How the US is Creating Trouble Around Russia
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 21.04.2021
When the US president Joe Biden delivered his first major foreign policy speech in February, he signalled America’s return to an interventionist and confrontationist policy design, one that thrives on creating troubles for its competitors. Accordingly, whereas we see the US continues to blame the Chinese authorities for carrying out a “genocide” in Xinjiang – which is a major logistical base for China’s various Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) project – it has equally started creating trouble in Ukraine to force Russia into a crisis situation, hoping that such a situation would make Russia submit to the US ambitions to re-establish its lost unilateral global domination. The recent most sanctions imposed on Russia indicate the current trends in unmistakable terms. However, the way the US is soaking Ukraine up with anti-Russian policies speaks volumes about the way the US is creating conditions of a war and use the scenario to extend NATO’s outreach.
On March 1, the Pentagon announced a $125 million military aid package for Ukraine, the first of its kind under the Biden administration. A Pentagon statement said that the package included “capabilities to enhance the lethality, command and control, and situational awareness of Ukraine’s forces through the provision of additional counter-artillery radars and tactical equipment; continued support for a satellite imagery and analysis capability; and equipment to support military medical treatment and combat evacuation procedures.” This aid is apart from US$150 million in fiscal year 2021 Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding appropriated by the US Congress. Ever since 2014, this has become a trademark method that Washington has been following to encourage Kiev to be belligerent towards Russia.
In his April 13 call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden affirmed the US’
“unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The President voiced our concerns over the sudden Russian military build-up in occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders, and called on Russia to de-escalate tensions.”
On April 4, the Operational Command East with the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) provocatively announced that it will hold joint military exercises known as “Exercise Cossack Mace” with NATO forces later this year. While this would not be the first time the Ukrainian forces would hold such military exercises, there is a marked difference this time around that reflects the current geo-political scenario.
As such, whereas usual Ukraine-NATO drills are announced with clarifying statements that they are purely “defensive” operations, the AFU’s recent statement differed in that it made clear that it would simulate an offensive attack against not only “separatist-controlled Donbass” but Russian forces as well.
When seen in combination with the way Ukraine is aiming to reclaim Crimea, the nature of this build up as a form of direct territorial assault becomes evident. In March 2021, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted, “[The Ukrainian government] has approved the Strategy for Deoccupation & Reintegration of Crimea, a historic document needed since 2014. The signal is crystal clear: we don’t just call on the world to help us return Crimea, Ukraine makes own dedicated & systemic efforts.”
As such, whereas Russia, too, has started its own military build-up on the Ukrainian border, this build-up did not happen until Ukrainian government officially declared their intent to reclaim Crimea at all costs.
The reason why the US is building up trouble around Russia looking to force the latter in an unnecessary war is, as mentioned above, to recreate a unilateral world order.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was sharp and pinpoint when she said that,
“The United States is not ready to accept the objective reality of a multipolar world in which American hegemony is not possible. It is placing its bets on sanctions pressure and interference in our domestic affairs. This aggressive conduct will certainly meet with resolute resistance. There will inevitably be a response to the sanctions. Washington must realise that it will have to pay for the degradation of bilateral relations. Responsibility for what is happening fully rests with the United States.”
For many in the US, Biden’s entry in the White House was always meant to restore the global balance of power to the US’ advantage. Many companies and groups lobbying for Biden saw his presidency as “negative for Moscow”, likely to lead to a further deterioration of bilateral relations, both in terms of rhetoric and substance.
For the Ukrainian leadership, too, the arrival of Joe Biden has created an opportunity to reclaim Ukraine. As such, while current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was previously ambiguous on his stance towards NATO during his election campaign in 2019—proclaiming his support for EU membership while saying little about the Western military alliance—he now regularly begs for his country’s full inclusion in NATO. At the same time, Zelensky administration has step-by-step ramped up anti-Russian hysteria by sanctioning pro-Russian opposition leaders and by shutting down media outlets too.
As such, in this context, Joe Biden’s call for “diplomacy” to de-escalate the situation is unlikely to lead to any meaningful positive development not only because the Joe Biden administration is following an explicit agenda to recreate US hegemony, but also because Russia remains strongly opposed to any US attempts to dictate Russia from a position of strength.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Interventionist Hypocrisy on U.S. Deaths in Afghanistan
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 21, 2021
I’m always fascinated by the sacrificial mindset that interventionists have toward the lives of U.S. soldiers who they want to do the intervening. A recent example is Brett Stephens, a columnist for the New York Times. In an op-ed entitled “Abandoning Afghanistan Is a Historic Mistake,” Stephens writes:
The U.S. has lost fewer than 20 service members annually in hostile engagements in Afghanistan since 2015. That’s heartbreaking for those affected, but tiny next to the number of troops who die in routine training accidents worldwide.
