The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. @BruceKGagnon
History lesson: When Israel's terror campaign actually began
Syrian girl compares the Islamic State in the Levant to the Jewish State in the Levant, in context of the recent attack on Palestine.
She does an excellent job of covering the history of the Zionist genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.
The actions of Israel violate UN legal mandates and international law. But unless the US-NATO stops funding the Israel military operation nothing will change.
Yesterday members of the Jewish community and allies delivered a clear
message at the Israeli consulate in Toronto, Canada about bloodshed from
Israel’s violence in Gaza and across historic Palestine. Rabbi
David Mivasair, a member of Independent Jewish Voices, said, “It can no
longer be business as normal at Israel’s consulates in Canada. The death
and destruction inflicted by Israel in Gaza, as well as the heightened
violence by Israel across Palestine, cannot be washed away. This
belligerence is the latest in an ongoing aggressive 73-year
settler-colonization project by Israel across historic Palestine. The
ceasefire doesn’t end the injustice and oppression.”
In recent days at the port of Livorno (Tuscany), Italy the Liberty Pride ship of the US Army's Maritime Security program has docked. The ship must load weapons and equipment from Camp Darby. Camp Darby is located between Pisa and Livorno and is the fourth largest US arsenal outside the United States. Liberty Pride will deliver its cargo to the port of the Romanian city of Constanta on the Black Sea on the 23rd of this month, as weapons are needed for the Ukrainian-US Sea Breeze 2021 exercise. This year 27 countries (including 16 NATO members) with the involvement of military units, airplanes, and ships will participate in the war games. These countries will be joined by Observers for a total of 35 nations involved.
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government is calling out blatant U.S. interference as the country prepares to hold its presidential election in six months. The U.S. is preparing economic sanctions in an attempt to generate hunger as a weapon against the elected government as previous regime change efforts have been unsuccessful. Washington's 'Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform (RENACER) Act', introduced in March, would require the U.S. government to increase sanctions on Managua. President Daniel Ortega recently remarked, "Here the Yankee Ambassador goes about here and there, promoting his candidates, as if he were Nicaraguan... He is not Nicaraguan! If he wants to promote candidates, he should promote them in the United States, as North American Candidates, yes. The Yankee Ambassador should not get involved here, as he is indeed getting involved, nominating candidates, pressuring political parties, so that the political parties accept the candidate the Yankee wants. He thinks we are still in the times of the Yankee Occupation."
Congressman Brad Sherman (D-California), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the 'Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act'. Among other things, the bill calls for serious, urgent diplomatic engagement in pursuit of a binding peace agreement constituting a formal end to the Korean War. In 1953, the parties to the Korean War signed an Armistice Agreement that pledged an end to “all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved.” Common sense tells us that this conflict ended in July 1953. But in fact, the US only signed an armistice. Therefore, the US technically remains in a state of war with North Korea. This situation does not serve anyone’s interest.
The Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) has established itself as one of the most feared paramilitaries in Mexico over the last decade. Images of the group have become the standard depiction of the Mexican cartels writ large. Their propaganda videos often feature groups of masked men bristling with enough small arms to make them formidable against even conventional armies. In an interview aired on Mexico’s Telemundo network in May 2019, a former CJNG soldier described his experience at a training camp and claimed that the cartel employed U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) to train their recruits. According to the former sicario (assassin), there was “a group of elite Marines, there were [members] of the United States Navy, there were Delta Forces, there was everything there.” The Special Forces training has been funded under the Plan Mérida, which has resulted in the U.S. providing more than $1.6 billion for fighting the War on Drugs, most of it in military aid.
Painting in Moscow’s World War II museum depicting the Nazi siege of
Leningrad which resulted in the deaths of 632,253 civilians. [Source:
bridgetomoscow.com]
Washington Post Moscow Bureau Chief Distorts History of World War II
By Jeremy Kuzmarov
On May 9, 2021, Russians celebrated Victory in Europe (V-E) Day with a customary parade honoring the sacrifices of the Soviet people in World War II.
Rather than reporting on the day’s festivities, The Washington Post ran a story by its Moscow bureau chief, Robyn Dixon, about a Russian man who has spent years digging into archives to find out who killed his great-grandfather in 1938 during purges led by Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin.
