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Ukraine Says Austria “Indulging Putin” For Rejecting EU Membership Bid

BY TYLER DURDEN | ZERO HEDGE | APRIL 25, 2022

Austria has just broken from what was looking like an emerging EU consensus on Ukraine’s membership bid, with Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg announcing Vienna’s opposition on Sunday at the 14th European media summit.

Underscoring Austria’s commitment to neutrality as a central element to Ukraine’s “self-definition”, he asserted that Ukraine’s application for candidate status should be rejected by the 27-country economic and political union.

“We don’t belong to any military alliance and we don’t want to,” he stressed in the speech, instead urging a “different way” for Ukraine to deepen its ties with Europe, strongly suggesting that EU membership for Ukraine would unnecessarily deepen Europe’s involvement in the conflict amid the Russian invasion.

He called Austria “militarily neutral, but not politically” on the issue of the Russian war in Ukraine. Additionally, Schallenberg went so far as to spell out that Ukraine shouldn’t be granted membership even in the future.

As part of current rules and procedures dictating the process, to even start Ukraine’s candidate status, all EU governments would have to unanimously agree.

Schallenberg suggested an alternative that would look something like the EU relationship with Balkan countries:

Austrian publication Heute reported that Mr Schallenberg called for models other than full membership and for more flexibility.

Mr Schallenberg justified his position by saying there are countries in the Western Balkans, who the EU calls “enlargement countries,” who have come a long way without full membership.

As expected, Ukraine’s foreign ministry was quick to slam the statements, calling FM Schallenberg’s position “short-sighted” and ultimately “not in the interests of the united Europe.”

“Such statements also ignore the fact that the vast majority of the population of the EU founding member states support Ukraine’s membership,” Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said.

Kiev also suggested that somehow the government under Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer – who came under some degree of criticism in EU corners for his April 11th meeting with President Putin for “direct, open and tough” talks – is being ‘influenced’ by Russia. Nikolenko suggested Schallenberg’s stance represents Austria “indulging Putin’s aggressive plans.”

Current polling in reporting, however, points to the Austrian public generally wanting to avoid confrontation with Russia:

But around 40% of Austrians consider the government’s position on Ukraine as “on the whole correct,” while 23% believe the government is “too pro-Ukraine” and 17% “too pro-Russia,” according to Heute.

At the same time, once-neutral EU governments like Germany have flipped – going from expressing a strictly neutral status on Ukraine to shipping heavier and heavier arms to Kiev.

April 27, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US wants EU to sanction China for its Ukraine-Russia policy

By Paul Antonopoulos | April 27, 2022

Washington is trying to convince Europe that it has the ability to influence China’s relationship with Russia. However, Beijing’s stance on Ukraine and associated threats from the West are unlikely to deter it from deepening cooperation with Moscow.

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited Brussels from April 19 to 22 and forced the Europeans to listen to Washington’s arguments about the possibility of imposing sanctions on China if it provided material support for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. At an event organised by the US and EU-funded “Friends of Europe” group, Sherman again warned that China would face sanctions similar to those being imposed on Russia.

After Sherman’s meeting with Bjoern Seibert, Chief of Staff for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the State Department said the two sides agreed that they must urge China not to circumvent sanctions against Moscow or offer any support for Russia’s special operation in Ukraine.

Effectively, the US is instructing Europeans on the policies they must adopt to counter Russia’s action in Ukraine, making a mockery of the efforts by French President Emmanuel Macron to create a “strategically autonomous” Europe. Macron’s emboldened announcement of Europe’s “strategic autonomy” from the US was exposed as being nothing more than a buzzword with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine as Paris immediately abandoned all efforts of diplomacy after ignoring Moscow’s years-long complaints regarding Ukraine’s illegal and provocative actions in Donbass. This is on top of imposing sanctions that negatively affect the average European citizen.

For all this talk of “strategic autonomy”, Brussels has just once again demonstrated that it is obedient and submissive to Washington. However, despite the EU imposing sanctions, closing its airspace to Russian planes and delivering weapons to Ukraine, the US is clearly not satisfied and sent Sherman to Brussels to ensure that tougher policies against China are also implemented.

The US at the very minimum hopes to divide European countries as many are still unwilling to provoke China due to trade relations. In the context of the US ignoring all international communication norms and continuing its threats of sanctions against China, Beijing unlikely views this as just renewed verbal attacks.

China is using various channels to convey to its European partners its views on the crisis in Ukraine, as well as on efforts to help the conflicting parties resolve the war peacefully. It is recalled that Beijing sent a diplomatic mission led by Huo Yuzhen, China’s special representative for the China-Central and Eastern Europe Investment Cooperation Fund (CEEC). On April 25, the delegation began its European tour in the Czech Republic, with visits to Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and Estonia also included.

The visit to the Czech Republic is significant since the country will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from July 1 to December 31. In this way, perhaps the comments by Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Martin Tlapa were too hasty when he made de facto statements on behalf of EU members. At a meeting with the Chinese delegation in Prague, he warned that China’s cooperation with Russia could damage its relations with the EU.

Clearly, the Czech diplomat’s desire to please and appease the US overshadowed his own obligation to follow rudimentary political submissions, or perhaps the EU has amended this principle like many other ethical and legal norms due to the crisis in Ukraine?

Although EU officials concede China is unlikely to enforce the broad sanctions imposed on Moscow by a minority of the world’s recognized UN member states, this has not deterred their efforts to lambast and shame countries for their position. Brussels falsely hoped that Beijing could influence Moscow to stop its demilitarization of Ukraine, but hopes were quickly dispelled at an EU-China virtual summit on April 1 that left Western leaders frustrated and angry that they are international pariahs on the Ukraine issue.

