Western progressives must demand 3.5 more years of – no, permanent – Russophobia!

March 06, 2022

Joseph McCarthy, United States Senator, rabid Russophobe, fanatical anti-socialist, leader of America’s 2nd Red Scare (1947-57), ruiner of countless lives, raging alcoholic, the most effective shill ever for the military-industrial complex, whose name became the eponym to describe political witch-hunts, rests in his home state of Wisconsin in a lakeside plot along a gorgeous stretch of the Fox River.

Passing by one day, I couldn’t pass up the chance to stand on the grave of the man who did more to falsely smear progressive movements and unions – many of which subsequently turned, out of fear, into fake-leftist movements and unions – than any American in the 20th century.

It was a photo opportunity which now seems… well, these days is anyone even allowed to publicly remember McCarthy without getting subjected to McCarthyism?

Back in 2017 – in disbelief that United States Democrats were persisting to insist that Hillary Clinton lost because of Russian troll farms – I wrote the satirical article, US progressives must demand 3.5 more years of Russophobia!

It’s not funny anymore.

Well, the article is funny, but the US Russophobia campaign has now had massively deadly consequences in the Ukraine.

By using Russophobia to close the door to all sociological and political analysis on all things involving Russia the crisis in Ukraine was allowed to fester for a decade, leading to 14,000 deaths fuelled by far-right Ukrainian Russophobes, who probably have sweetheart pictures of Joseph McCarthy in their wallets. The chance for diplomacy passed – in order to close the door to all sociological and political analysis on all things involving Donald Trump – and today we have a hundred thousand Russian troops in the Ukraine and a 3rd Red Scare sweeping the entire West at digital speed.

If US “progressives” can’t see how their tolerance of things like the fake explanation of Hillary Clinton’s loss, or the nightly Russophobia of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, helped provoke an anti-Russian climate, which gutted interest in diplomatic engagement and thus raised the inevitability of a mushrooming of the violence in Ukraine, then you likely need to go the library and engage in a rigorous personal denazification campaign of your brain.

I wonder: how will Western faux-progressives receive my photo of the king of the blacklist?

It’s a time when Russians are getting blacklisted in the skies, the universities, the airwaves, the halls of diplomacy, the banks, the football pitch, your aunt’s Facebook page, the damned Disney channel? Am I treasonously fuelling anti-hysteria by reminding America, now, of its own history of hysterically and violently turning against all things Russian?

I say the following without hysteria but full-throatedly:

McCarthyism! McCarthyism! McCarthyism!

It must be shouted right now if only to give some people pause. There is a dangerous, deadly history here, and if it goes back to even before 2014 I’m sorry for the young, for the uneducated and for those currently foaming at the mouth and sharpening their pitchforks. If in 2022 Germany was on a drive to cancel all things Jewish I would shout Hitler! Hitler! Hitler! This is no different, and this is no exaggeration.

Western “progressives”: You seem to think that it is Western conservatives whom can be relied on to keep a cool head during times of jingoism, war and sometimes tedious de-ignorance campaigns? This is why I address you, and not them. Of course they cannot – they are the ones who must be restrained from rushing to war and their visions of fabulous profits.

But the bloodlust of the US Democratic Party and European so-called “center-left” parties is probably why Russia chose war – they know there hasn’t been an “antiwar” party in the Western mainstream for decades.

I shout McCarthyism because hate campaigns only spread unjust violence, and also because American Russophobia has already spread unjust violence abroad:

The “Russophobic faux-explanation” made its way to France and was used to justify the most violent repression in France in a century – of the Yellow Vests. Who can forget the way Emmanuel Macron immediately pointed the finger at Russia, or articles from the French and English mainstream media such as “Russian Accounts Fuel French Outrage Online”?

In my naiveté I have written books on Chinese socialism and what I term Iranian Islamic socialism – these are efforts to bridge gaps; to explain the side of the “other”; to provide a point of view regarding these living cultures with living humans to counter the usual mainstream McCarthyist attacks. I am about to publish France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values to do the same for that movement (see! I’m not anti-Western). In my research I read the book Dans la tete des gilets jaunes (In the head of the Yellow Vests) in which the authors provided a quantitative study of that allegation of malign Russian influence:

In 2018 from November 10th through December 4th there were 200 Twitter accounts presumed to be linked to Russia which provided 1,600 tweets and retweets on the Yellow Vests. Wow, hundreds of accounts – seems like a problem, right? Well, over that same timeframe in English and French Twitter there were 360,000 accounts which emitted 1.6 million tweets and retweets about the Yellow Vests.

Remember McCarthyism – pause just a moment to consider.

You likely had the same initial reaction as the authors: “Well, even before getting into quantitative analysis, it seems at least surprising to us that the activity of 200 Twitter accounts could spark an important impact and, worse, lead certain observers to see in them the mark of foreign interference.”

Remember McCarthyism – move beyond instinctual reactions into reasoned reflection about the ROLE of Russian trolls causing the Yellow Vest movement.

The authors concluded, as you likely did: “This approach DOESN’T say anything about the profound causes of the movement, and closes the door to all sociological and political analyses.”

Obviously, Twitter was abuzz about the Yellow Vests because every Saturday from November 2018 until June 2019 an unpopular government was sponsoring a bloodletting of protesters, and not because malign Russian influence had duped 75% of France into supporting the Yellow Vest anti-government movement. Just like the US election defeat of the Democratic Party in 2016 must be laid at the feet of the failures of the Democratic Party to attract sufficient voters which would overcome their electoral college system, Russia’s role in the Yellow Vests was as infinitesimal as those currently daring to call for the stop of a 3rd Red Scare.

Maybe Russia was wrong to invade the Ukraine?

Even though I have been reporting and writing about the Ukraine for years, and thus have a bit more background knowledge than the average person (as every journalist working today in the West should, of course) I remain totally open to that possibility.

But to engage in a knee-jerk condemnation of all things Russian which closes the door to all sociological and political analysis? Above all: to not even listen to their arguments, thus closing the door to diplomacy, thus making war the only option?

You’re acting just like Joseph McCarthy did – and that’s deadly.

That’s also sure to set back your own country for years or even decades, just like McCarthy did for the US.

You’re pushing for a spectacular increase in the amount of war in the world while claiming to be on the side of freedom and right – just like McCarthy did.

Keep doing it – if you get successful enough at it perhaps one day I’ll be standing on your grave?

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Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

CNN’s Leading People To Their Doom By Promoting Mercenary Propaganda For Ukraine

4 MARCH 2022

By Andrew Korybko

Source

CNN’s information warfare piece that was analyzed in this analysis is a perfect example of warmongering propaganda and should be universally condemned by all peace-loving people across the world.

The US-led West is unprecedentedly censoring all contrarian narratives that contradict Washington’s “politically correct” interpretation of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine on the basis that such takes are “dangerous”, yet one of the world’s most popular Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets – CNN – is literally leading people to their doom by promoting mercenary propaganda for Ukraine. That platform just published a fawning piece titled “The Foreigners And Expats Taking Up Arms To Fight Russia”, which openly sympathizes with those who are heeding President Zelensky’s call for foreign mercenaries that the West insincerely describes as innocent “volunteers”.

