It’s Not Voter Apathy; You’re Not Listening | Black Agenda Report by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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One of the popular narratives that was disseminated in mainstream American media to explain Hilary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign loss to Donald Trump was post-Obama voter apathy in the African American community. According to the Washington Post , “In 2016, a seven-point drop in black voter turnout was perceived to have cost Clinton the election.

Political commentators often cite black voters’ “enthusiasm gap” as the primary reason for low turnout. This short-sighted perspective fails to consider that Mrs. Clinton ran a terrible campaign. She took the African American vote for granted and failed to craft a message that spoke to the needs and interests of the community. Blaming the community played into a stereotype that labeled African Americans as uninformed and monolithic in thought, instead of being introspective and recognizing her own short-comings. Her campaign ignored a simple reality…African Americans are as “political” as the rest of the country and there are real and substantive political interests that motivate the Community.

The crime act, also known as “3 Strikes and are Out,” contributed greatly to the mass incarceration of African Americans. So-called welfare reform, that Hilary Clinton encouraged her husband to sign, removed hundreds of thousands of poor people of color from the welfare safety-net and plunged them into the ranks of the desperately working poor. Many African Americans never forgot nor forgave her for supporting these pieces of legislation, as well as her referring to members of the Community as “superpredators ” who needed to be brought “to heel .” It was not voter apathy or an “enthusiasm gap” that turned the African American community against the Hilary Clinton campaign, it was the realpolitik of Hilary Clinton.

Pepe Escobar: The Nuland – Budanov – Tajik – Crocus connection by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.

A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.

And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.

...the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.

Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.

Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.

The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.

Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”). [Link leads to the translation in comments #1 and #6]

Deterrence By Savagery? by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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The war in Ukraine is only the latest but most obvious demonstration that the 'rules based order' no longer exists (https://archive.md/CMJWA):

Over the past several decades, the United States has continually placed Moscow in a position either to accept the fait accompli of NATO expansion at the expense of Russian security interests, or to escalate with force and suffer the consequences of increased economic and political ostracization. This disincentive to avoid escalation has been effectively removed. Explicating the altered state of international relations is not cheerleading for the Russian position — although it may be treated as such by those who disingenuously present any realistic assessment of the situation as “appeasement” — but rather illustrating how Moscow has insulated itself from Western ostracization, thus changing the entire balance of power in not only Europe, but the world.

Now, it is Russia that has the West on the horns of a dilemma: It can either watch the Kremlin achieve its strategic objectives, guaranteed in a one-sided negotiated settlement or through the continued attrition of Ukrainian forces, or it can escalate with force. Putin’s statement regarding nuclear weapons was not mere rhetoric—it was the Russian president defining the limits of the current conflict from a position of authority.

Anything short of total Ukrainian victory is therefore an implicit admission that the “rules-based” economic and political order has been irreversibly altered.

The Day the combined West committed Suicide by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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“It was a culmination of negligence of the international law that started since the end of the Cold War. Absolutely, [the] 1999 [NATO campaign] was a precedent. We can even say that the international law was in a way abolished at that moment and, of course, after that chaos was introduced into the system of international relations,” Gacic points out.

Sljukic also warns that “as long as the key Western countries are ruled by the current liberal elites, NATO countries will not be put on fair trial because of their crimes in Yugoslavia and all over the world.”

The Day the combined West committed Suicide by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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Dr. Samuel Hoff, a professor of history and political science at Delaware State University, points to the significant expansion of NATO after the March 1999 incident.

“It is a fact that in 1999, NATO had 16 countries. And as we sit here in 2024, there are 32 members,” Hoff notes in an interview with Sputnik.

The Day the combined West committed Suicide by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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This is the part they want you to forget when they say NATO is not a member of the UN and therefore not bound by its charter:

The members of NATO are not entitled to decide the fate of other sovereign and independent States. They must not forget that they are not only members of their alliance, but also Members of the United Nations.

The True Golden Rule by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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So simple, and yet it eludes so many people.

Why the West Cannot Stomach Russians by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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Hope people click through to see that marvelous graphic: Putin in tux playing a grand piano with a humongous brown bear stretched out across the top of it.

Macron obsessing over personal security amid Ukrainian conflict – media by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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According to Pepe Escobar, people in France call him Macronapoleon. I mentioned that on Twitter and someone replied it should be Micronapoleon and they may have a point.

It's not that AIs are becoming more human, but that humans are becoming more artifically intelligent. by Maniak in WayOfTheBern

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Because I'm more optimistic than you: I just saw this Michael Parenti (partial) quote in answer to someone saying that the ruling elite don't care what we think and I think it's worth thinking about:

That is not true. They care very much about what you think. In fact, that is the only thing about you that holds their attention and concern.

They don't care if you go hungry, unemployed, sick, or homeless. But they do care when you are beginning to entertain resistant democratic thoughts. They get nervous when you discard your liberal complaints and adopt a radical analysis. They do care that you are catching on as to what the motives and functions of the national security state and the US global empire are all about at home and in so many corners of the world. They get furiously concerned when you and millions like you are rejecting the pap that is served up by corporate media and establishment leaders.

By controlling our perceptions, they control our society; they control public opinion and public discourse. And they limit the range and impact of our political consciousness. The plutocrats know that their power comes from their ability to control our empowering responses. They know they can live at the apex of the social pyramid only as long as they can keep us in line at the pyramid's base.

Who pays for all their wars? We do. Who fights these wars? We do or our low-income loved ones do. If we refuse to be led around on a super-patriotic, fear-ridden leash and if we come to our own decisions and act upon them more and more as our ranks grow, then the ruling profiteers' power shrinks and can even unwind and crash - as has happened with dynasties and monarchies of previous epochs.

ketanji brown and the template of doom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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You may be right but I hope you're wrong.

Ruins of Yugoslavia: How Russia learned that NATO poses a threat by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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Great article! I watched a clip from Napolitano's recent interview of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who said someone told him "Russia has no reason whatsoever to trust the US ever again," which is true.

He also said, "The rest of the world, lots of people in the world - at least 3 billion people now - are really thinking hard about how, where and when they might oppose us, they're fed up to here with the US."

NATO's assault on Yugoslavia was a direct violation of the UN Charter. Their excuse was, "NATO is not a member of the United Nations and not bound by the UN Charter." It's true that NATO as an entity is not part of the UN but its states are. This is the kind of deceptive reasoning they use to do exactly what they want.

There was a report in December 2010 from the Council of Europe Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights titled "Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo" that says the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) incriminated in these human rights violations were, at the time of the conflict, de facto allies of the international forces. Pretty detailed and informative report that probably got very little attention.

Prior to the conflict, KLA was designated by the US as a terrorist organization known for arms, drug and organ trafficking, and by Interpol as the "crime capitol of the world." So Serbian-Canadian documentarian Boris Magilurski is on point when he says "Yugoslavia was a training ground for everything that happened afterwards." We've seen the same pattern of the US and NATO allying with jihadists throughout the Middle East and Africa to achieve their agenda.

The only good thing is that more and more Americans are wising up to the way we actually do business in the world.

It's not that AIs are becoming more human, but that humans are becoming more artifically intelligent. by Maniak in WayOfTheBern

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This is a very apt comparison.

ketanji brown and the template of doom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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That's certainly how they use it, no argument there.

ketanji brown and the template of doom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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Not surprising that, like so many important things about our own history, this isn't taught anymore.

