The Specter of Germany Is Rising
By Diana Johnstone | Consortium News | September 12, 2022
The European Union is girding for a long war against Russia that appears clearly contrary to European economic interests and social stability. A war that is apparently irrational – as many are – has deep emotional roots and claims ideological justification. Such wars are hard to end because they extend outside the range of rationality.
For decades after the Soviet Union entered Berlin and decisively defeated the Third Reich, Soviet leaders worried about the threat of “German revanchism.” Since World War II could be seen as German revenge for being deprived of victory in World War I, couldn’t aggressive German Drang nach Osten be revived, especially if it enjoyed Anglo-American support? There had always been a minority in U.S. and U.K. power circles that would have liked to complete Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union.
It was not the desire to spread communism, but the need for a buffer zone to stand in the way of such dangers that was the primary motivation for the ongoing Soviet political and military clampdown on the tier of countries from Poland to Bulgaria that the Red Army had wrested from Nazi occupation.
This concern waned considerably in the early 1980s as a young German generation took to the streets in peace demonstrations against the stationing of nuclear “Euromissiles” which could increase the risk of nuclear war on German soil. The movement created the image of a new peaceful Germany. I believe that Mikhail Gorbachev took this transformation seriously.
On June 15, 1989, Gorbachev came to Bonn, which was then the modest capital of a deceptively modest West Germany. Apparently delighted with the warm and friendly welcome, Gorbachev stopped to shake hands with people along the way in that peaceful university town that had been the scene of large peace demonstrations.
I was there and experienced his unusually warm, firm handshake and eager smile. I have no doubt that Gorbachev sincerely believed in a “common European home” where East and West Europe could live happily side by side united by some sort of democratic socialism.
Gorbachev died at age 91 two weeks ago, on Aug. 30. His dream of Russia and Germany living happily in their “common European home” had soon been fatally undermined by the Clinton administration’s go-ahead to eastward expansion of NATO. But the day before Gorbachev’s death, leading German politicians in Prague wiped out any hope of such a happy end by proclaiming their leadership of a Europe dedicated to combating the Russian enemy.
These were politicians from the very parties – the SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the Greens – that took the lead in the 1980s peace movement.
German Europe Must Expand Eastward
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a colorless SPD politician, but his Aug. 29 speech in Prague was inflammatory in its implications. Scholz called for an expanded, militarized European Union under German leadership. He claimed that the Russian operation in Ukraine raised the question of “where the dividing line will be in the future between this free Europe and a neo-imperial autocracy.” We cannot simply watch, he said, “as free countries are wiped off the map and disappear behind walls or iron curtains.”
(Note: the conflict in Ukraine is clearly the unfinished business of the collapse of the Soviet Union, aggravated by malicious outside provocation. As in the Cold War, Moscow’s defensive reactions are interpreted as harbingers of Russian invasion of Europe, and thus a pretext for arms buildups.)
To meet this imaginary threat, Germany will lead an expanded, militarized EU. First, Scholz told his European audience in the Czech capital, “I am committed to the enlargement of the European Union to include the states of the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and, in the long term, Georgia”. Worrying about Russia moving the dividing line West is a bit odd while planning to incorporate three former Soviet States, one of which (Georgia) is geographically and culturally very remote from Europe but on Russia’s doorstep.
2022 Fall Fund Drive
In the “Western Balkans”, Albania and four extremely weak statelets left from former Yugoslavia (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and widely unrecognized Kosovo) mainly produce emigrants and are far from EU economic and social standards. Kosovo and Bosnia are militarily occupied de facto NATO protectorates. Serbia, more solid than the others, shows no signs of renouncing its beneficial relations with Russia and China, and popular enthusiasm for “Europe” among Serbs has faded.
Adding these member states will achieve “a stronger, more sovereign, geopolitical European Union,” said Scholz. A “more geopolitical Germany” is more like it. As the EU grows eastward, Germany is “in the center” and will do everything to bring them all together. So, in addition to enlargement, Scholz calls for “a gradual shift to majority decisions in common foreign policy” to replace the unanimity required today.
What this means should be obvious to the French. Historically, the French have defended the consensus rule so as not to be dragged into a foreign policy they don’t want. French leaders have exalted the mythical “Franco-German couple” as guarantor of European harmony, mainly to keep German ambitions under control.
But Scholz says he doesn’t want “an EU of exclusive states or directorates,” which implies the final divorce of that “couple.” With an EU of 30 or 36 states, he notes, “fast and pragmatic action is needed.” And he can be sure that German influence on most of these poor, indebted and often corrupt new Member States will produce the needed majority.
France has always hoped for an EU security force separate from NATO in which the French military would play a leading role. But Germany has other ideas. “NATO remains the guarantor of our security,” said Scholz, rejoicing that President Biden is “a convinced trans-atlanticist.”
“Every improvement, every unification of European defense structures within the EU framework strengthens NATO,” Scholz said. “Together with other EU partners, Germany will therefore ensure that the EU’s planned rapid reaction force is operational in 2025 and will then also provide its core.
This requires a clear command structure. Germany will face up to this responsibility “when we lead the rapid reaction force in 2025,” Scholz said. It has already been decided that Germany will support Lithuania with a rapidly deployable brigade and NATO with further forces in a high state of readiness.
Serving to Lead … Where?
In short, Germany’s military buildup will give substance to Robert Habeck’s notorious statement in Washington last March that: “The stronger Germany serves, the greater its role.” The Green’s Habeck is Germany’s economics minister and the second most powerful figure in Germany’s current government.
The remark was well understood in Washington: by serving the U.S.-led Western empire, Germany is strengthening its role as European leader. Just as the U.S. arms, trains and occupies Germany, Germany will provide the same services for smaller EU states, notably to its east.
Since the start of the Russian operation in Ukraine, German politician Ursula von der Leyen has used her position as head of the EU Commission to impose ever more drastic sanctions on Russia, leading to the threat of a serious European energy crisis this winter. Her hostility to Russia seems boundless. In Kiev last April she called for rapid EU membership for Ukraine, notoriously the most corrupt country in Europe and far from meeting EU standards. She proclaimed that “Russia will descend into economic, financial and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards a European future.” For von der Leyen, Ukraine is “fighting our war.” All of this goes far beyond her authority to speak for the EU’s 27 Members, but nobody stops her.
Germany’s Green Party foreign minister Annalena Baerbock is every bit as intent on “ruining Russia.” Proponent of a “feminist foreign policy”, Baerbock expresses policy in personal terms. “If I give the promise to people in Ukraine, we stand with you as long as you need us,” she told the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED)-sponsored Forum 2000 in Prague on Aug. 31, speaking in English. “Then I want to deliver no matter what my German voters think, but I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine.”
“People will go on the street and say, we cannot pay our energy prices, and I will say, ‘Yes I know so we will help you with social measures. […] We will stand with Ukraine and this means the sanctions will stay also til winter time even if it gets really tough for politicians.’”
Certainly, support for Ukraine is strong in Germany, but perhaps because of the looming energy shortage, a recent Forsa poll indicates that some 77 percent of Germans would favor diplomatic efforts to end the war – which should be the business of the foreign minister. But Baerbock shows no interest in diplomacy, only in “strategic failure” for Russia – however long it takes.
In the 1980s peace movement, a generation of Germans was distancing itself from that of their parents and vowed to overcome “enemy images” inherited from past wars. Curiously, Baerbock, born in 1980, has referred to her grandfather who fought in the Wehrmacht as somehow having contributed to European unity. Is this the generational pendulum?
The Little Revanchists
There is reason to surmise that current German Russophobia draws much of its legitimization from the Russophobia of former Nazi allies in smaller European countries.
While German anti-Russian revanchism may have taken a couple of generations to assert itself, there were a number of smaller, more obscure revanchisms that flourished at the end of the European war that were incorporated into United States Cold War operations. Those little revanchisms were not subjected to the denazification gestures or Holocaust guilt imposed on Germany. Rather, they were welcomed by the C.I.A., Radio Free Europe and Congressional committees for their fervent anticommunism. They were strengthened politically in the United States by anticommunist diasporas from Eastern Europe.
Of these, the Ukrainian diaspora was surely the largest, the most intensely political and the most influential, in both Canada and the American Middle West. Ukrainian fascists who had previously collaborated with Nazi invaders were the most numerous and active, leading the Bloc of Anti-Bolshevik Nations with links to German, British and U.S. Intelligence.
