Category: Ukraine

  • There is a first and still very low noise signal that the Zelenski regime in Kiev is coming apart.

    Six weeks ago there were suddenly many claims that Russian soldiers in Ukraine had raped people.

    Time headlined: Ukrainians Who Have Been Raped by Russian Troops Are Refusing to Stay Silent

    Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova said that 25 teenage girls were kept in a basement in Bucha and gang-raped; nine of them are now pregnant. Elderly women spoke on camera about being raped by Russian soldiers. The bodies of children were found naked with their hands tied behind their backs, their genitals mutilated. Those victims included both girls and boys, and Ukrainian men and boys have been sexually assaulted in other incidents. A group of Ukrainian women POWs had their heads shaved in Russian captivity, where they were also stripped naked and forced to squat.

    The post Rape Allegations Against Russian Troops In Ukraine Were Fake appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Ten months before Russian troops poured into Ukraine, that country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill into law authorizing the private sale of farmland, reversing a moratorium that had been in place since 2001.

    An earlier administration in Ukraine had instituted the moratorium in order to halt further privatization of The Commons and small farms, which were being bought up by oligarchs and concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. As documented in a series of critical reports over ten years by the Oakland Institute based in California*,* the moratorium on land sales in Ukraine aimed to prevent the acquisition and consolidation of farmland in the hands of the domestic oligarch class and foreign corporations.

    The marketization of farmland is part of a series of policy “reforms” that the International Monetary Fund stipulated as a precondition enabling Ukraine to receive $8 billion in loans from the IMF.

    The post The Fight Over Land And Genetically Engineered Agriculture appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    A Ukrainian government official frequently cited as a source by western news media for her allegations of atrocities committed by Russian troops has been fired by the Ukrainian parliament, in part because of the unevidenced nature of those claims.

    Newsweek reports:

    A Ukrainian official has been relieved of her duties over her handling of reports detailing sexual assault allegations made against Russians in Ukraine.

     

    On Tuesday, the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, removed Lyudmila Denisova, the parliament’s commissioner for human rights, from her post, according to Ukrainska Pravda. No new appointment has been made to fill the role.

     

    The move to dismiss Denisova came after outrage about the wording used in public reports about alleged sexual assaults committed by Russians, as well as the alleged dissemination in those reports of unverified information. Despite accusations from Ukraine, the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russian soldiers have committed war crimes or sexual assaults during the invasion.

    As it happens, Newsweek is one of the many western outlets who have uncritically cited Denisova’s unevidenced claims in their reporting of events in Ukraine. She was the “Ukraine official” in Newsweek’s incendiary April headline “Russians Raped 11-Year-Old Boy, Forced Mom to Watch: Ukraine Official,” an article whose entire first half featured unevidenced claims by Denisova.

    Denisova’s name featured just the other day in my own critique of the western media’s blind-faith regurgitation of Ukrainian government assertions when multiple western media outlets parroted her unevidenced claims about two Russians raping a one year-old baby to death.

    Business InsiderThe Daily BeastThe Daily Mail, The Sun, Metro, The Daily Mirror and Yahoo News all published reports on the same story, and the one and only source for all of them was a post made by Denisova on a Ukrainian government website which contained no evidence and concluded with a call for more weapons and sanctions against Russia from the western world.

    Moon of Alabama has compiled other western news media reports which have been uncritically regurgitating claims made by Denisova and disguising those claims as news stories, like Business Insider’s “Ukraine says it received more than 400 reports of sexual violence, including rape, by Russian soldiers within 2 weeks” and Time’s “Ukrainians Are Speaking Up About Rape as a War Crime to Ensure the World Holds Russia Accountable.”

    This is not just brazen journalistic malpractice, this is actual atrocity propaganda. This latest development shows that even the Ukrainian government is more skeptical of Ukrainian government claims than the western mainstream press.

    _____________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • Russia’s “Special Military Operation”, which began on Feb. 24, is entering its fourth month. Despite stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance (bolstered by billions of dollars of western military assistance and accurate, real-time battlefield intelligence by the U.S. and other NATO members) Russia is winning the war on the ground, and in a big way.

    After more than ninety days of incessant Ukrainian propaganda, echoed mindlessly by a complicit western mainstream media that extolls the battlefield successes of the Ukrainian armed forces and the alleged incompetence of the Russian military, the Russians are on the cusp of achieving the stated goal of its operation, namely the liberation of the newly independent Donbass Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, which Russia recognized two days before its invasion.

    The Russian victory in Donbass comes after weeks of intensive combat that saw the Russian military shift gears away from what has become known as Phase One. That was the month-long opening act which, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his Feb. 24 address, was tasked with taking “actions throughout the territory of Ukraine with the implementation of measures for its demilitarization and denazification.”

    The post Phase Three in Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    Ahh, that’s much better. Problem solved.

    British empire smut rag The Times has a new article out titled “Azov Battalion drops neo-Nazi symbol exploited by Russian propagandists,” which has got to be the most hilarious headline of 2022 so far (and I’m including The Onion and other intentionally funny headlines in the running).

    “The Azov Battalion has removed a neo-Nazi symbol from its insignia that has helped perpetuate Russian propaganda about Ukraine being in the grip of far-right nationalism,” The Times informs us. “At the unveiling of a new special forces unit in Kharkiv, patches handed to soldiers did not feature the wolfsangel, a medieval German symbol that was adopted by the Nazis and which has been used by the battalion since 2014. Instead, they featured a golden trident, the Ukrainian national symbol worn by other regiments.”

    Yeah that’s how you solve Ukraine’s Nazi problem. A logo change.

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    BREAKING: Ukrainian Nazis are getting rid of their SS symbols to stop evil propagandists in one of the smartest marketing moves ever. The Times headline tells how much Western oligarchs support fascists. 🇺🇦pic.twitter.com/ITV7TFWA6F

    — taseenov (@taseenb) May 30, 2022

    Claiming it’s “Russian propaganda” to say the Azov Battalion uses neo-Nazi insignia, and is ideologically neo-Nazi, is itself propaganda. A month ago Moon of Alabama published an incomplete list of the many mainstream western outlets who have described various Ukrainian paramilitaries as such, so if it’s only “Russian propagandists” who’ve been saying the Azov Battalion is neo-Nazi then Silicon Valley social media platforms should immediately ban outlets like NBC News, the BBC, The Guardian, and Reuters.

    Before this war started this past February it wasn’t seriously controversial to say that Ukraine has a Nazi problem except in the very most virulent of empire spinmeister echo chambers. Even in the early days of the conflict it was still happening with mainstream publications who hadn’t yet gotten the memo that history had been rewritten, like this NBC News article from March titled “Ukraine’s Nazi problem is real, even if Putin’s ‘denazification’ claim isn’t.”

    An excerpt:

    Just as disturbing, neo-Nazis are part of some of Ukraine’s growing ranks of volunteer battalions. They are battle-hardened after waging some of the toughest street fighting against Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine following Putin’s Crimean invasion in 2014. One is the Azov Battalion, founded by an avowed white supremacist who claimed Ukraine’s national purpose was to rid the country of Jews and other inferior races. In 2018, the U.S. Congress stipulated that its aid to Ukraine couldn’t be used “to provide arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.” Even so, Azov is now an official member of the Ukraine National Guard.

    So plainly it is not “Russian propaganda” to highlight the established fact that there are neo-Nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine who are receiving weapons from the US and its allies. The change in insignia isn’t being made to correct a misperception, it’s being made to obscure a correct perception.

    The change in insignia is a rebranding to a more mainstream-friendly logo, very much like Aunt Jemima rebranding to Pearl Milling Company due to the Jim Crow racism the previous branding evoked. The primary difference is that the corporate executives of Pearl Milling probably aren’t still interested in turning America back into an apartheid state.

    As journalist Alex Rubenstein noted on Twitter, al Qaeda in Syria went through a similar rebranding not long ago for the exact same reasons:

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    Azov is the new al-Qaeda in Syria: "We aren't al-Qaeda! We split from them. Sure, all of us are former members but our new group, Jaysh al-Zawahiri, isn't down with that sort of thing! We still fly the black flag but changed the words on it. Now please us send more weapons." https://t.co/coh8mZPNLQ

    — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) May 30, 2022

    Indeed it is very normal for the US and its allies to provide backing to fascistic extremists in order to advance imperial agendas, because those tend to be the armed factions in a given area who are willing to inflict the brutal acts of violence upon their countrymen necessary to facilitate those agendas.

    From far right militias in Latin America to tyrannical jihadists in the Middle East, this pattern of backing murderous fascists and then having to manage public perception of their depravity has been going on a long time. After the US alliance began working with al Qaeda-aligned factions to push regime change Syria, it eventually became necessary for them to rebrand to appease public concerns about their image. When the US-backed Contras were committing human rights atrocities in Nicaragua to stomp out the leftist Sandinistas, the Reagan administration was launching a massive perception management campaign to manipulate the way people see the situation.

    In Ukraine, neo-Nazi paramilitaries just happen to have been the armed thugs who were depraved enough to do what the empire needed done on the ground. As Ukrainian-American peace activist Yuliy Dubovyk explained for Multipolarista, they were the ones who were willing to fire upon their own countrymen in eastern part of the nation.

    The people in Donetsk and Luhansk were less lucky. The coup government dispatched the military to suppress their insurrections.

     

    At first many Ukrainian soldiers refused to shoot at their own countrymen, in this civil war that their US-backed government started.

     

    Seeing the hesitation of the Ukrainian military, far-right groups (and the oligarchs that were backing them) formed so-called “territorial defense battalions,” with names like Azov, Aidar, Dnipro, Tornado, etc.

     

    Much like in Latin America, where US-backed death-squads kill left-wing politicians, socialists, and labor organizers, these Ukrainian fascist battalions were deployed to lead the offensive against the militias of Donetsk and Luhansk, killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

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    Unlocked: Siding with Ukraine's far-right, US sabotaged Zelensky's historic mandate for peace, by @aaronjmate https://t.co/3rYOdIcob2

    — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) April 15, 2022

    The fact that factions like the Azov Battalion have been the ones willing to get their hands dirty in Ukraine has been a major factor in their ability to shore up influence over the nation’s affairs far in excess of their numbers, a dynamic described in detail by The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Alex Rubenstein. As noted by journalist Aaron Maté, when Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine these extremists openly threatened to lynch him if he worked to make peace with Russia as he had pledged to do.

    And on that note it’s work issuing another reminder at this time that the US could easily have prevented this entire war by simply giving Zelensky protection from those factions so that he could enact the peace mandate he’d been elected to enact. But of course the US would never do such a thing, because the US always wanted this war, and because the US does not actually believe in democratic mandates, and because the US does not actually oppose Nazism.

    Which is why when concerns were raised about arming neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, the only offer on the table was a logo change.

    ____________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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  • U.S. government strategists are using sanctions as a wrecking ball to demolish the globalized economy. It is a desperate struggle to preserve their global hegemony and a unipolar world. The policy of consciously demolishing supply chains of essential products amounts to a reckless war on defenseless civilian populations. Sanctions disrupt trade worldwide and send shockwaves far beyond the countries directly targeted. This is well understood by financial planners.

    “Food shortages — it’s going to be real,” President Joe Biden said in Brussels March 25 at a NATO press conference, an ominous warning reported around the world. “The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”

    The post Sanctions – Wrecking Ball In A Global Economy appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Is reality setting in? Is that why a Washington Post reporter, who has been on the frontline in Ukraine, was allowed to write this?
    “Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned.

    After three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions.

    The volunteers were civilians before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, and they never expected to be dispatched to one of the most dangerous front lines in eastern Ukraine. They quickly found themselves in the crosshairs of war, feeling abandoned by their military superiors and struggling to survive.”

    The post As Things Fall Apart Biden May Want To Escalate appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    It’s so important that the public have no real say in US politics that the empire not only set up two oligarchic puppet parties which pretend to oppose each other, but also set up fake populist movements within each of those factions which pretend to be fighting the establishment within those parties.

