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US bans Russian energy imports

High gas prices displayed at a Mobil station on March 7, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. © Mario Tama / Getty Images
RT | March 8, 2022

US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on Russian oil and gas imports in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine on Tuesday, a move that threatens to send global gas and oil prices even higher than the record-setting costs the commodities are already fetching.

The president called on the nation to use the events as an opportunity to transition to renewable energy, insisting that if “no one has to worry about the price at the gas pump in the future, tyrants like Putin won’t be able to use fossil fuels as weapons against other nations.”

Biden warned oil and gas companies against jacking up prices unnecessarily, declaring that while “Putin’s war against ukraine is causing gas prices to rise… it’s no excuse to exercise excessive price increases or padding profits or any kind of effort to exploit the situation or American consumers.”

“Russia’s aggression is costing us all, and it’s no time for profiteering or price-gouging,” Biden said, hailing the blanket ban on all imports of Russian oil and gas as “another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.”

Americans will have to pay “the price of freedom” in the coming weeks as the sanctions are expected to send energy prices soaring worldwide, Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) told CNN on Tuesday ahead of the sanctions announcement.

The Democratic senator warned that the price of oil could very well double to $300 per barrel, with gas prices more than tripling to $10-$14 per gallon.

The repercussions from the price shock will be felt worldwide, he continued, as costs continue to surge. Acknowledging that “the strength of our sanctions, of the costs we’re imposing on Putin… are more successful and more sustainable when they’re coordinated,” he praised the administration for working together with Europe on the looming import ban instead of pushing ahead unilaterally.

“We have to realize that it’s a global integrated market, it is tough to just turn on the taps and increase production quickly – it’s not like phoning up Amazon,” he explained, cautioning “we are going to see increased gas prices here in the US, in Europe they will see dramatic increases in prices, that’s the cost of standing up for freedom and of standing alongside the Ukrainian people. We need to see the cost and benefit here.”

The senator also admitted the White House has been in negotiations with its once-sworn enemies in Venezuela and Iran, two major oil producers Washington is suddenly seeing in a new light for their potential to bail out countries soon to be running on empty in the absence of Russian energy supplies, but argued the focus should be on Canada first. However, he acknowledged Putin “had Western Europe over a barrel” – literally and figuratively – regarding the highly sought-after commodities.

Russia is the second-largest oil exporter in the world, while the US is the largest oil consumer. While Moscow supplies only about 7% of US oil, Europe is much more heavily reliant on the nation for its energy supplies.

Fresh polls claim that Americans are willing to pay more at the pump in order to stick it to Putin. A Quinnipiac survey conducted over the weekend, which found 71% of Americans supported a ban on Russian oil even if it led to higher gas prices. More than half of respondents (56%) even suggested the US hadn’t gone far enough with its sanctions and called for tougher moves.

March 8, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Russia blocks Facebook

The ban comes in retaliation to the platform’s efforts “to restrict access to Russian media”

RT | March 4, 2022

Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor imposed a blanket ban on Meta’s Facebook social media platform on Friday. The decision was taken in response to Facebook blocking access to Russian media outlets, the watchdog said in a statement.

“Since October 2020, we have reordered 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook,” the statement reads.

“In recent days, the social network has limited access to the accounts of the Zvezda TV channel, the RIA Novosti news agency, Sputnik, Russia Today, Lenta.ru, and the Gazeta.ru news outlets.”

Meta blocked access to accounts belonging to RT and Sputnik in the EU earlier this week, accusing the outlets of serving as a “propaganda arm.” Over the past week, Western private-owned tech giants and multiple government entities took action against Russian state-funded and state-affiliated outlets.

Google, for instance, restricted access to content by outlets owned by the government media holding Rossiya Segodnya on Google Discover and Google News. The holding blasted the move as “information manipulation.”

The renewed push against Russian state-affiliated media, which has been repeatedly targeted in the West for years already, comes amid the offensive in Ukraine that was launched by Moscow last week. Russia said it was the only option to end the bloodshed in Ukraine’s east, where the Kiev forces have been struggling with the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk for some eight years already.

Donetsk and Lugansk split from Ukraine after the 2014 Maidan coup, which ousted the country’s democratically-elected government. The new Kiev authorities launched a military operation to quell the unrest, leading to years of low-intensity warfare in the region.

March 4, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine War reveals ugly face of Western Europe’s anti-Russian racism

By Paul Antonopoulos | March 4, 2022

No matter one’s opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, it appears that the famous “tolerant liberal West” are using the war to express their most disgusting Russophobic racism and dehumanization of the Russian people. With Russian troops pouring into Ukraine, Western liberals excitedly used this as an opportunity to cancel Russian art, history and cultural contributions to humanity. This is occurring at humiliating proportions and has a more dangerous dimension as even simple Russian shop owners in Western Europe are being targeted in racist attacks.

Russia has already been stripped from hosting the Champions League football final and Formula One’s Russian Grand Prix – with much hypocrisy. The Grand Prix did not condemn Russia but cited the “impossibility” of holding the race under the current circumstances. It now appears the event will be hosted in Turkey, where there is no “impossibility” for race organizers despite the country’s illegal occupation of Cyprus, Syria and Iraq.