Noting that “digging up the truth from the past can still bring trouble in today’s Russia,” Dixon wrote that, under current Russian President Vladimir Putin, “official propaganda has sought to glorify Russia as a victim of foreign aggression that saved the world in World War II, meanwhile playing down the horrors of Soviet massacres and repressions including the ‘Great Terror’ that Stalin led in the 1930s.”
Dixon’s remarks represent historical revisionism at its worst; whatever the truth about the latter claim, Russia was a victim of foreign aggression and did save the world from Nazism in World War II.
Historians estimate that 26 million Russians were killed fighting the Nazis, while 1,710 Russian cities and 70,000 towns and villages were destroyed, along with 31,850 factories, 84,000 schools, 65,000 kilometers of railway and 1,974 collective farms.
The Soviet Red Army destroyed 507 German divisions and 100 allied Axis divisions, 77,000 enemy planes, and 48,000 enemy tanks and armored vehicles. It further accounted for between 75 and 80 percent of Axis casualties in World War II, killing at least 10 million German soldiers.
General Douglas MacArthur stated that in none of the many wars he had participated in had he observed “such an effective resistance to the heaviest blows of a hitherto undefeated enemy, followed by a smashing counterattack which is driving the enemy back to his own land. The scale and grandeur of this effort marks it as the greatest military achievement in all of history.”
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime minister Winston Churchill also acknowledged the Soviet Union’s “gigantic effort” in fighting and ultimately defeating Hitler’s Germany.
~ Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018).
A 10-year-old Palestinian girl breaks down while talking to Middle East Eye after Israeli air strikes destroyed her neighbor's house, killing 8 children and 2 women.
U.S. turns the screws on Korean village for opposing THAAD
Photo by No THAAD office in Soseong-ri
THAAD, Get out! It benefits US arms corporations but brings tears to Koreans!
In mid-March, this year, Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, mentioned that it is ‘unacceptable as an alliance’ when he talked about the poor condition of US THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) base, in Soseong-ri, Seongju, mainland of Korea.
THAAD is a part of the US 'missile defense' system which is actually offense system (aimed at China, North Korea and Russia).
What Austin meant was he was complaining against the people in Soseong-ri and Korea who oppose and protest to the deployment of THAAD.
Photo by Yonhap News
Since then there were constant police invasions of Soseong-ri (small melon farming village) on April 28th, May 14th, May 18th, and May 20th.
Some people were even injured and arrested during their brave protests to the moving of THAAD generator, base construction materials etc. into the base. The police showed unprecedented oppression against people including religious men and women.
The South Korean government sent police to Sosoeng-ri just before the ROK-US summit (in Washington D.C, May 21). We can see that Soseong-ri is currently the center of ROK-US-Japan trilateral military alliance.
Remarkably, Lloyd Austin was a former board member of Raytheon, the production company of THAAD radar. He was also ‘a former top commander of US forces in Iraq under Obama and ‘oversaw deployment of US Special Forces to Syria.’ In a word, he is one of ‘revolving door personnel.’ There is arms corporation behind the oppression against people.
There is no peace in Korea and northeast Asia unless the Korean War Armistice ends with an official peace treaty and THAAD withdraws! Let’s take out THAAD and plant peace!
On May 15, 2021, a meeting of youth leaders from the LPR and DPR took place in the symbolic place of Krasnodon – in the museum of the Order of Friendship of Peoples “Young Guard”. The museum is named after the Soviet underground anti-fascist youth organization, which was active from September 1942 to January 1943. Its participants selflessly fought for the liberation of their Homeland from fascism, for which they were executed by the Nazis.
Today the youth project of the LPR – “Young Guard” of the public movement “Peace for Lugansk region” (Mir Luganshchine) also has the same name. The guys honor the feat of their fellow countrymen, preserve history, which today they are so ardently trying to rewrite and are real patriots of their Motherland.
At the meeting, the leaders of the “Young Guard” project and the public organization “Young Republic” from the DPR, on behalf of their associations, proclaimed the “Manifest of the youth of Donbass”, in which they appealed to young people from different countries, including the youth of Ukraine.
The youth of the Republics urges their peers to think critically, to take an active civic stance, and also to preserve the history, traditions and culture of their people.
