarchs and their lapdog media are working overtime to convince me to at least entertain the possibility.
The thing is, the media, legal, and political landscape has grown so grotesquely one-sided that Trump’s claims that the system is rigged against him, which once seemed whiny and petulant, are increasingly being validated. Big media’s Deep-State-assisted suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was, for many of us, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Since that election-deciding outrage, it has been obvious and undeniable that just because Trump is paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get him.
And the outrages just keep coming. As J-Mike Springmann and I remarked on False Flag Weekly News, the week’s two big Trump events—his civil conviction for libel and sexual assault, and his CNN Town Hall battle with Kaitlan Collins—almost seemed to have been orchestrated to spotlight Trump’s unfair treatment at the hands of the Establishment.
Jimmy Dore makes a good case that Trump’s civil trial for sexual assault and defamation was “A Pure Democratic Hit Job.” Dore points out that New York’s bizarre one-year repeal of the statute of limitations was specifically designed to grease the skids for Carroll-v-Trump. Since when did governments start temporarily repealing statutes of limitations so they can go after political figures they don’t like? The move seems especially egregious because it involved an almost three-decade-old case in which the alleged victim can’t even remember which year the alleged assault happened, and has no evidence whatsoever other than her word against his. If you’re going to do something as extreme as suspending the statute of limitations so you can prosecute a specific case, shouldn’t you at least have some evidence?
My advice to the Democrats is that they might as well go all the way and prosecute Trump for murder. Why murder? For one thing, there is no statute of limitations on murder, so they won’t have to bother suspending it. And just as Trump once said a stupid thing about grabbing women’s genitals that made him sound like “the kind of person who might do something like that,” he also once said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” So why not bring an evidence-free prosecution against him for shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue? Just find someone willing to claim they saw Trump shoot someone to death in the middle of Fifth Avenue in 1995, or was it 1996? It will be their word against his. And we all know Trump is a liar. Why? Because the media never stop telling us so. No New York jury could possibly fail to convict. And no New York judge could resist sentencing Donald J. Trump to death. (Yes, I know New York suspended the death penalty in 2004, but they could temporarily change that, just like they temporarily removed the statute of limitations, in order to dispose of Trump.)
Once Trump has been convicted and sentenced to death, we’ll all be able to breathe freely and get on with our lives, right? Not so fast! Trump’s lawyers will undoubtedly find a way to string out the appeals process, allowing him to become the first-ever candidate to run for president from death row. But what happens when he wins the election and his scheduled rendezvous with the electric chair happens to coincide with inauguration day? Will Trump be helicoptered to Washington, DC in handcuffs on January 20th, 2025, frog-marched into the Capitol, administered the oath of office, and then strapped into a special portable electric chair designed just for him and zapped like a bug? Will his hair turn an even brighter shade of orange as it bursts into flame? The Democrats would no doubt view it as inadequate payback for the horrors Trump unleashed there on January 6, 2021. But still…think of the ratings!
Who is behind Canada’s state-level Sinophobia?
By Timur Fomenko | RT | May 11, 2023
On Tuesday, China and Canada engaged in a tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats. The row was triggered by allegations that Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei had“interfered” in Canadian politics, apparently targeting anti-China Conservative MP Michael Chong.
The claims created a media firestorm in Ottawa after the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service (CSIS) reportedly accused “an accredited Chinese diplomat” of targeting Chong. Justin Trudeau’s government, under political pressure from the opposition, subsequently decided to act.
This row isn’t the first to derail relations between China and Canada. It’s one of many, including Ottawa’s decision to arrest Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018, China’s retaliatory arrest of Canadian nationals Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, Ottawa’s sporadic allegations of Chinese interference, and then Xi Jinping’s harsh rebuke of Trudeau on the sidelines of the G20 summit last November. It’s fair to say that relations between the two countries are in a state of freefall. But the question might be asked, who is the real culprit here? Or more to the point, who governs Canada?
Allegations of foreign interference are a funny thing, because they tend to only be used against countries who represent an ideological or cultural “other.” They never focus on certain “allied” countries that actually do interfere in the nation’s politics, controlling its media and political discourse, while using think tanks, often sponsored by military and government bodies, and to deliberately cause controversies in Canada in order to steer the country in a certain direction. It seems, for example, very fishy that in the midst of this whole saga, the US-sponsored Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank published an article calling for Canada to join AUKUS, the Australia, UK, US Pacific military alliance.
