Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Will ‘Insane’ Biden Provoke World War III Before November Election?

By John Miles – Sputnik – 12.09.2024

The last several years have brought the United States closer to conflict with a nuclear-armed power than any time since the 1960s, one former CIA analyst claimed.

Lasting from the end of World War II until the early 1990s, the Cold War saw the United States and the USSR locked in a global competition for power and influence. Although the two superpowers never went to war directly, the 45-year period was marked by two proxy conflicts in Vietnam and Korea and a constant fear that a third World War was not far away.

Tensions were heightened by the fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons, dramatically raising the stakes of global conflict.

Both countries nearly saw their worst fears realized during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it appeared the US and USSR were unwilling to back down over the issue of nuclear missiles being placed just miles from each country’s border in Cuba and Turkey. The incident led to the establishment of a special hotline for US and Soviet leaders to communicate directly, and caused US President John F. Kennedy to remark that tensions between nuclear powers must never again rise to such a level.

For decades, Kennedy’s maxim was dutifully observed as both countries worked to improve relations, finally culminating in the end of the Cold War.

The prospect for nuclear confrontation was avoided until recent years, claimed former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, when the United States rejected Russian overtures for a new European security architecture and stubbornly insisted Ukraine’s coup regime would be granted entry into NATO. The analyst joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to consider whether US President Joe Biden is willing to risk global conflict to reverse Kiev’s flagging fortunes on the battlefield.

“They want to provoke Putin [into] doing something really drastic before the election, before the [presidential] election here on November 5th,” suggested McGovern, a critic of neoconservative US foreign policy.

“They’re losing in Kursk [region],” he noted, referring to Ukraine’s stalled incursion into Russian territory. “What were they trying to do? They were trying to get the Russians to react in such a way as to bring the US in with both feet militarily.”

“What’s this business about [Ukraine] begging for longer range missiles?” McGovern continued. “Same objective.”

Ukraine’s Western sponsors have repeatedly escalated the country’s conflict with Russia, gradually providing Kiev with more powerful weapons and granting it permission to strike within Russian territory. This has increasingly culminated in attacks on Russian civilians; perhaps most provocatively a strike on a beach in the city of Sevastopol that injured 124 people, including 27 children, and killed three people, including two children.

Some 500 Russian civilians have been killed by the Ukrainian regime in 2024 alone as the country continues to rely on the support of neo-Nazi formations such as the notorious Azov Battalion*. Kiev’s provocative attacks seem tailor-maid to produce a harsh response, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far sought to avoid any attack likely to draw the United States or Ukraine’s European allies directly into the conflict.

“My fear is that [the United States] will try something really drastic like a false flag attack or maybe even a mini nuke,” said McGovern, concerned that the US could fabricate an episode such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident that drew the country into the Vietnam War. “Let’s see what happens the next couple of weeks. I think Putin is right. It’s only the smart thing to see who wins on the 5th of November. Till then, I’m still holding my breath.”

But McGovern warned that the consequences of the United States’ strategy in Ukraine could fall not on the US itself, but on its European allies.

“It’s really hard to know what Biden and [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, who are running things, really think,” he claimed. “Some of my best friends and analysts think they’re insane. And it’s really, really hard to predict what they’re going to do if they’re insane.”

“The Europeans are being told by the Russians, ‘look, if Biden, Blinken and Sullivan opt for a tactical nuclear weapon, for God’s sake, please, please remember we got them too. And where will we use them? We’ll use them in Europe,’” McGovern said, summarizing Russia’s possible response.

“So I think when this is directed at the Europeans, saying, ‘look at what happened to your fellow country in Europe, Ukraine. You want the same thing to happen to you? So, please, rein these guys in.’”

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin: Russia May Restrict Export of Strategic Materials in Response to Unfriendly Powers’ Actions

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 11.09.2024

Despite slapping Moscow with an unprecedented sanctions regime in 2022, European countries and the United States continue to rely on vast quantities of Russian energy and strategic materials, including gas and uranium, importing them to prevent spiking prices and shortages from wrecking their economies.

Russia is a world leader in the production of an array of strategic minerals, from natural gas, gold and diamonds to uranium, titanium and nickel, and should “think about” whether it’s possible to reduce the export of the latter three resources in response to unfriendly countries’ actions against Russia, President Vladimir Putin has said.

Speaking at a meeting with government ministers on Wednesday, Putin asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to look into the idea and report back, stressing that any proposed restrictions should not be “to one’s own detriment.”

“Mikhail Vladimirovich, I have a request for you: please look at some types of goods that we supply in large quantities to the world market – the supply of a number of goods to us is being restricted. Well, perhaps we should also think about certain restrictions – on uranium, titanium, nickel,” Putin said.

