The fog of war and the global paradigm shift

 

 

By Fabio Reis Vianna 

Perhaps the maxim of the Brazilian thinker José Luís Fiori that “expansionism and war are two essential parts of the machine that produces power and wealth in the interstate system” has never been so pertinent and seems to be confirmed at the exact historical moment we are witnessing.

The extraordinary events that resulted from the Russian intervention in Ukraine, which began on February 24, leave indelible marks and confirm some of the perceptions that have already been mentioned in other articles by us.

The western-led international order is clearly being questioned in its hierarchy of power, and the war in Ukraine is a clear symptom of this questioning.

What really causes astonishment, however, is the perception that this war aims at something much bigger than it might seem at first sight, because it would not be a regional war, but a war of global proportions: a hegemonic war.

The paradigm shift represented by the Russian intervention in Ukraine consolidates, therefore, the path of a new international system, more fragmented, and where Western power is weakened. In this scenario, the tectonic plates of the international system are slowly moving in the face of the new, and unprecedented, world that is unfolding.

Therefore, like it or not, the elites of countries like Brazil, so subservient to the security strategy of the United States, are being pushed towards a consensual solution in the direction of the Eurasian experience through the BRICS. In this way, the Brazilian military, so reactionary and obedient to Washington, is facing a new world, apparently already understood by the diplomatic tradition of “Itamaraty”, and even by the powerful Brazilian agro-business lobby.

In the opposite direction, the blindness of the European elites causes astonishment by feeding a game that plunges Europe back into what it has always been: the great stage of military interstate competition of the last 500 years.

Therefore, taking this terrible premise into consideration, the armistice that made possible the creation of the European Union, as well as the common currency, would have been a mere interregnum of peace, until the next war.

Retaking its tragic place in the classical international system, Europe is once again the scene of the old theater of death, and the maxim that “peace is almost always a truce which lasts for the time imposed by the expansive compulsion of the winners, and the need for revenge of the losers,” has never been more apposite.

In this context, the German humiliation represented by the American veto of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline is paradigmatic. On February 7, in the middle of the White House, and even before the Russian intervention in Ukraine, Joe Biden publicly disavows the newly appointed German chancellor Olaf Scholz, stating categorically that the Nord Stream II pipeline would be stopped.

This attitude could be considered the trigger for Russian intervention and the opening of Pandora’s Box for the new world that is opening. Besides representing, in symbolic terms, the humiliation of Germany as a sovereign country, it consolidates the definitive “Coup d’Etat” in the European integration project.

With Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky being a kind of spokesman of a script written in Washington – or, who knows, Hollywood – the repeated attacks on European leaders who have worked so hard for the normalization of Russian-European Union relations, as is the case of the recent attack on former chancellor Angela Merkel, indicate that the instruments of fourth generation war, already used by the United States in other regions of the planet, are intensifying in the heart of the western alliance.

Not only the maintenance, but the deepening of the continuous and unlimited reproduction and expansion of the American military empire is a reality that became even clearer after the first Russian tank entered Ukrainian territory, even if this meant destabilizing, or even destroying, old and loyal allies.

In this sense, the old premise carried by many scholars of the “realist” school of International Relations, as well as by great thinkers of the World System, that the concentration of global power in a single state would be an essential condition for lasting world peace, falls to the ground.

The “Hyper-power Paradox” is confirmed as a slap in the face of the enormous theoretical consensus developed since the mid-1970s of the last century.

 

In other words, since the first minute of the US bombing of Iraq in 1991, which followed the 48 military interventions of the 1990s, and the 24 interventions in the first two decades of the 21st century – which in turn culminated in 100,000 bombings around the globe – the International System is immersed in a somber process of permanent, or infinite, war, which contradicts the Kantian utopia of perpetual peace reflected in the idea of hegemonic stability.

Thus, it was a mistake to consider that the uni-polar global power that emerged with the victory in the cold war could exercise its hegemony in the name of peace and global stability, assuming, therefore, a responsible leadership and in the name of a great global governance.

On the contrary, what we have witnessed over the last 30 years is the escalation of interstate competition, with the reaction of other states to the insane and inconsequential process of power expansion carried out by the American military empire.

As a result, we find ourselves before a world that seemed to belong only to the history books; where the national interests of the great powers return with the force that, as it turns out, they never stopped having, but were only dormant.

This new (old) geopolitics of nations, therefore, leaves its clearest mark with what Russia imposes in its intervention in Ukraine: contesting the primacy that only westerners have the legitimacy to impose their will through war.

