Russia’s current relationship with China allows for full-spectrum cooperation in the tech sector, including with regards to its military applications, President Vladimir Putin told a Chinese entrepreneur on Thursday during a panel discussion at VTB Bank’s ‘Russia Calling!’ forum.
The remark was part of Putin’s answer to a question about US sanctions policy, which includes a ban on export of certain technologies to some nations, which, the Chinese businessman suggested, was forcing them to “reinvent the bicycle”. The Russian leader said such restrictions were not viable in the long run even before the world became profoundly interconnected…
Washington’s current policies are meant to preserve its dominant status, the Russian president claimed, but “if we act across the board, supporting and helping each other, no restrictions by whoever tries to keep its advantage can stop us.”
As for China specifically, Russia is ready to cooperate in every area, Putin assured.
“We have no limits. This includes the military sphere,” he said. “When it comes to security, we are moving away from the traditional ‘buy-sell’ kind of relationship. We think about the future, about technologies.”
Translation: Because, unlike the US and British empires, the Russian people are not seeking to unilaterally dominate the world, there is no reason not to share its advanced weapons technology with other powers that share the Russian objective to free itself from Clown World’s economic and military dominance.
Once it becomes clear you made a bad bet, the smart thing to do is cash out and file away any lessons learned for next time. Faced with the increasingly obvious defeat of the Kiev regime, the Finnish government hasn’t taken the smart step of breaking away from NATO, but instead decided to double down on a prospective rematch with the Russian military:
Finland is going to produce artillery shells for Ukraine because arming Kiev for its conflict with Russia is a “vital issue” for Helsinki, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen has said.
He told Iltalehti newspaper on Tuesday that the details of how artillery shells would be produced for Ukraine had been finalized, and a decision on the matter would be made “very soon.” According to Hakkanen, the government will finalize all of its plans before Christmas, which Finland celebrates on December 25.
The country became a NATO member state last year and is looking to “significantly increase munitions production” to be able “to support Ukraine even more strongly than it does now,” Hakkanen said.
This is why it is not only wise, but absolutely vital, to disbelieve every single narrative being promulgated by the mainstream media. If you listen to Clown World, sooner or later you will find yourself beclowned.
It appears that the days of the Zelensky regime are numbered, as even his allies are preparing to remove him from office:
I read a new report which seems completely believable given the somewhat ‘strange’ and inconsistent tactics of the grand counteroffensive, that essentially Zaluzhny in some ways ‘threw’ the offensive. Not deliberately sabotaged it per se—but rather that Zelensky really wanted an “all in” approach, maximum meat sacrificed, while Zaluzhny played it extremely safe after the disastrous opening, where the 47th and other brigades were mauled, with the famous Leopard/Bradley orgies of destruction. If you’ve noticed, since that point, the offensive devolved into a very cagey company-at-a-time approach that seemed more like an endless probative action rather than full on multi-brigade combined arms maneuvers into one direction. According to this opinion, this was a deliberate attempt of Zaluzhny’s to countervail the ‘orders of sacrifice’ and save as many men as possible.
Zaluzhny has been known to be the one calling for defensive fortifications and a retreat from various blood-baths like Bakhmut and Avdeevka, while Zelensky has always pushed forward to not give an inch, same as currently happening in Avdeevka. So it seems Zaluzhny has always been the one most amenable to whatever will save the men’s lives.
Now onto the second thing regarding Hersh’s claims. The confidante made some tongue-in-cheek mention of Zelensky’s ‘trip to the Caribbean’ being prepared. Ironically, a new such report actually did hit the streets, which claims that a secret operation is already underway to prepare Zelensky’s relocation to the U.S.
A US Secret Service agent who wished to remain anonymous has revealed to DCWeekly details about the arrangements being made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s relocation to the United States. The agent claims that the Biden administration has issued orders to ensure the safety and accommodation of President Zelensky’s family starting in the spring of 2024. This decision is based on the belief that Zelensky’s presidency in Ukraine may conclude next year, and remaining in Ukraine thereafter could pose security risks.
And certainly, the way in which the Zelensky regime has been observably trying to freeze out and minimize the Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, while someone has been assassinating his deputies, does point toward a serious struggle for control of the regime.