    It’s a very clever illusion that sucks up almost all real opposition. If you don’t fall for the first kayfabe conflict and realize the game is rigged for the powerful, you can still end up buying into the fake populist movements set up to oppose them. I fell for them both early on in this commentary gig. But after a while of watching what they do (as opposed to just listening to what they say) and seeing where they actually stand and fight or refuse to fight, you see it’s all an Inception-level fakery. The opposition is controlled, and so is the opposition to the opposition.

    It’s like when you dream you’re waking up from a dream but you’re actually in another dream; you awaken from the liberals-vs-conservatives puppet show and then turn to the fake progressive Democrats or the bullshit MAGA camp as a solution, but you’re still asleep.

    This all sounds like an awful lot of work to go through until you remember that an entire globe-spanning empire depends on the ability to prevent the American public from either (A) voting in a disruptive government or (B) fighting a revolution. So much power rides on their ability to do this.

    Ever since the school shooting in Texas we’ve been watching an entire country learn that it’s not actually cops’ job to save anyone or risk any danger and the only reason they assumed otherwise was because of movies and TV shows.

    Idea for an action movie: The Rock needs to rescue his kid from an elementary school where there’s an active shooter, but first he needs to fight his way through an army of cops trying to stop him.

    You end mass shootings in America by ceasing to have America serve as the hub of a globe-spanning empire that’s held together by violence and nonstop mass media psyops. It’s not impossible. It’s not even difficult. It’s just not an option anyone in charge would ever consider.

    I’m finding myself having less and less patience with people who think the US is an innocent little flower regarding the Ukraine war. It’s like, come on. Grow the fuck up.

    Friendly reminder that for a fraction of the cost of funding a world-threatening proxy war against Russia the US could simply have protected Zelensky from the neo-Nazi militias who were threatening to lynch him if he tried to make peace with Russia and prevented this entire war.

    The airhead mainstream narrative that Ukrainian forces have been destroying Russian troops and humiliating Putin in epic win after epic win has become unsustainable:

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    Russian troops are making steady progress in Ukraine’s east. That's sparking fears they could be poised for a bigger breakthrough, and leading to increasingly panicked calls from Kyiv for more powerful weapons https://t.co/TbneLP3ABF

    — Bloomberg (@business) May 27, 2022

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    Ukraine says troops may retreat from eastern region as Russia advances https://t.co/Xw5oM8OIcZ pic.twitter.com/KcHSb59CN2

    — Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) May 28, 2022

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    Ukrainian leaders project an image of military invulnerability against #Russia. But commanders offer a more realistic portrait of the war, where outgunned volunteers describe being abandoned by their military brass and facing certain death at the front. https://t.co/YLu9M28Cx8

    — Sudarsan Raghavan (@raghavanWaPo) May 26, 2022

    Another shout out to all you big brave sofa warriors who’ve been screaming that a negotiated peace settlement is unacceptable and helping the US empire throw Ukrainian lives into the gears of a stupid proxy war for US unipolar hegemony while you sit safe at home eating Doritos.

    If you’re more hawkish than Henry Kissinger, you’re too fucking hawkish.

    Whenever I try to talk about the risk of the Ukraine war escalating into a nuclear holocaust I get people telling me if that happens it will be Putin’s fault. Like that would make it okay somehow. Like that would somehow validate all the steps our leaders took to get us to that point.

    Of all the intensely stupid ways team loyalty and partisanship can express itself, I really don’t think you could come up with one dumber than “Our nuclear brinkmanship isn’t a problem because it’ll be the other side who launches the first nuke” if you tried.

    Even pretending it’s certain that Russia would be the one to initiate a nuclear exchange, would that thought actually comfort you when you feel the earth shake? Would you feel any better about the decisions which gave rise to that moment by telling yourself Putin started it? I mean if there’s any time when it doesn’t matter who “started it”, it’s surely when the “Mutual” and “Destruction” part of Mutually Assured Destruction goes into action? I think at that point all our dopey team sports cheering and booing pretty much goes out the window, no?

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    Nowadays whenever there's an agenda that's of high value to the US empire there is a 100% chance you'll soon see shitlibs using woke-sounding jargon to promote it. pic.twitter.com/KD56cBI4wo

    — Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) May 28, 2022

    Hollywood lies about what American journalists really do in the same way it lies about what American soldiers and police really do, and it has just as disruptive an effect on people’s perception of reality.

    People who accuse you of having Kremlin loyalties when you question or criticize the US empire are admitting that they don’t care whether statements are true or false, only whether they demonstrate loyalty to our rulers. That’s the lens through which they examine the world, and it’s pure brain poison. How can people think lucid thoughts and engage in lucid discourse about ideas and events when they are continuously measured not by how truthful they are but by what loyalties they appear to demonstrate? They cannot.

    Empire loyalists have exactly two arguments:

    1. “That foreign leader my government dislikes is comparable to Adolf Hitler.”

    2. “If you object to what my virtuous government has planned for that leader it means you love and support that leader.”

    I honestly don’t understand how anyone can stay abreast of the day-to-day depravity of the oligarchic empire without a daily practice geared toward inner peace. Things are so insane and confusing and only getting more so; you’ve got to have a regular discipline to form stability.

    Meditation, self-enquiry, healing and energy practices, whatever gets you there, but surely you’ve got to have something before you can stare into the face of the beast continuously without going mad. I can’t imagine looking at this thing every day without any kind of a practice.

    ________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  • Posted on streetlamps all over Germany are stickers showing fleeing silhouettes with the caption, “Refugees welcome – bring your families”. Some have been blacked out with felt markers or ripped partially away. The Germans have mixed feelings about refugees, as demonstrated in the earlier waves from the Mideast and the current one from the Ukraine.

    Germany took in over two million refugees from the Mideast wars, far more than any other country. The equivalent for the US population would be eight million.

    This has created an enormous financial and cultural strain in a country that historically has had little immigration. It comes at a time when poverty is increasing and social services are being reduced. The once-generous welfare state is gradually being dismantled. This financial squeeze is worsening now because of expenses for the refugees. The two million newcomers receive enough money to live on plus free healthcare, education, and access to special programs. Some cheat on this, registering in several places under different names and getting multiple benefits. Many Germans resent paying for all this with high taxes while their own standard of living is declining.

    The trauma of war and displacement has caused a few refugees to lose their moral compass. They do things here they wouldn’t do at home.

    Two-thirds of the refugees are young men, some of them convinced Allah has ordained males to dominate females. In their view, women who aren’t submissive need to be punished. Since being male is the only power many of them have, they feel threatened by women in positions of power, and they sometimes react with hostility. Over a thousand women have been physically attacked — some murdered and raped and many aggressively grabbed on the breasts as a way of showing dominance. Many more have been abused — insulted, harassed, spat upon.

    Many refugees are aware that Germany, as a member of NATO, supports these wars that have forced them to flee their homes. They’re not fooled by the rhetoric of “humanitarian intervention.” They know NATO’s motives are imperialistic: to install governments agreeable to Western control of their resources and markets. Although they are now safe, their relatives and friends are still being killed with weapons made in Germany and oppressed by soldiers and police trained and financed by Germany. Rather than a grateful attitude, some have come with a resentful one.

    Crime has increased, especially violent crimes such as knife attacks. Police and others have been killed and wounded by refugees. Organized criminal clans have become established in Germany’s lenient legal atmosphere. A few ISIS and al-Qaeda members slipped in with the refugees. They have bombed a Christmas market, attacked synagogues, murdered Jews on the street, recruited new members in mosques.

    In the past 75 years Germany has become a peaceful country. The current violence is profoundly disturbing to them. It brings back terrible memories.

    The violent refugees, though, are only a small minority. Most of the newcomers have a positive attitude. They are getting a fresh start in life, recovering from trauma, getting an education, learning new skills. They’ve been introduced to other cultural possibilities.

    Women in particular are responding favorably to this new environment. Seeing how women here live, some of them are beginning to free themselves from patriarchal bondage. With help from German feminists they are developing the energy and determination to challenge male rule and change the conditions of their lives. And they’ll inspire their sisters back home.

    The situation with the Ukrainian refugees is much different. The cultures are similar, so there’s less clash. The war hasn’t been going on for long, so there are few of them and problems have not yet developed. They are being celebrated as brave heroes standing up to an aggressive Russia intent on dominating Europe. Anti-Russian feelings have been strong in Germany for two centuries, so this propaganda finds ready acceptance. During the Cold War the German government beamed out the constant danger of Russian attack in order to justify the presence of US troops and nuclear weapons on their soil. Now they condemn Putin as the new Hitler. Atrocity stories of Russian troops get enormous coverage, those of Ukrainian troops against separatists in Donbass are ignored. Every small Ukrainian victory is cheered with blood-thirsty enthusiasm. Welcoming these refugees is part of the strategy for maintaining NATO dominance.

    But, of course, it is important to take them in, to shelter them from this latest capitalist butchery. Like the Arabs, most of them are fine people, and many will stay and contribute to the society in their new home.

    Germany still has anti-foreign, anti-Semitic, right-wing extremists, but since World War Two the West German government has systematically pushed them out of public life. Unfortunately that wasn’t true in East Germany. There the Stalinist regime ignored the problem, as did Stalinist governments in the eastern European countries. They didn’t want to risk provoking uprisings against their dictatorships. In the former East Germany, which is much smaller than the West, right-wing extremists are a small minority, but a hateful, well-organized, and sometimes violent one. In eastern Europe they are much stronger, sometimes the most powerful political force.

    The establishment press in the USA, Britain, and France jump at every opportunity to exaggerate right-wing incidents in Germany in order to divert attention from problems in their own country. The right wing in the USA is much more powerful and dangerous than that in Germany. That’s why our resistance to it is so important.

     

    The post Report from Germany: Refugees Welcome … Sometimes first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • This article shows how media uses computer modeling and “virtual crime scenes” to assign blame for some extremely important international events. In these examples from Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria, many people died in complex circumstances. The deaths at the “Mother’s March” in Managua, Nicaragua precipitated an attempted coup.  The Maidan Massacre in Kyiv led to an actual coup. The claims of a chemical attack in Douma led to the US, France and the UK bombing Syria.

    The three incidents are in different continents but share some key characteristics: each is to some degree emblematic of the conflict of which it is part, cited as an important indicator of who is right and who is wrong. All three violent incidents are controversial, with both “sides” claiming to be right. Creating “virtual crime scenes” is a tool which enables establishment media such as the New York Times, the BBC or (in Spain) El Pais, to convey interpretations of the events which conveniently coincide with the way they are seen by the US government and its allies.

    All three events have been described and analyzed elsewhere. Here we describe them briefly and then discuss how the “virtual crime scenes” were developed, what their conclusions were and why they are at best questionable and at worst completely mistaken.

    Managua, Nicaragua, 30 May 2018

    In April 2018, demonstrations sprang up against Daniel Ortega’s government and they quickly turned violent: demonstrators attacked police and vice versa. A “national dialogue” began in early May but, despite this, the violence became worse. Large numbers took part in demonstrations which were mainly peaceful, but with violent outbreaks at the fringes or after most participants had gone home. Large pro- and anti-government marches were planned for Managua on May 30, Mother’s Day.  Authorities set the routes to keep them apart. Despite police efforts, at the end of the opposition march, violent groups headed towards the rival demonstration. In the resultant clashes two pro-government marchers and seven anti-government protesters were killed, while 20 police were injured and there were two deaths among bystanders.

    Protesters at a Managua roadblock, 30 May 2018 (SITU Research)

    Two years after this day of violence, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), through its Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI, for its initials in Spanish) published a reconstruction of a “virtual crime scene,” focused on the deaths of three protesters. It was produced for the GIEI by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF)  and SITU Research of New York. The “forensic” examination was aimed at finding the likely culprits in the killings, which took place at a roadblock put in place by the protesters, close to Managua’s national baseball stadium. A website shows the evidence collected, including two specialist firearms reports, although access to the full video event reconstruction has recently been blocked and only clips are shown. The video acknowledges the lack of conclusive evidence but argues that “circumstantial evidence” overwhelmingly suggests that armed police officers or Sandinista supporters indiscriminately killed the three protesters and others shot dead in related incidents.

