Ursula von der Leyen (Bild: shutterstock.com/Alexandros Michailidis)
EU-Kommissionspräsidentin Ursula von der Leyen hat es zwar geschafft, sich eine –offiziell gar nicht mögliche- Nominierung für eine zweite Amtszeit zu sichern; doch nun holt sie ihre unrühmliche Vergangenheit schon wieder ein. Die Hypothek, die sie sich durch ihren dubiosen Corona-Impfdeal mit ihrem Freund, Pfizer-Chef Albert Bourla und ihre Weigerung, trotz zahlloser Aufforderungen, endlich dessen Hintergründe offenzulegen, eingehandelt, hat, wird sie weiterhin verfolgen. Dass sie allein das für eine Weiterführung ihres Amtes disqualifiziert, interessiert die Europäische Volkspartei (EVP), die sie zur Spitzenkandidatin für die Europawahl gemacht hat, nicht, wohl aber einige EU-Mitgliedstaaten. Polen, Ungarn und wahrscheinlich bald Rumänien haben sich nämlich der Klage gegen von der Leyen angeschlossen, die der belgische Lobbyist Frédéric Baldan vor fast einem Jahr in Lüttich.
Die drei Staaten sind ihrerseits von Pfizer verklagt worden, weil sie sich weigerten, den Verpflichtungen nachzukommen, die ihnen durch von der Leyens Knebelvertrag mit Pfizer aufgebürdet wurden. Allerdings gestalten die Ermittlungen sich offenbar schwierig. Wie die französische Zeitung „France Soir“ berichtet, wird die Arbeit des belgischen Untersuchungsrichters ausgerechnet durch die Europäische Staatsanwaltschaft (EPPO) behindert, die bereits im Oktober 2022 ihrerseits Ermittlungen gegen von der Leyen eingeleitet hatte.
“Wahrheit und die Gerechtigkeit schreiten unaufhaltsam voran”
Es ist ein in der Geschichte der EU beispielloser Vorgang, dass eine amtierende Kommissionspräsidentin von mehreren Mitgliedstaten verklagt wird und auch noch die Europäische Staatsanwaltschaft gegen sie ermittelt. Die meisten Medien ignorieren diesen Skandal jedoch geflissentlich. Da dabei das Impfthema im Mittelpunkt steht, das die Corona-Medien fürchten wie der Teufel das Weihwasser, tun sie einfach so, als sei nichts gewesen und verkünden lieber von der Leyens Nominierung für eine zweite Amtszeit.
Florian Philippot, der Chef der Partei „Les Patriotes“, die sich der Klage ebenfalls angeschlossen hatte, schrieb: „Die Wahrheit und die Gerechtigkeit schreiten unaufhaltsam voran! Ursula und alle Protagonisten werden sich ihrer Verantwortung nicht entziehen können!“ Bisher ist dies von der Leyen jedoch in all ihren Affären gelungen. Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass sie diesmal den Bogen tatsächlich überspannt hat und ihre verhängnisvolle Karriere nun endlich an ihr überfälliges Ende kommt. (TPL)
Disrupting the Russian presidential election and creating an atmosphere of weakness around Putin is precisely what the U.S. intelligence agency would seek to engender.
In the days leading to the Russian presidential election that concluded on Sunday, a network of three Russian paramilitary organizations working under the auspices of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, or GUR, launched a series of attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation.
The purpose of the attacks was clear — to disrupt the three-day Russian presidential election by creating an atmosphere of weakness and impotence around President Vladimir Putin designed to undermine his authority, legitimacy and appeal at the voting booth.
The operation was months in the planning, and involved the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), the Freedom of Russian Legion (LSR), and the Siberia Battalion. All three of these organizations are controlled by the GUR, whose spokesman announced the attacks.
Left unsaid is the degree to which the C.I.A. was involved in what amounts to an invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation by forces operating under the umbrella of what is openly acknowledged to be a proxy war between the United States and its NATO allies against Russia.
While Ukraine maintains the attacks by the RDK, LSR, and Siberia Battalion are the actions of “patriotic Russians” opposed to Putin, the involvement of the GUR in organizing, training, equipping, and directing these forces makes their attack on Russian soil a direct extension of the proxy war between Russia and the West.
Given the extensive involvement of the C.I.A. in the work of the GUR, it is highly unlikely that an action of this scope and scale could have been executed without the knowledge of the C.I.A. and in the attacks, including its goals and objectives.
Indeed, the presence of high-end U.S. military equipment, including M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), in the order of battle in the attack by Russian insurgent forces points to a direct U.S. role, as does the political nature of the mission of election disruption, which has been a long-term objective of the C.I.A. in Russia stretching back decades.
2014
The C.I.A.’s relationship with the GUR is well-established, dating back to 2014, according to The Washington Post, when the C.I.A. worked with the GUR to establish a network of bases along the Ukrainian-Russian border from which to conduct intelligence operations against Russia, including missions that involved operations on Russian soil.
The C.I.A. intercepted Russian communications, captured Russian drones for follow-on technical exploitation, and oversaw the recruitment and operation of spy rings operating on Russian soil.
In the lead up to Russia’s initiation of the Special Military Operation (SMO) against Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the C.I.A. expanded its relationship with the GUR to include specialized training provided by members of the Ground Division of the C.I.A.’s Special Activities Group, responsible for covert paramilitary operations.
[C.I.A. first began secret operations using fascists against Moscow in 1948 with the CARTEL and later AERODYNAMIC programs. See: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine.]
The training was focused on unconventional and guerrilla warfare skills that would help facilitate the creation and sustainment of anti-Russian insurgencies carried out by “stay behind” teams operating on any Ukrainian territory that was occupied by Russian forces.
After the SMO began, ethnic Russians who had served since 2014 within the ranks of the neo-Nazi, Ukrainian nationalist, paramilitary organization known as the Azov Regiment organized themselves into a separate organization known as the Russian Volunteer Corps, or RDK.
The RDK modeled itself after the Russian Liberation Army, an entity organized, trained, and equipped by the Nazi Germans during World War Two which was comprised of Russian prisoners of war. Russians today often refer to the RDK members as “Vlassovites,” after Russian General Andrei Vlasov, who was captured by the Germans and later defected to their cause.
Vlasov recruited Russian prisoners of war into what was known as the Russian Liberation Army, which eventually consisted of two divisions comprising some 30,000 troops. Most of Vlasov’s “army” were either killed in combat, or taken prisoner by the Soviet Union, where they were treated as traitors and punished accordingly (the enlisted sentenced to lengthy terms in the Gulag, and the leaders hung.) The RDK was able to attract several hundred former Azov fighters and new recruits into its ranks.
A second ethnic Russian military unit, created in the aftermath of the SMO, is comprised primarily of Russian military defectors and prisoners of war. Known as the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), it consists of several hundred soldiers organized into two battalions. The LSR operates as part of the International Legion of the Ukrainian Territorial Army.
