Encircling China

 

Even though the US spends 40 percent of the combined military budgets of the world, more than the next 7 biggest spenders combined, Pentagon officials are indicating to Congress that they need to increase the US military budget by $7 billion and send US troops to the Pacific to be in “close quarters” with China. 

China replied by decrying Washington’s “Cold War and zero-sum mentality” that leads to obsessive military superiority. 

RT America’s Alex Mihalovich has the details. Then former UK MP George Galloway joins Rick Sanchez to discuss.

Why the meeting?

 

 

Who gets what out of this meeting?

 

Russia knows the US is treaty averse,

just ask the Native people in North America.

 

You can't trust Washington,

they turn the mirror around

and blame others for what they are doing.

 

Normal behavior for an addict.

 

Addicted to power,

money, control & domination,

addicted to addiction.

A tough knot to unravel,

it is....

 

Maybe Putin is just going to Geneva

to see how much sense Biden makes.

 

Is he coherent?  

What does Biden get out of it?

 

He gets to stand over Putin,

since he is taller,

but in the real world Biden

is a very small man when

stacked up against Vladimir Putin.

 

Bruce

Will Ukraine Benefit From Playing War Games With NATO?

Putin's growing empire???? REALLY? NATO keeps expanding to Russia's borders since 1991! There was no threat from Russia back then. Now, it wants Georgia and Ukraine? And didn't it promise to not expand eastward??? 

- Агент Кристина
@LubimayaRussiya

By Denis Bolotsky

 

In 2021, Ukraine is hosting a series of NATO military exercises. Some perceive the drills as pouring gasoline over fire, since the host country still has an unresolved military conflict in Donbass.

It’s the grand opening of a war games season for Kiev. 11,000 NATO troops are being deployed to Ukraine to hold joint manoeuvres alongside some 21,000 local soldiers – all at the invitation of the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Largest NATO Drills in a Quarter of a Century

The war games, which are partially under way at the moment, will cover land, sea, and air. The maritime part features “Sea Breeze” – a simulation which will bring together 30 ships, 30 warplanes and 1,400 troops representing 27 nations. Prior to 2014, NATO staged “Sea Breeze” in Crimea, but even after the region re-joined Russia following a referendum, the scenarios haven't changed much and still revolve around the peninsula.

Ukrainian military personnel are also taking part in other manoeuvres - the “Defender Europe-2021”. The largest exercise of the kind in the past 25 years is being carried out simultaneously in 16 European countries, with the main locations being close to the Balkans and the Black Sea region.

During the first stage of “Defender Europe”, which is called “Swift Response”, 7,000 troops from 11 countries took part in missions across Eastern Europe – from Bulgaria to Romania, as well as in Estonia. The second stage of the drills is called “Immediate Response”. It includes shooting exercise for 5,000 soldiers from eight countries. Two more stages focus on anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence, as well as on setting up coordination between multinational forces.

In April this year, Aleksey Arestovich, the speaker of the Ukrainian representation in the so-called Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on Donbass, said that “Defender Europe” is a “simulation of a war, an armed conflict with Russia”. He added that “The main focus is on the Balkans and Crimea, and, naturally – everything to the North of Crimea”.

The West’s Sanctimony

When it comes to the possibilities of Ukraine joining NATO, the rhetoric of the alliance’s top brass remains oblique and cautious, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg saying that Kiev will have to “modernise and reform its security and defence institutions” first. But in reality, NATO is already in Ukraine and is pumping the country up with more and more weapons.

Indubitably, NATO’s expansionist policies are nothing new for Moscow. The alliance has been doing the opposite of what its leaders proclaimed regarding NATO’s eastward encroachment for decades, gradually increasing its military presence in Eastern Europe since 1991, and later accepting former Communist bloc nations as members.

 

 

But the full weight of criticism and the accusations of any global military-related wrongdoing were always twisted around by the Western mainstream media and politicians, and placed on Moscow. For instance, in April 2021, Russia was pressured by the US and Germany earlier this year for organising army drills on its own soil, dozens of tightly intertwined and significantly larger military manoeuvres involving Kiev were being organised by the West itself in the vicinity of Russia’s borders.

​Both warring sides in Donbass continue to accuse each other of ceasefire violations. But it’s likely that after NATO’s manoeuvres, more Western-made ammunition will appear in the shelling reports from the frontline.