“In some countries, strategic reserves are being created, and some other measures are being taken. In general, if this does not harm us, we should think…about certain restrictions on supplies to the foreign market,” he added.

“I am not saying this needs to be done tomorrow, but we could think about certain restrictions on supplies to the foreign market not only of the goods I mentioned, but also of some others,” Putin said.

The ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine has reduced, but not fully stopped, economic exchange between Russia and Western countries, with the US continuing the purchase of Russian uranium for its vast network of nuclear power plants, and gas continuing to flow via a pipeline in Ukraine to customers in Hungary and Slovakia, and shipped west aboard tankers in the form of LNG. Concurrently, a number of Western companies have refused to leave the Russian market, continuing to sell their wares to Russians despite sanctions and other restrictions put in place by their own governments. Some Russian observers have suggested that it’s long past time for Russia to halt economic cooperation with countries fueling the proxy war in Ukraine, in favor of ramped up trade ties with the BRICS bloc and other friendly countries in the Global South.

September 11, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Germany’s Neglect of National Interests & a Pending Nationalist Backlash

By Glenn Diesen | September 10, 2024

Security competition is the main source of conflict in the international system, as states pursuing national interests and security for themselves often undermine the security of other states. The ability to transcend nationalism by pursuing a more cosmopolitan world order is thus an attractive proposition. For Germany, with its destructive history of radical ethno-nationalism and fascism, idealist internationalism has an immense appeal.

However, is it possible to transcend power competition when the state is the highest sovereign? Should aggressive power politics be addressed by ignoring national interests or managing competing national interests? Cosmopolitanism and liberal idealism do not transcend power politics and create a global village, rather it results in the neglect of national interests and subordination to foreign powers. Aggressive nationalism will likely be the predictable backlash to ignoring national interests.

In the early 19th century, Germans fell under the lure of international idealism and failed to defend national interests. Cultural nationalism and economic nationalism became instruments for the Germans to balance the French and restore dignity and national interests. Two centuries later, Germany is yet again not capable of pursuing national interests until it decouples from American cosmopolitanism, universalism and hegemony. It seems likely, that history will repeat itself as Germany will return to cultural and economic nationalism or be condemned to vassalage and irrelevance.

German Subordination to France

In the late 18th and early 19th century, France represented a cosmopolitan universal civilisation in which development meant becoming more like France. Napoleon could thus find some people willing to support him in all countries, although internationalist initiatives usually served a French national cause.

When Napoleon invaded in the early 19th century, some German princes surrendered their sovereignty and national interests to the French with great enthusiasm. In what became known as the “shame of the princes”, many German rulers welcomed Napoleon’s annexation of the West bank of the Rhine. A combination of receiving economic compensation and fawning over France resulted in the German princes abandoning national interests and their dignity.

The Germans and other Europeans became increasingly concerned about France and the obedience demanded by allies under the Napoleonic Continental System. Under the guise of internationalism and cosmopolitanism, a system developed that was primarily for the benefit of French manufacturers. The cultural fawning over France resulted in Germans failing to further develop their own culture. While the French had promised peace under its leadership, the Europeans instead had constant war as they became instruments of war to be used against the British.

What was the solution? Germany began to pursue cultural sovereignty and economic sovereignty as conditions to restore dignity, national interests, and political sovereignty. The cosmopolitan philosophy of Voltaire and a common path to cosmopolitanism and universal civilisation were challenged by the philosophy of Johann Gottfried Herder, who argued that cultural differences should be preserved to contribute to the richness of humanity.[1] Culture is a specific link between a distinctive people required for social cohesion and societal dignity. Herder cautioned that imitation of foreign cultures made the people shallow, artificial, and weak. In Russia, there were similar concerns that imitating French culture undermined Russia’s unique development and its ability to contribute something new to the world.

Economic sovereignty was also a requirement, as Friedrich List recognised that excessive economic dependence also undermined political sovereignty:

“As long as the division of the human race into independent nations exists, political economy will as often be at variance with cosmopolitan principles… a nation would act unwisely to endeavour to promote the welfare of the whole human race at the expense of its particular strength, welfare and independence”.[2]

German Subordination to the US

Following the Second World War, the pendulum swung in the opposing direction as German national power had to be dressed up in internationalist initiatives. As Chancellor Helmut Schmidt argued in 1978, it was:

“German foreign policy rests on two great pillars: the European Community and the North Atlantic Alliance… It is all the more necessary for us to clothe ourselves in this European mantle. We need this mantle not only to cover our foreign policy nakednesses, like Berlin or Auschwitz, but we need it also to cover these ever-increasing relative strengths, economic, political, military, of the German Federal Republic within the West”.[3]

The pillars of German development were also a prison to ensure its subordination to the US. In the words of Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, acknowledged that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.[4] The historical role of Britain and the US had always been to prevent Germany and Russia from getting too close as it would form a centre of power capable of challenging the dominance of the maritime hegemon at the periphery. Peacetime alliances that contain and perpetuate the weakness of adversaries also ensure the dependence and obedience of allies. Much like its French predecessor, the US appeals to cosmopolitanism and universalism to manage an international system that upholds a US national cause.

