Sunday, May 22, 2022

Africom Did Not Have Good Relations With The Ethiopian Government

foreignpolicy |  The United States is pulling the plug on its drone operations in southern Ethiopia as demands on its fleet of unmanned aircraft expand elsewhere across the continent with the rise of the Islamic State in Libya, and extremist militants in Nigeria, Mali, Chad and Cameroon.

Since 2011, the U.S. had been using the air base in Arba Minch, 250 miles south of the capital, to launch surveillance drones aimed at groups in East Africa with links to al Qaeda. U.S. personnel primarily focused on al-Shabab, a Somali group which has waged deadly terrorist attacks across East Africa.

Pentagon officials remained tightlipped on Monday about the reasons behind the move. Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the U.S. and Ethiopia agreed that the continued presence of the drone base was “not required at this time.”

Some experts say the fight against Shabab was going well enough that the Pentagon’s Africa Command, or Africom, had the opportunity to redistribute its scarce resources elsewhere.  

“Shabab remains virulent, but as a significant terrorist threat with high profile leaders in range for drone attacks, much less so,” said Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

Other groups, by contrast, are rapidly gaining strength — and presenting far more tempting targets for the Pentagon and its drone operators.

In recent months, the Islamic State has consolidated its power in Libya, allowing it to easily move into the port city of Surt, and now control an estimated 150 miles of territory along the country’s Mediterranean coast. Its presence has reportedly forced the U.S. to focus on gathering intelligence there in order to better monitor militant movements in North Africa.

The continued strength of Boko Haram — the extremist group terrorizing northeastern Nigeria and parts of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger — has also forced Washington to dedicate more resources in the Lake Chad region as well. Since 2009, Boko Haram has killed more than 10,000 people and by last year the group controlled an area the size of Belgium. After the militants were forced out of some of their Nigerian strongholds by a multinational African task force last spring, they switched to more asymmetrical tactics and increased suicide bombings and cross border raids. In September, President Barack Obama pledged $45 million to help countries in the Lake Chad region beat back the group. And in October, the U.S. sent a fleet of surveillance drones and 300 troops to Cameroon.

Those pressures have forced Africom to reevaluate where it allocates resources, say experts.

“Africom remains under-resourced and our entire drone program, although it’s grown tremendously over the years, is facing a wide array of demands,” said Pham.

Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the U.S. military is likely facing pressure to tackle other African threats, and is trying to consolidate its bases in the region.

“It may be that with a base in Djibouti there’s just not the need for as many positions in East Africa as before,” she said.

The Empire Backed Tigrayans In The Ethiopian Civil War (REDUX Originally Posted 11/27/21)

medium |  The West’s Horn of Africa experts have been meeting with a TPLF leader and TPLF/OLF supporters in secret, even as its governments claim to be impartial — TPLF’s Berhane Gebre-Christos speaks as TPLF member, proposed head of “transitional government” (limo/Uber drivers) and Washington-based Ethio-American diaspora.

Donald Yamamoto, recently the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia who just retired this year, to TPLF official Berhane Gebre-Christos:

“Abiy is not listening… Obasanjo has not been extraordinary helpful or very active, and so are there any other opportunities that you see?”

Vicki Huddleston, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs and US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa to Berhane Gebre-Christos:

“I couldn’t agree more that you know, Abiy should step down, there should be an all-inclusive transition government.”

Former ambassadors and current diplomats for the United States, Britain and EU had a Zoom meeting this past Sunday with an official for the TPLF in what amounts to a green light from the West for the terrorist group’s attempts to overthrow the democratically elected Ethiopian government. And there’s evidence to prove it: a phone-cam video of the two-hour meeting.

“I hope that you’ll have military success fairly soon, because it seems as if the situation is only becoming more drastic,” said Vicki Huddleston, who was Chargé d’Affairs ad interim in Ethiopia during years the TPLF were in power.

France’s retired diplomat and writer Stéphane Gompertz openly speculated on the potential for Abiy to be forced from power. “Even if Abiy sticks to his guns, which unfortunately he seems to be doing, you either hope that people around him either in government or in the military realize that this is going nowhere and might force him to, well, accept the cessation of hostilities or force him to step down?”

The Western powers — Britain, the EU and especially the United States — have been posturing for months that they have not taken sides in the conflict and are pushing negotiations only in the interests of peace. But the Zoom talk rips away the façade, revealing a chummy circle of foreign policy elite, both retired and still active who mostly know each other and are in sympathy with TPLF objectives. They include Donald Yamamoto, one of the U.S. government’s most senior Africa experts who just retired this year as the American ambassador to Somalia, and Spain’s diplomat Carmen de la Peña.

Former EU ambassador to Ethiopia Tim Clarke admitted that all of the attendants “maintain contacts with our former employees. Just the other day I was talking to the existing EU ambassador to Ethiopia.”

Tigrayans WERE The Most Formidable Fighters On The African Continent (REDUX Originally Posted 11/27/21)

NC |  There’s a simple lesson here: Tigrayans are the bulk of combat power in the Highlands of the Horn. You’d think that would lead to the conclusion that you shouldn’t mess with Tigray unless you’re ready to get in a long, nasty war, even when the conventional military wisdom is that the Tigrayans don’t have a chance. They weren’t supposed to have a chance against the Europeans in 1896, either–or the Ethiopian Derg in the 1980s. If you’re running a war-nerd bookmaking business, put a sign on the window: “No bets on wars in Tigray.”

One reason we all underestimated Tigray is that no one outside TPLF circles seems to have admitted to themselves how much of the combat power of both Eritrean and Ethiopian forces came from ethnic Tigrayans. Admitting that would be politically unwise, especially in Ethiopia. Officially, Ethiopia is a federal, multi-ethnic state in which all ethnic groups are equal. But that’s a polite fiction. The Ethiopian state is the product of 19th-c. conquests by the “Habesha,” which is what the Highland Orthodox peoples, Tigrayan and Amhara, call themselves. Ethiopia was created by Habesha armies pushing south and east, absorbing Somali, Afar, Oromo, Sidamo, and dozens of other peoples who became Ethiopian citizens, but had very little share in ruling the country.