Whether of this makes any difference at all, given the fact that Russia doesn’t have to agree to any of the terms that will be proposed by a post-Zelensky regime, remains to be seen. While Russia would have settled for the recovery of the Crimea and the two Donbass republics two years ago, there is no reason it should do so now that it has already recovered and annexed those regions. I can’t imagine Russia now agreeing to settle for anything less than Odessa, Kherson, and Nikolayev, an end to all European sanctions, and the complete demilitarization of Ukraine.
Russia began a Kabinettskriege in 2022 when it invaded Ukraine, and found itself mired in something closer to a Volkskriege. Russia’s mode of operation and war aims would have been instantly recognizable to a 17th Century statesman – the Russian professional army attempted to defeat the Ukrainian professional army and achieve limited territorial gains (the Donbas and recognition of Crimea’s legal status). They called this a “special military operation.”
Instead, the Ukrainian state has decided – like the French National Government – to fight to the death. To Bismarck’s demands for Alace-Lorraine, the French simply said “there can be no reply but Guerre a Outrance” – war to the utmost. Putin’s cabinet war – limited war for limited aims – exploded into a national war.
Unlike Bismarck, however, Putin has opted to see Ukraine’s raise. My suggestion – and it is only that – is that Putin’s dual decisions in the autumn of last year to announce a mobilization and to annex the disputed Ukrainian territories amounted to a tacit agreement to Ukraine’s Volkskrieg.
In the debate between Moltke and Bismarck, Putin has chosen to follow Moltke’s lead, and wage the war of extermination. Not – and again we stress this – a war of genocide, but a war which will destroy Ukraine as a strategically potent entity. Already the seeds are sown and the fruit begins to bud – a Ukrainian democide, achieved through battlefield attrition and the mass exodus of prime age civilians, an economy in shambles and a state that is cannibalizing itself as it reaches the limits of its resources.
There is a model for this – ironically, Germany itself. After the Second World War, it was decided that Germany – now held to account for two terrible conflagrations – could simply not be allowed to persist as a geopolitical entity. In 1945, after Hitler shot himself, the allies did not demand the spoils of a Cabinet War. There was no minor annexation here, no redrawn border there. Instead, Germany was annihilated. Her lands were divided, her self-governance was abolished. Her people lingered on in a stygian exhaustion, their political form and life now a plaything of the victor – precisely what Moltke wanted to do to France.
Putin is not going to leave a geostrategically intact Ukraine which will seek to retake the Donbas and exact revenge, or become a potent forward base for NATO. Instead, he will transform Ukraine into a Trashcanistan that can never wage a war of revanchism.
Clausewitz warned us.
This is why studying history, even as an amateur hobbyist, is invaluable. The ability to recognize the patterns that play repeatedly play out over time will often provide the intelligent, but informed amateur a better basis for understanding and anticipating events than the professionals and political decision makers.
It’s educational to note that while the professionals and politicians never understood the significance of the Special Military Operation designation, many of the armchair military historians did.
1, 126,652 KIAs and MIAs for VSU. Somebody will have to answer for this atrocity and the main puppet masters sit in Washington and London and their names will be named at the Ukraine War Crimes Tribunal. Many will also be charged with crimes in absentia. In related news–this number is larger than US losses in all XIX, XX and XXI centuries wars combined. They are beyond comprehension of any US military, let alone political, figure.
The office of a 404 “president” reacted immediately and forced 1+1 to retract the story, but it is too late.
It’s not too surprising that the news of the utter defeat of the Ukrainian military is being leaked out to the ignorant global public. The USA is pulling the plug on its proxy war now that it has a higher priority in the Middle East, the European economies are teetering on the edge of collapse going into another energy-expensive winter, and the neoclowns have finally realized that China poses the much more dangerous threat to Clown World going forward than Russia.
Except in that it represents a step toward the world’s eventual acceptance of Russia’s victory over NATO, the slaughter of five percent of the male Ukrainian population isn’t something to celebrate. It is an abomination and an object lesson in the intrinsic danger of a nation permitting itself to be ruled over by foreigners and thereby sacrificed to interests that are not their own.
The staggering death toll should also provide a sobering lesson to the Boomers and others who still believe in the myth of American military supremacy, as it represents more soldiers than are presently on active duty in the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps combined.