Proud to have been part of the team that computationally analyzed the New York Times' biased coverage of Israel and Palestine. This is part of a broader effort by Writers Against the War On Gaza @wawog_now, who released today a tour-de-force exposé of NYT: https://newyorkwarcrimes.com by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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He answers questions in this thread about how they compiled their data. And of course, you see some of the usual hasbara denialists in the thread.

ketanji brown and the template of doom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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If they don't uphold the Bill of Rights they're in violation of the Constitution, which is still the law of the land. They can choose that path but it makes their governance illegitimate, with all that implies.

ketanji brown and the template of doom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. - Thomas Jefferson

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. - Voltaire

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. - William Pitt the Elder

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. - Margaret Chase Smith

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. - Thomas Paine

if M. de Becourt’s book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. but, for god’s sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we chuse. - Thomas Jefferson

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality. - Theodor Adorno

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a 'necessary evil', it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil. - Sydney J. Harris

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. - Blaise Pascal

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. - Albert Einstein

ketanji brown and the template of doom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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this is an incredibly important case, perhaps the most important first amendment case our our generation. at issue is whether the government can bully, prod, or require that social media ban or censor speech. do they get to decide what can and cannot be spoken in the modern day public square? because this is obviously their intent and they have been up to their necks in it for years.

as one of the ones who was decatformed for being right, this really hits home for me. so many of us were just following data, presenting results, checking one another, and allowing ourselves to be checked, but none of it mattered. only the answers mattered and if the answer was not to federal liking, defenestration from casa del bluebird followed.

but the a greater problem here is not “the censors were wrong” or “the censors lied” it’s that anyone granted them this frame to begin with where “maybe it would be OK so long as it served a good purpose.”

because it isn’t OK.

ever.

not even if they happen to be right.

this is a binary. allow your speech right to be taken for any reason and you do not have a right anymore, you have a negotiation about a privilege and it’s one you’ll always lose in the long run.

emergency power begets emergencies like jam begets ants.

it’s ALWAYS the same.

and this matters because several of the supreme court justices do not believe in rights. at all. they literally see the first amendment as “hamstringing the government.” it’s not enough for the government to speak, the government has a obligation to take steps to protect us and if it cannot impose a prohibition of speech, then how is it supposed to do that?...listen to it yourself. it’s chilling.

everyone should speak and the reputation economy should sort this out.

we should be judged by the insight of our ideas, not the quality of our state sanctioned credential.

"Let Moscow burn, let all of Moscow burn": On the unbridled delight certain pro-war German social media commentators are wont to take in the deaths of Russian civilians by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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Interesting analysis by eugyppius.

The black, sulphurous fumes emanating from the Atlanticist, more-weapons-for-Ukraine NAFO corners of Twitter never fail to surprise me. We’re not talking here about the natural emotions one can only expect in warfare, because Germany is not a direct party to any armed conflict. It’s additionally remarkable because the bloodthirsty Germans writing this stuff are not fringe lunatics, but staunch supporters of mainstream politics. Many of them have EU flags in their bios, and when they are not dancing on the graves of their imagined enemies, they often find time to express their passion for all that is liberal, peaceful and democratic. You could be forgiven for wondering if the strong pacifist currents of postwar German culture haven’t bottled up some very dark energies, which since the Russian invasion of Ukraine have finally found a socially acceptable release.

Late-stage, forward-thinking liberalism has at least one further unexpectedly radicalising quality. This arises from its ‘popular sovereignty’ model of politics, and the concomitant tendency of committed liberals to elide the distinction between state actions on the one hand and the disposition of the people on the other. Western liberals, when contemplating illiberal enemies, can assume one of two attitudes towards the people of these nations. In lower-stakes conflicts, like those arising from neoconservative campaigns to spread democracy, it may be possible to cast the people as the helpless captives of their evil dictatorial leaders. In this case, they are mere victims who require liberation. In higher-stakes conflicts like that in Ukraine, however, it becomes impossible to disentangle the people from the state. Ordinary Russian civilians, because they have failed to protest the war and overthrow their leaders, are thus all assigned some degree of complicity in the Ukraine war. This makes their deaths less regrettable at least, and an occasion for celebration at most.

The long peace that has reigned in Europe since 1945 only further encourages this unbridled bloodlust. We have no recent experience of war to temper the violent fantasies of our politicians and their popular supporters...

US House Funding Bill Passes After Anti-Censorship, Anti-CBDC Measures Are Removed by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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A $1.2 trillion spending bill just rushed through the House of Representatives in the US has enabled allocation of funding to what would have been prohibited recipients/policies.

This includes earmarking money in support of censorship efforts, a US CBDC (central bank digital currency), and vaccine mandates, among other things.

In a series of posts on X, Representative Andrew Clyde singled out examples from the 1,000+ page document, which was published early on Thursday giving members of the House less than 24 hours to decide on how to vote.

Clyde was one of the Republicans who held no punches in slamming the bill as a result of backroom deals, saying that what he referred to as “the Swamp” (i.e., Washington) is about to bankroll some “catastrophic policies” with huge amounts of money.

The Hertz Meltdown Reveals Scale Of The EV Debacle by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed its ambition: to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs). Incredibly, this announcement comes as we are flooded with overwhelming evidence that EVs are a market loser.

CEO of Hertz Stephen Scherr has been booted out due to a vast purchase of an EV fleet that consumers didn’t even want to rent. The company has now been forced to sell them at a deep discount and in a market where consumers are not particularly interested.

I’m not knocking some uses for EVs. If you think of them as enclosed and souped up golf carts, you get the idea. They can be wonderful for certain urban environments so long as you don’t overuse them and have to get them repaired. You also have to be in a financial position to afford the higher costs all around, from financing to insurance to repairs and tires. And you have to be prepared to take a big loss on resale, if you can even manage to find a buyer.

if the United States truly switched over in a big way from gas to electric, we would face other disasters. The wear and tear on roads is much worse due to the sheer weight of the cars, which is 25 percent higher than gas cars on average. Many parking garages would have to be rebuilt with new reinforcements.

Then there is the strain on the grid. There is no way the industry could handle the demand. Brownouts and travel restrictions would be essential. All this would pave the way toward 15-minute cities.

Surprisingly honest presentation about AIPAC money influencing our elections on MSNBC by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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AIPAC set to spend $100 million on 2024 election.

Airlines should check pilot seats, Boeing says of report that shift led plane to plunge by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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I pity people who have to fly regularly for their jobs. Between Boing and sudden pilot incapacitation (not due to the vaccine, of course), it's like a crap shoot.

Smurf Scandal Update by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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I offer a brief Sunday evening post with updates on The Great Smurf Scandal from last week, wherein a 17 year-old school girl was scolded by three police officers for posting content to TikTok that appeared to support Alternative für Deutschland.

State security services are investigating the Stralsund police for intimidation and violating the girl’s freedom of expression! Oh no, that’s wrong, I read too quickly. What they’re actually investigating, is the “right-wing hate campaign” against the school and the local police. Important people have received “threatening phone calls and abusive emails” because of sensationalising reporting in the “populist right-wing media,” and that just can’t stand. Thank heavens we have such an overblown overfunded state media system to report on these urgent threats to our democratic society.

