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US/EU Russia Bashing

By Stephen Lendman | March 26, 2021

On Wednesday after talks with interventionist Blinken, EU foreign policy chief Borrell said the following:

“We agreed to coordinate our efforts in addressing Russia’s confrontational behavior (sic) and encourage Russia to abandon this path (sic).”

No Russian “confrontational behavior” exists — how the US-dominated West operates, not Moscow.

A hostile joint statement by Blinken and Borrell said the following:

They’re “determin(ed) to further address, in a coordinated manner, Russia’s challenging behavior (sic), including its ongoing aggression against Ukraine and Georgia (sic); hybrid threats, such as disinformation (sic); interference in electoral processes (sic); malicious cyber activities (sic; and military posturing (sic).

All of the above reflect US/EU war on Russia by other means — for its freedom from Western control, unrelated to alleged threats that don’t exist.

The above misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and bald-faced Big Lies also aim to distract attention from US-led Western war on humanity internally against their own people and abroad against nations free from their control.

Blinken and Borrell continued their war of words on Russia as follows:

They “decided to coordinate their response to the shrinking space in Russia for independent political voices (sic), civil society (sic), media freedom (sic), and the dwindling respect for human rights and the rule of law (sic).

All of the above reflect how the hostile to peace and stability US and EU operate.

Russia pursues higher standards, according to the rule of law — what the US-dominated West long ago abandoned.

If global war 3.0 is launched, it’ll be made-in-the-USA, a major threat to humanity that could happen by willful design.

The US-dominated West poses an unparalleled threat to everyone everywhere.

On all things related to Russia, China, and other nations free from its control, Borrell operates as a US imperial tool, bending to its will.

Along with the Biden regime, he threatened more illegal EU sanctions on Russia.

In response to hostile US/EU actions, head of Russia’s Delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control Konstantin Gavrilov said the following:

US-dominated NATO can’t “have its cake and eat it too.”

The alliance must choose between cooperative dialogue with Russia or confrontation, adding:

“It is obvious to us that it is impossible to build trust in the military field when the North Atlantic Alliance goes ahead with its activity and builds up presence along Russia’s borders.”

“In these conditions, collective persuasions to support the ‘package’ of proposals put forward by 34 OSCE member states to modernize the VD (Vienna Document 2011) are futile and will have no effect.”

Separately, head of Russia’s UN Human Rights Council in Geneva delegation Dmitry Vorobyov slammed the UNHRC’s resolution on Syria.

As US-led aggression enters its 11th year — resolution unattainable because its hardline belligerents reject restoration of peace and stability to the war-torn country — Russia called the UNHRC resolution “utterly biased, based on unproven stories and false thinking, distorts reality and can be characterized as blatantly politicized.”

Syria’s representative in Geneva Hussam al-Din Ala, said that states sponsoring terrorism, occupying parts of the country and impose unilateral measures that rise to the level of crimes against humanity, have no political or moral legitimacy to submit resolutions about the human rights status in Syria, adding:

US imperial partner Britain, “the main sponsor of the (UNHRC) resolution… fabricat(ed) allegations and circulat(ed) political and media campaigns against the Syrian government (in support of the pro-Western) commission of Inquiry on Syria whose reports” falsely blame its ruling authorities for US-led aggression.

US pressure, bullying, threats and bribes got 27 of 47 UNHRC member states to support what demanded opposition.

“Russia, Armenia, Bolivia, China, Cuba and Venezuela resolutely denounced it, 14 countries abstained.

The Biden regime upped the stakes further in Syria by sending a convoy of around 80 trucks carrying weapons, humvee armored vehicles and supplies to the country’s northeast.

Jihadists armed with Western weapons accompanied what was sent to continue endless US-led aggression on Syria and its people.

Much the same is ongoing in Afghanistan, Yemen, and intermittently in Iraq — part of endless US war on humanity.

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

THE BENEFITS OF DÉTENTE

BY PAUL ROBINSON | IRRUSSIANALITY | MARCH 26, 2021

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I intended to read Robert English’s book Russia and the Idea of the West, which examines how Westernizing ideas gradually took hold of an element of the Soviet intelligentsia from the 1950s onwards. I’m now about halfway through, and on page 125 I came across a passage that I thought was very appropriate for today. Here English writes the following:

The steady growth of reformist, anti-isolationist thought [in the USSR] was also aided by two other developments. The first was a sharp deterioration in relations with China, to the point of armed conflict; this forced a deeper rethinking of the two-camp outlook … Second, and more important, was the rise of détente with the West; though accompanied by a tightening of ideological orthodoxy at home, détente provided specialists their broadest access to the West in 50 years… [As a result] the early-mid 1970s saw many calling not just for expanded intercourse with the West, but also for more radical changes that would move their country toward broader integration with the liberal international community.

Détente was a brief effort in the 1960s and 70s to lessen East-West tensions by negotiating arms control settlements, increasing trade, and carrying out cultural exchanges. Eventually it was abandoned by the United States once Ronald Reagan became president, on the grounds that it had emboldened Soviet aggression. But English argues that rather than promote aggression, détente had a positive effect (from a Western perspective) by encouraging pro-Western sentiment in the Soviet foreign policy community.

Today, it seems to me, we’re moving, or perhaps have already irrevocably moved, in the opposite direction. Russia-China relations have never been stronger, and we have entered an era of anti-détente. In this, the West is cutting relations with Russia via sanctions, and is also shredding what remains of the old arms control system. Somehow, this is meant to induce Russia to change in what the West considers a positive direction, i.e. to make it more ‘liberal’ and more friendly. Yet, if English is right, then one might expect it to have the opposite result.

Of course, historical parallels are never 100% valid. Circumstances are very different now compared to 1970s. Back then, opening up the West to the Soviets enabled the West to flex its soft power, by exposing Soviet intellectuals to Western ideas as well as to the obvious superiority of the capitalist economic system in terms of wealth production. This is a strategy that can’t be repeated today because Russians are already very well acquainted with the West. As I’ve pointed out before, cultural exchanges don’t have the ‘wow’ factor they once did.

That said, English points out other ways in which détente encouraged liberal, pro-Western thinking in sections of the Soviet elite. Arms control created strong personal ties between Soviet and US diplomats. After months of working together and then reaching agreement, the former came to respect and admire the later, and with it also came to reject ideas of the necessity of East-West conflict. In the process, détente created its own bureaucratic momentum. This is the way of things; to do something, you have to create institutions and cadres dedicated to it, who in due course become committed to doing more of it, in part out of genuine belief but in part because out of bureaucratic interest and inertia.

And so it was within the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs, elements of which became decidedly more ‘liberal’,  if that is an appropriate word, than the regime as a whole. English thus describes how liberal-minded diplomats, notably Lev Mendelevich and Anatoly Kovalev, slipped the Helsinki Final Act, with its commitments to human rights, past Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who ‘signed the Final Act “without really reading it through”.’ The diplomats hoped, thereby, ‘to encourage domestic reforms, a gradual liberalization of the Communist system, and a humanization of Soviet society.’

One might wonder why diplomats thought that such domestic issues were their concern, but that’s by the by. The point is that détente helped to develop a liberally-inclined, pro-Western element within the Soviet diplomatic service, which used its position to, let’s put it somewhat crudely, undermine the Soviet Union from within. (I’m sure that wasn’t that element’s intent, but it was the effect.)

