Biden Spit On The Soul Of The American Nation By Pitting His People Against One Another

Sep 3, 2022

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By Andrew Korybko

Maliciously smearing approximately half of the country as existential terrorist-inclined threats to “the soul of the nation” is nothing but the crudest Machiavellian means of dividing and ruling the population.

The Unprecedentedly Dangerous Divider-In-Chief

US President Joe Biden’s nationally televised speech on Thursday that the official White House website headlined as being about “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” saw the incumbent become the most dangerous and divisive American leader in history. Far from trying to cleanse and protect that very same soul, he shamelessly spit on it by pitting his people against one another as part of an obvious divide-and-rule plot ahead of the neck-and-neck midterm elections that are only two months away.

Debunking Biden’s False Belief In Equality & Democracy

The first part that stands out is Biden emphasizing how the location of his speech, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence was made and the Constitution signed, reinforces the mutually complementary concepts of equality and democracy connected with those two documents. He doesn’t truly believe in either of those though as proven by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemning all minority views as “extremist” earlier that same day.  

Nevertheless, he pretended that he’s a true believer in them in order to artificially manufacture the basis upon which to contrast himself with former US President Donald Trump. Biden claimed that his predecessor and those who still support his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement supposedly “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” Falsely framing them as existential threats so close to the midterms is obviously aimed at manipulating voters’ perceptions.

Applying The “Rules For Radicals” Against The MAGA Movement

This crude tactic would be condemned by the American Government if it was employed by any Global South leader irrespective of whether it’s baseless like in Biden’s case or genuinely backed up by facts. Biden then channeled the infamous Saul Alinksy’s “Rules For Radicals”, specifically the thirteenth rule to “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”, when claiming that “the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans”.

By adding that “that is a threat to this country”, the incumbent ominously implied that the full authority of the state will be brought down to bear on those who are even simply suspected of being remotely connected to the former president or his movement on faux national security pretexts. He then instantly reverted to gaslighting once again just like he earlier did by unconvincingly claiming that he supports the Founding Fathers’ vision of equality and democracy by contrasting Democrats and MAGA on false bases.

Who Really Employs Political Violence & Election Conspiracy Theories?

The same man who represents the party that frenziedly fanned the flames of the joint Antifa- and BLM-led Hybrid War of Terror on America all throughout summer 2020, whose countless antagonists were manipulated into functioning as “useful idiots” of the anti-MAGA faction of the US “deep state” (permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies), counterfactually claimed that it’s Trump and his supporters who divided the country through the use of violence for political ends.

Biden also insulted Americans’ intelligence by gaslighting that it’s only some MAGA folks who’ve ever rejected the outcome of a presidential election when most Democrats refused to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s victory in 2016. Not only that, but their anti-MAGA “deep state” puppeteers literally concocted the Russiagate conspiracy theory that they laundered through allied congressional representatives, law enforcement, media, and NGOs to discredit the entirety of his four years in office.

The Democrats’ Path To A Dystopian Post-Modern Dictatorship

The ”carnage and darkness and despair” that the incumbent claimed that MAGA folks see when they look at America was actually the Democrats’ rallying cry during all of Trump’s term and especially ahead of the 2020 elections. When Biden said that “They spread fear and lies – lies told for profit and power”, this objectively described the Democrats as was earlier explained with respect to the Russiagate conspiracy theory as well as their false fearmongering about Trump being a “dictator worse than Hitler”.

On the topic of dictatorship, the author predicted shortly after 2020’s disputed election that “Biden’s America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole”, which continues progressively unfolding exactly as foreseen. “Every Democrat Is A Wannabe Dictator”, so it naturally follows that the party’s latest figurehead would play to this fantasy by falsely describing his political opponents as supposed “threats” in order to create the “publicly plausible” pretext for imposing a Pakistani-like post-modern dictatorship.

His infamous speech perniciously manipulated the concept of pre-bunking in order to mislead Americans into falsely considering approximately half of the country to be an existential threat to “the soul of the nation.” By dividing and ruling them in such a stereotypically Machiavellian way, Biden (or rather those members of the “deep state” that are behind him and wrote his speech) is deliberately trying to radicalize the minority of at-risk MAGA folks to engage in highly publicized political violence.

The MAGA Mentality

Objectively speaking, they’ve always been on the strategic defensive even before Trump’s election since the whole reason why they voted for him in the first place was their hope that he’d reverse – or at least slow down – the Democrat-driven trend of comprehensively dismantling everything that America stood for. Upon the 45th President entering office, they then found themselves viciously targeted by their opponents, who ultimately waged a nationwide spree of urban terrorism against them in summer 2020.

After their hero’s scandalous departure from the White House and his replacement with the “deep state”-backed Democrat’s placeholder, those who sympathize with MAGA or are at the very least perceived as being associated with it are now at risk of being actively oppressed by the state. Biden’s hate-filled speech will only exacerbate these fears, which could very easily radicalize the absolute minority of those folks with preexisting mental illnesses and thus push them to political violence.

The Worst-Case Scenario

No sincerely law-abiding and patriotic American would ever harm their compatriots no matter how fierce their political disputes may get, yet it’s impossible to ever perfectly defend against “lone wolves”, including those that have previously been on the secret police’s (FBI) radar. In the worst-case scenario that one or some of them end up doing something terrible, God forbid, then there’s no doubt that the incident (which might even manifest as a terrorist attack) would be exploited by the ruling party.

Gaslighting à Preconditioning à Political Violence à State-Sponsored “Canceling”

Biden’s backers would certainly take advantage of it to accelerate America’s descent into a dystopian post-modern dictatorship, but for their plans to enjoy the greatest probability of success, they must first effectively divide and rule the population through gaslighting tactics exactly as the incumbent just did. The next step is to precondition them into expecting political violence by the side that’s misportrayed as an existential threat that’s supposedly predisposed to terrorism, which Biden also just achieved.

Upon the worst-case scenario transpiring, God forbid, so-called “cancel culture” can then immediately be weaponized to its most vicious political extreme by carrying out a nationwide crackdown against everyone even remotely suspected of being associated with MAGA. These devious plans aren’t anything that a sincere believer in “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” would plot, but that’s why nobody should fall for Biden’s, his backer’s, and their “useful idiots”’ false claims that they’re patriots.

Unity & Division

From top-down and bottom-up, the Democrats are united like never before when it come to carrying out this nationwide crackdown, even though their agreement with one another in this respect is thus far only tacit and not explicit. Be that as it is, so too can it be said that MAGA is unprecedentedly united in bracing for this dystopian post-modern dictatorship scenario, though it’s only the former that have the power to be “legitimate” agents of change due to their monopoly over the state’s use of violence.

To be absolutely clear so that there’s no false perception of ambiguity whatsoever at all, the author is not in any way implying that MAGA should illegitimately employ violence (i.e. anything that isn’t the legally enshrined right to self-defense) against anyone, whether their political opponents or the state. The movement that coalesced around Trump but organically arose long before his political rise must absolutely remain committed to peaceful and political means for regaining power through the ballot.

Having clarified that crucial point of principle that should always be at the forefront of every MAGA-aligned person’s mind, political practice sometimes differs from political theory, so it can’t be taken for granted that at least one of those folks who’ve objectively been on the strategic defensive for years as was earlier explained won’t be triggered into committing political violence by Biden’s speech. However it might unfold, God forbid, that worst-case scenario would set drastic events into motion.

Reflecting On Biden’s Hateful Remarks

Those who have the time to reread the incumbent’s hateful remarks in full will more be able to more clearly discern the ulterior motives that are very strongly implied by his provocative words. He was tasked with repeating high-sounding rhetoric in order to gaslight people into not suspecting the Democrats of preparing for the sequence of events that would follow his deliberate attempt at radicalizing already the ultra-fringe minority of already psychologically disturbed MAGA folks.

Maliciously smearing approximately half of the country as existential terrorist-inclined threats to “the soul of the nation” is nothing but the crudest Machiavellian means of dividing and ruling the population. For as dark as the future might appear after Biden’s unprecedentedly divisive information warfare provocation against the American people, the worst-case scenario isn’t inevitable since nothing about the presently chaotic trajectory of the situation is deterministic.

Pulling America Back From The Brink of Civil War

While it arguably does indeed appear as though an undeclared civil war might soon be fought between the “deep state”-backed Democrats led on the streets by a coalition of Antifa, BLM, and ideologically aligned law enforcement on one side against MAGA-affiliated Americans on the other (or is already being waged according to some), that scenario could also still be averted. Responsible influencers from both sides should immediately make it known that they disavow any and all violence.

Those within their ranks who disagree with their peaceful methods of resolving political disputes must be disowned so that any rogue violence that they might God forbid commit isn’t credibly associated with either side’s cause. Law enforcement members should also remember their duty to impartially uphold the law and not allow themselves to be manipulated by anyone for political ends, while lawmakers mustn’t ever forget their sacred obligation to protect the people who they’re responsible for.

The Role Of Responsible Political Leaders & Law Enforcement Members

The Hybrid War of Terror on America could have easily been nipped in the bud had mayors/governors ordered local police/ National Guard to do so, but they purposely declined as part of their political plot to influence people’s perceptions ahead of the 2020 elections so that they’d vote against Trump. In the event of forthcoming large-scale unrest, whether driven by “deep state”-backed Democrat “useful idiots” or rogue MAGA folks, these same leaders must decisively act unlike before.

Likewise, law enforcement should prepare themselves to publicly disagree with those abovementioned leaders if their superiors once again decline to deploy them to protect the populace. The principled among them should also consider refusing to illegally restrict law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights if they’re ordered to do so since that’s one of the scenarios that could be employed by the Democrats in response to the earlier speculative worst-case scenario or possibly even to provoke it.

Concluding Thoughts

America is dangerously on the verge of descending into a fast-moving and full-on dystopian post-modern dictatorship, pushed over the precipice by none other than its incumbent president and those shadowy “deep state” forces that are behind him. That disastrous outcome can still be averted, as well as the worst-case scenarios that would likely make this trajectory irreversible, but it’ll require Americans of all political views coming together to peacefully defeat those who want to divide and rule them.

Exclusive: The Fugitive Who Tried to Spark a US-China War

With a Special Correspondent

AUGUST 5, 2022

PEPE ESCOBAR

Guo Wengui in April 2017. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

ISTANBUL – Guo Wengui, also known as Guo Haoyun, and by his English names Miles Kwok and Miles Guo, is a politically connected, self-proclaimed exiled Chinese billionaire who tried to start a U.S.-China war.

On Feb. 15, the billionaire filed for Chapter 11, personal bankruptcy protection in US Bankruptcy Court in Bridgeport, CT, listing assets of just $3,850 and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million. Guo’s declaration came after a Hong Kong money manager, Pacific Alliance Group, sued him over unpaid debts.

That certainly didn’t add up. Only three months after filing for bankruptcy, Guo had spent nearly $2 million on legal fees. Yet on May 11, he filed a waiver of personal bankruptcy with the court through his lawyer, stating he had no more funds to pay his legal fees.

During the bankruptcy hearing, Guo claimed he owned no house, no car, and no credit cards. That certainly didn’t square up with the lavish lifestyle he flaunted on social media – replete with mansion, private jet and yacht.

So is this story really about bankruptcy? Or a very elaborate ruse?

‘I Wanna Be a Part of It, New York, New York’

Guo was born to a modest family in February 1967 in a rural area of Shandong province. According to the news site China Youth Network, he went through proverbial, eye-opening experiences as a teenager, such as skipping school, brawling and gambling. He married at 18; got his own brother killed for an argument revolving around a mere 7,000 yuan; and was sentenced to three years in prison and four years probation for fraud.

Guo rose to fame by building a real estate empire in Beijing, which earned him titles such as “Capital Giant”, “Power Hunter” and “Pirate of the Caribbean” from awed Chinese netizens. In 2017, Interpol issued a Red Notice for Guo, who had already fled to the US in 2015 after being accused by the Chinese government of fraud, bribery, and money laundering. He denied all charges.

Yet according to information publicly available, Guo committed a series of financial frauds, including a $539 million scam targeting small investors in the United States, a $470 million fraudulent loan in China, and a $43 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.

In recent years, Guo has had a quite active life online, amassing special notoriety for his fierce criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.

According to China’s Chongqing Public Security Bureau, Guo has been building a case since August 2017 for political asylum in the US by concocting a series of online exposés.

Some of these, revolving around Hunter Biden’s sex antics, caught the attention of US media. Guo’s central spin at the time was that “We have to express…the Chinese Communist Party used these to threaten Hunter and [Joe] Biden.” But he provided no proof of this.

In 2017, Guo gained the attention of Foreign Affairs in an article co-written by Rush Doshi, who’s now senior director for China at the US National Security Council. The article focused on how Guo – without providing sources or conclusive evidence – threw lurid allegations at Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, the head of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.

“Guo Wengui, an expatriate Chinese billionaire, began to make explosive allegations on YouTube and Twitter about China’s leaders,” Doshi and co-author George Yin explained.

“President Xi Jinping, Guo claimed, had sought incriminating information about Wang Qishan, Xi’s right-hand man and the chief of his anti-corruption campaign. The figure tasked with rooting out China’s official graft, Guo suggested, was himself corrupt — if not directly, then through his family’s alleged financial holdings. Guo’s claims seemed designed to sever China’s most important political relationship before this fall’s 19th Party Congress, where officials will determine Xi’s longevity as president and select members for China’s top decision-making bodies.”

Guo’s patrons included disgraced Chinese security officials Ma Jian, Vice-Minister of Public Security 2006-2015 and Zhou Yongkang, Minister of Public Security 2002-2007.

A powerful member of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, Zhou was expelled from the Communist Party in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison the following year. In 2018, Ma was sentenced to life in prison for taking bribes from Guo, according to court proceedings. Another of Guo’s handlers, Politburo member Sun Zhengcai, got a life sentence for bribery in 2018.

Sun was the Communist Party boss in the western megacity Chongqing. After Sun’s disgrace, the supervision of Guo passed to China’s vice-minister of police Sun Lijun (no relation), and Justice Minister Fu Zenghua. Sun Lijun was convicted of corruption in July 2022 and awaits sentencing. Fu is under arrest and awaiting trial.

What stands out is that throughout this period Guo acted as an agent of elements in China’s security services purged and convicted for corruption.

Later, in 2021, Guo switched to promoting the allegation that Chinese hackers had shifted presidential election votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

Guo’s politicking is just as intriguing as his business adventures.

Especially because of his status as former protégé of the very powerful ex-Vice Minister of State Security Ma Jian, who was himself a mentor of security chief Zhou Yongkang, then a Politburo member.

It’s not an accident that Guo fled China soon after Ma and Zhou were arrested as part of President Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. At the time, Guo was in a bitter business dispute with his former partner and politically connected tycoon Li You. That was bringing unwanted attention to his financial dealings.

The central plot in this murky saga revolves around opaque developments inside the all-powerful Ministry of State Security (MSS) in the early 2010s, when Xi Jinping came to power.

Guo’s intelligence handlers, Ma and Zhou, were allies of Ling Jihua, who was former President Hu Jintao’s chief of staff. The crucial link between Ma and Ling was provided by Sun Zhengcai, the former party secretary of Chongqing, also a Politburo member.

As we’ve seen, Zhou, Ling, and Sun all ended up in jail – targets of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. But, remarkably, not Guo – who according to former Chinese government officials was Ma’s MSS agent in charge of special ops overseas.

Guo’s job in 2012 was to sabotage the ascension of Xi by spreading an array of fake news in China and among the Chinese diaspora. That failed.

Nonetheless, Guo remained at work as an MSS agent until at least October 2021, according to well-placed Chinese sources. Considering his recent activities and the fact he was lavishly embraced by prominent US China hawks, it appears that his assignment was to cause maximum damage to US-China relations, arguably derailing them to a point of no return.

How to Profit From Lavish Overseas Funds

Guo impressed his American hosts with a show of vast wealth. After fleeing China he took up residence in New York in a $70 million apartment in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park.

His bragging rights included buying more than 200 custom-tailored suits a year; spending more than $20 million in legal fees around the world; smoking $10,000 cigars; and drinking limited editions of the Chinese liquor Moutai. All that, of course, neatly fit his claim to bankruptcy court of holding only $3,850 in personal assets.

In his bankruptcy filing, Guo argued to the court that his expenses were funded by his family. The luxury apartment in New York was owned by the family company; a villa was owned by his wife’s company; daily expenses and all those customized suits were provided by Golden Spring, a New York-based company owned by his son Guo Qiang.

Qu Guojiao, or Natasha Qu, Guo Wengui’s former financial assistant, still living in China, revealed in an exclusive interview that in the space of over 20 years, Guo set up more than 100 companies in Hong Kong, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. None of these were under his name, she said. Yet regardless of who and which company holds them, the ultimate flow of funds and shareholding arrangements always proceeded at Guo’s own discretion, Qu said.

Guo is known to have amassed a huge fortune by colluding with corrupt Chinese powerbrokers and business tycoons: that’s the reason for his fame among Chinese netizens as a “Capital Giant”. Yet most of the funds came from unknown sources, and were never under his name.

The Blair Connection

As previously reported by the respected Chinese business newspaper Caixin Global, one of Guo’s main sources of money materialized with the help of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. With Blair’s endorsement, Guo raised $3 billion from the Abu Dhabi royal family.

Blair flew on a luxury private jet during a visit to the Middle East in 2013 when he was the U.N. Quartet’s Middle East envoy; he was accompanied by Guo, who was responsible for paying for the flight, according to Caixin.

Guo won the Blairs’ favor when he bought 5,000 copies of Blair’s wife Cherie’s new autobiographical book in Chinese, Speaking for Myself, in August 2009. In 2013, Blair introduced Guo to a group of dignitaries from the Abu Dhabi royal family, the newspaper reported.

In 2014 Guo, with the support of all-powerful Ma Jian, then Chinese vice minister of security, used Blair’s position as the Special Envoy to the Middle East Quartet to gain the trust of the Abu Dhabi royals. Guo ended up signing a contract with them in Macau on Dec. 16 that year, setting up a “China-Arab Fund,” according to China Daily.