The girl, who is named Loretta, has now given an interview to Junge Freiheit. She says that the police first assured her that her TikTok post had broken no laws, before proceeding to lecture her on “incitement” and “opposition to the constitution.” They also objected that she had expressed “too much national pride” online, and they made her promise to stop posting content for her own good.

[Mid East Eye] - "British columnist Melanie Phillips faces pushback for saying YouTube shows ‘food markets’ in Gaza" by mzyps in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Then there's this tweet:

History of Terrorism

Here’s young Netanyahu with Yitzhak Shamir, who was not only the PM of Israel but also the head of a Zionist terrorist group known as Lehi or “Stern Gang.”

In 1948, Shamir assassinated the UN diplomat Count Bernadotte, who was sent to Palestine to mediate between Jews and Arabs.

From another tweet which includes a news clip:

Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte who personally saved 31,000 Jews from the Nazis was shot dead by Zionist terrorists in Jerusalem at point blank range in 1948 after writing a UN report based on the devastated Palestinian villages he saw.

The go-ahead for the murder came from future prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Yezernitsky.

Terrorists from their inception.

I don't think it's just the money from the Israel lobby fueling Western politicians' wholesale support of this terrorist state, Mossad-aligned Epstein obviously collected enough blackmail material on many or most of them to keep them compliant.

[Mid East Eye] - "British columnist Melanie Phillips faces pushback for saying YouTube shows ‘food markets’ in Gaza" by mzyps in WayOfTheBern

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Just happened on this tweet which contains a brief video clip that lays out the details of what the tweet itself says:

How can English "patriots" support Israel?

Don't they know that Zionist terrorists tried to kill Winston Churchill, blow up Parliament, and murdered British police and soldiers?

Netanyahu personally commemorated the King David Hotel bombing which killed 28 British citizens.

Our Terrorist Ally in Syria by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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And this isn't the first time IIRC. Didn't Bush Sr. do the same thing?

The German-American Strategic Depth Clown Show-Pepe Escobar by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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The thot plickens!!

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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They've made up their mind, don't confuse 'em with facts.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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For the bossy lecturing, as though you have something to teach us here when you're just another internet rube with an opinion.

EU to revise Agricultural Policy in response to [ massive ] farmers protests by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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Let's hope it's what the farmers need and they don't go back on it with some stealthy sleight-of-hand later on. The Western world is being taken over by shameless fascists.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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What an ass you are.

Sweden closing Nordsteam investigation a shocking coverup - investigator by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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At about 29:00 Max asks Erik about Sweden's neutrality and this was an interesting bit. He said that in the 1980s they went through something like a Swedish Russiagate with nonstop reporting on supposed incursions of Soviet subs into Swedish waters. As it turns out, there were no such incidents, but it had its effect: prior to this only about 25% of the population saw the Soviet Union as a threat but by the end this was up to 80% or more. From the way Erik describes it, the civil government of Sweden maintained the same attitude toward neutrality but the Swedish military had very close ties with the US. He said there is a theory that the 1986 murder of prime minister Olof Polme was because of his "aggressive" neutrality policy.

Sweden closing Nordsteam investigation a shocking coverup - investigator by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal interviews Swedish engineer Erik Andersson, who led the first independent investigation to the site of the Nordstream pipelines blast sites, on the Swedish government’s sudden closing of the investigation into the terror attack on the eve of joining NATO.

Andersson also addresses US meddling in Swedish politics, and the potential consequences of Stockholm surrendering its traditional neutrality to the anti-Russian alliance.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

When I'm looking at military numbers I kind of expect to find they've been compiled by, you know, military analysts. The first source provided from our new friend clearly is not a military analyst and I can't tell who compiled the second bit of data because they're not identified.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Only if you think all sources are equally credible and trustworthy. Not sure why you're beating this obviously dead horse - as I said, I trust what my sources are saying and it's a far cry from what you're claiming. So hold to your opinion, no one is asking you to change it, but quit trying to change mine because you won't.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's a matter of which sources you trust and we obviously trust different ones.

The German-American Strategic Depth Clown Show-Pepe Escobar by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Just, wow.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

while also strpngly pushing woke as mil priority and shoving out the trad pool of fighting forces.

This is the utterly insane part to me. Did no one realize this would be a bad idea while we're fighting a proxy war in Ukraine and lighting fires in multiple other places that boots on the ground may ultimately have to put out?

The people in charge have been sniffing their own effluvium for too long, it's addled their brains.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

but none of this explains how Russia would beat an adversary that has five times the military capacity.

Because I think your premise is bunk. But we'll see who's right in the event such a head-on confrontation comes to pass.

those countries would have to forego their trade relationships with NATO countries. Not going to happen

I don't agree that Russia would have to rely on other countries, and I certainly disagree that in the event it were necessary other countries would not come to their aid. Russia has more friends throughout the world than the West does, they are benefiting now from relationships established during the Soviet era throughout the global south. And in case you hadn't noticed, many countries in the "Rest of the World" are lining up to join BRICS; and while it's true all its members - including Russia and China - haven't closed the door on trading with the West, they are also setting up a system where they can engage in trade according to each member's own national interests without having to tolerate Western bullies telling them what they can and cannot do.

It makes no sense to escalate tensions. If Russia were to do that

They're not planning to, but they've said they will achieve the objectives they set out at the beginning of the war. They've also said they will not attack NATO countries UNLESS those countries attack them first. As for nukes, I think the greatest danger is from the US where you have utter morons talking about "limited nuclear war" being an option.

The non-Western world is watching what the West has tried to do to Russia because they realize it can and in some cases has already been done to them - the seizing of Russia's reserves, the attempt to destroy the Russian economy with sanctions, the 2014 coup that led to a civil war on its borders.

Sanctions are considered economic warfare and a violation of international law but as everyone knows, the West routinely violates international law in favor of the more pliable "rules-based order" - as one pundit put it, we make the rules, you follow our orders. So no, I don't think Russia will be isolated; I think they'd get lots of support if they ended up taking on the dreaded beast of Western hegemony. Actually, they've already done this by drawing and defending clear lines in the sand about their own survival and security interests.

I love it when Maria Zakharova trolls the West by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

“The entire United Kingdom is searching for missing Princess Kate Middleton. “So-and-so” has not appeared in public for more than 2 months.

In general, only Novichok and the “hand of Moscow” are quickly [found] in London. This takes 2-3 days. But everything that needs to be “not found” is searched for a long time.

I will give advice to the fooled British: if you want to find the princess, hire the roving investigators Maria Pevchikh, Hristo Grozeva and Bellingcat, who are located in Britain. What did they not find thousands of kilometers from Britain? It costs them nothing to find a royal person right under their noses. I think, judging by the current pace, they will manage it by Saturday. Maybe the Skripals will finally be discovered somewhere out there, next to Kate.”

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Don't know anything about the first two, like who are the people who make it up, who funds them, etc. because that's relevant and what you would be pointing out if I was throwing Russian sources out here. As for Wikipedia - LOL. But all that aside, plopping down some links and saying "you can easily search for that information" is pretty lame; you don't seem able to articulate your argument in your own words, your previous talking points notwithstanding. So I gotta tell ya, I'm having a difficult time taking you at all seriously.