This was followed by Russian and Belarussian athletes being banned from competing in the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics. Although the International Paralympic Committee [IPC] announced that competitors from both countries would be permitted to take part, albeit under a neutral banner, this was not satisfactory for Ukrainian athletes who issued a joint statement accusing Paralympic bosses of “choosing bloodshed over principle.” Apparently for the Ukrainian athletes, even just the very presence of a Russian or Belarussian – no matter their political positioning or opinion of the Ukraine War, is enough to warrant complaints in evident racism. None-the-less, the IPC succumbed to the pressure and even flagless Russians cannot compete now.

However, it is not only in the sporting arena where Russians are being embargoed, targeted and restricted.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said Russia would no longer be allowed to participate in this year’s Eurovision song contest; Britain’s Royal Opera House cancelled a planned residency by Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet, one of the oldest and most prestigious ballet companies in the world; and the Ukrainian Film Academy has called for an international boycott of Russian cinema, including a ban on Russian films at international festivals.

Although banning Russians from participating in sports competitions and cancelling current events is an immediate response to the War in Ukraine, there are much darker undertones that aim to even smear and cancel “dead Russians.” What is meant by this?

On March 2, Italian journalist Alessandra Bocchi tweeted: “Italy’s main University in Milan just banned teaching Fyodor Dostoevsky because he’s a Russian writer. Dostoevsky was sent to a Siberian labour camp for reading banned books in Tsarist Russia. We are reaching levels of hatred and stupidity that I thought were never possible.” At time of publication, nearly 35,000 people had retweeted her, easily one of the most viral social media posts of the day.

The University of Milano-Bicocca informed the Italian writer Paolo Nori on Tuesday night that his course on the author of Crime and Punishment had been cancelled “to avoid any controversy, in a moment of high tension.” Nori on an Instagram live video read the email and slammed the university’s decision as “ridiculous”, saying “even dead Russians” are now the target of censorship in Italy. After the justified backlash, the course on Dostoevsky was approved to go ahead as originally planned and the rector of the university said he would be meeting Nori next week “for a moment of reflection.”

However, it is not only sports stars, entertainers, artists and dead authors who are being targeted, but even Russian students in France, Belgium, Czechia and other European Union countries where they have been expelled. The irony is that many of these Russian students are liberal and anti-Putin but are now being driven away by Western liberals from the liberal West.

This demonstrates that the so-called tolerant liberal West does not only have a hatred for Putin, but also for all Russian people, culture and art. After many years of normalizing the demonization of Russians in the media, the Ukraine War has provided the perfect opportunity for Russophobes to openly express their racism knowing that they will face little recourse.

None-the-less, no matter one’s opinion of Putin and the Ukraine War, this crisis has exposed the ugly head of Russophobic racism, something that has culminated for years in Western media and its political landscape, particularly during and after the so-called “Russiagate” incident.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

March 4, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

On Ukraine, Biden’s State of the Union address was just ‘good vs. evil’

By Scott Ritter | RT | March 3, 2022

Biden’s simplistic “good versus evil” pronouncements on the Russian-Ukraine conflict did little to prepare America for the consequences of declaring economic warfare against the Russian state.

It wasn’t surprising that Russia’s ongoing military incursion into Ukraine topped the list of issues addressed by US President Joe Biden in his first State of the Union (SOTU) address, delivered on March 1, 2022, to a joint session of Congress.

Biden pitched the Ukraine crisis as a defining moment in modern history, a problem that could only be resolved with American leadership, both at home and abroad. His job during his address was to convince both domestic and foreign viewers alike that he was the man for the job.

He repeated the time-tested mantra that held that Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, constituted a threat to democratic principles at home and abroad. This was especially true, he said, when it came to Ukraine.

There was nothing new in what Biden told his audience – the same words and themes had been deployed many times over in the past week. He pushed the same buttons – Putin as the personification of “autocratic oppression,” leading a Russia addicted to power, hell-bent on forcefully absorbing the nation of Ukraine into the Russian orbit.

He likewise pulled at the heartstrings of America, talking about Ukraine’s embattled leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the heroic resistance of his people in the face of overwhelming Russian power. The United States stood fully behind them, Biden said. This sentiment was shared by many in the audience as the president spoke. They held small Ukrainian flags or wore the nation’s blue-and-yellow colors. But this support, he said, had its limits – the US, he declared, would not send a single soldier to Ukraine to fight for its cause.

The fact was, Biden was abandoning it to its fate. While praising the courage and leadership of the Ukrainian president, he said, “Let me be clear, our forces are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine. Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine, but to defend our NATO allies in the event that Putin decides to keep moving west.”

There is no evidence that Russia intends to “keep moving west.” And while Biden spoke of the important leadership role played by the US in Europe, the fact remains that Europe is a veritable prisoner to the whims of any US president, whose pronouncements take on the weight of law whenever they are uttered.

Neither Europe nor the United States, it seemed, would be intervening on behalf of Ukraine against Russia. Zelensky and Ukraine were on their own, their only choice for national relevance being to commit suicide on the international stage while the West, from the safety of their homes and offices, cheered them on like bloodthirsty Romans watching gladiators do battle in the Colosseum.

The major takeaway from Biden’s SOTU address? Ukraine will lose this war, and the West will do nothing to stop that fact.

While Biden lionized Ukraine and its beleaguered president, he failed to explain to the American people why there was a war, beyond the sophomoric argument that “Putin did it.” No talk of America’s role in the Maidan back in 2014, no discussion of the role played by Ukrainian right-wing ultra-nationalists in oppressing the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, no mention of the shelling of the breakaway Donbass region, no discussion of the role that NATO expansion played in creating an untenable security situation for the Russian state.