According to the Russian MoD, advanced armaments and munitions delivered by NATO for holding the drills will eventually be supplied to Ukrainian nationalist formations in Donbass, adding more tension to the situation in the region.

Who Really Undermines Ukraine’s Sovereignty?

While Ukrainian officials prefer to stick to their usual anti-Russian rhetoric while beefing up the military in the vicinity of Russia's borders under the guise of army drills, it appears that Kiev is slowly locking itself up within new political and military boundaries. These new boundaries are being set in Brussels and in Washington, while Moscow is still habitually portrayed by Ukrainian and Western media as the key villain and the main threat to Ukraine's sovereignty.

NATO leaders will be holding a summit in Brussels next week. But despite President Zelensky’s eagerness to integrate his country into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as soon as possible, it doesn’t seem that he will be getting any closer to achieving this goal anytime soon.

By now, it looks like Washington is not prepared to sanction such moves openly, possibly preferring to keep Ukraine as a bargaining chip, and an instrument for Biden’s administration to keep irritating Russia. But whether the Ukrainian people, who appear to have no say in this whole situation, really want such a role for their country remains to be seen.

Union leader/teacher beats corporate power

 

 

For the first time in Peru's history, a leftist and working-class candidate won the presidency. 

While Pedro Castillo's election has generated big expectations, his ability to govern faces many challenges. 

Peruvian journalist and analyst Francesca Emanuele analyzes the election result. 

See more on this Peru story and history here

Boeing X-37 could carry nuke warheads

The US X-37 military space plane (super drone) could technically carry up to six warheads and, with the US planning to deploy eight of these by 2025, it looks like a serious challenge, the director-general of Russian defence technology company Almaz-Antey, Yan Novikov, said Saturday.

"The official story is that these platforms were developed for scientific purposes and, well, surveillance. But we understand that having these capacities and possibilities, the smaller spacecraft can carry up to three nuclear warheads, the large one up to six," Novikov said at the New Knowledge educational event.

Novikov pointed out that the United States was planning to add two new platforms to the six that are already in orbit.

"This is, without any doubt, a serious challenge," Novikov said.

Source: RIA Novosti

 

Test firing projectiles from an orbiter

Clementine (officially called the Deep Space Program Science Experiment (DSPSE) was a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO was previously the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization) and NASA, launched on January 25, 1994. Its objective was to test sensors and spacecraft components in long-term exposure to space and to make scientific observations of both the Moon and the near-Earth asteroid 1620 Geographos.

Another reason for the mission was to test fire a projectile from the orbiter toward the surface of the Moon in order to find out if there was water under the surface.

This is likely a key reason for the BMDO (now called the Missile Defense Agency) being involved in the project. 

Now imagine the X-37 orbiting the Earth with nuclear weapons on board (which would appear to violate the UN's Outer Space Treaty that banned nuclear weapons in space). Imagine the X-37 releasing (or firing) those nukes back toward Earth hitting underground targets in Russia and China. 

The Clementine mission thus was a test for this kind of technology and I'd be confident in saying that since 1994 NASA and the Pentagon have repeatedly tested that same technology on other missions.

 

 

Aerospace industry publications over the years reported on US Space Command annual computer war games where the Pentagon launched first-strike attacks on Russia and China. They called it the 'Red team verses the Blue team'. 

In that war game the first-strike was initiated by orbiting 'military space planes' that fired projectiles at Russian and Chinese targets. After a series of other strikes on those nations (from bombers, nuclear submarines, etc) Russia and China tried to fire what remaining nuclear retaliatory capabilities they had.

It was after those retaliatory measures by Russia and China that the Pentagon's so-called 'missile defense' shield was used to attempt to pick-off the responses from those under attack. 

 

All of these puzzle pieces (over many years) create for me a definitive picture which verifies that Washington (and NATO) are vigorously working to create a first-strike capability. In essence the Pentagon is developing a loaded gun that is being aimed at Russia and China's head basically saying 'Surrender to the US/NATO or we will use this capability to initiate a first-strike attack'. 

By the way, Russia and China have long said they would never launch a first-strike attack but if attacked by the US they would respond with everything they had.

The fact that NASA has been involved in these space military tests indicates that the 'civilian' space agency has long ago been compromised and it actually an appendage of the Pentagon.

Bruce 

History lesson: NATO broke Yugoslavia to bits

 

A very important video regarding the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Retired Brigadier-General Pierre Marine Gallois of the French Army on the destruction of Yugoslavia, demonization of the Serbs and western interests behind it (primarily German and American).

