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German Military Leak Added Embarrassment to Berlin’s Silence on Nord Stream Sabotage

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 04.03.2024

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has blamed Moscow for the leak, completely glossing over the fact that German military officers were discussing nothing short of an open attack on Russia, Sputnik’s commentators say.

The leaked conversation of German officers discussing attacks against Russian civilian infrastructure by German-made Taurus missiles has prompted a heated debate in Berlin. “It’s a hybrid disinformation attack — it’s about division, it’s about undermining our unity,” German Defense Minister Pistorius rushed to claim: “We mustn’t fall for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.” Earlier, Berlin stated it wouldn’t send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.

“I think in war narrative, control is obviously very important,” Glenn Diesen, professor of international relations at the University of South-Eastern Norway, told Sputnik. “And on this tape it was revealed that German generals were discussing attacks on Russia or more specifically, attacking the infrastructure of the Kerch Strait Bridge [also known as the Crimean Bridge]. And it also revealed that the Taurus missiles will be supplied to Ukraine, in which the Americans would assist in handling them or firing them, attacking Russia with them. So this is, of course, very problematic because it demonstrates NATO’s direct involvement in the war, that is direct attacks on Russia. This is not just weapons and intelligence anymore, but now also picking the targets and, indeed, even pulling the triggers.”

Nord Stream Sabotage and Crimean Bridge Attack Plot

By accusing Russia of launching a “disinformation” attack Germany appears to use the same playbook it used in the aftermath of the Nord Stream sabotage attack of September 26, 2022, when Russia was groundlessly blamed for destroying its own pipeline.

According to Diesen, it’s the US who is pulling the strings of the German government in both cases.

“Obviously, the United States has an interest in this,” the expert said, commenting on the scandal surrounding the possible delivery of Taurus missiles to the Kiev regime. “They’re not able to supply weapons of their own at the moment due to the Republican opposition. So they’re obviously looking for the Europeans to take a greater role in this proxy war against Russia. By comparison, Nord Stream was, I would say, even more awkward because keep in mind that before the Nord Stream pipelines were attacked, the US on numerous occasions told what they were planning to do. They threatened it very publicly, expressing their intention to attack the Nord Stream pipeline if Russia would invade Ukraine.”

In both cases, Washington and its allies in the German government feared that the incidents could create divisions within the West; so, the first instinct was to blame Russia, the professor pointed out. Likewise, in both cases nobody in the West seems willing to dig to the bottom of what happened: an investigation in the Nord Stream sabotage has yet to bear any fruit, while the German military chatter is being downplayed by Berlin and its allies.

“It’s the same pattern of behavior,” Gunnar Beck, AfD European Parliament MEP told Sputnik. “The German government is presented with clear evidence. And they deny it and they go on the attack against Russia. Who’s benefiting from this clearly [are the] fervently anti-Russian interest groups within the German government. I’d say the Greens in particular. But, broadly and in abstract terms, everyone in Germany who defines Germany’s national interest in terms of the interests of the collective West. It’s a majority of the German establishment.”

“The German generals appeared to be part of that camp of the German political establishment, which saw Germany as firmly anchored in the West. That applies to all political parties except my own,” the German politician continued.

“And, of course, the arms industry. Naturally, arms manufacturers in Germany are trying to profit from increased military spending on Ukraine.”

The Bundeswehr chatter clearly indicated that American and British military specialists have also been deployed in Ukraine and could be involved together with the French in the attacks on Russia’s Crimean infrastructure.

According to Beck, the attack on the Crimean Bridge is a symbolic matter for NATO: “That’s an important symbol of Crimea being an integral part of Russia,” he presumed.

“I think there are two objectives,” Diesen said, commenting on the matter. “The first would be, just in terms of the war, the Crimea can be seen as an important logistics hub. And in wars especially on this scale, we see that logistics are imperative in order to be able to bring weapons and supplies and move troops around. So being able to destroy this bridge would be an important way of limiting the logistics flexibility of the Russian army. But I think there’s also now a wider, larger strategic level in which there’s this historical desire, especially by the Americans and British, as the main naval powers over the past 200 years or 200-plus years, which has been to weaken Russia’s access to the seas. So, again, this has been a very old strategy, for centuries, which is, yeah, to limit Russia’s access to these oceans.”

German Public Don’t Want War With Russia

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov drew attention to the fact that Berlin is much more concerned about the leak taking place, rather than the fact that the German military was discussing in detail a potential sabotage attack on Russia’s Crimean Bridge.

“I think it’s an embarrassment for [Germans], obviously, because it’s been quite important for Germany,” said the Norwegian professor. “They’re trying to balance two positions. They want to be loyal NATO members, which supplies weapons in this proxy war against Russia. But at the same time, they’re very cautious not to be seen as being a participant of the war – this obviously failed. They’re now being caught red-handed, planning attacks on Russia, which makes them participants. I think this is merely an issue of controlling the narrative, which is to shift the focus on what this represents.”

For his part, Beck emphasized that while the German establishment has no scruples about sending more weapons to Ukraine and planning attacks on Russia’s civilian objects, the German public is not warmongering.

“So what this conversation – which is not even the German government – clearly shows is that the German military is planning an attack against Russia, which, according to every interpretation of international law, would make Germany a party in the military conflict in the Ukraine. That’s not what the vast majority of Germans want,” Beck emphasized.

March 5, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin’s nuclear warning is direct and explicit

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MARCH 4, 2024 

The spectre of Armageddon has been raised often enough during the 2-year old war in Ukraine that the reference to it in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state of the union address on Thursday had a familiar ring about it. Therein lies the risk of misjudgement on the part of the western audience that Putin was only “crying wolf”.  

Three things must be noted at the outset. First, Putin has been explicit and direct. He is giving advance notice that he is obliged to respond with nuclear capability if the Russian statehood is threatened. Eschewing innuendos or dark hints, Putin actually made a sombre declaration of epochal significance. 

Second, Putin was addressing the Federal Assembly in front of the crème de la crème of the Russian elite and took the entire nation into confidence that the country may be pushed into a nuclear war for its self-preservation. 

Third, a specific context is sailing into view precipitated by foolhardy, impetuous western statesmen who are desperate to stave off an impending defeat in the war, which they began in the first instance, with the stated intention to destroy Russia’s economy, create social and political instability that would lead to a regime change in the Kremlin. 

In reality, the US Secretary Lloyd Austin’s prognosis on Thursday at a Congressional hearing in Washington that “NATO will be in a fight with Russia” if Ukraine was defeated is the manifestation of a predicament that the Biden Administration faces after having led Europe to the brink of an abysmal defeat in Ukraine engendering grave uncertainties regarding its economic recovery and de-industrialisation due to the blowback of sanctions against Russia. 

Plainly put, what Austin meant was that if Ukraine loses, NATO will have to go against Russia, as otherwise the future credibility of the western alliance system will be in jeopardy. It’s a call to Europe to rally for a continental war. 

What French President Emmanuel Macron stated earlier last week on Monday was also an articulation of that same mindset, when he caused a storm by hinting that sending ground troops to help Kyiv was a possibility. 

