We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
When we lived in Indiana, we lived in a mobile home. We moved that home from park to park, and must have lived in perhaps eight different locations. Living in a trailer park is an experience in itself.
I do not recommend it.
Weekends are non-stop grass mowing and 200 families take turns on the hour mowing their grass from the crack of dawn to sunset. And let’s not talk about the poor quality of people that invariably inhabit SOME of the trailers.
I have many stories of this period in my life, but today, I wish to relate one that is charming.
It’s late July.
The sun is setting, and the fireflies come out.
You can still see them, but they turn on their mini lights and pop in and out of sight. And there, my wife and I are sitting outside on our chaise-lounges enjoying the evening when we notice our cats playing.
They all try to catch the fireflies. The light attracts them, and then they go pounce up and catch the little bugs.
I will tell youse guys that they all were having a blast, and we were truly enjoying watching them. Those little guys were just having a blast! It was the time of their little kitty-hood. Don’t you know.
…
These little moments… we all have little moments… but they should be treasured, and appreciated. Who knows what little moments that you so absent mindlessly ignore though the day, only to one day twenty years from now, look back in wistful nostalgia.
Like me.
Today…
More Voices Call On Biden To Withdraw From The 2024 Race
I do not know who is supposed to manage Biden’s public relations but whoever that is is doing a bad job.
The strategists for the Democratic Party and those concerned with winning elections should seriously think about replacing Biden with someone who is better at handling himself.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday directed top congressional Republicans to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, reversing his previous stance that such an investigation should be initiated only with a vote of the House.
In doing so, Mr. McCarthy leveled a series of accusations against Mr. Biden that he said amounted to a “picture of a culture of corruption” and warranted the House using its most potent investigative tool to try to make the case for removing the president.
The impeachment proceedings, like those against Donald Trump, are mostly a public relation gimmick. But they are also likely to show that the Biden family business is as corrupt as they come.
The British establishment, largely on the Democrats side, is clearly concerned.
Yet although Mr Comer’s investigation is failing to prove the existence of what Donald Trump calls the “Biden crime family”, congressional inquiries will now multiply. … Indeed, the younger Mr Biden’s legal problems are intensifying. On September 6th prosecutors serving under David Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter, announced that they expect an indictment by the end of the month. The president’s son is likely to be charged with not paying taxes and lying on a form when buying a gun at a time when he was addicted to crack cocaine. A plea deal that would have kept him out of jail on those charges fell apart in July. And other, more damaging charges—such as lobbying for a foreign government without registering—have not been ruled out.
None of that implicates the president. Yet he may suffer for it nonetheless. According to a CNN poll, three-fifths of Americans think Mr Biden was involved in his son’s business. Pump out enough smoke and you might create fire.
The CIA’s influence peddler and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is the latest establishment voice to warn of a likely defeat of Biden should he decide to keep running:
Like the Economist writers Ignatius is as friendly to Democrats as they come. The CIA and FBI had both intervened after the election of Donald Trump. They launched Russiagate, a series of fake stories, to hamper Trump’s ability to govern and to get Biden elected. That its senior management has commissioned Ignatius to call on Biden to give up can be understood as a warning.
Ignatius names two points that put Biden’s reelection into jeopardy:
Biden would carry two big liabilities into a 2024 campaign. He would be 82 when he began a second term. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, 77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years. Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.
Because of their concerns about Biden’s age, voters would sensibly focus on his presumptive running mate, Harris. She is less popular than Biden, with a 39.5 percent approval rating, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight. Harris has many laudable qualities, but the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.
Biden at least should get rid of Harris who is a bit of a millstone to popularity:
Biden could encourage a more open vice-presidential selection process that could produce a stronger running mate.
Ignatius goes on to ask Biden to step down and to immediately announce that he will not be available for another round:
Biden has never been good at saying no. He should have resisted the choice of Harris, who was a colleague of his beloved son Beau when they were both state attorneys general. He should have blocked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which has done considerable damage to the island’s security. He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China — and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad on the phone.
Biden has another chance to say no — to himself, this time — by withdrawing from the 2024 race. It might not be in character for Biden, but it would be a wise choice for the country.
I doubt that Joe Biden, or the people around him, will follow that advice. They are too full of themselves to voluntarily make room for others. It will require more intervention, probably from former president Obama, to convince Biden to give up.
Or someone could create some ‘medical emergency’. That should not be too difficult given Biden’s general condition and age.
Anyway. If the Democrats want to keep the presidency, something needs to be done.
Soften yeast in warm water and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes.
Add milk to sugar and salt. Mix and cool to lukewarm.
Add 1 cup flour and mix until smooth. Stir in yeast. Add remaining flour mixing well. Knead dough on floured board until smooth. Put in greased bowl, grease top, cover with towel and let rise in warm room until double.
Punch down dough, and roll into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Brush with the softened butter and spread with mixture of raisins, currants, citron, the 1/4 cup brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up like a jellyroll and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices. Lay the slices in a buttered 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan. Cover and let rise until doubled.
I’m in my second week of at home suspension for striking a teacher. He locked me in a classroom and attempted to assault me when I wouldn’t consent to his advances on 14 year old me.
The knock on the door was a deputy that served legal papers in our little town. The papers he served me was a summons to court for legal action pertaining to expenses incurred from point there after. I’m being sued by this teacher.
My dad exploded, that jerk has bigger problems than money, just wait I don’t care if he’s in a courtroom. OMG I was saying daddy calm down a lot, I only call my dad “daddy” when I need him to calm down and focus on me so he doesn’t get into trouble or worse.
The day of court arrived and there stands Mr Smug in his neck brace, bandaged nose, and black eye. I am holding my dad by both hands, telling him to look at me, please I don’t want you in jail dad.
It doesn’t help that I’m shaking and I’m sure dad can feel it.
Then the judge starts reading the case notes, Mr Smug is suing one Miss Key for medical expenses incurred during an altercation that resulted in a fractured nose, two chipped teeth, severe painful swelling in the groin, blurry vision, slight concussion, and upper neck pain.
So young lady how do you plead?
I asked the judge if I could present my papers (please don’t laugh we couldn’t afford a lawyer).
He accepts my papers which are the affidavits from the custodian, vice principal and teacher (the witnesses that pulled me off of Mr Smug), the arresting deputy, and the school nurse that treated me before my dad arrived.
His whole demeanor changed. WTH?!
You mean to tell me that you are suing this girl because she kicked your but during an assault?
His lawyer started trying to make an argument about me being malicious, and over bearing about defending myself.
The judge told him to shut up, in what world does a 30 year old man believe he has a case against a 14 year old child that he is attempting to assault?
Lawyer sets in with that is just allegations and hear-say, there’s no proof.
I didn’t ask you lawyer I asked your client because as it stands this is the stupidest case I’ve ever heard of.
In fact it’s so stupid that I’m dismissing it without prejudice, on grounds of incomprehension and competence.
And might I extend my gratitude to you Mr Key for raising an able and resourceful young lady.
After the accident, she was left on the side of the road, no one stopped the car to help her
A severely injured cat was found on the road, accompanied by meowing kittens. A man called for help, unable to afford vet care. Promising assistance, we advised taking the cat to a nearby clinic. Despite financial constraints, we assured the man we’d cover the costs. We directed him to the nearest clinic known to us.
Team members searched for kittens nearby and found three. Unfortunately, the cat couldn’t be saved due to delay, leaving us saddened. Confirming her as the mother, we arranged a burial.
We decided to adopt the motherless kittens and raise them with another cat.
The loss saddened us, but we hoped for a better life for the kittens.
As many of you know, there is a lot of stray paws in Punjab and I try my best to take care of them. When I get off from my job, I go every day to feed these poor hungry cats. On weekends I get a lot of time to help these stray cats and kittens. I go for street feeding everyday. It gives me great pleasure to help these poor animals. I get internal peace. I want to share these moments with you.
My opinion: 5G apps. Apple has yet to produce its own 5G transceiver. Today, it uses Qualcomm. Media reports think it will be 2025. By that time, Huawei will be promoting 5.5G heavily and experimenting with 6G. When Harmony OS can show the same number of apps, it has a good chance of surpassing Apple. In the current generation of mobile phones, Huawei can communicate via satellite, achieve data rates comparable to 6G, and come at a lower price point than Apple. Apple’s annual comfab on its mobile phones revealed nothing exciting, The biggest deal was Apple incorporating USB to charge because the EU forced them to. Everyone is speculating what will Huawei do with photonics, graphene, and quantum chips, the near term poses exciting possibilities.
I bought a home with 16 acres and a week after I moved in while staining the exterior a pickup came up the driveway and a man got out and informed me he would be hunting on my property that fall. I told him that no, no one would be hunting on my property and if I caught anyone doing so I would have them trespassed. He said the pervious owner said he could so he would be hunting. I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy.
I came down from the ladder and told him it did not matter what anyone had told him before, I now owned the place and he was not going to hunt on my property and was going to get back in his truck and get off of my property immediately. I also told him I had cameras up and I had better not catch him here again or I would take the steps that needed to be taken to ensure he would come to realize how serious I am that my private property was just that, private, and that the previous owner had warned me about him.
I never caught him on any of the trail cameras I put up and never caught him on my property again, but I did catch him on camera leaving deer entrails next to my mailbox which was across the road a couple times during the following deer season, but after than nothing more. The foxes, coyotes, and buzzards took care of his mess in short order too.
No one believe he will alive over the night but he beat all odds and thrive now!
There are some really great answers, but I figure I’ll add mine. I’m going anonymous for my own, personal reasons.
When I was a little kid I had a pretty decent life- upper middle class, two parents, live-in nanny, lots of pets. The works. The problem was, none of it was real. All the money was borrowed, and every piece of luxury was a facade to hide my parents’ crumbling lives.
When I was six my mother got into a car accident. She wound up with nerve damage and went on some pretty heavy duty painkillers- we’ll come back to that. The more immediate effect was that this accident triggered a resurgence of repressed memories from her own childhood. She spent the next year or two in and out of psychiatric care. I don’t know how long, exactly; time is a little blurry.
My most vivid memory of that year is laying awake in my bed, my door cracked, my mother on all fours in the hallway, dragging my father’s safe, and screaming “He’ll never get us again. He’ll never get us again.” This went on for a long time. I pretended I wasn’t there.
When I was seven my father also got into a car accident. He walked away relatively unscathed, but used the accident as cause to start seeing a neurologist. He complained of headaches, which he had apparently always had. He also got a prescription for heavy painkillers. Within months, both my parents were taking enough Dilaudid to kill a horse. Even at seven years old, I could tell that they weren’t as sharp as the used to be.
I have a sister who is much older than I am. Years later, she would confirm my suspicions, the ones that were just starting to form at this time: both my parents were long-time drug addicts, who had only temporarily gotten clean. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I wasn’t there.
When I was eight my parents sent me to a private school. Not only were they addicted to narcotics, they were also addicted to the perception of wealth and social status. Sending me to private school furthered this. I didn’t fit in. My grades plummeted.
When my first report cards came back, my father’s belt came out. I’d never been hit before, not more than spanked, anyway. I don’t remember the moment of contact of the belt, or the palms, or the fists. I only ever remember the swing. I only ever remember the feeling of the carpet against my cheeks, wet with tears. I never remember the moment of contact.
Every time I would get beat by my father, my mother’s response would be the same. She would cry, rocking herself to comfort, a few feet away, but watching the whole thing. Sometimes, she would come up to me afterward and say, “Don’t you dare fuck this up for me.” It took a long time before I found out what that meant.
I wonder if I never remember the moments i got hit because I was pretending I wasn’t there.
When I was eleven my father had his major breakdown. We had moved to a new town, a cheaper house. We didn’t have as many cars, and luxuries were becoming fewer and fewer. The facade was crumbling, and the rot inside was starting to show. Both of my parents were high most of the time at that point. I guess part of it was to cope with the stress of their crumbling lives, and part of it was just their nature. It was a cycle, a spiral, and they were coming unhinged.
My father was the first one to snap. One day I woke up to banging and screaming. My parents fought a lot, and I would usually pretend I wasn’t there. Something was different this time, though. I could tell. I went out of my room to see what was happening, and the next moment are a blur. I don’t know if, in the excitement, I failed to form memories for a minute, or if I’ve blocked something out entirely.
What I do remember starts shortly after leaving my room. My mother and I are running down the stairs, each carrying as many guns as we can. My father was running close behind us, screaming, naked. He wanted to kill us. This I remember. He tried to get to his guns, but we got to them first. This I remember. I have never been so scared in my life. This I remember.
He was an avid gun collector, despite a history of drug abuse and instability. For obvious reasons, I am an avid supporter of strict gun control legislation.
Sometimes I think of the boulder scene from Indiana Jones. That’s exactly what it felt like, but instead of treasure, we were running away with guns. Instead of a boulder, it was a doped-up maniac who wanted to kill my mother and me.
We ran outside, pulling things down behind us however we could without dropping the guns. We managed to get to my mother’s car and lock the guns inside. We knew it wouldn’t stop him, but it slowed him down. That’s all we needed. The cops showed up shortly after we got the guns in the car. He struggled, but at least half a dozen cars were there. He had no chance. That was the day I watched the cops take my father away.
I don’t remember the next days very well. I tried to pretend I wasn’t there.
When I was fourteen I went to visit my father. They were always supervised visits, so my mother was there as well. On the way out, she told me to wait in the car, and they stayed back in the entryway for a couple minutes. I started to hear raised voices, then saw my mother try to leave. I saw my father grab her by the arm, twist it behind her back, and pin her against the garage door.
I didn’t know what to do, so I did what I wanted.
I got out of the car, and ran over to the two of them. I yelled at my father. It was the first time I really yelled, instead of screaming. It was a terrifying noise. Every time I have to yell, I still think about that moment. I don’t yell much.
He didn’t respond to the noise, so I did the next logical thing.
I hit him.
I hit him again.
And again.
And again.
I pressed my forearm into his neck and made clear, in no uncertain terms, that he had better never hurt either of us again. I got into the car, and my mother and I left.
That was the day I didn’t pretend I wasn’t there.
When I was fifteen my mother started drinking. She had been clean for a few years, since my father got taken away, but it got really bad, really quickly. She had trouble holding down jobs, kept driving drunk and getting into car accidents. She broke a bunch of bones, lost a bunch of weight. She was killing herself.
We had no money, no food. She could hold a job for maybe a week or two. Any cash she had went into cheap alcohol. I used to look for change on the street. When I had enough, I’d go to the gas station and get a gallon of kerosene for our furnace. That got harder when it started snowing. We went without heat a lot. I stayed over at friends’ places as much as possible. Their parents would let me eat family meals with them. Nobody asked questions. Nobody had to. By January of that year I was stealing money for food. I made a little extra cash by selling small amounts of drugs, but it wasn’t enough to make a living.
In February, my mother got drunker than I’d ever seen her. She kept telling me she wished I was never born, that I was a mistake. She told me why she decided to have a child. My father was planning on a divorce. So she sabotaged the birth control. I was her tool. Now I understood why she was always so upset that I would fuck it all up for her.
After a while, words weren’t enough. She picked up a knife, and tried to stab me in the neck. I was so shocked that I almost didn’t get out of the way in time, but she was very drunk, and I was 15 and spry. I grabbed her by the wrist, took the knife from her, and locked myself in the bathroom until I figured out what to do.
I wanted to pretend I wasn’t there, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I called the cops, and, for the second time in my life, I watched them take away one of my parents.
I was alone, and I had no idea what to do.
I called my father.
When I was sixteen I was living with my father. He had cleaned up, sort of. He was at least functional. We lived with his girlfriend in a huge house in a rich neighborhood. He had found his way back into the glamour. My room was, quite literally, a large closet under the stairs. I read Harry Potter multiple times that year. It made me feel a little better.
Things were generally okay between my father and I at that point. At least, I smoothed things along. He was pathological liar, and used every chance he had to manipulate people. That never changed. But… it was better than foster care, it was better than being homeless. We moved around a lot back then. I think six moves in two years. It made it hard to make friends, but I was biding my time. I knew I’d get through it.
Then I was raped.
Back then, I didn’t think men could be raped, at least not by women. It took a long time for me to call it what it was. In fact, it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I could really say it. I was raped. Over, and over. The difficulty in calling it rape was that 1) I was so hung up on traditional gender roles at that age, and didn’t know better, and 2) that this happened inside of a relationship. I was in an abusive relationship, and I had no idea. I had no idea that it was wrong.
I thought that I was what was wrong.
Whenever it was happening, I would just close my eyes and pretend I wasn’t there.
Then, one day, I snapped.
When I was twenty I got so tired of pretending. I got so tired of acting like I wasn’t being hurt. I got so tired of letting people have power over me. So I stopped it all.
One by one, ended every abusive relationship.
I called my partner. I told her I never wanted to see her again. I still didn’t call what she did rape at that point, but I knew it was wrong. I knew I was done with it.
I called my mother. I told her I never wanted to see her again. We had tried to repair our relationship after she tried to kill me, but it never really worked. She never could see that she did anything wrong. It was always about how it affected her life. She’s not my responsibility.
I called my father. I told him I never wanted to see him again. Living with him for the two years I needed before I was eighteen was tolerable, but only because I would always pretend I wasn’t there. It was harder to leave him, because I don’t think he’s a bad person. I think he’s just profoundly narcissistic, unable to control himself, and incredibly dangerous to all those around him. In the two years I was living with him, he almost shot me again, but I talked him down. I knew, no matter what his intentions were, I would never be safe with him in my life.
Out of all of these, I do miss my father. Or more accurately, I desperately miss the person he could have been.
That was when I stopped pretending.
I would never again pretend I wasn’t there, because now I really wasn’t.
Leaving was the best, and hardest, thing I have ever done in my life. Beyond every single nightmare moment- leaving was the hardest.
But I’m so glad I did.
When I was twenty one I started my first semester of graduate school. Five and a half years later, and I’m doing really well. I’m in therapy, and have been for a few years. It really helps, but there’s so much left to work through. I have good friends, healthy relationships, and a satisfying life. I’m defending my doctoral dissertation in three weeks, and then starting a job that I’m really excited for. I managed to get my life on a really good track, and I’m immensely thankful.
Leaving was so incredibly, incredibly hard, but it was so good for me.
I don’t have to pretend I’m not there anymore.
Now I’m here.
THIS HITS HARD!!! OLIVER ANTHONY – COBWEBS AND COCAINE (REACTION)
You guys are great. I love your reactions… They seem real to me so if they’re not you’re doing a great job if they are you’re doing a great job. Oliver…. Mr. Christopher Anthony is a blessing to us all…. Unexpected…. Breath of fresh air… With divine timing. We all need more people like Oliver… Mr. Christopher Anthony. We are All just as great as he is…. He is a blessing because he created a spark worldwide . His message is for all …
The Dutch sucked up to the U.S. and refuse to sell their EU.V machines to China. A fatal mistake. China did it with other technology that is cheaper, better and faster. Now the Dutch EUV machines will lose not only Chinese business but businesses across the world. It will go bankrupt in no time or at least until the U.S. stop paying billions of subsidies to them. And if and when the U.S. stop the Dutch company ought to sue the U.S. for trillions of dollars.
What can the US do? If it is smart it change a president and forget containing China. But I suspect it is not smart enough. It will hurt the US to no end by killing US industry one by one.
Opera Singer Reacts to Dio – The Last In Line
Dio wasn’t just a once in a lifetime vocalist… He was a once in a century talent.
The BRICS alliance inducted six new countries into the bloc at the 15th summit in Johannesburg last month. Out of the six countries, five are oil-producing nations that export millions of barrels across the globe every year. The six countries joining BRICS are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Iran, and Ethiopia, while Argentina is the only non-oil-producing country.
There’s a high risk that Saudi Arabia and the UAE might start accepting local currencies for oil and ditch the U.S. dollar.
The new mission of BRICS is to end reliance on the U.S. dollar and promote local currencies for global trade. Therefore, chances are high that Saudi Arabia might consider accepting local currencies as payment for oil to reduce its dependency on the U.S. dollar.
BRICS is looking to control the oil markets, and inducting Saudi Arabia was the best choice. But what could happen to the U.S. dollar if Saudi Arabia accepts local currencies to settle oil and gas payments.
First and foremost, the weakening of the U.S. dollar would begin if Saudi Arabia accepted local currencies for oil trade. If Saudi Arabia demands that other countries pay in local currencies only, then demand for the U.S. dollar would dip drastically. The move could lead to the dollar facing a depreciation in the international forex and currency markets. A weak dollar would make imported goods more expensive in the United States and potentially impact the overall U.S. economy.
Secondly, other nations will begin to diversify their reserves and accumulate other currencies apart from the U.S. dollar. The development would increase demand for other local currencies and put them in direct competition with the dollar. Central Banks around the world will keep reserves of all currencies and commodities like gold, making the USD dip.
BREAKING NEWS: Oprah Winfrey INVESTIGATED For Maui Fires!
That woman needs to be investigated for much more egregious kind that involve the kiddies. There are some serious questions here. Something suggests some profit motives by the mega-wealthy.
I had a daughter. Her mother became pregnant and we moved into a house together. Six months later my daughter was born. Mom had four children from another marriage and made an effort to remind the older children she was their half-sibling. When she was two, the older siblings went from full time with us to half the time with their dad. When she was five, I started to notice mother’s subtle abuses through passive aggression and blame: having my daughter’s hair develop tangles and using a comb to brush, blaming the five-year-old for the tangled hair, and then chopping her hair off. This happened three times by the time she was five years old — and her mom was a hairdresser.
I filed for divorce and custody was joint. My daughter looked a lot like me. So it was a shocker when paternity was challenged. Police knocked on my door and showed me a court order. Mom waited across the street with her ex-husband while a social worker had to pull my daughter away screaming and begging to stay. The social worker kept apologizing and let my daughter come running back when my daughter started to have an asthma attack. After about 20 minutes, a police sergeant came up to the front porch where I was with my daughter, who had started to calm down and her breathing was under control at this point. He just looked at me and said, “I’m sorry,” then walked back to the curb. He spoke to the other two officers, who got in their cars and left. Then he walked across the street and talked to my wife and her ex.
After a few minutes he handcuffed her ex-husband, put him in his cruiser, and left. Mom walked across the street and stood at the curb. I told my daughter that everything was going to be all right, that I’d see her soon, that I loved her and I was so proud of her. I promised her I’d see her soon. Mom told her she’d see me the next week as she took her hand, then they drove off. I haven’t seen her since. I decided a long time ago I was not going to fight it. The divorce court changed the case to divorce without children and it was over.
I haven’t heard anything and have no rights to inquire about how my daughter is doing. She is 8 now and likely can’t remember what I look like, and in a few more years she’ll barely remember me at all. Better for her that I fade away than to risk more traumatic incidents. I miss all of the kids, my daughter and her siblings. I was their father, and now I’m not.
I don’t think I will ever stop hurting.
First Time Hearing Oliver Anthony – “90 Some Chevy” Reaction | Asia and BJ
This guy is just GOLDEN… every. single. song. He could cash out now and put to shame just about any country act out there. 100% pure talent and soul.
Fresh out of the US Navy, I went to work for Burger King as an assistant manager for $140 a week. Six months later, BK raised the starting pay to $150 a week. I asked my boss to raise me to at least the same rate, but he said no, I had to wait for my annual review. I said: You’re going to hire somebody off the street with zero experience and pay them $10 a week more than me with six months of experience? He said yes. I said no. I went across the street to McDonald’s for $175 a week.
Several years later, I was studying accounting to become a CPA and took a job in January with a small CPA firm for $4 an hour. At the end of tax season, Friday, April 15, he called me into the office and said he didn’t need me anymore, the busy time was over. I was shocked. The following Monday, I called him and said I had a wife and child to support, could he at least pay me two weeks severance pay? He said he would pay me one week. I started with another small CPA firm on Wednesday at $5 an hour. So I got a 25% raise AND I was paid 5 days for my 2 days without work.
By the way, a classmate of mine went to work for Touche Ross, one of the Big Eight Accounting Firms, in July 1979. He scored Number One on the national CPA Exam, out of 42,000 participants. He asked for a raise, they said he had to wait for his annual review. He went across the street to Price Waterhouse with a big raise. Some employers are just STUPID !
Give Huawei whatever it needs and then let it compete against the Iphone 15
On one hand you throttle Huawei with every ban on earth and bullying everyone you know of and at the same time you preach about free trade to the whole world
How can you have a fair assessment of which model is better?
This was originally in my drafts because I expected the Iphone 15 to be vastly superior to the Mate 60 Pro
Instead turns out the Mate 60 Pro held its own against the Iphone 15 which was deemed as “Non Innovative” by Western Experts
In my humble opinion, I don’t think so. The population would have declined with the rapid pace of the urbanization and modernization, even if without this One Child Policy. Please come to think about it, Japan, Korea and ROC on Taiwan all witness the declining of the population growth, but without such a drastic social engineering imposing on the people.
It’s quite natural that population would plummet with the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial and urban society. The modern mindsets and lifestyles, the improving health and education standards, the higher cost of having children and raising them up could contribute to the low expectancy among people to have more children.
Chinese people are also people, who have human agencies and vitalities. Chinese people could and would adapt to these changes without having to undergo this basic state policy for few decades. As a matter of the fact, there was a county, Yicheng, which was once a pilot experimenting place, where the policy of two children in a family was implemented from 1985–2015, however, many folks from there didn’t choose to have more children.
Many answers here jump in and are quick to discredit Sun Tzu.
Have you actually read the book, like, really read the whole book?
It’s not a long book. It’s got 7,573 Chinese characters. In comparison, my graduation paper in Chinese University was 20,000 Characters.
Why does the Art of War say to never put your enemy in a corner?
“Really? Did Sun Tzu write that? Ha! How shallow and obviously wrong! What an overrated fraud!”
Urgh….
Had you read it thoroughly, other than seeing this question on Quora and enters “triggered” mode and discredit Art of War, you’d realize why he said that.
I cannot find the exact quote for “Never put your enemy in a corner”, because I have not read the English version, nor would I ever be interested to do that. But here is the Chinese version of, what I assume to be where the idea come from:
Therefore, the art of war lies in: never face a high mountain, never retreat from a down hill, never follow an enemy army faking defeat, never attack an elite enemy army, never bite a shark-bait, never chase after a retreating enemy army, leave opening for a surrounded enemy army, never pressure a desperate enemyarmy. This is the art of war. The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Chapter Army Conflict
Whoever says Sun Tzu is wrong because surrounding enemy happens all the time in reality, it’s a good strategy; or enemy can always surrender, etc., has evidently not read the book at all, or had interpreted it wrong.
First of all, he never said, you shouldn’t surround an enemy force. He said, surround them, but never completely. Leave a small opening for them.
If you have watched Game of Thrones: Battle of the Bastards, you’ll see why this makes sense. Althought it was fictional, I’m sure good medieval European strategists would have agreed with Sun Tzu, if they had read about it.
If you surround an army completely, even the most cowards will forget about escape, unite and fight you with all they’ve got. But if there is a chance to get out, even the bravest will try to squeeze through that hole and flee.
Would you rather fight a united army? Or a fleeing one? This is a no-brainer.
Why should you never pressure a desperate enemy?
First, what is a “desperate enemy”?
Clearly, you could physically surround an enemy army. But if peaceful surrender is on the table, they are hardly “desperate”, or “cornered” as the question put it.
And that is why most formal armies in the world would shout: “Lay down your arms and we guarantee your safety” when they had the enemy surrounded.
Imagine if you shout: “Stop struggling! You have nowhere to go! Stay where you are and we will come to kill you all, piss in your skull, rape your women, and enslave your children!” instead. The surrounded will no doubt fight you to their last breath, and will rejoice for every bullet they managed to put inside one of you, even at the cost of ten of their lives.
That is when you create a “desperate and cornered” enemy.
Sun Tsu’s book does not only focus on winning a battle, it focuses on winning a war. In the book, you’ll find plenty of sentences like, avoid physical conflict if possible, do not fight unnecessary battles, etc. He is trying to make you understand how casualties are costly, and you must avoid it.
This particular argument here is coherent with that idea. An absolutely “cornered” enemy will fight you and possibly injure and even kill your soldiers, no matter how onesidedly stronger your troops are. It will always lower your morale, and put a financial burden on your country. That doesn’t help you win a war.
Is it really so wrong?
Read this book before you comment on it, seriously, guys. You do realize there are Chinese speakers who can read English and prove you wrong with credible sources, right?
The book Art of War is not outrageously long, or even obscure. Most of the language is quite simple and easy to understand.
The U.S. has established a technical team to study the Huawei’s Kirin 9000S chip!
“The Chinese chip is too advanced for the Americans.”
I have spent the bulk of my adult life working at car dealerships, so I have heard a ton of complaints, especially since I was the fix-it person at some of those dealerships.
One day one of the salesmen came up to me to warn about what was walking up to the door.
His customer had been calling his cell phone for days about how pissed off he was that he sold him a lemon. That was all the guy would say or text, never saying what the problem was.
So he gets directed to me of course.
He starts complaing that he just purchased his car a week and a half ago and that the other day an idiot light came on on the dashboard, he was close to home and the car stalled out as he got to his driveway so he slammed on the brakes and had to pay for a tow truck to tow it into his driveway.
I asked him if the tow truck driver looked at anything in the car to see why it stalled and told me no, he only paid him to put it in the driveway and that we will be reimbursing him for that, the days of having a rental car, free repair for the issue and give him at least 1 year of free oil changes.
I went onto computer and googled warning indicator lights for his vehicle and asked him to show me which light was on. He pointed at the indicator light of a gas pump. Yup folks, he ran out of gas.
I asked him how many times he got gas in his car in the week and a half he had it, thinking maybe there was a leak. His honest to god answer was “Why should I have to put gas in my car, I just got it and only drive miles to and from work”
It took just about everything in me not to bust out laughing in face, but then a woman who overheard everything said “and they think us women are stupid”, well that was where none of us could hold it in anymore and just about every employee and other customers busted out laughing.
After finally calming down, I told him I’d be more than happy to have a runner go over to put some gas in the car so he can get to a station, however told him that he needed to pay for it.
He was not happy and needless to say never came back for anything and left a bad review, but all who read the review commented on how it was his fault for being stupid and not getting gas.
Bobby Driscoll was the original voice of Peter Pan and a successful child actor. He was one of the first people signed into a contract with Disney and starred in many successful films for both MGM and Disney.
Known as Disney’s sweat heart, Bobby Driscoll was riding high on his fame. That was all to change once Boddy became a teenager and Disney dropped him.
Up until he got the booth he was one of Disney’s favourite stars, with a salary 1,700 a week. That all changed once puberty set in and he developed a bad case of acne, forcing Disney to drop him
When he was dropped from Disney, his parents placed him in an ordinary school, but the kids rejected him and started to bully him for his roles in movies. This had a big effect on him so he turned to drugs.
Bobby’s career struggled to take off, and he could only land minor roles in TV series. His drug use got worse, and he was arrested in 1956. He had another run in with the law when he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and by 1962, he was unable to land any new roles.
He moved to New York to try and land roles on Broadway, but that didn’t work out for him. He gave his last performance in a film called Dirt in 1965.
Three years, later two kids playing in an abandoned Tenement block in New York stumbled upon the 31-year-old’s decaying body lying in a cot with two beer bottles next to him and religious pamphlets scattered around the cot.
Since the body had no identification and police couldn’t identify him he was buried in an unmarked pauper grave. It wasn’t until a year later when Bobby’s mother was trying to get in contact with her son that she discovered that her he had died.
His death wasn’t reported until 1971 when a reporter was researching the whereabouts of the young film star, and learned of his death. Although his name is on his father’s tombstone, his body remains in the pauper’s grave.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Sitting Bull meets Colonel Miles
Movie: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007)
He’s got a point. The Crow tribe hated Sitting Bull and his tribe – Lakota Sioux – for continuously raiding them and aggression towards them. They were actually devastated by the news of the fate of 7th Cavalry. When the Lakota Sioux gave up, the Crow were relieved that they could sleep soundly at night.
Apple Execs have RUSHED to Beijing to reassure them that APPLE IS NOT RELOCATING ANYWHERE and proposes to expand operations in China
Guess what?
China said “No Need. Thanks”
That is CHINA for you
All these MSM Propaganda and all these “Economic Collapses”
Yet if China announces a small ban, the reaction is worth a $ 200 Billion burn
Sure Apple may recover but that panic and impact – THAT’S THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON AND IT’S MIGHT
Now. Imagine China does a scorched earth and bans all SC companies
China may lose 10 years
US Companies will lose at least $ 1.7 Trillion plus a Tech domino that could hit US Banks and Institutions
China is a patient nation but it’s patience is slowly wearing thin
Xi skipping G20
The Mate 60
The Iphone decision
The Decision to rescind Japanese Seafood Imports
The Decision to ban the Iphone for Government officials
It is even likely Xi will allow Country Garden and Real Estate Companies to refuse to pay their debt and default on their bonds completely and keep doing business in China
After all i doubt Country Garden sells homes in Cook County Chicago
Heres another look at how STRONG CHINA IS
Russian Girl First Time Hearing Judy Garland-Over The Rainbow!
It was a sunny day. I was going to my class. Suddenly I saw a lot of people gathered at one place. I stopped my bike and saw a cow badly injured with her broken leg. She was trying hard to get up.
I just couldn’t take it!
I called a tempo and took the cow to the hospital.
There,
Doctor: it will take around 5000 rs to treat her(a big deal for a 17 year kid)
Me: I will arrange the money you start her operation.
I rushed to my home broke my piggybank and gave money to the doctor
i just saw how calmly the cow was walking after treatment i smiled and got away
after 6 days!
I was going by the same road and suddenly I lost my balance and fell from my bike
I felt like someone took me in hands and put me on road
I got no injury!
when I opened my eyes I had fallen on the road.
I saw the same cow looking at me with the bandages still on her!
I felt she saved me. I was on the 7th sky feeling the feel of karma!
Sorry for the grammatical mistakes if any!
so I made this tag line of my life!
karma right
future bright 😉
What matters is how we achieve things Bedazzled
Much evil that is generated in the world is because of the conviction that the end justifies the means.
I was in a commercial for Campbell’s Chunky Soup about 10 or 11 years ago. It was a massive advertising effort by Campbell’s and was constantly on TV. I was in a couple shots and one was the final shot where there was an extreme close-up of me taking a bite of the “soup”.
When we were filming, there was a person that was “pre-loading” spoonfuls of soup for me to “eat”. They would take a few cans of the soup and disect all the contents and reassemble them in “perfect” spoonfuls. They would bring one up to me every take, and I had to pretend to enjoy it. I had to hold the bowl in an awkward angle, and the soup in the bowl was also carefully arranged.
Little do the viewers know that there was a big, white, spit bucket 🪣, that I would chew, smile, look into the wildernerness….then spit it out.
They had me do no less than 20 takes. Each spoonful was heaping and if I had eaten them, i would have destroyed probably 4 full cans of the soup.
I was game to do anything pretty much for what they were paying me, and said that I would eat it, but they said not to do it. Fair enough.
I was on duty and this 55 year old lady was admitted in ICU. She had breast cancer spread to her lungs and was literally struggling for breath. I went to check on her, as her saturation was dropping. There was nothing much I could do. After asking the nurse to give her some medicines, I turned to leave.
That was when I slipped and fell, as there was a little water on the floor, probably from a leaking iv fluid bottle. The lady, while struggling for her breath, asked me:
‘Son, are you all right?’
You may call it touching rather than shocking. Whatever, it was indeed shocking to me that even gasping for the last breath can not stop a human being from caring for someone else.
I saw an answer for this when the person being ‘lit up’ got a parabolic or dish mirror and affixed it so the light was collected and shone back to the bedroom of the owner of the light. When they asked her to turn off the light, she was able to explain it was their light and they could turn it off.
I just loved that answer!
Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Butter
Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Butter
Ingredients
3 quarts sweet cider
8 pounds ripe, well-flavored apples
2 1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
Cook cider over high heat, uncovered, about 30 minutes or until it is reduced to half.
Wash, quarter and core unpeeled apples. Add to cider, and cook over low heat until very tender. Stir frequently. Work apple mixture through a sieve, returning the puree to the kettle. Stir in sugar, all the spices, and salt. Cook over very low heat, stirring almost continuously, until mixture thickens.
The U.S. is now involved in more than 130 wars or none, depending on your definition of ‘war.’ Or it is involved in one worldwide “War Against Terror,” that successive U.S. Administrations, with Congressional support, have used to justify U.S. military operations in at least 134 countries, where they are engaged in direct combat operations, conduct special covert missions, act as military advisers, or train foreign troops or militias.
The problem is that our traditional definition of “war” is outdated, and so is our imagination of what war means.
World War II was the last time Congress officially declared war. Since then, the conflicts we’ve called “wars” — from Vietnam through to the second Iraq War — have actually been congressional “authorizations of military force.”
And more recently, beginning with the War Powers Act of 1973, presidential war powers have expanded so much that, according to the Congressional Research Service, it’s no longer clear whether a president requires congressional authorization at all to engage in war.
The recent US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will likely be the last time, in the foreseeable future, that the United States wages war in the way that’s most familiar to us: a lot of combat troops on the ground in a foreign country with lots of money and support and an ostensibly achievable objective.
US troop presence in Iraq peaked at 187,900 in 2008. In Afghanistan, it peaked in 2010 at 100,000.
On paper, it looked like the United States was fighting two wars. But the reality was much more complicated, and it’s only gotten more complicated. So how many wars is the US fighting right now?
Somewhere between zero and 134+.
Here’s the rationale:
Total # of wars: 0
Congress hasn’t declared war since 1942 so there is no war right now.
Okay, that makes no sense.
Look at a funding profile over time. It’s very clear.
x
From this graph, we can CLEARLY see that American spending on weapons and military are clearly indicative of America waging active wars.
To ignore that outrageous and obvious “tell tale” is to act the fool.
Total # of wars: 6
This maybe sounds more reasonable.
Consider the definition of war put forth by Linda Bilmes (Harvard Kennedy School) and Michael Intriligator (UCLA), who defined war in a 2013 paper as “conflicts where the US is launching extensive military incursions, including drone attacks, but that are not officially ‘declared.’”
By that definition, the United States is at war in six places right now:
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Somalia
Yemen
Ukraine
Total # of wars: 8
If you include nations that have American military, American military uniforms, weapons and systems, and is led with / by American generals. This then, adds two additional nations to the list above.
South Korea
Taiwan
Total # of wars: 134+
Whoa! Surprising, right?
In 2013, the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) — one of the nine organizational units that make up the Unified Combatant Command — had special operations forces (SOFs) in 134 countries.
The American military were either involved in combat, special missions, or advising and training foreign forces.
Since most of what SOFs do is classified, all we know about them is what we get told about them. Here’s what we’re told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff: What are SOFs?
“Special operations forces (SOF) are small, specially organized units manned by people carefully selected and trained to operate under physically demanding and psychologically stressful conditions to accomplish missions using modified equipment and unconventional applications of tactics against strategic and operational objectives.
The unique capabilities of SOF complement those of conventional forces.”
And what do they do?
“Joint special operations (SO) are conducted by SOF from more than one Service in hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environments to achieve military, diplomatic, informational, and/or economic objectives employing military capabilities for which there is no broad conventional force requirement.
These operations may require low visibility, clandestine, or covert capabilities.
SO are applicable across the range of military operations.
They can be conducted independently or in conjunction with operations of conventional forces or other government agencies and may include operations through, with, or by indigenous or surrogate forces.
SO differ from conventional operations in degree of physical and political risk, operational techniques, use of special equipment, modes of employment, independence from friendly support, and dependence on detailed operational intelligence and indigenous assets.”
Examples: These tasks include;
special reconnaissance (SR),
direct action (DA),
unconventional warfare (UW),
foreign internal defense (FID),
counterterrorism, counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
SOCOM admited to having forces on the ground in 134 countries around the world (in 2014).
That doesn’t mean its forces are carrying out capture or kill raids in every country, but it’s almost impossible to know where and when different operations are taking place.
That’s especially true when it comes to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an operational command within SOCOM that operates with an enormous amount of autonomy and secrecy — and, some would say, little accountability.
Founded after the failed mission to rescue American hostages in Tehran in 1980 and designed to handle similarly complex operations in the future, JSOC was a classified and little used command on Sept. 11, 2001.
Since then, it’s more than tripled in size, received an ever-increasing share of funding, and has conducted operations in dozens of countries.
(Journalist Jeremy Scahill wrote in depth about JSOC in his 2013 book, “Dirty Wars.” That’s where the following information comes from.)
JSOC was introduced to the world on May 1, 2011, when Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a nighttime raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The raid was a collaboration between the CIA and an agency almost nobody had heard of: JSOC. “We’re the dark matter,” a Navy SEAL told the Washington Post of JSOC in 2011. “We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen.”
We know more about JSOC now, thanks to investigative reporters like Scahill and Mark Mazzetti. JSOC’s core is made up of three acknowledged “Special Missions Units” (SMUs).
You know these folks from TV and movies:
Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment (Delta Force),
the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVRGU or “Seal Team Six”),
the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
In addition to the SMUs, JSOC has its own intelligence division, the Intelligence Support Activity, and often oversees the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (the “Night Stalkers”), and other special operations forces. JSOC, along with the Special Activities Division at the CIA, have been the leading edge of counterterrorism.
Journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin found that JSOC has carried out counterterrorism operations in…
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
Algeria,
Iran,
Malaysia,
Mali,
Nigeria,
Pakistan,
the Philippines,
Somalia,
Syria,
Ukraine,
Taiwan,
Yemen.
An anonymous source with close ties to JSOC gave Scahill an even more expansive list that included those countries along with Indonesia, Thailand, Colombia, Peru, and several countries in Eastern and Central Asia.
“The world is a battlefield and we are at war,”
The source told Scahill of the logic that drives JSOC.
“Therefore the military can go wherever they please and do whatever it is that they want to do, in order to achieve the national security objectives of whichever administration happens to be in power.”
Add such nations of Iran, Bolivia, Kenya and more to the list and it seems really hard to keep track of all the killing, and wars that the United States is involved in.
Total # of wars: 1
“The world is a battlefield” isn’t just a vague, hawkish worldview — it’s a legal understanding of military force in the age of a single, global war: the War on Terror.
The world is a battlefield thanks in large part to the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed on Sept. 14, 2001 and which gives the President of the United States broad power to fight terrorism around the world.
It reads in part:
“The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determined planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2011, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
A video that discusses what is next
Yuppur. The USA has Taiwan in it’s sights. Please check out this “must see” video…
Conclusion
So how many wars would you say the United States is now fighting?
We continue our stroll though this very strange and surreal period of time. Here we cover various “buried” news items, and mix it up with various other subjects used to shake off the troll armies, the robo-‘bots, and the SJW shrills. It works.
We start with some delicious food…
Beef & Rice Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Just like your parents, and grandparents made. All completely awesome! It’s a fine taste of home. And it fills the house up with a most wonderful aroma.
Beef & Rice Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.
2022 04 22 17 57
Directions
In batches, cook cabbage in boiling water 3-5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Drain; cool slightly. Trim the thick vein from the bottom of each cabbage leaf, making a V-shaped cut.
In a large bowl, combine rice, onion, egg, milk, salt and pepper. Add beef; mix lightly but thoroughly. Place about 1/4 cup beef mixture on each cabbage leaf. Pull together cut edges of leaf to overlap; fold over filling. Fold in sides and roll up.
Place 6 rolls in a 4- or 5-qt. slow cooker, seam side down. In a bowl, mix sauce ingredients; pour half of the sauce over cabbage rolls. Top with remaining rolls and sauce. Cook, covered, on low 6-8 hours or until a thermometer inserted in beef reads 160° and cabbage is tender.
Life as an American
If you are an American, you will understand this. However, if you are Chinese, where there are laws against this sort of thing, it NEVER happens, and so you will remain clueless…
2022 04 22 15 03 1
China is almost ready with Fusion Energy
China has finished researching and developing more than 80 percent of the key technology in fusion energy, and is expected to use the fusion power in 30 to 50 years, a Chinese scientist told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.China is constructing a new grand research facility for fusion technology, the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology (CRAFT), which is expected to be completed by 2025. Based on the CRAFT and experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or the Chinese "artificial sun," we are planning to build a compact fusion energy experimental reactor to realize the burning of plasma and produce fusion energy, laying a solid foundation for future fusion reactor construction, Hu Jiansheng, deputy director of Institute of Plasma Physics at Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, told the Global Times.After the compact experimental reactor, Hu said he hopes the construction of Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) could be started as soon as possible aiming at future fusion development and application."With all these years of development all over the world, the scientific feasibility of fusion power has been proved. So far China has finished more than 80 percent of the key technology research and development. If the construction of CFETR gets a 'green light,' it's expected that we could achieve the application of fusion energy in about 30 to 50 years," Hu said.
Yes, I know. The cat-callers will say “That’s what they’ve been saying about fusion for the last 50 years, that it will become available 30-50 years hence.” And while that’s true, there was never the experimental successes to back that prognosis; now there are. Just imagine the materials breakthroughs required that weren’t at all possible 10-30 years ago. And with CRAFT, their pace will increase.
With Russian, Chinese and South Korean scientists and engineers doing the primary work on the project, I know it will continue moving forward as the bankrupt and corrupt West can’t afford it nor does it have the technical expertise anymore.
Notice how everything is planned, and then China goes in with force. This is how the Chinese operates. There is no gradual build up of hostilities. They plan. Then they come in in FORCE…This is how it is done!
Information is leaking out of the United Kingdom that the US Navy used its new marine surveillance aircraft to provide accurate targeting data to Ukrainian forces to sink the Russian Black Sea flag ship Moskva on April 13.
Ukraine claimed it fired two Neptune missiles at the Russian warship which was patrolling south of Odesa.
Russia initially claimed the vessel, which had more than 500 crew on board had blown up after a fire onboard.
Later, the Kremlin was forced to admit the vessel – named in honour of the Russian capital – had been taken out by hostile action.
According to information coming out through the British press, a US surveillance P-8 “Poseidon” aircraft, was tracking Moskva in the hours before it was attacked before supplying its location to the Ukrainian military.
The Boeing-made aircraft is based upon the Boeing 737-800 jet – which is widely used by airlines such as Ryanair.
However, instead of passengers, the Poseidon is packed with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment which can track surface vessels and submarines at ranges of more than 100 miles.
According to the claims in British media outlets, the P-8 took off from Italy and took up station on the Romanian Black Sea coast where it attempted to locate the position of the Russian Black Sea fleet.
The P-8 left US Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily on April 13, hours before the attack.
Before reaching the Black Sea coastline, the Poseidon turned off its trackers, so it could no longer be followed online.
The aircraft was ‘hidden’ for almost three hours before it returned to Flight Radar 24.
Aviation data analysis Amelia Smith says there were slightly more US aircraft covering the Black Sea coast on the day of the attack.
However, the US Navy refused to confirm if they assisted Ukraine with the attack by providing intelligence data.
A Defense source added: ‘In keeping with our support to NATO’s eastern flank, we have been conducting some limited air patrols off the coast of Romania. But we will not speak to the details of operational matters.’
A fine watch
I really do like this wrist watch.
A fine watch.
If You Can’t Take the Heat, Get Out of the Shower
Taking a shower together can be a very romantic end to the evening, but not everyone has the same water temperature preference. Women tend to prefer hotter showers or baths, and Maya is no exception. She invited Yehuda to join her for a romantic shower, but he didn’t find it as seductive as she did.
.
image 71Qle4vEIkIxJ73d
He felt like he was being boiled alive while Maya basked in the scorching water. It seems like women tend to have a higher threshold for pain.
Know your hand signals
9706aad3a8aca4715b17ec604402efd0
Hallstatt, Austria
It certainly looks like a fine place to visit. Don’t you think?
After a preamble dealing with the Covid pandemic, Xi digs into the interrelated issues of security, peace and development:
We need to work together to maintain peace and stability in the world. An ancient Chinese philosopher observed, "Stability brings a country prosperity while instability leads a country to poverty." Security is the precondition for development. We humanity are living in an indivisible security community. It has been proven time and again that the Cold War mentality would only wreck the global peace framework, that hegemonism and power politics would only endanger world peace and that bloc confrontation would only exacerbate security challenges in the 21st century. To promote security for all in the world, China would like to propose a Global Security Initiative as follows:It is important that we stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to maintain world peace and security; stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, uphold non-interference in internal affairs, and respect the independent choices of development paths and social systems made by people in different countries; stay committed to abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, reject the Cold War mentality, oppose unilateralism, and say no to group politics and bloc confrontation; stay committed to taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously, uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the pursuit of one's own security at the cost of others' security; stay committed to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises, reject double standards, and oppose the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction; stay committed to maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional domains, and work together on regional disputes and global challenges such as terrorism, climate change, cybersecurity and biosecurity.We need to work together to tackle global governance challenges. Countries around the world are like passengers aboard the same ship who share the same destiny. For the ship to navigate the storm and sail toward a bright future, all passengers must pull together. The thought of throwing anyone overboard is simply not acceptable. In this day and age, the international community has evolved so much that it has become a sophisticated and integrated apparatus. Acts to remove any single part will cause serious problems to its operation. When that happens, both the victims and the initiators of such acts will stand to lose. In today's world, unilateralism and excessive pursuit of self-interest are doomed to fail, so are the practices of decoupling, supply disruption and maximum pressure and the attempts to forge "small circles" or to stoke conflict and confrontation along ideological lines. Instead, we need to embrace a global governance philosophy that emphasizes extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, promotes the common values of humanity, and advocates exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations. We need to uphold true multilateralism and firmly safeguard the international system with the UN at its core and the international order underpinned by international law. It is particularly important for major countries to lead by example in honoring equality, cooperation, good faith and the rule of law and act in a way befitting their status.
The rest of the speech is tailored to his audience and speaks of China’s development and how China will contribute to humanity’s progress. It’s only seven more paragraphs after the above passage, so it’s not nearly as long as the Joint Declaration.
IMO, the speech is very timely and needed, and ought to soothe the Global South and Eurasia’s mind. Of course, the Outlaw US Empire and its NATO vassals won’t like it since they’re called out as the main problem facing humanity–which of course is 100% correct.
I didn’t give it emphasis, but do take note that China’s security proposal for the world is based on Russia’s security proposal for Europe. And that global governance must be based on the primacy of the equal sovereignty of all nations, which is the primary UN Charter principle and foundation for International Law.
“Cancel culture is inbuilt in the techno-feudalist project: conform to the hegemonic narrative, or else. Journalism that does not conform must be taken down.”
He asks that it be made viral. Just this portion ought to be reason enough:
Every silicon fragment in the valley connects Facebook as a direct extension of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s LifeLog project, a Pentagon attempt to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.” Facebook launched its website exactly on the same day – Feb. 4, 2004 – that DARPA and the Pentagon shuttered LifeLog.No explanation by DARPA was ever provided. The MIT’s David Karger, at the time, remarked, “I am sure that such research will continue to be funded under some other title. I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of such a key research area.”Of course a smokin’ gun directly connecting Facebook to DARPA will never be allowed to surface. But occasionally some key players speak out, such as Douglas Gage, none other than LifeLog’s conceptualizer: “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point (…) We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”So Facebook has absolutely nothing to do with journalism. Not to mention pontificating over a journalist’s work, or assuming it’s entitled to cancel him or her. Facebook is an “ecosystem” built to sell private data at a huge profit, offering a public service as a private enterprise, but most of all sharing the accumulated data of its billions of users with the U.S. national security state.
IMO it’s safe to assume Twitter has similar genetics. And of course, there’s more. I don’t plug VK as much as I might, but I’ve found it helpful in my pursuit. Telegram now seems essential as Twitter’s usefulness implodes. Fear of other nations doing the same as the Outlaw US Empire used as reasons to not drop Meta or Twitter are stupifidic.
Secrets of various ketchups
Make your own.
USA targeting of Moskva ship is Russia’s “Pearl Harbor”, retaliation is next
It has now been revealed that the US military ran the entire operation to sink the Moskva, including running the tracking of the ship via a P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft, which then handed off fire solutions to the Ukrainians who were all trained by the US military as well. Thus, the United States provided the weapons, the training, the tracking and the fire solution to sink the Moskva.
By sinking the Moskva, the US just handed Putin something akin to “Russia’s Pearl Harbor moment,” in which Putin can claim to his people that the USA initiated an attack on the Russian Navy, sinking one of their ships and killing hundreds of their people. This news has, of course, been paraded all across Russian media, driving domestic support for Putin even higher than before.
Just like with Pearl Harbor in the United States, the people of Russia are now demanding “payback” from the aggressors, whom they see as the United States. In effect, the USA just handed Putin the final piece of the puzzle that he needs to launch retaliatory nuclear strikes against the West.
I remember watching this movie back in the 1960s. Now as a much older adult, it just is curiously charming. Check out these few minutes of colorful dialog.
Catalan
A view from a BnB. Everything shown is local and under $10 combined.
Catalan
Meanwhile in Hong Kong
Hong Kong is electing new Chief of SAR on May 8, 2022 and there is only one candidate on the ballot. He is viewed as being pro-China. Sure enough his Twitter account was sanctioned right after he was nominated as a candidate.
The Empire acts in ways very petty these days. It reflects on the quality of their leadership.
Chinese-Australians and their influence
An excellent article that sums up the feelings of Chinese Australians, the China/Australia relationship and the current Australian elections. By Teow Loon Ti . (Teow Loon Ti was a researcher in aquaculture; and a teacher. Teow Loon Ti has a BSc.(Hon) in Zoology, an MA(Lit. & Comm.) and a PhD in Education. )
I noticed the many Asian and Chinese – Australian people at the massive anti Iraq war demonstrations in 2003. One really had to be there to appreciate the broad cross section of society represented and its size and scope. A member of parliament’s spouse told me the demonstrations were, “the largest gathering of people ever in Sydney, including the 2000 Sydney olympic games”. Of course the numbers were downplayed by the MSM.
People are sick of cynical and endless wars of choice then and more so now. Political parties ignore this at their peril.
There was a large Kaliber missile strike on Lyvov and we are now seeing confirmations from several places of what was struck:
“A stockpile of American, German and British anti-tank missiles was destroyed at a military depot in Lvov. According to our source in the SBU, the attack on the logistics base in Lvov was a complete surprise. Several tens of tons of various anti-tank weapons were destroyed at the facility, including German PanzerFausts, British NLAWs and American Javelins. It was expected that these funds should be enough for a month of active hostilities against Russian troops. According to our source, the plant was carried out secretly on commercial and civilian vehicles. Therefore, an investigation is now underway as to how the Russians were able to figure out all three storage sites.”
Poland
“Poland is secretly preparing a “liberation campaign” against Ukraine. For this purpose, a set of measures is being carried out – the supply of weapons, equipment and mercenaries across the Polish-Ukrainian border. Several formations of the Polish Army – the 18th motorized rifle division and the 6th airborne brigade – are preparing for a “peacekeeping mission”
BULLETIN — Russia Informs Citizens to Prepare for NATO Retaliatory Nuclear Attack, THIS SUNDAY
This content was previously for Subscribers only but is now UNLOCKED for the general public.
As of 7:00 AM Moscow time TODAY (Thursday), the Russian Ministry of Emergencies published information on their web site instructing Russian citizens to prepare for a NATO Retaliatory NUCLEAR Attack this Sunday, 24 April 2022.
As any thinking person is aware, the only way NATO would make a “RETALIATORY” nuclear strike, is if Russia launched a First Strike. So what does that tell you about this coming weekend?
The official notice placed on the Russian Ministry of Emergencies web site.
What it is like to be arrested in China
This is the real deal and what it is actually like. video 10MB
3-Ingredient Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake
“I have made this several times for potlucks or family dinners. It is always a hit. Like eating a brownie with cherries. Tastes almost like the cherry chocolates you buy around Christmas.”
3-Ingredient Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake
From Betty Crocker, and so easy to make and so VERY delicious.
Our Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake brings together the dream team – sweet cherries and rich chocolate. This cherry dump cake recipe calls for only three ingredients and is best served warm with a scoop (or two!) of vanilla ice cream. While this cake is easy to make, the flavor is out-of-this-world and sure to become a family favorite. Whip up this cherry dump cake recipe for an ooey, gooey weekday dessert or for a special occasion!
Migratory birds of mass destruction and US bio labs around the globe, some nuggets:
“The UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding the biological activities in countries including Ukraine. Predictably, the US and UK representatives didn’t show up at the event and the western media also blacked out the proceeding.”“A mind-boggling “discovery” that Russian forces in Ukraine stumbled upon is the use of numbered birds by the Pentagon-funded labs. This almost falls out of science fiction and Sir Alfred Hitchcock could have made an epic movie out of it where deception mixes with innocence and man’s cruelty to nature becomes unbearably grotesque. The project works like this…”“…the US has so far point-blank refused to accept any supervision and verification of such incriminatory evidences and has stonewalled the demand for a verification mechanism. It is unlikely that the US will permit an international verification process that holds the potential to expose it as indulging in crimes against humanity…”
It would be a grand place to visit. But you know, it’s terribly expensive.
Norway
Volodimir Zelensky nominated for the Nobel Prize
The European Parliament has nominated the president for his heroic bravery in the face of unleashed evil agression.
Although we are aware that this is a break with procedure, we believe that this break is justified by the current unprecedented situation. It is our democratic duty to confront authoritarianism and support a people fighting for democracy and their right to self-government.The veneer of civilization is paper thin, we are its guardians and we can never rest."
Thirty year US treasury bond reached today the highest yield in last fifty years, indicating a huge sell off ahead of expected FEDs three quarter point increase. For me, this by itself is the most important news today.
What’s gonna happen with tens of trillions of printed fiat money?
Only applies to women
I suppose that men can try this technique as well.
2022 04 22 15 10
Europe to deepen military ties with the US.
Duh.
“The pact would allow routine interactions between American and EU institutions on defense issues and open the door for U.S. defense contractors to participate in the bloc’s growing defense spending under certain conditions.”
Can anyone explain why absolutely massive fires just keep erupting again and again at critical facilities all over America? The tragic destruction by fire of the headquarters of Azure Standard in Oregon shocked millions of people, and since that news broke quite a few readers have been reaching out to me about the long string of unusual blazes that we have been witnessing from coast to coast in recent months.
I decided to look into this phenomenon for myself, and I am sharing what I have discovered so far in this article. Dr. Benjamin Braddock and others had already been digging into this, and their research proved quite valuable as I began my investigation. Some of the incidents that people have reported I was not able to independently verify, and others I felt were too minor to be put on this list. With all that being said, the following is a list of 16 major fires that have occurred at key food industry facilities in the U.S. since the start of 2022…
As the smoke settles near Taylor Farms, questions remain on the future of the business and the roughly 1,000 people employed at the Abbott Street facility.There is little to nothing left of the processing facility due to fire and smoke damages caused by Wednesday night’s blaze, according to Deputy Fire Chief Sam Klemek.“About 85% to 95% of the building is a total loss,” he said.
Multiple workers are hospitalized following an explosion at a food processing facility that has nearby residents on alert for possible evacuation.The explosion occurred Tuesday evening at Shearer’s Foods in Hermiston, a city in agriculturally rich eastern Oregon. No deaths have been reported from the blast, but the extent of the damage to the plant and its future were not clear. City officials are concerned what the fire could mean for the community and local economy.
Neighbors banded together to support crews as they battled a fire in Conway for about 16 hours Monday night.More than 12 departments and agencies worked together to put out the fire at East Conway Beef and Pork.
“The situation at our Jonesboro factory is under control and we are looking into the cause of the fire,” a Nestle spokesperson said. “Thankfully, no employees were injured and all are safe. We appreciate the quick response of the Jonesboro Fire Department and emergency response teams. The factory will remain closed as we assess the damage and return the factory to full operation. We plan to continue to support our employees financially during this time.”Nestle opened the plant in 2002 and in December 2020 the company unveiled plans to invest more than $100 million to expand the frozen foods plant, including the addition of 90,000 square feet and a new production line for Hot Pockets frozen sandwiches. In addition to Hot Pockets, Nestle makes products under the Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, DiGiorno, Tombstone and Sweet Earth brands at the plant.
A portion of Mauston’s Wisconsin River Meats burnt down during an overnight fire Feb. 2-3, with the cause of the fire still under investigation.“The old portion of the plant is a total loss,” Wisconsin River Meats said in a Facebook post about the fire. “We humbly ask that you be patient and please give us some time to sort out the cause of the fire and for us to transition some of our business and invoicing to our warehouse.”
Operating from what company officials referred to as the command center at Deli Star Corp.’s St. Louis Innovation Center, the Siegel family-led operations and executive team have spent the week scrambling to fulfill customers’ orders and work with local officials investigating a Jan. 11 fire that destroyed its 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville, about 40 miles southeast of them.
Fire crews from several towns have been battling a fire at the Penobscot McCrum potato processing plant in Belfast. Crews were called to the scene at 28 Pierce Street around 3:30 a.m., according to Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss.
A fire at a fertilizer company in western Kansas prompted evacuations Tuesday afternoon because hazardous materials were involved, officials said.The Ford County Regional Hazardous Materials Team deployed to Leoti for the fire and was fighting the blaze and removing hazardous material, Wichita County Clerk Lynda Goodrich said.
Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) said on Wednesday a fire had broken out in a bag house at its Claypool, Indiana, soybean processing and biodiesel plant on Tuesday and the affected systems had been suspended.No employees were injured and the fire was put out by 9:15 p.m. central time on Tuesday, LDC said in a statement. LDC’s website said soybean deliveries were suspended at the plant on Wednesday. LDC says Claypool is the largest fully integrated soybean processing and biodiesel plant in the United States.
An uncontrolled fire at a fertilizer plant in North Carolina forced thousands of people to evacuate as firefighters stood back Tuesday because of the danger of a large explosion.Authorities drove through neighborhoods and knocked on doors asking residents to leave within a one-mile radius (1.6 km) of the Winston Weaver Company fertilizer plant on the north side of Winston-Salem, where the fire started Monday night. Overnight, bright orange flames and thick plumes of smoke could be seen shooting into the sky. No injuries were reported.
A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire just after 1 p.m. Monday at Nutrien Ag Solutions, 1101 Midvale Road, Sunnyside Fire Chief Ken Anderson said.The fire destroyed one storage building on the southeast corner of the fertilizer storage facility in the Port of Sunnyside and damaged others, but adjacent Nutrien buildings and storage tanks containing hazardous chemicals were spared, Anderson said Monday evening.
A fire started at the Cargill-Nutrena feed mill in Lecompte, LA in the early hours of Thursday morning and burned for 12 hours, coverage by local television news station KALB said. An explosion reportedly occurred as firefighters were working the scene.
It’s a long road to recovery for Maricopa Food Pantry after a fire destroyed around 50,000 lb of food. The fire happened just 15 minutes after their food bank closed on Monday morning. Smoke was still coming from the rubble 24 hours later. “It had to be 40-50 feet in the air, just pure black smoke. It engulfed the entire neighborhood,” said Maricopa Food Pantry President Mike Connelly. “The heat we could feel down at the corner.”
The headquarters of Azure Standard, the nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire overnight. There were no injuries. The cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation. The loss of the facility and the impact on companywide operations is being assessed and expected to be limited and temporary. No other Azure Standard facilities were affected.
Investigators from the ATF’s National Response Team began its on-scene investigation on Friday into the massive fire at a Walmart facility in Plainfield.The team, led by Supervisor Christopher Forkner, is working with the Plainfield Fire Territory, Indiana State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Plainfield Police Department, according to a press release. ATF special agents from the Indianapolis Offices of the Columbus Field Division will also be assisting.
Of course it is not unusual for there to be fires at food industry facilities, and fire departments are accustomed to responding to such fires and putting them out.
But in many of these cases, we are talking about absolutely uncontrollable fires that seemed to erupt very suddenly.
And in many of these cases the firefighters that responded were not able to save the structures because the fires were so enormous.
Needless to say, the collective loss of all of these facilities will make the coming food shortages that I have extensively written about quite a bit worse.
MM Comment
Remember that the Trump administration, under the direction of John Bolton, was active in trying to create mind-numbing famine inside of China from 2017 through 2019. That is a full two to three years.
Chinese always respond “tit for tat”.
China different boxing technique
The Chinese have many differnt ways to box and fight. Here’s one. video 3MB
I like this picture. You got a cat, good food, pouring coffee and a killer view. I hardly think life could be any better than this.
Appreciate what you have.
Record-setting cold snap hits Europe, France
A historically intense April cold snap has descended on Europe, with temperatures plummeting to 20 to 30 degrees (11 to 18 degrees Celsius) below normal. The record-breaking cold has triggered harsh frosts, shocking early-blooming plants and crops in several countries.
Slovak minister says paying in roubles an option, country needs gas
PRAGUE, April 3 (Reuters) – The economy minister of Slovakia, which relies on Russian gas for around 85% of its demand, said the country could not be cut off from Russian gas flows and if it had to pay in roubles it would, although it backed taking a common European Union stance.
“That’s what makes mornings so tricky. Getting out of bed and ready for work is already a challenging task, but having to leave your significant other behind is much worse. So trying to squeeze in just 5 more minutes is totally worth being a little late for work.”
Waking up…
Blueberry Cobbler
“I love this recipe! I made a few changes such as using triple berry’s and so I had to add a little more auger over the top but Oh My God it’s delicious!”
Blueberry Cobbler.
Make the most of summer's fresh fruit and mix up an easy Blueberry Cobbler. With a tender topping and a berry filling, this easy Blueberry Cobbler with Bisquick™ Original Pancake & Baking Mix is a dessert you'll be asked to make again and again. If you don't have fresh blueberries on hand, frozen blueberries achieve the same, great taste. For this Blueberry Cobbler recipe, just make sure the total volume of fruit remains the same if using frozen blueberries. Spoons up and enjoy.
Pour melted butter into 8 or 9-inch square baking dish.
In medium bowl, whisk together Bisquick™ mix, sugar, and milk; pour over melted butter.
Sprinkle blueberries evenly over Bisquick™ batter.
Bake 42 to 47 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.
Tips
Kitty playing with an HO scale railroad
Kitty at play.
Kung Fu Clowns
Enjoy this old television commerical. It’s a hoot!
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
The german humiliation represented by the American veto of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline is paradigmatic.
On February 7, in the middle of the White House, and even before the Russian intervention in Ukraine, Joe Biden publicly disavows the newly appointed german chancellor Olaf Scholz, stating categorically that the Nord Stream II pipeline would be stopped.
...
Besides representing, in symbolic terms, the humiliation of Germany as a sovereign country, it consolidates the definitive “Coup d’Etat” in the European integration project.
-Saker
It’s an in-between time; a crazy time. A time of uncertainty and of strangeness. It’s an odd time, and a surreal time. Here, we go through some selected news and reports that serve best to flush out the realities that we all face.
In Biden’s Annual Economic Report, The Word “Gender” Is Used 40 More Times Than The Word “Inflation”
I think that the phrase “out of touch with reality” doesn’t even come close to describing what we are witnessing here.
.
We all knew that the Biden administration was completely out of touch with what is going on in Real America, but it appears that things are even worse than we thought. Right now, inflation is the number one political issue in the entire country, and the persistent shortages that we have been experiencing are right up there as well. But the Biden administration apparently has other priorities.
The Biden administration has just released the “Economic Report Of The President” for 2022, and you can find it on the official White House website right here. But unless you are a glutton for punishment, I would strongly advise against reading the entire thing, because it is dreadfully boring.
Thankfully, there are others that have already gone through the entire document for us, and one eagle-eyed researcher discovered that the word “gender” is used 40 more times than the word “inflation” is used in the report, and the word “inequality” is actually used more than either one of them…
President Joe Biden released his annual Economic Report on Thursday where he mentioned the word “gender” significantly more than “inflation” as the country faces the highest prices in over 40 years.Biden used the word “gender” 127 in his economic plan, while he mentioned “inflation” just 87 times. Meanwhile, the report mentioned “inequality” 147 times and “emissions” nearly 100 times.
Obviously, Biden administration officials are far more concerned about “social justice issues” than they are about our growing economic problems.
If you are expecting Biden and his minions to save the day, you are going to be waiting for a really long time.
Meanwhile, prices just continue to rise. On Monday, the price of corn reached the highest level in almost a decade…
The surging price of corn hit another milestone on Monday morning as the cost of global commodities continues to push higher.The contracts for July corn futures were trading above $8 per bushel on Monday, the highest level since September 2012. The contracts were trading near $6 per bushel at the start of the year.
U.S. natural gas prices hit the highest level since 2008, with the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub edging close to $8 per million British Thermal Units on Monday afternoon.The last major Henry Hub price spikes in 2008 and 2006 were partly due to hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico, the Epoch Times reports. Prices in 2008 peaked at $13.32 per million on July 3rd.
As I pointed out the other day, the inflation crisis that we are experiencing now is already worse than anything that we went through during the 1970s and early 1980s.
Even more frightening is the fact that this is just the beginning.
In particular, food prices will eventually go much higher than they are now. I visited a local supermarket earlier today, and I was astounded by all of the price changes. What we are witnessing is already unprecedented, but I believe that there are several factors that will actually accelerate the increase in food prices in the months ahead.
One of those factors is the horrific bird flu pandemic that has erupted inside the United States. According to an expert that was interviewed by the Washington Post, this pandemic is spreading at a much faster pace than the outbreak that caused so much chaos back in 2015…
WaPo spoke to Gro Intelligence (ag data experts) senior research analyst Grady Ferguson who tracked the last outbreak in 2015, saying this one could be more disruptive to the poultry and egg markets.Ferguson said that 66 days into the outbreak, 1.3% of all US chickens had been affected, and 6% of the US turkey flock. In 2015, he said, only .02% of total chickens were affected at this same time. The number rose to 2.5% of chickens infected at the outbreak’s peak, and more than 50 million were culled.
So what will happen if we get six months down the road and the total death toll for chickens and turkeys reaches 100 million?
What do you think that will mean for our food supply?
As I have been documenting for months, we were already heading for a major global food crisis even without the bird flu and even without the war in Ukraine.
Now both of those factors are making things a whole lot worse.
And instead of trying to find a way to end the war, our leaders continue to talk like they want to escalate matters. In fact, U.S. Senator Chris Coons is openly calling for U.S. troops to be sent into Ukraine…
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) signaled that he wants the US to send troops into Ukraine to fight Russia in an interview on Sunday. When pressed about the issue, Coons said Russian President Vladimir Putin “will only stop when we stop him.”Coons was asked on CBS News’s Face the Nation about comments he made last week in an address to the University of Michigan. In the speech, Coons said the Biden administration and Congress should “come to a common position about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to the aid in defense of Ukraine … If the answer is never, then we are inviting another level of escalation in brutality by Putin.”
That is complete and utter insanity.
But Coons and Biden are apparently really good friends, and many other top Democrats are also pushing for Biden to do more to help defend Ukraine.
I still remember the “old days” when many on the left were actually “anti-war”.
I don’t know what happened, but these days the biggest warmongers of all seem to be on the left.
Of course there are many warmongers on the right as well. It is almost as if something is in the water in Washington. I have never seen so many of our leaders act as if they have completely lost their minds.
Needless to say, similar things could be said for society as a whole. I really like how Mike Adams made this point in one of his recent articles…
Humanity is intoxicated to the point of suicidal collapse.Note the word root “toxic” found in the word “intoxicated.” It doesn’t just refer to consuming alcohol, but to a long list of behaviors, substances and desires that turn off rational thought and thrust people into bad decision making.
If it appears to you that the whole world is going crazy, that is because it really is going crazy.
Global events are starting to spiral out of control, and a whole lot of people out there are having a really hard time coping with it all.
Unfortunately, global events will continue to become more intense in the months ahead, and so will the emotional breakdowns.
Chinese first grade military training exam
I never tire of watching these elementary school kids in China. You know everyone in China gets military training starting at first grade (Kindergarden in some areas). It’s damn impressive. video 9MB
The military has loosened recruiting standards to enlist older, less educated soldiers — some with criminal pasts — in an effort bolster the nation’s dwindling volunteer ranks.
Critics warn the new policies would leave the U.S. with military defenses that are too old, too unskilled, and too poorly behaved to protect America’s future.
(2015) Soldiers say Army has become soft by lowering physical fitness standards
After twenty years of lowering physical, intelligence and skill assement standards, the military is under critism becuase the “soldiers” are unable to perform the most basic demands of the service.
So we can now “officially consider” the Bucha false flag as an “official flop” 🙂
Next, I want to point you to Andrei Martyanov‘s commentary on what happened to the missile cruiser Moskva he simply titled “About RKR Moskva“.
So now we are 50 days into this Special Military Operation (SMO) and right in between the end of the first phase and the beginning of the second one. So I want to begin by list a few things which were unclear/ambiguous/misunderstood and which now are becoming clear(er):
Evolution of war. There is this saying “no plan survives the first contact with the enemy” which I would even expand to “no plan survives the first contact with reality”. Why? The first one is obvious, the enemy will try to foil your plans, but the second one is less known: in war there is always a large element of chaos simply because your entire country and your military are in one mode up until the initiation of combat operations and because they have to very quickly switch over a completely new reality. The point is therefore not to stick to plan A at any cost, but neither is it to ditch it all and reinvent the wheel. What is needed is a quick response time to identify the problems and fix them. I would say that with this in mind, the Russian military did a very good job by quickly transforming an integrated Ukrainian military capable of strategic operations into a broken-up entity with its various parts isolated and unable to support each other. What is my evidence for that? There has not been a single Ukrainian counter-attack higher than on a subunit (battalion, company) level. Considering that the Ukrainians have the double advantage of being on the defense and having a larger force, this is truly a remarkable achievement. Add to this the money, weapons and intelligence support from the US/NATO and it is nothing short of a triumph.
Russia reporting failed. At the same time, Russia as a whole, and especially the military, did an absolutely awful job talking to the public, both in Russia and in the West. See a typical example of the image on the right. The only mistake the US PYSOPs made was that they really “overdid it”, which profoundly angered and alienated the Russian public which went from “what is going on?” to “we are in a fight for our very survival” very quickly and most Russians are now in what I would refer to a “WWII” mode: total warfare until total victory. In the West, however, the US PSYOPs truly triumphed and totally defeated the Russian counter-propaganda efforts which, the truth be told, were primitive, clumsy, slow and even self-defeating at times. Does that matter? Yes, very. Why?
Russia seems to be losing. Because most people in Zone A sincerely and truly believe that “Russia is losing the war”. Now these are the same folks who until February of 2022 were all virologists/epidemiologists/microbiologists/etc. and who in a remarkable feat, became overnight military experts and now are sincerely advising the Russians on how to wage a war. The fact that no “real” war has even begun does not elicit any second thoughts or doubts in these “experts in everything” folks who simply don’t believe that some matters require years of training to achieve the expertise needed to understand even the basics. And no, as Andrei Martyanov always points out, a BA in communications or a law degree do not make you into a military expert overnight (by the way, I notice a very large “overlap” between the COVID death cult members and the armchair generals).
Russia is a stranger to the West. Objectively, there is also a double language and culture barrier at work here. Very few folks in Zone A are fluent, or even conversant, in Russian and even fewer understand the Russian mindset. So if all the English speaking media (including putatively pro-Russian ones – more about those later) says something it makes no sense to expect most English speakers to find the correct Russian language Telegram channels to get the other side of the information. As for RT and Sputnik, in their naive and clumsy efforts to appear “objective” they just reinforce the western propaganda narratives.
Pretend bloggers. Then there is an interesting phenomenon that became very apparent over the past 50 days: there are quite a few websites and blogs that PRETEND to be pro-Russian but, in reality, that support is conditional on Russia supporting their agenda and if Russians do things differently those putatively pro-Russian outlets quickly take up the exact same talking points as the US PSYOPs. There are also a number of PRETEND “liberal” or “Leftist” or “Anti-Imperialist” websites which were ALWAYS CIA-operated but which, over the years, acquired some (totally undeserved) credibility and which have now suddenly “flipped”. Pro-Nazi “liberals”, got to love that…
The result of all this? FUD: fear, uncertainty and doubts of course.
Even worse are the implications of this FUD on many levels:
A sense of Impunity. It gives the folks in the West a sense of impunity and it almost totally conceals the magnitude of the dangers the Empire of Hate and Lies is facing today: from real food shortages to an economic collapse, and even to a continental war in Europe. After all, if the Russians are losing, then “we” must be winning, so all is well. Not very bright, but oh so human…
Russian Frustration. It angers and frustrates the Russian soldiers actually doing the fighting who are living in fear not about a heroic Ukrainian counter-offensive, but what the Russian government (at all levels and in all branches) will screw up next. Want an example? Sure! How about this: until senior LDNR official began to openly complain about the Russian customs the latter did not allow non-governmental humanitarian convoys to cross into the Ukraine. This was solved, now the next one is this: how to organize pensions for the families of Russian volunteers who fight in the Ukraine?
Fight to the death. It greatly encourages the Ukrainians to fight this war down to the last Ukrainian and to total destruction of the Ukrainian civil infrastructure. Yes, the united West wants to genocide Russians by means of genociding Ukrainians. It cannot get any more openly satanic than that!
Having said all of the above, we now need to step back and only make some very basic predictions:
Evolution of war. What began as the “special military operation” is now turning into a total war of the united West against Russia and that means that the goal for the West is not peace, its victory, and a Russian defeat. My personal conclusion is that the West will only stop doubling down if the US homeland itself is threatened by Russian conventional and nuclear strategic deterrence capabilities.
The USA will not stop. The Russians are slowly but surely coming to the realization that in spite of all the concessions and retreats made by Russia since 2013 the Empire of Hate and Lies will not stop by itself, it will have to be stopped, by Russia. Again. As the VDV motto says “nobody but us”.
Cannon fodder. The Ukrainians have no agency, and neither do the Eurolemmings. In fact, the USA is using both the Ukronazis and their EU serfs as cannon fodder because their calculation is that if Russia wins, then the Eurolemmings will become not only terrified and even more subservient, but also that the EU will burn itself down removing a competitor. I remind you that the USA’s wealth is based on how much the USA profited from both WWI and WWII. So why not with WWIII as long as it remains within the confines of the European theater of operations? And that will be doubly true if Russia loses.
My first conclusion here is that a direct military conflict involving NATO and Russia is now likely.
That, by itself, is simply horrible, but here is a simple truth: if the Anglos, yet again, want to burn down the European continent there might not be anything Russia could do to prevent that. And forget about the suicidal Eurolemmings. Russia can win that war, and she will, but yet again at a huge cost.
And that is exactly what the Anglos want.
So is there a silver lining here or is it all doom and gloom?
In fact, there is: the reactions of the Russian public to the rather ambiguous and sometimes outright weird stuff members of the Russian government, at different levels, have been doing and saying. Like that terrible Medinski presser which totally freaked out most Russians. Or the rumor that Abramovich (!) is negotiating between Moscow and Kiev. Oh I know, that is just another rumor, but considering the DISMAL job of Russian information operations that rumor, and hundreds more, are making the public weary and angry.
And the general public itself, rather than any government officials, started to react to this kind of dangerous FUD by something we could think of as a grassroots counter-propaganda campaign. For example, while the letters Z and V have been banned in the Ukraine (and in Latvia, Moldova, Greece and even in some German states) they are literally all over the Runet and you could say that Z and V have now become part of the Russian alphabet and that they are now often used to replace the traditional Cyrillic Z (З) and V (В).
Yup, the letter Z is now serving a somewhat similar function to the Star of David in Nazi Germany.
Then there are the many iterations of the following slogans “our cause is just“, “the enemy will be defeated” and “we will go to the end!” which are also all over the Runet. Note that all of these slogans are strongly associated with WWII in the Russian mind.
And then there is this: the, shall we call them “poor communication skills”, of the Kremlin have resulted in a real shitstorm of angry protests and freakouts so the Kremlin had to tone it down by a lot. Yes, Putin PERSONALLY is very popular and trusted (over 80%), but not the government or, even less so, mid-level or local government officials. It would not take much (another major SNAFU for example) to trigger angry protests.
But if anybody is to be truly credited with reassuring the Russian public that no “negotiators” will backstab the Russian military, that honor should go to the “Biden” Administration which “convinced” Zelenski to stop any and all negotiations and to restate the Ukronazis most extreme demands (including the LDNR and Crimea). Now that truly made negotiations not only pointless but pretty much impossible.
Thank you “Biden”!
I also want to use this opportunity publicly express my deepest gratitude to Josip Borrell, the Eurolemming’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, for declaring “this war must be won on the battlefield“! When EU *diplomats* use that kind of language, it has a quasi-miraculous effect on the wannabe “peace camp” in Russia. Even RT (!) seems to have smelled the coffee and now we can find an article entitled “It appears that the West doesn’t want peace in Ukraine“. No kidding, geniuses!
As I have mentioned it in the past, I am personally very much in favor of negotiations and even talking to the enemy during a war, but that should be done very discreetly, very carefully and with the clear “message” to the general public if these negotiations, or leaks about them, are made public. If you cannot negotiate without freaking out your own people, then don’t try, you will do more for peace by shutting up and staying at home. If instead of using the insect-like Medinski (he reminds me of Blinken, same “I am a loser” look) Putin had sent Ramzan Kadyrov the perception about “negotiations” in Russia would probably be very different today.
So what is up next?
A major battle around the Donbass cauldron
NATO convoys moving into the Ukraine
The collapse of the “the Russians are losing” narrative replaced by
A Russian “atrocity” of some type
The western media will begin to “discover sins” amongst those they lionized until now (see image)
The full dimension of the economic crisis resulting from the collapse of the international economic system will become much more apparent, especially in the EU.
What about the Black Sea Fleet – can it operate without its flagship?
As I mentioned yesterday, I am not a navy person and neither do I know what plans the Russian General Staff had for the BSF. But I can say this: Slava-class guided missile cruisers were designed in the 70s as aircraft carrier destroyers. For this purpose, they were equipped with very powerful missiles, superb (by 1970s standards!) S-300F, OSA-MA SAMs, 6 AK-630 point air defenses, and a lot of (old) electronics. Since there are no aircraft carriers in the Black Sea, I suppose that the Moskva main role was as a command ship (its main canons don’t provide the range needed to support amphibious assault operations) and also as a relatively powerful mobile, floating, radar. The Moskva was hit by something about 50km south of Snake Island which means that she was also probably watching the movement of ships near/from Romania. Frankly, that is not a task for a guided-missile cruiser.
[Sidebar: as to what actually caused the explosion, my personal best guess is a Ukrainian mine detached by the recent storm and drifting southwards which the Russians failed to detect. That would explain the hull breach which later resulted in the Moskva taking in water and sinking while in tow. I still don’t buy the “Ukrainian 2 “Neptunes” version at all, if only because the Moskva had very solid air defenses while bad weather makes minesweeping very hard. But we will probably never find out for sure, unless the members of the crew reveal what really happened]
Considering that the Ukraine has NO navy at all, I don’t see how the loss of the Moskva would hamper or significantly complicate any BSF operations (navy folks, please correct me here if I missed something!).
The Moskva also had an important role in the eastern Mediterranean (Syria) and yes, there is probably where she will be missed the most. I hope that this loss will provide the impetus to massively accelerate the modernization of old Russian (well, Soviet, really) ships and the construction of new ones.
I would even be inclined to think that the deployment of hypersonic ASM has not only made aircraft carriers obsolete (at least against Russia) but, by the same logic, has made old Russian/Soviet “carrier hunter killers” obsolete by implication. Nowadays, even SMALL missile boats can fire Russian hypersonic missiles thousands of kilometers away, so why bother with really big ships in anti-carrier operations? Range? Okay. Firepower? Okay. Bigger and better sensors? Okay. But not in the Black Sea. And not with a minimally modernized 1970 era ship.
Conclusion:
There is no doubt that Russia fought superbly during the SMO and there is no doubt either that the Russians probably calculated that “just” a SMO would be sufficient to achieve the Russian goals (immediate: protect the LDNR, intermediate: denazify and disarm the Ukraine and long term: change the European and world collective security arrangements) was wrong.
Russia has decided…
It is now becoming almost certain that a real, much larger, war to crush the Ukrainian military will be needed, and it will have to be fought with much larger forces and means.
The West has decided…
The Empire of Hate and Lies has decided to “go max” and is acting exactly as it would be in preparations for a much larger war in Europe.
For example, with the steady stream of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, there is a very real possibility that Russia and the US/NATO/EU will sever their diplomatic relationships, something traditionally considered as the last step before a declaration of war.
One of the best things the Kremlin could do now is to carefully study how the Iranians since 1979 (!) managed to successfully:
Never be drawn into a war they did not want (except the one launched by the West and the USSR following the Islamic Revolution which Iran won, by the way)
Deter the Anglo-Zionist from direct attacks on Iran
Survive both sanctions and even a blockade
Defeat US PSYOPs (remember Neda Agha-Soltan?)
Actively assist in the liberation of other countries around the world and, especially, the Middle-East
Superbly combine political pragmatism with deep religious piety and idealism
Preserve their economy (albeit with major difficulties, but not collapse!)
Preserve their Islamic societal and civilizational model
Remain truly sovereign
Maintain a rock-solid morale throughout it all
If Iran could do that, why can’t we? I have an answer to this question, but I won’t offer it until the end of combat operations.
As I have also mentioned many times, Russia is a project, a ‘moving target’, a society that is recovering from at least 300 years of foreign domination (especially spiritual and political) and a society that is STILL changing, very fast in many aspects.
Yes, Russia has a superb military and immense resources. But that is not enough.
Some say that the next “New Russia” was “born in the LDNR”, and I hope that they are right, not in the sense that Russia needs to copy all the decisions (often bad ones too!) of the LDNR, but Russia does need to purge herself from those in positions of power who are just stuck in the past or unable to adapt to new realities.
Can Russia denazify the planet? By herself, no. At most she can militarily destroy all of Zone A, but only in a mutual suicide act of desperation (the US nuclear triad is still mostly functional, in spite of its problems). But can Russia and the rest of Zone B denazify the planet? Absolutely. Even “just” Russia and China together are more powerful than the rest of the planet combined, add India to this and you have a truly unstoppable force.
The Empire is already dead, but like a stinking unburied corpse, it still has enough “toxicity momentum” to continue to threaten the planet until the USA is both denazified and disarmed. That will take a lot of time, even with the recent massive acceleration of the pace of events.
So no quick fix, no quick solution, no quick victory (or defeat for that matter). This is not want Russia wanted, but that is what she got.
May she make the most of it to transform herself into the civilizational realm she was for centuries. That could be the biggest homage to those fighting for the future of Russia today.
Andrei
PS: I want to remind you all one more time that if the USA and Russia openly and directly clash militarily, I will immediately “freeze” the blog until the situation is resolved in one way or another. I am a guest, a legal alien (“Green Card”), in the USA and it is not my role to speak if my country of current residence and my country of ethnic origin are at war with each other.
UPDATE1: I should have mentioned that there have been large demonstrations in Serbia in support of Russia. So far, Serbia is the only country with a strong pro-Russian part of the population. No, not all, of course but MUCH more than in any other country, at least that I am aware of. I want to thank all our Serbian brothers and sisters for standing by us!
UPDATE2: Russian sources are reporting that the nonsense at the border has resumed again, and folks are waiting for hours and even days to get across the border. If true, this sounds like outright sabotage to me.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced that Russian forces now control “all of Mariupol” after the surrender of 1,464 Ukraine troops.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, told CNN the city was “no more,” leaving Russians with nothing left to seize.
“The enemy may seize the land Mariupol used to stand on, but the city of Mariupol has been wiped off the face of the earth by the Russian Federation.
NATO WEAPONS DELIVERY SHOT DOWN
There is now also word filtering out that Russian air defenses have SHOT DOWN a cargo plane carrying a shipment of NATO Weapons for Ukraine, but this is dicey . . .
Russia claims it downed a Ukrainian transport plane carrying weapons “in the Odessa region.”
There are no Ukrainian transport planes flying there, but there were some flying from Turkey to Poland.
At this point, the flag of the plane is believed to Be Ukrainian, but that is *NOT* confirmed. (Could be a NATO Plane)
Some Sources, primarily Russian, claiming that the Aircraft shot down was a NATO Military Aircraft carrying Weapons to Ukrainian Forces in Odesa, but again this is extremely unlikely. However, if found to be true, oh boy . . .
Hal Turner Editorial Remarks
Flying from Turkey (Drones) to Poland (the central distribution point of NATO weapons) ultimately entering Ukraine?
If this is one of the planes shot down, then in one fell swoop, Russia has put Ukraine, Turkey, and Poland, on notice that NATO weapons shipments are not safe anywhere.
Bold move by Russia.
Still have to get all the facts and, of course, see how this plays out.
HAPPENING NOW: Avostal Steel Plant in Ukraine Being Mercilessly Bombed
ASOVSTAL Steel Mill now under heavy bombardment and burning.
The Ultimatum for Ukraine troops to put down their weapons and surrender by 9:00 GMT has long expired. The militant AZOV Brigade Nazis had a chance to leave and survive; they chose not to.
About one hour ago, the Russian Army ordered all units to attack the plant. It is being mercilessly bombed right now and is on fire.
ASOVSTAL Steel Mill now under heavy bombardment and burning.
UPDATE 3:16 PM EDT —
Ministry of Defense of Russia: Basements with militants at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol will NOT be stormed.
Instead, Supersonic bombers, Tu-22M3 Backfire-C, will bomb the plant with high explosive demolition bombs FAB-3000. Then the Russian forces will be use Heavy Flamethrower System TOS-1A Solntsepyok to toast the remaining survivors.
TOS-1 is a Soviet 220 mm 30-barrel or 24-barrel multiple rocket launcher capable of using thermobaric warheads, mounted on a T-72 tank chassis. TOS-1 was designed to attack enemy fortified positions and lightly armoured vehicles and transports, in open terrain in particular.
The world’s new monetary system, underpinned by a digital currency, will be backed by a basket of new foreign currencies and natural resources. And it will liberate the Global South from both western debt and IMF-induced austerity.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and cross-posted at The Cradle.
Sergey Glazyev is a man living right in the eye of our current geopolitical and geo-economic hurricane. One of the most influential economists in the world, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a former adviser to the Kremlin from 2012 to 2019, for the past three years he has helmed Moscow’s uber strategic portfolio as Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
In another of his recent essays, Glazyev comments on how “I grew up in Zaporozhye, near which heavy fighting is now taking place in order to destroy the Ukrainian Nazis, who never existed in my small Motherland. I studied at a Ukrainian school and I know Ukrainian literature and language well, which from a scientific point of view is a dialect of Russian. I did not notice anything Russophobic in Ukrainian culture. In the 17 years of my life in Zaporozhye, I have never met a single Banderist.”
Glazyev was gracious to take some time from his packed schedule to provide detailed answers to a first series of questions in what we expect to become a running conversation, especially focused to the Global South. This is his first interview with a foreign publication since the start of Operation Z. Many thanks to Alexey Subottin for the Russian-English translation.
The Cradle: You are at the forefront of a game-changing geo-economic development: the design of a new monetary/financial system via an association between the EAEU and China, bypassing the US dollar, with a draft soon to be concluded. Could you possibly advance some of the features of this system – which is certainly not a Bretton Woods III – but seems to be a clear alternative to the Washington consensus and very close to the necessities of the Global South?
Glazyev: In a bout of Russophobic hysteria, the ruling elite of the United States played its last “trump ace” in the hybrid war against Russia. Having “frozen” Russian foreign exchange reserves in custody accounts of western central banks, financial regulators of the US, EU, and the UK undermined the status of the dollar, euro, and pound as global reserve currencies. This step sharply accelerated the ongoing dismantling of the dollar-based economic world order.
Over a decade ago, my colleagues at the Astana Economic Forum and I proposed to transition to a new global economic system based on a new synthetic trading currency based on an index of currencies of participating countries. Later, we proposed to expand the underlying currency basket by adding around twenty exchange-traded commodities. A monetary unit based on such an expanded basket was mathematically modeled and demonstrated a high degree of resilience and stability.
At around the same time, we proposed to create a wide international coalition of resistance in the hybrid war for global dominance that the financial and power elite of the US unleashed on the countries that remained outside of its control. My book The Last World War: the USA to Move and Lose, published in 2016, scientifically explained the nature of this coming war and argued for its inevitability – a conclusion based on objective laws of long-term economic development. Based on the same objective laws, the book argued the inevitability of the defeat of the old dominant power.
Currently, the US is fighting to maintain its dominance, but just as Britain previously, which provoked two world wars but was unable to keep its empire and its central position in the world due to the obsolescence of its colonial economic system, it is destined to fail. The British colonial economic system based on slave labor was overtaken by structurally more efficient economic systems of the US and the USSR. Both the US and the USSR were more efficient at managing human capital in vertically integrated systems, which split the world into their zones of influence. A transition to a new world economic order started after the disintegration of the USSR. This transition is now reaching its conclusion with the imminent disintegration of the dollar-based global economic system, which provided the foundation of the United States global dominance.
The new convergent economic system that emerged in the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and India is the next inevitable stage of development, combining the benefits of both centralized strategic planning and market economy, and of both state control of the monetary and physical infrastructure and entrepreneurship. The new economic system united various strata of their societies around the goal of increasing common wellbeing in a way that is substantially stronger than the Anglo-Saxon and European alternatives. This is the main reason why Washington will not be able to win the global hybrid war that it started. This is also the main reason why the current dollar-centric global financial system will be superseded by a new one, based on a consensus of the countries who join the new world economic order.
In the first phase of the transition, these countries fall back on using their national currencies and clearing mechanisms, backed by bilateral currency swaps. At this point, price formation is still mostly driven by prices at various exchanges, denominated in dollars. This phase is almost over: after Russia’s reserves in dollars, euro, pound, and yen were “frozen,” it is unlikely that any sovereign country will continue accumulating reserves in these currencies. Their immediate replacement is national currencies and gold.
The second stage of the transition will involve new pricing mechanisms that do not reference the dollar. Price formation in national currencies involves substantial overheads, however, it will still be more attractive than pricing in ‘un-anchored’ and treacherous currencies like dollars, pounds, euro, and yen. The only remaining global currency candidate – the yuan – won’t be taking their place due to its inconvertibility and the restricted external access to the Chinese capital markets. The use of gold as the price reference is constrained by the inconvenience of its use for payments.
The third and the final stage on the new economic order transition will involve a creation of a new digital payment currency founded through an international agreement based on principles of transparency, fairness, goodwill, and efficiency. I expect that the model of such a monetary unit that we developed will play its role at this stage. A currency like this can be issued by a pool of currency reserves of BRICS countries, which all interested countries will be able to join. The weight of each currency in the basket could be proportional to the GDP of each country (based on purchasing power parity, for example), its share in international trade, as well as the population and territory size of participating countries.
In addition, the basket could contain an index of prices of main exchange-traded commodities: gold and other precious metals, key industrial metals, hydrocarbons, grains, sugar, as well as water and other natural resources. To provide backing and to make the currency more resilient, relevant international resource reserves can be created in due course. This new currency would be used exclusively for cross-border payments and issued to the participating countries based on a pre-defined formula. Participating countries would instead use their national currencies for credit creation, in order to finance national investments and industry, as well as for sovereign wealth reserves. Capital account cross-border flows would remain governed by national currency regulations.
The Cradle:Michael Hudson specifically asks that if this new system enables nations in the Global South to suspend dollarized debt and is based on the ability to pay (in foreign exchange), can these loans be tied to either raw materials or, for China, tangible equity ownership in the capital infrastructure financed by foreign non-dollar credit?
Glazyev: Transition to the new world economic order will likely be accompanied by systematic refusal to honor obligations in dollars, euro, pound, and yen. In this respect, it will be no different from the example set by the countries issuing these currencies who thought it appropriate to steal foreign exchange reserves of Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Russia to the tune of trillions of dollars. Since the US, Britain, EU, and Japan refused to honor their obligations and confiscated the wealth of other nations which was held in their currencies, why should other countries be obliged to pay them back and to service their loans?
In any case, participation in the new economic system will not be constrained by the obligations in the old one. Countries of the Global South can be full participants of the new system regardless of their accumulated debts in dollars, euro, pound, and yen. Even if they were to default on their obligations in those currencies, this would have no bearing on their credit rating in the new financial system. Nationalization of extraction industry, likewise, would not cause a disruption. Further, should these countries reserve a portion of their natural resources for the backing of the new economic system, their respective weight in the currency basket of the new monetary unit would increase accordingly, providing that nation with larger currency reserves and credit capacity. In addition, bilateral swap lines with trading partner countries would provide them with adequate financing for co-investments and trade financing.
The Cradle:In one of your latest essays, The Economics of the Russian Victory, you call for “an accelerated formation of a new technological paradigm and the formation of institutions of a new world economic order.” Among the recommendations, you specifically propose the creation of “a payment and settlement system in the national currencies of the EAEU member states” and the development and implementation of “an independent system of international settlements in the EAEU, SCO and BRICS, which could eliminate critical dependence of the US-controlled SWIFT system.” Is it possible to foresee a concerted joint drive by the EAEU and China to “sell” the new system to SCO members, other BRICS members, ASEAN members and nations in West Asia, Africa and Latin America? And will that result in a bipolar geo-economy – the West versus The Rest?
Glazyev: Indeed, this is the direction where we are headed. Disappointingly, monetary authorities of Russia are still a part of the Washington paradigm and play by the rules of the dollar-based system, even after Russian foreign exchange reserves were captured by the west. On the other hand, the recent sanctions prompted extensive soul searching among the rest of the non-dollar-block countries. western ‘agents of influence’ still control central banks of most countries, forcing them to apply suicidal policies prescribed by the IMF. However, such policies at this point are so obviously contrary to the national interests of these non-western countries that their authorities are growing justifiably concerned about financial security.
You correctly highlight potentially central roles of China and Russia in the genesis of the new world economic order. Unfortunately, current leadership of the CBR (Central Bank of Russia) remains trapped inside the intellectual cul-de-sac of the Washington paradigm and is unable to become a founding partner in the creation of a new global economic and financial framework. At the same time, the CBR already had to face the reality and create a national system for interbank messaging which is not dependent on SWIFT, and opened it up for foreign banks as well. Cross-currency swap lines have been already set up with key participating nations. Most transactions between member states of the EAEU are already denominated in national currencies and the share of their currencies in internal trade is growing at a rapid pace.
A similar transition is taking place in trade with China, Iran, and Turkey. India indicated that it is ready to switch to payments in national currencies as well. A lot of effort is put in developing clearing mechanisms for national currency payments. In parallel, there is an ongoing effort to develop a digital non-banking payment system, which would be linked to gold and other exchange-traded commodities – the ‘stablecoins.’
Recent US and European sanctions imposed on the banking channels have caused a rapid increase in these efforts. The group of countries working on the new financial system only needs to announce the completion of the framework and readiness of the new trade currency and the process of formation of the new world financial order will accelerate further from there. The best way to bring it about would be to announce it at the SCO or BRICS regular meetings. We are working on that.
The Cradle: This has been an absolutely key issue in discussions by independent analysts across the west. Was the Russian Central Bank advising Russian gold producers to sell their gold in the London market to get a higher price than the Russian government or Central Bank would pay? Was there no anticipation whatsoever that the coming alternative to the US dollar will have to be based largely on gold? How would you characterize what happened? How much practical damage has this inflicted on the Russian economy short-term and mid-term?
Glazyev: The monetary policy of the CBR, implemented in line with the IMF recommendations, has been devastating for the Russian economy. Combined disasters of the “freezing” of circa $400 billion of foreign exchange reserves and over a trillion dollars siphoned from the economy by oligarchs into western offshore destinations, came with the backdrop of equally disastrous policies of the CBR, which included excessively high real rates combined with a managed float of the exchange rate. We estimate this caused under-investment of circa 20 trillion rubles and under-production of circa 50 trillion rubles in goods.
Following Washington’s recommendations, the CBR stopped buying gold over the last two years, effectively forcing domestic gold miners to export full volumes of production, which added up to 500 tons of gold. These days the mistake and the harm it caused are very much obvious. Presently, the CBR resumed gold purchases, and, hopefully, will continue with sound policies in the interest of the national economy instead of ‘targeting inflation’ for the benefit of international speculators, as had been the case during the last decade.
The Cradle: The Fed as well as the ECB were not consulted on the freeze of Russian foreign reserves. Word in New York and Frankfurt is that they would have opposed it were they to have been asked. Did you personally expect the freeze? And did the Russian leadership expect it?
Glazyev: My book, The Last World War, that I already mentioned, which was published as far back as 2015, argued that the likelihood of this happening eventually is very high. In this hybrid war, economic warfare and informational/cognitive warfare are key theaters of conflict. On both of these fronts, the US and NATO countries have overwhelming superiority and I did not have any doubt that they would take full advantage of this in due course.
I have been arguing for a long time for the replacement of dollars, euro, pounds, and yen in our foreign exchange reserves with gold, which is produced in abundance in Russia. Unfortunately, western agents of influence which occupy key roles at central banks of most countries, as well as rating agencies and key publications, were successful in silencing my ideas. To give you an example, I have no doubt that high-ranking officials at the Fed and the ECB were involved in developing anti-Russian financial sanctions. These sanctions have been consistently escalating and are being implemented almost instantly, despite the well-known difficulties with bureaucratic decision making in the EU.
The Cradle: Elvira Nabiullina has been reconfirmed as the head of the Russian Central Bank. What would you do differently, compared to her previous actions? What is the main guiding principle involved in your different approaches?
Glazyev: The difference between our approaches is very simple. Her policies are an orthodox implementation of IMF recommendations and dogmas of the Washington paradigm, while my recommendations are based on the scientific method and empirical evidence accumulated over the last hundred years in leading countries.
The Cradle: The Russia-China strategic partnership seems to be increasingly ironclad – as Presidents Putin and Xi themselves constantly reaffirm. But there are rumbles against it not only in the west but also in some Russian policy circles. In this extremely delicate historical juncture, how reliable is China as an all-season ally to Russia?
Glazyev: The foundation of Russian-Chinese strategic partnership is common sense, common interests, and the experience of cooperation over hundreds of years. The US ruling elite started a global hybrid war aimed at defending its hegemonic position in the world, targeting China as the key economic competitor and Russia as the key counter-balancing force. Initially, the US geopolitical efforts were aiming to create a conflict between Russia and China. Agents of western influence were amplifying xenophobic ideas in our media and blocking any attempts to transition to payments in national currencies. On the Chinese side, agents of western influence were pushing the government to fall in line with the demands of the US interests.
However, sovereign interests of Russia and China logically led to their growing strategic partnership and cooperation, in order to address common threats emanating from Washington. The US tariff war with China and financial sanctions war with Russia validated these concerns and demonstrated the clear and present danger our two countries are facing. Common interests of survival and resistance are uniting China and Russia, and our two countries are largely symbiotic economically. They complement and increase competitive advantages of each other. These common interests will persist over the long run.
The Chinese government and the Chinese people remember very well the role of the Soviet Union in the liberation of their country from the Japanese occupation and in the post-war industrialization of China. Our two countries have a strong historical foundation for strategic partnership and we are destined to cooperate closely in our common interests. I hope that the strategic partnership of Russia and the PRC, which is enhanced by the coupling of the One Belt One Road with the Eurasian Economic Union, will become the foundation of President Vladimir Putin’s project of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and the nucleus of the new world economic order.
On the heels of rail carriers canceling grain shipments, CF Industries warns that FERTILIZER rail shipments are now being halted during spring planting
According to an April 14th announcement from CF Industries, American railroad; Union Pacific is halting the delivery of fertilizer shipments right in the middle of peak planting season for farmers. CF Industries warns that,
“railroad-mandated shipping reductions [will] result in nitrogen fertilizer shipment delays during the spring application season and that it [will] be unable to accept new rail sales involving Union Pacific for the foreseeable future.”
This means that Union Pacific is essentially dropping fertilizer shipments and grain shipments all across America. Put another way, America’s food infrastructure is being deliberately shut down.
“CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CF), a leading global manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products, today informed customers it serves by Union Pacific rail lines that railroad-mandated shipping reductions would result in nitrogen fertilizer shipment delays during the spring application season and that it would be unable to accept new rail sales involving Union Pacific for the foreseeable future. The Company understands that it is one of only 30 companies to face these restrictions. ...”
It continues…
“CF Industries ships to customers via Union Pacific rail lines primarily from its Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana and its Port Neal Complex in Iowa.
The rail lines serve key agricultural areas such as Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and California.
Products that will be affected include nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) as well as diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), an emissions control product required for diesel trucks.
CF Industries is the largest producer of urea, UAN and DEF in North America, and its Donaldsonville Complex is the largest single production facility for the products in North America.”
DEF Does not “Go Bad.”
According to manufacturers, Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) doesn’t degrade nearly as quickly as people assume. For example, at 86°F, DEF has a shelf life of a year.
REMEMBER: Do not equate shelf life to spoiling like food, as DEF will not go bad. It will lose some effectiveness, and the SCR will dose at a higher rate, but it won’t “go bad.”
If maintained at a constant temperature, DEF manages to stay for several months. For example, at 74°F in Los Angeles, Diesel Exhaust Fluid has the shelf life of 44 months.
American “Vaccines KILLING People of Color” at TWICE THE RATE of Whites
Biden Administration Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has admitted during a Conference that “Vaccines are killing people of color, Blacks, Latinos, and Indigenous people, at about twice the rate of white Americans.”
The video, from the White House Convening on Equity, appears below
Yet to this very minute, they are still running commercials on TV and radio, telling people the vaccines are “safe and effective.”
Are you a Ready Rufus?
When “shit goes down”, will you be ready to handle things? video 3MB
French Onion Dip
This is easy to make. It tastes great! And man oh, man does it go great with Wise® potato chips.
OIP C.IUdXxFzrzT9mXbIBuWCi9wHaLH
Ingredients
2022 04 19 18 43
Procedure
In a large saute pan over low heat, add oil and butter. When butter is melted, add onions and saute stirring occasionally until golden brown and caramelized, about 35 minutes. Add shallots and some salt and saute for 15 minutes more until onions and shallots are dark brown. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 to 6 minutes, then chop into 1/4-inch pieces. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, celery salt, Worcestershire, salt and pepper. Fold in onion mixture. Chill at least 1 hour or overnight, prior to serving.
Cook’s Note
Dip can be pureed until creamy. If too thick, add milk to get desired consistency.
The world rotated one more time since the last report on China.
So, what do we know?
China is rock-solid behind Russia in all of Russia’s objectives, and in some instances, up ahead.
It almost seems as if an agreement was, if not stated, then understood. Russia will do the shootin’ for now, and China will keep the economic boat afloat. We see consistent commenting such as China is a consistent stabilizing force in a changing world
Overall NATO is feeling the pressure and ‘resetting’ and trying to clone itself as Aukus in the east while trying to strengthen itself in the west. We have Stoltenberg announcing: “What we see now is a new reality, a new normal for European security. Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a more longer-term adaptation of NATO.”. In this speech, he announced that plans are being worked up to transform NATO into a major force capable of taking on an invading army and states that NATO deepens partnerships in Asia in response to a rising “security challenge” from China.
Yet, in the east, the Quad is one less, given India’s refusal to follow the U.S. regarding Russia.
Japan has been asked to join Aukus as a Japan, US, Australia, UK alliance intending to project a strong regional balance of power against China, Russia (and maybe India then?) in Asia. This Aukus will then have synergy,, they say, with Japanese technologies in areas such as hypersonic weapons and electronic warfare. Somehow I don’t see Japan as a suitable switch out for India, but then again, we’re dealing with desperate last gyrations of a world hegemon here, trying to project that it still has many friends.
A quick look at India. These days, if you see a country being threatened, you know already that they have started decoupling from so-called western democracy and Blinken has just threatened India yet again. He says the US is “monitoring rise in rights abuses in India” So, suddenly the US cares about human rights abuses in India. This bellicose rhetoric is not effective and way beyond its sell-by date.
It is clear that Russia is decoupling from Europe, and this started before sanctions. But did you know that China is decoupling from Britain, Canada, and the US? This is a brand-new trend. China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd. is preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada, and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing that assets could become subject to Western sanctions. As it seeks to leave the West, CNOOC is looking to acquire new assets in Latin America and Africa, and also wants to prioritize the development of large, new prospects in Brazil, Guyana, and Uganda.
Apparently trying to deal with those three countries has become painful and CNOOC is seeking to sell “marginal and hard to manage” assets. Quoted are red tape and high operating costs in the western climes.
In the Asia region, we also saw the ease with which Imran Khan was relieved of his post as Prime Minister. I don’t believe this is the end of this story, because the citizens of Pakistan are truly unhappy. https://www.rt.com/news/553734-us-involved-imran-khan-departure/
So if you were thinking that while the Ukraine war is hot, the Pacific is cool, that would be a mis judgement.
The new cry going out is if we’ve censored all the Russian voices, how can we allow the Chinese voices to carry water for Russia. We have to cancel them too! (These people deserve to go and live underground in bunkers!)
Taiwan keeps the war propaganda at a fever pitch by releasing a China Invasion Survival Guide.
Taiwan’s All-out Defense Mobilization unit has released a guide for citizens in the event of a war with Beijing, complete with comic strips and tips for survival, locating bomb shelters, and preparing food and first aid provisions. The guide has been planned for some time, and comes as local officials look to extend military service beyond the current 4 months. https://t.me/rtnews/23455
Nancy Pelosi was planning to visit Taiwan. China made its displeasure known widely and loudly. And Pelosi immediately contracted Covid and had to suspend her trip.
From the Australian side, the propaganda is flowing strong. Here is a very fine video with Brian Berletic and Robbie Barwick, explaining exactly what happened with the contretemps in the Solomon Islands, as well as the overall trajectory and the speed thereof, of Australia’s belligerence against China. This video contains some interesting statements and supporting data. Seemingly, if Australia interacts with Island Nations like the Solomon’s the idea is to build infrastructure suitable for war, so, building a port must be suitable for US aircraft carriers, and building a road must be suitable for landing US airplanes. If China interacts with these very same Island Nations, the idea is to build infrastructure that can benefit their population and this is now clear among all.
I’ve come to enjoy China’s spokespeople. They are sharp and do not miss a trick. Acerbic and incisive commentary is the order of the day. This is a good example, and please note the tone of the Western journos .. If you have never spent time on one of these, it is an education. The western journos try and beat the spox to death with repeated questions loaded with innuendo. https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/202204/t20220411_10666750.html
It is quite clear that China is not leaving the issue of Biolabs behind. They have just about daily coverage in various media about it.
SEOUL, April 12 (Xinhua) — U.S. military biological facilities in South Korea are serious threats to local residents’ safety, said a South Korean expert, as the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) continues with a scandalous program involving experiments with living toxic samples. #GLOBALink
China will never forget epithets like “China Virus” and “Wuhan Flu”. Take a good look at this image titled Poison Disseminator.
word image 13
China had to evacuate +- 2,000 Chinese citizens from the Ukraine. From media, it was a successful evacuation. They have also repeatedly made their stance clear on the Ukraine.
The main focus is humanitarian. China released a five-point position statement supported by a six-point humanitarian plan
The position statement is:
First, we persevere in promoting peace talks in the right direction. We hold that dialogue and negotiation are the only way out, oppose adding fuel to the fire and intensifying confrontation, call for achieving a ceasefire and ending the conflict, and support Russia and Ukraine in carrying out direct dialogue.Second, we persevere in upholding the basic norms governing international relations. We advocate respect for the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, and oppose putting small and medium-sized countries on the front line of geopolitical games.Third, we persevere in preventing the resurgence of the Cold War mentality. We do not agree with the “friend-or-foe” camp confrontation, firmly promote international solidarity, advocate the vision of common, cooperative, comprehensive and sustainable security, and respect and accommodate the legitimate and reasonable concerns of all parties.Fourth, we persevere in upholding the legitimate rights and interests of all countries. We oppose unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and call for safeguarding the international industrial and supply chains to avoid harming normal economic and trade exchanges and people’s lives.Fifth, we persevere in consolidating peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. We firmly uphold the principle of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness in our neighborhood diplomacy, guard against the introduction of bloc confrontation into the region by the United States through the “Indo-Pacific strategy”, accelerate the promotion of regional integration and cooperation, and guard the hard-won development momentum in the region.
Wang Ji describes the six-point humanitarian plan:
While China is doing its best to create a level playing field and do real humanitarian work, they are not hiding the fact that they hold the US/NATO fully responsible for what they see as an action that was forced onto Russia.
Inside China, it is all about economic miracles. Taking a huge bow now in their theater of urgent needs is seeds: Chinese Seeds, Chinese developed, and Chinese local seeds. The seed companies of the west are unwelcome with the IP registration of their seeds and China will hold its ownership over its seeds.
The Shanghai lockdown provided endless China-bashing opportunities for western commentators. Tucker Carlson jumped on this horse and did his part for the anti-China campaign with a litany of complaints, a bunch of pixellated videos that are propaganda material, never having spoken to anyone actually living in Shanghai, without an idea of China’s principled management of Covid and without understanding the levels of the lockdown – complete political projection of US so-called values. As we have seen so many times from the USA’ians, trying to fight his political battles on the back of the Chinese (or anyone else, for that matter). He also perceivably has no idea that the Chinese lockdown supports the people with food and medicines, and it is not like the west. So, he looks at this with western eyes and truly, he has no clue. It is exactly the same that the world complains about .. it is: “We are right and exceptional and we know better.” Because China makes its own rules, Carlson calls it wrong. He is totally committed to the idea of US manifest destiny and his way is the right way. Carlson is anti a war with Russia for political purposes but show him China as a possible war partner, and he blooms with bloodlust.
It is truly better to listen to those that are actually living there and can actually speak the language. It is so that people believe the MSM when that very same MSM says something that they like and rail against that very same MSM when they say something that they don’t like.
David Fishman tweets: So it’s CRAZY that we have to do this, it’s also incredibly fascinating from a supply chain/logistics/economics perspective. We are in the process of re-inventing the food distribution network in Shanghai. It’s all based on the newly prevalent concept of Group-Buying.
If you really want to know how people live through a 14 day lockdown, a 14 day lighter lockdown if no Covid presents itself, a closed and open-loop system, and then thereafter no lock down. I would recommend that you click on this tweet and read all the parts:
So it's CRAZY that we have to do this, it's also incredibly fascinating from a supply chain/logistics/economics perspective.We are in the process of re-inventing the food distribution network in Shanghai.It's all based on the newly prevalent concept of Group-Buying. Nerdy🧵— David Fishman (@pretentiouswhat) April 7, 2022
Let’s hear from someone who is actually right there:
And Jeff Brown weighed in as well. Special explanation to address the many concerns global citizens have about China’s “Zero-Covid” policy, with Shanghai now in the headlines.
And so there are to my knowledge hundreds of people reporting that they get their food delivered, they take part in group buying, they mostly get what they want but sometimes not and we see things like this:
Very touched by this. My wife failed for the nth time to buy milk via group buying during the Shanghai lockdown and was lamenting about it on WeChat.5 minutes later a neighbor put this on our doorstep, refusing anything in exchange.THAT is the China I know. pic.twitter.com/Z9rJDwOWyo— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 13, 2022
The lesson here is that if you want to know what is happening in China, listen to the people in China. Now, they are not brutally suppressed and silenced. Online media is bigger than ever. What is frowned upon and can get you into hot water, is if you are rude and rude to others. State your case, don’t be rude and you will be fine with social media communication. (Somewhat like the concept of Saving Face).
No, China is not killing 25 million people in Shanghai.
There are thousands of made-up and anti-China video clips breathlessly being passed around by the usual suspects. I saw one that purports that the Chinese are breaking down their 5G towers. It was a clip from the umbrella riots in Hong Kong where the rioters were breaking down public infrastructure.
Is everything perfect? Of course not. Are their people struggling? Of course. Was there food distribution problems initially? Of course. Is it easy? Of course not. Are most people content with the decision to do a phased lock-in of a city of 25 million people? Most of the ones that I’ve regularly followed are, if not content, they understand the reason and trust the Chinese Zero-Covid policy. Westerners need to start understanding that the Chinese people are part of their government and that they actually believe the government does what is best for the people and they have evidence and proof of this, because they are part of a very inclusive system.
Cyrus Janssen is a regular commentator on China. He does not like the Shanghai lockdown. This is his thread, and take a look at what the Chinese actually answered.
I'm very worried about Shanghai and the future of #China….what's happened in the past few weeks has changed the future of China. Some of you will agree with my analysis and some of you won't, but here is a thread 🧵 on the #COVID19 situation in #Shanghai:— Cyrus Janssen (@thecyrusjanssen) April 13, 2022
The conversation in China is different from the conversation in the west. Their current concern is future management of Covid. They have concerns that their Zero-Covid strategy needs to be adjusted. They are in the process of refining its strategy. They do not have concerns about their strategy, because they have the numbers.
The last report that I have is as of Saturday. The Shanghai port STILL operating smoothly, with berthing efficiency better than 2021. The average waiting time for ships in Port is under 24 hours, and all the production units at the port maintain normal 24-hour operations, except in extreme weather. In 2021, the Port moved 47 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), ranking first globally. Throughput of international containers exceeded 6 million TEUs for the first time.
Trade between Russia and China skyrocketed. Paul from the Sirius report states it as follows: “Western experts fail to grasp that the Global South is around 87% of the world’s population, is in its ascendancy and has a myriad of vertical growth markets now in play and is embracing the multipolar world. West meanwhile is in terminal decline.”
China and Russia trade in Q1 rose 28% to $38.2bn equivalent.
In 2021, trade turnover between Russia and China hit a record high of $146.88 billion, having surged 35.8%. In December, the Russian and Chinese presidents agreed on creating infrastructure to service trade operations between the two nations without third parties.
The ASEAN surpassed the EU to become China’s largest trading partner. China’s imports and exports with ASEAN jumped 8.4% yoy to 1.35tn yuan in Q1 accounting for 14.4% of the country’s foreign trade volume.
Beijing’s economic and trade cooperation with other countries including Russia and Ukraine remains normal.
Beijing has refused to join sanctions against Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, saying cooperation between China and Russia “has no limits.” The two countries have been switching from the US dollar and the euro to local currencies in trade to avoid possible sanctions.
It’s all digital currency for the years ahead for China. Make a strong distinction in your mind between CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), Cryptocurrencies and China’s digital currency. They are not all the same.
Russia is increasing its holdings in Yuan. This is explained as underscoring the falling credibility of the US dollar, as the US has been weaponizing the dollar as a financial weapon instead of a trusted international payment currency. This via Xu Wenhong, a research fellow at the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics arm, rolled out a digital end-to-end e-commerce logistics service that includes pickup, warehousing, supply chain, customs clearance, and last-mile delivery. You may think this is for China internally and it might well be so, but China has now something like 3,000 warehouses across the world, supporting the products that the belt and road transport, to get to the last-mile delivery.
Earlier I referred to the Quad as well as to the fact that China is doing its own selective decoupling. The Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which runs through Mongolia, is specifically aimed at reducing any Chinese dependence on Quad Members.
To conclude before we get to a lighter note, the west has no competitive edge any longer in trade, very little in war if we look at it as of today (they can still wipe us all out and turn us into glass), and have no honor left. They are not serious people and cannot be allowed to try and run our planet any longer, exclusively to their own benefit.
From Godfree’s newsletter about one of China’s minorities that I had actually never heard of. The Naxi, one of China’s 55 ethnic minorities, have long been popular with anthropologists, but its folk music is routinely overlooked. A new album hopes to change that. It might not be your style, but something different and away from war is always welcome.
Some nice girls showing off clevage in fine nice bikinis. video 4MB
Tender Pork Spare Ribs
Celebrity Chef used this braising method for baby back ribs, here is a variation of it for pork spare ribs.
Tender Pork Spare Ribs.
Thus, the seasonings are changed to fit the meat, and there is an increased cooking time. Almost all reports indicated great satisfaction with the ribs, and pershaps you all should give them a try as well.
They’re really tender and the meat is so flavorful that you don’t have to add BBQ sauce unless you want to.
2022 04 19 18 49
Rufus delivery guy
You are not your job. You are beyond that. Be the Rufus. Video 3MB
Ukraine Refugees in Ireland suffering strange new illness
Almost 30 Ukrainians at a Cork County refugee center in Ireland, many who arrived within the past 48 hours, are being treated for a mystery illness.
The individuals – all based at a facility in north Cork – complained of feeling unwell on Saturday with several saying their symptoms worsened overnight.
The symptoms ranged from headaches, nausea, dizziness and high temperatures to coughing.
A group of 47 Ukrainian refugees had arrived over the past 36 hours at an emergency rest center at Banteer in north Cork.
All are understood to have arrived in Ireland over recent days after travelling here from Ukraine and bordering countries.
As a precautionary measure, both local GPs and paramedics attended the Banteer facility.
Assessments are now underway by the medical teams in a bid to determine the precise nature and source of the mystery illness.
While full Covid-19 precautions are being taken, coronavirus is not believed to be the primary suspect.
Cork is currently in the grip of major bouts of ordinary flu and cold outbreaks.
Cold and flu medications sales across some parts of Cork have soared by over 80pc over recent weeks.
UKRAINE BIOLABS THE SOURCE?
The existence of Biolabs inside Ukraine, being run by the US Department of Defense, may be implicated in this.
The existence of these labs was exposed as Russia began demilitarizing and de-nazifying Ukraine. If any of the pathogens inside any of those labs were loosed, then the cause of these sick Ukrainians is a massive concern.
HAL TURNER EDITORIAL OPINION
It would not be unheard of that someone did something like this deliberately.
Ireland is a small island which is basically Bankrupt, where they want 80% of the population dead because Brussels took all the pensions, whose population are no longer bright enough or liberty-minded enough to question or challenge what restrictions are imposed upon them, as witnesses with the COVID fraud.
Ireland basically became a zone of locked-down mask zombies doing everything they were told, even though none of the masks or lockdowns had much effect upon the spread of COVID.
In fact, the population of Ireland is now so pathetic, that local councils ORDERED families to take in refugees . . . . into private homes . . . . and the Irish just do as they’re told. No fight-for-freedom seems to be left in them at all.
The fact that the population there is so malleable and compliant might make the island an interesting place for a bio-weapon test.
Some of the sociopaths running various governments might have decided to loose some strange new disease on an island, where people coming and going can be tightly controlled, to sit back and watch how a potential new bioweapon spreads and kills.
Drunk Vietnames girl
Getting a drunk chick home is always a hassle. But this is extra difficult being in rural Vietnam. Sheech! video 8MB
OPINION: America is now broken beyond repair. Only force of arms can stop its total destruction
You know America is now broken beyond repair because states are literally at war with each other.
Have you seen the busloads of illegal aliens being shipped out of Texas and into Washington, DC and into Delaware? Could you ever even IMAGINE states forcibly doing things like this to each other?
We also have States – like California – boycotting other states, like Florida and many others, over the laws enacted by citizens of those other states.
I mean step back for just a second to a quiet place and clear your thoughts. Then try to look from an outside, big picture perspective, and let it sink in for just a moment.
The very first thing that will flood over you is there’s no playbook for where this is going. Since when have we had two powerful states begin an actual physical counter attack.
That’s really something more then sending a message. It’s aggressive and provoking.
The union is fracturing and it’s largely passed-off-as (and accepted as) “politics.” It’s not politics; it’s Civil War.
Really take a sec to feel the gravity of states using physical means to effect change. That’s a big one.
There is an endless corrosive force causing the union to deteriorate at a grinding pace.
If we could stop everything and take inventory of the damage thus far, we’d see that it’s already too late. Its not going back together like it was say, in 2005, without force.
Meanwhile, the population is arguing among themselves over which politician they will allow to control their basic human rights. The ignorance and outright idiocy of the masses is frightening. They don’t even TALK about “liberty.”
American’s are all talking about the same things this Easter Holiday weekend:
The Fact that their children will never have any type of life close to what we had. No owned home, no beater winter car, no wife, or husband potentially, no decent paying wage job, a crappy diet.
Mom and Dad’s legacy won’t last. Any inheritance will get eaten up by inflation as well as their retirement fund.
The Southern border invasion – ongoing at the invitation of our public servants in Washington.
Covert war with Russia happening right now in Ukraine, and looming direct, open war with China looming.
Empty retail everywhere.
Heartless greedy people abound.
Even the church we attend could care less about the situation with housing. Which is really weird as Easter Sunday is here.
The Nation is Divided more than it ever has been.
I’ve never seen it so hopeless. I have hope but it’s shaken to the core.
Most people do not understand the ramifications of what’s occurring. They also do not realize that past predicts future. They will likely willfully resist understanding even as the effects of this roll over them.
The GLUE (Christianity) that held America together, has been dissolved. (When the United States was created, America was almost 100% Christian, and TAKEN SERIOUSLY)
As America falls headlong into DEPRAVITY and MORAL COLLAPSE, we can recall a WARNING:
"...we have no government armed with powercapable of contending with human passionsunbridled by morality and religion.Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry,would break the strongest cords of ourConstitution as a whale goes through a net.Our Constitution was made ONLYFOR A MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PEOPLE.It is wholly inadequateto the government of any other."- John Adams, founder and second president
In 1979 was the first time I read the Bible cover to cover. All I can say is that I didn’t think it would take this long for all that Revelation stuff to start.
I think COVID Horseman One of the Apocalypse.
I think Horseman Two is the red horse, war. We are here.
It does not get better and the US will not be rescued.
We are heading into the ultimate SHTF scenario. The Bible says it will be the worst time that anyone has ever seen on this planet and that if He did not return, all flesh on this planet would be lost.
Does that mean that all flesh will have turned into machine? Is that what the mark of the beast warning is about, that we cannot be saved if we take the mark? Is it because of transhumanism? You bet it is.
Now is the time to get as off grid, down low, and out of sight as possible. Hide your stored food. Don’t talk about it with neighbors unless they are prepping too and are working with you.
War is coming to US soil. Some will survive, but your guns will not save you. Only Jesus can save you, and the Holy Spirit will direct your path to hide you, so it’s time to get real about what is actually coming.
Of course, this is going to occur on God’s schedule, not mine or yours. He may have more than a few twists and turns planned, even if only to allow more to be saved from what’s coming.
He’s been quite merciful in granting time for people to repent, given the perfidy and abominations currently extant in the world, and getting worse daily.
It might be a longer race than you or I anticipate, so be sure to pace yourself – you don’t want to burn out before the end arrives.
Someone recently told me “The plan is to break the United States into 4 new nations.” The northeast, southeast, Midwest, and west coast.
I thought about it and it seems to me that once you realize this, everything that happens makes sense.
The only way they can get global government is to break the United States apart.
China and Russia are on board and that’s why the typical Republican voter stands with Russia and the typical Democratic voter stands with China.
Both countries are flooding both sides with their own propaganda designed to further divide the country.
The WEF fans the flames on both sides knowing a break up allows them to better push their build back better.
Wall St. knows they will fail but they also know what the back up plan is, and it’s why they’re moving everything Florida.
All 4 parties have a vested interest in watching America be split apart so all 4 are working together even though their end goals are all not the same.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) will have massive influence over the northeastern region – including eastern Canada – as the UN will be the head of their global government. New York will be the capital and they will operate out of their region of old America.
The Russians will have a lot of influence over the Midwest and Southeast – there’s speculation Alberta, Saskatchewan, NW territory, the Yukon, and Alaska will join the Midwestern/Southeastern bloc stretching the new nations lands from western Alaska to Southeastern Florida.
Like Russia it will be sparsely populated but incredibly energy rich.
These regions are largely conservative and thus already set up to be friendly with Russia.
The Russians will ally with this nation and run roads over to Alaska and down into the midwest for trade.
The bankers will operate out of this region.
The west coast nation will likely encompass Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii and western Canada. This region will be largely controlled by the Chinese as these populations are already friendly towards China.
All 4 regions will be used in some fashion by all 4 groups but all 4 groups will position themselves to be friendly with at least 1 region. WEF for the Northeast, Bankers for the Southeast, Russians for the Midwest, China for the West coast.
Anyone hoping for a return of old America must move to the Midwest and Southeast now.
Although we will be weaker than we are today we still have a fighting chance in these regions when all this goes down.
When you really sit back in a quiet place this is what you realize… They’re gonna break the nation into 4 and practically everything they’re doing is in preparation for this; Unless Americans step up and start emitting some well placed bullets.
Think that’s harsh? Let me show you “harsh:”
$30 Trillion in debt is catastrophic. And that’s just the current book debt.
Unfunded liabilities in the next 20 years are over a $100 trillion.
The welfare state exceed $1.1 trillion for fiscal 2016. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reported 66% of the welfare state were immigrants.
And what are they still bringing-in across the southern border? Yea. More immigrants. ILLEGAL ONES to boot!
Exactly what would you say should be done with the people doing these things? Exactly what, about their deliberate choices, can be fixed?
“Vote them out” you say? You fool. The election in November 2020 was outright stolen. There is no voting them out anymore. The whole election system is a fraud.
The courts refused to hear election cases; so the courts are a fraud as well.
The whole system has become a corrupt, immoral, out-of-control, tyrannical, joke.
There are no peaceful means to redress grievances anymore.
November 2020 and January 6, 2021 demonstrated to me that our Constitutional Republic is all but dead. I decided that January that it was time to give up hope for a nationally recognized leader to restore the Republic.
I just know that a legitimate movement needs a recognized leader, otherwise it’s just disorganized rabble that’s easily labeled and discredited as “terrorists” then picked off as lone wolves.
It is time for people to move to areas that contain concentrations of like minded people. If you’re a freedom loving constitutionalist that’s living in a blue city or State, it’s time to move, now. Even if you take a temporary financial loss, it will be worth it in the long run.
States are now conducting open aggressive acts toward each other and towards the federal government.
As a nation, we have crossed the Rubicon, there’s no going back to what America once was; what past generations hoped it would be. The corruption and treason runs too deep.
Don’t be like so many victims throughout history, the ones that clung to a misplaced sense of hope that things would get better or that things really won’t get “that bad.”
History books show those are the ones that wound up in front of firing squads, in gulags, or murdered in their homes.
Don’t view it as running, it is more about consolidation of power, strength in numbers, and having your family somewhere safe instead of behind enemy lines.
We in the USA have been heading the same direction as the former Soviet Union for quite some time now…..the journey is just picking up steam as the inevitable becomes obvious to more and more of us….there isn’t a damn thing “united” about The United States anymore….time to accept that simple fact.
The gig is up.
Going to college, having a job and a family, working hard to pay off a home for a chill retirement? Its all dead now.
So what’s the plan? Just live in daily fear and survive until the next shoe drops?
There are very few choices now. Food and basic survival will drown out all other issues. It’s the desperation I’m worried about. People do fucked-up shit when they are desperate.
Is there a limit to what you would do if your child was looking in your eyes and crying from hunger? No.
That’s when the gloves come off and shit gets real.
Hold on tight. There is more to the story.
If this country is ever demoralized,it will come from trying to live without work.- Abraham LincolnDemoralization of the target audienceis yet another step in successful mind control.- Joost MeerlooThey are contaminated; they are programmed to thinkand react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern.You cannot change their mind, even if you exposethem to authentic information, even if you prove thatwhite is white and black is black, you still cannotchange the basic perception and logic of behavior.In other words, these people... the process of de-moralization is complete and irreversible.- Yuri Bezmenov
The incoming collapse is going to hit so many unprepared.
Its not myself I worry for, its the rest of society and how to navigate their foolishness and impending downfall, for being shortsighted and distracted, while the government unraveled the economy over the past decade. Pretty much since QE began, which ultimately would doom us all in the long run. And here we are.
Until the Keynesian tribe rot is gone it WILL remain broken no matter what new bullshit they try.
If you want to know what the future of the country looks like, visit Detroit. This is what is eventually coming to the rest of the country. Burned out buildings, 50% unemployment, corrupt and criminal politicians, bribery, graft, gangs, drugs, casinos, prostitution, devastating environmental pollution. No place is it safe to walk in Detroit or you risk getting mugged, shot, or beaten even in broad daylight.
This malaise is now spreading to the suburbs. In Detroit, it started seeping into the surrounding towns, like Lincoln Park, Melvindale. But now it is going even further into suburbs further away.
I’ve always said that if you don’t have a thriving, safe city, then the disease will spread. The suburbs of these cities like Detroit are getting caught in the same downward spiral. If Detroit were prosperous and safe, it would cascade to the surrounding communities, like it did in the 1920s when it was one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
Same with Chicago. Same here in New York.
There is no going back, no do-over, and no fixing this. Get ready.
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One of my favorite Chinese girls
She’s just so darn cute! Here she is exercising in her home with her little doggie. video 4MB
Russia says it destroyed Ukrainian air defense systems gifted by unidentified European country
Slovakia gave an S-300 system to Ukraine last week but says theirs wasn’t hit. Which system was hit is unknown.
NO Dumping : No more transfer of Western pollution to Asia tolerated :
Another big shipping line is refusing to export the West’s plastic waste.
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Workers short the trash at Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java province, Indonesia. Published April 15, 2022
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As of today (April 15), the world’s third largest shipping line, will no longer accept deliveries of scrap plastic on any of its ships. CMA CGM’s ban is a milestone in a global backlash against wealthy nations—especially the US—dumping plastic waste in China and Southeast Asia.
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China used to be the biggest destination for scrap plastic; in 1992, the country imported 72% of all plastic waste, which it would recycle and use in manufacturing. But as China’s economy has grown, so has its domestic plastic waste output. Now the country has plenty of its own plastic to recycle, without accepting imports from abroad….
The export tariff on ferrochrome — used in stainless steel — will rise to 40% from 20% starting Aug. 1, and the levy on high-purity pig iron will increase to 20% from 15%, the Ministry of Finance said. Export tax rebates will be removed from 23 items, including some cold-rolled coil products, it said.
US inflation and interest rates: why the Fed needs help from China
Since the inflationary pressure on the US is partly a consequence of supply chain dislocations, fast and hard rate hikes won’t be enough if Chinese production does not get back into top gear
Such considerations are why investors expecting the US dollar to strengthen against the yuan may be disappointed
We’re building the universal network of encyclopedias.
A lot of people have complained to us about how biased Wikipedia is, how there needs to be an effective alternative or a decentralized network of encyclopedias.But we are not building an alternative encyclopedia. We are networking together all the alternatives. Nobody has ever done this before, and it’s about time somebody did. This is what we should have done with Wikipedia in the first place.
Crowdsourcing has been replaced by a panel of experts because the Crowd turned out to be run by a few cynical manipulators and a lot of Useful Idiots nodding enthusiastically.
I thought that this would make great “food for thought” to those of you in the United States that are staring at really high prices for chicken eggs. THis is from “The Almanac” and all credit to them.
Why Should You Raise Chickens?
There’s a lot to like about raising chickens in your backyard. The eggs are a real temptation—tastier and fresher than any store-bought eggs, and better for baking, too. The shells, along with the chicken poop, can be tossed right into the compost pile. Much of the day, the birds entertain themselves, picking at grass, worms, beetles, and all of the good things that go into making those yummy farm eggs. Plus, with their keen eye for insect pests, chickens make for great gardening companions.
Remember, though: Nothing good comes easy!
DIY chicken coop.
Things to Consider Before Getting Chickens
First, check local town ordinances to ensure that keeping chickens is even allowed in your neighborhood or if there is a limit to the number of chickens you can keep at once. The last thing you want is to invest time and money into preparing for chickens and then find out that you can’t even keep them!
Make sure you have the space for a henhouse or a full-size chicken coop. It has to hold a feeder and water containers, a roosting area, and a nest box for every three hens. A proper coop should be large enough that you can stand in it to gather eggs and shovel manure comfortably, but a simple henhouse can be quite a bit smaller. Plus, any housing must be sturdy enough to keep your chickens safe from all the predators out there! Here’s how to build a chicken coop in your backyard.
Chickens need food (and water) daily. Feed is about $20 per 50-pound bag at my co-op, but prices vary depending on your location and the quality of the feed. How long a bag lasts depends on the number of chickens that you have.
Hens will lay eggs through spring and summer and into the fall, as long as they have 12 to 14 hours of daylight. Expect to collect eggs daily, or even twice a day.
All year ‘round, you’ll have to shovel manure. Yippee!
If you go away on vacation, you’ll need a reliable chicken-sitter—and they can be scarcer than hens’ teeth!
How to Raise Chickens: Flock Size, Spacing, and Start-Up Cost
How Many Chickens Should I Keep?
Chickens are sociable creatures, so plan to keep three to six birds. With this amount, you’ll always have a steady supply of eggs, since an adult hen lays about two eggs every three days, on average.
Chickens are most productive in the first two years of their lives; after that, egg production will slow, so you’ll need to think about replacing your flock with younger birds eventually. Young chicks can be bought from suppliers quite easily, or you can hatch your own if you have a rooster (which we do NOT recommend). Read more about raising baby chicks here!
How Much Space Do Chickens Need?
Ultimately, it depends on which breed of chicken you’re raising. According to the University of Missouri Extension, one medium-sized chicken needs at least 3 square feet of floor space inside the coop and 8-10 square feet outdoors. The more space, the happier and healthier the chickens will be; overcrowding contributes to disease and feather picking.
The birds will need a place to spread their wings, so to speak: a sizeable chicken run, for example, or a whole backyard. (Our hens have lots of outdoor time. They have places to take a dust bath and catch a few rays.) Either way, the space must be fenced in order to keep the chickens in and predators out. (Predators include your own Fido and Fluffy, too!) Add chicken-wire fencing to your list of equipment.
How Much Does Keeping Chickens Cost?
All of this costs money, of course. The materials to build and furnish a coop and a 20×5-foot run—including wood, fencing, and hardware—are going to set you back at least $300. If you can’t do this work yourself, you’ll also be buying skilled labor.
Overall, expect to spend between $500 and $700 when just getting started, depending on the size of your flock, coop, and run.
Gardening with Chickens
Most folks who keep chickens do so largely for the constant supply of fresh eggs, but did you know that keeping chickens can be also be beneficial for the garden?
When the gardening season has finished for the year, let the chickens into your gardening space and watch them go crazy! They’ll uproot the stems and stalks of weeds and gobble up any damaged or overripe vegetables that remain. They’ll eat any weed seeds or insects they find in the soil, and will peck apart and digest vegetable remnants, especially broccoli stems, carrot tops, chard, and kale. After that, they’ll scratch the ground and peck out hidden worms or insects, mixing up the soil in the process—all with endless enthusiasm and curiosity.
Chickens don’t only provide a constant supply of fresh eggs—they produce an endless amount of manure, too. Luckily, chicken poo can be composted, aged, and eventually added to the garden. In about 6 months’ time, you will accumulate about 1 cubic foot of manure per chicken.
During your daily cleaning of the coop, collect and pile up the chicken poop and used bedding materials. The best decomposition occurs when the pile is 2 parts poop to 1 part bedding materials. Lawn clippings and fruit and vegetable kitchen scraps, as well as leaves, twigs, and shredded paper, can also be added into the mix. Soak the pile and, over the next year or so, wet and stir it regularly to add air. A temperature of 130°F to 150°F is recommended to eliminate bacteria.
More of Raising Chickens 101
Still interested in raising chickens? See more of our beginner’s guide below:
Be the person that makes a difference. Be the Rufus. You might fall flat on your face, but it doesn’t matter if you are successful or not. What matters is that you try. video 7MB
Conclusion
A little bit of minor planning right now can guarantee a nice supply of breakfast eggs that would go a long way to help reduce your daily food expenses. Don’t be like the rest. Provide services, have skills, and minor prep work now could really be advantageous in the future for you all.
Soft boiled eggs over toast.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
The destruction of Russia's Guided Missile Cruiser "Moskva" is prompting calls in Russia for the "special military operation" to be upgraded into a formal declaration of war with Ukraine.
Ah.
It’s a world in turmoil.
Don’t you know.
Ukraine. Taiwan.
Meanwhile… Big, big organized crime throughout the United States. (Excluding the organized crime syndicate known as the “US government”.)
While…
President Biden
A senile old man, with obvious dimentia is starting to wage war against China and Russia …
AND…
India…
WITH…
Iransimultaneously.
What. The. Fuck!
is this a nightmare senario, or what?
…
And inside of China, there’s the kiss of American Propaganda…
There’s an army of ‘bots, and expats demanding that China drop it’s testing and restrictions on coronavirus. They say;
"Stop testing China. It's a waste. You are taking away from people's FREEDOM™. Give it up."
It’s obviously a narrative that has origins from the United States government. The coordination is massive.
The coordination is massive.
And with this coordination comes understanding on the reasons and origin of the narrative…
2022 04 16 16 48
Keep in mind that China is not going to drop its restrictions while in the middle of a war. There is no way.
This is true. Whether or not it is made official by the United States media or not.
China considers this a DEFCON situation. It is a state of war. And that is all that is important.
2022 04 16 16 49
Both Russia and China have extensively documented the United States concerted bioweapon assault and carpet bombing exercises since 2014.
It is official.
It is loged as complains at the United Nations, and it is codified in the joint agreement of super-dooper-friendship between Russia and China made 4FEB22.
So please realize the severity of the situation.
And PLEASE stop comparing China to the piss-poor failure of the United States controlling the light and trivial version(s) of Coronavirus. They are not the same. China is conducting full-spectrum testing for multiple viruses. (Same cost as for a singular virus, don’t you know.)
Losing it = To startbecomingcrazy,insane, or mentallyunstable.
It is critical that bioweapons be permitted to suppress China, and that will not happen if China remains at DEFCON. So thus you now have the massive anti-China-Coronavirus-policing movement hitting all media right now.
2022 04 16 16 52a
As if, somehow by some magic wand, public opinion is going to influence the Chinese leadership to get off DEFCON and pretend that nothing is happening…
…fat chance.
2022 04 16 16 51
I have documented the situation extensively. So, I am tired rehashing the same things over and over again. If you want to dive deep then go into my indexes.
Please ignore the screeching on your forums, your feeds, and e-mail chains. China is in survival mode during a state of war. This is the reality. So shut the FUCK up if you don’t understand.
Ok…
As is my pervue, I will continue to document this curious state of affairs and the on-going situation in my own way. I also include food, cats, China, and pretty girls with a selection of curiousities to throw off the ‘bot farms, the troll roll-calls, and the DDOS attacks. Ah. It works like a charm.
And to that end, we begin with some great coffee.
How to make the perfect cup of coffee
Drinking in the day’s first sip of coffee is like paradise massaging the taste buds. It is, as one coffee-in-a-can company figured out long ago, the best part of waking up.
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Coffee.
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For a single moment at your favorite coffee shop, or while your fingers hug your favorite mug in the kitchen, you’ve been taken to the scene of your last vacation – the day’s worries momentarily melting away, letting you breathe in the serenity of sunshine just as the caffeine smacks your brain. .
Realizing that is exactly why getting the first cup of the day right is so important for any coffee-lover. Nail that perfect cup once, and you won’t want to go back. .
In brief, making the perfect cup of coffee will require three elements, above all else: the right water, the right roast and – this is the biggie – your attention.
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Tempting as it may be to throw your grinds in a Mr. Coffee machine and walk away, it likely won’t produce the results you’re looking for. Show your coffee some love in the brewing process, though, and it’ll give you heaping amounts – or at least a few tablespoons worth – of love in return. .
Below, find the highlights of what you need to know to brew the perfect cup of coffee.
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Finding the Right Roast
Fact: There really is no precise rule on when a roasted coffee is best consumed. But you can count on a fresh roast producing a quality result.
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What you’ll want to do in the search for the right roast and roast age is ask questions of who’s selling you the roast.
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Some coffees (many of them, actually) are ones you’ll want to consume within five days of their roast date for optimal results, while many more are fairly consistent in quality for about a month after the roast date.
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But what flavors you extract are entirely dependent on how porous the beans become over time and how they react to water. And that’s a giant “question mark” even the most talented barista can’t erase.
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If you want to know if your beans are stale, though, pay attention to how it pours in the cup. If you’re not seeing a head – that slight foam that bubbles at the top of your cup – you’ve likely waited too long to use your coffee.
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Getting the Right Water Quality and Temperature
Though it may not be the most pleasant way to think of it, the flavor profile of your coffee depends on how much you’re agitating the beans. Or, rather, how much water is agitating the bean.
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The temperature of your water is what will matter most in determining a coffee’s flavor: Pour at a lower temperature (185 degrees) and you’ll extract fewer of the bean’s nascent flavor notes and end with a more bitter taste; pour at a higher temperature (205 degrees), and you’ll discover a coffee that’s extracted more from the bean.
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This is the process of hydrolysis shaking loose different compounds in your coffee.
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Also important, as you might guess, is the quality of the water you’re using.
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In short: The fewer the minerals in the water, the better. Because tap water quality varies from city to city, invest in a top-shelf filter like a Brita.
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Also, never re-boil water that’s been through the heating process (yes, we know how convenient it is to leave water in a kettle), and wait about 30 seconds after heating your water to actually begin pouring over your coffee.
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And, if you really want to be a chemist about it, test your water to make sure it’s in the range of pH 7.
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Get Your Grind On
Not all grinds are the same; there is no one-size-fits-all grind size for making a quality cup of coffee.
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And, in truth, what constitutes the “right grind” is entirely based on your taste preference.
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But you do need a grinder.
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The two basics to consider when grinding your coffee: Do you want a sweeter cup, and do you want a caffeinated cup? A finer grind – which means smaller particles with a larger surface area to slow the movement of water — will extract more of a coffee’s flavor notes, while a coarse grind will produce a cup that packs a Mike Tyson-level caffeine punch.
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types of coarse ground coffee.
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Also, if you’re using an older roast, you’ll almost always want to aim for a finer grind to ensure you’re getting as much flavor as possible.
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Mixing coffee grinds, too, can ruin your perfect-cup-chasing effort.
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To avoid this, clean your grinder after every use, even if it’s just a tap-tap to the machine to shake loose bean debris. It might not be obvious, but those leftover coffee grinds from last Sunday’s brunch will make your fresh roast a lot more bitter.
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One last point of note for grinding: There is also no standard system for grind settings – as ideal as that might be, in a coffee utopia. A “4” on your machine might be a 12 on a different one. Be careful.
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The Impact of Brew Methods
Naturally, one of the biggest variables in how your cup comes out is what you’re using to pour.
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Use a Chemex – or any similar pour-over tool – and you’ll concoct a cup that’s silkier and generally more acidic. (Or “brighter,” if you’ve heard the term before.) It’s the preferred method for coffees that have citrus or floral notes; with a Chemex filter, coffee is less exposed to water and all-around less bitter.
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chemtrex
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By comparison, a French Press – which no one can definitively say was invented in France, by the way – will produce an oilier, more full-bodied cup of coffee.
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French Press.
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Think: More velvet than silk. Because it’s a steeping method, you’re likely to get a more consistent taste with a French Press, regardless of roast or targeted coffee flavor notes. But it’s especially ideal for an earthier coffee.
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Percolators and batch brews, meanwhile, will offer a reasonably consistent result for your coffee, but also offer less control over the process.
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s l1600 Percolator.
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Meanwhile, an AeroPress – by all means it’s own beast to tackle – will give you more of a hybrid of the Chemex and a French Press methods, offering up an abundance of versatility with how it’s used.
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AeroPress.
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How to brew a cup of paradise(joe) using a French Press
Finally, here’s the step-by-step of what you need to know to brew your ideal cup – using a French Press. Outside of the coffee machine that might still be lingering in your pantry from the ‘80s, the French Press is what most of us will be familiar with as manual brewing. So, here’s a rundown of what you need to do to perfect your cup (or two) of coffee.
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1
Measure your coffee.
The standard ratio is approximately 2 tablespoons of coffee per 6 ounces of water. Don’t be afraid to add a few extra beans to be on the safe side – you can more approximately measure out your coffee using a scale after it’s ground.
2
Grind your coffee.
Alright, this is where the coffee-making process really begins. Go for a finer roast if you want a sweeter cup of coffee, or a coarser grind if you’re aiming for a satisfying, weighty bitter. Make sure the grinder is clean before using, then feel free to press the magic button.
3
Prepare the water.
You’ll want to prepare the water last, to ensure the water is the temperature you’re aiming for. Pour from the filter, and let the water sit off from the boil for about 30 seconds before immersing your coffee grounds in the French Press.
4
Pour.
Saturate the grounds evenly with a smooth, steady pour that will agitate the coffee grounds. Do not put the lid on top of the brewer just yet.
5
Soak and stir.
Let the grounds absorb the water for approximately 30 seconds before stirring – a few gentle motions using the back of a spoon around the top layer of the mixture and along the sides, to immerse any grounds that are stuck.
6
Brew.
Let the water extract from the grounds for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Less than that, and you’ll find your coffee may be too sweet or even sour. Any longer, and your coffee will be over-extracted and unappetizingly bitter – so, set a timer.
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Plunge.
There really is no wrong way to push here – just a simple, even push-through of the filter down to the bottom. However, it’s not a clogged toilet – don’t exert too much force or, of course, your coffee will splash. Or you may break the machine, if it’s glass.
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Pour.
Word to the wise: The flavor notes of your coffee will change as the cup cools. If at first you’re not tasting what was intended, let it continue to setup. What you taste when it’s piping hot is not what you’ll taste when it’s cooled to a lukewarm temperature.
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Final coffee thoughts…
Just like paradise is in the eye of the beholder, so too is the perfect cup of coffee. The joy of coffee – beyond those transporting effects its caffeine kick offers in the morning – is how much experimentation is involved. It’s the ultimate test of trial and error. Don’t be afraid to experiment with grind sizes, coffee roasts, water temperatures and brew methods until you find your “just right” cup of coffee. Let your taste buds be the map to paradise.
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Plausible Deniability: Was Russian Warship Sunk by American Harpoons (and AEGIS)?
In a significantly escalatory move, Ukraine’s Operational Command South announced Thursday that it hit a Russian warship with a “Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile” that was operating roughly 60 miles south off the coast of Odesa in southeast Ukraine and that it had started to sink.
“In the Black Sea operational zone, Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles hit the cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet—it received significant damage,” the Ukrainian statement said. “A fire broke out. Other units of the ship’s group tried to help, but a storm and a powerful explosion of ammunition overturned the cruiser and it began to sink.”
Russia’s defense ministry claimed the “accidental fire” on the Soviet-era guided-missile cruiser Moskva had been contained, but left the ship badly damaged. Though the Russian statement initially claimed the cruiser “remained afloat” and measures were being taken to tow it to port, it later admitted the warship had sunk as four Russian ships that had gone to the Moskva’s rescue were hampered by bad weather and by ammunition exploding on board.
Late on Thursday, the Russian ministry said in a statement: “The cruiser ship Moskva lost its stability when it was towed to the port because of the damage to the ship’s hull that it received during the fire from the detonation of ammunition. In stormy sea conditions, the ship sank.” The statement added the crew had been safely evacuated to other Black Sea Fleet ships in the area.
Russian news agencies said the 611-foot-long (186 meters) Moskva, with a crew of almost 500, was commissioned in 1983 and refurbished in 1998. It was one of the three cruisers in Russia’s formidable Black Sea Fleet. The Moskva was armed with a range of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles as well as torpedoes and naval guns and close-in missile defense systems, including 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km (440 miles).
Reportedly, the warship was also carrying S-300 anti-air missiles, which are crucial to Russia’s air-defense capabilities over Crimea and Ukraine’s Kherson province, captured by Russian troops in early days of the military campaign. It is the first time Moscow has lost a cruiser since German planes sank the Chervona Ukraina (Red Ukraine) in 1941 at Sevastopol – the Crimean naval base to which the Moskva was being towed when it sank.
Maksym Marchenko, the Ukrainian governor of the region around Odesa, said the Moskva had been hit by two cruise missiles. “Neptune missiles guarding the Black Sea caused very serious damage,” he said. The Neptune missile that is claimed to have punched a hole in the Moskva’s hull was developed and upgraded by Ukraine from a Soviet missile design. It is fired from a mobile launcher with a range of 100 km.
Western officials reportedly described the Ukrainian claims to have hit the Moskva with anti-ship missiles as “credible”. A senior US defense official noted that five other Russian vessels that had been as close as or closer to the Ukrainian coast than the Moskva had moved at least another 20 nautical miles offshore after the explosion, suggesting an effort to get out of range of Ukrainian missiles.
“In the wake of the damage that the Moskva experienced, all of the northern Black Sea ships have now moved out, away from the northern areas they were operating in,” the defense official told Guardian.
In retaliation for sinking the warship, Russian forces for the first time, since scaling back Russia’s offensive north of the capital announced at the Istanbul peace initiative on March 29, struck military targets in Kyiv, Kherson in the south, the eastern city of Kharkiv and the town of Ivano-Frankivsk in the west, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Although Ukraine claimed the Russian warship was struck by a “Ukrainian-made Neptune anti-ship missile,” developed domestically based on the Soviet KH-35 cruise missile that became operational in the Ukrainian naval forces just last year, Politico reported on March 16 that Kyiv had specifically demanded “long-range anti-ship missiles” from Washington.
“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said Kyiv specifically has asked the US and allies for more Stingers and Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons, ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range anti-ship missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and satellite navigation and communications jamming equipment.”
Lending credence to the reports the United States has already delivered Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on March 5: “During an official visit, a Ukrainian special operations commander told Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were shifting training and planning to focus on maintaining an armed opposition, relying on insurgent-like tactics.
“Ukrainian officials told the lawmakers that they were frustrated that the United States had not sent Harpoon missiles to target Russian ships and Stinger missiles to attack Russian aircraft, Moulton and Waltz said in separate interviews.”
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 7, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley revealed that US and NATO countries have collectively provided roughly 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons during NATO’s “weapons for peace” program to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.
Although Milley did not specifically mention providing Harpoons to Ukrainian forces, according to informed sources, caches of anti-ship missiles had also been provided to Ukraine’s naval forces deployed in Odesa in southeast Ukraine.
In addition to the CIA’s clandestine program for training Ukraine’s largely conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militias in Donbas in east Ukraine aimed at cultivating an anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine, and the US Special Forces program for training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part of the country bordering Poland that was hit by a barrage of 30 Russian cruise missiles killing at least 35 militants on March 13, the Pentagon revealed last week that it had also been training Ukrainian troops that were inside the US before Russia launched its invasion.
The Ukrainian soldiers were participating in a pre-scheduled professional military education program at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, according to Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby.
That school is a security cooperation school, operating under the US Special Operations Command in support of “foreign security assistance and geographic combatant commanders’ theater security cooperation priorities.” The Ukrainian forces received “training on patrol craft operations, communications and maintenance,” Kirby said.
Since the conclusion of the course in early March, the Department of Defense provided the group “additional advanced tactical training” on the systems the United States has provided to Ukraine, including on “the Switchblade unmanned aerial vehicle,” Kirby said.
Several batches of Ukrainian naval cadets trained at the Naval Training School in Biloxi, Mississippi, have already returned home to Ukraine and were deployed in Odessa and the rest are now headed back to Ukraine.
Besides receiving advanced tactical training on operating the Switchblade kamikaze drones and unmanned coastal defense boats, included in the additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine announced by the Biden administration on Wednesday, the Ukrainian naval cadets also received training on operating long-range anti-ship missiles in the United States.
Reportedly, the US-trained Ukrainian naval forces deployed in Odesa in the southeast scored two hits of Harpoon anti-ship missiles on the Russian guided-missile cruiser Moskva operating 60 miles south off the coast of Odessa that punched a hole in the warship’s hull and ignited a blaze that, in turn, caused the massive amount of ammunition loaded on the cruiser to explode, and the battleship subsequently sank to the bottom of the Black Sea.
To return the favor of halting Russian military campaign north of the capital and focusing on liberating Russian-majority Donbas in east Ukraine, practically spelling an end to Russia’s month-long offensive in the embattled country, NATO powers have announced transferring heavy weapons, including combat tanks, armored personnel carriers, long-range artillery and even helicopters and Soviet MiG aircraft, to Ukraine to escalate the conflict.
The latest $800 million military assistance package to Ukraine announced by the Biden administration on Wednesday includes 11 Mi-17 helicopters that had been earmarked for Afghanistan before the US-backed government collapsed last year. It also includes 18 155mm howitzers, along with 40,000 artillery rounds, 10 counter-artillery radars, 200 armored personnel carriers, 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles, and 300 additional Switchblade drones.
Besides direct military assistance from the United States, the rest of NATO member states are also pouring in significant amount of heavy weapons in Ukraine. Czechoslovakia used to have the most advanced military-industrial complex in Central Europe during the Soviet era. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent separation of the “conjoined twins” in 1993, the Czech Republic has inherited the Soviet weaponry. Famous of its arms black market, Czech weapons have been found in war theaters as far away as Syria, Libya and South Sudan.
The Czech Republic had delivered tanks, multiple rocket launchers, howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine among military shipments that had reached hundreds of millions of dollars and would continue, two Czech defense sources confided to Reuters.
Defense sources confirmed a shipment of five T-72 tanks and five BVP-1, or BMP-1, infantry fighting vehicles seen on rail cars in photographs on Twitter and video footage last week. “For several weeks, we have been supplying heavy ground equipment – I am saying it generally but by definition it is clear that this includes tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers and multiple rocket launchers,” a senior defense official said.
“What has gone from the Czech Republic is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The senior defense official said the Czechs were also supplying a range of anti-aircraft weaponry. Independent defense analyst Lukas Visingr said short-range air-defense systems Strela-10, or SA-13 Gopher in NATO terminology, had been spotted on a train apparently bound for Ukraine.
One agreed shipment authorized by the German government includes 56 Czechoslovak-made infantry fighting vehicles that used to be operated by East Germany. Berlin passed the IFVs on to Sweden at the end of the 1990s, which later sold them to a Czech company that now aims to sell them to Kyiv, according to German Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
After the scuttled aircraft-transfer deal that would’ve seen Poland handing over its entire fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for the United States “backfilling” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s last month, now Slovakia was in talks with NATO about an arrangement that could allow Bratislava to send fighter jets to Ukraine, Prime Minister Eduard Heger told reporters on April 11.
Considering that the Biden administration has already announced delivering 11 Mi-17 helicopters in its latest $800 million military assistance package to Ukraine, therefore in all likelihood the Slovak aircraft-transfer deal is also going to go through. The Slovak prime minister did not put a number on how many MiG-29 aircraft Slovakia would provide to Ukraine, but the country is reported to have around a dozen.
Eduard Heger said his government wanted to “move away from reliance on the Soviet MiGs” in any case. “This is equipment that we want to finish anyway, because we’re waiting for the F-16s,” he added, referring to US-made jets that Slovakia was scheduled to receive in 2024, though Bratislava could receive American fighter jets earlier as soon as it transfers the MiG fleet to Ukraine.
Asking for permanent US military presence in Central Europe to deter Russia, though making an artificial distinction between “permanent deployment” vs. “rotational deployment at permanent bases” in order to sound like a peacenik, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley proposed before the House Armed Services Committee:
“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said. “I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere — they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.”
“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years for sure,”
said Milley.
“I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time.”
“We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules based current global order. We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable and the potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing,” – Gen. Milley
Ukraine war: Germany boosts military aid budget to €2 billion
This comes with the huge billions of dollars from the Untied States. So much money is just pouring into Ukraine. This is the direct result of the outcome of propaganda that Russia is losing the war!
It’s truly America. This is from the 1970s, and Mary Harman, Mary Harman truly represented life during that period of time.
What American think.
I pulled these quotes from “Free Republic” and it give a pretty good idea about the thoughts on what Americans think about the war that Russia is involved in and how America plays into the mix.
Maybe Putin will get whacked by his own people.
2 posted on 4/14/2022, 9:09:33 PM by rrrod
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For the record, Putin was more democratically elected than Joe Biden.
5 posted on 4/14/2022, 9:12:05 PM by blackberry1
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Putin is beginning to look like hitler in the bunker who was moving around imaginary divisions to defend Germany. He is already taking out anyone who he thinks failed or opposed him. Bad news because hitler let the whole place go down rather then admit defeat.
11 posted on 4/14/2022, 9:16:43 PM by Mouton
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Nukes are all Putin has. His navy is incompetent. His ground forces are a 1500 klics away in Ukraine and not very successful. His AF has yet to achieve supremacy. But his nuclear forces are present. Threatening to use them is all he has and he is insane enough to do it. In the old CP days the Politburo would have removed him, either to a Black Sea dacha or to a state funeral. But now?????
16 posted on 4/14/2022, 9:22:04 PM by xkaydet65 ( )
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Well if Russia’s nuclear arsenal is like the rest of their military, then half will fail to detonate at all and the other half will hit Russian cities due to a targeting error.
20 posted on 4/14/2022, 9:24:59 PM by apillar
They are fully influenced by MSM Vault 7. They belive the Kool Aide that they swill. Obviously to most CONSERVATIVE Americans, war is a true spectator sport. It will never “hit” home. They believe.
I will hate to tell them differently.
A curious find.
From DM, who said, “Thought you might be interested in this article. My first thought was that they could be preparing to use it to make a dirty bomb for the alleged false flag in NYC on the 18th (assuming the “Looking glass” shit is real). Do you think it could be used feasibly in such a device, or would it be too small to have any noticeable effects?”
Nice find, but 8 millicuries of Cesium-137 isn’t going to do too much. The big threat is this incident can be used as part of a larger narrative stream.
Russia sends formal letter warning US to stop arming Ukraine: report
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BY SARAKSHI RAI – 04/15/22 7:51 AM
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Russia has sent a formal letter to the U.S. warning that shipments of sensitive weapons from the United States and NATO were exacerbating tensions in Ukraine and could lead to “unpredictable consequences,” The Washington Post reported.
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The letter, which was viewed by he Post, added that the U.S. has flouted the rules governing the transfer of weapons to conflict zones.
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According to the letter dated Tuesday, Russia accused NATO of impeding early peace negotiation with Ukraine “in order to continue the bloodshed.”
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The State Department declined to confirm any private diplomatic correspondence.
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However, a spokesperson added that it can confirm that along with allies and partners, “we are providing Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of security assistance, which our Ukrainian partners are using to extraordinary effect to defend their country against Russia’s unprovoked aggression and horrific acts of violence.”
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The news of the diplomatic letter comes as President Biden announced an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine this week, which for the first time included advanced munitions that the war-torn country has requested.
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“The Ukrainian military has used the weapons we are providing to devastating effect. As Russia prepares to intensify its attack in the Donbas region, the United States will continue to provide Ukraine with the capabilities to defend itself,” Biden said.
The information warfare being waged to enforce a single narrative about the war in Ukraine.
It may be worse than McCarthyism, which was defeated by its own excesses. Today’s information war against individuals and media who do not adhere to the Western-government-enforced narrative on Ukraine is part of a long history in the U.S. of officially crushing dissent. With the advances of technology for both surveillance and censorship, we might be in the most chilling atmosphere yet for thought control. Will it too be brought down by its own excesses?
The Professor Builds a Telephone to Call for Help – Gilligan’s Island – 1966
I well remember this episode. I think I was five years old when I last watched it. LOL. You don’t need to watch the whole thing. Just stick your head in for a peek and move on.
Experts say the risk in Ukraine is not the deployment of a giant “strategic” weapon, but a “tactical” weapon with a smaller warhead that causes localised devastation.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given orders to increase the alert level of Russia’s nuclear forces and has made veiled nuclear threats. The blatant aggression against Ukraine has shocked Europe and the world. The war is a tragedy for Ukraine. It also exposes the limits of the West’s reliance on nuclear deterrence.
Deterrence refers to the idea that possessing nuclear weapons protects a nation from attack, through the threat of overwhelming retaliation. This concept is widely credited for helping prevent war between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine casts a harsh light on its downsides. Most obvious is that Putin is using nuclear deterrence not to protect Russia but rather to have his way in Ukraine. Russia’s nuclear weapons deter the West from intervening with conventional military forces to defend Ukraine. Despite scattered calls in the U.S. for the creation of a “no-fly zone” over some or all of Ukraine, the Biden administration has wisely resisted. In practice this would mean shooting down Russian planes. It could lead to World War III. On the other side of the ledger, NATO’s nuclear weapons presumably deter Russia from expanding the war to NATO countries, such as Poland, Romania or the Baltic states. Thus, the nuclear balance of terror likely deters a wider European war but leaves Ukraine to struggle on with only limited support and perhaps eventually to be swallowed. On balance, NATO states do not seem very reassured by their vaunted nuclear deterrence. They continue to worry about the (remote) possibility of a Russian conventional attack beyond Ukraine.
This is not the first time Putin has rattled the nuclear saber. He also did so in 2014 during Russia’s invasion of Crimea, when Russian leaders talked openly about putting nuclear weapons on alert. In 2015, Russia threatened Danish warships with nuclear weapons if Denmark joined NATO’s missile defense system. Putin likes to wave about his nuclear weapons as a reminder to the West (and perhaps to himself) that Russia is still a great power. In the current crisis, Putin clearly wants the US and NATO to know that if the West were to intervene with military force on behalf of Ukraine, he might reach for his so-called tactical (or “nonstrategic”) nuclear weapons.
In the world of nuclear weapons, tactical means an exceedingly large amount of explosive energy and strategic means even larger. Most nuclear weapons today are variable-yield, or “dial-a-yield,” providing a set amount of explosive energy that can range from fractions of a kiloton to multiples of a megaton. (For example, the U.S.’s newest version of its B61 nuclear bomb can release 0.3, 1.5, 10 or 50 kilotons of explosive energy. In comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was about 15 kilotons.) Russia has about 6,500 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. Of these, the ones of largest yield—the “strategic” weapons—are deployed on submarines, bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But Russia also possesses some 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons kept in storage facilities throughout the country, developed to be used against troops and installations in a small area or in a limited engagement. Such weapons can be launched on the same short-range missiles Russia is currently using to bombard Ukraine, such as its Iskander ballistic missile, which has a range of about 500 kilometers. And these are not the only tactical weapons that could be deployed; the United States has about 100 nuclear “gravity bombs” (with less sophisticated guidance) stationed around Europe.
Tactical nuclear weapons exist because each side fears it would be deterred from using its big city-razing weapons by their very destructiveness. By making nuclear weapons smaller and the targeting more precise, their use becomes more thinkable. Paradoxically, while this makes deterrence threats more credible, it also makes the arms more tempting to use first, rather than simply in retaliation.
No one should imagine, however, that it makes sense to use a tactical nuclear weapon. A thermonuclear explosion of any size possesses overwhelming destructive power. Even a “small-yield” nuclear weapon (0.3 kilotons) would produce damage far beyond that of a conventional explosive. (For a graphic depiction, the interactive site NUKEMAP, created by nuclear historian Alexander Wellerstein, allows you to simulate the effects of a nuclear explosion of any size anywhere on the planet.) It would also cause all the horrors of Hiroshima, albeit on a smaller scale. A tactical nuclear weapon would produce a fireball, shock waves, and deadly radiation that would cause long-term health damage in survivors. Radioactive fallout would contaminate air, soil, water and the food supply (Ukrainians are already familiar with this kind of outcome because of the disastrous meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in 1986).
No one knows if using a tactical nuclear weapon would trigger full-scale nuclear war. Nevertheless, the risk of escalation is very real. Those on the receiving end of a nuclear strike are not likely to ask whether it was tactical or strategic. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on February 6, 2018, then–Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated “I do not think there is any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon. Any nuclear weapon used any time is a strategic game changer.” Russian leaders have made clear that they would view any nuclear attack as the start of an all-out nuclear war.
Especially worrisome is the possibility that the war could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. By increasing the alert level of Russian nuclear forces, Putin increases the risk of nuclear use through miscalculation or accident in the fog of war. In the worst scenario, if the war is going badly, Putin could reach for a tactical nuclear weapon out of desperation. While this is still unlikely, the risk is not zero. And increasing that risk is unacceptable. Although innumerable nuclear weapons have been tested over the years, not one has been used in warfare (or terrorism) since 1945. The 77-year-old tradition of nuclear nonuse—the nuclear taboo—is the single most important accomplishment of the nuclear age. It is a primary obligation of leaders today to make sure nuclear weapons are never used again. Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov should stop threatening nuclear weapons. Other leaders should express shock and outrage, and make it clear that nuclear threats are irresponsible and unacceptable.
Nuclear deterrence comes with tremendous risks and enormous costs. The arguments in favor of deterrence, although sometimes convincing, are not always true. We must acknowledge that nuclear deterrence could fail. That’s why, despite the trillions of dollars spent on nuclear arsenals, no one sleeps soundly under a nuclear umbrella—especially during a crisis such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Marriage advice from a group of women
“Marriage Advice For Young Ladies From A Suffragette, 1918. The Pamphlet Is On Display At The Pontypridd Museum In Wales. The Suffragette Is Unknown”.
Who is Creating a New Chinese Boogey Man? (An Examination of Modern Psychological Warfare)
By Matthew Ehret
Since many good people have found themselves susceptible to the narrative that China is the global supervillain conspiring to overthrow western Christian values by any means necessary, I believe some lessons should be brought to bear.
Anti-Nation state fanatic George Soros stated at the 2020 Davos Summit that China has become the greatest threat to his vision for Open Society (right behind Trump’s USA). This was echoed by Lord Malloch Brown’s 2020 Global Government Speeches.
China’s deep alliance with Russia and the increased integration of the Eurasian Economic Union with the 135 nation strong Belt and Road Initiative form the basis of an alternative multipolar paradigm has kept imperialists up at night for the past several years.
The prospect of a US-China-Russia alliance has been one of the greatest threats to empire which peeked in the weeks before COVID-19 arose onto the scene as the US-China Trade Pact successfully entered its first phase (and has since fallen into shambles) as well as Trump’s repeated calls for “good relations with Russia.”
Amidst the surge of anti-China media psy ops published across Five Eyes nations, countless patriots of a conservative bent have found themselves absorbed into a red-scare manic hysteria while forgetting that the actual causal hand of British Intelligence has been caught blatantly running the overthrow of nation states for decades (including the 2016-2020 to run regime change within the USA itself).
Understanding the nature of the current psy ops, and new red scare deflection underway, it is necessary to review some seriously underappreciated facts of recent history, and since former secretary of State Sir Henry Kissinger (a genuine Knight of the British Empire), figures prominently in this story, it is wise to start with his relationship with China.
Although he is celebrated for being an “enlightened” liberal politician who helped China open up to the west after the dark days of Mao’s Cultural Revolution by extending western markets to China, the truth is very different.
A devout proponent of world government and population control, Kissinger had been the tool selected during a particularly important period of human history to advance a new ordering of world affairs.
2022 04 16 10 22
The Division of the World Into Producers and Consumers
Since the world was taken off the gold reserve system way back in 1971, a new age of “post-industrialism” was unleashed onto a globalized world. Humanity was given a new type of system which presumed that both our nature and the cause of value itself were located in the act of consuming. The old idea that our nature was creative, and that our wealth was tied to producing, was assumed to be an obsolete thing of the past… a relic of a dirty old industrial age.
Under the new post-1971 operating system, we were told that the world would now be divided among producers and consumers.
The “have-not producers” would provide the cheap labor which first world consumers would increasingly rely on for the creation of goods they used to make for themselves. “First world” nations were told that according to the new post-industrial rules of de-regulation and market economics, that they should export their heavy industry, machine tools and other productive sectors abroad as they transitioned into “white collar” post-industrial consumer societies. The longer this outsourcing of industries went on, the less western nations found themselves capable of sustaining their own citizenries, building their own infrastructure or determining their own economic destinies.
In place of full spectrum economies that once saw over 40% of North America’s labor force employed in manufacturing, a new addiction to “buying cheap stuff” began, and a “service economies” took over like a cancer.
2022 04 16 10 24
To make matters worse, the many newly independent nations struggling to liberate themselves from colonialism were told that they would have to abandon their dreams of development since those goals would render the formula of a producer-consumer stratified society impossible to create. Those leaders resisting this edict would face assassination or CIA overthrow. Those leaders who adapted to the new rules would become peons of the new age of “Economic Hitmen”.
China and the West: The Real Story
By the time Deng Xiaoping announced the “opening up” of China in 1978, Kissinger had already managed the economic paradigm shift of 1971, the artificial “oil shock therapy” of 1973 and authored his 1974 NSSM 200 Report which transformed U.S. Foreign Policy from a pro-development orientation towards a new policy of depopulation targeting the poor nations of the global south under the logic that the resources under their soil were the lawful possession of the USA.
The NSSM 200 (titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests”) outlined its objective “Assistance for population moderation should give emphasis to the largest and fastest growing developing countries where there is a special US and strategic interest”.
Kissinger, and the hives of Trilateral Commission/CFR operatives to which he was beholden never looked on China as a true ally, but merely as a zone of abundant cheap labor which would feed cheap goods to the now post-industrial west under their new dystopic producer-consumer world order. It was in that same year that Kissinger’s fellow Trilateral Commission cohort Paul Volcker announced a “controlled disintegration of western society” which was begun in full with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes to 20% that ensured a vast destruction of small and medium businesses across the board.
Believing China (then still largely an impoverished third world country) to be desperate enough to accept money and short-term salvation after years of trauma induced by the Cultural Revolution. Under Kissinger’s logic, China would receive just enough money to sustain a static existence but would never be able to stand on its own two feet.
Unbeknownst to Kissinger, China’s leaders under the direction of Zhou Enlai, and his disciple Deng Xiaoping had a much longer-term strategic perspective than their western partners imagined.
While receiving much needed revenue from foreign exports, China began to slowly create the foundations for a genuine renaissance which would be made possible by slowly learning the skills, leapfrogging technologies and acquiring means of production which the west had once pioneered. Zhou Enlai had first enunciated this visionary program as early as 1963 under his Four Modernizations mandate (Industrial, agricultural, national defense and science and technology) and then restated this program in January 1976 weeks before his death.
This program manifested itself in the July 6, 1978 State Council Forum on the “Principles to Guide the Four Modernizations” informed by the findings of international exploratory missions conducted by economist Gu Mu’s delegations around various advanced world economies (Japan, Hong Kong, Western Europe). The findings of Gu Mu’s reports laid out the concrete pathways for full spectrum economic sovereignty with a focus on cultivating the cognitive creative powers of a new generation of scientists that would drive the non linear breakthroughs needed for China to ultimately break free of the rules of closed-system economics which technocrats like Kissinger wished the world adhere to.
Deng Xiaoping broke from the radical Marxism prevalent among the intelligentsia by redefining “labor” from purely material constraints and elevating the concept rightfully to the higher domain of mind saying:
“We should select several thousand of our most qualified personnel within the scientific and technological establishment and create conditions that will allow them to devote their undivided attention to research. Those who have financial difficulties should be given allowances and subsidies… we must create within the party an atmosphere of respect for knowledge and respect for trained personnel. The erroneous attitude of not respecting intellectuals must be opposed. All work. Be it mental or manual, is labor.”
Over the course of the coming decades, China learned, and like any student, copied, reverse engineered and reconstructed western techniques as it slowly generated capacities that ultimately allowed them press on the limits of human knowledge outpacing all western models.
Scientific and technological progress became the driving force of its entire economy and by 1986, the “863 Project for Research and Development” was announced which focused on areas of space, lasers, energy, biotechnology, new materials, automation and information technology. This project became the driver for creative innovation guided by the National Science Foundation and was upgraded to the 973 Basic Research Program in 2009 to: “1) support multidisciplinary and fundamental research of relevance to national development; 2) Promote frontline basic research; 3) Support the cultivation of scientific talent capable of original research; and 4) Build high-quality interdisciplinary research centers.”
The fruits of these long term programs was beginning to be felt and by 1996, discussion for a New Silk Road reviving the ancient trade routes connecting China to Europe and Africa through the Middle East and Caucasus was beginning with conferences hosted by Beijing under President Jiang Zemin.
One of the few western participants at these Chinese events was the Schiller Institute, whose founders delivered a full day seminar in 1997 describing the program that would finally come back to life in 2013 when Xi Jinping made it the focus of China’s foreign policy outlook under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Why did this program wait until 2013 to blossom onto the world stage when obvious momentum was already in motion in 1997?
“A French Woman With Her Baguette And Six Bottles Of Wine, Paris, France, 1945”
I am curious. Is this how baguettes are made in France today? Does France still have wine delivery services?
I am curious. Is this how baguettes are made in France today? Does France still have wine delivery services?
Chicken Paprikash
Spices lose their flavor over time but few as quickly as paprika, which starts out tasting of pepper and sunshine but deteriorates in but a few months to sawdust and bitterness.
Massive YUM!
For this recipe, get some new at the market: sweet or hot Hungarian paprika is best, but the generic article isn’t terrible and the smoky Spanish varieties known as pimentón de La Vera would not be out of place either, lending a deep, woodsy aroma reminiscent of cooking over an open fire. It’s a dish that pairs beautifully with butter-slicked egg noodles.
Hint. Hint.
But rice is fine too.
2022 04 16 20 56
George Soros and the Attack on the Asian Markets
From May 1997, George Soros’ targeting of the Southeast Asian “Tigers economies” of Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, and Malaysia with speculative short sales of their local currencies resulted months of vast anarchy across all of Asia and the world more broadly. Currencies collapsed from 10-80% over the next 8 months and took many years to begin to recover.
Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammed was brave enough to call out Soros’ economic warfare and did much to help his nation weather the storm by imposing capital controls to maintain some semblance of stability calling out the speculator saying: “as much as people who produce and distribute drugs are criminals, because they destroy nations, the people who undermine the economies of poor nations are too.” Chinese President Jiang Zemin followed suit calling Soros “a financial sniper” and stated he would not let the speculator enter Chinese markets.
“The ultimate target is China. The British are particularly worried about the increasingly close collaboration between China and the ASEAN nations, which are being integrated into the massive regional and continental development projects initiated by China under the umbrella of the Eurasian Continental Land-Bridge program.
Such real development policies offer the alternative to the cheap-labor, colonial-style export industries of the “globalization” model- the model that has led to the financial bubbles now bursting worldwide.”
Forward full text from <redacted>.
The reasoning is solid:
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I just received this urgent msg. China has urged its citizens to keep physical goods and not paper money. There will be a huge round of inflation as the US, Japan, UK, Sweden, etc, are printing more and more money. So the Chinese are planning not to accept USD but only their RMB for payments,
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RECEIVED THIS CHINESE ARTICLE FROM CONTACTS IN GUANGZHOU…
ARTICLE CIRCULATING WITHIN CHINA REMINDING PEOPLE TO BUY CHINESE MADE PRODUCTS…
朋友，请你看清时势：
( Translated by tl )
Friends, please observe the current situation clearly:
中国大陆开始施行自我保护措施了！
MAINLAND CHINA HAS BEGUN TO IMPLEMENT SELF-PROTECTION MEASURES!
一是保护国民安全，大幅度减少入境人员。
#1. It is to protect the safety of the people and drastically reduce the number of people entering China.
二是保护国民资产，减缓实物出口。
#2. Secondly is to protect national assets and slow down physical exports.
当美国疫情爆发而长期得不到有效防治时，该国人员隔离、生产停滞、迅速消耗存量物资，又拼命降息、只懂得印钞票进行所谓经济刺激，实际上这是用纸币来掠夺实物，当这个国家存货实物极度匮乏时，纸币就贱如卫生纸，雷同如冥币。
When the U.S. ( COVID-19 ) epidemic broke out and there was no effective preventive measures and control for a long time… the country’s populations were isolated, production stagnated, and stocks of supplies quickly dwindled, and the Federal Reserve desperately cut interest rates ( to stimulate the economy ) including PRINTING BANK NOTES for the so-called economic stimulus. WHEN THE COUNTRY'S INVENTORY IS EXTREMELY RUNNING LOW AND SCARCE. BANKNOTES BECOMES AS CHEAP AS TOILET PAPER AND SIMILAR TO COPPER COINS.
如果是国际货币，则掠夺的是其他生产国的物资。 生产国换取的外汇，因为疫情，吃穿住行购物旅游都无法实现，还不断的贬值，持币者大亏。
AS THE DOLLAR IS AN INTERNATIONAL CURRENCY, IT IS EQUIVALENT TO PLUNDERING THE MATERIALS, LABOUR AND SERVICES OF OTHER GOODS PRODUCING COUNTRIES.
Due to this COVID-19 epidemic… food, clothing, housing, transportation, shopping, and travel could not be realized in the foreign exchange by the producing . country, and the value of the currency holders has continuously depreciated.
欧元、美元、英磅、瑞元，都是这样的货币，会逐渐冥纸化。 所以，中国明白了，哪一国疫情不治，大陆就不再拿实物去换冥币一样的外汇。
The Euro, the US dollar, the British pound, and the Swiss franc are all such currencies and will gradually become useless paper. Therefore, China understands that in any country where the epidemic is not under control, the CHINESE WILL NO LONGER EXCHANGE PHYSICAL OBJECTS FOR FOREIGN CURRENCY LIKE THESE COPPER COINS.
高筑墙，广积粮，p自我内部循环，保证财富不流失，等待《以物易物》或人民币国际化。
Build high walls ( TO ISOLATE ), accumulate grains, internal trade and consumption and ensure that 'wealth' is not lost, instead wait for "BARTERING FOR GOODS" OR THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE CHINESE RMB.
我们有此行动，估计越南、印度、马来西亚、印尼... 等生产国也会采取类似关门措施。
We have taken this action, and it is estimated that Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Indonesia... and other producing countries will also adopt similar "CLOSE DOOR" MEASURES.
大家都明白，谁拿实物换冥币，谁就是傻瓜。
Everyone understands that whoever exchanges real physical things for THIS COPPER COIN is a fool.
美国这个月内，增发1.9万亿亿美元，欧盟，日元也是大量印钞票。
Just within this month, the United States has issued an additional 1.9 TRILLION US DOLLARS, and the EUROPEAN UNION and the JAPANESE also printed a large amount of money.
全世界都在靠印钞票度过危机，人民币何去何从这很重要。 跟风的话，通货膨胀，苦果自己吃；不跟的话，等于人民币在抵消货币的通货膨胀，损失还是自己。
The whole world is relying on PRINTING MONEY to survive the crisis. It is very important to watch how the RMB renminbi will fare. If you follow the MONEY PRINTING TREND~ INFLATION WILL BE THE END RESULT; and if you don’t follow the trend, it means that the renminbi will be offsetting currency inflation ( when you trade and accept their Currency ) and thereby you sustain LOSSES.
所以，我们玩得很绝，不降息，用人民币双边结算。 想买我的物品，要么拿实物，要么拿人民币，美元我不要了。
Therefore, we are maintaining in an extremely STIFF SITUATION AND WOULD NOT CUT INTEREST RATES AND WILL ONLY SETTLED BILATERALLY IN RMB. If you want to buy my goods, we WILL NOT ACCEPT USD BUT IN RMB OR WILL EXCHANGE FOR GOODS ( BARTER ).
我们终于醒过来了，不再盲目大量出口，也看清许多国家"大量印钞票"只是在搜刮世界物质财富。
We have finally waken up…. NO LONGER BLINDLY EXPORTING LARGE QUANTITIES, but also NOTICED that many countries "printing a large amount of money" are just PLUNDERING THE WORLD'S MATERIAL WEALTH.
只要认清方向，永远不晚，我们不能再做赔本生意了，中国人照顾好自己的人民才最重要。
As long as we understand the direction… it is never too late. We REFUSE TO DO BUSINESS AT A LOSS. The most important thing is for the Chinese GOVERNMENT to take good care and look after the welfare of its people.
美国花一毛钱印了一张百元大钞（而且没任何贵重金属抵押）， 要求买你的一百斤大米，这不是欺负人吗？ 这是明目张胆的诈骗， 是无耻的掠夺。
The United States spent only ten cents to print a hundred-dollar bill (without any precious metal collateral) and asked to buy one hundred dollars value of your goods.
Isn't this CHEATING / BULLISH? THIS IS BLATANT FRAUD, A SHAMELESS PLUNDER.
美国想得很美，有求于中国帮他们度过危机，下一步可能停止贸易战，假装妥协，幻想用印出的大量美元疯狂抢购中国生产的物质，我们不会上当了。
The United States Painted a BEAUTIFUL Scenery and ASKS CHINA TO HELP THEM TIDE OVER THE CRISIS with a promise to stop the trade war, PRETENDING TO COMPROMISE, and using THEIR USELESS DOLLARS to buy Chinese-produced materials. We will not be fooled AGAIN.
让美国人去自己玩吧，我们不奉陪了。【 請转发】
Let the Americans and play by themselves, we will no longer be participating.
Actually, this has been circulating for months now. It’s old news. China is braced and ready for decoupling.
Greece says no!
Greece formally rejects US proposal to supply Ukraine with additional Russian-made weapon systems. Athens cannot compromise its defense capabilities, says defense minister.
Enjoy this fine snippet of the Seinfield comedy that was a big hit back in the 1990s.
The Tumultuous Years of 1997-2013
With the advent of the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (whose meltdown nearly took down the world economy in 1999 if not bailed out by central banks), followed by the Y2K/tech bubble explosion of 2000, the world markets nearly collapsed on several occasions. 9-11 unleashed a new era of warfare which deflected attention from the rot of the financial system while derivatives were deregulated, and ‘Too Big To Fail’ banking formed in short order growing far beyond the powers of any nation state to rein in.
Under this period of destabilization, wars, terrorism and easy money speculation, China and its Eurasian allies moved slower to rebuild the physical basis of their existence with the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, long term planning, and a slow but steady focus on real (vs speculative) economic activity. The fact that China was among the only nations of the world to keep national controls over their central bank and maintain Glass-Steagall bank separation were not lost on the enemies of humanity yearning for a bankers’ dictatorship.
This process continued until it became evident that the western unipolar agenda would stop at nothing including nuclear war in order to assure the total subservience of all nation states, with Obama unveiling his Asia Pivot (air-sea battle) plans against China along with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic attack on China. The veil was now lifted to the true ugly face behind the liberal fascist smiles and it became clear that the full spectrum dominance military encirclement of Russia’s perimeter was being fully extended to China’s perimeter as well.
“No Soup For You!” | The Soup Nazi | Seinfeld
This is a classic. It’s an absolute classic. And it has developed into an American idiom; “No soup for you”. Check it out.
The Revival of the New Silk Road
It was in the face of this existential threat that Xi Jinping emerged as the new leader of China and a historic crackdown of party corruption on all levels Federal, Provincial and Municipal was begun in force while Xi’s 2013 announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative in Kazakhstan revived the New Silk Road/Eurasian land bridge policy of 15 years earlier.
Although China is often accused of intellectual theft, the reality is that it has begun to clearly outpace western nations becoming a pioneer on every level of science and technology. China now registers more patents than the USA, has become the cutting edge leader of high speed rail engineering with over 30 000 km, bridge building, tunneling, as well as water management, quantum computing, AI, 5G telecommunications, and even space science becoming the first nation to ever land on the far side of the moon with an intent to mine Helium 3 and develop permanent bases on the Moon in the coming decade.
All of these cutting edge fields of science and engineering are being organized by the ever-growing Belt and Road Initiative which has taken on global proportions and integrated itself into a deep alliance with Russia, Iran and over 135 nations who have signed onto the BRI Framework stretching from Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Asia, and Europe.
This is the system which the USA and other western nations could have joined on multiple occasions, but which has instead been targeted as a global threat to western hegemony. According to the logic of those western utopians who refuse to let go of their old outdated 1971 script for a new world order, China’s New Silk Road must be subverted at all costs since it is very well understood that it would become the basis for a new world system as the old globalized paradigm comes crashing down faster than the Hindenburg.
The Real Perpetrators Laugh as a New Cold War Hysteria is Orchestrated
It is perhaps an irony that those figures who have been caught time and again attempting to destroy the foundations of both the USA, China and Russia have deflected attention from their own actions by promoting the idea that China is the USA’s natural enemy.
The reality is China is currently not only reviving the ancient silk road paradigm that focused on a harmony of interests and mutual self interest through economic and cultural exchange but they have also revived the spirit of President Sun Yat-sen’s International Development of China program in full.
In this 1920 document China’s first President outlined the superiority of the American system of political economy which he studied deeply beginning in his early student days in the USA, and upon which he explicitly modelled his new republican China and his three Principles of the People (premised on Lincoln’s principle of a nation for, by and of the people). Sun Yat-sen (a Christian Confucian revolutionary) is not only the beloved founding father of the republic of China celebrated to this day, but stated his views pro-American views in the following terms
“The world has been greatly benefited by the development of America as an industrial and a commercial Nation. So a developed China with her four hundred millions of population, will be another New World in the economic sense. The nations which will take part in this development will reap immense advantages. Furthermore, international cooperation of this kind cannot but help to strengthen the Brotherhood of Man.”
Both mainstream and alternative media outlets that tend to be sympathetic to conservative values have bit the bait and are now blind to the fact that those oligarchical social engineers managing the World Economic Forum and drooling over a new era of World Government, population reduction and technocratic feudalism are laughing at all of those fish in their nets whose ignorance to history and other cultures are leading them to their own self-destruction.
RUSSIA FURIOUS OVER SINKING OF MISSILE CRUISER “MOSKVA” – TALKING “WW3”
The Russian people are enraged beyond words over the sinking of their Black Sea flagship, the Guided Missile Cruiser “Moskva” and they are already publicly saying on TV that they are in World War 3 with the United States.
Barrages of Russian missiles were launched late last night against at least 8 different “fronts” inside Ukraine, hitting targets in Kiev, Kharkov, Nikolaev, and elsewhere, causing thunderous explosions.
On Russian television, the mood was ferocious anger, and the remarks being made were specific: Russia is already in World War 3, Russia is at war with the United States/NATO, and more.
One source familiar with the unfolding events, told me the following:
The cruiser sank.
There were many victims on board. There was a monstrous explosion of ammunition and airborne missiles.
I think there may be several hundred dead, if not almost the entire crew.
So there will be a backlash.
That same source then SPECULATED what he believes the Russian response will be:
The RF Armed Forces will hit Bankovaya, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the GUR building and other facilities in Kyiv.
In addition, a strike on the Baltic states or arms convoys in Poland or the Czech Republic is possible.
There will be strikes by the RF Armed Forces on bridges along the western border of Ukraine, on bridges in Kyiv, on bridges across the Dnieper.
There will be strikes on railway bridges in Western Ukraine and on transport hubs and interchanges, on junction stations, and so on.
There will be strikes on the barracks and control centers. Blows are prepared from all trunks.
They will strike from the Caspian, from the Black Sea, from the Crimea, even from the Baltic and from Kaliningrad. There will be shelling by Belarusian artillery and Belarusian rockets.
The strike will be three waves, massive volleys, there will be up to a thousand missiles at the same time.
Heavy artillery, RSZO. In the Kiev region, Kiev, Kharkov, Nikolaev.
He wrapped-up his speculation by telling me:
WAR IS GOING TO A NEW LEVEL !!!
WATCH.
This story is still developing, check back for updates.
UPDATES – 8:24 AM EDT —
Russian Defense: We will increase the number and size of missile attacks on Kiev.
Russian Defense: More than 30 Polish mercenaries were killed in Kharkov.
Among the prisoners in Ukraine there are military personnel of NATO countries, said Senator Klimov of the Russian Federation Council
“We already have prisoners among the military personnel of NATO countries, we will show all this when we conduct trials, and the whole world will see what really happened,”
UPDATE 8:32 AM EDT —
The United States has received an official Diplomatic demarche (note) from Moscow which says, in sum and in substance “Russia demands the United States stop arming Ukraine” and then threatens “unpredictable consequences” if such arming of Ukraine continues.
This is stated in an official diplomatic note from Moscow.
Safety
I wonder how many accidents it took to “improve” the safety concerns regarding this?
“Safety Regulations In The 1960s”
This is who is leading the United States right now
You all should be scared shitless. Watch this short video. And look at it, and watch it with a critical eye.
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What do you think? Is he capable? Is he dangerously inept? Is he really a puppet? What is President Biden?
What is going on
“The Western world today is on the verge of a catastrophe, which has come close to due to anti-Russian sanctions that are suicidal for Europe and the war unleashed by British and American intelligence services in Ukraine. We just need to persevere.”
- Sergei Yuryevich
…Moreover, he predicted “Washington’s unleashing a world hybrid war against China and Russia… and escalating financial sanctions against Russia, up to the nurturing of a Russophobic-Nazi regime in Ukraine and the current armed conflict.”
Almost all of the academician’s negative forecasts were fully confirmed. But he thinks it could still have been avoided. “the tragic course of events that involved our country in a state of armed conflict with Ukraine.”
ScreenHunter 7569
According to Glaziev,
“it all starts with a multiple increase in energy prices, after which the economy plunges into a state of prolonged depression, the exit from which occurs through a “storm of innovations” after the collapse of financial bubbles resulting from the flow of capital from obsolete industries to the financial market.”
The aggravation of military-political tensions and the arms race, at the same time, are spurring the economy to enter a new long wave of growth based on a new technological order. So much has been said and written about the fact that a war for the United States, and preferably not a global one, is the solution of their own problems at the expense of someone else’s blood, that almost no one paid any attention to it.
And in vain, because it is not for nothing that the leader of the NATO alliance so diligently and openly avoids direct confrontation with Russia. Of course, under the guise of a peacemaker, preventing the third world.
At the same time, the post-COVID surge of China and India from Washington simply cannot turn their gaze. Not enough strength.
In the program article of the academician, it is no coincidence that it was noted that it was during such periods “a window of opportunity is opening for the economic breakthrough of new technological leaders, not burdened by tying up capital in obsolete industries.”
In parallel with the breakthrough of China and India “on the basis of a new technological order, the core of which is a complex of nano-, bioengineering, information, digital, additive and cognitive technologies”, something no less, and perhaps even more important, is happening.
“The transition to a new world economic order is unfolding,” when it is no longer private capital and entrepreneurial initiative, but “the state integrates the interests of various social groups around the common goal of increasing the people’s well-being on the basis of advanced economic development.”
At the same time, Glazyev is convinced that “on the domestic front, Russia has significantly strengthened.”
“Firstly, the influence of the fifth column of American agents of influence has sharply weakened, which, under the fear of confiscation of foreign assets, could not influence the President of Russia. Although the comprador oligarchy, in an effort to keep the savings exported from Russia, jumps out of their pants to prove their loyalty to Washington and London, they are seen there as a played card. Many foreign agents of influence, who daily poisoned the public consciousness in the media, simply fled.
Secondly, as a result of the imposed sanctions, the budget rule was automatically canceled, according to which the oil and gas revenues of the budget were invested in the obligations of the NATO countries. Now these hundreds of billions of rubles are placed at the disposal of the government and can be spent on constructive purposes.
Thirdly, with its sanctions, the enemy actually stopped the export of capital from Russia, which creates financial opportunities for doubling investments in the development of its own economy.
Fourth, freed from manipulation by American speculators, the ruble has strengthened significantly even without foreign exchange reserves. And due to the ban on transactions in dollars and euros, it becomes a regional reserve currency.
Fifth, the voluntary withdrawal of Western companies from the Russian market opens up previously unthinkable opportunities for import substitution.” It’s time to start the counteroffensive
Russia from Washington and London predict a drop in GDP by more than 10%. But Glazyev noted that “if you correctly use all these positive results for Russia of American aggression”, then instead we can get 10% of its growth.
It is only necessary to rebuild “the entire system of managing the development of the Russian economy on the basis of the principles of the new world economic order. Monetary policy should become part of strategic planning, and the banking system should work to invest in achieving the goals of social and economic development planned by the state.”
The Ukrainian crisis has been going on for the second month now, the battles are becoming more meaningful and even more fierce because of this, although the losses of the parties are currently on the wane. It is difficult to say how everything will turn out with the start of the big battle for the Donbass. There is less and less doubt that it will take place no one is going to concede.
However, when starting the special operation, in Russia, at least according to external signs, they did not take into account how powerful the hybrid rebuff would be – and above all, in terms of information. The West turned in its favor both the situation with refugees and the unprecedented atrocities of their Ukrainian wards.
However, in the end, everything results in the fact that, according to the definition of the academician, “in the heat of the anti-Russian sanctions, the United States was strongly substituted.” Discrediting the dollar and undermining confidence in the “world monetary and financial system based on it” can not only cost too much, but lead to their complete destruction. And a simple transition from the dollar and the euro to the yuan, for example, will not be enough.
The whole structure of informational pressure on Russia is now on the verge of collapse.
In conclusion, what does Glazyev offer in global terms. So, we have to
“quickly build a modern economic development management system based on the new world economic order, which has proven itself brilliantly in China, India and other countries. Create coalitions with them for the speedy formation of a new global monetary, financial, trade and economic system independent of the United States and its satellites.”
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But, you know guys… I don’t think there’s enough alcohol in the world, if you know what I mean.
Princess Fatemeh Khanum Was The Princess Of Persia. She Was The Daughter Of King Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar, Who “Ruled Persia From 1848 To 1896. She Was Considered The Ultimate Symbol Of Beauty In Persia During The Early 1900s”.
Gilligan’s Island – Gilligan’s WWII Mine
A fun little flashback to a far simpler time. You don’t need to watch this full segment, but it’s a nice image that takes and sends you bak to when time was far simpler and easier.
Materials of the briefing by the Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation , Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov April 14, 2022
Thanks to the special military operation of the Russian troops, it was possible to obtain additional information about the military – biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine , confirming numerous violations of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons ( BTWC ).
ScreenHunter
Taking advantage of existing gaps in international legislation and the lack of a clear verification mechanism, the US administration is consistently building up its military biological potential in various regions of the world .
Earlier, we presented a scheme for coordinating the activities of biological laboratories and research institutes in Ukraine by the United States. One of its elements is the Ukrainian Scientific and Technological Center ( UNTC ). The Russian Ministry of Defense managed to uncover its role in the military – biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine .
Its legal status is determined by the Agreement of October 25, 1993, which was concluded between the governments of Ukraine , Canada , the United States and Sweden , as well as the Amendment Protocol of July 7, 1997.
The STCU is headquartered in Kiev and has regional offices in Baku , Chisinau and Tbilisi , as well as Kharkov and Lvov .
At the same time, the Expert Center for Chemical and Biological Threats of the Russian Ministry of Defense established that the main activity of the STCU is to act as a distribution center for grants for conducting research of interest to the Pentagon, including in the field of biological weapons .
In recent years alone, Washington has spent more than $ 350 million on the implementation of STCU projects .
