All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Important analysis and historical review by Joe Lauria

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

Russia says it has no intentions of controlling Ukraine and its military operation is only to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine in an action taken after 30 years of the U.S. pushing Russia too far, writes Joe Lauria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV address Thursday morning that the goal of Russia’s military operation was not to take control of Ukraine, but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” the country.  Moments after he spoke, explosions were heard in several Ukrainian cities.

The Russian Defense Ministry said these were “precision” attacks against Ukrainian military installations and that civilians were not being targeted.  It said Ukraine’s air force on the ground and its air defenses had been destroyed.

The Ukrainian government, which declared a state of emergency and broke off diplomatic relations with Russia, said an invasion was underway and that Russia had landed forces at the port city of Odessa, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, as well as entering from Belarus in the north.  It said it had killed 50 Russian troops and shot down six Russian fighter jets, which Russia denied.

Putin said one of the operation’s aims was to arrest certain people in Ukraine, likely the neo-Nazis who burned dozens of unarmed people alive in a building in Odessa in 2014. In his speech Monday, Putin said  Moscow knows who they are.  Russia said it aims to destroy neo-Nazi brigades, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion.

Putin said the aim was not to occupy Ukraine, but he gave no indication when Russia might leave. It could be over quickly if Russia’s objectives are met. But war has its own logic and often lays waste to military plans.

The BBC reported that according to Ukrainian authorities 50 civilians have been killed so far. President Joe Biden is certain how this will turn out.

“President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” Biden said Wednesday night. “Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.”

Diminishing Russia

Biden is to make a televised address on Thursday after he coordinates a response to Russia’s military action in Ukraine with the G7 and NATO. Biden said he will announce a new package of economic sanctions against Russia, in addition to those imposed on Monday, but reiterated that U.S. and NATO forces would not become involved.  According to TASS, Russia’s news agency, the EU said it intends to weaken “Russia’s economic base and the country’s capacity to modernize.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even hinted at British military involvement.

“Our mission is clear,” he said. “Diplomatically, politically, economically and eventually militarily this hideous and barbaric venture of Vladimir Putin must end in failure.”

In a White House readout after the last phone call between Biden and Putin this month, Biden said Russia would be “diminished” if it invades, a longstanding U.S. goal.

In addition to the sanctions, Russia has faced widespread condemnation from most of the world, expressed at United Nations meetings this week, including an emergency session of the Security Council on Wednesday night.  Several nations spoke in melodramatic tones about the military operation changing global security. Many of those nations supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Putin said he would send Russian “peacekeepers” into Lugansk and Donetsk, which he recognized as states independent from Ukraine.  The West denounced it as an invasion, triggering the first round of sanctions against Russia.  Putin said the Russian troops were sent in to protect ethnic Russians, many of whom have now fled for safety over the border to Russia.

Combat in Donbass

Fierce fighting was reported Thursday along the line of separation between Ukrainian forces and militias from Donetsk and Lugansk. It is not clear to what extent Russian forces are taking part in the Donbass battle and if the aim is to capture all of the two breakaway provinces.

Both had voted for independence from Ukraine in 2014 after a coup overthrew the elected president Viktor Yanukovych.  The new Ukrainian government then launched a war against the provinces to crush their bid for independence, a war that is still going on eight years later at the cost of 14,000 lives.

Neo-Nazi groups, such as Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, who revere the World War II Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, took part in the coup as well as in the ongoing war against Lugansk and Donetsk.

A Matter of ‘Life or Death’ 

The Russian military action follows demands made in December by Russia to the U.S. and NATO in the form of treaty proposals that would require Ukraine and Georgia not to join NATO; U.S. missiles in Poland and Romania to be removed; and NATO deployments to Eastern Europe reversed.  The U.S. and NATO rejected the proposals and instead sent more NATO forces to Eastern Europe and have been heavily arming Ukraine.

In his address on Thursday morning, Putin said the military operation he was launching was a “question of life or death” for Russia, referring to NATO’s expansion east since the late 1990s. He said:

“For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”

Detailed Explanation of Causes and Aims of Operation

Silets Sokalskyi Lvivska battlefield monument in Ukraine of Soviets soldiers against Nazi invaders. (Viacheslav Galievskyi/Wikimedia Commons)

In his 3,350-word speech, Putin laid out in full detail the reasons he decided to take military action and what he hopes it will achieve. The speech is a devastating critique of U.S. policy toward Russia over the past 30 years, which no doubt will fall on deaf ears in Washington.

Western media is so far ignoring the speech or superficially dismissing it. But it has to be carefully studied if anyone is interested in understanding why Russia launched this military operation. Just calling Putin “Hitler,” as Nancy Pelosi did Wednesday night, won’t do.

Hitler in fact features in Putin’s address. For instance, addressing the Ukrainian military, Putin said:

“Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.”

He linked the Nazis’ invasion of Russia to NATO’s threat today, saying this time there would be no appeasement:

“Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are we to expect? If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late.

As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so.”

Putin said the existential threat from NATO’s expansion was the main reason for military action:

“Our biggest concerns and worries, [are] the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.

It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.

Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?”

 Putin called the Americans “con-artists” for lying about NATO expansion. He referred to:

“promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent. This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also and above all to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics.”

Putin said Russia had long wanted to cooperate with the West.

“Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way,” he said.

Cold War Triumphalism & Its Consequences

U.S. soldier conducts search of family’s home in Iraq, 2006. (Navy Journalist 1st Class Jeremy L. Wood)

Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union had led to a redivision of the world and a change to international law and norms.  New rules were needed but instead of achieving this “professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states … we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves.”

Putin then said this “absolutism,” with the Soviet Union no longer as a barrier, led to unchecked U.S. aggression, starting with NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and U.S. involvement in Syria. Russia has been taking note of the destruction Washington has wrought, even as it seems whitewashed from American minds.

“First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law.

Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.

A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.

But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq.

It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. Incredible and shocking but true. We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high UN rostrum. As a result we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.

Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism.”

Putin said over the past days “NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us.”

Ukraine, he said, had essentially become a de-facto NATO member posing the greatest threat to Russia.

“Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.”

A Parting Shot at European Vassals

Putin also blasted America’s European allies for not having the strength of principle or the moral fiber to stand up to Washington. He said:

“The United States is still a great country and a system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them. Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same ’empire of lies.’”

Read the full text of the speech.

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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times.  He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe  

Featured image: Putin explaining his reasons for going to war. (AP screenshot from YouTube)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

Important declaration by The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War.

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

The US and NATO created this crisis because they tossed aside the reasonable demands of the Russian Federation in two draft treaties submitted on December 21, 2021. One of the key demands was for a neutral Ukraine and a binding pledge that it would never join NATO.

For his part, Ukrainian President Zelensky dismissed the Minsk Protocols, which was the only formula to solve the impasse over the breakaway republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. The Minsk Protocols required the Ukrainian government to negotiate with the breakaway region concerning the restoration of its previous autonomy as well as language and cultural rights, prior to the Maidan coup in 2014.

These failures left the Russian-speaking people of the Donbass alone to suffer the increasing military onslaught of a Ukrainian government, riddled with neo-Nazi parties, egged on by Western arms and money.

All of the above are the festering sores of three decades of betrayal by the US and NATO of their pledges in the early 1990’s to Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, that NATO wouldn’t expand “one inch eastward” of a reunited Germany.

However, in the past thirty years, rather than dissolving itself (because it was set up to protect North Atlantic countries from the alleged danger of communism), NATO expanded 800 km. to the east, and admitted fourteen states which had been broken away from the former Soviet Union or were former members of the Warsaw Pact. Western (including Canadian) military and naval forces were stationed in these new NATO member countries and NATO installed missile systems and held massive drills close to Russia’s diminished borders. Clearly, the US plan was for its aggressive military alliance, NATO, to expand right up to all of Russia’s border with a view to further dismembering Russia and consolidating US hegemony over the entire European continent.

Another festering sore for Russia was the US-inspired coup in Kiev of 2014 whose junta thought it could impose its will on the Russian-speaking minority in the Donbass.

Russia, in its desire to protect the people of the Donbass Region, decided quite reasonably to recognize their governments and to create a demilitarized zone in the rest of Ukraine.

We believe that the Trudeau government should mind its own business and butt out of Ukraine. It has already caused enough damage by supporting the 2014 Maidan coup and arming and funding the junta to the teeth, not to mention by leveling coercive economic measures against Russia for many years.

Canada should quit the gang of thieves and land destroyers known as NATO and end all of its participation in provocative military adventures in Ukraine, Latvia, Romania, and the Black Sea.

In addition, the Trudeau Government should redirect the $350 billion CAD, proposed for new NATO-inspired fighter jets, warships, and predator drones, towards social programs and defensive weapons for Canada’s sovereign territory.

It should also sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and refrain from admitting as refugees anyone associated with Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

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Featured image is from Supratim Barman

The ongoing Russian military invasion of Ukraine is a stark illustration of an ever increasing security dilemma.

Putin maximized diplomatic efforts to resolve the protracted tension between the two states but the warmongers in the West only added fuel to the fire by reneging on NATO assurances, relentlessly spitting baseless propaganda and provoking the military superpower.

Yet, do these premises constitute the legitimacy of the Russian invasion?

As the world embarks on virtue signaling, will the US invoke its Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and extend military aid to Ukraine? 

Various opinions are expressed. The geopolitical context is exceedingly complex. Global Research is not supportive of  Russia’s invasion.

***

From the Black Sea to the East Med, “Don’t Poke The Russian Bear”

By Pepe Escobar, February 25, 2022

The (nuclear) straw that (nearly) broke the Bear’s back – and forced it to pounce – was Comedian/Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky, back from the Russophobia-drenched Munich Security Conference where he was hailed like a Messiah, saying that the 1994 Budapest memorandum should be revised and Ukraine should be nuclear-rearmed.

Ukraine Intervention: How NATO Stirred Resting Bear into Action?

By Nauman Sadiq, February 25, 2022

It’s noteworthy that all the militaries of the NATO member states operate under the integrated military command led by the Pentagon. Before being elected president, General Dwight Eisenhower was the first commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

The US Is the Major Instigator of the Ukraine Conflict. The Historical Facts

By Rick Sterling, February 24, 2022

Fact 1. In February 2014, a coup overthrew the Ukrainian government which came to power in an election certified by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation). The president, Viktor Yanukovich, was forced to flee for his life.

Putin Crosses the Rubicon. What Next?

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, February 24, 2022

Russia’s recognition of the ‘people’s republics’ of Luhansk and Donetsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass on Monday is a watershed event. In a manner of speaking, by this decision President Vladimir Putin crossed the Rubicon. But a tumultuous period lies ahead.

Eyewitness Reports Indicate Ukrainian Army Fired First Shots in War with Russia

By Don Hank and Jeremy Kuzmarov, February 24, 2022

The U.S. has since provided extensive military aid and training to Ukrainian armed forces as they brutalized the people of Eastern Ukraine who voted to secede after the 2014 coup. The U.S. has also applied extensive sanctions on Russia–tantamount to an act of war.

Hyenas in the Kitchen

By The Good Citizen, February 24, 2022

Listening to Putin’s recent speech that preceded the declaration to recognize the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, it was difficult not to notice that something was incredibly off about his claims. They simply did not match what the western corporate press, those dutiful stenographers for NATO power have been reporting for years.

Sanctions Will Not Stop Russians from Shopping and Partying in Europe

By Paul Antonopoulos, February 24, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 21 his decision to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, after which friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance agreements were signed. At the same time, the Russian president ordered the Ministry of Defense to guarantee the maintenance of peace by the Russian Armed Forces in both republics – thus inspiring the pre-emptive strikes against Ukraine’s provocative military.

Russia to the US: Your Aggression Stops Here

By Christopher Black, February 23, 2022

The Americans and their satellites states go further and claim a right to expand their alliance, but on what legal, moral or security grounds this right is based they cannot say. They claim that nations have the right to join NATO of their own free will, but this again is a distortion of the facts.

What Are the Minsk Agreements and What Are Their Role in the Russia-Ukraine Crisis?

By Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman, February 23, 2022

The situation in Ukraine today is attributed to the rise of ultra-nationalist and Russophobe groups that compelled the then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich to resign during the Euromaidan protests in February 2014.

Video: Moscow’s Recognition of Lugansk and Donesk People’s Republics. Russia “Provides Peace Keeping Forces”

By South Front, February 23, 2022

February 21 marked a historic event that shapes a new system of international relations for the entire world community. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia recognizes the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the east of Ukraine as sovereign entities.

West Remains Divided on Sanctions Against Russia

By Paul Antonopoulos, February 22, 2022

Washington, despite its never-ending rhetoric of an imminent Russian invasion, had a Biden administration official meekly say that the presence of Russian troops in Donestsk and Lugansk alone may not lead to the “swift and severe” sanctions that the White House has been warning about for months now.

The 2014 Neoliberal Neo-Nazi Coup in Ukraine. The World Is at a Dangerous Crossroads

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and James Corbett, January 22, 2022

This report dates back to the immediate aftermath of the 2014 Kiev coup d’état, which consisted in an act of war by US-NATO directed against Ukraine, leading to the formation of a full-fledged Neo-Nazi government in Ukraine.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

What is happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation.

This report provides factual information.

Global Research does not support the Russian military operation.

***

The Defense Ministry has claimed that the main forces of the airborne troops of the Russian Federation joined the units that had landed in Gostomel.  Thus, Kiev is now blocked in the West. 

Tank columns of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation broke through to the near approaches to Kiev and reached the airfield.

On February 24th, the Russian landing in the area of the Gostomel airfield near Kiev ensured the suppression of the Ukrainian air defense, isolated the combat area from the air. Russian paratroopers have been holding the airfield for more than a day, repelling attacks of the UAF.

More than 200 Russian helicopters and paratroopers were involved in the operation, added the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The Russian Armed Forces suffered no losses during the seizure of the airfield.

The footage shared online proved that the airfield is under control of Russian forces and heavy cargo aircraft with military equipment and military personnel are now landing there.

The Kiev-Zhytomyr highway is occupied by Russian troops. Clashes were reported near the town of Ivankovo. The UAF blew up a bridge near Vyshgorod, northers suburbs of the Kapital, trying to stop the advance of the Russian troops. However, this was not enough.

According to the Ukrainian media, Russian tanks are also going to Kiev, through the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

The column of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed in the city of Bucha in the north-western Kiev region.

A column of airborne forces were spotted heading towards Kiev from various directions:

Hours before, the UAF began the deployment of heavy equipment in Kiev, on the streets, in residential areas, in the center of the capital.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation claimed that intelligence data showed multiple rocket launchers “Grad” deployed on the Shevchenko Square in the center of the city.

The Russian Defense Ministry appealed to Ukrainian citizens:

“They want to use you as a human shield. The Russian armed forces will not strike any residential areas of the Ukrainian capital”

Meanwhile, firearms are distributed to civilians. The military distributes weapons directly from KAMAZ trucks, without asking for any documents. Video from the Obolon region, Kiev.

The first victims were not long to wait. Armed formations of the Ukrainian “national resistance” shot a car with civilians in the Obolonsky district in Kiev.

As Kiev was sieged from the West, Zelensky called for negotiations, claiming the Kiev’s readiness to discuss the neutral status of the country.

Putin is ready to send a Russian delegation to Minsk for talks with the Ukrainian representatives, spokesperson for the Russian President said.

According to him, the Russian delegation will include representatives of the Ministry of Defense, the Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin administration.

“Zelensky declared his readiness to discuss the neutral status of Ukraine. Initially, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the purpose of the operation was to help the LPR and the DPR, including through the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. And this, in fact, is an integral component of the neutral status,” he explained.

Minsk was chosen as a platform for the negotiations.

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PayPal: [email protected], http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

This article first published in June 2014 documents the nature of the Kiev regime which is supported by US-NATO.

It was updated on November 28, 2018.

What is happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation.

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

Introductory Note and update 

Following the Kerch Strait incident, a process of militarization of the Black Sea basin is ongoing. Martial law in Ukraine has been established. 

US-NATO military aid is relentlessly channelled to the Ukraine regime, a coalition government integrated by Neo-Nazis.

American, Canadian and British special forces are involved in military training.  

Most people do not realize that the Kiev regime includes a powerful Neo-Nazi faction, largely because the media never mentions it. 

Andriy Parubiy who is currently president (chair) of the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) (with executive functions within the government) is co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda).

Prior to becoming president (chair) of the Parliament, he was Secretary of the National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) which overseas the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, National Security and Intelligence.

Andriy Parubiy is a follower of Ukrainian Nazi Stepan Bandera, who collaborated in the mass murderer of Jews and Poles during World War II.

And Neo-Nazi leader Parubiy is routinely received with red carpet treatment in Canada, the US and the European Union. And the Western media applauds.

Military aid is channelled to the Armed Forces and Ukraine’s National Guard.

Screenshot Globe and Mail  February 23, 2015

The Canadian media fail to mention that the so-called defensive weapons will also be used by Ukraine’s National Guard’s Azov battalion which is under the control of the Neo-Nazi faction.

Parubiy received by the Canadian Parliament

Parubiy  with Canada’s Prime minister Justin Trudeau, 2016

Neo-Nazi Training 

Another element which has casually been ignored by the Western media are the Neo-Nazi Training camps for young children under the auspices of the Azov battalion of the National Guard (funded by the US and Canada).

See the Wolf Angel Nazi insignia on their T-Shirts.

Source of images

Today, the Ukraine Parliament (Rada) chaired by Neo-Nazi A. Parubiy, votes in favor of 30 days Martial Law (see image below, president Poroshenko at podium, Parubiy, chairing.

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 2018

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Do they know who they are?

Do we know who they are? 

There are “ultra-conservatives” in the Kiev government but “they are not Neo-Nazis.” According to the Western media, its all part of “a relentless Kremlin-driven propaganda offensive that uses World War II-era terms and imagery”.

The alternative media, however, has acknowledged that the Kiev regime is “a loose Centre-Right coalition” integrated by two Neo-Nazi parties (Svoboda and Right Sector)  “but it is not a Neo-Nazi government”. Both Svoboda and Right Sector display Nazi emblems. 

Is it a loose coalition?  If a government were to officially display Nazi emblems, does that not suggest that the government is committed to Nazi ideology? 

When the Kiev regime “officially” displays Nazi emblems to identify entities of their National Security and Military apparatus one would normally assume that it is a Neo-Nazi government.

Below is the Nazi emblem of the National Guard  [Національна гвардія України] which is defined as Reserves of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They operate under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.  The National Guard is part of the so-called “Internal Troops of Ukraine.” The emblem is a stylized swastika (see below).

 

Imagine what would happen if the US National Guard were to display swastika-like symbols.

Of significance, the National Guard of Ukraine is directly financed by the Obama administration, with a view to protecting American style democracy in Ukraine.

Unknown to the American public, the US government is channeling financial support, weapons and training to a Neo-Nazi entity.

Nobody in America knows about it because the use of the words “Neo-Nazi” and “Fascist” in relation to Ukraine is a taboo. The have been excluded from the lexicon of investigative reporting. In media reports they have been replaced by “Ultra-conservative” “Extreme Right” and “Nationalist”.

Another entity –which is part of The Ukraine National Guard– is The Azov Battalion (Батальйон Азов). The Azov Battalion -which displays the Nazi SS emblem– (below left) is described by the Kiev regime as “a volunteer battalion of territorial defense”. It’s a National Guard battalion under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.  Officially based in Berdyank on the Sea of Azov, it was formed by the regime to fight the opposition insurgency in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. It is also financed by the US administration.

 These militia bearing the Nazi SS emblem are sponsored by Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, equivalent to America’s Department of Homeland Security.

They are casually referred to as “Freedom fighters”.

Its all for a good cause. “Democracy is the endgame”.

In the words of the New York Times, “The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here [Ukraine] as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.” (NYTimes.com, March 1, 2014).

It goes without saying that “support” to the formation of a government in the Ukraine with “Neo-Nazi leanings” does not in any way imply the development of “fascist tendencies” within the White House, the State Department and the US Congress.

Scroll down for Selected Images of the Azov Battalion “Freedom Fighters”

 

Source of images: https://news.pn/en/public/104475

 

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In the early hours of Thursday morning, in what will perhaps finally result in the COVID-19 mainstream media narrative being permanently banished from the headlines, almost nine years of Western provocations via its Eastern European proxy state Ukraine would culminate in Russia launching a military intervention into its Western neighbour – with attempts to peacefully resolve the situation peacefully by Moscow over the past several months ultimately proving fruitless due to Kiev failing to implement its side of the Minsk Agreements, which would see a federalisation solution in which the breakaway pro-Russian Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the predominantly ethnic Russian Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, being given a degree of autonomy whilst still remaining under the rule of Kiev – both Republics being given formal recognition by Moscow on Monday instead, in response to the breakdown in negotiations.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin outlining in his speech commencing the military operation that a decisive factor in launching the intervention was a failure by NATO to honour a previous agreement that it would not expand eastwards following the end of the Cold War, and that the intention of the operation is to destroy Ukrainian military infrastructure that would ultimately be used by the alliance against Russia should Kiev become a member, one can only hope that the current situation doesn’t escalate further into a long-term conflict in which ordinary Ukrainian citizens will suffer, or indeed a catastrophic global conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons should NATO decide to intervene directly – with Ukraine having come under the influence of the US-NATO hegemony following the 2014 Euromaidan, a CIA and MI6 orchestrated regime-change operation launched in response to then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s November 2013 decision to suspend a trade deal with Brussels in order to pursue closer political and economic ties with Russia.

The immediate Western reaction following Thursday’s intervention however, was to predictably shift all blame onto Moscow and pay almost little to no attention to the almost nine years of provocations which had preceded it – such as Western support for the notoriously anti-Russian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, established post-Maidan and which played a key role in Kiev’s war on Donetsk and Luhansk following their secession in April 2014, a month after the historically Russian peninsula of Crimea voted to reunify with Moscow.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also accused Moscow of ‘unleashing war in Europe’, seemingly forgetting his own warmongering in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and also Britain’s not too distant history of unleashing war on its nearest European neighbour – Ireland.

In 1974, the occupied north of Ireland had been in a five-year long grip of escalating violence – the civil rights movement, established in 1967 to seek equal rights for the north’s Irish Nationalist community, had been met with violence every time they took to the streets, being beaten and teargassed by a predominantly British Unionist police force, violence which would eventually culminate in Bloody Sunday, the massacre of 14 civil rights demonstrators by the British Army in Derry in January 1972 – London having deployed its forces to the north in 1969, using the pretence of being a neutral peacekeeper between two warring sides as a means to counter the influence of the IRA, re-organised the same year in response to the ongoing violence, and whose membership would grow exponentially following the massacre.

Indeed, such was the violence inflicted on the Nationalist community of the north of Ireland by Britain and its proxies, that the southern 26-county Irish state would soon begin to dissent from its traditionally pro-British stance.

In 1969, during the initial outbreak of violence, then-Taoiseach Jack threatened to send troops to the north in order to protect Irish Nationalists, in 1970 government ministers Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney would be dismissed from their posts following a collapsed trial where they were alleged to have planned to import arms for use by the IRA, and in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, Irish police stood by as protesters burned down the British Embassy in Dublin.

Britain, fearing that Dublin would go on to become an official state sponsor of the IRA, decided that a message had to be sent.

On the 17^th of May 1974, a Friday afternoon, three no-warning car bombs detonated during rush hour traffic in Dublin, killing twenty-seven people, ninety minutes later, another no-warning bomb would explode in the border county of Monaghan, killing seven. 300 people would suffer injuries as a result of the bombings also, with the Irish Free State returning to its traditionally pro-British stance regarding British occupation of the north in the aftermath.

These coordinated attacks, resulting in the largest loss of life in a single day during the most recent phase of conflict related to the occupation of Ireland, were carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a Loyalist terrorist organisation operating under the command of the clandestine Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) of the British army – the use of proxy terrorist groups by Downing Street later being used as tactic by Downing Street against both Libya and Syria in 2011, having been perfected by Britain’s unleashing of war in Europe in 1974.

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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***

The formidable peaks stretching across the north of Nepal (or Tibet in the south of China depending on your perspective) have up to now provided sufficient deterrence to military confrontation. With new technology that can easily surpass geographic barriers and with the growing threat of China beyond India to include the USA, the Himalayas hold new strategic interest for Washington. This raises concerns about the proposed American Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project for northwest Nepal: is it really about economic development? The question is dividing Nepali parties, commentators and citizens like nothing else has in recent years.

Anticipating a controversial vote in Nepal’s parliament, party leaders are scurrying to solidify a coalition to approve the American plan. It’s fiercely debated in the press and by an aggressive display of opposition in the street.

On the surface MCC looks like a blockbuster gift to a land traditionally perceived as desperate for aid and with primitive infrastructure. The MCC project is an American scheme offering $500 million in aid to construct roads and expand the nation’s electricity grid. A substantial project, it’s a nice supplement to what Washington generously dishes out to a land whose actual governance it shows little interest in. On its side, Nepal rarely rejects aid from any source. Whether for a massive dam or for local endeavors like women’s craft and children’s literature, competing governments and iNGOs (including China) fall over themselves with proposals, however pitiful their outcomes.

The stated aim of this MCC project in Nepal seems simple and worthy: “Reducing Poverty Through Growth: …(that) aid is most effective when it reinforces good governance, economic freedom and investing in their citizens.”). Who could argue with that?

But unlike anything prior Nepalis are scrutinizing the terms of this arrangement. First, it requires parliamentary sanction: why, critics ask, does MCC call for this when no other aid package has? What hidden issues may be irrevocably cemented by a vote of our parliament? Second, the project seems to be directed to Nepal’s northwest, towards its border with China. Aware of the increasing hostility between the U.S. and China, opponents fear Nepal might somehow provide the U.S. an access point to China’s southwest Tibetan frontier. “Critics have used ultra-nationalism and populism to portray the MCC as a form of US neo-colonialism and imperialism. The Americans fueled the fire themselves when a U.S. undersecretary of state admitted in 2019 that the MCC was a part of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy aimed at encircling China. …” wrote editors of The Nepali Times, itself a major supporter of the deal.

Noting the fiasco and chaos created in Afghanistan by U.S. military occupation there, for the first time Nepalis are imagining their country becoming a conflict zone. No one wants that.

Then there’s India: India has a strategic position– politically as a U.S. ally and geographically, with its northern frontier adjacent to that coveted corner of Nepal and abutting China. While India’s MCC role is not openly discussed, there’s concern over a rumored clause in the MCC-Nepal agreement requiring it to bring India into later consultations on the project.

Questions are also asked about Washington’s insistence on Nepal’s acquiescence. There are rumors that payments have already been made to win over political leaders. It’s also suggested that the Americans are threatening severe consequences if Nepal fails to endorse the pact. (So serious is this charge that Washington’s ambassador in Nepal issued a denial.)

The political destabilization created by the issue in a country whose democracy is barely fourteen years old does not seem to concern Washington.

When MCC-Nepal was introduced more than five years ago, then-Prime Minister K.P. Oli signaled his approval. There followed objections from Nepal’s parliamentary speaker (subsequently forced out) and other party leaders. Debate has persisted through these years, intensifying in recent months when MCC leaders visited officials in Kathmandu. A new deadline of Feb 28^th was set. The current prime minister, S.B. Deuba, is ready to ratify, while Oli, now out of power, has tentatively joined other party leaders withholding support. The question is not a simple difference between major parties, but a jockeying by leaders of small parties to assert influence by aligning with major figures to swing the parliamentary decision on MCC. With the vote imminent, tension is swelling; more and more protesters are pouring into the streets.

(Important local elections are due in Nepal within two months when all parties will seek to reinforce their membership. Since locally elected officials can bring their weight to bear on parliamentarians, this upcoming election is another factor bearing on party ratification of the MCC deal.)

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Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

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***

A frozen continent.  Another potential frontier for conflict and competition.  Antarctica is a part of the world were realpolitician meets scientist; the desire for finding exploitable resources meets environmental expectations and fears.  Countries have vied for their little slice of ice, sometimes citing reasons of scientific collaboration, and often national self-interest.  Much of this culminated in the establishment of the Antarctic Treaty System, comprising four major international agreements beginning with the 1959 Antarctic Treaty and ending with the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.

During the Cold War, it became an area of exceptional interest.  The United States and other partners eyed off the Soviet Union, which they wished to exclude from any regulatory regime.  In 1950, the Soviet government made it clear that such opposition would be futile; it would be part of any such negotiations.

Riding the wave of scientific research as part of the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), an initiative of numerous international organisations, the Soviets established the Mirny laboratory on February 13, 1956.  This immediately caused discomfort to various participants, particularly the Australians, who had asserted a claim – unrecognised in international law – to a good deal of East Antarctica in 1933.

Editorials and opinions of warning proliferated.  A piece in Sydney’s The Sun Herald wondered whether the Russians would “abandon Mirny to the penguins after 1959” or stay.  The Advertiser saw the Soviet mission as “a potential threat to the security of Australia”.

Fears also circulated about the possible establishment of missile and submarine bases.  This was despite the conclusion by an Australian Defence Committee in August 1955 that, “if Russia had any intention of attacking Australia it is unlikely that she would do so from the Antarctic”.  In 1957, the External Affairs Minister Richard Casey expressed Canberra’s prevailing angst: “[W]e do not want the Russians to mount installations in the Antarctic from which they could drop missiles on Sydney or Melbourne”.

Scientists, as they tend to in such endeavours, nurse mixed feelings.  Strong personal relationships were forged between nationalities, including the Australians and Soviets.  The scientific explorer and physicist Keith Mather, after a visit to the Mirny Station, recalled a standard, boozy gathering between colleagues.  “They have a most appropriate expression in Russian which means ‘I’ll meet you under the table’.  That’s where we made our best friends”.

The eventual answer to Soviet intentions, and a rationale since used by other powers interested in the South Pole, was given by the Soviet delegate Boris Dzerdzeyevsky at the third Special Committee for Antarctic Research: “[a]s long as there is a need for scientific investigation, the Soviet expedition will be in Antarctica”.

For Australia’s political establishment, the continent is a vast problem and singular opportunity, even if Canberra has exaggerated its own contributions.  The announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison of a boost in funding to the Antarctic effort came with much fanfare.  In a government media release, the government promised to “send a clear international signal of Australia’s world-leading Antarctic leadership with an $804.4 million investment over the next ten years to strengthen our strategic and scientific capabilities in the region.”

Lapsing into the usual voice of the failed advertising executive, Morrison suggested that the package would aid things never before done.  “The money we are investing in drone fleets, helicopters and other vehicles will enable us to explore areas of East Antarctica’s inland that no country has never been able to reach before.”

There would be continued support for “our world class scientists and expeditioners […] because their research on the frozen continent and Southern Ocean is critically important to Australia’s future.”  But there would also be – and here, the electoral incentives ring true – benefits for Tasmania, which Foreign Minister Marise Payne described as “an international science hub”.

Scientists can certainly look forward to receiving some of the funding, even if it is conspicuously alloyed with politics.  A new krill aquarium will be established in Hobart. The ice-breaking RSV Nuyina can look forward to “additional shipping support” to aid its “focus on extended science voyages.”  But the stress upon observational capacity and transport is unmistakable, including $136.6 million for inland traverse capability, charting activities and “mobile stations” and $109 million “to increase aerial and inland capability”.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley gave a better sense about the broader political motivations in this funding increase.  Ever lurking in the fine print is the threat posed by other powers.  “We need to ensure that the Antarctic remains a place of science and conservation, one that is free from conflict and which is protected from exploitation.”  By investing in science, Ley stated, Australia was showing a “commitment to our sovereignty in the Australian Antarctic Territory and its leading voice in the region.”

To journalists, Morrison was more explicit about those other nations, foremost among them China, seeking to assert control over a continent Australia had some obligatory undertaking to protect.  “Well, we are a treaty nation when it comes to Antarctica, and we take those responsibilities very incredibly seriously.  Now, not everybody respects those obligations and those stewardship responsibilities.”  It was for such reasons that Canberra needed “to keep eyes on Antarctica”.

If only such keen eyes could be better focused on environmental concerns such as the exploitation of fish stocks and other conservation measures.  No mention is made by the Morrison government of China and Russia in the context of frustrating various initiatives such as the creation of vast maritime protected areas or overfishing the keystone krill species.  Given that the Morrison government has proven itself an environmental and ecological vandal, this can hardly puzzle South Pole watchers.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image:  Susan A. Romano / US Indo-Pacific Command

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***

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned the West that any action to push NATO forces close to its borders while Washington sends lethal weapons to Ukraine’s military would leave Moscow with no choice but to retaliate. 

Putin also mentioned that the Minsk agreements from 2014 and 2015 which was intended to end the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine does not exist anymore. Russia has retaliated by recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine as independent republics followed by sending in Russian peacekeepers to stop continued attacks on the civilian population in that region by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi forces. 

Donbass 

The resistance in Donetsk and Luhansk have been fighting for independence against the fascist forces of  Ukraine since 2014 which has killed thousands of people.

According to RT news, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia wants to “neutralize the [Ukrainian] military potential, which was boosted considerably lately, including with the active assistance of foreign nations.”  Of course, those foreign nations are part of the NATO alliance backed by the US who is the main driver of aggression towards Russia.  The US and its NATO lapdogs want to destabilize Russia because their hegemonic power is in decline.

So why are they targeting Russia?  The answer to that question is the US dollar.

In the last decade or so, Russia, China, Iran and others have been challenging the world’s reserve currency status and that worries the US establishment.

The US uses its reserve currency status to control the world’s economy and its politics in its favor, for example it uses economic sanctions as a tool against countries who don’t do what Uncle Sam wants them to do.

On April 5^th, 2021, Newsweek published an article ‘Sanctions Are Destroying U.S. Dollar’s Status as World’s Top Currency’ that basically admits that Washington’s use of sanctions will eventually cripple the US dollar in the long-term, “the continual use of sanctions to pressure countries and companies perceived to be acting against U.S. interests may also be weakening the dollar’s global position.” The article quotes a member of the Council of Foreign Relation (CFR), Benn Steil who said, “It’s certainly not an imminent threat to the dominance of the dollar, but it’s by far the biggest one.”

Today, the US dollar is still used in international trade deals, to purchase gold, oil, agricultural products and other commodities.  However, that demand for the US dollar or what is called the greenback has allowed the US government to print trillions of unlimited dollars leading to $30 trillion in debt that will never be repaid to its creditors, one of them being China.  This power has allowed the US to run wild without any repercussions until now.  The world has had enough.  Back on August 6th, 2018, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tweeted

“The use of the US Dollar as the standard unit of currency in global markets and the world banking system is the key strength of the American Empire. Things need to change, current orders should be reordered. #Newworldorder #DollarDictatorship.” 

Then on September 21st, 2018 Newsweek published ‘Russia and China Think U.S. Dollars Are Ruining the World, So They’re Finding a New Way’ revealed how major powers around the world view the US dollar: 

Russia and China lashed out at U.S.’s control over the global financial system after being hit by fresh sanctions that have left the two rising powers increasingly frustrated.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that his country was making extensive efforts to distance itself entirely from the U.S.-dominated international financial system, much of which runs on the U.S. dollar, and urged others to do the same

Lavrov’s statement was probably a wake-up call for Washington, so in bi-partisan fashion, the political establishment from both sides of the aisle became more aggressive towards Russia.  The Trump regime at the time kept the Magnitsky Act in place sanctioning high-ranking Russians, then added new sanctions on several influential Russians and some Chechens over claims of human rights abuses.  Trump also approved sending lethal arms to Ukraine, but King Trump says war between Russia and Ukraine would have never happened under his watch because he was a strong leader and Biden is weak.  However, US President Joe Biden and his regime is taking similar actions as his predecessor by imposing more sanctions on Russia since he was “elected” to office.

De-Dollarisation?

Whatever Washington decides. whether to cut Russia from the SWIFT system or impose more severe sanctions, it will impact the US dollar.  Washington’s actions will bolster further economic cooperation between Russia, China and the rest of the world as it will allow them to ditch the US dollar in its entirety and further expand their use of their own currencies that will include both the ruble and the Yuan for trade and investment purposes.

This would also reduce the dependency of the US dollar on the world stage.

It is a sign that the US dollar is on its last leg and that’s why the West will do whatever it can to destabilize Russia by supporting NATO and the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.  Would it work?  Not a chance.  Russia will win this battle because as the world knows, they have advanced military capabilities and the support of the Russian people.  Russia is stronger than ever before.  One important fact to keep in mind is that the biggest loser in this conflict will be the US dollar along with its sphere of influence.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCN

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***

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act in response to the trucker Freedom Convoy

Under this act, financial institutions can seize bank accounts of protesters and anyone who has donated $25 or more to the protest. Government can also revoke the drivers’ licenses of protesters

Trudeau is showing the world what Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset is really all about for the average person. If we go along with their financial reset to a centralized global digital currency, the central bankers can and will financially cripple anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason

The Emergencies Act also gives Trudeau the power to prohibit public assemblies (including blockades), compel individuals and companies to provide “essential services,” and impose fines of up to $5,000 or imprisonment for up to five years for breaching any of the declared emergency measures

Opposing the prime minister’s unprecedented power grab are the premiers of Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney pointed out that the nation already has “all the legal tools and operational resources required to maintain order,” and that “no relevant additional powers of resources” can be granted by the Act

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Well, well, well. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just let the deep state cat out of the bag for all the world to see. The premature disclosure and honest preview of what’s in store for the people of the world is perhaps the silver lining in all of this.

By invoking the Canadian Emergencies Act¹ of 1988 to allow for the blanket revocation of protesters’ driver’s licenses and seizure of their bank accounts — and anyone who made even a nominal donation to their cause — Trudeau is showing the world what Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset is really all about for the average person.

If we go along with their financial reset to a centralized global digital currency, the central bankers can and will financially cripple anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. That’s more than sufficient leverage to keep most people in line.

The World Economic Forum didn’t declare that by 2030 “you will own nothing and have no privacy”²for nothing. They mean it. You won’t even own your own body, if they get their way. Their aim is complete control over every minutia of your life. Only they will be free to live and rule as they please.

Trudeau Gives Himself Dictatorial Powers

As reported by The Defender:³

“In a move that gives him ‘sweeping powers,’ Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked — for the first time in history — Canada’s Emergencies Act in response to what political commentator Krystal Ball characterized as a ‘pretty much completely peaceful’ protest.

Those powers include giving Canadian banks the ability, without a court order, to ‘immediately freeze or suspend accounts’ of any Canadians’ who have donated $25 or more to the trucker convoy fundraising accounts.

In an episode of ‘Breaking Points With Krystal and Sagaar,’ Ball’s co-host, Saagar Enjeti, said the Canadian government also will be ‘seizing any funds that go towards the protests, including cryptocurrency.’

With the powers granted to the government by the Emergencies Act ‘they can not only seize and suspend your driver’s license forever, they can also go and take money out of the owner of the truck’s bank account,’ Enjeti said.

‘So, we are looking at full-fledged financial warfare on the truckers … You have here the Canadian Prime Minister, who is our neighbor to the north, invoking the Emergencies Act, declaring all out financial warfare on his own citizens and suspending civil liberties … in a supposedly free and open society,’ Enjeti said. If this is happening in your country, ‘you [clearly] don’t live in a free country,’ he argued.”

In addition to giving the Canadian government the authority to seize bank accounts of citizens without court order, the Emergencies Act also gives Trudeau the power to:^4,5

• Prohibit public assemblies (including blockades)
• Bar travel to and from certain areas
• Regulate the use of certain types of property, including goods used in blockades
• Compel individuals and companies to provide “essential services”
• Impose fines of up to $5,000 or imprisonment for up to five years for breaching any of the declared emergency measures

To understand just how ridiculous the invocation of this Act is under current circumstances, consider that it was designed for use only in times of extreme crises,^6,7 such as a wartime emergency where there’s an express threat to the security and sovereignty of the nation. The situation must be “urgent and critical” and “seriously endanger the lives, health or safety of Canadians.”

Moreover, the Act may only be invoked if the emergency cannot be addressed by any other federal law in existence, and/or if it exceeds provinces’ ability to effectively address the situation.

Trudeau Accused of Untruthful and Hateful Rhetoric

Opposing the prime minister’s unprecedented power grab are the premiers of Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney pointed out that the nation already has “all the legal tools and operational resources required to maintain order,” and that “no relevant additional powers of resources” can be granted by the Act.⁸

Kenney also stated the obvious when he told the prime minister to “end the cross border trucker vaccine mandate, as it serves no useful public health purpose.” That would be the peaceful solution to the blockade.