English describes the intellectual process that took place in the Soviet Union as a gradual abandonment of the isolationist outlook. Compare this to today: the Western policy of endlessly piling up the pressure on Russia, with what seems like a new round of sanctions every month, is having the opposite effect. I can’t say that I follow the readings of the Russian foreign policy community in huge detail, but insofar as I do, I get the strong impression that it’s becoming more and more inclined to the view that it’s pointless to make any concessions to the West because the latter is incapable of responding in kind.

One can see this even among what I call ‘establishment Westernizers’, such as, say, Dmitry Trenin. Particularly striking are some recent articles by one of Russia’s leading foreign policy experts Fyodor Lukyanov, who is now arguing that Russia and the West need to go their own ways and have as little to do with each other as possible. ‘External interactions’ with the USA should be reduced to the ‘absolutely essential’, writes Lukyanov. The two countries should ‘keep out of each others’ way’, he adds. It’s quite a contrast to the kind of thinking that English describes as having developed in the Soviet Union in the era of détente.

I suspect that the more the West tries to isolate Russia, the stronger this tendency in Russian thinking is likely to become. If nothing else, there will be subtle shifts within the Russian foreign policy bureaucracy. Fewer and fewer people will be involved in arms control, trade and other negotiations with Western partners. Meanwhile, more and more will be dealing with China and other parts of the world. With that, the power that the West exerts on Russian foreign policy thinking will inevitably diminish.

As far as the West is concerned, this is very much a self-inflicted wound. The way you influence people is by having contact with them, and reaching agreements with them. It is something that we once at least partially understood. I fear that we do so no longer.

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Book Review, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Blinken’s Pièce de Théâtre Failed; Its Script Was Passé

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 26, 2021

A Global Times editorial assessed that the China-U.S. Anchorage talks would come to be seen as “a landmark in history”. For the first time, U.S. hegemony was treated disdainfully; for the first time, the U.S. ‘right’ to claim its values – its ‘style’ of democracy – as universally applicable, was publicly and flatly contradicted. Even the posture of ‘speaking from strength’ was dismissed, and the U.S.’ pressure of an alliance ‘bloc’ system ‘despised’. All spoken with an air of impunity (you need us, more than we need you). Strong stuff; no wonder Blinken looked shell-shocked.

Yet, this was not ‘it’. Anchorage was, in practice, a play of several acts. Well before ‘Opening Night’, a supportive cast was being mobilised as chorus to the play’s anticipated moment of climax: The Quad (U.S., Japan, Australia, and India) were warmed up; NATO activated, and the Europeans co-opted.

Even before the audience could take their seats, a small early drama was enacted in Moscow. It set in place the scenery to the climactic Act that was expected at Anchorage. The EU High Representative who had travelled purposively to read the ‘Riot Act’ to Moscow for its treatment of demonstrators, and of Alexei Navalny himself, was completely nonplussed to find the tables entirely turned – it was the EU that was led to the Moscow dock, chastised for criminalising Catalonian leaders as seditionists, and presented with videos of European police heavy-handedness in dealing with demonstrators. The first crack to the mould appeared.

FM Lavrov later made it unmistakably clear that Moscow was more than a little browned-off with Europe. The EU, he said, had “destroyed” Russia’s ability to have relations with Brussels: “There are no relations with the EU as an organization. The entire infrastructure of these relations has been destroyed by unilateral decisions made from Brussels”.

As the day approached for the main theatrical ‘piece’, even before the curtain rose, one actor (playing Uncle Sam), strolled the forestage to ‘warm up’ the audience with a recitation of the villainy perpetuated by the anti-hero (China). That was the mood-setter – the crux to the pièce de théâtre. A rolled document was in his hand, but not shown to the audience. It was just possible to glimpse its title: The Longer Telegram.

Aahh! The audience took the hint; it made the connection – The Longer Telegram was a ‘play’ on an earlier 1946 work by George Kanaan, excoriating the USSR, and warning that Russia must never be allowed to side with China. The Longer Telegram however, identified China as chief villain, and assailed President Xi and the CCP precisely as fault-lines who should be reviled, and if possible, wedged and broken apart. Though the conclusion to both Telegrams at least remained unchanged: Russia and China must never be allowed to join forces with each other.

What made this work so tantalising was that no one knew who wrote it – his/her identity was concealed by the Atlantic Council. “The author of this work has requested to remain anonymous, and the Atlantic Council has honoured this for reasons we consider legitimate but that will remain confidential. The Council has not taken such a measure before, but it made the decision to do so given the extraordinary significance of the author’s insights and recommendations as the United States confronts the signature geopolitical challenge of the era” [i.e. China – does the phrasing sound familiar?].

Almost certainly, it was thought, a member of the Biden Administration was the author. But might it have been Blinken himself? No one knows, but The Longer Telegram was read in Beijing too.

So, as the night arrived, and the curtain started to rise, the actor-narrator prepared the seated audience for the key dénouement saying that the anticipated clash with the anti-hero Yang, would be a “once-off” climactic duel, rather than the ‘start of something’, adding that the prospective duel also would be opportunity for an “airing of grievances” about China’s terrible behaviour.

But, when it came to the main scene, it all went wrong. Blinken, having duly read out the prepared ‘grievances’ indictment, found that the anti-hero, Yang Jiechi, instead of being chastened and reproved, hit back. (He had read the Theatre promo, and was prepared). It was a disaster. The End of Act. The mould was broken. An editor at the U.S. Spectator surmises: “The United States, said Yang, in one of the most dismissive diplomatic rejoinders I have ever heard, does not have the ‘qualifications’ to address China ‘from a position of strength’. F, my dear Blinken, you”.

Then we come to a further scene, where the play’s two anti-heroes turn out not to be ‘anti-heroes’, but brothers-in-arms. It turns out that the Russian anti-hero’s patron had been earlier impugned as a soulless ‘killer’. Lavrov and Li seal a pact in Beijing after the talks. And China warns any regional actor who sides with Uncle Sam – against either of the brothers-in-arms – ‘would not succeed in standing alone’ against either brother, but to face them jointly would be unimaginable. “Anyone putting their faith in the U.S. would be disappointed. The U.S. is weakening”.

The mould is in pieces – and Russia and China have come together.

Last Act opens (a thunderstorm is heard in the background): The ‘Bloc’ strikes: The U.S., Canada, the UK and EU act in a co-ordinated strike on the ‘brothers’, for infringing Muslin human rights in Xinjiang Province (a fiercely contested claim). Within minutes of the EU sanctions being imposed on party officials in Xinjiang, Beijing retaliates with sanctions on European parliamentarians, the EU Council political and security committee, scholars and the human rights sub-committee. (It is the EU’s turn to be shell-shocked now).

Dismissing the EU’s move “as based on nothing but lies and disinformation”, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, “the Chinese side urges the EU side to reflect on itself, face squarely the severity of its mistake and redress it. It must stop lecturing others on human rights and interfering in their internal affairs. It must end the hypocritical practice of double standards and stop going further down the wrong path. Otherwise, China will resolutely make further reactions”. Ouch … another convention lies shattered.

The U.S. and EU are unused to being treated with disdain; and their sanctions ignored and brushed aside, with a curt ‘China doesn’t care for your pressures’. Even more perplexing to the EU’s unremittingly mercantilist mindset, China is evidently reconciled to losing the January Investment Pact (CAI) signed with the EU, but not ratified by parliament, and now almost certainly lost to both parties. And Moscow too, seems not to care that Nordstream 2 might also be at greater risk now. EU leaders will be disturbed that its’ ‘400 million market’ may not be the ‘ace’ which it imagined it to be.