If it was not obvious enough already, no country has interfered in Canadian politics more than the United States. Although Canada appears more “progressive” and “forward-thinking” than its southern neighbor in many respects, the reality is that Ottawa is a loyal and obligated follower of the US and steadfast in its commitment to Anglophone exceptionalism. Although Canada is geographically larger than the US, its population is about 10% the size and as such, it is strategically, economically, culturally, and geographically dominated by Washington, giving it very little leverage in its foreign policy direction.
Arguably, out of all the Five Eyes nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), these realities mean Canada has the least political autonomy and space to pursue its own foreign policy path. While under Trudeau the country is not as openly aggressive as it might have been under its conservative prime ministers, the US has been deftly manipulating Canadian politics by either driving through “wedge issues” such as arresting Meng, or using economic leverage to coerce Canada into making anti-China commitments. The United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) and its “poison pill” clause, which allows the US to terminate the entire agreement if Canada enters into a free-trade agreement with a “non-market” economy (i.e. China), is an excellent example.
Likewise, through the Five Eyes mechanism, the US exerts direct influence over Canada’s intelligence service, the CSIS, which in turn, then cooperates with and manipulates the Canadian mainstream media through newspapers such as the Globe and Mail. This has long been revealed in detail by Canadian investigative website The Canada Files. With Canada having a higher percentage of ethnic Chinese residents than any other Anglosphere country, amounting to nearly 5% of the population, this has been weaponized into a wholesale “yellow peril” narrative. While Canada is seemingly more progressive, one should note that beneath the surface, the foundation of the country and its heritage is built on racism. The liberal image of Trudeau’s government, for one, is easily overshadowed by the dark legacy of indigenous boarding schools, wherein thousands died at the hands of authorities in what is considered genocide by many.
Yet, despite this heritage, Canadian politicians regularly point fingers at China, accusing it of genocide of Uyghurs, especially figures such as Chong, who sponsored a 2021 motion to that end. This demonstrates the problem the country faces. Who really governs Canada, and which country is actually interfering in its politics? The fact that Ottawa is repeatedly roped into supporting Washington’s preferences, policies, and worldviews is not so much an alliance bound by common values as it is full-scale manipulation of the country’s politics. The US baits Canada into making abrasive and rash moves which provoke China, only for Beijing to respond, and then for Ottawa to frame itself as the victim. But is this narrative really true? Canadians ought to think about who the real culprit is here.
The American Government Arguably Played A Role In Kiev’s Arrest Of US Journalist Gonzalo Lira
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 6, 2023
Dual American-Chilean national Gonzalo Lira was recently arrested by Ukraine’s secret police on charges pertaining to “wartime propaganda”, for which he faces the possibility of 5-8 years in jail. The US Government’s (USG) silence on this incident completely contrasts with its hysteria over Wall Street Journal (WSJ) employee Evan Gershkovich’s arrest in Russia last month on charges of espionage after he was caught red-handed soliciting classified military-industrial information from a regional lawmaker.
This is a betrayal of American principles since the freedom of speech is regarded as a sacred right of all its citizens no matter where they might be at any given time. Regardless of whatever one might think about Lira’s views and the particular piece of Ukrainian legislation that was cited as the basis for arresting him, the USG is supposed to support the rights of its nationals abroad. This is especially so whenever they’re arrested for expressing an opinion and/or practicing journalism like he was.
Its silence in the face of this scandalous incident suggests a degree of complicity in, or at the very least tacit approval of, Lira’s arrest since nothing else cogently explains the conspicuous lack of any response. These suspicions are further reinforced by the fact that one of the USG’s leading information warfare assets in Ukraine, transgender mercenary Michael John Cirillo, admitted to the Daily Beast that he colluded with the SBU on its case against Lira and even plans to testify against him.
In his exact words, “I’ve already given my sworn statement to SBU about Gonzalo Lira several months ago and expect to be called as a witness in his prosecution.” Cirillo also added on Twitter that “When I’m on Capitol Hill in 10 days, no doubt the arrest of Gonzalo Lira will be a prime topic of conversation.” Instead of seeking his release, the USG is relying on one of its top propagandists in that country to pursue Lira’s conviction, prior to which their proxy brazenly plans to boast about this to Congress.
It should also be noted that Cirillo told this to Julia Davis, who’s banned by Russia on the basis of having worked against its national interests at the behest of hostile powers, which obviously refers to the USG in this context. Her article also mentions that she obtained exclusive footage of Lira’s arrest, which could only have been obtained by the SBU, whose employees shared it with her precisely because they know that she’s one of their patron’s most reliable agents and would thus use it to humiliate Lira in her piece.
