The Planned Ukrainisation of Georgia
By Alexander Markovics | Arktos | April 15, 2023
Protesters throw Molotov cocktails at police officers. With the EU flag in hand, they try to storm the parliament. What sounds like a civil war scenario or a textbook colour revolution took place from 6 to 10 March in the Caucasus state of Georgia. The ‘bone of contention’ here, quite literally, was a legislative proposal by the Georgian government, which aimed to disclose the foreign funding of NGOs if they receive more than 20% of their money from abroad. Such organisations would have been obliged to grant the Ministry of Justice access to all data, including personal information. However, what is common practice in the USA and other Western countries was denounced as an ‘authoritarian turn’ by Brussels and Washington in this case.
The main call for protests came from the organisation Transparency International, which would have been primarily affected by this law. Its publicly accessible supporters belong to a geopolitically Western-oriented family: the EU Commission, the Open Society Foundation of the self-proclaimed ‘King of Eastern Europe’ George Soros, and the International Republican Institute, which is close to the National Endowment for Democracy, in turn, a think tank and revolution factory funded by the United States. The Georgian government had every reason to cast a critical eye on the numerous NGOs in the country, not least because a colour revolution had already taken place in 2003, the so-called Rose Revolution. This not only subsequently brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power in 2004 but also led to the country’s rearmament by the US, which eventually urged Georgia to provoke Russia in 2008. The result was the Caucasus War of 2008, which Georgia lost.
Not least thanks to Georgia’s pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, the protesters were ultimately successful, and the law was withdrawn. So far, so sobering is the current state of Georgia’s sovereignty. In the face of external pressure on his country, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili warns of a Ukrainianisation of the nation. He claims that the Western strategy is to carry out a coup in Georgia and establish a subservient leader to open a new front against Russia, thereby changing the course of the war in favor of the West. So will people soon be dying not only to the ‘last Ukrainian’ but also to the ‘last Georgian’? Against this background, the notorious German Foreign Minister Baerbock visited Georgia to bring the country onto an EU course. But for now, Brussels is unwilling to give the country a membership perspective, as the reforms are progressing ‘too slowly’. The government in Tbilisi, on the other hand, does not seem to be in a hurry and prefers to gradually free itself from the clutches of the West. The memory of the defeat in the 2008 war is still too fresh for them to be rushed into the next conflict. Georgia’s future, therefore, remains open.
Translated by Constantin von Hoffmeister
Born in 1991 in Vienna, Alexander Markovics is a historian, journalist, and translator who follows the New Right, Fourth Political Theory, and Neo-Eurasianism. He has a BA in History and was the founder, first chairman and spokesperson of the Identitarian Movement in Austria from 2012 to 2017.
Georgia ‘lost chance for sovereignty’ – Moscow
RT | March 10, 2023
The US opposed Georgia’s “foreign agents” bill because Washington does not want the country to have political sovereignty, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, said on Friday.
He argued that the legislation, which was withdrawn after protests and clashes with police in Tbilisi, was aimed at limiting Washington’s ability to meddle in Georgia’s affairs.
“Washington has used the tools of soft power to lead people to the streets. The Georgian authorities were forced to submit – not to the will of the people, but to the United States,” Volodin claimed in a post in his Telegram channel.
The politician said the bill was “unacceptable for the US” because it would have “restricted Washington’s influence on the country’s internal political affairs.”
“With its withdrawal by the parliament, Georgia has lost the chance for sovereignty,” Volodin said.
On Friday, Georgian Dream and People’s Power, two of the country’s ruling parties, withdrew the Transparency of Foreign Influence Bill, also dubbed the ‘Foreign Agents Law.’ They said the bill had led to “divisions in society” and that its intent and purpose has been distorted by “a machine of lies.”
The proposed law would have required individuals, NGOs and media outlets that receive 20% or more of their funding from abroad to register as “an agent of foreign influence” with the Georgian Justice Ministry, according to Reuters. Offenders would have faced fines and up to five years in prison for failing to comply.
The bill was condemned by Washington, the EU and NATO. US State Department spokesman Ned Price voiced concerns about “the potential implications of this law for freedom of speech and democracy in Georgia” and warned that its adoption “could potentially undermine Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration.”
Price later welcomed the decision to withdraw the draft law and urged MPs to “officially retract this bill and not to further this type of legislation.”
Proponents of the bill argued that it resembled the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a 1938 law that requires individuals and organizations to register as “foreign agents.” Opponents, however, claimed that the bill was inspired by a similar law in Russia that was passed in 2012.
Kiev’s terrorist regime possibly involved in assassination attempt in Transnistria
By Lucas Leiroz | March 10, 2023
According to information recently published by local authorities in Transnistria, a terrorist attack was planned by Ukrainian saboteurs in Tiraspol, the aim of which was to kill the current president of the autonomous republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky. The case reveals that in fact Kiev maintains regular terrorist activities abroad, using sabotage tactics to eliminate civilians considered “enemies” of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime.