    A detailed critique of the reconstruction was published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). This showed fundamental errors and gaps in the SITU/EAAF work. The most important were:

    • A map which is key to the video shows the position of a group of police who were alleged to have fired the fatal shots. But it was incorrectly drawn: it placed them at the center of the zone from which the firearms expert judged the shots to have originated, whereas, in fact, their true location was outside that zone.
    • The firearms expert’s judgment that conventional firearms (as well as homemade mortars) were being fired by the protesters was completely ignored.
    • Video evidence that a group of protesters had conventional weapons, and fired them at other protesters, were omitted from the large volume of video material that the investigators collected.
    • The deaths of two government supporters and the wounding by gunshot of 20 police officers were ignored.

    These errors and omissions at best left the reconstruction in doubt or at worst completely invalidated it. For example, an equally plausible reason for the deaths could be that they were part of a “return of fire” incident, or even that the protesters may have been shot by other protesters. Nevertheless, for El Pais and for the BBC, the reconstruction proved that the police were the killers.

    SITU and EAAF refused to respond to criticisms of their work. The IACHR and its parent body, the Organization of American States, has also ignored the contradictory information and revelations.

    Maidan Square, Kyiv, Ukraine, 20 February 2014

    On February 20, 2014, 49 protesters and four police were killed at the central square known as Maidan in Kyiv, Ukraine.  Many more were injured. The event led to the overthrow of the elected government and a radical change in national politics and policy. Who was responsible for the mass killings?  Eight years later, there have been no convictions. How could this be, when there were dozens of videos, hundreds of victims and thousands of witnesses to a mass killing in the heart of a European capital?

    Western media and the post-coup government blamed the security services of the previous Yanukovich government. Others claim the killings and chaos were organized by the militant opposition using snipers located in adjacent buildings, including the Hotel Ukraina and Arkada Bank.

    After the killings and coup, a German news team visited. Their report quotes doctors saying that both police and protesters had been shot by identical bullets. The investigation was ongoing yet the newly appointed state prosecutor, a leader of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, had already declared former President Yanukovich and Berkut police to be responsible.

    Despite the state prosecutor’s efforts and numerous police being charged and imprisoned, there were no convictions.

    In 2018, the New York Times (NYT) published a lengthy story titled “Who Killed the Kiev Protesters? A 3-D Model Holds the Clues“. It was accompanied by a video titled “Did Police Kill these protesters? What the videos show.” The NYT story reports that Ukrainian prosecutors enlisted the help of SITU Research, who built a replica of the street where protesters were shot, then did 3D modeling of the buildings, location of protesters, police, etc.. They analyzed dozens of actual videos then produced their own video concluding “In all three cases, individual officers can be seen aiming and firing their rifles during the moments leading to the victims’ deaths.”

    The “virtual crime scene” analysis focuses on three individuals killed in the same area. In all three cases, based on bullet wound locations, SITU alleges that the fatal shots were fired from the direction of the police barricade.  An audio analysis, based on the time difference of a shock wave versus firearm discharge, approximates the distance of the shooter.

    Looked at casually or superficially, this appears to be compelling evidence.

    However, Canadian Professor Ivan Katchanovski has done rigorous research on the Maidan Massacre and reveals that the SITU model misrepresented the location of wounds in all three cases.

    Illustration showing incorrect bullet trajectory on Kyiv victim (SITU Research)

    1/ In the case of Igor Dmytriv, the wound locations are not level and straight as portrayed by SITU; they are from right to left, with a distinct downward angle. The video shows a hole in his shield near the right edge which also points to his shooting from Arkada Bank to the right, not the police barricade directly in front.  The shield evidence disappeared before the trial.

    2/ The wound locations are also misrepresented in the case of Andriy Dyhdalovych. As discovered by Katchanovski, “The 3d model moved the exit wound location from around the middle line of the back of his body in forensic medical and clothing examinations to the right and changed a steep top and bottom direction and 17 cm difference in height.” SITU misrepresented the wounds to match up with the direction of the police barricade. The actual wound locations point to the killer also being in the upper floors of the Arkada Bank.

    3/ The third victim was Yuri Parashchuk: his wounds were also misrepresented. He was killed by a bullet to the back of his head. “The single bullet in the back right helmet area, and exit wounds in the back left area of his head (parietal region) in forensic examination mean that it was physically impossible to shoot him from the police barricade, contrary to the SITU model,” Katchanovski argues. The victim’s wife confirmed the gunshot wound locations.

    The NYT story falsely characterized any critics as “pro-Russia sources” and “Kremlin-funded media.”  University of Ottawa Professor Katchanovski has presented his findings to high interest before numerous academic conferences.

    In addition to misrepresenting the body wounds, the “virtual crime scene” analysis ignores a crucial question:  Who would have a motive to kill both protesters and police?

    Douma, Syria, 7 April 2018

    On 7 April 2018 there were sensational claims of a chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria. Social media lit up with a video showing dead and living victims plus a chaotic scene in a medical clinic. The “White Helmets” claimed these were victims of a chemical attack by the Syrian military. Western media and governments quickly endorsed this accusation. The Syrian government denied it and called for a factual investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

    Without waiting for an inspection, the US declared, “The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable.” One week later, the US, UK and France launched air attacks on Damascus.

    In late April, OPCW inspectors visited the site of the incident, interviewed witnesses, took photos and collected evidence.

    While the OPCW team were making their analysis, the NYT created a reconstruction of the event, using photos, videos and computer modeling. The “visual investigation” was presented in a 12-minute video, “One Building, One Bomb: How Assad Gassed His Own People“. With seven producers, three editors and the collaboration of a private agency called  “Forensic Architecture“, this was clearly a major and costly effort. It is a third example of how smooth video, computer modeling and professional voice-overs can lend an air of authority, whether true or not.

    On 25 June 2018, just ten weeks after the event, the NYT published “How We Created a Virtual Crime Scene to Investigate Syria’s Chemical Attack,” They say, “Our investigation found that the Syrian government dropped a chlorine bomb on this apartment in Syria.” For western politicians and media, that was the end of the matter: Syria had been found guilty and the western attacks vindicated.

    OPCW issued an interim report in July 2018 and full report in March 2019. They concluded there was evidence of reactive chlorine and there are “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place.”

    The governments which had attacked Syria claimed this was “proof” of guilt.  The UK foreign ministry said the report provided “reasonable grounds to conclude that a toxic chemical was used as a weapon.”  The NYT concluded that the OPCW had given “the most definitive finding yet to corroborate allegations that chemical weapons were dropped on the town, Douma, a suburb of Damascus, killing 43 people.” The Guardian similarly reported “Chlorine was used in attack on Syrian rebel town, watchdog says.”

    Behind the scenes, OPCW staff were in turmoil. Investigators were complaining the investigation report was politically influenced and biased.

    In May 2019, the “Engineering Assessment of Two Cylinders Observed at the Douma Incident” was published by an academic coalition. It was written by a lead engineer on the OPCW’s Douma team, Ian Henderson. It contradicted the official narrative and concluded that “there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.” It gives detailed evidence to support this argument – evidence that should have been included in the original OPCW report.

    The OPCW fired Ian Henderson and made efforts to remove all evidence of his engineering report from the OPCW archives.

    Then in October 2019 a second OPCW whistle-blower emerged, giving more details of the report’s omissions. In a detailed interview, he told a British journalist that “Most of the Douma team felt the two reports on the incident, the Interim Report and the Final Report, were scientifically impoverished, procedurally irregular and possibly fraudulent.” He added that they had tried all possible internal channels before going public.

    Because of the importance of these revelations about a biased and compromised OPCW investigation, an international panel was convened. It included experts from international law, military, intelligence agencies and the founding Director General of the OPCW. It expressed “alarm” at the “unacceptable practices” in the Douma investigation.

    The scandal exposed the political manipulation of a crucial international organization, the OPCW.

    The “virtual crime scene” and evidence presented by the NYT was shown to be fundamentally flawed. The on-site engineering assessment revealed that cylinder deformation did not match the hole in the roof or what would have occurred if the cylinder was dropped from an aircraft. The “criss-cross” pattern on the cylinder that the NYT “virtual crime scene” suggested was evidence, was dismissed as “inconsistent with the vertical, or near-vertical, angle of incidence of the cylinder”. The lead investigator concluded that it was more likely the cylinders were “manually placed”. In other words, the incident was staged.

    Regarding the claim that “reactive chlorine” had been found in samples from the site, it was learned that these were trace levels that could be found in any location.

    After publishing headline stories such as “How Assad Gassed His Own People” and creating a costly contrived “virtual crime scene” to “prove” Syria’s guilt, it is understandable that the NYT would be embarrassed at the revelations from these OPCW whistle-blowers.  If the NYT were as factual as they claim to be, they would report these important stories and issue a correction and apology for their earlier false reports. Instead, there has been total silence.

    Supposed victim of April 2018 CW attack in Douma, during and after  (RT)

    Conclusion: What credibility should we give to “virtual crime scenes”?

    Creating “virtual crime scenes” is clearly a growing business: SITU appears to have done at least 24 such reconstructions, while Forensic Architecture has well over 70, dating back more than a decade. A common factor is funding sources: as well as what are presumed to be specific contracts (for example, with the NYT), both organizations receive funds from the Open Society Foundation, Oak Foundation, European Research Council and similar bodies aligned with conventional western political attitudes.

    No doubt some of this work is in the public good (for example, SITU says it is helping a group of children sue the US government for its inaction on the climate crisis). But the case studies above show that such work can – whether intentionally or otherwise – push public opinion on controversial issues in a particular direction.

    Brad Samuels, founding partner of SITU, appeared to acknowledge this ambiguity in an interview quoted here: “…it’s about not allowing these narratives to become the reason that there’s no accountability … so that you can focus on what you do know and I just — I think that that’s at play in all kinds of ways more than it ever has been … this question of competing narratives, truth claims and facts and that’s really what we’re, this work is about.”

    In an article about the use of virtual crime scenes in legal cases, Sarah Zarmsky concedes that they can be “extremely compelling” but that “any political motives or biases must be taken into account.” In the Maidan Square example, which she examines, she points out that the reconstruction was presented as “flawless” whereas Katchanovski later accused those who created it of misrepresentation. Virtual crime scenes are expensive, sophisticated exercises, which once published are left open to interpretation by people who have no expertise in how they are created, she points out. Where witness statements, amateur videos and other material are used to build reconstructions, there is no outside control of the process.  She concludes that “digital reconstructions need to be approached with caution and analyzed through a critical eye.”

    Our conclusion is more definitive: digital reconstructions, especially in high-profile and controversial circumstances like the three examples presented here, are being used to serve political purposes. Their sophisticated and compelling approaches, obviously requiring considerable resources in their production and presentation, can be highly misleading. Whether or not this is the intention of those devising these virtual crime scenes, their work is used to add momentum to political arguments. In the cases examined here – Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria – they have been explicitly used to endorse the US and European governments’ political narratives about those conflicts, creating apparent “proof” of one side’s culpability in violent incidents. However, objective analysis of the kind summarized in this article shows that digital reconstructions can hide the truth rather than reveal it. In Zarmsky’s words, “seeing should not always be believing.”

    The post How “virtual crime scenes” became a propaganda tool in Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • This article shows how media uses computer modeling and “virtual crime scenes” to assign blame for some extremely important international events. In these examples from Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria, many people died in complex circumstances. The deaths at the “Mother’s March” in Managua, Nicaragua precipitated an attempted coup.  The Maidan Massacre in Kyiv led to an actual coup. The claims of a chemical attack in Douma led to the US, France and the UK bombing Syria.

    The three incidents are in different continents but share some key characteristics: each is to some degree emblematic of the conflict of which it is part, cited as an important indicator of who is right and who is wrong. All three violent incidents are controversial, with both “sides” claiming to be right.

    The post How ‘Virtual Crime Scenes’ Became A Propaganda Tool appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    While everyone’s focused on the latest mass shooting in the US, The Washington Post published what may be the first major acknowledgement from the mainstream western media that Ukraine’s war against Russia has not been nearly the cakewalk they’ve been leading the public to believe.

