Tag: war

Empire’s End

Empires tend to end in farce. The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets is no exception:

The UK will remove all of its troops from Ukraine amid fears that Russia could invade its neighbor, Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said on Saturday. “All of them will be withdrawn,” Heappey told BBC Radio 4’s Today show. “There will be no British troops in Ukraine if there is to be a conflict there.”

One wonders what the victors of the Crimean War would have made of such an ignominious and farcical series of maneuvers on the part of the British Armed Forces. The heir to that fallen empire, the Imperial USA, shouldn’t laugh too hard, though, after its own debacle in Afghanistan. The end of the US empire is already in sight.

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Calling Out the Evil Empire

Russia points out that Germany is an occupied state under the military occupation of the imperial USA:

The US continues to “occupy” Germany by any measure, while America’s NATO allies have surrendered all their sovereignty to Washington and aren’t allowed to have a say on issues like Nord Stream 2, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RT in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

Commenting on US President Joe Biden’s talk of “shutting down” the Nord Stream 2 pipeline during the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington on Monday, Zakharova pointed out that Berlin remains under Washington’s thumb long after the Cold War’s end.

“Germany, according to a number of relevant characteristics – this is neither mine, nor Russia’s opinion, this is according to politological terms and metrics – remains, one way or another, an occupied state: 30,000 of American [troops] are stationed there,” she told RT.

Zakharova added that “American ambassadors to Germany, who are supposed to work there to improve bilateral relations, are giving orders to German officials.” Richard Grenell, who was the US ambassador to Berlin during the Trump presidency, was “giving them orders literally every day on what to do on issues such as Nord Stream 2.”

Germany is being treated like “simply a protectorate” by the US, Zakharova said, adding that this doesn’t just take the form of financial leverage of threats, but is “backed up by 30,000 American boots on the ground.”

So, why is the US military still occupying Germany, 77 years after conquering it? The excuse of “defending West Germany from the Soviet Union” hasn’t even existed for the last three decades. It’s getting harder and harder for the New Neo-Liberal Rules-Based World Order to pretend that it isn’t the evil Empire That Never Ended, especially now that two of the largest national powers are not only resisting it, but openly calling it out.

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“A Rare and Direct Warning”

It would be difficult for China to make it any more clear what will happen if the USA continues encouraging the Taiwan island authorities to seek independence from China:

In a recent interview with US media, Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang said that if the Taiwan island authority, emboldened by the US, keeps going down the road for independence, it would most likely involve China and the US “in a military conflict.” He also compared the Taiwan question to “the biggest tinderbox” between China and the US.

The ambassador’s words sent shockwaves to the US. US media believe this is a rare and direct warning from Chinese mainland to the US and Taiwan.

This was the first one-on-one interview of Qin as China’s ambassador to the US, and the audience was the Americans. The views he expressed were not only a clear signal to US political elites – he warned them not to continue to play with fire on the Taiwan question or they will face dire consequences – he also intended to let more Americans realize the seriousness of the consequences of “using Taiwan to contain the Chinese mainland” and who the real destroyer of peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits is.

The US government can appeal to democracy, the new neo-liberal rules-based world order, or Mighty Cthulhu all it likes, but there are certain geopolitical realities it is going to accept, one way or another. First, Russia is not going to permit NATO expansion or US missiles near its borders. Second, Taiwan is part of China.

Whether it has to accept those realities the hard way or not is the only question. If the neocons remain in control and remain hell-bent on war, Russia and China will give it to them. But the war is very unlikely to proceed along the nice little controlled path that the neocons have in mind.

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And Here… We… Go

NATO and the USA reject Russia’s perfectly reasonable demands:

NATO has said it “will not compromise” on potential expansion into Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics, as this clashes with the “core principles” of the alliance, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Wednesday.

Moscow proposed eight points in the draft, and expected a detailed reply to each one.

The US was asked to stop any further NATO expansion to the east, halt military programs in non-member countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union – and pledge Ukraine and Georgia would “never” join the bloc – remove its nuclear weapons from Europe, and not deploy any offensive weapons capable of targeting Russia along its borders. Moscow demanded legally binding guarantees on all of those matters.

The alliance’s response, which Stoltenberg said all 30 members agreed upon, was delivered to Moscow earlier in the day by the US ambassador, alongside Washington’s separate written note.

The US has asked Russia to keep the contents of its response private.

