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Neocons and Other Malignancies in the American Body Politic

They will never give up until we’re all dead

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 22, 2023

It is interesting to observe how, over the past twenty-five years, the United States has become not only a participant in wars in various places on the planet but has also evolved into being the prime initiator of most of the armed conflict. Going back to the Balkans in the nineteen-nineties and moving forward in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia there is almost always an American leading role where there is bombing and killing. And where there is no actual war, there are threats and sanctions intended to make other nations come to heel, be they in Latin America like Venezuela, or Iran in the Middle East, or North Korea in Asia. And then there is the completely senseless act of turning major competitors like Russia and China, as we are now seeing, into enemies, with a proxy war raging in Ukraine, threats over Taiwan, and the world moving one step closer to a nuclear disaster.

It seems to me that the transition from an America bumbling its way into war and the current situation where wars are pursued as a matter of course coincides with a certain political development in the United States, which is the rise of neoconservatives as the foreign and national security policy makers in both major parties. This has developed together with the evolution of the view that the United States can do no wrong by definition, indeed, that it has a unique and God-given right to establish and police the globe through something that it invented, exploits and has dubbed the “rules based international order.”

Who would have thought that a bunch of Jewish student-activists, mostly leftists, originally conspiring in a corner of the cafeteria in the City College of New York would create a cult type following that now aspires to rule the world? The neocons became politically most active in the 1960s and eventually some of them attached themselves to the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan, declaring their evolution had come about because they were “liberals mugged by reality.” The neoconservative label was first used to describe their political philosophy in 1973. Since that time, they have diversified and succeeded in selling their view to a bipartisan audience that the US should embrace an aggressive interventionist foreign policy and must be the world hegemon. To be sure their desire for overwhelming military power has been strongly shaped by their tribal cohesion which has fed a compulsion to have Washington serve as the eternal protector of Israel, but the hegemonistic approach has inevitably led to expanding conflict all over the world and a willingness to challenge, confront and defeat other existing great powers. Hence the support for a needless and pointless war in Ukraine to “weaken Russia” and a growing conflict with China over Taiwan to do the same in Asia. To make sure that the Republicans do not waver on that mission, leading neocon Bill Kristol has recently raised $2 million to do some heavy lobbying to make sure that they stay on track to confront the Kremlin in Europe.

One of the leading neocon families is the Kagans, who have successfully penetrated and come to dominate the establishment foreign policy centers in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Victoria Nuland nee Nudelman, the wife of Robert Kagan, is entrenched at the State Department where she is now the Deputy Secretary, the number two position. Up until recently, she was one of the top three officials at State, all of whom were and are Jewish Zionists. Indeed, under Joe Biden Zionist Jews dominate the national security structure, to include the top level of the State Department, the head of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Director of National Intelligence, the President’s Chief of Staff, and the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nuland’s hawkish appeal is apparently bipartisan as she has served in senior positions under Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. As adviser to Cheney, she was a leading advocate of war with Iraq, working with other Jewish neocons Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at Defense and also Scooter Libby in the Vice President’s office. As there was no actual threat to the US from Saddam Hussein she and her colleagues invented one, the WMD that they sold to the media and to idiots like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Nuland is also considered to be close to Hillary Clinton and the recently deceased ghastly former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. All of her government assignments have included either invading or severely sanctioning some country considered by her and her colleagues to be unfriendly. She particularly hates the Russians and anyone who is hostile to Israel.

Apparently, Nuland’s record of being seriously wrong in the policies she promoted has only served to improve her resume in Washington’s hawkish foreign policy establishment and when Biden came into the presidency she found herself appointed to the number three position at the State Department as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Her return to power with the Democrats might also be due in part to the activism of her husband Robert, currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, who was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump. Robert famously has never seen a war he disapproved of and, while urging Europe to do more defense spending, commented that “When it comes to use of military force “Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus.” Robert’s brother Frederick, a Senior Fellow at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and Frederick’s wife Kimberly, who heads the bizarrely named Institute for the Study of War, are also regarded as neocon royalty.

Nuland is particularly well known for her being the driving force behind the regime change in Ukraine in 2014 that replaced the fairly-elected but friendly-to-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych with a selected candidate more accommodating to the US and Western Europe. Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, has been unstable ever since and the current war, also initiated by interference from the US and UK, has brought about the deaths and wounding of an estimated half million Ukrainians and Russians.

Nuland was recently in Africa, stirring up developments in Niger, which has experienced a recent military coup that removed a president who was corrupt but also a friend of the US and France, both of which have troops stationed in the country. As I write this, a number of African nations (ECOWAS) friendly to US and French interests in the region are gathering together their own military force to reverse the coup, but there is little enthusiasm for the project. We will see how that turns out, but predictably Nuland is advertising a possible intervention as a “restoration of democracy.”