Eastern European Galicia, not to be confused with Spanish Galicia, has been back and forth part of Russia and Poland for centuries. After World War II it was divided between Poland and Ukraine. Ukrainian Galicia is the center of a virulent brand of Ukrainian nationalism, whose principal World War II hero was Stepan Bandera. This nationalism can properly be called “fascist” not simply because of superficial signs – its symbols, salutes or tatoos – but because it has always been fundamentally racist and violent.
Incited by Western powers, Poland, Lithuania and the Habsburg Empire, the key to Ukrainian nationalism was that it was Western, and thus superior. Since Ukrainians and Russians stem from the same population, pro-Western Ukrainian ultra-nationalism was built on imaginary myths of racial differences: Ukrainians were the true Western whatever-it-was, whereas Russians were mixed with “Mongols” and thus an inferior race. Banderist Ukrainian nationalists have openly called for elimination of Russians as such, as inferior beings.
So long as the Soviet Union existed, Ukrainian racial hatred of Russians had anticommunism as its cover, and Western intelligence agencies could support them on the “pure” ideological grounds of the fight against Bolshevism and Communism. But now that Russia is no longer ruled by communists, the mask has fallen, and the racist nature of Ukrainian ultra-nationalism is visible – for all who want to see it.
However, Western leaders and media are determined not to notice.
Ukraine is not just like any Western country. It is deeply and dramatically divided between Donbass in the East, Russian territories given to Ukraine by the Soviet Union, and the anti-Russian West, where Galicia is located. Russia’s defense of Donbass, wise or unwise, by no means indicates a Russian intention to invade other countries. This false alarm is the pretext for the remilitarization of Germany in alliance with the Anglo-Saxon powers against Russia.
The Yugoslav Prelude
This process began in the 1990s, with the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia was not a member of the Soviet bloc. Precisely for that reason, the country got loans from the West which in the 1970s led to a debt crisis in which the leaders of each of the six federated republics wanted to shove the debt onto others. This favored separatist tendencies in the relatively rich Slovenian and Croatian republics, tendencies enforced by ethnic chauvinism and encouragement from outside powers, especially Germany.
During World War II, German occupation had split the country apart. Serbia, allied to France and Britain in World War I, was subject to a punishing occupation. Idyllic Slovenia was absorbed into the Third Reich, while Germany supported an independent Croatia, ruled by the fascist Ustasha party, which included most of Bosnia, scene of the bloodiest internal fighting. When the war ended, many Croatian Ustasha emigrated to Germany, the United States and Canada, never giving up the hope of reviving secessionist Croatian nationalism.
In Washington in the 1990s, members of Congress got their impressions of Yugoslavia from a single expert: 35-year-old Croatian-American Mira Baratta, assistant to Sen. Bob Dole (Republican presidential candidate in 1996). Baratta’s grandfather had been an important Ustasha officer in Bosnia and her father was active in the Croatian diaspora in California. Baratta won over not only Dole but virtually the whole Congress to the Croatian version of Yugoslav conflicts blaming everything on the Serbs.
In Europe, Germans and Austrians, most notably Otto von Habsburg, heir to the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire and member of the European Parliament from Bavaria, succeeded in portraying Serbs as the villains, thus achieving an effective revenge against their historic World War I enemy, Serbia. In the West, it became usual to identify Serbia as “Russia’s historic ally”, forgetting that in recent history Serbia’s closest allies were Britain and especially France.
In September 1991, a leading German Christian Democratic politician and constitutional lawyer explained why Germany should promote the breakup of Yugoslavia by recognizing the Slovenian and Croat secessionist Yugoslav republics. (Former CDU Minister of Defense Rupert Scholz at the 6th Fürstenfeldbrucker Symposium for the Leadership of the German Military and Business, held September 23 – 24, 1991.)
By ending the division of Germany, Rupert Scholz said, “We have, so to speak, overcome and mastered the most important consequences of the Second World War … but in other areas we are still dealing with the consequences of the First World War” – which, he noted “started in Serbia.”
“Yugoslavia, as a consequence of the First World War, is a very artificial construction, never compatible with the idea of self-determination,” Rupert Scholz said. He concluded: “In my opinion, Slovenia and Croatia must be immediately recognized internationally. (…) When this recognition has taken place, the Yugoslavian conflict will no longer be a domestic Yugoslav problem, where no international intervention can be permitted.”
And indeed, recognition was followed by massive Western intervention which continues to this day. By taking sides, Germany, the United States and NATO ultimately produced a disastrous result, a half dozen statelets, with many unsettled issues and heavily dependent on Western powers. Bosnia-Herzegovina is under military occupation as well as the dictates of a “High Representative” who happens to be German. It has lost about half its population to emigration.
Only Serbia shows signs of independence, refusing to join in Western sanctions on Russia, despite heavy pressure. For Washington strategists the breakup of Yugoslavia was an exercise in using ethnic divisions to break up larger entities, the USSR and then Russia.
Humanitarian Bombing
Western politicians and media persuaded the public that the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia was a “humanitarian” war, generously waged to “protect the Kosovars” (after multiple assassinations by armed secessionists provoked Serbian authorities into the inevitable repression used as pretext for the bombing).
But the real point of the Kosovo war was that it transformed NATO from a defensive into an aggressive alliance, ready to wage war anywhere, without U.N. mandate, on whatever pretext it chose.
This lesson was clear to the Russians. After the Kosovo war, NATO could no longer credibly claim that it was a purely “defensive” alliance.
As soon as Serbian President Milosevic, to save his country’s infrastructure from NATO destruction, agreed to allow NATO troops to enter Kosovo, the U.S. unceremoniously grabbed a huge swath territory to build the its first big U.S. military base in the Balkans. NATO troops are still there.
Just as the United States rushed to build that base in Kosovo, it was clear what to expect of the U.S. after it succeeded in 2014 to install a government in Kiev eager to join NATO. This would be the opportunity for the U.S. to take over the Russian naval base in Crimea. Since it was known that the majority of the population in Crimea wanted to return to Russia (as it had from 1783 to 1954), Putin was able to forestall this threat by holding a popular referendum confirming its return.
East European Revanchism Captures the EU
The call by German Chancellor Scholz to enlarge the European Union by up to nine new members recalls the enlargements of 2004 and 2007 that brought in twelve new members, nine of them from the former Soviet bloc, including the three Baltic States once part of the Soviet Union.
That enlargement already shifted the balance eastward and enhanced German influence. In particular, the political elites of Poland and especially the three Baltic States, were heavily under the influence of the United States and Britain, where many had lived in exile during Soviet rule. They brought into EU institutions a new wave of fanatic anticommunism, not always distinguishable from Russophobia.
The European Parliament, obsessed with virtue signaling in regard to human rights, was particularly receptive to the zealous anti-totalitarianism of its new Eastern European members.
Revanchism and the Memory Weapon
As an aspect of anti-communist lustration, or purges, Eastern European States sponsored “Memory Institutes” devoted to denouncing the crimes of communism. Of course, such campaigns were used by far-right politicians to cast suspicion on the left in general. As explained by European scholar Zoltan Dujisin, “anticommunist memory entrepreneurs” at the head of these institutes succeeded in lifting their public information activities from the national, to the European Union level, using Western bans on Holocaust denial to complain, that while Nazi crimes had been condemned and punished at Nuremberg, communist crimes had not.
The tactic of the anti-communist entrepreneurs was to demand that references to the Holocaust be accompanied by denunciations of the Gulag. This campaign had to deal with a delicate contradiction since it tended to challenge the uniqueness of the Holocaust, a dogma essential to gaining financial and political support from West European memory institutes.
In 2008, the EP adopted a resolution establishing August 23 as “European Day of Remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism” – for the first time adopting what had been a fairly isolated far right equation. A 2009 EP resolution on “European Conscience and Totalitarianism” called for support of national institutes specializing in totalitarian history.
Dujisin explains, “Europe is now haunted by the specter of a new memory. The Holocaust’s singular standing as a negative founding formula of European integration, the culmination of long-standing efforts from prominent Western leaders … is increasingly challenged by a memory of communism, which disputes its uniqueness.”