However, it is controlled by the GUR, according to GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov, as opposed to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The third ethnic Russian military unit operating with Ukraine is the so-called Siberian Battalion, composed of ethnic Russians and non-Russian ethnicities from the Siberian territories of the Russian Federation.
The members of this formation are volunteers from Russian Siberia who are opposed to Putin’s government. Like the LSR, the Siberian Battalion operated as a GUR-controlled part of the Ukrainian Territorial Army and is said to consist of around 300 men, according to a report in Euronews.
The incursion over the weekend by the GUR-controlled, anti-Putin, Russian forces is not the first instance of its kind. In March and April 2023, several small cross-border attacks were carried out by forces affiliated with the Russian Volunteer Corps RDK.
More telling was a larger attack made on May 22, 2023. The timing of this attack, which lasted less than a day, seemed to coincide with the fall of the hotly contested city of to the Russian private military company Wagner.
The capture of Bakhmut by Wagner signaled the beginning of a rapid deterioration in relations between the head of the Wagner Group, the one-time Putin loyalist, insider Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the Russian military leadership, in particular Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff General Valeri Gerasimov.
On June 23, 2023, Prigozhin led thousands of his Wagner fighters in a rebellion which saw him occupy the Russian headquarters of the SMO in Rostov-on-Don, and march on Moscow. While the rebellion was quashed within 24 hours, many of the Wagner fighters said that they had participated only because they were told they would be deploying on to Russian soil, where Wagner was prohibited by law from operating, to defend against further incursions from the RDK.
Information that emerged after Prigozhin’s abortive rebellion showed that the Wagner leader had been in frequent contact with the Ukrainian GUR in the months leading up to his insurrection, and that the RDK attacks were part of a coordinated effort orchestrated by the GUR, designed to weaken and perhaps bring down Putin’s government.
The Biden administration acknowledged having detailed intelligence beforehand about Prigozhin’s revolt, and yet did not provide any warning to the Russian government, suggesting that the C.I.A. was at a minimum cognizant of the GUR operation and tacitly supported it.
The presence of U.S. weapons, including Humvee vehicles, in the possession of the RDK fighters on the weekend likewise hinted at a broader U.S. involvement in their training and equipping, involvement which, given the prohibition on the deployment of U.S. military forces in a training capacity on Ukrainian soil since the initiation of the SMO, pointed to the C.I.A.’s Ground Division as the facilitating unit.
The Russian government has assessed that the total strength of the GUR-controlled forces that attacked Russia in the leadup to the presidential election completed on Sunday numbered around 2,500 men, supported by at least 35 tanks and scores of armored vehicles, including a significant number of U.S.-supplied M-2 Bradley IFVs.
The scope and scale of the military operation, which included helicopter-borne forces inserted behind Russian lines, is such that it could not have been accomplished without the knowledge of the C.I.A. Moreover, the tactics and equipment used (helicopter raids, M-2 Bradley vehicles) strongly suggest a more direct role by the C.I.A. in both the planning and training of the mission and the troops involved.
The C.I.A.’s Ground Division is composed of veterans of the C.I.A.’s secret wars in both Syria and Afghanistan, where the C.I.A. trained secret armies to carry out their own secret wars in support of C.I.A. objectives.
The discrediting of Putin’s government with an eye to his removal from power has been a goal of the C.I.A. since 2005, when the C.I.A., together with British intelligence, began actively working to create viable political opposition movements inside Russia.
While these efforts have largely failed (the recent death in a Russian prison of Alexei Navalny, believed to have been a creation of the C.I.A., underscores the scope and scale of this failure), the C.I.A.’s covert political warriors in the Political Action Group of the Special Activities Center continue to try to undermine Putin through various means.
Given the Russian government’s stated goal of producing a large turnout in the election as a way to certify Putin’s legitimacy, disrupting voter turnout by creating instability and a lack of confidence would be precisely the kind of cause and effect relationship the C.I.A. would seek to engender.
The fact that the RDK leadership openly bragged that their ongoing attacks were a) designed to disrupt the Russian presidential election and b) were planned months before the attack, is a strong indicator that, given the intimate nature of the C.I.A.-GUR relationship, that the C.I.A. was at a minimum knowledgeable of, and most likely a facilitator, of the GUR-led attacks using Ukrainian-controlled Russian insurgents.
To understand the gravity that surrounds the possibility — indeed, probability — that the C.I.A. was involved, however peripherally, in an attack on Russian soil designed to disrupt a Russian presidential election, one only need reflect on how the United States would react if Russian intelligence services collaborated with Mexican drug cartels to create a well-armed insurgent army composed of Mexican-Americans who attacked U.S. territory from across the U.S.-Mexican border in order to influence the outcome of November’s U.S. presidential election.
The United States would view it as an act of war and respond accordingly.
Manifest Danger of Nuclear Conflagration
The Biden administration is overseeing a Ukrainian policy that is rapidly collapsing around it.
America’s NATO allies, concerned by the lack of leadership from the Biden administration when it comes to Ukraine, are threatening to dispatch troops to Ukraine to bolster a flagging Ukrainian military. The Russian government has warned that any such move would be construed as an attack on Russia, and potentially create the conditions for a general nuclear war between Russia and the collective West.
Now, amid such a tense environment, it appears the C.I.A. has not only green-lighted an actual invasion of the Russian Federation, but more than likely was involved in its planning, preparation and execution.
Never in the history of the nuclear era has such danger of nuclear war been so manifest.
That the American people have allowed their government to create the conditions where foreign governments can determine their fate and the C.I.A. can carry out a secret war which could trigger a nuclear conflict, eviscerates the notion of democracy.
Government of the people, by the people, and for the people seems like a distant dream. In its stead the future of America appears to be in the hands of a rogue intelligence agency that long ago abandoned any pretense of accountability and operating under the rule of law.
*Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
Liebling des Linksstaats: WDR-Systemtröte Georg Restle (Foto:ScreenshotYoutube)
Das ultralinke Agitprop-Magazin „Monitor“ des “Westdeutschen Rundfunks” unter Ägide von Antifa-Sympathisant Georg Restle hat ein weiteres Beispiel für den einfältigen Pseudojournalismus gegeben, der seit jeher sein Markenzeichen ist: In der letzten Sendung war ein Bericht aus dem sächsischen Wurzen Hauptthema. Das „Monitor“-Team kam dort genau richtig an, um ganz „zufällig“ der Verteilung von Flyern für eine der zahllosen Gegen-Rechts- (sprich: Anti-AfD)-Demos beizuwohnen, die die Ampel-Regierung und ihre Medien seit über zwei Monaten mit den von ihnen mit Geld zugesch(m)issenen zivilgesellschaftlichen NGO’s bundesweit orchestrieren. In Wurzen wolle jeder Dritte die AfD wählen, die “in Sachsen als gesichert rechtsextrem“ gelte, „informierte“ der Bericht. „Kein leichtes Umfeld für Heike Krause und Thomas Keller, aber die bundesweiten Proteste haben ihnen neue Kraft gegeben“, so das weitere Geschwafel des Propagandastücks.