This is the novelty that shakes the structures of the International System.

In the face of this imminent war of global proportions, resulting from the Russian challenge and the intensification of the arms race – with the alarming return of Germany and Japan to the game – we are inexorably heading for a deepening of the interstate systemic chaos, as well as the escalation of systemic social conflict, particularly in Europe.

As in other moments in the history of the World System, Europe is once again the nerve center of the global power struggle. And as in other tragic moments in history, the behavior of European leaders is once again irrational; in the midst of a negative-sum game. The Europeans lose.

~ Fabio Reis Vianna, lives in Rio de Janeiro, is a bachelor of laws (LL.B), MA student in International Relations at the University of Évora (Portugal), writer and geopolitical analyst. He currently maintains a column on international politics at the centennial Brazilian newspaper Monitor Mercantil. 

Film showing in Portland: Last of the Right Whales

 

 

Please come and watch the Maine Premiere of the film Last of the Right Whales in Portland, Maine at the Patriot Nickelodeon at 7:00 P.M. Wednesday, April 27th. 

The film will be followed by a discussion with whale experts. We are killing these whales faster than they can reproduce.With a global population estimated at only 336, we will loose this species forever within a few decades should we fail to greatly reduce human-caused injuries and deaths, most of which result from vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear.

This film needs to be seen by the public, especially here in Maine where the level of denial about Maine’s role in the decline of this keystone species is enormous, as is the amount of dis and misinformation coming out of the Maine lobster industry and Maine media and politicians. 

Love and Flukes,

 

Russell Wray

Hancock, Maine

Europeans plotting to destabilize Central Asia

 

 

 TASS reports

The European Union’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan Tomas Niklasson has held consultations in Tajikistan. Afghan issues were also discussed during United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi’s recent visit to Dushanbe. Experts believe that the Europeans are analyzing the situation in Central Asia before launching an operation to destabilize the region, Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes.

"Given Tajikistan’s tough position against the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) and refusal to hold constructive talks with the new regime in Kabul, the West seems to view the country as a channel for supporting the so-called anti-Taliban forces so as to create the necessary level of instability in Afghanistan," St. Petersburg State University Professor Alexander Knyazev noted.

"Instability persists along the southern borders of Central Asian countries. The EU and US allies are interested in creating chaos on the southern borders of Central Asian nations because it is Russia’s zone of responsibility and interests so even slight tensions in northern Afghanistan would distract Russia’s resources currently focused on Europe," the expert emphasized. According to him, Imran Khan’s removal from the post of Pakistan’s prime minister, marks a new stage in the Chinese-US standoff in Pakistan, which will soon spread into Afghanistan.

"EU officials are testing the waters through Tajikistan before escalating a conflict that would spill over into Russia via Kazakhstan," political scientist Mars Sariyev noted. "The recent vote of no confidence against the Pakistani prime minister gives free rein to the West. Now, the United States can advance its prearranged plan to destabilize the region. When leaving Afghanistan, Americans left a lot of weapons behind for a reason, which, apart from the Taliban, fell into the hands of groups outlawed in Russia, including the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and Ansarullah," Sariyev stressed.

Interview: War in Ukraine Is Really About U.S. Pursuing Regime Change in Russia

 

Interview by Finian Cunningham (Strategic Culture Foundation)

The corporate-dominated media (that lied us into the 2003 “shock and awe” attack on Iraq over non-existent WMD) is trotting out the same strategy again to sell war and deceive the public

American peace activist, documentary filmmaker and author Bruce Gagnon analyses the current war in Ukraine with a critical bigger picture of political and strategic context that is so woefully – and deliberately – missing in Western media.

In the following interview, Gagnon points out that the Russian military intervention in Ukraine that began on February 24 can only be properly understood by viewing it as a response to eight years of relentless military assault by the NATO-backed Kiev regime against the ethnic Russian population of the Donbass region. Nearly 14,000 people were killed by the NATO-backed Kiev regime and its Russian-hating Nazi regiments. Where were Western government and media condemnations?

The current expansion of the war, he contends, is really just the front line in a bigger war that the United States and its NATO-European allies are waging against Russia. The ultimate objective is regime change in Moscow. This objective is to satisfy Western corporate interests and includes the eventual targeting of China. In this way, the U.S. and its imperialist allies are trying to thwart the emergence of a multi-polar world and to offset the historic decline of Western corporate power. As he says: “China is also on the regime-change list of the West, and due to the new economic and military pact between Russia and China, it becomes essential to take out Russia first before going after China. The United States is currently using Taiwan in a similar way to how it has used Ukraine as a tool of destabilization.”