To quote Macron, “There is no consensus today to send ground troops officially but … nothing is ruled out. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war. The defeat of Russia is indispensable to the security and stability of Europe.” 

Macron was speaking after a summit of 20 European countries in Paris where a “restricted document” under discussion had implied “that a number of NATO and EU member states were considering sending troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis,” according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. 

Fico said the document “sends shivers down your spine.”

Fico’s disclosure would not have come as surprise for Moscow, which has now put on the public domain the transcript of a confidential conversation between two German generals back on February 19 discussing the scenario of a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with Taurus missiles and possible combat deployment by Berlin in Ukraine belying all public denials by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Aptly enough, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the transcript “a screaming revelation.” Interestingly, the transcript reveals that American and British servicemen are already deployed in Ukraine — something Moscow has been alleging for months — and such other details too.  

This is a moment of truth for Russia. After learning to live with the steady upgrade of western weaponry supplied to Ukraine, which now includes Patriot missiles and F-16 fighter jets, after having signalled vainly that any attack on Crimea or any attack on Russian territory would be regarded as a red line; after gingerly sidestepping the US-UK participation in operations to bring the war home to Russian territory — Macron’s belligerent statement last week has been the proverbial last straw for the Kremlin. It envisages western combat deployment to fight and kill Russian soldiers and conquer territories on behalf of Kiev. 

At the speech on Thursday, which was almost entirely devoted to a hugely ambitious and forward-looking road map to address social and economic issues under the new normalcy Russia has achieved even under conditions of western sanctions, Putin held out a warning to the entire West by placing nuclear weapons on the table. 

Putin underscored that any (further) crossing of the unwritten ground rules will be unacceptable — that while the US and its NATO allies provide military assistance to Ukraine but do not attack Russia’s soil and do not directly engage in combat, Russia would confine itself to using conventional weapons. 

Quintessentially, the thrust of Putin’s remarks lies in his refusal to accept a fate for Russia in existential terms arranged by the West. The thinking behind it is not hard to comprehend. Simply put, Russia will not allow any attempt by the US and its allies to reshape the ground situation by impacting the front lines with NATO military personnel backed by advanced weaponry and satellite capabilities. 

Putin has put the ball firmly in the Western court to decide whether NATO will risk a nuclear confrontation, which of course is not Russia’s choice. 

The context in which all this is unfolding has been pithily framed by the leader of a NATO country, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban, while addressing a forum of top diplomats in Antalya in the Turkish Riviera in the weekend when he stressed that “Europeans, along with the Ukrainians are losing the war and have no idea of how to find a way out of this situation.” 

Orban said, “We, Europeans, are now in a difficult position,” adding that European countries took the conflict in Ukraine “as their own war” and realise belatedly that time is not on Ukraine’s side. “Time is on Russia’s side. That is why it is necessary to stop hostilities immediately.” 

As he put it, “If you think that this is your war, but the enemy is stronger than you and has advantages on the battlefield, in this case, you are in the losers’ camp and it will not be an easy task to find a way out of this situation. Now, we Europeans, along with the Ukrainians, are losing the war and have no idea of how to find a way out of this situation, a way out of this conflict. This is a very serious problem.” 

This is the crux of the matter. In the circumstances, the bottom line is that it will be catastrophic speciousness on the part of the western leadership and public opinion not to grasp the full import of Putin’s stark warning that Moscow means what it has been saying, namely, that it will regard any western combat deployment in Ukraine by NATO countries as an act of war. 

To be sure, if Russia faces the risk of military defeat in Ukraine at the hands of NATO forces on combat deployment and Donbass and Novorossiya regions are at risk of being subjugated once again, that would threaten the stability and integrity of Russian statehood — and challenge the legitimacy of the Kremlin leadership itself — wherein the question of using nuclear weapons may become more open. 

To drive home the point, Putin glanced through the Russian inventory that buttresses its nuclear superiority today, which the US cannot possibly match. And he further de-classified some top-secret information: “Efforts to develop several other new weapons systems continue, and we are expecting to hear even more about the achievements of our researchers and weapons manufacturers.” 

March 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Secrets and Lies. NATO’s Role in Ukraine Is as Sleazy as the EU’s

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2024

Did Jens Stoltenberg really say that he had recently given “permission” to Ukraine to use F-16 fighter jets there in the war against Russia? If so, we can add it to the list of bumbling, buffoonish Freudian slips that he has chalked up himself while in office. But it does at least give us a glimpse of how western elites are no longer bothering to even cover up the fact that the war in Ukraine has, in reality, very little to do with Ukraine but rather is a much bigger war fought by the West against Russia.

Yet the whole issue about F-16s in Ukraine will be shrouded in lies, doublespeak and fake news. The real story of these outdated fighter jets from the Netherlands – some might call a bribe to Biden to secure the Dutch prime minister as next NATO boss – will probably never be known. Journalists who even want to ask who will really fly these planes – Ukrainians or U.S. pilots – will never get a straight answer but be fobbed off with the normal NATO ‘secrets and lies’ which are what we have all come to understand is the normal modus operandi for this so-called defence organisation. Timing is critical. Does Ukraine have the 6 months minimum time that Ukrainian pilots will need just to fly them, following intensive training? It’s a good bet that we will see them operational by the end of the summer with contracted, retired U.S. air force pilots flying them though – probably not in dogfight scenarios as they are no match for the newer Su-35s which Russia has – used in air to ground attacks. Of course, such a shift in strategy will lead Russia to target Ukrainian airfields, which some analysts are reporting is already happening but in reality, like so many decisions taken by NATO, this is just the latest in a long line of miscalculations. These 20-year old planes are going to be a real prize for Russia to shoot out of the skies like ducks on a Sunday afternoon. Pity the pilots who will be in their cockpits as they are on a suicide mission.

The truth though will be very hard to get to with the F-16s. NATO will already have its fake news ready for the suppliant journalists ready to oblige.

It’s a similar story with a recent statement by Zelensky himself who claimed that something like 30,000 Ukrainians so far had died in battle. Did he forget a zero there reading from his notes? Did too much cocaine affect his vision? Was it a joke?

No, it was no joke. Just more fake news dutifully processed by corrupt western media who don’t have journalists among them even capable of questioning the statement.

However, the reason why the numbers of dead Ukrainian soldiers is such a polemic is interesting. You might be forgiven for thinking that if the real figure of at least 300,000 dead Ukrainians were to be admitted, that this would have a political consequence for Zelensky himself. And this would be true within a democratic context. But Zelensky has shut down all media that doesn’t replicate his propaganda, eliminated all opposition parties so it’s hardly likely anyone is going to question this ludicrous figure of 30,000 or so. In reality there is a much more salacious, if not mercurial reason why he needs to stick to this work of fiction: graft.