The Canadian Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has also denounced Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, calling “the use of emergency powers unjustified by Ottawa facts and reality.” Despite that, the Canadian Parliament voted to approve Trudeau’s motion to invoke the Act, with 185 votes for and 151 against, Monday February 21, 2022.⁹

According to Trudeau, the trucker protest is impeding commerce and preventing people from going to work and making a living. With that, he’s basically condemning his own actions, as Trudeau himself has shut down businesses and prevented people from making a living, on and off, for the last two years. The hypocrisy is grotesque beyond words. Yet he’s gone even further than that.

‘Trudeau Has Gone Too Far’

In a February 15, 2022, editorial, the Toronto Sun denounced the prime minister’s hateful rhetoric against Canadian citizens and accused him of fanning flames of hate of his own making:¹⁰

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s unjustified invoking of the Emergencies Act is deeply problematic and will have long-lasting consequences for the country. Ever since the freedom convoy first touched base in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago, the PM has gone out of his way to increase the tensions.

The Liberal government appeared to be hoping for some sort of Jan. 6 style event as happened in the United States last year. All of their rhetoric indicated they were keen to see such an event go down. It never did. The convoy has been peaceful throughout …

Trudeau has called protesters every name in the book even though they are a diverse crowd in every sense of the word. Now he is giving himself extraordinary powers to deal with these protests. One of the most disturbing parts is how they can now dictate that banks freeze people’s accounts without a court order …

Trudeau … wants division and more hostility … The protests may be a nuisance and many people may disagree with them, but that doesn’t justify this decision. The only thing that can be said in defense of Trudeau’s invoking of the Emergencies Act is that it was his incompetence that made such an extreme measure necessary.”

Indeed, Trudeau’s rhetoric has been anything but unifying. First, he called the Freedom Convoy a “small minority fringe” that are expressing “unacceptable views.” He must’ve changed his mind, albeit privately, seeing how a sane leader is unlikely to invoke radical emergency powers for a small group honking horns.

Then, he insisted that the protesters were a bunch of “racists” and “misogynists” waving Nazi flags and stealing food from the homeless. Several have now publicly demanded he retract such statements and issue apologies.

Parliament Members Demand Apologies

Click here to watch the video.

Among them is conservative parliament member Candice Bergen, who demanded Trudeau apologize for his “hateful rhetoric” against “peace loving, patriotic Canadians.”¹¹ In an impassioned speech, Bergen also reminded House members that Trudeau himself “wore blackface more times than he can remember.”

Another is Melissa Lantsman, a Jewish conservative MP, whom Trudeau accused of “standing with people who wave swastikas.” Lantsman called Trudeau’s words “dangerous and disgraceful.” According to the Toronto Sun:¹²

“The controversy stems from an ugly exchange in the House of Commons Wednesday in which Lantsman accused Trudeau of fanning ‘the flames of an unjustified national emergency’ by calling Freedom Convoy truckers ‘racist’ and ‘fringe.’

Trudeau’s response was a shocking low blow. ‘Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas, they can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag. We will choose to stand with Canadians who deserve to be able to get their jobs, who need to get their lives back,’ said Trudeau.

Suggesting a Jewish MP would stand with a Nazi flag was so repugnant that Speaker Anthony Rota scolded members, and ‘that includes the Right Honourable Prime Minister,’ for using ‘inflammatory words in the House.’

Calling it ‘terrible,’ Trudeau’s half-brother Kyle Kemper said ‘he’s acting like a bully.’ ‘A new low, even for Trudeau,’ tweeted Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre. ‘He falsely accused a Jewish MP and descendant of Holocaust survivors of standing with people who wave swastikas. She did not.’”

Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish service organization, also condemned Trudeau’s comment to Lantsman, saying “This misperception should not be permitted to stand. We would hope the prime minister promptly addresses this matter.” So far, Trudeau has done nothing of the sort.

Long-Term Consequences

Click here to watch the video.

In a video (above), free speech advocate and trucker convoy organizer Tamara Lich predicted her arrest and made a tearful plea to protesters to remain peaceful. The next day, Lich was picked up and put in handcuffs by Ottawa police.

Legal experts are now warning that Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act could have consequences for generations to come. According to Marco Mendicino, “public reports” indicate that people with “extremist ideological positions” may be participating in the blockade, hence the government’s need for emergency powers.

However, as noted by law professor and executive director of Rights Probe, Bruce Pardy, that’s hearsay at best, and acting on rhetoric alone sets a dangerous precedent.¹³

“Just for a moment, consider the implications. This is a government that has invoked an emergency statute on its own admission on the basis of something that somebody has said,” Pardy said.¹⁴ “They have no actual violence occurring. They have no intelligence about threats of violence occurring. I’m sure you can work out what the consequences are if this is to be considered a proper use of the Emergencies Act …

Freedom now means, apparently, safety. The rule of law means governments taking control of things for ‘proper outcomes.’ Violence can now mean words. Honking has been called violence, and they now are taking that literally.

They have said they’re proceeding against violence, and what do they have? They have words, they have rhetoric, they have an expression of a political position. And it is that rhetoric, it is that political position that they are afraid of, and that constitutes the emergency …

If this invocation of the Emergencies Act is valid, then governments have the power to declare emergencies and crush any peaceful protest, any dissent, that threatens their political fortunes and ideology, and that’s not the kind of country we want to live in …”

Cecil Lyon, a dispute resolution legal expert from Ontario, also vehemently opposed Trudeau’s actions, calling it a “sledgehammer approach” that shows the government is “losing its way and not looking at how you should resolve a dispute.”¹⁵ 

Trudeau Is Profiting From COVID Jab Monopoly

Thankfully Trudeau lifted the Emergency Powers Act on Wednesday two days ago. Clearly, Trudeau is wedded to vaccine mandates, and willing to do just about anything to keep them in place. One wonders whether the Trudeau Foundation’s ownership stake in Acuitas Therapeutics — rumored to be around 40%, per Dr. Robert Malone¹⁶ — might be influencing his behavior?

Acuitas makes the lipid nanoparticle delivery system that Pfizer/BioNTech uses in its COVID shot.¹⁷ In a February 12, 2022, video (above), David Martin, Ph.D., discussed Trudeau’s conflicts of interest at depth, saying:¹⁸

“Trudeau is controlling the illegal monopoly on BioNTech’s and Moderna’s form of injection. You heard me right. The thing that’s being injected into people across the country and around the world is in fact an economic boon … that pays right into the pockets of Trudeau.

He’s not interested in public health. He’s interested in lining his pockets, because regardless of the shot you take, Canada gets the coin …

Trudeau is running a monopoly. This is Chicago in the 1920s, this is the mob, and we need every American, every Canadian and everyone around the world to join together and inform themselves on the crimes that Justin Trudeau is pushing under the guise of public health.”

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Notes

^1, 7 BBC February 16, 2022

² Forbes November 10, 2016

³ The Defender February 16, 2022

^4, 6 Canada’s Emergencies Act

⁵ CTV News February 14, 2022

^8, 10, 12 Toronto Sun February 15, 2022

⁹ Breitbart February 21, 2022

¹¹ Fox News February 1, 2022

^13, 14, 15 Epoch Times February 18, 2022

¹⁶ Rumble February 16, 2022

¹⁷ Pfizer January 10, 2022

¹⁸ Red Voice Media February 12, 2022

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Along with trying to militarily absorb Ukraine into NATO, another major factor that’s becoming more apparent in the Biden administration’s unceasing talk of war with Russia is the desire of U.S. energy producers to invade European markets with fracked natural gas.

Though the mainstream press is saturated with talk of a forever-imminent Russian assault on Ukraine and speculate about Moscow’s supposed desire to freeze Europe by cutting off gas supplies, few reporters in the corporate media are asking who stands to gain economically from the standoff in the east.

Put together a few pieces of the puzzle, though, and some clear winners begin to emerge in the Ukraine crisis, whether or not there is an actual war: multinational gas and oil corporations. And it would appear that their industry has found the most powerful spokesperson in the world to represent their interests—the United States government.

Companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell, along with the hundreds of drilling and shipping contractors that work with them, want to massively step up exports to a Europe starving for gas, but standing in the way is Russia and its state-owned Gazprom company. Currently, Russian natural gas accounts for over 30% of all imports into the European Union. Leading EU powers Germany and France get 40% of their gas from Russia, while some other countries, like the Czech Republic and Romania, use only Russian gas.

In order to dislodge the competition and grab market share, the Western multinationals need to slow the flow of gas from the east. And when it comes to incentives, the energy giants have plenty.

Market opportunity

World market prices for natural gas have skyrocketed in recent months, driven by several factors: record high demand in Europe and Asia as manufacturing recovers from the pandemic, constrained supply as some facilities only begin to come back on line, depleted reserves due to a long and cold winter in 2020, and the shift of countries like China and Germany away from dirtier fossil fuels like coal and always-unpopular nuclear power.

U.S. producers want to get in on the bonanza, especially in Europe, where gas prices rose five-fold in 2021. The U.S. is the world’s biggest gas producer, extracting more from the ground by the day. That’s especially been the case since 2005, when production—which had been relatively flat for decades—soared.

That’s when the EPA under President George W. Bush declared that hydraulic fracturing of shale to release underground gas posed no threat to drinking water supplies. The environmentally damaging practice, known as “fracking,” really took off once a Republican-dominated Congress passed a law prohibiting any future regulation of fracking. The government’s Energy Information Administration estimates that almost all the gains in U.S. gas production since then are thanks to fracking.

U.S. natural gas production, after being flat for several decades, soared after 2005 when President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress prohibited regulations on the environmentally-dangerous practice of fracking. Efforts by the Obama and Trump administrations helped further fuel the boom. | EIA

Seeing natural gas as a way to meet green(er) energy goals and achieve emissions targets, the Obama administration encouraged the shale gas boom and resisted calls from the environmental movement and progressives in the Democratic Party to ban fracking. By the end of his time in office, natural gas accounted for a third of U.S. power generation, mostly at the expense of coal.

Gushing with gas, U.S. producers these days increasingly look to Europe as a customer, and the U.S. government has eagerly acted as salesman. Thanks to a 2018 agreement concluded between the Trump administration and the EU, U.S. gas sales to Europe have been steadily climbing, from 16% of EU imports in 2019 to 28% at the end of 2021.

There’s a problem that could cap the growth, however: U.S. natural gas is expensive.

Hydraulic fracking adds to production costs substantially. Plus, in order to be exported to international customers, U.S. gas has to be liquefied and loaded/unloaded on tanker ships at pricey specialized terminals. Turning fracked shale gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) can more than double the cost for American companies, putting them at a disadvantage against cheap Russian gas that travels via pipelines.

And one international pipeline project, known as Nord Stream 2, stands as a particularly threatening constraint on U.S. sales. Constructed jointly by Germany and Russia under the Baltic Sea, the pipeline would provide easy and affordable access to gas for the EU. For Russia, it is a guaranteed means of accessing its biggest buyers. For both the EU and Russia, Nord Stream 2 is a way to bypass the added costs of middleman Ukraine, whose territory current pipelines pass through. Once operational, it will carry more than double the amount of Russian gas that currently flows under the Baltic.

A convenient crisis

How convenient then that tensions between the U.S. and its Ukrainian ally on one side and Russia on the other heated up just as the finishing touches were being put on Nord Stream 2 in late 2021. With its own pipeline revenues in trouble, the right-wing government of Ukraine lobbied Washington all summer last year to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and the German and Russian companies behind it.

The House and Senate delivered for Ukraine’s rulers, slipping the desired sanctions into a defense spending bill. Biden—knowing both that his European allies were staunchly opposed to anything threatening their energy supplies and that the infrastructure simply wasn’t in place on either side of the Atlantic yet to fill the gap left by a sudden drop in Russian supplied-gas—said he wouldn’t approve Nord Stream 2 sanctions.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike in Congress pushed back, presenting sanctions as a way to “deter Russian aggression against Ukraine.” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas—who represents the top fracked gas-producing state in the U.S. and ranks #1 in campaign donations from the industry—has been one of the strongest sanctions advocates. He’s blocked more than 50 Biden nominations for the State Department and other government positions in retaliation for the president’s waiving of sanctions.

The Biden administration appreciates reality enough to know that it’s probably too late to totally stop Nord Stream 2. The longer the project can be delayed and the more that fear of a Russian chokehold can be increased, however, the more time U.S. gas producers will have to capitalize on the situation.

Endless warnings of an “imminent” Russian invasion and the rushing of NATO troops and weapons to eastern Europe are doing the trick. And with Europe’s energy security put at risk by supposed Russian aggression, who is standing by to render assistance? None other than the U.S. gas industry, of course.

In the pages of the Wall Street Journal last week, Frank J. Macchiarola, head of the American Petroleum Institute, announced that “U.S. oil and natural gas producers can help” defuse the war danger. Macchiarola, the industry’s chief lobbyist in Washington, said that “America is positioned to provide stability amid any energy disruption.” Numbers show that his clients are answering the call.

Spurred on by the Ukraine crisis and increased sales to Europe, the U.S. became the world’s top exporter of LNG for the first time ever in January. The corporate press was quick to blast out the message, and said even more U.S. gas must be rushed to Europe to guard against “Russian energy blackmail”—despite the fact that Gazprom has complied with the contracted export volumes agreed to with its European customers.

Germany has remained slow to get on board with the U.S.-NATO war drive and is reluctant to put Nord Stream 2 in danger. Even if expensive U.S. gas imports increase, they’re not enough to heat Germany’s homes and power its factories—by far. Nor are they affordable. The country will still need other sources of energy.

That isn’t stopping Biden from elbowing Chancellor Olaf Scholz to put a pause on the pipeline and get in line with the NATO campaign in Ukraine. Biden pledged that if Putin sent troops into Ukraine “there would be no Nord Stream 2.”

Scholz isn’t caving, but a number of concessions have been made to possibly satisfy Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at least for now. A range of new delays, many based on technicalities, have pushed the pipeline’s activation date late into 2022. And last weekend, Germany announced the revival of a previously canceled plan to construct another LNG terminal for U.S. tankers.

Days later, hints began to emerge of a possible dial back of tensions. Ukraine’s leader pondered whether NATO membership for his country—a central factor in the whole dispute with Moscow—may have to “remain a dream.” The U.S. media report a possible reduction of Russian forces on the Ukrainian border could be in the offing. Some commentators imply Putin is backing down.

That doesn’t mean there will actually be an immediate pullback from confrontation, though. Ukraine is still going to needle Washington for more diplomatic and economic support if it loses revenues from its own pipeline cash cow. Domestically, Biden will continue to face pressure from Republicans to take drastic sanctions action to cripple Nord Stream 2. And the military-industrial complex that lords over U.S. foreign policy isn’t going to give up on its plans to dominate eastern Europe.

Global market prices for natural gas have skyrocketed as tensions over Ukraine increased. The sharp jump in price has helped make expensive fracked U.S. gas more competitive on the world market, and the threats of war have pushed Europe to accept higher imports of U.S. LNG. | CNBC

A profit ploy?

So is the whole Ukraine affair simply a scheme to protect and grow the profits of U.S. natural gas producers?

The crisis certainly wasn’t provoked solely for the sake of gas sales. That would be an oversimplification of a very complex situation with historical roots stretching back long before the fracking boom in the U.S. ever got underway.

The U.S. and NATO have been engaged in a campaign against Russia since the 1940s. NATO was founded as a military alliance to target the Soviet Union—an instrument to advance U.S. imperial interests in Europe and contain the growth of socialism on the continent. When the USSR fell and the anti-communist cause lost its cache, the West took advantage of Russia’s weakness to deploy its armed might right up to that country’s borders. As it rebuilt itself, the new rationale became “containment” of a supposedly aggressive Russia.

The effort to pull Ukraine—one of the major republics of the former USSR—under U.S. military control remains at the heart of the crisis in eastern Europe. Russia’s key security demands still revolve around that issue.

But the wishes of the powerful oil and gas industry in the U.S. have certainly added a complicating factor into the equation. There is a convenient confluence of imperialist geopolitical goals and capitalist economic interests at work. And barring an all-out U.S.-Russia nuclear Armageddon, some people stand to come out on top no matter what happens.

If a war is actually provoked, then the bet of the U.S. gas giants is that Western Europe will immediately join in sanctioning Russia and Germany will pull the plug on Nord Stream 2, at least for awhile. Overnight, U.S. gas sales would have to jump if Europe is not to freeze. Even more U.S. ships would set sail for European ports carrying LNG and return to America loaded down with profits.

But the frackers don’t even need an actual military fight to come out ahead. If there is no war but the conflict manages to sufficiently poison Russian-European relations, then the EU will still turn to the U.S. to supply more of its energy needs and lower its dependence on Moscow.

For American gas and oil producers, the situation is win-win—war or no war.

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C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People’s World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left. In addition to his work at People’s World, C.J. currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of ProudPolitics.

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As tensions began to rise over Ukraine, US media produced a stream of articles attempting to explain the situation with headlines like “Ukraine Explained” (New York Times, 12/8/21) and “What You Need to Know About Tensions Between Ukraine and Russia” (Washington Post, 11/26/21). Sidebars would have notes that tried to provide context for the current headlines. But to truly understand this crisis, you would need to know much more than what these articles offered.

These “explainer” pieces are emblematic of Ukraine coverage in the rest of corporate media, which almost universally gave a pro-Western view of US/Russia relations and the history behind them. Media echoed the point of view of those who believe the US should have an active role in Ukrainian politics and enforce its perspective through military threats.

The official line goes something like this: Russia is challenging NATO and the “international rules-based order” by threatening to invade Ukraine, and the Biden administration needed to deter Russia by providing more security guarantees to the Zelensky government. The official account seizes on Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula as a starting point for US/Russian relations, and as evidence of Putin’s goals of rebuilding Russia’s long-lost empire.

Russia’s demand that NATO cease its expansion to Russia’s borders is viewed as such an obviously impossible demand that it can only be understood as a pretext to invade Ukraine. Therefore, the US should send weapons and troops to Ukraine, and guarantee its security with military threats to Russia (FAIR.org, 1/15/22).

The Washington Post asked: “Why is there tension between Russia and Ukraine?” Its answer:

In March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. A month later, war erupted between Russian-allied separatists and Ukraine’s military in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. The United Nations human rights office estimates that more than 13,000 people have been killed.

But that account is highly misleading, because it leaves out the crucial role the US has played in escalating tensions in the region. In nearly every case we looked at, the reports omitted the US’s extensive role in the 2014 coup that preceded Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Focusing on the latter part only serves to manufacture consent for US intervention abroad.

The West Wants Investor-Friendly Policies in Ukraine

The backdrop to the 2014 coup and annexation cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations.

A key tool for this has been the International Monetary Fund, which leverages aid loans to push governments to adopt policies friendly to foreign investors. The IMF is funded by and represents Western financial capital and governments and has been at the forefront of efforts to reshape economies around the world for decades, often with disastrous results. The civil war in Yemenand the coup in Bolivia both followed a rejection of IMF terms.

In Ukraine, the IMF had long planned to implement a series of economic reforms to make the country more attractive to investors. These included cutting wage controls (i.e., lowering wages), “reform[ing] and reduc[ing]” health and education sectors (which made up the bulk of employment in Ukraine), and cutting natural gas subsidies to Ukrainian citizens that made energy affordable to the general public. Coup plotters like US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland repeatedly stressed the need for the Ukrainian government to enact the “necessary” reforms.

In 2013, after early steps to integrate with the West, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych turned against these changes and ended trade integration talks with the European Union. Months before his overthrow, he restarted economic negotiations with Russia, in a major snub to the Western economic sphere. By then, the nationalist protests were heating up that would go on to topple his government.

After the 2014 coup, the new government quickly restarted the EU deal. After cutting heating subsidies in half, it secured a $27 billion commitment from the IMF. The IMF’s goals stillinclude “reducing the role of the state and vested interests in the economy” in order to attract more foreign capital.

The IMF is one of the many global institutions whose role in maintaining global inequities often goes unreported and unnoticed by the general public. The US economic quest to open global markets to capital is a key driver of international affairs, but if the press chooses to ignore it, the public debate is incomplete and shallow.

The US Helped Overthrow Ukraine’s Elected President

During the tug of war between the US and Russia, the Americans were engaged in a destabilization campaign against the Yanukovych government. The campaign culminated with the overthrow of the elected president in the Maidan Revolution—also known as the Maidan Coup—named for the Kiev square that hosted the bulk of the protests.

As political turmoil engulfed the country in the leadup to 2014, the US was fueling anti-government sentiment through mechanisms like USAID and National Endowment for Democracy (NED), just as they had done in 2004. In December 2013, Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European affairs and a long-time regime change advocate, said that the US government had spent $5 billion promoting “democracy” in Ukraine since 1991. The money went toward supporting “senior officials in the Ukraine government…[members of] the business community as well as opposition civil society” who agree with US goals.

The NED is a key organization in the network of American soft power that pours $170 million a year into organizations dedicated to defending or installing US-friendly regimes. The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius (9/22/91) once wrote that the organization functions by “doing in public what the CIA used to do in private.” The NED targets governments who oppose US military or economic policy, stirring up anti-government opposition.

The NED board of directors includes Elliott Abrams, whose sordid record runs from the Iran/Contra affair in the ’80s to the Trump administration’s effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In 2013, NED president Carl Gershman wrote a piece in the Washington Post (9/26/13) that described Ukraine as the “biggest prize” in the East/West rivalry.  After the Obama administration, Nuland joined the NED board of directors before returning to the State Department in the Biden administration as undersecretary of state for political affairs.

One of the many recipients of NED money for projects in Ukraine was the International Republican Institute. The IRI, once chaired by Sen. John McCain, has long had a hand in US regime change operations. During the protests that eventually brought down the government, McCain and other US officials personally flew into Ukraine to encourage protesters.

US Officials Were Caught Picking the New Government

On February 6, 2014, as the anti-government protests were intensifying, an anonymous party (assumed by many to be Russia) leaked a call between Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. The two officials discussed which opposition officials would staff a prospective new government, agreeing that Arseniy Yatsenyuk—Nuland referred to him by the nickname “Yats”—should be in charge. It was also agreed that someone “high profile” be brought in to push things along. That someone was Joe Biden.

Weeks later, on February 22, after a massacre by suspicious snipers brought tensions to a head, the Ukrainian parliament quickly removed Yanukovych from office in a constitutionally questionable maneuver. Yanukovych then fled the country, calling the overthrow a coup. On February 27, Yatsenyuk became prime minister.

At the time the call leaked, media were quick to pounce on Nuland’s saying “Fuck the EU.” The comment dominated the headlines (Daily Beast,  2/6/14; BuzzFeed, 2/6/14; Atlantic, 2/6/14; Guardian, 2/6/14), while the evidence of US regime change efforts was downplayed. With the headline “Russia Claims US Is Meddling Over Ukraine,” the New York Times (2/6/14) put the facts of US involvement in the mouth of an official enemy, blunting their impact on the audience. The Times (2/6/14) later described the two officials as benignly “talking about the political crisis in Kiev” and sharing “their views of how it might be resolved.”

The Washington Post (2/6/14) acknowledged that the call showed “a deep degree of US involvement in affairs that Washington officially says are Ukraine’s to resolve,” but that fact rarely factored into future coverage of the US/Ukraine/Russia relationship.

Washington Used Nazis to Help Overthrow the Government

The Washington-backed opposition that toppled the government was fueled by far-right and openly Nazi elements like the Right Sector. One far-right group that grew out of the protests was the Azov Battalion, a paramilitary militia of neo-Nazi extremists. Their leaders made up the vanguard of the anti-Yanukovych protests, and even spoke at opposition events in the Maidan alongside US regime change advocates like McCain and Nuland.

After the violent coup, these groups were later incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces—the same armed forces that the US has now given $2.5 billion. Though Congress technically restricted money from flowing to the Azov Battalion in 2018, trainers on the ground say there’s no mechanism to actually enforce the provision.  Since the coup, the Ukrainian nationalist forces have been responsible for a wide variety of atrocities in the counterinsurgency war.

Far-right influence has increased across Ukraine as a result of Washington’s actions. A recent UN Human Rights council has noted that “fundamental freedoms in Ukraine have been squeezed” since 2014, further weakening the argument that the US is involved in the country on behalf of liberal values.

Among American neo-Nazis, there’s even a movement aimed at encouraging right-wing extremists to join the Battalion in order to “gain actual combat experience” in preparation for a potential civil war in the US.

In a recent UN vote on “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism,” the US and Ukraine were the only two countries to vote no.

As FAIR (1/15/22) has reported, between December 6, 2021, and January 6, 2022, the New York Times ran 228 articles that refer to Ukraine, but none of them reference the pro-Nazi elements in Ukraine’s politics or government. The same can be said of the Washington Post’s 201 articles on the topic.

There’s a Lot More to the Crimean Annexation

The facts above give more context to Russian actions following the coup, and ought to counter the caricature of a Russian Empire bent on expansion. From Russia’s point of view, a longtime adversary had successfully overthrown a neighboring government using violent far-right extremists.

The Crimean peninsula, which was part of Russia until it was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954, is home to one of two Russian naval bases with access to the Black and Mediterranean seas, one of history’s most important maritime theaters. A Crimea controlled by a US-backed Ukrainian government was a major threat to Russian naval access.

The peninsula—82% of whose households speak Russian, and only 2% mainly Ukrainian—held a plebiscite in March 2014 on whether or not they should join Russia, or remain under the new Ukrainian government. The Pro-Russia camp won with 95% of the vote. The UN General Assembly, led by the US, voted to ignore the referendum results on the grounds that it was contrary to Ukraine’s constitution. This same constitution had been set aside to oust President Yanukovych a month earlier.

All of this is dropped from Western coverage.

The US Wants to Expand NATO

In addition to integrating Ukraine into the US-dominated economic sphere, Western planners also want to integrate Ukraine militarily. For years, the US has sought the expansion of NATO, an explicitly anti-Russian military alliance. NATO was originally billed as a counterforce to the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, but after the demise of the Soviet Union, the US promised the new Russia that it would not expand NATO east of Germany. Despite this agreement, the US continued building out its military alliance,growing closer and closer to Russia’s borders and ignoring Russia’s objections.

This history is sometimes admitted but usually downplayed in corporate media. In an interview with the Washington Post (12/1/21), professor Mary Sarotte, author of Not One Inch: America, Russia and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, recounted that after the Soviet collapse, “Washington realized that it could not only win big, but win bigger. Not one inch of territory needed to be off-limits to full NATO membership.” The US “all-or-nothing approach to expansionism…maximized conflict with Moscow,” she noted. Unfortunately, one interview does little to cut through the drumbeat of pro-NATO talking points.

In 2008, NATO members pledged to extend membership to Ukraine. The removal of the pro-Russian government in 2014 was a giant leap towards the pledge becoming a reality. Recently, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg announced that the alliance stands by plans to integrate Ukraine into the alliance.

Bret Stephens in the New York Times (1/11/21) maintained that if Ukraine wasn’t allowed to join the organization, it would “break the spine of NATO” and “end the Western alliance as we have known it since the Atlantic Charter.”

The US Wouldn’t Tolerate What Russia Is Expected to Accept

Much has been written about the Russian buildup on the Ukraine border. Reports of the buildup have been intensified by US intelligence officials’ warnings of an attack. Media often echo the claim of an inevitable invasion. The Washington Post editorial board (1/24/22) wrote that “Putin can—and will—use any measures the United States and its NATO allies either take or refrain from taking as a pretext for aggression.”

But Putin has been clear about a path to de-escalation. His main demand has been for direct negotiations to end the expansion of the hostile military alliance to his borders. He announced, “We have made it clear that NATO’s move to the east is unacceptable,” and that “the United States is standing with missiles on our doorstep.” Putin asked, “How would the Americans react if missiles were placed at the border with Canada or Mexico?”

In corporate media coverage, no one bothers to ask this important question. Instead, the assumption is that Putin ought to tolerate a hostile military alliance directly across its border. The US, it seems, is the only country allowed to have a sphere of influence.

The New York Times (1/26/22) asked: “Can the West Stop Russia From Invading Ukraine?” but shrugs at the US dismissal of Putin’s terms as “nonstarters.” The Washington Post (12/10/21) reported: “Some analysts have expressed worry that the Russian leader is making demands that he knows Washington will reject, possibly as a pretext for military action once he is spurned.” The Post quoted one analyst, “I don’t see us giving them anything that would suffice relative to their demands, and what troubles me is they know that.”

Audiences have also been assured that Putin’s reaction to Western expansionism is actually a prelude to more aggressive actions.  “Ukraine Is Only One Small Part of Putin’s Plans,” warned the New York Times (1/7/22). The Times (1/26/22) later described Putin’s Ukraine policy as an attempt at “restoring what he views as Russia’s rightful place among the world’s great powers,” rather than an attempt to avoid having the US military directly on its border. USA Today (1/18/22) warned readers that “Putin ‘Won’t Stop’ with Ukraine.”

But taking this view is diplomatic malpractice. Anatol Lieven (Responsible Statecraft, 1/3/22), an analyst at the Quincy Institute, wrote that US acquiescence to a neutral Ukraine would be a “golden bridge” that, in addition to reducing US/Russia tensions, could enable a political solution to Ukraine’s civil war. This restraint-oriented policy is considered fringe thinking in the Washington foreign policy establishment.

The Memory Hole

All of this missing context allows hawks to promote disastrous escalation of tensions. The Wall Street Journal (12/22/21) published an opinion piece trying to convince readers there was a “Strategic Advantage to Risking War In Ukraine.” The piece, by John Deni of the US Army War College, summarized the familiar hawkish talking points, and claimed that a neutral Ukraine is “anathema to Western values of national self-determination and sovereignty.”

In a modern rendition of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Afghan Trap, Deni asserted that war in Ukraine could actually serve US interests by weakening Russia: Such a war, however disastrous, would ​​“forge an even stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe,” refocusing NATO against the main enemy, result in “economic sanctions that would further weaken Russia’s economy” and “sap the strength and morale of Russia’s military while undercutting Mr. Putin’s domestic popularity.” Thus escalating tensions is a win/win for Washington.

Few of the recent wave of Ukraine pieces recount the crucial history given above. Including the truth about US foreign policy goals in the post-Cold War era makes the current picture look a lot less one-sided. Imagine for one second how the US would behave if Putin began trying to add a US neighbor to a hostile military alliance after helping to overthrow its government.

The economic imperative for opening foreign markets, the NATO drive to push up against Russia, US support for the 2014 coup and the direct hand in shaping the new government all need to be pushed down the memory hole if the official line is to have any credibility. Absent all of that, it is easy to accept the fiction that Ukraine is a battleground between a “rules-based order” and Russian autocracy.

Indeed, the Washington Post editorial board (12/8/21) recently compared negotiating with Putin to appeasing Hitler at Munich. It called on Biden to “resist Putin’s trumped-up demands on Ukraine,” “lest he destabilize all of Europe to autocratic Russia’s advantage.” This wasn’t the only time the paper has made the Munich analogy;  the Post (12/10/21) ran a piece by former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen headlined “On Ukraine, Biden Is Channeling His Inner Neville Chamberlain.”

In the New York Times (12/10/21), Trump NSC aide Alexander Vindman told readers “How the United States Can Break Putin’s Hold on Ukraine,” and urged the Biden administration to send active US troops to the country. A “free and sovereign Ukraine,” he said, is vital in “advancing US interests against those of Russia and China.” Times reporter Michael Crowley (12/16/21) also framed the Ukraine standoff as another “Test of US Credibility Abroad,” after that credibility was supposedly damaged after ending the war in Afghanistan.

In a New York Times major feature (1/16/21) on Ukraine, the US role in bringing tensions to this point was completely omitted, in favor of exclusively blaming “Russian Belligerence.”

As a result of this coverage, the interventionist mentality has trickled down to the public. One poll found that, should Russia actually invade Ukraine, 50% of Americans support embroiling the US in yet another quagmire, up from just 30% in 2014. Biden, however, has said that no US troops will be sent to Ukraine. Instead, the US and EU have threatened sanctions or support for a rebel insurgency should Russia invade.

The past few weeks have seen several failed talks between the US and Russians, as the US refuses to alter its plans for Ukraine. The US Congress is rushing  a “lethal aid” package to send more weapons to the troubled border. Perhaps if the public were better informed, there would be more domestic pressure on Biden to end the brinkmanship and seek a genuine solution to the problem.

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***

Joe Biden’s perverse legacy, if that term even applies anymore, may well be determined in coming weeks by his handling of events in Ukraine. He can improve it by showing restraint against the relentless neoconservative chorus. One wonders what the results of a pure popular vote on the question of going to war with Russia over Ukraine would be, vs. a vote solely within the DC beltway. 

Note: Biden was silent on the recent imposition of emergency martial law by the Trudeau government in Ottawa (a few hundred miles from Washington, DC), but has plenty to say about Kiev (4,881 distant miles). This is not coincidental. As journalist Glenn Greenwald puts it, we are required by western propaganda to denounce actions by Putin (such as freezing the bank assets of political opponent Alexei Navalny) while cheering the same actions taken by the Canadian government against money donated to truckers. Crackdowns in “democracies” are subject to a more enlightened standard:

(w)hen these weapons are wielded by Western governments, the precise opposite framework is imposed: describing them as despotic is no longer obligatory but virtually prohibited. That tyranny exists only in Western adversaries but never in the West itself is treated as a permanent axiom of international affairs, as if Western democracies are divinely shielded from the temptations of genuine repression. Indeed, to suggest that a Western democracy has descended to the same level of authoritarian repression as the West’s official enemies is to assert a proposition deemed intrinsically absurd or even vaguely treasonous.1

Much of today’s western rhetoric about the former USSR employs this language of treason, accusing war skeptics of siding with Putin. American politicians and media often veer into outright Russophobia, sometimes with a not-subtle racial animus. This flows in large part from the 2016 election of Donald Trump, which somehow had to be the result of Russian interference and not Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings. It was remarkable to see so many politicians and pundits risk resurrecting a Cold War with a nuclear power simply to hurt Trump politically. But it worked: they got rid of Trump and now the Cold War is back.

At this writing, Putin has declared the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent of and autonomous from Ukraine. Russian forces have entered Ukraine and launched missiles; deaths and injuries are reported. Those troops reportedly have control over the Chernobyl power plant. Mises’s birthplace, today called Lviv, is threatened.

In response, Biden today announced retaliatory sanctions against Russia and promised severe economic consequences for Putin’s actions. Military and aerospace technology will be blocked, while Russian banks will be shut off from international markets. US and EU officials also have considered the more severe option of removing the country from the SWIFT system of international payments, which would cut off foreign currency purchases of oil, gas, and other Russian exports.

Still, Biden has shown restraint. Let’s hope he keeps to this commitment made earlier today:

Our forces are not and will not be engaged in the conflict,” he said. “Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine but defend [sic] our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the east.

There will be plenty of voices in Biden’s ear demanding more, much more. The subcurrent to Biden’s election in 2020 was the return of neoconservatism with a vengeance. Many of the worst foreign policy hawks, from David Frum to Max Boot to Bill Kristol, have found their home in the Democratic party. The GOP, for its part, is scrambling to outdo the Democrats in their bellicosity for Putin in a nauseatingly transparent effort to make Biden look weak for the upcoming midterm elections. Hence the sorry spectacle of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton– among the worst war promoters in modern history– solemnly lecturing us on MSNBC about Biden’s failure to have placed US troops in Ukraine weeks ago. Unless Putin’s foray is short-lived, rest assured Congress, the Pentagon, the spy agencies, Biden’s cabinet, and his own party leaders (mindful of polls) will call for US military strikes. Some will call for American troops to defend Ukraine on the ground.

President John F. Kennedy faced similar pressures in his brief years as president. Regardless of one’s views on Camelot, Kennedy was a New England liberal and idealist–not a neoconservative. He sincerely abhorred the possible use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with the Soviets. He communicated clandestinely with Khrushchev to avoid just such a conflict, and managed to bring the US back from the brink of an ugly tank standoff in Berlin during 1961– stating, to the chagrin of the Cold Warriors, that the Berlin wall was “a hell of a lot better than a war.”

He similarly resisted calls by the Pentagon, CIA, and Joint Chiefs to back a puppet government in Laos. He was reasonably firm in his opposition to escalations in Vietnam, denying repeated Pentagon requests for thousands of ground troops. Time and again he imagined his reelection in 1964 would be free him politically to remove America completely from Southeast Asia.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the pressure on Kennedy to use nuclear missiles against that tiny, impoverished country was intense. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense  Robert McNamara, CIA deputy Richard Helms, the Joint Chiefs, and one particularly bloodthirsty General named Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay all pressed hard for action. They considered JFK’s Cuban blockade disastrously weak, One CIA operative called his failure to launch a nuclear strike “treasonous.” LeMay compared it to appeasement at Munich. And of course his own vice-president Lyndon Johnson was never an ally when it counted. His only firm and trusted confidant throughout all of it was his own brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Like Trump, JFK faced almost mutinous attacks and subterfuge from within: by his own cabinet, administrative agencies, military commanders, and especially the CIA.

Biden is no JFK. It is clear Biden does not posses an iota of Jack Kennedy’s intelligence, courage, nerve, vigor, or idealism. He is a lifetime political grifter and partisan hack who parasitically attached himself to the DC establishment. That such a nonentity could even sniff the US Senate, much less become president, is an indictment of our system. But at the moment he is, or appears to be, the voice of reason against the John Boltons of the world.

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Notes

1 Glenn Greenwald, “The Neoliberal War on Dissent in the West,” https://greenwald.substack.com

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***

In the West, media outlets are claiming that Russia’s agenda to “denazify” Ukraine is unfounded. At the same time, public opinion in Western countries is totally alienated from the Ukrainian reality, tending to believe only what is reported by the hegemonic media. The result of this is strong disapproval of the Russian attitude based on the lie that there is no trace of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine. In this sense, it is urgent that quality information be disseminated to the Western audience to avoid the proliferation of lies about the Ukrainian reality.

On almost every TV channel and newspaper in the West, Ukrainian Nazism is questioned with the worst possible arguments: Zelensky is Jewish, and the Ukrainian state is democratic. This kind of superficial thinking prevents a detailed analysis of the catastrophic situation in Kiev since the Maidan, when, through a coup d’état, an anti-Russian junta took power and institutionalized a racist and anti-Russian ideology, which remains until the current days.

When we talk about “Ukrainian Nazism” we are not saying that Kiev is a contemporary copy of Hitler’s Berlin, but that the neo-Nazi element is a fundamental point of post-2014 Ukraine. The Maidan coup was openly supported and financed by NATO as a way of undermining any Russian influence in Moscow’s own strategic environment. The aim was to make Ukraine a puppet state, commanded from Washington, ending any link with Russia. There was not only the objective to annihilate political, economic, and diplomatic relations between Kiev and Moscow, but also to eliminate cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic ties between both nations.

Since then, anti-Russian plans have been implemented. Ethnic Russians have been persecuted for the past eight years – even through systematic extermination in some regions. The Russian language has been criminalized in entire cities where the population does not speak Ukrainian. Schisms in the Orthodox Church have been supported to form a Ukrainian “national church” out of the Moscow Patriarchate. But the question remains: how has this been possible if Ukrainians and Russians are such close peoples? Many Ukrainians speak Russian and marry ethnic Russians, in addition to the fact that most of the country’s population follows the Orthodox Church. So how was it possible to initiate such a successful racist policy?

This was certainly one of the biggest concerns of the Maidan planners. And the answer lies in the Nazi element, which was very well worked out by Arsen Avakov, Minister of the Interior during the Poroshenko government. Avakov initiated a process of instrumentalizing neo-Nazi militias that had supported Maidan, making these extremist groups key points in the defense of the new Ukrainian regime. In the West, due to collective ignorance about Slavic history, many people think that Nazi racism was restricted to Jews, but in fact, anti-Russian hatred was one of the biggest locomotives of WWII, having led Hitler to the irrational decision to invade and try to annex the USSR. This sentiment is alive in these neo-Nazi militias, who are literally ready to do anything to annihilate the Russians, being much more fanatical in their racist convictions than the Ukrainian armed forces.

Groups such as the Azov Battalion, C14 and the armed militias of rightist parties such as Pravyy sektor and Svoboda operate freely in Ukraine and are most responsible for the extermination of ethnic Russians in the Donbass. These groups act with more violence and using more sophisticated equipment than the Ukrainian armed forces themselves, being the real face of Kiev’s anti-Russian brutality. As neo-Nazis, these militias have no obstacles in complying with the government’s objective of destroying any ties between Russians and Ukrainians, thus being the main allies of the Maidan era.