These facts lead to the conclusion that the USG is indeed complicit in Ukraine’s arrest of this dual American national. It’s not even hiding its complicity in Lira’s persecution either after one of its leading information warfare assets in that country admitted to colluding with the secret police on this case, told the media that he plans to testify against him, and even plans to brag about this to Congress. The USG is perversely proud of this since it hopes to pressure critics of its proxy war into self-censoring.
This objective also clearly includes its own citizens like Lira, who the USG hates with a passion since his brave reporting from Kharkov discredited many of their claims about this conflict. It could have simply requested that Kiev deport him in order to lessen the damage that he’s inflicted on their information warfare operations, but it preferred to make an example out of him by pursuing his prosecution. Cirillo’s role in this incident and his plans to brag about it to Congress leave no doubt about the USG’ complicity.
Who gains from a forever war in Ukraine?
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 26, 2023
The newly elected president of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel is an unusual European politician. He is the second president in his country with a military background but the first without political experience.
He never saw combat duty and is an arm chair military strategist but lionised as a “senior NATO leader” — whatever that may mean. The high noon of Pavel’s professional career in the military was reached in 1993 when while serving in the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, he led a team of 29 soldiers to evacuate a French military outpost under siege by Serbian soldiers, which he executed after overcoming obstacles that slowed down the operation such as fallen trees which his soldiers had to remove from the road. France decorated Pavel.
At any rate, the 61-year old soldier-politician has hit the road running when barely 7 weeks into his new job as head of state, Pavel threw a curve ball claiming China cannot be a reliable mediator between Russia and Ukraine due to Beijing’s secret craving for “more war.”
Pavel assessed that China gets cheap oil, gas, and other resources from Moscow in exchange for promises of “partnership” and its interest lies in prolonging the status quo “because it can push Russia to a number of concessions.”
These remarks could have been dismissed as those of a greenhorn but for his fame as a “senior NATO leader” and the Czech Republic’s reputation as a chattel and cats-paw of Washington. Hence the big question: What is the Biden administration up to?
The obvious thing will be that Pavel’s remark on “cheap” oil and gas from Russia to China is a gross simplification of a complicated story. Europe was receiving Russian gas and oil for decades at low prices on the basis of long-term contracts until the EU, under American pressure, took the idiotic decision to sanction Russia.
Whereupon, Russia turned to other markets, principally Asian, China being one of them. The rest is history. What’s the point of sitting upon the ground and telling sad stories?
Europeans should feel worried that even after the war ends, once Russia diversifies its export markets, they may never again get “cheap” Russian gas. (By the way, China is not the only beneficiary, as Europeans who continue to buy Russian oil and petroleum products from Indian companies at much higher prices would know!)
Pavel spoke in the context of the expected announcement by Joe Biden seeking the presidency once again in 2024. One hugely consequential part of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday is that the prospect of the Ukraine war ending between now and 2024 November elections in the US can now be deemed as practically nil.
The only way it can happen otherwise is if the US outright wins the war and candidate Biden claims victory. But the reaction from Moscow shows that what is in the cards is an escalation in Ukraine that is fraught with great risk of a direct conflict between Russia and the US.
Top Kremlin officials came out on Tuesday with a spate of statements on an impending showdown with the Biden administration. The Russian media disclosed that Russia’s new state-of-the-art Armata T-14 main battle tank has been deployed on the Ukrainian front lines.
Moscow anticipates large scale US interference in Russia’s internal politics to create conditions that would undermine the country’s stability, as part of a grand design to trigger a break-up of the Russian Federation, as had happened to the former Soviet Union. (here)
Moscow estimates that the Biden administration will try hard to bring about a regime change in the Kremlin. Above all, Moscow no longer rules out that the US escalation in Ukraine may aim to create conditions posing grave threat to the Russian state. ( here)
The former president Dmitry Medvedev vividly spoke of such a scenario warning explicitly that Russia may be compelled to resort to first use of nuclear arms if its existence is threatened, underscoring that paragraph 19 of the country’s nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons “can be used when aggression is carried out against Russia with the use of other types of weapons that endanger the very existence of the state. It is essentially the use of nuclear weapons in response to such actions. Our potential adversaries should not underestimate this.”
Specifically, with reference to Biden’s mental health and failing faculties, Medvedev also tweeted: “Biden has made the decision, after all. A daring geezer. In place of the American military, I would immediately make a fake trunk with false nuclear codes in case he wins, so as to avoid fatal consequences.”
On the other hand, the spectre that haunts the Biden administration is that Europe cannot easily extricate itself from its relationship with China and it is the interests of Old Europe’s economic heartlands that will ultimately determine EU policy.