The EU faces a dilemma: It had been crying out for a return to so-called ‘multilateralism.’ It got it – the Bloc sanctioning of Xinjiang officials, Putin impugned, and Russia sanctioned, and paradoxically, the EU is now sanctioned itself – its foreign relations with the great powers of Eurasia lie mired in the mud. It faces economic losses in respect to the China Investment Pact, and in trade with Russia.

The scene then changes one final time: It has Brussels’ NATO HQ as its backdrop now. The actor-narrator steps again onto the theatre forestage to say that whilst a collective response to China’s coercive behaviour “which threatens our collective security and prosperity” was indeed the thrust of our script, the latter “doesn’t mean countries can’t work with China, where possible. The United States will. We can’t afford not to … The United States won’t force our allies into an ‘us-or-them’ choice with China”.

The Bloc cannot hold – the crystal snapped, emitting a sharp crack. The theatre play was all about re-legitimising (a ritual, one-off re-enactment) of the American myth of its innate moral quality for holding leadership of the world, and its right to mobilise allies against those (here the tone is of a man – Blinken – shocked at what he is about to say) that don’t share our values: “They actually try and undermine the international rules-based order”.

The curtain is down. The script didn’t gel. The play is critiqued and it revealed paradoxically, that the ‘the myth’ that it precisely intended to re-validate, in a post-Trump, ritual exorcism, is indeed date-expired – it is passé. It is a very different world, four years on.

March 27, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

The ‘Rules-based international order’ is dead

Unless West finds new way to accommodate Russia & China, it will reap a whirlwind

By Glenn Diesen | RT | March 23, 2021

The gloves are off? The hostile exchanges at the China-US meeting in Alaska last week had striking similarities with the combative recent meeting between the EU’s foreign policy chief and the Russian foreign minister in Moscow.

Both disastrous encounters have demonstrated that after years of animosity it is not possible to return to the previous format for cooperation. Rudyard Kipling famously once wrote “east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” That doesn’t have to be true, but it’s a fair summation of where we are now.

Returning to a bygone era?

If you believe the preliminary messaging, the new US government sought a more pragmatic relationship with China as its diplomats went to Alaska, while the EU endeavoured to improve relations with Russia on the trip to Moscow. What was on the agenda to restore more friendly relations?

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced before the talks that the US would “discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjian, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies.” In Moscow, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell similarly sought to lecture Russia about its domestic affairs and various perceived bad behaviours in international affairs.

As both the meetings predictably ended in spectacular failure, China was accused of having “arrived intent on grandstanding” and Russia was charged with having prepared the “humiliation” of the EU.

But why did Washington and Brussels believe it was appropriate to set an agenda that interfered in the domestic affairs of the other and focusing solely on transgressions by one side? The West also has mounting domestic challenges and is hardly innocent in military adventurism, cyber attacks or economic coercion. However, the meetings were not intended to be between equals and cooperation was not meant to establish common rules for mutual constraints.

A liberal international system becomes synonymous with liberal hegemony, and relations are organised between a political subject and a political object, between a teacher and a student, between police and a suspect. Cooperation is defined in pedagogic terms as the one side correcting the “bad behaviour” of the other side.

Liberal hegemony or a rules-based order?

From the Western perspective, a rules-based order requires the West to uphold liberal values and thus become a “force for good”. Blinken cautioned that “the alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all”. For China and Russia, the unipolar era has been one where might makes right and liberal values has merely legitimised unilateralism. For example, witness how Moscow’s concerns about Western military adventures in Iraq, Syria and Libya, all of questionable legality under international law, to various degrees, were ignored.

Liberal hegemony as a value-based international order contradicts the concept of a rules-based order. A rules-based system infers the consistent application of international law, while a values-based system endows the liberal hegemon with the prerogative of selective and inconsistent application of international laws and rules.

The system of liberal hegemony demonstrates that values and power cannot be decoupled. Western states, like all other nations, formulate and pursue foreign policies based on national interests, and values are adjusted accordingly. In Kosovo it was decided that self-determination was more important than territorial integrity, and in Crimea it was decided that territorial integrity was more important than self-determination.

The same rules don’t apply to everybody, equally. It’s “asymmetrical,” not symmetrical. So, when Russia intervened in Syria at Damascus’ request and the US entered Syria, without Syrian or UN permission, Moscow was judged to have broken the rules.

While democracy and human rights should ideally have a place in international relations, the application of these values are always aligned with power interests. Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny is nominated for the Nobel peace price, while Julian Assange rots away in a British cell without such accolades. Washington’s abandonment of a four-decade long One-China Policy in terms of Taiwan, claims of “genocide” in Xinjian and support for the Hong Kong riots are also evidently motivated by geoeconomic rivalry. A rules-based system does not entail mutual constraints, but a system where the West as the political subject will police China and Russia as political objects.

Accommodated or contained?

Were Russia and China accommodated in the post-Cold War international order? This question is rarely asked, yet it should be considered the most important question in contemporary international relations.

Since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger “opened China” in the 1970s, every American administration believed that China has been accommodated in the international political and economic order. Likewise, both the EU and the US believe that they have sought to include Russia in Europe since it emerged as an independent state in 1991.

Yet, both Russia and China consider themselves to have consistently been contained. Answering the aforementioned question should be of the greatest importance. When the Cold War ended, the West enjoyed abundant political legitimacy and the leading foreign policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing was to cultivate friendly relations with Washington – two and a half decades later the two Eurasian giants formed a strategic partnership to construct a Greater Eurasia to reduce reliance on the US.

After the Cold War, both Russia and China were confronted with the dilemma of accepting the role as political objects and perpetual students in the Western-led order, or be contained as enemies of the liberal international order.

In the absence of a common European security architecture, an expansionist NATO and EU filled the vacuum. But Russia’s reaction to Western expansionism and unilateralism subsequently returned Moscow from the role as a compliant, civilising object to an enemy of the liberal international system that had to be contained.

China was in a much more favourable position as it did not face the same revisionism along its borders. China thus implicitly accepted temporarily foregoing a significant role in the international system. Deng Xiaoping famously defined China’s “peaceful rise” as entailing “[to] bide our time and hide our capabilities” by focusing on internal development whilst avoiding provoking the great powers. This approach was always temporary, as China would one day outgrow the US-dominated system. In 2010, China had become too powerful and Barack Obama announced its “pivot to Asia” to contain China, which escalated to an economic war under Donald Trump.

Between unipolarity and multipolarity

The current international disorder is caused by an interregnum – the world is currently stuck between a unipolar and a multipolar format. The West is pushing for a return to the unipolar era that existed before sanctions on Russia and the economic war against China. However, the two Eurasian giants, Russia and China, have spent the past years adjusting to a multipolar system.

The West will insist that on maintaining liberal hegemony due to a commitment and belief in liberal values, among elites (although that is no longer uniform), while Russia and China will reject a value-based system that is instrumental to impose an untenable unipolar order. There is no going back as the world has moved on, although the West is not yet ready to move forward.

Glenn Diesen is a Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal. 