In a 2020 Freedom House’s report, “A new Eurasian far right rising”, it is said that the far right is one of the strongest and most influential elements in Ukrainian society today, being a sophisticated, highly professionalized, and visible political force. In other words, what would be violent and criminal urban groups elsewhere on the planet have been converted by Kiev into a pro-Maidan parallel armed force. The inspiration for this model of action comes from the original Nazism: the Schutzstaffel (SS) was one of the largest German armed political forces during the 1930s and 1940s, but the group was not part of the German Armed Forces, but a paramilitary militia instrumentalized by the government apart from the official troops. There was a major strategic objective with this: while the German military was commanded by the government, the SS fought for the Nazi Party and for Hitler – that is, if Germany surrendered, the SS would declare war on the German military. This type of “double-shielded” military system is the same one that Kiev has implemented: if one day a pro-Russian government is elected, the neo-Nazi militias will declare war on Kiev – and will be strong enough to defeat the official troops in the same way as the SS was stronger than the German armed forces.

It is necessary to note that these groups operate not only in the sphere of military force, but also in the cultural field, fomenting anti-Russian hatred among ordinary Ukrainians. The exaltation of Stepan Bandera (Ukrainian anti-Soviet nationalist leader who collaborated with Nazi Germany) is one of the symptoms of this. Before the Maidan, Bandera was a name like any other in Ukrainian history, but he came to be remembered and venerated as a national hero by neo-Nazis and anti-Russian politicians. In the same sense, these groups vandalize parishes and monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church and are responsible for the consolidation of a Ukrainian mentality entirely hostile to Russia, which is gradually permeating the local population.

Ukraine is in fact ruled by a Jew and the country’s power structure is indeed publicly “democratic”, despite being internally authoritarian and corrupt. But the Nazi element is not in these aspects, but in the structure of protection of the post-Maidan Ukrainian state, which is supported by a national coalition of neo-Nazi militias whose objective is simply to persecute and kill Russians, regardless of who is in power in Kiev. It does not matter to these militias if the President of the Republic is a Jew – what matters is that Russians are dying, which favors both neo-Nazis and the pro-NATO politicians they protect. In other words, the Western media’s arguments to deny Putin’s claims about Ukrainian Nazism are weak and superficial.

Moscow is right in its concern to denazify Ukraine. It is a measure that should be taken in coalition by several countries. All over the world, Nazism is “condemned”, but only when it benefits the West. The closest political experience to Nazism in the present days has been seen and peacefully tolerated by liberal governments that claim to be defenders of human rights and democracy. Russia is simply no longer willing to put up with crimes being committed by neo-Nazis against its people and there is nothing wrong with that decision.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

Featured image: U.S. allies in Ukraine, with NATO, Azov Battalion and neo-Nazi flags. Photo by russia-insider.com

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***

 

 

Washington-backed organizations describing themselves as charities are leading the charge for the scrapping of Russia and Germany’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline and increased sanctions against Moscow.

In an email, International Renaissance Foundation executive director Oleksandr Sushko called on Western countries to act against “Russian aggression” and warned of a European security crisis.

He described Ukraine as “Europe’s democratic frontier,” ignoring the fact that democracy was usurped in the country in 2014 when the European Union backed a coup against the government of elected President Viktor Yanukovich and that Kiev continues to suppress political critics, including by a ban on the Communist Party standing in elections and through media censorship.

Sushko claimed that Russia was manufacturing the crisis to assert control over Europe, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calling on Western media to tone down the hysteria over an allegedly imminent invasion, accusing them of creating panic in the country.

“Europe and the international community must support Ukraine against Russian neo-Soviet authoritarian imperialism,” he said. “The West can support Ukrainian freedom by withholding regulatory approval for Nord Stream 2 and must strengthen efforts to track Russian dirty money and immediately freeze the assets of the regime.”

A far from an independent commentator, Sushko previously worked as research director for the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, a political action committee based in Ukraine that lobbies for Kiev’s membership in NATO and the EU.

His former employer is funded by Western donations, including from USAid, and lists NATO and the shady National Endowment for Democracy as its partners.

The International Renaissance Foundation was founded in 1990 and is described as “an integral part” of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation. It has spent more than $100 million on funding NGOs, civil society groups, and media organizations in Ukraine.

One of the main priorities of the foundation is financially supporting projects that encourage European integration. Along with the National Endowment for Democracy, it funds the Ukraine Crisis Media Centre, which aims to control the media narrative on the country and collaborates with the U.S. embassy there.

Kiev has been accused by the Communist Party of Ukraine of waging an “information genocide” by shutting down opposition news channels. Last week, the official YouTube accounts of the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics were closed without warning, triggering accusations of censorship.

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Germany and Russia, which was completed in September last year, is opposed by Washington, which has threatened to block it from operating altogether.

U.S. companies aiming to supply liquefied natural gas to Europe are believed to be among the main beneficiaries should the project collapse.

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Steve Sweeney writes for Morning Star, the socialist daily newspaper published in Great Britain. He is also a People’s Assembly National Committee member, patron of the Peace in Kurdistan campaign, and a proud trade unionist. Steve Sweeney escribe para Morning Star, el diario socialista publicado en Gran Bretaña. También es miembro del Comité Nacional de la Asamblea Popular, patrocinador de la campaña Paz en Kurdistán y un orgulloso sindicalista.

Featured image: U.S. taxpayer dollars are funding the propaganda effort in Europe on behalf of oil and gas corporations via contributions to supposed ‘charities’ from USAid.

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This article provides analysis. Global Research does not support Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

***

This is what happens when a bunch of ragged hyenas, jackals and tiny rodents poke The Bear: a new geopolitical order is born at breathtaking speed.

From a dramatic meeting of the Russian Security Council to a UN history lesson delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the subsequent birth of the Baby Twins – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk – all the way to the breakaway republics’ appeal to Putin to intervene militarily to expel the NATO-backed Ukrainian bombing-and-shelling forces from Donbass, it was a seamless process, executed at warp speed.

The (nuclear) straw that (nearly) broke the Bear’s back – and forced it to pounce – was Comedian/Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky, back from the Russophobia-drenched Munich Security Conference where he was hailed like a Messiah, saying that the 1994 Budapest memorandum should be revised and Ukraine should be nuclear-rearmed.

That would be the equivalent of a nuclear Mexico south of the Hegemon.

Putin immediately turned Responsibility to Protect (R2P) upside down: an American construct invented to launch wars was retrofitted to stop a slow-motion genocide in Donbass.

First came the recognition of the Baby Twins – Putin’s most important foreign policy decision since inserting Russian jets into Syria’s airspace in 2015. That was the preamble for the next game-changer: a “special military operation…aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” as Putin defined it.

Up to the last minute, the Kremlin was trying to rely on diplomacy, explaining to Kiev the necessary imperatives to prevent heavy metal thunder: recognition of Crimea as Russian; abandoning any plans to join NATO; negotiating directly with the Baby Twins – an anathema for the Americans since 2015; finally, demilitarizing and declaring Ukraine as neutral.

Kiev’s handlers, predictably, would never accept the package – as they didn’t accept the Master Package that really matters, which is the Russian demand for “indivisible security.”

The sequence, then, became inevitable. In a flash, all Ukrainian military forces between the so-called line of contact and the original borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts were re-framed as an occupying army in Russian-allied territories that Moscow had just sworn to protect.

Get Out – Or Else

The Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense were not bluffing. Timed to the end of Putin’s speech announcing the operation, the Russians decapitated with precision missiles everything that mattered in terms of the Ukrainian military in just one hour: Air force, navy, airfields, bridges, command and control centers, the whole Turkish Bayraktar drone fleet.

And it was not only Russian raw power. It was the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) artillery that hit the Armed Forces of Ukraine headquarters in Donbass, which actually housed the entire Ukrainian military command. This means that the Ukrainian General Staff instantly lost control of all its troops.

This was Shock and Awe against Iraq, 19 years ago, in reverse: not for conquest, not as a prelude for an invasion and occupation. The political-military leadership in Kiev did not even have time to declare war. They froze. Demoralized troops started deserting. Total defeat – in one hour.

The water supply to Crimea was instantly re-established. Humanitarian corridors were set up for the deserters. Ukrainian forces remnants now include mostly surviving Azov batallion Nazis, mercenaries trained by the usual Blackwater/Academi suspects, and a bunch of Salafi-jihadis.

Predictably, western corporate media has already gone totally berserk, branding it as the much-awaited Russian ‘invasion.’ A reminder: when Israel routinely bombs Syria and when the House of One Saudi routinely bombs Yemeni civilians, there is never any peep in NATO’s media.

As it stands, realpolitik spells out a possible endgame, as voiced by Donetsk’s head, Denis Pushilin: “The special operation in Donbass will soon be over and all the cities will be liberated.”

We could soon witness the birth of an independent Novorossiya – east of the Dnieper, south along Sea of Azov/Black Sea, the way it was when attached to Ukraine by Lenin in 1922. But now it would be totally aligned with Russia, and providing a land bridge to Transnistria.

Ukraine, of course, would lose any access to the Black Sea. History loves playing tricks: what was a ‘gift’ to Ukraine in 1922 may become a parting gift a hundred years later.

It’s creative destruction time

It will be fascinating to watch what Prof. Sergey Karaganov masterfully described, in detail, as the new Putin doctrine of constructive destruction, and how it will interconnect with West Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and further on down the Global South road.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the ceremonial NATO Sultan, denounced the recognition of the Baby Twins as “unacceptable.” No wonder: that shift smashed all his elaborate plans to pose as privileged mediator between Moscow and Kiev during Putin’s upcoming visit to Ankara. The Kremlin – as well as the Foreign Ministry – don’t waste time talking to NATO minions.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, had a recent, very productive entente with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad. Russia, this past weekend, has staged a spectacular strategic missile display, hypersonic and otherwise, featuring Khinzal, Zircon, Kalibr, Yars ICBMs, Iskander and Sineva  – irony of ironies, in synch with the Russophobia-fest in Munich. In parallel, Russian Navy ships of the Pacific, Northern and Black Sea fleets performed a series of submarine search drills in the Mediterranean.

The Putin doctrine privileges the asymmetrical – and that applies to the near abroad and beyond. Putin’s body language, in his last two crucial interventions, spell out nearly maximum exasperation. As in realizing, not auspiciously, but rather in resignation, that the only language Beltway Neo-conservatives and ‘humanitarian imperialists’ understand is heavy metal thunder. They are definitely deaf, dumb and blind to history, geography and diplomacy.

So, one can always game the Russian military – for instance, imposing a no-fly zone in Syria to conduct a series of visits by Mr. Khinzal not only to the Turk-protected shady jihadist umbrella in Idlib but also the jihadists protected by the Americans in Al-Tanf base, near the Syria-Jordan border. After all, these specimens are all NATO proxies.

The US government barks non-stop about “territorial sovereignty.” So let’s game the Kremlin asking the White House for a road map on getting out of Syria: after all the Americans are illegally occupying a section of Syrian territory and adding extra disaster to the Syrian economy by stealing their oil.

NATO’s stultifying leader, Jens Stoltenberg, has announced the alliance is dusting off its “defense plans.” That may include little more than hiding behind their expensive Brussels desks. They are as inconsequential in the Black Sea as in the East Med – as the US remains quite vulnerable in Syria.

There are now four Russian TU-22M3 strategic bombers in Russia’s Hmeimim base in Syria, each capable of carrying three S-32 anti-ship missiles that fly at supersonic Mach 4.3 with a range of 1,000 km. No Aegis system is able to handle them.

Russia also has stationed a few Mig-31Ks in Syria’s coastal region in Latakia equipped with hypersonic Khinzals – more than enough to sink any kind of US surface group, including aircraft carriers, in the East Med. The US has no air defense mechanism whatsoever with even a minimal chance of intercepting them.

So the rules have changed. Drastically. The Hegemon is naked. The new deal starts with turning the post-Cold War set-up in Eastern Europe completely upside down. The East Med will be next. The Bear is back, hear him roar.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Russia endured eight years of NATO provocations in Ukraine before it roared. Now it will clean house in West Asia and beyond. Photo Credit: The Cradle

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***

Quoting acclaimed Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, the Russian leader uttered an ominous warning: “There is no true happiness in life, only flashes, a mirage of it is on the horizon — cherish those.” But the establishment media mocked the stark warning as nothing more than rants and raves of a deranged mind.

At the time, the British Royal Navy Defender had breached Russia’s territorial waters [1] in the Black Sea and as many as 20 Russian aircraft conducted “unsafe maneuvers” merely 500 feet above the warship and Britain also lamented shots had been fired in the path of the ship.

“British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would not say whether he had personally approved the Defender’s voyage but suggested the Royal Navy was making a point by taking that route,” a Politico report [2] alleged in June.

Boris Johnson didn’t explicitly acknowledge the naval incursion into Russia’s territorial waters was done on his orders. Something a lot more sinister happened behind the scenes that could have ended up in a false flag naval engagement like the Gulf of Tonkin incident before the Vietnam War in 1964, and given the NATO powers a pretext to start a war over and above the heads of elected politicians.

While the responsibility to recklessly provoke Russia ultimately rested with the entire British cabinet, there was a catch. A Telegraph report noted [3] that former Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had raised concerns about the mission, proposed by defense chiefs, and that Boris Johnson was ultimately called in to settle the dispute.

Therefore, what Johnson actually did was to play the role of a mediator in the dispute between the civilian cabinet and the UK’s military. The provocation was clearly planned and executed by the UK’s deep state in collaboration with its partners in the transatlantic NATO military alliance led by the Pentagon.

It’s noteworthy that all the militaries of the NATO member states operate under the integrated military command led by the Pentagon. Before being elected president, General Dwight Eisenhower was the first commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). The commander of Allied Command Operations has been given the title Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), and is always a US four-star general officer or flag officer who also serves as the Commander US European Command.

In Europe, 400,000 US forces were deployed during the height of the Cold War in the sixties, though the number has since been brought down [4] to over 100,000 after European powers developed their own military capacity following the devastation of the Second World War. The number of American troops deployed in Europe now stands at 50,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy and 10,000 in the United Kingdom.

During the last year, the United States has substantially ramped up the US military footprint in the Eastern Europe by deploying thousands of NATO troops, strategic armaments, nuclear-capable missiles and air force squadrons aimed at Russia, and the NATO forces alongside regional clients have been provocatively exercising so-called “freedom of navigation” right in the Black Sea and conducting joint military exercises and naval drills.

Excluding the self-styled global hegemon, the imperial United States, the rest of the Western powers might have been colonial powers before the Second World War but they are no longer “powers” in global politics. In fact, they can more aptly be described as Western regimes that serve no other purpose than act as Washington’s client states via the framework of transatlantic NATO military alliance to maintain the charade of multilateralism.

The national security and defense policies of modern nation states are formulated by civil-military bureaucracy, dubbed as the deep state. Whereas trade and economic policies are determined by corporate interests and business cartels within the framework of neocolonial economic order imposed on the post-colonial world by corporate America following the signing of the Bretton Woods Accords at the end of the Second World War in 1945.

Purportedly democratic governments, elected through heavily manipulated electoral process, are reduced to performing ceremonial gimmicks and are meant only to serve as showpieces to legitimize militarist and capitalist exploitation.

Fomenting crisis in Ukraine by audaciously intruding into Russia’s territorial waters isn’t the only instance when the deep state flagrantly interfered into the US foreign policy. It went to the extent of discrediting and, at times, even brazenly assassinating American presidents who dared to refuse to toe the national security policy formulated by the high-command of the world’s most powerful military force.

Image on the right is from TheFreeThoughtProject.com

It’s worth recalling that at the height of the Cold War in the sixties when the US domestic politics was infested with the McCarthyite paranoia and communists were persecuted all over the country, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy, was picked up as a scapegoat because he had visited Russia and Cuba before the hit-job in order to put the blame for the high-profile political assassination on the communists.

Not surprisingly, he was silenced by Jack Ruby before he could open his mouth and prove innocence in the courts of law. The cold-blooded murder of a pacifist and non-interventionist American president was obviously perpetrated by a professional sniper trained expert marksmanship by the deep state.

It was not a coincidence that Kennedy was murdered in November 1963, and months later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorized his successor Lyndon B. Johnson to directly engage in the Vietnam conflict in August 1964 on the basis of a false flag naval engagement.

It’s obvious that the American national security establishment was the only beneficiary of the assassination of Kennedy. Most likely, the deep state turned against Kennedy after the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis and Kennedy’s pacifist rhetoric and conciliatory approach toward Washington’s arch-rival, the former Soviet Union, in the backdrop of the raging Cold War.

Besides the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, another reason the Kennedy administration fell from the grace of the deep state was the botched Bay of Pigs invasion by the CIA operatives and the Cuban exiles in April 1961 to topple the government of Fidel Castro that JFK approved but later severely castigated the CIA for the fiasco and sacked CIA director Allen Dulles and several employees. The Pentagon wanted Kennedy to immediately invade Cuba following the foiled plot but he “vacillated” and let a golden opportunity to dismantle a security threat close to the US soil slip by.

Similarly, JFK’s brother Robert F. Kennedy was a leading Democratic candidate for the presidential office when he was shot dead by a Palestinian Christian Sirhan Sirhan in June 1968. Being a pacifist himself, Bobby Kennedy opposed the US involvement in the Vietnam War and wrote a book on the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 in which he credited his brother, JFK, for showing restraint and amicably resolving the crisis.

As the former attorney general of JFK, Bobby probably had good leads on the masterminds of the JFK assassination, and wanted to avenge his brother’s shocking murder by exposing the assassins after being elected president. This was the principal reason he, too, was silenced before he could be elected president.

Though serving a life sentence at a California penitentiary, Bobby Kennedy’s murderer Sirhan, now 77 years old, is a suspicious and deranged character, who frequently backtracked on his testimonies and confession during and after the trial, had no recollection of the murder and subsequent events, and his defense team had pleaded for a retrial several times but the request was summarily denied. He was due to be released on parole last August but California Governor Gavin Newsom decided against setting him free in January.

Likewise, the US security agencies turned against Richard Nixon after the deep state helped him get elected in the 1968 elections by eliminating his formidable Democratic opponent Robert F. Kennedy and felt betrayed after Nixon decided to end the Vietnam War.

The Watergate scandal was clearly orchestrated by the deep state, as Nixon was responsible for the Fall of Saigon and the humiliating defeat of the US in Vietnam at the hands of communists. Despite the allegation of illegal wiretapping, nothing was actually recorded at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Headquarters.

An additional charge was brought against Nixon that he had installed voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office, which is a customary practice for all the presidents before and after him, as all the offices in the White House and the Capitol are known to be bugged, though only a handful security officials have access to recorded conversations.

Not surprisingly, the perpetrators of clumsy wiretapping attempt at the DNC headquarters turned out to be former FBI and CIA agents. All 48 Republican campaign officials who threw Nixon under the bus by becoming approvers and testifying against him were found guilty, but were handed down light sentences, ranging from fines and several months in prison, excluding Gordon Liddy who served four and a half years in the penitentiary and later became a celebrity anchor.

To his credit, despite being a reviled politician in the American political discourse, Nixon ended the US involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973. He also ended the military draft the same year. Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972, the first ever by an American president, eventually led to the establishing of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Buttressing his pacifist credentials further, he signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the former Soviet Union the same year.

On October 10, 1972, the “October Surprise” on the eve of elections on Nov. 3, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, relying on an anonymous source “Deep Throat” (likely a Freudian slip implicating the deep state or could be a double entendre even more sinister), subsequently revealed to be an FBI director, reported that the FBI had determined that the Watergate break-in was part of a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage on behalf of the Nixon re-election committee.

Although venerated as credible “investigative journalists” by mainstream audience, both Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were formerly rogue reporters for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post before becoming best-selling author, and are known to be unapologetic deep state shills.

In 2019, the Trump administration awarded the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud computing contract JEDI [5] to Microsoft over its rival Amazon’s bid. Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos contested the decision in federal court, which ordered the Pentagon to reconsider certain aspects of the contract. The contract was subsequently scrapped by the Pentagon last July due to the controversy.

It’s worth recalling the reason the corporate media took morbid interest in the gory details of the grisly assassination of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 was that Khashoggi was a columnist for the Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man with $200 billion net worth and the owner of Amazon.

Bezos had a score to settle [6] with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Mohammad bin Salman hacked Bezos’ phone in May 2018 and sent the details of Bezos’ extramarital affair to the National Enquirer in January 2019, leading to Bezos’ wife MacKenzie Scott divorcing him and taking a significant portion, $35.6 billion, of Bezos’ obscene wealth as alimony.

Nevertheless, the Washington Post, with its vast network of NATSEC shills having access to insider accounts of the deep state sources, has a history of working in close collaboration with the CIA, as Bezos won a $600 million contract [7] in 2013 to host the CIA’s database on the Amazon’s web-hosting service.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Britain says don’t get carried away by warship spat with Russia

[2] Russia says next time it may fire to hit intruding warships

[3] British PM Boris Johnson ignored warnings of his foreign secretary

[4] What the US Gets for Defending Its Allies and Interests Abroad?

[5] Jeff Bezos contests the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI contract

[6] The Saudi heir and the alleged plot to undermine Jeff Bezos

[7] Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark

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All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

.

.

The Corbett Report

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

***

As the media are abandoning COVID, they’re taking aim at AIDS instead. The timing of AIDS-related articles and announcements is indicative of a coordinated PR campaign, which must have a specific purpose

While Prince Harry’s fame is milked for all it’s worth to get people to start thinking about getting HIV-tested, the discovery of a new HIV variant in The Netherlands has also been announced. The variant is more contagious, and causes more severe disease, twice as fast. There are 109 known cases of the HIV variant in The Netherlands

The COVID jab may be causing AIDS-like illness by decimating immune function. Researchers have also warned the COVID jab may raise your risk of HIV infection. Is the media’s focus on AIDS an attempt to cover up COVID jab effects?

The same week as Prince Harry’s media appearance and the publication of the new HIV strain, Moderna announced its launch of a human trial for the world’s first mRNA HIV vaccine

The parallels between Dr. Anthony Fauci’s AIDS campaign in the ‘80s and COVID are strikingly similar. In the ‘80s, Fauci pushed the deadly drug AZT as the only permissible way to treat AIDS. During the COVID pandemic, Fauci’s failed and lethal Ebola drug remdesivir got the greenlight at the expense of far safer treatment alternatives. Fauci has also been pushing for a transition from conventional vaccines to the mRNA platform

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When media start raising an issue all at the same time, it’s usually a coordinated campaign directed by a PR company on the behalf of a client. There’s a reason for it, and the reason is to sow a desired narrative in the minds of people. They plant ideas so that when something happens, people are already prepped with certain prejudices or assumptions.

So, what then might be the reason for everyone suddenly talking about AIDS? In December 2021, President Biden announced a White House plan to “end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030.”¹ The same exact vow had been announced by the British Health Security Agency a week earlier.²

Meanwhile, Prince Harry was out there urging everyone to get an HIV test, and Dutch researchers announced the discovery of a concerning HIV strain. All of this is happening at the same time that COVID is starting to fade out.

As noted by Off-Guardian,³ “just because they’re giving slack on COVID does not mean the agenda behind COVID is gone. Far from it. In fact, even as they seek to dump this pandemic in a shallow grave, they are already prepping the public for the next health scare — AIDS.”

Prince Harry Urges Everyone to Get Tested for HIV

In recent weeks, Prince Harry has been making the rounds urging people to get an HIV test. According to a February 10, 2022, report by the BBC,⁴ “the Duke of Sussex … wants to continue his mum’s ‘unfinished’ work in removing the stigma around the virus.”

Prince Harry has pointed out that during the last two years, HIV testing among heterosexual men and women in the U.K. has dropped by 33%, compared to just 7% lower testing rates among gays and bisexuals. At the same time, AIDS diagnoses among heterosexuals are outpacing those among gays for the first time in a decade.⁵

Similarly, a February 9, 2022, opinion piece by Ian Green, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust (a British charity that provides HIV-related services), in The Guardian highlighted the need for a “new strategy” to combat HIV. “Continuing to solely target those traditionally most at risk won’t work,” he said. The answer, according to Green, is more widespread testing of all people, regardless of preconceived assumptions about risk.

New, More Infectious HIV Variant Discovered

While Prince Harry’s fame is milked for all it’s worth to get people to start thinking about getting HIV-tested, the discovery of a new HIV variant in The Netherlands has also been announced.⁶ Is that a coincidence?

According to researchers, this mutated HIV virus, dubbed the VB variant, is more infectious and causes more severe illness, twice as fast. As of early February 2022, there were 109 known cases of the VB variant in The Netherlands. Curiously, scientists said the variant had been circulating for decades. As reported by NPR, February 4, 2022:⁷

“They discovered a total of 109 people who had this particular variant and never knew it, dating all the way back to 1992. The variant probably emerged in the late ’80s … picking up steam around 2000 and then eventually slowing down around 2010.

People with this variant have a viral load that is three to four times higher than usual for those with HIV. This characteristic means the virus progresses into serious illness twice as fast — and also makes it more contagious …

There’s no need to develop special treatments for this variant … It shows no signs at all of resisting medications, as some HIV variants do. But because the variant moves quickly, people need to receive medicine as fast as possible.”

Researchers said they also observed a large rise in viral load in individuals with this variant by a 3.5 to 5.5 point increase. What this means is that infected persons could develop AIDS faster without immediate treatment; which could explain the sudden call for mass testing, They wrote:⁸

“By the time they were diagnosed, these individuals were vulnerable to developing AIDS within 2 to 3 years … Without treatment, advanced HIV — CD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimeter, with long-term clinical consequences — is expected to be reached, on average, 9 months after diagnosis for individuals in their thirties with this variant.”

Are We Looking at Vaccine-Induced AIDS?

To all of this we can also add the concern that the COVID jab may be causing AIDS-like illness by decimating immune function.⁹ This is not to imply the shot is causing HIV/AIDS.^10,11 Rather, a Lancet preprint¹² that compared outcomes among “vaccinated” and unvaccinated Swedes found that six months’ post-jab, some of the more vulnerable vaccinated groups were at greater risk for symptomatic COVID than their unvaccinated peers.

Clearly, the jabs are making some people MORE prone to infection and serious disease rather than less so. According to a December 2021 article posted by the American Frontline Doctors:¹³

“Doctors are calling this phenomena in the repeatedly vaccinated ‘immune erosion’ or ‘acquired immune deficiency,’ accounting for elevated incidence of myocarditis and other post-vaccine illnesses that either affect them more rapidly, resulting in death, or more slowly, resulting in chronic illness.”

In other words, they suspect myocarditis and other chronic health problems associated with the jabs could be the result of vaccine-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or “VAIDS,” which is basically very similar to AIDS. The main difference is the initial trigger. In November 2021, the U.K. also reported a 50% increase in ICU admissions of patients with immune system problems in the preceding two months.¹⁴

America’s Frontline Doctors warn the shots are creating “vaccine addicts,” in the sense that their immune system won’t be able to ward off COVID without them. However, it’s still a losing venture, as each shot only worsens the immune erosion, making you ever more vulnerable to all kinds of infections — including HIV! As reported by Off-Guardian:¹⁵

“We have already seen a plethora of predictions of increases in strokes and heart attacks, all attributed to very much non-vaccine causes. Everything from increased energy prices to lockdown-related depression has been blamed. That certainly appears to be pre-emptive ass-covering behavior. And this ‘new variant’ of AIDS could be too.

If the COVID ‘vaccines’ cause millions of people to suddenly develop dysfunctional immune systems, or some kind of antibody-dependent enhancement a ‘more dangerous new strain of AIDS’ is a pretty good cover story, don’t you think? …

In October 2020 one group of researchers, quoted in Forbes, warned that any potential COVID ‘vaccine’ could increase your risk of being infected with HIV.

One of the few abandoned COVID vaccine candidates, from the University of Queensland, actually used a protein from HIV as a ‘molecular clamp’ to bind their artificial spike proteins together, the researchers claimed. This potential ‘vaccine’ was apparently discarded after test subjects returned ‘false positives’ on HIV tests.¹⁶”

What’s the PR Campaign Trying to Hide?

We’re looking at several big puzzle pieces here:

1. Prince Harry and others reminding everyone about the importance to get tested for HIV
2. U.K. and U.S. governments simultaneously promising to eradicate AIDS by 2030
3. The discovery of a new, more infectious and dangerous HIV strain
4. Emerging data suggesting the COVID jabs erode your immune function
5. The theoretical possibility that the COVID jab might raise people’s risk of HIV infection, thus possibly triggering an avalanche of AIDS cases in the near future

Could the focus on HIV testing, especially in combination with the warning of a new HIV strain, be an effort to hide the fact that the COVID jabs are destroying people’s immune function, and possibly promoting HIV infection?

Perhaps. But there’s also another possibility. The same week as Prince Harry’s media appearance and the publication of the new HIV strain, Moderna also announced its launch of a human trial for the world’s first mRNA HIV vaccine. The timing of all of these reports strongly indicate that this is a coordinated PR plan.

Human Trial for mRNA HIV Vaccine Is Underway

As reported by Bloomberg:¹⁷

“Like Moderna’s COVID vaccine, the shot uses mRNA technology to deliver the instructions for key proteins needed to build an immune response … Researchers have spent decades working out a possible way to inoculate people against HIV, and mRNA will make it possible to test the theory much faster than expected.

This work should help companies including Pfizer, BioNTech and Sanofi, all accelerating their own efforts to design and test mRNA vaccines, to understand when the technology can — and can’t — make a difference in disease prevention …

Creating an mRNA vaccine for HIV is trickier than making the kind of SARS-CoV-2 shots we’ve become familiar with. The mRNA COVID vaccines deliver the recipe for the spike protein … This causes immune cells to produce neutralizing antibodies against COVID, much as they would do if they had experienced a COVID infection.

With HIV, there’s no such simple recipe. HIV’s equivalent to the spike protein — its envelope glycoprotein — is wilier. It hides its vulnerable aspects, making it difficult for immune cells to generate antibodies against it. An even bigger problem is that HIV starts to mutate within hours of infecting someone …

HIV behaves like ‘a swarm of slightly different viruses’ … People with HIV rarely develop neutralizing antibodies, and in the very few who do, the antibodies take years to evolve — far too long for them to effectively fight the virus. The immune system can’t keep up.

But what if the immune system could be given a head start? That’s the idea behind the Moderna/IAVI vaccine … The researchers will administer a series of shots to try to coax the immune system along that years-long process ahead of time so that when it is exposed to HIV, it can spring into action.”

Hiding Injuries or Manufacturing Need for Vaccine, or Both?

So, to recap, the media’s focus on AIDS testing and the emergence of a more infectious strain of HIV may well be a coordinated effort to both:

If true, just think how sick that is. A widely-pushed mRNA injection for one pandemic causes a second pandemic that is worse than the first, allowing them to roll out a second mRNA “vaccine.” That second injection then erodes immune function even more, giving rise to a third epidemic and another injection. Where does it end? This plan has failure written all over it.

When I first learned of the mRNA COVID jab, it immediately struck me as a bad idea. There were several blatantly obvious mechanisms by which they might cause harm. Today, those concerns are borne out in injury and death statistics. The possibility for things to go wrong with an mRNA HIV vaccine is also assured, if you ask me. As reported by Bloomberg, the entire premise behind it is speculative.

The Moderna HIV vaccine will target a certain subset of B-cells known to loosely bind to HIV. The idea is that by prodding these B-cells with mRNA instructions, delivered through a series of shots, they might develop the capacity to produce neutralizing antibodies against HIV.

My fear here is that if the COVID shot can cause immune depletion after repeated doses, what kind of dysfunction might a series of HIV shots trigger? Endless COVID-19 booster shots are being presented as the solution to the pandemic, as repeated injections increase the level of antibodies in your body,¹⁸ but artificially inflated antibodies caused by repeated booster shots signal to your body that you’re always infected.

The resulting immune response may actually do more harm than good, and may accelerate the development of autoimmune conditions such as Parkinson’s, Kawasaki disease and multiple sclerosis, for example.¹⁹ Will an HIV vaccine based on a similar process be any safer? I doubt it.

The Fauci Connection

As noted by James Corbett in the video at the top of this article, there’s another interesting parallel between COVID and AIDS, namely Dr. Anthony Fauci himself. He was in charge of both of these epidemics, and without doubt — unless our justice system wakes up before then — he’ll be in charge of the coming AIDS campaign as well.

The parallels between Fauci’s AIDS campaign in the ‘80s and COVID are so strikingly similar, it’s almost like a handbook that’s being repeated, Corbett says. In the ‘80s, Fauci pushed the deadly drug AZT as the only permissible way to treat AIDS. During the COVID pandemic, Fauci’s failed and lethal Ebola drug remdesivir got the greenlight at the expense of far safer treatment alternatives.

Fauci is also a connecting link between the COVID shots and the HIV jab, as he’s been eagerly pushing for a transition from conventional vaccines to this new mRNA platform. As recently as October 2019, he participated in a panel discussion about how this transition might be achieved in light of regulatory hurdles and public distrust of gene transfer technologies.²⁰

Fauci acknowledged it would indeed be very difficult to change people’s perception about vaccines (in this particular case he was referring to the flu vaccine). His advice? “Do it from within and say, ‘I don’t care what your perception is, we’re going to address the problem.’”

Not only does Fauci not care about public perception, he doesn’t care who he hurts either. He didn’t care about AIDS patients in the ‘80s, and he doesn’t care about COVID patients today. If he did, he’d insist on doctors using whatever works, and not just the products that he’s personally vested in.

HIV Discoverer Dies

An odd coincidence in the middle of all this is the unexpected death of Dr. Luc Montagnier, who together with Harald zur Hausen and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi in 2008 won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).²¹

Montagnier, who was 89 years old, died February 8, 2022, at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine. No specifics about the cause of death have been released.²² Montagnier was an outspoken critic of the COVID jab from the start. He also suspected SARS-CoV-2 was genetically engineered, as the spike protein shared similarities with HIV.²³

Is the AIDS Hype a Real Threat?

So, does the emerging AIDS hype reflect a real threat? Is it just an attempt to keep the population in fear? Or are they simply trying to cover up COVID jab effects? If it’s a cover-up, was HIV infection an accidental consequence or an intentional effect of the jab?

Might the new HIV variant actually be the result of mass COVID injection? After all, the timing of this “super strain” of HIV is interesting, to say the least. Why did it take 40 years for it to emerge?

Will HIV testing now be pushed the way COVID testing has been, and if so, why? As noted by Off-Guardian,²⁴ for all we know, AIDS screening may simply be another way of monitoring this massive health experiment. For now, we have far more questions than answers, but if we keep asking them, eventually we’re bound to unearth the truth.

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Notes

¹ Very Well Health December 10, 2021

² UKHSA December 1, 2021

³ Off-Guardian February 10, 2022

^4, 5 BBC February 10, 2022

^6, 8 Science February 3, 2022; 375(6580): 540-545

⁷ NPR February 4, 2022

^9, 13 Americas Frontline Doctors December 6, 2021

¹⁰ Euro News February 10, 2022

¹¹ Twitter February 11, 2022

¹² Lancet Preprint October 25, 2021

¹⁴ Daily Mail November 20, 2021

^15, 23, 24 Off-Guardian February 11, 2022

¹⁶ Top Universities April 26, 2021

¹⁷ Bloomberg February 4, 2022 (Archived)

¹⁸ mBIO December 7, 2021

¹⁹ Marc Girardot, COVID Myth Buster News January 30, 2021

²⁰ Rights and Freedoms October 7, 2021

²¹ Britannica Luc Montagnier

²² ABC News February 10, 2022

Featured image is from OffGuardian

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Western Media did not report that the population in Eastern Ukraine had been begging Vladimir Putin to send Russian troops to save them from American-backed invaders and Neo-Nazi militias

Russian forces launched “special military operations” in Ukraine on Thursday morning, including cruise and ballistic missile attacks targeting infrastructure near major cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and Dnipro, according to media reports.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said that he did not intend to occupy UKraine but wanted to “demilitarize and de-nazify Ukraine.”

U.S. President Joe Biden issued a written statement saying that Russia had chosen a “premeditated war that will bring catastrophic loss of life and human suffering,” adding that “the prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces.”

Biden’s assessment is wrong-headed if we consider that Russia has been repeatedly provoked–over the last eight years.

In February 2014, the U.S. supported the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanulovych after he spurned an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan that came with conditions detrimental to Ukraine.

Aerial view of Maidan square protests that resulted in Yanukovych’s ouster. [Source: nbcnews.com]

The U.S. has since provided extensive military aid and training to Ukrainian armed forces as they brutalized the people of Eastern Ukraine who voted to secede after the 2014 coup.

The U.S. has also applied extensive sanctions on Russia–tantamount to an act of war.

Biden’s claim that the Russian invasion was unprovoked is further undercut by the fact that Ukraine precipitated the war by attacking the breakaway eastern provinces in violation of the Minsk peace agreements.

Russia reported on Monday that it had captured a Ukrainian soldier and killed five others after they crossed into Russian territory in Rostov, just over the border with Ukraine. Several hundred American mercenaries were also reported to have arrived in Ukraine in the last week.

American mercenary in Donbass [Source: wprost.pl]

Photojournalist Patrick Lancaster provided photographic evidence of Ukrainian army shelling of a school in the Donbass earlier this week.

Lancaster’s report is corroborated by Organization For Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) maps, which show that shellings that violate ceasefire arrangements have indeed been carried out mostly by the Ukrainian government.

Source: consortiumnews.com

A resident of the Kyivsky district of the city of Donetsk whom Lancaster interviewed, Zoya Tumanova, said that the Ukrainians had shelled her village often since 2015 and burned half of it down. She asked Lancaster: “when will it end, when will Putin come? When will he come to save us?”

Tumanova’s viewpoint is completely absent from the U.S. media. It contradicts the official narrative of Vladimir Putin as a maniacal aggressor, leaving the impression that the people of Eastern Ukraine want Putin to send Russian troops to save them from the real aggressors.

A second-grade teacher at the school in Donetsk that was shelled, Marusina Ludmila, told Lancaster that she knew it was the Ukrainian army behind it because “they don’t let us live for eight years already; they have been shelling us constantly.”

Asked if Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky was telling the truth when he said that Ukraine did not shoot at civilians, she said:

“they always lie. We know it is them shelling because no one can but them—though I don’t know how they can do that to their own Ukrainian people, we used to live together and communicate.”

Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky at the front. [Source: unian.info]

Below is a commentary by Don Hank, a professional translator and Russian speaker who studied Russian language and literature at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and studied at Leningrad University in the early 1970s.

Ukraine shells schools in Donbass 

As I have shown before, based on numerous reports and videos on the seemingly senseless attacks on Donbass civilians and civilian infrastructure, there is more than one explanation for this phenomenon.

1—For one thing, since the U.S.-led West and U.S.-puppet regime in Kyiv have de facto very effectively censored most news reports about the atrocities of the Kyiv army and Neo-Nazi militias, there was never any chance that the average news consumer in the U.S.-controlled West could possibly have any knowledge about these atrocities. (Let me point out, however, that Putin, in his speech relating to the recognition of the Donbass republics, does point out that Kyiv has been constantly attacking innocent civilians in that region since 2014.)

Members of the Azov battalion in Kiev. [Source: vox.com]

This censorship served the insidious purpose of making the Western public think Russia is the source of all ills in Ukraine (and elsewhere) and that the U.S. was “supporting” Ukraine.

This despite the fact that the year after the U.S. invasion of the Maidan Square in Kyiv in 2014, Kyiv fell to the very last rank in GDP—becoming the poorest country in Europe! Only a skilled—though diabolical—news manipulation on a 24/7 basis could have portrayed good as evil and evil as good to such a complete degree.

Scene from Post-Maidan Kiev. [Source: rt.com]

The U.S. pressured the successive Kyiv regimes to cut all of the old lucrative business contracts with Russia and gradually shut down the Soviet-built factories, making Ukraine a debt slave of the IMF—now a permanent status.

See the link below to details on the Ukraine since 2014 that you are being denied by a U.S.-controlled Western press that systematically pushes an anti-Russia narrative with the ultimate aim of weakening Russia economically and politically in hopes of seeing it disintegrate to the level of the 1990s.