The plan was discovered by the intelligence services of the secessionist republic. According to Tiraspol’s officials, the Ukrainian scheme was discovered in time to avoid the tragedy. It is believed that not only President Krasnoselsky would be targeted by the saboteurs, but also some other top Transnistrian officials would be assassinated. The agents behind the maneuver were linked to the Ukrainian Secret Service.
In a statement published on March 9, the Ministry of State Security says that “criminal cases have been opened and are being investigated with regard to the crimes”, despite the threats having already been neutralized. With this, it is possible to say that there is evidence of other plots within the republic aiming at damaging the local political system. Certainly, more information about these criminal cases will be revealed in the course of the next few days.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria Vitaly Ignatiev also commented on the case. He stated that the situation is under control and that the president is working normally in his office, with assured security. Ignatiev also said that the republic will formally ask Ukraine to cooperate in the investigation of the sabotage attempt, providing all the necessary information to identify and capture those responsible for the failed attempt at terrorist attack.
Tiraspol’s authorities believe that Ukraine’s possible willingness to cooperate in punishing the saboteurs is the only way to prevent tensions from escalating. If Kiev refuses to cooperate, it will be making clear that in fact there was a deliberate operation by the regime to destabilize Transnistria, and not a unilateral action by some Ukrainian spies. More than that: by denying cooperation Kiev will also be saying that it does not regret having planned the attack and suggesting that it will continue to plot against Transnistria, thus becoming an existential threat to the Republic.
In this sense, Foreign Minister Ignatiev also stated that if nothing is done by Kiev to help with the investigations, the Transnistrian government will request that the issue be discussed at the UN Security Council – a measure that would certainly be supported by the Russian Federation, which has taken the greatest responsibility for peace in the republic, keeping troops in the region to prevent illegal advances by the Moldovan government or foreign invasions.
Ukraine is unlikely to cooperate as Kiev has long practiced a policy of open terrorism against its opponents, carrying out illegal operations abroad. The assassination of Daria Dugina, the Bryansk attack, repeated drone incursions into undisputed Russian territory, and the recent assassination attempt on businessman Konstantin Malofeev make Ukrainian terrorism evident. However, to better understand the motives for sabotaging Transnistria, it is necessary to go beyond Ukraine and investigate the interests of the sponsors of the neo-Nazi regime: the Western governments.
It is necessary to take into account that the West has recently implemented a strategy of multiplying fronts. Faced with NATO’s imminent defeat in its war against Russia using Ukraine as a proxy, the objective now is to generate as many combat fronts as possible to distract Russian forces, forcing Moscow to keep soldiers in several conflict zones simultaneously.
This explains the Western pressure for Georgia to invade Abkhazia and South Ossetia – as well as the ongoing color revolution against the pro-peace government. It is also possible to understand the Azerbaijani sabotage against Artsakh and Armenia. And even the recent tensions between Kosovar terrorists and Serbian authorities can be analyzed from this perspective. All these are conflicts in which Russia would intervene supporting one of the sides, so it is in the West’s interest to intensify tensions so that Moscow maintains several combat fronts and increases its losses.
As it is possible to see, NATO tries to open these new combat fronts only in countries that are not part of the alliance, thus guaranteeing that new confrontations are fought without the need to involve the regular troops of the western countries – which are preserved for an eventual situation of direct war against Russia or China.
Indeed, Moscow has been actively working with local Transnistrian authorities to ensure that law and order is respected in the autonomous republic. The Western attempt to open new combat fronts has already been understood by Russian strategists, who work precisely trying to prevent tensions from escalating to open confrontation. It is possible that new eruptions of military frictions will arise in the coming months, but first the Russian government will do everything possible for these cases to be resolved through intelligence and diplomacy.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies; geopolitical consultant.
Protests in Georgia, pressure campaign or anti-Russian color revolution?
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 09.03.2023
Protesters spilled into the streets of Tbilisi this week to protest a draft law requiring NGOs to register as “agents of foreign influence” if 20% or more of their funds come from foreign sources. What are the protesters looking to achieve? How have Georgia’s Western “partners” responded? What role, if any, has Russia played? Sputnik investigates.
Georgia’s governing coalition “unconditionally” withdrew its foreign agents law from parliament on Thursday morning, folding to protesters after two nights of violent confrontations with police in the Caucasus nation’s capital, and growing pressure from the European Union and the United States to scrap the draft legislation.
“As a party of government responsible to every member of society, we have decided to unconditionally withdraw this bill that we supported,” the Georgian Dream Party, which has 74 of 150 seats in the republic’s parliament, said in a statement Thursday morning.
Giga Lemonjala, a member of the opposition Droa party, responded to the government’s announcement by demanding that the bill be formally denounced, and that all protesters detained over the past two nights be released.