Things are such a mess here at home, some think we are getting back to normal, except for the fact that the uber-rich have made out like bandits during the covid economy
They've consolidated power are buying off the suburban libs (Biden calls them 'the middle class') while most of the rest of the country falls apart
The deal was made years ago, London and New York decided, American will become the loaded gun, the 'master of NATO' and will make war on behalf of corporate capital
(Wall St, the Deep State, Big-AG, Big Pharma, CIA, Hollywood and the MIC)
The Pentagon calls its role
Leviathan,
it comes in hard
(shock & awe style)
and dominates any
'non-integrating' nation,
forever
under the thumb
of Mr. Big.
You should call it rape and pillage.
It was common for Near Eastern religions to include a Chaoskampf: a cosmic battle between a sea monster representing the forces of chaos and a creator god or culture hero who imposes order by force.
Leviathan can also be used as an image of Satan, endangering both God's creatures—by attempting to eat them—and God's creation—by threatening it with upheaval in the waters of Chaos.
Rao's son Ramesh just wrote and said, "Father breathed his last at 11:50 PM yesterday night".
I responded with, "Thank you Ramesh for telling us. Our hearts are with your family. We were honored to call Rao a friend and co-worker. He was a great man. I will miss him very much."
This is a devastating loss to the Global Network and to those who got to know Rao.
We must thank Tamara Lorincz for helping us to know in the first place that he was in the hospital.
Tamara writes:
I went to India for a peace & disarmament conference. It was an incredible experience. Rao took me to Gandhi’s Sevagram Ashram that’s a picture of him and me under the great tree at the ashram. Rao also took me to Deekshabhoomi, the Buddhist monument and place to remember Ambedkar. It was a real privilege to know him and see him in India for that I thank the Global Network. With sadness, Tamara
Law professor Aruna Kammila writes from India:
Very sad to know, I personally visited him, couple of months ago, when
he came to Visakhapatnam. In fact every time he comes to his daughter's
place at Visakhapatnam, I go visit him and discuss, how we can
contribute to the Global Network's cause. I have even posted the book and he congratulated me. Asked me to send any publication in future. Honestly a huge loss to all of us. Without his support I wouldn't have been a member. May his soul RIP.
Our Global Network board convener Dave Webb from the UK writes:
So sorry to hear this sad news. Rao was a lovely, humble
man who was a dedicated campaigner for peace in space and on Earth. His
knowledge and understanding guided us through so many visits, meetings
and conferences in India and he was a major contributor to GN strategy
and business.
We will miss his input and his presence. We should definitely hold a memorial meeting online in the near future. My condolences and best wishes to Rao's family.
Dr. Geetha Thachil, a retired Associate Professor from the M.S.S. Institute of Social Work, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India writes:
I have very fond memories of him...his vivacity and
contagious laughter will be etched in my mind always...it was he who
brought you to my college in Nagpur where you [Bruce] addressed my students and
staff...on space weaponization and the urgent need to stop this....Mr.
Rao's genuine regard for the less fortunate, his enthusiasm to help
them and his selfless help in working for the railway pensioners are all
rare qualities to be found these days....His
ability to connect to the youngsters was something that always drew
praise...he could strike a wavelength with them which was remarkable....His
anti-nuclear work is so praiseworthy...he worked tirelessly on what he
believed in...he was a humble and kind soul....shall always miss him...The
many seminars he organized on themes that he held dear deserves special
mention....the amount of trouble he would undergo to organize these
programmes...
I know that
he had great respect for you, Mr. Dave and many others and I wish to
offer my humble condolences to this great man....
I've seen alot of really great activist leaders pass on during my time as an organizer. They are all hard to take.
Rao was another of these great figures - I will carry his memory and spirit with me always.
I love this video (all in English). It reminds me of the two US pranksters called 'The Yes Men'.
In this case two well-known Russian pranksters expose the 'National Endowment for Democracy' (NED) which is a long-time CIA front group that funds 'color revolution' regime change operations around the globe.
Recently NED was very involved in the attempted coup d'etat in Belarus and in this video they brag about it as well as their continuing operations to destabilize the Russian government.
Particularly great was near the end when the person posing as the US's prize candidate in the last Belarusian election claims she needs money for new clothes and boots. She says that her Swedish contact told her she was not keeping in style. One of the NED operatives on the call responds by saying, "I think we probably need to take this into another call." Yeah right - top secret!