What is not at all reported, even alluded to, is the racket being run by senior army officers close to him who are drawing the salaries of dead soldiers – and how the West turns a blind eye, once again, to this particular scam involving millions of dollars of western aid. Recently the EU agreed to send to Kiev 12.5 billion euros a year in cash for public sector salaries. Given the racket going on over dead soldiers salaries, this makes Brussels complicit in money laundering. Would it be far fetched to assume that senior EU officials are receiving kickbacks, in return? Given Ursula von der Leyen’s murky dealings with Pfizer and the recent news that she is to evade any scrutiny for another 5 years in office, assuming her corrupt friends in the EU support her second term, it becomes clear what the EU and NATO’s objectives are in Ukraine of late: just keep the machine turning over and Zelensky in power. The Ukraine war is not a charitable case, as some western leaders would like you to believe. It is not even about protecting the so-called values of the west, as no one really believes the bullshit that Putin is going to invade other EU countries once his tanks reach Kiev after the country inevitably collapses when the army surrenders or occupies itself with a civil war. Ukraine war is a racket and NATO is part of it, as is the EU elite. No one works for nothing and we should be very suspicious about Boris Johnson turning up in Kiev to lend his support to Zelensky. Is he on the latter’s payroll for PR services? Probably. Will any journalists ask this or file ‘freedom of information’ requests to even clarify who paid for the trip (as anyone who knows Boris, knows he has no cash)? Of course not.

March 4, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Germany willing to boost its participation in Ukrainian conflict

By Lucas Leiroz | March 4, 2024

The evidence points out that the West is preparing provocations of war against Russia. A new scandal involving a German attack plan against Russian civilian infrastructure is generating fear about the possibility of an open conflict between Russians and Germans in the near future.

Russian media recently published a leaked audio of a conversation between high-ranking German officials. The participants in the discussion were Brigadier General and head of the Air Force’s military operations and exercises department, Frank Grafe; the Air Force inspector, Ingo Gerhartz; and two officers from the German Space Command, Fenske and Frostedt. The topic of conversation was the development of a strategy for the supply and use of Taurus missiles in Ukraine.

Officers discussed the best way to use this equipment on the Ukrainian battlefield. According to them, the Kerch Bridge in Crimea would be an interesting target, although “difficult to hit”. They concluded in the conversation that Russian ammunition depots should be targeted and that if the French Dassault Rafale fighter is used together with the Taurus there will be more chances of a successful attack on Crimea.

In other words, high-ranking German military personnel were discussing how to attack demilitarized Russian territory and destroy civilian infrastructure. The case is therefore proof that Western agents participate directly in the planning and operation of terrorist attacks on peaceful Russian territory, confirming reports that had already been made previously on the topic.

Interestingly, while German officials were discussing a plan to attack Russia, Berlin’s Prime Minister Olaf Scholz publicly stated that the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine was ruled out, suggesting there was no risk of direct war. Amid fears about a possible all-out conflict, Scholz appears to have tried to “relieve” tensions or simply “mislead” Russia and public opinion regarding the real plans of the Western alliance. However, the audio leakage made any attempt to control collective fear useless.

In response to the audio scandal, the German government was only concerned with increasing accusations against Russia, failing to provide any plausible explanation for the content. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius accused Moscow of waging “information warfare” against Germany and the West. He described the Russian media’s work in publishing the officers’ conversation as a “hybrid attack” and “disinformation” – and did not comment on the topic of the conversation, tacitly admitting that the German officials did discuss the possibility of an attack on Crimea.

In fact, the scandal occurs at a time when several Western leaders claim to be “preparing” their countries for direct war with Russia. Faced with the evident Ukrainian failure, Western European countries, deceived by the American narrative that Kiev is a “shield” against “Russian invasions”, begin to impose a regime of military preparation, believing that a conflict is inevitable.

Obviously, there is no Russian interest in engaging in a conflict with Europe. The special military operation in Ukraine is motivated by specific reasons related to Russia’s security concerns. Moscow for now has no such concerns with European countries. However, as Europe militarizes and increases its anti-Russian hostility, new concerns may arise, forcing Moscow to take self-defense measures. And in this sense, European countries could, through their own anti-Russian paranoia, foment a conflict in the future – creating a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

The German case is particularly curious because Berlin’s subservience to the US and NATO is notorious, while anti-Russian hostility grows more and more. Moscow never showed aggressiveness against Germany, always willing to peacefully negotiate the reestablishment of diplomatic and economic ties. On the other hand, the US, UK and other NATO powers have always tried to coerce Germany to serve their interests – as, for example, through the terrorist attack against the Nord Stream.

Even in the face of successive humiliations imposed by its Western “partners”, Germany remains obedient to NATO, preserving an irrational anti-Russian hatred. Some experts believe that this is somehow related to a type of historical revanchism against Russia due to the Soviet victory against Nazism in the Second World War. As well known, Russophobia has always been a central aspect of Nazi ideology, which explains why Berlin, with its anti-Russian revanchist mentality, is willing to side with Ukrainian neo-Nazism against Moscow.

For their part, Russian authorities have already made it clear that they understand current European policies as preparation for a war. Moscow does not want the conflict to happen but subservience to NATO, anti-Russian hate and irrationality seem to be the main aspects of current European – especially German – foreign policy.

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

March 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The Rome-Kiev Pact of Steel Under CIA Shadow

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | March 3, 2024

The “Agreement on security cooperation” between Italy and Ukraine, which Italian Prime Minister Meloni and President Zelensky signed in Kijev, is not a formal declaration, but a real military pact that makes Italy a belligerent country in the war against Russia.

The pact commits Italy to supply more armaments to Kijv and to train its troops according to NATO operational procedures. Not only this. The pact states that:

“In the event of a future Russian armed attack against Ukraine, Italy, and Ukraine will consult within 24 hours to determine the measures necessary to counter the aggression and Italy will provide Ukraine with rapid defence support.”

Since French President Macron announced that European NATO countries might send their troops to Ukraine against Russia, there is a real possibility that Italy will do so too, taking us directly into war against Russia. Moscow’s voice went unheeded, warning that in this case there would be a direct clash between NATO forces and Russian forces, both equipped with nuclear weapons.

In this situation, “the war of spies” takes place. As a major New York Times investigation shows, the CIA has built its vast network in Ukraine and other European countries. It trains Ukrainian agents on how to assume false identities and “find out Russian spies in other countries!” The program was called Operation Goldfish. Operation Goldfish operatives have been deployed to 12 new operational bases along the Russian border, linked to two new secret electronic espionage bases.

What Zelensky declared falls into the same context: “Meloni is with us but there are too many pro-Putin in Italy.” Zelensky then announced: “We are preparing a list of Russian propagandists – it is not regarding only Italy. It’s a long list and we want to present it to the European Commission, to the European Parliament, to the EU leaders.” Soon, therefore, Zelensky will hand over to Meloni the proscription list of “pro-Putins”, drawn up by the CIA.

March 3, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Italy to withdraw its air defense system from fellow NATO state

RT | March 3, 2024

Italy plans to withdraw its SAMP/T surface-based air defense system from Slovakia, according to media reports on Saturday, citing Prime Minister Robert Fico.

The system in question was temporarily deployed to Slovakia last year to replace the US Patriot anti-aircraft system, which the country transferred to Ukraine.

“I received a notice from the Italian government that the Italian air defense system, which they lent us for a year, will be withdrawn from Slovakia, because they need it elsewhere,” Fico was cited as saying, without elaborating on where exactly the system will be transferred next. The prime minister expressed concerns regarding his country’s security once the system is removed, as Slovakia currently has no alternative to protect its air space.