Georgia’s opposition and Western media covering the protests have characterized the foreign agents legislation as a “Russian,” “Russia-stylem” or “Putin-style” law, citing the 2012 Russian law requiring media, non-governmental organizations, and others to register as foreign agents and make their funding sources known to the public if they include contributions from foreign entities. Some media went so far as to claim the Georgian legislation signaled Tbilisi’s drift away from the European Union and toward Russia, with one article going so far as to call the social democratic, pro-EU Georgian ruling party “Putin’s Georgian Dream.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price characterized the draft law as “Kremlin-inspired” and said Washington was “deeply troubled” by it, with the legislation deemed to be “incompatible with the people of Georgia’s clear desire for European integration and its democratic development.”
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell echoed these sentiments, calling the bill a “very bad development” and saying it is “incompatible with EU values and standards,” and “goes against Georgia’s stated objective of joining the European Union.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also waded in to commenting on the crisis, praising Ukrainian flag-wielding protesters and saying Kiev expects Georgia and Moldova to join Ukraine in the EU.
Moscow has for the most part stayed out of commenting on the Georgian unrest, absent Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s remarks Wednesday pointing out that the draft law looked similar to US legislation passed in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s statement Thursday encouraging Russian nationals in Georgia to stay out of the streets.
Rules for Me But Not For Thee
Russia’s role has effectively been that of a boogieman, designed to discredit the Georgian government and foment discontent, both in Georgia and among Tbilisi’s Western partners, says Shota Apkhaidze, a political scientist serving as director of the Caucasus Center of Islamic Studies. The reality, the Tbilisi-based observer points out, is that the now-scrapped legislation bears much more resemblance to FARA than it does to Russian legislation.
“This is literally double standards, a mockery. The US brazenly adopted this same law 80 years ago, in 1938, and tightened it up repeatedly. Similar laws are in force in several countries in Europe. They tell us this law is ‘Russian,’ even though it has nothing to do with Russia. These are absolutely different things. In other words, we adopted a draft law modeled on American legislation, that’s in accordance with the Georgian Constitution and the law on non-governmental organizations. What does Russia have to do with it? What does Putin have to do with anything?” Apkhaidze asked. “This is just another reason to completely undermine the political system and bring the country to a change of power. That’s what the Americans are after,” the observer said.
Inconvenient Law
International affairs expert Viktoria Fedosova says US and EU consternation over the Georgian draft law is understandable, since it threatens to undermine their immense political power in the Caucasus nation.
“The passage of such a law in Georgia was risky for the US and the EU, since they’ve become used to engaging in their own financing, introducing their own leaders of public opinion, and working [in the country] through non-governmental organizations. This is their typical umbrella-like scheme of operations familiar to them,” Fedosova, the deputy director of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts at the Russian People’s Friendship University, told Sputnik in an interview.
“The Americans have spent about $1 billion on our non-governmental organizations since 1993, with the US declaring that these funds were spent on developing civil society, human rights, etc.” Apkhaidze pointed out. “That’s not the case. On the contrary, these funds have consistently been spent on fomenting a coup d’état, on the financing of some destructive elements in Georgia,” he said.
US and European “democracy promotion” assistance to Georgia has come in various forms over the decades, from the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute to US hedge fund billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Each of these groups provide millions or tens of millions of dollars to Georgian NGOs annually, and wield tremendous power beyond the realm of traditional party politics, Apkhaidze says.
“The NGO sector is the strongest structure of civil institutions in Georgia, because they have massive funding. Everyone, even the current leadership of Georgia, comes from precisely these kinds of organizations and foundations,” he said. “They have immense influence.”
Cynical Approach
The US and EU’s record and history of violating Georgia’s sovereignty is no secret to anyone, but their behavior and response to this week’s violence constitutes outright “mockery” of Tbilisi, Apkhaidze says.
“Why is it that in Georgia, a person who throws a Molotov cocktail at a police officer and sets a police car on fire, hits a special forces agent in the head with a rebar and smashes the parliament building, why is he deemed ‘peaceful’ – and his protest a ‘peaceful protest’?” the observer asked, alluding to the dozens of police officers who have been injured, some hospitalized, over the past two days in clashes with demonstrators.
Fedosova thinks the answer is obvious – while the US is able to pass laws like FARA and use them liberally to monitor their media, politics, and social groups for signs of foreign influence and meddling, the same luxury is not afforded to countries like Georgia.
“The United States cannot allow this kind of sovereignty be enjoyed by tiny Georgia, which, moreover, has already been used as a destabilizing factor against Russia (we remember the situation in 2008),” she said.
‘Second Front’
The irony of the crisis over the foreign agents draft law is that the Georgian Dream government is broadly pro-European, with stated aims including entry into both the EU and NATO. Accordingly, both Apkhaidze and Fedosova believe that the crisis is related to the pragmatic foreign policy approach that Tbilisi has taken in relation to its northern neighbor, especially after the escalation of the Ukraine crisis last year.
“The Americans have spent a whole year now since the start of Russia’s ‘special operation’ in Ukraine destabilizing the situation,” trying to get Georgia to join anti-Russian sanctions and “open a second front” against Moscow, Apkhaidze said.
“The Americans know that if they manage to quickly remove Georgian Dream, a second front would be opened immediately, because those flakes who came out to protest want this war, many of them unconsciously, of course; they have no idea what such a conflict would bring. But they are so short-sighted (I mean the majority of young people involved) that they don’t understand what a war with Russia would bring. Others have the concrete goal of opening a second front. The Americans are leading the country precisely in this direction,” he said.