Hier wurde der absurde Eindruck vermittelt, bei den beiden genannten Gegen-Rechts-Aktivisten handele es sich um todesmutige Widerstandskämpfer an vorderster Front, die in Nazi-Deutschland ihr Leben riskieren. Was hingegen nicht erwähnt wurde, inzwischen allerdings auch schon nicht weiter überrascht, war wieder einmal der Umstand, dass es sich bei Keller um einen aktiven Politiker der Grünen handelt. Solche Fälle von vermeintlich „zufällig“ vorbeikommenden Passanten und anderen Interviewpartnern, bei denen es sich dann immer um weltanschaulich zuverlässige Linke handelt, sind längst Legion. Trotz aller Kritik und allem Hohn über dieses völlig lächerliche Gebaren fahren ARD und ZDF jedoch unerbittlich damit fort.
Und so geht es immer weiter, seit Jahr und Tag, natürlich ohne entsprechenden redaktionellen Hinweis und ohne, dass die Zuschauer je erfahren würden, wer ihnen da als “Experte” für dieses und jenes vorgesetzt wird. Umgekehrt stellte sich sich im Nachhinein noch nie oder wenn, dann eher unbeabsichtigt heraus, dass auf diese Weise auch Politiker von CDU oder derFDP befragt wurden (von der AfD ganz zu schweigen). Es handelt sich dabei um primitivste Manipulation, mit der den arglosen Zwangsgebührenzahlern linke Sichtweisen untergejubelt werden soll. Die desaströsen Umfrageergebnisse der Ampel-Parteien zeigen jedoch, dass auch diese Methoden ihren Zweck längst nicht mehr erfüllen und das Ganze nur noch eine zermürbende Peinlichkeit ist, mit der der ÖRR sich um sein letztes bisschen Glaubwürdigkeit bringt. Restles “Monitor” ist diesbezüglich inzwischen geradezu die Karikatur eines politischen Magazins.
– Sitzungseröffnung (ca. 13:00 Uhr) – Eidesleistung des Polizeibeauftragten des Bundes (ca. 13:00 Uhr) – Regierungserklärung zum Europäischen Rat (ca. 13:05 Uhr) – Befragung der Bundesregierung (ca. 15:15 Uhr) – Fragestunde (ca. 16:55 Uhr)
Gysi fordert mehr Diplomatie gegenüber Russland | Markus Lanz vom 19. März 2024
Nach er erneuten Scheinwahl Wladimir Putins zum russischen Präsidenten sagt Gregor Gysi bei Markus Lanz zur deutschen Russlandpolitik: „Wir haben schon alle Sanktionen gegen Russland beschlossen. Wir können gar nicht mehr drohen.“ Der ehemalige Vorsitzende der Linksfraktion im Bundestag weist auf die Bedeutung der sogenannten BRICS-Staaten im Verhältnis zu Russland hin. China, Indien, Südafrika und Brasilien hätten aktuell viel größeren Einfluss auf Putin als westliche Regierungen. Die Bundesregierung müsse sich darum bemühen, dass vor allem China und Indien eine härtere Haltung gegenüber Russland einnähmen. Zudem dürfe der Westen nicht „fast nur noch militärisch“ denken. Gysi fordert, Diplomatie müsse beim russischen Angriffskrieg in der Ukraine eine größere Rolle spielen. Den gesamten Talk findet ihr hier: https://kurz.zdf.de/UPuT3z/ Weitere Gäste in der Sendung: Sabine Rennefanz, Journalistin Die „Spiegel“-Kolumnistin hinterfragt die außen- und sicherheitspolitische Haltung der Linken. Und sie analysiert die schwachen Umfragewerte der Linkspartei. Sabine Fischer, Russland-Expertin Die Politologin der Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik beschreibt die imperialistischen Phantasien Putins und legt dar, wie repressiv sein Regime gegen die eigene Bevölkerung vorgeht. Florian Neuhann, Journalist Der Korrespondent des Brüsseler ZDF-Büros blickt auf die Aufgaben, Strukturen und Wehrfähigkeit der NATO. „Ich glaube, dass wir verletzlicher sind als sich viele vorstellen können“, sagt er.
199 Podcast – Was tun, Herr General? Der frühere NATO-General und Generalleutnant a.D. Erhard Bühler
-In dieser Folge sprechen Tim Deisinger und der frühere Nato-General Erhard Bühler zunächst über das aktuelle Kriegsgeschehen. Darunter sind mehrere Berichte, die es zuletzt zu eingeschlagenen, ukrainischen Drohnen in Russland gab. Thema ist aber auch eine Aussage des ukrainischen Präsidenten Wolodymyr Selenskyj, wonach die Ukraine mittlerweile Ziele in mehr als 1.000 Kilometern Entfernung treffen könne. Bei den russischen Angriffen gibt es laut Bühler keine grundsätzlichen Veränderungen. Zu den Kämpfen am Boden sagt der Ex-General, es gebe keine wesentlichen Verschiebungen der Frontlinie, aber heftige Kämpfe. -Ausführlich geht es außerdem um den früheren russischen Präsidenten Dmitri Medwedew. Er ist derzeit stellvertretender Chef des Nationalen Sicherheitsrats in Russland. Deisinger und Bühler sprechen über seine Aussagen, die er regelmäßig im Messaging-Dienst Telegram veröffentlicht und seine möglichen Motive dahinter. Bühler geht außerdem auf Medwedews Werdegang ein. Er sagt, man müsse ihn ernst nehmen. Medwedew interpretiere sehr präzise und auf den Punkt gebracht, was der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin manchmal sehr unpräzise und andeutungsweise formuliere. Bühler bewertet außerdem Medwedews Reaktion auf eine von Selenskyj vorgestellte Friedensformel. Er sagt, dabei handele es sich um die Ausbuchstabierung der von Putin selbst benannten Ziele. Medwedew fungiere als Putin-Erklärer, wisse aber auch genau was er tue. Bühler hält es außerdem für ausgeschlossen, dass im Putin-Regime ein Amtsträger so weitreichende Aussagen treffen dürfe und Putin damit überrasche. -Deisinger und Bühler schauen aber auch auf die Diskussion im Deutschen Bundestag in der vergangenen Woche. Es ging erneut um mögliche Taurus-Lieferungen. Zudem fragte SPD-Fraktionschef Rolf Mützenich, ob es nicht an der Zeit sei, darüber nachzudenken, wie man den Krieg einfrieren und dann beenden könne. Bühler sieht nicht, dass sich dieser Krieg so beenden lasse. Und es geht um den Schlagabtausch zwischen Kanzler Olaf Scholz und Norbert Röttgen sowie den mutmaßlichen Geheimnisverrat aus einer Sitzung des Verteidigungsausschusses heraus. Zum Schluss beantwortet Bühler noch Hörerfragen.