March 23, 2021 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian Foreign Ministry on Biden’s Character Assassination of Putin

By Stephen Lendman | March 20, 2021

Biden’s denigration of Vladimir Putin, calling him a soulless “killer,” threatening to make him “pay a price” for nonexistent Russian US election meddling, nonexistent poisoning of Navalny, and other invented reasons, imposing multiple rounds of lawless sanctions on Moscow with more to come along with other dirty tricks, demands sharp retaliation well beyond words alone.

Washington considers Russia a mortal enemy — for its sovereign independence, for smashing US supported ISIS and its other jihadist foot soldiers, for turning the tide of battle in Syria, for defeating Washington’s imperial project in the country.

No prospect exists for improved bilateral relations. Good faith diplomatic outreach to the US is a waste of time.

Promises when made by its ruling authorities are hollow, betrayal virtually always following.

Moscow should cut ties to the US. They exist in name only.

A state of undeclared US war on Russia by other means exists — chances for turning a page for normalized relations rejected by its dominant hardliners.

Both right wings of its war party go all out to undermine Russia and other independent countries politically, economically, and militarily.

So far, it’s short of preemptive war against Russia, China, and Iran, nations able to hit back hard if attacked.

Yet what’s unthinkable is possible by accident or design.

The Pentagon has war plans drawn and updated against all invented US adversaries.

For dominant hardliners in Washington, normalization of relations with nations free from their control is off the table, why pursuing them by Russia, China and other independent countries assures failure when tried.

US ruling authorities demand subservience from the world community of nations.

Ones unwilling to bend to their will are targeted for regime change — by whatever it takes in trying to achieve their diabolical aims.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accompanied tough talk condemnation of Biden’s denigration of Putin with customary Russian softness in separate remarks — viewed as weakness by dominant US hardliners.

Zakharova: “The current US (regime) never ceases to surprise us with its absurd public statements.”

“It’s not just about the unseemly attacks against Russia’s top officials, but also the absurd accusations of Russia’s interference in last year’s presidential election in the United States, in which, as you are aware, Joe Biden was the winner.”

Corrections: Unacceptable Biden regime accusations of Russian US election interference, poisoning Navalny, and other phony claims are bald-faced Big Lies.

Calling them “absurd” isn’t strong enough.

Trump defeated Biden as Russia and everyone paying attention knows, not the other way around.

Zakharova got tougher about fake accusations of Russian US election interference, saying:

“We consider this yet another fabrication which is built entirely on the groundless belief that ‘Russian influencers, including Donald Trump’s support base if you follow this line of thinking, were behind the massive online criticism of the (Dem) candidate.”

“Meanwhile, if there was anyone who tried to ‘influence’ the voting, it was the pro-(Dem) internet juggernauts that blocked the social media accounts of the incumbent president and hundreds of thousands of his supporters.”

Indeed and she added:

“There is no evidence of Russian government agencies’ interference in US domestic affairs, something you can’t say about the US officials’ endless attempts to control political processes in other countries, including Russia, and to issue direct orders to marginal opposition groups in order to sow instability, discord and strife.”

“We clearly saw this in their response to the unauthorized demonstrations in Moscow in January, in which their organizers tried to involve even minors.”

“(T)he US is held captive by illusions as it strives to unleash a senseless campaign of Russophobic attacks.”

“This only leads to further degradation of bilateral relations, which contradicts the fundamental interests of the peoples of Russia and the United States.”

“It appears that Washington is not ready to understand the ensuing risks to peace and security.”

The above tough talk is long overdue and welcome, even though not as tough as what’s needed — accompanied by bold actions.

No longer should Russia refer to US officials as “colleagues” and “partners.” They’re mortal enemies.

When tough talk like the above occurs, time and again it’s followed by softness, diplomatic outreach for improved relations.

It’s obvious to everyone paying attention that US authorities have no intention normalizing ties with governments unwilling to bend to their will, no intention to pursue peace and cooperative relations with other nations on a level playing field, according to the rule of law.

Dominant US hardliners demand obedience, submission to their will.

Hardball targets outliers, countries wanting their sovereign rights and territorial integrity respected.

Washington plays by other rules, its own — demanding everything, offering nothing in return but broken promises and toughness.

The only effective response is by giving its ruling authorities a taste of their own medicine, short of war.

Nothing else gets their attention.

Treating the US like a normal country assures failure every time tried and self-inflicts harm.

Russia, China and other nations free from its imperial control need to assert their sovereign rights through strength, not weakness.

It’s the only language hardliners in Washington understand.

March 20, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Terminate NATO

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 19, 2021

The Washington Post has published a long piece calling for NATO to take on a new official enemy — China. The piece is written by Sara Bjerg Moller, an assistant professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. She argues that after 30 years since losing the Soviet Union as its official enemy and struggling to find a replacement to justify its continued existence, a perfect replacement would be China.

I’ve got a better idea. Let’s just put NATO out of its misery and terminate it.

After all, let’s not forget NATO’s original mission: to defend Europe from the possibility of an invasion by the Soviet Union, which had been America’s and Britain’s World War II partner and ally but which had been converted to their official enemy at the end of the war.

But the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Europe was always nil. The Soviet Union had been decimated by World War II, especially as a result of the German invasion of the country. Even though the invasion was ultimately repelled and Germany was defeated, the Soviet Union’s industrial capacity had been destroyed, not to mention the millions of Russian citizens who had been killed. The last thing the Soviet Union wanted was another war, especially given that the United States possessed nuclear weapons and had shown a willingness to employ them against large cities.

The advocates of a national-security state in the United States, however, needed a new official enemy to replace Nazi Germany, especially to justify the conversion of the U.S. government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state, a type of governmental structure with omnipotent, non-reviewable powers. The Soviet Union and “godless communism” fit the bill perfectly. The American people were then inculcated with the notion that there was an international communist conspiracy to take over the United States and the rest of the world that was based in Moscow, Russia.

To convince Americans and western Europeans that the Soviet Union posed a grave threat to them, U.S. officials pointed to the postwar Soviet occupations of Eastern Europe and East Germany as examples of communist aggression. They apparently forgot that President Franklin Roosevelt had delivered such lands into the hands of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who FDR affectionately referred to as his “Uncle Joe,” at their wartime summit in Yalta. Was it really too surprising that Stalin accepted FDR’s gift, especially given that Eastern Europe and East Germany would serve as a buffer against another German invasion of the Soviet Union?

It was within this fervent anti-communist environment that NATO was formed. But in 1989, the Cold War suddenly and unexpectedly came to an end, which, needless to say, put the U.S. national-security establishment and NATO into a panic. After all, the Cold War was the justification for both of these institutions. With no Cold War, they could both be dismantled.

Instead, the national-security establishment simply went into the Middle East and began poking hornets’ nest, which ultimately brought terrorist retaliation, which in turn brought the “war on terrorism,” another racket that has kept the national-security establishment in high cotton.

Meanwhile, unwilling to let Russia go as an official enemy, NATO began gobbling up former members of the Warsaw Pact, with the aim of placing U.S. troops and missiles ever closer to Russia’s borders and with the hope of provoking a reaction, which ultimately came about in Ukraine.

As Moller argues, however, Russia poses no real threat to Europe and, therefore, cannot be seriously considered to be a justification for NATO. Instead, she argues, it’s time to replace Russia with China, owing to China’s rise as an international powerhouse. The reasoning is classic empire-think: If a nation starts to prosper and rise, it’s best to put it down before it gets too large and powerful.