The US Department of State and the Ministry of Defense are US customers and sponsors of the STCU . Funding is also provided through the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Agriculture, Health and Energy.
Also, pay attention to the document prepared by the STCU curators dated March 11, 2022, which highlights the true nature of the activities of this organization. It notes: “ …There is an outflow of scientific experts in the development of delivery vehicles and modern weapons who worked at Ukrainian institutions , as well as experts in the development of biological, radiological , chemical and nuclear weapons .
The most trained specialists with experience in working with dual – use materials and technologies ( there are from 1,000 to 4,000 of them ) found themselves in unfavorable professional and financial circumstances. This makes them vulnerable to siding with other states to participate in programs _ on the development of WMD, delivery vehicles and other weapons … “ .
Using such formulations, Washington actually recognizes the work carried out by Ukrainian experts on the creation of means for the delivery and use of weapons of mass destruction and considers it appropriate to continue their financing.
The post of Executive Director of the STCU is held by US citizen Curtis Belayach. Born August 27, 1968 in California, studied at the California University of Management named after Anderson. He has a master’s degree in international finance and has been working in Ukraine since 1994. Rest of article
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Meanwhile in Japan
Zombie vending machine?
In case of zombies, break glass.
Nukes or Fertilizer Plant, You Decide: ‘EU-supplied’ S-300 launchers and surrounding area obliterated
Creepy footage. The moment of yesterday's most powerful explosion in Nikolaev. Damn guys, I don't like these mushrooms at all… https://t.co/RwqscCX2Be
— Seb Pearn
Russian forces have destroyed foreign-supplied S-300 anti-aircraft launchers in a number of precision strikes on Ukraine, the Defense Ministry, in Moscow, claimed on Monday. Days earlier, Slovakia reported the donation of a battery of old Soviet-made S-300 air defense missiles to Kiev.
In its regular briefing on the ongoing military action in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported hitting a hangar “on the southern outskirts of the city of Dnepropetrovsk,” where “equipment from an S-300 battery supplied to the Ukrainian regime by one of the European nations” was hidden.
The barrage of sea-launched Kalibr missiles destroyed four S-300 launchers and as many as 25 Ukrainian troops in the Sunday strike, ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov claimed. He used the old name of the city, which Ukrainian authorities renamed Dnepro in 2016 to distance it from the Soviet period of the country’s history.
The Russian official also reported destroying an S-300 targeting radar in a separate overnight precision airstrike near Uspenovka. The general didn’t specify which of the multiple villages of that name in Ukraine he was referring to, and didn’t say whether the radar was part of the battery supplied by the foreign nation.
Last Friday, Slovakia announced that it had donated its only S-300 battery to Ukraine. The weapon system was part of the NATO member’s legacy from the Warsaw Pact days, when it formed part of Czechoslovakia. It was not clear how many vehicles were sent to Ukraine. A regular S-300 battery can have as few as four and as many as 12 launchers using a single radar to identify targets, and is controlled by a single command post.
Prime Minister Eduard Heger assured citizens that the country’s national security would not be compromised since “allies” agreed to boost its air defense in return. US President Joe Biden said his country would provide an American Patriot missile battery as a replacement and thanked Bratislava for agreeing to give the S-300 to Kiev. Elements of the Patriot system started arriving in Slovakia three weeks ago, according to its defense minister.
Responding to Russian claims on Twitter, Prime Minister Heger called them a “hoax” and “Russian propaganda.” The statement was apparently based on a denial that Slovakia received from Kiev.
Washington reportedly wanted another NATO member, Turkey, to strike a similar deal with Ukraine and send it a Russian-supplied S-400, which is more advanced than the S-300. Ankara rejected the idea, saying the system would remain in its possession. In 2020, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey for buying the S-400s from Russia under a deal signed in 2017.
Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.
Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
The Prisoner: Season 1 Episode 1 – Arrival (Full Episode)
Let’s end this article with a full and great treat. If you know aobut who MM is and why MM exists, then you should well appreciate the plot and story line for S1E1 of the British Series “The Prisoner”.
This is a full treat. After a very successful career as a British spy, a follow up series known as “The Prisoner” was created. It discusses what do you do with Super-secret spies when they want and need to be retired.
It’s well worth the time to watch in full. Please enjoy it.
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Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Western Mainstream Media screams Putin is losing or Putin has lost. The heroic Ukrainian president has single-handedly beaten back the brutal Russians.Biden screams Putin is a war criminal. That is, Putin's losing Russian army is commiting genocide on the winning Ukrainian hero defenders. Was that how the 300 Spartans massacred the Persians?Do two lies make a truth?America seems to finally want peace. The US warns China will face consequences if it does not stop Russia's war in Ukraine. So America wants China to use a magic wand (which it does not have) to stop a war that America started and which it is still fueling, otherwise America will start a war with China. Does America want peace or war? I still can't wrap my head around this one.This is what happens when a country is run by lying hypocritical demented morons.
-PM
Lieutenant General Roger Cloutier was captured in Mariupol and is already in Moscow.
This proves BEYOND A DOUBT that America is not fighting a proxy war against Russia, but rather instead, is fighting a direct kinetic war against Russia inside a NATO proxy nation.
This will seriously escalate the global situation dangerously.
China perceptions
China, which has of late risen to the top of the United States enemies’ chart, is a bit harder to understand.
China is a legitimate global competitor with an economy now estimated to be larger than that of the US, but it has never suggested in any way that it wants a war.
Against that background, President Biden has declared that the United States has a “commitment” to defend Taiwan if China should attempt to retake control of the island.
If that conflict were to come about and the US engages in a conventional war against Beijing, it would find that the Chinese have considerable advantages in that they would be fighting on interior lines while the modern hypersonic missile technologies that they would deploy could devastate obsolete American aircraft carrier battle groups.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has described the new Chinese missiles as “very concerning” and “very close” to being a “Sputnik moment,” when a panicked US accelerated its arms and space races against the Soviet Union in 1957.
And one should not forget that China is a major trading partner with the United States, producing many consumer items that are no longer manufactured in America.
Beijing also holds tens of billions of dollars-worth of US Treasury bonds.
If two countries ever had good reasons not to go to war it would be China and the US, but the threats coming mostly from Washington have been nearly continuous ever since President Barack Obama initiated his tilt to Asia.
The complete ineptness of US diplomacy also contributes to the sense of threat.
Logically, Washington should be playing off Russia against China to diminish any danger of war against two hostile great powers but instead it has chosen to antagonize both of themm simultaneously.
Whether the Europeans and the South Koreans and Japanese will follow the US on its march to oblivion is debatable.
One of the curious aspects of the news coming out of the White House, Pentagon and Foggy Bottom is just how hypocritical it all is.
“We’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geo-strategic power the world has witnessed. They [the Chinese] are clearly challenging us regionally and their aspiration is to challenge the United States globally.”
Milley is saying that China in particular, and Russia and Iran as well, cannot develop military technologies and take other steps to defend themselves without Washington’s permission.
The absurdity of that position should be obvious to everyone, but it has apparently not yet become clear to those in power in Washington.
Russia intervenes in a country which neighbors it, thousands of miles away, and the US Americans see that as a threat to the USA.
And nevermind that the USA is the country which forced Russia into this war which the Kremlin spent eight years trying to avoid.
How is such a result even possible? Here are a few options:
A majority of US Americans are simply stupid and cannot think
A majority of US Americans are unbelievably ignorant
A majority of US Americans are brainwashed by their media and schools
A majority of US Americans have been trained/conditioned to fear and hate whomever their rulers designate for demonization
A majority of US Americans sincerely believe that the USA ought to be the planet’s cop and no matter where a conflict starts, even when that conflict started by the USA, they believe that it is Uncle Shmuel business to deal with it. In their tiny minds, the USA has a God given right to intervene anywhere and attack anyone.
A majority of US Americans perceive any truly sovereign country as a direct threat to their way of life.
The PYSOP campaign to demonize Russia has been a resounding success.
A mix of all of the above is probably the most accurate cause for such a result.
Huawei speeds up bond sales
Company will issue 3 billion yuan (US$470 million) of short-term debt next week, a month after it sold 3 billion yuan in China’s interbank market
Huawei is reinventing itself, morphing from a hardware-centric model to a combination of hardware, software, and services
Next, I bumped into a Foxnews propaganda piece featuring a clown which, apparently, in some very distant past was a US Lt. General in the USA military, his last name is Kellogg.
I decided to give it a try and I have to say that I sat absolutely *transfixed* listening to him: according to him, Russia has already suffered a huge defeat at the hands of the Ukronazis and with NATO’s help the Ukraine can, and probably will, win this war.
And both that “general” and the presstitute “interviewing” him delivered that crock of shit with great gravitas and appropriate facial expressions (angled eyebrows, the way the journos try to look very sincere). I was expecting at least one of them to burst out laughing but, no, of course not.
These two simply lack both the brain and the humor to realize how terminally stupid and ridiculous they both sound.
A man who says with a straight face that delivering 20 Soviet era aircraft or S-300 to the Ukrainians will make a difference in this war is either a clueless civilian or a deliberate liar prostituting his (putative and now former) officer’s honor for a few bucks.
Russia is jamming GPS satellite signals in Ukraine
Russia is jamming GPS satellite signals in Ukraine, US Space Force says
By Elizabeth Howell published 1 day ago
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‘Ukraine may not be able to use GPS,’ a Space Force official told NBC.
In the old days, we used to enjoy movies in which Robin Hood would “take from the rich and give to the poor”. But in the real world things are not supposed to work that way. In a civilized society, property rights are supposed to be respected. Unfortunately, the truth is that the U.S. is becoming less civilized with each passing day. At this point, a “Robin Hood mentality” is starting to emerge all over America. Highly organized gangs of thieves are specifically searching for wealthy targets, and those targets are often being followed all the way home before being attacked. I suppose that thieves must think that it makes a great deal of sense to target the wealthy, because robbing the rich is certainly a lot more lucrative than robbing the poor.
In Los Angeles, the police are openly admitting that over a dozen gangs are specifically targeting individuals that appear to have a lot of money…
More than a dozen Los Angeles gangs are targeting some of the city’s wealthiest residents in a new and aggressive manner, sending out crews in multiple cars to find, follow and rob people driving high-end vehicles or wearing expensive jewelry, according to police.In many cases, they’re making off with designer handbags, diamond-studded watches and other items worth tens of thousands of dollars — if not more — and then peddling them to black-market buyers who are willing to turn a blind eye to the underlying violence, police said.
In recent years, it has become trendy to show off your wealth publicly, but I think that is going to change.
In our new environment, donning very expensive gear simply makes you a target.
According to Capt. Jonathan Tippet, who spearheads the task force, police have identified at least 17 gangs, most based out of South L.A. and operating independently, that are involved. There were 165 such robberies in 2021 and 56 so far this year, he said, including several over the weekend.
Once upon a time, criminals would approach and politely ask you to hand over your belongings.
Needless to say, those days are long gone. In fact, these gangs often physically attack their wealthy victims without even saying a word…
“There’s no chance or opportunity for these victims even to comply. They’re just running up to people and attacking them, whether that’s putting a gun in their face or punching them and beating on them,” Tippet said. “Pistol whipping them as well.”In some cases, police determined that gang members inside high-end venues served as “spotters” for those outside, Tippet said, alerting them when wealthy targets were heading out.
Sadly, the pace of these attacks appears to be accelerating.
According to authorities, there have been five more just within the last 48 hours, including one in which a woman was run into “by a Dodge muscle car”…
An LA woman was filmed being mown down by a Dodge muscle car so muggers could steal her watch as the city’s terrifying follow-home robberies soar.The video from Monday, one of five such robberies that occurred over just 48 hours, shows the unidentified victim fleeing the muggers silver Dodge Challenger after they smashed her car window when she stopped at a light in Downtown LA.
There was a time when most violent crime was confined to the poorest parts of Los Angeles and those that lived in the wealthiest neighborhoods generally felt quite safe.
But now everything has changed. Today, the largest increases in violent crime are happening in the wealthiest zip codes…
The zip codes showing the largest increases are home to film and pop stars, including Beverly Hills, of “90210” fame, where Beyonce and Jay-Z have their West Coast house; Bel Air, of “Fresh Prince” Will Smith fame, where Jennifer Lopez now resides; and Los Feliz, where Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom share a house and where Angelina Jolie has resided since her divorce from Brad Pitt.
And in nearby Santa Monica, the Postal Service has actually suspended service because mail carriers were being attacked so often…
The United States Postal Service suspended service in a Santa Monica neighborhood after reports of repeated attacks on mail carriers.In a notice posted at apartment mail boxes in the 1300 block of 14th Street, the USPS informed residents that service to the neighborhood is suspended. The letter cited several assaults and threats against mail carriers by an individual.
A state of complete and utter chaos reigns on the streets of the largest cities of California, but of course there is plenty of violence elsewhere too.
On Tuesday, a mass shooting on a subway train in New York City made headlines all over the world…
At least 29 people were wounded on Tuesday after a gunman wearing a gas mask set off smoke grenades and opened fire inside a rush-hour subway train in Brooklyn, authorities said.
62-year-old Frank James regularly posted hate-filled videos on YouTube, and this shooting was obviously an attempt to draw a lot more attention to himself and to his hate-filled beliefs.
It has now emerged that he was known to the FBI and was questioned in 2019 in New Mexico though it is not yet clear why.He was cleared but was entered into the state’s ‘Guardian Lead’ system.The Guardian Program is the bureau’s terrorist threat and suspicious incident tracking system.
James had been repeatedly arrested over the years, and this is yet another example that shows the foolishness of putting violent criminals back on the streets.
Of course if we tried to lock up all of the violent criminals our prisons would be packed beyond capacity very rapidly. Violence is on the rise everywhere you look, and what we are witnessing right now is only just the beginning.
In New York City, the new mayor was supposed to crack down on crime, but instead crime rates just keep going up. In fact, the number of subway crimes in March 2022 was 55 percent higher than in March 2021.
But we shouldn’t just pick on New York City. Other major cities are seeing similar spikes in violent crime.
So if things are this bad already, what will things look like in this country when economic conditions get really, really bad?
You might want to think about that.
And if you have lots of money, you might want to think about ways that you can look “poorer”, because those that appear to be wealthy will be preyed upon more than ever in the days ahead.
Fearing GPS Jamming By China, US Air Force Wants To Send Extra Layer Of Satellites To The Geostationary Orbit
China’s BDS accuracy comparable to GPS, even better in Asia-Pacific region: authorities – Global Times
After the “dirty trick” by foremer President Bill Clinton (where he turned off the GPS forcing a multimillion dollar Chinese rocket and it’s satellite to be destroyed), China has made their own GPS system. It’s known as the BDS, and is more accurate, safer, and better protected than the old American GPS system.
As for the German Eurolemmings, they have truly lost any sense of decency or even basic common sense: they are now seriously thinking about sending old Leopard 1 tanks to the Ukraine!
Let me explain something really basic here:
You cannot just send weapons to the Ukraine and have that make a difference. I mean, yes, if you send AKs, bullet and clubs, they might get used. But modern weapon systems require training. They also require maintenance. Then they need to be integrated into the rest of the armed forces. Then your forces need to train and practice a lot to perfect their combat coordination. Then you need a supply/maintenance/repairs network to maintain/repair your systems. Advanced air defense systems require crews with sometimes many years of training. Considering that the reinforcements sent by Kiev to the Donbass even include their Volkssturm, you can imagine how utterly useless the operators of the few weapons systems surviving the trip from Lvov to the Donbass will be. And the interval between the moment this ancient S-300 goes live and the moment a Russian ARM hit it will be counted in minutes at most.
Next, old weapons (ex-Soviet or ex-NATO) are just fat targets. In almost all cases, Russian equivalents are one or even two generations ahead, so why are all the EU sending them? Well, for a couple of reasons, the main one is to get rid of them, since storage or recycling of such systems is rather costly. The next reason is that it makes NATO politicians look “tough” – after all, if Zelenskii wants old tanks, artillery or air defense systems (he ain’t exactly a military genius either!) then, by all means, we give it to him and look like we are doing *something*. By the way, the four S-300 sent by the Slovaks were, apparently, already destroyed in a strike yesterday. And the Slovak taxpayer did not spend a penny on this. How is that not a good deal for Slovakia? Oh sure, this is an act of war, a casus belli, as are ALL but UNSC approved “sanctions”, but the Euroemmings Master Race are so superior in every sense to the accursed Rooskies that, screw that! The only thing which can bring the Eurolemmings back to reality is a Russian strike on such a weapons convoy INSIDE a NATO member country because, as I have already explained, when the Eurolemmings to hide behind Uncle Shmuel’s back, all he will offer them are statements of support, outrage, freshly printed fiat money and the usual mix of threats, fear and hate western politicians always spew about Russia. But the US won’t allow NATO to go to war with Russia over one such strike, especially if the Russians clearly explain what they did and why (I actually expect that quite a few “old-time” western officers will get a good kick out of their newfound NATO “allies” hysterics once that happens).
As I have mentioned in the past, weapons convoys in the western Ukraine (and, possibly, even inside Poland) make for easy and lucrative targets for the Russians. Just mix in enough civilians and, voilà!, sooner or later you will have a “Russian atrocity”, something like “the Russians kill scores of innocent feeling Ukrainian civilians” or “the Russians attacked trucks clearly marked with red crosses” (FYI – the SBU and Azov uses red crosses on its vans and ammo/supply trucks!). This is likely one of the reasons the Russians have, so far, chosen not to attack early on but to wait for solid intelligence and then strike the NATO forces/hardware when it is nicely concentrated somewhere. Still, we know that Azov ALWAYS used civilians (especially those perceived as “not sufficiently patriotic”!) as human shields. By the way, NATO taught them this technique. Anyway, to expect NATO weapon convoys NOT to be protected by human shields would be simply stupid. The Russians simply have to ASSUME that NATO/SBU/Azov will ALWAYS be surrounded by captive civilians.
Even by British standards, this is the most pre-announced pre-publicized false flag in history, I am amazed I don’t see ads and previews for it on Amazon and Netflix…
I guess, I will just say that if the public opinion is being prepared for a Russian chemical attack (maybe even with the – apparently harmless – “Novichok”) then we know for sure which side is winning and which side is not winning.
Why a False Flag?
There are a few other reasons why the Empire of Hate and Lies badly and urgently needs a false flag:
Mariupol has fallen and all the rescue or escape attempts have failed. Yes, there are probably several hundred, possibly around 1000 Nazis still left in the deep and many underground facilities under the industrial complex, but they have become militarily irrelevant so the Russian National Guard forces are taking their sweet time to avoid any unnecessary losses on the Russian side.
Reports of Nazi atrocities are literally all over the place, especially on Telegram. A few of these have leaked into the legacy corporate ziomedia thereby creating the first, still tiny, cracks in the official narrative.
Nobody knows what/who exactly is hidden deep in the bowels of Azovstal, but considering the immense efforts to get “it/him/them” out of there, the inevitable takeover of the underground floors by the Russians will result in some major embarrassment for the Empire, unless the Kremlin decides to show “goodwill” again and mistakenly believe that any such goodwill will be appreciated in the West. IF there is a deal made, it will have to offer the Russians something really substantive and very quickly verifiable since just promises won’t do, not even with the Atlantic Integrationists (who are now busy rebranding themselves as “patriotic Russians”).
There are also lots of reports of atrocities in the Nazi-controlled Ukraine, including public floggings and executions. Again, Telegram is flooded with such reports and footage and the Bucha false flag petered out without providing the needed “distraction” and return to the “correct” narrative. The Ukronazis even reportedly told the Brits that they have no intention of abiding by the Geneva Conventions (what a surprise!).China import Growth rate in March is 15.4%, 0.1% lower than previous year and SCMP titled it “import collapse.”
China trade: imports unexpectedly ‘collapsed’ under coronavirus and Ukraine war pressures, but exports grew | South China Morning Post
Imports fell by 0.1 per cent in March from a year earlier, down from 15.5 per cent growth in combined figures for January and February
Exports grew by 14.7 per cent in March compared with a year earlier, down from 16.3 per cent growth in combined figures for January and February
And then there is China which clearly supports Russia, and which is clearly preparing for a war against the USA. Even their minister of defense said so quite openly. And here are two things the Chinese know for sure:
If the United States Empire defeats Russia, China will be next, thus China cannot afford a Russian defeat under ANY circumstances (and neither can Russia afford a hypothetical Chinese defeat at the hands of the Empire).
If the US and Russia go at each other in earnest, this will be the perfect time to not only solve the Taiwan issue, but to boot the US out of the Far East just as Iran booted the USA out of the Middle-East. From the Chinese point of view, “just” liberating Taiwan is not enough – the US must be removed from Taiwan, Japan and even the ROK. So yes, China also wants to denazify the planet, they are less blunt about it than the Russians, but it is clear to me that this world denazification plan was agreed to by both Putin and Xi.
The folks at the Pentagon must realize that – at least a sufficient critical mass must do so. Yes, I agree with Andrei Martyanov, the former US generals on TV sound like ignorant infantiles, but I will never believe that all US military commanders are that stupid.
Mattis seems to be the person who deliberately botched the US missile strike on Syria to avoid a possible Russian reaction leading to war and General Milley called his Chinese counterpart to tell him that the US has no intention of striking at China thereby telling the Chinese that they are NOT in a “use them or lose them” situation, which would have put the entire USA in the very real danger of getting nuked by a desperate China. In both of these cases, these generals appear to have contravened direct orders for the greater good of service to their country and protection of the US population of the imbecilic orders given by imbecilic US Presidents. Mattis was “let go” pretty soon by The Donald while Milley was subjected to a vicious smear campaign.
So if “Biden” (meaning Nuland, Sullivan, Blinken or any other demented psychopath) gives the order to attack Russian forces I still want to believe that there will be a critical mass at the Pentagon to tell the “crazies in the basement” to finally shut up and get back to where they belong: the basement they crawled out of.
Everything seems to be in American freefall…
What’s It Like To Be In An Airplane That Is Falling From The Sky?
I was in a commercial jet that fell from cruising altitude. It was a small jet flying on a now defunct airline.
We had just started the descent when the plane tilted and the dropped out of the sky. Nose was pointed nearly straight down.
I was sitting in the aisle. People were screaming, yelling out – but I can’t remember the words. All kinds of crap was flying through the cabin and the flight attendant was no where to be seen.
My brother and Dad were in the seats behind me. I remember thinking about how sad my mum was going to be. And then looking out at the window at the ground.
After what seemed like an eternity, the pilot was able to regain control and the plane started to right itself again…. for about 15-30 seconds, before starting another uncontrolled descent.
It was more terrifying the second time around – the ground was far closer. I was certain that I was going to die and looked over at a blonde woman about my age sitting next to me. We hadn’t spoken the entire flight, but I reached out in some impulsive desire for human contact at the end…and we held hands as the plane fell out of the sky. I can remember looking at her face briefly, she was crying.
As the ground started approaching and you could make out things like trees and houses, I felt a sense of peace fall about me.
Death seemed to be certain but I didn’t care. It seemed like it was going to be quick and painless – but I remember being surprised that it was going to all end this way.
Then we started to feel the pilot struggling with the plane and it started to right itself again…and for a second time the plane pulled out of the dive.
It was still incredibly bumpy and people were crying and screaming out at every round of turbulence – everyone was waiting for the next and final dive.
When we landed, the young woman and I were still holding hands. People were dead quiet.
What was surreal was that the flight attendant got on the microphone when we reached the gate and thanked us for flying on that shitty ass airline and ‘hoped we would fly again’.
They brought a bus out and one of the pilots came out with us. He didn’t say a word, but his knee was shaking uncontrollably.”
But you know, people do survive…
“17 Year-Old Juliane Koepcke Was Sucked Out Of An Airplane In 1971 After It Was Struck By A Bolt Of Lightning. She Fell 2 Miles To The Ground, Strapped To Her Seat And Survived After She Endured 10 Days In The Amazon Jungle”
Juliane Koepcke
Back to the Ukraine
If it wasn’t for the US nuclear triad (old, but still formidable and capable!), I truly wouldn’t give a damn, but alas that is a luxury nobody can afford, at least until the USA is finally denazified and disarmed too. But until all of Zone A is absorbed and re-civilized by Zone B, that danger will threaten every human being on the planet (and now even in the southern hemisphere courtesy of the comprador leaders of the US colony in Australia which have decided to paint a big Chinese nuclear crosshairs on their brainless heads!).
Okay, I will end with some major good news: the entire 36th Marine Infantry Brigade in Mariupol has surrendered! That is over 1000 soldiers, including 300 wounded and 90 seriously injured.
2022 04 14 13 18
Now, careful here, these are NOT the Azov forces hiding in the underground floors of Azovstal. First, they are not Azov but regular Ukrainian military and, second, they were barricaded in the Illich industrial complex, near the Azovstal, but already cut off from Azovstal.
It is important to note that unlike the Azov Nazis, the Naval Infantry forces are NOT considered as Nazis by the Russians and that they will all get full POW protection under the Geneva Convention.
The very best the Azov people can expect is to be identified and arrested on suspicion of war crimes, crimes against humanity and all kinds of atrocities. If some of them are clearly clueless idiots who made some bad choices, they might return home one day after either being found innocent (a minority) or after serving their time in Russian jails.
Those found with tattooed swastikas or those who are already on the FSB wanted list will get harsh sentences in equally harsh high-security prisons.
As for Azov commanders, they have already been told by everybody that they will get no mercy. Which means that they will get interrogated and executed.
Declan Hayes
April 5, 2022
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Japan’s future, whether she likes it or not, will be with its East Asian neighbors’ Belt and Road Initiative when the U.S. 7th Fleet scuttles back to Pearl Harbor.
Although it is now 20 years since the English edition of my Japan: The Toothless Tiger best seller first appeared, everything that has since happened has confirmed its thesis that East Asia is a powder keg that Japan cannot contain.
Although China’s Belt and Road Initiative is inexorably falling into place, so too is the South China Sea. Although a British convoy, supported by German and American cruisers, recently sailed through the area, they, like the Australians, who are being butt hurt by Chinese sanctions, are not serious players.
South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are the region’s heavy hitters. Though Taiwan would give an excellent account of itself in any future encounter, there is little they could do when faced with overwhelming Chinese firepower. Taiwan could be East Asia’s Arch Duke Ferdinand moment.
South Korea, however, remains the real dagger to Japan’s heart. There are more than five million men under arms on the Korean peninsula – far more armed soldiers than either the United States or Russia maintains. Vladivostock, Russia’s military headquarters in the Far East, is only fifty miles away from North Korea! The resulting geostrategic rivalries make Korea the most militarized piece of real estate on the planet and it is the only place the United States has (repeatedly) declared it has locked and loaded nuclear weapons. As there is no way Seoul can be defended from a determined attack, the USMC is heavily embedded in Okinawa to where they hastily retreated at the height of the Korean War and to where they most likely will have to retreat again. Though Japan needs South Korea as a buffer state against North Korea and its historical Russian and Chinese sponsors, the Belt and Road Initiative would marginalize Japan and make her almost irrelevant to this Chinese minted version of The Great Game.
China views its own naval expansion as vital to protecting her sea routes and, just like Washington, Beijing is deploying her navy to ensure that the black gold continues to arrive to her shores. The fact that this policy poses a threat to Japan is not Beijing’s primary concern. They have the much more daunting task of keeping their vast nation afloat. For that overriding purpose, they need a strong navy to guarantee their oil supplies and a steely determination to defend and promote their national objectives.
Japan’s looming quandary is that, with Taiwan and South Korea, it has been a vassal of America’s East Asian policy, trading economic advancement for American political and military hegemony in contrast to China’s unfettered development. That bill is now due.
China is involved in a great strategic game that she cannot afford to lose. Kazakhstan is China’s natural bridge to the lucrative Iranian and Iraqi fields. Such a link-up would advance China’s standing as a world power. It would also cripple United States’ efforts to secure the Caspian Sea’s oil for the West. China also wants to secure central Asia’s economic cooperation to help mollify Xinjiang, which Erdoğan’s Muslim Uighur fifth columnists are charged with subverting. About 200,000 Uighurs live in Kazakhstan and opposition Islamic terrorist groups have their bases in Almata, its largest city. China hopes to neutralize this U.S. sponsored internal ISIS threat by its oil diplomacy in Kazakhstan, and its arms diplomacy in Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.
NATO’s ongoing belligerence in Eastern Europe has transformed the pipeline poker China has been playing with Russia and the other regional powers, forcing Russia and oil rich Kazakhstan to fully throw their lot in with China. Siberian oil will flow southwards to China and, if Korea and Japan wish it, onwards to them as well.
Iran meanwhile, is helping China wrest the vast oil reserves of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf from Uncle Sam . If Iran and China control the flow of oil from the region, the United States will lose control not only of the Caspian Sea but also of the Persian Gulf’s vast and vital oil supplies. Japan best urgently take stock.
China’s missiles nullify America’s capacity to militarily dominate Asia’s vast geography with its small, dispersed pockets of marine forces, whose forward deployment policy bases are much too vulnerable. Without forward bases in Asia, there can be no concentration of American military power: weapons cannot even be stored, let alone massed for use.
This vulnerability of their bases to Chinese missiles is America’s singular military weakness in Asia. America’s powerful Seventh Fleet cannot make up for the loss of Asian land bases. The Seventh Fleet cannot generate anything like the military power or psychological effect of fixed bases.
The most important of these forward bases are those in Japan. Guam, like mainland America, is simply too far away to fill this role. Okinawa is the pivotal, preferred spot. And China’s missiles are gradually making those bases redundant to America’s strategic thinkers.
China is devoting vast resources to her missile program. This is a war of nerves where time and, ultimately, technology, is on the side of Mainland China. This psychological aspect explains China’s widespread use of ballistic missiles, which are, in essence, really psychological weapons – paper tigers if you will. Although Taiwan might protect itself from an amphibious assault, protecting Taipei from surgical missile strikes – or the threat of surgical strikes – by Beijing’s ballistic missile units is a more daunting task. Beijing knows this and will continue to tighten and loosen the screws, as she deems appropriate.
Japan has a glass jaw, one that China could easily break if Japan does not act responsibly over the next few years. Japan is the only major nation in the world that has explicitly renounced war as a tool of policy. Article 9.1 of the Japanese constitution renounces war “as a sovereign right of the nation”. Article 9.2 asserts that “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained”.
That said, Japan maintains very substantial “land, sea and air forces”. Japan’s military expenditures are, in fact, the third highest in the world. Tokyo has stockpiled over 100 tons of plutonium that would be relatively simple to transform into weapons’ grade material. Japan’s fast-breeder reactors (FBRs) have the capacity to squeeze over 60 times more energy from uranium fuel than can the light-water reactors of most other countries. Japan will, in other words, have the capacity to make more nuclear weapons than the combined arsenals of the United States and Russia hold. If nothing else, this arsenal makes an impressive bundle of bargaining chips.
Because its major challenges will come from the air, Japan has developed formidable anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile defense systems. Japan’s radar and its accurate Tomahawk missile technology far excel their American prototypes. Other Japanese strengths in miniaturization, automation, telecommunications and the development of durable, lightweight advanced materials further enhance their military capabilities.
Japan’s plutonium purchases have allowed it develop the necessary nuclear submarine technology to counter China’s blue water navy. Though impressive, a handful of nuclear submarines and a couple of batteries of missile defenses do not make Japan impregnable.
Bizarre as it seems, Japan’s expertise in these niche areas is a cause for concern in Washington. America fears lost market share if Japan exports its expertise – and, to develop the required expertise, Japan would have to copy the examples of Israel, Sweden, South Africa and other small countries and aggressively export. The United States fears that Japan would win export orders at its expense.
Japanese dual-use technological capabilities in commercial fields related to military use threatens the preeminent position American producers currently enjoy in the world’s arms’ markets. This is ironic as, historically, the United States encouraged Japan in its development of dual use capabilities. Spin-offs from the radio industry, for example, helped kick-start the Japanese commercial television industry, which eventually obliterated their American competitors.
Japan’s defense industry is, however, an inconsequential part of Japan’s overall industrial output. It accounts for less than 1 percent of Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) and even those firms, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), which are most heavily involved in it, are there mostly because of the spin-off technological benefits it has given them.
Whereas Japan has some particularly strong trees of knowledge, the forest overwhelmingly belongs to America. Japan just does not have the logistical depth of America or the European Union to be a major league player. While Japanese industry has established a global position in a wide range of critical modern technologies, Japan’s defense industry has lagged behind. At the systems level, military technology has simply moved faster than Japan’s ability to catch up.
Japan, in other words, does not have an autonomous arms industry. Today, the defense industry accounts for less than 0.6 percent of total industrial production, an almost insignificant amount in Japan’s overall context. Though Japan produces about 90 percent of its own military requirements, much of that is built under license from American firms and a considerable amount of the technology is black-boxed – sealed so that Japanese engineers cannot study and copy them.
In summary then, East Asia is in a state of chassis. Although Japan has neither the heart nor the materiel for what lies ahead, she, together with South Korea and Taiwan, must develop not only their autonomous defense systems but their own autonomous diplomatic voices as well. Japan’s future, whether she likes it or not, will be with its East Asian neighbors’ Belt and Road Initiative when the U.S. 7th Fleet, however belatedly, scuttles back to Pearl Harbor.
Why isn’t China buying more Russian oil?
Outbound shipments of Russian oil have yet to show signs of a major decline, as many analysts feared last month. In fact, Russia’s shipments of crude oil rebounded in the first full week of April to the highest level so far this year,
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Note: remember China gas deal with trump at a fix price of $235 (I think) for 20 years with huge penety if China fail fulfil the contract? Now that has prices gong skyrocketed to over $1000, and to support Russia, China increase it buying from Russia. So, how to handle over stocking?
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China simply sales her US gas to Europe making tens of billion of dollar of profit in the process.
Sometimes, real facts pop-up in the strangest places. This one is a doozy!
The City of Shanghai China has been in a new “COVID Lockdown” for a couple weeks. 23 Million people can’t even leave their homes. No work. No food shopping. Nothing.
Protests are erupting. People want this to end.
Shanghai police inadvertently slipped-up while on-camera, and provided the __real__ reason for what’s going on: This isn’t a COVID lockdown, it is economic warfare being waged by China, against the United States.
By halting manufacturing in Shanghai and the surrounding region, parts and raw materials the US needs, aren’t coming. As such, industry in the U.S. is forced to shut down.
So what was it the Shanghai cops let slip?
"I'm telling you this is not caused by our police. This is a result of the whole international situation. We are going to have a war with America . . . Don't you know?"
A source in the French intelligence community reportedly informed a Le Figaro reporter last week that elite special forces from the UK and the US have been deployed in Ukraine since the start of hostilities with Russia in late February.
The claim was made public by the newspaper’s senior international journalist Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the same day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an unexpected visit to Kiev. Although this information has not been officially confirmed, the British leader was reportedly accompanied by special SAS guards.
SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted, citing a French intelligence source. He went on to say that Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos, according to the source. His information was mentioned in Le Figaro’s Ukraine updates.
The French journalist who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters told broadcaster CNews that “Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground.”
The United Kingdom and the United States have been among Kiev’s most ardent military supports. Johnson is said to have personally urged his Ukrainian colleague, Volodymyr Zelensky, to continue fighting Russia until better terms are presented.
Russian Flagship “Moskva” Explodes in Black Sea off Ukraine; Reports Say it SANK
The Missile cruiser ‘Moskva’ was evacuated after fire caused an ammunition explosion, “severely damaging” the ship according to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry. Ukraine is claiming they fired two “Neptune” anti-ship Missiles at the ship causing it to explode, but this is not confirmed.
The entire crew was evacuated after an ammunition explosion caused by a fire, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement cited by Russian media on Wednesday night. The cruiser suffered “serious damage,” the Russian military said, adding that the cause of the fire was under investigation.
The Slava-class missile cruiser, launched in 1979, is armed with 16 anti-ship missiles and many more air defense missiles, torpedoes and guns. It is part of the Black Sea fleet, and has been engaged in operations off the coast of Ukraine since February.
Ukrainian officials on Wednesday evening claimed that a battery of their Neptune anti-ship missiles hidden in Odessa had successfully struck the Moskva twice, setting the cruiser ablaze. Among those making the claim were Maksim Marchenko, head of the military administration in Odessa, and Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Interior Ministry in Kiev.
They did not provide any evidence for their claims.
It was just yesterday that the Hal Turner Radio Show reported to the world via Global High Frequency radio broadcasts on WBCQ and WRMI, that NATO personnel were in Odessa with equipment that could provide precise coordinates on every ship in the Black Sea within 200km, and that the NATO targeting gear could be used to guide missiles to those ships. One day later, Russia’s Black Sea flagship has now, apparently, been hit.
According to local reports – which HAVE NOT been verified – the Moskva was in the process of changing position to go after a drone which had achieved “radar lock” upon it. That change of position seems to have placed the Moskva in the worst position imaginable as far as becoming vulnerable to a coastal launched missile strike.
Was the drone “radar lock” a NATO Drone? Was the Radar lock a way to get the ship to change position to make it ripe for missile attack?
The answers to these questions may determine whether Ukraine – or the U.S.A. – gets retaliated against by Russia. It may be that such retaliation would come with no warning . . . just like the Moskva had no warning. We are in dangerous times.
Putin‘s final warning.
PUTIN: “I am now instructing our 4 combat regions that if USA and NATO dare to provoke us (around the Black Sea) and try to hit us with even ONE guided missile then you must hit them back as hard as possible.
Hit them fiercely until they kneel down for mercy.
If they retaliate, I command you to use nuclear weapons to hit their countries.
No need to think about the consequences.
I will be solely responsible.
Your duty is just to hit them hard until they kneel down begging for mercy.
Once the war has started I want you to subdue Europe in 5 days.
No need to think… just take over the 8 capitals of Europe.
From now on our Air, Land and Navy armed forces are on full alert.
I want the world to know who is the leader of the world.
What is USA… I am telling them they will be trembling in front of us.
They have been belittling and making fun of many countries but don’t they dare to try us.
Go to hell.
My view is that if the Russians have to live under USA’s mercy then what good is there left in this world!!”
As of 7:13 PM eastern US time on Thursday, 14 April, the city of Kiev, capital of Ukraine, is being heavily bombed by the Russian Army. Video below.
No way to determine if this has anything to do with the missile strikes upon the Russian Guided Missile Frigate “Moskva” which exploded and then sank in the Black Sea last night.
UPDATE 7:21 PM EDT —
Explosions are heard near the government quarter, the Ministry of Defense and the SBU.
Powerful explosions and blackouts in Kiev.
Elsewhere now, Reports of explosions and shooting in Kharkov.
Nikolaev – explosions.
Ivano-Frankovsk (Western Ukraine) – The last oil refining plant in Ukraine is being destroyed.
A good opinion about this chain of events…
Another realistic Russian ex-mil. opinion on the post-“Moscow” situation, https://t.me/mig41/16459, (Yandex translation):
[Forwarded from A spy to whom no one writes]
Missile defeat of the cruiser "Moscow" opens a new stage of hostilities in UkraineThe priority direction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the support of NATO is the South of Ukraine in the direction of Crimea and DonbassThe situation around the attack on the cruiser "Moscow" has two dimensions: [1] military–technical and [2] public–media.The military–technical part of this situation was described most fully (https://t.me/atomiccherry/429 ) the author of the Atomic Cherry channel, I recommend reading, a bright and deep mind that rarely makes mistakes in estimates.I can add to the above only the unpreparedness of the Russian fleet for the active actions of the AFU, which lies in the weak intelligence and analytical capabilities of the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet and the Navy of Russia.After 50 days of the operation, from which half of the time we observe the increasing scale and pace of enemy activity, there is no reflection.Once again, we are faced with a critical underestimation of the capabilities of the APU.
The cruiser had no cover and acted alone, which is already quite a dangerous occupation.So far, everything suggests that the ship was hit during a combined attack involving a UAV and the Ukrainian Neptune missile defense system with direct support from NATO (primarily in reconnaissance and targeting).It is difficult to say what chances the ship had without cover with outdated radar and air defense in such conditions.In the general picture of what happened , two points are of interest:1. Did NATO reconnaissance aircraft take part (https://t.me/atomiccherry/430 )in the continuous illumination of the target, or only gave the exact coordinates.
The first option already speaks of the direct participation of the British Air Force in a military operation against the missile cruiser "Moscow".2. Whether the Turkish Bayraktar UAVs were used in the attack on the ship. It may also dramatically lower the degree of Turkey's relations with Russia.Once again, we have received a painful lesson in competent and clear planning of the operation, unified and effective management of forces and means, which is critically lacking in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.The media and public reflection is extremely surprising.
The media are trying to explain Ukraine's success with some kind of NATO miracle weapon, missiles that were able to magically hit the ship.This cargo cult, the magical perception of war, takes society even further away from reality.Russia has suffered a serious symbolic and military defeat.And if the loss of the first large ship (BDK, in Berdyansk) could be written off as an accident, then the loss of the second is already a pattern that speaks of a dangerous underestimation of the enemy.What conclusions and forecasts can we come to at the moment:1. The naval blockade of Ukrainian ports is under threat. The Black Sea Fleet, due to its small size, cannot continue to lose (surface) ships. We need to look for other means to keep the coast and Ukrainian ports under control.2. Attacks on the Black Sea Fleet will continue, primarily by the forces of the NSM PKR, whose range (up to 200 km) allows hitting ships of the Black Sea Fleet almost throughout the Black Sea, including the coast of Crimea.
The Black Sea Fleet will be squeezed out of the Black Sea to the coast of the peninsula.3. The main direction of the APU offensive is the South of Ukraine – Kherson and Mykolaiv region.
Britain has repeatedly made it clear that the Black Sea ports of Ukraine, primarily Odessa, have strategic value for them.Donbass is also being strengthened as an instrument of depletion of Russian and allied forces. The AFU grouping, which has been strengthening for seven years, is far from exhaustion.4. The second center of forces is the Dnipropetrovsk region, as the political center of the South, which connects all the surrounding regions.5. Crimea becomes a priority target of the AFU and NATO operations. This confirms the Pentagon's "bold" statement that the United States will provide Kiev with intelligence information on targets in the Crimea and Donbas.Not only the Black Sea Fleet will be hit, but also the objects and forces of the Crimean ground group.
It is critically important for the AFU to paralyze the logistics and replenishment of the "southern" grouping of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation operating from Kherson. @genshab
So my prediction from the other thread looks to be right after all.
Posted by: Boo | Apr 14 2022
Capture of US army major general
All evidence points to the United States directly involved in the war in the Ukraine against Russia.
Eventually, it will point to direct involvement of the United States directly involved in Taiwan Against China.
Right now, the situation is clear. Mainstream media “news” can say whatever it wants, but the facts are clear to Russia. And thus to China, and the rest of the world. There was information that the representative of the high command of the US ground forces, Lieutenant General Roger Cloutier was captured in Mariupol and is already in Moscow
The United States is in a hot kinetic war against Russia.
The analysis of documents relating to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine continues.
Briefing by the Chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation , Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov 04/14/2022.
" Thanks to the special military operation of the Russian troops, it was possible to obtain additional information about the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine, confirming numerous violations of the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons (BTWC).
Taking advantage of existing gaps in international legislation and the absence of a clear verification mechanism, the US administration is consistently building up its military biological potential in various regions of the world.The Russian Federation is constantly making efforts to create a mechanism for verifying compliance with the BTWC, but this initiative has been consistently blocked by the collective West led by the United States since 2001.The existing Mechanism of the UN Secretary-General to investigate the alleged use of biological and toxin weapons, as well as the Geneva Protocol of 1925 on the prohibition of the use of asphyxiating, poisonous and other similar gases and bacteriological agents in wars and military conflicts, do not cover the verification of the biological activities of participating States. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague, also has no such authority.Earlier, we presented a scheme for coordinating the activities of biological laboratories and research institutes in Ukraine by the United States.One of its elements is the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center (UNTC), a seemingly non-public organization that has nothing to do with the Pentagon.The Russian Ministry of Defense managed to reveal its role in the US military-biological activities on the territory of Ukraine.In accordance with the statutory documents, the STCU is an international intergovernmental organization created with the aim of "...preventing the dissemination of knowledge and experience related to weapons of mass destruction ...".Its legal status is determined by the Agreement of October 25, 1993, which was concluded between the governments of Ukraine, Canada, the USA and Sweden, as well as the Amendment Protocol of July 7, 1997.The STCU is headquartered in Kyiv and has regional offices in Baku, Chisinau and Tbilisi, as well as Kharkov and Lvov.At the same time, the Expert Center for Chemical and Biological Threats of the Russian Ministry of Defense established that the main activity of the STCU is to act as a distribution center for grants for conducting research of interest to the Pentagon, including in the field of biological weapons.In recent years alone, Washington has spent more than $350 million on the implementation of STCU projects.The US Department of State and the Ministry of Defense are US customers and sponsors of the STCU. Funding is also provided through the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Agriculture, Health and Energy.Also, pay attention to the document prepared by the STCU curators dated March 11, 2022, which highlights the true nature of the activities of this organization. It notes:
“... there is an outflow of scientific experts in the development of delivery vehicles and modern weapons who worked at Ukrainian institutions, as well as experts in the development of biological, radiological, chemical and nuclear weapons. The most trained specialists with experience in working with dual-use materials and technologies (there are from 1,000 to 4,000 of them) found themselves in unfavorable professional and financial circumstances. This makes them vulnerable to going over to the side of other states to participate in programs for the development of WMD, delivery vehicles and other weapons…”.Using such formulations, Washington actually recognizes the work carried out by Ukrainian experts on the creation of means for the delivery and use of weapons of mass destruction and considers it appropriate to continue their financing.I will give the names of officials who were involved in the implementation of military biological programs.The post of Executive Director of the STCU is held by US citizen Curtis Belayach. Born August 27, 1968 in California, studied at the California University of Management named after Anderson. He has a master's degree in international finance and has been working in Ukraine since 1994.Eddie Arthur Mayer is the Chairman of the Board of the STCU from the European Union, and Phil Dolliff from the US is in charge of the work of the center, who holds the position of Deputy Advisor to the Secretary on International Security and Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs in the State Department.Documents received by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation confirm the connection of the STCU with the American military department. The slide shows the official recommendation of the US Department of State, endorsing the cooperation of the STCU with the Pentagon's main contractor, Black & Veatch. The correspondence expresses the readiness of the vice-president of this company, Matthew Webber, to work with the STCU in the framework of ongoing military biological research on the territory of Ukraine.In the period from 2014 to 2022, the Ukrainian Science and Technology Center in the post-Soviet countries (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan) implemented more than 500 research projects.The American curators were primarily interested in dual-use research, for example, project 6166 "Development of technologies for modeling, assessing and predicting the impact of conflicts and threats of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction", project 9601 "Transfer of Ukrainian technologies for the production of complex dual-use materials to the European Union".Many of them are aimed at studying potential agents of biological weapons (plague, tularemia) and pathogens of economically significant infections (pathogenic avian influenza, African swine fever).Directly in the interests of the military department, the Center financed projects P-364, 444, and 781, aimed at studying the spread of pathogens of dangerous infections through insect vectors, wild birds, and bats.Pay attention to the documents of the project 3007 "Monitoring of the epidemiological and environmental situation regarding dangerous waterborne diseases in Ukraine".During the work, Ukrainian specialists, under the supervision of American scientists, systematically took water samples in a number of large rivers of Ukraine, including the Dnieper, Danube, Dniester, as well as in the North Crimean Canal, in order to establish the presence of especially dangerous pathogens, including pathogens of cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis A and E, and draw conclusions about the possibility of their distribution by water.As part of the project, the damaging properties of the selected samples were assessed, and the strains themselves were deposited in the collection and subsequently exported to the United States.Here is a map of Ukraine's water resources. Its analysis shows that the results of the work carried out can be used to create an unfavorable biological environment not only on the territory of the Russian Federation, but also in the waters of the Black and Azov Seas, as well as in the countries of Eastern Europe - Belarus, Moldova, Poland.Our concern about Washington's activities in Ukraine stems from the fact that, contrary to its international obligations, the United States has retained in its national legislation the norms that allow for work in the field of biological weapons.The ratification of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 by the United States was accompanied by a number of reservations, one of which allows for the retaliatory use of chemical and toxin weapons.Under the U.S. United States United and United Against Terrorism Federal Act, biological weapons research is permitted with the approval of the U.S. government. Participants in such research are not subject to criminal liability for the development of such weapons.Thus, the American administration in this area implements the principle of priority of domestic legislation over international ones. The most ethically controversial studies are conducted outside national jurisdictions.Thus, during a special operation on the territory of Ukraine, it was established that in the period from 2019 to 2021, American scientists from a laboratory in the city of Merefa (Kharkiv region) tested potentially dangerous biological drugs on patients of the regional clinical psychiatric hospital No. 3 in the city of Kharkov.Individuals with mental disorders were selected for experiments based on their age, nationality and immune status. On special forms, the result of round-the-clock monitoring of the condition of patients was taken into account. Information was not entered into the database of the hospital, the staff of the medical institution signed a non-disclosure agreement.In January 2022, the activity of the laboratory in Merefa was stopped, all equipment and preparations were taken to the west of Ukraine.There are testimonies from a number of witnesses to these inhuman experiments, whose names we cannot disclose in the interests of ensuring their safety.In conclusion, at one of the previous briefings, we described a technical device for the delivery and application of biological formulations, which was patented in the United States.At the same time, it was noted that Ukraine sent a request to the manufacturing company about the possibility of equipping Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles with attached aerosol equipment.It is a matter of concern that on March 9, in the territory of the Kherson region, reconnaissance units of the Russian troops discovered three unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with 30-liter containers and equipment for spraying bioweapon recipes.According to available data, in January 2022, Ukraine purchased more than 50 such devices through intermediary organizations, which can be used to apply biological formulations and toxic chemicals.We continue to analyze documentary evidence of the crimes of the American administration and the Kiev regime on the territory of Ukraine ."
Please check what Project 3007 is. Today in Russia it was reported that it was a Ukrainian project of infecting people with biological weapons by water, i.e. in the waters of the Black Sea. It was also reported that in the psychiatric clinic of Kharkov, experiments were carried out on people by American scientists using biological pathogens.
-Irina
The government released the latest inflation data and the results were the worst we have seen in forty years. The retail number came in at 8.4% and the wholesale number clocked in at 11.2%. Of course, the retail number excludes the things that people buy, like food, fuel and housing. These numbers also rely upon the new math rather than old math used the last time inflation was an issue. By the old inflation standard, retail inflation is over 15%.
The political class is poleaxed by these numbers as they have been assured that inflation at these levels was impossible. Modern economic theory says that inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. We now have top men in place to keep an eye out for this. They just need to manage the money supply to keep inflation under control. This assumption led the top men to assume inflation was transitory, the result of supply chain issues.
That should be the first red flag when looking at the economic data. Those top men that are supposed to have a handle on the money supply say they are as surprised as the rest of us that food has doubled in price. A month ago, they were talking about a series of exceedingly small rate hikes. Now they are talking about a series of substantial rate hikes to prevent inflation from going even higher. You get the sense that there is both panic and confusion among those top men.
One reason for this is the long period of historically low interest rates. What the Federal Reserve did forty years ago to tame inflation was remove money from the system by raising borrowing rates. The real creators of money are the banks, who create money through lending. By raising their cost of money creation, they create less money and the result is fewer dollars chasing goods. At its peak in 1980 the 10-year Treasury was going for 15% versus 2% currently.
In other words, getting rates back into the normal range means three or four times the current rates. The world is simply not prepared for such a thing. Think about what happens to the real estate market if rates simply double. Refinancing comes to an end and homes sales collapse. No one is trading out of their home with the 3% mortgage into a home with a 5% mortgage, at least not on purpose. This would be the new reality throughout the financial world.
The other problem with this approach is the massive government debt. The way government handles debt is not like normal people. They issue bonds, pay the holder interest, but never pay them off. Instead, they issue new bonds to pay off the old bonds and the cycle begins anew. Rolling debt like this works as long as the market for new debt looks like the market for old debt. If the Federal government has to start borrowing at two or three times the old rate, it is big trouble.
The other way the Federal reserve can tackle inflation is to sell its massive holdings of equities, treasuries and other assets. The latest balance sheet from the Fed says they are holding about $8 Trillion in assets. They can begin selling which removes cash from the system. Keep in mind that the value of the S&P 500 is about the same as the Fed balance sheet, so this is a powerful option. They added about a trillion in equities during Covid as a way to juice the markets.
Of course, this is not without consequences. If they liquidate that trillion in equities, they hoovered up during Covid, the market will go down. The tens of millions of retired people living on their investments will not be pleased. If they liquidate some of their $4 trillion in treasuries, those assets will lose value, which means the cost of borrowing by the government goes up. This is why monetizing the debt is like eating the seed corn during tough times.
Another problem for the Fed is the politicians have started a global economic war against the majority of the earth’s population. Exporting excess dollars to places like China, India and Russia is no longer possible. In fact, dollars are starting to come back to America in response to sanctions. When Washington declared war on the globe, the globe declared war on the dollar. At least in the short term, exporting extra dollars to the rest of the world is not a viable option.
This is why there is panic in Washington. Biden’s official approval rate is 40% and Congress has an approval rate of 20%. Now they are faced with grim choices that promise to be very unpopular. They can support a war on inflation that will result in a deep recession or they can let inflation rob the public. Worse yet, it is not all that clear the Fed can wage an effective war on inflation. Like a bug trapped in the spider’s web, they have nothing left but panic.
While the suffering of the political class brings joy to most everyone, this means normal people are going to suffer for an extended period. The gap between wholesale inflation and retail inflation says prices will keep rising. The war on the world will also put pressure on commodities like energy and fertilizer. That will put upward pressure on prices at all levels. Wages are not keeping pace, which means everyone is getting poorer by the minute.
When Joe Biden ran for office, he promised a long dark winter. Most people assumed he flubbed his lines, but it turns out he was telling the truth. The long dark winter of mismanagement and manufactured crisis now promises to extend into the summer and autumn. Worse yet, the people who created this mess are now tasked with solving it. It looks like the label for the Joe Biden regime will be the long dark winter of American decline.
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Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
It’s an easy question, actually. Over the last few weeks, the World has polarized into two halves.
One side “The West” is uni-polar. They want the world ruled by the United States; a “rules based order”; it’s a world where the United States makes the rules and the changes them as it sees fit. Those in this camp consist of North America, Europe, and Australia / Japan.
The other side; “The East” is multi-polar. It follows the rules set forth by the UN; the community of nations. Russia, China, India, and most of Asia, including Africa, and South America fall into this camp. They believe that all nations, and all societies are equal, and that no singular nation, or block of nations, should determine the course of human societal evolution.
This situation could well exist for some time.
The only way for it to end would be for the complete collapse and annihilation of the United States. That’s probably not going to happen. (Well, unless the American leadership are so absolutely incompetent that they allow it to happen. Which is, after all, a realistic possibility.)
So we have a world divided into two halves, and a mighty “cold war” is starting to emerge. This currently includes energy, soon to include currency. but should eventually result in trade as well. And at that, the West, will probably suffer dearly.
As everything that The Westuses and consumes comes from The East.
The West, ruled by the United States, will continue to make and break rules as it deems fit. The fact is that the United States has been flaunting the resolutions by the UN for many decades. And this codification into a formalized “The West” will be the death blow to that organization; the UN. It will become superannuated by the nations of the West. For, after all, all the member states in the West are proxy nations.
Out of practicality, aside from eventual necessity, the UN will need to move in one of the geographical regions of The East. It is, after all, a most logical conclusion. In fact, the 4FEB22 joint declaration of Russia and China during the Winter Olympics precisely alluded to exactly this; a New reborn UN.
This article discusses that.
But before we get too involved here in these details, let’s throw in some contemporaneous pockets of “news”, some pretty girls, some cats, food, and other subjects as well. A fine smorgasbord of topics. They all really do a fine, fine job in messing up the computer algorithms that assign trolls, ‘bots, and attacks on the MM website. I’ve got to tell youse guys, I mean, it drops to ZERO.
My life has never been so easy.
I’ll tell you what.
Peter has some things to say…
Russia has the world’s largest land mass with all the wealth in the ground and all the water they need who can grow more food than they can ever eat and armed to the teeth to repel any brain-f*cked dickweed that thinks they can dictate their will to Mother Russia because of economic sanctions.
What a joke! Why would a country like Russia need paper lies from the Empire of Lies to prove that they have a good economy?
If China had what Russia has, China would have told the Empire to go stick their head up their butt long ago. But that day is coming sooner than later. When the Dollar Hegemony goes, the world will have peace.
By the way, I don’t see any pundits noting that the current geopolitical situation is highly favorable to China.
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1. China is “hands off”. While the fight with Russia is ongoing, no one wants to start a second front with China, empty threats notwithstanding. Hence, all quiet on the eastern front.
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2. Lies will be exposed. The lies of the Western politicians and Western mainstream media will be exposed when Putin’s boys burn the Neo-Nazis as an offering to the souls of those who had died in the struggle against the German Nazis. That’s when the lapdogs realize they better not pin their hopes on the Empire of Lies.
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3. New Economic structures. Any country with a foreign reserve needs to figure out how to protect its assets from being taken by a lawless overlord. People should learn by now if they hadn’t known before that you do not own anything you cannot defend or hide. By this time, almost everyone must realize that the USD will be going down. It’s time to get on a lifeboat. Thanks to the Empire, which is exposing its own lies.
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4. A lesson for Taiwan. The destruction of Ukraine, as unfortunate as it will be unless a surrender is forthcoming, is an object lesson for the Taiwanese authorities. While China would not want to, nor would it need to take such a drastic military action in Taiwan, the threat of doing so is very potent. Taiwan is also an island; people have nowhere to go. China is in a very advantageous position to press for unification negotiations. There are more and more people in Taiwan wanting to start unification negotiations.
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5. China and India are together. Wonders of wonders, China and India find themselves on the same front, defending Russia against the Empire of Lies. All those virulently anti-China channels from India have turned around and directed their vitriol against the Empire. Sure is fun to watch.
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6. China the peacemaker. Eventually, China will have to be a guarantor of peace for the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Empire of Lies and its lapdogs have shot their wad. Why should anyone trust them?
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7. China will help rebuild Ukraine. The West, seeing that they won’t be selling weapons to Ukraine, will walk away. Good riddance!
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PM
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Princess Bride – Battle of Wits
This classic scene is from the 1980s movie “The Princess Bride”. It is well worth watching.
Stuffed Peppers
One of my all-time favorites. It’s also something that can only come from the household kitchens. Yum! Stuffed peppers with ground beef and rice are topped with a seasoned tomato sauce. Making classic stuffed bell peppers is easier than you think. You’ll find the full recipe below, but here’s a brief overview of what you can expect:
Stuffed Peppers.
Prepare the Rice and Beef
Cook rice until tender in a covered saucepan. Meanwhile, cook ground beef in a skillet until browned and crumbly.
Stuff the Peppers
Hollow the bell peppers by cutting off the tops and scooping out the seeds and membranes. Arrange the peppers in a single layer in a baking dish. Stuff the peppers with a prepared filling of rice, ground beef, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Top each filled pepper with a mixture of tomato sauce and Italian seasoning.
Bake
Bake until the peppers are tender, basting with sauce every 15 minutes.
How Long to Cook Stuffed Peppers
These stuffed peppers use cooked ground beef, so they should be fully baked within an hour. You’ll know they’re done when the peppers are tender. The whole recipe, including prep time, should come together in about 90 minutes.
How to Store Stuffed Peppers
Store leftover stuffed peppers in an airtight container in the fridge for three to five days. Make sure they’re completely cooled before storing to slow bacteria growth.
Can You Freeze Stuffed Pepper?
Yes! You can freeze stuffed peppers — and you should if you don’t plan to eat them within five days. Frozen stuffed peppers taste great when thawed and reheated, so this is a great way to meal prep. To freeze baked stuffed peppers: Wrap each completely-cooled stuffed pepper individually in storage wrap, then follow it with a layer of aluminum foil. Store the peppers in the freezer for up to three months.
Thaw frozen stuffed peppers in the fridge overnight. Reheat them in the oven at 350 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until heated through.
2022 04 11 11 30
Japan pushes India to denounce Russia — RT World News
India has come under increased Western pressure to distance itself from Moscow and sever its economic ties, after it abstained from a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's military action in Ukraine, choosing instead to remain neutral alongside China, Pakistan, South Africa, and 30 other countries.
India is also facing criticism for buying Russian oil, available at discounted prices as some countries have been avoiding it in fear of retaliatory sanctions from the US. The Indian government, however, has reportedly adopted a pragmatic approach and was “exploring all possibilities” to ensure the country's own energy security.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, with a stated goal to “demilitarize and denazify” its government, ensuring that its NATO membership aspirations no longer pose a threat to either Russia or the newly recognized Donbass republics, which have suffered seven years of siege by Kiev forces. The US and its allies have accused Russia of starting an “unprovoked” invasion to occupy Ukraine.
It should be located inside one of the major nations of The East. That goes without saying. If you look at things from this perspective, a number of candidates present themselves…
China (Manufacturing & Technology hub)
Russia (Resource hub)
India (Population and technology hub)
Iran (Oil and Energy hub)
Kazakhstan (BRI hub)
Brazil (South American hub)
South Africa (African hub)
Most people would “knee-jerk response that China would be the location, but I argue “not so fast”. If there was one singular location, then yes, China makes sense. However, the impression that I am getting is that United Nations Part Two might be more “mobile”. Perhaps periodically cycling between hosing nations. Much like the Olympics are today.
Yes. Indeed, it’s a new world that is evolving and manifesting. And the ways of the old are falling away to the wayside like the skin of a dinosaur-sized snake.
How old are you?
limewire laffy taffy kids dont get
TWICE “SCIENTIST” Choreography Video (Moving Ver.)
Yes. The West is undergoing collapse. But the East is doing just fine. Here is the latest video that my little daughter is learning the dance moves to. It’s pretty representative of the mood in Asia these days.
China makes semi-secret delivery of missiles to Serbia
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Russian ally Serbia took the delivery of a sophisticated Chinese anti-aircraft system in a veiled operation this weekend, amid Western concerns that an arms buildup in the Balkans at the time of the war in Ukraine could threaten the fragile peace in the region.
Media and military experts said Sunday that six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes landed at Belgrade’s civilian airport early Saturday, reportedly carrying HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems for the Serbian military.
The Chinese cargo planes with military markings were pictured at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Serbia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment.
The arms delivery over the territory of at least two NATO member states, Turkey and Bulgaria, was seen by experts as a demonstration of China’s growing global reach.
“The Y-20s’ appearance raised eyebrows because they flew en masse as opposed to a series of single-aircraft flights,” wrote The Warzone online magazine. “The Y-20′s presence in Europe in any numbers is also still a fairly new development.”
Serbian military analyst Aleksandar Radic said that “the Chinese carried out their demonstration of force.”
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated.
By now it’s abundantly clear that the neo-Orwellian “Two Minute Hate” Russophobic campaign launched by the Empire of Lies after the start of Operation Z is actually “24/7 Hate”.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated. The full psyops has de facto upgraded the Empire of Lies to the status of Empire of Hate in a Total War – hybrid and otherwise – to cancel Russia.
Hate, after all, packs way more punch than mere lies, which are now veering into abject ridiculousness, as in U.S. “intelligence” resorting to – what else – lies to fight the info war against Russia.
If the propaganda overdrive has been lethally effective amidst the zombified Western masses – call it a “win” in the P.R. war – in the front where it really matters, inside Russia, it’s a major fail.
Public opinion support for both Operation Z and President Putin is unprecedented. After videos of torture of Russian POWs that caused widespread revulsion, Russian civil society is even bracing for a “Long War” lasting months, not weeks, as long as the targets of the Russian High Command – actually a military secret – are met.
The stated aims are “demilitarization” and “denazification” of a future neutral Ukraine – but geopolitically reach way beyond: the aim is to turn the post-1945 European collective security arrangement upside down, forcing NATO to understand and come to terms with the concept of “indivisible security”. This is an extremely complex process that will reach the next decade.
The NATOstan sphere simply cannot admit in public a series of facts that a military analyst of the caliber of Andrei Martyanov has been explaining for years. And that adds to their collective pain.
Russia can take on NATO and smash it to bits in 48 hours. It may employ advanced strategic deterrence systems unmatched across the West. Its southern axis – from the Caucasus and West Asia to Central Asia – is fully stabilized. And if the going gets really tough, Mr. Zircon can deliver his hypersonic nuclear business card with the other side not even knowing what hit it.
“Europe has chosen its fate”
It may be enlightening to see how these complex processes are interpreted by Russians – whose points of view are now completely blocked across NATOstan.
Let’s take two examples. The first is Lieutenant General L.P. Reshetnikov, in an analytical note examining facts of the ground war.
Some key takeaways:
– “Over Romania and Poland there are airborne early warning aircraft of NATO with experienced crews, there are U.S. intelligence satellites in the sky all the time. I remind you that just in terms of budgets for our Roscosmos we allocated $2.5 billion a year, the civil budget of NASA is $25 billion, the civil budget of SpaceX alone is equal to Roscosmos – and that is not counting the tens of billions of dollars annually for the entire U.S. feverishly unfolding the control system of the entire planet.”
– The war is unfolding according to “NATO’s eyes and brains. The Ukronazis are nothing but free controlled zombies. And the Ukrainian army is a remotely controlled zombie organism.”
– “The tactics and strategy of this war will be the subject of textbooks for military academies around the world. Once again: the Russian army is smashing a Nazi zombie organism, fully integrated with the eyes and brain of NATO.”
Now let’s switch to Oleg Makarenko, who focuses on the Big Picture.
– “The West considers itself ‘the whole world’ only because it has not yet received a sufficiently sensitive punch on the nose. It just so happened that Russia is now giving him this click: with the rear support of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And the West can do absolutely nothing with us, since it also lags behind us in terms of the number of nuclear warheads.”
– “Europe has chosen its fate. And chose fate for Russia. What you are seeing now is the death of Europe. Even if it does not come to nuclear strikes on industrial centers, Europe is doomed. In a situation where European industry is left without cheap Russian energy sources and raw materials – and China will begin to receive these same energy carriers and raw materials at a discount, there can be no talk of any real competition with China from Europe. As a result, literally everything will collapse there – after industry, agriculture will collapse, welfare and social security will collapse, hunger, banditry and chaos will begin.”
It’s fair to consider Reshetnikov and Makarenko as faithfully representing the overall Russian sentiment, which interprets the crude Bucha false flag as a cover to obscure the Ukrainian army torture of Russian POWs.
And, deeper still, Bucha allowed the disappearance of Pentagon bioweapon labs from the Western mediasphere, complete with its ramifications: evidence of a concerted American drive to ultimately deploy real weapons of mass destruction against Russia.
The multi-level Bucha hoax had to include the Brit presidency of the UN Security Council actually blocking a serious discussion, a day before the Russian Ministry of Defense struggled to present to the UN – predictably minus the U.S. and the UK – all the bioweapon facts they have unearthed in Ukraine. The Chinese were horrified by the findings.
The Russian Investigative Committee at least persists in its work, with 100 researchers unearthing evidence of war crimes across Donbass to be presented at a tribunal in the near future, most probably set up in Donetsk.
And that brings us back to the facts on the ground. There’s a lot of analytical discussion on the possible endgame of Operation Z. A fair assessment would include the liberation of all of Novorossiya and total control of the Black Sea coastline that currently is part of Ukraine.
“Ukraine” in fact was never a state; it was always an annex to another state or empire such as Poland, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and crucially Russia.
The landmark Russian state was Kievan Rus. “Ukraine”, in old Russian, means “border region”. In the past, it referred to the westernmost regions of the Russian Empire. When the Empire started expanding south, the new regions annexed mostly from Turkish rule were called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) and the northeastern regions, Malorossiya (“Little Russia”).
It was up to the USSR in the early 1920s to jumble it all together and name it “Ukraine” – adding Galicia in the west, which was historically non-Russian.
Yet the key development is when the USSR broke up in 1991. As the Empire of Lies de facto controlled post-Soviet Russia, they could never have possibly allowed the real Russian regions of the USSR – that is, Novorossiya and Malorossiya – to be again incorporated to the Russian Federation.
Russia is now re-incorporating them – in an “I Did It, My Way” manner.
Vamos a bailar in European Puerto Rico
By now it’s also quite clear to any serious geopolitical analysis that Operation Z opened a Pandora’s box. And the supreme historical victim of all the toxicity finally let loose is bound to be Europe.
The indispensable Michael Hudson, in a new essay on the U.S. dollar devouring the euro, argues half in jest that Europe might as well surrender its currency, and go on like “a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico.”
After all, Europe “has pretty much ceased to be a politically independent state, it is beginning to look more like Panama and Liberia – ‘flag of convenience’ offshore banking centers that are not real ‘states’ because they don’t issue their own currency, but use the U.S. dollar.”
In synch with quite a few Russian, Chinese and Iranian analysts, Hudson advances that the war in Ukraine – actually in its “full-blown version as the New Cold War” – is likely to last “at least a decade, perhaps two as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism [meaning the Chinese system] to encompass a worldwide conflict.”
What may be seriously in dispute is whether the U.S., after “the economic conquest of Europe”, will be able to “lock in African, South American and Asian countries”. The Eurasia integration process, rolling in earnest for 10 years now, conducted by the Russia-China strategic partnership and expanding to most of the Global South, will go no holds barred to prevent it.
There’s no question, as Hudson states, that “the world economy is being enflamed” – with the U.S. weaponizing trade. Yet on the Right Side of History we have the Rublegas, the petroyuan, the new monetary/financial system being designed in a partnership between the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China.
And that’s something no puny Cancel Culture War can erase.
Let’s see how old you actually are…
cassette tape pen pencil
China calls for ‘objective’ analysis of Russia’s claims about US biolabs in Ukraine
A “fair, objective and professional” assessment is needed for the materials Moscow has provided, the Chinese Foreign Ministry says
The international community should provide a “fair, objective and professional” assessment of Russia’s allegations regarding alleged US military laboratories in Ukraine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
In March, Russia shared evidence obtained from laboratories across Ukraine that apparently confirms that Pentagon-funded labs were working on “biological weapons components,” and may have been connected to suspicious outbreaks of dirofilariasis, tuberculosis, and avian flu over the past several years.
According to the latest data revealed by military spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov on March 30, Kiev was planning to use drones to deploy pathogens against the Donbass republics, as well as Russia itself.
Speaking at a regular press briefing on Friday, Zhao said the US has still not come up with a “constructive response” to Russia’s statements, and called on the international community to give serious consideration to Moscow’s claims.
He said, as quoted by TASS, that China
“would welcome a fair, objective and professional assessment by the international community of the documents provided by Russia on the basis of the UN mechanisms and the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.”
China has consistently encouraged the US to make public all information about its biolabs. Two weeks ago, China’s permanent representative to the UN, Zhang Jun, told the UN Security Council that following the revelation by Russia of the newly discovered documents,
“the party concerned should respond to questions, and offer timely and comprehensive clarifications to remove the doubts of the international community.”
Several days prior to that, Beijing disclosed for the first time the alleged number of US-controlled biolabs.
Saying that laboratories in Ukraine are just the
“tip of an iceberg,” Zhao revealed that the Pentagon “controls 336 biological laboratories in 30 countries around the world.”
Noting that the US
“has been exclusively obstructing”
the establishment of an independent verification mechanism, the Foreign Ministry spokesman called on the US to
“publish the relevant details as soon as possible, including which viruses are stored and which research has been carried out.”
The US has long claimed that allegations about military-funded biolaboratories in Ukraine are ‘Russian disinformation’.
In March, however, US diplomat Victoria Nuland testified before the Senate that
“biological research laboratories in Ukraine”
did exist, and that Washington was working with Kiev
“to ensure that the materials of biological research do not fall into the hands of Russian forces.”
How you know you are getting old…
home alone mortgage kids dont get
John Lear In Memoriam, 1942-2022 (80 yrs)
John Lear died this year. He was an active member of the UFO community, and was instrumental in providing substance to a story, that was up until then, was peopled with Grade B science-fiction fantasies. He got many things wrong, but he was spot on in regards to United States involvement in the extraterrestial “issue”.
Lear passed away in his sleep Tuesday night [March 29, 2022] at his Las Vegas home, according to his daughter Allison. Lear is the son of Bill Lear, who developed the Lear Jet.
Here is an interview that he had that I was able to collect. Please enjoy.
John Lear, a distinguished pilot and ufologist, discusses specific encounters with UFOs in an interview with investigative journalist George Knapp. Lear discusses alleged abductions by UFOs and government coverups of UFO encounters. This is an episode of On The Record, a 30 minute TV show broadcast on KLAS TV in Las Vegas in 1987.
George Knapp: Hello and welcome to On The Record. Flying saucers, extraterrestrials, monsters from outer space. The government has been telling us for years that they’re not real. They’re weather balloons or swamp gas or reflections from the sun or the ravings of lunatics. But serious UFO researchers say a breakthrough may be very close. Some of the government scientists who worked on the top-secret Project Blue Book are ready to talk. What’s more, a series of revealing government documents have trickled out of the federal files, documents that paint a much different picture of the UFO phenomenon. One of the most dedicated UFO researchers lives right here in Las Vegas. His name is John Lear, and he is my guest today. Mr. Lear, thanks for being here.
John Lear: Okay George.
Knapp: To begin with, you’re a pilot, an airline pilot, captain, you have held 17 different world speed records at one time or another. You’re a member of the famous Lear family that all Nevadans are pretty much familiar with, a former State Senate candidate. You don’t sound like the kind of guy who would get hooked up in something that a lot of people would say as a bunch of nonsense.
Lear: No, it’s just by coincidence that I got really interested in this about two years ago. My father saw a UFO and my brother did, and they were very interested, but there was really no proof as far as I was concerned to really look into it until about two years ago.
Knapp: Your father and brother saw them. Can you give details?
Lear: My brother saw one when he was flying a P-38 from Phoenix to Los Angeles at night. It just appeared in front of them. He made two turns, 90 degree turns, it stayed in front of him and then disappeared, and my father was flying at night, I believe over the Arizona desert and saw one too.
Knapp: So you started, you got an interest because of the other members of your family. How did you start out?
Lear: I had an interest but there was really nothing I could put my finger on. And like I say, two years ago, a friend of mine came through town, we had flown in Southeast Asia together and he was retiring from the Air Force. He came over and we started talking about where he had been for the last 15 years and he mentioned that he had been stationed at Bentwaters (Royal Air Force Base) and I said, oh, Bentwaters, that’s where the flying saucer supposedly was in 1980. He said, “No, John, not supposedly. It was,” he said. “I don’t care if you believe me or not, it landed. I didn’t see it because we were confined to quarters. But I know people who did and I’ll give you the names and if you ever see them, tell them you know me, and they’ll tell you the whole story.” Since then, I ran into one of the security police, who was within 10 feet of the saucer and actually saw the three aliens get out and go up to General Gordon Williams, who was the Wing Commander at that time.
Knapp: There was quite a bit of documentation regarding this Bentwater incident. Why don’t you go into that a little bit?
Lear: There’s the Colonel (Charles) Halt memo that came out under the Freedom of Information Act, and it told about the mysterious lights and beaming down and everything that happened in the forest, except the actual alien landings, that wasn’t in the memo. There was also the tape Colonel Halt tape, forest tape, that he made over a period of eight hours. And there’s a 20-minute segment that we’ve been able to get a hold of that you can hear him running through the forest and, and being worried saying the thing’s after us.
Knapp: Now why do you suppose that hasn’t come out? I mean, this particular incident. Why hasn’t it come out if so many people, and you’ve told me about this before, have seen it, or seen these aliens? Why haven’t some of them come forward?
Lear: A lot of them have come forward, but they’re just not getting any press. It’s something that people just don’t want to deal with. The press doesn’t want to deal with and people aren’t going to listen to something unless Dan Rather or any of your big press people are going to tell them about it and they’re just too spooked. The Air Force has made an art form of ridiculing people who have talked about this thing. They’ve done an excellent job of covering it up for the last 40 years. George basically what we’re dealing with here is, I’ll give you the bottom line.
Knapp: Okay, I want to hear your thesis.
Lear: I’m not trying to sell a book and then trying to promote a lecture. This is based on what I’ve come across after intense research in the last year. And I have found out that the government has retrieved between 10 and 15 actual flying saucers, three of which have been in perfect condition, one of which they tried to fly. They have between 30 and 50 alien bodies in cryogenic storage. We even have the name of the person whose job it is to show these bodies to the heads of state and the people who are authorized to see them. They represent at least five different civilizations.
Knapp: I can’t imagine Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw, if that were to come to their attention, a story of that magnitude, that they wouldn’t do something with it.
Lear: Well, I can’t I can’t answer that question. I don’t know why they don’t do it. There certainly is enough evidence based on what I’ve looked at. For instance, the Linda Moulton Howe documentary in Denver for the CBS affiliate there called A Strange Harvest. Since 1975 to 1980 when she made the documentary, there’s at least 9,000 cattle mutilations. Now, the government said that the mutilations were normal, your desert predator did these. But they weren’t. They were mutilations.
Knapp: I think we have a picture of these somewhere. Maybe we can see that as you’re talking. Well, that’s the next picture. There we are.
Lear: This is the mutilation New Mexico State Police did the research, or the investigation on, and they cut out certain parts. The cut was made with a laser beam far sharper than anything we have. As a matter of fact, they were able to determine that they cut between the cells and didn’t cut the cells themselves. We presently don’t have this kind of technology.
Knapp: Well, we don’t know that we have this kind of technology, or you and I don’t know that we don’t, but that doesn’t prove necessarily that it’s ET.
Lear: No, except that there’s usually a visual sighting of a flying saucer or a light, a strange light, at each one of these sightings.
Knapp: Okay, you mentioned the saucers and the bodies. Now what kind of proof do you have that that is true? How do you know that?
Lear: Well, let me take a look. Let me read to your first what the Air Force says about the bodies. First of all, I’m going to read from the introductory space science Volume Two Department of Physics, United States Air Force. This is Chapter 13, Unidentified Flying Objects. Now this is what the Air Force has the students at the Air Force Academy read and it says, “The most commonly described alien is about three and a half feet tall, has a round head, arms reaching to or below his knees and is wearing a silvery spacesuit or coveralls. Other aliens appear to be essentially the same as Earth men, while still others have particularly wide wraparound eyes, and mouths with very thin lips. And there was a rare group reported to be about four feet tall, weight of around 35 pounds and covered with thick hair for clothing. Members of this last group are described as being extremely strong.” Now I’m not making this up. This is an Air Force, you can pick out an Air Force physics book and read this stuff. At the end of the chapter, they go on to say, this leads us to believe in the unpleasant possibility of alien visitors to our planet or at least of alien-controlled UFOs. Now the picture that we have of the big head that the Air Force describes, this picture was drawn by an army surgeon. These are one of the bodies that was recovered in the famous Roswell incident of 1947.
Knapp: Tell us about that.
Lear: It was the first flying saucer that crashed and was recovered by the Army. It was covered up. There have been several books about it, they recovered four beings, and one of the surgeons that was responsible for the autopsy drew that picture and came up with some of these interesting things in the autopsy. I’ll just read a couple lines; three and a half to four and a half feet tall, two round eyes without pupils, no ear lobes, nose is vague, neck described as being thin, arms described long and thin reaching down to the knee section, you can see that there’s a web portion in the hands, no teeth, no apparently reproductive organs. Brain capacity unknown, colorless liquid prevalent in the body without red cells, no lymphocytes. And there’s more in that particular report.
Knapp: This is an autopsy report and you said the government goes to great lengths, the Air Force in particular, to discredit this kind of stuff. Where did this come from? How did you get this?
Lear: That came in the private, that came from the private collection of Leonard Springfield, who was one of the premier researchers. He worked for the Air Force in the early ‘50s in a secret project reporting UFOs, then as a civilian he continued his private research, and this is out of his collection.
Knapp: Why does the government want to hide this? Why doesn’t the Air Force just come forward? What doesn’t, you know, why don’t they level with us if this is all true?
Lear: Well, there’s not really much they can say based on what I’ve been able to find out. George, they’re really … you know, what could they say about it? They’ve been researching it for many, many years. And based on my information, let’s say that the president decided to make an announcement. This is if he made it today, this is what I think that he would say: “My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight with an announcement of great importance. Despite all our denials, flying saucers do, in fact exist, where they come from we do not know, who is in them we do not know, where they are from we do not know, nor do we know how they got here or what they want. We are unable to duplicate any of the metals found on the several craft we have recovered, nor are we able to figure out how they are propelled. We have hidden these facts from you over the past 40 years, in hopes that we could give you more answers. Unfortunately, we are no closer to answers today than we were 40 years ago. God bless you all.”
Knapp: In other words, you find it highly unlikely that the president would ever make a statement anything like that.
Lear: No, it’s just, it’s too big, it’s massive. The problem is not only just the fact that there are five and as many as 10 different civilizations visiting us. Apparently, and this is from the research that I’ve done, at least 90% of them are hostile. And when I say hostile, if not hostile, they have a completely different set of morals than we do.
Knapp: Okay, I’ll tell you what, we’re going to come back to the president and aliens because there have been some statements made by presidents including President Reagan. We’ll be right back.
Knapp: Welcome back. UFOs, are they real? We’re talking with John Lear on the subject. Mr. Lear mentioned a couple of minutes ago about what the president might say about UFOs. Do you believe that various presidents have been informed about what you believe to be the truth on UFOs?
Lear: Each president has been informed up to and including President Reagan. I’m not sure to the extent they are informed. Privately, I don’t believe they are given the full briefing. The people that control this information is an organization that we know of as MJ-12. They’re a top group of military and scientists. I do know that when the president becomes president, it takes at least three or four months before he actually gets the clearance to know everything there is. And that doesn’t mean they tell him, but it does take three or four months to get it. Now talking the president … let’s talk about what the president has actually said, has he mentioned anything about aliens?
Knapp: President Reagan?
Lear: President Reagan on Dec. 4, 1985. This is a copy of the speech from the White House, just before he went over to Iceland. He says, “I couldn’t but one point in our discussions privately with Secretary General Gorbachev, when you stop to think that we’re all God’s children, wherever we may live in this world, I couldn’t help but say to him, just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held, if suddenly there was a threat to this world, from some other species from another planet outside in the universe. We’d forget all our local differences that we have between our countries and we would find out once for all, that we really are all human beings here on this earth together.”
Knapp: He couldn’t be just making a supposition for purpose of making a point? You’re saying he’s trying to tell us something?
Lear: Well here, one week ago at the 42nd General Assembly in front of the UN, Sept. 21. He says, “In our obsession with the antagonism of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world and yet, I ask you, is not an alien force not already among us?” Now, this is right out of a White House speech. I’m not making this up.
Knapp: What did he mean by this alien force? I mean, does it say, does he go on to say something?
Lear: Yeah, he says, what could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our people than war and the threat of war. But the point is, why would he even bring up aliens? I mean, it’s pretty far out for the president of the United States to mention threats from outer space.
Knapp: Okay, what about President Carter?
Lear: President Carter, we have the quote from Carter when he was during his election campaign. If I become president, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists. I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one.
Knapp: Jimmy Carter says he saw one?
Lear: That’s Jimmy Carter. He saw one in 1973
Knapp: But he didn’t, he didn’t tell us, did he?
Lear: He didn’t. The pressure is enormous on these people to cover this stuff up.
Knapp: How can that be? Are they afraid of a panic, that people would panic?
Lear: There’s the panic problem and there’s also the problem that, in fact, in Cro-Magnon Man, there may have been some tinkering to make us what we are today. That’s been borne out by several researchers, that we couldn’t have developed, exactly, there’s the missing link. Something had to happen to get us going. Between 4,000 and 8,000 BC, we had just been going along and for hundreds of thousand years not doing anything. All of a sudden, bang, we started making pottery, invented the wheel, invented fire, and everything took off. What was the key that did that? I don’t know. But it causes one to think.
Knapp: You mentioned a couple of minutes ago before the break that you think 90% of these visitors are hostile. What makes you think that? That doesn’t fit with what we think of as ET, you know.
Lear: If you read some of these books that are on the newsstands, one is called Intruders, one is called Communion. They apparently come down, and when I say apparently, this is taken from 300 hypnosis cases. A friend of mine has done 140 of them. And the people are abducted, they’re taken up into a saucer, usually lasts about an hour. They do all kinds of experiments, they give them shots, they poke them, they cut them, they do all kinds of things and wipe out their memory and send them back. Only after several months of some psychological problems do they end up going to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist on trying to find out what the problem is, in the use of hypnosis, finds out that this person has been abducted.
Knapp: What’s the reason for that? What are they trying to learn?
Lear: There’s three things that they’re trying to do with these abductions. The first thing is they’re trying to monitor us. It started in the early ‘40s and they’d put a little unit, very small bb type object way up in the back side of the brain and they’d leave it there for about 18 years. They’d pick them up and put it in about 4 years old. 12 years old, they would pick them up and monitor it, then about 18, they’d take it out. The second thing they did is they put a post hypnotic suggestion, according to many of the people that have been hypnotized, and we found out what they’ve told them, apparently, within the next two to five years, there is going to be a big event, something enormous is going to happen and these people who have been abducted, and there’s probably over 100,000 of them, have been given some place to go and something to do but under our best hypnotic techniques, we cannot find out what it is.
Knapp: So how do we know that that’s true?
Lear: Because they said where they’re going to do something, they know that they’re going to do something, but under the hypnosis, they can’t find out exactly what it is. The third thing that they do is genetic experiments. They’ve been cross breeding. There’s a very good book out now called Intruders written by Budd Hopkins and it’s about a cross breeding experiment with a girl in Indianapolis. They actually, the big head, which we call the big head in research, the little three and a half foot tall with a big head. They cross breed that with this girl in Indianapolis, and there were seven children. Just last fall, before the book was published, they brought the oldest and the youngest to show to her, and they let her name all seven. Now this book has been thoroughly researched by Budd Hopkins and although it sounds strange, believe me when I tell you, you may not find out in a month, a year, five years or 10 years. But you’ll look back at what I’m telling you now, and you’ll say to yourself, “Oh, my gosh, the son of a gun was right. “
Knapp: Well, where’s this girl? Now, she’s just living?
Lear: She lives in Indianapolis. She lives in town, or just outside of town. She just got married. Budd went to her wedding. We all know who she is. She gets along, you know, just fine. It doesn’t mean just because she was abducted and gave them children doesn’t mean it was the end of the world. It was just a part of her life.
Knapp: Why don’t we see a lot of photographic evidence as many cameras and video gear. Why don’t we see a lot of that?
Lear: There are a lot of …
Knapp: Before you go on, the pictures that we showed in the beginning of this program, you say they’re baloney, they’re phony.
Lear: That’s right. The pictures you showed at the beginning were called the Meiers Incident. It’s called the visitors from Pleiades, and any ufologist worth his salt knows, and who has researched that case, knows that he cannot back it up with the negatives and the essential information to prove that something like that happened, so we look at that as suspect.
Knapp: So in other words, you run into your share phonies as well in your research.
Lear: Absolutely, there’s not that many, but there are a few out there. There are so many people that have real stories to tell that we’re just so busy with those. For instance, let’s take the November 17 Japan Airlines incident.
Knapp: I’ll tell you what, we’re going to take another break and we’ll do that when we come back. Stay with us.
Knapp: Welcome back. We have a few minutes left with John Lear. We’re talking about UFOs. You’re about to tell me about the Japanese Airline Incident. It’s probably something that’s still in the memory of our viewers.
Lear: Yeah, the Japanese Airline Incident was a cargo 747 that had taken off from Iceland flying to Anchorage. And as he passed over the United States border and the northern part of Anchorage, he was intercepted by a UFO that was twice the size of an aircraft carrier. And he was followed about 40 minutes. He made a complete 360-degree right turn, he made a descent of 5,000 feet and the thing stayed with him. Regardless of what you hear, the FAA did have him on radar and so did the Air Force. If you have a picture there. This is a 26-page document made by Bruce Maccabee who’s a physicist employed by the Naval Surface weapons laboratory and one of the most respected figures in ufology.
Knapp: I don’t think we have that picture. So go ahead.
Lear: Okay, I’m just going to hold it up here and you can see the size of the 747 to the UFO. Now the UFO was not brightly lit like that. It’s just made like that for reference. It was dark, but this is what he saw beside him.
Knapp: Whose rendition is this?
Lear: This is the captain’s. This is from the captain’s rendition when he was debriefed by the FAA. Now, certain UFO de-bunkers have said what he saw was the planet Jupiter. Well, this is an insult to all transport category captains around the world. I mean, the guy knows a difference between something that’s twice as big as an aircraft carrier and the planet Jupiter.
Knapp: I’ve also heard that it’s the reflection of his own plane.
Lear: What the, the radar?
Knapp: Yeah.
Lear: That was an attempt to describe it. You can’t imagine what pressure these people are under to cover this stuff. It’s tremendous pressure. It really is.
Knapp: Okay. You’re going to tell me that the church, did you want to go further into the JAL Incident?
Lear: No, that’s it. I just want to say it has a 26-page report, it had the captain and the ATC conversation. It had the radar plots, and it had the Air Force plots and the FAA radar plot. There was no question about it. The thing followed him.
Knapp: The church, what do they think about UFOs?
Lear: Well, here’s a copy from the London Evening News, July 21, 1987, and says, “Prepare to meet thine aliens. Vatican theologians have acknowledged that there could be life on other planets. Now they plan to train missionaries capable of working in space and meeting aliens. Jesuit scientists at the Vatican Observatory in Prescotti near Rome have reported moving lights and other identified phenomena in the sky. Starting in September, the Vatican university will have a special UFO section.”
Knapp: You’ve said before you thought that a lot of their intentions were hostile and you’ve mentioned before that a lot of the sightings around the military bases. Why don’t we see them here? Las Vegas, we’ve got a lot of military bases here.
Lear: Well, the in fact there have been a lot of a lot of reports of UFOs in around Las Vegas, not specifically over the Air Force bases. We have the Test Site and of course, we don’t know what’s going on there, and we have Nellis Air Force Base. But there have not really been a lot of sightings over there. The main Air Force sightings were in 1975. And the UFOs descended on every Strategic Air Command base guarding the perimeter of the northern United States. They hovered over the nuclear weapons storage area and they stayed there with impunity for up to two and three hours over a period of three days.
Knapp: And nobody heard about it?
Lear: Well, there were a few reports, but you really don’t, I have a I have a report 150 pages long of the F-106s that were sent out to chase them. And the helicopters, and notifying the Canadian authorities and the security patrolman that were sent down to actually see what was going on and they’d come up on these things and they’d say, “I’m not going any further.”
Knapp: You think maybe it’s a top-secret area if the Air Force actually does have them, maybe they’ve got them here?
Lear: I’m certain they do. Up at the Test Site there’s a report that of the three that they’ve got in perfectly good condition, at least one is up at the Test Site and has flown and one was being flown as of 1981.
Knapp: By us?
Lear: By us.
Knapp: We mentioned at the top of the show that perhaps a breakthrough might be coming. That some of these people from MJ-12 or from the Project Blue Book who are in on the government’s research and saw some of the stuff might be ready to talk we got about a minute left. Why don’t you tell me about that?
Lear: It’s our information that half of, part of MJ-12 wants to release it, part of it doesn’t. We’re hoping that we can do this but of course, as researchers we’re not aware of all the ramifications, we just know of what we’re looking at, so we would like to see them release it but we really don’t know if they are.
Knapp: Okay. John Lear. It’s been very interesting. You keep us posted.
Lear: Sure will.
Knapp: Thank you. We’ll see you next week with more of On The Record.
Now I know that I am getting old…
floppy disc kids dont get
China ‘Decodes’ An Orbiting US Satellite
To protect its space assets, China has devised a new cyber defense.
China has developed a new cyber defense infrastructure that can automatically detect security flaws in orbiting satellites, according to military experts participating in the project
There are thousands of satellites in orbit, each with hundreds of components that could be vulnerable to hackers due to software or hardware flaws.
As launch prices have decreased, there are now more satellites rotating in low earth orbits in 2022, opening the frontier of space to big private sector launch projects. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there were 4,852 satellites in orbit at the start of 2022.
We have all felt the pangs of hunger. Going for a few hours or most of a day without food, we are aware of the keen signal that our body gives our mind that we are hungry–a sharp ache or pang that can drive out most other thoughts. But what is severe hunger like over a longer period?
This is really unknown to most of us.
Detailed information about people that have to go without food for long periods due to causes such as conflict and drought is not readily available. Yet it is important to get some idea of what long term hunger is like to help us understand people whose hunger is more acute and gone on much longer than that which we have experienced.
I can tell you that I and my wife experienced severe hunger for weeks at a time, and the longest that we went without food was five weeks.
You all have no idea how desperate and angry a hungry person can get. Do not underestimate this situation.
To help us understand hunger existing not for a day, but many weeks, we present, in abridged form, a description provided by Tony Hall (formerly a Congressman from Dayton, Ohio and ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) in his 2006 book, Changing the Face of Hunger (pp. 74–89). He undertook this fast to protest an action of Congress. He fasted from April 4 to April 26, 1993–three weeks and one day.
Being hungry for three weeks, in Hall’s words:
Physically and psychologically, the first week of the fast was the hardest. I was horribly hungry–I could say ‘in agony’ –and getting weaker by the day. I thought constantly about what I would like to eat–that last meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad; some future meals with some of my favorite foods, such as steak, roast beef, and key lime pie….
Family mealtimes were the worst.
I couldn’t go to the table because the food would be too tempting, and not being able to eat it would be agonizing. Janet, Matt, and Jyl would try to hide from me when they snacked between meals….. I followed Dick Gregory’s advice to fill up on water. I really poured it down. Since it was the only thing I was consuming, I paid a great deal more attention to it than I ever had before. I really noticed the difference in taste when drunk from the tap at home, the office, or someplace else. My sense of smell also heightened throughout the fast. I could tell what people had eaten because their bodies gave off aromas that I had never noticed before….
The hardest day of the fast came on Easter, which was my seventh day without eating. Janet and I had gone on a retreat in Maryland with some friends, and our friends prepared a typical big American holiday dinner–turkey, potatoes, dressing, pie, cake. It drove me nuts. I had to leave them, go outside and take a walk, to get away from those wonderful aromas. I decided that if I could get through this day, I would be over the hump.
I did, and I was.
Just as Dick Gregory said, the sensation of hunger faded in about a week. It’s as if the body gives up on getting food and stops demanding it. From then on, I could join my family at mealtimes and not be bothered a bit . It was a revelation about the poor and the hungry, to whom I came to feel exceptionally close as the fast went on. I now fully understood, in a way I never had before, a strange phenomenon I had witnessed during famines: starving children who refused to eat when food was finally offered to them.
The absence of hunger pangs did not mean I wasn’t feeling the physical effects of the fast, however. I’d wake up in the morning feeling fine. My head would be clear. I would think I had lots of energy.
But after noon, I would fade.
The energy would desert me and weakness would take over. I’d need to nap. Then, when I woke from the nap, I’d feel like I couldn’t get up because I was so tired. Lacking the fuel of food, my body temperature apparently dropped, and I felt cold all the time. It also seemed my brain slowed down in the afternoon; I felt “dull.” I thought of poor children who don’t do well in school, who fall asleep in the afternoon, who become poor students because of poor nutrition. Remarkably, some of my vital signs–blood pressure, the results of blood tests–actually improved.
[On April 26, Hall ended his fast.] Because the fast had been a very public endeavor, I thought the breaking of it should be as well. I invited some reporters to my office…and had a V-8. I hadn’t eaten for twenty-two days, and that thick, salty vegetable juice tasted exceptionally good…Unfortunately I could only sip a little bit. Because my stomach had essentially been shut down for three weeks, I would have to coax it gradually back to use, maybe not being able to enjoy a full meal till the end of the week. I had lost twenty-three pounds–dropping from a robust 180 to a gaunt 157….
Now imagine some very large urban youth with guns and a fierce hunger. How would you be able to deal with them?
Food storage tips: Stock up on foods in gallon buckets
More stuff for my friends in the United States. Now is not the time to buy a new car. Now is the time to change your eating habits, and start being more conservative; grandparent-like in the creation of a larder. -MM
In a long-term survival scenario, storing food in gallon buckets is a good way to stock up on beans and rice, which can be used to make different dishes. These ingredients also pair well with other items you may have in your stockpile, such as canned meat and vegetables.
If you don’t have buckets yet, look for five-gallon buckets that are also food grade. If you can’t find food-grade buckets in stores near your area, line the buckets with Mylar bags instead to keep the food clean.
If you prefer something lighter, ask for four-gallon buckets from the nearest bakery. These buckets will be lighter and easier to carry. As a bonus, four-gallon buckets are often free, or only a couple of bucks.
If you can’t decide between the four- and five-gallon buckets, get whatever’s easier for you to lift and move around your stockpile.
What to store in gallon buckets
While bulk foods go well with gallon buckets, other items suit different storage methods like cans or Mylar bags. These items include more expensive foods that spoil quickly with exposure to air or moisture, or items that you don’t use often.
Keep items like dehydrated and dried foods, freeze-dried foods, milk and powdered eggs in cans or their original packaging.
Foods like beans, flour, pasta, rice, sugar and wheat go well with gallon buckets. Generally, each bucket will hold about 25 pounds of food. This will vary slightly depending on the shape of the food you want to store.
Most buckets are usually 12 inches wide and are HDPE (#2) buckets. You can also use PP (#5), which also have gasketed lids like the HDPE buckets.
When filling buckets, tap the sides to help the contents settle down so that you can fit more in. You need to pack the food compactly and get as much air space out as possible so the oxygen absorbers can work properly.
You can only pack 25 pounds of food in a bucket, even if the bucket isn’t filled completely. However, it’s better to fill the bucket completely before adding the oxygen absorbers so that all the oxygen can be removed once the buckets go into storage.
For optimal long-term storage, line the buckets with Mylar bags. Next, fill the Mylar bags with food, add the appropriate number of oxygen absorbers, then seal.
You can skip the Mylar bags if you regularly rotate your food supplies, you’re using food-grade buckets and if you plan on using up your beans, oats, rice and wheat within five years. (Related: Food supply 101: How to store rice properly.)
Here are some tips on how much food you can store in five-gallon buckets and the oxygen absorber capacity needed. Note that the data below provides estimates for the amount of food that will fit in each bucket.
The actual results may vary depending on how much you are able to tap your buckets and settle the contents.
Black beans – 37 pounds (lbs.) of food, (3,000 oxygen absorber capacity)
Once you have buckets of food, you have to figure out a way to store them in your stockpile. Since the buckets won’t last forever, you need to keep them away from sunlight.
Putting excessive weight on the buckets will deteriorate plastic buckets. Note that 5 gallon buckets should only be stacked three to four buckets high, with the heaviest buckets on the bottom.
You can stack buckets higher only if those on top contain very light items like medical supplies. At most, the buckets on top of your pile should not exceed two pounds.
While there are other ways to store bulk foods, buckets are one of the most efficient methods to use because they can keep out moths and are rodent-resistant. Buckets are also waterproof.
Note that since plastic is not completely impermeable, buckets should not be stored directly on concrete. Just place some 2×4 boards underneath the buckets so they’re above the concrete.
Get food-grade buckets and stock up on bulk foods like beans and grains before SHTF.
So… Beijing’s Dynamic Zero Policy Does Not Work Fighting Omicron Variant? Eh?
A pretty good video. Well worth watching.
High Value kitty
Just another day at the job.
Notice the guy in the orange vest. He is NOT the owner of the ship. he is the community government health official. He employs a “ratter”; a kitty cat, to go forth and secure the premises from rats and mice. China; it does not play.
An oldie, but goodie. Placed here for my friends in the United States. These are 'round out your storage items, and most are extremely cheap. For instance, we bought a load of 100 disposible lighters for under USD $3. -MM
Stockpiling necessary supplies is at the very core of prepping. Most of us start out by trying to build a stockpile of food to see us through an emergency and will probably still be stockpiling food when the SHTF. But stockpiling food isn’t all there is to be ready for a disaster. There are many other things we need and use on a day-to-day basis.
Stockpiling food, without bothering to stockpile these other necessary items might not guarantee our death, but it will sure make our lives more uncomfortable. Too much of that discomfort could lead to death; perhaps not directly, but by permitting weakness and disease to bring us to an end.
There are literally hundreds of things that we could use in a post-disaster world; more than can fit in this list. But the items I’ve listed below are probably the most important things to include in your stockpile, either for your own personal use or to use as barter goods.
Disposable Butane Lighters – Fire is one of the things we use the most in a survival situation. Even though it is not considered one of the top three survival needs, it is useful for all three of them. It’s much easier for people who aren’t skilled at starting fires to start them with a disposable lighter than to try and do it any other way.
Waterproof Matches – The waterproof match is the standard fire starter for use in a survival situation. While many people have switched over to butane lighters, matches are still useful. Be sure to get the strike anywhere kind.
Fire Accelerants – Commonly referred to as “fire starters,” chemical fire accelerants or tinders work to get the fire from your matches or lighter into the larger kindling, so that your fire can keep burning. Make sure you have a good stock, as this is essential with damp wood.
Water Filters – Water purification is essential to survival, as water that has microscopic pathogens can spread disease and even kill us. If you use a filter for purifying water, be sure to have plenty of them.
Firewood – Many preppers are planning on heating their homes and cook with a wood fire in a post-disaster world; but few have enough firewood to do that. It takes four to six cords of firewood to heat a home through the winter.
Salt – Salt is not only essential for survival, it’s nature’s number one food preservative. Yet it can be extremely hard to come by. if you’re going to preserve food in a post-disaster world, you’d a better plan on having plenty of salt on hand.
Canning Jar Lids – I’m assuming you have canning jars; but how many lids do you have? They’re not considered reusable, so you’d better have plenty.
Batteries – Ok, batteries aren’t really a survival necessity; but we’ve got lots of things we use every day, which are battery operated. Stocking batteries, especially AA and AAA sizes, will make your life in a post-disaster world much better.
Toilet Paper – If you want to see something that people will kill for in a post-disaster world, I think this is it… especially women. Do you have any idea how much TP your family goes through?
Personal Hygiene Supplies – While we’re talking about TP, we don’t want to forget things like soap, toothpaste, and shampoo. Cleanliness in a post-disaster world is important as a means to help combat the spread of disease.
Plastic Bags – Nobody is going to be making plastic, let alone plastic bags in a post-disaster world. Yet they are something we use all the time. If you are planning on using a bucket toilet, you’re going to need a lot of bags just for that. But you’re going to need them for a lot of other things too.
Ammunition – This is probably one you’ve already thought of, but it’s so important, it bears mentioning. Make sure you’ve got enough for all the calibers you use, as well as the most common calibers out there. Ammo Storage Tips Every Prepper Should Know
Alcohol – Probably the best barter item there is.
Tobacco –The second-best barter item there is.
Antibiotics – If you want to keep your family healthy, I’d recommend putting in a good stock of the most common antibiotics. You can buy these over the counter in Mexico, without a prescription. Make sure you print out information on dosages and to tell you which antibiotics are the best to use in different situations.
Over the Counter Medicines – Self-diagnosis and treatment is dangerous; but sometimes it’s all we have available to us. Having a good assortment of over the counter medicines will make it possible to treat at least the symptoms of common ailments.
Prescription Medicines – If you have family members that need maintenance doses of prescription medicines for chronic conditions, you need to have a stock of those on hand for them. If you can’t get that stock, then look for natural alternatives which will keep them going.
First-aid Supplies – If you ever want to see an environment ripe for injuries, just look at any place that has been hit by a disaster. You and your family will be doing things you normally wouldn’t do, many of which can lead to serious injuries. Be prepared for more than scraped knees and cut fingers; be prepared for treating major injuries. DIY Dollar Store First Aid Kit
Seed – If the situation continues, you’re going to have to start producing your own food. That means growing a vegetable garden, amongst other things. Have lots of seed on hand, so that you can plant a big garden.
Gardening Chemicals and Fertilizer – There are a number of common chemicals used for gardening, as well as common fertilizers. You’ll need all of that if you’re hoping to get a bountiful harvest.
Fishing Gear – Fishing is probably the easiest way of harvesting food from nature. There’s just one problem with it, I have yet to meet a fisherman who doesn’t lose hooks, lures and other gear on a regular basis. So that means you’d better have plenty, so that you can keep on fishing, even after losing your favorites.
Fuel – Ok, this one is a bit tricky, as gasoline doesn’t store easily. It tends to lose its potency pretty quickly. But then, even less potent gasoline is better than no gasoline. And there are additives you can get, which will help that gasoline to last longer.
Repair Parts – If you’ve got gear that you are going to use to survive, you had better have some way of repairing it. That includes parts for just about anything you are planning on using as part of your survival. For example: If you’ve got some of those old Coleman lamps, which can burn gasoline, you should have rebuilt kits for the air pump.
Hand Tools – We are so used to using power tools for just about everything, that many people don’t have hand tools anymore. Do you have a crosscut saw? How about a hand-crank drill? You’re going to need them, if you can’t connect your power tools.
Honing Stones – To keep knives and other sharp tools sharp.
Rope – Always useful. We tend to stock paracord, which is excellent; but you might want some heavier rope as well.
Sewing Supplies – There probably won’t be any shortage of clothing lying around in a post-disaster world, but there will be of sewing supplies. You’re going to need to be able to fix clothing, as well as taking it in as you lose weight.
Sturdy Shoes – Good shoes are important, and by good I mean something that is rugged and will hold up, giving your ankles support. Most of the shoes we wear today won’t do that; they’re more decorative than anything else.
Rugged Clothing – Rugged jeans, flannel shirts and other work clothing are going to be useful as well. The stuff you wear to the office just isn’t going to make it when you’re chopping wood.
Work Gloves – This is one thing you don’t want to try sewing yourself. Nor do you want cheap work gloves to try and do hard work in. Get several pair for each member of the family, especially those who do the hard physical work of survival.
Vitamins – Your diet probably won’t be well-balanced in a post-disaster world. It will be mostly carbohydrates and fats, with a little bit of protein thrown in. The micronutrients that nutritionists tell us we need will be notoriously absent. Good vitamins can help overcome this problem, helping you to remain healthy.
Reading Glasses – Even if you don’t wear glasses now, that doesn’t mean you never will. Keeping a variety of reading glasses around, in different magnifications, may help you to be able to do things as you age, that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. (You can get a wide selection really cheap at a Dollar Store or other such bargain place.)
Antibacterial Hand Cleaner – This is a good one to help prevent the spread of disease. Clean hands aren’t going to contaminate food or contaminate other people.
Spices – One of the best ways of getting the most out of the food that you do have available to you is to change its flavor. This can be especially good when you have children, who can be notoriously difficult when it comes to unfamiliar foods. Disguising what it is and making it taste similar to something they like is one of your best ways of dealing with this.
Bullion (also known as soup stock) – Anything can be turned into a soup or a casserole, if you have soup stock to go with it. Generally speaking, having beef and chicken flavors is enough, as they go with everything else. (Stock up on lots and lots of chicken bullion.)
Flashlights – There’s no such thing as enough flashlights. They don’t last forever and you really can’t fix them.
Leather and Leather Stitching Supplies – Our ancestors used leather for a wide variety of things, like making shoes and harnesses. We’ll need it for making a variety of repairs, like resoling shoes.
Lime – This is one of those things that people forget about. Lime is used in outhouses to help keep the odors down, as well as reducing the population of insects.
Wicking – If you’re going to make candles, you’re going to need wicks for them. While just about any cotton string can be used for that, a cotton string isn’t all that common anymore. A few yards of wicking doesn’t cost all that much and it will allow you to make your own candles.
Candles – Speaking of that wicking, it would be a good idea to have a bunch of candles, already made, on hand.
Oil-burning Lamps – A good oil-burning lamp will work off of just about any flammable liquid, providing you with light. The best is oil, of any sort; but if you have something else, they’ll burn that too. Just try it outside first, to make sure it’s not going to blow up the lamp.
Insect Repellant – Nobody likes becoming the mosquito’s dinner. Yet there are more of them in the world than there are of us. Good idea to be ready to deal with them and keep them off your body.
Pest Control – Speaking of dealing with insects, it’s a good idea to be able to kill them too, as well as trapping mice and other pests. Don’t skimp, as you won’t be able to run back to the local store for more.
Cleaning Supplies – Yeah, who thinks about stockpiling cleaning supplies? But if you want to keep the cockroaches and ants out of your home, you’re going to want to have the necessary cleaning supplies to keep your home clean. This is important for fighting disease as well.
Aluminum Foil – We talk about using aluminum foil for cooking in a survival situation and most people include it in their survival kit. But how many of us have extra aluminum foil back home, to use for cooking food in the wake of a disaster?
Charcoal or Propane – Whatever fuel your barbecue grille runs on, be sure to have plenty on hand. That grille is going to be your first alternate stove. You may move to a fire pit later; but in the first month of surviving in the post-disaster world, that grille is it. Medicinal Uses for Activated Charcoal
Cast-iron Pots – Okay, this really isn’t a supply; it’s more like gear. But if you’re going to cook on your barbecue grille, it would be a good idea to have cast-iron cookware on hand. That grille is going to be a bit rough on your Teflon cookware.
Wind-up Mechanical Clock – Maybe you won’t care about what time it is in a post-disaster world and maybe you will. Either way, it might be a good idea to have a clock that you can count on running when there aren’t any batteries to run it.
Chlorine Bleach – Not only is bleach good for cleaning, it’s the easiest means of purifying water. Just add 8 drops of standard (non-scented, non-color safe) bleach to a gallon of water, stir it and allow it to sit for 20 minutes. That will kill all the microscopic pathogens, making it safe to drink.
Hard Candy – Everyone likes something sweet; but unless you’re keeping bees, that’s going to be pretty scarce in a post-disaster world. Hard candies will keep for a long time, can be eaten slowly, extending the enjoyment and can also be used to soothe a sore throat.
So, there you have it; my “top 50” list. However, much you think you need, try to stockpile more; lots more. If you don’t use it yourself, you can use it as barter goods, getting things that you need.
Nuclear War Between U.S. and Russia (2019 Simulation)
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Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
The world is filled with talk. Much of the talk on the American conservative media discusses prep for a nuclear war between Russia and the United States. Nah, this is not just trivial fear-mongering. There’s some real and actual concern and issues involved.
Do you think that I am kidding? Well, then you listen yourself. Nuclear war. American leadership. SHTF advice. All good stuff. I have the radio mp3 listed here. It doesn’t mean that they are right or wrong. But that people are openly talking about these things. It reminds me of a Steven King movie.
They are actually saying things that I have long recognized as being true. Both Russia and China are terribly underestimated by the American civilian and military leadership.
But Jeeze Louise! The world has many other things going on. My various business activities are flourishing in trade with the United States and Europe. Why? There seems to be a massive disconnect between business, between politics, between the Western leadership, and the Western mainstream media.
Why is there this disconnect?
Can all these concerns and beliefs coexist? Or, are the various groups all living within their own individual echo chambers? Chambers that believe that their reality is the only reality that exists? Or, perhaps is everything all lies where nothing is true, and us “little guys” are all stuck in the middle between large, enormous, rich criminal gangs that wear the mantle of government?
Here, we will go over various subjects regarding the world. There’s a lot of stuff on Geo-Political stuff, China, and Ukraine. As well as stuff about humanity. I hope that you all enjoy it.
Pepe Escobar: Say hello to Russian gold and Chinese petroyuan
Pepe Escobar
March 29, 2022
The Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union and China just agreed to design the mechanism for an independent financial and monetary system that would bypass dollar transactions.
It was a long time coming, but finally some key lineaments of the multipolar world’s new foundations are being revealed.
After a recent video conference meeting, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China agreed to design the mechanism for an independent international monetary and financial system. The EAEU consists of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, is establishing free trade deals with other Eurasian nations, and is progressively interconnecting with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
For all practical purposes, the idea comes from Sergei Glazyev, Russia’s foremost independent economist, a former adviser to President Vladimir Putin and the Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Commission, the regulatory body of the EAEU.
Glazyev’s central role in devising the new Russian and Eurasian economic/financial strategy has been examined here. He saw the western financial squeeze on Moscow coming light-years before others.
Quite diplomatically, Glazyev attributed the fruition of the idea to “the common challenges and risks associated with the global economic slowdown and restrictive measures against the EAEU states and China.”
Translation: as China is as much a Eurasian power as Russia, and they need to coordinate their strategies to bypass the US unipolar system.
The Eurasian system will be based on “a new international currency,” most probably with the yuan as reference, calculated as an index of the national currencies of the participating countries, as well as commodity prices. The first draft will be already discussed by the end of the month.
The Eurasian system is bound to become a serious alternative to the US dollar, as the EAEU may attract not only nations that have joined BRI (Kazakhstan, for instance, is a member of both) but also the leading players in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as ASEAN. West Asian actors – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon – will be inevitably interested.
In the medium to long term, the spread of the new system will translate into the weakening of the Bretton Woods system, which even serious US market players/strategists admit is rotten from the inside. The US dollar and imperial hegemony are facing stormy seas.
Show me that frozen gold
Meanwhile, Russia has a serious problem to tackle. This past weekend, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed that half of Russia’s gold and foreign reserves have been frozen by unilateral sanctions. It boggles the mind that Russian financial experts have placed a great deal of the nation’s wealth where it can be easily accessed – and even confiscated – by the ‘Empire of Lies’ (copyright Putin).
At first, it was not exactly clear what Siluanov had meant. How could the Central Bank’s Elvira Nabiulina and her team let half of foreign reserves and even gold be stored in Western banks and/or vaults? Or is this some sneaky diversionist tactic by Siluanov?
Hudson was quite frank: “When I first heard the word ‘frozen,’ I thought that this meant that Russia was not going to expend its precious gold reserves on supporting the ruble, trying to fight against a Soros-style raid from the West. But now the word ‘frozen’ seems to have meant that Russia had sent it abroad, outside of its control.”
Interesting too? Lend Self-Destructive U.S. a Hand
“It looks like at least as of last June, all Russian gold was kept in Russia itself. At the same time, it would have been natural to have kept securities and bank deposits in the United States and Britain, because that is where most intervention in world foreign exchange markets occurs,” Hudson added.
Essentially, it’s all still up in the air: “My first reading assumed that Russia must be doing something smart. If it was smart to move gold abroad, perhaps it was doing what other central banks do: ‘lend” it to speculators, for an interest payment or fee. Until Russia tells the world where its gold was put, and why, we can’t fathom it. Was it in the Bank of England – even after England confiscated Venezuela’s gold? Was it in the New York Fed – even after the Fed confiscated Afghanistan’s reserves?”
So far, there has been no extra clarification either from Siluanov or Nabiulina. Scenarios swirl about a string of deportations to northern Siberia for national treason. Hudson adds important elements to the puzzle:
“If [the reserves] are frozen, why is Russia paying interest on its foreign debt falling due? It can direct the “freezer’ to pay, to shift the blame for default. It can talk about Chase Manhattan’s freezing of Iran’s bank account from which Iran sought to pay interest on its dollar-denominated debt. It can insist that any payments by NATO countries be settled in advance by physical gold. Or it can land paratroopers on the Bank of England, and recover gold – sort of like Goldfinger at Fort Knox. What is important is for Russia to explain what happened and how it was attacked, as a warning to other countries.”
As a clincher, Hudson could not but wink at Glazyev: “Maybe Russia should appoint a non-pro-westerner at the Central Bank.”
The petrodollar game-changer
It’s tempting to read into Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s words at the diplomatic summit in Antalya last Thursday as a veiled admission that Moscow may not have been totally prepared for the heavy financial artillery deployed by the Americans:
“We will solve the problem – and the solution will be to no longer depend on our western partners, be it governments or companies that are acting as tools of western political aggression against Russia instead of pursuing the interests of their businesses. We will make sure that we never again find ourselves in a similar situation and that neither some Uncle Sam nor anybody else can make decisions aimed at destroying our economy. We will find a way to eliminate this dependence. We should have done it long ago.”
So, ‘long ago’ starts now. And one of its planks will be the Eurasian financial system. Meanwhile, ‘the market’ (as in, the American speculative casino) has ‘judged’ (according to its self-made oracles) that Russian gold reserves – the ones that stayed in Russia – cannot support the ruble.
That’s not the issue – on several levels. The self-made oracles, brainwashed for decades, believe that the Hegemon dictates what ‘the market’ does. That’s mere propaganda. The crucial fact is that in the new, emerging paradigm, NATO nations amount to at best 15 percent of the world’s population. Russia won’t be forced to practice autarky because it does not need to: most of the world – as we’ve seen represented in the hefty non-sanctioning nation list – is ready to do business with Moscow.
Iran has shown how to do it. Persian Gulf traders confirmed to The Cradle that Iran is selling no less than 3 million barrels of oil a day even now, with no signed JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement, currently under negotiation in Vienna). Oil is re-labeled, smuggled, and transferred from tankers in the dead of night.
Interesting too? The imperative for nuclear disarmament – Is Putin the puppet-master?
Another example: the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), a huge refiner, just bought 3 million barrels of Russian Urals from trader Vitol for delivery in May. There are no sanctions on Russian oil – at least not yet.
Washington’s reductionist, Mackinderesque plan is to manipulate Ukraine as a disposable pawn to go scorched-earth on Russia, and then hit China. Essentially, divide-and-rule to smash not only one but two peer competitors in Eurasia who are advancing in lockstep as comprehensive strategic partners.
As Hudson sees it: “China is in the cross-hairs, and what happened to Russia is a dress rehearsal for what can happen to China. Best to break sooner than later under these conditions. Because the leverage is highest now.”
All the blather about “crashing Russian markets,” ending foreign investment, destroying the ruble, a “full trade embargo,” expelling Russia from “the community of nations,” and so forth – that’s for the zombified galleries. Iran has been dealing with the same thing for four decades, and survived.
Historical poetic justice, as Lavrov intimated, now happens to rule that Russia and Iran are about to sign a very important agreement, which may likely be an equivalent of the Iran-China strategic partnership. The three main nodes of Eurasia integration are perfecting their interaction on the go, and sooner rather than later, may be utilizing a new, independent monetary and financial system.
But there’s more poetic justice on the way, revolving around the ultimate game-changer. And it came much sooner than we all thought.
Saudi Arabia is considering accepting Chinese yuan – and not US dollars – for selling oil to China. Translation: Beijing told Riyadh this is the new groove. The end of the petrodollar is at hand – and that is the certified nail in the coffin of the indispensable Hegemon.
Meanwhile, there’s a mystery to be solved: where is that frozen Russian gold?
I love Malcolm Roberts’ closing statement in front of the Aussie Senate
The truth is the Select Committee on COVID-19 has been running a protection racket for the pharmaceutical industry, and today’s vote proves it. This unprecedented betrayal of the Australian people must be referred immediately to a royal commission.
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To the Prime Minister, the health minister, the federal health department and all those in the Senate and the House of Representatives—all of you who have perpetrated this crime—I direct one question: how the hell do you expect to get away with it? We’re not going to let you get away with it. We won’t let you get away with it. We are coming for you. We have the stamina to hound you down and we damn well will.
“Enjoying the new lamp I bought for my dining room this evening”
Imagine you make a discovery of a nice lamp at a thrift store and don’t think much about it, but then when you take it home and plug it in…
Light show.
MM talks about where he lives in China
This is one of my first videos that I uploaded on to you-tube. It should stream in nicely. Obviously, I’m not an expert. But, I have been squeezing in some video editing tutorials, and you should see an gradual improvment in the over all production quality of the videos as time goes by.
Right now, You-Tube is being funny. They refuse to allow me to say that I am in China, and they have set the video quality equal to “dog shit” setting.
Quality set at “Dog Shit”.
Here, is the video on You-Tube. You be the judge…
Not to worry, here is the actual raw video 239MB as it should be; here. In all of it’s beautiful glory. Big difference, eh?
Austria, Hungary Say No Substitute to Russian Gas as Germany’s BASF Warns of Worst Crisis Since WWII
Officials in Austria and Hungary say there’s no alternative to Russian natural gas, with Budapest stressing that more costly American-sourced LNG is not a realistic substitute.
“Replacing cheap Russian gas with expensive American gas” is an “absurd” proposal, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Kossuth Radio on Friday.
“It’s not that we’ll put on an extra sweater in the evening and turn the heating down a little or paying a few extra forints for gas. The fact is that if energy supplies don’t come from Russia there won’t be any energy in Hungary,” Orban stressed.
The politician noted that 85 percent of Hungary’s gas supplies and 64 percent of the country’s oil comes from Russia, and that geography puts limits on Budapest’s ability to diversify its sources of energy. Austrian energy giant OMV CEO Alfred Stern echoed Orban’s concerns, saying that there was no LNG alternative for Austria.
“Giving up on Russian gas is impossible unless we are willing to live with the massive consequences of such a step. Some countries can do that. It cannot be implemented by Austria this year…As a landlocked country, we don’t have access to LNG. Any diversification would mean investing in more expensive infrastructure to get access to more expensive gas. (emphasis added)
‘Worst Crisis Since WWII’
Austria’s neighbour Germany, whose leaders have so far publicly refused to be “blackmailed” into paying for Russia’s gas in rubles, while privately inquiring about how such ruble payments could be made, is facing a similar dilemma, with Berlin activating an emergency plan to cope with supply disruptions and preparing to institute gas rationing. Russian deliveries made up 55 percent of the European industrial giant’s gas consumption in 2021, with Germany’s underground gas storage tanks down to 25 percent of capacity this week.
Martin Brudermuller, CEO of German chemicals giant BASF, has characterised Berlin’s plans to boycott ruble-priced gas as a “highly irresponsible experiment,” and stressed that Germans underestimate the true risks of such a step.[.]
Looks delicious. It’s a home-made dish; a take on the Subway meatball sub.
Mama Mias Meatball Bake
Thanks to a few shortcuts, you can have Mama Mia’s Meatball Bake on the table in no time. This is an easy dinner recipe that the whole family will love!
What You’ll Need
1 (12- to 16-ounce) frozen garlic bread
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
1 (32-ounce) bag frozen meatballs, thawed, cut in half
1 cup spaghetti sauce
10 slices mozzarella cheese
What to Do
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Place garlic bread open face on baking sheet and bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven and reduce heat to 350 degrees.
In a small bowl, combine ricotta cheese and Parmesan cheese and evenly spread on garlic bread. Place meatballs on top of cheese and evenly spoon spaghetti sauce over meatballs.
Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until meatballs are heated through. Top with mozzarella cheese and continue baking 3 to 5 more minutes, or until cheese melts.
Caitlin Johnstone: The Target is China
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The Pentagon has produced its latest National Defense Strategy (NDS), a report made every four years to provide the public and the government with a broad overview of the U.S. war machine’s planning, posturing, developments and areas of focus.
You might assume with all the aggressive brinkmanship between Moscow and the U.S. power alliance this year that Russia would feature as Enemy No. 1 in the 2022 NDS, but you would be assuming incorrectly. The U.S. “Defense” Department reserves that slot for the same nation that’s occupied it for many years now: China.
“The full NDS is still classified, but the Pentagon released a fact sheet on the document that says it “will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department.”The fact sheet outlines four priorities for the Pentagon:-Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC-Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners-Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe-Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem”
“The Pentagon says that while China is the focus, Russia poses ‘acute threats’ because of its invasion of Ukraine,” DeCamp writes, showing the empire’s view of Moscow as a second-tier enemy.
Ahead of a meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made some comments which clearly illustrate the U.S.-centralized empire’s actual problem with Moscow.
“We, together with you, and with our sympathisers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order,” Lavrov said to the Chinese government on Wednesday.
And that right there, ladies and gentlemen, is the real reason we’ve been hearing so much hysterical shrieking about Russia these last five or six years.
It’s never been about Russian hackers. Nor about a Kremlin pee tape. Nor about Trump Tower. Nor about GRU bounties in Afghanistan. Nor about Manafort, Flynn, Bannon, Papadopoulos or any other Russiagate Surname of the Week. It’s not even actually about Ukraine. Those have all been narrative-shaping constructs manipulated by the U.S. intelligence cartel to manufacture support for a final showdown against Russia and China to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world.
The U.S. government has had a policy in place since the fall of the Soviet Union to prevent the rise of any powers which could challenge its imperial agendas for the world.
During the (first) Cold War the strategy promoted by empire managers like Henry Kissinger was to court China out of necessity to pull it away from the U.S.S.R., which was when we saw business ties between China and the U.S. lead to immense profits for certain individuals in both nations and the influx of wealth which now has China on track to surpass the U.S. as an economic superpower.
Once the U.S.S.R. ended, so too did the need to remain on friendly terms with China, and subsequent decades saw a sharp pivot into a much more adversarial relationship with Beijing.
Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Hillary Clinton admits there was an expectation in Washington Russia would have no choice but to become the West's junior partner due to the fear China could take over the Russian Far East. /1https://t.co/pJQeF0eCxf— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) November 20, 2021
In what history may one day view as the U.S. empire’s greatest strategic blunder, empire managers forecasted [1] the acquisition of post-soviet Russia as an imperial lackey state which could be weaponized against [2] the new Enemy No. 1 in China.
Instead, the exact opposite happened.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last year that she’d “heard for years that Russia would become more willing to move toward the west, more willing to engage in a positive way with Europe, the U.K., the U.S., because of problems on its border, because of the rise of China.” But that’s not what occurred.
“We haven’t seen that,” Clinton said. “Instead what we’ve seen is a concerted effort by Putin maybe to hug China more.”
The empire’s expectation that Moscow would come groveling to the imperial throne on its own meant that no real effort was expended trying to establish goodwill and win over its friendship.
This error has led to the strategist’s ultimate nightmare of having to fight for global domination against two separate powers at once.
Because empire architects incorrectly predicted that Moscow would end up fearing Beijing more than it fears Washington, the tandem between China’s economic power and Russia’s military power that experts have been pointing to for years has only gotten more and more intimate.
And now here we are with Russian and Chinese officials openly discussing their plans to create a multipolar world while Chinese pundits crack jokes about the U.S. empire’s transparent ploys to turn Beijing against Moscow over the Ukraine invasion:
Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?— CGTN LIU Xin ?? (@LiuXininBeijing) March 19, 2022
On the empire’s grand chessboard, Russia is the queen piece, but China is the king.
Just as with chess it helps to take out your opponent’s strongest piece to more easily pursue checkmate, the U.S. empire would be well advised to try and topple China’s nuclear superpower friend and, as Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria recently put it, “ultimately restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow.”
Basically, all we’re looking at in the major international news stories of our time is the rise of a multipolar world crashing headlong into an empire which has espoused the belief that unipolar domination must be retained at all cost, even if it means flirting with the possibility of a very fast and radioactive third world war.
This is the Hail Mary pass of the U.S. hegemon; its last-ditch effort to secure control before forever losing any chance at it.
Many anti-imperialist pundits I read regularly seem quite confident that this effort will fail, while I personally think those forecasts may be a bit premature.
The way the chess pieces are moving it definitely does look like there’s a plan in place, and I don’t think they’d be orchestrating that plan if they didn’t believe it had a chance to succeed.
One thing that does seem clear is that the only way the empire has any chance of stopping the rise of China is by maneuvers that will be both highly disruptive and existentially dangerous for the entire world.
If you think things are crazy now, just you wait until the imperial crosshairs move to Beijing.
MM comments on the article
China does not play.
Even with the best made, and laid plans, guns, bombs, money aside, you are dealing with a cohesive society. Not a “thing”. The people of one society will be in conflict with another society. Which means that the American “freedom” society will be in conflict with the Chinese “merit & hard work” society.
Seriously?
Well, then. Take note.
There will not be a United States left when the dust settles.
China, Solomon Islands ink security cooperation, deriving from need to ‘quell Honiara riots’ in past year
China and the Solomon Islands signed a bilateral security cooperation framework agreement on Wednesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed, which focuses on social security, safeguarding people’s lives and properties, human rights aid and other fields.
The cooperation does not target a third party, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin at Thursday’s routine news conference.
"Pacific countries are a big stage of international cooperation, not some certain country's 'backyard' nor a venue for the competition of great powers."
The framework agreement on security cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands will strengthen cooperation between the two countries in natural disaster response, humanitarian assistance, development assistance, maintenance of social order and other fields, read a statement sent by the Chinese Embassy in the Solomon Islands to the Global Times on Thursday.
The two countries will jointly address both traditional and non-traditional security challenges, and inject positive energy and stability into the Solomon Islands and the regional security environment, the Embassy said.
Wang said that the cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands is based on equality and mutual benefit.
"This is the legitimate right of two sovereign states, which is in line with international law and international practice and does not allow external interference."
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson pointed out that the parties concerned should look at China-Solomon Islands security cooperation objectively and rationally, and stop making irresponsible remarks.
"Attempts to provoke, obstruct and damage friendly relations between China and the island nations are unpopular and will not succeed,"
In order to seek a hegemonic position in the South Pacific region, Australia and its allies have been paying attention to and are worried about China’s normal security cooperation with the Solomon Islands and other island countries, Yang Honglian, a senior researcher at the Pacific Islands Research Center of Liaocheng University based in Fiji, told the Global Times.
"Australia believes that next, China must take the step to develop a military relationship with the island countries," Yang said. "So Australia is bound to strengthen its influence on the countries and increase the deployment and construction of military bases."
"Australia wants the Solomon Islands to just follow what it says. But after all, it's the US behind all this pushing,"
Frank Sade Bilaupaine, Policy Consultant at the Foreign Policy Advisory Secretariat at the Solomon Islands Government, told the Global Times.
He pointed out that the security cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands
"came about because of the riots in Honiara for the past years and Chinese business is always the victim.""So Solomon Islands government view it as since now we have official diplomatic relations, maybe China can assist in building the capacity of the Solomon Islands police," he said.
Earlier, after the social unrest in the Solomon Islands in November, China provided a number of shipments of police material assistance to the Solomon Islands upon request and sent a temporary police advisory team to help strengthen the country’s police force, which has proved to be effective and welcomed by the government and people of the country, Wang pointed out.
A Chinese businessman surnamed Lin in Honiara told the Global Times on Thursday that the Chinese community supports the cooperation on security very much. He said that the police in the island country lack professional training and their equipment is outdated.
"We hope their police force could improve after cooperation with China."
As President Reagan’s U.N. Ambassador and trusted adviser, Jeane Kirkpatrick was one of the intellectual architects of our victory in the Cold War.
But Kirkpatrick was not blinded by hubris when the Berlin Wall fell. In the fall of 1990, she wrote an article in The National Interest suggesting that the United States should become a “normal country” in the post-Cold War world.
She warned U.S. post-Cold War policymakers against pursuing a “mystical mission” that reached beyond the Constitutional requirement to protect the nation’s vital national security interests.
Specifically, she wrote that the United States should not devote itself to establishing democracy around the world.
She derided the notion that the conduct of U.S. foreign policy should be “the special province” of elites who too often do not pay its costs or bear its consequences.
Such elites, Kirkpatrick warned, often develop “disinterested globalist” attitudes couched in high-minded terms such as “internationalism” instead of focusing on concrete U.S. national security interests.The Obama administration pursued, and the Biden administration continues to pursue, a globalist agenda that prioritizes multilateral efforts against climate change; promotes nuclear disarmament; and seeks to transform our armed forces into a “woke” military concerned more with race, gender, and “white nationalism” than being prepared and equipped to win wars.
The Biden administration is staffed (as Obama’s was) with elites who appear to be committed to a “disinterested globalist” or “internationalist” agenda.
They seem to believe that they are as much “citizens of the world” as they are citizens of the United States.
The US succeeded when it offered a better option. Now it demands allegiance to a political agenda instead of achieving fundamental basic functions.
Food in Finland
To an American, such as myself, this is very funny.
In comments to the Senate budget committee on Wednesday, the Republican senator from Utah said that the spiraling costs of retirement programs had to be tackled to bring national debt under control. Romney raised the politically controversial idea of cutting benefits, but only for younger generations before they reach retirement age.
Democracy spent itself broke. These programs all rob tomorrow to pay for today. The Baby Boomers, as the largest generation, created obligations that future generations cannot pay, so now the system will crash. The politicians are just trying to keep it afloat with duct tape, bubble gum wads, and sticking plaster long enough for the Boomers to die out, since those Boomers still donate the most money to candidates.
Now for some real dancing.
Soul train. It’s what I grew up with. Look at all the funk!
United States geography and demographics are changing
Specifically, 468,426 people from the other 49 states and the District of Columbia have registered a driver’s license in one of the 254 Texas counties, as of January 2022. About 20% of these people are from California.
The exodus from high-tax states has begun. Texas hides its taxes as property taxes which pay for Supreme Court mandated public schooling, most of which has nothing to do with education and is mostly free daycare and free school meals.
A system so corrupt that the avenues of change are all blocked
Joe Mandrusiak, the Freedom Foundation’s Pennsylvania outreach director, attributed falling membership to union members not approving of how union leadership spends its funds.AFSCME 13 collected $26.4 million in dues, with $7.1 million going to the national organization. Mandrusiak highlighted some of the union’s political spending and other cost in the Freedom Foundation’s article:
$3.2 million on travel.
$373,720 on food/catering.
$2.7 million on partisan organizations.
$440,000 sent to 14 groups that call for defunding the police.
$25,000 to DEMOS (Defund the Police and Prisons) group.
$21,500 to Coalition of Human Need (to tear down the law enforcement apparatus).
$465,100 to Planned Parenthood.
Collective reward and punishment systems are Leftist by nature; conservatives prefer to reward the good, punish the bad, and ignore the unexceptional and irrelevant, allowing nature to sort that one out.
Conservatism is inherently Social Darwinist in nature, but also regular Darwinist, and does not believe in saving people from themselves, in part because if you do that, you accumulate a large pool of waste humans who are parasitic and predatory by nature.
If you join a union, you have joined the American Left. People are slowly figuring this out a century late which is par for the course with humanity.
Taiwan island ‘sponsors premeditated riots’ in Solomon Islands: nation’s media
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ByZhang Hui and Fan Lingzhi Published: Jan 04, 2022 06:50 PM
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Local media in the Solomon Islands recently reported that Taiwan island allegedly sponsored the “premeditated” anti-government riots in Honiara with the purpose of trying to pull down the government of the Solomon Islands and sabotage relations between China and the Solomon Islands.
“The acts of violence directed against the democratically-elected government of the Solomon Islands, the ethnic Chinese business community in Honiara and the majority of peace-loving Solomon islanders was at its very core a premeditated, cold-blooded and cowardly Taiwan-sponsored attempt to pull down the national government and undermine Solomon Islands-People’s Republic of China relations,” Solomon Star, a local English media, reported on December 17, quoting a writer given the name of George Belau.
The newspaper said the riots resulted in the destruction of the livelihoods of innocent people and trashing of the Solomon Islands’ economy, “clearly show Taiwan and its friends, the perpetrators of the riots are enemies of the entire Solomon Islands, not just of China.”
The writer listed a few examples, such as the “provocative raising of the Taiwan-flag” by premier of Malaita Daniel Suidani in Malaita on multiple occasions and publication of the “Auki communiqué (a blatantly anti-China document).”
The writer also said Suidani’s “unauthorized” detour to the Taiwan island in May 2021 was a “move to hatch plans together with Taiwan for future riots/civilian coup.”
“China is the only global power that has never invaded another country, never imposed its values and systems on others, demonstrated the ability to cooperate with sworn enemies, not create new ones. China is the only power that represents development and not destruction. So Malaita and Solomon Islands, who do you desire as a friend?” the writer asked.
“Certainly not Taiwan – most certainly not its agents and perpetrators of the riots. It is China for me and my people,” the writer said.
During the anti-government riots taking place in the Solomon Islands in November 2021, the Global Times conducted an investigative story about the riots and found that the riots truly reflected the scope of influence the US and the island of Taiwan have had over the region considering the island nation’s history as a “geopolitical pawn.”
Some Chinese nationals in the island nation reached by the Global Times also said that they highly suspect that Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party authorities’ influence is behind the riots.
During the days-long riots, Chinese nationals in the Solomon Islands suffered great losses with their shops smashed, burned and looted and their personal safety in jeopardy.
The Chinatown area suffered the heaviest damage with most shops looted and burned.The Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, told the press in November that the crisis “is influenced and encouraged by other powers.”
He further indicated that these forces influencing Malaita ̶ the main island of the nation ̶ are those that “don’t want ties with the People’s Republic of China,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
In answering a query that many demonstrators were from the pro-Taiwan Malaita province and that the establishment of diplomatic ties with China may be the reason behind the riots, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a routine press conference on November 26, 2021 that the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Solomon Islands serves the fundamental and long-term interests of the Solomon Islands, and all attempts to disrupt the normal development of relations between the two sides are nothing but futile.
Chicken & Meatball Parmesan “Stoup”
When you make something special for family, loved ones, or friends, they remember it. And that makes the moment a true treasure.
NFRA Chicken Meatball Soup
If you love the Italian flavors of a meatball Parmesan, we’ve got the perfect way to change it up! This Chicken & Meatball Parmesan “Stoup” falls somewhere between a thick soup and a saucy stew. Topped with a delicious dinner roll that absorbs all the bold flavors, this recipe is perfect for sharing memories or making new ones. It’s also great if you just want a little bit of comfort on a cold night. Trust us, if you bring this savory recipe to the next get-together, it’ll be gone before you can blink!
What You’ll Need
3 cups beef broth
1 (24-ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
16 appetizer-sized frozen meatballs, thawed and cut in half
2 cups frozen, diced cooked chicken
1 1/2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
6 frozen par baked dinner yeast rolls
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese for sprinkling
What to Do
In a soup pot over medium-high heat, combine broth, spaghetti sauce, meatballs, chicken and vegetables. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, bake rolls according to package directions. Remove from oven and sprinkle each evenly with mozzarella cheese. Return to oven and bake 3 to 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.
Ladle “stoup” into bowls, top each with a cheese-topped roll and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Serve piping hot and get ready for lots of happy faces around the table.
How Empires Fall
How does an empire fall?
It rots and rusts in the core while the liars keep putting on fresh coats of paint every year. The collapse happens gradually over the years but no one notices. Then one day a dandelion wafts over and lands on the rotten heap, and the mighty empire collapses all at once.
It sometimes collapses with a whimper, not a bang. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, no one even noticed. No one cared.
PM
Chinese military training
MM readers are probably tired of these training videos. But I believe that there is so much value in teaching disipline, military skills, and fundamentals at an early age. From grade one, everyone in China gets military training. Here is a third grade mortar crew. video 6MB
Learning about China by looking at the Chinese girls here
This is a great and a fun way to get a snapshot of another nation. You take a look at the society, and in this case, you look at the women and girls there. Of course, if all you do is watch American “mainstream media” you might think that Chinese girls are flat-chested, thin waifs that tremble becuse they are overwhelmed by the great mass of horny menfolk (due to the one child policy). Of course, it’s a massive lie, but heck. If you want to be stupid, stay that way. I jsut don’t give a fuck. Here’s what Chinese girls really look like. Video.
When I was attending university, we used to listen to this blues album. This is the full song “Turn to stone” from the album. I hope it takes you back, like it does for me. The song is a John Walsh song, but does in a real shearing blues solo. Amazing stuff. Worth about three minutes of your time.
Show empathy
The leadership in the United States, and most of the collective West are psychopaths. They are unable to feel empathy.
But you can, can’t you?
See and experience how others feel. That’s the key to being a Rufus. You are able to put yourself into the shoes of others. video 51MB
The Supreme Court Uses Twisted Logic to Protect US Agents Committing Torture
American Supreme Court. No outrage. They’re too busy exporting American Liberal Democratic bombs to Ukraine.
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The Supreme Court declared last week that Americans have no right to learn the grisly details of CIA torture because the CIA has never formally confessed its crimes. The verdict symbolizes how the rule of law has become little more than a form of legal mumbo-jumbo to shroud official crimes. Why should anyone expect justice from a Supreme Court that covers up torture?
When a person is in distress they are not thinking clearly. They need help. Be the help. Be that Rufus. You WILL be called upon. You will have this opportunity. Be the Rufus and make the world a better place! video 3.4MB
Remember to be the Rufus
It defines your sentience. When the going gets tough, the survivors are those that are members in a community. The idea that the lone-wolf can win and survive is just a Hollysood fantasy. History celarly tells us otherwise. Be that Rufus. video. 5MB
When profits are more important than society, environment, or people.
It’s the American way. Here’s the United States. This is Hawaii.
When profits are more important than society, environment, or people.
Be the Rufus
The alarm bells are ringing. Are you going to step up to the plate and participate in life, or are you going to still stand by and be a spectator? Here are some fine American Rufus. It makes me so proud! Be a Rufus. video 39MB
A fine example of good, solid Rufus behaviors.
You have to do kind, just and maningful things. Sure, it’s nice to watch heroes in action, but just smiling, buying a cup of coffee for a co-worker, inviditng a co-worker to your home for cards, or volunteering at an animal shelter are all fine Rufus actions. Make a difference. Now is that time. video Rufus Compilation 21MB
Everyone is unique.
And everyone has their own unique story. Like this woman who paid a man to have sex with her so that she would have a child. Don’t judge. Show understanding and compassion.
I had a baby with sperm donated from a man who advertised on craigslist. If my very religious family found out it wasn’t an “accident” I would be completely shunned and disowned.
I am a female who is ugly. NO, that’s not the secret. But.. I AM ugly because I have a facial deformity that I was born with. I’ve never had a long term partner and only had sex a few times in my life. My biological clock was ticking LOUDLY and I desperately wanted a child – there wasn’t going to be time enough to meet someone and my odds were none existent as a middle-aged, ugly female.
I own my home, have a career – but I didn’t want to lose all my savings to pay to have it done through a clinic and sperm donation, etc. It would have been at least $15K per try. My chances of adopting were also almost none existent as any women looking to adopt her baby out isn’t going to pick the ugly, middle aged lady to adopt their baby, plus is crazy freaking expensive. I wanted the money I had in savings, etc.. to toward raising the child.
So I turned to Craigslist and got it for free.
My child is a preschooler now and I’ve never been happier or more fulfilled! I pinch myself every day because my child is in my life and I feel so fucking lucky. Every day is a dream come true and I savor each and every moment. I try to be the best mom I can be in every way. Parenting really makes you take a long, hard look at yourself and how you show up in the world. I parent from my heart.
I regularly send pictures and updates to the generous and selfless man who trusted me on a hand shake.
The World needs YOU!
You do not know what you can do. You just cannot prepare for it, but when the time comes, you will be called upon. You can either be a spectator (S-T-S) or an active participant (S-T-O) choose wisely.
Be the Rufus. It is your ticket out of this reality. video 3MB
Nuclear Monday [2018]
This is what we are all dealing with right now. It’s a well made very short (ten minute) film.
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Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Why do we seek answers? I don’t really know, but so many people want to understand the world how it really works, and when I tell them exactly what is the situation, they go behind a curtain and throw up. They really don’t want the truth. They want reassurance. They want confirmation that the people, and the belief structures that they believe are valid and factual.
I think that this is a function of human nature. We want to believe in things that show order, control and reason. And when we do not see those things, we get frightened and afraid.
Here’s just take a slow stroll though the “news” and comments / opinions as it is presented to us today. There are a lot of things going on, and I am trying to unpack them in a way that shows meaning and substance. I hope that you all parreciate it.
Warning: This article is heavy with embeds. It's worth your while to watch each and every one. If the embed does not appear, you can click on the link above the embed to open the video in a new tab.
The Rise of the East, and the Decline of the West
During the pandemic, senior Communist Party officials conceived a new political slogan: dōngshēng xījiàng, meaning the rise of the east and the descent of the west.
The reasoning behind it included China’s belief that it has had “systemic advantages” in tackling the coronavirus, as well as a long-held belief that the country’s state-backed technological advancement will soon put it in a position to overturn the Western world order.
It is in this lens that China’s strategic alignment with Russia was born.
Putin’s last trip out of Russia before the war was to Beijing, where he attended the Winter Olympics and signed what the Chinese call a “no-limits” partnership agreement with Xi.
The agreement between the two men declared an intention to challenge the Western order, based on democracy, freedoms and human rights.
It was quickly denounced by European officials.
But who cares. It’s a United Asia, and the rest of the weeny-eurolizards can howl.
This is the end result of an accelerated historical process having lasted 4 years after [1] Russia announced to the world her new weapons on Thursday March 1st 2018, [2] China created the Petroyuan at the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday March 26, 2018. And [3] Russia and China together formed a United Asia on February 4, 2022.
US Navy Surveillance Plane Crashes Off Virginia Coast
Strange happenings in the USA. Sure there are near-routine crashes of American military planes often enough, that they hardly get a peep from MM. But this one is different.
It’s a surveillance plane. That was flying on American domestic soil.
But the thing that I want to point out, is something that I stated two weeks ago with the highly unusual crash of the Chinese domestic airliner that killed 132 people on board.
"It appears that this was the immidiate and direct consequences for China not obeying the Biden threat not to support Russia in sanctions.
If China believes that the United States are at fault in this instance...
... you can expect an equal response; a tit-for-tat response, within the next six months."
-MM
Shenzhen, China ferry port
This is what the inside of the Shenzhen ferry port (Shekou) looks like. Like all of China, it’s clean and nice. State of art and brand new. It costs about one fifth of the cost of a United States F-35 fighter jet. video 60MB
Hollywood seems to be falling apart
Well, it does.
Bruce Willis steps away from acting after years of struggle; Chris Rock tells cheering fans that he’s “still processing” but to expect some jokes soon; and did Will Smith refused to leave the Oscars? All in today’s Movie News Rundown, which you can sign up for here.
US ‘Chips Alliance’ scheme will exacerbate global chip crunch – Global Times
The US government has been touting a so-called Chips Alliance proposal to chip manufacturing powerhouses in the Asia-Pacific region – South Korea, Japan and the island of Taiwan – in apparent attempt to kick the Chinese mainland out of the global chip supply chain. But South Korean government and chip manufacturers may find the scheme hard to accept, South Korean news outlets reported on Monday.
Washington’s latest political coercion will burden South Korean semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc, because they have significant business operations in the Chinese mainland. As it is impossible to separate the supply chain and various trade and tariff issues, the South Korean government may be put in a tough situation if the US forces it to take sides, reports said.
The US has long attempted to corral Japan, South Korea and the island of Taiwan with various attempts to build a US-led semiconductor supply chain alliance excluding the Chinese mainland. Yet, South Korea’s concerns show that a harder push from the US on the “Chips Alliance” scheme will likely encounter significant pushback. Rather than cementing US semiconductor dominance, such moves could further exacerbate the global chip shortage, which will eventually bite back on US companies.
An increasing gallery of evidence is pointing to the US’ political disruption that were designed to stifle China’s chip sector is one of the major causes of the global chip shortage that could be traced back to the first half of 2020 and has rattled a slew of industries.
Against the backdrop of tight chip production capacity and soaring demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, former US President Donald Trump’s arbitrary sanctions on major Chinese tech giants like Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) have dealt at least two heavy blows to the global chip industry chain, according to some reports.
An auto component maker admitted that after it was banned to deal with SMIC amid Trump administration’s last frenzy against Chinese companies, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) couldn’t at once fill the demand gap SMIC left, said an RFI report.
The US’ chip hegemony has endangered the global chip industrial chain, prompting criticism from companies from all over the world. Since the Trump era, the US government has tried all possible means to obstruct chip makers to import Dutch company ASML’s EUV lithography equipment – a complicated machine that US policymakers view as a key lever to strangle China’s progress in the semiconductor sector. The US’ relentless political interference has overwhelmed global businesses.
Last November, US President Joe Biden’s administration obstructed SK Hynix’s plan to import the advanced equipment to its chip factory in East China’s Jiangsu Province, according to Reuters. In response to the US’ arbitrary ban, ASML CEO Peter Wennink said export controls against China will not only fail to halt its technological progress but also hurt the US economy. But Biden has apparently chosen to tone deaf to such warnings.
While US politicians are busy concocting its CHIPS Act and splitting the global semiconductor sector to stifle China’s chip development, it apparently didn’t pay much attention to the collateral damage forced upon its own economy. Because chips are one of the core components of almost every consumer goods from mobile phones to cars, the impact of chip supply shortages on the US economy is comprehensive and huge.
Data shows that the global chip supply crisis’ impacts on the US auto industry have led to skyrocketing vehicle prices – which in turn drove one-third of all of the painful inflation Americans saw in 2021, according to a US media report.
In a recent letter to US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, the US Chamber of Commerce said the semiconductor industry is global in nature and reliant on open markets and supply chains that span the world. In this inseparable global chip industry chain, China is obviously playing an increasingly important role. While the US share of global semiconductor manufacturing capacity has declined from 37 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2020, Chinese mainland’s chip production capacity has reached 15 percent of the global capacity, surpassing the US and ranking the third.
Given Asian economies’ complementary strengths when it comes to semiconductors, the US’ attempt to exclude the Chinese mainland from the global chip supply chain is unrealistic and counterproductive. If the Biden administration continues to recklessly impose the “Chips Alliance” proposal on regional economies, it will encounter backfire from economic laws and severer economic impacts from a worse chip supply shortage.
Newest psychedelic drug — is sound? How people are using binaural beats to get high
Uh oh. Perhaps the USA is going to ban it, or turn Hemi-sync into a for-profit or NSA manipulated medium.
“We’re starting to see digital experiences defined as drugs, but they could also be seen as complementary practices alongside drug use,” the study author adds. “Maybe a drug doesn’t have to be a substance you consume, it could be to do with how an activity affects your brain.”
Despite binaural beat listeners typically being younger people, the study says it’s unlikely these clips will act as a gateway drug to other substances.
“In the survey, we found most people who listen were already using ingestible substances,” Barratt continues. “But that doesn’t discount the need for more research, particularly to document and negate possible harms.”
On a positive note, audio clips like these could find a purpose in the medical world as a new therapy option.
“Evidence is mounting but it’s still unclear, which is why more research is needed into any possible side effects,” the researcher concludes.
The study is published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review.
US veteran who volunteered to fight for Ukraine describes ‘suicide mission’
Not surprised. No “plinking” of Commies fromt he comfort of American helocopters. Don’t you know.
The Georgians apparently learned that Hoeft and company had drawn a line in the sand, and were incensed.
“A Ukrainian soldier came up to us while we were having, like one of our little meetings, and he was like, ‘Hey, the Georgians know you’re not going… they’re pissed,’” Hoeft said. The Ukrainian told them that the Georgians were “threatening to shoot you in the back.”
As The Grayzone previously reported, the ratline of armaments from the West to Ukraine has amounted to “one of the largest and fastest arms transfers in history.” Yet, Hoeft was not the only foreign volunteer to describe his role in Ukraine as cannon fodder.
“I think most of the Western equipment is going directly to the Ukrainian military,” Hoeft told The Grayzone. “They want to keep the casualties of their people to a minimum. So if you have a bunch of foreigners that come to volunteer, send them first.”
Once he and his group were told that the Georgians had plans to execute them and pass off the killings as combat-related, they hurriedly gathered their gear, hid in the back of an ambulance and headed straight for Lviv. Before long, they were crossing back over the Polish border.
On their way out of the country, Hoeft said he and “two or three” were approached by “a couple of British guys that were doing other things,” Hoeft said.
Hoeft was reluctant to divulge exactly what the Brits were up to. “They took us to a secure location and they gave us contacts to, you know, American special forces guys,” was all he would say.
Hoeft recalled the British fighters warning them about a foreign legion tent near the border crossing that was full of fighters turning back anyone attempting to cross with military gear.
“They’re basically sending them back and they’re taking their passports and sending them back,” the Brits told him.
Now that Hoeft is back in the United States, he says he is determined to warn other American veterans considering taking the trip to Ukraine that this conflict is dramatically different than the more familiar counter-insurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The last time maybe we got into something this bad could have been Vietnam, but we even had air support then,” he said. ”You don’t have air support [in Ukraine], you don’t have the superiority of the artillery. You know, Russia’s the one with the rockets, they’re the ones with the cruise missiles, they’re the ones with the jets flying overhead, drones, all that. And I just think everyone needs to carefully think about every possible scenario.”
“I just want to make sure that everyone takes that into account and knows that, hey, you’re not a Ukrainian soldier, you are a foreign fighter,” Hoeft emphasized. “They’re going to probably use you first.”
Chinese school and teacher placing a demand on the students
This would never happen in the United States. No one really cares. Not so in China. Teacher failure is students failure is national failure is Han Race failure. video 5MB
Are the White Boys Willing to Die in Defense of the Gay Disco?
As if determined to lend credence those who claim he is suffering from dementia, President Biden logged on to his Twitter account and opined:
Putin has the gall to claim that he is de-Nazifying Ukraine. This lie isn’t just cynical; it’s obscene. President Zelensky was democratically elected. He is Jewish; his father’s family was wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust.
Biden is giving expression to what could be called the a priori school of foreign policy, according to which he can deduce a statement about reality from abstract principles.
So, there can be no Nazis in Ukraine because its president is Jewish.
Another member of this school of foreign policy is Catholic neocon pundit George Weigel, who said much the same thing, dismissing any references to actual Nazis in Ukrainian army units like the Azov Brigade as chimeras evoked by conspiracy theories.
One of the most puzzling features of the current war in the Ukraine is the alliance between Jews and Nazis which makes up its current government.
MM showing the readership what it’s like in China. According to ZeroHedge, everyone in China is starving under Famine, and that it is a dark and dingy place where everyone yearns for freedom™ and democracy™. Nope. This is what it is like. Pssst. Don’t tell anyone that you see this. You will be targeted as a non-compliant free-thinker, and the thought-crime police will come after you. video 60MB
Rufus Heroic action
When the time comes, what are you going to do? Be a spectator, or take action. Your actions determine your sentience. Service-to-yourself, or service-for-others. And please don’t be a NPC service-to-another. Your actions, in this life, are a reflection of who you are. It’s binary. White or black. There is no gray area. video 2MB
Norway Grapples With Potential Windfall From Ukraine War
Speaking of Norway…
“There are times when it’s not fun to make money,” said Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland in an interview with television channel TV2 earlier in March. “And given the situation, this is one of them.”Norway produces about 2% of the global market’s crude oil, and, as the supplier of 20% to 25% of Europe’s natural gas, it is the second largest exporter to the region after Russia. Since 1996, the country has invested the revenues from the petroleum industry into its Government Pension Fund, a sovereign wealth fund designed, “to shield the Norwegian economy from ups and downs in the oil revenues,” Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in an interview with TIME over email. “It serves as a financial tool and a long-term saving plan for current and future generations.” Although its value recently decreased because of market volatility brought on by the crisis, it is still worth about $1.3 trillion—or $227,000 per citizen.
Norway seems to be “virtue signalling” to the EU that it stands with NATO, eh?
[maxbutton id="30" url="https://time.com/6161024/norway-gas-windfall-ukraine-war/" text="Norway makes money" ]
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How China works
Facial scanning is mature thoughout China. It’s been implemented about six years ago, and many places use it. Modern systems peer though face masks and identify you immediately. Pretty cool tech. video 6MB
video. Here is a Chinese girl in a white bikini. You will notice that the pool is part of her housing complex. This is normal in China. All homes pretty much come with a pool. Also, stop getting on my case for busty girls. I happen to like all women in all sizes and shapes, and I like this girl especially. I think that it is the smile that really does it for me. A smile is your most effective and powerful aspect of your personality. Use it wisely. video 4MB
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has recently made a devastating statement about the so-called “unipolar world.” That world, he said, “has come to an end.”
He added that “the Americans are no longer the masters of planet Earth.”[1] Medvedev also talked about “the hypocritical white-toothed smiles of politicians and diplomats who said one thing and did something completely different.”[2]
With respect to Russia being a European country, Medvedev said:“In terms of its geography and history, Russia is a European country. Also, we’re European in terms of our cultural identity, because a good part of our population represents the European civilization, which is closely linked to the Christian civilization. But we also have a lot of people that belong to the Muslim faith, as well as to Russia’s other major religions: Buddhism and Judaism.”[3] These questions and answers are from an interview that Russia Today conducted with Medvedev:
Q: Obviously, we’re not talking about geography here. Today, many Russians, including the country’s top officials – if you listen to what they are saying – feel that we setting ourselves up against Europe, as its opposite.
A: No, it’s them who are setting themselves up against us, trying to distinguish themselves from us. They don’t have a monopoly on ‘Europeanness’. The European civilization developed steadily all across the continent. Sure, we are not, in that sense, successors to the Roman Empire, unlike a number of other European countries that belong to the Germanic language group. We have our own history, but our history is just as European as theirs. So, when they say to us that we are no longer considered European, that sounds ridiculous, frankly. That’s all I have to say about our identity. That’s no reason to make any judgments – you asked me a question, and I told you that we are even more ‘European’ than they are. That’s all.
Q: The scale of anti-Russian sentiment in this situation is staggering. It’s like all of Europe, even the countries we believed were our friends and partners, are united in their deep hatred for our country, and it’s manifesting at every level.
And now Europeans, who always claimed they were so tolerant and committed to the principles of democracy, say such terrible things about Russia and Russians, about our leaders. Not to mention Biden – I don’t think we’ve ever heard any rhetoric like that from a top official of his caliber. On the other hand, if we take Poland, maybe Biden is not so bad after all.
And if I may ask a question about Poland, if we could move on for a moment from discussing the main issue – what’s your assessment of Warsaw’s position in this situation? Because it feels like Poland is not only aspiring to play a key role here, but also to have Lvov and the western parts of Ukraine as some kind of protectorate. I understand that this is two questions in one, so may ask you both?
A: The rhetoric is definitely very sharp. It’s no doubt defined by current events, and all the political forces in Europe are trying to use this situation to their advantage and achieve their own goals in terms of domestic policy. Every country has something to deal with, be it elections or a crisis, or the need to create a coalition. And so they need a target or an enemy.
In this case, Russia is the designated enemy, so I’m not surprised by the rhetoric. You’re right, though, when you say that sometimes it defies comprehension, or, as they say, goes beyond good and evil.
At an everyday level we also see this Russophobic rhetoric manifesting, although I would say it differs case by case. It also has to do with new communication methods, such as social media platforms, because the patterns that were less common before can now take root instantly.
Russophobic rhetoric is nothing new, though. Recently I quoted Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev, who talked about how the West ganged up on Russia 150 years ago and did everything in their power to turn us into outcasts and pariahs. Tyutchev noted that this witch hunt lasted for 30 years.
I can’t help but see certain similarities between those times and modern Russia. Russia in its current form is just over 30 years old, and for these 30 years we’ve been blamed for everything, especially in the last 20 years or so. They said we’ve picked up everything from the USSR, including its ideology, even though that’s not true, and they criticize us for this and that. So the Russophobic rhetoric we’re seeing from the West now is nothing new.
From time to time, we hear absolutely astonishing remarks, but we’re polite and we never get personal. No one points out that there are some people who exhibit clear signs of dementia or old-age senility. No one talks about grandpas who lose their balance while climbing the stairs to board a plane or forget which way their office is and go straight into the bushes. No one points this out, because we’re polite and we refrain from mentioning these things. But all that boils down to ethics and good manners.
As for Poland, I did have to speak on the subject recently because of the role Poland is trying to take on now.
Poland is more than just a loyal liege subject of the United States of America that seeks to prove its loyalty every step of the way, to show that it’s the United States’ rock and main ally in Europe. In essence – in this way or another – Poland has been trying to win back hundreds of years rather than decades of its failed attempts to restore the former glory of Rzeсzpоspolita. And if it can’t do that, then to at least remind the world of the fact that Poland used to be a very serious power both in Europe and globally, almost an empire in the making. Today, the country’s elite is represented by the Law and Justice party with Mr. Kaczyński at its helm, and they have been on a pro-American and aggressively anti-Russian path for the past ten years.
I can recall a different time – when Poland and Russia actively tried to restore their relationship, especially in the wake of the tragic death of the Polish president, and it looked quite doable because there were no impassable obstacles between us. But once the opposition party I just mentioned rose to power, the country’s vector changed dramatically, it became wildly rusophobic. I cannot call it anything but political imbecility since there’s nothing more to it.
They are trying to consolidate the voters that are very anti-Russian, and it’s no secret that Poland has quite a number of such people, as there are historical reasons for that, so they’re trying to take advantage of that and put their finger in Ukraine’s affairs. Especially since Poland is now hosting a fairly large number of refugees from Ukraine, and Poland is trying to use that for its own benefit.
They are adopting some measures that do not only aim to support the refugees (because naturally one can only want to help them) but also to find yet another way to punish Russia. They are proposing some new schemes, even amending the Constitution in order to be able to confiscate Russia’s property. Yesterday, they expelled a large number of Russian diplomats.
I don’t really understand what they’re trying to achieve with all that, because if Russia were to expel a matching number of diplomats, Poland would have to close down its entire embassy. Is that good? At the end of the day, it’s up to each sovereign state to decide whether to maintain diplomatic relations or not. But this kind of policy is utterly destructive.
I’d like to recap that Polish authorities are simply trying to prove their utmost loyalty to the United States and get more points for it by way of financial and economic support, as well as to get more political support domestically.
This is all sad, and it’s not going to end well. Quite naturally, they can expect a symmetrical reaction to their actions or counter-measures dictated by international law. We will simply end up in a situation where we stop talking to each other completely. Is it good for Poland? I don’t know, it’s Poland’s decision at the end of the day.
When will the Ukraine conflict end?
Q: Of course, we are not at the General Staff, and I am not a representative of the Ministry of Defense, but I will tell you honestly, my friends and acquaintances constantly ask how long the offensive will last. But as I said, we are not on Frunzenskaya Embankment, but the Security Council of the Russian Federation is here. Can I ask you what you personally think about the course of the operation and how much it actually meets the goals that were announced.
A: The operation took place primarily because the goals that the Russian state set for itself were not achieved through diplomacy. The President said this at the start.
The course of the operation, the plans for its implementation are determined by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. According to the Constitution, it is the President. The President gave his assessments. The operation is progressing according to plan. This plan was prepared and approved by the Supreme Commander. Therefore, I will not give any additional assessments now, it seems to me that this is a completely exhaustive assessment that was given by the President.
But it is obvious that the operation will continue until the goals set by the President of the country are achieved. These goals concern the future of Ukraine; the status of Ukraine as a neutral state, a state that does not pursue an anti-Russian policy, a state that is not militarized, and a state that should be our normal neighbour.
Therefore, until the results of the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine are achieved, the operation must continue – as it was conceived by the President of the country, as it was decided.
The US thinks it’s above the law
Q: The US has taken similar actions on a multiple of occasions in the past and in the regions that are in no way part of their immediate interests. These countries are not their neighbours or a threat to the US. Take Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan. But the US’s military action has never resulted in such a massive and consolidated response from the West.
No one responded to a bombed wedding party in Afghanistan by shutting down European clothes shops in the US. There were no other repercussions, either. Why? Why are we witnessing such a powerful response to Russia’s moves that you say are fully justified in terms of our security?
A: Now this is not going to sound as an insight, but clearly the US believes it is a nation outside international law, above everyone else.
Following the collapse of the USSR and an end to the bipolar world order based on the standoff between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the US saw itself as the winner and the sole beneficiary of the Soviet Union’s demise.
While in reality the Soviet Union broke up not because of NATO’s activities, but for internal reasons. And that’s why they behave accordingly: they believe they cannot be brought to justice, but they have the right to judge everyone, they are the ultimate decision-makers, they have the right to do whatever they want.
There are a number of drivers behind this behaviour. First of all, economically the US is a very strong country. Secondly, it issues the main reserve currency with vengeance, continuing to pile up its domestic debt. In fact, it is the whole world that is the US’s creditor. The entire world could be struggling, plunging into crises, while the Americans are printing dollars.
That is why they now feel completely unpunished in this respect as well. Exactly for that reason the US’s actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam a few decades ago, have never come under any legal scrutiny by the international community.
However, at the time of the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union was still alive, pushing for quite heavy debates at multilateral platforms. The Soviet Union, as you know, was helping Vietnam back then. The US pursued its policy for a long time.
We all remember the way it ended. Mind you, Vietnam is thousands of kilometers away from the US. Now, it’s a fact few people remember, even in this country, because it was a long time ago, but my Vietnamese friends said the US intervention in Vietnam throughout much of the 1960s killed over one million Vietnamese.
Just think about it. Over a million! Take a look at the map and see for yourself where the US is and where Vietnam is. Still, the US went in, and over a million people died as a result.
Even then it was never widely condemned although we had the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union in place.
And after the Soviet Union disappeared from the world map, along with the Warsaw Pact, the US got absolutely out of control.
They think they can do whatever they want. Yugoslavia is a case in point. We saw utter disregard for international law, the use of the armed forces and weapons by a number of countries including depleted uranium ammunition.
Was there any uproar? No. They realized they could go ahead, concocted a justification, and got away with it. Today, some European leaders admit “Well, yes, maybe they overreacted a little”. But it does not go beyond that.
Again, the US behaves this way around the world because they think there is no longer any competition. But they are wrong. Life does not stand still, prompting new developments in international relations and new countries emerging as strong powerhouses.
It means new centers of gravity in international relations are being shaped. Take the People’s Republic of China, India, and the Russian Federation.
The unipolar world is over. The US is no longer the master of planet Earth.
Russians who left are welcome to return, but not traitors
Q: You must be aware that some Russians packed their belongings and left the country immediately after the special operation started in the Donbass. Do you think they will return, or is it a one-way ticket?
A:How should I know?
Q: What can you say to those people who decided to leave Russia?
A: Every man is the architect of his own fortune. It’s their right to make such decisions. Some people have left for the time being, as I understand. Others have left for good, fearing that the current situation may affect their lives in the future. It’s their decision. I won’t comment or criticize these people.
It’s obvious, for me personally, that a significant part of these people will return to Russia eventually. This military operation affects everyone’s psychological state, you see. People keep thinking about it. I believe this may have been one of the reasons, for some people. But that’s it.
I believe what is more important for the country is, for example, the way programmers treat current events. These businesses are international, and now they have ended up being cut off from everything – payment systems, banking operations, major foreign customers. For them the consequences are really harsh. And I can understand their motives, why they are trying to find a better place under the sun.
The government has prepared a number of proposals to this end, and the President has already signed a decree. Let’s hope that we will succeed in mitigating the negative consequences for IT specialists and keep them in the country. Let’s hope that most of them will stay in Russia. This is a real problem. And I am really sorry for these people, on a personal level, because they are in a dire situation. And although it wasn’t us who introduced these limitations, but we still have to think how to make things better for these people.
Western sanctions are uniting, not dividing Russians
Q: And if we talk about entrepreneurs, about big businessmen, do they have support amid the military offensive? Taking into account the fact that now, a huge number of measures are being taken against them. Their houses, vehicles, yachts and everything else have been taken from them. How do you feel about this, taking into account the fact that the West used to say that private property should be honored. And, in general, is it normal to block accounts and populate houses with refugees – this would be unpleasant to anyone.
A: If we talk about business, this is also a part of our society, including big business – they are, as they say, guilty without any guilt.
Let’s ask ourselves a question: in general, at least someone from this big business is – to some extent – capable of influencing a small fraction, one iota, on the position of the country’s leadership. I can tell you right away: no, no way. Because we have different tasks.
Anyone who manages the state, first of all, focuses on the interests of the whole country, on the interests of the people of Russia. One who manages his own business (this is a very important task), only does this.
Therefore, the calculations that, by limiting Russian business, they will somehow influence the authorities, are absolutely meaningless, they are simply stupid. They are also trying to influence the sectors of the economy that are behind this big business. And these are hundreds of thousands, millions of our people.
In fact, with these sanctions, the Western world is trying to influence the citizens of our country, to hurt them. And, of course, try to incite them to turn against the course of the state’s leadership, against the course of the President, in the hope that in the end, it will result in some kind of trouble, some problems for the authorities.
But it seems to me that the people who generate these decisions absolutely do not understand our mentality, they do not understand the attitude of the Russian people in the broadest sense of the word. They do not understand the incentives that when such pressure is applied (and this pressure is not on large entrepreneurs, not on big business, this is pressure on anyone and everyone), society is consolidated.
Even those who were hard done by in some way or believed that they received little support, or some wrong decisions were made, in this situation says: “Well, yes, yes, they probably made a mistake in something. But in general, in this situation, I will stand for the state”.
This, it seems to me, they are absolutely unable to understand, just as they were not able to understand 70 years ago, and 100 years ago, and during various kinds of armed campaigns that were carried out, including against our country. This kind of restrictions and deprivations – only unite people, consolidate people, but do not divide them. And this is their main miscalculation, this is the weak spot of these stupid sanctions.
The death penalty doesn’t have to come back
Q: Let’s recall that the Council of Europe tried to impose restrictions on Russia for many years. You said recently that there is not much holding us back now, particularly on the issue of the death penalty. Russia has renounced capital punishment by acceding to a number of the Council of Europe’s conventions. Since this is an important issue for our nation, here is my question: how probable is a return to the death penalty? Does Russia need it?
A: This is a very complex issue. It depends on the worldview in general. It’s a philosophical and moral dilemma. There are divergent views on the death penalty. And it is natural, it has always been the case.
There is one thing I know for sure. The Russian Constitutional Court was definitely swayed in some of its rulings by this country’s participation in the Council of Europe’s conventions. These conventions are no longer binding for us.
Nevertheless, there are legal guidelines provided by the Constitutional Court on this issue. And this is a completely sovereign decision, not a direct outcome of our membership in the Council of Europe. There is an obvious implicit connection, though.
Today, there are no restrictions in this regard. However, it is still a very thorny issue. There is not only a legal side to it but also a moral one. Even the basic, canonical sources of religions provide opposing answers to this question.
The religious view on this issue is one of the basic arguments surrounding the debate on the death penalty in any country. Europe abandoned capital punishment at some point. So did we.
Unlike the US, China, and a number of other countries. They still keep it as punishment for those who have committed particularly grave crimes, first of all, murder.
Again, today international provisions are no longer binding, but there are domestic legal provisions set out by the Constitutional Court. They reflect the current crime rate.
If it does not get out of control, I believe this legal posture could remain the same.
But legal postures are not eternal either. A shift in our society could force a revision of the legal posture. The decisions of the Constitutional Court are not sacred writ, they may change.
We’ve seen it throughout Russia’s history. The Soviet Union abolished the death penalty after the war. But it did not last long, and the death penalty was restored pretty fast. This was due to a spike in violent crimes, including murders.
I don’t know how it will pan out going forward.
Russians will remember the West’s hatred forever
Q: Mr. Medvedev, do you think a lot about the pressure that Russian nationals now have to deal with abroad? Often, they face real danger.
I saw a video online showing what happened to the Russian Embassy in Ireland – I lived there for a bit as a kid, my father was posted there – and it was covered in spray paint and a driver crashed his car into the gates. It’s just unimaginable. Something like this could happen to any Russian national abroad. Meanwhile, the UN says that a ceasefire in Ukraine would bring the levels of Russophobia down. What’s your take on that position and does this connection make sense?
A: I wouldn’t call it the UN position. The UN is an international organization comprised of more than 200 nation-states. If we’re talking about what the UN officials said, well, that may be so.
Let me openly say that recently the UN governing bodies, and Secretary-General Guterres as well, have made several statements that I would call questionable from the point of view of international law. The UN should be above conflicts instead of taking sides. Of course, the levels of Russophobia these days are through the roof, as we’ve already discussed. These are manifested in the form of attacks on the Russian people and pressure exerted on our diplomatic missions.
What is there to say on the subject? If we take diplomatic missions, the responsibility lies with the country where the diplomatic mission is located. This is the host country’s task. As soon as the host country becomes indifferent to the fate of an embassy, diplomatic ties are usually either suspended or severed. So the incident in Dublin that you mentioned is fully Ireland’s responsibility. They just have to take proper steps in response.
It happens to ordinary people, too – I see it and read about it, it’s clear from the online and social media content where they criticize Russia a lot. I guess it’s to do with current events. Some genuinely feel that way, some are doing it for the hype or because everyone else does it. It’s their own personal choice. Sooner or later the tide will subside, that’s how it works. But the memories will remain.
We will remember it, too, including the Russian people who got stuck abroad while on vacation or on a business trip. It will be etched in everyone’s memory. They say they don’t want Russians there, and it’s only natural that our people who happened to be abroad at the time will remember that. I doubt that they will think higher of Europeans now than they used to.
What about the hospitality, tolerance, and neutrality that you spoke of? All of it evaporated instantly, which means it never existed in the first place. It means there was no culture and no values. It was just a façade, and now all the filth has come to the surface, which we see in the behavior of every person spewing Russophobic ideas.
We will remember it too. We won’t forget anyone who did it – in their official capacity or just in personal interactions. These days, everything is recorded. We all have a digital footprint. That’s something everyone should remember when they write nasty things about Russia, our policies or our people. It will be engraved in our people’s collective memory forever. And I’m not exaggerating here.
International sports behaving in the ‘worst possible way’
Q: Let’s talk about something else. You mentioned IT specialists who have been gravely affected and who will get assistance, but I want to ask you about our athletes. What’s happening to them is unprecedented: they are not allowed to compete or they are forced to do so under a neutral flag, they are pressured into signing petitions and making statements.
We all know that in some sports, an athlete’s career is fleeting. Won’t Russia end up on the sidelines of international sports? Competition is very important – it’s crucial for athletes to go up against talented opponents. Now it seems that the doping scandal was just a trial run.
A: Correct. Elena, Ilya, you’re right too. First, let me say that of course, it’s tough on our athletes – same as on our IT specialists. But for the latter, the challenges started fairly recently, when our ‘friends’ started trying to restrict us in every way and erect an iron curtain when it comes to finances and law. For athletes, the situation has been dire since 2014.
You’re right, our athletes train hard, but they are not allowed to compete. If they are, they have to basically compete anonymously – no Russian flag, no Russian anthem. They are forced to distance themselves from their country, saying that they only represent themselves. This is cynical and amoral, and don’t even get me started on the IOC decision regarding our Paralympic team. It’s simply incomprehensible. It’s monstrous and disgraceful.
So our main goal is to support parathletes, to make sure they feel involved in social life on par with everyone else. But they get told, “No, your government is awful and so we don’t care about you.” That goes against any moral code. I think that the IOC behaved in the worst way possible here.
Yes, it all started eight years ago with the doping scandal. We admitted that we had a doping problem in our country, we are at fault here. But saying that Russia, I mean Russian coaches and athletes were the only ones to use doping is outrageous and cynical. Other countries did it too, but it’s Russia that everyone turned on. The objective that our ‘friends’, from the Anglo-Saxon world predominantly, set was to push Russia out of international competitive sports.
What for? Again, that was to stir resentment within Russia and incite people to do something about it. So our athletes have been suffering since 2014. We will continue to support them in every way and to organize as many competitions domestically as we can. We will seek to defend their rights in all organizations, even though that’s a huge challenge these days.
These decisions were made by specific people in the IOC, the EU, the US, and the UK, which is not part of the EU anymore. It’s clear that certain people are behind these decisions, and those deprived of competitive sports will channel their bitterness in their direction.
Moscow’s rules on using nuclear weapons
Q: President Putin has often insisted that Russia only acts to defend itself against the hostile actions of the West. And in a recent interview, you said that our country has enough ‘might’ to put our enemies in their place. This implies that Russia has considered some kind of retaliation in the event of aggression. What exactly did you mean by that, Mr. Medvedev?
A: We both know exactly what I meant. Russia is not your average country – it’s a permanent member of the UN Security Council. And, as a side-note, let me say that all the ill-conceived plans to try and remove us from the Security Council are completely groundless. This would go against the UN Charter and the entirety of international law, for that matter. We are talking about the whims of individual states. This is my first point.
And my second point is, Russia is a nuclear power with the largest stockpile of strategic nuclear weapons on the planet. Naturally, no one is threatening anyone, but you mentioned the remarks made by President Putin… A few weeks ago, our country’s nuclear deterrence forces were put on high alert. It was a simple message so that any country that tries to interfere with Russia’s foreign policy would know what to expect. They heard us and said they wouldn’t try anything.
I certainly hope this has helped cool down some of the hotter heads in Poland and other US satellites. Still, they do occasionally come up with ridiculous ideas like closing the airspace over Ukraine. Luckily, there are cool-headed and reasonable analysts at the Pentagon and elsewhere who say this is absolutely out of the question as it would lead to a direct military confrontation with Russia.
I think this will be enough, for now. Although we do have a special document on nuclear deterrence which states explicitly the circumstances under which the Russian Federation has the right to use nuclear weapons. There are several such conditions, let me remind you what they are.
First is the launch of ballistic nuclear missiles to attack Russian territory. Second is the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction by an adversary against Russian territory or its allies. The third has to do with an attack on critical infrastructure resulting in the crippling of our nuclear deterrence forces. And, finally, the fourth is when an act of aggression is committed against the Russian Federation or its allies – whether with nuclear or conventional weapons – which threatens the very existence of the state.
All these conditions are listed in the document which was approved by the President’s executive order. This testifies to our determination to uphold the independence and sovereignty of Russia. Let no one have even the slightest reason to doubt that we are capable of giving a proper response to any attack or encroachment on our country, its independence, or its policies.
But keep in mind that I am saying all this because you asked the question. Obviously, our position is that however complicated, any situation must be approached using diplomatic tools. And in the case of Ukraine, negotiations remain the most constructive and reasonable course of action. We realize that diplomacy does not always result in success, but this is still the right way to go.
The US had ‘more brains’ during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Q: You just mentioned something that terrifies everyone on the planet – the prospect of a nuclear war. Another scary prospect is the military confrontation between Russia and NATO. In many ways, these two scenarios are similar – in fact, they may be one and the same. Do you believe there is a risk of such a war breaking out? Would you compare the current situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world also seemed like it was teetering on edge? Back then, we referred to this standoff as the ‘Cold War’. What would you call the current state of relations between Russia and the collective West?
A: Nobody wants war. Nuclear war is a threat to the very existence of human civilization. In this sense, those analysts who say, perhaps somewhat cynically, that the invention of nuclear weapons has prevented a huge number of conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries, are right. This is true.
So obviously there is always a threat. As a former commander-in-chief, I am well aware of its scale. Our people know that NATO’s nuclear weapons target facilities in this country and our warheads are aimed at targets in Europe and the US. But that is life. We must always keep this in mind and act in a responsible manner. As simple as that.
As for the Cuban Missile Crisis, for obvious reasons, I don’t have any personal memories, I only know about it from history books. But I had a chance to talk to one of the witnesses, Fidel Castro.
Today, we live in another reality, in a different world. There is no Soviet Union, no Warsaw Pact, many illusions are gone.
A lot of things are not in place anymore, but the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis sank in pretty well back then. It had a sobering effect on everyone, including the leadership of the US, NATO, the Soviet Union, and the Warsaw Pact.
The world was living through a Cold War then but right now the situation is somehow worse, in my view. Back then our opponents did not try to bring the situation in the Soviet Union to a boiling point so aggressively.
True, their actions may have been disguised, but no sanctions were imposed on entire industries or agriculture, let alone personal sanctions.
It never occurred to anybody to impose sanctions on Brezhnev, Podgorny, and Kosygin. They understood, of course, that it made no sense, just as they do now, but at least they had the brains not to do it then.
Now everyone is in an awkward position. They have imposed sanctions, but it is still necessary to communicate if only to prevent all sorts of undesirable consequences, including such terrible ones as, say, a conflict between Russia and NATO. It’s like everyone is under sanctions, everyone is on some kind of list.
I signed the well-known START III, or Start Treaty, with President Obama. That treaty was extended by President Putin and President Biden. Why make it so embarrassing? The treaties were signed, but it was done by individuals who are on the sanctions list. If the Russian leadership were irresponsible in this regard, you could probably say: “If that’s the way you treat us, then that’s it, goodbye.”
There is a legal doctrine known as clausula rebus sic stantibus, which means that international treaties are valid as long as the circumstances that gave rise to them exist. Those circumstances have disappeared. You are not treating us as counterparts anymore. The persons who signed the treaty are on your sanctions list. Maybe it’s time to pull out of it? I am just trying to point out that these sanctions do not make any sense, they are absurd.
This was not the case during the Cold War. And it’s a reality now. The relationship between the Russian Federation and the West, the US-led Anglo-Saxon civilization in the broad sense of the word, is probably in a worse state than in the 1960s and 1970s. There is no doubt about that.
Fixing up Yalta for new world order talks
Q: Now, about the talks with Ukraine… how would you assess the progress? It appears that some arrangements are still possible. How will these agreements be guaranteed? Will the West need to bear some kind of responsibility in this regard? Once the special operation is over, given all the factors, would we need a new Yalta Conference to formalize the new world order, which, as you say, has ceased to be unipolar?
A: It’s an unrewarding task to comment on negotiations, and it’s wrong. Talks need silence. And it’s not without reason that the sides are negotiating via videoconference, almost daily, and not in the face-to-face format that requires more time. That is why I won’t comment on the talks. I don’t want to create problems for the negotiators or give ground to excessive hopes or emotional responses that such comments on my part could generate.
The goal of these talks is clear – to solidify the results which the Russian special operation pursues, in particular the neutral status of Ukraine, its demilitarization, and the repeal of the laws driven by Nazi ideology that were introduced by the Ukrainian government. Whatever they say about these laws, they effectively divide the people by their national identity. Some are called people of the right nationality, others are practically excluded. And there are also a number of other goals Russia is seeking to achieve.
Ukraine is pursuing its own goals, of course, and hopes to achieve them in the course of the talks. They include, primarily, retaining its sovereignty and securing further development of the country.
As for the guarantees that the negotiated terms will be implemented, there are two types. Firstly, there are guarantees provided by the signatories of the agreements. In the long run, those who will sign the documents, have the authority and responsibility to see to their implementation. And secondly, there are guarantees related to various international mechanisms. I will not overstate their importance here, of course, because there are a lot of agreements that were signed but not implemented. But, in any case, this is better than legal uncertainty or repeated attempts by Ukraine to weave its way into NATO in order to create a direct threat at Russia’s borders. In that respect, an agreement and the legal guarantees it provides are way better than no agreement. And this is the way to resolve the conflict.
You mentioned Yalta. I can only say that we will be happy to welcome foreign delegations in the Russian city of Yalta for talks. The palace that was used in the past for this purpose is not in ideal state, but it can still be used to accommodate guests.
An attack on their own economic values
Q: Mr. Medvedev, one does not need to be Fidel Castro to…
A: Fidel Castro can’t be replaced, he was unique.
Q: …to talk about the events of 1998. Let me share my observations with you. Even people who were born after 1998 keep asking me as a journalist – they seem to think that I am competent to answer this question…
A: But you are competent. Journalists know everything. They know more than politicians.
Q: Thank you. So they keep asking me if we are going back to 1998. And they mention the default. We have avoided the default scenario for now, as we were allowed to make payments on our sovereign debt. But still?
A: Do you remember 1998, personally?
Q: I remember that the ruble depreciated four times against the US dollar.
A: I see. Yes, it’s a memory that is not easily forgotten.
You cannot step into the same river twice. I was not related to state governance back in 1998 and saw everything through the lens of a common citizen, a businessman if you like. But the Russian state and society were much less protected back then.
But I remember 2008 and 2009 very well when I personally had to tackle the financial crisis. I also have an excellent recollection of 2014 and all the years that followed, when I had to address the issues as the chairman of the Russian government.
Every crisis is unique, in its way. In 2008, we created G20. They want to remove Russia from G20 now. But I remember how it was born right in front of me. The decision to create G20 was collective. First President Bush participated, then Barack Obama. Everyone was delighted that representatives from so many different countries were sitting at the same table – Russia, the US, China, India. G20 was a format that was born from consensus, based on unanimity. And now they suggest removing us from G20. No, guys, you can’t do that!
You asked us to join G7, to be the eighth-member state. That’s right. But it’s different. G7 is your private club and if don’t want us to be part of it, we will go. And we did, we were “ushered out”. But this club is not important any longer. G20 is a different story. It was G20 that helped us out of the 2008 financial crisis.
Why am I talking about this right now? Because the situation we are in is different. Back then, all of us were trying to overcome the global financial crisis, caused by the financial bubble in the United States of America. Our common goal was to stand against it. And we achieved that goal, by the way.
With varying degrees of success, we pulled the Russian and global economy out of that crisis in a relatively short period of time. What’s happening now, however, is an economic war that the West declared against Russia – to quote a French minister. They declared an economic war against Russia. And they are trying to wage this war without rules.
Why? You asked, but I didn’t get a chance to answer. What’s written on the banners of any capitalist society, any market economy? Utter respect for private property rights! This is sacred! The world may perish, but justice will prevail. Everything may perish, but the private property will remain.
And what are they doing? They are blocking the assets of our financial institutions, even the Central Bank. They are even talking about confiscating these assets, i.e. nationalizing them. Listen, this is a real war without rules. What will be the consequences of this war? Destruction of the whole global economic order. This is an attack on the economic values of our planet – ironically, these values were first formed in Europe and the United States of America, in our country, and later, at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, in Asian countries as well. Now we see how the founding principles of the market economy are being rejected. What can we say then? If they don’t value these principles, let them do whatever they plan to do, but, naturally, this will force Russia to respond with symmetric measures.
But, on the other hand, this new challenge and the reaction that must follow could be very effective. I’ve said it many times before, and this is true – had sanctions not been imposed on Russia in 2014, we would’ve had a worse situation in our agriculture right now. Everybody understands it well. We stopped their imports, and now our food security is at a very high level.
I hope that even in this situation, our colleagues in the government will be able to find adequate solutions that would foster the development of our industry, including aircraft engineering, the automotive industry, and key sectors like microelectronics and IT. We will have to deal with these issues anyway. Yes, it will be harder now, but, on the other hand, there is no one else we can count on. This time we will have to do everything ourselves.
Rubles for oil was a ‘pretty obvious’ move
Q: Let’s move to a very important issue. Ironically, the West says they will cut us off everything, but they can’t cut themselves off from our gas and oil, simply because it would backfire, they would freeze. They will now try to use less energy and come up with new proposals. Nevertheless, they have so far refrained from sanctions against our oil and gas.
But going forward they say they would like to stop using gas and oil from Russia. How realistic is it? Should we just sit and wait for that to happen, or rather take some action? The Russian president announced a move to the Russian rouble as the settlement currency. How will it work out? What will it look like in practice?
A: Well, let them buy it as long as they want. No one wants to lose money, right? This is all bravado and chest-beating.
Well, it could work for the US since they have an array of suppliers, they are isolated from Europe, they are not so dependent on our deliveries.
The US has banned our oil, though it hasn’t gone that well. The Americans will keep reminding President Biden about the price of a gallon. Ukraine is very far away and gasoline prices somewhere in the Midwest are at a record high right now. Inflation is 10 percent. It’s a mind-blowing number for the US.
So this decision will haunt the US administration. Its consumers will say a big ‘thank you’ for what their government is doing to their domestic economy as a side effect of attempts to sway the Russians.
Overall, I’m philosophical about it. It’s our natural wealth, it’s our gas and oil. We have to trade it with Europeans, with Asia. Generally, there has been a global energy shift every 50-70 years. I do not know what will be the main energy source in 2050 – hydrogen or any other technology. I simply do not know. So we have to prepare for that as well.
But right now, this is a significant part of our income, and we have to get the full compensation for it. Certainly, we are looking at Asian markets in the current environment, and are figuring out ways to diversify our supplies.
Our European friends appear to be in a big hurry to give up oil and gas supplies from Russia. But in reality, it is a very challenging task. 40 percent of their gas supplies come from Russia. Russian oil accounts for about one-third of their imports.
But in any case, it is up to them. If they want to get rid of it, they will. The only question is, when. That’s something that we also need to respond to.
As for President Putin’s decision to switch to rouble settlements, I think it is a pretty obvious move. They shut down the correspondent accounts for our commercial banks, made settlements in dollars and euros impossible, and disconnected the banks on the sanctions list from SWIFT, at least some of them. What did they think we were going to do?
The only legal tender in the Russian Federation is the rouble. So it’s a simple offer: since there is no other way, you have to pay in roubles. So let them find a way to pay.
Anyway, consultations are underway. We’ll see how it works out. But it was a very intuitive decision.
Q: What about Nord Stream? The Americans are rushing to bury it…
A: They are rushing.
Q: They call it “a hunk of metal”, using some peculiar words to describe it. Do you think this project still has some potential? And if we talk about the infrastructure, how long will it stay in shape without being used or serviced, without pumping gas?
A: I am not an expert on the subject, I can’t assess the durability of the Nord Stream infrastructure. I am sure it’s durable, but I don’t know the degree – we are not talking about months, obviously. As far as large-scale economic projects go, I tend to be optimistic – despite our current circumstances and the emotionally charged context that we are dealing with when passions run high.
The thing is, there are certain laws that can’t be ignored, even if our friends are trying to violate them right now. There have been significant financial investments, this is a very important and beneficial project, profitable for all partners. Conflicts come and go, but the economy and money stay.
I think the Nord Stream 2 project has a good future. It will happen if our partners decide to start using their heads at some point and remember that they have taxpayers and voters to answer to, that there are certain social obligations that they have to fulfill. Their responsibility is not simply to hurt Russia but to solve key problems in their economy. They need to think about helping their own people, making sure that their taxpayers’ utility bills are not through the roof.
And I have to say this. What happened right after they made their decision concerning Nord Stream 2? What we said would happen. Utility bills went up to unprecedented levels. As high as two thousand euros in some instances.
Let me remind you that just recently, a few years ago, we talked about pipeline gas, not the spot market. However, anything over 400-500 dollars or euros seemed like an outrageous price. And now we see these numbers. Is it a good situation? Of course not. That’s why I tend to be cautiously optimistic when we talk about this.
Capitalism means they’ll come back
Q: Do you think we’ll see Western companies returning to Russia at some point, I mean those companies that are withdrawing or suspending their operation in Russia now?
A: Of course, we will. It’s only a question of when they will return and what it’ll cost them in terms of losses. You see, Russia is a fairly large market, some say a premium market. So if they are willing to lose a share of their income, it’s up to them. We can do without them, but the thing is they don’t want to lose it, they keep telling us that they’re waiting and hoping for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. And they keep asking us not to take over or appoint external management to or nationalize their operations because they want to return.
I think one of the press secretaries, either of the United States or another country, said that the administration had nothing to do with this decision made by major businesses – that it was solely their own decision, their civic position, that they put their heads in that noose of their own will. They wanted to give up this market – I say they need to read Karl Marx. Marx explains very well that capital will never forego a chance to increase profit.
This means that unless they were under tremendous pressure from their own governments, I mean the governments of the West, none of these companies would ever even think of giving up Russia as a market. This was a political decision. And political decisions have an expiry date. The economy is, on the other hand, perpetual.
The US is the real ‘rogue state’
Q: So, the sanctions have been applied to put pressure on every sector of our economy. It feels as if now, in contrast to the situation when the Soviet Union put up the Iron Curtain to shut itself off from the West of its own will, Russia is being forced to put that curtain up and become some sort of a new North Korea. It’s like people don’t want it, no one wants it, but the big powerful machine is already working, and someone is pushing the buttons. I’m saying it’s like North Korea because North Korea was buried under the sanctions, or it’s like Cuba where people still drive cars made in the 1960s. So maybe someone wants Russians to start going through scrap metal and repairing old ZAZ “Zaporozhets” cars to drive them…
A: What a shame that I sold mine. I used to own a Zhiguli car from the 80s. I guess I could use it now.
Q: That was probably the idea. So what do you think – as a worst-case scenario – could this kind of thing happen in Russia?
A: I think everyone understands that it can’t. Even though in the course of this interview I did question the intellectual abilities of the people who come up with all these sanctions against Russia, I must say there are different people there, and some realize very well what’s going on.
You see, all of them understand that, with all due and utmost respect to our friends in Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Russia is no Cuba and no North Korea. Russia is Russia, the world’s largest country, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a huge economy, and nuclear power, which is why all these ideas that Russia can be curbed like Cuba or North Korea once were and that it could just be kept that way don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s impossible. It’s just utterly impossible. Even if some in the political circles and elites of the West would want it that way.
Yes, there are obviously challenges and we’ll have to overcome them. Unfortunately, they exist both at the governmental and everyday levels. Still, it’s nothing new for us, and it’s not catastrophic. It pales in comparison to the hardships that our country had to go through in the 20th century. I tell you what – it’s not even in the same league as the problems we faced during the coronavirus pandemic.
Back then, we really felt uneasy from time to time, because we had no idea how this virus would behave, regardless of where it came from. Could it kill off most of humanity, like in some sci-fi books? So back then things were much tenser, I’d say. The tragedy of course is that the virus caused so many deaths.
But this is a different story, and there can be no illusions here. They are trying to put us into the ‘rogue nation’ or ‘rogue country’ category. As for its etymology, I think it was Reagan who came up with the term. The Russian translation for it is ‘outcast’, but ‘rogue’ is actually closer in meaning to ‘outlaw’.
In fact, it’s the US that’s the rogue nation here. It’s not because we don’t like Americans. It’s because the US is constantly launching wars of conquest across the world. They are the outcast and the outlaw.
[1] “‘The unipolar world has come to an end,’ Russia’s former president says,” Russia Today, March 24, 2022.
[3] “Post-Cold War world order is over, former Russian president says (FULL INTERVIEW),” Russia Today, March 26, 2022.
British “news” reports that China will use Facebook Metaverse to recruit for communism
Funny. As Facebook and Metaverse are BANNED in China. Where do they get such mind-rot bullshit?
Chinese authorities are set to build a Communist education school in virtual reality in a bid to get top party officials into VR.
According to Chinese virtual reality firm Mengke VR, the CCCP's metaverse will run history lectures and courses, host meetings and virtual events, and even let people explore virtual exhibits.
You'll be able to put down the videogames for something better, as Beijing's metaverse will include fun-filled courses such as "The Great New Era - Major Achievements of the Party and the Country Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China" and "The Code of Leadership of the Communist Party of China".
State Department will soon allow ‘X’ passport gender markers
Americans will be able to mark their gender as “X” on their passports instead of “M” or “F” starting next month, the State Department announced Thursday.
The “X” gender marker would identify passport holders who have an “unspecified or another gender identity,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement announcing the change, adding that the option will be available for other forms of documentation next year.
Non-binary, intersex and other gender non-conforming Americans will be able to use the “X” gender marker on their passports starting April 11. Americans who wish to change their gender on their passports will not need to provide any documentation to do so.
“The Department is setting a precedent as the first federal government agency to offer the X gender marker on an identity document,” said Blinken, who called the move a “milestone” in efforts to “better serve all US citizens.
But this might not be accepted as a valid gender to visit a host of other nations.
There is no excuse worthy of stopping someone from helping others. NONE. You are either a service-to-others sentience Rufus or you are a selfish slimeball who love paper and bling-bling more. video 2MB
How Mariupol will become a key hub of Eurasian integration
19377 ViewsMarch 30, 2022
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and cross posted with The Cradle
Mariupol was battered by Ukraine’s right-wing Azov battalion well before Moscow launched its military ops. In Russian hands, this strategic steelworks port can transform into a hub of Eurasian connectivity.
Mariupol, the strategic Sea of Azov port, remains in the eye of the storm in Ukraine.
The NATO narrative is that Azovstal – one of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works – was nearly destroyed by the Russian Army and its allied Donetsk forces who “lay siege” to Mariupol.
The true story is that the neo-Nazi Azov batallion took scores of Mariupol civilians as human shields since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and retreated to Azovstal as a last stand. After an ultimatum delivered last week, they are now being completely exterminated by the Russian and Donetsk forces and Chechen Spetsnaz.
Azovstal, part of the Metinvest group controlled by Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, is indeed one of the biggest metallurgic plants in Europe, self-described as a “high-performance integrated metallurgical enterprise that produces coke and sinter, steel as well as high-quality rolled products, bars and shapes.”
Amidst a flurry of testimonials detailing the horrors inflicted by the Azov neo-Nazis on Mariupol’s civilian population, a way more auspicious, invisible story bodes well for the immediate future.
Russia is the world’s fifth largest steel producer, apart from holding huge iron and coal deposits. Mariupol – a steel Mecca – used to source coal from Donbass, but under de facto neo-Nazi rule since the 2014 Maidan events, was turned into an importer. Iron, for instance, started to be supplied from Krivbas in Ukraine, over 200 kilometers away.
After Donetsk solidifies itself as an independent republic or, via referendum, chooses to become part of the Russian Federation, this situation is bound to change.
Azovstal is invested in a broad product line of very useful stuff: structural steel, rail for railroads, hardened steel for chains, mining equipment, rolled steel used in factory apparatus, trucks and railroad cars. Parts of the factory complex are quite modern while some, decades old, are badly in need of upgrading, which Russian industry can certainly provide.
Strategically, this is a huge complex, right at the Sea of Azov, which is now, for all practical purposes, incorporated into the Donetsk People’s Republic, and close to the Black Sea. That implies a short trip to the Eastern Mediterranean, including many potential customers in West Asia. And crossing Suez and reaching the Indian Ocean, are customers all across South and Southeast Asia.
So the Donetsk People’s Republic, possibly part of the future Novorossiya, and even part of Russia, will be in control of a lot of steel-making capacity for southern Europe, West Asia, and beyond.
One of the inevitable consequences is that it will be able to supply a real freight railroad construction boom in Russia, China and the Central Asian ‘stans.’ Railroad construction happens to be the privileged connectivity mode for Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And, crucially, of the increasingly turbo-charged International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).
So, mid-term, Mariupol should expect to become one of the key hubs of a boom in north-south routes – INSTC across Russia and linking with the ‘stans’ – as well as major BRI upgrades east-west and sub-BRI corridors.
Interlocked Eurasia
The INSTC’s main players are Russia, Iran and India – which are now, post-NATO sanctions, in advanced interconnection mode, complete with devising mechanisms to bypass the US dollar in their trade. Azerbaijan is another important INSTC player, yet more volatile because it privileges Turkey’s connectivity designs in the Caucasus.
The INSTC network will also be progressively interconnecting with Pakistan – and that means the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key BRI hub, which is slowly but surely expanding to Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s impromptu visit to Kabul late last week was to advance the incorporation of Afghanistan to the New Silk Roads.
All that is happening as Moscow – extremely close to New Delhi – is simultaneously expanding trade relations with Islamabad. All three, crucially, are Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members.