“First, the previous government donated a functional massive Russian S-300 air defense system to Ukraine. Then we had American Patriots here for a while, they were also removed, and now the Italian [system] will also be taken away.”

The wisdom of Slovakia sending military aid to Ukraine at the expense of its own security was also recently questioned by the country’s newly-appointed defense minister, Robert Kalinak. In an interview with the newspaper Standard in January, the official accused the previous government of surrendering key military hardware to Ukraine without making plans to secure replacements, noting that it would likely take years to fix the damage done to national security.

Upon being elected in September last year, Fico, an outspoken critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, halted Slovakia’s military aid to Kiev. In a video statement on social media last month, he also pledged not to send Slovak troops to Ukraine, even if it costs him his premiership.

March 3, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah detains Dutch armed group in Beirut suburb

The Cradle | March 2, 2024

Hezbollah security personnel arrested six Dutch nationals in the southern suburbs of Beirut last Wednesday, Al-Akhbar reported on 2 March.

The men were found in possession of military-grade weapons, ammunition, and equipment.

The Dutch government claimed the six men were part of a special group sent to evacuate its nationals if the war between Hezbollah and Israel expanded.

Hezbollah handed over the men to the Lebanese Intelligence Directorate, where they were interrogated and kept in detention until early Friday morning.

Sources speaking with Al-Akhbar said the six men claimed to be members of the Dutch military, simulating an evacuation attempt from inside the southern suburb. Contact with them was lost after they entered the southern suburb and were stopped by Hezbollah security personnel. Two employees of the Dutch embassy residing in the southern suburb allegedly participated in the failed simulation.

However, journalist Hasan Illaik of the Lebanese news outlet Al-Mahatta reported that the embassy employees were not Dutch nationals and that the “Dutch ambassador to Lebanon quickly arrived at the ministry to pressure their release, under the pretext that they had not committed any crime. This is, of course, untrue given that this is a major violation of the law and that it was a significant security threat.”

Illaik added that, “even more suspiciously, the armed group claimed to have carried out the operation without consulting their own embassy. It was also discovered that they launched their operation from Kaslik,” a coastal town north of Beirut, “rather than from the embassy or a place affiliated with the embassy.”

Neither the Lebanese military nor the Dutch government provided an official statement or explanation for the incident.

Al-Akhbar reported as well on 2 March that Hezbollah’s security service arrested a Spanish national in the Al-Kafaat area in the southern Beirut suburbs several days ago. The man was filming with his phone on the street, claiming he was lost and needed to send his location to friends to pick him up.

However, during the interrogation, it was discovered that his phone contained an advanced program preventing access to the stored data.

High-level officials from the Spanish embassy then intervened to win his release. It was later discovered that the man possessed a diplomatic passport.

The arrests of the Dutch and Spanish nationals came as part of a program of additional measures initiated by Hezbollah security officials in response to increased efforts by Israeli and other foreign intelligence agencies to collect information needed to assassinate Hezbollah cadres.

Israel assassinated prominent Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in an airstrike in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiya in December and prominent Hezbollah commander Ali Hussein Burji in January in south Lebanon.

Since the outbreak of the war with Israel on 8 October, the embassies of several western countries, including Britain and Canada, have brought in special forces, ammunition, and advanced equipment under the pretext of evacuating their diplomats and nationals if the situation deteriorates.

Al-Akhbar reported in November that mysterious foreign military cargo flights, potentially carrying equipment for use against Hezbollah, were landing at the Beirut and Hamat airports.

Between the 14 and 20 November, nine planes from various NATO countries were recorded landing at Beirut and Hamat airports, including several flying from Tel Aviv, according to Intelsky, a website monitoring aircraft movement in the region.

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ongoing largest military exercises suggest NATO’s escalation toward potential conflict

By Mark Blacklock | Global Times | February 1, 2024

It would be misleading to call NATO’s ongoing exercise simply a war game because that evokes scenes of people in costume reenacting historic battles or modern armies charging about, field-testing their tactics and equipment. Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 is far from harmless. It is very much a rehearsal, and – in a theater where war is already raging – possibly even a provocation. With the Russia-Ukraine conflict still ongoing, Steadfast Defender – NATO’s largest military venture since the Cold War – could be seen by Moscow as a deliberate poking of the Russian bear.

As the bloc’s 31 armies, along with another from membership contender Sweden, hurl 90,000 of their military personnel into a make-believe battle, Russia and Ukraine’s forces are engaged in a very real and deadly conflict on NATO’s doorstep. It is crucial for NATO to consider the risks of miscalculation and the resulting escalation to ensure that their simulated exercises do not inadvertently become entangled with the actual theatre of war next door, which would be too terrifying to think about.

Let’s not forget that while NATO is engaged in military exercises from Europe’s High North to Central and Eastern Europe until May 31, it is simultaneously deeply involved in the conflict with Russia through its proxy, Ukraine. Furthermore, the alliance’s own statements claim the drills are specifically to test its ability to “deploy forces rapidly from North America and other parts of the alliance to reinforce the defense of Europe.” In other words, the large-scale participation of 32 armies is a preparation for the potential scenario where proxy engagement escalates into open warfare with Russia.

It is a day that Western politicians and senior armed forces personnel increasingly seem to expect. In January, Britain’s defense secretary Grant Shapps ominously predicted that the UK could be at war with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran within five years. Then Britain’s top soldier, General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the General Staff, made a rallying cry last year, urging his troops to prepare to defeat Russia “in battle.”

The chair of NATO’s military committee, Dutch admiral Rob Bauer, said large numbers of civilians will need to be mobilized for a Russia conflict.

Sweden’s Military Commander-in-chief General Micael Byden stated that all Swedes should be mentally prepared for war. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said war with Russia could be possible in the next five to eight years. General Eirik Kristofferson, the head of Norway’s armed forces, warned: “The people of Norway should give thought to their readiness. We recommend being able to cope without outside help for three days.” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has cautioned that Europe has three to five years to prepare for any threat from Russia. All suggest that civilians will be central to any future war. The populations are being groomed. They are being told NATO is a defensive shield, when increasingly it looks like a brandished sword.

Talk of “three to five years” is significant, as that is the time it will take NATO’s nations to restore their equipment and ordnance stockpiles, after supplying so much to Ukraine.

The NATO countries are so deeply enmeshed in the Russia-Ukraine fighting that they have effectively become Kiev’s quartermaster. It is a role they have played with increasing enthusiasm – and increasing lethality. When the conflict began almost two years ago, there were diplomatic protests, many nations threw open their borders to refugees, but James Heappey, the UK’s minister for the armed forces, told the House of Commons: “British and NATO troops should not – must not – play an active role in Ukraine.”

Yet two years on, we are much closer to realizing what he said should never happen, with NATO’s generals and Europe’s politicians openly talking of war with Russia and prepping their populations for the worst.