How about just leaving China and Russia alone? What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with other nations becoming prosperous? The fact is that NATO should never have been established in the first place. Moreover, the biggest mistake in U.S. history was to convert the federal government to a national-security state. The best thing American could do now is terminate NATO and restore a limited-government republic to our land.

March 20, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Uncle Shmuel Is Truly Brain Dead…

By The Saker | Unz Review | March 17, 2021

By now, you have all heard it. Here is the official transcript:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Director of National Intelligence came out with a report today saying that Vladimir Putin authorized operations during the election to under — denigrate you, support President Trump, undermine our elections, divide our society. What price must he pay?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: He will pay a price. I, we had a long talk, he and I, when we — I know him relatively well. And I– the conversation started off, I said, “I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.”

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You said you know he doesn’t have a soul.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I did say that to him, yes. And — and his response was, “We understand one another.” It was– I wasn’t being a wise guy. I was alone with him in his office. And that — that’s how it came about. It was when President Bush had said, “I looked in his eyes and saw his soul.” I said, “Looked in your eyes and I don’t think you have a soul.” And looked back and he said, “We understand each other.” Look, most important thing dealing with foreign leaders in my experience, and I’ve dealt with an awful lot of ’em over my career, is just know the other guy. Don’t expect somethin’ that you’re– that — don’t expect him to– or her to– voluntarily appear in the second editions of Profiles in Courage.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Uh-huh. I do.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So what price must he pay?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The price he’s gonna pay we’ll– you’ll see shortly.

This is truly a historic interview and a watershed moment in US-Russia relations. Let’s deconstruct what is happening here:

“Director of National Intelligence came out with a report”: Ever since 9/11, the US intel community has been under huge pressure to produce not intelligence, but to serve as a kind of criterion of truth, a substitute for any rules of evidence. For example, if tomorrow Biden’s handlers want to accuse Putin of eating newborn babies for breakfast, all they have to do is get the US intel community to produce a report which will say with “great confidence” that it is “highly likely” that Putin does, indeed, like to start his days by snaking on babies. The “logic” here works like this: “since we (the West) are the good guys, our intelligence community is objective, non-political and trustworthy”. QED. And the fact that the history of both the CIA and the FBI prove beyond any reasonable doubt that both of these agencies were totally politicized for decades does not matter. Why? Because the also “objective, non-political and trustworthy” US media says that the intel community must be trusted because it is, you guessed it, “objective, non-political and trustworthy”. Oh the beauty of circular logic…

Next,

“What price must he pay?”. This one is so important that Stephanopoulos asks this twice and Biden “reassures” him twice. The message here is that it is not Stephanopoulos who demands a retaliation, it is the vox populi, the outraged people of the United States. And why would the people of the US hate Putin and Russia and demand retaliation? Why – because the objective, non-political and trustworthy US media fully endorses the claims of the objective, non-political and trustworthy US intel community! How can anybody possibly doubt these two paragons of honesty?! Only a “Putin agent” would doubt their word, right?

Then,

“Putin does not have a soul”. This is pretty pathetic, since Stephanopoulos comes from a Greek Orthodox family he should know that all humans have a soul and to suggest otherwise is, actually, a total and categorical rejection of everything Christianity stands for. It is also a clear case of dehumanization, something which all politicians do before they turn to violence and war. It is unlikely that Biden has any idea what he did or did not tell Putin when they met, but even if we assume that Biden did actually tell Putin that he had no soul, I can just imagine the true amazement (and inner giggle) of Putin hearing that. By the way, the “official” response of Putin was “we understand each other” which makes absolutely no logical sense. So what we have is a basically brain dead pseudo “President” who is programmed by his handlers to tell the US public that Putin has no soul and that Biden told him that face to face. What actual purpose such a statement would pursue is neither asked nor answered.

Finally

“Is Putin a killer”. First, what a fantastically stupid thing to ask. Why? Because this question has no objective meaning unless the context or scope is specified. It could mean “did he commit murder?“, that is illegal manslaughter, a crime under Russian law. Or it could mean “did he, the President of Russia, order Russian special services to kill Litvinenko, Skripal, Navalnyii and others?“. This would be legal under Russian law and, in fact, the Russians have never denied ordering the execution of, say, Wahabi terrorists (both in Russia and outside). That would be a policy decision similar to one the US used to (putatively) execute Osama Bin-Laden or General Soleimani. Finally, that question could also mean “did Putin as the commander in chief of the Russian armed forces order military operations which resulted in the loss of human life, including possible innocent human life?“. This would also be a policy decision which any commander in chief has to make. These are all completely different questions, but for micro-brains like Stephanopoulos or Biden, the purpose of questions is not to elicit answers, it is to set an emotional tone, a kind of “mental background” which Orwell very aptly called the “two minutes of hate“.

Yes, all of the above is completely unprecedented: not even in the worst hours of the Cold War did western politicians use that kind of language. What we witness today is not only truly extremely dangerous, it is also the end of diplomacy. Yes, I know, ever since the Obama administration, US “diplomats” were mostly unprofessional political appointees with a fantastically low level of education, fully compensated by a fantastically high level of arrogance and hypocrisy. But while the likes of Psaki would spew any idiocy imaginable, US Presidents have never sunk to the level of Biden.

You might wonder what the Russian reaction to all that is?

First, the Russian media immediately picked up on this and posted key excerpts of this interview with Russian voice-over, as did the Russian Internet. The goal here is simple: to show each and every Russian how much the West hates Russia and everything Russia. Furthermore, it does not take a genius to understand the implications of the combination of the following two facts:

  1. Putin is by far the most popular Russian politician, at least since Stalin
  2. The West sees Putin as some kind of devil incarnate
  3. Ergo: the West hates all the Russian people for regularly voting for Putin

Simple and quite undeniable. In fact, an increasing number of Russians are saying “we are the Jews of the 21st century” and, frankly, I cannot disagree with this. The big difference here is that 20th century Jews did not have thousands of nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Russians do.

I wonder if Stephanopoulos and the rest of them understand this? I don’t think so. There is a culture of total impunity in the US which stems from the fact that the US never fought a war in defense of the US mainland in its history and from the fact that the US used to be protected by two oceans and two absolutely peaceful neighbors.

In sharp contrast, Russia has no natural borders and 1000 years experience of war, most of them existential and most fought on Russian soil.

I would also add that the other comment many Russian officials are making is that Biden simply lacks even basic manners. To make clear: they are not only saying that Biden has zero understanding of diplomacy, they are saying that Biden simply has no basic manners which any semi-educated person ought to have. On the main Russian TV channel reporters were even asking today whether Russia ought to completely break diplomatic relations with the US! That would be a very dangerous mistake and I don’t think that the Kremlin will go so far, at least officially, but there is a clear understanding amongst Russian officials while officially the two countries still have diplomatic relations, in reality the US basically terminated them.

Do I really have to spell out here how insanely dangerous this is?

While it is absolutely normal for some tribes still living in the bronze-age to play out ritual threats and displays of macho prowess in order to impress an adversary, to see the (nominal) leader of a nuclear superpower acting like such a bronze-age tribal leader is perplexing to say the least.

And just like the Sentinelese tribesmen believe that their bows and arrows can scare away metal ships and even helicopters, so do the “Biden tribesmen” (let’s call them that) hope that sanctions or US military capabilities will scare Russia into complete submission.