Therefore, the stakes are profoundly vested in the outcome of the war in Ukraine. The U.S. and NATO want this war to continue in order to sap, destroy and subjugate Russia. Hence the reckless, criminal flow of weaponry from the NATO bloc into Ukraine to derail any political settlement. Gagnon also points out that the U.S.-NATO-Kiev axis is likely to resort to more false-flag atrocities in order to win the information war against Russia – a war that the Western so-called news media are openly waging under the conceited and deceptive guise of “journalism”.

Bruce Gagnon is based in Maine, United States of America. He is founder and coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He also publishes incisive commentaries on international developments in his Organizing Notes blog. Gagnon is a Vietnam War-era veteran, has worked as a labor rights activist, and has traveled to dozens of countries to give public speeches and seminars to peace, anti-war, and justice organizations.

Interview

Question: The U.S. Congress is set to pass a Lend-Lease Act that will greatly increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine purportedly to help defend that country from “Russian aggression”. This is while negotiations are underway between Ukraine and Russia to find a peace settlement to the conflict. Is Washington trying to strengthen Kiev’s negotiating hand or is the United States aiming to prolong the war?

Bruce Gagnon: Using the 2019 Rand Corp study called ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’ as a guide, the U.S.-NATO obviously do not want negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to flourish. Their interest is in creating a festering sore along Russia’s border forcing Moscow to spend more of its national treasury on the military and on rebuilding the massively destroyed Russian-ethnic Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The Donbass destruction was largely due to Ukrainian army shelling for over eight years since the U.S.-orchestrated coup in Kiev in 2014.

Question: In passing the Lend-Lease Act, the U.S. Senate cited allegations of genocide and the massacre of civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha by Russian troops as justification for the legislative go-ahead for more American weapons to Ukraine. Russia categorically denies the allegations while several independent analysts have pointed to evidence that the gruesome killings were a false-flag provocation carried out by Ukrainian forces in order to incriminate Russia. What is your view of the Western media reports on the Bucha massacre?

Bruce Gagnon: I have studied the Bucha story quite closely and it is more than obvious that this was one more false flag by the U.S.-NATO-Ukrainian axis. The timelines point to this being such. Russian troops left Bucha on March 30. On March 31, the mayor of Bucha put out a video where he excitedly and proudly proclaimed that Russian troops had left. On April 1, a woman who serves as a Bucha City Council Deputy made a similar video proclaiming victory over the Russians. Neither of those two city leaders made any reference to a massacre or bodies in the streets which would have been more than obvious at that point. On April 2, Ukrainian forces retook control of Bucha. On April 3, Western media began reporting on the alleged massacre.

There have been repeated attempts by the U.S.-NATO-Ukrainian side to claim that Russia was killing civilians but each story has turned out to be lacking a factual basis. The latest attempt was the Ukrainian army shelling Kramatorsk using a Tochka-U missile on April 8. Dozens of civilians were killed and up to 100 wounded. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was quick to blame Russia although the Tochka-U missile is an outdated technology that is no longer used by Russia and ample evidence shows that it has been a favorite weapon used by the Nazi-led Kiev regime’s army to repeatedly shell the Donbass region.

Additionally, Kramatorsk is in the Russian-ethnic region of eastern Ukraine that Russia is trying to liberate from the Nazi-led army of Kiev. It makes no sense that Russia would kill their own people.

It is said that every criminal has a Modus Operandi (MO) – a way of repeating their bad behavior. I think it is safe to say that Ukraine is losing this war and has resorted to an MO to create false flags in order to turn public opinion against Russia with hopes that U.S.-NATO will then fully enter the war on the Kiev regime’s side. So Ukraine has replaced actual offensive military operations (which they are no longer really capable of) with false-flag events as their primary strategy to vilify and defeat Russia.

Question: You have said that the war in Ukraine is not merely about Ukraine and Russia in isolation, but rather represents a front line in a bigger confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO bloc on one hand and Russia and China on the other. Are you saying this is a proxy war?