Censored details of Ukraine history since Feb 2014:

Now, should you be surprised that the U.S. Establishment would deceive you to this degree?

Yes and no.

A person with the skill and ambition to fight their way out of the government-imposed ignorance to which the West is subjected could, with a herculean effort of will, dig up all the information necessary to gain an objective overview of the numerous ways the U.S. Establishment has deceived its citizens time and time again since the 1800s for the purpose of wresting illicit gain from foreign countries and even from citizens of the U.S., and for the purpose of excusing inexcusable wars and sanctions on people who are absolutely not the enemies of the American people.

But if you don’t feel up to a Herculean effort of will, here is a rather complete catalog of deceptions in the msm that led to war or other disasters.

2—I have a sneaking suspicion that the Kyiv puppet regime has literally no control over the radical nationalists and Neo-Nazi militias that Kyiv has now foolishly integrated into its military.

Nazi symbol on Ukrainian soldier’s helmet [Source: nbcnews.com]

While it is clear that Biden wants war in Ukraine so bad he can taste it, though it is not in the interests of Kyiv to escalate the Ukrainian attacks on civilians.

Yet there is no let up. The attacks are escalating, even in the face of a potential major retaliatory offensive by Russia.

I had read at one time that the Ukrainian central government, if it can be called that, has no control over the radical elements and that the war has a mind of its own.

If that is the case, then of course we are going to witness this kind of insanity and at some point, Putin will give the order and put an end to it.

Putin signing decree recognizing Luhansk and Donetsk on Monday [Source: consortiumnews.com]

Of course, at the same time, this escalation is to the Biden regime’s benefit, so we have two possibilities:

1—The puppeteers in Washington are behind this escalation, which provides a distraction from the abysmal performance of this White House and all the irremediable problems with the economy and the rampant fuel prices, and

2—the crazy Neo-Nazis are acting on their own.

Or both.

***

So what will be the consequences of the sanctions that the U.S. is imposing?

Well, we can safely predict that gas prices will go through the roof now that brain dead Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced he was suspending the certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Dmitry Mdvedev, Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council, tweeted:

“German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ordered to halt the certification of the Nord Stream 2. Well, welcome to the new world where Europeans will soon pay 2,000 euros per thousand cubic meters of gas.”

And for those who are awaiting the glorious day when “green” and “clean” energy makes Russian gas superfluous, here is a little cold water for you:

It turns out that green energy without nuclear (which Germany renounced years ago) simply cannot replace fossil fuel. It’s too expensive. And so what do the incompetents in Europe do about that?

They set themselves up for economic Armageddon.

*

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Don Hank is a professional translator and Russian speaker living now in Panama who studied Russian language and literature at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and studied at Leningrad University in the early 1970s. Don can be reached at [email protected].

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***

 

Had Russia submitted to the US’ attempted nuclear blackmail, Washington would have immediately set its sights on China, after which it would have restored its declining unipolar hegemony over the planet if it subsequently succeeded in strategically neutralizing that country too.

The author warned earlier this week that “Kiev Must Withdraw From Donetsk & Lugansk If It Truly Wants To Avert War”, pointing out that Moscow will decisively support its newfound Donbass allies with military means in order to ensure the security of their civilian populations if Ukraine kept up its unprovoked genocidal offensive against them. Regrettably, the US failed to rein in its Eastern European proxy army, which prompted Russia to commence its ongoing special operation in Ukraine.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya articulated the reasons behind President Putin’s decision earlier this morning. Accusing the US-led West of exploiting the Donbass people as a “bargaining chip in the geopolitical game that seeks to weaken Russia and bring NATO closer to our borders”, he slammed their double standard towards the same humanitarian rights that they hitherto claimed to hold sacred, albeit only whenever saying such advances their own geostrategic objectives.

Kiev’s continued refusal to implement the UNSC-backed Minsk Accords directly provoked Moscow’s decisive intervention into the rest of Ukraine that Russia still recognizes as falling with that government’s writ. To be exact, the Kremlin actually believes that the Ukrainian government doesn’t even exercise practical sovereignty anymore upon being taken over by the US after 2014’s coup that followed the months-long spree of urban terrorism popularly known as “EuroMaidan”.

Semantics aside, the ongoing operation is aimed at forcing the US-backed Ukrainian post-coup authorities to return to their pre-regime change peaceful policies towards their own people, Russia, and the rest of the region. President Putin’s address to the nation Thursday morning stated his country’s goals as ensuring that country’s demilitarization, denazification, and to bring to justice those who carried out crimes against civilians, including against Russian citizens.

The larger context in which this is occurring is the undeclared US-provoked missile crisis in Europe that was initiated by Washington’s desire to neutralize Moscow’s nuclear second-strike capabilities so as to perpetually place it in a position of nuclear blackmail. President Putin earlier elaborated on these very credible concerns during his 21 December “Expanded Meeting Of The Defense Ministry Board” as well as 21 February’s “Security Council Meeting” and subsequent address to the nation later that evening.

The end goal is to revise the European security architecture through military means in the absence of the US-led West’s failure to respect Russia’s security guarantee requests so as to make it more amenable to Moscow’s national security interests. This is in accordance with the OSCE’s principle of indivisible security that’s been violated over the decades by NATO’s eastward expansion at its expense. That’s the only outcome that can restore the strategic security stability that the US undermined.

Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s highly influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, published a very detailed analytical piece at RT on Wednesday titled “Russia’s New Foreign Policy, The Putin Doctrine”. All interested readers are very strongly encouraged to read it in full since it’s akin to Russia’s 21^st-century version of Kennan’s “Long Telegram” in the sense that it meticulously describes Moscow’s intended means for sustainably containing US-led threats to its national security.

Observers should remember that it didn’t have to come to this but that Russia literally had no choice lest it eventually end up blackmailed by the US through nuclear means. President Putin hinted at this in his cited event from 21 December when he admitted that “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometres away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to.”

With “nowhere further to retreat” and the US refusing to resort to the diplomatic means proposed by Russia for resolving that missile crisis that America itself initiated, it was obvious in hindsight that Moscow would be compelled to act through the same military-technical means that it vaguely warned about earlier in order to ensure the integrity of its national security red lines. This fact confirms the legitimacy of President Putin’s reference to Article 51 of the UN Charter for justifying his operation.

Those who truly support the inherent democratic right of all states to govern and develop themselves according to however their internationally recognized leaders deem fit, as well as to defensively ensure their national security in the face of unprovoked foreign threats, should therefore support Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. Moscow’s aims aren’t to further destabilize the world but to finally restore stability to it after Washington unilaterally undermined the strategic state of affairs.

The Eurasian Great Power is employing its international legal right to self-defense, not only in protection of its own national security red lines and the humanitarian interests of the Donbass people, but also for the sake of the entire world. Had Russia submitted to the US’ attempted nuclear blackmail, Washington would have immediately set its sights on China, after which it would have restored its declining unipolar hegemony over the planet if it subsequently succeeded in strategically neutralizing that country too.

For these reasons, Russia’s cause is just and fully in line with the spirit of the UN Charter that officially decrees the equality of nations and the inadmissibility of one such as the US allegedly ensuring its own security at anyone else’s expense like Russia’s (and China’s for that matter too). Moscow isn’t a so-called “revisionist power”, Washington is, as all that Russia wants to do is return to the international order enshrined by the UN and earlier agreed to by the US itself at that time as well.

It was solely the US’ globally destabilizing pursuit of unipolar hegemony following the USSR’s dissolution at the end of the Old Cold War that resulted in everything reaching the dire point that it’s presently at. America is therefore unquestionably the truly revisionist power that it’s deceitfully attempted to gaslight the world into thinking that Russia is through its global network of “perception managers”. The impending success of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine will therefore restore stability to the world.

*

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SouthFront

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***

Would it be fair to say that the Triumph of the Beast is the dictatorial takeover of the world by the doctrines of the World Economic Forum? Has the WEF been designed by the Masters that Be to invoke worldwide Apocalypse?

The Triumph of the Beast is, or would be – if we, The People, let it happen – a full Reset of our mostly western, over-indebted, over-extended, run out-of-control financial system. It concerns mostly the dollar- and euro-based economies. The financial reset and a new Global World Order would imply three major objectives:

• A massive reduction of the world’s population, again, primarily and in a first step, the western population or Global North – many or most of them are considered by the ruling elite, “useless eaters and consumers”. Around the mid-1960s, the world’s total consumption of natural resources exceeded the factor “1” (one) of what Mother Earth is generally providing.

This over-consumption reaches today, in the early 2020s, factors 3.5 to 4.5 between Europe and the US of Mother Nature’s offerings. This refers not just to food – which, after all, is a renewable resource — but primarily to non-renewable resources, one of which is hydrocarbon. Fossil fuels in mid-2020 (the year of the COVID lockdown) accounted for 84% (87% in 2019) of all energy used worldwide. An increase of 4% was projected for 2021.

On food: As an example, Eurostat (2018) reports that in the EU about 88 million tons of food waste are generated per year, at a cost of about 143 billion euros. This corresponds to about 20% of total food produced. According to FAO, worldwide approximately a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted – see this.

• A huge shift of capital and assets are transferred from the bottom and the middle class (mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises) to the top. According to Forbes, 2021 accounted for 2,755 billionaires worldwide, an increase of 660 new ones over 2020. Altogether these billionaires are worth $13.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion in 2020. These gains include increased share values – see this.
• Digitization of everything – including the human brain – converting humans into transhumans (Klaus Schwab). But foremost full-digitization of money which gives governments full control over your – the people’s — money. Governments or those of the planned Global Government may seize your bank account, whenever they find a reason for punishing a disobedient citizen.

This is what Klaus Schwab (WEF) calls “Governance 4.0”, congruent with what he also calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution. All-digitization allows for full control of everything. Despite all the widely propagated, so-called loosening of COVID restrictions, there are already quietly put EU laws in place which would require full vaccination of every EU citizen (EU Resolution 2361) – and an all-encompassing digital ID, without which citizens cannot move.

Similar actions are envisaged in the US. However, resistance there by the public and especially by State Governors – see especially Texas and Florida – has been greater than in Europe. And this despite President Biden’s constant pressure for “universal vaccination”. Also, US court interventions, including by the Supreme Court, have so far on several occasions sided with the people.

These digital IDs, Bill Gates’ invention Agenda ID2020, will most likely come in the form of QR codes. The QR code will also be used for making electronic / digital payments and has virtually unlimited capacity of storing information, about your health, bank accounts and other properties, consumption, habits, travels – literally, every step you take will be recorded. See also this.

The completion of this three-step – or triple-objective – agenda is the Real Goal of UN Agenda 2030. The so-called UN Development Goals, euphemistically called UN Agenda 2030, are nothing but an unrealistic smoke-screen.

As said above, if we, the People, won’t let it happen – with spiritual will-power and foremost NO FEAR – this nefarious agenda will not come to fruition.

An Alternative

Yes, a reduction of resources wasted and excessively used, is absolutely necessary. But not to be imposed by a turbo-neoliberal financial elite, WEF-style.

Also, according to FAO, there is currently, with 2020 technologies, enough food-producing capacity available in the world to nourish 12 billion people. Capacity will increase as new technologies are developed. Inequality, poverty and famine have to do with profit-seeking food-price speculation, with a failing or inappropriate distribution system and largely with greed of the ruling classes, that prefer hoarding food for “better times”, causing shortages and famine. And now, to stress the point of “shortages”, with artificially interrupted or destroyed supply chains.

To gain back our autonomy and sovereign lives, We, the People, must take consciousness, must wake up from our comfort slumber, see through the COVID pandemic scam – and take matters into our own hands and minds. That means – without delay:

• Radical deglobalization
• Back to sovereign nations
• Radical de-digitization of banking, finances and monetary systems
• Back to economy-based and supported sovereign currencies
• Respecting cultural differences
• International trading and cooperation according to comparative advantages – an economic principle that gradually died with the onslaught of global, neoliberal capitalism of the 1980s – to achieve to the maximum possible “win-win” situations.

If it sounds impossible to achieve – think again.

Think back three quarters of a century, after WWII in the 1950s, when we rebuilt the war-devastated world. With the onset of the slowly and gradually US secret services imposed global ideology of the Club of Rome, of a united one government, one currency federation of multi-cultural European countries beginning in the mid-sixties European nations’ sovereignty and independence gradually melted away. This was never a European idea, but sold to and then nurtured by corrupt European colonialist “leaders” (sic).

Yes, we the People can do it; can regain our sovereign independence and peoples’ values. Absolutely without Klaus Schwab in any form or shape, and without the WEF.

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In this Dark Cult language, the Triumph of the Beast would be preceded by the Mark of the Beast. Would that be the fake “vaccine” – the instrument that brings about death and destruction? And eventually the infamous Triumph of the Beast?

There is no doubt, what is happening to humankind and even to Mother Earth, is the deed of a diabolical cult. As one of such cults’ rules, in order to succeed, they must disclose to the public – to their chosen and potential victims – what they intend to do. For decades they have complied with this rule. But, we the people didn’t see it, didn’t believe it, or were too complacent and blind in our comfort to see it.

This planned and aspired world domination by a super-rich and a super-sick elite has started decades ago, at least since WWII, probably earlier. While we could go back much further, this is just to mention a few of these open warnings within the last couple of decades.

• The 2010 Rockefeller Report. It outlined in four simple steps and chapters what was planned and what would be the end-result. Starting with the “Lockstep” phase, where people would be stunned, shocked, isolated and made fearful and totally submissive to authorities (à la Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”), from things not visible including an invisible – and never isolated – virus, all the way to the final phase of full digitization and total control.
• Bill Gates’ February 2010 TedTalk, “Innovating to Zero” in which he infamously said: “If we are really doing a good job [vaccinating], we could reduce the world population by between 10% and 15%” (about minute four of the video).
• The June 2016 (Swiss) Gotthard Base Tunnel Opening Ceremony, depicting a Luciferian ceremony beginning with a Lockstep scenario and ending with the total submission of the people. It was attended mostly by European politicians in lead positions – and, in hindsight, many of those who attended went to Klaus Schwab’s “academy” for Young Global Leaders. See this 6-minute video clip.

• Event 201 – An open simulation of the COVID plandemic that was to come, on 18 October 2019 in NYC, organized by The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The event depicted a high-level pandemic exercise with participants from the World Bank, IMF, various agencies of the UN system, including WHO and UNICEF and many more, illustrating “areas where public / private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.” For more details and video clips, see this.

The rest is history. In the meantime we know how large-scale economic and societal consequences were avoided or diminished. To the contrary, they were intended to hit the population as severely as possible, to cause utmost shock, fear, financial, physical and emotional damage.

The Role of the Financial Giants

They – the masters behind the WEF and above all 193 UN member countries, the collective trillionaires of this world and their (so far) all-commanding financial institutions like, BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Fidelity — are advancing at relentless pace on several fronts and in several dimensions.

These financial giants are largely inter-woven through mutual shareholderships and inter-changeable management positions. Together, they control some US$ 20 to 25 trillion of assets, giving them a leverage power in excess of 100 trillion dollars (the world’s 2021 GDP US$ 95 trillion, IMF estimate – see this).

With such powers it is possible to coerce, force, or blackmail everyone nation of the 193 UN members to chant and act to the tune of Big Finance, whether or not they agree with the root purpose of such coercion. Hence, WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020.

As we know by now, a lockdown and plandemic and all the repressive covid measures, that have nothing, but nothing to do with health, but only with the ulterior goal of installing a global One World Government with absolute and total control over everything, including all surviving citizens, In fact, making those citizens into digitally manipulable transhumans, modern slaves that own nothing but are happy (Klaus Schwab – The Great Reset).

This agenda is advancing despite people’s protests throughout the globe, and despite the “fake” loosening of covid restrictions throughout the world, predominantly the western world.

Warning

With almost all covid restrictions lifted in the western world, be aware and conscious, not to fall into the trap of illusions, that all is over now and that we are back to “normal”. This thought would be fatal. It is part of an ongoing psychological warfare. It’s a strategy to shock you again into submission, to clamp down even further in the fall, or before.

If We, the People, let it happen.

We are just entering Phase 6 of the Great Reset – full digitization: Agenda ID2020, fully integrated into the QR codification of everything, digital money – towards total and absolute control – and transhumanism.

Precursors to the final blow may be artificially produced inflation (in the US already 7% [end January 2022], expected to move into double-digits by fall 2022, or before), rising interest rates, further rising debt driven by all the COVID-induced subsidies, more “new” money put in circulation  without any economic backing – all to be “balanced” and “resolved” by a (sudden) debt-wipe-out and introduction of digital money, over which governments and banks have full control on behalf of the world financial elite.

But again, only if We, the People, let it happen.

And be prepared – NOT SCARED – as part of the renewed socio-psychological fear domination, possibly the application of the “shock doctrine” through a serious disease, like Ebola, tested in West Africa in 2014. Earlier this year, French Prime Minister Jean Castex, warned of possibly postponing France’s Presidential election in April 2022, due to a possible outbreak of Marburg (Ebola) disease. Any reference to this statement has disappeared from internet. It may have been simply a fearmongering remark.

Whatever may happen, we may expect more forced “vaxxing”, more experimental “gene-therapy”, many more deaths before closure of Agenda 2030.

Nothing is beyond evil, for these un-people.

But there is nothing that cannot be successfully fought, if We the People, collectively and solidarily put our minds, conscience and spirits together.

It is never too late, in fact it is high time, to step up protests, to step up our conscious rejection of this monster tyranny that is descending on Mother Earth, threatening full annihilation of whatever democracy was left, of humanity, or at least of civilization as we know it.

We cannot idle. Time is precious and is of the essence.

If anyone still doubts that we are in the fangs of a worldwide drive towards a One World Order, a Global Government led by extraordinary financial interests, but also by a cult of power-thirsty megalomaniacs, then think again. The world is in deep trouble. If anything “globalist” has to happen, it is a global awakening. Fast.

What is occurring at ever accelerating pace, is the establishment of a global tyranny; a tyranny directed and led by the World Economic Forum. It is obvious that the financial elite and the all-controlling top financial institutions, such as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Fidelity, plus some obscure multi-multi billionaires, are calling the shots. The WEF complies with an agenda well and by long-hand prepared – we are talking decades – implementing this nefarious, diabolical plan which also goes under the anodyne name of UN Agenda 2030.

The WEF’s Trained Global Leaders

Canada may be the beginning of absolute totalitarianism. The first WEF-led tyranny. Canada may well be an example for others to follow. Especially those countries for which the WEF selected its WEF-trained leaders.

For three decade the WEF has been “educating” young promising politicians, artists, industrialists (Volkswagen, the Coca Cola Company, BP Amoco and more) – but foremost politicians – to become so-called “Young Global Leaders” (YGL). Among those that went to Klaus Schwab’s YGL-academy, were Angela Merkel, Germany; Sarkozy, Macron, France; Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister, New Zealand; Scott Morrison, PM, Australia – and many more. But outstanding is Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister – see this.

Klaus Schwab singled Trudeau out as a “model” leader who will show the world how a country can be turned into a modern “democracy” – in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and in an all-digitized New World Order, as depicted by the Great Reset (Schwab). In other words, Trudeau will lead Canada not in favor of and for the benefits of the Canadian people, but for the global objectives of the WEF.

Trudeau is an instrument of the WEF. To strengthen the ties with the WEF, Trudeau is assisted by Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, who is also on the WEF’s Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees serves as the guardian of the World Economic Forum’s mission and values – see this.

Prime Minister Trudeau has recently invoked the Emergency Act, against the truckers’ protest and freedom convoys, actually for reasons that have nothing to do with what the Canadian Constitution specifies as reasons for invoking this totalitarian act. But so far nobody has stopped him. A majority of the Parliament supported this Emergency Measure against the people’s interest. The leader of the NDP who secured the vote in favour of the Liberal Government is also a WEF Global Leader.

You may just imagine what kind of corruption, coercion or outright blackmail and threats are in play to achieve such tyranny.

Incidentally, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (EC), is also a member of the WEF’s Board of Trustees, see this.

Just to show, the WEF is also in charge of the European Union. Who would have thought…?

However, the Canadian experience empowered hundreds of thousands, or millions of people across the world to stand up to their own governments and demand their freedoms be restored. Citizens in New Zealand, Australia, across Europe, and North America, after nearly two years, tolerating massive government encroachment into nearly every aspect of their lives, and after seeing how these policies were not effective at reducing the spread of COVID, finally had enough.

We shall overcome!

Venceremos!

Collectively in Solidarity.

*

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

He is also is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

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***

 

On February 23, a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces crossed the Seversky Donets and with artillery support attacked the heights near Nikolayevka. They dislodged local militia fighters there and attempted to entrench themselves but were subjected to strong retaliation. Tanks from Luhansk supported by artillery soon counterattacked. As a result, the UAF unit was eventually repulsed despite their early success in taking the high ground. Frontline casualty assessment alleges 9 UAF soldiers killed.

There are additional reports of electronic warfare (EW) actively being employed. Impending disruptions to cellular and internet communications are expected. As of 01:10 local time cellular communications failure has been reported in Donetsk. Massive EW suppression of UAF military positions is currently underway. According to media outlet Russia 24, the UAF are engaged in massive artillery bombardment of militia defensive positions all along the front line. Explosions and small arms fire can be heard.

It is reported that 10 Bayraktar UCAVs have departed from the Kheinitsky aerodrome, presumably headed eastward. The International airports located at Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporozhye have been closed for all arriving and departing flights until 08:35 local time on February 24^th. The runways have been physically blocked with vehicles in an attempt to prevent fixed wing air assault operations. The airport in Kherson is also preparing to halt all air traffic according to Ukrainian media.

Mayor Klitschko of Kiev has declared a state of emergency in the city and has established an operational coordination headquarters.

The Russian Armed Forces have declared a “No-Fly Zone” for all civil aviation encompassing the airspace along the northeastern border with Ukraine. A warning to this effect has been issued.

Russian Armed Forces vehicles and heavy equipment are advancing toward the front lines in the city of Donetsk.

At 03:00 local time, heavy artillery, Grad and Uragan MLRS batteries of the UAF have been bombarding civilian infrastructure in an attempt to destroy as much of this infrastructure as possible prior to the arrival of advanced Russian units deployed to the LOC.

Two Turkish military transport aircraft are currently enroute to Odessa.

What is currently unfolding now are the direct result of the developments that occurred over the preceding 48 hours following Russia’s formal recognition of the two breakaway republics of the DPR and LPR as sovereign, independent nations.

When it became apparent that Western sanctions that followed failed to meet the promised level; of “Sanctions from Hell” as promised, the UAF began bombarding the territories east of the LOC in increasing intensity. This military escalation intensified against the backdrop of contradictory statements by Russian Foreign Ministry officials which began at approximately noon on February 22. Russian President Vladimir Putin later delivered a statement unequivocally clarifying the official Russian position regarding the sovereign borders of the two republics and the nature of the new treaties.

The tempo of bombardment on the part of the UAF then intensified up until the late evening and early morning hours of February 23. By the afternoon of that same day, units of the UAF attempted to breakthrough the front in several locations with the assistance of preparatory artillery bombardment with some success. This occurred prior to Russian military units being able to advance to defensive positions. By the early evening, the Ukrainian forces that has attempted to entrench themselves were dislodged and forced to retreat, apparently with the assistance of advanced Russian military units. Following these events, Ukrainian president Zelensky addressed the nation and enacted the closure of a number of airports as described.

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***

The morning of February 24 was marked by a statement by Russian President V. Putin on the provision of military assistance to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. The decision was made following the demands of the DPR and the LPR for military support.

The main objectives outlined by the President are the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine and the protection of civilians in the DPR and LPR.

At the moment, the situation indicates a military operation by the Russian Army. The territory enshrined in the constitutions of the DPR and LPR is being liberated from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The main strikes are carried out against military infrastructure located on the territory occupied by the Ukrainian army. Importantly, Russian weapons are not striking civilian infrastructure.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian Armed Forces took out the military aviation and air defense infrastructure of Ukraine.

Two Su-24s of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were shot down near the villages of Smeloye and Stepovoye. According to the LPR People’s Militia.

So far, military facilities near major Ukrainian cities of Mariupol, Berdyansk, Zaporizhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Odessa, Zhytomyr, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernihiv have been destroyed. The UAF facilities near the Ukrainian capital were also knocked out.

The following video shows the damage in the air defence military base in Mariupol:

The Romanian Air Force intercepted and grounded a Ukrainian Su-27 that had fled from the scene of hostilities.

Armed forces of the DPR and LPR are advancing toward the republics’ borders with Ukraine. Such settlements as Schastye, Stanytsia Luhanska, and Lopaskino have now been liberated from occupation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Many UAF military formations have been pushed back from their positions. The staff of the 53rd Brigade is withdrawing from Volnovakha and hastily leaving the city to the opposite side of the line of contact.

The Ukrainian military are fleeing and crushing civilian vehicles with equipment.

According to LPR intelligence, it is noted that UAF fighters all along the line of contact refuse to follow orders from the command and leave their forward positions. According to the DPR, the headquarters of Ukraine’s United Forces operation in Donbass has been destroyed.

Some Ukrainian soldiers surrender. For example, video shows the positions of the 53rd and 57th brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

A military column of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed on the border with Crimea.

The Russian army is advancing in the South of Ukraine. The Russian military columns were spotted near the towns of Genichesk, Novaya Kahovka and throughout the Kherson region. Earlier, the Russian Special Forces were deployed there.

It is reported that the UAF recaptured one of the roads near Kharkov. First casualties in Russian ranks were reported.

At least one Russian helicopter Ka-52 was shot down from a Stinger MANPADS in Gostomil.

At the moment, a military column with no identification marks is passing through the town of Brovary, heading towards Kiev.

Russian fighter jets are flying over Kiev.

Russian helicopters over Vyshgorod, to the north of Kiev:

NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg claimed that the Alliance is not going to deploy its forces in Ukraine, or close the Bosphorus for Russian ships.

Unfortunately, according to reports from pro-Russian media, there are is panic among the Ukrainian civilians. People are leaving for the western parts of the country. From there, some are on their way to EU territory. There is also information about the direction of the flow of civilians by the military. According to experts, the military may use civilians as a shield against Russian strikes.

According to information provided by both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian media, including Telegram channels, the main target of the Russian army will be the main functionaries of Ukrainian Nazi groups and movements.

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Incisive geo-political analysis

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

***

Western media agencies are in shock with the events that took place in Ukraine in the last 24 hours. Operations carried out by Moscow against military targets with the aim of neutralizing Ukrainian aggression are causing scandal, motivating international pressure through repudiation and severe financial sanctions. However, the issue has been analyzed from an extremely superficial point of view, with Russia being treated as an “aggressive dictatorship” and Ukraine as a “victimized democracy”, which does not correspond to the reality of the facts.

What the West had been eagerly waiting for has finally happened: Russia has hit targets inside Ukrainian territory. For Kiev and its allies, this would be an “invasion”. For any minimally rational and neutral analyst, it is just a war, in the purest sense of the term. For the past eight years, the war in Donbass has been seen by Moscow as a civil conflict, within the exclusive competence of the Ukrainian state. Russia has respected Ukrainian sovereignty throughout this time, demanding only the observance of the Minsk Accords and an end to the indiscriminate killing of the ethnically Russian population in the east. However, the continuity of the Ukrainian aggression led the Russian government to recognize Lugansk and Donetsk as countries, which absolutely changes the way of interpreting the conflict: it is no longer a civil war, but a war between different national states.

With that, Russia started a peacekeeping mission in order to protect the people of Donbass. Considering that Ukraine is the aggressor state in this war, pacifying the Donbass means, collaterally, fighting the Ukrainian armed forces and their allied paramilitary militias. So, in practice, the peacekeeping mission/humanitarian intervention carried out by Moscow implies a war against Ukraine – not because Russia wants such a war, but because it is Ukraine that attacks the sovereign republics of Donbass.

As well known, in every war there are attacks. Strategic targets are hit in an attempt to neutralize the opposing side and guarantee the victory. As there is a war between Ukraine and the Republics, there is the possibility of attacks by Lugansk and Donetsk against Ukrainian territory (in the same way that Kiev attacks Donbass almost daily for eight years). In the same sense, as Russia maintains a peacekeeping mission in defense of the republics, occasional attacks against strategic targets on Ukrainian soil are normal and expected.

What is happening this Thursday, February 24, is an occasional attack by Russia against important targets in some Ukrainian cities. Strategic bases of the Ukrainian armed forces and neo-Nazi pro-Maidan militias, which are actively engaged in the ethnic genocide in Donbass, are being neutralized. No civilian targets are being targeted and collateral damage to Ukrainian society is virtually non-existent.

Obviously, Kiev and the West are reacting very negatively. Zelesnky decreed martial law, called up reservists and veterans to enlistment, and began distributing weapons to the civilian population. The US, UK, EU, Australia and all pro-NATO governments condemned the attacks and announced financial sanctions on Moscow, but Joe Biden made it clear that there will be no intervention by the Western military alliance in the conflict, promising Zelesnky only “his prayers” in this moment. NATO troops are being deployed to Eastern Europe just to ensure that war does not reach the member countries of the alliance, keeping Ukraine out of the Western umbrella, as so many analysts had predicted.

The most rational position among all state pronouncements was the Chinese one. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Beijing stated the obvious truth that the West does not want to admit: there is no Russian invasion in Ukraine. Attacks do not necessarily constitute invasion. Attacks are violent measures of aggression or reaction, while invasion is the first phase of an occupation process. Invasions can occur through attacks, but they can also occur through peaceful, legal and institutional means. Moscow has already stated that the attacks are occasional and against specific targets, with no possibility of occupation, so there is no invasion underway.

In fact, Russia plans to neutralize the Ukrainian military infrastructure in order for the violence in the Donbass to be stopped. This is a measure of war, because there is a humanitarian intervention going on and humanitarian interventions configure wars. In wars there are attacks – and that is what is happening now.

NATO has assured that it will not intervene – and mere financial sanctions do not prevent wars. Zelensky needs to consider all these factors to act rationally, prioritizing the well-being of his own people over the neo-fascist pride that prevails in current Ukrainian nationalism.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

Featured image is from marketwatch.com

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***

California lawmakers want COVID vaccine mandates for all K-12 students and the right to “discipline” doctors who step outside public policy guidelines for treating COVID patients. But other states, including New Hampshire and Kansas, are eying legislation designed to protect physicians who prescribe drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court last month blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for large employers and allowed the mandate for healthcare workers to stand, all eyes were on the feds when it came to COVID-related policies.

But state lawmakers also have been busy drafting bills in an effort to shape COVID policies closer to home.

The California Assembly, for example, introduced over the past six months a flurry of bills designed to strengthen vaccination mandates and regulate treatment options for patients.

For example, Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) last month introduced legislation proposing COVID vaccine mandates for all K-12 students in California schools.

And this month, Assembly Member Evan Low (D-Campbell) introduced legislation (AB 2098) that, according to the Los Angeles Times, would “make it easier for the Medical Board of California to discipline doctors who promote COVID-19 misinformation by classifying it as unprofessional conduct.”

The bill defines “unprofessional conduct” as any action a physician or surgeon takes “to disseminate or promote misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”

Under the bill, disciplinary action could be brought against a physician for disseminating information that “resulted in an individual declining opportunities for COVID-19 treatment or prevention that was not justified by the individual’s medical history or condition.”

Additionally, doctors could be disciplined for “misinformation or disinformation” that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to an extent where its dissemination constitutes gross negligence” by the physician.

Commenting on the criteria, Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert in epidemiology and vaccine injury and member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee, said:

“I think this is clearly an attempt to legislate that the government of California or the Medical Board of California will define what is truth and what is misinformation, and medical providers will have to follow lockstep with that definition.

“This, of course, is the same thing as the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s “1984,” and if the California legislature actually votes for this bill, the intent of the  action will be to enforce a one and only truth.

“Nowhere does this legislature define what is misinformation and disinformation. They do talk about contemporary scientific consensus but as we know in the last two years, the so-called scientific consensus — or the public health agency consensus — on masks, on vaccination, on boosters, etc. has flip-flopped all over the place. So we have adequate examples that the concept of “contemporary scientific consensus” is basically meaningless in this context.”

Contrary to typical board practice, under AB 2098, physicians could also be disciplined for public speech, including social media posts, unrelated to the actual treatment of patients.

Supporters of Low’s bill insist the legislation does not impinge on doctors’ freedom of speech.

“This isn’t a call for a policing of free speech,” Nick Sawyer, an emergency room doctor who founded a group called No License for Disinformation, told the LA Times. “This is a call for protecting the public against dangerous misinformation, which patients are parroting back to us in our emergency room departments every day.”

Nass disagreed:

“The result is removing options from doctors and patients. And the longer-term consequence is that doctors will become irrelevant if they are not needed to assess each individual’s personal risks and benefits from each type of medical care.

“The government and its partners in the healthcare industries can simply prescribe one-size-fits-all healthcare for everyone.”

Low’s bill, introduced as part of a larger effort by a group of Democratic state legislators to strengthen vaccination laws, set off a contentious debate over how far the state should go in pursuing COVID mandates.

Other COVID-related bills introduced in California include:

• Assembly Bill 1993, authored by Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), would require employees and independent contractors to be vaccinated against COVID as a condition of employment unless they have an exemption based on a medical condition, disability or religious beliefs.
• Assembly Bill 1797, introduced by Akilah Weber (D-San Diego), allows California school officials to more easily check student vaccine records by expanding access to a statewide immunization database.
• Senate Bill 866, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would let children 12 and older be vaccinated without parental consent.

Other states pursue efforts to support alternative treatments

In contrast to California, several state legislatures are moving to provide legal support for off-label prescriptions and alternative approaches supported by physicians.

In New Hampshire, legislators last month held public hearings on a bill that would allow for over-the-counter dissemination of ivermectin at pharmacies, provided certain treatment plan requirements were met.

New Hampshire HB 1022 would permit pharmacists to dispense the ivermectin by means of a standing order entered into by licensed healthcare professionals.

Sponsors of the bill argued many healthcare workers are unable to prescribe ivermectin, either because of hospital politics or outside professional pressures.

The bill has support from Dr. Paul Marik, who traveled from Virginia to testify at the public hearing.

A former professor of medicine and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, Marik sued the hospital he worked for after it banned physicians from prescribing ivermectin for COVID patients.

Marik resigned late last year in protest of the ban.

During his testimony in New Hampshire, Marik described ivermectin as “cheap, exceedingly safe and exceedingly effective.”

“If ivermectin had been promoted at the beginning of this pandemic, we would not be sitting here today,” Marik said.

Kansas lawmakers last month advanced a bill supporting the prescribing of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. The model legislation, also introduced in Tennessee, would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for the off-label use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

In direct contrast to the California legislation, the Kansas bill also would mandate that doctors not be subject to disciplinary action for any “recommendation, prescription, use or opinion … related to a treatment for COVID-19, including a treatment that is not recommended or regulated by the licensing board,” Kansas Department of Health and Environment or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“Such actions,” the bill states, “could not be considered unprofessional conduct.”

Kansas lawmaker Sen. Mark Steffen (R-Hutchinson) supports the bill. Steffen, an anesthesiologist, said he’s under investigation by the University of Kansas Health System with which he is affiliated for prescribing ivermectin to COVID patients.

Dr. Festus Krebs III, a physician representing the Catholic Medical Association of Kansas City, also spoke in favor of the bill:

“With ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, we now have 76 ivermectin COVID-19 controlled studies which show 66 percent overall improvement and 57 percent decreased mortality.”

Meanwhile, in Florida, legislation that would extend protection for hospitals against patient lawsuits over COVID care sits on the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, awaiting signature or a veto.

And in New York, the state’s comptroller — citing the investment of the state’s public pension plan in Spotify — sent a letter to the company asking it to increase its screening of “misinformation” on their platform.

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David Charbonneau, Ph.D. is a fellow for The Defender.

Featured image is from CHD

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***

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison

War is the enemy of freedom.

As long as America’s politicians continue to involve us in wars that bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse, “we the people” will find ourselves in a perpetual state of tyranny.

It’s time for the U.S. government to stop policing the globe.

This latest crisis—America’s part in the showdown between Russia and the Ukraine—has conveniently followed on the heels of a long line of other crises, manufactured or otherwise, which have occurred like clockwork in order to keep Americans distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the government’s steady encroachments on our freedoms.

And so it continues in its Orwellian fashion.

Two years after COVID-19 shifted the world into a state of global authoritarianism, just as the people’s tolerance for heavy-handed mandates seems to have finally worn thin, we are being prepped for the next distraction and the next drain on our economy.

Yet policing the globe and waging endless wars abroad isn’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, it’s certainly not making America great again, and it’s undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.

Indeed, even if we were to put an end to all of the government’s military meddling and bring all of the troops home today, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government’s creditors off our backs.

War has become a huge money-making venture, and the U.S. government, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers.

What most Americans—brainwashed into believing that patriotism means supporting the war machine—fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with propping up a military industrial complex that continues to dominate, dictate and shape almost every aspect of our lives.

Consider: We are a military culture engaged in continuous warfare. We have been a nation at war for most of our existence. We are a nation that makes a living from killing through defense contracts, weapons manufacturing and endless wars.

We are also being fed a steady diet of violence through our entertainment, news and politics.

All of the military equipment featured in blockbuster movies is provided—at taxpayer expense—in exchange for carefully placed promotional spots.

Back when I was a boy growing up in the 1950s, almost every classic sci fi movie ended with the heroic American military saving the day, whether it was battle tanks in Invaders from Mars (1953) or military roadblocks in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

What I didn’t know then as a schoolboy was the extent to which the Pentagon was paying to be cast as America’s savior. By the time my own kids were growing up, it was Jerry Bruckheimer’s blockbuster film Top Gun—created with Pentagon assistance and equipment—that boosted civic pride in the military.

Now it’s my grandkids’ turn to be awed and overwhelmed by child-focused military propaganda. Don’t even get me started on the war propaganda churned out by the toymakers. Even reality TV shows have gotten in on the gig, with the Pentagon’s entertainment office helping to sell war to the American public.

It’s estimated that U.S. military intelligence agencies (including the NSA) have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows.

And then there are the growing number of video games, a number of which are engineered by or created for the military, which have accustomed players to interactive war play through military simulations and first-person shooter scenarios.

This is how you acclimate a population to war.

This is how you cultivate loyalty to a war machine.

This is how, to borrow from the subtitle to the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, you teach a nation to “stop worrying and love the bomb.”

As journalist David Sirota writes for Salon, “[C]ollusion between the military and Hollywood – including allowing Pentagon officials to line edit scripts—is once again on the rise, with new television programs and movies slated to celebrate the Navy SEALs….major Hollywood directors remain more than happy to ideologically slant their films in precisely the pro-war, pro-militarist direction that the Pentagon demands in exchange for taxpayer-subsidized access to military hardware.”

Why is the Pentagon (and the CIA and the government at large) so focused on using Hollywood as a propaganda machine?

To those who profit from war, it is—as Sirota recognizes—“a ‘product’ to be sold via pop culture products that sanitize war and, in the process, boost recruitment numbers….At a time when more and more Americans are questioning the fundamental tenets of militarism (i.e., budget-busting defense expenditures, never-ending wars/occupations, etc.), military officials are desperate to turn the public opinion tide back in a pro-militarist direction — and they know pop culture is the most effective tool to achieve that goal.”

The media, eager to score higher ratings, has been equally complicit in making (real) war more palatable to the public by packaging it as TV friendly.

This is what professor Roger Stahl refers to as the representation of a “clean war”: a war “without victims, without bodies, and without suffering”:

“‘Dehumanize destruction’ by extracting all human imagery from target areas … The language used to describe the clean war is as antiseptic as the pictures. Bombings are ‘air strikes.’ A future bombsite is a ‘target of opportunity.’ Unarmed areas are ‘soft targets.’ Civilians are ‘collateral damage.’ Destruction is always ‘surgical.’ By and large, the clean war wiped the humanity of civilians from the screen … Create conditions by which war appears short, abstract, sanitized and even aesthetically beautiful. Minimize any sense of death: of soldiers or civilians.”

This is how you sell war to a populace that may have grown weary of endless wars: sanitize the war coverage of anything graphic or discomfiting (present a clean war), gloss over the actual numbers of soldiers and civilians killed (human cost), cast the business of killing humans in a more abstract, palatable fashion (such as a hunt), demonize one’s opponents, and make the weapons of war a source of wonder and delight.