Yes, it’s heartbreaking and the number of deaths might be “tiny” compared to other things but the point that Stephens is making, whether he realizes it or not, is that it’s worth sacrificing the lives of those 20 men every year for the indefinite future.
The important question is: What are those soldiers being sacrificed for? According to Stephens, they are being sacrificed to prevent the Taliban from retaking control over Afghanistan. He points out that if the Taliban end up winning Afghanistan’s civil war, that will mean tyranny for the Afghan people.
Is the prevention of tyranny for the Afghan people worth sacrificing 20 U.S. soldiers per year indefinitely into the future? Indeed, is it worth sacrificing even one U.S. soldier to accomplish that goal?
Stephens would say yes. He says the prevention of a Taliban victory is that important.
But there is one big problem with Stephens’s reasoning: his own personal commitment to the cause. After all, if preventing a Taliban victory is so important, what is Stephens doing here at home? There is nothing to prevent him from traveling to Afghanistan and offering his services to the Afghan government to assist it in prevailing over the Taliban.
Stephens is only 47 years old. There are plenty of men in the Afghan army that are that age. Why does he choose to remain here at home living a cushy life writing for the New York Times instead of traveling to Afghanistan and helping the U.S.-installed regime prevail in the conflict?
There is one simple reason: Stephens places a higher value on his cushy life here at home than he does on preventing a Taliban victory over there. He’s not willing to give up what he has here at home to risk his life by traveling to Afghanistan and offering his services in order to prevent a Taliban victory.
But when it comes to the lives of those 20 soldiers a year, that’s a different story. In Stephens’s internal ranking of values, the lives of those soldiers are of secondary value compared to preventing a Taliban victory.
We saw this interventionist mindset, of course, during the Vietnam War, when more than 58,000 American men were sacrificed to prevent the communists in North Vietnam from prevailing in that country’s civil war. Interventionists said (and still say) that sacrificing those 58,000-plus American men sacrifice was worth it. In fact, if interventionists had had their way, American soldiers would still be in South Vietnam today, being sacrificed to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam.
There are lots of bad things that happen around the world. But that doesn’t mean that American soldiers should be sacrificed to prevent them. If interventionists are outraged over bad things that happen in the world, let’s just let them travel overseas to risk their lives to right the wrongs.
My hunch is that Stephens is one of those people who exhorts everyone to thank the troops for their service and sacrifice. I wonder how many U.S. soldiers can see through this interventionist hypocrisy, especially after 20 years of official lies and deception surrounding the U.S. war on Afghanistan.
Airlines Won’t Call Digital ID A ‘Vaccine Passport’ Because “It Carries Too Many Connotations”
By Steve Watson | Summit News | April 21, 2021
A report from Yahoo News notes that airlines won’t be calling the imminent vaccine passports by that name because “It carries too many connotations,” according to one aviation CEO.
The forthcoming ‘digital certificates’ that will show COVID-19 vaccination status won’t be referred to as vaccination passports says Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, because that would turn people off.
Bastian declared that airlines are “more focused on a credential, travel credential, if you will, to indicate that you’ve been vaccinated and or tested based on the regulatory requirements.”
The CEO added that he expects “Either a vaccination or a test,” to be a requirement to travel, and airlines are “working with a number of technology providers to be able to facilitate that in an open source way.”
Right. A vaccine passport then.
That is exactly what the ID will be, but never mind, just call it something else to placate the sheeple and hope they remain only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
It’s the exact same policy that the UK government is adopting for the system which is slated not only for international travel but also domestically. We are also reliably informed that the vast majority of Brits are willing to accept vaccine passports in order to engage in basic day to day activities, and that they are willing to go along with the digital ID card system PERMANENTLY.
Recent surveys also indicate that almost half of Americans support the introduction of vaccine passports in order to get “back to normal.”
Airline consultant Mike Boyd warned that the companies “would rather not deal with this, but they need to express their points of view very carefully,” adding that creating a global protocol to enforce vaccine passports “could resemble a DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] on steroids.”
The EU is already ensconced on the vaccine passport road, with a bloc wide ‘Digital Green Certificate’ system set to be rolled out in June.
As chemical weapons watchdog’s credibility crumbles, OPCW member states strip Syria’s voting rights
RT | April 21, 2021
Syria has been stripped of most of its rights at the global chemical weapons watchdog for alleged breaches. The OPCW stands accused of suppressing facts reported by its own inspectors in Syria for political purposes.
