Foreign policy is complicated.  There are a lot of moving parts and because human beings are making the policy, and feelings and egos are at stake, it’s that much more difficult.

Some policymakers take a long-term view, others are myopic. Couple all that with the problem that I witnessed countless times over the course of my career at the C.I.A. and at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — the insistence of American diplomats, intelligence professionals and White House staff members that they are literally the smartest people in the world and that they know best. 

BY John Kiriakou

Former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser once famously said,

“Every dead Russian and Ukrainian in this war, every family anywhere in the world that suffers the consequences of this war, every business that shuts down because of the economic damage this war is causing and the increased risk of nuclear annihilation, it’s all US Govt made.” Twitter @KimDotcom

Proxy War (def)– a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.

BY MIKE WHITNEY

An energy policy that bans investment in some technologies based on ideological views and ignores security of supply is doomed to a strepitous failure.

The energy crisis in the European Union was not created by market failures or lack of alternatives. It was created by political nudging and imposition.

Renewable energies are a positive force within a balanced energy mix, not on their own, due to the volatile and intermittent nature of the technology. Politicians have imposed an unstable energy mix banning base technologies that work almost 100 percent of the time and this has made prices soar for consumers and threatened security of supply.

BY Daniel Lacalle

Europe’s gas supply and affordability crisis is actually “good for the long run,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told CNBC on Tuesday. He explained that it would ultimately force the continent to embrace renewable energy, adding that “people won’t want to be dependent on Russian natural gas.”

Gates acknowledged that the public “did get a little optimistic about how quickly the transition [to renewables] could be done,” admitting the need to find “non-Russian hydrocarbon sources.”

Elaborating on the matter, the founder of climate-oriented venture capital fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures published an essay titled ‘State of the Energy Transition’ on his blog on the same day. Speaking about global greenhouse gas emissions, Gates noted that the ultimate goal of going “from 51 billion tons a year to zero” should be achieved “in the next three decades.” 

The U.S. employs broad economic sanctions with increasing frequency despite their poor record of success and the growing body of evidence that they cause significant harm to the populations of the countries where they are imposed. 

The direct costs of sanctions to the U.S. are often negligible, but their effect on the well-being and health of the nations that suffer under them can be quite severe and ultimately deadly for the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. Some of the most recent uses of broad U.S. sanctions in Iran, Venezuela, and Syria show how policies of economic warfare have predictably worsened economic conditions and intensified humanitarian crises without achieving any stated policy goals. 

Russia is expected to reap its largest grain harvest ever in 2022, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, citing preliminary data on crops.

“According to experts, the total grain harvest could reach 150 million tons, including about 100 million tons of wheat. This will be a record in the entire history of Russia,” Putin said, noting that previous estimates had ranged from 140 million tons to 147 million tons.

The president recalled that Russia’s biggest grain harvest ever was recorded in 2017 – 135.5 million tons, including 86 million tons of wheat.

“Thus, in the current difficult situation, we are completely guaranteed to cover our own needs for the most important items and receive an additional resource for increasing exports,” Putin said.

READ MORE:

On Monday, Oct. 17, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization kicked off Operation STEADFAST NOON, its annual exercise of its ability to wage nuclear conflict. Given that NATO’s nuclear umbrella extends exclusively over Europe, the indisputable fact is that STEADFAST NOON is nothing more than NATO training to wage nuclear war against Russia.

Nuclear war against Russia.

The reader should let that sink in for a moment.

BY SCOTT RITTER

Larry the Cat, the official chief mouser of 10 Downing Street, has jokingly laid claim to the premiership via Twitter, announcing on Thursday that he had been anointed by King Charles himself.

“The King has asked me to become Prime Minister because this nonsense has gone on long enough,” the account tweeted, accompanied by a photo of himself seated before a miniature podium

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW...............

The lights in the bandstand in Adelaide's west parkland
never go away, but it sure beats being wet
May as well buy some ice if you scrape and beg the price
Stay awake for days, and hopefully forget.

You've seen the streets of London and the alleys of L.A.
Do you know what's happening outside your front door?
Adelaide at night, to survive it is a fight
and the faces in the darkness ask for more

Sweetest girl, just five foot two with contact lenses eyes of blue
Dances in men's laps on Hindley St on Saturday night
Makes enough to pay the fee to stay in university
Closes eyes and tells herself her future's looking bright

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree Wednesday instituting martial law in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, and indicated that the heightened security measures are being adopted in the face of Kiev’s “openly terrorist methods,” including the shelling of civilian areas, sabotage attacks, and assassinations of officials.

Moscow’s decision to introduce martial law in its four new territories is designed to counter the increasingly “desperate” tactics deployed by the NATO-backed government in Kiev, and together with other recent measures, should dramatically improve Russia’s warfighting capacity, competency, and performance, a pair of veteran US military affairs experts have told Sputnik.

Electricity providers have stung their customers for $10 billion in supernormal profits, despite crying poor to the regulators and despite siphoning out billions, largely free of tax to foreign billionaires and power companies. Mark Sawyer reports on the latest analysis of Australia’s energy sector.

An important report was released at a minute after midnight today. The report, by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), shows that while energy giants have been crying poor, they have ripped off Australian customers to the tune of $10bn in “supernormal profits”.

BY Mark Sawyer

Albanese government out-Barnabys-Barnaby with a big Budget gift for fossil fuel donors to build the Middle Arm port and petrochemicals project just 3k from the Darwin suburb of Palmerston. Michael West reports. 

They leaked the story to Rupert Murdoch’s NT News. As you do. 

Thanks for the scoop. “$2.5bn bonanza for the Territory …”. A glowing report ensued. No word the new Port might be underwater by turn of century, a climate bomb spewing toxic chemicals through the air to residents of the Darwin suburbs nearby.

BY Michael West

'Paranoid' West Has Lost Control of its Future—Prominent Australian Cartoonist….

American 'B57' Bomber Planes Seen Near Alaska Made to Carry Heavy Payloads

UK Passing Off Secret Mobilization as 'Training Sessions': Russia

Joe Biden's 'Terror' Tactics Will Not Help His War

Will the US Use Nuclear Weapons? Thousands Are Betting On It

Biden 'Willing To Do Anything' To Avoid Defeat in Ukraine....

THESE ARE THE MIRROR HEADLINES FROM THOSE IN NEWSWEEK. YOU FIND THEM....THEY'RE UGLY.

MEANWHILE:

The general's remarks come amid Russia's ongoing military operation in Ukraine, which began eight years after a US-backed coup in Kiev overthrew the country's democratically elected government and sparked a civil conflict in the Donbass.

Worried about Australian sovereignty? Don’t bother, it’s gone.’ 

Michael Pascoe, a few days ago, in the New Daily, in an article titled ‘Worried about Australian sovereignty? Don’t bother, it’s gone.’ drew together what Paul Keating, I and others have been saying recently about Australia becoming a proxy even a patsy for the United States.

The signs are ominous on numerous fronts.

Kishore Mahbubani from Singapore has pointed out that Australia looks like a spear-carrier for the United States.

The 16 “most powerful war speeches” by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky will be published on December 6 in a book called ‘A Message From Ukraine’, Crown, a division of the multinational publisher Penguin Random House, announced on Monday.    

“The only book officially authorized by President Zelensky, ‘A Message From Ukraine’ includes speeches he has personally selected to tell the story of the Ukrainian people,” the abstract of the hardcover, which is already available for pre-ordering for $16, says.

The book includes an introduction by Zelensky in which he explains what he has learned about himself and Ukrainians since the launch of the Russian military operation in late February.