“This obsession with weapons of war has a name: technofetishism,” explains Stahl. “Weapons appear to take on a magical aura. They become centerpieces in a cult of worship.”

“Apart from gazing at the majesty of these bombs, we were also invited to step inside these high-tech machines and take them for a spin,” said Stahl. “Or if we have the means, we can purchase one of the military vehicles on the consumer market. Not only are we invited to fantasize about being in the driver’s seat, we are routinely invited to peer through the crosshairs too. These repeated modes of imaging war cultivate new modes of perception, new relationships to the tools of state violence. In other words, we become accustomed to ‘seeing’ through the machines of war.”

In order to sell war, you have to feed the public’s appetite for entertainment.

Not satisfied with peddling its war propaganda through Hollywood, reality TV shows and embedded journalists whose reports came across as glorified promotional ads for the military, the Pentagon has also turned to sports to further advance its agenda, “tying the symbols of sports with the symbols of war.”

The military has been firmly entrenched in the nation’s sports spectacles ever since, having co-opted football, basketball, even NASCAR.

This is how you sustain the nation’s appetite for war.

No wonder entertainment violence is the hottest selling ticket at the box office. As professor Henry Giroux points out, “Popular culture not only trades in violence as entertainment, but also it delivers violence to a society addicted to a pleasure principle steeped in graphic and extreme images of human suffering, mayhem and torture.”

No wonder the government continues to whet the nation’s appetite for violence and war through paid propaganda programs (seeded throughout sports entertainment, Hollywood blockbusters and video games)—what Stahl refers to as “militainment“—that glorify the military and serve as recruiting tools for America’s expanding military empire.

No wonder Americans from a very young age are being groomed to enlist as foot soldiers—even virtual ones—in America’s Army (coincidentally, that’s also the name of a first person shooter video game produced by the military). Explorer Scouts, for example, are one of the most popular recruiting tools for the military and its civilian counterparts (law enforcement, Border Patrol, and the FBI).

No wonder the United States is the number one consumer, exporter and perpetrator of violence and violent weapons in the world. Seriously, America spends more money on war than the combined military budgets of China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil. America polices the globe, with 800 military bases and troops stationed in 160 countries. Moreover, the war hawks have turned the American homeland into a quasi-battlefield with military gear, weapons and tactics. In turn, domestic police forces have become roving extensions of the military—a standing army.

We are dealing with a sophisticated, far-reaching war machine that has woven itself into the very fabric of this nation.

Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhaul.

Eventually, all military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and spending themselves to death.

It happened in Rome: at the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise.

It’s happening again.

The American Empire—with its endless wars waged by U.S. military servicepeople who have been reduced to little more than guns for hire: outsourced, stretched too thin, and deployed to far-flung places to police the globe—is approaching a breaking point.

The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

This is exactly the scenario President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against when he cautioned the citizenry not to let the profit-driven war machine endanger our liberties or democratic processes. Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that, in order to perpetuate itself, would have to keep waging war.

Yet as Eisenhower recognized, the consequences of allowing the military-industrial complex to wage war, exhaust our resources and dictate our national priorities are beyond grave:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

We failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning.

The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.

What we have is a confluence of factors and influences that go beyond mere comparisons to Rome. It is a union of Orwell’s 1984 with its shadowy, totalitarian government—i.e., fascism, the union of government and corporate powers—and a total surveillance state with a military empire extended throughout the world.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

The growth of and reliance on militarism as the solution for our problems both domestically and abroad bodes ill for the constitutional principles which form the basis of the American experiment in freedom.

As author Aldous Huxley warned: “Liberty cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.”

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image: An excerpt from the cover of “State of Insecurity.” Art by Sarah Gertler.

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***

The US used to produce experts on Soviet and Russian affairs like Jack Matlock. Today we get the likes of Michael McFaul. The decline of popular interest in Russian-area studies, combined with intellectual laziness on the part of the average US citizen, is to blame.

On February 21, Russia’s President Vladmir Putin gave what will most likely go down in history as one of the most important speeches in modern history. It was a brutally honest example of how current events are shaped by the forces of history. What is important about this speech isn’t so much the content–that is now part of the historical record–but rather how it was absorbed and interpreted by those who watched it.

As an American imbued with more than a little first-hand insight into Russian affairs, I have been struck by the inability of the American people to comprehend the historical foundation of Putin’s speech. It is not my place to either attack or defend the details put forward by the Russian president. I would hope, however, that my fellow citizens would be able to engage in an informed, intelligent, and rational discussion about the speech, given the immense geopolitical ramifications attached to it.

Unfortunately, the average American, lacking both the intellectual training and the critical resource of time, is ill-equipped to participate in such an exercise. Instead, they have subordinated this task to a category of public servant known as the “Russian expert.” Under normal circumstances, one might find the existence of such a class a relief; after all, Americans are willing to entrust their financial security to “financial managers.” Why not surrender the intellectual machinations required to make sense of something as complex as Russian affairs and all that topic entails to the hands of the specialists, men and women schooled in the history, economy, culture, and language of Russia?

This isn’t the first time Americans have been called upon to entrust critical Russia-related analysis and the decision-making derived therefrom to so-called “experts.” From 1945 through 1991 the US and Soviet Union were engaged in a massive geopolitical conflict known as the Cold War. I happened to be an eyewitness to the final years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and to a speech which, in its own way, was as impactful as the one given by Vladimir Putin this week.

On June 28, 1988, I was in the second week of work as a member of the advanced party of US inspectors dispatched to the Soviet city of Votkinsk, located about 700 miles (just over 1,000km) east of Moscow, in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. Our job was to work with our Soviet colleagues to make the necessary preparations to receive the main body of 25 inspectors scheduled to arrive on July 1, 1988, when portal monitoring operations began, a month after the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty entered into force. On that date, we would begin our treaty-mandated task of monitoring the activities of the Votkinsk Missile Final Assembly Plant, located some 12 kilometers outside the city of Votkinsk, to make sure the Soviets no longer produced ballistic missiles that had been banned under the terms of the treaty.

The advance party was billeted in a well-kept Dacha situated in the woods on the outskirts of the city. Built to house the former Minister of Defense Dmitry Ustinov and his entourage during their frequent visits to Votkinsk, the Dacha was equipped with a well-stocked kitchen, a pool table, and a lounge where one could watch Soviet television. On the evening of June 28, I was surprised to find my Soviet hosts gathered around the television screen. That evening, Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), had convened the 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU. At first blush, I gave the event no thought–just another communist party “yes” fest with officials falling over each other in fawning admiration of a totalitarian leader. I said as much to one of my hosts, an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“You couldn’t be further from the truth,” he replied. “This is a revolution!”

Over the course of the next three days, during breaks from what was a very busy schedule, I joined my Soviet hosts as we watched history unfold before us. Gorbachev was introducing real reform–perestroika–to the Soviet people. He was being challenged by the communist party, in the form of his deputy, Yegor Ligachev, and by reformers, in the person of Boris Yeltsin. The conference had turned into an ideological battleground, where the future of the Soviet Union was being decided live, in public, before the Soviet people, for the first time in its history.

If you had asked the average American citizen about the importance of the 19th All-Union Party Conference at the time it transpired, they wouldn’t have been able to provide an intelligent answer. Even though the Soviet Union had been elevated to the status of an “Evil Empire” with which the US was prepared to engage in all-out nuclear war to constrain, the American public at that time, much like their counterparts today, was satisfied to leave the heavy thinking in the hands of a class of civil servant, the ‘Soviet expert’ who would monitor the situation and advise the political leadership, and, as needed, the public.

Among those who constituted this ‘Soviet expert’ class were a category of military officers known as ‘Soviet Foreign Affairs Officers,’ or FAOs. Provided with advanced linguistic training and graduate-level education before attending a year-long finishing school, the US Army Russia Institute, located in Garmisch, West Germany, a Soviet FAO was a subject-matter expert whose mission was to provide critical insight to policy makers about Soviet issues and, as needed, carry out specific military tasks–such as implementing the INF treaty.

The disparity between the Soviet FAO and his or her civilian counterpart was played out live in Votkinsk. The advance party consisted of five persons–three military officers (two FAO-qualified and me) and two civilian civil engineers. At night, when the work was done and the television turned on, you would find the two civil engineers playing pool or reading a book, while the three military officers were glued to the television set.

Over the course of the next two years, I bore witness to two critical events transpiring in parallel–the implementation of the INF treaty, and the implementation of perestroika. Both played an important role in shaping the events that led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. As trained Soviet experts, the FAOs and I were able to provide invaluable insight into the phenomenon of perestroika in the hinterlands of the Soviet Union. That which empowered us was the education we had received in Russian history and affairs from an American academic establishment that had, since the end of the Second World War, been prepared for just this task.

The Soviet FAO, together with their counterparts in the State Department and US Intelligence Community, were the beneficiaries of an education system which had seen an explosion in Russian Area Studies during the Second World War, when the Soviet Union was considered an ally, and which only grew after the war ended, and the Soviet Union was reclassified as an enemy. The unique circumstances which gave rise to the study of Russian Affairs in the US allowed for the retention of academic integrity in the face of ideological pressure to paint the Soviet Union in a negative light.

One of the clearest examples of this phenomenon can be found in the person of Richard Pipes, a renowned American academic who specialized in Soviet and Russian history and who taught at Harvard for decades while advising various US presidents, most notably Ronald Reagan, on matters pertaining to Soviet policy. Pipes was decidedly anti-Soviet, and the advice he provided was decidedly hardline in nature. His writings, however, were derived from historical fact subjected to proper analysis and scrutiny. His book, The formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and nationalism, 1917-1923, was mandatory reading for any student of Russian studies (indeed, it should be mandatory reading today, given the correlation between its subject matter and the content of Putin’s February 21 speech.) I have a first-edition copy of Pipe’s book in my personal library, and I have made extensive use of it over the years as I try to discern what is transpiring inside the former Soviet Union, and why.

Every one of my Soviet ‘expert’ counterparts was a byproduct of an American system of education designed to empower those who participated with critical fact-based discernment skills, capable of separating fact from fiction and filtering out personal and institutional bias. The result was a system that produced people like Jack Matlock, the US Ambassador to the Soviet Union during its final years, and George Kolt, the CIA’s top Soviet analyst. Both will go down in history as predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union (the thing about experts is that while their advice might be prescient, it is still held hostage by politicians who answer to a domestic constituency which is often unmoved by fact-based analysis.)

The end of the Cold War, however, brought with it the end of both the Soviet expert and the academic establishment that produced them. By way of example, I had been given two classified commendations by the Director, CIA, for my work in the Soviet Union. But in 1992, after being invited to CIA Headquarters to interview for an analytical position, I was told by the head of the new Russia analytical unit that I was too imbued with “Cold War” thinking; the world had moved on.

Russia became a playground for a new category of ‘expert,’ the political and economic ‘exploiter’ who viewed Russia as a defeated power subject to the whim of the American victor. This class was dominated by the likes of Michael McFaul and his ilk, people who viewed Boris Yeltsin not as the by-product of Soviet and Russian history, but rather a malleable tool in their effort to transform Russia into a compliant “democracy” subservient to their new American masters.

Russian-area studies stopped being the go-to major when it came to interacting with the former Soviet Union, replaced by business and economics degrees sought by people whose purpose wasn’t to understand Russia but rather to exploit it.Interest in Russian studies dwindled, a byproduct of a decline in interest and numbers, in terms of graduate students and faculty. Moreover, the system became infected by the reality of “garbage in, garbage out”: as the old Cold War Soviet specialists were retired from their posts in academia, they were not replaced by people possessing similar academic discipline, but rather a new generation of academics governed more by political perception than fact-based reality. Again, Michael McFaul comes to mind, a man driven not by the complex history of the Soviet Union and Russia, but rather his own vision of what Russia should be.

It is the Michael McFauls of the world who dominate the mainstream media today, people whose academic pronouncements are in keeping with government-approved dogma and, as such, sympathetic to the media corporate executives who work hand-in-glove with the government to spoon-feed what passes for “objective truth” to the American people. Jack Matlock still writes on Russian affairs, his articles providing a fresh, fact-based look at the reality of what is transpiring in Russia today. A public debate between he and McFaul would be most welcome by those who truly seek insight into what is happening in Russia (I consider myself a student of Ambassador Matlock, and if he is not able to throw down the gauntlet of debate, I am–consider the challenge made, Mr. Ambassador!)

The American people are being poorly served by the new class of Russian experts to whom they have relegated all intellectual examination of current Russian affairs. Maybe when gasoline prices skyrocket, and inflation further shrinks their already burdened paycheck, the average American citizen might sit up and take notice. By then, however, it will be too late.

Vladimir Putin’s speech of February 21, just like Mikhail Gorbachev’s address at the 19th All-Union Party Conference in June 1988, should be viewed and assessed with expert eyes, trained to discern fact-based intent and relevance. This happened back in 1988, and we were able to effectively manage the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is not happening today, and we may very well find ourselves neck deep in a conflict which we do not understand and for which we have no answer other than war.

*

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Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, served in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991 to 1998 served as a chief weapons inspector with the UN in Iraq. Mr Ritter currently writes on issues pertaining to international security, military affairs, Russia, and the Middle East, as well as arms control and nonproliferation. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

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***

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has revoked the Emergency Act he had instituted on Valentine’s Day, 2022. Instead of waiting for Parliamentary authorization of the replacement to the War Measures Act, Trudeau directed federal, provincial and municipal police forces to link up. On Feb. 17 he directed the amalgamated force to violently dislodge truckers and their parked rigs. The combined police forces took their direction from a Prime Minister who acted through the office of an unapproved interim Ottawa Police Chief.

In plain view of the cameras, the Emergency Act police force committed atrocities directed at peaceful protesters. Police charged towards those they targeted with clubs, trampled them with horses, bludgeoned the resisters with rifle butts and sought to traumatize them with stun grenades and toxic chemical sprays. About two hundred people were arrested including some of the truckers whose rigs were seized and taken into police custody. Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson wants to sell the trucks and thereby edify his slush funds with the revenues.

See this and this.

Much of the damage was already done by Feb. 21 when the House of Commons voted along party lines to approve the Emergency Act. The quick plunge of Canada into the category of a failed state under a dictatorial rule stunned many conscientious observers at home and throughout the world.

See this.

The MPs of the Liberal and New Democratic Parties voted yes to adopting the successor legislation to Canada’s War Measures Act. The Conservatives Party and the Bloc Quebecois voted no. Then on Feb. 22 the motion went to the Senate. There a strong intention was expressed to give the matter serious deliberation rather than a peremptory approval like the Prime Minister seemed to expect.

See this.

Justin Trudeau was not overtly apologetic for the massive overreach he displayed in his vile effort to denigrate his political opponents. By the time the Truckers from throughout Canada converged on Ottawa on January 29, they were already planting hope worldwide that they had come up with a viable formula for dealing with even the most megalomaniacal of the COVID-crazed politicians.

With his frequent promotion of Klaus Schwab’s “Great Reset,” Trudeau put down the seeds that are now making him globally notorious. Trudeau will always be perceived as the epitome of those elected officials who used the pandemic to adopt the avuncular guise of attentive medical doctors.

With the media’s help, Trudeau and those of his ilk transformed many of their constituents into locked down, socially-distanced, and muzzled patients. By disseminating 24/7 fear porn, the legacy media did their part to shock, disorient and infantilize their audiences.

Trudeau’s patients are to this day still being instructed by their fake medical doctor to take multiple shots that do not guard against COVID infections and do not prevent transmission. What these gene-altering injections do induce, however, are serious cumulative attacks on natural immunity. Getting repeatedly jabbed makes the recipients more vulnerable to the full array of contagious diseases, many of them far more lethal than COVID. 

Apparently Trudeau was himself traumatized by the arrival in Ottawa of convoys of truckers calling into question his tired and unconvincing doctor’s impersonation. In defending the constitutional right of all Canadians to enjoy the protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Truckers highlighted the deeply unsound and unscientific character of the Prime Minister’s overall approach to the supposedly new coronavirus. Truckers came to Ottawa wanting a withdrawal of Trudeau’s vaccine mandates and his unconstitutional travel restrictions.

The longer they stayed in Ottawa the more the Trucker’s intelligence, decency, ingenuity and commitment to public safety stood in stark contrast to the all-round defamatory treatment heaped upon them.  Among the top culprits in the desecration of Ottawa’s international image as a hospitable national capital are Trudeau himself, Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and the CBC’s own Ottawa-based propagandist-in-chief, Rosemary Barton.

One Feb. 23 Trudeau announced that “the immediate emergency situation is over.” He added, however, “the issue itself will not go away.” Trudeau did not clarify what issue he had in mind.

See this.

Is “the issue” Trudeau wants to keep in the forefront the fact that there are still unjabbed Canadians who the Prime Minister wants to render economically  impoverished and socially ostracized? Can Trudeau not abandon this obsession which is well in line with that of his good friend, Bill Gates? 

Does Trudeau dream of pleasing his mentors at the World Economic Forum by pushing COVID injections until there are no unpunctured citizens left?

Trudeau’s obsession flies in the face of news chronicling a massive jump in injection-related illnesses and mortality in 2021?

See this and this. 

There is no doubt that the science points urgently to the fact that the clot shots are proving to be the most lethal and injurious set of medical products ever produced.

See this.

On the Need for a Royal Commission

Trudeau announced that the report of a parliamentary review of the ten-day invocation of the Emergency Act would lead in 60 days to a report looking at what had happened and why. Trudeau suggested this report “could look at the funding, influence, and disinformation that supported the illegal blockades and occupations, both foreign and domestic.”

Will this report be a whitewash led by Trudeau and Singh? Or does the gravity of what has transpired during the short reign of Canada’s Emergency Act require a deeper and more objective investigation conducted by parties outside the compromised realm of Parliament?

The seriousness of what has already transpired, what is continuing to transpire and what might yet happen, calls for the invocation of a full-fledged Royal Commission. One of the first ironies a Royal Commission would have to address is Trudeau’s assertion that the Emergency Act was applied in conformity with its stated requirement that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be followed and applied.

How ironic that Trudeau has told us for two years that the Charter does not apply to many COVID-justified restrictions involving copious claims of medical emergencies. After two years of proclaiming that the Charter does not apply to COVID interventions, he is suddenly changing his tune. 

With the flash of a stun grenade we are met by Trudeau’s spurious claim that he was able to meet the Charter’s requirements when he put Canada under the authority of the Emergency Act. Canada’s Emergency Act was used for the first time since its creation in 1988.

The importance of adhering to the Charter in enforcing the Emergency Act has been emphasized by Senator Marc Gold in introducing to his colleagues the Liberal/NDP Bill.  He explained,

“Compared to the War Measures Act, the Emergencies Act has reduced powers, added significant Parliamentary review, and was created in part to support and uphold the Charter….The Charter applies to the Emergencies Act and to all actions taken pursuant to the act. There is no temporary suspension of rights or freedoms as there was under the old War Measures Act. Furthermore, all acts must be consistent with our international human rights obligations.”

See this.

How is the Charter being supported by Trudeau’s public statement that the Truckers targeted by police for removal from Ottawa  are guilty of “illegal blockades and occupations, both foreign and domestic.” When have there been any procedures in court to test these highly political allegations from a Prime Minister seeking to justify the seizing and freezing of truckers’ bank accounts, the appropriation of their trucks, the removal of their licenses and the cancellation of insurance?

The answer is, never. These severe punishments were made to apply not only to the Truckers but to people who properly contributed to crowdfunding platforms supportive of the political objectives of the convoy members.

No trials have taken place where the question has been put before objective arbitrators concerning whether the individual members of the Freedom Convoy that touched down in Ottawa are guilty of  “illegal blockades and occupations.” There is, therefore, no adherence of the Emergency Act to the Charter’s provision in 11 (d) that that “all citizens must be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.”

There is much that is obviously reprehensible in this most recent instance of yet more government overreach. This time the taint of state criminality shows up in the Trudeau government’s kleptocratic intrusion into the private financial affairs of protesters who are facing treatment as guilty felons, even terrorists, without so much as a single evidentiary hearing in a Canadian court.

The Most Aggressive Inquisitor of the Truckers Enters the Scene 

Chrystia Freeland, who is Canada’s Finance Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and a leading Trustee of the World Economic Forum, is the Darth Vader of this saga of economic warfare.

See this.

In introducing the Emergency Act of Feb. 14 Freeland declared,

“This occupation and these blockades are causing serious harm to our economy, to our democratic institutions, and to Canada’s international standing.

The world’s confidence in Canada as a place to invest and do business is being undermined.

These illegal blockades are doing great damage to Canada’s economy and to our reputation as a reliable trading partner.

The blockade of the Ambassador Bridge has affected about $390 million in trade each day. This bridge supports 30 per cent of all trade by road between Canada and the United States, our most important trading partner.

In Coutts, Alberta, about $48 million in daily trade has been affected by the blockades.

In Emerson, Manitoba, about $73 million in daily trade has been affected by the blockades.”

Those costs are real. They threaten businesses big and small. And they threaten the livelihoods of Canadian workers, just as we are all working so hard to recover from the economic damage caused by COVID-19.

See this.

Freeland then cut to the chase declaring

“This is about following the money. This is about stopping the financing of these illegal blockades. We are today serving notice: if your truck is being used in these protests, your corporate accounts will be frozen.”

See this.

In her brief presentation Freeland used the term, “illegal boycott” ten times. No “illegal boycott” took place in Ottawa during the ten days of the Emergency Act. As for explaining what really happened at crossing points along the Canada-US border, there has been very little reliable reporting of what actually took place. Part of the mandate of the Royal Commission might include investigating the episodes at border crossings and interpreting the findings within a framework recognizing the complexity of the many-faceted interactions that have taken place.

Certainly the true dynamic of what transpired on and around the Detroit-Windsor Ambassador Bridge is replete with dozens of unanswered question marks. The way the event unfolded raises many uncertainties about aspects of the movement of transport that don’t seem to make sense. Was the government involved in some hidden machinations?

All that can be definitively declared at this point is that the Ontario government and the Ontario Provincial Police had a role in bringing the action to an end.

I am closer to the event at the border crossing bounded by Coutts in Alberta and Sweetgrass in Montana. Just hours before the Valentine’s Day Emergency Act declaration, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who are contracted out to the Alberta government as its provincial police force, engaged in a number of dubious operations. Eye witnesses have raised many questions about possible police deceptions, provocations and the surreptitious planting of weaponry to justify Freeland’s all-purpose meme of “illegal blockades.”

Throughout the action at Coutts various kinds of traffic, including the passage of emergency vehicles and school buses, kept moving in both directions. This activity involved a range of active negotiations between police, provincial politicians, truckers and many serious and public-spirited supporters.

Then came a strange series of events that so far have been the subject of nothing but a trial-by-media. This media trial included the following report of a sequence of events that unfolded just before the Ottawa invocation of the Emergency Act.

On Monday, RCMP also charged Chris Carbert, 44, and Christopher Lysak, 48, both of Lethbridge, and Anthony Olienick, 39, of Claresholm with conspiracy to commit murder, mischief over $5,000 and possession of a firearm for a dangerous purpose.

Lysak is also charged with uttering threats.

Police seized a cache of long guns, handguns, oversized magazines, a machete and body armour, and say the suspects intended to kill RCMP if they attempted to break up the blockade.

RCMP called the threat to their officers “real and organized.”

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***

During the fighting in the Soviet Winter Campaign, in mid-February 1942 the German Army had recovered its poise, as the situation stabilised for the invaders. Across the Eastern front, the Germans were able to hold on to most of the territory they had captured by early December 1941.

Astride the Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, where the Germans had received some of the heaviest hits of the Soviet Army’s winter counteroffensive, the Wehrmacht had only fallen back between 50 to 150 miles (1). The Germans avoided the disaster that had struck Napoleon’s invasion force, during their 1812 attack on Russia.

The Grande Armée failed to get through its first winter on Russian terrain, suffering complete defeat in December 1812. The Germans would survive 3 winters of fighting on Russian soil, a remarkable feat of arms. By May 1944 at their closest point the Germans were 290 miles from Moscow, while the Soviets were 550 miles from Berlin at that time. For example the Russian city of Pskov, 160 miles south of Leningrad, was not liberated by the Red Army until 23 July 1944. (2)

Military analyst Donald J. Goodspeed wrote that the German performance, in the winter of 1941-42, proved to be “much more significant than all the previous German victories” (3). This was because the Wehrmacht had prevented a collapse along the front, ensuring that the Second World War was now going to be an extended conflict – it would rumble on for considerably longer than “the Great War” (World War I), resulting in far more bloodshed and destruction than its predecessor.

Though the Nazis would be beaten in 1945 and Germany occupied and dissected, the weight of the blows they inflicted on the Soviet Union were a decisive factor in that state’s eventual demise in 1991. English historian Chris Bellamy wrote that Soviet Russia did not fully recover from the struggle with the German war machine and “was a long-term casualty of the Great Patriotic War” (4). It could be argued, therefore, that the conflict was not an unmitigated defeat for Hitler’s regime. Soviet military journals also state that the victory over the Nazis was achieved at a cost that was too great. (5)

Image on the right: Portrait photograph of Georgy Zhukov (Licensed under the public domain)

The Red Army’s counteroffensive of 1941-42 has often been regarded, through the decades, as a watershed Soviet triumph; but as Marshal Georgy Zhukov outlined in his memoirs, the reality on the ground does not support these claims. Between January to March 1942, the Germans inflicted more than four times as many casualties on the Red Army than the Wehrmacht had suffered, 620,000 losses as opposed to 136,000 (6). Zhukov described as “a Pyrrhic victory” the outcome of the Soviet counterattack. (7)

To use a sporting analogy, had the Nazi-Soviet War constituted a boxing match the Germans would have won by some distance on points scored. After 3 months of fighting, at the end of September 1941 the Soviet Army had suffered personnel losses of “at least 2,050,000”, while German manpower losses by then “numbered 185,000”, British historian Evan Mawdsley highlighted. (8)

From September to December 1941 the Soviets suffered 926,000 fatalities while, in the final quarter of the year, from October to December 1941 the Germans lost 117,000 men (9). Mawdsley, who has also presented these figures, revealed that “German losses on the Russian front in the last quarter of 1941, despite the onset of winter and the drama of the drive on Moscow, were lower than those in the summer… These fourth-quarter figures represented a ratio of losses between the Russians and Germans of as much as 8:1”. (10)

In the first six months of 1942, a similar ratio prevailed in the war. From January to June 1942 the Germans inflicted 1.4 million casualties on the Soviets, as opposed to 188,000 casualties for the invaders (11). The great portion of blame, for the disparity in these figures, should not be attached to the frontline Russian (or Soviet) soldier. In both world wars, he proved overall to be a tough and resourceful fighter, capable of fanatical resistance. The responsibility lies ultimately with the state’s long-time ruler, Joseph Stalin, who had taken it upon himself to purge the Soviet military’s officer ranks beginning in May 1937; just when the spectre of war was about to envelop Europe once more, so the timing could hardly have been worse.

As the distinguished Soviet diplomat Andrei Gromyko recalled in his autobiography, Marshal Zhukov spoke bitterly after the war of “the enormous damage Stalin had inflicted on the country by his massacre of the top echelons of the army command” (12). Around 20,000 Soviet military officers and commissars had been arrested “and the greater part were executed”, Mawdsley wrote (13). This is a smaller number than purported in Western propaganda, but it was still significant, and the Red Army’s senior commanders were of course disproportionately targeted.

The worst of the Red Army purges occurred between 1937-1938, but the arrests and executions continued right up to the eve of war with Nazi Germany on 22 June 1941, notably targeting the Soviet Air Force command (14). The result was that the Soviet military, despite lavish spending on armaments for years, was a weak instrument by the time the Germans attacked. The Red Army was desperately short of experienced and capable commanders, when they were needed most.

Mawdsley wrote of those that had been purged,

“These men possessed the fullest professional, educational and operational experience the Red Army had accumulated. They had presided over an extraordinary modernization of doctrine and matériel of the early 1930s. Despite professional and personal rivalries among themselves, these leaders had formed a fairly cohesive command structure. The paradox is that this was precisely why Stalin mistrusted them”. (15)

Had the officers in question been organising a plot to overthrow Stalin, one could at least understand the latter’s actions. Yet a coup does not seem to have been on the horizon. According to Zhukov, who knew some of the Soviet officers in question, those who had been liquidated were “innocent victims” (16). In addition, Zhukov wrote in his memoirs of “unfounded arrests in the armed forces” which were “in contravention of socialist legality” and this had “affected the development of our armed forces and their combat preparedness”. (17)

Of those who remained in the Red Army’s command structure, their initiative and ability to make independent decisions had been paralysed. It was an inevitable byproduct of the psychological damage inflicted by the purges also. Mawdsley realised “a mental state was imposed which was the very opposite of the German ‘mission-oriented command system’”, which encouraged and rewarded independent thinking. (18)

The Red Army purges convinced possible allies and enemies that the Soviet military was in disarray. Exploiting the circumstances, German agencies forwarded details of the purges to British and French intelligence (19). Hitler’s own opinion that the Red Army was of poor quality strengthened in the winter of 1939-40, when he learned of the Soviet forces struggling to overcome a much smaller Finnish Army. The purges were a factor too behind the British and French refusal to sign a pact with Russia, in the late 1930s, which would have aligned those three states against Germany, as during the First World War.

The British and French leaders were, by and large, intensely anti-Bolshevik which can’t be forgotten. The purges served as an excuse to increase their prejudices against communist Russia. Relating to the Anglo-French military hierarchy, Leopold Trepper, a leading former Red Army intelligence agent wrote in his memoirs, “I am inclined to think that the French and English chiefs of staff were less than impatient to seal a military alliance with the Soviet Union, because the weakness of the Soviet Army had become clear to them”. (20)

This weakness was acknowledged not only by Zhukov but other top level Soviet military figures, like Marshal Kliment Voroshilov. In early October 1941 Voroshilov, the pre-war commander of the Red Army, told the Communist International (Comintern) leader Georgi Dimitrov that the situation at the front is “awful”. Voroshilov went on that “our organisation is weaker than theirs. Our commanding officers are less well trained. The Germans succeed usually because of their better organisation and clever tricks”. (21)

Image below: Joseph Stalin (Licensed under the public domain)

The Soviet cause had been hindered too, by Stalin’s refusal to believe the intelligence reports warning of an imminent German invasion. The most plausible intelligence material regarding Nazi intentions came from Soviet agents, such as Trepper, Richard Sorge and Harro Schulze-Boysen, all of whom informed the Kremlin about Operation Barbarossa.

The reports converged and showed an obvious pattern, peaking in intensity and accuracy in the first 3 weeks of June 1941; but Stalin continued to discount the intelligence information sent to him personally. A few days before the Germans invaded, in mid-June 1941 Stalin told Zhukov, “I believe that Hitler will not risk creating a second front for himself by attacking the Soviet Union” (22). Also revealing is that when Stalin was awakened and informed of heavy German shelling along the Nazi-Soviet border, he said, “Hitler surely doesn’t know about it”. (23)

The Germans achieved a major element of surprise in their invasion, advancing quicker and inflicting more damage than they would otherwise have been able to. When the Axis forces swarmed over the frontiers, many Soviet troops were either on leave, separated from their artillery, overrun and taken prisoner before they could mount an effective defence. Within a week of the invasion, the Soviets had suffered about 600,000 casualties and the Germans had advanced more than halfway to Moscow.

Three and a half weeks into the attack, by 16 July 1941 the Wehrmacht was more than two-thirds of the way to the Soviet capital, having reached the city of Smolensk in western Russia, 230 miles from Moscow as the crow flies. Robert Service, an historian of Russian history, wrote how “A military calamity had occurred on a scale unprecedented in the wars of the twentieth century” (24). It is conventionally believed, for an offensive to succeed decisively, that the attackers should outnumber the defenders by 3 to 1 (25). This was certainly not the case in the Nazi-Soviet War, and it offers one crucial reason as to why the German invasion would fail.

The Germans and their Axis allies (mainly Romanians and Finns at first) attacked the USSR with 3,767,000 men; the Soviet military’s personnel strength on the eve of war, taking in the whole of the USSR, amounted to 5,373,000, of which 4,261,000 belonged to the ground forces, the remainder to the air force and navy (26). By the end of 1941, the Germans had virtually destroyed the original 5 million strong Soviet military. However, there was a reserve force to be called upon of 14 million Soviet citizens who, it must be said, had only basic military training; among the Red Army reservists were a million women, about half of them present on the frontline in a variety of roles (27). The Soviet Union’s population was more than 190 million in 1941, not far away from being double that of the Reich’s population.

The Soviet military possessed much larger numbers of tanks, airplanes and artillery than the Germans and their allies. Stalin must be given due credit here, because he had overseen the USSR’s armament drive since the early 1930s. Spending on the Soviet defence budget increased by 340% in absolute terms from 1932 to 1937, and expenditure on arms doubled again between 1937 and 1940. (28)

Directly involved in the fighting at the war’s outset were 11,000 Soviet tanks, in opposition to 4,000 Axis tanks, 9,100 Soviet combat aircraft compared to 4,400 Axis combat aircraft, and 19,800 Soviet artillery pieces as opposed to 7,200 Axis artillery pieces (29). The German-led armies, on paper, should have been at a clear disadvantage from the beginning.

The size of the USSR’s landmass was a further critical factor in Barbarossa’s failure. Russia by itself is easily the world’s largest country, but the Germans assailed other states like the Ukraine (Europe’s second biggest country today), and they also entered Belarus and the Baltic nations. Had the Red Army been concentrated in an area the size of France, the Wehrmacht would most probably have been victorious within a reasonably short space of time.

The farther that the Germans advanced into the western Soviet Union, the broader the land became, a vast expanse opening up in front of them. This was increasingly the case when an invading force attacked across the whole front. While the Germans could do nothing about the terrain’s breadth, they could have shortened the distance by directing their 3 Army Groups in a straight thrust towards Moscow, the USSR’s transportation and communications hub.

By the second half of August 1941, forward units of German Army Group Centre were just 185 miles from Moscow (30). The Wehrmacht’s real weakness was its high command’s strategic shortcomings, compounded by Hitler’s interference, most fatefully his directive of 21 August 1941 – when the Nazi leader postponed the advance on Moscow in order to capture Leningrad, Kiev and the Crimea among other goals. (31)

This directive, a pivotal turning point in the entire war, resulted in a 6 week delay in the approach towards Moscow. It meant in the end that the capital went uncaptured by the Nazis, and the Soviet Union as a result would survive the war, though a long and difficult struggle lay ahead.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

1 Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 (Hodder Arnold, 23 Feb. 2007) p. 147

2 Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chronology and Index of the Second World War, 1938-1945 (Meckler Books, 1990) p. 278

3 Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 3 April 1985) p. 405

4 Chris Bellamy, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (Pan; Main Market edition, 21 Aug. 2009) p. 6

5 Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (Yale University Press; 1st Edition, 14 Nov. 2006) p. 10

6 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, p. 147

7 Ibid., p. 127

8 Ibid., pp. 85-86

9 Ibid., pp. 116-117

10 Ibid., p. 117

11 Ibid., p. 147

12 Andrei Gromyko, Memories: From Stalin to Gorbachev (Arrow Books Limited, 1 Jan. 1989) p. 216

13 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, pp. 20-21

14 Ibid., p. 21

15 Ibid.

16 Gromyko, Memories: From Stalin to Gorbachev, p. 216

17 Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (Icon Books, 2 May 2013) p. 46

18 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, p. 21

19 Leopold Trepper, The Great Game: Memoirs of a Master Spy (Michael Joseph Ltd; First Edition, 1 May 1977) p. 67

20 Ibid., pp. 67-68

21 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, p. 19

22 Ibid., p. 18

23 Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (Pan; Reprints edition, 16 April 2010) p. 410

24 Ibid., p. 411

25 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, p. 19

26 Ibid., pp. 19 & 30

27 Roberts, Stalin’s Wars, p. 163

28 Roberts, Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov, p. 43

29 Mawdsley, Thunder in the East, p. 19

30 Samuel W. Mitcham Jr., Gene Mueller, Hitler’s Commanders: Officers of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine and the Waffen-SS (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2nd Edition, 15 Oct. 2012) p. 37 

31 Goodspeed, The German Wars, p. 396

Featured image: The center of Stalingrad after liberation, 2 February 1943 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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In the midst of turmoil and controversy, it is useful to review the most important preceding events and analyze how did this happen. Following are some key events and historical facts leading to the current crisis in Ukraine.

Fact 1. In February 2014, a coup overthrew the Ukrainian government which came to power in an election certified by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation). The president, Viktor Yanukovich, was forced to flee for his life.

This situation was presciently analyzed  at the time by Seumas Milne who wrote,  “The attempt to lever Kiev into the western camp by ousting an elected leader made conflict certain. It could be a threat to us all.”

Fact 2. The coup was promoted by United States officials. Neo-conservatives such as Victoria Nuland and John McCain actively supported the protests. As confirmed in a secretly recorded phone call, Nuland determined the post-coup composition weeks in advance. Later, Nuland bragged they spent $5 billion in this campaign over two decades. Before the coup was “midwifed”, Nuland forcefully rejected a likely European compromise agreement which would have led to a compromise government. “F*** the EU!”,  she said. Nuland managed the coup but Vice President Biden was overall in charge. As Nuland says in the phone call, Biden would give the ultimate “atta boy” to the coup leaders. Subsequently, Joe Biden’s son personally benefited from the coup. Victoria Nuland has even more power now as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Secret US forces such as the Central Intelligence Agency must also be involved.

Fact 3. The coup government immediately acted with hostility toward its Russian speaking citizens. Approximately 30% of Ukrainian citizens have Russian as their first language, yet on the first day in power, the coup regime acted to make Russian no longer an official state language. This was followed by more actions of hostility. As documented in the video “Crimes of the Euromaidan Nazis”, a convoy of buses going back to Crimea was attacked. In Odessa, over thirty  opponents of the coup government died when they were attacked and the trade union hall set afire.

Fact 4. During World War 2, there were Nazi sympathizers in western Ukraine when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union.  This element continues today in the form of Svoboda and other far right nationalist parties. The Ukrainian government has even passed legislation heroizing Nazi collaborators while removing statues honoring anti-Nazi patriots.  The situation was described three years ago in an article “Neo-nazis and the far right are on the march in Ukraine”.  The author questioned why the US is supporting this. Under President Poroshenko (2014 to 2019) nationalism surged and even the Orthodox Church split apart.

Fact 5. The secession of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk are a direct result of the 2014 coup. In Crimea, a referendum vote was rapidly organized. With 83% turnout and 97% voting in favor, Crimeans decided to secede from Ukraine and re-unify with Russia. Crimea was part of Russia since 1783.  When the administration of Crimea was transferred to the Ukraine in 1954. they were all part of the Soviet Union. This was done without consulting the population.

Author’s note: I visited Crimea in 2017 and talked with diverse people including the popularly elected city council officials. There is no doubt about the overwhelming support for re-unification with Russia.

In the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk on the border with Russia, the majority of the population speaks Russian and had no hostility to Russia. The Kiev coup regime was hostile and enacting policies they vehemently disagreed with.  In spring 2014,  the Luhansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics declared their independence from the Kiev regime.

Fact 6. The Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015 were signed by Ukraine, Ukrainian rebels, Russia and other European authorities.  They were designed to stop the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine and retain the territorial integrity of Ukraine while granting a measure of autonomy to Luhansk and  Donetsk. This is not abnormal; there are 17 autonomous zones in Europe. These agreements were later rebuffed by the Kiev government and Washington. This led to the decision by Russia on 21 February 2022 to recognize the Peoples Republics of Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR).

But isn’t secession illegal under international law? The US and NATO have little credibility to oppose secession since they promoted the breakup of Yugoslavia, secession of Kosovo from Serbia,  secession of South Sudan from Sudan, and Kurdish secessionist efforts in Iraq and Syria, etc.. The secession of Crimea is justified by its unique history and overwhelming popular support. The secession of Luhansk and Donetsk may be justified by the illegal 2014 Kiev coup.

US intervention, both open and secret, has been a major driver of the events in Ukraine. The US has been the major instigator of the conflict.

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Rick Sterling is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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***

Trucker Convoy is Coming to DC— Their Leader Has a Message for Joe Biden.

“This message is for the President of the United States of America.

“My name is Kyle Sefcik of the Freedom Convoy USA 2022 and our routes meet here in DC on March 1st, in time for your State of the Union address.

“We are very organized and our routes are public. I even put a permit for the National Mall to be respectful.