The real struggle for power was always between the two Habesha peoples, Tigrayan and Amhara. Since Menelik II moved the capital southward to Shewa, the Amhara seemed like the stronger of the two groups. Amhara are a much bigger group, for starters. Tigrayans are only about 6% of the population, Amhara about 26%.

But after the Eritrean/Tigrayan insurgents destroyed the Derg in the late 20th c., it was the Tigrayans of the TPLF who really ruled Ethiopia. Their domination was so clear that the TPLF tried to minimize their power, dutifully talking about their multi-ethnic coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). No one was fooled; it was the TPLF who had the power in Ethiopia.

The TPLF leader Meles Zenawi was the ultimate power in the country all through the first two decades of this century. Zenawi knew that the TPLF was so much better organized than the other members of the EPRDF coalition that he and his fellow Tigrayans could let the EPRDF make a show of ethnic equality while keeping Tigrayan control. Henri IV went through the motions of converting to Catholicism in return for the throne with the line “Paris is worth a mass or two,” and Zenawi seems to have decided “Addis and the whole GDP is worth letting those weaker militias from other ethnic groups share the credit.”

Zenawi’s PR campaign worked so well that Ethiopians forgot the hard truth that it was the Tigrayans who had the real combat power.

The Tigrayans’ only rival in terms of military power was the Eritrean army (EDF.) The “Eritrean” label made people forget that the EDF is also dominated by ethnic Tigrayans. Tigrinya-speakers are the majority in Eritrea, not only the dominant but the biggest ethnic group.

That has never stopped Eritrean Tigrayans from killing other Tigrayans. That shouldn’t be a surprise — when have people of the same ethnic group ever fretted about killing each other? — but it does underline what seems like the dominant fact at the moment: The Tigrayans are the most formidable people in the Horn.

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Green Channeling Gil Scott-Heron REALLY Brings Home The Terror Of Our Situation

 

Valodya's Meeting With The Head of Rosatom State Corporation Alexei Likhachev

kremlin.ru  |  Vladimir Putin: Alexei Evgenievich, this year, in December, 15 years have passed since the law on the creation of the Rosatom Corporation was signed. During this time, a lot of work has been done.

Alexander Likhachev : Yes. We regard the date of the establishment of the state corporation as a very memorable one for us.

In general, the industry is in its 77th year, we are the same age as the Great Victory, but at the same time, the creation of the state corporation marked a completely new stage in the development of the industry. Indeed, a single management mechanism was created from a group of enterprises with common economic indicators, with a unique corporate culture. At the same time, nuclear competencies were combined - from uranium mining to the creation and operation of nuclear power plants. And of course, new divisions were created literally from scratch: machine-building, logistics, digital, and a number of others.

If we talk about performance indicators for 15 years, then you can’t call it anything other than a “quantum leap”: a 4.5-fold increase in revenue, a five-fold increase in labor productivity, investments are growing in a special way - a 15-fold increase in annual investments. Science and research are actively developing, we have 13 times the annual growth of patents.

Over the past five years, we have actively entered new products and the global market. Revenue for five years on new products has almost doubled, foreign revenue has grown by one and a half times.

Vladimir Putin: The most important thing is to increase labor productivity.

Alexander Likhachev: Labor productivity is growing at a faster rate, [faster] than wages, this is very important.

And digital revenue grew a hundredfold. This, of course, with a low base. We will continue to develop, of course.

In the past year, we have a number of regular record indicators. With the 100% fulfillment of the state defense order, the proceeds reached 1.5 trillion, and this is only in the open part, that is, naturally, we have much more. The record is 222 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Commissioning of new blocks, the second Leningrad, the first Belarusian blocks. And the Northern Sea Route also set a record of transportation - almost 35 million tons.

We are implementing the decisions taken at your meeting on the Northern Sea Route. Under the leadership of the Government, we have already moved forward in the construction of nuclear-powered icebreakers, an ATO [nuclear technological service] vessel, and in the creation of a unified navigation management system on the Northern Sea Route. And I hope that in the shortest possible time we will put this work, as they say, on the usual track.

In the first quarter of this year, we have a serious increase: for the same electricity - plus two percent; first-quarter revenue for new products grew 26 percent and foreign products grew 13 percent.

On the other hand, we understand that we have been living and working under completely new conditions in recent months and will continue to work this way, so I would like to draw special attention to a few points.

Vladimir Putin: Please.

Alexander Likhachev: On international projects. We continue to implement all our international projects as long as they go according to plan. We see the risks with certain individual projects, develop appropriate compensatory measures. I hope that the vast majority of the projects will be successfully completed.

We have reached the second place in uranium mining in the world in recent years. We confidently hold the first place in terms of enrichment and conversion and are consistently among the top three in terms of fuel fabrication. In all areas there are groundwork aimed at further development.

We continue cooperation with the  IAEA , we participate in the international large thermonuclear project in France (ITER). And I want to say again that in this sense, the international nuclear community is not breaking ties yet, as long as this cooperation is developing.

According to the internal agenda. Our main service, apart from the state defense order, is nuclear energy. In ten years, we have built 11 units and achieved 20 percent of the electricity in the country. You gave us a plan to increase the share to 25 percent, and by increasing the share to 25 percent, we have to build another 16 innovation blocks in the horizon until 2035. The government approved the General Scheme, so we understand where and what to build.

I also want to thank you from the industry for adopting a decree on April 14 to extend our national project until 2030. This is indeed a very serious decision, it also creates a technological platform for the fourth generation of nuclear energy, and, most importantly, gives us the opportunity to build a specific object on earth. This is the Seversk project "Breakthrough", this is a multi-purpose fast research reactor, this is a tokamak fusion facility with reactor technologies, a prototype of tomorrow's fusion, this is a number of experimental reactors, and, of course, this is cooperation with Roskosmos, including on rocket engines for near space, for deep space. All this will be included in the extended national project.

What is important to emphasize: 95 percent of the Russian nuclear power plant, as they say, is made in Russia, and five percent are not critical. We see criticism at half a percent of our cost – electrical engineering, electronics, some types of diesel equipment, some types of pumping equipment, and in principle, we are already creating import substitution alliances with businesses.