And there is more over the horizon with neocons like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Nuland in charge of US foreign policy and supported by most of congress and a Jewish dominated media and entertainment industry. Joe Biden is too weak and too much under the thumb of the Israel Lobby to pursue any policies that would be beneficial to the American people in general, so the course will be set by the current crop of zealots, just as Donald Trump was guided by his Christian Zionist advisers.

If you want to understand just how what remains of our republic is in a bus being driven over the cliff by a group that has no regard for most of the citizens of the country that they reside in, one only has to read some of what passes for neocon analysis of what must be done to make America “safe.” Not surprisingly, it also involves Israel and a war on behalf of the Jewish state.

One astonishingly audacious article that appeared on August 13th in The Hill entitled “If Israel strikes Iran over its nuclear program, the US must have its back,” gives Israel the option of starting a war for any or no reason with the United States compelled to join in in support. It was written Michael Makovsky, a well-known Jewish neocon, and Chuck Wald. Makovsky is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) while Wald is a former general who also is affiliated with that group as a “distinguished fellow,” which means he is getting paid generously to serve as a mouthpiece providing credibility for the group. For those unfamiliar with The Hill, it is an inside the beltway defense contractor funded online magazine that pretends to be serious but which is actually an integral part of the status quo Zionist and war-on-demand network. That the Jewish Institute for National Security is “of America” is, of course, a characteristically clever euphemism.

The article begins with “The Biden administration should learn from its unpreparedness for the Russia-Ukraine war and begin to prepare for a major Israel-Iran conflict. The administration needs to set aside its differences with the Israeli government, overcome its aversion to conflict with Iran, and begin to work closely with Jerusalem to prepare for the growing likelihood that Israel will feel it has no choice but to initiate a military campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. In ‘No Daylight,’ a new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)… retired senior military officers and national security experts explain that whatever differences the US might now have with Israel over Iran policy, our two countries’ interests will be aligned after an Israeli strike. Consequently, in preparing its response, the U.S. guiding principle should be ‘no daylight with Israel,’ to ensure Israeli military success, mitigate Iranian retaliation and limit the scope of the conflict — vital interests for both countries.”

That war with Iran is a “vital interest” for the United States is, of course, not really explained as the point is to let Israel to decide on the issue of war and peace for the United States. The article then trots out the old “credibility” argument, i.e. that if we don’t go to war no one will ever trust our security guarantees: “A US betrayal of its close Israeli ally, at a time of great peril for the Jewish state, would be ‘one of the greatest catastrophes ever,’ an Arab leader told us privately recently. Because Israel is widely perceived as a close American ally, the US stance as Israel risks thousands of casualties in defense of its very existence, will resound broadly. Strong American support will reassure allies from Warsaw to Abu Dhabi and Taipei; American equivocation will shred Washington’s credibility and embolden adversaries from Tehran to Moscow and Beijing.”

One would love to know who the anonymous Arab leader so concerned about Israel is and, of course, the Jewish state is not in fact an American ally apart from in the fertile imaginations of congressmen, the media and the White House. And Israel will, of course, need more weapons and money from the US taxpayer to include “expediting delivery to Israel of KC-46A tankers, precision-guided munitions, F-15 and F-35 aircraft, and air and missile defenses… Washington should accelerate building integrated regional air, missile and maritime defenses against persistent Iranian threats.” And America must be prepared to expand the war: “Privately, Iranian and Hezbollah leadership should be warned that heavy retaliation against Israel… will prompt severe Israeli and/or American responses that could threaten their very grasp on power. Upon commencement of an Israeli strike, the United States should promptly resupply Israel with Iron Dome interceptors, precision-guided munitions, ammunition and spare parts, and deploy Patriot air defenses to Israel…”

So the United States must be prepared to turn over its national security to Israel in exchange for what gain for Americans? In part it would apparently involve “finding a permanent solution to Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program” which is based on a lie even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating for over 20 years that Iran is only six months away from a weapon. Both the CIA and Mossad have confirmed that Iran has no such program while Israel does have a secret illegal nuclear arsenal built using enriched uranium and nuclear triggers stolen from the US. The article concludes with another reference to the non-existing program, claiming “the most effective way to address Iran’s nuclear program already has been articulated by President Biden and communicated by America’s ambassador in Jerusalem: ‘Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with it, and we’ve got their back.’”