Understand this and you will know the present world order.

What happened, how it happened, the interests, motives etc.  

Here is one commentator on the Internet whose words make sense in this regard. He wrote:

It was not natural ethnic rivalry which broke up YugoSlavia, it was heavy armaments of NATZO, the armed wing of Anglo-Zio Capitalism, after our diplomatic corps, our media, our money and our imported fanatical “Islamic” mercenaries had stirred up murderous incidents to ignite ethnic strife. Same way we [US-NAT)] broke up Ukraine and tried to break up Syria.

Insanity reigns in Israel

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to be ousted by an extremely fragile and unlikely alliance of parties from across the political spectrum who have little in common, other than their desire to break a political deadlock. 

Resist US-Led War! No to NATO! Fight for Just Peace!

 

Global Online Rally

Thursday, June 10, 17:00 UTC
Register: http://bit.ly/notonatorally

On June 14, the US-led imperialist military pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), will hold its annual summit meeting in Brussels, Belgium.  The Resist US-Led War Movement calls for Global Actions to Resist NATO and Build the People's Movement for Just Peace!

Since its founding in 1949, NATO has acted as an armed wing of US-led war and imperialism, mobilizing its 29 member states in North America and Europe to unleash lethal military campaigns in the name of “collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security.” That is, in defense of the interests of US imperialism and its allies, threatened by its rivals or movements for genuine sovereignty and independence.

The truth is that NATO has been a prime actor in wars of aggression, the enforcement of sanctions, and military occupations that have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in countries from Afghanistan, to Iraq, and Libya. As part of its policy to surround and contain Russia, NATO has built up its presence in the Black Sea and Mediterranean including US bases and use of bases in Greece and Cyprus. NATO continues to destabilize sovereign countries and prop up fascist governments across Europe, including in Poland, Ukraine, Turkey and Hungary.  NATO gives unwavering support to Israel’s genocidal occupation of Palestine, and NATO member Turkey has initiated military aggression  in  North and East Syria and in South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) in a brutal war to eliminate the Kurdish people, toward the goal of strengthening NATO in the Middle East. 

 

So-called humanitarian missions conducted by NATO place humanitarian aid in a military framework that prioritizes making regions secure for investment and geopolitical interests of its member states.  Around the world, NATO states maintain an intricate network of military bases and military installations, which violate national sovereignty and cause environmental damage and social disruption.

To support its insatiable hunger for militarism, NATO continues to demand larger military budgets and greater military spending from each of its member states, leaving much-needed social services for working people chronically underfunded.  NATO pushes the bogus line of nuclear deterrence, essentially supporting the nuclear build up of its nuclear-armed members and even preventing its members from signing the TPNW (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons).

Now NATO seeks to launch its new strategic initiative “NATO 2030," which identifies its principal security concerns as not only Russia, but also China, terrorism, cyber attacks and emerging disruptive technologies. This forebodes a dangerous expansion of NATO even further into the Asia Pacific region, as NATO increases its intelligence activities, investment in military readiness--including weapons, military exercises, bases and installations-- and collaboration with repressive regimes in the region.

 

 
As the preeminent alliance of the most economically and politically powerful allies of the US, NATO is still the premier force bolstering US-led war today.  Through NATO, the US has access to any military base, domestic or overseas, of any of its members.  The US also is the primary decision-maker when it comes to NATO missions, meaning that all of the pooled resources of member countries are at the US’s fingertips to fund its destructive operations.  Truly, the US would not be at the helm of the majority of wars of aggression today if it were not for the NATO alliance.

The people reject NATO as a tool of US-led war! NATO and its proponents will never achieve real peace and security for the masses of the world. The people can only attain a genuine just peace by organizing for justice and social equity and by forging solidarity amongst peoples, including the recognition of the right to self-determination, economic, and food sovereignty, and self-defense of nations and oppressed peoples from reactionary violence, including US and NATO-led aggression.

Resist US-Led War Movement calls for actions June 10-14, to coincide with the NATO summit in Brussels, to denounce NATO and build the grassroots people’s movement to oppose NATO and US-led war! Join our online rally on June 10 at http://bit.ly/notonatorally, join us at in-person actions in Brussels on June 13, or hold an action in your own city or town!

Ukraine complains they are not getting enough Russian money

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin: There is a chance to use the Ukrainian gas pipeline network in the future. 

We want this to happen, but goodwill from our Ukrainian partners is required. 

Putin says that if Ukraine would develop good relations with their own citizens in the Donbass region they'd not have to waste so much money on their war against the Russian-ethnic Ukrainians along Russia's border.  

Be sure to turn on the CC for English.

Who was the real bomb?

 

 

 By Regis Tremblay

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, http://space4peace.org/

We talked about Roman Protasevich who was arrested in Belarus after his Ryan Air flight made an emergency landing in Minsk because of a bomb scare. Apparently, Protasevich was 'the bomb'. Was he set up to embarrass Belarus and Russia?

We discussed the upcoming summit between President Putin and Joe Biden. Complications already brewing as the Swiss government will not allow Russia media who were vaccinated with the Russian Sputnik V to cover the event. Will that include Putin, Sergey Lavrov and the Russian delegation? 

Finally we talked about the weaponization of space.

Bruce's blog is a daily treasure trove of important news, analysis, and information.
https://space4peace.blogspot.com/

Signs along the road to empire collapse

 

The US military empire is unsustainable - especially when the nation is $28 trillion in debt and using worthless Confederate money (that is a joke meaning the dollar is declining in value).  Below are just a few early examples that things are not going so well inside the Pentagon as they try to juggle the mounting cost demands of empire.  It is only going to get worse. Watch out they don't grab your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more. My suggestion is to step up the calls for Pentagon spending cuts emphasizing that human needs and climate crisis are demanding a complete change of direction. We should also be regularly talking about conversion of the war machine.

• Hundreds of government vehicles are parked indefinitely at the U.S. Air Force’s largest base in Europe and delays to services are expected after the Air Force unexpectedly slashed vehicle maintenance funds servicewide. 
  

• In a $715 billion spending plan sent to Congress, the Biden administration proposes sidelining ships and hundreds of aircraft to pay for fast-flying hypersonic missiles and newer generation warships. The $715 billion request is $11 billion more than the $704 billion Congress enacted for the current fiscal year, but if inflation stays around 4 percent, it will represent about a 3 percent real decrease.

• Congressman Joe Courtney (D-CT), chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, said his subcommittee is working to restore the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer cut from President Biden’s defense budget proposal released last week.

• Estimated Cost of US Nuclear Modernization Jumps During More Expensive Phase. The Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate puts the next decade’s price tag at $634 billion as some lawmakers try to bring it back down.

• In the past 10 years, Norfolk Naval Shipyard [in Virginia] has suffered nine major floods [due to rising sea levels] that have damaged equipment used to repair ships, and the flooding is worsening, according to the Navy. In 2016, rain from Hurricane Matthew left 2 feet of water in one building, requiring nearly $1.2 million in repairs. In response, the Navy proposed a more permanent barrier estimated to cost more than $30 million, part of a 20-year, $21 billion plan submitted to Congress this year to modernize Norfolk as well as Navy shipyards in Maine, Washington and Hawaii. [Some cost estimates for fixing the sinking navy docks at US bases worldwide are more than $350 billion.]

 

• A consensus is building among current and former military leaders and defense industry executives that rising military personnel costs threaten the viability of the all-volunteer force. “Unless retirees contribute more for their TRICARE insurance, medical costs will not be brought under control and the national defense they served, and for which they fought and sacrificed, will be harmed,” says the final report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel. 
  

• Can US-Japan avoid train wreck on defense costs? Washington wants Tokyo to quadruple the amount it pays for military protection under the Special Measures Agreement 
•  To make space in its shrinking budget, the U.S. Army has listed 37 programs for trimming in fiscal 2022. As has become standard practice, service officials are also asking lawmakers for money for things excluded from the budget proposal sent to Congress last week. Some programs appear on both lists. Take the Abrams tank, long the centerpiece of the land service’s armored force. A document listing the 37 programs says the Abrams effort is to be cut by about $154 million. But in their unfunded priorities list — informally known as the “wish list” — service officials ask lawmakers to add $369 million to the Abrams program to help field the third version of the tank to Army National Guard units without delays.
  

• The federal government's books are in such bad shape that auditors can't even do their jobs, and the national debt is growing at an "unsustainable" rate, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned in its annual comprehensive review of the government's financial statements. The GAO singled out the Pentagon—as it has every year since 1990, when federal auditors first started trying to peer into the black hole of military spending—for "serious financial management problems." That includes more than 1,300 new issues raised during this year's incomplete audit of the Defense Department.

Sunday song