Furthermore, at no time does Stephanopoulos question the moral and legal right of the US President to “punish” Russia and/or Putin. In fact, by repeating this question, he strongly suggests that punishing Russia and/or Putin is not only the right of the US President, but his moral and, possibly, even legal obligation. This is exactly what Dr John Marciano calls “empire as a way of life” (see here and here for details). This ignorant, arrogant, narcissistic, messianic and terminally delusional belief that the US is some kind of “collective messiah” tasked by nature or some god with policing the planet. The Sentinelese try to “defend” their own shores and land and they don’t have millions of members in an organization called “Veterans of Foreign Wars” (have they really no shame at all?) and they don’t spend on “defense” more than the rest of the planet combined.

Finally, we can rest assured that whoever is in command of the Sentinelese he (or she) is a much smarter and honest leader than the brain-dead vegetable that the theft of the US 2020 election put into power.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s wonderful tale the breaking moment comes when an innocent child explains “he hasn’t got anything on!“, while the rest of the people are under the spell of what is called “pluralistic ignorance“.

In conclusion, let me ask you: how soon do you think that declaring, say, “Uncle Shmuel is truly brain dead…” will become a criminal offense in the so-called “the land of the free and the home of the brave“?

UPDATE: Breaking news – Russia recalls ambassador from the US.

March 17, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Trade-Off ahead on Syria and Yemen

By Ghassan Kadi for the Saker Blog | March 16, 2021

In the past few weeks much has happened in the area of diplomacy on the part of Russia. Russia is forging ahead after stepping up its presence in the Middle East in the past decade, taking a strong pro-active political role. Moscow during this period has been intent on consolidating its efforts in re-establishing itself as the key player in any political settlements in the Middle East. Ever since Kissinger in the late 1970’s pulled the rug out from underneath the feet of the USSR, striking a deal between Israel and Egypt, excluding the USSR and the rest of the Arab World, the political influence of Russia in the Middle East significantly waned until it came back with deciding force when Russia responded to the Syrian Government’s request for help in September 2015.

Lately, the economic crisis has deepened in Syria following the drastic Western sanctions. And specifically after the implementation of the Caesar’s Act, the Syrian currency took a huge tumble and the cost of living has soared to unprecedented levels. This left many cynics wondering and pondering what was Russia going to do in the face of the collapsed Syrian economy after having achieved an impressive military victory, taking its troops outside its former USSR borders for the first time and heralding the end of the single super power status of the USA.

To this effect, and on the diplomatic side, Russian FM Lavrov has recently visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE for talks pertaining to an array of issues. The agenda issues that transpired to the media include trade, the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, as well as issues of global and regional security, albeit vague in details as what ‘security issues’ mean.

It appears that in these meetings, discussions included the return of Syria to the Arab League and the cost of reconstruction of Syria after ten years of war, a bill touted to exceed $Bn200. Expectations have existed for some time that the Arab Gulf states will fork out a huge chunk of this cost. As mentioned above, the bottom line here is that Russia’s military success in its operation in Syria needs to be followed by political success. Partly, this is achieved within the Astana talks which include Turkey and Iran. However, the very same Arab States instrumental in the ‘War on Syria’ are also instrumental in facilitating the return of Syria to the Arab League, the reconstruction efforts in Syria and the easing of sanctions. The Gulf states have always reiterated that there will be no return of Syria to the Arab League for as long as Iranian forces remain on the ground. The UAE seemed more open than Saudi Arabia to the prospects of Syria’s return to the Arab League and financing the reconstruction process.

But why would the Gulf States, the same states that spent tens of billions of dollars in order to destroy Syria, be suddenly now interested in the reversal of the process? This is a fair question to ask.

Quite unexpectedly, and almost immediately after the return of Lavrov to Moscow, a top delegation of Hezbollah, headed by Mohamad Raad, was invited to Moscow for talks. Apparently, the visit was cloaked in a veil of secrecy in Russia and was not at all covered in Western media, even though it made news in Arabic mainstream media. It would be politically naïve to imagine that Lavrov’s visit to the Gulf has no relation to this. All issues in the Middle East are related to each other, including the war in Yemen.

To put it succinctly, the UAE had already stepped away from the Yemen war. However, Saudi Arabia remains bogged down in this travesty and seven years on, must have come to the humiliating and painful realization that it is a war it cannot win. This is where Iran and Hezbollah can have leverage in any direct or indirect negotiations with the Saudis, and Russia is the only arbitrator who is able to communicate with all parties involved.

All parties in the Middle East are looking for face-saving tradeoffs; at least partial and interim ones. The Saudis in particular are tired and exhausted.

In an interview given to Sputnik Arabic, one not widely reported in other media, not even Sputnik English, Raad praised the cooperation between Hezbollah and Russia, stating that ‘the invitation we received aims to reopen the dialogue about the next phase after having reached the achievements that serve the interests of the people of the region in the recent past’ .

This is Raad’s first visit to Moscow since 2011. Of that visit, I am not trying to speculate in hindsight of the purpose of it and the achievements of it. Furthermore, Hezbollah has not ever been party to any international dis-engagement or peace negotiations in the past, except for ones relating to exchange of prisoners. The economic demise of Syria and Lebanon, as well as the Saudi-Yemeni impasse, may well have placed Hezbollah in a position of participating in peace-deals negotiations this time.

I am neither referring to peace deals with Israel here, nor any deal involving disarmament. Hezbollah will not be prepared to negotiate disarming itself under any political settlement either today or in the foreseeable future, and Moscow is totally aware of this.

According to my analysis, the deal that Moscow is most likely to suggest is a mutual withdrawal of Iran and Hezbollah from Syria on one hand, and an end of the Saudi war on Yemen. It is simple, Saudi Arabia to leave Yemen and Iran/Hezbollah to leave Syria. I believe that Lavrov has already secured the Saudi acceptance of those terms, terms that will not only end the war in Yemen, but also the return of Syria to the Arab League and a possible easing of the Western economic sanctions on Syria. Had Lavrov not secured the Saudi assurance, he would not have invited Hezbollah for talks.

A deal of this nature can potentially end the criminal human tragedy in Yemen in a manner that will portray the Saudis as the real losers in the war, and this is where they need a face-saving trade-off in Syria. In Syria, they will be perceived as winners by securing an Iranian/Hezbollah exit. But most importantly perhaps for the Saudis, this will put an end to a very costly and humiliating war in Yemen, one which is beginning to draw criticism from some quarters of the international community, including alleged talk of America considering placing arms deal embargos on Saudi Arabia.

On the other hand, if Iran and Hezbollah end their presence in Syria, many sanctions are likely to be lifted and the severe economic pressure in Syria will be eased. Such a deal will be a humanitarian win for Syria and Yemen, a strategic win for Saudi Arabia and Iran, and a diplomatic win for Russia.

What will be in it for Hezbollah will largely depend on what Lavrov has put on the table, and it seems obvious that it is Hezbollah that will need more convincing than Iran, and this is why the talks are now with Hezbollah; not with Iranian officials. Perhaps the deal already has the tacit approval of Iranian officials.

It goes without saying; Israel will be watching these developments with keen interest. Israel wants Iran and Hezbollah out of Syria. But the trade-off deal I am talking about is not one in which Israel is a direct party.

What is known at this stage is that a meeting has already taken place between the Hezbollah delegation and Russian officials. As I write this, I am not aware if other meetings are to follow and or whether or not the Hezbollah delegation is back in Lebanon.

Was the 2011 Moscow visit of Raad a prelude for Hezbollah to enter Syria? Will the 2021 visit be prelude for Hezbollah to leave Syria? We don’t know. We may never find out the actual detailed outcome of the mysterious-but-not-so-mysterious current Hezbollah visit. It may not even end up with a press release, but in the next coming days, we will find out if a Syria-Yemen trade-off is indeed looming.

March 16, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian company hit by Biden’s ‘chemical weapons’ sanctions says US left firm in ‘economic Guantanamo’ without trial

RT | March 16, 2021

The head of a scientific equipment supplier targeted by officials in Washington over supposed links to a shadowy Russian “chemical weapons” program has insisted the US’ accusations are untrue and it’s being unfairly singled out.

Andrey Mezinov, Director General of Femteko LLC, a Moscow-based wholesaler specializing in technical supplies, described how he was surprised to discover the firm among a list of organizations facing new sanctions from America. In an interview with business outlet RBK published on Tuesday, he said “we are accused, as I understand it, of supporting the production and development of chemical weapons… this is just nonsense.”

According to the businessman, far from participating in the alleged development of deadly toxic agents, Femteko has only ever done business with defense research institutes in the country on two occasions. This included “spare parts for the detector of a gas chromatograph” for a laboratory at the 27th Scientific Center of the Ministry of Defence, which also found itself on the sanction list. The equipment is used in laboratories throughout the world to analyze the content of gases, and the 2017 delivery was reportedly worth only 408,000 rubles ($5,590).

Last July, the firm also supplied forensic laboratory bottles to the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, for a total cost of 86,000 rubles ($1,180 ). “We knew what these would be used for,” Mezinov said, “but to say that the sale of such bottles supports the distribution [of chemical weapons]…”

While these purchases were made publicly accessible through tender processes and other documents, Mezinov insists that there was no off-the-books dealings with defense research institutes. However, he accepts that the equipment could potentially be used in a way that is undesirable for the US, “because we supply equipment that is versatile.” He added that, “most often it is used in the pharmaceutical industry, for the analysis of environmental substances, as well as in forensics, medicine, acute poisoning centers, anywhere.” At the same time, Femteko has also done business with US firms, and received clean bills of health as part of due-diligence inquiries.

The business is now reportedly weighing up its legal options and considering how best to extricate itself from the list of sanctioned organizations. In theory, Mezinov said, he could overcome the measures by simply shutting the business and transferring its assets to a new one with a different name, but at present, US officials are “engaged in the most obvious lawlessness.” Comparing the current state of affairs to “economic Guantanamo,” a notorious US prison for suspected terrorists on the island of Cuba, he added that “I would like to receive explanations and by my own means prove the injustice and illegality of this decision.”

Femteko was among nine Russian firms included on the list of organizations that Washington claims are involved in an alleged secretive chemical weapons program, as well as three based in Germany and one based in Switzerland. At the time, American authorities said that the businesses were engaged in “the production of biological and chemical weapons,” as well as “activities that are contrary to US national security and foreign policy interests.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted that the US claims are not based in reality. “Russia declared and verified the destruction of all chemical weapons on its territory many years ago and fully complied with international conventions,” he said. “Russia has no chemical weapons.”

March 16, 2021 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Gazprom significantly boosts natural gas supplies abroad in 2021

RT | March 15, 2021

Russian energy major Gazprom’s gas exports to non-CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries increased by 28.3% since the beginning of the year to 42.9 billion cubic meters, the company said.

That is “9.5 billion cubic meters more than in the first 2.5 months of last year,” according to Gazprom.

The company pointed out that the high demand for gas was due to the cold start of the calendar spring this year. “We continue to provide gas to domestic and foreign consumers on a full-scale basis,” it said.

Gazprom’s supplies particularly rose in Turkey (by 80.5%), Romania (77.7%), Finland (74.2%), Serbia (61.5%) and Bulgaria (52.1%). Gas deliveries to Germany and Greece also saw a boost of 28.7% and 24.5%, respectively.

The company said that in the first two weeks of this month, gas supplies to Turkey increased 11.5 times compared with the same period last year. Exports to China via the Power of Siberia mega gas pipeline regularly exceed Gazprom’s daily contractual obligations. The actual volume of supplies from March 1 to March 15 was 3.2 times more than in the same period of 2020, it said.

March 15, 2021 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose

By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021

Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.

A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.

The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. Cancer and birth defects can be linked to hundreds of atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted by the five so-called “nuclear powers” (the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom). The secrecy that these states attached–and still attach–to these tests has complicated efforts to obtain a true and accurate account of the human cost associated with nuclear weapons testing. Even the horrific numbers put out by a 1991 study by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which estimated that the radiation and radioactive materials from atmospheric testing taken in by people caused 430,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000, and predicted that roughly 2.4 million people could eventually die from cancer because of atmospheric testing, is just a guess.

A cancer on the globe

That many of these victims were veterans who were deliberately exposed to the effects of nuclear weapons is neither shocking nor excused. Some 250,000 US military personnel involved in the occupation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were exposed to radiation produced by the two atomic bombs dropped on those cities at the end of World War 2; another 400,000 were exposed to the effects of nuclear weapons over the course of nearly two hundred atmospheric tests that took place between 1946 and 1962. According to a study conducted by the National Cancer Institute and Centers for Disease Control, radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing has killed more than 15,000 Americans and caused at least 80,000 cancers. The Department of Veterans Affairs has created a category of veteran, the so-called “Atomic Veteran,” to classify military personnel and their dependents who qualify for compensation if they have been stricken by at least one of 21 presumptive cancers defined by law as being linked to radiation exposure.

The US is not the only nation that recklessly exposed its military personnel to the effects of nuclear weapons testing. The French army recently acknowledged that as many as 2,000 of the 6,000 military personnel based in French Polynesia who were involved in the nuclear tests between 1966 and 1974 have since contracted at least one form of cancer. This data set does not include the several thousand other French military personnel exposed to radiation from the seven nuclear weapons tests conducted in Algeria. On top of this some 22,000 British military personnel witnessed more than a dozen nuclear weapons tests carried out on Australian territory and neighboring Pacific islands between 1953 and 1963.

Supernova in the East

The Soviet Union, which carried out 137 atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, took the exposure of military personnel even further, conducting a nuclear test where a bomb the size of those dropped on Japan was detonated within two miles of 45,000 Red Army soldiers dug into defensive fighting positions. This test, conducted on September 14, 1954, in the Ural Mountains about 600 miles southeast of Moscow, finished with these soldiers, most of whom were not wearing any protective equipment, rising from their defensive positions to conduct an assault across the newly nuked landscape, apparently to prove that troops could operate effectively in a nuclear war.

It is not known how many of these soldiers died because of exposure to radiation, but the levels they were subjected to are estimated to be ten times that permitted for an American soldier to experience for an entire year. It is also unknown to what extent similar military exercises were held in relation to nuclear weapons testing nor the total number of Soviet military personnel exposed to the effects of radiation and the long-term health consequences.

Of the five so-called “nuclear powers” (nations whose nuclear arsenals are openly acknowledged and recognized by the nuclear nonproliferation treaty), China operates with the greatest level of secrecy, but we know of nearly two dozen atmospheric tests. While little is known about these tests, some estimates hold that more than 20 million Chinese may have been exposed to radiation, that 194,000 people may have died from acute radiation exposure, and another 1.2 million may have received doses high enough to cause cancer.