Supporting Israeli war crimes is not the way to go. As Chris Hedges puts it correctly, there is no compelling American interest in damaging itself by supporting Israel blindly, quite the contrary: “The long nightmare of oppression of Palestinians is not a tangential issue. It is a black and white issue of a settler-colonial state imposing a military occupation, horrific violence and apartheid, backed by billions of US dollars, on the indigenous population of Palestine. It is the all powerful against the all powerless. Israel uses its modern weaponry against a captive population that has no army, no navy, no air force, no mechanized military units, no command and control and no heavy artillery, while pretending intermittent acts of wholesale slaughter are wars.”

And, of course, while Israel engages in slaughter and torture it always portrays itself as the victim only engaged in fighting against “terrorists.” I have a better idea for where we should go with all of this. President Joe Biden should be impeached for ignoring war powers legislation and indicating that he is willing to sacrifice US interests and kill American soldiers, few or plausibly none of whom will actually be Jewish since it is not an occupation that attracts them, to please and support a manifestly evil foreign government. And Donald Trump should also be punished for having done much the same type of pandering to a foreign country while in office. Meanwhile, haul Makovsky and Wald together with their buddies at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) down to the Justice Department and put them in jail for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) in that they are willfully acting as agents of a foreign government and are operating corruptly to serve the interests of that government. The criminals at AIPAC are already using their associated PACs to oust targeted members of Congress up for re-election in 2024 who have in any way been critical of Israel or pro-Palestinian. And while you’re at it Mr. Attorney General Merrick Garland nee Garfinkel, please have Mr. Blinken and Ms. Nuland pop by for a chat just for starters and see how far you can make the laws apply to those in power. There is some confusion evident here as Israel is not part of the United States, no matter how politically dominant and wealthy its lobby might be. Time to put an end to this nonsense and call it out for what it is – it is treason.

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.

August 22, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

West has shown its ‘true Russophobic face’ – Lavrov

RT | August 18, 2023

Washington and Brussels have openly unleashed a hybrid war against everything Russian, dropping their masks after decades of pretending to be civilized and adequate international partners, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with International Affairs, published on Saturday.

“Many of our former partners have been concealing their Russophobic nature under the veil of hypocrisy, but have now shown their true face in all its glory,” he said. “However, there is also the flip side of the coin here, since the Global Majority saw the true face of those who went as far as [to] aspire to a monopoly in defining the so-called universal values.”

“Today’s West is steered by people like Josep Borrell who divide the world into a blooming ‘garden’ and ‘the jungle,’ where the latter clearly applies to most of humanity,” Lavrov added.

The West has spent decades cynically transforming neighboring Ukraine into a “hostile military bulwark against Russia by nurturing an entire generation of politicians ready to declare war on our shared past, culture and everything Russian,” according to Lavrov.

Western capitals even openly admitted that reaching a peaceful settlement in Ukraine was never part of their plan, and that the Minsk agreements were originally designed to “buy some time to prepare a military scenario and deliver weapons to Kiev.”

“I think that the essential thing we must understand in this regard is that the West wants to do away with our country as a serious geopolitical rival,” the top Russian diplomat said “They have not hesitated to use subversive methods and perform acts of sabotage, as was the case with the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea.”

Lavrov also accused Washington and its allies of using all possible coercive means to prevent Russia’s partners from engaging in economic and other kinds of cooperation, while also “making outrageous efforts to disconnect Russia from international cooperation mechanisms in culture, education, research, and sports.”

One thing that the West fails to understand, according to Lavrov, is that “Russia will use all means to defend its people and its vital interests,” and thus would be better for the opponents to realize that “confrontation with Russia is futile and switch to more civilized” means for achieving a balance of interests.

August 19, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russians gained wealth amid war in Ukraine while Western countries lost trillions of dollars: Report

Press TV – August 18, 2023

Russia got richer last year amid the war in Ukraine, while the Western countries that provided funds and weapons to Kiev to fight against Moscow lost trillions of dollars of their wealth.

Russia added $600 billion of total wealth in 2022, the Business Insider (BI) reported this week, citing the latest annual Global Wealth Report of the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) published on Tuesday.

According to the BI, the number of Russian millionaires rose from around 350,000 to about 408,000 last year. However, in 2022, about 1 million of an estimated 23.7 million lost their millionaire status in the United States.

It said 4,500 Russians joined the super-rich people’s club of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNW) — people with more than $50,000,000 — last year.

In the meantime, the collective West, North America and Europe together, lost $10.9 trillion, UBS said, noting that the US alone shed $5.9 trillion of its wealth.

The Swiss bank suggested that Russia’s gains might be attributed to the rising price of oil, a major export commodity and a key economic engine for Russia.

Russia’s added wealth came amid the West’s unprecedented anti-Moscow economic sanctions.

