BBC Verify?
By Iain Davis | OffGuardian | May 31, 2023
With great fanfare, the BBC has launched BBC Verify. The state broadcaster’s very own, specialist “disinformation and social media correspondent,” Marianna Spring, announced its arrival live on UK TV.
She explained that the BBC would verify video, fact check and “counter disinformation.” So rest assured, no one needs to think about anything. The BBC will “fact check” everything for us and tell us what “the truth” is.
Apparently, it “really matters” that the BBC acts as the UK government’s official arbiter of truth because, according to Spring, “mistruths” can “cause really serious harm to society.” Marianna has yet to define “harm,” but that doesn’t really matter. The government hasn’t either, despite the fact that it has placed its vague concept of “harm” at the centre of its equally ambiguous Online Safety Bill. Which is proposed state censorship legislation that Marianna is very keen to promote.
Marianna said that we can familiarise ourselves with BBC truth if we are shown the BBC news team’s “workings.” A strange choice of words.
While “workings” means “the way an organisation operates” it also means “a system of holes.” It isn’t clear which definition Marianna was using, although both seem appropriate in reference to BBC news coverage.
Marianna proudly announced that the BBC were “able to look at maps.” This presumably unique BBC capability supposedly enables their intrepid reporters to analyse “war zones.” And find them too, which is handy.
Spring is very concerned about, what she calls, social media “disaster trolls.” She is seemingly referring to people who understand that the UK government is among those that often rely upon false flag terrorist attacks when they want to pass oppressive surveillance legislation or justify their next war.
“Disaster trolls,” she alleges, “cause real world harm” by questioning the often implausible and contradictory accounts of people who claim to have been injured in, what evidently appear to be, false flag terrorist attacks. Marianna hasn’t clarified whether “disaster trolls” are the people who ask questions or the idiots who abuse others online. Te be fair, that distinction is probably moot because Marianna, the BBC and the government clearly want to silence everyone who disagrees with them.
Marianna told the nation that she’s a social media troll. She described the “undercover” accounts that she has “set up” to deceive people on social media. She claimed that these help the BBC news team understand “polarisation online.” Although, the BBC are seemingly causing a fair bit of “polarisation” themselves with their fake troll accounts and endless accusation levelled against anyone who questions the state.
Trolling, Marianna maintains, helps the BBC nail down “just how social media works.” It is a shame they felt the need to create a network of fake accounts to figure this out. They could have just asked my 80-year-old mum. She understands how it works.
Marianna’s said that her online trolling activities are helping her to investigate the “UK’s conspiracy theory movement.” I wish her well, but I fear this is going to be a monumentally difficult task because there is no such thing as the UK’s conspiracy theory movement.
“Conspiracy theory” is just a term the CIA weaponised for their propagandists to help them shut down any debate—about who shot JFK—by sticking the dismissive “conspiracy theorist” label on anyone who dared to question the US government’s official account. It really doesn’t mean anything more than that. Alleged “conspiracy theorists” are just people who question government narratives.
This may go some way to explaining why attempts by the Establishment to lucidly define “conspiracy theories” are frequently absurd. For example, according to the UN, a conspiracy theory is “a belief that events are secretly manipulated behind the scene by powerful forces with negative intent.”
Of course, no one can ever know what a secret is because it’s a “secret.” Typically, the people who get labelled “conspiracy theorists” point toward real evidence that possibly indicates real conspiracies. They only remain “secrets” if you refuse to look at the evidence.
If there are people who believe events can be explained by highlighting things that can’t be known, and there is no evidence that such a “movement” exists in the UK or anywhere else, that would indeed be rather silly.
The UN then adds to its own confusion by stating that a “conspiracy theory” can be identified, in part, because there is evidence that “seems to support the conspiracy theory.” Quite how you find evidence that “seems” to support something that is incomprehensible is mystifying.
However, we do get some contradictory clarification from the academics the UN selected to back up its bizarre contention. In the Conspiracy Theory Handbook , cited by the UN as “evidence,” Professor Stephen Lewandowsky and John Cook PhD, from George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, stated:
Real conspiracies do exist. [. . .] The U.S. National Security Agency secretly spied on civilian internet users. [. . . ] We know about these conspiracies through internal industry documents, government investigations, or whistleblowers.
So conspiracies do exist! What are the UN rambling on about then? Are they secret or not? We get further clues from the UN’s eminent experts:
Real conspiracies get discovered through conventional thinking—healthy skepticism of official accounts while carefully considering available evidence and being committed to internal consistency.