De-dollarization is urgent as an ethical and humanitarian imperative against the barbaric invasions of the West, Mauricio Metri writes.
On February 13, 2024, the United States Senate approved a U.S. $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. According to IMF Data, this package represents a higher value than the international reserves of 165 countries. In other words, out of 194 countries with reserves recorded in dollars, only 29 have volumes more significant than the value of the U.S. Senate package. This fact gives an idea of the extravagance of this contribution.
This news, passed on almost ordinarily, reveals two important facts. First, one mentions the extraordinary and disproportionate financing and spending capacity of the United States, used, among other objectives, for the increasing armament of its allies on strategic boards, the promotion of proxy conflicts in regions marked by geopolitical fractures, and, from a longer perspective, the execution of an uninterrupted chronology of wars and military interventions since 1991. Furthermore, this financing and spending capacity also support a broad military structure of global reach with approximately 750 military bases outside its national territory [1].
Regarding this disproportionate financing and spending capacity of the United States, below are some brief observations discussed in depth on other occasions [2]. The position of the U.S. dollar in the international monetary hierarchy and how the world economy began to function after the Cold War have allowed The United States to impose the burden of its violence on the world, mainly due to the role that its public debt plays in the global economic game. It is a system of extortion because, while the world accumulates, with no apparent limit, U.S. Treasuries, Washington carries out a broad agenda of wars and military actions. The current level of indebtedness of the United States federal government is only comparable to that of periods marked by significant war efforts since its federal public debt, measured as a percentage of GDP, has already reached, for example, levels similar to those of the Second World War.
These advantages occur because the absorption of securities issued by the United States has become a necessary policy for other states to act in the exchange markets in defense of their currencies and, thus, protect, at the limit, their autonomy over economic policy instruments. Everything is quite the same for private agents, as having U.S. Treasuries in their portfolios is imperative to deal with the high risks of an intrinsically unstable system. This situation is the core of the United States’ monetary power, much more strategic than the power of financial sanctions itself, whose bases are also the dollar’s position in the international system and widely used by Washington against the targets of its foreign policy.
The second fact related to the news about an aid package for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel concerns the objectives of the United States. The priority is not exactly Kyiv, Taipei, or Tel Aviv per se but the role they play for Washington in the regions where they are. The extraordinary contribution of resources reveals, in practice, the White House’s priority targets, namely Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran. These have long been present in different formulations of the National Security Strategy and Washington’s foreign policy documents.
The central point is that the North Atlantic, particularly the United States, has already been surpassed by Russia in developing strategic weapons, especially hypersonic ones. This new development represented a revolution in the art of war, and an essential part of the West has not yet understood it completely. On the other hand, from an economic point of view, China is already the largest economy in the world, corresponding, in 2023, to 18.82% of world GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP), while the United States, 15.42%. To make matters worse for the West, for more than two decades, Beijing and Moscow have been developing and deepening strategic partnerships in several sensitive fields of international relations: weapons, technology, energy, currency, finance, etc.
On the Southwest Asian board, the scenario is also not very favorable to the United States. Iran, its main regional adversary, has assumed, over the last decade, a key position in articulating a series of forces of resistance to U.S. policy on this board. Furthermore, Iran has been able to resist heavy financial sanctions and develop an essential capacity for strategic initiative. Moreover, Tehran’s relations with Beijing and Moscow are advancing significantly. Three recent events set the tone for the transformations. In July 2023, fifteen years after its first request, Iran officially joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. A month later, in August 2023, its invitation to join the BRICS was formalized, effectively occurring at the beginning of 2024. To make the Southwest Asian region even more complex, Saudi Arabia followed Iran, joining the BRICS. Associated with this, diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran, severed since 2016, were resumed in March 2023 and officially formalized on September 6, 2023, a month before the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza. To Washington’s concern, Beijing mediated this process.
Given this general picture, the United States’ aid package to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel indicates Washington’s willingness to continue betting on the growing instability of three regions: Europe, the South China Sea, and Southwest Asia. Ultimately, it aims to redesign these tables by reconfiguring force correlations, trying to recreate fissures between essential countries in these regions. To do this, it uses increasing militarization, the promotion of rivalries, and the promotion and financing of wars. One must pay attention because, in this game, the United States has an exclusive weapon: a disproportionate financing and spending capacity due to the international monetary hierarchy and how the world economy has started functioning in recent decades.
In the case of the South China Sea, we can observe the consolidation of a critical limit due to the level reached by the militarization process of Taiwan due to the United States pressure, which also continues to strengthen its two base belts military blocking China’s exit to the seas. Ben Norton, editor of the Geopolitical Economy Report, described it: “Washington approved the dangerous sale of the Link 16 communications system to Taiwan. This approval is the final link of what the U.S. military calls a transnational coalition kill chain against China and signals a commitment to kinetic war.” Faced with initiatives like these and the Chinese response capacity, countries in the region react contradictory, warming old fissures and antagonisms that would otherwise be frozen.
However, what has been happening in Europe and, above all, in the Gaza Strip is even more surprising. In the first case, the United States insists on prolonging the conflict in Ukraine to widen the gap between the West and Russia, ultimately restoring the cordon sanitaire between Berlin and Moscow, even if, to do so, they impose high economic costs on Europe. This situation, moreover, explains the apparent contradiction in persisting in a context marked by an already defeated Ukraine with no chance against the mighty Russian army. However, Washington does not seek exactly a victory on the battlefield; instead, it aims to defend the principle of NATO since its creation a long time ago: to keep Russia out of Europe, the U.S. in, and Germany crouched down. From this point of view, the war in Ukraine has served the purposes of the White House.
The United States appears to follow a similar logic in the Gaza Strip. To achieve broader geopolitical objectives, they are also betting on the escalation of conflicts in the region through the support and financing of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, who have been resisting for a long time a heavily armed state structured in an apartheid, colonial, and racist regime. What escaped Washington was that, due to the scale of violence, severe questioning arose in the field of international ethics about the actions of the Israel Defense Forces. In the face of Israeli inhumanity, the North Atlantic authorities have begun to hesitate. However, it is already too late. For the rest of the world, if the West, to which Israel links, calls itself a “civilization” and places the Palestinians in the camp of “barbarism,” this is what the so-called “civilization” has been doing to “barbarism”: the bombing and daily execution of an unarmed and hungry civilian population, made up mostly of women and children; the use of hunger and disease as weapons of war to exterminate Palestinians, by blocking food and medicine; the destruction of Gaza infrastructure, including the deliberate bombing of hospitals and schools; and the murder of those who work to help the victims (Palestinian doctors and employees of international organizations) and journalists who dare to reveal Israel’s war crimes to the world.