The great accomplishment of the Trump administration was to avoid war with Russia, which was looking very likely in 2015 after Hillary Clinton made it clear that she intended to invite both Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

The difference is that now Russia – and China – have had an additional seven years to prepare for war with the New Neo-Liberal Rules-Based World Order, and they have no shortage of additional motivation for it.

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Diversifying Ukraine

It’s really remarkable to see the globalist governments of the New Neo-Liberal Rules-Based World Order going crazy over the possibility of a few hundred thousand “New Ukrainians” going in search of a better life for themselves and their families in Ukraine. I mean, isn’t diversity Ukraine’s strength?

If they didn’t have any problem with 80 million foreigners colonizing the United States, why do they get so bent out of shape concerning much smaller waves of immigration into places like Ukraine or Taiwan Island.

If they want to truly defang the globalist rhetoric, all Putin and Xi have to do is announce that they are sponsoring emigration programs for young men who are going abroad in search of better economic prospects. These programs will be good for both the Ukrainian and Taiwanese economies, so how can anyone possibly object to them?

Putin isn’t “invading” or “subjecting” or “colonizing” Ukraine. He’s simply contemplating the possibility of diversifying and strengthening it.

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No, They Can Roll

China denies asking Russia to delay an invasion of Ukraine:

Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday refuted a Bloomberg report which claimed that the Chinese leader allegedly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The ministry said that the news is fake, noting it’s not only a slander and provocation to China-Russia relations but also interference with and sabotage against the Olympics.

Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said at a routine press conference on Monday that such a despicable trick will not deceive the international community.

“I want to stress that today’s China-Russia relations are mature, stable and resilient. The two sides have maintained close communication at all levels. Any attempt to drive a wedge between the two countries or challenge mutual trust is futile,” Zhao said.

I don’t think that quite played out the way the US media was expecting.

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The Soviet Union Didn’t Collapse

Everything you know about the end of the Cold War is wrong, as a U.S. ambassador who was witness to the events explains:

Octavian Report: To what extent were Reagan and Gorbachev as people essential to ending the Cold War?

Ambassador Jack Matlock: I think only Reagan and Gorbachev would have been able to do what they did. You had to have the two of them in office at the same time. Now, the first George Bush finished it off. But essentially, the Cold War was over ideologically when Reagan left office. It was just up to Bush to continue the policies Reagan had set with Gorbachev in order to finish it peacefully. It was finished by negotiation so that both sides came out as winners. That’s why today, when we talk about winning the Cold War as if Russia was the loser, we’re not only distorting history, we’re making it much more difficult to build a peaceful world.

OR: In what way do you think Russia won?

Matlock: First of all, Russia was part of the Soviet Union. We ended the Cold War with the Soviet Union, not with Russia. We’ve got to stop talking about Russia as if it was the same entity, whether a Communist empire or whether the current Russian Federation. There are a few characteristics that they share, but these are entirely different political entities.

That’s one thing you have to understand. The Soviet Union won the Cold War — as did everybody else. Ending it saved them from the collapse that was going on internally. The arms race was killing them. Their ideology was killing them. Their foreign policy was not in their interest. Gorbachev saw that and Reagan saw that. We set terms to end the Cold War which were in the interest of the Soviet Union if they wanted to follow a peaceful policy towards the West, which they did.

Losing the Cold War would have been if it went hot. Everybody would have lost. We ended it without anyone losing anything. The Soviet Union lost nothing in ending the Cold War other than its control of Eastern Europe, which was not an advantage for it but a disadvantage. The idea that somehow controlling other countries that don’t want you to control them is an asset is absolutely wrong. Look at the problems we have in the Middle East today. It is a liability. It is not an asset. In giving up those liabilities, Gorbachev made it possible to try to reform the system.

He was unable to do so but the system broke up from the inside after the Cold War was over. Ending the Cold War, ending the arms race which literally was killing their economy, ending their attempt to project their power abroad which was creating liabilities, ending all of that was to the advantage of the Soviet Union. It gave the country the possibility of reforming and coming into the late 20th century. They couldn’t do so under the conditions of the Cold War.

The seeds of future wars are often planted in the ends of the previous one. The neocons who used to control the Soviet Union now control only Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, the United States. That’s why they are now so eager for war with Russia, since the Russians managed to free themselves from neocon rule and the so-called neo-liberal world order with the collapse of the Yeltsin regime.