East European memory institutes together formed the “Platform of European Memory and Conscience,” which between 2012 and 2016 organized a series of exhibits on “Totalitarianism in Europe: Fascism—Nazism—Communism,” traveling to museums, memorials, foundations, city halls, parliaments, cultural centers, and universities in 15 European countries, supposedly to “improve public awareness and education about the gravest crimes committed by the totalitarian dictatorships.”
Under this influence, the European Parliament on Sept. 19, 2019 adopted a resolution “on the importance of European Remembrance for the Future of Europe” that went far beyond equating political crimes by proclaiming a distinctly Polish interpretation of history as European Union policy. It goes so far as to proclaim that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is responsible for World War II – and thus Soviet Russia is as guilty of the war as Nazi Germany.
The resolution,
“Stresses that the Second World War, the most devastating war in Europe’s history, was started as an immediate result of the notorious Nazi-Soviet Treaty on Non-Aggression of 23 August 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and its secret protocols, whereby two totalitarian regimes that shared the goal of world conquest divided Europe into two zones of influence;”
It further:
“Recalls that the Nazi and communist regimes carried out mass murders, genocide and deportations and caused a loss of life and freedom in the 20th century on a scale unseen in human history, and recalls the horrific crime of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime; condemns in the strongest terms the acts of aggression, crimes against humanity and mass human rights violations perpetrated by the Nazi, communist and other totalitarian regimes;”
This of course not only directly contradicts the Russian celebration of the “Great Patriotic War” to defeat the Nazi invasion, it also took issue with the recent efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin to put the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement in the context of prior refusals of Eastern European states, notably Poland, to ally with Moscow against Hitler.
But the EP resolution:
“Is deeply concerned about the efforts of the current Russian leadership to distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet totalitarian regime and considers them a dangerous component of the information war waged against democratic Europe that aims to divide Europe, and therefore calls on the Commission to decisively counteract these efforts;”
Thus the importance of Memory for the future, turns out to be an ideological declaration of war against Russia based on interpretations of World War II, especially since the memory entrepreneurs implicitly suggest that the past crimes of communism deserve punishment – like the crimes of Nazism. It is not impossible that this line of thought arouses some tacit satisfaction among certain individuals in Germany.
When Western leaders speak of “economic war against Russia,” or “ruining Russia” by arming and supporting Ukraine, one wonders whether they are consciously preparing World War III, or trying to provide a new ending to World War II. Or will the two merge?
As it shapes up, with NATO openly trying to “overextend” and thus defeat Russia with a war of attrition in Ukraine, it is somewhat as if Britain and the United States, some 80 years later, switched sides and joined German-dominated Europe to wage war against Russia, alongside the heirs to Eastern European anticommunism, some of whom were allied to Nazi Germany.
History may help understand events, but the cult of memory easily becomes the cult of revenge. Revenge is a circle with no end. It uses the past to kill the future. Europe needs clear heads looking to the future, able to understand the present.
Diana Johnstone was press secretary of the Green Group in the European Parliament from 1989 to 1996. In her latest book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher (Clarity Press, 2020), she recounts key episodes in the transformation of the German Green Party from a peace to a war party. Her other books include Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions (Pluto/Monthly Review) and in co-authorship with her father, Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning (Clarity Press). She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr
US could benefit from EU recession – WaPo
Samizdat | September 12, 2022
White House officials believe the effect of a recession in the EU on the US economy would be “modest,” while some economists suggest that it would actually help America, the Washington Post has reported.
With the European Central Bank raising interest rates by 0.75 points last week amid soaring energy prices and spiking inflation, White House aides believe “the growing likelihood of a recession in Europe is unlikely to change under the current trajectory,” the paper wrote on Sunday.
However, US officials who talked to WaPo on condition of anonymity said they didn’t think that a recession in Europe would necessarily cause one in America.
One senior member of the Biden administration told the outlet that the Treasury Department and the Council of Economic Advisers had estimated that the impact on the US from such an event would likely be “modest and manageable.”
Trade with Europe accounts for less than 1% of US gross domestic product, while the country also has enough of its own natural gas to minimize the impact of a possible stoppage of Russian energy supplies to the EU, the paper pointed out.
In fact, the US economy could actually benefit from the whole situation as it would potentially cause a reduction in global demand for energy, further alleviating price pressures in the US, it added.
“If Europe goes into recession, there’s obviously less demand for a wide range of products. We’re in such a perverse situation here [that] it may actually be positive,” Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told the Washington Post.
However, if Moscow goes further and stops selling its oil and gas not only to the EU, but also to other markets, in response to a proposed price cap on its energy imports, it “would threaten the US economy more,” according to the paper.
“That will push the economy into recession. Gasoline prices will go skyward, back over its record $5 a gallon almost overnight. The economy can’t digest $5 a gallon – that would be overwhelming,” warned Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Germany imports less from Russia but pays more
Samizdat | September 13, 2022
German imports from Russia saw a dramatic 45.8% year-on-year decline in July, data from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany showed on Monday.
However, in monetary terms, German purchases of Russian products surged 10.2% to €2.9 billion ($2.94 billion), data indicates.
The imbalance arose due to soaring prices of oil and gas. The value of energy imports from Russia increased by 1.6% to €1.4 billion, according to the data, despite the much lower volume of purchases compared to the same period a year ago.
At the same time, Germany’s exports to Russia saw a substantial year-over-year drop of 56.8%.
Germany, along with other EU countries, has been seeking to reduce its reliance on imports of Russian fossil fuels, and has stepped up the effort since late February, when Moscow started its military operation in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Finland’s Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) reported that more than half of the €158 billion that Russia earned from oil and gas exports over the past six months was paid by EU countries. The bloc has reportedly imported 54% of all Russian energy exports since late February, worth around €85 billion.
Europe Commits Suicide-by-Sanctions
By Ron Paul | September 12, 2022
A Swiss billboard is making the rounds on social media depicting a young woman on the telephone. The caption reads, “Does the neighbor heat the apartment to over 19 degrees (66F)? Please inform us.” While the Swiss government has dismissed the poster as a fake, the penalties Swiss citizens face for daring to warm their homes are very real. According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, those who violate the 66 degree heating limit could face as many as three years in prison!
Prison time for heating your home? In the “free” world? How is it possible in 2022, when Switzerland and the rest of the political west have achieved the greatest economic success in history, that the European continent faces a winter like something out of the dark ages?
Sanctions.
While long promoted – often by those opposed to war – as a less destructive alternative to war, sanctions are in reality acts of war. And as we know with interventionism and war, the result is often unintended consequences and even blowback.
European sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year will likely go down in history as a prime example of how sanctions can result in unintended consequences. While seeking to punish Russia by cutting off gas and oil imports, European Union politicians forgot that Europe is completely dependent on Russian energy supplies and that the only people to suffer if those imports are shut down are the Europeans themselves.
The Russians simply pivoted to the south and east and found plenty of new buyers in China, India, and elsewhere. In fact, Russia’s state-run Gazprom energy company has reported that its profits have increased by 100 percent in the first half of this year.
Russia is getting rich while Europeans are facing a freezing winter and economic collapse. All because of the false belief that sanctions are a cost-free way to force other countries to do what you want them to do.
What happens when the people see dumb government policies making energy bills skyrocket as the economy grinds to a halt? They become desperate and take to the streets in protest.
This weekend thousands of Austrians took to the streets in a “Freedom Rally” to demand an end to sanctions and the opening of Nord Stream II, the gas pipeline on the verge of opening earlier this year. Last week an estimated 100,000 Czechs took to the streets of Prague to protest NATO and EU policy. In France, the “Yellow Vests” are back in the streets protesting the destruction of their economy in the name of “defeating” Russia in Ukraine. In Germany, Serbia, and elsewhere, protests are gearing up.
Even the Washington Post was forced to admit that sanctions on Russia are not having the intended effect. In an article yesterday, the paper worries that sanctions are inflicting “collateral damage in Russia and beyond, potentially even hurting the very countries that impose them. Some even worried that the sanctions intended to deter and weaken Putin could end up emboldening and strengthening him.”
This is all predictable. Sanctions kill. Sometimes they kill innocents in the country targeted for destruction and sometimes they kill innocents in the country imposing them. The solution, as always, is non-intervention. No sanctions, no “color revolutions,” no meddling. It’s really that simple.
Copyright © 2022 by Ron Paul Institute.
U.S. ups the ante: are we indeed headed into WWIII and what can save us?