First thought. Russian nuclear technologies are import-independent. And we don't see any limiting factors here.

Second thought. We will place at least a trillion rubles a year outside the industry as orders for the implementation of our national project. This, of course, is a very serious vector for the development of both engineering and the economy as a whole. And not only, as they say, in large orders, but also in innovation, the nuclear industry has always been famous for its advanced developments.

Vladimir Putin: Exactly.

A. Likhachev: I remember very well how in Soviet times, even under the conditions of the Iron Curtain, both mathematical modeling and work on security systems developed - all this gave impetus to the creation of a whole program of new products.

I myself was surprised to learn that over the past year we have satisfied the needs of more than 2600 Russian companies and enterprises in high-tech products, that is, the Russian industry is already returning a huge stock to us as new innovative orders and directions.

I would like to share the most important of them, in my opinion. At the same meeting on the Arctic, remember, NOVATEK management raised the issue of LNG equipment. We have built the first test stand in Europe at the Efremov NIIEFA in St. Petersburg, a solution has been prepared and implemented for cryogenic heat exchangers. This is the heart of all liquefaction technology. We have learned how to make medium-tonnage ones, and I think we will learn how to make large-tonnage ones as well.

We are actively receiving requests from the oil and gas industry both for specific equipment, and in general for new approaches to technologies, including in the production of hard-to-recover hydrocarbons. Such work is underway, and, for example, we have exemplary cooperation with Gazprom Neft.

We have completely closed the chain in composites and are moving on to the production of specific, quite modern medical equipment.

Vladimir Putin: We helped a lot of people with composites right away.

Alexander Likhachev: Yes.

We are moving forward in digital terms, creating alliances with enterprises, both small and private Russian companies, large companies, Rostec, and Russian Railways.

We ourselves will be two years ahead of your instructions: as early as 2023, one hundred percent of software purchases for critical infrastructure will be done, and we will generally transfer to Russian software at a faster pace.

Quantum progressed. We have been working on this topic for two years. According to experts, we have reduced the gap by about half from our foreign partners, competitors somewhere. But in general, in fact, for some technologies they entered the top three. There is an opinion that a separate type of quants, qudits, is the most promising for the corresponding processors, and now, along with the USA and Austria, we have achieved the corresponding prototype of a quantum processor. And by the way, they were the first to make a real program, that is, software for a quantum algorithm in the interests of the nuclear industry.

I cannot but say a few words about the environmental project, this is also a series of your instructions.

A system for controlling industrial waste of the first and second hazard class has been launched, more than 25 thousand users. Seven factories are being set up on the ground throughout the Russian Federation for processing, and I am sure that we will put things in order in this direction.

Plus work with heritage. We completed last September in Chelyabinsk the work on the landfill for household waste. We are going to Krasny Bor for practical work. And all the necessary priority work was carried out both in Usolye-Sibirsky and at the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill.

Vladimir Putin: And what did they do in Usolye-Sibirsky?

Alexei Likhachev: The mercury electrolysis shop has been completely dismantled there, and all the consequences have been eliminated. We started working with the oil lens, where there were dangers of waste going to the Angara. We have prepared all the design work in order to begin full-scale system liquidation this year. There were several dozen extremely dangerous wells, and, in fact, no one knows what was stored in them and in what volumes. Therefore, their neutralization and blocking were also among the priorities.

And in conclusion I would like to say a few words about the team. Indeed, we are not just a technological leader, not just one of the leaders in the global nuclear industry. This is a unique team with its own traditions. We consistently occupy the first places in the ratings of employers. A very important indicator is engagement, the readiness of people to give more every day to work, which is at a level that even exceeds the best world indicators (84 percent). I would like to say that this figure has increased in recent weeks. That is, there is a certain rallying of the team, and people, rolling up their sleeves, get to work, see this as their contribution to solving the problems, the tasks that the country is facing today.

Vladimir Putin: Rosatom is certainly one of our technology leaders. I hope this trend continues.

We talked about materials – we helped many industries at once, from aircraft manufacturing to medicine.

Alexei Likhachev: Mr Putin, we are now very focused on the machine-building sector, we have strengthened our machine-building assets, and there are many orders.

And one more thought. The more pressure is put on us, the more work we have, the more the team is mobilized.

Valodya's Meeting With The Head Of Rostec State Corporation Sergey Chemezov

kremlin.ru  |  Vladimir Putin:  Sergey Viktorovich, Rostec is our largest defense industry corporation. Do you have an annual performance report?

Sergei Chemezov :  Yes, here is our annual report.

The theme of our annual report is "Environment for the Development of the New". A lot has been done in 2021. Our consolidated revenue grew by almost 10 percent and amounted to two trillion 60 billion [roubles]. We have crossed an important psychological milestone of two trillion. We have been striving for this for a long time, and finally last year we overcame this barrier, this milestone.

Consolidated net profit increased by almost 47 percent and amounted to 163.5 billion rubles. EBITDA increased by 18 percent and reached 335 billion. The total market value of assets, a new indicator that we have introduced since last year, is 980.5 billion rubles, which is one and a half times higher than in 2020, that is, the value of our assets is constantly growing.

The share of civilian products in the consolidated revenue reached 45.5 percent.

Vladimir Putin:  Good.

Sergei Chemezov:  Yes. You set us the task of reaching 50 percent by 2030. We set ourselves the task of 2025, but last year the share of civilian products was 45.5 percent.

This, of course, thanks primarily to KamAZ. We have enterprises that produce a fairly large volume of civilian products, such as KamAZ and Russian Helicopters. The same UAC has begun to produce civilian aircraft in large quantities - not yet in large enough quantities, but we are striving for this.

Vladimir Putin:  Now there is a chance to occupy the domestic market.

Sergei Chemezov:  That is correct, of course.

Our pharmaceutical holding Nacimbio did a great job last year and the year before last. We have delivered more than 100 million sets of all kinds of vaccines to our consumers all over Russia: against covid, flu, and various other diseases. We manufacture most vaccines ourselves.