Western officials have admitted that the West’s sanctions on Russia had backfired, hurting Europeans instead.

Amid the West’s planning for anti-Moscow sanctions shortly after the start of war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin warned European buyers of Russian oil and natural gas that punitive measures imposed by the West would backfire, and those Western countries would be hit worse by the bans.

After Western countries banned Russia’s oil, Moscow turned to the East and increased its sales of crude to other countries which in turn re-exported oil to the European countries.

As a result, Mexico, India, and Brazil also gained significant amounts of wealth in 2022, while the US, Japan, Canada, and Australia lost the most, the UBS report suggested.

August 18, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Sweden’s “Psychological Defense Agency” is Using Cold War Strategies to Combat “Disinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 14, 2023

Sweden is blaming Russia for the backlash it faces in the Islamic world because of incidents, such as the burning of copies of Quran, that have occurred in that country.

Apparently, Muslims around the world, and in Sweden, would not be outraged by this if there weren’t for Russia’s alleged campaign on social media to spread this information. That is defined as “amplifying global reaction.”

At least, that is being cited as the reason – or an excuse that few will dare criticize – for yet another government devising and putting in motion plans to “combat misinformation.”

Sweden seems very eager to join that club, even if it doesn’t look like it’s brimming with innovative ideas: namely, the Scandinavian country is going all the way back to the Cold War playbook.

With the stage set like this, enter the Ministry of Defense’s Psychological Defense Agency, set up last year, but according to reports, modeled after Sweden’s Cold War-era “solutions” in case of a hot war.

Just like elsewhere around the world when (mis)information is “fought” by introducing new agencies and increasing government intervention in the realm of free speech, that often ends up in censorship – and often looks like it was actually designed to promote censorship – the justification is that such fundamental things like national security and democracy are under fire from “misinformation.”

The Psychological Defense Agency, which currently numbers 55 employees, is explained as a necessity for a country which believes it is currently facing the most serious security “situation” since WW2. At least that’s according to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Whether or not Kristersson exaggerates the situation, thus creating a “misinformation campaign” of his own aside, the Defense Ministry outfit’s existence has produced some protestations.

Speaking of threats to democracy – Hanna Linderstal of Earhart Business Protection Agency noted that, “The government can’t control the truth if it’s going to be a democracy.”

Meanwhile Magnus Hjort, who heads the Psychological Defense Agency, and others under his “command” have not publicly presented what evidence they have of Russia being behind harmful to Sweden information “amplification.”

But he did reveal the agency is “regularly in touch” with social media companies – denying, however, that they have demanded that accounts or content be taken down.

August 14, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Estonian social crisis worsening

By Lucas Leiroz | August 8, 2023

Estonia is in serious trouble due to its irrational stance in the current NATO proxy conflict with Russia. Simultaneously focused on meeting Ukrainian humanitarian demands and the war plans of the Atlantic alliance, the Estonian government virtually excludes its own people from national priorities, which resulted in the aggravation of the internal crisis. Uncontrolled immigration, deindustrialization, economic instability and rising living costs are some of the problems that currently affect the country – and that will continue to do so if the government does not take a sovereign attitude.

Committed to helping solve the Ukrainian humanitarian issue, Estonia has been receiving thousands of refugees every day. Last year, the country received more than 115,000 Ukrainians – 62,000 of them planning to stay there permanently. This year, it is estimated that 300 to 400 Ukrainians are applying for Estonian asylum every week. Not all migrants are really in need of humanitarian aid due to the impact of the conflict. Many of the Ukrainian citizens in Estonia are men of military age who should be on the battlefield according to Kiev’s law, but who fled the country to escape the war.

Despite Kiev’s forced recruitment system being dictatorial and unacceptable, Estonia has no humanitarian obligation to receive people who are simply fleeing their military duties. These refugees get help from the Estonian government, and their stay in the country is subsidized by local taxpayers. So, it would be legitimate for Tallinn to have stricter guidelines on who to welcome into its territory – but it does not. In practice, any Ukrainian can enter the country, and the government remains silent, given its irrationally “humanitarian” stance, which prioritizes foreign citizens over nationals.

The Estonian state’s efforts to receive these refugees have been extremely expensive. In the first quarter of 2023 alone, Estonia spent more than 25 million euros on costs related to Ukrainian migrants. These expenses include benefits such as special protection by the Ministry of Interior’s forces, as well as Estonian language lessons provided by the Ministry of Culture.

Obviously, to finance all this, the government needs to reduce investments in other sectors. Unconcerned with the welfare of its own population and prioritizing foreign citizens, Estonia has progressively reduced its spending in the social sphere, which brings serious problems to the domestic situation. The cost of living in the country has been rising, and in 2022 an inflation rate of 19.4% was calculated. As a result, just as thousands of Ukrainians are entering Estonia, thousands of Estonians are migrating to other European countries in search of better living conditions.