Gilbert Doctorow | September 9, 2022
The UK and Commonwealth may be mourning the passing of Queen Elizabeth II yesterday. I am in mourning as well, but for a very different reason: the gathering in the Ramstein air base in Germany yesterday reshuffled the deck on Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine, raising contributions to the ongoing holy crusade against Russia from still more nations and adding new, still more advanced precision strike weapons to the mix of deliveries to Kiev. It was an open summons to the Kremlin to escalate in turn, as were the test firing the same day of a new intercontinental rocket, the Minuteman III, from Vandenberg air base in California and the unannounced visit to Kiev yesterday of not only Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was featured in Western media accounts, but also other top officials of the Biden administration. The most notorious member of this delegation was surely Blinken’s deputy, Victoria Nuland, who had stage managed the February 2014 coup that put in power in Kiev the Russia-hating regime that Zelensky now heads.
The Russians may be compelled to take the bait due to the course of military action on the ground. As now becomes clear, they have just suffered some losses in very heavy ground and artillery fighting these past few days around Kharkov. The Ukrainian gains were facilitated by the advanced weaponry recently arrived from NATO countries, by the targeting data they are receiving from the U.S. and from off-stage tactical direction from NATO officers. By ‘take the bait,’ I mean the Russians may escalate to all out war on Ukraine. This question figured prominently in yesterday’s major news and political talk show programs of Russian state television. I will go into these matters in some detail below.
Regrettably, all of the foregoing also obliges me to revisit the critique I published a couple of weeks ago on the latest essay in Foreign Affairs magazine by John Mearsheimer. His overarching message on the dangers of our stumbling into a nuclear war is better substantiated by the latest developments, even though I believe that Mearsheimer failed to identify the several successive steps that lie ahead before we find ourselves in such a war. Mearsheimer oversimplified Russian options to deal with setbacks on the ground. This also will be a central issue in my narrative below.
Finally, in this essay I will direct attention to the second dimension of the ongoing confrontation between Russia and the entire Collective West: the economic war being waged on the Russian Federation via sanctions, which now far outnumber those directed against any other country on earth. This war, as I will argue, is going well for the Russians. More importantly for us all, it is the sole area in which the peoples of Europe may have a say in putting an end to the mad policies being pursued by their national governments under the direct pressure of Washington.
*****
Over the past ten days, we have witnessed the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive which was preceded by so much anticipation in Western media. A reversal of Russian fortunes in the war was predicted, leading to the stalemate or outright defeat for Russia which Mearsheimer and some other analysts in the US foreign policy community feared would trigger a nuclear response from the Kremlin.
In fact, the Ukrainian counter-offensive got off to a very bad start. It opened in the south, in the Kherson region. Kherson, which is predominantly Russian-speaking, was the first major Ukrainian city to fall to the Russians and it has strategic importance for ensuring Russian domination of the Black Sea littoral. However, first results of the Ukrainian attacks there were disastrous for the Ukrainian armed forces. It soon was obvious that they had deployed new recruits who had little or no military experience. The infantry attacked across open terrain where they were easily destroyed in vast numbers by the Russian defenders of Kherson. I have heard the figure of 5,000 Ukrainian casualties in the Kherson counter offensive. Obviously the Russians were jubilant, though there were reports of some Ukrainian reservists being withdrawn from the field of action for redeployment elsewhere.
What followed was something the Russians evidently did not expect, namely a well prepared and implemented assault on their positions around the northeastern city of Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city. Kharkov was briefly surrounded by Russian forces at the start of the war, but was left in relative peace as the Russians refocused their strategy on taking the Donbas and avoiding major urban warfare except in one place, Mariupol. Exactly what the Russian game plan has been was recently explained in a remarkable paper published by a certain ‘Marinus’ in the Marine Corps Gazette.
A couple of days ago I picked up the following amidst the chatter of panelists on Evening with Vladimir Solovyov: “yes, we made some mistakes, but it is inevitable in a war that mistakes are made.” As from the latest news on the apparent loss of Balakliya and surrounding villages on the outskirts of Kharkov, we can see that the Ukrainian tactics were precisely those which Russia had been using so effectively against them from day one of the ‘special military operation,’ namely a feint in one war zone followed by all-out attack on a very different region. Of course, the ‘feint’ around Kherson, if that is what it was, entailed the cynical sacrifice of thousands of young and not so young Ukrainian foot soldiers. But the resultant distraction prevented the Russians from bringing up sufficient manpower to successfully defend their positions around Kharkov, which include the strategically important city of Izyum.
Izyum is close to the Russian-Ukrainian border southeast of Kharkov and is a major logistical base for munitions and weaponry that are sent onward to support the Donbas operation. The latest information on the Russian side appears to be that the Russians have now dispatched large numbers of reservists to this area to hold their positions. They also speak of intense artillery duels. We may well assume that both sides have experienced heavy loss of life. As yet, the outcome is unforeseeable. Meanwhile, Russian war correspondents on the ground in Donetsk insist that the Russian advance towards Slavyansk, in the center of the former Donetsk oblast, is continuing without pause, which suggests that the strikes on their munitions stores claimed by the Ukrainians have not been totally effective. If Slavyansk is taken in the coming few weeks, then Russia will quickly assume control of the entire territory of the Donbas.
In last night’s talk show program, host Vladimir Solovyov said that this latest push in the Ukrainian counter-offensive was timed to coincide with the gathering at the Ramstein air base, Germany of top officials from NATO and other allies under the direction of the visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. If the Ukrainian efforts were failing in the field, then the cry would go up: we must provide them with more weapons and training. And if the Ukrainian efforts in the counter-offensive were succeeding, those in attendance at Ramstein would hear exactly the same appeal to aid Kiev.
Though Evening with Solovyov, on air from about 23.00 Moscow time, offered viewers some few minutes of video recordings from the opening of the Ramstein gathering, far more complete coverage was provided to Russian audiences a few hours earlier by the afternoon news show Sixty Minutes. Here, nearly half an hour on air was given over to lengthy excerpts from CNN and other U.S. and European mainstream television reporting about Ramstein. Host Yevgeni Popov read the Russian translation of the various Western news bulletins. His presentation clearly sought to dramatize the threat and to set off alarm bells.
For his part, Vladimir Solovyov went beyond presentation of the threat posed by the United States and its allies to analysis of Russia’s possible response. He spoke at length, and we may assume that what he was saying had the direct approval of the Kremlin, because his guests, who are further removed from Power than he is, were, for the most part, allowed only to talk blather, such as the critique by one panelist of a recent pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia article in The New York Review of Books by Yale professor Timothy Snyder, who counts for nothing in the big strategic issues Russia faces today.
So, what did Solovyov have to say? First, that Ramstein marked a new stage in the war, because of the more threatening nature of the weapons systems announced for delivery, such as missiles with accuracy of 1 to 2 meters when fired from distances of 20 or 30 kilometers thanks to their GPS-guided flight, in contrast to the laser-guided missiles delivered to Ukraine up till now. In the same category, there are weapons designed to destroy the Russians’ radar systems used for directing artillery fire. Second, that Ramstein marked the further expansion of the coalition or holy crusade waging war on Russia. Third, that in effect this is no longer a proxy war but a real direct war with NATO and should be prosecuted with appropriate mustering of all resources at home and abroad.
Said Solovyov, Russia should throw off constraints and destroy the Ukrainian dual use infrastructure which makes it possible to move Western weapons across the country to the front. The railway system, the bridges, the electricity generating stations all should become fair targets. Moreover, Kiev should no longer be spared missile strikes and destruction of the ministries and presidential apparatus responsible for prosecution of the war. I note that these ideas were aired on the Solovyov program more than a month ago but then disappeared from view while the Russians were making great gains on the ground. The latest setbacks and the new risks associated with the Western policies set out at Ramstein bring them to the surface again.
Solovyov also argued that Russia should now use in Ukraine its own most advanced weapons that have similar characteristics to what NATO is delivering to the other side. As a sub-point, Russia should consider neutralizing in one way or another the GPS guidance for U.S. weapons. Of course, if this means destroying or blinding the respective U.S. satellites, that would mean crossing a well-known U.S. red line or casus belli.