The achieved financial results have made it possible to increase the volume of investments by 18 percent, which already amounts to 242 billion rubles today. Thus, at the end of 2021, the corporation achieved all the goals that we set for ourselves.

I would like to dwell on some of the events that took place in the life of our corporation. 72 technological modernization projects were completed. First of all, this is the modernization of the aviation complex of enterprises producing helicopters and airplanes, as well as aircraft engines, because today this is the most important area in which we work.

We carried out the technical re-equipment of the enterprises of the optical industry at the Vologda and Novosibirsk optical plants. And the equipment has been replaced, and the technologies are modern.

Vladimir Putin:  Modernization.

Sergei Chemezov:  Yes. We carried out a deep modernization.

57 innovative technologies have been mastered and put into production, including technologies for manufacturing aircraft engine parts using direct laser growth, glazing technologies for the cabin of a new domestic cruise liner, which is currently under construction, called "Peter the Great", which will sail along the Volga and the sea, the river - sea.

Service for urban management.

We completed the development of 233 innovative products, including the MS-21-300 aircraft with a wing made of Russian composite, and the Okhotnik combat unmanned aerial vehicle. I will talk about these projects in more detail later.

A deep modernization of the Tu-160M ​​missile carrier with a new NK-32 engine has been completed. We have actually created a new machine. Only the former appearance remained, but, in fact, everything is new there: the engine is new, and the on-board equipment, all units have been replaced. All documentation was completely digitized, because the last car was produced at the Kazan plant somewhere in the 1980s.

Issued 834 patents and 474 know-hows. The total investment in research and development work has reached 170 billion rubles.

What products did we create last year? First of all, this is a Checkmate light tactical aircraft. Why is it named in English? Because it is mainly export-oriented. We are creating this aircraft at our own expense, without attracting budget money. We hope that, perhaps, the Ministry of Defense will mature and also acquire such an aircraft. I think that this plane will be very good. This is a fifth generation machine, a light aircraft. We first showed it at MAKS last year. This is a new generation multifunctional platform. It is capable of effectively countering fifth-generation aircraft in long-range and close combat.

Vladimir Putin:  Easy, right?

Sergei Chemezov:  Yes, it is light, it has one engine.

We took the basis of the onboard equipment, the engine, from the fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft, but slightly modified it. Now the design documentation is being developed, a new sample has been created.

Vladimir Putin:  I saw him.

Sergei Chemezov:  Yes, we did. We plan to start mass production in 2027.

PD-14 engine is already running.

Vladimir Putin:  Excellent.

Sergei Chemezov:  We have certified it. Serial production will begin in 2023. In 2023, certification tests will be carried out on our composite wing and on our engine.

Vladimir Putin:  On MS-21?

Sergei Chemezov:  MS-21. In 2024, we will produce the first six machines.

Drone "Hunter": its distinguishing feature is a flat engine nozzle. The new technical solution made the aviation complex less visible to radars. In addition, a new ground control post is being created for the drone. In 2021, the first flight model was rolled out. Already in 2023, we will start mass-producing it and supplying it to the Ministry of Defense.

The first offshore helicopter Mi-171A3. We also showed him for the first time at MAKS last year, he made his first flight. Designed for offshore operations and maintenance of offshore drilling platforms. There are already customers: our gas workers, oil companies. In 2023, we will start mass production. Certification tests are currently underway. The first deliveries are scheduled for early 2024.

Created a new marine diesel-gas turbine unit M55R. This is a new engine that is installed on our frigates. This is the first such Russian engine. We are already starting to mass-produce it.

In the field of healthcare, we have done a lot, and covid has spurred this on. In this regard, we have increased the share of civilian products. In particular, we have created the Diathera magnetotherapy device. It is intended for the treatment and prevention of eye diseases. It treats myopia, farsightedness and, in addition, computer vision syndrome - it has now become very common among young people, because they sit at the computer all day. This device does not require special medical training: treatment can be done at home or in any clinic. We started to produce it, it is already on sale. It is in the rating of the program "100 best goods of Russia" for the last year. A very interesting device.

The drug COVID-globulin is a drug created from the plasma [blood] of people who have recovered from covid and already have antibodies. Last year, it was actively used to treat patients. He is very helpful and in high demand.

Portable ventilator "Aventa-Vita": can be used in ambulances, and in ambulance helicopters, in ambulance aircraft, as well as at home. At the end of this year, we will start mass production and sale.

The neonatal ventilator SLE 6000 is a new version of the ventilator for supporting breathing in newborns. It differs from analogues in the function that eliminates air retention in the lungs, and the ability to automatically control saturation.

The Oxipolus oxygen concentrator is a very interesting device: it produces oxygen from the air. It produces, cleans, disinfects it, after which it delivers a sterile stream directly to the patient. In this regard, you can put a ventilator with this device anywhere, in any room, in any hospital, and it is not necessary that it be provided with special gases.

Vladimir Putin:  How long did it take to create all this?

Sergei Chemezov: About  one and a half to two years. As soon as covid started, we started working on it.

Vladimir Putin:  So, by and large, in a year and a half or two, it is possible to achieve import substitution for those products that are now difficult to import?

Sergei Chemezov:  Of course. In 2022, we will start mass-producing these devices, oxygen concentrators.

Vladimir Putin:  Good.

Friday, May 20, 2022

Canada's Decades Long Alliance With Ukrainian Nazis

wsws  |   This is the first article in a multi-part series.

The US and its NATO allies, Canada included, are waging war on Russia in all but name. Their governments, corporate media and establishment parties claim that the NATO powers are funneling tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to Kiev in order to protect Ukraine’s “sovereignty” and save its “democracy.” In reality, their provocative actions have brought the world to the precipice of a global conflagration fought with nuclear weapons.

As the World Socialist Web Site has exhaustively documented, American imperialism long planned for and instigated war with Moscow over Ukraine. It led NATO’s eastward expansion over the past three decades to encircle Russia, and goaded Putin into launching his reactionary invasion by refusing to so much as discuss Moscow’s security concerns. Washington and Wall Street are determined to subjugate Russia, plunder its abundant resources and tighten thereby the military-strategic encirclement of China.