One of my primary sources for military analysis is Col. Douglas Macgregor, retired US Army and a military historian. Part 3 of his 3-part discussion with Michael Vlahos, who has taught at the Military War College since the 80s, has been summarized here and includes links to summaries to Part 1 and Part 2. These discussions are from a year or so ago so they don't address Macron's proposal, but they do address what Gen. Petreus was talking up at the time. What follows is a small taste of what's at the link:

Obviously, we're not thinking intelligently about it or we would not even consider something as utterly crazy as the "coalition of the willing" - unless the coalition is close to a million men and consists of a very different composition from the forces we have today.

In Part 2 they discuss the strategic failures of NATO. This part is especially relevant to the current discussion:

Americans need to understand that there is no command structure with all the assets (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance or C4ISR), that is European, it's all American. Anything that happens militarily in Europe is of necessity American, because if you take that backbone away, no one can replace it. US dominance was so great that European militaries began to slough off the things that made them credible as militaries.

He gives what many, including me, consider a clear-eyed assessment of current US military power and it's not a pretty picture. The danger is that those who want to use our military all over the world have this unrealistic vision locked into our military strength in the mid-20th century which has no bearing to today's reality. I can think of few things stupider than underestimating your enemy while overestimating yourself, but that seems to be what we're doing, with our European and other allies tagging along behind like the compliant vassals they are.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well, do explain Mr. NATO Expert, exactly how "NATO will destroy Russia's military, if necessary". I'm not a military expert myself and can only assume - but correct me if I'm wrong! - that "capability" at a minimum entails manpower, weapons, ISR capabilities and logistics.

You seem to be privy to information I've not come across from credible sources (this rules out Western media) about the capacity for weapons production in the US and Europe and the number of combat troops of the NATO member states willing to go head-to-head with Russia. Recent statements indicate that this doesn't include the US, UK, Germany, Hungary or Slovakia and although the Polish Foreign Minister said yes, the Polish Prime Minister said absolutely not. The NATO member with the strongest military after the US is Turkey and I seriously doubt they'd contemplate going to war with Russia.

I await your further elucidation.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If wishes were horses, all men would ride.

You state the obvious when you talk about NATO unity against Russia, that's been clear for the past 2 decades and more and it's precisely the reason we're on the brink of WWIII - we made that, by turning what was supposed to be a military alliance for preserving peace into one that instigates instability and insecurity throughout the region beginning with the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Which is pretty ballsy when you think about it since we're an ocean away and won't be directly impacted by what happens in Europe's backyard.

But you're clearly delusional when you say NATO will destroy the Russian military - with what? They don't have the manpower or the materiel, as the French military studies revealed in the Marianne piece spell out. NATO could not accomplish this without the US, and the US has clearly said they will not put troops on the ground. Yes, this could change but the US military hasn't been able to meet its recruitment goals so it would require conscription in an election year. Which ain't gonna happen.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

French poodle confronting Russian bear.

Have to admit the little poodle is adorable with his Napoleon-style hat.

Macron's shambolic interview, cowers to Putin's warning by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Some highlights:

Macron apparently first floated the idea of sending French troops privately with French military officials in June 2023 when it became clear Ukraine's offensive was failing.

When he decided to announce it several things happened: his German and British allies weren't keen on it; the Americans were not prepared to assist; in an interview on the previous day Putin said any NATO troops entering Ukraine would be considered combatants and legitimate targets, whatever role they served there and that if the West has no red lines with Russia then Russia has no red lines with them.

I suspect yesterday there were all kinds of calls from Washington, probably the Pentagon, to France telling Macron to back off, if you go there by yourself you're on your own - these are guesses, but reasonable ones. So Macron had to change course, the idea of a presidential address had to be abandoned and we got this chaotic interview instead. That's my take on what happened. And after this I think it's far less likely that Western troops will enter Ukraine.

It's now clear that Russia is indeed getting approaches from the US to freeze the conflict, he all but confirmed it and he was scathing about it - "we're not going to freeze the conflict just because you're running out of ammunition." He also said straightforwardly that he didn't trust anybody in the West, and that the Western leaders proposing this freeze are actually more dangerous than the neocons who just want to continue the war because based on the past they're just trying to lure Russia into another Minsk 2 type trick that just buys time to rearm Ukraine and start the war all over again.

There was an interesting article today in The Economist, which is neocon central. It basically says Russia isn't the enemy, Putin is the enemy; so it's back to the old story about wanting regime change in Moscow.

They assume the oligarchs would be open to this, this is the assumption they've made for the last 10 years. Apparently back in 2014 when the first sanctions were suggested, Merkel was told by the BND, the German intelligence agency, that the oligarchs would tell Putin he either had to back down or they would arrange for him to go. Of course this didn't happen.

But even those who in the past were more sympathetic to good relations with the West are much less powerful now than they were; they've also been antagonized so they're much more likely to support Putin than 10 years ago.

Macron's statement about Trump - "I've been informed that he will not win in 2024" - this isn't delusional, it's sinister and it ought to be getting more attention than it is. France isn't part of the 5 Eyes but it is part of NATO and it does make you wonder what information he's getting from the US, I don't think even Macron would have said something like this unless he'd been given private assurances from someone.

An opinion poll in Le Monde that came out after Macron started making all these statements, with European Parliament elections coming, shows that Le Pen's party has increased its already substantial lead over Macron's party so all this talk about sending French troops to Ukraine has gone down very badly with the French public. Based on the reports we've seen from Marianne on the three studies done by the military on the Ukraine war, the French military look to be solidly opposed to the idea as well.

Our Terrorist Ally in Syria by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://archive.md/OpOIb

In fact, the American establishment’s routine, intentional misdirection by omission—or “misinformation,” if you like—about the SDF is emblematic of Washington’s strategic shortsightedness and the destabilizing effects of its continued military presence in Syria and elsewhere.

“SDF” is a euphemism. At its core is the Syrian element of a notorious, originally Marxist, U.S.-designated terrorist organization originating in Turkey called the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. For 40 years, the PKK has consistently promoted a violent, totalitarian, revolutionary mentality—albeit with some superficial ideological window-dressing for Western audiences...The PKK has engaged in terrorist attacks and clashes against Turkish security forces, as well as Turkish and Kurdish civilian targets primarily in Turkey—a NATO ally and home to half if not more of the world’s more than 30 million Kurds—but also in northern Syria, the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Europe, and elsewhere. Some 40,000 people reportedly have been killed since the PKK’s first attack in 1984.

Under the U.S. aegis, the PKK/SDF has expanded and consolidated its power and presence in vast swaths of northeastern Syria, despite several successful large-scale Turkish operations against it...By 2020, according to some estimates, the SDF had as many as 40–60,000 fighters, with 10–12,000 security service members and 30,000 police in areas under its control, working with what is reportedly a 900-man U.S. military contingent.

That this policy was implemented is remarkable given that Washington formally recognized the PKK as a terrorist group in the 1990s, a designation that persists to this day. How this happened provides a window into the way Washington typically works. It also reflects many of the policy pathologies—limited attention to ground truth in the area under consideration, and preference for immediate and sometimes dubious fixes over strategic considerations, often regardless of the impact on core American interests—that have characterized the U.S. foreign and security policy process, particularly since the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

This is an exceedingly rare and fascinating article in French magazine Marianne, who got access to "several confidential defense reports" from the French army on the situation in Ukraine by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Just finished reading this excellent report. What he does particularly well is to flesh out things like the Marianne report in the context of other things being said and done so you really get a broader picture of the situation in Ukraine.