Next, in the new circumstances, Russia should abandon its go-it-alone policy and actively seek out complementary weapons systems from previously untouchable countries, such as Iran and North Korea. Procurements from both have till now been minimal. On this issue, a couple of panelists with military expertise were allowed to explain that both these countries have sophisticated and proven weapons that could greatly assist Russia’s war effort. Iran has unbeatable drones which carry hefty explosive charges and have proven their worth in operations that are unmentionable on public television. And North Korea has very effective tanks and highly portable field artillery which are both fully compatible with Russian military practice, because the designs were based on Chinese weapons, which in turn were copies of Russia’s own. These weapons also have shown their worth in the hands of unnamed purchasers in the Middle East. Moreover, North Korea has a vast store of munitions fully compatible with Russian artillery. It was also mentioned in passing that insofar as Kiev has mobilized in the field many Western mercenaries and covert NATO officers, Russia should also recruit from abroad, as for example, whole brigades from North Korea available for hire.
If any of these ideas put out by Solovyov last night are indeed implemented by the Kremlin, then the present confrontation in and over Ukraine will truly become globalized, and we have the outlines of what may be called World War III. However, I note that the use of nuclear weapons, tactical or otherwise, does not figure at all in the set of options that official Moscow discusses in relation to the challenges it faces in its Ukraine operation. Such a possibility would arise only if the NATO forces being sent to the EU’s ‘front line states’ grew in number by several times those presently assigned and appeared to be preparing to invade Russia.
*****
Before Ramstein, before the news of Ukrainian successes on the ground in the Kharkov sector, I had plans to write about a very different development this past week that coincided with a different calendar: the end of summer vacations and return to work of our national governments. With the return, our presidents and prime ministers would finally have to address the critical state of the European economies, which are facing the highest inflation rates in decades and an energy crisis brought about by the sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. Speculation was rife on what exactly they would do.
I was particularly struck by several articles in the 7 September edition of The Financial Times and planned to comment on them.
For months now, the FT has been the voice of Number 10, Downing Street, at the vanguard of the Western crusade to crush Russia. Their editorial board has consistently backed every proposal for sanctions against Russia, however hare-brained. And yet on the 7th their journalists ran away with the show and cast doubt on the basic assumptions held by their bosses. One article by Derek Brower in the “FT Energy Source” newsletter has the self-explanatory title “The price cap idea that could worsen the energy crisis.” As we saw today, Brower’s concern was misplaced: finally, the EU could not agree a price cap policy. This notion, promoted from the United States by none other than the Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, is in full contradiction with the practices of the global hydrocarbon market, as even a few EU leaders understood, depriving the initiators from the Baltic States of their hoped for consensus.
Another article of the 7th in FT, by Valentina Pop, Europe Express Editor, analyzed quickly and competently the problems facing European policy-makers in their bid to alleviate the pain to households and industry that the latest electricity and heating bills would otherwise present, given that they are several times higher than just a year ago and are unaffordable by large swathes of the population. Pop identified the key issue thus: how to provide aid quickly to those most in need given the constraints and resources available to the various government bureaucracies: “Some capitals will take many months in determining which households require help” she says. Of course, ‘many months’ of patience in the broad population will not be there.
But the most surprising article in this collection from the 7th was in the “Opinion Lex” section of the paper which was nominally about how Russian banks have weathered the storm that broke out when the EU sanctions on their industry first were laid down shortly after the start of Russia’s ‘special military operation.’ Indeed, VTB and other major Russian banks have returned to profitability despite it all. The author finds that ‘sanctions are biting less than western politicians hoped.’ Not only did the expected banking crisis not materialize, but the ruble is at five-year peaks and inflation is falling. Moreover the official Russian financial data behind these generalizations is said to be sound by independent and trustworthy market observers. The key conclusions are saved for last: “Russia has shown it can bear the pain of western sanctions. Western Europe must endure reprisals as robustly, or concede a historic defeat.’ The ‘reprisals’ in question are the complete shutdown of Russian gas deliveries through Nord Stream I until Europe lifts its sanctions.
It is interesting that even the Opinion article by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg published on the 7th in FT carries the following grim warning: “We face a difficult six months, with the threat of energy cuts, disruptions and perhaps even civil unrest.’ [emphasis mine]
To be sure, here and there in Europe, there are a few clever administrators who find promising solutions to the pending crisis of energy bills. In her first day in office, Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss announced one such solution: to immediately freeze the maximum energy bill per household at the present level of 2500 pounds sterling per year and then to turn around and agree with the power companies a subsidy for them to cover their losses.
This is fine for nipping in the bud possible ‘civil unrest.’ But the question remains how Britain will finance the estimated 150 billion pounds this will cost in the first year alone. If a similar solution were approved in the EU, the overall cost would surely approach the 800 billion euros of assistance borrowed to cover losses attributable to the Covid pandemic a year ago. But whereas the Covid aid was financed by collective borrowing of the EU, no such solidarity is likely to deal with the energy crisis, given that Germany, the Netherlands and other northern Member States oppose this becoming a general practice and will apply a veto. The British solution, however clever it may be, will hardly be available to many countries in the EU on their own given their high state indebtedness.
Then there is the second question of what to do to assist industry. Failure to give industry proper relief will result in company closures and rampant unemployment, which finally also sparks political protest. In any case, such solutions do not deal with the knock-on effects of vastly increased government borrowing to finance the energy subsidies, something which in the best of times always reduces capital available for other government services and capital available to private business for investment and job creation.
These various problems in dealing with the energy crisis that Europe created for itself by imposing sanctions on Russia may well be intractable and may well lead to spontaneous protests in a number of European countries this fall.
There is no anti-war movement on the Old Continent to speak of. So popular protests over the ‘heat or eat’ dilemma being imposed from the chanceries on the people without anything resembling public debate may be the salvation of us all if they induce war mongering politicans to resign.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022
US and the Two-Front War with Russia and China
By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 10.09.2022
The total powerlessness of the current US authorities (visible even on the face of their president) striving for a unipolar world, against the background of the ongoing removal of the United States from the “global throne,” is forcing mentally exhausted US strategists to jump into more and more failing adventures.
By unleashing a Russophobic sanctions policy and imposing it through Washington’s long-prepared coalition of a “new wave” of pro-American military and political elites in Europe, the United States has not only doomed itself to further defeat – it has also blatantly thrown Europe and its current ruling establishment under the bus by making them responsible for the current financial, economic and energy crisis the US has triggered. As a result, there is growing resentment among Europeans of the policies of their overtly Washington-oriented rulers, which could turn into mass protests in the coming days. These could undoubtedly sweep away not only governments in many European countries, but could also give further impetus to similar political “adjustments” in the United States itself.
And this process of “change” has already begun with demonstrations in Leipzig, Cologne and other German cities against the blatantly “anti-people” policies of Chancellor Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and their overt adherence to instructions from Washington to the detriment of national interests.
Mass protests are sweeping the Czech Republic, as some 70,000 people took to the streets on September 3, dissatisfied with the government policies and capable, according to German newspaper Die Welt, of rocking protest rallies in Germany even further.
Anti-government demonstrations, according to the Independent, also began in Britain, just after Liz Truss was appointed, outside the prime minister’s residence.
Realizing the inevitability of this protest wave spilling over the ocean and the threat of impeachment of the current US administration by Americans, the White House unfortunately sees the chance of prolonging the existence of the current political elite not in adjusting its domestic and foreign policies, but in unleashing a big war, in the expectation that it will serve to justify all the blunders of the authorities.
Meanwhile, the position of the Biden administration has strained US relations with two superpowers, Russia and China, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger stressed in an August interview with The Wall Street Journal. As a member of the old conservative school, Kissinger, despite viewing Russia and China as enemies, takes the “wise” approach of the long-term political and diplomatic game of “pitting” enemies against each other to facilitate the task of defeating them, rather than unleashing a straight war with an unclear end, which he calls an imbalance and dangerous equivocation. “We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger pointed out.
For the past two years, the American establishment has become quite open about its plans to “contain” Russia and China. Specifically, the plan was to first unleash a conflict with Russia at the hands of the US proxies in Ukraine and then finish Moscow off with sanctions, in the hope that it would quickly lose, swallow its pride and bow down to Washington. In the next phase of their confrontation with Moscow and Beijing, the White House “wise men” intended to pit their proxies in Taiwan against China, expecting to defeat the Chinese adversary as well.