“I just want to be as transparent as possible from the start so there’s no confusion.

“We are coming peacefully and we’re going to do this lawfully and Constitutionally.

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***

Russia’s recognition of the ‘people’s republics’ of Luhansk and Donetsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass on Monday is a watershed event. In a manner of speaking, by this decision President Vladimir Putin crossed the Rubicon. But a tumultuous period lies ahead.

Moscow followed up by putting the legal underpinnings in place “to deploy troops to these regions,” concluding two treaties on friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance between Russia and the two Donbass republics, and, obtaining the authorisation by Russia’s Federation Council, or upper parliament house, for the use of armed forces outside Russia (as required under the constitution.) 

The resolution by Federation Council, which was unanimously supported by all the 153 senators at an extraordinary session on Tuesday and coming into immediate effect, says: 

“The Federation Council rules to give its consent to the Russian president for the use of armed forces outside Russia on the basis of generally recognised principles and norms of international law. The strength of army units, areas of deployment, tasks and the duration of their stay outside Russia are determined by the Russian president in compliance with the Russian constitution.”

Notably, this authorisation is not Donbass-specific, nor is there any timeline set here. It is also not conditional. Simply put, discretion lies with Putin entirely to make decisions on troop deployments. 

Putin’s national address to the Russian people on Monday, which has been amplified further by him in comments to the Russian media on Tuesday, throws light on the “potential future steps.” What emerges from the national address are three things.

First, Moscow views the post-2014 political developments in Ukraine as having been engineered to create an anti-Russian regime in Kiev with hostile intentions, nurtured by the West. This regime is hopelessly compromised to the West and Ukraine has been turned into an American colony. 

Second, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) has made deep inroads into Ukraine’s political and defence system. “The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads.”

Third, NATO is about to grant membership to Ukraine. That will increase the level of military threats to Russia dramatically, considering that American strategic planning documents allow preemptive strike at enemy missile systems. Putin said, “ballistic missiles from Kharkov will take seven to eight minutes; and hypersonic assault weapons, four to five minutes. It is like a knife to the throat.”   

Much of this has been said before by Russian leaders but never in such details. Besides, Putin was directly addressing the Russian public and expecting their backing for his decision on Lugansk and Donetsk (which will undoubtedly be a very popular move) and thereby seeking legitimacy for his future course of action. Clearly, the western assessment that Russian public disapproves of any intervention in Ukraine is proven wrong.

For the international audience, Putin’s interaction with the media on Tuesday may be of greater interest. Putin has dropped an important hint that Moscow no longer considers the Minsk Agreements to be pertinent, as the Ukrainian leadership had publicly declared that they were not going to abide by these agreements. 

A second point is about the borders of Lugansk and Donetsk. This is a complex issue and the germane seeds of future course of events, perhaps, lie here. This needs some explaining.

The borders of the breakaway regions underwent significant changes when war erupted between the government forces and the separatist forces. in particular, in  May 2014, the government forces captured the strategic port of Mariupol (on the Sea of Azov) which used to be part of Donetsk from the separatists. 

Putin said on Tuesday that Russian constitution stipulates the borders of Donetsk and Lugansk regions “at the time when they were part of Ukraine.” This is a carefully worded formulation. At issue is Donetsk’s claim to Mariupol, which is a major port for the industrialised rust belt region of Donbass for export of coal, iron ore, etc.

Indeed, retaking Mariupol and the coastal region could give a direct land route from mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula, which is otherwise accessible only via  a 19-km long rail-road sea bridge built in 2018.

Also, if Donetsk regains the lost territory, Ukraine will have no access to the Sea of Azov, which would strengthen Russia’s primacy in the Black Sea and enhance the security of its Black Sea Fleet. By the way, Crimea would also get assured supply of fresh water, since Kiev had shut off water from the so-called North Crimean Canal in 2014.

Putin said Russia’s expectation is that all disputes will be resolved during talks between the current Kiev authorities and the leaders of these republics, but he also acknowledged that “at this point in time, we realise that it is impossible to do so, since hostilities are still ongoing and, moreover, they are showing signs of escalating.” 

From the remarks, it seems highly likely that conflict will erupt over Mariupol, as Donetsk forces, emboldened by Russian support, are sure to make a determined pitch to retake the port city and the adjacent coastal region, which have a big Russian population too. Of course, Russia is obliged to assist the Donetsk forces militarily if need arises. 

Putin floated an idea that the vexed question of Ukraine’s membership can be addressed in such a way that the West does not “lose face”. He suggested that Kiev could instead “refuse to join NATO. In effect, in so doing, they would translate the idea of neutrality into life.” 

This is a tantalising thought that has been aired previously also. But Putin linked this to “the demilitarisation, to a certain extent, of today’s Ukraine” — that is to say, the West should not “pump the current Kiev authorities full of modern types of weapons.” 

Lastly, Putin drew a red line on any attempt by Ukraine to develop nuclear weapons. He said:

“Ever since Soviet times, Ukraine has had fairly broad nuclear competencies… They only lack one thing – uranium enrichment systems. But this is a matter of technology, it is not unsolvable for Ukraine, it can be remedied quite easily.

“As to delivery vehicles.. they have old Soviet-made Tochka-U missiles with a range of 100 plus kilometres, 110 kilometres. This is also not a problem in view of the competencies, say, at Yuzhmash, which used to manufacture intercontinental ballistic missiles for the Soviet Union.” 

Without doubt, there is a stark warning implicit here for the European countries well as as to what the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi in Ukraine could presage in future. Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces. These are the descendants  of forces that had collaborated with the Nazi invaders against Josef Stalin.

To neutralise Russian intervention, western intelligence had co-opted them to stage the coup in Kiev in 2014. The so-called Azov Brigade of neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian armed forces had proved to be the most effective fighting force in pushing back the Russians separatists in the Donbass region. With an eye on the Azov Brigade, more recently, Americans had hinted that they would support an insurgency against any Russian forces occupying Ukraine. (here and here)

Putin seemed disinterested to have any direct interaction with the authorities in Kiev. In fact, Russian diplomats in the embassy in Kiev and the consulates in Lvov, Kharkiv and Odessa are being evacuated.

Putin is looking beyond the current regime in Kiev. Of course, if the Western military assistance to Kiev continues in any form, Washington knows that Russia will regard it as a hostile act and there will be severe consequences. Putin has made it clear that he is prepared to use force to counter any further western encroachments into Ukraine to challenge Russia’s security.  

In these circumstances, the question of the return of military detachments of Nato to Ukraine in the garb of ‘advisors’ or ‘trainers’ also does not arise. Putin won’t allow it. That being so, the big question is: How long could Zelensky and his government hold out in Kiev? The countdown may have begun. 

Putin remarked derisively that Zelensky may simply choose to leave Kiev for the US, Paris or Berlin. In a TV interview yesterday, Foreign Minister Lavrov called Zelensky “an unstable, dependent man, directly dependent on his American curators.” The elites in Kiev are known to have big bank accounts in the West.  But what can the curators do to prop up Zelensky at such a critical stage?

In his national address, Putin spoke with a lot of bitterness. At one point, he directly threatened the extreme nationalists who seized power in the 2014 coup and let loose a wave of violence and systematic persecution against ethnic Russians.

Putin said,

“The criminals who committed that atrocity have never been punished, and no one is even looking for them. But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.”

Putin anticipates a new regime in Kiev. 

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***

After a jury in 2006 declined to impose the death penalty on Zacarias Moussaoui, who had just pleaded guilty to being the 20th 9/11 hijacker, the government announced that another person was the 20th. Yet, that person, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was ordered released from the U.S. Naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last week.

Here is the backstory.

Moussaoui had been living in Minnesota and taking flying lessons when he was arrested in August 2001 for an immigration violation. When officials questioned him, the answers he gave aroused their suspicions about what he intended to do with a plane once he was qualified to fly.

The FBI conducted a criminal investigation, and shortly after 9/11, Moussaoui was indicted in Virginia for conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism on 9/11. The government sought the death penalty. Five years later, he pleaded guilty during his trial.

The court then conducted a penalty-phase trial before the same jury that had been hearing the case prior to the guilty plea. The jury declined to impose the death penalty with some jurors revealing their beliefs that he had nothing to do with 9/11, but was a jihadi wanna-be. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Stung by the jury’s verdict on the death penalty, the government changed its characterization of Moussaoui as the 20th hijacker and declared that Mohammed al-Qahtani was the real 20th hijacker.

In August 2001, Qahtani had attempted to enter the United States at the Orlando International Airport where Mohamed Atta, one of the true hijackers, was waiting to greet him. Immigration officials rejected Qahtani’s paperwork and sent him back to Dubai. U.S. forces arrested him in Pakistan in December 2001 and accused him of being Osama bin Ladin’s bodyguard.

He was transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay where he was tortured for two months in 2002 and 2003 by the military, pursuant to orders issued by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. He told his torturers what he thought they wanted to hear. His torture was so persistent and horrific that Army medics were frequently called upon to prevent his death and to revive him from his frequent blackouts so that the torture could resume.

When detailed logs of his torture were leaked to the media, Susan J. Crawford, President George W. Bush’s emissary overseeing tortures and prosecutions at Gitmo, acknowledged publicly that “we tortured (him)” and thus it would be impossible to try him.

Last week, the government decided to release Qahtani — whom it believes was the true 20th hijacker — to officials in Saudi Arabia. The stated reason for his release is his diminished mental capacity. The true reason is that he has become an embarrassment for the government.

Gitmo prosecutors, who had nothing to do with the torture, told the Bush Departments of Justice and Defense that no judge would permit a prosecution where the principal evidence against the accused was obtained from his torture. Successive teams of prosecutors told the Obama, Trump, and Biden DOJs and DODs the same. Only the present administration has acted upon this.

Qahtani’s case is a lesson in the clash between human rights and unbridled government. If Rumsfeld had listened to government lawyers, he’d have known that the American civilian and military legal systems are based on the inalienability of certain rights and values, and among them are bodily integrity, the presumption of innocence and the rule of law.

The Supreme Court jurisprudence on bodily integrity prohibits the introduction of anything into or upon the body of any person against his will. This includes everything from face masks, to whips and chains, to chemicals in the veins. The rule of law in America makes the intentional infliction of pain and severe discomfort by the government upon a prisoner a felony.

Neither Bush nor Rumsfeld had the legal authority to permit government agents to commit felonies, though we now know that they did.

But the big picture in Qahtani’s case is the admirable role played by the Supreme Court in assuring that the Constitution means what is says and the cowardly role played by the government, which argued that the Constitution doesn’t apply at its prison in Cuba.

In six Supreme Court cases involving the rights of Gitmo detainees, the Bush administration lost five. The sixth involved the location of the trial of an American detainee in the U.S.

But the jurisprudence that emerged from the five cases that the government lost clearly reflects the truism that the Constitution restrains the government wherever it goes, and its protections extend to all persons, not just Americans. The latter is so for two reasons — textualism and Natural Law.

The court held in these Gitmo cases that because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and because the government is the creature of the Constitution, the creature cannot escape the restraints imposed upon it by its creator.

Moreover, the critical constitutional clauses reflecting the treatment of prisoners and defendants protect all “persons,” not just Americans. Because all persons have natural rights rooted in our humanity, the government is bound to respect those rights. Were this not so, then nothing could prevent the government from doing as British monarchs did — remove prisoners to foreign lands, torture them there, and then bring them home for trial and execution.

Yet, that horrific Bush-inspired scenario actually happened. After Bush lost at the Supreme Court, the government outsourced its torture and now finds itself as a witness in cases against the foreign torturers whom it hired to torture its prisoners.

Even worse, the man jurors found was not the 20th hijacker is in prison for life, and the man the government says was the 20th hijacker will soon be free. This is what happens when the government breaks its own laws and violates the Constitution that we have hired it to uphold.

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Putin Swings Back

Listening to Putin’s recent speech that preceded the declaration to recognize the independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, it was difficult not to notice that something was incredibly off about his claims. They simply did not match what the western corporate press, those dutiful stenographers for NATO power have been reporting for years. Putin gave the world a history lesson, pulled back the curtain on western lies and hypocrisies, (only some of them, there are a thousand curtains that need pulling back) and showed the world he’s not going to be pushed around by the little hyenas of the European prairie any longer.

In some middle eastern folklore hyenas are referred to as symbols of treachery and stupidity. In other mythologies they are known as vampire creatures who stalk and suck the blood of their prey. The phrase ‘laugh like a hyena’ dates back centuries in English literature including Shakespeare, and now embodies the number two position of the American executive branch. More on hyenas later.

Putin’s speech corrected the hyena’s revisionist attempts of events in Ukraine the past eight years and revealed a man who, having watched his nation get pushed to its limits with broken promises and door mat NATO diplomacy, showed that he’s simply had enough. And good for him. In our new multi polar world of geopolitical chess the bear and dragon are ascendant, and realist foreign policy doesn’t require the permission of any community, particularly a deceitful paper tiger like NATO or useless cabal of globalist order-takers at the EU or UN. While there’s little to celebrate with these new circumstances for global conflict, a convenient distraction from the last engineered global conflict, we must recognize the chance for lasting peace and alliance between the west and Russia was denied by the U.S. every step of the way.

All that remains is brutal realism and the flexing of power, the kind of realism rooted in self interest to serve the people of a nation and defend it from encroaching hyenas. Twenty years of poking the bear has consequences, but hyenas don’t know anything beyond their instincts, treachery and stupidity.

Media A-Z

Given the role of the global corporate press in engineering a pandemic and all the crimes that followed the past two years, it’s astounding that people who know their lies and propaganda were constant and shameful watch the same servants of power report on Russia and Putin and believe what they are saying is the truth. But that’s how that saying goes: fool me once here and twice there, happy to get fooled again and again.

Everything they’ve reported since the U.S. backed coup in Ukraine of 2014, from the “dignity revolution” where Neo-Nazi nationalists from western Ukraine were mobilized as shock troops to overthrow the Yanukovych government with US Aid (Soros), and brutally attacked any Russian loyalists, burning forty alive in a building in Odessa, to the annexation of Crimea whose population prefers Russia, to the constant violations of the Minsk agreement by Ukrainian forces along the cease fire lines, to claims of “Ukrainian democracy” when it’s at best a dysfunctional corrupt Oligarchy, has all been one stream of endless lies.1 Add to that the domestic lies of Trump-Russia collusion, set up through CIA and FBI attempted coups of a democratically elected President at home engineered by the opposition party, while constantly vilifying anyone who asked any questions at all as “Putin’s Puppet” or a “Russian sympathizer” and you have one of the biggest psychological operations ever unleashed on western populations, not to mention grotesque acts of overt treason.

Yet still, many who know that the media and government pandemic lies are terrifyingly real, still believe the stories about Putin and Russia. But that’s how logic works: if A was lying about everything regarding X, they’re certainly telling the truth regarding Y and Z.

Russia is a dictatorship because they have state-run media that parrots the Putin regime propaganda. Not like America, where we have a totally free press 😒

— Christina Pushaw 🐊🚛 (@ChristinaPushaw) February 23, 2022

War Chefs

If there was ever anything noble in war, the courage, bravery, facing one’s mortality, the tactics and maneuvers of battles that required out-smarting one’s enemy, Sun Tzu’s art, all that is lost to advanced technology and a desire to manipulate public sentiment above all things. They call them hybrid wars, asymmetric wars, psychological wars, information wars and has been proffered on this outfit the most evil of all where victims are unsuspecting innocents believing their governments have their best interests in mind – Silent Wars – atrocities by states against their own citizens.

Today wars are not fought, they’re curated like an exhibit at a museum. They are designed like a tapestry or an exotic dish on a cooking show. A little bit of false flag fava beans, julian propaganda peppers, sliced projection potatoes, a splash of historical revisionism radishes, piles of intel leeks and you have the makings of war by design. Put it all into an oven where your enemy feels the burn and acts in a way you can claim was their true evil nature all along, and you have a nice dish of cooked up conflict. When you control the global media machine who work for the head chefs designing this war dish, it makes it effortless to serve up this heaping load of detestable horse shit as reality. Millions will rush to obediently eat and regurgitate it.

The ability to engineer pseudo realities is effortless through controlled information monopolies and compliant and passive populations who have become conditioned to believe what they are told. Contrary to the myth of the Internet age ‘liberating information’ for the masses, the opposite has been happening. Information is suppressed, people are corralled like grazing animals into silos for control and manipulation where they are fed carefully prepared morsels to digest. Two-thirds of the top 100 news and information websites are controlled by corporations with connections to war chefs at intelligence agencies and groups like the Atlantic Council and Council on Foreign Relations. They all read from the exact same scripts that are prepared by our benevolent war designers.

The war designers are part of a class of elites who detest their own citizens whom they view as lesser people, hunger games’ provincial rubes. Manipulating them through fear, lies, propaganda becomes a fun game. Socially engineering their reactions to events half a world away they couldn’t find on a map becomes the first front of battle. Getting them to believe up is down, Russia is evil, Putin is a monster and that the sudden issues in Ukraine are the cause of all the domestic problems they really care about like inflation, high gas prices and supply chain crises, requires constant psychological disinformation shelling.

It's worth remembering that for 8 years, Russia was the strongest proponent of the Minsk Protocol (w/Ukraine & OSCE) for peace in Donbas, which said the region was part of Ukraine. It was Kiev who repeatedly refused to follow the peace process, doing so with full US support.

— Morgan Artyukhina (@LavenderNRed) February 21, 2022

Two-Faced Diplomacy (performance and propaganda)
Two-faced diplomacy is easy. The secretaries of war meet to discuss ‘diplomatic resolutions’, while their intelligence operators and behavioral psychologists manipulate their war communication’s departments of the global corporate media by filling their inbox with messages of leaks that aren’t actually leaks but rather instructions to report the headlines and say it’s based on a “real leak”. This is blasted around the world as truth and amplified by the elite war designers in academia, think tanks and NGOs fronting for western hyenas.

This propaganda barrage serves two purposes. The first is to manipulate public opinion in their favor. This is nothing new, going back to at least the USS Maine and every conflict since. In our post printing press globally interconnected information world it becomes more challenging, requiring more audacious headlines that require people really put their imaginations to work believing what is reported. The skeptical discerning mind knows that none of it is true, but most people are neither skeptical nor discerning having outsourced their thinking to truth machines in technology and the corporate media. The second purpose is to trigger a reaction from their manufactured enemy to engender the conflict they desire.

While the propaganda barrage is ongoing the western secretaries of war meet with their Russian counterparts (Putin or Lavrov) to show how resolute they are, flexing for cameras and saying they really want a diplomatic resolution to the very problem they engineered and are using their media propagandists to make much worse. It’s all a performance of front stage diplomacy, that completely defies their back stage actions, so whenever the other side ends up doing what they said they would do, they can point to their performance and say, “We tried to resolve this peacefully and find a diplomatic solution, but look! They don’t want one.”

Putin once again out-witted the western war designers by recognizing the breakaway regions of mostly ethnic Russians, as independent republics. The rabid hyenas didn’t get the result in the all out attack on Ukraine the war chefs were trying to cook up the past few months. That hasn’t stopped them from incessantly yelling for an imminent invasion any second now, even getting their five eyes proxies in Australia to start echoing the same feverish lust for all out war.

This declaration of independent republics by Putin allowed him to follow the western script for occupation, and to send in his peacekeeping force to protect the people of Luhansk and Donetsk from the US-funded Ukrainian Neo-Nazi nationalists constantly shelling the breakaway forces for the past eight years in violation of the Minsk agreements. According to the western war designers, this is tantamount to “an invasion” of Ukraine, and so another curtain of hypocrisy goes up concealing the truth.

It’s entirely fine for the US to send in “peace keeping forces” to regions it desires to recognize as independent (or to overthrow) for its own “national security interests”, that aren’t anywhere near its own borders, but for Russia to do the same at its own border to protect Russian-speaking people, a majority of whom would rather be allied with Russia, is an “invasion”.

Hyenas In the Kitchen

The hyenas cooking up conflict reacted as they always do to this “invasion” they helped engineer, with more sanctions that won’t even affect Russia, and more bellicose laughable rhetoric about how Putin is a threat to world peace and needs to “be dealt with”. This is the expected behavior of hyenas.

Hyenas in the animal kingdom are pests. They have neither the patient cunning of the feline nor loyal devotion of the canine. They are a kind of bastard retarded hybrid of both with no likeable or redeeming qualities. They obnoxiously hover and harangue and wait for whatever scraps they can get, while running away at full speed if confronted by real power. Here’s Putin, finally flexing, and the hyena’s have shit their fur and fled Ukraine to neighboring Poland, whom to its own detriment will now increasingly assume the role of hyena vassal like Ukraine did. With Russia right on its border, and Poland inviting more antagonisms from their toxic hyena friends, they’re only inviting danger. When real power comes for Poland, the hyenas will run again despite the NATO pact and badger Russia from a different vassal state and it will be Poles who suffer, not hyenas and not Americans.

US foreign policy is a racket. The war designers in the MIC, the government, media and think tanks will never suffer consequences of their treachery and stupidity. The EU has agreed to a suicide pact with the U.S., which will require it buys U.S. natural gas at inflated prices rather than from their neighbor and friends in Russia whom they recently asked to build more pipelines to supply cheap energy to the continent. With friends like the U.S., who needs enemies? European nations who stand by the U.S. are putting their own people in harms way and need to step back and reconsider their own treachery and stupidity in allying with a bunch of rabid hyenas who only seek to engineer pseudo realities that create enemies and conflict where none need exist. As with everything we’ve experienced this century from these blood thirsty animals, this too is probably all by design.

“When there is no such thing as truth, you can’t define reality & when you can’t define reality, the only thing that matters is power.” – Maajid Nawaz

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The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, published a tweet on February 22 in which he assured that the sanctions imposed by the bloc against Russia will prevent multiple members of the Russian State Duma, who voted in favour of the recognition of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, from shopping in the Italian fashion city of Milan, partying in the French Mediterranean city of Saint-Tropez or make high-end purchases in the famous diamond shops of Belgium’s Antwerp. 

The tweet was made before the widescale Russian missile attack to immobilize the Ukrainian air force, including the complete destruction of its Turkish-supplied drone fleet, during the early hours of January 24. Yet, even with this pre-emptive strike to immobilize Ukrainian aggression, Russian commodities continue to grow in value and the economy for now remains strong.

Borrell explained that the blocs sanctions package will affect 351 deputies of the Lower House of the Russian Parliament, as well as “27 individuals and entities who are undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence. This will cover political, military, business and media sectors.”

Following this tweet, he added (and then humiliatingly deleted):

“No more shopping in Milan, no more parties in Saint-Tropez and no more diamonds in Antwerp.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel that she knew that Borrell “did not manage his social networks and was not even aware of what was being written for him. It can happen. But these things should not be left in the hands of ignorant personnel.”

However, it can be argued that Zakharova was opening a door for reconciliation by passing on the blame of the naïve tweet to an ignorant social media handler rather than Borrell himself. This would be rather patient of Moscow though when remembering Borrell only days ago was involved in another fluff when he confusingly condemned “the use of heavy weaponry and indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, which constitute a clear violation of the Minsk agreements and international humanitarian law,” but added that the EU “commends” Ukraine’s “posture of restraint in the face of continued provocations and efforts at destabilization.” Borrell managed to condemn the violation of the Minsk agreement but also commend Ukraine for supposed “restraint” – a contradiction if there ever was one and something that enables Kiev to continue its violence.

Although Borrell deleted the tweet, it was already too late as the message was saved as an image and has been circulating around social media with much amusement. The most common response to Borrell was that:

“Russians will no doubt reply that the shopping is better in Moscow than Milano, these days, and the partying in Sochi beats the, very over-rated, Saint Tropez. Russia has the largest diamond reserves in the world.”

The EU's chief diplomat doesn't know that Russia has the largest diamond reserves in the world..

Meanwhile, Russians will no doubt reply that the shopping is better in Moscow than Milano, these days, and the partying in Sochi beats the, very over-rated, Saint Tropez. pic.twitter.com/RdAMiCBvdA

— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) February 22, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 21 his decision to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, after which friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance agreements were signed. At the same time, the Russian president ordered the Ministry of Defense to guarantee the maintenance of peace by the Russian Armed Forces in both republics – thus inspiring the pre-emptive strikes against Ukraine’s provocative military.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden reported on the first package of measures against Russia, which includes: sanctions against two large Russian banking institutions; comprehensive sanctions on Russia’s sovereign debt and sanctions against Russian elites and their relatives. However, this is unlikely to have any real impact on the Russian economy, which has already fortified itself from feeling the full impact of sanctions.

As Brussels-based Bloomberg senior markets report Nikos Chrysoloras tweeted on February 23, just a day after the sanction announcements:

“European stock markets rebound today as the sanctions announced against Russia are seen as kind of ‘meh’, and clearly falling short of an outright economic war.”

As Reuters highlighted, the US has never before attempted to cut a $1.5 trillion economy out of global commerce, and it is unclear how much pressure unified Western sanctions can put on Moscow. A World Bank review and United Nations trade data shows that since sanctions were imposed against Russia in 2014 after unifying with Crimea, China has emerged as the Eurasian country’s biggest export destination.

According to Harry Broadman, a former US trade negotiator and World Bank official with China and Russia experience, it is speculated that new sanctions could prompt Moscow to deepen its non-dollar denominated trade ties with Beijing.

“The problem with sanctions, especially involving an oil producer, which is what Russia is, will be leakage in the system,” he said, adding: “China may say, ‘We’re going to buy oil on the open market and if it’s Russian oil, so be it.’”

Although Biden said he would “take robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at the Russian economy, not ours,” this will prove to be difficult, especially as Russia is among the world’s top exporters of oil, natural gas, copper, aluminum, palladium and other important commodities.

In fact, the World Bank’s World International Trade Solution database review found that Russia’s dependence on trade declined over the past 20 years, thus making it more immune to sanctions. So long as China remains Russia’s top supplier of imports, it is unlikely that Moscow will view these new sanctions with major concern.

The sanctions, as audacious as Borrell (and Biden) believe they are, will not stop Russians from shopping in Milan, partying in Saint-Tropez or buying diamonds in Antwerp – but Russians can also do such shopping and parting in Moscow, Sochi and elsewhere in Russia anyway, if they choose.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from novinite.com

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Hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic pesticides used in the United States are applied to corn and soy crops that are grown to feed factory farmed animals, according to a new report, Collateral Damage, released today by World Animal Protection, US and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The toxic chemicals imperil hundreds of species of already threatened or endangered birds, mammals, insects and amphibians, putting species and biodiversity at extreme risk. The full report can be found here.

An estimated 235 million pounds of herbicides and insecticides were applied to feed crops for factory-farmed animals in the United States in 2018, the most recent year for which complete information is available, according to the report’s findings.

Collateral Damage reveals that consumers may be having a greater impact on the health of animals and the planet from their meat and dairy choices than they realize.

“It is critical that we understand the full environmental footprint of animal products so people can understand the true impacts of their food choices,” said Cameron Harsh, programs director at World Animal Protection US. “Meat and dairy companies consume resources, such as feed crops and the land used to grow them, at unsustainable rates to create calorie-dense diets for the billions of farmed animals raised in the U.S. each year. Wild animals and ecosystems are paying the price.”

Among the report’s findings are the threats to protected species from the two most-used pesticides in this country — glyphosate and atrazine.

Glyphosate, roughly 100 million pounds of which were applied to feed crops in 2018, is likely to harm or kill 93% of plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to federal regulators. Atrazine, the next most-applied chemical on U.S. feed crops, is banned in 35 countries and likely to harm or kill more than 1,000 protected species.

Expanding production of intensive corn and soy for farmed animal feed is also associated with converting native, biologically diverse grasslands to single-crop production and with polluting waterways, adding further threats to wild species.

“Endangered species like monarch butterflies, San Joaquin kit foxes and whooping cranes are threatened by these pesticides every day just to fuel the cruel and unsustainable factory farm industry,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is outrageous and should be a call to action for everyone who cares about animals.”

World Animal Protection, US and the Center for Biological Diversity are calling on individuals and institutions to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy, opting for diets and menus that prioritize plant-based foods to lower impact on animals and the planet. Those interested in strategies for shifting their food choices can look to World Animal Protection’s Meating Halfway journey for resources.

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Fresh suspicion that COVID may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus’s spike protein.

They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2’s unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses.

The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus’s origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally.

The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab.

They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna’s sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution.

But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a ‘quirky’ coincidence rather than a ‘smoking gun’.

SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid, carries all the information needed for it to spread in around 30,000 letters of genetic code, known as RNA. The virus shares a sequence of 19 specific letters with a genetic section owned by Moderna. Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid’s furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome. Source: Daily Mail Online

Click here to read the full article.

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Dr. Paul Elias Alexander on stage in California Adelanto Mojave speaking to the US truckers before they begin to roll out on their convoy Feb 23rd 2022.

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Justin Trudeau’s Swastikas. “Democracy with Neo-Nazi Characteristics”. The Emergencies Act is Revoked

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 24, 2022

On Tuesday, the Senate met and was requested by the government’s representative to make a decision without having access to so-called ‘secret information’, a report which allegedly confirmed that the application of the Emergencies Act was required and justified.

Ukraine Crisis: How Perfidious Oligarchs Sold the Nation Out?

By Nauman Sadiq, February 23, 2022

In a long overdue decision, Russian President Putin after consulting with the National Security Council officially recognized the two breakaway republics of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk. Subsequently, the Russian parliament unanimously approved the decision and authorized deployment of Russian peace-keeping forces in the Donbass region.

Russia to the US: Your Aggression Stops Here

By Christopher Black, February 23, 2022

The Americans and their satellites states go further and claim a right to expand their alliance, but on what legal, moral or security grounds this right is based they cannot say. They claim that nations have the right to join NATO of their own free will, but this again is a distortion of the facts.

Justin Trudeau is a “Groomed Politician” Controlled by Klaus Schwab on Behalf of “Big Money”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 23, 2022

The financial establishment not only controls Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland as well Jagmeet Singh are also members of Schwab’s “Leaders of Tomorrow”. With regard to the enactment of a National Emergency put forth by Trudeau, Klaus Schwab plays a key role.

Russia Warns of “Brave New World” of Higher Gas Prices After Germany Halts Nord Stream 2

By Zero Hedge, February 23, 2022

Europe is heavily reliant on Russia for its gas needs, and to block the Nord Stream 2’s certification will only create havoc in European energy markets. Europe’s ultra-low gas storage levels for this time of year will keep the market very tight even beyond the winter season.

Fifty Years After Nixon’s Visit, US Businesses Urge ‘Continued Cooperation’ with China

By Global Times, February 23, 2022

Five decades after then US President Richard Nixon made an ice-breaking visit to China in 1972 that helped start bilateral diplomatic engagement, US business leaders in China voiced hope for continued commercial communication between China and the US and rejected a decoupling between the two economies.

What Are the Minsk Agreements and What Are Their Role in the Russia-Ukraine Crisis?

By Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman, February 23, 2022

Under pressure from ultra-nationalists and Russophobes, successive governments in Ukraine have failed to address the grievances of the Russian speaking majority in the Donbass region. Ukraine has also not implemented the provisions of the Minsk agreement signed in 2015 to end the conflict in the region.

A Quarter of U.S. Servicemembers and 75% of Defense Contractors Defy COVID Vaccine Mandate

By TrialSite, February 23, 2022

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a week ago, rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to reinstate the mandate. In the meantime, faced with widespread refusal to take the vaccines, government to ease enforcement.

How to End Vaccine Mandates — A History Lesson

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, February 23, 2022

If you’re wondering how we’ll ever put an end to these draconian COVID-19 mandates that are destroying lives and sanity across the world, take heart. History can serve us in this regard. The parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and its countermeasures that of previous smallpox pandemics are fascinating to behold, and therein we can also find the answer to our current predicament.

FDA Executive Officer Exposes Close Ties Between Agency and Pharmaceutical Companies: ‘Almost a Billion Dollars a Year Going into FDA’s Budget from the People we Regulate’

By Project Veritas Action, February 23, 2022

FDA Executive Officer Chris Cole: “The drug companies, the food companies, the vaccine companies. So, they pay us hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire and keep the reviewers to approve their products.”

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that his government will revoke the Emergencies Act (EA) despite it being approved by the House of Commons on Monday.

BREAKING: Trudeau is ending use of the Emergencies Act.https://t.co/DEN7zzAXL6 pic.twitter.com/1t3maFOdNf

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) February 23, 2022

Trudeau had said at the beginning of the week that the EA was still needed because his government was worried about further freedom-oriented activity from Canadian truckers and patriots.

The drastic change in governance comes as the Canadian Senate has spent the last two days debating whether to approve the EA when a national emergency is not present.

Conservative Senator Leo Housakos has led the charge in the Senate, and he gave an impassioned speech today against using the EA under the circumstances.

“This country is deeply divided like I’ve never seen,” Housakos said. “It’s moments like this when the executive branch of government and every prime minister has an obligation to put the nations interests above the interests of himself, his party, and partisan politics.”

Many Canadian Senators are independent, even if appointed by a Liberal Prime Minister, and have expressed growing concerns that they believe Trudeau thinks they are there simply to “rubber stamp” his policies, even if objectionable.

Canadian politicos have opined that Trudeau saw the writing on the wall given the rising anti-Trudeau mood in the Senate and that the PM revoked the act before he could be made to look foolish for having invoked it in the first place.

Trudeau has revoked the Emergencies Act right as Senators began to speak out on it and as an urgent application for judicial review made its way to federal court today.

— Anthony Furey (@anthonyfurey) February 23, 2022

Imagine being a Liberal MP, and NDP MP, a Senator, a Trudeau journalist, who supported the Emergencies Act, who pledged your loyalty to Trudeau above loyalty to the Constitution. Imagine having burnt up your own reputation to support his — only to have him say, "just kidding!"

— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) February 23, 2022

This story is developing, and it is not yet clear what will happen to bank accounts of convoy supporters that were frozen under the EA.

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UPDATE

Justin Trudeau has carried out an illegal and criminal police operation headed by an unapproved interim police chief against the Freedom Convoy. It started last Thursday, February 17th. 

The measures taken included police violence, mass arrests, illegal freezing of bank accounts and the confiscation of truckers’ vehicles. 

Trudeau had invoked the application of the 1988 Emergencies Act four days prior to the Vote in the House of Commons on Monday Evening. 

On Tuesday, the Senate met and was requested by the government’s representative to make a decision without having access to so-called ‘secret information’, a report which allegedly confirmed that the application of the Emergencies Act was required and justified. 

Visibly there was absolutely no evidence to support a major police operation against the Freedom Convoy.

Trudeau is a Liar. He was informed on Tuesday (February 22) that the Senate might refuse to “rubber stamp” the extension of the Emergencies Act.

Also on Tuesday the Premier of Alberta launched a lawsuit directed against Trudeau:

Kenney called the move – which Trudeau has argued is necessary to deal with a state of emergency caused by convoy protests and blockades – “one of the biggest mistakes of any modern Canadian government.”

“Mistakes” is a polite understatement. 

And on Wednesday February 23 Trudeau backtracked. He confirmed that the Application of the Emergencies Act was no longer necessary and that it would be revoked within ten days. 

The article below pertains to Trudeau’s accusations (without a shred of evidence) that the Freedom Convoy is Anti-semitic, when the evidence amply suggests that Trudeau himself is Anti-semitic.

A group of 23 prominent Israeli doctors and scientists wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “chastising him for equating demonstrators participating in the Freedom Convoy to Nazis”.

“The important fight against antisemitism should not be weaponized and directed at a legitimate civil protest which aims at restoring fundamental freedoms, to what used to be, not long ago, one of the freest countries in the world,” said the group in a letter on Friday”.

But there is something else which the media has failed to acknowledge. The forbidden truth is that Trudeau is known to have supported the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party in Ukraine which has committed countless atrocities directed against Kiev’s Jewish Community.

“Equating demonstrators to Nazis” when our Prime-Minster Justin Trudeau in 2016 welcomed Andriy Parubiy (left of Trudeau),  leader of the Svoboda party to the House of Commons. (details in the article below).

All of this is on record. This is no joking matter.

I call upon Canada’s Jewish Community to take a firm stance on the matter.

 

Michel Chossudovsky,

Global Research, February 23, 2022

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Justin Trudeau is unceasingly referring to swastikas intimating that the Freedom Convoy organizers are not only supportive of  Nazi symbols but are anti-Semitic. 

And on February 16,  he directed these wild accusations against the Conservative Party of Canada:

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was cautioned against using “inflammatory” language by the Speaker of the House of Commons on Wednesday after he told Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who is Jewish, that her party stands with “people who wave swastikas.”

Ms. Lantsman, the MP for Thornhill, north of Toronto, told the House that Mr. Trudeau “fans the flames of an unjustified national emergency” and asked, “When did the Prime Minister lose his way?”

He responded by saying, “Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas. They can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag”. ( Globe and Mail)

In substance, Trudeau is accusing Conservative Party members of being Neo-Nazis.

Video: Is Justin Trudeau anti-semitic?? 

Video: Trudeau has lost control of the situation 

.

On February 2  ” Prime Minister Justin in a rather unusual and RIDICULOUS “twit” made the following declaration (allegedly adopted by a unanimous vote of the House of Commons). REALLY?

The following video refutes Trudeau’s accusations 

.

“Democracy with Neo-Nazi Characteristics”?

At the time of writing, the application of a National Emergency directed against The Freedom Convoy 2022 is being debated in the House of Commons. According to Trudeau, the scope of the Emergency is “reasonable”, the measures do not encroach upon Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, says Trudeau.

The House of Commons is divided. The NDP has signified that it will be siding with the Liberal minority government.

Meanwhile, a major police initiative against the Freedom Convoy involving a high tech “Nazi style” special forces operation is contemplated by the Prime Minister Trudeau.

This decision should come as no surprise. Both Prime Minister Trudeau together with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland (as part of Canada’s foreign policy) have “unofficially” supported Neo-Nazi politics in Ukraine.

Is the Trudeau Government supplying weapons and training to the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion?

Neo-Nazi politics in Ukraine is not a “Fringe Movement”, it is embedded in the military and national security apparatus, supported by the US and Canada.

According to the Ottawa Citizen (November 9, 2021)

“Canadian officials who met with members of a Ukrainian battalion linked to neo-Nazis didn’t denounce the unit, but were instead concerned the media would expose details of the get-together, according to newly released documents.

The Canadians met with and were briefed by leaders from the Azov Battalion in June 2018. The officers and diplomats did not object to the meeting and instead allowed themselves to be photographed with battalion officials despite previous warnings that the unit saw itself as pro-Nazi. The Azov Battalion then used those photos for its online propaganda, pointing out the Canadian delegation expressed “hopes for further fruitful co-operation.”

The Azov battalion which is part of Ukraine’s National Guard under the helm of the Ministry of the Interior is supported by Canadian tax payers.

Canada’s military training cooperation agreement with Ukraine has raised the concern of the Jewish Community. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC)  “has called for an investigation by Canada’s Department of National Defence:

See the NATO Flag (left), The Azov Battalion Nazi Insigna and the Swastika

Ukraine Neo-Nazi Militia

Who is Waving Swastikas?

Trudeau Accuses the Conservative Party of  Supporting “People who Wave Swastikas.” 

Does that not Describe Trudeau’s Relationship with Svoboda Neo-Nazi Party Leader Andrey Korubiy?

The leader of the Neo-Nazi party Svoboda Andrey Korubiy is a “political buddy” of our prime minister.

Andriy Parubiy co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) was invited by Trudeau to Ottawa in 2016.

Andriy Parubiy believes that it was necessary “to introduce direct democracy to Ukraine, with Hitler as its torchbearer.”

Justin Trudeau invites Andriy Parubiy to Ottawa

Deputy Chairman of Ukraine’s Parliament, Andriy Parubiy, visited Ottawa in February 2016, meeting with the prime minister. At that meeting (from left) are Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada Andriy Shevchenko, Verkhovna Rada Deputy Chairman Andriy Parubiy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj.

Andriy Parubiy  is a supporter of World War II Nazi leader Stepan Bandera.

Anti-Semitism

While Trudeau accuses the Freedom Convoy of  anti-semitism (without a shred of evidence), he is supportive of the Ukraine’s National Guard which is integrated by Neo-Nazi elements.

Meanwhile (February 13),  Trudeau confirmed that Canada will be “sending $7.8 million worth of lethal equipment and ammunition to Ukraine”.