Germany in Decline

Until recently, Germany had become known as the industrial engine that was driving European economies forward, while it had seemingly learned from its history by attempting to elevate liberal democratic principles above power politics.

This era is seemingly over as Germany has transformed itself in a remarkably short period of time. Germany fails to defend its basic national interests, its economy is deindustrialising, society becomes more pessimistic, the political leadership has rediscovered enthusiasm for war, German tanks are yet again burning in Kursk, there are some signs of political violence to come, the freedom of expression is undermined, and the political upheaval opens the door to political alternatives that the government rejects.

The German economic model has been broken as Germany cut itself off from Russia as a source of cheap energy and a huge export market for manufactured goods. Washington is also increasingly pressuring Germany to sever its economic ties with China as well, resulting in a less competitive economy and excessive reliance on the US. Germany’s submissiveness was demonstrated by the deafening silence when its key energy infrastructure was destroyed by allies (the US and Ukraine), while European allies such as the Czech Republic referred to the attack as legitimate and Poland told Germany to stay quiet and apologise for having built the pipeline. As Germany deindustrialises and its economy declines, the US has responded by offering subsidies to German industries that will move across the Atlantic to the US.

At the heart of the problem is that Germany no longer sufficiently defends its national interests. As the public flees to alternative media and new political parties, the government does not know how to respond. Police appear on the doorsteps of journalists, and protesters are beaten by the police for protesting a genocide in Palestine that Germany has supported with arms shipments. German Foreign Minister felt comfortable declaring that Ukraine will continue to receive support “no matter what my German voters think”. The media is dismissive of political violence against Sahra Wagenknecht on the political left, which is to some extent justified by arguing she is actually on the political right. On the actual political right, the AfD is surging to fill the vacuum left behind by an incompetent government without a plan, and the political-media elites have responded to the surge by discussing whether this opposition party should be banned. The rise of the AfD is compared to the rise of Hitler, yet the AfD is pushing for a negotiated peace in Ukraine while the government has backed military solutions.

The EU is also acting deeply irrationally in the Ukraine War. The Europeans used to recognise that the American ambition to pull Ukraine into the orbit of NATO would result in another European war. In 2008 the Europeans attempted to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine for this reason. In the words of Angela Merkel, Moscow would interpret the attempt to bring Ukraine into NATO as “a declaration of war”. Yet, they went ahead with the promise of future membership in 2008 to appease Washington. After destabilising the Ukrainian government, the Europeans were guarantors for a unity government in Kiev in 2014, but then betrayed this agreement for stability as the US pushed for a coup instead. After a war broke out in Donbas as a direct result of the coup, the Germans and French negotiated the Minsk Peace Agreement but then later admitted it was only to buy time to arm Ukraine. When Russia invaded in 2022, the Europeans were yet again silent as the US and Britain sabotaged the Istanbul Peace Agreement and instead pushed for war.

Even as Ukraine is losing the war, the Europeans do not want to discuss restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. Instead, the incoming EU foreign policy chief argues there should not be any diplomacy with Russia as Putin is a “war criminal”, and she has defined victory as breaking up Russia into many smaller nations. Hungary has attempted to restore diplomacy and negotiations and Orban travelled to Kiev, Moscow and Beijing. The EU responded by punishing Hungary. Subsequently, the EU has limited itself to the unachievable objective of defeating the world’s largest nuclear power and a vital trading partner, while rejecting any diplomatic solutions.

Resolving the problems of Germany and the EU requires some reflection on the European security architecture that was built over the past 30 years. The decision to redivide Europe and incrementally move these dividing lines to the East was a recipe for collective hegemony – not peace or stability. In the words of President Bill Clinton in January 1994, we cannot afford “to draw a new line between East and West that could create a self-fulfilling prophecy of future confrontation”.[5] Expanding NATO triggered a new Cold War over where the new dividing lines should be drawn in Europe. This has nothing to do with liberal democracy, and everything to do with advancing a unipolar world order that has now come to an end. Continuing down this path ensures that Europe will transition from a subject of security to an object of security. Reversing the path to irrelevance requires admitting the mistakes made over the past 30 years that were celebrated as virtuous politics. Without any correction, the EU will tear itself apart and Germany will continue declining in relevance.