In this scenario of unimaginable horrors, the impression remains that Washington is betting on a possible escalation against Israel in the region, as is the case with the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the consequences of which have the potential to fuel old disagreements between different actors in the region, such as, for example, between Saudi Arabia and Iran. For no other reason, the USA and England did not miss the opportunity to bomb territories in Yemen, dominated by the Houthis, quickly. This context explains, moreover, the care with which Iran moves in the face of such a situation despite having been the target of terrorist attacks. Iran seeks to avoid an escalation against Israel, which possesses nuclear weapons, while at the same time not failing to coordinate and directly support different forces in the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
To sum up, it is not difficult to see that the energy that feeds the United States machine of violence in different parts of the world (as such as the militarization in the South China Sea, the hot war in Ukraine, or even the genocide in Gaza) comes from a leading source of supply: the disproportionate financing and spending capacity of the United States, derived from the position of its currency in the global monetary hierarchy and the way the international economic system has been in operation since the end of the Cold War. In this way, the world, by continuing to absorb, without apparent limit, American public debt bonds, finances the violence perpetrated by Washington, however contradictory that may seem.
Therefore, the de-dollarization of the international system has become a “silver bullet” to dismantle an essential part of this war machine without military confrontation. For this reason, de-dollarization is urgent not only as a first-order geopolitical objective for the so-called Global South but also as an ethical and humanitarian imperative against the barbaric invasions of the West.
Ma dernière interview en langue française accordée à Piero San Giorgio en Suisse met à l’épingle les nombreuses failles civilisationnelles qui minent l’establishment occidental et français en particulier. La sélection négative des « élites » dont sont issus le président Macron et ses équipes successives avait déjà été longuement examinée, tout comme leurs maîtres professeurs universitaires en sciences politiques, philosophie et lettres qui dressent cette classe politique française – chaque nouvelle génération étant plus arriérée psychiquement que celle qui la précédait : Dr Anatoly Livry, « « Français, préparez-vous à être massacrés par les Russes ! » ou le véritable message des vœux 2024 de Macron », Strategika, Paris, le 28 février 2024, https://strategika.fr/2024/02/27/francais-preparez-vous-a-etre-massacres-par-les-russes-ou-le-veritable-message-des-voeux-2024-de-macron En effet, ce que l’on élève en France, c’est une population de plus en plus coupée de ses racines, voire haïssant le peuple originel de France – ces Français auxquels elle ressemble de moins en moins. C’est en raison de cette sélection négative aussi que des troupeaux d’électeurs écervelés portent à leur tête des gouvernants hors sol, soucieux non plus d’une quelconque France mais de ce « Léviathan européen » duquel ils veulent prendre les rênes pour mieux le démolir au profit d’autres monstres encore plus puissants. Des citoyens de leur pays, ils n’en ont que faire. Voilà pourquoi les Macron et les autres créatures qui entourent leur Gauleiter parisien pousseront les Français dans une guerre contre la puissance russe, au prétexte de « sauver » une Ukraine que la plupart d’entre eux est incapable de situer sur la carte européenne. Or, pour un vrai homme d’État – ou pour quiconque a la prétention de l’être –, toute russophobie est inconséquence. La sélection de ces parrains de l’Élysée révèle un grave problème anthropologique, car, de facto, ils accaparent le pouvoir en trouvant des accords avec d’autres mafieux en vue de piller et de racketter la population. Une fois leur patrie asséchée, ils partiront plus loin vampiriser d’autres nations. Ces parasites par nature, détestant la culture authentiquement européenne, constituent la plèbe la plus crasse, mus par les instincts destructeurs de la caste la plus basse des chandâlas. Ces « élites » ne jouissent véritablement que quand est réduite en cendres une splendeur de leur civilisation de jadis : elles massacrent leur langue, leur école artistique, leur architecture et devant ces anéantissements, elles n’éprouvent que plaisir pervers. Mon interview s’intéresse de cette sélection du chandâla par d’autres chandâlas, laquelle n’apportera que souffrance à tout citoyen francophone d’Europe ou d’Amérique : « « Français, préparez-vous » : Anatoly Livry nous parle de la mort de Navalny et de la guerre qui vient », le 28 février 2024,
Entretien entre Anatoly Livry et Piero San Giorgio :
« Proposition de loi visant à renforcer la réponse pénale contre les infractions à caractère raciste, antisémite ou discriminatoire ». Voilà l’intitulé d’une loi, votée en première lecture par l’Assemblée nationale et dont tous les médias et tous les politiciens devraient parler. Il s’agit d’une nouvelle loi scélérate, destinée à museler toujours plus la liberté d’expression, dont les implications sont cauchemardesques. Nous reproduisons ici le fil Twitter de Xavier Van Lierde, journaliste à Radio Courtoisie, qui décrypte l’incroyable mécanisme liberticide derrière cette loi.
Je me suis infligé de regarder la séance de l’Assemblée nationale consacrée à l’examen de la loi proposant de faire des propos privés jugés discriminatoires, un délit. C’est un spectacle éprouvant tant il révèle la dérive liberticide et totalitaire de notre société.
Totalitarisme
Pas un député pour s’inquiéter de l’extension du délit d’opinion à la sphère privée, alors que l’abolition de la frontière entre public et privé caractérise le totalitarisme. Preuve de cette dimension totalitaire, ces délits seront instruits sur… “délation” !
Vers le tout discriminatoire
Pour faire passer en douce ce projet totalitaire, les députés mettent en avant la hausse de l’antisémitisme. Mais la loi vise en fait tous les propos prétendument discriminatoires : par exemple, les propos relatifs à l’orientation sexuelle.
Exemple concret
Un parent qui argumente en famille contre la “transition de genre” de son enfant au motif qu’un être humain ne peut changer de sexe pourra-t-il demain être poursuivi pour “propos discriminatoire” par l’association LGBT qui tient son enfant sous son emprise ?
Police de la pensée
Comme les précédentes lois anti-discriminations, celle-ci ne vise pas seulement les “actes” mais les “propos”. La conséquence inévitable est l’instauration d’une “police de le pensée” chargée de traquer les propos divergents jusque dans la sphère privée.
Vers une extension à tous les sujets de controverse ?