A joint EU-US statement following Sherman’s talks in Brussels vowed to push Chinese leaders on issues such as the inadmissibility of sanctions circumvention, and “reaffirmed that such support would have consequences for our respective relationships with China”.

However, Sherman and EU foreign service chief Stefano Sannino avoided answering a journalist’s question on what potential repercussions could be for China. This suggests that the West actually does not have a clear idea on how and why they could punish China for its relationship with Russia and instead it hopes that threats of sanctions could deter their cooperation.

This of course is extremely naïve as sanctions have never made state leaderships of Middle Powers, like North Korea and Iran, collapse or capitulate. Given this fact, there is little prospect that sanctions will achieve the West’s hopes against Great Powers like Russia and China, especially as only just days before the US-EU forum, Chinese vice foreign minister Le Yucheng assured Russian ambassador Andrey Denisov of Beijing’s aim to “deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic coordination”.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

April 27, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

The White House is Turning the War in Ukraine into a New Gold Rush

By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 27.04.2022

The Americans have a saying that every new president needs his own “splendid little war.” They understand perfectly that a war of that kind will enrich the incoming political and military establishment and also solve many social and financial problems in the country, not least unemployment, and help reduce foreign debt.

The political establishment has found it easy to arrange matters behind the back of the indecisive and ailing 46th US president, Joe Biden (about whose mental acuity many, both in the US and internationally, are now seriously concerned), and continue the work of previous administrations in drawing Russia deeper into the Ukrainian crisis.

As a result, Washington clearly has no interest in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict, and in provoking its escalation into outright war the White House has found itself forced to put together an anti-Russian coalition and supply more and more consignments of arms to the Ukrainian government.

On March 2, 2022 Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian Foreign Minister, claimed that Ukraine had “mobilized an international anti-war coalition, which already has at least 86 states and 15 international organizations” and that “19 countries are giving weapons to Ukraine.” And in a briefing on March 8 Pentagon Press secretary John Kirby confirmed that Ukraine was receiving weapons form 15 countries, including the USA.

The press briefing, published on the official web site of the US Department of Defense, stated that the United States had committed more than $4 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including $3.4 billion since the beginning of Russia’s special operation! According to the briefing, the US had provided security assistance including 700 Switchblade drone systems, 16 Mi-17 helicopters, more than 1,400 shoulder-launched Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, 183,000 155mm Howitzer artillery rounds and 72 tactical vehicles to tow them, 200 armored personnel carriers, 121 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones and more than 7,000 small arms. The Pentagon is also providing the Ukrainian armed forces with 5,100 Javelin anti-tank missiles and more than 14,000 “other anti-tank systems.”

As for the claim that representatives of the US military and political establishment have a financial stake in the Ukrainian conflict, it is enough to take the example of the Javelins. According to a number of US experts and industry publications, the US has provided Ukraine with approximately a third of its stock of Javelin anti-tank missiles. Significantly, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has taken personal charge of supplying the Javelins to Ukraine. The reason is clear – he has long been closely linked to the manufacturer, and is now able to place government orders for these weapons. And with Javelin stocks steadily decreasing, the US army has requested new supplies, which means that Lloyd Austin is placing new orders, and may soon be making a big profit from these transactions.

Let us now look at the articles that have appeared in the US media – clearly planted by the Pentagon – suggesting that the transfer of the US’s supplies of Javelins may damage its own defense readiness, as there is the risk that remaining stocks may be insufficient to respond in the event of an “unexpected conflict.” Naturally, articles of this type are a form of propaganda, aimed at promoting the interests of the Department of Defense and of its head, Lloyd Austin. Currently the US army is not directly engaged in conflict, and is therefore able to replace its reserves of these weapons without difficulty. And by stepping up production volumes, Washington is able to boost its profits and create new jobs.

Many of the Javelins that have fallen into the hands of the Russian, PRD and PRL armies during the current conflict have an expiry date of 2022. Many media have reported on an embarrassing incident in the Yavoriv training ground, while US military specialists were instructing Ukrainian soldiers in the operation of the Javelin system – using a Javelin whose service life had expired. After firing the missile, the missile, fortunately without its warhead attached, fell to earth, almost under its users’ feet.

In other words, the war in Ukraine will, for a long time to come, boost the wealth of members of the United States’ political and military elite, including Pentagon officials, as they offload old stock, attract new orders from other countries, and embroil Washington in the “remote conflict” of their own creation. As for the European governments, US puppets who are supplying more and more of their own arms to Ukraine at Washington’s behest, they will, in the end, start to realize that this policy is harming them. By providing military assistance they are merely serving to draw out Russia’s military operation and tighten the financial noose around their own necks – which is one of the USA’s main goals. For, as a result of Washington’s rush to pressurize them into supplying Kiev with “sponsored military support,” in the end the European nations’ own arms reserves will run low, and they will be forced to restock by ordering new armaments from the USA.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the US government is standing on the sidelines and watching on with glee – it knows that when Europe and Nato need to replenish their arsenals, it will be the US military industrial complex that gets the contracts. And, in their joy the heads of the armament industry are drinking themselves into oblivion.