In addition to the lack of control over migration, another factor contributing to Estonia’s social crisis is the country’s increasing militarization, both to meet NATO’s demands and to send assistance to Kiev. More than 1% of Estonian GDP is currently being sent in military aid to the Kiev regime, while another 3% is invested in internal militarization to meet the NATO-imposed defense spending goal. So, more money is invested in waging war than in trying to solve social problems, which obviously results in a crisis.

Furthermore, it is necessary to remember that, in the enthusiasm to meet the military interests of NATO and Kiev, Estonia has also generated many problems for its population with the expansion of training camps, affecting local agriculture. Alleging the need for improvements in its defense capacity, Estonia created the Nursipalu Training Area last year and is now trying to expand it. The main problem is that the testing area is located in an agricultural production zone, affecting the regional economy. The Estonian government has not offered local landowners sufficient money or new properties to compensate for the loss of territory from military expansion, thus discouraging agricultural production to favor the interests of NATO.

As we can see, unlimited cooperation with NATO and its proxy neo-Nazi regime has only harmed Estonia and contributed to the emergence of internal problems. In addition to migration and unnecessary militarization, there is also the issue of sanctions. The country has had many problems with decreasing cooperation with Russia in infrastructure. There was a drastic drop in cross-border rail transport, preventing Estonian industrial production from reaching the foreign market. This mainly affected the wood sector in the Võru region and metallurgical production in Põlva, which are strategically relevant points of the national economy.

In fact, all this shows how anti-strategic it is to follow NATO’s guidelines and adopt a policy of support to Kiev. Estonia is entering a serious domestic crisis just because it chose to accept the orders of the Atlantic alliance and engage in anti-Russian war plans. The best way to reverse this scenario and avoid national collapse is to take a sovereign attitude.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

August 8, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The EU is a ‘failed project’ – AfD

RT | August 7, 2023

The European Union’s migration, climate, and monetary policies have “completely failed,” according to a policy document adopted by the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday. However, the party aims to change the EU from within rather than withdraw from the bloc.

AfD delegates adopted the document at a party conference in the eastern city of Magdeburg on Sunday. The paper describes the EU as a “failed project,” and calls for the bloc to be reformed as a “federation of European nations,” with significant sovereignty ceded back to its member states.

“The EU and the globalist elites that support it have strayed from the original idea of the founding fathers of a European community adopted many years ago,” the document states, citing the 2007 Lisbon Treaty – which gave the EU the power to act as a single legal entity and made EU law supersede national law – as the moment when the bloc became “an EU super state.”

Among a lengthy list of reforms, the AfD is proposing that the EU strengthen its external borders, lessen its military reliance on the US by following a policy of “strategic autonomy,” and protect the “diversity of cultures and traditions of the peoples of Europe” from immigration.

While a draft version of the document released in June called for the “orderly dissolution of the EU,” this language is absent from the final version.

The party also chose 35 candidates to contest next year’s European Parliament elections at the Magdeburg conference. The list is led by Maximilian Krah, who has been an MEP since 2019. The AfD currently holds nine seats in the parliament, and is the third-largest German party in the EU legislature.

At home, the AfD is currently polling at a record high of 21%, according to Politico. This figure puts the party ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and behind only former chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). However, Germany’s mainstream parties have repeatedly ruled out entering into coalition with AfD, and a government-funded watchdog group recently called for the party to be banned for its “racist and nationalist” positions.

The latest polling figures suggest a doubling in the AfD’s support since 2021, when it garnered 10.3% of votes in the parliamentary elections. This surge in popularity comes as Germany’s economy reels in the wake of Berlin’s decision to impose sanctions on Russia, which was formerly the country’s leading energy supplier. At a rally last year, AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla accused Scholz’s government of waging an “economic war” on the German people by cutting the country off from Russian energy imports.

August 7, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

EU state will order Russians to leave

RT | August 4, 2023

The government in Riga will send official notices next month to almost 6,000 Russian nationals, informing them they have 90 days to leave the country, a Latvian parliamentarian confirmed on Friday.

“There are 5,000 to 6,000 of them. These are people who have not shown any desire, either to take the exam or to obtain a temporary residence permit. They are silent,” Ingmars Lidaka, head of the parliamentary committee on citizenship and migration, told the Lithuanian state broadcaster LRT.

The Latvian Interior Ministry confirmed that the notices are currently being prepared, and will be sent out in September to “around 6,000” recipients, according to the news agency Elta.