In pursuit of these predatory geostrategic and economic objectives, the US and its allies have aligned with Ukraine’s far-right parties and fascist militia; that is, with forces that venerate and seek to emulate the Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with and sought the Nazis’ patronage during World War II. In pursuit of an ethnically “pure” Ukrainian state, the Ukrainian fascists participated in some of the most monstrous crimes of the 20th century, including the Holocaust.

Washington, aided and abetted by its German and Canadian allies, used the fascist Right Sector as its shock troops in the February 2014 coup that removed Ukraine’s elected pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The imperialist powers then placed in power a government committed to harnessing Ukraine to NATO and the European Union. Washington subsequently rearmed and reorganized Ukraine’s armed forces, overseeing the merger of the fascist Azov Battalion into Ukraine’s security forces. Today these fascists comprise an important part of Ukraine’s elite troops. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has himself boasted, they are pivotal frontline fighters in the Russian-majority Donbas region.

Canadian imperialism has long sought to pass itself off as an altruistic force in global affairs. But Ottawa is playing an especially provocative and belligerent role in the Ukraine war. This is a continuation of its substantial role in the war’s preparation and instigation.

Under both Liberal and Conservative governments, Canada has worked closely with Washington, first in its drive to expand NATO to include former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics; and then, since 2016, to permanently deploy NATO expeditionary forces on Russia’s borders. Canada leads one of NATO’s four enhanced Forward Presence Battle Groups in Poland and the Baltic states, and routinely dispatches warplanes and warships menacingly on Russia’s doorstep. From 2015, hundreds of Canadian Armed Forces’ trainers were deployed to Ukraine, where they worked alongside American and British military personnel to reorganize Ukraine’s armed forces. This included helping integrate and train the fascists of the Azov battalion.

Why Presidential Puppet Handlers Were So Upset With Trump Pissing On Their Ukrainian Schemes

moderndiplomacy  |  The Ukrainian war started when the democratically elected President of Ukraine (an infamously corrupt country), who was committed to keeping his country internationally neutral (not allied with either Russia or the United States), met privately with both the U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2010, shortly after that Ukrainian President’s election earlier in 2010; and, on both occasions, he rejected their urgings for Ukraine to become allied with the United States against his adjoining country Russia. This was being urged upon him so that America could position its nuclear missiles at the Russian border with Ukraine, less than a five-minute striking-distance away from hitting the Kremlin in Moscow.

On 23 June 2011, according to WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange in his 27 October 2014 posted article “Google Is Not What It Seems”, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and his aide (and Hillary Clinton’s friend) Jared Cohen, met together with Assange during Assange’s involuntary house-arrest by the UK regime inside Ecuador’s Embassy in London, and they managed to fool him into providing crucial information about how the internet could be used in order to help stir Ukrainians to overthrow their current corrupt President and how to train the leaders of Ukraine’s two racist-fascist anti-Russian political parties (the Social-Nationalist Party of Ukraine — which the CIA got name-changed to the “Freedom” or “Svoboda” Party — and the Right Sector Party) so as to lead a U.S. coup there, under the cover of popular anti-corruption protests that the U.S. was aiming to produce in Kiev.

On 1 March 2013 inside America’s Embassy to Ukraine in Kiev, a series of “Tech Camps” started to be held, in order to train those Ukrainian nazis for their leadership of Ukraine’s ‘anti-corruption’ organizing. Simultaneously, under Polish Government authorization, the CIA was training in Poland the military Right Sector leaders how to lead the coming U.S. coup in neighboring Ukraine. As the independent Polish investigative journalist Marek Miszczuk headlined for the Polish magazine NIE (“meaning “NO”) (the original article being in Polish): “Maidan secret state secret: Polish training camp for Ukrainians”. The article was published 14 April 2014. Excerpts: 

An informant who introduced himself as Wowa called the “NIE” editorial office with the information that the Maidan rebels in Wrocław are neo-fascists … [with] tattooed swastikas, swords, eagles and crosses with unambiguous meaning. … Wowa pleadingly announced that photos of members of the Right Sector must not appear in the press. … 86 fighters from the then prepared Euromaidan flew over the Vistula River in September 2013 at the invitation of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The pretext was to start cooperation between the Warsaw University of Technology and the National University of Technology in Kiev. But they were in Poland to receive special training to overthrow Ukraine’s government. … Day 3 and 4 – theoretical classes: crowd management, target selection, tactics and leadership. Day 5 – training in behavior in stressful situations. Day 6 – free without leaving the center. Day 7 – pre-medical help. Day 8 – protection against irritating gases. Day 9 – building barricades. And so on and on for almost 25 days. The program includes … classes at the shooting range (including three times with sniper rifles!), tactical and practical training in the assault on buildings. …

Excited by the importance of the information that was presented to me, I started to verify it.

The Office of the Press Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to answer the questions about the student exchange without giving any reason. It did not want to disclose whether it had actually invited dozens of neo-fascists to Poland to teach them how to overthrow the legal Ukrainian authorities. …

Let us summarize: in September 2013, according to the information presented to me, several dozen Ukrainian students of the Polytechnic University will come to Poland, at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In fact, they are members of the Right Sector, an extreme right-wing and nationalist Ukrainian group led by Dmytro Jarosz – he declined to comment on his visit to Legionowo.

Poland’s ‘fact-checking’ organization is (appropriately) titled demagog dot org (Demagog Association), and it is funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation. Demagog’s article about that NIE news-report rated it “NIEWERYFIKOWALNE” or “ NOT VERIFIABLE”. The sole reason given was: “The Ministry [of Foreign Affairs] strongly opposes such news, emphasizing that the weekly (magazine) has violated not only the principles of good taste, but also raison d’etat (reasons of state).” No facts that were alleged in Miszczuk’s article were even mentioned, much less disproven. How can his article be “unverifiable” if the evidence that it refers to isn’t so much as even being checked?