Simplistic jingoism plays well in atmospheres such as televised political addresses, where a captive audience is compelled to rise and applaud made-for-TV pronouncements lest they be singled out for public criticism by a fawning, vindictive corporate media. The cheer-fest the SOTU has become would give any Brezhnev-era meeting of the Presidium a run for its money when it comes to mindless standing ovations.

But it was here, in the orgy of self-congratulation that is the interplay between president and Congress where America’s weakness in its conflict with Russia was exposed. As united as everyone seemed to be about sacrificing Ukraine on the altar of Russia-bashing, it was clear Congress was deeply divided from Joe Biden on issues of domestic policy, especially when it came to the economy of the US. While the US president may not want to engage Russia in a shooting war in Europe, he has embarked on a great global crusade to destroy it economically. And the tepid response the political opposition gave to his pronouncements underscores the reality that the US is not prepared for the consequences of his declaration of open economic war with Russia.

Let there be no doubt: Russia will win the shooting war in Ukraine. This outcome is inevitable, given the reality that Ukraine has been abandoned by its erstwhile partners in the West. Yet the conflict between Russia and the West won’t end when the last bomb explodes on Ukrainian soil, but when, in the mindset of the US and its European partners, the Russian economy is destroyed and Putin is humiliated and diminished as a political force, domestically, regionally, and globally.

Here, the US president did the American people a great disservice, selling them a feel-good struggle in which Ukraine is promoted as the glorified martyr and Russia demoted as the evil oppressor. A bloodless conflict – from the US perspective, at least – that will be won simply by shutting down the Russian economy by remote control. It won’t be that simple.

Russia has yet to respond to the US-led economic war being waged against it. When it does, rest assured that these sanctions Congress so enthusiastically applauded will prove to be a double-edged sword – one that will cut into a US economy still reeling from the consequences of the Covid pandemic. When that time comes, President Biden could find that many of those politicians who rose to their feet to cheer on the sacrifice of Ukraine will turn on him.

War, it is said, is but an extension of politics by other means. Given the deep partisan political divide that exists in the US when it comes to the economy, it is clear neither Biden nor the American public is ready for what is about to happen when the consequences of their anti-Russian hysteria finally comes home to roost.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

March 3, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

How JFK Would Have Handled the Ukraine Crisis

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 3, 2022

There is no doubt that President Kennedy would have handled the Ukraine crisis totally different from the way that President Biden has handled it. Unlike Biden, Kennedy would have resolved the situation so that there never would have been a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which would have meant that all the death and suffering being wreaked in that country today would never have occurred.

Kennedy had a unique ability to step into the shoes of his adversary to determine why he was taking a particular position or course of action. In the case of Ukraine, he would have easily realized that all that Russia wanted was a guarantee that Ukraine would not be admitted into NATO. He would have understood Russia’s reasoning that admitting Ukraine into NATO would have entitled the Pentagon and the CIA to install their bases, missiles, weaponry, tanks, and troops along Russia’s border. He would have understood why Russia would find that unacceptable.

Therefore, Kennedy would simply have issued the guarantee that Ukraine would never be admitted into NATO. He would have concluded that that would be a preferable outcome compared to a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he would have known would have entailed massive death and destruction of innocent people. He also would have known that there would be a grave risk that such a war could turn into a nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. He would not have believed that such a risk would be worth taking. In his mind, it would have been much more preferable to simply issue the guarantee, no matter how much pressure he would have been getting from the Pentagon and the CIA to do the opposite.

How do we know that this would have been how Kennedy would have resolved the crisis? Because that’s how he resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After the debacle of the CIA’s invasion at the Bay of Pigs, the Pentagon and the CIA were constantly exhorting Kennedy to initiate a full-scale military invasion of Cuba. They maintained that the communist regime in Cuba posed a grave threat to “national security.” The Pentagon even presented him with a plan called Operation Northwoods, which was false-flag operation designed to give Kennedy a pretext for ordering an invasion of Cuba.

The Cubans knew that the Pentagon and the CIA were hell-bent on invading the island and effecting regime change. Thus, once Kennedy discovered that the Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, he began trying to figure out why they would do that. He concluded that the missiles were intended to deter a U.S. invasion of Cuba or, in the case of an invasion, to enable the Cuban regime to defend itself. He also learned that the Soviets were chagrinned that the Pentagon had installed nuclear missiles in Turkey pointed at the Soviet Union.

Thus, to resolve the crisis, Kennedy simply issued a double guarantee to the Soviets. He guaranteed that the U.S. would not invade Cuba and he guaranteed the removal of the Pentagon’s missiles in Turkey. In return for that double guarantee, the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba and took them home. The crisis was over.

Needless to say, the Pentagon and the CIA were livid. They looked on Kennedy as an incompetent coward who had guaranteed the permanent existence of a grave threat to national security. One member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff compared Kennedy’s actions during the crisis to those of Neville Chamberlin’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich. He called Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis the biggest defeat in U.S. history.

By that time, Kennedy didn’t care what the Pentagon and the CIA thought because he held the entire military-intelligence establishment in deep disdain. Unlike Biden, he was willing to confront and oppose the fierce anti-Soviet and anti-Russian animus that characterized the national-security establishment. In fact, in his Peace Speech at American University the following year, he effectively announced an end to the Cold War and the establishment of a peaceful and friendly relationship with the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, unlike Kennedy, Biden lacks the intestinal fortitude to oppose the fierce anti-Russia animus that still characterizes the U.S. military-intelligence establishment. As we have seen in the Ukraine crisis, Joe Biden is no John Kennedy.