 

 

Bruce Gagnon: There can be no doubt that this war is being waged on behalf of a larger mission – regime change in Russia that the West hopes would allow for the breaking up of Russia into smaller nations similar to what U.S.-NATO did to Yugoslavia following the 1999 American-led attack on Belgrade. The goal is for Western resource extraction corporations to take control of Russia’s vast landmass and most importantly its huge resource base that includes natural gas, oil, timber, agricultural lands and vital mineral deposits. With the melting of the Arctic ice, it will increasingly become possible to “drill-baby-drill” for offshore resources under the sea that has long been covered in thick layers of ice. It’s no coincidence that at the same time this war started, the U.S.-NATO began holding a war game called ‘Cold Response’ in the north of Norway which borders Russia’s Arctic region.

U.S. President Joe Biden, in one of his confused moments, blurted out in a recent speech in Warsaw that “Putin had to go”. I am more than certain that during many of the National Security Council meetings in Washington this has long been a key agenda item.

In the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the West. The Poles came across the European Plain in 1605, followed by the Swedes under Charles XII in 1707, the French under Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans twice, in both world wars, in 1914 and 1941. Every 100 years, the West makes its move and fails.

China is also on the regime-change list of the West, and due to the new economic and military pact between Russia and China, it becomes essential to take out Russia first before going after China. The United States is currently using Taiwan in a similar way to how it has used Ukraine as a tool of destabilization.

Question: Russia has said it hopes that the war in Ukraine will be finished soon. But from what you are saying, there is a real danger that the conflict could be spun out for much longer due to U.S., British and NATO arms being supplied to Ukraine. Is this prolongation of the war what galvanizes Washington and London’s calculus and policies?

Bruce Gagnon: The vested interests inside the U.S.-EU military-industrial complex stand to make massive profits if this war can be extended for months, or even years. I believe that this is the intent of Washington-Brussels. By getting NATO members to ship outdated military hardware to Ukraine, the Western military manufacturers are salivating as they imagine replacing those stocks of weapons with the latest technologies that must be “interoperable” with Pentagon space-directed war-fighting capabilities. What this translates to over time is a vast high-tech global war machine. Don’t forget that NATO is also going international as they sign up “partners” in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and others in the Asia-Pacific. In this “mission vision”, the U.S. would be in charge of the “tip of the spear” and will have had NATO members and partners help pay for it all. NATO’s job is to ultimately force submission to Western corporate demands. They declare they are a “peace alliance” yet their history is nothing but endless war.

 

Question: Do you think there is an even bigger picture to the U.S.-led NATO confrontation with Russia? That is, the bigger battle is to stave off the historic decline in the American-dominated Western economic system? Russia and China have consistently hailed the advent of a multipolar world based on cooperation and partnership. The United States seems deeply opposed to this vision, claiming that Moscow and Beijing undermine a so-called “rules-based global order”. Why does Washington object to a multi-polar vision? What is it about American power that demands unipolar dominance, fealty, or war?

Bruce Gagnon: The U.S. and NATO are an insecure and desperate military war machine. They are the muscle for the Western-run corporate globalization syndicate. They know their days are numbered as the dominant Western imperial powers that have ruled most of the world for hundreds of years.

It reminds me of a drunken riverboat gambler rolling the dice – knowing that he has lost everything but still going for broke one last time. Washington and the EU clearly understand that the rising multi-polar world is unstoppable – when you add up the population numbers this rising tide is the vast majority of the world’s population. So the U.S.-NATO know this is their last-ditch chance to try to remain in control of the planet. Washington-London-Paris-Berlin-Brussels want total power and control and are willing to burn any nations to the ground that stand in their way.

Obviously, China, Russia, Iran, India, and others across the global South understand all of this. They have suffered at the hands of the U.S.-Europe long enough. They are moving to help create this multi-polar world – what one Russian leader recently called a “Fair World Order” not run by Wall Street, the Bank of England, the IMF and World Bank. The question for all of us is: will the U.S.-NATO be willing to take this drive to remain in control to World World III that could then quite possibly turn nuclear? Those so-called “peaceniks” out in the streets waving Ukrainian flags ought to ask themselves if they are in fact inadvertently helping to push things in that horrific direction.

Question: In the reporting on the Ukraine war and the prelude to it, would you agree that Western news media seem to have more openly embraced the function of a propaganda system, peddling intelligence disinformation to distort the nature of the conflict with Russia?

Bruce Gagnon: The Western media is all in when it comes to demonizing Russia and helping to escalate this war. Just days ago while driving, I turned on NPR (National Public Radio) and heard one “correspondent” claim that Russian troops had raped young girls in Bucha.