According to a recent article in The Independent, the arms companies are rushing to cash in on this new “gold rush” triggered by the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. While to pickings from supplying arms to Kiev may be fairly modest, remilitarizing Europe would bring the US arms manufacturers huge profits. And the arms bosses have already started making promises to their shareholders and talking to the media about the profits to be gained from this project. Countries such as Germany, committed to a policy of pacifism since the end of World War II, are now trying to reform their militaries. Germany has already ordered 35 F-35 fighters, the most modern combat aircraft, from the American manufacturer Lockheed Martin, as well as 60 Chinook CH-47F heavy transport helicopters from the US aerospace giant Boeing.

Poland’s Ministry of Defense has signed a contract for the purchase of 250 US-made Abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tanks, the latest version of this vehicle. It has also signed an agreement for logistical and training support, including training for tank teams. In total, it has budgeted some $6 billion for the purchase of these tanks. According to the Polish army, this is its largest arms purchase since the Second World War.

To make sure no-one else benefits from this new Gold Rush the US intends to coordinate the international supply of arms to Ukraine, and to this end is organizing a conference on Ukraine at the United States European Command in Stuttgart, as reported by the German news television channel Welt.

April 27, 2022 Posted by | Corruption | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden Cynically Uses Ukraine to Cover Food Sabotage

By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern outlook -26.04.2022

It’s beginning to look like some bad actors are deliberately taking steps to guarantee a coming global food crisis. Every measure that the Biden Administration strategists have been making to “control energy inflation” is damaging the supply or inflating the price of natural gas, oil and coal to the global economy. This is having a huge impact on fertilizer prices and food production. That began well before Ukraine. Now reports are circulating that Biden’s people have intervened to block the freight rail shipping of fertilizer at the most critical time for spring planting. By this autumn the effects will be explosive.

With the crucial time for USA spring planting at its critical phase, CF Industries of Deerfield, Illinois, the largest US supplier of nitrogen fertilizers as well as a vital diesel engine additive, issued a press release stating that, “On Friday, April 8, 2022, Union Pacific informed CF Industries without advance notice that it was mandating certain shippers to reduce the volume of private cars on its railroad effective immediately.” Union Pacific is one of only four major rail companies that together carry some 80% of all US agriculture rail freight. The CF company CEO, Tony Will stated, “The timing of this action by Union Pacific could not come at a worse time for farmers. Not only will fertilizer be delayed by these shipping restrictions, but additional fertilizer needed to complete spring applications may be unable to reach farmers at all. By placing this arbitrary restriction on just a handful of shippers, Union Pacific is jeopardizing farmers’ harvests and increasing the cost of food for consumers.” CF has made urgent appeals to the Biden Administration for remedy, so far with no positive action.

Direct sabotage

CF Industries noted that they were one of only thirty companies subject to the severe measure, which is indefinite. They ship via Union Pacific rail lines primarily from its Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana and its Port Neal Complex in Iowa, to serve key farm states including Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and California. The ban will affect nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), as well as diesel exhaust fluid, DEF (called AdBlue in Europe). DEF is an emissions control product required for diesel trucks today. Without it engines cannot run. It is made from urea. CF Industries is the largest producer of urea, UAN and DEF in North America, and its Donaldsonville Complex is the largest single production facility for the products in North America.

At the same time, the Biden gang has announced a fake remedy for record high gasoline pump prices. Washington announced the EPA will allow a 50% increase in corn-based biodiesel and ethanol fuel mix for the summer. On April 12 the Secretary of Agriculture announced a “bold” initiative by the US Administration to increase the use of domestically-grown corn-ethanol biofuels. Secretary Tom Vilsack claimed the measure would “reduce energy prices and tackle rising consumer prices caused by Putin’s Price Hike (sic) by tapping into a strong and bright future for the biofuel industry, in cars and trucks and the rail, marine, and aviation sectors and supporting use of E15 fuel this summer.”

Only the capitalized “Putin Price Hike” is not a result of Russian actions, but of Washington Green Energy decisions to phase out oil and gas. The energy price inflation is also about to go vastly higher in coming months owing to US and EU economic sanctions on export of Russian oil and likely gas. However the central point is that every acre of US farmland dedicated to growing corn for biofuels removes that food production from the food chain, to burn it as fuel. Since passage of the 2007 US Renewable Fuel Standards Act, which mandated annually rising targets for production of corn for ethanol fuel blends, biofuels have captured a huge part of total corn acreage, more than 40% in 2015. That shift, mandated by law, to burning corn as fuel had added a major price inflation for food well before the covid inflation crisis began. The USA is by far world’s largest corn producer and exporter. Now to mandate a significant increase in corn ethanol for fuel at a time of astronomical fertilizer prices, and fertilizer rail shipping are being blocked reportedly by White House orders, will send corn prices through the roof. Washington knows this very well. It is deliberate.

No wonder the price of US corn reached a 10-year high in mid-April, as exports from Russia and Ukraine, major sources, are now blocked by sanction and war. Aside from the energy-inefficient use of US corn for biodiesel supply, the latest Biden ethanol initiative will add to the growing food crisis while doing nothing to lower US gasoline prices. A major use for US feed corn is as animal feed for cattle, pigs and poultry as well as for human diets. This cynical biofuel order is not about US “energy independence.” Biden ended that in his first days in office by a series of bans on oil and gas drilling and pipelines as part of his Zero Carbon agenda.