The Georgian government and lawmakers’ attempts to prevent Tbilisi from being pulled into a direct conflict against Russia, notwithstanding the not always rosy relations with Moscow, is precisely the reason the foreign agents law was put together in the first place, Fedosova believes, citing the fact that a handful of NGOs have garnered more financial support over the past year than all the country’s political parties combined.
“The main thing [for the government] is the guarantee of peace, some kind of fair compromise-based dialogue with Russia, without attempts to include the country in a new conflict on Russia’s borders. The main thing for them is to convey this idea of preserving sovereignty and not losing new territories, and to communicate this to their citizens,” the observer said.
Maidan Danger
Fedosova observed parallels between the footage coming out of Tbilisi this week and the Euromaidan in Kiev before the 2014 coup. “We are watching footage now from Tbilisi where young people jump and dance, where the [psychological] mechanisms for creating this kind of emotional bond of the crowd are used. We’re seeing everything we saw on the Maidan. But here the presence of external forces hasn’t yet reached the point where the American ambassador comes out and distributes cookies, for example. So far, we are seeing the manifestation of the Americans in this conflict only in the form of their official statements.”
If the situation heats up, more parallels to the Ukrainian coup could appear, she noted, including radicals in crowds, agent provocateurs, mysterious snipers, culminating in a coup and the appointment of a new puppet government and “the installation of an authoritarian president who will be called a liberal.”
“We see how this happened with Zelensky – how ‘liberal’ his regime turned out to be, and what laws were adopted when everything goes according to the American scenario, and the country is integrated into a full-fledged military confrontation with Russia…They need Georgia as another means to prick Russia, just from another flank,” Fedosova said.
President vs Parliament
In the course of her official visit to the US this week, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili appeared against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty to express support for the protesters. “I am by your side. Today you represent free Georgia. Georgia, which sees its future in Europe, will not allow anyone to take away this future,” Zourabichvili said.
Apkhaidze doesn’t find anything surprising about the Georgian president’s behavior, saying the French-born politician is simply serving the interests of her masters, and that her sympathies for the opposition have long been evident.
“Georgia is a parliamentary republic. I don’t think that will change. This is not the first time she has opposed various decisions of the Georgian leadership and parliament… As far as Zourabichvili is concerned, she, of course serves the interests, first of fall, of her masters. I can’t figure out whether she’s the president of Georgia or the governor of some American state. But it is a fact that she wants more power, and sees herself in the place of [Georgian Prime Minister Irakli] Garibashvili,” Apkhaidze summed up.
Georgia Is Targeted For Regime Change Over Its Refusal To Open A “Second Front” Against Russia
By Andrew Korybko | March 8, 2023
The former Soviet Republic of Georgia experienced a serious Color Revolution attempt Tuesday night after radical pro-Western rioters tried to storm parliament in response to its passing of a bill requiring all organizations with at least 20% foreign funding to register with the authorities. The US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) artificially manufactured the false narrative in the run-up to events alleging that the law is based on Russia’s related system even though it’s explicitly inspired by the US.
This well-intended attempt to protect Georgia’s fledging and admittedly imperfect democracy from foreign meddling per its sovereign right was subsequently exploited as the pretext for organizing a violent regime change against Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. The West wants to punish him for his pragmatic refusal to open up a “second front” in the US’ proxy war on Russia after he publicly exposed this plot in early December while also pledging never to arm Kiev either.
President Salome Zurabishvili, who was visiting the UN in New York during the unsuccessful regime change against Garibashvili on Tuesday night, threw her full support behind the riots in a video that peddled the West’s false information warfare narrative alleging that the bill is backed by Russia. Readers should be aware that she served most of her career as a French diplomat after having been born there and was previously that country’s Ambassador to Georgia up until 2004.
She only received Georgian citizenship at that time due to a deal between those two governments proposed by Mikhail Saakashvili following his successful Color Revolution the year prior in order for her to become his Foreign Minister. For all intents and purposes, Zurabishvili has since functioned as one the Golden Billion’s top “agents of influence” in Georgia. Despite the Prime Minister nowadays holding more power due to prior reforms, the Presidency still provides her with some sway over society.
It was within this context that Tuesday night’s violent seizure of power against Garibashvili was attempted, though Russia was already prepared for this scenario after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in early February that something foul was indeed afoot in that former Soviet Republic. He told a popular TV anchor at the time that “The fact that they would like to turn Georgia into another irritant, to roll the situation back into the aggressive condition of the Saakashvili era is beyond doubt.”
It also deserves mentioning that the West’s latest Color Revolution attempt in the region took place amidst continued Russian gains around Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”, which prompted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to warn that Russia could roll through the rest of Donbass if it captures that city. Earlier that same day and just hours before the attempted storming of parliament in Tbilisi, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu confirmed that a victory there would smash Kiev’s regional defenses.