The vote to penalize Syria took place on Wednesday at the conference of the states that are parties to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague. Syria was punished for allegedly violating the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), of which the OCPW is the guardian, based on reports by the special Investigation and Identification Team (IIT).
The penalties were imposed at the proposal of France and backed by Western nations who helped pass it overwhelmingly by 87 to 15, with 34 abstentions out of 136 countries taking part.
The mechanism was created last year and was authorized to name perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks. It has on several occasions accused Syria of CWC infractions. Damascus sees the IIT as a “propaganda tool” used by countries seeking to topple its government, and says its reports cannot be considered scientific, as a Syrian representative said at the conference prior to the vote.
The concern is shared by some other countries, including Russia and China. The Chinese representative reminded on Wednesday that the IIT has remarkably less rigorous standards for collecting evidence than the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) did. The JIM was tasked with investigating incidents of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria before the ITT.
“The IIT, instead of conducting on-site investigations, gave credence to samples provided by the so-called ‘non-government organizations,’ heeded the opinions of the so-called ‘external experts’ and interviewed the so-called ‘witnesses in third countries’,” Ambassador Jian Tan said, stressing that the work of the IIT went beyond the mandate under the CWC and couldn’t guarantee impartiality of the results.
Skepticism about the IIT and the OPCW in general has been growing among member states since 2019, when the organization was accused of covering up evidence discovered by its own inspectors after an incident in the Damascus suburb of Douma, which happened in April 2018. The US, the UK and France swiftly responded to the highly-publicized incident with retaliatory missile attacks against Syria.
The watchdog’s final report in 2019 all but accused Damascus of dropping chlorine gas canisters on the area as part of its effort to capture it from jihadist forces. But several whistleblowers came up after the report’s release with documents and testimonies indicating a different scenario.
They said the evidence collected by a JIM mission on the ground pointed to possible staging of the scene to blame the Syrian army. The OPCW allegedly suppressed the contradictory evidence and brought in external experts, who helped it arrive at the conclusions favorable to the three countries, which launched the strikes at Syria.
The OPCW leadership responded to the allegations by painting the whistleblowers as rogue elements disgruntled at the organization and ignoring calls for a rigorous scientific examination of how the final report on Douma was penned. Western governments and media treat their testimonies as a conspiracy theory peddled by Russia.
However this attempt to brush aside the dissenting voices seems to be hurting OPCW’s credibility. Earlier this month, members of the UN Security Council held an informal meeting to discuss the issue, and during the events India for the first time openly criticized the watchdog’s recent Syria reporting issued under the IIT mechanism.
As an OPCW state party, India expects the organization to conduct “impartial, credible and objective investigation into any use of chemical weapons,” in line with the convention principles, Indian envoy K. Nagaraj Naidu said. “The current report falls short of these expectations”.
The report in question details three alleged chemical weapons attacks in the town of Ltamenah in March 2017, which the IIT attributed to the Syrian Air Force. It updates an earlier version explaining OPCW’s findings, which was released last year and which New Delhi didn’t publicly comment on.
India was among the countries that voted against the creation of the IIT, citing its concerns over ‘mandate creep’. It abstained in July 2020, when the OPCW Executive Council voted to condemn Syria for IIT-reported use of chemical weapons.
Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 and declared massive stockpiles of chemical weapons, which were subsequently destroyed. The move was taken after Washington said it was considering military action against Syria after an alleged chemical weapons attack. The OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing Syria into the CWC fold.
Biden & Harris are crass opportunists for branding the US as systemically racist while standing on George Floyd’s grave
By Micah Curtis | RT | April 21, 2021
After the guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris wasted no time in labelling America racist. This exploitation of a shocking death is thoroughly distasteful.
Although there is likely to be an appeal, Derek Chauvin has been found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in relation to the death of George Floyd. Justice has been served. But, clearly, justice is not enough for the heads of the executive branch of the United States government.
Immediately after the verdict was handed down, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris held a press conference where they delivered a verdict of their own. They framed the very country that they serve as racist, and made clear that the only way to address this is to pass legislation.
“We still must reform the system,” said Harris. “America has a long history of systemic racism,” she claimed, adding that it’s “holding our nation back from realizing our full potential.”
Biden was in agreement. He said systemic racism “is a stain of our nation’s soul, the knee on the neck of the nation’s black Americans.”
Strong words. But let’s keep something in mind here. Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have spent pretty much their entire careers within the United States government, in one way or another. It seems to me they’re a little too comfortable with getting a paycheck from this supposedly ‘racist’ country.