A Nationalist Backlash to Come?

The failure to defend national interests leaves a vacuum for nationalist political forces. Nationalism can be a movement for national liberation, sovereignty, freedom and prosperity in the spirit of Johann Gottfried Herder. However, times of crisis can also produce uglier forms of nationalism. Either way, a political correction (or over-correction) will eventually come.

[1] .G. Herder book in 1784 “Ideas of the Philosophy of the History of Mankind”.

[2] List, F. 1827. Outlines of American Political Economy, in a Series of Letters. Samuel Parker, Philadelphia, p.30.

[3] Bundesbank. ‘EMS: Bundesbank Council meeting with Chancellor Schmidt (assurances on operation of EMS) [declassified 2008],’ Bundesbank Archives, N2/267, 30 November 1978.

[4] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm

[5] https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/ga6-940109.htm

September 10, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Germany and the EU Abandon Reason

Michael von der Schulenburg, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

Odysee
Glenn Diesen | September 9, 2024

We had a discussion with Michael von der Schulenburg – a German top diplomat with the OSCE and 34 years in the United Nations. The topic of discussion was the transformation of Germany and the war in Ukraine. Michael von der Schulenburg argues the EU must change course on Ukraine or risk tearing itself apart.

Michael von der Schulenburg and Harald Kujat (the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee) criticised NATO for provoking the war and sabotaging the peace agreement to use Ukrainians to fight and weaken a strategic rival. Germany is now de-industrialising, the political elites have rediscovered enthusiasm for war, the US and Ukraine attacked Germany’s critical energy infrastructure which EU partners consider to be legitimate, society is growing more pessimistic, freedom of speech is undermined, there are signs of political violence, and new political alternatives are emerging that are not acceptable to the government. Michael von der Schulenburg argues the EU no longer behaves as a rational actor. Where did it all go wrong?

September 9, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU gears up to punish Slovakia – Bloomberg

RT | September 9, 2024

The EU is reportedly moving forward with its threat to withhold funds from Slovakia in retaliation over Bratislava’s removal of a special graft prosecutor in a recent round of criminal code reforms. Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused Brussels of political bias.

Sources cited by Bloomberg on Sunday said the European Commission is considering several options to penalize Bratislava financially. One proposal would involve a so-called conditionality mechanism, allowing the freezing of some the €12.8 billion ($14.2 bn) allocated to Slovakia under the EU’s cohesion program. Brussels may also “claw back” all or part of the €2.7 billion ($3 bn) in Covid-19 grants Bratislava has received from the bloc.

Slovakia’s special prosecution unit, the USP, was created in 2004 and shut down in March of this year. Its last leader, Daniel Lipsic, also served as the justice minister in the government that ousted Fico’s first cabinet from power in 2010. During his successful run to become prime minister for a third time in 2023, Fico accused the USP of targeting his nationalist Smer-SD party with politically motivated probes.

”This evil in the form of Lipsic must end, and we are doing that forcefully and thoroughly,” Fico told journalists in December 2023, after winning the election.

Opposition party Progressive Slovakia accused the premier of seeking “impunity and revenge” with a “blitzkrieg against the rule of law”.

The European Commission warned Bratislava in February that its reform would have “a direct and significant negative impact on EU law and the Union’s financial interests,” according to a letter to Slovak Justice Minister Boris Susko, quoted by the media.

Brussels previously used the conditionality mechanism to punish Hungary for perceived backsliding on the rule of law. Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Fico have both accused Brussels of infringing on the sovereignty of member states and mishandling the Ukraine crisis.

After the Slovakian anti-graft body was scrapped, EU sources indicated that the bloc would not be hasty in punishing Bratislava.

”Currently, we don’t see Slovakia as a major problem in foreign affairs, as regards handling Ukraine for example,” an EU diplomat told Reuters at the time. Another official said Hungary’s alienation served as an example for the bloc.

The wider Slovakian reform was suspended for months, while the Constitutional Court deliberated on the issue. After it approved most of the changes in early June, parliament tweaked the legislation in what Susko called an attempt to mitigate the risk of retaliation by the EU.

September 9, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia offsets Ukraine’s Kursk offensive

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 8, 2024 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has outwitted the West by his  response to Ukraine’s Kursk offensive one month ago, which was widely celebrated as a tipping point in the conflict. The conflict is indeed at a tipping point today, but for an entirely different reason insofar as Russian forces seized the folly of Ukraine’s deployment of its crack brigades and prized Western armour to Kursk Region to reach an unassailable position in the most recent weeks in the battlefields, which opens the door for multiple options going forward. 