    In a new article titled “Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned,” WaPo reports that contrary to the triumphant narratives the western world is being spoon fed, many troops in eastern Ukraine have been surviving on one potato per day and deserting their posts because they feel their leaders have turned their backs on them and they’re being sent to certain death.

    “Stuck in their trenches, the Ukrainian volunteers lived off a potato per day as Russian forces pounded them with artillery and Grad rockets on a key eastern front line. Outnumbered, untrained and clutching only light weapons, the men prayed for the barrage to end,” The Washington Post reports, citing multiple named sources.

    “Ukrainian leaders have projected and nurtured a public image of military invulnerability — of their volunteer and professional forces triumphantly standing up to the Russian onslaught,” the article reads. “But the experience of Lapko and his group of volunteers offers a rare and more realistic portrait of the conflict and Ukraine’s struggle to halt the Russian advance in parts of Donbas. Ukraine, like Russia, has provided scant information about deaths, injuries or losses of military equipment. But after three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions.”

    WaPo reports that volunteer troops in that part of the country “quickly found themselves in the crosshairs of war, feeling abandoned by their military superiors and struggling to survive.”

    “We are being sent to certain death,” said one volunteer. “We are not alone like this, we are many.”

    Hours after The Post interviewed Lapko and Khrus, members of Ukraine’s military security service arrived at their hotel and detained some of their men, accusing them of desertion,” WaPo reports. “The men contend that they were the ones who were deserted.”

    Some commentators have remarked on the fact that at long last we’re seeing some realistic coverage of this war in the mainstream press.

    “First major US media I’ve seen to report catastrophic condition of Ukrainian forces, collapsing Ukrainian morale on the front. Seems obvious we should know the truth about a war our government is so deeply invested in,” tweeted journalist Mark Ames, a frequent critic of the mass media blackout on conditions in the Ukrainian military.

    “This might be the first article in a mainstream publication that punctures the PR spin and secrecy of the foreign military that the US is subsidizing. Two commanders were arrested after they spoke to the Washington Post, painting an extremely grim picture,” tweeted journalist Michael Tracey.

    This is indeed a major break from standard mainstream reporting on this conflict, which is normally more in line with this recent Newsweek article titled “Putin’s Elite Soldiers Getting Wiped Out as Russia Makes Mistakes—U.K.,” sourced entirely in unevidenced claims by the British government and the military industrial complex-funded neocon think tank Institute for the Study of War.

    So anyway, there it is. That’s the reality on the front lines of this conflict that westerners have been cheering on from their comfortable homes while calling anyone who advocates a negotiated peace settlement a Putin apologist and a Kremlin troll.

    These big brave sofa warriors have been on social media demanding that Ukrainians keep fighting in this way until they’ve secured total victory over Russia and reclaimed Crimea and the Donbas, tweeting “Slava Ukraini” with their little blue-and-yellow flag emojis during the commercial breaks of their favorite TV show in between mouthfuls of Funyuns.

    Westerners would be a lot less cavalier about demanding a foreign population keep fighting until total victory if they truly understood the horrors of war. Unfortunately there’s a propaganda machine of unprecedented sophistication that has spent generations preventing them from obtaining that very understanding.

    That’s why they’re so happy to throw endless Ukrainian lives into the gears of the imperial war machine, and that’s why the WaPo article we are discussing here is receiving very little mainstream attention online as of this writing. It will be dismissed and ignored by empire managers and their brainwashed flock with a “Hmm, you just can’t hire good cannon fodder these days.”

    There’s no real reckoning with exactly what’s happening and exactly what these people are being called on to put themselves through. In the children’s crayon drawing version of this war that lives in the heads of western so-called centrists, this is a team of heroic Good Guys righteously beating the tar out of hordes of Bad Guys because that’s what happens in the movies and on TV.

    But this is not the movies, and this is not TV. People are dying in a US proxy war that was deliberately provoked by the US-centralized empire, and behind all the narratives and spin they are ultimately doing so for nothing more noble than the agenda to secure US unipolar hegemony.

    Many of the blue-and-yellow flag wavers are well-intentioned, and really do think they are advocating for Ukrainian freedom and sovereignty. But in reality all they’ve been cheering for is Ukrainian subservience and enslavement to the empire, Ukrainian death, Ukrainian suffering, and the continuation of a dangerous proxy war between nuclear superpowers that threatens the life of everyone on earth.

    ___________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • The following resolution was passed at the National Political Committee of the Anti-Capitalist Left, Italy on May 7.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • The Pentagon reports about the continuing efforts to sell new U.S. weapons to those nations which discard their old ones in Ukraine. To express the seriousness of the situation in Ukraine the Pentagon decided to hoist Ukraine’s blue-above-yellow flag upside down. Hanging a flag upside down is a sign of either dire distress or cultural ignorance. Given that this was a Pentagon event the later is the more likely to be the case. The Baltic nutters have a another great and of course completely impractical idea.

    The post Flag Abuse And Other Bits On Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • It was apparently a “gaffe” of the kind we had forgotten since George W Bush stepped down from the US presidency in early 2009. During a speech in Dallas last week, he momentarily confused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s current war of aggression against Ukraine and his own war of aggression against Iraq in 2003.

    Bush observed that a lack of checks and balances in Russia had allowed “one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq… I mean, Ukraine. Iraq too. Anyway… I’m 75.”

    It sounded like another “Bushism” – a verbal slip-up – for which the 43rd president was famous. Just like the time he boasted that people “misunderestimated” him, or when he warned that America’s enemies “never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people – and neither do we”.

    Maybe that explains why his audience laughed. Or maybe not, given how uncomfortable the laughter sounded.

    Bush certainly wanted his mistake to be seen as yet another slip-up, which is why he hurriedly blamed it on his age. The senility defence doubtless sounds a lot more plausible at a time when the incumbent president, Joe Biden, regularly loses track of what he is saying and even where he is.

    The western media, in so far as it has bothered to report Bush’s speech, has laughed along nervously too. It has milked the incident largely for comic effect: “Look, we can laugh at ourselves – unlike that narcissist Russian monster, Putin.”

    The BBC accorded Bush’s comment status as a down-page brief news item. Those that gave it more attention preferred to term it a “gaffe” or an amusing “Freudian slip”.

    ‘Putin apologists’

    But the focus on the humour of the moment is actually part of the media’s continuing war on our understanding of recent history. It is intended to deflect us, the audience, from thinking about the real significance of Bush’s “gaffe”.

    The only reason the media is now so belatedly connecting – if very indirectly – “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion” of Ukraine and what happened in Iraq is because of Bush’s mistake.

    Had it not happened, the establishment media would have continued to ignore any such comparison. And those trying to raise it would continue to be dismissed as conspiracy theorists or as apologists for Putin.

    The implication of what Bush said – even for those mockingly characterising it in Freudian terms – is that he and his co-conspirator, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are war criminals and that they should be on trial at the Hague for invading and occupying Iraq.

    Everything the current US administration is saying against Putin, and every punishment meted out on Russia and ordinary Russians, can be turned around and directed at the United States and Britain.

    Should the US not be under severe economic sanctions from the “civilised world” for what it did to Iraq? Should its sportspeople not be banned from international events? Should its billionaires not be hunted down and stripped of their assets? And should the works of its long-dead writers, artists and composers not be shunned by polite society?

    And yet, the western establishment media are proposing none of the above. They are not calling for Blair and Bush to be tried for war crimes. Meanwhile, they echo western leaders in labelling what Russia is doing in Ukraine as genocide and labelling Putin as an evil madman.

    The western media are as uncomfortable taking Bush’s speech at face value as his audience was. And for good reason.

    That is because the media are equally implicated in US and UK crimes in Iraq. They never seriously questioned the ludicrous “weapons of mass destruction” justification for the invasion. They never debated whether the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign of Baghdad was genocidal.

    And, of course, they never described either Bush or Blair as madmen and megalomaniacs and never accused them of waging a war of imperialism – or one for oil – in invading Iraq. In fact, both continue to be treated by the media as respected elder statesmen.

    During Trump’s presidency, leading journalists waxed nostalgic for the days of Bush, apparently unconcerned that he had used his own presidency to launch a war of aggression – the “supreme international crime”.

    And Blair continues to be sought out by the British and US media for his opinions on domestic and world affairs. He is even listened to deferentially when he opines on Ukraine.

    Pre-emption excuse

    But this is not simply about a failure to acknowledge the recent historical record. Bush’s invasion of Iraq is deeply tied to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. And for that reason, if no other, the western media ought to have been driving home from the outset the parallels between the two – as Bush has now done in error.

    That would have provided the geopolitical context for understanding – without necessarily justifying – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s role in provoking it. Which is precisely why the media have worked so hard to ignore those parallels.

    In invading Iraq, Bush and Blair created a precedent that powerful states could redefine their attack on another state as “pre-emptive” – as defensive rather than aggressive – and thereby justify the military invasion in violation of the laws of war.

    Bush and Blair falsely claimed both that Iraq threatened the West with weapons of mass destruction and that its secular leader, Saddam Hussein, had cultivated ties with the extreme Islamists of al-Qaeda that carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US. These pretexts ranged from the entirely unsubstantiated to the downright preposterous.

    Putin has argued – more plausibly – that Russia had to take pre-emptive action against covert efforts by a US-led Nato to expand its military sphere of influence right up to Russia’s borders. Russia feared that, left unchecked, the US and Nato were preparing to absorb Ukraine by stealth.

    But how does that qualify Russia’s invasion as defensive? The Kremlin’s fears were chiefly twofold.

    First, it could have paved the way for Nato stationing missiles minutes away from Moscow, eroding any principle of mutual deterrence.

    And second, Nato’s incorporation of Ukraine would have drawn the western military alliance directly into Ukraine’s civil war in the eastern Donbass region. That is where Ukrainian forces, including neo-Nazi elements like the Azov Brigade, have been pitted in a bloody fight against ethnic Russian communities.

    In this view, absent a Russian invasion, Nato could have become an active participant in propping up Ukrainian ultra-nationalists killing ethnic Russians – as the West is now effectively doing through its arming of Ukraine to the tune of more than $40bn.

    Even if one discounts Russia’s concerns, Moscow clearly has a greater strategic interest invested in what its neighbour Ukraine is doing on their shared border than Washington ever had in Iraq, many thousands of miles away.

    Proxy wars

    Even more relevant, given the West’s failure to acknowledge, let alone address, Bush and Blair’s crimes committed in Iraq, is Russia’s suspicion that US foreign policy is unchanged two decades on. On what basis would Moscow believe that Washington is any less aggressive or power-hungry than it was when it launched its invasion of Iraq?

    The western media continue to refer to the US attack on Iraq, and the subsequent bloody years of occupation, as variously a “mistake”, a “misadventure” and a “blunder”. But surely it does not look that way to Moscow, all the more so given that Washington followed its invasion of Iraq with a series of proxy wars against other Middle Eastern and North African states such as Libya, Syria and Yemen.

    To Russia, the attack on Iraq looks more like a stepping stone in a continuum of wars the US has waged over decades for “full-spectrum dominance” and to eradicate competitors for control of the planet’s resources.

    With that as the context, Moscow might have reasonably imagined that the US and its Nato allies were eager for yet another proxy war, this time using Ukraine as the battlefield. Recent comments from Biden administration officials, such as Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, noting that Washington’s tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv is intended to “weaken Russia”, can only accentuate such fears.

    Back in March, Leon Panetta, a former US secretary of defence and the CIA director under Barack Obama, who is in a position to speak more freely than serving officials, observed that Washington was waging “a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not”.

    He predicted where US policy would head next, noting that the aim would be “to provide as much military aid as necessary”. Diplomacy has been a glaringly low priority for Washington.

    Barely concealed from public view is a desire in the US and its allies for another regime change operation – this time in Russia – rather than end the war and the suffering of Ukrainians.

    Butcher versus blunderer

    Last week, the New York Times very belatedly turned down the war rhetoric a notch and called on the Biden administration to advance negotiations. Even so, its assessment of where the blame lay for Ukraine’s destruction was unambiguous: “Mr Putin will go down in history as a butcher.”