Have we forgotten the groundbreaking U.S. Senate committee hearings in 1975 on the CIA’s control of the media? Those hearings were led by Senator Frank Church (D-ID). At the time, it was disclosed that 400 journalists worldwide were submitting news stories on behalf of the CIA. Operation Mockingbird it was called. Look it up on the internet. I don’t think the videos from those congressional hearings have been removed yet on YouTube. I’d bet my life that the so-called “Bucha rape story” was produced by the agency.

Just last week we learned from an NBC-TV report that U.S. intelligence agencies were putting out false stories about Russia in order to “preempt” Moscow “from doing something bad”. The corporate-dominated media (that lied us into the 2003 “shock and awe” attack on Iraq over non-existent WMD) is trotting out the same strategy again to sell war and deceive the public. And when you factor in all the efforts of corporate-owned social media outlets to take down alternative views on the Ukraine war it becomes clear that the Number One goal is the brainwashing of the public. Modus Operandi – every criminal syndicate has one. 

Latest from Scott Ritter

 

 

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom

Ukraine/Russia update - a conversation with Scott Ritter, former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer.

Washington directed coup in Pakistan

 

"US wants to install military bases in Pakistan to better threaten China," says George Galloway. 

He calls Pakistan now "a plaything or a proxy" of the US.

Back to days of military-style dictatorship controlled by Washington.

Mother Jones: In her own words

 

 

"Christ himself would agitate against them. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell the workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. 

Christ, the carpenter's son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on the Earth."

~ Mother Jones, The Autobiography of Mother Jones

 

Failure in Ukraine could mean the disintegration of EU & NATO

 

 
‘Through Ukraine’: Can the West Use the War to Stem Its Decline and the Shift to a New Global Monetary Order? 

By Alastair Crooke (Strategic Culture Foundation)


Sometimes revolutionary change creeps up upon us by stealth; we only come to appreciate the major bifurcation when we come to notice it, in the rear-view mirror. This is especially so when the those who first pulled the trigger do not fully appreciate – themselves – what they have done.

What has been done? In a moment of visceral prejudice, a few ‘Team Biden’ staffers decided to leverage their plan to collapse the value of the rouble. So they hit upon the ruse of seizing the dollar, euro and Treasury bond reserves of the Central Bank of Russia.

So sure were they of their plan that this would completely stymie Russia’s efforts to save a sinking rouble, they did not even bother to consult the Federal Reserve or the ECB. The latter said so publicly and disagreed with the action taken.

What followed was the inadvertent launching of the western financial system into its gradual demise. The Russo-phobic Washington ‘hawks’ stupidly picked a fight with the one country – Russia – that has the commodities needed to run the world, and to trigger the shift to a different monetary system.

Will this monetary event change the geo-political dynamic too? For sure – it has, already.

By seizing its reserves, Washington in effect was telling Moscow: Dollars are debarred to you; you can buy absolutely nothing with dollars. If that be so, what would be the point of holding dollars? The end to the American and EU move was inevitable: Russia would sell its gas for roubles.

But here was introduced a Machiavellian twist: By playing both sides of the equation: i.e. linking the rouble to gold, and then linking energy payments to the rouble, the Bank of Russia is fundamentally altering the entire working assumptions of the global trade system (i.e. by replacing nominal fiat dollars with a solid commodity-backed, currency).

But note, the Central Bank of Russia did two things of geo-strategic importance: It both added a pricing ‘floor’, and (less noticed), took another one away. The Bank added a floor to the price of gold – by promising to buy gold at a fixed rate.

However, by insisting on payment in its national currency, Russia began to remove the floor imposed by the U.S. in 1971 to the dollar price through the world having to sell their national currencies (thus weakening them) to buy dollars (to pay for energy). In short, though Russian spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Russia would proceed cautiously, the move punctures the structural excess-valuation accorded to the dollar.

Middle Eastern energy producers see clearly where this is going: Russia – by linking the rouble to gold, and energy to rouble payment – is starting a process ultimately of linking the oil price to a gold price. This constitutes the quiet revolution. Gold tentatively becomes the neutral reserve currency, pending the development of a broader one.

This then, is the third ‘taking away’: It starts the severance from U.S. ‘paper-led’, commodity exchanges which the West manipulates to keep a lid on commodity and gold prices. It gives potentially a completely new horizon to OPEC+, for example.

Here is the point: If Treasuries and dollars held at the NY Fed are being shunned, then what would become the natural store of value? Well commodities, of course. Why is this so revolutionary? Because in an era of supply-disruption, food disruption and war, the West no longer will have access to ‘cheap’ commodities.