Britain escalated its initial token military support of anti-tank missiles and modest kit like rations to include many thousands of missiles, air defense systems, and £25 million to pay armed forces’ salaries. Mission creep eventually saw more than 120 armored vehicles, anti-ship missile systems, and £1.3 billion of financial aid followed. Short and medium-range missiles soon became long-range missiles.

Then there were strike-capable and naval drones. Long-range artillery, cruise missiles, helicopters, a squadron of 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks, and even ships were dispatched. Then, with the US’ blessing, the Netherlands and Denmark supplied F-16 fighter jets.

Crucially, the West’s war aims have also changed: the Tallinn Pledge committed some to not only defend Ukraine but also to remove the Russians from disputed territory. If they continue down this path, could this pledge, along with the Article 5 commitments of the recently-expanded NATO – with Finland now part of the family and Sweden awaiting only Hungary’s approval – unleash the dogs of war?

Under cover of the ongoing exercises, with officials and politicians talking almost casually about World War III, NATO is not merely playing at war but preparing for it, and perhaps, it could even provoke it. Exercise Steadfast Defender marks the point at which NATO transitions from the pretense of a defensive union into a warlike one. Is the world on the brink of no return? Is it a matter of “when” rather than “if”?

The author is a journalist and lecturer in Britain.

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

German Military’s Crimean Bridge Strike Talk: ‘NATO Has Found Itself in Hot Water’

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 02.03.2024

The situation around the leaked conversation between high-ranking German army officers has once again refuted NATO’s allegations about the alliance’s non-interference in the Ukrainian conflict, experts told Sputnik.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has demanded an “immediate explanation” from Berlin on the audio recording released earlier this week by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik’s parent media group.

In it, German generals are heard discussing a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with Taurus missiles.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed in a statement that attempts by German authorities “to dodge the question will be considered an admission of guilt.”

High-ranking German officers discussed launching strikes on “Russian civilian infrastructure either with the tacit official consent of Berlin or behind its back; both variants are the matter of serious concern,” military expert Robinson Farinazzo, a former Brazilian Navy officer, said in an interview with Sputnik.

“The authorities are either aware of everything or they knew nothing, which means it was the military’s conspiracy – something that should be punished accordingly, right down to an option of all those involved being brought to tribunal,” Farinazzo said.

“If Berlin was in the know, it can be likened to a declaration of war,” he insisted, urging Moscow and Berlin to use diplomatic channels to defuse tensions over this information “about aggressive intentions.”

According to the expert, “It’s hard to imagine what measures Moscow might take if it considers actions by the German officers a serious provocation.”

The former Brazilian naval officer also drew attention to German authorities keeping mum on the matter. Likewise, how the information comes amid disagreements among Western countries on additional military aid to the Kiev regime, including the possibility of providing Ukraine with the Taurus cruise missiles and sending NATO military units to the country.

In this vein, Farinazzo said he believes that further developments will depend on whether the US Congress will okay more supplies to Ukraine or not. Even if Congress gives the green light, this will only add to prolonging the conflict and will fail to change the situation on the battlefield in favor of Ukraine, per the expert.

“The West and high-ranking NATO officers have already realized the fact that Ukraine cannot win. A potential strike on the Crimean Bridge would be tangible from a psychological point of view, but it would hardly affect the course of the special military operation, since Russia instead can use railroad or sea transport,” Farinazzo said.

International relations expert Tito Livio Barcellos Pereira from the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, for his part said that the conversation once again raises doubts about the veracity of previous claims by Western authorities that NATO countries are not involved in the Ukraine conflict.

“NATO countries, which previously argued that they were not directly involved in the conflict and only limit themselves to sending aid to Kiev, have found themselves in hot water. Their claims are becoming less credible, while Russia’s arguments are sounding more convincing,” the expert underscored.

He noted that “in this situation, the leaders of Western states will probably have to explain themselves before lawmakers and the entire society of their countries, as well as before other NATO members, which have a more restrained stance.”

In Pereira’s opinion, the situation could lead to an even greater escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO, especially given that the alliance “does not want to hear the arguments by Moscow, which has repeatedly warned against the alliance’s infrastructure getting closer to Russian borders.”

“The German military’s recorded conversation once again confirms that the alliance continues to be involved in a [proxy] war with Russia,” Pereira concludes, berating Kiev and the West for deliberately sabotaging all alternative peace initiatives put forward by the Global South.

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Why the West can’t be trusted to observe its own ‘red lines’ in Ukraine

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | March 2, 2024

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have disagreed publicly over how to support Ukraine – which has been ruthlessly deployed by the West as a geopolitical proxy – in its conflict with Russia. Macron used a special EU meeting he had convened, rumor has it directly inspired by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, to state, in effect, that sending Western combat troops into Ukraine was an option.

Of course, the West already has troops on the ground, including those flimsily camouflaged as volunteers and mercenaries, or otherwise participating in the conflict (for instance by planning and targeting), as a recent leak of US documents has confirmed. But an open intervention by ground forces would be a severe escalation, directly pitting Russia and NATO against each other, as Moscow has quickly pointed out, and making nuclear escalation a real possibility.

Russia has deliberately tolerated a certain degree of Western intervention, for its own pragmatic reasons: In essence, it seeks to win the war in Ukraine, while avoiding an open conflict with NATO. It is willing to pay the price of having to deal with some de facto Western military meddling, as long as it is confident it can defeat it on the Ukrainian battlefield. Indeed, the strategy has the added advantage that the West is bleeding its own resources, while the Russian military is receiving excellent hands-on training in how to neutralize Western hardware, including much-touted “miracle weapons.”

You do not have to believe Moscow’s words, but simply consult elementary logic to understand that there is an equally hard-headed limit to this kind of calculated tolerance. If the Russian leadership were to conclude that Western military forces in Ukraine were endangering its objectives (instead of merely making achieving them harder), it would raise the price for certain Western countries. (Selective treatment would be adopted to put under stress – quite possibly to breaking point – Western cohesion.)

Consider Germany, for instance: Berlin is by far Ukraine’s biggest bilateral financial supporter among EU states (at least in terms of commitments). Yet militarily, for now, Russia has been content with, in essence, shredding German Leopard tanks as they arrive on the battlefield. And, in a sense, punishing Germany’s meddling can safely be left to its own government: the country has already taken massive hits to its economy and international standing.

But if Berlin were to go even further, Moscow’s calculations would change. In that case, as little as German mass media allow German citizens to think about it, a “sobering” (to use a term from Russian doctrine) strike – initially probably non-nuclear – on German forces and territory is possible. The domestic consequences of such an attack are unpredictable. Germans might rally round the flag, or they might openly rebel against an already deeply unpopular government that has been sacrificing the national interest with unprecedented bluntness to Washington’s geopolitics.

If you think the above sounds a little far-fetched, I know of someone who clearly does not share your complacency: the German chancellor. Stung by Macron’s provocation, Scholz countered with telling alacrity. Within 24 hours after the surprise French move, he publicly ruled out the sending of “ground troops” by “European nations or NATO nations,” underlining that that this red line has always been agreed on.