Begging the question, what is the difference between the evidence that “seems to support the conspiracy theory” and the evidence that “seems” to expose a “real conspiracy”? The answer is, at least, forthcoming:
Conspiracy theories, by contrast, tend to persist for a long time even when there is no decisive evidence for them. [. . .] Typically, conspiracy theories are not supported by evidence that withstands scrutiny.
Ah, I see!
The real conspiracies are exposed by a novel type of evidence called “decisive evidence.” This is different from the evidence that “seems to support the conspiracy theory,” because only it can withstand scrutiny. Although, neither the UN nor its employed academics specify who should scrutinise it.
Perhaps we can now try to construct some sort of sense from, what otherwise appears to be, the UN’s garbled drivel.
The UN and its experts appear to suggest that “real conspiracies,” such as the US government spying on US citizens, are only revealed when “decisive evidence” is uncovered by, for example, US “government investigations.” Unless the evidence is officially acknowledged, or approved by the appointed experts, it is not evidence that stands up to scrutiny.
Right! Got it!
Presumably, we can therefore expect Marianna and the BBC Verify team to scrutinise the evidence offered by those she labels “conspiracy theorists” in order to “debunk” it. This will certainly represent a sea change for the BBC because, to date, they haven’t even reported any of the evidence offered by so-called conspiracy theorists, let alone scrutinised it.
Marianna promises to expose the nonexistent “UK conspiracy theory movement” with her new investigation, “Marianna in Conspiracy Land.” This, she claims, will enable the BBC audience to see how Marianna and her colleagues “piece together the truth.”
I suspect, BBC Verify will prove to be quite illuminating. But not for the reason’s that Marianna and the BBC hope.
US blocks China’s effort to condemn Israeli attacks on Gaza at UN: Report
The Cradle | May 11, 2023
US officials blocked an effort led by China at the UN Security Council (UNSC) on 10 May to condemn Israel’s latest onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to senior Israeli officials that spoke with the Times of Israel.
Washington’s interference reportedly came at the request of Tel Aviv, who feared the motion at Tuesday’s emergency meeting “would draw an equivalence” between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance group.
Over the decades, the US has consistently stepped in to protect Israel from facing the consequences of rampant human rights abuses, the military occupation of Palestinian land, and the imposition of an apartheid system targeting Palestinians.
The only exception to this rule came earlier this year, when Washington allowed a statement to pass at the UNSC blasting Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Nonetheless, the US went on to block a binding resolution against Israel.
Former US President Harry Truman was the first world leader to recognize Israel when it was created in 1948 following the ‘Nakba,’ or catastrophe, during which at least 700,000 Palestinians were violently evicted from their lands by Jewish settlers.
Israel is also the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid in the post-World War II era and enjoys unequivocal political and diplomatic cover from both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as from US corporate media.
However, US influence in the region has started to wane in recent months, pushing Israel further into isolation.
Last month, Beijing offered to help facilitate peace talks between Israel and Palestine as part of a larger effort to mediate historic conflicts in West Asia.
In December, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed support for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and voiced frustration over the “historical injustice” suffered by Palestinians.
He also called for granting Palestine “full membership in the United Nations” and said Beijing “supports the two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The Asian giant has slammed recent comments by a Jewish supremacist government minister, who in March said, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
“The Israeli senior official is wrong and irresponsible to deny Palestinian people’s existence and to display an ‘Israel map’ including Jordan and Palestinian places occupied by Israel at an event in Paris,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry.
When the trading gets rough, the pros go insider
The farm to table vertical integration of the gates foundation investing racket
by el gato malo – bad cattitude – may 6, 2023
in the aftermath of great events, “who knew what and when did they know it?” is always an interesting question.
the US intelligence community (michael spenger substack ) was suspected to have caught wind of covid back in november 2019.
astonishingly, the IC itself denies this and claims they were in the dark until later
Every official interviewed by the Committee—from working level analysts at NCMI to an official with relevant knowledge at the NSC—said that their first indication of a novel virus came with the publication of the ProMED notice published at 11:59 p.m. on December 30, 2019 that reported the announcement of a novel virus by the Wuhan Municipal Health Committee.