So the grand North-South design spells out fluent connectivity from the Russian mainland to the Caucasus (Azerbaijan), to West Asia (Iran) all the way to South Asia (India and Pakistan). None of these key players have demonized or sanctioned Russia despite ongoing US pressures to do so.
Strategically, that represents the Russian multipolar concept of Greater Eurasian Partnership in action in terms of trade and connectivity – in parallel and complimentary with BRI because India, eager to install a rupee-ruble mechanism to buy energy, in this case is an absolutely crucial Russia partner, matching China’s reported $400 billion strategic deal with Iran. In practice, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will facilitate smoother connectivity between Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India.
The NATO universe, meanwhile, is congenitally incapable of even recognizing the complexity of the alignment, not to mention analyze its implications. What we have is the interlocking of BRI, INTSC and the Greater Eurasia Partnership on the ground – all notions that are regarded as anathema in the Washington Beltway.
All that of course is being designed amidst a game-changing geoeconomic moment, as Russia, starting this Thursday, will only accept payment for its gas in rubles from “unfriendly” nations.
Parallel to the Greater Eurasia Partnership, BRI, since it was launched in 2013, is also progressively weaving a complex, integrated Eurasian network of partnerships: financial/economic, connectivity, physical infrastructure building, economic/trade corridors. BRI’s role as a co-shaper of institutions of global governance, including normative foundations, has also been crucial, much to the despair of the NATO alliance.
Time to de-westernize
Yet only now the Global South, especially, will start to observe the full spectrum of the China-Russia play across the Eurasian sphere. Moscow and Beijing are deeply involved in a joint drive to de-westernize globalist governance, if not shatter it altogether.
Russia from now on will be even more meticulous in its institution-building, coalescing the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – a Eurasian military alliance of select post-Soviet states – in a geopolitical context of irreversible institutional and normative divide between Russia and the West.
At the same time, the Greater Eurasia Partnership will be solidifying Russia as the ultimate Eurasian bridge, creating a common space across Eurasia which could even ignore vassalized Europe.
Meanwhile in real life, BRI, as much as the INSTC, will be increasingly plugged into the Black Sea (hello, Mariupol). And BRI itself may even be prone to re-evaluation in its emphasis of linking western China to western Europe’s shrinking industrial base.
There will be no point in privileging the northern BRI corridors – China-Mongolia-Russia via the Trans-Siberian, and the Eurasian land bridge via Kazakhstan – when you have Europe descending into medieval dementia.
BRI’s renewed focus will be on gaining access to irreplaceable commodities – and that means Russia – as well as securing essential supplies for Chinese production. Commodity-rich nations, such as Kazakhstan and many players in Africa, shall become the top future markets for China.
In a pre-Covid loop across Central Asia, one constantly heard that China builds plants and high-speed railways while Europe at best writes white papers. It can always get worse.
The EU as occupied American territory is now descending, fast, from center of global power to the status of inconsequential peripheral player, a mere struggling market in the far periphery of China’s “community of shared destiny.”
In the United States and all across the world, millions upon millions of chickens and turkeys are dying as a result of an absolutely horrifying new bird flu plague. Considering the fact that global food supplies have become extremely tight and even Joe Biden is admitting that food shortages are looming, this is definitely something that we don’t need right now. The very first confirmed case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in a commercial flock in the U.S. was confirmed on February 8th, and in less than two months it has spread to facilities all over the nation. Sadly, we have just learned that it has now even reached the top turkey-producing state in the entire country…
For the first time, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was confirmed in Minnesota, the top turkey-producing state in the nation, said agricultural officials over the weekend. Some 14.6 million birds in domestic flocks have died of HPAI or in culling of infected herds to reduce the spread of the viral disease this year.
To me, that death toll is extremely alarming.
In less than two months, over 14 million chickens and turkeys in the United States have already been wiped out by this plague.
If things are this bad already, what will the total death toll look like six months from now?
One expert that was interviewed by NBC News says that he is anticipating an “explosion” of new cases in the weeks ahead…
The measures may do little to stop the spread of the virus, according to Henry Niman, a virologist and biochemist in Pittsburgh who has been tracking the bird flu’s spread. He is expecting an “explosion” of bird flu cases in birds in the coming weeks.“This outbreak I think is likely going to be bigger than 2015,” he said, noting that the disease is already widespread in other regions of the world, such as Europe and Canada.
If he is correct, we are potentially facing a true national catastrophe.
Of course it isn’t just the U.S. that is dealing with this. In Canada, HPAI has now been confirmed in southern Ontario…
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says bird flu has been found at a poultry farm in southern Ontario.The agency says the farm is under a strict quarantine, and the CFIA is establishing movement controls and recommending higher biosecurity at nearby farms.
Europe and Asia are being hit really hard as well. Canda and Europe are being hit.
For example, a new outbreak was just detected at a large facility in Bulgaria…
An outbreak of bird flu on a Bulgarian farm with over 177,000 laying hens has forced authorities to begin slaughtering the remaining flock, the country’s food safety agency said on Monday.The outbreak in the town of Asenovgrad is the sixth industrial farm hit by the highly pathogenic avian influenza type A in southern Bulgaria since December.
As you read this article, you may be wondering what this plague is going to do to the price of chicken and the price of turkey.
Needless to say, we are headed into unprecedented territory. Just look at what happened to the price of chicken wings in just one week…
Chicken wings averaged $3.82 per pound according to the USDA’s National Retail report last week, compared to $2.99 the week prior and $2.54 last year.
Normally, Americans eat an enormous amount of chicken and an enormous amount of turkey.
But now that we are facing potential shortages and much higher prices, both chicken and turkey may soon be considered “luxury meats”.
For our entire lives, most of us have been able to take extremely cheap meat for granted. It was always there in the grocery stores whenever we wanted it, and before the last couple of years I don’t remember ever hearing about any shortages.
But now everything is changing.
At first, U.S. consumers were willing to absorb higher prices as inflation began to ravage our economy, but now we are starting to witness a shift…
U.S. households have until recently mostly absorbed higher prices on everything from coffee to chicken to clothes, helping companies maintain fat profit margins despite higher input. But that doesn’t mean consumers were happy about paying more for the same goods, which is why the University of Michigan’s sentiment index has steadily deteriorated to the lowest since 2011.
A trip to the grocery store is becoming increasingly painful for most Americans.
If you have been lately, than you know exactly what I am talking about.
But the food inflation that we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
Let’s just hope that this new bird flu plague stays only in birds. According to the official CDC website, the death rate for H5N1 in humans can be extremely high…
More than 700 human infections with Asian HPAI H5N1 viruses have been reported to WHO from primarily 15 countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Europe and the Near East since November 2003. Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt have reported the highest number of human HPAI Asian H5N1 cases to date.The first report of a human infection with Asian H5N1 in the Americas was in Canada on January 8, 2014 and occurred in a traveler recently returning from China. Although human infections with this virus are rare, approximately 60% of the cases have died.
The good news is that authorities are telling us that it is “unlikely” that a strain will emerge that can spread widely among humans.
But H5N1 has a very high mortality rate, and the longer and larger the wave of outbreaks, the higher the chances it could mutate into a strain that is more infectious to humans. So US health officials are closely monitoring the situation.The CDC has also produced a candidate vaccine virus as a precaution.
Needless to say, this new bird flu plague that is killing millions of chickens and turkeys is only one piece of the puzzle.
The truth is that we are in the midst of a “perfect storm” which just continues to increase in size and scope.
I recently heard from a farmer that told me that many in his industry are scared to death of this bird flu.
Once it is detected at a facility, all of the birds must be put down.
If that happens, that can be financially catastrophic for a farm.
I am going to keep a very close eye on this story, because this is really big.
Of course so many big things are happening right now, and I expect global events to accelerate even more throughout the rest of 2022.
Something interesting has happened
There is this strange faith in the United States government. Why and how? video 3MB
We must work together to make the world a better place. We just simply can no longer think ME-me-me. We have to participate in community and help others. The world needs us. Are you ready? video 1MB
It teaches many things. You all might be surprised in how the Chinese school kids learn patriotic songs. Sure as Hell beats diversity training, trans-gen LGBT freedom, and ebonics.
One of the puzzles from the Great War is how the leaders on both sides allowed themselves to get drawn into the war. There are plenty of reasons why each country would want war, including the infamous one that caused a certain Austrian fellow to coin the term “the big lie.” The problem with all of the reasons is they made little sense in light of the obvious costs of war. As a result, the Great War is a great example of how events can tale on a life of their own.
The remarkable thing about that war is that once it settled into trench warfare no one realized the hopelessness of it. One can understand how the initial events would spiral into a global conflict. That is not a new phenomenon. Similarly, you can see how the initial moves in the war made a lot of sense to the leaders on both sides. This was the first industrial war, so they had a lot to learn. New weapons needed new tactics but few people realized that at the start of the war.
The great puzzle of the war is that the sides did not see the hopelessness of the situation once in settled into a stalemate. Both sides were losing tens of thousands of men with each attack, only to gain a few yards of ground. The Battle of the Marne and the subsequent race to the sea made sense. The losses were high, but both sides had hope for quick victory. Two years later the French and Germans lost over a million men at Verdun and the winner got nothing for their trouble.
A century on and we are getting some fresh insight into why the Western leaders in the Great War were incapable of seeing things clearly. The war in Ukraine is proving to be nothing like Western planners imagined. They assumed the Ukrainians would stall the Russians into a stalemate of urban warfare. The world would rally to the sanctions regime and it would quickly be a question of how long the Russians could suffer the economic consequences of the sanctions.
After just one month it is clear this is not happening. The Russians did not fight like the NATO planners imagined. Instead of rushing to Kiev, they pinned the Ukrainian army in the north, using classic maneuver tactics. Meanwhile their main army is systematically destroying the Ukrainian army in the south and east. It also appears the Russians were well prepared for the Ukrainian tactic of digging into urban areas. It is now just a matter of time before the Ukrainian army in the east is lost.
That is just one miscalculation by the West, but it should be concerning. The Russians are not doing anything novel in Ukraine. They are using classic tactics that have been used in Europe since Napoleon. Further, they are following a doctrine they evolved in the Second Chechen war. That was a doctrine Vladimir Putin created as the guy running that war for Russia. It seems that no one in the west bothered to study the man they claim is the new Hitler.
That is only one small part of the miscalculation. The decision to cutoff the Russian central bank appears to have been a massive blunder. The Russians, faced with the threat of their dollar and Euro assets being seized by Western banks have told the West they must pay for goods in rubles. Otherwise, they are forced to send product to the West but not be paid for it. Alternatively, they would have to make concessions in order to get their assets unfrozen by the West.
Why anyone in the West thought this was a good idea is a mystery. It turns out that the Biden administration did not consult with the Federal Reserve. Europe appears to have just followed along without questioning the policy. Now that Russia has countered their move, Europe is in a terrible position. They either support the ruble with massive purchases or they face an imminent shortage of natural gas. That means rationing of energy products could happen as soon as next month.
Of course, the words “shortage” and “rationing” will trigger the natural response, which is hording and price gouging. That will also mean a political response. The German political elite appear to be embracing their inner Marie Antoinette by telling the Germans to wear a sweater as they shiver in the dark. Presumably, they will tell the people to eat bugs when the food shortages hit this summer. Maybe German TV will start celebrating the Turnip Winter as a way to motivate the public.
In fairness, we have to no idea how the Russians and Chinese are viewing this thing as Western media refuses to cover that aspect. We should assume the lack of food riots and social unrest in Russia means they are not teetering on collapse. This was the prediction at the start of this war. The best and brightest in the American managerial elite predicted the Russians would have collapsed by now. They also assumed China would be wavering in their support at this stage.
The point is, we are seeing in real time how supposedly clever political leaders can stagger from one blunder to the next. Unlike the Great War, this war has one side that seems to have updated its thinking since the last century. The Russians are planning for tomorrow, while the West is planning for 1985. The Biden people actually thought his speech in Poland would be his Brandenburg Gate moment. That is the most terrifying event of this crisis so far.
There we see the best parallel to the Great War. The men moving pieces on the board were men of a prior age. They were trying to fight the old wars. Similarly, the political leaders were operating in a 19th century mindset. The trouble was they were armed with 20th century weaponry. Today, the West is led by 20th century men desperate to maintain 20th century arrangements. Their opponent is not Russian, China or the new world order, but the passage of time.
Chinese girl
video. She’s walking in a tight outfit. I really am not fond of the two blue pockets on her ass, but the rest of the outfit looks nice. This is what China is like. Nice new buildings and clean and spacious public areas, all filled with attractive people without tattoos and piercings. Video 5MB
A very attractive bigger gal
I think that she is just perfect. But some like the thinner and more fragile appearing women. I find a fine robust woman quite attractive. video 4MB
Grandma’s Tomato Aspic is a recipe you probably either love or hate. The last time that I had this was in the 1960s. It died a death well before the time when I would be able to appreciate the food.
This recipe was very popular during the 1950s along with meat aspics, in which cooks aimed to show off their culinary creativity by placing various foods, mainly savory, in a gelatin casing.
Later on, fruit aspics became staples at potlucks and luncheons. This tomato aspic will bring you back to this unique food era and evoke some nostalgia in your home. Bring this savory aspic to a potluck and see if it causes a stir among the younger generation.
Preparation Time25 min
Chilling Time4 hr
Ingredients
1 (28-ounce) can Italian plum tomatoes, undrained
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
salt and pepper
1/2 lemon (juice)
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 small stalk celery with leaves, finely chopped
sour cream for garnish
Girl in a Wet Market
It’s pretty typical. And she and the Wet market can be seen all over China. It’s almost the entire template found everywhere. video 3MB
Girl in grey inside of a car
I think she is cute, and I really do love her top. Video 18MB
MM eating some local food
This is in a small mom-and-pop restaurant local to where I live in Zhuhai, China. This is what local food is like. Of course, if you read American (Western) media such as the great disinfo site ZeroHedge, you would believe that everyone in China is starving, and it’s a big famine. No. LOL. You have to be a fucking idiot to believe that pack of nonsense. Here’s what the meals are like in the poor sections of China. video 40MB
You can do it. Believe in yourself. Let the rest of the world HOWL! video 13MB
Be the Rufus
Are you worthy of living on this earth? Do not laugh. Well, are you? You have to up your game, and being fat, slovenly and expecting handouts is no longer tolerable. Be the Rufus and help others. video 21MB
Another Cute Chinese Girl
I like her. She’s cute, attractive, and fun. Nice outfit too. video 2MB
Yes, that’s how it is done. A Rufus is not a spectator. A Rufus is a participant. video. 5MB
Rufus Australia
No time to waste. Take control over the situation and help out those in need. video 5MB
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The Day After (1983) film – less in 8 minutes
Let’s keep in mid of the madness that is the United States today. Watch this eight minute summary of the 1983 movie that inspired Ronald Reagan to make peace with Russia.
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A Final note…
When the shit hits the fan, your will need to be a Rufus. Are you up for the task? Or are you going to be a selfish evil fuck? video 7MB
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
It’s just not feasible to have a government, or any large institution, that is so totally based on lies as the current Western system to last very long.
Right now, the West is running on fumes.
A machine was built by serious people, and it is now being managed by unhinged lunatics, morons, and unrepentant fiends.
They are crashing the ship.
-The UNZ
No. Ukraine and Taiwan are not really identical. They are two different situations. But there actually is a similarity between the two. And that similarity is the United States.
The US involvement in both is identical.
The systems employed by the control and manipulation are identical.
Color revolutions took control of both at the same time, identically.
The ruling government is owned and controlled by the United States with the same, identical systems.
And both are used to “suppress” the giant nation next to them identically.
This is obvious.
Now, I am not going to go through all the background, others have. Instead, I am presenting a fine video for your review, and then we will go from there.
Yeah, unhinged America is torching what took a century to build: the global economy, global finance, international trade, international relations, international law, et al. There is no coming back from where things are now. Best case scenario is total clusterfuck. Worst is thermonuclear war and end of Western civilization. I’m better on the latter.
-Anonymous
There are many, many, MANY similarities between what is going on in Taiwan and Ukraine. So let’s cut the bullshit.
The systems used to engage Russia are identical to the systems that will be used to engage China.
So, yes, the United States will cross a Chinese RED LINE and start a war
It’s not if. It’s when.
Putin looks clinical and professional.
Kim looks unsure.
And Xi should be avoided at all costs.
-<redacted>
Remember…
The United States (and it’s proxy nations) are proceeding in their plans to “suppress” Russia and then “pivot to Asia” to “suppress” China.
The United States (leading the West) are still following the same tired-old “take over the world” script written decades ago, and implementing the plans set forth. (Follow the links for the RAND plans to initiate war. When you read them, you will discover that the US government has been following them exactly, word for word, precisely to the letter.)
These plans have been telegraphed, and well understood by the Russian and Chinese leadership. And since the United States is following that old script, they are easy to anticipate and handle.
And they will use Japan and Australia to make it happen. How do we know? Well, the RAND report on how to suppress China clearly makes this point.
Australia’s defense spending tops $500b
That’s a lot of money. Money that could end all poverty in Australia and cut the prices of food, gas and rent by 35% for everyone! But no. It’s going towards American-manufactured weapons and weapons systems. Sheech!
Dominic Giannini
More than half a trillion dollars will go towards Australia's defence forces by the end of the decade to combat "a period of profound uncertainty and disruption", according to the 2022/23 budget papers.
Almost half of the $575 billion spend will be pumped into defence capabilities, including $38 billion to boost the workforce by 18,500 personnel, $50 billion for frigates and destroyers, and $10 billion for naval infrastructure.
There is also $6.4 billion for Collins class submarines, $3.5 billion for up to 75 Abrams tanks and armoured vehicles and $1 billion for howitzers and resupply vehicles…
But the “news” is being wishy-washy on everything. There’s “no proof” don’t you know. It’s all opinion and alleged. Everything is suspect. Nothing is real, and it’s an onslaught of lies that work to avoid the simple truth of matters, and disguise them in vague terms.
Consider Russia.
Is the United States at war with Russia?
Easy question. Easy answer.
Yes it is.
It is also at war with China. Call it economic war, hybrid-war, cyber-war, social war, color-revolution war, proxy war… but a war is a war. Stop pretending that it isn’t. You all should be ashamed. Really, really ashamed of yourselves.
A war, is a war.
Stop pretending that it is not.
Finian Cunningham
March 23, 2022
The Pentagon has admitted it is providing the Ukrainian military with “actionable intelligence” in combat operations against Russian forces. If that is confirmed then the United States is at war with Russia. The implications are grave for two nuclear powers.
The admission came last week during congressional testimony by Ronald Moultrie, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. He was speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, proudly telling Congress members how the Pentagon was helping the Ukrainian military fight Russian forces: “We are making a difference in accurate, actionable, and timely intel.”
That indicates the Americans are involved in providing information to the Ukrainians for lethal targeting of Russian troops.
It is an incredibly sensitive admission. Only two weeks before Moultrie’s testimony, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee had reportedly sought to downplay any such informational exchange between American and Ukrainian forces. “We are providing some intelligence” to Ukraine, but we’re “not providing the kind of real-time targeting,” said Representative Adam Smith who chairs the committee. The downplaying is understandable because such intelligence-sharing implies that the U.S. is a direct participant in the conflict.
One possible area where the Pentagon is “making a difference” is the reported high number of senior Russian commanders who have been killed on the battlefield. Since the Russian intervention in Ukraine on February 24, it is claimed in Western media reports that up to six top-ranking officers have been killed.
The latest reported victim was the deputy commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Andrey Paliy. The governor of Sevastopol, Crimea, was quoted by Reuters as acknowledging the death of the naval chief on Sunday. He was apparently killed during the battle for the port city of Mariupol.
Yes, The United States is at war. It is fighting both Russia and China right now, and the battles are a raging all over. But, in this article, I want to discuss the idea that all three nations fight wars differently.
United States
It follows plans made by think-tanks. it employs figurehead puppets to seduce the people, while the actual decisions ae mde behind closed doors in corporate offices, and smoking private rooms.
In action, the United States acts as a crazed lunatic, and uses mass resources to destroy everything. It is like a plague of locusts. Destroy everything, then come in and take what you want, and salt the earth beahind.
Russia
While Russia might be strong, powerful and nuclear, they are careful and humane.They have the power to destroy the world fifteen times over, but refrain from doing so. They still hope that some day, they will be respected in the East. So they try to be proper, kind and modest. But, if they are backed in a corner, they will be absolutely ruthless. They are like hard-core bikers on meth.
China
China, on the other hand…
… are lethal and nasty. Merit driven. Work together as one singular organism, and utilize cutting edge technology in massive numbers. They are like a cat after a rat. It’ll be over in seconds.
Why?
Well, the Chinese don’t think like Europeans, Westerners, or Russians. They are different.
It was some twenty years after the end of the Vietnam war that a security conference was held between leading military figures from both America and Vietnam. Following the conference a U.S. Air Force General approached a Vietnamese General.
The American had been a fighter pilot captain during the conflict, the Vietnamese general had been a Colonel in the N.V.A. The American asked (paraphrasing): “You have to tell me, we knew your Army was continually crossing the Mekong, we flew sorties up and down the river and could never find your bridges.” “I know,” said the Vietnamese, “we built them three feet under water.”
In that instant the American understood why America lost the war. His “Road to Damascus” moment was informed by how the different combatants approached problems. Had that been an American problem, how an Army crosses a wide, deep and fast flowing river, they would have solved the problem differently. They would have built a suspension bridge, they would have had bases on either side to protect it. They would have had Bowling alleys and Burger Kings and would have been flying in Bob Hope to entertain the troops. Why? Because they could, when you have resources they become the answer to every problem. The Vietnamese didn’t have resources, so they were resourceful.
And that, as the American realized, was why the Vietnamese won, and America lost.
The general may have learned a lesson, but if he told anyone, no one listened. Many of the same mistakes were repeated in Afghanistan, with the same results. Resources are not the answer to every problem. As with Americas war on drugs, war on crime, war on poverty, all resources do is obscure the underlying problem and present false, ineffective solutions.
-Strategic Culture
Both Russia and China have formed a new nation. It is a united Asia. They share trade, technology and intelligence.
Both Russia and China are being attacked by the United States.
It is on a host of levels and avenues, and as much as possible, proxy nations and entities are being used to disguise the United States from culpibility. That’s the situation. The entire world knows this, it’s just that (for some reason) it’s taboo to speak the truth.
I argue that World War III is being fought right now.
I argue that it has been going on, at least since 2008.
I argue that China and Russia are aware of this.
I also argue that they have waited until after their 4FEB22 agreement to take the necessary actions…
So what is next?
Offensive actions.
We’ve been on the road to perdition for a long time, but we came to a peak on that highway in 2019 and the path has been straight down since, with our chariot of fire accelerating at breakneck speed towards its final destination with catastrophe and ruin.
The rise and fall of the American Empire will be far more rapid than the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
With the inept and reckless leadership in place presently, I only hope we still have a nation after they successfully provoke World War 3.
-Burning Platform
Both China and Russia, are not “punching bags”. They can only take so much bullshit before they decide to “turn the tables” and go on the offensive.
No. I am not really talking about Ukraine. That’s a military-technical measure that occurred on the border of Russia. What I am talking about is offensive actions against the source of the conflict.
The source of the conflict is the United States.
And it has to be within a near-by timetable. It cannot be delayed. The United States is building a large number of Aircraft Carriers, building and setting up a Pacific-NATO known as the QUAD, and the longer this action is delayed, the greater the rist of a massive, and horrific Mutual Assured Destruction fiasco.
Both Russia and China have to be smart; be timely, and be proactive in their actions.
Bioweapons labs in the Ukraine
Russia has lost all of it’s biological weapons, research and systems upon the fall of the Soviet Union. The ONLY nation that maintains the technology, the labs, and the systems to inject them into societies is the Untied States.
And they have hundreds of these labs, and bases all around the world.
During the invasion of the Ukraine, the Russians have been able to capture, and secure a large number of the labs and study them…
Igor Kirillov, Head of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, explained this week the results of the analysis of documents found in Ukrainian military biolabs:
The U.S. funded biolabs in Kiev, Odessa, Lvov and Kharkov, awarding $32 million, in order to “study” pathogens of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis and hantaviruses. Their use can be disguised as natural disease outbreaks.
Six families of viruses (including coronaviruses) and three types of pathogenic bacteria (causative agents of plague, brucellosis and leptospirosis) have been identified as having characteristics suitable for infecting humans from animals.Research has even been carried out on the transmission of diseases through bats.
There are a number of documents confirming the transfer of biological samples taken in Ukraine to the territory of third countries, including Germany, Great Britain and Georgia.
The transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza by wild birds was studied at the Kharkiv Institute of Veterinary Medicine.
The transfer of 5,000 blood serum samples taken from Ukrainian residents to the Pentagon-supported Richard Lugar Center in Tbilisi, Georgia, was confirmed.
Another 773 assays were transferred to the United Kingdom, while an agreement was signed to transfer “unlimited quantities” of infectious supplies to the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Germany’s leading animal disease center.
The findings of these biolabs cannot be ignored.
Ukraine as one of the satellite states of the United States served as a space for biological weapons to start gaining ground in the new forms of warfare against Russia (and the world, looking at it in perspective).
It is suspicious that the Ukrainian-US biolabs are located along the perimeter of the Russian border, considering that these facilities were also reported to have used samples from people of different ethnicities living in the Russian Federation and other Eurasian countries. It should be considered to be an attack vector, and very nefarious one at that.
If you were a responsible leader, you would recognize the reality of this threat vector. Obtain the materials and technology, and add it to your arsenal of weaponary.
History of using Bioweapons to “suppress” China, Russia and Iran.
I have covered this elsewhere. I have discussed this on multible levels, and in various media. Including video interviews, television, radio, and my articles on MM.
The United States waged biowarfare on China starting (maybe longer, but I did not go that far back) in 2017. This was by direction of John Bolton, and under the permission of President Donald Trump.
There were eight bioweapons (min) that were used against livestock. The goal was to create a famine inside of China. They were dispersed in a selection of ways and means, with the use of drones to contaminate and infect the widely spread out pig farms of great interest. As the drone componentry had tooling marks indicative of United States or UK manufacture.
Sloppy. Very sloppy guys.
When these did not work, three bioweapons were used to “suppress” the Chinese people. The first was COVID on CNY. I suppose you could argue that it was the “crown jewel”. As the “B strain” that hit China was particuliarly lethal and really caused a mess. While the “A strain” was released inside the United States and it’s allies six months early so that those nations would obtain “herd immunity”.
The other two bioweapons were really very bad.
They were two really nasty lethal viruses that both caused your internal organs to liquify and forced the compromised to vomit them out, or shit them out. The first was a mutiated tick virus with HIV inserts that broke out in Beijing; a city that has no ticks what so ever. And the second a modification of a swine flu but was airborne, also had HIV inserts, and high transmissibility.
But of course, China was at DEFCON 1.
China found the bioweapons, tracked them to their sources, and went full lock-down. And as soon as they were discovered, well…
…Donald Trump was evacuated, and the USA went to DEFCON 1. As the “news” said, “as a precaution” and “the President had contacted coronavirus.”
When nothing happened by China, three days later, Donald Trump left from his bunker, and declared that he was “cured” or coronavirus within three days. And nothing was presented to the public in the “news” media.
But China… heh, heh…
…China does things on it’s own timetable, and at it’s own pace for it’s own advantage. And they never forget.
They MIGHT forgive, but they will not forget.
Lethal Chicken virus
And right now, things are still in process. The United States is all in alarm and proceeding in their attacks against China, and Russia. It’s active. It’s full-spectrum. It’s everything (except the kitchen sink) full spectrum (minus overt kintetic fighting USA to Asia) and very active on all levels.
So, if you watch the Western “news” you won’t be aware of any of this. (There’s) Thousands of articles investigating every single nuiance about how Russia is losing the war in the Ukraine, the effect of how great the sanctions against Russia are, and how evil and villainous China is.
But NOTHING about China and Russia making offensive moves against the “bright and shiny house on the Hill”; Washington DC and the United States.
But there is some UNRELATED NEWS.
News about chickens. News about Turkeys. News about Pigeons.
Odd news. Seemingly unimportant news.
From the CDC…
March 7, 2022—To date, highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses (“H5N1 bird flu viruses”) have been detected in U.S. wild birds in 14 states and in commercial and backyard poultry in 13 states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspective Service (APHIS).
Based on available epidemiologic and virologic information about these viruses, CDC believes that the risk to the general public’s health from current H5N1 bird flu viruses is low, however some people may have job-related or recreational exposures to birds that put them at higher risk of infection.
CDC is watching this situation closely and taking routine preparedness and prevention measures in case this virus changes to pose a greater human health risk.
Right now, the H5N1 bird flu situation is primarily an animal health issue. The U.S. Department of Interior and USDA APHIS are the lead federal agencies for this situation.
They are respectively responsible for outbreak investigation and control of bird flu in wild birds and in domestic birds (poultry). USDA has publicly posted the genetic sequences of several of the recently detected U.S. H5N1 bird flu viruses. These viruses are from clade 2.3.4.4b, which is the most common H5N1 bird flu virus worldwide at this time. Comparing information about these newer viruses to previously circulating H5N1 bird flu viruses helps inform the human health risk assessment.
Background on H5N1
Ancestors of the H5N1 bird flu viruses infecting wild birds and poultry in the U.S. beginning in 2021 first emerged in southern China in 1996 and caused large poultry outbreaks in Hong Kong in 1997, which resulted in 18 human infections.
The bird outbreak was controlled, but H5N1 bird flu viruses re-surfaced in 2003 to spread widely in birds throughout Asia, and later in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, causing poultry outbreaks and sporadic human infections.
Related H5N1 bird flu viruses were even found in wild birds and poultry in the U.S. and Canada during 2014 and 2015, causing large poultry outbreaks, but then they disappeared. Since 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) external icon, has received reports from 19 countries of more than 860 human infections with H5N1 bird flu viruses, with about 53 percent of those resulting in death. CDC has spent many years studying the properties of H5N1 viruses over the years.
Once detected in polutry, the entire farm must be killed off. There is no way to stop the virus. Once infected, the entire population becomes infected and dies.
It has a very high rate of transmissibly. It is quick and infects the entire bird population within days.
The outbreak is in 13 states within the United States. The CDC says that there is nothing to be concerned about.
The death rate for those unfortunate humans who have contacted this virus is 53%
Roughly 53% of people diagnosed with H5N1 and 50% of people diagnosed with H7N9 have died.
-Avian Flu
Daegal report review
I do not know what lies in the future. But I do know that the future has been remote viewed. And the results were presented in The Deagal Report.
The Deagel corporation is a minor branch of US military intelligence, one of the many secretive organizations which collects data for high-level decision-making purposes and prepares confidential briefing documents for agencies like the National Security Agency, the United Nations, and the World Bank.
It’s a work of “love” from some retired intelligence assets, and like most of us ex-spooks, it’s hosted outside of the United States. Just like MM here. We have VERY good reasons to do so. Reasons that are far too complex to get involved in right this moment. But we DO KNOW what we are doing. Never doubt that.
Deagel is known, for example, to have contributed to a Stratfor report on North Korea. With this kind of pedigree, Deagel should be seen as a legitimate player in the intelligence community and not merely a disinformation asset.
If so, then it must be assumed that its population predictions for 2025, as well as its industrial output predictions on a nation-by-nation basis, are based on strategic assumptions which are shared and well understood by other players in the intelligence community.
Deagel predictions.
Until the start of the Covid ‘pandemic’ many commentators were perplexed by the Deagel spreadsheets.
Perhaps they were part of a psychological operation?
However, in light of recent events, we are obliged to consider a possible connection between the projected massive reduction in the population of certain countries, forecast by Deagel, and other trends going on right now.
Trends?
What trends?
Devaluation of the Dollar with an out of control American Congress.
Strange insistence in using a mRNA vaccine instead of a traditional “dead host” vaccine.
A global pandemic that America is just fucking up royally.
Desire for a war with China.
Desire for a war with Russia.
Desire for a war with Iran.
China, Russia and Iran forming a unified Asian block.
Race war in the United States.
Progressive onslaught and control of all electronic media.
Looming bubbles in just about every facet of American life.
And so on and so forth…
And then, theres the nuclear angle
Russia is on full nuclear alert. China is on full nuclear alert, and the United States is moving it’s nuclear weapons all around Asia. Just like it was depicted in the movie Threads (2.5 minutes)
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The Deagel scenario
The Deagel corporation was asked to explain the thinking behind its strange set of population and output figures. While we cannot take its response at face value, it nonetheless paints a picture that is very similar to the world we now see. And this is not an exaggeration at all.
Consider…
[1] A fake American GDP
In short, they argued that the US government has greatly over-stated the real level of US GDP. This means the country will be fatally exposed when the next economic crisis strikes. And an economic crisis is striking.
They also take into account a “pandemic scenario” – their term – caused by Ebola or a similar pathogen. This, they say, would cause an exceptionally high death rate, placing extreme pressure on healthcare providers across America and greatly reducing economic output.
[3] A financial crisis with the US Dollar
This pandemic could quickly spiral out of control and create an international financial crisis:
“The collapse of the Western financial system will wipe out the standard of living of its population while ending Ponzi schemes such as the Stock Exchange and the pension funds.”
Trying to figure it out…
They try to explain the predicted dramatic fall in the population of the US by reference to a massive outward migration of millions of Americans seeking economic relief in other countries, but this is unconvincing.
They seem to concede this themselves when they add a further explanatory factor – widespread suicide in response to economic distress. But this too is unsatisfactory.
Their primary reason for predicting a colossal drop in the population of the US by 2025 – a fall of up to 70 percent – is the scale and severity of the alleged pandemic.
As they put it,
“the death toll will be horrible.”
Map
Here’s a map showing the predictions made in the forecast. You see that Asia is unscathed, while America and the West suffer horribly.
Japan will lose 1/5th of it’s population!
Australia will lose a full 1/3rd of it’s population!
Canada will lose 1/4th of it’s population!
The United States will lose almost 3/4ths of it’s population!
Timing
By all accounts, historically, the massive drop in population at this time is validated by the “Fourth Turning” predictions. The date and timing all agree with the Strauss and Howe model for America.
This model is United States centrist, and acknowledges that different societies and different cultures have different “turnings” and generational changes.
Casualty Figures
The casualty figures are gargantuan. And they are all centered around the Western block.
United States
Europe / NATO
QUAD (minus India that opted out)
What a coincidence!
This 2012 remote viewing would associate such an enormous death toll with a bi-polar world, and that the East (Asia) would be unscathed, while the West (The USA) would have massive casualties.
It’s an American centered fiasco
USA Leadership = 70% drop in population
Europe / NATO = 50 – 70% drop in population
QUAD = 20 – 35% drop in population
Based on historical precedents, and the Deagel predictions, these kinds of numbers and figures can only be associated with an American centered disaster. Not really a global one. Because if it was a global disaster, then the causality figures would be more uniform.
.
Europe
The countries that will suffer the greatest reduction in population, according to Deagel (as per 2014), are:
Aside from massive devistation in Europe, you have to admit… the numbers are horrific. They are pretty darn specific. Don’t you know.
In 2020, Deagel revised their assessment of the 2012 forecast. They did not change the data nor the results. They reviewed the possible causes as things developed…
Deagel 2020 revision to the original 2012 Deagel Forecast
BlueNarwhal:
Forecast disclaimer revision in 2020:
In 2014 we published a disclaimer about the forecast. In six years the scenario has changed dramatically.
This new disclaimer is meant to single out the situation from 2020 on-wards.
Talking about the United States and the European Union as separated entities no longer makes sense. Both are the Western block, keep printing money and will share the same fate.
After COVID we can draw two major conclusions:
[1] The Western world success model has been built over societies with no resilience that can barely withstand any hardship, even a low intensity one. It was assumed but now we’ve got the full hard confirmation beyond any doubt.
[2] The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through the so called “Great Reset.”
The Great Reset; like the climate change, extinction rebellion, planetary crisis, green revolution, shale oil (…) hoaxes promoted by the system; is another attempt to slow down dramatically the consumption of natural resources and therefore extend the lifetime of the current system.
It can be effective for awhile but finally won’t address the bottom-line problem and will only delay the inevitable.
The core ruling elites hope to stay in power which is in effect the only thing that really worries them.
The collapse of the Western financial system – and ultimately the Western civilization – has been the major driver in the 2012 forecast along with a confluence of crisis with a devastating outcome.
As COVID has proven Western societies embracing multiculturalism and extreme liberalism are unable to deal with any real hardship.
The Spanish flu one century ago represented the death of 40-50 million people.
Today the world’s population is four times greater with air travel in full swing which is by definition a super spreader.
The death casualties in today’s World would represent 160 to 200 million in relative terms but more likely 300-400 million taking into consideration the air travel factor that did not exist one century ago.
So far, COVID death toll is roughly 1 million people.
It is quite likely that the economic crisis due to the lock-downs will cause more deaths than the virus worldwide.
The Soviet system was less able to deliver goodies to the people than the Western one. Nevertheless Soviet society was more compact and resilient under an authoritarian regime. That in mind, the collapse of the Soviet system wiped out 10 percent of the population.
The stark reality of diverse and multicultural Western societies is that a collapse will have a toll of 50 to 80 percent depending on several factors.
But in general terms the most diverse, multicultural, indebted and wealthy (highest standard of living) will suffer the highest toll.
The only glue that keeps united such aberrant collage from falling apart is over-consumption with heavy doses of bottomless degeneracy disguised as virtue.
Nevertheless the widespread censorship, hate laws and contradictory signals mean that even that glue is not working any more.
Not everybody has to die.
Migration can also play a positive role in this.
The formerly (known as) second and third world nations are an unknown at this point. Their fate will depend upon the decisions they take in the future.
Western powers are not going to take over them as they did in the past because these (Western) countries won’t be able to control their very own cities let alone those countries that are far away.
If they remain tied to the former World Order they will go down along with the Western powers. However, they won’t experience the same kind of brutal decline that the Western powers will experience so brazenly. This is partially because they are poorer and (obviously) not diverse enough. Instead they are stronger than the Western powers because they are actually quite homogeneous. This is their advantage. And that they are used to deal with some sort of hardship. Though, not precisely the one that is coming.
If they switch to China they can get a chance to stabilize but will need to depend upon the management of their own resources.
We expected this situation to unfold and actually is unfolding right now.
With the November election triggering a major bomb if Trump is re-elected. (Did not happen.)
If Biden is elected there will very bad consequences as well.
There is a lot of bad blood in the Western societies and the protests, demonstrations, rioting and looting are only the first symptoms of what is coming.
However a new trend is taking place overshadowing this one.
The situation between the three great powers has changed dramatically.
The only relevant achievement of the Western powers during the past decade has been the formation of a strategic alliance, both military and economic, between Russia and China.
Right now the potential partnership between Russia and the European Union (EU) is dead with Russia turning definitively towards China. That was from the beginning the most likely outcome.
Airbus never tried to establish a real partnership but rather a strategy to fade away the Russian aerospace industry.
Actually Russia and China have formed a new alliance to build a long haul airliner.
Western Europe (not to mention the United States) was never interested in the development of Russia or forming anything other than a master slave relationship with Russia providing raw materials and toeing the line of the West.
It was clear then and today is a fact.
Russia has been preparing for a major war since 2008 and China has been increasing her military capabilities for the last 20 years. Today China is not a second tier power compared with the United States. Both in military and economic terms China is at the same level and in some specific areas are far ahead.
In the domain of high-tech 5G has been a success in the commercial realm but the Type 055 destroyer is also another breakthrough with the US gaining a similar capability (DDG 51 Flight IIII) by mid of this decade (more likely by 2030).
Nanchang, the lead ship of the Type 055 class, was commissioned amid the pandemic and lockdown in China.
Six years ago the likelihood of a major war was tiny.
Since then it has grown steadily and dramatically and today is by far the most likely major event in the 2020s.
The ultimate conflict can come from two ways.
[1] A conventional conflict involving at least two major powers that escalates into an open nuclear war.
[2] A second scenario is possible in the 2025-2030 time-frame. A Russian sneak first strike against the United States and its allies with the new S-500, strategic missile defenses, Yasen-M submarines, INF Zircon and Kalibr missiles and some new space asset playing the key role.
The sneaky first strike would involve all Russian missile strategic forces branches (bombers and ground-based missiles) at the different stages of such attack that would be strategic translation of what was seen in Syria in November 2015.
There was no report that the Russian had such a capability of launching a high precision, multiple, combined arms attack at targets 2,000+ kilometers away.
Western intelligence had no clue.
The irony is that since the end of the Cold War the United States has been maneuvering through NATO to achieve a position to be able to execute a first strike (nuclear) over Russia and now it seems that the first strike may still occur but the country finished would be the United States.
Another particularity of the Western system is that its individuals have been brainwashed to the point that the majority accept their moral high ground and technological edge as a given.
This has given the rise of the supremacy of the emotional arguments over the rational ones which are ignored or deprecated.
That mindset can play a key role in the upcoming catastrophic events.
At least in the Soviet system the silent majority of the people were aware of the fallacies they were fed up.
We can see the United States claims about 5G being stolen from them by China or hypersonic technology being stolen by Russia as the evidence that the Western elites are also infected by that hubris.
Over the next decade it will become obvious that the West is falling behind the Russia-China block and the malaise might grow into desperation.
Going to war might seem a quick and easy solution to restore the lost hegemony to finally find them into a France 1940 moment. Back then France did not have nuclear weapons to turn a defeat into a victory. The West might try that swap because the unpleasant prospect of not being Mars and Venus but rather a bully and his dirty bitch running away in fear while the rest of the world is laughing at them.
If there is not a dramatic change of course the world is going to witness the first nuclear war.
The Western block collapse may come before, during or after the war.
It does not matter.
A nuclear war is a game with billions of casualties and the collapse plays in the hundreds of millions.
Spinach and Cheese Stromboli
Spinach and Cheese Stromboli
Need something that’s classically Italian? Try a Spinach and Cheese Stromboli. Refrigerated pizza dough is our shortcut to making this tasty meal in less than 15 minutes. It’s a quick and easy vegetarian stromboli recipe that’s guaranteed to fill you up. We’re sure you’ll agree, this simple Italian dinner is unquestionably tasty.
What You’ll Need
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (13.8-ounce) package refrigerated pizza dough
What to Do
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil. Add spinach and garlic and sauté 3 to 5 minutes, or until garlic is golden. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
In a large bowl, combine ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, the oregano, and salt. Add spinach mixture and stir until well blended.
Unroll pizza dough and with your fingertips or the heel of your hand, spread dough out to a 10- x 15-inch rectangle. Cut in half lengthwise to make two 5- x 15-inch rectangles. Spread half the spinach mixture onto each piece of dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge. Fold each piece of dough over and pinch the edges to seal securely. Place on prepared baking sheet.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
Statements of prediction
Including remote viewing into the calculus, and taking into account all the knowns…
The American leadership class does not contain diplomatic professionals. Instead there are unskilled political donors who are making life and death decisions.
The mRNA vaccination is a real mystery, and there HAS to be a reason behind using it instead of the traditional “Dead Host” vaccination.
The approved 2021 Federal budget includes an enormous military funding outlay that is obviously in preparation for a major war.
The American government, and their media are all talking about an upcoming major war with China.
American military is retreating from Afghanistan, and four bases in Korea, while making QUAD arrangements with Australia and Japan.
Red Line violations with Russia provoking a war in Ukraine.
Red Line posturing with China concerning Taiwan.
The end of the USD.
Sanction-crazy United States and threatening the entire world with “consequences”.
A unified Asian block to include Russia, China, India and Iran.
All of this is very disturbing, and considered alone would be cause enough to suggest that a major war is just on the horizon.
But…
America (The United States) is crumbling from rot from within…
Racial hate.
Proliferation of firearms, and the establishment of armed groups.
Balkanization.
Economic bubbles.
Social bubbles.
The wealth gap is enormous.
Infrastructure funding is too late.
Rules, regulations and laws are all off the charts.
Couple that with a failed bio-weapons attack on China, and the fiasco which was the Trump neocon administration, followed by the bumbling Biden administration… and hard-core neocon Religious extremists, and industry interests desiring of conflict, war and strife (all for various reasons), and you have a poisonous stew.
The “Genie is out of the bottle”, and I do not think that the looming “mountains” on the horizon can be avoided. The inertia associated with the clustering of world-lines is way too strong. So my guess (and I hope that I am wrong) is that the United States will sleep-walk into a war with Asia, and then before it happens, Asia will strike preemptively.
No matter what the details are, the remote viewing forecast is quite clear.
The United States Military Empire is going to start another major war. It is intended to be a distraction from the domestic failures, and regardless as to how much money President Biden is plowing into the economy, it’s not going to make any difference.
America is toast.
Burnt to a crisp; blackened, burned toast.
America today.
And it’s only a matter of time…
And then when the moron, presses the button, flicks the switch, or twists the knob, all Hell will break loose.
Engage Russia in warfare via proxy.
Engage China in warfare via proxy.
All in all, the USA will suffer horribly, and the combination of everything else will only turn a fiasco into an Hellish nightmare.
Ooey-Gooey Bacon Grilled Cheese
Ooey Gooey Bacon Grilled Cheese
A classic grilled cheese sandwich is good, but a grilled cheese sandwich that’s made with three different kinds of cheeses, and a creamy, bacony dip is even better. This Ooey-Gooey Bacon Grilled Cheese is going to blow you away with its incredible taste. Once you’ve had a taste of it this way, you’ll find it hard to go back to the old way!
What You’ll Need
1/2 cup refrigerated cheddar and bacon dip
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
8 slices homestyle white bread
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, softened
Senario Flush Out
It appears, assuming that…
Degal remote viewing is correct (and it appears to be)
The USA continues on the Ukraine proxy attack. (Certainly appears that way.)
The USA continues with the Taiwan proxy attacks… (All evidence confirm…)
Then, we can expect a confluence of a number of calamity vectors. Economic, Medical and Military.
Economic
Economic; Loss of USD as a global currency.
Economic; Deshrouding of the fake GDP towards it’s actual value.
Economic; Collapse of the Western trade / logistic systems. (I hope not.)
Economic; Sanction blowback. (The US cannot sanction the world.)
Economic; Energy strangulation. (And the domino effect…)
Medical
Bioweapon / pandemic effects. (Not just Covid.)
Lack of serious quarantine and containment procedures. (It’s binary.)
A decrease in the access to medicines (because of trade / sanctions).
Overwhelmed medical care facilities. (Largest contributor.)
Military
Nuclear strikes. (Actual or threat vectors.)
Shipping blockages. (Part of the USA plan, but sanctions can enable.)
Regional conflicts and revolutions.
I argue that we are looking at the confluence of these three vectors and they center like a target reticle cross-hair on the United States and it’s allies. All of them can contribute synergistically towards a regional catastrophic result.
But… Keep in mind.
You can control YOUR reality. And maybe this mountain of turmoil is sitting off somewhere on your world-line template, you can still navigate around it. Remember, after all, for all the turmoil and strife during World War II, Canada, South America, and Africa was relatively left alone.
Maybe you don’t want to move to Greenland, Patagonia, or Zambia. But you don’t really need to. All you need to do is control your little bit of reality. And if you do that, then everything will work out just fine.
Some final thoughts
Keep in mind that the Deagel remote viewed the future correctly. They printed their results in 2012.
They PREDICTED a bio-warfare induced pandemic.
They PREDICTED an Australian military alliance with the United States.
They PREDICTED that America would start entering a period of "popping" of the various economic bubbles.
They PREDICTED a bio-polar world separated into East and West.
All of which came true by 2020.
Deagel did NOT change their forecast for 2025. It still stands. They just changed their thinking on how it would come about.
They remote viewed 2025 in great detail.
There will be [1] a massive die off of people in America, and Australia. The rest of the world will fare much better. And, most importantly, a [2] bio-weapon or pandemic figured predominantly in their calculus.
In 2012, they believed that there would be some kind of bio-weapon or pandemicthat would kill off so many Americans. But they couldn’t (for the life of them) answer why Australia of all places would also have a large die-off. At that time they never could of imagined the QUAD set up by Mike Pompeo, and that the Morrison government would wholeheartedly want to declare war on China. Instead, they figured that it must be a very serious pandemic with some other mystery event that complicated things in a negative manner.
In 2020, in the midst of the (three agent) bio-weapon attacks on China, and the absolute failure of America in securing it’s homeland, as well as the strong alignment of the Australian Morrison government to the war-loving neocons in Washington DC, the revised reasoning became one of nuclear war. Thus they reasoned that since the 2020 pandemic wasn’t that bad (being in the United States, and getting the “safe” bioweapon), and the drums of war were beating so loudly, that it must be nuclear war with bio-weapons used simultaneously.
Whether there is a nuclear event, or a bio-weapon event, no matter who caused it, or who instigated it, America will be absolutely and totally devastated. A 70% kill off implies that America would indeed be thrown back to the bronze age.
My advice?
You cannot change what is going to happen. It is pretty much set in stone. The only thing that you can do is to save yourself.
Flee the United States as fast as you can.
Go to a nation with a safer rating on the Deagel scale.
Consider fleeing any nation that is allied with the United States as well. The UK, and those European nations that are part of NATO perform very poorly. Though you will probably have an easier time of it than being the United States, it will still be a very rough life in those places.
It will be a scene out of the movie “Threads“, and you all should get a copy of this movie and watch it right now.
Threads Nuclear Detonation Scene
And when you watch it, keep in mind that what it portrays is EXACTLY what Deagal predicts will happen to America and it’s allies. Watch it and realize that you have two to three short years to save yourself and your family.
Bugging out.
A final comment
Everyone is aware that nuclear war is horrible and undesirable. However, the American leadership are making ZERO efforts to deescalate tensions in the Ukraine. Instead they are throwing weapons there. They are making ZERO efforts to deescalate tensions around Taiwan.
Russia and China have formed a major block. THEY DO NOT PLAY.
I cannot predict the future.
But others have.
This is what they predicted… 10 minute video. It is well worth viewing.
.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Not reported that way in the West, eh? But, yeah. That’s exactly what has happened.
This article is VERY IMPORTANT.
I am configuring it using my MM "huge smorgasbord technique". Thus, it includes food, girls, and other things. It's fun, interesting, and it absolutely stops Trolls and 'Bots. You will find these little green comment boxes throughout the article, and I welcome you all to comment using them. Because if you wait until the end of the article, you will have forgotten much of the various, diverse content provided.
The comment boxes look like this...
…
Warning: A lot of videos here. To watch them either reload the embedded video (most are under one minute long) or click on the link above the video. They are well worth the time to watch.
I came across this excellent TASS article summarizing the 4 February 2022 Russia/China Joint Declaration. It’s a helpful reminder, on just how far-reaching the Declaration is and the principles it’s based upon.
These are some the many, many key paragraphs, although there are more:
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction," Maslov said.
Given the rejection by the West of everything Russian and Chinese, it actually seems probable that the Declaration went unread by American “high officials”, meaning Blinken, Austin and Sullivan, since they already had formalized their escalation plans.
The American “leadership” are still following their check-lists and scripts.
But the reality is something very different. Russia and China have unified. They are as one singular nation, and they coordinate as one singular nation.
It’s not just a treaty. It is the de facto union of Russia and China together.
It is the formation of a new POWER BLOCK.
It is equivalent to when the 13 American states formed the “United States” of America in 1776. It is equivalent to when the European Union was formed, and NATO was created. It is really, really BIG news.
Yet…
The entire West is pretending, or unaware, of the reality. They still are treating Asia as separate nations. They think there’s Russia. They deal deal with Russia. Then once dealt with, they “pivot” to China. Then they deal with China. Then once, Russia and China are done with, they take on India. Then, once India is finished, the “mop up” with Iran.
That’s the plan.
And it relies on a world that does not exist any longer.
Let’s look at how important this unification of Asia is. We will do so through the lens of history.
The formation of the United States
The 13 colonies were the group of colonies that rebelled against Great Britain, fought in the Revolutionary War, and founded the United States of America. Here’s the 13 colonies list:
Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Maryland
Massachusetts Bay
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Virginia
In late 1774, a group of Patriot leaders at the Continental Congress meeting set up their own government to resist Great Britain, and, on April 19, 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War were fought at Lexington and Concord. During the war, each of the 13 colonies formed a Provincial Congress to lead them, now that they no longer accepted the laws of Great Britain.
On July 4, 1776, the thirteen colonies declared themselves free and independent states at the Second Continental Congress by signing the Declaration of Independence. This document unified the thirteen colonies into one nation known as “The United States of America”.
In many ways, this is exactly what has just occurred in Asia.
There are two nations;
Russia
China
On February 4, 2022, a very signifigant document was signed that unified the two nations into one solid singular nation. The treaty and agreements are tighter and stronger, and more substantive that the US Constitution that binds the United States together. The agreement if far stronger than the EU that bonds Europe together. It is a new kind of agreement. Better. Stronger. More detailed, than anything ever seen on this planet previously.
Russia-China Partnership Agreement
On February 4, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have signed a joint statement in Beijing before the Winter Olympics opening ceremony held in China.
This statement was accepted as a bold declaration of the “New World Order” and the partnership between the two states without any limitations.
The statement can be divided into four parts:
the manifest on the new world order,
Grand Eurasian Partnership,
the United States (US) aggression, and
cooperation against US aggression.
It should be noted that it is much more than just an inclusive agreement and it will change the balance of power in world politics.
About the New World Order, the sides believed that a new period has started in international relations, and global society demands a new international order based on development in a multi-polar world. Also, the sides suggested that multi-lateral ties have been quite significant in foreign policy and aimed at developing global governance. In addition to that, they offered a powerful United Nations is needed to provide multi-polar in international relations. In addition to that, the G20 format was supported instead of G7 since it is much more inclusive. Also, China and Russia believed that they played and will play an active role in the WTO.
On Grand Eurasian Partnership, the sides have declared that the relations between the two countries are much stronger than it was in the Cold War Period. Also, China’s continuing economic and political project is known as the “Belt and Road” Initiative (BRI). In the statement, it was claimed that following the BRI, a new Grand Eurasian Partnership would be established, contributing to cultural, economic, political, and historical relations of the region.
Russa and China against NATO. China and Russia have declared that they are against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as it approached the Black Sea region and started to try to contain Russia in the latest Ukraine-Russia conflict. The sides believe that NATO is following the mentality of the Cold War period; however, as mentioned before, the world order is changing, as they suggested. Besides NATO, the sides indicated that the policies of the US in the India-Pacific region are dangerous and threatening the peace-building attempts in the Asia-Pacific region. They claimed that Russia and China are concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate collaboration in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.
Against the United States. On the other hand, the most crucial element of the joint declaration was the alliance against the US. The sides declared that the US could escalate the colorful revolutions in the region and stand against that. Also, the sides have put their views on contrasting against terrorism, that they will not let politicization of terrorism, and using terrorism as a tool of interrupting the domestic politics of any country. The two countries highlighted that they would stand against the sanctions of the US by struggling with economic inequality.
Responses
Some responses were given after the declaration of that Joint Statement.
United States. It says (paraphrasing) “It’s a trivial attempt to circumvent our power and influence.” The US officials stated that, with the Joint Statement, that it was of no real consequence. They said that, China’s Xi Jinping could not protect Russia from sanctions. That, in their mind, was the sole purpose of the agreement.
Australia. The Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne criticized the Agreement. Australia stated,
“The joint statement lays out a vision of the world that differs from Australia’s and our allies’ and partners’, and I’m convinced it includes all of our Quad partners.”
Also, in an interview with the ABC on Wednesday, she claimed that the tight security situation at the Russia-Ukraine border did not overshadow the importance the US places on the Indo-Pacific region. Further, Russia and China have slammed the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy, rejecting the establishment of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region. She said Australia is very worried about the Russian military build-up along the Ukraine border and called for a reciprocal conversation to de-escalate the situation.
United Kingdom. The chair of the UK’s parliamentary defense committee, Tobias Ellwood, also claimed that “Russia provides oil, gas and military hardware. China, in return, provides advanced technology,” he wrote, adding that:
“Today, we are seeing the birth of a potent anti-democratic alliance. It is on track to see the world shear into two spheres of competing influence. And we have let it happen.”
Which has me scratching my head. has this Bozo Tobias Ellwood actually read the document. It actually clearly states…
"The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens' participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government."
Joint statement by Russia, China formalizes bilateral alliance — analyst
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
In their joint statement two countries described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation, Alexey Maslov notes
MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. The joint statement Russia and China adopted on Friday outlines the principles of new global cooperation and formalizes their bilateral alliance, the director of the Moscow State University’s Asia and Africa Institute, expert of the discussion club Valdai, Alexey Maslov, told TASS on Friday.
“This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China. We have been talking a great deal about strategic interaction. This is a real embodiment of this interaction,” Maslov said.
He stressed that in their joint statement Russia and China described the principles they would rely on in developing global cooperation.
“These principles are absolutely not new ones,” he remarked. “In fact, the statement heralds a return to the original UN principles that were laid down back in the 1940s and 1950s.”
The expert believes that the document is a clear sign the countries “share common values, a common understanding of democracy and the idea of the national nature of this democracy, pool together many international projects, the EAEU and the One Belt-One Road and also discuss interaction in the Arctic.”
Maslov stressed that the security issues mentioned in the statement were the most important of all. “A whole list of new types of security was determined there, including cybersecurity, on which the countries will cooperate,” he said.
The analyst stressed that the countries respected each other’s positions. “China does not threaten the interests of Russia and avoids intervention in Russian affairs. Likewise, Russia does not meddle in China’s affairs,” Maslov said.
New era of international relations
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
Maslov explained that the “new era” of cooperation was characterized by the need to restore trust in the broadest sense: in world trade, in the military field, in the economy and so on.
“The countries propose if not a program, then at least a declaration of principles a future world is to be based on,” he added.
The expert stressed that this statement “formalizes polarization of forces, and not a confrontation,” because the countries merely declare the principles they rely upon. Maslov stated that other countries were free to join in.
“If some other countries, not necessarily Western ones, for instance, countries in Southeast Asia are prepared for joining the statement or beginning discussions, they will find that this declaration as such is not a closed one for the simple reason other countries may pledge to adhere to the same principles,” he stated.
Maslov sees no risk this statement might cause an escalation of tensions in relations with the West, because it concerns an absolutely parallel process.
“In this respect the document will by no means trigger an escalation. On the contrary, it will rather show that the issue has another side to it. At least, the fact that Russia and China adhere to a different stance,” Maslov concluded.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday arrived in Beijing and held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. This is Putin’s first visit to China since the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Russian-Chinese summit level negotiations ended with the adoption of a joint statement on international relations that were entering a new era and on global sustainable development…
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This massive document outlines a framework for unity between Russia and China. It does the EXACT SAME THING as what the document which unified the thirteen colonies into one nation known as “The United States of America”.
Old-Fashioned Patty Melts
Sure everyone has eaten a thousand hamburgers, but how many patty melts have you eaten?
Patty Melt done properly.
Everything about these Old-Fashioned Patty Melts is perfect, from the beef patty smothered in cheesy, oniony goodness, to the toasted and buttery rye bread. This sandwich is sure to have you saying “Ooh, it’s so GOUDA!”
What You’ll Need
2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 small onion, thinly sliced
3/4 pound ground beef
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
4 slices rye bread
4 slices Gouda cheese
1/4 cup Thousand Island salad dressing
What to Do
In a large skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter; saute onion 6 to 8 minutes, or until it starts to brown. Remove to a bowl and cover.
Shape beef into 2 oval patties; sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
In the same skillet over medium heat, cook patties 5 to 7 minutes per side, or until no longer pink in center. Remove from skillet and keep warm.
Spread remaining butter over one side of each slice of bread. Place in skillet buttered side down, and toast until lightly browned.
To assemble a sandwich, place a slice of cheese on a piece of toast, top with a beef patty, half the onion slices, and half the salad dressing. Top with another slice of cheese and piece of toast; repeat with second sandwich, then serve immediately.
Notes
We love some coleslaw as a go-along to this delicious sandwich, so why not make your own by whipping up a batch of some delicious Country Coleslaw!
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Read this. This is the actual document and translated…
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development
February 4, 2022
Background
At the invitation of President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir V. Putin visited China on 4 February 2022. The Heads of State held talks in Beijing and took part in the opening ceremony of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games.
The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, hereinafter referred to as the sides, state as follows.
The Statement on the New Union
Today, the world is going through momentous changes, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation.
It sees the development of such processes and phenomena as
multipolarity,
economic globalization,
the advent of information society,
cultural diversity,
transformation of the global governance architecture
and world order;
there is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States;
a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world;
and the international community is showing a growing demand for the leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development.
At the same time, as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection continues, the international and regional security situation is complicating and the number of global challenges and threats is growing from day to day.
Some actors representing but the minority (on the international scale) continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force;
they interfere in the internal affairs of other states,
infringing their legitimate rights and interests,
and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation,
thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.
The sides call on all States to pursue well-being for all and, with these ends, to
build dialogue and mutual trust,
strengthen mutual understanding,
champion such universal human values as
peace,
development,
equality,
justice,
democracy and freedom,
respect the rights of peoples to independently determine the development paths of their countries
and the sovereignty and the security and development interests of States,
to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture
and the international law-based world order,
seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations
and its Security Council playing a central and coordinating role,
promote more democratic international relations,
and ensure peace, stability and sustainable development across the world.
I
The sides share the understanding that democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and that its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community.
The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens’ participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government.
Democracy is exercised in all spheres of public life as part of a nation-wide process and reflects the interests of all the people, its will, guarantees its rights, meets its needs and protects its interests.
There is no one-size-fits-all template to guide countries in establishing democracy.
A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state, based on
its social and political system,
its historical background,
traditions and unique cultural characteristics.
It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one.
The sides note that Russia and China as world powers with rich cultural and historical heritage have long-standing traditions of democracy, which rely on
thousand-years of experience of development,
broad popular support and
consideration of the needs and interests of citizens.
Russia and China guarantee their people the right to take part through various means and in various forms in the administration of the State and public life in accordance with the law.
The people of both countries are certain of the way they have chosen and respect the democratic systems and traditions of other States.
The sides note that democratic principles are implemented at the global level, as well as in administration of State.
Certain States’ attempts to impose their own ”democratic standards“ on other countries,
to monopolize the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria,
to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology,
including by establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience,
prove to be nothing but flouting of democracy and go against the spirit and true values of democracy.
Such attempts at hegemony pose serious threats to global and regional peace and stability and undermine the stability of the world order.
The sides believe that the advocacy of democracy and human rights must not be used to put pressure on other countries.
They oppose the abuse of democratic values and interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of protecting democracy and human rights, and any attempts to incite divisions and confrontation in the world.
The sides call on the international community to respect cultural and civilizational diversity and the rights of peoples of different countries to self-determination.
They stand ready to work together with all the interested partners to promote genuine democracy.
The sides note that the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights set noble goals in the area of universal human rights, set forth fundamental principles, which all the States must comply with and observe in deeds.
At the same time, as every nation has its own unique national features, history, culture, social system and level of social and economic development, universal nature of human rights should be seen through the prism of the real situation in every particular country, and human rights should be protected in accordance with the specific situation in each country and the needs of its population.
Promotion and protection of human rights is a shared responsibility of the international community.
The states should equally prioritize all categories of human rights and promote them in a systemic manner.
The international human rights cooperation should be carried out as a dialogue between the equals involving all countries.
All States must have equal access to the right to development. Interaction and cooperation on human rights matters should be based on the principle of equality of all countries and mutual respect for the sake of strengthening the international human rights architecture.
II
The sides believe that peace, development and cooperation lie at the core of the modern international system.
Development is a key driver in ensuring the prosperity of the nations.
The ongoing pandemic of the new coronavirus infection poses a serious challenge to the fulfilment of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It is vital to enhance partnership relations for the sake of global development and make sure that the new stage of global development is defined by balance, harmony and inclusiveness.
The sides are seeking to advance their work to link the development plans for the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative with a view to intensifying practical cooperation between the EAEU and China in various areas and promoting greater interconnectedness between the Asia Pacific and Eurasian regions.
The sides reaffirm their focus on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership in parallel and in coordination with the Belt and Road construction to foster the development of regional associations as well as bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples on the Eurasian continent.
The sides agreed to continue consistently intensifying practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic.
The sides will strengthen cooperation within multilateral mechanisms, including the United Nations, and encourage the international community to prioritize development issues in the global macro-policy coordination.
They call on the developed countries to implement in good faith their formal commitments on
development assistance,
provide more resources to developing countries,
address the uneven development of States,
work to offset such imbalances within States, and advance global and international development cooperation.
The Russian side confirms its readiness to continue working on the China-proposed Global Development Initiative, including participation in the activities of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative under the UN auspices.
In order to accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the sides call on the international community to take practical steps in key areas of
cooperation such as poverty reduction,
food security,
vaccines and epidemics control,
financing for development,
climate change,
sustainable development,
including green development,
industrialization,
digital economy, and
infrastructure connectivity.
The sides call on the international community to
create open, equal, fair and non-discriminatory conditions for scientific and technological development,
to step up practical implementation of scientific and technological advances in order to identify new drivers of economic growth.
The sides call upon all countries to strengthen cooperation in
sustainable transport,
actively build contacts and share knowledge in the construction of transport facilities,
including smart transport and sustainable transport,
development and use of Arctic routes,
as well as to develop other areas to support global post-epidemic recovery.
The sides are taking serious action and making an important contribution to the fight against climate change.
Jointly celebrating the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, they reaffirm their commitment to this Convention as well as to the goals, principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
The sides work together to ensure the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, remain committed to fulfilling the obligations they have undertaken and expect that developed countries will actually ensure the annual provision of $100 billion of climate finance to developing states. The sides oppose setting up new barriers in international trade under the pretext of fighting climate change.
The sides strongly support the development of international cooperation and exchanges in the field of biological diversity, actively participating in the relevant global governance process, and intend to jointly promote the harmonious development of humankind and nature as well as green transformation to ensure sustainable global development.
The Heads of State positively assess the effective interaction between Russia and China in the bilateral and multilateral formats focusing on
the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,
protection of life and health of the population of the two countries and the peoples of the world.
They will further increase cooperation in the development and manufacture of vaccines against the new coronavirus infection,
as well as medical drugs for its treatment,
and enhance collaboration in public health and modern medicine.
The sides plan to strengthen coordination on epidemiological measures to ensure strong protection of health, safety and order in contacts between citizens of the two countries.
The sides have commended the work of the competent authorities and regions of the two countries on implementing quarantine measures in the border areas and ensuring the stable operation of the border crossing points, and intend to consider establishing a joint mechanism for epidemic control and prevention in the border areas to jointly plan anti-epidemic measures to be taken at the border checkpoints, share information, build infrastructure and improve the efficiency of customs clearance of goods.
The sides emphasize that ascertaining the origin of the new coronavirus infection is a matter of science.
Research on this topic must be based on global knowledge, and that requires cooperation among scientists from all over the world.
The sides oppose politicization of this issue. The Russian side welcomes the work carried out jointly by China and WHO to identify the source of the new coronavirus infection and supports the China – WHO joint report on the matter. The sides call on the global community to jointly promote a serious scientific approach to the study of the coronavirus origin.
The Russian side supports a successful hosting by the Chinese side of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2022.
The sides highly appreciate the level of bilateral cooperation in sports and the Olympic movement and express their readiness to contribute to its further progressive development.
III
The sides are gravely concerned about serious international security challenges and believe that the fates of all nations are interconnected.
No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States. The international community should actively engage in global governance to ensure universal, comprehensive, indivisible and lasting security.
The sides reaffirm their strong mutual support for the protection
of their core interests,
state sovereignty and territorial integrity,
and oppose interference by external forces in their internal affairs.
The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan.
Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to
undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions,
intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext,
oppose colour revolutions, and
will increase cooperation in the aforementioned areas.
The sides condemn terrorism in all its manifestations, promote the idea of creating a single global anti-terrorism front, with the United Nations playing a central role, advocate stronger political coordination and constructive engagement in multilateral counterterrorism efforts.
The sides oppose politicization of the issues of combating terrorism and their use as instruments of policy of double standards, condemn the practice of interference in the internal affairs of other States for geopolitical purposes through the use of terrorist and extremist groups as well as under the guise of combating international terrorism and extremism.
The sides believe that certain States, military and political alliances and coalitions seek to obtain, directly or indirectly, unilateral military advantages to the detriment of the security of others, including
by employing unfair competition practices,
intensify geopolitical rivalry,
fuel antagonism and confrontation, and
seriously undermine the international security order and global strategic stability.
The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States.
The sides stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region and remain highly vigilant about the negative impact of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy on peace and stability in the region. Russia and China have made consistent efforts to build an equitable, open and inclusive security system in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) that is not directed against third countries and that promotes peace, stability and prosperity.
The sides welcome the Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races.
And believe that all nuclear-weapons States should abandon the cold war mentality and zero-sum games, reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their national security policies, withdraw nuclear weapons deployed abroad, eliminate the unrestricted development of global anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM) system, and take effective steps to reduce the risks of nuclear wars and any armed conflicts between countries with military nuclear capabilities.
The sides reaffirm that the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is the cornerstone of the international disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation system, an important part of the post-war international security system, and plays an indispensable role in world peace and development. The international community should promote the balanced implementation of the three pillars of the Treaty and work together to protect the credibility, effectiveness and the universal nature of the instrument.
The sides are seriously concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate cooperation in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.
Russia and China believe that such actions are
contrary to the objectives of security and sustainable development of the Asia-Pacific region,
increase the danger of an arms race in the region, and
pose serious risks of nuclear proliferation.
The sides strongly condemn such moves and call on AUKUS participants to fulfil their nuclear and missile non-proliferation commitments in good faith and to work together to safeguard peace, stability, and development in the region.
Japan’s plans to release nuclear contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean and the potential environmental impact of such actions are of deep concern to the sides.
The sides emphasize that the disposal of nuclear contaminated water should be handled with responsibility and carried out in a proper manner based on arrangements between the Japanese side and neighbouring States, other interested parties, and relevant international agencies while ensuring transparency, scientific reasoning, and in accordance with international law.
The sides believethat
the U.S. withdrawal from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles,
the acceleration of research and the development of intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles
and the desire to deploy them in the Asia-Pacific and European regions,
as well as their transfer to the allies,
…entail an increase in tension and distrust, increase risks to international and regional security, lead to the weakening of international non-proliferation and arms control system, undermining global strategic stability.
The sides call on the United States to respond positively to the Russian initiative and abandon its plans to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.
The sides will continue to maintain contacts and strengthen coordination on this issue.
The Chinese side is sympathetic to and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.
The sides note that the denunciation by the United States of a number of important international arms control agreements has an extremely negative impact on international and regional security and stability.
The sides express concern over the advancement of U.S. plans to develop global missile defence and deploy its elements in various regions of the world, combined with capacity building of high-precision non-nuclear weapons for disarming strikes and other strategic objectives.
The sides stress the importance of the peaceful uses of outer space, strongly support the central role of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in promoting international cooperation, maintaining and developing international space law and regulation in the field of space activities. Russia and China will continue to increase cooperation on such matters of mutual interest as the long-term sustainability of space activities and the development and use of space resources.
The sides oppose attempts by some States to turn outer space into an arena of armed confrontation and reiterate their intention to make all necessary efforts to prevent the weaponization of space and an arms race in outer space. They will counteract activities aimed at achieving military superiority in space and using it for combat operations.
The sides affirm the need for the early launch of negotiations to conclude a legally binding multilateral instrument based on the Russian-Chinese draft treaty on the prevention of placement of weapons in outer space and the use or threat of force against space objects that would provide fundamental and reliable guarantees against an arms race and the weaponization of outer space.
Russia and China emphasize that appropriate transparency and confidence-building measures, including an international initiative/political commitment not to be the first to place weapons in space, can also contribute to the goal of preventing an arms race in outer space, but such measures should complement and not substitute the effective legally binding regime governing space activities.
The sides reaffirm their belief that the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction (BWC) is an essential pillar of international peace and security. Russia and China underscore their determination to preserve the credibility and effectiveness of the Convention.
The sides affirm the need to fully respect and further strengthen the BWC, including by institutionalizing it, strengthening its mechanisms, and adopting a legally binding Protocol to the Convention with an effective verification mechanism, as well as through regular consultation and cooperation in addressing any issues related to the implementation of the Convention.
The sides emphasize that domestic and foreign bioweapons activities by the United States and its allies raise serious concerns and questions for the international community regarding their compliance with the BWC.
The sides share the view that such activities pose a serious threat to the national security of the Russian Federation and China and are detrimental to the security of the respective regions.
The sides call on the U.S. and its allies to act in an open, transparent, and responsible manner by properly reporting on their military biological activities conducted overseas and on their national territory, and by supporting the resumption of negotiations on a legally binding BWC Protocol with an effective verification mechanism.
The sides, reaffirming their commitment to the goal of a world free of chemical weapons, call upon all parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention to work together to uphold its credibility and effectiveness.
Russia and China are deeply concerned about the politicization of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and call on all of its members to strengthen solidarity and cooperation and protect the tradition of consensual decision-making.
Russia and China insist that the United States, as the sole State Party to the Convention that has not yet completed the process of eliminating chemical weapons, accelerate the elimination of its stockpiles of chemical weapons.
The sides emphasize the importance of balancing the non-proliferation obligations of states with the interests of legitimate international cooperation in the use of advanced technology and related materials and equipment for peaceful purposes.
The sides note the resolution entitled ”Promoting international Cooperation on Peaceful Uses in the Context of International Security“ adopted at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly on the initiative of China and co‑sponsored by Russia, and look forward to its consistent implementation in accordance with the goals set forth therein.
The sides attach great importance to the issues of governance in the field of artificial intelligence. The sides are ready to strengthen dialogue and contacts on artificial intelligence.
The sides reiterate their readiness to deepen cooperation in the field of international information security and to contribute to building an open, secure, sustainable and accessible ICT environment.
The sides emphasize that the principles of the non-use of force, respect for national sovereignty and fundamental human rights and freedoms, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other States, as enshrined in the UN Charter, are applicable to the information space.
Russia and China reaffirm the key role of the UN in responding to threats to international information security and express their support for the Organization in developing new norms of conduct of states in this area.
The sides welcome the implementation of the global negotiation process on international information security within a single mechanism and support in this context the work of the UN Open-ended Working Group on security of and in the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) 2021–2025 (OEWG) and express their willingness to speak with one voice within it.
The sides consider it necessary to consolidate the efforts of the international community to develop new norms of responsible behaviour of States, including legal ones, as well as a universal international legal instrument regulating the activities of States in the field of ICT.
The sides believe that the Global Initiative on Data Security, proposed by the Chinese side and supported, in principle, by the Russian side, provides a basis for the Working Group to discuss and elaborate responses to data security threats and other threats to international information security.
The sides reiterate their support of United Nations General Assembly resolutions 74/247 and 75/282, support the work of the relevant Ad Hoc Committee of Governmental Experts, facilitate the negotiations within the United Nations for the elaboration of an international convention on countering the use of ICTs for criminal purposes.
The sides encourage constructive participation of all sides in the negotiations in order to agree as soon as possible on a credible, universal, and comprehensive convention and provide it to the United Nations General Assembly at its 78th session in strict compliance with resolution 75/282. For these purposes, Russia and China have presented a joint draft convention as a basis for negotiations.
The sides support the internationalization of Internet governance, advocate equal rights to its governance, believe that any attempts to limit their sovereign right to regulate national segments of the Internet and ensure their security are unacceptable, are interested in greater participation of the International Telecommunication Union in addressing these issues.
The sides intend to deepen bilateral cooperation in international information security on the basis of the relevant 2015 intergovernmental agreement. To this end, the sides have agreed to adopt in the near future a plan for cooperation between Russia and China in this area.
IV
The sides underline that Russia and China, as world powers and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, intend to
firmly adhere to moral principles and accept their responsibility,
strongly advocate the international system with the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international affairs,
defend the world order based on international law,
including the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
advance multipolarity and
promote the democratization of international relations, together create an even more prospering, stable, and just world, jointly build international relations of a new type.
The Russian side notes the significance of the concept of constructing a ”community of common destiny for mankind“ proposed by the Chinese side to ensure greater solidarity of the international community and consolidation of efforts in responding to common challenges.
The Chinese side notes the significance of the efforts taken by the Russian side to establish a just multipolar system of international relations.
The sides intend to strongly uphold the outcomes of the Second World War and the existing post-war world order, defend the authority of the United Nations and justice in international relations, resist attempts to deny, distort, and falsify the history of the Second World War.
In order to prevent the recurrence of the tragedy of the world war, the sides will strongly condemn actions aimed at denying the responsibility for atrocities of Nazi aggressors, militarist invaders, and their accomplices, besmirch and tarnish the honour of the victorious countries.
The sides call for the establishment of a new kind of relationships between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.
They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.
Friendship between the two States has no limits.
There are no ”forbidden“ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.
The sides reiterate the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation.
The sides oppose the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers, when the weak fall prey to the strong.
The sides intend to resist attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations, and are against addressing international problems indirectly and without consensus, oppose power politics, bullying, unilateral sanctions, and extraterritorial application of jurisdiction, as well as the abuse of export control policies, and support trade facilitation in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The sides reaffirmed their intention to strengthen foreign policy coordination, pursue true multilateralism, strengthen cooperation on multilateral platforms, defend common interests, support the international and regional balance of power, and improve global governance.
The sides support and defend the multilateral trade system based on the central role of the World Trade Organization (WTO), take an active part in the WTO reform, opposing unilateral approaches and protectionism. The sides are ready to strengthen dialogue between partners and coordinate positions on trade and economic issues of common concern, contribute to ensuring the sustainable and stable operation of global and regional value chains, promote a more open, inclusive, transparent, non-discriminatory system of international trade and economic rules.
The sides support the G20 format as an important forum for discussing international economic cooperation issues and anti-crisis response measures, jointly promote the invigorated spirit of solidarity and cooperation within the G20, support the leading role of the association in such areas as the international fight against epidemics, world economic recovery, inclusive sustainable development, improving the global economic governance system in a fair and rational manner to collectively address global challenges.
The sides support the deepened strategic partnership within BRICS, promote the expanded cooperation in three main areas: politics and security, economy and finance, and humanitarian exchanges.
In particular, Russia and China intend to encourage interaction in the fields of
public health,
digital economy,
science,
innovation and technology,
including artificial intelligence technologies,
as well as the increased coordination between BRICS countries on international platforms.
The sides strive to further strengthen the BRICS Plus/Outreach format as an effective mechanism of dialogue with regional integration associations and organizations of developing countries and States with emerging markets.
The Russian side will fully support the Chinese side chairing the association in 2022, and assist in the fruitful holding of the XIV BRICS summit.
Russia and China aim to comprehensively strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and further enhance its role in shaping a polycentric world order based on the universally recognized principles of international law, multilateralism, equal, joint, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security.
They consider it important to consistently implement the agreements on improved mechanisms to counter challenges and threats to the security of SCO member states and, in the context of addressing this task, advocate expanded functionality of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.
The sides will contribute to imparting a new quality and dynamics to the economic interaction between the SCO member States in the fields of
trade,
manufacturing,
transport,
energy,
finance,
investment,
agriculture,
customs,
telecommunications,
innovation and
other areas of mutual interest, including through the use of advanced, resource-saving, energy efficient and ”green“ technologies.
The sides note the fruitful interaction within the SCO under the 2009 Agreement between the Governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member States on cooperation in the field of international information security, as well as within the specialized Group of Experts. In this context, they welcome the adoption of the SCO Joint Action Plan on Ensuring International Information Security for 2022–2023 by the Council of Heads of State of SCO Member States on September 17, 2021 in Dushanbe.
Russia and China proceed from the ever-increasing importance of cultural and humanitarian cooperation for the progressive development of the SCO. In order to strengthen mutual understanding between the people of the SCO member States, they will continue to effectively foster interaction in such areas as cultural ties, education, science and technology, healthcare, environmental protection, tourism, people-to-people contacts, sports.
Russia and China will continue to work to strengthen the role of APEC as the leading platform for multilateral dialogue on economic issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
The sides intend to step up coordinated action to successfully implement the ”Putrajaya guidelines for the development of APEC until 2040“ with a focus on creating a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent and predictable trade and investment environment in the region. Particular emphasis will be placed on the fight against the novel coronavirus infection pandemic and economic recovery, digitalization of a wide range of different spheres of life, economic growth in remote territories and the establishment of interaction between APEC and other regional multilateral associations with a similar agenda.
The sides intend to develop cooperation within the ”Russia-India-China“ format, as well as to
strengthen interaction on such venues as the East Asia Summit,
ASEAN Regional Forum on Security,
Meeting of Defense Ministers of the ASEAN Member States and Dialogue Partners.
Russia and China support ASEAN’s central role in developing cooperation in East Asia, continue to increase coordination on deepened cooperation with ASEAN, and jointly promote cooperation in the areas of public health, sustainable development, combating terrorism and countering transnational crime.
The sides intend to continue to work in the interest of a strengthened role of ASEAN as a key element of the regional architecture.
…
It’s very straight-forward. This document lays out the actions and behaviors of the two nations (Russia and China), their interaction with the rest of the work, how the two nations interact with each other, and areas where they will jointly work together.
It is, a de facto. constitution for a unified Asia.
Now, let’s see how this document was presented to Americans. My guess is that they are far too stupid to understand what is going on.
My guess is that they will interject the article with boilerplate negatives, distortions of the text, and gloss over the actual content and meaning behind it.
They will also include disparaging comments, and attempt to detrail the content.
Russia and China Unveil a Pact Against America and the West
In a sweeping long-term agreement, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two most powerful autocrats, challenge the current political and military order.
In their matching mauve ties, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping last week declared a “new era” in the global order and, at least in the short term, endorsed their respective territorial ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan. The world’s two most powerful autocrats unveiled a sweeping long-term agreement that also challenges the United States as a global power, NATO as a cornerstone of international security, and liberal democracy as a model for the world. “Friendship between the two States has no limits,” they vowed in the communiqué, released after the two leaders met on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics. “There are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Agreements between Moscow and Beijing, including the Treaty of Friendship of 2001, have traditionally been laden with lofty, if vague, rhetoric that faded into forgotten history. But the new and detailed five-thousand-word agreement is more than a collection of the usual tropes, Robert Daly, the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, told me.
Although it falls short of a formal alliance, like NATO, the agreement reflects a more elaborate show of solidarity than anytime in the past. “This is a pledge to stand shoulder to shoulder against America and the West, ideologically as well as militarily,” Daly said. “This statement might be looked back on as the beginning of Cold War Two.” The timing and clarity of the communiqué—amid tensions on Russia’s border with Europe and China’s aggression around Taiwan—will “give historians the kind of specific event that they often focus on.”
Beyond security, the declaration also pledged collaboration on space, climate change, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. Politically, the document claimed that there is “no one-size-fits-all” type of democracy, and heralded both forms of authoritarian rule in Moscow and Beijing as successful democracies. “It’s a pretty striking step closer to an alliance and shows that they’re very much aligned in their vision of the world order in the twenty-first century,” Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, told me.
Putin described the broader strategic partnership with China as “unprecedented.”
Xi said that their joint strategy would have a “far-reaching influence on China, Russia, and the world.”
U.S. experts described the lengthy statement, which was riddled with false and accusatory language, as startling. “I’ve never seen a joint statement from both leaders using this kind of language.
She described the communiqué as “quite Orwellian” and called it an “inflection point” in which Russia and China are challenging the balance of power that has defined the global order since the Cold War ended, three decades ago. “We could be at the beginning of a new era as the Russian relationship with the West deteriorates and China’s does as well.”
The agreement puts Washington and its key allies “in a terrible bind,” she added. “The fact is, whatever we do to counter what Russia is doing only reinforces its reliance on China.”
The joint statement is, at least for the moment, a diplomatic boon for Putin amid his showdown with the United States and Europe over Ukraine. For the first time in any of Russia’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader. China did not back Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Now Moscow and Beijing, which both have the ability to veto any resolution at the United Nations, have declared their opposition to further enlargement of NATO and to the formation of other regional security alliances. “Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose colour revolutions, and will increase cooperation,” the often unwieldy statement declared. “This is where they pledge their troth,” Daly said.
Washington had been pressuring Beijing, including in a call last month between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in an attempt to keep China neutral or out of the Ukraine crisis. Now, at least on paper and in public voice, it has budged, Andrew Weiss, a former National Security Council official who is currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me. “Russia now has China as an endorser of the egregious and inflammatory position that Putin has staked out on Ukraine.”
Hints of China’s shift have been emerging in the past two weeks, as the Ukraine crisis began spilling over onto already tense U.S.-China relations. President Biden’s foreign policy had hoped to steer relations with Beijing toward stable and manageable competition.
Instead, China, which is normally discreet in its diplomacy, is visibly pushing back.
After his conversation with Blinken last month, the Chinese foreign minister said publicly that Russia’s security concern about NATO expansion is legitimate and must be addressed. The Biden Administration countered last week with an admonition. The State Department warned that the West has “an array of tools” to deploy against foreign companies—including in China—that help Russia evade punitive sanctions.
In the new agreement, Russia, in turn, reaffirmed its support for Beijing’s One China policy that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence.” The joint communiqué also supported Beijing’s ruthless crackdown on dissidents in Hong Kong in the past two years. The bold assertions in the joint statement follow deepening military ties between the two nations in the past decade, Weiss noted. Russia and China have conducted dozens of joint exercises and war games that have involved as many as ten thousand troops to hone tactical and operational capabilities.
Russian officials have boasted that the growing defense partnership was designed to warn the United States and NATO not to pressure Moscow. The naval operations have included mock seizures of islands, patrols by long-range bombers over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, and surface-to-air missile targeting.
Last summer, Putin and Xi both witnessed military exercises in China. In October, they held joint naval exercises off Russia’s far-eastern coast. “The frequency, complexity, and geographic scope has steadily increased, reflecting the growth in the overall bilateral defense relationship,” the U.S. Naval Institute reported last year. As two nuclear-armed countries that span Europe and Asia, the more muscular alignment between Russia and China could be a game changer militarily and diplomatically. “They want this to be as threatening as a formal alliance to the West, but don’t want to formally commit to mutual defense,” Daly said. “They don’t have to. The spectre of their mutual aid will serve as a deterrent.”
The joint announcement reflects a shift in the balance of power between Russia and China as well. “The Russians for the longest time were condescending in their view of China as an uninteresting rural society,” Weiss said. “Now China looks at Russia and says, ‘What are you good for?’
China’s ambitions do not run through Moscow.” China has become “canny” in exploiting Russia’s neediness, he said. “It uses Russia as a cat’s paw to disrupt the U.S. pivot to Asia. The fact that we have to keep coming back to Putin, as the neighborhood bully, is beneficial to China.”
Putin was the highest-profile leader to show up for the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The U.S. and other major powers opted not to send high-profile delegations, to protest China’s human-rights abuses, particularly against its Uyghur minority. Russia had received a two-year ban from officially sending teams to the Olympics after conducting a years-long, state-sponsored doping scheme. Russian athletes—who are not supposed to carry their nation’s flag, wear the Russian insignia, or play the national anthem—instead compete as part of the Russian Olympic Committee. After his meeting with Xi, Putin applauded the team during the opening ceremony’s Parade of Nations on Friday. But his visit clearly had another purpose.
The question now is how far Russia and China will take their agreement. “Words are one thing,” Vershbow, the former Ambassador, said. “We still have to see if the statement will translate into greater tangible Chinese support for Russia’s aggressive behavior—or whether they’ll say, ‘We’re with you, good luck,’ and then turn the other way.” The Chinese have different and sometimes more pragmatic interests in their relations with the U.S. and Europe, which are vital to their economy. “They don’t want to burn all bridges for the sake of a relationship with Russia.”
Oh, fine and dandy, but…
Let’s stop playing around.
The United States set up identical conditions for war in both Ukraine and Taiwan simultaneously.
This began in 2014 under President Obama.
This action was planned long before that. Perhaps as early as 2004.
The USA set up pro-United States governments in 2014 by NED sponsored activity.
The USA has since poured billions of dollars in weapons to those areas.
And has established bioweapons labs in both areas.
Both governments possess a hatred of their larger neighbor.
And both will try to provoke their neighbor according to the RAND directions.
The United States WILL create a contexual reason to drag China into a terrible and long-duration conventional war on the border of China identically to what has occurred in Ukraine.
So stop pretending.
Right now Russia is in complete control of the Ukraine situation, no matter what the Western “news” says, and a “false flag” event is scheduled to drag the USA and NATO into the conflict. With NATO being a light-weight serrogate for the USA battle forces.
Then the USA will “pivot to Asia” and take out China.
So the conflict in Taiwan will be similiar.
It is planned to be a long drawn out conventional war, and a “false flag” will be a justification for invasion by Japanese, Australian and United States forces.
…
Now, I’m not too swift a Geo-Political strategist. However, if I can see this, then you can well expect that China and Russia see this as well.
Do you think that they have plans, and are aware of the big and larger plans that are in place and the systems that are set in motion?
.
And with that understood, please keep in mind that…
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
With this understood, now let’s see what is going on today.
The United States demands that China sever economic ties with Russia or else!
Now, consider the reality about the domestic situation inside of America right now…
A White House account of the call on Friday said that the US president “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians”.A senior administration official said there would be consequences “not just for China’s relationship with the United States, but for the wider world”, but would not give more details on whether Biden had gone into specifics on possible sanctions, other than to point out what had happened to Russia as an example.
There was nothing specific. Just warnings of “serious consequences” if China and Russia maintain their close relationship.
Obviously, the United States is acting like a pentulant child that is hold his ears and shutting his eyes and screaming as he tries to force the world to go away.
It appears that the United States does not recognize the agreement just forged last month between Russia and China.
Just a reminder to the reader that you now understand thngs far better than the American “leadership” does;
"This declaration formalizes the de facto established union of Russia and China."-Maslov
China is READY
China and Russia are BOTH aware what is going on. They know that the United States plans to destroy both nations and then pick over the carcass like vultures. It’s very clear. It’s very plain. So let’s stop playing games. Let’s stop pretending.
The United States and its allies are getting ready to go full-spectrum war when they are ready to “pivot to Asia”.
It will begin [1] with crossing one of China’s “RED LINES”, just like the USA did with Ukraine. [2] China will react, then [3] a “False Flag” will be tripped, and (of course, to plan, [4] the United States will use it as an excuse to engage in a full war on Chinese soil. Becuase, after all, Taiwan is de facto Chinese soil. No matter what propagandized narrative the West wishes to create.
But… you know…
China is ready.
Video 1– China knows that America wants a war. – Adults
The pretext will be Taiwan. Just like it was with Ukraine. And China considers it an American invasion of it’s land. They will fight to the death, and employ great weapons of mass, mass, destruction.
You all had wish you were not on the recieving side of this onslaught of rage. I can tell you, and so can other expats inside of China, the Chinese are very quiet and studious, but when they get angry… when they get angry… they will unleash a rage that is indescribable. They will unleash… slaughter.
Video 2 -First grade military training – 5 / 6 year olds
Inside of China, very first grade, and many Kindergardens begin their day with roll-call, and reporting. Such as this. video 5 MB
Video 3 – Elementary school training – 9 year olds
Hey! Do you notice that these are not cheap AK-47 clones. They do not exist in China. REAL GUNS exist in China.
These are real deal full-auto Chinese military weapons. These are fourth grade kids. Nope. They probably couldn’t take on American SEALs or Green Berets. But that is not the point. The point is everyone in China is trained to fight. It is the law. And they are merit driven and they work together as one. Everyone in a town or villiage acts as a fully managed army unit. Let that soak in. All 1.4 billion of them.
That’s 1,400,000,000,000,000 people.
How many military forces do you think that the United States can throw together to invade China? 60,000? 90,000? Even including Japan and Australia? Watch the video. This is all over China. video 31MB
Video 4 – EVERYONE in China has combat training – 17 year olds
Oh, you don’t beleive me, eh? What, you think that this is basic training, huh? No. It isn’t. It’s High School drills. High School drills. Let that sink in.
While the United States has “pepe rallies”, diversity training, ebonics, and soft subjects like fund-raising, China teaches basics, drills and trains over and over and over. They train with real weapons with real live ammo. video a must watch. Know the context. Filmed at their High School complex. video 11MB
Video 5 – Middle School exercises. 14 year old kids
Every Summer, the middle school students go on training exercises. Some resemble “Boot Camp”, while others are “actual maneuvres” and “War Games”. Here’s one such event.
Sure, they cannot take an American Green Beret one-on-one or an SAS fighter. But what about 20-to-1, or 200-to-1, or maybe 2000-to-1. How do you think the United States invasion of Taiwan will work out?
Video 6 – Middle school (14 year old) target practice
Using real government issued weapons, and ammo. Tell me about the firearm training that the United States, the UK, or Australia provides in middle school. I would like to hear it.
Video 7 – China hasn’t forgotten, and they haven’t forgiven.
All of China remembers the “great humiliation” inflicted on them by Europe and America, and they well remember the atrocities of Japan, as this video clearly show.
I can tell you truthfully, if Japan engages China, Japan will become radioactive waste.
Video 8 – What the start of world war III might look like
You know, Hollywood has been glorifying war for decades. And China is always considered an enemy and an easy target. Ever watch the latest “Red Dawn” remake?
Here we see a mashup with Hollywood movies, and Chinese movies trying to suggest what the start of world war III looks like when the United States places a Naval Battle Group between the mainland and Taiwan.
What we are witnessing is truly the beginning of the end. In recent months I have focused a lot on the economic implosion that is now taking place, but what we are facing is so much broader than that.
Our society is literally falling to pieces all around us, and now World War 3 has begun. Many regard the war that has erupted on the other side of the globe as just a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but the truth is that it is really a proxy war between the United States and Russia. And since neither side seems much interested in diplomacy at this point, this proxy war could eventually become a shooting war between the two greatest nuclear powers on the entire planet.
Before the war started, events were already starting to accelerate substantially. Inflation was out of control, a new energy crisis had flared up, and global food supplies were getting tighter and tighter. But now we are truly in unprecedented territory. If you doubt this, just look at what is happening to the price of fertilizer.
2022 03 28 09 47
That chart should chill you to the core, because it clearly tells us that food shortages are coming.
In fact, even Joe Biden is now publicly admitting that food shortages are coming. On his show the other night, Tucker Carlson broke this down in a way that only Tucker Carlson can…
Before the war, some fertilizers had doubled in price and some had tripled in price.
In the video that you just watched, we are told that some fertilizer prices are now four to five times higher than they were a year ago.
Here in the western world, most farmers will simply bite the bullet and pay the higher prices. In turn, we will pay higher prices for food at the grocery store.
But in poorer parts of the globe, many farmers will use a whole lot less fertilizer or none at all. As a result, global food production will be way down in the months ahead.
To turn this crisis around, what we really need is for the proxy war in Ukraine to end. Unfortunately, both sides just continue to escalate matters instead.
For example, on Saturday Joe Biden shocked the entire world when he stated that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”…
President Joe Biden on Saturday said Russian leader Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” ratcheting up international pressure and further uniting NATO allies against Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.“A dictator, bent on rebuilding an empire, will never erase the people’s love for liberty,” Biden said at the end of a sweeping speech in Poland. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness.”
That was a call for regime change in Russia.
Russian leaders were already paranoid about western intentions before, and now their paranoia is going to be off the charts.
Biden administration officials are trying to walk back Biden’s comments, but the damage has already been done.
Meanwhile, we just learned that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have not spoken at all since February 15th…
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have not spoken since February 15, over a week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the State Department told Antiwar.com on Friday.Earlier this week The Washington Post cited US officials who said Blinken hasn’t attempted to speak with Lavrov since the start of the conflict. When asked to confirm the story, a State Department spokesperson said, “We can confirm that the last time Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke was on February 15.”
Even during the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. officials always kept talking to the Russians.
So this is something that should alarm all of us greatly.
On top of everything else, Joe Biden just told U.S. troops in Poland that they will see what conditions in Ukraine are like “when you’re there”…
According to The Associated Press, Biden’s remarks were given in front of U.S. troops who “had been sent near Poland’s border [with Ukraine] to assist with the humanitarian emergency and to bolster the U.S. military presence on the eastern flank of NATO.” The words, “and you’re gonna see when you’re there,” were spoken right after the president mentioned the bravery of Ukrainian citizens. Later, the White House once again told reporters that U.S. troops would not be deployed to fight in the war in Ukraine.
Every time Biden opens his mouth, he makes things even worse.
President Joe Biden is abandoning a campaign vow to alter longstanding US nuclear doctrine, and will instead embrace existing policy that reserves America’s right to use nukes in a first-strike scenario, according to multiple reports.As Russian forces continue their bloody assault on Ukraine, Biden is under pressure from NATO allies not to abandon the right to use nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks.
Many had thought that the war in Ukraine would help to unite America and would provide a boost to Biden’s extremely poor approval ratings.
And in the initial days of the war, that seemed to happen.
President Joe Biden’s job approval ratings keep falling in his second year in the White House, with just 40% of Americans approving of the job that he is doing, a new NBC News survey finds.That is the lowest rating Biden has seen in his presidency.
We were warned that 2022 would be a very troubled year, and we are still in the very early chapters.
If the Biden administration continues with all of this insanity, things are going to get a whole lot worse. I really like how Gerald Celente summarized matters during his recent interview with Greg Hunter…
“We are headed for an economic calamity the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetime. They are getting our minds off it with the war in Ukraine. . . . You know, I wrote in the magazine in the beginning of the year, we said that the Covid war would wind down by late March and mid-April. It’s winding down. . . . So, now, as we said in the magazine, we went from the Covid war to the Ukraine war, and now to world war. We are headed to World War III. . . . There is not a peep about a cease-fire. Biden is only bragging about more weapons being sent in. Biden says we are going to defeat the Russians. We are not backing down. No one is talking about a cease-fire, and no one is talking about peace. If we don’t unite for peace, we are all going to die in war.”
But right now Biden administration officials apparently don’t even see any point in talking with the Russians.
We are steamrolling down a road that leads to nuclear war, and meanwhile the global economy is starting to implode at frightening speed.
If you are still delusional enough to believe that everything will work out “just fine” somehow, then I really feel sorry for you.
Taiwan
Keep in mind again…
Taiwan is part of China. China thinks so, The UN thinks so, and even Taiwan thinks so.
But that does not matter.
The Untied States NEEDS a war and is going to have one. They are going to “pull a Ukraine” on China, and they are almost ready. And you know what? Just like Russia, China is going to move befor the United States can “make its move”. It’s probably going to be undercover, and hidden, but I’m not sure.
One thing that we are learning right now is that the “government” of the Ukraine is just a robot entity. It is a bought-for, and paid-for actor that the Untied State put in charge of things so that it could move it’s military, and it’s forces, and it’s systems onto the border of Russia. It is NOT an independent, democratically elected, goverment. It is a proxy puppet; bought and owned by the United States.
We have to assume that that exact thing is going on in Taiwan.
There is no “government in Taiwan”. There are instead American robots who do whatever Washington DC tells them to do.
So stop all the nonsense and fact the facts.
And China knows this.
Maybe not exactly as I have described, but yeah, they get the picture. In fact, I would arge that they understand the nuiances far better than MM here.
Of course, you would NEVER hear about this in the Western “news” media. China has a military force that is peer-capable, and lethal. And if you are Japanese or a cocky Australian American-lover they will decapitate you. The Chinese DO NOT PLAY.
The Chinese have two things that are found nowhere else in the world; [1] Social unity. They work in groups together as one organism, and [2] They are merit-dren and always do their best.
If you take those two things, and then organize it towards military action. From an early age, then the formation of military actions; defensive actions all become automatic. That is China.
Video – More Chinese elementary schools students video 8MB
Video – Rifle disipline.
Taught with “training weapons”. Lighter, and firing a low recoil projectile instead of a full cartridge. Second and third grade students. China. video 6MB
Video -They fight for family. They fight for survival.
Unlike the American and British “soy-boys” that went to the Ukraine to plink at Russians, and ran home crying after one simple missile barriage, the youth of China are disiplined, and prepared. They will fight to the death. All for their family; their parents and their friends. video 4MB
Video – Chinese youth training
Resembles American Green Beret and SEAL training. Yeah. They get it starting in first grade.
Because the flat slobs in the West, in their easy-chairs, coffered hair, riding their nice cars, and making royal decrees like some kind of bloted evil and corrupt spoiled brat are planning on causing hardship, hurt, turmoil to THESE PEOPLE. And I am here to tell you that is will not work. Instead, it will make them very, very, VERY angry.
There is a reason why China is considered THE DRAGON. And no, it’s not just public relations. China will slice you up and spit you all out. Do not poke the dragon. video 7MB
Video – But it’s the military that China has that is peer capable and lethal
You do not want to fuck with them. All state of the art. Peer capable, or better than what the United States fields, and they love, just love their AI-guided missiles and rockets. Do NOT FUCK with them. video 3MB
Now keep in mind that if it comes down to the Chinese having to use these systems, they will do so with their enemies cites in radioactive rubble. The Chinese do not play around. They are lethal and they will go after enemies with everything they have.
You don’t want to poke the dragon.
Why does the United States want to anger the dragon?
Why?
Because the American “leadership” are psychopaths. They have no understanding of the world, and ideological monsters that are following a dangerous script that will eventually result in the absolute shredding of the Untied States, and a tumble into poverty for all the the West. video 7MB
Ok. Enough of this. Let’s calm down a tad.
Cute Chinese Girl
I think that she is pretty. Nice girl with an umbrella. Video 2MB
Fake UFO video
It’s fun to check out UFO videos. You find them all over the internet, and many are very interesting, but most have no context and thus provide zero information.
The following video is filmed near the “fisher girl” statue here in Zhuhai next to my house where I live. It takes me about seven minutes to walk to it from my front door.
Nothing beats Old-Fashioned Roast Beef the way mama used to make it!
With this roast beef recipe you can bet there’ll be lots of good eatin’. Just remember to let it rest, slice it thinly across the grain, and finish it off with the pan drippings – that’s what makes it absolutely perfect. Oh, and add some potatoes and gravy.
What You’ll Need
1 (4-pound) beef bottom round roast
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
A beef bottom round roast.
What to Do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place roasting rack in large roasting pan and coat with cooking spray. Place roast on rack, fat side up.
In small bowl, combine remaining ingredients; mix well. Rub spice mixture over entire roast, covering completely.
Roast 30 minutes. Reduce oven to 300 degrees and continue roasting beef 70 to 75 minutes, or until a meat thermometer registers 135 degrees for medium-rare, or until desired doneness beyond that. Let stand 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.
Notes
To make a tasty sauce for your roast beef, just add 1 cup beef broth to roasting pan and heat over high heat, scraping the bottom to loosen any brown bits.
And sandwiches…
Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches
It’s an awfully delicious sandwich.
Ever find yourself wondering how to make a Reuben sandwich with some style? Some of the biggest and best delis serve their Reubens open-faced, just like in this recipe that we got from a deli in Central New York. We loved these Open Faced Reuben Sandwiches and we had to pass along the recipe for you to enjoy! There’s something about this sandwich that just makes your mouth water.
What You’ll Need
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
8 slices rye bread
1 pound sliced deli corned beef
2 (14-ounce) cans sauerkraut, rinsed and well drained
8 slices (6 ounces) Swiss cheese
What to Do
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, garlic powder, salt, and pepper; mix well.
Arrange the bread on two baking sheets. Spread dressing mixture on each slice. Top each with corned beef, sauerkraut, and a slice of Swiss cheese.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, or until heated through, and the cheese is melted. Place 2 pieces on each plate and serve open-faced.
Test Kitchen Tips
You might want to use only half of the Thousand Island dressing on the sandwiches before baking them. Then just top each slice with a dollop of dressing before serving. Our mouths are already watering!
China is a major force
If you are in the West, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the lies and bullshit about China.
China is advanced, a manufacturing powerhouse, run on merit and disipline. They are successful and they “ain’t stopping for shit”. If you take them on, they WILL FUCKING SLAUGHTER YOU.
The rest of the world appears lazy in comparison. Chinese are hard drivers. video 4MB
China military. Don’t be so sure that they would be an easy nation to conquer. video 4MB
And this fool, in Hong Kong, obviously influenced by the Pro-Democracy NED “color revolution” decided to harass the Chinese guards. The Chinese DON’T PLAY. Down and drawn in 1.5 seconds. video 3MB
China is fighting to exist. Just like Russia. And if you think , and believe that they are not taking the THREATs from the United States seriously, you are deluded. It’s no mistake that they have a mass production of hyper-velocity nuclear missiles all with the United States targets plastered on them.
Oh, you think that I am kidding? Oh, you think that I am being alarmist? Look at this quote out of the Kremlin directly from President Putin…
PUTIN:
"I am now instructing our 4 combat regions that if USA and NATO dare to provoke us (around the Black Sea) and try to hit us with even ONE guided missile then you must hit them back as hard as possible.
Hit them fiercely until they kneel down for mercy.
If they retaliate, I command you to use nuclear weaponsto hit their countries.
No need to think about the consequences.
I will be solely responsible.
Your duty is just to hit them hard until they kneel down begging for mercy.
Once the war has started I expect you to subdue Europe within 5 days.
No need to think... just take over the 8 capitals of Europe.
From now on our Air, Land and Navy armed forces are on full alert.
I want the world to know who is the leader of the world.
What is USA... I am telling them they will be trembling in front of us.
They have been belittling and making fun of many countries but don't they dare to try us.
Go to hell.
My view is that if the Russians have to live under USA's mercy then what good is there left in this world!!"
-Kremlin
[This link is blocked in the usa, france, hungary, serbia, moldova, switzerland, and singapore. Heck, even the russian language website is blocked.]
.
In June 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree stating,
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies…
...and also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat.”
Clearly, the United States has pushed Russia to a state where they beleive this is the case.
Clearly, though not reported in the Western media, both Russia and China are at a high state of military readiness.
Russia is at the highest state; DEFCON 1. (Open Warfare)
China is at second highest state DEFCON 2. (Full readiness; no open warfare).
No American pre-emptive nuclear strikes are possible without immediate unleashing of MAD upon the entirety of the West.
Out of necessity, Russia and China have banded together and created a new nation. It’s a United Asia. Other nations are drifiting towards it. For now, you can consider it to be similiar to the USA, or the EU in unity.
Presently, the comprehensive document is only between Russia and China. However, Iran is interested in generating similiar agreements, and India is working towards joining the block as well.
That’s 70% of the world’s population.
85% of the world’s manufacturing.
65-70% of the world’s energy resources.
All of the rest of the nations in Asia are moving towards this group.
It’s a new nation.
And the Untied States (and it’s proxy nations) are pretending that this is not the case. They are pretending that they can treat China separately from Russia, India from Russia, Iran from China, and so on and so forth.
They cannot face the reality; the truth.
So, without plans and “expert” guidance from RAND, the United States (leading the West) are still following the same tired-old “take over the world” script written decades ago, and implementing the plans set forth. (Follow the links for the RAND plans to initiate war. When you read them, you will discover that the US government has been following them to the letter.)
These plans have been telegraphed, and well understood by the Russian and Chinese leadership. And since the United States is following that old script, they are easy to anticipate and handle.
However, the unifed Russia and China block was unexpected, and it doesn not fit in with the plan. So the way that the United States has decided to handle this issue is to IGNORE IT and pretend that this reality does not exist.
They will continue their assaults and probing actions.
Now it’s Russia. Russia has issued strike orders, and telegraphed them to the West, but you know, eventually they will engage China, and when that happens, China WILL ENGAGE THEM RIGHT BACK. Unlike Russia, China will not telegraph any warning.
It will be on American soil, by the way. It will not be so nice.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
It’s all a “mop up” exercise at this point. Contrary to what the main stream “news” media has to say, nope… Russia is not running out of bullets. Nope, Russia is not stalled. Nope, the Ukrainians are not inflicting huge casualties. Nope, it’s not going to be a long drawn-out war. But, rather it’s all coming to a conclusion. It will probably be all wrapped up by May 2022. And a new reality will manifest on the Geo-Political landscape. Here, we talk about this for a spell.
I suppose that you, the reader, might be confused.
As all the Western media is all hot and bothered about the great fiasco that Russia has got itself involved with. Of course, it’s a fiction. But, man oh, man, it’s a mighty fiction. I’ve never seen such insane levels of lies and distortions.
I will not spend too much time on the lies.
If you are unaware of the lies, then this is not the place to be. Others have devoted all sorts of time and effort to unpack all the nonsense. Personally, I consider it a waste of time. It’s like trying to dig a hole in the sand. It just keeps getting filled in.
Russia had it’s “back to the wall”, and had to stop an encroaching nuclear armed power from being on it’s borders. It waited. It asked nicely. It laid out the consequences if NATO and the United States continued to violate their treaties, and then when they said “No!”, Russia took action.
It’s all pretty simple.
Ok. Let’s check out what’s going on with the final stages of the Russian Invasion of the Ukraine….
Larry C. Johnson: “The Ukrainian Army Has Been Defeated. What’s Left Is Mop-Up”
Question 1–Can you explain to me why you think Russia is winning the war in Ukraine?
Larry C. Johnson– Within the first 24 hours of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, all Ukrainian Ground Radar Intercept capabilities were wiped out. Without those radars, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its ability to do air to air intercept.
In the intervening three weeks, Russia has established a de facto No Fly Zone over Ukraine. While still vulnerable to shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles supplied by the U.S. and NATO to the Ukrainians, there is no evidence that Russia has had to curtail Combat Air Operations.
Russia’s arrival in Kiev within three days of the invasion also caught my attention. I recalled that the Nazi’s in Operation Barbarossa took seven weeks to reach Kiev and the required 7 more weeks to subdue the city. The Nazis had the advantage of not pulling punches to avoid civilian casualties and were eager to destroy critical infrastructure. Yet many so-called American military experts claimed that Russia was bogged down.
When a 24 mile (or 40 mile, depends on the news source) was positioned north of Kiev for more than a week, it was clear that Ukraine’s ability to launch significant military operations had been eliminated. If their artillery was intact, then that column was easy pickings for massive destruction.
That did not happen.
Alternatively, if the Ukrainian’s had a viable fixed wing or rotary wing capability they should have destroyed that column from the air.
That did not happen.
Or, if they had a viable cruise missile capability they should have rained down hell on the supposedly stalled Russian column.
That did not happen.
The Ukrainians did not even mount a significant infantry ambush of the column with their newly supplied U.S. Javelins.
The scale and scope of the Russian attack is remarkable.
They captured territory in three weeks that is larger than the land mass of the United Kingdom. They then proceeded to carry out targeted attacks on key cities and military installations. We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication.
The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North.
I would note that the U.S. had a tougher time capturing this much territory in Iraq in 2003 while fighting against a far inferior, less capable military force. If anything, this Russian operation should scare the hell out of U.S. military and political leaders.
The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr.
NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.”
Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday.
Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday.
It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties.
Not only is Russia striking and destroying bases used by NATO regularly since 2015, but there was no air raid warning and there was no shutdown of the attacking missiles.
Question 2– Why is the media trying to convince the Ukrainian people that they can prevail in their war against Russia? If what you say is correct, then all the civilians that are being sent to fight the Russian army, are dying in a war they can’t win. I don’t understand why the media would want to mislead people on something so serious. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Larry C. Johnson– This is a combination of ignorance and laziness. Rather than do real reporting, the vast majority of the media (print and electronic) as well as Big Tech are supporting a massive propaganda campaign.
I remember when George W. Bush was Hitler.
I remember when Donald Trump was Hitler.
And now we have a new Hitler, Vladimir Putin.
This is a tired, failed playbook. Anyone who dares to raise legitimate questions about is immediately tarred as a Putin puppet or a Russia stooge. When you cannot argue facts the only recourse is name calling.
Question 3– Last week, Colonel Douglas MacGregor was a guest on the Tucker Carlson Show. His views on the war are strikingly similar to your own. Here’s what he said in the interview:
“The war is really over for the Ukrainians. They have been ground into bits, there is no question about that despite what we hear from our mainstream media. So, the real question for us at this stage is, Tucker, are we going to live with the Russian people and their government or we going to continue to pursue this sort of regime change dressed up as a Ukrainian war? Are we going to stop using Ukraine as a battering ram against Moscow, which is effectively what we’ve done.”
(Tucker Carlson– MacGregor Interview)
Do you agree with MacGregor that the real purpose of goading Russia into a war in Ukraine was “regime change”? Second, do you agree that Ukraine is being used as a staging ground for the US to carry out a proxy-war on Russia?
Larry C. Johnson– Doug is great analyst but I disagree with him—I don’t think there is anyone in the Biden Administration that is smart enough to think and plan in those strategic terms.
In my view the last 7 years have been the inertia of the NATO status quo. What I mean by that is that NATO and Washington, believed they could continue to creep east on Russia’s borders without provoking a reaction.
NATO and EUCOM regularly carried out exercises—including providing “offensive” training—and supplied equipment. I believe reports in the United States that the CIA was providing paramilitary training to Ukrainian units operating in the Donbass are credible. But I have trouble believing that after our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, we suddenly have Sun Tzu level strategists pulling the strings in Washington.
There is an air of desperation in Washington.
Besides trying ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line. I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle.
I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West.
If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and U.S. economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has now made it very likely that the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history.
Question 4– Ever since he delivered his famous speech in Munich in 2007, Putin has been complaining about the “architecture of global security”. In Ukraine we can see how these nagging security issues can evolve into a full-blown war. As you know, in December Putin made a number of demands related to Russian security, but the Biden administration shrugged them off and never responded. Putin wanted written assurances that NATO expansion would not include Ukraine (membership) and that nuclear missile systems would not be deployed to Romania or Poland. Do you think Putin’s demands are unreasonable?
Larry C. Johnson– I think Putin’s demands are quite reasonable. The problem is that 99% of Americans have no idea of the kind of military provocation that NATO and the U.S. have carried out over the last 7 years.
The public was always told the military exercises were “defensive.”
That simply is not true.
Now we have news that DTRA was funding biolabs in Ukraine. I guess Putin could agree to allow U.S. nuclear missile systems in Poland and Romania if Biden agrees to allow comparable Russian systems to be deployed in Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico. When we look at it in those terms we can begin to understand that Putin’s demands are not crazy nor unreasonable.
Question 5– Russian media reports that Russian “high precision, air-launched” missiles struck a facility in west Ukraine “killing more than 100 local troops and foreign mercenaries.” Apparently, the Special Operations training center was located near the town of Ovruch which is just 15 miles from the Polish border. What can you tell us about this incident? Was Russia trying to send a message to NATO?
Larry C. Johnson– Short answer—YES!
Russian military strikes in Western Ukraine during the past week have shocked and alarmed NATO officials. The first blow came on Sunday, March 13 at Yavoriv, Ukraine. Russia hit the base with several missiles, some reportedly hypersonic. Over 200 personnel were killed, which included American and British military and intelligence personnel, and hundreds more wounded. Many suffered catastrophic wounds, such as amputations, and are in hospital.
Yet, NATO and the western media have shown little interest in reporting on this disaster.
Yavoriv was an important forward base for NATO (see here). Until February (prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), the U.S. 7th Army Training Command was operating from Yavoriv as late as mid-February.
Russia has not stopped there.
ASB Military news reports Russia hit another site, Delyatyn, which is 60 miles southeast of Yavoriv (on Thursday I believe).
Yesterday, Russia hit Zytomyr, another site where NATO previously had a presence. Putin has sent a very clear message—NATO forces in Ukraine will be viewed and treated as combatants. Period.
Question 6– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been lionized in the western media as a “wartime leader” and a modern-day “Winston Churchill”. What the media fails to tell its readers is that Zelensky has taken a number of steps to strengthen his grip on power while damaging fragile democratic institutions in Ukraine. For example, Zelensky has “banned eleven opposition-owned news organizations” and tried to bar the head of Ukraine’s largest opposition party, Viktor Medvedchuk, from running for office on a bogus “terrorist financing” charge. This is not the behavior of a leader that is seriously committed to democracy. What’s your take on Zelensky? Is he really the “patriotic leader” the media makes him out to be?
Larry C. Johnson– Zelensky is a comedian and an actor. Not a very good one at that in my view.
The West is cynically using the fact he is Jewish as a diversion from the size-able contingent of Neo-Nazis (and I mean genuine Nazis who still celebrate the Ukrainian Waffen SS unit’s accomplishments while fighting with the Nazis in WW II).
The facts are clear—he is banning opposition political parties and shutting down opposition media. I guess that is the new definition of “democracy.”
Question 7– How does this end? There’s an excellent post at the Moon of Alabama site titled “What Will Be The Geographic End State Of The War In Ukraine“. The author of the post, Bernard, seems to think that Ukraine will eventually be partitioned along the Dnieper River “and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population.” He also says this:
“This would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection. The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.”
What do you think? Will Putin impose his own territorial settlement on Ukraine in order to reinforce Russian security and bring the hostilities to an end or is a different scenario more likely?
Larry C. Johnson– I agree with MoA. Putin’s primary objective is to secure Russia from foreign threats and effect a divorce with the West. Russia has the physical resources to be an independent sovereign and is in the process of making that vision come true.
Bio– Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. His analysis and commentary can be found at his blog, https://sonar21.com/
Russian troops are being told that war has to be over by 9 May | Ukrayinska Pravda
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are being told that the war with Ukraine has to be over by 9 May 2022. [9 May – Victory Day – is culturally very significant in Russia and is celebrated every year with a military parade, which in recent years has become more and more imposing and grand.]
Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Whew! Yes, we are in a civilization war and one side has negative morals to the point of sociopathy.
I continue to be in awe of the China/Russia axis moves that are bringing this sick form of social organization we live under to a pause/stop/surrender/capitulation or some sort of change to the social structure/contract which I have been screaming about the need for over the past 50+ years.
I hope we get there.....
-psychohistorian
Some Likely Longterm Effects Of The War In Ukraine
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand - 4:44 UTC · Mar 26, 2022What are the biggest game-changers of the Ukraine war so far?I see three:1) The freezing of Russia's central bank assets2) China and India's rapprochement3) The cementation of the EU's vassalage to the U.S.Small 🧵
I agree with these but would add that it is also likely to lead to 4) the long term demise of NATO and 5) a shrinking role for the U.S. in the Middle East will also shrink as a consequence of the war.
1) The freezing of Russia’s (and Iran’s, Venezuela’s, Afghanistan’s) assets will have severe consequences for the U.S. dollar. The U.S. essentially defaulted by holding back Russian assets that it had the fiduciary duty to give back. China and everyone else will move its reserves to countries or into commodities that are not under U.S. control. See the Michael Hudson’s interviews here and here:
[T]hat means that other countries all of a sudden see what they thought was their flight to security, what they thought was their most secure savings, their holdings in U.S. banks, US treasury bill, all of a sudden, is holding them hostage and is a high risk. Even the Financial Times of London has been writing about this, saying, how can the United States that was getting a free ride off the dollar standard for the last 50 years, ever since 1971, when foreign countries held dollars instead of gold and basically holding dollars means you buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the US budget deficit and the balance of payments deficit. How can the United States kill the goose that’s giving it the free ride? Well, the answer is that other countries can only move into gold and there’s an alternative to the dollar because that’s something that all the countries of the world have agreed upon is an asset, not a liability. If you hold any foreign currency, that currency is a liability of a foreign country, and if you hold gold, it’s a pure asset.
2) China’s and India’s rapprochement has been coming for some time. The border squabble over a few thousand square meters of mountain rocks in recent years never made much sense. The Ukraine crisis has shown that India and China have common interests. Some solution for the border will be worked out and full cooperation will return. This means the end for the Quad, the U.S. made anti-China coalition of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. itself.
3) The cementation of the EU’s vassalage to the U.S. will only be temporarily. European companies have their own interests and they will press their politicians into more realist positions:
It is a long haul for Europe to dispense with Russian gas. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday: “There are gas shortages, and that is why we need to talk to Russians. Europe will move towards reducing its dependence on the Russian gas, but can this happen in the coming years? This is very difficult.”“Europe consumes 500 billion cubic meters of gas, while America and Qatar can offer 15 billion, up to the last molecule… That is why German and Austrian politicians told me: “We cannot just destroy ourselves. If we impose sanctions on Russia in the oil and gas domain, we will destroy ourselves. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot before rushing into a fight.” This is how certain rational people in the West see it today.”
4) As for NATO: As soon as Russia has finished its operation in the Ukraine it will become clear that it has absolutely no interest in attacking any NATO country.The coming period of high inflation will lead to shrinking defense budgets. A NATO that makes promises, like it did to Ukraine, but has neither will nor means to fulfill them has lost its way and serves no serious purpose. It will wither away.
5) In the Middle East the U.S. has proven to be an unreliably ally. The Saudis and others need someone else to protect their security:
The Russian intervention in the Ukraine took Gulf governments by surprise and caused a great deal of anxiety. Here were governments that have tried in recent years to balance their primary loyalty to the U.S. with a new attempt to improve relations with China and Russia.While Putin intervened in Syria against the wishes of Gulf regimes, which were trying to unseat the Syrian ruler, Bashar al-Asad, the Gulf acknowledged the resolve and determination of the Russian government. Brutality in Russian or American intervention in Syria is of no concern to Gulf despots. They value first and foremost the willingness of the Putin administration to stand by his ally in Damascus in comparison to what they see as a lack of resolve on the part of the U.S. towards its clients in the Gulf.The Gulf regimes feel Putin is more loyal than the U.S., and the mischievous behavior of UAE and Saudi Arabia in the last few weeks is an expression of their frustration with U.S. role in the region. (Riyadh, for instance, is in talks with China to trade some of its oil in yuan, which would deal a blow to the U.S. dollar that is used in 80 percent of world oil sales. Until now, the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar. And Emirati and Saudi leaders have refused to take Biden’s phone calls.)
China and Russia will likely cooperate to build some new security architecture in the Middle East.
As all the above plays out it may well turn out that the U.S. policy of overextending and unbalancing Russia did not work but has created a backlash that has severely damaged its own strategic position.
Posted by b on March 26, 2022 at 16:52 UTC | Permalink
A Robbery
"First off I am ok. . . I was a little shaken up this morning as I was robbed at the neighborhood gas station. After my hands stopped trembling I managed to call the police. They were quick to respond and calmed me down. My money is all gone. The police asked me if I knew who did it. I said yes...It was pump number 3."-Don Bacon
Plane Carrying President of Poland Makes EMERGENCY Landing
The airplane carrying Polish President Andrzej Duda to meet U.S. President Joe Biden in eastern Poland has made an emergency landing after returning to Warsaw, Duda’s advisor Jakub Kumoch was cited as saying by state-run news agency PAP on Friday.
The head of Duda’s office, Pawel Szrot, said that the Polish president did not face any danger; other than the fact the plane had to make an emergency landing . . . .
China and Solomon Islands Draft Secret Security Pact, Raising Alarm in the Pacific
A leaked document has revealed that China and the Solomon Islands are close to signing a security agreement that could open the door to Chinese troops and naval warships flowing into a Pacific Island nation that played a pivotal role in World War II.
The agreement, kept secret until now, was shared online Thursday night by opponents of the deal and verified as legitimate by the Australian government. Though it is marked as a draft and cites a need for “social order” as a justification for sending Chinese forces, it has set off alarms throughout the Pacific, where concerns about China’s intentions have been growing for years.
“This is deeply problematic for the United States and a real cause of concern for our allies and partners,” Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on Friday.
“The establishment of a base in the Solomon Islands by a strategic adversary would significantly degrade Australia and New Zealand’s security, increase the chances of local corruption and heighten the chances of resource exploitation.”
It is not clear which side initiated the agreement, but if signed, the deal would give Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands the ability to call on China for protection of his own government while granting China a base of operations between the United States and Australia that could be used to block shipping traffic across the South Pacific.
Five months ago, protesters unhappy with Beijing’s secretive influence (CIA began a color revolution on the islands) attacked the prime minister’s residence, burned businesses in the capital’s Chinatown and left three people dead. Now the worst-case scenario some Solomon Islanders envision would be a breakdown of democracy before or during next year’s election, with more unrest and the threat of China moving in to maintain the status quo.
Everyone gets military training. It all begins in Kindergarden. Little warriors. video 177MB
Do you think that it is wrong to cram so much military training to all the school children?
Mariupol, Kadyrovites and a pregnant cat
In general, it is not welcome to give interviews to the military during this special operation. But the SP correspondent, on condition of anonymity, wrote downstory by Marine Sergei S. Contractor Sergei, along with his company, works in the western part of the besieged Mariupol.
– The work is hard. Cleaning up a city is hard, exhausting work. You’re in a wild state of tension all day long. You perfectly understand that you can become an easy prey for a sniper, so you run between the houses, bending over and putting your head on your shoulders. Such is the cat-and-mouse game of death. And you are wearing a Kevlar helmet, armor, ammunition. Each of us is thin as a washboard. And everyone’s legs are like weightlifters. You feel more or less calm under the cover of a tank or other armor. Before you cross the street, you “scan” all the skyscrapers.
Everything is shot here. There is a constant counter-sniper war going on. They have a sniper climber. Works on the fifth or sixth floors. And then he quickly descends the rope and runs away until he is covered by a tank, mortar or artillery fire. Grenade launchers from the AGS got the hang of sending grenades directly into specific windows. Address.
We have guys who acted in the Middle East. Igilovtsev * were driven. There is a million-plus city in Iraq – Mosul. ISIS made it a fortified area. So the Americans pounded him into the asphalt with artillery fire. A hundred civilians could be put on one ISIS. We are working on a targeted basis. That’s why it’s so hard. Of the tanks, we only work on identified sniper points – if we don’t hit, then we’ll bury the shooter under the rubble.
Therefore, they change their beds constantly. Several groups of Buryats and Tuvinian snipers were attached to us. There was even one Khanty from the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug. Legacy hunters. Many have gone through Chechnya, Ossetia, Syria…
But they say that Mariupol is something special. It is extremely difficult to see a sniper in a window or attic of a destroyed high-rise building. They peer at houses for hours – both through binoculars, and through a thermal imager, and with their own eyes. After two or three days, the eyes become inflamed, the faces become red – as if from constant lack of sleep. They smear them with some kind of deer fat. SSO snipers work with them. Their rifles punch through walls. In the wall after the hit – a hole the size of a basin …
In general, a third of the boys in our platoon have Ukrainian surnames. They say that we clean our country from evil spirits. There are children of the Soviet Union – those who were born in Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan. The militias in general are completely international.
Russians, Ukrainians, Abkhazians, Dagestanis. There are many Caucasians. Fights are their element. During the war, we constantly cross paths with Kadyrov’s Chechens. Then they insure us, then we insure them. At first they showed a brave contempt for death.
Then they became more careful. The war is positional. There is no dagger fight here, dashing cavalry attacks do not work. You can become easy prey for snipers or mortars. Bandera, by the way, also have Chechens. But ours call them “Chechen-speaking shaitans.” Contacted them. Come out, they say, once at a time, we will not shoot – we will fight with daggers like men. They didn’t come out.
Among the highlanders there are age – those who fought in the first Chechen war. And now we are beating Bandera together with them. Brothers in Arms. Our hatred for Bandera is mutual and absolute. We would cover them all with artillery in an hour. But they hide behind the backs of civilians.
They do not let people out into the humanitarian corridors we have opened and scream to the whole world that civilians are suffering from the occupiers. There is no logic, no sense, no high idea in their actions. Everything is built on a lie – both for the clown Zelensky and for themselves. They constantly accuse us of doing things themselves. Lies, lies, lies.
The Chechens are also ready to break loose.
It was the Chechens who figured out the most Nazis who tried to leave the city along with the civilians along the gum corridor. They first checked the shoulders – there were bruises on them from the recoil of the butt. There could be traces of knee pads on the knees. And the helmet leaves a red stripe on the head. Some were even sniffed. If a person shoots a lot, he smells of gunpowder and gun oil. A military man who runs a lot on his feet has traces of berets. There may be a callus on the thumb from reloading the magazine with ammo. They are all, as a rule, slightly stooped.
Ammunition hangs constantly on the chest. And this is sometimes over a thousand rounds. And he rubs his shoulders too. There are many nuances. In general, the highlanders have some kind of bestial intuition for the enemy. They feel it with their skin. They glare at a person with their key and wait for him to look away. And the Bandera people do not look in the eyes. They generally do not like a direct look. And by the way he takes him away, they feel the enemy. Many were given tattoos on the shoulder. Or a trace of an acid-etched pattern.
When civilians were taken out of the city, they did not even have the strength to rejoice. Complete desolation. Almost like a zombie. The eyes of many are black, devastated. You look there, as in the abyss. It seems to me that the prisoners of the concentration camps did not have the strength when they were liberated by our people. Many are on the verge of insanity or a nervous breakdown. The old people, who had all sorts of sores, as soon as they leave the basements, die from stress. They are buried right in the city. Neighbors usually bury. Mariupol is dotted with these mass graves.
After continuous running around the city and shooting, you come to the unit just killed. You think that this bad dream is over for today. Tomorrow we will start to nightmare reptiles again.
And here we are waiting for whole flocks of abandoned dogs and cats. They will surround, sit and wait for the fighters to share their dry rations. We share. Still God’s creature.
One of these days one pregnant cat has appeared. It crawls, trembles, scratches the ground with its claws and screams. Cat food is desperately needed. I gave her stew. All the other dogs and cats who were nearby did not even budge. Though hungry no less than her. Even the beast understands that a pregnant woman cannot be offended. She “grind off” all the stew and began to lick my dusty boot. Thanks so. We made her a “prone” in a box of cartridges. The pea jacket was laid. Such is the field cat maternity hospital. Let her give birth to her kittens.
We really need support and understanding here that all of Russia is behind us. And when the guys sent us the song “We bite into Mariupol” – our wings just grew. Well done who wrote the song. This is about us. After it, a halo over my head shone right over my head. We are doing great work here. Together, with the whole world – Christians, Muslims, Buddhists. We save Russia. Only this thought keeps us in good shape and does not let us relax. The Lord respects us.
That’s how we do things here. I will die – I will remember how we took Mariupol.
* The Islamic State Movement (ISIS), by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2014, was recognized as a terrorist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
I just did our weekly shopping and whole chickens that were $1/lb are now $1.50/lb.
18 oz pack of 5 sausages that was $4 on sale and $5 regular is now $6.
Untrimmed tri-tip, a favorite meat cut here was $6/lb and is now $8/lb.
30oz jug of mayonnaise was $3 is now $5, but I got some on sale at $4.
Milk being subsidized remains cheap on sale at $.75/1/2 gal. I but my dry goods in bulk and make many staples myself and haven't needed to buy any recently.
Fresh produce remains about the same.
I paid $1.30/lb for broccoli and $1.47/lb for honeybee apples.
Overall, we're seeing some food inflation that I'm sure will rise going forward. Gasoline was $4.50/gal and diesel $5/.10. Currently its Spring Break and the traffic seems about the same as in previous years. (I live on the Oregon Coast, which is a tourist mecca.)
- karlof1
Chinese are SHOCKED at the homeless in the USA
This is a great video. Read the subtitles. You have to understand that there are NO homelss people inside of China. There are NO starving people in China, and everyone in China HAS a job. Nope, it’s not what the Untied States media says, but you all do know that it is just a lie generation mechanism with little semblence to reality. This video is great as it accurately reflects the feelings and thoughts of Chinese that I meet and talk with regarding America.
Pay attention to the last part of the video. She describes how homeless are taken cared for inside of China. It is no wonder why the Chinese wonder how Americans can be so hard-hearted, evil and selfish. video 100MB
What do you think about homeless people?
Tiki Culture. The Tiki Lifestyle. Island Living. Retro Life. What is it all about?
I suppose you all are probably wondering what this Tiki stuff is all about.
Well, it’s pretty simple.
It’s all about living the good life the way the cocktail set did back in the day; listening to the sounds of Exotica music and waves crashing on an island shore while sipping an exotic cocktail under a palm tree, and taking it nice and easy, even if you’re a thousand miles away from the nearest tropical island. That’s Tiki Culture.
People who are into Tiki Culture, or the “Tiki Lifestyle” crave an escape from the fast-paced lives we live. We want to know we have a special place, whether physical or in our minds, where we can go to get away from it all.
Martin Lindsay and Di Lovely at the Headhunter San Diego.0
For many of us, it’s our own little Tiki Bar set somewhere in the corner of our home. For some of us, it’s the Tiki Bar down town or on the beach. For a lucky few, our entire lives (including our homes and businesses) are 100% Tiki with that distinct mid-century retro look and feel.
What is Tiki?
Historically and geographically, Tiki is defined by Polynesian culture – specifically, Tiki was the first man on Earth, according to most cultures. But that’s not what 20th & 21st Century Tiki Culture in America (and most of the world) is about now. (There are a lot of great websites that can give you the history of Tiki and Moai better than I can here).
Being in a Tiki frame of mind.
As for Tiki Culture today, you’ll get different answers depending on who you talk to, and from what part of the states they hail. Tiki purists will tell you that Tiki is the genre inspired by 1930s to 1950s Hawaiian and Polynesian pop styles, blending these cultures with specific types of drinks, food and décor.
Dark woods, thatch, rattan and bamboo make up the basic building blocks of the décor and furniture. Tropical plants, waterfalls, hand-carved Tiki gods and Moai, along with nautical accents arranged in a somewhat mysterious display reminiscent of foreign lands make up an atmosphere of true Tiki.
Dancing Hula girls and fire-eating island men provide the exotic entertainment, set to jazz-influenced, drum-heavy island music. Food is an Americanized combination of South Pacific and Asian cuisine; drinks are mostly rum-based, complex, fairly strong and are not really supposed to be sweet.
Tropical Cocktails are at the center of the movement, and are served as a ritual – not just a drink – involving chunks of exotic fruits and even real flowers as garnish, exciting swizzle sticks, and occasionally even flames.
A home Tiki bar.
Very special drinks are served in large bowls with extra long straws for a party of four; at places like the world famous Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale, FL they are served by a Mystery Girl dancing seductively to a gong.
Anything made of plastic, with the exception of swizzle sticks, is taboo.
If it wasn’t in a Tiki bar in the ’50s, it’s not authentic. However unless you are a true purist, a few fun plastic Tiki cups and paper cut outs from the party store can transform any room into your own Tiki haven without blowing the kids’ college fund on bamboo furniture and ceramic mugs.
Swing down to Key West and the “Tiki Bar” takes on a whole new meaning. One of the few places in the country that welcomed Tiki bars through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, Tiki bars in the Keys evolved with the times and took on an area-specific life of their own. Bright, vivid colors replaced the dark jungle themes.
Vintage Tiki
Like everything else in the Keys, Tiki Bars became open-air, welcoming in the cool ocean breezes.
Shorts, bikinis and flip-flops replaced party dresses and tailored suits for the dress code, and the music swayed away from Poly pop to Caribbean Island sounds, incorporating Cuban, Reggae, Calypso, and South American styles.
Tiki bars can be a great escape.
Eventually a laid back kat named Jimmy Buffet made his way to Key West, and his music fit in perfectly with the Island’s philosophies. A Margarita or Cuba Libre are right at home next to the Mai Tai or Singapore Sling at the Tiki Bars in the Keys, and even though you won’t usually find a carved Tiki or a Polynesian show, they can still be a hell of a lot of fun.
Today, we have a wonderful bunch of krazy kats and kittens who refer to themselves as Tikiphiles. (Hell, you might be one of them yourself if you’re reading this!) These swingers love Tiki culture, in many forms. They might be purists, they might be Parrot Heads, or they might be into the Retro Scene where Tiki can be a big part. Some of the hard-core Tikiphiles follow Tiki events across the country – mainly the Big Three – Tiki Oasis in California, Ohana on the Lake in Lake George New York, and the Hukilau in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They find each other on the internet, at Tiki bars and Tiki events. You won’t find a kooler bunch of kids. As the saying goes, they’re money, and they don’t even know it.
Tiki Culture 101: How it all started
There are some great books and a few other websites that can give you an in-depth history of Tiki Culture in America. I’m going to give it to you in a nutshell, so you can get the basics down before you finish your Mai Tai.
Sand Bar; a fine Tiki themed bar on the Ocean.
The common theory is that Tiki Bars started popping up in America after World War II, when soldiers returning from the South Pacific started spreading the word of how wonderful the beautiful tropical islands were with their hula girls and swaying palms. Well, that’s not really true; the first Tiki Bars in America, by most accounts, were started in the 1930s by a couple of guys who had spent time in the islands and thought it would be fun to theme their bars with a tropical flavor.
Don the Beachcomber (Donn Beach) is generally credited as the first swanky kat to open a specifically Tiki/Polynesian-themed restaurant and lounge in Hollywood, CA in 1934. About three years later Trader Vic’s (Vic Bergeron) opened in Oakland, CA with a similar theme, and Tikiness in America took off from there. Both proprietors got popular concocting strong but tasty cocktails, and soon became known for the exotic décor, laid back atmosphere and strong libations. Bamboo and wicker galore, hand-carved Tikis, palms, pretty girls in sarongs. Hawaiian music set the standard for the blossoming era.
How to go Tiki.
As air travel helped bring the world closer in the ’30s and ’40s, Hawaiian and Polynesian music, food and décor became more popular in the states. WW2 brought these cultures to the forefront, and Americans – who were sick of the war – focused on the beauty of these worlds, the tropical flowers and orange sunsets, the magic, the exotic women, the cool breezes and sweet fruits.
MM meal
I filmed this video a few weeks ago. It’s some some great and delicious food. This is authentic Chinese sichuan food inside of China (duh!). The hot bubbling dish is eggplant, and man oh man, is it delicious. video 32MB
The Tiki formula
Main Tiki Bar Elements (around 50 %)
Carvings and art from Polynesia like Tiki statues, posters, mugs, weapons, masks, Tiki utensils, ashtrays, Tiki lighters, menus, matches, and other objects and art that depict Tiki (Polynesian ancestor figures). Also: Artefacts from Melanesia (Papua New Guinea) and Micronesia. Architecture like A-Frame meeting houses.
All these elements can show the influences of three additional stylistic forces. In the pie chart, you see three triangles that influence original mid-century Tiki art as well as today’s revival Tiki style.
They are: 1.) Original Pacific art 2.) Modernism & Picasso and 3.) Cartoons
Supporting Tiki Elements
(10 – 20 % each, depending on your preferences)
These are split into four categories. Exotica, Pre-Tiki, Nautical and Mid-Century Pop.
EXOTICA – Explorers, Headhunters, voodoo, African and Asian souvenirs.
PRE-TIKI – Hawaiiana, South Sea movies, Hula girls, Luau imagery, Palm trees, rattan, and tapa.
NAUTICAL – Trader and Beachcomber style, ship models, ship wheels, anchors, fishnet floats, shells, pufferfish, nets, travel, and adventure objects and Kon-Tiki related stuff.
MID-CENTURY POP – Surf, Beach, Lounge and Bar elements, Rumpus Room items.
The focus on the main elements is important, with a nice mix of the supporting ideas. On the borders, but outside of Tiki style, are personal preferences like Pirates, Shriners, Rock-a-billy, Monsters, or Star Wars décor. You find these things in modern Tiki bars, even if they are obviously not authentic. To each his own: The Tiki genre is very creative, open, and playful, yet it does have its heritage and history.
After the war, those returning soldiers did want forget the bloodshed, but they certainly wanted to remember the good times. Tiki Bars sprang up all over the states, moving from the California coast clear over to the Atlantic. New Tiki Bar owners combined elements of Hawaii, Tahiti, the Philippines and other Pacific cultures to decorate their lounges. Bamboo, thatch and carved hardwoods became the building materials of choice. Tiki idols and masks adorned the walls and bar.
Tiki foundation
Nautical props, from fishnets to lanterns made from blowfish, found their way into the design. Chinese and Japanese cuisine infiltrated the menus. Swinging Hawaiian music was combined with jazz and exotic sounds of the far east and south Pacific to create “Exotica”, the soundtrack to Tiki. Polynesian Pop was born.
The 1950s saw an explosion in pop culture that wouldn’t be matched until the advent of the World Wide Web. Tiki bars flourished in the ’50s, giving the cocktail set a new place to mingle as well as providing a nice, close-to-home adventure for the thriving middle class.
Visiting a Tiki Bar with a live Polynesian music and dance floorshow was like taking a mini vacation.
Dining in fine Tiki.
Drinks were served in coconuts, hollowed pineapples, and eventually artistically created ceramic Tiki mugs. Patrons could buy souvenirs to take home, just like on vacation, and soon these souvenirs became collectibles. Those who loved the themed lounges took it upon themselves to re-create the atmosphere at home, and the home Tiki Bar was born.
Although it had been hip for years with the cocktail set to have a home bar (usually anything from a hideaway bar to a corner set-up with all the frills), suddenly Tiki Bars in the home became the “in” thing.
Bachelor pads were re-worked with the Tiki Theme in mind, sporting curious Moai art sculptures and black velvet paintings of Tahitian women laying naked on the beach. Swingin’ couples transformed their mid-century modern apartments to include bamboo furniture, palm plants and floral wallpaper. Basement rec-rooms across the country were turned into little Tiki islands, with fishnets hanging from the rafters and rum-stocked bamboo bars as the focal point. America loved Tiki.
Dancing the Hula at a Tiki Bar
Then the 1960s came along. The happy days of the ’50s began to decay under the rebellion of the hippy generation (who of course had their own ideas of ‘cool’), the problems America faced with civil rights, assassinations, corrupt government and the Vietnam war.
Once again palm trees and thatch huts were shown on the 11 o’clock news as the center of war and death.
Even Gilligan’s Island couldn’t distract people from the darkness. America was beginning to focus more on what was “real” and less on the fantasy, and much of the fun stuff we enjoyed in the old days were abandoned, washed away by a tide of indifference.
By the 1970s, Tiki culture had been worn down to ‘kitsch’. It was no longer considered a fun, exciting escape; it was considered an old, out-dated and corny style that belonged to the old generation. Disco took over, and Tiki Bars around the country began closing their doors for good.
But something strange happened. Something wonderful. Tiki started popping up again in the strangest places.
TV shows like “Hawaii 5-0”, “Fantasy Island” and “Magnum P.I.” brought the tropics back into our homes, in a very groovy way.
Vintage Tiki drinks
A few of the old Tiki Bars continued to succeed, managing to push on in spite of the times. Places like Key West and San Francisco somehow managed to keep the culture quietly alive, adapting to new trends.
The Florida Keys branched out with its own Tiki culture, breaking from tradition and incorporating vivid colors, open-air bars and Parrot Head music with Jimmy Buffet at the musical wheel.
Pirate culture, which is a hairline away from Tiki Culture, gained popularity, and the two started to overlap in a wonderfully adventurous way. A couple of authentic, mid-century Tiki bars, such as the Mai Kai in Fort Lauderdale, FL managed to maintain the original, traditional Tiki Culture with Polynesian shows and exotic drinks served in original-style Tiki mugs.
They pressed on, and by the early 1990s more and more Americans started opening their eyes to the wonders of Tiki. Tiki culture was rediscovered!
Tiki Bar in LA
Where is Tiki?
You don’t have to live in the tropics to enjoy the Tiki life, but it helps. Having year-round warm temperatures, green grass and palm trees in your back yard is something I don’t ever want to give up. But some of the best Tiki Bars I’ve been to have been in places like Portland, Oregon – so it’s really a state of mind, more than a place. You can live in Alaska, as long as you have your bamboo and thatch setup and a good heater, you’re golden.
It was guys like me (and maybe you too) who kept the Tiki torches burning through the last few decades. My uncle loved the whole Tiki thing, and built his middle son a complete Tiki Hut to play in back in the ’70s, along with a Pirate Ship and a Tiki/Pirate-themed bedroom.
By that time, Tiki Culture was making its way back into the hearts of many Americans, not just us crazy few. Books on the allure of Tiki were published. Tropical themes became “in” again. More TV shows and movies were set in tropical settings. And the Internet helped propel the good word of the Tiki good life around the world. (That’s why you’re reading this, right? Dig it!)
Tiki bars are fun.
Now, at the beginning of the new century, we’re realizing once again the fun of Tiki and the importance of preserving the original places, ideals and philosophies that make Tiki Culture so great. From hard-core traditionalists to new-wave Parrot heads, people all over the world are enjoying tropical drinks under indoor palm trees, swaying to music by Martin Denny and The Martini Kings. There are Tikiphiles who love and live everything Tiki, and everyday people who think it’s just kinda kool to have a Tiki mask hanging in their bedroom and bamboo furniture on the lanai.
Some people prefer to stick to one era and are true to it, and that is very kool. Others are all about original Tiki, basically Poly pop of the 1950s, and won’t stray from it. That is kool too because they are the kids who keep the traditional stuff going and that is very important. And many are all about back-yard Tiki, having a luau party with the fun, colorful decorations you can pick up cheap at the party store, lighting the Tiki torches and barbecuing sweet and sour chicken kabobs while the kids do the limbo.
Arnold’s Tiki bar
To me, it’s all fantastic. Tiki culture is all about living the good life, having fun, and enjoying the tropical splendor it offers. So sit back in your bamboo chair, sip your Piña Colada with the little paper umbrella, and dig in to the fun of living Tiki!
Wait, there’s more! Here’s a fun little thing…What is NOT Tiki…
• Carribbean, South American, Mexican or African cultures. Although elements of these cultures make their way into the Tiki lifestyle occasionally, they are their own cultures and don’t really represent Tiki.
• Anything with folk music. Oof. If there’s a guy with a guitar singing Simon and Garfunkel tunes, no matter what the joint has hanging on the walls, it ain’t a Tiki Bar.
• Art Deco, palm tree & pastel decor, i.e. Miami Modern. Just because there are palm trees doesn’t make it Tiki. That’s a whole other thing. A very kool thing, but a whole other thing.
• Chinese or other oriental decor, although Tiki borrows from those styles (especially for the food!). Chinese and Japanese elements worked into the overall Tiki theme is good.
• Friday night Beef & Beer at the American Legion Hall (unless they decorate it with Tiki stuff, of course).
• Sears.
• “Idaho. I have never heard of a Tiki Bar in Idaho. If anyone knows of one, please send info right away.” Well guess what? I was just told about a Tiki Bar in Idaho! And that is amazing, and fantastic. The more Tiki bars, the better!
• People who wear Hawaiian shirts with shorts, black socks and sandals. No.
• Martini bars, even of they have a neon palm tree in the window.
• And for Tiki purists, anything made of cheap plastic and bought at the local party store, neon-colored Tiki stuff, smiling Tikis, and misuse of Tiki gods (like Ku holding up a cheese platter) are unacceptable.
Trader Sams Enchanted Tiki Room
America is a nation of Rulers not laws
Yet after COVID-19, it’s obvious our democratic system of lawmaking is, as Winston Churchill put it, “the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Given the choice between a system resembling a Rube Goldberg cartoon (with his bizarre and overly complex contraptions designed to complete simple tasks) and one that’s streamlined and efficient, I’ll take Goldberg’s vision any day.
As we saw throughout the country but in California in particular, governors were happy to dispense with the usual checks and balances and impose rules by executive order and fiat. Some initial rules were defensible during a public-health crisis, but it wasn’t long before elected officials operated like czars—imposing illogical and contradictory restrictions that made no rhyme or reason.
They kept moving the goalposts. One day, counties were on lockdown based on such and such infection rates, but the next day standards changed. In September 2020, for instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a re-opening blueprint based on COVID cases per 100,000 population, but then he refused to let counties that met the standard to loosen up their rules.
Do schools teach you to be independent thinkers, or cogs in a vast huge nameless machine?
Russian Roubles for gasoline
Yves Smith has a post up about Putin’s roubles-for-gas declaration. This is in her wheelhouse and worth a read. She also discusses the Dallas Fed’s new paper on the impacts of sanctions on the oil market. Conclusion: at least as severe an impact as OPEC in the 70s.
The United States to establish “Red Lines” upon China
In the use of “Red Lines”, both Russia and China defined them as unalterable, and uncrossible events that violate their national sovereignty.
The United States is now set to define their “Red Lines”.
Only instead of American sovereignty, it is really a set of limitations placed upon China. And if China, instead, acts as an independent nation and refuses American demands, this will be considered “cossing the red lines”.
Silly and highly volatile.
These are not actual “Red Lines” on American sovereignty, but rather a list of demands and limits on what America allows China to do. If China crosses those limits, America will impose punishments.
Oh yes, China backing Russia is really pissing off Uncle Shmuel. How dare China! And the noise has been a daily ritual. Additionally, the Eurolemmings are very upset:
But guys, you all know that this is an expected reaction. It has been planned and expected a long, long time ago. China and Russia are playing a very advanced game of Chess, while the United States are just infants scribbling on the walls with crayons.
.
The USA has to be told over and over…
China’s bank regulator says the nation will not join Western sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine invasion – ABC News
Mainstream media drum-beat for war is frightening the DOD
Joe Lauria reports this morning there were two leaks by MoD providing facts to fight against the MSM hysteria.
There is currently a fight between DoD, the President, the Congress and the MSM over the next actions to take over Ukraine. Maybe I am exagerating a bit but they feel the dangers of escalating this any further.
SEOUL, March 24 (Reuters) - North Korea conducted what is thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test ever on Thursday, the South Korean and Japanese militaries said, marking a dramatic end to a self-imposed moratorium on long-range testing.It would be the first full-capability launch of the nuclear-armed state's largest missiles since 2017, and represents a major step in the North's development of weapons that might be able to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the United States.
Compare to how the people react when there is an accident. In America, everyone sits in their car. No one gets out. No one helps anyone, and they wait until the polic eand others come. At most, they might honk their horns or film the carnage.
Inside China, a nation of Rufus, everyone leaves their car and gets out to help. It’s all about community. It’s about responsibility, and it’s about purpose. video 22MB
A reminder to the maniacs and neo-con interventionists in the West
Head of Roskosmos:
"I want to confirm, knowing the technical side of the matter, that the Russian Federation is capable of physically destroying any aggressor or any group of aggressors at any distance, globally, in a matter of minutes,"
He said this on Channel One television.
The head of Roskosmos also expressed hope that Russia wouldn’t have to use the missiles that the state corporation builds because they are “the last resort.”
"Our machines are for the last resort, I think that’s what President [of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin] was talking about when he warned the countries that would try to intervene in this special military operation, including NATO countries, that no one should forget that Russia has a very reliable nuclear strategic potential and means of its delivery.
The means of delivery are intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as operational-tactical missile systems, and so on,"
China Crash Mystery Deepens As Evidence Suggests Mid-Air Breakup
China Plane Crash: If investigators confirm that the part found 10 km away came from the jet, it could offer clues about what led to Monday's crash or at least shed light on the flight's final seconds.
2022 03 26 14 35
At least one piece of the Boeing Co. 737-800 that crashed in China appears to have broken loose well before impact, a finding that adds mystery to the plane’s fatal dive.
The piece suspected to have come from the China Eastern Airlines Corp. Ltd. jet was found about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the main wreckage area, Chinese officials said at a briefing Thursday.
If investigators confirm that the part came from the jet, it would indicate the plane suffered some kind of midair breakup, which could offer clues about what led to Monday’s crash or at least shed light on the flight’s final seconds.
“The questions are: exactly what piece was it and when did it come off?” said Jeff Guzzetti, the former chief of accident investigations at the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Flight 5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou went down without an emergency radio call from pilots, slamming into a forested hillside about 100 miles from its destination, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. There were 132 people aboard.
The highly unusual dive has baffled crash investigators and safety experts. Aircraft such as the 737-800 are designed not to dive so aggressively, so some kind of aircraft failure or pilot action would be required to keep its nose pointed down for so long.
A piece about 1.3 meters (4.3 feet) long and 10 centimeters (4 inches) wide believed to be from the plane was found on farmland, Zheng Xi, head of the Guangxi fire-fighting rescue team, said at a briefing.
It’s impossible to know at this early stage in the investigation whether the piece came loose as a result of stresses during the high-speed plunge or broke off before the sudden descent.
Guzzetti said it most likely occurred as the plane plummeted from a cruising altitude of about 29,000 feet in about 1 minute and 35 seconds.
“In my view, that’s the aircraft shedding parts as it’s coming down,” he said.
If that’s the case, it would provide clues about the plane’s speed and possible pilot maneuvers.
Still Transmitting
The aircraft didn’t break apart completely. It continued to transmit its position until it reached 3,225 feet, according to data collected by the Flightradar24 tracking service, suggesting the main structure remained intact.
A Bloomberg News review of Flightradar24 data showed the jet was flying well above normal speeds during the dive, possibly nearing the speed of sound.
Going that fast on a jetliner that’s not designed for such speeds could cause relatively light-weight components on wings and tail sections to break loose, according to an investigation into the Dec. 19, 1997 crash of a SilkAir 737-300 in Indonesia.
That jet was traveling close to the speed of sound as it dove into a river, investigators concluded. The Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee said there wasn’t enough evidence to say what caused the crash, but the (The United States representative) NTSB dissented, saying that the captain most likely did it intentionally in a murder-suicide.
Almost 22,000 Feet in 72 Seconds: Plunge of China Eastern Plane Puzzles Experts
Boeing 737 crash in southern China was among the fastest jetliner descents ever recorded
It was one of the fastest descents of a commercial aviation jetliner in history.
China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 had been flying normally for just over an hour on Monday when it suddenly nosedived, plummeting more than 21,000 feet in 72 seconds. After the fall appeared to be briefly arrested, the plane stopped transmitting data, crashing into green mountains in southern China.
Video footage captured by a mining company’s surveillance camera showed the aircraft almost perpendicular to the ground in its final moments before it crashed, while attempts by air-traffic controllers and other nearby jetliners to contact the pilots after the aircraft started hurtling to the ground went unanswered.
It is “extremely unusual to see an aircraft in a full nose dive,” one industry safety official in the U.S. said. “Many of us are scratching our heads.”
The vertical speed of the descent reached almost 31,000 feet a minute at one point, according to data from tracking provider Flightradar24, mystifying experts. With very limited information available so far, it leaves open a range of possibilities as to how the Boeing 737-800 carrying 132 passengers and crew met its fate.
The Aviation Safety Network, operated by the independent safety advocacy group, the Flight Safety Foundation, and which maintains a flight accident database going back to 1919, said it identified eight examples of accidents since 1985 where a plane quickly descended in an abnormally steep way or fell out of the sky at high speed.
China Eastern Airlines has grounded its entire fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft – a move that came after the same widely-used plane model plummeted from the sky with 132 passengers on board earlier this week.An airline spokesperson said China Eastern and its subsidiaries have temporarily paused use of a total of 223 Boeing 737-800s. The planes will undergo safety checks and maintenance during the grounding.China Eastern Airlines is also planning an overhaul of its plane safety protocols following the incident, CNN reported.Authorities have yet to determine what caused China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 to crash with no apparent survivors. The plane appeared to nosedive from a cruising altitude of approximately 30,000 feet.Flight tracking service FlightRadar24 said the plane “started to lose altitude very fast,” with a vertical descent of 31,000 feet per minute. Authorities recovered the plane’s black box from the crash site on Wednesday, which could provide clues about what happened.
I filmed this in one of my local restaurants. Fine authentic Chinese pepper beef. It’s served on a hot platter right out of the oven. It goes great with alcohol, as that’s how all the Chinese eat it. Yum. video 23MB
Both China and Russia have declared Soros a “terrorist”.
“The Russian govt announces an arrest warrant against the billionaire Georges Soros, the main promoter of the war in Ukraine.
She’s got nice curves, and I really do like her dress. video 4MB
I think that she looks great in blue. Love the soft curves.
Germany Spokesperson: No big new sanctions package expected at EU summit on Russia
A spokesperson for the German government said on Wednesday that they were not expecting a “big new sanctions package” on Russia to be announced at the EU summit, as reported by Reuters.
Solomon Islands reportedly close to signing security partnership with China. My guess it is becuse of the NGO “color revolution” activities that the CIA has been sponsoring the last few years.
A draft white paper that surfaced on social media today sets out a framework that could allow Beijing to deploy forces to "protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in the Solomon Islands."
The agreement says that the Solomon Islands can "request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and military forces to the country."
It’s not only the boarded-up store fronts. It’s the office space throughout the urban areas.
Blackstone walks away from Midtown Manhattan building, CMBS holders left holding the bag. Yah. This is how it is going in the US.SF: 26% of total office space for lease. Occupancy rates still down 70%.
"The revolutionary technology, expected to be 10-100 times faster than 5G in terms of data transmission speed, will integrate with advanced computing, big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, set to make up for desired applications that fall short of expectations in the 5G era...."In January, a high-tech lab in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, announced a major achievement related to 6G-oriented terahertz 100/200Gbps (gigabits per second) real-time wireless communication, which led to the world's fastest real-time transmission for terahertz real-time wireless communication that's been publicly reported...."China, the world's biggest internet and smartphone market, granted 5G licenses for commercial use and started 6G R&D in 2019. It has built the largest 5G mobile infrastructure in the industry, with 1.43 million 5G base stations rolled out as of the end of 2021, accounting for over 60 percent of the global total."
I laugh at US telecom 5G commercials touting their superiority when they’re so totally outclassed by China. China’s telecoms will dominate the Eurasian Bloc’s market and aid in the region’s rapid developmental transformation.
I think she has a really nice tummy and fine womanly hips. Do you think that she’s too thin, as some American friends have suggested to me?
Russians captured a Ukrainian Control Complex
LATEST NEWS FLASH YOU’LL NEVER HEAR IN THE MSM: On Monday night, Russian forces released news of their capture of a Soviet-era nuclear bunker near Kiev, which was being used by the Ukrainian army as a command complex. 60-some prisoners were taken, reportedly half of them being officers at the rank of Major or above.
When will Putin realize that Russian default on loans is the proper response to the seizure of Russian assets? Russia would have to be extremely foolish to borrow another cent from the West. Therefore, why protect access to foreign borrowing by continuing to service foreign debt? As the West has already stolen Russia’s money, Russia should walk away from the debt, which it was a strategic blunder of the highest order for Russia to have contracted. https://www.rt.com/business/552511-imf-us-dollar-reserve-currency
Lavrov is catching on
“This all is about removing the obstacle in the form of Russia on the way to building a unipolar world… This is not about Ukraine, this is about a world order in which the United States wants to be the sole sovereign and dominate.”
“Our Polish colleagues have already stated that there will be a NATO summit, and peacekeepers should be sent. I hope they understand what they are talking about. This will be the very direct clash between the Russian and NATO armed forces, which everyone wants to avoid.”
“The Americans proceed from the fact that it is unprofitable for them if this process is completed quickly. They expect to continue pumping weapons into Ukraine.”
Sanctions are destroying dollar as world currency
IMF says Washington’s illegal seizure of Russia’s reserves is causing “increasing fragmentation” in the global payments system, causing some countries to move away from the dollar.
Sanctions destroying influence of Washington’s Russian allies
Anatoly Chubais, Atlanticist Integrationist excrement, has resigned his position as presidential aide for sustainable development and fled Russia.
Good riddence says Russia.
Chubais is the Russian traitor who sold out Russia to the West during the Yeltsin years. He plunged millions into poverty while helping a few oligarchs and the West seize Russia’s assets. For reasons no one understands, Putin kept him on in lesser positions instead of having him shot.
The “Victorious Ukrainian Forces” sre trying to escape by dressing up as women
Here are the Ukrainian Nazis that, according to US Secretary of Defense, are on the verge of Defeating the Russian army. It doesn’t look that way. Not really.
The Supreme Court is already a joke. Now they want to make it a laughing stock. Discrediting the court is their way of removing judicial restraint on the executive branch. Another leap into tyranny.
US Secretary of Defense Sees Russian Defeat in Ukraine
The incompetent fool Biden appointed Secretary of Defense said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was stalled by valiant Ukrainian forces and that Russia was feeding its troops into a wood chipper and would soon run out of soldiers. The Defense Secretary’s statement is 100% fantasy.
Ukraine is a no-fly zone, one established by Russia. Before Russian troops arrived, Ukrainian radar, air fields, and military infrastructure was destroyed along with the navy and air force.
The remains of the Ukrainian army are isolated and surrounded. The units have no communication and are incapable of offensive action.
The US-supported and armed neo-Nazi militias are ensconced in population centers where they are using the civilians that Putin intended to spare as shields and are blowing up the towns and cities for the Western presstitutes to blame on Russia. As the population centers are being destroyed and civilians killed by the neo-Nazis , there is no reason for the Russians to keep to their policy of avoiding the risk to civilians of heavy weapon use.
Ukraine is cut off from the Black Sea. It remains to be seen whether Putin, in another of those fruitless Russian good will gestures, will give the territory back to Ukraine. Indeed, at this time no effective Ukraine government exists. Russia is wasting its time negotiating with a non-government.
NATO bases in Western Ukraine where Russian troops are not operating have been destroyed.by precision weapons. Among the casualties are US and UK military and intelligence personnel who were training Ukrainians in the use of the weapons supplied by the West. Russia has made it clear what awaits NATO members if they get involved in the conflict.
The real puzzle is what do Western government officials and presstitute media think they are accomplishing with fantasy news reports? Has the West reached the point in George Orwell’s 1984 where victories are claimed in a war that doesn’t exist?
Only a portion of the assembled Russian troops have been committed to the conflict. The rest are on hand to deal with any NATO intervention.
In recent years, many people have become accustomed to thinking about the term “deep state” as something that only applies to the United States. While it is certainly clear that a fifth column has become increasingly embedded across all levels of America’s military, intelligence, bureaucratic, corporate, media and academic influence- very few westerners have any clear idea how this same structure has expressed itself in the nations of Eurasia.
Most relevant for the topic of this present report, we can take as an example the vast western-leaning hive of vipers, oligarchs and liberal technocrats which rose to power under the direction of the CIA during the dark years of shock therapy of the 1990s. Of course, since taking over from Yeltsin in 1999, President Vladimir Putin has gone far to purging many of those treacherous agencies that looted Russia during Perestroika, regaining control of vital institutions, bringing Russia’s military, scientific and intelligence powers back into national hands.
“In the early 2000s, I’ve cleaned all of them out, but in mid-1990s, we had Central Intelligence Agency employees as advisors and even official employees of the government of the Russian Federation, as we learned later… There were American specialists sitting at our nuclear weapons complex sites, they went to work there, from morning to late night – they had a table and an American flag. They lived there and worked there. They did not need any fine instruments to interfere in our life, because they had control over everything already.”
Putin went on to describe the new CIA-run strategy of asymmetrical warfare utilizing foreign NGOs and rabble-rousing proxies (see: Navalny) within the vast “civil society” apparatus embedded within his nation:
“As soon as Russia started claiming its interests, started to raise its sovereignty, economy and armed forces’ capability, new instruments of influence on our internal political life became needed, including rather fine instruments via various organizations, funded from abroad.”
Of course while these operations have lit many weaker nations on fire in earlier days, the color revolutionary techniques used by the CIA-funded NED, or Open Society Foundations have resulted in very limited successes in Russia where saner heads have cut off many of these operations of funding while illegalizing Soros’ entire organization in 2015 declaring them to be “threats to state security”. Although Russia was 25 years behind schedule on this matter, banning Soros put them into the special club of nations that got their acts together led by China who had the wits to ban Soros in 1989, illegalizing his Open Society operations and arresting its agents (including CPC General Secretary and Soros agent extraordinaire Zhao Ziyang).
After recapturing key strategic interests from private clutches during his early years in power, Putin established a new set of ultimatums that he expected the liberal technocrats and oligarchs to adhere to: play by the rules set out by him or face the consequences. Some went to jail, and many went to London for sanctuary (often buying mansions with their ill-begotten gains in an area that came to be known as “Moscow on the Thames”). Still others stayed behind to play by the rules. Perhaps some did adapt to this new reality, but other forces continued to act as a fifth column- often keeping their claws firmly sunk into the levers of finance in Russia’s IMF-influenced central banking architecture and local regional power centers.
It was to these fifth columnists that Putin addressed his remarks on March 15 of this year saying:
“Yes, of course they [the West] will bet on the so-called Fifth Column. Our national traitors. On those who earn money here, with us, but live there. And they live not even in the geographical sense of the word but according to their thoughts. According to their slavish consciousness… many of these people, by their very nature, are mentally located exactly there, and not here. Not with our people. Not with Russia. This is, in their opinion, a sign of belonging to a higher caste, to a higher race. Such people are ready to sell their own mothers if only they were allowed to sit in the hallway of this very highest caste… They do not understand at all that if they are needed by this so-called “higher caste”, then they are needed only as expendable material in order to use them to inflict maximum damage on our people.”
The myopic habit of looking only at the USA or European fifth columnists undermining the sovereignty of nation states over the past decades while ignoring Eurasia, has caused many well-meaning people to presume falsely that nations like Russia or China can be treated as monolithic institutions with either a “good” or “bad” label attached to them. Such oversimplifications unfortunately result in minds susceptible to much misinformation, which there is no shortage to be found amidst our age of psychological warfare operations, media spin and narrative reframing.
Ignorance of the battle currently being waged between genuine nationalists surrounding Putin vs this other western-directed fifth column will ensure fatal errors in judgement and a misdiagnosis of our current crisis. Even worse, vital opportunities for broader policy solutions requisite to empower sovereign nation states will be lost and with this loss, any capacity to engage in proper combat with an emerging totalitarian world order will be destroyed.
Chubais Jumps Ship
One of the most blatant examples of leading Fifth Columnists who “sell their own mothers to sit in the hallway of this very highest caste” has been the figure of Anatoly Chubais who has recently announced his departure from Russia (hopefully permanently) in order to seek safer terrain in Turkey. In this leap into safer sanctuary, Chubais has abandoned his role as ‘Special Representative for Relations with International Organizations to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals’ at the UN.
Chubais played one of the most destructive roles of any living politician while working with the CIA-run Yeltsin government as a “Soros-young reformer” alongside Yegor Gaidar and other western tools who were recruited by the west to run the sacking and disintegration of Russia during the 1990s. Acting as Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Policy between 1992-96, Chubais oversaw the privatization of all strategic sectors of the Russian economy alongside Harvard’s Jeffrey Sachs, Rhodes Scholar Strobe Talbott, a coterie of sociopathic oligarchs like Mikhail Khodorkovsy, Platon Lebedev and Boris Berezovsky (many of whom formed Chubais’ ‘Group of 7’ in 1996).
Chubais and Geidar pioneered the infamous “voucher system” which underpinned the multi-phased looting operation dubbed Operation Hammer by Bush Sr’s CIA starting in 1991. William Engdahl rigorously documented this dense period of privatizations which saw over 15,000 firms privatized between 1992-1994. New oligarchs like Berezovsky were able to use these vouchers purchased from starving Russians, to buy the oil giant Sibnet (worth $3 billion) for only $100 million and Khodorkovsky bought 78% of the shares in Yukos (a $5 billion value) for only $310 million. Soros himself bragged that he dropped over two billion dollars into Russia during this looting period.
Chubais had been an early founder of Perestroika clubs in St. Petersburg alongside such figures as Yegor Gaidar (future Prime Minister), Vladimir Kogan (future St Petersburg Bank President) and Alexei Kudrin (future Finance Minister). Upon Gaidar’s death in 2009, Chubais spearheaded the creation of the Gaidar Forum which was designed to take place one week prior to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos and served as a coordinating body of the deep state between the Schwabian technocrats and their Russian soulmates.
In 2013, Putin said of Chubais and his CIA handlers:
“We learned today that officers of the United States’ CIA operated as consultants to Anatoly Chubais. But it is even funnier that upon returning to the U.S., they were prosecuted for violating their country’s laws and illegally enriching themselves in the course of privatization in the Russian Federation.”
Despite Putin having clearly identified Chubais as a CIA asset, evidence of something very powerful protecting the financier was seen as he not only avoided being purged as so many others during Putin’s tenure, but even regained a large degree of influence as chairman of the executive board of the state-run technology company Rusnano from 2008 until 2020. During this time, Chubais also found himself serving as advisory council member of JP Morgan Chase, and the leading force behind decarbonization schemes in Russia driven by green alternative energy boondoggles which serve as a major component of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset.
During his 12 year tenure, Chubais used Rusnano as an instrument to fund and seed windmill and solar power development, provided $400 million to Hevek Solar (Russia’s biggest solar energy company) and created a $520 million Wind Energy Development Fund.
Although Chubais’ offices at Rusnano were raided the day following the arrest of Russian finance minister (and fellow swamp creature Alexei Ulyokaev on November 16, 2021), his protectors ensured that while his days at the company would come to an end, he would avoid arrest, and go onto new destructive endeavors. What was his next assignment?
By the end of December 2021, it was announced that Chubais was made Russian Presidential envoy to the United Nations to coordinate Sustainable Development Goals. In this position, Chubais had shamelessly called for adapting Russia’s economy to the UN’s climate market and fully submitting to the dictates of the IMF and World Bank saying on January 8, 2022:
“I am convinced that the Russian climate market will be extremely attractive for international investment. So it is necessary to facilitate the access of Russian entrepreneurs to receive funding from abroad for alternate projects. To do this, it is necessary to achieve harmonization of the basic rules of the Russian Market being created in this area with leading international organizations- the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development”.
Not only has Chubais spearheaded the “greening of Russian energy” according to the Great Reset Agenda (which unites the two-fold manufactured crises of climate change and covid-19 into one package), but Chubais also used Rusnano to fund the growth of a foreign directed pharmaceutical complex within the heart of Russia. One major scandal emerged recently as Russian pharmaceutical giant and COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Nanolek received billions of rubles from Rusnano in 2020 and 2021 enriching the husband-wife duo of Tatyana Golikova and Viktor Khristenko (whose son is a major shareholder in the company).
While much can be said about other fifth columnists still embedded within Russia’s civil service and private sector, the smell of new purges is certainly in the air.
A Sea Change Now Underway
Powerful western forces representing the “higher castes” have severed ties with Russia and with those lost ties goes lost protection for many figures who have slept soundly at night despite their treacherous hearts. The World Economic Forum broke off ties on March 8 along with a multitude of foreign WEF partner corporations like Goldman Sachs, Deutschebank, Amazon, Visa, Paypal, Mastercard, Apple, IBM, Unilever, and Pepsico (to name a few).
Moves are quickly being made to empower nationalist forces to take increased control over Russia’s economy led by Sergey Glaziev’s new project to create a China-EAEU alternative financial/monetary system with increased national controls over finance and long-term planning. Gaining control of the financial sector which has long been under the strong influence of western oligarchical interests is vital if Russia is going to be able to not only weather the coming storm but come out of it with the economic sovereignty and power to build those large-scale projects needed for Putin’s aspirations for a Far Eastern and Arctic civilizational growth paradigm.
Although Chubais only represents but one large rat who has chosen this current moment to jump ship, others will certainly follow, and perhaps a new fear of god might awaken in the hearts of others who chose this moment of crisis to walk a more noble path as patriots of Russia as the world enters a new more multipolar future.
I think it is here fitting to end with a few remarks by President Putin who stated …
“the Russian people will be able to distinguish true patriots frьфкьфеom scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a midge that accidentally flew into their mouths. I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges”.
Chinese girl bouncing down the street
I really do like how these boobies bounce. It’s hypnotic. video 21MB
I happen to like bouncy boobies. Most women think it’s simply distracting, maybe silly. What do you think?
Since the Russian action in Ukraine began, provoked by Washington’s cold shoulder to Russian security concerns, Washington, in addition to doing all possible to keep the conflict going, has also dumped three more provocations on the Kremlin: an attempted coup or “color revolution” in the former Russian province of Kazakhstan, NATO military maneuvers currently under way in the former Russian province of Georgia which is not a NATO member, and NATO maneuvers in Poland on the Border of Belarus, a former Russian province and current Russian ally. https://avia-pro.net/news/bronetehnika-nato-zamechena-v-3-kilometrah-ot-granicy-s-belorussiey
The signal Washington consistently sends to the Kremlin is aggression. Why has no member of any government in the Western world, no presstitute in the Western media pointed this out? It is difficult to fathom the irresponsibility of Washington adding to the Ukraine provocation three more provocations simultaneously. Why provoke a country already concerned with its security with more security concerns unless you are trying to widen the war?
The US Treasury is working with Congress to prevent Russia’s use of her gold reserves that she kept in her own hands, with the bulk of Russian reserves having been seized, a theft made easy by the stupid fool that Putin keeps as head of the Russian central bank. It is extraordinary that the Russian central bank kept Russia’s reserves in Western hands while Russia intervened militarily in Ukraine. The Russian central bank must have wanted Russia to lose her reserves.
Now the remaining reserves are to be targeted by Washington in this way. Sanctions will be applied to every country that permits or facilitates Russian payments in gold or the buying and selling of gold by Russia. This, the US senator, Angus King, said, will collapse the Russian economy, leaving Russia no means of payment.
Senator King and the US Treasury are overlooking that all acts of war are not military, and what the senator is sponsoring is an act of war. Putin recognizes it as such. He declared it to be “a total undisguised aggression” and “a war waged by economic, political, and informational means.”
So what is Russia doing in response to the declared intent of the West to destroy her? She is enabling her own destruction. She distributes her foreign exchange reserves among Western banks where they can be seized. She keeps the economies of her enemies alive by continuing to supply them with energy and minerals–all because her moronic central bank thinks Russia needs foreign exchange, which will be seized regardless.
She continues with a go-slow war that gives her enemies more time to demonize Russia and create permanent hatred of Russia in the Western populations, that gives Western idiots more time to blunder into a wider war, such as the Western plan to deploy NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine.
In short, the Kremlin’s response to the sanctions is mindless. Here for example is Germany’s own assessment of the impact on Germany if Russia stops sustaining Germany’s existence with Russian energy: “A 2018 stress test run by the German civil defense agency, the BBK, found that all crucial services will be impacted by a gas supply shortage.
The two-day crisis management exercise Lukex 18, which involved several states in southern Germany, found that the shortage of gas supply will have ‘a drastic effect on public life,’ including the closure of public and private facilities. The disruption of supply will also lead to ‘far-reaching, difficult-to-predict consequences for the service sector and the production of goods,’ according to the BBK.”
If Russia turned off the energy, Germany would force an end to the sanctions on Russia or Germany would leave NATO despite Germany’s occupation by US troops. But apparently the Kremlin would rather risk Russia’s destruction than to violate a contract or forego foreign exchange earnings that it cannot use. The Kremlin seems destined to forego the opportunity to crush the sanctions and continue selling energy to Germany until Germany has had time to locate and construct the facilities for an alternative means of supply.
The West’s naked aggression and the Kremlin’s insouciance guarantee a wider war ending in world destruction. Can no one in leadership position see it coming? Do Western politicians believe Russia will allow herself to be defeated by non-military means? Does the Kremlin believe that resolving the Ukrainian situation will end the West’s attacks on Russia? As always in human affairs, stupidity prevails.
That Washington and its despicable puppet states parade around like goody two shoes, shouting accusations at Russia when it is Washington and its puppets who are provoking war, and everyone falls for it tells me that Washington has the world on the road to nuclear armageddon.
Girl black dress and ice cream
Another cute Chiense girl outside eating ice cream. Looks delicious. I think I will neet to get a scoop later on. video 2MB
What do you think? Wouldn’t you like to share a cone with this lass? Or, even not her…just a nice ice cream cone outside on a nice weekend afternoon?
Russian Foreign Minister: “All-Out War Has Been Declared Against Russia”
An all-out war has been declared against Russia. The West does not conceal that the goals of its policy are aimed at suffocating and devastating the Russian economy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
“Today, a genuine hybrid war, a ‘total war’ has been declared against us. This term, which was exploited by Hitler’s Germany, is now pronounced by many European politicians when talking about what they want to do with Russia. The goals are not concealed, they are publicly announced, that is to destroy, devastate, ruin, and suffocate the Russian economy and Russia as a whole,” Lavrov stressed.
The foreign minister lashed out at this “sanctions spree”, pointing out that it is becoming clear that all values that those in the West have been preaching to Russia, like freedom of expression, a market economy, the sanctity of private property and the presumption of innocence, are not worth a red cent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 launched a special military operation in Ukraine in response to a request for help from the Donbass republics. He said Moscow had no plans for an occupation of Ukraine. After that the United States, the European Union and Britain, as well as a number of other countries said they were imposing sanctions on Russian individuals and legal entities.
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
I have often told readers of this website and listeners to my radio show how much I admire Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his precise language, his level-headedness and maturity, his mental discipline, and his candor. He is a man, I think, worth listening to because in his words can be found the precise position of the Russian Federation.
Today, his words ought to send shivers down the spine. He spoke the words “All-out war has been declared against Russia.”
Lavrov is not some talk-show host, or news channel prognosticator; he is the Foreign Minister of the second most powerful nation on earth. Actually, based on their nuclear arsenal, Russia is THE most powerful nation on earth!
His words convey how Russia sees things. And right now, they see that “all-out war has been declared against Russia.”
Stop for a moment and think about the implications of what he just said.
When a country sees/believes that “all-out war” is being waged against it, what is that country then obligated by survival instinct, to do? It seems to me the logical answer is: Wage war back.
And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is where this situation is heading. Right now. Today. This minute.
As we sit here at our computers, all snug and comfy at home, sipping our morning coffee, the economic sanctions imposed by the West are literally tearing Russia apart. We sit here reading the news, watching the morning TV shows, or listening to music on the radio, and Russia is being systematically wrecked.
The damage to Russia is real. The effects upon the Russian people, are real.
Yet we see and feel none of it because Russia has not chosen to attack back . . . yet.
I am of the opinion they will. Not just economically, but kinetically.
Now, some of you think “they can’t” — or worse, “they wouldn’t dare.” That judgment is in error.
I think Russia will attack back because Russia MUST. They are being killed. They must attack back to stop the ongoing attack against them.
So those of us in the West, would be well advised to get our heads out of our collective ass, and see things as they truly are. The west is attacking Russia in a way that is resulting in Russia’s destruction. Unless we cease what we’re doing, and begin negotiating with Russia for their security, (Which is what Russia sought Diplomatically in December and in January) I believe Russia will have no choice but to attack us back.
They are being destroyed. I truly believe they will destroy us in response.
Stop the Sanctions against Russia now, before it is too late. Return the Foreign Currency Reserves that were “seized/frozen.” Return the Gold Bullion which was seized. Return the assets of Russian citizens that have been (and are being) seized.
Stop this Sanctions madness before Russia comes to the decision to PUT a stop to it, by force.
Sure, a nuclear war is a war that no one can win. But Russia is already losing everything. Their only choice is to deprive us of everything as well.
Is that what we want? Over Ukraine???????
I say “no.” I say Ukraine is not worth it.
I also say, we in the West brought this trouble upon the world by breaking our promises in the 1990’s that NATO “would not move one inch east.” We violated that promise time after time until now, NATO countries are right at Russia’s front porch.
This mess is OUR doing. We ought to be honorable and undo it. Before it gets undone anyway, through nuclear horror.
About the Ukraine “Invasion”
Let’s keep things clear and simple.
The Ukraine “issue” was planned for decades and set in motion by the United States. It’s objective has been to engage Russia in war by proxie, suppress it, and then “pivot to Asia” where a similiar event will engage China.
Russia, as predicted, used “military technical” means to suppress a dangerous situation in Ukraine.
The United States expected war, but not like what is actually going on. They expected an American-style war; full devistation, with ground forces performing policing afterwards. Instead they have an elimination of their Nazi proxy forces, destruction of their equipment, and soon, complete capture of the nation by Russia.
At this stage, the Western propaganda is thick with painting an illusion that Russia is losing and desperate, and that it will make dangerous and irrational moves.
This is a tried, and true technique that launched American involvment in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the War in Panama, The war in Kwait, and so on…
What follows is some kind of “False Flag” event. It will probably involve something nasty. Perhaps a nuke, biological weapons or chemical weapons. Since the “news” media are already discussing “Russia and chemical weapons” we can expect that to be the trigger.
Since America already has 90,000 troops inside of Poland TODAY, we can expect a “false flag” event soon, followed by a NATO assault counter-invasion.
I can tell you that both Russia and China expect this senario to occur.
How it will play out and advance is unknown, except to say that the answer to this event has been war-gamed (by Asia) for years now, and it will be brutal, far-reaching, and will absolutely not go the way the United States / NATO believe; it will NOT be a “long drawn out” conventional war slug-fest. It will be something else.
Something surprising.
Remember, the Putin has admitted that [1] Russia is unable to fight NATO and the United States in a conventional war, and that [2] Russia has publically announced that it feels trapped, that it’s back is at the wall, and that the very existence of Russia and Russians are at stake.
Keep that in mind.
Maybe (and this is MM personal opinion) something that [1] hits American and Europeans directly, [2] silently, and quietly; [3] something not reported at all, and [4] something that won’t be noticed until months afterwards. Things are about to get really UGLY.
Let’s close with some 1960s images of Bachelor pads
I will wrap up all the “news” going on with a retro look at what was once very common. Men’s bachelor pads.
Playboy.
Some inspiration…
I like how she is wearing one of his white shirts. It’s sexy.
One part “Mad Men”, and one part bad Acid Trip.
One part “Mad Men”, and one part bad Acid Trip.
I wonder, have you ever had a bachelor pad?
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Finally, signs over the weekend that US getting frustrated with Chinese offering countries who wish to be neutral, a robust alternative to the Western sanctions regime.
After a meaninglessly polite agree-to-disagree meeting with Xi and Biden, Chinese ambassador was thoroughly disrespected on CNN yesterday.
I'm keeping eyes open for moves by US State Dept etc to play some of its options in the department of strategic destabilization of countries adjacent to China, and/or neutral countries.
- PTB
The obvious plan is for the United States to unify itself; a collapsing nation, by a unifying major war.
Initially, it was thought that a long, drawn out conventional war against Russia was possible, and then while Russia is preoccupied and “bled to death”, a second one could then be “pivoted” towards a war against China.
The hot flash zones are well known.
These are the RED LINES. For Russia, And the RED LINES for China.
For Russia, it is nuclear weapons and NATO in Ukraine.
For China, it is outside involvment, independence, or nuclear weapons in Taiwan.
For the United States to initiate these long, drawn out wars, it needs to [1] cross those RED LINES, and then [2] manage the conflict on its own terms.
It’s pretty obvious. Not reported in the West, but really quite obvious.
So far, it appears that things are moving ahead according to plan.
This article collects a long series of events and reports regarding both China and Russia at this (frozen) moment of time. Most of these reports and narratives have been submerged under the enormous and spellbinding American psyops machine that has been saturating the airwaves for months now.
Here, we are going to pick though the bits and pieces (twigs and thissles) in that big gushing flood of disinformation just spewing forth from the mighty American propaganda machine.
To begin, we provide the Chinese viewpoint of why America wants China to join with it in sanctioning Russia (over the Ukraine invasion)…
Why the USA wants China to sanction Russia
This is the official point of view of the Chinese government.
2022 03 22 07 56
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And here is a comment on the above tweet from the Chinese Government. It flushes it out using better English and parses the nuiances in clear language.
A recurring theme in the American telling of history is that the bad guys do bad things for no reason at all. The general plot is that things were going along just fine and then all of a sudden, for no reason at all, the bad guys started doing bad things. Inevitably, the good guys, which will always be the Americans, were forced to break away from minding their own business to save the world from badness.
The Great War was probably the first run at this form of mythmaking. According to legend, America was trying hard to stay out of the war in Europe, then for no reason at all those very bad Germans started preying on American ships. Finally, those evil Germans sunk a perfectly innocent passenger ship called the Lusitania. The fact that it was stuffed with munitions is conveniently omitted from the tale.
Of course, the Second World War is the full expression of this myth. In the Pacific, the great yellow menace decided out of the blue to attack Hawaii. America was at peace and for no reason at all the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. In Europe, America’s peace plan created by Woodrow Wilson was working perfectly, but then for no reason at all those very bad Germans declared war on the world.
“According to the myth, America has been minding its own business and for no reason at all the Russians launched this bloody war against innocent civilians.”
The important elements of the story are always the same. America is the innocent bystander, doing its best to mind its own business. The villain is not just the aggressor, but they have no justification for their actions. Whatever reasons they have are dismissed as irrational or evil. The final element is that America must reluctantly swing into action to save the world from the bad guys.
This sort of stuff makes sense after success. The winners get to tell the story of their victory and that always means mythmaking. The only example we have of the winner declaring themselves the villain and the loser being cast as the morally superior party is colonialism. In America that means the natives are the innocents and the paleface is the bad guy. This tale, however, is not written by the actual victors in the fight, but the winners in the 20th-century culture war.
This now-standard form of American mythmaking is not just a post hoc justification, but a justification for future action. The crusades against Islam were framed the same way by the neocons running foreign policy. Instead of mythmaking to explain past action, it is mythmaking to justify one of their schemes. American must reluctantly attack some country, in order to avoid being forced to do it later.
In their booklet The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission, Bill Kristol and Larry Kagan used this exact framing to argue for the invasion of Iraq in the second Bush administration. Preemption is the claim that it is morally justified to attack another country if it can be argued that the target country could one day be a threat to American interests or the interests of American allies.
It is fair to say the entire crusade against Islam was framed as a reaction by America to actors suddenly doing things for no reason at all. Saudi terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center for no reason at all, so America reluctantly attacked and occupied Afghanistan. Saddam could possibly have thought about getting nukes for no reason at all, so America invaded Iraq and deposed the ruling regime. The same narrative was ready for Iran, but the clock ran out on the Bush administration.
Now we are seeing the same arguments with regards to Ukraine. America is being dragged into this conflict against its will because Russia, for no reason at all, has invaded the sacred lands of Ukraine. Members of Congress are being marched out in front of the cameras by their neocon handlers to tell us that we have no choice but to risk nuclear annihilation over Ukraine.
Of course, there is never any mention of the endless meddling by Washington or the meddling in other former Soviet republics on the Russian border. According to the myth, America has been minding its own business and for no reason at all the Russians launched this bloody war against innocent civilians. Even if they have a reason, it is Russian disinformation and only Putin puppets believe it.
It is clear from the massive public-relations campaign put on by the American media that they were sure the old myth of America would work again. Everyone dutifully started chanting “Keev” and donned the colors of Ukraine. The big social media platforms swung into action to suppress dissent. Everyone assumed this was going to work and the public would rush to support a war with Russia.
The fact that this has not happened, despite the enormous bombardment from the mass media, suggests the myth of America as reluctant warrior has run out of road. Most Americans are willing to accept Ukraine as the victim and Russia as the aggressor, but they draw the line at acting on it. Even the mouth breathers who consume conservative talk radio have started to question the flag-waving.
At the end of the Cold War, the hope was that America could go back to being a normal country again, instead of the savior of the world. Instead, it was a generation of pointless wars of choice cooked up by neoconservative nutters with an ancient grudge against humanity. Like a drug-resistant virus, they have infested the foreign-policy establishment, leading to one disaster after another.
Their final act may very well be destroying America’s image of itself as a positive force in the world. That will be a difficult thing for people to accept, especially the older generations, but it will be a small price to pay if it means the removal of this carbuncle from the face of the country. If humiliation in Ukraine means America turns back to normalcy, then the end of that myth will be worth it.
It is time for the United States Empire to die
“Our media is filled with silly lies, like Russians not having access to information from outside their country. Because that’s believable in the internet age. Or that the Russian military does evil things for no reason, like blowing up hospitals and theaters full of children (though these atrocities miraculously never leave any evidence behind, like bodies). Then why are civilian casualties from more than three weeks of heavy fighting so low? By all accounts, much lower than Russian military casualties? Isn’t that pretty compelling evidence that they’re tiptoeing through Ukraine being extraordinarily careful to not cause civilian casualties?
Well, ackshullllly that’s only because they’re too weak to use the means necessary to win! Oh, I see. That famous Russian weakness again. First off, it’s interesting that we see goodness as weakness and are proud of it. And yes, that is a true statement. Our first month in Iraq inflicted 4-7 thousand civilian deaths and that’s probably undercounted. It’s also interesting that we tell lies that obviously contradict each other and see no problem with this.
Try to have a memory span longer than a goldfish.
Remember Day 3 of the operation when a bunch of Russian armored vehicles parked near Kiev and American “experts” declared they were out of fuel? Because as we all know, Russia is famous for not having enough oil. I’m sure their tanks running out of fuel within 75 miles of their own border is a plausible thing that could happen and not total nonsense.”
Presiden Biden WARNS Xi Peng that there will be CONSEQUENCES if China provides material support to Russia. The meeting between Biden and Xi Peng was an effort by Biden to break-up the relationship between Russia and China which is catastrophically shaking up the United States led current world order. It failed. As Xi Peng will continue to stand strong with it’s next door neighbor, and not help the United States; it’s enemy.
The last seconds of China Eastern Airlines MU5735 were caught on a CCTV camera.
Everyone is dead. This is a near vertical dive. The plain aimed for the ground and slammed into it at full speed. It’s a very unusual crash. Color me suspicious.
This article below states that the crash has aviation experts puzzled because the crash “profile” was very unusual with the angle of descent essentially plunging straight down.
Was this crash an accident; another Boeing 737Max demonstrating that it is a dangerous plane; or even terrorism?
I find it curious that this crash happened after the recent attempts by America to pressure China to distance itself from Russia over the Ukraine issue.
Coincidence?
Aviation Experts Baffled By Crash Of China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735
From MM’s email…
I am sure you have seen the video by now of the Chinese plane dropping at a perfect perpendicular angle to the horizon out of the sky? Wondering your thoughts about this. Seems highly suspicious given America's little pep talk with China that ended with them having an even bigger bruised ego. Surely this is an act of war on America's part. I have never seen a plane head for the ground like that. Usually they are still upright/upside down, aren't they?
Crash of China passenger plane ‘very puzzling’
"It's unheard of that such a modern passenger plane would take such a vertical plunge and crash."
The plane crash resembles the Nazi Ukrainian symbol
It is of a bird flying straight down to the ground.
Ukrainian bird symbol.
Here is the aftermath of #MU5735#crash of the #b737-800. The size of the impact is consistent with the last ADS-B data the aircraft sent – the aircraft was in a straight nosedive. We will have to wait for FDR/CVR data to know what caused the accident.pic.twitter.com/MaJoIao8B9— The 737 Handbook (@737handbook) March 21, 2022
Why is everyone on my feeds suspecious of the plane crash?
Chinese passenger plane goes straight into the ground like a missile:
Experts: "We've never seen a plane do THAT before!"
Reminds me of MH370 ... never seen a plane do THAT before either.
Reminds me of MH17 ... another plane doing odd things.
Just around the time Uncle Sam is turning up the pressure on China ... Coincidence?
In the meantime:
Blinken: "Bend the knee, chinaman!"
Boris: "Bend the knee, chinaman!"
-Arch Bungle | Mar 22 2022 5:58 utc
What does the Chinese government think?
I don’t know.
Within the next six months keep your eyes open for another plane mishap. Only this time in the United States, or in one of the “five eye nations”.
If one happens, there’s a 90% chance it’s part of the on-going tit-for-tat fight and response actions between the USA and China.
I strongly urge American readers to MM not to take any airplane trips in the coming Spring or Summer.
Russia’s New Buk-M3 Air Defense Missile System Now Appears To Be In Ukraine
Russia no doubt hopes the latest iteration of the Buk surface-to-air missile system helps turn the tables against the Ukrainian Air Force.
There are signs the Kremlin is now willing to throw new and high-end surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) into the fray, including the 9K317M Buk-M3, known as the Viking in its export form, the latest iteration of the self-propelled, medium-range Buk system.
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9K317M Buk-M3.
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As for the latest Buk-M3, this system is significantly different enough from its predecessors to warrant a new U.S. Department of Defense designation — SA-27. In service since around 2016, the Buk-M3 employs new 9M317M missiles and electronic components to provide much-improved capabilities compared with the older Buk systems. According to the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) manual, it “outperforms even the old S-300P long-range air defense system” — the SAM that’s known in the West as the SA-10 Grumble.
It’s a true “blast from the past”. Simple and delicious. Beef meatballs with rice, simmered in tomato soup. Not really something that you might give to guests, but a great easy meal that mixes up normally available ingredients for something unique and different for the household.
It’s really great for a fast meal on a busy schedule. Oh, and guess what? It goes great with beer.
Porcupine Meatballs
Ingredients
1/2 cup of water
1.5 pounds of ground beef
1 cup of uncooked (instant) rice
I tablespoon of minced onion.
1 teaspoon of salt
1 dash of ground black pepper.
Directions
Information/Propaganda/Psyops Theatre
On the Information/Propaganda/Psyops Theatre, today’s Global Times editorial provides a little comic relief:
"The above lies are well concocted, but without any evidence. Certainly, the problem of no evidence may be a bit of overthinking, because when does Washington need to provide evidence to smear others? Isn't it always following the logic of 'if I say so, it has to be so?' If you must ask for any 'evidence, it will again hold up a tiny vial of white powder, or produce a video of the White Helmets being instructed to pose...
"Of course, what's behind it is Washington's hegemony and ambition. Kurt Campbell, the NSC's Indo-Pacific policy coordinator, 'took the initiative' to say at the end of February that the US will keep its focus on the 'Indo-Pacific region' despite the Ukraine crisis. In order to maintain the US' hegemonic self-interests, fabricating lies has become a 'necessary means' for Washington. In the words of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, 'The US, as usual, lies to try to achieve its political goals'....
"When looking back at his past as CIA director, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo once said publicly, 'We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.' So how does the US lie and deceive people? It is easier for Washington and the US media to quote 'anonymous officials' to spread lies as shocking 'exclusive news.' The cooperation between US propaganda machines and diplomatic and intelligence services has greatly increased the deceptiveness of those lies. Moreover, the US' alliance system and hegemony in public opinion can make sure that even though Washington is a habitual liar, it can obtain a certain amount of assentation and support. This has become the bases for the US to play politics as it wants.
"While US media maliciously falsifies the truth, Washington deliberately pretends to know nothing. These two to some extent have even formed an integral production, supply and distribution chain of fake news. This is unprofessional, immoral, and irresponsible, and will only further discredit the US in front of the world. As some comments pointed out, whenever people see the news reports that include sentences like 'anonymous officials revealed…' and 'US intelligence agencies claimed…,' they should in their minds replace everything in those sentences with 'They may be lying.'" [I'd say they're probably lying or They're lying again.]
And as if more proof was required, we again see China seconding Russia’s reasoning and explanations of what it’s doing:
"Right now, when the military conflict in Ukraine is getting increasingly serious under Washington's provocation, and when the energy and refugee crises become more and more severe in Europe, the US' smear campaign will only unmask it as the initiator. More and more people will see the true face of the US - an 'empire of lies.'" [All emphasis mine]
How many millions within the Empire agree? Polling suggests that just 30% of the public see media as credible giving us 70% who think otherwise or about 230 million, and since media is the main messenger of the Empire of Lies, we might assume that same number agrees.
But even if that number is only 50 million, I’d say the lies aren’t sinking in as hoped. Of course, this whole paragraph will be controversial as opinion polling within the Outlaw US Empire of Lies has its own credibility problems.
Phil understands
Yes he does.
Coffee.
Republican Congressman Tiffany maps out aggression towards China
One step at a time.
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.)
An amendment under the new Consolidated Appropriations Act has banned the creation or use of maps by the Department of State and its foreign operations that depict Taiwan as part of China.
The Appropriations Act, which provides appropriations to federal agencies for the 2022 fiscal year, is a 3000-page piece of legislation that proposed $1.5 trillion spending, including military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
This amendment was introduced by Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) and other Republican representatives, first in the House bill passed on State Department and related foreign service funding in July 2021, then again for the Consolidated Appropriations Act. This is sneaky because it would be unwise to vote against such an enormous spending bill due to one amendment.
This amendment undermines the fundamental principle of Sino-American relations by violating the longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity and unofficial relations with Taiwan enshrined in the Shanghai Communique, a diplomatic document signed by Beijing and Washington.
Further, Tiffany said “Beijing’s bogus argument that Taiwan is part of Communist China” should be abandoned, and that the bill would “require honest maps that stop perpetuating the ‘One China’ lie.”
What it is like to fight the Chinese
Oh, you think that Russia is tough? The Chinese have heart. They have history, and if you FUCK with them they WILL FUCK you right back. Know your history. Movie dramatization of true events. video 6MB
Patrick Lawrence
Patrick Armstrong may have closed down but Patrick Lawrence is still firing on all cylinders:
“..When those purporting to serve as America’s statesmen and stateswomen think calling other world leaders names is properly part of the diplomatic repertoire — a prominent part, I’ll add — we are left with only one conclusion: The U.S. has no one capable of sailing its ship of state, no one in a position of influence worthy of the title “diplomat.”
“…Simply stated, power obviates the need for serious statecraft. The powerful nation has no need of diplomacy. A figure such as George Kennan was the exception proving the rule, and he was an exception because he saw the need to understand how the world looked to the Soviet Union. Henry Kissinger proved the rule: For all his claim to diplomatic skill, Hank K. was a wielder of American power with a calculating mind, nothing more.
“The rest follows naturally: Antony Blinken is not a serious diplomat. Samantha Power is not a serious diplomat. As a diplomat (and various other things), Hillary “He’s Hitler” Clinton is a walking calamity. Biden, who’s spent his career selling snake oil off the back of a buckwagon, is not a statesman of any kind, serious or otherwise….”
“The lineup of secretaries of state and senior diplomats prior to the attacks in New York and Washington is other than brilliant, but it was by and large accepted that talking to one’s adversaries was at least as important (and often more so) as talking to one’s friends. It was the Bush II regime, with all its kooky ideologues in positions they never should have gotten near, that declared: “We don’t negotiate with our enemies.”
“This pronouncement was advanced, if you recall, as if it were a sound, baseline rule of wise statesmanship. There were corollaries. Diplomatic contacts with those deemed enemies would “give them credibility.”….The all-but-stated assertion is America would not any longer take interest in other people and their perspectives. The American way of defining the world was the only acceptable way. Nothing else need be considered. …”
“…Diplomacy is an essential skill in the century swiftly taking shape around us. But every time Biden or another American “leader” hurls one of their playground insults at the leader of another nation, (Putin as the Beelzebub du jour) they are reminding us: There will be no diplomacy emanating from Washington because they have no idea how to conduct it.
“Power and coercion are all they know.”