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Disinformation Label Used To Marginalize Crucial Facts About NATO's Instigation Of WW-III

Fair  |  These “disinformation” claims also ignore the more contemporary evidence that Western officials have an explicit agenda of weakening Russia and even ending the Putin regime. According to Ukrainska Pravda (5/5/22; Intercept, 5/10/22), in his recent trip to Kyiv, UK prime minister Boris Johnson told Volodymyr Zelensky that regardless of a peace agreement being reached between Ukraine and Russia, the United States would remain intent on confronting Russia.


 

The evidence doesn’t stop there. In the past months, Joe Biden let slip his desire that Putin “cannot remain in power,” and US officials’ have become more open about their objectives to weaken Russia (Democracy Now!, 5/9/22; Wall Street Journal, 4/25/22). Corporate media have cheered on these developments, running op-eds in support of policies that go beyond a defense of Ukraine to an attack on Russia (Foreign Policy, 5/4/22; Washington Post, 4/28/22), even expressing hope for a “palace coup” there (The Lead, 4/19/22; CNN Newsroom, 3/4/22).

As famed dissident Noam Chomsky said in a discussion with the Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill (4/14/22):

We can see that our explicit policy—explicit—is rejection of any form of negotiations. The explicit policy goes way back, but it was given a definitive form in September 2021 in the September 1 joint policy statement that was then reiterated and expanded in the November 10 charter of agreement….

What it says is it calls for Ukraine to move towards what they called an enhanced program for entering NATO, which kills negotiations.

When the media denies NATO’s culpability in stoking the flames of war in Ukraine, Americans are left unaware of their most effective tool in preventing further catastrophe: pressuring their own government to stop undermining negotiations and to join the negotiating table. Dismissing these realities threatens to prolong the war in Ukraine indefinitely.

Squelching dissent


As the Biden administration launches a new Disinformation Governance Board aimed at policing online discourse, it is clear that the trend of silencing those who speak out against official US narratives is going to get worse.

Outlets like Russia Today, MintPress News and Consortium News have been banned or demonetized by platforms like Google and its subsidiary YouTube, or services like PayPal. MintPress News (4/25/22) reported YouTube had “permanently banned more than a thousand channels and 15,000 videos,” on the grounds that they were “denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events.” At the same time, platforms are loosening the restrictions on praising Ukraine’s far right or calling for the death of Russians (Reuters, 3/11/22). These policies of asymmetric censorship aid US propaganda and squelch dissent.

After receiving a barrage of complaints from the outlet’s supporters, PayPal seemingly reversed its ban of Consortium News’ account, only to state later on that this reversal was “mistaken,” and that Consortium was in fact permanently banned. The outlet’s editor-in-chief Joe Lauria (5/4/22) responded to PayPal’s ban:

Given the political climate it is reasonable to conclude that PayPal was reacting to Consortium News’ coverage of the war in Ukraine, which is not in line with the dominant narrative that is being increasingly enforced.

As Western outlets embrace the framing of a new Cold War, so too have they embraced the Cold War’s McCarthyite tactics that rooted out dissent in the United States. With great-power conflict on the rise, it is all the more important that US audiences understand the media’s increasing repression of debate in defense of the “dominant narrative.” In the words of Chomsky:

There’s a long record in the United States of censorship, not official censorship, just devices, to make sure that, what intellectuals call the “bewildered herd,” the “rabble,” the population, don’t get misled. You have to control them. And that’s happening right now.


Nina Jankowicz Worked For CIA/Zelensky Now Defended By Taylor Lorenz

politico  |  President Zelensky has made ending the war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region—which was instigated and is sustained by Russia and has claimed 13,000 lives and counting—his administration’s top priority. He has made some progress toward that goal, overseeing a historic prisoner swap with Russia that saw one of Ukraine’s most respected filmmakers as well as 24 sailors captured last November returned home. According to information from the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, fewer civilians have been killed in the conflict this year than any year previously. A July cease-fire at the contact line seems to be holding firmer than its previous incarnations.

For Zelensky, Trump could be the key to ending the war in the Donbas. The American president has made his admiration for and cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin no secret. Likewise, Trump’s views about Ukraine—ambivalence about the status of Crimea, which Russia illegally seized in 2014, and support for ending the sanctions placed on Russia in response to its activities in Ukraine—make Ukrainians nervous. A cordial relationship between Trump and Zelensky could give Trump insight into Ukraine’s perspective and give Ukraine leverage it did not enjoy under former President Petro Poroshenko, who struggled to connect with the U.S. leader.

Ukraine does not have the luxury to pick and choose its international partners, something I learned when I served as an adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in 2016 and 2017 under the auspices of a Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship. Ukraine relies on its larger, richer allies as it attempts to shed its post-Soviet legacy. The United States—its largest and richest ally—provides not only for the now-famous military aid package, but hundreds of millions of dollars in civilian aid, supporting projects in just about every sector. The containment of the Chernobyl nuclear site, fighting HIV/AIDS, building cybersecurity capabilities, and creating government bodies that are more responsive to citizens are just a few of the projects that U.S assistance makes possible. Continued reform, including the pursuit of energy independence from Russia and the cleanup of the court system, the biggest obstacle to Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts, would be imperiled without this assistance. The United States also plays a key role in corralling European partners to uphold their own sanctions on Russia and to continue to support Ukraine as it walks the long and often bumpy road of democratic reform.

There are reasons to believe Zelensky’s slippery answers to President Trump’s repeated requests that he investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were deliberate. According to congressional staff who recently visited Ukraine and spoke with senior Ukrainian officials, the Zelensky administration was upset at feeling that it was being used and didn’t want to be a pawn in America’s domestic political machinations. In the phone call and at the meeting of the two presidents Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Zelensky was careful not to let the name Biden cross his lips. Instead, Zelensky says he will “look into the situation” related to Burisma, the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat, more generally. At the U.N., Zelensky also mentioned a few of the other important cases he hoped his new prosecutor would investigate in addition to Burisma, and maintained that he didn’t want to be dragged into American politics. 

Nina Jankowicz, who served as a Fulbright fellow, works in a press room at Volodymyr Zelensky's campaign headquarters in 2019 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Jankowicz was recently named the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board.