What I find most insulting is the absolute ignorance of what happened in court. Race was not established as a factor in the death of George Floyd. The scary part about Floyd’s death is that it could literally happen to anyone, and yet we have the leaders of the US acting as if race was unquestionably a factor.
I would be curious if any single member of their administration could show me any point within the trial which conclusively showed that the death of George Floyd was racially motivated. I have a feeling they wouldn’t be able to do it. And that’s what makes Harris and Biden’s comments doubly insulting. They don’t see George Floyd as a person. They see him as a pedestal.
Their speech covered the same themes put forward by Barack Obama during his presidency. The US is apparently a racist country, and the only cure is to pass the laws that they advocate. Never mind that by calling America a place that suffers from systemic racism, you are calling every single person you want to vote for that legislation racist. Never mind that you’re framing your own constituents as racist. All that matters is that you give them what they want, and maybe they’ll stop insulting you.
I feel horrible for George Floyd’s family. It’s one thing to lose a loved one. It’s another thing completely to have politicians across the country take this member of your family and use him to try to establish laws that wouldn’t have prevented his death in the first place. The absolute insincerity of it all is stomach churning.
Yes, there are lessons to be learned from this case and Chauvin’s conviction. But these are lessons for law enforcement in how to handle situations like they encountered with George Floyd in a better manner. There are also lessons to be learned about the importance of the right to life that is detailed within the Constitution. We should be discussing those, but instead an entire country is being branded as a racist because one bad cop is going to jail.
Biden and Harris need to be asked what they have been doing for the past few decades – other than leeching off our tax dollars – to address this supposed “systemic racism.” They have done very little to change things, and I have little doubt that they have no ability to change anything now. They can put the presidential podium on George Floyd’s grave if they want, but it won’t change how inept and shallow they have shown themselves to be as human beings.
Micah Curtis is a game and tech journalist from the US. Aside from writing for RT, he hosts the podcast Micah and The Hatman, and is an independent comic book writer.
Fauci, smoking gun evidence, pandemic fraud; memo to Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | April 20, 2021
Recently, in a Committee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan and Anthony Fauci crossed swords. [0]
Jordan was demanding to know, from Fauci, when the unconstitutional COVID restrictions would end. Fauci, the notorious flip-flopper, had no answers.
There is, however, a momentous issue on which Fauci has given answers. In the process, he exposed an astonishing fraud that completely changes the picture of COVID-19.
Congressman Jordan, follow this trail.
Summary: Fauci readily admitted that, if the PCR test for the virus is done improperly, the results are meaningless and must be thrown out. What he failed to say—and he knows this—is that the test, since the beginning, HAS BEEN DONE IMPROPERLY.
Takeaway: Millions of people have been falsely told they’re infected with the virus; millions of COVID case numbers are false. These false numbers have been used to declare and extend lockdowns.
If what I’m writing here is true, Congressman, would that interest you? Would that spur you to take action?
Before I lay out the details of the case, I recommend you speak with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He knows the PCR test has been performed incorrectly. In December, he and his public health department issued an order to remedy that staggering problem. [1] [1a]
All right, here we go. Buckle up.
July 17, 2020, podcast, “This Week In Virology” (titled: “TWiV 641: COVID-19 with Dr. Anthony Fauci”) [2]: Tony Fauci makes a point of saying the PCR COVID test is useless and misleading when the test is run at “35 cycles or higher.” A positive result, indicating infection, cannot be accepted or believed.
Here, in techno-speak, is an excerpt from Fauci’s key quote (the question being asked of Fauci starts at the 3m50s mark; Fauci answers beginning at the 4m40s mark) [2]: “… If you get [perform the test at] a cycle threshold of 35 or more… the chances of it being replication-competent [aka accurate] are miniscule… you almost never can culture virus [detect a true positive result] from a 37 threshold cycle… even 36…”
Each “cycle” of the test is a quantum leap in amplification and magnification of the test specimen taken from the patient.
Too many cycles, and the test will turn up all sorts of irrelevant material that will be wrongly interpreted as relevant.
That’s called a false positive.
What Fauci failed to say on the video—AND WHAT HE OBVIOUSLY KNEW—is: the FDA, which authorizes the test for public use, recommends the test should be run up to 40 cycles. Not 35.
Therefore, all labs in the US, following the FDA guideline, are knowingly or unknowingly participating in fraud. Fraud on a monstrous level, because…
Millions of Americans are being told they are infected with the virus on the basis of a false positive result, and…
The total number of COVID cases in America—which is based on the test—is a gross falsity.
The lockdowns and other restraining measures are based on these fraudulent case numbers.
Let me back up and run that by you again. Fauci says the test is useless when it’s run at 35 cycles or higher. The FDA says run the test up to 40 cycles, in order to determine whether the virus is there. This is the crime in a nutshell.
“Hello, America, you’ve been tricked, lied to, conned, and taken for a devastating ride. On the basis of fake science, the country was locked down.”
All right, here are two chunks of evidence for what I’ve written above. First, we have a CDC quote on the FDA website, in a document titled: “CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel For Emergency Use Only” [3] [3a] [3b].
Note: this document is marked, “Effective: 12/01/2020.” That means, even though the virus is being referred to by its older name (2019-nCoV instead SARS-CoV-2), the document is still relevant as of Dec 2020. “For Emergency Use Only” refers to the fact that the FDA has certified the PCR test under a traditional category called “Emergency Use Authorization.”
Here’s the CDC quote on the FDA website: see pdf page 38 (doc page 37): “… a specimen is considered positive for 2019-nCoV [virus] if all 2019-nCoV marker (N1, N2) cycle threshold growth curves cross the threshold line within 40.00 cycles ([less than] 40.00 Ct).”
Naturally, testing labs reading this guideline would conclude, “Well, to see if the virus is there in a patient, we should run the test all the way to 40 cycles. That’s the official advice.”
Then we have a New York Times article (August 29/updated September 17) headlined: “Your coronavirus test is positive. Maybe it shouldn’t be.” [4] Here are money quotes:
“Most tests set the limit at 40 [cycles]. A few at 37.”
“Set the limit” would usually mean, “We’re going to look all the way to 40 cycles, to see if the virus is there.”
The Times : “This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients.”
Boom. That’s the capper, the grand finale. Labs don’t or won’t reveal their collusion in this crime.
Get the picture?
I hope so.
FAUCI HAS BEEN AWARE OF THIS ENORMOUS FRAUD, AND HE HAS DONE NOTHING TO STOP IT.
If a lawyer won’t go to court with all this, or if a judge won’t pay attention and see the light, they should be stripped of their jobs and sent to the Arctic to sell snow.
Finally, Congressman Jordan, what I’m reporting here only goes partway down the COVID rabbit hole. The hole is much deeper. But this is enough for now.
I urge you to use this information and help restore freedom to the American people.
Note: I hope readers will forward this article to Congressman Jim Jordan’s press secretary, Russell Dye: russell[dot]dye[at]mail[dot]house[dot]gov
SOURCES:
[0] https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1382724306036256774
[1] https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/12/08/florida-forces-labs-to-report-number-of-pcr-test-cycles/
[1a] https://www.flhealthsource.gov/files/Laboratory-Reporting-CT-Values-12032020.pdf
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Vy6fgaBPE
[3] https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
[3a] CDC-006-00019, Revision: 06, CDC/DDID/NCIRD/ Division of Viral Diseases, Effective: 12/01/2020; see: https://web.archive.org/web/20210102171026/https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
[3b] CDC-006-00019, Revision: 05, CDC/DDID/NCIRD/ Division of Viral Diseases, Effective: 07/13/2020; see: https://web.archive.org/web/20200715004004/https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download
[4] nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
Project Veritas Founder Sues Twitter After He Was Banned Amid Ongoing ‘Expose CNN’ Series
By Alexandra Kashirina – Sputnik – 20.04.2021
Earlier, Twitter permanently suspended the account of Project Veritas founder, James O’Keefe, as the watchdog continues to release its “Expose CNN” series, including the broadcaster’s director saying that the channel was using “propaganda”.
James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas, filed a defamation lawsuit against Twitter on Monday, denying platform accusations that he used false pages, considered in Twitter rules as a way to “artificially amplify or disrupt conversations.”
“This defamation action arises from Twitter’s false and defamatory April 15, 2021, statement concerning Twitter’s decision to ban Plaintiff James O’Keefe, an investigative journalist followed by over 926,000 Twitter users as of the time he was banned.”
“Twitter’s false claim that Mr. O’Keefe used ‘fake accounts’ on Twitter has caused Mr. O’Keefe damage and, unless retracted, will continue to cause him damage,” the lawsuit reads.
According to the lawsuit, “Twitter made such claims with knowledge of their falsity in order to distract and detract from Project Veritas’s CNN release of the same day.”
Last week, Twitter banned O’Keefe’s page after accusing O’Keefe of using “fake accounts.”
The ban came shortly after the release of a third Project Veritas revelation which included an interview with CNN technical director Charles Chester recorded clandestinely on a hidden camera. Chester claimed that the broadcaster was aiming to prevent former US President Donald Trump from being re-elected by focusing on negative news about him.
“Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100% going to say it, and I 100% believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out…I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that,” Chester appeared to say during a secretly recorded conversation with a Project Veritas journalist.
Chester also claimed that CNN was only covering US President Joe Biden in a favorable light and asserted that the network had assisted BLM the movement by concealing crimes committed by people of color.
The non-profit conservative outlet Project Veritas was founded in 2010 by O’Keefe and includes a group of journalists who focus on publishing investigative reports on officials they claim are liberal as well as various organizations, including big tech companies.
Project Veritas and the social media accounts of several of its employees have faced a number of bans regarding their reporting about Facebook, Twitter, Google and Pinterest.
Zero mainstream coverage today of the foiled, U.S. backed plot to assassinate Belarus president Lukashenko
By Gilbert Doctorow | April 19, 2021
In his last book “War with Russia?” my friend and colleague Steve Cohen wrote about the flagrant censorship of news being carried on by The New York Times in support of its Russia-bashing editorial policies. Said Cohen, the newspaper’s century old slogan of “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has been turned into “All the News that Fits” when it comes to coverage of Russia.
But the problem goes far deeper than the professional malpractice of one leading newspaper in America. The censorship of news carried by mainstream media by U.S. authorities covers not only the domestic press but also the mainstream of Allied countries. News blackouts are imposed when something ugly arises implicating the United States in violation of international norms of state behavior for which the State Department has no ready explanation or white wash.
This very situation seems to have arisen over the weekend, when news broke in Moscow over the arrest of two conspirators plotting a coup d’état in Minsk, to be carried out by the Belarus armed forces tentatively during the 9 May parade celebrating victory over fascist Germany in the Second World War.
Other leading English-speaking papers such as The Guardian and The Financial Times have front page reports on Alexei Navalny’s near death condition in a prison camp but not a word about Belarus. Ditto the Frankfurter Allgemeine and Le Figaro. Curious, n’est-ce pas? Warum? Let’s look into the story in its full dimension.
Last night’s News of the Week program hosted by Dimitry Kiselyov, Russia’s top manager of state news programming, began with a 20 minute report on the extraordinary arrest of two conspirators plotting armed rebellion entailing the murder of Lukashenko and his family, abolition of the post of President, installation of a Committee of Concord such as previously had been headed by the opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
But these were not empty allegations. The arrests followed on a meeting by the two conspirators with Belarus military officers held in a downtown Moscow restaurant which was filmed from start to finish by the Russian state security agency, the FSB. Lengthy segments of recordings from their meeting and discussion of their treasonous plans were aired on the Kiselyov program. Moreover, the accused are not some unknown pawns such as the British presented to the world press when they released their accusations against Russia over the Skripal poisoning. No, one of the two arrested was the former press secretary of Lukashenko, a person who would have had all the contacts necessary to organize such a rebellion. The other plotter has dual US-Belarus citizenship and was well known as a fighter against Lukashenko’s rule.
The two were turned over to the Belarus KGB for interrogation in Minsk. Surely further information about the links of the plotters to Ukraine, to Poland and to the United States will come out in the next few days.
What we have here is “very likely” (to use current Anglo-American political jargon) involvement of the United States in yet another regime change operation. The revolution from below in Belarus led by Tikhanovskaya with support from Poland and Lithuania failed. The anti-Lukashenko street demonstrations led to nothing. And now Plan B, a putsch from above, was being organized to achieve the objective of removing Lukashenko both politically and physically. We have not seen such openly murderous plans with “likely” U.S. backing since John Kennedy’s days when the assassination of Fidel Castro was the hot game in D.C.
On the same “very likely” logic, I permit myself to take this all back to the door of the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Policy designate Victoria Nuland. The links to Warsaw and Kiev that appear present are all in line with what she was doing to precipitate the Maidan in 2013 and violent overthrow of the sitting President in Kiev amidst attempts to murder him as he made his escape to Russian territory in February 2014.
From all of the foregoing, it looks as though U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s pledge several weeks ago that the US would no longer pursue “orange revolutions” was either an out and out lie or made without his knowing that control of foreign policy no longer is in his hands, but is being carried out by his nominal subordinate, Mme Nuland. No wonder that the U.S. has ordered “stop the presses” on this story until it can put together some plausible response.
In the meantime, the same news program delivered the Kremlin’s response to the Czech action over the weekend to expel 18 diplomats from the Russian embassy in Prague over allegations that Russia was involved in blowing up an arms depot near the capital back in 2014, an event which previously the Czech authorities had blamed on the owners-managers of the depot. Per the Kremlin, these new and absurd Czech charges of Russia’s nefarious activities were agreed with Washington to direct attention away from the pending story about U.S. involvement in plans to murder the Belarus head of state.
Are we headed to World War III? If the war machinery today were like what existed in August 1914, the answer would be unquestionably yes. It is our good fortune that until someone on either side of the East-West divide pushes the Red Button, there are ways back from the abyss. However, we are still heading in the wrong direction, towards the abyss, and the United States is the prime mover.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2021
NYT ‘bounties’ non-story shows US/UK media has got so used to blaming Russia, it’s now doing it out of habit
By Paul Robinson | RT | April 20, 2021
As holes predictably appear in claims that Russia paid the Taliban to kill American soldiers, questions arise as to why such erroneous stories keep appearing in the American press. Domestic US politics provide part of the answer.
“A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories.” So ran a headline in the New York Times in August 2016. If it were only a Russian phenomenon, the world would be a much better place. Alas, the Times is far from immune from spreading “false stories” itself. From Walter Duranty’s reporting from the Soviet Union, through Judith Miller’s articles on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, up to its coverage of accusations that US President Donald Trump had colluded with the Russian government, The New York Times has had its fair share of “fake news” experiences.
“A little tiny bit flat footed,” was how the Times executive editor Dean Baquet described the newspaper when the Mueller investigation failed to find Trump guilty of collusion. “I mean, that’s what happens when a story looks a certain way for two years. Right?” added Baquet.
You have to feel a bit for him. He really believed in collusion. In his eyes, it did “look a certain way.” It was rather embarrassing when he turned out to be completely wrong.
The New York Times’ iffy relationship with reality is back in the news today. US presidential spokesperson Jen Psaki admitted that the US intelligence community was not at all convinced by accusations first aired in the Times that the Russian government had paid bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill American soldiers. Rather, it had only “low to moderate confidence” that the story was true. Psaki explained:
“The reason that they have low to moderate confidence in this judgment is in part because it relies on detainee reporting, and due to the challenging environment and also due to the challenging operating environment in Afghanistan. So it’s challenging to gather this intelligence and this data.”
The accusation against Russia appeared in The New York Times in June last year. The Times then followed up with additional stories on the same topic. “Afghan Contractor Handed Out Russian Cash to Kill Americans, Official Say,”claimed the headline of a second article. “How Russia Built a Channel to the Taliban, Once an Enemy,” read the headline of a third.
Commentators soon pointed out problems. While the CIA had moderate faith in the claim, the National Security Agency didn’t. In any case, the primary sources of information were Afghan prisoners who hadn’t themselves been involved in the alleged transaction. Their claims needed to be treated with a fair degree of caution.
Others pointed out that the story didn’t make any sense from a Russian point of view. The Russian government values the stability of Afghanistan, and had consistently supported both the Afghan government and the US military presence there. There was no obvious motive for killing Americans.
Furthermore, it’s not as if the Taliban needed to be incentivised to fight America. They were already killing as many Americans as they were able to. Paying them to do what they were doing already would have been odd, to say the least.
Now, Ms. Psaki admits what people have long since suspected: that the accusation against Russia is not well-founded. But anyone with any sense realized that from the get-go. Why, then, did The New York Times report it?
The Times’ explanation is that the story was true. It didn’t say that the accusation was accurate; it merely reported the accusation. In an article on Thursday, Times reporter Charlie Savage notes that the newspaper had stated that the CIA had only “medium” confidence in the story and the NSA had “low” confidence. It had also reported that the Afghan prisoners who recounted the story hadn’t actually been present when the alleged meetings with Russians took place. In other words, The New York Times’ reporting was accurate.
Maybe so, but that begs a question – why report a story that makes an extremely explosive allegation if you’re not at all confident that the accusation is true? Isn’t there some responsibility to hold off from repeating libelous claims until such time as you can substantiate them?
Apparently not. It seems as if the Times wanted to believe the story. It “looked a certain way,” to use Dean Baquet’s phrase. Which in turn begs another question. Why did it look that way to the Times?
The obvious answer is that it fitted the political needs of the moment. For the real target of the Russian bounty story was never Russia but Trump. Its purpose was to show that the president had in some way betrayed America’s soldiers by continuing to talk to Russia even though he had evidence that the Russians were killing Americans.
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, thus remarked, “The administration’s disturbing silence and inaction endanger the lives of our troops and our coalition partners.”Meanwhile, then presidential candidate and now president, Joe Biden, responded to the story by saying that Trump’s “entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but this is beyond the pale. It’s a betrayal of the most sacred duty we bear as a nation to protect and equip our troops when we send them into harm’s way. It’s a betrayal of every single American family with a loved one serving in Afghanistan or anywhere overseas.”
Russia, in other words, was merely a pawn in an internal American political struggle. Sadly, though, this is far from an isolated incident. Furthermore, the Democratic Party and its backers in the USA have now become so habituated to spreading dubious stories about Russia that they seem to be unable to stop, even though the original political motivation has vanished. The Russian bounty wasn’t the first “false story” to appear, and it won’t be the last.
Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. He writes about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics, and is the author of the Irrussianality blog.
WaPo-Style Fake News Russia Bashing
By Stephen Lendman | April 20, 2021
Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post provides propaganda services for Washington’s intelligence community.
Like other establishment media, the broadsheet is militantly hostile toward nations unwilling to sacrifice their sovereign rights to US interests.
Relentless Putin bashing reflects his model leadership and prominence on the world stage — in stark contrast to pygmy US and other Western counterparts.
According to neocon WaPo editors, UN Charter-breaching Biden regime sanctions on Russia weren’t tough enough.
Imposed for invented reasons as part of longstanding US Russia bashing, WaPo claimed “punches were pulled (sic).”
International investors can still buy Russian bonds unobstructed, the broadsheet complained, adding:
Russian energy and mineral enterprises weren’t sanctioned.
A typical litany of Big Lies followed.
WaPo falsely accused Moscow of paying bounties to kill US forces in Afghanistan — citing no evidence because there is none.
Defying reality, the broadsheet falsely claimed that Russia “sponsored… attacks that seriously injured US officials in Moscow, Havana and China” — again no evidence cited.
Fake news accusations of Russian “aggression” persist — how hegemon USA and its partners operate.
The Russian Federation never attacked or threatened other nations.
Under Putin, the Kremlin prioritizes peace, stability, cooperative relations with other countries, and compliance with international law – worlds apart from how the US and its imperial partners in high crimes operate.
In response to years of US-orchestrated Kiev aggression against Donbass, WaPO falsely accused Moscow of US-led high crimes of war and against humanity.
Calling for more illegal sanctions on Russia, perhaps its editors won’t be satisfied unless US hardliners launch WW III.
Separately, WaPo ignored US war on humanity at home and abroad while falsely accusing Russia of “crush(ing) opposition” elements.
Falsely accusing China of spying on and repressing Uyghur Muslins, WaPo defied reality by claiming Russia operates the same way against targeted individuals.
It lied claiming Putin amassed billions of dollars of hidden wealth.
It lied saying he heaps “extravagances” on political allies.
It lied accusing him of poisoning political nobody Navalny.
It lied claiming he persecutes protesters and activists.
It lied accusing democratic Russia of being authoritarian, calling Putin a dictator.
Compared to low approval ratings for US leaders and Congress, nearly two-thirds of Russians approve of Putin’s leadership.
According to Statista Research on February 25, “65 percent of Russians approved of activities of Russian president Vladimir Putin.”
Biden’s approval rating hovers around 50, almost entirely from undemocratic Dem support.
Mind-manipulated Americans don’t understand how badly they’re harmed by US policymakers until they’re bitten hard on their backsides.
Even then, it takes multiple abusive practices for them to realize that dominant US hardliners are their enemies, not allies.
State-sponsored repression and other forms of abuse are longstanding US practices, notably against its most vulnerable people, as well as against targeted individuals of the wrong race, ethnicity, and/or nationality.
In stark contrast to long ago US/Western abandonment of international law, Russia scrupulously abides by its principles.
On all things related to truth and full-disclosure, the US, its hegemonic partners and press agent media stick exclusively to the fabricated official narrative.
On all things related to nations from from US control, both right wings of its war party target them for regime change — wars by hot and/or other means their favored strategies.
On issues mattering most, the US and its hegemonic partners consistently breach the rule of law, operating by their own rules exclusively.
Instead of straight talk, US-led Western officials and their press agent media feature managed news misinformation and disinformation exclusively — truth and full disclosure nowhere in sight.
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How Ukraine Tortured and Slaughtered Donbass
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | July 11, 2024
Almost immediately after the proxy war erupted, ISIS-tier footage of the torture and murder of Russians in Ukrainian custody emerged.
On July 6th, the New York Times published an astonishing investigation: In Ukraine, Killings of Surrendering Russians Divide an American-Led Unit. The article documents in grim detail how Chosen Company, an international volunteer battalion for Kiev, routinely executes Russian prisoners of war. It is the very first mainstream admission that this practice – a brazen breach of the Geneva Conventions, and a grave war crime – is widespread among Ukraine’s fighters, both foreign and homegrown. … continue
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