The events of the present make a lot more sense once one has a more accurate account of those of the past.

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Drums in the Not-Very Deep

The war drums are getting steadily louder as both NATO and Ukraine increasingly engage in “defensive” actions.

Vladimir Putin will opt for the ‘nightmare scenario’ of a full invasion of Ukraine as tensions rise towards tipping point, UK defence chiefs fear.

The region has been on a knife-edge since the end of last year when Moscow moved as many as 100,000 troops, as well as tanks and missiles, close to the border.

The White House warned yesterday the situation was ‘extremely dangerous’ and that Moscow could launch an attack ‘at any point’.

It had been thought Mr Putin would choose the ‘simple option’ of sending troops into the Donbass region in south-eastern Ukraine and then negotiate for it to become an independent state, providing a buffer between pro-western Ukraine and Russia.

As the region is already occupied by pro-Russian separatists, and has been in a state of war since 2014, it was believed it would offer little resistance.

But the latest intelligence now has Ministry of Defence chiefs worried about a much larger incursion, raising fears of warfare engulfing cities and high civilian death tolls.

They believe Mr Putin’s troops are being positioned in line with his new objective, with armoured divisions set to head into neighbouring Belarus on exercise but now stationed within striking distance of Kiev.

Last night a senior defence source said: ‘We strongly believe [Putin’s] preference is for a full invasion rather than a limited offensive. In a sense he might as well go for as much of Ukraine as he can get hold of because the penalties are just the same.

No one puts Vladi in a corner. Because it’s almost as stupid to do so as invading Russia in winter. Unfortunately, the neocons are both stupid and evil, being intoxicated by their success in taking over US foreign policy. And since we know the Official Story is always wrong, it would be interesting to know the real reason underlying these two developments. First, the suspension of flights to the USA.

Prominent airlines from Japan, India, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have suspended flights to airports across the United States after expressing concern over the deployment of 5G.

Emirates, Air India, Japan Airlines, and All Nippon Airways canceled flights to New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Seattle, among other US cities.

Air India announced on Tuesday that it would no longer operate flights the next day to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport “due to deployment of the 5G communications in USA.”

On the same day, Emirates canceled flights to at least nine US cities, again “due to operational concerns associated with the planned deployment of 5G mobile network services in the U.S,” while Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways canceled at least 13 flights.

Second, the real reason for the Hunga-Tonga eruption that created a tidal wave and was big enough to be seen from space.

On January 14, a very large eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai, an uninhabited volcanic island of the Tongan archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, began. Hunga Tonga is 65 km north of Tongatapu, the country’s main island. The eruption caused tsunamis in Tonga, Fiji, American Samoa and along the rim of the Pacific Ocean. Tsunami warnings and advisories were issued in Fiji, Samoa, Wallis and Futuna, Vanuatu, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Russia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador. Damaging tsunami waves were reported in New Zealand, the United States, Chile and Peru. Two people drowned in Peru when a 2 m wave struck the coast, and two fishermen in the United States suffered minor injuries. The event is likely the largest volcanic eruption of the 21st century to date.

Tsunamis are typically triggered by earthquakes, not volcanoes.

There are rumors that the “eruption” was actually the detonation of a massive Russian nuclear weapon. And the rumors are based on a modicum of actual evidence, or rather, the absence of evidence that should be available.

In yesterday’s report we noted that any nuclear weapon detonated in the Pacific Proving Grounds would throw into the atmosphere radiation signatures from the previous atomic tests conducted there still existing on the seafloor—and is critical to notice because in today’s transcript it notes that American radiation networks – updated in real time every minute – stopped updating on 16 January—and when checking the United States government RadNet system for real time atmospheric radiation levels, today it sees their hundreds of stations displaying the message: “RadNet Outage: EPA’s RadNet system is down for routine maintenance”.

Let’s see if the claim is credible. (checks RadNet). “RadNet Outage EPA’s RadNet system is down for routine maintenance.”

Okay. Perhaps that’s just a coincidence, though. When was the maintenance scheduled? “EPA’s RadNet system is down for routine maintenance from January 7-10, 2022.”

Isn’t it January 19, 2022?

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Don’t Fall For It Again

The reason Russia is ready to invade Ukraine is extremely straightforward. It will never permit NATO’s expansion into Ukraine. And NATO has already decided to expand into both Ukraine and Georgia.