The civilian cost

That civilians bear the greatest burden of the decades of nuclear weapons testing should not come as a surprise. Even though the nuclear weapons powers will all contend that they went to great lengths to conduct these tests in remote locations, as far from civilian populations as practical, the reality is that the unpredictability and persistence of the radioactive fallout produced from these tests have led to widespread exposures, with deleterious health effects.

In Algeria, it is estimated that between 27,000 to 60,000 people from communities around the French nuclear test sites were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. More than 110,000 occupants of French Polynesia were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, including the 80,000 inhabitants of the capital, Papeete, when the highly radioactive cloud from a 1974 atmospheric test drifted over the city. The civilian population was not notified, and no precautions were taken. The number of Australian aboriginal people exposed to radiation from the United Kingdom’s nuclear testing on Australian soil likewise numbers in the many thousands.

The Kazakh region of Semipalatinsk bears similar witness to the dangers of testing. Between 1949 and 1989, 1.5 million residents of the former Soviet oblast of Semipalatinsk were subjected to at least 456 nuclear tests conducted at an 18,000-square-kilometer site known as Semipalatinsk-21. Today, samples taken from the soil and water of the region show a level of radiation more than 10 times the norm. More than half the population has died of cancer before reaching the age of 60, and one in 20 children born in the region has some form of serious deformity. These results are not an aberration, but the norm.

British veterans who were exposed to radiation from nuclear testing were found to have fathered children possessing congenital defects at a rate of 94.2 per thousand births, as compared to 9.6 for non-veterans. And radiation is the gift that keeps on giving–among the grandchildren of these “Atomic Veterans,” the defect rate was 61.4, compared with 7.4 for the grandchildren of those not exposed.

The Dirty Harry Test – not feeling lucky

The United States has its own sordid history of nuclear tests gone bad, perhaps the most notorious being the so-called “Dirty Harry” test involving a 32-kiloton weapon that was detonated at the Nevada Test Site on May 19, 1953. Due to a miscalculation in the weather report, accompanied by an unexpected change in wind direction, the explosion generated a highly contaminated fallout cloud which drifted over the town of St. George, in the neighboring state of Utah. The town’s residents were not told to shelter, and school children were playing at morning recess when the radiation began to settle on the town. Radiation counters used to measure the level of contamination maxed out at 300-350 milliroentgens, more than three times the maximum permitted annual rate of exposure. It would be hours before the citizens of St. George were told to take cover.

The impact of the ‘Dirty Harry’ test on the health of St. George’s population is still a matter of dispute, with various legal claims still working their way through the US legal system. But an indication of the deadly potential of exposure to the fallout of this test can be gauged by the experiences of the cast and crew of the Hollywood movie, The Conqueror, filmed on location outside St. George in 1954, a year after the test. The cast and crew spent several weeks on location. By 1980, 91 of the 220 persons involved with the film had developed cancer, of whom 46 died–including the stars of the film, John Wayne and Susan Hayward.

Sometimes it takes the death of a celebrity to shed light on a real and pressing concern that otherwise would escape attention. The fact that a nuclear weapons test may have caused the cancer that killed two American film legends is not known by most US citizens today, let alone the rest of the world. But Susan Hayward and John Wayne’s deaths highlight the reality that radiation poisoning knows no boundary. There is no social status that protects one from the fatal consequences of exposure to radioactive fallout from nuclear testing–it will kill a Kazakh peasant and Pacific islander as easily as a Hollywood legend. The radiation that likely killed John Wayne and Susan Hayward came from a single nuclear weapons test. While the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons is a thing of the past, the continued utility of nuclear weapons as a so-called “weapon of deterrence” should send alarm bells off around the world. The fact that nations continue to incorporate these weapons into their respective arsenals, and develop a doctrine that envisions their possible use, underscores the fact that people and politicians have lost touch with how utterly awful these weapons are, and why they must never be used again.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

March 12, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Censorship-happy Twitter suddenly concerned about ‘public conversation’ as Russia cracks down on illegal content

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | March 11, 2021

Twitter’s complaints about Russian regulators slowing down its traffic would be a lot more credible if the platform hadn’t been so eager to turn into a partisan echo chamber and place itself above the law in its own homeland.

On Wednesday, Russia began throttling Twitter as a way of pressuring the San Francisco-based company to remove over 3,100 posts found to be in violation of Russian law. Specifically, this includes 450 instances of child pornography and more than 2,500 incitements to underage suicide.

Twitter responded by saying it was “deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public conversation.”

It’s more than a bit disturbing that Twitter considers child porn and calls to suicide “public conversation.” The former is illegal in the US as well, and both are against their own terms of service.

Twitter might argue that it’s based in the US and that the First Amendment of the American Constitution protects the free speech of everyone on their platform – except we all know that for them to do so would be the height of hypocrisy.

Back in May 2018, a US federal judge defined Twitter as a “designated public forum,” ruling that then-President Donald Trump has no right to block hostile users, not even from the official presidential account but from his personal one. That would violate the law, and “no government official is above the law,” argued Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald.

Judge Buchwald was curiously silent when Twitter decided it was above the law, banning Trump’s account while he was still the sitting president in January 2021, on the basis of how his tweets might be “received and interpreted.”

Trump’s tweets “must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence,” Twitter argued, citing his “pattern of behavior” to argue that they amount to  “glorification of violence.”

Before removing the account and all its content altogether, Twitter – as well as Facebook and YouTube – outright deleted Trump’s video messages in which he called for his supporters to stay peaceful and respect law and order. Now that those are gone, the only narrative out there is the one pushed by mainstream media and Democrats, who claim Trump “incited insurrection” at the Capitol on January 6.

In the run-up to the 2020 US election, Twitter locked out the New York Post over a legitimate story about Hunter Biden and Ukraine; slapped a label insisting that massive changes to voting procedures were “safe and secure” – by sheer coincidence, in line with the effort to “fortify” the vote and ensure the “proper” outcome – and labeled any questions about the result as “disputed” before eventually banning those who asked them.

Twitter has since degenerated into a partisan echo chamber, where political trends are without exception the Democrat talking points of the day, often astroturfed by paid activists. Ostensibly a platform and not a publisher, their “What’s happening” sidebar editorializes constantly.

For example, earlier this week President Joe Biden seemed unable to remember the name or title of his defense secretary, who was standing right behind him. Through the lens of Twitter, that became the story of that one time Trump called the Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple,” as that’s what “people” were ostensibly talking about instead. Public square? More like loudspeakers blaring official propaganda from every lamppost.

They’re not the only Silicon Valley company to think itself above the law, or more powerful than entire countries. Witness the recent showdown between Facebook and Australia, in which Mark Zuckerberg sought to bully Canberra into abandoning plans to force online platforms to pay for news content. Perhaps Jack Dorsey is thinking he can do the same with Moscow.

Whatever the outcome of this showdown, don’t let anyone gaslight you into thinking it has anything to do with freedom of “online public conversation.” Free speech was a fundamental value of the American Republic, but that is manifestly no longer the case in the entity that has now replaced it, better known as Our Democracy. Silicon Valley supported this revolutionary change. It is now merely reaping what it has sown.

Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator

March 11, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

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