The first $1.5 billion was paid from Abu Dhabi’s Cayman Islands-registered company Roscalitar 2 to one of Guo Wengui’s bank accounts the following day. Guo’s assistant at the time, Qu, confirmed in the interview that the money was used to buy Hong Kong stocks, property, a yacht and other assets.

CAPTION: Voucher signed and authorized by Guo Wengui for the transfer of €25.2 million from Bravo Luck Ltd to DWF LLP for the balance of the purchase of the Lady May yacht

Natasha Qu stated: “In December 2014, the Abu Dhabi side transferred 1.5 billion to Guo Wengui, who immediately instructed her to transfer the money to HK International Funds Investment Ltd, a company controlled by Guo Wengui through her and Guo Qiang.”

Guo, according to Qu, “asked to transfer a total of $520 million in two installments to the Bravo Luck Ltd account. Payments were then made through the Bravo Luck Ltd account to purchase the Lady May yacht, the luxury apartment in New York, and money was also transferred to Guo Qiang himself and to his controlled [company] Golden Spring” at its Hong Kong head office.

CAPTION: Voucher signed and authorized by Guo Wengui for transfer from Bravo Luck Ltd $62,990,741.85 to IVEY Barnum & O’Mara LLC for the balance of the apartment in the Sherry Netherland Hotel in New York

Natasha Qu adds: “Although Guo Wengui had more than a hundred companies in Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands, none of them had any real business and there was basically no money in the company accounts. They were set up simply to raise and transfer money. All of Guo Wengui’s spending in those two or three years both at home and abroad came from this Abu Dhabi money.”

There’s no information as to whether any of these funds are still left. What is clear is that Guo kept spending right up until and after his recent bankruptcy filing. After claiming he was flat broke, Guo hired three big-name lawyers from top US law firm Brown Rudnick LLP each charging more than $1,000 an hour, according to news reports of the bankruptcy filing.

Lawyers’ fees listed in the court papers submitted by Guo Wengui

Documents in Guo’s bankruptcy case show that the day before filing for bankruptcy, he sent $1 million to law firm Brown & Rudnick from Lamp Capital Ltd (Lamp Capital). In addition to this firm, Guo also hired the services of Stretto Insolvency Solutions and V&L Financial Services, according to court filings. In May 2022 Guo set up an $8 million loan from his own New York-based company Golden Spring to pay for insolvency administration and financial services.

Should I Stay (Bankrupt) or Should I Go?

It’s not clear how wealthy Guo Wengui really is, and what are his real assets.

One of the most contentious assets in the years-long litigation between Hong Kong’s Pacific Alliance Group and Guo Wengui is the now-famous Lady May yacht, where federal officials had arrested Steve Bannon in 2020 for alleged fraud. Guo claimed that he sold the yacht to his daughter Guo Mei for $1, and that it is docked in a Spanish harbor.

Natasha Qu reports that “the yacht was purchased in February 2015 by Guo Wengui for €28 million, with funds from the first US$1.5 billion released by the China-Arab Fund, in the name of Hong Kong International Fund Investment Ltd, and registered in the same name.”

Qu says she transferred the ownership of Lady May to Guo Mei for US$1 on June 17, 2017, as instructed by Guo. Back in October 2014, Guo asked Natasha Qu to sign a Declaration of Trust to hold Hong Kong International Fund Investment Limited for him, after which the company was transferred to Natasha Qu to hold on his behalf for the price of HK$1.

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The Declaration of Trust made it clear that all actions of the trustee, Natasha Qu, in relation to the shareholding of the company were to be done in accordance with the instructions of the beneficiary, Guo Wengui. After Qu signed the Declaration of Trust, she said the document was taken away by Guo and kept by his lawyer.

As Natasha Qu explains, “When the Hong Kong police investigated Guo Wengui for money laundering in 2017, Guo asked me to prepare the paperwork for a trip to the United States to transfer the entirety of Hong Kong International Fund Investment Limited to Guo Mei.”

CAPTION: Declaration of trust signed by Natasha Qu to hold Hong Kong International Fund Investment Limited for Guo Wengui

After he fled to the US, Guo tried his best to package himself as deeply hostile to Beijing. Guo’s patrons in the security services were convicted of major crimes or under investigation, and he feared arrest under corruption charges. According to the New York Times, Guo was on China’s most-wanted list for bribery, fraud and money laundering.

Guo spent lavishly to win the support of associates of President Donald Trump. He hired former White House strategist Steve Bannon for a $1 million a year retainer. In 2020, alongside Bannon, Guo announced the creation of the “New Federal State of China,” supposedly to overthrow China’s Communist Party.

The “Federal State” held an event in New York on June 4, 2022, with Bannon and a group of former senior Trump aides, including White House trade advisor Peter Navarro and speechwriter Jason Miller.

Before the “Federal State” adventure, Guo set up the Rule of Law Foundation in 2018; launched a G series of investment projects such as GTV and G Coin, as well as farm loans, G-Club cards and Xi Coin. These ventures brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and donations, but landed him in legal trouble.

In May 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) imposed a $539 million penalty for Guo’s US$487 million in illegal private placements of GTV and G Coin. The remaining projects are also being investigated to varying degrees, including a “farm loan” of almost US$200 million at the end of 2020 and over US$100 million from the sale of one billion H-coins in 2021. The whereabouts and use of these funds are a complete mystery.

Guo Wengui’s personal bankruptcy case is still pending. Under court order, Guo, as the owner of the Lady May yacht, promised on April 6 to allow the yacht to return to the US by July 15 and to post a US$37 million bond. On April 17, the bankruptcy court held Guo in contempt for hiding his yacht overseas.

On May 11, Guo voluntarily filed to dismiss his personal bankruptcy case. This bizarre behavior caught the attention of major news media.

Bankruptcy Court Acts

On June 16, the Connecticut Bankruptcy Court noted that Guo Wengui and his family had interests in numerous limited liability companies and allegedly hid assets and defrauded creditors by depositing substantial personal assets among numerous subordinates and family members.

The court ultimately denied Guo’s motion to dismiss, appointed a trustee for the bankruptcy assets, continued the bankruptcy proceedings, and appointed a trustee to conduct a worldwide investigation into Guo’s assets and whether Guo had acted in good faith in filing for bankruptcy.

If creditors pursuing their investigation find that Guo has hidden assets and filed for bankruptcy, he may be found guilty of violating US bankruptcy laws as well as bankruptcy fraud. That would land him in serious legal trouble. And this time there won’t be any powerful Ministry of State Security patrons to lend a helping hand.

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• Category: Foreign Policy • Tags: American Military, China, China/America, Guo Wengui, Taiwan

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• Sinophobia, Lies and Hybrid War

Russian Reset

February 26, 2022

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

Osama Eltrabolsi 

Though American public opinion is cliche-filled with phrases and slogans of democracy, it seems that the American Dream fades into nothing but an echo of the media network and their propaganda.

Russian Reset

The relationship of the ordinary American citizen with politics is strange. It is based primarily on the principle of giving to Caesar what is for Caesar so long as he delivers upon the bright promises of individual liberty and human rights which would undoubtedly assuage many destructive foreign policy blunders around the world such as Iraq or Afghanistan being just two amongst many others. 

And when I talk to people from the other side of the world about international politics or even American politics in the world, the simple facts may seem shocking to many of them. Perhaps the most prominent of these issues is US-Russia relations. While Russia can influence any current conflict in its regions or say, Central Asia, the China Sea, the extent of Russian influence continues to arrive in US politics and is certainly confirmed by the policies of the current US administration. 

Though American public opinion is cliche-filled with phrases and slogans of democracy, it seems that the American Dream fades into nothing but an echo of the media network and their propaganda. However, from the local perspective, we see the world from the heart of the conflict where it is easier to see the true reality.

What is now very obvious and very surprising is that the American public does not read between the lines of obvious media propaganda. Mainstream news sources in the US continue to propagate a coming escalation hyped up by news cycles that an American-Russian conflict is imminent and bravely has a responsibility to respond to Putin accordingly. These media outlets claim Russian interference happened through Donald Trump being compromised by the Russian bear. The strange irony is that those who are issuing these rumors are the same ones who have in recent history championed a reset of the US-Russian relationship. 

Looking back, it is a true statement that a reset did happen, but it was the Russians who we know have reset America through the Biden administration & his predecessors. In fact, although it seemed a diplomatic joke, Hillary Clinton officially admitted in her memoir entitled “Hard Choices” that she and Obama’s administration were the owners of an American project to reset the Russian relationship, indicating that she gifted the Russian Foreign Minister a now-infamous red button with the word RESET. At the time, it seemed symbolic and somewhat hopeful or that the reset button in her meeting with Sergey Levrov was a kind of diplomatic joke, but now we know it was regarding what we currently see in US-Russia relations and what she already declared in her memoir! Putin was able to rebrand & sit with the Americans on a world stage; a monumental achievement by Russia to the United States since the Cold War. Putin stepped away from power for years, leaving the chair to one of his associates, President Medvedev, branded to the Americans as an easy-going person. It was under Medvedev the system was reset affording Putin the keys to everything from computers to secret emails.

As Hillary Clinton stated in his memoirs, “President Obama and I believed in 2009 that we could achieve key American national interests with Russia, by adopting an approach based on three elements: finding specific areas of cooperation where our interests converged, maintaining a consistent position where our interests differ, and continuous engagement with the Russian people themselves, this approach became known as the ‘Russia Reset’.”

The first area of ​​cooperation was the establishment of a high-tech corridor in Russia, similar to Silicon Valley in the United States, even suggesting a visit to the proposed site for America to inspect, and that is what happened in 2010. Skolkovo was established in 2010, and it is the most important technological project in the world. This was followed by cooperation in facilitating the supply process for American forces in Afghanistan. This directly led to Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

But in her memoir, Clinton admits in a very nonchalant, pseudo-diplomatic manner that it was all indeed a hoax. On how they were defrauded by the Russians, Clinton describes, “I have been bitterly disappointed by those who expected the reset approach to usher in a new era between the United States and Russia based on goodwill.”

We note her own words as if it absolves her for being the godmother of the project since its inception. This very strange reset pioneered by Hillary Clinton helped Russia advance & develop its technology projects and expand in Central Asia and enter the Crimea in exchange for allowing American forces to cross their territory. These arrangements were made with the executive assistance of William Burns, who was working during the Obama administration as an Ambassador of the United States of America to Russia. He previously served as the United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2011 to 2014. Today, Mr. Burns is Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Biden who adopts the same worldviews as Obama himself. 

This security breach in US intelligence confirms that all American threats to Russia are only a deflection away from President Biden and his Democratic failed policies which gave us Morsi. Burns himself had previously participated in the fake Russia reset. Rather, he said at the Munich Security Conference, “It is time to press the reset button and reconsider the many areas.” We can work with Russia and we have to work together, which is interesting because this was Trump’s diplomatic call to Russia. 

Skolkovo is technology
Russian interference is tech-based
Hillary lied about Russia then she is likely lying about the MB influences in the states. 

American politics today

The recently damming report called The Durham Report proved Hillary is a liar and she paid for tech information while accusing Russia & Trump only a few years after she initiated Skolkovo. It is an ironic reset, unlike we expected. 

Durham’s filing states that Joffe tasked a small group of university researchers to mine internet data to establish “an inference” and “narrative” tying Trump to Russia. Durham said that in doing so, Joffe “was seeking to please certain ‘VIPs’.” According to Durham, Joffe identified these VIPs as individuals at Sussmann’s law firm, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign. 

Special counsel John Durham, who is probing the origins of the counterintelligence investigation against Donald Trump’s campaign, filed late Thursday a response to former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s motion to strike six paragraphs from Durham’s case against him. Sussmann filed a motion (pdf) on Feb. 14 to strike six paragraphs that comprise the “Factual Background” section in Durham’s filing on Feb. 11. Durham’s filing alleged that Trump’s residences and the White House were spied on by a tech executive aligned with the Democratic Party, who is identified in reports as Rodney Joffe.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

هل يطوي بوتين صفحة العالم الأميركي؟

الاربعاء 23 شباط 2022

المصدر: الميادين نت

قتيبة الصالح 

يمكن الحديث عن الموقف الروسي في هذه اللحظة، والذي ينطلق في إطار الأزمة الأوكرانية من 3 محدِّدات رئيسة.

قد يكون اعتراف موسكو باستقلال جمهوريتي دونيتسك ولوغانسك، والذي أعلنه الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين، هو التفصيل الأقل أهمية في خطابه المطوَّل والموجَّه إلى الشعب الروسي. أعاد بوتين، وفق سردية متماسكة، تعريف الأزمة، ملقياً الكرة مجدداً عبر الحدود، من دون أن ينسى الإشارة إلى فصل جديد في النظام العالمي.

تتجاهل واشنطن حقيقة، مفادها أن الاعتراضات الروسية على توسع الناتو سبقت وصول بوتين إلى الرئاسة أول مرة عام 2000.

ركزت أغلبية التعليقات، طوال الفترة السابقة، على أوكرانيا، في إطار الحشد العسكري الروسي وما يمثله من تهديد لكييف، بينما صوّرت الدعاية الأميركية الحدث على أنه وُلِد من العدم، وأن المشكلة الروسية هي في وجود أوكرانيا ديمقراطية عند حدودها. لذا، تريد موسكو فرض نفوذها على السياسة الخارجية لكييف.

يُذكّر ذلك مجدداً بالنهج الأميركي التقليدي؛ ذلك الذي يقوم على التعامل، وفق منطق فقدان الذاكرة التاريخي، بحيث تُفْصَل الأحداث عن سياقها وعن كل ما أدى إلى الوصول إليها. في هذا السياق، تتجاهل واشنطن حقيقة، مفادها أن الاعتراضات الروسية على توسع الناتو سبقت وصول بوتين إلى الرئاسة أول مرة عام 2000.

وكما أوضح بوتين، طوال 65 دقيقة، فإن جذور الأزمة تعود إلى التسويات غير المحسومة لمرحلة ما بعد الحرب الباردة؛ تلك الترتيبات التي تمت بينما كانت روسيا، كما يصفها أحد الكتّاب الأميركيين، جاثية على ركبتيها، تُباع بزّات ضبّاط جيشها مع الأوسمة فوق أرصفة موسكو بثمن بخس.

لم تكن الولايات المتحدة حينها في حاجة إلى المناورة. اختارت إدارة بيل كلينتون الاستمرار في تمدد الناتو شرقاً. لم تكن فكرة إيقاف ذلك واردة. فإلى جانب حسابات كلينتون الداخلية، كان ذلك ضرورياً لاستمرار القيادة الأميركية العالمية، إذ زوّدت فكرة الحماية الأميركية لأوروبا الولاياتِ المتحدةَ بنفوذ هائل في مراكز القوة الاقتصادية العالمية، في تلك اللحظة.

في موسكو المنهَكة، كان الأمر مثيراً للاستغراب. صُمّم الناتو أساساً من أجل المحافظة على أمن أوروبا الغربية، ومواجهة حلف وارسو بقيادة الاتحاد السوفياتي. ومع سقوط جدار برلين، لم يعد هناك من مبرّر لاستمرار التوسع.

كانت روسيا، على عكس اليوم، أضعفَ من أن يُسمع صوتها. وعلى وقع حاجتها إلى مليارات الدولارات من صندوق النقد الدولي، لم تمتلك موسكو كثيراً من الخيارات، فوقّعت اتفاقية العلاقات المتبادلة مع الناتو عام 1997.

بسهولة، تجاهلت واشنطن اعتراضات يلتسين على تمدُّد الناتو شرقاً، والذي مثّل تراجعاً أميركياً عن الضمانات الشفوية التي أُعطيت لغورباتشوف، وتجاهلت الولايات المتحدة أيضاً الأصوات الداخلية التي اعترضت على التوسع، داعيةً إلى استغلال الفرصة التاريخية في إنشاء نظام أوروبي جديد يشمل روسيا. ونتيجة ذلك، استمر منطق الحرب الباردة أميركياً. والحلف، الذي ضم 16عضواً في ذروة الحرب الباردة، أصبح يضم 30 دولة.

لكنّ هذا السياق الطويل اتَّخذ انعطافات مهمة في الأعوام الأخيرة. حدود الناتو باتت تغازل جورجيا وأوكرانيا. وبالرغم من انفتاح موسكو على الحوار مع كييف، فإن الرئيس الأوكراني، فولوديمير زيلينسكي، اتَّخذ خطوات تشي بخيار استراتيجي، يقترب على نحو لصيق من الغرب، ويعلن ما يشبه حالة العداء المتصاعدة مع روسيا، بحيث تتحول أوكرانيا، بصورة متدرجة، إلى جارٍ مستنزِف وخَطِر.

بناءً على كل ذلك، يمكن الحديث عن الموقف الروسي في هذه اللحظة، والذي ينطلق في إطار الأزمة الأوكرانية من 3 محدِّدات رئيسة:

أولا:ـ خطاب بوتين الافتتاحي، خلال اجتماع مجلس الأمن الروسي، في أيار/مايو 2021، والذي أشار فيه إلى أن أوكرانيا تتحول “ببطء، لكن بثبات، إلى نقيض معادٍ لروسيا”. 

ثانيا:ـ  كلمة بوتين خلال الاجتماع الموسَّع لمجلس وزارة الخارجية الروسية في الـ 18 من تشرين الثاني/ نوفمبر 2021، والذي أكد فيه أنه لا يؤمن بالضمانات الأمنية الأميركية، وأن واشنطن تنسحب ببساطة من المعاهدات مع تفسير، أو من دونه.

ثالثا:ـ المقال الشديد اللهجة للرئيس السابق دميتري ميدفيديف، في صحيفة “كومرسانت”، في تشرين الأول/ أكتوبر 2021، والذي وصف فيه القيادة الأوكرانية بأنها “تابعة”، وأن إجراء مزيد من المحادثات مع كييف لا طائل فيه.