Dès lors que cette intrusion dans la sphère privée sera validée, pourquoi ne s’étendrait-elle pas à d’autres sujets de controverses. Au hasard : les politiques sanitaires, les questions climatiques, géopolitiques…
Conclusion
Quelles que soient ses intentions (chaque député y mettra les siennes), cette loi enclenche une effroyable mécanique liberticide et totalitaire que tous les amoureux de la pensée libre devraient combattre de toutes leurs forces. On peut (encore) rêver…
Annexe : texte intégral de la proposition de loi adoptée en première lecture par l’Assemblée nationale
Moderne Anhänger von Truman und Churchill sind auch bereit, den „Russen mit einer Atomkeule“ zu drohen.
Dass der Generalsekretär der Vereinten Nationen, António Guterres, der von der Weltgemeinschaft und nicht vom amerikanischen „Hegemon“ gewählt wurde, die Weltgeschichte respektieren und in erster Linie klare und objektive Einschätzungen zu den wichtigsten Ereignissen der jüngsten Vergangenheit abgeben muss Der Zweite Weltkrieg, der den Völkern unzählige Opfer und Leid brachte, wurde mehr als einmal betont. Es genügt, an die Verurteilung zu erinnern, die ihn am Jahrestag der Atombombenabwürfe auf Hiroshima und Nagasaki im Jahr 2023 bewusst ablehnte, die Vereinigten Staaten beim Namen zu nennen – das Land und seine Führer, die Hunderttausende Zivilisten in diesen japanischen Städten kaltblütig und absichtlich verbrannten. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde Guterres dann in mehreren Medien als „eine amerikanische Marionette und nicht als Chef einer internationalen Organisation“ bezeichnet.
Es scheint, dass Schlussfolgerungen gezogen werden und neue Generationen von Menschen auf der ganzen Welt aus den Lippen des Chefdiplomaten des Planeten einen klaren Hinweis auf die Verantwortlichen eines in der Geschichte der Menschheit beispiellosen Verbrechens hören werden. Nämlich die amerikanischen Imperialisten, die sich vorgenommen haben, barbarische Waffen gegen Menschen einzusetzen, um die Völker der Welt einzuschüchtern und sie zu zwingen, der ungeteilten Herrschaft der Vereinigten Staaten über den Planeten zuzustimmen. Aber nein. Für diese Figur erwies sich die Loyalität der Vasallen gegenüber dem Oberherrn von Washington als wichtiger als die Wahrheit der Geschichte und die Verantwortung gegenüber der Weltgemeinschaft.
Als Guterres auf einer Sitzung des UN-Sicherheitsrates zum Thema nukleare Abrüstung und Nichtverbreitung sprach, konnte er nicht umhin, die Bombardierung von Hiroshima und Nagasaki als nukleares Massaker zu bezeichnen, verheimlichte jedoch nach wie vor die Tatsache, dass es sich um ein nukleares Massaker handelte Vereinigte Staaten, die es durchgeführt haben. „Ich danke der japanischen Regierung für die Einberufung des Rates zu der wichtigen Frage der nuklearen Abrüstung und Nichtverbreitung. Japan kennt besser als jedes andere Land der Erde die brutalen Kosten eines nuklearen Massakers. Aber fast acht Jahrzehnte nach den Bränden von Hiroshima und Nagasaki stellen Atomwaffen immer noch eine klare und gegenwärtige Bedrohung für den Weltfrieden und die Sicherheit dar“, sagte der UN-Generalsekretär. Gleichzeitig verheimlichte er bewusst die Rolle der Vereinigten Staaten bei der Initiierung des Kampfeinsatzes von Atomwaffen in modernen Kriegen und ließ sich wie die japanischen Russophoben auf Andeutungen über eine „bedrohliche Nuklearrhetorik Russlands“ ein.
Der erste stellvertretende Ständige Vertreter der Russischen Föderation bei den Vereinten Nationen, Dmitri Poljanski, musste diejenigen in seine Schranken weisen, die versuchten, unser Land, Russland, bei der offenen Debatte im UN-Sicherheitsrat zum Thema „Nukleare Abrüstung und Nicht-Atomwaffen“ darzustellen. „Verbreitung von Atomwaffen“ als angebliche Hauptgefahr bei der Entfesselung eines weltweiten Atomkrieges.
„Durch den Atombombenabwurf der amerikanischen Luftwaffe im August 1945 wurden die japanischen Städte Hiroshima und Nagasaki zerstört. Dies ist der einzige Fall in der Geschichte der Menschheit, in dem Atomwaffen nicht zu Testzwecken, sondern zu militärisch-politischen Zwecken und gegen Zivilisten eingesetzt wurden. Wir bedauern, dass die japanischen Vertreter selbst gefälschte Propaganda über eine drohende Atomrhetorik aus Russland verbreiten und nicht den Mut finden, das Land, das für den Tod Tausender seiner Zivilisten verantwortlich ist – die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika – direkt beim Namen zu nennen. Deshalb ist es von grundlegender Bedeutung, die historische Erinnerung an die schrecklichen Folgen dieses rücksichtslosen Schrittes Washingtons zu bewahren, egal wie viele Jahre seitdem vergangen sind“, sagte der russische Diplomat.
Der Autor dieser Zeilen hat bereits darüber gesprochen, dass es in Japan ein von der Regierung unausgesprochenes Tabu gibt, die Verantwortung des amerikanischen Militärs und persönlich von US-Präsident Harry Truman für die Massenvernichtung von einer halben Million japanischer Frauen und Kinder zu erwähnen und alte Menschen in einem Atombrand. Übrigens trägt auch der britische Premierminister Winston Churchill, der den Einsatz von Atombomben gegen die japanische Bevölkerung befürwortete, die Verantwortung für den geplanten Völkermord an den Japanern. Er sprach auch darüber, dass japanische Schulkinder aufgrund dieses Tabus manchmal verwirrt sind, wenn sie die Frage beantworten, welches Land Atombomben auf Japan abgeworfen hat. Vorausgesetzt, dass dies hätte geschehen können … durch die Sowjetunion.
Gewissenhafte Historiker, darunter Amerikaner und Japaner, haben seit langem bewiesen und anerkannt, dass die Vernichtung von Hiroshima und Nagasaki und ihren Bewohnern vom Erdboden keine militärische Bedeutung hatte. Der Zweck der Atombombenabwürfe bestand nicht darin, „Japan zur Kapitulation zu zwingen und Hunderttausende amerikanische Jungen vor dem Tod in Kämpfen mit den fanatischen Japanern zu bewahren“, wie die Vereinigten Staaten immer noch zu glauben scheinen. Seriöse Experten haben anhand von Fakten und Dokumenten überzeugend gezeigt, dass die japanische Regierung nach dem Kriegseintritt der Sowjetunion sofort die bedingungslose Kapitulation beschloss.