The US Army’s strange recruiting tactics make a lot more sense once you realize it probably isn’t mobilizing for a war with a near-peer military like China or Russia, but rather, in preparation for the large-scale violent suppression of civilians:
Do you remember when the testosterone-driven “Top Gun” was the ultimate recruitment tool for the US Navy? It’s easy to see why—the movie was packed with adrenaline, rugged men, beautiful women, and plenty of what’s now termed “toxic masculinity.” Contrast that with today’s military, which has totally shifted focus. Instead of seeking out traditionally masculine men, their recruitment now heavily includes the LGBTQ community and men who wear pantyhose. This change might be why their recruitment numbers are in the toilet.
The United States military’s newest recruitment tactic is taking a really bizarre turn. Gone are the days of scouting for robust young men at gyms or high school football practices. Now, they’re adopting a different strategy: dressing up as anime characters and visiting “conventions” across the nation.
The Bolsheviks didn’t unleash an elite and well-disciplined military against the kulaks of the Ukraine. To the contrary, they unleashed a horde of coked-up gammas to steal, slaughter, and suppress the population, if the accounts of the Holodomor are even remotely accurate.
So, either the US Army has no idea what sort of young men it is going to attract by shifting its focus toward recruiting sexual deviants and “socially-awkward weirdos” or it is preparing for a very different sort of war than most people anticipate it fighting.
And the Great Bifurcation is now in place. Russia and China are no longer using the US dollar for trade between their countries:
Western currencies have been almost completely phased out in Russia-China trade, as nearly all payments between the countries are now carried out in rubles and yuan, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov announced on Monday.
Since the introduction of Western sanctions on Moscow, Russia and China have accelerated the use of their own currencies in trade. According to Belousov, 95% of all transactions between Russia and China are now carried out in one of the countries’ national currencies, and given the rapid expansion of mutual trade and cooperation, this percentage is likely to grow.
Speaking at a meeting of the Russia-China intergovernmental commission in Beijing, the deputy prime minister said bilateral trade between the two countries will exceed the target of $200 billion this year, and may reach $300 billion by 2030.
World War III largely remains unfought, and yet its economic victors are already apparent. For decades, the USA has bombed, staged coups, invaded, and occupied in order to defend the primacy of the US dollar. In less than two years, inspired by what has to be the dumbest, least well-considered economic siege in recorded history, the USA has lost its ability to exert currency influence over the biggest economy on the planet and the foremost military power on Earth.
It’s only a matter of time now before all the BRICS countries stop using the dollar for trade outside the Western bloc. The ramifications of this are massive, and may well serve to mark the precise moment that the USA ceased to be a global power and became a regional one again.
Tim Pool does NOT want to let his guest talk about the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty or its potential implications for the current US Navy presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
GUEST: I’m concerned with having American aircraft carriers over there, like what I keep being told about the USS Liberty, that’s something with the Israeli government-
TIM POOL: You should, you should be careful about that one!
SIDEKICK: Allegedly, the Israeli Air Force, jet fighter aircraft, I mean, they did end up paying out the American government.
GUEST: So I’m concerned, like false flag operation, like a missile comes out of Gaza and hits one of our aircraft carriers, but it was actually an Israeli missile. I don’t want, we should get out of there, it doesn’t-
TIM POOL: Let me stop you there. It doesn’t matter where the missile comes from. If a missile comes out of the Middle East in any capacity and hits a US target, everyone will claim it was exactly what they want it to be, exactly. The US military will say Iran did it, the pro-Palestinians will say Israel did it, the pro-Israel will say Hamas did it.
GUEST: Yeah, if it comes out of a foreign country other than Israel, then it’ll be hard to deny.
TIM POOL: It doesn’t matter where it comes from! The US will say Iran did it.
GUEST: Right, well, if it comes out of Tel Aviv it’s going to be hard to sell that.
TIM POOL: But prove it came out of Tel Aviv! How do you know? You read the news! You are going to get American intelligence agencies going to news organizations, saying “tell them it came out of Iran”!
GUEST: I don’t think the Americans want their carrier to be hit as a false flag. Maybe the USS Liberty thing was an accident.
SIDEKICK: That’s the controversy over it. The Israeli government claims it was an accident, but some survivors say that they don’t think it was an accident, so was it a false flag? That’s why people talk about it.
GUEST: Did America get involved in the 1967 war after that?
SIDEKICK: No, because it ended up it ended up being really short but-
TIM POOL: We are, we’re going to go to super chats so if you haven’t already would you kindly smash that Like button, and subscribe to this channel.