On the contrary, the West finds itself in a ‘Zugzwang’, a situation found in chess whereby it is under compulsion to move when it would rather prefer to pass. 

Putin’s address to the plenary of the 9th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday was eagerly awaited for what he had to say on the conflict in Ukraine. Several things stood out. 

Putin no longer characterised the Ukrainian interlocutors as the ‘Kiev regime.’ Instead, he used the expression ‘Kiev government’. And he summed up: “Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never given up on this.” Was he being a taunting poser, as the Kremlin leader who has tangoed with four American presidents already, expects a fifth with an “infectious” laugh, which makes him “happy.” 

On a serious note, though, Putin took note that the “official authorities” in Kiev have regretted that if only they had followed up on the “signed official document” negotiated with Russian representatives at the Istanbul talks in March 2022 “rather than obeyed their masters from other countries, the war would have come to an end long ago.” 

Putin implied that Kiev must regain its sovereignty. The conciliatory words were measured, possibly with an eye on the unravelling of  political alignments within the ruling dispensation in Kiev. That is to say, Putin rejects Zelensky’s Ukrainian settlement process, but is willing to revive negotiations on terms first discussed at talks in Istanbul in March 2022 at the start of conflict.

Putin went on to discuss potential mediators. He singled out 3 BRICS member countries — China, Brazil, and India. Putin said Russia has “trusting relations” with these countries and he himself is in “constant contact” with his counterparts with a view “to help understand all the details of this complex process.” 

Evidently, Putin is distressed that he is “constantly” being told by them about the human rights situation due to the conflict, Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s national sovereignty and so on. He regretted that they overlook the genesis of the conflict — the 2014 US-backed coup d’etat in Ukraine which was resisted by native speakers of Russian language, and over suppression of Russian culture and Russian traditions.

Fundamentally, Putin stressed, the West hoped to “bring Russia to its knees, dismember it… (and) they would achieve their strategic goals, which they had been striving for, maybe for centuries or decades.” In the given situation, therefore, Russia’s strong economy and military potential are its “main guarantee of security”. [Emphasis added.] 

In such a scenario, what are the prospects going forward? Putin is sceptical about the West’s intentions. Yet, conceivably, he pampered the three mediator-countries who are also Russia’s key BRICS partners at the forthcoming Kazan summit next month (which is expected to focus on an alternative payment system for international trade.) 

Moscow is wary that the BRICS partners are beating their luminous wings in the void without comprehending that the conflict in Ukraine is a civilisational war that has been going on for centuries since the Slavic peoples began developing their own Orthodox churches through more than half of Christian history.  

Putin is a master tactician. Therefore, he will insist that Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine — which is, of course, also a statement of fact — given the growing pressure on Russia from the Global South. But Putin does not harbour any hopes of Zelensky meeting the pre-requisites conducive to peace talks, which Putin had outlined at a meeting with the senior officials of Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14. If anything, new ground realities have since appeared. 

This becomes clear from a TV interview Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave in Vladivostok after Putin’s speech. Lavrov drew the bottom line: “Vladimir Zelensky is not ready for honest talks. The West will not let him near them. They have set the goal, if not to dismember the Russian Federation (even though this was stated as a goal), then to at least radically weaken it and to inflict a strategic defeat on us. The West will not allow him to make steps towards us. Zelensky is no longer able to understand what meets the interests of the Ukrainian people, since he has repeatedly betrayed them.”

Zelensky himself is zigzagging. He took a hard line in remarks at the meeting of the so-called Ramstein Format hosted by the US on Friday that brought together generals and defence ministers from 50 countries to coordinate on arms supplies for Kiev. Zelensky lamented that prohibitions on firing long-range, Western-provided missiles and rockets into Russia persisted. He’s now taking his case to President Biden.

Zelensky’s attendance in person at the Ramstein event “highlighted the sensitivity of the moment in a new, more active phase of the war,” as the New York Times reported. The daily quoted a Ukrainian expert commenting that “The main task of Zelensky at Ramstein is to bring some adrenaline to the partners.” 

Indeed, the situation surrounding Zelensky is unenviable — the sluggish delivery of Western weaponry; Germany’s wavering stance during a budget crisis even as the eastern regions comprising former GDR openly opposes the war against Russia; France, an ardent supporter of the war, is caught up in a political crisis and an early presidential election next year may produce an anti-war leadership in Élysée Palace; the post-November 5 trajectory of US policies on Ukraine remain uncertain. 

