Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
Tuesday, November 06, 2018
World not accepting U.S. arrogance
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s Declaration on Trump Sanctions
Israel's propaganda works
Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States. The Occupation of the American Mind takes an eye-opening look at this critical exception, zeroing in on pro-Israel public relations efforts within the U.S.
Narrated by Roger Waters and featuring leading observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. media culture, the film explores how the Israeli government, the U.S. government, and the pro-Israel lobby have joined forces, often with very different motives, to shape American media coverage of the conflict in Israel's favor. From the U.S.-based public relations campaigns that emerged in the 1980s to today, the film provides a sweeping analysis of Israel's decades-long battle for the hearts, minds, and tax dollars of the American people in the face of widening international condemnation of its increasingly right-wing policies.
Featuring Roger Waters, Amira Hass, M.J. Rosenberg, Stephen M. Walt, Noam Chomsky, Rula Jebreal, Henry Siegman, Rashid Khalidi, Rami Khouri, Yousef Munayyer, Norman Finkelstein, Max Blumenthal, Phyllis Bennis, Norman Solomon, Mark Crispin Miller, Peter Hart, and Sut Jhally.
Monday, November 05, 2018
Creating a Cyber false flag?
The New York Times reported that the US Cyber Command has launched the first operation against Russia.
According to the newspaper, it will take the form of communications, by which the Americans plan to convince ”the Russian hackers” to stop that notorious “interference in the US internal affairs”.
Be sure to hit the 'cc' in lower right-hand corner of the video if subtitles don't appear.
Sunday, November 04, 2018
Moving on from the AMH
After 12 years of living in this wonderful house in Bath, Maine (built in the 1790's) we are putting the house up for sale and moving on.
We bought it in a three-way partnership of Karen Wainberg, Mary Beth Sullivan and myself. Over the years we've been a house of transition (we called it an 'Intentional Community') where friends whose lives were in flux could live with us at a cheap rent until things settled down for them and they could afford to move on.
One mom and her two young girls lived with us for about six years - they are like family now.
But its a big house (15 rooms and three bathrooms) with a big gardening space in the backyard and it is just too much for us to keep up with as we age and Karen's life forever changed two years ago when she had a stroke.
So it's time to make the change. Karen and her daughter have already found an apartment in nearby Brunswick and will move before this month is over.
MB and I will stay in the house until it sells and in the meantime we'll be looking around for a place to live in the Bath and Brunswick area.
Over the years we've held many community pot luck suppers and had lots of meetings here. We called it the Addams-Melman House (AMH) - named after Jane Addams the founder of social work in the US and Columbia University professor Seymour Melman who was the father of the 'economic conversion' movement that works to convert the war machine to peaceful and sustainable production.
I'll miss gathering the branches that fall from our many trees for kindling for our two wood stoves in the winter. I'll miss stacking and bringing in the wood, starting the fire in the morning, and losing myself watching the flames dart inside the fire box. I'll even miss shoveling the snow (though I will likely still get a chance to do that no matter where we move).
Thanks to all our dear friends who came to the AMH during these years.
Some folks in Bath we've been told called it the 'Peace House'. Many people in the community knew what we were doing and I must say our neighbors were always really good to us. We'll miss them as well.
Bruce
Saturday, November 03, 2018
U.S. wants no treaties....
Another good video by Will Griffin at The Peace Report and a Global Network board member.
Friday, November 02, 2018
Will there be war with Russia (and China)?
Here is part of a timely and solid analysis by one of my favorite commentators on Russia and the US. The Saker always makes good sense - even when it hurts. Read the full piece here.
As this short post reminds us, the current batch of US leaders are first and foremost *losers* and while they are still doing a pretty good job of window-dressing and flag-waving, it is becoming increasingly impossible to hide the magnitude of the multi-level slow-motion collapse of the AngloZionist Empire. I suppose that the band playing on the deck of the Titanic also played louder and louder, but the outcome of the show was never in doubt. The same is happening here and therein lies an enormous danger: the harder it becomes to conceal the magnitude of the unfolding disaster, the more the Empire lashes out, making the situation even worse which then makes it even harder to conceal the magnitude of the disaster. The Empire in general, and the USA specifically, is literally cracking on all levels and there is absolutely no reasonable and halfway viable way to reverse this trend because the one and only solution for the USA to survive is to give up the Empire and become a “normal” country – something US leaders are not even willing to contemplate. The Neocons, especially, seem to have a quasi-religious belief (or maybe it is just an uncontrolled knee-jerk reaction) that when one of their putative “clever” plans fail, the correct solution is to double-down. They seem to have fully internalized the German aphorism “wenn es mit Gewalt nicht geht, dann geht es mit mehr Gewalt!” (if violence can’t fix it, then even more violence will), forgetting that this belief did Germany no good against Russia. As for the general western public, it has been successfully turned into what I call “ideological drones“: brainwashed automatons who will wave their (Chinese made) flags to cope with any residual cognitive dissonance. When their certitudes finally come crashing down, they will also lash out at everything and everybody in abject despair and impotent rage.
Right now the USA and the “global West” (aka the AngloZionist Empire) are on a direct collision course with Russia (and probably China too). Right now, I see very few signs that anybody in the western elites is able (or willing) to admit that at the end of that road there is war and the destruction of the USA (and possibly much of Europe). Right now, the leaders of the Empire appear to be firmly locked into what the French call the “fuite en avant” (which can roughly be translated as “flight forward”, or “headlong rush”, “panic-induced compulsion to further exacerbate a crisis or calamity” or even “unconscious mechanism that causes a person to throw himself/herself into a dreaded danger”). I suppose that there is a sad and tragic irony in the fact that the result of the US elites constantly conjuring up some completely imaginary Russian “interventions” (in the USA and elsewhere) might eventually result in a very real Russia intervention, in the form of devastating missile strikes, but this is hardly a consolation.
How likely is that to change in the foreseeable future?
Not very likely, I am afraid.
Will Putin and Xi be able to avert the looming war with the West?
Maybe. But with each passing day bringing only further escalations and provocations from the “global West” their task is becoming harder and harder.
So far all the Russian and Chinese warnings have fallen on deaf ears and, frankly, I don’t believe that more warnings will do any good.
This might be the time for Russia and China to begin pushing back seriously. Everything else has failed, at least so far.
The Saker
My interview in Moscow
My interview on my first night in Moscow with Konstantin Semin with translation and editing by Nikolay Diakov....
The video headline reads: Bruce Gagnon about American military and industrial complex, wars and capitalism. Live talk
Two Sunday's ago I posted a song by the rock band that Konstantin and Nikolay are members of here on the blog - my Sunday Song. They sent me a couple more so look for them in the coming weeks.
Nikolay came to the US in 2016 and interviewed me and others for a film they both were creating about Pentagon 'missile defense' deployments creeping up along the Russian border. They got it played on Russian national TV.
You can find that documentary film here.
I will post an English version this latest interview as soon as it is available.
Bruce
Thursday, November 01, 2018
Walk the good path....
Do not be daunted
by the enormity
of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly, now.
You are not obligated
to complete the work,
but neither are you
free to abandon it.
- The Talmud
to complete the work,
but neither are you
free to abandon it.
- The Talmud
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Non-violence training Nov 10 in Damariscotta
In anticipation of another ‘christening’ at Bath Iron Works (likely the new Zumwalt ‘stealth’ destroyer named ‘LBJ’ after President Lyndon Johnson) peace groups around the state will be offering a Non-Violence training on Saturday, November 10 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
The training will be held at the Midcoast Friends Meeting House which is located at 77 Belvedere Road in Damariscotta – just off Hwy US 1.
http://midcoastfriendsmeeting.org
Please bring your own lunch to the training on Nov 10.
Mattis: US needs ‘offensive weapons in space’
Dominance in space is vital for the American way of life and the
Pentagon must be prepared for deployment and usage of offensive weapons
there, in order to protect US interests, Secretary of Defense James
Mattis said.
“We are going to have to be prepared to use offensive weapons in space should someone decide to militarize it and go on the offensive,” said the retired Marine who took over the Pentagon in January 2017.
In any competitive sport in the world, “you cannot simply play defense and win,” Mattis added. “This is not an area that we want to be second-place in.”
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Random Observations from Russia trip – October 17-29
Moscow (Oct 17-21)
• Workers were cleaning practically every square inch of new airport terminal in Moscow.
• Virtually no trash anywhere in subway or on streets and amazingly hardly any trash cans around.
• Russia has gone capitalist big time. Many corporate brands from clothes, cosmetics, magazines (GQ & Esquire) and fast food chains (McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King) are all over the place.
• Not everyone is happy with Putin. They tend to support his foreign policies but not so much his domestic policies.
• Some told me they miss the striving for the common good during the days of the Soviet Union but like most people around the world they appreciate the increased material comforts.
• Outside of Moscow and St Petersburg there is more poverty in the rural areas.
• The education system in Russia, like in the US, is in decline. One person I met (a successful filmmaker who has had several of his films on national TV) can’t get his new critical film about education on TV. He and his partner (who also have a rock band together) interviewed me my first night in Moscow for their regular YouTube program.
• While staying at the Hotel Cosmos in Moscow I witnessed hundreds of Chinese tourists at this historic hotel every day.
• The subways are quite artistic and the trains run very frequently.
• The Moscow airport is undergoing major expansion as is most of the city where loads of giant apartment and office buildings are under construction. Moscow is the largest city in Europe.
• Virtually everyone here has a cell phone. I was probably one of the few in Moscow without one. At the Hotel Cosmos I could not get WIFI unless I had the ability to register online via a phone. I was frustrated until I found a nice young man who got me online using his phone.
• I noticed that in the airport shops, restaurants, museums and other places there were ample workers unlike in corporate America where one person does the jobs of 2-4 others.
• Almost all men have very short hair, only saw a few with longer hair. People tend to generally dress conservatively.
• What little I saw of Moscow at night was impressive – they really know how to use colorful lights to brighten up the city.
• Traffic in Moscow was usually very congested.
• Much like in Maine pedestrians appear to be given the right-of-way.
• People don’t acknowledge you when you pass them by – they keep a straight face. Once they warm up to you in social settings they are very friendly.
• Generally, it appears that Russians are not fond of Americans. Considering how the US installed Yeltsin after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and then brought in the ‘Harvard economic boys’ to privatize their economy it is understandable. Add to that the US sponsored coup d’état in 2014 in Ukraine and expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders it is easy to see whey they are not eager to embrace Americans. (Don't forget the US and EU sanctions as well.)
• I saw auto dealers on TV selling Range Rovers.
• Under pressure the government has changed their pension reform proposal from age 65 to age 63. Russians presently retire at 55.
• According to SIPRI the US spends 35% of the global total of military – add NATO members spending and the figure is well over 50%. Russia spends 3.8% and has cut their military budget the last two years. The numbers don’t lie – it is impossible for Russia to ‘recreate the Soviet empire’ as many in the west claim.
• It seems that generally people don’t appear to use seat belts in Russia.
• Tea (Chi) is very popular in Russia.
• Going thru security at Russian airports is a breeze. I didn’t have to take off my shoes or take out my laptop. And Russia is hyper-security conscious.
• The US has recently dangerously orchestrated a split in the Orthodox Church between Ukraine and Russia. See more at http://thesaker.is/the-empire-splits-the-orthodox-world-possible-consequences/
• Breakfast buffets in the three different hotels I stayed in come with the price of the room and offer a wide variety of food.
• I saw several debates on Russian TV about the situation in Ukraine. I recognized some of the commentators from videos I’ve watched since the US directed coup in Kiev in 2014.
• Russian people appear to be quite proud of their military – especially since it saved them from Hitler’s Nazi invasion that took the lives of 27 million people in the former Soviet Union. Today they see their military as defensive as they watch Nazis gain ascendancy in Ukraine and beyond.
• Russian passengers on planes applaud when they safely land.
• Russia is very conservative in many ways – proud of their long history. They wish to maintain their positive traditional values and national sovereignty. They don’t like people from other nations telling them how they should live. Who would like that?
• Out of my hotel window in Moscow I saw eight people raking leaves the old-fashioned way – not with gas driven and loud leaf blowers like here in the US.
• While in Moscow I learned that an Islamist terror cell had been apprehended in the city. This is a key reason why Russia is so strict about their Visa entry process.
Crimea trip (Oct 21-25)
• After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the majority of Crimean’s voted to withdraw from Ukraine. Their vote was ignored. It was not until after the 2014 coup in Kiev when they voted again (about 96% in favor of leaving Ukraine) that their wish to return to the Russian Federation bore fruit.
• I spoke to two English classes at a public school in Yalta, Crimea. The students were very sharp and I had fun. I recognized many students from films by Regis Tremblay. See his Russia film with the students at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbMArXkJhkQ
• We ate lunch in the student cafeteria – very healthy fare. No fried food or soda.
• While in Yalta I visited the Livadia palace of Czar Nicolas II and the site of the post WW II summit with Stalin, FDR and Churchill.
• My hotel in Yalta was located on Roosevelt St and there was a statue of FDR just across the street.
• Russian women tend to dress smartly and fashionably. When my guide Tanya in Crimea saw my small roll on suitcase she joked that is was the same size as her cosmetics bag. Once you get to know them Russians have a great sense of humor.
• On my first day in Simferopol, Crimea Tanya took me to a café where we were met by four women (journalists and activists) who began brainstorming the best activities when our Global Network study tour group comes to Crimea in the spring of 2019.
• Well-fed cats in Crimea are everywhere as the Communist-era ethic of sharing works for the felines even under capitalism.
• The first signs of military presence I saw in Russia was in Sevastopol, Crimea primarily because it is the long-time city of Russian Navy and Air Force bases located on the Black Sea.
• Olga, my Livadia palace guide, in Yalta loves Nicholas II and wants Putin to be a czar. With a big smile she jokes that she wants Russia to take over Great Britain because she loves the Queen – but only Great Britain – no other nation.
• Olga and our driver to Sevastopol had a long debate during the trip about two Russian members of the national soccer team that were caught beating up some person. The driver wants the footballers sent to Siberia to cut trees and Olga thinks the media made too much of the incident.
• During 1941-44 Nazi Germany occupied Crimea. This region had the most partisan resistance to the German Army of all the Soviet Union. Crimean’s take seriously the growing Nazification of Ukraine that is today backed by US-NATO. They are happy they voted to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
• At Sevastopol I attended a 100th anniversary celebration inside a lovely theatre of the Young Communist League – Komsomol. There was much singing, amazing Russian dances and awards. During the time of the Soviet Union almost all children were members of Komsomol. Today about 10% of the youth are members. It was a fascinating experience.
• I noticed a massive building all lit up in the night in Yalta and asked Tanya what it was. She said Ukraine wanted it to be apartments for NATO soldiers but now since Crimea voted to return to Russia it is apartments for the public. Wow, I said, that would have been a disaster if NATO had got ahold of Crimea. It wouldn’t have happened Tanya said, we’d have had a civil war.
• I turned the TV on in Yalta and saw the Russian equivalent of Judge Judy.
• Yalta is full of trees – a virtual forest in the city.
• I asked Tanya why the US demonizes Russia so much. ‘They want our resources’ she replied. Russia has the largest border with the Arctic Ocean and as the ice melts drilling for oil and natural gas becomes possible there. Note that just a couple weeks ago US-NATO held massive war games in northern Norway aimed at Russia.
• One building in Sevastopol has a large picture of Putin painted on it. A local man told us that the house was built without all the required permits. Now it is likely that no one will say anything because of the Putin portrait.
Back to Moscow (Oct 25-29)
• While in Moscow, before I left for Crimea, I was invited to attend a weekend conference of The Union of Political Emigrants & Political Prisoners from Ukraine. So, I extended my trip by several days so I could attend the event after I returned from the Crimea.
• The Union of Migrant Workers reports that 70,000 people from the former Soviet Union (particularly from Central Asia) are now working inside Russia. The economic situation in these former republics is quite difficult. Russia is 2nd to the US in the number of labor migrants. Some of these workers get exploited by Russian employers. Most do menial work.
• Younger Russians don’t have a feeling of comradeship with those from former Soviet republics as their parents and grandparents do.
• One conference participant reported that repression in Lithuania is growing as that nation, under US direction, becomes more right-wing. A Nazi collaborator in Lithuania during WW II (now dead) is being made into a national hero. He took part in extermination of Jews. When a member of one city council spoke out against this he was arrested for ‘Crimes against the state’ and remains in jail. Many other such cases abound in the Baltics and in Ukraine. Many thousands have fled the growing Nazi brutality in Ukraine by going to Europe or Russia.
• One Communist leader said that unless the current capitalist system in Russia is changed then the nation will face a collapse like in 1991 when the former Soviet Union came apart.
• Near the conference hotel was a 'Red Bar' whose interior was all Soviet era stuff. Books, TV's, tape recorder, flags, photos, medals, and even a bust of Lenin. The food was good and the Russian beer enjoyable.
• An editor of a well-known political journal told conference attendees that he disagrees with Putin’s government because it follows too closely the western model. Instead the country should pursue the Chinese economic model of heavy participation of the state and long-range planning. He stated that ‘We are in a very risky position that could lead to war due to Trump’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty [and previously the ABM Treaty during the George W. Bush administration]. One of the sources of Putin’s weakness is that he refuses to respond to repeated blows by the US.’
• Three representatives from Brazil reported that the recently elected far-right (fascist) President Balsonaro is being groomed by the US to make Brazil a subordinate agent in the global campaign against Russia and China. An international movement is needed to show solidarity with Brazil’s movement opposing fascism in their country.
• Steve Bannon (who helped Trump get elected) was engaged to help organize the Balsonaro campaign in Brazil. He used high-tech methods to identify politically alienated people. Balsonaro is supported by right-wing Army officers and traditional rich elites.
• Several remarked during the conference that US corporate oligarchies don’t want to allow any truly independent nations. They are trying to implement global slavery. I agree with their analysis.
• People in Donbass (eastern Ukraine) blame the US-NATO for the ongoing conflict there that has taken the lives of well over 10,000 people.
• Ukraine is becoming a training base for terrorism to attack Russia and other nations. Radical Islamist fighters are in Ukraine and will be used to attack Russia via the Caucuses, Central Asia and Ukraine. They are given Ukrainian passports and can easily enter EU nations Visa free.
Bruce
Fascism gets elected in Brazil
Brazil has just elected Jair Bolsonaro, a fascist for president!
While on my trip to Moscow I attended a conference last weekend. There were three activists from Brazil who spoke in fearful terms about the likely (at that moment) election of Bolsonaro for president.
Steve Bannon who helped Trump get elected was instrumental in Bolsonaro's campaign. Bannon pledges to go international with this movement to elect far-right candidates.
Brazilians are urging an international solidarity campaign with the beleaguered masses in their country.
A key reason the US oligarchies supported Balsonaro is that he will help roll-back efforts by China and Russia to counter reactionary corporate control of Central and South America.
See much more on this story here.
Bruce
Monday, October 29, 2018
Recycled red-baiting falls flat on its face
As Mueller winds down his investigation, the media is warning that there won't be any evidence of Russian Collusion, and worse, we'll probably never even see the report.
It was all a Hollywood production from the start - nothing plus nothing equals nothing. Simple math.
There was no Russian conspiracy to elect Trump and both parties knew it all along.
It was pushed by the Democrats in order to excuse Hillary Clinton's abysmal election campaign performance and to help demonize Putin and Russia that would justify greater weapons production that only benefits the corporate killing machine.
It's an old song that gets repeated again and again by the corporate dominated media.
What will the liberal Dems do now without this as their 'Trump card'?
How about the liberals figure out how they keep getting lied to and develop a real political analysis?
Maybe too much to ask for.....
Bruce
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Saturday, October 27, 2018
The U.S. & Nazi post-war relationship
NATO’s Nazi Beginnings: How the West implemented Hitler’s goals
by Robert S. Rodvik
Many writers have documented how British and American elites bankrolled Hitler’s rise to power and not until he turned his forces westward did they begin to mount defensive actions against the Third Reich. In Britain, elite members of The Right Club, often with government collusion, secretly supported Hitler’s actions against the Jews and against communists and socialists. The Duke of Wellington was a noted anti-semite and a member of the Right Club. Edward the VIII, known as "the Traitor King" was close friends with Adolf Hitler and was forced to give up his throne, not because of Wallis Simpson, but because it was discovered that he was passing British war operations documents to the Nazis. The aristocracy, after all, have never submitted to sharing the wealth with the lesser classes and Adolf was equally amenable to those ends, the destruction of the untermenschen being foremost in Plan A of his conquest strategy for Europe and Russia.
The Bank for International Settlements was a joint creation in the 1930’s of the western world’s central banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Montagu Norman, governor of the Bank of England was a wholehearted supporter of Hitler and, when the Nazis marched into Austria in 1938 most of the country’s gold was packed and loaded into vaults controlled by the Bank for International Settlements - the main central bank for the western world. One day later the Nazis marched into Prague, took the directors of the Czech National Bank as hostages and demanded they cede control of the country’s gold reserves representing some $48 million. Informed that the gold had already been transferred to London’s vaults, efforts were made to contact Montagu Norman - who immediately transferred the money to the Germans to outfit their war machine. Friends indeed.
The United States of America had not yet arrived at the position of world’s leading imperialist power, but many of its elites were aligned with British elite sentiments. One of the leading lights in furthering the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party was none other than Prescott Bush, father to George Herbert Walker Bush and grandfather to G.W. Bush, both future presidents and G.W. H. Bush as head of the CIA. These war criminals have maintained their popularity among right-wing Americans mostly due to a compliant media that has obscured their Nazi-loving history from the populace at large.
In their book George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin write the following:
In October 1942...Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son George, the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.’s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush.
Tarpley and Chaitkin add the following:
President Bush’s family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany...By deciding that Prescott Bush and the other directors of the Union Banking Corp. were legally front men for the Nazis, the government avoided the more important historical issue: In what way were Hitler’s Nazis themselves hired, armed and instructed by the New York and London clique of which Prescott Bush was an executive manager?
Among those supporting the rise to power of Adolf Hitler was industrialist Henry Ford, a noted Jew hater. Among his other crimes, Ford..."refused to build aircraft engines for England and instead built supplies of the 5-ton military trucks that were the backbone of German army transportation." The list of US industrialists linked to the Nazis is too long to recount here but can be accessed in Charles Higham’s excellent book, Trading With The Enemy: the Nazi-american plot 1933 - 1949.
Clearly the west’s leading financiers were in Hitler’s camp, busy supplying funds for his military buildup and not till he betrayed them by attacking England did the Allies unite to defeat the Nazi forces. In this effort an unholy alliance was formed; that of the western powers and of the Soviet Union, the major force in defeating Hitler’s legions. Yet long before the war ended the Brits and Americans were plotting to redirect their energy against the Soviets, a déjà vu of the 1918 invasion that the west mounted against the Bolsheviks and certainly the most unknown major event of modern history. To this end the British and US rescued the most murderous Nazi war criminals being sought by investigators of the same governments and mingled them into British and US apparatus of terror.
As Michael McClintock writes:
It was immediately after the creation of the United Nations that American leaders found it necessary—as a matter of interest—to break the new rules they publicly lauded. In doing so, they developed new systems by which to evade accountability for lawbreaking–including an enormous apparatus for covert intervention–and, by means of extraordinary effort, to present the United States’ actions, whatever their nature, as in accord with international law.
At the same time as the west was planning its covert actions against its WWII ally, it also created the formation of the terror club known as NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Almost in its entirety it was a Nazi enterprise. Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, for example, who had headed the Russia Desk in the Oberkommando der Wermacht (OKW - Hitler’s Supreme Headquarters) and a consultant on the Final Solution, was secretly brought to the United States where he would deliver his vast storehouse of previously hidden files on the Soviet Union and then set up the Russia Desk for the soon-to-be-formed CIA.
Gehlen would then be returned to postwar Germany where he was put in position as head of Germany’s new Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German Secret Intelligence Service. In essence, two Russia desks (at least) now functioned instead of just one; both with the same ultimate aim: destroy the Soviet Union and communism.
Hundreds if not thousands of old Nazis found new life working for the US, Britain, and Canada as the Cold War was cranked up and now the mass murderers were brought into policy making for the same Lords of the Manor who had supported Hitler to begin with. And, with the same old Nazis back in charge, every foul means was employed against the Soviets to prevent any challenge of global capital’s right to dictate the terms of enslavement.
West Germany, now being run by ex-Nazis under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, joined NATO in 1954 and Gehlen liaised with his pro-Nazi mentor Allen Dulles who would become head of the CIA, with brother John Foster as Secretary of State. Soon NATO began appointing the old tried and true Nazis into high positions within the organization.
General Hans Speidel, for example, became commander-in-chief in 1957 of AFCENT (Allied Forces Central Europe). Nazi Admiral Friedrich Guggenberger joined the highly important NATO military committee in Washington and General Adolf Heusinger (Gehlen’s old chief at Hitler’s OKW), became its chairman. At Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), Gehlen managed to install several Nazi collaborators into vital positions. Amongst these was Col. Hennig Strumpell, who became deputy to British Maj. Gen. Charles Traver, the Assistant Chief of Staff (Intelligence) at SHAPE. Col. Heinz Koller-Kraus was made head of logistics at Speidel’s AFCENT. Many other Gehlen men would soon join NATO to define its policies.
With the same Nazis well integrated into NATO and the CIA becoming an extension of Gehlen’s old Nazi intelligence agency, the Nieue World Ordnung was essentially relocated from the Reichstag in Berlin and dropped into the Pentagon and CIA Langley, Virginia.
Added to the anti-Soviet battle plans, US elites recognized the value of Goebbel’s Ministry of Truth and turned the lessons learned into the world’s most sophisticated propaganda network ever created. All western wars would now be given illusionary titles, such as: "wars for democracy", "wars for peace", "wars for justice", "wars for humanitarianism" and on and on. The corporate funded elites that run the UK and Canada were quick to adopt the same essential elements.
Two of those components of the propaganda wars for the US/UK/Nazi Nieue World Ordnung was the creation of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty - both staffed with Gehlen’s old Nazis and funded by the CIA.
These Nazi mass murderers set up an Hungarian Desk, provided arms and assistance to underground pro-Nazi elements in Hungary and together with the CIA, instigated the Hungarian uprising - which the Soviets brutally put down. The prime use of this episode however, had little to do with the dead and dying, rather it was the propaganda value which portrayed an "Evil Empire" that had to be destroyed.
Dr. Eberhardt Taubert joined the Nazi party in 1931 and was soon promoted to the rank of Sturmführer, following Goebbels to the Ministry of Propaganda. After the war Taubert slid down to South Africa where he found comfort among the neo-Nazis in power in Johannesburg busy designing the apartheid system. In 1950 he returned to Germany and joined his old Nazi pal Reinhard Gehlen, becoming a member of the BND. In his new BND/CIA post, Taubert became chairman of the CIA-backed "National Association for Peace and Freedom" becoming also an adviser to German Minister of Defense, ex-Nazi Franz Josef Strauss and was then assigned by Strauss to NATO as adviser to the "Psychological Warfare Department". Goebbel’s Ministry of Truth being recirculated to feed the Christian fundamentalists some newly constructed, yet old and familiar Tales from the Dark, only having different packaging.
NATO has also been closely linked to a series of terrorist bombings in Italy in the 1980s in order to create a "Strategy of Tension" designed to allow the fascist right wing into power and thereby bring "stability" to the country. This program made use of numerous far right terrorists like Stefano Delle Chiaie of Ordine Nuovo and other demented souls who planted bombs in public places that killed hundreds, aided in implementation by Gehlen’s NATO/Nazi terrorists. Though well covered in Europe, thanks to media complicity, the story barely made a blip here.
In essence these and their followers are the people that run NATO, presently killing its way around the world thanks to the likes of Barack Obama, Steve Harper, and the rest of the West’s puppet satraps; while posing as defenders of humanity. It’s all too much to embrace without losing one’s dinner over and over again.
~ Robert S. Rodvik is an Internet activist and the author of "The Balkans: US Covert Activity and American Media Complicity"
Putin comments on U.S. IMF nuclear trreaty withdrawal
President Putin: "Of course, there are certain issues concerning the development of missile technology in the world and the restrictions which only the US and the USSR, then the Russian Federation undertook. But what are we concerned about? We are concerned that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was terminated. Now we are talking about the treaty on intermediate-range and short-range missiles."
In 1983 Ronald Reagan deployed the Pershing II nuclear missile in Germany (built in Orlando, Florida where I was then living and organizing protests at the plant where they were built called Martin Marietta) and cruise missiles in England and Italy. The peace movement all across Europe was huge in opposition to these missiles.
Of course the former Soviet Union responded with their own nuclear missile deployments to counter Reagan's move on the chessboard.
By 1987 Reagan backed down and signed the INF Treaty (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) with the Soviet Union and both sides removed their missiles.
This dangerous and arrogant move by the Trump administration (read John Bolton and the rest of the neo-con crew) is a loaded-gun pointed at the head of Russia and Europe. I can't imagine that European politicians will be happy about this but sadly many of them are in the pocket of the US corporate syndicate. Let's see what they do in response.
I'd hope that the European people would wake up to this provocative display of power by Washington. Maybe NATO member states will decline to keep funding that steroidal military alliance that only works for corporate capitalism.
I'd also wish to see the many Trump supporters in the US realize that their desire to 'shake things up in Washington' is causing us to inch toward a nuclear confrontation that no one can escape from.
Bruce
Friday, October 26, 2018
Pentagon attacks Russian base in Syria
Aleksandr Fomin, Russian Deputy Minister of Defense: “13 drones went in a single battle order, guided by a common command. Meanwhile, an American reconnaissance plane Poseidon-8 has been cruising over the Mediterranean Sea for eight hours."
The US is walking on thin ice now - they are trying to provoke a shooting war with Russia. This is a bad omen.
Thursday, October 25, 2018
Days in Crimea, Russia
Singing about the history of Komsomol's 100 years, construction of new towns, achievements in sports, and other deeds of the former Soviet Union during 100th anniversary celebration of Young Communists League in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Trying my hand at knocking over wood blocks with very heavy steel pole - got them! This was at the Livadia Palace in Yalta where FDR, Stalin and Churchill met to divide up the post-WW II spoils. If it was good enough for FDR then it was good enough for me.
I spoke with two English classes at a public school in Yalta. They are very sharp kids and I recognized several of them from Regis Tremblay's film where he interviewed some of these same kids. I told them they are now famous all over the world! They are happy to again be part of Russia. I learned that right after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991 the people of Crimea voted to rejoin Russia but it didn't happen until 2014.
This was in the square where the people of Sevastopol, Crimea turned out in 2014 to declare they wanted to vote to rejoin the Russian Federation after the US sponsored coup d'etat in Kiev, Ukraine put in power many of the Bandera Nazi followers who predominate in western Ukraine. The US is arming, training and directing these death squads to kill Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens in eastern Ukraine (Donbass) today. (Notice the full moon behind me.)
Photos and video by Tanya Bukarina.
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