Turd In The Punchbowl

 

My husband, Mark, who has opposed any and all wars since evading the draft during the Vietnam War.

By Lisa Savage (from Solon, Maine but now visiting family in California)

For the past five and half years, liberals in the U.S. have salivated on command in response to the messaging “Trump bad” ==> “Trump supported by Putin” ===> “Putin bad” even unto the absurdity of “Putin = Hitler.” The president of the Russian Federation’s speech about trying to achieve the “denazification” of yes, actual Nazis in Ukraine, fell on deaf ears. Because false dichotomy is about as deep as liberals’ analysis is able or willing to go these days. 

The void previously filled by daily outrage at 45 has been ably filled by fresh hate for an associated villain.

When I showed up yesterday at an antiwar vigil in Oakland, California with this sign, about 100 participants saw it but many didn’t get it. Some got it and scowled; I was the turd in the punchbowl. The messaging of this crowd was all over the place, but I was the only one with an obvious anti-imperialist message.

This man in a U.S. Air Force jacket saw it and was inspired to add NATO YES to his sign which had previously said only #closethesky. (He added #noflyzone also, possibly for clarity.)

Two older ladies approached me individually to say, “I don’t understand your sign.” 

They were polite and that helped me resist the temptation to be snarky about what’s not to understand. For all I know they really don’t know what NATO stands for. 

Source: Media watchdog FAIR’s article, “Calling Russia’s Attack ‘Unprovoked’ Lets U.S. Off The Hook“

One of them had clearly been to the ribbon store and was bedecked head to toe in Ukrainian yellow and blue (Kudos to whoever conceived of the color revolutions strategy — they say it’s George Soros but I suspect he’s just the funder). USAians have been in training for color-themed “revolutions” all their lives as their televisions told them to wear the colors of one sports team in opposition to another sports team. They have derived their identities from which teams they cheer on and which hats they wear while cheering.

The banner you can’t quite read here says WELLSTONE Democracy Renewal Club. I believe it makes reference to Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota who died in a mysterious plane crash while campaigning for re-election as a progressive Democrat.

The lady who was yellow and blue all over asked me why I had brought a “no NATO” message to the event. I explained that I was not supporting Russia’s attacks but that I hold NATO’s instigating responsible for the suffering of the Ukranian people. She didn’t appear to agree but she did nod thoughtfully and thanked me for explaining.

The other lady was not color-themed but looked like a garden variety old hippie. A lot of retirees live in this neighborhood and I’d say the average age of the crowd hovered around 60. Why the organizers had decided to hold the vigil right next to the all day Sunday drum circle held each week by Black drummers and dancers is a mystery to me.

The older woman listened to me explain my sign and asked a few questions. She appeared to actually be interested and at the end she commented, “You sound like you really know what you’re talking about.” I detected no sarcasm.

How is it that such a mature and affluent crowd doesn’t know what I’m talking about? Even if they disagree with my analysis, how can it be that they’ve never even heard of it?

Because if all your news for the last 50 years came from NPR and the New York Times, you end up quite ignorant. 

Educational level notwithstanding, you have swallowed false dichotomy hook, line, and sinker.

I’m not sure if either woman noticed the reverse of my sign. I see “no NATO” and the symbol for peace derived from symbols for nuclear disarmament as two sides of the same coin, not opposites.

This was one of the more nuanced messages at the vigil (side 1 and side 2):

Before my husband and I had even walked the few blocks back home this tweet I sent from the vigil

had drawn the fire of about twenty Twitter warriors for the status quo. I didn’t know any of them and we had not been in contact before yesterday. Most of them insulted me and/or my analysis, usually with name calling. It took a few minutes to block them but was probably time well spent. There are enough liberal Democrats harrassing me online who I actually know, mostly from the Native mascot retirement campaign in Maine.

A few of the comments were ambiguous so I left those. (“Oy” was one and #derusification was another.) 

I welcome disagreement and actual argumentation, but I have no reason to tolerate abusive, denigrating language. Nor do I need to provide a platform for people putting words in my mouth. I challenge them to find a single example of my supporting Putin or the Russian attacks on people in Ukraine. 

Information control is powerful and pervavasive. As of this weekend I can no longer access RT on my chromebook (still can on my phone) which consequently restricts access to lefty commentators like Lee Camp and Chris Hedges. Here’s the error message below:

Once the views of folks like those two  humanitarians are “forbidden,” we’re all in deep shit.

A bit of history: NATO means betrayed promise to Russia

 

According to Russia historian Stephen F. Cohen, Russian political leaders see NATO expansion as an ongoing threat. 

This Carnegie Council event took place on May 19, 2010.

Cohen was one of the leading experts on Russia who sadly died last year.

FOX News doesn't like the retired Colonel's views.....

 

With a picture of Nazi-hero Bandera behind him......

 

 

While the Western media labels all information coming from the Russian side as propaganda and fake news, they share manuals for homemade Molotov cocktails and interview far-right Ukrainian ultra-nationalists.

Via Vladimir Kozin:

Russia announces new safe passage routes. The Russian Armed Forces announced six humanitarian corridors with a simultaneous ceasefire from 10:00 AM (07:00 GMT) February 7th, 2022 for the residents in Kiev, Mariupol, Kharkov and Sumy with the aim to evacuate trapped civilians.

The Russian MoD said that Ukrainian nationalists in Mariupol at Pobeda (Victory) Square drove more than 150 civilians ahead of them as “human shields” as German fascists did during the WWII, and opened fire on DPR fighters from behind the civilians' backs. 4 refugees have been killed and 5 wounded by nationalists for protests and disobedience.

Detailed information about the humanitarian corridors was brought to the Ukrainian side in advance, as well as to the UNO, the OSCE and the International Committee of the Red Cross. No assistance has been promised by them by 15:00 Moscow time March 7th.