In addition, the chancellor also chose exactly this moment to reaffirm that Germany will not deliver its Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev, as escalation that proponents have long demanded, including inside Germany. With, according to Scholz, the capability of striking Moscow, Berlin’s missiles in Ukrainian hands and Macron’s hypothetical ground forces have one thing in common: they come with a serious risk of spreading direct fighting beyond Ukraine, in particular to Western Europe and Germany.

In other words, the leaders of the two countries traditionally recognized as the core of the European Union have displayed profound disagreement on a key issue. Macron, it is true, often says more than he means or will care to remember. Scholz is an extreme opportunist, even by the standards of professional politics. In addition, clearly intentional indiscretions from the two men’s teams point to mutual and heartfelt antipathy, as Bloomberg has just reported. We could dismiss the spat between them as nothing but the result of incompatible political styles and personal animosity.

But that would be a grave mistake. In reality, their open discord is an important signal about the state of thinking, debate, and policy making within the EU, and, more broadly, NATO and the West. The real challenge is to decipher what this signal means.

Let’s start with something the two leaders will not openly admit but, it is virtually certain, share: The background to their quarrel is their fear that Ukraine and the West are not only losing the conflict, but more importantly in the information-streamlined West, that this defeat is about to become undeniably obvious. For instance, in the shape of further Russian advances, including strategic victories like the taking of Avdeevka and a partial or total collapse of Ukrainian defenses. Even the robustly bellicose Economist, for instance, is now admitting that Russia’s offensive is “heating up,” that the fall of Avdeevka has not made the Russian military pause, and that Ukrainians themselves are “becoming pessimistic.” Both Macron’s remarks and Scholz’s hasty disclaimer are indicators of a growing and well-founded pessimism, perhaps even incipient panic among Western elites.

Yet that does not tell us much about how these elites really intend to react to this losing game (assuming they know themselves, that is). In principle, there are two strategic options: raise the stakes (again) or cut your losses (finally). At this point, the “raise the stakes” faction is still dominating the policy debate. The negative response to Macron’s show-stealer move has overshadowed that the general trend of the NATO and EU strategy is still to add fresh resources to the fight, for instance by agreeing to source ammunition from outside the EU, a move long resisted by France. At least as far as the public is permitted to see, NATO and the EU are still run by sunk-cost-fallacy addicts: The more they have failed and lost already, the more they want to risk.

In reality, however, the option of deception and the temptation of self-deception (they easily blend into each other, an effect commonly known as “drinking your own Kool Aid” ) make things more complicated: Take, for instance, Russia’s evidence, in verbatim transcript detail, of high-ranking German military officers discussing – or was it “brainstorming” ? – how Ukraine could, after all, use Taurus missiles to attack the Kerch Strait Bridge that connects Crimea with the Russian mainland, while maintaining, in effect, plausible deniability. Scholz’s public statement that “German soldiers must at no point and in no place be linked” to Taurus attacks is proof that evading responsibility – or the impossibility to do so – are on his mind. As you would expect from a politician whose only strategy is finding the path of least resistance.

The muddled German response to this embarrassing intelligence fiasco (Why exactly was something so obviously sensitive discussed via hackable telecommunications instead of in a secure room, for instance?) only confirms that the Russian evidence is authentic. Instead of denying that the discussion took place, Germany has reacted – in typical authoritarian manner – by blocking social media accounts reporting it, and by trying to spin the conversation as nothing but a harmless thought experiment.

And yet, Scholz’s suspiciously elastic phrasing and the German officers’ discussion do not mean that such a course of naively transparent cheating will be adopted by Berlin. It may even have been a way of figuring out why that would not work.

Especially if this information is not entirely new, Russia’s choosing to publicize it now and perhaps even risking some (minor) intelligence disadvantage by revealing the extent of the German military’s penetration is, of course, also a signal to Germany’s leadership: Moscow will not play along with plausible deniability (a “don’t even try” message) and is deadly serious about this red line (a “we mean it” message). This as well may help focus minds in Berlin and make cheating less likely.

In any case, the evidence of German officers thinking about how to help attack Russia without leaving fingerprints does underline two things: Western public statements can easily be deliberate lies; and even when they are not, they are always open to radical revision. Indeed, Macron, too, alluded to that fact, pointing out that even if direct military intervention is not a consensus yet, it could become one in the future, just as other red lines have been crossed before.

In that light, Macron’s loose talk could be read as just another bluff – or, as they say in France, “strategic ambiguity” : a desperate attempt to strut so fiercely that Russia will not press its military advantage. If that was the French president’s intention, it has backfired spectacularly: Macron has provoked not only Germany but other, bigger Western players as well to clarify that they do not agree with him. Note to the Jupiterian self in the Élysée Palace: It’s not “ambiguous” when everyone who counts says “No way!”; it’s not very “strategic” either.

Yet it would be complacent to take solace from Macron’s current isolation. First, it is not complete: There are hardcore escalationists, such as the Estonian leader Kaja Kallas, in the EU and NATO who have praised  him precisely because they want to drag everyone else into a direct clash with Russia. It is good that these especially zealous warmongers do not have the upper hand for now. But they have not been defeated or even appropriately marginalized either, and they will not give up.

Second, a strategy of escalation and threats can get out of hand. Consider the too-little-known fact that, in the July Crisis of 1914, just before World War I started, even the German emperor Wilhelm II had moments where he privately felt that it could still be avoided. That, however, was after he and his government had personally done their worst to bring the big war about. Lesson: If you take too many risks, at some point you may no longer be able to dial down the escalation you have promoted yourself.

Third, and most fundamentally, while rationally applied dishonesty is not unusual in international politics, for an international system to produce stability, it must first produce predictability. That, in turn, requires that even deception is kept within tacitly agreed limits and is, to a degree, predictable (because of its underlying rationality). The problem with the post-Cold War West is that it has chosen to forget and flaunt this basic rule of global order. Its addiction to unreliability is so severe that signals of escalation are inherently more credible than signals of de-escalation, as long as there is no principal, general, and clearly recognizable change of approach.

Put differently, Macron’s current isolation does not count for much because its due-diligence interpretation from Moscow’s perspective has to be that he merely went a little too far too soon. Neither Scholz’s nor other Western disavowals make a difference. What would make a difference is a united and clear signal by the West that it is now ready for genuine negotiations and a real compromise settlement. For now, the opposite remains true.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul.

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Transcript released of purported German discussion on attacking Crimean Bridge

RT | March 1, 2024

The full text of what is claimed to be a discussion by senior German military officers on how to attack the Crimean Bridge in Russia was published by RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan on Friday. She reported that Russian security officials had leaked the recording hours earlier and has pledged to release the original audio shortly.

Simonyan identified the officers as General Ingo Gerhartz, the German Air Force commander, and senior leaders responsible for mission planning. The alleged conversation took place on February 19, according to the source of the leak.

The transcript reveals the officials discussed the efficiency of the Franco-British cruise missile called Storm Shadow by the UK and SCALP by France. Both nations donated some of their stockpile to Ukraine.

Kiev has called on Germany to provide some of its Taurus missiles. The officers in the leaked recording debate whether the weapon system was adequate for hitting the Crimean Bridge in Russia, which connects eastern Crimea to Krasnodar Region across the Kerch Strait.