وفقاً للمحدِّدات السابقة، يمكن تلخيص الموقف الروسي بالقول إن موسكو تعتبر الحد من المخاطر التي تشكّلها أوكرانيا بوابة لمراجعة النظام الأمني في أوروبا في فترة ما بعد الحرب الباردة. وفي هذا السياق، لم تعد روسيا تقبل المسار الذي تتخذه كييف في إطار تحولها التدريجي إلى دولة معادية، بالتوازي مع عدم الثقة الروسية بالالتزام الأميركي بشأن أي إطار دبلوماسي لحل الأزمة.

وانطلاقاً من هذا الموقف، وبالنظر إلى المعطيات التي قدّمها بوتين في خطابه الأخير، يمكن تقييم مآلات الأزمة الحالية، والتي تتراوح سيناريوهاتها بين أقصى التصعيد وأقصى التسوية، أو المراوحة بينهما.

استمرار التوتّر الحادّ

كثيرة هي الحسابات لدى جميع الأطراف: تُهدَّد روسيا بعقوبات قصوى، يقلِّل بوتين أهميتَها، وهو الذي استبق خطواته بتعزيز محور بكين – موسكو، بينما ترفض الولايات المتحدة الاستجابة للمطالب الروسية، في موازاة بحثها عن بدائل في كل الاتِّجاهات من أجل ضمان الحشد الأوروبي. 

تفرض هذه المراوحة احتمال امتداد الأزمة من دون تحرّك، لكن ذلك يبدو مستنزِفاً للجميع، بينما تراقب موسكو كمية الحركة عند الجانب الآخر من الحدود، والتي يمكن أن تصل إلى مرحلة يتسلّح فيها نهج كييف العدواني بأسلحة استراتيجية، ويرفع سقف التفاوض الغربي مع روسيا.

انفراج الأزمة (تسوية موقتة أَم بعيدة المدى)

بالنسبة إلى روسيا، لم تعد التهدئة هدفاً. يبحث بوتين عن حل نهائي للمشكلة الأوكرانية، وهو يدرك تماماً أن أي اتفاق لا يتضمن الضمانات المطلوبة يعني تأجيلاً للأزمة وإعادة تفجُّرها، وفق معطيات جديدة، يصبح معها الحل أكثر تكلفة.

في السياق، يدرك الرئيس الروسي أيضاً أنه لا يمكن ضمان التزام واشنطن الاتفاقيات البعيدة المدى، وأن أياً من الهيئات التشريعية في الولايات المتحدة أو أوروبا لن تمرر اتفاقية ملزمة قانونياً مع روسيا، ناهيك بالقناعة الروسية بانعدام الثقة بقيادات كييف، حتى المستقبليين منهم.

سيناريو التصعيد العسكري (واسع أَم محدود)

تريد موسكو إنهاء التهديد الذي يشكّله الناتو عبر كييف. ومن خلال أوكرانيا تعمل روسيا على إحداث انفصال زمني عن تسعينيات القرن العشرين، تدفن من خلاله نظام ما بعد الحرب الباردة، في كل تفاصيله. 

وبعد الاعتراف باستقلال دونيتسك ولوغانسك، أصبح الحديث عن الخيار العسكري احتمالاً معقولاً بالنسبة إلى كثيرين، على أن ذلك يبقى نسبياً لناحية اتساعه ومداه ونوعيته.

يطرح كثير من الخبراء خيارات متعددة بشأن ماهية التصعيد؛ بعبارة أدق: مستويات متعددة من القوة التي يمكن لموسكو أن توظّفها. ويربط هؤلاء هذه المستويات بمستوى الأهداف الروسية: “كلما كان الهدف أكثر طموحاً، زادت القوة اللازمة لتغيير حسابات كييف وحلف الناتو للتكاليف والفوائد”.

بالحديث عن الأهداف، يمكن القول، ختاماً، إن اللحظة الأوكرانية تمثل فرصة في إعادة كتابة تاريخ ما بعد الحرب الباردة. تغادر روسيا الركام السوفياتي، ويعلن بوتين رسمياً نهاية “لحظة الأحادية القطبية”، والتي احتفل بها تشارلز كراوثامر في “الواشنطن بوست” عام 1990، معتبراً أن “الشرق استقال من اللعبة”.

وفقاً لفيونا هيل، مسؤولة الشؤون الروسية السابقة في الاستخبارات الأميركية، فإن ما يسعى إليه بوتين هو أن “تشعر الولايات المتحدة بمرارة الدواء الذي تجرَّعته روسيا خلال حقبة التسعينيات، فواشنطن ضعيفة بشدة في الجبهة الداخلية، وفي موقف متراجع في الخارج. إنه يعتقد أيضاً أن حلف الناتو ليس أكثر من امتداد للولايات المتحدة. لذا، عندما يتعلق الأمر بالحلف، تكون كل تحركات موسكو موجهة نحو واشنطن”.

إن الآراء المذكورة في هذه المقالة لا تعبّر بالضرورة عن رأي الميادين وإنما تعبّر عن رأي صاحبها حصراً

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Putin: US Can’t be Trusted to Honor its Promises

Dec 21 2021

By Staff, Agencies 

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that hopes for a deal with Washington to limit NATO expansion in Eastern Europe are slim, arguing that even a signed agreement could be torn up by the American side at a moment’s notice.

In a speech to Moscow’s senior military officers on Tuesday, Putin said he no longer viewed the West as a dependable partner. Russia has been seeking written assurances about the presence of US troops and hardware near its borders, he said, but even those assurances could not be depended on.

“We need long-term legally binding guarantees. But you and I know them well. And that is something that cannot be trusted,” Putin went on, noting that the US “easily withdraws from international treaties that it becomes uninterested in,” apparently referencing Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. The accord, inked between the USSR and US in 1972, intended to limit both sides’ missile defense capabilities. 

“You and I both know very well: under various pretexts, including the purpose of ensuring their own security, that they act thousands of kilometers away from their national territory,” he said. “When international law and the UN Charter interfere, they declare it all obsolete and unnecessary.”

The Russian president added that he considered NATO’s further expansion into Eastern Europe a consequence of the “euphoria” that stemmed from the West’s apparent victory in the Cold War and the result of a misanalysis. He also expressed his confusion at the US-led military bloc’s encroachment on his country’s borders despite the friendly relations between Moscow and the West at that time.

Putin stressed that Russia was ready to take both military and technical measures as a response to what it perceived as the unfriendly steps taken by Washington, insisting that it was Moscow’s right to do so.

His remarks come shortly after Moscow issued two documents, one addressed to NATO and the other to US officials, requesting a range of guarantees it said were aimed at boosting the security of all parties.

The proposals focus on the movement of military personnel and hardware, and include the requirement that Ukraine’s long-held requests to become a member of the bloc would not be granted. A separate document calls for current NATO members to desist from any military activity on Kiev’s territory, as well as in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia.

In the draft agreement sent to Washington, Moscow requested that officials make a firm commitment to ruling out the enlargement of the bloc to include any other former Soviet republics. Speaking via video link earlier in December, Putin told his US counterpart, President Joe Biden, that Russia was “seriously interested” in getting “reliable and firm legal guarantees” that would prohibit NATO’s expansion further eastwards, as well as the deployment of “offensive-strike weapons systems” nearby.

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‘Media Bears a Responsibility’ – Protesters Demand Justice for Survivors amid Maxwell Trial

December 08th, 2021

By Dan Cohen

Source

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Thurghood Marshall Courthouse in New York City, where Ghislaine Maxwell is on trial for her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long sex trafficking operation invovling numerous elite figures. Dan Cohen reports from the demonstration.

NEW YORK – On December 4, protesters and survivors of sex trafficking gathered outside the Thurghood Marshall Courthouse in New York City to demand justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, whose trial is ongoing.

“Epstein and Maxwell trafficked children for 25 years and Maxwell is only charged with one count of child trafficking,” investigative journalist Nick Bryant told the crowd.

“Testimonies indicate that Epstein demanded sexual acts from women and girls up to three times a day,” explained Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking In Women, adding:

If true, that would be 1,032 acts of sexual violence a year. And with at least 3 decades of Epestin’s reported patterns of sexual abuse, that is over 32,000 instances of rape and sexual assault by Epstein alone. And 30, 40 years later, there are four survivors in that courtroom that are accusing Maxwell of pimping. Four!”

While the legal system has leveled a mere six charges against Maxwell, mass media from Google and Wikipedia to television networks uniformly describe her as a “socialite.”

Both Google and Wikipedia characterize Maxwell as a “socialite”

It’s a stark contrast to the media treatment of Alisha Owen – a survivor of a similar pedophilia ring involving powerful businessmen, political and intelligences figures – who spoke at the rally.

“I am no longer going to just be a survivor. I am going to be a warrior,” she told the cheering crowd. “On the front page of the Omaha World Herald, they called me short, fat and ugly. ‘This couldn’t possibly happen to her, she’s short, fat and ugly….’ It was so brutal. So I think the media bears a responsibility,” Owen remarked to MintPress News.

On top of being smeared by her local newspaper, Owen says she was pressured by the FBI to recant her testimony. “Between 50 and 100 times, the FBI was, ‘You’re gonna change. You know, you’re gonna recant. You’re gonna say you’re a liar…’ The FBI told me, ‘You’re gonna be an old woman.’ I was supposed to be in [for] 250 years.”

But no outlet has given such an explicit display of sympathy as Bloomberg News, which asked if Ghislaine Maxwell is a victim in the affair.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial is set to be one of the biggest of the #MeToo era. But the jury may have to grapple with a unique question: is Maxwell herself a victim? https://t.co/vPRayRUB43

— Bloomberg (@business) November 29, 2021

It’s no surprise, given that the owner of the outlet, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is tied to Maxwell and Epstein. Photos from 2013 show Bloomberg and Maxwell together:

Another photo of Ghislaine Maxwell with vertically challenged Democrat/Independent former Mayor of NYC Michael Bloomberg pic.twitter.com/wLJ0viEQHY

— Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Updates (@MaxwellTrial) November 27, 2021

And Epstein’s infamous Little Black Book contains five different phone numbers for Bloomberg.

Also curiously missing from most mainstream reporting on Epstein and Maxwell are questions about their ties to U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

Jeffrey Epstein was an FBI informant, and former Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta, who in 2008 was the U.S. attorney in Miami, cut a plea deal with Epstein after he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” Ghislaine Maxwell’s late father, Robert Maxwell, is reported to have been a Mossad operative.

What became of the Epstein dirt?

With Epstein dead in what many suspect was a covered-up murder, and Maxwell facing only a handful of charges, the elite figures who visited Epstein’s mansions – from Bill Clinton and Donald Trump to Bill Gates and Ehud Barak – are not under investigation. As journalist Chris Hedges explained:

The videos that Epstein apparently collected of his guests engaged in sexual escapades with teenage and underage girls from the cameras he had installed in his opulent residences and his private island have mystersously disappeared, most probably into the crucial hole of the FBI along with other evidence.”

With the system that allowed Epstein and Maxwell to commit their crimes intact, the protesters vow to carry on their struggle for justice.

The Pope Visited Iraqi Christians, Victims of U.S. Foreign Policy “ذا ناشونال انترست”: البابا زار المسيحيين العراقيين ضحايا السياسة الأميركية

Reckless decisions to invade and nation build in other countries leads to more harm than good.

March 8, 2021

 by Bonnie Kristian

Pope Francis just wrapped up a trip to Iraq this week for the first-ever papal visit to the country, a trip the Vatican has described as “an act of love for this land, for its people and for its Christians.” While there, Francis celebrated Mass in several cities and visited biblical locations like Nineveh and Ur. He also toured the remnants of Christian communities in one of the most ancient homes of the Christian faith.

This papal visit was meant to encourage Iraq’s few remaining Christians. It should also occasion solemn reflection in the United States, a country in which two in three people profess Christianity—and also the country whose misguided foreign policy contributed to the near eradication of Christianity in Iraq.

When the United States invaded Iraq eighteen years ago in March 2003, Christians accounted for 6 percent of the country’s population, numbering around 1.5 million. Christians in Iraq’s single largest sect, the Chaldean Church, still speak a variant of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. Saddam Hussein’s regime was hardly friendly to Christianity—Hussein was known to persecute religious minorities, Christians included, and he canceled a previous papal trip—but Christianity was generally tolerated, and Iraqi Christians worshipped in a continuous, 2,000-year-old tradition.

After the United States invaded and toppled Hussein, violence against Iraqi Christians increased as terrorism surged into the country. Prominent clergy members were murdered. Churches were bombed. Christian worship became a life-endangering choice. “[The men of my congregation] are mainly killed. Some are kidnapped. Some are killed. In the last six months things have gotten particularly bad for the Christians. Here in this church, all of my leadership were originally taken and killed,” said Rev. Canon Andrew White, an Anglican vicar in Baghdad, in 2007. “All dead. But we never got their bodies back. This is one of the problems. I regularly do funerals here but it’s not easy to get the bodies.”

White told CBS the plight of Iraqi Christians was “clearly worse” after the U.S.-forced regime than before it. “There’s no comparison between Iraq now and then,” he said. “Things are the most difficult they have ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. [Iraqi Christians have] never known it like now.”

Conditions have only worsened in the fourteen years since. Some Christians left Iraq to avoid martyrdom or forced conversion. Some were robbed or exiled. The Islamic State, which grew in the power vacuum left by Hussein’s ouster, targeted Iraqi Christians for genocide. ISIS fighters burned churches, ancient texts, statues, and relics. They razed a sixth-century monastery.

“Our tormentors confiscated our present while seeking to wipe out our history and destroy our future,” said Rt. Rev. Bashar Warda, archbishop of Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, in 2019. “Tens of thousands of Christians have nothing to show for their life’s work, for generations of work, in places where their families have lived, maybe, for thousands of years.”

Today, only about 250,000 Christians remain in Iraq. The rest have died or fled the violence and chaos disproportionately unleashed against them.

That ongoing violence and chaos didn’t emerge from thin air. It should go without saying that the Hussein regime was a cruel and tyrannical government which did not deserve power. It should equally go without saying that the Islamic State and other groups persecuting Iraqi Christians bear responsibility for those abuses.

But Al Qaeda, the Islamic State’s precursor, didn’t organize in Iraq until after the U.S. invasion (contrary to the claims of the Bush administration when ginning up American enthusiasm for war). Its emergence and the later development of ISIS were directly connected to U.S.-orchestrated regime change. Iraq is in its present state—and the Iraqi church is in its present state—in no small part because Washington embarked on a needless invasion and occupation which most Americans now recognize was a mistake that didn’t make the United States safer. America recklessly plunged into an indefensible war, and Iraqi Christians have suffered enormously as a result.

The United States can’t undo that suffering now. The Iraqi church may never be restored. Many of these congregations may be permanently dispersed. Some breaks cannot be repaired.

As a Christian, I pray for our Iraqi siblings in Christ and mourn how my country contributed to the destruction of their communities. As an American, I hope my government will never repeat its mistakes in Iraq. Washington must learn from the havoc it has wreaked in the post-9/11 era and adopt a more peaceful and humble approach to foreign policy, no longer imagining we have the ability or prerogative to remake other countries by force. Our handiwork is shoddy. Our record is bloody. The Iraqis Pope Francis visited know it all too well.

Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities, contributing editor at The Week, and columnist at Christianity Today. Her writing has also appeared at CNN, NBC, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and Defense One, among other outlets. 

“ذا ناشونال انترست”: البابا زار المسيحيين العراقيين ضحايا السياسة الأميركية

الكاتب: بوني كريستيان

المصدر: ذا ناشونال انترست

12 آذار 15:06

إن القرارات المتهورة للغزو وبناء الدولة في البلدان الأخرى تؤدي إلى ضرر أكثر مما تنفع.

كتبت بوني كريستيان مقالة في مجلة “ذا ناشونال انترست” الأميركية تناولت فيها زيارة البابا فرنسيس إلى العراق، قالت فيها إن البابا فرنسيس قد أنهى رحلة إلى العراق هذا الأسبوع في أول زيارة بابوية على الإطلاق إلى البلاد، وهي رحلة وصفها الفاتيكان بأنها “فعل حب لهذه الأرض وشعبها ومسيحييها”. أثناء وجوده هناك، أقام فرنسيس القداس في مدن عدة وزار مواقع توراتية مثل نينوى وأور. كما قام بجولة في بقايا الطوائف المسيحية في أحد أقدم بيوت الإيمان المسيحي.

وأضافت: كانت هذه الزيارة البابوية تهدف إلى تشجيع المسيحيين القلائل المتبقين في العراق. كما ينبغي أن يكون مناسبة للتفكير الجاد في الولايات المتحدة، البلد الذي يدين فيه اثنان من كل ثلاثة أشخاص بالمسيحية – وكذلك البلد الذي ساهمت سياسته الخارجية المضللة في القضاء على المسيحية في العراق تقريباً.

عندما غزت الولايات المتحدة العراق قبل ثمانية عشر عاماَ في آذار / مارس 2003، كان المسيحيون يمثلون 6 في المئة من سكان البلاد، وبلغ عددهم حوالى 1.5 مليون نسمة. لا يزال المسيحيون في أكبر طائفة في العراق، الكنيسة الكلدانية، يتكلمون لغة مختلفة من الآرامية، وهي اللغة التي تحدث بها يسوع. لم يكن نظام صدام حسين صديقاً للمسيحية – كان من المعروف أن صدام حسين يضطهد الأقليات الدينية، بمن في ذلك المسيحيون، وألغى رحلة بابوية سابقة – ولكن تم التسامح مع المسيحية بشكل عام، وكان المسيحيون العراقيون يعبدون في تقليد مستمر عمره 2000 عام.

بعد غزو الولايات المتحدة البلاد وإطاحة صدام حسين، ازداد العنف ضد المسيحيين العراقيين مع انتشار الإرهاب في البلاد. قُتل رجال دين بارزون. قُصفت الكنائس. أصبحت العبادة المسيحية خياراً يهدد الحياة. 

وقال القس أندرو وايت، القس الأنغليكاني في بغداد في شهادة له عام 2007 إن “الرجال في رعيتي يُقتلون بشكل رئيسي. البعض مخطوف. قتل البعض. في الأشهر الستة الماضية ساءت الأمور بشكل خاص بالنسبة للمسيحيين. هنا في هذه الكنيسة، تم أخذ جميع قياداتي وقتلهم. لكننا لم نستعد أجسادهم أبداً. هذه واحدة من المشاكل. أقوم بجنازات هنا بانتظام ولكن ليس من السهل الحصول على الجثث”.

وقال وايت في شهادته لشبكة “سي بي إس إن” أنذاك إن محنة المسيحيين العراقيين كانت “أسوأ بشكل واضح” بعد النظام الذي فرضته الولايات المتحدة أكثر من ذي قبل. وقال “لا توجد مقارنة بين العراق بين الآن وأي وقت سابق. الأمور هي أصعب ما واجهه المسيحيون على الإطلاق. ربما من أي وقت مضى في التاريخ. [المسيحيون العراقيون] لم يعرفوا ذلك من قبل”.

لقد ساءت الظروف فقط في الأربعة عشر عاماً منذ 2007. ترك بعض المسيحيين العراق لتجنب الاستشهاد أو التحول القسري. تعرض البعض للسرقة أو النفي. استهدف تنظيم “داعش”، الذي نما في ظل فراغ السلطة الذي خلفه الإطاحة بصدام حسين، المسيحيين العراقيين بهدف الإبادة الجماعية. أحرق مقاتلو “داعش” الكنائس والنصوص القديمة والتماثيل والآثار. دمروا ديراً يعود إلى القرن السادس.

وقال لقس بشار وردة، رئيس أساقفة أربيل في كردستان العراق، في عام 2019: “لقد صادر جلادونا حاضرنا بينما كانوا يسعون إلى محو تاريخنا وتدمير مستقبلنا. إن عشرات الآلاف من المسيحيين ليس لديهم ما يظهرونه في أعمالهم الحياتية، على مدى أجيال من العمل، في الأماكن التي عاشت فيها عائلاتهم، ربما، لآلاف السنين”.

وقالت الكاتبة: اليوم، لا يزال هناك حوالى 250000 مسيحي فقط في العراق. مات الباقون أو فروا من أعمال العنف والفوضى التي اندلعت ضدهم بشكل غير متناسب.

وأضافت أن العنف والفوضى المستمرة لم يأتيا من فراغ. وغني عن البيان أن نظام صدام حسين كان حكومة قاسية ومستبدة لا تستحق السلطة. كما أن “داعش” والجماعات الأخرى التي تضطهد مسيحيي العراق تتحمل المسؤولية عن تلك الانتهاكات.

لكن تنظيم “القاعدة”، سلف “داعش”، لم يتم تنظيمه في العراق إلا بعد الغزو الأميركي (على عكس مزاعم إدارة الرئيس جورج بوش الإبن عندما استقطبت الحماس الأميركي للحرب). كان ظهور “القاعدة” وتطوره اللاحق إلى “داعش” مرتبطين بشكل مباشر بتغيير النظام الذي دبّرته الولايات المتحدة. 

ورأت الكاتبة أن العراق في حالته الحالية – والكنيسة العراقية في حالتها الحالية – في جزء لا يستهان به سببه أن واشنطن شرعت في غزو واحتلال لا داعٍ لهما يدرك معظم الأميركيين الآن أنهما خطأ لم يجعلا الولايات المتحدة أكثر أماناً. غرقت أميركا بتهور في حرب لا يمكن الدفاع عنها، وعانى المسيحيون العراقيون نتيجة لذلك.

وقالت: لا تستطيع الولايات المتحدة التراجع عن تلك المعاناة الآن. الكنيسة العراقية قد لا يتم ترميمها أبداً. قد يكون العديد من هذه التجمعات مشتتة بشكل دائم. لا يمكن إصلاح بعض الكسور.

وختمت الكاتبة بالقول: كمسيحية، أصلي من أجل إخوتنا العراقيين في المسيح ونحزن على مساهمة بلدي في تدمير مجتمعاتهم. كأميركية، أتمنى ألا تكرر حكومتي أخطائها في العراق. يجب أن تتعلم واشنطن من الفوضى التي أحدثتها في حقبة ما بعد 11 أيلول / سبتمبر 2001 وأن تتبنى نهجاً  أكثر سلمية وتواضعاً للسياسة الخارجية، ولم نعد نتخيل أن لدينا القدرة أو الامتياز لإعادة تشكيل دول أخرى بالقوة. خطتنا كانت رديئة. سجلنا كان دموياً. إن العراقيين الذين زارهم البابا فرنسيس يعرفون ذلك جيداً.

نقله إلى العربية بتصرف: هيثم مزاحم

Wherefore Art Thou Ghislaine Maxwell?

By Philip Giraldi

Source

It is now going on a year and a half since “financier” and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein died, allegedly by hanging himself in a New York City prison. Since that time it has surfaced that there were a number of “administrative” errors in the jail, meaning that Epstein was not being observed or on suicide watch even though he had reportedly attempted to kill himself previously. The suspicion that Epstein was working for Israel’s external intelligence agency Mossad or for its military intelligence counterpart also seemed confirmed through both Israeli and American sources. A recent book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales written by Ari Ben-Menashe the former Israeli intelligence officer who actually ran the Epstein operation, described inter alia how Epstein was blackmailing prominent politicians on behalf of Israeli intelligence. Epstein had been working directly for the Israeli government since the 1980’s and his operation, which was funded by Israel and also by prominent American Jews, was a classic “honey-trap” which used underage girls as bait to attract well-known politicians from around the world, a list that included Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton. The politicians would be photographed and video recorded when they were in bed with the girls. Afterwards, they would be approached and asked to do favors for Israel.

It doesn’t take much to pull what is already known together and ask the question “Who among the celebrities and top-level politicians that Epstein cultivated were actually Israeli spies?” And of course there is a subplot. Assuming that Epstein was in fact involved in recruiting and/or running high level American agents in an “influence operation” that may have involved blackmail it is possible to come to the conclusion that he was killed in prison and that the suicide story was just a convenient cover-up. The Epstein case remains “open” and under investigation though it doesn’t seem that anything is actually happening, the sure sign that someone powerful in the Establishment is making sure that nothing incriminating surfaces. Indeed, there already exists some evidence that Epstein was being protected when he was convicted in Florida of sex crimes in 2008 and was given a sentence that was little more than a slap on the wrist. After the fact, the U.S. Attorney for Miami Alexander Acosta involved in the case reported that the arrest and sentencing were above his pay grade, that he had been told that Epstein “’belonged to intelligence’, and to leave it alone” a comment that apparently has never been pursued by investigators.

That the Epstein investigation appears to be in reverse gear suggests that one or more powerful Americans are still not implicated in the case but are concerned that that might change, but there remains an accessory to what went on at the Epstein mansion in Manhattan and on his private island in the Caribbean. That would be Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently in prison in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and will be tried in July. Like the Epstein story in general, she has largely dropped off the media screen and one has to wonder what “get out of jail free” card she might be holding.

It has long been assumed that Epstein video recorded the sexual encounters with the underage girls that he used in his intelligence activity to blackmail prominent politicians among others. It has been suspected that Ghislaine has at least some of those tapes hidden in a secret location and may be using them to cut a deal with investigators and prosecutors. It now appears that she briefly discussed the tapes with CBS News 60 Minutes producer Ira Rosen, also making clear that there were tapes of both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. The conversation took place in 2016 and she reportedly told Rosen that, given Trump’s involvement in the upcoming election, she would not release any information derived from the tapes relating to Clinton until after the election and she would only do so while also exposing Trump. Up until now, she has done neither.

It has long been known that Epstein knew both the ex-and future presidents, though both have denied knowing the sex offender well for obvious reasons. Clinton, for example, flew on Epstein’s Lolita Express private 727 at least 26 times and his presence at Epstein’s island refuge has also been well documented. Trump clearly knew Epstein but has denied having any contact with him after his registration as a sex offender in 2008.

Ghislaine, for her part, was allegedly recruited young girls for Epstein to exploit and was a partner in his activity, though she has denied any guilt. Numerous victims say otherwise. Her lawyers have tried a number of ploys to free her, including claims that she had been abused by prison staff and that the jury being selected to try her will be “too white.” Her brother Ian claimed last week that she is enduring “brutal and degrading treatment” in prison with four guards watching her at all times. He added that she has lost 20 pounds and “ability to concentrate.”

Ghislaine also offered to post a $28.5 million bail or a $5 million bond for home arrest in which she would wear an ankle monitor, but the judge decided that given her extensive resources she constitutes a considerable flight risk even if she turns in her American, British and French passports. She would also be able to flee to Israel based on her father Robert’s religion and service to that country and Israel does not normally extradite.

The most interesting aspect of the arrest, imprisonment and trial of Ghislaine Maxwell is what it does not do. She basically is being tried on whether it can be confirmed that she was a “pimp” for Jeffrey Epstein. Her father was an Israeli intelligence asset and it is believed that he made the connection between Epstein and the Jewish state’s military intelligence. But no one in that New York court room in July will be asking that. Nor will there be any revelations about Epstein’s “intelligence connection” nor of the possibility that the Israelis had their hooks in both a former and a future American president. None of that will be on the table and meanwhile Ghislaine might have those possibly incriminating tapes squirreled away somewhere. That is the really important stuff that I would like to have the answers to. The fact that the answers are not forthcoming sounds a bit like a cover-up, doesn’t it?

With “Biden” in the White House, the Kremlin now needs to change gear

ٍSource • JANUARY 27, 2021

First, a clarification. When I speak of “Biden” I don’t mean the fungus (to use Tom Luongo’s apt expression) which was recently planted in the White House, I am referring to the “collective Biden” which I defined here https://thesaker.is/terminology/ . With this caveat, now let’s see why Russia might want to change gears in 2021.

First, let’s begin by the basics:

Russians often say that US politicians change, but US policies don’t. There is much truth to that, we saw that very clearly with Obama and Trump: both promised sweeping changes and both pretty much continued the policies of their predecessors, at least on the foreign policy front. In a way, you could argue that this is normal and even desirable. A shill for the regime would say something along the lines that “well, that is normal, US national security priorities don’t change with each administration, so all this proves is that no matter what any candidate promises during his campaign, once in office he/she becomes aware of the hard realities of this words and then act on it just like their predecessors did“. This argument is deeply flawed, however, because it completely ignores the will of the US people (who, let’s not forget that, voted for change every time they got a chance to, be it with Obama or with Trump) and it assumes that only those “in the know” realize and know what they have to do. This kind of “logic” is typical for the elitism of the US ruling classes.

It also ignores the fact that US Presidents are really puppets, figureheads, even if during their campaign they pretend otherwise. As for the elections, every four years in the US, they are nothing but a grand brainwashing show whose sole purpose is to give the illusion of people power. They could have presidential elections every 2 years, or even every year, none of that would change the fact that the US is a plutocratic dictatorship with much less people power than any other state in the collective West.

In fact, the argument above is just a tiny fig leaf trying to conceal the undeniable fact that the US are not ruled by a person, but are ruled by a class, in the Marxist sense of this world. Personally, I call this ruling class the “US Nomenklatura“. And while both Obama and Trump pretended to want real change, they both lost that chance (assuming they ever wanted this is the first place, which I doubt) when they did not do what Putin did when he came to office: crush the Russian oligarchs as a class (some fled abroad, some died, some lost it all, and some agreed to play by Putin’s new rules). Obama, being the vapid and spineless car salesman that he, is probably never even contemplated any real move against the US Nomenklatura. As for Trump, being the pompous narcissist that he is, he might have even entertained some thoughts of showing “who is boss”, but that lasted only 1 month, until the US Nomenklatura forced Trump to fire Flynn (after that, it was all freefall…).

Anyway, the point is that we should not expect immense, sweeping changes from any administration. Since the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, we should assume that mostly we will get “more of the same, maybe even worse”. What am I talking about here? Here is a (partial) list of these “more of the sames”:

1. Further vilification of Russia, Russians and everything Russian by the entire western media (which is even less diverse and more uniformly lying than anything Goebbels or Suslov could ever had dreamed up!). You can think of it as “full spectrum russophobia”.
2. Even more “sanctions” against all Russian interests (economic, political, etc.) worldwide. The US sees this as a pure zero-sum game, any loss by Russia, no matter how marginal and puny is a victory for the AngloZionist Empire.
3. A return to Obama-era style military missile and air strikes. Probably not on Russian targets (yes, Hillary advocated that, but now this would be much more dangerous than 5 years ago), but definitely on Russian allies like Syria (including attacks on Iranian and Venezuelan vessels on the high seas).
4. A return to Obama-era petty harassment of Russian diplomats and citizens. The goal here is not to achieve anything meaningful, but rather it is to show that “Russia is weak and cannot prevent us from treating her like a 3rd rate power”. There is nothing the US could do which would really hurt Russia, so Uncle Shmuel will turn his rage on those few diplomats and even civilians it can kidnap, jail, expel, sanction, extort, threaten etc.
5. Even more sabre-rattling all along the Russian borders. I fully expect that US forces will be deployed in the Baltic statelets on a permanent basis (not on a rotation basis). USAF aircraft and USN ships will continue to harass Russian defenses under the pretext of “innocent passage”, “freedom of navigation” and the like.
6. Since the Biden Admin is a “who’s who” of Jewish and Ukrainian extremists (some combo!), and since Biden is personally implicated in the Ukraine (along with Hunter), we can also expect a rapid degradation of the political situation in the Ukraine and even more provocations than under Trump. As they say, these folks will “fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian”.

None of that will have any direct impact on Russia (for a detailed discussion, see here). However, this does not mean that Russia should continue to pretend like this is “business as usual” and take blow after blow after blow. Why? For a number of reasons:

1. There is plenty of evidence that the Russian people are getting fed-up with what they see is a rather weak, if not lame, attitude of Russian officials, especially against the constant flow of petty harassment measures against Russian interests. Folks in the West are never told this (after all, informing is not the mission of the corporate media), but the “patriotic” opposition to the Kremlin is much more dangerous than the hopelessly discredited pro-western “liberal” one (more about that below). The calls for a much more energetic “push-back” are now regularly heard, including from rather mainstream politicians.
2. There is also plenty of evidence that the “Biden gang” will want not only to fully resume Obama-era policies towards the Ukraine (trigger more violent incidents & support for the Ukie Nazis) but that these policies will now also be extended towards Belarus. The fact that these policies are unlikely to succeed does not mean that Russia’s best response to them is to maintain a “wait and see” position. It is pretty self-evident that any form of restraint by Russia is immediately explained away as “weakness” by the western propaganda machine. Any more such “restraint” will only make things more dangerous and more difficult for Russia and Putin personally. In other words, at this point in time, “restraint” only invites more aggression.
3. Furthermore, 2021 is an election (Parliament) year in Russia. Now, irrespective of anything Russia does, no matter how transparent or un-falsifiable Russian elections are, the West will use that opportunity to try to get violent riots in the streets of Russia before the elections and, after the election, the West will declare that the Russian elections were “undemocratic” and go on about “supporting the just democratic aspirations of the Russian people” (especially Russian homosexuals, of course!) and the like.
4. Finally, it is pretty clear that the Biden Cabinet brings together the crème de la crème of Zionist russophobes from the US deep state. These people are characterized by the following and very dangerous characteristics: narcissistic and messianic racist self-love, a “God ordained” racist hatred for all of mankind, a personal/family history of hatred for Russia, deep involvement in many Ukie corruption schemes, an almost total failure to understand that consequences and nature of war combined with a delusional belief in invulnerability and impunity (while the former is false, the latter has been true, at least so far), etc. This is a very dangerous combination, to say the least!

The truth is that pseudo-liberals are amongst the most dangerous creatures out there. Yes, their current “geopolitical toolkit” (the US and the AngloZionist Empire) is weak, but that does not mean that Russia (or the rest of the world) can simply ignore these dangerous psychopaths.

The good (or even excellent!) news is that Trump gave Russia four more years to prepare for what is coming next, and that the Russia+China tandem is in much better shape today than it was 4 years ago. For example, the Russian internal security situation is now the best ever, as witnessed to by the fact that the Russian federal “wanted list” does not include a single Chechen national; the self-styled “last Emir of the Caucasus”, Aslan Byutukayev, was killed on January 20th, which made it possible for Ramzan Kadyrov to “declare a total victory over terrorism” in Russia). In plain English this means that every single Chechen who has ever committed an act of terrorism in Russia has been identified and is now either dead (most of them) or jailed (only a few). Despite these achievements, I am not sure sure about the “total victory over terrorism” because there are still violent groups in several regions Russia. Besides, if the “Axis of Kindness” (US/Israel/KSA, sometimes joined by the country many Russians think of as “Puny Britain”) special services decide to reignite an insurgency in Russia, they might have at least some success, especially initially. The FSB/FSO better not let their guard down, especially in Dagestan, the Far East, Crimea and the Moscow region!

In purely military terms, Russia is completely “out of reach” for the United States armed forces, even with the EU/NATO thrown in. I have written a lot about that, and I won’t repeat any of this here. Suffice to say that Russia now has the best armed forces she has had in decades while the US has an immense, truly grotesquely bloated, military, but not one that can get anything done other than killing (and, at that, mostly civilians). Even if we look just at nuclear strategic forces of Russia they are at least a decade, if not more, ahead of the West. This is the first time since WWII that Russia is that powerful, and now she can reap the many advantages of being militarily secure.

All this being said, I have personally always defended what I called the Kremlin’s “restraint” for the simple reason that when I look at the aggregate power (not just military!) of Russia and the AngloZionist Empire I still see the latter as much stronger. However, I have do admit that the trend of this relationship is a positive one, that is to say that over the past decade or so Russia has become much, much, stronger while the US and the Empire have become much, much, weaker. Under Biden, this trend will only accelerate.

The time has now come for Russia to adapt her own policies to this new reality.

And the very first thing the Kremlin ought to change is its language, its rhetoric. Yes, “restraint” is good, especially when escalation into a full-scale war is amongst the possible outcomes of any crisis, but “restraint” cannot be a goal in itself. For example, while the US+NATO does, objectively, represent a major anti-Russian threat (if only because they are weak and can only count their on nukes to protect them!). Likewise, the ugly “Banderastan” which the Ukronazis turned the good old Ukraine into is not a threat to Russia whatsoever. So why not seriously turn down a few economic screws to make the Ukronazis feel that their never ending stream of insults and (empty) threats can have consequences?

Next, the Kremlin needs to mix strong words with strong actions!

Just this Sunday, January, the 24th, the US Embassy in Moscow was involved in openly coordinating the (small, but violent and illegal!) riots in Moscow, just the same way the NEXTA Telegram channel has done in Belarus. So what did the Kremlin do in response? The Russian Foreign Ministry did order US diplomats to the MID building and… … gave them a note of firm protest.

And that’s it?!

I don’t think anybody in the US Embassy in Moscow gives a damn about Russian protests. If anything, US “diplomats” probably get a good laugh each time they get such protests. And everybody knows that, including the Russian diplomats. So why do they hold to such a lame “communications line”?

The Russian Navy recently gave a very good example of how a good word can have much more effect when backed with some good action: remember when (of all names!) the USS John McCain recently breached the Russian maritime border? The Russian Navy did tell the McCain to withdraw, but it added that the Russian large antisubmarine ship (a “destroyer” in western terminology) Admiral Vinogradov would “ram” the McCain if his warnings were not heeded. Needless to say, the McCain got out really fast (the USN already has experienced this kind of situation in the past, see here). The problem with ramming, at least for the USN, is that you can hardly reply by opening up with your weapons, which would be truly suicidal inside Russian waters and near the (heavily fortified) Russian coastline. As for the Russians, they are “crazy” enough to do that, even when their ship is smaller (ask any US sailor who served in the US submarine force, they know!). The simple truth is that the Russian sailors “mean business” (the one of defending their motherland) whereas the US sailors, well, how shall I put it? They do very much want to “show the flag” and “defend principles”, but not if they might get seriously hurt. That’s just a fact. From the Russian point of view, joining the military means accepting that pain and death come with the territory. 1000 years of warfare have truly imprinted that on the Russian collective psyche.

By the way, a lot of US Americans love to repeat these famous words by General Patton: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country“. This is a neat aphorism, and it very much caters to a typically US view of warfare. It is also almost perfectly wrong, as any Russian, Iranian or Hezbollah fighter could tell you – that is not how you win wars. In fact, this is how you lose them. And this is why putative “dumb bastards” beat the crap out of US forces over and over again…

At the very least, it is high time to reduce the number of US officials in Russia: I am talking about diplomats, of course, but also the entire menagerie of “volunteers”, “NGOs” and, most definitely, US “journalists” accredited in Russia. Reducing their numbers will also make it easier for the FSB/FSO to keep an eye on the rest of them.

Next, I would also show a large number of EU “guests” to the door: after all, why keep them in this nightmarish Putin’s Mordor? Let’s send them back to the “freedom” they, apparently, care for so much (at least when in Russia; when in Paris, Berlin or Rotterdam – not so much).

Frankly, they EU rulers have gone completely insane. Now the EU is seriously considering cancelling the almost completed North Stream 2 over the Navalnyi nonsense! Sacrificing a multi-billion dollar project crucial to the EU economy over the fate of one particularly uninspiring and fake pseudo-dissident whose support in Russia is less than one percent (as shown by the miniscule crowds which violently rioted on is behalf). What the EU leaders fail to appreciate is that Russia needs NS2 much less than the EU does, as Russia’s main gas plans are fully focused on China. There is a good Russian expression about the kind of threats the EU makes: to “try to scare a hedgehog with a naked bottom!”. The EU really needs to be placed on a suicide watch, imho.

Frankly, this entire western “fauna” has become accustomed to living in Russia while making a living hating on Russia. They mostly got away with it in the 80s, they totally got away with it in the 90s, and for the past twenty years the Kremlin has done precious little to change this. I think that the “message” (westerners love “messages”) from the Kremlin should be simple: living and working in Russia is not a right, it is a privilege. If you can’t behave, then you have overstayed your welcome. In the current context, the West has much more to lose from this kind of policy than Russia (especially since Russian diplomats were already expelled, and Russian consular buildings illegally closed).

Next, Russia needs to respond to the US zero-sum-game, but not by accepting such a logic for herself. The main problem with the zero-sum-game mindset is that it is extremely wasteful: the side engaging in it has to spent a lot of time and efforts trying to deny any victory, or even mildly positive development, to the other side. What Russia should do instead, is define a list of vulnerable and important targets/goals of the Empire, and then focus her resources and energy denying them to the US. Such a fully focused effort is much more efficient than the kind of “full spectrum pestering” the US typically engages in. The good news, at least for Russia, is that the US is both vulnerable and weak, economically, militarily, culturally, socially – you name it. As for the Empire, it has been dead for a while already: it simply ceased to operate as an empire a while ago already. Again, this reality is carefully hidden in what I call “Zone A“, but in Zone B everybody knows it, even if they pretend otherwise.

The perfect place for Russia to really make a difference would be Iran. Though the Iranians are extremely sophisticated players, both their diplomats and their military, they badly need Russian help, especially in such fields as early warning systems, targeting, over the horizon radars, air defenses (ground and air based), antisubmarine warfare, coastal defenses, etc. – you name it! Iran is, by far, the most important country in the Middle-East and Iran is therefore constantly under threat by the “Axis of Kindness”. Russia has not, so far, taken the strategic decision to give Iran the means to be safe, at least in part to be able to put pressure on Tehran when needed (Russian and Iranian goals in Syria are similar in some ways, but also distinct in others).

Finally, the Kremlin needs to become much more attuned to the arguments of the “patriotic opposition”. For one thing, many of the arguments of this patriotic opposition are correct, so listening to them is simply common sense. Second, some of these arguments are flawed, but they cannot be ignored: these arguments need counter-arguments. Simply assuming that the Russian people will always support the Kremlin no matter what is delusional and dangerous. Finally, some of these arguments are based on fallacies and only serve the interests of the US/EU/NATO block. The fact that some Russians sincerely repeat them is a dangerous sign of how susceptible some segments of the Russian society still are to US PSYOPs. For all these reasons, the Kremlin has to change its PR policies which are, frankly, becoming stale and sometimes even toxic.

Right now, there are three basic kind of opposition in Russia: the fake opposition in the Duma, which talks a lot, but basically supports the Kremlin, the non-systemic pro-US/EU opposition which probably speaks for about one percent of the Russian people, and the non-systemic “patriotic” opposition, which is also rather small, but which really needs to be represented in the Duma and become “part of the system of institutions” (as opposed to the current “one man show”) of Russia.

I am in no way suggesting that Russia should become confrontational or provocative. All that is needed is for Russia to be less “diplomatic” and much more forceful in the defense of her interests. That in turn means two things: Russian officials need to change their rather demure tone when dealing with western imperialists and, second, Russian officials needs to back their words with real, measurable, actions.

Conclusion: learn from your mistakes

Russian history is filled with cases when diplomats simply wasted the efforts and successes achieved by the Russian military. This is why the Russian military has a saying “the blood of some is spilled because of the incompetence of others” (another version: “some had to become heroes to undo that which cowards did“). Finally, if there is one thing which Russian history has shown beyond any doubt it is that the internal enemy is much, much more dangerous than the external one.

I have always maintained that the Empire and Russia have been at war since at least 2014. This is not the purely military WWIII, of course, but a war which is 80% economic, 15% informational and only 5% kinetic. This is, nonetheless, a total/existential war which will end with only one side standing, the other will vanish. For Russia, this is a war for the survival of the Russian civilizational realm, hardly a minor matter. Besides, this 80/15/5 percent war could quickly turn into a 0/0/100 kinetic one. Thus Russia needed to be very careful indeed. Now, roughly seven or eight years later, we can see that Russia has been winning, which is very good. But this war is far from over, such processes are very slow, and Russia simply cannot assume that “more of the same” from her will be enough to be victorious. All in all, the Russian policy towards the collective West has been both sound and very effective, but now the time has come for meaningful change. Should the Kremlin ignore these changing circumstances, then Russia might, yet again, be forced to solve with her military that which the diplomats failed to protect and preserve. God willing, Putin will heed the lessons taught by the history of Russia.

Biden’s Long History of Abusing Power

By Stephen Lendman

Source

January 20 was a day of mourning for countless numbers of people harmed by Biden that went on for nearly half a century in public office.

The same holds for misery he’ll inflict on countless more ahead —ordinary people exploited so privileged ones can benefit, including himself and family members.

He built a dishonable career on a foundation of shilling for powerful interests that included waging wars on humanity at home and abroad.

His record as US senator and vice president reflects virtually everything disturbing about dirty politics as usual in Washington.

It includes endless examples of breaching the rule of law and betraying the public trust.

In 2002, then-Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren slammed him, saying:

“His energetic work on behalf of the credit card companies has earned him the affection of the banking industry and protected him from any well-funded challengers for his Senate seat.”

Even the NYT criticized him in 2005 for “vot(ing) against a proposal to require credit card companies to provide more effective warnings to consumers about the consequences of paying only the minimum amount due each month.”

Throughout his public life, he backed predatory corporate interests and the military, industrial, security complex at the expense of peace, equity, justice and the rule of law — notions he always disdained.

He’s one of the ugliest ugly Americans in Washington — past and present, a figure to be despised, never trusted.

Along with his political record of shame, he was accused many times of acting inappropriately toward women and girls.

At least eight women accused him of inappropriate touching and/or violating their personal space — then refusing to apologize for his unacceptable behavior.

He was criticized for offensive remarks about the physical appearance of young girls when campaigning.

Former staffer in Biden’s Senate office Tara Reade accused him of inappropriate touching and more, saying the following:

He “used to put his hand on my shoulder and run his finger up my neck.”

In 1993, she accused him of pressing her up against a wall, kissing her neck, prying her legs open with his knees, and penetrating her digitally — a serious charge.

She filed a police report in Washington, accusing him of sexual assault.

She also filed a Senate complaint. Around half a dozen former Biden staffers said they were told about the assault incident.

Other women accused Biden of sexual assault and harassment.

Reade’s former neighbor in the 1990s Lynda LaCasse said Biden’s assault “happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it.”

Last May, Biden denied the accusation, claiming it “never happened.”

Around the same time, Reade called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, adding:

“(I)f Joe Biden takes” a polygraph test, so will she.

Describing the alleged incident, Reade said:

“He’s talking to me and his hands are everywhere and everything is happening very quickly.” 

“He was kissing me and he said, very low, ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ ”

“He said, ‘Come on, man. I heard you liked me.’ ”

When Biden entered the presidential race last year, eight women publicly accused him of sexual harassment, including  unwanted kissing, hugging and inappropriate touching.

Former Nevada state assemblywoman Lucy Flores earlier accused Biden of making her feel uncomfortable by inappropriate touching and kissing.

He’s “not just a hugger,” she said. He “very clearly was invading women’s spaces without their consent in a way that made them feel uncomfortable.”

“Does he potentially have the capacity to go beyond that? That’s the answer everyone is trying to get at.”

On inauguration day January 20, Reade commented on his ascension to power, saying the following:

Viewing the inauguration was “unspeakably hard to watch.”

“Coming forward about being sexually harassed and assaulted in 1993 when I was Joe Biden’s staffer was excruciating on so many levels.”

“Biden used his power and resources with certain media to erase me and silence me.”

“I stand in solidarity with all survivors coming up against such power.”

“I will not be silenced. Instead of talking about saving the country’s soul he should be held accountable for his actions.” 

“The hard part is I believe in many policies that will move forward as I am a progressive independent, but it is unspeakably hard to watch the man who assaulted me go to the most powerful position in the land.”

“I’m sorry that I’m politically inconvenient but my perpetrator was Joe Biden. And people need to deal with it.”

Separately, Reade tweeted:

“Today is yet again another difficult day for survivors of sexual violence.”

“While I’m thankful Trump was defeated, the idea of the man who assaulted me as our president is still terribly painful.” 

“I will be sharing resources for survivors today for #Inauguration2021.

“Instead of talking about saving the country’s soul he should be held accountable for his actions.” 

“The hard part is I believe in many policies that will move forward as I am a progressive independent, but it is unspeakably hard to watch the man who assaulted me go to the most powerful position in the land.”

Trump once bragged about being able to do whatever he wanted with women with remarks like:

“When you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Draw your own conclusions about the duo.

A Final Comment

Psychology Today earlier called sexual assault “any sexual activity that occurs without consent,” adding:

It’s “a pervasive problem. In America, one in three women and one in four men experience sexual violence in their lifetimes, according to the National Institutes of Health.”

“And those numbers are likely an underestimate due to the shame and fear that prevent many survivors from reporting abuse.”

“Sex and violence are closely linked,” notably by “dominant men forcing themselves on women.”

“(S)exual assault is more about power than…sex…motivation stem(ming) from the perpetrator’s need for dominance and control.”

Children and adolescents are affected like adults.

Biden is a political predator many times over, his long record of shame well documented.

Now in the nation’s highest office. 

He got there the old-fashioned way — by stealing it.

Despite What You Heard, There Was No Peaceful Transition

By Eleanor Goldfield

Source

A critical look at Biden’s first Executive Orders set against the backdrop of Operation Peaceful Transition in Washington, DC.

Anyone trying to find the edges of the U.S. Overton Window right now must feel like they’re tracing an amateur rendition of an early Picasso. After a summer spent chanting “defund the police,” self-identifying progressives applaud the pouring of some 25,000 troops and busloads of out-of-city law enforcement into the streets of Washington, DC. Those eager to cheer the departure of a racist, sexist, war-hawking elitist from the White House were quick to welcome a new racist, sexist, war-hawking elitist. Those who lambasted Trump for dragging more swamp creatures into the swamp rather than draining it are applauding Biden for his diverse cabinet appointments, ignoring the revolving door of corruption and oppression they represent. Those who (correctly) decried the Paris Climate Agreement for being flimsy and non-committal are celebrating Biden’s executive order to rejoin it.

Indeed, anyone applauding Biden’s first flicks of the wrist as President would do well to look beyond the window dressing. Of the 15 new executive orders that aren’t merely a light Trump-eraser, they herald the return of the classic Democratic practice of sprinkling progressive-tasting garnish around deep systemic problems. For example, Biden’s executive order to once again kill the Keystone XL pipeline project, a project that Obama had already killed (that Trump then revived) is at best a step sideways, not forwards. Biden has said outright that he has no interest in a Green New Deal, despite the fact that the watered-down version that bounced around Congress left gaping holes in truly addressing climate chaos. He has also ignored repeated calls to kill both Line 3 and the ill-fated Dakota Access Pipeline.

Meanwhile, the executive order to “advance racial equity” in the federal government grinds sharply against Biden and Harris’ own political histories while, much like Pelosi’s toothless Climate Crisis committee, it offers up no real action to address the issue at hand.

The same is true of Biden’s call to defend DACA, the Obama-era legislation that granted a renewable two-year stay-of-deportation for children who immigrated to the U.S. with their parents. As DACA recipient Ella Mendoza explained to me back in 2017, “DACA was flawed from the very beginning.” Mendoza described a carrot and stick program that demanded recipients sign admissions of illegal border crossings for momentary reprieves that could be overturned at any time. The convenient announcement of DACA around Obama’s re-election just highlighted for Mendoza that this was really about dismissing “Obama’s deportation of more than 2 million people” just in time for election day. “You can tell me it’s about children all you want, but you’re deporting our parents,” she said. In short, DACA wasn’t a dream come true. While people like Mendoza struggled to build a life under the gaze of the deporter-in-chief, Obama was only too glad to throw other children in cages, a practice many only found abhorrent when Trump did it years later. DACA isn’t comprehensive immigration reform – it never was. Establishment Democrats and their fans cooing over it like the return of a lost child doesn’t change that fact.

Looking ahead, many might feel a sense of relief that Biden at least takes the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, signing executive orders to mandate masks in federal buildings, to rejoin the World Health Organization and to address the financial free-fall impacting millions of Americans. However, if you look closely, you’ll see again that unfulfilling Democratic garnish sprinkled on deep systemic rot. The executive order to extend the CDC’s eviction and foreclosure moratorium until March 31 doesn’t address the loopholes in the original order that still allow for evictions. Furthermore, the moratorium does not cancel rent. Tenants will still be liable to pay for all missed payments once the moratorium ends, and landlords are still allowed to hike the rent during the unpaid months.

Likewise, the “pause” on student loan payments demonstrates yet again how little the Democrats are willing to help the people. The move carries over a pause which the Trump administration started while “asserting” that Biden will carry through on his campaign pledge to cancel $10,000 of student loans per borrower, noting however that it will take time as the cancellation has to go through Congress first. Great! So we’ve got a Trump leftover plus an empty promise to shave off $10k in student loans when the average debt sits at $32,731, and that’s not including accrued interest. Biden’s executive order is essentially a Post-It note ‘IOU’ with a smiley face scribbled on the back. It kicks the can over to Congress in the hopes we won’t realize that Biden could actually cancel all $1.7 trillion in student debt with a different (read: actually useful) executive order. He’s probably also hoping we’ll forget that back in 2005, Biden was one of 18 Democrats who voted excitedly for a bill that stripped student loan borrowers of bankruptcy protections, leading to a tripling in student loan debt over the next ten years. Oddly enough, Biden never voted to say, strip multi-million dollar corporations of their bankruptcy protections. If you’re a huge corporation, you can easily wriggle out of your debts to workers, communities and local governments. If you’re a destitute student, there’s no way out of your debt. Still, Biden could do it – he could lift the burden of an indebted future from millions, a move that even the likes of Business Insider agree would bolster the economy and in particular benefit communities of color and low-income households. Gee, sounds like that’d be a win-win in your quest to “advance racial equity” there Joe.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that Biden, the master-mind of the ’94 crime bill, has no interest in advancing racial equity. He’s never cared about the plight of people drowning in debt – or drowning in rising floodwaters – and he doesn’t care now. He has no intention of progressing or changing the direction of his political career. Indeed, he quite glibly announced to rich donors back in 2019 that “nothing will fundamentally change” when he takes the Oval Office. Based on his cabinet picks and his first orders as President, I think we should take him at his word.

The relief that Trump is gone is understandable. But don’t be lulled by the very conditions that gave rise to Trump’s presidency in the first place. To celebrate our so-called return to a democracy we’ve never had with a decency that is at best shallow, and at worst a conniving cover-up for crimes against humanity speaks of a belief in American exceptionalism that is neither warranted nor helpful. Underneath the progressive platitudes and unfulfilling garnish lie the same systemic rot, a rot that was perhaps most noticeable on Inauguration Day itself – when two worlds stood sharply demarcated by militarized checkpoints, and the revolving door of red and blue capitalist imperialism was almost literally visible.

Walking around DC on Inauguration Day, I felt like I was touring a vast military exhibition – which basically, I was. Military vehicles rolled down quiet neighborhood streets as if they’d gotten lost on their way to the frontlines. National Guardsmen with giant rifles and camo gear stood out like militantly sore thumbs against the backdrop of a local park. Operation Peaceful Transition (as I’ve come to call it) was in full swing, with all the irony of previous imperialist missions like Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the shadows of Biden and Harris’ gleeful photo-ops with the likes of George W. Bush, community members across DC were working tirelessly to address the effects of a city shut down, blocked off, and singularly concerned with providing the ruling class with a cushy Inauguration Day.

Credit | Eleanor Goldfield | Art Killing Apathy

Credit | Eleanor Goldfield | Art Killing Apathy

Credit | Eleanor Goldfield | Art Killing Apathy

Indeed, despite DC serving as the stage for this tragicomedy of political theater, a lot of locals weren’t focused on Joe Biden. Community members were busy raising funds and pooling resources for neighbors who were scared to leave their homes or go to work, fearing both fascist violence and the scourge of freshly deployed ICE and CBP officials (two sides of the same coin). Others were delivering groceries or hot meals to people who were understandably creeped out by the massive military and police presence in the city. Mutual aid groups set up 24-hour rolling shifts to address emergency requests and to share information about everything from checkpoints (potentially life-changing information depending on your immigration status) to local POC-owned restaurants to order food from.

Meanwhile, Biden stood at perhaps the most protected podium in the world, speaking of hope, unity, leadership, peace, and a brighter future. These are two worlds disconnected. We the people are literally barred from his world, and he has no interest in entering ours.

There is no such thing as a peaceful transition in a city with more troops than both Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no peaceful transition for the black and brown folks displaced in the fastest gentrifying city in the nation. There is no peaceful transition for a city with a higher maternal mortality rate than Syria.

There is no peaceful transition for a country with the largest military and surveillance system the world has ever seen. There is no peaceful transition for a country that represents 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated. There is no peaceful transition for a nation where slavery is still legalized, where millions have died due to lack of healthcare, housing and other basic human rights.

The revolving door of imperialist capitalist preservation turns again. But there is nothing peaceful about it. And the hope that flows from the twisted tongues of our politicians is not hope for the people. Still, that doesn’t mean that there is no hope. Indeed, quite the opposite. Our hope lies in recognizing and manifesting our power – in realizing that projects like KXL would never even have been canceled in the first place were it not for people’s collective, tireless and targeted actions.

Our hope lies in the roots – in these communities that bustle and build in the shadows of empire. It lies in the crowns of trees where tree-sitters block the way of pipelines. It lies in solidarity – in growing everything from garlic in community gardens to growing networks of interconnected local aid groups. It lies in direct action. As Direct Action & Climate Justice Organizer Alex Cohen notes, “Direct Action builds the new and stops the old. Direct Action brings hope in the darkest times. Direct Action builds community, creates assembly, fuels worth and empowerment, and builds people power. No matter how grave the time, it remains a tool available to us 24/7 and 365 days a year, on our own terms.”

It is this hope and these tactics that we must take into the Biden presidency – into every presidency.  Instead of gazing at the spires of empire through the Overton Window, fogged by false promises and twisted by hypocrisy, look closer to home. Don’t look up for liberation, look next door, down the street. These aren’t progressive platitudes but quite literally how we survive – how we fight, how we build – on our own terms in these grave times.

The Battle Of The Deep State: Psychological Warfare Turns Nasty

By Sonja Van Den Ende

Source

Capitol Hill is under siege for the online inauguration of Joe Biden. Is the deep state a conspiracy theory? No, it‘s there and it‘s visible, due to the coup d‘etat on Trump, the collapse of the Italian and Dutch governments, and many more events which are developing at full speed these days.

The US Case

We saw it on TV or the Internet, the so-called attack on Capitol Hill, which was obviously set up as a false flag. The deep state, as I wrote many times before, is not just Republicans or Democrats, or politicians for that matter, but both of them, in cooperation with the Pentagon, NSA, and as it turned out now, Big Tech too. There is a battle going on in the US, maybe worse then the civil war which started in 1861 or perhaps never ended. But this is different, this is about power, the six richest men against us, the people, who want to take away our liberties and freedom.

We know by now, even the most ignorant one among us, that we the people are up against an evil force, the multi-billionaires, Big Tech, Big Pharma and the big lobbies like the World Economic Forum (WEF) and many more. Now they are fighting openly with each other, Trump and his followers against the deep state. As from the beginning it was clear, it was all a mistake, even the deep state can make mistakes and that is our strength, to discover their weakness. Trump was not the chosen one and could have destroyed all their plans.

He is impeached now by whom, you might ask? Well the answer is very easy, the deep state, not the Democrats, no, the people, who blasted Trump in their impeachment speech, full of hatred and craziness. People like Nancy Pelosi (Democrat rumors have it that her father was with the mob), Chuck Schumer (Democrat) a criminal first-class, who voted for the Iraq War and is fierce opponent of President Assad of Syria, and the daughter of Dick Cheney (Republican, Liz) who wanted to protect her father’s oil business which steals the oil in Syria and Iraq – the Halliburton Company. Or take Rex Tillerson (Republican), CEO from ExxonMobil, again stealing oil from Syria and Iraq and even buying oil from ISIS (DAESH).

Of course, we have the Russia hoax fueled by the opponents of Trump, the warmonger Hilary Clinton (Democrat), and the leaking of her emails. The Steele Dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the D.N.C. by their law firm, Perkins Coie, which hired Fusion GPS, who in turn hired Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who is responsible for the 35-page report. The FBI offered Steele $50,000 to uncover his sources of the document which he hasn’t yet done. Senator John McCain (Republican +) then personally delivered the Steele Dossier directly to the FBI Director James Comey. The Steele Dossier was a fraudulent report invented by the Deep State to remove Trump. John McCain (+), the criminal brain behind ISIS (DAESH), even met and instructed Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadi in Syria and CNN made the mistake of showing it live on TV. Also, the trigger, together with his partner-in-crime, Victoria Nuland (who will most likely be in Biden‘s government), of the coup d‘etat in Ukraine. Now the US is having its own Osama-bin-Laden and Abu-Bakr-al-Baghdadi, called Donald al-Trump, a home-made US terrorist. Maybe they will all sit in the Situation Room during the hunt for the worst terrorist of the US like they did with Osama bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. This is American politics in 2021, a dangerous laughingstock and the American people are stuck in the middle of this madness and warmongering. They live in poverty, we are looking at a Hollywood show paid for at our expense.

The European Case

The European case is unfolding right before our eyes. They have a problem, the so-called politicians. The US is falling apart and most Western European countries rely on the US. So what do you do? You use a virus as a weapon of terror, a virus which is deadly for the elderly and the sick (you call that collateral damage) and scare the hell out of the people. Meanwhile, they collaborate with the deep state. Like the Italian government which is now exposed for helping the deep state with the election fraud, they resigned under the pretext of not knowing how to spend the EU money, but the real cause is their illegal fraud in manipulating the US election as proven. According to US and Italian investigative sources, it was the US Embassy in Rome which coordinated the data manipulation of votes cast for President Trump to Joe Biden. Complicit are the Italian government and Leonard SpA, a tech company 31% owned by the Italian government. The CEO of this company is the deep state politician William Lynn III (Democrat).

The fight for the vaccination is unfolding, many companies are now put into the play. Big Pharma and the stock markets are going up and down, with at least five companies vying to win the race. Seven billion was collected by the EU to buy vaccinations from these Big Pharma fraudster. Many of these companies are financed or had donations from the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. The European people are not trusting their own governments anymore, it is getting very clear it‘s not about a virus or health, but big business with a vaccine tested only eight months. This turned into a medical experiment on us the people, the elderly first (collateral damage). The willingness of the people to vaccinate is getting less and less, so more lockdowns, curfews (like WWII) and a broken economic system. Their goal to implement the Green New Deal or Great Reset will become more difficult, the people are now waking up. It‘s only a matter of time for a coup d‘etat in Europe, with grave consequences . We will see more things unfolding in the coming weeks…

No One Is Listening: A Country Divided Against Itself

By Philip Giraldi

Source

The U.S. may morph into two nations with the increasingly impoverished helot “deplorables” under the heel of the empowered social justice warriors.

In a recent article Catholic University professor, Claes G. Ryn wrote “Few people are really open to persuasion in any case—not just on political subjects but on any subject about which they care and on which they have adopted certain views. Diehard partisans for a certain outlook will refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and so will many others. They will be no less dismissive of a document challenging their opinions if it is full of footnotes and appendixes. Such a document will, indeed, make them resist it even more. As for the relatively few people who are truly open-minded, they will not find another person’s observations dispositive. They will, as they should, want to consider the evidence on a contested matter for themselves.”

The observation immediately calls to mind the red-blue political division that has hardened in the United States over the past several years, with the two sides persistently talking past each other. Part of the problem is that once someone has staked out an essentially ideological position, he or she will regard new developments in such a way as to fit with that preconception. Once one is locked into a viewpoint in that fashion it becomes practically speaking impossible to “consider the evidence on a contested manner” for oneself.

That tendency to want to believe that something is indisputably true means that most people find it difficult to entertain two somewhat contradictory ideas at the same time. In the current context it should be possible to believe that Donald Trump has been a very bad president based on some aspects of his performance while also conceding that many of his failings have been spawned by the unrelenting criticism he has received from the media as well as the clandestine efforts within the government establishment to undermine and destroy him. Most who emphasize the conspiracy against the president also feel compelled to defend his record. Those who don’t believe there was a conspiracy against him, including Russiagate, support his being impeached and also condemn his achievements.

Or there is the election itself, with one side believing it was stolen and the other maintaining that there was no fraud. In reality, an objective review of the actual evidence and examination of the registration and voting systems that are in place suggests that there certainly was fraud, though the issue of whether it amounted to a change in the outcome is likely a question that will never be answered as the Democrats are now in charge. Voting by mail, much promoted by the Democrats, either was a way of expanding the voters’ rolls or a mechanism that would permit widespread fraud. It is not unreasonable to regard it as doing both.

COVID-19 is another good example of linear thinking. Critics of the pandemic tend to go all the way, minimizing the impact of the disease while also contending that it is a hoax contrived by the government to take away the rights of citizens. Against that, one should be able to recognize that the disease is both highly contagious and deadly for certain demographics while also accepting that the government has mishandled the response to it and is seeking to aggrandize its power over ordinary citizens. So both viewpoints can more-or-less be true.

So, we come to the incident at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on January 6^th. Various unofficial estimates put the number of “Stop the Steal” protesters objecting to what was seen as a fraudulent election at between 20,000 and 200,000. The language being used to describe what occurred that afternoon is suggestive and would likely delight George Orwell. The liberal media (nearly all of it) as well as some Democratic congressmen have officially declared it “incitement of insurrection.” Other expressions that are popping up include “domestic terrorism,” “sedition,” “right wing mobs,” a “coup” or a “storming” of the building, all reportedly driven by incendiary language used by President Trump. Others preferred describing a “breaching” of security or even a “riot” or possibly “treason.”

A local newspaper in Virginia wrote a headline saying that the Capitol building was “ransacked” while Politico sounded the alarm about the “mob who breached the Capitol.” The New York Times thundered that the “mob” included “infamous white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.” What is not in dispute is that five died during the incursion into the building, including a woman Air Force veteran who was unnecessarily shot and a Capitol Police Force officer who was murdered by being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. That the death toll was not higher is inevitably being attributed by some to restraint by the police due to “white privilege” as most of the demonstrators were Caucasian.

Trump allies reject the language and all it implies, insisting that the president did not ever unambiguously encourage actual violence on the part of participants in the “March to Save America” and that most of the demonstration was peaceful, consisting of ordinary Americans who are shocked by the dying spasms of the country that they grew up in. A Newsweek poll determined that nearly half of Republican voters supported the demonstrations at the Capitol, while no less than 68% opined that they were no threat to the American political system, demonstrating just how divided the country is. There have also been claims that infiltrators from Antifa and BLM might have exploited the opportunity to initiate the successful assault by the demonstrators that broke the police line and forced the entry into the Capitol building. Some Democrats are also suggesting that the entry was itself aided by some of the police, a not completely unreasonable suggestion given the inexplicably poor performance by the Capitol Police Force and some photographic evidence showing demonstrators being assisted by security personnel.

One might have noted that the only thing missing from the event had been the allegations that it included “interference” by the Russians or possibly even the Chinese, but it now appears that some Democrats are actually pointing their fingers at Vladimir Putin. And surely the Iranians and even the North Koreans must have had something to do with it. We will have to wait until the Biden Administration is installed, if it is, to find out which foreigners exactly will have to be implicated and punished. One eagerly awaits the inevitable Washington Post cartoon showing Putin in his office laughing while watching on TV events in Washington.

One thing that is for sure and that is being ignored by many of those who have taken up contrary positions is that there will be consequences from what took place last week. Given the polarization in the discussion itself, “truth” will be the first entity sacrificed as the Republicans will make haste to walk away from Trump while the Democrats will not be eager to permit anyone to dig any deeper into the mechanics of the election. No matter what the GOP chooses to do, it will be the long-term loser even if Trump himself is successfully made the designated fall guy and it will have to learn how to retain the support of the Trumpsters without Donald Trump.

In spite of all the media and talking head fulminations, it nevertheless remains unlikely that Trump will actually be impeached and convicted by both houses of Congress or removed under Article 25 as that would permit his lawyers to mount a defense, which would embarrass everyone. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has nevertheless raised tension by contacting the Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and inquiring whether the president can be denied the nuclear weapons’ codes as he appears to be “unhinged.” There is also speculation that an attack on Iran in coordination with Israel might be under consideration to change the narrative.

Perhaps more interestingly, some Democrats are calling for investigation and punishment for some fellow politicians, government employees and ordinary citizens who might be found guilty of supporting the Trump “coup.” Several identified demonstrators have already lost their jobs while the Washington Post has demanded that “seditious Republicans must be held accountable.” There is even some discussion of setting up a “truth commission” to investigate and punish those individuals who aided in Trump’s other alleged crimes. Such people might have their liberty to travel on commercial flights, to associate in groups and/or to hold certain jobs restricted, expanding on existing anti-terror legislation that would now include a focus on “rightwing terrorism” while also increasing the number of “hate crimes.” Surveillance of individuals who have committed no crimes would likely increase dramatically. Any or all of those moves by Biden would, however, set a very bad precedent, sure to beget more violence.

And also there are calls for greater restrictions on what appears on social media. One ex-Obama adviser has even claimed that social media caused the Capitol building riot by “enabling the spread of the lies, hate speech, and conspiracy theories [by rightwing extremists] that led to” the attack. Since the Democrats now command a majority in both houses of Congress as well as the White House that will mean that those labeled “white supremacists” and their message will be expunged while politically correct social justice content will be promoted. Several social media platforms have begun banning what they call right wing material and Biden as well as several senators have, in fact, already promised to bring in stronger “domestic terrorism prevention” legislation based on the Patriot Act. And even those who believe themselves “safe” as holding reliably progressive views will eventually discover that any deviance from Establishment acceptable positions will be forbidden. Free speech in America will become as dead at the Dodo and the United States would become effectively two nations with the increasingly impoverished helot “deplorables” under the heel of the empowered social justice warriors. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t be stable.

Birth of the Digital Oligarchy: The Trump Ban and the Social Media Ruse

By Raul Diego

Source

The events at Capitol Hill provided the perfect excuse for Twitter and other social media companies to advance the agenda of their benefactors in the permanent government of the United States

On January 6, as the events unfolding at the U.S. Capitol were discussed on Twitter, the barrage of opinions predictably accumulated on one side of the political spectrum. Outrage over what mainstream pundits characterized as the desecration of the symbols of democracy and similar bleeding heart liberal rhetoric was far more prevalent than the opposing camp’s tendency to side with the so-called “insurrectionists” or tweets in support of the made-for-social media putsch.

Evidence of straight forward collusion between elements of law enforcement and the Trump loyalists who stormed the Congressional building began to emerge throughout the evening, giving a measure of credence to the emerging narrative of a purported “coup” attempt by the sitting president. Simultaneously, members of Congress with large followings started calling for impeachment and other retaliatory measures against fellow members of Congress, who seemed to be implicated in the tawdry affair.

On January 6, as the events unfolding at the U.S. Capitol were discussed on Twitter, the barrage of opinions predictably accumulated on one side of the political spectrum. Outrage over what mainstream pundits characterized as the desecration of the symbols of democracy and similar bleeding heart liberal rhetoric was far more prevalent than the opposing camp’s tendency to side with the so-called “insurrectionists” or tweets in support of the made-for-social media putsch.

Evidence of straight forward collusion between elements of law enforcement and the Trump loyalists who stormed the Congressional building began to emerge throughout the evening, giving a measure of credence to the emerging narrative of a purported “coup” attempt by the sitting president. Simultaneously, members of Congress with large followings started calling for impeachment and other retaliatory measures against fellow members of Congress, who seemed to be implicated in the tawdry affair.

Predictably, conservative publications like Fox News decried the measures as a power grab by Big Tech and protestations came as far away from Europe, where German Chancellor, Angela Merkel – whose disdain for Donald Trump has never been a secret – called the decision to deplatform a head of state “problematic,” an opinion shared by France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Marie, who warned of a “digital oligarchy” usurping the powers of the state.

Missing in the salacious back-and-forth conversation between ideological factions and absent from the argument that they are private corporations, which have the legal authority to ban or deplatform anybody they wish, is the fact that Twitter, Facebook, and all the other major social media platforms are organs of the state to begin with, and that nothing they do falls outside of the ultimate designs of the powers they serve. 

Examples abound of how these platforms regularly engage in cyber reconnaissance missions for American and Atlanticist interests in violation of their own terms of service, such as when NATO commanders made use of coordinates provided by Twitter users in order to select missile strike targets in their war against Libya in 2011. 

Facebook’s recently created oversight board includes Emi Palmor, who was directly responsible for the removal of thousands of Palestinian posts from the social media giant during her tenure as Director of Israel’s Ministry of Justice. She, along with other individuals with clear sympathies to American interests, now sit on an official body tasked with emitting the last word on any disputes regarding issues of deplatforming on the global social network. 

Following you since 1972

In Yasha Levine’s seminal work, “Surveillance Valley,” the military origins of the Internet and the close relationship of social media companies to federal and local law enforcement are made patently clear. Since their creation, Twitter, Facebook, and other Silicon Valley behemoths have worked hand in hand with law enforcement agencies to augment their capacity for mass tracking and surveillance.

From facial recognition technologies to aggregated user post history, these platforms have been a crucial component in the development of the pervasive surveillance state we now live in. In the book’s prologue, Levine details the attempted creation of a citywide police surveillance hub in Oakland, California called the “Domain Awareness Center” (DAC), which drew intense opposition from the local citizenry and privacy advocates who were quick to undress city officials who were trying to hide the proposed center’s insidious links to the NSA, CIA and military contractors.

Among other capabilities, the control hub would be able to “plug in” social media feeds to track individuals or groups that posed any kind of threat to the establishment. While the DAC project was successfully defeated by an engaged public, similar initiatives were quickly implemented throughout law enforcement agencies across the country and continue to be perfected in order to not only track, but infiltrate political groups deemed problematic. 

From the early 1970s, when the Internet’s precursor ARPANET was used to spy on anti-war protestors, the vast machinery that constitutes our present-day technological ecosystem has not deviated from the original intentions of its creators and has reached a level of sophistication most of us can barely comprehend.

The seemingly innocuous ad-targeting algorithms that generate bespoke advertisements based on our surveilled lives via social media conceals a far more sinister architecture of control, which includes direct influence over people’s political opinions through micro-targeted messaging and even more insidious methods that are powerful enough to influence people’s actual behavior.

Amateur honeypots and the victory of the surveillance state 

One of the biggest misconceptions we have about social media is that platforms like Twitter and Facebook represent the voice of the people and that they are the new “public square” where anybody can get on and voice their opinion. While this perception holds some water on the surface, a closer examination reveals that – on the contrary – these platforms are simply propaganda tools brilliantly disguised as vox populi.

According to a Pew Research study from 2019, 80% of all tweets are created by just 10% of Twitter users. Most people who have an account on the ostensibly left-leaning social media platform rarely tweet at all. In addition, a majority of the content is created by accounts with very large followings and, in most cases, verified accounts that mainly represent established mainstream media personalities. 

Given that the politics espoused by this minuscule portion of the social network’s user base are amplified by the platform’s own algorithms, which have been shown to contain biases as all algorithms do, the perception that these platforms represent some kind of public opinion is revealed to be a very dangerous assumption.

A case in point is disturbingly reflected in a meme that ostensibly developed in yet another social media platform and rapidly spread on Twitter as a result of the incident on Capitol Hill. A tweet posted the day after on January 7 claimed that a woman in Washington D.C. was changing her profile preference on the Bumble dating app to “conservative” in order to entrap “insurrectionists” looking to hook up while visiting the nation’s capital by forwarding their photos to the FBI.

The tweet received hundreds of thousands of ‘likes’ and was retweeted thousands of times. The comments expressed overwhelming support for what amounts to an ostensibly spontaneous snitching operation by regular American citizens against other American citizens. In such a case, whether the meme itself is true has no bearing on the fact that Twitter, Facebook and any other platform where it was disseminated has the ultimate effect of normalizing and generating consent for the idea of self-monitoring and bringing the designs of the surveillance state full circle.

Evidence Mounts of a Capitol Hill False Flag

By Stephen Lendman

Source

America’s road to hell is paved with diabolical pure evil intentions.

9/11 changed everything — followed last year by unleashing Great Reset war on humanity and Wednesday’s orchestrated Capitol Hill violence that climactically ended Trump’s challenge to stolen US Election 2020.

The above comprise America’s holy trinity of actions on a path toward full-blown tyranny.

Last year may have been a test to see how far US dark forces could push Americans to sacrifice fundamental freedoms voluntarily.

A year ago, whoever could have imagined what was about to unfold — based on Big Lies and mass deception.

Who would have thought we’d sacrifice our fundamental right of free movement and assembly, the right to work unobstructed, to travel, enjoy eating out, attend sporting events, the theater, movie theaters, and be involved in other public activities?

Imagine how much worse things may get in the new year. 

Will its climax be voluntary acceptance of full-blown tyranny — masquerading as protecting and preserving health, well-being and safety to be lost if dark forces achieve their aims.

We’re lied to with headlines like the following on January 7:

“US counts record of almost 4,000 COVID-19 deaths in a day as virus continues to wreak havoc (sic).”

These deaths, if accurate in number, were from seasonal flu/influenza, perhaps pneumonia, and/or related illnesses — not covid.

Individuals succumbing are largely elderly, infirm, likely with other health issues, and weakened immune systems.

Headlines like the about are part of a diabolical, state-sponsored fear-mongering campaign.

They’re all about wanting us to voluntarily sacrifice vital freedoms to a higher power — hostile to our health and well-being at the same time.

Wednesday night Capitol Hill violence was likely orchestrated to elevate Biden/Harris to power by ending the Trump-led GOP challenge.

It had earmarks of a well-planned false flag by US dark forces.

It appears that hostile-to-Trump elements infiltrated largely nonviolent Trump protesters.

They got access to Capitol Hill after police and federal law enforcers opened barricades surrounding it, letting them storm the building to commit violence. 

Wrongfully blaming Trump for what happened got him to pledge a smooth transition to Biden/Harris on January 20 — ending his hope for a second term.

It also intimidated most Republicans to go along with what came off with military precision by a superior force against an easily overwhelmed weak one.

Inside Capitol Hill, guards led hostile-to-Trump elements to designated areas.

Instead of preventing violence, Capitol Hill security facilitated it in what appears to have been the climax to a homeland color revolution to end Trump’s election challenge by violently quashing it.

It worked as planned when Congress began debating the GOP electoral fraud challenge, ending it violently.

There’s a made-in-the USA war ongoing that aims for transformational change to a ruler-serf society, what’s untenable if achieved.

It’s what the diabolical Great Reset is all about.

We can swim with the tide and lose all rights or resist all-out nonviolently to save them.

At stake is retaining governance as it once was, warts and all, or replacing it with what’s intolerable for anyone to accept.

I’m old school in my 9th decade to pass from the scene when my end time comes ahead, my future largely in the past.

Younger generations have most to lose, a land of opportunity I enjoyed growing up — eliminating in plain sight what’s fast slipping away.

The nation I grew up in no longer exists.

The one diabolical dark forces plan is a lower level of hell that Dante forgot.

Resist or lose everything, including hope.

Trump Was Swallowed By The Swamp Because He Lacked The Strength To Drain It

By Andrew Korybko

Source

Trump sincerely thought that he could irreversibly effect significant long-term change to the way that America is run by “draining the swamp” that all of his supporters so deeply despise, but he ultimately lacked the strength time and again to take the decisive steps that were necessary in order to execute this grand strategic vision due to several important reasons that deserve to be discussed at length.

The Commander-In-Chief Capitulates

The Trump Era is over after the incumbent announced in the day after Wednesday’s storming of the US Capitol that “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power”, which was widely interpreted by friends and foes alike as the tacit concession that he previously promised never to provide a little more than 24 hours prior during his speech at the Save America Rally. At that event, he literally said that “We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved”, yet completely changed his tune following the day’s tumultuous events and after mysteriously “going dark” for over 24 hours, during which time some speculate that he was forced by his enemies in the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) to give up the fight.

Betraying His Base

This totally devastated his supporters who elected him primarily for the purpose of executing his chief promise to “drain the swamp” that all of them so deeply despise. They truly believed that he could irreversibly effect significant long-term change to the way that America is run, something which Trump himself also sincerely thought he could do as well, but he ultimately lacked the strength time and again to take the decisive steps that were necessary in order to do so. Thus, he ended up getting swallowed by the same “swamp” that he attempted to drain, which is licking its lips after feasting on the political carcass that he’s since become as a result of his capitulation. For as much hope as he inspired in his supporters and the respect that many of them still have for him, most of them are profoundly disappointed that he gave up and didn’t go down fighting.

That’s not to say that the vast majority of them expected him to forcefully resist Biden’s impending inauguration, but just that they never thought they’d see the day where he publicly capitulated after carefully cultivating such a convincing reputation among them as a fighter who literally said a little more than 24 hours prior that “We will never give up. We will never concede, it just doesn’t happen.” This prompted an ongoing soul-searching process among the most sober-minded of them who aren’t indoctrinated with the cultish Q-Anon claims that Trump still has a so-called “master plan” that he’s preparing to implement after this latest “5D chess” move. It’s over, the Trump Era has ended, and the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement that he inspired is now at risk of being declared a “domestic terrorist” organization in the coming future.

Trump’s Most Fatal Political Miscalculation

“Biden’s America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole”, like the author predicted a few months ago, and all of Trump’s supporters know that. Some had already resigned themselves to its seeming inevitability after his efforts to legally reverse the contested results of the latest elections failed for a variety of reasons that most of them attribute to the “swamp’s” corruption, but they nevertheless remained as positive as possible after having believed that their hero would go down with them to the end. None ever thought twice about his promise to “never give up, never concede”, and they even expected him to have to be escorted from the White House on 20 January, yet his tacit concession is forcing many of them to re-evaluate their views about him in hindsight. Not only is he going out with a whimper on the “deep state’s” terms, but he never fully “drained the swamp”.

Trump’s most fatal political miscalculation is that he thought that he could change the system from the “inside-out” after symbolically — yet importantly, not substantively — taking control of it as America’s first modern-day “outsider” President. He immediately switched from an “outsider” to an “insider” shortly after his inauguration by capitulating to the “deep state’s” demands that he fire former National Security Advisor Flynn, which was his “original sin” that paved the way for all that would later follow. Trump the self-professed “deal-maker” thought that he could strike a “compromise” with his enemies through these means, but all that he did was embolden them to intensify their fake news-driven efforts to oust him and continue sabotaging him from within through many of the same “swamp” creatures that he naively continued to surround himself with.

RINOs + MSM = Trump’s Defeat

The most reviled among them in the eyes of his base is “Javanka”, the popular portmanteau of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka. He continued listening to these “Republicans In Name Only”, or RINOs as many MAGA members describe them, as well as many others such as those who still sit in Congress but pretended to be his friend just to win re-election. Furthermore, the influence that his former reality TV career had on him resulted in Trump remaining obsessed with how his enemies might malign him in the Mainstream Media (MSM) for any decisive moves that he took to smash the “deep state”. This weakness of character proved to be his greatest personal flaw since he should have followed his instincts instead of submitting to the egoistic desire to be “liked” by his foes.

So influenced was he by the MSM that his enemies were able to employ the most basic “reverse-psychology” tricks to manipulate him into “playing it safe” in his struggle against the “deep state”. They fearmongered since even before he entered office that he’d turn into a so-called “dictator”, yet he never seriously contemplated any such authoritarian moves in that direction despite always having the possibility of utilizing the immense powers vested in him by the Constitution to do so if he sincerely wanted. His MAGA supporters passionately pleaded that he should have turned into his enemies’ worst nightmare by declaring at least limited martial law in response to the decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America finally going kinetic last summer after Antifa and “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) orchestrated nationwide riots to oust him.

Trump’s Three Greatest Failures

Bewildering his base, Trump also failed to revoke Article 230 despite now-proven fears that it would empower Big Tech to censor him and his supporters, nor did he thwart the Democrats’ mail-in ballot and Dominion voting system schemes which they argue ultimately led to them stealing the election. Just as concerning was his decision to not stop the Democrat Governors from locking down their populations for political reasons under the convenient pretext of COVID-19. The author addressed all of these issues in his analysis published shortly after the election about why “The Anti-Trump Regime Change Sequence Is Worthwhile Studying”. Trump could have legally exercised near-”dictatorial” powers to avert all of this and thus save America as his supporters see it, yet time and again he failed to gather the strength needed to do so due to his deep personal flaws.

The Hybrid War On America Is Over

While Trump was unquestionably victimized by the “deep state” during his entire time in office, he’s no longer as much of a martyr as he used to be after suddenly giving up the fight following Wednesday’s storming of the US Capitol. He surrendered to the shock of his base, was subsequently swallowed by the “swamp”, and is now being mercilessly destroyed in an ominous sign of what awaits the rest of the MAGA movement in the Biden-Kamala era. Had he gone down fighting to the end and “never gave up” like he promised, then it would be an altogether different story, but instead his over-hyped “deal-making” instincts got the best of him at the very last minute and he foolishly thought that he could save himself by capitulating to their demands. The “deep state” is now showing their “thanks” by censoring him from social media and pushing for his impeachment.

The MAGA movement always believed that the country has already been at “war” for years even though most couldn’t articulate the hybrid nature of it like the author did in his piece last summer about how “The Hybrid War Of Terror On America Was Decades In The Making”. They truly felt that Trump shared their threat assessment after he was viciously attacked by the “deep state” from the second that he stepped onto the campaign trail, but it turned out that he underestimated the threat even though his enemies never did. To the “deep state” and their public Democrat proxies, this was always a “war” in its own way, which they never shied away from expressing. The supreme irony is that while Trump lambasted the “weak Republicans” in his Save America Rally speech, he himself ultimately epitomized that very same weakness by later surrendering.

The “Deep State” Won

His opponents know no limits and believe in classic Machiavellian fashion that “the ends justify the means”, whereas he thought that he could play by the rules — and not even all of them as was early explained by pointing out his refusal to employ the near-”dictatorial” powers vested in him by the Constitution — and still come out on top. His naïveté will go down in history since it’s what’s most directly responsible for him failing to fully recognize the seriousness of the “deep state’s” no-holds-barred war on him and the rest of America. As a born-and-raised New Yorker, Trump perfected the art of slick talking, so much so that he even managed to dupe his base into believing that he shared their threat assessment about the decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America. They fell for this charade since they desperately wanted to believe that there was still some hope left.

There isn’t, though, since the war is over and the “deep state” won once and for all. The “Great Reset”/”Fourth Industrial Revolution” brought about by World War C is barreling forward at full speed ahead, and practically every domestic accomplishment that Trump has to his name will likely be reversed by Biden-Kamala during their first year in office, especially since the “deep state’s” Democrat proxies control all branches of government now (remembering that the Supreme Court’s supposed “conservative supermajority” really just consists of RINOs as was proven by their refusal to hear his team’s convincing election fraud cases). After “Analyzing The MAGA Movement’s Democratic Security Failure” on Wednesday, it’s clear that whatever “master plan” he and/or the MAGA movement might have had backfired and was actually exploited by their opponents.

The Real “Master Plan”

In fact, the only real “master plan” was that of the “deep state”, which effectively thwarted every one of Trump’s moves and ultimately turned his supporters’ “last hurrah” of a mostly peaceful rally into the nail that’ll now be hammered into the MAGA movement’s coffin. It’s extremely suspicious that the US Capitol was so poorly defended despite there being an ongoing session of Congress on such an historic day and after weeks of preparation to ensure the site’s safety ahead of Trump’s long-planned Save America March. It’s even more baffling that some of the police officers removed the barricades and even opened the doors to some of the protesters, which in hindsight suggests that the “deep state” wanted to tempt the most “overly passionate” among them (to say nothing of suspected provocateurs) into storming the site as the pretext for what followed.

The whole point in passively facilitating this scenario through the masterful exploitation of crowd psychology was to lay the basis for a comprehensive nationwide crackdown against the MAGA movement on the grounds that it’s now “proven” to be a “domestic terrorist” group. That explains the push behind impeaching Trump less than two weeks before he himself acknowledged just the other day that he’ll be leaving office after ensuring the “transition of power”. Had he not surrendered, then he probably would still be a martyr to most of the MAGA movement, but now he’s just a palace hostage awaiting his highly publicized political execution as the opening salvo of the “deep state’s” Democrat-driven reprisals against his supporters in the name of “defending against domestic terrorism”. That, not whatever Q-Anon imagines, is the real “master plan”, and it succeeded.

Concluding Thoughts

Trump was swallowed by the “swamp” because he lacked the strength to drain it. Every MAGA member needs to accept this harsh truth no matter how painful it might be. Time and again, he failed to muster up the strength needed to meaningfully fulfill what many sincerely believed to be his destiny. This was due to his fatal political miscalculation of transforming from an “outsider” into an “insider” in a doomed-to-fail attempt to change the system from within. He continued relying on RINOs despite their proven unreliability. Trump’s obsession with how his foes portrayed him in the MSM also led to him never seriously countenancing the use of the near-”dictatorial” powers vested in him by the Constitution to save America. He pathetically surrendered after the “deep state’s” “master plan” succeeded, and now he can’t even go down in history as a martyr.

What Really Happened on Capitol Hill?

By Prof. Anthony Hall

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On January 6 a huge assembly of Donald Trump’s supporters (“Make America Great Again,” MAGA) assembled in Washington. Their purpose was to greet the initiation of a Congressional investigation into the contested presidential election of 2020. The members of the US Congress were turning a major new page in history. They were initiating their own evaluation of a massive fraud that in my estimation will always undermine the credibility of the 2020 vote.

Just as the congressional process was beginning to unfold, hundreds or possibly thousands of individuals entered the Capitol Building in a process running rife with many unanswered questions. Without any sober second thoughts, however, a huge media operation instantaneously roared into action. The well-orchestrated media chorus went to work blaming the whole episode on the alleged provocation by Donald Trump. The conclusion of Trump’s speech to a live audience that approached a million people verged into the opening moments of Congressional proceedings.

The current rush to judgment by the already thoroughly discredited mainstream media (MSM) is very reminiscent of the hours following the 9/11 debacle. In 2021 as in 2001, the media presented a full interpretation of a symbolically potent episode without any proper investigation whatsoever.

Within literally days of the 2001 episode, the US Armed Forces were invading Eurasia on the basis of what was subsequently well demonstrated to be a false interpretation of 9/11. In the current episode, those who have good reason to want a diversion from a Congressional investigation into election 2020 are calling for Trump’s head. The push is to exploit the episode to disgrace Trump and pull him from the presidency in ignominy before January 20.

Those advancing a quick way of pushing aside the well-documented proof of election fraud happen to be the main beneficiaries of the dominant interpretation of the Capitol Hill episode of 1/6/21. Whether in media, government or so-called law enforcement, these beneficiaries have almost no credibility when it comes to dealing with the substance of false flag events. Indeed, for false flag events to be successful the media and police must collaborate in the misrepresentations of what really happened in order to advance surreptitiously the desired political objectives.

MORE…

• I WAS AT THE WASHINGTON, D.C. “SAVE AMERICA” RALLY

As mainstream media becomes even more of a bandwagon of anti-Trump propaganda than it was throughout the 2020 election, it is important for conscientious citizens to step back a bit. Only by looking at events with the benefit of some distance is it possible to know what is really going on. It is important to evaluate the 1/6/21 episode with a healthy degree of skepticism; to consider all available evidence from a variety of perspectives.

Both Michael Snyder and Jon Rapport have come up with commentaries that include important evidence showing that police encouraged MAGA people to enter the Capitol Grounds and possibly the Capitol Building as well. Further evidence is presented that ANTIFA people were very active outside and inside the Capitol Building. MAGA people in real time actually identified and condemned as ANIFA plants those pictured doing aggressive property damage. Antifa refers to a group that were centrally involved in the rioting, looting and burning that took place all summer in many urban centers including Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland.

Please see this and this.

-UPDATED- Questions About The Chaos At The Capitol That Desperately Need To Be Answered

-UPDATED- Questions About The Chaos At The Capitol That Desperately Need To Be Answered

A Snapshot of 2020 Ugliness

By Stephen Lendman

Source

The most dismal year in the post-WW II period is likely a sign of worse to come.

When Biden/Harris replace Trump on January 20, endless wars on invented enemies and homeland dystopian harshness are virtually certain to continue, things likely to worsen.

Undemocratic Dems prioritize both.

During Obama/Biden’s tenure, seven countries were terror-bombed in eight years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

None of the above threatened the US. Throughout the post-WW II period, no nations anywhere threatened US security.

Yet Obama/Biden massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians during their tenure, displacing countless numbers more.

They recruited ISIS and other jihadists to serve as proxy fighters in US war theaters.

They force-fed neoliberal harshness on most Americans while increasing wealth for the nation’s privileged class.

They replaced democratic governments with despotic ones in Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil, and Ukraine. 

They waged war by other means on Bolivarian social democracy in Venezuela, wanting the country transformed into a fascist police state.

They murdered President Hugo Chavez by poisoning him.

They enforced fascist rule in Haiti against their long-suffering people.

They waged war by other means on all nations unwilling to sacrifice their sovereignty to US interests.

They supported privileged interests exclusively at home at the expense of governance serving everyone equitably — notions they abhorred, refused to tolerate, and it showed by their viciousness.

With lots of help from US dark forces, US election 2020 was stolen.

Trump won. Biden/Harris lost. Yet they’re president and vice president select, not elect.

On January 20, they’ll replace Trump — because brazen fraud assured it, things rigged well in advance.

Open, free and fair US elections are more myth than reality.

Dark forces run things, turning America into dystopia their diabolical agenda.

James Fetzer published Edward Hendrie’s report titled:

“Forensic Analysis of Dominion Voting Systems Discovers It Was Designed to Commit Election Fraud,” stressing the following:

An Allied Security Operations Group “conclude(d) that the Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.” 

“The system intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors.”

“The electronic ballots are then transferred for adjudication.” 

“The intentional errors lead to bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail.” 

“This leads to voter or election fraud.”

When Biden/Harris are installed in office, they’ll serve illegitimately.

With mass media support, the US public was conned to believe otherwise.

Millions in the country don’t buy what no one should accept.

Democracy in America is pure fantasy, the way it’s been from inception.

If the real thing began emerging, it would be banned.

Dark forces in charge serve privileged interests and their own exclusively — at the expense of peace, equity, justice, the rule of law, and a nation safe and fit to live it.

Media supported mass deception convinced most Americans to accept the tyranny of lost freedoms from an invented pandemic.

It’s based on fear-mongering false claims by public health officials, an outbreak of seasonal flu/influenza that occurs annually called covid this year, and worthless PCR tests nearly always producing false positives, making them worthless.

We’ve been conned to accept vaccines to the rescue that are harmful to human health, not beneficial

A legitimate cure for covid/influenza has been suppressed by US/Western dark forces and their media press agents.

When used as directed within around 10 days of falling ill, cheap and safe hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) — combined with either azithromycin or doxycycline (both antibiotics) — and zinc are highly effective.

What should be widely endorsed is suppressed to promote hazardous to human health mass-vaxxing.

Big government, Pharma and their media press agents want information about HCQ suppressed.

They want its widespread availability reduced or eliminated altogether.

On December 24, Natural News.com reported the following:

“On Dec. 20, an SCI Pharmtech manufacturing facility in Taoyuan City, Taiwan, (suspiciously) burst into flames and exploded…”

It produces HCQ. Were pro-Western/pro-Pharma dark forces behind what happened?

“The SCI Pharmtech factory in question is the second-largest HCQ provider in Asia,” Natural News reported. 

It’s now “closed, meaning no more HCQ production for the time being.”

The timing of what happened raises obvious red flags. 

The incident happened as mass-vaxxing for promoted protection against against covid began that’s highly likely to cause widespread harm — along with a bonanza of profits for Pharma.

“Because HCQ is a competitor of COVID-19 vaccines, it…appear(s) that powerful entities (want it) squelch(ed) – including” by malicious intent that’s likely behind the incident.

What’s going on should terrify everyone.

Big Government in cahoots with monied interests and their press agent media are mortal enemies of public health and well-being.

That’s the disturbing reality of these troubled times that are highly likely to more greatly worsen ahead.

US Cyber Spy Scandal: Why Did Pompeo Blame Russia But Trump China?

By Andrew Korybko

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The contradictory claims from Secretary of State Pompeo and President Trump blaming Russia and China respectively for carrying out what’s been described by many as one of the most intrusive cyber espionage operations against America in history are confusing for most observers but can be better understood if they accept that Pompeo might have some ulterior political motives for pushing his version of events.

Trump vs. Pompeo

Many people are confused after President Trump contradicted Secretary of State Pompeo’s claim that Russia was behind what’s been described by many as one of the most intrusive cyber espionage operations against America in history after he publicly suggested that China might have been the culprit instead and even downplayed the significance of this extensive security breach. This isn’t a game of “5D chess” like some QAnon enthusiasts might image, but one of the most visible signs yet that those two don’t always see eye-to-eye on some issues of grand strategic importance. In fact, it even strongly suggests that Pompeo might have some ulterior motives for pushing his version of events that could be related to his 2024 presidential ambitions.

Deep State Factionalism

There’s no denying that factionalism exists within the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”), which dramatically intensified during the Trump Administration and will predictably continue during the Biden one if the latter succeeds in seizing power, so discussing Pompeo and Trump’s differences in this respect shouldn’t be taboo. The Secretary of State is cut from the cloth of the “deep state” itself after previously being tasked by Trump to lead the CIA of all structures while the President continues to present himself as being against that same “deep state” establishment. It could have been that he “trusted” Pompeo to “reform” the CIA according to his vision, but in any case, those two still have natural differences.

This partly explains why Pompeo jumped on the establishment’s anti-Russian bandwagon by blaming Moscow for the latest cyber espionage scandal. He’s part and parcel of the “deep state”, therefore making him prone to accepting its interpretations of events. Even if he himself doesn’t seriously believe that Russia was responsible (whether due to there being no publicly presented evidence of this or because he might not believe whatever the CIA could have fabricated to this effect), he understands the importance of going with the flow for “stability’s” sake. After all, pushing back against the “deep state” can be very dangerous, and Pompeo might not want to take the risk of “betraying” his “former” employer on an issue of such importance to it as this one is.

Was Trump’s Trust Misplaced?

Trump, however, has no such compunctions about calling the “deep state” out at every opportunity that he gets. It’s the reason why so many Americans voted for him in the last two elections. For reasons of political realism, he probably couldn’t “drain the swamp” as immediately or to the extent as he initially wished, hence why he’s chummed up so closely with Pompeo these past few years. It’s not due to the adage of “keeping one’s enemies close”, but more than likely the result of simple pragmatism since Trump seems to personally like Pompeo a lot better than other “swamp creatures” and thus “trusts” comparatively more.

Because of his “swamp” origins after being installed in the CIA by Trump prior to his nomination as Secretary of State, Pompeo can’t ever fully be trusted no matter what the President might think. It was a risky gamble to try to place someone who he regarded as “his own” (at least ideologically speaking insomuch as he used to be a Tea Party Republican) into that structure and hope that he isn’t changed throughout the process, but he did it anyhow because he probably felt that it was the “lesser evil” available to him at the time. Now, however, Pompeo is showing that he’ll side with the “deep state” against Trump on Russia instead of take his boss’ side.

A Zero-Sum Standoff

That’s not to say that China is the culprit either since it could possible be North Korea or someone else for all that anyone knows since no public evidence has been presented to back up either figures’ claims, but just to point out the clear contradiction between them. Trump has a track record of blaming China for everything that goes wrong with the US just like the “deep state” blames Russia for the same, so neither of their claims are credible on the surface. Nevertheless, due to the grand strategic divergences between them, no “compromise” is possible unless one or the other submits to their counterpart, which isn’t likely in the near term at least.

Pompeo probably won’t backtrack on blaming Russia the same as Trump isn’t going to do an about-face and suddenly say that China is completely innocent after strongly implying the opposite over the weekend. Those two, however, will debate the issue behind the closed doors as each tries to convince the other to reverse their public statements, which stands little chance of success. Trump needs the world to believe that China was responsible in order to improve the odds of Biden continuing his New Cold War policy of “containing” it while Pompeo must hold firm on blaming Russia in case he decides to run for president in 2024.

Pompeo 2024?

The Secretary of State is already one of “America First’s” main icons behind only Trump and perhaps also Pence. Plus he has enormous support from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base for all that he’s done abroad in his boss’ name. Even so, however, Pompeo probably wouldn’t be able to resist the “deep state” as much as Trump hitherto has (albeit imperfectly of course), especially not after having previously served as the head of the CIA. The only way that he could help the “swamp” swap figureheads should Biden seize power but prove to be immensely unpopular for various reasons is if he submits to its anti-Russian narrative.

Even then, however, he might be brushed aside in favor of Kamala or whoever else, but there’s still some strategic wisdom in the “deep state” keeping the possibility of a “controlled opposition” candidate such as Pompeo viable just in case the MAGA movement proves impossible to ignore across the next four years. Nobody knows whether Trump would run for office again in 2024 if he leaves the White House next month like the Mainstream Media hopes that he’ll do, but even if he does run, then Pompeo could possibly break with him to divide the (then-former) president’s base and thus raise the prospects of a Democrat victory.

Quick Recap

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Pompeo’s domestic political outlook, the very fact that he so confidently blamed Russia for the latest cyber espionage scandal only to be publicly contradicted by none other than Trump himself shortly thereafter on Twitter shows that there are serious differences between the two over the US’ grand strategic vision. Pompeo, just like his “deep state” CIA allies, wants to blame Russia whenever it’s convenient to do so while Trump prefers to lay the blame for everything entirely on China. The Secretary of State has blamed China for a lot of things before, which is why not doing so this time is very suspicious.

To reaffirm what was previously said in order to avoid any misunderstandings, this doesn’t mean that China is guilty or should be accused, but just that attention should be paid to Pompeo breaking with Trump’s “tradition” of blaming the People’s Republic whenever something goes wrong. This time, the Secretary of State jumped ship by pointing the finger at Russia, only to be contradicted by his boss. This observation proves that those two certainly don’t see eye-to-eye on this very important issue, which confirms the author’s suspicious of creeping “deep state” tensions between them which might be motivated by Pompeo’s 2024 presidential ambitions.

A Curious Question

The increasingly visible differences between Trump and Pompeo might somehow be smoothed over or not even matter all that much if the administration departs from power next month like the Mainstream Media hopes that it’ll do, but it’s still a trend that shouldn’t be ignored in any case. There’s no “5D chess” theory to explain why Trump publicly contradicted — and therefore embarrassed — his own Secretary of State. Every other time that he’s done this to one of his subordinates prompted talk about a growing rift between them, yet for some strange reason, few are discussing this angle which naturally leads to the curious question of why that is.

Democracies Don’t Start Wars. But Democrats Do

By Philip Giraldi

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It may have been President Bill Clinton who once justified his wrecking of the Balkans by observing that liberal interventionism to bring about regime change is a good thing because “Democracies don’t start wars with other democracies.” Or it might have been George W. Bush talking about Iraq or even Barack Obama justifying his destruction of Libya or his interventions relating to Syria and Ukraine. The principle is the same when the world’s only superpower decides to throw its weight around.

The idea that pluralistic democracies are somehow less inclined to go to war has in fact been around for a couple of hundred years and was first elaborated by Immanuel Kant in an essay entitled “Perpetual Peace” that was published in 1795. Kant may have been engaging in some tongue in cheek as the French relatively liberal republic, the “Directory,” was at that time preparing to invade Italy to spread the revolution. The presumption that “democracies” are somehow more pacific than other forms of government is based on the principle that it is in theory more difficult to convince an entire nation of the desirability of initiating armed conflict compared to what happens in a monarchy where only one man or woman has to be persuaded.

The American Revolution, which preceded Kant, was clearly not fought on the principle that kings are prone to start wars while republics are not, and, indeed, the “republican” United States has nearly always been engaged in what most observers would consider to be wars throughout its history. And a review of the history of the European wars of the past two hundred years suggests that it is also overly simple to suggest that democracies eschew fighting each other. There are, after all, many different kinds of governments, most with constitutions, many of which are quite politically liberal even if they are headed by a monarch or oligarchy. They have found themselves on different sides in the conflicts that have troubled Europe since the time of Napoleon.

And wars are often popular, witness the lines of enthusiastic young men lining up to enlist when the Triple Entente took on the Germans and Austrians to begin the First World War. So, war might be less likely among established democracies, but it should be conceded that the same national interests that drive a dictatorship can equally impact on a more pluralistic form of government, particularly if the media “the territory of lies” is in on the game. One recalls how the Hearst newspaper chain created the false narrative that resulted in the U.S.’s first great overseas imperial venture, the Spanish-American War. More recently, the mainstream media in the United States has supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq, the destabilization of Syria, and the regime change in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Libya.

So now we Americans have the ultimate liberal democratic regime about to resume power, possibly with a majority in both houses of Congress to back up the presidency. But something is missing in that the campaigning Democrats never talked about a peace dividend, and now that they are returning the airwaves are notable for Senators like Mark Warner asking if the alleged Russian hacking of U.S. computers is an “act of war?” Senator Dick Durbin has no doubts on the issue, having declared it “virtually a declaration of war.” And Joe Biden appears to be on board, considering punishment for Moscow. Are we about to experience Russiagate all over? In fact, belligerency is not unique to Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo.  War is in the air, and large majority of the Democratic Party recently voted for the pork-bloated National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), endorsing a policy of U.S. global military dominance for the foreseeable future. If you are an American who would like to see national health insurance, a large majority among Democrats, forget about it!

But more to the point, the Democrats have a worse track record than do the Republicans when it comes to starting unnecessary wars. Donald Trump made the point of denouncing “stupid wars” when he was running for office and has returned to that theme also in the past several weeks, though he did little enough to practice what he preached until it was too late and too little. Clinton notoriously intervened in the Balkans and bombed a pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan and a cluster of tents in Afghanistan to draw attention away from his affair with Monica Lewinsky. His secretary of State Madeleine Albright thought the death of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. sanctions was “worth it.” Barack Obama tried to destroy Syria, interfered in Ukraine and succeeded in turning Libya into an ungovernable mess while compiling a “kill list” and assassinating U.S. citizens overseas using drones.

If you want to go back farther, Woodrow Wilson involved the U.S. in World War One while Franklin D. Roosevelt connived at America’s entry into the Second World War. FDR’s successor Harry Truman dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets in Japan, killing as many as 200,000. Japan was preparing to surrender, which was known to the White House and Pentagon, making the first use of nuclear weapons completely unnecessary and one might call it a “war crime.” Truman also got involved in Korea and John F. Kennedy started the intervention in Vietnam, though there are indications that he was planning to withdraw from it when he was killed. The only Democratic president who failed to start one or more wars was the much-denigrated Jimmy Carter.

So, it is Joe Biden’s turn at the wheel. One has to question the philosophy of government that he brings with him as he has never found a war that he didn’t support and several of his cabinet choices are undeniably hardliners on what they refer to as national security. The lobbies are also putting pressure on Biden to do the “right thing,” which for them is to continue an interventionist foreign policy. The Israeli connected Foundation for the Defense Democracies (FDD) has not surprisingly issued a collection of essays that carries the title “Defending Forward: Securing America by Projecting Military Power Abroad.” If one had to bet at this point “defending forward” will be what the Biden Administration is all about. And oh, by the way, as democracies don’t go to war with democracies, it will only be the designated bad guys who will be on the receiving end of America’s military might. Or at least that is how the tale will be told.