This is dangerous. As Americans are really not ready to take on a REAL peer competator. And forget what the American “news” says. Russia is not running out of bullets, stalled or suffering massive defeats. video 8MB
I know it is a chicken and egg question.
I found this on one of my feeds. Interesting.
As a matter of interest, I have noticed a similar correlation of pro and anti war/ hate Russia opinion between the vaxxed and unvaxxed as the Canadian poll below demonstrates. My observations are anecdotal.The question remains are vaxxed people inherently more likely to be receptive to government/MSM propaganda or do they become docile and deliberately ignorant sheep because of their vaxxed status? "How Covid vaccination status might predict views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Canadian poll)"..."How vaccination status might predict views on the Russian invasion of Ukraine New poll indicates that “vaccine refusers are much more sympathetic to Russia.”
Unvaccinated Canadians are about 12 times more likely than those who received three doses to believe Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, according to a new survey by national polling firm EKOS.The poll found 26 per cent of those who identified as unvaccinated agreed the Russian invasion is justified, with another 35 per cent not offering an opinion. This compared to only two per cent of surveyed Canadians who said they had three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and who supported the attack, and four per cent who offered no view..."
China’s digital yuan is in the US’s crosshairs in what is likely to be the first of many proposed laws against its use!
It’s clear that the US has no love for China’s new digital yuan (e-CNY) central bank digital currency, and now a group of nine Republican senators has come up with the first Act that attempts to limit its use while stopping short of an outright ban.
The e-CNY is in the glaring hot spotlight for its ability to potentially evade sanctions imposed on Russia and sadly not for its gold medal performance at the Olympics. It is essential to clarify that China made no attempt to use the digital yuan to evade sanctions and is unlikely to do so with its new currency still undergoing domestic trials. Still, the e-CNY is deemed a potential threat to US interests, resulting in the new Act.
Senator Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) statement clarifies the concern: “China’s Digital Yuan allows the CCP to collect personal data on their own citizens and foreign users alike.” “This bill holds China accountable as they introduce their new digital currency.”
The stated goal of the Act
From the Senator’s summary:
• Require the Department of State to issue a warning on the Digital Yuan.
• Require the Secretary of Commerce to report to relevant Congressional committees on the Blockchain- Base Service Network and provide recommendations related to the report.
• Require the Secretary of Commerce to report on trade enforcement actions with respect to the digital yuan.
• Require United States Trade Representative to report on the effect of the digital yuan on trade and investment agreements.
• Require Office of Management and Budget to develop standards and guidelines for agencies that transfer, store, or use digital yuan.
• Require that any foreign government that receives assistance through the Foreign Military Financing Program to disclose if the government uses digital yuan as a settlement or reserve currency.
U.S. targets planes inside of Russia
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday moved to effectively ground 100 airplanes that have recently flown to Russia and are believed to violate U.S. export controls, including a plane used by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich.
Many girls in China tend to be of thin build and nice chests. Here she is displaying a nice cleavage. video 2MB
U.S. warns servicing or refueling some Russian-owned planes may violate trade restrictions.
Export controls introduced in late February prohibit exporting aircraft that were made in the U.S. or use some U.S. parts to Russia, effectively grounding some international flights, the Commerce Department said.
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Perhaps the world should boycott anything linked to America. Otherwise, products you paid for will not belong to you.
She’s in a car looking really adorable. video 1.4MB
Update on the military situation in the Ukraine
There’s a lot of bullshit out there. The massive, MASSIVE psyops is so full of lies and distortions it’s mind-boggling. Just today, I saw an article on my LinkedIN feed discussing how Russia was bogged down in Ukraine, and used a map showing the first day of action. It’s now one month later. Sheech!
The Ukraine situation is Russia following though on it’s 2014 displeasure in the USA violation of it’s treaties, as well as the non-ultimatum of January 2022. There’s many parties involved in this issue, but the psyops only tell one side of the story, and it is a stack of cards with very little actual content.
Here’s a summary from the Russian daily briefing. More sensible, and certainly more accurate.
China’s Foreign Ministry issues dire warning to QUAD as it toughens stand on Taiwan | English News
China is WARNING the USA and the West. Listen up! Things are going on that isn’t really being well reported in the West. video on You-tube.
2022 03 22 16 07
This video underscores a very important point…
The QUAD is composed of;
The USA
Japan
Australia
India
And India is specifically making public statements that they are not in the QUAD as a “Pacific NATO” to counter China. They are NOT a treaty ally.
2022 03 22 16 09
I think India has told the US to FUCK off.
I have been watching debates on an Indian talk show, Republic World.
The latest one is called: India delivers diplomatic masterclass amid Russia-Ukraine-West tightrope. You can look it up on YouTube.
India WILL NEVER abandon Russia, so strong is the mutual trust between the two nations.
In fact, this war, as many pointed out, will bring Russia and Asia a whole lot closer. -Peter Schmidt
President Zelensky Phones Taiwan’s Leader Tsai Ing-wen
Tsai: Hello Volodya. I hope you do not mind my calling you that.
Zelensky: (Sobs, wordless.)
Tsai: What is it Volodya? Calm down.
Zelensky: (Sobbing continues.) We have been left alone to defend our state. Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don’t see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid.*
Tsai: But the Americans have given you weapons, rifles. The Germans even gave you helmets — right away — and now they are promising more. And they also sent military advisors “little green men”– I think that is what they call them when they are Russian.
Zelensky: We are facing tanks and missiles. I am afraid what we have is pretty small potatoes. As the American politician Ron Paul said, it seems the Americans are ready to fight Russia – down to the last Ukrainian (more sobbing).
Tsai: But Volodya, you got to address the U.S. Congress and plea for help – certainly that shows support.
Zelensky: Support? The script that the Americans handed me centered on a No Fly Zone, in other words, a call for WWIII, nuclear war. I looked like a madman! (More sobbing.)
Tsai: I did not think that made you look like a madman. I admire someone who is willing to risk nuclear war for our beliefs. That shows real spine, real guts. And those Congress people applauded you. If you looked mad, would that not make them all insane too. Surely you cannot believe that.
But I know how you feel about those scripts. The Americans stuff one in my face every now and then with the “advice” that it would be good to read it. I feel I am getting an offer I cannot refuse as they say in the American movies.
But you do not have to accept the script – you are safe in hiding in Ukraine.
Zelensky: I cannot comment on where I am – if you understand what I mean.
And I do not know what kind of company you are keeping, Tsai, but most people are appalled and frightened by the prospect of nuclear war. My stance allowed Biden to look sane by turning thumbs down. I was the fall guy.
Tsai: Look Volodya. You have to get hold of yourself. The U.S. has managed to get the whole world behind you. Just like the US has got the whole world behind me. Not to worry.
Zelensky: Are you serious, Tsai? You know that not only China but also India has refused to join US sanctions on Russia – that is 35% of the world’s population right there. China is the number one economy in the world by PPP-GDP and India number three as you surely know. So two of the big three are not backing sanctions. Also refusing are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico. That is over half the world’s population! And there are many more refusenik nations including the 40 countries not in that list on which the US has sanctions – I have lost count.
And NATO is showing cracks. Macron and others are talking to Putin all the time. Sweden has refused to join NATO, saying that would be “destabilizing.”
The world is changing, Tsai.
Exactly how many countries are behind you, Tsai? You better check — carefully. I wish I had. (More sobbing.)
Tsai: (Now looks very worried) Good point, Volodya.
Zelensky: And now Germany is rearming under the influence of the crazy German Greens, the most hawkish of the Parties in the governing coalition. That of course is a dream come true for the neocons – having Germany fight Russia. Two principal competitors of the U.S. fighting one another. It will destroy Ukraine and the rest of Europe. As I have said in the past, this war will engulf Europe.
Tsai: (Now a bit shaken.) But why did you not stop all this as soon as you were elected. You ran as a peace candidate.
Zelensky: (Even more upset). I could not. The Americans would not permit it, and Russia is well aware of this as Lavrov has made clear. And America’s Neo-Nazi friends like the Azov Battalion fiercely oppose it – and together they have enough clout to stop an elected President – or even depose him as we saw back in 2014. I am keenly aware of that as is any President until the U.S. grip on this country is broken and it is “de-nazified,” if I may borrow a term.
So here I am presiding over the unnecessary destruction of my beloved country, unable to agree to the simple terms of peace that the Minsk accords established.
My place in history is not going to be a glorious one.
Tsai: But at least you have the Ukrainian people united behind you. Here on Taiwan there is considerable pro-Mainland sentiment.
Zelensky: United? I have had to ban a dozen political parties, including the main opposition one. I have had to bring all TV under control of one platform. And I have had to declare martial law. Do you think everyone here is happy that instead of implementing the Minsk accords we have brought ourselves to this point?
My advice to you, Tsai, is do not allow Taiwan to become the Ukraine of East Asia, because right now that is the plan the Americans have for you.
I have to go now. I am being called. I am not even supposed to make calls like this.
(Nervously) Keep this call between us. Good-bye.
Tsai: (Shaken) Good bye Volodya.
(Hangs up, summons her assistant.) I need to place another call. Please get President Xi on the line. He has wanted to talk. Tell him I want to discuss the One Country, Two Systems Policy.
And tell him it is the Governor of Taiwan Province calling.
* These are the exact words that Zelensky used in a midnight speech to Ukraine on February 25.
After so many decades of eating at chain restaurants, and fast food places, and then just simply making simple and quick meals, Americans have forgotten what AMERICAN FOOD actually is. Sad. So Sad.
Caitlin Johnstone : It’s Not Okay For Grown Adults To Think This Way About Ukraine
Cute. But accurate.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the US is pouring weapons into a foreign nation to defend freedom and democracy. It isn’t.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe serious military conflicts consist of Good Guys fighting Bad Guys like a children’s cartoon show. That’s a fantasy that most people grow out of when they turn eleven.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the same western media institutions who’ve lied about every war are now telling the truth about this one. Liars cannot stop lying. This is learned, by most people, by the time they are seventeen years old.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe we’re seeing an unprecedented wave of censorship because the European Union, Silicon Valley megacorporations, and TV service providers want to protect everyone from “disinformation”. They instead want to protect their franchise. You are their commodity.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe Ukraine is just a scrappy little underdog acting completely independently of the dictates of the largest power structure on this planet. That a fun childhood nursery rhyme and makes a great Hollywood movie, but in the real world, nope it just doesn’t work that way.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the globe-spanning power structure centralized around the United States is merely a passive witness to this war and not a key player in creating its emergence. It’s known as cognitive dissonance, and is a mental illness.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe that governments who’d have every incentive to lie to the public about what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine are simply choosing not to do so. It’s called “denial”, and it is common feature of many mental illnesses.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the politicians who’ve demonstrated ice cold indifference to their own citizens dying of poverty and disease care passionately about the plight of the Ukrainian people. The politicians have demonstrated psychopathic personalities. It is a mental illness to randomly disassociate behaviors with habitual serial criminals.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the most powerful and murderous government in the world is orchestrating the economic collapse of a nation it has long targeted for destruction in order to defend Ukrainians. It’s called wishful thinking, and most adults grow out of this in their 20’s.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the “anti-war” position is to support pouring weapons into a foreign country and cold war brinkmanship that could lead to World War 3 while shouting down anyone who advocates de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe anything which doesn’t align with what the TV tells you about this war is “Russian propaganda”.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe anyone who disputes the TV narrative about this war is defending Putin or thinks he is awesome. Adults do not behave like they still are in kindergarden.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and accuse people who disagree with you of working for a foreign government. It’s lazy. Ignorant, and slothful.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and find it strange and outlandish when someone criticises the most powerful empire that has ever existed for its role in starting a war. The United States is the largest military empire in the history of the world. You cannot associate peace with Military Empires. You associate war with Military Empires. To deny that fact is a sign of being in possession of a serious mental illness.
❖ It’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and be fine with only knowing one side of the story. It will cause you to made very bad decisions, and eventually contribute to getting you into very bad situations.
Fabrications are rife during wars. The say, and no doubt it has validity, that the first victim of war is the truth. Here is a translation from RIA Novosti in Moscow, of some of the fake stories we in the west have been spinning.
Video from the other day. This is what it is like near my house. video 30MB
Capture of the “Bitch of Ukraine”
About the nazi “Taira” #14, her name is Yulia Paevskaya, and there is this Free Yulia and/or Free Taira campaign in the Nazi sections of Ukraine.
In Ukraine, Yulia is a well-known personality, she actively spoke on the Maidan and participated in military operations in the Donbass in the ranks of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment. During 8 years 14000 people died in Dobass.
"Captured Commander of the medical service of Azov is watching a report about the consequences of a strike on Donetsk.She pretend now that she got no idea"
The U.S. government is sending Soviet-era air defense systems in its possession to Ukraine, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. These systems will reportedly come from stocks of foreign materiel that elements of the U.S. military and Intelligence Community have obtained in various ways over the years for intelligence analysis and training purposes. The possibility that these so-called foreign materiel exploitation, or FME, programs could offer a useful source of additional air defense capabilities that Ukraine badly needs is exactly what that The War Zonelaid out just recently.
The Journal‘s piece did say that the U.S. government has already shipped a number of systems to Ukraine that had been in storage at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes reportedly picked them up at an unspecified airfield in the Huntsville area. The story notes that Redstone is home to the Army’s Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), but it also hosts the Defense Intelligence Agency‘s (DIA) Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), which has an FME role. DIA serves as the focal point for the Department of Defense’s entire FME enterprise, as well.
The U.S. military has been very active in delivering and otherwise facilitating the shipment of military aid to Ukraine, even before Russia launched its invasion. This includes various air defense systems, especially different types of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS). In addition, American officials have made clear that there is a heavy emphasis on sending weapons and equipment that Ukrainian forces are already familiar with, an idea The War Zonehad earlier explained the merits of. The core idea behind that philosophy is that this will make it faster and easier for Ukraine’s military to actively put what it receives to use in combat. Ukraine’s ground-based air defenses have been essential in preventing Russian forces from gaining air superiority over the country after more than three weeks of fighting.
Beyond all this, it’s still unclear what systems specifically may ultimately be transferred to Ukraine. The SA-8 Gecko is the only specific system that the Journal‘s sources named as being among the planned deliveries to Ukrainian forces. The SA-8, also known by the Russian nomenclature 9K33 Osa, is a wheeled short-range surface-to-air missile system. DIA’s MSIC is known to have at least one example of this system in its inventory.
(Natural News) Members of the U.S. Marine Corps have been deployed to Australia in preparation for China potentially invading Taiwan. The Marines will be helping their counterparts in the Australian Defense Force (ADF) to ensure preparedness for any crisis or conflict in the region.
According to 100PercentFedUp.com, a rotational force of approximately 2,200 Marines will be based in Australia’s Northern Territory until September 2022. One thousand Marines had earlier arrived in Darwin, the Australian state’s capital, to train alongside the ADF. The contingent of Marines forms
“part of an ongoing U.S. initiative in the Indo-Pacific region to prepare for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan in coming years.”
Colonel Marcus Constable, commanding officer of ADF Northern Command, reiterated the importance of the relationship between the U.S. and Australia.
“It is a key way we increase regional cooperation with partners in the Indo-Pacific. Together, we conduct a comprehensive range of training activities including humanitarian assistance, security operations and high-end live-fire exercises,”
Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said conflict with China “shouldn’t be discounted,” warning that the communist country may move to invade Taiwan while the world is focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He emphasized that Australian forces would come to the aid of the U.S. should the latter help defend the island nation.
“It would be inconceivable that we wouldn’t support the U.S. in an action if the U.S. chose to take that action. I think we should be very frank and honest about that [and] look at all of the facts and circumstances without pre-committing. [Maybe] there are circumstances where we wouldn’t take up that option, [but] I can’t conceive of those circumstances.”
I am not the only one who misses Ol’ Remus. Remus posted some of my SHTF posts for me and brought a lot of people to MM. But it’s more than that. he was a good, genuine guy.
Here’s what my ‘buddy Phil at bustedknuckles has to say about him…
I remember when I first stumbled on The Woodpile Report, realizing that what I had found was an absolute treasure.
As future posts confirmed, I was spot on with my gut feeling.
Ol’ Remus himself was a treasure.
Filled with wisdom gathered over his many years and blessed with an insight that I have so far, been unable to find duplicated anywhere else.
Even after extensively searching.
I also realized after a few posts that what I had found was also very likely to have a limited window of new inputs. Also due to his advancing age.
Unfortunately I was correct in my assessment there, our reluctant mentor will have been gone two years here shortly.
Very, very fortunately, someone else realized what a treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge he left behind and they immediately set about gathering up into a repository, as much as they could possibly glean from what he did leave behind. Unfortunately, Ol’ Remus didn’t archive his posts.
Occasionally I get a hankering for a touch of that and off I go, searching for that font of knowledge, stashed away still on the internet.
Every time, I am very happy to see it is still there. Some day it might not be. I may try to find the time to download it all and save it on a removable hard drive for safe keeping.
I found this old post a few minutes ago, re-read it and found that it is just as applicable today as it was when he first pecked it out and shared it with us’. So I copied it and I am pasting it here, along with a link to the site that still has many of his old posts.
This is another post from Ol’ Remus at The Woodpile Report. I like his style of writing quite a bit, and agree with him entirely.
He is forecasting catastrophe – and how could it be otherwise?
And yet I get the US Trust “Investment Strategy Overview” newsletter in the mail, and, of course, it is completely in opposition to Ol’ Remus – it’s bullish!
Apparently, we are only 5 years into a bull market of 20 years! Major advances in technology are coming! Progress towards US energy independence! A manufacturing renaissance! The imbalances of the past cycle are correcting themselves! Etc.
How does one reconcile these two views?
What an absolutely bizarre time we live in, when there is such a massive disconnect between the mass media hypnosis and reality. Every day is another chapter in Cognitive Dissonance…
HERE
The Coming Unpleasantness
The guilty are sneaking away unpunished, nobody’s fixing anything, there’s an orderly-so-far devaluation of the dollar going on, the Treasury has fallen into the hands of counterfeiters and the election process has gone third-world.
The home folks are broke, or nearly so, and unemployed, or about to be.
Suddenly they understand DCisn’t on their side and now they’re debating whether DC is run by the criminally insane or the merely criminal.
Oh yeah, this will end well.
According to a new study by the Russell Sage Foundation, the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003.
Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36% decline… it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.
-Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com
Now the people who warned of 2008 are saying the market is running out of Greater Fools.
They say few retail investors are in equities that don’t have to be—meaning the funds, the 401ks and IRAs, the insurance companies, the compulsive gamblers. And those that don’t hate the market fear the market.
They say it’s a gas leak looking for detonation.
They say the event will arrive before the warning does.
There are usually no warnings that trouble is coming because everyone at the top of the financial food chain are highly incentivized to keep quiet about problems…
Just about every CEO from every major bank spent much of 2008 claiming that all was well…
As former banker Jean-Claude Juncker put it, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
-Phoenix Capital Research at zerohedge.com
.
In early 2008 I noted a fairly serious decrease in online “revenue per impression” in the advertising space.
This was not reflected in so-called “official” reports from various online ad firms, but I saw it quite-clearly across data I had available to me.
What followed, of course, was quite clear in the markets. I am seeing the same pattern develop now.
-Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org
Due diligence and fundamentals count for nothing because the arithmetic makes no sense, successful investing amounts to insider information and front running the Fed.
The oscillations are wild and coming closer together.
But still it goes up.
One day it won’t.
The crash will be 2008 on afterburner because no one trusts anybody, no one honors anything, no one believes anything.
The flash-crash will look stately by comparison.
It’ll be like being pushed out of a tree in the dark—pain and terror every inch of the way.
Another horrific stock market crash is coming, and the next bust will be “unlike any other” we have seen.
We have never had this before.
It’s going to be very painful for investors.
-Jeremy Grantham, GMO, via moneynews.com
.
Warren Buffett’s “best single measure of where valuations stand,” comparing the market value of UScompanies to the gross national product before inflation, is flashing near record bubble red.
Still we are sure, you’ll be able to exit before everyone else when this ends.
-Tyler Durden and Bloomberg at zerohedge.com
.
The most reliable valuation measures have never been higher except in the advance to the 2000 peak (and for some measures the 1929 and 2007 peaks), but they have started to treat these prior pre-crash peaks as objectives to be attained…
Make no mistake—this is an equity bubble, and a highly advanced one. On the most historically reliable measures, it is easily beyond 1972 and 1987, beyond 1929 and 2007, and is now within about 15% of the 2000 extreme.
-John Hussman at hussmanfunds.com
.
We have no right to be surprised by a severe and imminent stock market crash.
-Mark Spitznagel via moneynews.com
The market isn’t the economy, true enough, but a couple dozen trillion dollars isn’t exactly budget-dust.
The citizenry would see a yawning crater where their 401ks and IRAs used to be.
They’d notice when their checking account is gone but their debt isn’t, and when the ATM doesn’t recognize their account number, or when their bank is an empty storefront and their car loan has been sold to Vinnie, or when their insurance company doesn’t answer the phone.
As always, people don’t go nuclear until reality invites itself into their living room and defecates on the carpet.
That’s when things get interesting—when people notice, when they have to face what was formerly unthinkable and their only fallback is what good people they are.
Those who drove the financial bus off a cliff know the controls still work fine—the brakes and accelerator and steering wheel, all of ’em, but when the rubber isn’t on the road the effect just ain’t the same.
But all that “driving” stuff keeps the passengers from panicking.
We’ve seen the grandest larceny in all history.
Now, after we’ve been cleaned out, we know the wacko conspiracy guys were right.
In fact we’re worse than cleaned out, the place has been turned into a debtor’s prison from sea to shining sea.
Some would have us believe things are turning around—the market’s up and the trend is your friend.
Trend?
Trend?!
The market made gains after the Crash of 1929 too, genuine record recoveries.
“Prosperity is just around the corner” referred to those 1930-1931 upticks, not to the unstoppable plunge that followed.
As they say, it’s not the fall, it’s the sudden stop.
The fall itself can be surprisingly profitable.
But what a fall it was.
By July of 1932 the Dow had dropped from its high of 367 down to 41.
Ten years later, in April of 1942, it touched 100 or so, and that was after foreign panic-money poured in from a Europe at war.
The highs of 1929 weren’t seen again until the 1950s.
That’s a trend.
There’s always been fraud, but sometime in the recent past the market buckled in a fundamental way and the fraud poured in.
Proven reforms painfully enacted over decades were swept away.
Fundamentals no longer counted.
Creative finance counted.
Bubbles and deceit counted.
It became a criminal enterprise top to bottom.
Accounting firms and regulatory agencies went over to the dark side en masse.
As Mark Twain said, every profession is a conspiracy against the common man.
Finally the retail investor did something sensible—he ran for his life.
The players left are those who have to stay; the funds, the retirement accounts, the insurance companies, et al, and HFT piranhas are eating them alive at millions of tiny nibbles a second.
What used to be an investor’s clearing house has become a betting parlor on the Federal Reserve’s next move.
The market goes up on tiny volume and bad news, and way up on very bad news and nearly no volume.
They know dark horizons light up the printing presses.
Meanwhile, the banks don’t know what they own, or don’t know what it’s worth, but they do know they’re insolvent and so does everybody else.
So DC gives money to the banks and then pays the banks to lend it back to them.
It’s IOUs paid with IOUs and they can’t write ’em fast enough.
The bottoming is not completely done.
In fact, it has barely even gotten underway yet.
We keep propping up losers.
The result is we still need to see a repudiation of debt at a massive scale and until that happens, the Long Wave bottom won’t be here.
We’re just dancing on the front end of real economic collapse.
-George Ure at urbansurvival.com
What to do.
The demand for collateral will be ferocious when the debacle starts. Treat debt like any other roadside bomb.
Staying current isn’t enough.
Any collaterized debt is too much debt.
You can’t know which exit is the last exit.
The grace period with the trillion-dollar price tag is ending and it’s ending badly.
This disaster has been bought off for decades.
When it happens it’ll go down fast.
Exactly how and when can be sorta-kinda foreseen but not actually known.
A cascade can start from anywhere.
But this much can be said: the collateral chaos will hit the system like a weapons-grade laxative. Everything that’s been contained, covered up and denied will come spewing out looking for daddy.
It’ll take weeks, not months to come apart.
Maybe days.
Get as independent as you can while you can. There are parts of this game where the only winning move is to not play.
Doesn’t mean you have to go all Rambo and head off to some mountain valley, although that’s one way.
But it does mean putting stuff by so you can get by.
“Stuff” means food stored long-term and the wherewithal to get or grow more, uninterruptible for-sure potable water, an off-the-grid heating system, meds and medical supplies, clothing for hard times and hard work and being out in life-threatening weather because you have to be, the means to defend hearth and hoard, batteries and a way to recharge them, cash and real money—meaning gold and silver—all the things you already know but haven’t done.
Knowing isn’t doing, doing is doing.
FDR‘s bailout of the Federal government also went so far as to also issue Executive Order 6814 “Requiring the delivery of all silver to the United States for coinage.”
And what was that worth at the time?
In terms of present dollars, that works out to about $22.77 per ounce. Given that silver is trading below current dollar equivalents of the Depression confiscation prices and gold is still trading at 3.44-times Depression confiscation prices, my personal bias may be inferred.
-George Ure at peoplenomics.com
Plan B.
If you’re in a city, have a viable destination and two or three tried and proven ways to get there.
Practice and take notes.
Again, only doing is doing.
Plan as if your life depends on it.
Take a hike, go the hard way through the hills and woods, you’ll discover how long an unpaved mile can be.
Make a squirrel dinner, yes they’re cute, but there may come a day when only one of you is going to live. Besides, they’re yummy.
Mankind acquired these tastes over geological epochs, you’ve not lost them, merely misplaced them.
Everything seems obvious and predictable in retrospect.
This stuff is pretty obvious and predictable now. And there are always better reasons to not do something than to do it.
You know most people won’t get serious until after it was absolutely necessary. Too late.
They’ll fail, mostly.
Worse, they’ll needlessly fail at the easy part of the learning curve.
Prepared is prepared, you are or you aren’t. Do what you can. And as always, stay away from crowds.
…
The man could see what was coming from a mile away.
What he didn’t get to see, Thank God, was the Covid Hoax and The Fed dumping several TRILLION more FRN’s into the market and The Bubble having had at least two more years of expansion.
Afterburners indeed.
It is now virtually on our doorsteps.
That makes posting this again very timely.
God rest your soul sir.
I am grateful at this point that you aren’t here to see what is about to unfold on a completely unsuspecting general public.
An interesting statement
Regarding the briefing of the MOD submitted by <redacted> I found one section to be quite interesting:
"Due to hypersonic speed and ultra-high kinetic energy, the warhead of Kinzhal missile complex destroyed a protected underground arsenal located in a mountainous area, built in Soviet times to store special ammunition and missiles.
The destruction of a large fuel depot in Konstantinovka by Kinzhal hypersonic missile was due to its invisibility and invulnerability to any means of enemy air and missile defence.
Combat use of Kynzhal aviation missile system confirmed its effectiveness in destroying highly protected special enemy assets. The strikes on the military infrastructure of Ukraine by this missile system will continue within the special military operation.
I would like to emphasize that Kinzhal system is used with a conventional warhead. Although experts are well aware of the capabilities of this weapon, not only in terms of range, but also in terms of the type of charge."
This seems to be a rather clear message that “we can put a nuclear warhead on this any time we want and deliver in less than 10 minutes to any NATO base in Europe”. Or wherever else they might choose.
Cheesecake Cookies
Now here’s a great cookie. Why doesn’t anyone make these anymore?
No wonder that so many in the money-money-money West cannot understand China. They think with their minds. Not with their hearts. This is China, and this is why China will lead the world to a new and better existence. video 58MB
Stand up for others
Don’t be a spectator. Participate in life. Protect the week, and do your part to make the world a better place. You don’t know when the calling will be, or how you will be tested, but you will be. And when that test of who you are arrives… well be the person that would make your grandmother PROUD. video 68MB
Cleaning lady gives Hard Boiled eggs to students
She doesn’t have to. She wants to. There’s a big difference, when you are a Rufus. video. 4MB
4MB.
Be the Rufus
You do not know when the calling will strike, but it’s up to you to participate in your community. participate. Help others. Pick up trash. Help dogs and cats. Be kind. Smile. Say good things. Be the Rufus, and let the rest of the world howl! video 5MB
Conclusion
We are in World War III.
The agressor is the United States. Eventually all these American “pushes and shoves” will result in an Asian shotgun being pulled out. Something bigger, deadlier, and more colorful than the military-technical measures that Putin is using.
There will be blasts, blood, entails, crying and sobbing.
Asia does not want this, but it is clear that preemptive action, at some time, will be necessary. You all should be happy that MM is not making Geo-Political decisions. Everything would be resolved by now. It would be a mess, but things would be resolved.
Don’t you know.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Comment of the day: "The wreckage would be awesome."
It’s a cool morning. Very humid. It’s a spring day and the humidity is so thick that it is like walking in a humidity milkshake. As you walk down the street you can smell the thickness of the scented flowers and trees lining the roads, and the thickly laden ocean air.
it’s really nice.
I went out this morning to get my long loaves of French / Italian crusty bread. Bagettes, actually. (I ran out at the house.) What I do is slice them, and put real salted butter on them, and pop them into the oven for a few minutes. Then, I place some slices of tomato with salt and olive oil that I lay on top of them. It’s a favorite and simple food that I enjoy.
bruschetta chopped tomatoes basil herbs grilled cru italian olive oil crusty bread italian cuisine concept close up 96050796
Today, as I walked into the local supermarket, it was crowded. The new truck load of fresh produce came in and everyone was getting their fix of fresh vegitables. I myself, snagged a huge bag of tomatoes. Two yuan. Roughly thirty tomatoes for twenty-five cents. Whoa!
R C.f0b785c2827b31982fb1b782ea4a8f3d
I’m smunching on the bread-tomato-pleasure right now. Good stuff. I’ll tell you what. Washing it down with a minty flower tea or some curious blend. As the “Baron Cat” says in the Japanese animated movie “The Cat Returns” (2002); “It’s my own special blend. It’s a different taste every time you drink it.”
The cat returns.
Of course, we are still in a “yellow” lockdown.
All of Zhuhai are in various stages of lockdown.
Everyone is monitored in and out of the various complexes in Zhuhai. The latest American bioweapon attack hit China hard, but China is dealing with it absolutely, and the people go about their normal lives.
Not a big deal.
You get used to it. Don’t you know.
Zhuhai, China.
For those of you who are new to MM, this latest bioweapons attack occurred immediately after the USA-China meeting in Rome, Italy. The USA (Jake Sullivan) “warned” China of “immediate bad consequences” if China did not sanction Russia. China said no. And within hours China was hit in multiple locations with a very nasty stain of coronavirus.
Sigh.
Not reported in the Western “news”. At all.
As an aside. Perhaps it good that the West is kept so absolutely ignorant. Let them make their strategic decisions while in a bubble of absolute lies. Let them. And if they believe the “news” and volunteer to participate as a mercenary in the “rout of the collapsing Russian invasion force” let them.
Below, I’e got three stories of the first hand experience that these mercenaries experienced. These are not third world goatherders with old AK-47s, you imbeciles. You are not going to hang out in air conditioned barracks and plink at an occasional illiterate shepard or their donkey.
You will experience real war. Real, honest to goodness, pissing in your pants war.
Nothing like the hard bitch slap of reality to perform a reset of attitude.
200 bitch slap
The very last paragraph in this article describes what it’s really like.
The base we came from was struck by rockets in the early morning hours. People we lived with for a couple days are confirmed dead. It is only a matter of time before our location is targeted. We are about to be cut off by a Russian tank column any day now.”“Food, water, and ammunition dwindle slowly. The mood is somber, people are sending their last messages to friends and family.”
Those that rely on bad intel will die.
Not just in a war zone, but in a peaceful area like I am in.
To believe that the Coronavirus is a “hoax” and that it’s not part of a very systematic and intelligent way to wage war is dangerous. It will get you killed.
So we need good and real intel.
Not lies.
Anyways, let me chat about regarding my walk from the grocery stores.
Bag of tomatoes.
Most people do not realize just how Chinese society is laid out. They think that it’s flat and open like their home nations. Like America. Like Europe. Like Japan. Like Australia.
They think that you can just walk down the road and go into what ever suburb that you want. Go into any business complex you desire. Park where ever you want. Enter any apartment building that you want. Nope.
Not like that. At all.
Everything in China is surrounded by walls. There are buildings inside of housing complexes. That’s two sets of walls and guards. Then that sits within a city block. That’s another set of walls and guards. Those blocks sit within a “community region”. That is another set of walls and guards.
Walls are big and popular in China.
To go forth an (say) buy some groceries, you need to pass through five or six checkpoints and guarded gates. It’s more stringent than what it was like at China Lake Naval Weapons Center.
For me to travel and get my groceries today, I passed through five walls with check points and guards. Each time scanning my three QR codes. Facial recognition, temperature checks and bioscans.
You get used to it. It’s not a big deal.
It’s like Americans are so used to the idea that they have to get a fishing license, a dog license, a motocycle license, just to be able to fish with your dog and ride the motorcycle to the local pond.
You get used to it.
And you don’t think about it being an infringement on your “Rights”. You just accept it.
A PA fishing license.
Of course, in China’s case it’s DEFCON 2. It’s a war-situation, and the agressor is the United States. That’s the reality. And you woud be aware of this if you lived in China.
I’ll tell you when DEFCON 2 is lifted. Though, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen anyday soon.
I had a customer who contacted me and wanted me to set up a trip itinery to visit some factories. He figured that since New Zealand has lifted the coronavirus restrictions, that everyone has. Nope. Everyone in China are still wearing masks, and taking these bioweapons attacks seriously.
And NO!
There are no thoughts of lifting the restrictions or having any second thoughts about how China deals with COVID. That’s Western bullshit.
Coins
Do you know what I haven’t seen in a long time? Yeah. Coins.
A “coin” is a flat (usually round) token that is used as a currency. You can use it to buy things. In the old days before inflation, most people used coins to conduct commerce. In America, a cup of coffee cost a dime. A lunch would cost under fifty cents, and a weeks’ groceries would run a few dollars.
You don’t see them very much today though.
Chinese currency.
China has been using QR codes and e-yuan payments systems for years now. Oh, some fo the older folk still use bills and coinage, but they are the only ones doing so.
Them and foreigners.
Not that there’s many foreign faces here any longer. We’ve got a handful of long-term expats that I see every now and then. They are in upper management positions in Western companies located in China. They have nice expat packages, live in exclusive housing complexes, and venture out from time to time.
They stick out like a sore thumb.
Expats in China stick out like a sore thumb.
I’m one of those grizzily old expats that went to seed and gone native. I wear Chinese clothes, eat Chinese food, enjoy Chinese lifestyle, and go to local Chinese restrurants. The foreigners see me. They look at me and automatically classify me.
Drunk in the night.
Hungover in the day.
Burping, and farting and generally being anti-social. (Well, maybe not THAT bad. Lol.)
Old grizzily long-timer. Gone native. Hopeless.
Expat Defined:
An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin term expatriates from ex ("out of") and patriâ the ablative case of patria ("country, fatherland").
Background;
In its broadest sense, an expatriate is any person living in a different country from where he or she is a citizen.
In common usage, the term is often used in the context of professionals sent abroad by their companies, as opposed to locally hired staff (who can also be foreigners). The differentiation found in common usage usually comes down to socio-economic factors, so skilled professionals working in another country are described as expatriates, whereas a manual labourer who has moved to another country to earn more money might be labelled an 'immigrant'. There is no set definition and usage does vary depending on context and individual preferences and prejudices.
In the 19th century, Americans, numbering perhaps in the thousands, were drawn to Europe—especially to Munich and Paris—to study the art of painting. Henry James, for instance, was a famous expatriate American writer from the 1870s, who adopted England as his home.
The term 'expatriate' in some countries also has a legal context used for tax purposes. An expatriate living in a country can receive a favorable tax treatment. In this context a person can only be an expatriate if they move to a country other than their own to work with the intent of returning to their home country within a period of no more than 5 fiscal years. This number of years can vary per tax jurisdiction, but 5 years is the most commonly used maximum period.
Unless you are an American. If you are an American, you are always an American and you are treated as someone who is trying to avoid direct taxiation laws. Under United States law, geographical location only defines your tax schedule. It does not protect you from American taxiation.
Expatriate is sometimes also spelled 'ex-patriot.'
I’m too old to look like an English teacher. Mostly those folk are in their 20s and 30s. They are on a cultural adventure, and then they will move on in their lives.
I don’t look like a traveller, a backpacker or an adventurer. Not at all.
I’m certainly not equal to the other expats. I don’t dress like them, and I’m at an age that is more compatable with the executive directors of their companies. LOL. I don’t know what they think. Maybe they don’t want to think, eh?
The teacher
This is the biggest employer of expats in China. You see them, mostly in their twenties. The older ones that used to teach have been displaced by mostly young folk, as the cut-off is at 55, and you must have demonstrated prior experience and pass a very rigorous government approval process.
Back around 2013, there were numerous crimes committed by foreign teachers that shocked the Chinese. Since then, things have mellowed out considerably.
The business expat
They got a nice gig. usually two to three years as an upper-level executive in a foreign land. They make expat salaries, plus bonus, and a full expat package. You can see them in where they eat, their kids attending foreign expat schools, and in the clothing that they dress. They keep to themselves, and rarely go “slumming” with the natives.
The digital nomad
He has a beard, a beater, a battered Apple Mac and plays songs about his new hometown at local acoustic nights. Everyone’s an entrepreneur these days and the digital nomad is making a killing coding, marketing or writing all from the comfort of a coffee shop.
Ask at your own peril how he made the step to go freelance and move abroad, he’ll direct you to his catchily named blog: ‘I work one day a year and the rest of the time I’m on the beach, here’s how you can do it too.’
It’s all a lie of course. Big words, little to show for it. In China they are shunned. Mostly they go to places like Thailand to impress others. In China, locals really don’t want to have anythign to do with them.
The NGO-er
All wise eyes and copper bracelets, the charity worker had big dreams. Always the most interesting person at the party, this guy’s seen the parts of the world no one else gets to. They are often funded one way or the others through the “five eyes”.
You won’t find them in China any longer. There was a mass round up and deportations of these folk during the Hong Kong “color revolution”. Those with direct involvement were killed. The rest were scattered elsewhere.
The pilot
Recognisable by his cock-pit pics on Tinder, this guy swipes right in every port. You’ll find him holed up in a gated expat community with imported whiskeys decorating his executive pad. He may have physically been all over the world, but it’s unlikely he’s seen it.
The retired couple
Most people do not retire to China. The rap that China gets scares the Dejesus out of most folk. Pollution, factories, communism, authorian. Yikes! The retired folk say.
Most will hit Thailand or Mexico as soon as their pensions kicked in to make the most of the hot weather, cheap massages and excellent golf facilities.
Thanks to their new cool exotic location, they’ve never been more popular with the grandkids who love to visit (if in part for the relaxed drinking laws). You can spot them in their matching khaki shorts, nursing a Bloody Mary over lunch saying: ‘We should have done this years ago.’
So, here I am, minding my own business, carrying my groceries home. I pass some expats with their (obviously European) children in Starbucks having breakfast, and I just continue on my way. Smunching a warm baozi, groceries in my one hand, and the other (holding a baozi) ready to flash (my preset QR) to the baoans (security guards) at the various checkpoints.
All I need is my Chinese wife, my Chinese kids, my Chinese dog next to me. LOL.
But nope. Not today.
I’m on a mission alone. Sheech! It just doesn’t feel right.
And there, as I enter my “short cut” (I cross though a nearby housing complex) and go through it, I spy what appears to be a coin on the road.
A coin!
Do they still make these things in the ‘States?
A truly rare event I’ll tell you what.
The coin turned out to be a token for one of those mechanical children rides. You pay ten yuan and you get ten coins. Woo! Woo!
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Then you use the coins to ride the electro-mechanical contraptions. Just like in America. Same.
See we are not all that different.
Amusement tokens.
I wonder if they still have these things. There used to be a few in front of Woolworths, and CVS drugs. My guess is that they were replaced by soda machines.
Bigger profits is my guess.
Let’s go and chat about the Geo-Political sitrep for the World entering April 2022. Here’s a collection of various articles. Mostly summaries and links. I hope you all like them.
In fact, if the US/NATO do decide to attack Russia, this will be the final, nuclear, end for the western civilization as such. After 1000 years of genocidal imperialism, one could be forgiven for thinking that this could be a fitting, just, end” in the “chicken coming home to roost” kind of karmic justice. Now it is in the hands of the US ruling elites.
-The Saker
About the Russian Invasion
It’s pretty straightforward. Yet vault 7 has seized the minds of most in the West.
“We have seen 5 waves of NATO expansion.
Now NATO is in Romania and Poland and they are deploying their missile-attack systems there.
That’s what we are talking about.
You need to understand, we are not threatening anyone.
Russia did not come to the US borders or the UK borders. No.
You came to our borders and now you are saying, ‘Ukraine will join NATO and will deploy their systems there. They will deploy their military bases and their attack-systems.’
We are concerned about our security.
Do you understand what that means?”
- Vladimir Putin, press conference, You Tube
A Russian Hamburger Chain
Ham-bur-ger. Three syllables.
A budding burger chain in Russia called Uncle Vanya is looking to grab business that has been left on the table by McDonald’s – revealing a logo that looks strikingly similar to the Golden Arches.
.
Or so they say.
.
Uncle Vanya.
.
Personally, anyone who are confused by the logos and cannot tell them apart is an idiot.
.
A March 12 trademark filing with the Russian government showed an image that closely resembles the McDonald’s logo turned on its side. The sketchy filing shows a Cyrillic letter “B,” which references the “V” in “Uncle Vanya,” cast in yellow against a red background.
You can learn a lot about culture, society and family by looking at the education that it provides it’s children. Here is a daily flag cermony in China. This is a kindergarden. Typical. And it’s impressive as all get out. They are three and four year old children.
Everyday. Every school.
We, when I lived in the Untied States, used to “salute the flag” and say the “pledge of allegence” every day. They no longer do that in the USA. I hear that it’s becuase it is racist. video 3MB
Putin on independence from the West
"We will solve this problem so that we will never again depend on Western partners in any way, be it governments or companies that are not guided by the interests of their business, but have become instruments of political aggression, which Russia is now experiencing from the West. We will make sure that we never find ourselves in a similar situation again. And so that no uncle - neither Sam, nor anyone else - could destroy our economy"
-Alexander Putin
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
I love the kitty.
No, I am not going to make a joke about a pussy. That’s so “Low brow”.
British Ex-Army Contractor Goes to War in Ukraine, Experiences Helicopter Fire, Runs Scared Into the Woods…
…is tortured by the Ukrainians thinking he’s a Russian spy, is released, leaves for the UK immediately.
One of the first British fighters in Ukraine told yesterday of his ferocious battle with Russian troops at the Battle of Antonov.
Ex-Army medic Jason Haigh, 34, exchanged gunfire with the Red Army as it sought to seize an airport and was later beaten by guards in terrifying interrogations.
Jason, who served two tours of Iraq, told The Sun:
“The Ukrainians fought like lions and I’m proud I was alongside them. What Putin is doing is terrorism. He’s bombing kids and families for nothing. He’s a war criminal.”
He flew to Ukraine at the start of last month. He recalled:
“When I told my mates they were like, ‘What, are you mad?’. I’m a qualified combat medic and have done seven years working as a private military contractor. I wanted to go and do some good.”
He set up home in Kyiv and linked up with foreign fighters ahead of the invasion.
“The world just blew up. You could hear rockets coming over the buildings.
“In the distance there were bright lights flashing all over the city from the Russian bombardment. It was completely surreal.”
Jason dashed out of his city centre flat in full body armour and carrying an AK-47.
2022 03 20 12 46
His unit quickly joined a detachment of Ukrainian troops heading to defend Hostomel Airport.
Jason recalled:
“It was a very confusing situation. No one really knew what was going on.
“As we headed into the dark I think it’s fair to say I was scared.
“Anyone who goes into that position that isn’t scared is a liar.
“When we arrived it was very quiet. But all of a sudden the gates of hell opened up on us.”
A squadron of Russian jets fired down rockets before a fleet of attack choppers joined in.
Jason and ten soldiers from the Georgian Legion took cover in woodland. Jason, who served with the Mercian Regiment, added:
“We got very close to getting whacked. I’ve never experienced firepower like that, I don’t think anyone of this generation ever has.
“Iraq and Afghanistan was totally different. The Russians are a conventional modern army.”
Reinforcements then arrived with Stinger missiles to pick off the Russian choppers in a brave show of Ukrainian resistance.
However, Jason and an American pal were later arrested by Ukraine agents looking for Russian saboteurs. He said:
“My mate and I had a day sack with two walkie talkies and a small pistol.
“We had them for genuine reasons such as if the comms network went down but they got suspicious.”
They were taken to a security service base and interrogated for three hours. Jason said:
“My head was slammed down by one of the guards.
“A different guy came in and I could tell by his kit that he was in an elite unit. He had cable ties and two hoods and I thought ‘S***, this is real’.
“They kept shouting Russian at me but obviously I said I was English. They whacked me around eight or nine times. I had quite a bad concussion and was bleeding heavily.”
“They looked at my phone and my messages which was a really scary moment.
“I wasn’t scared of dying but I was scared about putting my family and friends through the pain of knowing I was in that situation.”
Eventually, they were released and Jason joined hundreds of thousands on trains to Lviv. He then fled to the Polish border before getting a train to Warsaw.
From there he flew to the UK and arrived home in Kidderminster last Friday. He said:
“I didn’t go there to die. I obviously thought about it but I had a job to do.”
The Battle of Antonov — also known as the Battle of Hostomel — was among the first major skirmishes of the war, with Russian attack helicopters and jets aiming to dampen early resistance.
Putin’s forces were successful but at huge cost — as Ukrainian forces downed several choppers. Jason said: “The Ukrainian people are heroes. They’re all great blokes who have the heart of lions and are defending their country.”
Operation Z, the Russian name for the invasion, and identified with the big “Z” marks on all Russian vehicles, is proceeding as planned.
All those videos (from the Western "news") that show buring "Russian tanks and trucks", but that DON'T have the "Z" on them, are not Russian vehicles. They are Ukranian vehicles destroyed by the Russians.
Only an idiot would believe Western / American "news" any longer.
The map is starting to flush out and look like this. You cannot clearly make out the borders of Ukraine, as they are faint gray. You need to squint. But it is clear that Russia has substantive (not absolute) military control of around 65% to 70% of the nation.
Ah. It’s a good time for Zelenskyy to broker a peace deal. It is too bad that his American handlers will not allow him; instead desiring a long-drawn-out war.
I find it interesting,the capture of the international Airport at Lviv. See the map below. Lviv is on the Polish border. Is this the start of full Russian capture of western Ukraine?
Russian controlled areas in the Ukraine.
.
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
Exports to Russia Blocked by U.S. and Its Allies
A typical Western anti-China article.
Yes. Nations that trade in USD, and that use sealanes to trade are under the influence of the United States and the West.
But…
Most of Asia use land transports; rail. And are thus immune to the sanctions backed up with the threat and enforcement of a naval blocade.
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 1MB
Turn on the sound to truly appreciate this video.
Weapons Transporters May Be Declared “Military Targets” by Russia
Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov threatens that all transporters that may bring weapons to Ukraine will be declared military targets.
Aircraft.
Ships.
Trains.
Trucks / Lorries.
The wording of this announcement leaves open the very real possibility that such modes of transport MAY be in other countries. So on its face, it appears that aircraft or ships bringing weapons into places like Poland, which **MAY** be carrying weapons for Ukraine, could be targeted.
Washington rushes to hide its ‘octopus’ NED funding in Ukraine
Many sections of the corporate media and a legion of propaganda agencies are openly and secretly funded by the US.
As Russia finally invaded Ukraine – on a rationale similar to that of the US invasion of Iraq, but with greater substance – Washington rushed to delete funding details of Ukraine groups through its Congress-funded ‘National Endowment for Democracy’ (NED).
As US Professor John Mearsheimer said, Washington created the crisis in Ukraine, hoping to surround and fragment Russia, using NATO expansion and its Neo-Nazi allies. Instead, it seems that Russia will dismantle Ukraine. In the meantime, the U.S. in decline uses financial assets and networks to subvert most of the world.
Despite the attempt to hide this sponsorship, an 80-page document showing US government NED funding for hundreds of Ukraine groups has been leaked. Now posted on several sites this document allows us a window into some of the internal U.S. influence since the CIA orchestrated Kiev coup of 2014. Many of the allocations have to do with anti-Russian propaganda, usually in the name of ‘transparency’, human rights, ‘independent journalism’, monitoring and so on.
For example, the list shows us that a Ukraine group ‘InformNapalm’, set up “to debunk myths and expose secrets of the Russian hybrid war” and which claims to be “a purely volunteer endeavor which does not have any financial support from any government or donor”, is actually US Government funded. The group publishes anti-Russian propaganda on its website in 31 languages.
Other sources show us that the U.S. Government funds Ukraine's Neo-Nazi linked Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (the KVPU), through its NED funded partner the AFL-CIO’s ‘Solidarity Center’. There are few sectors which the NED has not penetrated.
In Ukraine, this has meant that, especially since 2014, the anti-Russian feeling already embedded in Ukraine nationalism and ultra-nationalism, has been inflamed, setting the country on a collision source with its Russian-speaking minority and with its big eastern neighbor. The NED has culturally reinforced NATO’s drive to war.
Blockbuster: ‘Drag Queen’ Zelensky found a billion dollars and a villa in Miami – Veterans Today | Military Foreign Affairs Policy Journal for Clandestine Services
Zelensky $35 million Florida mansion and $1.2 billion cash in offshore Costa Rican bank account. The American deep-state pays well. All you need to do is betray your oath of office, and sacrifice your countrymen.
China is buidling high speed trains throughout Africa. While America is still discussing how to finish the first attempt in California. Still a rail line to nowhere. Not so in Africa. video. 8.2MB
Nickel Surges 90% to Record With Threat of Shortages Mounting
The “rules-based international order” – as in “our way or the highway” – is unraveling much faster than anyone could have predicted.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China are starting to design a new monetary and financial system bypassing the U.S. dollar, supervised by Sergei Glazyev and intended to compete with the Bretton Woods system.
Saudi Arabia – perpetrator of bombing, famine and genocide in Yemen, weaponized by U.S., UK and EU – is advancing the coming of the petroyuan.
India – third largest importer of oil in the world – is about to sign a mega-contract to buy oil from Russia with a huge discount and using a ruble-rupee mechanism.
Riyadh’s oil exports amount to roughly $170 billion a year. China buys 17% of it, compared to 21% for Japan, 15% for the U.S., 12% for India and roughly 10% for the EU. The U.S. and its vassals – Japan, South Korea, EU – will remain within the petrodollar sphere. India, just like China, may not.
Sanction blowback is on the offense. Even a market/casino capitalism darling such as uber-nerd Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Poznar, formerly with the NY Fed, IMF and Treasury Dept., has been forced to admit, in an analytical note: “If you think that the West can develop sanctions that will maximize the pain for Russia by minimizing the risks of financial stability and price stability for the West, then you can also trust unicorns.”
Unicorns are a trademark of the massive NATOstan psyops apparatus, lavishly illustrated by the staged, completely fake “summit” in Kiev between Comedian Ze and the Prime Ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, thoroughly debunked by John Helmer and Polish sources.
Poznar, a realist, hinted in fact at the ritual burial of the financial chapter of the “rules-based international order” in place since the early Cold War years: “After the end of this war [in Ukraine], ‘money’ will never be the same.” Especially when the Hegemon demonstrates its “rules” by encroaching on other people’s money.
And that configures the central tenet of 21st century martial geopolitics as monetary/ideological. The world, especially the Global South, will have to decide whether “money” is represented by the virtual, turbo-charged casino privileged by the Americans or by real, tangible assets such as energy sources. A bipolar financial world – U.S. dollar vs. yuan – is at hand.
There’s no surefire evidence – yet. But the Kremlin may have certainly gamed that by using Russia’s foreign reserves as bait, likely to be frozen by sanctions, the end result could be the smashing of the petrodollar. After all the overwhelming majority of the Global South by now has fully understood that the backed-by-nothing U.S. dollar as “money” – according to Poznar – is absolutely untrustworthy.
If that’s the case, talk about a Putin ippon from hell.
It’s gold robbery time
As I outlined the emergence of the new paradigm, from the new monetary system to be designed by a cooperation between the EAEU and China to the advent of the petroyuan, a serious informed discussion erupted about a crucial part of the puzzle: the fate of the Russian gold reserves.
Doubts swirled around the Russian Central Bank’s arguably suicidal policy of keeping assets in foreign securities or in banks vulnerable to Western sanctions.
Of course there’s always the possibility Moscow calculated that nations holding Russian reserves – such as Germany and France – have assets in Russia that can be easily nationalized. And that the total debt of the state plus Russian companies even exceeds the amount of frozen reserves.
But what about the gold?
As of February 1, three weeks before the start of Operation Z, the Russian Central Bank held $630.2 billion in reserves. Almost half –
$311.2 billion – were placed in foreign securities, and a quarter – $151.9 billion – on deposits with foreign commercial and Central Banks. Not exactly a brilliant strategy. As of June last year, strategic partner China held 13.8% of Russia’s reserves, in gold and foreign currency.
As for the physical gold, $132.2 billion – 21% of total reserves – remains in vaults in Moscow (two-thirds) and St. Petersburg (one-third).
So no Russian gold has been frozen? Well, it’s complicated.
The key problem is that more than 75% of Russian Central Bank reserves are in foreign currency. Half of these are securities, like government bonds: they never leave the nation that issued them. Roughly 25% of the reserves are linked to foreign banks, mostly private, as well as the BIS and the IMF.
Once again it’s essential to remember Sergei Glazyev in his groundbreaking essay Sanctions and Sovereignty: “It is necessary to complete the de-dollarization of our foreign exchange reserves, replacing the dollar, euro and pound with gold. In the current conditions of the expected explosive growth in the price of gold, its mass export abroad is akin to treason and it is high time for the regulator to stop it.”
This is a powerful indictment of the Russian Central Bank – which was borrowing against gold and exporting it. For all practical purposes, the Central Bank could be accused of perpetrating an inside job. And subsequently they were caught flat-footed by the devastating American sanctions.
As a Moscow analyst puts it, the Central Bank “had delivered some volumes of gold to London in 2020-2021. This decision was motivated by a high price of gold at that time (near $2000 per ounce) and could hardly be initiated by Putin. If so, this decision can be qualified as very stupid, or even part of a diversionist tactic (…) Most of the gold delivered to London was not stored but sold and transferred into foreign currency reserves (in euro or pounds) which were frozen later.”
No wonder a lot of people in Russia are livid. A quick flashback is in order. In June last year, Putin signed a law canceling requirements for the repatriation of foreign exchange earnings from gold exports. Five months later, Russia’s gold miners were exporting like crazy. A month later, the Duma wanted to know why the Central Bank had stopped buying gold. No wonder Russia media erupted with accusations of “an unprecedented [gold] robbery”.
Now it’s way more dramatic: RIA Novosti described the American-dictated freeze as – what else – a “robbery” and duly predicted global economic chaos. As for the Central Bank, it’s back on the gold buying business.
None of the above though explains some “missing” gold that de facto is not under the possession of the Russian Central Bank. And that’s where a somewhat shady character such as Herman Gref comes in.
“This process has been going on for the past year. Exported, according to some estimates, 600 tons. [Head of Russian Central Bank] Nabiullina said – whoever wants to sell gold to get cash, or if you mine gold and trade it, keep in mind that the state, in my person, will not buy gold from you at a market price. We will take it at a big discount. If you want to get honest money for it, please export it. The world center of gold trading is London. Accordingly, everyone began to export and sell gold there. Including Mr. [Herman] Gref. The head of the formally state-owned Sberbank sold a huge part of his gold reserves.”
Look here for fascinating details about Sberbank’s Gref shenanigans.
Watch for the gold-backed ruble
It may be a case of too little too late, but at least the Kremlin has now established a committee – with authority over the Central Bank nerds – to handle the serious stuff.
It boggles the mind that the Russian Central Bank does not answer to the Russian constitution as well as to the judicial system, but in fact is subordinated to the IMF. A case can be made that this cartel-designed financial system – implying zero sovereignty – simply cannot be tackled head on by any nation on the planet, and Putin has been trying to undermine it step by step. That includes, of course, keeping Elvira Nabiullina on the job even as she duly follows the Washington consensus to the letter.
And that brings us back to the ultra high stakes possibility that the Kremlin may have wanted from the start to go no holds barred, forcing the Atlanticists to reveal their true hand, and exposing their system in a “The King is Naked” spectacular for a worldwide audience.
And that’s where the EAEU/China new monetary/financial system comes in, under Glazyev supervision. We can certainly envision Russia, China and vast swathes of Eurasia progressively divorcing from casino capitalism; the ruble reconverted to a gold-backed currency; and Russia focused on self-sufficiency, productive domestic investment and trade connectivity with most of the Global South.
Way beyond its confiscated foreign reserves and tons of gold sold in London, what matters is that Russia remains the ultimate natural resource powerhouse. Shortages? A little austerity for a little while will take care of it: nothing as dramatic as the national impoverishment under the neoliberal 1990s. And extra boost would come from exporting natural resources at premium discount prices to other BRICS and most of Eurasia and the Global South.
The collective West has just fabricated a new, tawdry East-West divide. Russia is turning it upside down, to its own profit: after all the multipolar world is rising in the East.
The Empire of Lies won’t back down, because it does not have a Plan B. Plan A is to “cancel” Russia across the – Western – spectrum. So what? Russophobia, racism, 24/7 psyops, propaganda overdrive, cancel culture online mobs, that don’t mean a thing.
Facts matter: the Bear has enough nuclear/hypersonic hardware to shatter NATO in a few minutes before breakfast and teach a lesson to the collective West before pre-dinner cocktails. There will come a time when some exceptionalist with a decent IQ will finally understand the meaning of “indivisibility of security”.
South African president blames NATO for Russia-Ukraine war – The Jerusalem Post
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
The Best Lasagna
It’s Spring in most of the world. That means that it’s too warm to make hot dishes, and too cold to make cold Summer dishes. But nothing quite fits the bill than a fine lasagna meal that you cook on a lazy weekend, because you don’t need to cut the grass, and you don’t need to shovel the sidewalks.
This is a great piece of inspiration. I hope that you all like it, and maybe you too will be as inspired as I am…
There’s something really great about layers of ground beef, pasta, delicious ricotta cheese mixture, a fine easy homemade marinara sauce, and more cheese in every hot and tasty bite.
There are a few classic Italian dishes that are popular with just about everyone in the ‘States. It’s a perfect sit-down dinner dish to share with family and friends. Or, just to scarf down while you are watching your favorite sitcom.
Comforting flavors of homemade tomato sauce, pasta, cheese, and beef makes every bite a delight. It’s a wonderful weekend dinner. And it’s a perfect thing to cook on the weekend as well.
This lasagna is amazing. It’s easy to make. Tastes great and really fills your belly deliciously.
Lasagna.
Lasagna Tips:
This is just the opening salvo in moving the global "balance of power" from a Uni-polar one to a Multi-polar one.The U$A has had it's way for decades, time for a change, and man o man, are they freaking out.
Noodles. When choosing pasta noodles, I recommend using oven-ready ones. It will be much easier and cut down on cooking steps and time.
No Cook or Instant Noodles can be used without pre-boiling (check the packet instructions first). You can assemble as normal. To ensure the pasta has enough liquid to cook through while the lasagna is baking, we normally add about 1/2 cup of water to our sauce when using INSTANT.
Pre Boil Or Pre Cook Pasta Sheets need to be boiled first before assembly. Follow the instructions on the packet. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into the water to prevent the sheets from sticking together and stir them occasionally with a wooden spoon. Transfer each cooked lasagna sheet carefully into a large bowl or pot filled with cool water to help stop the cooking process. Leave them in there until ready to use. This helps prevent them from sticking together or drying out. You can do this while the meat sauce is gently simmering away so all elements are ready at the same time.
Layering. While layering pasta, have the sheets overlap by 1/2 to 1/4 inch. Remember, you can also break apart some pasta sheets in you need to cover small corners and gaps.
White Sauce. This is where things go from yeah, it’s okay TO oh-my-god-this-is-so-good! Some people just don’t use any ricotta cheese in their lasagna. Not because they don’t like ricotta, but because white sauce makes it so much more flavourful. You need only 4 ingredients to make this Béchamel happen:
Butter
Flour
Milk
Parmesan cheese. If you don’t like parmesan, replace it with Gruyere, Romano, Asiago, Manchego, or more Mozzarella.
Fat in the meat. Choose 85/15 meat to fat ratio of ground beef. It will result in a juicier and more tender beef layer. In the case of lasagna, the more fat the better. Let it cook long and hard. The fat will flavor the dish.
Sauce. When possible, make your own marinara sauce. It’s easy and it will make the world of difference in the taste. Marinara sauce can be made ahead of time or even frozen. Like all Italian – American dishes; make the components in batches and freeze for later use.
Oil the pan. Make sure to spray one side of aluminum foil with some spray cooking oil and cover the baking pan oiled side down. That will prevent cheese from sticking to the foil when you pull it off. I’ll tell you that it’s a real pain in the ass to scrub away cheese sticking to pans. You all don’t want that to happen.
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 2MB
Can I freeze lasagna?
Yes, lasagna can absolutely be frozen and here is how to freeze lasagna.
If you are planning on freezing your lasagna, use an aluminum baking pan to prepare it. Use one 9×13 baking pan or two half the size.
Cook your ingredients and put it together in the pan right up until the baking step. Instead of baking it, freeze it.
Make sure to wrap the container as tightly as possible.
Properly stored, lasagna can last up to 6 months in the freezer.
To thaw lasagna, pull it from the freezer into the refrigerator and slow-thaw it there for 10-12 hours.
Lasagna.
Bake as directed in the recipe but increase baking time under foil by 15-20 minutes since the lasagna will be cold going into the oven.
Ingredients
4 1/2cupsmarinara sauce(homemade or store-bought) divided
8-10ozoven ready lasagna sheets
1 1/2cupsshredded Italian cheese mixtopping
1/2tspdry oreganotopping
Lots and lots of mozzarella cheese.
Beef layer:
2tbspolive oil
1yellow oniondiced
1 1/2lbsground beef(85/15 or 90/10 meat to fat ratio)
1/2tspdry oregano
1/3cupfreshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt
fresh cracked black pepper
1 1/2 cupsshredded Italian cheese mix
Ricotta layer:
20ozwhole milk ricotta
1cupshredded Italian cheese mix
1/2cupfreshly grated Parmesan cheese
1tbspminced fresh Italian parsley(or regular parsley)
2tbspminced fresh basil
1tspdry oregano
1egg
salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 and grease 9×13 casserole dish.
Beef:
Preheat a medium cooking pan over medium heat.
Add oil and saute diced onion until transparent.
Add ground beef and cook, breaking up all the lumps, until just done. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano.
Once the meat is just done. Mix in 1 1/2 cups of marinara sauce and 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Set aside.
Ricotta:
Combine all ingredients for the ricotta layer in a mixing bowl and mix very well. Set aside.
Lasagna:
Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce over the bottom of the casserole dish. Make sure it’s spread evenly.
Layer lasagna noodles in one even layer. I like to overlap the pasta sheets just a little bit, 1/2 to 1/4 inch or so.
Spread beef mixture over the pasta sheets evenly. Spread 1 1/2 cups of shredded Italian cheese mix.
Layer lasagna noodles in one even layer. Again, you can overlap the pasta sheets just a little bit, 1/2 to 1/4 inch or so.
Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce over pasta sheets evenly.
Spread ricotta mixture evenly. Drop spoonfuls of ricotta mixture all over and use your hands to spread it in one even layer. (Of course, make sure your hands are clean.)
Layer lasagna noodles in one even layer. Overlap the pasta sheets just a little bit, 1/2 to 1/4 inch or so.
Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce over pasta sheets, evenly.
Spread 1 1/2 cups of shredded Italian cheese mix over the sauce evenly.
Sprinkle some oregano over the top.
Spray one side of aluminum foil sheet with cooking spray and cover the casserole dish with foil, oiled side down.
Bake covered for about 35 minutes.
Take off the foil and bake for another 10 minutes with it completely layered in mozzarella cheese.
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 2MB
US F-35 and Chinese J-20 fighter jets had a close encounter over East China Sea: US general
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 3MB
Medvedev: Russia Has The Might To Put You In Your Place
Russia warned the United States on Thursday that Moscow had the might to put the world’s pre-eminent superpower in its place and accused the West of stoking a wild Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart.
Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees.
“It will not work – Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place,” Medvedev said.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the United States and its European and Asian allies have slapped sanctions on Russian leaders, companies and businessmen, cutting off Russia from much of the world economy.
President Vladimir Putin says that what he calls the special military operation in Ukraine was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Russia had to defend against the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine.
Translation:YEREVAN, March 14 – Sputnik. The member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China will develop a project for an independent international monetary and financial system. This was agreed upon by the participants in the economic dialogue “A New Stage of Monetary, Financial and Economic Cooperation between the EAEU and the PRC. Global Transformations: Challenges and Solutions”, which was held on March 11 via videoconference. It is envisaged that the system will be based on a new international currency, which will be calculated as an index of the national currencies of the participating countries and commodity prices. The first draft will be submitted for discussion by the end of March. As Sergei Glazyev, Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the EEC, emphasized, China was the first in the world to move to the stage of national economic recovery.
The background here is bigger. This was noted by Godfree Roberts:
In two weeks, China, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan will reveal a new, independent, international monetary and financial system.
It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices. [Mar. 14, 2022, Sputnik News].
Russia and China will also reveal their Unfriendly Nation Lists.
Reliable links are still hard to come by in general.
Tucker: The standard of living is plummeting
The buildup for civil collapse inside the United States is building. Prices are changing every three days. Americans are unhappy. Major changes in American lifestyle are happening switftly and the American government is oblivious. Their solution is to take the bus. Fine. If there were busses. Most of America is not serviced by bus lines.
This is hyper-inflation. This is what brings down nations.
Now, to be sure, inflation is a global issue, but it is ONLY the nations that rely on the USD that are building up towards an explosion. Only those nations. This includes all of the West, with America being the worst affected.
The pther nations in the world aren’t doing so bad.
Sure there’s inflation. But other nations monitor and controls the use of the USD in their global inports.There are strict laws and controls in bringing in and using the USD. Thus the rest of the world can control the adverse influences of the USD to their nations.
So hyper-inflation?
Not so in China. Not so in Russia. Not so in India.
Only in the West. And it is outrageous. It’s an excellent video. A great video. Check it out.
2022 03 19 10 04
US Army veteran fighting in Ukraine says he went AWOL because it was a ‘trap’
...28-year-old Henry Hoeft, who served in the US Army Infantry before becoming a steelworker in Ohio, left earlier this month to fight in Ukraine.
...Hoeft described the situation for foreign volunteers, who are effectively used as poorly-equipped cannon fodder in order to draw Russians into ambushes carried out by Ukrainian forces.
...In addition, Russia does not consider the foreign volunteers to be lawful combatants, instead classifying them as “mercenaries.”
...Hoeft went on to discuss how his base was “f**ed up” by a Russian attack and that members of his unit were told to “get the f**k out” after they refused an order to defend Kiev with partially-filled magazines and inferior equipment.
...“Foreign mercenaries who were wounded in the #Volnovakha hospital were shot by their own before leaving the city so that they could not tell anything.
..."All shot in the temple or the back of the head.
...According to The Intelligencer, many of the foreign volunteers are American, Canadian, and British.
Burger King in Russia will stay open
Burger King is trying to suspend its operations in Russia, but that’s proving difficult. A business partner controlling 800 restaurants has “refused” to close them, the company said.
The burger chain, owned by Restaurant Brands International (RBI), has a joint venture partnership with businessman Alexander Kolobov in Russia.
RBI controls just 15 per cent of its Russian Burger King business, and Kolobov is responsible for the "day-to-day operations and oversight" of its locations in the country.
This video is concerning. Six nukes were tracked and seen moving on open highways in Glasgow last night by people who seem to be in the intelligence loop and have been tracking them for while.
He’s pretty good. He’s my go-to guy on the Russian point of view, and offer great military insight and sitrep on the Ukraine invasion. This particular video covers the Russian-China alliance, and a hard look at the United States “end game”.
The United States has NO idea what they are dealing with. It’s a great video that underlines what I have been saying for years.
2022 03 19 08 16
Africa
Most members of the South African parliament, when asked to support NATO agaist Russia, responded by saying that they have never forgiven NATO for the bombing of Libya and killing President Ghadafi.
They also pointed out that during Africa’s independence liberation struggle to get rid of NATO colonisers, it was the USSR (Russia) that gave African freedom fighters, unwavering support.
Samora Macheal led a Russian supported revolt against the Portuguese in Mozambique, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, led the Zimbabwe liberation war against the British supported by Russia, Sam Nujoma in Namibia fought against the British, Germans and USA supported by Russia and Cuba, Edwardos Do Santos fought a brutal war against Portugal supported by Russia and Cuba, Patrice Lumumba against, America, Beligian and the French supported by Russia and so did Kwame Nkuruma, Thomas Sankara, and many other examples.
Africa cannot forsake Russia what so ever.
I must point out that RT News which is broadcast by some government channels in Africa does not give a detailed coverage of Russia’s Special Operation. It gives scanty stories and does not counter western media propaganda.
There is a massive support for Russia in Africa.
African leaders are scrapping around to find positive news about Russia’s progress. How can Russia not have its own communication satelite to carry its own television channels around the world?
History Lesson
History teaches that when you obliterate an enemy, they become your best friend.
The US firebombed and nuked the Japs, and they are the most enthusiastic ass-kissers of the US.
The Russians flattened Grozny, and the Chechens are their best buddies.
Just herd all the wannabe-Polak Russia-hating Ukrainians into Lvov, and the survivors–if any–will be fighting for Russia forever.
Weapons system surprises
The war has been a test of weapons systems, with some unexpected outcomes, Notably the deadly effectiveness of Swedish-designed anti-tank missiles.
NLAWs
“Ukraine Is Wrecking Russian Tanks With a Gift From Britain…“The green tubes are called NLAWs, for Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapons. They are the result of decades of weapons research dedicated to building small lightweight guided missiles that may have evened the balance of power in combat between the fearsome tank and the soldier.“Compared to the American-made Javelin antitank weapon, which has been hailed by officials at the Pentagon and the White House and sent to Ukraine by the thousands, the NLAW weighs about half as much, costs far less, can be easily discarded, and is optimized for use in the relatively short-range fights Ukrainian soldiers are getting into with the invading Russian forces.“The NLAW is a product of the Swedish company Saab and has been sold to a number of NATO countries — including Britain, which assembles the missiles at a factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the British Army. And although the British Army also has the Javelin, it began purchasing NLAWs about 10 years ago and has been sending them to Ukraine in ever greater numbers.”
-Ukraine Is Wrecking Russian Tanks With a Gift From Britain
Boris returns from Saudi mission without pledge to boost oil supplies | Daily Mail Online
Boris Johnson visited Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia urging states to boost oil supplies to bring down prices.
The Gulf states will not increase their production to help the West.
The PM insisted he raised the issue of "human rights abuses" during talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Bulgaria said No. And citizens rallied…NATO Out” [with Videos]
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin traveled to Bulgaria on Saturday, where he met with Prime Minister Kiril Petkov to discuss the Ukrainian crisis and apparently asked Sofia to provide military aid to Kiev. The Bulgarian PM said no.
Bulgarian citizens rallied on Saturday against giving its “few remaining weapons” to Ukraine and demanded the withdrawal of NATO from the country.
Demonstrators gathered in front of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense, where Austin and Petkov met for a joint press conference, waving Bulgarian and Russian flags. They were heard chanting, “NATO Out.”
Similar protests took place in Rome and Piza, Italy, where activists of a major Italian trade union, USB, opposed sending weapons to Ukraine and called on the government to ditch NATO.[.]
$400 million worth of Western supplied weaponry destroyed in a single russian strike on the military base near Lvov — radio intercepted comms suggest that 267 foreign mercenaries have been killed in the strike.
50 year old Peter from Austria who fought alongside the “international legion of Ukraine” said that 800 to 1000 foreign mercenaries were present during the strike.
Around 400 mercenaries were evacuated to Poland, many of whom have suffered severe burns & torn limbs from the Kalibr strike.
There’s a high number of missing individuals still under the rubble which includes a high number of Americans, Poles and Romanians. Former NATO officers are Amongst the dead.
Question– Is there a justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
Answer– Yes, there is. Russia was being threatened by developments in Ukraine, so it told Ukraine to either stop what it was doing or suffer the consequences. Ukraine chose to ignore those warnings, so Russia invaded. That is basically what happened.
Chinese reaction to Russia
Chinese netizens have bought basically everthing (chocolate candies, vodka, Russian sausages and bread, etc.) out from the Russia’s official online shop on one of China’s biggest e-coomerce platforms.
The Russian manager of the online shop has to tell the enthusiastic Chinese customers to “shop rationally”.
Interesting chat.
“Most people don’t know this. The SWIFT system when it was created was a way for you to settle things – an international protocol, secure bank to bank how you send money, AND IT WAS PROMISED AT THAT TIME, THE US SAID: “WE WILL NEVER USE THIS FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES”.
“The old world order is trembling as the Russians march across the Ukrainian border. Is Putin just another time bomb that has lost his mind, or it’s because NATO pushed the Russians too hard?
Thousands of miles away from the battlefield, some cast their sights on China, pressuring it [to contain] its neighbor in the north. Dr Charles Liu [talks to] his friend, Einar Tangen. They might have spoken softly, but the points they carry [should] never [be missed].”
They cover, inter-alia:
◉ the NATO eastward expansion despite earlier guarantees given to the contrary by Howard Baker (then Secretary of State of the US);
◉ Putin speaking in 1991 in the German language in Berlin, addressing everybody and saying Russia wants to be part of Europe, and then 6 years later in 1997, he gets up at the Munich Security Conference saying: “You’ve cheated us, you’ve humiliated us, you expanded;
◉ how Western press is parroting that “China is providing support for Russia” by buying Russian gas and oil but ignores how Germany and Europe buy it;
◉ how the US / EU has held back a big block of conditions vis-à-vis the sanctions on Russia because they need to buy the oil and gas of Russia; sanctions on 12 out of 230 banks in Russia;
◉ the Ukraine situation before the war, where in the 1990’s and in a span of less than 7 years, the country lost 60% of their GDP, corruption was rife; the hypocrisy in the democratic practices where there was interference in the election of the new government in Ukraine;
◉ how “THE US IS LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE NEXT ROUND, AND THE NEXT ROUND IS GOING TO BE FOCUSED ON CHINA, beating up Russia is one thing but if Russia is weakened through this conflict, the next target is of course China”
◉ China’s support for Russia stems from China’s need for energy; Russia is part of the Eurasian landmass in line with the Belt & Road Initiative and the Eurasian growth objectives; the strategic assessment of China that Putin is unlikely to bow down to America.
◉ The efforts by the US to stymy the growth of the semiconductor industry in China, how the US accuses the Chinese of being autocratic but yet it is the US that holds on to “might is right” including invading countries, etc.. – “all a matter of big your fist is”.
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
And when the issue arose as to whether he, as president and commander in chief, would transfer MiG-29s to Ukrainians fighting Russians for their independence and freedom, Joe Biden said no.
“The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, don’t kid yourself, no matter what y’all say, that’s called World War III,” Biden told House Democrats in Philadelphia.
Biden was saying that, no matter how noble the cause or how just the war Ukrainians are fighting, his first duty is to America. And as president of the United States, he will put U.S. national interests first and not risk a war with the largest nuclear power on earth.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s reaction:
Biden runs “the most timid, cowardly and pathetic administration in modern American history.”If our “enormous capacity” and “very competent people … were unleashed,” said Gingrich, “we would…end up defeating Putin, and he would end up being ousted from power by his own government. But instead, we are intimidated by him. We allow him to get away with war crimes.”
In this Ukraine war, Gingrich is the interventionist, and Biden is putting his own country, America, first. On this one, put me down with Joe.
GOP Sen. Marco Rubio has also spoken out for America First:
A no-fly zone “means flying AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) 24 hours a day.
That means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky.
That means, frankly, you can’t put those planes up there unless they’re willing to knock out the anti-aircraft systems that the Russians have deployed, and not just in Ukraine, but in Russia and also in Belarus.“So basically a no-fly zone … means World War III.
It means starting World War III.
It’s not some rule you pass that everybody has to oblige by.
It’s the willingness to shoot down the aircrafts of the Russian Federation, which is basically the beginning of World War III.”
While the threat to the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine may be an existential one for that nation, it is no such peril to our nation.
35 percent of Americans support nuclear war with Russia…
Amid crime concerns, wealthy homeowners seek to install panic rooms, with some steel-encased versions running up to $1 million to build while one Malibu project included a secret tunnel out to the beach. From HERE.
Our influx of inquiries has increased more than 1,000 percent over the past three months,” says Dean Cryer, vp international operations at Building Consensus/Panic Room Builders, a firm specializing in the building of safe rooms. “It’s gone insane.”
2022 03 21 10 19
Because of the perceived increase in crime in metropolitan areas and high-profile murders and robberies in high-net-worth neighborhoods like Beverly Hills, “hidden rooms are definitely trending right now,” says Cryer.
In the L.A. area, some houses selling for as low as $4 million or $5 million are being kitted out, particularly spec homes. “I think they are not something that, in an immediate sense, increases value,” says Douglas Elliman real estate agent Greg Holcomb. “But when a buyer is interested in the house anyway, I think it does help [boost interest].”
Real estate agents, though, can never tell casual buyers or appraisers the exact location of a safe room. Often, they can’t mention its existence at all until the property is under contract. “You never know who’s potentially casing a house. The last thing you want to do is show them, ‘Here’s the panic room, and here’s how you access it,’ ” says Jon Grauman of The Agency.
2022 03 21 10 29 6
Holcomb likewise has had to keep mum. “We once had a property and an appraiser come and was measuring the home, and they could not figure out why there was this kind of dead space,” he says. “And we weren’t allowed to tell them what it was. They just had to assume it was dead space, when in fact behind a secret panel was a safe room.”
Secret lifting staircase. Right out of the television show “The Addams Family”…
2022 03 21 10 25
In business for 25 years, Building Consensus/Panic Room (which consulted on the 2002 movie Panic Room) builds various safe spaces ranging in security levels from one through eight. Safe rooms at level three may be protected with Kevlar, while a level eight is encased in thick steel.
2022 03 21 10 28 5
“Just the doors can be 2,000 to 3,000 pounds,” says Cryer. “And then we’re installing steel within the room. So, we’re generating up to 10,000 pounds in a room.”
2022 03 21 10 20
Prices range greatly. “You could kit out a small closet for about $100,000, $150,000. And then it’s north of there. We’ve done one in London that had two rooms, full suites … and that was over a million dollars,” says Cryer, who says the company’s client base consists mostly of billionaires.
2022 03 21 10 28 4
Most rooms are opened with biometrics, usually a finger or retina scan secreted behind a bookcase or hidden wall, and come equipped with panic buttons that automatically call security services.
large Covert Interiors IMG 02012
Cryer says the firm collaborates with security guards and former officials in law enforcement to constantly improve impregnability.
2022 03 21 10 21
There also is an emphasis on comfort. “It’s gone from a steel, cold room where it’s a bunch of cameras,” Cryer says. “Now it’s more of a serene feeling.
Safe room.
We say it’s an everyday use room, which when needed can be turned into a safe haven. So, you wouldn’t know what room in the house was the safe room. You wouldn’t have a clue.”
2022 03 21 10 24
Some safe rooms are designed with all the benefits of an upscale den. “We’ve seen some of them be fitted with a bathroom, some with outlets for cable TV [and] surround sound,” says The Agency’s Emil Hartoonian.
Safe tent for a bioweapon attack.
Some also are used as storage rooms for valuables, and the fanciest safe rooms have toilets and HVAC systems separate from the rest of the house.
2022 03 21 10 28 3
“Within the room itself, you could be in there for up to 24 hours. I mean, it depends where you are in the world. And in most of L.A., you could be waiting a couple of hours before the police get to you,” Cryer says.
2022 03 21 10 22
Some panic room owners are not waiting on the police to arrive, instead taking matters into their own hands. Hartoonian recalls one house he saw in Hidden Hills. “I think there was more artillery in there than probably one of the bunkers of the U.S. Army,” he says. “There were packs of food that wouldn’t go bad for two years.
2022 03 21 10 50
Television, microwave, small bathroom … I mean, it was like a little self-sufficient, almost studio apartment, if you will. Ready to take on the zombie apocalypse.”
2022 03 21 10 27 2
Other buyers are not just interested in staying safe within their homes — they are intent on being able to get out. “We’ve even done bunkers and tunnels. We’ve done a project out in Malibu.
1213981 022216 panicrooms
They wanted a secret tunnel out to the beach. So they could escape, like a secret bunker,” Cryer says.
2022 03 21 10 23
Currently on the market in Pacific Palisades is a six-bedroom, 9,100-square-foot home, listed for $6.995 million with Farah Levi of The Agency, with a safe room that was converted into a screening room. The safe room was installed by a previous owner who was a legal arms dealer.
2022 03 21 10 27
Says Levi, “Our current sellers are the ones who converted the safe room into the theater. My client is in the entertainment business and wanted a great theater in their home, and they felt this was the perfect solution. They spent approximately $150,000 on the theater conversion.”
A safe room from Gaffco
The room has 3-inch-thick steel doors that can close automatically. That feature is still possible should it be necessary at some point. The Retina scan is still operational and can be used to close and open doors; it is no longer registered with the FBI.”
2022 03 21 10 2d3
No one sees the trend in luxe safe rooms ending anytime soon, as security concerns increase and the focus on amenities becomes more important. As Grauman notes, particularly in spec development, the “name of the game is differentiation,” he says. “Panic rooms are just going to be one of those amenities that gets tacked on to every list of, ‘OK, every new home moving forward above x price point must have this.’ “
…
Hum.
Very interesting points of view from both the buyers, and the salespeople. No one is looking at the real SHTF, or REAL crime. You won’t be a waiting some 12 hours for the police to arrive, so much as hoping that your home isn’t burned to the ground, or that a squad of Hell Angels bikers don’t take it over.
Chinese working together
Firemen ask for help. Everyone leaves their homes and goes forth to contribute. Rufus. There is nothing like this is America. video 3MB
Shaken Foreign Volunteers Flee Ukraine After Base Hit by Russian Cruise Missiles — Ex-Marine Reports
“Bro I had fucking thirteen cruise missiles drop on me this morning. We were at the mercy of Russian warplanes.”
“Bro I had fucking thirteen cruise missiles drop on me this morning. We were at the mercy of Russian warplanes.”
“Those of us who left are simply risk-mitigating. No one wants to die in an unfair fight.”
“You quickly realize the preciousness and desire of life compared to the.” meaninglessness of being hit by a a fucking Russian missile.”
“I was laying on the ground this morning praying to a god I don’t believe in that the next one didn’t have my name on it.”
“Being absolutely defenseless and in the open with three aircraft just shitting all over you with such heavy ordinance was a whole new level of helplessness.”
The Ukrainian training center near Lviv where NATO instructors used to train Ukrainian troops is now where Ukrainians are training foreign volunteers (for up to 14 days) before they are sent into battle.
Yesterday the Russians struck the base with cruise missiles. About 35 people were killed. According to an American volunteer and ex-Marine who was there this caused another 60 foreigners to leave immediately.
The witness, who himself fled Ukraine after the strike, reports:
This is where all the foreign legion troops are, the 35 killed were all Ukrainian mostly due to a direct hit on their barracks next to mine.
The base is destroyed, the weapons depot destroyed, possibly the end of the legion. About 60 people with their heads on straight including myself left after the attack. They’re sending untrained guys to the front with little ammo and shit AKs and they’re getting killed. The guys who stayed got bombed again in the afternoon and casualties aren’t clear.If you still want to to join them I’m not sure what the process will be since literally all the infrastructure supporting the training/assignments of volunteers is all destroyed.The guys who are there now will all be going to Kyiv and many will die, the legion is totally outgunned and has a few crazy Ukrainian leaders. After the attack one officer wanted to march everyone to Kyiv and fight. Absolute insanity. Stay home.
He had this to say about the missile strike he experienced. The first in his life despite having served in 2 other wars:
Bro I had fucking thirteen cruise missiles drop on me this morning I am not fucking around. I saw them pulling bodies from the wreckage, I was blown on my ass, I can tell you that the air raid siren did not go off meaning the legion has little to no radar support and absolutely no AA capability. We were at the mercy of Russian warplanes.
Go ahead and join the legion, by all means, but be very aware of how bad Kyiv is going to get and be aware that Russians have warplanes and you will have next to nothing.
Be very acceptant of the possibility of death.
Those of us who left, including SF operators from multiple countries, are simply risk-mitigating. No one wants to die in an unfair fight, and after getting absolutely fucking pummeled by massive cruise missiles today – yeah I kind of want people to think twice before turning their life upside down to go and volunteer.
I’m fucking elated to be alive, we all are. I just wanted to give people a legitimate warning about the what to expect but some people just want to believe things are jacked up.
Morale was pretty good until today. No one thought the base would get bombed due to its proximity to Poland, but after not having any warning of inbound missiles (there’s alarm systems all around the base for that), no effort of anti-aircraft measures, and then no issuing of weapons when the base was potentially under threat for an attack a lot of people were really just left feeling like no one stands a fucking chance, especially when things get real bad in Kyiv.
I spent an hour and a half laying in the mud with my head down expecting a second attack.
Some sirens from another part of base went off at 3:30 am for a short period. But the attack occurred at just about 545 with no warning, and they were in fighter jets so it should have been picked up.
Yeah, it was mostly to kill volunteers or “mercenaries” in Russian media, and to blow up the ammo depot with donated weapons. It was a probe though for sure because they came back in the afternoon and basically finished the job. That’s part of why I left, the base was clearly compromised.
We are all shaken honestly, those fucking missiles were not expected by anyone. And essentially, it’s just a really, really tough fight with little to no truthfulness from either side. It’s so hard to tell what will come of all this and there’s only really room for speculation. I caught a glimpse of the reality and still don’t feel like I understand anything.
This is not my video, nor do I know the volunteer who took it. But it’s the only video I know that exists of the attack, since it was at 545 am and most people ran outside barely wearing clothes. But it does show the absolute terror and force of warplane munitions. Luckily this guy was a good distance away, many people including myself were in close proximity to these blasts. I just want people to know what they’re facing.
I’ll admit I was a little naive myself even having seen some combat previously. I did not expect to be attacked by jets while sleeping in a barracks room on a training base 10 miles from Poland
Luckily they didn’t hit at 7 because we would have been at chow and the chow hall took a direct hit.
I am in Poland! With many other volunteers. I’m man enough to walk away from a situation when my gut tells me so. A lot of us are likely going to assist refugees at the border, because most of us really did come here to help.
Yes morale is pretty bad I mean the whole damn base was destroyed and now the legion is just kind of shoving guys with little training to the front.
Like a lot of dudes there have experience and really wanted to shape the battlefield and impact their advance, but ultimately they’re manning frontline positions that are going to get hammered with artillery and airstrikes, buried under rubble and your family never gets your body. That’s when alot of guys say yeah this isn’t our fight, not like this.
I realized that when I was laying on the ground this morning praying to a god I don’t believe in that the next one didn’t have my name on it. You quickly realize the preciousness and desire of life compared to the meaninglessness of being hit by a a fucking Russian missile
Yeah man I had been mortared before and thought that was pretty gnarly because it’s out of your control ya know, but being absolutely defenseless and in the open with three aircraft just shitting all over you with such heavy ordinance was a whole new level of helplessness.
This is my third war anyways, I think I learned I don’t have that young mentality of being so willing to sacrifice myself. I’ve definitely grown from the experience.
The general consensus was that they wouldn’t drop bombs so close to Poland – I guess we underestimated Putins aggressiveness and willingness to poke the bear.
Also, who really expects a jet to attack them?
That’s part of being naive, of course I knew it was a possibility I was just really fucking hoping it wouldn’t happen to me.
I can say that some dudes were definitely gaslight. I went to be a medic wherever needed and decided to check out if I could contribute to the legion. Got my shit pushed in and decided it wasn’t worth it, not where I can contribute so I left. I feel bad for the fellas whose pride is keeping them there.
The Ukrainian officers would really downplay the possibility of a bombing and I guess I just wanted to believe them,
Haha yeah dude GWOT (Global War On Terror) was definitely it’s own simpler animal than full-scale warfare, no way to get the experience of this shit in Iraq or Afghan!
Like yeaaaap I’ve got a family now maybe I shouldn’t be dodging bombs anymore.
Lesson learned!
After the bombing we spent a couple hours hiding in the woods because of that. They’re stepping things up for sure!
The volunteers talk man. Everyone knows what’s going on, what’s fucked, who’s dying.
Dudes come back from the front for rest and such and tell everyone.No, the legion does not share casualties for shit, they leave the dead at the front and do not make news of it.Nobody I have met were really running headfirst into it, except maybe guys with no experience. The legion was actually amazingly well-put together in some ways, uniforms were great, armor provided, good food.
This made a lot of experienced people expect a legitimate military operation out of the unit, but it’s not like that at all. The actual frontlines operational side is just sloppy and dangerous.Left the legion.
Some are staying to help refugees – some going home.
But it is clear that going to Kyiv with the legion is nearly a fucking death sentence.
A medic died the day after he got to the front, another guy tried shooting an AK at an APC and was killed immediately, a 10 man team was nearly wiped out – 8 killed and 2 crawled away. Your body will not be retrieved from the frontlines either.That was what a lot of people were saying, that they were pushing the legion up to Kyiv as cannon fodder. And how can you argue that when guys are given no training, and AK with no butt stock, and one magazine?
When guys were asking for more ammo a Ukrainian officer said “take it off dead russians”A lot of the guys who left have combat experience because we know better.
The ones who stayed are either completely fucking crazy or are stubborn and don’t want to feel like they wasted their time and money.The cannon fodder term is what was coming out of a lot of volunteers mouths that’s why I mentioned it.
There was a real shift in peoples expectations of being utilized as a unit with operational capabilities vs. the reality of basically being bodies in front of the advancing Russians.The training was apparently 2 weeks, then 10 days and now I think they’re just sending everyone to the front since the base is demolished.
However, when they were training it was dry fire drills, classroom work and obviously some training on whatever specialty they give you.As long as you’re not a complete idiot (one guy showed up drunk and got the boot) yes you can come from 10 years in prison and join.
They don’t take that too serious, and yes there is a contract but it’s meaningless and you can leave at anytime even though it says your contracted to stay for the duration of the conflictThey make you sign a contract that states you’ll serve until the end of the conflict, but if you want to leave an hour later they totally respect that.
The Redditor reporting this is legit. He has a long posting history before this, including about coming over before he did so.
Aftermath footage from the missile attack on barracks of some of the volunteers. Looks like some Redditors got made into chutney pic.twitter.com/DK4EvZCmVP— EnochPowell (@MogTheUrbanite) March 14, 2022
.
This is the Foreign Legion training and accommodation area at the Yavoriv International Center for Peacekeeping and Security just 25 kms/15.53 mph from Polish (NATO) border, that the Russians bombed this morning. #Ukraine#україни#ForeignLegionpic.twitter.com/nrsmX5k5vR— Flaco (@deltoro_flaco) March 13, 2022
For what it's worth . . .
1.) ALL pennies 1982 or older (obviously wheat, and Indian Head pennies have a greater numismatic value), but an average 1982 or older are 95% copper and 5% zinc. TRASH anything after '82 because it's close to the opposite amalgamation (copper coated zinc).
Those '82 pennies are worth $.0307 EACH! Imagine a penny being worth 3 cents! SAVE 'EM FOLKS!
2.) ALL Nickels 2014 and older, because of the increase in the price of nickel recently are worth almost TWICE their face value.
$1.00 of these are currently worth $1.73!
I find it funny that MOST stores currently have a "change shortage".
I think the government is culling as many of these coins as possible, artificially creating this "shortage" while they replace the valuable coins with worthless pieces of SHIT.
NOTE: There are only 2 US coins that are not allowed to be melted down. 1 is the penny, the other is the nickel. (I smell a rat here.)
The ONLY saving grace is you're allowed to melt them down for scientific purposes or demonstrations.
I will personally be SCIENCING the SHIT out of my neighborhood!
Hope this helps if even a bit.
Reference: www.coinflation.com (base metal melt value calculation)
China Tells US They Don’t Care About the Ukraine, Don’t Want to be Badgered with Moral Lectures
Andrew Anglin • March 18, 2022 (Edited to remove racial text.)
Dear Elitists: China is not Andrew Anglin, and they’re not Alex Jones.
You can’t just declare a media war against them, organize a social media moral panic against them, and have them silenced.
Sorry!
It doesn’t work that way.
Attempting to implement domestic moral shaming techniques against the Chinese government actually just makes you look pathetic and weird. I mean, the Distinguished Mr. Jones and myself both believe your moral crusades against us were pathetic and weird, but hey – they worked. You had the ability to unilaterally sanction Anglin and Jones.
But unlike Anglin and Jones, China is a global superpower. You’re going to have to do more than launch a moral shaming campaign in the media.
After weeks of badgering, China just told the US government that they don’t care about the Ukraine, and that US officials are welcome to cry about it.
Beijing maintains an “independent” stance on the Ukraine crisis, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, said during a press conference on Friday. The remark came in response to threats made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who warned China on Thursday that Washington would “impose costs” on it should Beijing choose to support Moscow.Lijian stated that “on the Ukraine issue, China has always acted objectively and impartially and made independent judgments based on the merits of the matter itself.”
Most Chinese statement ever?
The Chinese diplomat also stressed that pressure from Washington would not make Beijing change its stance. He added that some US officials were still trying to spread disinformation regarding China’s position – something Lijian described as irresponsible and not conducive to the resolution of the crisis.In China’s view, the US ought to “seriously reflect on its role in the Ukraine crisis,” as well as “earnestly assume its due responsibilities.” Lijian also called on Washington to “take practical actions to ease the situation and solve the problem, rather than continue to add fuel to the fire.”
Yeah.
Why did you throw that revolution in the country in 2014? Then why did you encourage leaders in the Ukraine to disregard the Minsk agreements and continue to bombard Russians living in the Ukraine?
Why did you continue to send munitions to those neo-Nazi groups doing the bombarding?
Furthermore, to Lijian’s second point: why are you continuing to refuse to even discuss diplomacy, and instead shipping billions in weaponry to the Ukraine?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when the West talks about the "int'l community", they mean: pic.twitter.com/RZNOwDymX2— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 17, 2022
He’s not some dumbass writer for Salon.
The government/media have this massive censorship machine domestically, which they can use to claim that Putin invaded Ukraine because he is pure evil. They can refuse to mention the fact that Putin has offered to completely withdraw the military and let Zelensky remain in power if he agrees to neutrality. But the rest of the world is not the captive audience of CNN, Fox News, and Twitter.
On Friday, US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will hold talks via telephone, with the Ukraine crisis high on the agenda. Biden is expected to repeat warnings made earlier by Blinken regarding any possible actions China may take to “support Russia’s aggression.”On Thursday, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson, Gao Feng, made it clear that China opposed “any form of unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law.” According to the official, such punitive measures “not only fail to resolve security issues, but also harm the lives of ordinary people, disrupt global markets, and make the world’s already slowing economy even worse.”
The Chinese are officially the adults in the room, due to their autistic like ability to simply state the obvious.
The statement came hard on the heels of Jake Sullivan’s warning to China on Sunday, in which Joe Biden’s national security adviser cautioned that Beijing would “absolutely” face consequences should it help Moscow evade Western sanctions.
What do these threats even mean?
Is the US going to attempt to implement the same sanctions they’ve put against Russia on China?
How does everyone think that would work out – banning all Western import of Chinese goods?
Then, according to this new Russian model, they would have to sanction every country that continues to do business with China, which is the whole world.
It is not hyperbolic to state that the current path of the US appears to be towards building an Iron Curtain around America and EU/NATO countries. Because these people in Washington believe they have the ability to totally dominate every country on earth with bullying – they think every country on earth is Iraq – they are setting the stage for them to be completely isolated on the world stage.
At some point, even EU/NATO countries are going to be looking for the exit, as it is clear that this ship is absolutely sinking.
Russia just did tit-for-tat sanctions.
This is from various press releases as the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs site is down, and so far this cannot be confirmed at source :
Appearing at the top of the 13-name list is President Biden, followed by Blinken and Austin. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, CIA Director William Burns, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki are also named. Further down the list, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden’s son Hunter – whose dealings with a Ukrainian energy firm have previously been questioned and criticized – are also included.
Inclusion on the list denies any of these people entry into the Russian Federation. However, the Kremlin’s statement said that Moscow would not rule out contact with American officials “if they meet our national interests.”
More names will be added to the list “in the near future,” the statement continued, warning that “top US officials, military officials, lawmakers, businessmen, experts and media personalities who are Russophobic or contribute to inciting hatred towards Russia” will also be blacklisted.
Update on Sanctions:
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau
and
Russia has officially withdrawn from the Council of Europe.
2nd Update on Sanctions from the Russian Foreign Ministry
15 March 202217:37
Foreign Ministry statement concerning personal sanctions on US senior officials and affiliated persons
513-15-03-2022
In response to a series of unprecedented sanctions that prohibit, among other things, entry to the United States for top officials of the Russian Federation, starting March 15, the Russian stop list includes, on the basis of reciprocity, President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, as well as several agency heads and other prominent US figures.
This step, taken as a response measure, is the inevitable result of the extreme Russophobic policy of the current US Administration.
Obviously, it is an attempt to maintain American global leadership.
As such, it has abandoned any sense of decorum and placed its bets on the head-on containment of Russia.
The list of US citizens included in the stop list is as follows:
1. Joseph Robinette Biden;
2. Antony John Blinken;
3. Lloyd James Austin III;
4. Mark Alexander Milley;
5. Jacob Jeremiah Sullivan, National Security Advisor;
6. William Joseph Burns, Director of the CIA;
7. Jennifer Rene Psaki, White House Press Secretary;
8. Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor;
9. Samantha Jane Power, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development;
10. Robert Hunter Biden, son of the US President;
11. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, former US presidential candidate;
12. Adewale Adeyemo, US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury;
13. Reta Jo Lewis, President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
More announcements will be made soon concerning the expansion of the sanctions list to include other top US officials, military leaders, lawmakers, business executives, experts and media personalities who promote Russophobia or contribute to inciting hatred of Russia or imposing restrictive measures.
These actions will be taken in harmony with the major decisions of the Government of the Russian Federation in finance, banking and other areas to protect the Russian economy and ensure its stable development.
US Space Foundation
A report by Elijah Magnier:
The level of idiocy is beyond any limit:
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, has been stripped of his honours by the #US Space Foundation “in light of current world events".
Proof: The US Created and Weaponized COVID in Ukraine and Georgia as a ‘First Step’
️An analysis of the information received indicates that Ukrainian specialists are not aware of the potential risks of transferring biomaterials.
Here is a document dated March 6, 2015, confirming the Pentagon’s direct participation in the financing of military biological projects in Ukraine.
️According to established practice, American projects in the field of sanitation in third countries, including in Africa and Asia, are funded through national health authorities.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the agreement on joint biological activities was concluded between the US Military Department and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. However, the real recipient of funds are the laboratories of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence located in Kiev, Odessa, Lvov and Kharkov. The total funding amounted to $32 million.
️It is no coincidence that these biolabs were chosen by the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the contractor company Black & Veatch as the executors of the UP-8 project aimed at studying the pathogens of the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis and hantaviruses.
Not at all reported in the Western “news”. China is helping and rebuilding Africa. Cities and ports going up full and complete. Video
Here comes China (and they don’t stop for shit!)
By Amarynth for the Saker Blog and collaborating with Godfree Roberts’ Newsletter, Here Comes China
Biden / Xi Summit.
In perfect Chinese diplomatic terms, it looks like business as usual. Taken outside of the perfect diplomatic terms, it is a true spanking.
Let’s take one paragraph only and remember a few things first:
Washington, as usual, threatened and danced something like the haka and warned Xi not to support Russia in any way or the consequences would be dire for China.
Washington threatened with equally applied sanctions and other dire unmentionables.
Apparently, Washington can support who it wants, but China is in some form prohibited from exactly that.
Hypocritically they want it both ways. That era is over.
A few hours before the ‘summit’, China had a perfectly normal sail-by through the Taiwan Straits of their aircraft carrier Shandong. Yes, this is ‘likely routine’ says their spox. Sure, it was highly likely just routine. It must have been a wonderful day for the Shandong to take a little sail through the Taiwan Straits.
A few hours before the ‘summit’ Global times had an interview with an unnamed official. (Is China playing the US game here by not naming the official?).
This is the take-away:
“The international community can fairly judge who is frank and open and who is up to something, who is easing the situation and who is aggravating tension, who is promoting peace talks and who is pouring fuel on the fire, and who is maintaining peace and stability and who is provoking confrontations between blocs.”
Xi Jinping made a pre-summit statement:
Countries should not come to the point of meeting on the battlefield.
Conflict and confrontation are not in anyone’s interest.
Peace and security are what the international community should treasure the most.
So, this is the milieu that Biden walked into at the online summit. We must know by now what this is all about.
None of the boring line-up of US representatives could bend China to their will to support sanctions against Russia, so, time for a Presidential Summit to yet again attempt to split China and Russia.
This is how perfectly ridiculous this attempt is:
Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
Here is how it went:
President Biden expounded on the US position and expressed readiness for communication with China to prevent the situation from exacerbating.
Simply said:
How can we make a deal so that the US/Nato alliance remains a unipolar world and all others (including you) must be subservient.
President Xi pointed out that China does not want to see the situation in Ukraine to come to this. China stands for peace and opposes war. This is embedded in China’s history and culture.
Simply said:
Hey Biden, mistake number one! You do not know who you are talking to, but now I’m going to tell you...
[1] China makes a conclusion independently based on the merits of each matter.
[2] China advocates upholding international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations.
[3] China adheres to the UN Charter and promotes the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. These are the major principles that underpin China’s approach to the Ukraine crisis.
[4] China has put forward a six-point initiative on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, and is ready to provide further humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and other affected countries.
[5] All sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace.
Simply stated:
This is the crux of the matter and seemingly you are unable to grasp it!
The continue…
The US and NATO should also have dialogue with Russia to address the crux of the Ukraine crisis and ease the security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine.
Message:
Go away and take your position and money with you!
You had your opportunity and you became a warmaker, coercing others to your will.
Enough is enough!
We have principles, law and morals and ethical standards.
You hold on to ‘positions’ favorable to you only.
China is active in the EU as well and the discussion does not remain dry and diplomatically correct.
China is playing into its strengths, saying what is correct in terms of its own national interest and it happens to co-incide with that of the non-insane world.
The spokespeople are highly educated, clear, exceptionally well-spoken, and smart. They also mercilessly dig in the knife when opportunity shows. In a recent press conference. CCTV:
US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that the US is concerned about Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure which caused civilian casualties.
However, China has yet to state its position explicitly.
How does the foreign ministry view such criticism from other countries on China?
Zhao Lijian:
Human lives are precious.
Civilian casualties under all circumstances are heart-rending and lamentable.
China has all along called for every effort to avoid civilian casualties.
We still remember that in March 1999, the US-led NATO, without the Security Council’s mandate, flagrantly unleashed a ruthless bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, killing at least 2,500 innocent civilians and injuring around 10,000 people, most of them civilians.
Over the past two decades or so, the US conducted tens of thousands of air strikes in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
The number of innocent civilians killed can be anywhere between 22,000 and 48,000.
When professing its concern for the welfare of the Ukrainian people, shouldn’t the US first express concern over the civilian casualties caused by all these military operations?
I particularly enjoyed this vignette:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that any support to Russia, military or any other type of support, would actually help Russia conduct a brutal war against an independent sovereign nation, Ukraine, and help them to continue to wage war which is causing death, suffering and an enormous amount of destruction.
This was the comment of the Chinese spokesperson:
Chinese people can fully relate to the pains and sufferings of other countries because we will never forget who bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
China does not need a lecture on justice from the abuser of international law.
As a Cold War remnant and the world’s largest military alliance, NATO continues to expand its geographical scope and range of operations.
What kind of role has it played in world peace and stability?
NATO needs to have a good reflection.
Currency
Against this backdrop, the news filtered out about The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China designing a new monetary and financial system bypassing the U.S. dollar.
It is being supervised by Sergei Glazyev and intended to compete with the Bretton Woods system which is now less than 50% of the currency flow in the world.
While news is still very scarce on this front, it fulfilled the purpose of telling Biden once again to go away if US/NATO cannot be a serious contender to building a peaceful and prosperous world.
Godfree Roberts, in his last newsletter, did an overview of the major historical milestones. I am not sure if the concept of a special drawing rights fiat currency revaluated regularly against a basket of currencies will be the way this rolls out. Stand by! Much more incoming! We will see.
DOLLAR’S END – Farewell, Inordinate Privilege
Goodbye USD.
Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar says Ukraine triggered a perfect storm in commodities that could weaken the Eurodollar system, contribute to inflation in Western economies, and threaten their financial stability. Pozsar said China’s central bank is uniquely placed to backstop such crisis, paving the way for a much stronger yuan. Reuters, Mar. 13, 2022.
Saudi Arabia Considers Accepting Yuan Instead of Dollars for Chinese Oil Sales: Talks between Riyadh and Beijing have accelerated as the Saudi unhappiness grows with Washington. WSJ, Mar. 14, 2022
–o0o–
In 2009, after helping to rescue the US from the GFC, Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the Peoples Bank of China, said,
“The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
After helping rescue America from the GFC, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan observed,
“The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
Zhou proposed SDRs, Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic reserve currency dynamically revalued against a basket of trading currencies and commodities. Broad, deep, stable, and impossible to manipulate.
Nobelists Fred Bergsten, Robert Mundell, and Joseph Stieglitz approved:
“The creation of a global currency would restore a needed coherence to the international monetary system, give the IMF a function that would help it to promote stability and be a catalyst for international harmony”.
Here’s what’s happened since:
2012: Beijing began valuing the yuan against a currency/commodity basket
2014: The IMF issued the first SDR loan
2016: The World Bank issued the first SDR bond
2017: Standard Chartered Bank issued the first commercial SDR notes.
2019: All central banks began stating currency reserves in SDRs
Mar. 14, 2022:
“In two weeks, China and the Eurasian Economic Union – Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan – will reveal an independent international monetary and financial system. It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices”.
The currency resembles Keynes’ invention Special Drawing Rights.
SDRs are a synthetic currency which derives its value from a global, publicly traded basket of currencies and commodities. Immense beyond imaging, and stable as the Pyramids. Everyone gets a seat at the table and a vote. It may eventually be administered by an arm of the UN.
SDRs pose a serious alternative to the US dollar, both for the EAEU, the BRI’s 145 member states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN, and the RCEP.
Middle East countries, including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, are keenly interested.
Less well known is that the EAEU, the BRI, the SCO, ASEAN, and the RCEP were discussing a merger before the currency news hit.
It is reasonable to expect them to join this new, cooperatively managed, stable reserve currency regime in which they can settle their trades in stable, neutral, predictable SDRs.
Biological labs
China is not losing any opportunity to bring this front and center. This is their last list of questions:
If the concerns are “disinformation”, why doesn’t the U.S. release detailed materials to prove its innocence? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What did the U.S. spend the $200 million on? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What kind of research has the U.S. conducted on which pathogens? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What is it trying to hide when the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine deleted all relevant documents on its website? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
Why does the U.S. insist on being the only country in the world to oppose the establishment of a multilateral verification mechanism though it claims to abide by the Biological Weapons Convention? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
On January 21, 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) released its data for “China’s investments and cooperation in countries along the Belt and Road” covering the period of January to December 2021.
According to these data, Chinese enterprises invested about US$20.3 billion in non-financial direct investments in countries “along the Belt and Road”.
Furthermore, there were 560 newly signed projects with a contract value of over US$100 million.
For this report, the definition of BRI countries includes 142 countries that had signed a cooperation agreement with China to work under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative by the end of 2021.
To analyze investments in these countries, we base our data on the China Global Investment Tracker and our own data research at the Green Finance & Development Center affiliated with Fudan University, Shanghai. As with most data, they tend to be imperfect.
Chinese joke
On a somewhat of a lighter note:
The Chinese Netizens are in the majority siding with Russia so completely and so enthusiastically, that China’s WeChat and Douyin had to crack down on vulgar jokes and netizens were told in no uncertain terms that they cannot make fun of international news events. The very high support for Russia is becoming a clear talking point despite the somewhat muted and correct Chinese diplomatic statements.
So, here is a joke for you.
Bear and Dragon take a walk in the gardens.
Bear is a little overcome with his serious responsibilities in the world and presents emotionally somewhat tired and despondent.
As the walk proceeds, Dragon says to Bear .. Out with it! What has you so despondent?
Bear thinks a moment and says: We’ve been friends for a long time. So, if I need a very large amount of money very quickly, will you give it to me?
Dragon, known for taking time to ponder the imponderables, walks on for a while and then comes to a firm stop.
NO, says Dragon, I will not give it to you!Bear’s shoulders fall .. but Dragon continues:
I will lend it to you. 1.5 trillion the moment you ask for it, no interest, no repayment terms, pay me back when you can.
Another China-Russia joke
Bear walks into Dragon’s fabulous temple of goods.
Bear is overwhelmed, and asks, timidly,
“I need some of you wonderful items. All I have is rubles. Can you sell me some?”
Rubles!” cries Dragon.
“Your rubles are no good here! And I will turn my back on you for asking such an absurd thing and NOT turn around until you have left the temple. The Shopping carts are over there.”
From Russian MOD.
During a special military operation, an employee of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) Main Directorate for Donetsk and Lugansk regions voluntarily surrendered to Russian servicemen.
▫️This officer was directly involved in organizing the training of sabotage and terrorist groups to work in areas liberated from the nationalists.
▫️The SSU officer provided detailed information regarding all persons involved in conducting sabotage activities on the territory of Donbass.
▫️I bring to the attention of all persons recruited by the SSU that voluntary renunciation of criminal activity and timely notification of it to law enforcement agencies releases from criminal liability.
▫️In addition, the SSU officer reported on terrorist acts planned by militants of the nationalist Azov battalion in Lvov against employees and facilities of diplomatic missions of the United States and other Western countries.
▫️I want to emphasize that the leadership of the Kiev regime is aware of the plans of the nationalists, but does not take any action to prevent their implementation.
▫️The Kiev nationalist regime plans to present attacks on diplomatic facilities of the United States and Western countries as an alleged targeted attack by the Russian Armed Forces.
▫️The main purpose of the provocation is to increase pressure on NATO countries to introduce a no-fly zone over Ukraine and provide additional weapons.
Chinese girl
These are not evil nasty filthy people, like what is being portrayed in the Western “news”. They are just regular people. Like me. Like you. video 4MB
Bio-World War 3! Has It Already Started?
Kevin Barrett interviews Ron Unz.
Russia and China have accused the US of riddling Ukraine—and the world—with biological weapons. Both nations are echoing (between the lines) Iran’s charge that the US unleashed the COVID-19 pandemic in a botched biological attack on Wuhan and Qom. Are we already in the middle of BioWW3?!
Russia uses a Hyper-velocity missile to destory a Ukraine warehouse
Kinzhal, which means ‘dagger’ in English, was used by the Russian military for the first time since the start of the Ukrainian conflict on February 24.
Those munitions are said to be able to penetrate any existing air defenses by traveling at a whopping speed of up to Mach 10 and constantly maneuvering during their flight.
Kinzhal missiles are carried by MiG-31K supersonic interceptor aircraft, which NATO calls ‘Foxhound’.
The hardware is one of several hypersonic systems prepared for the country’s military in recent years, together with the Avangard glider, which is fitted on silo-based ICBMs, and Zircon (Tsirkon) missiles, developed for the navy.
2022 03 20 19 35
This warehouse was full of the latest high-technology weapons delivered by NATO and the United States to attack Russia.
This was a high-value target of great importance.
Because it was so well defended with American anti-aircraft and misslile defenses, the Russians used the Kinzhal aviation missile system (Hyper-velocity missile) that is immune to Western air defenses.
At about 2:45 this morning, nestled all comfy in bed with my wife, we were woken up by the beeping sounds of the Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) going off in the house. The electric went out.
Now for me, it’s no big deal. For my wife . . . she uses an oxygen concentrator, and it was shut down.
Mind you, she was breathing just fine, but for some reason known only to God, the fact that the electric was off, and the Oxygen concentrator was off, made my wife start to get nervous. “What if I can’t breathe????” she asked. (Having been married 30 years, I understood this as “wife talk” meaning “do something about this right now.”)
So I stumble outta bed, grab a little flashlight from the dresser and make my way out to the kitchen/dining room, grab a lighter and light a candle on the dining room table.
At my suggestion, my mom had long ago purchased oil lanterns and I grabbed one off the mantle over the wood burning stove, and lit it. Then I took another and lit it, placing it in the living room, which helped give a glimmer of light to all the downstairs rooms.
Next step, get dressed. If I’m going to fix this, I __have__ to hook up the generator outside. So I get dressed, grab the keys to the shed and a larger flashlight, and out I go. It’s raining. Thunderstorm. Probably the reason the lights went out.
I get over to the shed, unlock it, and have to lug this 300+ pound Westinghouse 15KW generator, across the yard, over gravel, to the area of the house where the generator inlet is mounted. I get there, take the cover off the generator, and see the little yellow “BATTERY” light is on. The main switch must have tuned on when we unloaded it from my pick up truck a couple weeks ago. I figured “Oh great, watch it has a dead battery.”
This generator is electric start ONLY, there is no pull to manually start it.
So I go in the house, turn off the main circuit breaker, and then each of all the other breakers, and then I turn ON the breaker the generator is wired into from the outside. (The reason for shutting off the main breaker is to disconnect the whole house from the power grid. If a person fails to do that, then tries to start the generator, it will try to power the whole power grid as it’s trying to start, and will not start. The reason I choose to turn off all the individual circuit breakers is to ease the generator into powering the whole house. I don’t want it subjected to everything trying to grab power at the same time.)
I go back outside and connect the big 50 amp power wire to the house then to the generator, and go inside and press the start button on the generator’s remote control. It cranks, stops. I press start again, it cranks, and kicks-over into running mode! I read the gauges: 120 Volts and 240 volts at 60 hertz. YEEEE HAAAAA!
I go back in the house and, one at a time, turn each of the individual circuit breakers (But NOT the main) back on. Full power available to everything.
So I put my cell phone on charge. I had failed to do that when I went to sleep and it only had 39% charge. As I put the phone on charge I see two missed calls. One from ADT Burglar Alarm, the other from the Pennsylvania State Police. OH SHIT, I forgot to disarm the silent alarm when I opened the back door to go outside for the generator ! ! ! ! ! I feel like a total idiot.
So I call the State Troopers, and they said “You will have to call the alarm company and give them the pass code and they will call to cancel us.” I call ADT and get them to cancel the cops.
I microwave a cup of coffee that was still in the pot from yesterday, and sit down at this computer to do this personal “adventure” article . . . and the generator shuts off. The whole house goes dark. UH OH.
It turned out that my son and I only put enough gasoline in it to test it out when the generator first arrived at my condo in North Bergen, NJ. I never fully gassed it up. So I grab a five gallon gas can and put the whole thing in. I come inside, shut off all the individual circuit breakers again and press start on the remote. It cranks and stops. I press it again, it cranks and stops. Third time, it kicks-over and runs.
All is good again.
As a side note, when I went outside to fill the gas, I heard some animal in the distance screech out a death-type screech. I thought to myself, “Wow, something just got killed.” It was THAT type of screech.
Out there somewhere in the dark woods, one thing attacked another thing, probably to eat it. And nothing cared. No one came running to save it. No other creature intervened.
Something lived and ate, while something else died suddenly and brutally, to become food for the attacker.
Nature. It does not give a shit about me, you, or anything else. Survival of the fittest. Period end.
And THAT . . . that right there . . . is why I prep. It’s why I tell my readers and my radio audience to prep. Because in the final analysis, nature does not give a shit if ANY of us live or die. Nature does not care if I or my family eat or go hungry. Nature does not care if I have electric or not. Nature does not give a shit at all.
It is up to ME to plan. I . . . have to be ready. If not for myself, then for my family.
Because only those who prepare for what we all see coming, will even have a CHANCE at surviving.
More movement of nukes in the UK
Nuclear convoy ‘carrying several warheads’ travels 400 miles to UK arms depot – Mirror Online
From an American volunteer on the front lines outside of Kyiv:
“Sitting close to the frontline, the last safe mode of transportation leaves for greener pastures. A core group of about 30 foreign fighters remains out of around 200 people who were here just minutes ago. The base we came from was struck by rockets in the early morning hours. People we lived with for a couple days are confirmed dead. It is only a matter of time before our location is targeted. We are about to be cut off by a Russian tank column any day now.”“Food, water, and ammunition dwindle slowly. The mood is somber, people are sending their last messages to friends and family.”“Where is NATO? Where is the supposed good of western civilization?”
An important note: this American is a special ops veteran who completed combat deployments to Afghanistan. [The perfect person to tell Russians it’s wrong to occupy countries.]
He came to Ukraine before Russia’s full-scale war on Feb. 24.
He is an experienced, well-trained soldier who gave up his lucrative career in the US in order to help Ukraine
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Only people with SHIT FOR BRAINS would ever think of sanctioning China. What are you? A moron, an idiot, a deranged sadist? An ignorant doo-doo head (Bill Crosby reference) a psychopath with delusions of grandeur? What?
Just fucking stupid. That’s what.
You must be in some kind of absolute echo-chamber talking over and over again just how God-damn great you are to believe such horse manure.
You’re not great.
You are not exceptional.
You are a piece of shit that is farmed for your labor. That’s it and the ONLY reason that you don’t revolt is because you are too fat and happy with the crumbs that the government gives you to sustain your pitiful existence.
Still here?
Paint me “surprised”.
I tried posting this article a couple of times, and found it automatically blocked, shadowbanned, and de-listed from Google. I then rewrote it to includes food, and other items. Ai yah. But, you know, personal MM experience has shown this methodology to be very effective in getting around the Google censorship engines, and the NSA troll armies.
What do you know, eh?
Who would figure?
It works. If you are so childish that you cannot handle multible subjects in a singular article, you can leave. Go. No skin off my back. I don’t give a fuck.
Before we get to the “meat” of the article; Chinese reverse sanctions on American sanctions, we will talk about something fun. That will throw off the American censor engines.
We start with food.
For those of you who are new to MM, please let it be understood that MM content is banned in the West. If you can find it, you are truly lucky. And our workaround here is to mix politically-charged subjects with other common everyday subjects that tend to confuse the censorship engines.
Oh, man. Do they hate it.
It just messes with the algorithms. It cannot handle it.
Maybe you might not like it, but it does work. It works spectacularly.
Actually.
We are going to really freak out the gung-ho American “ready to die” for freedom™ cadre with a Russian dish of quite delicious food. Buckle up. This post is gonna be FUN.
Russian posikunchiki
Can you pronounce it? I can’t.
Look at this. Come on. Doesn’t it look delicious? You eat it with whipped creme cheese. And wash it down with vodka. Good tasty vodka. Or beer. Icy, frosty, cold beer. Good stuff too. Nothing less than 5% (which you cannot get in the USA. Banned “for the children, don’t you know”)…
Most Americans cannot drink alcohol. If they are in a corporate environment, and their diversity officer, or HR, finds out that they smoked or drank at home, they could easily lose their job.
Fact.
Jack.
It’s called “American freedom” don’t you know. Woo Woo!
Freedom™.
Russian posikunchiki
Yum.
Smunch. Crunch. Eat ’em all up. Happiness and tummy satisfaction.
.
These small juicy meat pies are the first thing tourists are advised to try in the Perm Region around the Urals. But you can make them wherever you are.
The region of the Ural is well-known for its harsh, cold winters and continental climate. Traditionally, meat, thick solid soups, and nourishing pies were cooked there. One of the most outstanding dishes is posikunchiki.
Posikunchiki are an old dish of the Ural cuisine, mainly of the Perm and the north-west of the Sverdlovsk regions. The name was given to small fried pies, whose size is approximately equal to a luscious fat dumpling. They are made from unleavened dough and fried in a large amount of oil.
The key thing that distinguishes posikunchiki from other pastries is an incredibly juicy filling. In many ways, this notable trait and the cooking method makes them similar to chebureki.
Posikunchiki comes from the Russian verb “sicat’” (“to splash”) – because the pie splashes juice while you take a bite of it. They are also called posekunchiki – from the Russian verb “sech’” (“to dice/slice/shred”), because the filling for them is finely chopped, but not mixed in a meat grinder. But whatever the etymology, the popularity of these little cute pies has long transcended the boundaries of their historical homeland, and spread to other Russian regions.
The stuffing consists of lamb, beef or pork.
In general, there are a lot of different variations. At the same time, in every Ural city or village, you will surely be told that their posikunchiki represent the most authentic and correct variant, and all the other recipes are fake or just new.
Maybe.
I’ll just have to go visit a bunch of them and try for myself.
No one can remember exactly when this dish appeared. But many people remember that their grandmothers often cooked these mini-pies. And who, really who, can doubt a darn kindly old grandmother? Eh?
The locals remember the peculiar taste of fresh meat (often of wild animals, such as elks) grinded in a mincer from childhood, but many residents of Russia can’t even imagine what it is.
Today, I suggest we cook this dish with minced meat from a local shop. It will take us about four hours.
If you are an American, you use “hamburger”. If you are British or Australian, you use “mince”.
Ingredients (for eight portions):
Ingredients (for eight portions).
Yeah.
For the dough:
Flour – 600-700 g
Milk – 250 ml
Egg – 1 piece
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Sugar – 1 tbsp
For the filling:
Minced meat (pork and beef)- 600 g
Onion – 1 piece
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Black pepper – 1/2 teaspoon
Water – 200 ml
Vegetable oil for frying
Preparation:
1. To begin, we’ll prepare the dough, as it needs to rest 30 minutes before we start working with it. Combine the egg with sugar and salt. Mix well.
Make the dough.
2. Gradually add warm milk to that mass and mix again.
Add milk gradually.
3. Portionwise, add flour to the mass and knead the dough carefully and meticulously with your hands until it turns into an elastic ball. Knead it at least for 10 minutes, then put in a bag for 20-30 minutes, and into the refrigerator.
Make the dough.
4. While the dough is resting, we’ll prepare the filling. Chop the onion into small cubes, then add to the minced meat.
Dough Ball.
5. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Mix well. Add some water. Minced meat should resemble thick sour cream in consistency, but it shouldn’t be liquid. Note that the minced meat must be juicy so that there is broth in the posikunchiki. During the preparation, the minced meat gradually thickens, so if necessary, add water and salt to the minced meat to taste.
Season the meat with salt and pepper.
6. Roll the dough and cut it into 28-30 pieces. Roll each into a small bun, and then roll out into a diameter of 10 cm. Put 1 tablespoon of the filling on one half of the rolled-out bun, cover with the other half.
Mostly meat inside a thin shell.
7. Pinch well with a fork on one side so that the broth does not leak while frying.
Pinch with a fork.
Fry in a skillet.
Fry.
8. Fry each posikunchik on each side for 2-3 minutes until golden brown.
Fry in a skillet.
9. Posikunchiki are ready to be served at the festive table.
10. Enjoy!
Ural posikunchiki.
Oh, and lets not forget the alcohol.
Beer. Wine. Vodka.
It’s all GOOD!
A time for smunch! is a time to eat!
Now let’s talk about Chinese anti-sanction systems designed to counter American sanctions
I watched a FOX “news” segment this morning. There, an “expert” was advocating that America (United States) put sanctions on China for being friends with Russia. And in reading the comments, the vast majority agreed with him.
…”fools”, you all deserve what will happen. China is really, really READY for this. They have been for over a year now. They say, “let it happen”, and I agree with them.
Go for it, you idiotic morons.
Although it contains only 16 articles, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law establishes, for the first time, a wide-ranging legal infrastructure and legislative base aimed at retaliating against sanctions imposed by foreign governments.
Specifically the United States.
However, even before the enactment of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law as legal basis, the Ministry of Commerce (hereinafter “MOFCOM”) inter alia issued two measures as tools against possible effects by foreign laws and sanctions.
These are;
[1] The MOFCOM Decree No. 4 [2020] on Provisions on the List of Unreliable Entities and
[2] The MOFCOM Decree No. 1 [2021] on Rules on Counteracting Unjustified Extraterritorial Application of Foreign Legislation and Other Measures (hereinafter “Blocking Statute”).
Thus, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law confirms the legislative authority for existing measures and creates room for expanded measures in the future.
Background: I watched a short clip from FOX “news”.
As above.
In that clip, “experts”, “political pundits” and “knowledgeable advisers” are strongly urging that President Biden enact sanctions against China for being friendly to Russia. While many Americans agree with this point of view, the consequences are never addressed. Here, we will address the consequences of such a move.
Let it be well understood that China has long prepared for this moment.
Two to three years ago, they passed the anti-sanction retaliation law. It is directly custom tailored to addressing the day when the United States starts sanctioning China (for one reason or the other).
Specifically, it is designed to inflict the most [1] economic damage, [2] social damage, [3] personal damage, and [4] Geopolitical damage possible upon the United States and it’s (poor excuse) for “leadership”.
The most damage.
Economic.
Personal.
Social.
Geopolitical.
Upon the United States, and the individuals involved in the sanction effort against China.
What most people do not realize is how absolutely economically tethered to China, that the United States is.
They think, erroneously, that American can trade, instead, with Germany, Korea, Japan, or any other nation. Forgetting, of course, that those nations simply take Chinese products and slap their name-brands on them.
But if they sanction China, all that trade will end.
Not just trade with the USA, but all the trade with it’s alternative sources of supply.
No more manufactured products.
None.
Bye bye.
…
No more electonics.
None. Bye bye.
…
No more medicine.
None. Bye bye.
…
The Chinese anti-sanction law is specifically designed to counter AMERICAN sanctions. It is designed to automatically go, and be engaged immediate upon the implementation of sanctions, and noone, not even Xi Peng, can stop the tidal wave of repercussions.
You can read the details here, but really, I’m just going to lay out the visceral facts.
Yeah. It's dry with translations of wordly Chinese leagalese, and all that. But just skim over the presentation.
Learn something for a change.
On a Personal Level… on individuals
You all had best hope to NEVER leave the United States. Once you cross the protected shores, the Chinese will fucking hunt you down.
They will, with client nation help, extract you from your aircraft, and haul you into China for justice and punishment.
Sentencing is a foregone conclusion and the judicial process is mostly a formality.
Punishment will consist of [1] dealing with organ harvesting, and [2] hard labor in deep, dark salt mines.
They are not evil. You will be able to have at least a six-hour rest a night, and be able to eat basic(but healthy) meals of rice, and chicken-feet if you work hard enough.
Sentencing involves death or life in this environment.
This includes you and everyone in your family as well. Including little children. They go to kiddie labor camps.
On June 10, 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China enacted the Anti-foreign Sanctions Law (“AFSL”), which came into effect as of the date of enactment.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These guys are from Indonesia.
As China’s latest legislative countermeasure against economic sanctions of the U.S., E.U., U.K, and other jurisdictions, AFSL will have significant impact on Chinese subsidiaries and branches of foreign enterprises.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from Mexico.
As well as foreign persons (entities and individuals) doing business in China or with Chinese individuals and companies.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This man is from Scotland.
I. Overview of the AFSL
A. Who will be listed in the Countermeasures List?
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This man is from Bolivia. He must have spilt some taco sauce on his shirt. Careless fellow.
The relevant departments of the State Council may decide to include in the Countermeasures List (the “List”) the individuals and organizations that have directly or indirectly participated in the formulation, decision on or implementation of discriminatory restrictive measures of foreign governments.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This man is from England. Billionaire oligarch.
In addition, the relating parties of persons in the List may also face countermeasures, including:
The spouse and lineal relatives of the individuals included in the List
Senior executives or actual controllers of the organizations included in the List;
Organizations that have individuals included in the List acting as senior executives; and
Organizations actually controlled by individuals or organizations that are included in the List or have participated in the establishment and operation thereof.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This chick is from France. She doesn’t look too happy. But she should be. She’s alive, isn’t she?
B. What are the countermeasures?
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from Australia.
The relevant departments of the State Council of China may, depending on the actual situation, take one or more of the following measures against persons included in the List.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from the Phillippines.
Here’s a selection of just some of the measures;
Denial of visa issuance, denial of entry, deregistration of visa or deportation;
Seizure, distraining or freezing of movable property, immovable property and other types of property within the territory of China;
Prohibiting or restricting the organizations or individuals within the territory of China from conducting relevant transactions, cooperation or other activities with them; and
Other necessary measures not listed.
For the last fifteen years, China has been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. This guy is from America.
China does not play. They will track you down, and they will work with the regional authorties to secure you and haul ou to China for organ harvesting, rehabilitation, and hard labor punishment.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. These people are from Brazil.
C. What are the legal consequences for violating the AFSL?
The organizations and individuals within the territory of China shall carry out the countermeasures taken by the relevant departments of the State Council.
Organ harvesting is a mature procedure in Chinese prisons. It’s fast, quick, and routine.
Any organization or individual failing to do so will be punished by the relevant departments of the State Council in accordance with the law, and such organization or individual will be restricted or prohibited from engaging in the relevant activities.
If a Chinese entity fails to enforce these laws, they will be punished harshly.
For the last fifteen years, they have been tracking down criminals all over the world. No one is immune. Unknown where these guys were from.
Where any organization or individual implements or assists in implementing the discriminatory restrictive measures taken by any foreign state against Chinese citizens or organizations and infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of any citizen or organization of China, the Chinese citizen or organization may bring a lawsuit, seeking cessation of the infringement and compensation for the losses.
Any Chinese citizen can, under any pretense, ask for compensation against any person or their family targeted by this law.
Where any organization or individual fails to implement or cooperate in implementing the countermeasures, it/he will be subject to legal liability in accordance with the law.
Captured in Cambodia, these criminals are going back to China for organ harvesting and hard labor. They are just happy to be alive.
Oh, and in case you think that you can avoid the long-arm of China if you patiently hide long enough. Think again.
II. The Impact of the AFSL on Foreign Companies
A. Foreign companies participating in sanctions against China might endure countermeasures imposed by the Chinese government.
Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death. He accepts his fate as a man. This is the Chinese way.
Foreign companies directly or indirectly involved in the formulation, decision on, or implementation of discriminatory sanctions against Chinese persons may be added to the List. The main effects on foreign companies on the List will be as follows:
Firstly, senior executives or actual controllers of foreign companies on the List may not be allowed to enter China for business trips to perform their duties.
Secondly, assets of foreign companies on the List and foreign companies with individuals on the List acting as their senior executives or actual controllers will likely be blocked.
Thirdly, foreign companies on the List and foreign companies with individuals on the List acting as their senior executives or actual controllers might be prohibited from dealing with individuals and entities in China.
Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death. Secured from his office, he is not permitted to have a tie or a suit jacket.
B. Foreign companies might be caught in a compliance dilemma between AFSL and foreign sanctions.
After the implementation of the AFSL, foreign companies are subject to both the obligation to comply with discriminatory sanctions imposed by other countries, and the requirement not to enforce foreign discriminatory sanctions and to enforce China’s countermeasures under the AFSL.
Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death.
Complying with the discriminatory sanctions against China may violate the AFSL, while complying with the AFSL may violate the discriminatory sanction regulations of other countries as well.
Boss of a multi-billion dollar company, arrested, and sentenced to hard labor and then death.
This will probably put foreign companies in a compliance dilemma and substantially increase their compliance difficulties and costs.
EU Blocking Statute
The aim of the EU Blocking Statute is to counteract the unlawful effects of extraterritorial sanctions of third countries on ‘EU persons’, which term is generally understood to include EU nationals, EU-incorporated companies (including EU subsidiaries of U.S. companies but not branches of U.S. companies as these have no distinct legal personality) and non-EU nationals residing or doing business in the EU.
It's not just the United States that is targeted, bt the European Union is targeted specifically as well.
The list of extraterritorial legislation to which the EU Blocking Statute applies is given in the Annex and currently consists of U.S. measures concerning Cuba and Iran.
No one is immune. This man was living in Laos.
Article 2 of the EU Blocking Statute requires EU persons to notify the European Commission of any effect on their economic and/or financial interests caused by a measure that is listed as blocked in the Annex. Article 4 of the EU Blocking Statute prevents any judgment or administrative decision outside the EU which gives effect, directly or indirectly, to a blocked measure from being recognised or enforced in the EU in any manner.
Money won’t protect you. Nor will your “connections” to the US government. Here’s Jimmy Lai after being sentenced to hard labor. The USA just stood by and watched him be sentenced to organ harvesting and hard labor. So much for his connection to the US Senate. LOL!
Article 5 of the EU Blocking Statute prohibits EU persons (either directly or through a subsidiary or other intermediary) from complying with any requirement or prohibition based on or resulting, directly or indirectly, from a blocked measure.
If the United States places sanctions on China, and a European nation obeys the sanctions, the entire body of the law would then also apply to the aforesaid nation.
However, pursuant to articles 7 and 8 of the EU Blocking Statute, EU persons may apply for authorisation from the European Commission to comply with such requirement or prohibition if non-compliance would seriously damage their interests or the wider interests of the EU.
You can apply.
You can.
But whether or not mercy will be granted will depend on your association with the United States government.
Here’s an arrest in the EU. The EU are cowards and would do absolutely nothing and they have a long history of allowing the Chinese to come and seize anyone they fucking want out of the EU.
If an EU person has suffered any damages caused by the application of a blocked measure or by actions based thereon or resulting therefrom, article 6 of the EU Blocking Statute allows such EU person to recover the damages, including legal costs.
Provided that there are no sanctions on China.
Get it?
CEOs and other businessmen will be hunted down by the Chinese, and incarcerated in a humane, but uncomfortable period, as per the law.
A basic understanding of the EU Blocking Statute sheds some light on the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, since both laws are aimed at counteracting the impact of the extraterritorial jurisdiction of foreign sanctions on persons within their territory.
CEOs and other businessmen will be hunted down by the Chinese, and incarcerated in a humane, but uncomfortable period, as per the law.
Scope of application
Unlike the EU Blocking Statute, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law does not currently provide a list of extraterritorial legislation which is subject to the application of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law.
CEOs and other businessmen will be hunted down by the Chinese, and incarcerated in a humane, but uncomfortable period, as per the law.
However, the second paragraph of article 3 states that if any foreign country acts in violation of international law and basic norms of international relations and, on the basis of their domestic laws or any other pretext, contains or suppresses the PRC, takes discriminatory or restrictive measures against PRC citizens or interferes with the PRC’s internal affairs, the PRC has the right to take corresponding countermeasures.
Things can escalate quickly and broadly. Once initiated, a caustious EU should be "walking on egg shells".
As regards the application of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, article 11 requires organisations and individuals within the territory of the PRC to comply with the countermeasures imposed by the relevant departments of the State Council.
Any Chinese entity that fails to abide by the counter sanctions will be punished in the harshest manner possible.
The departments can restrict or prohibit any organisation or individual found to be in violation of the countermeasures from engaging in the activities concerned. It is important to note that there is no definition of ‘organisations and individuals within the territory of the PRC’ in the text of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, so whether branches of foreign companies in the PRC which have no distinct legal personality are also subject to the law is arguably unclear pending further provisions or clarifications from the relevant departments of the State Council.
China’s rules are tough but fair. After fourty years in the salt mines, industry greats like Bill Gates and Elon Musk can start again a new.
Further, there is no express provision regarding an authorisation or licence regime under the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law that may entitle such organisations or individuals to seek an exemption allowing for compliance with the extraterritorial legislation.
Although the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law does not appear to have extraterritorial effect on non-PRC persons, it is also relevant to non-PRC persons. Under article 4, the relevant departments of the State Council may decide to put any persons or organisations that directly or indirectly participate in drafting, approving or implementing any of the discriminatory or restrictive measures set out in article 3 in a countermeasure list (反制清单).
China’s rules are tough but fair. After fourty years in the salt mines, industry greats like Bill Gates and Elon Musk can start again a new.
In addition, article 5 subjects the following persons to the countermeasures imposed by the PRC government:
the spouse and immediate family members of individuals targeted in the countermeasure list;
the senior managers or actual controllers of organisations targeted in the countermeasure list;
organisations in which individuals targeted in the countermeasure list serve in senior management positions; and
organisations actually controlled by individuals targeted in the countermeasure list or in whose establishment and operations any such individuals participate.
As such, it is important to keep an eye on the countermeasure list to ensure that there are no dealings with individuals and organisations targeted by the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law which may constitute breaches of the law. A suitable screening process should be put in place to minimise the risk of non-compliance.
Scope of countermeasures
As mentioned above, the State Council has the power to create the countermeasure list and determine the applicable countermeasures. In accordance with article 7, decisions made by the relevant departments of the State Council are final. As mentioned, there is no authorisation or licence regime in place so prima facie one must comply with the decisions in order to avoid breaching the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law. Article 10 mentions that a procedure will be established to coordinate the work of counteracting foreign sanctions and oversee the overall coordination, with the relevant departments of the State Council being required to raise the level of coordination, cooperation and information sharing.
China’s rules are tough but fair. After fourty years in the salt mines, industry greats like Bill Gates and Elon Musk can start again a new.
In accordance with article 6, the State Council may decide to take one or more of the following measures against individuals or organisations that are sanctioned pursuant to articles 4 and 5:
refusal to issue visas, denial of entry, cancellation of visas or deportation;
sealing up, seizing or freezing of movable and immovable property, or other types of property, within the territory of the PRC;
prohibiting or restricting organisations or individuals within the territory of the PRC from conducting transactions, cooperating, or engaging in any other activities with the targeted individuals or organisations; and
any other measures considered necessary.
As such, anyone who has a presence or assets in the PRC should pay due attention to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law as non-compliance may result in serious consequences for their activities or assets in the PRC.
China for as harsh as it seems, does have a degree of humanity. Inmates are permitted one phone call a year to family, loved ones or lawyer. They can say anything they want up to ten minutes. Longer than that, they will suffer punishment.
Civil recovery
Article 12 prohibits organisations and individuals from implementing or assisting in implementing discriminatory or restrictive measures imposed by foreign countries against the PRC individuals or organisations.
PRC individuals or organisations may file a lawsuit against such organisations or individuals with the Supreme People’s Court in accordance with PRC law, requiring them to cease the infringement and compensate for any losses incurred.
The duration of prison terms in China is much less than in America. This woman only has to serve three years. Most people under sanction rules will probably serve less than thirty years at hard labor.
This is similar to the EU Blocking Statute in the sense that only PRC persons are entitled to take legal action to recover losses.
Nonetheless, it is not specifically stated whom the PRC persons may take action against, and so it is perhaps best to assume that any foreign persons or companies that implement or assist in implementing discriminatory or restrictive measures imposed by foreign countries against PRC individuals or organisations may be subject to a PRC lawsuit.
Chinese prisons feed the inmates with generous portions of rice, vegetables, fish and chicken feet.
2. Navigating conflicts of law and their implications for PRC and foreign companies
It is unsurprising that the implementation of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law will create additional compliance obligations for companies engaging in cross-border transactions, in particular banks in the PRC, which inevitably engage in U.S. dollar transactions but are at the same time subject to PRC laws and regulations.
On the one hand, they may have to comply with the U.S. sanctions regime to avoid being denied access to the U.S. market or U.S. dollar transactions. On the other, they may be obliged to comply with the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law if they have a substantive presence or assets in the PRC.
PRC companies – discrimination against other PRC companies?
The Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law does not resolve the dilemma that many PRC companies may have to face. Access to the U.S. dollar system remains a fundamental feature of the business of many PRC companies and simply disregarding the long-arm jurisdiction of U.S. secondary sanctions may lead to adverse consequences for their business operations.
This inevitably leads to a situation where many PRC companies may try to avoid doing business with other PRC entities or persons that are currently subject to U.S. sanctions.
Chinese prison.
It is also standard practice to include sanction-related provisions in a contract to give a party a way to terminate the contract should the counterparty become a person or organisation sanctioned by the U.S. government.
The dilemma can best be illustrated by an example, albeit in a different context. The International Criminal Justice Assistance Law, enacted by the PRC government in October 2018, requires companies or individuals in the PRC to seek government approval before providing evidence or information to foreign prosecutors in support of criminal proceedings in overseas jurisdictions.
Compliance with the capture of one or two wanted fugitives is of no consequence when billions of dollars in trade are at stake.
As a result, companies must choose whether to disregard the PRC law (if no government approval is given) and cooperate with foreign prosecutors or to abide by the PRC law and risk the consequences of being held in contempt of the foreign court or even being found guilty of obstruction of justice by the foreign court.
Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere, surroundings.
While it is often a commercial decision as to with whom to do business, the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law creates some room for PRC persons who have suffered from discriminatory or restrictive measures under foreign sanctions laws to take retaliatory measures.
The legal implications of this cannot be ignored and it is vital for PRC companies to carefully consider sanctions-related provisions in contracts to avoid a situation where they risk being caught by either of the sanction regimes and suffering huge losses as a result.
Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere surroundings.
For example, if there is a U.S. sanctions clause in a contract giving a party the option to terminate the contract if the PRC counterparty becomes a sanctions target of the United States, would it constitute a breach of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law if the party exercises the option to terminate the contract thereby causing losses to the PRC counterparty?
The situation is perhaps less clear when U.S. sanctions have already been imposed on the PRC counterparty and the party chooses not to deal with the PRC counterparty for other, commercial reasons. Of course, how the law will be enforced in practice is a question that only time will answer.
Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere surroundings.
With that in mind, while the practical implications of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law remain to be seen, we see no benefit in PRC companies, and indeed foreign companies having a presence or assets in the PRC, failing to give due weight to this PRC ‘blocking statute’; otherwise, there may be serious consequences for their business operations and assets in the PRC.
Chinese prisons are very calm and orderly.
Some may have thought up ways to get around the dilemma – for example, by using non-U.S. dollars in transactions so as to minimise the risk of being caught by the U.S. secondary sanctions regime – but in practice, aside from the practical concern that many parties doing international business still prefer to use U.S. dollars in transactions, it is also difficult to completely eliminate such risk in large, cross-border transactions involving many parties.
Foreign companies
Life is supposed to be easier for foreign companies that do not have a substantive presence or assets in the PRC or deal with the PRC counterparty, but the opposite is often the case.
As explained above, given that the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law has not clearly defined ‘organisations and individuals within the territory of the PRC’, the more precautionary approach is to assume that the law also extends to the PRC subsidiaries of foreign companies as well as the branches (which have no distinct legal personality) of foreign companies in the PRC.
Reeducation to fit into society is a staple of Chinese prisons.
It is therefore inevitable that foreign companies will have to face the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law squarely and consider its impact on their business operations.
If you are a United States, EU, or foreign corportation, you could be directly targetted by the anti-sanction law.
This includes seizure of all of your facilities (McDonalds, Pizza Hut), seizure of your logos and product pacment (iphone, Microsoft, Ford), and arrest of your corporate leaders (President, Vice PResidents, COO, and all middle mangers).
Unlike the USA, judical proceedings are not debated. If you break a law, you pay the penalty. If the penalty is death, then you die.
Strictly speaking, where a foreign company does not have a presence or assets in the PRC, even if a PRC person can file a lawsuit against the company (which is unclear based on the current text of the law), there are still practical obstacles to serving court documents and enforcing judgments obtained against the foreign company pursuant to the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law.
The company doesn't even have to be present in China. Safe-way™ can be targetted. Pep Boys™ can be targetted.
Inmates in China are processed just like in America.
It is also highly uncertain whether foreign courts (especially U.S. courts) will give effect to and assist in the enforcement of PRC judgments.
Meaning that enforcement will be up to the Chinese military.
Relevance to Hong Kong
In addition, an interesting question remains as to whether the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law will also be enacted under the laws of Hong Kong, for example, by way of incorporation of the law into Annex III of the Basic Law or the passing of local laws to achieve the same effect. We consider that the consequences can be potentially more far-reaching as Hong Kong is well established as an international commercial hub where many foreign companies have branches or assets.
Chinese prisons are not joyful places, but neither are they the rat-filled slums tha tthe Western media makes them out to be. I’m sure that many American officials would be comfortable in these clean, but austere surroundings.
At the same time, U.S. dollar transactions play a dominant role in Hong Kong’s economic activities and it is almost impossible for companies in Hong Kong to disregard the extensive impact of U.S. sanctions.
The dilemma could become even thornier if the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law is extended to apply in Hong Kong as well.
China gets a bad rap for organ harvesting. But the real truth is that the felon is sedated prior to extraction of the organs, and they really don’t feel a thing during the procedure. It just happens so quickly and then they wake up and are given hot chicken broth before they have to go back to laboring in the mines.
3. Key takeaways
There is no denying that the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, a national law which has been enacted by the highest legislative body in the PRC, has established a sweeping legal basis for the PRC government to counteract the long-arm jurisdiction of foreign sanctions.
The daily cavity check is a staple in Chinese prisons. It’s a daily routine.
While the countermeasure list is yet to be finalised and it is yet to be seen how the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law will be applied in practice, for now, it is safe to conclude that no one can disregard the potentially profound consequences of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, and both PRC and foreign (especially those with a presence or assets in the PRC) companies should carefully assess the risks of this recently enacted national law.
Mass sentencing to death. China does not provide special privileges to companies or corporations. It doesn’t matter the magnitude of your guilt. Even borderline guilt is punishable by torture.
We recommend that PRC and foreign companies consider taking the following actions:
seeking legal advice on the implications of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law for their business operations in the PRC or when dealing with a PRC counterparty;
reviewing and improving their compliance systems to take into account the countermeasures imposed by the PRC – for example, taking note of and refraining from dealing with individuals and organisations named in the countermeasure list by the relevant departments of the State Council;
considering the incorporation of appropriate clauses into contracts to allow for a situation where the company may be subject to both U.S. and PRC sanctions; and
identifying practical options to minimise the legal risks of doing business in the PRC and foreign countries – for example, increasing use of non-U.S. dollars in transactions where possible.
Harsh Realities
Almost ALL of the companies that export from China to America are American companies. Under the Chinese anti-sanction law, they will now become Chinese companies and will be forbidden to export to the United States.
How bad will this be?
100% of cell phones are made (one way or the other) in China.
90% of medicines are made in China.
85% of automotive parts are made in China.
98% of all appliances are made in China.
65% of all furniture are made in China.
85% of all batteries are made in China.
All of the major restaurants and retailers (Walmart) operate inside of China, and the vast majority of their incomes comes from China.
Not only will Chinese exports to America go to zero, but American companies, facing losses from 50% to 90% of their tangibale assets will experience massive slide in the stock market.
No wonder China is saying “bring it on!”.
What can you all expect?
Hyper inflation will become hyper-hyper inflation.
Movement of American business owners outside of the USA will risk imprisonment.
International Trade to the USA will end.
Store shelves will be bare except for high-priced military weapons systems and their accessories.
Many manufacturing companies will have to close and lay off workers because they will not have the materials need to make their products.
Gas and products that use gas will go stratospheric.
But, you know, it’s all for a “good cause” , you know; to “punish Russia”.
Conclusion
Actually, I found this article a bit boring. But, you know, I had to pump it out. No one else on the planet is doing anything about this, so I have to.
Lazy fucks.
Why are you still here?
America is “exceptional”, and the Ukraine is kicking Russian butt. And everything is peachy, only there’s some inflation… pesky thing. But it’s all good. It’s Russia’s fault.
Don’t you know.
It’s all over the “news”.
So you know that any day now that the Ukraine will take over and march over Moscow. After all, you read the daily reports on Drudge, FOX, CNN and all the rest.
I read that the Russian solders are so fed up with Putin that they are throwing up, abandoning their weapons and running toward democracy™ as fast as their legs can carry them. Don’t you know!
Now leave. This will offend your world-view.
For you that stick around, ah… Here’s some sunny stuff to keep you all grounded on reality about China, life, and your part in it.
Chinese girl. These are PEOPLE that you God-damn people are talking about. Not some pile of french fries, you God-damn idiots. video
Here’s another one. These are people. Not things. video
Of course, if you are an American, you get a daily dose of “evil communist” this and that. Why they are the cause of all the problems in the United States. Oh, no. Not the goverment. Yeah. The communists!!!!!!!
Sheech!
Go ahead now. Run towards your next election, and then you can vote to make everything perfect!
It will work. Right?
Communist.
What the fuck is that. Most Americans coudn’t tell a communist from a dead armadillo at the side of the highway.
Here’s more. After all, you would never see this in America or the European Union.
Fact.
This is what China is today. Do you honestly think that the “West” can compete? video
But the West has “diversity”!
And it has freedom™…
I don’t know what it means. I guess when the ATF was established to infringe on the second amendment, freedom ceased to exist.
And let’s be real.
The Chinee population is 1.4 billion people; over five times the population of the United States, and every single one of them can fire a fully automatic assault gun, throw hand grenades, assault tanks and perform small platoon level operations. video. First grade.
I’d take Chinese elementary school against any American high schoolers any day. The Chinese are smart, talented, organized and trained. They operate by merit and they are hungry.
In America, the Military has to be able to do five entire push ups to qualify. The Chinese have to do one hundred. And tehy had best do it when they are in first grade. Video
Of course, this means nothing. America is the home of Rambo®. Freedom™ and democracy™. So of course it is exceptional™.
Bottom line.
If you want to fuck with China, China will FUCK with you. This is a front, that you do NOT want to get involved in. Capisce?
Capisce?
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
A complete separation from Western predatory economics, using the vast creativity and devotion to Mother Russia of the people there, and Russia will succeed beyond anyone's expectations. It will become a beacon for what is possible.-John
It is unmistakable. The United States has successfully brought about a global realignment in accordance with their obvious plans. And it looks, right now, that everything is going forward to plan. Much to our (most informed) observations.
Here, I just want to review some of these victories.
War with Russia.
Take over of the levers- of-power in Korea.
A major military presence in Australia.
A major rearming of Japan.
Complete control of the narrative.
America to rule the world and, in the darkness, bind them.
Why did Russia invade the Ukraine?
Contrary to American media, the invasion was not unprovoked. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America has been pushing NATO, which is a US sepoy operation, ever closer to Russian borders in what, to anyone who took fifth-grade geography, is an obvious program of military encirclement. Of the five countries other than Russia littoral to the Black Sea, three, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, are now in NATO. America has been moving toward bringing in the Ukraine and Georgia. After Georgia would have come Azerbaijan, putting American forces on the Caspian with access to Iran and Kazakhstan. This is calculated aggression over the long term, obvious to the—what? Ten percent? Fifteen percent?—of Americans who know what the Caucasus is.
Putin has said, over and over, that Russia could not allow hostile military forces on its border any more than the US would allow Chinese military bases in Mexico and China or missile forces in Cuba. Washington kept pushing. Russia said, no more. In short, America brought on the war.
Among people who follow such things, there are two ways of looking at the invasion. First, that Washington thought Putin was bluffing, and he wasn’t. Second, that America intentionally forced Russia to choose between allowing NATO into the Ukraine, a major success for Washington’s world empire; or fighting, also a success for Washington as it would cause the results it has caused.
From the latter understanding, America pulled off, at least at first glance, an astonishing geopolitical victory over Russia. Nordstream II blocked, crippling sanctions placed on Russia, many of its banks kicked out of SWIFT, economic integration of Europe and Asia slowed or reversed, Germany to spend 113 billion on rearming (largely meaning buying American costume-jewelry weaponry), Europe forced to buy expensive American LNG, and Europe made dependent on America for energy. All this in a few days without loss of a single American soldier. This presumably at least in part engineered by Virginia Newland who, though she looks like a fireplug with leprosy, seems effectively Machiavellian.
So The United States got itself a war with Russia.
As a result, an already subservient NATO and EU is now gleefully submitted to American dominance. Russia, they believe, is globally isolated, and the first stage is set.
Russia is isolated and alone, and “tied up” in a “quagmire” in Ukraine that the United States controls. It’s NATO group is working that front.
Next up…
China.
The QUAD to start a war with China..
This means that a QUAD must be put in place and strengthened. The QUAD is an NATO of the Pacific to “counter” China. So while NATO will counter Russia, QUAD will counter China.
To “counter China” means “a war with China”.
Sorry, I just plow though all the bullshit and rhetoric. I call it as it is. It makes life a lot easier, don’t you know.
The closest to China that America can get to is Taiwan, but if it goes any further, YOU WILL SEE Washington DC, New York City, and San Francisco all reduced to radioactive rubble. So Washington DC, is trying to dance around and sing it’s songs.
The USA tried to gain “footholds” in Xinjiang (with the Uighur Muslims), in Hong Kong (with the “pro-democracy” color revolutions), in Tibet (with a color revolution there), and all failed. So, then it tried to launch “color revolutions” in the nations bordering China. This included Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). All have pretty much failed to one degree or the other.
So what is left? The QUAD.
Already American surrogates…
South Korea
Australia
Japan / India
Let’s take a look at these three “victories”.
Change in the levers- of-power in Korea.
Victory 2.
So right now, by less than a 1% margin, a USA-backed conservative took over the leadership of South Korea. He pledges [1] a harsher stance against North Korea aggression, [2] a relook at the Korean relations with China, and [3] much closer ties to the United States.
Honestly, we don’t know what will come of all this.
What we do know is that he has no political experience. Much like Trump has none, and Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine) had none. Previous recent events suggest easy manipulation by others. Namely, the United States deep-state.
But we really don’t know the true and real situation.
What I can tell you is that the American neocons in K-street in Washington, DC are joyful with glee.
For the last four years, they watched in horror as South Korea became friendlier with China, and less friendly with the United States. South Korea wanted to reunify with North Korea, and wanted the denuclearization of Korea. All of which horrified the American neocons.
But…
Their plans included a war in Korea. This friendliness was unacceptable.
This is what The Diplomat had to say about how unhappy the USA was with South Korea.
There are deep diplomatic differences between President Joe Biden of the United States and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.
Biden wants Moon to abandon his peace-oriented policy toward North Korea, but Moon insists on continuing to try, despite the underwhelming results so far achieved. Can the next president of South Korea make any better progress?
Another point of contention between Seoul and Washington is Biden’s desire for the South Korean military to take a more active role in the wider region, in particular by participating in various U.S.-led multilateral military exercises. The incoming South Korean president will need to finesse this issue carefully if relations with China are to remain cordial.
Can the next president of South Korea initiate any new policies toward the United States, China, and North Korea? The truth is that South Korea’s policies toward these countries are interdependent in many different ways. If there are any solutions to be found for this Gordian Knot, then the ROK-U.S. alliance is the best hope we have. So how should we envisage the future of the long-standing alliance between the ROK and the United States?
Moon’s Promises to China: The Three Noes
When the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system was deployed on South Korean soil, China objected vigorously and used its commercial leverage to punish South Korea. As a consequence, Moon was obliged to placate China by making three promises. Will these “three noes” cause difficulties for the next president?
The first promise was that the United States will not deploy additional THAAD systems in South Korea. The U.S. budget for fiscal year 2021 has no funding for additional THAAD systems, but there are some funds allocated for upgrading the existing one to integrate it into a remote networked command and control system, together with Patriot and other systems deployed near the Korean Peninsula. This is a third and final phase based on the U.S. adoption of the Joint All Domain Command and Control system which U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) plans to adopt shortly.
The second promise is that trilateral security cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea will not develop into a military alliance. Given the dire state of relations with Japan, this promise is easy to keep for any South Korean president.
The third promise is that South Korea will not participate in the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) regional missile defense system. In practice the THAAD system deployed at Seongju has already been integrated into the MDA’s regional architecture. Staff at the South Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) have implicitly acknowledged the fact. As for any further cooperation with the MDA, the MND has made clear that it prefers to develop its own missile defense system.
It seems, then, that Moon’s “three noes” will not seriously constrain the next president.
Hypersonic Weapons on South Korean Soil?
At the recent Biden-Moon summit, South Korea agreed to become more actively involved with the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Following the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August 2021, it is appropriate to discuss the future of the ROK-U.S. military alliance.
China is continuing its military buildup, and seeking to extend and strengthen its diplomatic influence across the region. Against this background, it is time for the United States to increase its military resources to counter Chinese adventurism.
Several nations are developing hypersonic ballistic and cruise missiles, either medium-range (following Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) or long-range. Chinese and Russian weapons systems are well advanced, and the United States has initiated or reactivated several hypersonic missile development projects under various names: the U.S. Navy’s Prompt Global Strike (PGS); U.S. Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon; U.S. Air Force’s AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon and Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile; and DARPA’s Tactical Boost Glide and Operational Fires and Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept.
As commentators have noted, though, the U.S. would have to find a place to deploy its missiles.
Indeed, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper explicitly suggested that U.S. allies, including Australia, Japan, and South Korea, should allow the United States to deploy hypersonic weapons to assist in the strategic deterrence of Chinese threats.
Any deployment of such U.S.-developed hypersonic missiles on South Korea soil would inevitably be strenuously resisted by China, much like THAAD in 2017, and could seriously unbalance South Korean foreign policy. Recently, however, Australia has categorically rejected any such deployment, and with none of the other regional allies happy to accept them, it seems that South Korea is off the hook.
There is no particular reason why the United States needs to deploy hypersonic weapons on South Korean territory. There are no specific high-value targets in China’s northeastern provinces, and other U.S. allies seem better placed for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to manage Chinese threats, such as Japan and the Philippines, not the mention the U.S. territory of Guam.
Nuclear ballistic missiles can be identified, tracked, and classified as incoming threats by missile defense systems, for example those established by the MDA, but PGS and medium-range hypersonic missiles equipped with conventional warheads cannot be intercepted by any missile defense system. It is unclear whether the U.S. prefers hypersonic-capable and conventional PGS weapons to the existing medium-range ballistic missiles with nuclear capability. This uncertainty opens an opportunity for South Korea, now that limitations on its indigenous missile development have been lifted. New South Korean medium-range ballistic missiles would supplement U.S. capability in countering Chinese military threats to Northeast Asian security, as well as deterring the North Korean military threat.
Other Issues Affecting the Future of the ROK-U.S. Alliance
Some of the frontrunners to be the next president of South Korea have spoken about making changes to the ROK military and to the command-and-control structure of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), but they have said very little about the future of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Some military commentators argue that South Korea should pay more attention to operational and tactical matters than to political and strategic issues. In that regard, there are a variety of topics to be considered.
An Expanding AllianceFirst, from the U.S. perspective, rebuilding the alliance is a priority. During the Trump era, his transactional and populist approach opened up some deep divisions between South Korea and the United States. Biden is now working to repair the damage. More than that, however, he also wants to extend the scope of the alliance beyond its historic focus on threats to the Korean Peninsula by involving Seoul in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, a thinly-veiled project to contain China.
A related initiative targets common domain awareness, with the ROK military trying to up its game by taking new responsibility for space, electronic, information, and cyberwarfare. To this end, the first meeting of a newly established ROK-U.S. ICT cooperation committee was held on August 5. Also, the ROK Air Force has reorganized its combat development group into an air and space combat research group, so that it can share a Common Operational Picture with the U.S. Space Force. The ROK Army and the ROK Navy are also getting more involved with space; for example the Cheonro-an satellite now monitors the surrounding seas of the Korean Peninsula, including the East China Sea.
In addition, now that South Korea is explicitly committed to more involvement in regional security, including potentially acting with the USFK to contingencies in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, the scope of the ROK-U.S. alliance has broadened. Future roles and missions for the ROK-U.S. CFC will be hampered by disparities between the two militaries unless a combined combat development group is established. The Japan-U.S. alliance has benefitted from bilateral joint research and development projects, and something similar is needed for the ROK-U.S. alliance.
Changing DoctrinesSecond, there is widespread agreement that attempts to strengthen the capacity of the ROK-U.S. alliance should focus on doctrinal standardization. The United States is currently undergoing a great transformation of its expeditionary forces. Thus, the U.S. Army is establishing three Multi-Domain Task Forces, for the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Arctic. The U.S. Marine Corps also has a new mobile, agile, and flexible force, the Marine Littoral Regiment, designed to fight in a contested maritime environment. Likewise, the U.S. Navy has its Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, for which it wants to build light amphibious ships, rather than large LHDs or LHAs.
These changes to U.S. forces mean that South Korea’s military will also need to change to ensure the future success of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Specifically, South Korean forces must pursue both technological and doctrinal interoperability, so that they can effectively interface with the new operational concepts of the United States. An integrated ROK Army, Navy Air Force, and Marine Corps force has been suggested, which could then operate in combined units between the ROK and U.S. militaries at the squadron and battalion level. And perhaps the United States should be invited to serve as an advisor in developing the concepts and frameworks of Defense Reform 2050, currently under development by the MND.
New Platforms, New Cooperation Third, now that South Korea is building an aircraft carrier, close liaison with the U.S. Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) is needed. With the navies of South Korea and Japan both building or refitting light aircraft carriers, close cooperation is essential to ensure maximum interoperability. The U.S.-U.K. agreement on cooperative CV operation is the obvious model to follow. A considerable degree of interoperability has already been established, due to the F-35B take-off and landing system, which is the same on the U.S. Navy’s CVs, but much more is possible. The U.S. Navy has built up a vast repertoire of skills and know-how, which should be shared with South Korea and Japan for mutual benefit in the operation of CVs.
Fourth, some operational and tactical improvements are necessary. For example, South Korea and the United States need to better coordinate their strategic assets with the JMSDF, specifically: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets such as Global Hawk UAVs; airborne early warning and control assets; air refueling tankers and heavy lift aircraft; aircraft carriers; and amphibious assets. Also, the U.S. Navy needs a permanent presence in the form of destroyers at South Korean naval bases; the current arrangements with a one-star admiral are inadequate to deter potential threats from North Korea and China. And the South Korean Agency for Defense Development should be working on more research and development projects together with the U.S. DARPA, such as how to operate Manned-Unmanned Teaming between the two fleets. NATO has a variety of cooperative arrangements between multiple countries, and some of these could be usefully emulated by the ROK-U.S. alliance.
In short, the ROK-U.S. alliance is at a time of transition, and a lot of changes will be required to maintain the strength and effectiveness of the alliance into the future. The next South Korean president will have plenty of work to do.
Conclusion
Most of South Korea’s presidential candidates are proposing policies toward the United States, China, and North Korea that simply rehash previous ideas from the left or right, and in any case are based on outdated and obsolete scenarios.
The world has moved on, and the ROK-U.S. alliance needs to acknowledge the fact.
When the next president of South Korea is inaugurated in May 2022, he or she will have a very full inbox: the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, ever worsening climate change, the regional impact of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, growing doubts about the dependability of Pax Americana, and uncertainty over the future of the global economy.
Some candidates have flirted with populism during the campaign, but South Korea’s foreign and security policy needs someone grounded in reality. Thus, it is greatly to be hoped that the next president of South Korea will have the necessary experience and qualifications in these areas, and that they will choose the very best people for the relevant cabinet appointments. It would also be helpful if he or she has clearly articulated their approach to the United States, China, and North Korea so that there is a mandate for change – because change is coming to the ROK-U.S. alliance, like it or not.
This article was written one year ago.
Since that time, the United States government lavishly funded the USA-friendly candidate who now won the election. Whether or not he will pay-back the billions of dollars that he owes the United States is up in the air.
My assumptive guess is that he will.
Though, to what extent is unknown.
My other guess is that some very contentious events will take place on the Korean pennsula in the next two years. Perhaps diplomatic. Perhaps economic. Perhaps trade. Perhaps posturing. Perhaps social. Perhaps military. But there will be some changing of various alignments on the Geo-Political sphere.
It all depends on the power of the personality of the new leadership.
If he is weak, it will be like Morrison in Australia, or like Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy of the Ukraine. He will end up becoming fantastically wealthy (Zelenskkyy became a multi-billionaire in a few years), but at the cost of the economic strength of his nation. As what has happened to Australia.
If he is strong, he might be like Ou Ratana of Cambodia. He would forge new alliances, strengthen existing ones, and bridge the various differences in opinion that seem to be at everyones’ throat.
Weak nations paint huge “bullseyes” on their country. Whether Korea is one such nation, we have yet to see.
A major USA military presence in Australia.
Victory 3
The Morrison administartion is solidly pro-neocon. Yes. You read that correct. Not pro-America. He’s pro-neocon.
Any moment now, Australians are going to line up for their spicy “Kool-Aide”. And start wearing shiny new sneakers to reach Heaven via Comet Nirvana.
Neocons believe in the Rapture. I mean, they really, REALLY believe.
In other words, destroy the world to make it better. God will protect the worthy and “smite” the evil.
Its sort of like burning your house to the ground to protect it from fire.
Morrison allowed his trade with China to collapse, and the economy of Australia to take a complete nose-dive all for the betterment of the United States. He broke long-term trade deals with France and other nations in favor of having American nuclear sub basing, and American nuclear weapon basing inside of Australia.
It’s America-first.
As long as he gets his reserved ticket to Heaven, he doesn’t give a flying fuck about Australians. In his mind, he has them “covered”.
Covered in shit, that is.
It’s Australians last; back of the bus. Last in line. With their own water drinking fountains, and their own isolated schools.
He’s such a crazed fanatic, that Mike Pompeo looks like a moderate.
He [1] openly calls China an enemy, and [2] is busy setting up Australia on a war-footing for a major war in the Pacific. This includes [3] servicing and supplying American and British nuclear vessels, and [4] placing nuclear weapons and support structures on Australian soil. All the time, [5] breaking trade with China, [6] and engaging in racist actions against Chinese.
It’s hard to imagine a more bellicose and dangerous posture. But that’s the way it is. Australia and it’s people will all now gladly die for Washington DC, and America.
Of course, Morrison will fondle his jewels, and swim with his champaigne and caviar in his plush mansions. Now well funded by the United States printing presses.
Japan forming a status quo fence.
Victory 4
The greatest fear that the United States has is a two-front war; where the United States must fight both Russia and China simultaneously. The overall plan seems to be clear enough. Attack Russia, and then China, one by one. Not simultaneously.
So the plan is to prevent a two front assault. Dealing with Russia alone is already taxing the United States in many ways. Tack on the fiasco that China would crate, and it must be avoided at all costs.
One week after the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, the QUAD held a video meeting and discussed what to do to “contain China”. For after all, that is the purpose of the QUAD after all.
Now Japan wants to host American nuclear missiles and bombs.
Leaders from Japan, the United States, Australia and India agreed [1]during their virtual meeting Thursday that they oppose any unilateral use of force to change the status quo in their region.
This was reported by the Japanese government.
This meeting took place, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brings renewed concerns over China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
The four major Indo-Pacific democracies (the QUAD) also agreed [2]to launch a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism. This mechanism will “provide a channel for communication” as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he agreed [3]with his counterparts (QUAD members; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden) to hold an in-person summit in the Japanese capital “in a few months.”
"We agreed that we should not allow any unilateral change to the status quo by force in the Indo-Pacific region like the latest case (in Ukraine) and we need to step up efforts to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific in times like this,"
-he told reporters at his office.
The four countries of the Quad group have been deepening their ties and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, where China is boosting its military and economic clout. Japan is planning to host a Quad summit in the first half of this year.
Among the Quad members, India’s lack of response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has been in focus, given its traditionally close ties with Moscow. India abstained from voting on a nonbinding resolution at the U.N. General Assembly condemning the invasion by Russia and demanding its troops withdraw immediately from Ukraine.
The joint statement did not explicitly criticize Russia for the invasion, over which Moscow has faced sharp condemnation and economic sanctions from countries including the United States, Japan and Australia.
"The Quad leaders discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and assessed its broader implications,"
But in their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” they emphasized it means that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states is respected” and “countries are free from military, economic, and political coercion.”
Before the Quad meeting, Kishida said the Indo-Pacific region, especially East Asia, should not allow any unilateral attempt to alter the status quo by force.
Chinese ships have been repeatedly spotted in waters near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, a group of uninhabited islets controlled by Japan and claimed by China. China-Taiwan tensions remain high as Beijing considers the island as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland by force if necessary.
Keep in mind that Taiwan is not a nation. It is a territory of China. So, the “out” in this posture is whether or not the QUAD wants to get involved in a Chiense civil war.
Because if they do, China will nuke the living shit out of them.
Complete control of the narrative.
Victory 5
It’s not even bothering commenting on. It’s all hate-Russia-24-7. It’s everywhere, and there are ZERO alternative voices. If you try to say anything positive about Russia, you are unplugged.
The United States has authored this situation and it is in place
And it appears that yet again, the United States will emerge victorious. It certainly is victorious right now. Everything is falling into place.
Europe is now economically dependent upon the USA.
The BRI connecting China to Europe has been interrupted.
Russia is economically isolated from the West.
A strong QUAD “fence” is in place and will be used to “contain” China.
Some side effects
Now, there are some side-effects of all of this.
Whether or not these elements are part of a grander scheme or plan is unknown. What is known is that these elements will influence the United States, and it’s allies in both Europe and in the QUAD.
These elements are…
Rampaging inflation for all nations that trade using the USD.
Resulting in massive price increases in all things imported.
A villianized Russia.
Seizure of all Russan assets; money, accounts, boats, and businesses.
A partitioning / slicing up of the globe to one side or the other.
Now; a view from the other side
But what we do know, for those of us paying attention, that both Russia and China view these turn of events as expected. None of the events that are transpiring are a surprise.
As such I suppose …
Inflation of the USD is welcomed.
This inflation will further weaken the USD and the US economy.
SWIFT is being displaced by CIPS.
CIPS is backed by gold, resources, and manufacturing capability.
SWIFT is backed by American debt. Now at $30 trillion dollars.
The key for a united Asia is to allow the USA (and it’s serrogates) to collapse internally without nuclear war.
To do this, they are holding a (figurative) nuclear shotgun to the head of the United States and telling it to “mind it’s manners”. One twitch, one wrong move, and it’s “adios muchachos“.
To this end, they have maintained a very lethal stance against the West, threatening complete and absolute destruction.
It used to be that just having a few nuclear weaons was enough. But no. The American “leadership” are so stupid and ignorant that they had to be told directly; We have nuclear weapons and we WILL use them. Stop violating our “red lines”.
This in turn, is forcing the West to resort to [1] bioweapons and other systems, namely [2] economic, to wage war. Things that are not so obvious to a horrifically dumbed down nation.
Bioweapon warfare
In the grand scheme this methodology is (apparently) failing.
The 8 bioweapons against Chinese livestock did not create famine.
The three bioweapons against China did very little damage to China. Instead it made it very resilient against bioweapons.
Now the R&D; Biolabs and biowarfare are both in the open. Russia and China are making an issue of it.
The need for mRNA injections is collapsing. Which leaves America and the West particuliarly open to a bioweapon attack.
The population will simply ignore the warnings from the US government for isolation and masking. Thinking it’s more of the same nonsense.
The public will ignore all bioweapons protection measures.
So what’s left?
Economic Warfare
Economic warfare. But, contrary to the “news” reports…
Russia is not collapsing.
China is not collapsing.
But the USA and the West are starting to.
At this stage, anything can happen.
Anything can happen
The USA might still have some “tricks up its sleeve”, but from my point of view, it’s truly a dying empire; rotten to the core, and weakly and meakly thrashing about dangerously, while young, fresh and talented Kungfu masters watch on in alert readiness.
But all that is only my speculation.
American neocons see the world differently than I do…
The score card, that we visibly see, is 5-0 with the United States taking the lead in all victories and in all arenas.
But you know. I don’t count battles on a score card. I don’t say “yay! My guys sunk this ship. Boo! They did this!”. I look at the big picture.
And you should too.
I look at the basic strengths of society. A strong society, one that has a unified and intelligent population that is making things, and performing meaningful industry is going to overtake a weaker one who counts beads, argues with each other over trivalities, and who points blame at others instead of rolling up its sleeve and making changes to things that are not working.
2022 03 15 10 34
In the table above, I greatly simplified a number of points. Now, before you howl in anger, consider what I am trying to convey.
Yes. The USA does export. It exports expensive military equipment, and some wheat. It says it exports a lot of grains, but when you look at the actual numbers you find the exports are not comparatively large. The vast bulk of the monetary value of exports is military and aviation. These are trivial. Without a war, and with trade embargoes, there are no markets. While Asia exports everything.
Yes. The USA has farms. However, they are mostly corporate, big business entities that dependent upon imported fertilizer, and a working power grid to operate. Remove those two things, and you end up with a dust bowl. Not so in Russia and China. They have thousands of small, versitle, and adaptable farms.
Yes. The USA has industry. But it’s industry, not manufacturing. An office building staffed with accountants, logistics and warehouses, marketing people, diversity officers, HR, and lawyers do not make things. You need manufacturing facilities. Not just warehouses.
Yes. The USA has a military. It has over 800+ bases all over the world and very advanced high-tech equipment. But sitting in a office building pushing buttons on drones, and using a military that are unable to do more than five push ups is not a military force to be afraid of. It is something that looks good on paper, but not what you want to defend your life with.
So over all, in a big picture, Asia (in a one-to-one) head-to-head conflict will overtake the collective West.
As in this quote from my e-mail…
All we need to do is to rid our head of the USD-based capitalist miasma, USD-based dividends included.
Why does anyone need the USD showing a fake USD-based GDP to demonstrate that they have a good economy?
Why would Russia collapse with the closing of McDonalds, Starbucks, and the casino-stock market?
Russia has the world's largest land mass.
It has abundant clean water and agricultural land.
It has only one-tenth of China's population. No one will ever starve or lack water in Russia.
But even better is that they have huge stores of energy and minerals in the ground. They will never lack anything that is necessary for the advancement of their society.
More importantly, they also have the brains to develop technology and they have a strong army to defend themselves against anyone, including worthy foes such as Napoleon and Hitler, who were almost invincible before they attacked Russia.
Should Putin be afraid of sleepy Biden, dopey Bojo, dogfaced Stoltenberg, maleficent Ursula, and funny Zelensky?
I rest my case.
In geopolitics, you do not own anything that you cannot defend. The rest is bullshit and balderdash. Even cavemen knew that. In economics, Russia and China have a perfect fit.
China has too many people for not enough agricultural land and clean water. It does not have enough energy or minerals in the ground.
Russia gives China what it needs, and China will make whatever Russia needs. Everyone will live happy fruitful lives in peace and harmony without the need to ever see a single dollar.
America wants to whip the G7 to sanction China, what a delusional dying empire!
The destruction comes in many forms…
“In two weeks, China, Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan will reveal an independent international monetary and financial system. It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices”
-Sputnik News, Mar. 14, 2022.
Along with the new currency, Russia and China will also reveal their Unfriendly Nation Lists.
So I stand by my belief that theres more things down the pipe. Never forget about who you are all dealing with…
America vs China.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
The first part went out, and I was deluged by a bunch of gung-ho ‘Merica types accusing me of all sorts of things. Sheech! My thoughts are what is going on between Russia and the Ukraine / USA / NATO is very simple;
Obey the agreements that you signed.
If you don't, you risk war.
It’s not just me who believe this.
It’s EVERY FUCKING NATION on the planet except for the USA, UK, Australia, and NATO believes it.
And you cannot talk your way out of it, not matter how solidly you control the narrative. Your narrative is restricted to a very small “echo chamber” centered in the United States.
It is meaningless outside of it.
Ah.
2022 03 08 08 27 From Moon Over Alabama.
Sigh. The sheeple have been vault 7 programmed to NPC status. Angry; very, VERY angry. Mindless. Devoid of the ability to understand fundamentals. Sigh.
2022 03 08 23 01
About this article
Like the earlier article, we are going to go bullet point by bullet point in this one. Only the points will be a little better flushed out. But first; a map. This is day ten of the “invasion” (if you use the terminology of the United States), or the “special operation” (if you use the terminology of Asia.).
2022 03 08 09 45
Now for the points…
[1] Ukraine / Russia conflict is a different kind of war
The "gloves are off". No playing nice. Fight Russia at your own risk.
The Russians are calling this a “special operation”. This is in opposition to the United States and Western termonology. They refer to it as an invasion.
I would argue that this is a type of operation which has never been seen before. Ever.
Andrei Martyanov coined a very good term, he called it a “combined arms police operation”.
The term “combined arms” is, in the Russian military terminology, the “the main form of combat of modern armies, in which the efforts of formations, units and units of various types of ground forces are combined and coordinated with the actions of other types of armed forces“.
This type of warfare can only be conducted by combined arms units and implies an operational-level dimension. In other words, a combined arms operation has nothing in common with a police operation.
In this case, Andrei Martyanov is right.
What we are seeing here is a police operation whose aim is to disarm and apprehend/neutralize a criminal force, which itself is so big that it is capable of operational-level warfare. But not strategic nor tactical level warfare.
Normally, police operations are always on the low end of the tactical level spectrum (division, brigade, regiment, battalion, company, platoon) and rarely involve more than maybe a few APCs. This is clearly not the case today in the Ukraine where combat operations are clearly reaching operational and even strategic levels.
The United States set up a puppet government in Ukraine with the CIA / NGO “color revolution” of 2014. They gained support from nationalists who adopted a fierce neo-Nazi stance, and who even reactivated the Asov SS Division. The official AZOV emblem is the ‘Wolfsangel‘.
During World War II, various units of the German Nazi army used this symbol, including the SS Panzer Division.
The USA then funded the Ukraine president lavishly with nearly 2 billion dollars in off-shore accounts. He, in return for that enormous wealth, allowed the USA to dictate his actions. NATO was set up operationally, and in every manner, bioweapons facilities and nuclear launch sites were all set in motion.
Ukraine became the fourth largest recipient of American military weapons and equipment. Russia found this unacceptable.
And, as such, demanded the expansion of NATO stop, and the removal of nuclear systems for its borders. Russia, after the resounding “no” from both NATO and the United States carried out it’s ultimatum.
Right now, what we are witnessing is a total gutting of the United States puppet government and neo-Nazi elements, and a return to Ukraine independence and sovereignty.
This differs from an invasion. Where one nation invades another to seize it’s cities, land, people and resources.
[2] Incorrigable Criminal Elements
Taking point [1] to heart, the Nazi elements wearing Ukrainian uniforms, and firing American produced heavy weapons are considered to be criminal elements.
Those that join and support this band of criminals will be considered incorrigible foreign proxies desirous of prolonging criminal activity and will be hunted and killed.
It's not just me pointing out this fact.
Any one helping these criminals will themselves be treated as criminals.
Russia warns pro-Ukraine foreign fighters will be treated as criminals, not prisoner of war. And are treated appropiately.
Ukrainian President Zelensky says that already 16,000 foreigners have volunteered to fight for Ukraine against Russia. Websites are up to recruit, and the United States has set up training camps in Poland for them.
I hope that they made their peace with their families. This is not going to be a Yemen, Afganastan, Libya, or Syria.
The soldiers of the Chechen special forces have an order not to take mercenaries prisoner.
They WILL be killed after information is extracted.
You may disagree with their decision process, and operational orders, but you have to face reality. You must accept things as they are, not as you want them to be.
[3] NATO Planned to Launch a “first strike” Against Russia
The movement of nuclear forces on the Russian border was intended to zero out the advantage of Russia’s hyper-velocity nuclear arment. That’s what this entire conflict is all about.
And Russia said NO!
"The Russian government decided to stop this situation and restore order in Ukraine,” wrote Nikolai Azarov, who served as Ukrainian Prime Minister three times.
Through a message posted on Facebook on Friday, Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov claimed that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) planned a nuclear attack against Russia, taking advantage of the existence of geopolitical problems with Ukraine. And that Russia was forced to preempt that attack.
This was necessitated as a means to offset the offensive nuclear hyper-missile and SAM capability of Russia.
Anyone who cannot see that Russia was forced to lay down their "red lines", and respond to them being crossed, is an ignorant fool.
[4] Offensive Nuclear Warfare So… why piss around using conventional warfare in Ukraine?
Russia and China have formidable nuclear, city destroying capabilities.
Both the Russians and the Chinese possess hyper-velocity weapons that are able to [1] fly independently using AI, [2] evade and change course, [3] fire projectiles and vehicles, [4] are undetectable by radar, and [5] carry nuclear weapons.
These are generations beyond anything that the United States (and the West) have. It will take decades for the United States to reach parity.
[5] Defensive Nuclear Warfare So what? The United States Military Empire is the largest in history, and armed with massive impressive weapons. There should be nothing to be afraid of.
Right?
America and its allies lie defenseless.
Both the Russians and the Chinese possess advanced ABM shields that are able to [1] track, [2] decloak, [3] intercept, and [4] render inert / destroy incoming missiles, systems, or aircraft.
These systems are perfected and generations in advance of anything that the United States possess.
[6] Bioweapons What about other forms of weapons? Such as bioweapons…
They were put in play in 2017 under John Bolton, and backfired.
The United States is the undisputed leader in the development and manufacture of biological weapons. This continues in defiance of UN treaties. In fact, all of the new and novel viruses that plagued the world since the 1970s have been patented by the United States.
[5.1] Further, both the Chinese and the Russians have accused the United States for unleashing the Coronavirus B in China, Iran and North Korea in 2020. While inoculating the US and it's allies with Coronavirus A.
[5.2] China has accused the United States of using drones to destroy food and livestock from 2017 though 2021.
[5.3] Russia has accused the United States of setting up 15 bioweapons facilities on the Ukraine to Russian border.
[5.4] "Fact Checker" Snopes says that Bioweapons in use is a lie, that the United States would never do such a thing. Of course, they have been proven to be a propiganda outlet for the US government.
[5.5] Russia has acquired documents and supporting evidence from the captured bioweapons labs inside of the Ukraine. It's all over Chiense and Russian media. Nothing in Western Media.
This discovery of a laptop “smoking gun”, coupled by the likely shipment of Turkish drones modified for the delivery of toxic aerosols or other bio-toxins (identical to those that spread the swine flu to devistate the Chinese pork industy in 2017) immediately prior to the launch of the Special Operation serves to explain the RF attack.
The modified drones are unconfirmed as of yet, but two Turkish Airbus freighters were tracked landing in Ukraine immediately prior to the attack.
The laptop is physical evidence of a close association between NATO and the Nazis. This association pre-dates the Special Operation and indicates NATO complicity in an attack on both Donbass and Crimea. Ref HERE.
[7] Russia is not isolated and alone
The full spectrum propaganda onslaught consists of article after article about how isolated Russia is becoming. The average ill-informed person would easily come to the conclusion that Russia is a pariah and isolated and alone.
This is the desired effect, but not what is actually happening.
There is NOT one single thing that Europe, or America, or any of its allies provide to Russia that cannot be acquired from China. And China and Russia are joined at the hip. They are, and act as one.
Or, haven't you all been paying attention. Remember the massive document that they both signed during the Beijing Olmpics last month? You know the one; where MSNBC, Politico, and FOX "news" refered to it as "wordy gibberish".
In the future months or years, the American war-machine will ontinue to try to separte the two nations. They will propigandize a "mistake" and "fractures in the alliance". It will fail. They will then steer directly towards China, and try to isolate a united Russia and China alliance.
[8] China
The USA (and it's Western pawns) are decoupling from a world that will not accept its leadership.
Decoupling is not the end goal. It is the first step in establishing a return to a unipolar status quo.
The interm goal (in this process) is to destroy the rest of the world and have the United States be the sole remaining power. In effect, the lone "superpower" once again.
It sounds really bad. That is becuase it is.
To this end, the plan is for China to be isolated, and then destroyed. Leaving only the United States and it's proxies remaining.
This is a pretty obvious plan. Again, it's only the ignorant who see otherwise. All the scattered "puzzle pieces" fit into a picture that describes this agenda.
[9] Chinese “Red Lines”
This action, to initiate a war with China, will necessitate that the Chinese "red lines" be crossed. China clearly defined those "red lines". Just like Russia did.
When that happens, there will be a short and very nasty war.
"Red Lines" are absolute.
When the smoke clears, Taiwan will be integrated with the mainland, all American naval bases in the Pacific will be gone, as will be any carrier flotillas as well. You can expect the Hawaiian islands, and all the stateside naval facilities erased.
I recon that it will probably be the "spark" that launches nuclear destruction of the United States mainland.
There will be mass casualties on both sides.
The magnitude of which will depend on the skills of the leadership of the nations involved. Biden and NATO vs. Xi Peng and Putin.
It is up to the reader to determine, for themselves, who are stronger and better leaders. Then come to your own opinions.
[10] The United States is NOT READY for a defeat
Most of the Western people; Americans, Europeans, Australians, and Japanese are of the strong belief that America (as the greatest military force in all history) can never be defeated.
Never, as in absolutely, positively inconceivable.
The loss of every carrier in the Navy, the nuclear destruction of the top thirty American cites, and the ensuing chaos will absolutely crush the United States psyche. It's so absoltuely weak now that a feather could push it over. Imagine what would happen when the largest remaining intact American city would be Des Moines, Iowa.
Both Russia or China could do it right now, and the United States could not stop it at all. The only thing that the USA can do is to try to launch it's SLBMs from the remaining active boomer submarines.
To quote a scene from the movie "The Princess Bride"; It's inconceivable.
It’s inconceivable.
[11] The anti-Russia narrative of “a big Russian mistake” will end
The current US PSYOP narrative about the Russians being defeated and on full retreat will not survive this weekend.
It will now change. It will now shift to “Putin’s rape camps and torture of poor suffering Ukraine”.
Remember all the accusations of genocide against the Serbs in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo? This is what will happen to Russia next – a massive wave of accusations of atrocities and genocide.
The (so-called) “free and democratic press” will now switch to the fabricated lies pushing the American people towards more War! War! War!
[12] The United States is running Ukraine
[11.1] Former UkrainePresident Volodymyr Zelensky is living in the United States embassy in Poland.
[11.2] The orders for the remaining Ukrainian military forces come out of the American Embassy in Ukraine.
These two points clearly show that the United States is "running the show" and is in charge of everything in the Ukraine right now.
[13] New Global Transaction System
Discussed earlier. SWIFT is obsolete. But what does that mean?
Gold is an alternative. Both Russia and China barter directly in raw materials, physical products or gold / precious metals.
Any nation not able to do so, whether they have no factories, no resources, or no valuable metals, will be forced to rely on coercion to manage their trade. Already, much of the world is unwilling to accept this state much longer.
Keep in mind that not only is China the manufacturer for the world, China’s $3.2 trillion of foreign exchange reserves is greater than the $2.3 trillion value of ALL the world’s central bank gold reserves.
The ability for nations to conduct trade will be polarized. Either [12.1] continue to use SWIFT backed with worthless paper, or [12.2] deal with a united Russia-China alliance backed by gold, material resources, and manufactured products.
There are no other options. The choice will depend on the level of independence over coercion by the United States.
It's not just CIPS. It's not just a switch from one system to the other. The exchange rate in the system is tied to the value of the monetary unit in use. If most of the world transacts in gold, and the remaining few transacts in American-backed paper, the exchange rate will reflect that.
Expect a plunge in the value of the USD globally, and with that will come geometric and even exponential increases in American (but not global) inflation.
The inflation will be directly tied to the nations that continue to use the USD.
So, in the future, inflation will NOT be a global experience, as all the alternative websites out of the USA are predicting. No. it will be a localized one based on the form of financial transfer.
[14] Putin’s popularity is not collapsing
The Western narrative is that the war in Ukraine is going to bring about the "fall of Putin". That's just PSYOPS.
The truth is that his popularity is soaring. Western readers will be unaware of that, as all news from Russia and China are banned.
I have tons of videos that refect this. All you need to do is crawl out from the isolation net of the West.
[15] First World vs. Third World
I have documented the severe disconnect between what the West (especially Americans) believe and what is actually occurring.
For instance, the term "First World" is used to describe the United States and Europe, while "Third World" is used to describe Russia, China and Africa.
That is wildly innacurate.
China is definitely, and certainly, First World.
This is not simply my personal opinion, it's backed by just every measurable statistic. While the United States has fallen way, way, WAY behind. It is approaching third class world.
No new parks, infrastructure, advanced crime control. No energy friendly infrastructure, nor merit driven initatives. No high-speed public transportation, and crime and homelessness abound. Heck! Americans still use paper money. I'm not at all exaggerating.
[16] Sweden and Finland
The idea that either Sweden or Finland would enter the fray by joining NATO should send shivers up everyone's spine.
Russia's "red lines" are fixed and immovable.
Thus, were Sweden or Finland opt to become members of NATO, they would be crossing the Russian "Red Lines". The Russian reaction to it will be harsh and direct.
From the point of view of Russia these are non-negotiable "red lines" and crossing them is an act of war.
If forced, Russia will take on any country, including any NATO member country, which will assist the Ukrainians militarily.
If forced, Russia will even fight all of NATO and the USA together and, if forced, she will use all her weapons, including nuclear ones.
And if that means that the entire planet is nuked then, as Putin said, “we have no need for a planet without Russia”.
All this is to say that Russia is not bluffing, Putin will not back down and that there is no price which Russia would not be willing to pay to prevail in this existential war.
Russia will not stop until her existence is made safe again.
[17] Nazi hardliners in Ukraine
You just cannot make this stuff up, but hard-line Ukraine nationalists have adopted the Nazi Germany regalia, systems, history and organization from the former Nazi Germany. And they are fanatic and radical in their beliefs.
HERE and HERE.
For instance, they killed one of their own negotiators with the Russians for not taking an absolute to-the-death stance.
[18] Why defend the United States?
My personal opinions. But sheech! people. When you live in a place where the streets are clean, radicals of every kind (SJW, BLM, and KKK) are put in mental hospitals, the people are happy, and parks are everywhere… the USA really, REALLY looks like a steaming pile of dog shit.
In watching all the "news" and opinions flying about, I am just stunned. The individuals all talk that it is necessary to defend the values and democracy-based freedoms of the United States and those of Western Europe.
What freedoms?
What democracy?
The mere fact that American and Western access to Russian and Chinese news is banned is a sign FOR CERTAIN that there is no freedom. In both China and RUssia you can easily get Western news. Not so, the other way around.
In fact, you cannot name one Right (in the Bill of Rights) that does not have exceptions.
For instance, the second amendment has an entire agency (the ATF) whose entire purpose is to infringe on it and limit its use and application. The ninth amendment has the FDA. The first amendment has the FCC, and technocrats. But I will stop here. I have written many an article on this.
The USA is an oligarchy-ruled Military Empire. It is not a "democracy".
2022 03 08 09 02
[19] The Ukraine war has already resulted in thousands of money-making for-profit corportations
Wow. That was quick! Eh?
2022 03 07 09 00
[20] The United States “approves” or “will …”
I read articles all of the world, and they are disturbing to me.
US Tells Germany To Stop Using Huawei Equipment OrUS allows S. KoreaUS allows NATO allies ...US has allowed Poland to supply jets...
Let me remind everyone, that in a true democratically led world, no one nation would be able to tell another what to do. All nations would be souvern. But that is not so under a unipolar global kingdom such as the United States demands.
People should really reflect on the reality.
The United States is a Military Empire and all those "Western democracies" are but proxy governments for use by the USA to do with as it pleases. And it chooses them to fight the wars it starts, while the war-mongering neocons sit safe and sound inside their plush mansions in the United States.
[21] Russia has already switched to Chinese banking
Instead of thinking that it "might happen", remember that you are dealing with a unified Russia / Chinese alliance. It "has happened".
Russian banks are fully on board with CIPS.
It has been confirmed that Russia is switching its whole system to China's UnionPay.
UnionPay, an international payment system founded in 2002, received international status in 2005. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company reportedly operates in more than 180 countries across the globe, including Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Cyprus, Thailand, India, Israel, Portugal, Croatia, Poland, Serbia, Hungary and Austria.
In the future, you will see more and more of these "well, it could, but..." things changed to "...is in place.".
[22] India has joined the Russian / China alliance.
It's not well publicized. But the alliance is really firming up. The majority of the world is sticking with Asia.
Andrei has a very good video on this subject HERE.
Aside from the casting of diplomatic votes, however, the response from Southeast Asian governments has been diverse — and, some say, muted. Singapore made the rare decision to impose sanctions on Russia, and Indonesia quickly criticized the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Philippines, a US treaty ally, flip-flopped and described itself as neutral. Meanwhile, Thailand and Malaysia have remained quiet.
[24] Gas to Europe has been cut
Sure you all know that. Right?
Westbound gas flows from Russia to Germany via the Yamal-Europe pipeline stopped on Thursday, while bids remained for supplies in both directions, according to data tracked by the pipeline operator Gascade. Russia covers nearly 40% of European gas demand with the Yamal-Europe route accounting for nearly 15% of the country’s westbound supply.
This will SUBSTANTIALLY affect the quality of life, and manufacturing inside of Europe. You cannot put a good spin on this. It will cause an increase in all prices for everything, as well as factory shutdowns and slow downs with will result in layoffs and unemployment.
[25] American and European PSYOPS have fled Russia
All the standard "news" media operations have fled Russia.
Why? Well, Russia passed a law that if you publish provable fake or false information, you WILL be held personally responsible and you WILL be treated as a military combatant, in disguise; fighting Russia.
All those desk-jockeys regurgitating NSA psyops informtion for the five-eyes are now looking at capture, torture and death. No wonder they are scared shitless and scurrying off like rats off a sinking ship.
Interesting, but I believe that this is a policy that is a copy of what Xi Peng implemented in China.
That Chinese policy sure as fuck cleaned out the various CIA and NGO "rats nests" and stopped all the color revolutions in HK, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Shanghai. I've got tons of vieos showing the CIA assets rounded up. It's impressive as all Hell.
On a somber note. Most of the captured were interrogated and then killed. China does not play.
[26] This is a REAL war
Listen up people!
This is not Vietnam, or Afganastan, or Syria. This is a serious war; being conducted by serious, serious people. They have serious objectives and are fighting for their very existence.
Russia is fighting against a United States backed, proxy, Nazi fanatical organization that is well armed, and who's role is to prolong the fighting until death.
This is not a sports event.
Russia is trying to avoid mass destruction and civilian casualities. However, if that is not possible, then cities will be absolutely and positively flattened to rubble.
[27] Outside of the United States and NATO, billions of people root for Russia
Not the impression that you would get from Western "news" eh?
Well it is true. China, and India are both cheering for Russia. Together that is 2 billion people.
As well as almost all of Africa. That's another 2 billion people.
All told, just by that rough estimation we are looking at 4 billion people in favor of Russians action, and perhaps a half a billion from the USA and Europe.
HERE and HERE.
.
And I might add the enormous Middle East. Who do you think that they are rooting for?
[28] Consequences of Sanctioning Russia
In the big scheme of things, everything will adjust to a "new normal". However, many Western corporations will be adversely affected.
.
For example, the EU demanded that all Russian leases on Airbus jets—over 500 of them—be cancelled. It also blocked the sale of Airbus parts to Russia and forbade Russian planes from being serviced. It also closed its airspace to Russian planes and Russia closed its airspace to EU planes in response. The EU also blocked the SWIFT payment system. This means the following things:
• The European leasing companies will have to pay Russia huge fines for canceling the leases but can’t because SWIFT isn’t working.
• The European leasing companies have to get their planes out of Russian territory but can’t because their flight crews can’t get into Russia and once they take possession of the planes the planes won’t be allowed to take off (airspace is closed).
• The planes can no longer be serviced according to the maintenance schedule, which means that in a couple of months they won’t be able to fly at all.
• Given that this is a force majeur circumstance, the Russian government can very easily nationalize these planes, including all of the intellectual property and patent rights contained therein, and start making their own parts and providing their own service.
• There are around 600 airplanes and helicopters stranded in Russia. Stock price of both Boing and Eurobus is not reflecting this fact. One leased plane makes between 50k to 100k per month. On top of that loss, these planes can be confiscated in case Russian property is taken.
• Given all of the above, the obvious choice for the European leasing companies to declare bankruptcy and cease operations. Company representatives have said as much.
[29] Numerous “War Hawk” American neocons want direct military conflict with Russia
A true “Death wish” fueled by ego and ignorance.
It's true, and very dangerous.
.
The Russians have the capability to launch an absolutely devastating first strike from their super quiet “black hole” nuclear submarines.
From positions just off the American coasts, those submarines could potentially reduce much of the United States defenses to ashes in just a matter of minutes.
Most Americans don’t understand how serious this threat is.
A nuclear war with Russia must be avoided, because the consequences would be unimaginable.
Thankfully, the federal government has issued some updated guidelines for how ordinary Americans should respond if a nuclear attack does actually happen…
Stay inside for 24 hours unless local authorities provide other instructions. Continue to practice social distancing by wearing a mask and by keeping a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who not part of your household.Family should stay where they are inside. Reunite later to avoid exposure to dangerous radiation.Keep your pets inside.
You may not last very long after such an attack happens, but at least you can help prevent the spread of COVID by practicing social distancing and by wearing a mask.
[30] Fertilizer catastrophie
Russia stopped all it's exports of fertilizer to the West. The West will now be forced to acquire it from secondary sources. Such as Bolivia.
Ollie Vargas reports from Bolivia:
Bolivia was exporting fertilizer (urea) for $300 per tonne until last week. International price is now $900 per tonne since sanctions on Russia started and Russia stopped loading fertilizer for export. Bolivia built its own nationalized fertilizer factory. Brazil closed theirs after the neoliberal turn. Now, the price of urea and ammonium is going through the roof due to Ukraine conflict. Those who import it will be hit with severe inflation on foodstuffs.
I argue that it might result in a combination of inflation plus scarcity.
[31] An interesting video on a Urkaine Military Base
The narrator walks around the hastily abandoned based. It was an obvious rout. They discuss that routs tend to happen when the operational leadership flees, leaving the rank and file soldiers to fend for themselves.
RT vid on abandon ukraine army camp. They left everything. .
[32] Nice summary about the Geo-political ramifications
Best Sitrep channel with on map analysis I have seen so far.
Frequent updates, and long impartial, detailed and accurate analyses of the situation. Definitely deserve much more publicity. Some gentleman from Singapore as I understand. Well worth it:
Defence Politics Asia .
[35] The goal is a long-duration war
This Video exposes the provocations of neo-Nazis who, by bombing and killing their own people, create a "pretty" picture for the Western media.
This is once again showing the fact that the main goal of the West in Ukraine is to turn it into a second Afghanistan.
https://youtu.be/yIS5Wik2r0E .
[36] British BBC instructs how everyone can attack Russan armor
BBC personnel now posting on Twitter how and where to throw a Molotov cocktail for Ukrainians who want to attack Russian vehicles. The BBC employee is telling them to throw the Molotov cocktails through the viewing hatches, and the air inlets of Russian military vehicles.
https://twitter.com/BowenBBC/status/1499668674940133378?cxt=HHwWhICzqdut8s8pAAAA .
[37] Pakastan
Pakistan actually has a real leader, not afraid to speak the truth. So refreshing... if I was a Pakistani, I would be very proud... HERE. .
Latvia citizens would see fines up to 700 EUR for "using illegal content services". "Not only rights of protected service providers [may be violated by use of illegal systems] but also customers might obtain services, which are illegal in Latvia". So, in other words, don't read any news out of Russia.
EuroUnion runs amok...HERE.
[40] NATO evidence seized
The Ukraine was acting as a NATO member and taking orders fromt he United States, even though not formally part of NATO. This came just in from a german journalist living in Donezk, needs verification. Quick translation via Deepl:
Premier of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin gives emergency press conference. Detailed explanation and translation will follow tonight by Thomas Röper. The content of the speech in brief:
🔺A laptop was found on a hastily abandoned military base in Ukraine - which is registered with NATO
🔺 On it are data of American reconnaissance flights carried out over the Donbass and Crimea with unmanned drones in recent years (officially confirmed)
🔺This means that the Americans have passed on their data to the Ukrainian army, i.e. they support them.
🔺 Military strategic objects of Russia and the Donbass were marked on the maps created with these data
🔺 AND THERE ARE SAID TO BE NATO ATTACK PLANS INTO RUSSIA FOR MARCH 8 ON THE LAPTOP.
If this is true, then this is proof that NATO is supporting Ukraine in taking back the Donbass and Crimea by force.
NATO Laptop is now on sputniknews.com
NATO-Labelled Laptop With Intelligence Found at Ukrainian Nationalists' HQ, DPR Head Says
[41] Ukraine was a de-facto NATO military state
Not officially, of course. But militairily yes.
The fact is that the Ukrainian army is already de facto NATO army in everything related to Command and Control.
[42] News machines creating an illusion
The illusions created by the American (Western “news”) are off the charts. And yet, you know, people believe these lies. Meanwhile the United States is going to shit. Check out these screen captures…
First one…
Putin continues with the deaths of many a Russion while the valiant Ukrainians hold on bravely. 1000 Russians dead per day! Russian victory is NOT INEVITABLE! Don’t you know. And of course, the Russians hate him. That’s why protests are everywhere. Uh huh…
2022 03 08 08 13
Second one…
Russian mistakes. Ukraine is “decimating” the invading Russians! Russian officer pleads for mercy! Russia now faces a quagmire… Uh huh.
2022 03 08 08 1a3
Third one…
“Shows Putin is on the way out…” Yah. The Russian Ruble is on the way out, it’s collapsing every which way… Uh huh.
If you read this post, Russia should be about finished and USA and NATO can just take a leisurely drive to Moscow to remove the current management and install new management.
I really don’t know who would believe this, because the actions the RF is currently undertaking does not even remotely match what is being said (i.e. not much escalation or change in plan of the RF nor new weapons systems coming on board at the moment)
2022 03 08 08 15
.[43] Enemies of Russia The Russians have now officially declared all the following countries as “hostile”: from HERE.
All EU member States,
The USA
Australia
Albania
Andorra
Czech Republic
Great Britain (including Jersey, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar)
Iceland
Canada
Liechtenstein
Micronesia
Monaco
New Zealand
Norway
Republic of Korea
San Marino
North Macedonia
Singapore
Taiwan
Ukraine
Montenegro
Switzerland
Japan
What does this mean? At the time of writing (14:00 EST) all the Russians are saying is that there will be “financial and diplomatic consequences”.
I expect both diplomatic and economic sanctions to be announced in the coming days. And they will hurt like hell. The two geo-political blocs are shaping up. These nations seem to be all part of the “uni-polar, United States led, Western block”. Those highlighted in red are the most signifigant members.
[44] Andrei predictions Here is how I see it and PLEASE tell me I am wrong!
The Ukraine has lost the war, she will be disarmed and denazified
The West is waging total informational and economic war against Russia and believing much of its own propaganda (which is fantastically dangerous!)
The western public has been sold nonsense about the Ukies being at the gates of Moscow and Russia being ready to surrender. Which means that when the reality will become undeniable there will be A LOT of VERY butthurt folks out there pointing fingers.
Even much worse will be the folks who will try to still overturn this outcome. I am talking about the true nutcases in NATO (and in some sections of the USA ruling elites) which simply cannot even *imagine* that Russia holds all the cards, including the military one.
I can easily imagine, say, a Polish column with weapons and mercenaries crossing into the Ukraine and being wiped out by Russian missiles. I ask you this: what will NATO do next?
In fact, let me rephrase my question this way:
Is it at all possible that this war can end without a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia, keeping in mind that NATO cannot win and NATO cannot accept defeat?
Sadly, I don’t think so anymore, that kind of folly is a direct consequence of the Western PSYOPs which have convinced the folks in the West of two crucial things:
1) Russia cannot win and
2) Putin is bluffing.
I think that the folks in the Pentagon are smart enough to know that this is all bull, but what of the Eurorodents inside NATO and the EU?
[45] Details on the fighting As a reminder…
The Ukronazi armed forces are down to less than 25% of its original size.
Almost all the remaining forces are in some type or another of cauldrons.
Russia has full air supremacy
The Ukronazi fleet does not exist anymore
In spite of all the propaganda, no help from abroad will affect the outcome of this war
It appears that Russia will surround Odessa and eventually take control of the entire Ukrainian Black Sea coast
In other words, what seems to be shaping up is that Russia will soon have control over the entire Ukraine except for the western provinces (west of Vinnitsa and Zhitomir). In other words, the war is over, at least militarily.
[46] The FINAL “nail in the coffin” of Russian use of the USD
[48] Australia formally demounces China and is building a military base to house forces to fight China
Australian PM denounces China and announces $10 billion nuclear submarine base
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday exploited the Russian invasion of Ukraine to launch another major military buildup, starting with building a $10 billion base for US, UK and Australian nuclear-powered submarines on Australia’s east coast, clearly directed at preparing for war against China.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/08/morr-m08.html
[49] No resistence from Bandera
According to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, the special forces of the republic, which are taking part in the operation on the territory of Ukraine, continue to move into the country without meeting resistance from Bandera.
Kadyrov explained that the fighters regularly send him video reports on the execution of the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
"The cleansing of the territory from the criminal elements of Bandera is proceeding according to the schedule. Our soldiers are not meeting fierce resistance from Bandera," Kadyrov said.
https://www.mk.ru/politics/2022/03/08/kadyrov-chechenskiy-specnaz-ne-vstrechaet-soprotivleniya-banderovcev.html?from=article_mi_b
[50] Italy seizes $156 million worth of yachts and villas belonging to Russian oligarchs
[52] Guidance on how to write Hit-Pieces against China
Global business journalism program in China open [Worldwide] | International Journalists' Network
Each and everyone of your are super qualify for the program, is an opportunity to experience first hand how this western propaganda machine operating inside China work,
https://ijnet.org/en/opportunity/global-business-journalism-program-china-open-worldwide
He told the Chinese deligation that the USA had talked with Taiwan. They had changed their position from "Go ahead and be independent, we will support you", to "No, do not even try to break away".
The Chinese reaction was "Thank you, but your words have zero value. You repeatedly lie and break treaties.".
[58] A captured “Russian Officer”
From MoA.
Russian soldiers are CLEAN SHAVEN.
2022 03 09 08 12
[59] Others are finally starting to agree with MM…
Efforts to decimate Russia’s economy to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine could have serious and unpredictable implications at home for the U.S. and its allies….Energy and food prices are the quickest way Americans could feel shockwaves from Russia’s decline, particularly if Biden takes action against Russian oil imports.Crude oil prices are up roughly 20 percent over the past two weeks, enough to knock 0.2 percentage points from U.S. gross domestic product, according to economists at Goldman Sachs.They also expect inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index to 0.2 percentage points thanks to “higher food prices, increased production costs due to rising commodity prices and increased transport costs due to shipping disruptions.”[Rachel] Ziemba [founder of macroeconomic advisory firm Ziemba Insights] said a ban on Russian oil imports would largely be “symbolic” and simply send barrels to other markets.“When we’re thinking of the cost-benefit analysis, it’s not clear to me that the pain here justifies the pain to Russia,” she said.
Michael Hudson gives an overview of the broader implications for the US.
By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.
Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid. That certainly is the case with the American Empire as it dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion.
The basic of assumption of economic and diplomatic forecasting is that every country will act in its own self-interest.
Such reasoning is of no help in today’s world.
Observers across the political spectrum are using phrases like “shooting themselves in their own foot” to describe U.S. diplomatic confrontation with Russia and allies alike.
For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia.
America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation has driven them together, and is driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit. American economic and financial power was expected to avert this fate.
During the half-century since the United States went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated on the dollar standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds.
The resulting Treasury-bill standard has enabled America to finance its foreign military spending and support its deindustrialization-driven chronic trade deficits by creating dollar IOUs that other countries accept. U.S. balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and conduct their foreign trade.
This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world, without having to use much military force of its own except to grab Middle Eastern oil.
The recent escalation of U.S. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia and other countries from trade and investment with Russia, Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. allies.
And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia, along the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their hearts and minds, along with recovery of their sequestered accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings or those in its sterling and euro NATO satellites are a safe investment haven when world economic conditions become shaky.
So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the span of just a year or two.
The basic theme of my Super Imperialism has been how, for the past fifty years, the U.S. Treasury-bill standard has channeled foreign savings to U.S. financial markets and banks, giving dollar diplomacy a free ride.
I thought that de-dollarization would be led by China and Russia moving to take control of their economies to avoid the kind of financial polarization that is imposing austerity on the United States.
But U.S. officials are forcing them to overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize.
I had expected that the end of the dollarized imperial economy would come about by other countries breaking away.
But that is not what has happened. U.S. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization themselves, while helping Russia build up its own means of self-reliant agricultural and industrial production.
This global fracture process actually has been going on for some years now, starting with the sanctions blocking America’s NATO allies and other economic satellites from trading with Russia.
For Russia, these sanctions had the same effect that protective tariffs would have had. Russia had remained too enthralled by free-market ideology to take steps to protect its own agriculture or industry.
The United States provided the help that was needed by imposing domestic self-reliance on Russia.
When the Baltic states lost the Russian market for cheese and other farm products, Russia quickly created its own cheese and dairy sector – while becoming the world’s leading grain exporter.
Russia is discovering (or is on the verge of discovering) that it does not need U.S. dollars as backing for the ruble’s exchange rate.
Its central bank can create the rubles needed to pay domestic wages and finance capital formation.
The U.S. confiscations thus may finally lead Russia to end of neoliberal monetary philosophy, as Sergei Glaziev has long been advocating in favor of MMT.
The same dynamic undercutting ostensible U.S aims has occurred with U.S. sanctions against the leading Russian billionaires.
The neoliberal shock therapy and privatizations of the 1990s left Russian kleptocrats with only one way to cash out on the assets they had grabbed from the public domain.
That was to incorporate their takings and sell their shares in London and New York. As a result, domestic savings had been wiped out, and U.S. advisors persuaded Russia’s central bank not to create its own ruble money.
The final result was that Russia’s national oil, gas and mineral patrimony was not used to finance a rationalization of Russian industry and housing.
Instead of the revenue from privatization being invested to create new Russian means of protection, it was burned up on nouveau-riche acquisitions of luxury British real estate, yachts and other global flight-capital assets.
But the effect of making Russian dollar, sterling and euro holdings hostage has been to make the City of London too risky a venue in which to hold their assets.
By imposing sanctions on richest Russians closest to Putin, U.S. officials hoped to induce them to oppose his breakaway from the West, and thus to serve effectively as NATO agents-of-influence.
But for the Russian billionaires, their own country is starting to look safest.
For many decades now, the Federal Reserve and Treasury have fought against gold recovering its role in international reserves.
But how will India and Saudi Arabia view their dollar holdings as Biden and Blinken try to strong-arm them into following the U.S. “rules-based order” instead of their own national self-interest?
The recent U.S. dictates have left little alternative but to start protecting their own political autonomy by converting dollar and euro holdings into gold as an asset free of political liability of being held hostage to the increasingly costly and disruptive U.S. demands.
U.S. diplomacy has rubbed Europe’s nose in its abject subservience by telling its governments to have their companies dump the Russian assets for pennies on the dollar after Russia’s foreign reserves were blocked and the ruble’s exchange rate plunged.
Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and other U.S. investors moved quickly to buy up what Shell Oil and other foreign companies were unloading.
Nobody thought that the postwar 1945-2020 world order would give way this fast. A truly new international economic order is emerging, although it is not yet clear just what form it will take.
But “prodding the Bear” with the U.S./NATO confrontation with Russia has passed critical-mass level.
It no longer is just about Ukraine.
That is merely the trigger, a catalyst for driving much of the world away from the US/NATO orbit.
The next showdown may come within Europe itself as nationalist politicians seek to lead a break-away from the over-reaching U.S. power-grab over its European and other Allies to keep them dependent on U.S.-based trade and investment.
The price of their continuing obedience is to impose cost-inflation on their industry while relinquishing their democratic electoral politics to subordination to America’s NATO proconsuls.
These consequences cannot really be deemed “unintended.” Too many observers have pointed out exactly what would happen – headed by President Putin and Foreign Secretary Lavrov explaining just what their response would be if NATO insisted in backing them into a corner while attacking Eastern Ukrainian Russian-speakers and moving heavy weaponry to Russia’s Western border.
The consequences were anticipated.
The neocons in control of U.S. foreign policy simply didn’t care.
Recognizing its concerns was deemed to make one a Putinversteher. What foreign countries have not done for themselves to replace the IMF, World Bank and other arms of U.S. diplomacy, American politicians are forcing them to do.
Instead of European, Near Eastern and Global South countries breaking away out of their own calculation of their long-term economic interests, America is driving them away, as it has done with Russia and China.
More politicians are seeking voter support by asking whether they would be better served by new monetary arrangements to replace dollarized trade, investment and even foreign debt service.
The energy and food price squeeze is hitting Global South countries especially hard, coinciding with their own Covid-19 problems and the looming dollarized debt service coming due. Something must give.
How long will these countries impose austerity to pay foreign bondholders? Well? How will the U.S. and European economies cope in the face of their sanctions against imports of Russian gas and oil, cobalt, aluminum, palladium and other basic materials?
Any ideas?
American diplomats have made a list of raw materials that their economy desperately needs and which therefore are exempt from the trade sanctions being imposed.
This provides Mr. Putin a handy list of our pressure points to use in reshaping world diplomacy and help European and other countries break away from the Iron Curtain that America has imposed to lock its satellites into dependence on high-priced U.S. supplies.
But the final breakaway from NATO’s adventurism must come from within the United States itself.
As this year’s midterm elections approach,
Republicans are likely to harp on price inflation led by gasoline and energy as a Biden failure.
It’s not clear if the pro-Ukraine propaganda will have lost its effectiveness due to over-exposure.
But if Russia wins the war in short order, the Republicans could hammer on Biden for relying on costly, arguably ill thought out, and ineffective economic sanctions America needs Russian oil and gas exports.
Gas is necessary not only for heating and energy production, but to make fertilizer, of which there already is a world shortage.
That has been exacerbated by blocking Russian and Ukrainian grain exports to send U.S. and European food prices soaring.
Trying to force Russia to respond militarily and thereby look bad to the rest of the world is turning out to be a stunt aimed simply at demonstrating Europe’s need to contribute more to NATO, buy more U.S. military hardware and lock itself deeper into trade and monetary dependence on the United States.
The instability that this has caused could have the effect of making the United States look as threatening as Russia used to be.
European officials did not feel uncomfortable in telling the world about their worries that Donald Trump was crazy and upsetting the apple cart of international diplomacy.
But they seem to have been blindsided at the Biden Administration’s resurgence of visceral Russia-hatred by Secretary of State Blinken and Victoria Nuland-Kagan.
Trump’s mode of expression and mannerisms may have been uncouth, but America’s neocon gang has much more globally threatening confrontation obsessions.
For them, it was a question of whose reality would emerge victorious:
The “reality” that they believed they could create,
or,
The actual economic reality that lies outside of U.S. control.
Conclusion
It’s what it is.
It’s the start of the big pivot to a new global order; one where the United States is a minor “player”, and it’s proxy nations (NATO, the QUAD), become third world, poverty stricken, cesspools.
More changes to come, however the end result will be the same. There is no fucking way in Hell that American can maintain a unipolar command status. No bloody way.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
It’s the end of week one of the Ukraine invasion. This article is just a collection of interesting tidbits, and stories that might have fallen between the cracks in the onslaught narrative. I am also including some videos of pretty girls, delicious food, and assorted curiosities.
Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky has reportedly FLED THE COUNTRY and is allegedly hiding in the US Embassy in Poland. His country is being systematically conquered despite his armed forces having a 7:1 advantage over the number of Russian forces that entered the country.
First a map.
Here’s what the Ukraine situation looks like as of 4MAR22.
2022 03 04 14 39
In the spirit of full disclose I must admit to you that Ukraine is not a perfect country. We have two main shortcomings. First, we have throughout the modern era constantly asked, and then demanded, Free Stuff from the world’s nations. Second, we never take responsibility for anything. Our self-inflicted wounds are always someone else’s fault. What I am saying is that I identify with this woman of color, and I love her.
You won’t believe this but I actually met her a long time ago. I was in NYC (doing a gig at the Improv) and she was outside running a hot dog cart. And now she represents your country to the world! America, what a country! Only in America can a wrestler and a body builder become governors, a transvestite run the military, a prostitute become vice president, and a reality star become president. God’s Grace is using America to create inclusion, diversity, and heaven on earth.
-The Burning Platform
ohhh. Powerful stuff this.
He tells it as it is, and really slams the American media. It’s a piece, by piece, take down. Suck it up.
KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 ― International sanctions and restrictions on Russia continue to ramp up following its military invasion of Ukraine.
The latest sanction, however, is aimed at the country’s cats.
Federation Internationale Feline (Fife), an international cat fancier society, has imposed restrictions on cats bred in Russia to punish Moscow for its military operation in Ukraine. In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the Federation said its executive board is shocked and horrified over the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“Many innocent people died, many more were wounded and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were forced to flee their homes in order to save their lives. We can all witness the destruction and chaos caused by this unprecedented act of aggression.”
The federation said the board has decided to impose import and exhibition restrictions on Russian cats effective March 1.
“No cat bred in Russia may be imported and registered in any Fife pedigree book outside Russia, regardless of which organisation issued its pedigree.“No cat belonging to exhibitors living in Russia may be entered at any Fife show outside Russia, regardless of which organisation these exhibitors hold their membership in.”
The federation said imposed restrictions are valid until May 31 and will be reviewed as and when necessary.
The board also decided to dedicate a part of Fife’s budget to support cat breeders and fanciers in Ukraine who are affected by the current situation.
Although some lauded the measures, the move was not well-received by several social media users who stormed Fife’s Facebook post with their comments and opinion.
A user, Melissa Heigl called the move “absolutely ridiculous” for bringing cats into the issue.
“Russian breeders should not be punished for a war that isn’t of their making.
“What does this achieve except to hurt breeding programmes, breeders and their cats?” she asked.
Another user, Gordon Chih called the decision “stupid” and said cats shouldn’t be victims of human-induced war.
“They belong to nature, not a country.”
Listen to me!
World War III is in process.
The only way we can maintain our sanity is to be a Rufus. In a way, you can refer to this as a sentience sorting activity. Be the Rufus!
What? You don’t know how?
Well, then. Watch this video so yo can see what a community is, and how it works. Be that Rufus! video 23MB
A pretty Chinese girl
The hate-hate-hate narrative out of the West is terrible. Let’s jsut enjoy life and look at pretty girls and eat fine delicious food. Notice her fine glass of wine nearby. video 1MB
Since December 2021, Russia has been receiving information about NATO plans to deploy 4 military brigades (2 land, 1 sea, 1 air) on the territory of Ukraine.
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Moreover, air brigades had the ability to carry nuclear warheads.
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NATO wanted to agree on this deployment of troops in the summer of 2022 at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Then, most likely by the end of the year, they would have provoked a conflict and launched full-scale military operations against Russia with the use of nuclear weapons.
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That is, NATO planned to unleash the 3rd world war with the use of nuclear weapons against Russia.
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The key role in this was given to the current American-controlled ruling elite in Ukraine and the nationalists. In order to prevent World War 3 and an attack on Russia using nuclear weapons, the Russian government decided to stop this situation and restore order there.
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The West presses information through social networks and other things that Russia has attacked Ukraine. They are offended that their plans were destroyed and now Russia cannot be destroyed by nuclear weapons that are in Ukraine and at the expense of Ukraine.
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By the way, Putin said that the flight time for the warheads from Kharkov to Moscow is 3 minutes, there is no time for a retaliatory strike.
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Flight time from the USA is 30 minutes, there is time to answer.
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Only today it has became possible to publish intelligence data on the preparation of a provocation followed by a treacherous strike with the destruction of the population on the territory of the LPR and DPR.
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Putin was ahead of Ukraine and NATO and actually saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the republics. A day before the start of the war to exterminate the Russian-speaking population, fateful decisions were made in the Donbass. The Ukrainian army under the leadership of the national battalions was preparing to start a military operation in the Donbass on 02/25/22.
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Vladimir Putin was literally a day ahead of the plans of Kiev and the West, which made it possible to seize the strategic initiative.
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About a week before the start of the Russian special operation, Eduard Basurin reported on a map of the attack on the Donbass that was intercepted from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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It was clearly laid out there when long-range artillery strikes would be launched. .
First there would be MLRS strikes, then there would be air strikes, then strikes by the operational tactical group (OTG), respectively “North”, “South” and “East”. OTG “Vostok” was supposed to act on the dissection of Donetsk and Lugansk. .
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They were given three days to reach the border, and the OTG “South” would act together with the Aidarovites, who, according to the plan, were supposed to play the role of a barrage detachment.
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In the north, in Luhansk, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were supposed to operate under the cover of the “Right Sector”, they were supposed to meet in the Komsomolsk region south of Donetsk and cut off the LDNR from the border with Russia.
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Within two days, it was planned to begin a “complete cleansing.”
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Moreover, Donetsk, Lugansk and several other cities they did not plan to capture at this stage, but simply surround them and block, that is, a complete blockade of settlements was envisaged, before a “complete cleansing”.
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There is a belief that this plan was developed jointly with NATO curators, since the Americans had previously transferred about 5 thousand of their soldiers to Poland, plus there was also the Polish army – according to the plan, they were supposed to block Russian Kaliningrad group, so that in which case it could not advance to the attacked territory of the south-east of Ukraine.
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The second grouping is a thousand soldiers of the Stryker brigade (armored vehicles) in Romania.
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This grouping should block Transnistria so that the peacekeepers stationed there would not be able to advance through the South to Odessa. It was all a single set of actions that were to begin on the night of February 24-25. In fact, the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Putin was only one day ahead.
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Why are they so hysterical?
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Because everything was ready to seize the territory. And then suddenly, one day earlier, units of the LPR and DPR began to actively operate with the support of the RF Armed Forces.
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First of all, airfields and runways were attacked so that it was impossible to land transport aircraft with weapons from the United States and other countries, command posts, air defense systems, radar stations, anti-aircraft missile divisions, etc. were disabled.
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The people’s militia of the LDNR, with the support of Russian artillery and high-precision weapons, launched an offensive against the Vostok group.
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And there is another interesting coincidence. Russian special military operation in Ukraine prevented the launch of two NATO biolabs in addition to the already 15 operating
BRIEF RESPONSE FROM GENERAL “BIG NICK” STUCKY (U.S.A.F., Ret.)
Dear Assklown Dictator,
First and foremost, you should be grateful that the majority of Americans forget political events more than a week old. You should fall on your knees and kiss the collective asses of every Mainstream Media person, every politician, and everyone of the social media platforms for; 1) not mentioning that Ukraine had a democratically elected government that was overthrown by your own Nazi’s and with the help of the CIA, and 2) that YOU have MURDERED 16,000+ of your own citizens.
I predict you will have an “OH CRAP!!” moment when you hear Biden’s speech tonight. More empty words and promises. You hooked up with evil and now you will wonder “What the hell was I thinking??!“
Russia will not be stopped, no matter what lies you tell yourself.
No one is coming to save you. Europe won’t save you. America won’t save you. Hiding won’t save you. You fate is sealed.
YOU could have prevented ALL of this; 1) Don’t join NATO. 2) Don’t pursue acquiring weapons that threaten Russia. How hard is that? Was it worth it? You’ll have an eternity in hell to think about it.
Lastly, a word from the Lord. Daniel Chapter 5, verse 25.
In 2008 as then-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili realized that his attack on Russian peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia had elicited a Russian military response that ended up with the Russian army practically knocking on his door in Tbilisi, he infamously appeared on a BBC interview voraciously chewing his necktie. It demonstrated to the world that the plucky US-educated leader who dared take on the Russian bear for the sake of “democracy” was in fact an unhinged and unstable figure (installed into power by the US-led “Rose Revolution”) who found himself losing it upon realization that he was over his head and the US cavalry were not coming to liberate him.
During the course of the 2008 Russian intervention in Georgia, Saakashvili made increasingly outlandish and unhinged claims, including that:
– “Georgia’s ports and airports will be taken under the control of the U.S. Defense Department.”
– “Russia has lost more airplanes than in any conflict of this scale since 1939.”
And, as reported by Moon of Alabama at the time:
'What I expected specifically from America was to secure our airport and to secure our seaports,' he went on, concluding that the American presence would do so. 'The main thing now is that the Georgian Tbilisi airport will be permanently under control.'
All of these claims and many more were increasingly and laughably proven totally untrue. A Caucasian Comical Ali. And then, finally, when the hard reality smacked up against his wild claims, he tucked in to his tie.
Ukraine’s comedian-president Zelensky seems to be careening down that same path.
Perhaps Putin is the apotheosis of evil after all, and everyone who dares challenge this modern-day golem is destined for madness.
Or maybe not.
Whatever the case, Zelensky is sounding a bit unhinged of late.
No one will dispute that he’s a man of many talents…
Who among us has not played "Hava Nagila" on a piano with their genitals on stage and then gone on to lead their country against a foreign invasion? pic.twitter.com/6IlRgF83he— Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) February 28, 2022
However, when the chips are down, as they are, he seems to be a tie-muncher at the end of the day.
Then later in the day, perhaps around cocktail hour, he demanded that President Biden enforce a “no-fly” zone over much of Ukraine, assuring Biden that Ukraine “can beat the aggressor if the Western allies do their part.”
At that point even hawkishly-unhinged Senator Marco Rubio had to descend from the ether of Washington’s war machine.
Sen. Rubio says setting up a no-fly zone in Ukraine would lead to World War III.“People have to understand what that means. That means a willingness to shoot down Russian planes. And that would mean World War III.”— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) February 28, 2022
Poor Biden drunk-walked across the White House lawn as reporters asked him legitimate questions about the threat of nuclear war. But the fact is quite plain: for the US to (attempt to) impose a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine would require that the United States military annihilate every single S-400 and S-500 air defense system located inside Russian territory.
In other words, were Washington to abide the fake frontline warrior Zelensky’s request it would require the initiation of a civilization-destroying World War III.
How many American sheeple who have subbed out their “Wear the damn mask!” Facebook profile pictures for “Save Ukraine” or “Pray for Ukraine” are willing to see the end of life on earth as we know it to “save” a country that nearly seven in ten Americans literally cannot locate on a map of the globe?
The editors of "Russian Spring" received a letter from a resident of Ukraine with gratitude to the Russian soldier-liberator and with a call not to stop halfway.
When Crimea returned to Russia, I cried. From happiness. I have relatives living there. I then thought: “How happy they are!”
Well, just imagine – suddenly you woke up in the morning and already in another state …
It seems to us that all this is possible only in a pipe dream. This is not a dream, this is real…
Nobody needs to be afraid. You can speak your native language and not be afraid that you will be fired from work, cursed, beaten in transport or not served in the store ….
That on May 9 you can calmly take a portrait of your beloved grandfather, who reached Berlin, and his brother, who was killed on the first day of the war, and proudly walk with a St. George ribbon along the central streets of your native city …
That you can honestly express your point of view on the forums of like-minded people, chat with friends and not get a term just for like under a photo with a red star or a review of how well we lived in the USSR …
That one can not argue to the point of hoarseness with a colleague who claims that “the Holodomor was then only in Ukraine”, and not in the whole country, when the People’s Commissar for Food Tsuryupa fainted from hunger (I would like to see at least one Ukrainian minister who is not that he fainted from hunger, but at least lived on an average pension or the salary of a Ukrainian!).
In Crimea, everything was just like in a fairy tale. Completely unrealistic. Quiet. Peacefully. No hysteria, no panic, no howling sirens, no tanks, no fragments of rockets and planes falling on your head, no war….
How lucky they are! And how unlucky we are… To all those who have not lived for almost a quarter of a century, but exist. Not living, but surviving. He doesn’t live, he suffers.
To us, born on this earth and from birth speaking our native Russian language. No, not Russian! We are Ukrainians!
For some reason, when they talk about the ban on the Russian language in Ukraine, they always mean that this applies only to Russians. They are occasionally mentioned as a national minority, hypocritically suggesting that “their rights be taken into account.”
And no one remembers that more than half speak this language, being ethnic Ukrainians. And who will take into account our rights, the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who make up the majority in this country?!
How could it happen at all that no one knows who and no one knows where came to us, to our land, to our house (although, in general, everything has long been known to everyone) and declared that we should not think and speak in our native Russian?
That we, it turns out, have a completely different native language? That we should separate from our common home – a strong and proud country that was called the Soviet Union?
That we must stumble to Europe, where no one is waiting for us? Perhaps only as a source of cheap labor, a dump of stale goods and radioactive waste.
A succession of ambitious, mediocre and greedy leaders who robbed millions, sold the country with giblets and brought it to complete economic collapse. Destroyed industry, agriculture, education, medicine … Everything that could be destroyed.
Those who allowed an unprecedented rampant extremism and national fascism… Why do we need all this? And for what? Why do we need all these foreign advisers and mentors?
I just want to say: “Well, what do you need here? Why are you all coming to us? Nobody invited you here!
What kind of freedom, what kind of democracy can we talk about when all the best people have either already gone to the grave, without waiting for a bright future, or left this territory, or became political prisoners? When political parties are banned, when for “dissent” (for simply and honestly expressing one’s views), for importing even children’s and fiction literature in Russian into Ukraine, any Ukrainian faces a serious sentence?! And this is at best.
And at worst, the prospect of being maimed or even killed by the national fascists, who, with the support of the state, created the “Peacemaker” execution list. And for one mention that in our country they speak different languages, nationalist bastards kick people on the air….
And what have they done with our youth, with our future? They never lived in a normal system. They have imposed idols, false values. They no longer know our heroes, they are already seriously claiming that the Americans won the Great Patriotic War … They are taught from the cradle to hate Russians ….
Even those who are now only 40 no longer understand where they are and where are the enemies. They, too, have already been fooled, they have been brainwashed to such an extent that they believe that they are “on their own land”, and the aggressor, Russia, has come to them.
I want to bow low to the glorious and long-suffering Russian soldier-liberator, to our Russian brothers who came to the rescue at this difficult time for us. Unlike Donbass, where there are still real men, we, the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine, had nothing to hope for.
Yes, we are weak. The best of us have already been destroyed. The anti-Maidan in Kharkov was violently dispersed, the activists were imprisoned. And without your help, we had no chance to survive and rise from our knees. There is only one hope for you, Russian brothers!
Of course, we understand that this is a war, and there is no war without casualties. But this operation is similar to surgery. Unfortunately, since we are in the Crimea, we will no longer be able to. Much precious time has been lost. The cancerous tumor of national fascism has grown and given many metastases.
Only radical intervention can help here. Yes, healthy tissue can also suffer a little. But in the name of Life it must be done. Please don’t stop half way!
All this can only be dreamed of by our Crimeans today only in a nightmare… The scale of the catastrophe is enormous, and it will take a very long time to correct the situation. It is necessary not only to win the war, but also to win the battle for the crippled souls.
There are well known and well documented illegally built mansions at Qin Ling in an environmentally protected area.
It was not just a few, but over a thousand. It was obviously built for the wealthy and the powerful, and allowed to flaunt the laws by the locally powerful elite.
At the opening up of China to World Bank loans for technologies from the West essential to develop China (China needed USD from WB to buy Western tech that it did not have; it’s not an easy game for China to play and win, but they have played well and are winning), a compromise was made for the central government to relegate the allotment of funds to the provincial levels.
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This helped to corrupt the local governments.
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People who control the water tap cannot avoid getting wet, especially when they’re far away from the emperor’s eyes. It’s just physics.
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But once people are fattened by their position at the water tap, they begin to believe that they deserve their cheese and no one should be allowed to touch it.
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These ill-gotten gains also helped the privileged accumulate wealth and power much faster (economics: when there is a small gap of inequality at the beginning of the race, the gap will expand and inequality will become more extreme over time.
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Corollary: there is no such thing as a fair and free market). The problem was so pervasive that it was difficult for the central government to deal with. It would be like having to destroy the machine when some of its parts are worn.
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Xi was made aware of this Qing Ling problem in 2014.
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Qin Ling being in Xian, and Xian being Xi’s home province, the chairman needed to show the country that he would not provide favoritism to his province, and that he was serious in wanting to clean house.
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Despite a busy schedule, Xi visited Xian and personally issued orders to deal with the mansions.
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This repeated not once, not twice, but six times, with no action being taken other than the usual obfuscation (first investigations reported only 200 illegal buildings) and delay tactics (someone has retired, let’s start all over again).
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In 2019, Xi finally had enough and ordered to have all the mansions torn down forthwith.
The CCDI is the much feared investigative unit of Communist party members; the CCP has a different set of rules for their members which is much more stringent than civil laws; party members practically give up their civic rights. If you don’t like it, don’t join.
Mark Sleboda has served as nuclear engineer in the U.S. Navy. He has studied at the London School of Economics. He has married a woman from Crimea and now lives in Moscow as a Russian citizen. He is a frequent commentator in Russian media. Sleboda has previously criticized president Putin for being too soft with the ‘west’.
His analyses and predictions are more dire than mine but he is probably right (thread edited for readability):
Mark Sleboda @MarkSleboda1 - 8:53 UTC · Mar 2, 2022This is #theGreatDecoupling between the West and Russia. Economic linkages will be cut down to only energy and a few other commodities & chemicals that Europe is dependent on Russia for. The West controls and has weaponized their entire economy in their war to break Russia. Political, social and cultural linkages will also be severed to a high degree. Weaning Russia off this dependence will be hard and immiserating. But with Chinese and some other Eurasian support, Russia may just weather it. The entire global economy will suffer as well.But once the dust has settled and new domestic and import substitution formed - Russia will at least be economically & financially independent from the West. They will never again be able to weaponize their economic hegemony to coerce, blackmail, or wage war on Russia.The same weaponized economic war too will also soon be turned on China and the Rest of the world's holdouts from US-led Western Hegemony. The Unipolar world will truly be over, but the Multipolar world will be stillborn by US attempts to hang on to their hegemony. Instead US/Western pressure will directly result in the formation of an anti-Western bloc led by China and Russia for survival and independence. Neutrality will be difficult to maintain. A new Bipolar world is coming into being, just decades after the last ended.The Golden Age of the Global Internet is also now over resulting not from Russia closing itself off, but by censorship and exclusion by Western and the social media platforms and the internet fixtures they control - because they don't trust their own people to hear alternative perspectives and narratives and judge on their own. The world's internet will now break down into regional spheres with limited connectivity. It will be a new, much smaller, less connected, more localized and divisive world.We are of course already seeing the physical connections around the world break down - with closures of entire swathes of the globe's surface to each others' airlines and global shipping connections being severed one by one as we speak. Global distribution networks will be disrupted & chaos result for months. Because Russia & Ukraine are primary sources of so many of the world's commodities - energy & food costs around the world will skyrocket. In the First world prices will go up, in the Third - starvation.Ultimately the cause was the US-led West trying to maintain and extend their Hegemony, while they can and Russia resisting it. NATO expansion east in waves, US meddling and hybrid warfare to bring into power pro-Western/anti-Russian governments in formerly neutral, unaligned, national identity-divided post Soviet states was the endgame of this NATO expansion to geopolitically consolidate all of Europe under US-led Western Hegemony up to Russia's borders.Russia resisted this geopolitical flipping by color revolution in Georgia, Belarus & Ukraine. And now the ultimate target of this economic war on Russia is forcing regime change in Russia itself for having the temerity to resist the Hegemon's geopolitical expansion right on her very borders.The great Realist IR scholar Mearsheimer foresaw all of this. As did Kissinger, George Kennan, US Ambassador John Matlock and many others. They tried to warn what the consequences of the US trying to geopolitically flip Ukraine would be, but to no avail.For Russia the only path forward, the goal to survive is, must be - separation, autarky (self-sufficiency), and independence from US-led Western Hegemony.
A fine cup of coffee
One half of it is heavy cream. Not everyone likes it that way, but I do. video 26MB
Sanctions Seppuku: The Big Reveal: “Let them fly to space on their broomsticks”
Russia is beginning to respond to the insane sanctions, and the sanctions are insane.
“Russia will stop deliveries of rocket engines to US – Russian Space Agency chief. The Roscosmos chief added, “Let them fly into space on their broomsticks.”
And we all say OORAH!
OneWeb Pulls Workers from Russian-run Baikonur Satellite Launch Project
The London-based tech company OneWeb has removed its employees from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrone, where they had planned to send 36 Internet satellites into orbit using a Russian Soyuz rocket.
The move comes after Russian space agency Roscosmos demanded guarantees that their satellites wouldn’t be used for military purposes, and that the UK government – which owns shares in OneWeb – divest itself from the company.
The Russian (ROC) Paralympics athletes have just been banned by the Olympics Committee from taking part in the Olympics in Beijing.
But Coca-Cola will continue to operate in Russia
The ICC (International Criminal Court) is in the process of accepting the Ukraine’s complaint of war crimes or crimes against humanity against Russia and Belarus in the Ukraine. (Israel and Palestine comes to mind and also the Yemen). The complainer has to have membership of course, but the ICC has awarded a quasi membership to Ukraine from nowhere.
Russian individuals are facing hate-filled attacks, diplomatic buildings and athletes are being targeted for exclusion. Reports of Russians being discriminated against are spreading far and wide. This is similar to what happened the previous two years with Chinese citizens as a result of the propaganda against China.
There is a very dark underbelly to sanctions which are of course war by any other name. Trump called it! by calling it a Trade War, when it was against China. What the west wants, is to loot Russia from the ground up and just make them go away in some form or fashion, because they cannot take Russia by Dollar and/or Bomb.
Western governments, media, think tanks etc., are so desperate to believe their version of the outcome of the Ukraine war that they are seeing things which have no basis in reality. And their fear that things will not turn out the way they want them to, is visible. They are having Terrible Two Tantrums.
It is however filtering through to European leaders. They are figuring out that Russian sanctions are already having an impact and on them directly.
And the countries are not all in some special cahoots here. They are being threatened. We have news from India that they are being threatened with sanctions because they stood neutral in the last security council vote and did not condemn Russia in one or another fashion. Of course, they do not call it by name but rather: US weighing up sanctions against India over Russian military stockpiles (The Hill). Please be aware, this is not some game, but the stakes are high, as the sanctions war and the cyber war are all, and I mean all, western attempts at regaining its lost power and luster.
We see how Russian-owned businesses, private jets, money, and real estate are being looted. The west is just stealing it, like oil and grain from Syria. This time they want to do to Russia what they did in the early 1990’s yet again. The idea is to rape Russia again, because how dare Russia charge for their oil and for their business. How dare Russia act like a country or even people that have the right to make a business, do trade, be concerned about their security and function in the wider world. What is being tried here, is to do to Russia exactly the same as what was done to Japan, after Japan surrendered in WWII, but this time they want to do as much as they can, without waging real war (so far).
You can see an example of the looting here: Poland started seizing (or looting) Russian Property in Warsaw, including even a school building.
And then of course there was Josep Borrell saying in a fit of pique: Oh Dear, we cannot find Russia’s Central Bank Assets. They must have planned for sanctions. (This from memory as I cannot find his tweet. But then again, this is what they do! They make a big statement and then quietly delete what they said.).
This is what sanctions look like. Everything has a ‘carve out’. Sanctions do not work, excepting to pressurize and gain the upper hand in western media. This is how they think, trying to find a concerted calculated effort to loot Russia again, but the mistakes being made are not only comical but also very very serious, and perhaps not for Russia.
Here is one story:
1. On Tuesday a law was passed prohibiting Russian owned, operated, controlled, registered or flagged ships from accessing British ports – but theoretically foreign vessels could carry Russia’s oil and gas to Britain.
OOPS! BUT …
2. The UK Department of Transport confirmed that Russian oil and gas can still arrive in the country despite sanctions barring Russian ships from entering their ports, as bans only apply to the vessels not the cargo itself.
OOPS! Did we go bananas again? How does oil and gas get there without the vessel? Let’s try and fix it.
3. Well, we don’t know. We are So Confused, so how about British MPs calling for the Expulsion of ALL Russians from UK.
Japan’s JAL, canceled ALL flights to Europe – the airlines would normally use Russian airspace to make the journey.
OOPS! (This country is killing its own industry).
Bank bailouts by taxpayers due to Russian sanctions? But of course. Some shareholders of Société Générale in France are speaking about a €2.7 billion loss linked to sanctions on its Russian subsidiary Rosbank.
OOPS! How about sanctioning your own company? Please bail out the bank! They’re apparently asking for indemnities from French and European authorities.
It has become known that the US nuclear industry is lobbying to continue importing enriched uranium from Russia at low prices despite the situation in Ukraine, as it is seen as a key element in keeping US electricity prices low.
OOPS! Is it time for flying off on a broom again?
Btw, the flagship Apple Store has just opened again in Russia, with iPhones and other tech now returning with a 20-30% markup.
Is it really that simple? Are these western influences really committing economic harakiri just so they can hide their own economic fall and of course: Blame Russia?
The true colors of the west are now shown in full daylight. Their claims on a monopoly on virtue is a clear and convincing demonstration of their own hypocrisy. There is no need to listen to the West.
Russia is taking it. They are taking what they must and protecting what they must. The big reveal is how many organizations and companies are totally controlled by western financial sources. This is the biggest surprise to many of us. We truly live in a world of neo-nazis and fascists. Look, I knew they were in the Ukraine, and in spots in the world, but I never knew it was this widespread. Personally, I cannot wait for Zone B to fulfill its purpose.
And then the question. What about China? And now we see some sunshine, although it is a muted and a nuanced response but there is no failure to respond, every time!
A quote from our own Larchmonter445:
“The Chinese are learning a lesson that reality is what is shot at you by your enemies. They see how Russia was set up for destruction using Ukraine with NATO. It brings them back to Belgrade ’99 and the bombing of their embassy.Russia just got the emotional support of a billion four hundred million souls.I bet if Russia needed volunteers and they put out a call, 10 million Chinese would be there in a day.The Double Helix has history. Korean War. WWII. Harbin. Unit 731. Chinese and Russians were both used for Jap medical experiments and tortured together.It’s not all just recent alignment and coordination and cooperation.This human cohesion against the Hegemon is deep. Visceral. Existential.”
China’s action works like this:
A tranche of sanctions are announced. Vehicles, phones and whatever.
China publishes:
Chinese firms see opportunity in cars, smartphones in Russia after Western exit
Western Reaction:
Insane and stupid sanctions are announced
China publishes:
New ‘sanctions’ against Russian cats shocks Chinese netizens, trending top on social media
Western Reaction:
Sanctions Phase 4 is announced by the EU
China publishes:
Western sanctions only create more problems for the global economy
Western Reaction:
Russia gets nailed by a cyber war
China publishes:
Exclusive: US NSA launches cyberattacks against China for a decade, making citizens’ privacy ‘run naked’
Western Reaction:
Biden or some western EU stooge makes a speech
China publishes:
The US tries hard to hijack world’s view on Russia, but more countries are not buying it
Western Reaction:
Certain Russian banks are cut from SWIFT
China publishes Russian comments:
For citizens, this will be a problem only for those whose purchases and whose lives are most connected with currency, like in dollars and euros, in their consumption. The main part of the population that purchases Russian goods from the Russian markets, using Russian currency or Russian cards (ie., normal people), will not experience any significant threats to their standard of living and quality over the next few months.
China publishes:
Unilateral actions violate China-U.S. trade deal and WTO principles
In addition and it is not very visible, there is a soft process happening around China. It is the same process as what we’ve seen with Russia. The west is trying the same thing but with lesser noise.
Western Reaction:
Biden sends former Trump officials to Taiwan
China publishes:
It is to ‘offset Pompeo’ and pacify DPP.
Western Reaction:
Japan talks about hosting US nuclear arms
China publishes:
Beijing urges Tokyo to ‘deeply reflect on its history’
And so we can see the response of China to each move that the Seppuku Sanctions crowd makes. Take a look at this image. Please do so, I cannot load this on the blog. The title is Aggressive Expansion. Please take a good look and you will know for sure that China understands the issues exactly correctly.
Do you still feel conflicted? Do you still not know that this is another attempted Russia Rape?
Russian MFA: “The EU’s (…) unilateral restrictions, (…) incompatible with international law, are not directed against the Russian people. Brussels officials (…) are saying openly they intend to inflict the maximum possible damage (…) “suppress Russia’s economic growth.”
A few more images from China.
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And the Canadian Embassy in Beijing put up “We support Ukraine” sign in Chinese. Few hrs later…
2022 03 04 10 5e8
The humor in China is noticeable and there is not one Chinese source that I follow, that is not clearly with Russia.
2022 03 04 10 59
But it is different, as this time Russia will not be raped. The Ukrainian actions may be the first move and action may not stay there. In fact, I believe action will not stay there, as it was very well described by Putin and Xi Jinping, in their political manifesto. The world simply cannot continue with a small part of it Raping the Rest, because this small part is unable to support themselves without aggression and looting. Western countries have begun the process of destroying their own economies’ – Russian FM spox
Russia may be planning to confiscate western assets inside Russia and convert them to Russian assets to balance the theft. Intellectual property has major value.
Many of us are despairing as Russian news and Russian information is being sanctioned and suppressed in the free west. So, where do we get Russian news? The answer is: From the Chinese Russian News Store. Every major Chinese publication has Russia / Ukraine round-the-clock coverage.
Expectations
My expectation is that we may see the UN in its current form, just collapse. If this august body can simply ban diplomats against all norms of agreement and international law, why should it exist in its current form in its current location?
My further expectation is that Russia will be just fine economically. They’ve prepared for this. Many banks issued credit cards are inter-operable with the Chinese system. Russia says clearly that they will use the other mechanisms that were developed exactly for this. The sanctions are a massive pretense and an overreach of major proportions. They will all lead to a further de-dollarization.
Russia (along with the other BRICS nations) has an incentive to introduce a global digital currency that can be used anywhere (to export energy for example). The West has an incentive to introduce CBDCs at the national level that can only be used within a given economic zone.
This will form part of the multipolar war.
A further expectation is that these sanctions (from hell) will speed up both de-dollarization and a complete economic collapse of the west. They can do their reset. Nobody else is interested. The sanctions don’t work. They have massive carve outs with Big Headlines but in the fine print, they say: We don’t really mean that because they exclude the important things from the sanctions like gas, like oil, metals and Coca Cola.
Russian MFA: “The EU’s (…) unilateral restrictions, (…) incompatible with international law, are not directed against the Russian people. Brussels officials (…) are saying openly they intend to inflict the maximum possible damage (…) “suppress Russia’s economic growth.”
Russia Returns to Gold Standard – Government to Remove VAT (Tax) on Bullion. This bill will be submitted to the State Duma on March 4. . . .
Hal Turner Editorial Remarks
In one fell swoop, Russia just made the Russian Ruble the single most stable currency in the entire world.
Moreover, they just fucked the US Dollar and the EURO so badly, neither currency is likely to survive.
Nobody around the world will favor a US dollar, backed by nothing, from a nation $30 TRILLION in debt, versus a gold-backed Ruble.
Russia just completely SMASHED the United States and the EUROZONE.
Think I’m kidding? Think again.
When Muammar Qaddafi in Libya planned on a Gold-backed currency for all of Africa, the West went into Libya and overthrew him.
When Saddam Hussein in Iraq announced he would start selling oil in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar, two months later was Iraq War 2 – and they hung him!
The U.S. Dollar being the sole reserve currency for this planet is why wars get waged, and now Russia has completely, totally smashed it.
You watch. The U.S. that has been saying “no nuclear war” and even Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying yesterday “All this talk of nuclear war is dangerous, stop it” is going to change almost overnight. The US is now in an existential crisis. Our currency has just been utterly smashed by Russia’s decision to back the Ruble with Gold.
Watch the rhetoric about Russia from this moment on.
You will notice it is ratcheted-up to vilification like you’ve never seen before. Why, they’ll probably start accusing Russian troops of throwing babies out of incubators in Ukraine hospitals (like they accused Iraq) in order to justify going to war with Russia.
In my personal opinion, war with Russia is now a foregone conclusion. The US and Europe have no choice. If the Dollar and the EURO are to survive, Russia must be killed.
I hope you prepped. Food, water, medicine, etc.
Now get right with God. I mean it. The shit is about to hit the fan so badly, we’ll be lucky to live through it.
UPDATE 8:45 AM EST FRIDAY MARCH 4 — Two days ago on March 2, 2022, I recall seeing a SINGLE off-the-beaten-path notification which read simply “the EU has forbidden sale and import of EU banknotes into Russia.” I remember thinking this was odd. How can anyone restrict the movement of cash and why would they? Now, we know.
Clearly the European Union (EU) got word that Russia was going to back their currency with Gold and the EU wanted to make sure no one in Europe could sell or even bring their cash EUROS into Russia to dump them for gold-backed currency! The EU knew this was coming . . . or at least they strongly feared it.
So now, people in Europe are hamstrung; they cannot use THEIR OWN MONEY to buy some other type of money without first converting that money to someone else’s money that isn’t restricted from going into Russia. Jump through hoops to use your own cash. These Bankers ARE tyrants. Outright vicious tyrants.
Russia Prevents Washington from Unleashing Biological Warfare
In view of the unrest that US intelligence services have been actively initiating lately, whether in Central Asia, Transcaucasia or other areas bordering Russia and China, the risk of a biological disaster from multiple secret military biological laboratories deployed by the US in potentially politically and socially unstable regions is objectively increasing. In this regard, the issue of the US preparing a biological time bomb in Kazakhstan has been raised many times before. The growing risk of the Pentagon initiating biological warfare using over 400 US biological laboratories located overseas around the world and the need for a clear response to the risk of worldwide biological disaster from such secret US overseas facilities has been repeatedly pointed out. After all, these biological laboratories employ some 13,000 “employees” who are busy creating strains of killer pathogens (microbes and viruses) that are resistant to vaccines.
It is no secret nowadays that the US has set up such biological laboratories in 25 countries around the world: in the Middle East, Africa, South-East Asia. Only within the former Soviet Union there are US military biological laboratories in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Uzbekistan.
The Americans try to deny the military nature of the studies conducted in such laboratories. However, the secrecy that surrounds them is only comparable to that of the most important military facilities. There is no accountability to the local and global public about the “work” being done there. Moreover, no scientific “achievements” have been publicly demonstrated by American biologists over the many years of the existence of such foreign secret laboratories, and the results of their research are not published anywhere in the public domain. Meanwhile, laboratories are actively collecting information on the gene pool of the populations of countries where such laboratories operate. All this indicates that the Pentagon is undoubtedly preparing to wage a biological war using biological weapons, which the US is building in such biological laboratories. It is well known that the US has already spent over $100bn in recent years developing biological warfare weapons. The US is the only country that still blocks the establishment of a verification mechanism under the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction.
However, like Russia’s demands to the West for a clear agreement on universal security measures and on the non-proliferation of NATO to the east, warnings about US readiness to unleash a global biological war have never been heeded in Washington and Western capitals.
With this in mind, one can hardly deny that Russia, like any other country, does not wish to have such weapons near its borders, thus jeopardizing the security of all.
Therefore, in Moscow’s military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine in recent days, getting rid of the numerous US military biological laboratories on the territory of that country is an important point.
On February 24, the British conservative publication THE EXPOSÉ published an article entitled “Is there more to the Ukraine/Russia conflict than meets the eye?” It recognizes that Russia should have conducted the current military operation on the basis of its security interests and confirms that there has long been a very serious threat to the lives and health of the Russian Federation population from the territory of Ukraine. It refers to at least 16 US military biological laboratories located in Odessa, Vinnitsa, Uzhgorod, Lviv (three), Kharkiv, Kiev (also three), Kherson, Ternopil, Dnepropetrovsk, as well as near Luhansk and the border with Crimea. Such “cooperation” between the Pentagon and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health dates back to 2005. Opposition parties managed to push through the Verkhovna Rada in 2013 to end this “cooperation”, but the US-led coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014 prevented the implementation of this decision, resulting in this “cooperation” not only continuing but also actively developing at the initiative of Washington.
Many of the Pentagon’s and White House’s official secrets about US clandestine biological laboratories overseas have been revealed by Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois at Champaign (USA) and author of the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 (BWATA). As this American scientist points out, “We now have an Offensive Biological Weapons industry in this country that violates the Biological Weapons Convention and my Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989”. According to Boyle, “American universities have a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda …. to be co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the the Pentagon and the C.I.A. into death science”. He cites as an example the group of Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin, which managed to increase the toxicity of the flu virus by a factor of 200. According to Boyle, the Pentagon and the CIA are “ready, willing and able to launch biowarfare when it suits their interests… They have a stockpile of that super-weapons-grade anthrax that they already used against us in October 2001”.
The threat to people living even at a distance from such laboratories is evidenced by an investigation conducted by USA Today newspaper, which showed that from 2006 to 2013 alone, more than 1,500 accidents and safety violations occurred in 200 military biological laboratories on the territory of the US. So what about possible similar incidents in biological laboratories in Ukraine or other former Soviet republics?
In the summer of 2019, “America’s main biological warfare lab has been ordered to stop all research into the deadliest viruses and pathogens over fears contaminated waste could leak out of the facility,” reported Britain’s The Independent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the public health authority in the US, has revoked the military bioresearch center at Fort Detrick’s license to handle Ebola, smallpox and anthrax after CDC inspectors found “problems with the procedures used to decontaminate wastewater” at Fort Detrick. In this regard, it is notable that the possibility of “deadly viruses and pathogens” leaking into Fort Detrick’s wastewater was detected shortly before the COVID-19 outbreak, which the Americans were quick to blame on China. It is also noteworthy that the Pentagon has significantly stepped up the activities of its overseas biological laboratories since 2019, clearly shifting the “work” on particularly dangerous strains and biological weapons development there.
In these circumstances, the task of terminating the activities of the US secret biological laboratories as part of the demilitarization of that country is justified in the program of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.
Against this background, it is noteworthy that the US embassy in Ukraine removed all documents about the biological laboratories in Kiev and Odessa from its official website after Moscow launched its military operation. This further confirms that in addition to the nuclear threat from Zelensky, Russia was also being prepared for bio-extinction behind the ocean. Under these circumstances, the announcement by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) on the US government procurement website last October of an addendum on “combating highly dangerous pathogens” is understandable. This document concerned the $3.6mln finishing work to launch two biological laboratories in Ukraine – in Kiev and Odessa, where machinery, equipment and personnel were already being prepared for the United States to unleash a biological war under the cover of Ukraine.
That is however far from reality. It is only true if true if you believe ‘the world’ solely exists of the 5-eye spying cooperation (U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), the European Union, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore.
The view differs when you zoom out.
2022 03 03 09 26
biggerThe much bigger ‘rest of the world’ has not condemned Russia but understands how the conflict came about. They blame, like political scientist John Mearsheimer, the U.S. for causing the crisis. This includes, as far as I can tell, all of Africa (54 states), South America, Central America, the Middle East, and all of Asia ex Japan and Singapore.
This rest of the world that did not condemn Russia includes several notable U.S. allies and ‘partners’ like Turkey (Nato’s second biggest army!), India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel.
The case shows how much the standing of the once unilateral superpower has been diminished.
Guo Ji Leaves with Doufu
No, you can’t get it in the ‘States. It’s tasty. video 34MB
Now it’s official. Once, [1] all the notices and info were scrubbed from the US government websites, [2] the “fact checker” organizations then “whitewashed” the truth and thus [3] eliminated the reality, and [4] replaced it with the current narrative. .
Actually, this is faster than ususal.
So that MUST tell you that there’s a serious reason for the restructing of the narrative. Caught red-handed. Whoops!
The vehicles of the OSCE special monitoring mission seized by Ukrainian nationalists can be used to carry out provocations against OSCE employees and then accuse the military of Russia and the DPR. Deputy Head of the People’s Militia of the DPR Eduard Basurin warned about this on the air of the 60 Minutes program.
The DPR has information that employees of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) transmitted to the Ukrainian Armed Forces the coordinates of military facilities in the territory of Donbass, said Deputy Head of the DPR People’s Militia Eduard Basurin.
“We have always said that the OSCE mission is an organization that should promote peace. Now we have very interesting documents of the operational-tactical group “Vostok”, which indicate the coordinates, as they called it, of military targets. This is what was on the territory of our republic. Almost half of these coordinates were provided by representatives of the OSCE mission. Maybe that’s why they decided to run away from here?”, – said Basurin in the program “60 minutes” on the TV channel “Russia 1”.
In connection with the seizure of two dozen OSCE SMM vehicles by Ukrainian nationalist formations in Kramatorsk, the deputy head of the DPR People’s Militia suggested that the vehicles could be used to commit provocations against the military of Russia and the DPR.
“They can use these vehicles and then they will trumpet to the whole world that the Russian military together with us shot down a humanitarian mission in the form of the OSCE,” Basurin said.
German Automotive Industry
Uh oh. So Germany wants to go against Russia. Wholly shit!
BWM stops production, same for Porsche and VW due to missing small parts from Ukraine. Gas price hits record high. If BMW, VW and Porsche stop production, all small parts suppliers will reduces their production as well. The car industry is Germany’s backbone.
And also pay close attention to what is going on concerning Germany and it’s major employer; the Auto industry…
Cargo Ship Carrying German Luxury Cars Sinks In Mid-Atlantic
From HERE. What a bad “stroke of luck”. What a terrible coincidence.
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A large cargo vessel carrying cars from Germany to the United States sank Tuesday in the mid-Atlantic, 13 days after a fire broke out on board, the ship’s manager and the Portuguese navy said.
The Felicity Ace sank about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Portugal’s Azores Islands as it was being towed, MOL Ship Management in Singapore said in a statement. A salvage team had put out the fire.
The 200-meter-long (650-foot-long) vessel listed to starboard before going under, the ship’s manager said.
The Portuguese navy confirmed the sinking, saying it occurred outside Portuguese waters. A Portuguese Air Force helicopter evacuated the 22 crew members when the fire first broke out, setting the ship adrift.
Burnt-out cargo ship carrying thousands of luxury cars sinks
From HERE. What a bad “stroke of luck”. What a terrible coincidence.
The Felicity Ace which caught fire on February 16 while carrying thousands of cars, including Lamborghinis and German Porsches, finally sank while being towed back to shore.
Chinese vision impared handicap flooring
Throughout China are these things that I call “handicap flooring”. They are raised dots and lines that a blind person can feel with their walking stick. It helps them get around. Watch for them in this video. video 5MB
CHINA “WARNS” U.S.- “Will Turn Your Military to Scrap Iron”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a televised “warning” to the United States today, saying that if we continue to send ships through the Taiwan Strait, and encourage Taiwan Independence, our military deterrent “will be turned into scrap iron.”
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2022 03 04 09 55
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This is a direct response to yet another group of US Naval Vessels sailing inside of Chinese waters. Honestly these incurions are a common occurance, and the retort is a common enough wagging finger “don’t do that again, or else“.
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But put that in to perspective. If the USA wants to stir up touble it will get it.
Pro-China websites being shutdown and hacked.
From my email.
A hack attack on our server sector yesterday at 2:45 pm supporting THE GREANVILLE POST has effectively disabled the site. The database is full of holes, and even the regular TGP banner (which you see below) was blown away, replaced by some silly theme placard.
The customized code to make the site look and function efficiently simply vanished, along with all the copies of that code stored in various servers.
This is not the act of amateurs.
I guess it might be another cute “anonymous” attack on a site that always supports China and Russia against the empire. During this information war, we were one of the major sites dispelling the Western lies.
A “collage post” I had done yesterday could not be published; in fact, upon clicking the “Publish” button, the site went down.
Fortunately, I had just created an account on substack.com, so I was able at least to publish a “pared down” version there.
PATRICE
SEE IT THERE IF YOU LIKE
China on Tuesday warned the US that it will pay a “heavy price” for its attempts to show support to Taiwan’s independence as a delegation of ex-American defense officials landed in Taipei amid apprehensions that Beijing may attempt action against the self-ruled island akin to Russia’s military assault in Ukraine. Yesterday, China issued a statement saying US Nukes in South Korea are “unacceptable” and it is time for those weapons to be sent home.
Taiwanese media reports said a five-member delegation headed by former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Admiral (retd) Mullen was received by Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, raising concerns in Beijing over the US efforts to step up its engagement with Taiwan, which China firmly affirms as part of the Chinese mainland.
China in recent months ratcheted up military preparations sending hundreds of its air force jets into Taiwan’s Air Defense Zone besides beefing up its naval force keeping the self-governing breakaway island on tenterhooks.
Officials in Taiwan and the US say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has drawn fresh attention to China’s threat to forcibly annex the self-governing island.
Besides Mullen’s visit, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was due to arrive in Taiwan Wednesday.
Pretty Pink Dress
She’s one of the reasons why I love China so much. video 8MB
Hal Turner Editorial Opinion
What’s going to happen when China completely cuts off the US?
When 260 million Americans can no longer get their prescription medications because the raw materials for those medications come from China…
When 85+% of electronics are no longer available…
When 75+% of automotive parts are no longer available…
When 80+% of medical supplies are no longer available…We in the US are COMPLETELY screwed, we hardly make anything any longer.
It is important to note that the reason we don’t make anything here anymore is all those folks who, for years, talked-up “Free Trade.” They told us that removing Tariffs on foreign-made goods would cause foreign countries to remove Tariff’s on American-made goods, thereby increasing sales and creating jobs here in America. We bought their talk and went the “Free trade” route.
What we didn’t realize was that the “Free Trade” crowd had no intention at all of being able to sell to other countries; what they REALLY wanted was to move manufacturing jobs OUT of America, use cheap labor in third world countries, then ship the same products back here to America tariff-free. The money they saved by using cheap, third-world labor, went in their pockets as additional profit.
The only thing “free trade” got America was complete destruction of our manufacturing, and grotesque outflow of American consumer dollars to foreign nations.
Now that we __may__ be facing a World War 3 situation with Russia and China, we find ourselves with no manufacturing base to support a war, and little to no raw materials, either.
The “Free Trade” crowd got us here. The nation will be lucky to even survive if actual war breaks out.
Girl in a mall
So many, many malls in China. This is what they are like. video 8MB
More anti-China propaganda
You need waders to trudge through the lies.
“Quality of infrastructure: countries with best infrastructure 2019 | Statista”
Do you believe:
US is ahead of China in infrastructure?
Australia with extremely poor public transport system also ranks ahead of China?
Taiwan with massive power supply shortage and having partial and island wide blackout daily in the past decade, and the issue has become a problem in attracting FDI also ranked above China?
Another bloody propaganda ranking machine to brainwash the world into believing western superiority.
The vault 7 is in full activation and like mindless programmed zombies all of the West, and most especially America is now Rambo zombies ready to fight for democracy™ against Russia and communism! Ugh.
The fact is that these are service-to-another sentience. Also known as NPC.
You need to be a service-to-others sentience. It helps with sorting. you don’t wnat to be forever trapped in this Prison Planet do you? Be the Rufus.
I have to tell youse guys, Peter Mann hits the nail on the heat. Whoa!
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There is no better way to learn about the true China other than spending a short time living in China. The first thing one will learn is that all of your politicians, elected officials, mainstream media, and truth-defending journalists have been relentlessly lying about China. They will experience the so-called Rosemary’s Baby moment, when Rosemary discovers that everyone she has ever trusted, including her parents and husband, are in a conspiracy to have her give birth to the devil’s child.
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Since not everyone can visit or live in China, it may then be up to independent people with intimate knowledge to share what they know to people who want to know…
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On the other hand, I believe I have a rather unique experience in my discovery of the Western cesspool, as well as learning of China’s vast land, its people, and its long history. China has gone through seachange in my lifetime, and I am happy to have been a participant rather than just a bystander. I have been privy to a lot more than the average observer because I used to work in major national and provincial scale hi-tech projects.
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As for Xi’s achievements, I can say there have been many. Despite the West’s wanton use of insinuations and slanders, Xi cannot be a dictator. He does not come from a family clique or a regional power base or an army group. His power base is in fact the CCP.
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People who don’t understand how power works like to spew shite. Xi was trusted by the various powers in China to lead the country to the next stage. Xi was made a leader; he did not fight to become one. He also has a very difficult job; imagine top officials from his home province repeatedly ignored his orders. Can that happen with a dictator? Some of the things he has done directly impacted me when I was in China, but which I definitely agree with. Xi is really an on-going project of the party to rein in the Wild West business sector, and to clean up the corruption of the party and the PLA. For someone who has had direct experience of China since 1960, I say it’s about time.
Why is Africa pivoting to China and not the USA?
Well…DUH!
Well, here’s an African minister telling the truth for all to see. OMG! What a harsh and direct take-down. video 44MB
This sitrep does not touch on the economic war, which to my mind is the main front of this war.
In this regard, Russia and China (lets not be naive) have escalation dominance. The West may be good at producing narratives, but Russia and China produce real stuff: commodities and manufacturing goods. In both cases Russia and China can twiddle the dial up or down. This is literally the oxygen the West relies on. This is where the war is won, and I mean the total war not just the skirmish in Ukraine.
RUSSIA RETALIATES: CUTS OFF NEW ROCKET ENGINES TO U.S.A.
2022 03 04 09 48
Russia’s Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has stopped the deliveries of rocket engines manufactured by Energomash association to the United States.
Shown above, “This is the RD-180 engine in the first place, which is used for the Atlas-5 rocket as the main engine, and the RD-181 engine, which is used as the first stage of the Antares rocket,” Dmitry Rogozin, Roscosmos CEO said.
“Let them now fly into space on their brooms,” Rogozin added.
In addition, Russia is terminating cooperation with the United States on experiments conducted on board the International Space Station.
Due to restrictions, the Russian space program will have to be changed, the head of Roscosmos also said. First priority will be paid to defense satellites.
On February 24, US President Joe Biden pledged to impose sanctions against the Russian space program. The United States will block more than 50% of high-tech imports to Russia to harm the ability of the Russians to modernise their Armed Froces, Biden said.
Russian Gas supplies cut off
GAS SUPPLIES FROM POLAND TO GERMANY VIA THE YAMAL-EUROPE PIPELINE HAVE CEASED. Germany shut-down the approval process for the NordStream-2 gas pipeline from Russia, now Germany gets no gas at all, from Russia.
Russian Steel cut off to the EU
Severstal decided to completely stop the supply of steel to the EU countries. No more Russian steel for Europe!
Chinese girl performing K-Pop
She is pretty typical. Until they move out of my office building, we had three K-pop / C-pop dance studios next to my office. I would stop by (it’s all windows here) and watch them dance. They would look, well look exactly, like this girl doing their moves. video 7MB
She’s great huh?
Exclusive: China a main target of US NSA cyberattacks, with key infrastructure under threat
The US’ National Security Agency (NSA) has been launching cyberattacks against 47 countries and regions for a decade, with Chinese government departments, high-tech companies and military-related institutes among the key targets, the Global Times learned from the Internet Security Company 360 exclusively on Wednesday.
Cybersecurity experts warned that under the surveillance of the NSA, the privacy and sensitive information of hundreds of millions of people around the world are exposed, “like running around naked.”
Experts slammed the US government and politicians behind the NSA for focusing only on political self-interests. Such invasion seriously infringes on the legitimate interests of Chinese and global citizens, they stressed.
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China, key target
The NSA is an affiliate of the US Department of Defense, which specializes in electronic communications surveillance. Its main mission is to collect information from various countries, expose the communications activities of potential spies, and provide processed intelligence information to the US government.
For a long time, in order to achieve the purpose of intelligence collection, NSA launched large-scale network attacks around the world, with China being one of the main victims.
According to the company, since 2008, they have captured a large number of complex attack programs. Through long-term analysis and field evidence from multiple victim units, combined with global threat intelligence, as well as tracks to the PRISM scandal and the “Shadow Broker” hacker groups, the company confirmed that these attacks targeting leading enterprises for more than 10 years were carried out by NSA.
“We found that NSA organized attacks on targets in China, such as the government, finance, scientific research institutes, communications operators, education, military, aerospace, medical-related industries, with high-tech companies accounting for a large proportion,” a cybersecurity expert from the company told the Global Times.
According to the FOXCID server code names described in classified NSA documents, it can also be found that the attacks have been launched against 47 countries and regions around the world, including the UK, Germany, France, South Korea, Poland, Japan and Iran, covering 403 targets, the expert said.
The NSA has developed numerous operational plans to monitor global targets. The expert said that through statistical analysis of the backdoor configuration field of the NSA’s exclusive Validator, the potential attack against China is estimated to be very large. “The most conservative estimate for Validator alone is that hundreds of thousands or even millions of computers have been infected by the virus.”
Nowhere to hide
The Global Times learned that the company named the hacking group under NSA as APT-C-40 and found the NSA has been launching attacks at leading companies for more than 10 years.
These attacks, which were discovered to have started in 2010, coincide with a specific network warfare plan the NSA implemented. With diverse and concealing attacking techniques, the NSA launched attacks on key network management servers and terminals of a large number of enterprises.
The expert also revealed that the major tactics for the attacks are varied and covert, including backdoor program UnitedRake, QUANTUM attack system, and fake server FOXCID.
The QUANTUM attack system is the NSA’s most powerful attack tool and was established in 2004. QUANTUM is capable of monitoring, intercepting and utilizing data that the NSA collected from the global network communication and internet system.
FOXACID is a powerful vulnerability attack platform designed by the NSA which can allow operators with little experience to participate in cyberattacks. It is a powerful “large-scale invasion tool.”
The security expert said apart from fighting on the battleground, cyberspace is also an important battlefield for the great powers. Once the APT organization launches attacks on a country, it can paralyze its transportation, banking, aviation, water and electricity systems. In addition, the attacks can be used to damage the country’s political stability and economic lifeline.
The communications industry has been a key target of the NSA, peeping and secretly collecting personal and key data of the industry for a long time, which results in a large number of netizens’ private data, such as their identities, property, home address and even voice messages and recordings, risk being maliciously collected, abused or transferred to overseas, the expert said.
Political self-interest is the only focus for the government and politicians behind the NSA. They treated human rights as a chip for political games and their intrusion seriously infringes on the legitimate interests of Chinese and people around the world, the expert said.
Just in case you are unaware about what the FUCK China is able to do to anyone desirous of attacking it, or pretending to be “just freedom of navigation” bullshit.
Here is the park about a ten minute walk from my home. video 25MB
Listen to me!
Do not freak out. All is going according to plan, and NOW is the time for you all to be the Rufus! Seriously. That is what is going to get you though this time. It’s your opportunity to shine! video 30MB
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Ok, so the Russians make a move that they were forced into by the United States. Of course the USA knew what it was doing. Every American knows about the “Cuban Missile Crisis”.
To pretend that it doesn’t is ridiculous.
If you place, or threaten to place, nuclear weapons on the border of a major nation, you can expect CERTAINLY a series of responses.
This is exactly what happened, but of course, it’s not being reported this way in the American / British “news”. According to that “news”, the Russians are taking a beating by the proud and brave Ukranians.
So, I go on LinkedIN, and other other mainstream media, and Lordy! It’s all about the brave Ukranians fighting the evil communists. Sheech! Talk about spinning a narrative! So here, we are going to put some perspectives in place and then resume business as usual.
This is a fine meandering article hosting a wide selection of rambling thoughts and interests. Remember, don’t look at one singular issue and study it. Look at the big picture, as that is how everything is actually connected.
First, a look at a map…
Did you know that the Ukraine is the fourth-largest recipient of American equipment and weapons in the world? Imagine that.
Why? Why in Good God’s name, why?
Now, we begin with a statement that The Domain Commander made; “We are striving for little bads, so we can avoid the Big Bads”…
Andrew Korybko One World
Thu, 24 Feb 2022 20:56 UTC
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A much larger war that could dangerously escalate into World War III was averted by Russia’s preemptive special operation in Ukraine aimed at neutralizing the US and NATO’s latent, imminent, and hot threats emanating from that country. This makes Moscow’s military mission truly a peacemaking one since the Eurasian Great Power responsibly sought to prevent World War III, not spark it. Russia truly had no choice but to act now.
In short, the US and its anti-Russian NATO allies were secretly establishing military facilities in Ukraine for launching their own impending war against that neighboring nuclear power. First, however, Washington wanted to neutralize Moscow’s nuclear second-strike capabilities through the regional deployment of “anti-missile systems” and strike weapons, including one day hypersonic missiles and even eventually to Ukraine itself too. This coincided with the US’ withdrawal from strategic arms pacts such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and the Open Skies Treaty, all of which destabilized European security by making America’s military intentions all the more ambiguous to Russia.
President Putin’s speech from Monday evening when he announced his country’s recognition oftheDonbassRepublics saw him meticulously detail the existential nature of the threat that the US and NATO’s secret military infrastructure in Ukraine poses to Russia. He described their airfields, bases, and ports in the country that he warned will soon be used to strike his own, albeit after first presumably neutralizing its nuclear second-strike capabilities. Thursday morning’s speech compared post-Soviet Russia’s three-decade-long appeasement of US-led NATO to Stalin’s pre-World War II appeasement of Nazi Germany, declaring that “We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so. Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy.”
According to Russian intelligence, “If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment.” “They did not leave us any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today”, President Putin revealed, which is why “In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action.” He then issued what’s widely interpreted as a nuclear warning to NATO: “No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”
It’s for all of these reasons that Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova clarified that “It’s not a beginning of war, it is prevention of a situation that could lead to global military confrontation.” What she meant was exactly what President Putin himself had said, namely that a much larger war that could dangerously escalate into World War III was averted by Russia’s preemptive special operation in Ukraine aimed at neutralizing the US and NATO’s latent, imminent, and hot threats emanating from that country. This makes Moscow’s military mission truly a peacemaking one since the Eurasian Great Power responsibly sought to prevent World War III, not spark it. Russia truly had no choice but to act now.
That’s because President Putin also revealed on Thursday morning that “Even now, with NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year.” As he put it, “It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.” It’s therefore understandable why Russia finally had to act.
After all, President Putin already made his back-up plan known on 21 December when speaking at an “Expanded Meeting Of The Defense Ministry Board“. At that time, he said that “what they are doing, or trying or planning to do in Ukraine, is not happening thousands of kilometres away from our national border. It is on the doorstep of our house. They must understand that we simply have nowhere further to retreat to.” That event coincided with Russia’s publication of its security guarantee requests to the US and NATO for ensuring the integrity of its national security red lines. Moscow asked for legal guarantees halting the bloc’s continual eastward expansion, the removal of strike weapons from Russia’s borders, and a return to the continental military status quo enshrined in the now-defunct 1997 Russian-NATO Founding Act. Regrettably, the US-led West rebuffed the last chance for a diplomatic solution.
Had Russia not acted when it did on Thursday, it’s very likely that the US would have used the pretext of the third round of civil war hostilities that it encouraged Kiev to provoke last weekend in Eastern Ukraine to deploy strikes to that country on an emergency basis under the false pretext of “defending” it when in reality it would all be about clandestinely seeking to worsen Russia’s security as explained. President Putin therefore had no choice but to commence his military’s special operation in Ukraine on Thursday morning, which arguably averted the Third World War that would have inevitably followed with time had Russia continued to appease the US, seeing as how that nuclear superpower was never sincere about respecting its counterpart’s national security red lines.
And now time for a pretty girl
I really like her top with the chain metal fringes on the sleeves. Pretty hot.
The threat of expulsion from SWIFT as a deterrent to war is a “paper tiger” and fintech helped.
The nightmare of another European war is upon us and the non-military deterrent of being cut off from the SWIFT currency transfer system seems toothless. A paper tiger.
Ever since Iran’s SWIFT cut-off in 2012 US and EU policymakers have wielded the threat of a SWIFT cut-off like a sword. Now it seems throwing Russia’s 1.7% of global GDP off of SWIFT is unpalatable.
Let’s look at why. The biggest reason is energy but the others are tech-based:
1️⃣ G7 officials made it clear that they were reluctant to expel Russia because it would make it impossible to pay for Russian energy, leaving Europe in the dark and paying more. This is the clearest and most compelling reason not to cut off Russia.
2️⃣ SWIFT expulsion is not guaranteed to stop cash flows. SWIFT is merely a messaging system, it doesn’t move money. Anyone following China-Iran trade can attest that a cut-off doesn’t stop trade, so much as make it more expensive. Iran has perfected barter and international digital goods trading off of SWIFT.
3️⃣ China’s “Cross-Border International Payment System (CIPS) started in 2015 as a SWIFT alternative. It now has 1,186 financial institutions in 100 countries signed up. Russia has access to CIPS and while not ideal there is nothing preventing Russia from using the system and RMB in lieu of dollars. China built CIPS, following Iran’s cut-off for exactly this purpose. Russia’s equivalent SPFS system is simply too small.
4️⃣ Crypto is not yet ready to take over a meaningful amount of Russia’s $670+ bn in combined imports and exports but it doesn’t have to. If CIPS and other options above are put to use crypto can likely help small businesses move money across borders to keep things running.
Stablecoin tether was already illegally used in trade between China and Russia in 2019 with flows of up to $10-30mn a day. This is new territory, but I think we should not underestimate crypto’s capabilities. They may surprise us.
5️⃣ The digital Ruble, is in testing and perhaps within a few months, it could be rushed into production. Digital yuan-ruble trade is already in discussion. Russia may convince other countries to accept a digital ruble in trade. The recipients won’t need a CBDC themselves, just a digital ledger at the central bank to avoid SWIFT.
War causes change at a shocking pace. All of these SWIFT alternatives shift money out of dollars. De-dollarization is a trend the US doesn’t want to accelerate and why the US will not push in earnest for a SWIFT cut-off.
Fintech is now a pawn in the great geopolitical game. Its role in turning the SWIFT deterrent into a paper tiger is no small feat.
A great discussion about the Ukraine on You-tube…
It’s pretty good, and it goes in great deal about the history about what is going on.
Yeah. I get it. Too many cute and beautiful girls. Well, I am in China. I can’t help it. I am surrounded by them. To understand China, is to understand beauty.
Social media users will be given new powers to control who can interact with them under a major crackdown on hate-filled internet trolls.
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter will by law have to give users the tools to block anonymous unverified accounts.
Users will also be given the option to verify themselves. The onus will be on the firms to find a suitable verification method, but it could range from taking a selfie to providing proof of a passport or driving licence.
The new measures have been added to the upcoming Online Safety Bill, which will impose a duty of care on tech companies to protect users.
However, individuals will be allowed to choose whether to join the verification process – despite calls from some campaigners to make it a requirement.
Ministers were concerned it could jeopardise the safety of vulnerable users. Online anonymity can be crucial for domestic abuse victims, activists living in authoritarian countries and young people exploring their sexuality.
The Government has also announced a measure that will force platforms to provide adult users with tools to block ‘legal but harmful content’ such as racist abuse and Covid disinformation.
This could include allowing users to turn on settings that would stop them receiving recommendations on certain topics or place sensitivity screens over that content.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the new measures would ‘put more power in the hands’ of social media users by giving them more choice over who they communicate with.
Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said: ‘Tech firms have a responsibility to stop anonymous trolls polluting their platforms.
‘We have listened to calls for us to strengthen our new online safety laws and are announcing new measures to put greater power in the hands of social media users themselves.
‘People will now have more control over who can contact them and be able to stop the tidal wave of hate served up to them by rogue algorithms.’
It comes after calls from MPs, footballers and celebrities to take action on internet trolls after highlighting the horrific abuse they suffered.
The Government has already announced tougher punishments for trolls, with those found guilty of the worst abuse facing up to five years in prison under the new Bill.
The latest measures will only apply to the biggest social media platforms deemed ‘category one’ such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as they pose the severest risk.
Watchdog Ofcom will be given the power to fine them up to 10 per cent of annual global turnover for any breach or even block the sites from being used in the UK.
A DCMS spokesman said of the new measures: ‘While this will not prevent anonymous trolls posting abusive content in the first place – providing it is legal and does not contravene the platform’s terms and conditions – it will stop victims being exposed to it and give them more control over their online experience.’
The Bill will also force social media giants to remove illegal content such as child sexual abuse imagery, the promotion of suicide, hate crimes and incitement to terrorism.
But there is a growing list of toxic content and behaviour on social media which falls below the threshold of a criminal offence which still causes significant harm.
The spokesman added: ‘Much of this is already expressly forbidden in social networks’ terms and conditions, but too often it is allowed to stay up.’ Firms will have to make tools available that will allow users to block this on news feeds.
Three ways to crack down on hate
New measures added to the Online Safety Bill today will force social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to ensure users can:
VERIFY THEMSELVES
Users must be given the option of verification. It will be up to the platforms what methods they use, but this could range from uploading a selfie to match their profile picture or providing proof of Government-issued ID like a passport.
BAR ANONYMOUS TROLLS
Tools must be provided to enable individuals to block other users who choose to remain anonymous. These could include ticking a box within settings that allows direct messages or replies to posts to be sent only by verified accounts.
FILTER HARMFUL CONTENT
Users must also be given a way to block content that falls below the criminal threshold but still causes significant harm, such as racist abuse. Tools could include allowing users to alter settings so the site does not recommend certain topics or placing sensitivity screens over such content.
And for MM here…
I am SERIOUSLY considering making everyone apply to comment. I have to verify their email, and I am considering interviewing everyone via skype as well. This should seriously, seriously CUT down on trolls.
And don’t give me that “free speech” speil. There is no “free speech” in MM land. You join a community, and we police that community. If you disfunctional, or sociopathic, we kill you off.
It’s really simple.
Here, we operate like the social clubs of yore. Like the “Polish Falcons”, “The Elks”, “The grand woodsmen”, and others. You apply to join, and you pay membership dues. And the community polices itself.
You are NOT alone. This is a community. And as members of that community, we all work together as one. Like they do in China. As this video clearly shows what happens to sociopaths and other people with strange mental illnesses.
Participation in your community is what a Rufus is all about. It is the heart beat a thumping that makes the community, safe, calm, kind, happy and secure. As this next video clearly shows…
A Rufus is not a spectator. It is not a bystander. It is not a passive consumer. A Rufus is a participant in the community. Watch how this Rufus leave the pack of bystanders and actually does something. What a Rufus!
I know this mall. It’s Coco park in Shenzhen. Some great restrurants, bars, and clothings shops. She’s nice. One of my favorites. She’s wearing a nice sweater. You can be very sexy and attractive without showing skin, don’t you know. All you need to do is feel relaxed and comfortable, and wear a big massive smile on your face.
This is war, and it is in flux. There are going to be losses on all sides. Whether one side recaptures this, or shoots down that, has no meaning. The end result is what happens when the dust settles.
However, there are those that are trying to keep score. As if war is a tabulated war game. Here is a decent enough site in a flood of websites.
Keep in mind, though, that much of the digital evidence you see online is faked by amateurs. From Gizmodo:
Gizmodo has found at least ten viral photos and videos currently being spread on social media that are completely fake. In some cases, the videos and photos are years old. In others, the images are clearly not from Ukraine. There are even two examples of videos on Twitter today that are actually from war-themed video games.
But it hilariously lists Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council’s cut-out to the Intertubes, which is a lot like putting the American Council of Pork Producers in charge of censoring fact-checking information on swine fever.
This is a community. If you are a Rufus, then you participate in it. You just cannot sit by and do nothing. We take action. For we are part of something greater. And for those who have volunteered to the Domain, know exactly what I am talking about.
Today was only day two of the Russian military operation. And yet, what a day it was!!!
First, a quick update on the progress of Russian forces. Here is a bulletpoint summary for today:
Kherson: liberated
Nikolaev: fighting taking pace in outskirts
Konotop: taken by Russians
Chernigov: blocked by all sides by Russian forces
Melitopol: surrounded
Mariupol: is under attack, street fighting
Severodonetsk: under attack
Kharkov: very heavy mopping up operation
Suma: mopping up operations
Kiev: blocked from the West and under attack, the authorities are distributing weapons
Gostomel airport has been captured by Russian forces
Zaporozhie: Russian forces expected there tomorrow
A land corridor from Crimea to Russia should be opened by tomorrow.
Odessa: big question mark – so far, not Russian attacks reported (that I know of!)
Now about Donetsk and Lugansk:
Both cities are still under fire, and that goes to show that the advance of the LDNR forces has been slow, which is hardly surprising considering that the Ukronazis had 7 years to prepare their defenses. Still, things ARE getting better. Not only that, but the LDNR air defenses shot down a Ukie Tochka-U missile aimed at Donetsk. So it sure looks like the long awaited A2/AA “protective cupola” is being extended over the LDNR.
That being said, the LDNR forces did break through in at least two directions today, which means that the life left for the Ukie artillery shelling the LDNR will soon come to an end.
But that does not really tell the full story. So I will try to clarify things a little.
A typical battalion has about 400-600 men, depending on the type. Let’s also assume that that battalion has 3-4 companies with APCs, a mortar battery, an air defense platoon, an automatic grenade launcher platoon, a signal platoon, supply platoon, and a few smaller more specialized subunits. If that battalion loses its APCs it has basically lost its most important source of firepower. If its communications are down (destroyed or jammed), then that battalion cannot operate as part of a bigger force and if its supply routes are cut, then its ability to operate (more or fire) will rapidly dwindle down. So, on paper this battalion will remain combat capable, but in reality it will have broken up and cannot be considered a truly combat capable battalion anymore.
So, to destroy/incapacitate a battalion only a few precision strikes are needed. Such strikes though, will leave most of the soldiers alive and quite capable of resistance, but not as a battalion anymore, but more like a typical infantry company or even squads armed with small arms, machine guns, PRG, mines, etc.. They cannot maneuver very much, but they can conduct small hit and run operations against the enemy force. Which means that specialized infantry/police forces must now be send to find these small forces and deal with them in potentially bloody mopping up operations.
Of course, rather than a few precision strikes, it is much more effective to strike the entire battalion with, say, MLRS strikes which will not only destroy most of the hardware, but which will kill most of the soldiers, especially if they did not prepare and seek cover. But that means 400-500 dead in one single strike. That is if this battalion is somewhere in the steppe. But if it is in downtown Mariupol such a strike will inevitably result in even more scores of dead civilians, especially since the Ukies are very careful to always position their artillery near or even on top of buildings.
Does Russia want that?
Not if there is ANY other option left.
Please keep in mind that Russia has the reconnaissance-fire complexes needed obliterate an entire battalion anywhere in the eastern Ukraine in one single salvo. They have deliberately NOT done so today (with one possible exception during the very heavy battle for the Gostomel airport, which was taken by Russian special forces and is now secured as a safe bridgehead for Russian Military-Transport aviation right next to Kiev).
Something similar can be seen in urban offensive operations. It is one thing to get to a city or town’s outskirts, and quite another to penetrate inside the city or town. If the city is lightly defended by small arms fire, that is one thing, but if the city is well defended, in specially engineered defensive circles, with minefield, IEDs, very strong building used as command posts and if the city’s houses and basements have been prepared by combat engineers, then it is much harder to take. Again, one option is to send it dedicated urban combat groups while the other is flatten any building which is used by the defenders as a fortress.
The Russian forces have the means to flatten any building anywhere in the Ukraine, including by cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, MLRS with cluster or fuel-air munition or by using howitzers, heavy mortars and even the TOS-1/TOS-1A heavy flamethrower multi-barrel rocket launch systems.
But, again, that can only be done at a major cost in human lives. Russians won’t hesitate to obliterate some Nazi deathsquads, but to massacre hundreds of regular Ukrainians, irrespective of their personal views, is only and truly a last resort option.
There is a lot of evidence that the Russian forces have moved into the outskirts of many Ukrainian towns, including Kiev, Mariupol and others. Here is how Russian military practice works:
First, approach and try to block or surrender the city
Second, suppress the main enemy firing positions
Third, make sure that the city is truly blocked (except for a few special corridors, see below)
Fourth, hold your position and reconnoiter the outermost enemy lines (by fire when appropriate)
Fifth, send in special reconnaissance groups inside the city to observe and coordinate attacks
Sixth, once the city is surrounded/blocked and once you get a pretty decent picture of what is inside you take the next decisions which might include any of the following: open corridors for civilians to flee and for military personnel to surrender and cross over, determine the main axes of attack and begin slowly grinding down the opposition with heavy firepower (artillery, air, missiles).
Seventh, once the city’s defenses have been sufficiently disorganized, begin a house to house mopping up operation by specialized forces.
Before I go further, I want to remind you that during WWII the Soviet Military freed a whopping 1’200 (one thousand two hundred!) cities from the Nazi forces. Russians know how to do this better than anybody else.
Furthermore, during both Chechen wars, the Russians always managed to take Grozny, which was extremely heavily fortified and defended by some of the toughest fighters on the planet in spite of the fact that at that time the Russian army was it its lowest and badly disorganized, especially during the first Chechen war! But even in the first Chechen, the Russian did seize Grozny, twice, admittedly a huge cost (on both sides), but they did.
That was almost three decades ago.
Speaking of the Chechen war, in the first one the Russian military lost a big part of an entire brigade which had quickly entered the city, moved into the city center only to find itself surrounded and cut off, with terrible communications, quasi-non existing reconnaissance capabilities. That debacle left a very painful memory in the Russian collective memory and if somebody was expecting Russian APCs to reach the Mariupol or Kharkov at full speed with flags and screams of “hurrah!” – they don’t understand what is taking place: the (truly criminal) mistake made by Eltin’s generals during that first Chechen war will never be repeated by modern Russian commanders.
Any defeat is always a terrible tragedy, the only and best thing anybody can do after a defeat is to understand why and how it happened, and never repeat such a (criminal) mistake again.
That is the true reason why today Russians stopped on the outskirts of so many cities.
The bottom line is this. These are things which the Russians are trying to achieve
Destroy the Ukie armed forces but kill the absolute minimum number of Ukrainian soldiers (real Nazi will probably be destroyed no questions asked). Why? Because these surviving Ukrainian soldiers and officers are the ones who will play the main role in finally cleaning the Ukraine from the Nazi scum.
Get to the outskirts of as many major Ukrainian cities and gradually begin the steps I outlined above.
Convince civilians to flee and convince Ukrainian solders to lay down arms
Delay any Russian penetration inside the cities until the moment is “just right” (not too early, not too late)
Why?
Because Russia has ZERO intention of occupying or, even less so, rebuild or police the Ukraine, that’s why. The LDNR (in its legal borders) is as far as the Russians will go (with only a few possible exceptions).
The Kremlin decided that the goal of the operation was to 1) disarm and 2) to denazify the Ukraine. As soon as these goals are reached, the Russian want to get the hell out of the Ukraine and back into the LDNR and let the Ukrainians fight their own anti-Nazi civil war. That means that:
The Russians now must identify reasonable Ukrainian commanders and/or politicians to negotiate with
That Russia needs to offer the leftover Ukrainian ground forces the same deal which the Ukrainian forces which were tasked with the control of the Chernobyl nuclear planet were given today by the Russian forces: let’s secure this facility together and keep it secure together, with no combats of any kind. The Ukrainians gladly accepted, by the way, and now they are jointly patrolling area.
The Russian might also try something which worked well in Chechnia: tell the local town/city authorities that if they guarantee that not a single bullet will be fire from that town/city not a single Russian bullet will fly back and not a single Russian solider will enter the city, unless accompanied by locals and in order to ascertain the reality of the situation. But if a city is declared “open and peaceful” and then is used to attack Russian forces, it will be simply flattened with artillery. I call that the “Shamanov ultimatum” and, after a few false starts (and subsequently flattened towns) it worked very well.
The crucial factor is this: during the two Chechen wars or during 08.08.08 the Russians never saw the local people as their enemy and, if anything, they were hoping that the locals would start their own “housecleaning operation” which was a bad joke in the first Chechen war, but worked very well in the second Chechen war, and failed again during 08.08.08.
In military/combat terms the Ukies are much more similar to the Georgians than to the Chechens, so there is a good chance Russia might have to leave unconditionally and let the locals slug it at between each other for as much as they want (which is what Russia did in 08.08.08 even though Russia Airborne units were at the outskirts of Tbilissi).
Which brings me to THE QUESTION for tomorrow: how will the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians behave?
Right now, Ukrainian losses have been minimal (considering the undeniable fact that this is a fullscale strategic offensive), the Russian forces have reached their positions on the outskirts of many towns and tomorrow or the day after will be “decision time”.
I hope and pray that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers find a common language in as many locations as possible. Those who will chose a heroic stance (hardcore Nazis mostly) will be offered the possibility to die for their ideas.
In that context, “Ze” released a video in which he offered to negotiate directly and unconditionally, even about neutrality and any other topic. The Russian reply was simple and to the point:
Russia is immediately ready to start negotiations after the Armed Forces of Ukraine lay down their arms.
The Ukraine must be demilitarized and declared neutral.
The Ukraine must be denazified.
Russia will no longer allow the Nazis to rule in Ukraine. Ever.
After that reply, “Ze” and his aides stopped communicating.
I personally doubt that he has any control over anything. And the fact that a huge amount of weapons has been distributed to whomever wanted one today in Kiev shows that “Ze”‘s handlers have given him the order to make the biggest possible mess and bloodbath before he is evacuated.
This is very sad, and utterly immoral, but there is nothing Russia can do about that: the Ukraine will be flooded by well armed criminals gangs and Nazi insurgents for years to come.
Putin today made a speech in which he suggested that Russia’s beef was only with the Nazis and their deathsquads but that Russia would seek to cooperate with the Ukrainian armed forces (well, what’s left of them, really) should they overthrow the Nazis. See his full message here.
So, today was “we get to our staging positions” day.
So what did not happen (yet)?
The operational envelopment of the Ukrainian forces along the LOC with the LDNR forces has not happened yet, there is still a corridor by which these forces can withdraw. The Russian could have shut it down already “by maneuver by fire” but, apparently, they want to keep it open for a little longer.
The Russian Black Sea fleet has not engaged in any major combat activities (that I know off, so take that with a grain of salt).
Will that happen tomorrow? Maybe, it all really depends on whether the regular Ukrainian units will agree to surrender or whether they will fight to their last solider. It also depends on how the Ukrainian civilians will react at the sight of approaching Russian forces.
So what to look for tomorrow?
A further penetration of Russian forces deeper inside Ukie territory, with cities bypassed.
The gradual penetration of Russian forces into blocked/surrounded cities
The intervention of the Black Sea Fleet in combat operations (with maybe Odessa as a strategic target, not necessarily to take, but at least to threaten and weaken).
A western false flag (some “Russian atrocity” no doubt)
One more thing:
Western PSYOPs are in “max attack mode” and they are being helped by Russian 5th columnist websites. For example, I was trying to find a halfway decent map of the combat operations today, and ALL the Russian websites which offered such maps were hardcore 5th element. Okay, I get it – 5th columnists don’t need any real facts to make their maps, while the real patriots are afraid of both getting it wrong and leaking info. Still, I remember during the first two wars in the Donbass, there were some pretty decent maps available out there.
Today I see such zero. If anybody can recommend semi-decent military maps of the combat operations I would be most grateful.
The fact that the Russian 5th column is allowed to continue to operate the way it does really frustrates me. Could the Kremlin not tell them to “zip it” at least during active combat operations?
I did not even bother checking the output of the 6th column today, I fully expect it to be indistinguishable from the output of the 5th, and so I have no interest in it.
What is certain are two things: the joint efforts 5th and 6th column efforts have had some success, especially in locations where Putin his hated and pro-western views more common than in most of Russia. The best poll I have seen says “Three-quarters of the respondents rather support the decision of the President of Russia to recognize the independent Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (73%), rather do not support – 16%, and every tenth Russian found it difficult to answer (11%).The majority of Russians – 78% – expressed support for the President’s decision to sign an agreement on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.Rather, 14% of respondents do not support this decision“. Putin personal rating is at 67,2%.
My guesstimate that no more than 5% of Russian support the 5th column and not more than 15% support the 6th column. Toss in another 5-10% which is afraid and on the fence. This is only a guess following my readings of the Russian social media, not a precise figure or even one based on serious research!
Next, the main thesis of US PSYOPs today was “the Russian movement is very slow, much slower than expected” hinting at some formidable Ukrainian defense operations. I hope that while I did not post any maps today, the above will tell you all you need to know to identify this thesis for what it is: western information operations, nothing more. The problem is that there is no “smartphone confirmation” of any of that, and by tomorrow I expect the main western PSYOPs thesis to change from “no/slow advance” to “Russian atrocities” (the smartphone coverage for that will, of course, be provided by the western press corps).
So, in conclusion, and once more – the “fog of war” is real, and to read through it takes both time and experience. By tomorrow, I only expect this “fog of war” (powerfully augmented by PSYOPs) to drown us all in all sorts of nonsense, rumors and wild claims. Again, please don’t post panicked questions such as “is it true that the Ukrainian forces are already on the Red Square in Moscow” or something equally insipid.
Two quick ones just in, then I need to crash (sorry, I am exhausted).
The US decided to impose personal sanctions personally on Putin (and others) which will result in a full termination of any diplomatic relations (as Russians warned the US many times). Note: such sanctions are entirely symbolic but maximally offensive, so a full break with Russia is what the US wants.
Twelve thousand Chechens will be sent to the LDNR if needed, so promised Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of Chechnia. Actually, I think that this is a very good idea, like in Syria, the Chechens should get involved in policing and public security operations. FYI – when the “toughest” and “NATO trained and equipped” Georgian brigade heard that the Chechen battalion Vostok was approaching, they all ran abandoning all their fancy (and secret) equipment. Russia then organized exhibits of all that NATO kit.
Today, the LDNR authorities report the seizure of large Ukie weapons depots including the famous Javelins and NLAWs. This is all very good news.
MM video
I took this video from inside a DD (Chinese version of Uber). It depicts where I live in JiDa in Zhuhai, China. Sure it’s sideways, but well, not too much I can do about that now.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry says it wants to end the 8-year bloodbath in Donbass that both Ukraine and the West turned a blind eye to.
The West spent eight years ignoring the “sea of blood” in Donbass while arming Ukraine, and now claims Moscow is the aggressor when it stepped in to end the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RT on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, claiming it was necessary to “demilitarize and de-nazify” the neighbor. Kiev accused Russia of aggression, while the US, EU and NATO have called it an “unprovoked” invasion. Moscow insists this is not the case.
In announcing the operation, Putin said the “main objective is to stop the escalation of the war that’s been going on for eight years, and to stop the war,” Zakharova told RT in an exclusive interview.
“Russia did not commit aggression of any kind,” Zakharova insisted. “This did not start yesterday. There’s a sea of blood that’s appeared over the past 8 years,” she added, referring to the conflict in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which Russia on Monday recognized as independent states.
The main aim is to stop the escalation of the war that's been going on for eight years, to stop this war
Donetsk and Lugansk broke away from Ukraine in 2014, after the West-backed coup ousted the democratically elected government in Kiev. Zakharova noted that the two self-proclaimed republics held a referendum eight years ago, saying they did not want to remain in Ukraine, but both Moscow and the West rejected this and tried to put the “broken” country back together.
When asked about President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement that Ukraine wanted peace, Zakharova wondered why Ukraine was arming itself and refusing to negotiate with the Donbass.
“If Ukraine wanted peace, why did they get all these weapons” from all over the world, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told RT, adding, “It was clear that these were offensive weapons. Who were they fighting? Their own people in southeast Ukraine, and spoke often about seizing Crimea.”
The peninsula voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, but Ukraine and its Western backers have refused to recognize this, calling it an “annexation.”
Zakharova also noted that the top Ukrainian officials have openly and publicly brought up the idea of obtaining nuclear weapons in recent weeks, pointing out this was a fact and not something claimed by Russian intelligence.
Divisions in Ukraine go beyond Donetsk and Lugansk, Zakharova added, accusing armed groups with Nazi-era symbols – such as the notorious Azov Battalion – of having influence over much of the country.
For years, she said, Western media so concerned over human rights in places like South Sudan and Myanmar kept silent on all this, ignoring that more than 13,000 people have died in the Donbass – many of them civilians. While Russia provided them with humanitarian aid, Kiev besieged them by cutting off trade, finance, and even utilities. Zakharova noted that the water canal towards Crimea is now once again operational after Ukraine “criminally” shut it off years ago.
Community
It’s not about individual “freedom” and allowing the sick, evil and malovent to hijack a forum. It’s about community. Community. You have a choice. you can sit behind your computer in a grey cubicle and shout your opinions anomously, or you can participate in a community as an accepted member. It your choice.
Not in his entire life has President Vladimir Putin made a speech like Monday’s Donbass address to the Russian people.
Nor has he ever named the Americans to be Russia’s national enemy in such unequivocal Russian terms – American promises worthless, American intentions deadly, American speeches lies, American actions intimidation, extortion, blackmail.
“So I want to ask”, Putin said: “why, why all this, for what? Okay, you don’t want to see us as a friend and ally, but why make us an enemy? There is only one answer: it’s not about our political regime, it’s not about anything else, they just don’t need such a large independent country as Russia. That’s the answer to all the questions. This is the source of traditional American policy towards Russia.”
“The pretext for another sanctions attack will always be found or simply fabricated, regardless of the situation in Ukraine. There is only one goal – to restrain the development of Russia. And they will do it as they did before, even without any formal pretext at all, just because we are and will never give up our sovereignty, national interests and our values.”
Unlike the most famous of English and American mobilization speeches against French, German and Confederate enemies – King Henry’s Agincourt, Winston Churchill’s Dunkirk, and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg speeches – Putin didn’t wave his arms or move significantly his head, neck, shoulders, or right hand. Putin’s right hand is the operational one.
Watch and listen. The stillness of the body language, the pauses for breathing, the speech pitch, pace and modulation – these mean to all Russians: Do or die — now we do for ourselves or else the Americans will kill us.
Putin spoke for 55 minutes, 48 seconds – Shakespeare’s Henry V spoke for just over two minutes; Lincoln for less than that; Churchill for 20 minutes.
The Pentagon has been using body language and voice techniques to spy on Putin for years. Timothy Colton, the US Naval War College agent doubling as a Harvard professor, was exposed in 2015 after several years of paid secret work; read the details here.
Colton has also been the biographer of Boris Yeltsin, a work celebrated as a “masterpiece” by the US officials who once controlled Yeltsin. Yeltsin was unnamed in Putin’s speech, but all Russian listeners understand that he was meant in Putin’s accusations of “historic, strategic mistakes”, “pandering to the ambitions of the nationalist elites”; “injustices, lies and outright pillage.”
“Against the backdrop of the superficial and populist rhetoric about democracy and a bright future based either on a market or a planned economy, but amid a true impoverishment of people and widespread shortages, no one among the powers that be was thinking about the inevitable tragic consequences for the country… The collapse of the historical Russia known as the USSR is on their conscience.” For “market” Putin means the Yeltsin group, the two ranking officials who belong to it – Anatoly Chubais and Alexei Kudrin — are still alive, along with the oligarchs they created. For “planned economy” Putin refers to Mikhail Gorbachev whom he has condemned as well. For “conscience” Putin means hypocrisy.
The qualifier: “Of course, we cannot change past events, but we must at least admit them openly and honestly, without any reservations or politicking. Personally, I can add that no political factors, however impressive or profitable they may seem at any given moment, can or may be used as the fundamental principles of statehood. I am not trying to put the blame on anyone.”
Analysis of Putin’s body language and verbal cues on behalf of the secret services by Colton and his colleagues has not discouraged the hospitality which has been shown to Colton by the Valdai Club, the Kremlin-financed platform. The reason Putin has just announced openly. For the traditional American reason the Russian command believes Colton’s capacity to threaten is limited by his incapacity to comprehend.
Count Putin’s head, neck, and shoulder movements and measure them against the vertical and horizontal axes. Head movements left and right are restricted within 5 degrees of the vertical; there is almost no kinesis of the head forward or back; no neck rotation; and apart from a couple of left shrugs, Putin’s shoulders remain immobile and at rest on the horizontal for all 55 minutes. This is an unusually long time.
Movement psychologists diagnose these features as indicating on the one hand a combination of internal control and confidence in what is being said; on the other hand, the commitment to reassure the listener.
Putin does not stumble in speech, mispronounce or misread his teleprompter lines. Speaking without a glass of water for an hour, he clears his throat very rarely. His breathing intakes are short, regular, and without the diaphragmatic discipline of the Stanislavsky stage method; in short, natural. The pitch and modulation of his voice remain steady without many peaks of emphasis or emotion. But the president does something he has exhibited very rarely — he breathes out in audible sighs. This is a display of regret, sadness. For the Russian audience this is attractive because it is human.
For his emphases Putin employs as few of his moving parts as he can. This signifies a high degree of self-control without nervousness. Instead, he uses his hands, the right more than the left, to anchor his body. When he wants to underline a verbal point, there is no agitation of the arms nor tension in the fingers on the table. His gestures – either single-handed or double-handed – illustrate the military threats Putin is discussing from the US, the NATO alliance, and from Ukrainian territory.
Left: “a truly fatal document, the so-called ethnic policy of the party in modern conditions”. 2nd from left: “blackmailing the West to secure preferences by claiming that otherwise Russia would have a bigger influence in Ukraine”. 3rd from left: “we got five waves of NATO enlargement one after another….” 4th from left: “It’s called, rightly, ‘the knife to the throat’”. Right: “they are trying to blackmail us, again threatening us with sanctions, which, by the way, they will still introduce as Russia’s sovereignty strengthens”.
The last time the United States faced an enemy as calm, unmoving, disciplined, and confident was in the Vietnam War. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and deputy Victoria Nuland were less than eight years old at the time; National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had not been born.
Oh, and speaking about Taiwan…
And about China’s defenses regarding Taiwan…
AI controlled Chinese Robotic bombs are swimming independently all over the South China Sea. Collecting info, and ready to detonate upon command. Video 6MB
Chinese Naval Aviation. I wonder if CNN, BBC, or FOX “news” would ever show these kinds of videos. Video 7MB
How community works
This is what happens inside of China. It is a nation that values community, and that does not tolerate social misfits. And Trolls are mentally ill social misfits. That’s WHY they hide their true names, faces, appearance, and location.
Then (supposedly) hidden they cause saddness, interruptions and sow disgust.
This is unaccceptable inside of China, and China is very strict about putting these misfits out of society. Instead they provide them with meaningful labor, in well structured environments where their social skills are allowed to gorw and mature until one day then can return back into that community.
Community. Without it, you are just a loney, solitary misfit.
When was the last time you ate this delicious dish?
My guess is that you must have eaten at least 300 buckets of KFC chicken since then. So much, that you (and the rest of society) has forgotten that there as so many ways to cook chicken, and deep frying it is only one such way.
Chicken a la King took the United States by storm in the middle of the 20th century. But if you try to find it on a dinner menu these days, you probably won’t have much luck.
By embracing this dish, featuring cubed chicken with a cream sauce served over your favorite grain (rice, noodles or bread), you’ll get to taste what made this chicken recipe such a classic and maybe even discover your next favorite meal.
Remember the onslaught of lies trying to pin Coronavirus on the Chinaese because of unhealthy habits, filth and dirt at a Wet Market. Yet, no one ever showed images of what a Wet Market looks like. Well, here is what it looks like.
Despite possible sanctions and their hard-hitting economic consequences, the hunted Russian bear has got out of the den and is going after the hunters. Until recently, Russians, Ukrainians, and Europeans believed that there would be no war.
What we see now, however, is a full-scale Russian intervention and quite a successful one too. Where are the Russian troops going, and most importantly, why? And where will they stop?
Strengthened since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia was quite content with its new status of a leading regional power, and only verbally recalled its glorious imperial past. During the early 2000s, Russia even mulled the possibility of integrating into NATO and the EU, only to see its natural and legitimate interests repeatedly and shamelessly ignored. Millions of Russian-speakers living in the post-Soviet republics were deprived of their right to use their native language, while the Baltic countries and Ukraine profited from the transit of gas, oil, and raw materials. There was even a new “policy of gas pipelines,” when Russia was pressured into make concessions in exchange for being allowed to build a gas pipeline or simply put a stop to the syphoning off of its pipeline gas.
In fact, a resurgent Russia was gradually being presented as a “potential enemy” for the sake of reiterating NATO’s role as a defender against the imagined Russian threat. All this resulted in the 2013 events in Ukraine where nationalists came to power not without outside help, flatly refusing to safeguard the interests of the country’s Russian-speaking population, primarily in eastern Ukraine. Facing the risk of losing its naval base in Sevastopol (existing there since the 18th century) and wishing to protect the Russian-speaking people living in Ukraine, Russia, with the full support of the local population, re-absorbed Crimea and supported the separatists of Donbass. This was followed by Kiev’s ban on the use of the Russian language in the country (not entirely successful, though, since it was the main spoken language of Ukraine) and police persecution of those who advocated a dialogue with Moscow. In its effort to support Ukraine, the West introduced a series of anti-Russian sanctions, which seriously damaged the Russian economy. Still, for the past eight years, Russia was ready for dialogue. In exchange for autonomy for Russian-speakers and guarantees of non-deployment of a NATO infrastructure in eastern Ukraine, Moscow was prepared to roll back its support for the separatists and, possibly, even hold a new referendum in Crimea on its reunification with Russia.
However, during all these eight years, people continued to die along the disengagement line in Donbass, separating Kiev’s armed forces and the separatists (at the rate of more than 100 a year). Meanwhile, Russia was officially branded by Kiev as an “aggressor,” and those in power in Ukraine started to busily prepare for a big war, demanding military and financial assistance from the EU and Washington. And while President Zelensky’s predecessor, the millionaire Petro Poroshenko, was still able to maintain a dialogue with Moscow with the help of the oligarchs, the current president, who came to power on the strength of promises to seek peace and reconciliation, was trying hard to enter NATO and was threatening Russia with missiles deployed near Chernigov (750 km from Moscow). As for the Kremlin, it has spent the past six months trying to negotiate with Brussels, Washington and Zelensky himself. All that Putin was asking for were security guarantees for Russia. In fact, Moscow never really threatened Ukraine but was still being systematically pushed towards a military solution.
It should be noted that prior to the intervention, Putin explained in great detail to his compatriots what was going on, recalling how the borders of the Soviet republics had been cut and how Russian-speaking territories had been handed over to Ukraine. He also made it clear that one cannot talk about a violation of international law after the invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Serbia, the recognition of Kosovo and NATO’s move to the Russian borders.
Let’s be honest: a bear sleeping peacefully in its den was smoked out of there by being poked with a stick, and now they are wondering why it is chasing those who did that. Moscow has been pushed into a corner and is now demonstrating its strength and standing up for its interests. Now Putin will at best be satisfied with a change of guard in Kiev, and at worst, Ukraine as a state will disappear from the map of Europe. Is it possible to justify an aggression that has been provoked for a long time? This is a matter of a lengthy discussion. One thing is clear: 20 years ago, Russia could and wanted to join NATO and united Europe. However, the latter chose to make Russia an enemy…
Pick a side
I have recounted how various “experts” are advising Washington DC to sanction China along with Russia. They argue that since the USA controls the money supply and debt that countries would “of course” choose America over China. I argue otherwise. Where are people going to get things?
And concerning China…
A reminder that China DOES NOT PLAY
Like Russia, China has a ferocious military. Military training starts in first grade, however, certain kindergarden schools also start the tykes early as well. Marching, rules of organization are taught in first grade. Third grade you have field stripping of firearms, small arms training, and mortar fire.
China has a population of merit driven, determined soldiers of 1.6 billion people. Someone should slap the American neocons ont he side of the head and remind them that both China and Russia are decendents of Genghis Khan.
Today is a major day in the Russian military operation. Why?
Because Russian forces are now on the outskirts of many major Ukrainian cities. If yesterday was “standoff weapons” day, today is the first day when Russian forces can now begin to degrade Ukrainian artillery dispositions, engage Ukie armor and break through Ukrainian fortifications. Today is also the last day for US PSYOPs to try to present a counter-narrative (Ukies heroically resisting, Russian dying in huge numbers, effective counter-attacks, etc.).
Yet we live in the smartphone with camera era and picture like this one tell the full story:
What you see in this picture are immense traffic jams of folks fleeing not Mariupol or Kramatorsk, but Kiev, the capital.
Here is a quick machine translated news update from Col. Cassad:
1. LDNR – the positional nature of the fighting remains, with attempts by the LDNR armies to advance to the borders of the territories occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
2. The southern direction – the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation retained control over the bridge over the Dnieper at Kherson, repulsing attempts of counterattacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.. Fighting in the Antonovsky Bridge area continues.
A New Kakhovka is also being held. Melitopol was taken this morning and the advance towards Berdyansk began.
3. Kharkiv direction – fighting continues on the near approaches to Kharkov. Both sides are suffering losses in people and equipment.
4. Sumy direction – the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation took Putivl and passing through Sumy (the battle at the airport continued there today), advanced to Konotop, surrounding the city. Today, attempts to take Akhtyrka continued in order to reach Kharkov from the west. There are Russian roadblocks on the Sumy-Kiev highway. There is an advance to Kiev and Chernihiv. (The APU repelled the attack of the Russian Armed Forces in the Chernihiv direction).
5. Kiev – Gostomel airfield is held by paratroopers. The APU could not dislodge them from there. This morning, tank columns of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation broke through to the near approaches to Kiev and are close to establishing direct communication with the landing. The AFU is preparing a counterattack, stating that another landing will be thrown out in the Gostomel area today. The Pentagon says that Kiev will fall in the coming days. After 10 o’clock shooting was heard in the city. Also, according to the statement of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the landing was thrown to the west of Zhytomyr. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are actively undermining bridges on the approaches, trying to slow down the advance of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,
6. In the morning, strikes continued on military facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine throughout the territory of Ukraine. A Su-27 of the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down over Kiev – according to one version by the Russian air defense system, according to another – by the Ukrainian ones. The downed “Caliber” fell on a residential building in Kiev, but there were no casualties. During the shelling of Gorlovka, a school was hit – 2 teachers were killed.
7. The AFU launched a missile attack on the Millerovo airfield on the territory of the Russian Federation. Damage is reported at the airfield, but there are no losses in aircraft.
What a Chinese home is like
Yeah. It’s pretty much like this. Only, her house is not nearly as messy and cluttered up as mine. You know, having young kids is a real way to “decorate” your home. Video
And in Taiwan, a lesson for everyone
Ukraine’s crisis comic: note the flags, the texts, and the last picture : how US, UK, and EU farewell the stupid Ukraine president after giving him the weapons.
I love this Taiwan TV current affair channel. The current Taiwan regime ban them, so they go on social media.
It’s a tad too technical, on my side. You all can skim over the article if you want. Essentially, China’s AI systems detected the behavior of the USA’s NSA hacking tool. It mapped it out, and then algorithims figured it all out. The part that is NOT reported in this article is that the Chinese were able to do so as the enire system is transparent. It’s like trying to find a glass stature submerged in ice cube water.
Researchers from China’s Pangu Lab have disclosed details of a “top-tier” backdoor put to use by the Equation Group, an advanced persistent threat (APT) with alleged ties to the cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Dubbed “Bvp47” owing to numerous references to the string “Bvp” and the numerical value “0x47” used in the encryption algorithm, the backdoor was extracted from Linux systems “during an in-depth forensic investigation of a host in a key domestic department” in 2013.
The defense research group codenamed the attacks involving the deployment of Bvp47 “Operation Telescreen,” with the implant featuring an “advanced covert channel behavior based on TCP SYN packets, code obfuscation, system hiding, and self-destruction design.”
Bvp47 is said to have been used on more than 287 targets in the academia, economic development, military, science, and telecom sectors located in 45 countries, mainly in China, Korea, Japan, Germany, Spain, India, and Mexico, all the while going largely undetected for over a decade.
The elusive backdoor is also equipped with a remote control function that’s protected using an encryption algorithm, activating which requires the attacker’s private key – something the researchers said they found in the leaks published by the Shadow Brokers hacker group in 2016.
Pangu Lab is a research project of Pangu Team, which has a history of jailbreaking Apple iPhones dating all the way back to 2014. At the Tianfu Cup hacking contest last year, the white hat hacking team demonstrated several security flaws that allowed for remotely jailbreaking a fully patched iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 15.
The Shadow Brokers leaks
Equation Group, designated as the “crown creator of cyber espionage” by Russian security firm Kaspersky, is the name assigned to a sophisticated adversary that’s been active since at least 2001 and has used previously undisclosed zero-day exploits to “infect victims, retrieve data and hide activity in an outstandingly professional way,” some of which were later incorporated into Stuxnet.
The attacks have targeted a variety of sectors in no less than 42 countries, counting governments, telecom, aerospace, energy, nuclear research, oil and gas, military, nanotechnology, Islamic activists and scholars, media, transportation, financial institutions, and companies developing encryption technologies.
The group is believed to be linked to the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit, while intrusion activities pertaining to a second collective known as Longhorn (aka The Lamberts) have been attributed to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Equation Group’s malware toolset became public knowledge in 2016 when a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers leaked the entire tranche of exploits used by the elite hacking team, with Kaspersky uncovering code-level similarities between the stolen files and that of samples identified as used by the threat actor.
Bvp47 as a covert backdoor
The incident analyzed by Pangu Lab comprises two internally compromised servers, an email and an enterprise server named V1 and V2 respectively, and an external domain (identified as A), sporting a novel two-way communication mechanism to exfiltrate sensitive data from the systems.
“There is abnormal communication between external host A and the V1 server,” the researchers said. “Specifically, A first sends a SYN packet with a 264-byte payload to port 80 of the V1 server, and then the V1 server immediately initiates an external connection to the high-end port of the A machine and maintains a large amount of exchange data.”
Simultaneously, V1 connects to V2 via the SMB service to perform a number of operations, including logging in to the latter with an administrator account, trying to open terminal services, enumerating directories, and executing PowerShell scripts through scheduled tasks.
V2, for its part, also connects to V1 to retrieve a PowerShell script and an encrypted second-stage payload, the encrypted execution results of which are sent back to V1, which, according to the researchers, “acts as a data transfer between the A machine and the V2 server.”
The Bvp47 backdoor installed on the servers consists of two parts, a loader which is responsible for decoding and loading the actual payload into memory. “Bvp47 generally lives in the Linux operating system in the demilitarized zone that communicates with the Internet,” the researchers said. “It mainly assumes the core control bridge communication role in the overall attack.”
Links to the Equation Group
Pangu Lab’s attribution to Equation Group stems from overlaps with exploits contained in a GPG-encrypted archive file published by the Shadow Brokers – “eqgrp-auction-file.tar.xz.gpg” – as part of a failedauction of the cyber weapons in August 2016.
“In the process of analyzing the ‘eqgrp-auction-file.tar.xz.gpg’ file, it was found that Bvp47 and the attacking tools in the compressed package were technically deterministic, mainly including ‘dewdrops,’ ‘suctionchar_agents,’ ‘tipoffs,’ ‘StoicSurgeon,’ ‘incision’ and other directories,” the researchers explained.
“The ‘tipoffs’ directory contains the RSA asymmetric algorithm private key used in the Bvp47 covert channel [for] command execution and other operations. On this basis, it can be confirmed that Bvp47 is from [the] Equation group.”
The findings mark the second time hitherto undocumented malware developed by the Equation Group has come to light in as many months. In late December 2021, Check Point Research disclosed details of a diagnostic utility called “DoubleFeature” that’s used in conjunction with the DanderSpritz malware framework.
“Judging from the attack tools related to the organization, including Bvp47, Equation group is indeed a first-class hacking group,” the researchers concluded.
“The tool is well-designed, powerful, and widely adapted. Its network attack capability equipped by zero-day vulnerabilities was unstoppable, and its data acquisition under covert control was with little effort. The Equation Group is in a dominant position in national-level cyberspace confrontation.”
A most outstanding Interview
It truly is. Man, oh man. No holding back. This is THE Scott Ritter that was sent to Iraq to find WMD’s and got in all sorts of trouble by the Bush Administration when he couldn’t find any. Man, he lets loose!
This link with Scott Ritter just popped up on moa a little while ago.
I’ve had to listen twice — highly recommended.
I think he is correct — NATO is dead and gone, bar for the funeral.
The European defence process will need to rebuild a less costly, more effective framework for peaceful co-existance with the Slavic world.
And this is a key point about re-alignments at a higher level than simply nation state.
It is at Chinese; Slavic; European; Anglo-American scales — everything else is just “loose ends” from the 20th century past.
Time to wake up, folks, and smell the roses (or the rubbish in the streets) and blame our local political representitives — after all, they ARE our ‘leaders’ (so they keep saying).
Accountability is a bitch ….Lol.
“NATO Too Weak to Face Russia: Scott Ritter on Russian Offensive
17,097 views • Feb 25, 2022 ” [38min]
https://youtu.be/3GkmdCaBECs
This kind of scene is fairly common when you go to a Business KTV. The girls will dance, and feed your food like grapes, strawberries, and drinks. They will hold your arm and be playful with you. video
“We’ve seen this picture show before, ahem,” claimed Archduke Peter Von Fishburn-Waldrop III, of County Hampshire, as he took snuff. “Whenever a world war is about to break out, one of us is inevitably assassinated, ahem.”
Archdukes are contracting mercenaries, hirelings, sell-swords, adventurers-about-town, and various other soldiers of fortune to round out their security details.
“Aye, it be good for business, make no mistake. Surely none of us wish to see an Archduke what with his life-force pourin’ out of his noggin, but we got bills to pay too, mind you,” said Captain John Ninefingers, leader of the famed Free Company.
Students of history will remember that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand precipitated World War I, called The Great War at the time, fought by various European powers. Archdukes fear that with the Ukrainian crisis, it’s only a matter of time before history repeats itself.
“One day you’re collecting rent from peasants, ahem, or getting promoted in the military despite no accomplishments, and the next day, ahem, you get assassinated by a young upstart who wants freedom from your imperial empire,” muttered Archduke Yannis Belagrovstad, of the Gutenberg Province. “What nerve! What cheek!”
The motley collection of heirs-apparent is leaving nothing to chance. The finest technologies have been employed to ensure the safety of the Archduke corps throughout Europe.
“We attempted to develop a motorcar that was consistently surrounded by a moat as it traveled, ahem, but the peasants complained that it was too much digging,” mused Archduke Johannes Reberg, of the Kaiserschoten Kaserne. “And isn’t that just like a peasant?”
When asked for comment, Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, the current leader of the European Commission, said, “The safety of the Archdukes remains our number one priority. That’s why we’ve diverted troops from Ukraine to stand guard around their four-post beds throughout the night.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a press release Tuesday morning regarding the safety of the Archdukes.
“When it comes to the assassination of Archdukes, it appalls me to think that anyone could be considering such an action,” said Putin, “without me having first ordered it”.
Checkered sweater for the tropics
Here, in the tropics, it’s HOT. Then there’s the “rainy season” which is HOT and STEAMY. So how do these Chinese girls get around wearing sweaters? Is it becuase they stay inside the air conditioning all day? Well, maybe so, but also the clothes in China are designed for the environment. Here is a sweater for the tropics. Cool, eh?
The Russian operations in the Ukraine continue at a moderate pace. Some more troops were committed today. In all the Russian military may have now introduced some 20-40% of its prepared forces.
The Ukrainian military is not so much holding a line but concentrating in and around its bigger cities. It has destroyed some bridges north of Kiev to make an approach more difficult. That will slow down the Russian moves but will not prevent them. Russia’s military is famously good at setting up combat bridges.
So far the Russians have used their artillery sparsely. An exception was last night near Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine where a strike by multiple launcher artillery systems (MLRS) hit some area target with yet unknown results.
A 13 minutes long video from a highway drive near Kherson, a city north of Crimea, shows nearly 100 destroyed Ukrainian trucks and tanks. These are likely victims of air attacks.
If this map from a Turkish think tank source is correct the Russian troops did not attempt much deeper strikes today but mostly consolidated their frontline.
This map from Janes shows less progress. But it also has not marked the Donbas area in the southeast which is held by pro-Russian forces.
Russia’s President has called on the Ukrainian military to overthrow its government. I do not think he believes that will happen but it is a possibility so why not call for it.
Facebook now allows to praise Ukrainian Nazi groups like the Azov battalion. This was prohibited with Azov previously being in the same category as ISIS. Now these are ‘our guys’.
There are a lot of discussions of sanctions against Russia and every western country is trying to get as much exemptions for its industries as possible . The U.S. has for example exempted everything that has to do with hydrocarbons from its own sanction package. It will still buy Russian oil and will continue to sell drilling equipment to Russia.
The EU countries are still negotiating with themselves. They should be careful with what they do.
Britain has had the stupidity of sanctioning the Russian air carrier Aeroflot. In a counter move Russia prohibited British Airways from flying over Russian territory. Normally all flights from Britain to the Far East cross Russian airspace. These will now have to be redirected to other routes which will significantly increase their flight time and fuel burn.
Russia has threatened ‘inconvenient’ counter-sanctions to those who sanction it. Overflight rights are only one of the tools it can use.
NATO has said it will continue to deliver weapons, including air defenses, to the Ukraine. NATO does not have any weapons but some NATO countries seem to strive for a larger war. The U.S. seem willing to sacrifice the Ukraine to create a quagmire for Russia.
Syria was also supposed to become a quagmire for Russia when Russia came to its help. It didn’t turn out that way.
Finally, this is how we handle Trolls here on MM
"Once you cut through the bullshit and understand what's going on, it's easy to predict what will happen.
These people and countries acting as attack dogs for the empire must therefore be taught an unforgettable lesson. If you don't put down the rabid dogs, they will get up and bite you again.
Therefore, Russia will not take half measures.
They will not stop unless the surrender is total, and punishment for the miscreants dealt out accordingly. Otherwise, this operation will be for naught."
If you don’t understand this video, you must have a mental illness. Truth this.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Yeah, if you go on to the Western “news” it’s all bullshit. I really cannot believe that anyone believe anything from these people anymore. They lie so much that their lies are lies of lies regarding lies.
The alternative sites, many of which are not the neocon conservative “gung ho! for ‘Merica” sites, show a great healthy respect for Russia, and some for China. Here’s we are going to throw out some stuff as the fluid situation unfolds.
Keep in mind that this is war. It’s chaotic and confusing, and there are all sorts of misinformation out there.
You can find many such websites that have collected blow-by-blow pictures, videos, and opinions / reports as they come in. I’m not going to do that except, maybe put a few interesting elements in place.
To quote DM…
"...the reposts I am hearing have me absolutely bewildred at the ruthless efficiency of the Russian army. I mean MM hinted at it, but its not until you see it in full swing you can really appreciate it."
In summary, in 24 hours, Russia took over the Ukraine. All the fancy and expensive munitions, weapons, ships, planes (supplied by the USA and NATO) were destroyed. There are some very interesting videos out there regarding this. Paratroop drops, jets blowing up the house that you are in, and the “leadership” scurrying away for safety under the great protective arms of the United States and NATO.
Right now, it’s a mop up operation, while the United States and NATO are still arguing what kind of “tough sanctions” that they will impose… or, more likely, what kind of emotionally driven (by manipulated polls) action that they could take.
My guess, could be a very BAD action, resulting in VERY BAD consequences.
But as it stands today, 25FEB22, most (but not all) of the Ukraine is under Russian control. The vast majority of American-trained (since 2014) Neo-Nazi troops laid down their arms and entered the protective corridors to their families to wait out the situation in peace. So now, we are talking about phase two…
We start with this…
Russia is ready to sit down and talk now that the Ukraine has been suppressed.
Objective and accurate report of the Russian objectives:
However, in the eyes of Putin and most Russians, the latest move serves as a counterstrike against the Western squeezing of Russia’s security room with extreme measures and a relatively large-scale showdown in wrestling with the US, a view that is also shared by the majority of Chinese.
“Circumstances require us to take decisive and immediate action,” Putin’s order read. In an address to the public, the Russian president said he wanted to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine, Russia Today said. Putin further said, “We have no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.”
“Demilitarize” could be understood to be putting down arms and surrendering, which can also be understood as incapacitating the opponent and rendering them unable to form a threat in a broader sense, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“As a result, Russia will completely destroy the heavy weapons of Ukrainian troops, including warplanes, tanks and armored troops as well as defense forces, such as air defense missile forces and the navy,” Song said.
Russia announced it has destroyed Ukraine’s airfields, air defenses and control systems just a few hours after it launched the military operations.
“And as we take the measures announced by the president to ensure the security of the country and the Russian people, we will certainly always be ready for a dialogue that will return us to justice and the principles of the UN Charter,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late on Thursday.
Yury Tavrovsky, head of the “Russian Dream-Chinese Dream” analytics center of the Izborsk Club, told the Global Times that Russia’s military operations in Ukraine are “completely legal.”
Both chambers of Russia’s Duma (parliament) had earlier approved recognition of Donetsk and Lugansk as “independent states.” The Upper Chamber (the Senate) later approved use of armed forces outside the national borders, Tavrovsky explained.
The military operation was launched just one day after the US and Europe unveiled what is believed to be just the first round of sanctions against Russian individuals and institutions in response to Putin’s signing of two decrees recognizing Lugansk and Donetskas independent and sovereign states.
As global markets tumbled steeply over the Ukraine-Russia crisis, some raised questions as to why Russia took this step, how the situation will evolve and whether the US will engage in a direct war with Russia.
Moscow’s motivation
In a phone call with Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained the development of the Ukraine situation and Russia’s position, saying that the US and NATO violated their commitments by expanding east, refused to implement the new Minsk Agreements, and violated UN Security Council Resolution 2202, forcing Russia to take necessary measures to safeguard its own rights and interests.
Noting that China has always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, Wang said that China recognizes the complex and special historical context of the Ukraine issue and understands Russia’s legitimate security concerns.
China maintains that the Cold War mentality should be completely abandoned and a balanced, effective and sustainable European security mechanism should be finally established through dialogue and negotiation, Wang said.
“China believes there should be mutual cooperation and sustainable security, and the reasonable security concerns of all parties concerned should be respected and solved,” Hua Chunying, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said during a press conference on Thursday.
Some Chinese observers said the US has continued its intensive containment of Russia, for example, by implementing more sanctions, finally forcing Russia to try to realize its security demands in this drastic way.
Russian elites such as Putin and Deputy Chairman of Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believe that the Ukraine issue has reached the point where it must be resolved.
“I believe Russia’s military operation is a reaction by Moscow to Western countries’ exertion of pressure on Russia for a long time, showing that Moscow can’t tolerate it anymore,” Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.
“As to how the situation will evolve, I think we need to spend more time to observe it. First thing first, we need to focus on the attitude of the US, on whether Washington will launch a direct war against Russia,” he said, noting that everything depends on how NATO and the US will react.
If the entire military operation goes smoothly, Russia could reach its target of fully controlling Ukraine, and what worries NATO most is whether Russia will then carry out further operations again the three Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Li Haidong, a professor from the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
The US and NATO are now observing how the situation evolves. The US and NATO have been training Ukraine troops since 2014, and it’s time to see if they will confront Russian troops and for how long they will fight them. “As long as Russia does not engage in military conflicts with NATO members, there won’t be direct confrontation between NATO and US [on one side] and Russia [on the other],” Li said.
Now, keep in mind that this is directly after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. You know, that one that the United States, the UK, and the Australians decided to sit out of for one concocted reason or the other…
The entire opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Olympics
At 2:11:01 is the meaningful symbolic embrace performance that made all the Chinese and some Taiwanese get all emotional. It’s about community and family and inclusion.
Nice hyper-cute Chinese girl
I think that it would be a nice spot to include this fine Chinese lass. My oh my! Look at that terrible communist regime! Look how dirty and polluted it is! Look at how thin she is, it’s obvious that the regime starves her. She must be pining away for freedom™ and democracy™, don’t you know!
That is not all that unlike America in the early 1950s. Here’s a winter scene. It’s in front of a neighborhood gas station. I wonder if they still have these things back in the ‘states. Notice the smiling and happy woman, and the rag-top (or convertible) in the back. Calm. Easy. Fun.
Like China is today.
Calm and fun United States in the 1950s.
From the Black Sea to the East Med, do not poke The Russian Bear
This is what happens when a bunch of ragged hyenas, jackals and tiny rodents poke The Bear: a new geopolitical order is born in breathtaking speed.
From a dramatic meeting of the Russian Security Council to a history lesson delivered by President Putin and the subsequent birth of the Baby Twins – the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk – all the way to their appeal to President Putin to intervene militarily to expel the NATO-backed Ukrainian bombing-and-shelling forces from Donbass, it was a seamless process.
The (nuclear) straw that (nearly) broke the Bear’s back – and forced its paws to pounce – was Zelensky the Comedian, back from the Russophobia-drenched Munich Security Conference where he was hailed like a Messiah, saying that the 1994 Budapest memorandum should be revised and Ukraine should be nuclear-rearmed.
That would be the equivalent of a nuclear Mexico south of the Hegemon.
Putin immediately turned Responsibility to Protect (R2P) upside down: an American concept invented to launch wars in MENA (remember Libya?) was retrofitted to stop a slow-motion genocide in Donbass.
First came the recognition of the Baby Twins – Putin’s most important foreign policy decision since going to Syria in 2015.
That was the preamble for the next game-changer: a “special military operation (…) aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine”, as Putin defined it.
Up to the last minute, the Kremlin was trying to rely on diplomacy, explaining to Kiev the necessary imperatives to prevent heavy metal thunder:
recognition of Crimea as Russian;
abandon any plans to join NATO;
negotiate directly with the Baby Twins – an anathema for the Americans since 2015;
finally, demilitarize and declare Ukraine as neutral.
Kiev’s handlers, predictably, would never accept the package – as they didn’t accept the Master Package that really matters: the Russian demand for “indivisible security”.
The sequence, then, became inevitable.
In a flash, all Ukrainian forces between the so-called line of contact and the original borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts were boxed in as the occupying force of territories of two Russian allies that Moscow had just sworn to protect.
So it was Get Out – Or Else.
“Or else” came as rolling thunder: the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense were not bluffing.
Timed to the end of Putin’s speech announcing the operation, the Russians decapitated with precision missiles everything that mattered in terms of the Ukrainian military in just one hour: Air Force, Navy, airfields, bridges, command and control centers, the whole Turkish Bayraktar drone fleet.
And it was not only Russian raw power.
It was the artillery of one of the Baby Twins, the DPR, that hit the HQ of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbass, which actually housed the entire Ukrainian military command.
This means that the Ukrainian General Staff instantly lost control of all its troops.
This was Shock and Awe against Iraq, 19 years ago, in reverse: not for conquest, not as a prelude for an invasion and occupation.
The political-military leadership in Kiev did not even have time to declare war.
They froze.
Demoralized troops started deserting.
Total defeat – in one hour.
The water supply to Crimea was instantly re-established.
Humanitarian corridors were set up for the deserters.
“Remnants” now include mostly surviving Azov batallion Nazis, mercenaries trained by the usual Blackwater/Academi suspects, and a bunch of Salafi-jihadis.
Predictably, Western corporate media has already gone totally berserk branding it as the much-awaited Russian “invasion”. (A reminder: when Israel routinely bombs Syria and when the House of One Saudi routinely bombs Yemeni civilians, there is never any peep in NATOstan media.)
As it stands, realpolitik spells out a possible endgame (see Donetsk’s head, Denis Pushilin: “The special operation in Donbass will soon be over and all the cities will be liberated.”)
We could soon witness the birth of an independent Novorossiya – east of the Dnieper, south along Sea of Azov/Black Sea, the way it was when attached to Ukraine by Lenin in 1922. But now totally aligned with Russia, and providing a land bridge to Transnistria.
Ukraine, of course, would lose any access to the Black Sea.
History loves playing tricks: what was a “gift” to Ukraine in 1922 may become a parting gift a hundred years later.
It’s creative destruction time
It will be fascinating to watch what Prof. Sergey Karaganov masterfully described, in detail, as the new Putin doctrine of constructive destruction , and how it will interconnect with West Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and further on down the Global South road.
President Erdogan, the ceremonial NATO Sultan, branded the recognition of the Baby Twins as “unacceptable”.
No wonder: that definitely smashed all his elaborate plans to pose as privileged mediator between Moscow and Kiev during Putin’s upcoming visit to Ankara. The Kremlin – as well as the Foreign Ministry – don’t waste time talking to NATO minions.
Lavrov, for his part, had a recent, very productive entente with Syrian Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad. Russia, this past weekend, has staged a spectacular strategic missile display, hypersonic and otherwise, featuring Khinzal, Zircon, Kalibr, Yars ICBMs, Iskander and Sineva – irony of ironies, in synch with the Russophobia-fest in Munich.
In parallel, Russian Navy ships of the Pacific, Northern and Black Sea fleets performed a series of submarine search drills in the Mediterranean.
The Putin doctrine privileges the asymmetrical – and that applies to the near abroad and beyond.
Putin’s body language, in his last two crucial interventions, spell out nearly maximum exasperation.
As in realizing, not auspiciously, but rather in resignation, that the only language those neo-con and “humanitarian” imperialist psychos in the Beltway understand is heavy meal thunder (they are definitely deaf, dumb and blind to History, Geography and Diplomacy, for that matter. Not to mention they never accepted their defeat in Syria.)
So we can always game the Russian military, for instance, imposing a no-fly zone in Syria to conduct a series of visits by Mr. Khinzal not only to the Turk-protected shady jihadist umbrella in Idlib but also the jihadists protected by the Americans in Al-Tanf base, near the Syria-Jordan border. After all these specimens are all NATO proxies.
The United States government barks non-stop about “territorial sovereignty”.
So let’s game the Kremlin asking the White House for a road map on getting out of Syria: after all the Americans are illegally occupying a section of Syrian territory and most of all adding extra disaster to the Syrian economy by stealing their oil.
NATO’s stultifying Stoltenberg has announced the alliance is dusting off its “defense plans”: that may include little more than hide behind their expensive Brussels desks. They are as inconsequential in the Black Sea as in the East Med – as the Empire remains quite vulnerable in Syria.
There are now four Russian TU-22M3 strategic bombers in Hymeimim base, each capable of carrying three S-32 anti-ship missiles that fly at supersonic Mach 4.3 with a range of 1,000 km. No Aegis system is able to handle them.
Russian TU-22M3 strategic bomber.
Russia in Syria also has stationed a few Mig-31Ks in Latakia equipped with hypersonic Khinzals – more than enough to sink any kind of US surface group, including aircraft carriers, in the East Med. The US has no air defense mechanism whatsoever with even a minimal chance of intercepting them.
Mig-31K equipped with hypersonic Khinzal missile.
So the rules have changed.
Drastically.
The Hegemon is naked.
The new deal starts with turning the post-Cold War set-up in Eastern Europe completely upside down.
The East Med will be next.
The Bear is back, baby.
Hear him roar.
Well, what about the ruthless, moronic, idiots running the “West”?
And how will the USA respond?
The Americans are obviously in a state of apoplectic rage and anxiety right now.
The American Overlord will likely descend further into insanity and violence, as its sense of imperial entitlement to rule the world just got pimp slapped by the Russian bear.
Oh, no. You can be sure that they do not like what is going on, and you can be sure that they are ready to just toss the boardgame up in the air in defiant frustration.
What is next is anyones guess, but it just cannot be good.
The collective West will be seething – no Black Sea base near Crimea – their dreams up in smoke again.
So impotent with rage – they get out their sanctions manuals and try and find the worst they can possibly find to hurt Russia and have a fleeting feeling of satisfaction and power until they realise inflation is going through the roof, they have no energy to make anything, their industries start failing, can’t grow anything and they can’t heat their homes. And the glutinous fat cats in the EU have nothing to do and wonder how long their jobs will be around as it was their so clever idea to sanction their main energy supplier and now have no fertilizer to grow anything. The peasants will be bellowing outside wanting their pound of flesh.
You would think that they would just do their pontificating, but I would think that the evil “it’s time for the rapture! Let’s bring on MAD nuclear engagement now!” neocon crowd is pressing for a full scale nuclear “response”.
If that happens, the USA will be completely destroyed.
Bad news. You bet.
But, you know, the Commander did say “little bads, not big bads”. So we will see. One thing is for certain; Imperial hubris meets Karma. And it’s a bitch.
I didn’t copy the whole thing. I just shake my head. Can they actually BELIEVE what they write? Or is their opinion of American people so so that they think that they will believe it?
"...unprovoked invasion."
Nice small cute and adorable girl
Somehow, she reminds me of a very cute little mouse. Maybe it’s the outfit. Anyways, it’s pretty awesome and what a nice tight little outfit she is wearing. I’ll get that she has all the boys chasing her!
A classic of 1950s Americana, Cheeseburger Pie is the most comforting of weeknight casseroles: sautéed onion and ground beef, baked under a simple batter of flour, baking powder, eggs, and milk and a rich topping of cheddar cheese. Serve it in thick wedges with an easy celery and romaine heart salad.
Cheeseburger pie. Why not?
Cheeseburger pie slice.
US Foreign Policy Is a Cruel Sport
Bear baiting was long ago banned as inhumane. Yet today, a version is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale.
From HERE at the Greenville Post. Another excellent article.
In the time of the first Queen Elizabeth, British royal circles enjoyed watching fierce dogs torment a captive bear for the fun of it. The bear had done no harm to anyone, but the dogs were trained to provoke the imprisoned beast and goad it into fighting back. Blood flowing from the excited animals delighted the spectators.
This cruel practice has long since been banned as inhumane.
And yet today, a version of bear baiting is being practiced every day against whole nations on a gigantic international scale. It is called United States foreign policy. It has become the regular practice of the absurd international sports club called NATO.
United States leaders, secure in their arrogance as “the indispensable nation,” have no more respect for other countries than the Elizabethans had for the animals they tormented. The list is long of targets of U.S. bear baiting, but Russia stands out as prime example of constant harassment. And this is no accident. The baiting is deliberately and elaborately planned.
As evidence, I call attention to a 2019 report by the RAND corporation to the U.S. Army chief of staff entitled “Extending Russia.” Actually, the RAND study itself is fairly cautious in its recommendations and warns that many perfidious tricks might not work. However, I consider the very existence of this report scandalous, not so much for its content as for the fact that this is what the Pentagon pays its top intellectuals to do: figure out ways to lure other nations into troubles U.S. leaders hope to exploit.
The official U.S. line is that the Kremlin threatens Europe by its aggressive expansionism, but when the strategists talk among themselves the story is very different. Their goal is to use sanctions, propaganda and other measures to provoke Russia into taking the very sort of negative measures (“over-extension”) that the U.S. can exploit to Russia’s detriment.
The RAND study explains its goals:
“We examine a range of nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad.
The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both.
Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.”
Clearly, in U.S. ruling circles, this is considered “normal” behavior, just as teasing is normal behavior for the schoolyard bully, and sting operations are normal for corrupt FBI agents.
This description perfectly fits U.S. operations in Ukraine, intended to “exploit Russia’s vulnerabilities and anxieties” by advancing a hostile military alliance onto its doorstep, while describing Russia’s totally predictable reactions as gratuitous aggression.
Diplomacy involves understanding the position of the other party.
But verbal bear baiting requires total refusal to understand the other, and constant deliberate misinterpretation of whatever the other party says or does.
What is truly diabolical is that, while constantly accusing the Russian bear of plotting to expand, the whole policy is directed at goading it into expanding!
Because then we can issue punishing sanctions, raise the Pentagon budget a few notches higher and tighten the NATO Protection Racket noose tighter around our precious European “allies.”
For a generation, Russian leaders have made extraordinary efforts to build a peaceful partnership with “the West,” institutionalized as the European Union and above all, NATO.
They truly believed that the end of the artificial Cold War could produce a peace-loving European neighborhood.
But arrogant United States leaders, despite contrary advice from their best experts, rejected treating Russia as the great nation it is, and preferred to treat it as the harassed bear in a circus.
The expansion of NATO was a form of bear-baiting, the clear way to transform a potential friend into an enemy. That was the way chosen by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and following administrations. Moscow had accepted the independence of former members of the Soviet Union. Bear-baiting involved constantly accusing Moscow of plotting to take them back by force.
Russia’s Borderland
Ukraine is a word meaning borderlands, essentially the borderlands between Russia and the territories to the West that were sometimes part of Poland, or Lithuania, or Habsburg lands.
As a part of the U.S.S.R., Ukraine was expanded to include large swaths of both. History had created very contrasting identities on the two extremities, with the result that the independent nation of Ukraine, which came into existence only in 1991, was deeply divided from the start.
And from the start, Washington strategies, in cahoots with a large, hyperactive anti-communist anti-Russian diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, contrived to use the bitterness of Ukraine’s divisions to weaken first the U.S.S.R. and then Russia. Billions of dollars were invested in order to “strengthen democracy” – meaning the pro-Western west of Ukraine against its semi-Russian east.
The 2014 U.S.-backed coup that overthrew President Viktor Yukanovych, solidly supported by the east of the country, brought to power pro-West forces determined to bring Ukraine into NATO, whose designation of Russia as prime enemy had become ever more blatant.
This caused the prospect of an eventual NATO capture of Russia’s major naval base at Sebastopol, on the Crimean peninsula.
Since the Crimean population had never wanted to be part of Ukraine, the peril was averted by organizing a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to return to Russia, from which they had been severed by an autocratic Khrushchev ruling in 1954.
Western propagandists relentlessly denounced this act of self-determination as a “Russian invasion” foreshadowing a program of Russian military conquest of its Western neighbors – a fantasy supported by neither facts nor motivation.
Appalled by the coup overthrowing the president they had voted for, by nationalists threatening to outlaw the Russian language they spoke, the people of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence.
Russia did not support this move, but instead supported the Minsk agreement, signed in February 2015 and endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution.
The gist of the accord was to preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine by a federalization process that would return the breakaway republics in return for their local autonomy.
The Minsk agreement set out a few steps to end the internal Ukrainian crisis.
First, Ukraine was supposed to immediately adopt a law granting self-government to eastern regions (in March 2015).
Next, Kiev would negotiate with eastern territories over guidelines for local elections to be held that year under OSCE supervision.
Then Kiev would implement a constitutional reform guaranteeing eastern right.
After the elections, Kiev would take full control of Donetsk and Lugansk, including border with Russia. A general amnesty would cover soldiers on both sides.
However, although it signed the agreement, Kiev has never implemented any of these points and refuses to negotiate with the eastern rebels.
Under the so-called Normandy agreement, France and Germany were expected to put pressure on Kiev to accept this peaceful settlement, but nothing happened.
Instead, the West has accused Russia of failing to implement the agreement, which makes no sense inasmuch as the obligations to implement fall on Kiev, not on Moscow.
Kiev officials regularly reiterate their refusal to negotiate with the rebels, while demanding more and more weaponry from NATO powers in order to deal with the problem in their own way.
Meanwhile, major parties in the Russian Duma and public opinion have long expressed concern for the Russian-speaking population of the eastern provinces, suffering from privations and military attack from the central government for eight years.
This concern is naturally interpreted in the West as a remake of Hitler’s drive to conquest neighboring countries.
However, as usual the inevitable Hitler analogy is baseless. For one thing, Russia is too large to need to conquer Lebensraum.
You Want an Enemy? Now You’ve Got One
Germany has found the perfect formula for Western relations with Russia: Are you or are you not a “Putinversteher,” a “Putin understander?” By Putin they mean Russia, since the standard Western propaganda ploy is to personify the targeted country with the name of its president, Vladimir Putin, necessarily a dictatorial autocrat. If you “understand” Putin, or Russia, then you are under deep suspicion of disloyalty to the West. So, all together now, let us make sure that we DO NOT UNDERSTAND Russia!
Russian leaders claim to feel threatened by members of a huge hostile alliance, holding regular military manoeuvers on their doorstep? They feel uneasy about nuclear missiles aimed at their territory from nearby NATO member states? Why, that’s just paranoia, or a sign of sly, aggressive intentions. There is nothing to understand.
So, the West has treated Russia like a baited bear.
And what it’s getting is a nuclear-armed, militarily powerful adversary nation led by people vastly more thoughtful and intelligent than the mediocre politicians in office in Washington, London and a few other places.
U.S. President Joe Biden and his Deep State never wanted a peaceful solution in Ukraine, because troubled Ukraine acts as a permanent barrier between Russia and Western Europe, ensuring U.S. control over the latter.
They have spent years treating Russia as an adversary, and Russia is now drawing the inevitable conclusion that the West will accept it only as an adversary.
The patience is at an end. And this is a game changer.
First reaction: the West will punish the bear with sanctions! Germany is stopping certification of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline. Germany thus refuses to buy the Russian gas it needs in order to make sure Russia won’t be able to cut off the gas it needs sometime in the future. Now that’s a clever trick, isn’t it! And meanwhile, with a growing gas shortage and rising prices, Russia will have no trouble selling its gas somewhere else in Asia.
When “our values” include refusal to understand, there is no limit to how much we can fail to understand.
The Fall Of Utopia: Absolutely Amazing Digital Art Works Of Quin Wu
This brutalist interpretation of a McDonald’s in Russia forms part of architect Quin Wu’s artwork series “Big Mac in Snow”, which bridges the gap between two confrontational ideologies—Soviet Russia and the ultra-capitalist fast food franchise.
In his work, Quin Wu gives us a clear understanding of how fragile the balance is in today’s society. And how easy it is today to fall into the abyss between good and evil.
“All images posted here are my personal work. They are computer generated renderings. The architectural themes range from house designs to environment scenes to social critiques.
During the peak of Covid-19 on 2020, I gave it a try to learn some programs that are commonly used in the game industry.
I am a believer that tools are extension of the mind. Gradually polishing skills in modeling, texturing, compositing, rendering etc., I am able to materialize some of my thoughts into actual images. It has been a very fun journey,” he writes.
Here’s another.
And yet another.
Some nonsense from the Western Press
China has lifted restrictions on Russian wheat and barley as of yesterday, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is criticising the move
.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Peter Dutton says China could persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion
RUSSIAN economic sanctions in response to the “Sanctions from Hell” from Biden / NATO
The United States imposed a series of economic sanctions upon Russia this week (last week of February 2022) in response to the recognition by Russia of Luhansk and Donetsk as “Independent states.”
In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said today “new US sanctions will be met by a ‘strong response’, ‘sensitive for the American side.’
NATO / US sanctions:
The EU imposed sanctions against 351 State Duma deputies who voted for the recognition of the DPR and LPR, as well as against 27 individuals and organizations. Then, EU EXEC. VP DOMBROVSKIS ANNOUNCED: “IF RUSSIAN SOLDIERS ENTER UKRAINE BEYOND SEPARATIST-CONTROLLED, SELF-PROCLAIMED REPUBLICS, THE EU IS PREPARED TO IMPOSE A SECOND SET OF SANCTIONS ON MOSCOW.”
RUSSIAN retalitory sanctions;
Secretary of the General Council of United Russia and Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Andrey Turchak said that Russia is indifferent to the sanctions imposed by the West and their consequences.
When asked what options the Russians might employ against such Sanctions, an Intelligence Analyst source responded in a general manner…
Russia could close airspace to civil airlines of the countries that sanction Russia. That would be hugely disruptive to international flights.
Russia could declare that Russian exports must now be paid for in Rubles, gold, etc.
Russia could stop all sales of anything to USA (space rocket motors and oil especially).
Russia could break all contracts with countries that sanction Russia on the grounds that a state of hostility exists. That is, all oil and gas deliveries stop immediately.
Russia could announce that no more gas will be shipped to or through Ukraine on the grounds that a state of hostility exists. Russia won’t sanction anyone. They don’t play with gloves. They will stop the natural gas deliveries to Europe, and the entire world economy collapses.
Assuming a fantasy best case scenario (fantasy, because it will NEVER happen), Europe’s LNG terminal unloading capacity, even working 100%, 24/7, assuming a non-stop stream of tankers, can only match under 17% of what Russia delivers. Needless to say, European economy goes belly up the next day, and the WESTERN world will follow.
And when that happens, countries automatically pivot direct to war. A lot, including the US, get granted war powers that allow the state…
to seize the means of production and distribution,
set price controls,
require civilians to operate and maintain critical infrastructure
being drafted/forced into service,
set curfew and movement restrictions,
suspend constitutions and civil rights,, etc.
It can get very draconian very quickly. But will not change the outcome : full economical collapse.
Add to that the pure mad-max SHTF when the is no food in the cities. There isn’t much a government can do, TODAY, that can avoid the worst case scenario.
We’re NOT in 1916 or 1940, when most of the world lived on country-side, and produced food.
We’re not in 1916 or 1940, when the supply chains were extremely short (hell, you could use carriages then to supply the economy and the people).
We’re in 2022, after 2 years of constant economic decline, millions of companies that went bankrupt, an inflation that needs just a nudge to go up faster then an hyper-sonic missile, and supply chains that are thousands of miles long. Maters not what government do, it’s going to be the biggest SHTF ever. Most likely the last SHTF.
Russia and China would roll out their counter-SWIFT. It’s already in prototype stage, and ready to “turnkey” into operation.
They could abandon the “petrodollar” too. That would FUCK everyone in the WEST. Most especially those in Europe and the Untied States because they don’t have any gold. All they have is paper.
Nice Chinese girl with a filter
I guess it is a generational thing, but a lot of the Chiense girls like to use these “filters” and decorate their videos with them. They are really quite awesome, and some are jsut silly while others are funny. Check out the filters on this woman. Watch how they follow her face and movment. The tracting and positioning are exceptional!
I am getting emails from all types of sources about Ukrainian cities already being liberated. The problem is that there are, as predicted, A LOT of fakes out there, including from anti-Putin Russian interests. So rather than risk getting it wrong and list those cities, I will just offer a few comments and then take a break.
Enormous Operation
I was expecting an operational-level Russian operation, but what I see today this is clearly a strategic operation. This is way bigger than what I expected.
In the eary phases
We are in the very early phases of the operation, but I see all the usual signs of a Ukrainian strategic collapse. By tomorrow morning we should know a lot more.
The initial strke was very successful
The first strike phase of the operation has been extremely successful and the Ukrainian ground forces are now not only without any kind of cover or support (the Ukie Air Force and Navy passed away today), they are also without orders: not only has the Ukronazi HQ in the Donbass been totally destroyed, the Russians are, no doubt, putting down their EW blanket on the full area of operations.
Operational envelopment to be completed soon
I think that by tomorrow evening the operational envelopment of the Ukie forces in the eastern Ukraine will be completed. After that, only two types of Ukie soldiers will be left: those who surrendered and the dead.
Major cities are secured
The Russians have either approached or even surrounded several major Ukrainian cities. I won’t list them now. Why? Because by tomorrow we will have that list confirmed.
Belarus
Belarus is fully backing Russia (Lukashenko was very emphatic about that today), as does Iran. Our Chinese friends have been rather restrained and proffered only well-intended generalities, let’s see if that changes in the future.
Narrative is out of control
I also suspect that tomorrow will be the last day for the US PSYOPs to try to control the narrative, after that there will be too many cellphones with cameras to conceal the magnitude of the disaster.
For this reason, I still expect a major false flag.
Refugees
The Poles and Hungarians have declared that they fear a massive influx of refugees and that they are therefore deploying more forces to the border to “control the situation”. These forces could be easily and quickly moved inside the Western Ukraine to seize the Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk regions. Best of all (for them) is that they can be pretty sure that the Russians won’t object. And with all the NATO facilities in the Ukraine being destroyed right now, the Russians can toss this (mostly Nazi) and faraway bone to whoever in the EU who wants it (The Hungarians are probably too smart for that, but the Poles???). Whatever may be the case, I expect a minor NATO operation into the western Ukraine in the next couple of days. Frankly, I couldn’t care less.
Major Risks
Another MAJOR risk is the presence in the Ukraine of A LOT of very dangerous part of the civilian infrastructure (including 15 nuclear reactors which barely function) The Ukies have already blown up at least one (pretty small) damn near Lugansk. I hope that the Russian and Belarusian special forces will secure these facilities as soon as humanely possible.
Russian Black Sea fleet
Next: watch the Russian Black Sea fleet. Something tells me that tomorrow we will see it A LOT and, probably, along the entire Ukie coast.
No long-term occupancy
Last but not least. Iraq has shown that it is one thing to destroy an army, and quite another to deal with an insurgency, even one armed with only small arms and RPGs. I remain categorically opposed to any Russian mid/long occupation of the Ukraine. I am confident that Putin will soon declare the end of major combat operations (if only because there won’t be many enemies left) and that many Russian forces will begin a pullback.
But the nightmare of having hundreds of thousands of assault rifles distributed to “the population” but which, in reality, armed what NATO will want to see as a “stay behind insurgency” will begin. And I want the Ukrainians to fight that battle by themselves, with some Russian help if needed, but not by hiding behind Russian forces.
So A LOT really depends on the people of the Ukraine: the coming days will show us who and what they are. Now is the time for them to do the right thing.
That’s it. I wish we had more info, but here we need to stop and wait.
By tomorrow we will know A LOT more.
Goodnight everybody
Andrei
A new American political party…
Here is the statement from the newest political party in the States – The National Justice Party:
The National Justice Party hopes that the situation can be resolved with as little bloodshed as possible on all sides and considers the spilling of any Russian or Ukrainian blood a tragedy. We reject the false and childish narratives about the conflict that are being promoted in Western media and place the lion’s share of blame for the escalation on the shoulders of the US and NATO, who have instigated this crisis from the beginning and cynically lied to their own citizens.President Biden has vowed to make Russia pay a steep price, but the only people he is capable of making pay anything are Americans and European citizens. Oil and natural gas prices are expected to spike even further as a result of the conflict, placing the burden for US/NATO geopolitical games on ordinary Americans and Europeans who have no interest in a hostile relationship with Russia. On February 22nd the German government, under orders from NATO, revoked the certification for the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, thus putting the project that would alleviate the energy bills of millions of Germans in further jeopardy.
Nice Chinese girl in her home
And she is nice. Why not enjoy a fine cup of coffee while sitting down and listening to mellow jazz?
China has blamed the US for creating the tensions which led to Thursday’s Russian attack on Ukraine. Beijing further called on the international community to avoid “stoking panic” over the situation.
During a press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the key question was the role played by the Americans, whom she branded “the [main] culprit of current tensions.”
“If someone keeps pouring oil on the flames while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral,” Hua said. China objects to “any action that hypes up war,” she added.
Chunying accused the US of hypocrisy, asking whether Washington had respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Afghanistan, where she said it had “wantonly killed innocent people.” She called on the US to “take these questions seriously and abandon double standards.”
.
Describing the unfolding events as “complex,” the spokeswoman confirmed that Beijing was not providing military support to Russia, and said China was not “jumping to any conclusions” over the situation.
She called on all sides to “work for peace instead of increasing tensions” or “stoking panic.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a military attack on Ukraine on Thursday, which he said was aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” the country. He accused the West of flooding Ukraine with advanced weaponry and ramping up the NATO presence in the country, arguing that the Russian “special operation” was necessary to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which Moscow has recognized as sovereign states.
Russia’s military action has prompted an international outcry and threats of new, large-scale sanctions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday that Kiev had cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.
Nice Caddy
Now, this is one dream car that I would be just proud to drive about in. I love everything about this scene. From the burgandy color of the car, to the fine slacks on that cute blonde next to that lucky man.
Washington, DC
Nice Chinese girl
Well, here in China, you won’t see too many natural blondes, but you will see a lot of fine attractive women. Like this gal, for instance…
I parsed some info source and I can offer a few quick reactions to what is taking place. The operation is bigger than what I had predicted. However, I STILL don’t believe that Russia wants to invade the Ukraine.
Let’s first see what Russia has already done using ONLY HER STANDOFF WEAPONS:
The Ukrainian air defenses have ceased to exist
The Ukrainian air force has ceased to exist
The Ukrainian navy has ceased to exist
The Ukrainian command and control are severely disrupted with many command posts destroyed
All the military airfields in the Ukraine are now not operational
Numerous supply dumps of ammo, petroleum and lubricants have been destroyed.
Russia controls the entire Ukie airspace and all the Ukie coastal waters in the Black and Azov seas.
Next, let’s see what LDNR and Russian forces are, apparently, doing right now:
The LDNR forces have broken through the Ukie defenses in two locations and have penetrated 7-10km behind the LOC.
These forces advanced with fire support from Russia
The Ukie forces have built fortifications for 8 years, so the progress against the bulk of the Ukie ground forces is slow. HOWEVER
It appears that the Russian have decided to encircle the entire Ukronazi force on the Donbass by a pincer movement from the north and south
It is my opinion that Russia will encircle the Ukie forces, the entire Ukrainian force along the LOC and then wait for them to surrender thereby minimizing losses on both sides. In other words, the Russians are trying to lock the Ukies in an operational cauldron and basically remove these forces from the equation.
Second, Putin has clearly stated the Russian goals: demilitarize and denazify the Ukraine.
The first element, disarmament, is already well under way.
The denazification implies some kind of regime change. There are reports of Russian forces near Kiev and I believe that a “hunt for Nazis” will be conducted in one way or another.
Interestingly, the Russians have totally surrounded the city of Kharkov, but have not moved in (yet). This makes perfect military sense, but it also signals, or so it seems to me, that Russia wants to avoid as much as can be to get involved in offensive combat operations in big cities and also wants to avoid killing civilians. Mind you, the military which could take Grozny in 2000 can *easily* and *quickly* storm any Ukie city (if only because Ukies and Chechens are almost polar opposites in terms of their combat abilities). But why do through the bother?
When possible, the Russian will surround the Ukie cities, blockade them and wait for the white flags to appear.
Whether that is possible or not I can’t tell, and what will happen to Mariupol next will be interesting: this time, yes, the city shall be liberated, but it will be interesting to see how much resistance the LDNR/Russian forces will encounter.
BTW – does anybody now about any webcams/geocams for Mariupol?
Intermediate conclusions:
Basically, this 08.08.08 on a much larger scale: move in, disarm, withdraw.
My guesses (not more, it is waaaay too early to tell!) is that:
The Ukie forces along the LOC will be surrounded and neutralized. Once that goal in achieved, most of the Ukrainian ground threat will simply disappear. True Nazis will be shot, the rest disarmed and sent home. Their weapons will go to the LDNR.
LDNR and Russia forces will advance deep inside the Ukraine, but only to execute specific missions, after which they will be pulled back to the legal border of the LDNR (with a few exception possible for specific, local reasons).
The Ukronazi leadership will run away and Kabul like scenes are possible. Some will be caught.
The Nazi regime in Kiev will be regime changed to some other regime which will accept a Russian ceasefire and the opening of direct negotiations with both the LDNR and Russia. Eventually, a general ceasefire will be proclaimed.
I still think that a NATO (Polish?) ground operation into the Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk regions is likely. Officially to “protect our allies and friends” but in reality with two goals:
Save face
Establish a mini-Banderastan under Polish control in western Ukraine
Feed the hyena of Europe
The Kremlin might think otherwise, but I don’t have a problem with that as long as a semi-civilized and semi-sane regime is put in power in Kiev.
There will be elections, of course, which nobody in the West will initially recognize. That’s fine. Nobody in Russia cares about Uncle Shmuel or his Euro-rodents.
Now Biden (I forced myself to listen to him, again!) is aping Obama and promises that sanctions from hell will cripple Russia. Bernhard, at Moon of Alabama, made an interesting comment today: “The Russian stock market is down but gold, oil and gas are up and Russia has so far lost zero money“. I am sure that he is correct.
And, yes, in the short to mid term, sanctions will also have some negative effects on some sectors of the Russian economy. However, in the mid to long term I think that energy costs will provide Russia with a real windfall of money. At the Russian SC meeting, Mishustin appeared to be fully relaxed, focused and calm.
Besides, as I mentioned yesterday, the recent surge in energy prices over the past month have already refunded Russia all the money invested into NS2, and that is BEFORE the (inevitably upcoming) lawsuits against Germany 🙂
In a recent post I “recognized” both President Biden and Chancellor Scholtz for doing everything in their power to force Russia to intervene.
Today I want to recognize the truly immense contribution of “Ze” himself, and the Nazi nutcases around him. He was the first to mention that Banderastan wanted to acquire nuclear weapons. The Nazi nutcases in the Ukie regime and social media immediately picked up this truly “brilliant” idea.
I want to sincerely thank “Ze” specifically for:
Forcing the Russian to intervene (Nazi and nukes are a bad combo in any Russian’s mind!)
Frankly, “Ze” did a lot for Russia, and I think that Putin should let him flee to the West. But the one guy I want to see in handcuffs and tried in Odessa is Aleksei Goncharenko.
Yeah, I did say in Odessa, didn’t I?
Which brings me to one more possibility: Russia cannot leave the Ukie Black Sea coast under any kind of Nazi or pro-NATO control. Hopefully, the next regime in power in Kiev can deal with that, and Russia can help if needed. But if not, I think that the Black Sea Fleet might have to conduct the operations needed to make sure that no part of the Black Sea coast is ever used to threaten Russia again.
I would MUCH prefer if the Ukrainian people themselves cleaned their own house. But if they can’t, then, okay, Russia can help as long as her intervention is temporary.
In fact, I would categorically oppose any longterm Russian intervention in the Ukraine beyond the LDNR. I don’t think that it will happen anyway. But a short term denazification operation might be unavoidable and I accept that.
Putin had no good option left. Russia, as a nation, had no good options left. So they chose the “least bad option” possible. So far, I like what I see very much.
But while the initial standoff strikes are now mostly over, it will take time to liberate, disarm and stabilize the LDNR and the Ukrainian territories adjacent to it.
Also, I can’t imagine the CIA/MI6/Bellincat/CNN and the rest of them not executing at least ONE major false flag of some kind. Not because that will change anything, but because that is what they are (kinda) good at.
Last, and very deliberately least, its over for the EU. The EU was always a US colony, but now it will sink to a new low with Europeans losing any remnants, however tiny, of self-respect they might have retained. From now on, the EU is Uncle Shmuel’s punkass bitch (forgive the profanity, but that is what fits best in my opinion). All I can say about that is this: those who have no self-respect cannot expect to be respected by others.
That’s it on my end.
Your turn now.
Cheers
Andrei
American Biolabs in the Ukraine
The US biowarfare labs have been i the back of my mind for a while now. Since they (mostly) seem to be located next to Russian borders (I wonder why?), would it be better to use standoff weapons to incinerate these labs and all the materials inside of them, or capture them and remove or destroy the biowarfare agents very carefully? No easy answers.
Other info was provided.
Apparently Putin is targeting all the bioweapons sites with direct missile hits and destruction.
And now, the Chinese are stepping up to the plate with their own warnings for the out-of-control moronic United States…
PLA general warn US over Taiwan… With the words “or else… “
“The special military operation in Donbass will soon be over and all the cities will be liberated.”
Russian Defense Ministry
“According to intelligence, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ troops and service members are leaving their positions in large numbers, dropping their weapons. No strikes are being carried out on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ units that have laid down their arms.”
China FM spox accuses US of ‘inciting war’ in Ukraine
Hua Chunying has said the Russia-Ukraine situation reflects a “complex historical background,” after Moscow implemented a “military operation” in Donbass.The FM spox accused Western media of using the word “invasion” but did not when US military decided to initiate ‘armed actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.’She continued to lambast Washington for its role – condemning America for ‘hyping up tensions and inciting war, while selling over $1.5BN worth of weapons.’
Peskov
The demilitarization of Ukraine, which is one of the goals of the Russian military operation, means the neutralization of its military potential
Nice Chinese girl
Let’s wrap this all up on a positive note…
Some fine “eye candy”. Keep in mind that according to the American and UK press “news” that the Chinese are terribly malnourshed, starving waif in need of freedom™ and democracy™. They jsut cannot wait to adopt the “American way of life”, become a transexual and shart a showing some enormous booty!
Wrapping everything up in my concluding statements
This is a time of enormous change. The balance has recentered and the fulcrum is now in the favor of Asia. The Western “leaders” are scrambling, and theya re in Check Mate. No matter what they do will cause hardship for them. All they can do is quite limited.
Flip the table and destroy the world in a MAD nuclear senario.
Try to minimize the damage as much as possible.
My guess is the idiots will do something terribly irrational, erratic, and dangerous. (As if they haven’t already.)
Buckle up.
Remain calm.
It’s like jumping into a pool of icy cold water. Once you get over the shock, it becomes rather nice there.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
First, "President" Zelensky was widely reported to have FLED Ukraine, now we have VIDEO PROOF of Speaker of the House FLEEING too! Real "men" these guys! You see, folks, when I talked about "soy-boy cucks on the radio last night . . . THIS is exactly what I meant. All these government types are real bad-asses when they talk, but when they get a punch in the face, they run like little girls.
- Hal Turner Radio Show "WAR" edition
The chess pieces have been moving into place for years now. But the global realignments have been taking place. They have rarely been reported on, and in stealth mode for some time. All the while, American Presidents came and went. Each one adding their own flavor of insanity to the mix as the United States undergoes collapse.
Here, right now, the visible face of “check” leading toward the inevitable “check mate” has roared forth. And we are going to talk about it here.
The United States had a plan.
And has been following that plan for a long time. It has been doing so religiously. Elements of that plan were established early on, back when George Bush Senior was President. And followed in planned stages over the last forty some years.
The architects of that plan are now long dead.
Those that have taken on their reins or responsibilities are simply not capable, and extraordinary inadequate, for realistic and substantive planning and operations of a strategic nature.
And we are all observing this clusterfuck of great incompetence, silliness, danger and extraordinarily folly.
Not just in the United States, but in all their minions, and proxy nations.
But you know, and should realize, that regardless of who the American President has been, and what they have done, both Russia and China have been planning for the eventual collapse of the United States, and how to manage it globally.
Of course, it’s not reported upon.
Real secrets are kept really secret.
So all the time that America; the United States postured itself globally, and ran this project, or that project, the plans by Russia and China have been moving and being implemented. And while the current crop of American “leadership” worries about LGBT fairness, diversity justice, and increasing its military capability…
… a united Asia is unveiling the final touches to a massive and brilliant execution of Global Geo-politics for a global national power realignment.
No. “Check mate” hasn’t been reached yet.
But, it’s close. Only two to three steps away.
Close to Check Mate.
We are going to discuss that. Because these are historical times, and a very risky period where a crazy, insane, out of control thrashing American Military Empire ruled and controlled by egotistic idiots is capable of any, and the most heinous, acts of madness.
America is gone
The first thing that everyone must realize is that America; the United States, is gone.
It no longer exists.
It hasn’t for decades. It is dead. And like the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s” everyone believes that it is still functional, capable, and healthy. Nothing can be further from the truth.
It is dead.
Weekend at Bernie’s.
But, the thing is, that the illusion of power, control and health is being painstakingly maintained by a ruthless and well-funded media megaphone. It has reached a point, that America has become; turned into, a giant “echo chamber”, and Americans, and the Leadership actually believe their illusions.
It’s terrible, actually.
So, yeah. America is thrashing about wildly and acting absolutely insane. And it’s “allies”, it’s surrogates, are in suicidal lock-step as America marches straight into the “check mate” positioning by a united Asia.
The build up towards the final positioning has been accelerating over the last few months. It’s now out in the open and happening fast.
The non-ultimatum sent to the United States
China and Russia alignment at the 2022 Olympics.
Russia recognizing the breakaway regions of the Ukraine.
And America following their long-established road map…
A road map that both Russia and China have copies of, and of which they know exactly what America plans to do, when and how.
The birth of the baby twins: Russia’s strategic swing drives NATOstan nuts
Soy-Boy, Beta-Male, Cucks -- that is what serves in government! And the ones here in the USA are just like this too! Remember Jan. 6 how they hid in their offices in the Capital, barred the doors with office furniture, and now can't stop whining about the so-called "insurrection?" Government officials are beta-male, soy-boy, cucks and the sooner we start treating them that way, the sooner we will get our country back under our control.
-Hal Turner
(Written this morning in Istanbul, BEFORE Putin buried the Minsk agreements. Everything else – and beyond – stands.)
History will register that the birth of the baby twins – Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – only a few hours before 2/22/22, was simultaneous to the birth of the real, 21st century multipolar world.
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR)
Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)
As my columns have stressed for a few years now, Vladimir Putin has been carefully nurturing his inner Sun Tzu.
And now it’s all in the open:
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
The thunderbolt was months in the process of being meticulously polished.
To paraphrase Lenin, who “created Ukraine” (copyright Putin), we did live many decades in only these past few days.
It all started with the detailed demands of security guarantees sent to the Americans, which Moscow knew would be rejected. (The so called “non-ultimatum”.)
Then there was the Russia-China joint statement at the start of the Winter Olympics – which codifies not only the strategic partnership but also the key tenets of the multipolar world.
The culmination was a stunning, nearly one hour-long address to the nation by Putin shortly after the Russian Security Council live session deliberating on the request for independence by the DPR and the LPR (here is a condensed version.)
A few hours later, at an emergency UN Security Council meeting, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya precisely outlined why the recognition of the baby twins does not bury the Minsk agreements.
The baby twins (DPR & LPR) actually declared their independence in May 2014.
In 2015 they signed the Minsk agreements as one of the interested parties.
Theoretically they could even be back within Ukraine if Kiev would ever decide to respect the agreements, (which will never happen because the US has vetoed it since 2015).
Moreover, the people of Donbass do not want to be subjected to a regime harboring neo-Nazis.
As Nebenzya outlined,
“I would like to remind you that at the time of the conclusion of the Minsk agreements, the LPR and DPR had already declared independence.
The fact that Russia today recognized it does not change the composition of the parties to the Minsk agreements, since Russia is not one (…)
Another thing is that the Minsk agreements have long been openly sabotaged by Ukraine under the auspices of our Western colleagues.
Now we see that many colleagues want to sign that the Minsk agreements are dead.
But this is not the case (…)
We are still open to diplomacy, but we do not intend to allow a new bloody massacre in the Donbass.”
And here’s the clincher, directly addressing imperial support for the killing of ethnic Russians in Donbass:
“The main task of our decision [on recognizing independence] was to preserve and protect these lives.
This is more important than all your threats.”
There you go: Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a concept invented by the Americans to launch wars, used by Russia for preventing one.
That certified nullity, German chancellor Scholz, deriding Putin’s characterization of a genocide in Donbass as “laughable”, was a decisive factor in the birth of the baby wins.
Putin, in his address to the nation, especially took time to detail the Odessa massacre:
“We cannot but shudder when we remember about the situation in Odessa, when people were burned alive (…)
And those criminals who did this, they are not punished (…)
But we know their names, and we will do everything to punish them (…) and to bring them to justice.”
What about China?
Geopolitically, in Eurasian terms, two huge questions stand out: [1] the role of the CSTO and [2] the response from China.
If we look at the Article 19, Chapter VI of the CSTO charter, we learn that,
“any state sharing the goals and principles of the Organization and being ready to undertake the obligations containing in this Charter and other international treaties and resolutions effective within the framework of the Organization may become a member of the Organization.”
That would open the door for the baby twins, as soon as they have finalized all the bureaucratic endeavors pertaining to new, independent nations, to request CSTO membership.
Incidentally, CSTO secretary-general Pashinian has already gone to Moscow to discuss this exact issue.
China is a way more complex proposition.
One of the key tenets of Beijing’s foreign policy is the fight against separatism – embedded in the foundation of the SCO.
So Beijing cannot possibly recognize the baby twins, or what would amount to Novorossiya – yes, Putin did pronounce the magic word – before Kiev itself does or, a serious possibility, completely disintegrates.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry so far has been extremely cautious.
Wang Yi has reiterated;
“China’s long-standing position that the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected, and the purposes & principles of the UN Charter must be upheld.”
Further on down the road, presumably after some serious exchanges between Wang Yi and Lavrov, China can always find myriad ways to unofficially help the baby twins – including advancing BRI-related connectivity and sustainable development projects.
As for Kiev disintegration, that’s directly linked to Moscow demanding the immediate stop of the mini-blitzkrieg against Donbass, otherwise they will bear full responsibility.
Yes, regime stalwarts will be hunted and punished – complete with a possible War Crimes Tribunal.
Its no wonder all sorts of oligarchic/political rats, big and small, are scurrying away, to Lviv, Poland and the UK.
The Munich effect
The intervention of all 12 members at the Security Council session, combined with Putin’s address to the nation was the stuff of gripping geopolitical drama.
Putin’s body language and the look in his eyes testified to the immense gravity of the moment – and it all came to the forefront when he embarked in a concise history lesson spanning a century.
Barely containing his anger at the countless ways Russia has been vilified by the West, and taking no prisoners when referring to communism, what mostly stood out was the clear-cut rendition of the insurmountable antagonism between the Anglo-American islands and the civilizational Heartland – or the clash between maritime powers and land powers.
That Eurasia classic was the bulk of his exposition: the recognition of the baby twins took less than three minutes.
Munich, as terrifying as it was in terms of a congregation of headless chickens posing as eagles, at least confirmed everything is in the open.
The enemy is Russia.
NATO infinite expansion – to outer space – is against Russia.
And then we had a parade of add-on threats:
no disarmament in Eastern Europe,
cutting off the Russian economy from the EU,
end of Nord Stream 2,
Ukraine in NATO,
world order built on “universal liberal values”.
Munich spelled out No Compromise Whatsoever – which was exactly what Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev and co. expected.
The warmongering rhetoric burying any meaningful discussion of migration, inflation, cyber wars, the European energy crisis.
And, of course, the only thing that matters for the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, as defined by Ray McGovern):
Let’s milk this Eurotrash lot for untold billions in new contracts.
Let’s isolate Russia.
Let’s destroy Nord Stream 2 to sell them our ultra expensive LNG.
Let’s keep them on a leash – forever.
So actually it’s not even war against Russia: the $30 trillion-indebted Empire with a woke military attached simply could not afford it.
Not to mention the certified freak out in case they receive a phone call from Mr. Khinzal and Mr. Zircon : cue to the spectacular Russian display of “military and technical” superiority, hypersonic and otherwise – staged, irony of ironies, in synch with the circus in Munich.
What we have here is so lame: just a lowlife offer-you-can’t-refuse racket to be inflicted on the EU.
The Indivisible Security dance
The rabid Munich “No Compromise” show; the imperially-ordered Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg against Donbass; and the role of the US Lack of Intelligence Community – an Andrei Martyanov-coined howler – altogether sealed the deal for the Security Council deliberations and Putin’s decision.
Considering the ideological stupidity of the current Brussels gang – Stoltenberg, von der Leyen, Borrell –, incapable of understanding even basic economics, the fact remains that the EU without Russian energy is doomed.
Martyanov stresses the algorithm: Russia can afford the break up with Europe. Europe cannot.
The US just wants to collect.
And we’re not even talking about the dire, incoming ramifications of the systemic crisis across NATOstan.
Even as Moscow plays a very long, calculated game, as it stands that does not necessarily mean that Russia will be “winning” the baby twins while “losing” Europe.
Russia’s strategic swing repeatedly baffles the Atlanticist combo.
The US lack of intelligence community was predicting a Russian “aggression” every other day – and still is.
Instead they got the baby twins as the latest independent republics of the Global South.
Even before Munich, the Ukro crypto-blitzkrieg, and the recognition of the baby twins, Moscow had again warned it may respond with “military and technical measures” to ensure its own security after the US and NATO blatantly ignored key points from its proposal for a long-term European security architecture, and instead “cherry-picked” issues from a package deal.
Putin, addressing the Stavka, had already warned …
“we are in a situation (…) where we are forced to resolve it.”
Which bring us to what John Helmer niftly qualified as Russia’s black box defense.
The beauty is no one knows what’s inside the black box.
Enter, once again, the “military-technical measures” that will be “reciprocal” (Putin) to what US and NATOstan are already deploying against Russia.
They won’t necessarily be implemented in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, in the airspace above Donbass, even in cyberspace.
It could be anywhere – from the Syrian theater to Latin America. From Brussels to New York City.
Surprise!
That’s what strategic ambivalence, ambiguity, or – let’s get down to the rhythm – swing is all about.
You don’t believe in the principle of indivisible security?
Fine.
Now we dictate the security rhythm.
You’re not gonna stop deploying nuclear weapons outside your territory?
Fine.
Here’s some reciprocity.
You’re not gonna accept legally binding guarantees of our security?
Fine.
Meet our “military-technical” measures.
Now dance, suckers.
Scenes from the Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday 24FEB22 in what appeared to be the start of war in Europe. The reason for this war is that Russia demanded that NATO and the United States agreed to the treaties that they signed. These treaties pledges no NATO’s eastward expansion, and no nuclear weapons placed near Russian boarders.
He’s sending the Russian army into LNR/DNR, or rather a “Special army operation aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine to protect people against genocide.
His goal is the demilitarization of Ukraine as well as putting those responsible for attacks upon Donetsk and Luhansk on trial.
In his speech, Putin also said…
"I must appeal to the military of Ukraine, you swore an oath to the people, not the junta, I urge you to immediately lay down your arms and go home. All Ukrainian servicemen who lay down their arms will be able to return to their families.”
There are reports that entire groups are following this advice, and putting their weapons down on the spot and fleeing in droves.
Shortly after Putin spoke in a special televised address on Russian state TV, explosions could be heard in the pre-dawn quiet of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Gunfire rattled near the capital’s main airport, the Interfax news agency said.
Explosions also rocked the breakaway eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk and civilian aircraft were warned away as the United States said a major attack by Russia on its neighbor was imminent.
Putin said he had authorized a special military operation in breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine and clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces were only a matter of time.
Hours earlier, pro-Russian separatists issued a plea to Moscow for help to stop alleged Ukrainian aggression. This was dismissed by the United States as Russian propaganda.
Putin said he had ordered Russian forces to protect the people and demanded Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.
"All responsibility for bloodshed will be on the conscience of the ruling regime in Ukraine," .
He repeated his position that NATO expansion to include Ukraine was unacceptable and said Russia had been left with no choice but to defend itself against what he said were threats emanating from Ukraine.
He ended his speech with remarks that seems to be aimed directly at the US and NATO:
"To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me."
The scope of the Russian military operation was not immediately clear. However, Russian Strategic Bombers are in the air right now.
Russian Strategic Bomber Voice HF active on 8131 Kilohertz USB at 0215 GMT.
Aircraft are passing short figure messages to ground control. Very busy!
You can monitor the frequency online at the following receiver in Europe. Type in 8131 and click on USB. http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901 Choose USB (Upper Side Band)
Moscow has long denied that it has plans to invade despite massing tens of thousands of troops near its neighbor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Moscow had approved an offensive and had not replied to an invitation for talks.
"Today I initiated a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation. The result was silence,"
U.S. President Joe Biden said his prayers were with the people of Ukraine.
In the hours to come Russia will…
-conduct strikes on air defense systems
– move to cut off Kiev from eastern Ukraine
-move to cut off Ukraine’s military forces on the line of contact in the east to prevent them from falling back to defend Kiev.
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2022 14:53 Subject: Ukraine News Update
Russia has destroyed Ukraine’s air force and air defenses. Ukraine’s airports have cars and tractors parked on the runways to prevent Russian transport planes from landing. So Russian VDV (airborn) troops will soon parachute in and remove blocking vehicles. CONFIRMED AND VDV TROOPS HAVE LANDED IN MULTIPLE CITIES.
I have seen messages and photos purportedly from Kiev saying Russian missiles have landed on specific targets there. CONFIRMED
It was reported yesterday that Zelensky has a secret account in a German bank in Latin America totalling $1.2 billion. He was reportedly getting between $12 and $35 million monthly from ukrop billionaire oligarchs Akmetov, Pinchuk and Kolomoisky.
LATEST NEWS FROM HIGHLY RELIABLE SOURCES –
Good morning! There is a total coercion of Ukraine to the WORLD! The morons twitched on the offensive at night on the LDNR. Get it. Sign!
The first video footage from Odessa
According to preliminary data, Mariupol was liberated
Losses of the neo-Nazi regiment “Azov” as a result of a missile and bomb attack reach HUNDREDS of people
The footage shows the arrivals of MLRS missiles near Kharkov
Units of the LPR began to liberate the Ukrainian-controlled city of Shchastia
Zelensky introduces coniferous situation throughout Ukraine
ALL Ukrainian Navy destroyed or rendered unusable
Russian armed forces seized several checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Sumy region.
Missile strikes are carried out on the targets of the tactical aviation brigade near Vasilkov, the main air defense aviation of Ukraine.
Russian strategic aviation in the air.
Throughout Ukraine, cruise and ballistic missiles are destroying military infrastructure and strategically important facilities.
ALL Ukrainian Navy destroyed or rendered unusable
Russian armed forces seized several checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Sumy region.
Missile strikes are carried out on the targets of the tactical aviation brigade near Vasilkov, the main air defense aviation of Ukraine.
Russian strategic aviation in the air.
Throughout Ukraine, cruise and ballistic missiles are destroying military infrastructure and strategically important facilities.
Explosions near Boryspil airport.
A military unit was covered in Kharkov. Just now two explosions were also heard in the vicinity of Dnepropetrovsk.
Grads are working along the entire front
They report the beginning of landing operations of the Black Sea Fleet in the Sea of Azov.
It is reported about the downing of bayraktars located in the sky
Land units go to the Dnieper, Mariupol and Kharkov
Access to the maritime borders of the Black and Azov Seas is cut off. In the Odessa region, a landing took place from the BDK and helicopter aviation
In Dnepropetrovsk, cannonade and battle near the airport
CNN correspondent live from Kiev said he heard a series of explosions.
The lanes at all closed airports are blocked by tractors to prevent a possible landing of aircraft with troops – information from the field.
Attacks on military depots in Odessa are reported. Explosions one after another
Ukrop Army fired on central Donetsk during the night, but all is quiet here now.
This is just the beginning of the full liberation and de-nazification of Ukraine, at least as far as Kiev.
Things are unfolding just exactly like I said they would.
I just listened to Biden (here if you have the stomach). Oh he is pissed, badly. Putin totally and comprehensively ignored him or the USA (one sign of that is that Putin did warn Scholz and Macron but, apparently, nobody told the White House).
Scholz truly scared the Kremlin when he told that he pulled back the certification of NS2 “jetzt” that is “now”.
Okay, he probably misspoke, he meant “no NS2 forever!”.
Scholz is one tough cookie!
I love it when petty flaccid Eurognomes try to scare Russia.
With sanctions, of all things.
This is RUSSIA we are talking about.
Of all people, the Germans ought to know better.
I guess they don’t.
Fine, I wish the Germans lots of fun!
Speaking of NS2, two small factoids:
gas prices are already up by 10% in the spot markets.
Thanks to the increase of the energy prices Gazprom has already paid for the construction of NS2 with that extra windfall (that according to a senior Duma member, Petr Tolstoy).
Where do you think this is headed?
Exactly, me too!
Biden also said something two really interesting in his otherwise totally vapid speed.
First, he asked who the hell Putin thought he was to recognize states in other sovereign nations?
Second, he warned Russia: we shall judge you by your actions.
I think I can help Biden and give him two very simple replies:
Putin is the President of Russia and he does ask for anybody’s approval, least of all – the USA’s.
You don’t get to judge Russia. That ship has sailed. If anything, the day will come when Zone B will judge you on a 21st century of the Nuremberg Tribunal. As Putin said “we have all their names”.
But I also know this: in the minds of the leaders of Zone A both of these replies are literally *unthinkable*. Ok.
Hence, they will have to be shown that which they currently cannot fathom.
Today the Russian Duma and Federation Council have ratified all the needed documents and given Putin the right to engage Russian forces abroad.
Where exactly was not specified.
Putin was asked about where he would engage the Russian forces and he basically reply “wait and see, we will use them wherever needed and to comply with all our obligations”.
Putin loves to make the western Tabaki-jackals guess his next move. He is now openly trolling them 🙂
Western Crusaders attacking Russia is nothing new.
But in the past, the Crusaders were at least a credible threat (at times, even a very credible one).
But the modern Crusaders are a joke.
Their threats are a joke, their armed forces are a joke and their leaders are a joke.
A good example is Biden sending more of this invincible military forces to the Baltic statelets.
Will the people of the USA find out, for the very first time, that the actions of their rulers can actually directly impact them personally?
God willing, they will learn fast and act accordingly.
What about the Ukros?
So far, they have mostly ignored Putin’s warnings to “immediately cease the attacks against the LDNR”.
I don’t know if they are amazingly courageous, very dumb or suicidal.
Either way, I would recommend they heed Putin’s warning, there shall be no more warnings.
True, the know that their western masters don’t give a damn about Russian lives, mass graves, thousands of kidnapped “separatists”, numerous torture centers or open calls to murder.
Fine. So for 8 years the Ukronazis have murdered the Russian by the tens of thousands.
But don’t they understand that their lives will be the next one?
Or do they really think that the western “advisors” will protect them?
Oh well, I guest that, again, they will have to be shown that which they currently cannot fathom.
By the way,
From a legal point of view, until now Russia has insisted that this was an internal Ukrainian civil war and not an international conflict.
Now this has changed.
Now, from the point of view of the Kremlin, this is now an international conflict directly involving Russia.
Here I want to use the occasion to congratulate the United West and, especially, the Ukronazis. For seven years you dreamed about a war involving Russia.
BRAVO! Congrats – now you got what you fought so hard for: the Russian bear has *officially* placed a paw on the LDNR.
Now I want to see who you all will volunteer to make move first to make him remove that paw 🙂
Maybe the US forces in the Baltics?
Or the Poles?
Maybe the Czechs or even the Brits?
Something tells me that “super-pooper sanctions from hell” and hurricanes of hot air are more likely.
Crusaders are not like they used to be.
Good.
Andrei
So what are we actually talking about here?
We are talking about SERIOUS consequences made by idiots who have no concept about what kind of deep-shit that they are in now. They simply do not realize that they are in deep, deep shit.
We are talking about a cocky know-it-all little punk bully threatening a group of big, burly, mean and nasty hard-core bikers.
I do not know how it will happen, nor, what will happen. I do not know when it will happen, or any of the particulars. But I do know THAT it will happen.
It will be very bad.
Certainly the American media are hyping up war. But they are just treating it like some kind of Baseball game, and not the threat of massive nuclear destruction of the host cities (American, British, NATO) promoting this danger.
To imagine that the United States would remain unscathed after all this provication (not to mention their color revolution that set up the current Neo-Nazi regime in 2014) is unfathonable.
But there you have it. Spin the narrative…
Others, including myself, have suggested that it might include a nuclear first strike. Maybe or maybe not. As I see things, the USA is already half destroyed as it is. Why use a cannon when a slingshot will do?
But seriously, and cautiously, realize that Asia is defining the rules right now. And the expectations of the collective West might as well be thrown out the window. They are as obsolete as a buggy whip.
Putin goes to Siberia
Whoa!
Russia Fires “Warning Shots” at American Navy
Russian ship “Admiral Essen” fires warning shots in front of US ships in the Black Sea.
Russian ship “Admiral Essen”.
The Russians report that the frigate “Admiral Essen” fired warning shots in front of American ships in the Black Sea.
"The appearance of three US Navy ships has forced Russia to show strength to the US military and use radical methods to reassure them of the protection of its borders."
That is why the frigate “Admiral Essen” fired Kalibr cruise missiles in front of American ships.
At the moment we are talking about a practical training ” the Russian media report and emphasize the” for now “while adding:
"All the targets were successfully hit by the Russian cruise missiles, although the exact area and the distance they traveled were not known."
"Russia has successfully completed the launch of the missiles and has shown its readiness to use these weapons against anyone who threatens Russia,"
Many of the nuclear strike maps were made before Russia and China developed systems to shoot down ICBMs and SLBM missiles. They also reflected an industrial base that disappeared in the 1980s.
In the map below, it suggests that the Russians would hit the underground ICBM silos, knock out Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. My guess that it would be a quite different target map.
And here in this map, the strikes as triangles are most accurate. Though you wouldn’t need to launch all those nuclear bombs to take out the coastal cities. Just generate a huge tidal wave with the Satan 2 standoff weapon.
And here we see that FEMA still ignores the Satan 2, and the irrelevance of the Underground Minuteman silos.
Not a joke
The United States has grown accustomed to picking on nations, sanctioning them, starting “color revolutions”, sabotaging their food supplies and all the rest. Now, both Russia and China told the United States to STOP.
And the United States said no.
And it’s allies agreed with the United States, and also said no
And I really don’t think thay are ready for the consequences of dealing with a very angry and pissed off Asia. As the consequences can end up being most lethal…
Conclusions
There’s a major realignment of global power taking place. The fulcrum is now directly under us. And as such the balance of power is now tipping and changing. And like all changes in equilibrium, once the tipping point has been reached, the changes come quick, fast and sudden.
Look at all the things that happened since three months ago. Things are moving fast, and swift.
No need to panic, that is unless you are an avid consumer of Western “news” or are a technology billionaire of some pedigree.
Just stay calm and let the changes manifest. Things will be fine in the afterwards. They really will.
In the meantime, appreciate what you have. Worrying about a future that might not materialize is fruitless. It has been my experience that our fears never happen, but change does.
So enjoy what you have…
A Nice Chinese girl
She looks like she could really use a nice delicious meal. Along with a nice light wine, and some delicious salad.
Don’t worry too much. Spend time with people, pets and your loves. Food should never be an afterthought, and if you have been putting off drinking because of some health reason, then stop. Start enjoying life while you still can.
Good thoughts.
Good actions, words of kindness and support, and being a contributor to the betterment of your community are the tickets out of the cage of fear that the medica has created for you.
Kick that damn door down.
Get the hell out.
Grab a partner and live life.
Cuddle on the beach.
What are you waiting for?
An invitation?
Tracking the Ukraine offensive
You can follow the Russian suppression of the US-installed puppet regime in the Ukraine here…
Hal Turner has a great blow-by-blow real-time running thread HERE.
GodLikeProductions has a pretty decent forum HERE.
Victoria has a nice Facebook page in great detail HERE.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
This is a topical subject. It is something that is going on right now, and the outcome is not determined. The situation is indeterminate.
It is “funny” how the evil regime / military empire operates. Five months of “A war in Taiwan, A war in Taiwan”, followed by three months of non-stop “A war in the Ukraine, A war in the Ukraine”. China didn’t do anything. Russia didn’t do anything. But the facts don’t matter.
Today, the Ukraine started to attack it’s “breakaway” Eastern provinces. The United States fully expects that Russia will get involved, and they are so Hell Bent that Russia would do something, that they can then slap their “sanctions” on Russia and force Germany to abandon the Nordstrom Gas pipeline from Russia.
Why am I so confident that this is what the plan is?
Well, the CIA mouthpiece said so…
Yeah. So this one little article says…
USA LP gas exports will increase in 2022…
Due to the Northstrom gas pipeline from Russia stopped…
Because Germany will adhere to American sanctions…
Against Russia …
Because Russia invaded the Ukraine.
And that Russia will invade because TODAY the Ukranians started to kill their separatist groups in the LDR.
Except that…
Russia is not budging. It’s not making any military moves.
The Ukrainians must sort out their own issues.
Thus, there’s no excuse to sanction Russia.
And thus the entire American plot to seize control of energy into Europe has (so far) failed. I’m sure that they have a “trick or two up their sleeve“, so you cannot say that the situation is fixed in place. It isn’t. The United States evil empire is pushing and pushing and pushing for control of the world. It is flailing and failing everywhere. But it’s still in the ring fighting.
Just after I published my first long article on the likely origins of the Covid outbreak in April 2020, our alternative media website was suddenly deplatformed, being banned from Facebook and with all our pages completely deranked by Google. For almost a decade, my article The Myth of Hispanic Crime had regularly been ranked #2 of some 200 million Google search results on that topic, but it now suddenly disappeared from the public discussion, a development that deeply rankled me.
Being blocked by the two primary gatekeepers of the global Internet has obviously had a serious impact upon our ability to reach potential readers, especially new ones. Nonetheless, our articles do still occasionally strike a spark and go viral, racking up many tens of thousands of pageviews, an encouraging situation. But the massive current media propaganda-bubble promoting an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, which seems to be a ridiculous hoax, has apparently shifted that landscape, creating a huge demand for contrary perspectives.
Last weekend I published Mike Whitney’s piece arguing that the motive behind the sudden war-hysteria was actually to prevent the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, which would have fostered their mutually-beneficial economic cooperation. Such peaceful Eurasian integration might be viewed as a major geopolitical threat by some American strategists, who thereby provoked the sudden war-scare.
The Ukrainian crisis has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s about Germany and, in particular, a pipeline that connects Germany to Russia called Nord Stream 2.
Washington sees the pipeline as a threat to its primacy in Europe and has tried to sabotage the project at every turn.
Even so, Nord Stream has pushed ahead and is now fully-operational and ready-to-go.
Once German regulators provide the final certification, the gas deliveries will begin.
German homeowners and businesses will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy while Russia will see a significant boost to their gas revenues.
It’s a win-win situation for both parties.The US Foreign Policy establishment is not happy about these developments.
They don’t want Germany to become more dependent on Russian gas because commerce builds trust and trust leads to the expansion of trade.
As relations grow warmer, more trade barriers are lifted, regulations are eased, travel and tourism increase, and a new security architecture evolves.
In a world where Germany and Russia are friends and trading partners, there is no need for US military bases, no need for expensive US-made weapons and missile systems, and no need for NATO.
There’s also no need to transact energy deals in US Dollars or to stockpile US Treasuries to balance accounts.
Transactions between business partners can be conducted in their own currencies which is bound to precipitate a sharp decline in the value of the dollar and a dramatic shift in economic power.
This is why the Biden administration opposes Nord Stream.
It’s not just a pipeline, it’s a window into the future; a future in which Europe and Asia are drawn closer together into a massive free trade zone that increases their mutual power and prosperity while leaving the US on the outside looking in.
Warmer relations between Germany and Russia signal an end to the “unipolar” world order the US has overseen for the last 75 years.
A German-Russo alliance threatens to hasten the decline of the Superpower that is presently inching closer to the abyss.
This is why Washington is determined to do everything it can to sabotage Nord Stream and keep Germany within its orbit. It’s a matter of survival
Strange American actions
It seems so straight forward, right?
Not so fast.
Biden cancelled the US pipeline his first week in office.
Now he’s cancelled the Israeli pipeline.
But he approved the Russia pipeline, through the Ukraine (no less).
Biden Abandons Israeli Pipeline In Favor Of Russian Gas Via Ukraine
President Biden is withdrawing U.S. support for the EastMed pipeline that would bring natural gas from Israel to the European continent.
Europe is currently in an energy crisis with record prices for natural gas and electricity, potential rolling blackouts, low supplies of natural gas, millions of citizens in energy poverty and increasing coal consumption, which the continent has wanted to end.
Increasing reliance on intermittent renewable sources that have not produced to their potential has put pressure on other sources the Europeans have discouraged.
The result of Biden’s most recent decision is making Europe even more dependent on Russia for its natural gas.
Currently, Western Europe gets over 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia via a pipeline that runs through Ukraine.
Russia wants to activate its Nord Stream 2 pipeline that runs under the Baltic so that it can avoid the current route through Ukraine.
Biden gave Russia the go-ahead in July 2021 for the continued construction of Nord Stream 2, which Russia predicted could go on-line by the end of the year. It is now completed.
Rather than helping an ally, Biden is helping Russia dominate Europe’s energy system and gain economic strength in doing so.
The only explanation that Biden’s administration has given to withdrawing support is: “Washington’s interest is now switching to renewable energy sources.”
While the White House is using its dogged support for the switch to renewable energy to justify its decision, the European Commission drafted legal text that pronounces natural gas and nuclear power as “transitional” green energy sources to be used to bridge countries away from coal toward technologies like wind and solar.
EastMed Gas Pipeline
The EastMed Gas pipeline is a 1,180-mile undersea pipeline project from Israel to southern Europe, set to be completed by 2025, which, when completed will ease Europe’s dependence on Russia and Turkey, which serves as a hub for oil and natural gas.
Construction of the pipeline is expected to cost approximately €6 billion ($6.86 billion).
The pipeline is being developed by IGI Poseidon S.A., a 50-50 joint venture between the Greek gas utility DEPA and the Italian gas utility Edison.
The EastMed Pipeline accord was signed in Athens by the leaders of Greece, Cyprus, and Israel on January 2, 2020.
Biden’s Political Decision
Biden is not only catering to Russia regarding the EastMed pipeline decision but also to Turkey, who is offended that it was left out of the EastMed pipeline accord.
Turkey believes that it should be part of the pipeline project amid claims over natural gas in the east Mediterranean.
This business cannot be done without Turkey. Because if [gas] is to be transferred to Europe from here, it will only happen through Turkey.”
According to an expert, the Biden administration is “attributing huge significance to Turkey,” and its future after Erdogan.
Biden’s Inconsistencies
MedEast is the second major pipeline that the Biden administration has put a damper on: the first being the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring oil from Canada and North Dakota to the Gulf States.
Canadian oil is heavy oil needed for U.S. refineries that retooled decades ago when U.S. light oil production was declining.
Keystone XL would also provide more oil to the United States from an ally rather than being dependent on OPEC and Russia for oil.
For several months since the pandemic began, Russia was the number 2 supplier of oil to the United States, competing with Mexico for that distinction.
When Biden blocked the Keystone XL pipeline by canceling its Presidential permit, he blocked a project that went over and above existing standards to address issues such as carbon emissions, safety standards, and cooperation with indigenous people impacted by the pipeline.
Biden’s Keystone XL and MedEast pronouncements both overturn decisions made by President Trump.
When Joe Biden agreed to set aside U.S. objections to the controversial Russian undersea Nord Stream 2 pipeline, he reversed former President Trump’s policy of opposing the project due to security concerns.
The 760-mile Baltic Sea pipeline allows direct Russian natural gas supply to Germany and other western European countries and allows Russia to dominate the European energy market, making Putin a power player in continental Europe, where Russia already supplies over 40 percent of its natural gas.
Conclusion
President Biden continues to overturn decisions made by President Trump regarding energy policy.
In the most recent case, he has withdrawn U.S. support for the EastMed gas pipeline project, which would transport natural gas from Israel to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea when completed in 2025.
The project would remove some of the continent’s dependency on Russia for natural gas supplies that Russia has used as a geopolitical tool at times in the past. Biden’s announced reasoning is that the focus in Washington is now on renewable energy, despite the European Commission seeing the necessity to allow natural gas to be deemed a “transitional green energy source”.
Biden has shown huge inconsistency on his pipeline decisions, with one major exception—they all overturn decisions made by President Trump.
What’s going on
It appears that Geo-political concerns and domestic green energy concerns are at odds. Alliances are at odds, and there are competing interests all backed by powerful corportations and individuals with competing interests. Thus making the United States a schizophrenic entity.
Oh, Great! A schizophrenic bully with the largest arsenal of nuclear and bioweapons in the world. What could go wrong?
It seems, to me at least, that the United States is desparately trying to control Europe, and Israel by energy. If you control access to energy, you can control them, and by dishing out access in measured doses, you can use them as pawns to do your bidding.
And that is what I think is going on.
An Evil Empire
Though it does seem rather mish-mash. Does the hand on the left know what the hand on the right is doing?
Do you want to know why the rest of the world calls it an evil empire?
The big fear right now is that sanctions against Russia will be ineffective. You slap sanctions on Russia and they will not work. Russia is pretty much autonomus.
So what are the American / UK “experts” saying?
Check out this horror…
Argument
An expert's point of view on a current event.
If Russia Invades Ukraine, Sanction China
Putin has found an economic lifeline in Beijing that only Washington can destroy.
By Aaron Arnold, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies.
.
Faced with the threat of further Western sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been seeking shelter in China.
On Feb. 4, the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a new strategic partnership between their two countries.
A joint statement described the Chinese-Russian relationship as a “friendship” with “no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.”
Putin expressed support for China’s opposition to Taiwanese independence, and Xi seconded Russia’s demand that NATO end its eastward expansion.
They also unveiled plans for broader economic cooperation, particularly in the oil and gas sectors.
The timing is no coincidence: At least in the short term, strengthened Chinese-Russian ties provide Putin an opportunity to lessen the blow from potential Western sanctions.
This puts the United States in a serious bind.
If Washington expects to convey a credible deterrent against a Russian invasion of Ukraine using financial and economic sanctions, it will need to signal its resolve to impose secondary sanctions against China in the same breath.
The problem is that the United Kingdom and the European Union, key U.S. allies, do not have the same legal or regulatory frameworks to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese banks or state-owned enterprises.
U.S. secondary sanctions, which target a third-party entity or country for conducting business with the primary subject of sanctions, rely on broad interpretations of jurisdiction.
To put it nicely; a very broad and liberal interpetation of the law; or to put it better; to make up the rules as you see fit. -MM
Most countries adopt some form of a territorial or nationality standard, meaning that its national borders define its jurisdictional reach.
The United States, however, considers its citizens, companies, and property as falling under its jurisdiction even if located abroad.
The United States considers the world to be it's territory. Not its borders. -MM
Because the U.K. and EU lack this framework to apply secondary sanctions, it leaves Washington alone to flex its extraterritorial muscle against China.
And though the United States is unlikely to suffer any significant domestic economic blowback from imposing broad financial and economic sanctions against Russia, it is a different story with China.
At a Feb. 7 press conference following his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States was coordinating “a strong package of sanctions that are going to clearly demonstrate international resolve and impose swift and severe consequences if Russia violates Ukraine’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity.”
Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a key architect of the U.S. sanctions regime against Iran, is also working on a bipartisan bill that would apply what he described as the “mother of all sanctions” on Russia.
There are still significant disagreements in Washington on when to apply sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany.
Well, you must realize that this is a project between Russia and Germany. The USA is not involved in it in any way, shape or means. -MM
The pipeline is owned by the Russian state-backed energy corporation Gazprom and has become a focal point among NATO allies because of its role in increasing Germany’s energy dependence on Russia.
Democrats, including Menendez and Biden, prefer to wait for Russia to invade Ukraine before putting sanctions in place, while Republicans are in favor of imposing sanctions on the pipeline immediately.
Republicans want to sanction Russia without reason. The Democrats are waiting for an excuse. -MM
Nevertheless, Menendez’s proposed legislation is sweeping and includes options to target Russia’s energy and finance sectors as well as key Russian government officials and even to boot Russia from SWIFT, the global financial messaging system that connects banks around the world.
The pieces for a broader, multilateral approach to sanctions are finally coming together.
This should scare Putin.
Responding to criticism that Germany was not doing enough to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, Scholz provided reassurances during his visit to Washington that Berlin is committed to imposing costs on Russia if it invades Ukraine.
It remains to be seen, however, whether that includes ditching Nord Stream 2.
That is the plan. Do not fool yourselves. -MM
Although Scholz has been vague about the pipeline’s fate if push comes to shove, he did note that Germany was prepared to take “all necessary steps” in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, noting the need for strategic ambiguity to head off an attempt by Russia to preemptively fortify itself against Western sanctions.
European leaders are fearful that an all-out barrage of sanctions against Russia could result in severe economic pain for their own economies.
Sanctions against Russia, whether with Russia alone or with China, will REALLY harm the EU. But the insane psychopaths in Washington DC do not care. -MM
Unlike the United States, many large European banks have close ties to Russia.
Europe’s energy sector is particularly at risk—relying on Russia for more than 40 percent of its imported natural gas.
The United States is trying to prevent a potential energy crisis in Europe should Putin weaponize Russia’s oil and gas exports. Amid already rising energy prices, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been working to assure European leaders that the Biden administration is committed to easing “any disruptions to Europe’s energy supply.”
And so they believe him? -MM
Specifically, he pointed to discussions with governments and major global suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to shore up supply.
The United States has ramped up its LNG exports to Europe as an alternative to Russian gas.
As of January, some 75 percent of U.S. LNG exports were bound for Europe. Last year, that figure stood at only 23 percent.
The terms of the 30-year contract call for Russia to supply an additional 10 billion cubic meters of gas to China per year via a new pipeline.
The implication is that deepening economic cooperation with China would help Russia absorb some of the shock if the West did impose severe sanctions against its banking and energy sectors. Russia is one of China’s largest oil and gas suppliers.
Russia is nearly and firmly isolated and sanctions of any types will not really affect it. -MM
But although these deepening economic ties might dampen the blow of U.S. sanctions, they are not completely out of reach of secondary U.S. sanctions.
To ensure its threats of sanctions remain credible, Washington needs to pressure Putin’s emerging economic lifelines by signaling that it is prepared to go beyond its standard sanctions package to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese banks and state-owned enterprises if Russia invades Ukraine.
There is precedent for such a move, but times have changed. China has become wise to the reach of U.S. extraterritorial sanctions and developed its own legal frameworks to push back.
In July 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department levied secondary sanctions against China’s Bank of Kunlun for knowingly facilitating transactions on behalf of designated Iranian banks.
This designation caught many experts and industry insiders by surprise, as it was an unprecedented escalation in the use of extraterritorial sanctions against a third party.
Under international UN laws, this action is ILLEGAL. Trust me, the Chinese will not forgive and forget. -MM
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson chided the United States for “invoking its domestic laws to impose sanctions against the Chinese financial institution” and urged the United States to reverse the sanctions.
The argument is valid. Chinese businesses, citizens, and entities do not full under United States law. Further, neither does their trading partners. -MM
While the designation ruffled Beijing, the two countries avoided any substantial political or economic fallout, with China opting to isolate the small bank from broader financial markets.
Later, in 2017, the United States imposed a $1.19 billion fine against another Chinese entity for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran: China’s largest telecommunications company, ZTE.
In addition to paying the fine, ZTE would also be required to develop internal policies to avoid future sanctions violations and undergo a corporate restructuring, according to a settlement reached with company.
The company settled out of court, even though the pressure was illegally applied. -MM
To force ZTE to comply with the settlement terms, the U.S. Commerce Department threatened to place the company on its Entity List—effectively shutting the company out of U.S. markets.
When ZTE did violate the terms of its settlement, though, the Trump administration opted to issue a waiver despite objections from senior advisors, thereby tossing the company a lifeline and preventing it from going under.
Senior officials means John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. -MM
Although there are differing theories as to why then-President Donald Trump reversed the designation—whether for personal political gain or to entice China to remain engaged in trade negotiations—the cases show the reach of U.S. extraterritorial sanctions policy.
The U.S. dollar accounts for nearly 60 percent of global foreign currency reserves—and the Chinese renminbi does not.
That is true for NOW. And the Chinese realize that. But, as I have reported elsewhere, one day they are going to flick a switch and suddenly a staged withdrawl from the USD will occur and the USD will collapse in value. Like I said, the Chinese do not forget. -MM
China, however, has started to push back against foreign extraterritorial sanctions.
Last year, the country established an anti-sanctions law—similar to the EU’s “blocking statute,” which attempts to curb the extraterritorial application of third-party sanctions by prohibiting compliance with extraterritorial laws.
China’s law notes that the country explicitly opposes “hegemonism and power politics” and “opposes any country’s interference in China’s internal affairs under any pretext and by any means,” giving authorities broad powers to impose penalties against Chinese businesses that adhere to U.S. sanctions policies.
These penalties could include fines and even confiscation of assets.
The Chinese do not play. They could single handly destory the American automotive industry by sanctioning all of their factories inside of China and nationalizing them. Flick of a switch. -MM
Many see the law as putting multinational banks in a quagmire: caught in a legal limbo between violating U.S. sanctions and being held liable for adhering to them.
Large multinational banks comply with U.S. sanctions due to the hegemony of the U.S. dollar in the global financial system.
But that's the only reason. -MM
In 2014, for example, U.S. authorities levied a record $9 billion fine against the French bank BNP Paribas for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, among others.
Although China has yet to use its new anti-sanctions laws against U.S. interests, the opportunity will undoubtedly arise if Washington aims secondary sanctions at China.
In this case, banks may be forced to choose between U.S. fines for violating sanctions and Chinese fines for adhering to them.
So, if Washington is going to impose secondary sanctions against Chinese institutions, it must be prepared for retaliation.
In addition to the potential for putting scores of multinational entities in legal limbo, perhaps even forcing them to choose sides, more than $615 billion worth of bilateral trade will also be put in jeopardy. (China accounts for nearly 19 percent of all U.S. imports.)
By VALUE. Not by volume.
90 - 95% of all medicines come from CHina. Are you ready to live without aspirin or antibiotics? How do you think your parents and grandparents will do when their blood pressure medicine and heart medicine is no longer available? -MM
Thus far, there have been no indications that Washington is considering specific secondary sanctions against China, beyond mere posturing.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price recently told reporters: “We have an array of tools that we can deploy if we see foreign companies, including those in China, doing their best to backfill U.S. export control actions, to evade them, to get around them.”
Deploying these tools against China will have repercussions for U.S. businesses and economic interests—a burden Washington has thus far not had to grapple with and has instead asked its European allies to bear.
Nonetheless, the United States must be prepared to cut off all avenues for Russia to escape Western sanctions.
This includes preparing to wield secondary sanctions against Chinese institutions as well as working to limit blowback to U.S. interests.
The simple truth is that the U.S. dollar accounts for nearly 60 percent of global foreign currency reserves—and the Chinese renminbi does not. That is a big stick to wield.
So what is this “expert” saying?
Well, the USA has its tenticles in just about every country. They are all in debt to the USA.
That gives the United States power.
Just like in prison. If you owe another inmate something, you must pay it back of become indentured. This technique has been used with great effect by the United States in controlling the world.
If the USA sanctions China, the nations will be forced to choose between [1] China or [2] their debt owed to the United States.
Of course, he argues, they would choose the United States over the “Worlds factory”. Right?
Ah.
Don’t be so sure.
The USA is dependent upon China for everything. And what it does not get directly out of China, it gets from countries that are / do.
90% of medicines come from China. What happens when there are no antibiodics? What about heart medicine? Pain killers?
99% of computers come from China. This includes monitors, IC chips (don’t let the Korean / Taiwan medi fool you otherwise), and all preferials.
80% of the world cellphones and much of their inner workings come from China.
95% of all household items, goods, and appliances come from China.
95% of automotive parts come from China. It doesn’t matter what car you are driving. All the spare parts are made in China.
Sanctioning China would be the most stupid blunder, of all the many stupid blunders to choose from, in all of history.
So let’s talk about China.
Now, China is really not like anyone in the “West” thinks. It’s really something different, and as time moves forward, it looks more and more like a sompletely different society that comes from another galaxy.
Let’s start with a few girls.
Chinese girl in a gym
Take a look at the screens on the wall behind her. Yes, this is normal. You can watch media while you exerise and your exercise stats are projected onto the screens as you exercise.
No wonder that the Chinese women are healthy, thin and free of ugly tattoos.
You know, I come from the United States.
Seriously, today, the ideas of beauty in the United States are different than from that inside of China. Darker skin, chubbier and shorter build, bigger asses, and tattoo decorations make for an attractive American woman…
An American beauty.
…or so I have been told.
Personally, I like all women. Short, tall, robust, cute, athletic, big and small. But the ones that I favor all are [1] great talkers with [2] interesting thoughts and opinions, a [3] strong personality, and [4] great personal confidence and a [5] real pride in their actions and apperance.
Which is why, perhaps, I love China so much.
Robust Chinese girl in brown
I do admire a fine “robust” woman. That’s me, and I don’t expect anyone to share my tastes. Here we have a fine woman. This gal is a real “head turner”, and I find her very aluring. Most especially in this dress.
Here’s a clip from the violent anti-China “news” network FOX. They are so very anti-China that they have to preface this report with a disclaimer that they are going to say something positive about China, and that people should not think bad about them for doing so.
The segment is spot on. And yes, China is doing the right thing. Don’t you know.
Women do not realize just how attractive they are when they are calm, comfortable and confident. Look at the expression on this woman. See the confidence? Man, oh man. What a sexy girl.
In many of the upper-class Business KTVs the girls are expected to buy their display uniforms. Many of which are traditional such as what this woman is wearing.
There’s no question about this. She is a stunner. Actually, I really love her neck and shoulders. I almost want to get a pencil and a sketch pad and start sketching it out with a light orange wash and some white inking overlay.
This video shows the front common area / yard in front of the housing complex individual buildings. Many areas a paved like this, while others are manicured trees, shrubs and flowers.
Note how the Huawei camera negates the handheld jitter while jogging and keeps the face and eyes absolutely centered throughout the video. Pretty cool technology.
In the cities, one of the fashion items is to wear a light topper sweater that fits over the tops of the boobies so that when you walk it accentuates the jiggle movement of the breasts. Personally I like it, but it does look a little bit strange to my older gentlemen sensibilities. Check out the style…
Russian FM site inaccessible, hacked or truly overwhelmed by the fact that the reply to the US reply has been published? In any case Cassad has it in Russian.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7446905.html
Posted by: Paco | Feb 17 2022 17:27 utc | 82
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Yandex translation:
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February 17, 17:46
The Russian Foreign Ministry has published a written response to the American written response to Russian claims on security guarantees in Europe.
Response to response
On February 17, 2022, US Ambassador John Sullivan, invited to the Russian Foreign Ministry, was given the following reaction to the previously received American response on the Russian draft treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on security guarantees.
TASS publishes the full text of the statement.
General characteristics
We state that the American side did not give a constructive response to the basic elements of the draft security guarantees agreement prepared by the Russian side with the United States.
We are talking about [1] the rejection of further expansion of NATO, [2] the withdrawal of the “Bucharest formula” that [3] “Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO”, and [4] the refusal to create military bases on the territory of states that were previously part of the USSR and are not members of the alliance, including [5] the use of their infrastructure for conducting any military activity, as well as [6] the return of military capabilities, including shock, and NATO infrastructure to the state of 1997, when the Founding Act of Russia — NATO was signed.
These provisions are of fundamental importance for the Russian Federation.
The package nature of Russian proposals has been ignored, from which “convenient” topics have been deliberately chosen, which, in turn, are “twisted” in the direction of creating advantages for the United States and its allies.
This approach, as well as the accompanying rhetoric of American officials, reinforces reasonable doubts that Washington is really committed to correcting the situation in the field of Euro-security.
The growing military activity of the United States and NATO directly at the Russian borders is alarming, while our “red lines” and fundamental security interests, as well as Russia’s sovereign right to protect them, continue to be ignored.
Ultimatum demands to withdraw troops from certain areas on Russian territory, accompanied by threats of tougher sanctions, are unacceptable and undermine the prospects of reaching real agreements.
In the absence of the readiness of the American side to agree on firm, legally binding guarantees of ensuring our security by the United States and its allies, Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military-technical measures.
In Ukraine
There is no “Russian invasion” of Ukraine, as the United States and its allies have been officially declaring since last autumn, and there are no plans, therefore, statements about “Russia’s responsibility for escalation” cannot be regarded otherwise than as an attempt to exert pressure and devalue Russia’s proposals for security guarantees.
The mention in this context of Russian obligations under the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 has nothing to do with the internal Ukrainian conflict and does not apply to the circumstances resulting from the actions of internal factors there.
The loss of territorial integrity by the Ukrainian state is the result of the processes that took place inside it.
The accusations of Russia contained in the American response that it “occupied Crimea” also do not stand up to any criticism.
In 2014, a coup took place in Kiev, the initiators of which, with the support of the United States and their allies, set a course for the creation of a nationalist state that infringes on the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population, as well as other “non-titular” ethnic groups.
It is not surprising that in such a situation, Crimeans voted for reunification with Russia.
The decision of the people of Crimea and Sevastopol to return to the Russian Federation was made by free expression of will in the exercise of the right to self-determination enshrined in the UN Charter.
Force or threat of force was not used. The question of Crimea’s ownership is closed.
If Ukraine is accepted into NATO, there will be a real threat that the regime in Kiev will try to “return” Crimea by force, dragging the United States and its allies, in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, into a direct armed conflict with Russia with all the ensuing consequences.
The thesis repeated in the US response that Russia allegedly “ignited the conflict in the Donbas” is untenable.
Its reasons are purely intra-Ukrainian in nature.
The settlement is possible only through the implementation of the Minsk agreements and a set of measures, the priority and responsibility for the implementation of which are clearly spelled out and unanimously confirmed by UN Security Council resolution 2202, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
In paragraph 2 of this resolution, Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk are named as parties.
None of these documents mention Russia’s responsibility for the conflict in the Donbas.
Russia, together with the OSCE, plays the role of mediator in the main negotiating format – the contact group – and together with Berlin and Paris – in the “Normandy format”, which formulates recommendations to the parties to the conflict and monitors their implementation.
To de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, it is fundamentally important to take the following steps.
This is forcing Kiev to implement a set of measures, stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine, withdrawing all Western advisers and instructors from there, the refusal of NATO countries from any joint exercises with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the withdrawal of all foreign weapons previously supplied to Kiev outside Ukrainian territory.
In this regard, we draw attention to the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a press conference following talks in Moscow with French President Emmanuel Macron on February 7, 2022, stressed that we are open to dialogue and urge “to think about stable security conditions for everyone, equal for all participants in international life.”
Force configuration
We note that in their response to the Russian proposals, the United States insists that progress in improving the situation in the field of European security “can only be achieved in terms of de-escalation in relation to Russia’s threatening actions directed against Ukraine,” which, as we understand, implies the requirement to withdraw Russian troops from the borders of Ukraine.
At the same time, the United States is ready to talk only about “mutual obligations … to refrain from deploying permanent-based forces with combat missions on the territory of Ukraine” and “consider discussing the problem of conventional armed forces.”
For the rest, the American side remains silent about our proposals contained in paragraphs 2 of Article 4 and paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the draft bilateral treaty and declares that “the current configuration of the US and NATO forces is limited, proportional and fully complies with the obligations under the NATO-Russia Founding Act.”
We proceed from the fact that the deployment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on its territory does not and cannot affect the fundamental interests of the United States. We would like to remind you that there are no our forces on the territory of Ukraine.
At the same time, the United States and its allies were advancing their military infrastructure to the east, deploying contingents in the territories of new members.
They circumvented the limitations of the CFE Treaty and interpreted very loosely the provisions of the Russia—NATO Founding Act on the rejection of “additional permanent deployment of substantial combat forces.”
The situation that has developed as a result of these actions is unacceptable.
We insist on the withdrawal of all US armed forces and weapons stationed in CEE, SEE and the Baltic States.
We are convinced that there are quite enough national potentials in these zones.
We are ready to discuss this topic on the basis of art. 4 and 5 of the Russian draft agreement.
The principle of indivisibility of security
We did not see any evidence in the US response that the American side is fully committed to observing the immutable principle of indivisibility of security.
The general statements about the consideration of this postulate by the American side are in direct contradiction with Washington’s unwillingness to abandon a counterproductive and destabilizing course to create advantages for itself and its allies at the expense of Russia’s security interests.
This is precisely what is happening as a result of the unrestrained implementation by the North Atlantic Alliance, with the leading role of the United States, of the policy of unlimited geostrategic and military development of the post-Soviet space, including the territory of Ukraine, which is particularly sensitive for us.
All this is happening directly on the Russian borders.
Thus, our “red lines” and fundamental security interests are ignored, and Russia’s inalienable right to ensure them is rejected.
For us, of course, this is unacceptable.
Additionally, we remind you that this principle is enshrined in the [1] preamble of the Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on [2] “Measures for Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms of 2011”, the [3] extension of which for five years [4] without any exceptions was [5] agreed by the parties in February last year, as well as [6] in a number of OSCE and Russia—[7] NATO basic documents adopted at the highest level: [8] in the preamble of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, [9] in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe of 1990, [10] the Founding Act of Russia — [11] NATO of 1997, [12] the Istanbul Charter for European Security of the OSCE of 1999, [13] the Rome Declaration of Russia-[14] NATO of 2002 and the Astana Declaration of the OSCE Summit of 2010.
We note that the response received mentions Washington’s commitment to the concept of indivisibility of security.
But in the text, it boils down to the right of states “to freely choose or change ways to ensure their security, including union treaties.”
This freedom is not absolute and is only half of the well-known formula fixed in the Charter of European Security.
Its second part requires that, when exercising this right, not “… strengthen one’s security at the expense of the security of other States.”
We cannot consider the letter received from NATO dated February 10, 2022 as a response to the message sent by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on January 28, 2022 to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on this issue.
We asked for an answer in a national capacity.
Conclusion
The United States is playing a very dangerous game, and using everything in its power to wrest control of the energy through Europe. The battlefield is the Ukraine, and they are sponsoring the entire fighting and trying and forcing the blame upon Russia.
Russia will not have any of this.
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday endorsed Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy, which allows him to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.By including a non-nuclear attack as a possible trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation, the document appears to send a warning signal to the United States.
The new expanded wording reflects Russian concerns about the development of prospective weapons that could give Washington the capability to knock out key military assets and government facilities without resorting to atomic weapons.In line with Russian military doctrine, the new document reaffirms that the country could use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an aggression involving conventional weapons that “threatens the very existence of the state.”But the policy document now also offers a detailed description of situations that could trigger the use of nuclear weapons. They include the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against Russia or its allies and an enemy attack with conventional weapons that threatens the country's existence.In addition to that, the document now states that Russia could use its nuclear arsenals if it gets “reliable information” about the launch of ballistic missiles targeting its territory or its allies and also in the case of ”enemy impact on critically important government or military facilities of the Russian Federation, the incapacitation of which could result in the failure of retaliatory action of nuclear forces."
-Defense News
As a justification, the minions and toadies, and appratus inside the United States “news” are busily justifying their militaristic actions in order to gain popular and military advantage thought the region and now there are “experts” that are arguing that the United States seize the initative that this time, and take out both Russia and China at the same time.
China has warned the United States that it would “strike back” in response to any “reckless” actions, urging Washington to withdraw its recent passing of sanctions targeting people and entities tied to human rights abuses committed by Beijing.
-MSN
This is extraordinarily DANGEROUS.
All sorts of bad things can come of it. As I have stated earlier, of all the blunder-headed, stupid, ignorant, and dangerous foolhardy actions that the American dying empire could perform, this single action could be it’s worst.
But turhtfully, the “leadership” are so ignorant and stupid that they have no idea what the fuck they are doing nor dealing with.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Illustration above; 2022 is the year of the "Wet Tiger".
America is not a happy country.
If the current power grid can't handle a night of 20 degree temperature without rolling blackouts, how will we plug 100 million electric cars into the grid?
Is there any country that tax their citizens and sends some of it to America?
Imagine, if you will, a world where every tweet and meme must be fact checked but not a ballot.
How to stop drunk drivers from killing sober drivers? Ban sober drivers from driving. That's exactly how gun control works.
Can we still order black coffee? Are brownies being taken off the shelf? Is White Castle changing its name? I'm sure Cracker Barrel is screwed. Can we still play Chinese checkers? Is that season still called Indian summer? No more Italian sausages?
How far do you want to go with this foolishness?
The 'Payday' candy bar is changing its name since it's offensive to those who don't work.
Hell of a job, Democrats! You've managed to bring back the 1918 pandemic, the 1929 depression, the 1968 race riots and the 1973 gas prices - all at the same time.
In this article, we will provide a global Sitrep concerning the state of the world at the conclusion of the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022. During this period, both Russia and China signed a very comprehensive agreement that defined a very detailed plan for global coorination and cooperation. And as I write this article, it is being implemented with great speed and gusto.
Here we will collect some articles, and misc brick-a-brack that will accumulatively (in total) provide a fine understanding of the global changes that are now occurring all over the planet. (Which, by the way, are NOT being reported on in the Western Media.)
Instead the Western media are reporting other things. Like this screen shot from the American “news” aggregator “DrudgeReport” 8FEB22.
Nonsense.
This article consists of related articles concerning various geographic regions thoughout the world. If you, the reader, think only in terms of your nation and may either Russia or China, you might this article collection to be a tad boring.
However, it covers a wade swatch of signifigant nation states. When you read the articles you will have a far better picture about what is going on in the world as the power-base shifts from a uni-polar world led by the United States to one that is multi-polar and not ruled at all.
We kick off this discussion with the United Nations.
[0] United Nations
"...demonizing china and russia at every turn and at such a scale, i was thinking the third war is imminent. now i know better, the entire world is against the empire. they abused propaganda and brainwashing tactics so much that only thing their adversaries need to do is just tell the truth."
-demonize | Feb 8 2022 22:17 utc
On February 4, 2022, on the occasion of the opening of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, the presidents of China and Russia issued a document entitled:
Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development
This document sets a new level in the cooperation between the two countries in foreign policy and is their exposition of a common viewpoint for setting out the rules that the world should follow in politics among nations.
A key section up front contains the following:
“The sides call on all States…
...to protect the United Nations-driven international architecture and the international law-based world order,
...seek genuine multipolarity with the United Nations and its Security Council playing a central and coordinating role….”
The reliance on the United Nations (UN) as the major guiding rulemaker is an important point.
A major question concerning this reliance is the extent to which the design of the UN matches the current reality of the world distribution of wealth and power.
The UN was set up in 1945 according to a design that reflected the post-WWII distribution of economic output and advanced weapon systems.
Overall, it was based on the outcome of that war, with the winners getting the spoils and the losers getting the left-overs.
After some seventy-seven years, the situation has radically changed.
According to the CIA Fact Book,
China now has a larger economy than the US,
India is independent and has the third largest economy,
and India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have become nuclear powers.
Japan and Germany each have larger populations and economies than either Britain or France.
And yet, the permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto rights are the same nations that were made members in 1945.
This is not a recipe for sustainable development of UN-based rules for a peaceable world.
Of course, there have been many calls for reform of the UN ever since it was founded.
A quick search for “reform of the united nations” turns up a cornucopia of websites dealing with the topic.
Everything from Wikipedia, various think-tanks, to the United Nations University has articles on the subject.
They point out in great detail the many reforms proposed and the far fewer reforms completed over the seventy-seven years.
All of them, however, tend to point out the immense difficulty in getting any agreement on any changes to the Security Council.
UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL ACTIONS
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) regularly concerns itself with various controversies around the world and adopts measures intended to ameliorate difficult situations.
However, there appears to be a lack of foresight in considering how the measures might be lifted when no longer needed or appropriate.
For example, the UNSC placed sanctions on North Korea over the nuclear proliferation issue, but now Russia and China would like to have the sanctions lifted, but this is blocked by the United States (US).
The UNSC also placed sanctions on Iran, some of which have now expired, but which seemed mostly to support the US interests.
With the benefit of hindsight, it would appear that Russia and China may have done better simply to have informal agreements with the other permanent members of the UNSC to institute sanctions and other measures when useful, thus leaving the two countries free to change tactics when the measures were no longer useful from their viewpoint.
This is especially true since both Russia and China are claiming to uphold the UN as the proper international body for making rules and would suffer great loss of face if they broke one of the UN rules.
The same is not true for the US since it is quite adept at following the “international rules-based order” that it conveniently makes up as it goes along.
The US claims to follow a higher order that is based on democracy and humanitarian issues.
Perhaps Russia and China knew what they were doing at the time, but it would be helpful to have an expert analysis of how they plan to avoid being trapped like this in the future.
UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION
Permanent membership in the Security Council is a bone of contention that will likely get worse as the years go by since some major countries are excluded, while some less prominent countries are included.
If China can be a member, then it will be more and more difficult to explain why India is not a member.
If Russia is a member, it still will be a question as to why Japan is not.
Having permanent members confined to the countries on the winning side in WWII will not be an adequate answer three-quarters of a century later and in light of all the changes that have transpired since the war.
If Britain and France are members, why not Germany and Brazil?
Is the criteria the possession of nuclear weapons, or the size of the economy, or the land area, or the population?
Now that India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have nuclear weapons, should they become permanent members?
Russia and China are again in an awkward position claiming the UN as the organizing force in the world, when the UN is obviously not structured to match the actual makeup of the world.
In addition, the UN headquarters was located in the US, reportedly because that was an inducement for the US to join the organization.
The fact that New York was undamaged by WWII and transportation was by steamship made it a logical choice at the time.
Now, however, travel is by air and there are many locations with good facilities and transport options.
In addition, the US places travel restrictions on diplomats trying to attend UN meetings in New York, and the UN employees also are subject to US rules.
Consequently, it would appear that a proper world management organization should be located in a small neutral country that possesses modern facilities and means of communication, and excellent air travel options to all other countries.
Another example of stress is the continuing issue of the Palestinians and the votes in the UN General Assembly on this topic.
The votes overwhelmingly go against the US position and yet next to nothing seems to ever be done.
There is no doubt that “safety in numbers” is a factor here—the US cannot sanction nearly 200 countries because they vote the “wrong way” at the same time.
In any event, the current UN setup is likely to experience continuing severe stress and instability in the coming years, unless these issues and likely others are addressed.
Some solutions could be helpful here also, since it bears directly on the Russian and Chinese positions concerning who makes the rules for the world.
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Another factor that China and Russia need to address is the question of independence, neutrality, and impartiality of the various international organizations that promote and enforce international rules.
Several news reports and allegations have arisen concerning the activities of three such organizations: Interpol, OPCW, and IAEA.
Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) is the subject of controversy because a general from the UAE was just selected as President despite vigorous opposition due to his qualifications and background.
The OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) is in the news with complaints over its investigations of chemical weapons in Syria. Whistleblowers have come forth with damaging accusations about the organization’s activities and its alleged bias.
The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is in a difficult position in checking up on Iran’s nuclear activities while not being able to check up on other West Asian countries’ nuclear activities. The Director just called for a change in the rules so that the IAEA could check up on Israel’s nuclear activities.
Many analysts suggest that there exists an undue influence on these organizations by the US, which prevents them from impartial operation.
Consequently, if the world is to move forward in a rules-based order using rules made by the UN and the affiliated international organizations, then China and Russia will need to exert more effort to ensure impartiality and more universal coverage of said rules.
This issue also applies to “international law” as it appears in court cases such as at the International Criminal Court (ICC), and in the various treaties such as the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
This is especially pertinent now that the US has announced that it will move from containment of China to competition with China.
The competition appears to be focused on the US and its allies in the West attempting to have more influence over the system of international rules than China.
The European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy essentially admitted that basis for competition when he stated in essence: He who sets the standards, rules the world.
REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
The Joint Statement places a lot of emphasis on the various regional organizations that China and/or Russia belong to.
There is a favorable reference to the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, & South Africa (BRICS), although political changes in the constituent countries have made it less coherent.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is Asian-based, as are several others, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The document contains many proposals for widening the involvement of these organizations in the many pressing issues confronting Asia.
A reading between the lines suggests that China and Russia plan to go ahead with getting a more robust set of rules for Asia, even if there is less prospect currently for agreements on world-wide rules.
CONCLUSION
China and Russia have issued a very long and very detailed statement of their goals for the future.
They specifically mention many international organizations and agreements, and provide concrete details about what they support and what they would like changed.
It is much more than a listing of political pious platitudes.
Nevertheless, it reads in large part like a political campaign statement for their domestic audiences and marching orders for their officials and bureaucrats.
It is, therefore, likely to be disappointing to those analysts who had perhaps expected something more concerning rules for the world.
The statements about relying on the UN and international law are fine as aspirations, but lack any specific proposals as to how to turn sentiment into reality.
For the past seventy-seven years, the UN has been under the major influence of the US and international law has been under the influence of the rules-based order designed by the US.
The Joint Statement does not directly provide clues about how China and Russia propose to deal with this situation during the next seventy-seven years.
…
Let’s look at the various geographical regions. We start with Europe.
It’s a destination / origination point for the BRI, and runs through the Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Xinjiang region (Uighur) of China.
[1] Europe
The US is losing its shit now. Putin should head to Berlin now and set out the alternatives in that flawless deutsche Sprache of his. The arrogance and hubris of a dying empire.
-Patroklos | Feb 8 2022 21:53 utc
China rail transports to Europe jumped
Did you know that the total number of China-Europe freight trains has risen to 50,000?
As of February this year (2022), more than 50,000 freight train trips between Europe and China have been made since the first Europe-bound train left the city of Chongqing in 2011.
▪️The China-Europe railway via about 70 routes connects 89 cities in China with 180 cities in 23 European countries with an average travel time of less than 20 days, which is significantly faster than shipping (about 70 days)
▪️The total cargo volume has exceeded 4.55 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) with IT products, automobiles and parts, chemicals, mechanical and electronic products among others with a total value of EUR 211 billion (the value of goods transported by China-Europe freight trains rose from EUR 7 billion in 2016 to EUR 65.8 billion in 2021)
▪️In 2021, the number of China-Europe freight trains amounted to 15,000 (1.46 million TEU, in comparison: capacity Ever Given 20,124 TEU), a Y-o-Y increase of 22%
▪️The share of China-Europe freight trains in total trade between China and Europe has increased from 1.5% in 2016 to 8% in 2021
▪️In 2021, the border point of Khorgos became the main port of entry or exit for China (previously, this was Alashankou; in 2021, 5,848 China-Europe trains were operated via Alashankou, while 6,362 China-Europe trains were handled at Khorgos)
▪️As of January 6, the average cost of transporting a standard 40-foot sea container by sea between China and Europe on 8 major routes was EUR 8,300, 5 times more than before the COVID-19 pandemic – by comparison, transporting a similar container from China to Paris by rail, costs was about EUR 7,000 (Drewry Shipping, SNCF) with subsidized transportation on the return route being cheap as EUR 1,800
▪️Rail accounts for only 5% of the total transport market between Europe and China but that number could double by 2030 (Drewry Shipping)
Side facts:
Containers moving between Europe and China must be switched to new rail cars twice, once at the China-Kazakhstan border and again at the Poland-Belarus border, since former Soviet countries use a different rail gauge than China and Europe
The total imports and exports between China and the European Union reached a total of EUR 728 billion (a Y-o-Y increase of 27.5%) with China remaining the EU’s largest trading partner, while the EU was China’s second-largest trading partner
…
I commented that 3rd graders could understand the concepts.
Last week, I linked to this paper, "Indivisible Security and Collective Security Concepts: Implications for Russia’s Relations with the West".
Indeed, the entire scenario we are currently within is all about Law, specifically the UN Charter and the basis it sets for International Law that's violated daily by the Outlaw US Empire.
Monarchies make Unilateral decisions, while democracies supposedly do so only after having an informed public debate prior to the decision being taken, thus rendering it something other than unilateral.
Thus, we have "fixing facts around the policy" by two clandestine Monarchies.- karlof1 | Feb 8 2022 19:49 utc
Now, this is unacceptable to the United States. The BRI is a direct threat to the ability of the United States to control naval shipping, and isolate China, Russia and Europe.
Here is an article that discusses this matter…
America’s real adversaries are its European and other allies: The U.S. aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia
The Iron Curtain of the 1940s and ‘50s was ostensibly designed to isolate Russia from Western Europe – to keep out Communist ideology and military penetration.
Today’s sanctions regime is aimed inward, to prevent America’s NATO and other Western allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China.
The aim is not so much to isolate Russia and China as to hold these allies firmly within America’s own economic orbit.
Allies are to forego the benefits of importing Russian gas and Chinese products, buying much higher-priced U.S. LNG and other exports, capped by more U.S. arms.
The sanctions that U.S. diplomats are insisting that their allies impose against trade with Russia and China are aimed ostensibly at deterring a military buildup.
But such a buildup cannot possibly really be the main Russian and Chinese concern.
They have much more to gain by offering mutual economic benefits to the West. So the underlying question is whether Europe will find its advantage in replacing U.S. exports with Russian and Chinese supplies and the associated mutual economic linkages.
What worries American diplomats is that Germany, other NATO nations and countries along the Belt and Road route understand the gains that can be made by opening up peaceful trade and investment.
If there is no Russian or Chinese plan to invade or bomb them, what is the need for NATO?
What is the need for such heavy purchases of U.S. military hardware by America’s affluent allies?
And if there is no inherently adversarial relationship, why do foreign countries need to sacrifice their own trade and financial interests by relying exclusively on U.S. exporters and investors?
These are the concerns that have prompted French Prime Minister Macron to call forth the ghost of Charles de Gaulle and urge Europe to turn away from what he calls NATO’s “brain-dead” Cold War and beak with the pro-U.S. trade arrangements that are imposing rising costs on Europe while denying it potential gains from trade with Eurasia.
Even Germany is balking at demands that it freeze by this coming March by going without Russian gas.
Instead of a real military threat from Russia and China, the problem for American strategists is the absence of such a threat.
All countries have come to realize that the world has reached a point at which no industrial economy has the manpower and political ability to mobilize a standing army of the size that would be needed to invade or even wage a major battle with a significant adversary.
That political cost makes it uneconomic for Russia to retaliate against NATO adventurism prodding at its western border trying to incite a military response. It’s just not worth taking over Ukraine.
America’s rising pressure on its allies threatens to drive them out of the U.S. orbit.
For over 75 years they had little practical alternative to U.S. hegemony.
But that is now changing.
America no longer has the monetary power and seemingly chronic trade and balance-of-payments surplus that enabled it to draw up the world’s trade and investment rules in 1944-45.
The threat to U.S. dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States with its increasingly desperate demand for sacrifices from its NATO and other allies.
The most glaring example is the U.S. drive to block Germany from authorizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to obtain Russian gas for the coming cold weather.
Angela Merkel agreed with Donald Trump to spend $1 billion building a new LNG port to become more dependent on highly priced U.S. LNG. (The plan was cancelled after the U.S. and German elections changed both leaders.)
But Germany has no other way of heating many of its houses and office buildings (or supplying its fertilizer companies) than with Russian gas.
The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest.
As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27:
“If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”[1]
The problem is to create a suitably offensive incident and depict Russia as the aggressor.
Nuland expressed who was dictating the policies of NATO members succinctly in 2014: “Fuck the EU.”
That was said as she told the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that the State Department was backing the puppet Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Ukrainian prime minister (removed after two years in a corruption scandal), and U.S. political agencies backed the bloody Maidan massacre that ushered in what are now eight years of civil war.
The result devastated Ukraine much as U.S. violence had done in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is not a policy of world peace or democracy that European voters endorse.
U.S. trade sanctions imposed on its NATO allies extend across the trade spectrum.
Austerity-ridden Lithuania gave up its cheese and agricultural market in Russia, and is blocking its state-owned railroad from carrying Belarus potash to the Baltic port of Klaipeda.
The port’s majority owner complained that “Lithuania will lose hundreds of millions of dollars from halting Belarus exports through Klaipeda,” and “could face legal claims of $15 billion over broken contracts.”[2]
Lithuania has even agreed to U.S. prompting to recognize Taiwan, resulting in China refusing to import German or other products that include Lithuanian-made components.
Europe is to impose sanctions at the cost of rising energy and agricultural prices by giving priority to imports from the United States and foregoing Russian, Belarusian and other linkages outside of the Dollar Area.
As Sergey Lavrov put matters:
“When the United States thinks that something suits its interests, it can betray those with whom it was friendly, with whom it cooperated and who catered to its positions around the world.”[3]
America’s sanctions on its allies hurt their economies, not those of Russia and China
What seems ironic is that such sanctions against Russia and China have ended up helping rather than hurting them.
But the primary aim was not to hurt nor to help the Russian and Chinese economies.
After all, it is axiomatic that sanctions force the targeted countries to become more self-reliant.
Deprived of Lithuanian cheese, Russian producers have produced their own, and no longer need to import it from the Baltic states.
America’s underlying economic rivalry is aimed at keeping European and its allied Asian countries in its own increasingly protected economic orbit.
Germany, Lithuania and other allies are told to impose sanctions directed against their own economic welfare by not trading with countries outside the U.S. dollar-area orbit.
Quite apart from the threat of actual war resulting from U.S. bellicosity, the cost to America’s allies of surrendering to U.S. trade and investment demands is becoming so high as to be politically unaffordable.
For nearly a century there has been little alternative but to agree to trade and investment rules favoring the U.S. economy as the price of receiving U.S. financial and trade support and even military security. But an alternative is now threatening to emerge – one offering benefits from China’s Belt and Road initiative, and from Russia’s desire for foreign investment to help modernize its industrial organization, as seemed to be promised thirty years ago in 1991.
Ever since the closing years of World War II, U.S. diplomacy has aimed at locking Britain, France, and especially defeated Germany and Japan, into becoming U.S. economic and military dependencies.
As I documented in Super Imperialism, American diplomats broke up the British Empire and absorbed its Sterling Area by the onerous terms imposed first by Lend-Lease and then the Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1946.
The latter’s terms obliged Britain to give up its Imperial Preference policy and unblock the sterling balances that India and other colonies had accumulated for their raw-materials exports during the war, thus opening the British Commonwealth to U.S. exports.
Britain committed itself not to recover its prewar markets by devaluing sterling.
U.S. diplomats then created the IMF and World Bank on terms that promoted U.S. export markets and deterred competition from Britain and other former rivals.
Debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons showed that British politicians recognized that they were being consigned to a subservient economic position, but felt that they had no alternative.
And once they gave up, U.S. diplomats had a free hand in confronting the rest of Europe.
Financial power has enabled America to continue dominating Western diplomacy despite being forced off gold in 1971 as a result of the balance-of-payments costs of its overseas military spending.
For the past half-century, foreign countries have kept their international monetary reserves in U.S. dollars – mainly in U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank accounts and other financial investments in the U.S. economy.
The Treasury-bill standard obliges foreign central banks to finance America’s military-based balance-of-payments deficit – and in the process, the domestic government budget deficit.
The United States does not need this recycling to create money.
The government can simply print money, as MMT has demonstrated. But the United States does need this foreign central bank dollar recycling to balance its international payments and support the dollar’s exchange rate.
If the dollar were to decline, foreign countries would find it much easier to pay international dollar-debts in their own currencies.
U.S. import prices would rise, and it would be more costly for U.S. investors to buy foreign assets.
And foreigners would lose money on U.S. stocks and bonds as denominated in their own currencies, and would drop them.
Central banks in particular would take a loss on the Treasury’s dollar bonds that they hold in their monetary reserves – and would find their interest to lie in moving out of the dollar.
So the U.S. balance of payments and exchange rate are both threatened by U.S. belligerency and military spending throughout the world – yet its diplomats are trying to stabilize matters by ramping up the military threat to crisis levels.
U.S. drives to keep its European and East Asian protectorates locked into its own sphere of influence is threatened by the emergence of China and Russia independently of the United States while the U.S. economy is de-industrializing as a result of its own deliberate policy choices.
The industrial dynamic that made the United States so dominant from the late 19th century up to the 1970s has given way to an evangelistic neoliberal financialization.
That is why U.S. diplomats need to arm-twist their allies to block their economic relations with post-Soviet Russia and socialist China, whose growth is outstripping that of the United States and whose trade arrangements offer more opportunities for mutual gain.
At issue is how long the United States can block its allies from taking advantage of China’s economic growth.
Will Germany, France and other NATO countries seek prosperity for themselves instead of letting the U.S. dollar standard and trade preferences siphon off their economic surplus?
Oil diplomacy and America’s dream for post-Soviet Russia
The expectation of Gorbachev and other Russian officials in 1991 was that their economy would turn to the West for reorganization along the lines that had made the U.S., German and other economies so prosperous.
The mutual expectation in Russia and Western Europe was for German, French and other investors to restructure the post-Soviet economy along more efficient lines.
That was not the U.S. plan.
When Senator John McCain called Russia “a gas station with atom bombs,” that was America’s dream for what they wanted Russia to be – with Russia’s gas companies passing into control by U.S. stockholders, starting with the planned buyout of Yukos as arranged with Mikhail Khordokovsky.
The last thing that U.S. strategists wanted to see was a thriving revived Russia.
U.S. advisors sought to privatize Russia’s natural resources and other non-industrial assets, by turning them over to kleptocrats who could “cash out” on the value of what they had privatized only by selling to U.S. and other foreign investors for hard currency.
The result was a neoliberal economic and demographic collapse throughout the post-Soviet states.
In some ways, America has been turning itself into its own version of a gas station with atom bombs (and arms exports).
U.S. oil diplomacy aims to control the world’s oil trade so that its enormous profits will accrue to the major U.S. oil companies.
It was to keep Iranian oil in the hands of British Petroleum that the CIA’s Kermit Roosevelt worked with British Petroleum’s Anglo-Persian Oil Company to overthrow Iran’s elected leader Mohammed Mossadegh in 1954 when he sought to nationalize the company after it refused decade after decade to perform its promised contributions to the economy.
After installing the Shah whose democracy was based on a vicious police state, Iran threatened once again to act as the master of its own oil resources.
So it was once again confronted with U.S.-sponsored sanctions, which remain in effect today.
The aim of such sanctions is to keep the world oil trade firmly under U.S. control, because oil is energy and energy is the key to productivity and real GDP.
In cases where foreign governments such as Saudi Arabia and neighboring Arab petrostates have taken control, the export earnings of their oil are to be deposited in U.S. financial markets to support the dollar’s exchange rate and U.S. financial domination.
When they quadrupled their oil prices in 1973-74 (in response to the U.S. quadrupling of its grain-export prices), the U.S. State Department laid down the law and told Saudi Arabia that it could charge as much as it wanted for its oil (thereby raising the price umbrella for U.S. oil producers), but it had to recycle its oil-export earnings to the United States in dollar-denominated securities – mainly in U.S. Treasury securities and U.S. bank accounts, along with some minority holdings of U.S. stocks and bonds (but only as passive investors, not using this financial power to control corporate policy).
The second mode of recycling oil-export earnings was to buy U.S. arms exports, with Saudi Arabia becoming one of the military-industrial complex’s largest customers. U.S. arms production actually is not primarily military in character.
As the world is now seeing in the kerfuffle over Ukraine, America does not have a fighting army.
What it has is what used to be called an “eating army.”
U.S. arms production employs labor and produces weaponry as a kind of prestige good for governments to show off, not for actual fighting.
Like most luxury goods, the markup is very high.
That is the essence of high fashion and style, after all. The MIC uses its profits to subsidize U.S. civilian production in a way that does not violate the letter of international trade laws against government subsidy.
Sometimes, of course, military force is indeed used.
In Iraq, first George W. Bush and then Barack Obama used the military to seize the country’ oil reserves, along with those of Syria and Libya.
Control of world oil has been the buttress of America’s balance of payments.
Despite the global drive to slow the planet’s warming, U.S. officials continue to view oil as the key to America’s economic supremacy.
That is why the U.S. military is still refusing to obey Iraq’s orders to leave their country, keeping its troops in control of Iraqi oil, and why it agreed with the French to destroy Libya and still has troops in the oilfields of Syria.
Closer to home, President Biden has approved offshore drilling and supports Canada’s expansion of its Athabasca tar sands, environmentally the dirtiest oil in the world.
Along with oil and food exports, arms exports support the Treasury-bill standard’s financing of America’s overseas military spending on its 750 bases abroad.
But without a standing enemy constantly threatening at the gates, NATO’s existence falls apart.
What would be the need for countries to buy submarines, aircraft carriers, airplanes, tanks, missiles and other arms?
As the United States has de-industrialized, its trade and balance-of-payments deficit is becoming more problematic.
It needs arms export sales to help reduce its widening trade deficit and also to subsidize its commercial aircraft and related civilian sectors.
The challenge is how to maintain its prosperity and world dominance as it de-industrializes while economic growth is surging ahead in China and now even Russia.
America has lost its industrial cost advantage by the sharp rise in its cost of living and doing business in its financialized post-industrial rentier economy.
Additionally, as Seymour Melman explained in the 1970s, Pentagon capitalism is based on cost-plus contracts: The higher military hardware costs, the more profit its manufacturers receive.
So U.S. arms are over-engineered – hence, the $5000 toilet seats instead of a $50 model.
The main attractiveness of luxury goods after all, including military hardware, is their high price.
This is the background for U.S. fury at its failure to seize Russia’s oil resources – and at seeing Russia also break free militarily to create its own arms exports, which now are typically better and much less costly than those of the U.S.
Today Russia is in the position of Iran in 1954 and again in 1979.
Not only do its oil sales rival those of U.S. LNG, but Russia keeps its oil-export earnings at home to finance its re-industrialization, so as to rebuild the economy that was destroyed by the U.S.-sponsored shock “therapy” of the 1990s.
The line of least resistance for U.S. strategy seeking to maintain control of the world’s oil supply while maintaining its luxury-arms export market via NATO is to Cry Wolf and insist that Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine – as if Russia had anything to gain by quagmire warfare over Europe’s poorest and least productive economy.
The winter of 2021-22 has seen a long attempt at U.S. prodding of NATO and Russia to fight – without success.
U.S. dreams of a neoliberalized China as a U.S. corporate affiliate
America has de-industrialized as a deliberate policy of slashing production costs as its manufacturing companies have sought low-wage labor abroad, most notably in China.
This shift was not a rivalry with China, but was viewed as mutual gain.
American banks and investors were expected to secure control and the profits of Chinese industry as it was marketized.
The rivalry was between U.S. employers and U.S. labor, and the class-war weapon was offshoring and, in the process, cutting back government social spending.
Similar to the Russian pursuit of oil, arms and agricultural trade independent of U.S. control, China’s offense is keeping the profits of its industrialization at home, retaining state ownership of significant corporations and, most of all, keeping money creation and the Bank of China as a public utility to fund its own capital formation instead of letting U.S. banks and brokerage houses provide its financing and siphon off its surplus in the form of interest, dividends and management fees.
The one saving grace to U.S. corporate planners has been China’s role in deterring U.S. wages from rising by providing a source of low-priced labor to enable American manufacturers to offshore and outsource their production.
The Democratic Party’s class war against unionized labor started in the Carter Administration and greatly accelerated when Bill Clinton opened the southern border with NAFTA.
A string of maquiladoras were established along the border to supply low-priced handicraft labor.
This became so successful a corporate profit center that Clinton pressed to admit China into the World Trade Organization in December 2001, in the closing month of his administration.
The dream was for it to become a profit center for U.S. investors, producing for U.S. companies and financing its capital investment (and housing and government spending too, it was hoped) by borrowing U.S. dollars and organizing its industry in a stock market that, like that of Russia in 1994-96, would become a leading provider of finance-capital gains for U.S. and other foreign investors.
Walmart, Apple and many other U.S. companies organized production facilities in China, which necessarily involved technology transfers and creation of an efficient infrastructure for export trade.
Goldman Sachs led the financial incursion, and helped China’s stock market soar.
All this was what America had been urging.
Where did America’s neoliberal Cold War dream go wrong?
For starters, China did not follow the World Bank’s policy of steering governments to borrow in dollars to hire U.S. engineering firms to provide export infrastructure.
It industrialized in much the same way that the United States and Germany did in the late 19th century: By heavy public investment in infrastructure to provide basic needs at subsidized prices or freely, from health care and education to transportation and communications, in order to minimize the cost of living that employers and exporters had to pay.
Most important, China avoided foreign debt service by creating its own money and keeping the most important production facilities in its own hands.
U.S. demands are driving its allies out of the dollar-NATO trade and monetary orbit
As in a classical Greek tragedy, U.S. foreign policy is bringing about precisely the outcome that it most fears.
Overplaying their hand with their own NATO allies, U.S. diplomats are bringing about Kissinger’s nightmare scenario, driving Russia and China together.
While America’s allies are told to bear the costs of U.S. sanctions, Russia and China are benefiting by being obliged to diversify and make their own economies independent of reliance on U.S. suppliers of food and other basic needs.
Above all, these two countries are creating their own de-dollarized credit and bank-clearing systems, and holding their international monetary reserves in the form of gold, euros and each other’s currencies to conduct their mutual trade and investment.
This de-dollarization provides an alternative to the unipolar U.S. ability to gain free foreign credit via the U.S. Treasury-bill standard for world monetary reserves.
As foreign countries and their central banks de-dollarize, what will support the dollar?
Without the free line of credit provided by central banks automatically recycling America’s foreign military and other overseas spending back to the U.S. economy (with only a minimal return), how can the United States balance its international payments in the face of its de-industrialization?
The United States cannot simply reverse its de-industrialization and dependence on Chinese and other Asian labor by bringing production back home.
It has built too high a rentier overhead into its economy for its labor to be able to compete internationally, given the U.S. wage-earner’s budgetary demands to pay high and rising housing and education costs, debt service and health insurance, and for privatized infrastructure services.
The only way for the United States to sustain its international financial balance is by monopoly pricing of its arms, patented pharmaceutical and information-technology exports, and by buying control of the most lucrative production and potentially rent-extracting sectors abroad – in other words, by spreading neoliberal economic policy throughout the world in a way that obliges other countries to depend on U.S. loans and investment.
That is not a way for national economies to grow.
The alternative to neoliberal doctrine is China’s growth policies that follow the same basic industrial logic by which Britain, the United States, Germany and France rose to industrial power during their own industrial takeoffs with strong government support and social spending programs.
The United States has abandoned this traditional industrial policy since the 1980s.
It is imposing on its own economy the neoliberal policies that de-industrialized Pinochetista Chile, Thatcherite Britain and the post-industrial former Soviet republics, the Baltics and Ukraine since 1991.
Its highly polarized and debt-leveraged prosperity is based on inflating real estate and securities prices and privatizing infrastructure.
This neoliberalism has been a path to becoming a failed economy and indeed, a failed state, obliged to suffer debt deflation, rising housing prices and rents as owner-occupancy rates decline, as well as exorbitant medical and other costs resulting from privatizing what other countries provide freely or at subsidized prices as human rights – health care, education, medical insurance and pensions.
The success of China’s industrial policy with a mixed economy and state control of the monetary and credit system has led U.S. strategists to fear that Western European and Asian economies may find their advantage to lie in integrating more closely with China and Russia.
The U.S. seems to have no response to such a global rapprochement with China and Russia except economic sanctions and military belligerence.
That New Cold War stance is expensive, and other countries are balking at bearing the cost of a conflict that has no benefit for themselves and indeed, threatens to destabilize their own economic growth and political independence.
Without subsidy from these countries, especially as China, Russia and their neighbors de-dollarize their economies, how can the United States maintain the balance-of-payments costs of its overseas military spending?
Cutting back that spending, and indeed recovering industrial self-reliance and competitive economic power, would require a transformation of American politics.
Such a change seems unlikely, but without it, how long can America’s post-industrial rentier economy manage to force other countries to provide it with the economic affluence (literally a flowing-in) that it is no longer producing at home?
[2] India
Can we consider India a Democracy or a DemoCrazy?
India is essentially a fragmented country starting from its government. Take your pick on the other factors:
Corruption, cronyism, and abuse of government authority that have come to light in recent years
Powers of the bureaucracy have to be substantially curbed … a country overburdened by a massive bureaucracy, India has one of the lowest rates of per capita public sector employment of any G20 country.
The Indian state suffers from debilitating weaknesses that hinder its ability to raise revenue, adjudicate disputes, guarantee public order, and provide public goods.
It has the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio of any #BRICS country (a grouping that also includes #Brazil, #Russia, and #China). Indeed, it has one of the smallest ratios of any country in the #G20.
India’s security forces suffer from endemic personnel shortages. As of the end of 2011, only 77 percent of available posts in the civil police force were occupied according to the National Crime Records Bureau. (and yet it is part of #AUKUS).
Finally, India also struggles in its ability to provide basic services such as healthcare and education.
Caste hierarchies are alive and well.
For over sixty years, India, a low-income country occupying a sprawling geography and serving as a home to a dizzying diversity of ethnic and linguistic groups, has managed to survive—indeed, thrive—as a functioning democracy.
Its political system in particular has the capacity to confound even the most knowledgeable and insightful Indian, so it should come as no surprise that for outsiders, interpreting Indian politics can be downright daunting.
But trying to fit India into neat categories to get a handle on the South Asian behemoth misses much of the nuance at the heart of the Indian polity.
For instance, India’s politics have grown more regionalized, yet powerful forces of centralization remain intact.
Old caste divides have lost social relevance but often thrive in the domain of politics.
India’s party system is fragmented, but centralization has not disappeared
A dominant narrative about Indian politics over the last few decades has been the increasing regionalization of the political party system.
One way to measure this fragmentation is to compare political competition in India’s first general elections in 1952 to the most recent parliamentary elections of 2009. In 1952, 55 parties contested general elections, and in 2009, there were 370 competitors (see figure 1).
Of course, these numbers overstate the level of fragmentation because they do not account for the actual support political parties have among the electorate, but the changes remain large even when parties are weighted by the actual seats they win.
In 1952, this measure of effective number of parties in parliament stood at 1.7, and it has exhibited a more-than-fourfold increase over the past six decades, reaching 6.5.
Vaishnav’s primary research focus is the political economy of India, and he examines issues such as corruption and governance, state capacity, distributive politics, and electoral behavior.
The emerging federal nature of India’s electoral politics was given a shot in the arm in the early 1990s thanks to the rise of coalition governments in New Delhi, which provided a new set of incentives for aspiring regional politicians to abandon the dominant national parties and establish their own political outfits.
While some of these new “regional parties” have strong links to subnational, separatist, or regional cultural markers, most simply draw support from a narrow (subnational) geographically defined territory.
In this sense, several Indian parties formally classified as “national” by the Election Commission of India are actually regional in nature, such as the Nationalist Congress Party, whose success is largely confined to the state of Maharashtra.
As a result of these shifts, state-level politics are now the principal settings for political contestation, while national elections are increasingly “derivative.”
While this does not mean that national elections are merely a sum of state-level contests, state-level politics is often the prism through which voters make decisions about national elections.
For example, when state-level elections are held less than two years prior to national elections, voters are prone to reaffirm their state-level decisions when they vote in parliamentary elections.
But when national elections take place midway through a state government’s tenure, more often than not voters punish the ruling state party or parties in national polls.
Indian National Congress
Moreover, fractures have developed within the two major national parties. Fragmentation within the ruling Indian National Congress (Congress, for short) is largely due to the leadership’s “dyarchic” nature.
Ever since the Congress Party’s current president, Sonia Gandhi, refused to assume the position of prime minister after the Congress came to power in 2004, handing over the reins to former finance minister Manmohan Singh, dual power centers revolving around these two figures have persisted.
In reality, Singh occupies the throne, but Gandhi is perceived to wield the power.
The wheels came off the arrangement during its second term.
Now, the “divided leadership” within the Congress Party may be the most significant political hurdle to implementing badly needed political and economic reforms.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
The problem for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is far more complicated.
The party boasts a surfeit of leaders clamoring for the post of prime minister.
Many of the BJP’s most well-known personalities continue to jockey for greater visibility and stature within the party hierarchy—leading to frequent internal disputes.
Complicating this picture even more is the fact that the BJP exhibits a significant amount of diversity at the state level.
In the words of scholar Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the BJP “is, for all practical purposes, a collection of six or seven state parties.”
Furthermore, the leaders of the BJP in the states pledge their political loyalties to different national-level BJP leaders.
Yet, it would be premature to sound the death knell for the two major national parties.
In the 2009 general elections, the Congress and BJP won a combined total of 322 seats—or 60 percent of the overall count (543).
Indeed, Congress’s vote share in national elections has essentially remained constant since 1996—hovering around 28 percent.
(Yet due to the peculiarities of India’s winner-take-all electoral system, the number of seats the Congress has won with a roughly similar vote share has fluctuated wildly from election to election—see figure 2.)
Both parties also continue to have a considerable presence at the state level.
Nearly two-thirds of states (19 of 30) are presently governed by either Congress or BJP chief ministers, though several are in a coalition with regional parties.
States are the solution to India’s policy dilemmas, but also the problem
When India’s central government is unwilling or unable to take action on policy reform, its states are often heralded as the solution to gridlock or “policy paralysis” because Indian federalism gives the states considerable space for policy innovation. When the center fails, the respective states can usher in and lead intra-Indian competition for resources, investment, and talent, which produces a dynamic process of policy diffusion.
What complicates the picture is that the degree to which “good policies” are adopted often varies considerably within states. For instance, Gujarat has enjoyed fantastic economic growth rates and enormous investment inflows under Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure.
In this sense, it is one of India’s most highly developed states. Yet, while Gujarat’s economic “model” is heralded, it a lags on health and family welfare, scoring near the bottom of India’s states on basic indicators of malnutrition.
The coexistence in Modi’s Gujarat of economic vitality with endemic malnutrition illustrates, in a nutshell, the promise and the peril of state-level leadership. Indeed, while there is a generally positive correlation between the level of development and malnutrition across India’s states, the states that thrive economically often “underperform” on addressing malnutrition (see figure 3 with Gujarat highlighted in red).
And when it comes to natural resource management states have strongly opposed reforms that would minimize their discretion and, therefore, their rent extraction possibilities. Consider the recent corruption scandal known as “Coalgate.”
A blistering report from the comptroller and auditor general accused the central government of using an opaque, uncompetitive, and ad hoc discretionary process for allocating nearly 60 licenses for captive coal mines across India. The report estimates that the policy led to $33 billion in lost revenue.
The central government is surely to blame for dithering in establishing a new, competitive policy for allocating coal licenses. But the states themselves played a starring role in the scandal.
The chief ministers of several mining-intensive states strongly opposed a change of policy and lobbied the government to maintain the status quo.
And state governments played a prominent role in recommending which private sector firms should receive licenses.
The Indian state is often overbureaucratized yet undermanned
Given the corruption, cronyism, and abuse of government authority that have come to light in recent years—ranging from the discretionary allocation of licenses governing 2G telecommunication spectrum to the procurement scandals which plagued India’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games—there is a strong sentiment within India that the powers of the bureaucracy have to be substantially curbed.
There is certainly a considerable need to curtail the worst excesses of the state, especially where the state’s heavy-handed role distorts economic incentives. For instance, transactions involving land—construction, mining, and infrastructure—remain a hotbed of corruption and malfeasance.
The regulatory intensity of the state with respect to land is extremely high, allowing politicians and bureaucrats to trade regulatory forbearance for bribes and kickbacks.
Yet, while the Indian state needs to cede authority over certain realms, it simultaneously needs to expand its authority in others.
Notwithstanding the widely held image of India as a country overburdened by a massive bureaucracy, India has one of the lowest rates of per capita public sector employment of any G20 country.
Furthermore, government employment in India (across local, state, and federal levels) is in decline.
The Indian state suffers from debilitating weaknesses that hinder its ability to raise revenue, adjudicate disputes, guarantee public order, and provide public goods. It has the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio of any BRIC country (a grouping that also includes Brazil, Russia, and China). Indeed, it has one of the smallest ratios of any country in the G20.
Admittedly, it is difficult to disentangle issues of policy choice from capacity, but there are ample signs that India is failing to enforce the taxes that are on the books.
For instance, a new investigations unit of the income tax department dedicated to recovering lost tax revenue has barely gotten off the ground one year after setting up shop thanks to a personnel shortfall.
The relative incapacity of the judiciary has been well documented. The Supreme Court reported in late 2011 that the country’s courts are saddled under the weight of 32 million pending cases. C
ourts at all levels—the Supreme Court as well as various high courts and district and subordinate courts—see their dockets grow rather than shrink year after year.
Meanwhile, India’s security forces suffer from endemic personnel shortages. As of the end of 2011, only 77 percent of available posts in the civil police force were occupied according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Even if the state governments were to boost their recruitment and close the vacancy gap, India would still have one of the smallest ratios of police per capita anywhere in the world.
The armed forces too struggle with manpower shortfalls: the Indian army faces a shortage of 12,000 officers, or roughly 20 percent of its overall sanctioned strength.
Finally, India also struggles in its ability to provide basic services such as healthcare and education.
On education, for instance, it is true that India is growing ever closer toward achieving universal primary enrollment.
Yet, the quality of those activities that regularly take place in schools is, on average, abysmal.
According to the last several rounds of the Annual Status of Education Report conducted by the nongovernmental organization Pratham, the proportion of children aged six to fourteen who can read a simple paragraph has stagnated around 40 percent—with only marginal improvement over the past several years.
India’s economic crisis is largely self-inflicted
After over a decade of booming growth, the Indian economy was recently brought down to earth. In the quarter ending in June 2012, the economy grew at a rate of 5.5 percent—down from 8 percent the same quarter one year ago. While the International Monetary Fund now projects that growth in 2012 will dip below 5 percent, most independent observers forecast a quick rebound in 2013. A sustained period of growth at 5 percent or below, if such a situation materialized, would constitute a serious social and economic crisis for India.
In many ways, the particular success of India’s economy may have planted the seeds of its future slowdown. Reforms of the early 1990s, which involved industrial delicensing, reducing tariffs, and removing barriers to foreign capital flows, created a powerful new class of entrepreneurs who leveraged their political connections to entrench their positions in a newly liberalized economy.
These private sector winners, and their political allies, believed it was in their self-interest to obstruct follow-on, second-generation reforms that would further increase international competition in the economy or introduce more transparent and competitive processes for natural resource contracts.
Crony capitalism may have helped fuel rapid economic growth, but the rot in the system now threatens to swallow the whole thing up as the economy struggles in the wake of revelations of gross misgovernance and corruption.
There is also a perception that the roots of the current economic malaise are deeply political, from two years of unrelenting corruption scandals to a divided ruling party.
The situation was further compounded by the government’s missteps on key policy issues at critical junctures.
For instance, the government announced aggressive new anti-tax-avoidance policies that would retroactively levy taxes on business deals it perceived were structured to circumvent tax compliance.
This move rattled investor confidence and contributed to an atmosphere of heightened private sector uncertainty.
In an encouraging move, in mid-September the government announced a slew of long-awaited reforms, notably raising the price of diesel (which is heavily subsidized) and increasing foreign investment caps in a range of sectors such as broadcasting, multibrand retail, and civil aviation.
The government referred to these reforms as a “big bang,” but the current changes can best be described as a collection of modest steps.
Most political parties acknowledge the need for more fundamental structural reform; India’s administrative, regulatory, and legal machinery is hopelessly out of date. Yet the implementation of such reforms carries with it great political risk, discouraging bolder action.
Caste in India is declining socially, but remains strong politically
Social relations in India have long been defined by the peculiar tenets of Hinduism’s hierarchical caste system. But according to a recent study, the social inequalities that have historically defined relations between Dalits (lower castes) and non-Dalits have declined precipitously in the market-reform era.
Indeed, India now boasts a talented crop of “Dalit millionaires” who have formed their own Dalit Chamber of Commerce. Moreover, several groups have benefitted from reservations (or ethnic quotas) in government jobs, higher education, and political representation.
Yet caste hierarchies are alive and well in other areas. In one study, economists sent fictitious online job applications to firms, randomly manipulating the caste-based surnames of the fake applicants.
Large and significant differences in the treatment of applicants was seen in competition over call-center jobs, where “soft” or intangible skills are difficult to effectively signal through resume credentials alone, suggesting the persistence of discrimination against disadvantaged groups in certain sectors.
And there can be no doubt that a significant amount of political mobilization still occurs along caste or communal lines.
This is most glaring in north Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh, where rival political parties vociferously court opposing “vote banks” and speak of “caste equations.”
Yet, political mobilization along identity lines is hardly confined to north India: politically motivated communal violence in Kerala and the persistence of political divisions between the Kamma, Reddy, and Kapu communities in Andhra Pradesh are evidence of this.
Moreover, caste seems to still influence voter behavior across India. Some observers have heralded the delinking of ethnicity and vote choice by examining national-level aggregates of voter behavior, finding little evidence to suggest that a majority of any given ethnic community favors one political party over another. But when one disaggregates the data at the state level—which is the prime venue for political contestation—a majority of a caste group in many states votes in favor of one political party.
A closer look at state-level realities also suggests that some prominent leaders who have been celebrated for their perceived willingness to transcend caste divides in fact embrace caste—albeit in less overt, divisive ways. One prominent leader who is said to have risen above caste politics is Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in the state of Bihar.
In reality, Kumar has not ignored caste; he has simply played the caste card shrewdly. In his first term, Kumar instituted a “Mahadalit” scheme—earmarking government transfers for certain Dalit segments, namely those that fell outside of the traditional vote banks of his opposition—and established quotas in government jobs for lower caste Muslims.
Looking Ahead
Over the past two decades, India’s politics have grown far more complex. Economic liberalization, growing political competition, and increasing decentralization have fundamentally remade India’s political economy. Yet these new shifts have not completely displaced prevailing ideologies and proclivities.
In today’s India, liberalization coexists with the remnants of state-driven planning. Regionalization has expanded but has not completely taken over. And the bureaucracy’s authority has receded in many domains while becoming more entrenched in others.
Those looking to make sense of where India’s political project is headed in the years to come would be well-served to heed the words of Cambridge economist Joan Robinson: “Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.”
The author thanks Reedy Swanson for excellent research assistance, Ashley Tellis and Frederic Grare for comments, and Devesh Kapur for useful conversations.
The president of Argentina as a matter of urgency approached President Putin in the day before President Putin left for Beijing. They needed help with odious debt that the country entered into with the IMF. This is the sequence of events in the last few days:
Argentina is trapped in $44 billion of odious debt from the US-controlled IMF.Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández traveled to Russia and China, forming an alliance with the Eurasian powers, joining the Belt & Roadhttps://t.co/rTbO1ZGsPE— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) February 6, 2022
And then, one of the most interesting points in the second tweet: China reaffirmed its support for Argentina’s demand to fully exercise sovereignty over the Malvinas.
Argentina reaffirmed its commitment to the One China principle and China reaffirmed its support for Argentina’s demand to fully exercise sovereignty over the Malvinas. More: https://t.co/kSCICjsyFOpic.twitter.com/iMhhV63Uzz— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) February 6, 2022
This is then how Zone B grows, with countries saying they have had enough of hegemony and taking clear steps to help themselves.
Trapped in IMF debt, Argentina turns to Russia and joins China’s Belt & Road
Argentina is trapped in $44 billion of IMF odious debt taken on by corrupt right-wing regimes.
Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, President Alberto Fernández traveled to Russia and China, forming an alliance with the Eurasian powers, joining the Belt and Road Initiative.
The United States constantly intervenes in the internal affairs of Latin America,
Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, progressive governments in Latin America have increasingly looked across the ocean to form alliances with China and Russia.
Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández did exactly that this February, taking historic trips to Beijing and Moscow to meet with his counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
Fernández signed a series of strategic agreements…
officially incorporating Argentina into Beijing’s international Belt and Road Initiative,
while expanding economic partnerships with the Eurasian powers and
telling Moscow that Argentina “should be the door to enter” Latin America.
China offered $23.7 billion in funding for infrastructure projects and investments in Argentina’s economy.
In the meetings, Fernández also asked for Argentina to join the BRICS framework, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Xi and Putin reportedly both agreed.
The Argentine president’s comments and meetings with Putin and Xi reportedly angered the US government.
Argentina is trapped in odious debt with the US-controlled IMF
Argentina is a Latin American powerhouse, with significant natural resources and the third-largest economy in the region (after Brazil and Mexico, both of which have significantly larger populations).
But Argentina’s development has often been weighed down by…
debt traps imposed from abroad,
resulting in frequent economic crises,
cycles of high inflation,
and currency devaluations.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) – a de facto economic arm of the United States, over which Washington alone has veto power – has significant control over Argentina, having trapped the nation in huge sums of odious debt.
Macri was notorious for his corruption, and this was no secret at the time.
By agreeing to give such an enormous sum of money to Macri’s scandal-plagued government, the IMF knew it was ensnaring Argentina in debt it would not be able to pay off.
But this was far from the first time the US-dominated financial instrument had trapped Argentina in odious debt.
But when Argentina’s center-left President Alberto Fernández entered office in December 2019, his country was ensnared in $44.5 billion in debt from this bailout that the IMF itself admitted was a total failure. ($44.5 billion of the $57.1 billion loan had already been disbursed, and Fernández cancelled the rest.)
The Argentine government has tried to renegotiate the debt, but in order to do so the IMF has imposed conditions that severely restrict the nation’s sovereignty – such as appointing a British economist who “will virtually be the new economic minister,” acting as a kind of “co-government,” warned prominent diplomat Alicia Castro.
Seeking ways around these US debt traps, Fernández decided this February to turn to the two rising Eurasian superpowers.
Argentine President Fernández travels to Russia to meet with Putin
On February 3, Argentine President Alberto Fernández travelled to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin.
“I’m certain Argentina has to stop being so dependent on the [International Monetary] Fund and the United States, and has to open up to other places, and that is where it seems to me that Russia has a very important place,”
Fernández said, explaining his motivation for the trip.
Fernández added that, for Russia, Argentina “should be the door to enter” the region, telling Putin,
“We could be a venue for the development of your cooperation with Latin American nations.”
The two leaders discussed Russian investment in the Argentine economy, trade, railroad construction, and energy technology.
Fernández also thanked Moscow for collaborating with his country in the production of its Sputnik V covid-19 vaccine.
Argentina was the first country in the western hemisphere to do so.
The Argentine president even pointed out in their meeting that he has received three doses of the Sputnik V vaccine. Putin added, “Me too.”
Putin said the two countries agree on many issues, calling Argentina “one of Russia’s key partners in Latin America.”
Argentine President Fernández travels to China to meet with Xi Peng
Just three days after meeting with Putin, President Alberto Fernández travelled to China on February 6 to meet with President Xi Jinping.
In this historic trip, Argentina officially joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive global infrastructure program.
Fernández and other top Argentine officials signed agreements for $23.7 billion in Chinese financing, including investments and infrastructure projects.
The funding will be disbursed in two parts: one, which is already approved, will provide Argentina with $14 billion for 10 infrastructure projects; the second, for $9.7 billion, will finance the South American nation’s integration into the Belt and Road.
Fernández also discussed plans for Argentina to produce China’s Sinopharm covid-19 vaccine, in addition to Russia’s Sputnik V.
Argentina and China signed a comprehensive memorandum of understanding, including 13 documents for cooperation in areas such as green energy, technology, education, agriculture, communication, and nuclear energy.
Fernández and Xi discussed ways to…
“strengthen relations of political, commercial, economic, scientific, and cultural cooperation between both countries,”
Argentina’s incorporation into the Belt and Road comes mere weeks after Nicaragua joined the initiative in January, and Cuba in December.
Latin America’s growing links with China and Russia show how the increasingly multipolar international system offers countries in the Global South new potential allies who can serve as bulwarks against and alternatives to Washington’s hegemony.
Thanks for the repost of the Russia/China manifesto joint statement. The SAD truth is, that NOWHERE, in the U$ MSM, can it be seen, or even read, to the U$ public...THAT FACT, should speak volumes about managed perception..-vetinLA | Feb 8 2022 21:44 utc
What is FOCAC? Three historic stages in the China-Africa relationship
The FOCAC partnership platform between China and Africa has produced increasingly deep and complex relations between regions. Africa has benefited from significant investments and China has developed extensive soft power. In its 22nd year, Shirley Ze Yu looks at four stages in FOCAC’s evolution and how they shaped the China-Africa relationship today.
The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established in 2000 as a uni-multilateral partnership platform between China and 53 African states (all African states except Eswatini, which maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan).
Of the many partnership platforms Africa has today with a single external actor, FOCAC remains the most strategically intertwined and far-reaching in its depth, scope and level of cooperation.
In theory, the Forum creates a form of multilateralism in which all countries are equal partners, but the comparative weight of China’s state capacity effectively dictates 53 pairs of bilateral relationships under a single architecture.
So why was FOCAC created and what was it meant to stand for?
Contrary to the conventional belief that FOCAC was initiated by China, the Forum was created in response to a proposal by the then-African leader Madagascan Foreign Minister Lila Ratsifandrihamanana.
The new organisation would see China emulate other Western nations who were steps ahead in partnering with Africa, most notably the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the Africa-France Summit, the US-Africa Business Forum, the EU-Africa Summit, the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD) and others.
Contrary to the ad hoc nature of the EU-Africa Summit or Japan’s TICAD, FOCAC has been institutionalised with a clear operating architecture since inception, following two years of initial incubation.
FOCAC has evolved from a forum of diplomatic exchange and development-centric body to a comprehensive economic-political-security-soft power nexus, which advances China’s long-term vision in Africa.
It features triannual ministerial-level meetings with core secretarial responsibilities housed in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Commerce and Finance.
FOCAC’s evolution
The inaugural FOCAC meeting was convened in 2000 during Chinese leader Jiang Zemin’s era.
In 2006, FOCAC gathered over 40 heads of states or governments from Africa for the first time, overseen by then Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Its elevation during the Xi Jinping era from 2013 to an all-encompassing strategic uni-multilateral framework spanned issues on health, the environment, trade, finance, security, politics, ideology and human development.
Among the eight FOCAC Forums held during this period, three were elevated to a China-Africa Leaders’ Summit, attended by heads of state and government: the 3rd FOCAC in 2006 in Beijing, the 6th FOCAC in 2015 in Johannesburg and the 7th FOCAC in 2018 – again in Beijing.
Not coincidentally, each summit redefined the form and scope of the uni-multilateral relationship.
Today, FOCAC has grown far beyond a single development parameter.
It has become the quintessential component of China’s grand strategy for the global South.
In Africa, in contrast to the continent’s old colonial powers, China’s soft power has deepened alongside its hard power.
Up until 2021, the Forum’s 21st year, FOCAC’s history can be divided into three historic, incremental phases. A distinct fourth phase has just begun.
The first phase of FOCAC: 2000-2006
Until 1996, four years prior to FOCAC’s creation, China’s level of wealth as measured by per capita GDP trailed that of sub-Saharan Africa.
China was a marginal player on the world stage, with scant economic presence on the continent.
FOCAC’s priority in 2000 was therefore deeper trade engagement.
A grander relationship was inconceivable given China’s capacity.
At the time of FOCAC’s first ministerial meeting in late 2000, China was on the cusp of accession to the World Trade Organisation, which subsequently enabled it to become the world’s largest exporter within the next decade and assume the title of the ‘World’s Factory’.
In contrast to Beijing’s global trade strategy at the time, which was overwhelmingly aimed at driving Chinese exports and a current account surplus, FOCAC’s trade agenda was always to attract more imports from Africa.
At the second FOCAC meeting in 2003, China offered tariff-free imports from Africa’s least developed countries (LDCs).
By the 2006 FOCAC Summit in Beijing, over 440 items from the LDCs could be exported tariff-free to China.
Two-way trade with Africa expanded 5.2 times during this period.
The second phase of FOCAC: 2006-2015
During this second phase, China advanced the partnership’s economic cooperation from trade-only to encompass foreign aid, direct investment, development finance and, since 2013, continental-scale infrastructure building under its Belt and Road Initiative.
At the 2006 FOCAC Summit, then-Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged to double China’s financial aid and offered $5 billion of preferential loans and credit to Africa over the next three years.
This debuted China’s ballooning presence as Africa’s creditor.
In 2007, the China-Africa Development Fund was established, boosting China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) across Africa.
Chinese companies were led to develop special economic zones, free trade zones and industrial parks on the continent; the next wave of trade growth needed an efficient supply chain and upgrades in production capacity.
Upon the initiation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, China furthered its role as a direct contributor to Africa’s infrastructure building, prioritising power grids, special trade zones, ports, transportation routes and other prestigious projects, in which China provided a full range of capabilities including finance, construction, management and, often, equity partnerships.
The infrastructure programme fundamentally remained physical over this phase of FOCAC, only to pivot towards digital from 2015 onwards.
The third phase of FOCAC: 2015-2021
Over the period from 2015-21, China asserted security and political partnerships with Africa as core pillars of FOCAC and envisioned a ‘China-Africa Common Destiny’ – a China-posited ideational framework of an alternative global destiny. Africa was the first global region that China conceives as a quintessential sphere of its ‘China Vision’.
The uni-multilateral partnership was raised to a new, comprehensive level at the 2015 Summit, where Chinese President Xi Jinping strengthened the commitment to mutual political trust and ‘mutual security assistance’.
Over this period, China established multiple sub-categories of the China-Africa cooperation mechanisms.
These include the
China-Africa People-to-People Forum,
China-Africa Youth Leaders Forum,
China-Africa Health Ministers Forum,
China-Africa Media Cooperation Forum,
China-Africa Poverty Alleviation and Development Forum,
China-Africa Legal Forum,
China-Africa Local Government Cooperation Forum and
China-Africa Think Tank Forum.
These civic engagements naturally score Chinese soft power in Africa, in sectors ranging from education, media, law and political mentoring to rural development.
At the 2018 Summit, where 50 African heads of state and government were present in Beijing to accelerate the FOCAC agenda, Xi Jinping further named political cooperation an essential task for the partnership platform. Xi asserted China’s support for African countries to explore alternative development paths that suit their national characteristics, implying that China does not promote democracy as the only form of government leading to economic development.
China’s political engagement with Africa instead strives to enlighten a Chinese philosophical path to development: the ‘development-for-peace’ narrative, contrasted with the West’s long-held ‘democracy-for-development’ consensus.
By empowering the Communist Party in FOCAC political dialogues with African counterparts, an ideological front has been added to what had previously been predominantly government-bureaucracy exchanges.
China offered to train African political leaders in its country on elite university programmes, modelled on the leagues of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Beyond politics, China’s infrastructure development in Africa during this period evolved from the physical to include digital and technology spheres, intended to support Africa’s pursuit of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’.
Over this phase, China laid down submarine cable networks along the coast of Africa, providing large parts of the continent with high-speed and low-cost broadband access.
China has since developed Africa’s first public cloud, built data storage centres and provided software systems for national governments.
China’s technology infrastructure incorporates both hard and soft elements.
China has further ventured in joint space development, and promoted Beidou – a global satellite positioning system comparable to the Google GPS – to support satellite-based services on the continent.
Data collected from space has the potential to produce $2 billion a year in benefits for Africa, according to the World Economic Forum.
Since China helped Ethiopia launch its first satellite in 2019, China has partnered resolutely with more African countries in space exploration.
Unlike Russia, which considers African countries only space launch customers, China has provided space launch services and financing for countries to acquire satellites; $6 of the $8 billion cost of Ethiopia’s satellite was financed by China.
As outer space projects have increasingly become the ambition and pride of rising nations, China’s commitment to Africa’s space missions supports the African dream for this sector.
FOCAC has manifested the ‘China Vision’
From Beijing’s humble defining of FOCAC as a new form of partnership in 2000, to the Forum’s strategic expansion beyond trade engagement in 2006 and its all-encompassing relationship in 2015, China’s enormous growth on the continent has not been coincidental. The China-Africa Common Destiny defined at FOCAC in 2018 was China’s foreign policy holy grail.
As China’s global economic and military prowess further grows, with the country aiming to gradually step into the centre of the world stage by 2049, China has elevated the African partnership to a height none can rival.
But what does this mean for Africa?
The continent could become a formidable exogenous force that prototypes Xi Jinping’s China Wisdom (中国智慧) with an alternative path to national prosperity, peace and security – a force without democracy or western political values.
Read the second part in the series on the future of FOCAC.
Some trailing thoughts
A ‘Multi-Polar World’ order is emerging. I would like to suggest that the outlines of this emerging order are as follows:
1.The dominant pole of this Multi-polar World is that led by the alliance of Russia and China. Spanning Eurasia from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, this pole includes the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Union, and includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, and possibly, in the future, Turkey.
2.The second pole will be the remnants of the ‘Globalist’ empire, stripped, however, of Europe (ex. U.K.) and any Asian representation, i.e. the U.S., U.K., Israel and likely Canada.
3.A third group consists of countries that are currently either occupied militarily by the U.S. or are part of NATO, but are either economically dependent on China or are in economic competition with the U.S. This includes most of Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the GCC countries (KSA, UAE, etc.). These countries cannot be considered as poles by themselves, for while some of them may have the economic weight to be considered a pole, such as Germany and Japan, they lack the geo-political weight. These countries are likely to try to escape from their status as American (‘Globalist’) vassals and become independent nations dealing equitably with all the poles of the new Multi-Polar World. In my view, it is unlikely that the EU will survive the birth of this new-world order in its current form. At best it is likely to revert back to a European free trade area, in which each country will recapture its sovereignty and its own currency.
4.A fourth group consists of countries that, while not being a part of the Russia/China pole will be under its wing, with Russia providing military, political and geo-political support, and China providing economic support. This group includes countries which are currently either under threat from the ‘Globalists’ (ie. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, etc.), are in turmoil due to exploitation by the ‘Globalists’ (ie. Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc.) or are outright failed states (most of Africa). Under the protection of Russia and China, they will once again have a chance to overcome the anarchy of the past 20 or so years and to return to peaceful development.
5.A fifth group consists of what will likely end up as secondary poles of the Multi-Polar World. These are countries that today are both independent and have the geo-political and economic weight to continue to function independently. This group includes the likes of India and the ASEAN countries.’
The new order appears to be progressing apace. The commotion of the last year about Russia and Ukraine appears to be about trying to prevent Europe from ‘escaping from their status as American (‘Globalist’) vassals’.
Conclusion
The “rules based order”, where America makes the rules as it pleases is OVER. There is now a multi-polar global society, and the membership is being sorted out as you read this.
Preliminairly, it appears that only an handful of nations are sticking with the old-world American-led order.
The United States
The UK
Australia
Some are trying to “straddle the fence”…
Japan
South Korea
Canada
Poland
However, let it be well understood that most nations are embracing the Asian model.
The Asian model is one of society, of tradition, of help and of being a Rufus.
A Rufus makes the sidewalk on the street a little bit safer. His own time. His own costs. His own initative. Combined we all make the place a better place to live. Video 20MB
The change in the global economic situation will have catastrophic repurcussions economically upon the United States, but (the good news is) that it can be mitigated and leveraged. This would be conducted by adept handling of the entire global situation, and taking it’s domestic demons at home. Of course, those tasks cannot be outsourced and must be handled inside of the Washington DC “beltway”.
How capable the United States is with this effort has yet to be seen.
Never the less I, for one, look forward to a bright and sustainable future for the entire world.
The world is turning Rufus.
It’s a glorious thing.
Be the Rufus.
Guy finds a girl in distress in her car. She honks the horn at him, and they open the door to investigate. And there they find her in a dangerous state. They take action immediately. Be that Rufus.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
It’s the middle of the Chinese New Year 2022. There’s a Winter Olympics in Beijing, and both Putin and Xi Peng have presented to the world a blueprint for a massive and comprehensive new world order. It is based upon the UN, and is designed to punish malcontent nations (without specifically naming the United States and it’s allies.).
And how are these major events being reported in the Western “news”?
Look…
All bullshit. All lies.
“Quarantine Hell”?
Nothing at all about the earth-shattering Xi Peng and Putin announcement. Everyone in the West must be kept dumb, stupid and ignorant. They must be taught to hate, and live in fear, and get ready for the next “freedom war”.
Here we are going to grab some various snapshots of what is going outside the American gulag and see what’s really going on.
Japanese companies refuse to decouple from China
“But while Tokyo has tried to wean its companies off China, even offering subsidies to Japanese groups to exit the Chinese market, it is clear that leaving China is easier said than done.
Japanese companies operating in China remain bullish: just 7.2 per cent of them said they were moving or considering moving production out of China in a September survey by JETRO, down from 9.2 per cent in 2019.
Naoto Saito, chief researcher at the Daiwa Institute of Research, said: “Japan Inc is actually increasing its investment in China, while also seeking to set reasonable limits due to geopolitical risks, and remaining aware of avoiding overdependence.” He added: “It’s unthinkable for companies not to consider the Chinese market at all.”
The Chinese market is “too large for us to ignore”, he added. “Given its size and the pace of growth, there would be no choice but to develop products for that market, in addition to ones for the western and Japanese market.”
Facing a rapid decoupling world, Murata and most of Japan Inc is sticking with the Chinese market, an outcome that runs counter to the advice from the Japanese government, which has been urging Japanese companies to diversify away from China.”
In Q1 2020, when the pandemic in China was at its peak, the Japanese government offered subsidies for Japanese companies to move their operations out of China. At that time, many people were asserting that Japanese companies and indeed foreign companies in general would leave China in droves. Fast-forward to two years later, has that happened?
Bloomberg LP published a headline that read, ‘Live: Russia invades Ukraine’. It went up on its homepage around midnight Moscow time and stayed there for nearly half an hour before it was removed and an apology for the mistake (https://lnkd.in/eg5WCMh3) issued.
Everyone should be cancelling their Bloomberg subscription … “real” misinformation that could have started World War III … or was that just the propaganda narrative some corners of our elitist are pushing ?
As I mentioned before, an entire package of videos, reports, interviews, and all the rest were all prepared to take advantage of a war in the Ukraine.
The West is unraveling fast, and everything is in free fall right now. The “man behind the curtain” is being exposed, and the threadbare curtain is rotten and falling off its pole
A war with Russia would be unlike anything the US and NATO have ever experienced
In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,”
Putin said.
“Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today,”
he noted.
“Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict.”
Putin continued,
“Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not.”
But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox
“screaming from the top of the hen house that he's scared of the chickens,”
…adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine
“should not be reported as a statement of fact.”
Psaki’s comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation.
The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the “de-occupation” of Crimea.
While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy –
“[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula,”
Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a “military adversary”, and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.
How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out.
As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia.
Indeed, the terms of Ukraine’s membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO’s Article 5 – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.
The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the ‘umbrella’ of NATO protection, with ‘battlegroups’ like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a ‘trip-wire’ force, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.
Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to “kill Russians.”
The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation.
Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5.
In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.
This is not idle speculation.
When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, US President Joe Biden declared,
“As long as he’s [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we’re there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation.”
Biden’s comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last year.
At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America’s commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter.
“Article 5 we take as a sacred obligation,”
Biden said.
“I want NATO to know America is there.”
Biden’s view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama.
In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work told reporters,
“As President Obama has said, Ukraine should … be able to choose its own future. And we reject any talk of a sphere of influence.
And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering.
As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members.
There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners.
There are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally.”
Just what would this defense entail?
As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can attest that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the US military has experienced – ever.
The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts.
Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict.
If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would be a rout.
Don’t take my word for it.
In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a study – the Russia New Generation Warfare – he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect.
“Should US forces find themselves in a land war with Russia,”
McMaster said,
“they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.”
In short, they would get their asses kicked.
America’s 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield.
This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO’s Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017.
The study found that US military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military aggression from Russia.
The lack of viable air defense and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal destruction of the US Army in rapid order should they face off against a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.
The issue isn’t just qualitative, but also quantitative – even if the US military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can’t), it simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign.
The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be made to evacuate the wounded so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as short a timeframe as possible.
This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted.
It is, however, pure science fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare.
There won’t be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue – even if they launched, they would be shot down.
There won’t be field ambulances – even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short order.
There won’t be field hospitals – even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.
What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it.
Massive destruction of all American and NATO ground forces
One of the events which triggered McMaster’s study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015.
This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US combat formation.
The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of artillery systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.
While the US Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, there will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced.
There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops.
The forces on the ground will be on their own.
This feeling of isolation will be furthered by the reality that, because of Russia’s overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability, the US forces on the ground will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to function.
Any war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers.
Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-40 percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat.
Back then, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability – in short, we could give as good, or better, than we got.
That wouldn’t be the case in any European war against Russia. The US will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires.
Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past.
Our tactics are no longer up to par – when there is close combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.
But even if the US manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to bear.
Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians will confront them with.
In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style attack carried out by specially trained US Army troops – the ‘OPFOR’ – at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade.
The fight began at around two in the morning.
By 5:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives.
There’s something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.
This is what a war with Russia would look like.
It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere.
It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.
This is what will happen if the US and NATO seek to attach the “sacred obligation” of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine.
It is, in short, a suicide pact.
The anti-China speal is fully funded
Paid for by the United States government, and directed at the citizens of America, Australia, Japan and NATO. $7 billion dollars.
China warned you all…
China says US plans to pay athletes to ‘sabotage’ Winter Olympics
BEIJING—China’s foreign ministry and an official newspaper have accused the United States of planning to interfere with and “sabotage” the Beijing Winter Olympics by paying athletes from some countries to make half-hearted efforts in competition and to criticize China.
The allegations were made a week before the Games start amid tensions between the two superpowers that has included a diplomatic boycott of the event by the United States, which has been joined by several other countries.
Asked about the Chinese allegations, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Saturday reiterated a previous position that Washington was not coordinating a global campaign regarding participation at the Olympics.
Here’s how the Associated Press uses that money…
Olympic teams raise concerns over quarantine hotels
BEIJING (AP) — Not enough food. Inedible meals. No training equipment. Some Olympic athletes unlucky enough to test positive for the coronavirus at the Beijing Olympics feel their quarantine conditions are making a bad situation much worse.
“My stomach hurts, I’m very pale and I have huge black circles around my eyes. I want all this to end. I cry every day. I’m very tired,” Russian biathlon competitor Valeria Vasnetsova posted on Instagram from one of Beijing’s so-called quarantine hotels.
Her problem wasn’t with any symptoms of the virus.
It was the food.
Vasnetsova posted a picture Thursday of what she said was “breakfast, lunch and dinner for five days already” — a tray with food including plain pasta, an orange sauce, charred meat on a bone, a few potatoes and no greens.
She said she mostly survived on a few pieces of pasta because it was “impossible” to eat the rest, “but today I ate all the fat they serve instead of meat because I was very hungry.” She added she lost a lot of weight and “my bones are already sticking out.”
Well…
Maybe you should judge for yourself. Because the American “news” is just a fucking steaming pile of bullshit. You make the judgement. You watch, and stop reading a purposely funded effort…
Video and narrative by a few American athletes at the Olympics
CHINA has been accused of using the Winter Olympics to try to "whitewash" the regime's disturbing record of torture and executions.
The world's eyes have descended on Beijing as the glitzy opening ceremony kicked off the 2022 games.
But hidden from view are the hideous human rights abuses allegedly carried out like clockwork by the regime.
Gory executions, brutal torture and "concentration camps" are just some the of vile measures the Communist regime has allegedly inflicted on its own people for decades.
Human rights organisations have insisted Chinese authorities should not be allowed to use the Winter Olympics as a "sportswashing" opportunity to improve its tarnished reputation.
As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, it's feared China will put on a glossy and carefully stage-managed image to the rest of the world as the Communists attempt to airbrush their horrendous history of show trials, executions, and some of the worst torture imaginable - let alone alleged genocide.
Ahead of the games, China has been determined to crush any sign of dissent, and officials have warned that even foreign athletes who make political statements would be subject to "certain punishment".
But leading human rights organisation Amnesty International has blasted China for "sportswashing" in an attempt to "deflect attention" from its "abysmal human rights situation".
Wait! Can that be right?
Let’s have another look at the Olympics, and talk to some of the participants…
Let’s talk about some of the under-reported aspects of this Beijing Winter Olympics. Heck, did I say “under-reported”? Nope, I meant Never-until-Hell-freezes-over will it ever be reported…
None of the Western “news” is reporting on the new Xi Peng and Putin agreement. But that is a key aspect of this Olympics at this time.
Just pretend that nothing is going on and act like nothing happened. It reminds me of a child trying to hide behind a curtain by hiding it’s eyes, while the entire body is fully exposed.
When I say that no one is reporting on it, I literally mean no one. What’s more they are not doing ANY REPORTING on the Winter Olympics at all.
Yahoo had one singular article on the Olympics. This is a screen shot of it…
Wow! Those cute girls with the lighted balloons were a “middle finger” to the world? Really?
Let’s look at the “article”…
The 2022 Olympics Opening Ceremony revealed this truth: China has a lot to hide
A day after the International Olympic Committee tried to claim these Games should be free of politics, the Chinese Communist Party staged an Opening Ceremony draped in dual-track political messaging for audiences both inside China and out that was as loud and clear as the fireworks that lit up the Beijing sky.
It was a sign of both Chinese strength in its ability to use the Olympics to spread its narrative and its hidden terror at the truth actually seeping out.
It ended with an affront to the sensibilities and a middle finger to much of the world, whose prominent governments — including the United States, India, Great Britain, Australia and Canada — refused to send diplomats to grant this absurdity any measure of legitimacy.
Then it gets bad…
People are getting upset with this onslaught of focused hate…
Now, let’s bounce to asking the question that many of us has pondered. Exactly WHY is Britian, Australia and Japan allowing themselves to pick a fight with China? What’s in it for them. Because as I see it, it’s a lose-lose senario.
It’s a topsy-turvy world out there. The world cries out for leaders who can steady the ship of state. Instead, we have a parade of fools like Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison and Justin Trudeau.
Boris is, undoubtedly, a gift to the entertainment world, but he doesn’t belong in government. Previously, he has parlayed his non-seriousness into his personal brand, from which he can wriggle out of any scandal. But this time, with “partygate”, the party is over. Like a kite dancing in the hurricane, he is crashing to earth. No one can trust a single word coming out of his mouth. With zero interest in the mundane business of government, he only comes to life at parties or in front of the camera.
Every time, when he opens his mouth, only hot air comes out. This time, not even his unruly, carefully curated, tousled hair can save him. Clueless about how to govern, and callous to the sufferings of others, he ordered the evacuation of pets over endangered people in the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul. Who knows what lurks in his dark heart? To him, life is just a game, to be played by his rules. He is the living embodiment of Etonian entitlement.
In foreign affairs, he is a one-trick pony, his sole role being a docile US stooge. He follows at his master’s heels into potential armed conflict where Britain has no business to be. He has forgotten the shame that has been visited upon Tony Blair in Iraq and looks likely to repeat that folly. Having decoupled from the EU, Britain’s most important partner, unfriended China, the world’s major rising power, and betrayed France, he now faces a country that demands its pound of flesh. What kind of drug-addled leader would send his country’s newest aircraft carrier out to the South China Sea, looking for trouble, in a region that has long ceased to be Britain’s sphere of influence, endlessly burning precious dollars his country can’t afford—all for the sake of reliving Britain’s imperial past?
Boris, you were born two centuries too late!
Without an ounce of common sense, or an iota of strategic sense, the best that can be said about Boris is that he is never dull. He is unprepared to govern, and unfit to lead. Woe betide any nation that picks Boris as helmsman. He has no clue where Britain is heading, only that he wants to go back to the past. But Winston Churchill he is not, with no idea about the future, no heart for the present and only an obsession with the past. I nominate Boris the geopolitical clown of the world, an expensive joke that Britain can ill-afford, good for boozy parties, but not for party politics.
Sitting one notch below Boris in the totem pole of fools is Canada’s Justin Trudeau. Despite his lineage, his CV is alarmingly thin. Trading on his name, this former bar-room bouncer has become top leader. For once Trump was right, calling the Canadian prime minister “weak and stupid”, allowing his country to be played like a pawn and dragged into a prolonged tug-of-war with China over Huawei’s CFO, whereas his father had studiously cultivated China as an ally. Under Justin, Canada has become the 51st state of the US, with none of the rights, and all of the complications of union. Under his father, neutral Canada refused to live in the pocket of the US, and had a moderating influence on its neighbor’s China policies. With his son’s total tilt towards the US, not a scintilla of that influence remains. It’s gone with the Trumpian hurricane. Foolishly, Trudeau signed up for 5-Eyes to contain China, sending Canadian naval vessels to the most combustible region in the world, the South China Sea. The US has an agenda on containing China which Canada ostensibly doesn’t share. No good can come out of this. If you go looking for trouble, you will find it, sooner or later. All it takes is an accidental cannon and you will find Canadian ships at the bottom of the ocean. And for what?
Trudeau’s one weapon is his good looks. But looks don’t amount to a hill of beans in building relationships. Yes, his looks can charm the pants off the wives of foreign leaders, cuckolding buffoons like Trump. Maybe that’s why Trump has a visceral dislike of Trudeau. But the world needs global leaders with brains, not political ‘gigolos’ with brawn.
Where Boris is funny, Trudeau is weak. Despite being a former bouncer, Justin is seen by Trump as a soft bullying target. Both Boris and Justin share a disinterest in the future, devoid of vision, of strategic awareness, of long-term planning. Both gravitate to photo ops. For this duo, style trumps substance. They are exemplary shallow leaders.
What about the leader Down Under? Oh well, this one takes the cake for suicidal stupidity. One word sums up Scott Morrison: pig-headedness. Previously, Australia enjoyed a comfortable relationship with China, its largest trading partner, a relationship that had been enormously beneficial to both. But, without provocation, Morrison decides to buy into US accusations of China’s abuse of human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. As a Hong Konger, I can tell him he is dead wrong about my city. Hong Kong is a misgoverned place, yes. But that is because Beijing has given local leaders too long a leash for 23 years, letting US-funded activists run amok: It was a total abuse of freedom, not lack of freedom. For nine months, chaos and violence raged. They are Hong Kong’s Trump-like rioters.
As for Xinjiang, it is imported terror. The US response to 911 attacks was to invade Iraq on false pretenses, killing over a million innocent civilians. Where was Australia’s moral outrage then? China did not invade any country, only rounded up perpetrators for reeducation and job-training, then released them back into the community.
Morrison swallowed CIA propaganda whole.
Then he doubled down and demanded a US-inspired push to investigate China as the source of the coronavirus. By upping the ante, Morrison has derailed Sino-Australian relations, to the detriment of both.
Worse, he is committing billions to building nuclear submarines to counter China’s military rise. Didn’t he know that China must arm itself to fend off aggressive US containment?
What has China done to earn Australian enmity?
The militarization of the South China Sea islands is a matter of life-and-death struggle against US encirclement.
In the history of the world, have you ever heard of one country, trying non-stop for 70 years to encircle another country?
Should China fold its arms and wait for strangulation?
What would Morrison do if Australia were in China’s shoes? Australia would be entitled to the right of self-defense. With trade dollars dwindling, with billions siphoned off into building unneeded nuclear submarines for a non-existent conflict, where is mad Morrison taking Australia?
China and Australia have never been at war. If war breaks out between them, Morrison can take full radioactive credit.
The Taiwan affair had long been a sleepy affair, until America nudges Taiwan separatists into poking the dragon’s eye. As a Pacific country, Australia should do its part to cool the tempers, not fan the flames. So far, what has Australia gained from being a US pawn? Increasingly, Morrison looks like Australia’s Iraq-tainted Tony Blair. Instead of reaping the benefits of the Pacific Century, Australia is swaggering its way into a major needless conflict. I cannot think of an act of geopolitical stupidity more stupendous and suicidal than this.
Western reporters have baselessly and reflexively called President Xi of China “authoritarian”, misjudging him on how he handled the Hong Kong and Xinjiang unrest. They are too blind and biased to see that US judgments are nothing more than anti-China propaganda. Do you deny a sovereign nation’s right to quell imported riots?
Bye-bye Boris, so long Morrison, au revoir Trudeau. You have been proven unfit for office. As for Trump, this serial liar has been caught spouting over twenty thousand falsehoods during his four years in office, with over a thousand lawsuits under his belt. He may be out of office, but not out of the picture. With over 70 million Americans voting for a narcissistic madman, why are Australia, Britain and Canada still licking America’s boots?
By his competence in coping with Covid-19 alone, China’s leader, hands down, deserves an avalanche of accolades. No other leader has acted so decisively in “leveling up”, which Boris boasted but never delivered, smashing up monopolies and ending oppressive profit-making after-school tutoring, promoting “housing for living, not for speculating”, while lifting 800 million out of poverty and building the world’s biggest network of high-speed trains. If you go by achievements, there is only one clear winner in good government. If you call massive and unceremonious sacking of corrupt officials and keeping streets midnight-safe “authoritarian”, then give me “authoritarian” any day. With so many failed states littering the globe, only one leader thinks long-term and promotes “common prosperity”—and he lives and leads in China.
The West has wronged China, grievously. I say this more in sorrow than in anger. The gulf of misunderstanding between the two seems unbridgeable.
The US and the UK are joined by Australia in an ostentatious diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic games, citing its human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
To me, as someone who has lived on the mainland, this accusation is the height of irony.
Today’s China is a morally-driven society, full of energy and yearning for economic equality. If you listen to a mainland official and a Hong Kong official speak, the contrast in style and substance is stark.
The former speaks of being at one with the people, of national reconstruction, of technological leaps, of selfless service to the people.
The latter is adrift in petty talk and lethargically unmotivated. They yak instead of act. If they underperform, their six-figure monthly salary is punctually paid into their bank account. A princely pension awaits.
On the mainland, they would have been turfed out.
The number of mainland officials who have been unceremoniously removed for misdeeds or failures is staggeringly comforting. The Hong Kong “accountability” system is a joke.
In mainland official circles, it is a do-or-die matter.
Chinese officials are paternalists, in that they see themselves as father figures who are entrusted with the welfare of the people.
Hong Kong officials are risk-averse, notorious for inaction, as action carries its own risk. Their first instinct is self-preservation. On the mainland a powerful risk-and-reward system kicks in, and that has made all the difference.
There is something else. Mainland leaders think long-term. They hatch plans that cover five, ten or even a span of a hundred years. Hong Kong officials, and for that matter, leaders in the West, think in terms of ad hoc programs or election cycles. That is why China, without debilitating foreign wars, has leapfrogged other nations.
The term “China speed” says it all.
Go to the mainland, and experience the world’s first truly cashless society. Even beggars have their own QR codes. With no one carrying cash, the streets are free of thieves and robbers.
It is 100% safe to go strolling in the park at midnight.
This is unthinkable in Detroit or LA.
It’s your funeral if you do.
There are no racist insults or attacks either. People’s obsession is their children’s education, not hating those who look different from them.
For a chronically poor country, this is about as close as the Chinese would get to living in an idyllic world. If you talk to Chinese citizens, they will tell you that they trust their government to do what is best.
How can they not?
Their government has wiped out poverty in nearly 130, 000 villages or for over 800 million people. If this sounds too good to be true, it is because this scale of poverty eradication has never been done in human history.
The Chinese don’t just talk the talk, but walk the talk.
And yet, there is not a ripple of approval in the West.
Super-success has made China ultra-rational and far less ideological. Ideology is only a veneer. China is governed like a corporation, sending goods to Africa, not troops. It builds its Belt and Road infrastructure for trade and to circumvent US encirclement.
If Confucius were alive today, he would be amazed to find his ideal realized after two and a half thousand years: The first nation that advocates universal prosperity and a common human destiny.
America’s fear of China is not ideological.
It demonizes China as a communist country to frighten its allies into an anti-China coalition, knowing that it is the only country capable of challenging American unilateralism.
Even if China were to officially rename itself a Confucian country, American paranoia will persist. Vietnam is communist, but posing no threat to American global domination, is welcome into a marriage of convenience.
The world must now decide which system is better for the global order.
China today is what America was during the Second World War—a do-good nation. Post-war,
America has abused its superpower status to start wars and topple regimes it doesn’t like. The adage that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” applies equally to nations as to individuals.
America’s relentless encirclement of China has only produced one result: unite the Chinese people against a hostile West.
The greater the hostility, the greater its internal unity.
China doesn’t seek world domination, knowing it spells nothing but trouble. If there was a Nobel Prize for good government, China would win it hands down.
The world is littered with failed states.
Mexico, to name just one, lives in fear of its drug gangs, with the beautiful beaches of Acapulco patrolled by gun-toting soldiers. No wonder, two-thirds of British polled prefer socialism as a fairer system.
This doesn’t mean that the Chinese system is without weakness. China’s biggest strategic failure is its lack of soft power. It may wield enormous economic muscle, but it has a clunky and crude image. When it reacts angrily to American provocations, Westerners treat that anger as signs of aggression. China is losing the PR war big time.
Style is substance.
In overwhelming numbers, Chinese students flock overseas to study science and technology. Few opt for the arts and humanities. China may boast an army of well-trained interpreters. In a nation with tens of thousands of engineers and scientists, there is not a single eloquent cross-cultural interpreter on the world stage.
The world is facing a choice between tribalist unilateralism or humane universalism, between rationality or extremism, between might and morality.
America used to be great becuase we were brave and fearless. We were informed.
Today, most American live in fear with whatever the latest evil threat is.
And Americans are NOT informed.
Not in the least.
So stay informed. Do not live in fear, and shut that god-damn Western “news media” off. It controls your mind and sucks the precious life blood out of you.
Let’s be real about what nation we are talking about here…
America the land of Billionaires and a permanent underclass of serf-slaves. It’s a horrible mess, and it’s a full idiocracty with nuclear weapons. It is a very dangerous combination.
Not good enough; not serious; no grasp of reality. NATO says it’s not to blame for anything and Washington’s willing to talk but only about a few things.
But, and this is the foundation for the next step in Moscow’s diplomacy offensive, both answers pretend allegiance to common security principles.
RULES-BASED INTERNATIONAL ORDER.
The West is always gassing on about this. Moscow’s next move will demonstrate that what they really mean is that they make up rules, break them whenever they feel like it, and order the others to follow them.
(A recent example of the mutability of the “Rules-Based International Order” is that gay rights are very important in Russia but not at all in Washington’s new “major ally” of Qatar).
Moscow will invite every signatory of OSCE declarations (for example, Helsinki, Istanbul and Astana) to formally re-commit themselves.
If they do, then Moscow will say “act on it now or we will”; if they don’t, then Moscow will say “we won’t either”. Remember R2P? If I were running Moscow, that’s where I would make my move.
THE BIG PRINCIPLE.
The big principle that Moscow is talking about is, quoting the 1999 Istanbul Summit, “(8) Each participating State has an equal right to security… They will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States… (9)
The security of each participating State is inseparably linked to that of all others.”
Russia was weak then and NATO was strong; now it’s the other way round. NATO strengthened its security at the expense of Russia’s and now its security is weakened as a direct consequence of that very act. That’s the whole issue in a nutshell.
PLANNING.
What we see today has been planned in Moscow (and coordinated with Beijing) over a long time. Did it start with NATO expansion in 1999? US quitting ABM in 2002? Putin’s 2007 Munich speech? The destruction of Libya in 2011?
Ritter explains that it hasn’t got the military muscle to influence anything. All it can do is destroy third world counties and lose anyway. I wrote this seven years ago and I see nothing to change; do you? Afghanistan? Iraq? Anywhere? Moscow has the military power and, despite the boasts, NATO forces would be just a speed bump.
RUSSIAN WAR POWER.
Russia can’t land an expeditionary force in Mexico and conquer the USA, or conquer Europe, or win a naval war in the South Pacific, or conquer Ukraine; its power projection capability is limited. But it can beat anybody at home. And that’s all its armed forces are there to do.
UKRAINE.
It must now be plain to everyone in Ukraine that their BFFs will only fight to the last Ukrainian. Their biggest cheerleaders are pulling out their citizens and moving their troops back.
Washington is dialling it back too. Another glorious NATO victory soon to be declared! Of course, Moscow never intended to invade and be billed for the repair costs of that shattered polity.
RUSSIA/CHINA.
Putin and Xi will be meeting on Friday. I expect a significant announcement. Beijing is perfectly aware that Moscow is fighting for it too.
AUDIENCE.
The West in its more orotund moments likes to call itself “the international community”. It isn’t. Others watch and notice. Moscow is talking to them too.
Celebrated for his ability to connect with the people through language -- Xi's often quoted maxims such as "do concrete work and take the lead," "a state thrives on practical work but wanes on empty talk" and "grab the iron bar hard enough to leave a mark" shed some light on how China can achieve so much in such a short period.
-China Today
All Chinese children have mandatory military training throughout their school years. It starts in Kindergarden, and continues weekly. Each grade they learn more skills, and are rated in their classes.
First grade. Marching, basic disipline, making beds, saluting, roll call.
Second Grade. Formations. Gun disassembly. Patrols. Self defense.
Third Grade. hand to hand combit. Target practice…
etc…
The following is either a Kindergarden or a first grade. You will note that they concentrate on basic military disipline and training.
Another video. It’s a first-grade obsticle course. Video 9MB
More training.
Here the first grade students are taught how to rescue a teacher who is captured. Of course they are very young, and they are going though the basic skills but each year this training is built upon. By the time they are in middle school and go into the basic training they will be able to do all of this automatically without a second thought.
When did you learn disipline, respect and pushing yourself under obsticle courses? How do you think the West (led by the United States) can handle a one-on-one confrontation with talented, industrious, and lethal nation of 1.4 billion soldiers?
Maybe the United States should realize that teaching it’s citizenry to be afriad, fearful and to cower and hide is not the best policy.
Keep in mind
The American govenrment is constantly drumming up hatred against Chinese and Asians, and many of the (emotional and downtrodden) urban black populations are really getting riled up and really attacking the Chinese. Such as this video of a black woman hassling a Chinese-American woman waiting in a medical clinic.
It’s a good thing that the security guard is there and puts an end to the harassment.
The Russia-NATO talks have taken the confrontation to a new level. Russia is firmly insisting on a formal refusal to accept the post-Soviet countries into NATO; the West persists in its position, offering in exchange something unnecessary and unimportant, or at least of secondary importance…
Moscow’s position in this case – and this is a new and important element – is not reactive and not passive, but offensive.
NATO has been actively pressuring us for 30 years, including during the whole of Putin’s 20-year period. But only now is Russia ripe to challenge this for real.
In big politics, only force decides everything. “For real” means “by force.
Moscow is taking a serious swing. And now it is impossible to take a step back, otherwise what for was it to take a swing at? We know from gangster movies and from the business of the 90s, and even from street fights, that to pull out a gun (knife, machine gun) and not shoot is almost suicide. Whoever goes for aggravation must realize that if he doesn’t, he will. We are exactly at this point now.
The unipolar world is finished. Contrary to the desperation of Biden and world elites to make one last attempt to save globalism and American hegemony – and this is the meaning of Biden’s campaign slogan (Bild BackBetter – “Rebuild Everything Again and Better”, i.e. “Back to the unipolar 90s”), or Klaus Schwab’s thesis at the Davos forum (Great Reset) – historical time is not reversible: Russia and China already represent two independent poles, solidarity on the major world problems. This means that multipolarity is established here and now.
In history, however, the change of the global world order, alas, is often carried out through wars. Without them, those who lose in no way agree to recognize voluntarily the obvious change. It is a kind of reality check…
Apparently, we still have to do what we should have done – and didn’t do – in 2014. Yes, the starting conditions are much worse, but better late than never. Nobody counts on “never” anymore. The Russia-NATO meeting showed that clearly. Both sides are ready to escalate, and to give in now means to lose irreversibly. The Kremlin clearly does not intend to do this. But the West simply cannot. That would not just be a loss of face, but an admission of defeat.
As usual, the Russians took a long time to get going, so now they must rush ahead.
Let us look into the world which is about to become a reality.
There will be no nuclear war. The stakes are too small for Washington to risk the total annihilation of humanity.
In principle, the outlined sanctions and the final demonization of Russia, the severing of its ties with Europe and the attempt to isolate it completely, exhausts the program of response. The West hopes, if not to prevent what is coming, then to manage in its favor its consequences. This will not be easy. But it is better to have the West as a full-fledged adversary than as a patron or ally (it will end – as it ended so many times in the history of Byzantium and Russia – in betrayal). The West’s claim to be the measure of universal values has failed. Even the West itself no longer believes in this. And other nations and civilizations do not have to share its historical pessimism and the onset of total perversion. Every nation has its own Logos. The Logos of the West has disintegrated into dust…
So, concretely: how will events unfold, if they do – rather than freeze into another nauseating pause?
Eastern Ukraine goes to Novorossia all the way. This is non-negotiable. It is a conscious part of the East Slavic world, always has been, contrary to the feral Russophobic propaganda. Novorossiya – the entire Left Bank + Odessa – has long been waiting for this to come true.
The new state should be immediately accepted into the Eastern Slavic Union, together with Russia and Belarus.
This project will require a new Idea.
Its main features are not difficult to see: Slavic Renaissance (tradition, identity, historical self-consciousness) + social justice that is — right-wing politics + left-wing economy, exactly what everyone is waiting for. We will lose the sixth column immediately after the first shot is fired, we won’t have to convince anyone — it will self-destruct from terror. Liberalism and Westernism will disappear, everything else – both left-wing and right-wing – will remain. This is where the task is to unite them in the name of the great goal. And so it will be.
The sanctions the West is threatening will finish the rest – you can’t think of a better tool to purge traitors and foreign agents. Only the patriots who have nowhere to go and nowhere to run will survive. And it will be their hour – our hour – delayed for seven sluggish years.
The question of Western Ukraine is open. We will hardly be welcomed there.But if we liberate the Ruthenians and transfer some of Kolomoisky’s structures to individual Kiev tycoons, (which are in the East, and therefore will be assimilated from the beginning of the campaign), something can be worked out. However, this will require not only military, but also ideological efforts. If something is taken away, something must be given. With the East of Ukraine everything is clear. With the West not everything, or rather nothing at all is clear.
Here lies the main problem – we can push the border much further to the west and bring our 20 million people back into their native Eastern Slavonic context. But American military bases are unacceptable for us, even on the right bank. However, once the world changes, new horizons and opportunities will open themselves. The main thing is to get down to business.
Although the main direction is west, it is important to differentiate our steps.
In parallel with the East Slavic Union, it is necessary to make the Eurasian Union a reality. The attempted uprising in Kazakhstan and the Taliban factor in Afghanistan reminded us that things are shaky in Central Asia too. We must act decisively there as well. Our friends and allies must quickly decide to what extent they are real friends. And to act accordingly, rather than to appoint Russophobes to ministerial posts. This will have to be paid for seriously.
We have a great ally – China, which has yet to go through something symmetrical with Taiwan and with the protection of territorial integrity – in Xinjiang, Tibet and in the border zones. Its support is key. The West is fighting a war on two fronts — with us, and with the Chinese. This is a unique opportunity – we are a military colossus, China is an economic colossus. Together we are comparable to the West and even outweigh it. And most importantly: they, in the West, are the past, we are the future.
It is important to involve other allies, especially Iran and Pakistan (we are about to have summits with these countries). In addition, it is necessary to secure at least the neutrality of Turkey and India, which is almost guaranteed.
And then we can start….
We are best at direct action. We get lost and confused in negotiations and time is running out. After the first decisive move is made, we will find ourselves in a new reality with new laws.
First things first, this is a very long statement (5300 words). It is also an extremely important one since it deals primarily with grand strategy issues (it discusses the “whats” not the “hows”). To put it succinctly, this is a common vision of the future shared between Russia and China. It is therefore also a common goal setting document. Considering its scope and objective, this is most definitely a crucial historical document.
Next, it is really important to understand who the target audience of this statement is. By definition, the target audience of such a document is the entire planet, but by its language I would argue that it is pretty clear that this is not a document addressed to anybody in the West (for one thing, it is too long for the average western reader and it is too long to be reprinted or read in full in the general press). There is a saying which all Russians know: “the East is a delicate/refined matter” (it comes from a famous Soviet movie). The style and contents of this joint statement shows that it is primarily aimed at the Russian and Chinese public, especially those in position of power: to a typical western reader the text itself looks long-winded and full of well-meaning platitudes. The Russians and the Chinese understand each other much better, and not only can they read between the lines and they can evaluate what is said and what is only suggested. The fact that some things are only alluded to does in no way make them less crucial. Again, the audience here is most definitely not a western one.
Key excerpts from the RU-CH Joint Statement: (emphasis added)
Some actors representing but the minority on the international scale continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force; they interfere in the internal affairs of other states, infringing their legitimate rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences, and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.
Translation into plain English: the USA and a few of its vassal states want to maintain a world hegemony and ignore international law. This is a threat to the peace and security of our entire planet. We oppose this.
There is no one-size-fits-all template to guide countries in establishing democracy. A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state, based on its social and political system, its historical background, traditions, and unique cultural characteristics. It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one.
Translation into plain English: there is no one way to establish real people power, and outsiders are, by definition, disqualified from judging the degree of “democracy” of any nation. Each nation has the right to decide how it wants to live, how it wants to formally structure its people power and only the people of that nation can decide whether their country’s organization faithfully expresses and upholds their national values. Outsiders cannot think of themselves as “teachers of democracy”.
The sides reaffirm their focus on building the Greater Eurasian Partnership in parallel and in coordination with the Belt and Road construction to foster the development of regional associations as well as bilateral and multilateral integration processes for the benefit of the peoples on the Eurasian continent. The sides agreed to continue consistently intensifying practical cooperation for the sustainable development of the Arctic.
Translation into plain English: we, the locals, are (and have been) building a Eurasian community which will encompass the entire Eurasian landmass and its adjacent Arctic waters. This Eurasian landmass will be sovereignly ruled by those nations who compose it.
The sides are gravely concerned about serious international security challenges and believe that the fates of all nations are interconnected. No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States.
Translation into plain English: security is always and by definition collective. There cannot be security for some at the expense of the security of others. The AngloZionist Empire’s notion of unilateral security is basically putting a gun to the head of each nation on the planet with the very explicit threat to pull the trigger if that nation dares to resist this typical act of imperialist aggression.
The sides reaffirm their strong mutual support for the protection of their core interests, state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and oppose interference by external forces in their internal affairs.
Translation into plain English: we are, and will, be standing side by side and we will jointly defeat those forces who are trying to prevent us from achieving and maintaining true, full, sovereignty.
The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan.
Translation into plain English:Russia will support the Chinese efforts to reintegrate Taiwan. Russia has got China’s back.
Russia and China stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions, intend to counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext, oppose color revolutions, and will increase cooperation in the aforementioned areas.
Translation into plain English: China will support Russia in her efforts to prevent the USA/NATO/EU to turn the Ukraine into an anti-Russia or to overthrow governments friendly to Russia. China has got Russia’s back.
The sides believe that certain States, military and political alliances, and coalitions seek to obtain, directly or indirectly, unilateral military advantages to the detriment of the security of others, including by employing unfair competition practices, intensify geopolitical rivalry, fuel antagonism and confrontation, and seriously undermine the international security order and global strategic stability. The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States.
Translation into plain English: the West is trying to destabilize, subvert, control and destroy any country which is not willing to become a US vassal state. NATO is an aggressive, violent and totalitarian superstructure whose aim is to prevent any country from achieving sovereignty. It is just the latest iteration of Anglo imperialism. It’s ideology is based on hate and projection of its own hateful worldview and ethos unto others. It’s nature is imperialist and its motto divide et impera. We will oppose that geostrategic malignant tumor together.
The sides are seriously concerned about the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which provides for deeper cooperation between its members in areas involving strategic stability, in particular their decision to initiate cooperation in the field of nuclear-powered submarines. Russia and China believe that such actions are contrary to the objectives of security and sustainable development of the Asia-Pacific region, increase the danger of an arms race in the region, and pose serious risks of nuclear proliferation.
Translation into plain English: AUKUS is yet a further iteration of Anglo imperialism. It is dangerous and we will oppose it together.
The sides call on the United States to respond positively to the Russian initiative and abandon its plans to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range ground-based missiles in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. The Chinese side is sympathetic to and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.
Translation into plain English: China fully backs the Russian ultimatum to the West. The West’s rejection of the Russian demands also affects to Asia-Pacific region and, therefore, it affects and even threatens China’s national interests. Russia and China have a common goal to resist the West’s imperialistic policies.
The sides note that the denunciation by the United States of a number of important international arms control agreements has an extremely negative impact on international and regional security and stability. The sides express concern over the advancement of U.S. plans to develop global missile defense and deploy its elements in various regions of the world, combined with capacity building of high-precision non-nuclear weapons for disarming strikes and other strategic objectives.
Translation into plain English: Russia will not allow the US to militarily encircle China and China will not allow the US to militarily encircle Russia. Russia and China stand back to back and will protect each other, thereby foiling any Anglo plans to encircle either one, or both, of these nations.
The sides oppose attempts by some States to turn outer space into an arena of armed confrontation and reiterate their intention to make all necessary efforts to prevent the weaponization of space and an arms race in outer space. They will counteract activities aimed at achieving military superiority in space and using it for combat operations.
Translation into plain English: Russian and Chinese space programs will make a joint effort to defeat the Anglo attempts at militarizing space, both countries will help each other to develop future space capabilities and to create and deploy the means to prevent the US from threatening them from space.
The sides emphasize that domestic and foreign bioweapons activities by the United States and its allies raise serious concerns and questions for the international community regarding their compliance with the BWC. The sides share the view that such activities pose a serious threat to the national security of the Russian Federation and China and are detrimental to the security of the respective regions.
Translation into plain English:the USA clearly has an active biowarfare program. Russia and China feel threatened by this and they will act together to stop the USA from developing illegal and dangerous bioweapons.
The Russian side notes the significance of the concept of constructing a ”community of common destiny for mankind“ proposed by the Chinese side to ensure greater solidarity of the international community and consolidation of efforts in responding to common challenges. The Chinese side notes the significance of the efforts taken by the Russian side to establish a just multipolar system of international relations.
Translation into plain English: Russia and China agree that the new, post Western, world order they want to achieve will be based on the brotherhood and solidarity of all those countries who, rather than exploiting the entire planet for the benefit of a few, want to see an international systems based on shared values rather than on greed and the oppression of the weak by the strong. In that system, relations between countries will be based on international law and the United Nations as its cornerstone and not by some ad hoc “alliances of the willing” or any other such illegal nonsense.
They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ”forbidden“ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.
Translation into plain English: “relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era” is pretty darn clear: Russia and China are more than allies or “just” symbionts, the alliance they have formed is not a western-style peace of paper which can be revoked or ignored.
Russia and China have decided to establish a true “friendship which knows no limits“, that is a brotherhood that is much bigger in scope and much deeper in nature than any formal alliance.
The two countries see a common future and will stand by each other as two loving brothers.
Note: the choice of words “friendship with no limits” has been carefully crafted to not make sense to a western audience which will see it only as “pious and vague platitudes with no binding obligations” but which will be very clear to those who come from the Russian and Chinese civilizational realms.
Simply put: nobody in the West truly believes in “friendship” between states, only situational allies and personal interests.
The concept of friendship has a very different meaning in China and Russia. Furthermore, “no limits” is also nonsensical in western geopolitics.
Again, to a Russian or Chinese audience the paragraph above means and expresses much MORE than any “alliance”, “treaty” or “agreement”. Western political leaders simply cannot fathom or imagine what Russia and China are saying here – their minds simply cannot comprehend what is being said here.
Russia and China aim to comprehensively strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and further enhance its role in shaping a polycentric world order based on the universally recognized principles of international law, multilateralism, equal, joint, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security. They consider it important to consistently implement the agreements on improved mechanisms to counter challenges and threats to the security of SCO member states and, in the context of addressing this task, advocate expanded functionality of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.
Translation into plain English: China and Russia will develop their full-spectrum security cooperation. Just as the CSTO recently, the SCO will soon grow more powerful “teeth” and bare them if/when needed. And don’t be fooled by the reference to “anti-terrorism” choice of worlds. The recent CSTO operation in Kazakhstan was also an “anti-terrorist” one :-)
Conclusion:
The release of this joint statement is the geostrategic equivalent of Putin’s famous speech in which he described the new Russian weapons systems: it will initially be dismissed by western politicians who will then slowly undergo the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance). This “limitless friendship” working towards a “community of common destiny for mankind” is the absolute worst nightmare of western imperialism and it is only made worse by the fact that there is absolutely nothing which the West can do to foil, oppose or even slow the progress of Russia and China towards their common goal and future.
Far from “attacking” the West or from invading anybody, Russia and China have been doing something for years already and now what that “something” is is quite clear (at least to those with the sobriety and intelligence to see it): Russia and China are simply leaving the united West behind, letting it do its own thing (political, cultural, economic, military and even spiritual suicide) while they built an alternative.
You could say that Zone B does not want to destroy or bring down Zone A. Zone B want to offer an alternative to Zone A and then let each nation decide for itself what zone it wants to live in.
There is one word which is missing from this statement. That word is “Iran“.
It is not missing because China or Russia don’t care about Iran or don’t realize how important Iran will be for the future of the Middle-East and even our entire planet. They know that very, very well. The reason the word “Iran” is missing is simple: while Iran is most definitely a friend and ally of both Russia and China, Iran does not share a “limitless friendship” or brotherly symbiotic relationship with either country. Neither is Iran a full member of the SCO, yet (but will be soon). Talk about true diversity! These countries have completely different cultures, histories and political systems, yet they fully support each other. That is the “there is no one-size-fits-all template” model already being built before our eyes! I also believe that Iran’s bid to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was approved but in needs to be formalized (may be mistaken here).. Yet both China and Russia understand that Iran is crucial, not only as a gateway for Russia and China into the Middle-East, but also as a crucial member of the supra-ideological system of alliances Russia and China want to create. In fact, these countries have been helping each other for years already. But there is more, look at this:
Russia is a democratic and “social” state, with a weird, and changing, mix of capitalism and traditional Russian collectivism.
China is a unique mix of capitalism and Communist state control
Iran is an Islamic Republic.
Talk about true diversity! These countries have completely different cultures, histories and political systems, yet they fully support each other. That is the “there is no one-size-fits-all template” model already being built before our eyes! I also believe that Iran’s bid to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was approved but in needs to be formalized and fully implemented.
This model will attract and easily include those Latin American countries which will chose “21 century socialism” (primarily developed by Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia) ideology. It will also be far more attractive to many African countries than the “western imperialist boot” (examples include Mali, Burkina Faso, Congo and, potentially many others).
The map below shows the current situation.
The Russian-Chinese joint statement tells us all we need to know about how this map will change in the near future.
Andrei
Underwhelming?
For all of you who think that the events and 6000 word statement is “underwhelming” take a note that…
MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. A package of 16 intergovernmental, interdepartmental and commercial documents was approved as part of the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to China. The list of documents was posted on the Kremlin’s website on Friday.
The Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development was adopted during the Sino-Russian summit talks.
In particular, the Russian state corporation Roscosmos and the Chinese Satellite Navigation System Commission signed a cooperation deal in the sphere of mutual complementarity of the GLONASS and Beidou global satellite navigation systems.
The Russian Ministry of Economic Development and China's Ministry of Commerce made a joint statement on the completion of developing a roadmap for mutual trade in goods and services and signed a memorandum of understanding for deepening investment cooperation in sustainable (green) development areas.
The customs authorities of Russia and China signed a protocol on mutual recognition of the status of an authorized economic operator. The parties approved 11 intergovernmental and interdepartmental documents in total.
Four commercial contracts were signed during the visit. Gazprom and CNPC inked a long-term contract for the delivery of 10 bln cubic meters of natural gas over the Far Eastern route. Rosneft and Huawei sealed a deal on cooperation. Rosneft and CNPC signed an agreement on the deliveries of 100 mln tonnes of oil via Kazakhstan over a decade and approved a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the low-carbon development sphere.
Ah. The “QUAD” to contain China, and now Russia. How does India fit in? Here’s an editorial from HERE.
US plays QUAD card during Beijing Olympics
The appalling decision by the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to huddle together with his QUAD colleagues bang in the middle of the Beijing Winter Olympics may have unpleasant consequences.
China sees QUAD as a US-led clique working to “contain” it.
An action-reaction syndrome has once again developed. Beijing’s apparent retaliation by picking the Galwan hero as the Olympic torchbearer was not the end of the story.
Delhi swiftly crossed over to the US-led group to boycott the Beijing Olympics. Some protestors in Delhi also set the Chinese national flag on fire.
Even a moron would know China regards the staging of the Winter Olympics as a cherished moment.
President Xi Jinping’s toast at the Welcoming Banquet of The Olympic Winter Games on Friday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing exuded immense national pride when he said,
“China has just entered the Year of the Tiger according to the lunar calendar. Tiger is a symbol of strength, courage and fearlessness.”
That is precisely why the US, including President Biden himself, smear Beijing Olympics. Americans are bad losers. They feel impotent as China marches ahead inexorably while the US is declining irreversibly. Panic and hatred is setting in mixed with intense envy and helplessness.
But what has India got to do with it?
India did well not to join the US-led boycott of the Games initially. But it has since “tweaked” its principled stance when Washington mooted the idea to schedule a QUAD ministerial in Asia-Pacific on February 9.
Apparently, it occurred to no one in Delhi to ask Washington: “Why February 9? Why not after February 20?”
Plainly put, the upcoming QUAD ministerial on Wednesday is a contrived American sideshow to thumb the nose at Beijing bang in the middle of the Olympics.
This cheeky move by Washington is linked to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s regional tour to Australia, Fiji, and Hawaii “for a series of bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral engagements to advance our priorities in the Indo-Pacific.”
Obviously, it was hatched much before the Galwan hero appeared in the news cycle.
“in this era of intense competition, changing strategic landscapes… (for) strengthening the security environment in the region to push back against aggression and coercion… “
(By the way, the briefing was timed exactly for February 4, the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.)
Interestingly, Assistant Secretary Daniel Kritenbrink who gave the briefing took umbrage at the China-Russia joint statement issued at Beijing earlier in the day following President Vladimir Putin’s visit.
Kritenbrink who is in charge of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, in fact, came armed with a tirade against both China and Russia.
He said:
“The (Xi-Putin) meeting should have provided China the opportunity to encourage Russia to pursue diplomacy and de-escalation in Ukraine.
That is what the world expects from responsible powers.
If Russia further invades Ukraine and China looks the other way, it suggests that China is willing to tolerate or tacitly support Russia’s efforts to coerce Ukraine even when they embarrass Beijing, harm European security, and risk global peace and economic stability.
We have, unfortunately, seen this before.
This marks the second time that Russia has escalated aggression towards a sovereign country during a Beijing Olympics.
The last time was Russia’s invasion of Georgia during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The United States has had almost 200 diplomatic engagements with allies and partners since Russia created this crisis.
We are focused on working with allies and partners, including in the Indo-Pacific, to respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.”
Now, this is the other thing about QUAD.
It is no longer about containing China alone; Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy is poised to advance its ‘dual containment’ of China and Russia.
The Indian leaders travelling in the QUAD bandwagon ought to know that they are also being drawn unwittingly into the US’ dual containment of China and Russia.
Russia has been explicit in its criticism of the QUAD as a factor of instability and regional discord in the Asia-Pacific. The EAM cannot close his eyes and pretend he’s cherrypicking. The big-power rivalries are getting very serious, as anyone who reads newspapers can tell.
At any rate, the appalling thing is that India has now got into the US bandwagon, armed with a Galwan-hero alibi. And this is coming at a time when the tensions on the border have shown signs of easing and there’s hope of a better climate becoming available for further talks between India and China.
Isn’t this history repeating — US butting into India-China discourses in self-interest and India refusing to reject such attempts, which in turn triggering negative vibes that of course become grist to the mill of the clutch of operatives who all along wanted to fasten India in the American stable?
In these troubled times, how rationally and with maturity Germany is handling its difficult relationship with Russia offers some fresh ideas. Indeed, Germany has a far more painful and complex relationship with Russia than India can ever imagine with any of its neighbours. Yet, German Minister of Defense Christine Lambrecht has opposed any attempt to draw a link between between Nord Stream 2 and Germany’s differences with Moscow over Ukraine.
Equally, Berlin rejects calls for German arms deliveries to Ukraine and reportedly also blocked the export of German weapons by third countries like Estonia. As Marcel Dirsus, a German think tanker at the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel, wrote this week, Germany has “moved beyond power politics, the national interest and militarism.”
It is borne out of a “historically-informed sense of security.” Dirsus writes:
“Whether true or false, the idea that dialogue is more effective than deterrence is deeply embedded in German political culture… Since the end of the Cold War, Germany has largely found itself in a position to trade freely with anyone and everyone without being constrained by rigorous considerations of politics or security.”
Indeed, what really brought down the Berlin Wall wasn’t missiles or tanks, but engagement — the strategy known as Ostpolitik. But then, German foreign policy is the way it is because that is the way Germans want it.
That is the cardinal difference between Germans and Indians. In our country, the public opinion roots for militarism with active encouragement from the establishment. Curiously, the Indian opposition too constantly taunts the government for not being aggressive enough toward China, a superpower manifold stronger than India.
It is not that the opposition politicians are illiterate, but they parrot what their constituents think — even if they themselves understand what’s at stake. To be sure, the EAM’s a priori assumption too is well-founded — that his decision to attend the QUAD ministerial is bound to go down well in the Indian bazaar, although he must be intelligent enough to know that it may weaken the nascent process at the border talks. Sadly, India comes out a loser in all this.
Movie “The Battle at Lake Changjin”
If anyone wants more fireworks, the Chinese-made Korean war epic “The Battle at Lake Changjin” is now up on Youtube. It’s got English subtitles and it’s free.
It’s very good, for a war movie, and it was pleasing to see the American army soundly defeated for a change.
Also it’s a good look at the Peoples’ Volunteer Army in comparison to the American Marines.
In one scene, the Americans are feasting on turkey dinners in tents while the volunteers are sharing cold potatoes in the snow. One take-away I had from the movie is that it’s a sign the empire is in decline.
Article by Vladimir Putin ”Russia and China: A Future-Oriented Strategic Partnership“ for the Chinese News Agency Xinhua
On the eve of my upcoming visit to China, I am pleased to address directly the large Chinese and foreign audience of Xinhua, the world’s largest news agency.
Our countries are close neighbours bound by centuries-old traditions of friendship and trust. We highly appreciate that Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation, entering a new era, have reached an unprecedented level and have become a model of efficiency, responsibility, and aspiration for the future. The basic principles and guidelines for joint work were defined by our countries in the Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, the twentieth anniversary of which we celebrated last year. These are, first and foremost, equality, consideration of one another’s interests, freedom from political and ideological circumstances, as well as from the vestiges of the past. These are the principles we are consistently building on year after year in the spirit of continuity to deepen our political dialogue. Despite the difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic, we are striving to dynamically build the capacity of economic partnerships and expand humanitarian exchanges.
During the upcoming visit, the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping and I will thoroughly discuss key issues on the bilateral, regional, and global agendas. It is symbolic that our meeting will take place during the Spring Festival – the Chinese Lunar New Year. After all, as the Chinese saying goes, ”make your whole year’s plan in the spring“.
The development of business ties will certainly be given special attention. There is every opportunity for this as our countries have substantial financial, industrial, technological and human resources allowing us to successfully resolve long-term development issues. By working together, we can achieve stable economic growth and improve the well-being of our citizens, strengthen our competitiveness, and stand together against today’s risks and challenges.
At the end of 2021, the volume of mutual trade increased by more than a third, exceeding the record level of 140 billion U.S. dollars. We are well on the way towards our goal of increasing the volume of trade to 200 billion U.S. dollars a year. A number of important initiatives are being implemented in the investment, manufacturing, and agro-industrial sectors. In particular, the portfolio of the Intergovernmental Commission on Investment Cooperation includes 65 projects worth over 120 billion U.S. dollars. This is about collaboration in such industries as mining and mineral processing, infrastructure construction, and agriculture.
We are consistently expanding the practice of settlements in national currencies and creating mechanisms to offset the negative impact of unilateral sanctions. A major milestone in this work was the signing of the Agreement between the Government of Russia and the Government of the PRC on payments and settlements in 2019.
A mutually beneficial energy alliance is being formed between our countries. Along with long-term supplies of Russian hydrocarbons to China, we have plans to implement a number of large-scale joint projects. The construction of four new power units at Chinese nuclear power plants with the participation of Rosatom State Corporation launched last year is one of them. All this significantly strengthens the energy security of China and the Asia region as a whole.
We see an array of opportunities in the development of partnerships in information and communication technologies, medicine, space exploration, including the use of national navigation systems and the International Lunar Research Station project. A serious impetus to strengthening bilateral ties was given by the cross Years of Russian-Chinese Scientific, Technical and Innovative Cooperation in 2020–2021.
We are grateful to our Chinese colleagues for their assistance in launching the production of Russian Sputnik V and Sputnik Light vaccines in China and for the timely supply of necessary protective equipment to our country. We hope that this cooperation will develop and strengthen.
One of Russia’s strategic objectives is to accelerate the social and economic upliftment of Siberia and the Russian Far East. These territories are immediate neighbors of the PRC. We also intend to actively develop interregional ties. Thus, the modernization of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railway has been started. By 2024, their capacity must increase one and a half times through higher volumes of transit cargo and reduced transport time. The port infrastructure in the Russian Far East is also growing. All this should further enhance the complementarity of the Russian and Chinese economies.
And, of course, the conservation of nature and shared ecosystems remains an important area of bilateral cross-border and interregional cooperation. These issues have always been the focus of our countries’ public attention, and we will certainly discuss them in detail during the negotiations, as well as a wide range of humanitarian topics.
Russia and China are countries with thousands of years of unique traditions and tremendous cultural heritage, the interest in which is persistently high both in our countries and abroad. It is true that in the last two years the number of tourists, joint mass events, and direct contacts between our citizens has reduced due to the pandemic. However, I have no doubt that we will catch up and, as soon as the situation allows, will launch new outreach and educational programs to introduce our citizens to the history and present-day life of the two countries. Thus, President Xi Jinping and I have agreed to hold the Years of Russian-Chinese cooperation in physical fitness and sports in 2022 and 2023.
Certainly, an important part of the visit will be a discussion of relevant international topics. The coordination of the foreign policy of Russia and China is based on close and coinciding approaches to solving global and regional issues. Our countries play an important stabilizing role in today’s challenging international environment, promoting the democratization of the system of interstate relations to make it more equitable and inclusive. We are working together to strengthen the central coordinating role of the United Nations in global affairs and to prevent the international legal system, with the UN Charter at its centre, from being eroded.
Russia and China are actively cooperating on the broadest agenda within BRICS, RIC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as other associations. Within the G20, we are committed to taking national specifics into account when formulating our recommendations, be it the fight against pandemics or the implementation of the climate agenda. Thanks to a large extent to our countries’ shared solidarity, following the 2021 G20 Summit in Rome informed decisions were made on international cooperation to restore economic growth, recognize vaccines and vaccine certificates, optimize energy transitions, and reduce digitalization risks.
We also have convergent positions on international trade issues. We advocate maintaining an open, transparent and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system based on the rules of the World Trade Organization. We support relaunching of global supply chains. Back in March 2020, Russia proposed an initiative on ”green trade corridors“ that excludes any sanctions, political and administrative barriers. Its implementation is a useful aid to overcoming the economic consequences of the pandemic.
The XXIV Olympic Winter Games starting in Beijing are a major event of global significance. Russia and China are leading sporting nations renowned for their sporting traditions and not once have hosted the largest international competitions with dignity. I fondly remember my visit to Beijing in August 2008 to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. Guests and athletes from Russia will remember the vivid performance for a long time, and the Games themselves were organized with the scale and exceptional hospitality inherent to our Chinese friends. For our part, we were delighted to host President Xi Jinping at the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Sadly, attempts by a number of countries to politicize sports to the benefit of their ambitions have recently intensified. This is fundamentally wrong and contrary to the very spirit and principles of the Olympic Charter. The power and greatness of sports are that it brings people together, gives moments of triumph and pride for the country and delights with fair, just and uncompromising competition. And these approaches are shared by most of the states participating in the international Olympic Movement.
Our Chinese friends have done tremendous work to prepare well for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. I am convinced that China’s extensive experience in the excellent organization of representative international competitions will make it possible to hold this festival of world sports at the highest level. I would like to wish the Russian and Chinese teams impressive results and new records!
I send my warmest congratulations to the friendly people of China on the occasion of the Spring Festival, which marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger. I wish you good health, prosperity, and success.
Video 3
She’s one of my favorites. Short, cute, big happy smile. She makes me feel good about life. video 9MB
Here’s another of her…
I’ve got to tell you, I really do like her presentation, and this is what China is like. It’s really nice, peopled with very nice people.
Following the highly anticipated meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, China and Russia issued a lengthy joint statement that elaborated on shared views and consensuses on major global and regional issues and delivered a scathing rejection of the US-led West’s hegemony that increasingly threatens global security and stability, a move that experts say ushers in a new era of international relations.
The two countries’ broad consensuses on almost all core issues related to global strategic stability, expressed during the meeting of the two leaders and stated in the nearly 6,000-word joint statement, are extremely rare and will further boost close strategic coordination that helps ensure global stability and peace, Chinese experts said.
The joint statement, which focuses on international relations in a new era and global sustainable development, extensively expounded on common positions on democracy, development, security and order.
The joint statement mentioned US at least five times and contained the two countries’ common stance on a number of key regional and global issues, including…
firm oppositions or serious concerns over the expansion of NATO eastward,
the West-led ideological clique in the name of democracy,
the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy that threatens regional stability,
the trilateral security partnership among Australia,
the US, and the UK (AUKUS),
and US domestic and overseas bioweapons activities.In a clear rejection of the US-led West’s hegemony in international relations, the joint statement said that a small number of forces continue stubbornly to promote unilateralism, adopt power politics and interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, stressing that such acts will not be accepted by the international community.
"It's the first time that China and Russia released such a long statement after the meeting between the two heads of state, which includes all the major issues and strategic questions and shows that China-Russia ties have reached an unprecedented level,"
-Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.
The world order has entered a new era, the Chinese expert said, noting that in the face of US hegemony – a product left behind by the Cold War mentality – China and Russia are the only two countries that have the capability to safeguard their core interests and sovereignty.
"The solidarity between China and Russia gives a new definition to the world order, as they share the common knowledge about where the major threats to the global stability come from,"
He said.
In the joint statement,
China and Russia oppose the further expansion of NATO and called on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized Cold War approaches,
to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds,
and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other states.They also stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region and remain highly vigilant about the negative impact of the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy on peace and stability in the region.
China and Russia are also seriously concerned about AUKUS, which allows cooperation on nuclear-powered submarines.
"The US is now touting its Cold War mentality and so-called China threat theory in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the so-called Russia threat theory in Europe, which prompted China and Russia to stand up against such zero-sum mentality,"
-Zhang Hong, an Eastern European studies expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, unrest across Western countries such as the US Capitol protest last year shows how the illusion that “Western democracy is the destination of human beings” has collapsed, Zhang noted, adding that emerging countries are showing great vitality and increasingly contributing in international trade and economy, which have also been underscored in the shared views between China and Russia.
The two countries share an understanding that democracy is a universal human value, rather than the privilege of a limited number of countries, the joint statement said. And it is up to the people of a country to decide whether their country is democratic.
Developing countries such as China and Russia gradually found a development model suitable to their own national conditions after the Cold War, while abandoning the West-led Washington Consensus because they saw its inherent defects, which prompted China and Russia to be more vocal on a pluralistic global order, Zhang said.
China and Russia have been reiterating that there is no limit to bilateral strategic cooperation, a new form of partnership between major powers that has clearly made the US anxious. And a crucial factor behind such a limitless development in bilateral ties is the high degree of mutual understanding between the two powerful leaders on global governance.
Putin is the first foreign head of state to confirm his attendance at the 2022 Games last year, and the trip to Beijing was also his first overseas trip in 2022.
Putin said during the meeting on Friday that official visits during the opening of the Olympics have become a tradition, mentioning his visit to Beijing in the summer of 2008 for the Summer Olympics, Xi’s visit to Russia in 2014 for the Sochi Winter Olympics and the meeting in Beijing before the Winter Olympics.
Xi said that this rendezvous at the Winter Olympics, which also coincides with spring, will inject much momentum to China-Russia relations, saying that he is willing to work with President Putin to plan a blueprint for and guide the direction of China-Russia ties under new historical conditions.
How NATO visualizes war
It’s funny and pathetic and a comedy, but no. Real war is a terrible, terrible thing. It’s NOTHING to laugh about.
This gal has nice bouncing boobies. I like them, though I personally believe that she has seventh-generation “ergomax” breast implants to make those boobs jiggle like they do. It’s a nice effect, though terribly distracting.
The Year of the Black Water Tiger will start, for all practical purposes, with a Beijing bang this Friday, as Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, after a live meeting before the initial ceremony of the Winter Olympics, will issue a joint statement on international relations.
That will represent a crucial move in the Eurasia vs. NATOstan chessboard, as the Anglo-American axis is increasingly bogged down in Desperation Row: after all, “Russian aggression” stubbornly refuses to materialize.
After an interminable wait arguably due to the lack of functionaries properly equipped to write an intelligible letter, the US/NATO combo finally concocted a predictable, jargon-drenched bureaucratese non-response “response” to the Russian demands of security guarantees.
The contents were leaked to a Spanish newspaper, a full member of NATOstan media. The leaker, according to Brussels sources, may be in Kiev by now. The Pentagon, in damage control mode, rushed to assert, “We didn’t do it”. The State Dept. said, “it’s authentic.”
Even before the leak of the non-response “response”, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was forced to send messages to all NATO foreign ministers, including US Secretary Blinken, asking how they understand the principle of indivisibility of security – if they actually do.
Lavrov was extremely specific: “I am referring to our demands that everyone faithfully implement the agreements on the indivisibility of security that were reached within the OSCE in 1999 in Istanbul and in 2010 in Astana. These agreements provide not only for the freedom to choose alliances, but also make this freedom conditional on the need to avoid any steps that will strengthen the security of any state at the expense of infringing on the security of others.”
Lavrov hit the heart of the matter when he stressed, “our Western colleagues are not simply trying to ignore this key principle of international law agreed in the Euro-Atlantic space, but to completely forget it.”
Lavrov also made it very clear “we will not allow this topic to be ‘wrapped up’. We will insist on a honest conversation and an explanation of why the West does not want to fulfill its obligations at all or exclusively, selectively, and in its favor.”
Crucially, China fully supports Russian demands for security guarantees in Europe, and fully agrees that the security of one state cannot be ensured by inflicting damage on another state.
This is as serious as it gets: the US/NATO combo are bent on smashing two crucial treaties that directly concern European security, and they think they can get away with it because there is less than zero discussion about the content and its implications across NATOstan media.
Western public opinion remains absolutely clueless. The only narrative, hammered 24/7, is “Russian aggression” – by the way duly emphasized in NATO’s non-response “response”.
Wanna check our military-technical gear?
For the umpteenth time Moscow made it very clear it’s not going to make any concessions on the security demands just because the Empire of Chaos keeps threatening – what else – extra harsh sanctions, the sole imperial “policy” short of outright bombing.
The new sanctions package, anyway, is ready to go for quite a while now, arguably capable of cutting Moscow off from the Western financial system and/or casino, and targeting, among others, Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank and Alfa-Bank.
And that brings us to what’s Moscow going to do next – considering the predictable “extremely negative attitude” (Lavrov) from NATOstan. Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko had already hinted NATO knows perfectly well what’s coming, even before the non-response “response”:
“NATO knows perfectly well what kind of military-technical measures may follow from Russia. We make no secret of our possibilities and are acting very transparently.”
Still the American “partners” are not listening. The Russians remain unfazed. Grushko framed it in realpolitik terms: concrete measures will depend on the “military potentials” that could be used against Russia. That’s code for what sort of nuclear weapons will be deployed in Eastern Europe, and what sort of lethal equipment will keep being unloaded in Ukraine.
In fact Ukraine – or country 404, per Andrei Martyanov’s indelible definition – is just a lowly pawn in their (imperial) game. Adding to Kiev’s misery on all fronts, the head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Alexei Danilov, all but gave away the (regional) game.
In an interview to AP, Danilov said that “the Minsk Agreements can create chaos”; he admitted that Kiev totally lost the war in 2014/15 and then signed the Minsk Agreements “under threat of Russian arms” (false: Kiev was soundly defeated by the Donbass militias); but most of all he admitted Kiev never had any intention of fulfilling the Minsk Agreements.
So Kiev, essentially, is breaking international law: the Minsk Agreements are guaranteed by the UN Security Council resolution 2022 (2015), adopted unanimously. Even the US, UK and France voted “Yes”. So breaking the law is not hard to do, as long as you’re enabled by “big powers”.
And on that invisible “Russian aggression”, well, even Danilov can’t see “the readiness of Russian forces near the border for an invasion, which will take three to seven days.”
Bring on the Dancing Horses
None of the above alters the fundamental fact that the USUK combo – plus the proverbial NATO chihuahuas Poland and the Baltics – are spinning around like mad trying to provoke a war. And the only way to do it is to Release the False Flags. It may be sometime in February, it may be during the Beijing Olympics, it may be before the onset of Spring. But they will come. And the Russians are ready.
The preamble has been staged straight from Monty Python Flying Circus – complete with Crash Test Dummy, a.k.a. POTUS yelling to comedian Zelensky that, in a trashy Mongol revival, “Kiev will be sacked” (to the sound of Bring On the Dancing Horses?); an outraged Zelensky telling POTUS to, c’mon man, back off; and the White House swearing that the US has gamed 18 scenarios for the “Russian invasion” (Lavrov: 17 were written by the intel alphabet soup, the 18th by the State Dept.)
Cue to non-stop, frantic weaponizing of country 404 – everything from Javelins to MANPADs to overpriced Blackwater/Academi-tinged waves of “advisers”.
Switching away from farce, not to mention misguided scenarios starting from the faulty premise of an “invasion”, the only rational move Moscow may be contemplating is to de facto recognize the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and send in a contingent of peacekeepers.
That, of course, would enrage the neo-con infested War Inc. matrix to intergalactic paroxysm, as it would nullify all those elaborate psyops geared to instill the Fear of God on the unsuspecting victims of the Remixed Khanate of the Golden Horde, burning and looting all the way to…the Hungarian plains?
Then there’s the tricky question of how to de-Nazify Western Ukraine: that will be a strictly Ukrainian matter, with zero Russian involvement.
The ghost of Mackinder is in total freak out mode contemplating in impotence the imperial brilliance of deciding to fight a two-front war against the Russia-China strategic partnership. At least there’s Monty Python to the rescue: the Ministry of Silly Walks has been gloriously revived as the Ministry of Silly Strategies.
Pride of place goes to the phone call placed by Little Blinkie to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi – which contains all the elements of a brilliant comic sketch. It stars with the combo behind that cipher, “Biden”, thinking that the Beijing leadership could influence Putin to not exercise “Russian aggression” against 404. On the sidelines, perhaps there could be some discussion about the “Indo-Pacific” racket.
The plot went downhill when once again Wang Yi – remember Alaska? – made shark fin’s soup out of Blinkie. The key take aways: China totally supports Russia; it’s the US that is destabilizing Europe; and were more sanctions to come, Europe will pay a terrible price, not Russia, which of course can count on a serious helping hand from China.
Now compare it with the phone call between Putin and Macron. It was, to start with, cordial. They discussed “brain-dead” (copyright Macron) NATO. They discussed the proverbial Anglo-Saxon shenanigans. They even discussed the possibility of forming a pan-European group – a sort of anti-AUKUS – with Russia included, curbing the influence of the Five Eyes and bent on avoiding by all means a war in European soil. For the moment, it’s all talk. But the game-changing seeds are all there.
Misguided scenarios insist that Putin skillfully exploited the imperial obsession with the rise and rise of China to re-establish Russia’s sphere of influence. Nonsense. The sphere was always there – and won’t move. The difference is Moscow finally got fed up with the heavy symbolism permeating the unresolved 404 mess: the intermingling of raw Russophobia in Washington and containment/encirclement NATO knocking at the door.
Metaphorically, this may turn out to be the Year of two – sanctioned – Black Water Tigers, one Chinese, one Siberian. They will be harassed non-stop by the headless eagle, blind to its own irreversible decay and always resorting to the serial Hail Mary passes of the only “policy” it knows.
The ultimate danger – especially for the European minions – is that the headless eagle will never let go of its former “indispensable” status without provoking another devastating war. In European soil. Still the tigers persist: in Beijing, before the Games commence, they will be taking yet another step to irreversibly bury the “rules-based international order”.
Video 4
She is another one of my favorites. She is relaxing like a fine spring day.
And, here’s a girl dancing in her house. You will notice the white stone floor and the walls and everythign else, including the cats in their cage (typical but not common). Enjoy the video.
When you get older, you start to look back at the moments where an opportunity presented itself to you and you didn’t take it. You were too afraid, or too fearful. You didn’t want to hear rejection. You were too fragile.
Nonsense!
You get older and you realize that the time is now. And you start making your life and defining your life on your terms, and if others don’t like it, well that is too bad. You just smile and move forward. Just keep on, keeping on.
They use fear, lust, greed, and envy to move us, manipulate us and force us to either hide, or do things that are contrary to our best interests.
Not allow them to do that to you.
It’s a new world, and the rest of the world are embracing the idea that they can be themselves, and not be forced to conform to the American ideal. And they are relishing in it.
They can live their lifes without fear that one day the United States government will blow up their homes, strafe their children, ruin their economies, and enslave them; forcing them to eat McDonald’s hamburgers, drink Starbucks coffee, and become alternative sexual orientation friendly.
Actually, the reast of the world is really rather nice.
Remember, the world is under YOUR control. Not the rich, the powerful or the rulers. It’s you.
Do not allow them to box you into some kind of fake reality.
Here’s where MM lives. This was what it was like today. This is the small park outside my complex front port. video 81MB
It’s a new world order and the future now is owned by Asia. It’s just that this fact is not being reported in the West. But whether it is reported or not, makes no difference.
The future has moved on.
So enjoy life and savor it. There’s a lot of good things all around you. The adults are now in charge of the world, and the spoiled brats that inhereted the reins of power in the United States are trying to pretend that it is not the case.
Savor life. Appreciate it, and stop living a life in fear. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Just control your reality. It’s nto that hard to do.
The U.S. will say that the above is just some grand declaration with no meaning. But it is much more. It is a political program that China and Russia as well as their allies will be working on for the next decades.Asian as well as European countries should consider if they want to support or oppose it.
They should recognize that siding with the U.S. against China and Russia guarantees that they will find themselves on the losing side.
A final thought and parable
If South Korea sides with the USA against China, you can well imagine what Hell awaits them between China and Russia. Chian and Russia would disable everything in South Korea and let them fight North Korea on their own. With millions of hungry and angry North Koreans flowing Southward.
Same goes for Japan.
I really don’t think that they want to be the battlefield for America and it’s trans-gender rights, and progressive views on life, and hatred of all things Asian and traditional.
Any European nation that is desirous of sanctioning Russia will discover that they will be sanctioned by China; no medicines, no machined products, no electronics and all their products inside of China nationalized. They would be completely crushed.
Australia is currently run by idiots. They not only can’t take a hint, but they don’t understand plain words either.
Now, please consider the powerful trio of Iran, Russia and China.
Here is a parable of how this document all brings all three of them together.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
“It’s no longer in Poland’s interests to continue criticizing China simply to please the Americans.”
-Polish President Andrzej Duda announced
There is an insane level of activity going on right now this January 2022. Much of it is driven by the insanity out of the United States. It actually is causing me such distress that I have turned to the Commander for answers. And I will post them in a separate post.
In this article, we will look at a buch of what is goign on. It’s a snapshot of a world gone insane.
Former President Trump is going to run for reelection on 2024.
This time will be different. He knows what to do and what to say. As he has the best words. Video 14MB
China will jail those that fake pollution data
China does not play. The Corruption police are very activce inside of China.
I once told you about my American friend, who for some reason remained in quarantine in Russia. At the same time, banal greed played an important role in this – plane tickets jumped sharply in price and he, even being a person far from poor, kept waiting for them to become cheaper. And he waited until the flights were completely closed. Who cares, the full version is here:
So, one of our readers in the comments left an extremely curious story about an American friend of his, which I can’t help but publish, because the case is very revealing.
“At my dacha, in the Leningrad region, 120 kms from the city, during the first wave of quarantine, an American lived. He lived for three months. He couldn’t fly across the ocean. Yes, our house is good, not “New Russian”, but all amenities, sauna, 30 acres. For fifty years now, the dacha has been in this place, even my father-in-law built it… Now, of course, everything has changed even more for the better.
You can’t imagine how he trolled his friends and business partners! How he broke their stereotypes about poor, drunk and backward Russia… Moreover, I do not take into account the cottage settlements that we have set up nearby-be healthy ! The Ladoga lake, clear ecology… No, just an ordinary village.
We gave him a room on the second floor, where he conducted conferences on zoom. The Internet is fast – it costs a penny. It looked something like this…
There are no restrictions — oh, no way!
The shops are full of goods-Oh, impossible!
There is no police, from the word absolutely-Impossible!!!
There are no drunks!! -“We don’t believe it!!
Delivery on the Internet of two expensive bikes bought and simulators) — You’re all lying !
And he gives them a photo or video from the store, from the cafe… Broken people’s stereotypes. Upset a lot of people…
He left with a photo of Putin on a hoodie and a hat with the inscription Russia. He writes that he goes to negotiations in this form. It helps
Author – Sergey Tyurin
Sergey Lavrov: If it depends on Russia, there will be no war. But we will not allow our interests to be attacked.
The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry gave an interview to the largest Russian radio stations, including Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda
Edward CHESNOKOV
On Friday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with the heads of Russian radio stations – Komsomolskaya Pravda , Sputnik, Ekho Moskvy and Moskva Speaks. Aggravation between Russia and NATO was on the agenda. Recall that Moscow presented the West with a written demand to leave Eastern Europe and not accept Ukraine into NATO, to which de facto received a negative response. Here are the most interesting statements of Sergei Viktorovich on this and other issues.
ON WHETHER THERE WILL BE A WAR WITH NATO
If it depends on Russia, there will be no war. But we will not allow our interests to be attacked.
ABOUT “NATO’S RESPONSE” TO RUSSIAN SECURITY OFFERS
Our proposals to agree on the maximum distances for the rendezvous of combat aircraft and ships were ignored. But there are rational grains on certain issues. For example, on medium and shorter range missiles. It’s at least something. However, the main thing for us is to deal with the conceptual issues of European security. The West rips out one point from international documents: “every country has the right to choose allies” (that is, “Ukraine has the right to join NATO” – ed.). But there are other commitments in the OSCE documents: one cannot strengthen one’s security at the expense of others.
Against this backdrop, the American response is simply a piece of diplomatic propriety. And the “NATO response” is all saturated with a sense of its own exclusivity.
ABOUT THE POSSIBLE REACTION OF RUSSIA IN THE EVENT OF A NEGATIVE ANSWER
The President has already spoken about it. If our attempts to negotiate mutually acceptable terms fail, we will take retaliatory measures. To the direct question “which ones” the President answered: they will be very different.
ABOUT WASHINGTON’S REPRESSIONS AGAINST RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS
The Americans said: “It is customary for a diplomat to work abroad for three years – and then move to another position, leave the host country.” And they want to extend this principle to Russian diplomats in the United States. When asked whether there are similar thoughts about other states, the answer was “no”.
We propose to nullify everything that happened, starting with the ugly and petty move of the Nobel laureate Obama (the seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the United States at the end of 2016 – ed.). If the rudeness continues, we still have reserves to really even out our diplomatic presence.
ABOUT RUSSIANS IN KAZAKHSTAN
It is in our interests, in the interests of all CIS countries , that all citizens of the newly independent states remain where they were born. Ideally, I would prefer that Russians live peacefully and prosper in Kazakhstan and other republics of the former USSR.
I believe that not only the presence of roots, relatives in the RSFSR, but also in other republics of the former USSR should be important for preferential obtaining Russian citizenship.
ABOUT ANTI-RUSSIAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS IN THE CIS
A couple of days ago I read this article in “KP” (about the fact that in books for schoolchildren from the countries of the former USSR, Russians appear as enemy-invaders – ed.). I will not comment on what is written in textbooks in the Baltic States and Ukraine. But as for the CIS countries, we have already said that we are against nationalistic interpretations. Excessive assessments, which obviously and deliberately play into the hands of nationalists and radicals, must be avoided.
ABOUT RUSSIANS IN MINSK
There is an equalization of the rights of our citizens (as part of the rapprochement of the two countries in the Union State – ed.). A lot has already been done, but questions remain in some areas. We follow the processes of the arrested Russians in Belarus.
ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND THE USA
We seem to be playing different games. They have a baseball, we have a chizhik from a lapta.
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Lavrov: There will be no war if it depends on Russia
The Illegal Four Billion Dollar Disinformation War Against China
American war
USA Strategic Competition Act of 2021 – Part 2
All of the political and media mechanisms that led to the Iraq War are still in place and have been turned on China. The Strategic Competition Act of 2021 is simply a very well financed new weapon designed to suppress any and all alternative views in the media, and disinform and bribe other nations and even the United Nations to participate in this rapidly escalating series of crimes.
Chang, who retired from TSMC in 2018, claimed that the people arguing for bringing the IC chip supply chain into the United States from Taiwan were driven by self-interest.
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Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger advocated for more manufacturing in the US as “it is not safe in Taiwan and it is not safe in South Korea”, Chang said.
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All the time, while Intel hoped to secure funding from the $52bn subsidy package.
Rethinking the supply chain would be a challenge for everyone, Chang said.
“In the past, companies in the US or in Asia were growing and prospering thanks to globalisation and free trade,” he said. Chang cited Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat, in which the commentator analyses globalisation and the opportunities it creates for nations.
As US lawmakers look to invest $52bn in the American chip industry, the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company calls the plan far too small for rebuilding a complete supply chain in the country.
Morris Chang, a US citizen who founded the group that is now the world’s most valuable chipmaker, says it would be impossible for the US to have a full chip supply chain onshore even if it spent far more — and that such a move may not be financially desirable in any case.
“If you want to re-establish a complete semiconductor supply chain in the US, you will not find it as a possible task,” Chang told a tech industry forum in Taipei on October 26. “Even after you spend hundreds of billions of dollars, you will still find the supply chain to be incomplete, and you will find that it will be very high cost, much higher costs than what you currently have.”
The US accounted for 37 per cent of global semiconductor manufacturing in the 1990s, but has fallen to 12 per cent, Semiconductor Industry Association data show.
Washington is campaigning to bring more chip production on to US soil, amid concern about an overreliance on Taiwan. The US Senate this year passed a $52bn bill to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing and R&D, though the package has yet to become law.
“Well, Tom, the world is not flat any more,” he said. “This is going to be a challenge for the Asian semiconductor industry, global semiconductor industry, including Intel.”
Chang’s comments were the first time he directly and publicly questioned Washington’s efforts to rebuild semiconductor manufacturing. His criticism comes despite TSMC’s move to build an advanced chip facility in the US state of Arizona in response to the government’s campaign.
Previously, Chang had said government efforts around the world to increase chip production could backfire, without specifying which countries. Sandra Oudkirk, director of the American Institute in Taiwan and the top US diplomat in Taipei, was among the audience at the industry forum.
Europe, Japan and China also are gearing up to boost production at home, offering government aid to ensure that chips — which enable devices from smartphones to military techs — will remain within their countries.
TSMC recently announced that the company will build its first chip facility in Japan, where Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his government would support large-scale private-sector investment.
The Sacrifice
This is a scene from history. The Chinese people work together as one. The American planes would bomb Chiense bridges and then 20 minute slater the bridges would be repaired and up and working again. How?
"The Punishers" are a group of bikers who respond to bullied children's requests for help. After a year their intervention, no one has more bullized this child.
What are the origins of bullying?
The causes at the origin of bullying are plurime and attributable to individual or group dynamic factors: the child temperament, family models, stereotypes imposed by the media, education imparted by parents or school institutions and other variables connected to 'social environment.
The Swedish psychologist Dan Olweus was the first to use, in the 1970s, the term "bullying", to indicate the preputances of peer in his pioneering research on the school violence that led to the formulation of an antibullying program widely adopted in schools of Nordic countries.
According to the relationship an Everyday Lesson: #endViolence in schools half of the students between 13 and 15 years in the world – about 150 million – reported to have suffered violence from their peers at school and outside.
I think we want a collective effort to prevent these numbers worsening in the future.
China discovers 100-million-tonne oil, gas reserves in Tarim Basin
Uh oh! No wonder the USA wants a war over the Uighurs!
2022-01-27 09:07:56Xinhua Editor : Li Yan
An oil worker inspects Sinopec’s Shunbei oil and gas field in Xayar County, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Sept. 25, 2019. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)
China’s largest oil refiner Sinopec has discovered a new oil and gas area with approximately 100 million tonnes of reserves in the Tarim Basin of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
These latest reserves in Sinopec’s Shunbei oil and gas field are estimated to provide 88 million tonnes of condensate oil and 290 billion cubic meters of natural gas, said the company Wednesday.
Analysts said the discovery would further improve China’s energy supply and help guarantee national energy security.
The Tarim Basin is a major petroliferous basin in China but is also one of the most difficult to explore due to its harsh ground environment and complicated underground conditions. Its oil and gas reserves are buried over 7,300 meters deep on average.
Sinopec’s northwest branch has ascertained reserves of 1.67 billion tonnes of crude oil and 94.58 billion cubic meters of natural gas here, with a total output of more than 140 million tonnes of oil and gas equivalents so far.
Changes for the Uighur Muslims in Xinjinag
So many positive things are going on inside China these days, it’s so very difficult to keep up. Of course none of it is being reported at all in the “Western news”. Most especially positive news for the Uighur Muslims.
Numerous reports in the West about China threats or influence towards the West are being published by the day but nothing is mentioned in these reports or media about the huge military encirclement of China by Western nations, lead by the USA.
… while Western media and politics on the other hand were in a great uproar and confirming the ‘China threat’ when Chinese President Xi Jinping mentioned “We will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us, anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
The 2022 US National Defense Authorization Act passed with no significant opposition in the House or Senate from both parties.
Despite little opposition, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees instead voted to increase this year’s already staggering allotment for the Pentagon by another $24 billion — specifically to better contain (or fight) China. For the majority, going toward the creation of hypersonic missiles and other advanced weaponry aimed at China (not defensive, offensive).
But no one or no bill calls it what it actually is…
How about if just a small part of this China research and reporting diverts inward towards the global humanitarian threats of the current warmongering or even war inciting policies.
It might be revealing and maybe we would come to more human perspectives and policies for a better world.
A part of today’s China perspective originates from about 120 years ago when Western nations discussed how to divide a then also encircled China among themselves. Mostly forgotten in the West but not in China, certainly not with respect to today’s developments.
People and institutes can dive “deep and smart” in reporting and media but encirclement, containment and war inciting policies are all but that…
Let’s start with the basal facts before creating threats and perspectives (often with lies and manipulation)
By the way, this also applies for today’s Ukraine conflict and the ‘Russia threat’.
Since he published “War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams” in 1972, Michael Klare has established himself as one of the world’s leading experts on US military foreign policy, warfare, weapons, military intervention, energy policies and the nexus between militarism and climate change.
I’ve known and followed him during all these years. Within the last few weeks, Michael has written two analyses pertain to the one-sided US Cold War on China that are frightening.
They provide you with cool documentation of the systematic planning and the impossible-to-understand sums the US has now allocated to this destructive – also self-destructive – project for the years ahead.
Western mainstream media will keep you in the dark about this perversely world-endangering policy. I call it that for the simple reason that the problems humanity faces which must be solved very rapidly through cooperation cannot be solved with the two largest economic and political powers in deadly conflict. This is the most significant diversion of attention and political energies – and financial resources – on earth at the moment.
Michael tells what you must know to take action – big or small – to stop this reckless US/NATO policy.
Here are the two articles:
[1] Michael Klare, Welcome to the New Cold War in Asia
Posted on
For a moment, imagine an upside-down military world. Instead of U.S. guided-missile destroyers and other ships regularly carrying out “freedom of navigation operations” near Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea and such destroyers no less regularly passing through the Strait of Taiwan between that disputed island and the People’s Republic of China, consider how any administration would react if Chinese naval vessels were ever more provocatively patrolling off the coast of California.
You know that official Washington would quite literally go nuts and we’d find ourselves at the edge of war almost instantly.
Or, in a similar fashion, imagine that Russia had moved nuclear weapons close to the southern Mexican border, was selling advanced weaponry and offering other military aid to Mexico, and acting as we’ve been doing in relation to Ukraine.
Washington would be up in arms, again all too literally.
Don’t misunderstand me: I hold no torch for either Chinese President Xi Jinping or Russian President Vladimir Putin. (And I suspect, by the way, that if Putin were foolish enough to invade Ukraine he might find himself involved in an updated version of the Soviet Union’s disastrous Afghan War of the 1980s in a far more explosive part of the world.)
I’m merely pointing out that the American urge to be militarily anywhere it wants to be on this planet in any fashion it chooses might not be quite what’s needed these days.
A new Cold War on an ever hotter and more pandemic planet?
Just what we really (don’t) need.
And by the way, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare, author most recently of All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, points out, one of the other wonders of our moment is that, in a country where Republicans and Democrats can essentially agree on nothing — certainly not on spending money on the American people — the subject never in question is what’s still called “defense” policy.
Unfortunately, globally speaking, such spending of your tax dollars couldn’t be more offensive in every sense of the word. In this, fierce as the Biden administration has proved in Cold War terms, Klare makes it clear today that Congress is proving even fiercer.
I mean honestly, on a planet in deep doo-doo, where the major powers should be cooperating big time, having a post-Trump administration (with, admittedly, an old cold warrior as president) so ready to return us to a Cold War-style world seems, to say the least, both a tad out of date and a bit reckless as well.
…
The word “encirclement” does not appear in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 27th, or in other recent administration statements about its foreign and military policies. Nor does that classic Cold War era term “containment” ever come up. Still, America’s top leaders have reached a consensus on a strategy to encircle and contain the latest great power, China, with hostile military alliances, thereby thwarting its rise to full superpower status.
The gigantic 2022 defense bill — passed with overwhelming support from both parties — provides a detailed blueprint for surrounding China with a potentially suffocating network of U.S. bases, military forces, and increasingly militarized partner states. The goal is to enable Washington to barricade that country’s military inside its own territory and potentially cripple its economy in any future crisis.
For China’s leaders, who surely can’t tolerate being encircled in such a fashion, it’s an open invitation to…
…well, there’s no point in not being blunt…
…fight their way out of confinement.
Like every “defense” bill before it, the $768 billion 2022 NDAA is replete with all-too-generous handouts to military contractors for favored Pentagon weaponry.
That would include F-35 jet fighters, Virginia-class submarines, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and a wide assortment of guided missiles.
But as the Senate Armed Services Committee noted in a summary of the bill, it also incorporates an array of targeted appropriations and policy initiatives aimed at encircling, containing, and someday potentially overpowering China.
Among these are an extra $7.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, or PDI, a program initiated last year with the aim of bolstering U.S. and allied forces in the Pacific.
Nor are these just isolated items in that 2,186-page bill.
The authorization act includes a “sense of Congress” measure focused on “defense alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Region,” providing a conceptual blueprint for such an encirclement strategy.
Under it, the secretary of defense is enjoined to “strengthen United States defense alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region so as to further the comparative advantage of the United States in strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China,” or PRC.
That the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act passed with no significant opposition in the House or Senate suggests that support for these and similar measures is strong in both parties.
Some progressive Democrats had indeed sought to reduce the size of military spending, but their colleagues on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees instead voted to increase this year’s already staggering allotment for the Pentagon by another $24 billion — specifically to better contain (or fight) China.
Most of those added taxpayer dollars will go toward the creation of hypersonic missiles and other advanced weaponry aimed at the PRC, and increased military exercises and security cooperation with U.S. allies in the region.
For Chinese leaders, there can be no doubt about the meaning of all this: whatever Washington might say about peaceful competition, the Biden administration, like the Trump administration before it, has no intention of allowing the PRC to achieve parity with the United States on the world stage.
In fact, it is prepared to employ every means, including military force, to prevent that from happening.
This leaves Beijing with two choices: succumb to U.S. pressure and accept second-class status in world affairs or challenge Washington’s strategy of containment.
It’s hard to imagine that country’s current leadership accepting the first choice, while the second, were it adopted, would surely lead, sooner or later, to armed conflict.
The notion of surrounding China with a chain of hostile powers was, in fact, first promoted as official policy in the early months of President George W. Bush’s administration.
At that time, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice went to work establishing an anti-China alliance system in Asia, following guidelines laid out by Rice in a January 2000 article in Foreign Affairs.
There, she warned of Beijing’s efforts to “alter Asia’s balance of power in its own favor” — a drive the U.S. must respond to by deepening “its cooperation with Japan and South Korea” and by “maintain[ing] its commitment to a robust military presence in the region.”
It should, she further indicated, “pay closer attention to India’s role in the regional balance.”
This has, in fact, remained part of the governing U.S. global playbook ever since, even if, for the Bush team, its implementation came to an abrupt halt on September 11, 2001, when Islamic militants attacked the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., leading the administration to declare a “global war on terror.”
Only a decade later, in 2011, did official Washington return to the Rice-Cheney strategy of encircling China and blunting or suppressing its growing power.
That November, in an address to the Australian Parliament, President Obama announced an American “pivot to Asia” — a drive to restore Washington’s dominance in the region, while enlisting its allies there in an intensifying effort to contain China.
“As president, I have… made a deliberate and strategic decision,” Obama declared in Canberra. “As a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future… As we end today’s wars [in the Middle East], I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority.”
Oh great. After absolutely pulverizing and destroying the middle East into rubble, the attention will now focus on destroying China and the South Pacific as well. Lovely. -MM
Like the Bush team before it, however, the Obama administration was blindsided by events in the Middle East, specifically the 2014 takeover of significant parts of Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State, and so was forced to suspend its focus on the Pacific.
Only in the final years of the Trump administration did the idea of encircling China once again achieve preeminence in U.S. strategic thinking.
Led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Trump effort proved far more substantial, involving as it did the beefing-up of U.S. forces in the Pacific; closer military ties with Australia, Japan, and South Korea; and an intensified outreach to India.
Pompeo also added several new features to the mix: a “quadrilateral” alliance between Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. (dubbed the “Quad,” for short); increased diplomatic ties with Taiwan; and the explicit demonization of China as an enemy of Western values.
In a July 2020 speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, Pompeo laid out the new China policy vividly.
To prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from demolishing “the rules-based order that our societies have worked so hard to build,” he declared, we must “draw common lines in the sand that cannot be washed away by the CCP’s bargains or their blandishments.”
This required not only bolstering U.S. forces in Asia but also creating a NATO-like alliance system to curb China’s further growth.
Pompeo also launched two key anti-China initiatives: the institutionalization of the Quad and the expansion of diplomatic and military relations with Taiwan.
The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue as it’s formally known, had initially been formed in 2007 by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (with the support of Vice President Dick Cheney and the leaders of Australia and India), but fell into abeyance for years. It was revived, however, in 2017 when Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joined Abe, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Donald Trump in promoting a stepped-up effort to contain China.
As for Taiwan, Pompeo upped the ante there by approving diplomatic missions to its capital, Taipei, by senior officials, including Health Secretary Alex Azar and Undersecretary of State Keith Krach, the highest-ranking members of any administration to visit the island since 1979, when Washington severed formal relations with its government.
Both visits were roundly criticized by Chinese officials as serious violations of the commitments Washington had made to Beijing under the agreement establishing ties with the PRC.
China is killing all the CIA spies inside of China
The United States doesn’t know what to do. Video 2MB
Biden Adopts the Encirclement Agenda
On entering the White House, President Biden promised to reverse many of the unpopular policies of his predecessor, but strategy towards China was not among them. Indeed, his administration has embraced the Pompeo encirclement agenda with a vengeance.
As a result, ominously enough, preparations for a possible war with China are now the Pentagon’s top priority as, for the State Department, is the further isolation of Beijing diplomatically.
In line with that outlook, the Defense Department’s 2022 budget request asserted that “China poses the greatest long-term challenge to the United States” and, accordingly, that “the Department will prioritize China as our number one pacing challenge and develop the right operational concepts, capabilities, and plans to bolster deterrence and maintain our competitive advantage.”
In the meantime, as its key instrument for bolstering ties with allies in the Asia-Pacific region, the Biden administration endorsed Trump’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Proposed PDI spending was increased by 132% in the Pentagon’s 2022 budget request, rising to $5.1 billion from the $2.2 billion in 2021.
And if you want a measure of this moment in relation to China, consider this: even that increase was deemed insufficient by congressional Democrats and Republicans who added another $2 billion to the PDI allocation for 2022.
To further demonstrate Washington’s commitment to an anti-China alliance in Asia, the first two heads of state invited to the White House to meet President Biden were Japanese Prime Minister Yoshi Suga and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. In talks with them, Biden emphasized the importance of joint efforts to counter Beijing.
Following his meeting with Suga, for instance, Biden publicly insisted that his administration was “committed to working together to take on the challenges from China… to ensure a future of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
On September 24th, in a first, leaders of the Quad all met with Biden at a White House “summit.” Although the administration emphasized non-military initiatives in its post-summit official report, the main order of business was clearly to strengthen military cooperation in the region.
As if to underscore this, Biden used the occasion to highlight an agreement he’d just signed with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia to provide that country with the propulsion technology for a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines — a move obviously aimed at China.
And note as well that, just days before the summit, the administration formed a new alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom, called AUKUS, and again aimed at China.
Finally, Biden has continued to increase diplomatic and military contacts with Taiwan, beginning on his first day in office when Hsiao Bi-khim, Taipei’s de facto ambassador to Washington, attended his inauguration.
“President Biden will stand with friends and allies to advance our shared prosperity, security, and values in the Asia-Pacific region — and that includes Taiwan,” a top administration official said at the time. Other high-level contacts with Taiwanese officials, including military personnel, soon followed.
What all these initiatives have lacked, until now, is an overarching plan for curbing China’s rise and so ensuring America’s permanent supremacy in the Indo-Pacific region.
The authors of this year’s NDAA were remarkably focused on this deficiency and several provisions of the bill are designed to provide just such a master plan. These include a series of measures intended to incorporate Taiwan into the U.S. defense system surrounding China and a requirement for the drafting of a comprehensive “grand strategy” for containing that country on every front.
A “sense of Congress” measure in that bill provides overarching guidance on these disparate initiatives, stipulating an unbroken chain of U.S.-armed sentinel states — stretching from Japan and South Korea in the northern Pacific to Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore in the south and India on China’s eastern flank — meant to encircle and contain the People’s Republic. Ominously enough, Taiwan, too, is included in the projected anti-China network.
That island’s imagined future role in such an emerging strategic plan was further spelled out in a provision entitled “Sense of Congress on Taiwan Defense Relations.”
Essentially, this measure insists that Washington’s 1978 pledge to terminate its military ties with Taipei and a subsequent 1982 U.S.-China agreement committing this country to reduce the quality and quantity of its arms transfers to Taiwan are no longer valid due to China’s “increasingly coercive and aggressive behavior” toward the island.
Accordingly, the measure advocates closer military coordination between the two countries and the sale of increasingly sophisticated weapons systems to Taiwan, along with the technology to manufacture some of them.
Add all this up and here’s the new reality of the Biden years: the disputed island of Taiwan, just off the Chinese mainland and claimed as a province by the PRC, is now being converted into a de facto military ally of the United States.
There could hardly be a more direct assault on China’s bottom line: that, sooner or later, the island must agree to peacefully reunite with the mainland or face military action.
Recognizing that the policies spelled out in the 2022 NDAA represent a fundamental threat to China’s security and its desire for a greater international role, Congress also directed the president to come up with a “grand strategy” on U.S.-China relations in the next nine months.
This should include an assessment of that country’s global objectives and an inventory of the economic, diplomatic, and military capabilities the U.S. will require to blunt its rise.
In addition, it calls on the Biden administration to examine “the assumptions and end-state or end states of the strategy of the United States globally and in the Indo-Pacific region with respect to the People’s Republic of China.”
No explanation is given for the meaning of “end-state or end states,” but it’s easy to imagine that the authors of that measure had in mind the potential collapse of the Chinese Communist government or some form of war between the two countries.
How will Chinese leaders react to all this?
No one yet knows, but President Xi Jinping provided at least a glimpse of what that response might be in a July 1st address marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
“We will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us,” he declared, as China’s newest tanks, rockets, and missiles rolled by. “Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
Welcome to the new twenty-first-century Cold War on a planet desperately in need of something else.
CONTAINMENT ON STEROIDS: PENTAGON’S 2022 BUDGET SEEKS CHINA’S ENCIRCLEMENT
Analysis by Michael Klare, December 31, 2021
On December 27, President Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, allotting $740 billion to the Department of Defense (DoD) for military procurement and operations over the coming year and setting key policy objectives. As in past years, much of the funding authorized by the NDAA will go towards fuel, ammunition, and the salaries of military personnel, but this year, more than ever before, there is a conspicuous focus on preparing U.S. and allied forces for a possible war with China.
This focus on China was first underscored in the Department of Defense Budget Request for FY 2022, sent to Congress last May. “China poses the greatest long-term challenge to the United States,” the request states. “Accordingly, DoD will prioritize China and its military modernization as our pacing challenge.” To meet that challenge, and provide for other military essentials, the Pentagon request called for projected expenditures of $715 billion in FY 2022.
But even the $715 billion in the administration’s original DoD budget request was not deemed sufficient for a majority of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who added another $24 billion to the FY 2022 authorization in order to further bolster U.S. forces aimed at China.
“The additional funding we secured… helps the United States remain the world’s leading military power,” said Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “Through this strength, the United States will be able to project force and deter conflict as we work to…check China’s malign influence.”
Most of this additional funding will be used to acquire more ships and planes to buttress U.S. forces assigned to the Indo-Pacific region and for programs intended to strengthen military ties with U.S. allies located there. Among other items, the $24 billion add-on will enable the Navy to procure a third guided-missile destroyer this year and for the Air Force to receive another six F-35 stealth fighters. Some of the additional funds will also be used to invigorate the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), a slew of activities aimed at bolstering U.S. military ties with its allies in the Indo-Pacific region and tighten the military noose surrounding China.
The PDI was established by the NDAA for FY 2021, and its stated goal is to “modernize and strengthen the presence of the United States Armed Forces” and to “build the defense and security capabilities, capacity, and cooperation of allies and partners” in the Indo-Pacific region. A total of $2.2 billion was allocated for this purpose in the FY 2021 NDAA.
For FY 2022, the Biden administration bumped the PDI budget request to $5.1 billion and Congress an additional $2 billion on top of that, bringing the total FY 2022 PDI authorization to $7.1 billion. Some of this will be used to acquire advanced military hardware intended for possible combat with China, including hypersonic missiles and a variety of unmanned surface and subsea vessels. In their Joint Explanatory Statement on the FY22 NDAA, leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees also directed the Department of Defense to devote more funds to vital non-munitions items, such as fuel to increase the day-to-day presence of U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific region.
Aside from the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, the FY 2022 NDAA is saturated with other measures aimed at bolstering the network of alliances aimed at containing China’s rise in Asia and buttressing U.S. military ties with Taiwan.
Section 1252 of the NDAA, “Sense of Congress on Defense Alliances and Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Region,” constitutes a blueprint for a U.S.-led system of military alliances surrounding China and dedicated to its military confinement. It states that the Pentagon leadership should “strengthen United States defense alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region so as to further the comparative advantage of the United States in strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China.” Such efforts should include, among other things: enhancing U.S. military cooperation with Australia, Japan, and South Korea; “broadening the engagement of the United States with India, including through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue”; developing increased military ties with Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines; and “strengthening the United States partnership with Taiwan.”
Many other provisions of the NDAA, including the PDI, provide the funding for measures aimed at enhancing U.S. ties with traditional allies, such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea. But Taiwan represents a special case, in that it is not, formally, a military ally of the United States.
When recognizing the PRC as China’s legitimate government in 1979, the United States agreed to terminate its diplomatic relations and defense ties with Taiwan, and to withdraw all U.S. military forces from the island. At that time, Washington also acknowledged Beijing’s position that “there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.” Three years later, under the “Arms Sale Communiqué” of Aug. 17, 1982, Washington further affirmed “that it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, and that it intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan.”
Despite these pledges, U.S. officials have never been fully reconciled to the terms of the 1979 recognition agreement or the 1982 Arms Sale Communiqué. In accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979, the U.S. maintains quasi-official relations with Taiwan and provides its military with a wide variety of military hardware.
In recent years, and especially during the Trump administration, top officials have questioned the legitimacy of the “one China” policy and stepped up arms sales and diplomatic outreach to Taiwan. Increasingly, the island is being viewed by senior officials not as “part of China” but rather as an autonomous entity whose participation in the U.S.-led alliance system encircling China is deemed essential to American security – a view articulated by Ely Ratner, Assistant Secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in December. “Taiwan,” he asserted, “is located at a critical node within the first island chain [stretching from Japan to the Philippines], anchoring a network of U.S. allies and partners that is critical to the region’s security and critical to the defense of vital U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific.”
This outlook appears to have largely governed the NDAA’s stance on Taiwan. Section 1246, “Sense of Congress on Taiwan Defense Relations,” essentially claims that previous restraints on U.S. military ties with Taiwan can now be ignored given the PRC’s “increasingly coercive and aggressive behavior” toward the island. In contrast to the terms of 1982 Arms Trade Communiqué, it calls for the sale of increasingly sophisticated weapons to Taiwan. It also calls for joint military exercises between U.S. and Taiwanese forces, increased consultation between senior U.S. and Taiwanese military officials, and enhanced linkages (“interoperability”) between U.S. and Taiwanese maritime surveillance and air-defense systems.
Following on this, Section 1248 calls on the Secretary of Defense to conduct a study of Taiwan’s vulnerabilities to possible Chinese attack and to identify ways in which the U.S. can assist Taiwan in overcoming those vulnerabilities, including by providing advanced arms-making technology and through the sharing of intelligence data. Yet another measure, Section 1249, calls for a briefing on possible cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwanese National Guards.
Finally, Section 6511 directs the president to compose a “grand strategy with respect to China” and submit it to Congress in approximately ten months. Among other things, the “China Strategy,” as it is termed, is to include a comprehensive assessment of Chinese military, economic, political, and military challenges to U.S. global interests and the corresponding U.S. capabilities needed “to implement the national security strategy of the United States as they relate to the new era of competition with the People’s Republic of China.”
From China’s perspective, all this must represent a coherent and highly threatening blueprint to ensure permanent U.S. military superiority and to surround China with an impenetrable chain of hostile powers – an assessment that can only lead to greater suspicion and paranoia in Beijing while fueling a relentless and increasingly dangerous arms race.
By Amarynth and the Here Comes China Newsletter by Godfree Roberts
What were we talking about just three or four months ago? Remember? China was going to imminently attack Taiwan. There was wall-to-wall coverage.
The jingoism did not work. Nobody attacked Taiwan.
China stated that Taiwan will be integrated with the mainland at the right time, and follow the correct procedure. China is dealing with a recalcitrant province that historically is as a result of war.
Now, there is even a bigger outcry. Russia is going to imminently invade the Ukraine. So we see an exchange in the western rhetoric from territorial flashpoint Taiwan, to territorial flashpoint the Ukraine in an attempt to contain something, anything that could create the space for the US/NATO and western puppets to maintain power and hegemony.
A month or two ago, China gave what one could see as a request, but it can also be interpreted as stronger than that.
World expects ‘truce’ during Winter Games
A UNGA resolution, co-sponsored by 173 countries and adopted on Dec 2, asks all countries to observe the Olympic truce and stop hostile activities seven days before the Winter Olympic Games through to seven days after the end of the Winter Paralympic Games.
This is consistent with the historical values of these games all the way back to Ancient Greece in the ninth century.
Even so, the provocation beat, and false information continues on.
Russia does not rule out military provocations from US, Kiev regime – diplomat
A Bloomberg publication that Chinese President Xi Jinping allegedly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine during the Olympic Games is an operation of US intelligence agencies, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
China called this a despicable trick. “The report was purely made out of thin air. It seeks not only to smear and drive a wedge in China-Russia relations, but also to deliberately disrupt and undermine the Beijing Winter Olympics. Such a despicable trick cannot fool the international community,” Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a routine press conference.”
Before this, we had the endless media announcements of who is going to boycott the Olympics (whether invited or not but they never said they were not invited, they just made it up), and then quietly, they asked for visas to attend anyway. It is all a show. The Anglosphere has lost military supremacy as well as economic supremacy, and they are not elegant losers. In fact, they will continue to attempt to overturn any security balance anywhere in the world to appease their own hubris for total spectrum dominance or at least the appearance of that.
India for once spoke out and said they will not boycott the Olympic Games, as in these circumstances they will follow their policy of ‘neighbors first’. Uhm, who knew they had such a policy?
Out of 206 nations eligible to participate in the Olympics, only 14 have decided not to send their diplomats. Of the 14, five quoted Covid as the reason, others do not have a winter olympics team. Not because of some US led diplomatic boycott.
The backdrop to the Anglosphere being butthurt and trying to change the Russian ‘request’ for security guarantees into sole focus on Ukraine is not stopping the march towards a world order based on Law and not Rule by some flunky. China is not falling for it in their press, or in their spoken word. This trend is inexorable and the Anglosphere has but limited time to change or to be run over. The old games of money and guns, the warfare model based on coercion, are coming to an end.
Here are three examples of the world changing.
China launches Global South economic alliance to challenge US ‘unilateralism’ and ‘cold-war mentality’
China just launched a new economic alliance of Global South nations called the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative”. Beijing said it seeks to challenge (US) “unilateralism” and the “Cold-War mentality,” and promotes “win-win cooperation”.
The Stans are now being ‘multi polarized’ and while Russia gathered them together with the recent military adventure in Kazakhstan, China is following and cementing the trend.
So, this meeting happened yesterday and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, will be attending the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing.
Pakistan is sailing Chinese Frigates and contracted the construction of eight Hangor-class submarines, four Type 054A/P ships and medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned combat aerial vehicles from China. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202201/1246789.shtml
On the big picture, Chas Freeman has this to say…
The question is whether China will choose to accept an active role in stabilizing the region. “Great power rivalry” or a putative Manichean struggle between China and democracy will not drive this decision.
On the evidence to date, it will instead reflect the broadly overlapping national interests of China, Europe, India, Japan, and Korea, the fractious states of West Asia and North Africa, and the United States.
All share a compelling interest in a stable Middle East whose quarrels do not export radicalism or endanger access to crucial energy supplies.
It would be in America’s interest for China and other countries that rely on Middle Eastern energy exports to share the burden of preserving global prosperity by coming together to safeguard the world’s energy trade.
If China faces a choice in this regard, so does America.
The United States can cooperate to mutual advantage with China, other rising powers, and the oil producing countries of the region, or it can overwrite obvious interests it shares with China and others with irrational antagonism and pursue a pointless game that no one can hope to win.
Chas W. Freeman
A New Economic System
In terms of economics and trade, what I personally expect to see as a result of Putin and Xi’s talks while Putin attends the Olympic games, is a much revealed new economic system, which, on a transaction level, will start to be closely integrated across the non-Anglo world. The level of the reveal may be muted, and we may have to read the tea leaves to understand the size and scope of this change.
We also note financial integration in other spheres as the Russian Standard Bank clients are now able to transfer money to the cards of the Chinese UnionPay payment system. This is not a SWIFT transaction.
Overall, the anti-China rhetoric remains at top decibels. As you will see from the extra reading below, while we were watching Russia, the war propaganda against China did not reduce one bit…
You know about the Great Wall of China, right? But have you ever heard of the Great Western Wall?
That is the immense wall which was built around the minds of the people of the West for the past 1000 or so years. I will try to describe it using a few salient examples, but what I want to clearly state here is that these examples are only some I chose, but in reality, there are millions of them and they constitute a kind of “mental force field” which has (almost) no holes in it. Until now. But let’s first start with a few examples of what that wall looks like and how those enclosed by it think:
Say what you wish, or don’t say it, but everybody knows and understands that the so-called Western civilization (which in this narrative was not born from the Middle-Ages, but from Antiquity) is superior to all others. Oh sure, we will pay lip service to the liberal ideas of Rousseau or the Woke insanity, but deep inside, we are the best, we will eventually prevail, and nobody can match, nevermind, beat us.
Russians are racially and culturally inferior. Oh sure, they are mostly white, but they act like Mongols (something quite terrible in the average western mind which knows *nothing* about the Mongol Empire, this is even true on the UK Ministerial level!!!). They are either soaking their brains with vodka, or they are planning devious and bloody attacks on the irenic and noble people of the West. The term I suggest for them would be Russians are “Snow Niggers“.
The Snow Niggers control way too much land and resources. We need to bring them true democracy.
Russians have never known democracy, so they don’t even have the concept of “freedom”: true, we don’t really understand the distinction they make between “svoboda” and “volia” anymore than we understand the distinction between “pravda” and “istina” – but who cares, they don’t think like we do, therefore their concepts are irrelevant.
Russians cannot be trusted. Ever. Ask any of the people who neighbor Russia and they will tell you how horrible it was to live under Russian rule. The fact that Russians (unlike the West) never committed genocide and that there are still 193 ethnic groups and over 100 languages in Russia herself is irrelevant. The fact that not a single successor republic to the USSR became stable and viable – except Russia, that is – is also irrelevant. All that Russian do is murder, rape, pillage and persecute everybody else, especially “gays”!
Russians have always used stupid tactics, they always throw a huge amount of poorly trained soldiers but animalistically stubborn/courageous at any enemy. During WWII, the German military was vastly superior to the Soviet one and the German generals eons ahead of the rather dull Soviet ones, especially in tactics and operational warfare. Germany only lost WWII thanks to the US and UK and their superb military academies. Any Soviet victory is explained by “Stalin’s terror”, of course. Then these brutes went on a raping spree and created a giant Gulag while US forces only delivered chocolate and cool music to the poor Europeans, including the Germans. Then the US generously rebuilt western Europe. End of story.
We have the best military in the world, with the best equipment and training. The fact that we spend more on defense than the entire planet is the proof of that. We also have the best intelligence community in the world, the fact that we have 17 “intelligence” agencies while others typically do with just a few (2-4 is typical) just further proves our infinite superiority (by some estimates, the total “peace budget” of the USA, combining military, intelligence and contractors is over a TRILLION per year!).
The entire world envies us – that is why we are the #1 destination for immigrants from all over the world. Even the fact that we have by far the biggest penitentiary network on the planet, and one of the most barbarically brutal ones at that, does not deter these immigrants. Clearly, the world loves us!
Trust me, I could go on for pages and pages. I lived my entire life in the West, I was born in the middle of Europe (in Switzerland) and I lived about half of my life in Europe and half in the USA. I am fluent in 5 western languages and understand quite a few more others (related ones, of course). I have two US graduate degrees. I know the West. Most westerners who met me initially did not know of my origins, so they treated me like “one of them” until I mentioned my Russian roots, at which point their attitude immediately changed: “careful, he is one of them” was written all over their faces.
And, OF COURSE, there were (plenty) of exceptions to what I describe above. But these exceptions were never numerous or influential enough to make a difference: Western countries always elect rabid russophobes: they all equally hate and fear Russia, they just express it in different manners. So those westerners who do not live behind the Great Western Wall have made no difference, especially no difference to us, the Asiatic Snow Niggers.
Again, all this has been going on for close to a thousand years, but something has changed recently and stuff like this began to happen:
An (ah em) “leaked” photo.
And by “this” I don’t mean an F-35 missing its landing on a carrier and splashing into the water. No, that F-35 is a perfect metaphor for the entire western civilization.
Official version: the F-35 is the most amazing military aircraft ever designed
True version: the F-35 is the most overpriced piece of semi-airborne shit in world history
Notice, corruption plays THE key role here.
Say what you want, but a country which designed and produced the F-16, the F-5, the A-10 or the breathtakingly beautiful Boeing 747 can produce superb aircraft. And while all the US ‘stealth’ aircraft are overpriced and over-hyped, the F-35 is truly a masterpiece of corruption. There is nothing the many extremely talented US scientists and engineers could do to beat the most corrupt people on the planet: the US ruling elites. And, for the latter, the F-35 is a total, absolute, success. I would even call it a triumph.
A personal recollection now: while a student in the USA, I had military force planning classes, taught by a VERY sharp USAF Colonel (who also worked for the Northrop YF-23 program). His classes were a masterpiece each time. One day, we did something funny. We made a graph with, on one hand, the average cost of each new US fighter aircraft and, on the other, the money allocated for their acquisition. Then we projected both curves and the result was quite hilarious, but also unforgettable: we saw that there would come a time when the entire US military budget would be just enough to produce only ONE, but very super dooper bestest of the bestest in the history of the galaxy fighter! One! Sadly, I do not remember what date we came up with, but I would argue that the F-35 is the real-world illustration of what our (tongue in cheek) graphic showed (BTW – the Lockheed YF-22 was inferior in design to the Northrop YF-23, the choice for the Lockheed candidate was made solely on political grounds: not to give it all the kickbacks to Northrop basically).
The year 1990 was the year when the YF-22/YF-23 made their first flight. That same year, the Snow Niggers flew a modified version of the Soviet Su-27, called the SU-34, for the first time. In my strictly personal opinion, the Su-34 is the single most formidable all-weather supersonic medium-range fighter-bomber/strike aircraft ever produced in Russia or elsewhere. The fact that this design (originally based on a Soviet-era Su-27 interceptor) not only survived the horrific 90s when Russia was “democratic”, but has now fully matured to the absolutely amazing Su-34M version, shows how truly superb Soviet designers and engineers were even in the years of “Commie stagnation” under Brezhnev & Co. This is what this true masterpiece looks like:
Su-34
You can read about its capabilities here or, better, watch this video. Check out its actual characteristics, and it will blow your mind!
No, it ain’t “stealth”, but its formidable EW, avionics, missiles and radar negate the need for any F-22 like RCS. And it sure is a big aircraft (think range and payload here). But its capabilities are absolutely formidable, no other aircraft comes even close, not even current 5th generation ones, especially to the (much improved) current Su-34M version (which is still very much a 4th generation aircraft, but which does not need the full 5th generation capabilities to execute its missions, that is where the 4++ generation Su-30M2 and Su-35S would be used, or, if needed, the 5th generation Su-57.
I do not intend this post to be a comparison of the YF-22/YF-23/F-35 with the Su-34 or any other aircraft.
But I will ask a rhetorical question: why is it that the USA, the sole world superpower (especially after 1991 and the fall of the USSR) and world leader in everything produced such a piece of shit (aka “flying brick”) as the F-35, while the vodka soaked Asiatic Snow Niggers, while undergoing a truly apocalyptic phase like the 90s (TWO civil wars in Chechnia, one in Moscow in 93) produced a masterpiece like the Su-34?
And here we see the formidable power of The Great Western Wall! That rhetorical question will be treated in any combination of the following ways:
Dismissed as “Putin propaganda”
Dismissed as factually incorrect (the correct version being: ours is SO MUCH better)
Simply ignored, blocked from anybody’s awareness
Explained by “the Russians steal all our secrets” whereas we invent real things (since the F-35 is actually largely based on the (much better!) Russian Yak-141, this is an especially funny argument to make).
“Specialists” will declare that the Su-34 is based on primitive and old technologies while the F-35 is the bleeding edge of aeronautics (which is false, but if it was true, these idiots are too stupid to realize what this statement implies about the intelligence and experience of actual warfare of each party!)
The same pseudo-experts will also fail to realize (or, at least, admit) that while the US MIC produced that abomination which the F-35 is, the Russians have just produced a similar aircraft, the Su-75, which has none of the flaws of the F-35, has broadly similar capabilities and for a small fraction of the F-35 criminally obscene price tag.
Western kids can peacefully sleep at night knowing that they are still part of the Master Race and that they are defended by Captain Murica style hyper-warriors with hyper-gadgets who can, and will, kick any Snow Niggers’ ass if needed! Yeah!
Sweet dreams 🙂
***
But, seriously, why did I post all this stuff about US vs Soviet/Russian aircraft?
Just to illustrate the huge, immense, breathtaking difference between what I call Zone A and Zone B, the Great Western Wall being the monumental propagandist masterpiece which, at least so far, has kept the two Zones apart (the Zones themselves were originally a geographical category, but this is now changing, so let’s think of them as also a mental category).
(Truism alert!!) We live in the age of the Internet, the ubiquitous smartphones (with excellent cameras!), the social media and too many ways to connect for any wall to stand, including the Great Western Wall! Reality is now slowly seeping under, over, and even through this mental Great Wall and that has two main effects:
It puts the western ruling classes into a total, abject, panic mode
It stirs up doubts about the veracity of the Western propaganda machine in the heads of the western people (which only doubles the panic felt by the western ruling classes).
What recently happened in Kabul is just about the perfect illustration of how the Western Great Wall is collapsing before our eyes.
***
What about Putin and his ultimatum in all this?
In truth, the Russian ultimatum’s main goal was never to get the western Master Race to agree to negotiate with the drunken Snow Niggers, it was to bring down a major segment of the Western Great Wall: the West’s arrogant sense of axiomatic military superiority and narcissistic sense of impunity. For decades we were fed a diet about how totally incredible the US and even NATO militaries were (forget about Iraq or Afghanistan!) and how the Russian bear was really only a paper tiger. Just like the F-35 is the “bestest of the bestest” and the Su-34 “primitive” (we could also build it, we just don’t wanna).
Then why are the Snow Niggers not terrified of our “sanctions from hell” or “bestest militaries in the world”??
Why are our beloved (or maybe not so beloved) leaders so freaked out and clueless about what to do?
Could it be that reality is gradually achieving what scientists call “first contact” with the Western rulers and the serfs they rule over?
I will conclude with a question: what will it take to totally bring down that Western Great Wall?
The Su-34 sure did not do it.
How about the Su-34 as just one example, a tip of a huge iceberg if you wish, of what has happened in the entire Russian armed forces?
Nope. 99% of folks in the West still have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER that Russia can defeat both the US and NATO, even together, and that China is catching up at a phenomenal rate.
How about the total collapse of the western economies which have nowhere to “grow into” (by that they mean: “occupy a defenseless country and enslave them by trading valuable resources for worthless plastic beads”)?
Nope, not yet. Not while much of the world still purchase dollars.
Now about the total collapse of the EU’s energy hallucinations (aka Greta Tunberg)?
Nope! EU officials want to, I kid you not, sanction *Russia* by committing energetic and, therefore, economic suicide. In Russia, we call that “scaring a hedgehog with a naked butt“.
So what about this Russian saying “those who refuse to talk to Lavrov will have to talk to Shoigu“.
Will anybody pay attention and realize what is going on?
Maybe.
But I am afraid that the drunken Snow Niggers will have to bring down that damned Western Great Wall, brick by brick, dollar by dollar, and even bullet by bullet (missile by missile would be more accurate).
But, don’t worry. The drunken Snow Niggers won’t genocide you. They are too “primitive” and “Asiatic” for that.
But neither will they pay much attention to you or take you seriously until you finally wake up from your 1000 years of self-delusion based on murderous ideologies and violence.
Russia’s future is on her south (Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle-East, Indian Sub.) east (Far East Asia) and north (Arctic).
I have no idea where the future of the West is.
Do you?
Andrei
.
How does one raid airspace?
China Launches Biggest Raid On Taiwanese Airspace Since October As CCP’s Pacific Perimeter Expands
Godfree Roberts created a comprehensive list of current propaganda at the end.
China data points: What are they up to?
Space
Common prosperity is the main driver of China’s values today.
“Common prosperity is not egalitarianism. To use an analogy, we will first make the pie bigger and then divide it properly through reasonable institutional arrangements. As a rising tide lifts all boats everyone will get a fair share from development and development gains will benefit all our people in a more substantial and equitable way”. Xi Jinping.
As part of the Common Prosperity drive, 6.5 million low-cost homes for leasing will be built across 40 major cities in the five years through 2025, Pan Wei, an official with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, told reporters at a press conference.
No Corruption
On Tuesday, Xi told the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) to maintain “zero tolerance” for corruption (SCMP):
“There is still a long way to go to effectively tackle the more invisible, deep-rooted corruption and we still have a long way to go to eradicate it completely.”
China is the manufacturer of the world
Imports and Exports Hit $6 trillion for the first time in 2021. The total import and export volume of China’s merchandise trade was 39.1 trillion yuan ($6.15 trillion), a year-on-year increase of 21.4%. Compared with 2019, China’s 2020 foreign trade volume, exports and imports had increased by 23.9%, 26.1% and 21.2%, respectively.
China-Africa trade rose 32%, or $67 billion, to $254 billion in 2020, according to China Customs.
19 out of 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean had signed up for the Belt and Road, but some of China’s biggest Latin American investment partners – Brazil, Argentina and Mexico – have not formally signed up to the Belt and Road. Nevertheless, China is now the largest trading partner of Brazil, Argentina and most of the rest of South America.
Healthy Planet
Renewables will meet over 70% of China’s additional electricity demand in the next three years as coal’s role in powering the world’s second-largest economy continues to decline. Wind and solar farm installations will lift their combined generating capacity 75% to 930 Gw by 2024 from 600GW now.
Happiness and Trust
At the January 20th Foreign Ministry Press Conference, a reporter from MASTV asked: “The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer [above], from the top global public relations firm, Edelman, finds trust among Chinese citizens in their Government in 2021 hit a record 91%, up 9% from last year, and the top globally. Overall, China’s Trust Index is 83%, up 11%, the highest in the survey. Do you have any comment?”
FM Spokesperson Zhao Lijian: “I noted relevant reports. The 2017 and 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer reports, as I recall, showed that the trust among Chinese citizens in their government was the highest in all the countries surveyed.
The figure in this year’s report hits a record high in a decade.
We have shared with you a 10-year survey by the Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government on China. It finds out that the Chinese people’s satisfaction with their government’s performance has been over 90 percent for years in a row, which is consistent with the findings of the Edelman Trust Barometer. As a Chinese citizen and civil servant, I’m not surprised at all. “
Background on the USA backed HK “color revolution”
A Forensic on the XinJiang / Uighur “genocide” nonsense…
A legal forensic take-down of the Xinjiang accusation of genocide and forced labor: the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) substantially misrepresented and exaggerated allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang, having insufficient evidence to prove their claims.
Sinopec discovered yet more new oil and gas reservoirs in Xinjiang totaling 88m tons of condensate oil and 290bn cubic meters of natural gas. So, do you get why the US wanted to destabilize Xinjiang via terrorist attacks in this region?
The US Congress passed a $7 billion anti-China propaganda bill to villainize China and to exclude Chinese news from America. To put this in perspective, the 2020 budget of NASA is $20 billion dollars.
This is one more example. We see big news headlines that a ‘China Spy’ was arrested. But when the man is quietly let go because of no evidence, they don’t bother to report that.
Thank you to Godfree Roberts who does a yeoman’s job to pull together the 50 most important data points emerging from China in one newsletter week after week.
It is getting very difficult to remain a generalist China watcher as the place is just so big and the pace of development is astounding.
I use but a fraction of the newsletter information. This week’s long reads contain work by: Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., Ning Nanshan, Helen De Cruz & Pauline Lee, and Wang Wenbin.
There are a lot of behaviors being exhibited by those in positions of power in the US that seem disparate and odd. We watch Trump who is imposing sanctions on country after country, dreaming of eradicating his country’s structural trade deficit with the rest of the world. We watch pretty much all of US Congress falling over each other in their attempt to impose the harshest possible sanctions on Russia.
People in Turkey, a key NATO country, are literally burning US dollars and smashing iPhones in a fit of pique.
Confronted with a new suite of Russian and Chinese weapons systems that largely neutralize the ability of the US to dominate the world militarily, the US is setting new records in the size of its already outrageously bloated yet manifestly ineffectual defense spending.
As a backdrop to this military contractor feeding frenzy, the Taliban are making steady gains in Afghanistan, now control over half the territory, and are getting ready to stamp “null and void,” in a repeat of Vietnam, on America’s longest war.
A lengthening list of countries are set to ignore or compensate for US sanctions, especially sanctions against Iranian oil exports. In a signal moment, Russia’s finance minister has recently pronounced the US dollar “unreliable.” Meanwhile, US debt keeps galloping upwards, with its largest buyer being reported as a mysterious, possibly entirely nonexistent “Other.”
Although these may seem like manifestations of many different trends in the world, I believe that a case can be made that these are all one thing: the US—the world’s imperial overlord—standing on a ledge and threatening to jump, while its imperial vassals—too many to mention—are standing down below and shouting “Please, don’t jump!”
To be sure, most of them would be perfectly happy to watch the overlord plummet and jelly up the sidewalk.
But here is the key point: if this were to happen today, it would cause unacceptable levels of political and economic collateral damage around the world.
Does this mean that the US is indispensable? No, of course not, nobody is. But dispensing with it will take time and energy, and while that process runs its course the rest of the world is forced to keep it on life support no matter how counterproductive, stupid and demeaning that feels.
What the world needs to do, as quickly as possible, is to dismantle the imperial center, which is in Washington politically and militarily and in New York and London financially, while somehow salvaging the principle of empire.
“What?!” you might exclaim, “Isn’t imperialism evil.”
Well, sure it is, whatever, but empires make possible efficient, specialized production and efficient, unhindered trade over large distances.
Empires do all sorts of evil things—up to and including genocide—but they also provide a level playing field and a method for preventing petty grievances from escalating into tribal conflicts.
The Roman Empire, then Byzantium, then the Tatar/Mongol Golden Horde, then the Ottoman Sublime Porte all provided these two essential services—unhindered trade and security—in exchange for some amount of constant rapine and plunder and a few memorable incidents of genocide.
The Tatar/Mongol Empire was by far the most streamlined: it simply demanded “yarlyk”—tribute—and smashed anyone who attempted to rise above a level at which they were easy to smash.
The American empire is a bit more nuanced: it uses the US dollar as a weapon for periodically expropriating savings from around the world by exporting inflation while annihilating anyone who tries to wiggle out from under the US dollar system.
All empires follow a certain trajectory. Over time they become corrupt, decadent and enfeebled, and then they collapse.
When they collapse, there are two ways to go. One is to slog through a millennium-long dark age—as Western Europe did after the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Another is for a different empire, or a cooperating set of empires, to take over, as happened after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. You may think that a third way exists: of small nations cooperating sweetly and collaborating successfully on international infrastructure projects that serve the common good.
Such a scheme may be possible, but I tend to take a jaundiced view of our simian natures.
We come equipped with MonkeyBrain 2.0, which has some very useful built-in functions for imperialism, along with some ancillary support for nationalism and organized religion.
These we can rely on; everything else would be either a repeat of a failed experiment or an untested innovation.
Sure, let’s innovate, but innovation takes time and resources, and those are the exact two things that are currently lacking.
What we have in permanent surplus is revolutionaries: if they have their way, look out for a Reign of Terror, followed by the rise of a Bonaparte.
That’s what happens every time.
Lest you think that the US isn’t an empire—a collapsing one—consider the following.
The US defense budget is larger than that of the next ten countries combined, yet the US can’t prevail even in militarily puny Afghanistan. (That’s because much of its defense budget is trivially stolen.)
The US has something like a thousand military bases, essentially garrisoning the entire planet, but to unknown effect. It claims the entire planet as its dominion: no matter where you go, you still have to pay US income taxes and are still subject to US laws.
It controls and manipulates governments in numerous countries around the world, always aiming to turn them into satrapies governed from the US embassy compound, but with results that range from unprofitable to embarrassing to lethal.
It is now failing at virtually all of these things, threatening the entire planet with its untimely demise.
What we are observing, at every level, is a sort of blackmail: “Do as we say, or no more empire for you!”
The US dollar will vanish, international trade will stop and a dark age will descend, forcing everyone to toil in the dirt for a millennium while mired in futile, interminable conflicts with neighboring tribes.
None of the old methods of maintaining imperial dominance are working; all that remains is the threat of falling down and leaving a huge mess for the rest of the world to deal with.
The rest of the world is now tasked with rapidly creating a situation where the US empire can be dealt a coup de grâce safely, without causing any collateral damage—and that’s a huge task, so everyone is forced to play for time.
There is a lot of military posturing and there are political provocations happening all the time, but these are sideshows that are becoming an unaffordable luxury: there is nothing to be won through these methods and plenty to be lost.
Essentially, all the arguments are over money. There is a lot of money to be lost. The total trade surplus of the BRICS countries with the West (US+EU, essentially) is over a trillion dollars a year. SCO—another grouping of non-Western countries—comes up with almost the same numbers. That’s the amount of products these countries produce for which they currently have no internal market.
Should the West evaporate overnight, nobody will buy these products. Russia alone had a 2017 trade surplus of $116 billion, and in 2018 so far it grew by 28.5%. China alone, in its trade just with the US, generated $275 billion in surplus. Throw in another $16 billion for its trade with the EU.
Those are big numbers, but they are nowhere near enough if the project is to build a turnkey global empire to replace US+EU in a timely manner. Also, there are no takers.
Russia is rather happy to have shed its former Soviet dependents and is currently invested in building a multilateral, international system of governance based on international institutions such as SCO, BRICS and EAEU.
Numerous other countries are very interested in joining together in such organizations: most recently,
Turkey has expressed interest in turning BRICS into BRICTS. Essentially, all of the post-colonial nations around the world are now forced to trade away some measure of their recently won independence, essentially snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The job vacancy of Supreme Global Overlord is unlikely to attract any qualified candidates.
What everyone seems to want is a humble, low-budget, cooperative global empire, without all of the corruption and with a lot less life-threatening militarism. It will take time to build, and the resources to build it can only come from one place: from gradually bleeding US+EU dry.
In order to do this, the wheels of international commerce must continue to spin. But this is exactly what all of the new tariffs and sanctions, the saber-rattling and the political provocations, are attempting to prevent: a ship laden with soya is now doing circles in the Pacific off the coast of China; steel I-beams are rusting at the dock in Turkey…
But it is doubtful that these attempts will work. The EU has been too slow in recognizing just how pernicious its dependence on Washington has become, and will take even more time to find ways to free itself, but the process has clearly started.
For its part, Washington runs on money, and since its current antics will tend to make money grow scarce even faster than it otherwise would, those who stand to lose the most will make the Washingtonians feel their pain and will force a change of course.
As a result, everyone will be pushing in the same direction: toward a slow, steady, controllable imperial collapse.
All we can hope for is that the rest of the world manages to come together and build at least the scaffolding of a functional imperial replacement in time to avoid collapsing into a new post-imperial dark age.
After years of behaving like a teenager shadow boxing in the basement of his mother’s house, playing out the fantasy of knocking out Ivan Drago in the 1985 movie Rocky IV, the US and NATO find themselves confronting the reality.– SCOTT RITTER
Being a member of NATO used to be pretty cost-free: fun even. You had a suite in the flashy new HQ, admired your flag with all the others, gloried in your excellent values. The biggest downside was that you were expected to provide a few soldiers to participate in the latest war in some dusty place. But, you could go home after destroying Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan and forget about it. Until the refugees showed up. And Washington really did insist that you buy some of its weapons and it was harder and harder to say no. And you started getting sucked into things that weren’t as much fun as you expected. But, overall, for the leaders anyway, it was an attractive deal. And most of you didn’t like Russia much, having edited your own communists out of the story and forgotten what the Germans did to you.
Russia was feeble and weak, going down, and certainly no match for “the greatest alliance in history“. But what happens when that teddy bear turns nasty? Blowing up countries from 20,000 feet, you had stopped paying attention. Lost wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq turn out to be poor preparation and the bear had been paying attention. But, you cry, NATO was supposed to protect me, not put me into greater danger!
There were two rounds of talks in Geneva and a meeting with NATO. The US written answer was delivered on 26 January and, in Lavrov’s words, did not address “the main issue” of NATO expansion and deployment of strike weapons, although there were openings on “matters of secondary importance”. So here we are and we await the next step. It is, of course, quite certain that Moscow has the next step worked out and the ones after that.
There have been some second thoughts. Washington and its allies have been booming the “Russian invasion” threat as hard as they can but Kiev is trying to to turn down the volume – it doesn’t want to scare its principal backers away. No signs on 2 January, or 25 January. Delicate job this, as we see here: you have to say not now but maybe later. Now even Washington is trying to dial it down – after all, Russia has been “about to invade” for three months now.
But the real second thoughts are forming in Europe. By addressing its demands to Washington, Moscow has shown the Europeans where they fit on the tree. It’s Europe that will – again – pay for Washington’s conceits. Washington is always careful to exempt itself from the anti-Russia sanctions – no shortage of rocket engines or oil or titanium – but Europe can’t. Amusingly, the EU is complaining to the WTO about the counter sanctions Moscow put on food which ended a profitable export market. The two favourite sanctions Washington is pushing for are stopping Nord Stream 2 and kicking Russia out of SWIFT. Neither of these will hurt the USA but they will be devastating for Europe. Killing Nord Stream will be a severe blow to German industry. And, absent SWIFT, how is Europe supposed to pay for Russian gas imports? No wonder Germany’s Scholz wants a “qualified fresh start” with Russia as the Foreign Minister calls for diplomacy. An Open Letter in Germany. France’s Macron thinks the EU should start its own dialogue. Hungary’s Orbán is going there for another reasons but will surely be talking about this. Croatia wants nothing to do with the adventure. Bulgaria wants out. One entertaining climbdown was the British Defence Minister’s invitation to Shoygu to come to London; instead he will go to Moscow. Even Washington and London are starting to learn that the sanctions won’t be off-stage after all. London has been warned ther e could be a big spike in energy co sts and some big American companies have asked t o be excepted. As for sending troops, Washington’s not that “United with Ukraine“.NATO won’t; UK’s Johnson admits no NATO count ry is capable of a large-scale deployment in Ukraine.
We are coming to the end of the story. All those people in the West who thought they could ignore Russia’s interests are starting to suspect that they don’t have the leverage they thought they had. Russia is pretty sanctions-proof. It is the closest thing to an economic autarky on the planet: lots of territory, lots of raw materials, lots of water, lots of energy, all the manufacturing it needs, self-sufficient in food, well-educated people, backed up government, armed to the teeth. It’s pretty impregnable and it’s not run by fools. And it’s very closely allied to the biggest manufacturing power and population in the world. Not an easy target at all and almost impossible to hurt without hurting yourself more.
And all this to preserve the so-called right of a country no one wants in NATO to ask to be admitted. What a principle to die for!
Time for Moscow to tighten the screws. How much will Europe and the other NATOites be prepared to pay for being in a security organisation that does nothing but get its members into disastrous wars and make them insecure?
Putin and his team can allow themselves a small smile: they’ve been planning this for a long time. He warned us in 2007 and here we are today.
“The main issue is our clear position on the unacceptability of further NATO expansion to the East and the deployment of highly-destructive weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Washington delivered a slap in the face to Moscow on Wednesday when U.S. ambassador John Sullivan provided a written response to Russia’s proposals for security guarantees.
The missive was given to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko who did not reveal the contents but passed them on to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for analysis.
Lavrov, in turn, issued a statement on Thursday morning confirming our worst suspicions that the Biden administration has shrugged off Russia’s reasonable demands choosing instead to intensify the provocations that are likely to trigger a war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. This is an excerpt from an article at Tass News Agency:
“The United States and NATO don’t seem to have taken Russia’s concerns on security guarantees into account when drawing up responses to Moscow’s proposals, nor did they demonstrate any willingness to do so, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.“The numerous statements that our colleagues made yesterday make it clear that as for the major aspects of the draft agreements that we earlier presented to other parties, we can’t say that they took our concerns into account or showed any readiness to take our concerns into consideration.” (Tass News Agency)
Peskov is right, on the core issues the US either issued no clear response or refused to comply.
In effect, the US response was designed to look like Washington was honestly negotiating when in fact, they were merely reinforcing their original position.
The US response is essentially a defense of Washington’s commitment to rule the world by force and to ignore the legitimate demands of weaker states to provide even minimal security for their people.
If the US and NATO are allowed to pursue their present course of action, Russian cities and towns will be within 7 to 10 minutes of nuclear missiles located in nearby Romania and Poland.
Russia’s are being asked to live with a nuclear dagger pointed at their throats. This is Biden’s idea of global security. Is it any wonder why Putin does not agree?
Here’s part of what Lavrov said on Thursday:
“There is no positive reaction on the main issue in this document. The main issue is our clear position that further NATO expansion to the east and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation are unacceptable.”
Lavrov has summed it up perfectly.
While Sullivan was delivering his response to Grushko, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a statement saying the Alliance “will not compromise” on potential expansion into Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics, as this clashes with the NATO’s principles.” Stoltenberg’s statement removes any doubt that NATO will not only continue its eastward expansion onto Russia’s doorstep, but feels thoroughly justified in doing so.
As we noted earlier, NATO’s response confirms that Washington is still committed to its overarching plan to rule the world by force regardless of how ordinary people are impacted by the policy.
On Thursday morning, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reiterated the recently-verified claim that NATO’s eastward expansion violates the promises of US officials to Russia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
“They promised not to expand NATO, but didn’t keep their promise,” Medvedev said speaking with the Russian media. “They say that ‘we did not sign anything.’ But we all know well who and when granted to whom such promises, such assurances….. They failed to keep their promises. They are now encroaching on our state borders.”
The steady eastward movement of troops, the buildup of lethal military hardware, and the deployment of nuclear weapons all pose an existential threat to Russia that suffered horrific losses in World War 2.
The Biden administration seems to believe their sinister plan is working since people in the west generally believe reports in the media that the fake threat of “Russian invasion” is an honest account of what is actually going on the ground.
But there is no threat of a Russian invasion; the story was stitched together to divert attention from Russia’s security demands which are both reasonable and appropriate.
Once again, the media is shaping a narrative to fit the policy which is the very description of state propaganda.
In an effort to further downplay the importance of Moscow’s requests, US officials characterized their written response not as “a formal document but a set of ideas for further discussion.”
What this means is that Washington does not feel that that Russia is its equal so it does not feel required to enter into a treaty agreement with them.
Keep in mind, this response does not in any way meet the basic requirements that were clearly outlined by Putin repeatedly in December when he said thatRussia wanted a written, legally-biding treaty that could not be sloughed off by countries that prefer to conduct an impulsive, self-aggrandizing, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants foreign policy that has left great swathes of the Middle East and Central Asia in an utter shambles.
Indeed, this may not be a “formal document”, but it is clear that there will be a formal document or there will be no agreement and no peace. The choice is Washington’s.
On the issue of nuclear missile sites in Poland and Romania, as well as, the development of military bases in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated that Washington was still open to discussion.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that if Russia were to approach this seriously, and in a spirit of reciprocity, with the determination to enhance collective security for all of us, there are very positive things in this document that should be pursued,” he said.
“Positive things”, says Blinken?
There are no “positive things” in the American response.
The response is a flagrant and contemptible rejection of Moscow’s core demands on NATO expansion and the deployment of nuclear missiles to locations on Russia’s border.
To understand what a fraud the Biden administration is engaged in, please, take a look at this brief excerpt from the draft treaty that Russia presented to NATO and Washington.
The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them……The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.Article 7The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories.” (“Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees,” Official Russian State Document, December 17, 2021)
Is there anything ambiguous in the language of this document?
No, there isn’t.
The US was asked to respond in writing to these explicit demands. No one is in the slightest bit interested in Blinken’s vague pontifications on “positive things”. It’s completely irrelevant.
What Putin wants to know is whether US nukes are going to remain 7 minutes flight-time from Moscow and whether a hostile foreign army is going to be hunkered down in nearby Ukraine.
He wants to know whether Washington plans to put a gun to Russia’s head in order to increase its power in the region.
That’s what he wants to know, and that’s what this foreign policy debacle is all about.
What Blinken’s response tells us is that the provocations are going to continue unabated whether they ignite a war or not.
Even as we speak, the US is sending more lethal weaponry and troops to the Ukrainian theater while other NATO allies promise to assist in the effort. It is madness.
At the same time, President Joe Biden is threatening to impose “direct personal sanctions” on Putin if the Russian president takes action to defend the Russian-speaking people in East Ukraine.
The threat was issued just hours after the State Department told Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov that he “would have to leave the US by April if Moscow fails to meet certain demands made by Washington.”
While these may seem like trivial developments, the two incidents help to illustrate how relations between the two nations are fast deteriorating increasing the prospect of a tragic miscalculation that could precipitate a bloody and protracted conflagration.
…
A Quote…
In an interview, Putin said once:
“If a fight becomes inevitable, you must be sure to be the first to strike”.
This was something learned, he told, from his experience in the streets of Leningrad.
I am afraid he might be soon forced to apply this precept. I hope some sense prevails in the minds of US and NATO leaders and, if not publicly, at least behind doors, they keep trying to address Russia’s concerns.
MM Gut Feeling…
My gut feeling is that the USA is (as crazy and insane as it seems) planning a first-strike nuclear action against either Russia or China, or even both. My gut feeling is that they are seriously discussing it right now, and that are are some seriously insane people demanding that it take place. They are seriously discussing it. As in… WHEN.
Not…IF.
Jesus.
I sincerely hope that I am wrong.
But…
What I can positively tell you all is that EVEN if the United States tries to make a massive preemptive nuclear catastrophic strike against Asia, it will be too late.
…
…
It will be too late.
…
With both Russia and China, they are staffed with real talent; real experts, who are really serious about their roles and are there through merit and ability.
…
Not though blowjobs, polictical donations, graft, or inheritance.
Like America.
The truth is that both Russia and China has a gun pointed at the head of the United States. Both of them do. Right now. This is on all levels, nuclear, black ops, economic, financial, social, societal, and political.
The United States is still playing around with media to “control the narrative” while the world has moved well, well further than that. The future is now firmly in the hands of Asia.
The Commander says that the Russians and Chinese are uniformly at
96% readiness.
That’s about the best you can get.
Seriously.
That’s substantially better than what was the case 8 months ago. It is no wonder that Russia and China placed their clear demands; set up their defined “white tents”.
They have a gun to the head of the USA.
When the USA reaches for it’s gun, it will be too late.
And they know exactly what is going on, how and why, where, and when, and everything else in between. They know. They know.
They KNOW.
And thus, it will be scene right out of the Sopranos. Like this…
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Apparently, the United States, and the rest of the Western bloc, was so positive that they could goad Russia into a war in the Ukraine that they produced tons of videos of an invasion. Of course, these were to be broadcast to the American sheeple and the European sheeple as proof of Russian aggression and the brave Ukraine fighters. It’s all part of the “grand scheme”. Nothing happened. Russia didn’t fall for the bait, or allow the tricks to manifest, and now all these videos are unused. Nevertheless, many are now leaked and available on the internet. Here we discuss these videos.
The United States NEEDS a war. It does.
Not the people, of course. The oligarchy does, and the military-industrial complex does. And they are pushing and pushing and pushing for one.
This time, they are pushing against a very dangerous, capable and talented people that are bigger, stronger, tougher, and nastier than anything America has ever experienced before.
Yet, it’s the same old script.
Goad a nation into a military response. Push and push, and push and push, until they snap back. The United States has been hitting two tender areas. One against China against it’s Taiwan break-away province, and one against Russia by the placement of nuclear weapons on the Russian border there in the Ukraine.
If the nation doesn’t fight back, then the “false flag” playbook comes out.
False Flag
A “false flag” scenario occurs when a group deliberately misrepresents affiliation and hides its true identity.
It is used widely during war and covert operations.
It is a deceptive move undertaken by a country or an organization to set up an attack.
Pirate ships often used “false flags” of nations to deceive merchant ships while undertaking an attack under a “false flag“.
There are numerous examples throughout history of military troops stealing uniforms from their enemy to take part in covert operations in order to carry out a clandestine military campaign.
The “false flag” tactic is often used to start a war.
False Flag operations CIA had reportedly carried a false flag operation in 1953 against Iran’s former PM Mohammad Mosaddeq in order to successfully launch operation TPAJAX as it conducted bombing campaigns which were blamed on communist sympathisers. A declassified report claimed Britain’s MI6 and the CIA jointly undertook the operations.
The Ukraine Events
Numerous “False Flag” events were planned and thwarted in the Ukraine.
It appears that Russia were expecting numerous false flag events, and had sympathizers and agents on the ground in the Ukraine that stopped the events. As far as I can determine, these were two separate attempts at trying to release a chemical warfare event to be blamed on Russia.
They are on the Internet, I won’t dwell too much about them here.
Russian President Vladimir Putin today told his military officers that Moscow will deliver a technical-military response to NATO. President Putin made remarks to the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense. Russia’s Defense Ministry is managed by a council chaired by the Defense Minister, deputy defense ministers, the heads of the Main Defense Ministry and General Staff Directorates, the commanders of the Joint Strategic Commands, and the three services of the armed forces.Defense Minister Segei Shogu also spoke to the defense council.
Gen. Shogiu accused the United States of sending private military contractors to Ukraine to plot a false flag event involving chemical weapons that could be blamed on Russia.
Rick Wiles, Doc Burkhart. Airdate 12/21/21
Once they were prevented, and the CIA / Mi6 / 5eye assets were interrogated and killed. In a panic, the collective West flooded the internet with garbage about Putin planning false flag attacks. So it’s now very difficult to find any information at all about what really happened; The United States false-flag attacks. All you see is the flooded propigana about Russia planning false-flag attacks. Not the actual CIA false-flag events.
The real truth is now all buried and hidden under a thick layer of nonsense.
Why the Hell would Russia want to attack the Ukraine?
Seriously. All this war talk, and no one is discussing the big “why?”.
The Ukraine is laughingly called the “404 nation”. It is a completely collapsed, poverty-stricken wasteland. The Western section is hard-core fascist and has a LGBQ American-backed government of boot-licking egotistical psychopathic personalities.
Yes, the Eastern section speak Russian and are more democratic and wealthier, however any movies to embrace and take over even a portion of the country would become a serious burden on Russia itself. The GDP might take a hit of a good 25% of it’s GDP and stifle any growth that Russia is experiencing for decades.
Simply put, any military adventures into the Ukraine by Russia would hurt and damage Russia.
That is why the idea that Russia is going to invade the Ukraine is just silly, stupid and insane. Only a couch-potato chip munching fat slob American sheeple would believe such a ridiculous narrative.
Now, about those pesky movies…
Everything is set up. Everything is funded. The Mainstream media are out there a howling away. They are screeching and yelling and stamping their feet about war! War! War! The American sheeple are getting tired of the constantly blaring of noise, and the Europeans are no longer amused.
Russia is doing nothing.
So the media has resorted to outright lies. These are becoming more and more numerous on all issues on all fronts.
The latest lie is that China warned Russia not to attack the Ukraine or else.
Of course, this completely infuriated the Chinese who not only denied that anything like this happened, but they told the American news media pushing these lies (Bloomberg, CNN, Yahoo, and others) that if they continue to push such lies they will be banned from China. Not that it would matter much, but the Chinese have a strong belief that actions require consequences.
China is very supportive of Russia. All Russia needs to do is ask, and China will accomidate.
Anyway…
So there’s this major effort to false-flag the Hell out of the Ukraine, and this includes a hard-core hyper media onslaught, manipulation of the EU, and all sorts of pressures and justifications.
Eventually cumulating in the angering of Russia, resulting in a non-ultimatum demaning an answer. It is unique in that it specifically wanted guarantees in written English that America would abide to the documents that it has already signed and agreed to, and stop its provocations aimed at Russia.
The USA gave its response.
The answer was NO.
Bloomberg.
And United States continued to incite, narrate and create a war in the Ukraine. A war that all the participants do not want. But the wealthy oligarchy in New York, and Washington, and Virginia absolutely do.
UPDATE: This article has been finished and ready to be emailed to The Saker, when the news coming from the government of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics confirmed my observations expressed here.
In my extensive library of e-books, there is a book by Reese Erlich titled Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect. The book outlines the situation developed in Syria by 2014 that was pushed, sponsored, narrated, and propagated by the United States.
In Chapter 11 of the book, “United States, Russia, and Outside Powers” Reese Erlich writes: “Meanwhile, the Obama administration was pursuing a secret military track. The CIA began overseeing arms shipments to the Free Syrian Army no later than June 2012 when it leaked the story to the New York Times. The CIA began directly arming and training rebels in early 2013 (see chapter 5). Proclaiming support for nonviolent resistance while arming rebels was not seen as a contradiction, according to State Department critic Kathy. She said the State was populated with ‘humanitarian interventionists,’ people who favor one or another form of military intervention by claiming it will, in the end, protect civilians. ‘But we never discuss the legality of such attacks, let alone the morality,’ she told me. Controversial policies are sent to the legal department for review. ‘They’ll always find a way to justify whatever policy is decided.’”
The Biden administration was soaked to the brim by Obama’s people and their “expertise.” Let’s say, they are unparalleled in inflicting “pain” on people of targeted nations.
“State Department officials insisted that Syrians would benefit from US policy in the long run. The spokesperson acknowledged that ordinary Syrians were hurt by American economic sanctions, which had caused a massive drop in their standard of living. But, as if admonishing naughty children, the spokesperson told me Uncle Sam would make it up to them. ‘Once the behavior changes, once we have the Assad regime step down, we will make sure this is an environment where Americans can do business.’ There’s an interesting logic here. He assumed that the solution for economic collapse is American business investment. What’s good for American business, apparently, is good for the Syrian people. Similarly, the State Department saw no contradiction between criticizing Assad’s human-rights record and supporting pro-US regimes elsewhere in the region also committing abuse, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The State Department simply assumed that US allies can and will change while enemies will not. The spokesperson explained that allies may abuse human rights, ‘but we work with them.’”
Recalling the standard disclaimer on investment products. “Past performance does not guarantee future results,” with the political operatives teams only one thing is certain. The results for Ukraine will be very different, but the methods are the same.
In the beginning of December, Russia’s Ministry of Defense issued an unheard of warning about the possibility of the false flag attack in Ukraine with someone impersonating the Russian military.
A couple of days later, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it had handed the Biden administration demands for the security guarantees, and in another two days the rest of the document was posted on the ministry website. The demand for the security guarantees for Russia from the US and NATO acted as a giant monkey wrench thrown into the spinning wheel of the Western propaganda of the “invasion of Ukraine.”
Claims of “invasion” have been circulating on and off for the past 8 years, and started sounding louder in April of 2021. In November, Zelensky announced that Russia wants to topple his regime. In December, the Russian government published warnings about upcoming false flag attacks and made the diplomatic moves that somewhat confused and wobbled the “invasion” proponents. They only gained some ground by now, which is the end of January.
On Friday, January 28, the DOD and Biden administration announced the “imminent” invasion of Ukraine during a Biden/Zelensky phone conversation. Zelensky disagreed and, counterintuitively, insisted that there wasn’t much proof that the Russian army was going to “invade Ukraine.” According to CNN, the conversation “did not go well.” Zelensky and Biden disagreed about the immediacy of the threat of a “Russian attack on Ukraine.” The White House and Pentagon has been emphatic that they believe the attack could be “imminent.”
The Zerohedge article collected a hilarious confusion of the warmongering CNN coming with war propaganda and then removing it after a few hours and claiming that they were deceived by their source in the Zelensky administration.
So, the cover fall out and we witnessed a giant mix of fear, greed, hatred, russophobia,incompetence, bloodlust, and pure clinical insanity, which constitute the modern American policy-making. Many right, exact, deep and very funny things have been said and written since, but there was something else that I wouldn’t want to go unnoticed.
During his Friday press briefing, Zelensky said something that holds the golden key to the mystery of an “invasion.”
Tucker Carlson included this important segment into his Friday night monologue.
Tucker: This is a slow motion disaster
Here is a short description.
Zelensky sits in a chair on some podium in front of a room full of journalists. The White House says that the conversation between Biden and Zelensky came down to “Russian invasion is imminent,” “Kiev will be sacked,” and “prepare for impact,” and insists that Zelensky asking Biden to stop fear mongering and to turn down the rhetoric never happened.
Zelensky, however, says it did happen:
“We talked to the president. We talked about the same things, about the media and that there has to be a balanced approach. I’m not saying that he is influencing the American media, they are independent, but media policy has to be more balanced. If they want to know what the situation is here in Ukraine they should come to Kiev. Do we have tanks on the streets? No! The image that the mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case. We don’t need this panic!”
Prior, Jen Psaki claimed that the Biden administration had 18 scenarios of “Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Sergey Lavrov responded by saying that 17 scenarios were written by 17 intelligence agencies and one by the DOS staff.
The only thing was certain, it would be a false flag attack, because Russia didn’t have any plans to take over Ukraine.
It’s very expensive, since we would have to feed their population, solve its problems, and ensure its general well-being. All this would be an enormous injustice to us, Russians, since it’s only recently that we started to live better. The economy is growing the fastest ever. Good and fair energy prices in Europe and great prices for our other exports like wheat and fertilizers pay higher pensions and paychecks of doctors, teachers, military and law enforcement, and other federal employees.The government just recently undertook gigantic investments into mega infrastructure projects and mega oil and gas processing plants (source).
It’s beyond stupid and evil to think that after trillions rubles in new investments Russian government should decides it wants to occupy and feed the failed state of Ukraine.
So, the whole thing is just a Biden admin manufactured pretext to impose new illegal trade restrictions that would per their design crush our economy and make us all poor, again.
But, going back to the gold key to the mystery that fell out of Zelensky’s mouth. What scenario will the US use to stage a false flag attack to blame it on Russia?
Here is a spoiler alert.
At 2:37 on the Tacker Carlson video, the image allegedly from Ukraine looks like the black-and-white WWII footage.
Fake war footage
Zelensky said during his interview, “Do we have tanks on the streets? No! The image that the mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case!”
And that’s our Oscar winning scenario of virtual invasion. It was staged and prerecorded and was supposed to be broadcast all over the world.
Last week, some British news channel aired an interview with Ukrainian general Oleksandr Pavliuk who famously said that he has half a million veterans who are ready “to tear Russians apart with their bare hands.” (source)
I couldn’t find this footage again, but if you happen to come across it you will notice a middle aged overweight man in khaki looking like a stuffed sausage or the Michelin Man. He slowly runs across the snowy field,and then appears behind the general, while someone on the background shouting and shooting aimlessly, and a smoke machine in the snow emits dense vapor covering the whole scene with a couple of military trucks and a couple of men hiding behind them. The whole scene is a movie set, and they are filming scenes of a virtual “Russian invasion.”
In Zelensky’s own words: Do we have tanks on the streets? No! The image that the mass media creates is that we have troops on the roads, we have mobilization, people are leaving for places. That’s not the case!
So, when we see news on tanks on the streets in Ukraine, troops on the roads, mass mobilization and people in khaki leaving for places – it’s an image of the “Russian invasion” that western media have created.
Newsweek image of alleged middle-aged “Ukrainian soldiers”.
Borrowed from here:
Ukraine is a very poor country. People there would do anything for money, especially act in a movie.
On Monday, January 31, The head of the People’s Militia Department, Yan Leshchenko, announced that Kiev is preparing staged and filmed stories about the military actions allegedly unleashed by the republics of Donbass and Russia against Ukraine (source)
“Our intelligence obtained reliable information about the development and implementation by Ukrainian special services with the support of Western intelligence agencies of a special information campaign codenamed Crushing Sword. The purpose of this campaign is to mislead the world community and accuse the People’s Republics of Donbass and the Russian Federation of aggression against Ukraine,” Leshchenko quotes the Telegram channel of the People’s Militia of the LPR (source)
Lugansk now has reliable information that Kiev is preparing professionally acted and staged TV stories as part of the campaign. “At the first stage of the information campaign with the beginning of aggression by the Ukrainian Armed Forces the Kiev regime planned to broadcast pre-prepared staged videos on the alleged beginning of military operations against Ukraine by the People’s republics and the Russian Federation,” Leshchenko said.
The Ukrainian authorities organized videos about the residents of Donbass, who allegedly ask “to free them from Russian oppression.” “Kiev is ready to release staged videos on television in which specially trained citizens on behalf of our people will talk about the “horrors of war” and ask “to free them from Russian oppression,” the head of the People’s Militia department informed.
TASS reported that according to Leshchenko, Kiev propagandists want to convince the world community of the legitimacy of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, allegedly liberating Donbass from terrorists. “Ukrainian propagandists intend to demonstrate the successes of the Ukrainian army in allegedly successfully repelling the imaginary aggression of the people’s republics, as well as conducting an offensive on Donbass. According to the plan, the international community and the population of Ukraine will have to make sure of the legality of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, allegedly liberating Donbass from terrorists. The death of civilians in the people’s republics will be presented as the destruction of terrorists,” he said in a statement.
Final Thoughts
The United States War Machine is on auto-pilot and running at full-throttle. It is just plowing ahead and is Hell-bent on creating a war with Asia one way or the other.
False-flag events are set up to start a popping up everwhere, and the American Navy and military forces are all moving about all over the globe surrounding Asia trying to instigate a war.
This week at the Olympics, Putin and Xi Peng will hold a joint statement. It will be optomistic and promising. It will be hopeful. But within that statement, whatever how nice and hopeful it will sound, will be a message that will put a bone-chilling terror down the spines of the Colelctive West. I don’t know what it is, but I am sure that we will find out soon enough.
Just realize that the positive news will have a component that will “blow off” the knee-caps of the United States military empire and it’s EU enablers.
I can’t wait to hear what it is.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
The notion expressed in the original piece that the US just resigns itself to failure and fades away is unrealistic, or at the very least not certain.
Historically, the outcome of circumstances like the present is major war.
Empires rarely die quietly. They go either piecemeal or all at once, violently.
The British went piecemeal. But Britain was always too small to hold onto their Empire.
The US is a superpower, not just an imperial power like the European colonial powers. As long as it has its navy and air force (another important distinction from Britain), it will continue to try to push its power everywhere until forcibly restrained.
-Richard Steven Hack
This is just going to be a short and simple article that I want to throw out there. But it’s an important one. Currently, the United States military empire is dying. It is collapsing from the inside, falling apart and flailing in every conceivable way and (since the “news” is owned and 100% controlled by the government) and all of this is selectively being reported or hidden intentionally. Here we are going to provide a tool; a “filter” from which to read all the bullshit on the internet with.
This filter is very significant. It should not be ignored.
Pay attention…
The Filter
The nature of war has changed.
Any major war between the Western Block and Asia will NOT be along any of the assumed avenues…
Color revolutions; CIA sponsored “regime changes” for “democracy”.
Military troop advances and the capture of territory; such as in Iraq, World War II, and so on and so forth. Including all this talk about the Ukraine.
Blockades. Whether by sea lanes, or sanctions, or currency manipulation.
Public Opinion. The only control of the media is domestic, and that is in tatters.
Grass Root movements. It used to occur centuries ago. No longer exists.
Economic. Sabotage, manipulation or theft are all well documented techniques.
Remote electronic precision attacks. The drone effect was pretty effective in devastating Yemen, Not so in the next conflict.
Bio-warfare. We’re in that right now. The 11 strains of American bioweapons did not suppress China, it only made it stronger.
Now what we do have…
HV-MIRV-ICBM. Hyper-velocity, AI controlled, flight maneuverable, independent, that may or may not be nuclear armed, weapons that can hit anything, anywhere and there is no defense against it.
In other words, why have a military moving to capture some nameless hill in the Ukraine…
… when Moscow can just kill all the generals and their neocon supporters by one singular nuclear burst in Washington, DC?
Boom!
Problem solved. Root cause eliminated. Ukrane reverts to a peaceful agarian land.
And that is where we are at right now. The politicians can no longer hide in their mansions far away from the battle zones. The technical savvy fighters cannot sit in their comfortable barracks and fly drones halfway around the world. The wealthy warmongering businessmen can no longer guarantee that they will be safe where ever they live; even if it’s a bomb shelter in New Zealand.
It’s a new world; and a new situation.
Great Quote
This is the new situation, and Asia is incorporating it from the top downwards. If anyone attacks them, they will not fight the battles as they used to. They will now destroy the leadership of the war-sponsoring nation.
Let me give you this great quote to help put things in perspective…
“Russia plans to engage its nuclear weapons not against those countries where it was launched against Russia, but against the mastermind cities where all the decisions were made.
To be exact, it is Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and numerous other American cities.
Please fully understand, in case American nuclear weapons are launched from, eg. Taiwan, or Poland, the Russian response will be to hit New York or Washington.”-Russian Duma deputy, Yevgeny Fyodorov.
This is Chinese policy as well.
So what does this mean?
Well, consider the “news”. About the United States sending ships out here, and military forces out there, and all this and all that.
Russia and China have both specifically “telegraphed” that any placement of offensive weapons in their borders will be met with the destruction of ALL AMERICAN CITIES.
It’s “red lines”. The ones that the media has so laughingly dismissed.
1. Russia (not just Putin) is insisting in ‘writing’ only because the U.S. pinky swear of 1991 was worthless and they denied it. If we go to war, Russia being all prim and proper wants this to be on record. ‘We got this on record!’2. Russia made their demands clear, even if the U.S. denied it. Do not use NATO membership as an excuse to install U.S. tactical / nuclear missiles. If you do we will destroy them.Hard stop. Period end.
-Christian J. Chuba
Look at the militaries of all involved.
Russian militaries are NOT designed to advance over and take over large swaths of territory and police it. They are designed for rapid and horrific, short-lived devastation quickly and then go back home.
Kazakhstan is a perfect example of this…
A “color revolution” breaks out and all the Western media are in unison blaming it on gas increases.
A “color revolution” in the heart of the BRI explodes, with trained insurgents seizing all the major facilities and airports involved. Within 24 hours, Russia flies in and treats it…
… not as a pro-democracy uprising over the price of gas…
…but as a CIA-backed “color revolution” with armed and trained soldiers. And Russia came in and seized all the soldiers and killed them. Within three days it was all over, and the “staff in Langley, Va” were left with their “jaws on the floor” in stunned disbelief.
Russia comes in. Kills all the bad guys. Then leaves.
“By submitting their security demands, Russia is signaling unequivocally it is now taking the initiative.”Yes. This aligns with my own thoughts. When Russia declared its ‘ultimatum’, existing conditions were already in a state of violation.
Witness Kazakhstan.
Therefore, Russia had no choice but to act or face global humiliation by failing to live up to its own decree. Russia could not just sit passively knowing another ‘color revolution’ was being hatched. This is why I believe that the Russian offensive began in Kazakhstan. Russian intel succeeded in exposing the Western-backed coup attempt and forced it to be prematurely executed. Everything was already in place to crush the uprising quickly and efficiently.It is certain Russia is not passively waiting for what comes next with regard to Western intentions for Ukraine. I’m wagering that there is an active Russian initiative to solve the Ukrainian problem, but not one that will entail tank battles on the steppes. Rather, it will be a lesson in Russian-style hybrid warfare. Maybe not even a shot will need to be fired, or perhaps violence will be limited to one mass casualty event amongst Western PMC’s or UkroNazis. It is probable that the puppet regime in Kiev has only a few weeks left.
The same is true about China.
China’s military are not large to take over Japan. It is large to prevent anyone from even considering attacking the Chinese mainland. They have absolutely zero interest in seizing any further lands or territories. Though, the reunification of their Taiwan province is a separate matter.
Meanwhile, the United States military is for global force projection from staging based pre-supplied with equipment and material. With 800+ military bases, and guns, ammo and materials sprinkled all over the world, it is designed to be the “world’s Policeman”.
It’s a new world with new weapons and new power-structures.
What is the capability?
To strike anywhere on the world unopposed using massive weapons of destruction.
Which nations have this capability?
Russia
China
Which nations do not have this capability?
The United States
The UK
Japan
Australia
The European Union
So what does that mean?
The next “big” war will not resemble any of the previous wars.
Those nations that have the ability to deliver systems unmolested to their opponent will win the next war.
Nations, countries and societies that cannot fight this kind of war are advised not to get involved in any war. Instead, they should concentrate on their own domestic needs and trade.
If a nation refuses to do so, and tries to push towards a war using full-spectrum hybrid-war techniques, they are likely to be annihilated completely and erased from the surface of the planet.
What am I saying?
Russia and China can shoot down nuclear missiles. The United States cannot.
Russia and China can launch missiles that cannot be defended against.
Thus, during this short period of time we have a situation where the United States is being very aggressive in trying to start a war based upon historical techniques, not really realizing that THIS NEXT WAR will be the end of the United States.
Regarding the “news”
Any discussions of troop movements, and naval positioning is for the purposes of intimidation and to apply pressure on one nation or the other.
A REAL war will happen within minutes, and the only way that you will know anything is going on is by your lack of internet.
MM Advice
No one ever listens to me.
But, were I to be the President of the United States, I would advise surrender.
If I were president of Australia, I would advise kicking the USA out of their nations, and push forward as a neutral nation trying to be friends with all my neighbors.
If I were the head of the UK, I would advise focusing on all the domestic issues and reach outwardly to my neighbors in kind manners towards an embrace of mutual respect and friendship.
As I said, I am a practical person. I do not have the psychopathic tendencies that many of the leadership in the collective West seem to possess. So my advice will not be listened to.
So, the next best thing is to “punt”. Pull back and bide some time. What ever happens, absolutely The WORST course of action is to attack either Russia or China or any of their allies and friends. It will not go well.
Makes me yen for earlier days…
And it does. It’s so easy to get angry reading the “news”. Expecially all the lies that are going back and forth. I tell you that American “news” is the worst! Let’s go back to an earlier time…
Get a haircut and eat a breakfast. Together for under fifty cents.
Want a haircut?
Take a spin on a motorcycle…
Motorcycle man.
January 20, 1919. “Recreation barracks at the American Red Cross Agricultural Training School for French Mutiles, Le Liege (Indre et Loire).”
Go flying…
Go flying.
Life in the big city
November 1940. “Corner store in Lexington, Kentucky.” Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
November 1940. “Corner store in Lexington, Kentucky.” Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
November 1940. “Boys in soft drink parlor. Central City, Kentucky.” Medium format acetate negative by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration.
Crossing the street
Buying some groceries. March 1939. “Small Mexican grocery store. San Antonio, Texas.” Medium format acetate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration.
Buying some groceries.
Roundhouse dreams…
October 1937. “Boy reading in bedroom. Note lack of proper bed clothing. Home of A.O. Ryland, farmer who has quit farming. Near Williston, North Dakota.”I love his breeches.
Getting involved in a good book.
Checking out the nice car…
New Hampshire circa 1906. “Taking trains of Mount Washington Railway at base station, White Mountains.” A cog railway to the highest peak in the Northeast.
Taking a train.
What does this all mean?
History is full of periods of inflection like we are experiencing today.
Whether it was American Indians meeting rifles, horse and smallpox, or the Polish calvary meeting German tanks with machineguns the period of inflection occurred.
And with each period of change, the world changed as well…
…but…
For many, if you were outside of the primary fighting or the battles, your life was safe. It was calm, and it was nice. Such as in these pictures above. And that is what is going on right now. Most of you all are safe. The only “news” is the bullshit that you read, and seriously it’s all lies.
Right now.
So, just live life. Strengthen your little bubble of security and live it. Don’t allow the monster that is the “news media” throw you “out of kilter“. Live life well.
Have some delicious fondue with nice delicious cheese…
Enjoy the delicious fondue.
And enjoy it with some nice wine, breads, olives and cheeses…
Enjoy the good things.
And enjoy the time with friends and family…
Friends and family.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
There have been a lot of things happening as of late. The United States, after years of poking and prodding both Russia and China, the two nations collectively “put their foot down”, and said “STOP”!
Well, actually, they STOMPED their collective feet down, and laid out the lines forcefully. Both Putin and Xi Peng told the United States to collectively…
“Get off our porches. Stay out of our front yards, and get out of our backyards”.
The United States response was predictable.
It followed the same well-established profile of nearly a century of deception and mediocre international participation. They responded with a two-fold “kick in the teeth“.
Firstly [1], a promise not to target Russia and China with all the nuclear weapons that are surrounding their countries (as in “yeah, sure”) and secondly [2] immediately launched a color revolution in the belly nexus in Kazakhstan.
ColorRevolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effectiveCIA-led regime changeoperationsusingtechniquesdeveloped by the RAND Corporation, “democracy” NGOs and other groups since the 1980’s. They were used in crudeform to bring down the Polish communist regime in the late1980s.
-WilliamEngdahl
The “sincerity” was out in the open for all to see.
For their part, both Russia and China publically promoted the “good will” aspects of this effort. They did so, knowing, full well, that the United States needs some face-saving positives for it’s horrifically inept blundering and evil manipulations.
But in both Beijing and Moscow, the answer was “telegraphed” clear as day. America smiled for the cameras and then turned around and said “FUCK YOU!” to both.
When they launched their well-thought-out and planned color revolution, they anticipated another decade-long color revolution that would generate strife and turmoil.
A color revolution in Kazakhstan
Andrei speaks…
According to Russian sources, the usual US-controlled disinformation resources (including Ukie ones!) are out in full force to support the insurrection.
The levels of violence are very high, even ambulances are attacked, cops are beaten up, disarmed, undressed, and humiliated, weapons stores have been emptied.
The Internet has been disconnected, as has power in many parts of Almaty and Nursultan.
This is a repeat of what the US tried in Belarus and in Kyrgyzstan, and the next couple of days will be crucial.
Many government buildings have been seized and burned, some have been re-taken by the authorities.
Law and order have broken down and groups of thugs are controlling the streets in many locations.
There are reports of organized armed groups engaging in firefights with police, security, and military forces.
One source reports that Kazakh Airborne Forces are also engaged. There are also reports of Takfiri elements using these riots (officially triggered by an increase in the cost of gas).
Official sources report 8 dead and 317 wounded among the police forces. The authorities lost control over several cities (including Alma-Ata) and 3 airports (part of which were torched).Astana and Pavlodar remain under the control of authorities.
Martial law has been decreed for the entire country.
These events are a direct threat to both Russia and China. Turkey seems to be pushing its pan-Turkic agenda. The CIA supported Uighur Takfiris also seemed to be involved. This is all taken straight out of the CIA playbook: Twitter, Telegram channels (including NEXTA), Soros-funded organizations, etc. are all deeply involved (including Ukie PSYOPs units).
The United States upens up the same old “playbook”
They anticipated “discussions” with the “proud freedom lovers”, and the police being stressed, and collapsing. They anticipated cities to fall, and the American hand-picked proxy leadership to start running things.
How do we know this? Well, that was the exactly official American and British responses in their “news” media outlets. “Talk with the protestors”, “Negotiate with them”, and “we support their efforts for freedom™ and democracy™”.
President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman has denied that the US government is behind the violent protests that have rocked Kazakhstan this week, claiming that unnamed “Russians” have falsely accused Washington of triggering the tumult.
The White House is monitoring the protests in Kazakhstan and supports “calls for calm, for protesters to express themselves peacefully and for authorities to exercise restraint,” Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday.
“There are some crazy Russian claims about the US being behind this, so let me just use this opportunity to convey that is absolutely false and clearly a part of the standard Russian disinformation playbook,” she said.
-RT
The American playbook; Play the same old “games”. Even though the facts are there in the Federal Budget for the world to see. It’s a line item to fund “Regime Change” in Kazakhstan. Duh. Billions of dollars. And somehow we are expected to believe that the money was used elsewhere for other purposes, eh?
It did not happen.
Both China and Russia are no longer playing THOSE games. No polite police-officers. No, “give the demonstrators” some leeway and time to “negotiate”. These were not a grassroots domestic revolution. Instead, it was an invasion via proxy concocted by the United States. And everyone knows it.
So… well, you all read the news, right?
It was a BRUTAL response.
The CIA Color Revolution ended within a week
Kazakhstan, Russia and China treated this as a military invasion, and acted promptly and immediately.
Non-stop military transport planes ferried crack battle-trained combat troops to the sectors. Not as a policing unit to “control the peace”, but rather as a lethal military arm sent to kill.
Here’s what the CTSO general had to say…
Sitrep: Summary of Briefing from Colonel General Andrei Serdyukov, commander of the CSTO grouping in Kazakhstan.
Colonel General Andrei Serdyukov, commander of the CSTO grouping in Kazakhstan.
Briefing on Kazakhstan. 07.01.2022
1. Citizens of Alma-Ata are urged to stay indoors and observe the state of emergency until the remaining militants are killed.
Given the ongoing shooting, this is in the interests of the citizens themselves.
Authorities warn that trained guerrilla snipers are operating in the city.
More than 3,000 people have been arrested and dozens killed.
There are still corpses on the streets which have not been removed.
2. Tokayev announced that the operation in Alma-Ata will continue until all militants have been exterminated.
Concerning the question whether the protesters or not, everything is simple here – a group of unidentified people has been carrying on organized firing squad with the police, guards and the army of Kazakhstan, who have been suffering losses in killed and wounded for three days now.
Accordingly, the main task is the physical destruction of the enemy who has occupied part of the center of the city.
Some of the militants, who are lucky, will simply be captured, followed by a conviction.
The rest will be destroyed.
3. Kots writes that in Tokayev’s appeal the question of complicity of some high-ranked law-enforcers linked to Nazarbayev (who is still keeping silence) to what happened will be raised, which actually legitimizes the version that the main mechanism of what happened was not gas prices but the struggle of Tokayev and Nazarbayev’s groups for power.
We are waiting for Tokayev’s official interpretation of what happened.
Nazarbayev remains silent (is he still alive? Is he sick? Is he arrested? Is he isolated?)
4. The CSTO grouping in Kazakhstan is commanded by Lieutenant General Serdyukov.
All Russian units sent to Kazakhstan have practical combat experience.
The Kirghiz have also joined today and will send 150 people under the command of the deputy head of the Defense Ministry of Kirghizia.
More than 70 military transport aircraft were involved in the operation to redeploy the contingent of Russian and Belorussian Armed Forces.
It was a good test for the ATA to move a substantial contingent over long distances.
I am sure it will come in handy in the future. (Wink. Wink.)
5. Regarding the operations of the grouping.
The Russian military is already at the airport of Alma-Ata and controls it in conjunction with the local military.
The Kazakh military also holds the TV tower.
On the roads they finally started systematically putting up roadblocks.
Within 1-2 days they need to deploy a full network.
Gradually, the process of localization of major protest areas and suppression of armed resistance by Kazakh military forces will be implemented.
The sane protesters in the cities, where there were no pogroms, are likely to be simply negotiated with.
The NED / CIA assets are all either dead, or being tortured to death. Their enablers, are all arrested and are facing the same fates. The nation is now in military lockdown, and local Kazakhstan militia are working hand-in-hand with the Russian military to hunt down those participants, and turn them over to the military authorities for “debriefing” and “extraction” exercises.
The days of playing by the same expected rules of polite “discussions” and confusion in a CIA sponsored color revolution are now over. These are wars on a defined battlefield and a United Asia does not play.
Have you noticed the silence in the Western (American and British) “news” media. Nothing. Crickets.
Here's some Geo-political considerations as to why Russia has reacted so strongly to this invasion, and why the CIA / NED has decided to launch it right now.
Kazakhstan and Afghanistan set on fire by a common match The fire in Central Asia is only getting worse for us. The Russian Security Council warned about the impending catastrophe there two months ago
This is simply surprising: in the context of the catastrophic development of the situation in Kazakhstan, Russia and its closest allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) are acting unusually resolutely, harshly and rapidly before the eyes of the whole world.
This was not the case during the mass protests in Belarus in the summer of 2020 and spring of 2021.
We did not see anything like this during the so-called second war of Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh (in the fall of 2020).
The CSTO also held the position of an outside observer in April-May 2021 during armed clashes on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border.
All this has long given rise to reasonable doubts: why do we need this very CSTO, which does not want to interfere in anything? Even when the streets of the allies are full of gunfire and the blood of civilians is pouring out?
Today, everything is exactly the opposite.
Judge for yourself: only late in the evening on January 5, the President of KazakhstanKassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to his CSTO partners for help. According to a RIA Novosti report, he officially stated::
“Relying on the Collective Security Treaty, I have today appealed to the CSTO heads of state to help Kazakhstan overcome this terrorist threat.”
And then:
“In fact, this is no longer a threat, it undermines the integrity of the state and, most importantly, it is an attack on our citizens, who are asking me, as the head of state, to urgently provide them with assistance.”
Just a few hours later, on the night of January 5-6, an emergency meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council was held, the main topic of which, as far as can be judged, was the bloody pogroms in Alma-Ata.
And already at dawn, military transport planes with Russian Airborne troops stormed into the skies of Kazakhstan to protect…
”important state and military facilities, assist the law enforcement forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan in stabilizing the situation and returning it to the legal field.”
Are you able to recall anything like this from the CSTO since the collapse of the Soviet Union? I’m definitely not.
But if this happens, it means that we had everything ready in advance.
In other words, our Aerospace Forces knew in advance what airfields and in what quantities they should concentrate military transport aviation.
The airborne troops had clear instructions from the Defense Ministry.
The General Staff on which specific regiments and divisions to alert.
Even the necessary cargo, ammunition, fuel and food were probably packed and stored not yesterday at all.
Logically, in addition to having political will, such a development of events required one more prerequisite: Moscow should have known in advance about everything that was being prepared in recent weeks and months in Kazakhstan.
And she knew all about it, of course.
Only one detail that is crucial for understanding the emerging situation: it seems that the events there are not viewed by the political and military leadership of Russia today as a fire that is burning only in this separate former Soviet republic.
No.
The shooting and pogroms in Kazakhstan from the Kremlin are probably only seen as a precursor to the storm that is inevitably coming to us all from Central Asia as a whole. Mainly from Afghanistan.
That is, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, it seems, are known from where they are set on fire with a common match. The goal is also common-Russia.
Accordingly, the Kremlin prepares defensive retaliatory measures in advance. And I am ready to fight for Kazakhstan, as I once did for the Dubosekovo crossing near Moscow in 1941.
In this regard, it is very interesting to look through the information messages of a military-political nature that began to arrive from this strategic direction approximately last fall.
Let’s say this:
In mid-November 2021, the Secretary of the Russian Security CouncilNikolai Patrushev warned that if the new authorities in Kabul fail to normalize the situation, a catastrophic scenario is possible in Afghanistan. The development of this catastrophic scenario in Afghanistan includes a new round of civil war, general impoverishment of the population and hunger.
And just yesterday, January 5, 2022, the realism and timeliness of Patrushev’s disastrous forecast received convincing confirmation. Not from anywhere — from the UN headquarters.
On Wednesday, a message came from there saying that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has worsened due to the onset of the cold season and severe frosts. In the country, millions of people suffer from cold and lack of food. Some parts of the country were cut off from external aid due to heavy snowfall. The humanitarian disaster is getting worse every day, and people are running out of food and fuel to heat their homes.
Someone will say: well, let it be… what does it matter to us what happens in this eternally warring country, with which Russia does not have a single meter of common border?
But, according to Patrushev’s logic, we are about to talk about millions of people fleeing from Afghanistan, in which it will be impossible to distinguish ordinary refugees from specially trained and trained militants. No one will be able to keep them outside the borders of the former USSR.
And if it is specifically about the militants in Afghanistan, let’s listen to at least a well-known Tajik political scientist, a researcher at the Institute for Sociological Research in ParisParviz Mullojanov. According to him, in the north of Afghanistan today accumulated about 7-8 thousand militants who arrived in this country from other countries. First of all, from Iraq and Syria. Thus, the political scientist is sure, the structures of the “caliphate” that were defeated in the Middle East are gradually being transferred here.
Near the borders with the former USSR, the so — called “Haqqani network” (a terrorist organization banned in some countries – “SP”) began to create training camps and madrassas, which, in alliance with the Taliban, * waged a guerrilla struggle against government forces, as well as against the troops of the United States and other NATO countries. Even earlier, in the 80s, the same organization founded by the extremist religious figure MawlawiJalaluddin Haqqani, fought with the Soviet troops.
Three of its own bases for the combat and ideological training of new gangs near Kabul were founded by the notorious Al-Qaeda **, which quickly found a common language with the Taliban, which came to undivided rule in this country.
“If we sum up all these three factors, the main difficulty is that Afghanistan will potentially soon turn into what the “caliphate” in Syria or Iraq was,”
Mullojanov sums up, which is also disappointing for us.
And as for the lack of a common border between Afghanistan and Russia… Yes, between us and the Afghans lie Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, which was set on fire today, but only a few months ago seemed to be a bulwark of political stability.
Here is just what-outwardly the most reliable “airbag” of Russia, 7.5 thousand kilometers of a common land border separating us from Central Asia, from which you do not know what to expect for a long time.
Now this barrier between Russia and Afghanistan is virtually gone.
It melted away in the smoke of fires in Alma-Ata, Aktobe, Atyrau, Pavlodar and other cities and towns of Kazakhstan caught up in mass riots.
Perhaps our common salvation lies in the fact that our military clearly prepared for such a turn of events in advance.
Look here: a record number of live-fire exercises were held in 2021 at our main stronghold in Central Asia, the 201st Russian military base in Tajikistan — more than 300. In other words, for some reason Moscow ordered:
“Spare no bullets!”
For a whole year, the cannonade thundered there almost daily. Moreover, the tactical background of these exercises turned out to be very characteristic-actions to repel attacks by conditional bandit groups on military camps in Dushanbe and Bokhtar, defense at the Lyaur and Sambuli ranges, repelling seizures of ammunition depots and military equipment parks.
Another detail that illustrates the gravity of the threat to Russia and its allies from a strategic direction in which Kazakhstan is only a small milestone.
On December 7, the Russian legal information portal, literally a month before the current events, reported that Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had created a special closed joint communication system between their armies. As it is written in the document — to exchange information and coordinate their interaction.
The agreement provides for permanent combat duty at the command posts of the participating countries. It is, of course, carried around the clock. And this is definitely another clue to the efficiency with which the CSTO troops have just been decisively and without any doubts brought into Kazakhstan.
And in the meantime…
Armed clashes between militants of the Taliban movement that seized power in Afghanistan and Turkmen border guards took place on the border of the two states. This was reported on Monday in its electronic version by the Afghan newspaper Hasht-e subh.
“Three days ago, border guards of Turkmenistan killed one civilian and beat up another. In response to their actions during the investigation of the incident, the Taliban fired shots, ”
…said the head of the provincial information and Culture department.Jauzjan Hilal Balkhi.
A shootout between Turkmen border guards and the Taliban took place on Monday, January 3, in the Hamab district of Jowzjan province. Other details of the incident were not disclosed.
* The Taliban movement was recognized as a terrorist organization by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on February 14, 2003, and its activities are prohibited in Russia.
** Al-Qaeda was recognized as a terrorist organization by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on February 14, 2003, and its activities are prohibited in Russia.
Now, all turn to face the Ukraine
Nope. Things are not going to be like anything that you read about in the Western propiganda media outlets. Any conflict will be fast, absolute and lethal.
If there is one thing that smart and intelligent leaders in NATO will realize is that they are severely out-matched and that they have sided with absolute lunitics that are going to get them all killed unless the bone up and start acting responsible and in the best interests of their own citizentry.
I anticipate some changes in the Geo-political aspects of the EU union and the behavior of NATO in the upcoming year.
Now…
Keep in mind that Russia (and China) are not Syria. They are not Yemen, and they are not Panama. They will fight back and they will have the future all completely mapped out and planned.
Obviously, in connection with the mess in Kazakhstan, this "manual" is being replicated again on social networks; I can't say that everything is reliably stated there:
Manual for those who think that they have encountered the Russian Army.
“Signs of the entry of Russian troops.
The first sign is the failure of all means of communication, the complete discharge of batteries in cars, tanks and other equipment, and at the same time the discharge of batteries in mobile phones, scopes, and radio stations. Then there is a break in the electrical circuits in all equipment — any. This is AMY. All engines stall, there is no way to start them. This is how the Khingan system works, with a radius of 20 km.
The second sign is the complete failure of all systems using liquid crystal monitors, the failure of all target-pointing devices of the air defense system-the radars are dead. The Altair system operates.
The third sign are failures when trying to use any type of guided weapon-from MANPADS to ATGMS. When attempting to use projectiles, they self-destruct immediately… This is the Mercury system — on the basis of the MTLB, such an antenna is high, now the Russians have it in every battalion. It works on a 15-kilometer radius.
The Fourth sign — it is impossible to use drones-drones (UAVs). They either fall, with the failure of the navigation system and engine, or land in the location of the Russians. The Krasukha-4 system disables the onboard equipment of aircraft and any other aircraft. The Avtobaza system intercepts the control of drones. The Russians gave it to the Iranians, and they stole the most secret attack drone of the SASS “Kandahar beast”.
The Fifth Sign. Not everyone will have time to see and understand the fifth sign. This is a phenomenal accuracy of artillery fire, conducted from a distance unattainable for artillery in most countries of the world. Artillery reconnaissance and guidance stations of the Russian army operate via satellites and their own drones. The Russians have upgraded their projectiles, they now have a homing system, they have become longer and carry more explosives (explosives).
Dozens (hundreds, if necessary) of combat helicopters, straddling all roads, begin hunting in the rear for armored vehicles, trains, cars. The railway is paralyzed, arrows are broken, bridges are blown up.
Lights go out in the rear — substations are broken. Civilian and military headquarters in the rear and individual leaders are simultaneously eliminated by pre-implemented groups.
And that’s when… Thousands of fighters descend from the sky – assault battalions of the Airborne Forces and special forces of the GRU…”.
Conclusions
China and Russia offered the United States the last “olive branch” of peace. The Reaction was predictable. The United States outwardly pretended to accept it, while going ahead and continuing in it’s destabilizaiton efforts in Asia.
Take note that Asia is quite serious about all this.
I do not specifically anticipate a global thermalnuclear response, in so much as a no-holds barred polite economic isolation and staged collapse of the domestic aspects of the United States… in coils.
Asia will box America in, and force their hand to deal with the flood of major inflationary bubbles. It will suppress and destroy all efforts by the United States to divert attention outwards and this will cause an acceleration in the internal collapse of the United States.
Any actions that the United States makes against Asia will hurt itself.
Therefore, I remain optomistic that no matter how insane the USA is acting, it will not risk it’s own collapse intentionally. Instead it will try to ride “the dying horse” to the cemetary gates.
And with that, I have hope for many of us in the ‘States and abroad. It will be a long series of “mini bads” and “micro bads” and not the “Big Bad” that many of us fear.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Yeah. I cannot deny it any longer. There is no question that America is ready to launch a war. Well, I tried. But you know, you all can’t stop a stampede of buffalo. Sigh. Let’s just document some of the evidence. Where even the most hopeful and optimistic must sigh resigned.
The evidence is everywhere. America is on a war-footing.
Yahoo!
Well, Yahoo! disentangled. Not that it mattered to me that much. But, you know, it’s pretty fucking selective. No problem with Cameroon, Kenya, Zambia, or Bolivia. Of the entire world, ONLY China is excluded.
Here’s what you get when you try to access Yahoo inside of China…
Yahoo splash screen.
LinkedIN
Now, LinkedIN is another story all together. I use that platform to connect with industry and colleagues and look for business opportunities. Even though I am an American, accessing it from inside of China throws me into the most lame version I have ever seen.
LinkedIN splash.
And then what happens when I sign in?
Why I get a PDF version of my profile. That’s it. No connections. No access to services. No way for me to recruit for careers. Zilch. It’s just a big nothing.
Of course…
Let’s keep it real. Companies can do whatever they want to do, and it they want to disentangle from the Asian market, it is their choice.
China prevented Google, and Facebook; both mega-software internet companies for working inside of China because they routinely violated the Chinese privacy laws.
But this is different.
You see, let’s put it in simple terms; money and market.
The following is from the United States own government (and propaganda) outlets. Which means that it is biased towards making the USA look good. Even when trying to make America look better, it looks like shit compared to China.
Comparison.
Obviously, no matter how you spin it, Chinese economy is climbing and the Chinese consumer market is exploding!
So why turn your back on it?
What’s going on?
By every metric, China is superior and surpassing the West…
It’s not just readership. It’s not just technology. It’s not just manufacturing. It’s everything.
Education; best universities
Disposable income
Manufacturing
America in 2021 is somewhere around tenth in global manufacturing.
e-commerce
America has Amazon. In China, everything is e-commerce.
Again, keeping it real…
America’s population is 330 million people. Of that, (at best) 40% are middle class = 132 million people, plus the 5% of the wealthy = market of 148.5 million people.
China’s population is 1.6 billion people. (1600 million). Of that, 85% are middle class with the wealthy being around 6% = market is 1456 million people.
USA consumer market = 148 million people.
China consumer market = 1460 million people.
The Chinese market is roughly TEN TIMES the market of America.
Anyone desirous of cutting off this market is NOT doing so because of opportunity, profits, industry, commerce or fiance. They are doing so because of politics. It’s obvious.
Know your history.
And history shows us that politically driven decisions end up being disastrous for the people, the companies, and the nations so involved. Don’t go down that dark and scary road.
Of Course… the situation is eroding fast
America is in a tail-spin. Not just collapsing, but collapsing in every which way possible, and the only way out is to throw themselves in front of the policeman and get shot to death.
The government funded media (and they ARE funded to the tune of $330 million dollars every year) are propping up the illusion that America is still great.
Like by using the GDP instead of PPP.
Which, as I have said before is just a big lie.
Sally has one dollar and can buy two apples with it.
Joe has ten dollars but can only buy one apple with it.
GDP says that “Joe” is doing better.
PPP says that “Sally” is doing better.
In my mind, of course, Sally is doing better. She has a full stomach. While Joe is left wanting.
Yeah. Sigh.
And here is a typical propaganda piece being doled out to the clueless inside of America. I swear it looks more and more like George Orwell’s 1984 than anything else in history.
“She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt he had the right to,” ― George Orwell
Ah. Looks so professional, and clear. But that is the illusion. They are using a false metric. Using GDP is an economic “measurement”. What a big lie and what a big farce, and shame on all of you for believing it.
American echo chamber.
Heritage is a neocon operation inside of the USA.
It is purposeful distortions to keep Americans (the West) ignorant.
Here’s an interview with a VOA journalist. VOA is the US governments main propaganda arm that oversees most all “news”. It is funded by the NED, which is turn is funded out of the CIA. Listen and learn. video 60MB
A Sanity Check
Please do a sanity check.
If China’s unemployment is 27%, and America’s is a mere 14%, then where are all those Chinese tent cities, Chinese crime, and Chinese starvation that you can see all over the inside of the USA.
If America was really, REALLY, doing that well, then there wouldn’t be so much unemployment, tent cities, and crime.
Funny. All Chinese eat healthy. It’s part of their culture. There’s no “shake up”. Jeeze!
And check out the picture that they use…
No one in China uses paper money any more. They haven’t for at least a decade.
Why do I say this is fake?
No one in China uses paper money any more. They haven’t for at least a decade. It is available. But usually, it is the poor and the elderly that use it. The vast number of transactions are done electronically. It’s call “QR scanning”. It’s the norm in China, and has been so for the last decade.
Here’s another example…
Can you spot what’s wrong with this picture?
What’s wrong with this picture?
No one in China eats “just plain” noodles.
They eat delicious dishes. Sometimes it’s noodles, but if it’s noodles, you can be guaranteed that there is a meat and a vegetable with it. Fast food noodles are popular as a snack only. And starving students, and hard workers (trying to save money) will resort to them. But it is NOT NOT NOT what the Chinese people eat for lunch.
This is what they really eat for lunch.
A real Chinese lunch.
I’m surprised at the gullibility of Americans. Hasn’t anyone ever been to a Chinese-American restaurant? Sheech!
And this…
A real Chinese lunch.
And this…
A real Chinese lunch.
And this…
A real Chinese lunch.
And yes, you can get noodles to eat.
It’s a quick SNACK.
A snack.
It’s NOT a lunch meal. Jeeze!
You all need to avoid echo chambers, and America is doubling down and latching the hatches turning the American echo chamber into an echo pressure cooker.
Already the Americans want war. They desire it. There’s raw hate there. It’s not as Biden says “a competition”, the American media machine and the funding efforts are all directed towards war. DO NOT WISH FOR THAT. YOU ALL HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THAT WILL MEAN.
Now… good news and bad news
As I have stated previously, America has passed the point where there would be a position of military superiority. Amy war would be an absolute bloodbath fiasco on American soil, and so all the hate China bullshit can hate all you want. It’s just going to make the collapse and fall of “the great experiment” so much more painful.
Russia and China are watching the collapse in real-time.
Americans, and their “leadership”, are all in caged “echo chambers”. Delirious of their own notions of power and ability, and ignorant of the rest of the world. It’s a true shame. It really is. But that’s what’s going on.
I could show you about the Chinese military, and how they are nothing like what is being portrayed in the American media. But that’s all so 2019. Today, we are going to do something a little bit different.
We are going to talk about YOU, and what YOU can do while the rest of the world around you spins down the anus of madness.
We start with this funny little piece to lighten up the mood.
Chinese old movie with English voice over by an Urban Ethnic American
Yeah. The United States can do what ever it wants.
I can tell you that I am in the safest nation on the planet, and that’s a FACT.
And whatever caldron is brewing inside of America right now, know that it is not reality. It is a big illusion and soon its going to boil over and make a big mess in the kitchen. I am here to tell you that YOU NEED NOT WORRY about that. The fear is greater than the reality.
It is NOT going to happen like anyone thinks.
It will be quite different. Say! How John Boltons’ Bio-Warfare effort against China working out? Not what he planned, eh?
Instead concentrate on yourself.
Concentrate on your life. Concentrate on your family.
Yah. You have heard that all before. But it is true. Start walking the steps of being a Rufus. Act a little bit nicer. smile more. Be the best that you can be. Do great things.
Stop over thinking every fucking thing. Start accepting things as they are. Not as you want them to be. Accept the situations that are in front of you.
In the movie “Bronco Billy”, Gunny Holiday had his squad adapt to the situation with the tee-shits. Every day they would have to adapt to the tee-shirts that the DI wore. Eventually they got it worked out. And they adapted.
This means everything. Especially in your relationships. You know, the biggest influence on your life is the person whom you spend the most time with. They will influence your life the most. Treat them properly, and they should treat you properly back. If they do not, then find someone else.
Be patient. There is something that I have learned. Affirmations take time. Stop thinking in terms of the nonsense generated out of Hollywood. It’s not real. It’s a fiction. Things. Take. Time.
It’s how much you know. Nor is it how much money you have. It’s not the grades you had in school, or the friends you have now. It’s not where you live or the kind of car that you drive. It’s all about how long you can take the hits and keep on going.
No one can and should tell you who you are or how you should act. You define what your life is. No one else does. But others can show you what worked for them, and then you can decide to copy it or ignore it.
Is being the best boxer the one who can hit the hardest? Is it the one that can stay in the ring the longest? Is it the one who can endure hit after hit after hit. Or is it a combination of all three. Find your niche.
Realize that America has become a character; a joke
It’s not what America is, but the actions of it’s crazed government, and the behaviors of many of it’s citizenry clearly point towards humor. But you are not what other people(s) think. You are unique. Be the best that you can be and let the rest of the world howl.
Remember, everything concerning you is YOUR responsibility
It’s not the governments. It’s not your spouse. It’s not your parents. It’s not your school. It’s not your job, or your carrier. It’s your responsibility, and yours alone. It is all up to YOU.
Stop looking in the rear view mirror. Realize that America is spending trillions of dollars on wars, public opinion to create wars, fears to control the citizenry and bribes to selected minority groups. It’s all a big black hole that sucks in the money and lays waste to those around it.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is moving on.
Be the best you can be. Inspires others, and have a great life together. You choose your life. You define what it will be, you plan to make that life happen and you direct ALL of your energies in that direction. Live the MM lifestyle.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Doesn’t it seem that every single thing that the United States accuses China of, it manifests inside America? It’s almost like this big; enormous wish-machine was turned on it’s head and starts attacking it’s creator. Yeah. It’s like the science fiction movie where a mad scientist creates a robot, and then the robot turns on it’s creator.
Today I saw the horrific images of an African-American Rapper who drove an SUV at high speed through a children’s parade killing and maiming scores of children. He’s a “rapper” who spouts hate and disgust from his urban enclave. It’s all very disturbing. My God! He was out on bail for running over another woman with his SUV. Insanity. Pure insanity.
Why is this happening in America? What is going on?
The answer is simple
America has collapsed. It is dead, it’s just that the people don’t really realize it yet.
When there is no longer a “rule of law”, and “justice” becomes a tiered game of money laundering, society is over. It’s all a simple matter of the rats scurrying from ship mast, to ship mast, and trying to jump on some pieces of wood floating in the water. It’s just the middle of a long, drawn out scramble of survival.
The ship of America has sunk.
Over.
Dead.
Throw some dirt on top of the grave and move on.
Oh sure, the bow of the ship is riding high. Lights are still blazing in the portholes. The band is still playing on the deck, and the Captain is still at the helm. But the ship is no longer seaworthy.
Some realize this. That is why you see mass looting of stores all over the cites in America, those shootings in the suburbs and on the highways, and the crazy behavior of the American leadership. They are all Jack-shit crazy and the world is falling apart all around them.
Here in this article I am going to prove my point by presenting short videos of the freefall collapse of the United States.
Please keep in mind that what you see on the “news” and social media is only a small percentage of what is actually going on. It is actually far worse than what is being depicted.
The real bad things are not being reported on.
China
Keep in mind that while the shit-show known as the United States “democracy” collapses, China moves on. It is a merit driven society that teaches military discipline to everyone from first grade onward.
Here’s a first grade class reporting for military training. Video 5MB
And a nation that is merit driven, unified, and run by STEM (science, technology, engineering and manufacturing) educated people who volunteer for that role is naturally going to overwhelm the fucking clown-show that the “blue blood” oligarchy operates. Fucking FIRE (Fiance, Insurance, Real Estate) folk haven’t a clue how to run a nation.
Here’s a locally produced, 100% all Chinese design and manufactured, Chinese fighter aircraft. video. 5MB
The Chinese do not play. They are a serious, serious nation. And they take their roles seriously. Here is a video of a Corruption Police raid on a kidnapping operation. I like how they rescued the little girl at the end.
You do not mess with China.
But since the USA is in a state of collapse, those in the West cannot see the shit show that they are living inside of. They need to start comparing their world to the rest of the world outside.
Here’s a funny video of a hysterical American screaming that America is not China.
It’s funny because China is so very much better than America in every way imaginable, but the dumbed down poverty serfs have no clue about how impoverished they actually are.
So, anyways, this video has been circulating all over China, and getting a ton load of snickers and giggles.
The guy probably hasn’t a clue as to why all the Chinese are laughing at him. video. 4MB
Clueless. Stupid. manipulated. Ignorant serf that services the billionaire class. Yeah, your fucking silly world is collapsing all around you, and you want to blame China.
Blame China? How about blaming yourself.
China has endured horrors that you have no fucking about. Thousands of years of fighting, and then Japans takeover and horrors followed by massive poverty, and abuse.
China will not forget what they had to endue. Do not push them. video 6MB
China is not a pushover.
China will retaliate if you all threaten them, and the United States is in no state to attack anyone. Hell, it can’t even build a simple fence on it’s borders.
It’s a helpless big lazy blob. So put everything in context. Understand what is going on and what the stakes are. video. 4MB
Videos of the United States in collapse
They are everywhere. Here’s looting and damage in a McDonald’s in the suburbs. video. 2MB
American nighttime roadblock.
Full militarized armored cars, full automatic assault rifles, sidearms, flack vests, and other military paraphernalia show that this is a domestic military road block and not a police action.
Shootings, riots, mobs, organized crime and daring store break-ins are now common throughout the Untied States today.
This is not a lonely, singular, isolated event.
It is common throughout most of the major cities inside of America today. video. 2MB
Shoplifter at Walmart.
And so the guy drives off and the security guard shoots at him. Just another normal day inside of America. But now people are starting to die…
Police said the suspect - dressed in all black with a black mask - attempted to steal unspecified merchandise and, when confronted by the store worker in the parking lot, pulled out a firearm.
The loss prevention officer, who has a concealed carry permit, then shot the armed suspect two or three times at close range, he told police.
The suspect fled the scene and was later detained at a home near 5th and Olympia in Kennewick without incident.
-Ferguson Walmart Shooting
People! This is not an image of a healthy society. video
And while hard crime rages… Guns are being purchased, and used.
People are dying, the government enacts draconian laws, rules and clamps down on the Police State, well-meaning folk try to change things for the better.
But they are not going after the serious issues. They are addressing the trivial. Video. 7MB
Meanwhile in China…
China has face recognition technology, and a completely wired nation that tracks your movements, and permits law abiding people free reign, while snagging the evil, the selfish, the dangerous and those CIA inspired (NED) “bad actors”.
While the American wealthy is trying to steal everything on paper, and the serf citizenry are trying to haul away everything not nailed down, China is building, growing, developing.
China is, and stands, in stark contrast to the cluster fuck that America is today. video 8MB
What is China like?
China is a merit driven nation and it strives to be the best home for it’s people.
It spent time working on the basics. It spent time developing things, and it took time to do so. And the Chinese philosophy is summed up in this little video here. video. 2MB
Back to the American meltdown
Crime is rampant all over the United States.
It’s a consequence of multiple failures on multiple levels and the situation is getting worse, much worse. the society has broken down. There is rampant lawlessness throughout the urban areas. video 5MB
And another robbery inside of America. These are so common these days. Honest citizens hide inside their homes and peer through drawn curtains. they hope that everything will go away and change.
It’s a complete breakdown of society and it’s every man for himself, with zero protections under the law, and zero policing. video. 7MB
This is what it looks like when society collapses. It’s every man for himself.
Mobs rule. Gangs rule. Society fractures, and the wealthy scurry to their enclaves for safety.
What America resembles today is what happened during the Fall of Saigon. video. 43MB
People are out and just being really brazen in their crimes.
They don’t care.
Nothing matters these days inside of America. Here is a guy that hijacked a complete tractor trailer rig and it’s cargo and is in a high speed chase down the highway. Jeeze! video. 28MB
America as it really exists
Consider the reality. Why must the current mess that the United States is, be allowed or permitted to exist. It does not serve it’s people. It’s a war empire that causes destruction all over the world, it rapes and pillages, and is run but a small handful of evil greedy oligarchs. Why?
Why is it important that the world become like America? VIDEO
Video of City life inside of America.
Here’s some roadside rage. It’s about to get really ugly, really soon. video 6MB
Still not convinced, well lets go to a DIFFERENT city… VIDEO
Video
Still not convinced, it is EVERYWHERE in America. Ok, well lets go to a third DIFFERENT city… VIDEO
Video
Hey! Do you want to know why there are NO homeless in China?
Let this Chinese girl living in America explain it to you. For all of my Chinese friends, they are just flabbergasted at the lack of care and concern the US government has for it’s people.
The world will breathe a sigh of relief when the United States is finally broken up
Yes. The rest of the world will.
Look, if you are not aware of the collapse of America then you are delusional. The fact is pretty clear America is collapsing and it is up to the rest of the world to manage how their own individual nations handle that event. Most will be just fine.
It’s not that I want it to happen, in so much as I want the scales of justice to balance.
For far too long the crimes and the injustices have been propagated for far too long. It is a time of reckoning, and if you are smart you will align yourself with justice, truth and freedom . If you are a fool, then you will align yourself with the United States. It’s your choice.
I however, advise running away and hiding. Go to somewhere safer, and better. Like Uganda…video 7MB
Look at all the very beautiful women in the audience. Jeeze!
What am I doing wasting my time in China? video 1MB
Well, there’s only one of me, and so many interesting and beautiful and smiling people everywhere. So much food to eat. So many interesting people to meet and chat with. So many nice restaurants to eat in. So many great things to do. Sigh.
I love it when a woman cooks food. It just really drives me absolutely crazy! And Chinese food is so very delicious!!!!
Oh, and you know, I do love to go out girl watching. There’s something great about women shopping in the malls, looking great in their outfits, nice makeup and just bouncing about. In America they all rush off to their cars, and then speed away. Not enough time for me to watch their poetry as they walk. video 5MB
Out of the ruins of America new societies will develop. The key is to create societies where everyone has the choice to participate, but only ONLY those that participate, and make the society a good place to live can have any say in government.
It’s a Rufus philosophy. And it is crucial to good governance.
Be the Rufus. Only allow other Rufus’s to control the government. They do it for others, not themselves. video. 16MB
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Again, yet again, MM here addresses the things that no one ever talks about. And in this case we are taking up the real whale; the massive, titanic-sized “elephant in the room”. While just virtually all of the American media press is gung-ho for a war against China (and assumes that China will be alone), no one is talking about the consequences of such a war.
Nothing surprises me, the more successful China becomes the greater the lies.
-Roger
As the clueless media and their readership assumes that the United States will win any war that it starts in Asia. (Or actually, that it will be a long decades long war, and life would go on without any impact on their own lives.) No one talks about the rightful consequences of a war effort gone terribly wrong…
But we will.
The United States will lose.
And it will lose BIGLY.
And, it’s not just me saying this. It’s RAND, Heritage Foundation, the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and every single one of the military war games (for the last 18 years), the military think tanks, and the “big buck” experts in Washington DC. As well as all of the generals in charge of the American military.
America would lose.
I have discussed over and over, and over again, why the United States would lose. Don’t want to hear this, do you? Well, tough cookies. Here, we talk about things as they actually are, not as we want them to be. If you are a new comer to MM, you might want to take a refresher course in actual current affairs here…
According to US analysts, by 2025 the USA won’t be able to win a war against China.
Frankly, I think that this ship has already sailed a long, long, LONG time ago.
However, that semi-admission is a desperate attempt to create the political climate to circle the wagons before China officially becomes the second nation the USA cannot defeat.
The first one being, obviously, Russia (I would even include Iran and the DPRK is that list).
Hence all the current Anglo posturing in the Black Sea (which is even far more dangerous for US/NATO ships than the China Seas) is just that: posturing.
The main risk here is that I am not at all convinced by the notion that “Biden” can rein in the Brits or the Poles, especially since the latter are both NATO members who would sincerely expect NATO to protect them (they should ask Erdogan about that).
But, of course, there really is no such thing as “NATO”: all there is the US and its vassal states in Europe.
Should the two wannabe empires trigger a real, shooting war, all it would take is a single Russian conventional missile strike somewhere deep inside the continental USA (even in a desert location) to convince the White House, the Pentagon or the CIA “get with the program” and seek a negotiated solution, leaving the Brits and the Poles utterly disgusted and looking foolish.
I don’t think anything else can bring those two countries back to a sense of reality.
-Andrei
Why concentrate on hybrid/unlimited war instead of an outright nuclear or conventional military conflict between the US and China and/or Russia?
That is because both conventional and nuclear military conflict between any of these three nations is an insane, suicidal choice, while those in charge of defining military strategy are specifically not selected for their suicidal tendencies.
Neither Russia nor China are known for their wars of aggression, and while the US is extremely well known for its homicidal, violent tendencies (having carried out 32 bombing campaigns on 24 countries since World War II), it is fundamentally a bully, only picking on weak countries that pose no threat.
And… it (because of the non-stop demonetization of China) thinks that China is weak enough to pick on.
Based on publicly available information, both Russia and China are now quite far ahead of the US in weapons development, to a point where any possible direct US attack on either of them would be [1] self-disarming at best and [2] suicidal at worst.
Its like when the schoolyard bully realizes he can't bully you anymore, so now he just throws slurs and insults instead of punches. After a while he loses all credibility and starts being ignored. A couple of decades later you go to a school reunion and he is the loser that no one wants to talk to. That reunion was sweet ....
Posted by: Roger | Nov 19 2021 17:20 utc | 16
[1] In the best case scenario, the US launches an attack which is successfully repelled: bombers and rockets shot down, ships sunk, US military bases and port facilities destroyed, possibly US command and control centers also destroyed, as quite pointedly promised by Putin.
The US then lays prostrate and at the mercy of its opponents.
If its cooperation still leaves something to be desired, some combination of deplorables, despicables, imponderables and indecipherables will be organized just enough to make a bloody mess of what’s left of US government structures and power elites, which will then be replaced with an international peacekeeping force (as an optimistic case) or just left to persist in durable disorder, misery and international isolation.
[2] The worst case scenario is the tired old mutual assured destruction, nuclear winter and end of life on Earth, but it is unlikely for a number of reasons.
First, of the US nuclear deterrent triad only the submarine component remains viable, and even it is quite tired.
Aside from a single Minuteman missile launch test most hasn’t been tested in decades, and these are ballistic missiles which, once the boost phase is over, follow a perfectly predictable inertial trajectory.
This makes them easy targets for Russia’s and China’s new air defense systems.
Of the Minutemen that manage to get out of their silos and launch in the general direction of Russia or China, it is unknown how many of their nuclear payloads would actually detonate since these are all quite old and haven’t been tested in a long time either.
The US no longer has the ability to make new nuclear charges, having lost the recipe for making the high explosive needed to make them detonate. But that may be a moot point, since at this point no ICBM is likely to be able to penetrate Russian air defenses. Both Russia and China have state of the art formidable anti-ICBM systems. video
As far as Chinese air defenses, it is notable that Russia and China have integrated their early warning systems and China now has four divisions of Russian S-400 Triumph air defense systems and is planning to add more. video
Turning to the airborne part of the US nuclear triad, its mainstay is still the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the youngest of which is almost 60 years old. It cruises at 260 knots at an altitude of 34000 feet and is the opposite of stealthy, making it easy to shoot down at a stand-off distance of several hundred kilometers. Since this makes it perfectly useless for dropping bombs, all that remains is cruise missiles, which fly at a positively poky 0.65 Mach, again making them easy targets for modern air defenses.
There are also some newer stealth bombers—very few and, it has turned out, not too stealthy, putting them essentially in the same category as the Stratofortress, and the cruise missiles they can launch are also those same old subsonic ones.
Lastly, there are the strategic nuclear submarines, which are the only part of the US nuclear triad that is still viable. They remain effective as a deterrent, and they do have the ability to get up close to launch a sneak attack with a good chance that at least a few of the missiles will get through the air defenses, but they can’t possibly hope to get around the inevitability of retaliation which will cause unacceptable, fatal damage to the continental US. This makes them useless as an offensive weapon.
The uncloaking, and damage to the USS Connecticut, is worth a good study in this regard. HERE.
Add to this Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine, according to which any attack against Russian sovereign territory or Russian sovereign interests, whether conventional or nuclear, would open the door to a nuclear retaliation, launched upon warning, and Putin’s solemn promise to counterattack not just against the locations from which a strike is launched but against the centers of decision-making.
Considering that Russian missiles are hypersonic and will reach their targets before those of the US reach theirs, and that Russia has the means to shoot down US missiles while the US is unable to shoot down Russian ones, if the US were to launch an attack, those who launched it would be dead before they could find out whether their attack succeeded in causing any damage at all or whether they had just suicided themselves for nothing.
The “Punch Line”
All of this adds up to an inevitable conclusion: under no circumstances will the US attack either Russia or China, using either conventional or nuclear weapons. To do so would result in nuclear annihilation. And for a weakened nation such as the United States is today, it’s wouldn’t take too much to throw it into absolute chaos.
Only an idiot would consider such an action.
However, there are experts who are of the opinion that a world war could spontaneously erupt at any moment without anyone wishing it to do so, just as the world slid into World War I due to a confluence of unhappy accidents. But there is a big difference: the military and civilian leaderships of the warring sides in World War I did not have hypersonic missiles pointed directly at their heads.
They thought that the war would be fought far away from their palaces, headquarters and stately mansions. They were, in some cases, quite wrong, but that was their thought originally: why not test our industrial prowess while sacrificing the lives of several million useless peasants?
Now the situation is quite different: any substantial provocation is an automatic self-destruct trigger and all sides know this.
Especially against Asia.
Pilger is bouncing a few examples of Western anti-China drivel off a Chinese historian. The historian gets a bit impatient and says (words to the effect):
"Look, China doesn't want to take over the world or tell other countries how to behave. In fact we built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians OUT!"
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 19 2021 18:24 utc | 23
Of course, there will be minor provocations such as the US Navy steaming around in the Taiwan Strait or the Black Sea close to the shores of Crimea, but then they do have to earn their keep somehow.
In turn, the Russians and the Chinese will periodically up the ante a little bit by shooing them away with a harshly worded radio message or a few shots fired across their bows. But both sides know just how careful they have to be because any serious error will require immediate deescalation and may entail major loss of face.
And that, as the saying goes, would be worse than a crime: it would be a vast mistake.
The USA Leadership are idiots
And at that, we can see that no matter how much we can parse the issues; no matter how many times we can study the calculus; no matter how many times we can say “nah, no one would be that stupid to risk a war”, we see the United States doing just that.
All part of the required reverberations for the "drum beat of war".
Making the public recognize and demonize an enemy is a requirement! Step by step, little by little.
Don't think there is a war on the way? Just look around at the chaos, misinformation and pursuit of control.
Don't think others hear the drum beat? Read here: https://thesaker.is/russian-options-in-a-world-headed-for-war/
Posted by: James Cook | Nov 19 2021 17:04 utc | 5
The provocations against China are getting more and more outrageous, outlandish and dangerous. This is intentional, and it is not going to end up well.
The calculus so far assumes reasonable people would be in charge of the Leadership of the West. But that variable is “thrown out the window”, the United States and their proxy nations are all run by imbeciles and they are dancing on top of nuclear armageddon.
The Chinese military is dangerous
Here’s a training exercise. Hey! Do you see any cheap AK-47 / SKS clones here? Do you see uneducated peasants? Do you see any starving people that was all that delicious freedom and democracy out of America? VIDEO
And they start training in first grade. Military discipline is part of their lives.
Here’s some third grade students showing first grade students how to assemble and handle rifles, and weapons. VIDEO. It’s a long video at 83MB, but WELL worth the watch. I recorded it while watching my little girls, so sorry about the chit-chat in the background.
Please pay attention to what is going on. Third grade students doing this. 9 years old. We see them teaching the first and second graders in basic squad movement and behaviors. VIDEO.
Video
We will discuss the consequences of the loss of the United States to Asia
In this article we will assume the following…
The United States is successful in triggering a war with China. After all, it has been non-stop provocations for years now. It’s not like China has an aircraft carrier off Boston harbor. Sooner or later there WILL be a response. And it won’t be a subtle hint like the USS Connecticut affair, either.
And, what is omitted from American media (and Conservative) articles and discussions on this subject…
Russia and China work together to fight the USA as they said they would.
Nuclear weapons would be used as they said they would.
The “war” would be short and devastating. Per war game results.
The “war” would be on Asian terms, not defined by America. Per war game results.
First use of nuclear weapons occurs. Per Russian military doctrine.
We will also ignore the ruin and destruction in the rest of the world. This article is not about Israel, Europe, the Ukraine, China, or Japan. This article is about what would happen to the United States once it lost a war.
It would be a first.
And, it would be painful.
Some history…
To understand this article you have to understand history.
America has never lost in a war. The closest to losing a war is what the Confederate States experienced when the South lost the American Civil War. And using that as a template, as well as the pain and anguish that both Russia and China has experienced over the last ten centuries or so, we can compile up a pretty comprehensive picture of what to expect.
So don’t yell at me.
You all should have read a history book or two while you were in school. None of this should be new. The only difference here is that I am providing a reminder that YOU are right now, living in a historical moment. And that moment can have enormous consequences.
We are teetering on the very sharp edge of a very thin line, with a deep abyss on both side.
And using this history, we can compile a listing of potential things to expect to occur once America loses World War III.
Brace yourself…
New borders
Every losing nation ends up having it’s geographical boarders redrawn. For a large nation such as the United States, we would see the entire nation carved up into separate “Protectorates.”
Hawaii would be it’s own Protectorate.
Alaska might be returned to Russia.
Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands will become a Protectorate.
Texas would be carved up. Part would go to Mexico. The other half would be a Protectorate.
California would be carved up. Part would go to Mexico. The remaining sections carved up into protectorates.
The remaining states on the continental United States would be reshaped into ten to 25 individual protectorates.
No existing State would be permitted to retain it’s borders.
Think about what happened to Poland after World War I, and then again after World War II. Think about what happened to Africa when the British colonial power left it. Thank about what happened when the “White Settlers” colonized North America.
The State of Louisiana cut up into regions by cultural and social lines. This could very well be the fate of the entirety of America.
Protectorate laws
As a “Protectorate” the region would function under the rules and laws of the conquering nation. This would vary from protectorate to protectorate. But some things will be constant.
A protectorate can ONLY trade with it’s physical neighbor.
A protectorate cannot have a standing army, navy, air force, space forces.
A protectorate must pay tribute to the conquering nation. This historically consists of a lump sum, plus a very high annual tax born by the inhabitants.
A protectorate would do anything the conquering nation demands.
New Government
The federal United States government would be crushed, destroyed, and any mention of any former leaders retaining power would be harshly suppressed.
A small taste of what is to come.
For a new world out of the old, all old and former government influences are to be extinguished. Buildings would be destroyed, historical monuments raised, and all history rewritten. This is not just on the Federal level, but on the state and local levels as well. Everything would be raised and then altered beyond recognition, and a new command and control government structure rebuilt upon the ashes of the former.
Each protectorate will be told (by the conquering nation) what government it shall have. Some will become theocracies. Such as the “Bible Belt States”. Others will become quaizi-republics. Still others will be dictatorships, and others will simply be socialist based government structures.
All will use the police forces to enforce their new laws, rules and regulations.
The new rulers will use what ever systems are in place to enforce complete obedience.
New laws
There will be new laws. All of the old laws will be discarded. This will be everything from divorce law to business law, to patent law and criminal law. The laws specified by the protectorate will be determined by the conquering nation. You can expect a very harsh social credit scoring system, and the harshest penalties for non-compliance.
Sentenced to being stoned to death for admitting to being raped.
They can be arbitrary, vindictive, and capricious.
Loss of a leg for drinking alcohol.
Beheading for jay-walking.
Death for showing disrespect.
Penis removal for wearing shoes on Sunday.
Non-compliance is often death.
The process of stoning a person to death.
Ownership will change drastically
You may suddenly discover that the home you live in has been seized for “public housing”, a “museum”, or a barracks. That your factory where you work is now under new management and everything is being disassembled and shipped elsewhere, or that the apartment complex that you rent out of is now being turned into hospital.
What’s more, you might be granted 24 hours to gather your belongings and leave… if you are lucky.
Ownership takes on a new meaning when the world is turned upside down, and you are on the losing side. And now you will have to obey your new masters. Imagine that these people were now YOUR local government authority…
It is people like these that will be pressed into an anti-white frenzy and will hurt, attack, and torture you before they rape and kill you. These people will become pawns of the new conquering nation.
Quality of life will plunge
Sure, you might have three cars, two motorcycles and live in a McMansion. But all that means nothing when you have a social credit score so low that you are not authorized to drive, purchase gasoline, or use electricity.
What are you going to do? Hide in your house for months?
Many people will find themselves plunged from “Middle Class” into the world of the sub-slave. Today, the United States is a stratified, balkanized society with nine social classes. After conquest, many will find themselves at the lower “bottom feeder” social classes.
And let’s not even talk about the lifestyle changes for those who expect running water, electricity, access to a cell phone and radio. All these things can, and probably will, be subject to the whims of the new protectorate government.
The USD will collapse and be replaced
One of the first casualties of any war will be the total and complete collapse of the “house of cards” known as the United States Dollar. It’s kept alive on vapor, dreams, hope and frantic, fanatical spending. During a war, and afterwards, these pieces of paper will have zero value.
And unless you have something tangible, and not other vapor-currency like bit-coin, you will suddenly become penniless. Then what are you going to use for trade and commerce when your stomach is growling, and you need heat, water, electricity and a meal in your gut?
The USD is going to become absolutely worthless.
What are you going to barter with?
An x-box when there is no electricity? A car when there’s no access to gasoline? Your collection of Pokemon cards?
More than likely it will be a service that you, or your family can provide to others. Do they have the necessary training? Or will they need to receive on-the-job training to meet the needs of others during a SHTF scenario?
Think sex, manual labor, or other undesirable activities.
Rights become zero
Forget about the “Bill of Rights”.
You will be a slave. Slaves have no Rights. It’s a historical norm.
Cambodian soldier who turned in weapons as directed by his commander when the Marxists took power. Once disarmed, he was tied up and bound. Still in his army uniform. Photographed before being killed. This is the price you pay for not qualifying to live in a Marxist paradise. He was demonized for his “privilege”, attacked for his social irresponsibility, and tortured, well… because it was fun. He was then photographed and killed. .
Sure it is pretty much meaningless today, but in this scenario, it not only doesn’t exist, but it would be ignored BY LAW. If you think that you have the right to think, speak, dream or practice your religion… then think again.
It will be OVER. And non-compliance would mean death. It’s a historical norm.
Conquered people do not have Rights. They are slaves, servants, or chattel.
Deal with this historical fact.
In the Ukraine, the woman were forced to strip in the fields while the drunken soldiers, political squads, and other progressives raped them. Then, when they were finished, they simply lined them up and killed them all.
Places will be renamed
The water-filled crater formerly known as New York City will be renamed “Commode”. Washington DC will become “Fresh Vomit”, and San Francisco will become “Fagland”.
This means different things to different people. But with the renaming of places will come with an entire different understanding of geography. Maps will all be different, and along with it will be the associated perceptions.
Places will be renamed by the victors.
Restrictions become many
There will be all sorts of restrictions on everything. The inhabitants of the conquered territories will need to ask permission to do anything and everything. Failure to get the correct permissions, permits, or pay the necessary fees will result in the harshest measures possible.
Once disarmed, the people will be collected in the cities. They will be segregated into groups. Then they will all be killed, if not used for slaves. This is a historical norm. This is what always happens. .
Driving a car. Traveling. Ownership of a bicycle, access to a bridge. Crossing a border will all be illegal.
And that’s just for movement.
Think about food, clothing and shelter. All will be restricted access. You will be told where to live, what to eat, how to behave, how to dress, what to do, and whether or not you are paid for your labors.
History will be rewritten
Typically all history books and records are burned, destroyed and eliminated. The teachers killed, and a new history constructed to fit the needs of the new ruler class.
Think about the reeducation camps for the teachers and intellectuals in South Vietnam when the North Vietnam took over Saigon (now, Ho Chi Men city.) Think about what happened in Cambodia with the “killing fields”. Think about what happened to the Polish in the Katyn Forest massacre.
TheKatyn massacre, also knownasthe zbrodnia katyńska ('Katyń crime'), was a massexecutionofPolishPOWofficersand citizens ordered by the Soviet authoritiesin 1940. The most widely accepted estimate of the number of dead is about 22,000. Thevictims were murdered in the Katyn forest, Kalinin ( Tver) and Kharkiv prisons, andelsewhere.
-Katyń
Prison camps / rape camps / mass torture complexes
There will be segregation of people into locations. Then new jobs, activities, and tasks will be assigned to them depending on their utility.
Here is a truck parading captured, and “handed over” females to be either given to the soldiers, or sold off in the public square as slaves. This is from Syria, and the girls were most likely handed over to the “police” to spare their lives. The “police” then processed them and set them off to the market for their future roles within the community; sex slaves. .
Men typically are used either for fertilizer (killed outright in mass graves) or as slaves.It is very rare for a male to survive within a conquered land. They are viewed as a viable threat vector and eliminated in mass. Though, exceptions can occur based on their skills or knowledge.
Women are almost always earmarked as sex toys. Historically the women that manage to survive in this role age from 12/14 to up to 30. Older than that, then they are killed.
All of the women will be dehumanized, raped and sent off to “collection centers”. There they will be provided dehumanizing clothing and attire, and raped until they are of no further use.
German Nationalist Socialists (Nazi’s) collected Jewish women. Stripped them, and provided them a roughly hewn sackcloth to wear, and a scarf to cover their head with. An uncovered woman is considered to be a threat. And used them as they felt necessary. .
Everyone, and every moment will be documented to excess. It doesn’t matter if it was the Nazi’s with the Jews, the Soviets with other Soviets, the Khmer Rouge with their fellow citizens, or Americans against Americans. Each person will be interviewed, indexed, photographed, sheared, and categorized prior to execution.
Know your history.
Children are typically killed. Older people are also typically killed. Pets tend to be eaten.
Children rounded up in Syria by the occupation forces. The parents gave them up because the new government promised to protect them and keep them out of harm’s way while the war raged. As a result they were sold and abused. many died.
Schools will change
Historically schools are eliminated, and then when they do reappear, access is severely curtailed and limited. The subjects and information taught in the schools also change as well.
As the schools change, so will the people.
Know your history.
It’s not all boring you know.
Assimilation.
Important cities will be erased
If a city manages to survive the war, and the attacks, it will not be spared when the occupation forces arrive.
The Japanese “rape of Nanjing” in China is one such example.
Nanjing was “occupied” by the Japanese when Japan conquered the region. Then then decided to torture and kill every single person in that entire city.
The entire city was rounded up, tortured and killed by the Japanese occupation forces. Many such examples of this occur throughout history.
Have you ever wondered what happened to the American Indians that lived in such places as Kittanning, PA, or Oswego, NY? All erased from history. Their cities plowed under and now exist as State Game Lands, farm land or parking lots.
The Japanese attack China with the “rape of Nanjing”
Cultural landmarks will be destroyed
Expect such landmarks as Mount Rushmore to be dynamited, The statue of liberty to be torn down and used as scrap metal, the San Francisco bridge to be destroyed, and the iconic White House to be leveled into dust.
Landmarks will be destroyed.
A new “privileged class” will arise
Those “bottom feeders” in society, who have obtained power and control over groups of people, such as urban ghetto enclaves will often be granted special powers and abilities. They will use these powers to control people, places and things in the new protectorates.
Urban groups will seize control of the cities.
Urban groups will seize control of the cities.
Drug gangs will seize entire geographical areas.
Drug gangs will seize entire geographical areas.
Restrictions on movement, attire, and activity
Seemingly random restrictions will appear and will be mandatory. Such as not being allowed to wear camouflaged clothing, shoes, use a cell phone or use a cigarette lighter. Certain areas may forbid the use of automobiles, and the access of grains, apples, seeds, or corn could mean a death sentence.
American police today. It would not be difficult to turn them into an occupation force.
Conclusion
Pretty terrible, huh?
Well then, WHY THE FUCK IS THE UNITED STATES TRYING TO PROVOKE A WAR with both China and Russia simultaneously? Are they out of their minds? Because sooner or later, when you poke a lion it will snap back.
Sooner…
…or, later.
So here is what you all have to look forward to unless things change. You cannot continue to act like a bully when you walk into a gang of Hell’s Angels (hard core bikers). They will not be nice.
The United States had best stop acting like a bully, or else some very mean people are going to take care of the issue.
Summary
Once a war starts, it will only be a matter of time before the United States collapses and is occupied by the rest of the world. During that time, the nation will be broken up, tortured, abused, redefined, purged, and the lives of Americans will be worth nothing.
That’s what you get when your government is corrupt and your leaders are dysfunctional.
The ONLY way to prevent this nightmare scenario is for America to stop trying to provoke a war with Asia, and start trying to reform itself. Though to expect that to actually happen is very, very unlikely.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
This article is based on a comment that was on one of my forums. In it, the person suggested that what he has read about China, from MM, reminds him of the society as depicted within the science fiction story “Starship Troopers” by Robert Heinlein. I have to admit that this is a profound observation. And I agree with him. Here, we will dissect this observation and add some of my personal comments to it.
Service grants citizenship.
The book
The book is well worth the read. I have it available in glorious and easy to read HTML here…
Starship Troopers is perhaps the best-known novel of science fiction master Robert A. Heinlein. Unlike many science fiction novels, the longevity of Starship Troopers’ reputation has at least as much to do with controversies over its themes as the quality of the writing and storytelling.
I am afraid there is no getting around using the f-word here—there is significant debate as to whether Starship Troopers, which glorifies martial virtues and a highly authoritarian political constitution, is fascist.
This debate is muddied by the 1997 movie based on the book, which the filmmakers intentionally used as an artistic opportunity to engage in a reductio ad absurdum of militaristic culture.
Starship Troopers
Putting the movie aside, I want to explore the political economy of the novel itself.
My claim is simple: Starship Troopers is not fascist. Instead, it is an exploration of certain sociopolitical truths that, if ignored, doom a civilization to self-parody by the hemorrhaging of civic virtue.
The novel, told from the perspective of infantryman Juan “Johnnie” Rico, primarily depicts the transformation of a civilian into a soldier. But it is also a commentary on the qualities of a political structure that result in a durable social order.
The novel is set centuries into the future, where earth is part of a polity called the Terran Federation, a spacefaring civilization that extends humanity throughout the galaxy.
In this civilization, all high school students are required to take a course titled “History and Moral Philosophy,” which must be taught by a veteran of the armed services. Johnnie’s teacher, retired Lt. Col. Dubois, recounts to his students how the “twentieth century democracies” gradually experienced a breakdown in domestic law and order.
Starship Troopers
This occurred as these polities continued to grant more and more rights to their citizens, but did not impose accompanying responsibilities.
One result was a spike in crime, such that public spaces were no longer safe at nighttime and many were not safe during the day.
Later in the novel, we learn that international military disaster accompanied domestic political disorder.
A vaguely described war—between the “Chinese Hegemony” and an alliance of the United States, Britain, and Russia on the other—so exhausts the Western polities that they lose the ability to even maintain order within the armed services.
With the breakdown in social order, veterans of this war eventually take the law into their own hands. They form gangs to police their towns and cities, imposing martial law without any civilian oversight—of which it is unclear there could be any, given the previously mentioned political atrophy.
At first, this is unmistakably nothing more than vigilante justice.
But through sheer force, they are capable of maintaining a rudimentary peace. The order of martial law is a low form of order; no great civilization can flourish with a boot on its neck.
But eventually, not through any formal grant of legitimacy via democratic processes but a gradual acceptance of the new ad hoc regime, regularity returns to the social world.
Starship Troopers
On-the-spot justice gives way to regular procedures for ascertaining guilt and assigning punishment to perceived criminals.
As these practices become institutions, civilization shifts from one sociopolitical equilibrium to another.
With regularity comes justified expectations of future behavior by the new government, and along with it the rule of law, and the return of some semblance of democratic and parliamentary governance.
The chief difference is that society is now quasi-Spartan: only those with a military background can participate in the governance of the polity; key civilian positions are reserved by law for veterans; and those who do not perform at least two years of federal service cannot exercise “sovereign franchise.” That is, they cannot vote.
At various points in the novel, this narrative is referred to in order to point out two important truths about governance.
Starship Troopers
These truths are explored through the interplay of Johnnie’s character development and his eventual comprehension of his society’s governance structures.
The first of these truths has to do with the nature of sovereignty.
In the real world, we tend to view sovereignty in ethical terms. We answer “Who rules?” by asking, “Who ought to rule?” This is how we continue to affirm democratic legitimacy even though it is obvious that the will of the people has little to do with how modern Western polities are actually governed.
In contrast, the characters in Starship Troopers have no truck with romantic theories of governance that have no basis in reality.
At its root, sovereignty is power, which means force.
The quasi-military government of Starship Troopers exists because the founders of the Terran Federation, back when they were little more than a vigilante mob, were willing to impose themselves on others.
As it became clear that nobody could oppose them, they became the new de facto government, and eventually the new de jure government. The essential truth of sovereignty, in terms of who actually rules, is that sovereignty is inevitable and, in a higher sense, arbitrary.
Why do veterans govern the Terran Federation?
The only possible answer is because they can.
Starship Troopers
To be clear: This is not a claim that social order requires violence. It is the claim, as historically robust a truth as can be found, is that someone, somewhere, will wield the sword.
To the extent that our political constitutions can be founded on “reflection and choice,” our choice is not power versus self-governance.
Instead, it is responsible versus irresponsible power.
Now we see why so many worry about the glorification of fascism in Starship Troopers. Heinlein had the audacity to explore a world where Sparta works, and is durable.
Understandably, this puts our Western (American) Athenian sensibilities on Red Alert.
The novel’s justifications for franchise restrictions, perhaps the ultimate blasphemy in our egalitarian-democratic age, highlight a second sociopolitical truth:
Any society that decouples rights and responsibilities thereby enables irresponsible power.
…
Eventually, Johnnie is recognized as officer-caliber material.
He is sent to the Terran Federal Service’s equivalent of officer candidate school, which if anything is more grueling than basic training, both physically and mentally.
Chapter 12 of the novel illustrates the intimate link between rights, responsibilities, and a well-governed society in the form of a dialogue between a grizzled officer-instructor and a naïve cadet.
Starship Troopers
The instructor asks the cadet for “a reason—not historical nor theoretical but practical,” for limiting the franchise to discharged veterans.
The cadet goes through several incorrect explanations—that veterans are higher-quality beings, “picked men,” or that they are “more disciplined”—before he, along with Johnnie and the reader, are enlightened.
The instructor begins by wryly asserting,
“I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system [of limited franchise] is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: it works satisfactorily.”
This is a repeated emphasis on the fundamentals of sovereignty.
The instructor then goes through the restrictions on voting, or the exercise of political power more generally that have existed throughout history, and in what respect the restrictions of the Terran Federation differ.
The answer:
“Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage….
He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue.
But his average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history.”
The instructor takes a realistic, and hence grim, view of political power—again, remember the truth of sovereignty!—when he continues,
“To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme authority from which all other authority derives…the franchise is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax.
Whether it is exerted by ten or by ten billion, political authority is force.”
Next the instructor singles out Johnnie to complete the narrative. He asks what the necessary complement to authority is, and Cadet Rico answers “Responsibility.”
Starship Troopers
This pleases the instructor, who finishes explaining why the political system of the Terran Federation has been both successful and stable:
Authority and responsibility must be equal—else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential.
To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.
The unlimited democracies [of the twentieth century] were unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in which they exerted their sovereign authority….
No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority.
If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened instead—and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and destroyed both him and his foundationless temple (emphasis added).
There you have it: The stark recognition that the right to vote is the right to rule, and that the right to rule without the responsibility of bearing the consequences of one’s decisions is a recipe for infantilism writ large.
One may dispute whether this specific form of civic virtue is the safest foundation on which a limited franchise rests.
But the key point, that there is such a thing as better and worse voters, and that empowering the latter is a sure path to gradual erosion of social cooperation, is sound.
It’s also one we desperately need to hear today.
And now, the inevitable caveats. There is some truth to the claim that, on its own, Starship Troopers is a dangerous form of social commentary.
Martial glorification is an inherently slippery slope, as any historian of Wilhelmine Germany can attest.
Starship Troopers
Furthermore, the kind of mind sympathetic to highly hierarchical governance is at risk of mistakenly thinking a whole society can be run like a barracks.
These impulses must be tempered by exposure to insightful commentary on what happens when power is, despite everybody’s best intentions, exercised irresponsibly, an unfortunately all-too-common occurrence. But all of these caveats do not diminish the wisdom that Starship Troopers conveys, all the more remarkable for being a work of fiction.
If we are unwilling to find a way to structure our political institutions such that rights are firmly coupled with responsibility, we will continue to see a ballooning of the former and an erosion of the latter.
The result will not be pretty, and we will deserve it.
Starship Troopers
But is China really like this?
As someone who has lived 40 years in America from birth, and then an additional 20+ years inside of China, I am positively affirm that Chinese society is very, very similar to the society that was depicted in the book.
Similar.
No, it’s not the evil “Communist regime” that the onslaught of anti-China Western propaganda spews daily in your “news” feeds.
It’s something else entirely.
But China is not Sparta. Nor is it like the Western “democracies”. It is a new social system that has never been seen before on the world. And the closest illustration of what it is, by far, is through the book “Starship Troopers”.
Starship Troopers
The tenants of the society depicted within the book
Let’s break down some of the core points in the book and how they manifest within China.
And I am going to tell you all, right off the bat, that this is information that you will not find in the American or “Western” press or “news”. They (the media) all are well-funded propaganda mills that actually believe their echo-chamber nonsense.
We will look at these tenants listed in the movie;
Only those with a military background can participate in governance.
At all levels discipline is required for success.
Sovereignty is power, which means rule by force.
Responsible versus irresponsible power.
Rights and responsibilities are intertwined.
Only those with a military background can participate in the governance of the society.
Well, let’s begin with the understanding that not all things military resembles marching armies.
In America we have the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, The Civilian Conservation Corps, and The Peace Corps. What all these organizations possess is that the participants are volunteers that risk their lives, devote their time and careers, towards the betterment of society.
Coast Guard = Working to protect society.
Civilian Conservation Corps = Working to protect societies environment.
Peace Corps = Working to support other societies for the good of all.
Starship Troopers
So if we use this model and expand “the military” to include “organizations that support the growth and maintenance of society” you can say…
Yes. Absolutely!
In China if you want to vote in the “democratic process” you must be a member of the “Party”, and to be a member, you must contribute and participate.
Service grants citizenship.
Those that do not participate; that do not excel in school; that do not help and volunteer, and those that do not join The Pioneers when in elementary, middle and high schools cannot participate in government within China. Period.
Modern China.
In China, not everyone can vote.
It is a meritocracy. The ability to vote requires that you, throughout your life, contribute to the good of society and do what ever is needed at any time of the day or night.
If the government asks you to help rebuild a dam, then you leave you job and do so. If the government asks you to build a hospital over night, then you do so. You don’t complain. You do it.
That is participation. That is a society that only allows contributors to participate in governance.
At all levels discipline is required for success.
Discipline is taught at a young age. And from Kindergarten on up, the students obtain daily discipline training, education on civic society, military behaviors and pure military field rife and combat training.
Here’s some videos that I collected. Some are training films. Some are recruitment films. Some are just studies. Some are personal videos. All in all a good mix. It will give you all a great idea about the Chinese military capability.
Discipline – Elementary Echool Soldiers
Young Pioneers and elementary children going through mandatory military training.
Starship Troopers
Some of the films have children in it going through training. These are the elementary-school Pioneers (the Chinese cub scouts). Everyone in China gets full military training. Those older kids, are in middle school. They are the ones wearing blue slacks with the white line training and shooting AK-74’s.
You will see closeups of the various electronic weapons systems, and the state of the art Chinese SEAL and Special Forces troops as well. You will see some videos about how Japan came into China and killed off so many innocent civilians. And note that now that every civilian can fire a gun, and fight, that is never going to happen ever again.
It starts off with some more middle school assault weapon training.
Next is the elementary school pioneers who undergo physical obstacle course training. Notice that they do it while carrying a full military rifle. Also note that it’s both boys and girls. No one gets a pass. VIDEO.
Boys and Girls no one gets a pass.
The third video is the reservists. China has an active military and the reserves that meet every few weeks. VIDEO.
Reservists practice and drill over and over and over and over.
Training, training, training.
Fourth video is for the young Pioneers. For inspiration and training. Very, very interesting. If you don’t watch any of these videos here, you MUST at least watch this one.
China will NEVER allow a repeat of the “Rape of Nanjing”.
Of course there are all sorts of interesting things in these videos.
Group 3B
Discipline – Learn about Chinese Society
Here we have some first grade students demonstrating their skills in front of the rest of the school in assembly. Note that all students not only learn English, but also get weekly lessons in military warfare, strategy, and operations. VIDEO.
And here are how a Pioneers assembly looks like. These are all first grade students around 6 years old. VIDEO.
Discipline. Merit. Training.
Sovereignty is power, which means rule by force.
Ah. This is the common anti-China narrative. But the reality is that China does not rule by force. Instead, they rule by compliance.
Starship Troopers
In China, everyone is expected to comply with the law. The entire nation is wired up with AI monitored video, audio and systems, and boy oh boy is that driving the American CIA bonkers! China knows who is doing what, where and why. It’s sort of like that Tom Cruse movie where you can follow a person’s movements from when they wake up in the morning throughout the day. That is China today.
It is invasive?
No, not really, with 1.6 billion people there is no way for people to monitored gulag style. Instead, AI monitors and flags dangerous behaviors. A social credit scorecard is used to connect individual behaviors to society hierarchy. If you are a dick, a bad person, a skank, you will be low on the hierarchy. But if you are good, helpful and volunteer, you will go up higher. It’s all merit driven.
One of the core tenants of the book “Starship Trooper” was that only the responsible would be in the position of power to govern. that really riled up the sensibilities of many a free wheeling, casual, “good time Charlie” lover. And responsibility comes with wisdom, experience, effort and merit. You are not just “responsible” at birth. It is a learned behavior.
Starship Troopers
If you are not to be responsible, you become irresponsible. Not just to yourself, but to those around you. You need discipline, behavioral training, and coaching.
While the book refers to this trait on a personal level, the key point is that it applies throughout society. There is a real problem when you live in a family with an irresponsible parent. The entire household becomes dysfunctional.
Its even worse when an irresponsible person takes over the reins of government. And that must be prevented.
[1] At the system level
The system must screen for dangerous people.
Honor guards attend a flag-raising ceremony at Tiananmen Square in 2017.
The system that brings in leadership, and directors must be solid, substantive, rugged and robust. It must be such that all the problematic personalities; the greedy, the psychopathic, the sociopath, the narcissistic and the evil be forever barred from positions of power and control. This system is inherent inside the operation of the Chinese communist party. It is very, very difficult to join, and the requirements to do so are maintained by service-to-others (SEO) committees.
[2] At the operation level
The leadership must constantly be policed.
This is the bane of most societies and only in the last ten years has this changed in China. China has set up the “Corruption Police” and they have made “earth shattering” changes to all levels of government. The days of graft, vice, abuse of power are all gone. (Well, in the process of going away. There are always hold outs.) This “Corruption Police” are an elite group of SEO officers and agents that root out corruption at every level and work to functionally make the Chinese society a well-run meritocracy.
Starship Troopers
Rights and responsibilities are intertwined.
America talks and talks about Rights. There are no Rights in America. Every single (so called immutable Rights) now come with exceptions. And there are so many of these exceptions that they render the Rights useless.
While in China, the Rights of the people are maintained, policed and enforced. No wonder the Chinese have a 95% approval rate for their government.
The Chinese are hyper-patriotic.
But inside the ruined has-been nation of America, the story is quite different. With only a mere 15% of the population trusting the United States government, with a margin of error around 15%. Which means that somewhere between 0% and 30% of the United States citizenry trust the American government.
John White head said it best…
“We can zip our lips and bind our hands and shut our eyes.
In other words, we can continue to exist in a state of denial. Yet there is no denying the ugly, hard truths that become more evident with every passing day.
The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.”
Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.
Republicans and Democrats like to act as if there’s a huge difference between them and their policies. However, they are not sworn enemies so much as they are partners in crime, united in a common goal, which is to maintain the status quo.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Some years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?” The answer, then and now, remains the same: None. There is virtually no difference between psychopaths and politicians.
More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us
The government knows exactly which buttons to push in order to manipulate the populace and gain the public’s cooperation and compliance.
If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.
America’s shadow government—which is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now and operates beyond the reach of the Constitution with no real accountability to the citizenry—is the real reason why “we the people” have no control over our government.
You no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent.
“We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. By gradually whittling away at our freedoms—free speech, assembly, due process, privacy, etc.—the government has, in effect, liberated itself from its contractual agreement to respect our constitutional rights while resetting the calendar back to a time when we had no Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the government.
We now find ourselves caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state, and “we the people” are losing.
All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.
If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.
Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.
Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.
Finally, freedom is never free. There is always a price—always a sacrifice—that must be made in order to safeguard one’s freedoms.
We cannot remain silent in the face of the government’s ongoing overreaches, power grabs, and crimes against humanity.
Evil disguised as bureaucracy is still evil. Indeed, this is what Hannah Arendt referred to as the banality of evil.”
But this is not the case in China.
In China if you want a Right, you must earn it, and then show responsibility for it. If you do not, then it will be withheld from you. On the day to day, practical level, this manifests as the Social Credit Scoring system.
Starship Troopers
To give a good example of this, consider the laws that require parents to be responsible for the bad things their children do. China’s parliament will consider legislation to punish parents if their young children exhibit “very bad behavior” or commit crimes.
Yeah it is the parents’ responsibility to take care of their children, whether the child is good or bad depends on the parents, educate the child in the path he should follow, and even when he is older he will not depart from it.
it’s called RESPONSIBILITY.
Conclusion
But China is Communist! They scream!
China says it’s a Social Democracy based on traditional Communist Values. While America calls itself an exceptional democratic republic.
He says. She says. Who cares?
China today is something that cannot be easily explained in tight, narrow, traditional political definitions. While America is simple. It is a classic oligarchy ruled military empire.
The BRFLS Second Grade Chinese Young Pioneers Initiation Ceremony
Part of the problem with trying to solve or fix a problem is defining what the problem is. America is broke. It is broken, smashed, and a walking cluster fuck. That’s a fact Jack. If you cannot see it, then you must be mentally ill.
Meanwhile, China is the absolute opposite of it.
There are many, many similarities between the Chinese society and that of the society as depicted within the book “Starship Troopers” by Robert A Heinlein.
On a whole, I believe that China is doing things right.
They should be applauded for it. This system raised over a billion people out of poverty. This system has created a great “level playing field” for the vast bulk of Chinese society to have a moderate successful life, and this system is rocking the world with scientific discoveries, help, and innovation.
China is taking the world by the hand gently and moving it forward. I for one applaud it, and you should too. Do not fear that the billionaires can only become thousandaires, or that “‘ma freedoms to a vote in a democracy” would be restricted. Those are fears intentionally generated to make you fear what the world is becoming.
Do not fear.
Instead…
Look at what America has become. When you are ruled by the psychopathic in society, the society becomes ill, distressed and dysfunctional.
Here is America today…
The cities are inhabited by zombies. They really are. Video.
Well, not all the cities are inhabited by zombies.
You have a bunch of people walking around in “freedom”, “doing their own thing”. Such as this fine upstanding “pillar of the community” here. VIDEO.
There is no alternative. China is the future.
China is the future!
China is the future.
Just like in the movie “Starship Troopers”…
Starship Troopers.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Americans have no idea what it would actually be like to have a real war. Most of them don’t even know that China has surpassed the US economically. Most Americans literally think a war with China would be similar to a war with Afghanistan or Iraq – something you watch on television that has no direct effect on your life, other than maybe causing gasoline prices to fluctuate.
This article is a collection of insightful articles, musings, and tidbits that most (not all) of my fellow Americans are completely unaware of occurring.
We will start with a big news item, and then approach it from the point of view of what is not being reported…
Meng Wanzhou
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou arrives in China after more than 1,000 days under house arrest in Canada, following a deal with U.S. prosecutors to end a fraud case against her.
Love China and China will love you. Millions and millions of people all over China watching live the return to freedom from Canada of the Huawei Boss. We were watching live in the local pub here in Dongguan. More exciting than watching a corrupt European football game. Very bad news for Canada as far as the average Chinese person is concerned.
- Peter Weston
Yes. Big news in China.
Three Videos of just HOW BIG this is.
Everyone knows what happened. The United States Military Empire kidnapped a leading Chinese Industry leader on trumped up charges. Then after three years of no proof, they released her.
Why is this big news?
Imagine if China did the same thing to Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Now, imagine if the Chinese had behave like a bunch of Washington DC weak-wristed yes-men, who were only in their positions due to political graft.
Most likely, they would be uselessly fighting on the American and Canadian courts as we speak, and Meng would probably rot for at least some 15 years in prison.
Luckily, the Chinese are communists, so they don’t delve into bullshit. They saw her prison for what it really was – a political stunt – and counter-attacked accordingly, by arresting two of Canada’s ruling elite (i.e. the Canadian capitalist class) members.
The Release Of Meng Wanzhou’s Is A Small But Decisive Victory For China
The U.S. has given in to the Chinese demand to end its hostage holding of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou:
A plane believed to be carrying Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou took off from the Vancouver airport on Friday, marking a new stage in a legal saga that ensnared Canada — and two of its citizens — in a dispute between the U.S. and Chinese governments.
A B.C. court decided on Friday that the extradition case against Meng would be dropped after the Huawei chief financial officer reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. government.Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, the two Canadian citizens who were detained in China just days after Meng's arrest in Vancouver, are now on their way back Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed on Friday evening.
The U.S. had accused Meng Wanzhou of misleading the opium dealer bank HSBC about Huawei’s relation with a local entity in Iran. This, the U.S. claimed, had led to breach by HSBC of its unilateral sanctions against Iran.
This was a constructed crime with the only evidence being some wording on one page of a longer power point slideshow which Meng Wanzhou surely had not edited herself.
The deferred prosecution agreement seems to admit that:
As part of her arrangement with U.S. prosecutors, Meng pleaded not guilty in a court Friday to multiple fraud charges.
The Huawei chief financial officer entered the plea during a virtual appearance in a New York courtroom. She was charged with bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracies to commit bank and wire fraud more than two and a half years ago.
...
The agreed statement of facts from Friday's U.S. court appearance said that Meng told a global financial institution that a company operating in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions was a "local partner" of Huawei when in fact it was a subsidiary of Huawei.
The whole case was constructed and the arrest arranged by John Bolton when he was National Security Advisor under then President Donald Trump:
The Trudeau adviser said Mr. Bolton and other like-minded officials in the U.S. government were well aware of the significance of the arrest they were asking Canada to make. The adviser and a senior national-security official say they are convinced the U.S. picked Canada to arrest Ms. Meng – and did so in a last-minute rush – because they believed the Justice Department and the RCMP would honor the extradition request.
Trump has linked resolution of the U.S. government’s dealings with Huawei to a potential trade agreement with China. He has said he would consider Huawei’s role in a trade deal at the final stage of negotiations, the court application says.
...
“Prejudice to the fairness of these proceedings is made out by the president’s repeated assertions that (Meng’s) liberty is effectively a bargaining chip in what he sees as the biggest trade deal ever.”
The case gave Canada a lot of headaches as China had arrested two of its spies just days after Canada had followed the U.S. request to arrest Meng Wanzhou. Canada has denied that Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were spying for its services. However, Canada’s main spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, welcomed the release of its boys:
Canadian CIA.
During a July visit to China U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman had been given two lists of issues that China demanded to be solved before it was willing to cooperate further with the U.S.:
In the List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop, China urged the United States to unconditionally revoke the visa restrictions over Communist Party of China (CPC) members and their families, revoke sanctions on Chinese leaders, officials and government agencies, and remove visa restrictions on Chinese students.
China also urged the United States to stop suppressing Chinese enterprises, stop harassing Chinese students, stop suppressing the Confucius Institutes, revoke the registration of Chinese media outlets as "foreign agents" or "foreign missions", and revoke the extradition request for Meng Wanzhou.
China sees the end of the Meng Wanzhou issue as a victory:
The high-profile case of Meng, which has become a political dilemma significantly affecting the global geopolitical landscape, has been settled through both legal channels and political wrestling, experts said, noting that China, the US and Canada have seen the best scenario with much compromise made by the Biden administration in resolving the matter. It also helped pave the way for the positive interaction between the world's largest economies in the near future amid strained China-US relations.
It was also one mistake of the US administration that has been corrected in line with the request of China, as China put forward two lists to the US during the bilateral talks in Tianjin in July, including the List of US Wrongdoings that Must Stop which urged the US to release Meng, showing that Beijing's US policies began taking effect and remaining mistakes of the US have to be corrected.
Commentator Pepe Escobar however, does not believe that the release of Meng Wanzhou will change much if anything:
Pepe Escobar @RealPepeEscobar - 11:49 UTC · Sep 25, 2021
MENG WANZHOU
- political kidnapping masked as criminal prosecution
- part of the demonization of Huawei
- near 3-year illegal detention
- fake charges
- “Justice” Dept. had to drop extradition request
- Hybrid War continues
While I agree that U.S. aggression against China will continue I do see this as a Chinese victory. China has disabled one of the weapons that U.S. had used against it.
From now on no country will risk to follow a U.S. requests to arrest a Chinese citizen:
The swiftness of the apparent deal also stands as a warning to leaders in other countries that the Chinese government can be boldly transactional with foreign nationals, said Donald C. Clarke, a law professor specializing in China at George Washington University’s Law School.
“They’re not even making a pretense of a pretense that this was anything but a straight hostage situation,” he said of the two Canadians, who stood trial on spying charges.
Mr. Spavor was sentenced last month to 11 years in prison, and Mr. Kovrig was waiting for a verdict in his case after trial in March.
“In a sense, China has strengthened its bargaining position in future negotiations like this,” Professor Clarke said. “They’re saying, if you give them what they want, they will deliver as agreed.”
The U.S. had, via Canada, taken Meng Wanzhou as a hostage.
China replicated that by taking two Canadian citizens as hostages, thereby putting the pressure on the weaker power involved.
It also stopped imports of Canadian canola and pork. No government will want to repeat the experience of the Canadian one.
The sentiment of patriotism prevailed at the scene. After the short speech, Meng waved to the crowds holding Chinese flags to welcome her at the airport, with a big smile, while singing a song for the motherland together with people at the scene.
People were still singing after Meng rode the bus to undergo epidemic prevention inspection at the request of Chinese Customs.
Groups of people, who wore protective suits, held flowers and welcome banners as they waited on the parking apron at the airport, as Chinese port cities have adopted strict epidemic prevention measures against COVID-19. Local media reports said earlier that Meng was expected to follow the 14 plus 7 days of quarantine following her arrival.
So this is indeed a victory but in a minor battle and in a war that is likely to see much bigger ones.
Other thoughts…
How did China know that the two Canadians were spies? Could it be that CIA incompetence exposed them and others? Seems very likely.
Keep in mind that China managed to roll up an entire CIA network of spies some years ago (ca. 2011), no doubt by methods such as that (and probably by using double agents like the Venezuelans did to fool the US into thinking their military would support Guido).
Eighteen ‘sources’ were reportedly neutralized in that one Chinese operation. Of course we don’t, and won’t, know the truth but it sounds like it was a pretty disastrous outcome for the CIA.
Do you think that there were other “round ups” that occurred but were not reported?
What happens to Western Spooks that go to China?
Concerning China's abilities at keeping track of Five Eyes spooks, what part of the imperial color revolution in Hong Kong was missing? What do we normally see in an American regime change operation after the US State Department's NGOs succeed in building protests that was lacking in Hong Kong?
Of course, the snipers.
So where are the snipers that the CIA trained up to spark the protests into a raging conflagration?
Obvious answer: At the bottom of Victoria Harbor wearing concrete boots.
This was unlikely to have been done by Chinese intelligence themselves but rather by the Triads after some negotiations with mainland authorities. While the Triads are not allied with the Communists, they are part of the second system in that "One country, two systems" deal and have a deep interest in maintaining the status quo. The empire's color revolution seriously jeopardized that status quo and had to be neutralized.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 25 2021 21:22 utc | 36
…
In other news, this is excerpt from CGTN…
French writer exposes U.S. global hegemony
Updated 22:59, 25-Sep-2021
CGTN
The number of companies and entrepreneurs that have fallen victim to the U.S. global hegemony is unknown but Marc Lassus, founder of Gemplus, a manufacturer of smart cards (including SIM cards) is one of them.
After witnessing the Frenchman’s business making waves with users in the billions, the U.S. took control of the company and drove Lassus away, Chinese newspaper the Global Times has reported. Lassus said that their goal was, through the CIA and NSA, to spy on the whole world.
Lassus has told his story in a recently published book, “The Chip Trap.” During an interview with the Global Times, he shared his thoughts on Canada’s arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States.
"Meng Wanzhou's detention in Canada is just a pure scandal, as well as their request for extradition to the U.S," he said.
Huawei has a very significant technological advantage in 5G infrastructure and to some extent in fiber optics, their presence in Africa is also very strong and it is too late to beat them, Lassus said. Therefore, the U.S. used brutal and “cowboy” approaches to hinder Huawei’s business expansion.
He added that Meng’s case reminded him of his own experience. He was almost arrested on similar, trumped-up “charges” during a private trip to Cuba but he miraculously escaped imprisonment in the U.S.
"The move from the Trump administration to Biden's will not change much the U.S. policies," he noted.
He also mentioned that the U.S. claim that it values free markets is “pure hypocrisy.” They use any possible means to suppress other countries’ high-tech companies from being successful in international markets, such as Huawei, ZTE and places pressure on chip manufacturers such as Samsung.
Lassus said he was optimistic about the cooperation between China and Europe, which is entering into a new era with ties becoming more strategic, more complex but more promising.
"It is very clear now China should put more effort and investment than ever to develop key technologies in the semiconductor industry such as key equipment, materials and design tools, and so on. Especially when the U.S. is trying to ban any exchange between world-leading companies and China," he said.
Yes, and so China is doing so. How are the billions in new investments in the IC / AI / IoT technology corridor HK, Zhuhai, and Guangzhou being reported in your nations?
The long arm of U.S. jurisdiction dates backs to over a decade ago when the world’s biggest power felt threatened by the rapid ascent of other economies. Now the possibility of losing technological advantage haunts Washington, which has resorted to bending the law to gain a competitive edge. Bribery, fraud, and violating sanctions are commonly used pretexts for the U.S. to strike down any individual, entity or country that it feels threatened by.
Frederic Pierucci, an executive of Alstom, a French power and transportation conglomerate, was arrested by the FBI when his plane arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on April 14, 2013. He was charged with bribing Indonesian officials to win a power plant contract.
Coincidentally or not, the arrest of Pierucci, then president of the French power titan’s boiler subsidiary, ran parallel to the largest business acquisition by the American General Electric (GE) of its French rival Alstom’s energy business.
Lassus said it was only after January 2019 when Frederic Pierucci published his book “Le Piege Americain,” also known as “The American Trap,” that he felt free, credible, and publicly protected to come out with his story.
“Pierucci’s book relates the U.S. aggression, through General Electric, to take control of ALSTOM, a French company. Pierucci has been put for two years in jail in the US! A real scandal,” Lassus said.
An interesting comment that I read…
The comment goes…
Two things I would like to add here.
One, this is embarrassing as a Canadian. We don't have ANY politician who saw through this. NONE.
Many internationalist Canadians saw through this within the first 3-7 days, but none were in government, and none were even (audible) in Parliament.
This is utter international relations incompetence.
As we learned from the immigration lawyers for the defense, this case was rigged from the very start - the arrest should not have happened;
The signs for a different than advertised goal by the FBI were overt;
The RCMP should not have been allowed to enter into it with the border guard;
The Prime Minister and Justice Minister should have been reachable instead of 'on their weekend';
Etc, etc...
Beyond that, if the President of the USA then makes a statement politicizing the arrest, the Prime Minister of Canada has no right to hide behind "Executive vs Justice" power, As the extradition agreement explicitly states that the PM can intervene through the Justice Minister to avert political abuses of the extradition agreement.
So this is totally on Trudeau's incompetence and cowardice.
Two, this US subversion of Huawei will not work because XXXXXXX has understated, hugely, the Chinese distance created from the stone-age USA in current day digital progress.
I was shocked as a Canadian European, coming into Chicago and Ohio in 2000 and discovering how far behind the USA was in simcard and digital technology.
It caught up, but barely.
Now, China is too far ahead and is running much faster than the US is or has the capacity to.
China has already won - this Huawei case is just a little side cake - because they have all the infrastructure and are way beyond 5G - they are building the next universe and America can't even have the data points to dream about it.
As a Canadian expat he is seeing what I have seen. But I am in technology, R&D and manufacturing. I can tell you that the USA is behind, but no one wants to listen to MM.
Do you agree with me that China is much more advanced in technology, or the Western narrative that soon, say in 2025, China will surpass the USA?
And this interesting rebuttal…
In Canada’s defense — the authorities here were dealing with John Bolton, a known a**h@le who believes in breaking eggs to make omelettes.Interviews with Canadian ultra political insider, Peter Donolo on BNN Bloomberg (just BNN back then maybe?) expressed concern about who would replace the just fired National Security Advisor.So Canada’s political class protested through the media (which is how you gotta do it with the neocons, just ask Russia) about John Bolton’s appointment.Somewhere I picked up that Canada was threatened with having US troops at the Vancouver airport if Canada refused to act in the interests of American security.The Michaels are 5th columnists.They don’t work for CSIS, Canada, the Canadian political class or any other Canadian national interest or institution.Their arrest was quite possibly arranged behind-the-scenes between China and Canada to get Bolton fired as well as the other results b mentions. And a very important piece of this is the Canadian Ambassador to China, Dominic Barton.Check out this man’s resume.His appointment could have been at the request of China, quite possibly, another Canadian concession (although Trudeau wanted him in that role previously, but he declined).
Here’s an interesting note (not by me) on how the flight route that was used to bring Meng back to China (Google Translated from Russian):
“And by the way, about the small details of today’s event, the evacuation of Meng Wangzhou from Canadian captivity.
Look how they dragged her from Vancouver to China, you can shoot an action movie (I think the Chinese will easily shoot it).
Rescue air flight.
[1] Vancouver is close to the United States, so the board briskly went along the line “as far away as possible from the main territory of the United States and from Alaska” vertically upward, aiming directly at the North Pole.
[2] Over the Arctic, he made the shortest possible route to the Russian air defense zone and went further south through Siberia and Mongolia.
[3] The standard version of the route (see the second picture), through the Pacific Ocean, where the American control points and, in general, there are enough opportunities to do something bad, was not used, although it was announced in advance that this is how Air China would fly back.
On the question of when they soberly assess the situation and understand that agreements with Canada and international law are one thing, but the Arctic region, where the Northern Sea Route is, is completely different and, somehow, under the wing of Shoigu and friends, it is calmer and safer.”
Do you think that the Chinese were being overly cautious, or rather that the over-the-pole flight path was the most economical one to take?
All this is very interesting, but let’s not forget one thing…
Naughty China citizen Meng was charged with breaking a United States law while she was inside of China.
US Justice Dept, Jan 28, 2019
Meng is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracies to commit bank and wire fraud.
“As charged in the indictment, Huawei and its Chief Financial Officer broke U.S. law and have engaged in a fraudulent financial scheme that is detrimental to the security of the United States,” said Secretary Nielsen.
“They willfully conducted millions of dollars in transactions that were in direct violation of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, and such behavior will not be tolerated." . . .here
The US hasn't given up trying to convince China citizens to obey US laws.
US Justice Dept, Sep 24, 2021
Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei Technologies, admitted today that she failed to tell the truth about Huawei’s operations in Iran, and as a result the financial institution continued to do business with Huawei in violation of U.S. law. Our prosecution team continues to prepare for trial against Huawei, and we look forward to proving our case against the company in court.” . . .here
United States laws only work within United States territory. Just like Chinese laws only work within China, and South African laws only work in South Africa.
Obviously the idiots in Washington DC do not respect other people’s (geographic) space.
What’s with this issue? Why don’t Americans understand that once you leave the USA, there are different laws, rules, regulations, culture and society and the USA cannot violate the national sovereignty of others in other nations?
And this interesting response…
Ms Meng ‘the Merciless’ was monstered by ‘(inter)National Interests’.
Who the fuck have the US the right to arrest people in foreign countries? For breaking the unilateral US sanction on another country??
That is not simple Exceptionalism...
...it’s is gross Overeach.
It can only be dumb superiority complex and racism to have thought that they can talk loud and carry a big stick to keep the savages subdued.
That Canadians have meekly re-elected the controlled scion of ones of the Empires CEO’s who was brought up by the Fascists of the West and the Money is pure pathetic Stockholm syndrome exhibited by voters in the west over the last 50 years.
We deserve all we get!
Canadians did to Meng what Sweden did to Assange and what the Decimate Empire is doing to the World in clueing as I say their own subjects as is happening daily now to the U.K. subjects because of BrexShit.
Chaotic scenes at petrol stations!
...In one of the richest countries in the World.
The MSM are fully controlled Mockingbird operatives. Independent journalism is muted and inprisoned, like Craig Murray is.
I’ll link to my post on the open thread that addresses why the Empire and Eva cornered rat and it’s Masters are morbidly stuck in their death throes as China changes human history on planet Earth with a competent partner in Russia and their SCO.
‘Are we getting it yet barflies?
Posted by: D.G. | Sep 23 2021 17:31 utc | 171 ‘
And another comment…
The Hauwei angst in the west is because China has ‘leapfrogged’ the Western modernity with nextgen tech and AI in their daily commercial environment.
The west having legacy ageing tech infrastructure and systems that hasn’t been squeezed of the last drop of payback/profit from it!
That’s how they have always rolled.
Capturing IP rights and shelving innovation.
They couldn’t do that with 5G and plus.
Or with AI in public services.
Which makes them natural predators of similar organizations in the west by virtue of the WTO ‘open to competition’ rules. Which were designed under the assumption they only would work in one direction.
It is that simple. Expect no mercy but be willing to accept that They will not act like we would and will not stoop to such savage western expectations.
Posted by: D.G | Sep 25 2021 20:23 utc | 27
What about the UN?
The UN Charter, in its Preamble, set an objective:
"to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained".
Ever since, the development of, and respect for international law has been a key part of the work of the Organization.
This work is carried out in many ways – by courts, tribunals, multilateral treaties – and by the Security Council, which can approve peacekeeping missions, impose sanctions, or authorize the use of force when there is a threat to international peace and security, if it deems this necessary. These powers are given to it by the UN Charter, which is considered an international treaty. As such, it is an instrument of international law, and UN Member States are bound by it. . .here
China has been clear about the US ‘rules-based international order’ i.e. US laws, which go against the UN Charter.
Mar 18, 2021
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, and welcome. On behalf of National Security Advisor Sullivan and myself, I want to welcome Director Yang and State Councilor Wang to Alaska, and to thank you very much for making the journey to be with us.
I just returned myself from meetings with Secretary of Defense Austin and our counterparts in Japan and the Republic of Korea, two of our nation’s closest allies. They were very interested in the discussions that we’ll have here today and tomorrow because the issues that we’ll raise are relevant not only to China and the United States, but to others across the region and indeed around the world. Our administration is committed to leading with diplomacy to advance the interests of the United States and to strengthen the rules-based international order.
That system is not an abstraction. It helps countries resolve differences peacefully, coordinate multilateral efforts effectively, and participate in global commerce with the assurance that everyone is following the same rules. The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all, and that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us. Today, we’ll have an opportunity to discuss key priorities, both domestic and global, so that China can better understand our administration’s intentions and approach.
Director Yang responded–
What China and the international community follow or uphold is the United Nations-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called “rules-based” international order.
And the United States has its style – United States-style democracy – and China has the Chinese-style democracy.
It is not just up to the American people, but also the people of the world to evaluate how the United States has done in advancing its own democracy.
In China’s case, after decades of reform and opening up, we have come a long way in various fields.
In particular, we have engaged in tireless efforts to contribute to the peace and development of the world, and to upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. . .here
So it’s a showdown between the USA and the UN. China and Russia and the rest of the world (minus the UK, and Australia) want to stand with the UN. The USA wants to be God over all. Is this an exaggeration?
And China plays down the line.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited Tianjin, China July 25-26 2021 and was presented a list of US “wrongdoings that must stop”, also mentioning specifically Meng Wanzhou
In the List of U.S. Wrongdoings that Must Stop, China urged the United States to unconditionally revoke the visa restrictions over Communist Party of China (CPC) members and their families, revoke sanctions on Chinese leaders, officials and government agencies, and remove visa restrictions on Chinese students.China also urged the United States to stop suppressing Chinese enterprises, stop harassing Chinese students, stop suppressing the Confucius Institutes, revoke the registration of Chinese media outlets as "foreign agents" or "foreign missions", and revoke the extradition request for Meng Wanzhou.
Meng’s release is creating waves.
Chinese citizens are giving unprecedented support to the government.
Overseas Chinese are ever more united behind China.
Even those anti-communist and brainwashed Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong and elsewhere are quietly admitting the positive result – because they understand that they could be the target of arrest by America in future if this turns out the wrong way.
It is giving a tough-love lesson to the serially abused vassal states, e.g. Japan (Toshiba), France (Alstom), Germany (Siemens) and countless others. I don’t know what are their politicians and executives thinking right now: shame, regret, impotent, admiration or some combination of these?
It has delivered a bloody punch to the war-mongers and anti-China neocons, who are licking their wound.
And finally,
It is giving hope to the rest of developing countries. Countries who treasures their independence and dignity needs to grow a spine and learn to grab a stick.
But that is not the only thing going on…
Eurasia Takes Shape: How the SCO Just Flipped the World Order
The SEO. It’s going to become a really big deal in the next few years. Pay attention.
SEO = Russia + China + Iran + India
As a rudderless West watched on, the 20th anniversary meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was laser-focused on two key deliverables: shaping up Afghanistan and kicking off a full-spectrum Eurasian integration.
The two defining moments of the historic 20th anniversary Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan had to come from the keynote speeches of – who else – the leaders of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Xi Jinping:
“Today we will launch procedures to admit Iran as a full member of the SCO.”
Vladimir Putin:
“I would like to highlight the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed today between the SCO Secretariat and the Eurasian Economic Commission.
It is clearly designed to further Russia’s idea of establishing a Greater Eurasia Partnership covering the SCO, the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union), ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI).”
In short, over the weekend, Iran was enshrined in its rightful, prime Eurasian role, and all Eurasian integration paths converged toward a new global geopolitical – and geoeconomic – paradigm, with a sonic boom bound to echo for the rest of the century.
That was the killer one-two punch immediately following the Atlantic alliance’s ignominious imperial retreat from Afghanistan.
Right as the Taliban took control of Kabul on August 15, the redoubtable Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, told his Iranian colleague Admiral Ali Shamkhani that “the Islamic Republic will become a full member of the SCO.”
Dushanbe revealed itself as the ultimate diplomatic crossover. President Xi firmly rejected any “condescending lecturing” and emphasized development paths and governance models compatible with national conditions. Just like Putin, he stressed the complementary focus of BRI and the EAEU, and in fact summarized a true multilateralist Manifesto for the Global South.
Right on point, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan noted that the SCO should advance “the development of a regional macro-economy.” This is reflected in the SCO’s drive to start using local currencies for trade, bypassing the US dollar.
The SEO is an enormous geopolitical force. Not only in geography, but populaiton, and in manufacturing and technology competance. What is going in in the news in the MM readership’s nations about this subject? How is it being reported on the “news”?
Watch that quadrilateral
Dushanbe was not just a bed of roses. Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, a staunch, secular Muslim and former member of the Communist Party of the USSR – in power for no less than 29 years, reelected for the 5th time in 2020 with 90 percent of the vote – right off the bat denounced the “medieval sharia” of Taliban 2.0 and said they had already “abandoned their previous promise to form an inclusive government.”
Rahmon, who has never been caught smiling on camera, was already in power when the Taliban conquered Kabul in 1996. He was bound to publicly support his Tajik cousins against the “expansion of extremist ideology” in Afghanistan – which in fact worries all SCO member-states when it comes to smashing dodgy jihadi outfits of the ISIS-K mold .
The meat of the matter in Dushanbe was in the bilaterals – and one quadrilateral.
Take the bilateral between Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese FM Wang Yi. Jaishankar said that China should not view “its relations with India through the lens of a third country,” and took pains to stress that India “does not subscribe to any clash of civilizations theory.”
Ouch! Could the “third country” (he referenced) be the United States?
That was quite a tough sell considering that the first in-person Quad summit takes place this week in Washington, DC, hosted by that “third country” which is now knee deep in clash-of-civilizations mode against China.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was on a bilateral roll, meeting the presidents of Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The official Pakistani diplomatic position is that Afghanistan should not be abandoned, but engaged.
That position added nuance to what Russian Special Presidential Envoy for SCO Affairs Bakhtiyer Khakimov had explained about Kabul’s absence at the SCO table: “At this stage, all member states have an understanding that there are no reasons for an invitation until there is a legitimate, generally recognized government in Afghanistan.”
And that, arguably, leads us to the key SCO meeting: a quadrilateral with the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi affirmed: “We are monitoring whether all the groups are included in the government or not.” The heart of the matter is that, from now on, Islamabad coordinates the SCO strategy on Afghanistan, and will broker Taliban negotiations with senior Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara leaders. This will eventually lead the way towards an inclusive government regionally recognized by SCO member-nations.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was warmly received by all – especially after his forceful keynote speech, an Axis of Resistance classic. His bilateral with Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko revolved around a discussion on “sanctions confrontation.” According to Lukashenko: “If the sanctions did any harm to Belarus, Iran, other countries, it was only because we ourselves are to blame for this. We were not always negotiable, we did not always find the path we had to take under the pressure of sanctions.”
Considering Tehran is fully briefed on Islamabad’s SCO role in terms of Afghanistan, there will be no need to deploy the Fatemiyoun brigade – informally known as the Afghan Hezbollah – to defend the Hazaras. Fatemiyoun was formed in 2012 and was instrumental in Syria in the fight against Daesh, especially in Palmyra. But if ISIS-K does not go away, that’s a completely different story.
Particular important for SCO members Iran and India will be the future of Chabahar port. That remains India’s crypto-Silk Road gambit to connect it to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The geoeconomic success of Chabahar more than ever depends on a stable Afghanistan – and this is where Tehran’s interests fully converge with Russia-China’s SCO drive.
What the 2021 SCO Dushanbe Declaration spelled out about Afghanistan is quite revealing:
1. Afghanistan should be an independent, neutral, united, democratic and peaceful state, free of terrorism, war and drugs.
2. It is critical to have an inclusive government in Afghanistan, with representatives from all ethnic, religious and political groups of Afghan society.
3. SCO member states, emphasizing the significance of the many years of hospitality and effective assistance provided by regional and neighboring countries to Afghan refugees, consider it important for the international community to make active efforts to facilitate their dignified, safe and sustainable return to their homeland.
As much as it may sound like an impossible dream, this is the unified message of Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and the Central Asian “stans.” One hopes that Pakistani PM Imran Khan is up to the task and ready for his SCO close-up.
Oh, I think that it’s going to work out. What does the MM readership think will happen?
Oh, have you noticed…
The Chinese and the Russians have been devoting all sorts of energy moving around all their ICBM’s all over the place. You never saw this in the USA, and very rarely in Russia and China, though you heard about it. But now a days, it’s very common with ICBM fleets moving all over China and Russia. Imagine that.
Song Zhonping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday that switching to Chinese engines means the J-20 is now completely domestically made, and this will significantly contribute to the mass production and the performance boost of the aircraft.
American neocon publications are calling the J-20 as a “cheap knock off “. Do you think this is so, or what are your thoughts on the J-20?
That troubled Western peninsula
The New Silk Roads were officially launched eight years ago by Xi Jinping, first in Astana – now Nur-Sultan – and then in Jakarta.
The announcement came close to a SCO summit – then in Bishkek. The SCO, widely dismissed in Washington and Brussels as a mere talk shop, was already surpassing its original mandate of fighting the “three evil forces” – terrorism, separatism and extremism – and encompassing politics and geoeconomics.In 2013, there was a Xi-Putin-Rouhani trilateral. Beijing expressed full support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program (remember, this was two years before the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the JCPOA).Despite many experts dismissing it at the time, there was indeed a common China-Russia-Iran front on Syria (Axis of Resistance in action). Xinjiang was being promoted as the key hub for the Eurasian Land Bridge. Pipelineistan was at the heart of the Chinese strategy – from Kazakhstan oil to Turkmenistan gas. Some people may even remember when Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was waxing lyrical about an American-propelled New Silk Road.Now compare it to Xi’s Multilateralism Manifesto in Dushanbe eight years later, reminiscing on how the SCO “has proved to be an excellent example of multilateralism in the 21stcentury,” and “has played an important role in enhancing the voice of developing countries.”The strategic importance of this SCO summit taking place right after the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok cannot be overstated enough. The EEF focuses of course on the Russian Far East – and essentially advances interconnectivity between Russia and Asia. It is an absolutely key hub of Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnership.A cornucopia of deals is on the horizon – expanding from the Far East to the Arctic and the development of the Northern Sea Route, and involving everything from precious metals and green energy to digital sovereignty flowing through logistics corridors between Asia and Europe via Russia.As Putin hinted in his keynote speech, this is what the Greater Eurasia Partnership is all about: the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), BRI, India’s initiative, ASEAN, and now the SCO, developing in a harmonized network, crucially operated by “sovereign decision-making centers.”So if the BRI proposes a very Taoist “community of shared future for human kind,” the Russian project, conceptually, proposes a dialogue of civilizations (already evoked by the Khatami years in Iran) and sovereign economic-political projects. They are, indeed, complementary.Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal, is among the very few top scholars who are analyzing this process in depth. His latest book remarkably tells the whole story in its title: Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World. It’s not clear whether Eurocrats in Brussels – slaves of Atlanticism and incapable of grasping the potential of Greater Eurasia – will end up exercising real strategic autonomy.Diesen evokes in detail the parallels between the Russian and the Chinese strategies. He notes how China “is pursuing a three-pillared geoeconomic initiative by developing technological leadership via its China 2025 plan, new transportation corridors via its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, and establishing new financial instruments such as banks, payment systems and the internationalization of the yuan. Russia is similarly pursuing technological sovereignty, both in the digital sphere and beyond, as well as new transportation corridors such as the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic, and, primarily, new financial instruments.”
The whole Global South, stunned by the accelerated collapse of the western Empire and its unilateral “rules-based order…
… now seems to be ready to embrace the new groove, fully displayed in Dushanbe: a multipolar Greater Eurasia of sovereign equals.
Interesting chat on my morning feed…
America controls both the currency (USD, the international reserve currency) and conduit (SWIFT) for international trade. This is their global imperial power.
They can print paper (out of nothing) to buy the world’s limited and precious resources while the rest of the world must earn or borrow the paper. They also decide who can or cannot trade. In addition, they control all the banks and financial institutes doing international business.
America can strangle and impose oppressive fines, indict and hijack, as well as corrupt and incite regime change, to turn any intransigent player into a whimpering idiot. They control the world’s media and the narrative. America can do no wrong and you’re all assholes living in hellholes.
Most importantly, America can print paper to build the greatest military force to control your mineral resources and trade routes, meanwhile pacifying and civilizing sundry barbaric people of defenseless countries. And guess who is paying for this monstrosity? If you think it’s the American taxpayers, you’d be wrong. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
The ruling class in America creates a ton of money from thin air which becomes debt that the rest of the enslaved world must buy. That debt becomes a debt of the American people which they can never repay, therefore they become debt slaves, quietly complying to their master’s orders.
And the money created eventually ends up in the coffers of the 1% American military industrial financial warmongering scammers. Since the rest of the enslaved world ends up being holders of American debt that pays almost no interest, of a currency that is being printed at exponential rate, and paying interest that is also printed out of thin air, you the victims are paying for the oppressive weapons of the American monstrosity.
Capische?
By the way, America did not invent this beautiful scheme. After kicking the Persians out of Greece in 479 BCE, Athens was the liberating hero beloved even by their perennial enemy, the Spartans. Then Athens formed the Delian League to fight the Persians.
Everyone must pay the League and send their sons to fight. The treasury of the League soon ended up in Athens, and used to enrich Athenians. Member cities desiring to leave the League were sacked, their men slaughtered, their women enslaved, and their sons castrated.
Athens at the head of the League became an imperial power even crueler than the Persians. In less than a generation, Athens turned from being the most admired Greek city state into the most hated. Eventually, it led to war with the Spartans, who allied with the Persians to destroy Athens. That's what happens to empires.
The question of setting up an international currency for trading is theoretically fine, and the SDR of the IMF serves that purpose to some extent, but at the end of the day, America still controls the IMF and SDR is but an accounting tool. Power and trust are what cause a promissory note to be used as a token of wealth for trading between countries.
Nixon actually defaulted and robbed the world blind. It’s a well known history which you can read up on your own (Google Nixon gold default). America and its dollar still has power, but trust is badly eroded. There is no good alternative at the moment that can challenge the USD, but China’s RMB is gaining, slowly and steadily.
The digital RMB is dangerous for the US dollar hegemony because people can pay anywhere in the world just by using a smartphone, and the transaction is done instantaneously, without the need for clearing through banks, without any bank fees, and certainly does not need clearing through any American system, completely kicking America out of the loop.
No more American clearing.
No more SWIFT.
No more waiting for days going through the international banking system.
And most importantly…
No more American unilateral sanctions.
Besides, RMBs are appreciating because of China’s growing economic power, which by the way, is based on production and innovation rather than running the printers, persistent lying, and highway robbery.
Below is an article about what happens if America defaults on its treasury bills. I suggest that China shouldn’t have to worry about its 1 trillion dollar reserve. America won’t let China buy anything valuable with it anyways. Anything of value China wants to buy is against America’s “national security”.
America will eventually have to pay up, as the T-bills in China’s reserve is only a small portion in the whole pot.
In any case, the collapse of the USD hegemony is much more valuable to China and the rest of the world than empty American paper promises, which by now should be badly discounted.
If you trust habitual liars, then it’s your problem.
The fall of the USD hegemony means that America can no longer print its way out of problems and let the rest of the world bail them out. They’ll have a hard time printing trillions for their military adventures.
Every trip to the South China Sea must be balanced against servicing their debt.
Their bases all around the world may have to figure out a way to generate an income, maybe by selling military shirts and boots, all made in China, of course.
Do you think that this is being overstated? Do you believe that somehow America will steer it’s financial ship into a safe harbor and regain control of it’s economic abilities?
As three former prime ministers in Paul Keating, Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd have already pointed out, AUKUS puts Australians in greater danger, renders Australia a vassal to foreign power and antagonises our neighbours in the region.
Depending on how you count them, there are probably already four US bases in operation now:
Pine Gap near Alice Springs, Northern Territory,
Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt, north of the town of Exmouth, Western Australia,
Robertson Barracks in Darwin, Northern Territory,
Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station near Geraldton, WA.
However, the US military already has access to all major Australian Defence Force (ADF) training areas, northern Australian RAAF airfields, port facilities in Darwin and Fremantle, and probably future access too to an expanded Stirling naval base in Perth.
Under AUKUS, this may just be the beginning. It was largely ignored during the AUKUS media blitz and the dramatic cuckolding of the French but Peter Dutton had this to say at his press conference on September 16,
Unveiling plans for new facilities on Australian soil for US naval, air, and ground forces would entail “combined logistics, sustainment, and capability for maintenance to support our enhanced activities, including … for our submarines and surface combatants”. That is on top of “rotational deployments of all types of US military aircraft to Australia”.
If the plan is to shred Australia’s sovereignty and make us a target for China, he is succeeding with aplomb. We are about to be swamped by US military.
Do you think that China would invade Australia and attack the American military there? Or what do you think China would do to deal with this threat?
Oh, and worth a view…
“We made SARS. And we patented it on 19/4/2002, before there was any alleged outbreak in Asia”:
.
David E. Martin testifies at the German Corona Inquiry Committee July 9th, 2021. AV+transcript. China Rising Radio Sinoland 210907
"In Spring of 2000, I took my newly wedded mainland-Chinese wife to North America to visit the rest of the extended family.
We spent a week in Las Vegas so that my wife could experience a bit of American decadence.
One day, we walked into the Vegas Saks Department Store to browse on jewelry. An aged sales-lady immediately walked over and struck up a conversation.
My wife didn't speak a word of English, but I spoke like a native Canadian. The sales-lady asked us where we were from. I could have said we were from Hong Kong. I certainly could have said we were Canadians.
Unlike a lot of people who declared themselves Hong Konger or Taiwanese when traveling in the West, I said we were from China, and just by being confident in our own skin (I used to travel to Vegas every year for conventions and knew every nook and cranny), demonstrated that we were not ashamed to be Chinese. Aftermath: the old lady said if we were interested in anything, be sure to ask for her, as she had the authority to give Chinese tourists a discount. Nudge nudge wink wink. It was a revelation. I knew Chinese shoppers loved haggling, but I didn't know you could haggle at Saks."
Greenback’s crisis-opportunity
This article / comment is from a anti-China writer who views the e-RMB as a “pipe dream” and that the USD will regain it’s role as the leading and only global reserve currency.
Even bigger questions hang over the global financial system.The efforts by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other major economies to de-dollarize world trade is a work in progress, at best. The same goes for developing Asia, which spent the years since the region’s 1997-98 financial crisis pledging to wean economies off the dollar.Try as export-driven economies may, the dollar and US Treasuries are still the linchpin of the global trading system. Yet the political shenanigans on display in Washington could change that – and quickly.The “empire is crumbling” and the dollar is “slowly losing its sheen,” says Peter Koenig at Renmin University of China. Slowly, but surely, he says, the dollar “is losing its weight in the international financial market.”Technological change is accelerating the timeline, particularly as China outpaces the US in the race to bring a central bank-issued digital currency to market, says strategist Dante Alighieri Disparte at financial services firm Circle.“With the explosive proliferation of cryptocurrencies, including China’s introduction of a digital renminbi, it is not surprising to hear panicked warnings about the looming decline of the dollar,” Disparte says.It’s not the whole story, of course. If Biden’s Washington plays its cards right, Disparte notes, the dollar could end up being the “prime beneficiary of today’s market developments.”Yet the dollar is at the mercy of politics and politics can be highly toxic. If the current squabbling in Washington devastates trust in the core asset of the global financial system, current obsessing over China Evergrande will become a mere side show.
Do you think that he is correct, that the USD will regain it’s strength and global standing?
Oh. Jackie Ma. What have you done?
Jack Ma bought or invested in more than 30 media outlets, set up a university for the super rich (only those who owe a business worth $30m are qualify to enrolled as students, he is using such strategy to form a 1% gangster circle thinking he could one day control the media, economy, and government. But his link to Wall Street has been exposed in the process of Xi full scale anti corruption campaign.
His money laundering Alibaba Alipay is not put under control, his rich ganger University was shut down, his media empire is in the process of dismantling.
His corrupt friends who Jack up property prices, manipulated stock market is gone one by one….
No capitalist can bully a real people government serving the interest of the people.
US: We need to start a war to destroy China.
(Looks around all countries. Pause, silence… Then everyone replies at the same time)
Japan: You go first.
Korea: You go first.
India: You go first.
ASEAN: You go first.
Australia: I go first.
The U.S. would get its ass kicked in a war with China, which is precisely why I support one.
This is no longer my country. Not only is it no longer my country, its government has become my oppressor. We are now a photonegative of our former self, a Soviet Union of the 21st century.
I took not a little joy in seeing this government humiliated in Afghanistan, and my response to a war lost to China will be the same.
Cashless in China
No one uses cash any more in China. Oh we see it from time to time, but for most of us it’s a simple swipe of a QR code. That’s it. Bank visits are rare. ATM visits are unheard of. We’ve all adopted to it, and guess what? No fees to transfer money in any way shape or form.
No wonder the US Banking system is going into convulsions.
But…
Cash, cold hard cash, will never disappear. Cash will never be obsolete and we should all hope it will be with us for many years to come.
The need for payment that works with no-signal or no-electricity won’t go away no matter how digitally sophisticated we believe ourselves to be.
Anyone living in hurricane or typhoon-prone areas, where storms can send society back to the Stone Age, understand this better than most.
The passage below is from Cashless, Chapter 19, The case against CBDCs: The Illusion of Privacy
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency went so far as to advise all residents to keep “cash in small denominations” at home in case of emergencies. The idea that a power cut, cyberattack, or major technology disruption would cripple the nation because of residents’ reliance on digital payment is a real concern. Anyone in the UK who had a credit card attached to WireCard payment systems experienced this firsthand when the company failed, and cards went offline for forty-eight hours. Saying that digital system failures can’t happen or will never happen seems foolish. So for the record, cash will be with us for some time to come. It provides a simple analog solution to payment in an increasingly digital world. To say that it has no place in our future [or has lapsed into obsolescence] is to deny the fragility of our digital systems, which, time and time again, fail spectacularly. Their failures are reminders of how new we are to this digital revolution and that cash, which has been around for millennia, will still be an integral part of our modernized financial system.
I would go as far as to say that hearing the call to completely eliminate cash should make readers, even the most “cashless,” become wary.
US Propaganda is saying that the submarines will have nuclear power and missiles with conventional payload. How nice. Chinese can relax. I did never see in my live such a retarded statement. So what is this statement? Gentleman’s agreement?
So submarines can be built with nuclear power and loaded with conventional missiles. But if submarines are built with such a space dimension that they can store nuclear missiles and loading mechanism that can handle nuclear missiles, and firing tubes that can accept nuclear missiles.
Than what is worth the US statement.
Do American think that Chinese are retarded?
By the time those submarines will be built the Chinese can built four times more powerful countermeasures.
And then there is Afghanistan
Empire of chickenhawks: Why America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan was actually perfect
We screwed up 20 years of pointless war. We didn’t win. We lost. Why wouldn’t we screw up the final exit?
The biggest fallacy about our exit from Afghanistan is that there was a “good” way for us to get out. There is no good way to lose a war. With defeat comes humiliation. We were humiliated in the way we pulled out of Kabul — and we should have been, because we believed the lies we had been told right up to the last moment.
The lies we heard at the end of our war in Afghanistan wereas the same ones we were told, and were only too happy to believe, for 20 long years: that everything was going swimmingly. Remember earlier in the summer when the headlines were about how the Taliban controlled a large percentage of the territory in Afghanistan, but the Afghan government and its supposed army still controlled the provincial capitals and Kabul, and that was where the power was.
What a total crock of shit. Everyone was shocked — shocked — when the headlines started to come. Aug. 9, from the AP: “Taliban press on, take two more provincial capitals.” That story was a doozie. “On Monday they [the Taliban] controlled five of the country’s 34 provincial capitals.” It didn’t really matter which two capitals the Taliban had taken. You had to read way down in the story to discover they were Aybak, capital of Samangan province, and Sar-e-Pul, capital of Sar-e-Pul province. Where the hell were they? Who had even heard of them?
That was Monday. By Wednesday, Aug. 11, here was the headline in Al Jazeera: “Timeline: Afghanistan provincial capitals captured by the Taliban.” How many, you might ask? In two days, the count had ballooned from five capitals to 18. Eighteen. Later that day, both Al Jazeera and Reuters were reporting that U.S. intelligence sources were saying that Kabul could “fall to Taliban within 90 days.”
Surprise! Three days later, the evacuation of Kabul began. On Sept. 1, two weeks later, CBS News headlined: “This is the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan” with an eerie night-vision video capture of Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, headed up the ramp of a C-17 cargo jet wearing full combat gear including bulletproof vest and helmet with night-vision goggles attached, carrying his M-4 automatic rifle.
How did Afghanistan collapse so quickly to Taliban control? Because “we” — the U.S. military and its NATO allies — never controlled it to begin with. Nor did our puppets in the so-called Afghan government. The idea that we ever did, that we ever “controlled” or even had our finger on the pulse of the “graveyard of empires” was a lie.
You know who told us that lie? Every government from George W. Bush on, and every general ever put in charge of that doomed mission. Every single one of them reported that all was well, that the Afghan army was 300,000 strong, that the Taliban was on the run, that the Afghan air force was taking over from the missions flown by American warplanes, that the Afghans had their own helicopters now. And that the Afghan president, whether it was Ashraf Ghani or Hamid Karzai, was firmly in charge back in Kabul.
And you know who went along with that fiction? The United States Congress, which voted for 20 years to spend the $2 trillion we pissed away over there, and each of the presidents — yes, including Barack Obama and Donald Trump — who approved every increase of troops, every troop withdrawal, every “surge” that was advertised as the solution to end all solutions, the thing that would finally put the Taliban on the run.
Remember all the Taliban commanders we were told were killed?
A drone strike took out this one!
Another drone strike took out that one!
Wow! We had to be winning if the Taliban was losing so many important leaders!
And then there were the keyboard commandos back in Washington and New York, and the neocons from the Council on Foreign Relations, and the growing chorus of retired generals — among them all of the commanders of our Afghanistan mission — who were all over the op-ed pages and cable news assuring us that All Was Well, as they racked up the megabucks sitting on the boards of defense contractors selling all the military shit that was winning the war for us.
"The eight generals who commanded American forces in Afghanistan between 2008 and 2018 have gone on to serve on more than 20 corporate boards,"
the Washington Post reported on Sept. 4, three days after we exited from Kabul with our tail between our legs.
There was Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who oversaw the big “surge” of 2009 that was the answer-to-end-all-answers to every problem we were having over there. He has been “a board member or adviser for at least 10 companies since 2010, according to corporate filings and news releases,” the Post reported. There was Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who commanded allied forces in 2013 and 2014, who went on to serve on the board of Lockheed Martin, the gigantic defense contractor. There was Gen. John R. Allen, commander in Afghanistan before Dunford, who is the president of the Brookings Institution, which has received $1.5 million over three years from Northrop Grumman, according to the Post. And Gen. David Petraeus, who preceded Allen and now sits on the board of KKR, a private equity firm in New York with many investments in the defense industry.
All of these gentlemen — and let’s take a moment to note they are all men, not a female commander among them — reported back to us from their command posts in Afghanistan how well things were going over there, how we were all over the Taliban, how the Afghan government was successfully “standing up” its well-equipped, well-trained army to defend the country from the Taliban. And then they went on cable TV and continued their lies when they got back to the U.S. and retired from the Army, because that’s what generals today do. They sit on corporate boards, they give incredibly well-paid speeches, they go on TV and they rake in the Big Bucks because they were so successful in Afghanistan … and in Iraq, too. Remember Petraeus and his “surge” in 2007? Boy, were we ever surging, huh? I remember Newsweek published a cover image of Petraeus in 2004 wearing in his combat fatigues, standing on a tarmac with a Blackhawk helicopter behind him, with the headline: “Can this man save Iraq?” The story, believe it or not, was about how Petraeus was taking over the training of the Iraqi army, and that was what was going to “save Iraq.” Don’t you think we should have concluded, when the “surge” became necessary in 2007, that Petraeus had utterly failed in his mission to train the Iraqi army and “save Iraq” back in 2004?
The words “crock of shit” again come to mind, but they are far, far from adequate. These presidents, and these members of Congress, and these generals, and these war-happy pundits, ran a great big gigantic con on the citizens of this country who were paying the taxes which — someday, perhaps — will pay for the $2 trillion we pissed away over in Afghanistan, and the trillions we pissed away in Iraq, too. They lied over and over and over again that with just another troop surge, or another troop withdrawal (because suddenly everything was hunky-dory) and of course just another infusion of billions and billions of dollars and the lost of a couple thousand more American lives we could “win” in Afghanistan and “win” in Iraq.
Over there, they laughed at us. The Afghans and the Iraqis who took the money, took all the equipment we gave them, took 20 years of our politics and our “prestige” as a nation, and the whole time they were laughing their heads off, because they knew what we didn’t know. None of it was working. None of it would ever work. And one day we would be headed out of both countries with our tails between our legs, because that’s what you do when you lose.
That’s why our frantic, chaotic exit from Kabul was perfect, because it perfectly capped off 20 years of lies about what was really going on over there, 20 years of frantic, chaotic thrashing around and throwing money and the bodies of young American men and women at a problem that could never be solved. It was an enormous delusion that we, the United States of America, could march into those countries thousands of miles away from our shores and — if we spent enough money and invented and fielded enough “mine resistant vehicles” and fired enough missiles from enough drones at enough “Taliban commanders” — could somehow emerge from those quagmires victorious.
We couldn’t, and we didn’t, and when that American major general, all kitted-out in the combat gear we spent 20 years dressing our soldiers in, scampered up the ramp of that cargo jet to steal away from the Kabul airport in the middle of the night, it was the absolute perfect ending to the perfect disaster the war in Afghanistan had always been. We were humiliated in front of the entire world, as we should have been. The way we left Afghanistan “did damage to our credibility and to our reputation,” the famous Gen. Petraeus told CBS when it was all over.
Yeah, it did, Dave, and it should have. Maybe now the geniuses who got us into those godforsaken disastrous wars and kept us there will think twice before they do it again.
Except, wait. That was supposed to have been the great “lesson of Vietnam.” Never mind.
American debt is looming large…
the US federal government’s rivers of borrowed money running dry and in urgent need of replenishing. The other is a major Chinese property developer which has run into financial trouble, because the company veered off the road by squandering too much on making electric cars and sponsoring a football club.
As US federal debt default looms, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is facing her biggest test in her eight-month tenure to convince reluctant Republican lawmakers to agree to raise the US’ national debt limit, which is currently set at $28.5 trillion. The stakes are high, because if Yellen’s effort fails, the US financial system will collapse.
Yellen has called Republican leaders to convey the economic danger which lays ahead, bluntly warning that the Treasury Department’s ability to stave off default is limited, and the failure to lift the debt cap by late October would be “catastrophic” for the country and the world.
Six former US treasury secretaries last week sent a letter to top US lawmakers, warning them a default would roil financial markets and blunt economic growth. According to US media reports, Yellen last week also warned the nation’s largest banks and financial institutions about the very real risk of a default. She has spoken to chief executives of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, briefing them the likely disastrous impact a federal default will produce.
To make things worse, both Democrats and Republicans in the US are at each other’s throats now over US President Joe Biden’s new $3.5 trillion spending bill, which proposes heavy tax raises on rich families and corporations, and has met fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers. Whether they will compromise on the debt limit, by making a last-minute deal with the White House to reduce Biden’s giant spending plan remains to be seen.
Market analysts say if the US government defaults on its colossal debt, a financial system crisis of a magnitude larger than the 2008-09 debacle could occur, which is estimated to lead to an evaporation of $15 trillion in wealth and loss of 6 million jobs in the US. The capital market is now on tenterhooks facing a potential financial time bomb.
Do you think that the USA will raise the debt ceiling, or will default? There is a third option, that China and Russsia would “bail out the USA”. What do you think will happen?
Consequences.
Ever since President Trump was elected it was millions of dollars in a hate-hate-hate China narrative. And this has resulted in all sorts of violence, bad will, and Congressional action. What is not being reported is how the Chinese feel about America and Japan today.
Here is a Chinese car with pro-Japan and Pro-America stickers and wording. VIDEO.
Video.
How AP, Reuters And SCMP Propagandize Their Readers Against China
A typical ‘western’ anti-China propaganda claim is that China is using its military aggressively. ‘Western’ news agencies do this on a regular base when they report of Chinese air maneuvers around Taiwan.
Oh my goodness!
Drudge report reporting this “news” to the American people.
This report by the South China Morning Post, based on AP and Reuters items, is a perfect example for that:
Taiwan’s air force scrambled again on Friday to warn away 25 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defence zone, according to the defence ministry in Taipei.Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China’s air force, often in the southwestern part of its air defence zone close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.
The latest PLA air force mission involved 18 J-16 and four Su-30 fighters plus two nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and an anti-submarine aircraft, the Taiwan ministry said.
It said Taiwan sent combat aircraft to warn away the PLA aircraft, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them.
The Chinese aircraft all flew in an area close to the Pratas, with the two bombers flying closest to the atoll, according to a map that the ministry issued.
I do not believe that China would fly its bombers and jets into Taiwan’s “air defense zone” because that is the geographic area where Taiwan would actually shoot to take them down.
So I checked with the news agency reports the SCMP story is based on. AP headlines:
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China sent 25 fighter jets toward self-ruled Taiwan in a large display of force on China’s National Day Friday.The People’s Liberation Army flew 18 J-16 fighter jets as well as two H-6 bombers, among other planes. Taiwan deployed air patrol forces in response and tracked the Chinese aircraft on its air defense systems, the island’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
China has sent planes toward the island it claims as part of its territory on a near daily basis in the last couple of years, stepping up military harassment with drills.
No “air defense zone” there but one extra point for “military harassment”. Reuters is less subtle:
TAIPEI, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s air force scrambled again on Friday to warn away 25 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defence zone, the defence ministry in Taipei said, the same day as China marked its national day, the founding of the People’s Republic of China.Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China’s air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence zone close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.
The latest Chinese mission involved 18 J-16 and four Su-30 fighters plus two nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and an anti-submarine aircraft, the Taiwan ministry said.
So the “air defense zone” claims comes from Reuters. It is however 100% fake news. Neither did the Chinese airforce fly into the “air defense zone” of Taiwan nor did Taiwan claim that it did.
Here is the original news item from the Ministry of Defense of Taiwan. The headline and first line say it all:
…There is no “air defense zone” (ADZ) in there. Instead there is Taiwan’s ADIZ, or “Air Defense Identification Zone”, into which Chinese planes ‘intruded’.
An air defense identification zone (ADIZ) is airspace over land or water in which the identification, location, and control of civil aircraft is performed in the interest of national security. They may extend beyond a country's territory to give the country more time to respond to possibly hostile aircraft. The concept of an ADIZ is not defined in any international treaty and is not regulated by any international body..
Some countries unilateral declare an ADIZ around this or that territory. They ask any plane entering it to identify itself. As ADIZ are unilateral ‘pretty please’ requests with no binding power they are regularly ignored
Taiwan has an ADIZ that covers most of the Taiwan Strait, part of the Chinese province of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi and part of the East China Sea and adjacent airspace. Most of the ADIZ of Taiwan is built on its exclusive economic zone. Taiwan’s ADIZ was designed and created by the United States Armed Forces (USAF) after World War II.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry Military News Updates claim that Chinese ‘violations’ of its ADIZ happen each and every day.
The Reuters fake news piece also says that the Chinese planes flew near to Pratas Island (Dongsha) which China as well as Taiwan both claim as their territory.
In fact mainland China is nearer to Pratas than Taiwan is.
The Twitter account of Taiwan’s Defense Ministry just posted this map of the alleged ‘violations’ which perfectly shows how ridiculous such claims are:
The AP report is misleading as it implies a special meaning to something that happens regularly. The Reuters piece is obviously fake news as it claims that Taiwan’s defense ministry said something which it did not say. The SCMP deserves to be criticized too as any reporter and editor covering such news should know the difference between an ADZ and an ADIZ and should have recognized that the “air defense zone” claim in the Reuters piece is obviously bollocks.
That said all three fulfill their intended purpose. They propagandize those who read them against China by depicting normal military training of China’s armed forces as aggression against its neighbors.
Posted by b on October 1, 2021 at 16:52 UTC | Permalink
It’s just another example of just how the anti-China narrative is being pushed, and pushed and pushed relentlessly. Nothing good can happen from this. I believe that the American and the Australians, and the Brits are now all worked up into a frothy fury against China and will support a war. Do you agree with me on this, or do you have other thoughts?
How things are being handled…
Curious. This next article…
Huawei CFO gets hero’s welcome; Canadians land quietly
The tallest building in Shenzhen lit up with scrolling slogan “Welcome Home, Meng Wanzhou” across its facade.
The two Canadians freed by Beijing returned to their homeland with less fanfare Huawei CFO gets hero’s welcome; Canadians land quietly | National Post
Fact Sheet: U.S. Interference in Hong Kong Affairs and Support for Anti-China, Destabilizing Forces”
As published on Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China's website. /fmprc.gov.cn
Editor’s note: Grenville Cross is a senior counsel and professor of law, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong SAR. The article reflects the author’s opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
In recent years, China’s achievements have surpassed all expectations, and the United States has become increasingly paranoid. It realizes its post-war hegemony can no longer be taken for granted, and that its star is slowly fading. Ever since the UK-based Center for Economics and Business Research reported in December 2020 that China will overtake the U.S. to become the world’s largest economy by 2028, five years earlier than previously forecast, it has been panic stations in Washington D.C.
