APRIL 01, 2024
Not a Threat
Is Russia a threat to NATO? Apparently not. Who’d have thought? This just in:
Admiral Rob Bauer, head of NATO’s Military Committee: “there are currently no indications of Russia preparing for an attack on any NATO member state.” BUT, he says NATO should remain vigilant and prepared for potential confrontations, considering Russia’s broader ambitions beyond Ukraine.
Subservient to CIA Stipends
Asked by Judge Napolitano this morning whether Europe in effect puts its own interests second to those of Washington, former UK diplomat Alastair Crooke answers “not Washington, the CIA” by which I am interpret him as saying that large swabs of Europe’a political class, journalists and academics are simply bought out with CIA or equivalent stipends (NGO and think tank consultancies and the like).
I assume that Crooke knows of which he speaks; I know of the 1970’s Congressional investigations of the CIA that confirm it and of subsequent, if one-off revelations of those who have reached comparable conclusions, and it is something that I have long suspected. Why else would a dominant social class, or should I now say a social caste, wed itself so tightly and so strangely and unnecessarily to an alien power, and to appear to believe such idiotic things (e.g. the SMO was UNPROVOKED!;Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country; Russia blew up its own Nord Stream pipeline; Russia staged a false flag terrorist attack against itself – IT WASNT UKRAINE! – ; the US told Russia everything it needed to know! Trump is a tool of Putin; and, generally, toxic sludge is good for you).
All it takes is for leading mainstream media to give air to such idiocy and talk about such things as if they were normal and easily imaginable possibilities for the herd to stampede in the foreordained direction, pumped up by the furious signaling of those political and intellectual authorities it trusts.
Terror States
Crooke notes that Russia is now demanding that Ukraine deliver up Malnyuk, the self-confessed Ukrainian terrorist mastermind of the SSB security service. To those suckered into the conventional mainstream narrative of Russia’s SMO as an entirely unprovoked attack (“provoked!…OMG, you mean by US!?), then it might well seem that a terror response is appropriate and excusable. But that is incorrect: the SMO was a relatively normal, if actually very limited and contained military operation which knowingly and predictably invited a relatively normal military response. But playing what seems to be a respectable card of unsymmetrical warfare (= both random and strategic killings of civilians) Ukraine has indeed committed, heavily, and from well before its military situation became as fragile as it is now, to terror as a tool of war because that is what fascist states, especially illegal regimes born in CIA-instigated coups, routinely do. And they do it because they are seeking to establish themselves as members of a dominant caste, exactly as did the Nazis to the Jews, Blacks, the homosexuals, the gypsies and anyone else they took exception to.
Russia is acting entirely correctly in calling for SSB chief Malnyuk’s punishment or extradition as a terrorist (why Malnyuk, who has admitted to Ukrainian terrorism such as the Crimean Bridge attack, and not the SBU’s Budanov also, I am unsure) and if anyone believes they have comparable evidence against Russia they are more than entitled, indeed they are obligated, to pursue their case even if I have strong doubts about some of the more likely choices (e.g. Bucha).
On the question of Crocus City Hall, western mainstream media continue to obfuscate the facts of the supposed US “warning” (this ‘duty to warn,’ even to adversaries, goes back to 1989, according to Larry Johnson, who points out that the fundamental purpose is to protect US citizens overseas) which was never more, in fact, than a warning to US citizens in Moscow to avoid large public gatherings, including concert halls, on or around a 48 hour period after March 7th, and no further warning was issued on the expiry of that period during which, incidentally, Russian authorities dismantled an ISIS group in Moscow. The authorities had every good reason to be skeptical about anything coming out of the US; the Russian embassy in Washington says it received nothing and nor did the foreign office in Russia; and Russian authorities had every good reason to think that, given that there was no further warning issued on March 10 (the concert in question was staged on the evenings of the 9, 10 and 11 of March), whatever danger there was had passed.
Larry Johnson considers the warnings of March 7 were bogus, intended to set up the Russisans. He sees this as part of a propaganda operation intended to make Russian people skeptical about the competence of the Kremlin.
A somewhat ambiguous Russian foreign ministry statement has claimed that the trails of all the many recent acts of terrorism in Russia, which it lists, and includes attacks on and invasions of Kurch, Briansk and Belgorod districts and including (or maybe other than) the attack on Crocus City Hall lead to Ukraine. Invoking international conventions against terrorism and the funding of terrorism, Russia calls on Ukraine to arrest all parties that are involved in such acts and to hand them over to Russia and to accept legal liability. This could also be an embarrassment to Ukraine’s sponsors, some of whom have almost certainly be involved in some such activities. Russian could conceivably contemplate bringing a case to the ICJ.
Battlefields
There is no spectacular change on the battlefields today of which I am aware. Dima of the Military Summary Channel reports that there were no further Russian missile strikes last night. Considerable long-term damage has been caused to five out of six power stations along the Dniepr run by a corporation that supplies one fourth of Ukraine’s energy. Another S-300 air defense system was also knocked out in the most recent attack. The deterioration of Ukrainian air defenses is making Ukraine’s infrastructures more and more vulnerable. Kharkiv was still pretty much in darkness up until yesterday and may still be in darkness. Doctorow reports that in the wake of the terrorist attack on Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow, the Russian people are becoming very much agitated with Kharkiv and calling on the population of Kharkiv to be forced to evacuate in a not too dissimilar way, I imagine, to how many Israelis still feel about Palestinians.