March 3, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Medical Director: “Due to Putin’s violation of international law … we are refusing to treat Russian patients …”

Ortrud Steinlein (source)
eugyppius | March 3, 2022

Irina Ioudina runs a company called Medical Munich, a kind of medical tourism bureau that helps Russian nationals travel to Munich to receive treatment in hospitals here. Recently, she received an email from Dr Ortrud Steinlein, director of the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Clinic for Human Genetics, announcing that her facility would no longer treat Russian nationals:

Dear Ms Ioudina

due to the serious violation of international law by the autocrat Putin, who is obviously mentally disturbed, we are refusing in principle to treat Russian patients, with immediate effect. Ukrainian patients remain of course very welcome.

Sanctions have made it all but impossible for Russians to receive treatment in Germany in any case, but after screenshots of this outrageous email made the rounds, LMU clarified that the doctor had “communicated her personal opinion in a very emotional situation” and that their clinics will “treat all patients regardless of nationality, religion, cultural or gender orientation.” (Steinlein has also reportedly apologised privately to Ioudina.) This is the same LMU, which last December immediately fired and banned from the premises an unvaccinated employee of their Institute for Pathology, for the crime of posting a viral video to TikTok about the testing harassment to which she was subject.

Dr Steinlein’s attitude should surprise nobody. There is the proximate cause, that throughout the West, health professionals have spent the past six months fantasising about denying medical treatment to people whose views on vaccination differ from their own. And there is the more general politicisation of the entire medical profession over the past two years, which has left us with a whole hoard of petty tyrants like Steinlein, who now believe it is their responsibility to shape and enforce all manner of government policies.

The consequences of containment will be with us for a very, very long time.

March 3, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

France openly declares that “Russian people will suffer”

By Paul Antonopoulos | March 2, 2022

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire declared an “all-out economic and financial war” against Russia for launching its military operation against Kiev last week. It is hoped that such an economic war will ‘punish’ Russia – but shortly after making his comment, Le Maire was quick to change his rhetoric after probably being given a stern warning from within the Champs-Élysées to not make bombastic comments that intensify tensions and could actually lead to war between Russia and NATO.

Responding to Moscow’s decision to go to war with Ukraine, Washington and its closest allies have imposed a string of sanctions aimed against Russia’s central bank, government officials (including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov), and barred some Russian banks from the SWIFT international payments system.

When describing the sanctions, Le Maire said they are proving to be “extremely effective.” However, it was his next comments that raised eyebrows as he told France Info radio that: “We’re waging an all-out economic and financial war on Russia. We will cause the collapse of the Russian economy. The Russian people will also pay the price.”

This of course is extremely alarming as he effectively revealed the intention to impoverish more than 140 million Russian citizens without considering that Moscow has its own retaliatory measures that will also hurt the average European citizen. Le Maire later clarified to AFP that he had misspoken and that the term “war” was not compatible with France’s efforts to de-escalate tensions surrounding the Ukraine conflict, adding: “We are not in a battle against the Russian people.”

This ‘clarification’ was of course made after former Russian Prime Minister and President, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, chillingly tweeted: “Watch your tongue, gentlemen! And don’t forget that in human history, economic wars quite often turned into real ones.”

For this reason, the Kremlin said on Tuesday that it was placing temporary curbs on foreigners seeking to remove their investments from the country, thus stopping an investor exodus driven by the sanctions which are aimed at shutting out major banks from the international payments system and capital controls choking off money flows.

What the Europeans do not realize is that Moscow sees this current crisis as an existential battle for survival. When Putin announced on TV his “special military operation,” he warned: “To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside – if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history.”

Recirculating in western media after this statement was Putin’s comment in a 2018 documentary: “… if someone decides to annihilate Russia, we have the legal right to respond. Yes, it will be a catastrophe for humanity and for the world. But I’m a citizen of Russia and its head of state. Why do we need a world without Russia in it?”

Returning to the situation in Ukraine, Putin said at a meeting with businessmen that there was no reason to destroy a system which they live in, unless Russia were to be excluded from it. If the Europeans wanted to destroy the Russian economy and impoverish millions of Russian citizens, it cannot be excluded that Moscow with a touch of a button can turn off the gas supplies and bring the entire continent’s industry and economy to a halt – while civilians freeze.

This of course would completely destroy the Russian economy at the same time, but from Moscow’s perspective, why would they continue providing energy to a bloc that has already declared an “all-out economic and financial war.” It is extremely curious that the EU believes that Moscow would not make any retaliatory measures, measures that would spell bad news for European citizens. This is especially critical as it seemingly appears that European leaders and decisionmakers are completely naïve to the responses and retaliations that Russia can make.

For now, gas to Europe from Russia via Ukraine is flowing at full capacity. This accounts for at least $1 billion a day to the Russian economy, and threatening to end this will likely be considered a casus belli. With Russia’s nuclear forces already on alert, it remains to be seen whether the EU will pursue an “all-out economic and financial war” against Russia.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

March 2, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The US and NATO have never been sanctioned for starting wars. Why?

By Robert Bridge | RT | March 2, 2022

The West has taken an extreme stance against Russia over its invasion in Ukraine. This reaction exposes a high degree of hypocrisy considering that US-led wars abroad never received the punitive response they deserved.