The author earlier explained how “The Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s Plea For Foreign Mercenaries Shows His Desperation”, pointing to the obvious fact that US-backed Kiev’s forces quite clearly aren’t winning the war like the MSM implies otherwise they wouldn’t be so urgently calling for foreign mercenaries, not to mention calling up all reservists age 18-60 or arming civilians and even teaching them how to make petrol bombs. Zelensky announced earlier in the week that 16,000 such foreign mercenaries are entering the war zone, though it’s unclear whether such a large amount will actually do so or if that was just another of his side’s many ultimately discredited psy-ops.

What observers should be aware of is that these foreign mercenaries are almost certainly going to their doom, led there as they are by their delusional chase of riches and fame that CNN deceitfully misportrays as being motivated by some supposedly grand principles connected to “democracy” and “human rights”. This dire prediction is due to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov recently confirming that foreign mercenaries aren’t legally entitled to be treated as prisoners of war (POWs) so “At best, they can expect to be prosecuted as criminals”, which hints that they might be shot at worst if they dare to threaten his country’s military forces and they’re forced to defend themselves.

CNN is therefore complicit in several immoral acts: promoting mercenary propaganda that aims to further destabilize a war zone; encouraging self-interested or even naïve social rogues to risk their lives fighting against the Russian military superpower; and thus being responsible for their deaths if those military forces against which they’re fighting are forced to resort to lethal action to defend themselves instead of risking their own lives to bring these foreign mercenaries to justice afterwards. These outcomes of that outlet’s latest anti-Russian information warfare campaign are indisputably much more dangerous than someone simply sharing contrarian interpretations of the crisis.

There is no realistic chance that any influx of foreign mercenaries into Ukraine will result in reversing Kiev’s inevitable loss in the face of the intervening Russian military superpower. All that this latest development will serve to do is bleed Ukraine even more before it finally surrenders, though at the very likely deaths of those same foreign fighters who might end up attempting to commit acts of terrorism against the Russian Armed Forces and thus losing their lives in the process for nothing at all. CNN’s information warfare piece that was analyzed in this analysis is a perfect example of warmongering propaganda and should be universally condemned by all peace-loving people across the world.

The “relatively civilized” people should ally themselves with the “uncivilized” ones

March 04, 2022

Source

By Aram Mirzaei

The Western psyops is truly at its full capacity right now. As the Saker has reported himself for many days now, they’ve targeted Russia everywhere and in every way possible. They’ve completely taken control of the narrative and are basically on a witch hunt for those deemed “deviant”. The Western media is rampant with “reporting” and “analyses” where all these “experts” are competing in the ‘trash-talking Russia” challenge. Some say Putin has gone mad and has “lost touch with reality”, while others claim that he has a master plan to conquer all of the former Eastern Bloc countries. But in the end they all agree that he is evil, that he should be killed and/or overthrown. The other day, I saw two journalists interviewing a man who had volunteered to travel to Ukraine to fight Russians, as they were wishing him “all the best.” You’d think this is a joke if you didn’t live through it yourself.

A friend of mine from a European country told me the other day: “I feel like a criminal these days, carrying a deep dark secret, because I’ve committed something worse than murder… I support Russia! In this extremely Russophobic country, the pharmacies have run out of iodine pills, because people have stocked up on them, expecting a nuclear strike by “big bad Putin” any day now. People are hurrying to the ATMs for cash and preparing shelters for WWIII.” This is how the West and its powerful media have created fear among the Western people.

We’re being bombarded day and night by lies, lies and more lies about the ongoing conflict. The Saker is correct in his argument that Russia has been defeated in the information war. There are probably differing opinions on why this happened and one could argue that Moscow was probably a bit surprised to see the extent of the psyop. Foreign Minister Lavrov himself said that “Russia was ready for Western sanctions but that it did not expect the West to target its athletes, journalists and representatives of the cultural sector.”

He isn’t exactly lying here. Never in my life have I seen such hatred spewed on a mass level, as if the entire world has gone crazy. Such a coordinated campaign cannot have been executed without thorough planning, which I believe they’ve been doing for months, if not years.
In any case, the Western media have been quick to proclaim that the “international community” has condemned Russia for its “invasion” of Ukraine. We all know by now that the “international community” includes only the “civilized” and perhaps some “relatively civilized” countries. I’ll come back to the term “relatively civilized” later.

So what about the average person in the West then? I can mostly speak about the country I currently reside in, but so far, judging from what I’ve seen, the “civilized” Westerners have unequivocally condemned and showed their hatred for president Putin and Russia, because, of course, they take a moral stance against “unacceptable Russian imperialism.” Such things belong to the “20th century” and “countries these days don’t just invade other countries”. The other day, I heard co-workers say that they don’t fear soaring gas and oil prices due to the sanctions, because they’d “rather go back to horse and chariot, than miss out on the chance to put those damn Russians in their place.”

This is the hatred that they have against Russia, a people they consider to be “relatively civilized”, just like they consider Ukrainians to be the same. This is why Moscow’s policy of appeasement is useless. It is Moscow that should take lessons from history and look at Munich 1938, not the Westerners, as some silly pundits claim. They should also take lesson from the Islamic Republic’s tough stance against the West, despite being a much smaller country than Russia, and vastly behind in terms of economic, military, industrial and technological advancements and achievements.

The Islamic Republic has never even had the chance to be part of SWIFT system, a tool that the Westerners have used against Russia recently, supposedly a “disaster for Russian economy” now that they have “kicked Russia out.” Iran has been forced to do trades through the black market and the use of cash in suitcases and bags for decades! This is what “maximum pressure” forced Tehran into. Why shouldn’t Russia survive this? It is after all “relatively civilized” compared to the “uncivilized” Muslim Iranians.

The phrase “relatively civilized” was, as most people know, recently used in an interview by a correspondent of one of the American media channels. Note the words “the Ukrainians are relatively civilized”, which simply means that in the eyes of the Americans, Ukrainians are still “relatively civilized” and not fully “civilized”.
This means that Iraqis are Afghans dying is not strange, because they’re not civilized anyway. The “stupid Muslims” in Iraq, Syria and Yemen whose blood don’t matter and killing them en masse is permissible because they are subhuman.

The Western people (save for a very small minority) do not give a damn about the fact that the US occupies Syria and Iraq, that it has waged illegal wars across West Asia and Afghanistan, and slaughtered millions in their path. Washington is partaking in a starvation campaign against millions of Yemenis, does anyone care about that?

Did anyone sanction the US when it invaded Iraq illegally? Even with facts about the total fabrication of evidence for Iraq’s WMD possession, facts that are acknowledged by Western governments and pundits today, and yet nobody says a thing. Did anyone cancel, let alone even condemn the US when it downed an Iranian passenger flight, killing some 300 people and then gave medals to those troops who fired the missile?

For God’s sakes, at least the Iranians had the decency to apologize when they accidentally downed the Ukrainian-bound passenger flight in 2020. They didn’t humiliate the victims by giving the troops medals, instead, they actually charged them with criminal neglect and incompetence. But Iranians are the “uncivilized” people here, of course.