I’m not saying Tim Pool is wrong, although I think there is zero chance that any Israeli missiles will be launched at any American ships; the fact that the US media still avoids the subject of the USS Liberty like vampires avoiding holy water tends to indicate that the Israelis don’t have any desire to risk repeating that sort of debacle, not when the US Navy is perfectly capable of sinking its own ships without any help from friend, foe, or greatest ally. And, depending upon the captain, possibly without even intentionally trying to do so.
Also, there are no shortage of influential neocons in the US government and media who want war with Iran far worse than the Israelis do. They are both less attached to reality and more distanced from the potential consequences. Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld once said, in an ironic turn of phrase, that US neocons are willing to fight to the very last Israeli.
What is most interesting about the interview, however, is the way in which Pool tells the guest to “be careful” after he brings up the incident, and then immediately attempts to change the subject, twice. It would be very interesting to ask Mr. Pool why he believes one has to “be careful” about a minor military engagement that took place 56 years ago and is such a matter of public record that it has its own Wikipedia page.
This is what media gatekeeping looks like in action. It’s the avoidance of certain topics and the steering of the public discourse away from those topics when they are, for some reason, accidentally brought up.
Osama bin Laden wanted to speak directly to the American people.An undated letter promising endless war is one of hundreds of documents collected in the May 2, 2011 raid on his compound in Pakistan that was released Wednesday. The full text is below.
However, the full text of the letter was not actually provided by Foreign Policy. Two lines, highlighted below in bold italics, were omitted with the following note.
(TN: Two lines of poetry that say the Mujahidin will not stop fighting until the United States leaves their land.)
Even more intriguing, The Guardianjust disappeared the page on which the letter had been published for the last 21 years.
Removed: document Wed 15 Nov 2023 21.19 CET This page previously displayed a document containing, in translation, the full text of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people”, as reported in the Observer on Sunday 24 November 2002. The document, which was published here on the same day, was removed on 15 November 2023.
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
From Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin to the American people,
I speak to you about the subject of the ongoing war between you and us. Even though the consensus of your wise thinkers and others is that your time (TN: of defeat) will come, compassion for the women and children who are being unjustly killed, wounded, and displaced in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan motivates me to speak to you.
First of all, I would like to say that your war with us is the longest war in your history and the most expensive for you financially. As for us, we see it as being only halfway finished. If you were to ask your wise thinkers, they would tell you that there is no way to win it because the indications are against it. How will you win a war whose leaders are pessimistic and whose soldiers are committing suicide? If fear enters the hearts of men, winning the war becomes impossible. How will you win a war whose cost is like a hurricane blowing violently at your economy and weakening your dollar?
The Bush administration got you into these wars on the premise that they were vital to your security. He promised that it would be a quick war, won within six days or six weeks; however, six years have passed, and they are still promising you victory and not achieving it. Then Obama came and delayed the withdrawal that he had promised you by 16 more months. He promised you victory in Afghanistan and set a date for withdrawal from there. Six months later, Petraeus came to you once again with the number six, requesting that the withdrawal be delayed six months beyond the date that had been set. All the while you continue to bleed in Iraq and Afghanistan. You are wading into a war with no end in sight on the horizon and which has no connection to your security, which was confirmed by the operation of ‘Umar al-Faruq, which was not launched from the battlefield and could have been launched from any place in the world.
As for us, jihad against the tyrants and the aggressors is a form of great worship in our religion. It is more precious to us than our fathers and sons. Thus, our jihad against you is worship, and your killing us is a testimony. Thanks to God, Almighty, we have been waging jihad for 30 years, against the Russians and then against you. Not a single one of our men has committed suicide, whereas every 30 days 30 of your men commit suicide.
Continue the war if you will.
Palestine shall not be seen captive for we will try to break its shackles. The United States shall pay for its arrogance with the blood of Christians and their funds.
Peace be upon those who follow right guidance.
Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift your oppression from us.
There can’t be much doubt as to why Bin Ladin’s “Letter to the American People” is being disappeared, in light of the recent Hamas attacks, the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and the rush of US men and material to the Middle East. The neocons in the US and UK media are obviously attempting to prevent the pro-Palestinian side from presenting its perspective to the public, and more importantly, they are trying to hide the material link between the past US military defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan with the present US military presence in Syria, Israel, and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
I doubt it matters in the slightest. As even the ADL has reported, the youngest generation in the West is solidly against the Israeli position in the Gaza conflict, while only the Boomers generally support it. While the Millennials and Generation X are more balanced – or in the case of GenX, characteristically apathetic – neither of them are even remotely interested in fighting anyone in the Middle East for any reason.