Meanwhile, US-European differences have surfaced regarding Washington’s egotistic proposal that the EU give a $50 billion loan to Ukraine and ensure that Russia’s frozen assets remain frozen until Moscow pays post-war reparations to Ukraine. Washington estimates that this way, the US won’t be on the hook for repaying the loan if the Russian assets somehow are unblocked. (The rules governing existing EU sanctions, which need to be renewed every six months, allow a single country to unfreeze assets, which Washington believes jeopardises the loan.) 

In Donbass, events vindicate Putin’s strategy that a  crushing defeat on Ukrainian troops on the most crucial sectors of the front would inevitably lead to Zelensky’s entire armed forces losing combat capacity. In fact, signs of this happening are already there. 

Putin said with quiet confidence that Zelensky “accomplished nothing” from the Kursk offensive. The Russian forces have stabilised the situation in Kursk and started pushing the enemy from border territories while the Donbass offensive is “making impressive territorial gains for a long time.” In retrospect, Zelensky’s Kursk offensive turned out to be a Himalayan blunder, which has taken the war to a tipping point favouring Russia.

In this context, the extraordinary first-ever joint piece by the spy chiefs of CIA and Mi6 which appeared in Saturday’s FT shows that beneath  word play and hyperbole, the Anglo-American strategy is in a cul-de-sac. Bill Burns and Richard Moore cannot even bring themselves to articulate what Biden’s objectives are despite admitting that “staying the course is more vital than ever.” 

Burns and Moore hinted that covert (terrorist) operations by Krylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, are the option left now in the proxy war. What a Shakespearean fall for a superpower!

September 8, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU shifting back towards Russian energy – Welt

RT | September 2, 2024

Russia has overtaken the US to once again become the second-largest supplier of natural gas to the EU, Die Welt reported on Sunday, citing analysis. The German newspaper added that the symbolism of the development is “huge.”

Brussels declared the elimination of its reliance on Russian energy as one of its key priorities after hostilities in the Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022. Expensive US liquified natural gas (LNG) filled up a large portion of the market, exacerbating economic crises throughout the EU.

In the second quarter of 2024, Russian gas accounted for roughly 17% of all EU imports, just ahead of supplies from the US, Welt noted, citing the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel. According to its figures, European customers received 12.27 billion cubic meters of US LNG over that period or time, while Russia delivered 12.73 billion cubic meters to the bloc.

The Russian supplies include both LNG and pipeline gas, which flows to the EU via Belarus and Ukraine and through the TurkStream undersea gas pipeline. Kiev, which receives transit fees for fuel delivered through its territory, has threatened to suspend operations after the current contract expires at the end of 2024. However, it has indicated that it is open to third nations, such as Azerbaijan, stepping up their use of Soviet-built infrastructure.

Dmitry Birichevsky, head of the economic cooperation department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, has described the gas import dynamics as a testament to the failure of EU sanctions policy.

“While it’s true that the indicators are significantly lower than before 2022, the facts speak for themselves,” he told RIA Novosti on Monday. “Greece alone has ramped up the purchase of Russian gas fourfold over 2023.”

The US has sought to replace Russia as an energy supplier to Europe since before the Ukraine conflict. The administration of President Donald Trump infamously branded American LNG “molecules of freedom”, when it pressured the EU nations to select it over Russian gas. Norway has historically been the top supplier of gas to the market.

Moscow now considers the EU an unreliable customer, which has shown that it is willing to let US political goals trump its economic needs.

“Under the circumstances of the de facto economic war declared on us, our plans to redirect foreign trade to the nations of the Global South and East remain a priority,” Birichevsky said.

September 2, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Danish Justice Minister Under Fire for Pushing Encryption Ban While Using It

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 31, 2024

The unprecedented case of the attack on Telegram via the arrest of Pavel Durov – and the nature of the charges against him – has clearly emboldened not only the lovers of censorship (such as the EU) but also the enemies of encryption (the EU).

Encryption itself has long been in the crosshairs in the bloc, but also in various individual countries in Europe individually, and others around the world. This push to undermine encryption – despite it being the key component of security, and privacy online – is habitually justified as necessary for law enforcement to do its job.

Now EU member Denmark is trying to come for end-to-end encryption, and not only Telegram, but also Signal, WhatsApp, and others. In this particular instance, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard’s preferred course of action would be to just block these apps (perhaps as a stopgap measure) rather than taking the much longer path of building encryption backdoors.

Judging by reports in the Danish press, Hummelgaard wants to use this moment to further increase pressure on encrypted services, unsurprisingly giving “fighting crime” as the reason.

And while Hummelgaard considers such services as “safe havens” for criminals (it’s the same as saying states are safe havens for criminals because criminals operate in them), a large number of Danish MPs use encrypted apps – according to an investigative report in frihedsbrevet.dk, at least 70. (The country’s parliament has 179 seats).