    But have Bush or Blair gone down in history as butchers? They most certainly haven’t. And the reason is that the western media have been complicit in rehabilitating their images, presenting them as statesmen who “blundered” – with the implication that good people blunder when they fail to take account of how entrenched the evil of everyone else in the world is.

    A butcher versus a pair of blunderers.

    This false distinction means western leaders and western publics continue to evade responsibility for western crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.

    That was why in late February – in reference to Ukraine – a TV journalist could suggest to Condoleezza Rice, who was one of the architects of the illegal war of aggression on Iraq as Bush’s national security adviser: “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.” The journalist apparently did not consider for a moment that it was not just Putin who was a war criminal but the very woman she was sitting opposite.

    It was also why Rice could nod solemnly and agree with a straight face that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was “against every principle of international law and international order – and that’s why throwing the book at them [Russia] now in terms of economic sanctions and punishments is a part of it”.

    But a West that has refused to come to terms with its role in committing the “supreme international crime” of invading Iraq, and has been supporting systematic crimes against the sovereignty of other states such as Yemen, Libya and Syria, cannot sit in judgment on Russia. And further, it should not be trying to take the high ground by meddling in the war in Ukraine.

    If we took the implications of Bush’s comment seriously, rather than treating it as a “gaffe” and viewing the Iraq invasion as a “blunder”, we might be in a position to speak with moral authority instead of flaunting – once again – our hypocrisy.

    First published in Middle East Eye

    The post Russia-Ukraine war: George Bush’s admission of his crimes in Iraq was no “gaffe” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • In a recent television interview, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “victory will be bloody,” but Ukraine will not allow Russia to control Ukrainian cities and territories seized in its brutal invasion of his country. Zelenskyy told the U.S.-based outlet Axios on Monday that Ukraine must “hold the line” or NATO countries, such as Latvia and Estonia, will be Russia’s next targets, which could force the United States to deploy troops in Eastern Europe under NATO’s collective defense rules.

    Zelenskyy is using the threat of U.S. soldiers dying overseas to keep Americans’ attention and shore up U.S. support for the long haul. After stunning success on the battlefield against a much larger enemy, Ukraine is now committed to pushing Russia off every inch of disputed territory, including the destroyed city of Mariupol now under Russian control, and the eastern Donbas region where Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists have fought since 2014. Critics on the left and right warned the Biden administration that U.S. involvement risks conflict with Russia, but according to Zelenskyy, a wider war is more likely if the steady stream of U.S. weapons and military aid to Ukraine dries up.

    “We have no way out of this situation,” Zelenskyy added.

    Meanwhile, some on the Ukrainian left, including the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, say the arms transfers from the U.S. simply escalate the conflict and draw both sides further away from negotiating a ceasefire.

    The horrifying war of attrition threatens to drag on for months or years as fighting in Ukraine’s south and east rages and Russia bombards towns and cities to make way for more attacks. The United States is pumping weapons and military aid into Ukraine at unprecedented levels, raising a sharp debate about whether the U.S. is defending a war-torn ally or pushing Ukrainians to become cannon fodder for a complex and dangerous proxy war with Russia.

    Biden administration officials have said the U.S. wants Ukraine to “win” the war and weaken the Russian military, a longstanding goal of the U.S.-led NATO alliance. Meanwhile, the conflict has divided left-leaning circles across Europe and the U.S. as leftists within the Ukrainian resistance join Zelenskyy in clamoring for shipments of arms to fight an authoritarian invader.

    “The lack of weapons will not stop the war, but will only lead to more civilian casualties, kidnappings and torture in the occupied territories, a humanitarian catastrophe, and more waves of refugees,” reads a statement posted on Telegram by Operation Solidarity, a group of leftist and anti-authoritarian civil volunteers who bring aid to battered Ukrainian cities.

    In contrast, Ukrainian pacifists are protesting Ukraine’s mandatory military mobilization under martial law while calling on both sides to declare a ceasefire and restart negotiations before more lives are lost. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, Pope Francis, international antiwar coalitions, and leaders of countries across the world have also urged Ukraine and Russia to call a ceasefire and resume peace talks that stalled weeks ago.

    “In my view, U.S. taxpayers should know about weapons supplies to Ukraine, that indeed it escalates the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict, it increases risk of direct confrontation between two nuclear superpowers, U.S. and Russia, and it has bad impact on economy and ecology of United States as well as global negative impact,” said Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, in an email.

    Zelenskyy also says that the war will “certainly” end in diplomacy. However, it’s been increasingly difficult to arrange a meeting with Putin, especially after Russian forces committed atrocities against civilians in Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, and other cities. Now that the Ukrainian resistance has embarrassed a much stronger Russian military, recent statements indicate that Zelenskyy seems to be aiming for a bloody “victory” followed by diplomacy, rather than a quick ceasefire and negotiated settlement.

    Such an agreement would end the violence but likely concede slices of Ukrainian territory near the eastern border. Russia already annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 without much of a fight. Desperate for a concession to justify the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to control the Donbas region and a land bridge to Crimea that would create a security buffer zone between an increasingly isolated Moscow and NATO-allied countries in Europe.

    Billions of Dollars’ Worth of U.S. Weapons Since 2014

    U.S. military spending on Ukraine is already well over the aid amounts sent to Israel, Afghanistan and Egypt. The U.S. dispatched more than $3.9 billion worth of U.S. weapons to Ukraine before Congress approved a $40 billion aid package signed by President Biden this week, which includes at least $6 billion in military assistance and $9 billion to replenish U.S. weapons stockpiles after transfers to Ukraine.

    The U.S. is the world’s top arms dealer, and weapons sales and transfers are central to U.S. foreign policy across the world.

    U.S. weapons transfers to Ukraine are not a brand-new phenomenon. Zelenskyy was pleading for more U.S. weapons long before Putin invaded his country in February. Ukraine has fought a simmering civil war with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region since 2014, when the U.S. began funneling what would amount to $6.5 billion in security assistance to the country over the course of the last eight years, according to the State Department. The war followed a political uprising that ousted a pro-Russian president and pitted the U.S. and Russia against each other in a diplomatic proxy fight.

    In an infamous call with former President Donald Trump in 2019, Zelenskyy asked for more Javelin missile systems — the same anti-tank weapons that have successfully thwarted Russian invaders. Trump agreed, but the former president said Zelenskyy must “do us a favor” first. That favor, of course, was digging up dirt on Joe Biden, the Democrat Trump expected to run against for reelection. A whistleblower complaint led to the second unsuccessful effort to impeach Trump from office.

    Now, U.S.-made Howitzers and artillery rounds, laser-guided rocket systems, battle drones, Stinger and Javelin missile systems and an assortment of smaller arms have all made it to the front lines in Ukraine. The illicit arms trade in Ukraine has ballooned since the civil war began in 2014, raising fears about loose weapons powerful enough to destroy buildings and down commercial airplanes, according to the Washington Post. The war is a boon for U.S. arms manufacturers, who collectively spend billions of dollars lobbying Congress.

    Sheliazhenko said the war is taking a toll on the Ukrainian people that is rarely discussed in the Western media. Men ages 18-60 are not allowed the leave the country, forcing fleeing families to split up at the border. There are no legal exceptions that would allow pacifists who refuse military service on principle to flee abroad, according to a letter Sheliazhenko received from state officials. Recently, a transgender woman reported being strip searched and denied entry to Poland after Ukrainian border guards decided she was a man.

    Sheliazhenko points to an official petition with more 27,000 signatures demanding Zelenskyy end the mandatory military mobilization. Wealthy men are able to bribe their way out of the country, and even as volunteers wait in long lines at military enlistment offices, recruiters “hunt down men … near shopping malls” and summon them to war.

    “For what purpose? Only bribes — logic does not suggest anything else,” reads the petition, which urges Zelenskyy to open the border for all Ukrainians, prioritize volunteer conscripts and crack down on corruption.

    Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, which train civilians to defend against Russia, are blurring the line between civilian and combatant. Russian forces have hunted down, tortured and executed men suspected of arming themselves against the invasion. Yet, many Ukrainians are still eager to resist Putin’s invasion. A member of a Territorial Defense unit near Kyiv, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said fighters returning from the front lines reported a morale boost after receiving U.S. weapons and were eager to show others how to use them.

    “Weapons Are Only About Death”

    Operation Solidarity volunteers recently delivered food to beleaguered residents of Chernihiv, the northeastern Ukrainian city besieged by Russian forces in the early days of the war. The Russian army destroyed over 1,000 homes as well as critical civilian infrastructure in Chernihiv, according to the group’s posts on Telegram. In a previous post, Operation Solidarity appealed to leftists across Europe to support their government’s efforts to arm Ukraine with weapons and protective equipment. The group said many people in Europe, especially in antiwar movements, will condemn Putin’s aggression, but are not prepared to supply the Ukrainian resistance due to concerns over “militarism.” The group posted this statement:

    Without a doubt, war leads to an increase in military budgets, arms supplies are not always controlled, and, in general, weapons are always about death. It’s hard to disagree with this. But it is important to clarify that it wasn’t the Ukrainian people who chose this path. Weapons and military equipment are needed only to protect ourselves from the authoritarian regime which today razes cities to the ground and kills their inhabitants.

    Operation Solidarity said the war demonstrates that the world needs a new antiwar movement pushing all countries to give up offensive and nuclear weapons, not just smaller countries such as Ukraine, which agreed to remove Soviet-era nukes from its territory in 1992. In the group’s view, a Russian victory would signal to other belligerent countries that nuclear weapons and a larger military are enough to invade a weaker neighbor with impunity, which could spark a global arms race.

    “The presence of an aggressor state, one that has achieved its goals through military means, will lead to an even more significant expansion of military budgets, an increased concentration of weapons at the borders of Russia and Europe, and a constant threat of world destruction in a nuclear war,” the group said. “This cannot be acceptable for any anti-war movement.”

    However, the U.S. and Russia have arguably been engaged in an arms race in Ukraine since at least 2014. Putin’s invasion finally tipped the scales, and the U.S. responded with massive shipments of weapons and other supplies. As Zelenskyy tours the world via videoconference asking for support, Ukraine’s armed forces are using these weapons to push back against Russian troops, whose failure to overrun the capital city of Kyiv inspired the West to bet on a Ukrainian victory.

    Meanwhile, the battle for the Donbas region is raging, and the scars left in its wake will take generations to heal.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • A week ago, we made note of a May 11 New York Times news article, documenting that all was not going well for the U.S. in Ukraine, and a companion opinion piece hinting that a shift in direction might be in order.

    Now on May 19, “THE EDITORIAL BOARD,” the full Magisterium of the Times, has moved from hints to a clarion call for a change in direction in an editorial uninformatively titled, “The War Is Getting Complicated, and America Isn’t Ready.”  From atop the Opinion page the Editorial Board has declared that “total victory” over Russia is not possible and that Ukraine will have to negotiate a peace in a way that reflects a “realistic assessment” and the “limits” of U.S. commitment.  The Times serves as one the main shapers of public opinion for the Elite and so its pronouncements are not to be taken lightly.

    The post New York Times Repudiates Drive For ‘Decisive Military Victory’ In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    US Senator Joe Manchin said at the World Economic Forum on Monday that he opposes any kind of peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.

    Manchin, who at the moment is one of the most powerful elected officials in Washington, added that only the complete forcible ejection of Russia from all of Ukraine is acceptable, that the war should ideally be used to remove Putin from power, and that he and the strategists he talks to see this war as an “opportunity”.

    “I am totally committed, as one person, to seeing Ukraine to the end with a win, not basically with some kind of a treaty; I don’t think that is where we are and where we should be,” Manchin said.

    “I mean basically moving Putin back to Russia and hopefully getting rid of Putin,” Manchin added when asked what he meant by a win for Ukraine.

    Manchin clarified that he did not mean pushing Putin back to “pre-February”, ostensibly meaning with Russia still controlling the largely Moscowloyal Crimea and supporting separatist territories in the Donbass, but with Kyiv fully reclaiming all parts of the nation.