In what is clearly becoming a US Administration war on food, the situation is being dramatically aggravated by USDA demands for chicken farmers to kill off millions of chickens in now 27 states, allegedly for signs of Bird Flu infection. The H5N1 Bird Flu “virus” was exposed in 2015 as a complete hoax. The tests used by the US government inspectors to determine bird flu now are the same unreliable PCR tests used for COVID in humans. The test is worthless for that. US Government officials estimate that since first cases were “tested” positive in February, at least 23 million chickens and turkeys have been culled to allegedly contain the spread of a disease whose cause could be the incredibly unsanitary cage confinement of mass industrial chicken CAFOs. The upshot is sharp rises in prices of egg by some 300% since November and severe loss of chicken protein sources for American consumers at a time when overall cost of living inflation is at a 40-year high.

To make matters worse, California and Oregon are again declaring water emergency amid a multi-year drought and are sharply reducing irrigation water to farmers in California, who produce the major share of US fresh vegetables and fruits. That drought has since spread to cover most agriculture land west of the Mississippi River, meaning much of US farmland.

US food security is under threat as never before since the 1930s Dust Bowl, and the Biden Administration “Green Agenda” is doing everything to make the impact worse for its citizens.

In recent comments US President Biden remarked without elaborating that the US food shortages are “going to be real.” His administration also is deaf to pleas of farmer organizations to allow cultivation of some 4 million acres of farmland ordered left out of cultivation for “environmental reasons. However this is not the only part of the world where crisis in food is developing.

Global Disaster

These deliberate Washington actions are taking place at a time a global series of food disasters create the worst food supply situation in decades, perhaps since the World War II end.

In the EU, which is significantly dependent on Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for feed grains, fertilizers and energy, sanctions are making the covid-induced food shortages dramatically worse. The EU uses its foolish Green Agenda as an excuse to forbid the Italian government from ignoring EU rules limiting state aid to farmers. In Germany, the new Green Party Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, who wants to phase out traditional agriculture allegedly for its “greenhouse gas” emissions, has given farmers who want to grow more food a cold response. The EU faces many of the same disastrous threats to food security as the USA and even more dependence on Russian energy which is about to be suicidally sanctioned by the EU.

The major food producing countries in South America, especially Argentina and Paraguay, are in the midst of a severe drought attributed to a periodic La Niña Pacific anomaly that has crippled crops there. Sanctions on Belarus and Russia fertilizers are threatening Brazil crops, aggravated with bottlenecks in ocean transport.

China just announced that owing to severe rains in 2021, this year’s winter wheat crop could be the worst in its history. The CCP also has instituted severe measures to get farmers to expand cultivation to non-farm lands with little reported effect. According to a report by China watcher Erik Mertz, “In China’s Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning provinces, officials have reported one in three farmers lack sufficient seed and fertilizer supplies to begin planting for the optimum spring window… According to sources within these areas, they are stuck waiting on seed and fertilizer which have been imported to China from overseas – and which are stuck in the cargo ships sitting off the coast of Shanghai.” Shanghai, the world’s largest container port, has been under a bizarre “Zero Covid” total quarantine for more than four weeks with no end in sight. In a desperate bid by the CCP “ordering” increased food production, local CP officials throughout China have begun transforming basketball courts and even roads into cropland. The food situation in China is forcing the country to import far more at a time of global shortages, driving world grain and food prices even higher.

Africa is also severely impacted by the US-imposed sanctions and war ending food and fertilizer exports from Russia and Ukraine. Thirty five African countries get food from Russia and Ukraine. Twenty two African countries import fertilizer from there. Alternatives are seriously lacking as prices soar and supply collapses. Famine is predicted.

David M. Beasley, executive director of the UN World Food Program, declared recently on the global food outlook, “There is no precedent even close to this since World War II.”

Notably, it was the Biden Treasury Department that drew up a list of the most comprehensive economic sanctions against Russia and Belarus, pressuring a compliant EU to dutifully follow, sanctions whose impact on global grain and fertilizer and energy supply and prices was entirely predictable. It was in effect a sanction on the US and global economy.

These are but the latest examples of deliberate US Government sabotage of the food chain as part of the Biden Green Agenda, of Davos WEF, Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation, as part of their dystopian Great Reset eugenics agenda. Traditional agriculture is to be replaced by a synthetic lab grown diet of fake meats and protein from grasshoppers and worms, worldwide. All for the supposed glory of controlling global climate. This is truly mad.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University.

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

The Dynamics of Escalation: ‘Standing With Ukraine’

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 25, 2022

As it dawns on the West that whereas sanctions are deemed capable of bringing countries to their knees, the reality is that such capitulation never has occurred (i.e. Cuba; North Korea; Iran). And, in the case of Russia, it is possible to say that just ain’t going to happen.

Team Biden still has not fully grasped the reasons why. One point is that they picked precisely the wrong economy to try to collapse via sanctions (Russia has minimal foreign supply lines and oodles of valuable commodities). Biden’s staffers too, have never comprehended the full ramifications of Putin’s monetary jujitsu linking the rouble to gold, and the rouble to energy.

They condescend to Putin’s monetary jujitsu as yet another forlorn strike versus the dollar’s ‘impregnable’ reserve currency status. So they choose to ignore it, and assume that if only the Europeans would take fewer hot showers, wear more woollen jumpers, forego Russian energy, and ‘stand with Ukraine’, the economic collapse finally would materialise. Hallelujah!

The other reason why the West misconstrues the strategic potential of sanctions is that the Russia-China war on western hegemony is assimilated by its peoples to be an existential one. For them, it is not just about taking fewer hot showers (as for Europeans), it is about their very survival – and consequently their pain threshold is much, much higher than the West’s. The west is not going to smoke their challengers out so ridiculously easily.