Suddenly, however, these plans were thwarted, as were the hopes for Joe Biden’s political and mental longevity. And just as Biden’s doctors’ “energizers” are not helping him, so have the anti-Russian sanctions, which led Europe to an energy collapse, and virtually all of NATO weapons redeployed by Washington to Ukraine not brought about a victory over Moscow. But they have left the EU without arms to ensure its own security, and without gas, for which the Europeans intend to hold accountable not only their own authorities, but Washington as well.
Not fazed by the clear defeat of the chosen strategy, Washington nevertheless intends to place particular emphasis in the near future on unleashing an armed confrontation with Moscow and Beijing in the Pacific theater. In particular, by exacerbating the situation in the Taiwan Strait and pumping more and more weapons into Taiwan, following the Ukraine model, and by switching to a confrontation with Russia in the Far East. A concrete confirmation of these plans was the large article by military analyst Cropsey, posted on the Hong Kong-based online resource Asia Times. It proposes to rectify Washington’s failure in Ukraine by increasing confrontation with the Russian Navy in the Far East, in the hope that something will come of it.
With such provocative and ill-considered policies, the US is heading for a third world war and does not even realize it, The Hill reports.
But the senile “wise men” in the White House are completely oblivious to the fact that Russia and China are now in the best relationship they have ever had. And not only in the sphere of trade and political interaction, but also in the military sphere, conducting regular joint exercises, including in potential hot spots such as the Sea of Japan. Not to mention the combined military potential of the PRC and Russia, including in nuclear weapons. Especially considering that Russian resources and technology plus Chinese industrial production make it possible to replenish their military capabilities almost indefinitely, which cannot be said of NATO.
And in the heat of its phobias and its desire to survive at all costs, Washington does not want to heed warnings about the obvious inadvisability of waging a two-front war, from either its politicians, in particular Henry Kissinger, or from the independent US media (independent of the White House, that is). In particular, The National Interest has shown quite objectively and justifiably that America cannot simultaneously confront China and Russia in a war, because with the current budget deficit America’s military capabilities are insufficient and in these circumstances American “strategists” need to accept the reality of a US defeat in the event of such a military conflict. The publication therefore recommends that instead of trying to challenge and contain Russia and China along their borders and coastal seas, the United States should pursue some, albeit limited, satisfaction of its vital interests through diplomacy.
Germany has ‘stupidest government’ in Europe: MP
© AFP / John MacDougall
Samizdat | September 9, 2022
Germany’s government is the “stupidest” in Europe for managing to embroil itself in a full-blown “economic war” with its top energy supplier, Russia, left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht said on Thursday.
Speaking in the Bundestag, the former co-chair of the party Die Linke (The Left) urged an end to anti-Russian sanctions and the resignation of the country’s vice chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck.
While describing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as a “crime,” Wagenknecht said the anti-Russian sanctions are “fatal” for Germany itself. With energy prices out of control, the country’s economy will soon “just be a reminder of the good old days,” the MP warned, as she urged canceling the restrictions and engaging in talks with Russia.
“We really have the stupidest government in Europe,” she told the parliament, calling for Habeck to resign.
“The biggest problem is your grandiose idea of launching an unprecedented economic war against our most important energy supplier.”
“The idea that we are punishing Putin by impoverishing millions of families in Germany and destroying our industry while Gazprom is making record profits – how stupid is that?” Wagenknecht wondered.
The controversial speech met quite a mixed reaction, with Wagenknecht’s remarks scoring applause in the Bundestag from MPs of polar opposite political views, including members of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD). However, multiple left-wing politicians rushed to distance themselves from Wagenknecht’s statements and condemn her.
“The party’s position on sanctions against Russia was decided at the last federal party conference. There is no ‘economic war against Russia.’ Russia is at war with Ukraine,” the former co-chair of Die Linke, Bernd Riexinger, tweeted, adding that there must be “no doubt” about whom the party backs in the ongoing conflict.
Former left-wing MP Niema Movassat went even further, taking to Twitter to call for Wagenknecht to be excluded from his parliamentary group. The politician’s remarks contradict “a lot of” what the party agrees on, and she should be punished for “acting against” Die Linke, Movassat suggested.
Moscow responds to EU ditching visa deal with Russia
Samizdat | September 9, 2022
Russia is interested in welcoming tourists from all over the world, even from “unfriendly nations,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a conference call on Friday.
Peskov was asked to clarify President Vladimir Putin’s comments on Wednesday that Moscow would not be introducing any visa restrictions on foreign citizens in retaliation for similar measures imposed by the EU.
“The main point that the president was trying to get across was that we will continue to do what suits our interests,” the spokesperson explained, adding that introducing mirror countermeasures against the West is not always in Russia’s interests.
“Of course, illegal, criminal and raider attitudes towards our businesses will be met with reciprocal steps, but these measures will be reasonable and carefully calculated,” Peskov said, noting that Russia welcomes those who are willing to invest in the country.
He added that Russia remains just as inviting to foreign tourists, including those from countries that Moscow considers “unfriendly.”
“After all, people need to see our country and they need to understand that what they are shown and told about Russia in their home countries is a lie,” the Kremlin spokesperson stated, noting that the only way to explain this to people is by inviting them to Russia to see the country for themselves.
Nevertheless, Peskov warned that any “inappropriate behavior” towards Russian diplomats or representatives of Russian foreign delegations would be met with mirror responses in accordance with the reciprocal rule of diplomacy.
The Kremlin’s comments come as the European Council officially announced on Friday that it would be scrapping the so-called Visa Facilitation Deal between Russia and the EU, citing Moscow’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine. The agreement had simplified visa application procedures for Russian citizens.
Starting Monday, however, Russians will have to pay visa application fees of €80, instead of the previous €35, and will have to provide significantly more documentation, endure longer processing times and be subject to much stricter rules for the issuance of multiple-entry visas.
Meanwhile, countries such as Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have announced they would be closing their borders to all Russian tourists, even those with a valid Schengen visa. The only exceptions will be made for those traveling to see relatives or for humanitarian reasons.
Poland destroys economy to strengthen NATO’s eastern border with Russia
Warsaw escalates tensions with Moscow by banning entry of Russian citizens
By Ahmed Adel | September 9, 2022
The statement by Poland that it needs to rearm its troops in preparation for a “war with Russia” in the next few years is intended to attract additional aid and weapons from NATO to strengthen its eastern borders and to modernise its arsenal after it supplied obsolete weapons to Ukraine. However, this comes at the price of destroying the economy and the quality of life of the average citizen.
Poland’s Deputy Defence Minister Marcin Ociepa said that Warsaw sees “the danger of war with Russia” in the next three to ten years and needs to use this time to rearm, “no matter the cost”.
With war waging in Ukraine, Poland wants to show that it is on the front lines in the fight against a supposedly “aggressive Russia” and position itself as a major player in Europe and NATO. Poland in this light is stressing that the EU and NATO need to strengthen its eastern borders.
The Poles freed up their stockpile of obsolete weapons by sending them to Ukraine and now expect new weapons and preferential treatment from Western countries, primarily the United States. The Poles are wanting air defence systems, missile defence systems, potentially new ground forces, and heavy equipment, such as tanks and self-propelled artillery.
This also comes as Poland and the three Baltic states said on September 8 that they would temporarily restrict access for Russian citizens holding EU visas from entering by September 19. Supposedly, this is to address “public policy and security threats.”
The prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland said in a statement they were concerned “about the substantial and growing influx of Russian citizens” into the EU, adding: “We believe that this is becoming a serious threat to our public security and to the overall shared Schengen area.”
The statement said they “agreed on a common regional approach and hereby express their political will and firm intention to introduce national temporary measures for Russian citizens holding visas”, with exceptions only made for “dissidents,” “humanitarian cases,” and family members and holders of residence permits in EU countries.
It is recalled that EU foreign ministers met in Prague last month and agreed to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation deal with Russia, stopping short of a wider visa ban. However, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that countries bordering Russia could “take measures at a national level to restrict entry into the European Union.”
Effectively, in a cowardly way, Borrell allowed the Baltic states and Poland to put roadblocks on Russians from entering the EU. He emphasised that any measures would have to conform with rules for the EU’s Schengen common travel zone and members of Russian civil society should be able to travel to the EU. But clearly this is not the case.
With Poland closing its borders to Russian citizens and demanding the strengthening of its military, it is evident that Warsaw is preparing for an escalation in its relations with Moscow, something that will be enthusiastically backed by the US.