Kiev once again refused to recognize these save passage routes. 

No coup, no Nazis in Ukraine?

 

 

Much to my astonishment I am getting emails from long respected 'peaceniks' passing on information that says there was no coup d'etat in 2014 (which was orchestrated by the Obama  administration). The emails often suggest that there are also no Nazis in Ukraine.

How is this possible that otherwise experienced activists could come to this conclusion? Is it because they have not been paying attention to this issue the last eight years? Or the demonization of Russia is so great across the west that most people's minds are set on 'default' and swing right into the 'Russia is evil' stance?

Could it be that they are listening to the corporate mainstream media and believing it? One email came today from a longtime Veterans For Peace leader on the west coast who wrote, "With all its faults I will take our MSM, NPR, PBS News Hour with the exception of Fox News over the state controlled lies put out by the Putin controlled media."

It might help to know that this VFP member is a loyal Democrat - it seems that when a Democrat president pushes Russia into a corner (which then hits back) there is shock, surprise, outrage and horror.

Sure if you want to know the truth just turn to American media. Remember how they told us the truth about Iraq in 2003, or Libya, Syria, Yemen.....?

Luckily there are some journalists out there telling the truth. One clear example is this article by Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal called: How Ukraine’s Jewish President Made Peace With Neo-Nazi Paramilitaries: While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters.

I know we are not supposed to talk about Zelensky in this way (by telling the truth about him, after all he will likely be named Time Magazine's 'Man of the Year' for 2022). 

But I tend to be a person who does not follow the maddening crowd.

Civilians under the bridge destroyed by the Ukraine military in the town of Irpen. The guys with the yellow armbands are the Nazis. Why won't they let the people leave the city? (Click on the photo for a better view)

 

Civilians waiting for evacuation in Mariupol. 

The Nazis would not let them leave. 

Of course Russia was blamed by the media.

 

I must admit I find it exceptionally difficult to cheer for Ukraine knowing that the Nazis are not allowing Russian-ethnics in big cities they control to leave via humanitarian highways. Just yesterday it was reported that the Nazis killed 200 people (including children) in Mariupol in eastern Ukraine when they forced them into the basement of a building and then blew it up. 

The last Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Belarus agreed to allow humanitarian corridors from where the Nazis had created 'strongholds' in the city centers. But the Nazis have been refusing to honor the agreement. Nothing new there - although not reported by MSNBC, NPR, PBS News Hour, CNN, BBC, Washington Post or the NY Times. 

Have people forgotten about Operation Mockingbird - the CIA control of western media?!!

I am at a loss for words to describe the severe disappointment I feel towards alot of the 'peace movement'. I don't expect true pacifists to agree with Russia's military operations in Ukraine. But I do expect them not to be sharing BS emails denying the 2014 coup in Kiev and the presence of Nazis in the Ukrainian army!

It is just irresponsible to distort reality and mislead the public. 

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity", warned Dr. M. L. King.

Unbelievable.

Bruce

Russia, Ukraine, and US

 

Follow the Money

By Rowland Lane Anderson

As a veteran of the Vietnam War I am always skeptical of the reasons we are given by our government and the media for any war. Per the instructions of “Deep Throat,” I will follow the money.

The stocks of U.S. weapons manufacturers have contradicted the broader market by soaring to new heights. Could this be a hint of what is really going on here?

At the initial peace talks in Belorussia, it is reported by all media outlets that Ukraine asked for an immediate cease fire and withdrawal of Russian military from Ukraine. Most of the same media outlets did not even report what the Russians asked for, but one did report that they offered an immediate cease fire and withdrawal if Ukraine would commit to neutrality vis a vis NATO in much the way that Finland had done. That would seem newsworthy. I wonder why other media outlets did not report it.

To explain, Finland is an EU member with a long border with Russia. Many years ago, the Russians invaded Finland, asking that it commit to neutrality. This is referred to as the Winter War. The Finns made Russia pay a heavy price for the invasion, but the Russians did not quit. In the end Finland committed to neutrality to end the killing of its much smaller population. Since then, partly because of its neutrality, Finland has become recognized as one of the most prosperous and democratic countries of Europe.

Incidentally this reflects back in history to Switzerland, which became neutral under pressure from its powerful neighbor, Napoleonic France, and has become the most stable, prosperous, and democratic country in Europe.

But back to the war in Ukraine and the weapons industry. Peace was possible in Europe after the Soviet empire collapsed. Reagan, Bush, and Secretary of State James Baker told the Russians when the Berlin Wall came down that NATO would not advance into the formerly Soviet empire countries. NATO’s reason for existence, opposition to the Soviet empire, seemed to be finished. There was talk of a huge “Peace Dividend” with the end of the need for the arms race that had bankrupted the Soviets and kept the USA from providing the social services that Americans should have and the infrastructure that the USA needed. Alas it did not come to pass!

The newly independent former Soviet empire nations were carefully lobbied by the USA and weapons manufacturers to join NATO. For them to join NATO they had to upgrade their militaries with U.S. weaponry, causing a huge bonanza for U.S. arms manufacturers. But the cold war was over, wasn’t it? The U.S.S.R. was gone, and we had no enemy to perpetuate the U.S. arms race.

So the same Military Industrial Congressional Complex (MICC) created Russia as the new enemy by pushing NATO right to the Russian border. When Ukraine seemed about to turn toward Russia, the USA and its MICC engineered a coup to place an anti-Russian government in power in 2014. That is when the invasion of Ukraine by Russia really began.

Now Russia wants neutrality and will fight for it. And many people will die so that the weapons industry can profit. War is a business, a very dirty and dishonest one.

~ Rowland Lane Anderson is a lifetime member of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and Veterans for Peace.

Sunday song

 

A neutral Hungary in NATO?

 

 

By Hungarian Community for Peace
 

The Hungarian Community for Peace (HCP) agrees with the government's neutral policy towards the conflict in Ukraine and considers the humanitarian aid provided to those fleeing the fighting to be right. The caring, helpful  attitude is worthy of our country and the Hungarian people, the Hungarian Community for Peace said in a resolution issued on Saturday.

With our humane attitude, we are paving the way for a European value system that can create peaceful coexistence on the basis of the principle of one and indivisible security and pave the way for the common development of peoples.

Hungary must move forward on the path of collective security! It must recognize Russia’s right to security, not oppose it, as its allies do in a U.S.-led NATO. We need active neutrality in order to create a pan-European security system in which the two sides of Europe mutually guarantee each other's security and move towards peaceful cooperation based on mutual benefits rather than trenching.

NATO's attitude towards Russia weakens Hungary's security in the conflict zone in Eastern Europe, and the policy of sanctions and embargoes is holding back Hungary's development. It is thought-provoking that Hungary's allies are interested in weakening our energy security and financial stability, not in strengthening it. Evidence is that they want to thwart the construction of Paks-2 nuclear plant despite the fact that it is essential for our power supply. The stability of our banking system has been challenged by the bankruptcy of Sberbank. The trade, financial and tourism sanctions imposed on Russia, which were also voted on by the Hungarian government, are against our national economic interests.

Although a policy of sanctions that violates international law harms Russia, it harms us even more. Russia's history proves that it has been able to withstand much more difficult situations. It is foreseeable that the sanctions policy will also have detrimental consequences for the Western economy. The first consequence is the already rising prices and inflation.

According to the HCP, it is a mistake to classify the Kiev system as “friendly” and to ensure solidarity despite its refusal to implement the Minsk agreements since 2014, trampling on the principle of equality of peoples, nations and religious communities, dividing society into indigenous and non-indigenous, first and second class people, committing genocide in Donbass, and terrorizing the Hungarian and Ruthenian populations of Transcarpathia in the name of a “unified nation-state”.

The Ukrainian government made an alliance with neo-Nazi and far-right forces that considered the extermination of the Russians their main goal. The United States and NATO turned a blind eye to it because the Kiev regime was willing to serve its anti-Russian interests and its main goal, the fragmentation of Russia and the division of its natural treasures according to historically known imperial logic.

According to the HCP, the Hungarian government knows exactly what happened, why, and what led to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Russia's three main security demands have been and remain that the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, should not be a member of NATO, that no offensive weapons, including nuclear weapons, should be placed on their territory, and that NATO should retreat beyond its 1997 borders. NATO has refused to meet either condition. We are sorry that the Hungarian government did not express a dissenting opinion either! Yet, like us, he is well aware that the United States and its allies have broken their promise not to expand NATO to the East and not to include former socialist countries in the Western military bloc. Despite Russia's request to Western states to withdraw their forces from near Russia's borders, NATO remained adamant. After such precedents, Moscow committed itself to military action in Ukraine.

Hungary has an interest in the demilitarization, denazification and neutrality of Ukraine. The security of both Hungary and the Hungarians of Transcarpathia can win with it. We must be aware that Russia will not renounce the demilitarization of Ukraine even if it makes peace with it sooner or later, because it does not want to occupy its neighbor, but to eliminate the danger of it being used for dubious purposes against Russia by a power 8,000 kilometers away.

The HCP draws the government's attention to the fact that one of Russia's top three demands is expected to be met even after Russia neutralizes Ukraine. We are thinking of NATO's retreat beyond its 1997 borders. This means that NATO troops must be withdrawn from our country and other former socialist countries, as demanded by Moscow, and NATO bases and infrastructure must be dismantled.

The Hungarian Community for Peace recommends that the government face the new demands of our changing world, take note of the fact that there is life outside NATO, and even as a member of NATO we have the opportunity to take a step towards neutral Hungary within a pan-European security system.

Empire of lies

 

The bully

looks in the mirror

and blames 

'the enemy'

for what he sees.

 

The bully starts 

the fight

but accuses

'the other'.

Mr. Big

wants to run

the whole globe,

busts knee caps

when necessary

to enforce his

control.

Mr. Big

sees his

'window of opportunity' 

closing.

 

The Global South,

rising against the

long-run of 

western

Anglo-Saxon 

corrupt, corporate

imperial piracy.

Mr. Big 

turns to his ace,

the last card.

 

Hollywood and

Madison Avenue

write the script

for Mr. Big's

armed muscle,

the CIA.

 

It's the sad truth,

admit it or not,

that's entirely

your choice.

 

(Yogi Berra famously said,

'You can take 'em to

the ball game, 

but you can't

make 'em go in'.)

 

I live here 

in the US

I bought the democracy line

while a kid in school

I still believe

we are all entitled

to think

and speak

for ourselves.

 

But it's now

a fascist nation.

 

What do I do?

Swallow my thoughts

or release them

like a free bird?

 

Bruce 

 

Fascism defined as 'the wedding of corporations and government' - Benito Mussolini, Italian fascist WW II leader

Brave reporter tells the truth

 

Anne-Laure Bonnel, a French reporter, who has been filming in Eastern Ukraine since 2015, is in hot water for claiming that people of the Donbass region are being shelled by the US-installed Ukrainian government.

Update from Kiev

 

History lesson: Seeing Behind the Tragic Curtain

 

Originally aired on BBC in 1992, 'Operation Gladio',  the NATO sponsored terror network operating in Europe.

We know that professional 'law enforcement' types have long ago said that most criminals have a way of repeating their bad behavior over and over again.  It's called 'modus operandi'.

Who benefits from alleged Muslim terrorist bombings like the one in Belgium years ago?  Who created ISIS (which took responsibility for the attacks) in the first place and essentially funds it and controls it today?  What is their real agenda?  How can those who created ISIS best get away with their sinister plans?  What do they want from the public?