The Antisemitism Industry doesn't speak for Jews. It speaks for western elites by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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A follow-up book called the Antisemitism Industry, an investigation into much the same group of people, is now overdue.

Glazer’s crime at the Oscars was to threaten the Antisemitism Industry’s stranglehold on the West’s narrative about Israel.

In Britain, the Antisemitism Industry calls them the “wrong kind of Jews” – Jews who care about all human suffering, not just Jewish suffering. Jews who refuse to let Israel commit crimes against the Palestinian people in their name. Jews who rightly described as a witch-hunt the smearing of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, including his Jewish supporters, as antisemites.

Unlike the Antisemitism Industry, Glazer has profound, universal things to say about the Holocaust and the human condition. He makes his living from tapping deeply into his humanity, insight and creativity, not wielding his power like a bludgeon to terrorise everyone else into submission.

There are plenty of Holocaust survivors who have spoken out against Israel and its treatment of the Palestinian people, including Finkelstein’s own mother and the late Hajo Meyer, the distinguished physicist who became one of Israel’s harshest critics.

Today, Meyer might be astonished to find that he would be banned from being a member of the British Labour party, and that the grounds on which he would be disqualified are antisemitism. Like most other major western political parties and organisations, Labour adopted a new definition of antisemitism that equates Jew hatred with trenchant of criticism of Israel.

The Antisemitism Industry doesn't speak for Jews. It speaks for western elites by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Many years ago, the Jewish US scholar Norman Finkelstein wrote a best seller that caused uproar among a group he exposed as the "Holocaust Industry": people who invariably had not been direct victims of the Holocaust, but nonetheless chose to exploit and profit from Jewish suffering.

Though treated as leaders of the Jewish community, they were not primarily interested in helping survivors of the Holocaust, or in stopping another Holocaust – the two things one might have assumed would be the highest priorities for anyone making the Holocaust central to their life. In fact, hardly any of the many millions the Holocaust Industry demanded from countries like Germany in reparations ever made it to Holocaust survivors, as Finkelstein documented in his book.

Orban Endangers Hungary’s Status as an Ally, U.S. Diplomat Says by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Short version: Orban doesn't act like we expect our vassals to act.

France all dressed up and nowhere to go - Indian Punchline by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Another excellent analysis by Bhadrakumar.

As it is, African states are changing the structure of grain imports due to the technical regulations introduced by the European Union as part of its green agenda and French farmers consequently face rising costs, and over and above that, there is now also the looming loss of regional market share to Russia.

In politico-military terms too, France has lost ground to Russia in the resource-rich Sahel region, its playpen traditionally. The fact of the matter is that the birds are coming to roost over France’s neo-colonial strategies in Africa, but Paris prefers to put the blame on Russia’s Wagner group which has moved in to fill the security vacuum in Sahel region, as anti-French forces have come to power in several countries at once — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, CAR.

...then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had proposed way back in 2008 a legally binding pan-European security treaty, which would develop a ‘new security architecture in Europe,’ involving the reshaping of existing, and creating new institutions and norms regulating security relations in Europe in a wider geopolitical space stretching east ‘from Vancouver to Vladivostok.’ But the US encouraged the Europeans to see the so-called ‘Medvedev Initiative’ as a trap to enfeeble NATO, the OSCE, the EU and other European bodies.

Michael Brenner: The West’s Reckoning? by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I can't either. These things are always unpredictable and especially now when the overall terrain is so different from what we've been accustomed to.

Macron looking ridiculous. NATO is getting weaker by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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Macron has managed to build a little mini-coalition - France, the Baltic States, Czech Republic, even Poland - that is, FM Sikorski supports it but PM Tusk says no way.

It's becoming not a coalition of the willing but of the insignificant. The Baltic States have tiny armies; Czech Republic hardly a huge military power. Sikorski doesn't speak for the Polish government it seems (and is an arch neocon, married to American arch-neocon Anne Applebaum).

We've been hearing stories about how much stronger NATO has become because of the Ukraine war but I think it's gotten weaker. European armies have been massively depleted. The chaotic and decayed state of European arms industry has been exposed in the most brutal way. And beyond that is the specter of Trump being re-elected.

Trump is talking about ending the Ukraine war in a day and calling out what he describes as free-loading by European partners in NATO. EU states are saying he intends to pull the US out of NATO but he's never said that. Without the Americans, the whole Ukraine enterprise is lost and they're worried they may be left hanging out to dry.

In essence, European hawks are pushing for more escalation with Russia but want the US to pay for it. The Europeans don't want to spend more because it creates a domestic polical problem; they've heavily invested in their welfare states and know European publics don't want to see cuts in that spending. If you're a European NATO member and have the US paying for everything so you can keep your NATO spending at .5 or 1%, that leaves 2% you can allocate to other programs.

And they worry that if they do increase spending to the point they can defend themselves, the US will say "you don't need us anymore so we can reduce our presence in Europe." Because they know that however much they spend on defense, they cannot match the Russians on their own. And if the Americans do pull back, Europe will have no choice but to come to some kind of understanding with the Russians, which is the one thing they don't want to do.

American spending on NATO isn't just arms and troops, the US has a massive presence in Europe, there's all these NGOs funded by the US. And they're very lucrative for the people who work on them; it's a very easy life, you write articles for journals, do all kinds of studies with pre-determined outcomes about how dangerous Russia is and earn a nice, big, comfortable salary. So large segments of the US political class benefit from the NATO grift.

On analysts saying Macron could achieve his goal by Ukraine inviting NATO forces to replace Ukrainian troops on the Belarus border or in auxiliary rear positions, to free those troops up to serve on the battle lines, this would be legal under international law but politically unwise. It would serve as confirmation of Putin's rationale for launching the SMO and would make the global majority even more sympathetic to Russia's point of view because whatever legal justification is given, they will rightly perceive it as an escalation by the West.

And the Russians could say it doesn't matter to us what role they're playing, these are NATO troops clearly there for a military purpose so they're a legitimate target. And how does the West respond, do they escalate into an actual shooting war with the Russians? How do they justify these moves when the body bags start returning to these countries?

The price of Macron doing this to distract from internal problems is that it's convincing even more people in France that he's a dangerous, reckless and irresponsible president. If you look at French polling and commentary in French media, even his former political allies are appalled.

Michael Brenner: The West’s Reckoning? by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree. But I think it's because there's been no reckoning, they haven't had to pay a price but there's no guarantee that state of affairs will continue indefinitely. They're getting away with ignoring the voice of the people for now but that won't stop a critical mass of right- and left-populist opposition from developing and I think we're seeing signs of that across the West.

More and more they're having to drop the facade of representing anything that remotely resembes democracy - of, by and for the people: the lawfare in the US and attempt to silence dissent, especially against Israel's genocide and US complicity; the astoundingly racist, fearmongering of Sunak on George Galloway's election, not to mention the appalling treatment of MP Diane Abbott during a session of Parliament; German attempts to ban the political party, AfD; elections in Portugal that increased the right-leaning Chega party's seats from 12 in 2022 to 48 now and the obvious intention of the center-left and center-right parties to form a coalition government thereby ignoring what a plurality of voters obviously wanted. Meanwhile, the West keeps digging itself further into a hole economically; we'll all pay the price for that but I don't think (or at least hope not) these asshats who have brought us to to this point will come out of it unscathed.