NATO decided to admit Ukraine and Georgia, but did not set a deadline, Secretary General of the organization Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview in the Repubblika newspaper.

“Ukraine has already requested to join, and we have decided to work towards this by supporting its reforms, helping to modernize the armed forces to our standards. In 2008, we decided that Ukraine and Georgia would become [NATO] members, but we did not establish, when exactly,” Stoltenberg said.

That’s why the neocons are already attempting to lay the global media narrative for the customary US false flag, which, from the Spanish-American War to the Afghan War, has been used to whip up public support for US invasions of foreign countries around the world. These justifications for military action were all fake to varying degrees. Sometimes they were complete false flags, like the Maine and 9/11. At other times they were genuine attacks that were misrepresented to the public, such as the Lusitania and Pearl Harbor. But regardless of which form the next one takes, don’t let your friends and family fall for the next one.

The position that Russia has no right to a sphere of influence is as risible as it is hypocritical when it comes from the United States. It is the USA, not Russia, that is presently the Evil Empire. It is the USA, not China, that presently plays host to what Philip K. Dick described as “the empire that never ended.”

The United States has exercised a sphere of influence in its own hemisphere for almost 200 years, since President James Monroe, in his seventh annual message to Congress, declared that the United States “should consider any attempt” by foreign powers “to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”

Listening to Mr. Blinken, you might think the United States long ago deposited this prerogative over the foreign policies of its southern neighbors in history’s dustbin. It has done no such thing. In 2018, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, called the Monroe Doctrine “as relevant today as it was the day it was written.” The following year, his national security adviser, John Bolton, boasted that “the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.”

To be sure, the United States doesn’t enforce the Monroe Doctrine in the same way it did in the first half of the 20th century, when it regularly deployed the Marines to Central America and the Caribbean, or during the Cold War, when the C.I.A. helped topple leftist governments. Washington’s methods have changed. It now prefers using economic coercion to punish governments that ally with adversaries and challenge its regional dominion.

Consider Washington’s decades-long embargo of Cuba. U.S. officials may claim the embargo’s goal is to promote democracy, but virtually every other government on earth — democracies included — views it as an act of political bullying. Last year, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the embargo by a vote of 184 to 2. Human Rights Watch has denounced it for imposing “indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban population.”

Biden officials do not celebrate the Monroe Doctrine as their Trump administration predecessors did. But they still muscle America’s neighbors. Mr. Biden hasn’t eased the embargo of Cuba. Nor has he ended Mr. Trump’s effort to cut off Venezuela, another autocratic government that flirts with America’s foes, from global trade. The United States, in the words of one European Union official, is still prepared to “starve Venezuelans until their leadership surrender or their people oust them.” These policies serve notice to other Latin American governments that defying Washington can bring grave costs.

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The Inevitable False Flag

The Fake Biden Administration has been kind enough to warn us about the war with Russia the neocons who run it are attempting to launch:

The US has intelligence that Russia is planning a ‘false-flag’ operation on its own forces in eastern Ukraine to create a pretext for invasion.

Officials on Friday also said they believed Russia was mounting a social media disinformation campaign to portray Ukraine as the aggressor.

The update, making the prospect of military conflict more immediate, came as Ukrainian government websites were taken offline in a ‘massive’ cyberattack, talks between Washington and Moscow collapsed and Russia held a combat readiness inspection of their troops.

Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia had ‘run out of patience’ with the West as Moscow demanded assurances that NATO would not expand closer to its territory.

The United States has evidence that operatives trained in urban warfare and sabotage will carry out these attacks on Russian proxy forces, officials told journalists on Friday, possibly weeks before an invasion.

‘We have information that indicates Russia has already pre-positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false flag operation in eastern Ukraine,’ said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

‘The operatives are trained in urban warfare and using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces.’

She said it mimicked the playbook used when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, and included social media disinformation to show Kyiv as the instigator of violence.

Translation: The USA will be staging an obvious false flag prior to starting a war again.

Remember the Maine!

Thank goodness that Scott Adams invented and explained the new concept of projection to us earlier today, so we understand that when Jen Psaki says that Russia is going to conduct a false flag operation in eastern Ukraine, she’s actually describing what the US government is in the process of doing.

We owe him a real debt of gratitude for teaching us to see through the persuasion.

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