    “Oh no, I think Ukraine is determined to take their country back,” Manchin said when asked to clarify, further clarifying that he wants his call for regime change in Russia to be carried out by “the Russian people.”

    “I believe strongly that I have never seen, and the people I talk strategically have never seen, an opportunity more than this, to do what needs to be done,” Manchin later added. “And Ukraine has the determination to do it. We should have the commitment to support it.”

    Manchin’s comments fit in perfectly with what we know about the US-centralized empire’s real agendas in Ukraine.

    Earlier this month Ukrainian media reported that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the nation’s president Volodymyr Zelensky on behalf of NATO powers that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”

    Last month US Secretary of “Defense” Lloyd Austin acknowledged that the goal in this war is not peace in Ukraine or the mere military defeat of Russia but to actually weaken Russia as a nation, saying “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

    Last week The New York Times reported that the Biden administration is developing plans to “further choke Russia’s oil revenues with the long-term goal of destroying the country’s central role in the global energy economy.”

    Just the other day Ukraine’s military intelligence chief announced that the mission has already creeped forward from the goal of defeating the Russian invaders to reclaiming the Crimean territory which was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014.

    Two months ago Biden himself acknowledged what the real game is here with an open call for regime change, saying of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

    Statements from the Biden administration in fact indicate that they expect this war to drag on for a long time, making it abundantly clear that a swift end to minimize the death and destruction is not just uninteresting but undesirable for the US empire.

    This is not a proxy war with peace as an option anywhere within sight. It’s not about saving Ukrainian lives. It’s not even about beating Russia in Ukraine. It’s about achieving regime change in Moscow, no matter how many lives need to be destroyed in the process.

    Peace is not on the menu.

    This war could easily have been prevented with a little diplomacy and reasonable compromise. As the University of Ottawa’s Ivan Katchanovski recently explained to The Maple, “an agreement in which Ukraine promised to remain a neutral country and the fulfilment of the Minsk accords could have stopped Putin’s invasion.”

    We know now that the US intelligence cartel had good visibility into what the Kremlin had planned for Ukraine, so they would have known exactly what could have been done to prevent the invasion. They knowingly chose to do none of those things, because the goal was to provoke this war the entire time and then weaponize it against Moscow.

    That’s why the Biden administration has been hindering diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to this war, why it has refused to provide Ukraine with any kind of diplomatic negotiating power regarding the possible rollback of sanctions and other US measures to help secure peace, and why Washington’s top diplomats have consistently been conspicuously absent from any kind of dialogue with their counterparts in Moscow.

    Empire spinmeisters and their propagandized victims like to claim that Ukrainian forces are fighting for “peace” in Ukraine. The other day Kyiv Independent’s Illia Ponomarenko, who has called the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion his “brothers in arms,” tweeted this:

    But anyone who understands this war knows this is ridiculous. Peace is not the goal in Ukraine. Most of the Ukrainians doing the fighting surely believe they are fighting for peace in their homeland, and peace is surely their intention, but that’s not something the empire will allow if the empire gets any say in the matter.

    Even if Ukraine does somehow avoid being used as cannon fodder to draw Moscow into a long and costly slog as US officials have admitted was done in both Afghanistan and in Syria, and even if they do somehow manage to deliver a crushing and conclusive defeat to Moscow in the near term (which is far less probable than the western media would have you believe), that wouldn’t be the end of the war. The war would just change shape as the empire and its proxies go on the offensive against Moscow.

    This war does not end with Russia being driven from Ukraine, it ends with regime change and the balkanization of the Russian Federation. Really it doesn’t end until the rise of China has been stopped and US unipolar hegemony secured. Or when the empire collapses. Or when we all die in a nuclear holocaust.

    All forward motion in this war has nothing but violence as far as the eye can see on its trajectory into the future. No matter how much wealth and war machinery you pour into this conflict, that trajectory of death and destruction will just keep stretching out to the horizon. As Chris Hedges recently explained, war is the only path the empire has left open to itself.

    I’ve seen some cute kids in my time, but nobody’s as adorable as people who think the US pours weapons into foreign nations in order to achieve peace.

    _______________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • A week ago, we made note of a May 11 New York Times news article, documenting that all was not going well for the U.S. in Ukraine, and a companion opinion piece hinting that a shift in direction might be in order.

    Now on May 19, “THE EDITORIAL BOARD,” the full Magisterium of the Times, has moved from hints to a clarion call for a change in direction in an editorial uninformatively titled, “The War Is Getting Complicated, and America Isn’t Ready.”  From atop the Opinion page the Editorial Board has declared that “total victory” over Russia is not possible and that Ukraine will have to negotiate a peace in a way that reflects a “realistic assessment” and the “limits” of U.S. commitment.  The Times serves as one of the main shapers of public opinion for the Elite and so its pronouncements are not to be taken lightly.

    Ukrainians will have to adjust to US “limits” and make sacrifices for newfound U.S. realism

    The Times May editorial dictum contains the following key passages:

    In March, this board argued that the message from the United States and its allies to Ukrainians and Russians alike must be: No matter how long it takes, Ukraine will be free. …”

    “That goal cannot shift, but in the end, it is still not in America’s best interest to plunge into an all-out war with Russia, even if a negotiated peace may require Ukraine to make some hard decisions (emphasis, jw).”

    To ensure that there is no ambiguity, the editorial declares that:

    A decisive military victory for Ukraine over Russia, in which Ukraine regains all the territory Russia has seized since 2014, is not a realistic goal. … Russia remains too strong…”

    To make certain that President Biden and the Ukrainians understand what they should do, the EDITORIAL BOARD goes on to say:

    … Mr. Biden should also make clear to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his people that there is a limit to how far the United States and NATO will go to confront Russia, and limits to the arms, money and political support they can muster. It is imperative that the Ukrainian government’s decisions be based on a realistic assessment of its means and how much more destruction Ukraine can sustain (emphasis, jw).”

    As Volodymyr Zelensky reads those words, he must surely begin to sweat.  The voice of his masters is telling him that he and Ukraine will have to make some sacrifices for the US to save face.  As he contemplates his options, his thoughts must surely run back to February, 2014, and the U.S. backed Maidan coup that culminated in the hasty exit of President Yanukovych from his office, his country and almost from this earth.

    Ukraine is a proxy war that is all too dangerous

    In the eyes of the Times editorial writers, the war has become a U.S. proxy war against Russia using Ukrainians as cannon fodder – and it is careening out of control:

    “The current moment is a messy one in this conflict, which may explain President Biden and his cabinet’s reluctance to put down clear goal posts.”

    “The United States and NATO are already deeply involved, militarily and economically. Unrealistic expectations could draw them ever deeper into a costly, drawn-out war..”

    “Recent bellicose statements from Washington — President Biden’s assertion that Mr. Putin ‘cannot remain in power,’ Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s comment that Russia must be ‘weakened’ and the pledge by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, that the United States would support Ukraine ‘until victory is won’ — may be rousing proclamations of support, but they do not bring negotiations any closer.”

    While the Times dismisses these statements as “rousing proclamations,” it is all too clear that for the neocons in charge of U.S. foreign policy, the goal has always been a proxy war to bring down Russia. This has not become a proxy war; it has always been a proxy war. The neocons operate by the Wolfowitz Doctrine, enunciated in 1992, soon after the end of Cold War 1.0, by the necoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense:

    “We endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

    “We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global power.”

    Clearly if Russia is “too strong” to be defeated in Ukraine, it is too strong to be brought down as a superpower.

    The Times has shifted its opinion from March to May. What Has Changed?

    After 7 years of slaughter in the Donbass and 3 months of warfare in Southern Ukraine, has the Times editorial board suddenly had a rush of compassion for all the victims of the war and the destruction of Ukraine and changed its opinion?  Given the record of the Times over the decades, it would seem that other factors are at work.

    First of all, Russia has handled the situation unexpectedly well compared to dire predictions from the West.

    President Putin’s support exceeds 80%.

    165 of 195 nations, including India and China with 35% of the world’s population, have refused to join sanctions against Russia, leaving the U.S., not Russia, relatively isolated in the world.

    The ruble, which Biden said would be “rubble” has not only returned to its pre-February levels but is valued at a 2 year high, today at 59 rubles to the dollar compared to 150 in March.

    Russia is expecting a bumper harvest and the world is eager for its wheat and fertilizer, oil and gas all of which provide substantial revenue.

    The  EU has largely succumbed to Russia’s demand to be paid for gas in rubles.  Treasury Secretary Yellin is warning the suicidal Europeans that an embargo of Russian oil will further damage the economies of the West.

    Russian forces are making slow but steady progress across southern and eastern Ukraine after winning in Mariupol, the biggest battle of the war so far, and a demoralizing defeat for Ukraine.

    In the US inflation, which was already high before the Ukraine crisis, has been driven even higher and reached over 8% with the Fed now scrambling to control it by raising interest rates.  Partly as a result of this, the stock market has come close to bear territory.  As the war progresses, many have joined Ben Bernanke, former Fed Chair, in predicting a period of high unemployment, high inflation and low growth – the dread stagflation.

    Domestically, there are signs of deterioration in support of the war.  Most strikingly, 57 House Republicans and 11 Senate Republicans voted against the latest package of weaponry to Ukraine, bundled with considerable pork and hidden bonanzas for the war profiteers.  (Strikingly no Democrat, not a single one, not even the most “progressive” voted against pouring fuel on the fire of war raging in Ukraine.  But that is another story.)

    And while U.S. public opinion remains in favor of U.S. involvement in Ukraine there are signs of slippage.  For example, Pew reports that those feeling the U.S. is not doing enough declined from March to May.  As more stagflation takes hold with gas and food prices growing and voices like those of Tucker Carlson and Rand Paul pointing out the connection between the inflation and the war, discontent is certain to grow.

    Finally, as the war becomes less popular and it takes its toll, an electoral disaster looms ahead in 2022 and 2024 for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, for which the Times serves as a mouthpiece.

    The NYT editorial signals alarm over the insane goal of the neoconservatives

    There is a note of panic in this appeal to find a negotiated solution now.  The U.S. and Russia are the world’s major nuclear powers with thousands of nuclear missiles on Launch On Warning, aka Hair Trigger Alert.  At moments of high tension, the possibilities of Accidental Nuclear Armageddon are all too real.

    President Biden’s ability to stay in command of events is in question. Many people of his age can handle a situation like this, but many cannot and he seems to be in the latter category.

    Alarm is warranted and panic is understandable.

    The neocons are now in control of the foreign policy of the Biden administration, the Democratic Party and most of the Republican Party. But will the neocons in charge give up and move in a reasonable and peaceful direction as the Times editorial demands?  This is a fantasy of the first order.  As one commenter observed, the hawks like Nuland, Blinken and Sullivan have no reverse gear; they always double down. They do not serve the interests of humanity nor do they serve the interests of the American people.  They are in reality traitors to the U.S.  They must be exposed, discredited and pushed aside.  Our survival depends on it.

    The post New York Times Repudiates Drive for “Decisive Military Victory” in Ukraine, Calls for Peace Negotiations first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • As lawmakers in Congress debated billions of dollars’ worth of aid to Ukraine, including military aid, major defense contractor Lockheed Martin was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign donations, new disclosures show.

    As reported by Insider, Lockheed Martin’s PAC spent $256,000 in April on donations to members of Congress, a gubernatorial campaign and PACs of both major parties. The company made 147 donations in total to the campaigns of federal lawmakers, including donations to five members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and 27 members of the House Armed Services Committee, both of which oversee military and defense spending.

    Members of those committees who got donations from the company include conservative Democratic Senators Mark Kelly (Arizona) and Joe Manchin (West Virginia). House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington) also received a donation from the PAC. Congress discussed over 10 different bills related to Ukraine aid in April.

    According to Insider, the donations and the number of lawmakers represent an unusually large amount of political spending for the company over the past few years. This indicates that Lockheed Martin’s PAC specifically timed the donations in order to coincide with negotiations on aid to Ukraine.

    Defense contractors stood to benefit greatly from those bills, and have already seen their stocks rise precipitously since the Russian forces first invaded the country in late February.