French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There was also the Russian hit on a facility in Ukraine housing something like 60 French "mercenaries" and the French ambassador to Moscow being summoned to the Kremlin to explain their presence there.

French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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Micron's irritation are not the losses in Ukraine but Russia obtaining clout in France's colonial backyard being CFA controlled western Africa. France doesn't have uranium in it's soil yet gets it abundantly from it's "former" colony Niger to name a factor. There's also Mali and Burkina Faso. If these 3 would prove successful with China's economic might that would prevent EU economic strangulation and Russia's military (through Wagner) support like with CAR more significant colonies like Ivory Coast and Senegal could pursue the same path. Micron's hope was to up the ante significantly so Russia would need to pour more resources into the Ukraine theater at the cost of theaters elsewhere.

Posted by: xor | Mar 12 2024 18:27 utc | 32

French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I read the French documents. They detail an even worse situation than the English translation.

Posted by: Liberator

French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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From MOA:

The French president Macron has recently pushed for an engagement of foreign troops in Ukraine. The idea was immediately rejected by every country that would be able to send a reasonable number.

The question is why Macron suddenly came out with this.

A series of recent reports from the French defense establishment might have caused his irritation.

The French magazine Marianne got access to "several confidential defense reports" from the French army on the situation in Ukraine.

French Defense Reports Acknowledge Ukraine Is Done With by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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@mmfa: Ben Shapiro on Medicare and Social Security: "No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem." by Maniak in WayOfTheBern

[–]penelopepnortney 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Heather P @aeroladyny

Coming from a guy who’s just 40, and doesn’t know what real work is. Let him talk to men and women who work, are closing in on 65-66, and do some kind of physical labor. Then send Ben out for a week to do one of those jobs.


Meacham (proud Vermin) @MeachamDr

Coming from a guy who’s never worked an honest day in his entire adult life


Lovely Dead @lovelydedinside

Ben Shapiro's net worth is $50,000,000. He will never need to "retire." The rest of us Middle Class, Common Folk will need to actually collect Social Security at retirement.

Speaking of which, Millionaires/Billionaires are allowed to collect Social Security.


Mgbeke ndi Abia @Loveangelvibes

opinions from millionaires who’s job is to sit and talk on retirement should be ignored

Judge Napolitano w/ Col. Douglas Macgregor: Europe Crumbling, Middle East Exploding by Maniak in WayOfTheBern

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1:29 On Nuland's resignation, Macgregor weighs in on the side of those who think she was pushed out; that her departure signals the readiness of the administration to quietly disengage with Ukraine and pivot to China, notwithstanding Biden's statement about not walking away from Ukraine in his SOTU speech.

We all know we're going to walk away, we have no choice, we don't have the military power to confront the Russians in Ukraine, we never did. Russia is now the supreme military power in Europe.

6:35 On Biden's statement that "there are no American soldiers of war in Ukraine." I think it probably means there are no American soldiers organized into fighting formations currently on the ground in Ukraine.

I think he's right that we're not going to send any fighting formations and contrary to what Macron and others in Europe have said, they're not going to send any either.

We don't have anything to send. We have no developed infrastructure for logistics and sustainment. We have no effective Command and Control structure that can bring together a coalition and employ it effectively against the Russians. The Russians have all those things and they're ready to fight, we aren't.

9:03 On leaked audio of German generals talking about Taurus missiles to Ukraine, and then Macron talking about sending NATO troops to Ukraine, whether Europe is in a state of panic.

I think they are in a state of panic but we're talking about the globalist elites currently governing western Europe. They have followed us unquestioningly and have suddenly realized that we're not going any further and are looking for ways to get out of it. Ukraine is never going to be a member of NATO and no one is going to go to war with the Russians.

A friend of mine in the French army says repeatedly that the only thing the French army is prepared to do is go on safari in North Africa. And the rest of the armies in Europe are boutique forces, designed for everything except a serious war with a professional and competent adversary like the Russians.

The level of professionalism in the German army has fallen off precipitously. I don't know how the conversation between the German generals was acquired but it shouldn't have been acquired at all, this kind of discussion shouldn't have been conducted on a communication system that could easily be hacked and monitored. And if you listen to the discussion, it's amateurish, there's no appreciation for the gravity of the situation. What happens if these Taurus missiles are given to the Ukrainians? Which means put into the hands of probably US, German, British-aligned officers, soldiers and technicians and then launched against targets in Russia acquired by the CIA and provided to the Ukrainians. We risk a serious war because we're now attacking Russian territory, Russian cities, Russian infrastructure, Russian soldiers and civilians.

12:17 Putin has made it clear that if you do these things Berlin could be on the receiving end of similar weapons. It's a very dangerous red line to cross. There's nothing in our inventory that the Russians don't also have, the days when we enjoyed a monopoly on precision strikes are over.

15:40 On whether Russia is afraid of NATO? There's no evidence the Russians fear NATO though they do respect American military capabilities especially with regard to precision strikes and they worry about the possibility we might use a nuclear weapon. They've made clear they won't use a nuke unless we attack them and I think Biden has tried to backtrack and say a similar thing about not using them against the Russians. But I think everyone is on edge about it. My great fear has always been that we'd threaten their use if we're forced into an ignominious withdrawal.

16:48 On the NYT piece about the CIA bases in Ukraine: Obviously the Russians have known about them from the beginning, we're the only ones who didn't know because the government doesn't tell us these things. They knew about the bio labs as well where there were sinister experiments underway trying to find, I'm told, bioweapons that would attack Slavic people in Eastern Europe.

But yes, the fact that this story ran in the NYT is another sign we're getting ready to pull out. It will be quiet, with no announcements, we'll simply leave.

The Europeans know that, it's why they're panicking. They fear their electorate and a giant red wave of nationalist organizations taking over. And I think they will because people are finally standing up and saying we have to be concerned about the future of our own country, we can't permanently harness ourselves to the US which is dangerous.

I remember in the 1970s Chancellor Helmut Schmidt being uncomfortable with things we wanted to do because he thought we were "cowboys". Compared to now, we were remarkably stable and balanced then; now it's amateur hour and I think everyone's figured that out.

19:05

On Israel: The key assumption on the part of Netanyahu is that whatever they do, we'll support them, period, and it's true. He knows he wields more political influence on the Hill and in the WH than Biden does.

I think the larger question is for the people who live in the region, what are those governments going to do. I think that after Ramadan, which ends the 9th or 10th of April, we may see a new coalition of powers willing to do something.

I think we're going to see something we haven't seen in the region for a long time. We've been accustomed to dealing with non-state actors and they'll continue to play a role but I think we'll see state actors getting involved.

Netanyahu will go into Rafah and against Hezbollah, and he wants to do that while he has control of us because he'll need us if he gets into a fight with Hezbollah.

As these things occur, you're going to see a change in the peninsular Arabs, a change among the Turks. And the Iranians, who I think desperately want to stay out of this, will feel compelled to act in some sort of alignment with Hezbollah because they're not going to stand by and watch it be destroyed.

Then you have the problem that Erdogan must deal with: his population is enraged and want to become involved to stop the slaughter, what are they going to do when things fall apart in Egypt and Jordan, which they will. I can't say this for certain but I see these things as coalescing into some sort of arrangement that will be directed at the Israelis.

The question then is what will we do, do we allow ourselves to get dragged into this? You have a lot of people with an itchy trigger finger when it comes to Iran, and many who would be equally aggressive toward the Turks. So I think the possibility of a wider regional war is quite real.