If the current events in Ukraine have proven anything, it’s that the United States and its transatlantic partners are able to run roughshod across a shell-shocked planet – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, to name a few of the hotspots – with almost total impunity. Meanwhile, Russia and Vladimir Putin are being portrayed in nearly every mainstream media publication today as the second coming of Nazi Germany for their actions in Ukraine.

First, let’s be clear about something. Hypocrisy and double standards alone do not provide justification for the opening of hostilities by any country. In other words, just because NATO-bloc countries have been tearing a path of wanton destruction around the globe since 2001 without serious consequences, this does not give Russia, or any country, moral license to behave in a similar manner. There must be a convincing reason for a country to authorize the use of force, thereby committing itself to what could be considered ‘a just war’. Thus, the question: Can Russia’s actions today be considered ‘just’ or, at the very least, understandable? I will leave that answer up to the reader’s better judgment, but it would be idle not to consider some important details.

Only to the consumers of mainstream media fast food would it come as a surprise that Moscow has been warning on NATO expansion for well over a decade. In his now-famous speech to the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Vladimir Putin poignantly asked the assembled global powerbrokers point blank,“why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders during this [NATO] expansion? Can someone answer this question?” Later in the speech, he said that expanding military assets smack up to the Russian border “is not connected in any way with the democratic choices of individual states.”

Not only were the Russian leader’s concerns met with the predictable amount of disregard amid the deafening sound of crickets, NATO has gone on to bestow membership on four more countries since that day (Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia). As a thought experiment that even a dolt could conduct, imagine Washington’s reaction if Moscow were building a continuously expanding military bloc in South America, for example.

The real cause for Moscow’s alarm, however, came when the US and NATO began flooding neighboring Ukraine with a dazzling array of sophisticated weaponry amid calls for membership in the military bloc. What on earth could go wrong? In Moscow’s mind, Ukraine was beginning to pose an existential threat to Russia.

In December, Moscow, quickly nearing the end of its patience, delivered draft treaties to the US and NATO, demanding they halt any further military expansion eastwards, including by the accession of Ukraine or any other states. It included the explicit statement that NATO “shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine or other states of Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia.” Once again, Russia’s proposals were met with arrogance and indifference by Western leaders.

While people will have varying opinions as to the shocking actions that Moscow took next, nobody can say they were not warned. After all, it’s not like Russia woke up on February 24 and suddenly decided it was a wonderful day to start a military operation on the territory of Ukraine. So yes, an argument could be made that Russia had concern for its own security as a justification for its actions. Unfortunately, the same thing may be more difficult to say for the United States and its NATO minions with regards to their belligerent behavior over the course of the last two decades.

Consider the most notorious example, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This disastrous war, which the Western media hacks have chalked up as an unfortunate ‘intelligence failure’, represents one of the most egregious acts of unprovoked aggression in recent memory. Without delving too deep into the murky details, the United States, having just suffered the [false flag] attacks of 9/11, accused Saddam Hussein of Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction. Yet, instead of working in close cooperation with the UN weapons inspectors, who were on the ground in Iraq attempting to verify the claims, the US, together with the UK, Australia, and Poland, launched a ‘shock-and-awe’ bombing campaign against Iraq on March 19, 2003. In a flash, over a million innocent Iraqis suffered death, injury, or displacement by this flagrant violation of international law.

The Center for Public Integrity reported that the Bush administration, in its effort to bolster public support for the impending carnage, made over 900 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq’s alleged threat to the US and its allies. Yet somehow the Western media, which has become the most rabid proliferator for military aggression bar none, failed to find any flaw in the argument for war – that is, until after the boots and blood were on the ground, of course.

It might be expected, in a more perfect world, that the US and its allies were subjected to some stiff sanctions in the wake of this protracted eight-year ‘mistake’ against innocents. In fact, there were sanctions, just not against the United States. Ironically, the only sanctions that resulted from this crazy military adventure were against France, a NATO member that had declined the invitation, together with Germany, to participate in the Iraqi bloodbath. The global hyper-power is not used to such rejection, especially from its purported friends.

American politicians, self-assured in their Godlike exceptionalism, demanded a boycott of French wine and bottled water due to the French government’s “ungrateful” opposition to war in Iraq. Other agitators for war betrayed their lack of seriousness by insisting that the popular menu item known as ‘French Fries’ be substituted with the name ‘Freedom Fries’ instead. So the lack of French Bordeaux, together with the tedious redrafting of restaurant menus, seems to have been the only real inconveniences the US and NATO suffered for indiscriminately destroying millions of lives.

Now compare this kid gloves approach to the US and its allies to the current situation involving Ukraine, where the scales of justice are clearly weighed down against Russia, and despite its not unreasonable warnings that it was feeling threatened by NATO advances. Whatever a person may think about the conflict now raging between Russia and Ukraine, it cannot be denied that the hypocrisy and double standards being leveled against Russia by its perennial detractors is as shocking as it is predictable.

Aside from the severe sanctioning of Russian individuals and the Russian economy, perhaps best summed up by the French economy minister, who said his country is committed to waging “a total economic and financial war on Russia,” there has been a deeply disturbing effort to silence news and information coming from those Russian sources that might give the Western public the option of seeing Moscow’s motivations. On Tuesday, March 1, YouTube decided to block the channels of RT and Sputnik for all European users, thereby allowing the Western world to seize another chunk of the global narrative.