Poland is not an exception to the energy crisis gripping Europe, which is bringing great fears of recession once the winter arrives. US-led sanctions were imposed following the Russian military operation in Ukraine, forcing Moscow to insist that all purchases of energy must be made in the rouble, a demand that Warsaw has rejected. With Moscow’s decision to slash oil and natural gas exports, energy prices in Europe have gone through the roof and sent the cost-of-living soaring.
To deal with this, Poland has turned to Nigeria, already one of its gas suppliers, to increase its LNG shipments. This prompted Poland’s President Andrzej Duda to become the first leader from the Eastern European country to ever visit Nigeria since diplomatic relations were established 60 years ago. However, many remain sceptical that Nigeria, whose economy is badly battered, can meet the European and Polish demand, especially as unprecedented crude oil thefts by militants in the Niger Delta are affecting exports.
More importantly, Poland’s economy is slowing down. A GDP drop to 2.7% is expected in Q3 2022, the Polish Economic Institute (PIE) reported on August 31. This followed from a drop of 8.5 to 5.3% in Q2. The state-owned think tank believes that inflation by the end of Q4 will be at 14.5% but could rise to 15.6% in February 2023 due to rising energy prices.
In this way, Poland is prioritising US interests in pressuring Moscow in the false belief that Russia is preparing to invade the country. This not only highlights that Poland still does not fully understand the reasons for Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, but that it is also willing to destroy the economy and quality of life of the average citizen for the sake of having new weapons and strengthening its military.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
“The Regime of Censorship Being Imposed on the Internet is Dangerously Intensifying in Ways I Believe Are Not Adequately Understood”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 7, 2022
U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald has condemned the Government, media and Big Tech for coordinating to censor dissent. Writing on Twitter on Tuesday, the Intercept cofounder blasted those who have taken advantage of a series of ‘crises’ as a pretext to conspire to suppress their ideological opponents. The searing Twitter thread is reproduced in full below.
The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet – by a consortium of Washington D.C. Democrats, billionaire-funded ‘disinformation experts’, the U.S. Security State, and liberal employees of media corporations – is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood.
A series of “crises” have been cynically and aggressively exploited to inexorably restrict the range of permitted views and expand pretexts for online silencing and deplatforming. Trump’s election, Russiagate, January 6th, Covid and war in Ukraine all fostered new methods of repression.
During the failed attempt in January to force Spotify to remove Joe Rogan, the country’s most popular podcaster – remember that? – I wrote that the current religion of Western liberals in politics and media is censorship: their prime weapon of activism.
But that Rogan failure only strengthened their repressive campaigns. Dems routinely abuse their majoritarian power in D.C. to explicitly coerce Big Tech silencing of their opponents and dissent. This is Government censorship disguised as corporate autonomy.
There’s now an entire new industry, aligned with Dems, to pressure Big Tech to censor. Think tanks and self-proclaimed ‘disinformation experts’ funded by Omidyar, Soros and the U.S./U.K. Security State use benign-sounding names to glorify ideological censorship as neutral expertise.
The worst, most vile arm of this regime are the censorship-mad liberal employees of big media corporations (@oneunderscore__, @BrandyZadrozny, @TaylorLorenz, NYT tech unit). Masquerading as ‘journalists’, they align with the scummiest Dem groups (@mmfa) to silence and deplatform.
It is astonishing to watch Dems and their allies in media corporations posture as opponents of ‘fascism’ – while their main goal is to unite state and corporate power to censor their critics and degrade the internet into an increasingly repressive weapon of information control.
A major myth that must be quickly dismantled: political censorship is not the byproduct of autonomous choices of Big Tech companies. This is happening because D.C. Dems and the U.S. Security State are threatening reprisals if they refuse. They’re explicit.
But the worst is watching people whose job title in corporate HR Departments is ‘journalist’ take the lead in agitating for censorship. They exploit the platforms of corporate giants to pioneer increasingly dangerous means of banning dissenters. These are the authoritarians.
This is the frog-in-boiling-water problem: the increase in censorship is gradual but continuous, preventing recognition of how severe it’s become. The EU now legally mandates censorship of Russian news. They’ve made it illegal for companies to air it.
So many new tactics of censorship repression have emerged in the West: Trudeau freezing bank accounts of trucker-protesters; Paypal partnering with ADL to ban dissidents from the financial system; Big Tech platforms openly colluding in unison to de-person people from the internet.
All of this stems from the classic mentality of all would-be tyrants: our enemies are so dangerous, their views so threatening, that everything we do – lying, repression, censorship – is noble. That’s what made the Sam Harris confession so vital: that’s how liberal elites think.
This is why I regard the Hunter Biden scandal as uniquely alarming. The media didn’t just ‘bury’ the archive. CIA concocted a lie about it (it’s ‘Russian disinformation’); media outlets spread that lie; Big Tech censured it – because lying and repression to them is justified.
The authoritarian mentality that led CIA, corporate media and Big Tech to lie about the Biden archive before the election is the same driving this new censorship craze. It’s the hallmark of all tyranny: “Our enemies are so evil and dangerous, anything is justified to stop them.”
How come not one media outlet that spread this CIA lie – the Hunter Biden archive was ‘Russian disinformation‘ – retracted or apologised? This is why: they believe they are so benevolent, their cause so just, that lying and censorship are benevolent.
The one encouraging aspect: as so often happens with despotic factions, they are triggering and fueling the backlash to their excesses. Sites devoted to free speech – led by Rumble, along with Substack, Callin, and others – are exploding in growth.
But as these free speech platforms grow and become a threat, the efforts to crush them also grow – exactly as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, other Dems and their corporate media allies successfully demanded Google, Apple and Amazon destroy Parler when it became the single most popular app in the country.
It is hard to overstate how much pressure is now brought to bear by liberal censors on these free speech platforms, especially Rumble. Their vendors are threatened. Their hosting companies targeted. They have accounts cancelled and firms refusing to deal with them. It’s a regime.
It’s not melodrama or hyperbole to say: what we have is a war in the West, a war over whether the internet will be free, over whether dissent will be allowed, over whether we will live in the closed propaganda system our elites claim the Bad Countries™ impose. It’s no different.
In even the most despotic nations, the banal, conformist citizen thinks they’re free. As Rosa Luxemburg said: “He who does not move, does not feel his chains.” Of course the Chris Hayeses and Don Lemons think this is all absurd: Good Liberals threaten nobody and thus flourish.
The measure of societal freedom is not how servants of power are treated: they’re always left alone or rewarded. The key metric is how dissidents are treated. Now, they are imprisoned (Assange), exiled (Snowden) and, above all, silenced by corporate/state power (dissidents).
For more than a month, I’ve removed myself from the news cycle and the Discourse because my only priority right now is my family, my kids and my husband’s health. But distance brings clarity. This censorship mania consuming Western liberals is deeply dangerous – and growing.
As I’ve often said, the media outlets screaming most loudly about ‘disinformation’ are the ones that spread it most frequently, casually and destructively (NBC/CNN/Washington Post, etc.). It’s equally true of those now claiming to fight ‘fascism’: real repression comes from them.
I’m going to remain detached until the health crisis in our family is resolved. But internet freedom and free speech are not ancillary causes. They are central. This was the core cause of the Snowden reporting. Without a free internet and free speech, dissent is an illusion.
Above all, stay focused on who your real enemies are. They’re not your neighbours who have been deceived into supporting the wrong party or wrong ideology. They are victims of the repression, which is all about maintaining a closed system of propaganda that can’t be challenged.
The worst of all – the most repugnant and despicable – are those calling themselves ‘journalists’ while doing the opposite of what that term implies: they serve rather than challenge power, they deceive rather than inform, they demand censorship rather than free and open inquiry.
Heap scorn on the corporate outlets and their deceitful, pro-censorship employees abusing the ‘journalist’ label. Read them with full scepticism, or just ignore them. Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it.
At the Daily Sceptic we would of course add climate alarmism and wokery to the list of current pretexts for censorship.
The West Gives Lip Service to Fighting Hunger
By Vladimir Danilov – New Eastern Outlook – 08.09.2022
Although the energy crisis and the impoverishment of Europe’s population due to the Russophobic sanctions policy of European leaders have been the main themes of the Western media in recent weeks, articles on the fight against hunger nevertheless continue to appear.