To summarize the strategic dynamics on the eve of Tuesday night’s unsuccessful regime change in Georgia, the MSM had already manufactured the false narrative ahead of parliament voting on that country’s US-inspired foreign agents bill alleging that it symbolizes the country’s tilt towards Russia. This information warfare campaign is waged against its premier for his refusal in early December to open up a “second front” against that Eurasian Great Power to relieve pressure upon the US’ Ukrainian proxies.
The Georgian President, who’s arguably always functioned as one of the Golden Billion’s top “agents of influence”, happened to be in New York when everything unfolded and threw her full support behind those regime change riots. Earlier that same day, both Defense Minister Shoigu and Zelensky informed everyone that Russia could roll through the rest of Donbass if it captures Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”. The stage was therefore set for attempting to violently overthrow Zurabishvili on Tuesday night.
It would be premature to declare that he’s secure in his position despite the security services successfully defending parliament from the rioters since a lot could still happen to advance the US’ regime change agenda. Georgia is a deeply divided country that’s been under immense Western influence for the past two decades, during which time the Golden Billion managed to manipulate a sizeable proportion of the population into doing its geopolitical bidding.
There’s no dearth of “useful idiots” who can easily be misled into destabilizing their country to the detriment of its objective national interests due to their liberal–globalist ideology. This means that Georgia is therefore expected to become the latest front in the New Cold War seeing as how it’s unlikely that its latest crisis will be resolved anytime soon. The situation is extremely serious and the outcome of the US’ undeclared Hybrid War on Georgia could directly affect developments in Donbass.
Biden administration sponsors yet another campaign against Orbán
Free West Media | November 3, 2022
The US government has opened a new chapter in the propaganda and disinformation war against Hungary. It now supports an allegedly “independent” media portal, whose sponsors, however, make it quite easy to see the goals which are being pursued against the country.
According to its own statements, the Internews platform focuses “on promoting a strong independent media sector” in Hungary. There will be further activities in Armenia, Georgia, Poland, Romania and the Ukraine. The aim is to “resist powerful interests trying to manipulate, isolate or control the press”.
The US embassy recently even produced a video listing Hungarian politicians and journalists who have allegedly made “anti-American” statements by name. Essentially these voices either criticized globalist policies to foment the Ukraine war or spoke out against the futility of sanctions.
The list of sponsors for the news portal is revealing. On it one will find, among other things, the well-known Open Society Foundations (OSF) by George Soros, the Rockefeller Foundation and Freedom House, which is financed by the US government. US-based global tech giants like Facebook and Google are also among the backers.
Those in the know recall that Internews is not the US government’s first attempt to reshape the Hungarian media scene. As early as 2017, the US State Department launched a support program right before the elections for “independent Hungarian media in the countryside”. At the time, the government in Budapest accused the US State Department of interfering in Hungarian domestic politics. The programme was later de facto scrapped, presumably because ex-President Donald Trump valued good relations with Hungary.
Under the Biden administration, however, “democracy” exports are back in fashion. Just a few months ago, the Hungarian opposition’s prime ministerial candidate caused a scandal when he admitted that he had received a substantial sum of money for his election campaign from a US foundation.
Non-Matching Ballot Totals, Duplicate Votes & Cyber Problems Cast Doubt on 2020 Election Results
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 17.07.2021
Republican lawmakers and non-partisan activists in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania are continuing to push for election integrity. This week a number of discrepancies have been found by independent auditors in Arizona and Georgia, raising new questions about the outcome of the 2020 election.
The alleged 2020 election fraud saga is far from being over in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania despite President Joe Biden and the US mainstream media decrying the “big lie” and downplaying vote irregularity claims.
Arizona
On 13 July, Senate President Karen Fann announced that vote counts do not match in the Maricopa County 2020 election audit. The announcement was followed by hearings in the Arizona Senate which were held on 15 July. Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the leading group of independent auditors, provided a preliminary overview of discrepancies found during the recount.
According to Logan, auditors could not find records concerning tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in Maricopa County: “We have 74,000 [mail-in ballots] that came back from individuals where we don’t have a clear indication that they were ever sent out to them,” he underscored.
The auditor further revealed that approximately 18,000 people voted but were removed from voter rolls “soon after the election”; there were 11,326 people who were not on the voter rolls on 7 November 2020, but appeared on the rolls on 4 December 2020; and there were 3,981 people who voted after registering after 15 October 2020.
CEO of CyFIR Ben Cotton, one of the subcontractors taking part in the recount, said that the analysis of the election management system and network exposed “severe cybersecurity problems.” The reported discrepancies have triggered concerns among the state GOP, given that President Joe Biden won Arizona by a razor-thin margin of 10,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points.
Responding to the latest discoveries, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jack Sellers blasted the auditors as “incompetent”. “What we heard today represents an alternate reality that has veered out of control since the November General Election”, Sellers stated.
To clear up the issues, the audit team requested more items to complete their review, including ballot envelope images, router images, splunk logs, hard drives that contain information about the 2020 election, as well details on Maricopa County’s policies and procedures. However, the state’s Democratic Party and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors vocally opposed providing any material to whom they called “uncertified auditors”. The county officials have yet to provide the state Senate with previously subpoenaed items including routers or router images.