Andrey Parubiy’s Neo-Nazi party Svoboda is leading the campaign against Kiev’s Jewish community. Juden Raus!  (Jews Out!) is their motto.

The Jewish Community in Ukraine

Oleksandr Feldman president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, accused   the Svoboda party in “engaging in anti-Semitic hate speech”.  According to the Times of Israel: (January 2017 report)

Ukrainian nationalists [Parubiy’s followers] in Kiev chanted “Jews out” in German at a New Year’s Day march celebrating the birthday of a Nazi collaborator whose troops killed thousands of Jews.

Thousands attended the event in the center of the Ukrainian capital celebrating Stepan Bandera, a leader of Ukraine’s nationalist movement in the 1930s and ’40s. They held up his portrait while an unidentified person shouted the anti-Semitic slogan on a loudspeaker, prompting many participants to repeat it, a video published by the Federal News Agency showed.

Bandera’s movement included an insurgent army which fought alongside Nazi soldiers during part of World War II. Supporters of Bandera claim they sided with the Nazis against the Soviet army, believing that Adolf Hitler would grant Ukraine independence.

In 2018, Parubiy was accused by the British media for praising Adolph Hitler

 

Andrey Parubiy was also received by the US Congress

Is it a matter of concern that Canadian forces dispatched by our government are training Nazi paramilitary forces in Ukraine?

There is ample evidence of Canadian and US support to Neo-Nazis in Ukraine going back to the 2014 Euromaidan,

 

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In a long overdue decision, Russian President Putin after consulting with the National Security Council officially recognized the two breakaway republics of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk. Subsequently, the Russian parliament unanimously approved the decision and authorized deployment of Russian peace-keeping forces in the Donbass region.

Putin could have recognized the sovereignty of the breakaway republics as soon as Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. But being a pacifist, he kept waiting for eight years in the futile hope that better sense would ultimately prevail in Kiev.

After it became evident, however, that Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko have struck an irrevocable Faustian pact with the NATO devil, he was left with no other choice than to protect Russia’s paramount security interests at any cost, specifically from the existential threat emanating along Russia’s western borders after the deployment of the NATO troops, strategic armaments, nuclear-capable missiles and air force squadrons in the Eastern Europe aimed at Russia, and the NATO forces alongside its regional clients provocatively exercising so-called “freedom of navigation” right in the Black Sea and conducting joint military exercises and naval drills.

Although being dubbed “an invasion” by the corporate media, the majority population of the breakaway Donbass region speaks Russian and cheered the deployment of peace-keeping forces in the hope of restoring peace and stability following the turmoil and violence claiming 14,000 lives during the eight-year conflict.

Nevertheless, the Ukraine crisis is only a sequel to the most momentous event of the twentieth century: the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, rebellions in Eastern Europe and the subsequent break-up and massacres in the former Yugoslavia. Therefore, a succinct description of the nefarious plot to destabilize the Cold War rival by the NATO powers wouldn’t be out of place.

Many erudite Eurasian historiographers I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with were under the misconception that the alleged economic collapse in the former Soviet Republics in the late-eighties due to presumed intrinsic flaws in the Marxist-Leninist ideology precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet Union in Dec. 1991. Nothing could be more asinine than favoring exploitative capitalism with its supposed intrinsic strengths over egalitarian communism in the backdrop of the Soviet dissolution debacle.

The Soviet Union, with vast natural resources, territorial possessions spanning almost the entire northern landmass of Eurasia and technologically innovative workforce, stood the ground despite waging the over 70-year Cold War from 1917 to 1991 against the neocolonial powers.

With the vast oil and gas reserves, Russia and several former constituent republics of the Soviet Union, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, are the top exporters of energy to the industrialized world alongside the Gulf States. Without the Russian natural gas, European would freeze to death in harsh winters, or as Putin facetiously quipped: “They’d soon be gathering firewood to keep themselves warm.”

Even if Russia dismantled its cutting-edge industrial sector on a whim and stopped producing value-added goods, the exportable raw materials produced in the Eurasian behemoth would be enough to sustain the population for many centuries. Recently announced economic sanctions on Russia and halting the certification of Nord Stream 2 is going to hurt Washington’s European allies more than having any marked effect on Russia’s thriving economy.

Any external force, no matter how resourceful, could never have unraveled the super power of the era, but it succumbed to subversive internal threats, first due to destabilizing force of ostensibly popular and democratic rebellions in the Baltic and East European states in the late eighties, then due to fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent reunification of Germany in Oct. 1990, effectively placing the East German communists under the neocolonial tutelage of capitalist exploiters, and the last nail in the coffin was struck after Boris Yeltsin was elected the president of the constituent Russian Republic in the June 1991 elections, precipitating a power struggle between communist leadership at the center and nationalist leadership in the republic.

In the ensuing cataclysmic events, on August 19, 1991, a cabal of Soviet apparatchik, including Mikhail Gorbachev’s vice president, prime minister, defense minister and KGB chief, organized a coup plot and placed Gorbachev under house arrest. The coup organizers expected some popular support but the public sympathy in large metropolitan cities was against them.

The coup attempt was thwarted after three days and Gorbachev returned as the president of the Soviet Union. But not only the power of the presidency was compromised but also the vulnerability of the central leadership was exposed in the eyes of the public following the foiled coup plot. That was the point of no return. It became obvious the status quo could not be sustained in the crumbling Soviet Union.

The Glasnost and Perestroika liberalizing policies initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev were especially significant because they shine light on the impact of new technology on the social and political life of a country. The late-eighties was the era of the advent of satellite television in the developing world and it coincided with the political developments in the Soviet Union.

The Soviet masses, which until then were acquainted with news and information only from national media, were exposed to pernicious influence of imperialist media. The foreign-funded corporate media, including CNN, VOA, BBC and host of other television channels, radio stations and print media, capitalized on the opportunity to sow the seeds of discontentment among viewers, specifically among non-Russian ethnicities of the former Soviet Republics, by insidiously depicting contrasting lifestyles among the extravagant Western bourgeoisie and the frugality and egalitarianism typically favored in socialist communities.

As with the leadership of the rest of Baltic and East European states conniving with NATO powers and stabbing the former patron in the back, the imperialist stooges, Volodymyr Zelensky and his equally treacherous predecessor Petro Poroshenko, elected presidents through sham electoral process in the bourgeois democracy called Ukraine, represent nobody but the avaricious and exploitative entrepreneurial oligarchs wanting to expand business empires and attract foreign investments by pandering to the corporate interests of the Western Europe and North America.

Centralized governments across the world are run by behemoth state bureaucracies. Politicians are merely show pieces meant to lend legitimacy to supposedly “elected governments” and to cater to interests of business elites which they really represent. Disenfranchised masses are least bothered whether government is being run by autocrats or by “elected representatives” of the bourgeoisie, though the political and business elites often get restless and mobilize their support base to demand a share in the power pie.

The national security and defense policies of modern nation states are formulated by civil-military bureaucracy, dubbed as the deep state. Whereas trade and economic policies are determined by corporate interests and business cartels within the framework of neocolonial economic order imposed on the post-colonial world by corporate America following the signing of the Bretton Woods Accords at the end of the Second World War in 1945.

Purportedly democratic governments, elected through heavily manipulated electoral process, are reduced to performing ceremonial gimmicks and are meant only to serve as showpieces to legitimize militarist and capitalist exploitation.

Not only the disenfranchised masses of Ukraine but underprivileged proletariats of all the former Soviet constituent republics and allied states in Eastern Europe share historical, political and cultural bonds with Russia. Ensuring the collective security of Eurasian nations is Russia’s responsibility as a successor to the former Soviet Union.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the East European states didn’t become democracies overnight as projected in the parallel reality of media narratives constructed by spin-doctors, instead they became capitalist oligarchies ruled by ultra-rich business elites having stakes in the global economy and depositing lucrative profits from flourishing business enterprises into Western financial institutions.

The worst thing capitalist exploitation and neoliberal developmentalism do to organic societies is that they breed parasitic consumerist classes of filthy rich bourgeois hungry for foreign investment, particularly from the deep pockets of the multinational corporations based in the financial districts of North America and Western Europe, and wanting to expand their business empires at any cost, even if they have to sell their nations out to highest bidder for personal ambitions.

Such comprador bourgeois erode nations from within. They are wary of egalitarian socialist ideologies emphasizing equitable distribution of wealth, hence undermining financial stakes of oligarchs. In order to scuttle political ideologies favoring the interests of disenfranchised masses, they generously provide funds to pernicious media organizations and political forces insidiously promoting so-called economic liberalization, free trade and globalization, even if entire nations have to bear the cost of such market fundamentalism.

It was not a coincidence that the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991 and the Maastricht Treaty that consolidated the European Community and laid the groundwork for the European Union was signed in February 1992. The basic purpose of the EU has been nothing more than to entice the former communist states of the Eastern Europe into the folds of the Western capitalist bloc by offering financial incentives and inducements.

Even the Ukraine crisis was stoked by oligarchs in November 2013 by staging Euromaidan protests against the incumbent government after Viktor Yanukovych suspended the preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union and threatened to take Ukraine back into the folds of the Russian sphere of influence by accepting billions of dollars loan package offered by Vladimir Putin.

All the grandstanding and moral posturing of unity and equality aside, the hopelessly neoliberal institution, the EU, in effect, is nothing more than the civilian counterpart of the trans-Atlantic military alliance against the former Soviet Union, the NATO, that employs a much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare to win over political allies and to isolate adversaries that dare to sidestep from the global trade and economic policies as laid down by the Western capitalist bloc.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Af-Pak and Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

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***

Major Stephen Chledowski has served the Canadian Air Forces for 20+ years. He has held several army command positions.

He has an urgent message for all Canadians.

He noted that the government has been using “tactics of fear, intimidation, coercion and financial and physical violence” against the people to “gain compliance for certain repeated medical procedures.”

“They have knowingly and repeatedly violated the highest laws of the land, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Watch the video below.

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A lot of ink has been spilled lately on whether or not the USA and its NATO alliance promised the USSR that NATO would not expand into the space evacuated by the withdrawal of the Red Army from Europe. It is clear those promises were repeatedly made and clear they were repeatedly broken. There is no historical dispute. Claims to the contrary are propaganda to excuse NATO’s aggressive strategy against Russia.

The Americans and their satellites states go further and claim a right to expand their alliance, but on what legal, moral or security grounds this right is based they cannot say. They claim that nations have the right to join NATO of their own free will, but this again is a distortion of the facts. The NATO Treaty states that accession to the Treaty is by invitation only. So there is no right of any nation to freely choose to join NATO. That is a decision ultimately controlled by NATO, by the United States in fact, not the nation seeking to join. This contradiction in their propaganda is never addressed. Nor do they answer why, of all nations, Russia’s request to join was rejected. But the meaning of the rejection was clear at the time and is clear now.

The contradiction is never addressed because that would lead to questions on the methods used by NATO to obtain the requests by countries to join in the first place; which in turn would lead to an examination of the threats, intimidation, bribery, and extortion used to coax these otherwise peaceful nations, with no apparent or real enemy facing them, to join an American controlled military machine.

All this begs the question why the Americans want to expand their military alliance into those countries. There is only one possible answer, not as a means of defence, as they claim, but as preparation for aggression, which they have been conducting against Russia openly now since NATO attacked, without any justification whatsoever, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 gained control of the Balkan states and built its biggest military base, Camp Bondsteel, threatening Russia’s southwest flank.

The economic warfare has been constant since then, disguised as “sanctions” accompanied by hostile diplomatic moves, provocations along Russia’s borders, from Georgia to the Baltic, from the Black Sea to the Pacific all accompanied by a constant barrage of anti-Russian propaganda. The NATO aggression and invasion of Libya can be seen as part of their strategy to control the Mediterranean and the oil supplies in North Africa, to cause insecurity to Egypt, and the world has not forgotten their invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and, Syria, where American forces still refuse to leave, a fact ignored by the western media and politicians complaining about alleged threats of “Russian aggression.”

The Americans and their allies in NATO are the experts of hypocrisy, for not only do their constant aggressions violate all international law, including, inter alia, the UN Charter, and the Nuremberg Principles, their actions are also in absolute violation of NATO’s own treaty.

Article 1 of the NATO Treaty states,

‘The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.’

The USA and its NATO satellites are not attempting to settle disputes with Russia (or China for that matter) by peaceful means. Instead they are using the entire spectrum of hybrid warfare, total warfare, against Russia. Yet no NATO member nation has demanded of NATO that the alliance and its members comply with Article 1. None of them demand that it complies with the stated adherence to the UN Charter.

The NATO alliance is also in contravention of Article 7 and 8, which state,

‘Article 7

This Treaty does not affect, and shall not be interpreted as affecting in any way the rights and obligations under the Charter of the Parties which are members of the United Nations, or the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Article 8

Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty.’

The contradiction between the NATO Treaty and the security architecture created by the UN Charter is clear. Chapter VII of the Charter governs all nations with respect to international security. There can be no legal basis for the establishment of any military alliances such as NATO whose clear political objectives are aggression and American hegemony over the world.

Article 8 requires NATO member nations not to enter into any international “engagement’ in conflict with this Treaty. Yet they had already done so becoming members of the United Nations. So, not only is the NATO Treaty a violation of the UN Charter, in fact, a negation of it, its own members are in violation of the NATO Treaty by being members of the UN.

In consequence, the Americans and their allies have, to all intents and purposes, abandoned the United Nations as the final arbiter of international security and now promote their private club of aggressors as its replacement, not to establish peace, but to conduct war.

The NATO Treaty is not the only document to be considered. There is the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 which states,

“Article 1

The High Contracting parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.”

“Article II

The High contracting parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”

The Kellogg–Briand Pact, otherwise known as the General Treaty For Renunciation of War As An Instrument of National Policy, signed by many nations, including the USA and its NATO members and the USSR, is still in force as established by this exchange in the British House of Commons on December 16, 2013.

‘Steve Baker: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make an assessment of whether the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy remains binding on the UK.

The Solicitor-General: I am advised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy (also known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact) remains in force and that the United Kingdom remains a party.’

Of course despite this being a fundamental element of international law, the United States of America has engaged in continuous warfare as an instrument of national policy since the date they signed it.

Russia has acted consistently in accordance with international law and humanity in response to the American threats and actions but is met with the boorish behaviour and insults of thugs.

Earlier this year President Putin sent to the American president a proposal for a Treaty which would guarantee the peace in Europe. The offer was rejected out of hand by the Americans who played games with the text and offered to negotiate on peripheral items, while ignoring Russia’s demands that NATO cease its expansion, withdraw American nuclear weapons from Europe, dismantle the bases and equipment it has placed all over eastern Europe in preparation for war on Russia and agree not to place missile systems close to Russia’s borders.

In further reply to the Russian request to negotiate a Treaty, the Americans hyped up their propaganda against Russia and now provoke its puppets in Kiev to mount an offensive against the Donbass Republics. The result the world now sees as civilians are attacked by artillery bombardments, a war crime in itself, resulting in the evacuation of large numbers of people from the Republics into Russia. This mass movement of refugees is hardly mentioned in the western press, nor that it is due to their actions; nor the attempted assassination of Donbass leaders.

The Russian Duma voted last week to recommend to the President that the Republics be recognised as sovereign states. On Monday, February 21st President Putin, also acting on the request of the Donbass Republics, and the recommendation of the Russian Security Council, made the momentous and logical decision to do exactly that. The Minsk Agreements, though supported by Russia, were being impeded and sabotaged by some European nations, by the Kiev regime and the USA. They were at a dead end. The recognition by Russia was immediately followed by the signing of agreements of mutual cooperation between Russia and the Republics. The meaning and importance of this is obvious to everyone and will be seen clearly in the coming days. NATO and the US of course condemned the decision, though their recognition of the Serbian province of Kosovo as an independent state after they attacked Yugoslavia, occupied Kosovo and tore it out of the heart of Serbia, set the precedent; they have no right to complain about anything.

President Putin’s recent meetings with President Macron of France are a positive development as well as his talks with the new German Chancellor. In France, almost every party from the communists to the far right and everyone in between are calling for France to leave NATO and state Russia is the friend of France. Macron plays both sides against the middle but he knows which way the wind blows, and so is very active in order to be seen as a voice of reason and peace in Europe.

The French are also angry with the Americans over the submarine fiasco, in which the Americans kicked the French in the teeth by getting the Australians to cancel their purchase of French submarines to be replaced with American submarines, while the Germans see that the Americans, who still have occupation forces in Germany, are set on forcing them to buy expensive US liquefied gas, of doubtful supply, instead of the cheaper, secure supplies of Russian gas promised by the NordStream 2 pipeline.

In its reply to the Americans, handed to their ambassador in Moscow on February 17, Russia stated that,

“In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees to ensure our security from the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures.”

This has the Americans in a panic, which may partly account for the hysteria of their propaganda because they have no idea what those military-technical measures will be. We can though look at the actions taken to date to have some idea of the possibilities, with the Chief of the Russian Defence Staff travelling to Syria to meet with President Assad, and the transfer of Russian advanced bombers and jet fighters to their bases in Syria. This has implications for control of the Mediterranean as well the illegal, and brutal occupation of Syrian territory by American forces. In the past week Russian military exercises have wound down in Crimea and region but continue in Belarus and President Putin himself is reported to have overseen nuclear force drills the past several days. The US has been placed on notice; your aggression stops here.

In regard to the situation in Ukraine the Russian document states,

‘To de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, it is fundamentally important to take the following steps. These are forcing Kiev to implement a set of measures, stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine, withdrawing all Western advisers and instructors from there, refusing NATO countries from any joint exercises with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and withdrawing all previously delivered Kiev of foreign weapons outside the Ukrainian territory.

In this regard, we draw attention to the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a press conference following the talks in Moscow with French President Emmanuel Macron on February 7, 2022, stressed that we are open to dialogue and call for “thinking about stable security conditions for all, equal for all participants in international life.

Once again, Russia wants peace. Europe wants peace. But the United States wants its way and is willing to go to war. But if they go down that road, it will be their final act of aggression because as I wrote above, the Russians, have, as do the Chinese and North Koreans, now told the Americans, “we want peace, and are willing to achieve it, but your aggression stops here.’

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events,

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

When Donetsk leader Denis Pushilin and Lugansk leader Leonid Pasechnik formally requested recognition from Moscow, the subsequent recognition by Vladimir Putin (as The President of Russia) on the 21^st of February 2022 of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) as Sovereign Nations is perhaps the most logical and deeply humane action any political leader of any nation has taken this far in the 21^st century.

It reveals the people of the Russian Federation to be deeply conscious: of the still open scars and the trauma of the chaos and destruction of the events of the great war against fascism which came to a mind-numbing apocalyptic close in 1945. It also reveals the sheer determination and strength of character and precision of clarity of thought under severe pressure; in decision making, of the Russian President and the exceptionally intelligent and heroic figure of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.

It also reveals what they were up against in a British foreign minister with ambitions of garnering the top job for herself within her own cabinet, unaware of the distance between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea and which parts of the Russian Federation are officially recognized by her own government as being legally part of Russia.

It also revealed the mental instability and imbalance of a head of state, who in a previous avatar played the leading role of a clown in a television comedy show, and who now, in his present reinvention, is found to be deeply un-hinged and totally dis-located from the reality of administering a nation by threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons on his own territory, thereby indicating clearly that he could care less about the cataclysmically dangerous situation that he was putting his own people in; albeit perhaps thinking that this is all a television show and he be playing a new role as the puppet clown on an imperialist string.

It also reveals the fascist elements that are now deeply and dangerously embedded within every facet of civil society, government administration, armed militia gangs, the military and decision making authorities within a country that was at one time considered to be the breadbasket of Europe. That at one time was called the settlement. The very edge of civilization where anything after was considered to be; beyond the pale.

It beggars belief that a leader of nation would ask his armed forces to bomb his own people out of their homes, indiscriminate of them being women and innocent children, in a freezing winter and then openly try to kill them as they fled, by attempting to carpet bomb the escape roads. These are tactics straight out of the fascist mind of another deranged maniac who left this world, helped on his way to hell by the Soviet army under Marshall Zhukov in 1945.

It also beggars belief that these same armed forces would then actually go ahead and do this, (to be specific, in that), kill their own people in acts of crazed vindictive violence in revenge; for whatever reasons the armed forces deemed them to be deserving of this punishment. They seemed to harbour a thought that their own people had committed some sort of perceived wrong against them. From the viewpoint of their own twisted logic, these people deserved the bombing and destruction of their lives.

Perhaps, this is the only part that makes sense as these armed forces are totally under the control of heartless fascists who themselves are under strict conditions of terms of finance; as well as, clear orders and instructions from an imperial power that is sadly morphing from the policeman of the world into more of a traffic cop of a dysfunctional self-proclaimed new world order.

There will be arguments made by the servants  of imperialism who will say; so what that the Russian president has recognized the DPR and LPR? There were Russian troops there anyway and have been since 2014. That may be true but with the development of the 21^st of February, the psychotically insane can no longer bomb the DPR and LPR anymore. Why so? You may ask. Well, if they do, it would mean bombing sovereign nations recognized by the Russian Federation with whom they now have a mutual pact of friendship and a de facto Right To Protect Agreement. A federation that also has a veto at the United Nations Assembly and could well drag you there and have you ruthlessly sanctioned under the legal instruments of international law.

You may think that sanctions are some sort of game that only you can apply like some sort of world order mafia don, on nation states that don’t pay you extortion and protection money, on which an entire financial system of global exploitation survives, but sadly there still remains this slight problem that you need to be overcome with regards to this thing called; international law. And that law is debated at the very institution that you yourself created and have now turned into a joke. That, of course, being the United Nations General Assembly.

The DPR and LPR have now become recognized sovereign nations and will remain so. They are not a part of the Russian Federation, nor a part of Ukraine. The federation remains a founding nation of the United Nations. They will table a motion at the UNSC that Ukraine must stop bombing these two sovereign nations, i.e., the DPR and LPR, and that Ukraine must come to the negotiating table to discuss what exactly is their problem with these two very small nations and what are the reasons for their actions towards them. What exactly have these two nations done to Ukraine for them to deserve this.

A resolution will be passed by the 15 member United Nations Security Council and that will then go to a UN General Assembly vote. Before any of that happens, Washington, Ottawa and London will “help” President Zelensky find “peace within himself” by having him removed from office and the new Ukraine government will be then be given clear instructions to stop this chaos, which will then in turn allow the UN motion to not having to be voted on at the United Nations, thus saving the member nations from having to openly take sides by publicly voting for either the “West” or the “East”. Namely, For either a unipolar world led by “errand boys and clerks”, as famously quoted by Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now or a multipolar world led by themselves as free nations unburdened by the chains of an imperial hegemon.

President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov should get the Nobel Peace Prize for their heroic efforts in stabilizing Syria and now for mitigating this crisis in the heart of Europe.

This below is the gist of the statement from the Russian Federation

“On top of this, Putin issued an ultimatum to the Kiev regime. The Zelensky government must immediately stop fighting in the region and obey to the ceasefire.

In other cases, Putin said, it will bear full responsibility for the further development of the situation. This shows that Russia is ready to kick off a peace enforcement operation against the Kiev regime if this is needed. In this case, it is possible that a large, if not more, regions of Ukraine’s south-east will be cleared from criminals that the current Kiev regime calls its ‘security forces’ and the ‘army’.” [reference SouthFront: 21/02/2022]

Zelensky has a maximum of 30 days of fife in his current avatar before he is discharged from duty by those who pull his string and the serious negotiations commence to offset the effects of the next round of chaos that will now erupt, where there will now be an attempt to “help” to bring “peace and security” to settle the issue of this upheaval by partitioning Ukraine into a West Ukraine from Lviv and an East Ukraine from Kiev.

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***

Sehr geehrter Herr Novak Djokovic, 

Da ich Sie persönlich nicht erreichen werde, wende ich mich mit einem Offenen Brief an Sie.

Ich bin deutscher Wissenschaftler und Psychologe und lebe seit über zwei Jahren in Ihrem Heimatland Serbien.

Seit vielen Wochen verfolge ich von hier aus die weltweit von einer diabolischen Finanz-„Elite“ losgetretene Angst-Pandemie sowie den Zwang, sich mit einem genverändernden sogenannten Impfstoff impfen zu lassen. Dabei war ich immer sehr gespannt auf Ihre Stellungnahme und Ihr Verhalten als serbischer Ausnahme-Sportler und Vorbild nicht nur für die Jugend weltweit.

Als ich heute in den deutschen Zeitungen Ihre neue Stellungnahme las,

„Lieber Trophäen verpassen als gezwungen sein, einen Covid-Impfstoff zu bekommen“ (1)

und bei BBC:

„Ich bin nicht gegen Impfungen, würde aber Trophäen opfern, wenn man mir sagt, ich solle mich impfen lassen.“ (2)

war ich begeistert und möchte Ihnen zu Ihrem Mut gratulieren. Ganz Serbien wird stolz sein auf Sie. Sie sind für mich nicht nur ein Vorbild für eine freie Jugend, sondern für alle freie Menschen. Ich wünsche Ihnen weiterhin alles Gute.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Rudi Hänsel

Erziehungswissenschaftler und Diplom-Psychologe
Belgrad / Serbien

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Noten

1. https://www.welt.de/sport/article236910447/Novak-Djokovic-Keine-Impfung-Keine-Turniere-Den-Preis-zahle-ich.html

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60354068

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First published on February 18, 2022

***

Trudeau is a groomed politician controlled by the financial establishment. He was a “student” of Klaus Schwab‘s “Leaders of Tomorrow” initiative (1992)

Klaus Schwab made the following statement in January 2016 at the Davos annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, less than three months after Justin Trudeau’s accession to the position of Prime Minister of Canada following the November 2015 elections.

 

Klaus Schwab on Trudeau’s loyalty to the World Economic Forum & not to the Canadian people. pic.twitter.com/8VaTKMAnb6

— TheNo1Waffler (@TheNo1Waffler) February 15, 2022

 

The following statement by Schwab was made a year later in 2017:

I have to say then I mention names like Mrs Merkel, even Vladimir Putin and so on they all have been Young Global Leaders of The World Economic Forum. But what we are really proud of now with the young generation like Prime Minister Trudeau, President of Argentina and so on, is that we penetrate the cabinets… It is true in Argentina and it is true in France now… (Klaus Schwab)

Click here or image to access Video 

 

The financial establishment not only controls Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland as well Jagmeet Singh are also members of Schwab’s “Leaders of Tomorrow”.

With regard to the enactment of a National Emergency put forth by Trudeau, Klaus Schwab plays a key role.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) (acting on behalf of powerful financial interests) oversees both the Prime Minister of Canada as well as the Leader of  the NDP Jagmeet Singh.  

Trudeau relies on the support of the NDP to enact the National Emergency under Emergencies Act R.S.C., 1985, c. 22 (4th Supp.)

Canada’s Parliament is in the Hands of “Big Money”

Trudeau, Merkel, Macron et al are proxies. 

Right from the outset of this crisis, powerful financial groups ordered the “Covid Mandates” from the March 11, 2020 Lockdown Onwards.

UPDATE: Following the publication of this article:

The Role of Klaus Schwab in Canadian politics was raised in the House of Commons

An MP raises the question:

 

 

Here it is… pic.twitter.com/K20UaL2FKW

— Lucian Scott 🇨🇷 🇨🇦 (@ScottLucian) February 19, 2022

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our thanks to Number one Waffler and Lucian Scott

***

It is important that Canadians in all electoral districts across the land, contact their representatives (MPs) demanding that they exercise a:

NO VOTE in relation to Trudeau’s proposed enactment of a National Emergency, in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is a protégé of Klaus Schwab.

The NDP has a longstanding history of progressive politics going back to Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent and Jack Leyton.

At this crossroads in our history:

We call on all NDP Members of Parliament to SAY NO to Jagmeet Singh’s decision to support Trudeau.

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***

Europe’s energy crisis deepened Tuesday as Germany halted the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. Putin’s right hand man, Dmitry Medvedev responded to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s comments about the certification of the controversial Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline that ‘can’t happen right now’ by tweeting:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued an order to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Well. Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2.000 for 1.000 cubic meters of natural gas!

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued an order to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Well. Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2.000 for 1.000 cubic meters of natural gas!

— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) February 22, 2022

Based on Medvedev’s tweet, translating MWh to cubic meters, it appears gas prices for Europe could be headed back to crisis levels not seen since late 2021.

Europe is heavily reliant on Russia for its gas needs, and to block the Nord Stream 2’s certification will only create havoc in European energy markets.

Europe’s ultra-low gas storage levels for this time of year will keep the market very tight even beyond the winter season.

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At a moment the United States and Europe are busy mulling over what sanctions to impose on Moscow for Putin’s independence recognition for Ukraine’s separatist republics – on the one hand wanting Russia to feel the pain as a warning against moving further into Ukraine (beyond what the Kremlin is dubbing “peacekeeping” troops in Donetsk and Luhansk, which entered the republics overnight), and on the other wanting to avoid severe enough economic measures that would almost guarantee immediate escalation – Germany on Tuesday has announced it has halted the certification process for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

As European Union leaders prepare to sanction Moscow, Bloomberg quoted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as saying the Nord Stream 2 pipeline certification can’t happen right now. He explained to reporters that he contacted the Economic Ministry to withdraw a report on the security of supply required for the certification process of pipeline to move forward. Without it, NS2 “cannot go into operation” – he told reporters.

In essence as Bloomberg put it, the controversial Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline appears to be the first major Russian project to fall victim to Putin’s independence declaration for the breakaway Ukraine republics.

“That sounds technical, but it’s the necessary administrative step so that no certification of the pipeline can happen right now,” Scholz said of the move, adding that “without the certification, Nord Stream 2 cannot go into operation.”

Concerning the first wave of sanctions reportedly now being prepared targeting Russia, Scholz said, “I expect a very strong and focused package.” What’s expected to be in the package has been revealed and summarized as follows by Bloomberg:

• EU proposed sanctions to target those involved in recognition of breakaway regions
• EU proposed sanctions target banks financing Russian military and other operations in the region
• EU proposed sanctions target Russia’s ability to tap EU’s capital and financial markets
• EU proposed sanctions target trade from two breakaway regions to and from EU
• EU says ministers to meet to finalize proposed first package of sanctions
• EU has prepared and stands ready to adopt additional measures at a later stage if needed in the light of further developments

European natural gas jumped 13% today – hours after Russian troops began entering Donetsk and Luhansk. Brent prices nearing $100 a barrel, and German power and coal prices advanced. This all comes as Europe is dealing with one of the worst energy crisis in years.

Wow! Germany is killing the new $10bn Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia.

That's a huge step after refusing to be drawn on it in public for months. It'll have major consequences for European energy security and suggests the western sanctions against Moscow will be tough. https://t.co/hQknCtBEpG

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 22, 2022

The Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline was completed on Sept. 11 and has been ready to supply Europe for months. Even before this week’s geopolitical turmoil in Ukraine, Germany’s federal network agency, Bundesnetzagentur, halted the pipeline’s certification process in mid-November.

By December, Bundesnetzagentur President Jochen Homann said, “a decision won’t be made in the first half of 2022.” The latest developments to halt the certification process suggest Nord Stream 2 pipeline won’t supply energy crisis-stricken Europe with natural gas anytime soon.

Likely this first wave is only the very beginning of multiple waves of sanctions to come; however, hawks are already decrying these as too softened and easy for Moscow to endure…

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Featured image is from Indian Punchline

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Five decades after then US President Richard Nixon made an ice-breaking visit to China in 1972 that helped start bilateral diplomatic engagement, US business leaders in China voiced hope for continued commercial communication between China and the US and rejected a decoupling between the two economies.

Monday marks the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s historic visit to China, during which the two countries issued a document known as the Shanghai Communiqué, which became the political foundation for the normalization of China-US relations.

“We as a US business chamber still hope that China and the US continue to maintain at least economic and trade interactions amid relatively complex global geopolitics… we don’t want the so-called decoupling,” Eric Zheng, President of AmCham Shanghai, told the Global Times on Monday.

According to him, the changes and challenges emerging in the two countries’ economic relations in the past few years, especially the trade war, had exerted negative impact on the markets and enterprises in both countries, and they didn’t help solve the specific problems.

“We hope that the two sides could figure out a more positive mechanism to resolve their trade and commercial disputes…instead of by increasing tariffs, which actually bring harm to both countries,” he said.

Zheng also noted that the AmCham Shanghai has been communicating with US policymakers, including the US Congress, the administration, and US think tanks, to provide accurate information on US companies’ operations in China.

Although bilateral relations had encountered many uncertainties, with disputes and sanctions, economic interactions seemed to have reached a new pinnacle with the entrance and success of many US companies like Tesla and Disneyland in the Chinese market in recent years.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image: A view of Yantian port in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong Province on February 16, 2022. Photo: cnsphoto

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***

Under pressure from ultra-nationalists and Russophobes, successive governments in Ukraine have failed to address the grievances of the Russian speaking majority in the Donbass region. Ukraine has also not implemented the provisions of the Minsk agreement signed in 2015 to end the conflict in the region

On Monday, February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in a press conference that the country will recognize the independence of the Donetsk and the Luhansk people’s republics. Refuting arguments that the move will harm possibilities for peace and violate provisions of the Minsk agreement, the Russian leader claimed that the decision was aimed at maintaining peace in the region.

According to Valentina Matviyenko, chairperson of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russian parliament, the situation in Donbass is of a “humanitarian disaster and genocide” and Russia’s move will help in easing the situation there. She claimed that Russia was left with no other option to prevent the bloodbath in the region as no one was listening to its calls for diplomatic and political solutions in the last eight years.

Russia’s move is based on certain facts and growing speculation at a time when war hysteria is being whipped up by the US and its NATO allies in the region. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), which was assigned the role to monitor the ceasefire under the Minsk agreement, the Ukrainian government has violated the ceasefire agreement several times in the last week. Several rounds of talks, revived between the parties of the Minsk agreement in the last couple of weeks, have also failed to address Russian concerns. The situation prompted the leaders of Luhansk and Donetsk to appeal to Putin to take immediate action.

Minsk agreement

The situation in Ukraine today is attributed to the rise of ultra-nationalist and Russophobe groups that compelled the then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich to resign during the Euromaidan protests in February 2014. Protesters called for Yanukovich to follow policies favorable for integration with the EU and NATO even at the cost of harming Ukraine’s traditional ties with Russia. This same set of ultra nationalist and Russophobe political groups have been hampering the implementation of the Minsk agreement by successive Ukrainian governments.

The Minsk agreement was signed in the context of the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine following the post-Euromaidan government’s move to crush the protests opposing the pro-EU and pro-NATO policies that it had adopted. Ukrainian forces declared a war on the protesters following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The war lasted for months before the 13-point Minsk agreement was signed, and led to the death of over 14,000 people and displaced over 2.5 million, with nearly half of them seeking refuge in Russia.

The Minsk agreement was signed by countries and groups forming the Normandy format including the OSCE, France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in February 2015. The agreement was later endorsed by the UN Security Council (UNSC). According to the provisions of the agreement, apart from establishing an immediate ceasefire in the Donbass region, the government in Ukraine agreed to make provisions for greater autonomy to Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, the centers of rebellion, by first recognizing the right to self-government and also creating special status for the regions in the parliament. It was a necessary condition for them to remain within Ukraine and for Russia to hand over border control to the Ukrainian government, which it had taken over following the outbreak of the war. The OSCE was assigned the role of observing the implementation of the ceasefire agreement. The agreement also talked about broader constitutional reforms in Ukraine.

Non-implementation of Minsk agreement

According to Russian claims, over 1.2 million residents of the Donbass region have already applied for Russian citizenship out of a total estimated population of six million. Russian speaking people form an overwhelming majority in both the self-declared republics. They fear that if the international community abandons their cause, they will face another war and ethnic cleansing by the Ukrainian state.

Successive governments in Kiev have not paid much attention towards addressing the issue of the Donbass region and have failed to initiate moves to implement the Minsk agreement. One attempt made by newly elected Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 also failed after large-scale ultra nationalist protests broke out in the country opposing the move. The protesters accused Zelensky of “capitulation” to Russian pressure and threatened to force him to resign. The fear of losing popular support made Zelensky adopt a “tougher” rhetoric towards Russia, blaming it for the problems in Donbass instead of addressing the real issue.

Russia has raised the Donbass issue in international forums on several occasions, like in the UNSC meeting called by the US and its allies to discuss the situation in the beginning of February.

During his presentation in the UNSC, Russian representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, asserted that Ukraine should respect the provisions of the Minsk agreement signed in 2014 and 2015. He said that if western powers push Kiev to “sabotage the Minsk agreement”, Ukraine will be on the way to self destruction.

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Featured image is from Sputnik News/Alexey Nikolsky

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Report from South Front.

What should be understood as that Western Mercenary Forces are Deployed in Eastern Ukraine

***

February 21 marked a historic event that shapes a new system of international relations for the entire world community. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia recognizes the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the east of Ukraine as sovereign entities.

‘Do you want decommunization? I will show you what REAL decommunization is!’ said Vladimir Putin.

The decrees were signed, stating that the decision was based on the will of the people of the LDPR and Ukraine’s rejection of a peaceful settlement of the conflict in accordance with the Minsk Agreements.

“They are not interested in peaceful solutions – they want to start a Blitzkreig,” Putin stated referring to the policy of the current Kiev regime. The president noted that Ukraine does not even hide aggressive plans and prepares for the conflict with Russia into which it seeks to drag NATO member states.

Putin called to ‘find, put on trial and punish’ the persons responsible for the 2014 Odessa massacre (when neo-Nazi radicals killed and burned dozens of civilians who protested against the Maidan coup). As the massacre was supported on almost all levels of the Ukrainian government, this can refer to almost all representatives of the post-Maidan Ukrainian elites.

The Kremlin issued an ultimatum to the Kiev regime. The Zelensky government must immediately stop fighting in the region and obey the ceasefire. Should this fail to happen, Putin said, it will bear full responsibility for the further development of the situation.

After the ratification of the treaties of friendship and cooperation between the Russian Federation and the LDPR, Russia can legally deploy its troops in the Donbass region, as well as supply the republics with any weapons.

The Russian President signed a Decree instructing the Russian armed forces to provide peacekeeping functions in the DPR and LPR. During the night, units of the 8th Field Army of the Russian Armed Forces have begun to enter the territory of the LDPR.

Moscow’s decision has dramatically changed the situation on the Donbass front lines.

The activity of Ukrainian shelling of residential buildings on the territory of the Republics began to decrease and practically stopped after Ukrainian President Zelensky did not take any decisions following a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

On February 22, in the first half of the day, the escalation decreased, and the number of attacks on the entire front line sharply reduced.

However, despite the confusion in the ranks of the Ukrainian Army, the activity of Ukrainian sabotage groups continued on LDPR territory as well as in Russia. Earlier, sabotage groups of the UAF carried out terrorist operations on the territory of the DPR and LPR on a regular basis, their activity has increased significantly in recent days.

On February 22, three people were killed in an explosion on the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway, a representative of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic claimed.

Earlier, Donetsk reported on the breakthrough of a Ukrainian sabotage group deep into the republic in the Novoazovsky district, during the clash the group was neutralized.

On February 21, Ukrainian saboteurs crossed the border with Russia near the village of Mityakinskaya, in the Rostov region. They were stopped by Russian border guards. As a result of the clash, 5 violators of the border were killed and one saboteur as captured.  Two infantry fighting vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were also destroyed. There were no casualties among the Russian military.

While Russia has moved into action, the West is in no hurry to support the Kiev regime with military forces, but only intimidates Russia with new sanctions.

US President Biden signed a decree aimed at banning investments, trade and financing of the DPR and the LPR. The EU called Moscow’s decision a violation of international law, promised to react firmly and respond with sanctions. The NATO Secretary General condemned the recognition of the LDPR, claiming that it undermines efforts to resolve the situation in Ukraine.

Russia’s decisive actions mark the time of consolidation of the block of counteraction to the global world system beneficial to the Anglo-Saxon elites and imposed by the so-called collective West. It seems to be clear that China is on Russia’s side. However, Beijing’s position and the level of its support are yet to be officially declared.

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***

Nearly a quarter of United States military personnel and 75 percent of Department of Defense contractors are defying President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for all service members, civilian Pentagon workers, and defense contractors, a workforce in excess of 740,000 people.

The revelation was included in a Department of Defense COVID-19 Vaccine Operations Update slide deck. The report was current as of January 10.

