Damascus – About two weeks after the devastating earthquake that struck both Syria and Turkey and the unprecedented human tragedy it left behind, the scale of Western hypocrisy and the falsity of its repeated claims about human rights and the defense of humanitarian issues for which it set itself up as its advocate, or rather as a judge under the pretext of which it flogs whomever it wants from its enemies under the pretext of defending them, have been revealed successively.
In the most recent chapter of this strange paradox which amounts to a scandal is what a UN official announced that the rate of response in Syria following the devastating earthquake did not reach the minimum required so far.
Ghada Mudawi, an official at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, confirmed that the humanitarian appeal launched by the United Nations to meet the needs of those affected by the earthquake in Syria received only 17% of the total value requested, which amounts to $397 million.
The UN official stressed the need to provide more resources to support life-saving relief efforts in Syria and Turkey, noting that the most urgent needs of those displaced by the devastating earthquakes are food, shelter, winter supplies and cash, according to the United Nations Information Center.
With the exception of an Italian aid ship and a Norwegian plane that landed at Damascus airport, the European Union did not provide any aid to Syria despite all the false tears that European officials were shedding allegedly in grief over the Syrian people for their freedom.
Generous Only in Arms
Regarding this apparent Western hypocrisy in dealing with humanitarian issues, political analyst Khaled Amer told Al-Ahed news website that the tragedy of the earthquake completely exposed the Western allegations and revealed their falsity.
Amer asked: “Where did the overwhelming human emotion of the European officials for the Syrian people go and they were the ones following the Syrian crisis in all its details and made the UN Security Council convene in a semi-permanent condition to discuss the Syrian issue?”
He continued, “Why do Europeans skimp on the Syrians with a small part of the basic necessities of life, when they spent tens of millions pumping arms and mobilizing the media to stir up confusion and sedition among the Syrians and push them to kill each other?”
He stressed that Syria, despite all the difficulties it faces and the tragedies that befell it, does not need those who trade in the tragedies of peoples, especially since it has allies who stand by it in all crises and share with it what they possess in order to heal its wounds. He added that both their bloods mixed in the war on top of which are the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Lebanese Resistance, Iraq and its Popular Mobilization Units.
Accordingly, Amer believes that with all these allied and sincere forces, there is no fear for Syria, stressing that it is able to overcome all these pains and rise again to regain its health again.
The natural disaster represented by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit both Turkey and Syria and led to the killing and wounding tens of thousands of people in both countries have given an alarming signal about how much degraded and inhumane the West is.
Day after day the Western hypocrisy, double standards and inconsistency reveal themselves in the meanest way, especially through the way they deal with the Syrian catastrophe.
The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake stands above 16,000, and the numbers are expected to increase as time passes.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a disaster zone in the 10 provinces affected by the earthquakes, imposing a state of emergency in the region for three months.
Turkey’s disaster management agency said it had 11,342 reports of collapsed buildings, of which 5,775 had been confirmed. Turkey’s ministry of transport and infrastructure said that overnight 3,400 people took shelter in trains being used as emergency accommodation
The number of those injured there rose to 37,011, the agency said, adding that more than 79,000 personnel were engaged in search and rescue operations on the Turkish side of the border.
Syria’s death toll has climbed to at least 3162, and Turkey’s has hit 14014.
Even in the wake of this devastating earthquake, the US and EU continue to refuse to lift the sanctions imposed on Damascus which prevent Syrians from receiving direct aid from many countries.
The Westerners, who show extreme generosity when they pay money to many of the corrupt NGOS, are indifferent to the suffering of the Syrian people who are lying under the rubbles and debris of their destroyed homes.
The tight siege by the US government against Syria represented by Caesar Act continues to exert its unjust pressure and deny innocent people their basic rights of life and salvation.
By blackmailing governments and preventing them from taking the initiative to send the help, food and medical supplies to Syria, Washington is exacerbating the already dire situation there.
So many countries of the world have launched air bridges and sent aid to Turkey, while very few countries dared to challenge the American siege.
Among the first governments to respond and send help were Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman and Qatar.
It is very shameful how the Western governments deal with the suffering of Syrian people when they keep presenting themselves as the guardians of dignities and human rights.
All efforts should be mounting by governments and lobbyists to break the siege against Syria completely.
The US-imposed hegemonic policies should be challenged and sabotaged once and for all.
A campaign of condemnation and awareness should spread all over to make people alert and sober about the true nature of the Western criminal policies.
الزلزال الذي ضرب تركيا وسورية وأسقط آلاف الضحايا والمصابين وخلّف عشرات آلاف المشرّدين بلا مأوى، كارثة إنسانية موصوفة، والعالم الذي ينفق تريليونات من الدولارات على التسلح والحروب يرسل القروش لتركيا، لكنه يحجم عن إرسال شيء الى سورية، بل يواصل المكر والخبث والكيد والحقد عبر العقوبات والحصار، كما تقول بيانات التضامن المخادعة بالحديث عن مساعدة الشعب السوري، بدلاً من القول سورية، وعبر المؤسسات الإنسانية، كي يقولوا وليس عبر الحكومة السورية، وكي يقولوا ضمناً لا شيء، لأنهم يعلمون أنّ صناديق هذه المؤسسات خاوية وقد بدأت بالتقشف في مساعداتها التي كانت تقدّمها في العام الماضي، ولحق النازحين السوريين نصيب من هذا التقشف، وبالمقارنة بين العالم ما قبل الحضارة المدينة وعالم اليوم، نكتشف بسهولة أنّ المسمّى عالم ما قبل الحضارة المدنية كان أشدّ رحمة وأكثر شهامة، وأشدّ كرماً، عندما يتعلق الأمر بالكوارث الطبيعية، حتى في حالات الحروب، فتوضع الخلافات جانبا وتتحد الجهود لدرء الكارثة، بينما لا يرفّ جفن العالم المدّعي للحضارة ولا قلب، والمطلوب رفع العقوبات والحصار، وتخفيف وطأة الكارثة.
كلّ الذين يتهرّبون من الحقيقة السورية يخادعون أنفسهم، وهم في سرّهم يعلمون أنّ سورية سواء انتهت كارثة الزلزال عندها برقم 2000 ضحية أو عشرة آلاف ضحية، فهي ستعود وتتعافى وتقف على قدميها، كما دأبها دائماً، لكن دماء وأرواح هذا الفارق سوف يتمّ تقييدها في حساب لا يقفل على ذمة وضمائر كلّ الذين كان بوسعهم فعل شيء، ولم يفعلوه، ولنبدأ بالأمين العام للجامعة العربية مكتوم الصوت، ليكفّر عن جريمة رئاسته للوفد الذي ذهب يدعو لشنّ الحرب عليها، بعد قرار الجامعة تعليق عضويتها، لم لا يكون أول الواصلين الى دمشق يشرف بنفسه على الاتصالات الهادفة لحث الحكومات العربية على تسيير جسور جوية وقوافل بحرية وبرية لكلّ ما تحتاجه سورية في زمن الكارثة، سفن الوقود والمعدات الطبية والأدوية والمستشفيات الميدانية، والآليات الثقيلة لدعم جهود البحث والإنقاذ، والبيوت السريعة الإنشاء لإيواء المشرّدين، وأدوات التدفئة والألبسة والمطابخ الضخمة لتأمين الطعام، ومثله السؤال لكلّ حاكم عربي قادر ولم يفعل شيئا، خصوصاً في الدول العربية الغنية، وبالأخص في الخليج، وفي الطريق سؤال للحكومة اللبنانية، أليس ما تحتاجه سورية اليوم أكثر من وفد استكشافي للحاجات، هو إعلان تخصيص مطار القليعات ومرفأ طرابلس لاستقبال السفن والطائرات التي تحمل الإغاثة لسورية، والتي لا تستطيع التوجه إلى مطاراتها ومرافئها بسبب العقوبات، ومعلوم أنّ لبنان عندما يفعل ذلك لن يتعرّض لأيّ مساءلة أو أذى، وهو قادر ان يطلب من الأمم المتحدة تولي الإشراف على ما يصل عبر المطار والمرفأ نحو سورية، وربطه بزمن الكارثة.
لأنّ سورية عائدة وسوف تتعافى رغماً عن أنوف أعدائها، ولأنهم يعرفون ذلك، فالسؤال ماذا عن أميركا وأوروبا، أليس التوقيت مناسباً، بلغة المصالح بعيداً عن الضمائر الميتة، للتذرّع بالزلزال واعتباره توقيتاً مناسباً لاستثناء كلّ ما هو إغاثي وطبي وإنساني وغذائي ومنه الوقود وما يتصل بالبنى التحتية وإيواء النازحين والمشرّدين، من كلّ ما له صلة بالعقوبات، وقد سبق للأميركيين والأوروبيين أن كتبوا وحللوا عن مشاريع تفاوض مع سورية بفعل ذلك مقابل أثمان سياسية، فماذا سوف يخسرون إنْ فعلوا ذلك دون مقابل، وهم يعلمون أنهم سوف يربحون وضع القطار على السكة، لكسر الجليد وبدء الحديث مع سورية؟
بلغة المصلحة أيضاً أليست فرصة للسعودية ومصر اللتان تبحثان عن مدخل لبناء جسر جديد للعلاقة مع سورية، أن تصل وفود وزارية منهما على رأس قوافل الدعم والمستشفيات الميدانية، وقد سبق لهما خلال محنة مرفأ بيروت أن فعلا شيئاً مشابهاً، واعتبار التوقيت المناسب لفعل ذلك هو هذه البوابة الإنسانية؟
بمفهوم التوقيت المناسب، هو توقيت مناسب لتركيا لتسلم مناطق سيطرتها للدولة السورية، وهي تحتاج كلّ مقدراتها داخل تركيا في مواجهة الكارثة، وتحت إشراف لجنة رباعية سورية روسية إيرانية تركية تقام غرفة عمليات مشتركة، تفتح الطرق، وتدير فرق الإغاثة، في كلّ المناطق السورية، وهي فرصة للذين تورّطوا في الخروج عن حضن الوطن ليعودوا ويظهروا بعضاً من وطنية في زمن الكارثة. التوقيت المناسب للشجعان فقط!
بعد أن تركّزت مساعدات الدعم العربي والدولي بشكل رئيسي إلى تركيا التي عرضت 70 دولة إرسال مساعدات إليها بحسب الرئيس رجب طيب إردوغان، وصلت اليوم إلى سوريا، اليوم، طائرات من دول عربية عدّة، في إشارة إلى «خرق» للحصار الأميركي المفروض على سوريا عبر قانون «قيصر»، ما قد يساهم في مساعدة المناطق المنكوبة جراء الزلزال الذي ضرب تركيا وسوريا أمس.
ويأتي ذلك بالتزامن مع مواصلة عمليات البحث عن ناجين اليوم في ظلّ طقس شديد البرودة، بينما تجاوزت حصيلة ضحايا الزلزال المدمر أكثر من 7100، 1712 قتلوا في سوريا، و5434 شخصاً في تركيا.
وكان لافتاً موقف السلطات السعودية التي أمرت اليوم بـ«تسيير جسر جوّي وتقديم مساعدات صحية وإيوائية وغذائية ولوجستية لتخفيف آثار الزلزال على الشعبين السوري والتركي، وتنظيم حملة شعبية عبر منصة «ساهم» لمساعدة ضحايا الزلزال في سوريا وتركيا»، في حين لم تتطرق أمس إلى أي مساعدات.
وعمد العراق إلى الأمر نفسه، إذ فتحت بغداد ممراً جوياً مخصصاً للمساعدات الإنسانية وسترسل الوقود غداً الأربعاء. كما وصلت طائرتان عراقيتان إلى دمشق تحمل كل منهما 70 طناً من المواد الغذائية والبطانيات والإمدادات الطبية، من بين أشياء أخرى، بحسب وكالة «سانا».
ومن لبنان، توجّه فوج من الجيش اللبناني وفرق إنقاذ خاصة من لجنة الصليب الأحمر اللبناني إلى سوريا، بعد أن توجّهت أمس لمساعدة تركيا. وفتحت بيروت أجواءها وموانئها مع إعفاء شركات النقل الجوي والبحري الوافدة لأغراض إنسانية من الرسوم والضرائب، بحسب وزير الأشغال اللبناني، علي حمية.
وأفادت «سانا» أيضاً بوصول طائرة مصرية تحمل مساعدات لمتضرّري الزلزال، بعد توجيهات من الرئيس المصري عبدالفتاح السيسي، بإرسال 5 طائرات عسكرية محملة بمساعدات طبية عاجلة إلى سوريا وتركيا، وذلك في أعقاب اتصال هاتفي أجراه السيسي مع الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد.
ومن جانبها، أرسلت الإمارات طائرات نقلت «مساعدات طارئة» إلى كل من سوريا وتركيا، معلنةً تخصيص مساعدات إنسانية بقيمة 100 مليون دولار مناصفة بين البلدين. وقد وصلت طائرتان إماراتيتان محملتان بالمساعدات.
وأعلنت قطر إنشاء «مستشفى ميداني» وإرسال «فرق بحث وإنقاذ» إلى تركيا، واستعدادها إرسال 10 آلاف حاوية لتركيا، من دون التطرق إلى مساعدات لسوريا.
مغربياً، كانت الجزائر سبّاقة في الاستجابة لإغاثة المناطق المنكوبة في سوريا، إذ أرسلت منذ ليلة أمس وحتى اليوم 115 طناً من المنتجات الصيدلانية والغذائية والخيام إلى سوريا التي توجه إليها ليلاً فريق حماية مدنية جزائري مكون من 86 منقذاً، بحسب وزير الداخلية الجزائري إبراهيم مراد. وقد وصلت ثلاث طائرات جزائرية إلى مطار حلب الدولي، محملة بالمساعدات الطبية والغذائية والإنسانية، بحسب «سانا».
كذلك، أرسلت الجزائر إلى تركيا أمس 17 طناً من معدات التدخل فضلاً عن «مجموعة أولى من 89 عميلاً متخصصاً في إدارة المخاطر الكبرى»، وفقاً للعقيد في الحماية المدنية فاروق عاشور.
من جانبها، قررت تونس إرسال 60 منقذاً، 41 منهم لتركيا، بينهم أطباء، و19 إلى سوريا. كما سيتم إرسال أطباء من وزارة الصحة وفرق من الهلال الأحمر التونسي. وسترسل تونس أكثر من 15 طناً من المساعدات من البطانيات والأغذية وحليب الأطفال، 11 منها إلى تركيا و4 إلى سوريا.
كذلك، وصلت طائرة ليبية إلى مطار حلب الدولي تحمل مساعدات إغاثية للمتضررين، بعد أن أمر رئيس الوزراء الليبي عبد الحميد الدبيبة بالإرسال «الفوري» لفريق بحث وإنقاذ مكون من 55 منقذاً تابعين للحماية المدنية والهندسة العسكرية وخمسة كلاب.
وجهّزت عمان أولى طائرات الإنقاذ التابعة للقوات الجوية الأردنية محملة بالمعدات الطبية واللوجستية، بالإضافة إلى فريق يضم 99 من عمال الإنقاذ وخمسة أطباء من الخدمات الطبية الملكية.
Former US army officer Scott Bennett stressed that the American people have been through years deceived by the pro-Zionist media, underlining importance of addressing these crowds in a bid to “let them know the truth” about Palestine, Hezbollah and other resistance factions in the region.
In a recent exclusive interview, the ex-officer in the US’ 11th Psychological Operations Battalion revealed to Batoul Wehbe, the Editor-in-chief of Al-Manar English Website, how the US administration funded ISIS (ISIL), Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front and other terrorists.
He narrated how he was jailed by the US government after he exposed the US support to Takifris in the region.
Mr. Bennett also slammed double standards in dealing with Ukraine and Palestine, as he revealed that the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was plotted by the Zionists.
“Americans Brainwashed”
The former US officer described the American people as “brainwashed”, noting that they “need to wake up” and stand by the Palestinian people against Israeli crimes.
He pointed to a change in the political powers in the world, “with the decrease of the western influence and the rise of independent states.”
Asked about the possibility of having a third Intifada in Palestine, Mr. Bennett said: “we may be in the verge of the Israelis being foolish enough to start another fight but if they do they will lose it and they will also recognize no one in America or Europe supports Israel’s genocide, apartheid and racist bigotry.”
Ukraine: Hypocrisy, Double Standards Talking about Ukraine, the former Psychological officer slammed what he called “hypocrisy and double standards” in dealing with Ukraine and Palestine.
In this context, he stressed that Ukraine is “a wasted effort”, adding that the US and the EU “stand on the wrong side” while Russia “stands on the right side.”
Affirming that Russia has already won the war against Ukraine, he pointed to US’ betrayal of Europe and destroying its gas ability, expecting a ‘revolution’ against Washington in the European countries this winter.
