Media Blackout: The Federal Court Case To End Water Fluoridation!
Spiro Skouras | June 14, 2020
As we are inundated with headlines about violent riots and looting being passed off as mostly peaceful protests, or how the dreaded virus continues to spread in communities around the world. There is another story taking place which directly effects hundreds of millions of people globally that is being blacked out by the mainstream corporate media.
Unlike the aforementioned crisis’ which are being sited as the justification for the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. This public health crisis actually has a rather simple solution. To end water fluoridation by no longer adding the toxic substance to the nations water supply.
You would think this would be a straightforward process considering the mountains of studies which conclude fluoride is a harmful neurotoxin attributed to lower IQ’s and ADHD. Unfortunately government regulatory agencies have been not only defending this practice for generations, they champion the forced medication as a great achievement in medical history.
Right now, in perhaps one of the most important trials of our time. The Fluoride Action Network is taking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head on in an unprecedented court case that could lead to the end of water fluoridation in the US and possibly worldwide as other nations would likely follow suit.
In this interview, Spiro is joined by Dr. Paul Connett of the Fluoride Action Network to discuss the current court case against EPA and water fluoridation as the first week of the trial has come to an end and the second, possibly final week is about to begin.
Fluoride Action Network http://fluoridealert.org
Link & Times To Watch The Trial Live http://fluoridealert.org/issues/tsca-…
Spiro’s Interview with Dr. Paul Connett & his Son, Attorney Michael Connett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQAjW…
US developing stronger military ties with Israel
MEMO | June 22, 2020
Cooperation between the United States and Israel on developing defence technology is increasing in order to “establish a US-Israel Operations-Technology Working Group”.
The “United States-Israel Military Capability Act of 2020” was introduced last month by US members of the Senate Armed Services Committee Senators Gary Peters and Tom Cottonboth.
This bipartisan legislation would require the establishment of a US-Israel operations-technology working group to enhance collaboration on the research and development of technology used for national defence.
As the senators wrote in a letter in February to Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, the working group would help ensure US “warfighters never encounter a more technologically advanced foe.”
According to the US Embassy, this is the “enduring and unshakable commitment” America has to Israel’s security and a bond between the American people and Israel.
The US and Israel already cooperate extensively on security matters. Israel’s big three defence companies, Elbit Systems, IAI and Rafael, have numerous cooperative projects with America.
Elbit Systems, a company which sells weapons to the Israeli military used in attacks on Palestinians, will be supplying a missile warning system to F-16 fighter jets belonging to the US Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command.
The company was also awarded a $73.4 million, 15-year contract from the US Marine Corps in March 2015 to supply them with new laser systems.
According to an official Pentagon contracting announcement, the Air Force has already set aside a little more than $17 million to buy these systems, but the complete contract, which covers work to February 2030 at the earliest, could be worth just over $471.6 million.
Last year, the Israeli government revealed for the first time the main points of the plan to increase the volume of Israel’s defence exports, reported Globes.
See also:
UN: 90 Palestinians homeless as Israel demolishes 70 buildings in 2 weeks
Biden And His Ventriloquists Keep Out-Hawking Trump
By Caitlin Johnstone | June 22, 2020
Joe Biden keeps trying to out-warmonger Donald Trump, and by Joe Biden I of course mean the team of handlers who are animating the dementia-ravaged corpse of the Biden campaign like a ventriloquist operating a wooden dummy.
In response to Trump suggesting an openness to scaling back his administration’s murderous Venezuela policy and meeting with President Nicolás Maduro, whoever runs Biden’s Twitter account for him seized upon the moment to assert that the former vice president will be doing no such thing if elected commander-in-chief.
“Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro,” tweeted Biden Incorporated. “As President, I will stand with the Venezuelan people and for democracy.”
“Translation: if Trump retreats from his current policy of trying to sanction and suffocate Venezuela into submission, Biden will make sure to revive it,” journalist Aaron Maté said in response.
“To be clear, Joe Biden is now attacking Donald Trump from the right on Venezuela,” said journalist Walker Bragman.
As FAIR’s Alan MacLeod accurately observed last year, this phrase “the Venezuelan people” is only ever invoked by the political/media class of the US-centralized empire for sloganeering purposes in support of US-led regime change interventionism in that nation, despite an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans opposing all US interventionism including sanctions.
This tactic of attacking Donald Trump for being insufficiently warlike is nothing new for Biden Inc, nor is it limited to Venezuela.
During the primary debates Biden attacked Trump for being insufficiently hawkish toward North Korea, claiming the president was wrong to meet with Kim Jong Un because it gives the leader “legitimacy”, whatever that means.
An April Biden campaign ad accused the president of being too soft on China by failing to force Beijing to allow US government officials into Wuhan to monitor the governing of a sovereign nation during a pandemic outbreak.
“Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February as the coronavirus spread across the world,” says the ad’s narrator in an ominous voice. “Trump never got a CDC team on the ground in China. And the travel ban he brags about? Trump let in 40,000 travelers from China into America after he signed it. Not exactly airtight.”
Biden has attacked Trump’s partial troop withdrawal from Syria, using talking points from the so-called war on terror to absurdly claim during a primary debate that the president is putting America at risk of a terrorist strike from ISIS.
“We have ISIS that’s going to come here,” Biden said. “They are going to damage the United States of America. That’s why we got involved in the first place.”
And of course Biden & Co have been attacking Trump for being too soft on Russia, despite this administration’s many, many dangerously hawkish new cold war escalations against Moscow.
“We need a President who will stand up to the Kremlin, push back against Putin, and take immediate steps to ensure the security of our elections,” Biden’s Twitter account said last year.
This line of attack is so ubiquitous in the Biden campaign that it sometimes just takes the form of a vague, general swipe at Trump’s unwillingness to be more warlike, with an April tweet reading simply “Donald Trump says he’s a wartime president — it’s time for him to act like one.”
Again, this is Donald Trump these people are talking about. The same president who imprisoned Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, vetoed attempts to save Yemen from US-backed genocide, is working to foment civil war in Iran using starvation sanctions and CIA ops with the stated goal of effecting regime change, nearly started a full-scale war with Iran by assassinating its top general, occupied Syrian oil fields and implemented devastating sanctions with the goal of preventing Syria’s reconstruction, greatly increased the number of troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, greatly increased the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians, and reduced military accountability for those airstrikes.
The second-to-last thing the world needs is political pressure placed on Donald fucking Trump to be more warlike. The very last thing the world needs is a US president who ends up being even more warlike than Trump.
America is a war machine on top of a police state on top of a mass media psyop. Only people who are willing to keep these psychopathic mechanisms in place are permitted to ascend to presidential candidacy. While all the news cameras focus on the relatively minor differences between presidents and presidential candidates, you can learn a lot more about America and what drives it by looking at their similarities.
Bolton’s statements on Trump-Kim summit are ‘distorted,’ Seoul says
RT | June 22, 2020
South Korea said on Monday that accounts by former US National Security Advisor John Bolton of discussions between leaders of the United States and the two Koreas in his upcoming book are inaccurate and distorted.
Reports have cited Bolton as writing that South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is keen to improve relations with Pyongyang, had raised unrealistic expectations with both the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and US President Donald Trump, for his own “unification” agenda.
“It does not reflect accurate facts and substantially distorts facts,” South Korea’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, said in a statement referring to Bolton’s description of the consultations.
Chung did not elaborate on specific areas but said the publication set a “dangerous” precedent. “Unilaterally publishing consultations made based on mutual trust violates the basic principles of diplomacy and could severely damage future negotiations,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Topple the Statues, But Ignore the Modern-Day Oppressors?
By Gavin O’Reilly | American Herald Tribune | June 21, 2020
Following last month’s murder in the United States of George Floyd, an unarmed black man suffocated by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin during what should have been a routine stop, what would initially begin as protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the US state of Minneapolis would soon spread nationwide before developing into an international phenomenon.
Major cities across the United States and Europe all found themselves taking part in solidarity protests as a result of Floyd’s death, with each protest receiving extensive coverage by the mainstream Western media, and the public support of figures from the highest level of sport, media, entertainment and business.
One of the most distinguishing features of these protests so far however, has been the targeting of statues and monuments by anti-racist activists of historical figures who engaged in colonialism and slavery.
In the British city of Bristol, a statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston was toppled by protesters before being thrown into the town’s harbour, while in the United States a similar fate would befell statues of 19th century Confederate figures, Charles Linn and Robert E. Lee. The phrase ‘Churchill is a racist’ was also painted upon a statue of the early-20th century British Prime Minister in London, owing to his white supremacist and Imperialist views.
However, while the anti-racist and anti-Imperialist sentiment behind such actions is surely one that must be applauded, it also begs the question of why a similar ire isn’t reserved for the modern day oppressors and Imperialists; in this case, it being the military industrial complex and war lobbies of both the United States and Britain.
With both nations being the world’s leading exporters of arms, it has been this exact military industrial complex which has played an integral role in the world’s current foremost humanitarian crisis; Western-allied Saudi Arabia’s now five year long war on Yemen, one in which upwards of 85,000 Yemeni children have now lost their lives as a result of the US and British-made bombs.
Military advisors from both countries are also on hand to help direct Riyadh on where to direct its air strikes, with the agricultural sector of the impoverished Arab nation being a favoured target in particular of the Royal Saudi Air Force, resulting in widespread famine in what is already the poorest country in the Arab Peninsula.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, US and British occupation forces still remain in northern Syria and Iraq; with the air forces of both countries on hand to help carve out a Kurdish ethnostate in line with the 1982 Tel Aviv-authored Oded Yinon plan, intended to balkanise Arab states hostile to Israel.
Closer to home, the neo-Nazi junta of Ukraine has also received political and military support from the US and Britain since the 2014 coup seen the government of Victor Yanukovich ousted over his rejection of an EU-trade deal in favour of closer ties with Russia; similar to the situation in Yemen, military advisors from both countries have also been on hand to assist Kiev forces in their war on the breakaway pro-Russian republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Trump administration has approved the sale of heavy arms to Ukraine since 2018.
However, despite the litany of war crimes this modern-day imperialist foreign policy has resulted in, from the Donbass to the Middle East, the Pentagon, the Ministry of Defence and the factories of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and BAE Systems have so far remained untouched by the current protesters – their anger seemingly reserved for imperialists and oppressors who passed away generations ago instead.
Dozens treated for chlorine exposure as massive fire engulfs hazmat storage at US base in Okinawa
RT | June 22, 2020
A fire broke out inside a chemical compound at a major US Air Force base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, triggering the release of chlorine and affecting multiple people who were treated for exposure to toxic gas particles.
Fire alarms were activated on Monday at a building where hazardous materials are stockpiled, Japanese and US media reported. Located in the central part of Kadena Air Base, the facility burned for a few more hours, though the firefighters didn’t let it spill over the base perimeter.
The base, said to be America’s largest military installation in the region, confirmed on Facebook that the blaze “released chlorine gas particles” into the air. Footage that surfaced online shows thick plumes of black smoke rising from the hazmat facility.
Base command sealed off the roads and evacuated areas both upwind and downwind of the burning site as firefighters put out the flames.
US military media reported later in the day that at least 45 people were treated for exposure to smoke and chlorine, a highly toxic chemical agent.
Those suffering from shortness of breath or coughing, irritation, and runny nose, were urged to consult a doctor. Meanwhile, Kadena’s medical group canceled all routine appointments, apparently bracing for further treatment of those affected.
Kadena Air Base houses over 20,000 service members and their families, along with the USAF’s 18th Air Wing and reconnaissance units.
Okinawa accommodates about half of the American troops stationed in Japan, to the great displeasure of many locals. In recent years, there have been protests against noise pollution, as well as the environmental impact and behavior of US soldiers, who have repeatedly been involved in sexual assaults and even deadly incidents on several occasions.
Trump slams Guaidó while expressing openness in speaking with Maduro
By Paul Antonopoulos | June 22, 2020
In what potentially could be a radical change in Washington’s policy towards Venezuela, U.S. president Donald Trump confessed that he has had doubts about his decision to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president of the South American country. Trump revealed in an interview with Axios in the Oval Office what he thinks about the self-proclaimed wannabe president of Venezuela, Guaidó, and even confessed that he “would maybe think” of meeting personally with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has already publicly expressed his willingness to talk with the American president.
“Maduro would like to meet. And I’m never opposed to meetings — you know, rarely opposed to meetings. I always say, you lose very little with meetings. But at this moment, I’ve turned them down,” Trump said.
In a preview of the interview published by Axios, Trump revealed how little confidence he has in Guaidó because the politician failed to take control of the Venezuelan government despite the strong support provided by the U.S. and another 60 countries that recognize him as the legitimate president.
Asked by Axios whether he regretted his decision on backing Guaidó on the advice of John Bolton, his former National Security Advisor, Trump initially said “not particularly,” but then went on to say, “I could have lived with it or without it, but I was very firmly against what’s going on in Venezuela.”
In another part of the interview, Trump speaks directly of the moment when he decided to recognize the opposition leader as president: “Guaidó was elected. I think that I wasn’t necessarily in favor, but I said — some people that liked it, some people didn’t. I was OK with it. I don’t think it was — you know, I don’t think it was very meaningful one way or the other.”
Also, in the preview, Axios quoted a fragment of Bolton’s upcoming book The Room Where It Happened, where he reveals some behind the scenes diplomacy of the Trump Administration and the private feelings the president has about Guaidó. Bolton says that Trump “thought Guaidó was ‘weak,’ as opposed to Maduro, who was ‘strong’” and that “Trump was calling Guaidó the ‘Beto O’Rourke of Venezuela,’ hardly the sort of compliment an ally of the United States should expect.” O’Rourke, who was a Democratic Presidential Candidate and is one of Trump’s biggest critics, was called a “poor bastard” who “quit like a dog” by the American president, a demonstration of just how low Trump thinks of Guaidó.
Trump in the interview described Bolton as a “nutjob” who may be the “dumbest human being on Earth.” Trump could perhaps seek to slowly normalize relations with Maduro and move away from Guaidó, while placing the blame entirely on Bolton for the escalation of hostilities between Washington and Caracas.
In 2019, shocking events were triggered when Guaidó proclaimed himself president. An attempt to forcibly enter a shipment of “solidarity aid” into Venezuela from Colombia that likely had weapons was made; Venezuela suddenly was without electricity after a cyberattack; there was another coup attempt; and, many attacks on military barracks. Yet, Maduro survived the intense pressures from the U.S. and sixty of its allies.
The American President is known to admire authoritarianism and/or strong leaders. Despite sanctions, coup attempts and threats of military invasion, Maduro has not only survived the U.S.-led destabilization, but cemented his positions as leader of Venezuela. Although they may be adversaries, it would not be a wild claim to say that Trump admires Maduro’s strength and determination, especially as Guaidó utterly failed when he had every advantage afforded to him.
If someone had said in 2019 that just a year later Venezuela would not only be more stable than the U.S. when we consider the Black Lives Matter uprising in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, but would also achieve a seat in the UN Human Rights commission, no one would have believed it.
The U.S. could not allow 2019 to confirm the decline of its dominance over Latin America. With the defeat it suffered in Venezuela, the return of Cristina Kirchner in Argentina and the breakdown of neoliberal governments in the region, Washington had to resort to coups to protect its interests, as seen in Bolivia.
Venezuela now has a fragmented opposition to Maduro that is immersed in an internal war. At this point, Guaidó is not guaranteed to be re-elected as president of the National Assembly. For the U.S. however, it does not matter who occupies that position so long as they are serving Washington’s agenda. The so-called Deep State in the U.S. remains pitifully unchanged in their policy to destroy the existence of sovereign governments in the region. However, is Trump attempting to break free of such war hawks by expressing an openness to speak with Maduro? Although Trump may have individual opinions on not wanting to challenge Venezuela, despite public rhetoric, he will be restricted by the main power structures that exist in the U.S. and push for complete dominance no matter the administration in power and what they want to achieve.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
Were COVID-19 and COVID-20 Created in a US Lab?
By Larry Romanoff | Moon of Shanghai | June 21, 2020
It was amusing to watch the emergence of this debate on the US-China stage. The Chinese were understandably unwilling to be blamed for the emergence of a virus in which they had no part, and thus reacted strongly to accusations the virus originated in a Wuhan lab. The Americans proved to be even more terrified at the possibility of scientific proof that the virus escaped from one of their bio-labs, and resorted to the only weapon they had which was to turn up the volume on blaming China. There were two main reasons for this state of affairs: (1) The US was the only country known to contain all the varieties that were being spread worldwide. (2) The US is the only nation in the world known to have repeatedly used biological weapons on other countries, beginning with North Korea and never ceasing. Of even more damning consequence is the known locations of about 400 American bio-weapons labs spread throughout the world, to say nothing of the pathetically-lax institution at Fort Detrick. (1) (2) (3)
Moreover, Trump recently claimed he could kill the entire population of Afghanistan within days. “Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone and this is not using nuclear. It would be over in – literally, in 10 days.” Biological weapons would seem the only alternative. Hemorrhagic Fever and Hantavirus worked for the US in North Korea; perhaps also Afghanistan. (4) (5) (6) Mr. Trump later denied intention to carry out his threat, but let’s dispense with the fiction of the US having no biological weapons and that Fort Detrick and the 400 foreign labs are performing only benevolent “peace medicine” functions. If it were China with the above history and SARS, MERS, AIDS, EBOLA, bird flu, swine flu, and COVID-19 first erupted in the US, the Americans would claim this as 100% proof that China was responsible. It cannot be a surprise that much of the world today is naturally tending to lay these outbreaks at America’s doorstep.
But returning to our topic of man-made COVID-19 or COVID-20, it seems everyone has been a little too eager to dismiss the possibility (or probability) of these viruses having a (human) helping hand.
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho of the Institute for Science in Society cites a Journal of Virology report (Feb 2000) (7) that described a method for inducing desired mutations into coronavirus to create new viruses. “Manipulating viral genomes is now routine, and it is easy to create new viruses that jump host species in the laboratory in the course of apparently legitimate experiments in genetic engineering. It is not even necessary to intentionally create lethal viruses, if one so wishes. It is actually much faster and much more effective to let random recombination and mutation take place in the test tube. Using a technique called ‘molecular breeding’, millions of recombinants can be generated in a matter of minutes. These can be screened for improved function in the case of enzymes, or increased virulence, in the case of viruses and bacteria. In other words, geneticists can now greatly speed up evolution in the laboratory to create viruses and bacteria that never existed in all the billions of years of evolution on earth.” (8) It wasn’t widely publicised, but Dr. Ho called for a full investigation into the possible genetic engineering and dissemination of the SARS virus. (9)
Then another article in which the author explained that scientists eager to dispel the notion of an artificial origin, do so by pointing out that these new coronaviruses didn’t reflect their computer simulations, the author stating, “To put it simply, the authors are saying that SARS-CoV-2 was not deliberately engineered because if it were, it would have been designed differently.” However, the London-based molecular geneticist Dr Michael Antoniou commented that this line of reasoning fails to take into account that there are a number of laboratory-based systems that can select for high affinity RBD variants that are able to take into account the complex environment of a living organism. “So the fact that COVID-19 didn’t have the same RBD amino acid sequence as the one that the computer program predicted in no way rules out the possibility that it was genetically engineered.” (10)
The article further states that “[The] authors of the Nature Medicine article seem to assume that the only way to genetically engineer a virus is to take an already known virus and then engineer it to have the new properties you want. On this premise, they looked for evidence of an already known virus that could have been used in the engineering of SARS-CoV-2. Since they failed to find that evidence, they stated, “Genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.” But Dr Antoniou told us that while the authors did indeed show that SARS-CoV-2 was unlikely to have been built by deliberate genetic engineering from a previously used virus backbone, that’s not the only way of constructing a virus. A well-known alternative process that could have been used has the cumbersome name of “directed iterative evolutionary selection process”. In this case, it would involve using genetic engineering to generate a large number of randomly mutated versions of the SARS-CoV spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD), which would then be selected for strong binding to the ACE2 receptor and consequently high infectivity of human cells.
“This selection can be done either with purified proteins or, better still, with a mixture of whole coronavirus (CoV) preparations and human cells in tissue culture. This preparation of phage, displaying on its surface a “library” of CoV spike protein variants, is then added to human cells under laboratory culture conditions in order to select for those that bind to the ACE2 receptor. This process is repeated under more and more stringent binding conditions until CoV spike protein variants with a high binding affinity are isolated. Once any of the above selection procedures for high affinity interaction of SARS-CoV spike protein with ACE2 has been completed, then whole infectious CoV with these properties can be manufactured. Such a directed iterative evolutionary selection process is a frequently used method in laboratory research.”
There is, incidentally, another possible way that COVID-19 could have been developed in a laboratory, but in this case without using genetic engineering. This was pointed out by Nikolai Petrovsky, a researcher at the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University in South Australia. Petrovsky says that coronaviruses can be cultured in lab dishes with cells that have the human ACE2 receptor. Over time, the virus will gain adaptations that let it efficiently bind to those receptors. Along the way, that virus would pick up random genetic mutations that pop up but don’t do anything noticeable. “The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus. Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection, there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention.”
Notes
(1) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/virus-biological-us-army-weapons-fort-detrick-leak-ebola-anthrax-smallpox-ricin-a9042641.html
(2) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/the-u-s-is-the-world-leader-of-bio-weapons-research-production-and-use-against-mankind/
(3) https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-military-bio-labs-in-ukraine-production-of-bio-weapons-and-disease-causing-agents/5605307
(4) https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-trump-tacitly-threaten-use-biological-weapons/5687936
(5) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-24/why-did-donald-trump-say-he-could-kill-10-million-afghans/11342794
(6) https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/08/21/604070/US-President-Donald-Trump-Afghanistan-war-win-without-nuclear-weapons
(7) http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/10627550
(8) https://www.i-sis.org.uk/SAGE.php
(9) m.w.ho@i-sis.org.uk
(10) https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19383-where-did-the-covid-19-virus-come-from
Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com.
‘Destructive course’: US seeks space superiority by making up threats – Russian Foreign Ministry
RT | June 19, 2020
Washington’s Defense Space Strategy is provoking an arms race in outer space and threatening international security while trying to blame a nonexistent Moscow threat, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has said.
“To justify the implementation of this destructive course, which provokes an arms race in outer space and destabilizes the international security situation, Washington has resorted to the usual tactics of blaming others,” the MFA said in a statement on Friday.
In the US Defense Space Strategy, the declassified summary of which was published on Wednesday, the Pentagon simply asserts that “China and Russia have weaponized space and turned it into a warfighting domain.” Without offering any evidence or specifics, the Pentagon references the 2014 Russian military doctrine as envisioning the possibility of challenging the US operations in orbit.
“Of course, there is nothing of the kind in the Military Doctrine of Russia,” the MFA says, adding that the document is freely available to anyone who wishes to check that. The doctrine focuses on countering the attempts of other states to achieve military superiority by placing weapons in outer space, which would be in violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
While the US says it wants to “promote standards and norms of behavior in space” favorable to its interests, Washington has refused to discuss Russian and Chinese proposals for a legally binding international instrument to prevent a space arms race, the MFA added.
According to the Defense Space Strategy, the US “relies on space-based capabilities to project and employ power on a global scale” more than any other country, to the point where “space capabilities not only enhance, but enable our way of life and way of war.”
“US national security and prosperity require unfettered access to and freedom to operate in the space domain.”
President Donald Trump established the Space Force as the sixth service branch of the US military in December 2019. The fledgling operation is currently a subset of the US Air Force.
Victoria Nuland’s plan for US policy on Russia is dumb, delusional and dangerous

Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt distribute pastries at Independence square in Kiev, December 11, 2013. © REUTERS/Andrew Kravchenko/Pool
By Nebojsa Malic | RT | June 20, 2020
Victoria Nuland, the infamous State Department diplomat who “midwifed” Ukraine’s 2014 coup, has outlined a Russia strategy for the Biden administration. It is based on fantasies and projection, offering nothing of value to anyone.
You may remember ‘Tori’ Nuland from the so-called “revolution of dignity” in Ukraine, in particular the publicity stunt in which she doled out pastries to “peaceful protesters” on Kiev’s Independence Square. Standing next to her was US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, who will be recorded some weeks later discussing with Nuland which protest leader will be allowed to form a government. Soon thereafter, the people they named led an armed coup against the government in Kiev and set up their own.
That was the zenith of her diplomatic career, however, as she resigned from the State Department after the inauguration of President Donald Trump and went into the private sector – currently working for Madeleine Albright’s consultancy group in Washington. Now Nuland is making a comeback, with an article in the July-August edition of Foreign Affairs titled ‘Pinning Down Putin.’
Between re-airing the usual mainstream Washington accusations against Russia and projecting US and NATO wrongdoing on Moscow, Nuland is basically outlining a policy for the Biden administration, should Democrats capture the White House this November as the US establishment hopes. Bear in mind as you read on that Nuland isn’t necessarily partisan – she worked for Bill Clinton’s Russia guru Strobe Talbott as well as George W. Bush’s grey eminence Dick Cheney. If there is an embodiment of the bipartisan US establishment consensus on Russia, that’s her. That’s the main reason her essay is worth a look.
Her actual policy advice is trite and predictable, calling for “consistent US leadership at the presidential level, unity with democratic allies and partners, and a shared resolve to deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin.”
According to Nuland, President Vladimir Putin has “cut off his population from the outside world” and the US needs to “speak directly to the Russian people about the benefits of working together and the price they have paid for Putin’s hard turn away from liberalism.”
Far from being “cut off” though, Russians have greater access to news and opinion than your average American – including news and opinions Nuland disagrees with, which is obviously the problem here. Someone is clearly salty that Putin has made it more difficult for US-backed “civil society” activists and NGOs to operate in Russia.
Nuland argues that the US and NATO have “tried to persuade Moscow that NATO was a purely defensive alliance that posed no threat to Russia” but then has the gall to invoke the “independence” of Kosovo as an example of a “democratic struggle” and talks about how “a belt of increasingly democratic, prosperous states around Russia would pose a challenge” to Putin’s leadership!
Yet Kosovo is proof positive of NATO’s perfidy, and it was the 1999 war there that “lost” Russia, which had previously uncritically looked up to the West – something Nuland hopes to replicate. If she believes places like Ukraine or Georgia are either democratic or prosperous, she’s clearly delusional. Note that Washington praised Putin’s “democratic” predecessor Boris Yeltsin when he sent tanks to bomb the parliament in 1993. US allies like Poland and Hungary are being denounced by the EU as “undemocratic” these days. Perhaps “democracy” means only US-backed parties are allowed to win, along the lines of what happened in Serbia after the 2000 color revolution?
No less delusional are Nuland’s expectations. She describes matters in terms of “the carrot and the stick,” as if Russia were a donkey. Even if we get over the offensive metaphor, her “carrot” is patently ridiculous: Joint investments? Free trade? Lower tariffs? Energy partnerships? A toothless and pointless “pan-European security dialogue” proposed 12 years ago? Meanwhile, Russia would have to “demonstrate its commitment to ending its attacks on democracies” – in other words, prove a negative. Quite a bargain!
What Nuland really wants is to get around the Russian government and win the hearts and minds of the people, using the academia, “civil society” activists and students. She even proposes visa-free travel for Russians “between the ages of 16 and 22, allowing them to form their own opinions before their life paths are set.” Because the kind of graduates that come from US college campuses these days are really an example for the whole world to aspire to!
Nuland was a Sovietologist, so it’s not a surprise her proposals are still stuck in the Cold War mindset. But the 1980s propaganda was based on American opulence, prosperity and Reagan-era confidence. Soviets who bought into it ended up with what Nuland herself recognizes as the “years of chaos and impoverishment during the 1990s.” Putin is the product of that disillusionment, and while one may argue things might have been better this way or that, there is zero argument that his rule hasn’t been vastly preferable over the 1990s to everyone – except the oligarchs and the activists on the payroll of the National Endowment for Democracy.
What does the US offer now, though? Russians look at the scenes from American television, and see a remake of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. They see race riots and self-proclaimed Communists calling for a revolt. They see “science” that says one thing one day and something completely different the other, based solely on political considerations. They see the destruction of monuments and renunciation of the nation’s history and heritage.
Can one blame them if all of this reminds them of Russia’s own past from 1917 onward? As the very American expression goes, “been there, done that.” Also, “no thanks.”
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 Twitter @NebojsaMalic