Continued Military Defiance of Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

The defiance of Pentagon workers and service members against Biden’s order continues amid a pause in enforcement as a result of a federal court injunction.

Court of Appeals Allows Federal Mandate Injunction to Stand

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a week ago, rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to reinstate the mandate.

In the meantime, faced with widespread refusal to take the vaccines, government to ease enforcement.

A Quarter of U.S. Service Members Partially Vaccinated or Unvaccinated

According to the DoD deck 339,883 of all U.S. service members, or 16 percent of the force, are only partially vaccinated and 179,952, or 8.4 percent of the force, have received no vaccine doses at all.

Three-Quarters of DoD Contractors Partially or Not Vaccinated

In addition, more than 75 percent of U.S. defense contractors – more than 3.3 million people –  have defied the vaccination mandate.

According to the slide deck, 79,218 Pentagon contractors, or 4.4 percent of that group, are partially vaccinated, and 1,300,111, or 71.4 percent are not known to have taken any COVID vaccine.

The news of continued defiance to Biden’s vaccine mandates for the military comes amid increased tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

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Featured image: Pfc. Shaniah Edwards, Medical Detachment, prepares to administer the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to soldiers and airmen at the Joint Force Headquarters, February 12, 2021. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Leona C. Hendrickson – Source.)

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***

We were awakened to the roar of F-16s exercising overhead. The day before, February 10, the Social Democrat government announced yet another escalation in its war-threatening measures alongside its main partner, the United States: the “Defense Cooperation Agreement” (DCA). It entails more military might from the U.S. Perhaps, we were awakened by Danish fighter pilots’ celebrating.

For the first time in Denmark’s history, its politicians will allow U.S. troops and war machinery on Danish mainland soil. There have not been foreign troops welcomed in Denmark since shortly after World War II—other than the tacit acceptance of Nazi Germany—and they were British and Soviets.^[1]

The self-described Social Democrat leaders said they would try and forge a similar relationship that the U.S. enjoys with Norway, which has hosted U.S. training exercises and war aircraft and agreed to have the U.S. build three more air and ship bases it will use. And as we go to press, Denmark has called its frigate Esbern Snare away from pirate patrol in Guniea Bay to join NATO ships threatening Russia

The NATO conflict with Russia over Ukraine and Crimea, begun in 2013-14, has been used by U.S.-NATO to broaden its military occupation in several parts of Europe with more aircraft bases and warships in harbors.

Recently, both Sweden and Finland expressed interest in joining NATO, despite majority opinion opposed to this. With more false-flag propaganda, public opinion is turning more to the right and pro-NATO “for security.” ^[2]

At this stage of the new DCA, there is not to be a U.S. military base and atomic weapons are not to be placed here during “peacetime,” which is still in effect since 1957 (explained in part 1). Nevertheless, the U.S. had secretly placed atomic weapons on its Greenland colony. H.C. Hanssen, another Social Democrat, had secretly granted permission to the U.S. to place atomic bombs
at Thule base on Greenland despite the 1957 nuclear free zone policy. A B-52G Stratrofortress aircraft carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed due to a human error, which caused a fire. Several hundred Danish and US American clean-up workers died from radiation poisoning causing cancer.

A B-52G, similar to the one that crashed at Thule Air Base. 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash – Wikipedia

Although the current Social Democrat  prime minister said no to atomic weapons, she could lie as her predecessor did, or another prime minister could say yes and scratch the nuclear free-zone policy. There were no other conditions for U.S. troops and war materials explained by these leaders. What they did not inform (or remind) the public was that Denmark’s agreement with NATO when it first joined was that foreign troops would not be allowed on Danish soil in times of peace.

The U.S., however, may choose to interpret what “peacetime” means. Furthermore, whether a prime minister here or there says no to the U.S. does not mean the superpower will obey others’ national interests. The Pentagon—as Politiken’s February 11 editorial, “Uncle Sam in Denmark,” pointed out—does not tell others what they can do (nor does the CIA).

Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, replied to Danish media that his country sees the DCA as a definite confrontation against its sovereignty and its people. He also brought in the 1990 agreement—“Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Paris Charter” (OSCE)—signed by 34 heads of state, including the parties concerned with DCA. The ambassador said that this cooperative agreement is ignored by the U.S., NATO, and specifically by what Denmark is proposing.

Joseph Gerson, President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, wrote about this agreement and others in Common Dreams. He stated:

The OSCE “ushered in a new era as states made an unprecedented commitment to domestic individual freedoms, democratic governance, human rights, and transnational cooperation.”

Seven years later, it was followed by the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which enshrined commitments to equal security and to not seek security at the expense of the other’s security. And in OSCE’s 1999 European Security Charter, its member-states committed “not to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States.”

Some social democrat-oriented members of Denmark’s parliament have expressed concern that, if there were a war between the U.S. and Russia, Denmark’s capitulation to the U.S. would place it among the first targets, especially in a nuclear war. Some wonder why U.S. troops are “necessary” now when they were not during all the time the Soviet Union existed and when there were many proxy wars, such as against Southeast Asia.

“I don’t see how this is in Denmark’s interest,” questioned socialist-oriented parliamentarian Karsten Hoeng.

There are several references about a future U.S. president, like Donald Trump, being so erratic that his/her policies could bring Danes into an unwanted violent situation.

“A strategic bomb in Danish politics,” Politiken led off. The new approach places Denmark “closer to the allies’ inner-circle than ever before.” While this daily, and all others, are glad for that, there are a couple of possible drawbacks.

“The USA will hardly depart from its firm principle of neither confirming nor denying if there are atomic weapons on visiting aircraft and ships. Even if it did, what would Denmark do? Quietly accept atom-weapons on Danish turf?”

As the editors wrote, such was the case in the 1980s when Social Democrats, then more loyal to their principles, raised the issue with a conservative prime minister concerning a visiting U.S. warship suspected of carrying nuclear weapons. PM Paul Schlüter (1982-93) called an election over that single issue and he won again.

Politiken’s lead article kicked off with “Frederiksen’s admiring homage to the United States is close to overtaking Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s view of Denmark’s best friend in the world and its crucial security guarantee.”

Anders Fogh Rasmussen best “kick ass” buddies with George W. Bush. Anders Fogh Rasmussen – Wikimedia Commons

Readers are reminded that right-wing PM Rasmussen was considered by many to be a “lapdog” for all of the U.S.’s policies, especially military and war, while Social Democrats were more independent. That has changed in the past two decades. SD is as tight with the U.S. on everything as the right wing and conservatives have always been. Now, both right and “left” are with the U.S.

Enhedslisten (Red-Green) Social Democrat support party spokesperson Eva Flyvholm brought up a little-heard term in Denmark—“sovereignty”—in her critique.

“The new strategy is a big thing in relation to Danish sovereignty. Americans will have control over the activities and soldiers that come. I mean we should not enter into such an agreement.”

One of Politiken’s sources, Henrik Breitenbauch, leader of Copenhagen’s University Center for Military Studies and a senior fellow at the pro-NATO) Atlantic Council, stated that “sovereignty is always a question of degree bending.” I doubt that any U.S. president would accept such a definition for its sovereignty.

DR and Politiken both interviewed separately Peter Viggo Jakobsen, a key military academic expert. He sees advantages with breaking tradition against foreign troops on its territory. “They come with money to spend,” he said, and “their presence will have a deterrent effect on any foreign power intentions to invade Denmark.”

That opinion can be translated to mean that, with all the demonizing propaganda against President Putin, the “peace-loving” but tougher American militarists will be such a deterrent, even if Russia sees this agreement as a provocation against its interests.

“There is not anything they can do about that. Denmark will also accept that USA itself will have legal jurisdiction over whatever their soldiers commit here,” confided Jakobsen.

DR’s international correspondent, Steffen Gram, opined: “This here is re-establishing NATO, which many were in doubt about what NATO could be used for after the Cold War”—a side-reference to Donald Trump. Gram foresees that the crisis with Russia will “last a very long time.”

Desperate Social Democrat Government Fabricates War Threat Distraction

The government’s unexpected announcement of the new “Defense Cooperation Agreement” must have been prepared to announce when, on January 31, the hard-pressed Social Democrat government held a press conference to announce a “new strategy to steer Danish foreign policy in ‘the most serious security crisis for Europe since the Cold War.’”

This strategy is deemed necessary simply based on unsubstantiated demonizing propaganda that “Putin” is prepared to invade Ukraine. It comes at the time (coincidentally?) when the government is confronted with what the PM calls the “very serious” breach of national security secrets.

“We are seeing a very worrying situation unfolding at the Ukrainian-Russian border…Russia’s aggression…shows us that you can never take peace or freedom for granted,” PM Frederiksen said.

“The new strategy contains five main areas for managing foreign and security policy: values diplomacy, security diplomacy, climate diplomacy, migration diplomacy and economic diplomacy. We want to strengthen our alliances and partnerships with the countries and societies that share our values. This applies not least to the United States…Denmark’s most important ally. NATO and the United States are the guarantors of Denmark’s security.”

Nothing concrete was forthcoming. DR concluded with a six-minute clip on how “aggressive” Russia is. Military experts say Denmark will be even closer to U.S. interests (if that is possible).

Bramsen had just sent four F-16s to the Baltic to “protect” them against the Russians. She gave an interview to the weekly Weekend Avisen in which she stated: “It basically requires that we have a security understanding throughout society: The threats live everywhere, and the whole of society must be aware.”

In other words: no deviation from U.S/NATO domination; Russia, China and Iran must tow the line.

Five days later, Bramsen lost her war post. Within a 24-hour period beginning at 9:00 a.m. on February 4, as the court session against Findsen began, other political, military and juridical events took place in Denmark, bringing the world to the brink of the greatest crisis since the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet there are no protests in this country.

Prime Minister Merete Frederiksen reshuffled three ministries. The most sensational change was the removal of unpopular Defense Minister Trine Bramsen. She was moved to head the new Transport-Equality ministry. There was no explanation for why “equality” issues should be with transport, nor why Bramsen was moved down the ministry ladder.

The Defense Union, however, had accused Bramsen of “destroying the trust that binds defense together.” There have been several conflicts within the military under Bramsen’s watch.

Tax Minister Morten Boedskov was given her former job, rewarded for his “experience and reliability.”

The previous transport minister, Benny Engelbrecht, did not get another ministry post. Enhedslisten had demanded his removal for informing Parliament that the ministry’s new $25 billion infrastructure plan was CO2 neutral when it was not, as the engineer trade newspaper revealed. “And to boot, back when the proposal was revealed, Engelbrecht informed Parliament that figures for CO2 emissions regarding the plan didn’t exist. Except they did, and Engelbrecht has been accused of deliberately keeping them from the other parties.”

The first thing new Defense Minister Morten Boedskov did, within hours of his appointment, was to tell the media that he saw no reason not to send some of Denmark’s remaining “Stinger missiles” to Ukraine, which it bought from the U.S in the 1990s.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Denmark had told the media that the Ukrainian military wanted them because they were so effective in the hands of Afghan rebels. Just three days before Bramsen was replaced, she had stated that Denmark did not have such weapons. Her lack of military knowledge is a key reason for being shifted out.

It was extremist Mujahadin jihadists, including Osama bin Laden, who fired U.S.-donated “Stingers” against Soviet aircraft. They were sent to overthrow the communist-led Afghan government in the 1980s.

Unfortunately for the fresh war minister, Boedskov’s technological military experts found that none of the Stinger missiles were good enough to use. The new war minister sent two F-16s to Bornholm, Denmark’s easternmost island, as a “signal” to Putin that he dare not invade Denmark.

President Joe Biden had just ordered that Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz disallow the newly completed Nord Stream 2 gas line to function if “Putin steps up his aggression against Ukraine.”

“There will no longer be anything called Nord Stream 2 if the Russians invade Ukraine,” Biden informed the entire world, pointing his finger to a leader of what he believes is a U.S. colony.

While Scholz tried to appease the war-thirsty U.S. president, he would not say what sanctions Germany would engage in. More than half of Germany’s energy comes from Russia, and it needs more.

So, the U.S.’s primary Eye within EU-Europe sent its Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to Germany to tell Scholz what he could do. He could buy more Danish windmills. DR’s piece concerning her visit points out that her Social Democrat chancellor-colleague is characterized by “some critics” as “soft-sweetened” over for Russia.

Mette Frederiksen and Olaf Scholtz [Source: bundeseregiurung.de]

The Danish government opposes the gas pipeline, which runs along Bornholm, and the Prime Minister stressed after her meeting with Scholz, “The reports from the White House about Nord Stream 2 are very good.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron visited President Putin in Moscow. He did not threaten sanctions; instead he wanted Europe to engage in its own dialogue with Russia and Ukraine, and not be bound to U.S. presidents. Chancellor Scholz plans to visit Putin as well.

Neither France nor Germany has threatened its own sanctions, albeit as members of the EU they are a part of any EU sanctions. When President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the French and German governments opposed the war. However, they came around after much pressure from Washington-Wall Street.

Surprisingly to many readers (and myself at the time), the new Russian president in 2001, Vladimir Putin, extended real military and intelligence assistance to Bush’s war in Afghanistan, and even proposed that Russia join NATO. Bush took his aid but rejected Russia inside NATO.

President Vladimir Putin met with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing on the Winter Olympics’ opening day, even as the United States and Denmark intensified their non-factual claim that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine. The claim is based simply on the fact that Russia has troops on its own land close to Ukraine—as though that is a war crime and something the U.S. never does. The U.S. has hundreds of bases and hundreds of thousands of troops in scores of other countries.

Putin and Xi enhanced their alliance: mutual support regarding the U.S-Ukraine NATO aggression; opposition to U.S.’s inciting Taiwan’s independence from China; and inciting and financing Hong Kong protesters against China’s interests.

China and Russia simply want U.S./NATO to stop provoking their geographic areas. Russia may step up its advanced military technology exports and energy fuels to China, and Russia will buy more consumer goods from China.T

The U.S./EU warn these two nations (the world’s greatest territory and the largest population) with more severe sanctions. They speak of ceasing exports to Russia of vital microchips and other technology; preventing economic transactions in U.S. dollars (perhaps confiscating their funds in U.S.-controlled banks); and freezing the expensive Nord Stream 2 natural gas connection between Russia and Germany.

Conclusion 

When the current geo-political hullabaloo dies down, and Russia has not invaded anybody, the Western aggressors will claim that their bellicosity paid off, having scared the scoundrel Ruskies from an invasion they never planned. It is all about Western capitalist encroachment against Russia’s and China’s capitalist competitors, especially concerning energy. We had been taught that capitalism’s nature is all about competition, but the West has changed the rules.

In my mind, the “Defense Cooperative Agreement” emerges at a time when Denmark is desperate to show Big Daddy that the misfortunate problem with one or more whistleblowers concerning spying on any and all is to be compensated for.

Several media outlets have criticized the intelligence services for assuming that they are beyond “democratic control.” Editorials and juridical experts have criticized leaders of Denmark’s Defense Intelligence Service (FE)—the equivalent to CIA—and the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET)—the equivalent of FBI—for allowing increased power to go to their heads ever since they began receiving extra resources following the terror attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. (See part 1 Danish Defense Intelligence Chief Is Jailed by Social Democratic Government—Possibly to Protect U.S. Spy Programs – CovertAction Magazine )

Politiken’s editors urged the government to present to parliament the judges’ investigation report so it could determine if FE has kept policymakers informed. They also proposed that the new Danish Intelligence Oversight Committee (TET) be granted powers to interrogate FE’s employees, and ascertain if they comply with the law, which until now has not been possible. Nothing like that has happened.

There are other ironies in these matters: the betrayal of Denmark’s long-standing friendly association with European countries and their leaders; the fact that it has been Social Democrat women leaders who have been backing illegal spying activities, starting with the first woman who became Prime Minister, Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt (2011-15).

Following Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations, she embraced her “comrade” Chancellor Angela Merkel, assuring her that Denmark was not and would not be involved in spying on her. All the while she was lying. Since June 2019, it has been the next Social Democrat woman PM, Mette Frederiksen, and her female war minister, Trine Bramsen, who have gone deeper into spying activities for their master state.

Last year, four women led four of the five Scandinavian countries—two of three are Social Democrats and one Red-Green. The only male was the conservative president of Finland, Süulí Väinämö Niinisto. Last October, a male Social Democrat, Jonas Gahr Stoere, took over as Norway’s prime minister. Now he is stuck with the DCA agreement that conservative PM Erna Solberg made with the United States. All five Nordic states are either in NATO or seek to be.

I fear that the generally accepted notion—that, if women become leaders, they would be more inclined toward peaceful diplomacy than more naturally aggressive males—seems to be untrue as well. The same goes for both genders of Social Democrats and Democrats: They are just as power-hungry and enthusiastic for war as right-wingers.

Philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in his 1867 inaugural address at the University of St. Andrews.  “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing,” .

For a long time, it has been normal among the Danish populace that sovereignty is not an issue for the vast majority. It seems that they, the media and academics simply take it for granted that “national security” is best left in the hands of the White House, the Pentagon, and 17 intelligence services across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Everything goes” in the name of “necessary evil,” and “I have nothing to hide.” However, with the DCA issue, sovereignty is at least a word that some people are beginning to articulate; and perhaps a movement of opposition will develop.

1. Russia attacked German troops sent to occupy Bornholm island after Germany officially capitulated. During two days of bombings and battles, a few Danes were killed and wounded. Russian forces remained there for 11 months.↑
2. Are Denmark’s and United States values, according to its Social Democrat prime minister, such as Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks/Julian Assange have revealed to the world: Collateral Murder – Wikileaks – Iraq – YouTubeIt behooves all peace-loving, free speech/free press-loving, human values-loving people to come out with real support for Julian Assange, whom the U.S./U.K. and Denmark want to see dead.

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Ron Ridenour is a U.S.-born author and journalist, anti-war and civil rights activist since 1961. After joining the U.S. Air Force at 17, he saw the inner workings of U.S. imperialism and resigned. In the 1980s and 1990’s he worked with the Nicaraguan government and with Cuban national media.

He now lives in Denmark and, in addition to writing a dozen books, has served as a special correspondent and freelance investigative journalist for many publications in the U.S. and several Latin American and European countries.

Ron is a member of TCBH and correspondent for Covert Action Magazine.

Featured image: Danish purchased F-16s. Soon to be replaced with 27 F-35s. (Source: TCBH)

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If you’re wondering how we’ll ever put an end to these draconian COVID-19 mandates that are destroying lives and sanity across the world, take heart. History can serve us in this regard

Over 135 years ago, in 1885, England became the host to a massive anti-vaccination movement that ultimately resulted in people overturning the government’s compulsory vaccination rule

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in opposition to compulsory smallpox vaccinations. Many were fined and jailed, but in the end, the government relented and abolished the mandate

The trucker protest in Canada and elsewhere is almost identical to what happened during smallpox vaccination campaigns more than a century ago, when mass protests and peaceful disobedience broke the government’s tyrannical hold

The Leicester Model was proven successful in the wake of that 1885 anti-vaccination protest and has been standard ever since. By quarantining infected patients and improving public hygiene, smallpox was finally eradicated

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If you’re wondering how we’ll ever put an end to these draconian COVID-19 mandates that are destroying lives and sanity across the world, take heart. History can serve us in this regard. The parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and its countermeasures that of previous smallpox pandemics are fascinating to behold, and therein we can also find the answer to our current predicament.

Smallpox, a highly infectious and disfiguring illness with a fatality rate around 30%,¹ has been with us for many centuries, probably thousands of years. During the last four centuries, forced mass vaccination has been a recurring countermeasure relied on by government during these kinds of outbreaks, often with devastating results, and there have always been large portions of society that opposed it.

In the 1700s, Boston, Massachusetts, was hit by a series of outbreaks, and the introduction of a vaccine led to violent rebellion by those who believed it was dangerous and a violation of God’s will. Local newspapers were rife with disputes for and against the vaccine.²

The hypodermic needle had not yet been invented at this time, so the vaccination consisted of rubbing some cowpox pus into an open wound on the arm. Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who introduced the inoculation at the urgings of Rev. Cotton Mather, was forced into hiding and was eventually arrested. Mather’s home was firebombed.

In 1862, it was Los Angeles, California’s turn. Compulsory vaccination was again rolled out, and anyone who refused was subject to arrest. Infected people were terrified of being forcibly quarantined in a “pest house,” miles outside the city limits, and for good reason. It was a place where you were dumped to die, with not so much as a bedsheet for comfort.³

The Anti-Vaccination Rebellion of 1885

In the decades to come, smallpox outbreaks were occurring all over the world, and forced inoculation was typically the answer, even though it had its own risks. In 1885, England became the host to a massive anti-vaccination movement that ultimately resulted in people overturning the government’s compulsory vaccination rule.

As reported by the BBC, December 28, 2019, mere weeks before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic:⁴

“In the late 19th Century, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in opposition to compulsory smallpox vaccinations. There were arrests, fines and people were even sent to jail. Banners were brandished demanding ‘Repeal the Vaccination Acts, the curse of our nation’ and vowing ‘Better a felon’s cell than a poisoned babe.’ Copies of hated laws were burned in the streets and the effigy was lynched of the humble country doctor who was seen as to blame for the smallpox prevention program.”

A Substack user going by the moniker “A Midwestern Doctor”^5,6 details this part of history, explaining why it matters to us today. He writes:⁷

“What is occurring now in Canada and other places is almost identical to what happened with the smallpox vaccination campaigns over a century ago, and I believe it is critical we understand these lessons from the past and it is vital this message gets out to the Truckers.

Briefly, the original smallpox vaccine was an unusually harmful vaccination that was never tested before being adopted. It increased, rather than decreased smallpox outbreaks. As the danger and inefficacy became known, increasing public protest developed towards vaccination. Yet, as smallpox increased, governments around the world instead adopted more draconian mandatory vaccination policies.

Eventually, one of the largest protests of the century occurred in 1885 in Leicester (an English city). Leicester’s government was replaced, mandatory vaccination abolished, and public health measures rejected by the medical community were implemented. These measures were highly successful, and once adopted globally ended the smallpox epidemic, something most erroneously believe arose from vaccination.”

The alternative countermeasure implemented in Leicester involved quarantining infected people and notifying anyone who’d been in close contact with the patient. They also used “ring vaccination” in which hospital workers who took care of infected patients had been inoculated.⁸

As a result, when smallpox broke out again between 1892 and 1894, Leicester got off lightly, with a case rate of 20.5 cases per 10,000. In all, the town had 370 cases and 21 deaths — far lower than the towns of Warrington and Sheffield, where vaccination rates were high.

On the other hand, there were well-vaccinated areas that had lower case rates and fewer deaths, and areas with low vaccination rates that also fared worse in this regard, so vaccination was probably not the determining factor either way.

In 1898, the U.K. implemented a new law that allowed people to opt out of vaccination for moral reasons. As reported by the BBC, this was “the first time ‘conscientious objection’ was recognized in U.K. law.”⁹ Now, we have to fight to regain that right yet again, all around the world.

Dissolving Illusions

“A Midwestern Doctor”¹⁰ goes on to discuss Dr. Suzanne Humphries’ 2009 book, “Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History,” in which she shatters the notion that vaccines (and certain other medical interventions) have been single-handedly responsible for improved health and increased life spans. As a nephrologist (kidney specialist), Humphries noticed a pattern among her patients.

Many who experienced kidney injury or kidney failure had recently received a flu vaccine. It was a singular common denominator. So, she began to challenge the hospital’s routine practice of vaccinating patients. Humphries was roundly ignored and was ultimately forced to leave. The book grew out of her frustration with people who insisted that vaccines had eliminated scourges like polio and smallpox. Once she delved into the research, what she found was something else entirely.

With regard to smallpox and smallpox vaccination, living conditions during the industrial revolution were horrid. Plagues and infectious outbreaks were commonplace, not because of insufficient vaccination, but because sanitation was near-nonexistent and people, including children, were overworked and underfed. Early progressives believed deadly plagues could be prevented by improving living and working conditions, and they were correct.

We know this because other plagues for which there were no vaccines disappeared right along with smallpox and polio. While the medical industry eventually embraced vaccination, and increasingly over time treated it as something that could not be contested or questioned, Humphries’ book details the opposition.

Smallpox Opposition

As it turns out, many doctors have spoken out against smallpox vaccination and published data demonstrating its dangers. For example:¹¹

The Moving Goal Post

Once it became clear that the smallpox vaccine was incapable of providing long-lasting immunity as initially promised, the medical profession moved the goal post and started justifying vaccination on the basis that it could protect against more severe illness, even if it couldn’t provide lifelong “perfect” immunity the way recovering from the infection could.

This has been a basic mantra ever since, and we’ve gotten a double-dose of it during this COVID pandemic. Within months, the goal post was switched from “two doses are near-100% effective,” to “two doses wear off in six months and leave you more vulnerable to severe illness thereafter.” Some bargain!

Corruption of Vital Statistics Protect Vaccination Narrative

What’s worse, the trend of not reporting vaccine injuries due to “allegiance to the practice,” as noted by Henry May in the Birmingham Medical Review in January 1874, has continued unabated. According to May, vaccinated people who died were typically recorded as having died from some other condition, or were erroneously listed as “unvaccinated.”¹² As noted by “A Midwestern Doctor”:¹³

“This corruption of the vital statistics creates many challenges in assessing the efficacy of immunization, and is also why many authors have noted no metric can be used to assess COVID-19 immunizations except total number of deaths (independent of cause) as this cannot be fudged.

Of note, a different significant overlap exists with the early polio campaigns (also detailed within ‘Dissolving Illusions’), where ‘polio’ diagnostic criteria was repeatedly adjusted to meet the political need for polio cases.

Governments responded to this skepticism by progressively using more and more force to mandate vaccination. Vaccination was made compulsory in England in 1853, with stricter laws passed in 1867. In the United States, Massachusetts created a set of comprehensive vaccination laws in 1855 (which created the Supreme Court case Jacobson v. Massachusetts a case that is frequently cited about state enforced vaccination).

Lemuel Shattuck emphasized the need for vaccination and pushed for house-to-house vaccination to be enforced by the authority of the City of Boston in an 1856 report, also noting ‘The City has already provided that no unvaccinated child shall be admitted into the public schools.’

A situation emerged I term the ‘Vaccine positive feedback cycle.’ Keep in mind that most systems in nature are instead negative feedback systems. In these, when something occurs, it self-corrects the system and turns it off rather than accelerating it, as occurs in a positive feedback system. The cycle is as follows:

A concerning disease exists.

↓

Immunization is cited as a potential solution to the problem.

↓

An immunization campaign is conducted and makes the problem worse.

↓

As the problem is now worse, the need for immunizations to address it increases and another campaign is conducted.

↓

This makes the problem worse.

↓

This increases the need for more aggressive measures to increase immunization.

↓

This makes the problem worse and further perpetuates the cycle, before long leading to very questionable governmental policies designed to force unwilling parties to vaccinate.

The underlying drivers of this process seem to be an unquestionable faith in vaccination, a conviction dating back to the days of smallpox, that vaccinating an ever-increasing proportion of the population through vaccination can end epidemics (now termed herd immunity), and the government having limited options to address the issue besides immunizations and governmental force.”

The Effects of Forced Smallpox Vaccinations

“A Midwestern Doctor” continues describing the effects of the government’s insistence of forced smallpox vaccination:¹⁴

“In accordance the positive feedback cycle, these results were found everywhere. Within the United States, as smallpox worsened in Boston, in 1855, the government made enacted strict enforcement of vaccination.

It was followed by the epidemics of 1859-1860, 1864-1865, 1867 (these were all similar in size to earlier epidemics), and then infamous 1872-1873 epidemic which dwarfed all previous epidemics (proving fatal to 1040 persons, at a rate of 280 deaths per 100,000 people).

By the end of 1868, more than 95% of the inhabitants of Chicago had been vaccinated. After the Great Fire of 1871 … strict vaccine laws were passed, and vaccination was made a condition of receiving relief supplies. Chicago was then hit with a devastating smallpox epidemic in 1872 where over 2,000 persons contracted smallpox, with over 25% dying, and the fatality rate among children under 5 being the highest ever recorded.

A 1900 medical article discussed vaccination in three European nations. In England, of 9392 small-pox patients in London hospitals, 6,854 had been vaccinated and 17.5% of the 9,392 died.

In Germany ‘official returns show that between 1870 and 1885 one million vaccinated persons died from small-pox.’ In France, ‘every recruit that enters the French army is vaccinated. During the Franco-Prussian war there 23,469 cases of small-pox in that army.’

An 1888 article in the Encyclopedia Britannica describing Prussia’s strict vaccination practices throughout the population (including mandatory re-vaccination for school pupils), noted: ‘Notwithstanding the fact that Prussia was the best revaccinated (boosted) country in Europe, its mortality from smallpox in the epidemic of 1871 was higher (59,839) than in any other northern state.’”

Other countries reported the same smallpox trends, including Italy and Japan, where smallpox death rates after successful vaccination campaigns were unprecedented. Vaccine injuries, including deaths, were also common. It is shocking how closely the miserable failures of the smallpox vaccines mirror the COVID jabs.

One of the most common causes of death after smallpox vaccination was erysipelas, a painful bacterial skin disease. An 1890 Encyclopedia Britannica article reported that smallpox vaccination had triggered a disastrous epidemic of erysipelas. Other side effects included jaundice, syphilis, tuberculosis, eczema vaccinatum (a rare and lethal skin condition).

Massive Historic Public Protests Over 135 Years Ago

As skepticism of and opposition against smallpox vaccination grew, enforcement increased. Vaccine refusers were fined, jailed and sometimes vaccinated by force. Parents were even forced to vaccinate their second child even if the first one died from the inoculation. Intermittently, riots would break out. A Midwestern Doctor details what happened next:¹⁵

“In 1884, 5,000 court summons had been issued against the unvaccinated, a case load that completely overloaded the court system. Letters in local newspaper at this time revealed widespread disdain for the irrationality of the procedure and the medical profession’s steadfast defense of a dangerous practice that had clearly failed over the last 80 years.

Tensions reached a boiling point and on March 23, 1885, a large protest estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 people erupted. It was composed of citizens of all professions from across England and receive support from citizens across Europe who could not attend it.

The procession was 2 miles long, with displays showing the popular sentiments against vaccination present throughout the crowd. The demonstration was successful, and the local government acceded to and acknowledged their demands for liberty. Many of the description of this protest (and the jubilant mood there) are extremely similar to reports I have read of the Trucker’s protest.

Mr. Councilor Butcher of Leicester addressed the protest and spoke of the growing opinion that the best way to get rid of smallpox and deadly infectious diseases was to use plenty of water, eat good food, live in light and airy houses, while it was the municipality’s duty to keep the streets clean and the sewers in order. He emphasized that if this was not done, it was unlikely any act of Parliament or vaccination could prevent the diseases.

That year, following the protest, the government was replaced, mandates were terminated, and by 1887 vaccination coverage rates had dropped to 10%. To replace the vaccination model, the Leicester activists proposed a system of immediately quarantining smallpox patients, disinfection of their homes and quarantining of their contacts alongside improving public sanitation.

The medical community vehemently rejected this model, and zealously predicted Leicester’s ‘gigantic experiment’ would soon result in a terrible ‘massacre,’ especially in the unprotected children, who were viewed by government physicians as ‘bags of gunpowder’ that could easily blow up schools (along with much other hateful and hyperbolic rhetoric directed at them).

This smallpox apocalypse would forever serve as a lesson against vaccine refusal the medical profession bet their stake upon. [But] the predicted catastrophe failed to emerge and Leicester had dramatically lower rates of smallpox in subsequent epidemics than other fully vaccinated towns (ranging from 1/2 to 1/32).

Various rationalizations were put forward to explain this, but as the decades went by, a gradual public acceptance of Leicester’s methods emerged, but even 30 years later, a New York Times article still predicted a disaster was right around the corner and it was imperative Leicester change their methods.

Fortunately, the value of Leicester’s novel approach of quarantining and improvement public hygiene was recognized and gradually adopted around the world, leading to the eventual eradication of smallpox.”

Keep in mind that these protests occurred when the population was much lower, so as a percentage of the population it was much higher. In 1885, the U.K. population was only 36,015,500,¹⁶ so a protest with 100,000 was just under 0.3% of the entire population. As of February 16, 2022, today’s U.K. population is 68,471,390,¹⁷ so to match that protest, percentage-wise, about 205,400 would have to hit the streets.

History Repeats Itself

Those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat it, and it seems that’s precisely what we’ve allowed to occur in the past two years. Many doctors predicted and warned that the pandemic would be prolonged and worsened by rolling out non-sterilizing vaccines (i.e., vaccines that do not prevent infection and transmission). And that’s precisely what we’ve witnessed.

Predictions of devastating side effects have also come true. And, as resistance to the shots grew, draconian mandates followed. History tells us forced vaccination is not the answer. History also tells us how to get out from underneath a tyrannical government’s insistence on forced vaccination.

The answer is peaceful noncompliance. The answer is standing together, en masse, and saying “No more. Enough.” The truckers in Canada, the U.S., Belgium and elsewhere have the right idea, and the rest of us need to join and support them, in any way we can.

“Like the smallpox vaccination campaigns, the COVID-19 immunization campaign has been so egregious it has inspired a large global protest movement with the large scale current protests being very similar to those that occurred 135 years ago,” A Midwestern Doctor writes.¹⁸

“My hope is that this movement can remember the lessons from the past and carry them forward to now so a future generation does not have to repeat our mistakes.”

If you want to learn more about the fraud of all vaccines, I would encourage you to carefully review Suzanne Humphries’ excellent book, “Dissolving Illusions.” In my view it is the best book out there on the subject.

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Notes

¹ FDA Smallpox

² World J Surg 2020; 44(9): 2837-2841

³ LAist Los Angeles Smallpox Outbreak

^4, 8, 9 BBC December 28, 2019

^{5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18} A Midwestern Doctor Substack February 13, 2022

⁶ Steve Kirsch Substack February 13, 2022

¹⁶ ONS.gov.uk

¹⁷ Worldometer UK population

Featured image is from Mercola

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Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson wants to sell the trucks the authorities confiscated during the Freedom Convoy protest.

Watson told the CBC that the city has “the ability to confiscate those vehicles and sell them.”

“And I want to see them sold,” stated Watson. “I don’t the return to these people who’ve been causing such frustration and angst in our community.”

SHAMELESS THIEVES: Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson says he'll use The Emergency Powers to try and sell the confiscated trucks and equipment.https://t.co/D8FDMIF1Zn pic.twitter.com/9qaS6GBg8h

— Culture War Resource (@CltrWarResource) February 21, 2022

Watson continued:

This is costing us a small fortune for the taxpayers of Ottawa. That’s one of the reasons why under the Emergencies Act I’ve asked our solicitor and our city manager how can we keep the tow trucks and the campers and the vans and everything else that we’ve confiscated and sell those pieces of equipment to help recoup some of the costs that our taxpayers are absorbing. So that’s one of the provisions of the Emergency Act and we have been a beneficiary of the Emergency Act.

As they debated on the hill I asked the Members of Parliament to consider it. It’s helped us a lot things like confiscating vehicles, not having to swear in peace officers through the RCMP and so many other things that have been very helpful over the course of this period including you can’t be under 18 and be in this rally.

We get copycats and people thinking I’m going down to Parliament Hill and parking there for three to four days and having a big roast and everything else under the sun. We have to prevent that and we need a short-term plan and a long-term plan to protect our residents much better than we have in the last four weeks.

Don’t forget that the interim police chief admitted that the department is keeping an eye on those who attended the protest. The police continue to gather intelligence on them, too.

Lovely behavior.

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Yesterday, Russia officially recognised the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) as independent states, becoming the first UN member state to do so. Russia had formerly already recognised identity documents, diplomas, birth- and marriage-certificates, and vehicle registration plates issued by the DPR since February 2017. Both the DPR and LPR are at the center of the 2021–2022 Russian-Ukrainian crisis.   Ukraine regards both the DPR and the LPR as terrorist organizations. 

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Alexander Markovics to gain insight to this conflict between the US and Russia.  Alexander Markovics is an editor at Deutsche Stimme Magazin in Germany, editor-in-chief of the magazine Agora Europa and translator. He has published numerous articles on geopolitics, philosophy, history of ideas, and interviews with important authors of the new right/neo-Eurasianism.

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Steven Sahiounie (SS):  Western media reports say there will likely be a war between Russia and the West over Ukraine. In your opinion, will there be a war?

Alexander Markovics (AM):  I don’t think that there will be precisely a war between Russia and the West over Ukraine, but more likely a war between Ukraine and the People’s Republics of Donezk and Lugansk, in which Russia will be forced to intervene in order to prevent a genocide against Russians living in Novorossiya. Since Joe Biden controversially took over the White House, the United States are preparing an escalation in Donbass. Their aim is to drag Russia into a prolonged conflict, where the West will force its Ukrainian colony to spill as much Russian blood as possible in the interest of Washington. It’s the declared goal of Washington, to create an “Afghanistan in Europe” for Moscow.

But Russia is not the US and knows how to decisively win a quick war with modern military equipment. The Russian army already proven in Syria, Belarus and Kazakhstan, that it’s able to act against Western interventions and regime changes. Russia has proven to be very patient with all the Ukrainian provocations in the course of the last years, when the Ukrainian army was shelling civilians in Donbass. Since Ukraine bombarded civilian housing in Donbass yesterday on an unprecedented scale and President Putin promised to protect Russian people living there in case of an attack, I assume that there will be war. Enough is enough. But if God wills, peace talks in the last minute could prevent the situation from escalating into full scale war.

SS:  Russia sent strategic jets and sophisticated weapons to their army base in Latakia, Syria. In your opinion, is this a military and political message to the US, and is it part of the political tension with Washington?

AM:  Since the US is destabilizing and occupying parts of Syria this is a necessary show of force by Russia in order to further deter the Globalist ambitions of Washington, similar to Russian talks with Cuba and Venezuela on stationing more Russian military inside these countries. Unfortunately, the fierce defence of unipolar chaos by the US shows us, that the upcoming states fighting for a multipolar order must show strength in order to secure peace and sovereignty to their region. As long as the West is pushing its globalist and Universalist agenda, the rest of the world has to stay on alert.

SS:  The Western media has launched a hysterical propaganda war on Russia. How will Moscow reply to this provocation?

AM:  I think that Moscow will continue to reply in the typical calm, ready to negotiate and sometimes cynical fashion. Diplomats like Liz Truss, who didn’t know Voronezh and Rostov oblast are a part of Russia, are no match for their Russian counterparts and only good for repeating aggressive propaganda against Russia. In easily refuting Western propaganda, calling out the West’s crimes in the past and drawing red lines Russia skilfully counters the current propaganda campaign. But if the West calls its Ukrainian puppet to full scale war, Moscow will answer accordingly.

SS:  Moscow has demanded from the US and the EU several requests to protect its National Security. In your opinion, which of the requests are most important?

AM:  The most important demand is definitely the withdrawal of all NATO troops from all positions who joined the alliance after 1997. This would de facto mean a reversal of NATO’s eastern enlargement in 1999 and a demilitarization of Eastern Europe. Such a measure would be an important step in the normalization of European-Russian relations, an end of the encirclement of Russia by NATO and therefore the starting point for a new European-Eurasian security architecture. Further this measure can help Europe in liberating itself from NATO and US-American occupation. In the end the fulfillment of this Russian demand would mean peace and sovereignty for Europe.

SS:  Several European countries don’t want a military conflict with Russia and they want to buy the Russian gas through Nord Stream 2. Is the NATO member’s unity absolute, or are there some cracks in the pact?

AM:  NATO countries are definitely divided on this topic. Whereas USA and Great Britain definitely want an end to Nord Stream 2 and would even be ready to risk a war, Germany has a different position. Since Germany is dependent on Russian gas, especially because of its disastrous green “Energiewende”/energy turn and wants of its geopolitical position good relations with Russia, they don’t want Nord Stream 2 to end. But since Germany is an US-puppet since 1945 and especially 1991, they’re not really able to decide this measure. Furthermore, Bulgaria and Croatia already said they will not join a war against Russia. Also Hungary is very critical of the current Anti-Russian propaganda. Eastern European countries like Poland and the Baltic states on the other hand are part of the warmonger faction in the EU due to their NATO-Nationalist propaganda and historical trauma. However, since NATO is already divided on the topic, a direct intervention in the conflict seems not plausible, also since the moral of these countries is severely weakened by the current Corona measures and Gender policies. Or in order to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck: The fate of Ukraine isn’t worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier, from a European point of view.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD