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dr strangebiden and his teleprompter is no longer satire......“We are fighting a war against Russia,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Council of Europe on January 24. The next day German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to send high-powered tanks to Ukraine, in a major escalation of the conflict. “Germany has really stepped up,” Biden said, “and the chancellor has been a strong, strong voice for unity…and for the level of effort we’re going to continue.” Biden said nothing about destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines last September, considered by many as a direct attack on its European “ally.” Other voices were not so united. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic commented at the Council of Europe meeting that “The German FM said we must be united because we are at war with Russia. I did not know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia again, then good luck to them, maybe it will turn out better than 70 years ago.” World-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs declared on January 25 that “We are at the brink of a disaster…first and foremost because of the United States which is a major provocateur of this war, and a major threat to peace.” He made an impassioned plea to “get us off this reckless war between Russia and NATO, which is escalating by the day. The Doomsday Clock was moved to 90 seconds to midnight at the same time as the U.S. and Germany agreed to send new highly advanced tanks to Ukraine, in a guaranteed reckless escalation that brings us closer to nuclear war.” Sachs said the conflict goes back more than 30 years to 1990, when the U.S. began to “pursue its unipolar agenda, moving its systems further east, with the idea of surrounding Russia.” “Passing Germany the Poisoned Chalice” A leader of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), Sevim Dagdelen said “This is obviously about passing Germany the poisoned chalice. Berlin is to be sent into the line of fire, to conclusively destroy German-Russian relations and turn them into open war for others’ benefit.” Dagdelen is the spokesperson for her party in the German Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. Dagdelen’s view echoes economist Michael Hudson, who says the U.S. war against Russia is actually waged against Europe, to keep the European Union (EU) subordinated to U.S. capital. Hudson says the sanctions against Russia and China aim to prevent America’s allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China, to “keep them firmly within America’s own economic orbit.” European industry has been shutting down recently as energy prices soar due to sanctions. The German Left Party leader said delivering German tanks to Ukraine would “entail the greatest security threat to face the German population since the Second World War.” She added that “many Russians, especially those who lost loved ones in [WWII]…will see in these weapons a renewed German military campaign against their country.” A large majority of Germans and other Europeans share these concerns. In a recent poll by Project Europe, more than two-thirds of respondents in the 27 countries of the EU think the conflict is “worrisome.” Across Europe, more than 80% want negotiations, not continued war, the poll said. European public opinion reflects the impact of sanctions against Russia, which have had a “boomerang” effect, with skyrocketing inflation leading to near-depression conditions. Street protests and strikes across Europe have had an impact, as people pressure their leaders to stop doing Washington’s bidding. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Washington’s loudest “poodle” in London, was toppled by the crisis, along with Italy’s ex-Prime Minister Mario Draghi; and French President Macron lost his majority in the French National Assembly. In the United States, people are more divided: A survey completed in late November by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found the U.S. public split 48% to 47% on whether Washington should “support Ukraine as long as it takes,” or “urge Ukraine to settle for peace as soon as possible.” It is a changing trend: The percentage supporting “as long as it takes” went down ten points from 58% in July; and the “settle for peace” percentage rose from 38% in the same period. During that time there were anti-war protests in dozens of cities and towns across the country. More recently the protests intensified—spreading to more than 90 localities, as major national coalitions joined forces around Martin Luther King’s birthday weekend. Mission Creep: How the U.S. Role Has Escalated A January 28 article in Responsible Statecraft by Branko Marcetic says “NATO and the United States are creeping closer to the catastrophic scenario President Joe Biden said ‘we must strive to prevent’ — direct conflict between the United States and Russia….NATO arms transfers have now escalated well beyond what governments had worried just months ago could draw the alliance into direct war with Russia, with the U.S. and European governments now sending armored vehicles and…preparing to send tanks.” The article adds that, “[d]espite stressing at the start of the war that ‘our forces are not and will not be engaged in the conflict,’ current and former intelligence officials…[said] ‘there is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel’ in Ukraine than there was when Russia invaded, conducting ‘clandestine American operations’ in the country that ‘are now far more extensive.’” Responsible Statecraft cites a January 18 report in the New York Times that U.S. officials are “strongly considering giving Ukraine the green light to attack Crimea, even while acknowledging the risk of nuclear retaliation that such a move would carry. Fears of such an escalation ‘have dimmed,’ U.S. officials told the paper.” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov is quoted in Newsweek saying that “We have repeatedly warned the U.S. about the consequences that may follow if the U.S. continues to flood Ukraine with weapons. It effectively puts itself in a state close to what can be described as a party to the conflict.” A “Spanner in the Works” German Left Party leader Dagdelen says “we must do all we can to put a spanner in the works” – that is, do something that prevents this plan from succeeding (Cambridge Dictionary explanation). “If the German tanks are delivered, the door will be open for more weapons. Calls for combat aircraft have already been voiced…The next thing will be missiles, followed, when that does not work either, by our own soldiers. But a gambler’s mentality, which responds to losses by raising the stakes and eventually betting everything on one play, is a bad guide for any society.” Dagdelen adds: “The tank deliveries are today what war loans were in 1914. They lead directly to participation in the war. They cannot be considered in isolation from their purpose—that is, victory in NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. But consideration must also be given to the Russian response. In the end, after all, Western tanks would practically invoke the use of nuclear weapons—against Germany first… “Why is it in Washington’s interest to send the Germans, of all people, into Russia’s line of fire?…Germany, it appears, is supposed to draw Russia’s counterfire…The United States would thus have achieved one of its long-term strategic objectives, namely to prevent cooperation between Germany and Russia forever.” It is a reminder of the September 26 explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, which can be seen as a guarantee, at least for now, that Europe cannot depend on Russian gas. All evidence about who did this has disappeared. But months before, Biden assured reporters the U.S. “has the capacity” to do it. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to ordinary Germans during his visit to Volgograd—formerly Stalingrad—on February 2, the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s historic and decisive 1943 victory against Nazi Germany in the Battle of Stalingrad. Russia’s official news agency Tass reported that Putin said “they remember it in Germany, that German anti-fascists became the first victims of the German fascism, Nazism. And it is very good that such memory remains in ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, modern elites seem to be losing it.” He noted that an “ordinary citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany treats Russia and the heroes that defeated Nazism with respect.” The RAND Corporation, which functions as the Pentagon’s planning agency, released a January 2023 study entitled “Avoiding a Long War,” which concludes that “the consequences of a long war—ranging from persistent elevated escalation risks to economic damage—far outweigh the possible benefits.” This is not the view of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who declared on January 5 that “weapons are, in fact, the way to peace.” Victoria Nuland, along with her bosses, Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, tend to see things more like Stoltenberg than their RAND advisers. “They don’t see the world the way sane people do,” commentedMargaret Kimberley, of Black Agenda Report, in a February 1 article. “They have made the Ukraine conflict an existential crisis, and then decide they have no choice but to engage in dangerous actions…The idea of peaceful coexistence is anathema to Nuland, Biden, and Blinken. Blown up pipelines are seen as proof of victory to people who thought they could make dangerous and irrational obsessions come true.” “Dr. Strangelove Is No Longer Satire” Roger D. Harris, of the U.S. Peace Council and the SanctionsKill campaign, says “The world was fortunate that the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with both sides willing to seek accommodation rather than victory. In contrast, the currently raging and indeed escalatingUkraine War could be the prelude to World War III because neither side appears to have an exit strategy; one by choice, the other because its back is to the wall.” “The U.S.’s intent,” Harris further wrote, “is victory by ‘overextending and unbalancing’ Russia,” as a 2019 RAND paper suggested. Harris cites analyst Rick Sterling that “this was the playbook for the U.S. to provoke Russia into the current conflict. Bombers have been repositioned within striking range of key Russian strategic targets, additional tactical nuclear weapons deployed, and U.S./NATO war exercises have been held on Russia’s borders.” Harris adds that “Now the prevailing propaganda from Washington is that nuclear war can be ‘won.’ Dr. Strangelove is no longer satire. This planning to fight a nuclear war as if it were not an existential threat is institutionalized insanity.” He cites Robert Kagan, spouse of U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, asking: “Can America learn to use its power?” He says Kagan “argues in favor of a vigorous nuclear confrontation with Russia on the grounds that Putin will most likely back down.” Whether Russia will “back down” or not is debatable. But back in December 2021, Russian initiatives might have prevented hostilities and made the region more secure with a reduced likelihood of war. Following are the proposals Russia made then:
When these measures were proposed by Russia in December 2021, they were considered “non-starters” by the U.S. Now the question is whether there is anyone in Washington, D.C., who could convince the Biden administration to reconsider. That is what Jeffrey Sachs is demanding. Events in Munich and Moscow since Blinken’s late January ‘trial balloon’ clarify that the U.S. is really offering nothing for peace. Instead it continues to escalate the war while attempting to project blame onto both Russia and China.
READ MORE: https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/03/01/dr-strangelove-is-no-longer-satire/
SEE ALSO: which one murdered the other?.......... the one with the blue tie......
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joe nasty biden....
BY Phil Butler
A decade ago*, discovering every significant media outlet in the western world as tabloid news would have been inconceivable. Well, the unbelievable is all around us pounding pure lies into our brains on behalf of people eviler than Emperor Caligula. Just Google Putin, Russia, or even China, and with some effort, you’ll see what I mean.
In the mainstream, your average American gets, President Joe Biden is some kind of Dwight Eisenhower or Harry Truman figure. A man who cannot find his way off a stage or navigate the White House lawn is somehow a fit chess competitor for Vladimir Putin. The latest snafu is about his visit with Ukraine’s Zelensky a day before Putin spoke about a new phase of Russian policy. The CNN headline read “Biden’s Ukraine visit upstages Putin and leaves Moscow’s military pundits raging.” As an American who served his country in the military and other capacities, it’s sickening. Get this.
These media outlets and the Neocons have Americans believing a Chinese weather balloon that blew off course was gathering vital US nuclear missile silo intel. And Joe Biden waited until it flew all the way across the country before launching a multi-million-dollar F-22 strike to kill the spy machine. Days later, US fighter pilots shot down UFOs over Alaska. The only positive note after that was the Internet memes poking fun and the senile President and our goofball policies. Oh, but there’s more, oh so much more.
The New York Times and the rest are providing pushback on the Biden-authorized Nord Stream sabotage reported by one of the world’s most respected investigative journalists, Seymour Hersh. The guy who uncovered the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, key facts on Watergate, CIA domestic spy, and a lot more busted the Biden administration for using Navy Seals to detonate undersea charges dooming a Russia to Germany gas pipeline. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist’s revelations should have caused a media frenzy, a UN summit, and a NATO emergency meeting. But the people in charge can’t have that. The story of the decade so far is being slid under the rug. The reason why is explained in something Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said recently:
“In many cases, ruling elites in unfriendly countries do not act of their free will, but only because they must show solidarity within their block. NATO and the EU enforce heavy-handed discipline on their members at the initiative of an aggressive minority.”
“How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline” should be a reason for Biden’s impeachment hearings to be planned. The Germans should be banning US military personnel from their borders. And the Russians should probably go ahead and declare war when it all pans out true. We have this from Hersh’s sources and research:
“Last June, the Navy divers, operating under cover of the highly publicized NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with knowledge of the operational planning.”
The pipelines, which supplied Germany and much of Europe with cheap gas to run industry and fueled the lives of millions, were sabotaged without so much as a mention of the plan to America’s lawmakers. Hersh went on to describe how Biden, Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland, and Anthony Blinken were key conspirators in the illegal plan to undermine a NATO ally just to get to Putin and Russia. Biden had announced months before, after a meeting with Germany’s Scholz, that if Russia invaded Ukraine, “there would be no pipeline.”
Of course, Biden and his scandalous minions knew Russia had to act to prevent further NATO shenanigans in Ukraine, as we learned from the revelations of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the Minsk accords being a ruse. Talk about world-class liars and thugs. America’s leadership makes the worst Israeli mafioso seem harmless as Mickey Mouse. These people will get our world blown up.
Now Biden, Zelensky, all the EU criminals, and even exiled Putin enemy and Russian mafioso Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky have been seen at the Munich Security Council predicting Putin’s demise—some more. Once we’d have thought US presidents, New York Times publishers, and killer thugs kicked from Russia like bullying kids from the schoolyard would be strange bedfellows. But this Biden administration has to be the most corrupt bunch since the days of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano.
Get this, one of the men involved in the Hunter Biden laptop affair, Prof. Gal Luft, is now in leg irons in a Cyprus jail awaiting extradition to the US for, you won’t believe it, being an arms dealer. Luft had helped the FBI and other agencies with highly incriminating facts about Hunter Biden, and now he’s on a path like Jeffrey Epstein or Julian Assange. Hanged by the neck, or something like that. Oh, and congressional investigators are asking who paid millions of dollars for Hunter Biden’s art? The lunacy goes on, and on, and on.
I’ll leave off with the European Parliament bosses blocking public scrutiny of Ursula von der Leyen over a Pfizer contract she clearly benefitted from. And Pfizer gate is not the EU President’s only worry. She’s now pledged another €1 billion for Ukraine’s fast recovery. That is, if there is a Ukraine to rebuild once western weapons and mercenaries force the Russians to obliterate the country just to keep NATO and bio-weapons labs out. For me, it now seems obvious why the liberal world order has gone all in with this proxy war against Russia. If the citizens of our countries ever find out what their leaders have really done, there will be public hangings Mussolini style across the NATO cabal.
So, forget the tabloids except to use reverse psychology for understanding the news. If the White House says we did not blow up Nord Stream, you can bet your last dollar we did. Think about our track record, America’s I mean. Our leaders operate like very drunken Roman senators, and our military operates as if Hannibal were commanding the armed forces of every third-world country. We even have officials swearing that Putin does not have any nuclear weapons. No really. This is where we are with detente in the 21st century, on the verge of a new Dark Ages.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
READ MORE:
https://journal-neo.org/2023/02/28/don-t-believe-anything-but-recognize-the-verge-of-a-new-dark-age/
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* TEN YEARS AGO?.... WE'VE BEEN ON THE CASE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE AND ITS MEDIA MINION LYING TO US, SINCE 2005 ON THIS SITE — AND WE REMEMBER 2001 WHEN AMERICA STARTED TO LIE ABOUT SADDAM...
WE ALSO REMEMBER THE WAY THIS AMERICAN EMPIRE STOKE THE COLD WAR SINCE 1945 AND HOW THIS LOUSY EMPIRE HAS TRIED TO DESTROY RUSSIA SINCE 1917......
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by Lorenzo Maria Pacini
Paradigmatic variationsIn classic geopolitics, Halford Mackinder wrote a maxim that "He who rules the Heartland, rules the world"1.
This principle has underpinned a century and more of geopolitical planning and action in the world, in particular by the thalassocratic powers, the civilization of the sea, against the tellurocratic powers, the civilization of the earth, in a double conflict whose understanding is fundamental to understanding what is happening in the world.
In the context of postmodern wars and their strategic and tactical construction, the advent of the gray zone has changed symmetries quite a bit and opened up new scenarios, almost always envisaged only from an empirical perspective. Perhaps the time has come to ask questions: is the gray zone a domain of war? Is it a geographical space? If so, what does gray area control mean? Such questions should be attempted to be answered.
The gray zone is a "zone" with blurred boundaries between the public world and the private world, a semi-occult dimension in which the secret level of the permanent war, that is to say that carried out by the intelligence services, continues.
As recently elaborated:
"The gray zone concept has a very interesting genesis, as it is inseparable from the hybrid war concept. Let's see in what sense: each war has its own domain, or several domains, a typology according to its geographical extent and in the commitment of forces and armaments, its own strategy and a series of tactics to achieve it, a primary objective to be achieve which serves as a compass for all the secondary objectives; Since a hybrid war implies a continuous contamination of several types of war, and therefore domains, forces, resources, etc., it has become necessary to conceptualize a "neutral space", or a "border space but without borders" within which the transition between different wars could take place. This is how the gray zone was born, whose semantics already says that it is neither of one color nor another, but of an indefinite and adaptable pale mixture with any other color of war."
An indefinite space, therefore, not measurable empirically with traditional tools, which is a conceptual space, that is to say which can be imagined and rationalized, but which escapes the common capacity for measurement. In the space of the imagination, whether a small group or a collective, the construction of geopolitical enormity is a delicate process and can require meticulous precision. Without disturbing the finer levels of geopolitics, however, remaining at the level of reasoning, it is possible to assume that the gray zone is a space that is and is not there, where interactions between present subjects take place. and, therefore, a potential area for war. To dominate, however, one must be able to “dominate,” and views on the control of conceptual spaces are a sensitive issue in philosophy and cognitive science.
It's no coincidence that in a world that claims to be heading towards the creation and inhabitation of a virtual copy, like the metaverse, the war scenarios are also pointing in the same direction, and we've d elsewhere set up in advance3. The progressive colonization, first semantic and then informational, of digital spaces is a clear sign of the transposition of governance structures into the world of data. The whole system of networks is run by platforms and devices subject to well-defined laws, conditions, agreements and limits, to which the majority of people pay no attention because digital is not yet considered as a world in itself, but rather as a tool or a place/non-place in which one can enter and leave at will, despite the rapid approach and the connection of all actions of "real" daily life with the digital world .
The gray area, however, should not be confused with cyber warfare and infowarfare. It has a calculable dimension in the geographical reality of the planet, but remains in a kind of dimensional suspension, a conceptual space-time that intersects with that defined as real, and by virtue of this transversality is extremely important for the global strategy. The gray zone is, in this sense, an intra-dimensional dimension which magmatically touches all domains and at the same time escapes them; it is real and virtual, it is sometimes solidly measurable and at other times gaseous and elusive. We are faced with a realm of warfare and conceptual geographic space that is largely unknown and continually generated by the blending of the five realms of warfare (land, water, air, space, infosphere).
The Chinese proposal: the document of the Global Security InitiativeThe government of the People's Republic of China published on February 24, 2023, the first anniversary of Russia's special military operation in the Donbass, a document that opens up new scenarios concerning precisely the gray zone.
The entire text revolves around fundamental concepts, six points that deal precisely with the gray area and give a glimpse of how China has studied in depth its dimensions and the enormous potential when it becomes its leader. It is no coincidence that the title chosen for the document reveals the desire to place itself above other domains and to free itself, in a roundabout way, from the traditional forms of international relations with other countries. The peace proposal for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which is known to be a conflict of civilizations between West and East, between NATO and Eurasia, is a proposal to accept new relational conditions and diplomatic, completely asymmetrical and, above all, in territory still uncharted for many. A gray territory in which China has probably already set foot some time ago.
Among the many interesting parts, a few excerpts are useful to better focus on the underlying intentions:
"The essence of this new vision of security is to support a concept of common security, respecting and safeguarding the security of each country; a holistic approach, maintaining security in traditional and non-traditional camps and improving security governance in a coordinated manner" 4. This is the essence of the new security vision.