Bennet Exposed US’ Financing of Terrorists
Asked to define terrorism, Dr. Bennett narrated how he came out as a “different man” after being jailed because of a report he handed over to the US army command that exposed the US government’s financing of terrorists.
He also mentioned that he had worked with American whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Hezbollah and Sayyed Nasrallah Psychological Tactics
Praising Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as a powerful speaker, Mr. Bennett hoped that Sayyed Nasrallah can address the western crowds and “tell them the truth.”
He noted meanwhile, that America “is greatly suffering as t’s embroiling with all kinds of perversions,” stressing that this country “needs to be spiritually healed.”
9/11 Attacks Plotted by Zionists, CIA
The US Psychological analyst lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal.” In this context, he revealed that the Zionist entity’s Mossad was behind the 9/11 attacks in 2001, alongside with intelligence of several other countries.
The FIFA World Cup held in Qatar is probably going to be the worst in the 92-year history of the tournament, but not for the reasons most are thinking.
Aside from the fact that it is being held for the first time in winter due to the soaring summer temperatures of the Persian Gulf – and apart from the many off-field controversies surrounding the event – this year’s World Cup has kicked off with shockingly biased coverage by the BBC.
The choice of Qatar to host the prestigious global football tournament was always going to be one steeped in controversy – a West Asian Muslim nation, for one, had never snagged a prize this big, and of such global significance.
So from the onset, bribery scandals implicating the Qataris with the corrupt-prone FIFA organization ran rife. True or not, to date there exists no hard evidence linking Qatar and its successful bid to host the World Cup.
The first World Cup in West Asia
Then there was the cultural aspect: a conservative, Arab, Asian, Muslim-majority emirate was deemed unworthy of hosting the world’s most important football event. The biases run deep: consider, for instance, that this World Cup is only the second ever to be hosted in Asia – the world’s biggest continent – after Japan-South Korea co-hosted in 2002.
Alcohol and football spectating often go hand in hand, and the Qataris have already made headlines by announcing two days before the tournament a ban on the sale of alcohol inside stadiums. This, despite a contractual agreement between FIFA and US beer giant Budweiser, which enjoyed exclusive official sponsor rights to sell its drinks at the World Cup.
However, these issues can and have by and large been overlooked by most football fans and the media. The elephant in the room, has always been the issue of Qatari human rights and whether it is therefore “unfit” to host the world’s greatest sporting event, after the Olympics.
These pressing issues, so championed by the liberal west, include democracy, women’s rights, LGBT rights, and the plight and treatment of migrant workers – most of these from South Asia. Yet while some of the charges are valid talking points, they are accompanied by an all too familiar feeling of western double standards.
The BBC snubs the Opening Ceremony
The BBC, which has built a global reputation for its renowned football coverage throughout the decades – including many memorable World Cups – has let itself down immensely over its refusal to air Qatar 2022’s Opening Ceremony.
The opening show, after all, is every host nation’s chance to introduce itself to the rest of the world and put on a dazzling and meaningful display of its heritage, culture, and a means to project its soft power. Yet millions of television viewers in the UK were deprived of witnessing the spectacle Qatar had painstakingly organized. This was British petulance and pettiness on display for all the world to see.
From the very outset, BBC presenter and former footballer Gary Lineker set a scathing tone with a disclaimer-like segment prior to the program. “It’s the most controversial World Cup in history and a ball hasn’t even been kicked,” he said before listing the aforementioned controversies.
“Against that backdrop, there’s a tournament to be played – one that will be watched and enjoyed around the world. Stick to football, say FIFA. Well, we will – for a couple of minutes at least.”
He wasn’t joking either. For a good 20 minutes, the show intended to display the opening ceremony of the first World Cup in West Asia, was instead an insufferable bore of virtue-signaling by the BBC and its panel of pundits.
Online backlash against the BBC
Naturally, this deviation from the main subject was picked up on social media by both popular, verified users, and average football fans, alike. The people tuned into the BBC, not only for the opening ceremony, but you guessed it – for football.
British media personality Piers Morgan was among those who slammed the BBC over its “outrageously disrespectful” coverage for not broadcasting the opening ceremony and playing petty politics. “If they’re that appalled, they should bring home their vast army of (British) employees & spare us this absurd hypocrisy,” he added.
These sentiments were echoed across Twitter, with many users describing the BBC’s coverage as a “disgrace.” Others pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of the pundits, who despite criticizing the Qataris and essentially boycotting the opening ceremony, still will be getting paid to film the month-long spectacle in the country.
Selective moral outrage
What has been remarkable, though, has been the incessant moral outrage that has emerged in the build-up to this competition – noticeably absent not only in all previous World Cups, but also interestingly enough, in the last tournament which was hosted in Russia – the villain of the hour, and Europe’s current security bogeyman.
That 2018 World Cup opening ceremony was neither snubbed, nor were LGBT rights or any other human rights issues invoked. Remember that this was four years after the annexation of Crimea – a prelude to the current, on-going Russian military operation in Ukraine.
At the time, the BBC’s coverage proceeded as normal, despite publicized accusations of “sports washing.” Likewise, the BBC had no qualms about broadcasting the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, in spite of (unsubstantiated) western claims of a Uyghur genocide.
So why has Qatar been singled out? Some observers have pointed to Islamophobia, which truth be told, may be a far too simplistic assumption, although there has definitely been obvious cases of this in certain western media coverage. What is true is that Arabs and Muslims remain pretty much the only global demographic left against which racist and ethnic bashing are not only allowed, but roundly applauded.
Linekar’s fellow pundits include female ex-footballer Alex Scott who tried to defend her presence in Qatar despite criticizing the country’s human rights record, “Because I love my job,” she argued – which she justified by having these “harder conversations.”
“You think about four years ago, I was the first female pundit for the BBC at a World Cup. You think about how far we’ve moved in four years.” Interestingly enough, not only did she share her commentary in the last World Cup in Russia, but she was also seen pictured with President Vladimir Putin. Clearly “human rights” were of no concern to her back then.
Former footballer Alan Shearer’s moral outrage against Qatar is also ironic, given that he is a vocal proponent of Saudi Arabia’s takeover of his beloved hometown club, Newcastle United. The Saudis, after all, practically wrote the textbook on repression and rights violations. Why hasn’t he opposed lucrative Saudi investment in the Magpies?
Perhaps feeling compelled to address the Saudi acquisition while discussing the World Cup in Qatar, Shearer did say: “Do I love the impact that it has had on Newcastle? Absolutely. Newcastle are buzzing and playing some great football.”
“Also, do I think that the Saudis and other countries should be held to account over human rights? Absolutely yes.”
What about the next FIFA World Cup?
The virtue signaling we are witnessing will likely continue to be throughout the rest of the World Cup. The BBC have already taken the unprecedented step of placing politics at the forefront of their sports coverage.
In terms of consistency, then, it will be interesting to see where they go with the next FIFA World Cup to be jointly hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico. Will the BBC snub the opening ceremony to protest rampant US police brutality, its dismal human rights record, its illegal wars, arms sales to despotic regimes, or its on-going theft of Syrian oil?
How about Canada’s arms trade with Saudi Arabia which contributes directly to the devastating war in Yemen where tens of thousands have died and millions are on the verge of starvation? And let’s not forget the narco-state that has emerged in Mexico, where kidnapping and capital crimes now rule the streets, with little pushback from the government.
Of course, the British government’s mouthpiece will have no objections with those host nations. No, the BBC will not spare even a second to point out those deadly crimes that affect tens of millions more people than whatever-Qatar-did-wrong.
Ultimately, for football fans around the world who eagerly waited four long years for this tournament, it won’t be hard to watch this Qatari World Cup. It will only be hard to watch it on the BBC.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The first thing which I will do today is post the full video of Putin’s speech with English subtitles made by Michael Rossi on YouTube:
Next, I will now post the full transcript. I will add emphasis by blue bolding out some key passages and a few key words will be emphasized in bold red. I will then add my own comments in italics red.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia, citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, deputies of the State Duma, senators of the Russian Federation,
As you know, referendums have been held in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. The ballots have been counted and the results have been announced. The people have made their unequivocal choice.
Today we will sign treaties on the accession of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye Region and Kherson Region to the Russian Federation. I have no doubt that the Federal Assembly will support the constitutional laws on the accession to Russia and the establishment of four new regions, our new constituent entities of the Russian Federation, because this is the will of millions of people. (Applause.)
It is undoubtedly their right, an inherent right sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter, which directly states the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
I repeat, it is an inherent right of the people. It is based on our historical affinity, and it is that right that led generations of our predecessors, those who built and defended Russia for centuries since the period of Ancient Rus, to victory.
Here in Novorossiya, [Pyotr] Rumyantsev, [Alexander] Suvorov and [Fyodor] Ushakov fought their battles, and Catherine the Great and [Grigory] Potyomkin founded new cities. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought here to the bitter end during the Great Patriotic War.
We will always remember the heroes of the Russian Spring, those who refused to accept the neo-Nazi coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, all those who died for the right to speak their native language, to preserve their culture, traditions and religion, and for the very right to live. We remember the soldiers of Donbass, the martyrs of the “Odessa Khatyn,” the victims of inhuman terrorist attacks carried out by the Kiev regime. We commemorate volunteers and militiamen, civilians, children, women, senior citizens, Russians, Ukrainians, people of various nationalities; popular leader of Donetsk Alexander Zakharchenko; military commanders Arsen Pavlov and Vladimir Zhoga, Olga Kochura and Alexei Mozgovoy; prosecutor of the Lugansk Republic Sergei Gorenko; paratrooper Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov and all our soldiers and officers who died a hero’s death during the special military operation. They are heroes. (Applause.) Heroes of great Russia. Please join me in a minute of silence to honour their memory.
(Minute of silence.)
Thank you.
Behind the choice of millions of residents in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, is our common destiny and thousand-year history. People have passed this spiritual connection on to their children and grandchildren. Despite all the trials they endured, they carried the love for Russia through the years. This is something no one can destroy. That is why both older generations and young people – those who were born after the tragic collapse of the Soviet Union – have voted for our unity, for our common future.
In 1991 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, representatives of the party elite of that time made a decision to terminate the Soviet Union, without asking ordinary citizens what they wanted, and people suddenly found themselves cut off from their homeland. This tore apart and dismembered our national community and triggered a national catastrophe. Just like the government quietly demarcated the borders of Soviet republics, acting behind the scenes after the 1917 revolution, the last leaders of the Soviet Union, contrary to the direct expression of the will of the majority of people in the referendum of 1991, destroyed our great country, and simply made the people in the former republics face this as an accomplished fact.
I can admit that they didn’t even know what they were doing and what consequences their actions would have in the end. But it doesn’t matter now. There is no Soviet Union anymore; we cannot return to the past. Actually, Russia no longer needs it today; this isn’t our ambition
Comment: this is an important statement because it clearly spells out Putin rejection, on both pragmatic and philosophical reasons, of any kind of nostalgia for the Soviet Union, nevermind any attempts to restore it. As Putin once said, “he who does not deplore the end of the Soviet Union has no heart, and he who wants to recreate it has no brain”. This is also one aspect of Putin which particularly infuriates the 6th columnists and other assorted emo-Marxists: Putin world view is Russian, not Soviet, and while Putin never denied the immense achievements of the Soviet period, he also is acutely aware of the horrendous human costs of the Soviet rule, especially for the Russian people. At the end of Putin’s speech we will have one more chance to revisit this topic
But there is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their determination to return to their true historical homeland.
For eight long years, people in Donbass were subjected to genocide, shelling and blockades; in Kherson and Zaporozhye, a criminal policy was pursued to cultivate hatred for Russia, for everything Russian. Now too, during the referendums, the Kiev regime threatened schoolteachers, women who worked in election commissions with reprisals and death. Kiev threatened millions of people who came to express their will with repression. But the people of Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson weren’t broken, and they had their say.
I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens, forever. (Applause.)
Comment: as I have been predicting for many months now, the Kremlin has long decided that the West is “non-agreement capable” and, therefore, has replaced a policy of attempted negotiations with a policy of unilateralism. Not only that, but much of the Russian unilateral policy right now is to turn up what I called the “pain dial” on Kiev, the EU and the USA. What Putin is saying here is basically this: “due to your self-defeating policy of always doubling down on even the most idiotic policies, you have forever lost Crimea, Donetsk, Lukansk, Zaporozhie and Kherson. Better talk to us now before you lose even more land forever”
We call on the Kiev regime to immediately cease fire and all hostilities; to end the war it unleashed back in 2014 and return to the negotiating table. We are ready for this, as we have said more than once. But the choice of the people in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson will not be discussed. The decision has been made, and Russia will not betray it. (Applause.) Kiev’s current authorities should respect this free expression of the people’s will; there is no other way. This is the only way to peace.
We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people. This is the great liberating mission of our nation.
Comment: that is clearly a not-too-subtle hint that while something like 15% (or even less) of the Russian military is currently involved in the SMO (so far the Kremlin has not changed that designation), the remaining 85% are available if and when needed. Russia has zero need to use tactical nukes in the Ukraine or anywhere else, but if need be, Russia will use any and all means at her disposal to protect her people.
We will definitely rebuild the destroyed cities and towns, the residential buildings, schools, hospitals, theatres and museums. We will restore and develop industrial enterprises, factories, infrastructure, as well as the social security, pension, healthcare and education systems.
We will certainly work to improve the level of security. Together we will make sure that citizens in the new regions can feel the support of all the people of Russia, of the entire nation, all the republics, territories and regions of our vast Motherland. (Applause.)
Friends, colleagues,
Today I would like to address our soldiers and officers who are taking part in the special military operation, the fighters of Donbass and Novorossiya, those who went to military recruitment offices after receiving a call-up paper under the executive order on partial mobilisation, and those who did this voluntarily, answering the call of their hearts. I would like to address their parents, wives and children, to tell them what our people are fighting for, what kind of enemy we are up against, and who is pushing the world into new wars and crises and deriving blood-stained benefits from this tragedy.
Comment: what comes next is both a diagnosis of the true nature of the West and an official Russian rejection therefore on the grounds that is is deeply inhuman and evil.
Our compatriots, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are part of our united people have seen with their own eyes what the ruling class of the so-called West have prepared for humanity as a whole. They have dropped their masks and shown what they are really made of.
Comment: Putin is directly accusing the West of hypocrisy and rabid, messianic, imperialism. He simply notes that that which we now see openly was hidden for decades and even centuries under all sorts of pious ideological justifications. Now Russia has forced the West to show its true face to the entire planet, and the planet is recoiling in horror and disgust.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West decided that the world and all of us would permanently accede to its dictates. In 1991, the West thought that Russia would never rise after such shocks and would fall to pieces on its own. This almost happened. We remember the horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless. But Russia remained standing, came alive, grew stronger and occupied its rightful place in the world.
Comment: for at least a decade, Russia did live as a US colony and she was pillaged, raped and even came close to totally breaking up. The West has now chosen to modestly “forget” about how it “advised” and “assisted” the “democratic” government of Russia (in spite of the AngloZionist butchery organized in Moscow in 1993) but Putin is reminding everybody that he and most Russians remember this horror very well.
Meanwhile, the West continued and continues looking for another chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia, which they have always dreamed about, to divide our state and set our peoples against each other, and to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They cannot rest easy knowing that there is such a great country with this huge territory in the world, with its natural wealth, resources and people who cannot and will not do someone else’s bidding.
Comment: Here Putin confirms something which I have been writing about for years: the West and Russia are locked into an existential war simply because Russia wants to be truly sovereign, which is something which the West considers and existential threat.
The West is ready to cross every line to preserve the neo-colonial system which allows it to live off the world, to plunder it thanks to the domination of the dollar and technology, to collect an actual tribute from humanity, to extract its primary source of unearned prosperity, the rent paid to the hegemon. The preservation of this annuity is their main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation.
Comment: here Putin is basically saying that the West is a kind of “international hyena” who lives by robbing and murdering anybody else. Furthermore, Putin clearly indicates that the West will not agree to even consider another developmental model, hence is conclusion that preserving this state of affairs is the West “main, real and absolutely self-serving motivation”.
This is why total de-sovereignisation is in their interest. This explains their aggression towards independent states, traditional values and authentic cultures, their attempts to undermine international and integration processes, new global currencies and technological development centres they cannot control. It is critically important for them to force all countries to surrender their sovereignty to the United States.
Comment: here Putin brings it all to the crux of the problem: the West cannot and will not tolerate any true sovereignty, not abroad not even at home (hence the stolen elections)! As for Russia and the countries of what I call “Zone B”, their end goal is exactly that, full sovereignty. So while the Cold War was, at least officially, a struggle between capitalist and Marxist ideologies, the new Tepid War we see now pits hegemonists against sovereignists in a zero-sum struggle in which one party will prevail and the other simply disappear.