WaPo  | On the morning of April 27, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the first Disinformation Governance Board with the stated goal to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.” The Biden administration tapped Nina Jankowicz, a well-known figure in the field of fighting disinformation and extremism, as the board’s executive director.

In naming the 33-year-old Jankowicz to run the newly created board, the administration chose someone with extensive experience in the field of disinformation, which has emerged as an urgent and important issue. The author of the books “How to Be a Woman Online” and “How to Lose the Information War,” her career also featured stints at multiple nonpartisan think tanks and nonprofits and included work that focused on strengthening democratic institutions. Within the small community of disinformation researchers, her work was well-regarded.

But within hours of news of her appointment, Jankowicz was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating. The board itself and DHS received criticism for both its somewhat ominous name and scant details of specific mission (Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said it “could have done a better job of communicating what it is and what it isn’t”), but Jankowicz was on the receiving end of the harshest attacks, with her role mischaracterized as she became a primary target on the right-wing Internet. She has been subject to an unrelenting barrage of harassment and abuse while unchecked misrepresentations of her work continue to go viral.

Musical Chairs On The Deck Of The Titanic BEEN Underway For A Minute Now...,

theintercept | Before he walked into the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, on a mission to murder as many innocent Black shoppers as he could, 18-year-old Payton Gendron posted a rambling manifesto online outlining his motives.

His reasoning was familiar from other far-right shooters: This country isn’t going to be resource-rich enough for everyone in the future, so a race war over what is left is necessary today. However heinous, this vision of a bleak, impoverished future, in which there is not enough wealth to go around and the environment is near collapse, is motivating an ever-growing number of young men like him to carry out racist massacres across the West.

People who commit acts of terrorism tend to act for more than one reason. The racist hatred of Gendron toward Black Americans, Jews, and immigrants was ultimately what made his murders possible. For that, many are to blame, including far-right politicians and talking heads who have continued to wink at the “great replacement” as being the true source of white Westerners’ troubles.

Addressing this violence, though, also requires considering the role of scarcity — not a conspiracy theory, but a very real system of extreme inequality and ecological destruction. It is a system in which the most wealthy and powerful continue to see their wealth and power grow — at the expense of the masses. Faced with actual strained resources and environmental calamity, some of these forsaken people are turning to dark fantasies like the “great replacement theory” to make sense of it all.

This is not just about a toxic media ecosystem, but the larger way we have organized our lives in the West. This organizational structure could go by many names — neoliberalism, consumer capitalism, exploitation — but there can be little doubt that the pessimism it engenders is leading many young people into nihilism.

Kathy Hochul's Ruinous Economic Policies More To Blame For Buffalo Shooting Than Social Media

NYPost |  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul slammed social media platforms in the wake of the livestreamed mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday.

Payton Gendron, 18, allegedly was recording with a camera affixed to his helmet and broadcasting to Twitch when he killed 10 people in a racially-motivated attack at a Tops Friendly Market, police and reports said.

Hochul said social media outlets need to crack down on content concerning white supremacy and other dangerous ideologies and found it inexcusable that Gendron’s graphic stream wasn’t taken down “within a second.”

“These outlets must be more vigilant in monitoring social media content. And certainly, the fact that this act of barbarism, this execution of innocent human beings could be livestreamed on social media platforms and not taken down within a second, says to me that there is a responsibility out there,” Hochul, a Buffalo native, told reporters at a press conference Saturday night.

“And we’re going to continue to work on this and make sure that those who provide these platforms have a moral and ethical, and I hope to have a legal responsibility to ensure that such hate cannot populate these sites, because this is the result,” she said.

Law enforcement officials said that Gendron drove three and a half hours from his home in Conklin in Broome County to the Buffalo supermarket — which is located in a predominantly black neighborhood.

Reportedly armed with multiple weapons and tactical body armor, Gendron opened fire in the grocery store parking lot before shooting more victims inside. Of the 13 people he shot, 11 were black and two were white.

A Twitch spokesperson told The Post the streaming service “has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents.”

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Contrary To NYTimes And WaPo Wudn't No Avostal Nazi Evacuation - Jes Unconditional Surrender...,

The thing to remember about ANY/EVERY single person who leaves Azovstal previously, presently or in the future is this:
1. The Russians are not stupid or sloppy.
2. First they are taken under guard to a processing place. Wounded are under guard during treatment until fit for normal processing.
3. They are scrupulously checked for real identity by their papers and every civil database the Russians have access to. Local Mariupol LDPR investigators are also there to use their local knowledge to verify all claims of civilian neutrality.
4. They are stripped to look for any fascist sympathetic tattoos, men and women alike, it has been reported by one woman evacuee.
5. They are FINGERPRINTED AND PHOTOGRAPHED and their future intended residential address documented as they may be called as witnesses to war crimes in future criminal trials. The LDPR and Russians are fkn serious about legal retributions for the 8 year war and about making sure that not a single nazi sympathiser ever gets back into social circulation.
6. They are interrogated about all personal matters and all knowledge about what is going in inside Azovstal. Obviously, anyone NOT completely forthcoming is held for future interrogation.
7. Only after all the above tests, they are sorted into:
* free civilians to go home, their choice of Uk or LD or RF territory or to refugee camps;
* harmless Ukrainian Regular soldiers who go to LDPR POW camps awaiting exchange for Regular Russian POWs as per Geneva Convention;
* foreign low level mercenary fighters who go to LDPR POW camps awaiting criminal prosecution;
* high level foreigner (eg NATO staff), who most probably go to FSB Headquarters in Moscow for future intel and political purposes;
* Azov fighters who will all get kept as non-swapable POWs to be prosecuted by the LDPF for war crimes. The LDPR Public Prosecutors have publically clearly stated their guilty punishments may be as high as the death penalty.

So that's the strict filtering regime. So have no fear that any of the "Rats of Azovstal" will escape their rightful fates. Even after another 1000-2000 surrenders, the exact same processing will be done to each and every one. The LDPR and Russian military jails are gunna be real full, real soon.