    Last month, lawmakers were discussing a bill that would provide Ukraine about $40 billion in aid. The bill, passed by Congress last week, provides $6 billion for Ukrainian military forces, nearly $4 billion to U.S. forces in the region, and $8.7 billion to the Pentagon to replace weapons that it has given Ukraine. About $1.1 billion goes toward weapons production in the U.S.

    Those weapons include Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles made by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon in a joint $309 million contract with the U.S. government — meaning that, even in just one contract, Lockheed Martin’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations has paid off handsomely.

    It’s unclear how much Lockheed Martin will get from the spending, though experts say that more than half of foreign military spending typically goes toward defense contractors. These contractors have a strong grip on lawmakers; earlier this month, President Joe Biden visited a Lockheed Martin Javelin manufacturing facility in a display of the strong relationship between the company and federal lawmakers.

    Lockheed Martin is the top defense contractor for the U.S., receiving tens of millions of dollars from the Department of Defense and appropriations bills each year, which helps pad their profits. The company is also a top contributor to lawmakers like Smith, who in turn vote against cuts to defense spending.

    Lawmakers also have stock in defense contractors including Lockheed Martin, despite the fact that they rule on bills that have a direct impact on the company’s profits.

  • American leftists need an internationalist vision that universally and effectively joins anti-imperial and anti-authoritarian ethics.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • The contempt shown by Hungary’s prime minister for EU norms requires a response

    In recent years, as Viktor Orbán has consolidated his hold over Hungary’s body politic, he has acquired a cult following on America’s Republican right. That status was confirmed last week when US conservatives staged a special conference in Budapest, the centrepiece of which was an address by the newly re-elected prime minister. Speaking to the conference theme of “God, homeland, family”, the self-styled standard bearer for “illiberal democracy” did not hold back. Delegates were told that “ideologically trained bureaucrats” in Washington and Brussels – in cahoots with progressive liberals and “neo-Marxists” – were seeking to undermine traditional western values. Mr Orbán then outlined the strategy taken in Hungary to eradicate this threat. “The first point in the Hungarian formula,” he said, “is to play by our own rules.”

    In that spirit, Mr Orbán’s Hungary has flouted the democratic norms of European Union membership for years. On issues relating to corruption, the independence of the media, asylum and LGBTQ+ rights, Budapest has flatly ignored EU objections to its actions. Mr Orbán has made domestic political capital from waging a culture war against Brussels, even as Hungary accessed billions of pounds worth of EU regional aid. As he trolls the EU ever more brazenly from within and gives masterclasses to America’s “alt-right”, what can Brussels do about it?

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    April 2022: Zelensky speaks at the Grammy Awards

    May 2022: Zelensky speaks at Cannes Film Festival

    June 2022: Zelensky hosts SNL

    July 2022: Zelensky stars as himself in action biopic co-starring The Rock

    August 2022: Zelensky releases his own breakfast cereal and clothing line

    September 2022: Celebrities are flocking to the new Hollywood pop religion known as Zelenskyyology

    It’s often a long, awkward process learning that literally everyone in both mainstream political factions serves the oligarchic empire. For most people you have to get your hopes dashed over and over again by your heroes before learning this lesson, and even then many don’t.

    It runs counter to everything you’re taught in life that nobody in either camp is there to help you. There’s a fundamental assumption that someone among them must be decent. But if you watch carefully with enough intellectual honesty you’ll see it again and again: there’s a line that, for one justification or another, none of them ever end up crossing, and it’s the line where they would have to begin providing meaningful opposition to the oligarchic empire.

    At first it makes no sense. How can there be no good guys? Not one? Then you realize: it’s because you’re living in an oligarchic empire which only elevates people who serve its interests, whether it’s in politics, government, or media. The “opposition” between mainstream factions is an illusion cooked up by the empire and continually reinforced by its narrative managers.

    But you only see this if you’re intellectually honest enough to overcome your own cognitive biases. Otherwise you’ll keep doing mental gymnastics to justify the bullshit coming from Bernie, AOC, TYT, Tucker Carlson, Trump, MAGA pundits, wherever your biases are located on the map.

    And then when you do see it people accuse you of being an angry hater who doesn’t have anything positive to say about anyone in politics or media, when really it’s got nothing to do with being negative but with your understanding that the machine always protects the machine.

    This proxy war isn’t about defending Ukraine, it’s about quashing a nation which has consistently resisted absorption into the US-centralized imperial blob. That agenda is best served by keeping this war going as long as possible and making it as gruelling and costly as possible for Moscow. Peace is not on the menu.

    Even if Ukraine does somehow achieve total victory in the near term, it wouldn’t mean peace, it would mean more war. If Russia is driven out the war will just change shape into a concerted effort to oust Putin and shatter the Russian Federation.

    This war could easily have been avoided with a little diplomacy and low-cost, high-reward concessions. The US had good visibility into the Kremlin’s plans, so they knew this. They chose not to because they wanted to use this war to hurt Putin.

    A massive percentage of the people who are getting Russia and Ukraine right are going to turn into the worst people in the world once conflict shifts to China. Pretty much only the anti-imperialist left and a specific subset of antiwar libertarians will get both issues entirely correct.

    I get asked if I think the US should do anything if China attacks Taiwan. I tell them I don’t think the US should do anything if any nation does anything. The US is the very last nation on earth that should ever do anything about any other nation.

    We don’t talk enough about how disturbing it is that Silicon Valley megacorporations have just accepted that it’s their job to help the US win a propaganda war against Russia and everyone’s just going along with that like it’s fine and normal.

    Man: [steals most of everyone’s wealth]

    Everyone: Hey give that back!

    Man: You’re all just jealous of my success.

    Can’t believe empire managers have the gall to keep babbling about “disinformation” even as they work to extradite a journalist to the United States to defend the empire’s right to lie to us about its war crimes.

    I’ve met some cute kids in my time but nobody’s as adorable as people who think Assange can get a fair Espionage Act trial in the United States of America.

    I want to live in this idyllic fantasy world where the US pours weapons into foreign nations because it cares deeply about their freedom and orchestrates the military encirclement of Russia and China because it wants to protect the world from tyranny.

    The mainstream news media is empire fanfic for slow kids.

    Your average Ivy League graduate working for a prominent military industrial complex-funded think tank has less insight into what’s happening with Russia and China than your average random citizen with internet access and sincere curiosity about those nations.

    People who’ve escaped abusive relationships with bitchy, vindictive, passive aggressive manipulators have a natural advantage when in comes to deciphering the malevolence of the US empire.

    ___________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • Above photo: The Mariupol Commercial Sea Port in the city of Mariupol. Vladimir Gerdo/TASS. Russia is falsely accused of blocking Ukraine’s sea ports and thereby increasing a global food shortage: The United Nations has warned that the war in Ukraine has helped to stoke a global food crisis that could last years if it goes unchecked, as […]

    The post The Ukraine War Has Not Stoked A Global Food Crisis appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Disinformation has become a central tool in the United States and Russia’s expanding information war. US officials have openly admitted to “using information as a weapon even when the confidence and accuracy of the information wasn’t high,” with corporate media eager to assist Washington in its strategy to “pre-empt and disrupt the Kremlin’s tactics, complicate its military campaign” (NBC, 4/6/22).

    In defense of the US narrative, corporate media have increasingly taken to branding realities inconvenient to US information goals as “disinformation” spread by Russia or its proxies.

    The post ‘Disinformation’ Label Serves To Marginalize Crucial Ukraine Facts appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • “Scoundrel Time,” Lillian Hellman’s book about her experiences during the Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt, is one of the books “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer thinks best describes the current political climate in the U.S. Scheer has spotlighted various dissenting Western voices on the Ukraine war, none of which support Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the European nation but merely question the West’s role in the conflict. CIA veterans Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou, who join Scheer on this week’s episode, are two such voices who have been maligned for their opinions on the subject.

    On the most recent installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” the three spar about how the Ukrainian conflict is being covered in the U.S., where this war is heading, and what the conflict means for U.S.-China relations, as well as the potential for nuclear war. Listen to the full discussion between McGovern, Kiriakou and Scheer as they expertly pick apart many myths that are being dangerously propagated about Ukraine, Russia, and the West.

    The post It’s Scoundrel Time Back In The USA appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • (This article contains reports about child rape which might be intense for some people.)

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    The Ukrainian government is quickly learning that it can say anything, literally anything at all, about what’s happening on the ground there and get it uncritically reported as an actual news story by the mainstream western press.

    The latest story making the rounds is a completely unevidenced claim made by a Ukrainian government official that Russians are going around raping Ukrainian babies to death. Business Insider, The Daily Beast, The Daily Mail and Yahoo News have all run this story despite no actual evidence existing for it beyond the empty assertions of a government who would have every incentive to lie.

    “A one-year-old boy died after being raped by two Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian Parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights said on Thursday,” reads a report by Business Insider which was subsequently picked up by Yahoo News. “The accusation is one of the most horrific from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but is not unique.”

    At the end of the fourth paragraph we get to the disclaimer that every critical thinker should look for when reading such stories in the mainstream press:

    “Insider could find no independent evidence for the claim.”

    In its trademark style, The Daily Beast ran the same story in a much more flamboyant and click-friendly fashion.

    “The dead boy is among dozens of alleged child rape victims which include two 10-year-old boys, triplets aged 9, a 2-year-old girl raped by two Russian soldiers, and a 9-month-old baby who was penetrated with a candlestick in front of its mother, according to Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights,” The Daily Beast writes.

    The one and only source for this latest spate of “the Russians are raping babies to death” stories is a statement on a Ukrainian government website by Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova. The brief statement contains no evidence of any kind, and its English translation concludes as follows:

    I appeal to the UN Commission for Investigation Human Rights Violations during the Russian military invasion of Ukraine to take into account these facts of genocide of the Ukrainian people.

     

    I call on our partners around the world to increase sanctions pressure on russia, to provide Ukraine with offensive weapons, to join the investigation of rashist crimes in our country!

     

    The enemy must be stopped and all those involved in the atrocities in Ukraine must be brought to justice!

    This is what passes for journalism in the western world today. Reporting completely unfounded allegations against US enemies based solely on assertions by a government official demanding more weapons and sanctions against those enemies and making claims that sound like they came from an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia bit.

    We cannot say definitively that these rapes never happened. We also cannot say definitively that the Australian government isn’t warehousing extraterrestrial aircraft in an underground bunker in Canberra, but we don’t treat that like it’s an established fact and publish mainstream news reports about it just because we can’t prove it’s false. That’s not how the burden of proof works.

    Obviously the rape of children is a very real and very serious matter, and obviously rape is one of the many horrors which can be inflicted upon people in the lawless environment of war. But to turn strategically convenient government assertions about such matters into a news story based on no evidence whatsoever is not just journalistic malpractice but actual atrocity propaganda.

    As we discussed previously, the US and its proxies have an established history of using atrocity propaganda, as in the infamous “taking babies from incubators” narrative that was circulated in the infamous 1990 Nayirah testimony which helped manufacture consent for the Gulf War.

    Atrocity propaganda has been in use for a very long time due to how effective it can be at getting populations mobilized against targeted enemies, from the Middle Ages when Jews were accused of kidnapping Christian children to kill them and drink their blood, to 17th century claims that the Irish were killing English children and throwing them into the sea, to World War I claims that Germans were mutilating and eating Belgian babies.

    Atrocity propaganda frequently involves children, because children cannot be construed as combatants or non-innocents, and generally involves the most horrific allegations the propagandists can possibly get away with at that point in history. It creates a useful appeal to emotion which bypasses people’s logical faculties and gets them accepting the propaganda based not on facts and evidence but on how it makes them feel.

    And the atrocity propaganda is functioning exactly as it’s meant to. Do a search on social media for this bogus story that’s been forcibly injected into public discourse and you’ll find countless individuals expressing their outrage at the evil baby-raping Russians. Democratic Party operative Andrea Chalupa, known for her controversial collusion with the Ukrainian government to undermine the 2016 Trump campaign, can be seen citing the aforementioned Daily Beast article on Twitter to angrily admonish the New York Times editorial board for expressing a rare word of caution about US involvement in the war.