Considering the way that Russia has been vilified in the ‘empire of lies’, as Vladimir Putin dubbed the land of his politically motivated persecutors, some may believe that Russia deserves the non-stop threats it is now receiving. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. This sort of global grandstanding, which resembles some sort of mindless virtue-signaling campaign now so popular in liberal capitals, aside from unnecessarily inflaming an already volatile situation, assumes that Russia is totally wrong, period.

Such a reckless approach, which leaves no room for debate, no room for discussion, no room for seeing Russia’s side in this extremely complex situation, only guarantees further standoffs, if not full-blown global war, further down the road. Unless the West is actively seeking the outbreak of World War III, it would be advisable to stop the hideous hypocrisy and double standards against Russia and patiently listen to its opinions and version of events (even ones presented by foreign media). It’s not as unbelievable as some people may wish to believe.

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.

March 2, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Creating New Enemies

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MARCH 1, 2022

It should come as no surprise that many observers, from various political perspectives, are beginning to note that there is something seriously disconnected in the fumbling foreign policy of the United States. The evacuation failure in Afghanistan shattered the already waning self-confidence of the American political elite and the continuing on-again off-again negotiations that were by design intended to go nowhere with Iran and Russia provide no evidence that anyone in the White House is really focused on protecting American interests. Now we have an actual shooting war in Ukraine as a result, a conflict that might easily escalate if Washington continues to send the wrong signals to Moscow.

To cite only one example of how outside influences distort policy, in a phone call on February 9th, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett advised President Joe Biden not to enter into any non-proliferation agreement with Iran. Biden was non-committal even though it is an actual American interest to come to an agreement, but instead he indicated that as far as the US is concerned, Israel could exercise “freedom of action” when dealing with the Iranians. With that concession has ended in all probability the only possible diplomatic success that the Administration might have been able to point to.

The Biden Administration’s by default global security policy is currently reduced to what some critics have described as “encirclement and containment.” That is why an overstretched US military is being tasked with creating ever more bases worldwide in an effort to counter perceived “enemies” who often are only exercising their own national sovereignty and right to security within their own zones of influence. Ironically, when nations balk at submitting to Washington’s control, they are frequently described as “aggressors” and “anti-democratic,” the language that has most particularly been used relating to Russia. The Biden policy, such as it actually exists, appears to be a throwback to the playing field in 1991-2 when the Soviet empire collapsed. It is all about maintaining the old American dream of complete global dominance coupled with liberal interventionism, but this time around the US lacks both the resources and the national will to continue in the effort. Hopefully the White House will understand that to do nothing is better than to make empty threats.

Meanwhile, as the situation continues to erode, it is becoming more and more obvious that the twin crises that have been developing over Ukraine and Taiwan are “Made in Washington” and are somewhat inexplicable as the US does not have a compelling national interest that would justify threats to “leave on the table” military options as a possible response. The Administration has yet again responded to Russian moves by initiating devastating sanctions. But Russia also has unconventional weapons in its arsenal. It can, for starters, shift focus away from Ukraine by intervening much more actively in support of Syria and Iran in the Middle East, disrupting feeble American attempts to manage that region to benefit Israel.

According to economists, Russia has also been effectively sanction-proofing its economy and is capable of selective reverse-sanctioning of countries that support an American initiative with any enthusiasm. Such a response would likely hurt the Europeans much more than it would damage the leadership in the Kremlin. Barring Russian gas from Europe by shutting down Nord Stream 2 would, for example, permit increased sales to China and elsewhere in Asia and would inflict more pain on the Europeans than on Moscow. Shipping US supplied liquid gas to Europe would, for example, cost more than twice the going rate being offered by the Kremlin and would also be less reliable. The European NATO members are clearly nervous and not fully behind the US agenda on Ukraine, largely because there is the legitimate concern that any and possibly all options being considered by Washington could easily produce missteps that would escalate into a nuclear exchange that would be catastrophic for all parties involved.

Apart from the real immediate danger to be derived from the fighting currently taking place in Ukraine, the real long-term damage is strategic. The Joe Biden Administration has adroitly maneuvered itself into a corner while America’s two principal adversaries Russia and China have drawn closer together to form something like a defensive as well as economic relationship that will be dedicated to reducing and eventually eliminating Washington’s assumed role as the global hegemon and rules enforcer.

In a recent article in the New Yorker foreign affairs commentator Robin Wright, who might reasonably described as a “hawk,” declares the new development to be “Russia and China Unveil[ing] a Pact Against America and the West.” And she is not alone in ringing the alarm bell, with former Donald Trump National Security Council (NSC) Russia watcher Fiona Hill warning that the Kremlin’s intention is to force the United States out of Europe while former NSC Ukrainian expert Alexander Vindman is advising that military force be used to deter Russia now before it is too late.

Wright provides the most serious analysis of the new developments. She argues that “Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two most powerful autocrats, challenge the current political and military order.” She describes how, in a meeting between the two leaders before the Beijing Olympics, they cited an “agreement that also challenges the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and liberal democracy as a model for the world.” They pledged that there would be “No ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation” and a written statement that was subsequently produced declared that “Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose color revolutions, and will increase cooperation.” Wright notes that there is considerable strength behind the agreement, “As two nuclear-armed countries that span Europe and Asia, the more muscular alignment between Russia and China could be a game changer militarily and diplomatically.” One might add that China now has the world’s largest economy and Russia has a highly developed military deploying new hypersonic missiles that would give it the advantage in any conflict with NATO and the US. Both Russia and China, if attacked, would also benefit because they would be fighting close to their bases on interior lines.