Last year, after the hostilities in Ukraine escalated, Riga imposed a requirement for Russian nationals who wish to reside in Latvia to take and pass a Latvian language test. Ethnic Russians make up about a quarter of the Baltic state’s 1.8 million residents, and have been denied Latvian citizenship since Riga declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Then-president Egils Levits argued last August that ethnic Russians suspected of disloyalty to Latvia should be “isolated from society,” citing the Ukraine conflict. However, back in 2021, Levits openly spoke of a plan to promote “Latvianism” in language and culture in order to make it dominant by 2030.

Last September, around 100 activists in Riga protested the upcoming education law – which would eliminate Russian from all schools – as a “language genocide.”

In January, Latvian authorities arrested Marat Kasem, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Lithuania, who had returned to visit his dying grandmother. Though a Latvian national, Kasem had been deported to Russia in 2019 because of his association with Sputnik.

Riga charged Kasem with espionage and held him imprisoned for four months, eventually agreeing to reduce the charges and impose a fine of €15,500 ($17,000). After the new Latvian president, Edgars Rinkevics, complained about the prosecutors’ leniency, the journalist left the country once again.

August 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Here’s Why Italy Is The Western Voice Of Pragmatism In The Nigerien Crisis

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani. © Sean Gallup/Getty Images
BY  ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 4, 2023

Italy’s reaction to the patriotic military coup in Niger late last month has been surprisingly pragmatic. It could have easily jumped on the bandwagon of supporting the planned NATO-backed Nigerian-led ECOWAS invasion aimed at reinstalling ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and going along with his Ambassador to America’s claim that Russia had a hand in the coup. Instead, the Italian Foreign Minister described any Western military initiative as “a new colonization” and denied any Russian role in events.

Italy supports the West’s anti-Russian sanctions and arms Kiev against that country so Rome wasn’t expected to behave so independently towards a comparatively less significant matter than the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. That’s not to downplay the devastation that could soon ravage West Africa if it descends into a regional war, but just to point out that the precedent set by Italy’s compliance with Western demands vis-a-vis Russia suggested that it would also comply with their Nigerien policy too.

This exception is explained by the fact that Italy is very serious about combating illegal immigration at its roots, which was the official reason behind its decision to deploy a little less than 500 troops to Niger over half a decade ago in late 2017. While it’s difficult to assess whether this stated mission was a success since information about it has remained suspiciously scarce since then, the pretext for its troops’ deployment remains in place as evidenced by the related rhetoric espoused by its latest premier.

Giorgia Meloni rose to power partially because of her promise to drastically curtail illegal immigration to Italy, which would be very difficult to do if a major war breaks out in West Africa and results in an unfathomable number of desperate people fleeing across the Mediterranean to her country as refugees. It would already be bad enough if Nigeria soon leads an invasion of Niger, but this would be even worse if Italy’s French neighbor joined in and thus played a role in catalyzing another humanitarian crisis.

Italy might not be able to stop the US from coercing Nigeria into doing its bidding against Russia’s regional strategic interests by proxy, but its Foreign Minister’s description of potential Western involvement in this operation as “a new colonization” could make France think twice about participating. Bilateral relations were recently damaged due to their differences over migrants/refugees so it’s likely that Meloni’s top diplomat was sending a signal to Paris through his strong words on this issue.

She’d come under intense pressure on the domestic front if France was responsible for another humanitarian crisis that crashed into her country’s shores, plus responding to this would entail considerable costs that would be better spent on socio-economic investments if war could be averted. These calculations explain why her government broke ranks with the West on this issue since her political career could be threatened if this situation spirals out of control.

Her country’s policymakers are also impressively thinking ahead by tempering their rhetoric in order to avoid provoking the junta into pressuring their troops to leave and thus weakening Rome’s ability to at least keep an eye on this migrant/refugee corridor through their deployment in Niger. They still oppose the patriotic military coup, but they’re doing so in a measured way that reduces the risk of blowback while still at least formally paying lip service to the so-called “rules-based order”.

As for the second part of Italy’s pragmatic response to recent events, this builds upon the motivations that were just described above regarding the self-interested need to not provoke the junta. Rome isn’t suggesting that this regime change was legitimate, but it’s also not fueling the information warfare campaign being waged by some like Bazoum’s Ambassador to America, which is intended to precondition the Western public for NATO’s potential involvement in any possible invasion of Niger.

This stance hasn’t had any influence on reshaping Italian-Russian relations since it’s driven purely by Rome’s interests in retaining its military presence in Niger for the purpose of monitoring the migrant/refugee corridor through that country. These domestic political motivations, which also have an inextricable security dimension to them too, are so important to the present Italian government that they resulted in its top diplomat publicly counteracting fake news about Russia’s involvement in events.