Make no mistake, just 3 countries of Old Europe — France, Italy and Germany — account for more than a half of EU’s GDP and they also happen to be China’s largest trading partners in the EU. Amidst the brouhaha over French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent endorsement of a close industrial relationship with China, what has gone unnoticed is that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is on the same page as Macron. Equally so with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The European industry is also loathe to lose China as a privileged trading partner, after having lost Britain and Russia.
New Europeans like Pavel may have different priorities, being the strongest trans-atlanticists in the EU, but East Europe makes up just 10% of the EU’s GDP and does not speak for the EU, despite the media hype its leaders have lately enjoyed as “frontline states”, due to Anglo-American patronage.
Suffice to say, there is trepidation in the American mind as to whether the EU will follow the US into a confrontational position with China in the coming months, or would strive to become more independent of the US, with all the consequences that would ensue. Equally, from the viewpoint of Old Europe, the gnawing doubt is whether a future US administration would want to align with Europe even if Europe were to align with the US.
On balance, it is difficult to visualise the EU fully aligning with the US in an all-out conflict with China over Taiwan, agree to freeze Chinese official reserves as it did last year with Russia, and stop investing in China.
The EU economy is simply not built for cold-war style relations, as it has become too dependent on global supply chains. All things taken into account, therefore, the strong likelihood is that the pro-China lobby in Germany will win this debate. In fact, in the process, the Franco-German alliance may be rekindled, too.
Pavel’s demonisation of China as an evil spirit stalking Europe can be put in perspective. His is a surrogate voice mouthing Biden’s angst that as the Ukrainian military is comprehensively ground down in the battlefields by the Russian forces in the months ahead, Europe may join hands with China to bring the war to an end.
Iran’s UN ambassador: US unilateral actions violate UN Charter, threaten multilateralism
Press TV – April 24, 2023
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations says unilateral measures taken by the United States are against the UN Charter while threatening multilateralism in the world.
Amir Saeed Iravani made the remarks in a Monday address delivered during a UN Security Council debate on multilateralism.
“Multilateralism has been recognized as a well-established approach to addressing global challenges and effective multilateralism … is essential for ensuring international peace and security,” he said.
The official, however, warned that the integrity and effectiveness of multilateralism are undermined by the abuse of the UN system and selective application of international law, which pose a serious threat to international cooperation, peace, and security.
“Within this context, the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, re-imposition of illegal unilateral sanctions on Iran, its coercion of other countries to engage in these illegal actions, and defiance of the International Court of Justice’s order are striking examples of how such harmful unilateral acts violate the UN Charter, undermine the UN system and threaten multilateralism,” Iran’s ambassador said.
He was referring to Washington’s unilateral and illegal withdrawal in 2018 from a multilateral deal with Iran, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), whose other members included the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. After leaving the deal, the administration of former US President Donald Trump reinstated all anti-Iran sanctions that the accord had lifted and introduced its signature “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran.
The administration of Trump’s successor Joe Biden had alleged a willingness to compensate for Trump’s mistake by rejoining the deal, but it has retained the sanctions as leverage and even imposed a slew of its own coercive economic measures on the Islamic Republic.
“Unilateral coercive measures (UCMs), including their extraterritorial application, represent a concerning example of harmful unilateral acts that run counter to the fundamental principles of international law, the UN Charter, and basic human rights,” Iravani said, adding, “These illegal measures have far-reaching humanitarian consequences and can undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving disputes and promoting cooperation.”
Iravani also referred a March 30 verdict by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled that the United States had violated the international law by allowing American courts to confiscate nearly two billion dollars in assets from Iranian companies, and ordered Washington to pay compensation.
“The ICJ’s ruling is final and binding, requiring the US to comply with this decision,” the Iranian diplomat noted.
Iravani said, “Collaboration should be the cornerstone of multilateralism, rather than confrontation,” because “collaborative approaches foster trust, build consensus, and promote sustainable solutions to global challenges.”
He concluded by saying, “Through collaborative problem-solving and engagement with all parties, multilateralism can effectively address the challenges facing our world today. In this context, diplomacy, dialogue, and negotiation should be the preferred means for resolving disputes among member states.”
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Iran spent $1 million to wipe out $30 billion in data center plans, and take down Amazon in the ME
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From the Archives
Clash of Civilization, Iran Part II
By Jamal Kanj – Intifada-Palestine.com – January 14, 2011
Israel’s survival kit is: perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalize collective hate and finally playing victim.
Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. Absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist. … continue
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- House Votes to End Iran War for Third Time
- North Korea Slams US Plan for ‘AUKUS 2.0’ with South Korea and Japan
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