And, of course, not everyone agrees that nudging the United States out of its self-proclaimed hegemonic role would be a bad thing. Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke argues that there will be a perpetual state of crisis in the international order until a new system emerges from the status quo that ended the Cold War, and it would be minus the United States as the semi-official transnational rules maker and arbiter. He observes that “The crux of Russia’s complaints about its eroding security have little to do with Ukraine per se but are rooted in the Washington hawks’ obsession with Russia, and their desire to cut Putin (and Russia) down to size – an aim which has been the hallmark of US policy since the Yeltsin years. The Victoria Nuland clique could never accept Russia rising to become a significant power in Europe – possibly eclipsing the US control over Europe.”

What is happening in Europe and Asia should all come down to a very simple realization about the limits of power: America has no business in risking a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine or with China over Taiwan. The United States has been fighting much of the world for over two decades, impoverishing itself and killing millions in avoidable wars starting with Iraq and Afghanistan. The US government is cynically exploiting memories of old Cold War enemy Russia to create a false narrative that goes something like this: “If we don’t stop them over there, they will be in New Jersey next week.” It is all nonsense. And besides, who made the US the sole arbiter of international relations? It is past time Americans started asking what kind of international order is it that lets the United States determine what other nations can and cannot do.

Worst of all, the bloodshed in Ukraine has all been unnecessary. A little real diplomacy with honest negotiators weighing up real interests could easily have come to acceptable solutions for all parties involved. It is indeed ironic that the burning desire to go to war with Russia demonstrated in the New York Times and Washington Post as well as on Capitol Hill has in fact created a real formidable enemy, tying Russia and China together in an alliance due to their frustration at dealing with a Biden Administration that never seems to know what it is doing or where it wants to go.

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.

March 1, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Romney’s self-fulfilling Russia prophecy

The degradation of the Russian-US relations is the byproduct of the American foreign policy

By Scott Ritter | RT | March 1, 2022

A decade ago, then-Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was lambasted by the media for calling Russia “America’s number one geopolitical foe.” Today, he is being lauded for being a visionary. Romney’s self-fulfilling prophecy says more about bad US policy than Russian malfeasance.

It was the hot mic moment heard around the world. On March 26, 2012, as reporters were being led into a photo opportunity involving President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the eve of a global nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, their microphones picked up an exchange between the two leaders.

Obama: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.”

Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”

Obama: “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

Medvedev: “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

The context of the conversation—delicate negotiations between the US and Russia regarding ballistic missile defense systems in Europe—was irrelevant to what happened next.

That night,while being interviewed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2012 US Presidential race, Mitt Romney, chided the Democratic incumbent for his comments. “Russia is not a friendly character on the world stage,” Romney said. “And for this president to be looking for greater flexibility, where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia, is very, very troubling, very alarming.” Calling Russia America’s number one geopolitical foe, Romney declared, “they fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that [President Barack Obama] has some more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling, indeed.”

The issue of Obama’s hot mic moment came up again, during a televised debate on October 22, 2012. Obama, aware of the potential negative political exposure his hot mic incident could create, came loaded with a zinger. “A few months ago,” he told Romney, “when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia… and the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

All Romney could do was repeat his assessment of Russia being America’s number one geopolitical foe, before declaring: “I have clear eyes on this. I’m not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia, or Mr. Putin. And I’m certainly not going to say to him, ‘I’ll give you more flexibility after the election.’”

Obama’s mic-drop moment was devastating for Romney, who lost the election in a landslide.

Years later, some of Romney’s biggest critics appear to have changed their minds about his “Cold War” moment. “Look, I’m willing to say that in 2012 when we all scoffed at Mitt for saying that, gee, Russia was our No. 1 geopolitical foe, think we were a little off there,” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau noted in 2017.

In the aftermath of Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine, Mitt Romney’s 2012 pronouncements have been, in the eyes of many political observers in America, vindicated.

Romney certainly believes so, commenting on CNN’s State of the Union last Sunday that “a geopolitical foe they obviously were and continue to be, because Russia continues to fight us in every venue they have. They support the world’s worst actors.”

Romney expressed concern over a trend by three former presidents—George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump—who sought to reset relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “John McCain was right,” Romney said. “He said he looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw the KGB. And that’s what we’re seeing: a small, evil, feral-eyed man who is trying to shape the world in the image where once again Russia would be an empire. And that’s not going to happen.”

To the geopolitically uninitiated, Romney’s 2012 remarks, when viewed through the lens of the present, certainly seem prescient. What is missing, however, is the context of history over time, the factual connectivity between events circa 2012, and the moment. When Obama and Medvedev had their hot mic incident, the US and Russia were still in their “reset” phase of the Obama first term, where the US hoped against hope that they would be able to weaken Putin’s hold on power by promoting the political fortunes of Medvedev.

This gambit failed, not because of any malfeasance on the part of Russia, but the lack of integrity in the Obama administration when it came to fulfilling promises made to Medvedev concerning arms control and the NATO intervention in Libya. While the US notion that Medvedev could somehow supplant Putin as the leading political figure in Russia was always an American pipe dream (the brain child of none other than Michael McFaul, Obama’s foremost Russian expert in the national security council who went on to become Obama’s Ambassador in Moscow), the notion that improving US-Russian relations through meaningful diplomatic engagement was not far-fetched. Indeed, had the Obama administration delivered on missile defense, and limited the intervention in Libya to purely humanitarian pursuits, there was a good chance that relations between the US and Russia during Putin’s second incarnation as Russia’s President could have been constructive.