Maybe, the Team Biden staffers should have taken the trouble to consult the Federal Reserve, for ironically, not only did they spook other foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries and reserve dollars when they seized Russian reserves, but they did it just at the moment when domestic U.S. inflation is spiking sharply, and bonds are being shunned anyway.

After a forty-year run, U.S. Treasuries are today viewed as ‘return-less risks’. (Risky because of fear that inflation will turn bond rates even more negative in real terms. Already the yield on 2-year Treasuries is exploding higher. But if the Fed seriously wants to combat inflation, interest rates must go a lot higher.)

As one might expect, the run to commodities (for all these reasons: threat of war, supply disruption, Russia sanctions) has sent commodity prices ‘shooting the moon’. Elevated commodity prices impact all other prices and impinge everywhere – but nowhere more so than the U.S., where a top-heavy financialised construct rests upon a tiny base of commodity collateral. And where the Administration is caught between the Scylla of fearful inflation and Charybdis of a market crash if interest rates are hiked high.

 

Can this trajectory of economic crisis and declining western relevance – presaged by the shifting global monetary order; of threatening hyper-inflation; of food shortages; empty shelves; inflation-led poverty; spiking heating and gasoline costs – all be reversed via ‘a U.S. win’ in the Ukraine conflict?

What ‘Bucha’ tells us is that the West is in ‘an all or nothing’ heated frenzy to prove it can win this war. A failure in Ukraine could well mean the disintegration of EU and NATO. The patch-work cohesion within these alliances will not survive the trauma of defeat. And ‘Bucha’ says to us that West is ready to go for a ‘win’ in an imaginary war, even at the expense of strategic loss on the ground in Ukraine.

The desperation in the West is revealed too, in Europe’s mimicking of the Ouroboros (the ancient symbol of a serpent devouring its own tail and eating itself alive): By deliberately eschewing cheaper Russian commodities, Brussels is courting an inflationary spiral running out of control, and of Europe’s relegation to an economic backwater as its manufacturing base is rendered wholly uncompetitive due to high energy costs.

The president of the U.S. Atlantic Council, an outspoken “ideologue of unipolarity”, Frederick Kempe, wrote last week, “a Ukrainian victory — with a strong, united West behind it — would force a rethink about U.S. commitment and competence and shift the trajectory of declining transatlantic influence and relevance … [T]he question is not what the new world order would be, but rather if the U.S. and its allies can, through Ukraine, reverse the erosion of the past century’s gains – as a first step toward establishing the first truly ‘global’ world order” [emphasis added].

The ultimate salience of Ukraine is that the world (beyond narrowly West Europe and the U.S.), is watching intently. For the most part, it pointedly resists joining in condemnations of Russia. One token of this political re-set is the cold shoulder given to Biden by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both have refused to welcome a Biden visit, or even take his phone calls, whilst also declining to stop working closely with Russia on oil production levels and pricing.

Somehow, the geo-political ‘plates’ are already shifted. One regional leader summed it up succinctly: In the wake of Russia’s rouble initiative, ‘We no longer fear sanctions; We’ve seen other countries survive’.
 

~ Alastair Crooke is a British diplomat, the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, an organisation that advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West. Previously he was a ranking figure in both British intelligence (MI6) and European Union diplomacy. He was a spy for the British Government but retired shortly after meeting his spouse.  

I really respect this independent journalist

 

 

American independent journalist Patrick Lancaster in a more safe situation reflects on the news he has reported on in Crimea, Donetsk and Mariupol during the last eight years.

He tells the story of a young woman in a basement killed by Ukrainian Azov forces which they had been using as a base of operations. After they fled, due to approaching Russian forces in Mariupol, Patrick was the first journalist to get photos of the dead woman in the basement who had a Nazi swastika painted with her own blood on her back. Once the story went out some western media claimed the woman had been killed by Russians near Kiev, practically on the other side of Ukraine.

I deeply respect this man's courage to go out and find the local people and get their opinions about what is going on around them.

He's repeatedly put his life on the line to get the real story. I sent him some money.

It's really astounding how much bullshit we hear and read daily in western media - no matter whether local, national or international. There is no doubt to me that the US-EU are out to keep this war going as hot as possible, to widen it, and to use the Ukrainian people as a cheap ride on their dark path to force surrender and regime change in Russia. And the west appears to be willing to risk nuclear war at the same time. 