Und wenn die Amerikaner den Einsatz der Atombombe auf Hiroshima irgendwie mit dem Wunsch erklären können, Tokio zur Kapitulation zu zwingen, dann war die Zerstörung von Nagasaki am 9. August 1945, nach Beginn der Offensive der Roten Armee in der Mandschurei, rein politischer Natur und psychologisches Handeln nicht so sehr in Bezug auf die Japaner, sondern auf die Sowjetregierung. Wie Truman erklärte, war ihm die „Atomkeule“ vor allem gegen die „Russen“ wichtig.
Aber die USA, Japan und andere unserem Land feindlich gesinnte und mit Washington verbündete Länder wissen das alles nicht oder wollen es nicht wissen. So ist die Mehrheit der Amerikaner (60 %), darunter auch die jüngere Generation, davon überzeugt, dass der Einsatz von Atombomben gegen die Japaner gerechtfertigt war, da er die Kriegsdauer und die militärischen Verluste verkürzte. Und in Japan sind, wie bereits erwähnt, 14 % der Befragten den Amerikanern für die nukleare Verbrennung von Hiroshima und Nagasaki geradezu dankbar. Dies geschieht unter dem Einfluss der gezielten Propaganda, dass es angeblich Atombomben und die Angst vor einer Konfrontation mit den USA waren, die Josef Stalin zwangen, auf die symbolische Landung der sowjetischen Truppen auf Hokkaido zu verzichten, die angeblich die „Yamato-Nation“ vor dem Schicksal bewahrte eines geteilten Koreas.
Abschließend stellen wir fest, wie wichtig die aktive Beteiligung russischer Regierungsbehörden und -abteilungen ist, um den Versuchen unserer Feinde entgegenzuwirken, den Vereinigten Staaten und ihren Verbündeten die Verantwortung für den Einsatz von Atomwaffen zu entziehen und die Russische Föderation fälschlicherweise und heimtückisch als die Russische Föderation darzustellen Quelle des weltweiten Atomkonflikts.
„Aktuelle amerikanische Politiker zeigen nicht nur weiterhin eine unverantwortliche Haltung gegenüber Fragen der nuklearen Sicherheit, sondern haben mit ihren Versuchen, ihre Vorstellung von der „richtigen“ Weltordnung durchzusetzen, tatsächlich gewöhnliche Japaner gezwungen, ihre Geschichte aufzugeben: sogar während Zeremonien in.“ „Zu Ehren der Opfer der Bombenanschläge haben die japanischen Behörden lange Zeit versäumt, die unheilvolle Rolle der Vereinigten Staaten in der Tragödie von Hiroshima und Nagasaki zu erwähnen“, heißt es in einer Erklärung des russischen Auslandsgeheimdienstes. Der Sekretär des russischen Sicherheitsrats, Nikolai Patruschew, warf Japan auch vor, sich bei den Vereinigten Staaten einzuschmeicheln, weil die Japaner Angst haben, die Verantwortung Washingtons für den Abwurf von Atombomben auf Hiroshima und Nagasaki zu erwähnen, manchmal aber auch die Schuld Russlands an diesen Tragödien der Welt erwähnen Zweiter Krieg.
Die in diesen Tagen vor den Vereinten Nationen gehaltene Präsentation zu diesem Thema sollte ein weiterer Grund dafür sein, breiten Widerstand gegen Versuche zu entfachen, die Politik und Strategie Russlands in den Augen der Weltgemeinschaft zu verzerren und zu diskreditieren, die darauf abzielen, die Pläne des „kollektiven Westens“ zu durchkreuzen Die Welt in eine globale Atomkatastrophe stürzen.
Although the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy was surely one of the most famous events of the twentieth century, its sixtieth anniversary passed a few months ago with relatively little attention, probably overshadowed by the looming defeat of Ukraine in its war with Russia and also the enormous civilian casualties following the sudden outbreak of the Israel/Gaza conflict. But many individuals of an older generation probably remembered that tragic date, and I think that one of them may have been Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.
Born in 1954, Sachs had just turned nine years old a couple of weeks before the events in Dallas threw our entire nation into mourning. In recent months he has frequently emphasized his great admiration for our slain leader, whose speeches and public statements seemed to offer hope for world peace, a possibility soon tragically lost.
Hamiltonu2019s Curse: …Thomas J. DilorenzoBest Price: $3.92Buy New $8.25(as of 05:55 UTC — Details)I suspect that much like myself, over the decades Sachs had always dismissed and ignored the conspiratorial theories of the JFK assassination that were so popular during the 1960s and 1970s then gradually faded away during the more optimistic 1980s. But my eventual discovery of various other major historical anomalies finally led me to begin exploring the facts of the JFK assassination a dozen years ago. Perhaps a very similar process over the last couple of years has now led Sachs’ thinking to move in the same direction, propelled by his shock at discovering official cover-ups on entirely different issues.
Until just a few months ago, I doubt there were many American academics more solidly situated in the topmost ranks of our elite mainstream establishment than Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.
In 1983 he gained Harvard University tenure at the remarkably young age of 28, then spent the next 19 years as a professor at that august academic institution; by the early 1990s the New York Timeswas already hailing him as the world’s most important figure in his field. Lured to Columbia University in 2002, he has spent the last couple of decades teaching there and also directing a couple of its research organizations, most recently the Center for Sustainable Development. TIME Magazine has twice ranked him among the world’s 100 most influential individuals, and for nearly twenty years he served as Special Advisor to several Secretary-Generals of the United Nations, while publishing many hundreds of articles and op-eds on a wide variety of subjects in our most influential media outlets.
It would be difficult to construct a more illustrious and establishmentarian curriculum vitae for an international academic figure, so in 2020 he was a natural choice to serve as chairman of the Lancet‘s Covid Commission, established to investigate all aspects of the deadly worldwide pandemic.
Yet as he has subsequently explained in his interviews, over the course of the last couple of years he became increasingly suspicious that the true origins of the viral disease were being concealed. More than eighteen million people have died worldwide including over a million Americans, and rather than acquiescing in what he came to believe was an ongoing official cover-up, he broke with the establishment and made the courageous decision to bring the true facts to widespread public attention.
Although he has retained the subdued manner and careful phraseology of a mild academic, in recent months the incendiary content of his published articles and his public statements have exploded across the global landscape, reaching many millions who might otherwise never have questioned what they were so uniformly being told by all our mainstream media organs. His critics defending that orthodoxy must surely believe that he has gone dangerously rogue, and given the enormous weight of his past credibility, I suspect that the phrase “rogue elephant” has sometimes entered their thoughts.
From the earliest days of the Covid epidemic, an official narrative was promoted that the virus was natural and editors of the leading scientific journals closed their pages to any submissions that suggested otherwise. With no reputable academic papers challenging their perspective, the natural origins advocates were able to cite this silence as proof that their position represented the overwhelming scientific consensus, thereby intimidating most mainstream journalists into toeing that same line. A massive propaganda-bubble had been inflated and maintained by such administrative means.