To make matters even more absurd, Hummelgaard was (or still is) one of them.

And now those perplexed by his idea to block encrypted messengers are calling for him to “lead by example” and make his own messages publicly available – if that is, private communications are an evil that justifies resorting to blocking apps.

Reports quote Danish Reddit users making this suggestion, with one sarcastically noting that this shouldn’t be a problem – “surely he has nothing to hide, and therefore nothing to fear?”

The push around the world to get encrypted apps to “cooperate” by allowing the authorities to expand mass online surveillance to them as well, is defended by those sympathetic toward such policies as the need for “transparency” and “accountability.”

August 31, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

EU Tightens Grip on Telegram With New Probe Following France Arrest

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 31, 2024

The EU is putting additional pressure on Telegram, after one of its member countries, France, arrested the platform’s co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov.

The EU has launched an investigation into the number of users the platform has in the bloc, and whether the number reported by Telegram is correct.

The importance of this is the EU’s ability to censor using the Digital Services Act (DSA), which applies services with over 45 million users.

In February, Telegram said that their number is 41 million, but the EU has chosen precisely this moment to start looking for ways to determine if this reporting was accurate – or, more likely, try to prove that it isn’t.

The EU Commission’s Joint Research Center is tasked with the job, while there are “ongoing talks with the app” regarding the way it arrived at its figure, the Financial Times writes, without expanding on the “ongoing talks” point.

EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier is quoted as saying that the EU “has a way” to determine whether Telegram’s reporting is true, using “our own systems and calculations.”

If the result of the investigation is that Telegram had lied, that is, that the number of users is 45 million or more – the EU will “unilaterally” declare it a very large platform, subject to the sweeping censorship rules contained in the DSA.

Saying that the decision can be made unilaterally and based only on the EU’s own investigation using its own agency to audit these figures means that the bloc is giving itself the right to, in an untransparent way, declare a platform the subject of the DSA.

One of DSA’s key purposes is to enforce the EU’s policy of even more tightly controlling the social media space, and a provision in the law states that those considered to be very large platforms must “disclose” what they are doing to counter “disinformation” and “misinformation.”

The Financial Times says that globally, Telegram has close to 1 billion users, with Asia as the largest market, and that in an interview with the publication earlier in 2024, Durov said the number of users is “roughly proportionate” with the size of different markets or continents.

August 31, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Masochistic Naivete: Another Great Danger

NewZealandDoc | August 28, 2024

Long covid may or not be a chimera, but the long reach of covid certainly isn’t, as I have learned from an unexpected situation that involved the gratuitous remarks of a covidian doctor here that created difficulties for me. I am hopeful, however, of a positive resolution to this unnecessary development.

This incident merely strengthened my belief that the enemy we are up against, large and small, local and global, is unprincipled, lawless, low, and, given the measures unleashed against the world in the name of protecting us from a danger they created in the first place — dangers heaped upon dangers! — murderous.

If ever I believed in the trustworthy authority of the major media, having grown up on Time, Life, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, NBC in my early youth, and, later, on The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books et al. in my later years, that belief has been smashed into a thousand pieces as I watched all of them drop the veneer and flash the biceps of complete and utter fraudulence in our faces, day in, day out, relentlessly. I now ignore them completely.

If ever I believed in fair play and the rule of law, the inconstant application of justice has shaken some sense into me. What kind of system inveigles a Reiner Fuellmich into an arrest and incarceration, or deceptively seduces the founder of Telegram into an apprehension? Need I mention the numerous illegitimate legal attacks against a former President of the United States, still ongoing? Need I mention the attempt to murder him in the cold light of day? Should I hark back yet again to New Zealand’s use of stormtroopers to invade and disperse the Parliament Protests of 2022?

Should I mention the UK arrests for social media expressions of free speech, or the many and multifarious ways that Big Social Media have censored those whose political inclinations or opinions had been targeted by the governments they had a right to criticize? It has become nearly comic to listen to and watch presenters on YouTube who resort to code words to evade algorithms that would punish their channels?

Dare I refer to the unnecessary wars and the horrific numbers of the dead in the Ukraine and the Middle East, promoted so enthusiastically by the ‘liberal’ so-called democratic Left in the United States, not to mention the openly authoritarian EU?

By the strange contorted logic of our ‘now’, universal inoculation, active armed conflict, and perpetual fear of pandemics mark the road to … to the well-regulated world ordained by some occult globalist racketeers for their own benefit.