Former President Donald Trump has called the recent Arizona Senate hearings on the Maricopa County election audit “devastating news to the radical left Democrats”, suggesting that “there was no victory” for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the state.
© PHOTO : YOUTUBE / DONALD J. TRUMP
Screenshot from the video allegedly showing election staffers in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, staying behind and pulling out boxes of extra ballots
Georgia
New discrepancies have also been found in Fulton County, where most of Atlanta is located. A nonpartisan election integrity nonprofit called Voters Organised for Trusted Election Results in Georgia (VoterGA) reported on Wednesday that at least 36 batches of mail-in ballots containing 4,255 votes were redundantly reported in the Fulton County audit results for the 3 November election. This includes 3,400 extra votes for then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, 865 extra votes for Donald Trump and 43 extra votes for Jo Jorgenson.
The election integrity activists also believe that seven audit tally sheets were “falsified to contain fabricated vote totals”. Thus, for example, a batch containing 59 ballot images for Biden and 42 for Trump was reported as 100 for the Democratic candidate and zero for the ex-president, according to Voters GA. In addition to that, it turned out that nearly 200 ballots were scanned two times before a recount.
The group is conducting an examination of digital ballot images following a months-long lawsuit filed last year. VoterGA particularly sought clearance to inspect all 147,000 absentee ballots cast in Fulton County last November, citing concerns about potential election fraud. Last fall, Joe Biden won the state by a thin margin of 12,670 votes.
Following the disclosure, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger called upon the Fulton County to fire Richard Barron, its elections director, and Ralph Jones, the county’s voter registration chief.
However, the secretary of state has also come under criticism from some of his Republican Party peers who insist that he and Governor of Georgia Brian Kemp should resign because they had apparently known about the irregularities but concealed them from the public.
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, which was won by Joe Biden by a margin of 80,555 votes, has also become a new battleground for the GOP effort to review the 2020 elections results.
In June, a delegation of Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers visited the Arizona audit and signalled that they are interested in launching a similar recount effort. The initiative is being led by Pennsylvania state GOP Senator Doug Mastriano, who chairs the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee and is regarded as a potential future gubernatorial candidate.
On 7 July, Mastriano announced that he had sent letters to Philadelphia, York, and Tioga counties, asking them to turn over election materials by 31 July.
“The case for a forensic investigation of the 2020 general election is evident to any unbiased observer,” Mastriano wrote in an official statement. “This was the first election in Pennsylvania with ‘mass’ mail-in voting. In 2020, there were 2.7 million ballots cast by mail and absentee compared to about 263,000 absentee ballots cast in 2016. Many of these ballots were counted at offsite locations with little outside observation or oversight. Furthermore, mail ballots without signature verification were permitted to be counted across the Commonwealth.”
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the materials requested by Mastriano include ballots, voting machines, vote counting equipment, mail-in
However, it was reported on 15 July that Tioga County Commissioners would not provide access to their ballots and election equipment after receiving a directive from the Pennsylvania Department of State to withstand Mastriano’s effort and to not allow third parties to conduct a forensic audit of the 2020 election results. On 16 July, York County also refused to take part in the recount citing the legality of Mastriano’s request, the legality of his demand, the cost to the county and their lack of staff to complete the project. They also raised concerns over possible decertification of their election equipment by the Department of State.
The state’s GOP issued a statement denouncing the Department of State’s directives as “an attack on the General Assembly’s power to review, investigate, and legislate in matters within its legislative authority, which includes Pennsylvania’s election system.”
MICHAEL MCFAUL’S COUNTERPRODUCTIVE POLICY PROPOSALS
Irrussianality | January 22, 2021
War, said the great Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, is an “interaction.” It is “not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass, but always the collision of two living forces.” One might say the same thing about international politics. Whatever you do always involves others, who have a will of their own and who act in ways which impede the fulfilment of your plans.
The good strategist doesn’t assume that others will simply comply with his demands. Rather he considers their likely response, and if it is probable that they will respond in a way that harms his own interests, he jettisons his plan and looks for another.
Joe Biden’s victory against Donald Trump in the recent US presidential election has led to a slew of articles suggesting the policies that the new administration should pursue towards Russia. All too often, instead of considering how Russia will respond, they treat it as a “lifeless mass” which can be pushed in the desired direction by pressing the correct buttons. Experience, however, suggests that this is not the case, and the Russian reaction to the proposed policies is not likely to be what the United States desires.
An example is an article by the former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, published this week in the magazine Foreign Affairs. Full of suggestions for ramping up the pressure on Russia, it fails to take into consideration how Moscow is likely to respond to such pressure. Consequently, it ends up proposing a line that if put into practice would probably be entirely counterproductive.
McFaul accuses Russian president Vladimir Putin of leading an “assault on democracy, liberalism, and multilateral institutions,” with the objective of “the destruction” of the international order. From this McFaul concludes that the United States “must deter and contain Putin’s Russia for the long haul.” He then makes several suggestions as to what this policy should involve.