Extensive damage was caused in Odessa. Along the combat line, Russia’s likely completion of its operation on Novomykhailivka appears to coincide with a renewed bombing of Vuhledar to the south. A bit further north, where Russia has taken control of Pobieda, Ukraine is attempting counterattacks to slow down subsequent Russian advances. Russia continues to strike at Krasnohorivka. West of Tonenke, which itself lies west of Avdiivka, towards the north-south route that connects Umanske, Yasnobrodivka and Netailoive there are significant Russian advances, with Russian troops almost at the entrance to Yasnobrodivka. Netailove lies directly east of Pervomaiske which Russia has now taken, for the most part. In the Bakhmut area, Russia has control over much of Ivanivske and is approaching Chasiv Yar from three directions (Ivanivske, Poprove forest north and east). Bohdanivka is still contested. North of Bakhmut there is continuing activity in the Soledar region with Russia trying to make progress on Vyimka, which lies some way south of the heavily contested Bilohorivka. Russia continues to make progress further north at Terny.
As noted yesterday, Russia has introduced robots to the battlefield in Berdychi. Their use has been motivated in part as a response to Ukraine’s intensive use of swarms of FPV drones. Russia’s own drone production has been ratcheted up and future generations of drones will incorporate AI components. Russia has also announced the production of a FAB 3000 bomb. It is noticeable that Russia has sustained what in most respects we should regard as an offensive throughout the winter, leading us to wonder what it will prove capable of during the summer. Increasing Russisan control of the railways in Donbass is an additional consideration.
As Russia moves westwards there is intense pressure on Ukraine to build or reinforce fortifications behind the current westward-shifting combat lines, and Kiev is exhibiting anxiety that these could be turning into the new geographic borders of a new Ukraine, although I think it likely that Russia will force them further back than these. Mercouris predicts that Russia’s big blow will probably come in the second half of 2024. Russian economic activity, industrial output and employment, meanwhile, are expected to reach significantly new highs in this period. At root of this prosperity is not simply increasing demand for war-related products but also the forcible, partial removal from 2022 of western corporations in Russia and the consequent release into the Russian economy of the wealth that had previousy been sucked out of Russia and into the Wesern economic orbit.
Gaza Terror
What then is happening in Gaza and on the West Bank if not the most odious of terroristic human rights violations that has occurred since Rwanda. And how is it not the case that the USA in continuing to send 1000 pound bombs and the like to Netanyahu’s government at a time when the ICJ is calling Israel out for its active genocide and its intentional starvation of two million people, is itself guilty of genocide and itself continues to be, as it has been for so many decades, a terroristic State?
These bombs are also being sent in the clear knowledge that Israel will use them against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against targets in Syria, exploiting the weaknesses of both Lebanon and Syria inflicted by US proxy Jihadi wars, and inviting the inevitable intervention of both Russia and China in a backdoor route to Armageddon. The most egregious evidence of this: the institution itself of the CIA and its proxies and its lookalikes across the empire, and the enthusiastic coverage provided it by Hollywood and the global entertainment industry (retire James Bond!).
To its attacks on Lebanon and Syria, Israel has just added an Israeli air attack on Iranian commanders, advisors, diplomats aand civilians in Damascus and on Iranian territory (the Iranian embassy in Damascus) and on Quds day, a day that celebrates Muslim solidarity for the Palestinian people. Anya Parampil, spouse of Max Blumenthal, says that Israel has thus committed a major religious provocation, a calculated attack, presumably with a view to pushing the conflict to global war. Israel knows that Muslim countries are too controlled by leaders who are bought out by the collective West, so Israel’s best strategy to bring about war with Iran is to push the Muslim population to a point of anger that is beyond the capability of their leaders to control. Amongst other things this endangers Americans, American embassies and American troops in the Middle East in a bid to involve the USA once again in a war for Israel’s primary benefit (whose leaders seem to believe they are fulfilling biblical prophecies). She recalls 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.
Netanyahu is predicting victory in a few weeks. And the American taxpayer will have paid for it. Blinken recently visited Israel in his capacity “as a Jew,” not as a US statesman. Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary, would rather have us believe that Hamas is operating out of hospitals, the same propaganda, notes Judge Napolitano today, that Israel and half of the US Congress routinely parrots in justification of the murder, in our sight and at our expense, of over 32,000 Palestinians.
One might indeed conclude that it is simply not possible any more, if ever it was possible, that the Global South can legitimately say to the US – that’s OK, don’t worry, you’ve had a tough time, we forgive you, – except for when it’s leaders are bought out by the CIA or its proxies. Without a stipend being paid to somebody that kind of idiocy is unsayable, unthinkable.
JFK and Sachs
I see Ron Unz today is, for the second time in a couple of weeks, celebrating the conversion of Jeffrey Sachs to enlightened thought on such matters as the JFK assassination and Gaza. Sachs’s voice is a wonderful sound of reproach to our pompous, bought-out, know-nothing mainstream media (yes, think pudding-face Piers Morgan) but for those of us who have been slaving in the trenches for quite some time on all of this, it is a bitter-sweet development.
Emma Olive 