 

Taking down those who refuse to kneel to US-EU oligarchs

Why would anyone believe or trust anything in corrupt corporate dominated EU countries? The global mafia has taken over most European economies and governments. That is why the US-EU worked so hard to defeat the incumbent prime ministers in Hungry and Serbia just last week. They are not 'totally under control' and should be taken down, Mr. Big says. Fortunately for the world the US-EU machine lost those two races to the voters.

 

Imran Khan and Vladimir Putin

 

Then Pakistan's popular Prime Minister Imran Khan has just been ousted as the country’s leader in a coup orchestrated by Washington. The US was angry when Khan recently showed support for Russia and China - saying that his nation wants to be able to have mutually positive relations with anyone they choose. After many long years of US control of Pakistan using military dictatorships, Khan has tried to lead his people toward sovereignty and real democracy. Immediately after Khan's ouster major protests were held across Pakistan demanding he be returned to office. Khan is a famous former cricketer who served as the 22nd prime minister of Pakistan from 2018 to the present.

Bruce 

Super important interview with highly credible source

 

 

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters a new phase, former Swiss intelligence officer, senior United Nations official, and NATO advisor Jacques Baud analyzes the conflict and argues that the US and its allies are exploiting Ukraine in a longstanding campaign to bleed its Russian neighbor. 

 

Former intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service who has served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the United Nations, and with the Swiss military. 

 

Jacques Baud's excellent article on the Ukraine war: https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/

The disarmament speech that sealed JFK's fate

 

 

President JFK’s Murder Is Graphic Proof of Entrenched Cold War Ideology and Why Peace Eludes U.S.-Russia Relations 

 

Finian Cunningham: As the author yourself of a ground-breaking book on the assassination of President John F Kennedy, you argue that he was murdered by powerful U.S. state elements precisely because Kennedy was beginning to seriously challenge Cold War policies. Can you elaborate on some of the peace initiatives that he was embarking on with his Soviet counterparts?

Martin Schotz: Kennedy went through a gradual and ultimately radical transformation over the three years of his presidency. He initially as a senator had made a speech against colonialism that had raised some eyebrows, but during the campaign for the presidency, he seemed to be attacking Nixon from the right. Eisenhower as he was leaving office had warned of the growing influence of the military-industrial complex, and once Kennedy was in office it didn’t take long before he began to tangle with the CIA and the military. His refusal to allow U.S. forces to rescue the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961 was the first example. He tried to fire Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA, over Dulles’ deceit in the incident. But as David Talbot’s book on Dulles, The Devil’s Chessboard, demonstrates in great detail Dulles in fact continued to meet with his associates even though Kennedy had officially removed him as director of the agency. Then you had a little-known agreement signed between a representative of Kennedy and a representative of then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev known as the McCloy-Zorin Agreement. This outlined a plan for complete worldwide disarmament in stages. It was brought to the UN and unanimously endorsed by the UN General Assembly. At the time, I am not sure how seriously Kennedy took this agreement. But you also have at this time the private correspondence that Kennedy and Khrushchev were conducting, which allowed them to get a better understanding of each other out of public view. Then you have the Cuban Missile Crisis during October 1962. The pressure on Kennedy to launch a war against Cuba and possibly a first strike on the Soviet Union was enormous. But he resisted, showing great independence, and was able to resolve the crisis by negotiating with Khrushchev. That crisis was a real turning point. Kennedy saw how callous his military advisors were to the possibility of millions of deaths in a war. The turning point was quite radical. At this stage, I think the McCloy-Zorin Agreement really started to mean something. Kennedy was reportedly pressing his aides for plans for general disarmament in stages. Then in June 1963, you have the American University speech. This speech was a profound attempt on the part of the president to start educating the American people on the subject of world peace. To me it is perhaps the greatest speech by an American president and the principles articulated in that speech are universal and eternal. Those principles of mutual peace and coexistence, disarmament and an end to militarism, are as relevant today as ever.

Finian Cunningham: You have pointed to the bold declaration of peace by Kennedy in the American University speech in Washington DC on June 10, 1963, as a watershed moment. In that 27-minute address, President Kennedy talked about the pursuit of peace and an end to futile Cold War animosity. Do you think that was the moment he signed his own death warrant in the eyes of U.S. political enemies?