And then to top it off at the very end the pranksters say they are with the Belarusian KGB and begin to tell the NED operatives that they have the 'right to remain silent'. I was cracking up.
But on the serious side it is quite amazing that the NED directors would dare to boast about how, despite efforts by Moscow to restrict access to NGO's inside their nation, the NED still has ways around those obstacles.
Who is really interfering in other countries internal affairs? The fucking USA!
A pair of notorious Russian pranksters posing as leading Belarusian opposition figures have duped the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into revealing the extent of US involvement in Eastern European political movements.
In a video call posted on the online channel of pranksters Vovan and Lexus, senior representatives of the American agency disclosed that they have actively financed and supported anti-government campaigns in the region. The officials from the NED, which is funded by Congress and describes its role as “supporting freedom around the world,” also revealed that they are coordinating efforts with prominent political activists in a range of countries, including Russia.
The officials believed they were talking to Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the figurehead of Belarus’ opposition movement, and one of her advisors.
During the call, Nina Ognianova, who oversees the NED's work with local groups in Belarus, outlined the wide-ranging programs the agency bankrolls in the country, insisting that “a lot of the people who have been trained by these hubs, who have been in touch with them and being educated, being involved in their work, have now taken the flag and started to lead in community organizing.”
Ognianova claimed that, through this work, the NED played a role in igniting the colossal street protests that rocked Belarus after long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko declared victory in the country’s presidential election last August. The opposition and many international observers say the vote was rigged in his favor, and tens of thousands took to the streets for demonstrations each weekend after the election.
“We believe that this long-term trust-building that we have had with partners in Belarus has indeed brought the events, or the build-up to the events, of last summer,” Ognianova stated.
“We don't think that this movement that is so impressive and so inspiring came out of nowhere - that it just happened overnight,” she added, “but it has been developing and we have our modest but significant contribution in that by empowering the local actors to do the important work.”
Carl Gershman, the president of the US state-backed agency, told the pranksters that Washington-based funding and policy groups were already working with Tikhanovskaya and her team “very, very closely.” He then asked the opposition figure, who fled to neighboring Lithuania after the election, to set out her thinking on the situation “so we can understand what your strategy is... and how we can be helpful.”
The comments are likely to add fuel to Lukashenko’s previous controversial claims that the widespread domestic opposition to his government is being stoked from abroad.
The pranksters also pushed the NED’s top team to outline their current activity in Russia, asking what they were doing to support anti-Kremlin activists. Gershman replied that such initiatives are “obviously incredibly important and we've emphasized this, going back to the election in August when the demonstrations were taking place in the Russian Far East, and people were connecting with each other and saying we share the same ideals, so we're very committed to helping on that, and we will - working with our networks and our institutes.”
One of the duo, claiming to be Tikhanovskaya's assistant, questioned this, saying, “I know that NED is prohibited in Russia now,” referencing a 2015 government decision declaring it to be an “undesirable NGO.” A number of the group's senior leadership team began to laugh, with Gershman insisting “that doesn't matter. We don't have offices, we're not like Freedom House or NDI [the National Democratic Institute] and the IRI [International Republican Institute], we don't have offices. So if we're not there, they can't kick us out.”
“But we support many, many groups and we have a very, very active program throughout the country, and many of the groups obviously have their partners in exile,” the fund's president added. “So we are very active and we can be very helpful on this issue.” He added that they were “of course” in touch with Leonid Volkov, a Lithuanian-based activist frequently described as the chief of staff of jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny.
Barbara Haig, the deputy to the NED’s president for policy and strategy, also hinted at the potential scale of US funding for political groups, saying, “we have a very ample program in Russia” which “goes even down to the grassroots in provinces - oblasts - outside of Moscow. It is very deep and it is very broad.”
Both she and Gershman expressed concern about Russian military exercises billed to take place alongside Belarusian troops later this year, with Haig asking if the group should be “looking at the deployment of Russian military in the country and how that might be changing over time, and whether we should be raising this with some of our contacts.”
Somewhat ironically, Haig also insisted that opposition groups in Russia are concerned about purported efforts to infiltrate and monitor their activity, saying that “security is a huge issue.” How the NED's most senior figures came to speak with the pranksters, who kept their cameras turned off and spoke in an unconvincing imitation of Tikhanovskaya's voice, is unclear.
The pair, whose real names are Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, have previously blagged their way into calls with the likes of Prince Harry, Amnesty International and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, they have been accused by some Western commentators of disproportionately targeting opponents of the Kremlin, with their comedy gotchas frequently seeking to generate political controversy.
The NED describes itself as a “private, non-profit, grant-making organization that receives an annual appropriation from the US Congress through the Department of State.” It acknowledges that its “continued funding is dependent on the continued support of the White House and Congress,” but states that its own “independent Board of Directors” is in charge of how the funds are spent. The agency insists that its “independence... also allows it to work with many groups abroad who would hesitate to take funds from the US Government.” Representatives of the NED have been approached for comment.
What really happened during the visit of US Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Ukraine.
The great Andrei Martyanov has remarked that Blinken “told Kiev behind the scenes to ‘dial it down’, amidst the fluffy tropes about US concern for Ukraine’s ‘sovereignty’ and ‘security’”.
Well, looks like there was way more than fluffy tropes.
Leaked info on the closed-door meeting between Blinken and Comedian-in-Charge [President] Zelensky is no less than incandescent. Blinken seemed to have read a no holds barred riot act.
Here are the guidelines. All Ukrainian state corporations must be controlled by the proverbial “foreign interests”. So board majorities must be either foreign or 5th columnists. The entire anti-corruption vertical drive must also be foreign-controlled. Same for the judicial system.
Andriy Kobolyev – an American asset – must be reinstated as head of Naftogaz. Zelensky moved mountains to get rid of Kobolyev.
Blinken demanded a massive push against every Ukrainian oligarch, so that huge chunks of Ukrainian economy are transferred to – who else – foreigners. Same for land privatization.
Somewhat hilariously, Blinken warned that Russian troops might invade Ukraine. In this case, Zelensky can count only on huge political assistance, not military. So Zelensky in fact was ordered to stop asking to join NATO and cease provoking Russia, as President Putin, who already drew red lines, could make a “drastic decision”.
Blinken demanded that American [CIA] assets should be untouchable by Ukrainian law, and named honored figures of civil society. Maidan cookie distributor Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, also in the room, drew up a list of The Untouchables, and Blinken met with them separately.
Finally, the giant ghost hanging over the whole trip to Kiev had to make itself known. In practice, Zelensky was invited to turn in everyone in Ukraine who helped bring information about Hunter Biden to the media via Rudolph Giuliani.
According to the source who had access to the leak, Zelensky was left beyond speechless. That’s not exactly what he was expecting. Especially when it comes to transferring valuable assets controlled by Ukrainian oligarchs to “foreign interests”. Someone will inevitably whack him.
No one is touching this leak – as if it was radioactive poison. No one will confirm it. Its plausibility though cannot be denied.
Contradicting these powerful, left unnamed “foreign interests” is simply out of the question. They now seem to be guided by a “take the money and run” logic, as in taking over the looting of Ukraine lock, stock and barrel before the whole thing – actually a failed state – blows up.
Pity those oligarchs who thought they were going to loot the land through privatization. Instead the money is on a one way out journey. Follow the money. Follow the dream.
~ Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for Asia Times Online, RT, OpEdNews, Sputnik, TomDispatch, China Central Television and previously Al Jazeera. He has been foreign correspondent since 1985 and reported from Afghanistan in 2000. Since before 9/11 he specialized in covering the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars.
Italian port workers refuse to load arms shipment destined for Israel
ROME (WAFA) – Italian port workers in the city of Livorno have refused to load a shipment of weapons and explosives after discovering it was destined for the Israeli port of Ashdod.
“The port of Livorno will not be an accomplice in the massacre of the Palestinian people,” said L’Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), an Italian trade union of port workers.
The USB added that the ship contained weapons and explosives that will serve to kill the Palestinian civilians, already hit by a severe attack that has killed hundreds of civilian victims, including many children.
A report by The Weapon Watch, a Genoa-based NGO that monitors arms shipments in European and Mediterranean ports, informed the union of the destination of the ship and its contents.
The NGO urged the Italian government to consider whether it was "suspending some or all Italian military exports to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict areas.”
Although the shipment eventually embarked its journey to Naples, as most other port workers continued to load the ship, other Italian workers groups have called for increased coordination between port workers to prevent shipment of weapons that could be used to bomb Gaza.
Protests took place in various Italian cities this week, following Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and Jerusalem.