In certain countries, the ruling elites voluntarily agree to do this, voluntarily agree to become vassals; others are bribed or intimidated. And if this does not work, they destroy entire states, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies. They don’t care. All they care about is their own benefit.
Comment: here Putin lists the type of hell on earth the West unleashes against any country or even ethnicity which dares to disobey it. The “fruits” of western capitalism are “the destruction of entire states, leaving behind humanitarian disasters, devastation, ruins, millions of wrecked and mangled human lives, terrorist enclaves, social disaster zones, protectorates, colonies and semi-colonies”. Only a terminally ignorant, or brainwashed, person could argue against such an indisputable historical legacy!
I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves.
Comment: in simple terms, Putin indicates to the Russian people why they are fighting this war and what is truly at stake: the survival of the Russian nation as such.
They see our thought and our philosophy as a direct threat. That is why they target our philosophers for assassination. Our culture and art present a danger to them, so they are trying to ban them. Our development and prosperity are also a threat to them because competition is growing. They do not want or need Russia, but we do. (Applause.)
Comment: here Putin goes even further and indicates that it is not the military or economic might of Russia which the West considers a threat, but even more so the civilizational values carried by the peoples or Russia. And I totally agree with him: Russian thought and philosophy are, indeed, an immense threat to the West and its ruling classes. Hence the rabid “cancel Russia” phenomenon we can observe everywhere.
I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend our values and our Motherland.
Comment: here Putin reminds his audience that it has been the historical mission of Russia to stand against and defeat wave after wave after wave of western messianic invasions, attacks, interventions, assassinations and even the support for civil wars inside Russia (Chechnia). For all her history Russia fought against western Crusaders and that is still her mission today.
The West is counting on impunity, on being able to get away with anything. As a matter of fact, this was actually the case until recently.
Comment: he is right, the West did get away with, quite literally, mass murder and even genocide throughout its history. Folks in the West don’t like to hear that, but that dislike does not change the historical record. I would even argue that the manic determination of so many people in the West to whitewash the shameful historical legacy of the European civilization is a key component of the “ideological superstructure” which has supported Western imperialism since at least the Crusades.
Strategic security agreements have been trashed; agreements reached at the highest political level have been declared tall tales; firm promises not to expand NATO to the east gave way to dirty deception as soon as our former leaders bought into them; missile defence, intermediate-range and shorter-range missile treaties have been unilaterally dismantled under far-fetched pretexts.
And all we hear is, the West is insisting on a rules-based order. Where did that come from anyway? Who has ever seen these rules? Who agreed or approved them? Listen, this is just a lot of nonsense, utter deceit, double standards, or even triple standards! They must think we’re stupid.
Russia is a great thousand-year-old power, a whole civilisation, and it is not going to live by such makeshift, false rules. (Applause.)
Comment: that is a direct reference to the attempts by the ruling classes of the West to replace international law by a so-called “rules based order” whose rules would be defined by, of course, the Western ruling classes and which will be entirely situational: if they do it it is bad, if we do it is is good. Basically, this entire “rules based order” is yet another attempt at declaring the West infallible, just like to Pope was declared infallible during the Vatican I council. Claims of infallibility are always at the core of any forms of self-worship.
It was the so-called West that trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now it is deciding, at its own discretion, who has the right to self-determination and who does not, who is unworthy of it. It is unclear what their decisions are based on or who gave them the right to decide in the first place. They just assumed it.
Comment: well, making such assumptions is what most self-worshiping megalomaniacs and assorted narcissists are all about! It is hardly surprising that they would “just assume” whatever they heck they want. When you sincerely believe that you are the superior Master Race, the best of what mankind has to offer, and when you see all others as simply resources, that is exactly the kind of rationalizing assumptions you will make. This is exactly what the wolf tells to the lamb in a famous Russian folk story: “You are already guilty of the fact that I am hungry.”
That is why the choice of the people in Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson makes them so furiously angry. The West does not have any moral right to weigh in, or even utter a word about freedom of democracy. It does not and it never did.
Comment: the fact that such referendums were conducted is bad enough (for the West), but it is the very high level of participation (in spite of neverending shelling and terrorist attacks!) and the very strong support for the integration into Russia is a huge slap in the face of Uncle Shmuel who, as you might remember, did not bother having any referendums in Kosovo. No doubt, the people from these liberated regions of the Ukraine will now be added to the (already long) list of “deplorables” who, apparently, just don’t get how they should vote and who need to be taught a brutal lesson about the costs of disobeying Uncle Shmuel.
Western elites not only deny national sovereignty and international law. Their hegemony has pronounced features of totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid. They brazenly divide the world into their vassals – the so-called civilised countries – and all the rest, who, according to the designs of today’s Western racists, should be added to the list of barbarians and savages. False labels like “rogue country” or “authoritarian regime” are already available, and are used to stigmatise entire nations and states, which is nothing new. There is nothing new in this: deep down, the Western elites have remained the same colonisers. They discriminate and divide peoples into the top tier and the rest.
Comment: Putin speaks of totalitarianism, despotism and Apartheid. He then uses the word “racist” and repeats it three times in the next paragraph.
We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow? “You’re either with us or against us.” It even sounds strange.
Comment: as somebody born in the heart of Europe (Switzerland) I can attest that anti-Russian racism is an absolute reality in Europe, especially northern Europe (southern Europe has lived under the yoke of northern Europe for centuries and things are much more complex and nuanced in countries which belong to the “Mediterranean civilizational realm). That anti-Russian European racism is not as crude as, say, racism against non-white cultures or ethnicities. Instead, it is a quite internal sense of superiority mixed in with a sense of fear. This type of racism is by no means any preferable to the more vociferous type. The modern doxa makes lots of claims about “diversity” and “inclusivity”, but in plain English this “diversity” and “inclusivity” only apply to some groups and not to others. As Orwell famously wrote “some are more equal than others”. For example, Russians lives are worthless. The opinions and values of the people of Russia are worthless too. And, in fact, since Russia has the infinite arrogance to reject the so-called “western civilizational values”, she has to be crushed, subjugated, divided and colonized. Dehumanization is always a prerequisite for genocidal policies, nothing new here.
Western elites are even shifting repentance for their own historical crimes on everyone else, demanding that the citizens of their countries and other peoples confess to things they have nothing to do with at all, for example, the period of colonial conquests.
It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade. What they did was get entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals. This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice.
Comment: oh that historical record again! And yes, the roots of the current war go straight back into the 11th century! Reminder: the Papacy broke away from the Christian world in 1054, it adopted the (totally megalomaniacal) Papal Dictates in 1075 and it launched its first Crusade in 1096. In other words, just two decades after cutting itself off from the Christian world, in 1054, the Pope declared himself some kind of “super-absolute-bishop”, in 1075, something unheard of before, and then soon thereafter, in 1096, the Papacy declared its first ‘crusade’. Does anybody really think that this is a coincidence? If so, then beware of folks selling you bridges…
While we – we are proud that in the 20th century our country led the anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many peoples around the world to make progress, reduce poverty and inequality, and defeat hunger and disease.
To emphasise, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms.
Comment: here is the simply and true core of it all: it is about *obedience*. The Western Master Races told Russia to kneel and shut up, and each time the Russians beat them and remained free. The very existence of a nation like the Russian one is not only a major threat to the Western ruling classes, but also an absolutely intolerable affront: those evil vodka-soaked “snow niggers” will have to be brought to heel, one way or another, and by any means necessary. They also must be punished, severely, for their impudence.
This was achieved by creating a strong centralised state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral values of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian word that were open to all.
There were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed. The West managed to grab hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late 20th century, when the state had been destroyed. They called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.
Comment: besides ruling over a population whose level of ignorance is breathtaking (thank you TV!) and whose attention span is measured in minutes or hours (well a few days for the really exceptional ones!), the Western ruling elites have always whitewashed themselves with not even a hint of conscience. Hence the folks who committed the Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima or Nagasaki massacres have all been declared heroes, not war criminals. As for the folks who executed the 9/11 false flag and the subsequent GWOT, which killed way over a million people, have all received medals, commendations, cozy positions and generous pensions. As everybody knows, “it is okay when we do it”. That’s that simple, really. But Russia has not forgotten, and we will remember it forever, just like the Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, Brazilians and billions of other people worldwide who now fully understood the nature of the enemy oppressing them.
A few days ago, people in Donetsk and Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye declared their support for restoring our historical unity. Thank you! (Applause.)
Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through.
Comment: this is not just a rejection of a set of policies from the Obama-Trump-Brandon administrations, this is a rejection of the entire western civilizational model. Putin says that “the unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree and false and hypocritical through and through”, he also just explained which powers specifically stand for such a unipolar world. It is not just the Pax Americana or Pax Britannica which Russia rejects, it is the very ideological models which over the centuries have been used to justify the invasion and ransacking of our entire planet during centuries which now Russian openly rejects!
The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.
Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world.
Comment: the simple and sad truth is that the West is run by thugs. Psychopaths with no empathy or true humanity but monsters whose only true agenda is self-worship and the destruction of human civilization. This has been the case since the Middle-Ages and nothing has changed. If anything, it got worse (at least the original Crusaders did not have nuclear weapons!).
The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons.
It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour.
Comment: here Putin addresses the “voluntary slaves”, those who, like the “proud Poles” are even willing to pay to be occupied by the Anglo masters. This is also a direct reference to the Eurolemmings who have totally sold out to the AngloZionist ruling classes which administer the EU Gaue on behalf of Uncle Shmuel.
They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical research.
Comment: vassals. That is exactly what the people of the EU are, vassals. In fact, they are so infinitely subservient and so filled with a desire to brown-nose their AngloZionist masters that they are literally willing to commit collective suicide, just to get the approval of President Brandon. Truly, sic transit gloria mundi: from Aryan Master race to subservient vassal in less than a century!
It is their destructive policies, wars and plunder that have unleashed today’s massive wave of migrants. Millions of people endure hardships and humiliation or die by the thousands trying to reach Europe.
They are exporting grain from Ukraine now. Where are they taking it under the guise of ensuring the food security of the poorest countries? Where is it going? They are taking it to the self-same European countries. Only five percent has been delivered to the poorest countries. More cheating and naked deception again.
Comment: remember the “Putin famine” we were promised? No worries, the EU Master race has taken to eat this winter. As for the poor and even starving people wordwide, who cares about them? They were just used as a stage prop to get the grain to the West. Now they can all croak, who cares?
In effect, the American elite is using the tragedy of these people to weaken its rivals, to destroy nation states. This goes for Europe and for the identities of France, Italy, Spain and other countries with centuries-long histories.
Comment: remember my comment about the European countries who are part of the Mediterranean civilizational realm? That is also what Putin is referring to here: Anglos and northern Europeans are as much enemies of a sovereign Russia as they would be to a (entirely hypothetical!) sovereign France, Serbia, Spain, Italy or Greece. The truth which modern history books so assiduously ignore and obfuscate is that the nations of southern Europe were brutally colonized and subjugated. God willing, one day, they will rediscover their real roots and liberate themselves!
Washington demands more and more sanctions against Russia and the majority of European politicians obediently go along with it. They clearly understand that by pressuring the EU to completely give up Russian energy and other resources, the United States is practically pushing Europe toward deindustrialisation in a bid to get its hands on the entire European market. These European elites understand everything – they do, but they prefer to serve the interests of others. This is no longer servility but direct betrayal of their own peoples. God bless, it is up to them.
Comment: Putin spells it out, bluntly and directly: EU leaders are direct traitors to their own people. I could not agree more. Whether the people in Europe still have ears to hear, eyes to say, brains to think and spines to resist I very much doubt.
But the Anglo-Saxons believe sanctions are no longer enough and now they have turned to subversion. It seems incredible but it is a fact – by causing explosions on Nord Stream’s international gas pipelines passing along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, they have actually embarked on the destruction of Europe’s entire energy infrastructure. It is clear to everyone who stands to gain. Those who benefit are responsible, of course.
The dictates of the US are backed up by crude force, on the law of the fist. Sometimes it is beautifully wrapped sometimes there is no wrapping at all but the gist is the same – the law of the fist. Hence, the deployment and maintenance of hundreds of military bases in all corners of the world, NATO expansion, and attempts to cobble together new military alliances, such as AUKUS and the like. Much is being done to create a Washington-Seoul-Tokyo military-political chain. All states that possess or aspire to genuine strategic sovereignty and are capable of challenging Western hegemony, are automatically declared enemies.
These are the principles that underlie US and NATO military doctrines that require total domination.
Comment: this is a binary choice – either world hegemony or a world made up of truly sovereign states whose relationship are guided by the principles and instruments of international law.
Western elites are presenting their neocolonialist plans with the same hypocrisy, claiming peaceful intentions, talking about some kind of deterrence. This evasive word migrates from one strategy to another but really only means one thing – undermining any and all sovereign centres of power.
We have already heard about the deterrence of Russia, China and Iran. I believe next in line are other countries of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, as well as current US partners and allies. After all, we know that when they are displeased, they introduce sanctions against their allies as well – against this or that bank or company. This is their practice and they will expand it. They have everything in their sights, including our next-door neighbours – the CIS countries.
At the same time, the West has clearly been engaged in wishful thinking for a long time. In launching the sanctions blitzkrieg against Russia, for example, they thought that they could once again line up the whole world at their command. As it turns out, however, such a bright prospect does not excite everyone – other than complete political masochists and admirers of other unconventional forms of international relations. Most states refuse to ”snap a salute“ and instead choose the sensible path of cooperation with Russia.
The West clearly did not expect such insubordination. They simply got used to acting according to a template, to grab whatever they please, by blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and convinced themselves that these methods would work forever, as if they had fossilised in the past.
Comment: indeed, the West never expected such insubordination, not in its worst nightmares. Not only does about 80% of the planet support Russia, even former US allies like the KSA are fed-up with the infinite arrogance and inability to get anything done by the sorry gang of butt-hurt losers who are running the Empire nowadays. Hence the massive freak-out at the Russian SMO, and the desperate scramble to hide, by means of propaganda and PSYOPs, the true nature of the disaster in the Ukraine. What are they capable of doing next? Hug a pillow, sob and call for momma, hopefully. Trigger a nuclear conflict? Yes, for sure. The self-worshiping leaders of the Empire are steeped in a culture of total impunity, they all have gotten away with murder (even literally!) too many times to count. Forget JFK! They even got away with 911. Combine that deep sense of impunity/invulnerability with a rabid and deeply racist hated for all “others” and you see why, alas, a nuclear war is not impossible.
Such self-confidence is a direct product not only of the notorious concept of exceptionalism – although it never ceases to amaze – but also of the real ”information hunger“ in the West. The truth has been drowned in an ocean of myths, illusions and fakes, using extremely aggressive propaganda, lying like Goebbels. The more unbelievable the lie, the quicker people will believe it – that is how they operate, according to this principle.
Comment: lies are not a feature of the western civilizational realm. Lies are its intellectual cement, that which holds ALL of their “ideologies of the day” together in spite of their quite apparent inhumanity and evil. The West now lives in a “post-truth” society which not only lies and embraces self-evident falsehoods, it is a society which has basically negated the meaning of the word “truth”. Instead, it has come up with a much simpler principle: if it feels good, then it is good. Situational morals, expediency, hypocrisy – call it what you want, we all know what this is: absolute evil.
But people cannot be fed with printed dollars and euros. You can’t feed them with those pieces of paper, and the virtual, inflated capitalisation of western social media companies can’t heat their homes. Everything I am saying is important. And what I just said is no less so: you can’t feed anyone with paper – you need food; and you can’t heat anyone’s home with these inflated capitalisations – you need energy.
Comment: here Putin seems to have given up on the notion of Europeans having any sense of honor, decency or even basic common sense. He does hope that they have a stomach left somewhere and that one day the European Master races will understand that Uncle Shmuel cannot feed them. And neither does to stock exchange of quantitative easing! As to whether their empty stomachs will be enough to wake them up is anybody’s guess.
That is why politicians in Europe have to convince their fellow citizens to eat less, take a shower less often and dress warmer at home. And those who start asking fair questions like “Why is that, in fact?” are immediately declared enemies, extremists and radicals. They point back at Russia and say: that is the source of all your troubles. More lies.
I want to make special note of the fact that there is every reason to believe that the Western elites are not going to look for constructive ways out of the global food and energy crisis that they and they alone are to blame for, as a result of their long-term policy, dating back long before our special military operation in Ukraine, in Donbass. They have no intention of solving the problems of injustice and inequality. I am afraid they would rather use other formulas they are more comfortable with.
Comment: the US wants to have a war in the Ukraine going on for as long as possible, and to be as bloody as possible. Not only that, but the US is now basically waging a war against the EU which it wants to eliminiate as a competitor and subjugate forever to AngloZionist interests.
And here it is important to recall that the West bailed itself out of its early 20th century challenges with World War I. Profits from World War II helped the United States finally overcome the Great Depression and become the largest economy in the world, and to impose on the planet the power of the dollar as a global reserve currency. And the 1980s crisis – things came to a head in the 1980s again – the West emerged from it unscathed largely by appropriating the inheritance and resources of the collapsed and defunct Soviet Union. That’s a fact.
Now, in order to free itself from the latest web of challenges, they need to dismantle Russia as well as other states that choose a sovereign path of development, at all costs, to be able to further plunder other nations’ wealth and use it to patch their own holes. If this does not happen, I cannot rule out that they will try to trigger a collapse of the entire system, and blame everything on that, or, God forbid, decide to use the old formula of economic growth through war.
Russia is aware of its responsibility to the international community and will make every effort to ensure that cooler heads prevail.
The current neocolonial model is ultimately doomed; this much is obvious. But I repeat that its real masters will cling to it to the end. They simply have nothing to offer the world except to maintain the same system of plundering and racketeering.
Comment: what a perfect definition of capitalism – plundering and racketeering. Let’s not forget that the capitalist system is based on banking which itself is based on usury, something Christianity and Islam categorically forbid (and rabbinical Judaism forbids only towards fellow Jews).
They do not give a damn about the natural right of billions of people, the majority of humanity, to freedom and justice, the right to determine their own future. They have already moved on to the radical denial of moral, religious, and family values.
Comment: it is quite clear that the globohomo ideology is now at the core of “western values”, with everything that implies. One of the unforgivable crimes of the Russian people is to reject that ideology and to, instead, prefer gender-differentiated parents, manly men and feminine woman. Most Russians don’t care what folks do in their bedrooms, but if asked, most will agree that homosexuality is a psychological disorder or even a perversion. That, in turn, is the ultimate crimethink for the mega-powerful homo-lobby in the West which hates Putin for daring to say such things openly.
Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. Now I would like to return to what I said and want to address also all citizens of the country – not just the colleagues that are in the hall – but all citizens of Russia: do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, “parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.
Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.
Comment: and now he said it, openly and directly – what Russia is threatened by and struggling against is pure Satanism. If I am not mistaken, that is the first time that Putin ever used such words. And, just to clarify, he does not mean “bad” or “evil” he means it literally: the forces arrayed against Russia today are Satanic in their origin and core. Oh, I know, in the West this reference to “Satanism” will only trigger condescending smiles and, as always, a deep sense of superiority over these primitive, Asiatic, barbarians. But here Putin is not addressing the western audience, but the Russian one and in the Russian civilizational realm to speak of “pure Satanism” is a very shocking and compelling argument. It brings this entire war into the realm of a “just war” fought for profound spiritual reasons, not just money or power. I personally consider these words as the single most important part of Putin’s speech!
The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary transformation. New centres of power are emerging. They represent the majority – the majority! – of the international community. They are ready not only to declare their interests but also to protect them. They see in multipolarity an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means gaining genuine freedom, historical prospects, and the right to their own independent, creative and distinctive forms of development, to a harmonious process.
As I have already said, we have many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.
Comment: here Putin refers to what I call “Zone B” and he gives us all signs of hope that while things look very bad, even frightening, the process which has now been underway since Feb. 24th will not stop at the Ukraine. In fact, the Ukraine is really a side-show to a MUCH bigger and more important struggle: the struggle to free our planet from the last Empire once and for all. As I have mentioned it many times, Russia does not only want to denazify and demilitarize the Ukraine, but all of Europe and, eventually, but inevitably, the entire planet! To those who sincerely believe that Russia is losing this war this will sound totally crazy. Fine. Time will, as always, show 🙂
Friends,
Today, we are fighting for a just and free path, first of all for ourselves, for Russia, in order to leave dictate and despotism in the past. I am convinced that countries and peoples understand that a policy based on the exceptionalism of whoever it may be and the suppression of other cultures and peoples is inherently criminal, and that we must close this shameful chapter. The ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible. And I repeat: things will never be the same.
Comment: Putin, again, hammers in the same point – we are already way beyond any possibility to return to any status quo ante, that ship has sailed. The world as we know it has begun its “initiation of collapse” (to paraphrase NIST) and there is no stopping it. I very much agree.
The battlefield to which destiny and history have called us is a battlefield for our people, for the great historical Russia. (Applause.) For the great historical Russia, for future generations, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We must protect them against enslavement and monstrous experiments that are designed to cripple their minds and souls.
Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a consolidated society, and this consolidation can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values are humanity, mercy and compassion.
And I want to close with the words of a true patriot Ivan Ilyin: “If I consider Russia my Motherland, that means that I love as a Russian, contemplate and think, sing and speak as a Russian; that I believe in the spiritual strength of the Russian people. Its spirit is my spirit; its destiny is my destiny; its suffering is my grief; and its prosperity is my joy.”
Comment: that is typical Putin. He likes to drop names of Russian authors and philosophers to indicate to those who will get the hint where is true ideological roots are. This does, of course, create a cognitive dissonance amongst those who do like Putin, but hate Ilyin (or other Russian authors Putin likes to mention) but since I don’t suffer from such dissonance, to me it simply seems to be a case of “Putin being Putin”, a man whose true ideology he has never truly revealed, but about which he has dropped enough hints to those capable of connecting the dots to get a pretty clear image of what Putin really believes. Personally, this only further comforts me in the idea that there is no alternative to Putin and that he deserves my full support.
Behind these words stands a glorious spiritual choice, which, for more than a thousand years of Russian statehood, was followed by many generations of our ancestors. Today, we are making this choice; the citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions have made this choice. They made the choice to be with their people, to be with their Motherland, to share in its destiny, and to be victorious together with it.
The truth is with us, and behind us is Russia!
***
One last thing: I am still severely exhausted and there are probably even more typos and silly mistakes in this text that my (already pretty dismal) “normal”. I ask for your understanding: I used the very little energy I had to try to convey ideas, not to write a well edited text.
Despite regularly calling for peace, the Israeli occupation’s actions speak otherwise. From the non-stop aggressions it continues to commit against the Palestinian people to the refusal to make the slightest concession, the occupation seems to understand only the language of force.
Ever since the partition plan of Palestine on November 29, 1947, and the immediate recognition of “Israel” by the United States of America, “Israel” has had the unwavering support of the USA
The sight of the Ukrainian refugees evoked very sad memories of our own eviction from Palestine, which ceased to exist in 1948. Not only because of the eviction but because of the massacres and the razing of hundreds of villages and reducing leading cities into ghost towns, which took place at the time, so as to obliterate the history of our country, some of which were only made public many years later on by the Israeli new historians. It was a historical event known as “the Nakba” (Catastrophe), which turned out to be an ongoing Nakba to this day, as Israel, the occupying power, continues to deprive the Palestinians of their right of return according to the UN GA resolution 194 on December 11, 1948, and refuses to withdraw from the rest of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 according to UN Security Council resolution 242 on November 22, 1967, over and above tits daily violations of Palestinian human rights.
I am not going to dwell on the political atmosphere, and the role of the USA and NATO in provoking that war, but it had hardly started when the cry for sanctions on Russia was loud and clear. However, never did the international community come up with the word “sanctions” regarding “Israel”, despite its brutal measures against the Palestinians as well as its flouting of UN resolutions for the last seven decades. It is high time “Israel” realizes that it will never feel secure while it continues to kill, confiscate, and deprive the Palestinians and the prisoners of their freedom and their basic human rights. Furthermore, it allows the settlers to terrorize the Palestinians in their towns, in their fields, vineyards, and olive groves, as well as in their holy places, all under the protection of the Israeli police force. In fact, three renowned organizations monitoring the region, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Human Rights Watch came to the conclusion in their reports recently, that “Israel” is an apartheid state. Of course, “Israel” refuted their reports and labeled them as anti-Semitic. Ironic indeed when one of them is an Israeli organization.
It is unreasonable to forget two facts. One pertaining to the Oslo Accords, and the other pertaining to the Arab Countries The Oslo Accords signed between the PLO and Israel on September 13, 1993, gave us the impression at the beginning that they were going to bring about a new dawn of hope for peace and liberation, especially after seeing the Israeli army withdraw from the Palestinian towns occupied in 1967. However, it did not take long to expose the loopholes in these accords, especially when the basic issues like al-Quds, borders, as well as refugees, and the building of illegal settlements were deferred to the last stage of negotiations, over a period of five years. This turned out to be an open-ended period of five-times-five that stopped abruptly with the incursion of the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to Al-Aqsa mosque which led to the Second Intifada. That gave “Israel” the excuse to end all the negotiations. The following years gave “Israel” the opportunity to create a new reality on the ground as its settlements mushroomed all over the occupied Palestinian territories. Over and above, the issue of security for Israel was to be coordinated with the new Palestinian Authority. This certainly seemed to be a unique situation when the occupied had to coordinate security matters with the occupiers. The absurdity of these two items alone showed that those accords were never studied thoroughly and scrutinized by the PLO before they signed them and recognized “Israel” as a state in the region, whereas Israel never committed itself to recognizing a Palestinian state as it signed those accords with the PLO.
The second fact is the stand of the Arab countries who despite their rhetoric were never able to bring about the pressure to end the occupation. However, all the Arab countries endorsed the Saudi initiative made by Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, crown prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabic during the Arab summit meeting in Beirut in 2002 in which the prince presented his initiative calling for “full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land-for-peace principle, and ‘Israel’s’ acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel.”
Had “Israel” been sincere about peace it would have jumped at the Saudi initiative, but it seems that “Israel” cannot survive in times of peace. However, peace with the Gulf countries was offered to “Israel” on a silver platter. Those countries who signed the “Abrahamic Accords” had no war with “Israel”, nor did they share borders with “Israel”. Once again a colonial power, the USA, during the Trump presidency, was able to drive a wedge among the Arab countries, and seduce those Gulf countries into a peace agreement with Israel claiming to have common security interests.
Ever since the partition plan of Palestine on November 29, 1947, and the immediate recognition of “Israel” by the United States of America, “Israel” has had the unwavering support of the USA. This has been a major factor in Israel’s flouting of all UN resolutions regarding Palestine without any sanctions. The most we have heard from the USA and the European countries is “concern” about the clashes and the demolishing of Palestinian homes, and that “the settlements are not conducive to peace.”
Unfortunately, during these times, the vested interests of the powerful forces, and their hegemony over-rules the principle of the common good and the welfare of all people, whereby they coerce the weaker people by blackmailing them, supposedly to guarantee their survival. And of course whoever dared to defy those powers had no chance to survive.
The brutality of the Israeli police while storming the Al-Aqsa mosque and limiting and violently blocking Palestinian Christians in particular from worshiping in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the old city of al-Quds (Jerusalem), the holiest of Christian sites is beyond imagination. “Israel” wants to turn the Palestinian struggle into a religious war whereas it is not, and it has never been so. Nonetheless, with the support of the colonial powers, they have turned the whole region into a fertile ground for religious extremism.
However desperate the situation is, we cannot afford to lose hope, and we will not lose hope because justice is on our side. Furthermore, we hope our Palestinian struggle will become an example of steadfastness, “Sumud” and a guiding force in the struggle of all oppressed people.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
[…] O my brothers and sisters, the events happening around us in terms must strengthen our awareness, our lucidity and our understanding of things, the conclusions we draw from them for the current equations, as well as the lessons and teachings we learn from them. This brings me to the current events that are currently occupying all minds. I start with the events between Russia and Ukraine to state that these are very important events in terms of lessons and learning. As last time, I will just mention some brief points before I come to the internal Lebanese situation.
The first point is that the U.S. representative to the Security Council said in addressing Russia, “Any attack on civilians is considered a war crime, and we are recording all events.” In the sense that the US is monitoring everything closely, and will then try Russia for its (alleged) war crimes. That’s what she said to Russia. But what does she say about the massacres against civilians perpetrated by the US in all its wars? No war waged by the US happened without attacks on civilians, massacres, civilians killed, atrocities against civilians and civilian infrastructure, etc. From the nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whose environmental and health effects are still felt today, with traces and effects that persist to this day, to Iraq, the siege of Iraq, the starvation of Iraq and the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi children due to the siege, then the invasion (of Iraq in 2003), etc. According to the Americans themselves, they have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. How many times have American planes or drones bombed Afghan wedding ceremonies, turning them into funerals, and then claiming that they were training camps, despite the presence of women, children and old people? But they claimed that they were training camps. What about the Zionist massacres in Palestine for more than 70 years, and the massacres Israel regularly perpetrates? What about the Israeli-Zionist war crimes in Palestine? What about the siege of Gaza? Today, the whole world is shedding tears because this or that city in Ukraine has been under siege for 5, 6 or 7 days. But Gaza has been under siege for many years, for 15 years! But the world remains silent.
What about the massacres of the Saudi-American aggression in Yemen, and the tens of thousands of civilian martyrs in Yemen, children, women, men, old and young? And the entire civilian infrastructure is destroyed in Yemen. What about the siege imposed on Yemen for the past 7 years? And currently, the siege is increasing on oil derivatives (fuels), and we saw yesterday the angry demonstrations in Yemeni cities. But the whole world remains silent about this. Why is this so? Simply, and don’t mind me saying it so bluntly, it’s because all these people are not White, they are not blond and they are not blue-eyed – even if in reality there are some blond and blue-eyed white people among them, but it doesn’t matter. These people do not belong to the world of the White man. I’ll go even further than that: for the United States, even those who belong to the White man’s world are only means, tools, instruments, and have no human value.
This is the case with Ukraine [the US has no hesitation in sacrificing the Ukrainian and European population in general to advance its interests]. Thus, based on the logic of the representative of the United States, it would have been necessary today, before threatening Russia or other countries with trials, to establish dozens and hundreds of sessions to judge the Americans, the British and the Western and European armies for their crimes in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Africa, in all corners of the world, in India, Pakistan… It is these files that we must start by examining if we want to base ourselves on these principles.
This hypocrisy and double standard is confirmed day after day. Last Friday, in Peshawar, Pakistan, during Friday prayers, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing dozens of people, including the Imam of the mosque, and injuring dozens more. And the whole world remained silent. This is natural. Because these takfiris suicide bombers are Made in CIA, Made in America. They serve the American project. The whole world must remain silent because it is the US and its tools in the region. Day after day, it is confirmed that the American “values” do not respect humanistic principles, morals, international law, fundamental rights, etc. Nothing matters to them but their political and economic interests and their hegemony. When their political interests ask them to condemn, they condemn. When their political interests ask them to support, they support. On the subject of the massacres perpetrated by Israel, the United States is not content with not condemning, they prevent the Security Council from condemning them! They prevent the whole world from condemning them! They defend the (Israeli) murderers and butchers who shed (Palestinian) blood! This is the truth of the United States, which we have known (for a long time), but we take advantage of the current events to remind it, so that those who have not yet opened their eyes do so, and that those who already know gain in awareness and lucidity, and in clarity of vision.
Also, and this is my second point, every day there is more evidence in the world that trusting the United States is an act of imbecility. I say this to get to Lebanon next. Trusting the United States is stupid and foolish. It is an act of ignorance that endangers the global Muslim community, the nation and the interests of the people. This is what it means to trust the Americans. A few months ago, we saw with our own eyes, and the whole world saw, the experience of the United States in Afghanistan, and how they abandoned and forsook the country. The images of the planes and the airport are still fresh in everyone’s mind.
Let’s not forget the statements of the Afghan officials who collaborated with the Americans for many years: the Afghan President on the run, who was 100% with the Americans, to the point that if they told him not to negotiate with the Taliban, he didn’t do it –while the United States themselves negotiated with them–, if they asked him not to go to Tehran, he didn’t go there, if they wanted him to go to such and such a country, he went there, and so on. He was 100% subservient to the US… So the former Afghan President says: “My mistake was to trust the United States and its international allies.” He claims that he gave them his opinion and thoughts, but they did not respond to him and did not take them into account, considering that it was their vision that was right, that they were the strategists, that the data was in their hands and that they had efficiently anticipated the consequences and results (of their actions), but the result is (the humiliating American debacle) that we saw in Afghanistan. They have abandoned (all their allies).
Our report from last night on the awful ISIS attack outside Kabul airport as families still search Kabul's morgues for their loved ones..
Many we spoke to, including eyewitnesses, said significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast pic.twitter.com/ac5nUVeJ4x
Today, in Ukraine, the whole world knows that the United States and Great Britain in particular (are the main culprits of the crisis). The rest of the European countries are really poor wretches. It is clear that a number of European countries did not want this problem, like Germany for example, Germany in the first place, and also France to some extent. Other European countries felt that they would be trampled and sacrificed (on the altar of NATO’s aggression against Russia), that their interests were in great danger. The United States, and with them Great Britain, which has left the European Union, have aggravated the situation in Ukraine and pushed it into the lion’s den. But of course, they acted according to precise calculations. For Biden has announced in his strategy that his priority is the fight against Russia and China. With China, the confrontation has its own calculations and its own ways. And as for the confrontation against Russia, Biden is certainly not going to wage a world war against it, because he is not capable of it, and so he has thrown Ukraine against Russia to prevent any agreement between Ukraine and Russia and to provoke this war.
This is demonstrated by the fact that after the first few days (of war), we can all listen on television to the statements of the President of Ukraine, his head of government, his foreign minister and his deputy, and his advisers. What do they say? “They let us fight alone.” Because either (the U.S.) had promised Ukraine that they would fight with them in case of war (against Russia), or, because of the trust of Ukrainians in the U.S., they believed that they would fight alongside them. And that is why Ukrainian leaders are now expressing that their hopes have been dashed. They say they have been left alone to fight. It was the Ukrainian President who said so. Ukraine is calling on the United States (and NATO) to fight on its side, but they are responding that they cannot endanger their States and their people and risk a devastating world war for the sake of Ukraine. I just said that in their eyes, even the White man has no value. (They will not risk a nuclear war) for the sake of Ukraine, for the people of Ukraine, for the White man in Ukraine, in any case. They are not ready for that. “Fight on your own, dear friends. Because as far as we are concerned, we are not ready to fight.” And that’s why they say every day that they will not send any American soldiers to Ukraine, no American planes to Ukraine. But it is you, the United States, who caused this situation and called this catastrophe on Ukraine!
Of course, my statement is not an invitation to the United States to go and fight Russia in Ukraine. I say this only to draw lessons from the current situation, for all those who trust the United States and place their hopes in them. The Ukrainian President asks (the US) to establish a no-fly zone in the skies over Ukraine to prevent Russian planes from hitting them. But they reply he gets is “Sorry, we can’t, because that would mean shooting down Russian planes, which would lead to war, and we are not ready to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine.” Ukraine is calling for a total Western embargo on (Russian) oil and gas, which some countries are ready for, but others have responded frankly that they cannot do without Russian gas. Russian gas is still being sold, and its price has risen. So look at (the inconsistency): on the one hand, they impose sanctions on Russia, and on the other hand, they buy gas from it at high prices. That’s a (telling) example. The same goes for the Ukrainian request to obtain warplanes: the West refuses, because this would make it participate directly in the war. Are there not lessons to be learned there? They let Ukraine fight alone, because they are not ready to go to war for its sake. At most, they impose sanctions, a blockade, consistent with the American objective of weakening Russia. The US is acting in its own interest, not in the interest of Ukraine. This is the truth.
Today, if we could enter the hearts and minds of Ukrainian officials, we would find a feeling of maximum abandonment and neglect. And that’s why (Zelensky) starts to come down from his pedestal: he announces that he is ready to negotiate, to discuss the neutrality of Ukraine and other Russian demands. Why is he starting to reconsider – if his American masters allow him, of course? Because he has realized that those who promised to stand by him, those in whom he trusted and in whom he placed all his hopes, those who put him in this situation, have abandoned him in the middle of the road. I and you have known this lesson (that the United States are treacherous) by heart for a very long time, but I repeat it because Biden is a new proof of it. And before coming to Lebanon, I conclude on the international situation by pointing out the moral collapse of the West. The West lectures us about Western civilization, morality, humanistic values, human rights, etc. But the situation shows their moral decay. Look at how they treat refugees. Black Africans are treated differently, as well as Asians, Muslims, etc. There is discrimination on the basis of religion, race, skin color. Is this the famous Western civilization that they harp on day and night, presenting it to us as a model to follow? Whole States are acting in this way, in an official way! One of the Presidents of these countries, in order to justify this decision (to discriminate in favor of the White Ukrainian refugees), answered that it was the will of his people, who had elected him on this basis. It is therefore a racist culture, which has no connection with humanism or morality!
As far as Lebanon is concerned, I would like to say to the (pro-Western) political forces that if they aspire to please the US, they will never succeed, because the American demands are unlimited and never stop. If anyone thinks that the US can be satisfied with this or that demand, they are deluding themselves, because tomorrow they will demand one, two, three, a hundred, a thousand other things. Their diktats do not stop at any limit. And satisfying them is detrimental to Lebanon’s interests without giving us any compensation. What did the Lebanese officials get in return for their submission? We are already deprived of electricity, gas and dollars by the American sanctions or vetoes, what more could they do?
Lebanon voted against Russia at the UN, when it could have chosen to abstain, as 35 countries did. This is what Lebanon’s national interest demanded: abstention. The Prime Minister of Pakistan said a few days ago, in the face of Western pressure for his country to take an anti-Russian position, “We are not your slaves.” This is an excellent position. It would be good if Lebanon would one day dare to stand up to the American embassy and say, “We are not your slaves.” This would be a proof of freedom, patriotism, sovereignty, independence. But the worst thing is the statement of the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our level of submission is such that the US embassy demanded that this communiqué on Russia and Ukraine be amended to be more virulent against Russia, and this rewriting was made directly by the US embassy. […]
After some days of looking for my mind, and finally finding it yesterday afternoon … I think I lost it again today.
I was watching a YouTube video of how chicken meat and eggs are produced in a poultry farm with all the steps in between(1). They show the entire thing in that video. From the hatching of the chicks to the final packaging of the Meat and Eggs, etc. Quite interesting, so long you are not one of the wokefied, vegan-vegetarian-ecologist, mentally weak, politically correct, animal rights warrior “earth is better without humans” type.
Suddenly something made a connection in my head, about this process and the ZONE A.
I mean a connection between the hatching and raising of the Chicks, nurturing them, feeding them, keeping them Warm and comfortable, and some months later … ZACK! the industrial sacrifice of the chickens and their processing to… you know… make food to feed the persons that buy these poultry products.
At first I thought of the Ukrainian kids(2) that have been raised and fed like little chicks, with HATE of all Russian. In order to make them the desired anti-Russians that would be later, at the convenience of the Powers-that-be(3), used and industrially sacrificed in the altar of whatever goals, dreams, and desires those Powers have. It is happening now just before our eyes and happened many times in the past.
But seconds later, I realized that, here in the ZONE A(4), the general population… we are all chickens living in an Ideological Poultry Farm… they want us ignorant, without understanding, just eating their (ideological) feed(5) , growing with it, without any concern about what awaits us, isolated little egoist-narcissist chickens(6).
I said Ideological Poultry Farm because, you know, what they feed the chickens in there is well over 50% their own recycled shit.
You do not see a chicken asking himself about their situation, or about what they eat, about their expectations of life… they just eat, drink, poop, grow… till the last moment when they are slaughtered. Well, they can not. Little ignorant beasts.
I know who the managers of this farm are(7), I wonder just who are the owners… because they are going to use, then sacrifice and eat us all. For their own benefit.
There is always hope, but I never heard of any poultry farm where the chickens rebelled, and brought the Farmers to the stake…
This is why Zone A is doomed.
Oh look, there is my Mind… Hey! Stop There! Why are you running away?
A logical and very needed release and detox after suffering the constant bombardment of Ukrainian propaganda on the western media
I mean not only kids, but those unmatured, ignorant adults that have been brainwashed… that after all are just like little big Kids.
If you are reading this essay, on this site, you know whose “Powers-that-be” I mean… it’s a Hydra with many heads and many names. Such as the Three-Letters-Agencies, various Governments, and Institutions, the …(drums rolling)… Governing Elites, FIRE, the Liberal Intelligentsia, et cetera.
ZONE A, AKA “the International Community”
This “Ideology, Country, Person” (insert as needed) is good or bad…
You must buy/follow this “Product, Media, Narrative, Policy…” (insert as needed)
Eat this, do not think, do as we say, grow a little, do not resist, follow the line…
At first you might think sheep make a better comparison, but these are relatively advanced, intelligent and complex lifeforms. Compared to chickens… sheep are geniuses!
If you want an insight, look at the members of any Government in the Zone A.
Ed Note: I am reliably informed that the Featured (or feathered image), this one, has a depiction of our SmoothieX12, looking on with contempt. Enjoy figuring it out.
Oligarchs have been in the news lately, but in the generic mood of bias. Most function behind the scenes as financiers who pull strings that let working class folk get crushed in warehouse collapses because they weren’t allowed to seek appropriate shelter prior to a deadly tornado. Some have their names mentioned when their billions allow them to take old ladies on private space ship rides. Others get to be deified as godly philanthropists.
Oligarchs behind the scenes are the most hazardous, because, remaining anonymous, they get to engage in all kinds of seemingly low-level lying, looting, and crushing remnants of the sense of humor via censorship.
Syria News website was founded by an immigrant Syrian. It currently has two staff and unpaid writers: One is the Syrian immigrant who happens to be Muslim and the other is I, a US American who happens to be Jewish.
Syria News has just been notified that some anonymous oligarchs have stolen some fractions of pennies from us, by “disabled -” or “restricted ad serving.” Three of my reports — two recent and one over two years old — have been named as the causative factor for the Kafkaesque crimes of being “shocking,” “derogatory,” and/or “dangerous.”
According to the anonymous oligarchs’ warning, all of my writings (hundreds or thousands, I don’t know) are under complete “disabled ad serving” for “dangerous or derogatory content.”
According to a bona fide physical dictionary, dangerous means “1. Attended with danger; hazardous; perilous; unsafe. 2. Likely to, or capable of causing injury or harm.”
Shocking is an adjective meaning, “causing intense surprise, disgust, horror, etc.”
By what standard of human decency is it ok for Macron to mass enucleate Gilets Jaunes protesters, is it ok that MSM yellow journalists ignore the blinding of dozens of French citizens, while the secretive oligarchs steal pennies from a website because I verified the brutality, I condemned the savagery, and I shared photographs of some of his one-eyed victims, because so few of us stand on our hind legs to bear witness, while the snobs on the Hill and the snobs in the SC look the other way?
Contrary to the lies of the anonymous oligarchs, I have never written anything that could remotely be considered “likely to, or capable of causing injury or harm” to another.
Per the same physical dictionary, derogatory means “Harmful to the reputation or esteem of a person or thing; disparaging.”
Maybe if the media oligarchs and the diplomatic oligarchs and the corrupt politician wannabe oligarchs hadn’t tolerated Colin Powell’s scary ‘Show & Lie’ at the UN, 2003, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, & Yemen would be intact.
Instead, the cowards cowered and the liars got rich.
The three targeted reports the anonymous oligarchs have wrongfully targeted are Hollywood & Syria: The Uses of Enchantment in Crimes against Peace; NATO UN Junta Monthly anti-Syria Meeting ups Imperial Hypocrisy, and False Flag Chemical Plot Gets Nusra Front Terrorists Fried.
The Hollywood report explains how the use of moulage trauma in movies has been used on Syrian children to make journalists, diplomats, and politicians suspend disbelief in order to engage in war propaganda against a sovereign country — in this case, Syria. I made clear that none of the painted children — whose photographs were shared widely in mainstream media sources, without the threat of censorship — was physically injured. The writing was challenging as it was a challenge to be objective while imagining the fear and terror endured by the kidnapped children.
I also emphatically stated that there was no evidence that photographers had any part in the kidnappings, nor was there any evidence the photographers were skilled in the art of moulage trauma applications.
The March 2022 report on the NATO UN Junta meeting contains hyperlinks to the statements of various diplomats, the ones who appear to be oblivious to the fact that children are being kidnapped and marketed on the dark web. It includes photos of a motherless child, made up in ghoulish moulage, shared in transatlantic NATO media for purpose of war propaganda — which is a breach of International Law — and of the child further traumatized in a similar photo whose credit claimed it was taken years later, in another country.
Do I not have the moral duty to let our diplomats know about this? The “shocking content” is that they don’t, and that the first credited photographer had no complaint over his subject being moved from Syria to Yemen, in the same makeup but with her dress moved downward, and with her trying to calm another mother-less boy, screaming in terror.
THE SHOCK BELONGS TO OUR OVERPAID POLITICIANS, AND OUR FINELY COIFFED DIPLOMATS WHO ALL AVERT THEIR GAZE, SOME OF WHOM MAY BE TOO BUSY COUNTING THEIR STOCK DIVIDENDS FROM THEIR WAR INVESTMENTS.
Similarly, the False Flag Chemical Plot Gets Nusra Front Terrorists Fried report did not show photographs of the inbred terrorists’ burn injuries from spilling those poisonous substances they were going to bomb civilians with, onto themselves (am I supposed to apologize for the use of the word, “fried”? Am I supposed to hire a psychoanalyst to wipe out all shreds of unconscious humor? I once got a very bad burn from a crazed chef, which involved — really — a frying pan. Maybe I’ll stand myself in the corner, for using the self-defense humor mechanism, because the absurdity of that story is much more enjoyable than remembering the excruciating pain of the burn). Instead, I included two videos shared by the stethoscope-less, CPR-less, can’t use an Ambu bag White Helmets, using their own videos which show them engaged in kidnappings of Syrian children.
That report also includes a photograph never censored, a photograph of the White Helmets holding a near-term baby that was skillfully, surgically cut from its living mother’s womb.
HOW DARE OUR TAXES FUND THESE CRIMINAL PSYCHOPATHS? HOW DARE OUR PAID JOURNALISTS, OUR CORRUPT POLITICIANS, AND OUR MOSTLY LYING DIPLOMATS AVERT THEIR GAZE FROM THESE HORRORS, AND THEN LIE ABOUT THEM?
Hidden oligarchs cheat us out of pennies, claiming report on Hollywood techniques is “dangerous & derogatory.”
Hidden oligarchs claim this report contains “shocking content” though featured image of kidnapped kids in moulage trau
Oligarchs claim of ‘shocking content’ included videos not censored in social media, showing actual kidnappings of Syrian children.
There are few journalists — salaried or not — with the skills I bring to my reporting: Not only have I been involved in direct trauma care involving countless patients, but I have also been taking photographs since getting my first camera — a hand-me-down 1946 Brownie at the age of six.
I know the anatomy and physiology of bleeds, including arterial ones. I know that violent psychopaths who rip a kidnapped child’s deltoid and scapular muscles until he’s unconscious from pain, and his arm is only still attached because of his skin, is caused by the degenerate violence perpetrated against the little boy, and I recognize it is not a crushing injury (ffs, even The Guardiancouldn’t hide the obvious, and was forced to change its featured image of the child, whose attackers should be locked up permanently in a psychiatric facility for violent criminals).
I have attempted to put reality in the faces of our phony diplomats and corrupt politicians. In every instance, I have utilized Tort Law & Journalistic Ethics. I am mindful in my writing, to adhere to the highest of ethical standards, and I have neverbreached irresponsibility in doing the work of UN diplomats, work they get paid for, for free.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Riyadh in the middle of a state massacre. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia broke its record for mass executions when official media announced that 81 people had been put to death. Three others were executed the day before the prime minister arrived.
With the whole world occupied by the Ukraine crisis and rising energy prices, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman apparently felt it was the right moment for such large-scale executions. He knows that the future of many western leaders, notably Johnson and US President Joe Biden, along with global economic recovery after two years of Covid-19 inflation, depend on securing cheap oil and gas.
For now, bin Salman is reaping profits from a western crisis that refuses to be resolved: namely, dependence on dictators’ cheap oil
This was the crown prince’s historical moment to flex his muscles and demand that the West treat him with respect, after three years of being considered a pariah. He is impatiently waiting for rehabilitation in Washington, which Biden could seal with a handshake.
Did Johnson deliver Biden’s message – that all this is dependent on the crown prince increasing oil production in order to lower prices and save the world from further economic turmoil?
In a recent interview with the Atlantic, asked whether the US misunderstood something about him, bin Salman replied: “Simply, I do not care.” He maintained that no other country has the right to interfere in how he handles his own subjects. Apparently, executions, detentions, unlawful treatment of prisoners, and various other human rights violations are all matters of national sovereignty.
In short, if the West wants cheap oil, they must tolerate his excesses and executions, rather than bringing such matters to the negotiating table. Other powers, namely Russia and China, do exactly that.
Flexing muscles
Beyond his rhetoric, the crown prince is desperate to be recognized in Washington as the future king and to have Biden deal with him directly, rather than addressing his aging father, King Salman (who recently came out of hospital after “successful medical tests”).
Indeed, bin Salman knows very well that his future depends on Washington engaging with him directly. He can flex his muscles at home and carry out as many executions as he wishes, but to secure the throne, he ultimately needs Washington, with Britain serving as a facilitator and provider of military technology. While the US continues to be number one in arming Saudi Arabia, Britain comes second on the list.
Protesters hold up placards as they demonstrate against UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia during the visit of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, outside Downing Street, in central London on March 7, 2018
The crown prince also wants both the US and Britain, in addition to other western countries, to stop lecturing him on climate change and clean energy. Oil wells that bring in billions of dollars, sovereign wealth, global political status, and the acquiescence of subjects cannot be replaced by solar panels.
Another factor is the ill-fated, Saudi-led war in Yemen, made possible because both the US and Britain have provided arms and shielded the country from international criticism at the United Nations and other forums. While this help has not secured the victory that bin Salman hoped for, it has exposed western hypocrisy when it comes to authoritarian rulers they need. Yemenis, who have neither blonde hair nor blue eyes, are not high on the list of concerns in the West at the moment.
Cherishing defiance
Like other dictators, bin Salman does not care about his reputation. But in so-called democracies, a certain level of consistency and decency should be expected, especially when western countries frequently lecture the world about human rights and moral foreign policy.
Bin Salman surely has a long list of executions to carry out in the future, and he will continue to do so. His suppressed subjects might even cherish the momentary defiance that the crown prince has exhibited in recent weeks by not fully backing the US and Europe in condemning Russia, and in carrying out executions that are considered matters of national sovereignty.
In addition, he didn’t meet Johnson’s visit with too much pomp; the British leader was met at the airport by the deputy governor of Riyadh rather than a higher-ranking official, despite the UK’s role in continuing to prop up Saudi Arabia’s archaic political configuration.
For now, bin Salman is reaping profits from a western crisis that refuses to be resolved: namely, dependence on dictators’ cheap oil.
In the short term, other oil producers may be rehabilitated, such as Iran and Venezuela. In the long term, alternative sources of clean energy may become an affordable reality. Only then can we expect a different scenario, in which bin Salman may think twice before boasting about mass murder in an effort to defy the West and please his most loyal subjects.
In a wide-ranging interview with Palestine Deep Dive (PDD), Mark Seddon discusses with distinguished Palestinian journalist and author, Dr. Ramzy Baroud, the unfolding crisis in Ukraine through the eyes of the Palestinian people.
While examining what seems to be emerging on the global geopolitical stage, Baroud also highlighted the hypocrisy of the international community, as well as the mainstream media in their response to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in comparison to their response, or lack of it, to Israel’s ongoing 74-year occupation of Palestine.
“People have the right to defend themselves against military occupation, period. Under any circumstance, regardless of the geopolitical nature of that conflict, and regardless of who’s involved in that conflict,” Baroud said.
“We are still buried in this massive dichotomy in which we Palestinians can’t even protest without being accused of being anti-Israel or anti-America or anti this or that, compared to what is happening in the Ukraine within the matter of hours. In fact, even before the invasion took place. When the Russian forces were amassing at the Russia-Ukraine border, the condemnations were coming from all over Europe, all over North America. Of course, we have to face the reality that the international community does not have fair and just standards in its view of international conflicts.”
Commenting on the United Nations General Assembly vote, which saw 35 member states, including South Africa, India and China, abstaining from condemning Russia’s actions, Baroud said:
“I think geopolitics has a lot to do with it. (…) To give you an example, I was in Africa quite recently, and I visited several countries and became somewhat familiar with the political tussle that is happening in Africa itself.(…) African countries are very, very wary of the nature of the fight that is underway in Africa. South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, and other countries do not want to see this happening. They want a more balanced bipolar world.”
When asked about the possibility of a new Cold War situation in Europe, with a revival of the Non-Aligned Movement, Baroud said:
“I think it’s very possible. Of course, we understand that there are so many moving pieces here, but if indeed, even if a stalemate is achieved, in other words, if NATO does not get its way in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe, and some kind of a compromise is made, will definitely embolden other countries to start negotiating (for themselves) a new political contract.”
Regarding the double standards currently displayed by Western politicians and media, Baroud said:
“I think we need to revisit the term double standards or hypocrisy. It just does not even begin to tell half of the story regarding what’s happening in Palestine. What the West, what the Americans are condemning right now regarding Russia’s military action is exactly what Israel has been doing as a matter of course, in Palestine every single day. What’s happening in Yemen. These millions of poor people are starving, fighting cholera, fighting bombs falling on top of them.”
Baroud went on criticizing social media censorship of pro-Palestinian content, and describing the double-standards by international institutions, such as the International Criminal Court, FIFA or the International Olympic Committee.
In highlighting the inherent racism in Western media coverage on Ukraine, Baroud said:
“That’s really the mindset of the racist. I know that this is a term that people are very careful using, but if this is not outright racism, I don’t know what is. The thing about a racist mentality is that you never see your own fault, and you always project that on someone else.”
To begin with, not a single person deserves to go through the horrible atrocities of war, regardless of their nationality, race and religion. My heart goes out to all the people in Ukraine – as it does first and foremost to the persevering people in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – hoping they would find safety and security.
Beirut – The conflict in Ukraine has been the talk of the town, with masses and politicians in the west showing their undivided support to the people in Ukraine. Statements of solidarity from western leaders outpoured. But what catches one’s attention is the hypocritical way the conflict has been dealt with.
Since day one of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Western media hypocrisy has been the bone of contention. Three weeks have passed since the conflict began, and corporate western media has relentlessly continued its double-standard coverage of the events.
The hypocrisy of the media coverage of the Ukrainian conflict is so obvious that many news outlets have written on the matter over the past weeks, highlighting that to the West, having blue eyes and blond hair is the criteria by which victims of conflicts are worthy of the international community’s sympathy.
As the conflict prolongs, the dark and ugly side of western media unfolds and the aforementioned criteria solidifies the notion that our looks and economic factors play a role in determining whether the war is somehow normal and expected in areas of the world and not in others; that: it’s ok when non-blue-eyed people get killed!
A quick search on the definition of HYPOCRISY discloses that it is “the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another or the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform.”
To put it in clearer and simpler words, hypocrisy is when western media wants the world to treat the situation in Ukraine “equally” to the way other conflicts are being treated, when “western democracies” themselves don’t.
Let’s take the refugee crisis as an example. The West wanted the world to welcome with open arms the refugees from Ukraine and denounce what it called a “Russian invasion”, while it launched a calumnious attack on the Indian government over the Citizenship Amendment Act [CAA] and the riots, deported African migrants from its shores in Italy and Spain, and turned away Syrian refugees from its borders in Poland and Denmark; regardless of the fact that it turned a blind eye on the wars backed or waged by the United States and its allies in every corner of the globe.
And the list goes on.
Recently, in a small multireligious Middle Eastern country on the Mediterranean Sea called Lebanon, a Lebanese woman has been targeted by US sanctions. Mrs. Abir Khalil, mother of martyr Mohammad Tamer who was gunned down during last October’s massacre in the Tayouneh neighborhood of Beirut, says she has been banned from social media, including Whatsapp, and her travel and tourism company has been sanctioned.
Mrs. Abir Khalil and her son martyr Mohammad Tamer
Mrs. Khalil explained that she was first blocked from using her and her martyred son’s Facebook pages, until they banned the pages and now both pages do not exist.
Regarding her business, she can no longer send or receive money to and from her customers via Western Union. Afterwards, she used her daughters name in her business’ monetary transactions, but after a couple of money transfers, they were banned again.
Mrs. Khalil says that on February 25, she was banned from using Whatsapp for violating the Terms of Service over allegations of violence and terrorism. “The funny thing is,” she says, “I just use the application to post pictures of martyr Mohammad. I’m not waging a war or anything and I don’t post pictures of weapons!”
As she details the incidents, she sheds light on the hypocrisy of western media coverage of the double-standard measures by “western democracies” headed by the US.
“This weakness and cowardness of the US government… they are intimidated by the simplest word we write, picture we post or voice we utter that they attempt to silence us by silencing these, but they will not be able to silence the word of God in us! We will be stronger than ever and nothing will stop us from striving,” she explains.
Regarding the US sanctions, Mrs. Khalil says, “Those who have sacrificed their most precious for the sake of this path, will not yield to trivial sanctions.”
What is worth mentioning is that martyr Mohammad Tamer was a civilian and is not a member of the Lebanese Resistance movement Hezbollah, and yet his mother has been targeted by US sanctions just because she “persists on proving the injustice against the fallen martyrs”.
Here the hypocrisy is two-folded; double-standard on the part of the US which claims to be a “western democracy” and the other by western media that claims to report news objectively.
First, the US did not practice what it preached. In the US constitution, people are protected by The First Amendment which guarantees the right to free expression and free association, which means that the government does not have the right to forbid anyone from saying what they like and writing what they like. Under the constitution, people can form clubs and organizations, and take part in demonstrations and rallies.
This is hypocrisy in action! So, it is OK for Americans to express themselves freely, but it’s not OK for other nationals to do so!
Where is the media coverage on this? Why aren’t more people talking about it?
Mrs. Khalil’s story has not been mentioned, neither was the actual incidents of the martyrdom of her son. And if the incident was spoken about, then it was manipulated to suit the interests of the west.
The western world seems to care the most when the country suffering is full of white people, because it only matters when those suffering are Europeans.
This war has highlighted the hypocrisy and the double-standards of the West where suffering does not warrant empathy but skin color and interests do.
The big news of the day is that the Russian forces finally decided to, shall we say, change pace, and by all account the intensity of the artillery, aerial bombing and missile barrage which hit the Ukie forces in the town of Avdeevka was absolutely unprecedented and following this barrage the LDNR forces broke through 8 kilometers of just about the most heavily defended sectors in the entire theater or operations. The Ukrainian 95th Airmobile Brigade (one of the most combat capable unit of the Ukrainian Army!) was defending this sector. According to reports, this entire brigade was basically wiped out.
Here is what you need to know about Avdeevka: this is the very heavily defended location from which the Ukronazis could unleash their terror against the civilians in Donetsk. Now that this entire town has been flattened, the people of Donetsk can now finally hope to live in relative (Ukie Smerch MLRS and Tochka-U missiles can still reach Donetsk!) peace.
So, not only did Russian encircle the entire Ukrainian forces in an operational cauldron, she then proceeded to cut that single force into two smaller cauldrons (but both still contained in the bigger, operational, cauldron) and now as a show of force, she destroyed the most combat capable Ukrainian unit in the most heavily defended town.
The “message” here is clear: we strongly encourage you to lay down arms or else…
One Ukrainian blogger even believes that there will soon be (or already are!) three mini-cauldrons (see map with cauldrons in blue).
However, as I mentioned before, we should not make too much of these or any other maps. We can use them to get a general sense of what is going on, but we should not use any of them to substantiate a conclusion, especially if that conclusion clashes with what we otherwise also know.
In the case of this map, what we see is a concerted effort to close down the entire Donbass cauldron and then move westward.
I won’t discuss what is happening on other part of the “front” (not an appropriate term for this type of conflict) but I might post one more map tonight if I come across an interesting one.
What about the informational war?
Well, inside Russia it is going rather well. Check out this (machine) translation of a recent article about public opinion by two different organizations:
TheVTsIOM and FOM published regular surveys that demonstrate a confident increase in the support of all power institutions. Indicators of the approval of the activities of the President, the Government and the United Russia and confidence in them go to the transcendental subsidiaries. Since the starting point for the growth of optimism is in February 24, it can be said that military special operation in Ukraine continued within Russia in special operation of sociological. And the dynamics of its implementation is so great that the goal should be understood quite quickly. In the surveys of the VTsIOM, the level of approval of the actions of Vladimir Putin, last week rose highly, and therefore in a new study digit moderate – just 74.2%. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishutin has grown up to 48%, but the government’s rating took off immediately almost 50%. The direct question about the trust brought these results: the president has exceeded 77%, the head of the Cabinet of Ministers approached 60%. the party United Russia, according to the VTsIOM, now has a rating of 39.4%, which is 3.4% more than the previous value.
Modern Germany’s hero: a Nazi Jew (got to love that!)
So it appears that at least INSIDE Russia the Empire of Lies has lost the first PSYOP battles, but there will be many more to come, and the objective reality the government is dealing with (The Empire of Lies wants to totally “cancel” Russia by any and all means) is tough. The economic decisions of the government in particular (we will have a translation about that soon) leaves a lot of very unpleasant questions, at least in my mind. But more about that later.
Outside Russia, the PSYOPs of the Empire of Lies did to Russia what the Russian military did to the Ukies in Avdeevka: comprehensively beat the crap out of Russia’s rather clumsy PR efforts. As a direct result, we now have Ze on the cover of magazines and 100’000 Brits volunteering to house Ukrainian refugees.
How noble indeed!
Too bad that the same generosity was never shown to the Russian people in many centuries of anti-Russian warfare…
I do not recall such noble feelings from ANYBODY when the Nazis were shelling the LDNR and when Poroshenko PUBLICLY promised that the kids of the Donbass would go to school not in Kindergartens, but in the bomb shelters. No, for some reason those 100’000 Brits did not offer to house them.
Clearly, Russian lives do not matter one bit. Not one.
I have to share with you that I am convinced that most people in Zone A truly and sincerely couldn’t care less about Russian lives, even innocent civilians can be murdered, tortured and otherwise disappears but that triggers no “teary eyes” in the West, not even from many Orthodox Christians.
As I have mentioned several times, this war has been a HUGE “coming out” for the West which now has shown its true face.
Putin put it best when he called it the Empire of Lies. But it is even more than that, it is also an Empire of Indifference. And, finally, the Empire is truly and really an Empire of Hypocrisy.
That is what Russia and all those Russians who refuse to condemn their President, country and people (who were forced into this war!) need to accept: while Russians have had no hostility towards the West until now, at least: this is now quickly changing according my my contacts in Russia. Even when the Soviet Communist system was battling AngloZionist imperialism worldwide, the Russian people always knew that the enemy is a ruling cast, an ideology, and some specific segments of society.
“Some people in the foreign press say that the Red Army aims to exterminate the German people and destroy the German state. This, of course, is stupid nonsense and stupid slander against the Red Army. The Red Army does not and cannot have such idiotic goals. The Red Army has its own the goal of expelling the German occupiers from our country and liberating the Soviet land from the German fascist invaders. It is very likely that the war for the liberation of the Soviet land will lead to the expulsion or destruction of the Hitler clique. We would welcome such an outcome. But it would be ridiculous to identify the Hitler clique with the German people. The experience of history tells us that the Hitlers come and go, but the German people, but the German state remains“.
And that was, again, the hyper-villain and Uber-butcher Stalin! He said that in an official order dated February 23, 1942, while the German forces were engaged in truly genocidal mass murder all over the Nazi occupied Soviet Union.
In contrast, the Nazis not only wanted some areas to be declared Judenfrei/Judenrein while their modern-day heirs clearly want the world to be Russenfrei/Russenrein. And its not only the Poles who like to say “Poland up to the Urals, after that – China”, this profound acceptance of the total lack of value of any Russian life is now something very common in Zone A, and it will only get worse since “Biden” will now explain away all his (long list) of failures on Russia, Russians and personally Putin (the “new Hitler”, of course!).
In other words, Russians everywhere should fully expect to be shown less mercy by their western neighbors than the mercy the German people could expect from Stalin during WWII.
To give you an idea, here is what a red-blooded Romanian warrior tried to post in the comments section:
What can one add to such a lyrical statement?
Maybe that Romanians left a “truly unforgettable legacy” in the Ukraine during WWII and the same spirit lives on in modern Romania? Or maybe that folks coming from a country with exactly ZERO agency would do well not to try to roar like a lion, but maybe squeaking like a mouse would make a better fit?
As for Russia and Russians, we will survive modern Nazis just like we survived their previous iteration. By then Russians will hopefully be a little more mature and a little bit less naive about our Urkonazi “brothers” or their masters from the Empire of Lies.
And, no, we will never surrender. Ever 🙂
Speaking of surrender, here is a nice photo of some Russian soldiers with lots of western weaponry:
Finally, the “obligatory” maps! Today I won’t wait for Readovka, so here is an animation of the move of the frontline from RIA Novosti. Again, it is just a map which should NOT be trusted, but I think that it shows us something of value: how the front moved from day 1 to today, day 19.
What about the Nazi volunteers?
Turns out that one of them, something of a hero in Zone A, died within 20 mins of his first contact with the Russian forces (see here and here for details). The fact that Russia destroyed the NATO base in Iarovov probably does not help.
Beirut – The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is still bringing to the open the hypocrisy of western media. The tone and language used, as well as the level of objectivity and the violent sentiments reveal how these media outlets were involved in an ethnic conflict. Newspaper headlines, interviews, and reports were but a tissue of lies, with all the bias in favor of Ukraine.
Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started, western media had been stretching the truth with all the audacity. Plenty of shocking actions have been taken in support of the Ukrainians.
On his personal Twitter account, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen tweeted a guide titled: “Where to Throw a Molotov Cocktail”, in which he detailed the weak spots in Russian armors, viewing hatches and air inlets.
Straightaway, his tweet was showered with opposing responses, to mention but few: “Have you and the BBC got any guides you could share for how the Palestinians can fight their brutal occupying oppressors apartheid ‘Israel’?” and “As the BBC editor for the Middle East, have you ever posted such a guide for peoples resisting military occupations in that region?”
Activists on social media platforms shed light on the BBC’s double-standards in covering the Ukraine crisis compared to the Palestinian Cause.
Moreover, the Independent did not fail to pull the wool over the public’s eyes. The newspaper’s headlines depicting the ongoing conflict said it all. The following are a couple of the British newspaper’s headlines: “Putin is ‘Hitler of the 21st century’, says Ireland’s Leo Varadkar”, in a bid to show a bad image of the Russian president; and “Sir Tony Blair: I thought Iraq invasion was the right thing to do”. The Independent explicitly demonstrates its hypocrisy in news publishing. Voices throughout media platforms condemned the newspaper’s policy, saying: “Now you know how authentic it is to believe upon the news they publish”.
Furthermore, the Daily Mail didn’t even bother to beat around the bush. Instead, the daily “shamelessly” published biased headlines such as: “Imran Khan shamelessly offers to import two million tons of wheat and buy gas from Russia” and “US and Europe paying Kremlin 1$ Billion-a–Day for oil and gas despite harsh economic sanctions”.
In a brave stance before the Irish Parliament, Richard Boyd Barrett, a lawmaker of the People Before Profit [PBP] party criticized the hypocrisy of western media, saying: “Treating the Arab population as a whole, the Palestinian population as a whole, as an inferior race.” He added, “You’re happy to correctly use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing the Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians”.
The list of hypocritical media outlets and their double-standard news coverage goes on. One could only wonder despairingly about all the Middle Eastern countries that have been confronting wars, bombings and massacres. What about Syria that gets bombed every week by ‘Israel’? What about the children of Yemen and the heroes of Palestine? Apparently, their only fault is that they are not “blond with blue eyes”.
So far, the ongoing conflict between Russia and the Ukraine has resulted in the punishment of Russia by the West via imposing economic, political, social, and even cultural sanctions. This in addition to offering direct military support to the Ukrainian Army, and most importantly, raising a biased hypocritical double-standard anti-Russian media campaign. In parallel, elsewhere on the same planet, “Israel” has been committing war crimes against humanity since 1948, yet, western media kept quiet.
Lastly, destruction, crimes and massacres are not only the result of a military war between two parties or armies, but also the product of an ethnic conflict waged by western media outlets. By all counts, the right to live, the right to land, and the right to dream are the hostage of western media hypocrisy.
The speed of Western retaliation over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised eyebrows among Yemenis who have endured a relentless bombing campaign and deadly air, land, and sea blockade for 2,520 consecutive days.
HAJJAH, YEMEN – “We’re brutally bombed every day. So why doesn’t the Western world care like it does about Ukraine?!!… Is it because we don’t have blonde hair and blue eyes like Ukrainians?” Ahmed Tamri, a Yemeni father of four, asked with furrowed brows about the outpouring of international support and media coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the lack of such a reaction to the war in Yemen.
Over the weekend, a member of Tamri’s family was killed and nine relatives injured when their family home was targeted in a Saudi-led Coalition airstrike in the remote al-Saqf area in Hajjah Governorate. Tamri claims that al-Saqf has been subjected to a brutal Saudi bombing campaign for the past seven years – more so, he says, than all of Ukraine has endured since it was invaded by Russia.
Despite the horrific bombing campaign against Yemeni civilians, Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations and war crimes have garnered nowhere near the level of coverage and sympathy that the mainstream Western media has rightfully given to Ukraine. “They shed tears for the Ukrainians, and ignore our tragedies… What hypocrisy and racism!” Tamri told MintPress News.
Yemenis ask the obvious
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues into the sixth day, an outpouring of support for Ukrainians continues to be seen across the Western world. Severe sanctions against Russia have been imposed by the United States, Europe, Australia, and the West in general, amid a flurry of emergency talks at the UN Security Council. The speed of Western retaliation – which includes banning Russia from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) international banking network and calls to treat Russians as international pariahs in sports, culture, and even science – has raised eyebrows among Yemenis who have endured a relentless bombing campaign and deadly air, land, and sea blockade for 2,520 consecutive days.
Since Thursday, when Russian forces began their wide-ranging assault on Ukraine, the Saudi-led Coalition, supported by the United States, has launched more airstrikes in Yemen than Russia has in Ukraine. In Hajjah, a province surrounded by heavy Saudi artillery, Saudi-led coalition warplanes launched more than 150 airstrikes on the cities of Haradh, Heiraan, Abbs, and Mustab, killing scores of civilians, including a father of six killed over the weekend by a Saudi drone that targeted his car as it traveled between Shafar and the Khamis Al-Wahat market.
Since Russia’s incursion into Ukraine began, dozens of civilians, including a number of African migrants, have been killed and hundreds wounded by Saudi artillery and airstrikes in Yemen’s heavily populated Saada province, declared a military area by Saudi Arabia at the start of its military campaign in March 2015.
The bodies of civilians from a Saudi airstrike that killed at least 87 people on the Yemen-Saudi border, Jan. 22, 2022. Hani Mohammed | AP
As news cameras and solidarity protests gave much-needed sympathy to Ukrainian civilians, in Sana’a, Yemen – which has effectively been turned into a large prison for the city’s more than four million residents and refugees, thanks to a crippling Saudi blockade – warplanes bombed a number of densely populated areas, including the airport. An additional 160 airstrikes were launched on the provinces of Marib, al-Jawf, al-Baydha, Taiz, Najran, and Hodeida, the main entry point for commercial goods and aid into a country facing the worst man-made famine in the 21st century.
In fact, it seems as though the Saudi regime is taking advantage of a distracted media in order to escalate attacks on a number of sensitive targets along the Yemen-Saudi border and strengthen its hold over the Al-Mahra Governorate. The UAE, the other major Western-backed oil monarchy occupying Yemen, is likewise making hay, accelerating its project to change the demographics on the prized Socotra Island by displacing locals in favor of settlers more aligned with UAE policies. And while the U.S. readies massive shipments of arms and military aid to Ukrainian “freedom fighters” defending against a Russian invasion, Yemeni “rebels” downed an American-made MQ9-1 drone flown by the UAE in al-Jawf and two American-made Boeing Insitu ScanEagles in Marib and Hajjah.
As countries that have spent the past decades building literal and figurative walls to keep out desperate brown and black refugees fleeing violence and foreign invasion in their own lands open their arms, homes, and hearts to fleeing Ukrainian refugees, Saudi Arabia unleashed a force of Yemeni mercenaries upon their homeland with a promise of a Saudi green card and safety for their families if they turn on their fellow countrymen. Ironically named the “Happy Yemen Forces,” the unit was finalized in late 2021, according to leaked military documents, with a mandate to secure Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen and ensure Saudi security in exchange for a green card and access to the Saudi social services that come with it.
If we are to compare
In terms of the sheer cost of human life, the tragedy in Yemen has been much more deadly than that in Ukraine, where 325 Ukrainians, including 14 children have tragically lost their lives according to Ukrainian officials. Granted the war in Yemen has raged on unabated for more than six years, but comparatively the numbers are astonishing. Since 2015 the death toll has reached an estimated 400,000 people, including 3,900 children.
Those deaths have included attacks on civilians so egregious that they did garner fleeting media attention but, inevitably, no sanctions, little international condemnation, not even a cessation in the military aid and support to the perpetrators. Bombed-out schools, funerals, wedding halls, refugee camps, even a school bus full of children targeted by the most advanced U.S. weaponry on offer have not been sufficient to elicit the reaction that Ukraine has garnered in less than one week.
Since 2015, Saudi-led Coalition warplanes have pounded Yemen with over 266,000 airstrikes, according to the Yemeni Army Operations Room, which records airstrikes against civilian and military targets. Seventy percent of those strikes have hit civilian targets. The rising smoke, rubble and flames now seen in Ukraine have been the status quo in Yemen for years, with Western media often deeming the images that appear on local Yemeni television stations, of parents pulling pieces of their children out from the rubble of their homes or schools, too graphic to display.
A nurse holds a malnourished girl at the al-Sabeen hospital in Sana’a, Yemen, October 27, 2020. Khaled Abdullah | Reuters
Thousands of Yemen’s economically vital facilities like factories, food storage facilities, fishing boats, food markets and fuel tankers have been bombed by the Western-backed Saudi Coalition. Critical infrastructure – including airports, seaports, electrical stations, water tanks, roads and bridges and countless more schools, agricultural fields, and places of worship – have been destroyed or damaged. A Saudi blockade and airstrikes on hospitals have crippled Yemen’s health system, leaving it unable to deal with even the most basic public health needs and leaving the 300 facilities that remain in the entire country barely functioning as COVID-19 spreads like wildfire.
As the outpourings of condemnation of Russia’s invasion continue, Western governments have sent massive aid packages to Ukraine and social media campaigns fill in the gaps – while in Yemen the United Nations announced that by March it would likely cut aid to 8 million people in a country that it calls home to the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. Household food insecurity in Yemen hovers at over 80%. Almost one-third of the population does not have enough food to satisfy even basic nutritional needs. Underweight and stunted children have become a regular sight and the worst is yet to come, as the Russian invasion has led to increased fuel and food prices and as humanitarian funding dries up, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Picking and choosing which invasion to condemn
In March 2015, more than 17 countries led by the oil-rich monarchy of Saudi Arabia launched a military invasion of Yemen, a sovereign state and a member of the United Nations. Ostensibly, the war was launched to restore President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to power after he was ousted following popular protests amid the Arab Spring.
By March 26 of that year, the Saudi-led Coalition, backed militarily and diplomatically by the United States, would begin a bombing campaign that has indiscriminately killed, maimed, and destroyed for seven years. Not only has Saudi Arabia, arguably the most repressive dictatorship on earth, forced Hadi back into power under the guise of protecting democracy, but it has also occupied huge swaths of southern Yemen from al-Mahara to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Yemeni journalists, activists and politicians have been left to ponder why Western governments – in particular, the Biden administration – condemn Russia for invading Ukraine under the pretext of national security while defending the Saudi regime’s “legitimate right” to invade Yemen under the very same pretext.
Despite the horrific human rights violations carried out by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Western nations, and the United States in particular, have not only provided lethal weapons, training, maintenance, intelligence, and political and diplomatic cover to the monarchy but have imposed media restrictions on coverage of the Saudi regime’s human rights abuses in Yemen, pressuring tech and social media companies to deplatform and outright ban Yemeni activists and media critical of the war.
Yemenis attend a demonstration against the US over its decision to designate the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization in Sanaa, Jan. 25, 2021. Hani Mohammed | AP
As mainstream Western media gives glowing coverage to Ukrainians resisting their foreign invaders and occupiers – with Western leaders applauding the steadfastness and resistance of Ukrainians and sending aid, weapons and moral support to them – they label Yemenis taking up arms as terrorists and target them with American-made smart bombs and drone attacks. Yemenis who take up arms against invading Saudi and Emirati forces are sanctioned and dismissed as proxies of Iran by liberal media institutions that claim to stand against war.
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council extended an arms embargo and travel ban on Yemeni forces. The resolution strongly condemned what it called cross-border attacks by the “Houthis,” a derogatory term used to refer to Ansar Allalh, the single largest force challenging the Saudi invasion and occupation. It went on to condemn “attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates” referring to Ansar Allah’s missile and drone attacks on Saudi-led Coalition airports and oil storage facilities.
Commenting on the resolution – which came as the UAE refused to publicly condemn Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, hoping to gain Russian backing for its own invasion of Yemen – Ansar Allah leader Mohammed al-Houthi made one simple request: that Saudi Arabia’s deliberate targeting of civilians in Yemen lead to a Saudi weapons ban. Essentially, al-Houthi asked for a lifting of double standards, apparently an impossible request in today’s political climate.
Posted on February 21, 2022 by worldpeacewithjustice
February 20, 2022
There’s been no intelligence revealed at State Dept. briefings, to the U.N., to European allies or Ukraine, but the U.S. wants everyone to believe they’re telling the truth about an imminent Russian invasion and its “kill lists,” writes Joe Lauria.
Biden at White House press briefing on Friday saying he’s ‘convinced’ of an invasion. (Ruptly screenshot)
U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said he was convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had made up his mind to invade Ukraine, but European officials are not convinced.
“As of this moment I’m convinced he has made the decision” to invade, Biden told a reporter in response to a question at a White House press briefing. Asked how he knows this, Biden said, “We have a significant intelligence capability.”
But The Washington Post reported on Saturday that:
“Some European allies questioned the United States’ conviction that the Kremlin will launch hostilities, saying that they have not seen direct evidence suggesting Putin has committed to such a course of action.
One European official told The Washington Post in Munich that ‘we have no clear evidence ourselves that Putin has made up his mind and we have not seen anything that would suggest otherwise.’ Another said that although the situation is grave, ‘at this stage we do not have such clear intelligence’ that Putin has decided to invade.
The officials said they have been told little about the sources and methods the United States used to arrive at its conclusions, limiting their capacity to make independent decisions about how much weight to give statements from Biden that Putin has made a decision to attack.
‘It’s always the raw material that they do not share,’ said one senior NATO diplomat who has had extensive conversations with top American policymakers in Brussels.”
Withholding any raw intelligence, if they have any, U.S. officials just want the Europeans to believe them on a matter of the highest consequence. It is a humiliating position for allies the U.S. has long treated as subordinates. The U.S. does not appear to have given any intelligence, raw or otherwise, to the Ukrainians either, except for satellite photographs last month, which Ukrainian intelligence dismissed.
President Volodymyr Zelenksy told a press conference at the time that the U.S. should stop its hysteria about an invasion. “They keep supporting this theme, this topic. And they make it as acute and burning as possible. In my opinion, this is a mistake.” He added: “If you look only at the satellites you will see the increase in troops and you can’t assess whether this is just a threat of attack or just a simple rotation.”
Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. (MSC/Kuhlmann)
What US Says the Intelligence Is
In the same article, the Post tried to explain where this evidence came from, which no one outside of a tight Washington circle has apparently seen, or heard of:
“U.S. intelligence that provided Biden with the confidence to make the assertion came from an order given to Russian subordinates to proceed with a full-scale attack, according to several people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. The United States obtained intelligence on the order as Russian military and security officials were taking steps to implement it, and did so very recently, the people said.”
This could only come from a mole in Russia’s political or military hierarchy, from an intercept or it is made up. Not even a redacted version of these reports — if they exist — were shared with senior European officials.
Perhaps feeling the heat from the Post report and other feedback from its allies, a few Biden administration officials on Sunday tried to give a few more crumbs away. They talked anonymously to the The New York Times, but didn’t dare say too much:
“Officials declined to describe the intelligence in any detail, anxious to keep secret their method of collecting the information. But intelligence officials have told the administration they have a high level of confidence in the intelligence they have collected in recent months about Russian military planning, as well as about plots by Moscow’s intelligence agencies to try and create a pretext for war.”
“American military and intelligence assets have confirmed that they have observed the Russian military take steps to execute an attack plan,” the Times reported, but these are merely assertions from intelligence agencies that lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Russia and the Trump campaign were in a conspiracy to steal the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They also got the fall of Kabul wrong.
One would think that having been embarrassed in these major instances that intelligence officials would put forward some evidence or shut up.
But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went on a Sunday morning news show to say the intelligence learned about “false flags” were already coming true. “Everything leading up to the actual invasion appears to be taking place,’’ he said on on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “All of these false-flag operations, all these provocations to create justifications — all that is already in train.”
This is clearly emerging as the strategy, backed up by “intelligence” that may be fabricated, namely that whatever is happening around Donbass now are Russian-directed attacks covered by deception to make it look like a Ukrainian government offensive, and not an actual U.S.-directed Ukrainian government offensive to draw Russia into invading. If that’s the U.S. plan, there’s good reason to hide it from the Europeans.
Biden said Friday all of NATO, Europe and the “entire free world is united” against Russia, even though none of them have seen the evidence – if there is any — and none of them seem as convinced as he is that there will be war.
“Mr. Biden’s declaration, and the new description of what he based it on, are the latest salvos in a campaign by the administration to use declassified intelligence to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s plans, perhaps slowing an invasion and buying more time for diplomacy,” the Times reported. However no “declassified intelligence” has emerged, only administration statements masquerading as evidence, while the Times plays along.
Military analyst Scott Ritter wrote Sunday on Consortium News that the U.S. should have evidence indicating whether the Russian troop formations indicate an exercise or an invasion, intelligence which it could have shared with the world at the U.N. Security Council last week — or with European officials this weekend.
Two Bizarre New Pieces of ‘Intelligence’
On Sunday night, the Postreported that the U.S. had sent a letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council alleging that after Russia invades and occupies Ukraine, it will use lists it has drawn up to target people for torture and detention in concentration camps. The Post reported:
“The letter alleges that Moscow’s post-invasion planning would involve torture, forced disappearances and ‘widespread human suffering.’ It does not describe the nature of the intelligence that undergirds its assessment.”
“We have credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation,” the letter to Michele Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, says.
Those targeted would include “Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons.”
As the Post pointed out, the letter is only based on “credible information” and does not disclose the “nature of the intelligence,” though it ends by telling Bachelet to contact the U.S. official for “any additional information,” which one would assume would not include raw intelligence. This comes from a government that runs a concentration camp at Guantanamo, ran a torture center at Abu Ghraib and had a kill list review every Tuesday at the White House.
If this letter is true, how could the United States not try to deter such an invasion and Nazi-like occupation by sending U.S. troops to Ukraine? That it won’t undermines the credibility of this “intelligence.”
The second strange matter was the U.S. embassy in Moscow sending this warning to U.S. citizens on Sunday:
“According to media sources, there have been threats of attacks against shopping centers, railway and metro stations, and other public gathering places in major urban areas, including Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as in areas of heightened tension along the Russian border with Ukraine.”
The media “sources” are not named and there is no further explanation for such a message, which could have numerous meanings.
“Common symptoms of psychosis are … having strong beliefs [or intelligence] that are not shared by people within your community,” might define U.S. foreign policy, which has become increasingly difficult to explain rationally.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe
The continuous settler takeover of Palestinian land has prevented Palestinians from developing and utilizing their resources and therefore significantly depleted their economy.
OCCUPIED WEST BANK, PALESTINE — Nearly 700 European firms have financial ties worth $255 billion with businesses actively involved in Israeli settlements, according to a new civil society report.
The Don’t Buy Into Occupation (DBIO) coalition is a joint project between 25 Palestinian and European non-governmental organizations investigating the business connections between companies operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) and European financial institutions. The coalition’s latest research found 672 European financial institutions had relationships with 50 businesses participating in Israel’s settlement economy. Between 2018 and May 2021, major European firms provided loans and underwritings amounting to $114 billion to these businesses while investing $141 billion.
“The involvement of these corporations with the settlements — through investments, banking loans, resource extraction, infrastructure contracts, and equipment and product supply agreements — provides them with the indispensable economic oxygen they require to grow and thrive,” Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied since 1967, wrote in the report.
The findings
The DBIO coalition found that the top 10 creditors collectively gave $77.81 billion to businesses involved in the Israeli settlements. These firms are BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Société Générale, Santander, ING Group, Commerzbank, UniCredit, and Crédit Agricole. And the top 10 investors — Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole, Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), Investor AB, BPCE Group, Allianz, Swedbank, Legal & General, AB Industrivärden, and Alecta — contributed $67.22 billion.
The coalition reached out to 138 firms as well as three corporations highlighted in the report and additional businesses the coalition found to be heavily involved in the settlement economy. Booking.com, BNP Paribas, and HeidelbergCement and 21 financial institutions responded to the report’s results.
Replies varied, with some banks wanting to set up meetings to further discuss the findings while other institutions said they’ve already investigated human rights concerns with their business partners. The report’s authors declined to disclose with which institutions they are meeting, but DBIO said they plan to publish updates in the future.
“Some of them claim they did their human rights due diligence, but still decided to be involved in a settlement enterprise, which is quite against any of the suggestions or analysis of human rights experts,” Dr. Anna Khdair — a legal researcher at Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization, and one of the report’s co-drafters — told MintPress News.
Other institutions said any ties to Israeli settlements are not within their sphere of decision-making because settlements are legal under Israeli law. While they are warranted by Israel, settlements are illegal under international law.
“So, we still have a lot of work to do to explain how the settlement enterprise actually works and how much it is connected to the Israeli economy, [while] Israel itself will not provide enough information or transparency about those links with the illegal settlement enterprise,” Khdair said.
Holding corporations accountable
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has experienced incredible mobilization recently. American ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s made headlines over the summer after announcing it will stop selling in Israeli settlements. Two pension companies named in the DBIO report also recently divested from companies linked to the settlement enterprise. In July, Kommunal Landspensjonskasse (KLP), Norway’s biggest pension firm, divested from 16 companies involved in Israeli settlements.
“In KLP’s assessment, there is an unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank,” KLP said in a statement regarding their decision.
The businesses from which KLP divested are:
Ashtrom Group Ltd.
Electra Ltd.
Alstom SA
Bank Hapoalim
Bank Leumi
Israel Discount Bank
First International Bank Israel
Bezeq
Mizrahi Tefahot Bank
Altice Europe
Partner Communications
Cellcom
Delek Group
Paz Oil
Motorola Solutions
Energix Renewable Energies
In September, the Norwegian pension company GPFG announced it will stop working with Elco Ltd., Ashtrom Group Ltd., and Electra Ltd. because of their activities in the Israeli settlements. In the last decade, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Barclays have also divested from some companies involved in the settlements.
Nonetheless, Willem Staes, coordinator of the DBIO coalition, noted:
Despite the illegal nature of Israeli settlements under international law, European financial institutions continue to throw a financial lifeline to companies operating in the settlements. European financial institutions should take up their responsibility and follow the example of KLP and GPFG. They should end all investments and financial flows into Israeli settlements, and not buy into the Israeli occupation.
Even with these divestment decisions, however, the aforementioned firms still associate with settlement-entwined businesses. KLP is invested in eight companies involved in the settlement enterprise: Delta Galil Industries, FIBI, Matrix IT, Mivne Group, Rami Levy Chain Stores Hashikma Marketing 2006, Shapir Engineering and Industry, and Shufersal. GPFG still has business dealings with 34 companies linked to the settlements. These businesses are:
ACS Group
Atlas Copco
Bank Hapoalim
Bank Leumi
Bezeq
Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF)
Caterpillar
Cellcom
CNH Industrial
Delek Group
Delta Galil Industries
DXC Technology
Energix
CETCO Mineral Technology Group
Cisco Systems
Expedia
FIBI
General Mills
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
Israel Discount Bank
MAN Group
Tripadvisor
Manitou
Shufersal
Siemens
Matrix IT
Mizrahi Tefahot Bank
Volvo Group
WSP GLobal
Motorola Solutions
Partner Communications
Paz Oil
Rami Levy Chain Stores Hashikma Marketing 2006
Terex
These ongoing financial relationships put into question the firms’ commitment to human rights.
Maha Abdallah, one of the co-drafters of the report and the International Advocacy Officer at Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, told MintPress News that the DBIO’s findings definitely contradict the institutions’ purported ethical responsibilities.
“These companies and financial institutions claim that they’re committed to human rights, but then we see the facts on the ground and the level of their involvement in the settlements,” Abdallah said. “So clearly these are all in violation of their responsibilities under international law and towards human rights standards.”
Al-Haq’s Khdair speculated, however, that the slow pull-out from the settlement enterprise may stem from fears of political backlash. “We saw how the reaction from [the] Israeli government towards Ben & Jerry’s’ decision was,” Khdair said. “So some companies would be wary of reputational risk and also see [divestment] as problematic for their shareholders. It’s a process of finding the right balance in terms of their gains and their goals.”
All 50 companies named in the report participate in at least one of the activities listed by the United Nations as criteria for inclusion in its database of companies operating in the Israeli settlements. Of the 50 companies implicated, 15 are American. These businesses are:
Airbnb
Booking Holdings
Caterpillar
CETCO Mineral Technology Group
Cisco Systems
CNH Industrial
DXC Technology
Energix
Expedia
General Mills
HPE
Motorola Solutions
RE/MAX Holdings
Terex Corporation
Tripadvisor
Israeli settlements crushing Palestine’s economy
More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements across the oPT and 42% of the West Bank is under settlement control. Area C of the West Bank abounds with natural resources, but 68% of this region is reserved for Israeli settlements while only 1% is designated for Palestinian use.
The continuous settler takeover of Palestinian land has prevented Palestinians from developing and utilizing their resources and therefore significantly depleted their economy.
Restricted access to the Dead Sea, quarries and mines has led to an over $1 billion annual loss in revenue for Palestine, according to a 2015 policy brief from Palestinian thinktank Al-Shabaka. And companies’ exploitation of West Bank quarries is estimated at $900 million annually. The DBIO report authors write:
The exploitation of natural resources means that the Palestinian people are denied their right to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. By profiting from the depletion of Palestinian finite quarry resources, individual corporate actors may be held criminally liable for complicity in the crimes of appropriation, environmental destruction and the pillage of natural resources.
“There are conflicting interests even between different European institutions [each with] their [own] priorities,” Khdair said, explaining that the goals of foreign affairs units often clash with human rights entities in the EU.
“On the one hand, the EU has a very consistent approach and position on the illegality of settlements and all the associated violations that come along with it that undermine Palestinian rights,” Abdallah said. “But at the same time, we’re seeing that European businesses and financial institutions are still freely and without any consequences are being involved and active with the settlement enterprise.”
For Abdallah, European business activity in the settlements seems in stark contrast to the EU’s stated allegiances to the Palestinian cause. “We know what that means in reality,” Abdallah said. “It means giving them an economic lifeline allowing them to sustain themselves and expand and grow with time because these settlements, at the end of the day, rely on money in order to prosper and sustain and expand.”
Canada’s pointless prime minister is a vacuous, self-aggrandising, borderline despot incapable of even keeping up the pretence he cares a jot about the people unfortunate enough to be governed by the privileged charlatan.
Just weeks post federal elections, the muppet PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau, has given up all pretense of being a serious politician and instead returned to his norm of idiocy, offensive gaffs, scandals, and increasing the authoritarianism Canadians have endured the past 18+ months (but which Trudeau and other leaders have flouted).
On September 30, the day of Canada’s newly-established National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, instead of himself abiding by the words of his (clearly-scripted and hollow) statement, Trudeau skipped off West to hit the waves and walk on the beach with his wife and kids.
The statement included Trudeau inviting Canadians, “to reflect on the painful and lasting impacts of residential schools in Canada, and to honour survivors, their families, and their communities,” and, “to remember the many children who never returned home.”
This he did by ignoring requests of Indigenous communities to visit, instead opting for family fun time in Tofino, a holiday town on Vancouver Island.
Global News caught up with Justin Trudeau, who was vacationing in Tofino on Canada's first National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
His official itinerary placed him in "private meetings" in Ottawa.
This is hardly surprising, given he is merely the face of the government of Canada, the same government which has paid lip service to caring about Indigenous peoples, but continues to allow many communities to boil contaminated water rather than solving the dangerous health issue.
Trudeau’s choice to go surfing on the very day of the first year of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, was, in my opinion, him revealing how little he cares for the issues he feigns concern over.
A week later, he donned his pretend-sincere face and uttered the empty words, “Travelling on the 30th was a mistake and I regret it.”
Nah. He doesn’t regret it, he regrets getting caught. Or as a survivor of the genocidal ‘residential school’ system said, “this just shows us survivors that he doesn’t actually want to meet with us. He’s just hoping that we will just disappear into the sunset.”
Last July I wrote of the sudden media attention regarding the horrific issue of the Canada-wide ‘residential schools’, where starvation, torture, and sexual, physical and mental abuse were rife.
In a follow up article, I cited an interview I conducted with Roland Chrisjohn, a PhD-educated clinical psychologist and head of the Native Studies department at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, who spoke of Canada’s long history of covering up the crimes against Indigenous children imprisoned in the ‘schools’.
Trudeau’s latest failure to show any semblance of genuine remorse over these crimes was noted in the backlash on social media, including in response to his virtue-signalling tweet after the fact.
Are you aware Port Alberni, near Tofino, and indeed quite a large number of BC communities housed residential schools. It really doesn’t matter in BC where you go, you are near to a place where indigenous peoples were impacted by Residential Schools
You have no right to lecture us on Indigenous reconciliation while building a pipeline through treaty land. Until you #StopLine3 your words mean nothing. https://t.co/ZQRE5vR8Iy
More recently, Trudeau took to Twitter tweeting about “lighting candles to honour Indigenous women, girls,” and adding his own version of inclusivity, 2SLGBTQQIA, that left even the wokest confused, and many mocking his idiocy.
Only the 2SLGBTQQIA+? What about the F##^*#>€PKSDFNNM+¥*+? Their lived experiences matter too. Please be more inclusive.
[You truly are a caricature of the worst woke stereotype. Void of any profundity.]
The 2SL of that Trudeauism apparently referred to ‘Two-spirit’, or “a person who identifies as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit and is used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe their sexual identity.”
Although Team Trudeau thought they were ahead of the woke game, he instead, once again, looked like an idiot in a suit pretending to be a leader. One whose Twitter settings should include parental guidance, for his own good.
Trudeau’s authoritarianism
While the PM might garner a tad of sympathy from charitably-minded people who perhaps, mistakenly, think the guy has his heart in the right place but keeps mucking up with his idiotic gaffes, many Canadians are rightly pissed off by his, and Canada’s, authoritarian streak over the past two years.
Ontario has had one of the longest and most brutal lockdowns in the world – though the tyranny in Australia has superseded that of Ontario.
Earlier this year, Canada decided to re-invent science and declare that natural immunity to Covid-19 isn’t acceptable, only the fast-tracked Big Pharma jabs, meaning that many Canadians, myself-included, cannot return to Canada.
In the leadup to the rushed election, Trudeau said unvaccinated citizens should be banned from planes, trains & buses, and called on the populace to shame and condemn the anti-vaxxers as a “danger.”
This week, Trudeau announced Canadians aged 12 and up will be forced to be jabbed in order to travel.
And Trudeau’s government will tighten the noose further, implementing prison-state rules about travel by the end of November: only fully vaccinated Canadians can travel.
What happens once you have removed all of the basic human rights of those who won’t comply with your mandatory procedures?
This is unsurprising to those who have followed Canada’s not so subtle slide towards tyranny. Nor is it surprising after over a year of Covid-19-related psychological operations against the Canadian people, with the intent of “shaping and exploiting” information, discouraging civil disobedience, and boosting confidence in the government’s narratives on matters pandemic.
Although I believe that whoever the muppet leader of Canada is, the policies would largely be the same, the Trudeau brand is truly repugnant.
Canadians are doomed with years more fake, woke and authoritarian non-leadership, with no imminent solution in sight other than mass civil disobedience. But sadly, the combination of idiotic and distracting identity politics and the media fear mongering will ensure that this does not happen.
Any wrong or racist attitude may eclipse the truth for some time, but it cannot do so forever.
Syrian sculptor, Rami Wakkaf
When the black movement in the US raised the motto “Black Lives Matter”, after the killing of George Floyd, the rest of the world should have joined by raising the motto “human lives matter”. So many people in different countries in the world have forgotten that they belong to one human race and one human family, either due to the colors of their skins and eyes, or due to the advanced positions their countries have reached in different domains. Amidst the hard competition we witness among people in different areas, it may well suit some to discriminate against others and belittle their achievements in order to get them out of their way. Athletes competing for medals are perhaps the most exposed to this kind of racism, which lately started to infect unusual territories, such as education and art, which until recently were thought to be totally safe from such practices.
As London Art Biennale is a huge landmark for artists from all over the world, it is important to relate here to our dear readers an important incident that has taken place in 2021 London Art Biennale. The Syrian sculptor, Rami Wakkaf, responded to the invitation to participate in this Biennale by sending two of his works, which were very well received and bought almost immediately by the Biennale. Accordingly, he applied for a visa to attend the event, but of course he was not granted a visa because he is Syrian.
After waiting patiently for the art judges, Rami was told that one of his works has got the prize for the best sculpture in the Biennale. Of course, he was very happy and excited and put the happy item on his Facebook and received congratulations and requests for media interviews.
The next day, and perhaps after the Committee was reminded that he is Syrian, and no need to say that Syria is subjected to coercive US measures, he received a second email, which read that “the vote was very close, and during the jury recount, the artwork by Jason Briggs won that particular prize by one vote,” expressing sincere apologies for the mistake.
Is it possible that the first email, which was sent to inform Rami Wakkaf that his work won the first prize, was sent before the final counting of the votes and before a final decision was made by the committee to choose this work? There is no doubt that the works of Rami Wakkaf would outlive the Committee’s decision and would receive the attention and celebration they are worthy of.
Any wrong or racist attitude may eclipse the truth for some time, but it cannot do so forever. Racism is the antithesis of everything human, creative, and exceptional.
It is the tool of those who fail to achieve and to appreciate the excellence of the achievements of others, and always for the wrong reasons.
People in our region never used to believe that such things may happen in a Western country as they have an exaggerated idea of the absolute moral behavior of the West. But as means of communication are bridging distances, the truth is closer at hand.
The West cannot indulge in racist practices, whilst keeping its moral superiority or its claims that it provides criteria for human behavior and ethics. It has to choose one or the other, or the choice will be made anyway.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 