Above all, media publications are discussing the consequences of the Istanbul package of documents signed on July 22 to tackle the issue of food and fertilizer supplies on world markets in fighting hunger in several parts of the world. It should be recalled that one of the agreements regulates the procedure for grain exports from Kiev-controlled Black Sea ports, based on the need to urgently address the food crisis in developing countries.
The Director of the World Food Program, David Beasley, who spoke to CNN on August 21, said the daily ships carrying Ukrainian grain would solve problems with access to food around the world, improving the situation in Somalia, Ethiopia, northern Kenya and several other poorer countries where it is most needed.
However, as the German magazine Der Spiegel admitted on September 2, despite the UN’s initial stated aims to fight hunger, only 13 of the 63 cargo ships that had left Ukrainian ports as of early September were carrying wheat. According to the publication, the remaining vessels were mainly carrying corn, used overwhelmingly as animal feed or to produce biofuel. A dozen ships were loaded with soybean or sunflower products, which are also mainly used to feed livestock.
In this regard, the interview given on August 18 to the Rossiya Segodnya news agency by Pyotr Ilyichev, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for International Organizations, was quite remarkable. He stressed in particular that the 16 ships that had left Ukrainian ports up to that day, carrying 535,000 tons of wheat and fodder crops, had, to great surprise, gone not to needy developing countries, but to rich countries. In particular, to the UK, Ireland, Italy, France and the Republic of Korea – in other words, the countries which are not threatened by hunger but which need fodder for livestock. At the same time, many experts emphasize that Ukrainian grain, primarily corn, is mainly fodder grain. And such actions publicly neglect the urgent problems of Africa and other world’s poorest countries.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Permanent Representative of Russia to International Organizations in Vienna, said in August that ships carrying grain from Kiev-controlled Black Sea ports were primarily destined for countries not at all threatened by hunger.
On August 23, Vasily Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, pointed out the same fact at a Security Council meeting on conflicts and food security, noting that of all 34 ships with grain that had left Ukraine, only one sailed to Africa, which needs this food. “Here, of course,” Nebenzia pointed out, “it is worth recalling the public image failure of the ‘pioneer’ ship Razoni, which in fact brought to Lebanon not the wheat they had been waiting for, but corn, and at the same time, fodder.” The Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN also stressed that against this background, the reaction to UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ words at the UN Security Council on May 19 that 49 million people in 43 countries are threatened with famine and nearly 140 million people in 10 countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and several African states face severe food shortages, raises a lot of questions. As does the statement by the Secretary-General of the world organization in the port of Odessa that “grain exports and lower prices on global food markets will not bring relief to countries in need that cannot afford to buy it anyway.”
Meanwhile, Western politicians and media continue to persist in promoting the view that the main factor driving up grain prices is the restriction of Ukrainian grain supplies to importers, allegedly due to events in that country. However, an analysis of grain production and supply from Ukraine shows that the special operation currently taking place in that country has very limited influence on the situation with grain supply on the global food market. Because of Ukraine’s record 2021 harvest of grains, pulses and oilseeds, the increased supply of Ukrainian reserves further increases the supply of grain on the market and reduces the price of grain.
Overall, an analysis of the global food market shows that the destabilization of the market is not due to a decline in food production and supply, but to more fundamental causes. As Zhang Jun, Permanent Representative of China to the UN, emphasized at the UNSC meeting on May 19, 2022, “the current crisis once again brings to light the structural problems of the global food system. The world food supply and demand pattern is characterized by food production highly concentrated in a few countries, while consumer countries are geographically well dispersed. This makes the balance of food supply and demand highly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions pandemics, armed conflicts, and other emergency and unforeseen factors.”
Igor Kostyukov, Head of Main Directorate of General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, said in August at a Moscow conference on international security that Western countries were provoking a global food crisis by imposing restrictions on Russia. In particular, he stressed that well-functioning mechanisms for supplying grain and fertilizers to global consumers are being disrupted, leading to artificial price rises on world markets. For example, before the sanctions were imposed, Russia supplied more than 20 million tons of crops and about 11 million tons of fertilizers annually to the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries. However, the West’s current Russophobic sanctions policy has disrupted this logistical process.
The pattern of world hunger is therefore not at all what Antony Blinken and Josep Borrell originally painted. The problem is the emergence of food shortages due to declining yields caused by a shortage of fertilizers from Russia and Belarus. And also because of attempts to impose on Russia, which, unlike Ukraine, is actually one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, restrictions in trade in food, including grain.
It is clear to everyone that rich countries will not suffer too much because of the fall in yields, and that they will solve their food problems by raising prices and eliminating certain products. For example, vegetables, which were available all year round thanks to cheap energy and greenhouse facilities, but in an economic crisis they will simply become seasonal again and unaffordable for most of the population during the cold season because of their price. The “civilized world” will try to solve all its global food problems at the expense of poor countries: food exchange prices will rise and it will be the rich who will buy it back to curb inflation in their own countries and contain popular discontent. Poor countries, on the other hand, may simply get nothing in such circumstances. Of course, the G7 leaders will demonstrate their ostentatious concern for the people of poor countries and even invent “humanitarian programs” whereby, for example, several ships carrying food will be sent to starving regions of Africa, presenting it through the Western media “as a massive operation to save Africans from starvation.” But this will save few, for the only thing that can save is a return of the world to adequate trade rules that do not involve the imposition of unilateral sanctions and other restrictions.
India May Dodge US-Led Coercive Oil Cartel as Part of ‘Strategic Triangle’ With Russia, China – Prof
By Rishikesh Kumar – Samizdat – 08.09.2022
The US hopes India and China will join a coalition seeking a cap on Russian oil prices to reduce their income. However, Delhi and Beijing have so far refused to bow to the pressure.
The US expectation that China and India would join a coalition of countries seeking to impose a price cap on Russian oil at a cheaper price sounds like an admission of failure to convince its close allies to stop buying Russian energy, an Indian expert says.
Swaran Singh, a professor at India’s Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that the refusal to denounce the Russian military operation in Ukraine and increasing Russian commodity imports by India and China “only strengthen their strategic triangle where India is the only exception for keeping close ties with the US.”
On Tuesday, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo claimed that countries like China and India would take advantage of the price cap coalition. However, Singh believes the appeal of the US Treasury Secretary defies elementary logic, prompting him to wonder what makes Adeyemo think Beijing is going to do Washington’s bidding.
“While China has no possibilities of joining hands with the US in curbing prices of Russian oil, even India is least likely to join such a cartel. What is interesting is that there may be dissensions even within US alliance partners,” Singh told Sputnik.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to increase energy ties with Russia. Modi also underlined India’s interests in the areas of pharma and diamonds.
Nirmala Sitharaman, the country’s finance minister, on September 8 lauded Modi’s decision to increase Russian crude imports even in the face of Western sanctions announced by the US and some of its allies in response to Moscow’s special op.
Highlighting the pace at which India ramped up crude oil purchases at a “discounted price,” the Indian finance minister said that Russian crude accounts for 12-13 percent of the total basket, up from below two percent in February. China is the biggest importer of Russian crude oil.
Professor Singh mentioned that China and India are already beneficiaries of Russia voluntarily offering “deep” discounts.
“Why would they (India, China) try coercion to obtain something they have already been getting?” Singh underlined.
He also highlighted that the US and EU countries are themselves struggling to make up for shortages of oil and gas.
“Russia accounts for over 40% of gas and 30% of oil imports of Europe. And as winter approaches, it is Russia that has the power to dictate rather than the other way around,” Singh stated.
Since June, several US officials have visited New Delhi to pressure India to stop buying discounted crude oil from Russia. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken termed India’s cheap oil purchase from Russia as support for Moscow. Despite this, Delhi has maintained that its crude purchases are meant to ensure the country’s national interests.
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From the Archives
“Evidence-based medicine has been hijacked:” A confession from John Ioannidis
Retraction Watch – March 16, 2016
John Ioannidis is perhaps best known for a 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” One of the most highly cited researchers in the world, Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford, has built a career in the field of meta-research. Earlier this month, he published a heartfelt and provocative essay in the the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology titled “Evidence-Based Medicine Has Been Hijacked: A Report to David Sackett.” In it, he carries on a conversation begun in 2004 with Sackett, who died last May and was widely considered the father of evidence-based medicine. We asked Ioannidis to expand on his comments in the essay, including why he believes he is a “failure.” … continue
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