What this insight shows is that it’s possible for Western states to behave independently of their peers on certain issues if sensitive domestic interests are threatened, be they Italy’s migrant/refugee ones in the Nigerien Crisis or Poland’s agricultural interests regarding the subject of importing Ukrainian grain. Each of these two examples is also connected to their leaders’ political interests, which cynically suggests that they’ll only act in a sovereign fashion on these aforesaid sensitive issues if their careers are on the line.

Even so, it’s still intriguing to observe them putting their interests above their de facto New Cold War bloc’s, thus proving that it’s not impossible for this to happen. Under the specific conditions that were just described where sensitive domestic interests converge with the political ones of any given Western leader, it can’t be ruled out that they’ll act more independently than their peers. This has already happened twice thus far in just as many weeks, which makes it a documented fact and not speculation.

August 4, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Calls to ban Russian aluminum ‘expose EU market manipulation’ – industry association

RT | July 31, 2023

Five EU-based business associations representing aluminum consumers have called on the London Metal Exchange (LME) to reject demands for sanctions on Russian primary metal, describing the pressure as “obvious market manipulations,” according to a statement by the Federation of Aluminium Consumers in Europe (FACE) released on Friday.

Last week, Norwegian producer Norsk Hydro urged the LME, the world’s largest and oldest market for industrial metals, to reconsider a decision made in March not to ban Russian aluminum from its warehouse network. Norsk Hydro argued that Russian aluminum, which is subject to US sanctions, dominates the LME warehouse stock and poses risks to the market.

According to the letter sent to the LME on Friday by the Belgium-based FACE along with four associations from Germany and Italy, the calls to ban Russian aluminum are “obvious market manipulations by vested interests,” as they were made by major metal producers who are direct competitors of Russian manufacturer Rusal.

Such a ban would be “suicidal” in the current context of the “huge metal deficit” in Europe, high energy prices, and inflation, the FACE statement claimed.

Calls for sanctions “seem one more oligopolistic attempt to easily eliminate a competitor with non-market practices and to turn Europe into a captive market, with full knowledge of the devastating impact any restriction of Russian metal supplies will have on the EU aluminum industry value-chain”, said Mario Conserva, FACE’s secretary general.

He pointed out that small and medium-sized businesses represent 90% of the EU aluminum industry workforce and 70% of its output, but their interests are not taken into account when trade and supply policy decisions are made.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that EU industry group European Aluminium had warned against placing sanctions on Rusal “due to its strategic importance on the global aluminum market.”

According to FACE, the EU is dependent on other countries for nearly 90% of its primary aluminum needs. Rusal accounts for about 12% of the bloc’s current demand, the association said. The industry body described Rusal’s output as competitive and fairly priced, and claimed that it helps decrease the carbon footprint of the entire European aluminum industry.

The Russian aluminum industry has increasingly become a target for Western restrictions. In February, the US imposed 200% duties on imports of Russian-made aluminum products, while the following month Canada banned imports of Russian aluminum and steel. In May, the UK also revealed plans to ban imports of Russian aluminum. The EU has so far restricted imports of only a limited number of specific aluminum products from Russia.

July 31, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Russia has won the oil war

The West doesn’t seem too keen to enforce its $60 price cap on Russian crude

BY PÉTER G. FEHÉR | MAGYAR HÍRLAP | JULY 31, 2023

Moscow’s leadership may not have been cheering loudly, but they probably still celebrated quietly within the walls of the Kremlin. After all, Russia has won the oil war. The news has been widely reported among economists and even in Western press, but it cannot be said to have come as a surprise shock. Those involved in the global oil business knew that they could not win such a war against Russia.

The United States and the European Commission’s measures to reduce Russian energy exports aimed to produce problems for the Russian treasury by reducing its revenues. However, it seems that the punitive measures introduced without any impact assessment have been seriously misguided, especially on the part of the EU. Rather, the EU has punished itself by foregoing cheap Russian gas and being forced to buy expensive U.S. natural gas.

Strange as it may sound, the Brussels officials knew exactly that this would be the consequence of the sanctions they imposed. It is worth looking to Russia expert Christopher Davis, professor at Oxford University: Davis has claimed nothing less than that the European Commission only began to address the impact of the punitive measures after the sanctions against Russia were introduced. At that time, it produced a secret study that was not shared with EU citizens. It said that the decisions were taken too quickly and that they were taken under political pressure without any prior economic impact assessment. The EU thus did not look into the potential impacts of sanctions; it was in essence an abrupt and thoughtless decision.

Moscow, meanwhile, looked for other buyers of its black gold, which was also predictable, and China was one of the first to come forward. Moscow has now built infrastructure to handle the increased traffic between Russia and Asia. Before the war in Ukraine, China was buying 1.5 million barrels of oil a day from Russia. Today, it takes in 2.5 million barrels a day.

Now, publications such as the Wall Street Journal are acknowledging that Russia has achieved a real global victory in the oil wars. The price of the Russian Ural blend oil has for the first time exceeded the $60 cap per barrel imposed by the U.S. and its allies last December. Although this happened just last Thursday, there is no sign that anyone is willing to enforce the sanction.

It is now no longer a mere assumption that the EU and the U.S. have made spontaneous sanctions decisions against Russia with unforeseen consequences. It is understandable that the European Commission does not want to publicly admit the consequences of such clumsy measures.

The question has to be asked again, for the umpteenth time: Why are there no consequences for a disastrous decision taken by the European Commission that once again went over the heads of the member states without even consulting them?

REMIX NEWS:

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July 31, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

US warns allies of potential isolation from deals over links to Iran, Russia

Brian Nelson, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
Press TV – July 29, 2023

The administration of US President Joe Biden has warned that Washington’s allies will face a “reputation risk” and potential isolation from lucrative deals in case of having links to the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia.

Brian Nelson, the Treasury’s undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, raised the alarm in a meeting with Kenya’s President William Ruto on Friday.

He claimed that Iran and Russia were “isolated economically.”

“What we see is again of course Iran and Russia are isolated economically and either they are looking for partners and they are looking for new channels to have economic relationships,” Nelson claimed.

“From our perspective, that potentially creates a reputation risk and creates also a financial risk such that we are having a direct conversation about those risks that are associated with the expansion of economic relationship, which is a conversation not only are we having here but with countries around the world and we know that clearly is what Russia and Iran are seeking,” he added.

In what is construed as Washington’s direct interference in its allies’ affairs, Nelson warned them to be wary of the two countries’ economic reputation.

The warning comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi embarked on an African tour earlier in the month, which took him to Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe at the official invitation of his counterparts from the three host countries.

Heading a high-ranking delegation, Raeisi forged new alliances and discussed possible avenues for the improvement of trade and political ties.

Raeisi stressed the need for enhancing relations with African countries, saying that the states are gifted with abundant natural resources and mines, and enjoy many potentials and areas for closer cooperation.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kana’ani described Raeisi’s continental tour as “a new turning point” which could bolster economic and trade ties with African nations.

A total of 21 documents on cooperation in different areas were signed during the three-state tour to Africa.

July 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Chief editor at Russian media outlet flees EU country over threats

RT | July 26, 2023

Marat Kasem, a senior journalist at Russian media outlet Sputnik, has fled Latvia after President Edgars Rinkevics suggested that prosecutors had treated him too leniently in a recent case, according to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Kasem spent four months in a Latvian jail earlier this year before being fined for allegedly aiding and abetting Russia.

“Would somebody from the White House or Downing Street tell Rinkevics that he is failing them by showing the feral nature of the liberal diktat,” Zakharova asked, during an interview with Sputnik on Wednesday.

The Russian official argued that the US and the UK were patrons of the Baltic states, but had failed to keep their “nationalist” clients in check. Latvia specifically presents itself as a nation that supposedly upholds liberal values, including by protecting journalists, Zakharova noted.

Kasem, who is a Latvian citizen, has faced legal problems in the EU due to his work as editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian branch of Sputnik.

He was first arrested in January, when he arrived in Latvia to visit his dying grandmother. Kasem was initially accused of espionage and violation of EU sanctions, charges that could carry up to 25 years in prison. Four months later, the authorities agreed to move him to house arrest.

Two weeks ago, local media reported that the case had been resolved, with Kasem admitting to aiding and abetting Russia and paying a fine of €15,500 ($17,000).

Latvian President Rinkevics, who took office on July 8, responded to the news by tweeting that “some recent decisions” by the Prosecutor General’s Office “raise questions.” He later clarified that in Kasem’s case and several others, he believed the punishments were too mild and indicated that he intended to seek explanations.

The remarks “made it clear as daylight” that Kasem’s problems in Latvia would continue, prompting him to leave, according to Zakharova.

The Prosecutor General’s Office said the public had not been informed about numerous details of the case due to national security, which it claimed “had an influence on the choice of the final punishment.” It hinted that the interests of other nations were involved.

Moscow considers the situation to be an example of political persecution. International journalism organizations and other Western states have turned a blind eye to it, said Zakharova, who implied that Kasem had admitted guilt under duress.

July 26, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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