Given all of the above, one would think that any vestiges of naivete would be gone as we figure out a way to save ourselves. It’s an interesting word, ‘naive’ — coming as it does from the Latin nativus, and meaning, essentially, being innocent or artless as a newborn babe in the corrupt and devious system devised by humankind to regulate itself. When we use the phrase ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’ we’re saying we’re not naive.

Yet I can’t count how many times so many friends have expressed astonishment at each new depredation and each miscarriage of justice, and how so many still have faith in a legal system that has been commandeered by our enemies. I can’t count how many times people will say, about the latest jab-implicated adverse event, ‘this will turn the tide!’ Or how many game-changers there have been that have only resulted in the game going on with even more ferocity against our cause.

While I believe that it is very important for us to continue to report truth, it is equally important for us to know what we are up against. To know that facts are hardly guaranteed to change the minds of the sleepwalkers around us.

It is destructively naive to believe that simply by being virtuous we will win the day, or that the courts will come to our rescue because of our well-prepared evidence, or that martyrdom will be glorious.

General Patton is reputed to have said that ‘no dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country.’

As Irregulars against Established Power we must fight smart, and fight to live, and we by no means can count on the System to assist us. We must recognize the murderous intensity of our enemy, the rigged judicial system, the coopted media, and adjust our strategies.

Or else.

Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.

August 2024

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU Rejects Legitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – Foreign Policy Chief Borrell

Sputnik – 30.08.2024

The European Union rejects the legitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

“We cannot accept the legitimacy of Maduro as the elected president. He will remain president de facto, but we deny democratic legitimacy based on results that cannot be verified,” Euronews quoted Borrell as saying after an informal foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels.

Presidential elections in Venezuela were held on July 28. The next day the National Electoral Council declared Nicolas Maduro president-elect for 2025-2031. On July 29, protests started in Venezuela, protesters clashing with the police. Over 2,000 people were detained. Violent unrest in Venezuela lasted one day after the elections, after which the government restored control over the situation on the streets.

US and European lawmakers in charge of foreign affairs matters issued a joint statement claiming opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez won Venezuela’s presidential election and vowing to hold Maduro accountable if he refuses to relinquish power. Moscow said the Venezuelan opposition must admit defeat in the elections. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned third countries against supporting attempts to destabilize the situation inside Venezuela.

August 30, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Hungary May Defect – Part Nineteen of The Anglo-American War on Russia

Tales of the American Empire | August 29, 2024

Most Europeans know the United States provoked the conflict in Ukraine, profits from banning Russian oil and gas, and remain uneasy about the mysterious destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. The American government promoted a mindless NATO expansion strategy that caused a disastrous war and weakened NATO nations, who were pressured to donate billions of dollars and much of their military equipment to Ukraine, even though it isn’t a member of the NATO alliance.

Eastern European states were excited to join NATO and the European Union economic block, called the EU, but were soon pressured to boost military spending to buy American weaponry, accept foreign migrants, host foreign troops, and donate money and arms to a lost cause in Ukraine. Profitable trade and tourism with Russia sharply declined while energy costs soared, causing economic decline.

The people of some European nations have already decided that joining NATO and the EU was a bad idea. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban openly states his dislike of EU mandates to allow mass immigration and continued trade sanctions on Russia. EU leaders denounce Orban and threaten sanctions because they can abuse Hungary since it is landlocked and surrounded by Ukraine and EU members.

But if Russian troops reach Ukraine’s western border, Hungary may defect. Conquered Ukraine would become a close Russian ally and allow access to energy pipelines to import cheap Russian oil and gas, and permit rail and road access to Russia and all of Asia. There are several neighboring nations who may also defect from the American empire. This explains why NATO is considering sending forces to secure western Ukraine to keep its vassal states captive.

________________________________

Related Tale: “The Destruction of Libya in 2011”;    • The Destruction of Libya in 2011  

“Slovakia, Hungary say Ukraine has halted Lukoil’s Russian oil transit”; Jason Hovet; Reuters; July 18, 2024; https://www.reuters.com/business/ener…

“Kyiv Will Face Retaliation”; EU nation Slovakia has issued an open threat to Ukraine amid war with Russia. Slovakia said it would take retaliatory measures against Ukraine if Kyiv continues to stop Russian oil transiting via the Druzhba pipeline.; “Times of India”; July 25, 2024;    • ‘Kyiv Will Face Retaliation…’: NATO…  

“MEPs call to strip Hungary’s EU voting rights amid Orbán’s ‘peace missions’”; Steb Starcevic; Politico; July 16, 2024; https://www.politico.eu/article/lette…

Related Tale: “The Destruction of Yugoslavia”;    • The Destruction of Yugoslavia  

Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”;    • The Anglo-American War on Russia  

August 29, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »