By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 10, 2023
With Russia’s arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, U.S. officials are accusing Russia of using Americans as “political hostages.” That may well be true, but the fact is that while the U.S. government acts like an innocent, the fact is that it plays the political-hostage game as well as Russia. In fact, the U.S. government might well be the one that started this vicious political game with Russia.
On March 6, 2008, a Russian arms dealer named Viktor Bout was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, on criminal charges brought by the U.S. government. The U.S. government sought Bout’s extradition to the United States, which he fervently opposed. The extradition proceedings took two years, during which time Bout was incarcerated in a Thai jail.
A Thai district court denied the U.S. extradition request, but the ruling was overturned by a Thai appellate court. On November 10, 2010, Bout was extradited to the United States to stand trial.
The Russian government vehemently objected to Bout’s prosecution, much as the U.S. government is vehemently objecting to Evan Gershkovich’s prosecution. But U.S. officials steadfastly ignored Russia’s objections to Bout’s prosecution as much as Russia is ignoring U.S. objections to Gershkovich’s prosecution.
Bout was an international arms dealer. He sold weaponry to all sorts of groups around the world. U.S. officials condemned him for his profession, while ignoring one great big important fact: The U.S. government is the biggest arms dealer in the world, also selling arms to all sorts of groups around the world, including tyrannical regimes that use such arms to suppress their own citizenry.
It’s worth noting that Bout wasn’t the only international arms dealer. There were lots of them around the world.
Nonetheless, U.S. officials decide to target him with criminal prosecution. Why would they select him out of all the other international arms dealers? My hunch is that there were two reasons: (1) As the biggest arms dealer in the world, the U.S. didn’t like the competition that Bout provided; and (2) More important, Bout was a Russian citizen, and it was during this period of time — 2008 — that the Pentagon was proceeding apace with its long-term plan of reinvigorating its old Cold War racket against Russia. By targeting a Russian citizen — especially one with close ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin — with arrest, prosecution, and incarceration, the Pentagon knew that that could go a long way toward reestablishing hostile relations and a renewed Cold War with Russia.
But there was one big problem: Bout hadn’t violated any U.S. laws.
So, what does a regime do when it wants to target a person who hasn’t committed a crime? Answer: It simply makes up a crime. And that is precisely what the U.S. government did to get Russian citizen Viktor Bout. U.S. officials used a concocted, made-up crime to get him.
Here’s how their scheme worked. U.S. officials assigned the dirty deed to the DEA. Yes, you read that right — the DEA. Now, keep in mind that the DEA stands for the Drug Enforcement Administration. The operative word in the title is “Drug.” The DEA is charged with enforcing one of the U.S. government’s biggest and oldest failed and destructive government programs — the war on drugs.
Thus, notwithstanding that the DEA’s balliwick is drug enforcement and not arms enforcement, the DEA was charged with the task of coming up with a concocted, made-up crime relating to the sale of weapons in order to get Viktor Bout.
The DEA enlisted the assistance of two Colombians to serve as secret agents of the DEA. Acting as agents of FARC, the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group in Colombia that U.S. officials have designated as a terrorist organization, the secret DEA agents contacted a man named Andrew Smulian, who was a friend of Bout. The secret DEA agents falsely told Smulian that FARC wanted to purchase arms from Bout.
Smulian contacted Bout and told him about the proposed deal. Bout agreed to meet with the secret DEA agents in Bangkok. During that meeting, which was being secretly recorded, Bout and the secret DEA agents struck a deal in which Bout agreed to sell them a large quantity of armaments. At that point, the Thai police, which were working with the DEA, swooped in and arrested Bout.
U.S. officials charged Bout with “conspiracy” to sell armaments to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. During the negotiations, the secret DEA agents had said that they planned to use the weapons to kill U.S. drug-enforcement officials operating in Colombia. Bout remarked something to the effect that he didn’t care, given that the U.S. was an enemy to him as well. Based on that remark, which was made in the context of sales negotiations in response to what the secret DEA agents had said to Bout, U.S. officials ended up charging Bout with a “conspiracy” to kill U.S. officials.
There are few things that stick out in this scenario.
One, Bout never entered the United States. His actions in attempting to sell arms to what he was led to believe was FARC took place entirely in Thailand, which is about 8,500 miles from the United States.
Two, there is no legal reason why any Russian citizen is bound by some designation by the U.S. government that some foreign entity is a terrorist organization. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, Russian citizens, like other foreign citizens, are not bound by laws or edicts issued by the U.S. government, any more than U.S. citizens are bound by laws or edicts issued by the Russian government or some other foreign government.
Three, Bout never sold any arms to FARC because FARC wasn’t part of this deal. It was the DEA that was secretly acting like it was FARC.
The question naturally arises: Why does the U.S. government have criminal jurisdiction over a Russian citizen’s decision to sell weapons to a group in Colombia, especially given that the Russia citizen never sets foot in the United States?
Knowing that they would have problems proving that Bout sold weapons to FARC, which he clearly didn’t, U.S. officials decided to rely on a “conspiracy” charge against him. A “conspiracy” is an agreement to perform a criminal act. It has long been an easy way for U.S. officials to win convictions when all else fails.
But a “conspiracy” requires an agreement between two or more people. It is difficult to understand who Bout supposedly agreed with to sell the armaments. He couldn’t be charged with conspiring with those secret DEA agents to sell arms because conspiracy law requires that he enter into an agreement with someone else — i.e., not the government — to perform a criminal act. That is, under the law of conspiracy, Bout cannot be charged with conspiring with those secret DEA agents to sell the arms.
Moreover, he didn’t conspire with his friend Smulian because Smulian wasn’t selling the armaments. He was simply acting as a go-between who got the two parties together, much like a real-estate broker does in a sale of a home. When Bout met with those secret DEA agents in Bangkok, he agreed on his own to sell them the weapons. Thus, who did he conspire with?
Of course, none of this mattered when Bout was brought to trial. He was a Russian and an international arms dealer. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in jail. Not surprisingly, his sentence was upheld on appeal.
It was all based on a made-up crime, one concocted by the DEA. But it served its purpose in helping to fulfill the Pentagon’s long-term aim of bringing about hostile relations between the United States and Russia and reinvigorating the Pentagon’s old Cold War racket against Russia.
After being forced to serve some 12 years of his life in a federal penitentiary (and two additional years in a Thai jail) for committing a made-up, concocted, fake crime, on December 8, 2022, Bout was traded for U.S. citizen Brittney Griner, who, ironically, was caught in Russia violating the war on drugs, which the Russian government enforces as fiercely as the DEA does here in the United States. As far as I know, the DEA has never issued an official opinion on the Griner-Bout trade.
By Drago Bosnic | April 10, 2023
McCarthyism, otherwise known as the so-called (Second) “Red Scare”, is officially defined as “the repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and socialist influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s”. The policy was spearheaded by a Republican US Senator Joseph McCarthy, but while he was the most prominent proponent of this internal (and foreign) policy approach, he most certainly wasn’t the only one. And although the term McCarthyism is largely considered obsolete and/or outdated nowadays, as the role of one individual in such a massive nationwide policy framework is obviously overstated, it stuck and now even includes additional definitions and changes.
The McCarthyism of our age can certainly be dubbed Neo-McCarthyism, as it includes more than just the ideological rejection of non-Western ideas and is now targeting anything remotely connected to countries such as China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, etc. This is especially true when it comes to Beijing, which Neo-McCarthyists see as the “source of all evil”, turning their emotional reaction into disastrous policies that make the geopolitical situation a lot worse.
One particularly obvious example of this is Taiwan, China’s breakaway island province currently under US patronage. However, Beijing is actively pushing back against threats from the US and its numerous vassals and satellite states in the region, despite Washington DC’s constant attempts of a crawling invasion so as to undermine China’s national interests and security in seas surrounding the country.
On April 5, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen made a stopover visit to Los Angeles after a tour to Latin America to visit Guatemala and Belize, its only remaining official allies in an attempt to stop the repeat of the recent episode when Honduras finally cut ties with Taipei and opted for Beijing instead. Tsai also met with senior security officials on Tuesday to discuss the “regional situation” ahead of her meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California, which China had once again warned against.
“China is strongly opposed to the US arranging for Tsai Ing-wen to transit through its territory, and is strongly opposed to the meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the third-ranking US official, and Tsai Ing-wen,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated, adding: “It seriously violates the One-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, and seriously undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
And yet, Taipei enjoys strong bipartisan support in the US, one of the very few unifying factors in Congress as Washington DC increasingly sees China as its primary adversary. McCarthy had originally even planned to visit Taiwan himself, but has opted instead to meet Tsai in the US. Some analysts saw this as sort of a “compromise” that wouldn’t be seen as escalatory as a direct visit to Taipei. However, McCarthy’s comments on a future visit to Taiwan effectively invalidated this view, while China slammed it as yet another form of US meddling in its internal affairs.
The behind-closed-doors meeting makes McCarthy the highest-ranking US official to have met a Taiwanese president on US soil since 1979 when America officially established diplomatic relations with China, effectively recognizing Beijing’s “One-China policy”. China’s strong reaction to the meeting is certainly expected, as it has repeatedly warned against such high-profile visits, stressing that they aren’t just against international law, but are also deeply destabilizing and harmful to Beijing’s national interests in the Asia-Pacific.
However, while the US officially doesn’t maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, it de facto does. Worse yet, Washington DC has been actively arming Taipei for decades and has even recently escalated this with promised deliveries of advanced weapons, including SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems and anti-ship missiles, obviously aimed against China’s potential amphibious combined arms operation to restore its full sovereignty.
For his part, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, has been outspoken in his criticism of China. True to his last name, in December he stated that “the greatest threat to the United States is the Chinese Communist Party”. Considering the fact that he’s the third highest ranking US official and second in line for the US presidency, such statements are a borderline declaration of war, to say nothing of McCarthy’s continued support for additional arms sales to Taipei.
As previously mentioned, he also reiterated the strong possibility of visiting Taipei and stressed the need for arming China’s breakaway island province by saying: “I don’t have any current plans, but that doesn’t mean I will not go… …Based on our conversations, it’s clear that several actions are necessary. First, we must continue the arms sales to Taiwan and make sure such sales reach Taiwan on a very timely basis. Second, we must strengthen our economic cooperation, particularly with trade and technology. Third, we must continue to promote our shared values on the world stage.”
Strangely enough, while insisting on further arms deliveries, McCarthy also stated that “tensions in this world are at their highest point since the end of the Cold War, as authoritarian leaders seek to use violence and fear to provoke needless conflict”. This is an obvious reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese colleague Xi Jinping, who recently held a historic meeting in Moscow, something the US wasn’t too happy about, which somewhat explains Washington DC’s frustrations.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 10.04.2023
The FBI and the Pentagon have kicked off investigations after the leak of a damning US intelligence assessment on the Ukrainian conflict. US officials and media immediately blamed Russia, while Kiev characterized the leak as “Russian propaganda.” The Kremlin said the docs show the dramatic extent to which NATO is entrenched in the conflict.
Russia is not likely to be behind the leak of the top secret US intelligence assessment of the situation in Ukraine, since it would prefer to keep the information under wraps and use it to its advantage, a major Chinese outlet speculates.
“If Russia has obtained these classified documents, it would not post them online, because this will make Russia lose the source or sources that had provided these documents,” an anonymous Chinese international security and intelligence expert told the Global Times. “The leak is unlikely caused by Russian intelligence agencies, because this does not make sense,” the expert said.
The source argued that there was “no reason for Russia to let its enemies know that it has obtained this intelligence, because this will also make its enemies change plans, making the hard-won military intelligence useless.”
Instead, GT noted, the leak goes to show to the world the “disunity, distrust and divergences” between the US, its allies and Kiev, and to demonstrate that Washington “is the biggest obstacle for the international community to promote a ceasefire and peace talks” to ending the Ukrainian crisis.
The documents demonstrate the precarious state of the Ukrainian military, and will both demoralize the Ukrainian military and reduce Western countries’ confidence in supporting Kiev against Russia, whether or not they are genuine, the Chinese newspaper suggested.
Whodunit?
US and Ukrainian officials immediately blamed Russian intelligence for the leak of the classified documents, and suggested that the assessment seems to combine a “statistical analysis of supplies, possible operational and tactical plans, as well as a large volume of fictitious information.”
The documents serve to confirm Russia’s public assessment on the state of the Ukrainian conflict, showing that Ukrainian air defenses have been depleted by months of strikes, and that Ukrainian casualties are over four times higher than those of the Russian side (contrasting sharply with public estimates by the Pentagon and the Ukrainian military of six-figure Russian losses).
The Pentagon’s reported efforts to scrub the documents from the internet were met with trolling by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who sarcastically quipped that it was “totally” possible to “delete things from the internet,” and that doing so definitely wouldn’t “draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the leaks “quite interesting,” and said it was not surprising that Moscow has been blamed. “You and I know that there is a tendency to always blame everything on Russia. It is, in general, a disease,” the spokesman told reporters Monday.
Commentators speaking to Sputnik expressed a healthy measure of a skepticism over the documents’ authenticity, saying that although they serve to confirm Russia’s internal assessments on the state of the Ukrainian military, they provide Moscow “no benefit” as far as the strategic situation is concerned. Others pointed out that it would be highly unlikely for the documents to be published in legacy media outlets without the approval of the national security state.
By Ahmed Adel | April 10, 2023
The Pentagon announced it was trying to remove from the internet a major leak of secret documents which have exposed plans relating to Ukraine’s war on Russia. For his part, Elon Musk sarcastically highlighted the vain attempt, saying on Twitter: “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”
The American billionaire derided on Twitter the Pentagon’s attempt to remove social media posts containing leaked classified documents relating to the conflict in Ukraine. The day before his tweet, the New York Times newspaper indicated that officials were not successful in removing the publications from the internet.
The leak was described to the News York Times by a senior intelligence official as “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” the intelligence sharing apparatus between the Anglo countries – the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Some of the documents were found on Twitter and other sites on April 7, a day after US officials announced that they were investigating a potential leak of classified Ukrainian war plans. These war plans include an alarming assessment of Ukraine’s faltering air defence capabilities and notes that 12 brigades are being formed for Ukraine, including nine trained by the US and other NATO allies.
One of the leaks, dated February 23, is labelled “Secret/NoForn,” meaning it was not meant to be shared with foreign countries, and thus confirms the secrecy of the documents.
It is the belief of Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, that the leak is “a significant breach in security” that could hamper Ukrainian military planning as it reportedly prepares for a spring offensive. “As many of these were pictures of documents, it appears that it was a deliberate leak done by someone that wished to damage the Ukraine, US, and NATO efforts,” he said.
The Kremlin said it had no doubts about the participation of the US or NATO, direct or indirect, in the conflict in Ukraine. None-the-less, the leaks would still provide a fascinating insight for decisionmakers in Moscow.
The New York Times reported that the leaks appear to be legitimate Defense Department documents. None-the-less, this did not stop Ukrainian officials from suggesting that the leak was only part of a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at influencing Ukraine’s possible spring offensive.
Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters that the data contained a “very large amount of fictitious information” and Russia was trying to seize back the initiative in its “invasion.” His claim, instead, is part of Ukraine’s disinformation campaign, one that has been insisted upon yet exposed consistently since the first days of the war when we consider incidents like Snake Island.
Podolyak, for his part, had only recently spread his own “fictitious information” by claiming that Ukraine will capture Crimea through military means in the next five to seven months because Russia does not have enough resources to control the situation.
Despite ridiculous attempts by Kiev to contradict Washington and blame Moscow, US authorities are trying to find the culprit of the leak. According to a US official, they are determining how the documents were leaked by first identifying which officials had access to them.
The documents are at least five weeks old, with the most recent dated on March 1. The plans did not provide specific action such as when Ukraine would launch the offensive, but experts strongly believe it will occur during the spring. This offensive will include Western-trained troops and newly supplied weapons, including dozens of battle tanks. Although initial gains might be made, it is expected that the offensive will quickly tire out before Russia ultimately launches its own counteroffensive.
In preparing for this offensive, Ukraine has received 49 battle tanks from Western countries; London said it finished training a second group of Ukrainian soldiers on the AS90 self-propelled howitzers it is donating; Washington announced it was providing another $500 million in ammunition for howitzers, rocket artillery, Patriot anti-air systems and other systems; and Poland said it had transferred four of the 14 MiG-29 fighter jets it is giving Ukraine, following a similar move from Slovakia last month.
Very evidently, there are nowhere near enough resources to take an entire peninsula that has been militarised for the better part of eight years, let alone the regions between Crimea and where the Ukrainian forces currently are. No serious analyst believes that Ukraine will capture Crimea, let alone in a time frame of five to seven months, but the propaganda is aimed at securing more Western funds and weapons.
It is for this reason that the leaks are an embarrassing humiliation as it will likely hamper these efforts, and also why Podolyak tried denying them as Russian disinformation. But as Elon Musk sarcastically said: “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | April 9, 2023
US President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes on a number of positions in northeastern Syria last month, after Washington announced the death of a contractor in a drone strike.
What followed was an unprecedented response from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and allied militias, shelling US positions throughout the duration of the following day. This exchange of fire marks a turning point in the conflict between the two sides.
On March 23, the US Department of Defense claimed that a drone, of Iranian origin, had struck US forces stationed near al-Hasakah, in northeastern Syria, killing an American contractor and injuring a number of service members. To which F-15 fighter jets were launched from Doha in order to target Iranian-allied militia groups in the Deir ez-Zor province of Syria. Throughout recent years there have been several exchanges between US and Iranian-allied militia groups in Syria’s east. However, these rarely resulted in American casualties and the brief escalations were controlled.
What changed following the US strikes on March 24 is that there was intense return fire from not only Iranian-aligned militias in Deir ez-Zor, but also from the SAA itself. A number of US bases were struck in the response, which primarily targeted American forces around the al-Omar oil fields, inflicting traumatic brain injuries on six US troops, according to the Pentagon. During a trip to Canada the following day, Joe Biden remarked that the US was “not going to stop” when asked about retaliating against Iran for the exchange in Syria. “Be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people” he said.
It later emerged that the Biden administration had moved one of its aircraft carriers, the USS George H.W. Bush, closer to Syria, which, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh explained, was due to “increased attacks from [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)]-affiliated groups targeting our service members across Syria.” What this represents, regardless of whatever action the US may take in the future, is a strategic change in the equation set forth by Syria and its allies in Syria’s east. What an Iraqi source with intimate knowledge of the situation claimed had been an “order to now kill American troops and not just fire warning shots.”
According to a Syrian political source, who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons, the escalation in the northeast is directly tied to the ongoing Israeli aggression against the country:
“The recent move by Syria and allies is a direct response to a wave of Israeli escalation against the country that began last year. If you remember in August of 2022, there was a similar stand-off between the Americans and IRGC allies in northeastern Syria. The Israeli escalation is directly enabled by the United States, whose officials talked in the past about the importance of the American military presence in Syria for Israel’s war-between-wars campaign against Iran-aligned forces there.”
The “war between wars” is one of Tel Aviv’s inter-war campaigns, where covert operations are carried out against enemy states during a period of relative calm between both sides. Israel’s recent campaign has primarily consisted of operations against Iranian-linked targets, both inside and outside of Iran; it also has included a large number of unannounced airstrikes inside Syria, where members of the IRGC have been targeted, along with allied militia groups. The Israel Defense Forces have a policy of not commenting on these attacks but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the past admitted that “hundreds” of them had taken place over the years.
If Damascus’ new approach of responding forcefully against the US military in northeastern Syria is adopted going forward, it will give Washington only two options: negotiate with Damascus or leave the country completely. If American soldiers are coming home in body bags over maintaining an occupation inside a country that the US public, along with Congress, were never consulted on, the pressure of remaining could become a burden on the Biden administration. This is especially the case at a time when the Arab World is beginning to normalize formal ties with Damascus, in addition to Washington’s NATO ally Türkiye.
A Syria-Türkiye rapprochement could be essential to forcing the US out of Syria also, as both countries could end up coordinating during any future Turkish offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast. The SDF operate as a kind of US proxy force, allowing for the Americans to use a small number of their own troops to occupy roughly a third of Syria’s territory; included in which are the most fertile agricultural lands and the majority of Syria’s natural resources. Both previous attacks, launched by Ankara in 2018 and 2019, led to a withdrawal of US forces so as to not accidentally cause friction with their NATO ally. In the event that another military operation from Türkiye is launched, Syria could be poised to retake its oil fields, in theory.
The adoption of a head-on confrontation strategy by Iran-aligned groups and the Syrian government could lead to new horizons and to the possibility of a US withdrawal, that is assuming the Biden administration is not wedded completely to the idea of staying.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News.
A German-led exercise involving hundreds of aircraft is scheduled for June and will coincide with a massive US troop deployment
RT | April 9, 2023
NATO is planning to hold the largest Air Force exercise this summer, the German Armed Forces – the Bundeswehr – announced in a statement. Dubbed ‘Air Defender 23,’ the drills are scheduled to take place between June 12 and June 24 and are expected to involve hundreds of aircraft from dozens of nations.
A total of 10,000 soldiers and 220 aircraft are to be involved in the exercise, the Bundeswehr said, adding that they are to train “in the European airspace.” The US is to supply 100 of the aircraft out of its stocks, the statement said. According to Berlin, the drills are to be held mostly over German territory, although a map published by the Bundeswehr shows that the airspace of Estonia, which borders Russia, and of Romania, which borders Ukraine, could be used as well.
The plan of the drills “is modeled after an Article 5 Assistance scenario,” the Bundeswehr said, calling it “challenging air operations training” for the participating troops. The exercise is aimed at “optimizing” the cooperation between the participating nations and demonstrating the “strength” of the military bloc.
A total of 24 nations are to take part in the drills, including Finland, which only joined NATO earlier in April. Sweden, which has yet to join the bloc, will participate in the exercise too.
The US Air National Guard will provide around half the aircraft used in the German-led exercise in June. Its commander, Lieutenant General Michael Loh, maintained that there is no set scenario pitting the NATO forces against a particular adversary during the drills. Yet, he still did mention Moscow during a briefing on the matter earlier this week.
“This is now putting the alliance together quickly, with a credible force, to make sure that if Russia ever lines up on the NATO border, that we’re ready to go,” he said on Wednesday. “We’re going to defend every inch.”
A similar tone was struck by the German Air Force. “We won’t write [Russia] a letter,” its commander, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz said, adding that he thinks “they get the message.”
The drills coincide with a separate US-led exercise called Defender Europe 23. “This annual, nearly two-month-long exercise is focused on the strategic deployment of US-based forces, the employment of Army pre-positioned stocks and interoperability with European allies and partners,” the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, told journalists earlier this week.
A total of 9,000 US soldiers, together with 17,000 troops from 26 other nations, are to participate in the drills, which would take place across ten European nations, Singh said. Washington had already started shipping the equipment needed for the exercise to Europe, she added. According to the Pentagon, the first pieces of equipment have already arrived in Spain.
Some 7,000 pieces of equipment are to be transported to Europe as part of the drills. Around 13,000 other pieces of equipment are to be drawn from pre-positioned stocks, the Pentagon said. The US-led exercise is to kick off on April 22.
RT | April 9, 2023
The FBI has launched a social media campaign seeking to convince Russian nationals to provide sensitive information about the activities of their home country’s authorities, Fox News reported on Friday. The ad, which was first posted in February, was said to have been appearing on Twitter, Facebook and Google.
“Do you want to change your future?” Alan Kohler, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, says in the video shared online. “The FBI values you. The FBI can help you. But only you have the power to take the first step.”
Fox News cited a source as saying that, although the Bureau has run ads targeting Russians in the past, this year it decided that “a video was more effective.”
The FBI’s website encourages Russians willing to offer information to visit the bureau’s main office in Washington, DC, to call the FBI hotline, or to send a message online.
The US stepped up efforts to recruit informants in recent years as Moscow and Washington have been locked in a diplomatic row over Ukraine. In 2019, the Bureau posted a series of ads on Facebook, urging Russians to come forward, although this message, written in Russian, contained typos.
In 2020, the FBI’s online campaign aimed at potential Russian informants included images of popular Soviet actor and singer Vladimir Vysotsky, known for portraying a police detective on screen. The CIA, meanwhile, has been publishing job postings for people who speak Russian.
By Andrew Korybko | April 9, 2023
Western journalists are furious at Russia for arresting their colleague from the Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, on charges of espionage. They’re now wildly fearmongering that all journalists in that country are at risk of being arrested on that pretext after he became the first one to experience this since the dissolution of the USSR. In reality, “Russia Had Every Right To Arrest That Wall Street Journal Employee For Espionage”, and journalists should therefore be mad at Gershkovich and not the Kremlin.
What he did violated the top principle of his profession, which isn’t supposed to ever be exploited for espionage since doing so could place genuine journalists at risk if the spied-upon government or others overreact to this by arbitrarily detaining others on that pretext. Russia has no intention to do this since those journalists who remain faithful to their profession’s top principle don’t pose a security threat, unlike Gershkovich, who tried to obtain secret information about its military-industrial capabilities.
That said, it can’t be taken for granted that other countries might not harass journalists on this pretext, whether those working for the Wall Street Journal or other Western outlets. The US crossed the unspoken red line related to exploiting this profession for espionage, which can be concluded with a very high degree of confidence since Russia wouldn’t have arrested Gershkovich if it didn’t have irrefutable proof of his crimes.
The Kremlin knew very well what sort of information warfare narratives would follow its first arrest of a journalist since the Old Cold War, but it took this step in order to defend its legitimate national security interests and expose the US’ dirty game that was just explained. It’s with this in mind that Western journalists should be furious at Gershkovich for agreeing to this intelligence assignment, since he could simply have refused it.
By spying on Russia under the cover of journalism, he betrayed his profession’s top principle and put his colleagues at risk all across the world. He doesn’t deserve any of their sympathy, but some of those rallying around him have ulterior motives and aren’t just misled by fake news about the reason for his arrest. These figures might also be operating as spies under the cover of journalism, hence their interest in lying that it’s impossible for anyone in their profession to ever carry out such crimes.
Genuine journalists should remember that Russia wouldn’t have taken this step with the expectation of all the weaponized information warfare narratives that would follow if it didn’t have irrefutable proof that Gershkovich was exploiting his profession for espionage. He and his handlers are the ones who deserve everyone’s ire, not Russia for defending its legitimate national security interests. Gershkovich put journalists at risk all across the world, which he should be condemned for, not shown sympathy.
Sputnik | April 8, 2023
While the sudden leak of numerous classified US documents related to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine reportedly prompted the Pentagon to launch an investigation into the matter, the way the “revelation” was covered by the media makes it look somewhat suspect.
Classified documents that purportedly outline US and NATO plans for the Ukrainian military were leaked to the public this week, and if US media is to be believed, the Pentagon has already rushed to investigate this apparent breach of security.
During an interview with Sputnik, international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda pointed out that the story was broken by the New York Times. According to him, given that US officials are now claiming that part of the story is true and part of it is not, it begets the question: “why was it leaked and what did they want us to believe?”
The leak, Sleboda suggested, likely comes “from the American side or someone within the American side,” with the analyst noting that some of the leaked papers “confirm information that we really already knew,” such as the data about the newly-formed Ukrainian brigades. He suggests taking the leaked information “with a grain of salt.”
Regarding the rationale behind the sharing of the leaked information on social media, Sleboda argued that “a lot of it maybe [was] buttressing the public knowledge of US support for the offensive that is about to be launched.”
“We know that NATO considers it their last-ditch effort, they do not have the ability to continue to sustain the Kiev regime in terms of ammunition, artillery shells, other gear, and for them this is all or nothing,” he mused. “So they’re expecting success out of this and they do not appear to have a plan B in that regard. Plan B might default the Plan D, which is NATO troops enter Western Ukraine or some NATO member-states enter West Ukraine, say Poland and the US, possibly Romania.”
He also observed that the leaked information does not include any specific battle plans, “which seems awfully convenient.”
For more in-depth analysis, check out the latest episode of Sputnik’s podcast Fault Lines.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | April 6, 2023
Bombshell vaccine safety surveillance data out of Western Australia shows it was reactions from the Covid vaccine that were overwhelming local hospitals. Data shows Australia’s zero-Covid plan was for nothing, as cases have spiked.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | April 6, 2023
In March 2022, Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, faced significant criticism for advising against the COVID-19 vaccine for children under 17, citing reported risks outweighing the benefits. Now, W.H.O. has rolled back its own recommendation on the vaccine for healthy children and teenagers. Dr. Ladapo joins Del for a nice ‘I told you so’.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | April 6, 2023
No matter what political affiliation, American’s are now entertaining the idea that someone in their family may have died from a Covid jab. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and others now approach the 2024 elections, vaccine safety and mandated medicine have become a top issue.
Press TV – April 8, 2023
The United States says a nuclear-powered American guided-missile submarine is operating in the Middle East in support of the US Fifth Fleet, which is based in Bahrain.
The USS Florida entered the region on Thursday and began transiting the Suez Canal on Friday, Commander Timothy Hawkins said in a statement on Saturday, according to Reuters.
“It is capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and is deployed to US 5th Fleet to help ensure regional maritime security and stability,” Hawkins added.
This came after the US Navy relocated a warship in the Mediterranean to the coast near Syria after tensions rose between Tehran and Washington over deadly attacks on Iranian military advisors in Syria.
Iran’s envoy to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani earlier on Monday warned that the Islamic Republic will take “decisive measures” to protect its forces and interests in Syria against any threats posed by the United States or others.
Last week, two Iranian military advisers stationed in Syria were killed in an Israeli airstrike near the country’s capital Damascus. Following the attack, the IRGC issued a stern warning to the Israeli regime on Sunday, vowing retaliation for the killing of its military advisers in Syria.
The relocation of the US warship came as US President Joe Biden claimed in March that the United States was not seeking a conflict with Iran.
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | April 4, 2023
YouTube has suspended the channel of Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) for allegedly violating its election misinformation policies. The 7-day ban came a day before Donald Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan, and the network’s coverage of the arraignment.
RSBN is an independent media organization founded in 2015, primarily focused on providing conservative news coverage and commentary in the United States.
The network gained prominence during the 2016 presidential campaign by live-streaming Donald Trump’s rallies and events. Since then, the network has continued to cover conservative political events, speeches, and interviews, while also providing analysis and opinion on relevant topics.
RSBN is recognized for its pro-Trump stance and sharing of conservative viewpoints in the media landscape.
On Monday, the network received a notice that several of its videos, including an exclusive interview with Trump in Mar-a-Lago, his recent rally in Waco, Texas, and his comments at the most recent CPAC event, had been removed for violating its election misinformation policies.
Aside from violating policies against making claims of fraud in the 2020 elections and 2022 election in Brazil, the videos were also removed for lack of “countervailing views.”
Because of the violations, YouTube imposed one strike and temporarily suspended the channel for a week, the same week when President Trump became the first US President in history to face criminal charges.
“Accordingly, the videos have been removed and a strike has been applied to the channel, and as a result, uploads and live streams by your account are suspended for a week. You can read more about our strikes system here,” a YouTube representative told RSBN.
“Conveniently, YouTube’s Orwellian censorship practices have returned just one day before President Trump is arraigned in a gross weaponization of the justice system,” RBN said in a statement.
“Rather than allowing RSBN to show a countervailing view to the mainstream media’s version of the arraignment, they are simply shutting down our efforts. Again, they are leaving millions of Americans voiceless in the face of tyranny.”
This isn’t the first time RSBN has been suspended from YouTube just hours before a planned event.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Reknowned economist M. Shahid Alam offers this excellent critique of Noam Chomsky’s defective analysis of the relative influence of Oil versus the Israel lobby over US foreign policy: … continue
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