I once watched a US 'national security representative' saying on mainstream TV news that the Europeans are far too lax in their security operations.  They need to do more like the US does, the agent suggested.  Europe must share more intelligence information with the US, the agent said.  The agent was calling for a total coordinated surveillance operation throughout Europe, costing an enormous amount of taxpayer money, that would all be run through and controlled by the US security state.

 

Since reading 'The Pentagon Papers' years ago (that told Washington's own dirty secrets about the true origins of the Vietnam War) I've come to witness an endless string of 'terrorist events' around the world with inquiring eyes. These events always have the same result - they justify more domestic surveillance, the loss of civil rights, ever-upward levels of military spending, more social spending austerity cuts, and endless war that only benefits the corporate oil-i-garchy - what I've come to call Mr. Big - the corporate criminal syndicate that runs the world.  The modern day pirates.

Watching the BBC Gladio documentary puts all of the above into a frame of view that allows everyone a glimpse into how the 'deep state' manipulates all of us.

Terrorism and wars will largely end when we stop believing and supporting those that are moving the human pieces on the Grand Chessboard.  We are the ones that can end terrorism and US-orchestrated wars by withdrawing our consent from this corrupt global system that is killing us all.

Farm workers in Georgia: 'modern day slavery'

Tell Biden Administration to investigate H-2A program after Georgia slavery and human trafficking allegations 

 

By United Farm Workers Union (UFW)
 

Earlier this month, the UFW and a coalition of labor, civil and immigrant rights' organizations sent a letter demanding a thorough audit and investigation into the H-2A agricultural guest worker program. This occurred after Operation Blooming Onion resulted in at least 54 indictments that included forced labor trafficking, human smuggling and money laundering—among others—in a years-long exploitation of workers on South Georgia farms.

According to the Department of Justice, the workers were "required to dig onions with their bare hands, paid 20 cents for each bucket harvested, and threatened with guns and violence to keep them in line. The workers were held in cramped, unsanitary quarters and fenced work camps with little or no food, limited plumbing and without safe water. The conspirators are accused of raping, kidnapping and threatening or attempting to kill some of the workers or their families, and in many cases sold or traded the workers to other conspirators. At least two of the workers died as a result of workplace conditions."

What we are seeing with the H-2A program in Georgia — and likely elsewhere in America — amounts to "modern day slavery." This is an especially gruesome example, but it's not isolated. This story is a clear symptom of a program that needs urgent intervention.

Sign the petition today. Join our coalition in demanding the Biden Administration immediately implement policies to stop the abuses in the H-2A program, such as those exposed in Operation Blooming Onion.

The truth keeps on coming....

 

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting cries of “We are all Ukraine,” many have been eager to downplay the proliferation of neo-Nazis in Ukrainian paramilitary groups, the Ukrainian armed forces and even parts of the government. 

As Jimmy Dore and The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal discuss, reports of neo-Nazis in Ukraine are not at all exaggerated, and the Zelensky government is, in fact, largely beholden to these racist, xenophobic, anti-gay groups that brag of the “fun” they get from fighting and killing.

US-NATO'S Secret 'Strategy of Tension'

 

Gladio, NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe: 

The Pentagon-Nazi-Mafia Terror Axis 

By Richard Cottrell 

 

In this "non-fiction corollary to Larsson's Millenium Trilogy," wet works and false flags keep Europe a colony of the US. Leaders are murdered, movements are subverted. Under the surface, the empire rules by death squads, as it always has south of the border. The attack on Libya laid bare the iron fist within the velvet glove of slogans such as "humanitarian intervention." Like the destruction of Yugoslavia and the rape of Afghanistan, the reduction of Libya to a virtual slave colony was performed under the banner of NATO. And what exactly is NATO? Richard Cottrell tells the story of mayhem and murder behind the "alliance for peace," and predicts an emerging military colossus fighting to seize control of strategic resources such as oil, gas, minerals and water anywhere on the planet. 

Masquerading as a rear guard against Soviet invaders, NATO's covert forces warped into psychological and physical terrorism. These were the years of lead, in which hundreds perished in a synthetic war in the streets of Europe. NATO commander General Lyman Lemnitzer ordered serial attacks on French president Charles de Gaulle. Sacked from the Pentagon by John F. Kennedy for rank insubordination, then exiled to Europe, Lemnitzer reaped revenge in Dallas.

The secret armies forged bonds with organized crime and neo-fascists. NATO-backed coups struck down governments in Greece and Turkey; the island state of Cyprus was sundered amid bitter genocide. Urban guerrillas like the Red Brigades and the Baader-Meinhof Gang were cunningly manipulated. Italy gained a deep-state government, the ultra-secret P2 pseudo-Masonic lodge, founded by former Blackshirts.

Swedish premier Olof Palme and Italian ex-PM Aldo Moro were assassinated. Pope John Paul II was shot by Turkish gangsters who had regular work as Gladio guns for hire. In 2009, a Gladio copy-cat outfit codenamed Ergenekon came to light in Turkey. The shootings in Norway in July 2011, and in Belgium, France and Italy in 2012, all bore the classic stripe of Gladio false-flag operations. 

Oliver Stone updates the subject: Revealing Ukraine 2019

 

Please help share this update to Oliver Stone's earlier doc film called Ukraine on Fire.

The film has a fascinating historical review of Ukraine which exposes the major reasons for the current civil war in the nation.

For the US-NATO to use the already existing historical/cultural/religious/political divisions inside Ukraine as a tool to destabilize Russia is unconscionable.  

Pentagon Merging With Commercial Satellites

 

By Will Griffin

The Pentagon is relying more and more on commercial satellites to expand their goal of dominance in space. Rather than the typical model of buying technology from companies, the Pentagon allows the companies to continue to use their own technology, in this case satellite technology, while sharing the use of these technologies in a "dual-use" strategy. 

This is a "cost-saving" strategy, it allows commercial enterprises to develop technologies at a faster pace than government, and it allows US commercial dominance in space - public and private dominance but led by the US. 

“Cold Response”: NATO’s war games in the Arctic

 

By Piero Messina

Cold Response 2022 will be the largest exercise born since the eighties and takes place within the Arctic Circle. The exercises take place every two years. But Cold Response 2022 tastes different. About 35,000 soldiers from 28 nations will participate in this year’s maneuvers, which will run between mid-March and early April, but above all, for the first time since the Cold War, two Carrier Strike Groups will be present. The first headed by the US aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and the second led by the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.

The Royal Navy’s all-new aircraft carrier is the second of the Queen Elizabeth class and can operate fixed-wing aircraft represented by F-35B fighters and helicopters, including the Ah-64 Apache attack aircraft, with which the British Armed Forces have started training for the first time at the Bardufoss air station, Norway, in 2019.  

The Italian Navy also participates in the war games. The aircraft carrier Garibaldi of the Navy passed Gibraltar towards the Atlantic Ocean on 21 February. The Italian aircraft carrier is expected in front of the Norwegian coasts where it will participate with other aircraft carriers. Garibaldi will be the command unit of the Amphibious Forces during the last phase of the exercise.

According to NATO sources, the deployment of forces is not directly linked to the current tense situation between NATO and Russia, caused by the special military operation in Ukraine.

 

It is not possible, however, to exclude “a priori” that the conflict in Eastern Europe could very easily extend to the Baltic states. The Kola Peninsula is home to major Russian military bases – including Murmansk/Polyarny – and features some of Moscow’s most powerful state-of-the-art weapon systems, including hyper-sonic cruise missiles. In the course of 2021 Russia carried out twelve Zircon missile launches (10 from frigates and 2 from submarines) all from Arctic seas, in a show of strength that underlines how the Arctic represents a region that Moscow considers vital.

The new weapon now appears ready to enter service in the Northern Fleet on Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates and fourth-generation multi-role submarines.

If launched from the Russian sector of the Barents Sea, the Zircon missiles could reach targets in the Norwegian Sea in about 10 or 15 minutes. These systems are also highly flexible being able to be launched by surface and submarine units, from mobile land launch systems, and soon from airplanes. Together with the S-400 and S-500 air defense systems installed in that area they could challenge NATO forces for control of the seas of Norway and Greenland. 

Nazi history in Ukraine - let the story be told

 

Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust

OUN and UPA’s Participation in the Destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941–1944

By John-Paul Himka

One quarter of all Holocaust victims lived on the territory that now forms Ukraine, yet the Holocaust there has not received due attention. This book delineates the participation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia—UPA), in the destruction of the Jewish population of Ukraine under German occupation in 1941–44. The extent of OUN’s and UPA’s culpability in the Holocaust has been a controversial issue in Ukraine and within the Ukrainian diaspora as well as in Jewish communities and Israel. Occasionally, the controversy has broken into the press of North America, the EU, and Israel.

 

Triangulating sources from Jewish survivors, Soviet investigations, German documentation, documents produced by OUN itself, and memoirs of OUN activists, it has been possible to establish that: OUN militias were key actors in the anti-Jewish violence of summer 1941; OUN recruited for and infiltrated police formations that provided indispensable manpower for the Germans' mobile killing units; and in 1943, thousands of these policemen deserted from German service to join the OUN-led nationalist insurgency, during which UPA killed Jews who had managed to survive the major liquidations of 1942.

 

Today's Ukrainian Nazis from western part of the country are the descendants of these killers.

~ Dr. John-Paul Himka is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Alberta. He is co-editor (with Joanna B. Michlic) of Bringing the Dark Past to Light: The Reception of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe (University of Nebraska Press 2013), as well as author of a number of books and numerous articles on Ukrainian history.

Did the media tell us this?

 

How would those in the west know about any of this?  The corporate run media does not tell them these things. Along with this excellent video I add more voices below that I found on social media. At least some folks out there have figured out what is really going on and haven't swallowed the BS pill by the ruling western warmongers.

 

• Eric Arnow: Russia geographically is in almost the same position it was in in 1942, occupied and surrounded by hostile states, its only non occupied state being Belarus. Though it was not for Nato's lack of trying. Seeing the inevitability of an attack on itself through the well known path through Ukraine, Russia basically has tried to preempt that, and send a warning to Nato. It looks like Nato is saying, "We planned to attack you later, but we are happy to attack sooner, too". The West has been at war with Russia since at least the Crimean War.  Now it has shown its cards.

• John Walsh: Body counts etc. Human interest stories of refugees etc. We saw nothing like that in Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya. The difference is pathetic. 

• S. Brian Willson: The anti-war folks and the left are mostly supporting the illegitimate and Nazi infested coup government of Ukraine. I am in solidarity with your perspective, and again am reminded how little US Americans, including even VFP, know so little about history and context.

• Francis Lawrence Sr.: Pointing out historic truths will get you pilloried by a lot of progressives and so-called leftists ( I say so-called because real leftists actually study history!). So many have drunk the koolade, or are completely MIA on arguably the most important event of the 21st century (in that there is a real risk of nuclear conflagration.) I absolutely do not support the invasion of Ukraine but I also recognize that Biden knew full well this was going to happen unless he gave a guarantee that Ukraine would never be accepted into NATO - he refused "on principle." Biden could have so easily have averted the war - I trust history will judge him accordingly.

• Андрей Кочетов: Dear comrade, good morning. I'm in Gorlovka (Donbass) and we wake up today by Ukranian artillery. They still hate all our people. Yesterday, Zelensky signed an appeal to the EU to postpone the adoption in the EU. We are very concerned about this fact. It seems that there is already an agreement and it will be accepted in the EU, and even more so in NATO. This can be done on purpose so that the whole of Europe will fall on Russia. And it's already the third world War. Comrade, tell me what can be done in such a situation? Is it possible to raise protests in the United States against such a development of cheating? Maybe it will help to change the situation somehow.

• John Schuchardt: On the Devil's Chessboard we are in a world threatening escalation of a U.S. directed NATO war against Russia, begun in earnest in 2013. Ukraine is the pawn and sacrificial victim (we all may be), as the U.S. rejects giving security guarantees and is determined to add Ukraine with offensive missiles to the other 13 new nations it has seduced into NATO encircling Russia, each one breaking repeatedly the promise "to not move one inch East." The U.S. opened the jaws of Hell with the Manhattan Project, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Repentance and the abolition of war continue to be our only hope.  I honor all in Veterans for Peace and our devoted years giving witness to our only hope.

• Winston: I've noted there's some skepticism over whether fascists have been involved in Ukraine since the 2014 Maidan episode in a definitive way.  I know it makes for discomfort because it introduces dissonance into the current emotional narrative which views the situation as an heroic struggle against the Evil Russian Bear.

• Excerpt from the Cuban government February 26, 2022 Statement on the Conflict in Ukraine: The American determination to continue the progressive expansion of NATO towards the borders of the Russian Federation has led to a scenario, with implications of unpredictable scope, that could be avoided. The military movements carried out by the United States and NATO in recent months... amount to a progressive military encirclement.... Cuba is a country that defends International Law and is committed to the Charter of the United Nations, which will always defend peace and oppose the use or threat of force against any State.... History will hold the US government accountable for the consequences of an increasingly offensive military doctrine outside NATO's borders, which threatens international peace, security and stability....

• Gearóid Ó Murchú: My only surprise - shock actually- is that people who I assumed would see this for what it is DON’T! The depth of political consciousness is only skin deep for many on the left.

Remembering the sacred rocky coast of Gangjeong village

 

February 26th marked the 10th remembrance year since the Gureombi Rock was blasted to make way for docks to port US navy warships in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island in South Korea. 

At that time the Global Network held its annual space organizing conference in the village at the invitation of local leaders.

During the conference we jumped into kayaks and paddled out to Gureombi and participated in a service led by the infamous Catholic priest and activist Father Moon. Then many of us crawled under the razor wire to protest the coming dynamiting and were arrested.

Around 10 days later, the Gureombi Rock began to be blasted. 

This video was produced by Global Network board member Dennis Apel (Catholic Worker activist in California).

The protests in Gangjeong village still continue daily against the navy base.

The US 'pivot' of military forces into the Asia-Pacific (along with turning NATO toward that region as a 'global alliance') is aimed at China and Russia - both nations border Korea.

Bruce 

Ukraine: NATO launched its attack eight years ago

 

Flags flying at Ukraine SBU HQ (equivalent of CIA) in Kiev. Does this tell us something?

The Art of War

 

By Manlio Dinucci (il manifesto, Italy)

 

EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU will ban the Russian news agency Sputnik and the channel Russia Today so that "they can no longer spread their lies to justify Putin's war with their toxic disinformation in Europe ". The EU thus officially establishes the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, which by erasing memory rewrites history. Anyone who does not repeat the Truth transmitted by the Voice of America, an official US government agency, accusing Russia of "a horrible, completely unjustified and unprovoked attack against Ukraine" is outlawed. Outlawing myself, in extreme synthesis I report here the history of the last thirty years erased from our memory.

 

In 1991, while the Cold War was ending with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the United States unleashed the first post-Cold War conflict in the Gulf announcing to the world that “there is no substitute for the leadership of the United States remaining the only State with global strength and influence”. Three years later, in 1994 NATO under US command carried out its first direct war action in Bosnia, and in 1999 attacked Yugoslavia: taking off mainly from Italian bases. For 78 days 1,100 airplanes carried out 38,000 raids unhooking 23 thousand bombs and missiles that destroyed bridges and industries in Serbia causing victims, especially among civilians. [Many of these bombs contained depleted uranium and today the people suffer from cancers as a result.]

 

While it was demolishing Yugoslavia with the war, and betraying its promise made to Russia "not to expand an inch to the East", NATO began its expansion to the East closer and closer to Russia, which would have brought it into twenty years to extend from 16 to 30 members incorporating countries of the former Warsaw Pact,  former USSR and former Yugoslavia, preparing to officially include Ukraine, Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, already in fact in NATO ( il manifesto, What is NATO's Eastern enlargement and why is it dangerous, 22 February 2022). Passing from war to war, the US and NATO attacked and invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003, they demolished the Libyan state with the 2011 war and started the same operation in Syria through ISIS partially blocked four years later by the Russian intervention. In Iraq alone, the two wars and the embargo killed about 2 million people including half a million children.

 

 

 

In February 2014, NATO, which had seized key posts in Ukraine since 1991, carried out the coup d'état that overthrew the duly elected president of Ukraine through specially trained and armed neo-Nazi formations. It was orchestrated on the basis of a precise strategy: attacking Ukraine's Russian populations to provoke a response from Russia and thus open a deep rift in Europe. When the Crimean Russians decided with the referendum to return to Russia which they were previously part of, and the Donbas Russians (bombed from Kyiv also with white phosphorus) entrenched themselves in two Republics, NATO's war escalation began against Russia supported by the EU where 21 over 27 member countries belong to NATO under US command.

 

In these eight years, US-NATO forces and bases with nuclear attack capabilities have been deployed in Europe closer and closer to Russia ignoring repeated warnings from Moscow. On December 15, 2021, the Russian Federation delivered to the United States of America a detailed draft Treaty to defuse this explosive situation (il manifesto, Russian "Aggressive move": Moscow proposes peace, December 21, 2021). It was not only rejected but, at the same time, the deployment of Ukrainian armored forces effectively under US-NATO command began a large-scale attack on Donbas Russians. Hence Moscow's decision to halt the US-NATO aggressive escalation, which was initiated with the military operation in Ukraine.

 

Demonstrating against war by erasing history means contributing consciously or not to the frantic US-NATO-EU campaign that marks Russia as a dangerous enemy, which splits Europe for their imperial designs of power dragging us to catastrophe. 

Wading through the truth and the lies....

 

 

This video was produced by Glenn Greenwald and published on Rumble on February 24, 2022. 

Glenn Greenwald comments on recent developments in Ukraine and the dangerous environment developing domestically regarding dissent and free speech.

Glenn Greenwald is a former constitutional lawyer, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, and the author of several bestsellers, including No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State (2014) and Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil (2021).  Acclaimed as one of the 25 most influential political commentators by The Atlantic, one of America’s top 10 opinion writers by Newsweek, and one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013 by Foreign Policy, Greenwald is a former constitutional and civil rights litigator. He was a columnist for The Guardian until October 2013 and a co-founder and former editor at The Intercept, which he left in 2020.

He is now an independent journalist writing at Substack. He has won numerous awards for his reporting, including the 2013 Polk Award for national security reporting, the top 2013 investigative journalism award from the Online News Association, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting (the Brazilian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize), the 2013 Pioneer Award from Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Vladimir Herzog Special Prize in 2019 for his work in the Vaza Jato series. He also received the first annual I. F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2009 and a 2010 Online Journalism Award. In 2013, Greenwald led the Guardian reporting that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service, and his work was featured in the 2014 film Citizenfour, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. 

Who would have thunk it?

 

US-NATO recruits Al-Quaeda killers to come to Ukraine

 

Tariq al-Jasim in the middle as seen in a video he released on February 26.

South Front

Al-Qaeda-Linked Syrian Drug Dealer Al-Jasim To Funnel Militants From Syria To Ukraine

Syrian pro-opposition activists have revealed disturbing facts about a Ukraine-based Syrian businessman who vowed to fight Russian forces currently conducting a special military operation in the country.

The businessman, Tariq al-Jasim, appeared in a video announcing the formation of an armed group to fight Russian forces on February 26.

According to a reputable Syrian pro-opposition Telegram news channel, al-Jasim's older brother, Sa’ad, is a security commander in al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that controls the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib.

Not only that, al-Jasim, who has been reportedly living in Odessa city for more than year now, is also the cousin of HTS Emir Mohamad al-Abd. Emir is an Arabic term usually used by radicals to describe senior leaders.

The Telegram channel, known as Muzamjer al-Thawra al-Suriyah, also revealed that the so-called businessman is in fact a drug dealer who used to work as a trafficker in Russia.

According to the Abkhazian Network News Agency, al-Jasim is currently preparing to funnel militants from Syria to Ukraine, where they will be thrown against Russian forces. Al-Jasim is working on this with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA). Around 200 militants from the Sultan Morad Division and the al-Shamiya Front have already signed up. They are reportedly amassing now in the Turkish-occupied northern Syrian area of Afrin.

The Russian military kicked off a large-scale special operation to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine on February 24 following Kiev failure to implement the 2014 Minsk agreement.

Kiev is apparently planning to use al-Jasim to funnel Syrian militants from SNA factions and even HTS to Ukraine. This can’t happen without help from Turkey who controls and commands these militants. Russia, who maintains a large force in Syria, will not likely tolerate this.

German Green history Part 2: Foreign Ministers join war machine

 

 By Eugene Woloszyn

 

1999: 37 day, one sided bombing campaign by NATO against Serbia to force surrender. Western media and politicians made Serbia the main culprit. Behind the scenes Germany played a big role in the break up of Yugoslavia and in expanding German domination of Central Europe. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, a long time Green Party leader, age 50 at the time. 

Joschka Fischer had been a left activist since 1967 (age 19) opposing the Viet Nam War and conservative German governments. He joined the Green Party and rose to win a seat in Parliament in 1983-85 and 1991-94.  Fischer gained a reputation for bold speeches & charisma.  The Social Democratic Party (SPD) was weak in the polls in the 1990s and the Greens acquired greater support nationally.  

In Sept, 1998 German national elections, SPD received 41% of the vote and Greens got 7%. In 1990s opinion polls, Fischer was surprisingly the most popular politician in Germany. SPD and Greens form a coalition and Fischer obtained the Foreign Minister post.  He was Foreign Minister for the second longest period since WWII.  Fischer facilitated NATO bombing & German troops sent to Yugoslavia and later Afghanistan, after 9-11-01.

The causes of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia are complicated and the story can be found in the two books listed below. There was considerable opposition to Fischer’s pro-war position.  At a May 1999 Green Party Convention debating the NATO bombing,  Fischer was hit by a bag of red paint and was injured.  

Fischer was investigated by a Parliamentary Committee for 10 hours on TV in 2005. His policies starting in 2001 led to more than 300,000 Ukrainians visiting Germany on tourist visas with weak and false documentation. There was great upheavals in Ukraine in 2003-5 with a very contested election, Supreme Court ordering a re-vote, and continuing controversy. As described by Wikipedia, “Some commentators have suggested that the increase in Ukrainians visiting Germany may have promoted a more positive view of Western Europe, assisting the Orange Revolution”, hostile to Russia. Seventeen years later, Ukraine again figures in great world tensions and the excuse for greater war budgets advocated by the military industrial complex.

Soon after the 10 hour TV interrogation of Fischer, he resigned from politics and joined Madeleine Albright, Stonebridge Consulting Group in Washington DC. Albright was Obama’s Secretary of State during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and was extremely militaristic. Fischer was a member of the US based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).  He was also a founder of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Decades of work in the Green Party, ending up as a hack for the ruling class.     

Resources: Fool’s Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO & Western Delusions by Diana Johnstone, 2002 and To Kill a Nation: Attack on Yugoslavia by Michael Parenti, 2002

Latest interview

 

Bruce Gagnon explains how the Rand Corporation (Pentagon Papers) outlined very clearly that the end, the goal of US foreign policy, is to overextend and destabilize Russia resulting in regime change and then the rape and pillaging of Russia's vast natural resources.

The way out....

 

 

This war must be immediately terminated before it expands and sucks in the European NATO States and the United States. 

Towards that end President Biden must publicly announce that NATO expansion is over for good and that Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova will not be joining NATO as member States. President Biden must also call for an international peace conference for the conclusion of a treaty that will establish the permanent neutrality of Ukraine which will be guaranteed by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter. 

Then negotiations can take place between the United States and Russia over the de-nuclearization of Europe including the removal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from NATO States that are there in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a restoration of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty that was so foolishly and recklessly terminated by the Trump administration. 

Then a new round of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty Negotiations should be conducted in order to substantially lessen the tensions on land, sea and air between Russia and the U.S./NATO States including over the emplacement of alleged U.S. ABM sites in Europe [currently in Romania and Poland] that threaten Russia.

Make no mistake about it: The Origins of both the First World War and the Second World War hover like twin Swords of Damocles over the heads of all humanity!

Professor Francis A. Boyle 

Law Building

Champaign, Illinois

Who funded the RAND Corp study on regime change in Russia?

 

 

 

The infamous RAND Corporation has created a study calling for the break-up of Russia. The plan is now being implemented by the US-UK-NATO. See the study here.

The pie chart above (click on it for a better view) details where RAND gets its funding. Should be no surprise to see that the vast majority of the money comes from the Department of Defense, US Army, Air Force, Homeland Security and other government agencies.

It is my opinion, based on these and other obvious facts, that the current international effort to militarily encircle Russia and take them down - is being envisioned and organized by the US war machine.

In addition is the unrelenting corporate media brainwashing of the American and European people to support this regime change effort now underway. 

Since 2007 Russia has been pleading with US-UK-NATO to agree to a negotiated security program for all of Europe that would end NATO expansion and would return to serious negotiations to ban weapons in space, cyber war, and return to nuclear weapons reduction talks. The US has refused all of these offers for stability.

 

Moscow understands what the western corporate-run governments intend - regime change and the breaking up of Russia into smaller nations that would then give resource extraction companies access to the vast resources along the Arctic Sea zone.

The US use of Ukraine as a tool to destabilize Russia is spelled out in the Rand study where they say:

Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability....Undermining Russia’s image abroad would focus on diminishing Russian standing and influence, thus undercutting regime claims of restoring Russia to its former glory. Further sanctions, the removal of Russia from non-UN international forums, and boycotting such events as the World Cup could be implemented by Western states and would damage Russian prestige.

NATO endless war council

 

So the evidence is abundant if one is serious about cutting through the media demonization and the western military encirclement of Russia. But the willingness to seek the truth and to stand against the wave of American 'exceptionalist' propaganda is more than most are prepared to face.

Sadly far to many in the US (even in the progressive movement) know little to nothing about the full story.  And even more sadly, many don't appear to be that interested in finding the truth. 

Let's hope that changes before it is too late.

Bruce

Sunday song

 

Aaron Mate discusses Ukraine-Russia

 

 

The media description of the Russian attack on Ukraine has almost universally whitewashed the role played by the US and its NATO allies, including supporting a coup overthrowing the democratically elected president in 2014, refusing to support the Minsk Accords or refusing to engage in negotiations in the months leading up to the Russian invasion.

Read Aaron’'s work at The Grayzone here: http://mate.substack.com http://thegrayzone.com 

Follow Aaron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AaronJMate 

Where were the cries & howls in 2014 as Nazis massacred poeple in Odessa?

 

 

I went to Odessa, Ukraine in 2016 for the May 2 memorial service organized by the Council of Mothers. 

I was with Regis Tremblay and Phil Wilayto from the US.  

When we returned we each did our best to get the peace movement to pay attention to what happened in Odessa. Largely to no avail.

The Nazis in Ukraine have flourished since then and today are inside some big cities of Ukraine holding their fellow citizens hostage as the Russian military closes in on them. 

Ever since the US orchestrated coup d'etat in 2014 I've almost daily studied and worked hard to bring these stories to the peace movement. Sadly few have been interested.

Since then I've traveled to Russia three times including a Global Network study tour in 2019 that visited Moscow, Crimea and St Petersburg. In 2019 I also went to the Donbass region of Ukraine and toured the embattled cities of Lugansk and Donetsk.

It is clear to me that the US-UK-NATO have constructed this entire episode in order to justify NATO expansion and military war games up to the Russian border. The real goal is regime change in Moscow.

How is Russia to respond - particularly considering that they lost 27 million people during the WW II Nazi invasion?

The latest news appears to be that Biden is sending $350 million in military hardware to Ukraine. Germany will delivery 1,000 anti-tank guided weapons and 500 anti-aircraft Stinger system. 

The US-UK-NATO got just what they planned for in Ukraine.

Bruce 

French film reviews the Ukraine Nazi's

 

Documentary Project "Ukraine: The masks of the revolution" broadcast on the French TV channel Canal +. 

Ukrainian Embassy in Paris asked for this documentary to be taken off air. What were the Ukrainian authorities so afraid of? Maybe the truth? 

Until now Europe does not know all of what actually happened and continues to happen in Kiev and across the country as a whole. 

This documentary film directed by Paul Moreira, tells the story of the tragic events that took place in Odessa: the fire in the House of Trade Unions and the burning of at least 48 people (according to official figures) and 300 (unofficial sources). 

Moreira said that his aim was to show the world the bloody history of Ukraine and Odessa in particular: "In the heart of Europe, people are burned alive and everyone is silent about that."