However, as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Prof. Sachs had publication privileges in the prestigious PNAS journal, so in May he and a co-author published an important article documenting the highly suspicious characteristics of the Covid virus and calling for further investigation. This constituted a breakthrough, becoming the first and only paper published in a major journal that presented the very strong evidence of Covid bioengineering.
Given his role as chairman of the Covid Commission, Sachs’ paper should have been treated as a bombshell, reaching the headlines of all our leading newspapers. But instead, it was almost totally ignored, as was the author’s public statements on the subject. However, the following month, Sachs attended a small Spanish thinktank gathering, whose proceedings were soon made available on Youtube. Russia’s RT eventually ran a brief item highlighting Sachs’ presentation, and a short clip of his remarks soon went super-viral, retweeted out almost 11,000 times and accumulating over a million views.
Having publicly broken ranks with the political establishment over Covid, he soon began doing the same on other important issues. During July and August he published a couple of opinion columns condemning our reckless policies towards Russia and China, with the former having already provoked a bloody and dangerous war in Ukraine and the latter periodically threatening to do the same over Taiwan.
Who’s Who in the…Benson, MichaelBest Price: $4.84Buy New $18.95(as of 01:20 UTC — Details)A few months later, a series of massive underwater explosions severely damaged the $30 billion Russian-German Nord Stream pipelines. This constituted the greatest act of industrial terrorism in the history of the world, with potentially crippling long-term impact upon the energy supplies of Germany and other European countries. Although there was enormous circumstantial evidence implicating America in those attacks, and renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh later revealed the exact details of the sabotage operation, the entire Western media and political establishment stubbornly pretended to see nothing, instead absurdly accusing Russia of having destroyed its own energy pipelines.
But Sachs refused to support this cover-up and he instead played an important role in breaking the media blockade:
Then a few days later, Bloomberg TV invited Sachs to share his concerns over the Ukraine war. His hosts were flabbergasted when he flatly declared that America had probably destroyed the Russian pipelines, even mentioning that top journalists had privately told him the same thing, although none of those vital facts could ever appear in their own newspapers.
As a consequence of Sachs’ candor, the interview was cut short—with Sachs “yanked off air” in the words of the hostile New York Post—but the entire segment was watched at least a couple of hundred thousand times on Youtube and the short clip of Sachs’ Nord Stream remarks soon went super-viral on Twitter, viewed more than 4 million times in one Tweet and another million times across a couple of others.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs [Columbia] on Bloomberg causing chaos saying US was most likely involved in Nordstream leaks according to data & other experts “even reporters tell me …. privately of course …” and that we are on a pretty dangerous path to a nuclear conflict pic.twitter.com/U6FsC2tdp6
It has been extremely rare for a public figure of such high establishmentarian credentials to directly challenge such important narratives, and Sachs’ remarkable candor soon made him a very popular guest on numerous podcasts and channels.
A couple of years earlier he had also discovered that many of his long held assumptions about the Middle East conflict had been mistaken, as I discussed late last year.
Different scholars have different fields of expertise, and Sachs is an international economist, whose regions of focus have been the former Soviet Bloc countries, Latin America, and China, but apparently without much emphasis upon the Middle East. However, during the long Covid lock-downs, he expanded his knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by reading a recently published book by Prof. Rashid Khalidi, one of his Columbia University colleagues, then joined the author for a very interesting hour-long discussion available on Youtube.
By purest chance, I stumbled across that video several months ago, not long before the region suddenly erupted in unexpected violence, and found it an excellent presentation of the important historical facts, many of them previously unknown to me, while Sachs similarly emphasized that he was forced to “unlearn” much of the history that he had casually absorbed over the years.
Perhaps partly as a consequence, he has been extremely forthright in denouncing the ongoing slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s helpless civilian population, and the remarkable unwillingness of the Biden Administration to force Israel to end its military rampage. As he recently put it, on these matters Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sometimes seems to act as if he were our actual president instead of the confused individual sitting in the Oval Office.
The Hidden Cost of Mon…Bunney, SebBuy New $9.99(as of 02:32 UTC — Details)In Germany we are positively drowning in liberal democracy. We have entire august foundations, like the Bertelsmann Stiftung, which exist entirely to further liberal principles and dream up new ways to enhance all things democratic. In their enthusiasm for human rights, popular sovereignty and equality before the law, the Bertelsmannians are wont to measure how democratic the rest of the world is, which is obviously a very important matter and a topic of deep concern. After all, we’ve done such a great job of perfecting democracy here at home, that it is our duty to further democrify the unenlightened cretins who inhabit the rest of the world.
Alas, in their voluminous research, the Bertelsmannians have discovered a dark patch of foul plastic waste on the otherwise serene democratic ocean. Their new study (h/t Prof. Freedom) announces that “there have been a total of 24 autocratic changes of leadership in the 137 countries surveyed since 2006.” At the same time, “only 12 countries have seen a shift towards democracy.” This leaves Team Global Democracy with a worrying score of negative one billion, because “there are now only 63 democracies with a total population of around three billion people, and 74 autocracies with with around four billion people.”
Naturally, the Bertelsmannian analysis considers only “transitional and developing countries” and “does not look at traditional Western democracies such as the USA, Germany or France.” What an utter wast of time it would be, to bother oneself with the health of democracy in such democratic bastions the United States, Germany or France. Much of the rest of the world, however, seems to be a very worrying place indeed:
In an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk, Sabine Donner, head of the “Transformation Index” project, explained the development by saying, among other things, that there seems to be less orientation with respect to social issues. It is also due to the fact that “people are dissatisfied with governments and their performance and express this dissatisfaction. And governments then usually react.”
Facts the Historians L…John S. TilleyBest Price: $5.00Buy New $4.87(as of 07:05 UTC — Details)Governments reacting unfavourably to popular dissatisfaction? It is simply unthinkable in the Federal Republic, but the world can be a very dark place.
Instead of channelling this dissatisfaction or creating consensus on how to move into the future, governments are increasingly excluding people, says Donner. This includes, for example, restricting freedom of expression, opportunities for criticism or political opposition. Overall, according to the study, the data revealed “new lows” in the quality of democracy, government performance and economic development. Opponents of democratic structures and market-economy reforms are increasingly in power.
This sounds like hell or something. Honestly it is hard to read these words and type about them at the same time, that is how alien and disturbing I find this. Never in a million years would the Federal Republic seek to exclude popular voices from the political process, still less to restrict freedom of expression. And imagine a shining democratic beacon like Germany trying to quash opposition parties like Alternative für Deutschland. I am so glad we have the Bertelsmann Foundation, proudly founded in a country with nary a mote of authoritarianism in its hyperdemocratic political vision, to measure the beams in the eyes of unenlightened backward tyrannical states and explain to them the errors of their ways. Measure on, Bertelsmannians, measure on.
Der Friedensstifter 