29:37 On whether US troops will be involved in the defense of Israel or its offensive endeavors: If Israel goes after Hezbollah, and I think they will, we'll have strike packages from the Air Force and Navy flying against Hezbollah. What we'll see is a wider war and as people like John Bolton have been hankering after for years, a war with Iran. If that happens, all bets are off, anything is possible then.

Ukraine is manufacturing and controlling its drone boats from civilian apartment buildings in Odessa by jerryk in WayOfTheBern

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This very detailed (though speculative) analysis by Armchair Warlord agrees with yours.

How do you destroy an attack network?

Notice that I didn't say military unit. A military unit has assigned equipment, a defined area of operations, and clear lines of communication. Attack networks - generally but not always terroristic in nature - are far more amorphous, relying largely on a web of key people (leaders, technicians, financiers, "fixers," smugglers, system operators and expendable dupes) to create custom weaponry and deploy them in an asymmetric manner for maximum effects.

Here I am of course referring to the Ukrainian GUR's "Black Sea Attack Network," a NATO-advised effort to harass Russian Crimea and disrupt Russian control of the Black Sea, which has entirely replaced Ukraine's sunken or captured navy on the battlefield. This effort has several prongs: an aerial drone campaign, a sea drone campaign, a commando effort, and operations that could easily be categorized as pure terrorism such as the October 2022 VBIED [vehicle-borne improvised explosive device] attack on the Kerch Bridge. You will immediately notice that all of these lines of effort require very little in the way of infrastructure and logistics - you can build bombs and crude drones in a garage and guide them out of a living room.

Much more at the link.

Russiagate; Hillary considered predictable. Brennan "Cooked The Intelligence" by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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The Duran discusses the Feb. 15th Racket News article by Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag (full article only available to paid subscribers) as it relates to Hunter Biden's current Congressional testimony.

2:15

It's now clear that what Bill Barr and John Durham were doing by focusing on the FBI was protecting the CIA. Brennan, then head of the CIA, seems to have been deeply implicated in everything to do with the Russiagate affair. It's not just Taibbi et al., there are pieces of information coming from all kinds of different sources.

Brennan created Russiagate (they later point out that Clinton and Robbie Mook created it, Brennan stepped in to save the narrative because there was so much information pouring in that pointed in the opposite direction). Brennan said he had "sources" that weren't really sources and he was suppressing information that contradicted the thesis that the Clinton campaign wanted, that the Russians were backing Trump.

He was relying heavily on this supposed spy the CIA had in the Kremlin, Smolenkov, who it turns out wasn't nearly as high-powered as we were led to believe (more on Smolenkov in this 2019 article by Scott Ritter).

Brennan not only "found" the information but he suppressed everyone in the intelligence community, including the CIA, who were challenging the accuracy of his information. The CIA knew that the Russians believed Clinton, who was known to them, would work better with them than Trump, who they considered volatile and unpredictable. Brennan made sure this information was suppressed and kept away from the media.

11:20

Brennan was also leaning on the other Five Eyes intelligence agencies to help construct this case. Which brings up all kinds of complicated questions, especially about what was going on in London at that time. Remember the Trump aide, George Papadopoulos; we've never gotten to the bottom of that because Gina Haspell, CIA director during Trump's time, prevented any real investigation.

We still don't know the full story about Professor Mifsud, the mysterious professor who met Papadopoulos in a hotel in London [there's even questions about whether this person exists], the meeting between Papadopoulos and Downer, the Australian diplomat, in a wine bar in Kensington.

The reason we know what we do know is that before 2018 the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Devin Nunes at a time when the Republicans controlled the House, carried out its own investigations. They were able to build up quite a significant dossier and apparently they provided a report. But then the Democrats gained control of the House in the 2018 midterms and the new chair of that committee, Adam Schiff, made sure the investigation was stopped and all its findings kept under lock and key. I suspect that with Kevin McCarthy gone and with Mike Johnson now in charge, people in the House are now circulating the information.

14:05

Which brings us to what's happening today with Hunter Biden...he's a disastrous witness, he's essentially confirming all the facts but they really can't be refuted, i.e., that he worked for Burisma. But on the advice of his lawyers or political handlers, what he's alleging is Russiagate 3.0, that he was trying to save Ukraine from Russia and Russian disinformation; IOW, the Russians are the real bad guys.

It's a lawyer's ploy that no one takes seriously because its purpose is to take up time and give talking points to the media. The whole story about Wise prosecuting the longtime former FBI informant with Russian connections is a red herring to take attention from the real witnesses, Tony Bobulinski and Devon Archer.

This is an exceedingly rare and fascinating article in French magazine Marianne, who got access to "several confidential defense reports" from the French army on the situation in Ukraine by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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The situation looks exceedingly bleak for Ukraine, which might in part explain Macron's recent declarations around sending troops to Ukraine. I translated the important parts of the article:

"A Ukrainian military victory now seems impossible" The reports Marianne consulted write that Ukraine's counter-offensive "gradually bogged down in mud and blood and did not result in any strategic gain" and that its planning, conceived by Kiev and Western general staffs, turned out to be "disastrous"

The reports also highlight "the inadequacy of the training of Ukrainian soldiers and officers": due to a lack of officers and a significant number of veterans, these "Year II soldiers" from Ukraine - often trained for "no more than three weeks" - were launched into an assault on a Russian fortification line that proved impregnable.

The reports also highlight that contrary to Ukraine "the Russians have managed their reserve troops well, to ensure operational endurance." According to this document, Moscow reinforces its units before they are completely worn out, mixes recruits with experienced troops, ensures regular rest periods in the rear... and "always had a coherent reserve force to manage unforeseen events."

"To date, the Ukrainian general staff does not have a critical mass of land forces capable of inter-arms maneuver at the corps level capable of challenging their Russian counterparts to break through its defensive line," concludes this confidential defense report, according to which "the gravest error of analysis and judgment would be to continue to seek exclusively military solutions to stop the hostilities". A French officer summarizes: "It is clear, given the forces present, that Ukraine cannot win this war militarily."

"Zelensky would need 35,000 men per month, he's not recruiting half of that, while Putin draws from a pool of 30,000 volunteers per month," observes a military officer returned from Kiev. In terms of equipment, the balance is just as unbalanced: the failed offensive of 2023 "tactically destroyed" half of Kiev's 12 combat brigades.

It is therefore clear that no Ukrainian offensive can be launched this year. "The West can supply 3D printers to manufacture drones or loitering munitions, but can never print men," notes this report.

What the Russians will do with this tactical success remains to be seen. Will they continue in the current mode of "nibbling and slowly shaking" the entire front line, or will they seek to "break through in depth"? "The terrain behind Avdiivka allows it," signals this recent document, also warning that Western sources tend to "underestimate" the Russians, themselves adept at the practice of "Maskirovka," "appearing weak when strong."