First, he suggests that NATO build up its armed forces on Russia’s border, “especially on its vulnerable southern flank”. Why precisely this is “vulnerable” McFaul doesn’t say, but he does tell us that NATO “needs new weapons systems, including frigates with antisubmarine technologies, nuclear and conventionally powered submarines, and patrol aircraft.”
Second, he argues that America must increase its support to Ukraine. “A successful, democratic Ukraine will inspire new democratic possibilities in Russia,” he says, as if a “successful, democratic Ukraine” is something that can simply be wished into existence. But McFaul wants to do more than just help Ukraine; he also wants to punish Russia. “As long as Putin continues to occupy Ukrainian territory, sanctions should continue to ratchet up,” he says.
Third, McFaul wants the US to get more deeply involved in other countries on Russia’s borders. “Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Uzbekistan all deserve diplomatic upgrades,” he suggests. He also recommends that Joe Biden, “should meet with Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya”.
Fourth, McFaul wishes to venture into the world of censorship. America and other Western democracies, “should develop a common set of laws and protocols for regulating Russian government controlled-media,” he says. To this end, he argues that Biden should get social media to “downgrade the information Russia distributes through its propaganda channels.” If a search engine produces a link to RT, “a BBC story should pop up next to it,” he says.
Finally, McFaul says that the United States should bypass the Russian government to forge contacts with the Russian people, so as to “undermine Putin’s anti-American propaganda.” The USA should also train Russian journalists as part of an effort to “support independent journalism and anticorruption efforts in Russia.”
Strategy, as Clausewitz, pointed out, is about using tactics to achieve the political aim. But it is almost impossible to see how the tactics McFaul proposes could help the United States achieve any useful objective. The simple reason is that Russia is hardly likely to react to them in a positive fashion.
Let us look at them from a Russian point of view. How will the Russian government see them?
Sanctions are to “ratchet up” in perpetuity (as they must if they are connected to Russia’s possession of Crimea, which no Russian government will ever surrender); NATO will deploy more and more forces on Russia’s frontier; America will interfere ever more in Russian internal affairs, building up what will undoubtedly be considered a “fifth column” of US-trained journalists and opposition activists; the USA will intensify efforts to detach Russia from its allies and build up a ring up of hostile states around it; and finally, America will launch all-out information warfare to bend the international media to its will.
What does McFaul imagine Russia will do when it sees all this? Put up its hands and surrender? If he does, then it’s clear that in a lifetime studying Russia, he’s managed to learn nothing.
In reality, the response would probably be not at all to his liking. The growing sense of external and internal threat would lead to an increase in repressive measures at home, undermining the very democracy and liberty McFaul claims to be supporting. In addition, we would most probably see Russia increasing its own military forces on its national frontiers; doubling down on its support for the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in Eastern Ukraine; and pressing further with its own activities in the information domain.
In short, the Russian response would involve Russia doing all the things that McFaul dislikes, but even more so. It is hard to see how his strategy could be deemed to be a sensible one.
If it was just McFaul, it would probably not matter too much. But he is far from the only person saying these things. The general theme among supporters of the new Biden administration is that Trump was too soft on Russia, and that America needs to take a more robust line. This does not bode well for the next few years.
“Know your enemy and know yourself,” said another great strategist, Sun Tzu. Unfortunately, Americans seem to have forgotten this advice. They would do well to heed it.
Georgia Hosts Major NATO Troop Drills While Touting Bid To Join The Alliance
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 09/09/2020
Yet another provocation sure to increase tensions between Russian and NATO has begun this week in the form of war games hosted by the Republic of Georgia.
On Monday the Noble Partner 2020 military exercises kicked off, which involves close to 3,000 NATO troops from the US, Britain, France and Poland. Centered on the capital of Tibilisi, the games will simulate an external invasion of the caucusus country.
The US Army began training exercises last week ahead of the main part of the games, which will go through September 18.
The small country of Georgia is of course not a NATO member, though has since the 2008 Russo-Georgian War been increasingly cooperative and favored by the Atlantic military alliance.
Georgia has bid for membership in the alliance, though the long running South Ossetia and Abkhazia disputes are seen as preventing that, given NATO membership would most certainly trigger broader war with Russia. NATO leaders in 2008 pledged that Georgia “will become a NATO member” but the Russian issue looms too large to actually pull the trigger.
Anytime Georgia hosts war games, it stands accused by the Kremlin of modeling exercises on the prior Russo-Georgian War. Russia also sees such games as a threat given the immediate vicinity to its border.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia sought to sidestep any accusations, describing the drills as “a guarantee of peace in our country” and “are not directed against anyone,” in an opening address to troops.
PM Gakharia further called the games “the most important component of efforts to make Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration achievable.”
No doubt such overt pro-NATO talk, again part its longstanding bid to join the military alliance, is also sure to rattle and anger Russia.