In sum, the first warnings of COVID-19 came from the non-IC based public health track—in this case disease surveillance conducted by local public health authorities in Wuhan.
but this invites some pretty pointy questions about their competence, no?
because it sure looks like pretty much everyone on the super special inside track of business and finance CLEARLY knew by then.
bill gates knew. the WEF and team davos knew. and they were making big plays to make big money months before the intelligence community is even claimed, much less claims to have known what was going on.
it does make one wonder…
bill gates bought $55 million (with an option for $100mm) of bioNtech stock in september of 2019 right before they suddenly had the intellectual property for the most profitable vaccine in history.
they were not working on vaccines previously.
i wonder where they got the tech?
no one seems to know.
but it sure looks like billy g knew.
so, here’s a fun little nugget from the bill and melinda gates foundation investment into bioNtech, from whom pfizer licensed the IP for the covid vaccine.
pretty prescient for september 2019.
source
does this seem like “boilerplate?”
because it seems oddly specific (but deniable) as a “partnership” on something unrelated that could suddenly be “covid.”
and the timing is awfully provocative especially in light of some other events.
he did well getting out as well.
gates sold in 2021, banking $260 million, pretty much right at the top and has since changed his tune on mRNA vaccines, but this is hardly uncommon for “investors talking their book.”
the rest of this fact pattern looks a bit nastier though, more like the 3.0 sand hill road model of “buy up companies in a space and then mandate the adoption of their products.”
this has been the great game out there since even before kleiner perkins hired al gore to shill and lobby for their greentech portfolio. they are currently playing a similar (and more subtle) game playing hungry hungry hippos with HVAC companies and then pushing through new “air handling mandates” for new buildings, schools, offices, etc. cuz “public health.”
but the gates foundation makes them look like pikers.
if you’re going to make a big push into selling vaccines and drugs, why buy mere lobbyists when you can buy the WHO? gates is by far their largest private donor, 25X the size of the next biggest and was their number 2 donor overall.
$531 million buys A LOT of access and control. it’s perfect. the WHO is not only on the ground all over, but they also give advice and set policy/terms for assistance. so gates gets all the info instantly about what’s happening in diseases and then gets to tell the WHO what to tell everyone to do about it. play the hero and add a zero (to your bank balances).
it’s a truly great grift and few dare call it out as the nasty, hard-knuckle lobbying and advocacy it is because it looks like philanthropy.
weaponized philanthropy to be sure, but “philanthropy” and tax free to boot.
not only did bill get early word on wuhan and reach out and place big money on the one subtle square that was going to pay out huge by suddenly having the answer to the most asked question on earth and coming out of obscure nowhere to partner with pharma titan pfizer, but he went a full step further and actually held a pandemic war game under the auspices of john’s hopkins that gathered top policy makers and thought leaders to assess a global outbreak of an “imaginary” disease that happened to look exactly like SARS-cov2. this was the now infamous “event 201.”
and look who threw the party: the WEF and the gates foundation.
it’s obvious that they knew exactly what was coming. this was the overt planning plenary for covid. it was not pretend. and many/most those attending must have known that. this is the same time gates was buying bioNtech.
the bioNtech investment was 9/4/19. event 201 was 10/18, five weeks later.
who knows how much earlier the due diligence and planning must have begun, especially for the investment.
there’s getting lucky, and there’s putting the fix in because you know what others do not.
tell me that this “imaginary scenario” 2-3 months before the whole world knew what was happening was just a lucky guess.
the “players” were a high powered gang including big business, healthcare companies, the UN, the head of china’s CDC, a number of academics, the head of US CDC preparedness and response, monetary authorities, and media firms.
UN cross-border aid program for Syria abused by extremists: Moscow
The Cradle | April 28, 2023
Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, said on 27 April that the UN-sponsored cross-border aid mechanism for Syria has “exhausted its capabilities” and is being “used for other purposes.”
The cross-border humanitarian aid mechanism has “has long since exhausted its capabilities and is being used for other purposes, far from addressing the humanitarian situation,” Nebenzia stressed.
The cross-border aid mechanism was established by the UN in 2014 in order to provide aid to northern Syria through the Turkish-Syrian border without authorization from the government in Damascus – a contravention of international regulations.
However, extremist militants in control of large swathes of Syria’s north began taking advantage of the mechanism in order to seize humanitarian aid for themselves, at times to sell for higher prices. Northern border-crossings associated with the UN aid program have even been subject to drug smuggling by armed groups.
Groups such as the Nusra Front, the former Al-Qaeda branch now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have also been involved in kidnapping aid workers to demand large ransoms – worsening an already volatile humanitarian situation. The aid program also excludes the majority of the population who reside in government-held territory, where an economy ravaged by sanctions has created significant humanitarian concerns.
“We would like to stress that if our western colleagues in the UN Security Council continue to act as if nothing has happened, and ignore the thwarting of the implementation of the Security Council resolution by international terrorists, we will draw the required conclusions from the current situation while formulating our position on extending the aid transfer mechanism for next July,” Nebenzia added.
The last time the cross-border aid mechanism was extended was in January this year. Russia has called for an end to the program numerous times, and has vetoed its extension in the past.
“It looks like permissions to use two additional checkpoints for three months, issued by Damascus, have de-facto reduced to zero UN enthusiasm to unblock deliveries via the contact line,” the Russian official said.
This refers to the two additional border crossings opened by the Syrian government following February’s devastating earthquake. The crossings, which link government-held territory to the militant-held north, would allow aid to be dispersed conventionally through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). However, the UN has yet to lift restrictions on the use of these crossings.
Some have said that this is to perpetuate the idea that Damascus is behind the obstruction of aid delivery across the country, when in fact, HTS and other groups are to blame.
Russia cannot lose its UNSC seat despite Western and Ukrainian attempts
By Ahmed Adel | April 27, 2023
The US has a strong ambition to add its allies to the United Nations Security Council to weaken Russia’s influence across the world, or if this fails, to render the organisation useless, akin to the old League of Nations. However, even more dangerous than the US seeking more allies in the UNSC are the initiatives to abolish Russia’s right of veto and take away its status as a permanent member. Kiev raises this suggestion at almost every session of the UN General Assembly.
In this sense, new challenges are being created, especially as UN Secretary General António Guterres stated that the majority of UN member states see the need for reforming the UNSC. Such suggestions must be treated with suspicion though as the US wants to take advantage and weaken not only Russian influence, but also Chinese.
Guterres and the US are clearly trying to push their closest allies, such as Germany, Australia, and Japan, where unsurprisingly American military bases are located, into the UNSC. There are also other countries, such as Turkey, which regularly raise the issue of UNSC reform and complain that the fate of humanity should not depend on five countries – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US.
However, Turkey’s suggestion is problematic as the UNSC would be inundated with permanent membership requests from dozens of middle powers who have equal or greater power than Turkey, such as Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Realistically, at this current junction, an expanded permanent UNSC could only include Brazil and India, the former because it is the most important country in Latin America and the latter because it is on a rapid path towards Great Power status.
None-the-less, Moscow, just like Washington, is in favour of reforming the UNSC, but with significantly different views. While the US and its allies are pushing reforms as a possible way to limit Russian influence, Moscow believes that the Security Council should to be expanded, but to achieve a more equitable world and to not empower Western aggression.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that the composition of the UNSC should be strengthened by Asian, African, and Latin American countries, which are not represented in the UNSC, with the exception of China in regards to Asia. Therefore, in Moscow’s view, the UNSC should not be expanded only so that the West and its closest allies, such as Japan, can get additional seats. Moscow wants to balance the UNSC because the West has three of five permanent seats despite comprising only a minority of humanity.
It is clear that Lavrov has strategically put the West in a difficult position because if they veto the expansion initiative, it will lead to a backlash from countries like India which believe they have earned a right to a permanent seat in the UNSC. At the same time, Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart must be cautious on expansion so that the UNSC does not transform into a political branch of NATO.
The UN Charter does not provide for a reform procedure, and this especially applies to the UNSC, which is the most important body of the organisation. By recklessly expanding the body, the contradictions and conflicts of interest, which already hinder the UNSC in its current format, would elevate.
Therefore, in the current geopolitical situation, it will be very difficult to reform the UNSC in such a way as to objectively consider the interests of all participants in the process. A permanent UNSC membership is a privilege and not something to lightly contemplate expanding upon.
There is also no legal basis to exclude Russia from the UNSC, limit its status and deprive it of veto rights. The entire architecture of the UN was originally built on the fact that the five great powers, the winners of the Second World War, assumed the role of guarding the global world order. The founding states cannot exclude each other because if one or two pillars are thrown out, the UN would collapse.
If Russia was somehow excluded, it would mark the destruction of the entire system based on international law, on the UN Charter, and would call into question the existence of the UN itself. Russia, however, is a permanent member of the Security Council and has veto power. This practically means that Russia, if the Charter is applied, can only be expelled if it does not exercise its veto power. Therefore, it is impossible to deprive Russia of that right, despite constant Ukrainian attempts.
Hypothetically, there are two scenarios in which Russia could lose its seat in the UNSC – first, if it excludes itself and second, if the UN ceases to exist as an organisation. It is recalled that the Soviet Union was foolishly excluded from the League of Nations, the forerunner of the UN, but that organisation ceased to exist. The same fate would befall the UN if Russia was expelled.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Iran’s UN ambassador: US unilateral actions violate UN Charter, threaten multilateralism
Press TV – April 24, 2023
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations says unilateral measures taken by the United States are against the UN Charter while threatening multilateralism in the world.
Amir Saeed Iravani made the remarks in a Monday address delivered during a UN Security Council debate on multilateralism.
“Multilateralism has been recognized as a well-established approach to addressing global challenges and effective multilateralism … is essential for ensuring international peace and security,” he said.
The official, however, warned that the integrity and effectiveness of multilateralism are undermined by the abuse of the UN system and selective application of international law, which pose a serious threat to international cooperation, peace, and security.
“Within this context, the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, re-imposition of illegal unilateral sanctions on Iran, its coercion of other countries to engage in these illegal actions, and defiance of the International Court of Justice’s order are striking examples of how such harmful unilateral acts violate the UN Charter, undermine the UN system and threaten multilateralism,” Iran’s ambassador said.
He was referring to Washington’s unilateral and illegal withdrawal in 2018 from a multilateral deal with Iran, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), whose other members included the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. After leaving the deal, the administration of former US President Donald Trump reinstated all anti-Iran sanctions that the accord had lifted and introduced its signature “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran.
The administration of Trump’s successor Joe Biden had alleged a willingness to compensate for Trump’s mistake by rejoining the deal, but it has retained the sanctions as leverage and even imposed a slew of its own coercive economic measures on the Islamic Republic.
“Unilateral coercive measures (UCMs), including their extraterritorial application, represent a concerning example of harmful unilateral acts that run counter to the fundamental principles of international law, the UN Charter, and basic human rights,” Iravani said, adding, “These illegal measures have far-reaching humanitarian consequences and can undermine diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving disputes and promoting cooperation.”
Iravani also referred a March 30 verdict by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled that the United States had violated the international law by allowing American courts to confiscate nearly two billion dollars in assets from Iranian companies, and ordered Washington to pay compensation.
“The ICJ’s ruling is final and binding, requiring the US to comply with this decision,” the Iranian diplomat noted.
Iravani said, “Collaboration should be the cornerstone of multilateralism, rather than confrontation,” because “collaborative approaches foster trust, build consensus, and promote sustainable solutions to global challenges.”
He concluded by saying, “Through collaborative problem-solving and engagement with all parties, multilateralism can effectively address the challenges facing our world today. In this context, diplomacy, dialogue, and negotiation should be the preferred means for resolving disputes among member states.”
Treatment of Russia at UN shows need of its urgent reform or even replacement
By Drago Bosnic – April 25, 2023
The importance of global cooperation and international law has never been more pronounced in the post-WWII era than it is today. The world’s most important organization in this regard is certainly the United Nations, with one of its main tasks being to uphold international law and maintain its impartiality, regardless of which country or entity it is engaged with. Unfortunately, the UN has failed on both counts, but its role as an international forum of sorts that serves as the last frontier of dialogue between states is still evident. And yet, it seems that even this largely ceremonial role is too much for the political West, as it undermines its desire for total dominance through the so-called “rules-based world order“.
Perhaps the best example (although “the worst” would probably be a more suitable word) of this is the atrocious treatment of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN. The latest UN Security Council meeting (chaired by FM Lavrov) should serve as a textbook example of how not to conduct diplomacy, probably for decades to come. The tensions have been quite high at the UNSC due to the political West’s frustrations after Russia took over the council in April, a rule based on the regular monthly rotation. Lavrov warned against this and stated that the world has become a more dangerous place, possibly more so than at the height of the Cold War.
“As was the case in the Cold War, we have reached the dangerous, possibly even more dangerous, threshold,” Lavrov said.
The meeting, titled the “Maintenance of international peace and security”, came under fire as Western diplomats repeatedly grumbled about Russia taking over chairing of the UNSC on April 1 and that it allegedly “must be an April Fool’s joke”. Lavrov himself slammed the United States and its vassals and satellite states for abandoning diplomacy and called for the clarification of relations on the battlefield. However, Western “diplomats” went about with their hostility, including Olaf Skoog, the official representative of the European Union to the UN. Skoog openly called Russia “cynical” for allegedly “trying to portray itself as a defender of the UN charter and multilateralism”.
“We all know that while Russia is destroying, we are building. While they violate, we protect,” he said.
This statement alone shows the immeasurable level of EU/NATO’s self-delusion, as the political West’s truly unprovoked and brutal aggression against the world stands as a stark reminder of just how opposite of truth this is. However, it wasn’t just Western officials that took aim at Russia. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also stated that “Russia’s invasion is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people” and then (rather inexplicably) added that “it’s fueling global economic dislocation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic”. Neither of these statements makes much sense, as he has said virtually nothing about the suffering of the people of Donbass in the six years since taking office.
“Tensions between major powers are at an historic high. So are the risks of conflict, through misadventure or miscalculation,” Guterres also warned.
Apparently, he stated this to “even out” his previous one-sided statement, but he failed in this too, as he never mentioned which side was responsible for stoking the tensions to a boiling point. Still, perhaps the most laughable example of endless hypocrisy came from the US, when its UN representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield called Lavrov himself “hypocritical” and criticized Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression.
“Our hypocritical convener today, Russia, invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, and struck at the heart of the UN Charter. This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war runs directly counter to our most shared principles – that a war of aggression and territorial conquest is never, ever acceptable,” she said.
Again, such statements are beyond laughable or even enraging to dozens of countries that have been invaded or targeted by Washington DC. However, what’s truly disturbing is how the US is abusing its status as the UN’s permanent host country. There have been countless examples of Russian, Belarussian, Syrian, North Korean and many other officials, diplomats, journalists, etc. that have been denied entry into the US, preventing access to what is supposed to be an impartial organization.
These incessant Western-induced tensions serve as a testament to the notion that the UN should be reformed significantly. Liz Truss, one of the UK’s recent fast-track prime ministers, floated the idea last year, one of the very few things she was right about. Of course, her reasoning for the move was quite the opposite, but the point still stands. The actual world should start creating truly international institutions that are completely divorced from the malign influence of the US-led political West. This includes either relocating or even completely replacing the UN itself.
The very idea that increasingly irrelevant countries such as France or the UK have permanent seats at the UNSC, unlike actual giants such as Brazil or India, is geopolitically ludicrous. If the political West aims to control so-called “international institutions”, then it can do so within its own geopolitical boundaries. But the issue is that it aims to control quite literally everyone, which has been preventing the emergence of a truly independent multipolar world for decades. To say nothing of how the political West has been (ab)using the UN to promote or even impose its so-called “values” on the rest of the world, something that the vast majority of civilizations find repugnant.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
The war, the separation of the world, or the end of an Empire?
By Thierry Meyssan | Voltaire Network | April 11, 2023
Many are those who predict a World War. Indeed, some groups are preparing for it. But the States are reasonable and, in fact, consider rather an amicable separation, a division of the world into two different worlds, one unipolar and the other multipolar. Perhaps we are actually witnessing a third scenario: the “American Empire” is not struggling in the trap of Thucydides; it is collapsing like its former Soviet rival died.
The American “Straussians,” the Ukrainian “integral nationalists,” the Israeli “revisionist Zionists” and the Japanese “militarists” are calling for a generalized war. They are alone and they are not mass movements. No state has yet committed itself to this course.
Germany with 100 billion euros and Poland with much less money are rearming massively. But neither of them seems eager to take on Russia.
Australia and Japan are also investing in armaments, but neither of them has an autonomous army.
The United States is no longer able to replenish its military and is no longer able to create new weapons. They are content to reproduce the weapons of the 1980s in an assembly line fashion. However, they maintain their nuclear weapons.
Russia has already modernized its armies and is organizing itself to renew the ammunition it uses in Ukraine and to mass produce its new weapons, which no one can compete with. China, for its part, is rearming to control the Far East and, in the long term, to protect its trade routes. India thinks of itself as a maritime power.
It is therefore difficult to see who would and could start a World War.
Contrary to their speeches, French leaders are not at all preparing for a high-intensity war [1]. The military programming law, established for ten years, plans to build a nuclear aircraft carrier, but reduces the size of the army. It is a question of giving ourselves the means of projection, but not of defending our territory. Paris continues to reason as a colonial power while the world is becoming multipolar. It is a classic: the generals prepare for the previous war and ignore the reality of tomorrow.
The European Union is implementing its “Strategic Compass”. The Commission coordinates the military investments of its member states. In practice, they all play the game, but pursue different goals. The Commission, on the other hand, is trying to take control of decisions on the financing of armies, which until now have depended on their national parliaments. This would make it possible to build an empire, but not to declare a generalized war.
Clearly everyone is playing a game, but apart from Russia and China, none is preparing for a high-intensity war. Rather, we are witnessing a redistribution of the cards. This month, Washington is sending Liz Rosenberg and Brian Nelson, two specialists in unilateral coercive measures [2], to Europe with the mission of forcing the Allies to comply. In the words of former President George Bush Jr. during the war “against terrorism”: “Whoever is not with us is against us”.
Liz Rosenberg is efficient and unscrupulous. She is the one who brought the Syrian economy to its knees, condemning millions of people to poverty because they dared to resist and defeat the Empire’s surrogates.
The Hollywood western discourse a la George Bush Jr. of good guys and bad guys has failed with Türkiye, which has already experienced the 2016 coup attempt and the 2023 earthquake. Ankara knows that it has nothing good to expect from Washington and is already looking to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Yet the same discourse should succeed with the Europeans, who remain fascinated by the power of the United States. Of course this power is in decline, but so are the Europeans. No one has learned any lessons from the sabotage of the Russian-German-French-Dutch gas pipelines, North Stream. Not only did the victims take the blame without saying anything, but they are about to receive further punishment for crimes they did not commit.
The world should therefore be divided into two blocs, on the one hand the US hyperpower and its vassals, on the other the multipolar world. In terms of the number of states, this should be half and half, but in terms of population, only 13% for the Western bloc against 87% for the multipolar world.
The international institutions can no longer function. They should either fall into lethargy or be dissolved. The first examples that come to mind are the effective exit of Russia from the Council of Europe and the empty seats of Western Europeans in the Arctic Council during the year of the Russian presidency. Other institutions are no longer relevant, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which was supposed to organize East-West dialogue. Only the attachment of Russia and China to the United Nations should preserve them in the short term, as the United States is already thinking of transforming the Organization into a structure reserved exclusively for the Allied Nations.
The Western bloc should also reorganize itself. Until now, the European continent was dominated economically by Germany. In order to be certain that Germany would never get closer to Russia, the United States wanted Berlin to be content with the western part of the continent and leave the center in the hands of Warsaw. So Germany and Poland armed themselves to impose themselves in their respective zones of influence, but when the American star faded, they would fight against each other.
When the Soviet Empire fell, it abandoned its allies and vassals. Having seen its inability to solve the problems, the USSR first stopped supporting Cuba economically, then dropped its vassals of the Warsaw Pact, and finally collapsed on itself. The same process is beginning today.
The first U.S. Gulf War, the 9/11 attacks and their host of wars in the broader Middle East, the expansion of Nato and the Ukrainian conflict will have offered only three decades of survival to the American Empire. It was backed by its former Soviet rival. It has lost its raison d’être with its dissolution. It is time for it to disappear too.
Translation: Roger Lagassé
US once again turning sword to Latin America as its global power wanes
By Drago Bosnic | April 11, 2023
The political West is always “shocked” by how deeply unpopular it is in the Global South and cannot comprehend why it “dares” to refuse to side with them against Russia and/or China. This lesson is something the political elites of the United States and its numerous satellite states need to be reminded of from time to time. On the other hand, the political West never stopped treating the Global South as a fief that just so happens to be populated by several billion people, all of whom are seen as “fair game”. Needless to say, this has left disastrous consequences for the vast majority of those living in the targeted countries.
While some were attacked directly, such as Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, former Yugoslavia/Serbia, etc. others were being exploited “peacefully”. Luckily for the world, the power of the globe’s most imperialist bloc is gradually fading away. This is certainly not to say that it has already collapsed, but the process is well underway. The political West is also perfectly aware of this, so it now needs to prioritize which areas of the Global South it can target. Its days of waging war on the millions of unfortunate people of the Middle East will soon be over, very likely forever.