But there can be little question that this is an all-hands-on-deck situation for the neocons, so it will be very informative to observe which public figures fall in line with the demands of the Narrative, and which ones are not being controlled.
UPDATE: The media is officially upset that its attempt to disappear the Bin Ladin letter has failed:
A vile letter written by the warlord behind the 9/11 atrocities has gone viral on TikTok with users saying that reading it has led to them ‘understanding’ as to why the horrific attacks were carried out in 2001. The letter began to gain traction online after UK newspaper The Guardian linked to a 2002 article which translated it in full in an article about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. It was subsequently deleted with the outlet telling DailyMail.com in a statement that it was removed because was being shared ‘without its original context.’
They’re not even attempting to pretend to be journalists anymore. The letter is “vile”? The attacks were “horrific”? Furthermore, The Guardian linked to the article in 2002, so the letter began to gain traction 21 years later, which is indeed “after” the link, but is a very misleading way to describe what happened and why people are paying attention to the vanished letter.
Remember, facts provided without approved context consistent with the Narrative is misinformation.
The unravelling has started and it’s obvious that the neocons have already decided to pull the plug and turn off the life support system of the Kiev regime.
Let’s summarize recent developments:
Zaluzhny’s aides are deleted, one by assassination
Large-scale new ‘house cleaning’ of entire general staff is reportedly announced from Zelensky’s side
Major media campaigns from both sides push urgent narratives of stalemates, Zaluzhny implying the war will be lost, and an eye-opening exposé on a ‘isolated’ and ‘messianic’ Fuhrer-bunker version of Zelensky
Zelensky suddenly cancels presidential elections, likely sussing the plan to promote Zaluzhny as challenger
Money spigot has still been turned off for the foreseeable future, with no realistic plans on horizon at the moment
Ukraine now catastrophically losing on virtually every front of the war, set to soon lose another major, strategically critical city
Many influential voices like Arestovich now openly push ceasefire
The ‘grim reaper’ CIA director set to pay visit, which only happens on eve of some major pivot or escalation. Diplomats and Foreign Secretaries are sent to ‘discuss options’ or ‘negotiate’—CIA directors are sent to deliver final threats of action
Now, much of the foregoing information is already being discussed elsewhere. But the one chief question no one else seems to be asking is the most critical of all: if factions in the West intend to replace Zelensky with Zaluzhny, then what is the actual purpose? What do they intend for Zaluzhny to do or accomplish that Zelensky cannot?
Some haven’t thought this through, and just assume that “Zaluzhny is a strong leader” and therefore is being made to replace Zelensky so that he can whip the military into shape and win the war. But why would Zaluzhny need to be president to do that? He’s already the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and that’s literally his job description.
So, logically speaking, the only possible explanation I can see making sense is that Zaluzhny is being chosen to sell the ceasefire to the people. Such a thing would sound more acceptable from the standpoint of a military leader and strategist who can explain that the situation is hopeless without time to recover and replenish the forces with an armistice. And more importantly, to sell it to the troops.
Notice how all of this has been transparent to anyone who simply watches the direction that the elite neocons are taking. This was obvious as far back as April and May, but the need to focus on the defense of Israel, which is the absolute #1 neocon priority, means that the Ukraine war will be over as soon as a military leader a) replaces Zelensky/Yermak and b) meets Putin’s terms.
However, it may not be as easy to accomplish (b) as the neocons and the media believe. I expect Putin will demand, at the very least, a complete end of the collective sanctions regime, a disinvitation to NATO, and the province of Odessa, and it’s going to be very, very difficult for all the true believers in the Narrative to accept that.
Notice, in particular, that the CIA director who is meeting with Zelensky this week wrote the following to his then-boss, Condoleeza Rice, in 2008 when he was the ambassador to Russia:
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
In any event, don’t be surprised if the collapse and first attempt to reach a settlement happens considerably sooner than anyone expects. Keep in mind that the speed with which these events are taking place tend to indicate that the war in the Middle East is not proceeding as well as anticipated.