Martin Schotz: After the speech was delivered, Khrushchev was so impressed by it that he had it reprinted throughout the Soviet Union, so virtually every Soviet citizen knew about it. That is something that needs to happen in the United States today. Amongst other things, Kennedy announced in the speech a moratorium on nuclear testing in the atmosphere and followed it by negotiating a test ban treaty. Though the U.S. public opinion was initially solidly against the treaty, Kennedy’s organizing and speeches won people over and the treaty was approved by the Senate. So you have here a leader, the president of the United States who is really part of the establishment and has someone like John McCloy working on the one hand and he has Norman Cousins working with him on the other hand. McCloy was as establishment as you can get, and Cousins was one of the founders of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. Cousins was Kennedy’s personal emissary between himself, Pope John XXIII and Khrushchev. Cousins’ book, The Improbable Triumvirate, is an important record of what was going on in 1963. Cousins was a co-author of the American University speech. Well, you can see what a radical turn was being taken against the Cold War. And the CIA and the Military establishment were not about to have it. You know if Kennedy had been given more time and the American people had really gotten more of a taste for peace, a certain momentum might have developed.

Finian Cunningham: The JFK assassination is a profoundly shocking revelation of U.S. state power; that an elected American president was murdered by agents of the state on the grounds that he wanted to normalize bilateral relations with the Soviet Union and genuinely end the Cold War. Does that shocking, brutal elimination of a U.S. president by his own state explain why bilateral relations have remained dominated and distorted ever since by Cold War dogma?

Martin Schotz: Well, we not only have the president murdered by his own national security state, but we have the government issue an obviously fraudulent report, the Warren Report. We also have the established institutions of society, the media, the universities, and so on, they all turn away and ignore the fact that this has happened. The President is murdered and the government issues an obviously fraudulent report that is accepted. What does that say about our society? John McCloy one of the Warren Commission members was quoted as saying: “The primary purpose of the Warren Commission was to prove that the United States was not a banana republic, where a government could be changed by conspiracy.” 

See the full interview here

Ukraine missile hits inside Russia

 

 

American journalist Patrick Lancaster reports: "I thought I had sent my family to a safer place. I sent them to Russia after a Ukrainian Tochka-U [missile] killed 26 people 200 meters from our apartment in Donetsk.  Today a Ukrainian Tochka-U hit under 100 meters away from the homes they are staying in in a small Russian village on the Azov sea. THANK GOD they are OK but now I am moving them more inland to where they will be safe."

Patrick Lancaster is US Navy veteran and independent crowd-funded journalist. He has been reporting from the Donbass region for the last eight years.

The Tochka-U missile is the same brand of weapon that Ukraine used to kill more than 50 civilians waiting for a train at a station in  Kramatorsk just days ago. See much more on that story here. Russia no longer uses this out-dated missile technology but the Ukrainian army still does - frequently shelling the Russian-ethnic communities in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.

 

Zelensky orders attack on Russia

On April 10, the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky ordered to attack the territory of Russian Federation. The video linked here shows the commander of the AFU [Ukraine] unit setting the task to his subordinates to attack the territory of the Russian Federation, referring to the decree of the President of Ukraine Zelensky. The commander of the unit specifies the task for his fighters to advance to the territory of the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation, if possible.

 

I report to the personnel the decree of the President of Ukraine. The approval of the decision of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in connection with the ongoing large-scale military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine on the basis of the proposal of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in accordance with paragraphs 2, 17, part one, clause 116 of the Constitution of Ukraine the law of Ukraine on the legal regime of martial law I order the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Chief of the General Staff of Ukraine to prepare all personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Ground forces, Air Force of Ukraine, Naval Forces, Airborne assault troops, Special Operations Forces, Territorial Defense Forces to deter aggressor and conduct combat operations on its territory. To prepare units of the AFU for offensive actions in the directions of the city of Belgorod and the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. Bring the order to the personnel and be ready for its implementation in a short time. Control over the implementation of the order shall be entrusted to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhnyi. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, 10.04.2022. Everyone understand?

    – Yes sir!

    – So, we kept our land, and now we are going (to war) against Russia! Are you ready?

    – Yes sir!

 

Despite the Ukraine Nazi-led army primarily now being surrounded (particularly in the Donbass region and in Mariupol) it appears that Ukraine's president 'elinsky' wishes to try to take the war onto Russian soil. Who might be directing him to call for this strange and provocative move? 

Patrick Lancaster: 'Think for yourself'

 

 

While I was on the way to Mariupol we came across a home that had been hit by a Ukrainian shelling attack. 

The man of the house received heavy burns but thankfully everyone lived but this family lost everything.

This has been going on in the Donbass Russian-ethnic region of Ukraine for the last eight years. Few people in the west seem to care. 

Ukraine: Black voices speak out

 

Black Radical Perspectives on Ukraine 

Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Baraka  

Sunday song