However, as the US power projection capabilities dwindle, it’s once again turning its sword toward the immediate neighborhood. And it’s not even trying to be at least somewhat subtle about it, as the people of Mexico are being threatened to find out because many in Washington DC believe it is the Mexicans’ “fault” that America is getting flooded with drugs smuggled in by the cartels. Ironically (or should we say hypocritically) enough, it was precisely the US intelligence services that essentially created these hideously violent organizations and also made sure the connection is kept under the rug.
Last month, after two US citizens were killed, presumably by members of the CDC (otherwise known as the Golf Cartel), Washington DC warhawks threatened to bomb Mexico, a country whose law enforcement works closely with the US to fight the cartels. Earlier, in January, Republicans Mike Waltz and Dan Crenshaw called for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Mexican cartels for drug trafficking “that has caused destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.” Infamous Lindsey Graham, along with 16 Republican cosponsors, supported the bill and criticized the Biden administration for the deteriorating situation at the southern border, claiming that “up to 100,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning coming from Mexico and China, and this administration has done nothing about it.”
While it could be argued that fighting cartels is certainly not a bad cause, we should not forget that somewhat similar “altruistic” motives were cited as the reason for virtually any war the US started. Blaming Mexico and China for the drug abuse “pandemic” in America will certainly not resolve this issue or any of the resulting violence across the country. If the establishment in Washington DC had the interests of regular Americans in mind, they would introduce bills allocating at least 10% of their massive $858 billion military budget to the improvement of healthcare, for instance.
Unfortunately, as Abraham Maslow famously wrote in 1966, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” The case of Mexico is quite telling that no country (unless heavily armed) can hope to feel safe, no matter how closely it worked with the US authorities. For decades, Mexico has been ravaged by drug cartels deeply connected to the infamous CIA and other US intelligence agencies. And despite even allowing American law enforcement to operate in the country, thus undermining its own sovereignty, it’s still faced with the prospect of being attacked.
And Mexico is far from being the only target, as Washington DC is increasingly turning to Nicaragua, a small country in Central America that has already been virtually destroyed by Washington DC during the (First) Cold War when it funded the infamous Contras. Just like then, this time the US is once again “worried about human rights” in Nicaragua. As if that wasn’t laughable enough, Washington DC also officially designated the small country “a strategic threat”. Apparently, the “sole superpower” is endangered by a country roughly the size of New York State, but with the population of Maryland. And the US is also using so-called “international institutions” to target Nicaragua.
The Organization of American States (OAS) and the UN, both largely financed by Washington DC, are being used for this purpose, according to former UN rapporteur for human rights Richard Falk. If one is to believe the “human rights reports” about Nicaragua are true, President Daniel Ortega supposedly ordered 40 people to be “executed”, while conveniently leaving out the part about violent opposition attacks using firearms. The reports also claimed that Ortega ordered hospitals not to treat wounded demonstrators, although the then-health minister had made clear that anyone injured would receive treatment. US-backed “experts” also compared Nicaragua to Nazi Germany.
The glaring hypocrisy in this regard indicates that there is no “international law” for Washington DC. If a country is part of the “rules-based world order“, it can openly embrace Nazism, and it will still be considered “a beacon of freedom and democracy”, while the “Nazi analogies” are reserved for everyone else. Nicaragua should certainly be worried, as should the rest of Latin America. With the US’ ability to project power globally going down faster than most people could’ve imagined just ten years ago, the belligerent thalassocracy might try to revive the infamous Monroe Doctrine, leaving well over 600 million people in Latin America exposed to “freedom and democracy”.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.jj
Russia Calls for Probe Into Bucha Events, Asks UN for List of Victims
Sputnik – 30.03.2023
MOSCOW – Russia is calling for an independent investigation into the last year events in the city of Bucha, near Kiev, and calls on the United Nations to publish a list of the victims, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
“We are saying it once again. In order to find out the truth, it is necessary to carry out a fair, impartial, independent investigation, which should be focused on giving answers to four questions: identification of bodies, time and cause of death, signs of possible transportation of the bodies,” Zakharova said during her press conference.
Russia has requested the full list of Bucha’s residents, who died at the time of the events, from the UN, but the organization has not provided such a list yet, Zakharova added.
The UN referred to the lists of victims available on the Internet and in social media, but Moscow would like to deal with official information, the official said, adding that the events in Bucha were a provocation aimed at scuttling the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, as well as imposing new anti-Russia sanctions.
In April, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that no residents of Bucha suffered from any violent actions while the city was under Russian control.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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