The multipolar vision of the world is also supported, proposing both self-determination of states and non-interference in internal affairs, with freedom of choice and independence in social systems and development paths, also through the protection of the United Nations as a supranational entity of encounter and resolution. This passage calls for the promotion of global governance in a multilateral rather than a multipolar sense, fully in line with the political doctrines of the Republic of China.
It is interesting to note the wide scope of the document, which also involves the countries of Africa and South America, as well as the Middle East, proposing the "Chinese way" as a methodology to be applied also in these contexts which have long been the prerogative of Western countries. The gray zone, on the other hand, has also faded towards these borders, and makes it possible to reach them without strategic difficulty.
Revealing the concern for leadership in the gray area, point n°14, followed by n°15 and n°17, in which China insists on the necessary cooperation in terms of biosecurity (14 and 17) and artificial intelligence (15), two essential points of the UN 2030 Agenda and also the two most popular fields of unconventional warfare in the last thirty years. In the same vein, point 5 of section IV of the conclusion reads as follows:
"China is willing to provide other developing countries with 5.000 training opportunities over the next five years to nurture professionals capable of tackling global security issues". 5.
This suggests that a vast strategic plan involving the plurality of sectors of the Chinese world and beyond has already been defined. A document which is probably the result of long months of study and planning and which, coming out on the anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian operation, caused a sudden realignment for all the countries gravitating around the interests of the conflict.
Passage of domains or passage of doctrines?Mackinder's axiom is subject to a series of doubts. Is the idea that by controlling the Heartland you can control the world still valid? A doubt arises when, reasoning hypothetically, one assumes that asymmetry of wars is the majority style and, therefore, action in the gray area is necessary for each belligerent actor. We must not forget either that the presence of the gray zone is a constitutive element of hybrid wars, which always have as their point a dimensional asymmetry, where the topography of space and time ensures that we do not leave never really the atmosphere of conflict, that one is never completely excluded from being a participant – active or passive – in a declared or underlying war.
If the Heartland is a delimited and measurable geographical and ethnosociological space while the gray zone is not, it is likely that the gray zone could either go beyond the Heartland, encompass it, or become the privileged channel of its domination. Mackinder's classic axiom would then either be obliterated completely or placed back at the center of geopolitical science. In the first case, one could say that whoever controls the gray zone controls the world and, at present, China has not too veiledly proclaimed that it is colonizing the new strategic conceptual domain; in the second case, on the other hand, it would be necessary to understand to what extent the Heartland is of interest to China or to what extent the Chinese approach could favor other partners on the borders of the Heartland, as we continue to see in the close cooperation that the United States maintains with China despite their maritime and aerospace differences.
The propelling force of the Chinese document cannot leave one indifferent to the examination of the way in which the axioms of classical geopolitics undergo progressive changes. Likewise, it is relevant to see how the Mackinderian principle can also be applied to the gray area. The world-island, another fundamental concept for geopolitical science, could be varied and become precisely the gray zone, where it can be visualized conceptually as an island on which everyone lands but no one controls, and the lord of the island becomes the one who decides the fate of all other peoples. Clearly, it is necessary to better understand what the gray area is, wondering why one of the most powerful countries in the world suddenly took over the management of this gray island. The doctrinal development of the geopolitics of the gray zone is still only in its infancy and the hope is that the deepening can come in time to avoid new conflicts fatal to humanity or variable hegemonies of subtle dimensions.
source: Domus Europe via Geopolitics
NOTE: THE PROPOSAL MADE TO THE WEST FROM RUSSIA:
Back in December 2021, Russian initiatives might have prevented hostilities and made the region more secure with a reduced likelihood of war. Following are the proposals Russia made then:
When these measures were proposed by Russia in December 2021, they were considered “non-starters” by the U.S. Now the question is whether there is anyone in Washington, D.C., who could convince the Biden administration to reconsider.
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