According to the transcript, the officers discussed how a successful attack on a key piece of Russian infrastructure would require additional satellite data, possible deployment of missiles from French Dassault Rafale fighter jets, and at least a month of preparation.

One participant observed that due to the size of the bridge, which is the longest in Europe, even 20 missiles may not be enough to cause significant damage. It is comparable to a runway in that regard, he noted.

“They want to destroy the bridge… because it has not only military strategic importance, but also political significance,” Gerhartz is quoted as saying, apparently referring to officials in Kiev. “It would be concerning if we have direct connection with the Ukrainian armed forces.”

The officers went on to discuss how close the German military should be working on the proposed operation so as not to cross the ‘red line’ of being involved directly. Secretly training Ukrainians in the use of German weapons and helping them plan the operation were deemed acceptable. Concerns about the press learning about such cooperation were also raised, the transcript reveals.

Senior officials in Berlin have repeatedly made public statements explaining their reservations about sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said this week that the Germany’s military cannot do for Ukraine what “was done on the part of the British and French in terms of target-control and target-control assistance.” The remark was rebuked by London and Paris, for allegedly distracting public attention from German unwillingness to donate arms to Kiev.

According to the released text, a large segment of the conversation was about practical aspects of preparing Kiev’s forces for deploying Taurus missiles, from training its military personnel, to adapting hardpoints of Ukrainian military jets for Berlin’s weapons, to providing technical support remotely via a safe link. The officers were concerned that speeding up the proposed handover may result in civilians being killed “again” in a weapons mishap.

When assessing the intelligence necessary for targeting the missiles, Gerhartz allegedly mused that, to provide such information, there are plenty of “people in civilian clothes with American accents” in Kiev that would cover up for the Germans.

UPDATE:

Full Transcript of German Top Military Officials’ Leaked Plot to Attack Crimean Bridge

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The CIA in Ukraine — The NY Times Gets a Guided Tour

By Patrick Lawrence | ScheerPost | February 29, 2024

If you have paid attention to what various polls and officials in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West have been doing and saying about Ukraine lately, you know the look and sound of desperation. You would be desperate, too, if you were making a case for a war Ukrainians are on the brink of losing and will never, brink or back-from-the-brink, have any chance of winning. Atop this, you want people who know better, including 70 percent of Americans according to a recent poll, to keep investing extravagant sums in this ruinous folly.

And here is what seems to me the true source of angst among these desperados: Having painted this war as a cosmic confrontation between the world’s democrats and the world’s authoritarians, the people who started it and want to prolong it have painted themselves into a corner. They cannot lose it. They cannot afford to lose a war they cannot win: This is what you see and hear from all those good-money-after-bad people still trying to persuade you that a bad war is a good war and that it is right that more lives and money should be pointlessly lost to it.

Everyone must act for the cause in these dire times. You have Chuck Schumer in Kyiv last week trying to show House Republicans that they should truly, really authorize the Biden regime to spend an additional $61 billion on its proxy war with Russia. “Everyone we saw, from Zelensky on down made this very point clear,” the Democratic senator from New York asserted in an interview with The New York Times. “If Ukraine gets the aid, they will win the war and beat Russia.”

Even at this late hour people still have the nerve to say such things.

You have European leaders gathering in Paris Monday to reassure one another of their unity behind the Kyiv regime—and where Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out sending NATO ground troops to the Ukrainian front. “Russia cannot and must not win this war,” the French president declared to his guests at the Elysée Palace.

Except that it can and, barring an act of God, it will.

Then you have Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s war-mongering sec-gen, telling Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty last week that it will be fine if Kyiv uses F–16s to attack Russian cities once they are operational this summer. The U.S.–made fighter jets, the munitions, the money—all of it is essential “to ensure Russia doesn’t make further gains.” Stephen Bryen, formerly a deputy undersecretary at the Defense Department, offered an excellent response to this over the weekend in his Weapons and Strategy newsletter: “Fire Jens Stoltenberg before it is too late.”

Good thought, but Stoltenberg, Washington’s longtime water-carrier in Brussels, is merely doing his job as assigned: Keep up the illusions as to Kyiv’s potency and along with it the Russophobia, the more primitive the better. You do not get fired for irresponsible rhetoric that risks something that might look a lot like World War III.

What would a propaganda blitz of this breadth and stupidity be without an entry from The New York Times ? Given the extent to which the Times has abandoned all professional principle in the service of the power it is supposed to report upon, you just knew it would have to get in on this one.

The Times has published very numerous pieces in recent weeks on the necessity of keeping the war going and the urgency of a House vote authorizing that $61 billion Biden’s national security people want to send Ukraine. But never mind all those daily stories. Last Sunday it came out with its big banana. “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin” sprawls—lengthy text, numerous photographs. The latter show the usual wreckage—cars, apartment buildings, farmhouses, a snowy dirt road lined with landmines. But the story that goes with it is other than usual.

Somewhere in Washington, someone appears to have decided it was time to let the Central Intelligence Agency’s presence and programs in Ukraine be known. And someone in Langley, the CIA’s headquarters, seems to have decided this will be O.K., a useful thing to do. When I say the agency’s presence and programs, I mean some : We get a very partial picture of the CIA’s doings in Ukraine, as the lies of omission—not to mention the lies of commission—are numerous in this piece. But what the Times published last weekend, all 5,500 words of it, tells us more than had been previously made public.

Let us consider this unusually long takeout carefully for what it is and how it came to make page one of last Sunday’s editions.

In a recent commentary I reflected on the mess the Times landed in when it published a thoroughly discredited p.o.s.—and I leave readers to understand this newsroom expression—on the sexual violence Hamas militias allegedly committed last Oct. 7. I described a corrupt but routinized relationship between the organs of official power and the journalists charged with reporting on official power, likening it to a foie gras farmer feeding his geese: The Times’s journalists opened wide and swallowed. For appearances’ sake, they then set about dressing up what they ingested as independently reported work. This is the routine.

It is the same, yet more obviously, with this extended piece on the CIA’s activities in Ukraine. Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz tell the story of—this the subhead—“a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.” They set the scene in a below-ground monitoring and communications center the CIA showed Ukrainian intel how to build beneath the wreckage of an army outpost destroyed in a Russian missile attack. They report on the archipelago of such places the agency paid for, designed, equipped, and now helps operate. Twelve of these, please note, are along Ukraine’s border with Russia.

Entous and Schwirtz, it is time to mention, are not based in Ukraine. They operate from Washington and New York respectively. This indicates clearly enough the genesis of “The Spy War.” There was no breaking down of doors involved here, no intrepid correspondents digging, no tramping around in Ukraine’s mud and cold, unguided. The CIA handed these two material according to what it wanted and did not want disclosed, and various officials associated with it made themselves available as “sources”—none of the American sources named, per usual.

Are we supposed to think these reporters found the underground bunker and all the other such installations by dint of their “investigation”—a term they have the gall to use as they describe what they did? And then they developed some kind of grand exposé of all the agency wanted to keep hidden? Is this it?

Sheer pretense, nothing more. Entous and Schwirtz opened wide and got fed. There appears to be nothing in what they wrote that was not effectively authorized, and we can probably do without “effectively.”