Russia-US Security Dialogue Looming: Time to Address a Broader Security Agenda
By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 25.03.2018
A lot of people close to the US president wanted to prevent it at any cost but Donald Trump congratulated President Putin anyway and had a phone conversation with him. The US president said that the two would meet “in the not too distant future.” Preventing an arms race is one issue on the agenda. Donald Trump knew the move would bring forth a tempest but he did it anyway. The president considered the relationship with Moscow to be important enough to defy his numerous opponents. Serbia has already offered to host a summit.
Right after the two presidents’ conversation, the Russian and American chiefs of staff discussed Syria. What’s even more important is that they have agreed to more military-to-military contacts in the future. Why has it suddenly become so important for Washington to launch a dialog on defense issues? The answer was provided by General John E. Hyten, the Commander of US Strategic Command, who admitted in the Senate that the US is defenseless in the face of the threat from hypersonic weapons. This realization came right after Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed his recent information about the new systems capable of hypervelocity flight that are currently being tested and are soon to be operational.
The US is a great military power but it’s not strong enough to force everyone to dance to its tune. Its defense programs suffer from serious shortcomings. The current arms-control system is in crisis. New challenges keep cropping up. They should be incorporated into the international security agenda but that’s not happening.
The looming hypersonic race is a burning issue that still needs to be addressed. It’s a domain in which the US is lagging behind Russia. When the Russian president announced those breakthroughs in military technology, his revelations were met with some skepticism in the West. But the ensuing events proved him right. Vladimir Putin pulled it off, making hotheads come to their senses and realize the need for talks to address the security challenges. Washington needs this dialog more than Moscow does.
So, the Americans’ coveted leadership in military technology has turned out to be a pipe dream. But their furtive steps to bring NATO right to Russia’s doorstep are not. The most interesting things often fall off the radar.
Moldova is planning to phase out its draft in order to have a professional military. This month, Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine formed an anti-Russia alliance. Moving to an all-volunteer force is in keeping with the political goals of this group and is seen as an important step on the path to NATO membership. That reform is scheduled to begin this fall. This is a very costly endeavor, especially when one is talking about the poorest country in Europe. Chisinau cannot afford it. It will be fully dependent on assistance from Romania and other NATO states.
Moldova’s process of embracing the bloc has accelerated recently. A joint Romanian-Moldovan task force equipped and trained in accordance with NATO standards is on its way. That step was agreed on in February. According to the military cooperation agreement signed by Chisinau and Bucharest in 2012 and ratified by the Moldovan parliament in 2013, Romanian troops and police forces enjoy freedom of movement on Moldovan territory. In other words, a NATO member has a free hand in Moldova, although the region of Transnistria, where Russian peacekeepers are stationed, is part of that country. This is a real hornet’s nest and the problem remains unaddressed.
The fact that Poland has shifted its best military forces, including its most modern tanks, eastward has not gone unnoticed in Russia. The country will receive 70 AGM-158B JASSM-ER long-range air-to-surface missiles from the US by 2020 or a bit earlier. With an operational range of roughly 1,000 km, this stealth weapon boasting a penetrating warhead can hit infrastructure deep inside Russia. One does not have to be a military expert to realize that the JASSM-ER’s prime mission is to knock out Russian Iskander short-range missiles deployed in the Kaliningrad region in a first strike.
The small Polish town of Powidz is to become a NATO hub for the Baltics and Northern Europe. Construction is underway to build a storage facility for a brigade’s worth of military hardware and personnel. The US Aegis Ashore BMD system will be operational in Poland this year. This is a highly destabilizing weapon that will become a target for a first strike by the Russian military.
Nor has Russia forgotten about the 300 US Marines stationed in Norway, or the construction of a sophisticated new radar system known as Globus 3 in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. This is a violation of international law, as Svalbard was supposed to be demilitarized under a 1925 treaty. The facility there is an element of NATO’s ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. The joint US-Norwegian radar station is viewed by Moscow as a clear provocation. Norway is to be provided with over 50 US F-35 stealth fighters in 2019, enabling it to strike Russian territory. The F-35 is a nuclear-capable plane.
All these moves are being closely watched by the Russian military. Even if new weapons are incorporated into the bilateral arms-control agenda, the efforts to create the potential for a first strike near Russia’s borders are certainly not something Moscow can turn a blind eye toward. This does not create the right environment for a security dialog between Moscow and Washington. Everything is connected.
What Russia and the US really need is not just talks about curbing super weapons, but also negotiations addressing a much broader security agenda.
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By Irfan Chowdhury | Palestine Chronicle | July 18, 2020
… Israel has been carrying out the longest-running military occupation in modern history and the longest-running siege in modern history. These two facts alone render Israel unique in terms of the scope of its brutality and criminality.
There are other respects in which Israel stands out from other countries in its use of terror and violence; for example, it is one of the most aggressive countries in the world, having waged wars of aggression against Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006, and against Gaza in 2004, 2006, 2008/9, 2012 and 2014, killing huge numbers of civilians in the process (all while issuing threats and carrying out various covert attacks against Iran, which are all in violation of the UN Charter). … continue
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