    “Before writing this, the members of the New York Times Editorial Board should have asked themselves who among them wanted to have their children, including babies and infants, raped by Russian soldiers, because that is what’s happening in Ukraine,” Chalupa tweeted.

    See that? How a completely unevidenced government assertion was turned into an official-looking news story, and how that official-looking news story was then cited as though it’s an objective fact that Russian soldiers are running around raping babies to death in Ukraine? And how it’s done to help manufacture consent for a geostrategically crucial proxy war, and to bludgeon those who express any amount of caution about these world-threatening escalations?

    That’s atrocity propaganda doing exactly what it is meant to do.

    Now on top of all the other reasons we’re being given why the US and its allies need to send Ukraine more and more war machinery of higher and higher destructive capability, they also need to do so because the Russians are just raping babies to death willy nilly over there. Which just so happens to work out nicely for the US-centralized empire’s goals of unipolar domination, for the Ukrainian regime, and for the military-industrial complex.

    And that wasn’t even the extent of obscene mass media atrocity propaganda conducted on behalf of Ukrainian officials for the day. Newsweek has a new article out titled “Russians Targeting Kids’ Beds, Rooms With Explosives: Ukrainian Bomb Team,” which informs us that “The leader of a Ukrainian bomb squad has said that Russian forces are targeting children by placing explosive devices inside their rooms and under their beds.”

    Then at the end of the second paragraph we again find that magical phrase:

    “Newsweek has not independently verified the claim.”

    The Newsweek report is based on part of an embarrassing ABC News Australia puff piece about a Ukrainian team which is allegedly responsible for removing landmines in areas that were previously occupied by Russian forces. The puff piece refers to the team as a “unit of brave de-miners” while calling Russian forces “barbaric”.

    ABC uncritically reports all the nefarious ways the evil Russians have been planting explosives with the goal of killing Ukrainian civilians, including setting mines in children’s beds and teddy bears and placing them under fallen Ukrainian soldiers. Way down toward the bottom of the article we see the magical phrase again:

    “The ABC has not been able to independently verify these reports, but they back up allegations made by Ukraine’s President.”

    Ahh, so what you’re being told by Ukrainian forces “backs up” what you’ve been told by the president of Ukraine. Doesn’t get any more rock solid than that, does it? Great journalism there, fellas.

    The Ukrainian government stands everything to gain and nothing to lose by just saying whatever it needs to say in order to obtain more weapons, more funding and increasingly direct assistance from western powers, so if it knows the western media will uncritically report every claim it makes, why not lie? Why not tell whatever lie you need to tell in order to advance your own interests and agendas? It would be pretty silly of them not to take advantage of the opening they’re being given.

    This is something the western press know is happening. They know full well that Ukraine is waging a very sophisticated propaganda campaign against Russia and seeding disinformation to facilitate that infowar. It’s not a secret. They are participating in that campaign knowingly.

    The mass media have been cranking out atrocity propaganda about what’s happening in Ukraine since before the invasion even started, like when they reported in February that Russia has a list of dissidents, journalists and “vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons” who it plans on rounding up and torturing when it invades. Funny how we just completely stopped hearing about that one.

    And this is all happening at the same time the western political/media class continues to shriek about the dangers of “disinformation” and the urgent need to strictly regulate its circulation on the internet, even after US officials came right out and admitted that they’ve been circulating disinformation about Russia and Ukraine. I guarantee you none of these completely evidence-free claims will be subject to censorship by the “fact checkers” of social media platforms.

    The fact that both Silicon Valley and the mainstream news media have accepted it as a given that it is their job to manipulate public thought about this war tells you everything you need to know about how free and truth-based the so-called liberal democracies of the western world really are. We are being deceived and confused into consenting to agendas that could very easily lead to nuclear armageddon, and if we ever raise our voices in objection to this we are branded Putin propagandists and disinformation agents.

    It’s getting very, very bad. Turn around, people. Wrong way.

    ______________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • The US Senate approved £40bn in aid to Ukraine on Thursday 19th May. The Financial Times say this will be “military, economic and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine.” It is not clear how much of this money will end up in the hands of arms firms. Meanwhile in Somalia, where famine linked to the Ukraine war threatens, a new US troop deployment has been announced. Poorer countries in the Global South are once again suffering from an inequitable global system.

    The Squad, the group of left-leaning Congresswomen, including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, all voted in favour of the $40bn package. As did former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, all while US citizens undergo their own daily struggles:

    Business Insider even provided a list of which American politicians stand to profit directly from the new package, given their interests in arms firms.

    Somalia and Ukraine

    Somalia is currently threatened with famine. As The Canary reported recently the risk is heightened by the war in Ukraine. A lot of the grain bought up by NGOs and used for aid comes from Ukraine and the war has hit agriculture.

    As $40bn has been allocated for arms to Ukraine, the US has opted for a militarised approach in Somalia too. 500 troops will be sent to train and advise local forces. Donald Trump cancelled a similar mission in 2020. Joe Biden has now approved a renewal, reportedly to help pin back Al-Shabaab, a group affiliated to Al Qaeda among others.

    With a new US favourite, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, just elected as president in Somalia, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has extended an aid package to the country. As ever with the IMF, this is on condition of reforms, not least in the private sector.

    Oil rush?

    How (or if) the military deployment bears on recent oil exploration in Somalia is not yet clear. But the previous president declared a deal with a US oil firm null and void hours after it was agreed earlier in 2022. The Prime Minister agreed that because the deal was struck during an election period, it was illegal.

    The firm itself, Coastline Exploration, was investigated for corruption. Although based in Texas, Coastline was chaired by a Tory peer and former party leader Michael Howard. Prior to the deal’s collapse, Coastline was known as Soma Oil and sought to exploit Somalia’s energy resources, which many consider one of the industry’s last great frontiers.

    It remains to be seen if soaring oil prices accelerate new exploration deals for Somali oil. As it stands oil giants, like arms giants, have seen their profits spike massively as a result of the war in Ukraine.

    Unequal

    Somalis live in the shadow of oil firms, arms corporations, and the West’s conflicts. Their new president has promised an era of peace. But this is a country where 70% live on less than two dollars a day. Hunger and insurgent violence are a daily reality. And lives can hinge on decisions made by great powers and indifferent corporations. The US deployment mission will come under the command of Africom, an organisation which pursues US interests on the continent. The motivations of the US remain to be seen, but it’s clear that the potential for destabilisation due to foreign interference is a real possibility for Somalia.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Maxemed Qadil, cropped to 770 x 403, CC BY-SA 4.0

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Listen to a reading of this article:

    Twitter has published what it calls a “crisis misinformation policy” announcing that it will be actively reducing the visibility of content found to be false which pertains to “situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters.”

    If you’ve been paying attention to the dramatic escalations in online censorship we’ve been seeing in 2022, it will not surprise you to learn that the Ukraine war is the first crisis to which this new censorship policy will be applied.

    Twitter says that it “won’t amplify or recommend content” found to violate its new policy, and will also attach warning labels to individual tweets and even hide offending content behind a warning label and disable the retweet function on particularly naughty posts.

    The problem here is of course the question of how to impartially establish whether something is objectively false without it turning into at best a flawed system guided by fallible human biases and perceptual filters and at worst a powerful institution shutting down unauthorized speech. Twitter says it formed its new policy with input from unnamed “global experts and human rights organizations,” and will be enforcing it with the help of “conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open-source investigators, journalists, and more.” This will come as no comfort to anyone who’s familiar with the history of propaganda peddling that can be found in every single one of those respective categories.

    Twitter lists the following examples of the kind of content that will be found in violation of its crisis misinformation policy:

    • False coverage or event reporting, or information that mischaracterizes conditions on the ground as a conflict evolves;
    • False allegations regarding use of force, incursions on territorial sovereignty, or around the use of weapons;
    • Demonstrably false or misleading allegations of war crimes or mass atrocities against specific populations;
    • False information regarding international community response, sanctions, defensive actions, or humanitarian operations.

    When Jack Dorsey resigned as Twitter CEO last November, I noted the warning signs we were seeing that his replacement, Parag Agrawal, supported the use of measures which make unauthorized content much less visible than authorized content without eliminating the unauthorized content altogether.

    “There’s a lot of content out there,” Agrawal said in a 2020 interview. “A lot of tweets out there, not all of it gets attention, some subset of it gets attention. And so increasingly our role is moving towards how we recommend content and that sort of, is, is, a struggle that we’re working through in terms of how we make sure these recommendation systems that we’re building, how we direct people’s attention is leading to a healthy public conversation that is most participatory.”

    This agenda to “direct people’s attention” toward “healthy public conversation” by controlling how content is “recommended” to viewers echoes the censorship-by-algorithm tactics we’ve seen employed by Facebook, Google, and by Google-owned YouTube. Google has been hiding dissident media in its search results for years, and in 2020 the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet admitted to algorithmically throttling World Socialist Website. Last year the CEO of YouTube acknowledged that the platform uses algorithms to elevate “authoritative sources” while suppressing “borderline content” not considered authoritative. Facebook spokeswoman Lauren Svensson said in 2018 that if the platform’s fact-checkers (including the state-funded establishment narrative management firm Atlantic Council) rule that a Facebook user has been posting false news, moderators will “dramatically reduce the distribution of all of their Page-level or domain-level content on Facebook.”

    Twitter has generally been the most reluctant of the major platforms to exercise censorship on behalf of the empire, which is what has made it a better source of ideas and information than any other major platform. But now we’re seeing the most pernicious form of online censorship, censorship by manipulation of content visibility, take hold there as well.

    Censorship by visibility manipulation is the most destructive form of online censorship that exists, because its consequences are both so much more far-reaching and so much less attention-grabbing than the controversial act of banning users from platforms or removing their posts. It’s a kind of censorship that people don’t even know is happening, and it’s happening all over the place.

    It is deeply disturbing how Silicon Valley megacorporations have simply accepted that it is their job to help the US win a propaganda war against Russia, and how everyone’s just going along with that like it’s fine and normal. Our ability to share ideas and information on the platforms where most people congregate is being increasingly restricted, not on the basis of whether our speech is harmful, or even whether it is true, but on whether it helps or hinders the US propaganda campaign against Russia.

    Silicon Valley censorship with the Ukraine war is an unprecedented escalation because they’re not pretending to be doing it to protect people from a virus or to safeguard elections or defend the public good in any way. It’s literally just “Well we can’t have people thinking wrong thoughts about a war,” without even really explaining why that’s important in any coherent and sensical fashion.

    There’s no longer any pretense that the internet is being censored to protect the public interest. It’s just open censorship of information about a war, solely because they take it as a given that it’s their job to control the things people think and say about that war. They’re coming right out and saying yes, we are the platforms you come to in order to share ideas and information with your fellow humans, and yes, we are agents of the US empire. This is a dramatic escalation.

    All this public hand wringing about misinformation and disinformation is itself disinformation. They’re not worried about the spread of disinformation, they’re worried about the spread of information. Your rulers are not concerned that you’ll start learning false things about Covid or the war in Ukraine, they are worried you’ll start learning true things about your rulers. That’s what all this fuss is really about.

    They are locking down our minds and sanitizing our information ecosystem for the protection of the empire. I will keep saying this and saying this for as long as I am able: we’ve got to wake up and stop these bastards before it is too late.

    ______________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on FacebookTwitterSoundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fiPatreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

     

    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • As Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, wrote in early February, before Russia’s intervention in Ukraine:

    America no longer has the monetary power and seemingly chronic trade and balance-of-payments surplus that enabled it to draw up the world’s trade and investment rules in 1944-45.

    The threat to U.S. dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States

    The most glaring example is the U.S. drive to block Germany from authorizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to obtain Russian gas for the coming cold weather. Angela Merkel agreed with Donald Trump to spend $1 billion building a new LNG port to become more dependent on highly priced U.S. LNG. (The plan was cancelled after the U.S. and German elections changed both leaders.)

    The post How Europe Was Pushed Towards Economic Suicide appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.