In my opinion, Moscow has tried too hard the diplomatic way, over the Donbass conflict. I’m sure the people in Moscow already know this, but negotiations with the West is useless. If anything the failure of the JCPOA and Washington’s shameless withdrawal should be a lesson for Moscow, that Washington and its band of dogs are liars, they are unreliable and won’t stand by their words and promises. The West has proven time and time again that it only understands the language of force.

I believe as several other analysts have already stated, that Washington’s goals have been to draw Russia into a war, which it succeeded in doing, and the second goal has been to kick Russia out of Europe-Washington has been pretty successful with this endeavour too, for now.

So Moscow must now look to those who will not view Russia and Russians as “relatively civilized.” The “uncivilized” world, save for those affected by the brain disease that exposure to Western media results in, mostly support Moscow’s operation in Ukraine. They recognize Moscow’s legitimate security concerns over NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders. Moscow’s challenge and resistance to the US empire is important for the countries or the “uncivilized” world too, because it offers them a way out of the West’s stranglehold over them. Moscow has used its military might for fighting terrorists, first in Chechnya, then Syria and now in Ukraine, helping the people achieve freedom from Western backed terrorists. This has not just passed by the “uncivil” peoples of the world.

Many countries in the so called Global South have refused to condemn and sanction Russia. Not even NATO member Turkey, or Brazil’s anglophile president went through with the sanctions. Tehran and Beijing (both super uncivilized) have blamed the West for the crisis and  Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has personally mentioned Washington’s cancerous role in the conflict, describing Washington as “both creating crises and feeding off of them.”

So what can we learn from this conflict? Moscow, and hopefully Tehran as well as Beijing should learn that just like in Ukraine, where there are those who believe that its a privilege to be called “Westerner” and “European”, there are such people in all three of these countries as well. The governments of Russia, Iran and China must now figure out ways to block these psyops from affecting their own peoples, or elschine they’ll be facing the same threats. One such way is to counter the “Western unity” by showing “Eastern unity” in this time of crisis. They must show the world that Western sanctions don’t affect them, and that the “international community” is nothing but the US empire of lies and its vassals.

Let’s hope that this truly was Russia’s final review of relations with the West and that Moscow now fully turns to the “uncivilized” East.

Day 6 – Mr President, is Ukraine winning the war? (not a joke!)

March 01, 2022

This question was asked by some pressitute while Biden was walking to his helicopter today: Mr President, is Ukraine winning the war?

Wow, just wow.  Either she fully believes it, and then WOW or she doesn’t and then WOW again.

This is a “Let’s Go Brandon” on a geostrategic level! 🙂

By the way, she followed up with a question about whether he worried about a nuclear war.

I think that this exchange sums of the entire and total delusion which folks in the West are holding on.  The inevitable wake up phase will be painful, very painful.

Clearly, “Biden” is winning this one. Not 🙂

Then there is this (see graph) to keep in mind.  Biden is down in the proverbial shits and, worse, pretty much anything he does next will only make things worse.  The fact that this is an entirely self-inflicted wound makes no difference as to how hard it bleeds…

In other news from the “back to reality” corner: the UK and Poland have had to announce that, no, after careful thought and all things considered, they won’t be sending fighter aircraft into the Ukraine.

What a surprise to everybody in Kiev (and to nobody in Moscow)!

As for Uncle Shmuel, he declared that (trying to) imposing a no-fly would mean “shooting down Russian aircraft” which, for some unfathomable reason, the USA did not want to do.  That might have something to do with Putin’s very blunt warning yesterday.

Maybe the western leaders are very slowly coming to realize that while Russians don’t threaten, they don’t bluff either.  That is a “new normal” which is going to cause a lot of buttaches to the narcissists ruling the West…

The Eurorodents in all heroically walk out of the room when Lavrov addressed them by video.  If the intention of the Eurorodents was to convey to the Russians that “we won’t ever listen to a single word you have to say” then I am confident that the Russians heard that message and will keep that factoid in mind in planning future unilateral Russians actions (of which there are plenty more to come, that is quite obvious now).

A few good news now: the nuclear plant at Zaporozhie is safely in Russian hands.  Thank God for that.

So what has been the triumphant President “Ze” up to?

He signed an application to be immediately accepted into the EU.  The new Europeans loved it.  The old ones, not so much.

The Eurorodents are also forming what I would call “internationalist Nazi brigades” of volunteers who can go and fight for Banderastan.  No visa needed – show up, declare your willingness to kill Russians, and, voila, you are shipped to…

… to the almost closed operational cauldron in the Donbass!

In fact, I suppose that by now getting in is about as hard and dangerous as getting out.  Yes, technically, there is a no man’s land between the two Russian prongs (the one from the north and the one from the south), but it is now a Russian “free fire zone” which, considering both the presence of very heavy weapons systems (MLRS and TOS-1A) and the sharp increase in Russian air operations would be a very very dangerous attempt indeed.

Speaking of cauldrons, Russia has cut off the entire Ukrainian coast from the Sea of Azov and Mariupol is the first “cauldron” to be officially locked.

The civilized and winning West is showing that it really knows the score: Russian students are expelled from EU colleges (a similar idea is now floated in the USA), even neutral countries like Switzerland have closed their airspace to Russian carriers (which Switzerland really did not have to do since all the countries neighboring Switzerland already did that), and Russian citizens can’t even fly across Canadian airspace on their way home to the EU from the USA (just happened to a friend of mine).  I fully expect “Russian Standard” vodka to disappear from US stores (we bought all the last ones we could).

Maybe we will soon be treated to YouTube videos showing (US or Ukie) Nazis machine-gunning Russian “matrioshka” dolls followed by thunderous cries of “Glory to the Ukraine!  Glory to the heroes!“?

Russians are being expelled from sports clubs, musical events, cultural events and pretty much from everywhere where something “Russian” can be treated with hate and contempt.

These are Orwell’s two minutes of hate, but drawn out over days.

This is an russophobic Kristallnacht, but officially organized and praised.

I want to add one more thing about all this: nobody, absolutely NOBODY, is forcing the folks in the West to act the way they are.  No Gestapo, no SA/SS patrols – nothing.  Just the US PSYOPs and the eager willingness of these folks to “show Russia” in some way.

And since there are practically NO voices denouncing all this, this is also an important “message” from the people of Europe to the people of Russia.

And,

This is EXACTLY what the Russian nation needs to understand the world it lives in.

THAT is the reality, not their smiles or promises.

Yesterday, Putin used the expression “Empire of lies” – and he is spot on.  I will adopt that expression alongside my two favorites “AngloZionist Empire” and “the Axis of Kindness”.

In other “rodent news” – the OSCE is leaving the Donbass.  Not that these fake humanitarians ever made a difference, but now that they are gone, it also sends a very clear message to the Russian people.

Remember how Woke-thugs approached white people in restaurants and demanded that the white “take a knee” or see “black lives matter”?  The same is being done to Russians (and even non-Russians thought to be Russians) all over the democratic and civilized West.

“Cancel Russia” might be the unifying slogan (and goal) of the entire Zone A.

I have an idea: I think that western dictionaries should remove the word “Russian” and western maps should, from now on, just write “here be bears” on the map of Russia.  THAT would show ’em accursed russkies 🙂

And it is all repeated ad nauseam on Russian TV channels and on the Runet.

That will be neither forgotten nor forgiven.

The West is very much “talking to us” and “sending us a strong message”.  We all need to hear and carefully record it all.  For our children and for posterity.

I have to say that in Zone A the US PSYOPs gave Russia a massive thrashing and soundly defeated all the Russian counter-propaganda efforts.  The Russian PR people got a black eye and lost this one.

Inside Russia, it is more complicated.  As I mentioned, the Atlantic Integrationists (in power), the 5th column (liberal) and the 6th column (emo-Marxists) all joined forces and tried has hard as can be to inject a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubts (FUD) in the Russian society, from rumors of a NATO invasion to hallucinations about how the “sanctions from hell” will result in hunger, abject poverty and chaos.

The good thing is that by working hand in hand, they showed their true face and agenda.  Their ideology can be summed up as follows “we cannot allow Putin to win this one”.

This is a very positive development as the disgust and anger against them is clearly on the rise while the latest polls show that:

• 68% of Russian approve of this military intervention
• 22% oppose it
• 10% are unsure

Of course, the Atlantic Integrationists, and the two columns (from now on I will refer to them all together AI+5+6) will quickly dismiss these polls because, as all AI+5+6 know, “Russian polls are as fake as Russian elections”.  I am confident that there is going to be legal action taken by the Duma and the Kremlin to, no, not “crush free speech” or anything like that, but to further unmask the real goals of this AI+5+6 coalition.

What about the situation on the ground?

1. Mariupol cauldron confirmed locked (a very large number of hardcore Nazis are surrounded)
2. Operational cauldron in the Donbass closing but not physically closed yet
3. Kiev blocked on all directions except the humanitarian corridor

In plain English this means:

1. Several days, difficult and violent combats to denazify Mariupol.  The outcome is not in doubt, but all the ingredients are here to indicate a truly intense urban assault operation.
2. Donbass.  Again, the outcome is not in doubt, I will announce it here as soon as I get enough convergent info to confirm the closure of this operational cauldron
3. Kiev – here I really don’t know.  I get the need to resolve the Kiev situation in some way, but I remain deeply concerned by any Russian operation to liberate the city.  Kiev is not Mariupol and while in Mariupol there are no other options than to kill all the Nazis, I will keep hoping for some negotiated solution similar to what is happening in a lot of (admittedly much smaller) towns in recently liberated eastern Ukraine.

Then there is the issue of Odessa.  Honestly, there are a lot of rumors on the Runet that Russia intends to liberate the entire Ukrainian coast, including Odessa, and open a land corridor to the Russian forces in Transnistria.  Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov are infinitely smarter than me and they have the real info, which I don’t.

But I don’t want Russia to occupy in the mid-to-long-term a single inch of legally 404 land (outside the official borders of the LDNR, of course!).  But then, I was also very concerned when Putin ordered the Syrian military operation, and he proved me wrong, so all I can do is try to not worry too much, hope that if there are any such plans, they will be similar to the 08.08.08 format: quick in, disarm, quick out.

I am encouraged by all the statements by Russian officials and analysts that Russia has no intention of holding on to any Ukrainian territory and that as soon as the Ukraine is disarmed and denazified, all the Russian forces will be pulled back.  God willing, that is exactly what will happen soon.

Lastly, the Black Sea fleet.  It seems to have cut off Ukie port from shipping and several ships have been stopped and turned back (not simply stolen like the French just did!).  I am quite sure that before this is all over, we will see the Black Sea Fleet in action, possibly as part of an operation to liberate Odessa, here I defer to Andrei Maryanov and his expertise.

That’s it for now.  Over the past 6 days I have been posting two, sometimes three, updates.  Now since the situation on the ground is pretty clear, I will wait for a major development before posting a commentary.  That could happen as soon as later today, but tomorrow seems more realistic to me.  We shall see.

Andrei

Follow the money: how Russia will bypass western economic warfare

March 01, 2022

By Pepe Escobar

The Cradle

The US and EU are over-reaching on Russian sanctions. The end result could be the de-dollarization of the global economy and massive commodity shortages worldwide.

So a congregation of NATO’s top brass ensconced in their echo chambers target the Russian Central Bank with sanctions and expect what? Cookies?

What they got instead was Russia’s deterrence forces bumped up to “a special regime of duty” – which means the Northern and Pacific fleets, the Long-Range Aviation Command, strategic bombers and the entire Russian nuclear apparatus on maximum alert.

One Pentagon general very quickly did the basic math on that, and mere minutes later, a Ukrainian delegation was dispatched to conduct negotiations with Russia in an undisclosed location in Gomel, Belarus.

Meanwhile, in the vassal realms, the German government was busy “setting limits to warmongers like Putin” – quite a rich undertaking considering that Berlin never set any such limits for western warmongers who bombed Yugoslavia, invaded Iraq, or destroyed Libya in complete violation of international law.

While openly proclaiming their desire to “stop the development of Russian industry,” damage its economy, and “ruin Russia” – echoing American edicts on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and others in the Global South – the Germans could not possibly recognize a new categorical imperative.

They were finally liberated from their WWII culpability complex by none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Germany is finally free to support and weaponize neo-Nazis out in the open all over again – now of the Ukrainian Azov battalion variety.

To get the hang of how these NATO sanctions will “ruin Russia,” I asked for the succinct analysis of one of the most competent economic minds on the planet, Michael Hudson, author, among others, of a revised edition of the must-read Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire.

Hudson remarked how he is “simply numbed over the near-atomic escalation of the US.” On the confiscation of Russian foreign reserves and cut-off from SWIFT, the main point is “it will take some time for Russia to put in a new system, with China. The result will end dollarization for good, as countries threatened with ‘democracy’ or displaying diplomatic independence will be afraid to use US banks.”

This, Hudson says, leads us to “the great question: whether Europe and the Dollar Bloc can buy Russian raw materials – cobalt, palladium, etc, and whether China will join Russia in a minerals boycott.”

Hudson is adamant that “Russia’s Central Bank, of course, has foreign bank assets in order to intervene in exchange markets to defend its currency from fluctuations. The ruble has plunged. There will be new exchange rates. Yet it’s up to Russia to decide whether to sell its wheat to West Asia, that needs it; or to stop selling gas to Europe via Ukraine, now that the US can grab it.”

About the possible introduction of a new Russia-China payment system bypassing SWIFT, and combining the Russian SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) with the Chinese CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System), Hudson has no doubts “the Russian-China system will be implemented. The Global South will seek to join and at the same time keep SWIFT – moving their reserves into the new system.”

I’m going to de-dollarize myself

So the US itself, in another massive strategic blunder, will speed up de-dollarization. As the managing director of Bocom International Hong Hao told the Global Times, with energy trade between Europe and Russia de-dollarized, “that will be the beginning of the disintegration of dollar hegemony.”

It’s a refrain the US administration was quietly hearing last week from some of its own largest multinational banks, including notables like JPMorgan and Citigroup.

A Bloomberg article sums up their collective fears:

“Booting Russia from the critical global system – which handles 42 million messages a day and serves as a lifeline to some of the world’s biggest financial institutions – could backfire, sending inflation higher, pushing Russia closer to China, and shielding financial transactions from scrutiny by the west. It might also encourage the development of a SWIFT alternative that could eventually damage the supremacy of the US dollar.”

Those with IQs over 50 in the European Union (EU) must have understood that Russia simply could not be totally excluded from SWIFT, but maybe only a few of its banks: after all, European traders depend on Russian energy.

From Moscow’s point of view, that’s a minor issue. A number of Russian banks are already connected to China’s CIPS system. For instance, if someone wants to buy Russian oil and gas with CIPS, payment must be in the Chinese yuan currency. CIPS is independent of SWIFT.

Additionally, Moscow already linked its SPFS payment system not only to China but also to India and member nations of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). SPFS already links to approximately 400 banks.

With more Russian companies using SPFS and CIPS, even before they merge, and other maneuvers to bypass SWIFT, such as barter trade – largely used by sanctioned Iran – and agent banks, Russia could make up for at least 50 percent in trade losses.

The key fact is that the flight from the US-dominated western financial system is now irreversible across Eurasia – and that will proceed in tandem with the internationalization of the yuan.

Russia has its own bag of tricks

Meanwhile, we’re not even talking yet about Russian retaliation for these sanctions. Former President Dmitry Medvedev already gave a hint: everything, from exiting all nuclear arms deals with the US to freezing the assets of western companies in Russia, is on the table.

So what does the “Empire of Lies” want? (Putin terminology, on Monday’s meeting in Moscow to discuss the response to sanctions.)

In an essay published this morning, deliciously titled America Defeats Germany for the Third Time in a Century: the MIC, OGAM and FIRE conquer NATO, Michael Hudson makes a series of crucial points, starting with how “NATO has become Europe’s foreign policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.”

He outlines the three oligarchies in control of US foreign policy:

First is the military-industrial complex, which Ray McGovern memorably coined as MICIMATT (military industrial Congressional intelligence media academia think tank).

Hudson defines their economy base as “monopoly rent, obtained above all from its arms sales to NATO, to West Asian oil exporters and to other countries with a balance-of-payments surplus.”

Second is the oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM). Their aim is “to maximize the price of energy and raw materials so as to maximize natural resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major US priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany threatened to link the western European and Russian economies together.”

Third is the “symbiotic” Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which Hudson defines as “the counterpart to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents.”

As he describes these three rentier sectors that completely dominate post-industrial finance capitalism at the heart of the western system, Hudson notes how “Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (namely, the Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).”

Hudson shows how “the most pressing US strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices. In addition to creating profits and stock market gains for US companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy.”

He warns how food prices will rise “headed by wheat.” (Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of world wheat exports.) From a Global South perspective, that’s a disaster: “This will squeeze many West Asian and Global South food-deficient countries, worsening their balance of payments and threatening foreign debt defaults.”

As for blocking Russian raw materials exports, “this threatens to cause breaks in supply chains for key materials, including cobalt, palladium, nickel, aluminum.”

And that leads us, once again, to the heart of the matter: “The long-term dream of the US new Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its managerial kleptocracy seeking to cash in their privatizations in western stock markets.”

That’s not going to happen. Hudson clearly sees how “the most enormous unintended consequence of US foreign policy has been to drive Russia and China together, along with Iran, Central Asia and countries along the Belt and Road initiative.”

Let’s confiscate some technology

Now compare all of the above with the perspective of a central European business tycoon with vast interests, east and west, and who treasures his discretion.

In an email exchange, the business tycoon posed serious questions about the Russian Central Bank support for its national currency, the ruble, “which according to US planning is being destroyed by the west through sanctions and currency wolf packs who are exposing themselves by selling rubles short. There is really almost no amount of money that can beat the dollar manipulators against the ruble. A 20 percent interest rate will kill the Russian economy unnecessarily.”

The businessman argues that the chief effect of the rate hike “would be to support imports that should not be imported. The fall of the ruble is thus favorable to Russia in terms of self-sufficiency. As import prices rise, these goods should start to be produced domestically. I would just let the ruble fall to find its own level which will for a while be lower than natural forces would permit as the US will be driving it lower through sanctions and short selling manipulation in this form of economic war against Russia.”

But that seems to tell only part of the story. Arguably, the lethal weapon in Russia’s arsenal of responses has been identified by the head of the Center for Economic Research of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements (IGSO), Vasily Koltashov: the key is to confiscate technology – as in Russia ceasing to recognize US rights to patents.

In what he qualifies as “liberating American intellectual property,” Koltashov calls for passing a Russian law on “friendly and unfriendly states. If a country turns out to be on the unfriendly list, then we can start copying its technologies in pharmaceuticals, industry, manufacturing, electronics, medicine. It can be anything – from simple details to chemical compositions.” This would require amendments to the Russian constitution.

Koltashov maintains that “one of the foundations of success of American industry was copying of foreign patents for inventions.” Now, Russia could use “China’s extensive know-how with its latest technological production processes for copying western products: the release of American intellectual property will cause damage to the United States to the amount of $10 trillion, only in the first stage. It will be a disaster for them.”

As it stands, the strategic stupidity of the EU beggars belief. China is ready to grab all Russian natural resources – with Europe left as a pitiful hostage of the oceans and of wild speculators. It looks like a total EU-Russia split is ahead – with little trade left and zero diplomacy.

Now listen to the sound of champagne popping all across the MICIMATT.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

“The U.S. and its Allies Undermined the Minsk Accords for too Long” – Patrick Henningsen

February 25, 2022

People attend a rally entitled “Zelenskiy, recognise the choice of Donbass” in the rebel-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine July 16, 2019. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko – RC1DBE92B0B0

By Robert Bridge

Source

Despite all the hysterical talk about a ‘Russian invasion’ of Ukrainian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin, using nothing more dangerous than a ballpoint pen, calmly brought the Ukrainian stalemate to its logical next phase, which was to recognize the independence of the Donbass with the full support of Russian peacekeepers.

Had Kiev been sincere about resolving the standoff, and keeping the eastern part of the country in the fold, it would have demonstrated its commitment to the Minsk Protocol from the beginning. Sadly, proof of that devotion never materialized.

On Tuesday, Russian lawmakers passed by an overwhelming margin a set of agreements to begin the process of political and military support for the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. That same day, the parliaments of the two regions ratified the ‘Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Russian Federation.’

Global affairs analyst, Patrick Henningsen, has agreed to discuss Moscow’s move to recognize the independence of the Donbass, which distanced itself from Kiev following the U.S.-backed Maidan uprising of 2014. That tragic moment in European history saw the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovich swept from power.

Question: What do you make of the Western media version of events that Moscow is engaged in a “land grab” in Ukraine?

Patrick Henningsen: It’s not very surprising considering the vilification that Russia and Vladimir Putin have had to endure by the U.S. mainstream media and even Hollywood for many years now. This has made it easier for the media to peddle to the public truly outlandish stories like, for example, how Russia has “kill lists” prepared for Ukrainians after it launches a full-scale invasion of the capital Kiev. This sort of reckless propaganda is mostly for domestic consumption – especially with a critical U.S. election quickly approaching in November – with the purpose of trying to bog down Russia in some sort of disastrous conflict with its neighbor, something that Moscow has said many times that it does not want or need. The sad reality of the situation is that the United States and NATO does not really have the best interests of the Ukrainian people at heart. The West is simply playing for geopolitical advantage, plain and simple.

Question: How did the situation get to point where Moscow was forced to recognize the Donbass independence?

Patrick Henningsen: Ever since the adoption of the so-called Minsk Protocol in September 2014, it has become increasingly clear over time that the Western powers, together with Ukraine, were not committed to its initiatives. These included, among other goals, a ceasefire between the combatants, and the gradual decentralization of power with greater self-governance going to the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. What we had in effect was a stalemate that has turned into a dangerous situation of late with all of the Western propaganda about an imminent “Russian invasion.” At the same time, Western governments were funneling weapons into Ukraine. Moscow finally came to the inescapable conclusion that such a volatile situation smack on its border could not continue indefinitely.

Question: What does the future hold for Ukraine and the newly recognized republics?

Patrick Henningsen: Ukraine has actually been victimized to a high degree by the Western propaganda campaign, which incessantly warned that the Russians were about to invade. Finally, in order to calm down the war hysteria, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky was forced to say that there was no indication that the Russians were planning to invade. At one point he even asked the Biden administration to show Kiev some concrete evidence that plans for an assault on Ukraine were underway. Of course, Zelensky never received such proof.

Meanwhile, the war hysteria from the Western capitals placed a huge economic drag on Ukraine that it will be hard-pressed to crawl back from. Will Kiev find itself dependent on ever more Western loans just to keep the country afloat?

As for the people of Donbass, aside from their independence, they have the knowledge that they are no longer alone in the world. In fact, thousands of these people are applying now for Russian citizenship while many women and children have been evacuated to Russia proper as the hostilities in the region approach the boiling point.

Question: What do the Western powers stand to lose by failing to support the Minsk Protocol while provoking Russia?

Patrick Henningsen: Well, already we’re hearing reports that Germany has suspended the certification process of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a joint project between Russia and Germany that was finished last year. However, the final leg of the process was delayed, and it seems the United States, which has been opposed to the project from the start, played no small part in that setback. That is going to make gas prices exorbitantly high for many Europeans.

Meanwhile, we can expect to see a new wave of sanctions being aimed at Russia that will only serve to hurt consumers both at home and abroad. The Western countries will suffer every bit as much as Russia will, and quite possibly more considering that Russia has proven its ability to weather sanctions due to the growth of its domestic production base. It’s regrettable that the situation between the West and Russia deteriorated to such a point when it could have been easily avoided had only the West demonstrated a willingness to adhere to the Minsk Protocol.

Author Patrick Henningsen is an American global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). Over the last decade, his work has been featured with a number of international publications and TV networks.

Day 3 of the Russian operation in the Ukraine – OPEN THREAD

February 26, 2022

I found pretty decent maps on the YouTube channel of Iurii Podoliaka and I will do something ugly but, I hope, effective: add a few things to his maps with my thick black marker.

But first, this: it appears that  yesterday Putin had ordered a temporary stop to the Russian offensive while talking with “Ze” but when the latter stop talking, Putin gave a “full ahead” order.

I will begin with an older (by a few hours) map of this:

The ugly think black lines are from me.

Starting at the top left and going clockwise here is what is important:

1. Kiev will soon be encircled
2. The Ukie forces in the Donbass are fleeing hoping to avoid being surrounded, or “cauldroned” if you wish, (look how long and narrow the red lines are around the Ukies!)
3. Mariupol is almost surrounded
4. Nikolaev is under attack

Now, another of this maps, but updated.

Again, going clockwise can clearly see the race between the evacuating Ukie forces from the Donbass and the attempt by Russian forces to envelop them in an “operational cauldron”, exactly as predicted.

Next, Nikolaev is either full surrounded or will be very soon.

So, what does all that mean?

It means that we are coming to some kind of informational climax here.  So far, in the West, that information is suppressed (even Sputnik and RT are under regular DDoS attack).  I won’t even bother on the 500 foot high wave of disinformation produced by western PSYOPs in the social media.  The bottom line is this, pretty soon I expect

• The operational cauldron in the Donbass to lock in the Ukie forces which did not have time to evacuate
• The entire coast from roughly Nikolaev to Mariupol will be liberated
• Kiev will be if not physically surrounded, then at least “surrounded by fire”, which means that main axes of evacuation will come under steady Russian fire control

Notice something else.  In the 2nd map, some cities in the Russian rear are circled in blue: Chernigov, Konotop, Sumy, Kharkov and Kherson.  I would add Mariupol to that list.  These are all cities which were cut of from the rest of the Ukie forces, but which still have pockets of resistance inside, that is especially true of Mariupol where a large Nazi contingent appears to be ready to take its last stand.

All this is to say that the mopping up operations inside bigger cities might take a while.  That is normal and won’t affect any outcome.

So right now the western PYSOPs can still thrown out as many claims as it wants, but pretty soon the entire narrative will collapse, at which point the Russia-hating-and-bashing hysteria will reach a new feverish pitch.  Be mentally prepared for that.

I will conclude with something quite typical: remember how yesteryear tons of were distributed in Kiev?  Well, overnight, various gangs have been engaged in firefights, but not against Russians (who have still not entered the city), but against each other.  Some of the wannabe Ukie Volkssturm even took a group of SBU officers prisoners.  Some rumors report 60 dead or so just overnight.

Let’s hope that this crazy nonsense stops and that some Ukrainian commanders will restore law and order before their entire country turns into a “Mad Max Zone”.  If such commanders are found, I am sure that the Russians will not only not engage them, but will even offer some degree of collaboration.

Putin tried to reason with Ze.  Predictably, this did not work.

Now the Russian badly need to find somebody to talk to on the other side.  If they don’t, Russia will have to continue to take unilateral actions and turn up the pain dial on both Banderastan and the West.

I hope to be back with a summary of the day later.

Andrei

Russia Does Not Only Defend Itself, But the World and Humanity – Assad

February 25, 2022

By Staff, SANA

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a phone call on Friday with his Russian ounterpart Vladimir Putin.

Talks dealt with the situation in Ukraine, and the special military operation carried out by the Russian Federation to protect civilians in Donbas region.

Assad stressed that what is taking place today is a correction to history and re-balance to the world that it has lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, adding that Western hysteria comes to keep history in the wrong place in favor of the chaos that is only sought by the outlawed.

The Syrian president considered that Russia today doesn’t only defend itself, but also defends the world and principles of justice and humanity.

Assad also said that Western countries bear responsibility for chaos and bloodshed as a result of their policies aimed at controlling peoples as these countries use their dirty methods to support terrorists in Syria and the Nazis in Ukraine and in various parts of the world.

The Syrian president further voiced his country’s support for the Russian Federation, based on its conviction of its right stance that repelling NATO expansion is Russia’s right, because it has become a global threat to the world and has turned into a tool to achieve the irresponsible policies of Western countries that seek to strike stability in the world.

President al-Assad makes a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin

Related

• Hezbollah Rejects Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry Condemnation of Russian Military Operation in Ukraine
• Lavrov: West Turned Blind Eye to War Crimes by the Kiev Regime, ‘Genocide’ in Ukraine

Russia recognition of the LDNR – a few initial thoughts

FEBRUARY 21, 2022

I listened to the full Russian Security Council meeting, then to Putin’s address to the nation, then the signing of the the treaties on cooperation and mutual support.

The first thing which I want to point out is that this was a very carefully orchestrated event, and I don’t just mean today’s live meetings and signing.  For those of us who follow Russian politics very closely there can be no doubts that all this was prepared long BEFORE the Russian ultimatum to the West.

This is “the plan” which Putin once openly referred to.

Let me make this clear: this recognition should NOT, repeat, NOT, be seen in isolation.  It is just ONE PHASE in a PROCESS which began at least a year ago, or more, and there is much more to come.

Next, that must be repeated again, this is NOT about the LDNR, the Donbass or even the Ukraine, this is about a new security architecture on Europe and, therefore, on our entire planet.

This means that Russia expected exactly the reaction she eventually got (western politicians are fantastically predictable, being both ignorant, stupid and arrogant) and that gave her a legal basis to take the current action (call it R2P, or moral duty, or genocide prevention or whatever else you wish).

I want to use this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to President Biden and Chancellor Scholz who both played their role to perfection, especially Scholz with his “laughable genocide talk” comment.  More generally, a lot of the credit for what just happened today goes to the leaders of the Empire who played their hand exactly as the Kremlin hoped they would.

Next, I immediately want to mention sanctions.  Let it be clearly told: whatever sanctions the West now agrees upon will be what they would have done in any case.  I repeat: today’s recognition of the LDNR will have exactly ZERO influence on the West’s maniacal determination to destroy Russia and her people.  In other words, the coming sanctions were unavoidable.  That means that Russia “lost” exactly *nothing* through that move.  In fact, both during the RSC meeting and his speech, Putin hinted that, if anything, western sanctions have been mostly beneficial to the Russian economy (especially the real economy, not just the value of Russian stocks or the Ruble).

Sanctions is a topic which only matters to western politicians (and their 5th and 6th column in Russia).  Russians 1) remember that during her history both Russia and the USSR were more or less always under some kind of sanctions anyway and 2) that the goal of the West is not to reach an equilibrium with Russia, but to subjugate and destroy her (Putin himself said so many years ago).

In this context, the endless focus on sanctions (from hell or otherwise) is not only immoral, it is plain stupid.

Next, I want to mention four specific threats made by Putin today (note, since the PR folks at the Kremlin are still working at their usual snail’s pace, I will have to make them by memory, please keep that in mind):

• Those responsible for the massacre in Odessa will be punished by Russia.
• Putin is demanding an immediate cessation of the shelling and shooting along the LOC.
• Russia will physically prevent the Ukraine from US/NATO deploying offensive weapons to threaten Russia.
• Russia will show Banderastan how to organize a *real* “decommunization” (after indicating that the Ukraine was created by the CPSU).

Again, I will repeat here what I wrote above: this recognition should NOT, repeat, NOT, be seen in isolation.  It is just ONE PHASE in a PROCESS which began at least a year ago, or more, and there is much more to come.

Unless the Ukies get it – and they probably won’t – I fully expect Russia to openly extend here “military umbrella” over the LDNR.  That does not mean that she will have to move troops in, though that now is also a possibility, but that any future Ukie ground operation will be countered by the full might of the Russian military.  Officially this time.  The Ukros along the LOC have heard it from Putin’s own mouth: we got a crosshairs on each one of you.  While I wouldn’t put *anything* beyond the Ukros, I believe that today’s clear threat will have a strong deterrent effect, whether the Ukies admit it (not gonna happen) or not.

After listening to it all, I still have a few questions to which I did not get a reply yet:

1. In what exact borders does Russia recognize the LNR and DNR?  Along the LOC or along their original administrative borders? (see map).  I strongly suspect that for a while Russia will keep a flou artistique on this topic, but what Putin meant was a recognition of the LDNR in their original administrative borders.  If I am correct, this ALSO means that Russia will not liberate the rest of Banderastan, which I also fully approve of: the Ukrainians need to liberate themselves for once, enough of that constant waiting for the Moskals to liberate them from their “western friends”!
2. Putin mentioned the immense sums of money Russia has poured into the Ukraine even after it turned into Banderastan. Will Russia *finally* impose an economic embargo on that Nazi state?
3. The DNR/LNR having just been recognized, they are not members of the CSTO.  Not only that, but I very much doubt that all the members of the CSTO will recognize the LDNR anytime soon.  So if there is the need to launch a “coercion to peace” operation, will Russia act unilaterally, maybe with Belarus, or will she try to get some kind of joint operation with other countries?  This just in: the Russian MoD has announced that it received the order to provide/ensure the safety/security of the LDNR!  That means a peace enforcement (coercion to peace) has been ordered!

Some will be tempted to focus on what the western politicians will say or do next.  I sure have no idea which they might or might not do next, but I would advise them to be extremely careful, because the mood in Russia is determined.  If anybody still believes that Putin is bluffing, then wish them good luck because the best they can hope for is a quick, painless, death.

For the US Americans everything is measured in Dollars.  For Europeans, everything is measured by Euros.  During WWII Russia lost 27 million of her own people, two thirds of them civilians, as for the Chinese, they lost a whopping 35 million.  These are countries and nations which will not be broken, or purchased, by Dollars or Euros.

Then there is this: if the West slaps “sanctions from hell” on Russia, what will the leaders of the West do the day AFTER they impose such sanctions?  The truth that the West is already “out-sanctioned”.  But let’s assume that there will be even more sanctions.  From hell, no less.  Then what?

Nothing, of course.

Russia has already long turned away from the West, not only culturally but also economically (Mishustin confirmed that today).  If the EU wants to commit economic seppuku – that’s fine by Russia.  The Kremlin is quite willing to turn up the pain dial, but if western leaders want to increase the pain dial on each other (the US dialing up economic pain for the EU), by all means, Russia won’t object.

As always, I suggest that we not jump to any further conclusions too quickly: let’s wait for the full, official transcripts, then the statements of key politicians (who will be tasked with implementing/interpreting these statements).  In this situation, words matter (at least those of Russian officials).

I will conclude by a warning: I fully expect the CIA/MI6 agents in Russia (5th column: liberals; 6th column: emo-Marxists and pseudo-patriots) to unleash a MAJOR PSYOP offensive against Putin personally and this decision.  Arguments will include anything and everything in between “not enough” and “too much” including the inevitable “too little too late”.  If there is one thing you need to know about both the 5th and 6th columns in Russia is that for them any success by Putin (or even while Putin is in power) is categorically unacceptable and must be denied at all costs.  So while they claim to hate each other, they really hate Putin much more.  In fact, they hate Putin much, much more than they love Russia.  I strongly urge all the readers to always think cui bono when you will hear their endless defeatist wailing!

Okay, I will end it here: let’s see what happens next.

Andrei

• Russian recognizes the LDNR Republics and signs treaty with them (OPEN THREAD)
• Putin makes a statement following the Security Council meeting on Donbass recognition
• Putin holds meeting with Security Council [TAPE]

John Pilger: War in Europe and the Rise of Raw Propaganda

The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, “shaping the narrative,” much if not most of it is pure propaganda.

February 17th, 2022

Source

By John Pilger

Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened.  Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the US and Britain.

On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously declared, “The medium is the message.” The lie is the message now.

But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream.

The great editor David Bowman, author of The Captive Press, called this “a defenestration of all who refuse to follow a line and to swallow the unpalatable and are brave”. He was referring to independent journalists and whistleblowers, the honest mavericks to whom media organizations once gave space, often with pride. The space has been abolished.

The war hysteria that has rolled in like a tidal wave in recent weeks and months is the most striking example. Known by its jargon, “shaping the narrative,” much if not most of it is pure propaganda.

The Russians are coming. Russia is worse than bad. Putin is evil, “a Nazi like Hitler,” salivated the Labour MP, Chris Bryant. Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia – tonight, this week, next week. The sources include an ex CIA propagandist who now speaks for the US State Department and offers no evidence of his claims about Russian actions because “it comes from the US Government.”

The no-evidence rule also applies in London. The British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who spent £500,000 of public money flying to Australia in a private plane to warn the Canberra government that both Russia and China were about to pounce,  offered no evidence. Antipodean heads nodded; the “narrative” is unchallenged there. One rare exception, former prime minister Paul Keating, called Truss’s warmongering “demented”.

Truss has blithely confused the countries of the Baltic and the Black Sea. In Moscow, she told the Russian foreign minister that Britain would never accept Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh – until it was pointed out to her that these places were not part of Ukraine but in Russia. Read the Russian press about the buffoonery of this pretender to 10 Downing Street and cringe.

This entire farce, recently starring Boris Johnson in Moscow playing a clownish version of his hero, Churchill, might be enjoyed as satire were it not for its wilful abuse of facts and historical understanding and the real danger of war.

Vladimir Putin refers to the “genocide” in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Following the coup in Ukraine in 2014 – orchestrated by Barack Obama’s “point person” in Kyiv, Victoria Nuland – the coup regime, infested with neo-Nazis, launched a campaign of terror against Russian-speaking Donbas, which accounts for a third of Ukraine’s population.

Overseen by CIA director John Brennan in Kyiv, “special security units” coordinated savage attacks on the people of Donbas, who opposed the coup. Video and eyewitness reports show bussed fascist thugs burning the trade union headquarters in the city of Odessa, killing 41 people trapped inside. The police are standing by. Obama congratulated the “duly elected” coup regime for its “remarkable restraint”.

In the US media, the Odessa atrocity was played down as “murky” and a “tragedy” in which “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) attacked “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal damned the victims – “Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says”.

Professor Stephen Cohen, acclaimed as America’s leading authority on Russia, wrote, “The pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during world war two. [Today] storm-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other ‘impure’ citizens are widespread throughout Kyiv-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s …

“The police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neo-fascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kyiv has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorializing Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms, renaming streets in their honor, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.”

Today, neo-Nazi Ukraine is seldom mentioned. That the British are training the Ukrainian National Guard, which includes neo-Nazis, is not news. (See Matt Kennard’s Declassified report in Consortium 15 February). The return of violent, endorsed fascism to 21st-century Europe, to quote Harold Pinter, “never happened … even while it was happening”.

On 16 December, the United Nations tabled a resolution that called for “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism”. The only nations to vote against it were the United States and Ukraine.

Almost every Russian knows that it was across the plains of Ukraine’s “borderland” that Hitler’s divisions swept from the west in 1941, bolstered by Ukraine’s Nazi cultists and collaborators. The result was more than 20 million Russians dead.

Setting aside the maneuvers and cynicism of geopolitics, whomever the players, this historical memory is the driving force behind Russia’s respect-seeking, self-protective security proposals, which were published in Moscow in the week the UN voted 130-2 to outlaw Nazism. They are:

• NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missiles in nations bordering Russia. (They are already in place from Slovenia to Romania, with Poland to follow)
• NATO to stop military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
• Ukraine will not become a member of NATO.
• the West and Russia to sign a binding East-West security pact.
• – the landmark treaty between the US and Russia covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be restored. (The US abandoned it in 2019)

These amount to a comprehensive draft of a peace plan for all of post-war Europe and ought to be welcomed in the West. But who understands their significance in Britain? What they are told is that Putin is a pariah and a threat to Christendom.

Russian-speaking Ukrainians, under economic blockade by Kyiv for seven years, are fighting for their survival. The “massing” army we seldom hear about are the thirteen Ukrainian army brigades laying siege to Donbas: an estimated 150,000 troops. If they attack, the provocation to Russia will almost certainly mean war.

In 2015, brokered by the Germans and French, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France met in Minsk and signed an interim peace deal. Ukraine agreed to offer autonomy to Donbas, now the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The Minsk agreement has never been given a chance. In Britain, the line,  amplified by Boris Johnson, is that Ukraine is being “dictated to” by world leaders. For its part, Britain is arming Ukraine and training its army.

Since the first Cold War, NATO has effectively marched right up to Russia’s most sensitive border having demonstrated its bloody aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and broken solemn promises to pull back.  Having dragged European “allies” into American wars that do not concern them, the great unspoken is that NATO itself is the real threat to European security.

In Britain, a state and media xenophobia is triggered at the very mention of “Russia.” Mark the knee-jerk hostility with which the BBC reports Russia. Why? Is it because the restoration of imperial mythology demands, above all, a permanent enemy? Certainly, we deserve better.

Media Beats War Drums with Russia Over Ukraine While US/Saudis Kill Hundreds in Yemen

January 28th, 2022

By Mnar Adley

Journalists Benjamin Norton and Alan MacLeod join Mnar Adley to discuss how the mainstream media spent the last week beating drums of war with Russia while ignoring a new deadly US-backed Saudi onslaught in Yemen.

Journalists Benjamin Norton and Alan MacLeod join Mnar Adley to discuss how the mainstream media spent the last week beating drums of war with Russia over Ukraine with headlines and talking heads funded and sponsored by Lockheed Martin and NATO.

Meanwhile, there wasn’t a single article covering how the US-Saudi-UAE coalition cut off the internet to Yemen for several days while dropping hundreds of bombs on civilians resulting in hundreds dead and over a thousand injured. Guess which story CNN covered? Both conflicts were brought to you by weapons manufacturers.