At bottom, the Russia-China axis possess food, energy, technology and most of the world’s key resources. History teaches that these elements make the winners in wars.

The strategic problem though, is two-fold: Firstly, the window for a Plan ‘B’ de-escalation via a political deal in Ukraine has passed. It is all or nothing now (unless Washington folds). And secondly, albeit in slightly differing context, both Europe and Team Biden have elected to take the stakes sky-high:

The conviction that the European liberal vision faces humiliation and disdain, were Putin to ‘win’, has taken hold. And in the Obama-Clinton-Deep State nexus, it is unimaginable that Putin and Russia still regarded as the author of Russiagate for many Americans, might prevail.

The logic to this conundrum is inexorable – Escalation.

For Biden, whose approval ratings continue to tank, disaster looms in the November mid-terms. The consensus amongst U.S. insiders is that the Democrats are set to lose 60–80 seats in Congress, and a small handful (4 or 5 seats) in the Senate too. Were this to come about, it would not be just a personal humiliation, but would token administrative paralysis for the Democrats until the notional end of Biden’s term.

The only possible path out from this approaching cataclysm would be for Biden to pull a rabbit from the Ukraine ‘hat’ (one that, at the very least, would distract from soaring inflation). The Neo-cons and the Deep State (but not the Pentagon) are all for it. The arms industry naturally are loving Biden’s laundering weapons into Ukraine (with huge ‘spillage’ somehow vanishing into ‘the black’). Many in DC profit from this well-funded boondoggle.

Why are we seeing such euphoria over such a seemingly reckless scheme of escalation? Well, strategists suggest that were the Republican leadership to go bi-partisan on escalation – become complicit in ‘more war’, as it were – they argue that it might prove possible to stem Democratic losses in the mid-terms and blunt an Opposition campaign assault focussed on a mismanaged economy.

How far might Biden go with this escalation? Well, the arms splurge is a no-brainer (another boondoggle), and Special Forces are already in theatre, poised to light a fuse to any escalation; moreover, the mooted no-fly zone seems to have the added advantage of enjoying European support, particularly in the UK, amongst the Baltics (of course) and from the German ‘Greens’, too. (Spoiler Alert! First, of course, in order to implement any no-fly zone, it would be necessary to control the airspace – which Russia already dominates, and over which it implements full electronic-magnetic exclusion).

Would this be enough? Dark voices are advising not. They want ‘boots on the ground’. They even talk of tactical nukes. They argue that Biden has nothing to lose by ‘going big’, especially if the GOP are persuaded to become accomplices. Indeed, it might just save him from ignominy, they urge. U.S. military insiders already point out that the arms supply will not ‘turn around’ the war. A ‘lost war’ must be avoided going into November at all costs.

Is such a consensus for escalation realistic? Well, yes, it is possible. Recall that Hillary (Clinton) was the alchemist who fused the 1980s Neoconservative wing to the 1990s Neoliberals to create an interventionist broad-tent that could serve all tastes: Europeans could imagine themselves wielding economic power in a globally significant way for the first time, whilst the Neo-cons have resurrected their insistence on forceful military intervention as the requisite to maintaining the rules-based order. The latter are cock-a-hoop that financial war is failing.

From the Neo-cons’ perspective, it puts military action firmly back on the table and with a new ‘front’ opening: The Neo-cons today, precisely are questioning the premise that a nuclear exchange with Russia must be avoided at all costs. And from this shift away from the prohibition on actions that could trigger a nuclear exchange, they say that circumscribing the Ukraine conflict on such basis is unnecessary and a strategic error – asserting that in their view, Putin would be unlikely to resort to nuclear weapons.

How can this Neo-con-Liberal interventionist élite superstructure wield such influence when the broader American political class historically has been ‘anti-war’? Well, the Neo-cons are the archetypal chameleons. Loved by the war industry, a regular loud presence on the networks, they rotate in and out of power, with the ‘China hawks’ nesting in the Trump corridors, whilst the ‘Russia hawks’ are migrated to populate the Biden State Department.

Is escalation already ‘baked-in’? There may yet be one iconoclastic ‘fly in the ointment’: Mr Trump! – through his symbolic act of endorsing J.D. Vance for the GOP Senate Primary in Ohio, against the wishes of the GOP Establishment.

Vance is one (amongst many) representatives of America’s populist tradition seeking office in the coming Congressional ‘churn’. But the salience here is that Vance has been questioning the rush to escalation in Ukraine. Many other would-be populist contenders among the GOP’s new crop of interesting senators and senators-in-waiting already have succumbed to GOP old-establishment pressure to endorse war. (Boondoggles again).

The GOP is divided on Ukraine at its upper representational level, but the popular base traditionally is sceptical of foreign wars. With this political endorsement, Trump is nudging the GOP towards opposing escalation in Ukraine. Ross Douthat in the NY Times confirms that the Vance endorsement connects more closely to the sources of Trump’s 2016 popularity, as he mined the anti-war sentiment amongst the deplorables, whose focus more is with caring for their own country’s welfare.

Shortly after the endorsement, Trump issued a statement:

“It doesn’t make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren’t sitting down and working out some kind of an agreement. If they don’t do it soon, there will be nothing left but death, destruction, and carnage. This is a war that never should have happened, but it did. The solution can never be as good as it would have been before the shooting started, but there is a solution, and it should be figured out now—not later—when everyone will be DEAD!”, Trump said.

Trump effectively is wedging apart the possible key fault-line for the coming elections (even if some GOP panjandrums – many of whom are funded by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) – favour a more robust military involvement).

Trump too, always has an instinct for an opponent’s jugular: Biden may be highly attracted to the argument for escalation, but he is known to be sensitive to the thought of body-bags coming home to the U.S. before November becoming his legacy. Hence Trump’s exaggeration that sooner rather than later, everyone in Ukraine “will be DEAD!”.

Again, the fear amongst Democrats with military understanding is that the western weapons airlift to the borders of Ukraine will not change the course of war, and that Russia would prevail, even were NATO to engage. Or, in other words, the ‘unthinkable’ will occur: The West will lose to Russia. They argue that Team Biden has little choice: Better to bet on escalation than to risk losing all with a debacle in Ukraine (particularly after Afghanistan).

To eschew escalation presents such a challenge to the American missionary psyche of global leadership that momentum for it may not be overcome through Biden’s innate caution alone. The Washington Post already is reporting that “the Biden Administration is shrugging off fresh Russian warnings against providing Ukrainian forces with more advanced arms and new training – in what appears to be a calculated risk Moscow won’t escalate the war”.

The EU élites, by contrast, are not just persuaded (Hungary and one faction in Germany, apart) by the logic of escalation, they are frankly intoxicated by it. At the Munich Conference in February, it was as if the EU leaders were intent on out-bidding each other in their enthusiasm for war: Josep Borrell re-confirmed his commitment to a military solution in Ukraine: “Yes, normally wars have been won or lost on the battlefield”, he said upon arrival for a meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, when asked to comment on his previous statement that “this war will be won on the battlefield”.

Their euphoria is centred around the belief that the EU – for the first time – is wielding its economic power in a globally significant way, and, at the same time, enabling and arming a proxy war against Russia (through imagining the EU as a real Carolingian empire, actually winning on the battlefield!).

The euphoria of the EU élites – so completely de-coupled from national identities and local interests, and loyal rather to a cosmopolitan vision in which men and women of consequence network endlessly amongst themselves and bask in their peer approval – is opening deep polarisation within their own societies.

The unease arises among those who do not regard patriotism, or a scepticism towards today’s Russiaphobia, as necessarily ‘gauche’. They are concerned that perception-delimited EU élites, advocating sanctions on Russia and NATO engagement with a nuclear power, will bring disaster to Europe.

The Euro-élites are on a crusade – too highly invested in the emotional charge and euphoria of the Ukraine ‘cause’ to have even considered a Plan ‘B’.

And even if a Plan ‘B’ were to be considered, the EU has less of a reverse-gear than the U.S. The Brussels zeitgeist is set in concrete. Structurally, the EU is incapable of self-reform, or of radically changing course and wider Europe now lacks the ‘vessels’ through which decisive political change can be effected.

Hold onto your hats!

April 25, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU commission sued over Covid-19 vaccine secrecy

Samizdat | April 23, 2022

Five Green MEPs are suing the European Commission over its ultra-secretive vaccine contracts, arguing that the heavily redacted versions released by the EC “made it impossible to understand the content of the agreements,” in a statement published Friday.

“Secrecy is a breeding ground for distrust and skepticism, and it has no place in public agreements with pharmaceutical companies,” Margrete Auken, a Danish MEP involved in the suit, declared, adding that “the European Commission’s refusal to provide transparency on its vaccine contracts affects the public’s confidence in the EU’s ability to obtain the best possible outcome for its citizens.”

The MEPs are demanding the details of the contracts the EC signed with vaccine-makers BioNTech, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax, including price per dose, advance payments, conditions for vaccine donations, liability, and indemnification matters.

“Purchases made with public money should come with public information, definitely in matters of health,” Dutch MEP and party to the lawsuit Kim van Sparrentak said in the group’s statement, noting that “confidentiality under the guise of trade secrets only fuels uncertainty and fear.”

In addition to Auken and van Sparrentak, the MEPs signing on to the suit are Tilly Metz (Luxembourg), Jutta Paulus (Germany), and Michele Rivasi (France), the chair of the parliament’s committee on Covid-19.

The lawsuit, filed in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, comes as EC President Ursula von der Leyen revealed that every EU member state would be required to adopt EU Digital Covid Certificates, a digital health passport issued to those with proof of vaccination, a negative PCR test, or proof of recovery from Covid-19. While the validity period for such certificates was due to lapse at the end of June, the EC is not only renewing it another year, but making it mandatory for all 27 EU countries from July 1. Only 15 are currently using it, according to von der Leyen.

The move comes despite many EU states winding down their Covid-19 restrictions, moving away from some of the stricter measures imposed in the first 18 months of the pandemic. Germany, which had initially sought to require all citizens over the age of 60 to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, has been forced to axe those plans after they were voted down in the Bundestag, though the country’s health minister has warned that the government may reimpose mask mandates, as he expects infections to increase in the fall.

In response to the lawsuit, the EC has insisted it cannot reveal the contracts it signed with the vaccine-makers back in 2020, claiming “the commission is in the business of respecting contracts.” At the time, EU lawmakers who wanted to see the contracts were prohibited from taking notes and forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Much of the world seemed to be headed for mandatory Covid-19 vaccination six months ago. However, the realization that despite their manufacturers’ initial promises, the vaccines were no magic bullet – not only incapable of stopping the spread, but incapable of preventing further infection – has cooled public fervor for mandates. Health concerns and complaints of discrimination against the unvaccinated have also contributed to the backlash. However, the manufacturers, as well as most officials, continue to insist that the vaccines are “safe and effective.”

April 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Bavaria to introduce ‘eco-token’ to reward ‘environmentally conscious behavior’

Free West Media | April 22, 2022

MUNICH – In Bavaria, in the course of the creeping establishment of a climate dictatorship, climate-friendly good behavior will soon be rewarded with an “eco-token”. It is nothing more than a points system to indirectly punish unruly citizens.

This new control system is to be introduced later this year. This is a project that was first described in the Bavarian “Climate Protection Offensive” of 2019, has been in preparation for a long time and is designed to “promote sustainable behavior in everyday life by rewarding environmentally conscious action”.

Specifically, a documentation system is to be developed in which users can collect bonus points for “environmentally conscious behavior” in the form of sustainability tokens. These can then be redeemed at swimming pools or theaters, for example. For better implementation, a state office and a financial service provider are involved.

Unstoppable

Even if these are only the first steps of a model that can be expanded – and is intended to be expanded – it will not be long before even more companies, cultural and leisure facilities and ultimately government agencies will grant privileges for “climate protectors” (or supporters of coercive state measures). At a certain point, social “privileges” will inevitably be those things which are now taken for granted.

The Corona crisis, as the perfect blueprint for this development, has already ensured through 2G/3G apartheid rules or compulsory masks that fundamental rights and even bodily autonomy can easily be suspended by the state and Corona profiteers.

Similar programs are being implemented not only at EU level, but also within the member states: In Austria, the “ID Austria” app was introduced, which records driving licenses, passports and one’s own car. The entire identity is linked to the smartphone as is the “pilot project” of a “Smart Citizen Wallet” in Bologna, Italy.

April 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

“Operation Thermostat”: Energy rationing & the pivot from Ukraine to climate?

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | April 22, 2022

Italy is officially becoming the first country to start rationing energy after cutting their supply of Russian gas and oil.

From next month, until at least March 2023, public buildings across the nation will be banned from running air conditioning at lower than 25 degrees, or heating higher than 19 degrees.

The plan, termed “Operation Thermostat” in the press, is being sold as a way for ordinary people to show “solidarity” with the people of Ukraine, with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi saying:

Do we want to have peace or do we want to have the air conditioning on?”

I’m not exactly sure how adjusting your thermostat is going to achieve ‘peace’, but hey we’re living in the age of sentimental manipulation over reason, so – just believe.

For example, the Guardian is illustrating the story with pro-peace artwork allegedly done by Italian schoolchildren (in English, for some reason).

There’s no talk yet of this kind of energy-rationing rule extending to private businesses or homes, but a marker has been set down. Expect other nations to follow suit.

After that of course will come the opinion pieces asking questions like “we rationed gas to fight Putin, why not climate change?”, and headlines saying that “Europe-wide gas rationing was good for the planet” or something similar.

… Oh wait, it’s already happening.

Honestly, when I originally wrote the above paragraph I had no idea the Wall Street Journal had published this opinion piece for Earth Day, headlined:

This Earth Day, We Could Be Helping the Environment—and Ukraine”

It argues that rationing energy to fight Putin is just like digging for victory to fight Hitler, and – just as I predicted – would also be good for the planet:

During the Second World War, victory demanded more oil […] In the wars dominating the globe today — Putin’s land grab in Ukraine, and the global land grab caused by rising sea levels and spreading deserts — victory demands getting off fossil fuels as fast as we possibly can.

It even hints at a quasi-lockdown – this time for the sake of beating Putin and combating climate change:

Everyone who can work from home could continue to do so, at least on, say, Mondays, knocking a day off the national commute. Carpools could be organized, taking special advantage of the fact that there are now two million electric cars on the road. More bike paths could be made available, and, when air-conditioning season begins, Americans could turn their thermostats up a degree.

Remember lockdowns were marketed as planet-saving almost from the moment they were put in place, despite it making almost zero sense. The agenda was pretty obvious right from the start.

It’s interesting that “operation thermostat” should be announced on April 22nd – Earth Day – despite having zero to do with climate change. It’s also noteworthy that climate protests groups have piggy-backed on the idea to call for an EU-wide boycott of Russia’s fossil fuels.

We already know they planned a “pivot from covid to climate”, and moves like this mean they can easily “pivot from Ukraine to climate” too.

April 22, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Russian airlines told to prepare to fly without GPS

Samizdat | April 22, 2022

Russia’s air traffic regulator has told carriers to learn to fly their planes without relying on the American Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite-based-navigation facility, newspaper Izvestia reported on Friday.

According to the letter from the regulator, Rosaviatsia, which was seen by the paper, it has instructed national airlines to prepare to cope without GPS after a March report by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which warned of increased cases of jamming and spoofing of the system’s signal after February 24 – the day Russia started its military offensive in Ukraine.

These were apparently registered in such areas as Russia’s western enclave, the Kaliningrad Region, the Baltics, eastern Finland, the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and northern Iran.

The interference has led to some planes changing their course or destination as the pilots were unable to perform a safe landing without the GPS, EASA has reportedly said.

According to Rosaviatsia, carriers should evaluate the risks of GPS malfunction and provide additional training to its pilots on how to act in such situations. The crews have also reportedly been told to instantly inform traffic control about any problems with a satellite navigation system.

The letter from the agency should be treated as a recommendation only and doesn’t constitute a ban on the use of GPS by the Russian airlines, the paper clarified.

Several Russian carriers, including major ones like Aeroflot and S7, have confirmed receiving a relevant message from the traffic regulator. However, they insisted that they didn’t encounter any problems with GPS over the past two months.

Rosaviatsia later clarified that “disconnection from GPS or its disruption won’t affect flight safety in Russia.”

The GPS signal isn’t the only source of information about the location of a plane at any given moment. Crews can also rely on the aircraft’s inertial navigation system, as well as ground-based navigation and landing systems, the agency said.

Last month, Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, warned that Washington may well disconnect the country from GPS as part of draconian sanctions imposed on it over the conflict in Ukraine.

On Friday, Rogozin took to Telegram to propose switching all of the country’s commercial planes from GPS to its Russian counterpart, Glonass.

However, it might be a complicated thing to do as Boeing and Airbus planes, mainly used by the country’s carriers, are designed to solely support the GPS technology.

April 22, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Greece seizes Russian oil tankers’

Samizdat | April 19, 2022

Greece seized a Russian oil tanker in the Aegean Sea on Tuesday as part of European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow over the war in Ukraine, Kathimerini daily has reported.

According to the newspaper, the Russian-flagged Pegas ship, with 19 crew members on board, was seized on April 19 near the coastal city of Karystos on the southern coast of the island of Evia.“It has been seized as part of EU sanctions,” a shipping ministry official was quoted as saying.

A coastguard spokeswoman told AFP that the seizure order concerned the ship itself and would not affect its cargo.

Greek media had reported earlier that the vessel faced engine trouble and was being escorted by a tugboat towards the Peloponnese, but was forced to moor at Karystos due to poor weather.

According to the Maritime Bulletin portal, another Russian tanker, VF Tanker 2, was detained earlier near Euboea due to EU sanctions. The vessel reportedly left the port of Piraeus on April 17, bound for Russian Kavkaz port in the Black Sea, but for some unknown reason ended up in Karystos Bay.

The European Union, of which Greece is a member, has adopted a wide range of sanctions against Moscow. They include import and export bans for a wide array of goods, as well as an embargo on access to EU ports by Russian-flagged ships. Russian oil aboard those ships has not been sanctioned.

April 19, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

EU Exhumes 18 Year Old Embezzlement Charges to Derail Le Pen Presidential Bid

By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | April 18, 2022

Presumably as part of a deliberate effort to derail her presidential chances, the European Union has exhumed 18-year-old embezzlement charges against Marine Le Pen.

“The EU’s anti-fraud body has accused French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and associates of embezzling around 600,000 euros during their time as MEPs,” reports AFP.

The National Rally leader is personally accused of embezzling “around 137,000 euros ($150,000) worth of public money from the Strasbourg parliament when she was an MEP between 2004 and 2017.”

Le Pen’s lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut dismissed the charges, adding that the “timing” of them was suspicious.

Noting that the report relates to “old facts more than ten years old,” Bosselut highlighted how Le Pen “has not been summoned by any French judicial authority” to answer the charges.

“I’m surprised by the timing of such a strong disclosure and the instrumentalisation,” said Bosselut.

The EU has chosen to resurrect the old claims just days before the final round of the French presidential election, in which Le Pen will face off against incumbent Emmanuel Macron.

Although still a long shot, recent polls had shown Le Pen closing the gap on Macron, causing consternation amongst globalist technocrats.

Given the context, the EU dragging up old charges is clearly an act of election interference intended to tarnish Le Pen before this weekend’s vote.

As we previously highlighted, after Hungary’s Viktor Orban won re-election in a landslide, the EU responded by slapping sanctions on the country as a form of punishment for the electorate exercising their democratic will.

April 18, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine requests $50bn in aid

Samizdat | April 17, 2022

Ukrainian economic adviser Oleh Ustenko has requested $50 billion in financial support from the G7 countries to cover the budget deficit created by the military conflict with Russia in a television address on Sunday. He said Kiev is also considering issuing 0% coupon bonds to bridge the fiscal gap.

In the meantime, the World Bank is preparing a $1.5 billion support package for Ukraine. The loan will include a $1-billion payment from the development lender’s fund for the poorest countries. The funding comes on top of about $923 million in fast-disbursing financing approved by the World Bank last month.

The US and NATO have also been sending billions of dollars Ukraine’s way, although in the form of military aid rather than cash. The Biden administration just this week approved yet another $800 million in weapons, ammunition, and other military assistance including artillery systems, rounds, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters. It comes less than a month after the Biden administration sent an $800 million bundle of anti-aircraft systems, firearms, ammo, and body armor Kiev’s way on March 16.

Washington’s contribution has been matched by that of the European Union and several individual member states, including Germany and Sweden, some of which have violated their own long-standing policies of not supplying lethal aid to countries at war by flooding Ukraine with anti-tank weapons, Stinger missiles, and armored vehicles, among other military equipment.

However, even amid a constant stream of military aid by the US and NATO allies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted a video calling for the rest of the world to #ArmUkraineNow – complete with a very specific grocery list of desired equipment. Should countries fail to deliver, the Ukrainian leader claimed, Poland, Moldova, Romania, and the Baltic states would quickly fall under the tank treads of the Russian army.

Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

Russia has repeatedly stated it has no plans to even occupy Ukraine, let alone invade neighboring nations, but the talking point has become a favorite for Zelensky. The president has likened the invasion of his country to various events in World War II, including Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust, as well as the September 11th terror attacks in his efforts to convince the rest of the world to open their hearts as well as their bank accounts to the plight of his country.

April 17, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

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