There is also the question of sources. Entous and Schwirtz say they conducted 200 interviews to get this piece done. If they did, and I will stay with my “if,” they do not seem to have been very good interviews to go by the published piece. And however many interviews they did, this must still be counted a one-source story, given that everyone quoted in it reflects the same perspective and so reinforces, more or less, what everyone else quoted has to say. The sources appear to have been handed to Entous and Schwirtz as was access to the underground bunker.

The narrative thread woven through the piece is interesting. It is all about the two-way, can’t-do-without-it cooperation between the CIA and Ukraine’s main intel services—the SBU (the domestic spy agency) and military intelligence, which goes by HUR. In this the piece reads like a difficult courtship that leads to a happy-at-last consummation. It took a long time for the Americans to trust the Ukrainians, we read, as they, the Americans, assumed the SBU was thick with Russian double agents. But the Ukrainian spooks enticed them with stacks and stacks of intelligence that seems to have astonished the CIA people on the ground and back in Langley.

So, a tale with two moving parts: The Americans helped the Ukrainians get their technology, methods, and all-around spookery up to snuff, and the Ukrainians made themselves indispensable to the Americans by providing wads of raw intel. Entous and Schwirtz describe this symbiosis as “one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.” Here is how a former American official put it, as the Times quotes him or her:

The relationships only got stronger and stronger because both sides saw value in it, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv—our station there, the operation out of Ukraine—became the best source of information, signals and everything else, on Russia. We couldn’t get enough of it.

As to omissions and commissions, there are things left out in this piece, events that are blurred, assertions that are simply untrue and proven to be so. What amazes me is how far back Entous and Schwirtz reach to dredge up all this stuff—even to the point they make fools of themselves and remind us of the Times’s dramatic loss of credibility since the current round of Russophobia took hold a decade ago.

Entous and Schwirtz begin their account of the CIA–SBU/HUR alliance in 2014, when the U.S. cultivated the coup in Kyiv that brought the present regime to power and ultimately led to Russia’s military intervention. But no mention of the U.S. role in it. They write, “The CIA’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion.” Neat, granular, but absolutely false. The coup began  three days earlier, on Feb. 21, and as Vladimir Putin reminded Tucker Carlson during the latter’s Feb. 6 interview with the Russian president, it was the CIA that did the groundwork.

I confess a special affection for this one: “The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” Entous and Schwirtz write. And later in the piece, this:

In one joint operation, a[n] HUR team duped an officer from Russia’s military intelligence service into providing information that allowed the C.I.A. to connect Russia’s government to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group, which had been linked to election interference efforts in a number of countries.

Wonderful. Extravagantly nostalgic for that twilight interim that began eight years ago, when nothing had to be true so long as it explained why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, and why Donald Trump is No. 1 among America’s “deplorables.”

I have never seen evidence of Russian government interference in another nation’s elections, including America’s in 2016, and I will say with confidence you haven’t, either. All that came to be associated with the Russiagate fable, starting with the never-happened hack of the Democratic Party’s mail, was long ago revealed to be concocted junk. As to “Fancy Bear,” and its cousin “Cozy Bear”—monikers almost certainly cooked up over a long, fun lunch in Langley—for the umpteenth time these are not groups of hackers or any other sort of human being: They are sets of digital tools available to anyone who wants to use them.

Sloppy, tiresome. But to a purpose. Why, then? What is the Times’s purpose in publishing this piece?

We can start, logically enough, with that desperation evident among those dedicated to prolonging the war. The outcome of the war, in my read and in the view of various military analysts, does not depend on the $61 billion in aid that now hangs in the balance. But the Biden regime seems to think it does, or pretends to think it does. The Times’s most immediate intent, so far as one can make out from the piece, is to add what degree of urgency it can to this question.

Entous and Schwirtz report that the people running Ukrainian intelligence are nervous that without a House vote releasing new funds “the CIA will abandon them.” Good enough that it boosts the case to cite nervous Ukrainians, but we should recognize that this is a misapprehension. The CIA has a very large budget entirely independent of what Congress votes one way or another. William Burns, the CIA director, traveled to Kyiv two weeks ago to reassure his counterparts that “the U.S. commitment will continue,” as Entous and Schwirtz quote him saying. This is perfectly true, assuming Burns referred to the agency’s commitment.

More broadly, the Times piece appears amid flagging enthusiasm for the Ukraine project. And it is in this circumstance that Entous and Schwirtz went long on the benefits accruing to the CIA in consequence of its presence on the ground in Ukraine. But read these two reporters carefully: They, or whoever put their piece in its final shape, make it clear that the agency’s operations on Ukrainian soil count first and most as a contribution to Washington’s long campaign to undermine the Russian Federation. This is not about Ukrainian democracy, that figment of neoliberal propagandists. It is about Cold War II, plain and simple. It is time to reinvigorate the old Russophobia, thus—and hence all the baloney about Russians corrupting elections and so on. It is all there for a reason.

To gather these thoughts and summarize, This piece is not journalism and should not be read as such. Neither do Entous and Schwirtz serve as journalists. They are clerks of the governing class pretending to be journalists while they post notices on a bulletin board that pretends to be a newspaper.

■

Let’s dolly out to put this piece in its historical context and consider the implications of its appearance in the once-but-fallen newspaper of record. Let’s think about the early 1970s, when it first began to emerge that the CIA had compromised the American media  and broadcasters.

Jack Anderson, the admirably iconoclastic columnist, lifted the lid on the agency’s infiltration of the media by way of a passing mention of a corrupted correspondent in 1973. A year later a former Los Angeles Times correspondent named Stuart Loory published the first extensive exploration of relations between the CIA and the media in the Columbia Journalism Review. Then, in 1976, the Church Committee opened its famous hearings in the Senate. It took up all sorts of agency malfeasance—assassinations, coups, illegal covert ops. Its intent was also to disrupt the agency’s misuse of American media and restore the latter to their independence and integrity.

The Church Committee is still widely remembered for getting its job done. But it never did. A year after Church produced its six-volume report, Rolling Stone published “The CIA and the Media,” Carl Bernstein’s well-known piece. Bernstein went considerably beyond the Church Committee, demonstrating that it pulled its punches rather than pull the plug on the CIA’s intrusions in the media. Faced with the prospect of forcing the CIA to sever all covert ties with the media, a senator Bernstein did not name remarked, “We just weren’t ready to take that step.”

We should read the Times’s piece on the righteousness of the CIA’s activities in Ukraine—bearing in mind the self-evident cooperation between the agency and the newspaper—with this history in mind.

America was just emerging from the disgraces of the McCarthyist period when Stuart Loory opened the door on this question, the Church Committee convened, and Carl Bernstein filled in the blanks. In and out of the profession there was disgust at the covert relationship between media and the spooks. Now look. What was then viewed as top-to-bottom objectionable is now routinized. It is “as usual.” In my read this is one consequence among many of the Russiagate years: They again plunged Americans and their mainstream media into the same paranoia that produced the corruptions of the 1950s and 1960s.

Alas, the scars of the swoon we call Russiagate are many and run deep.

February 29, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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