The Strategic Supremacy Is Conspicuously Obvious To The Casual Observer

thecradle  |  Strategic primacy, for Byzantium, more than diplomatic or military, was a psychological affair. The word Strategia itself is derived from the Greek strategos – which does not mean “General” in military terms, as the west believes, but historically corresponds to a managerial politico-military function.

It all starts with si vis pacem para bellum: “If you want peace prepare for war.” Confrontation must develop simultaneously on multiple levels: grand strategy, military strategy, operative, tactical.

But brilliant tactics, excellent operative intel and even massive victories in a larger war theater cannot compensate for a lethal mistake in terms of grand strategy. Just look at the Nazis in WWII.

Those who built up an empire such as the Romans, or maintained one for centuries like the Byzantines, never succeeded without following this logic.

Those clueless Pentagon and CIA ‘experts’

On Operation Z, the Russians revel in total strategic ambiguity, which has the collective west completely discombobulated. The Pentagon does not have the necessary intellectual firepower to out-smart the Russian General Staff. Only a few outliers understand that this is not a war – since the Ukraine Armed Forces have been irretrievably routed – but actually what Russian military and naval expert Andrei Martyanov calls a “combined arms police operation,” a work-in-progress on demilitarization and denazification.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is even more abysmal in terms of getting everything wrong, as recently demonstrated by its chief Avril Haines during her questioning on Capitol Hill. History shows that the CIA strategically blew it all the way from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. Ukraine is no different.

Ukraine was never about a military win. What is being accomplished is the slow, painful destruction of the European Union (EU) economy, coupled with extraordinary weapons profits for the western military-industrial complex and creeping security rule by those nations’ political elites.

The latter, in turn, have been totally baffled by Russia’s C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) capabilities, coupled with the stunning inefficiency of their own constellation of Javelins, NLAWs, Stingers and Turkish Bayraktar drones.

This ignorance reaches way beyond tactics and the operational and strategic realm. As Martyanov delightfully points out, they “wouldn’t know what hit them on the modern battlefield with near-peer, forget about peer.”

The Special Military Operation Seeks To End Decades Of Khazarian Deviltry

thesaker  |  Make no mistake about it: The tragic war that is currently taking place on Ukrainian battlefields is not between the Russian Federation and the Ukraine, but between the Russian Federation and the US-controlled NATO. The latter, also called ‘the collective West’, promotes an aggressive ideology of organised violence, a politically- economically- and militarily-enforced doctrine euphemistically known as ‘Globalism’. This means hegemony by the Western world, which arrogantly calls itself ‘the international community’, over the whole planet. NATO is losing that war, which uses NATO-trained Ukrainians as its proxy cannon fodder, in three spheres, political, economic and military.

Firstly, politically, the West has finally understood that it cannot execute regime change in Moscow. Its pipedream of replacing the highly popular President Putin with is CIA stooge Navalny is not going to happen. As for the West’s puppet-president in Kiev, he is only a creature of Washington and its oligarchs. A professional actor, he is unable to speak for himself, but is a spokesman for the NATO which he loves.

Secondly, economically, the West faces serious resistance to the 6,000 sanctions it has imposed on Russia and Russians. Those sanctions have backfired. In the West, we can testify to this every time we buy fuel or food. The combination of high inflation (10% +) and even higher energy prices, caused almost solely by these illegal anti-Russian sanctions, are threatening the collapse of Western economies, much more than threatening Russia or China. As a result of this reverse effect of sanctions against Russia, the rouble is at a three-year high, standing at about 64 to the US dollar and rising, though immediately after the sanctions it had briefly gone down to 150 to the dollar.

After strenuously denying that they would do it, already most countries in Europe (at least 17 for now), including Germany and Italy, have agreed to open accounts with Gazprombank, as Russia advised them to do and to pay for oil and gas in roubles. And this number is growing by the week. The problems will be even greater with food shortages, as the world food chain is highly integrated and the agricultural production of Russia and the Ukraine (now controlled by Russia) is at least 40% of the world’s grain production.  Just days ago it was announced that Russia expects record grain production this year (130 million tonnes). Russia may yet demand payment in roubles for all this as well.

The sanctions against Russia have divided Europe and are threatening to divide NATO.  President Erdogan of Turkey, a NATO member, has announced that he would veto the entry to NATO of Finland and Sweden into NATO. At the same time, Russia has announced that it will cut off Finland’s natural gas supply. Swedish leaders are re-thinking their entry to NATO.

Thirdly, militarily, it is clear that the Ukraine, with huge numbers of desertions and surrenders, has no chance of winning the war against Russia. Most of its military equipment has already been wiped out and newly-delivered and often antiquated Western equipment will make little difference, even if it is not destroyed by Russian missiles as soon as it reaches the Ukraine. The conflict could now be over within weeks, rather than months. The US ‘Defense Secretary’ (= Minister for Offense), Lloyd Austin, has desperately called the Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu to beg for a ceasefire. Would you agree to a ceasefire when in less than three months and with only 10% of your military forces you have already occupied an area greater than England inside the Ukraine, an area that produces 75% of Ukrainian GDP?

The panic of financial disaster in the West has begun to set in. As a result, the French President Macron has told President Zelensky (that is, told Washington) to give up part of Ukraine’s sovereignty and at last start serious negotiations with Russia. Macron is also trying to free French mercenaries from Azovstal in Mariupol, but the problem is much bigger than this, as the whole of Europe is facing economic meltdown. And the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, has asked President Biden to contact President Putin and ‘give peace a chance’. Note that Mario Draghi is a former president of the European Central Bank and a Goldman Sachs puppet – just as Macron is a Rothschild puppet.

There have always been empires and invasions throughout history. However, they have always been local and not been justified as the only possible global ideology, a ‘New World Order’, to be imposed by violence all over the planet. After the NATO war is over, lost by ‘the collective West’, NATO Centralism, the ideology of a ‘Unipolar World’, controlled from Washington, must end. However, Centralism must also come to an end everywhere else, like that under Soviet-period Moscow (1).

Fuck Robert Kagan And Would He Please Now Just Go Quietly Burn In Hell?

politico | The Washington Post on Friday announced it will no longer endorse presidential candidates, breaking decades of tradition in a...