The duplicity and deceit of the Obama administration, when combined with the flagrant Russophobia that defined the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, so soured relations that even before Joe Biden took office in early 2021, the level of US-Russian discourse had sunk to Cold War-era levels. The Trump administration had inherited a dark mess from its predecessor when it came to US-Russian relations, colored not only by the false allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 US Presidential election, but a proxy conflict in Ukraine which had emerged in the aftermath of the so-called Maidan Revolution. The 2014 US-backed insurrection overthrew the duly elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, replacing him with ultra-nationalists whose anti-Russian stance led to the reabsorption of Crimea by the Russian government and the outbreak of fighting between the new Ukrainian government and pro-Russia separatists in the Donbass region.

The US had become so entangled in the Ukrainian web that Trump was impeached based upon a phone call he made in the summer of 2019 to newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During that call, he allegedly held US military aid hostage to a promise by Zelensky to investigate the relationship between Joe Biden’s son and a Ukrainian energy holding company, Burisma. The way the impeachment manager, Representative Adam Schiff, described the importance of this aid was telling when it came to the state of US-Russian relations.

“This military aid, which has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support, was designed to help Ukraine defend itself from the Kremlin’s aggression. More than 15,000 Ukrainians have died fighting Russian forces and their proxies, and the military aid was for such essentials as sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, radar, night vision goggles and other vital support for the war effort,” Schiff said in his opening address to the US Senate presiding over the impeachment trial of Trump, on January 22, 2020.

He continued: “Most critically, the military aid we provide Ukraine helps to protect and advance American national security interests in the region and beyond. America has an abiding interest in stemming Russian expansionism and resisting any nation’s efforts to remake the map of Europe by dint of military force, even as we have tens of thousands of troops stationed there. Moreover, as one witness put it during our impeachment inquiry: ‘The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.’”

Seen in this light, there was nothing prescient about Mitt Romney’s 2012 categorization of US-Russian relations. Far from representing a maintenance of a decade-long status quo linked to the pernicious personality of a single Russian president, the degradation of relations between Russia and the US from 2012 to the present was the byproduct of an American foreign policy which was inherently anti-Russian in its construct. Romney’s 2012 pronouncements represent little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, the consequence of a relationship marked by bad faith on the part of the United States.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

March 1, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Czechs Could Face 3 Years in Prison For Supporting Russia on Social Media

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | March 1, 2022

People in the NATO-member state of Czechia have been warned that they could face up to three years in prison if they express support for Russia on social media.

Yes, really.

The country’s Attorney General Igor Stríž announced in a press release that it was “necessary to inform citizens that the current situation associated with the Russian Federation’s attack on Ukraine may have implications for their freedom of expression.”

The limitations are being imposed under the umbrella of criminal code measures that make it a crime to approve a criminal offence or deny, question, approve or justify genocide.

“[F]reedom of speech also has its limits in a democratic state governed by the rule of law,” asserted Stríž, announcing that anyone who “publicly (including at demonstrations, on the Internet or on social networks) agreed (accepted or supported the Russian Federation’s attacks on Ukraine) or expressed support or praised the leaders of the Russian Federation in this regard, they could also face criminal liability under certain conditions.”

The official Czech Police website also announced that they were “closely monitoring” the content of “dozens of comments in internet discussions approving the Russian invasion and the activities of the Russian army.”

According to a report by Radio Prague International, someone found in breach of the criminal code could be imprisoned for up to three years, although it would be difficult to bring charges.

Breitbart’s Jack Montgomery asked if “someone might be open to prosecution for merely questioning NATO’s eastward expansion, the West’s decision to back the Euromaidan coup in 2014, or the extent to which claims the Ukrainian government has mistreated civilians in Donbas might be true.”

As we previously highlighted, before the outbreak of war, Czech President Miloš Zeman said Russia would be “crazy” to invade Ukraine.

One wonders how far governments working in cahoots with Big Tech will try to milk the war for more domestic censorship.

Will simply pointing out brazen examples of war propaganda pushed by the pro-NATO political media class also be characterized as ‘Russian disinformation’?

Leftist blue checkmark journalists on Twitter must be licking their lips.

March 1, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Netflix refuses to carry Russian TV channels

All major streaming services making a profit in the country are required by law to include them on their platform

RT | March 1, 2022

US streaming giant Netflix will not comply with a Russian law that requires all video content providers with over 100,000 daily views to add 20 free-to-air TV channels to their platform. “Given the current situation, we have no plans to add these channels to our service,” a Netflix spokesperson told Variety on Monday.

The entertainment news website called the required package “propaganda channels,” and stated that one of them was “Spa, a channel operated by the Russian Orthodox Church.” The religious outlet it was referring to is called Spas, which means ‘Savior’ in Church Slavonic. The two packages comprising the obligatory set also include several entertainment channels, a children’s cartoon channel, and a music channel.

Netflix localized in Russia over a year ago. Its Russian subsidiary was added to the official list of content providers in late December, after pressure that its competitors put on media regulator RKN. The service had two months to comply with the rules about the 20 must-have channels after that, with the deadline expiring on Tuesday.

Unlike many other Western companies that pledged to stop doing business in Russia due to the ongoing military operation against Ukraine, Netflix will continue to provide services to Russian subscribers, “while monitoring the situation closely,” Variety reported.

March 1, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

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