LAST MEN IN ALEPPO: Al Qaeda Presented as ‘White Helmets’ for the Annual Terrorist ‘Oscar’ Nomination by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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No, that is not a quote from a terrorist group member in Syria. It is a statement taken from the Facebook page of Hasan Kattan, the Assistant Director of the latest White Helmet promotional blockbuster, Last Men in Aleppo. Shortly after this Facebook post was exposed, Kattan scrambled to remove this and all other incriminating images from his page or made them private/invisible to public view. The full testimonial attributed to this Al Qaeda militant, written by Kattan in 2014, is even more gushingly poetic

Kattan was responsible for the AMC iconic footage of Omran Daqneesh. The notorious dishevelled and dusty image of Omran almost changed the course of the war in Syria in favour of the US Coalition of proxy terror as the UN teetered on the brink of No Fly Zones and further faux-humanitarian intervention on the pretext of rescuing more Omrans from the “brutality of the Syrian regime” and its allies, principally Russia.

Only after the liberation of all districts of East Aleppo from its terrorist stranglehold, in December 2016, did we discover the truth behind the Omran chronicle that had been so skilfully manipulated by the AMC, White Helmets and assorted NATO-aligned media outlets worldwide. Kattan had produced a lie packaged as an ‘incontrovertible truth’ in order to, yet again, swing public opinion against the Syrian government, Syrian Arab Army and allies. It almost succeeded until the family of Omran Daqneesh spoke out, in 2017, against this weaponisation of children which has been a common theme in the information war being waged against Syria by the colonial media in the West and Gulf States.

Arnaud Bertrand: This is hands-down the best explanation I've heard on why sanctions on Russia backfired, and why they were never going to succeed in the first place. by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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By economist James K. Galbraith, professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Best quote of his explanation: "This is a situation in which the sanctions were imposed by one important sector of the world economy which then cut itself off from resources that it needs - and that's particularly true of Western Europe - in return for cutting Russia off from various things that Russia doesn't really need."

Second best quote: "If you go back to the period before the introduction of the sanctions [...] the Russian economy was very heavily colonized by Western firms. That was true in automobiles, it was true in aircrafts, it was true in everything from fast food restaurants to big box stores. Western firms were present all throughout the Russian economy.

A great many of them [...] either chose to exit Russia or were pressured to exit Russia after early 2022. So on what terms did they leave? Well, they were required, if they were leaving permanently, to sell their capital equipment, their factories and so forth, to let's say a Russian business which would get a loan from Russian banks or maybe have other sources of financing, at a very favorable price for the Russians.

So effectively a lot of capital wealth, which was partly owned by the West, has been transferred to Russian ownership. And you now have an economy which is moving forward and has the advantage compared to Europe of relatively low resource costs because Russia is a great producer of resources, oil and gas and fertilizer and food stuff and so forth. And so while the Europeans are paying maybe twice in Germany what they were paying for energy, the Russians are not, they're paying perhaps less than they were paying before the war. So again I characterize the effect of the sanctions, in fact as being in certain respects a gift to the Russian economy. And this is, I think, quite different from what the authors of the sanctions expected. [...]

And the essence of the situation is this would not have happened without the sanctions. You could have had the war, and it would have gone pretty much as it has gone. But the Russian government in 2022 was in no position to force the exit of Western firms. It didn't want to, wouldn't have done that. It was in no position to force its oligarchs to choose between Russia and the West. It didn't wish to do that. These choices were imposed by the West, and the results were actually, in many respects, favorable to the long-term independent development of the Russian Federation's economy."

George Galloway interviews Rania Khalek, journalist and host at Break Through News - @BTnewsroom by penelopepnortney in WayOfTheBern

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Abt 5:55:

They're willing to completely destroy the rules-based order in the name of protecting Israel...they've created a mockery of international humanitarian law and any pretense of the freedom and democracy they claim to represent. And they've killed these international institutions.

They've also killed the UN in so many ways. Look at how helpless all these international institutions have proven to be in the face of genocide. If ever there was a reason for some sort of humanitarian intervention to prevent a bunch of genocidal sociopaths from carrying out their plan, it's now. And every legal measure has proven to be a failure in the short term at least.

And I think what that demonstrates is yes, the end of the rules-based order, but also the importance of resistance in the region because that is all the Palestinians have right now. All that's standing between them and complete and utter annihilation is the various armed militia movements across the region, from Yemen to Lebanon to the groups that are fighting for their own survival in Gaza.

This was news to me: according to Galloway, Indonesia has had a hospital ship off the coast of Gaza for 5 months but has been unable to land and bring aid to the people.

About 10:20:

I think countries (like China and Russia) are acting out of fear of Israel and the US, they can't guarantee that if they send ships with aid to Gaza the Israelis won't fire on them. I think that speaks to the rogue nature of both Israel and the US at this point in history and it is terrifying. People around the world should be scared of these countries, they're completely illegitimate at this point.

And I think it demonstrates the need for US empire to end because this violence is the fallout of that empire. The fact that Israel is willing to take so much down with it: either we get to stay a settler colony or we will take everyone down with us, that's kind of the mentality. And I think the US has that mentality, but about the whole world.

On VBNMW Democrats:

I don't know how to respond to them because what's worse than genocide? And Joe Biden has proven that Democrats are not actually a lesser evil, they're part of the same disgusting, imperialist, parasitic system that creates genocides like what we're seeing in Gaza.

What comes in November? I think we're going to see Joe Biden lose...at this point people are so traumatized from seeing dead babies on their social media feeds and they blame Joe Biden for that...Arab-Muslim voters matter and people who don't like genocide matter and they're not going to vote for him.

But he doesn't seem to care...he's placing his support for genocide in Gaza over his own ability to secure a second term. And when that happens, they're going to blame Arabs, they're going to blame Muslims and they're going to blame the Left. And probably Putin and Xi Jinping, like they always do.

If ever we've seen a moment in history when it is time to build something outside of this corrupt, dictatorial two-party system that puts a gun to our head every four years and forces us to vote for different flavors of genocide, it is now. And I'm seeing so much organizing happening on the ground in the US to do just that and that is what I'm encouraged and inspired by.

A Bad Idea Whose Time, Evidently, Has Come: Stealing Russian Assets by RandomCollection in WayOfTheBern

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America has been in decline for decades in many ways but the Biden administration will go down in history as the one that put it on steroids.

‘Novorossiya’ rising from ashes like phoenix - Indian Punchline by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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The Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting on Wednesday in Moscow with top officials of economic ministries and leaders of the southern and Azov sea regions — ‘Novorossiya’ historically — signifies a major initiative in the Kremlin’s geo-strategy, with global ramifications, as the conflict in Ukraine meanders toward a new phase.

What lends poignancy to the occasion at once is that Putin is beating the swords into ploughshares at a juncture when the US and its allies sounding bugles. Indeed, one way of looking at Wednesday’s meeting is that it is a riposte to the fanciful conjecture 10 days earlier by French President Emmanuel Macron that European armies might march into Ukraine to push back Russians.

Putin signalled something profound — that war cries to defeat Russia is already time past.

There is much unfinished business still. A big concentration of Russian military facing Kharkov is ominous. Odessa is also in Russian sights.

Reacting to the West’s thickening plot in Moldova, Transnistria has sought protection from Moscow. There is a big population of ethnic Russians in that region. The response from the Kremlin has been positive and swift. Shades of Donbass!

The crux of the matter, in geopolitical terms, is that Novorossiya is rising from the ashes like the phoenix and becoming, as Catherine the Great envisaged, Russia’s most important all-weather gateway to the world market connecting its vast untold mineral resources and huge agricultural potential.

Britain’s £3bn flagship aircraft carrier 'catches fire' while docked in Scotland by chakokat in WayOfTheBern

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Maybe brownies are the Scottish version of gremlins....