The U.S., however, faces massive problems, and they are getting worse. It is burdened with a huge national debt, standing at $28.4 billion in August, about $1.7 billion more than a year earlier. Its foreign policy is a shambles, with the Afghanistan debacle being but the latest example, and even its closest allies are appalled by its incompetence and duplicity. Indeed, after the AUKUS deal between the U.S., Australia and the UK was sprung on an unsuspecting world on September 15, France, which was cheated out of a submarine contract, denounced it as a “stab in the back”, and, for the first time ever, withdrew its ambassador from Washington D.C.
Instead, however, of taking a long, hard look at itself, the previous and present U.S. administrations have resorted to scapegoating China, hoping to deflect attention away from their own woes. Although most of its problems are of its own making, the U.S. has sought to blame China not only for its own ills but also those of the world, thereby laying the groundwork for hostile interventions. It has decided that one of the ways of dealing with China is by fomenting internal dissent and spreading misinformation about it, just as it has done in its efforts to weaken Russia.
On June 9, 2019, when the protest movement in Hong Kong and its armed wing declared war on society, ostensibly over the SAR government’s fugitive surrender bill, the U.S. saw its chance. Although the proposals would have facilitated the return of criminal fugitives to 177 jurisdictions, subject to court oversight, and were entirely reasonable, the U.S., to inflame tensions, demonized them, and provided every encouragement to the protesters.
Indeed, on August 6, 2019, at the height of the violence in Hong Kong, the U.S. Consul General’s political counselor, Julie Eadeh, met covertly with protest leaders, including Joshua Wong Chi-fung and Nathan Law Kwun-chung, at a local hotel, presumably to share U.S. views on the insurrection and provide ongoing advice.
Again, after Brian Leung Kai-ping, one of the rioters who trashed the Legislative Council complex on July 1, 2019, causing damage estimated at HK$50 million ($6.4 million), fled the city, he was not only welcomed to the U.S., but also invited to the Congress as an honored guest.
Instead of denouncing the rioters who were bringing death and destruction to Hong Kong streets, the then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo endorsed the protest movement’s demands, supported their anti-police agenda, and sought to blame the government for the insurrection.
Even when the protest movement targeted the rule of law by firebombing the courts and threatening the judges, Pompeo and his cronies continued to lionize the protest leaders, and to whitewash their excesses. It was, by any yardstick, partisanship of the worst sort, and represented a new low in U.S. foreign policy.
Even when anti-China legislators, linked to the protest movement, sabotaged the work of the Legislative Council, preventing the passage of legislation for nearly seven months in 2019-20, the U.S. condemned the initiatives taken to get things back on track. Even though it would never have tolerated obstructionism of this type at home, it expected the authorities to allow it in Hong Kong, although the name of its game was, of course, mischief-making.
But with the exclusion of legislators bent on mayhem, and their replacement with responsible citizens committed to the well-being of Hong Kong and the national good, the city now has the prospect of effective governance.
Working through front organizations, the U.S. provided multifaceted support to the protest movement and its allies throughout the insurrection. They included various U.S.-based entities, including the National Endowment for Democracy, always generous with its cash when opponents of the Hong Kong SAR government came knocking, and the U.S. Agency for Global Media.
It has also now come to light that various other U.S.-backed groups were complicit in the uprising, including the Oslo Freedom Foundation, the Albert Einstein Institute and the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, which, despite their fancy names, all had sinister agendas. Although many of them operated in the shadows, this cannot be said of the U.S. Strategic Competition Act 2021, which allocated $10 million for the promotion of “democracy in Hong Kong”, a euphemism for stirring up trouble.
Once, however, the National Security Law was enacted, it provided the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (HKSAR) government with the tools it required to save the city’s way of life and capitalist system, and put an end to undercover operations by foreign powers. The U.S., however, responded by imposing sanctions on the city, revoking its favorable trade status, and suspending the agreement on surrender of fugitive offenders with the HKSAR.
Not once, however, did the U.S. explain how it thought damaging Hong Kong like this would in any way benefit its people, which was revelatory. Perhaps more than anything else, its inability to justify its actions highlighted not only its determination to undermine China by ruining Hong Kong, but also its willingness to throw a long-standing friend under the bus, just as it has now done to France, which also made the mistake of trusting it.
The U.S. attempts to destabilize Hong Kong are a disgrace, as well as a betrayal. The lengths to which it was prepared to go to hurt China beggar belief, and they have now been chronicled for all to see by the China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On September 24, it issued a Fact Sheet entitled “U.S. Interference in Hong Kong Affairs and Support for Anti-China Destabilizing Forces”, which is highly detailed and a real eye-opener. It exposes cynical, comprehensive and intensive efforts by a global bullyboy to ruin one of the world’s most successful cities, and is essential reading for anybody wishing to know the depths to which the U.S. is prepared to sink.
Quite clearly, if the evidence contained in the Fact Sheet were to be presented in a court of law responsible for trying the U.S. for willful depredations against Hong Kong and its people, the only possible verdict would be “guilty as charged.” This, alas, will never happen, but great comfort can nonetheless be derived from the city’s survival, against all the odds.
Although, at one point, China’s adversaries thought they could bring Hong Kong to its knees and destroy the “one country, two systems” policy, they have, after the nation rallied round, been decisively thwarted. Indeed, with the Central Government’s steadfast support, the city has emerged from its experiences stronger than ever, and can now face its future with renewed confidence.
Fact listing
It’s a long list. You can skim over and refer to it later…
List of facts about U.S. intervention in Hong Kong affairs and support of anti-China forces in Hong Kong
List of facts about U.S. intervention in Hong Kong affairs and support of anti-China forces in Hong Kong
2021-09-24
1. Concocting Hong Kong-related bills, discrediting China’s Hong Kong policy, interfering in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, and wantonly interfering in China’s internal affairs.
1. On November 27, 2019, the then-U.S. President Trump signed the “Hong Kong” concocted by the U.S. Congress in order to show his support for the anti-China and Hong Kong forces and obstruct the efforts of the Chinese Central Government and the Hong Kong SAR government to stop violence, curb chaos, and restore order. The Human Rights and Democracy Act” and the “Prohibition of Export of Related Ammunitions to Hong Kong Police”. The relevant bill slanders the Chinese central government for undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, authorizes the US President to impose sanctions against relevant Chinese officials such as denying entry and freezing assets in the US, and requires the US Secretary of State to submit an annual report on Hong Kong affairs and prohibit the US from exporting tear gas and pepper spray to Hong Kong. , Rubber bullets and stun guns and other police equipment.
2. On July 14, 2020, the then US President Trump signed the “Hong Kong Autonomy Act.” The law requires sanctions against so-called foreign individuals or entities related to China’s breach of Hong Kong-related obligations, as well as foreign financial institutions that conduct important transactions with related individuals or entities, and supports so-called “persecuted” Hong Kong residents to enter the United States. On the same day, Trump signed No. 13936 “Presidential Executive Order on the Normalization of Hong Kong”, which determined that the situation in Hong Kong constitutes a threat to the security, foreign policy and economy of the United States, and accordingly declared a national emergency, including the suspension and cancellation of special grants to Hong Kong. Preferential treatment, authorization to impose sanctions on Hong Kong entities and individuals, etc.
3. On February 18, 2021, Meeks, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, proposed the so-called “resolution condemning China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for continuing to violate the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong people”, slandering the Chinese central government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government for upholding the rule of law. The case was approved by the House of Representatives on April 19.
4. The U.S. Congress is reviewing several negative Hong Kong bills, including: On January 25 and February 8, 2021, U.S. Republican Representative Curtis and U.S. Senator Rubio proposed “Hong Kong” in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively. The Safe Harbor Act requires the U.S. government to provide refugee status to “Hong Kong independence” elements involved in the Hong Kong riots; on March 18, 2021, Republican Senator Rubio proposed the so-called “condemnation of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party for repressing Hong Kong. Including the arrest of democrats and repeated violations of the “Sino-British Joint Declaration” and Hong Kong Basic Law resolutions”; on June 24, 2021, Republican Senator Sass proposed the “Hong Kong Democratic Congress Gold Medal Bill”, clamoring to Li Zhiying , Luo Weiguang, Zhang Jianhong, Zhou Daquan, Chen Peimin, Zhang Zhiwei, Yang Qingqi and other Hong Kong “Apple Daily” executives and all staff members of the newspaper awarded the American Association Gold Medal; June 30, 2021, Democratic Congressman Malinowski Introduced the “Hong Kong People’s Freedom and Choice Act of 2021”, which requires the provision of asylum for anti-China chaos in Hong Kong, criminals and criminals, and provide them with convenient access to the United States; on June 30, 2021, Republican Representative Perry proposed “Hong Kong The Freedom Act requires that the US President be authorized to recognize the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as an “independent country.”
2. Flagrantly imposing sanctions in an attempt to obstruct the smooth implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law and the relevant decisions of the National People’s Congress of China in Hong Kong.
1. On May 29, 2020, the then US President Trump announced the cancellation of Hong Kong’s special status and Hong Kong’s commercial preferential measures.
2. On June 29, 2020, the then U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo announced that the export of U.S. defense equipment to Hong Kong will now be banned, and the export of U.S. defense and dual-use technologies to Hong Kong will be restricted.
3. On June 29, 2020, the then US Secretary of Commerce Ross issued a statement officially abolishing the special trade treatment for Hong Kong, prohibiting the sale of dual-use high-tech equipment to Hong Kong, and will continue to evaluate the cancellation of other special treatments in Hong Kong.
4. On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the termination of the Hong Kong export license exception treatment and prohibits the export of defense equipment and sensitive technology to Hong Kong.
5. On August 7, 2020, the U.S. government announced sanctions against 11 officials of the Chinese Central Government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government on the grounds of enforcing the Hong Kong National Security Law and undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.
6. On August 11, 2020, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that from September 25, Hong Kong exports to the United States must indicate the origin of “China” and prohibit the use of the “Made in Hong Kong” label.
7. On August 19, 2020, the US State Department announced the suspension or termination of the three bilateral agreements signed with Hong Kong, including the transfer of fugitive offenders, the transfer of sentenced persons, and the exemption of international shipping profits tax.
8. On October 14, 2020, the U.S. State Department submitted its first Hong Kong-related report to the U.S. Congress in accordance with the requirements of the “Hong Kong Autonomy Act.” The financial institutions related to the above-mentioned persons impose sanctions.
9. On November 9, 2020, the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against four officials of the Chinese Central Government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government on the grounds that they threatened Hong Kong’s peace, security, and high degree of autonomy.
10. On December 7, 2020, the US State Department imposed sanctions on 14 vice-chairmen of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China on the grounds that the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China enacted the Hong Kong National Security Law and disqualified four opposition members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council.
11. On January 15, 2021, the then US Secretary of State Pompeo issued a statement on the grounds that the Hong Kong police arrested 55 so-called democrats and imposed sanctions on 6 officials of the Chinese Central Government and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.
12. On March 16, 2021, the US State Department updated the “Hong Kong Autonomy Law” report, and announced the update of the list of Hong Kong-related sanctions and additional financial services based on the relevant decisions adopted by the National People’s Congress to improve the Hong Kong election system and the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. Sanctions.
13. On July 7, 2021, the White House issued the so-called “Notice on the Continuing Implementation of the National Emergency Concerning Hong Kong”, announcing the extension of the so-called “national emergency declared in response to the situation in Hong Kong” and extending the US sanctions against Hong Kong for one year.
14. On July 16, 2021, the US State Department, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of the Treasury fabricated the so-called “Hong Kong Business Warning” and discredited Hong Kong’s business environment on the grounds that the SAR implemented the Hong Kong National Security Law and the suspension of the “Apple Daily”. , Vilified the development of Hong Kong and the prospects of “one country, two systems”, and announced sanctions on seven officials of the Liaison Office of the Central Committee of Hong Kong. US Secretary of State Blincoln also issued a so-called statement on the first anniversary of the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law, slandering the National Security Law and attacking the Chinese government’s policy towards Hong Kong.
3. Slander and slander the affairs of the Special Administrative Region, arbitrarily discuss the enforcement actions of the Hong Kong police, and undermine the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong.
1. On February 25, 2019, the then U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong, Tang Weikang, publicly expressed in an interview his concern about the SAR government’s proposed revision of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, claiming that the amendment may affect the implementation of the bilateral agreement between the United States and Hong Kong.
2. On March 21, 2019, the U.S. State Department issued the “2019 Hong Kong Policy and Law Report”, claiming that the freedom of speech in Hong Kong has been eroded and that the Chinese government has increased its intervention in Hong Kong affairs, causing damage to Hong Kong in many ways.
3. On May 7, 2019, the US Congress “US-China Economic and Security Evaluation Committee” issued a report that slandered the SAR government’s amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance and “eroded Hong Kong’s autonomy”, which constituted a serious threat to the national security of the United States and the economic interests of the United States in Hong Kong. risk.
4. On May 16, 2019, the U.S. State Department issued a statement falsely claiming that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance threatened the rule of law in Hong Kong and was concerned about this.
5. On June 19, 2019, when Speaker of the House of Representatives Pelosi spoke at the Christian Science Monitor’s breakfast meeting, he ignored the various extreme atrocities committed by anti-China and Hong Kong elements, claiming that “2 million people took to the streets to oppose the amendment. The Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, isn’t that a beautiful landscape?”, openly condoned and encouraged anti-China chaos in Hong Kong to use illegal and violent means to confront the central government and the SAR government.
6. On July 26, 2019, Engel, then chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, falsely claimed that the Hong Kong police used violence in handling demonstrations, which damaged Hong Kong’s international reputation in governance and justice.
7. On September 17, 2019, the United States “Congress-Executive China Committee” held a hearing on the situation in Hong Kong, beautifying the anti-revision violent demonstrations, discrediting the SAR government’s handling of the Hong Kong police, falsely claiming that it undermined the “one country, two systems” and Hong Kong autonomy.
8. On September 28, 2019, the US “Congress-Executive China Committee” issued a statement on the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong’s “Occupy Central”, discrediting “One Country, Two Systems” and the central government’s policy towards Hong Kong.
9. On October 7, 2019, the then-U.S. President Trump stated that he hoped that the Hong Kong protest issue would be resolved humanely. The people of Hong Kong were great. They waved the American flag and more than 2 million people participated in the protest. Nothing like this has ever happened before.
10. On October 24, 2019, the then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivered an anti-China speech at the Wilson Center, a think-tank in Washington. He repeatedly mentioned Hong Kong’s “regulation turmoil”, claiming that “Hong Kong is a living example, showing how China would embrace freedom. What will happen”.
11. On November 21, 2019, Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Pelosi made a public speech after the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act” was passed and reviewed, claiming that “China’s commitment to Hong Kong’s complete autonomy has been broken” and deliberately distorting “One Country, Two Systems” , Confusion of right and wrong.
12. On December 10, 2019, the US Consul General in Hong Kong, Smith, wrote an article in Ming Pao in Hong Kong, threatening that “the United States has consistently committed to human rights in Hong Kong”, claiming that “the United States’ enactment of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act demonstrates the universal value of the United States. The commitment of the United States reflects the United States’ concern about Beijing’s erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy.”
13. On May 22, 2020, the then U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo issued a statement on the “Decision on Establishing and Improving the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s Legal System and Implementation Mechanism for Maintaining National Security” by the National People’s Congress of China, slandering the Hong Kong National Security Law as “ Impose” and “undermine Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.”
14. On May 27, 2020, the then U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo once again issued a statement on the imminent review and approval of the Hong Kong National Security Law by the National People’s Congress of China, arguing that the United States hopes that Hong Kong, as a “fortress of freedom”, can become a model for “authoritarian” China, and to The U.S. Congress “confirmed” that Hong Kong should no longer enjoy the treatment granted to it by U.S. law before July 1997.
15. On May 28, 2020, the U.S. State Department submitted the “2020 Hong Kong Policy Law Report” to Congress, confirming that Hong Kong cannot continue to enjoy the special treatment provided by U.S. law.
16. On June 30, 2020, the then U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo issued a statement falsely claiming that the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law undermined “One Country, Two Systems” and violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the commitments made in Hong Kong’s Basic Law.
17. On July 1, 2020, the Speaker of the U.S. Congress, Pelosi, after passing the “Hong Kong Autonomy Act” in the U.S. House of Representatives, falsely claimed that the Hong Kong National Security Act is a “cruel and comprehensive suppression of Hong Kong, undermining Hong Kong’s freedom, and marking’one country, two systems.” ‘Death’.
18. On July 6, 2020, US Consul General Smith in Hong Kong falsely claimed that Hong Kong’s national security law erode the basic human rights and freedoms of Hong Kong people and create an atmosphere of self-censorship, which is a tragedy in Hong Kong.
19. On July 14, 2020, the then US Secretary of State Pompeo issued a statement supporting the so-called “primary election” illegally held by the Hong Kong opposition.
20. On July 23, 2020, the then US Secretary of State Pompeo delivered the so-called “Communist China and the Future of the Free World” anti-China speech, maliciously attacking the leadership of the Communist Party of China and China’s political system, spreading the China threat theory, and slandering the so-called strengthening of the Communist Party of China The control of Hong Kong has beautified Luo Guancong and other anti-China chaos in Hong Kong into democracy fighters.
21. On July 31, 2020, the then White House spokesperson McNerney stated that the United States opposed the Hong Kong SAR government’s disqualification of opposition candidates.
Fact Sheet: U.S. Interference in Hong Kong Affairs and Support for Anti-China, Destabilizing Forces
2021/09/24
I. Enacting Hong Kong-related Acts, vilifying China’s policy on Hong Kong, meddling in Hong Kong affairs, and wantonly interfering in China’s internal affairs
1. On 27 November 2019, in collusion with those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong and obstruct efforts of China’s central government and the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to stop violence and restore law and order, then U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law two bills passed by the U.S. Congress, i.e. the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 and the Act to prohibit the commercial export of covered munitions items to the Hong Kong Police Force. These bills accuse China’s central government of undermining the high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong, authorize the U.S. President to impose sanctions such as inadmissibility to the United States and asset blocking against relevant Chinese officials, require the U.S. Secretary of State to submit a report regarding Hong Kong affairs on a yearly basis, and prohibit U.S. exports of police equipment, such as tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and stun guns, to Hong Kong.
2. On 14 July 2020, then U.S. President Trump signed into law the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which requires the imposition of sanctions with respect to the foreign individuals or entities involved in the so-called erosion of certain obligations of China with respect to Hong Kong and foreign financial institutions that conduct significant transactions with those individuals or entities. It also supported permanent residents of Hong Kong who have been “persecuted” to enter the United States. On the same day, Trump signed the President’s Executive Order 13936 on Hong Kong Normalization, which determined that the situation with respect to Hong Kong constitutes a threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States. He declared a national emergency on that basis, which included measures to suspend or eliminate the different and preferential treatment for Hong Kong, and to authorize sanctions against entities and individuals with respect to Hong Kong.
3. On 18 February 2021, Gregory Meeks, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution condemning the so-called “continued violation of rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region”, which slandered the efforts made by China’s central government and the HKSAR government to uphold the rule of law, maintain order and stability and protect the life, property and safety of Hong Kong residents. The resolution was adopted by the House on 19 April.
4. The U.S. Congress is considering several other ill-intentioned bills regarding Hong Kong:
On 25 January and 8 February 2021, Republican Representative John Curtis and Republican Senator Marco Rubio introduced the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act in the House and the Senate respectively, requiring the U.S. government to designate refugee status to individuals espousing “Hong Kong independence” and participating in the riots in Hong Kong.
On 18 March 2021, Senator Rubio introduced a resolution condemning the so-called “crackdown by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong, including the arrests of pro-democracy activists and repeated violations of the obligations of that Government undertaken in the Sino-British Declaration of 1984 and the Hong Kong Basic Law”.
On 24 June 2021, Republican Senator Ben Sasse introduced the Democracy in Hong Kong Congressional Gold Medal Act on conferring the Congressional Gold Medal to Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, Ryan Law Wai-kwong, Cheung Kim-hung, Royston Chow Tat-kuen, Chan Pui-man, Cheung Chi-wai, Yeung Ching-kee and all the executives and staff of Apple Daily, a newspaper in Hong Kong.
On 30 June 2021, Republican Representative Tom Malinowski introduced the Hong Kong People’s Freedom and Choice Act of 2021, calling for providing protected status to those who oppose China and provoke instability as well as law breakers and offenders in Hong Kong and for enhancing protocols to facilitate their travels to the United States.
On 30 June 2021, Republican Representative Scott Perry introduced the Hong Kong Freedom Act, calling for authorizing the U.S. President to recognize the HKSAR as “a separate, independent country”.
II. Imposing sanctions in an attempt to obstruct the implementation in Hong Kong of the Hong Kong National Security Law and relevant decisions of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC)
1. On 29 May 2020, then U.S. President Trump announced revocation of the special status and preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong.
2. On 29 June 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the immediate end of exports of U.S. defense equipment to Hong Kong and restrictions on exports of U.S. defense and dual-use technologies to Hong Kong.
3. On 29 June 2020, then U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross issued a statement, officially revoking Hong Kong’s special status in trade, banning exports of dual-use high-tech products to Hong Kong, and stating that further actions to eliminate differential treatment for Hong Kong were also being evaluated.
4. On 30 June 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the suspension of license exceptions for exports to Hong Kong, banning exports of U.S.-origin defense equipment and sensitive technologies to Hong Kong.
5. On 7 August 2020, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on 11 officials of China’s central government and the HKSAR government on the ground of enforcing the Hong Kong National Security Law and undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.
6. On 11 August 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that after 25 September 2020, imported goods produced in Hong Kong may no longer be marked to indicate “Hong Kong” as their origin, but must be marked to indicate “China”.
7. On 19 August 2020, the U.S. Department of State announced the suspension or termination of three bilateral agreements with Hong Kong covering the surrender of fugitive offenders, the transfer of sentenced persons, and reciprocal tax exemptions on income derived from the international operation of ships.
8. On 14 October 2020, the U.S. Department of State submitted its first report to Congress pursuant to the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, listing 10 officials of China’s central government and the HKSAR government as “persons undermining the autonomy of Hong Kong” and threatening to impose sanctions on financial institutions related to these individuals.
9. On 9 November 2020, the U.S. Department of State announced sanctions on four officials of China’s central government and the HKSAR government for “threatening the peace, security and autonomy of Hong Kong”.
10. On 7 December 2020, the U.S. Department of State imposed sanctions on 14 Vice Chairpersons of the Standing Committee of the NPC of China on the ground of the NPC Standing Committee formulating the Hong Kong National Security Law and disqualifying four opposition members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council.
11. On 15 January 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo issued a statement, announcing sanctions on six officials of China’s central government and the HKSAR government for arresting 55 so-called “pro-democracy politicians and activists” by Hong Kong police.
12. On 16 March 2021, the U.S. Department of State updated its Hong Kong Autonomy Act report, announcing an updated list of sanctioned individuals and additional financial sanctions following the NPC’s decision to improve the electoral system of Hong Kong and implement the Hong Kong National Security Law.
13. On 7 July 2021, the White House issued a Notice on the Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Hong Kong, announcing the continuation of the so-called national emergency declared with respect to the Hong Kong situation, and extended U.S. sanctions on Hong Kong for one year.
14. On 16 July 2021, the U.S. Department of State, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Treasury jointly issued a so-called “Hong Kong Business Advisory” on the ground of enforcing the Hong Kong National Security Law and closing of Apple Daily, in an attempt to cast doubt over Hong Kong’s business environment as well as the development of Hong Kong and the prospects of One Country, Two Systems in Hong Kong. In addition, new sanctions were announced on seven officials of the central government’s liaison office in the HKSAR. On the same day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement “marking one year of Hong Kong’s national security law”, in which he made groundless attacks on the Hong Kong National Security Law and the Chinese government’s policy on Hong Kong.
III. Making unfounded charges against HKSAR affairs and law enforcement actions taken by Hong Kong police in an attempt to undermine Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability
1. On 25 February 2019, then U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong Kurt Tong expressed in an interview his concerns about the HKSAR government’s plan to introduce amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, saying that an amendment could have some impact on the implementation of the bilateral arrangements between the United States and Hong Kong.
2. On 21 March 2019, the U.S. Department of State released 2019 Hong Kong Policy Act Report alleging that freedom of expression in Hong Kong was facing setbacks, and that the increased intervention by China’s central government in Hong Kong affairs had “adversely impacted Hong Kong in multiple areas”.
3. On 7 May 2019, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission of U.S. Congress issued a report, alleging that the HKSAR government’s proposed extradition bill would “erode Hong Kong’s autonomy” and create serious risks for U.S. national security and economic interests in Hong Kong.
4. On 16 May 2019, the U.S. State Department issued a statement, alleging that the HKSAR government’s proposed amendments to the Fugitive Ordinance would threaten Hong Kong’s rule of law and expressing concerns about it.
5. On 19 June 2019, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed a breakfast meeting hosted by The Christian Science Monitor in which she turned a blind eye to the extremist and violent acts committed by those who were opposed to China and attempted to destabilize Hong Kong and claimed that “the demonstration by some two million people against the extradition bill” was “a beautiful sight to behold”. She thus openly urged rioters to take illegal and violent actions against the central government and the HKSAR government.
6. On 26 July 2019, then Chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel issued an unfounded statement about the so-called “police brutality in response to protests in Hong Kong”, alleging that “it has tarnished Hong Kong’s international reputation for good governance and fair administration of justice”.
7. On 17 September 2019, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a hearing on Hong Kong. At the hearing, the violent demonstrations against the extradition bill was whitewashed while the response of the HKSAR government and police was attacked as undermining One Country, Two Systems and Hong Kong’s autonomy.
8. On 28 September 2019, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China made a statement on the fifth anniversary of the so-called “Umbrella Movement protests”, in an attempt to vilify One Country, Two Systems and the central government’s policy on Hong Kong.
9. On 7 October 2019, then U.S. President Donald Trump said that “we just want to see a humane solution” in Hong Kong. He talked about the “great people over there” and said “they are flying the American flag”, “I saw two million people. I’ve never seen anything like it”.
10. On 24 October 2019, then U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivered an anti-China speech at the Wilson Center, in which he mentioned the turbulence over the amendment bill in Hong Kong several times. He alleged that “Hong Kong is a living example of what can happen when China embraces liberty”.
11. On 21 November 2019, in her remarks made after the passing of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deliberately misrepresented One Country, Two Systems, alleging that China has broken the promise of high degree of autonomy.
12. On 10 December 2019, U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong Hanscom Smith wrote an article for Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, asserting that “human rights are universal, which is why the United States stands with Hong Kong”. He claimed that the adoption of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act by the United States reflected its commitment to universal values and its concern over Beijing’s measures that erode Hong Kong’s autonomy.
13. On 22 May 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement on the adoption of the NPC Decision on Establishing and Improving the Legal Systems and Enforcement Mechanisms for Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, in which he made unfounded accusations that the National Security Law was “imposed” on Hong Kong and would “undermine Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy”.
14. On 27 May 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued another statement on the Hong Kong National Security Law to be deliberated and adopted by the NPC in which he claimed that the United States once hoped that Hong Kong, “as a bastion of liberty”, would provide a model for “authoritarian” China. He also stated that he would certify to Congress that Hong Kong does not continue to warrant treatment under U.S. law in the same manner as U.S. laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1997.
15. On 28 May 2020, the U.S. State Department submitted to Congress the 2020 Hong Kong Policy Act Report and certified that Hong Kong did not continue to warrant differential treatment under U.S. law.
16. On 30 June 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a statement, asserting that the Hong Kong National Security Law undermines One Country, Two Systems, and violates commitments made in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law of the HKSAR.
17. On 1 July 2020, following the adoption of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act by the U.S. House of Representatives, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi alleged that the Hong Kong National Security Law was “a brutal, sweeping crackdown against the people of Hong Kong, intended to destroy the freedoms they were promised” and it “signals the death of the One Country, Two Systems principle”.
18. On 6 July 2020, U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong Hanscom Smith asserted in an interview that using the Hong Kong National Security Law to erode fundamental freedoms and create an atmosphere of self-censorship is a tragedy for Hong Kong.
19. On 14 July 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement in support of the so-called “primary election” organized by the opposition in Hong Kong.
20. On 23 July 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an anti-China speech titled “Communist China and the Free World’s Future”. In the speech, he attacked the leadership of the CPC and China’s political system, fabricated the so-called “China threat”, accused the CPC of “tightening its grip on Hong Kong” and called Nathan Law Kwun-chung and other individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong as fighters for democracy.
21. On 31 July 2020, then White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated the United States’ opposition to the HKSAR government’s decision to disqualify opposition candidates.
22. On 7 August 2020, the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong issued a statement, blatantly smearing and attacking the Hong Kong National Security Law and alleging that it was “never about security, but rather, was intended to silence democracy advocates”.
23. On 11 September 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked China in a statement on a case of illegal border crossing made by 12 Hong Kong residents in an attempt to meddle in China’s judicial sovereignty.
24. On 11 November 2020, then Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Robert O’Brien asserted that China’s actions disqualifying the opposition legislators from Hong Kong’s Legislative Council violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration and that the United States will identify and sanction those responsible for extinguishing Hong Kong’s freedom.
25. On 12 November 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement on the disqualification of four opposition legislators. He accused the lawful decision of the NPC of being an “onslaught against Hong Kong’s freedoms” and clamored for “holding accountable the people responsible for eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms”.
26. On 6 January 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement on the Hong Kong police’s lawful arrest of 53 opposition members who were suspected of violating the Hong Kong National Security law. He called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of those people and threatened further sanctions.
27. On 14 January 2021, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China released its so-called “2020 Annual Report”, alleging that the One country, Two systems framework has been dismantled. The Commission called for providing shelters for offenders from Hong Kong based on U.S. domestic laws and blatantly exerted pressure on the HKSAR government against its law-based administration.
28. On 11 March 2021, the Spokesperson of the U.S. State Department made unwarranted charges against the passage of the NPC’s Decision on Improving the Electoral System of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, asserting that the decision was a continuing assault on democratic institutions and a direct attack on Hong Kong’s democratic processes.
29. On 11 March 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement on the passage of the NPC’s Decision on Improving the Electoral System of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in which he asserted that it was a direct attack on the autonomy, freedoms and democratic processes of Hong Kong.
30. On 30 March 2021, the U.S. State Department released a 2020 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, vilifying the Hong Kong National Security Law and attacking law-based administration by the HKSAR government and law enforcement carried out by Hong Kong police.
31. On 31 March 2021, the U.S. Department of State issued the 2021 Hong Kong Policy Act Report, accusing China of undermining the autonomy and rights and freedoms in Hong Kong and stating that Hong Kong would no longer receive the differential treatment previously accorded to it under U.S. laws.
32. On 1 April 2021, U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong Hanscom Smith, in media interviews and articles published on newspapers such as the South China Morning Post and Ming Pao, vilified the major steps China had taken to improve HKSAR’s electoral system and to formulate and implement the Hong Kong National Security Law. He alleged that changes to the electoral system would render Hong Kong’s election results meaningless, and threatened to impose U.S. sanctions in an attempt to embolden those who are opposed to China and attempted to destabilize Hong Kong.
33. On 16 April 2021, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, tweeted that the arrest of Martin Lee and others who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong was “another sign of Beijing’s assault on the rule of law” and felt “saddened and disturbed”.
34. On 17 April 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that sentencing for politically-motivated charges “are unacceptable” and called for the “release” of those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
35. On 7 May 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that “the United States stands with the people of Hong Kong”. He called for rejecting the sentencing of those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong and their immediate release.
36. On 27 May 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a press statement on the State Department website, unwarrantedly accusing the Chinese government of undermining the democratic institutions of Hong Kong and calling for all individuals arrested under the Hong Kong National Security Law to be released and their charges dropped.
37. On 3 June 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a press statement on the State Department website, claiming that “the United States will stand with” the people of China who demand that their government respect “universal human rights”, and he called those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong “brave activists”.
38. On 4 June 2021, the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong lit up electric candles inside its the office window in support of the so-called candlelight vigil staged by those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
39. On 5 June 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong were inspiring and called for the immediate release of those arrested.
40. On 11 June 2021, in an interview with Reuters, U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong Hanscom Smith alleged that the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law had created an “atmosphere of coercion” threatening both Hong Kong’s freedoms and its standing as an international business hub.
41. On 21 June 2021, at a press briefing, the spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State, under the pretext of media freedom, accused the HKSAR government of using the Hong Kong National Security Law to suppress independent media and stifle freedom of expression.
42. On 24 June 2021, in a statement released on the White House website, U.S. President Joe Biden, using media freedom as a pretext, called Apple Daily’s closure “a sad day for media freedom” and a signal of “intensified repression by Beijing”.
43. On 29 June 2021, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a roundtable on the one-year anniversary of the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law, making unwarranted charges against human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong.
44. On 30 June 2021, at the one-year anniversary of the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, in disregard of facts, openly attacked the legislation, alleging that it curtails Hong Kong’s freedom of expression.
45. On 1 July 2021, the U.S. Department of State issued the so-called “2021 Trafficking in Persons Report”. In the part on China, the report denigrated Hong Kong’s successful efforts to combat human trafficking, and demonized the Hong Kong National Security Law.
46. On 13 July 2021, the spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State unwarrantedly accused China of continuing to undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy and business environment, and called for international attention.
47. On 21 July 2021, the U.S. Department of State issued the so-called Investment Climate Statements. In the part on Hong Kong, the Statements played up the so-called security risks of the Hong Kong National Security Law and defamed Hong Kong’s business environment.
48. On 2 August 2021, the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong posted “Bearing Witness” on its website, listing individuals who have been held accountable in accordance with law for opposing China and attempting to destabilize Hong Kong. The list contains such information as their names, the dates of their arrests, the dates they were charged, charges made against them, and their conviction dates.
IV. Shielding and supporting those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong, providing platforms for them to advocate “Hong Kong independence” and spread political disinformation, and justifying the acts of those lawbreakers by twisting facts and misleading the public.
1. On 17 March 2019, the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong arranged for a delegation of the U.S.-China Working Group of the U.S. House of Representatives to meet with Anson Chan Fang On-sang, Martin Lee Chu-ming and Joshua Wong Chi-fung and others. These people told the media afterwards that they discussed with the U.S. side issues such as the HKSAR government’s disqualification of opposition candidates from the Legislative Council election, the proposed amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, and Hong Kong’s political development.
2. From 19 to 26 March 2019, Anson Chan Fang On-sang, Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, Charles Mok Nai-kwong and several others visited the United States, where they met with U.S. officials including then Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, then principal policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of State Miles Yu, and then Assistant Secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs of the U.S. Department of Defense Randall Schriver. They also met with officials from the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Anson Chan and others urged the U.S. administration to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and pleaded for U.S. support for the anti-amendment bill movement launched by the opposition. The U.S. side arranged for them to give speeches at such institutions as the McCain Institute at Arizona State University and the Heritage Foundation. This provided a platform and support for Anson Chan and others to preach “Hong Kong independence” and spread political disinformation.
3. From 13 to 17 May 2019, six people, namely Martin Lee Chu-ming, Lee Cheuk-yan, Mak Yin-ting, Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee, James To Kun-sun and Nathan Law Kwun-chung, visited the United States and met with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then White House National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs Matt Pottinger and others. The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China arranged for them to attend a so-called hearing on Hong Kong and ask the HKSAR government to withdraw the draft amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance.
4. On 14 May 2019, the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy held a seminar on the proposed amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance by the HKSAR government, discussing the so-called “new threats to civil society and the rule of law in Hong Kong”. The Endowment arranged for Martin Lee Chu-ming and others who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize to attend the seminar. Participants of the seminar called for taking immediate action to stop what they described as the “evil law”.
5. From 7 to 11 July 2019, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, who is opposed to China and attempts to destabilize Hong Kong, visited the United States and met with then Vice President Mike Pence, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then National Security Advisor John Bolton, then Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell and others. Jimmy Lai lobbied for U.S. intervention in Hong Kong affairs, and discussed with the U.S. side developments in Hong Kong surrounding the amendment bill and the so-called “autonomous status of Hong Kong”, for which he received positive response from the U.S. side.
6. On 6 August 2019, Hong Kong media reported that Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung and other leading figures of Demosistõ, an organization for “Hong Kong independence”, met with officials of the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong and called on the U.S. side to adopt a Hong Kong human rights and democracy act as soon as possible and impose sanctions on Hong Kong.
7. On 17 September 2019, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China arranged for Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Dennis Ho Wan-see, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang and others to attend a hearing under the so-called title of “Hong Kong’s Summer of Discontent and U.S. Policy Responses”. This provided a platform and support for Wong, Ho, Law and Cheung to advocate “Hong Kong independence”, spread political disinformation and smear the central government of China and the HKSAR government.
8. On 17 September 2019, U.S. Senator Todd Yang attended a press conference held on Capitol Hill to inaugurate the so-called Hong Kong Democracy Council, an organization supporting “Hong Kong independence”.
9. From 12 to 13 October 2019, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz visited Hong Kong and met with Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, Anson Chan Fang On-sang, Dennis Kwok Wing-hang, Charles Mok Nai-kwong, Bonnie Leung Wing-man and other leading figures among those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong. Cruz appeared at a protest site dressed in black and told the media that he did not see any violence. He accused the Hong Kong police, who had been enforcing the law with great restraint, of violent suppression.
10. From 22 to 26 October 2019, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, Martin Lee Chu-ming and others who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong visited the United States and met with Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, then Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell, Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China Jim McGovern and several members of Congress.
11. On 4 February 2020, at the invitation of U.S. senator Rick Scott, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, who is opposed to China and attempts to destabilize Hong Kong, attended the U.S. President’s State of the Union address.
12. On 5 March 2020, then U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Jonathan Fritz and U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong Hanscom Smith met with Charles Mok Nai-kwong and some others who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
13. On 21 March 2020, U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong Hanscom Smith met with Joshua Wong Chi-fung, Sunny Cheung Kwan-yang and Fergus Leung Fong-wai, among others, and accepted a so-called petition from Wong. Wong urged the United States to impose sanctions on HKSAR government officials and members of the Hong Kong police by invoking the U.S. Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.
14. On 18 April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement making groundless accusations against Hong Kong police’s arrest of individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
15. On 27 May 2020, U.S. Senator Joshua Hawley met with Joshua Wong Chi-fung and others who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
16. On 1 July 2020, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing and arranged for Nathan Law Kwun-chung, Lee Cheuk-yan and others who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong to attend the hearing via video link, providing a platform for them to vilify the Hong Kong National Security Law and the central government’s policy on Hong Kong.
17. On 21 July 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a one-on-one meeting in London with Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a “Hong Kong independence” advocate who had fled to the UK, in a move to embolden Law. Law smeared China’s central government and the HKSAR government, and called on the United States to exert more pressure on China.
18. On 10 August 2020, then National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien issued a statement claiming that the U.S. side is “deeply troubled by the arrest of pro-democracy advocates” including Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and calling on Beijing to repeal the Hong Kong National Security Law.
19. On 16 December 2020, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary arranged for Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a “Hong Kong independence” advocate, to attend a hearing via video link. Law claimed that the Hong Kong National Security Law restricted Hong Kong people’s freedom of expression and right to protest, and urged the United States to grant asylum to more Hong Kong people.
20. On 6 January 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement expressing so-called concern over the arrest of more than 50 individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
21. On 15 January 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued another statement making irresponsible comments about the HKSAR government’s arrest made in accordance with the law of individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong, including an American lawyer. He called on China to immediately release individuals sanctioned under the Hong Kong National Security Law and drop charges against them.
22. On 31 January 2021, nine U.S. senators and house representatives including Jim McGovern, Marco Rubio and Jeff Merkley wrote a joint letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee nominating the so-called “pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong” for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
23. On 28 February 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted a tweet to “condemn the detention of and charges filed against pan-democratic candidates in Hong Kong’s elections” by the HKSAR government.
24. On 16 April 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement making unwarranted accusations against China over the sentencing of Martin Lee Chu-ming, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying and other individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
25. On 8 July 2021, Joshua Huck, Chief of the Economic and Political Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, attended as an observer an HK court trial of individuals suspected of illegally planning, organizing and carrying out the “35 +” and “10 steps to mutual destruction” plan. When interviewed by the media, he claimed that the Hong Kong National Security Law is about suppressing the freedom of Hong Kong people and sought to glorify and justify individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong.
V. Colluding with some countries to exert pressure, and teaming up with allies to interfere in Hong Kong affairs and make irresponsible comments by such means as joint statements.
1. On 27 May 2020, the United States Mission to the United Nations issued a statement calling for a UN Security Council meeting on Hong Kong. The statement claimed that Hong Kong is “a matter of urgent global concern that implicates international peace and security”.
2. On 28 May 2020, foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada issued a joint statement on Hong Kong, attacking the Hong Kong National Security Law to be adopted by China’s NPC.
3. On 17 June 2020, foreign ministers of the United States and other G7 countries and the High Representative of the European Union issued a joint statement on Hong Kong. In an attempt to put pressure on China, the statement claimed that the Hong Kong National Security Law would undermine One country, Two Systems and Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, and urged the Chinese government to reconsider the relevant decision.
4. On 9 August 2020, foreign ministers of the United States and other Five Eyes countries issued a joint statement on Hong Kong, slandering the central government’s policy on Hong Kong and urging China’s NPC to revoke the disqualification of the four opposition members of the Legislative Council.
5. On 18 November 2020, foreign ministers of the United States and other Five Eyes countries issued a joint statement on Hong Kong, attacking the decision of the Standing Committee of the NPC on the qualification of members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and China’s policy on Hong Kong.
6. On 9 January 2021, foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada issued a joint statement on Hong Kong. The statement expressed so-called serious concern on the arrest of 55 individuals who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong by Hong Kong police in accordance with law, and accused the Hong Kong National Security Law of being a clear breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, undermining the One Country, Two Systems framework, and curtailing the rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong.
7. On 12 March 2021, foreign ministers of the United States and other G7 countries and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy issued a joint statement on Hong Kong. The statement claimed that the changes made by the Chinese government to Hong Kong’s electoral system were aimed at eliminating dissent in Hong Kong and would undermine Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.
8. On 5 May 2021, the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting attended by the United States and other relevant countries issued a joint statement which smeared the Chinese government’s policy on Hong Kong, distorted the policy of One Country, Two Systems, made irresponsible comments on the internal affairs of the HKSAR, and supported those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong. The United States also proposed at the meeting the setting up of an international group called “friends of Hong Kong”, in an attempt to get other Western countries on board to interfere in Hong Kong affairs.
9. On 13 June 2021, the G7 Summit issued a communiqué which made groundless comments on Hong Kong and called on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.
10. From 21 June to 14 July 2021, during the 47th session of the UN Human Rights Council, the United States and 43 other countries signed a joint statement against China initiated by Canada, expressing “concern” over “human rights abuses” in Hong Kong.
On 1 July, the United States led a side event on the one-year anniversary of the Hong Kong National Security Law which slandered the Hong Kong National Security Law and the rule of law in Hong Kong. Twenty governments and nine non-governmental organizations were asked to attend it.
11. On 10 July 2021, the U.S. Department of State website published a joint statement made by 21 countries including the United States and some European countries, all being members of the so-called Media Freedom Coalition, expressing “strong concerns” about the closure of Apple Daily and the arrest of those who are opposed to China and attempt to destabilize Hong Kong. The statement also made groundless accusations against the law enforcement efforts of the HKSAR government, the Hong Kong National Security Law, and the central government’s policy on Hong Kong.
Where is the world heading to?
People are starting to recognize that within 18 months from now, a nuclear armed Australia will be the "tip of the speak" to militarily confrontation with China.
Thus (supposedly) sparing New York City, Washington DC, and Los Angles from nuclear destruction...
In the Middle East, dictatorial regimes and terrorist militias about to breathe a sigh of relief as the United States and its allies withdraw from Afghanistan and perhaps soon from Iraq.
There is a perception in the region that it is believed that for more than two centuries, first Britain and then the United States were a bone stuck in the throat of the region.
Throughout the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first century, they kept brought nothing but war, violence, and the fragmentation of nations on the map, for the Middle East. The war and conflict only achievement of the great powers, especially in the oil and energy sector in this region.
Now the table is turned.
With the first energy revolution, the United States became depleted of Middle Eastern oil by acquiring shale oil, and now, by moving to clean energy, seeks its geopolitical priorities no longer in the Middle East but in the Indo-Pacific region.
Leading oil historian Daniel Yergin delves deeply into these geopolitical changes in the post-oil world in his new book, The New Map, published September 14 2021 in New York. He says that just as the map of the world changed after the First World War at the beginning of the twentieth century, so in the twenty-first century there will be a new map of the world.
The world has been waiting for years for a strategic and geopolitical confrontation between China and the United States.
A confrontation that took place inevitably, but in any case, and for any reason, the leaders of the two countries pushed it back.
Thursday, September 16, 2021 marked another historic day for the world. On this day, the leaders of the three countries of Australia, Britain and the United States suddenly appeared on world television and announced a security defense agreement and a tripartite core.
A statement that shook the world.
China, in its first response, threatened Australia with a nuclear attack.
The Chinese do NOT bluff, and if they say something, you all had best LISTEN. Or do you think that they are liars and bluff and bluster all the time with hollow and empty threats?
The Global Times, the English-language organ of the Chinese Communist Party, immediately reacted to the statement and attacked the treaty with the most naked words. A treaty that introduced new acronyms to world political literature. AUKUS is the acronym for this new treaty, which according to Politico is the newest and ugliest acronym for America.
The three-way security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States will equip Australia with eight nuclear-powered submarines over eighteen months, as well as providing Australia with many artificial intelligence technologies, costumes, defense, and security facilities.
In other words, while the United States has either withdrawn or is withdrawing from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria, it is now conducting a nuclear and security camp in the Pacific against China. What Reuters has interpreted as a new Cold War that is affecting the geopolitics of the world.
The American camp in the Pacific has greatly hurt Europe, and especially France. So much so that France called it a stab in the back, and France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called it a barbaric, one-sided, and unpredictable decision in an interview with Radio France, reminiscent of Trump’s actions. Le Drian, who could not hide his anger, added: “I am angry and bitter. This is not done between allies.”
But why is France so angry?
There are two reasons for France’s anger: First, France was previously set to sell submarines to Australia under a $ 40 billion deal, but has now been barred from a lucrative deal.
But another important reason is that in the first major transatlantic security treaty, not only France but also Europe was ignored. The ignorance that Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, called painful in a statement published by The Wall Street Journal.
What can be seen from what happened on Thursday in the world geopolitical scene, is that, the United States has not tolerated China’s growing progress and has finally resorted to a military alignment in its nuclear nature.
The US turning its back on this new approach is understandable to its Middle East allies; But why it ousted its European allies, especially France, in the first transatlantic treaty is a question that the future will answer.
Nope. They are not pausing to think. They are ramping up for a war against China.
Idiots.
And China is ready.
Then there’s this… .
According to former MI6 deputy director Nigel Inkster, Xi Jinping is losing patience, and China is “edging closer” to confrontation with the US over Taiwan.
Meanwhile, Taiwan declared an unprecedented US$9 billion increase in military spending the day before to meet China’s threat — a development that will not go over well in Beijing.
There is also danger that the highly controversial AUKUS defence treaty between the UK, the US, and Australia may drag Britain into a battle with China over Taiwan.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, called the AUKUS pact an example of a “obsolete cold war zero-sum thinking.”
“On a scale of one to 10, how likely is it that we’ll see a military clash between America and China over this issue?” LBC host Matt Frei questioned Inkster.
“Right now, we’re up to eight,” Inkster replied.
…
“The best-case scenario is that both China and the United States realize they are on an equal footing militarily, with neither having a significant edge.
“This acknowledgement could help to keep the peace, even if it is shattered. That is our only ray of hope.”
“We may be approaching a tipping point when the Chinese party-state believes that peaceful reunification with Taiwan is not possible,” Inkster added.
As Inkster spoke, across the pond at the Air, Space & Cyber conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Air Combat Command’s Gen. Mark D. Kelly told attendees that China must be challenged, Air Force magazine reported.
The “cold, hard realities” are that the Air Force was superbly prepared and trained to defeat a peer adversary — Russia — 30 years ago, then achieved a highly lopsided victory in Iraq, Kelly said.
But in the last 20 years, USAF was optimized for combat in a “permissive environment” that didn’t test the force. During that same time, China was focused completely on “the high-end fight, and fighting us.”
…
China’s force structure and systems are “designed to inflict more casualties in the first 30 hours of combat than we’ve endured over the last 30 years in the Middle East,” Kelly said.
No shit. What have I been saying?
China does not believe in "surgical strikes" within strictly defined target battle zones.
they believe in all-out brutal, devistating, absolute destructive war that does not descriminate and smashes things and breaks them relentlessly.
As the United States Air Force inventory has aged and diminished, the balance with China has tilted more toward Beijing, he added.
Kelly said Russia has been able to annex Crimea and China has claimed parts of the South China Sea “without firing a shot” because contesting those situations has become harder thanks to adversary air defenses.
To regain the advantage — “to be a resolute world power ”— the US, through its Air Force, has to be able to penetrate “highly contested sovereign [airspace],” Kelly asserted.
Nigel Inkster has worked at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) since 2007. He is the former Director of Future Conflict and Cyber Security and currently a Special Adviser at IISS. His research portfolio at IISS has included transnational terrorism, insurgency, transnational organized crime, cyber security, intelligence and security and the evolving character of conflict.
Source: Brinkwire.com, Air Force magazine, CyberStability.org, Wikipedia
Scandal in Taiwan
I wonder how this is being reported in the United States?
Current Taiwan president has a fake PhD and fake PhD thesis. After a UK court earlier this year ruled that the university should released all documents on Tsai Ing-wen’s, we now see a press conference re the investigation.
Will she be trial for teaching in a Taiwan University with the fake PhD? And step down as president by lying to the voters?
Scholars on the island open Tsai Ing-wen’s thesis door to the final trial press conference and choke on falsified papers
Do you think that he is right? That China would respond, or that they would try to retreat a little to save face?
New Report Documents the Deadly Impact and Global Condemnation of US Sanctions
A coalition of North American human rights organizations has released a report on the impact and consequences of US sanctions. The report is based on wide-ranging research and interviews with citizens in countries which are suffering under US sanctions.
The report reveals a reality which western media rarely or never reports.
One finding is that US sanctions hurt the poor, have resulted in thousands of deaths and “humanitarian exemptions” do not work. Another finding is that more than 70% of the world nations officially condemn US sanctions as violating international law and the UN Charter.
A free PDF copy of the report can be downloaded from…
A top official at Russian natural gas producer Novatek who was arrested in the United States last week on tax charges says he is innocent and will “vigorously” fight the case.
“On Thursday I was indicted for baseless tax charges that I already settled through a voluntary program, and pleaded not guilty. I will vigorously fight these charges and will continue to discuss gas topics as normal,” Mark Gyetvay, the deputy chairman of Novatek’s management board, said in a tweet on September 26.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on September 23 that Gyetvay had been arrested on tax charges related to $93 million hidden in offshore accounts. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Gyetvay, who holds passports from both the United States and Russia, was released on a $80 million bond by a Florida judge, according to court filings.
As an American citizen, Gyetvay is required to pay U.S. taxes on his worldwide income even if he spends most of the year in Russia.
The 64-year old has been the face of Novatek to the Western investment community for more than a decade, conducting the quarterly earnings conference calls with stock and bond investors as well as speaking at industry conferences.
Novatek is Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer and analysts say its phenomenal rise from a bit player in the early 2000s to a $79 billion company today — not far behind BP’s $89 billion market value — is due in large part to the company’s connections to the Kremlin.
Gennady Timchenko, a key Novatek shareholder, is considered a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Their friendship goes back to the early 1990s.
The United States has been seeking to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy over the years, including blocking the launch of Nord Stream 2, a pipeline designed to carry natural gas directly to Germany via Baltic Sea.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will reroute gas currently transiting Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of as much as $2 billion in revenue. The United States has called it a political project aimed at hurting Russia’s smaller neighbor.
The project was completed earlier this month and is now awaiting certification by German and European authorities, a process that could take several months.
In the meantime, European gas prices have surged to a record high amid a supply crunch. Washington is now accusing Russia of withholding additional natural gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine in order to pressure authorities to certify Nord Stream 2.
“Another laugher!!!” Gyetvay said in a tweet two days before his arrest after a U.S. official expressed concern that Russia was not sending enough gas to Europe. “Who tried to impose relentless sanctions while promoting [U.S. liquefied natural gas to Europe?] Reality — we need ALL gas. Period.”
What comes around goes around
Call it Karma or what have you, but when you have had centuries of taking, taking, taking… sooner or later that becomes who you are. And unless you replenish the “closed system” (Those who understand the concept of a “Prison Planet” understand.) this activity will manifest in your life; in your community, and in your people.
The United States wants all QUAD members to have nuclear weapons.
The QUAD consists of the US, Australia, India and Japan.
Up until two weeks ago, only the USA and India had nuclear weapons, then arrangements were made to place nuclear weapons systems in Australia. Now the United States is pushing for Japan to have nuclear weapons systems.
A ton-load of articles out of the United States neocons…
https://www.dailywire.com/news/chinas-nuclear...
Aug 07, 2021 · The U.S. should consider all options, including negotiations with Japan to deploy land-based nuclearmedium or intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Japaneseterritory. The offer of U.S.-controlled missiles will act to preventJapanfromdeciding to build its own nuclear weaponcapabilityin response to the Chinese threat, thuspreventing ...
-China’s Nuclear Threat Against Japan: Hybrid Warfare
“A new ‘study’ has concluded that Beijing’s huge worldwide investment programme is ‘losing momentum’ as debts mount. But a closer inspection of the facts tells a different story.
“Western mainstream media yesterday began posting in tandem a purported ‘study’ from which Reuters spun its own headline: ‘China’s Belt and Road plans losing momentum as opposition, debt mount – study’.
"The study, as noted in the report, was sponsored by the US government through the surrogate of its own international relief [and Color Revolution sponsoring] agency, USAID, and proceeded to present the usual cliches that China was maliciously saddling nations in “hidden debt,” encouraging corruption and promulgating environmental damage in participating countries, and claimed that opposition to the investment programme was mounting."
Fowdy is good at digging, but in this case he didn’t need to expend much effort:
"It is strange that large scale emphasis on that [forced labor] has disappeared, and now the agenda is being turned toward trashing the Belt and Road Initiative. But we knew this was coming. When the US Senate prepared its ‘strategic competition’ bill earlier this year, it notably earmarked $300 million in funding to deliberately spread 'negative news' regarding 'the impact of China's Belt and Road Initiative' throughout the world. To no surprise whatsoever, this is what the newly published BRI ‘study’ is doing, and it's a sign of things to come."
Fowdy then tells us some of the lies being used to discredit. He follows that with facts, a category of information Western media doesn’t appear to use in its reports anymore:
“Here’s a flavor of what they aren’t telling you. A study from Refinitiv, one of the world’s largest providers of financial markets data and infrastructure, found that, as of 2019, over $516 billion worth of BRI projects had been completed with a cancellation rate of just 0.3%. It counted 2,631 different projects across the world, in more than 120 countries.
“To name but a few examples of BRI successes:
China finished a metro system in Lahore, Pakistan, last year,
opened a 1000MW nuclear power plant in the same country in May,
is building Africa’s largest building in Egypt,
as well as the largest building in South Asia (the Lotus Tower in Colombo, Sri Lanka),
and is on the verge of finishing the China-Laos High Speed Railway.
Multiple direct transcontinental railway routes through China to Europe have also been opened.
“The study by Refinitiv, which is headquartered in the UK, also proceeded to pour cold water over the idea of a ‘debt trap’ for participating countries, noting that a review of 40 cases of China’s external debt renegotiations painted a different picture. The BRI is not being imposed, it is not dogmatic and nor is it monolithic, and it is more flexible and pragmatic than it’s given credit for.” [My Emphasis]
In other words, the BRI is essentially the opposite of the Washington Consensus’s Structural Adjustment Programs which impose development crippling austerity and serve to enrich the global 1%. Fowdy closes by exposing the utter bankruptcy of the Outlaw US Empire’s attempts to counter the long overdue development of the Global South:
“The idea that developing countries blindly and naively accept one-sided terms, jump into self-penalizing agreements, and thus don’t know ‘what their best interests are’, is insulting. It is promoting, as usual, the idea of ‘Western saviorism’, one that has been used as a justification for colonialism and domination for centuries. There is a staggering lack of historical self-awareness and sensitivity in those who advocate such claims.”
In about 30 years, the Global South will be on par with many Western nations, while surpassing those destroyed by Neoliberalism. And ya know, there really aren’t very many Western Nations, and very few of them are actually independent.
David BK Tan chimes in on the “collapse” of China…
I am seeing a lot of inaccurate articles on the western media championing the “demise” of the Chinese economy.
Besides the erroneous comparison of Evergrande to Lehman Brothers (see my post https://bit.ly/3uyUDvq) , I am also seeing articles referring to the current debt plight of Evergrande as China’s “Heisei Bubble” moment. Heisei (平成) era is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Akihito from 8 Jan 1989 until his abdication on 30 Apr 2019. The Japanese would call it Heisei bubble (平成バブル & バブル (baburu) is actually a loanword from English & hence it sounds like bubble) since the burst of its asset price bubble happened during the 平成 era .
Actually you do not need to have a PhD in economics to understand that China is not having a “Heisei Bubble” moment. What you need is to look at “First Principles” of economics to understand their differences.
If you have studied mathematics/physics in school, you might remember “First Principles” which are like axioms. So if you have no economics background, you can treat the common economics principles like axioms without the need to understand them in details & use such principles for investigative purpose. Actually such “First Principles” approach is useful in general as it helps you to probe further in a new area to gain some understanding.
The First Principle that you would need in this case is :
GDP of a country =C+I+G+(X−M) where
C=Consumer spending on goods and services
I=Investment spending on business capital goods
G=Government spending on public goods and services
X=Exports
M=Imports
You also need to know some common facts on #Japan in the 80s like its exports were very strong & thus it contributed strongly to its GDP. Its strong exports in the 80s resulted in the poor sales of local products in the US & so we had the US-Japan trade wars in the 80s which affected its trade.
So if we look at trade (% of GDP) vs GDP figures for Japan since mid- 80s, you find that its trade plunged but GDP abnormally increased. Since trade was a impt contribution to its GDP, this suggests that there would be anomalies like over-consumption/over-investment or even both. So if you are interested in the cause, you might probe further. But suffice to say, you know for China to have a “Heisei Bubble” moment, its trade must plunge like Japan’s since China is also an export-oriented economy. I have attached the second image displaying China’s trade as % of GDP vs its GDP & you will realise that its plunge in trade happened after 2006 which was due to Great Financial Crisis but its trade has been decelerating since then which is in tandem with the decelerating GDP growth.
In a nutshell, #China does not have the anomaly of Japan’s Heisei moment with over-consumption/over-investment etc since the GDP was falling in accordance with the fall in trade since 2007.
The US and its allies continue beating the drums of war in regards to China, but how serious is this? Will it really lead to war, or is it merely posturing meant to give the US the most favorable position on the other side of a fully ascendant China?
A critical inflection point identified by US war planners for years is approaching, where China’s economic and military might will irreversibly surpass the US and the center of global power will likewise irreversibly shift from West to East creating a global balance of power unseen for centuries. A closing window of opportunity estimated to close between 2025 and 2030 allows the US to carry out a limited war with China, resulting in a favorable outcome for Washington. Beyond that, the US will find itself outmatched and any attempt to curb China’s rise rendered futile.
The propaganda war, and the war itself this propaganda aims to justify and rally support for, is unmistakable, particularly for those who have witnessed similar buildups ahead of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, or US-led military interventions in nations like Libya and Syria from 2011 onward.
A recent 60 Minutes Australia segment titled, “War with China: Are we closer than we think?,” presented an amalgamation of this ongoing propaganda used to vilify the Chinese government, dehumanize the Chinese people, and create sufficient anger, fear, paranoia, distrust, and hatred in hearts and minds across the planet to justify what would be for the 21st century, an unprecedented war.
For the United States, a war with China would be the first of its kind, a war with a peer or near-peer competitor armed with nuclear weapons.
Yet US war planners are fairly confident that the conflict could be confined to East Asia, remain conventional, and see a favorable outcome for the US that would secure its primacy over Asia for decades to come.
A victory for the US would not be military in nature, but rather hinge on “nonmilitary factors,” and focus on disrupting and setting back China’s economy and thus the power propelling China past the United States at the moment.
The 2016 US War Plan Coming to Life
These conclusions were laid out in a 2016 RAND Corporation document titled, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” commissioned by the Office of the Undersecretary of the Army and carried out by the RAND Arroyo Center’s Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program. The report notes that the RAND Arroyo Center is part of the RAND Corporation and is a federally-funded research and development center sponsored by the United States Army.
The report notes that America’s military advantage is in decline vis-a-vis China, but also lays out several current realities that would favor the US should hostilities unfold.
It states on page 9 of the PDF document:
We postulate that a war would be regional and conventional. It would be waged mainly by ships on and beneath the sea, by aircraft and missiles of many sorts, and in space (against satellites) and cyberspace (against computer systems). We assume that fighting would start and remain in East Asia, where potential Sino-USflash points and nearly all Chinese forces are located.
The RAND document admits that China’s forces are concentrated in Chinese territory and that virtually all flash points that could trigger a conflict are likewise located in the region. This implies that US forces would need to be more or less right up to China’s shores and regional claims, and insist on interfering in regional disputes or intervene in matters between Taiwan and mainland China.
The Nuclear Question
Many assume any war between China and the United States would escalate into a nuclear exchange. However, this is unlikely except under the most extreme conditions.
Regarding nuclear and conventional warfare, the RAND document makes a compelling argument, stating:
It is unlikely that nuclear weapons would be used: Even in an intensely violent conventional conflict, neither side would regard its losses as so serious, its prospects so dire, or the stakes so vital that it would run the risk of devastating nuclear retaliation by using nuclear weapons first. We also assume that China would not attack the US homeland, except via cyberspace, given its minimal capability to do so with conventional weapons. In contrast, US nonnuclear attacks against military targets in China could be extensive.
The report studies a window of opportunity that began in 2015 and stretches to 2025. Current developments seem to indicate the US may see this window extend as far as 2030, including the recent announcement of the “AUKUS” alliance where US-UK-built Australian nuclear-powered submarines would be coming online and ready to participate in such a conflict around the early 2030’s.
US May Trade Heavy Military Losses for China’s Economic Ruination
Under a section titled, “The Importance of Nonmilitary Factors,” the RAND report notes:
The prospect of a military standoff means that war could eventually be decided by nonmilitary factors. These should favor the United States now and in the future. Although war would harm both economies, damage to China’s could be catastrophic and lasting: on the order of a 25–35 percent reduction in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) in a yearlong war, compared with a reduction in US GDP on the order of 5–10 percent. Even a mild conflict, unless ended promptly, could weaken China’s economy. A long and severe war could ravage China’s economy, stall its hard-earned development, and cause widespread hardship and dislocation.
Considering the current shape of US-Chinese relations, the emphasis on economics and trade, and the persistent, even desperate attempts by the US to not only inflict as much damage on China’s economy ahead of a potential conflict as possible, but also its attempts to “decouple” from China’s economy as fast as possible could be interpreted as tying off a limb before amputation.
Preparations Already Underway to Exploit China’s Economic Damage
The report notes the follow-on effects of the economic damage such a conflict would inflict on China. It would open the door for already on-going US machinations to undermine China’s social and political stability to expand and do tremendous damage, perhaps even threatening the cohesion of Chinese society.
It states specifically:
Such economic damage could in turn aggravate political turmoil and embolden separatists in China. Although the regime and its security forces presumably could withstand such challenges, doing so might necessitate increased oppressiveness, tax the capacity, and undermine the legitimacy of the Chinese regime in the midst of a very difficult war. In contrast, US domestic partisan skirmishing could handicap the war effort but not endanger societal stability, much less the survival of the state, no matter how long and harsh the conflict, so long as it remains conventional. Escalating cyberwarfare, while injurious to both sides, could worsen China’s economic problems and impede the government’s ability to control a restive population.
The mention of “separatists in China” is particularly important. These groups, often made up of armed extremists, are supported by an extensive international network funded by the US government itself.
Separatism in China’s Xinjiang and Tibetan regions is openly supported by the US government and has been sponsored by Washington for decades. The US National Endowment for Democracy’s official website lists its programs for Xinjiang, China as, “Xinjiang/East Turkestan,” “East Turkestan” being the separatist name for Xinjiang. The organizations listed, including the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the World Uyghur Congress openly admit on their respective websites that they view Xinjiang – contrary to international law – as “occupied” by China rather than a territory of China.
In a move that could very likely be a warning of just how close to a US-provoked conflict with China we may be, the US State Department de-listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in 2020 claiming it had not been active for over a decade.
Yet by the US’ own admission US military forces struck ETIM targets in Afghanistan as recently as 2018, and just this year ETIM representatives gave an interview with US-based Newsweek magazine.
ETIM is still listed by a number of nations as well as the UN itself as a terrorist organization.
Economic turmoil, armed insurrection, and socio-political instability are factors the US has openly attempted to impose on China for decades and is still placing pieces on the gameboard toward this objective. If a conflict were to break out, those pieces would clearly already be in place to maximize Washington’s ability to exploit economic damage inflicted by the conflict.
Targeting China’s Trade Lanes at Sea
The RAND paper notes specifically the impact on Chinese trade a conventional conflict confined to East Asia would have. The report notes:
…while the United States has sophisticated sensors to distinguish military from nonmilitary targets, during war it will focus on finding and tracking the former; moreover, Chinese ISR is less sophisticated and discriminating, especially at a distance. This suggests very hazardous airspace and sea space, perhaps ranging from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea. Assuming that non-Chinese commercial enterprises would rather lose revenue than ships or planes, the United States would not need to use force to stop trade to and from China.16 China would lose a substantial amount of trade that would be required to transit the war zone. The United States expressly threatening commercial shipping would be provocative, hazardous, and largely unnecessary. So we posit no US blockade, as such.
Of course, the US has a variety of tools at its disposal that it regularly uses upon the international stage to impede free commerce. It is an irony since Washington often accuses Beijing of “threatening” such commerce in regions like the South China Sea while Washington is actually impeding it on a global scale.
NPR in its 2020 article, “US Seizes Iranian Fuel From 4 Tankers Bound For Venezuela,” would note:
According to The Associated Press, quoting unnamed USofficials, no military force was used in the seizure of the cargo, and none of the ships was physically impounded. Instead, US officials threatened ship owners, insurers and captains with sanctions to force them to hand over their cargo, the AP reported.
Because of America’s still formidable grip over international media, it would be extremely easy to sink vessels engaged in commerce and blame it on China or claim it was accidental. A total blockade would not be necessary to deter the majority of commerce in the region, only a few examples would be needed for the self-preservation of shipping companies to de facto cut off trade.
Another concerning warning sign was the Pentagon restructuring an entire branch of the US armed forces, the US Marine Corps, to specifically fight a single nation (China), in a very specific region (East Asia), with very specific tactics (shutting down straits used for commercial shipping).
Defense News in a 2020 article titled, “Here’s the US Marine Corps’ plan for sinking Chinese ships with drone missile launchers,” would claim:
The US Marine Corps is getting into the ship-killing business, and a new project in development is aimed at making their dreams of harrying the People’s Liberation Army Navy a reality.
The article also noted:
Marine Corps requirements and development chief Lt. Gen. Eric Smith told reporters last year during the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the Marines want to fight on ground of their choosing and then maneuver before forces can concentrate against them.
“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”
The US Marine Corps has already decommissioned all of their main battle tanks as part of this restructuring which took less than a year – signifying the urgency of US preparations.
The US taking ships out in busy commerce straits and creating an environment that would cripple trade between China and the rest of the world would have a heavy impact on China’s economy.
On page 67 of the PDF document, RAND includes a graphic depiction of China’s projected GDP losses versus the US, giving us a compelling motive for the US to wage a war it knows it will suffer heavy military losses amidst, but emerge economically stronger than a China that will otherwise, barring such a conflict, surpass the US within this window of opportunity.
China Knows, But Can China Beat the Clock?
It is very obvious that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an attempt for China to diversify away from Asia-Pacific trade routes the US is clearly making preparations to attack and disrupt.
Pipelines running through Pakistan as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and through Myanmar to Kunming in Yunnan Province would help move hydrocarbons bound for China from the Middle East without passing through waters the US could disrupt in the conflict it is clearly preparing for.
However, these alternative routes are already under attack.
US-sponsored separatists operating in Pakistan’s southwest province of Baluchistan regularly attack and kill Chinese engineers and the infrastructure itself.
Protests organized by US-sponsored opposition groups target Gwadar Port, CPEC’s terminal.
Just this year alone, France 24 would report in April a bombing targeting a hotel the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan was staying at but who luckily wasn’t at the hotel at the time of the bombing. In July, the BBC reported that 9 Chinese engineers working on CPEC projects were killed in a targeted attack. And according to Reuters, in August, 2 children were killed during a suicide bombing targeting Chinese engineers in Baluchistan.
US-backed opposition groups have been attacking Chinese investments in Myanmar since the military ousted the US client regime headed by Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NDL). CNN would report in March, just a month after the military took over, that the opposition was lighting Chinese factories ablaze.
US government-funded Myanmar opposition media outlet, The Irrawaddy, published an article in May titled, “Deadly Attack on Pipeline Station Spotlights China’s High Stakes in Myanmar,” claiming:
The importance of the project was highlighted in February when Chinese officials held an emergency meeting with Myanmar officials, at which they urged the military regime to tighten security measures for the pipelines. They said the project is a crucial part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Myanmar and insisted that “any damage to the pipelines would cause huge losses for both countries.” The request came amid growing anti-China sentiment in Myanmar, where protesters—angered by Beijing’s blocking of the UN Security Council (UNSC)’s efforts to take action against the coup leaders—have threatened to blow up the pipelines.
The article concludes by quoting a Swedish journalist claiming:
It would come as no surprise if attacks were carried out against, for instance, the pipelines, he said. “And attitudes will not change unless the Chinese government stops its support for the Myanmar military. That should be a real concern.”
Xinjiang, China, also serves as a critical juncture for China’s BRI and we can clearly see the US promoting separatism there. The recent “Uyghur Tribunal” organized by the abovementioned US-funded World Uyghur Congress aims at further undermining Beijing’s efforts to counter US-sponsored armed separatism in Xinjiang by placing additional international pressure on China for implementing necessary security measures to prevent it.
The continued US-sponsored attacks on China’s BRI, the US-led military build-up along China’s coasts, and the propaganda war the US is waging to control the narratives surrounding both, represents a race against time for both Washington and Beijing.
For Washington, it is attempting to create the conditions in which RAND predictions of China’s economic devastation following a conventional conflict confined to East Asia can be transformed into reality.
For Beijing, it is attempting to run out the clock and assume the economic, military, and political power it needs to fully deter any such conflict, and assume its position as the largest, most powerful economy on Earth.
All things being equal, China has the world’s largest population – a population that is hardworking and well-educated. China’s educational institutions are producing millions more science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates than the US per year. China’s massive trade networks ensure its economy has plenty of resources. It should become the largest economy. And only a war of aggression, chosen to be waged by Washington will stop this from coming to pass.
US foreign policy in the 21st century has demonstrated in action the true nature of its foreign policy versus what Washington’s politicians say with words from behind podiums or its media says in front of cameras about a “rules-based international order.”
The only rule we can see demonstrably upheld is “might makes right.”
Only time will tell whether or not the US “makes right” its smaller nation with its smaller economy clinging to primacy over China for decades to come before it no longer has the “might” to do so.
MM thoughts on this “article”…
There’s some pretty fucking huge assumptions being made. They are going to get people killed.
Any war with China will be nuclear.
It will not be fought against China alone. It will be forght against the SEO (Russia and all the other nations.)
The window of “opportunity” will not be in 2025 – 2030. It was in 2004 to 2009. It has long passed by.
If Chinese citizens, cities or geography is attacked, and destoyed so will be the fate of American citizens, cities and geography.
It will not be a long drawn out conventional war on or near China. It will be international, and vicious. And it will be devistating, and over in a short period of time.
Internal Chinese dissidant groups, all funded by the USA, have mostly been rooted out and eliminated if not violently crushed.
What are your thoughts after reading this particular bilge out of America and promoted in Australia?
Other thoughts…
re: A closing window of opportunity estimated to close between 2025 and 2030 allows the US to carry out a limited war with China . . .blah blah
That piece of garbage was written by Brian Berletic, “who is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.” In no way could the US “carry out” (whatever that means — it’s not a professional military term) a limited war with China.
If the US warmongers want to provoke a war with China, I would say go to it. The US will lose. And in doing it will discover their mistake. You can’t defeat China’s economic dominance by military action.
I saw the article as a (mistaken) claim that the should take advantage of a window of opportunity and attack China.
US War Plans with China Taking Shape . . .China’s massive trade networks ensure its economy has plenty of resources. It should become the largest economy. And only a war of aggression, chosen to be waged by Washington will stop this from coming to pass.
China is not waiting for economic dominance over Taiwan to push the unification envelope. China simply don’t care about taking up governance over people who are brainwashed to be hostile to them. Only that China, in principle, would not give up sovereignty over the territory called Taiwan. The present situation is fine with them.
China’s economy has exceeded USA’s long ago–IMF and World Bank said 2014, but my understanding is 2010 or earlier. Just that the way GDP is calculated, the USA’s mode of non-productive sectors are given weights that is not deserved. How does the legal sector produced 10% of what people in the USA consume? How does a business consultant’s 1 hour of free-wheeling opinion voicing produce $1,000 worth of goods and services? USA’s 21+ $T of GDP is Lucy In The Sky, a hallucination.
Taiwan people are just plain stupid, brainwashed, and clinching to what they consider as the last straw. They know it’s a straw, but they don’t know that this straw is still effective only because China doesn’t give a damn about them.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Oct 1 2021 19:37 utc | 26
War with China;
There is a sort of conceptual mistake when talking about US “capabilities” and warmongering. It is not the Military who want a “sort of” war, but the military-industrial complex, who need credible enemies.
IT is the Oligarchic owners of defense industries who want continued hostilities. As long as they can make cash. (Or rather, relieve the sheeple of their woolly coats – “for their own good”).
Most Generals go throught the “revolving doors” of industry-think*tank-Military, sometimes Political etc. So they are on both sides at the same time, they are not separate identities.
The Industry needs to be able to produce the “ultimate military rabbit out of the hat projects”, lots of them, at an enviable cost-overrun. ….. and to get rid of most of the product rapidly afterwards, to enable “replacement”.
For this they need “threats” agogo. Built in obsolescence and fruitful and intimate connections and relations with budgetteers.
*
US defense spending $811 billion. Not including other “secret” or “war” budgets. (The Afghanistan spending was concealed as War budget, and was independent from the standard defense budget. This will need “replacing” with another “war” situation for budget purposes)
The other NATO countries => $363 billion
Total $1.2 trillion per year. (Known)
(Turkey is the ONLY NATO country which has reduced it’s defense spending by 4%)
*
So we come back to China, Russia, NKorea, Iran as “credible” threats, even if they are not. As well as the others; Venezuela, Cuba etc. as walk-on bit-players to keep the propaganda tirade on the boil.
Whether there is a war with China or not, it must be profitable. The propaganda (as per b’s post) is only marketing for pre-emptive expenditure on the whole militarized industry. Advertising exageration?
Here’s a live display of shipping activity in east Asia. The US will block this and not pay a heavy price for doing so? The two dozen US military bases in Japan and half a dozen in South Korea won’t be leveled? Plus all US Navy surface ships at sea?
I guess they’ll be inspecting every ship that goes through the Straits of Malacca. They’ll need to keep an eye on Suez and Panama too incase someone tries to sneak through.
Thank you for the link to marine traffic. My immediate thought from that first glimpse was ah! that’s why China and its neighbours are busy building terrestrial rail and road systems. Equally obvious why Reuters an other liars are forever pumping the fear china, fear debt bondage mantra.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 1 2021 21:45 utc | 39
There will be war between the empire and China. It is the Thucydides trap, and there is no way out of it. In fact, the first shots of that war have already been fired with the empire using biological WMDs against China. The only questions about the war are when does the shooting start and how bad does it have to get before the empire concedes… assuming the empire is quickly convinced that defeat is inevitable and so doesn’t escalate to nuclear weapons.
There has been discussion about the empire marshaling its gimps on the front line; trying to get Japan and Australia and not-so-Great Britain to take point in the fight. I am of mixed opinion as to whether this is good or bad. On the one hand it helps legitimize the empire’s aggression and makes the forces arrayed against China seem stronger. As well, if a country like Australia is the first to take a punch from China for the empire the optics will be bad. It would look like China being a bully and kicking America’s yappy pet chihuahua. Furthermore, I am quite fond of Japan and the Japanese people and I’d rather not see them hurt again.
On the other hand, if combat operations start directly between the US and China then it is a forgone conclusion that the Chinese will pull their punches, at least in the beginning. The US, for its part, will go right for the kill from the very start. This means that China will take a terrible beating while they come to realize that the fight is serious and will not be gentlemanly. If the fight starts with Japan this will not be an issue. Japan has a karmic debt to China and the Chinese will not pull their punches in a fight with them. China will come down on Japan like an avalanche and deal Japan a very swift and decisive defeat. This decisiveness is crucial as it will help convince the empire that further aggression is futile and thereby help prevent escalation by the empire. While it would pain me to see that happen to Japan , it is one of the best outcomes that prevents things from spiraling to Armageddon.
Of course, the prefect outcome would be for Britain to take the lead in the fight and get instantly and utterly crushed, as the British also have a deep karmic debt that the Chinese wouldn’t hesitate to collect on. That would have the same benefit of interrupting the empire’s escalation, but would spare the Japanese and possibly even teach the British some humility (yeah, lots of luck with that last, right?).
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2021 21:52 utc | 40
I have to agree with you on Thucydides Trap. Interesting that you consider Covid as the first salvo the Empire fired. Actually China suspected SARS was the first salvo. That’s one reason they put effort into researching corona virus and means of containing such viral spread. Unlike Russia, they won’t openly accuse the Empire of biological warfare without possession of the smoking gun, but they will be very alert to future implantation of biological kinks coming from Empire’s direction.
Meanwhile, you’re also right that the Empire has been maneuvering to goat their lackeys to serve as canon fodders against China, even with some success. India is a prominent example. They would love for Japan to go head-on against China–the more Japanese casualties, the better narrative to build global mobilization of forces against China. Interesting that you sentimentally like Japanese and abhors the idea of them getting hurt. I guess you’re not informed of the extent of evil the Japanese had done around a century ago. Have you heard of the Nanjing Massacre, the 3-totality strategy (total plunder, total burning, total killing) in sweeping villages to ensure Chinese resistances would get no refurbishments, Project 731-germ warfare??? In fact, it was Project 731’s research dossier that started Fort Detrick lab. I suppose you consider that to be 75-100 years old past, and one should forgive and forget. Well, I can’t. Especially not when today’s Japan can’t even come clean and admit to what they have done. I don’t see a reborn Japan.
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Oct 1 2021 22:45 utc | 43
Today, the Outlaw US Empire is a Neoliberal Oligarchy while China’s a Social-Democratic nation–when both are objectively examined. Geoeconomically, the Empire’s dependent on China, not the other way round. As was overtly made very clear at the Alaska meeting, the Outlaw US Empire cannot deal with China from a position of strength either geopolitically or geoeconomically.
As I wrote a few days ago to zero objections, China and the Eurasian Bloc coalescing around it when seen in relation to the Outlaw US Empire differs little than how Yamamoto saw the dynamic between Japan and the USA prior to Pearl Harbor–Japan was sure to lose no matter what it did.
And yet again, several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have publicly stated that they want no war with either Russia or China. They’re what Martyanov calls realists who understand the genuine balance of power no longer favors the Outlaw US Empire even when NATO is added.
Biden and the Ds just as Trump and the Rs desperately need his version of MAGA–Build Back Better–to become reality. But with the USA geoeconomically dependent on China, how is it ever going to accomplish that if it starts a war with its primary supplier if the funds ever get allocated?! Yes, the Merchants of Death constantly need an existential threat to justify their existence, and that’s the special interest fueling the war talk that the generals refute.
Then, IMO, this new set of polling results must be added to the equation–public sentiment for war against some other nation not named Congress doesn’t exist:
“Arguably more disturbing were the implications for the ‘other’ party if secession did not occur. A sizable majority of both Trump and Biden voters agreed with the statement that ‘if our society so wants, it is the duty of every true citizen to help eliminate the evil that poisons our country from within.'”
That ought to scare just a few Neoliberal grifters as the public agrees without knowing that it does on the very source of the problem being domestic. Soon, both sides will know they agree, and 2022 elections are going to see lots of fireworks.
"On the contrary, no-ones talking of a land invasion of China, just the blocking of the SLOC which would have a catastrophic effect on China’s economy."
Now hold on a second.
Given that the U.S. and most countries in the world are heavily dependent on China for manufactured goods (both finished and unfinished), what would be the effect of cutting off Chinese commercial shipping on the world’s economy?
Well, I’ll tell you, it would be a depression followed by mass outrage that the U.S. government could have deliberately brought such a catastrophe down upon everyone’s heads.
Are U.S. foreign and economic planners that stupid? They definitely are stupid, but I doubt that the actual owners (George Carlin’s word) of the country would stand for it.
“A closing window of opportunity estimated to close between 2025 and 2030 allows the US to carry out a limited war with China, resulting in a favorable outcome for Washington. Beyond that, the US will find itself outmatched and any attempt to curb China’s rise rendered futile.”
This is chilling.
In light of this, the current coercive and zealous covid vaccination program in the Anglosphere can also be seen as drills preparing for possible biological warfare.
If the US mainland and Australia are relatively protected in the eventuality of this conventional war with China, biological warfare (regardless of who initiates it) creates vulnerability.
It all makes sense now: why California is mandating vaccination for school children when their risk of dying from covid is 2 per million infected.
Taiwan is part of China. Both governments’ (Beijing and Taipei) Constitutions states that fact.
So, there are no issues, problems or arguments on any of these: ADZ, ADIZ or any other matters. PRC airplanes can fly or land anywhere, including Taipei, period.
This is the real news of our times, not the drivel pumped out by and then rerun by its handmaidens of deceit.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 2 2021 2:03 utc | 60
This is not 1944 where you can float troop transports across the Pacific to attack an enemy. We live in an age of satellites and hyper sonic weapons. If there is a war it will be a series of short furious naval battles in which the holders of land in the area will be the victors. Will Korea and Japan join? At their great peril maybe.
While the media coverage is bullshit China is boiling the frog in water slowly with Taiwan being the frog. I am sure China has though about the suppression of enemy air defenses like the US has done effectively with the Wild Weasel. I am sure China has the capacity to take out a good portion of Taiwan’s radar and air defense system. They can systematically destroy their naval bases along with their communication infrastructure and military bases without a boot on the ground. Taiwan can do little in return.
If China decided to act it would be over rather quickly with a loss of prestige on the world stage. I am sure they have thought about that as well. The US is in no position do do anything other than bitch and moan. Taiwan will have to cut some sort of deal with China at some point or China will act I do believe. When that will happen is anyones guess.
While I fully agree to your conclusion that the US can’t sensibly do anything when China decides to forcefully reunite Taiwan with the mainland, I do not see that China is boiling the frog.
China has not tightened any tensions, neither towards Taiwan, not in the SCS or ECS. The “nine dash line” is a naval border claimed by the ROC and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang kai Shek) in 1944 at earliest, and at that time, neither of FUKUS challenged that claim. That as an aside.
As to Taiwan, China has tried since decades to go a long and patient way towards unification, by strengthening ties between the territory and the motherland. Taiwan companies are heavily invested in mainland China (and vice versa where not sabotaged by the DPP administration), between 1 and 2 million Taiwan inhabitants live permanently or for long periods in mainland China, there are some hundred thousand marriages.
China has made clear that the one country, two systems situation can go on for long as long as there is no secession attempt. In that case China will act swiftly.
Hu Xijin in the Global Times described the outlines of such a forceful unification when commenting US weapon sales to Taiwan. Once China would act, there would be powerful satiation attacks by missiles, air force, and naval firepower destroying all major airports, military targets on land, military naval installations, and naval forces of Taiwan. After that a full force landing on Taiwan and all its islands would follow.
There is no reasonibly thinkable possible outcome where the attacking side could be repelled or defeated. And there is no way how a naval attack of the US, AUKUS, Quad or whomever could succeed. And it is very doubtful that even the most radical forces in the US would wage a nuclear war over Taiwan.
As to Taiwan, it is their side who is stirring up the conflicts by buying “recognition” by some Baltic SS Shitholes like Lithuania who are living on EU pockets so don’t have much to lose. Ukraine rowed back when receiving a warning from Beijing. The DPP clowns should just stop their separatist provocations. A Chinese proverb says “the rat that gnaws the tiger’s tail invites destruction”.
karlof1 @47: "The Thucydides Trap was again debunked... The antagonists are supposed to be copycat rivals to each other, but that wasn't the case with Athens or Sparta then..."
And yet the Peloponnesian War happened anyway. The details of personality are not relevant as personality is not what causes war. A rising power inevitably displaces the existing power, and the existing power resists the loss of its dominance. This basic pattern is unavoidable.
"...the Outlaw US Empire cannot deal with China from a position of strength either geopolitically or geoeconomically..."
Absolutely correct. So what tools does that leave in the “Outlaw US Empire’s” arsenal to defend its hegemony? Or do you imagine the empire will give China a sportsman-like handshake, say “Well, it was a nice run but you win. It’s your turn to show the world direction now. I’ll just retire to tending my garden.”? Laughable balderdash!
"...relation to the Outlaw US Empire differs little than how Yamamoto saw the dynamic between Japan and the USA prior to Pearl Harbor..."
Absolutely! Many of the generals and admirals know what they are up against, but Japan ended up at war with the USA anyway. Admiral Yamamoto’s realization that war would be an enormous mistake changed exactly what?
There will be war. Xi knows it, and the Chinese people in general know it.
That is why they are investing significant chunks of their resources preparing for it. China’s military is specifically designed to defeat the empire and any of the empire’s vassals that get pushed into the fight.
The war is not “if” but “when”.
The Chinese know that they are under biological weapons attack, but as Oriental Voice @43 points out they are not squealing about it as a western nation would.
Delays to the overt war still work to China’s advantage: The empire gets weaker and China gets stronger. The greater that strength disparity the more China can control the course of the war and steer that war away from doing lasting damage to humanity.
"A sizable majority of both Trump and Biden voters agreed with the statement that 'if our society so wants, it is the duty of every true citizen to help eliminate the evil that poisons our country from within."
Precisely so. And what is the tried and true method to distract a population from internal issues? Why, external war of course.
It amazes me to see bright people who are fully aware of much of the crazy shit the empire has done over the last couple decades still trying to project the empire’s future behavior based upon the assumption that it will be rational.
The empire has not been rational and it will not become rational while it remains an empire. In fact the empire will become more irrational with every passing day as its end draws nearer.
Everything karlof1 @47 says points towards war. How can someone as bright and knowledgeable as karlof1 think these things mean peace is on the verge of breaking out?
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 2 2021 12:14 utc | 80
For those trying to dismiss the post by “Down South @8 (I’m looking at you Don Bacon @57), here is a link to the original report by the RAND Corporation that the analysis is based upon: War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable.
This is from the RAND Corporation. That is the closest thing the empire has to a brain. What is notable, despite the recognition in the report that the empire’s days of uncontested dominance are waning, the report paints an overly optimistic picture for the empire.
Being chilled is entirely called for.
There will be war.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 2 2021 12:51 utc | 82
In regards to the prospect of war with china, while I am sympathetic to gruff’s perspective, I think it still simplifies the situathon. thr US side is not monolithix while MICIMATT has institutionally mobilized all the psyops effortsz, and the Pentagon has moved to ‘pivot to asia’ since Obama, there are nevertheless the Mark Milleys that understand that there is no way for the US to win in the Asia Pacific theater against china. they wouls not only lose the war but also bleed global prestige.
That said, when the institutional gears are grinding as they are, so called strategic thinking ceases to be rational or even strategic. trying to predict what an irrational institution will do makes little sense.
Secondly, the us is already at war with china, hybrid war. it’s not as if we need to wait for some trigger event — it is already ongoing! Hong Kong color revolution, whose failure is now abundantly clear. the ongoing xinjiang campaign. and let’s not forget that china depleted a staggering amount of its US reserves in 2015 in order to fight off US orchestrated capital flight so it could harvest Chinese assets in the cheap, like they did in the asian financial crisis.
That’s not much talked about at MOC, but I’ve heard Chinese analysts speak of that financial warfare as a watershed moment. watershed because its failure precipitated more desperate and maniacal measures afterwards. keep in mind that was before the hong Kong and Xinjiang psyops.
As for biological warfare, regardless of one’s view on the origins of covid, there was a spate of agricultural pests in the trump era that devastated Chinese food production. everything is being tried.
So, war js ongoing. to instead await and analyze and predict some trigger military event like Taiwan is to miss the forest for the trees. if what’s been happening doesn’t count as aggression on par with warfare, then that is already to have internalized empire propaganda that things like sanctions are not acts of war.
The Anglo’s started WW1 to maintain their global hegemony. They started WW2 for the same purpose. Yet somehow people believe it is too far fetch that they would start a war with China to maintain the same hegemony they fought 2 WWs over?
Read the RAND report. They know they will suffer heavy military casualties and their economy will collapse by 10% but all that will be worth it if they can inflict heavy damage on China’s economy in the region of a 30-35% collapse.
What do you think the purpose of all this China bashing coverage in the media is about that b highlights? It is to prepare the populace for the coming conflict with China.
mastameta @85: "trying to predict what an irrational institution will do makes little sense."
A cornered animal is irrational, but it is easy to predict what it will do.
"secondly, the us is already at war with china, hybrid war."
Yes, of course, but the war will go overt and kinetic. That is the only path available to the cornered dog of an empire. The growling and snarling threats, the urinating on the carpet, nothing else it does opens a path back to power for the empire.
"... china depleted a staggering amount of its US reserves in 2015... "
This is policy, like that in Russia, to reduce exposure to the US dollar. To the empire that in itself is an act of war.
Yes, the war is currently on already, but it remains somewhat covert. When I talk about war starting above I am referring to overt military conflict.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 2 2021 15:15 utc | 90
Any experienced warfare guy will say the same, the most important element of any war is logistics. And that is the US’s main downfall in any war with China. The US does not have the capability to supply the fighting elements with the ammunition, food, repair parts etc that they would require to conduct a war on the other side of the vast Pacific Ocean which covers about one-third of the earth’s surface.
And where would those forces be? The Marine Corps plan is to move Marines from one small island to another on small ships, and then have these Marines to place indirect fire on China targets. I don’t see anyone volunteering for that ridiculous scenario. But hey, it keeps dollars in the Pentagon budget.
Another problem for the US is that both China and Russia have fielded versions of hypersonic weapons that can travel faster than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5 is about 3,806 mph) and potentially hold U.S. capital and logistical ships at risk. These missiles have a range of up to a thousand miles. The US has no defense against them and aircraft-carrier launched planes don’t have sufficient range to rectify the problem.
So it would be a maritime-based war with US major warships not able to get anywhere close to the Asian mainland, which means no war at all.
"...the most important element of any war is logistics."
Absolutely so. Fancy weapons and great troop morale get you nowhere if you cannot get them to the theater of operations along with lunch. The notion that the US can land ground forces on the Chinese mainland to occupy and annex China is absurd. That’s the “Risk” board game version of geopolitics.
But the empire doesn’t need to annex China. The empire just needs to economically set China back a couple decades. There is a faction within the empire who believe this is doable in part with a naval blockade.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 2 2021 21:42 utc | 109
Gabriel Collins did a very good report for the US Naval War College Review on the practicality of a maritime oil blockade of China – even in 2018 he was not too optimistic, “A Maritime Oil Blockade Against China—Tactically Tempting but Strategically Flawed”. China would also have access to Russia, Central Asia, ASEAN etc. for food and other supplies, and would have inevitably created large stockpiles before any conflict.
"The scenarios also highlight the reality that, within historically realistic response parameters, China very feasibly could adapt to conflict conditions and withstand a blockade for a longer period than an outside power realistically could sustain the operation. At the most fundamental level, a blockader would find itself increasingly isolated on the world stage, which would complicate its ability politically, economically, and militarily to continue its campaign."
"The significant long-term reduction in revenue to major oil and commodity exporters as a result of decreasing oil-demand volumes and depressed prices could exert profound internal political effects and trigger new conflicts and in- flame existing ones across the Middle East and parts of Africa. Sufficiently serious regional contingencies could divert U.S. military resources from the Asian theater, particularly if the United States found itself politically and diplomatically isolated on the world stage. This could undermine the sustainability of a distant energy blockade against China."
China doesn’t need to invade Taiwan, the two entities are already close enough on everything that counts, trade, inward investments, tourism, cultural exchanges, the lot.
China’s power is anchored in making things and selling them on every world market, by the turn of the century around a third of her GDP was coupled with exports, by 2019 this ratio was down to 15%, it must have gone up during the months of covid as the Chinese economy was the only one resuming working.
For the Americans to disrupt the sea lines from the Chinese ports would be counterproductive unless they were to find a substitute for the stuff manufactured in China for the US market, some 80% of US imports from China are on behalf of US brand names, Apple is but the one most visible example.
Despite of the warmongering China still enjoys the the Permanent Normal Trade Relations Partner status (PNTR) google for what the partner status offers, China was granted it by Bush at the time of her joining WTO. If the Americans were serious about disrupting China’s trade hence the country’s economy they would withdraw the PNTR status, they haven’t, which tells you they are stuck until they figure where else to source what comes from China.
“an established power will generally try to prevent a rising power to become so powerful that it could challenge the established power.”
I think this is a good description of the Thucydides Trap. I don’t believe the theory should be taken any more literal then that and it isn’t supposed to be some deterministic scientific comment were causality is linear an absolute. It also doesn’t require a shooting war to hold true.
Given the current situation, and The Empire’s multi-pronged attempt to harm China, I think it is fair to say the Thucydides Trap has already been sprung.
…
Having said that, I don’t think a shooting war is inevitable. I also think a blockade isn’t likely as that would almost absolutely lead to a shooting war.
People forget China has a lot of oil and other resources. Enough oil and gas to last five years without imports. They are also well connected to Russia, Central Asia and South East Asia, so even a successful naval blockade could be gotten around.
I disagree China wouldn’t invade if forced into this position. They’d take Taiwan quickly and it would be impossible to prevent them from taking South Korea, which would lead to many thousand American POW’s and KIA. They’d also have total control of the areas within the first Island chain which would provide a lot of strategic avenues.
Not to mention a blockade wouldn’t slow down their industrial production, instead it would push their industry into war-time hyper production giving China unlimited missiles to strike at everything from Gaum on in.
That isn’t to say The Desperate Empire might not try a blockade or find a way to stumble into a stupid war…it is to say it would turn out very badly for The Empire and hasten their demise rather then slow down China’s rise.
Given the current situation, and The Empire's multi-pronged attempt to harm China, I think it is fair to say the Thucydides Trap has already been sprung.
This is clear to me as well.
Having said that, I don't think a shooting war is inevitable.
Agreed. But I don’t think the possibility of a shooting war is remote either.
I also think a blockade isn't likely as that would almost absolutely lead to a shooting war.
I disagree with this. Merely the threat of attack will cause shipping rates to skyrocket. That ends China’s manufacturing advantage and ME oil supply.
China can adjust … but how quickly?
I disagree China wouldn't invade if forced into this position. They'd take Taiwan quickly ...
When I said China wouldn’t invade, I was responding to Don Bacon’s comment about the importance of logistics. There wouldn’t be logistics necessary for a battle for Taiwan because China can take Taiwan before such logistics become a factor.
And I don’t think South Korea would fall quite so quickly or easily as you believe.
China provides a governance model that may inspire the Western public to demand real change. So we see propaganda attacks against China. And rising tensions help to vitiate that propaganda.
I also think a blockade isn’t likely as that would almost absolutely lead to a shooting war.
“I disagree with this. Merely the threat of attack will cause shipping rates to skyrocket. That ends China’s manufacturing advantage and ME oil supply.
China can adjust ... but how quickly?"
Yes, but isn’t that what a blockade would do? The very purpose of the blockade is to prevent China from shipping to harm their industry.
I’d argue that once a blockade is in place, China has no choice but to hit with everything they have short of nukes. They aren’t going to wait around while their economy and industrial production is stifled…they will make the USA pay the price, and then some…and that is completely within their capabilities.
It looks to me like China is prepared for war, they would be able to switch to war production mode almost immediately. It would be the West that would be slow to adjust.
In the event of war, China does not need ME oil, they have enough domestic oil to wage a multi-year war.
South Korea wouldn’t fall easily, neither would Taiwan for that matter, but they would fall, there is no way to reinforce either once the shooting starts. Tens of thousands of casualties on both sides within a short amount of time.
To continue fighting USA would need a draft. Given current social conditions in The States how do you think a draft would play out?
Thank you Roger @ 111 and Baron @ 115 for trying to inject a dose of reality into this notion of a USN or even AUKUS enforced blockade of China.
Gruff @ 109 re: "a faction within the empire who believe this is doable with a naval blockade...."
First, blockade is an act of war, and the Chinese would be well within their rights to attack and sink any ship trying to enforce any such blockade whether in their own territorial or international waters. So there’s a high probability that any attempt to actually enforce a blockade would lead to a real hot war in East Asia. And, once again, this blockade would be completely illegal since there would be absolutely no UNSC approval for any such action.
Second, with the lengthy supply chains required to support such an effort even from Pearl Harbour, the US probably will have to utilise it’s most forward military bases in the region which means both South Korea and especially Japan which is home to over a dozen major bases that are locations for key Indo-Pacific assets of the USN, USAF and USMC. If these bases or rather their units actually launch military attacks against China then the countries that house those bases would themselves be open to direct military retaliation from China.
Both S Korea and Japan rely on shipping lanes well within the range of the Chinese conventional missile arsenal. The Chinese could respond with their own form of a blockade, shutting down the Japanese and S Korean SLOCs in a week or two by sinking (or threatening to sink) tankers and container ships in the Sea of Japan. The Japanese and SK economies require vast volumes of imported energy and other raw goods resources and are just as vulnerable as China is to a maritime blockade. So if the US wants to play the blockade game then China has options and can respond in kind with similar types of action against not only two major US allies but two of the largest economies in the world.
Third, on top of the above, nobody mentions the huge, and I mean huge, amount of trade between the countries of ASEAN ie SE Asia and China. Indonesia alone has I believe almost $50-60 billions of trade with China per annum. Add in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore etc. and you’re talking at least a couple of hundred billion pa. Are these countries going to sit back and allow the US and its Anglo Saxon poodles to destroy their economies? Nope, didn’t think so.
Finally, everyone really should read the books by Andrei Martyanov to understand the new realities, that the next war in the Pacific won’t be won by some USMC “island hopping” strategy or another round of Midways and Coral Seas. It’s going to be won by the country that can launch salvo after salvo of conventional anti ship and anti air and other conventional missiles. Think about it – there’s lots of numbers thrown around on the internet re the Iranian and Hezbollah guided missile arsenals, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 etc. That’s Iran and Hezbollah working under the most stringent sanctions in the world.
So how many advanced anti-ship missiles do you think the manufacturing powerhouse that is China has stored away for a rainy day? Bear in mind, some of those missiles have been in mass production for several years now. 40,000? 50,000? More? And, yes, there’s some question re the actual operational efficacy of Chinese anti-ship missile targeting. Still, assuming they get their targeting systems right (maybe with a little help from Shoigu et al!) how long do you think the USN and its allies will last when the Chinese fire salvoes of a 100, 200, 500, or even 1000 Anti-Ship missiles per day for a week or even two?
Posted by: thermobarbaric | Oct 3 2021 1:30 utc | 125
Yes, I mentioned naval blockade as one example of the empire escalating to overt warfare against China in addition to its current covert war. Yes, realistically such efforts by the empire cannot succeed beyond a temporary and relatively brief suppression of China’s GDP. But next year it will be even harder for the empire to dent China’s economic growth, and the year after harder still.
Are you so foolish as to think the empire will give up without a fight?
It doesn’t matter that it is a bad idea. The empire is out of alternatives to war.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 3 2021 1:43 utc | 126
"In a few years, another country with a nuclear submarine fleet will appear in the world – Australia. What kind of submarines will this country receive from its allies, what kind of combat capabilities do they provide, and according to what scenario can they be used to contain China’s military power?
Everything is learned by comparison. What are the eight multi-purpose nuclear submarines that Australia will receive (not to be confused with submarines armed with ballistic missiles)? Let’s compare them with other fleets.
First, take the example of China, against which (at least, so they say) everything is being planned. Now China has only nine multi-purpose nuclear submarines, with low stealth. Three of them are Project 091; these are old and noisy vessels that have almost no combat value. The remaining six are Project 093, more modern boats, which, however, are inferior to modern American and British ones. In fact, only these six have a real combat value, and it is this number that should be taken into account.
...Here is just one of many examples. Geographically, Australia can completely block the connection between China and the Indian Ocean: there is a direct exit there and this is not controlled by China in any way. China only has the Strait of Malacca, which with its new submarines Australia will be able to block from the Indian Ocean. Or go past Australia itself, with the same submarines and its aircraft. There is no other road by which a large amount of oil can be supplied to China.
... It is worth recognizing that the world is on the verge of war. Australia’s agreement with the United States and Britain says exactly this. An ordinary world war with tens of millions of dead, as one option, or with hundreds of millions; after all, no one has canceled nuclear weapons. Such a war is almost inevitable.
Moreover, knowing what deadlines the ‘partners’ set for themselves, you can roughly understand the time for which they are preparing the ‘hot phase’. And looking at how other countries are preparing for the next world war, it’s time for us to take a critical, honest and non-biased look at how we are preparing for it.”
The increased cost of trade would spur industry in the West
Factories will just pop up everywhere? No.
As China becomes more like USA
Never happen. Chinese are what they are, and it isn’t becoming more like Americans. It has to do with 5,000 years of culture, Confucianism, Taoism etc. So Chinese have a whole different way of looking at matters, such as working together toward a better life (which they have largely accomplished) w/o the petty political combative self-aggrandisement “democracy” so dominant in the USA.
Chinese do this under a qualified up-through-the-ranks leader, and not having to accept an elected weirdo as in the US.
The fact that Chinese are different from Americans, and will never be like them, has been a deep disappointment in Washington, but that’s the way it is and the way it will be.
BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- For years, the unspoken truth about Western media is that their veneer of objectivity has come off a long time ago. While touting themselves as the epitome of trustworthiness and honesty, some media practitioners in the West have no qualms about propagating lies against China.
As the coordinated anti-China smear campaign is gaining steam, more intrepid journalists with a conscience are calling it out despite the tremendous pressure to silence them.
In one of the most excoriating rebukes against Western media's manipulation of the public opinion against China, Javier Garcia, head of the office of the EFE News Agency of Spain in Beijing, announced earlier this week that he would soon leave journalism, as the flagrant information manipulation by Western media "has taken a good dose of my enthusiasm for this profession."
The departure of journalists like Garcia is a giant loss to the industry, which is in dire need of introspection. For those who choose to stay and disagree with the highly biased and distorted reporting on China, they are usually confronted with a monolithic propaganda structure in the West to ignore, silence and discredit them.
The past few years have seen a lot of deplorable cases where anyone who dared to maintain objective and impartial positions on China were accused of being on the payroll of the Chinese government or even worse.
While they are working arduously to suppress impartial information and hoping it to pay off, some media in the West, especially in the United States, should expect that the chickens will come home to roost, as their own political order is at risk.
Even James Murdoch, son of right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX News, castigated U.S. media for amplifying disinformation that successfully sowed falsehoods.
"Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years," he told the Financial Times shortly after the U.S. Congress riot in early January.
For those Western media who are still slandering China's peaceful development, it is time for them to think twice.
One important note on something that is getting zero coverage in the “news”…
Big news in aerospace circles, and all over China is the great diversity of the new state-of-the-art military weapons that are being shown in my town (where I live). Zhuhai. It’s all very awesome. Some of the aircraft are real surprises, and it might take the USA decades to play catch up. VIDEO.
Video.
I am interested in hearing what the readers read in their local news about these systems being made and mass-produced in China. Can you please enlightening me.
The First Russian Strategic Assessment of the Australia-UK-US (USUKA) Submarine Pact
A serious Russian strategic assessment of the UK-USA-Australia decision to start basing nuclear armed nuclear submarines in Australia 18 months from now…
Unlike diesel-electrics, nuclear subs can contribute to the US blockade of China from the Pacific and in the Malacca
Following last week’s meeting in Washington of Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne, the Australian defence minister and their US counterparts, a strategic military and basing agreement was announced between Australia, the UK and US (AUKUS). This is being reinforced with summit meetings in Washington this week.
The declared target of their war-making preparations is China.
Australian strategy against Russia in the Pacific region follows in lockstep with the US. But for the time being the Russian enemy, and Russian submarine and surface fleet operations in the Indo-Pacific region, are not being discussed by Australian officials in public; at least not to the extent when President Vladimir Putin last visited Australia in November 2014 with a nuclear-powered, nuclear armed naval escort.
Ahead of schemes for strategic warmaking in the Pacific, the US, the UK and Australia are also engaged in proxy war operations. These have accelerated recently in Myanmar, where Russia and China are allied in support of the military government of General Min Aung Hlaing. Next, from both sides, state bribery, subversion, putsch-making, and other special operations are likely to accelerate in the Pacific islands from Fiji to Papua-New Guinea.
For the moment, the initial reaction to AUKUS from the Russian Foreign Ministry has been as close to uncritical as the ministry can be.” Spokesman Maria Zakharova said last Thursday:
“We noted the plans, announced by Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines as part of an ‘enhanced trilateral security partnership’ agreed yesterday by the United States, Great Britain and Australia. We proceed from the premise that being a non-nuclear power and fulfilling in good faith the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Australia will honour its commitments under this document, as well as the IAEA Safeguards Agreements along with its Additional Protocol. We hope that Canberra ensures the necessary level of cooperation with the IAEA in order to rule out any proliferation-related risks.”
The first detailed technical and strategic assessment of the AUKUS scheme has followed this week in Vzglyad, the leading strategy publication reflecting the Russian General Staff and GRU assessments. A translation from the Russian article by Alexander Timokhin follows.
In a few years, another country with a nuclear submarine fleet will appear in the world – Australia. What kind of submarines will this country receive from its allies, what kind of combat capabilities do they provide, and according to what scenario can they be used to contain China’s military power?
Everything is learned by comparison. What are the eight multi-purpose nuclear submarines that Australia will receive (not to be confused with submarines armed with ballistic missiles)? Let’s compare them with other fleets.
First, take the example of China, against which (at least, so they say) everything is being planned. Now China has only nine multi-purpose nuclear submarines, with low stealth. Three of them are Project 091; these are old and noisy vessels that have almost no combat value. The remaining six are Project 093, more modern boats, which, however, are inferior to modern American and British ones. In fact, only these six have a real combat value, and it is this number that should be taken into account.
I must say that the Chinese have made tremendous progress if we start from their initial level. Their submarines are already armed with good torpedoes and means of countering enemy torpedoes. But they are still very far from British ‘Astutes’ or American ‘Virginias’.
Theoretically, the ‘Virginia’ of the latest modification (the block, as the Americans say) will be able to be used when delivering a high-precision massive non-nuclear strike on Chinese territory. In this case, the Australians will be able to increase the American salvo. In the future, when the Americans finish their hypersonic missile program for the Navy, this strike may also be very fast.It will be a separate story if the Americans again trample on international norms of behaviour and deploy nuclear weapons on Australian submarines before the war. Then, using cruise or hypersonic missiles, Australia will be able to cause China (and not only it) simply monstrous damage. And just ordinary Tomahawks with their fast, surprise launch can cause considerable damage to the side attacked – and the tactical and technical characteristics of the ‘Virginia’ will allow you to secretly approach even a well-guarded shore and deliver a sudden and unexpected blow.Naturally, this is true if Australia builds ‘Virginias’ with vertical missile launch installations, and not ‘Astutes’, which can only use Tomahawks through torpedo tubes. There is no answer to this question yet.In the event of a war more or less close to a classic naval war, these submarines will create an additional threat to China, and China will be required to allocate additional forces to this threat, which it will need very much in a war with the United States and Britain, even without Australia.
The Chinese are taking care of their fleet and developing it. They have anti-submarine surface forces and anti-submarine aviation, but when performing combat tasks outside the combat radius of their base (coastal in colloquial language) aviation, the problem of combating enemy submarine forces will become quite acute for China. Chinese surface ships will be subjected to air strikes by Australian based and American carrier-based aircraft; anti-submarine aircraft will not be able to work without cover; in fact, all tasks will have to be solved by Chinese nuclear submarines. They do not reach the western (that is, the future Australian) level yet, and they will be forced to act against heterogeneous enemy forces (submarines, anti-submarine aircraft, surface ships) without support.
How will China respond?
China has hope – there are new multi-purpose nuclear submarines being created, designated in the foreign press as Type 095, and in China itself 09-V. According to visual assessment of images of the boat, it is clear that China is trying to introduce a large number of technical solutions that increase the stealth of the submarine and the range of detection for its underwater targets. It is clearly visible that the boat is being created specifically for combat.
But what success the Chinese will have is an open question, and most importantly, even these boats will not see superiority in quality; ideally there will be approximate parity. At the same time, if the current pace of updating the submarine forces in China continues, then China will be inferior to the Americans and the British in numbers even without Australia, and even more so with it. These new boats are still in the planning stage — China has not built any of them yet. And another hostile nuclear submarine fleet will definitely require the Chinese to invest very quickly and very seriously in expanding their production; that requires time, money, and resources.
Can China ignore this threat? No.
Here is just one of many examples. Geographically, Australia can completely block the connection between China and the Indian Ocean: there is a direct exit there and this is not controlled by China in any way. China only has the Strait of Malacca, which with its new submarines Australia will be able to block from the Indian Ocean. Or go past Australia itself, with the same submarines and its aircraft. There is no other road by which a large amount of oil can be supplied to China.
Australia would never have had these opportunities in this form if it had continued its work on the purchase of non-nuclear submarines from France.A non-nuclear (in fact the same diesel-electric) submarine is not capable, for example, of going under water at a high speed, as the ‘Virginias’ and ‘Astutes’ can, and secretly, without a critical increase in noise.
A non-nuclear boat needs to deliver fuel to the combat service area, an atomic one does not need to – a nuclear submarine is not tied to nearby bases or to fuel, and it can operate disproportionately more freely than a diesel-electric one, even with an air-independent power plant.
In combat, a nuclear submarine also has a lot of advantages, up to the possibility of sometimes getting away from the enemy’s torpedo by running. For a hypothetical Australian-French non-nuclear submarine, this would be impossible. The hydroacoustic complex on the ‘Virginias’ is generally difficult to compare with something, and this is the range of target detection and the range of shooting at it.
Now China, in addition to measures to counter the submarine fleet of the United States and Great Britain, will also have to take into account Australia, which wants to get a nuclear submarine more powerful than anything that China has at present.
What does the battlefield look like in numbers? If we start from how many of the ‘Virginias’ are already built and under construction to go into service by 2036, when the Australians want to get their eight submarines, then we can assume that there will be about 20 units. And they will not be able to throw everything at China; some of the submarines will be needed in case of emergency operations against Russia.
Thus, an additional eight Australian submarines will increase the number of units opposing China by at least a third, compared only with American submarines. This is even more than the British will be able to give for the war with China. China will have to increase both the submarine and other fleet forces by a comparable number.
In general, for China, these eight additional enemy submarines are a fresh handful of bones in the throat. That’s about what the Americans planned to do with the British. That’s what eight nuclear submarines are.
This is what caused the reaction of the Chinese to the news. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the transfer of nuclear submarine construction technologies to Australia harms the nuclear non-proliferation regime and ‘exacerbates the arms race’, as well as the fact that the United States and Great Britain ‘extremely irresponsibly’ apply double standards. These admonitions, of course, will not have any effect.
And what does this mean for Russia? If Australia wants to have eight multi-purpose submarines by 2036, then by that year we will ideally have four Yasen-class vessels in the Pacific Ocean – the ‘Novosibirsk’, ‘Krasnoyarsk’, ‘Vladivostok’ and, presumably, the ‘Perm’.
Is for the future boat of the project 545 with the code-name ‘Laika’, the form in which the ‘Laika’ was presented to the president in December 2019 indicates the deliberate obsolescence of the project. And most importantly – it is extremely doubtful that these boats will be in service by the mid-thirties. This is another example of how many there will turn out to be — eight nuclear submarines in one theatre of military operations.
However, the western ‘partners’ may have difficulties in implementing these wonderful plans.
Is everything so simple?
There is one aspect in all of this that can complicate everything. The production of as many as eight nuclear submarines, stuffed with high-tech systems to the brim, is not an easy matter. If we assume that the Australians will build some kind of ready-made project, for example the ‘Virginia’, then in any event they will up to 14 years for the construction of eight nuclear submarines if they start next year. This is an ultra-fast pace for eight units; the Americans themselves take five years to build one ‘Virginia’ from the popint of laying the keel to delivery to the Navy.
Is it possible for the Australians to meet the deadlines? Yes, but only in an “expansive’ way – laying more submarines a year than the Americans. And this requires, firstly, shipyards in sufficient quantity to build submarines; secondly, workers and engineers; and thirdly, the supply of components from the United States, which can become the bottleneck of the project because of the existing crisis in American shipbuilding. Does Australia have all this in the right amount? The allies will not be able to help them there; they do not have enough themselves.
And if the Australians build some kind of British project – either the ‘Astute’ or, as is now rumoured in Britain, the future project of a British multi-purpose submarine, which should replace the ‘Astutes’, then nothing will work out. Britain is barely coping with the construction of its submarines by itself, including the part played by related companies. In the case of the ‘Astutes’, some of the related parties are from France engaged by by the Anglo-Saxons. On the other hand, the British can in this way compensate for the losses of the French from the broken Australian contract for non-nuclear submarines. Still, the problem of timing will also arise in this case.
The Australians seem to understand this. On Sunday, September 19, the Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said that Australia will not wait until its nuclear submarines are built, but will buy or lease British or American ones.
This is quite possible. However, not with British submarines, but more likely with American ones, although such a scheme would not lead to the desired increase in anti–Chinese forces; there would still be as many submarines against China, just some of the flags would change. But, firstly, by the time the construction of their series is completed (even if not all and with a delay), the Australians will already have experience working with nuclear submarines, and secondly, the United States now has problems with repairing its submarines (they do not pull, as they say), and renting some of their ships to Australia for the Americans will in fact mean their salvation as combat units, even under a foreign flag.
In general, it is possible to make Australia a country with a nuclear submarine fleet quickly. Moreover, the authors of this initiative have an extremely serious reason for all this. Such gigantic investments and sharp political turns are not carried out just like that. The hegemony of the Anglo-Saxons in the world is seriously shaken, both because of their own internal weakness, and because of the growth of China, and the sabotage of their system of power by Russia. It is quite obvious they will not give up their power over humanity and the benefits resulting from this in a favourable fashion.
It is worth recognizing that the world is on the verge of war. Australia’s agreement with the United States and Britain says exactly this. An ordinary world war with tens of millions of dead, as one option, or with hundreds of millions; after all, no one has canceled nuclear weapons. Such a war is almost inevitable.
Moreover, knowing what deadlines the ‘partners’ set for themselves, you can roughly understand the time for which they are preparing the ‘hot phase’. And looking at how other countries are preparing for the next world war, it’s time for us to take a critical, honest and non-biased look at how we are preparing for it.”
Big, huge changes, in the near future (a tentative list)
Truly, tectonic changes are happening before our eyes, and today I just want to list some of them but without going to deep into specific analyses, that I plan to do later in the coming weeks. But just looking at this list is impressive enough, at least for me. So, here we go:
The Anglos are circling the wagons:
The planned sale of US/UK SSNs to Australia is nothing short of a HUGE game changer. It is also just the tip of a big iceberg:
The US seems to have de-facto given up on Europe, not only because the UK left or because the EU is crashing and unmanageable anyway, but because the political grip the US had on the continent is now clearly slipping: NATO is a paper tiger, the “new Europeans” have outlived their utility and Russia has basically successfully diffused the threat from the West by her titanic effort to develop capabilities which make an attack on Russia suicidal for any country, including the USA, whether nukes are involved or not.
By screwing over France, the US has jettisoned a pretty useless ally which had a short hysterical fit, but is already going back to its usual groveling and begging (BTW – those who think that de Gaulle was the last French patriot capable of telling Uncle Shmuel to “take a hike” are wrong, Mitterrand was the last one, but that is a topic for another day).
Of course, in political/PR terms, the US will continue to declare itself committed to NATO and the EU, but the “body language” (actions) of the US directly contradicts this notion.
For all its immense progress since the 80s and 90s, China still has two major technological weak points: aircraft engines and SSNs. It just so happens that these are also two real US strong points. By deploying 8 more SSNs near China, the US is very intelligently maximizing the use of its best assets and hurting China were it will hurt the most. This does come with some very real risks, however, which I will discuss below.
Brazil is currently run by the US and Israel. South Africa is in a deep crisis. As for India, it is doing what it has been doing for decades: trying to play all sides while trying to weaken China. So it sure looks like the BRICS are becoming the “BRICS” which really leaves us with “only” the “RC” alliance which actually has a real name: the Chinese call it the “Strategic comprehensive partnership of coordination for the new era”.
Again, I don’t think that anybody will formally dissolve what was a rather informal alliance to begin with, but de-facto the BRICS seems to be loosing much of its former glamour and illusions. As for Russia and China, they are not going to “save” the former BRICS members out of some sense of sympathy especially not against their own will: let them save themselves, or at least try. Then, maybe.
Also, let’s be honest here, BRICS was an economic concept which was mostly an alliance of weak(er) countries against the big economic and military powers of the North and West.
As for the Russian-Chinese alliance (let’s call it that, even though formally that is not what this is), it is, by itself, already more powerful than BRICS and even more powerful that the united West (US+NATO+EU+etc.).
The SCO is changing (thanks to Uncle Shmuel), fast
If Biden was a secret “Putin agent” (“KGB agent” is the preferred term in the US, at least by those who do not seem to realize that the KGB was disbanded thirty years ago) he could not have done “better” than what he did in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to this galactic faceplant, the small(er) guys in the SCO (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) are now getting seriously concerned about what will happen next. Even better, the (very powerful) Iran will officially become a SCO member this month! Again, neither Russia not China “need” the SCO for their defense, but it sure makes things easier for them. Speaking of Afghanistan, Pakistan is already a SCO member, as is India.
It is important to note that the SCO will not become an “Asian NATO” or an “anti-NATO” or anything similar. Again, why would Russia, China and other want to follow a failed model? They have repeated ad nauseam that their alliances are of unions of (truly!) sovereign states and that this union will not impede on this sovereignty in any ways (besides, neither Russia not China need to limit the others SCO members sovereignty to begin with).
The EU is slowly committing economic and political suicide
Initially, France had a major hissy fit, but is probably not doing the only thing France should do after what happened: leave NATO and slam the door on it, very loudly. De Gaulle or Mitterrand would have done so immediately, but Macron? Being the ultimate spineless fake that he is, it would be miraculous if he did anything meaningful (other than brutally repressing all the riots in France).
At this time of writing the result of the elections in Germany are too close to call, but even if NS2 is allowed to function, the level of russophobic hysteria in Europe is so extreme that the following will almost certainly happen: the EU will continue with its rhetoric until the prices go even further up, at which point they will turn to the only country which the EU desperately need to survive: the much hated and feared Russia. Don’t quote me on that, but last week I remember the following prices for 1000 cubic meters of gas in Europe (just under 1000 dollars), the Ukraine (1600 dollars) and Belarus (120 dollars). I might have memorized this wrong (I was traveling), and this might have changed, but the bottom line is this: only Russia can’t give the EU the energy it needs, and she has exactly ZERO reasons to make those russophobic prostitutes any favors (other than symbolic). And even if my memory played a trick on me, what is certain that the prices for energy are soaring, the EU reserves are very low, and the temperatures falling. Welcome to the real world 🙂
I won’t even go into the “multiculturalism” “inclusivity” “positivity” and other Woke nonsense which most of the EU countries have accepted as dogmas (even Switzerland caved in).
The US is like an aircraft breaking apart in mid-air
As most of you know, I have decided to stay away from internal US politics (for many different reasons). So I will just use a metaphor: the US is like an aircraft which, due to pilot incompetence and infighting, is breaking apart in mid-air with its passengers still arguing about who should be the next pilot as that could make any difference. Some passengers will continue to argue until the hit the ground. Others are engage in “mid-air fistfights” apparently believing that if they succeed in beating the crap out of the other guy, they will somehow prevent gravity from doing what it does.
The reality is much simpler: a system that is not viable AND which cannot reform itself (too busy with self-worshiping and blaming others for everything) can only do one thing: collapse and, probably, even break-apart. Only after that can the US, or whatever the successor state(s) will be called, rebuilt itself into something totally different from the US which died chocking on its own arrogance this year (like all the other empires in history, by the way, the latest one being the Soviet one).
The Russian elections
The results are in and they are yet another galactic faceplant for the AngloZionist Empire. The main Kremlin Party took a hit, the Communists did very well, Zhirinovski’s LDPR lost a lot and a new (moderately pro-Kremlin) party made it in for the first time. Considering the many billions of dollars the West has spent on trying to create a Belarus-like crisis in Russia (Navalnyi, Petrov, Boshirov & Co.), this is yet another truly gigantic failure for the West.
If anything, the rise of the KPRF shows that a lot of people are fed up with two things: 1) what they see as a tepid, if not outright weak, Russian foreign policy towards the West and 2) with the liberal (economically speaking) policies of Putin and his entourage.
Absolutely NOBODY in Russia wants “better relations” or any kind of “dialog” with the rabidly russophobic West. And to the extend that Russia and the USA simply *have* to talk to each other (being nuclear superpowers) they, of course, will.
But the EU as such is of zero interest to Russia. And if Russia needs to get something done (like what anyway?), she will talk to the US, not its EU underlings. For all its problems, the US still matters. But the clowns of the EU?
[Sidebar: the word “Communist” usually elicits a knee-jerk reaction from brainwashed US Americans. But for the rest of them, let me just say that while I don’t think the KPRF is what Russia needs and while I have nothing good to say about Ziuganov or most of the KPRF leadership, I will say that KPRF does not mean Gulags, hammers and sickles smashing Ukie babies, Russian tanks in downtown Warsaw or any such nonsense. There are several “Communist” parties in Russia, and none of them are even remotely similar to the kind of party the bad old CPSU was. So while US politicians feel very witty to speak of the CCP-virus and that kind of nonsense (Ted Cruz is officially my “favorite idiot” in Congress now), this is so far detached from any reality that I won’t even bother explaining it here.]
The COVID pandemic
Wow, just wow. Where do I even begin??? Biden’s speech on this topic was hateful declaration of war on all those who don’t fully accept the “official” White House line. The fact that many (most?) of those who do not accept the official party line DO accept an even dumber version of events does not make it right to force them into choosing between their beliefs and, say, their job, or their right to move around.
Again, after listening to Biden I kept wondering if he was a “Putin agent” as his actions are only accelerating the breakup of the “US aircraft” I mentioned above. You can say many things about COVID-dissidents, but you can’t deny them two things: 1) a sincere belief in their ideas and 2) an equally sincere belief that their core freedoms, values and rights are trampled upon by pathological liars and crooks (aka politicians + BigPharma).
They will resist and, yes, violently if needed. Because for them it is a both a matter of personal human dignity and even survival!
At least, and so far, the US still has a powerful Constitution which will make it very hard for the current nutcases in the White House to do what they apparently want to do (force 80M US Americans to obey “or else”).
Furthermore, Federal courts cannot be simply ignored.
Also, US states still have a lot of power.
Finally, most US Americans still hold dear the ideals of freedom, liberty, small government, privacy, etc. But EU countries have no such protections from governmental abuse: true, in the US these are all rights are weakened by the day if not the hour, but at least they have not been *officially* abrogated (yet?).
If you want to see how bad things can get without such rights, just look at the pandemic freak show in Canada, Australia or New Zealand!
Finally, and irrespective of its actual origin (I am still on the fence on that), the COVID pandemic wiped all the make-up and has showed the entire world the true face of the West and its rulers: weak, ignorant, arrogant, hypocritical cowards whose only true concern is to cover their butts and “grab whatever can be grabbed” before the inevitable and final explosion (nuclear, economic or social).
Now back the the Aussie SSNs
The sale/lease of these SSNs is not only a danger for China, but also one for Russia.
Simply put, Russia cannot and will not allow the Anglos to strangle China like they did with Japan before WWII.
The good news is this: the latest Russian SSNs/SSGNs are at least as good as the latest Seawolf/Virginia class, if not better. Ditto for ASW capabilities.
What Russia does lack is the needed numbers (and Anglo submarine fleets are much lager, even “just” the USN alone) and funds, both of which China has (or can have).
From the Kremlin’s point of view, the Anglos are trying to create an “Asian NATO”, something which neither China nor Russia will allow.
The Chinese already informed the Aussies that they are now a legitimate target for nuclear strikes (apparently, Australia wants to become the “Poland of the Pacific”), while the Russians only made general comments of disapproval.
But take this to the bank: the Russian General Staff and the Chinese (who both probably saw this coming for a while) will jointly deploy the resources needed to counter this latest “brilliant idea” of the Anglos.
In purely military terms, there are many different options to deal with this threat, which ones China and Russia will chose will become apparent fairly soon because it is far better to do something prevent that delivery from actually happening than to deal with eight more advanced attack submarines.
By the way, the Russians are also semi-deploying/semi-testing an advanced SSK, the Lada-class, which has both very advanced capabilities and, apparently, still many problems. SSKs are not capable of threatening SSNs in open (blue) waters, but in shallower (green/brown) waters such as straits or littorals, they can represent a very real threat, if only by “freeing up” the SNNs to go and hunt into the deep (blue) waters. Also, the main threat for subs comes from the air, and here, again, China and Russia have some very attractive options.
Conclusion: interesting times for sure…
Like the Chinese curse says, we are living in very interesting times.
The quick collapse of the Empire and the US is, of course, inherently very dangerous for our planet.
But it is also a golden opportunity for Zone B nations to finally kick the Anglos out and regain their sovereignty.
True, the US still has a lot of momentum, just like a falling airliner would, but the fact remains that 1) they ran from Afghanistan and 2) they are circling their Anglo wagons shows that somebody somewhere does “get it” and even understood that in spite of the huge political humiliation both of these development represent for narcissistic politicians and their followers, this was a price which absolutely HAD to be paid to (try) to survive.
In my article (infamous) analysis ” Will Afghanistan turn out to be US imperialism’s “Last Gleaming”?” (it triggered even more hysterics and insults than usual, at least on the Unz review comments section) I wrote this: “the British Empire had the means of its foreign policies. The US does not.”
This is now changing.
Yes, what the Anglos (aka 5 eyes) are doing is a retreat. But it is a *smart* one. They are cutting off all the “useless imperial weights” and going for the “smaller but stronger” option.
We might not like it, I certainly don’t, but I have to admit that this is pretty smart and even probably the only option left for the AngloZionist Empire.
At the very least, it is now clear that the Anglos have no allies, and never had them.
What they had where colonial coolies who imagined themselves as part of some “community of civilized, democratic and peace-loving, nations”. These coolies are now left in limbo.
So, who will be the next one to show Uncle Shmuel to the door? My guess is the Republic of Korea. And, frankly, since the DPRK is not a country the Empire can take on, and since China will only increase its (already major) influence on both the DPRK and the ROK, the US might as well pack and leave (maybe for Australia or occupied Japan?).
Okay, end of this overview of developments.
Latest Developments in China (US Products)
Not reported in the English media is that all Chinese factories that are making products for the United States are now “power off” for much of the week. Supposedly this is part of the “Climate control agreement” that Biden and Xi Peng agreed upon.
What it functionally means is that factories (in China) that make American products must stop working for a set period of time per week depending on the percentage of American products that they export. The rule sort of goes like this…
<16% = One day no work.
30% = Two days no work.
45% = Three days no work.
60% = Four days no work.
75% = Five days no work.
100% = No work allowed.
Keep in mind that in China every factory works a six day week.
Since exports to the United States make up around 10% of the total exports out of China, there will be some discomfort with this ruling.
Oh, and by the way…
Over the weekend, a major (retired) Senior CCP member wrote a strong worded letter to XIPeng that the situation with the United States is so serious that normal military use policies must be reconsidered. In specific, he advised that the “no use of military until attacked” be scrapped in favor of a “first strike – preventative posture” against openly belligerent and hostile forces.
This has been making it’s way though the Chinese social media and the overwhelming opinion that this is something that needs to be done immediately.
The Battle at Lake Changjin
Movie screenshot.
China takes a page out of the West’s playbook in war movie production. The Battle at Lake Changjin about the Korean War (1950-53) deals with Chinese troops exploits during what’s known in China as the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.
It’s this observer’s mind-set that echoes that of the West:
"In view of the long-lasting China-US strategic rivalry, China needs more films themed on the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, which is helpful to enhance China's cohesion and confidence, said Song Luzheng, an international relations researcher at the China Institute of Fudan University in Shanghai."
Oh, the film is a huge success, smashing all Chinese box office records.
Yes, the waking of the Dragon will be seen as a huge mistake by the West that ushered in its downfall.
Looks to be an OUTSTANDING MOVIE. It’s a true story. We see personal sacrifice. Bravery. Compassion and fierce loyality to the Chinese nation.
Check out this one minute video summary clip… VIDEO
This part of the war come with a touching story.
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A few dozen PLA soldiers on the front line froze to death in a position of combat readiness. They dared not move simply becuse doing so would expose their position and alert the American forces.
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Their self sacrifice enabled the sudden strike against the well armed American forces in the middle of the night.
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The PLA foot soldiers fought the American tanks, fighter jets and other lethal weapons with strategy, self sacrifice and human will, and eventually forced the 16 most powerful and wealthy Western nation forces (at that time) back more than 500km from the Chinese border, and forced them to begin to hold peace talks.
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(An interesting note: Mao famously said in the beginning of the Korean war: we will let them decide how long to fight this war, we will fight till we win)
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This is an example of peace with the West can only be achieved by fighting back hard. This is like the Afghanistan foot soldiers taking 20 years to defeat the same group of Western barbarians and forced them to leave their holy motherland .
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Do you think that this movie will be permitted to play in the USA, the UK or Austalia or do you think that those nations will bank it for “national security”?
The global appeal for peace comes as a top Chinese diplomat warned his country to re-examine their promise to only use nukes in retaliation, in response to the new alliances forming in the region.
Beijing’s former ambassador to the UN, Sha Zukang said China must make the first nuclear strike against the US if Joe Biden continues to defend Taiwan.
He said:
"The unconditional no first use is not suitable . . . unless China-US negotiations agree that neither side would use [nuclear weapons] first, or the US will no longer take any passive measures to undermine the effectiveness of China’s strategic forces.
The strategic pressure on China is intensifying as (the US) has built new military alliances and as it increases its military presence in our neighbourhood."
The threat came ahead of a meeting between the US, India, Japan and Australia – dubbed the Quad, in Washington, host by Joe Biden.
During a meeting of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association in Beijing last week he said:
"The policy not to be the first to use nuclear weapons unconditionally has given China the moral high ground internationally. But for some time in the future, the US will see China as its main competitor and even its enemy. Can this policy be re- examined and fine-tuned?"
Final Comment
Do you all have a headache? I sure do. All of this bullshit is because a group of assholes in Washington DC have this deleterious fantasy of enslaving the world, and they are so fucking cock-sure that they can do it.
Enough of this craziness.
Time to relax.
Here’s a nice gif. It’s getting close to that time of the year.
When the weather started to get damp and cold, I would bring my kitties in and they would sit in front of the nice wood store and stare at it for hours.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
This is a full reprint in HTML of the fifth chapter (Chapter 5) of the second part (Part II) of the massive volume titled "The 33 Strategies of War". Written by Robert Greene (with emotional support from his cats). I read this book while in prison, and found much of what was written to be interesting, enjoyable, and pertinent to things going on in my life. I think that you will as well.
People naturally have their own agendas in the groups you lead. If you’re too authoritarian they will resent you, and if you’re too lax they will revert doing their own interests. You need a chain of command where people buy into your vision and follow your lead naturally. The overall strategic vision must come from you and you alone. But make the group feel involved in the decision making. Take their good ideas, deflect the bad ones and if necessary make minor changes to appease the most political ones.
Part II
Chapter 5
AVOID THE SNARES OF GROUPTHINK
Avoid groupthink: Command-and-control
The problem in leading any group is that people inevitably have their own agendas. If you are too authoritarian, they will resent you and rebel in silent ways. If you are too easygoing, they will revert to their natural selfishness and you will lose control. You have to create a chain of command in which people do not feel constrained by your influence yet follow your lead. Put the right people in place--people who will enact the spirit of your ideas without being automatons.
Make your commands clear and inspiring, focusing attention on the team, not the leader. Create a sense of participation, but do not fall into Groupthink--the irrationality of collective decision making. Make yourself look like a paragon of fairness, but never relinquish unity of command.
How very different is the cohesion between that of an army rallying around one flag carried into battle at the personal command of one general and that of an allied military force extending 50 or 100 leagues, or even on different sides of the theater! In the first case, cohesion is at its strongest and unity at its closest. In the second case, the unity is very remote, often consisting of no more than a shared political intention, and therefore only scanty and imperfect, while the cohesion of the parts is mostly weak and often no more than an illusion.
ON WAR, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, 1780-1831
THE BROKEN CHAIN
World War I began in August 1914, and by the end of that year, all along the Western Front, the British and French were caught in a deadly stalemate with the Germans. Meanwhile, though, on the Eastern Front, Germany was badly beating the Russians, allies of Britain and France. Britain’s military leaders had to try a new strategy, and their plan, backed by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and others, was to stage an attack on Gallipoli, a peninsula on Turkey’s
Dardanelles Strait. Turkey was an ally of Germany’s, and the Dardanelles was the gateway to Constantinople, the Turkish capital (present-day Istanbul). If the Allies could take Gallipoli, Constantinople would follow, and Turkey would have to leave the war. In addition, using bases in Turkey and the Balkans, the Allies could attack Germany from the southeast, dividing its armies and weakening its ability to fight on the Western Front. They would also have a clear supply line to Russia. Victory at Gallipoli would change the course of the war.
The plan was approved, and in March 1915, General Sir Ian Hamilton was named to lead the campaign. Hamilton, at sixty-two, was an able strategist and an experienced commander. He and Churchill felt certain that their forces, including Australians and New Zealanders, would out-match the Turks.
Churchill’s orders were simple: take Constantinople. He left the details to the general.
Hamilton’s plan was to land at three points on the southwestern tip of the Gallipoli peninsula, secure the beaches, and sweep north. The landings took place on April 27. From the beginning almost everything went wrong: the army’s maps were inaccurate, its troops landed in the wrong places, the beaches were much narrower than expected. Worst of all, the Turks fought back unexpectedly fiercely and well. At the end of the first day, most of the Allies’ 70,000 men had landed, but they were unable to advance beyond the beaches, where the Turks would hold them pinned down for several weeks. It was another stalemate; Gallipoli had become a disaster.
All seemed lost, but in June, Churchill convinced the government to send more troops and Hamilton devised a new plan. He would land 20,000 men at Suvla Bay, some twenty miles to the north. Suvla was a vulnerable target: it had a large harbor, the terrain was low-lying and easy, and it was defended by only a handful of Turks. An invasion here would force the Turks to divide their forces,
freeing up the Allied armies to the south. The stalemate would be broken, and Gallipoli would fall.
To command the Suvla operation Hamilton was forced to accept the most senior Englishman available for the job, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stopford. Under him, Major General Frederick Hammersley would lead the Eleventh Division. Neither of these men was Hamilton’s first choice.
Stopford, a sixty-one-year-old military teacher, had never led troops in war and saw artillery bombardment as the only way to win a battle; he was also in poor health. Hammersley, for his part, had suffered a nervous breakdown the previous year.
In war it is not men, but the man, that counts.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821
Hamilton’s style was to tell his officers the purpose of an upcoming battle but leave it to them how to bring it about. He was a gentleman, never blunt or forceful. At one of their first meetings, for example, Stop-ford requested changes in the landing plans to reduce risk. Hamilton politely deferred to him.
Hamilton did have one request. Once the Turks knew of the landings at Suvla, they would rush in reinforcements. As soon as the Allies were ashore, then, Hamilton wanted them to advance immediately to a range of hills four miles inland, called Tekke Tepe, and to get there before the Turks. From Tekke Tepe the Allies would dominate the peninsula. The order was simple enough, but
Hamilton, so as not to offend his subordinate, expressed it in the most general terms. Most crucially, he specified no time frame. He was sufficiently vague that Stopford completely misinterpreted him: instead of trying to reach Tekke Tepe “as soon as possible,” Stopford thought he should advance to the hills “if possible.” That was the order he gave Hammersley. And as Hammersley, nervous about the whole campaign, passed it down to his colonels, the order became less
urgent and vaguer still.
Also, despite his deference to Stopford, Hamilton overruled the lieutenant general in one respect: he denied a request for more artillery bombardments to loosen up the Turks. Stopford’s troops would outnumber the Turks at Suvla ten to one, Hamilton replied; more artillery was superfluous.
The attack began in the early morning of August 7. Once again much turned bad: Stopford’s changes in the landing plans made a mess. As his officers came ashore, they began to argue, uncertain about their positions and objectives. They sent messengers to ask their next step: Advance? Consolidate?
Hammersley had no answers. Stopford had stayed on a boat offshore, from which to control the battlefield–but on that boat he was impossible to reach quickly enough to get prompt orders from him. Hamilton was on an island still farther away. The day was frittered away in argument and the endless relaying of messages.
The next morning Hamilton began to sense that something had gone very wrong. From reconnaissance aircraft he knew that the flat land around Suvla was essentially empty and undefended; the way to Tekke Tepe was open–the troops had only to march–but they were staying where they were. Hamilton decided to visit the front himself. Reaching Stopford’s boat late that afternoon, he found the general in a self-congratulatory mood: all 20,000 men had gotten ashore.
No, he had not yet ordered the troops to advance to the hills; without artillery he was afraid the Turks might counterattack, and he needed the day to consolidate his positions and to land supplies.
Hamilton strained to control himself: he had heard an hour earlier that Turkish reinforcements had been seen hurrying toward Suvla. The Allies would have to secure Tekke Tepe this evening, he said–but Stopford was against a night march. Too dangerous. Hamilton retained his cool and politely excused himself.
Any army is like a horse, in that it reflects the temper and the spirit of its rider. If there is an uneasiness and an uncertainty, it transmits itself through the reins, and the horse feels uneasy and uncertain.
LONE STAR PREACHER, COLONEL JOHN W. THOMASON, JR., 1941
In near panic, Hamilton decided to visit Hammersley at Suvla. Much to his dismay, he found the army lounging on the beach as if it were a bank holiday. He finally located Hammersley–he was at the far end of the bay, busily supervising the building of his temporary headquarters. Asked why he had failed to secure the hills, Hammersley replied that he had sent several brigades for the purpose,
but they had encountered Turkish artillery and his colonels had told him they could not advance without more instructions. Communications between Hammersley, Stopford, and the colonels in the field were taking forever, and when Stopford had finally been reached, he had sent the message back
to Hammersley to proceed cautiously, rest his men, and wait to advance until the next day. Hamilton could control himself no longer: a handful of Turks with a few guns were holding up an army of 20,000 men from marching a mere four miles!
Tomorrow morning would be too late; the Turkish reinforcements were on their way.
Although it was already night, Hamilton ordered Hammersley to send a brigade immediately to Tekke Tepe. It would be a race to the finish.
Hamilton returned to a boat in the harbor to monitor the situation. At sunrise the next morning, he watched the battlefield through binoculars–and saw, to his horror, the Allied troops in headlong retreat to Suvla. A large Turkish force had arrived at Tekke Tepe thirty minutes before them.
In the next few days, the Turks managed to regain the flats around Suvla and to pin Hamilton’s army on the beach. Some four months later, the Allies gave up their attack on Gallipoli and evacuated their troops.
Interpretation
In planning the invasion at Suvla, Hamilton thought of everything. He understood the need for surprise, deceiving the Turks about the landing site. He mastered the logistical details of a complex amphibious assault. Locating the key point–Tekke Tepe–from which the Allies could break the stalemate in Gallipoli, he crafted an excellent strategy to get there.
Gallipoli
He even tried to prepare for the kind of unexpected contingencies that can always happen in battle. But he ignored the one thing closest to him: the chain of command, and the circuit of communications by which orders, information, and decisions would circulate back and forth. He was dependent on that circuit to give him control of the situation and allow him to execute his strategy.
The first links in the chain of command were Stopford and Hammersley. Both men were terrified of risk, and Hamilton failed to adapt himself to their weakness: his order to reach Tekke Tepe was polite, civilized, and unforceful, and Stopford and Hammersley interpreted it according to their fears. They saw Tekke Tepe as a possible goal to aim for once the beaches were secured.
The next links in the chain were the colonels who were to lead the assault on Tekke Tepe. They had no contact with Hamilton on his island or with Stopford on his boat, and Hammersley was too overwhelmed to lead them. They themselves were terrified of acting on their own and maybe messing up a plan they had never understood; they hesitated at every step. Below the colonels were officers
and soldiers who, without leadership, were left wandering on the beach like lost ants. Vagueness at the top turned into confusion and lethargy at the bottom. Success depended on the speed with which information could pass in both directions along the chain of command, so that Hamilton could understand what was happening and adapt faster than the enemy. The chain was broken, and Gallipoli was lost.
When a failure like this happens, when a golden opportunity slips through your fingers, you naturally look for a cause.
Maybe you blame your incompetent officers, your faulty technology, your flawed intelligence. But that is to look at the world backward; it ensures more failure.
The truth is that everything starts from the top.
What determines your failure or success is your style of leadership and the chain of command that you design. If your orders are vague and halfhearted, by the time they reach the field they will be meaningless. Let people work unsupervised and they will revert to their natural selfishness: they will see in your orders what they want to see, and their behavior will promote their own interests.
Unless you adapt your leadership style to the weaknesses of the people in your group, you will almost certainly end up with a break in the chain of command. Information in the field will reach you too slowly. A proper chain of command, and the control it brings you, is not an accident; it is your creation, a work of art that requires constant attention and care. Ignore it at your peril.
For what the leaders are, that, as a rule, will the men below them be.
--Xenophon (430?-355? B.C.)
REMOTE CONTROL
In the late 1930s, U.S. Brigadier General George C. Marshall (1880-1958) preached the need for major military reform. The army had too few soldiers, they were badly trained, current doctrine was ill suited to modern technology–the list of problems went on.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to select his next army chief of staff. The appointment was critical: World War II had begun in Europe, and Roosevelt believed that the United States was sure to get involved. He understood the need for military reform, so he bypassed generals with more seniority and experience and chose Marshall for the job.
The appointment was a curse in disguise, for the War Department was hopelessly dysfunctional.
Many of its generals had monstrous egos and the power to impose their way of doing things. Senior officers, instead of retiring, took jobs in the department, amassing power bases and fiefdoms that they did everything they could to protect. A place of feuds, waste, communication breakdowns, and
overlapping jobs, the department was a mess. How could Marshall revamp the army for global war if he could not control it? How could he create order and efficiency?
What must be the result of an operation which is but partially understood by the commander, since it is not his own conception? I have undergone a pitiable experience as prompter at head- quarters, and no one has a better appreciation of the value of such services than myself; and it is particularly in a council of war that such a part is absurd. The greater the number and the higher the rank of the military officers who compose the council, the more difficult will it be to accomplish the triumph of truth and reason, however small be the amount of dissent. What would have been the action of a council of war to which Napoleon proposed the movement of Arcola, the crossing of the Saint-Bernard, the maneuver at Ulm, or that at Gera and Jena? The timid would have regarded them as rash, even to madness, others would have seen a thousand difficulties of execution, and all would have concurred in rejecting them; and if, on the contrary, they had been adopted, and had been executed by any one but Napoleon, would they not certainly have proved failures?
BARON ANTOINE-HENRI DE JOMINI, 1779-1869
Some ten years earlier, Marshall had served as the assistant commander of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he had trained many officers.
Throughout his time there, he had kept a notebook in which he recorded the names of promising young men.
Soon after becoming chief of staff, Marshall began to retire the older officers in the War Department and replace them with these younger men whom he had personally trained. These officers were ambitious, they shared his desire for reform, and he encouraged them to speak their minds and show initiative.
They included men like Omar Bradley and Mark Clark, who would be crucial in World War II, but no one was more important than the protege Marshall spent the most time on: Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The relationship began a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Marshall asked Eisenhower, then a colonel, to prepare a report on what should be done in the Far East. The report showed Marshall that Eisenhower shared his ideas on how to run the war.
For the next few months, he kept Eisenhower in the War Plans Division and watched him closely: the two men met every day, and in that time Eisenhower soaked up Marshall’s style of leadership, his way of getting things done.
Marshall tested Eisenhower’s patience by indicating that he planned to keep him in Washington instead of giving him the field assignment that he desperately wanted.
The colonel passed the test.
Much like Marshall himself, he got along well with other officers yet was quietly forceful. In July 1942, as the Americans prepared to enter the war by fighting alongside the British in North Africa, Marshall surprised one and all by naming Eisenhower commander in the European Theater of Operations.
Eisenhower was by this time a lieutenant general but was still relatively unknown, and in his first few months in the job, as the Americans fared poorly in North Africa, the British clamored for a replacement. But Marshall stood by his man, offering him advice and encouragement.
One key suggestion was for Eisenhower to develop a protege, much as Marshall had with him–a kind of roving deputy who thought the way he did and would act as his go-between with subordinates.
Marshall’s suggestion for the post was Major General Bradley, a man he knew well; Eisenhower accepted the idea, essentially duplicating the staff structure that Marshall had created in the War Department.
With Bradley in place, Marshall left Eisenhower alone.
Marshall positioned his proteges throughout the War Department, where they quietly spread his way of doing things. To make the task easier, he cut the waste in the department with utter ruthlessness, reducing from sixty to six the number of deputies who reported to him.
Marshall hated excess; his reports to Roosevelt made him famous for his ability to summarize a complex situation in a few pages.
The six men who reported to him found that any report that lasted a page too long simply went unread. He would listen to their oral presentations with rapt attention, but the minute they wandered from the topic or said something not thought through, he would look away, bored, uninterested.
It was an expression they dreaded: without saying a word, he had made it known that they had displeased him and it was time for them to leave.
Marshall’s six deputies began to think like him and to demand from those who reported to them the efficiency and streamlined communications style he demanded of them. The speed of the information flow up and down the line was now quadrupled.
"Do you think every Greek here can be a king? It's no good having a carload of commanders. We need One commander, one king, the one to whom Zeus, Son of Cronus the crooked, has given the staff And the right to make decisions for his people." And so Odysseus mastered the army. The men all Streamed back from their ships and huts and assembled With a roar.
THE ILIAD, HOMER, CIRCA NINTH CENTURY B.C.
Marshall exuded authority but never yelled and never challenged men frontally. He had a knack for communicating his wishes indirectly–a skill that was all the more effective since it made his officers think about what he meant.
Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, the military director of the project to develop the atom bomb, once came to Marshall’s office to get him to sign off on $100 million in expenditures. Finding the chief of staff engrossed in paperwork, he waited while Marshall diligently compared documents and made notes.
Finally Marshall put down his pen, examined the $100 million request, signed it, and returned it to Groves without a word. The general thanked him and was turning to leave when Marshall finally spoke: “It may interest you to know what I was doing: I was writing the check for $3.52 for grass seed for my lawn.”
The thousands who worked under Marshall, whether in the War Department or abroad in the field, did not have to see him personally to feel his presence.
They felt it in the terse but insightful reports that reached them from his deputies, in the speed of the responses to their questions and requests, in the department’s efficiency and team spirit. They felt it in the leadership style of men like Eisenhower, who had absorbed Marshall’s diplomatic yet forceful way of doing things. In a few short years, Marshall transformed the War Department and the U.S. Army.
Few really understood how he had done it.
Interpretation
When Marshall became chief of staff, he knew that he would have to hold himself back. The temptation was to do combat with everyone in every problem area: the recalcitrance of the generals, the political feuds, the layers of waste. But Marshall was too smart to give in to that temptation.
First, there were too many battles to fight, and they would exhaust him. He’d get frustrated, lose time, and probably give himself a heart attack. Second, by trying to micromanage the department, he would become embroiled in petty entanglements and lose sight of the larger picture. And finally he would come across as a bully. The only way to slay this many-headed monster, Marshall knew, was to step back.
He had to rule indirectly through others, controlling with such a light touch that no one would realize how thoroughly he dominated.
Reports gathered and presented by the General Staff, on the one hand, and by the Statistical Bureau, on the other, thus constituted the most important sources of information at Napoleon's disposal.
Climbing through the chain of command, however, such reports tend to become less and less specific; the more numerous the stages through which they pass and the more standardized the form in which they are presented, the greater the danger that they will become so heavily profiled (and possibly sugar-coated or merely distorted by the many summaries) as to become almost meaningless.
To guard against this danger and to keep subordinates on their toes, a commander needs to have in addition a kind of directed telescope--the metaphor is an apt one--which he can direct, at will, at any part of the enemy's forces, the terrain, or his own army in order to bring in information that is not only less structured than that passed on by the normal channels but also tailored to meet his momentary (and specific) needs. Ideally, the regular reporting system should tell the commander which questions to ask, and the directed telescope should enable him to answer those questions.
It was the two systems together, cutting across each other and wielded by Napoleon's masterful hand, which made the revolution in command possible.
COMMAND IN WAR, MARTIN VAN CREVELD, 1985
The key to Marshall’s strategy was his selection, grooming, and placement of his proteges. He metaphorically cloned himself in these men, who enacted the spirit of his reforms on his behalf, saving him time and making him appear not as a manipulator but as a delegator.
His cutting of waste was heavy-handed at first, but once he put his stamp on the department, it began to run efficiently on its own–fewer people to deal with, fewer irrelevant reports to read, less wasted time on every level.
This streamlining achieved, Marshall could guide the machine with a lighter touch. The political types who were clogging the chain of command were either retired or joined in the team spirit he infused.
His indirect style of communicating amused some of his staff, but it was actually a highly effective way of asserting his authority. An officer might go home chuckling about finding Marshall fussing over a gardening bill, but it would slowly dawn on him that if he wasted a penny, his boss would know.
Like the War Department that Marshall inherited, today’s world is complex and chaotic. It is harder than ever to exercise control through a chain of command. You cannot supervise everything yourself; you cannot keep your eye on everyone.
Being seen as a dictator will do you harm, but if you submit to complexity and let go of the chain of command, chaos will consume you.
The solution is to do as Marshall did: operate through a kind of remote control. Hire deputies who share your vision but can think on their own, acting as you would in their place.
Instead of wasting time negotiating with every difficult person, work on spreading a spirit of camaraderie and efficiency that becomes self-policing.
Streamline the organization, cutting out waste–in staff, in the irrelevant reports on your desk, in pointless meetings. The less attention you spend on petty details, the more time you will have for the larger picture, for asserting your authority generally and indirectly. People will follow your lead without feeling bullied. That is the ultimate in control.
Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.
--Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
KEYS TO WARFARE
Now more than ever, effective leadership requires a deft and subtle touch.
The reason is simple: we have grown more distrustful of authority. At the same time, almost all of us imagine ourselves as authorities in our own right–officers, not foot soldiers.
Feeling the need to assert themselves, people today put their own interests before the team.
Group unity is fragile and can easily crack.
These trends affect leaders in ways they barely know. The tendency is to give more power to the group: wanting to seem democratic, leaders poll the whole staff for opinions, let the group make decisions, give subordinates input into the crafting of an overall strategy.
Without realizing it, these leaders are letting the politics of the day seduce them into violating one of the most important rules of warfare and leadership: unity of command. Before it is too late, learn the lessons of war: divided leadership is a recipe for disaster, the cause of the greatest military defeats in history.
Among the foremost of these defeats was the Battle of Cannae, in 216 B.C., between the Romans and the Carthaginians led by Hannibal. The Romans outnumbered the Carthaginians two to one but were virtually annihilated in a perfectly executed strategic envelopment.
Hannibal, of course, was a military genius, but the Romans take much of the blame for their own defeat: they had a faulty command system, with two tribunes sharing leadership of the army.
Disagreeing over how to fight Hannibal, these men fought each other as much as they fought him, and they made a mess of things.
Nearly two thousand years later, Frederick the Great, king of Prussia and leader of its army, outfought and outlasted the five great powers aligned against him in the Seven Years’ War partly because he made decisions so much faster than the alliance generals, who had to consult each other in every move they made.
In World War II, General Marshall was well aware of the dangers of divided
leadership and insisted that one supreme commander should lead the Allied armies.
Without his victory in this battle, Eisenhower could not have succeeded in Europe. In the Vietnam War, the unity of command enjoyed by the North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap gave him a tremendous advantage over the Americans, whose strategy was crafted by a crowd of politicians and generals.
Divided leadership is dangerous because people in groups often think and act in ways that are illogical and ineffective–call it Groupthink.
People in groups are political: they say and do things that they think will help their image within the group. They aim to please others, to promote themselves, rather than to see things dispassionately. Where an individual can be bold and creative, a group is often afraid of risk. The need to find a compromise among all the different egos kills creativity. The group has a mind of its own, and that mind is cautious, slow to decide, unimaginative, and sometimes downright irrational.
This is the game you must play: Do whatever you can to preserve unity of command.
Keep the strings to be pulled in your hands; the over-arching strategic vision must come from you and you alone.
At the same time, hide your tracks.
Work behind the scenes; make the group feel involved in your decisions. Seek their advice, incorporating their good ideas, politely deflecting their bad ones.
If necessary, make minor, cosmetic strategy changes to assuage the insecure political animals in the group, but ultimately trust your own vision. Remember the dangers of group decision making. The first rule of effective leadership is never to relinquish your unity of command.
Tomorrow at dawn you depart [from St. Cloud] and travel to Worms, cross the Rhine there, and make sure that all preparations for the crossing of the river by my guard are being made there.
You will then proceed to Kassel and make sure that the place is being put in a state of defense and provisioned. Taking due security precautions, you will visit the fortress of Hanau. Can it be secured by a coup de main?
If necessary, you will visit the citadel of Marburg too. You will then travel on to Kassel and report to me by way of my charge d'affaires at that place, making sure that he is in fact there.
The voyage from Frankfurt to Kassel is not to take place by night, for you are to observe anything that might interest me. From Kassel you are to travel, also by day, by the shortest way to Koln. The land between Wesel, Mainz, Kassel, and Koln is to be reconnoitered.
What roads and good communications exist there? Gather information about communications between Kassel and Paderborn. What is the significance of Kassel? Is the place armed and capable of resistance?
Evaluate the forces of the Prince Elector in regard to their present state, their artillery, militia, strong places. From Koln you will travel to meet me at Mainz; you are to keep to the right bank on the Rhine and submit a short appreciation of the country around Dusseldorf, Wesel, and Kassel.
I shall be at Mainz on the 29th in order to receive your report.
You can see for yourself how important it is for the beginning of the campaign and its progress that you should have the country well imprinted on your memory.
NAPOLEON'S WRITTEN INSTRUCTIONS TO FIELD GENERAL, QUOTED IN COMMAND IN WAR, MARTIN VAN CREVELD, 1985
Control is an elusive phenomenon. Often, the harder you tug at people, the less control you have over them. Leadership is more than just barking out orders; it takes subtlety.
Early in his career, the great Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was often overwhelmed with frustration.
He had visions of the films he wanted to make, but the work of being a director was so taxing and the pressure so immense that he would lash out at his cast and crew, shouting orders and attacking them for not giving him what he wanted. Some would stew with resentment at his dictatorial ways, others became obedient automatons.
With almost every new film, Bergman would have to start again with a new cast and crew, which only made things worse.
But eventually he put together a team of the finest cinematographers, editors, art directors, and actors in Sweden, people who shared his high standards and whom he trusted.
That let him loosen the reins of command; with actors like Max von Sydow, he could just suggest what he had in mind and watch as the great actor brought his ideas to life. Greater control could now come from letting go.
A critical step in creating an efficient chain of command is assembling a skilled team that shares your goals and values.
That team gives you many advantages: spirited, motivated people who can think on their own; an image as a delegator, a fair and democratic leader; and a saving in your own valuable energy, which you can redirect toward the larger picture.
In creating this team, you are looking for people who make up for your deficiencies, who have the skills you lack.
In the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln had a strategy for defeating the South, but he had no military background and was disdained by his generals. What good was a strategy if he could not realize it? But Lincoln soon found his teammate in General Ulysses S. Grant, who shared his belief in offensive warfare and who did not have an oversize ego.
Once Lincoln discovered Grant, he latched on to him, put him in command, and let him run the war as he saw fit.
Be careful in assembling this team that you are not seduced by expertise and intelligence. Character, the ability to work under you and with the rest of the team, and the capacity to accept responsibility and think independently are equally key. That is why Marshall tested Eisenhower for so long. You may not have as much time to spare, but never choose a man merely by his glittering
resume. Look beyond his skills to his psychological makeup.
Rely on the team you have assembled, but do not be its prisoner or give it undue influence.Franklin D. Roosevelt had his infamous “brain trust,” the advisers and cabinet members on whom he depended for their ideas and opinions, but he never let them in on the actual decision making, and he kept them from building up their own power base within the administration.
He saw them simply as tools, extending his own abilities and saving him valuable time. He understood unity of command and was never seduced into violating it.
A key function of any chain of command is to supply information rapidly from the trenches, letting you adapt fast to circumstances. The shorter and more streamlined the chain of command, the better for the flow of information. Even so, information is often diluted as it passes up the chain: the telling details that reveal so much become standardized and general as they are filtered through formal channels.
Some on the chain, too, will interpret the information for you, filtering what you hear. To get more direct knowledge, you might occasionally want to visit the field yourself.
Marshall would sometimes drop in on an army base incognito to see with his own eyes how his reforms were taking effect; he would also read letters from soldiers. But in these days of increasing complexity, this can consume far too much of your time.
What you need is what the military historian Martin van Creveld calls “a directed telescope”: people in various parts of the chain, and elsewhere, to give you instant information from the battlefield.
These people–an informal network of friends, allies, and spies–let you bypass the slow- moving chain. The master of this game was Napoleon, who created a kind of shadow brigade of younger officers in all areas of the military, men chosen for their loyalty, energy, and intelligence.
At a moment’s notice, he would send one of these men to a far-off front or garrison, or even to enemy headquarters (ostensibly as a diplomatic envoy), with secret instructions to gather the kind of information he could not get fast enough through normal channels. In general, it is important to cultivate these directed telescopes and plant them throughout the group.
They give you flexibility in the chain, room to maneuver in a generally rigid environment. The single greatest risk to your chain of command comes from the political animals in the group.
People like this are inescapable; they spring up like weeds in any organization.
Not only are they out for themselves, but they build factions to further their own agendas and fracture the cohesion you have built. Interpreting your commands for their own purposes, finding loopholes in any ambiguity, they create invisible breaks in the chain.
Try to weed them out before they arrive. In hiring your team, look at the candidates’ histories: Are they restless? Do they often move from place to place? That is a sign of the kind of ambition that will keep them from fitting in. When people seem to share your ideas exactly, be wary: they are probably mirroring them to charm you.
The court of Queen Elizabeth I of England was full of political types.
Elizabeth’s solution was to keep her opinions quiet; on any issue, no one outside
her inner circle knew where she stood. That made it hard for people to mirror her, to disguise their intentions behind a front of perfect agreement. Hers was a wise strategy.
Another solution is to isolate the political moles–to give them no room to maneuver within the organization. Marshall accomplished this by infusing the group with his spirit of efficiency; disrupters of that spirit stood out and could quickly be isolated. In any event, do not be naive.
Once you identify the moles in the group, you must act fast to stop them from building a power base from which to destroy your authority.
Finally, pay attention to the orders themselves–their form as well as their substance. Vague orders are worthless. As they pass from person to person, they are hopelessly altered, and your staff comes to see them as symbolizing uncertainty and indecision.
It is critical that you yourself be clear about what you want before issuing your orders. On the other hand, if your commands are too specific and too narrow, you will encourage people to behave like automatons and stop thinking for themselves–which they must do when the situation requires it. Erring in neither direction is an art.
Here, as in so much else, Napoleon was the master. His orders were full of juicy details, which gave his officers a feel for how his mind worked while also allowing them interpretive leeway.
He would often spell out possible contingencies, suggesting ways the officer could adapt his instructions if necessary. Most important, he made his orders inspiring. His language communicated the spirit of his desires.
A beautifully worded order has extra power; instead of feeling like a minion, there only to execute the wishes of a distant emperor, the recipient becomes a participant in a great cause. Bland, bureaucratic orders filter down into listless activity and imprecise execution.
Clear, concise, inspiring orders make officers feel in control and fill troops with fighting spirit.
Authority: Better one bad general than two good ones.
--Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
REVERSAL
No good can ever come of divided leadership. If you are ever offered a position in which you will have to share command, turn it down, for the enterprise will fail and you will be held responsible.
Better to take a lower position and let the other person have the job.
It is always wise, however, to take advantage of your opponent’s faulty command structure. Never be intimidated by an alliance of forces against you: if they share leadership, if they are ruled by committee, your advantage is more than enough. In fact, do as Napoleon did and seek out enemies with that kind of command structure. You cannot fail to win.
Conclusion
There’s some great advice in this chapter for the manager and supervisor. When you are in a role, you must show leadership, no matter what style you possess. And make sure that everyone is following your lead in what ever actions you take.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my 33 Strategies of War index here..
I dedicate this article to "Nick" who asked what will the Middle East look like when China replaces the United States as the dominant nation.
I want to take a moment and acknowledge that there is a lot of historical events going on right now. (Sigh.) They have been covered through the various “news” outlets over and over all with various “spins” and opinions. I am sure that you are all getting tired of this. Especially for youse Americans who are (probably) just exhausted by it all.
Yes, the pre-planned Clusterfuck in Kabul, or Bay of Pigs 2.0, or whatever shook the world as victims of 20 years of lies and death reasserted a modicum of control over their situation. The outrage and howling from the CIA-controlled media and the Establishment over Biden's correct decision is hilarious.Posted by: gottlieb | Aug 22 2021 14:11 utc | 1
It’s been a very crazy week.
Personally, I’ve been a tad busy, but then you have the US failure in Afghanistan. But… is it really a failure, or just a regrouping?
The long-term optimism of China is great but the US does not care about that. The US has not been number one at anything for a long time; not education, literacy, healthcare, internet speed, and all the things called "human development". At the turn of the century the U.S. ranked about 18 on the UN Human Development Index adjusted for equality. Today it is 28.
Yet if you ask the average American what country is the best in the world, he will say the US. The people do not even realize how far they have fallen compared to the rest of the world. That shows how good the US propaganda system is. The US is #1 at propaganda. #1 in military spending too, although the technology of the weapons is declining. #1 in obesity. #1 in junk culture. Yes, bread and circus to keep the masses happy works.
The U.S. does not care about the development of the people. It does not care about cooperation.
The U.S. does not care about winning wars. Wars are the end in itself. It is how the wealth of the people is transferred upwards. That is why during the "War OF Terror" the U.S. has been steadily declining "when adjusted for equality" from 18 to 28.
The U.S. has not "lost" in Afghanistan, because it had nothing to lose. Nor has the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan.
It has just been a pivot.
CIA special activities, special forces and mercenaries are "stay behinds". They will now regroup the mujahideen and create a civil war that will last for another 20 years. They will also intensify direction of the mujahideen to former Russian republics, Chechnya, Xinjiang, Myanmar, Thailand, and anywhere else they can get a foothold for regime change and to attack the BRI.
The US takes China and Russia's kindness as weakness. It will take what kindness is offered and then stab the giver in the back. The US will use whatever sabotage it can against the BRI.
America is not interested in cooperation.
The battlefield of propaganda has been well prepared for the American people. They believe the US has many aggressive enemies, and all (illegal) US wars (of aggression) are defensive. The vast majority believe anything from the CIA's Mighty Wurlitzer.
Regards,
[name withheld]
This (mid-August 2021) was a week where the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan overshadowed everything else. That is okay as huge consequences will flow from these events. The future history books (or what ever they will use) will record these events as one of the most significant dates and contributing events that will eventually lead up to the start of the “New Beginning” of the new global order.
And it will, as this comment foreshadows…
When will other occupied suzerainties ask Imperialist forces to leave? The Taliban has been fighting the Imperial forces since their occupation started. However, people in Germany, Japan, South Korea,… that have been occupied by the Imperialists over many decades do nothing. Aren’t they democracy? What does it tell about these SUZERAINTIES? What percentage of their transactions are in Imperialist’s currencies? Are you okay with imperialism? Imperialists go back!Name a democracy that isn’t a suzerainty.Will Afghanistan’s fiasco create any wave of change?Posted by: Max | Aug 22 2021 14:23 utc | 3
Hey! What the heck is a “suzerainty”? That’s a new word for me.
"apositionofcontrolby a sovereign or stateoveranotherstate that is internally autonomous."
So, a nation can be under the control of another nation, while still having it’s own domestic laws, rules and culture. So Japan, would be under the control of the United States as a vassal state, but is still allowed to keep Japanese culture, society, laws and rules domestically. However, internationally, it must obey and do what ever the United States says.
The USA tells Japan to join the QUAD. They join the QUAD. The USA tells them to buy USA debt. They buy USA debt. But if the girls want to wear kimonos, watch strange television, and have a giant penis festival, that’s just fine.
So Japan is a suzerainty of the United States.
Hey! You learn something every day.
So it has got me to thinking. You know. I start to ponder things, and wonder about things. So, I wonder what the difference between a suzerainty and a “vassal state” is?
Vassal stateState
A vassalstate is any state that has a mutual obligation to a superior state or empire, in a status similar to that of a vassal in the feudal system in medieval Europe.
Vassal states were common among the Empires of the Near East, dating back to the era of the Egyptian, Hittite and Mitanni conflict, as well as Ancient China.
The use of vassal states continued through the middle ages, with the last Empire to use such states being the Ottoman Empire.
The relationships between vassal rulers and empires was dependent on the policies and agreements of each empire.
While payment of tribute and military service is common amongst vassal states, the degree of independence and benefits given to vassal states varied. Today, more common terms are puppet state, protectorate, client state, associated state or satellite state.
-Wikipedia
So, to me it appears that as a Vassal State, the controlling Empire can also dictate domestic behaviors, society and laws as it deems necessary. While a suzerainty is permitted domestic autonomy.
We can thus think that a “suzerainty” is a subset of a “vassal state”.
A suzerainty.
Interesting stuff.
It puts the entire perspective of what the world really looks like and operates into a much greater perspective. And most certainly what the United States actually is in the greater scheme of things.
To the world at large, the United States is a big massive, bad bully. That if not “tamed” by the rest of the world, it will end up consuming it and destroying it. As stated in this video. Funny how this section was never shown on American media…
The USA is out of control.
Some haggling seems to continue today but the outcome is assured.
Trump has something to say…
Yada, yada, yada.
Trump gives his two cents worth.
Now for the “meat”…
Big warning; long read.
And as my articles tend to be long, expect this one to be encyclopedic. To fully understand what is transpiring in this far-away mountainous area you need to know some history. And Jeeze! There’s a lot of history.
By the time you are 25% done reading, you should be moe informed than a full 90% of the people around you. At 50%, that number jumps to 95%, and at the end of this article, you will be more informed than 99.99999% of those around you.
Such a responsibility!
Do you want this level of understanding?
We will avoid all the great pilliages of the Genghis Khan and the Persions and all the rest, and we will start when the UK British Empire decided to annex the region as a Vassal State.
Then we will explore how the Soviet Union Empire decided to annex the region as a Vassal State.
And finally, we will explore how the United States Military Empire decided to annes the region as a Vassal State.
Long read. As I said.
So first, some history…
The usual disclaimers apply. Content edited for this venue all credit to the original authors, etc.
Britain’s first war in Afghanistan: what happened and why?
Britain’s first war in Afghanistan took place in the Victorian era, beginning in 1839. Historian William Dalrymple explores the conflict in conversation with Rob Attar, in a piece first published in 2013, and discusses what parallels can be drawn with the fighting in recent years
The First Anglo-Afghan War: what happened?
Concerned that Russia was expanding its influence in the region, Britain invaded Afghanistan in 1839, ousting ruler Dost Mohammad and replacing him with Shah Shuja, who had been king from 1803–10.
Insurrections later broke out, compelling the British garrison to flee Kabul. Believing they had been promised safe passage, a large contingent of British and Indian forces attempted a retreat in January 1842, but were ambushed by Afghan troops, leading to the deaths of around 18,000 soldiers. Abandoned in Kabul, Shah Shuja was killed.
British forces managed to recapture Kabul later that year and elsewhere laid waste to the countryside but eventually decided to pull out of the country altogether. Dost Mohammad returned to Kabul in 1843 and his dynasty would remain in power until the 1970s.
William Dalrymple, author of Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, discusses the First Anglo-Afghan War in conversation with Rob Attar
How does your book change our understanding of the First Anglo-Afghan War?
It is one of those old chestnuts that’s already got a shelf-and-a-half of books written about it. So it seemed the only point of dedicating four years to this was to try to completely rewrite the story, obviously with a view to seeing it in the light of what is going on now, but more specifically trying to cover both sides of the story, which has never been done before. To date, not one book on the war has used a single Afghan source. Everything we have is entirely from the British side.
The British Experience.
I did several trips to Afghanistan to search out more sources and by the end I had nine full-length Afghan accounts of the war. What emerged from them was that the war had a completely different dramatis personae and a more fractured regional make-up than the British seemed to be aware of. They saw an undifferentiated wall of bigoted bearded Afghans coming towards them but in reality the resistance was divided by tribe, ethnic group and language.
My most exciting find was the autobiography of Shah Shuja. He had been written off by the British and Afghan nationalists as a weak and hopeless guy, but I think he was wonderful. He was a poet, civilised and immensely likeable. He just didn’t have military luck ever in his career.
The British Experience.
Astonishingly he was from the same sub-tribe, the Popalzai, as current Afghan president Hamid Karzai. We’ve put the same guy in twice! And he was brought down by the Ghilzai who today make up the foot soldiers of the Taliban. This is the same tribal war, continuing under slightly different flags, 170 years later.
Has your research changed your view of the First Anglo-Afghan War’s origins?
The account I give is subtly, but not completely, changed from previous versions. The basic reason for the British invasion was a blown-up fear of Russian intervention and here there are parallels, oddly enough, with the war in Iraq, with a ‘dodgy dossier’. A group of hawks manipulated intelligence to exaggerate a threat that didn’t exist in reality as substantially as they thought it did.
There was this episode when a young great gamer, Sir Henry Rawlinson, was riding through Persia to join the Shah of Persia’s camp in the north-west of the country. One night Rawlinson found himself in the very dodgy borderlands between Persia and Afghanistan and, just as dawn was breaking, he witnessed a party of horsemen coming down the valley towards him. He saw that they were Russian Cossacks heading in the direction of the Afghan border. He headed them off at the top of the pass and found them eating their breakfast.
There was a young Russian officer who refused to talk to him in Russian, Persian or French but agreed to chat in Jagatai Turkish. He told Rawlinson he was on his way to the Persian camp so Rawlinson rode straight there to see the Shah. The Shah said that the Russians were nothing to do with him but were going to open diplomatic relations with Dost Mohammad in Kabul.
This was the yellowcake of its day [in 2002, it was claimed that Saddam Hussein had been trying to obtain yellowcake uranium to develop weapons of mass destruction]. For 30 years hawks had been worrying about Russia moving towards Afghanistan and there was this whole literature already in London about Russia taking Afghanistan then sweeping down the Khyber and expelling the British from India. There was no evidence for this at all until this chance discovery.
There was this new governor general, Lord Auckland, who had inherited a group of belligerently hawkish and Russophobic advisors, led by the hopeless William Macnaghten. They ignored the advice of the one British official in India who really knew Afghanistan, Alexander Burnes. He was sending despatches saying that Dost Mohammad wanted to ally with the British rather than the Russians, but they didn’t listen and advised Auckland to oust Dost Mohammad and bring in what they described as the ‘ousted legitimate ruler’ Shah Shuja.
How did the British fare in the early military operations?
The war followed the same trajectory as the current conflict. Everyone warned that it would be catastrophically difficult, but in fact they conquered the country almost instantly with minimal casualties. Then you had, as happened in 2001, the government crowing that they’d seen off the naysayers and it was going to be easy.
For the first year it did seem to be so.
The Afghans were very friendly and their noblemen went hunting, did amateur theatricals and played cricket with the British. But slowly it began to unravel, from Helmand, working northwards. There was more and more resistance until the British found themselves surrounded in Kabul without any control of the countryside around it. Again, it was exactly the same as the situation today.
The British Experience.
Where did this resistance come from?
Here my interpretation is different from that of the British. They assumed that the Afghans were rising up against Shah Shuja as much as themselves but it’s quite clear that a lot of the resistance was from irritated royalists who wanted Shah Shuja to shed his allegiance to the British. They thought the British were abusing agreements he’d made with them, which was indeed the case.
The initial idea had been that Shah Shuja would be given rule and the British would just help him enforce it, but, rather like with the tensions between Karzai and the British and Americans, increasingly the British got irritated with their own puppet and tried to bully him or take unilateral action. Macnaghten and Burnes gradually despaired of ever running Shah Shuja effectively and just took control of Afghanistan themselves.
What we get very clearly from Afghan sources is the motivations of individual leaders, which were all quite different. Abdullah Khan Achakzai was a young aristocrat whose girlfriend was seduced by Burnes, so for him it was a personal slight. He made a wonderful speech the night before the rebellion saying: “We have to put a stop right here and now, otherwise these English will ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity, to the point of having us all arrested and deported into foreign imprisonment.”
Aminullah Khan Logari was a self-made man who had worked his way up for over 60 years of service. He was treated very peremptorily by a young British official who threw him off his lands. It was people such as Logari and Achakzai who kicked the whole thing off. They called everyone to arms and, within a few days, 50,000 had gathered in Kabul to fight the British.
The British Experience.
Did the British just retreat then?
There were two quite substantial battles that they lost through their incompetence and then they retreated. It was during the retreat under the promise of safekeeping that they got shot down. The East India Company at the time still used the Brown Bess musket, which was great in a flat European field like Waterloo but couldn’t fire long distances or uphill. The Afghans had these clumsy big jezails that took an hour to load but nonetheless could fire a mile downhill and were perfect for mountain warfare.
How did the British allow this catastrophe to happen?
It was quite fantastically incompetent British leadership. As well as Burnes and Macnaghten, who were always at each other’s necks, there was this gout-ridden old general called William Elphinstone who hadn’t seen action since the battle of Waterloo and was an invalid. On the first morning of the revolt he tried to get on his horse, which fell on top of him and he was more or less out of the action from there. By their own indecision and hopelessness the British lost the war very quickly. They lost all their food and ammunition within about 48 hours and it was only a matter of time before they had to retreat.
Was it a political or military decision to pull out of the country altogether?
Retreat was inevitable once they’d lost their food and ammunition, so that was a military decision. The Kabul garrison was wiped out but there were others surviving in Jalalabad and Kandahar. They were reinforced and the following spring they returned and laid waste to southern Afghanistan.
This army of retribution committed war crimes on a grand scale, raping and murdering women and children.
The British Experience.
After that, the decision to pull out was an economic one and this is also true of the later conflicts. Resistance can be defeated but only at huge cost, because the country is so diffused and the geography makes it so difficult. Plus there is no way of defraying the cost of the occupation. If you invade Iraq you can take the oil, or in the Punjab you can tax the rich, fertile land, but the entire tax revenue of Afghanistan never paid then and doesn’t pay now even a fraction of the cost of occupation.
How might your book inform policy makers today?
I do think there’s a huge amount to be learned from the Afghan version of events. It gives a precision into understanding the resistance, which has been lacking to date.
The story of the First Anglo-Afghan War provides clear warnings about the dangers of being trapped in Kabul, surrounded and with no allies, having fallen out with the people you put into power.
The problem is that each generation fails to learn these lessons.
George Lawrence was one of the troops taken hostage during the retreat and so survived to write his memoirs. He saw history repeating itself in the 1870s with the Second Anglo-Afghan War and he roused himself to write a letter to The Times. He said:
“A new generation has arisen, which instead of profiting from the solemn lessons of the past, is willing and eager to embroil us in the affairs of that turbulent and unhappy country… The disaster of the retreat from Kabul should stand forever as a warning to the statesmen of the future not to repeat the policies that bore such butter fruit in 1839–42.”
He wasn’t listened to in 1870, and this is now the fourth lost Afghan war.
William Dalrymple is an award-winning writer and historian based in India. His books include The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (Bloomsbury, 2019), Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond, co-authored with Anita Anand (Bloomsbury, 2017) and Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan (Bloomsbury, 2014) This article was first published in the February 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine
After Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988-89, the regime it was defending there fell. This experience contributes to present fears that, if America withdraws from Afghanistan, the regime it is defending will also fall. A closer look at Soviet and Russian actions between 1988 and 1992, though, suggests that this need not have been the result then — and that it need not be the result of an American withdrawal now either.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 to prop up the Marxist regime that had come to power the previous year but which appeared to be on the verge of collapse.
Unlike the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, however, Soviet forces encountered prolonged resistance that they were unable to defeat.
In order to promote his goals of domestic reform and improving Moscow’s relations with the West, Gorbachev withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan (which he had termed a “bleeding wound”) between May 1988 and February 1989.
Russians in Afghanistan.
At the time, it was widely predicted that the Marxist regime Moscow had been supporting in Afghanistan would fall within a few months — or even weeks — of the final departure of Soviet forces.
The regime of President Najibullah, however, survived until April 1992, over three years after the Soviet withdrawal.
Several factors contributed to the regime’s longevity, including the continuation of Soviet military and economic assistance, the mistakes made by some of the mujahideen (the Afghan forces that had fought against the Soviet occupation) as well as their Pakistani supporters, divisions among the various mujahideen groups, and the Najibullah regime’s successful exploitation of these problems.
After the downfall of Gorbachev and of the Soviet Union itself in December 1991, though, Moscow’s assistance to Najibullah ended.
Without this assistance, Najibullah was unable to continue effectively exploiting the weaknesses of his adversaries. Instead, they were able to exploit his, and so his regime fell. This paper will examine how Moscow’s actions helped Najibullah survive but then contributed to his downfall, as well as how Moscow’s actions affected the other factors influencing the fortunes of the Afghan Marxist regime.
Russians in Afghanistan.
1989-91: Soviet Support for Kabul Continues
Although the Soviet troop presence in Afghanistan ended in February 1989, large-scale Soviet military and economic assistance to its Marxist protégés there continued.
As Soviet troops withdrew, they left behind literally all their matériel except for the vehicles needed to transport them back over the border. In addition, as Soviet forces withdrew from Eastern Europe following the downfall of communist regimes there in late 1989, some of this weaponry was transferred to Afghanistan.
From early 1989 to late 1991, Soviet assistance to Kabul reportedly amounted to $300 million per month. Perhaps this is not a large figure by today’s standards, but it was a much greater amount than the mujahideen were receiving after the Soviet withdrawal, and was a considerable financial burden on the economically beleaguered USSR.
Weaponry that Moscow supplied to Kabul included MiG- 27 fighter jets (the Afghan Marxist regime had an air force with some 200 aircraft plus helicopters). In addition, as Zalmay Khalilzad (whom President George W. Bush appointed as special presidential envoy for Afghanistan and then U.S. ambassador to Kabul) noted in 1991,
Moscow has provided more than thirteen hundred Scud-B missiles, hundreds of shorter range Frogs, several hundred tanks, and sixteen hundred five-ton trucks. To keep Kabul supplied, the Soviets launched the biggest air supply effort in its history, sending some twenty-five or more IL-76 transport planes to Kabul each day for much of 1989 (Khalilzad 1991, 82-83).
Indeed, all this was reportedly more than the Marxist regime could effectively use. To help them, though, Moscow left behind about 300 advisers, some of whom reportedly participated in the firing of the Scud missiles at mujahideen targets. (In addition to a regular army of 55,000 men, the Kabul regime also had the support of a 10,000-strong presidential guard and various militias, including an especially effective one raised and led by the ethnic Uzbek leader, General Abdul Rashid Dostum.)
When the Soviets withdrew, much of the anti-foreign-presence motivation for many Afghans to fight with the mujahideen disappeared.
A mujahideen group.
Indeed, some mujahideen groups themselves appeared tainted for being so very close to Pakistan. Soviet assistance also allowed Kabul to effectively compete with Pakistan and the various mujahideen groups based there in paying off local commanders and tribal leaders inside Afghanistan.
While Pakistan tied its support to various mujahideen groups not only to whether or not they fought against Kabul but whether they did so in the manner specified by the ISI, Kabul gave support to various groups just in exchange for not fighting against it. As Khalilzad noted at the time, “Najib’s offer is more attractive than ISI’s; while ISI wants it clients to fight and risk their lives, Najib is willing to pay if the commanders agree not to fight” (Khalilzad 1991, 81).
Russians in Afghanistan.
Further, the groups Pakistan supported were not always effective. In March 1989, some 15,000 Pakistani-backed mujahideen forces attacked the town of Jalalabad. Their unwillingness to accept prisoners, though, meant that the defending government forces had strong motivation to fight on. Although the mujahideen laid siege to the town, the Kabul government was able to resupply and reinforce its garrison by air, launch a counterattack, and break the siege by mid-May 1989. This was a major humiliation for Pakistan and its allies.
In addition to military assistance, though, Moscow provided Kabul with key economic assistance. As mujahideen forces approached Kabul and interrupted the supply of food and other consumer goods into the city, the Soviets airlifted these commodities to the Afghan capital.
At Moscow’s urging, the Kabul regime attempted to broaden the basis of its support by downplaying its Marxist nature, appointing non-Marxists to visible positions and trying to appeal to nationalism.
According to contemporary accounts, though, these efforts were not particularly successful, as the Marxist regime — especially President Najibullah — was extremely unpopular with the Afghan population. Indeed, while outwardly broadening the base of the regime, it appears that Najibullah actually narrowed it by increasing reliance on his hard-core supporters.
But while Najibullah and his regime lacked popular support, the mujahideen themselves frequently provided Afghans with strong incentive either to support the Marxist regime or to see it as the lesser of two evils. The mujahideen’s efforts to impose an economic blockade on Kabul as well as their periodically shelling it did nothing to endear them to the citizens of the capital.
Even worse, when the mujahideen captured the town of Khost in March 1991, they not only looted it but killed all the government forces they had captured instead of holding them prisoner. This action not only created fear in other towns; it also made clear to irresolute government forces that defecting to the mujahideen was probably not an option for them.
A mujahideen group.
Mujahideen groups also fought among themselves, and this was something that the Marxist government was able to exploit. As was noted in the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Strategic Survey 1989-1990,
…by early 1990, although the mujahideen continued to control the bulk of the countryside, most of them had in effect ceased being mujahideen, in the sense that they were no longer fighting against the central government, but were instead attempting to work out compromises with Kabul which would ensure their local power, particularly against their former fellow comrades in arms.
Most local commanders had reverted to the traditional relationship between local powers and a weak central state that has shaped Afghan history since the eighteenth century.
The central state is seen less as an enemy than as a referee which can help to promote the interests of the local group.
This development was expected to play a decisive role after the collapse of the Najibullah regime, not before.
That it has come into play so soon is a result of the unexpected adroitness of the regime, aided by the ineffectiveness of US-Pakistan policies (IISS 1990, 160).
At the time, Khalilzad seemed to suggest that the Afghan Marxist regime might even come out on top in the ongoing conflict, when he noted that the Kabul regime “…is likely to increase its efforts to reach out to make deals with commanders and the supporters of the former king at the expense of the majority of the Peshawar-based leadership. Should it succeed, it can reduce the fighting in the country” (Khalilzad 1991, 84).
1992: Russian Support Ends
But, of course, the Afghan Marxist regime did fall in April 1992. Once again, Russian actions appear to have played a key role in bringing this about.
Shortly after the failed August 1991 coup attempt in Moscow and under very different political circumstances, Moscow and Washington agreed to stop aiding their respective Afghan allies as of January 1, 1992.
Not only did Moscow end its arms supply to Kabul, but it also stopped providing it with food and fuel. By contrast, although Pakistan had agreed to stop aiding the mujahideen, Saudi aid to them via Pakistan continued.
Shortly after this in February 1992, Najibullah (a Pushtun) apparently tried to bolster his authority over the Uzbek militia chieftain Dostum by appointing a fellow Pushtun as a commander in the northwestern Uzbek heartland.
But if this was his intention, it backfired in April 1992, when Dostum defected from the government and joined forces with long-time anti-Soviet Tajik mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud (whose relationship with both Pakistan and the Pushtun mujahideen groups it supported was adversarial). Non-Pushtun forces from the north and Pushtun forces from the south then rushed to capture Kabul, with the Marxist regime splitting along ethnic lines and either joining forces or making deals with their ethnic kin.
Najibullah resigned and sought sanctuary inside the UN compound in Kabul after his attempt to reach the airport was blocked (by his erstwhile ally Dostum, according to some).
The Islamic State of Afghanistan was declared, but the mujahideen remained divided.
After a short, sharp battle for control of Kabul, the Dostum-Massoud alliance prevailed over their Pushtun opponents, for the time being. Russia appeared to play no role in these events.
Conclusions from the Russian Experience
Six observations can be made about the events described here:
First, even after the withdrawal of Soviet forces was completed in February 1989, Soviet military and economic assistance enabled an unpopular regime to remain in power in Afghanistan — at least, in the major population centers — for over three years.
Second, despite continuing to receive significant aid from Pakistan and other nations, the mujahideen were unable to overthrow the Afghan Marxist regime so long as that regime was receiving significant aid from the Soviet Union.
Third, opposition to the Afghan Marxist regime appeared to decline after Soviet troops withdrew. Further, while they had not performed effectively during the period of Soviet occupation, the effectiveness of Afghan government forces increased significantly after the Soviet withdrawal.
Fourth, after Soviet assistance to Kabul ended at the beginning of 1992, the Afghan Marxist regime’s strength declined rapidly.
Fifth, the collapse of the regime in April 1992, though, was not due just (or perhaps even mainly) to the actions of the Pakistani-backed Pushtun mujahideen. Indeed, the immediate downfall of the regime was precipitated by the defection of the previously pro-regime Uzbek militia leader, Dostum, to the side of the non-Pushtun opposition to the regime.
Sixth, as the collapse of the regime approached, the most salient division in Afghanistan was not Marxist vs. Islamist, but Pushtun vs. non-Pushtun.
History, of course, is not destined to repeat itself. These six observations from the 1989-92 period, however, may have salience for the present as well as the short- and medium-term future. They suggest the following:
First, even after the withdrawal of ISAF forces is completed by the end of 2014, American and allied military and economic assistance to the current less-than-popular Karzai government may enable it to remain in power in the major population centers.
Second, the Taliban are not destined to return to power, despite the likelihood that they will continue to receive Pakistani assistance so long as the Kabul government continues to receive significant aid from America and its coalition partners.
Third, opposition to the Karzai government may actually decline after the American and coalition withdrawal. Once they are responsible for their own survival, the effectiveness of Afghan government forces may quickly increase.
Fourth, if American and allied support for it ends, the Kabul government’s strength is highly likely to decline rapidly.
Fifth, under these circumstances, ethnic divisions within the Kabul government leadership are likely to become exacerbated. It is highly likely that the non-Pushtun officer corps would seek to oust the Pushtun president, Hamid Karzai, and his entourage.
Sixth, even if (indeed, especially if) the Taliban manage to seize control of Kabul once again, the most salient division within Afghanistan is once again likely to be Pushtun vs. non-Pushtun.
Well that was pretty dry and scholarly…
And yeah. That’s what it was.
Real events are colorful, painful, full of joy and sadness. They are visceral. Here’s a far better explanation…
When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in December 1979, it set the stage for a decade-long quagmire, similar to the American War in Vietnam.
By William Stroock
In late 1979, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was torn apart by a civil war pitting the weak Communist government of Hafizullah Amin against several moderate and fundamentalist Muslim rebel armies.
The war had been brought about by Amin’s incompetence and corruption, his vicious program of political repression, the massacre of entire village populations, and a ham-handed agrarian “reform” program that disenfranchised tribal leaders.
He followed the very exactly same mistakes as the Americans and the South Vietnamese did back in the 1960's.
Fearing that Amin would be defeated and replaced by a government of Muslim fundamentalists or—even worse—pro-American intellectuals, the Soviet Union launched an invasion on Christmas Eve aimed at removing Amin and replacing him with a more reliable strongman.
To pave the way for the invasion, Soviet advisers with the Afghan Army tricked their clients into incapacitating themselves.
In one case, the Soviets told an Afghan armored unit that new tanks were about to be delivered but that, due to shortages, the gas in the old tanks would have to be siphoned out. The Afghans obligingly siphoned gas out of their tanks, rendering them useless.
In another instance, Soviet advisers told an Afghan unit to turn over all their ammunition for inspection, something that likewise was done without question.
Sneaky. Very sneaky.
A Former Prime Minister Declares Himself President
By the time the first Soviet transport planes landed at Kabul airport carrying elements of the 103rd Guards Airborne Division, the Afghan Army was largely incapable of fighting back.
On December 27, the Soviet 5th Motorized Rifle Division rolled across the borders toward Herat, Shindahd, and Kandahar, while the 108th Motorized Rifle Division drove on Kabul.
The 201st Motorized Rifle Division advanced toward Kunduz.
That same day, Soviet troops captured the Kabul radio station and attacked the presidential palace, killing Amin.
December 27, 2019
By Frud Bezhan
KABUL — Afghanistan’s communist President Hafizullah Amin was lying unconscious in his bed.
A KGB agent who had infiltrated Amin’s staff as a cook had poisoned the president and his ministers during lunch at the Tajbeg presidential palace in Kabul.
It was December 27, 1979.
Two Soviet doctors, unaware of the KGB plot, worked desperately to revive Amin at the palace. His ministers were rushed to a military hospital.
“The doctors put tubes through his nose and mouth to pump his stomach,” Faqir Mohammad Faqir, the interior minister, who had rushed to the palace, tells RFE/RL. “When his stomach was cleaned out, the doctors took him to the bathroom. For 30 minutes they poured cold water over him.”
After four long hours, Amin gradually regained consciousness. Still groggy, he muttered to Faqir, one of his most trusted men, to go to the nearby Defense Ministry building.
A few hours later, the Afghan president was lying in bed in his underpants when scores of KGB special forces stormed the presidential palace, killing Amin and his family members amid fierce clashes. Soviet forces also seized key government buildings and military installations in Kabul in a coordinated attack.
Moscow considered Amin, who had studied in the United States, an unpredictable ally. Some in the Kremlin suspected he had attempted to forge links with Washington. Meanwhile, his penchant for using brutal methods to crush his rivals fueled growing opposition to communist rule in Afghanistan.
Moscow installed Babrak Karmal, a rival communist leader, as president the next day. Thousands of Soviet troops and hundreds of planes and tanks crossed into Afghanistan in the following days.
The invasion was the start of a devastating, decade-long Soviet occupation that would set Afghanistan on a path for decades of conflict.
“The Soviet invasion was the worst day for Afghans,” says the 86-year-old Faqir as he trudges through the empty halls of the Tajbeg Palace, which is now being reconstructed. “It was the darkest day,” he adds. “The most miserable day for Afghans. The misery that started that day continues until today.”
‘So Much Firing’
When Faqir arrived at the Defense Ministry, army chief Yaqub Khan was at a meeting with several Soviet military advisers in his office.
After greeting the guests, Faqir turned to sit down on a couch, when there was a burst of gunfire. He dashed to an adjacent room to take cover.
“After a few moments, Yaqub Khan entered the room and fell on the bed,” Faqir says. “He had been shot twice and seriously wounded.”
Minutes later, Khan died.
Drenched in Khan’s blood, Faqir grabbed his handgun and aimed it at the door.
“There was so much firing that you couldn’t hear anything,” Faqir says, retelling the story as he slowly trudges through the National Museum, which back then housed the Defense Ministry. “The [Soviets] were throwing hand grenades, firing rockets, and using Kalashnikovs.”
‘They Look Like Russians’
Khan’s secretary, Dawlat Waziri, was sitting at his desk at the Defense Ministry building when the shooting erupted.
“I got up, grabbed my Kalashnikov, and I opened the window,” says Waziri, who was then 26 years old. “I saw that there was gunfire coming from down there, so I fired a few rounds.”
Waziri says the attackers were wearing “yellow uniforms and woolen hats.” “I thought to myself, ‘They look like Russians,'” he says.
He then stormed into Khan’s office where, he says, he saw a Soviet translator shoot his boss.
Waziri rushed out the door and into the hallway. He spotted a Soviet soldier and dashed to take cover. “Before I could fire, he fired at me,” he says. “A bullet struck my wrist. I dropped my Kalashnikov. Then another bullet struck me in the stomach and one in my right leg.”
Waziri stumbled into a nearby room. A grenade landed nearby, smashing the door and setting it on fire.
He was cornered.
“I thought for a second, ‘Why did the Russians fire at me?'” Waziri recalls. “Just then, they were about to throw a second grenade. So, I opened the window and jumped out.”
Waziri broke his legs and shattered his hip in the jump from the second floor.
He passed out.
‘Shots Were Fired’
Before the attack, hundreds of Soviet paratroopers — members of the Soviet Army’s Muslim Battalion — and KGB special forces had surrounded the palace, taking cover in the heavy snow.
The KGB forces stormed the palace while the Soviet troops provided a ring of security around the building.
“Our job was to neutralize any reinforcements that came to Amin’s aid,” Vytas Luksys, a former Soviet paratrooper from Lithuania, tells RFE/RL.
“It was dark,” recalls Luksys in the capital, Vilnius. “There wasn’t much time to think about what was happening where. We had to focus on carrying out our orders. We heard that shots were fired, but we couldn’t pay much attention to it.”
The KGB special forces, most of them in sportswear or plainclothes, went floor to floor battling the Presidential Guard and members of Amin’s family.
No reinforcements came to Amin’s help, much to Luksys’s relief. “I don’t know how I would have fared,” he says. “We had very little experience with night-vision devices, guns, and machine guns.”
Within hours, the battle was over. Over 200 Afghans were killed and over 1,000 surrendered. Declassified KGB files said over 100 Soviet personnel were also killed in the fierce clashes.
Amin is believed to have died of gunshot wounds.
All his male relatives at the Tajbeg Palace were either killed in the clashes or executed. His wife, daughter, and grandchildren were sent to prison.
‘It Was Better To Die’
Faqir had been holed up inside one of Khan’s personal rooms for seven hours when he heard a colleague’s voice. “He said, ‘If anyone is in the room he should put down his weapon and come out,'” he says. “He was my friend, so I decided to come out.”
When Faqir came out he was handcuffed by Soviet troops. “That was when I realized that the Soviets had attacked us,” he says. “I shouldn’t have left the room. I didn’t want to surrender. It would have been better to die.”
Soviet forces whisked Faqir away to their military headquarters. He was sentenced to death and transferred to Pul-e Charkhi, the notorious prison outside Kabul where Amin was alleged to have sent thousands to their deaths.
Waziri, meanwhile, woke up in an operating room in the hospital the day after the invasion.
“I was piled up along with the dead bodies,” Waziri says. “When they realized I was still alive, they took me to the operating room in the hospital.” He would be in the hospital for 13 months recovering from his wounds.
Afterward, Waziri served as an officer in the Soviet-backed Afghan army.
Luksys visited the Tajbeg Palace the next morning to find scenes of destruction. “It was a big beautiful palace that had been turned into a mess,” he says. “There were beautiful carpets. Furniture, tables, intricate stucco, very pretty chandeliers.”
“There was blood, but no dead bodies by that time,” Luksys recalls.
After the storming of the palace, Soviet forces wrapped the bodies of Amin and his family members in carpets and buried them in unmarked graves.
Their bodies have never been found.
‘Biggest Betrayal’
The element of surprise was key to the Soviet Union’s lightning seizure of Kabul.
The Soviet decision to topple Amin was a shock, including to the Kabul regime, which had forged close ties with Moscow since communists seized power after a bloody coup in 1978.
“The Soviets committed the biggest betrayal,” Faqir says. “We had a brotherly relationship. We had no idea that the Russians would attack us.”
Faqir was released from prison in 1989 after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, having served 10 years and three months.
Luksys served two years in the Soviet Army before leaving in 1981.
Military Quagmire
The events of December 27, 1979 would have a lasting effect, unleashing a four-decade war that has yet to end.
The Soviet Army soon got bogged down in a costly military quagmire against the mujahedin, the U.S.-backed Islamist rebels.
The Soviet Union pulled its troops out of Afghanistan in 1989 after an estimated 2 million Afghans and at least 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed. Millions of other Afghans were displaced, living mainly as refugees in Pakistan and Iran.
The mujahedin toppled the communist regime from power in 1992. But within months, a devastating civil war erupted among the warring mujahedin factions, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban.
By then, the Soviet Union no longer existed.
In a radio address broadcast from the Soviet Union, former prime minister Babrak Karmal, who had been handpicked by Soviet authorities, declared himself president.
Russian map of attack.
The DRA army had an impressive strength on paper, numbering 13 infantry divisions and 22 independent brigades.
There were also 40 separate regiments.
This force was composed of at least 70 percent conscripts, including thousands of men who had been rounded up by government press-gangs and forced to serve in the army.
What few volunteers there were usually became junior and noncommissioned officers. Despite the press gangs and financial incentives to volunteer, DRA army units were badly under strength, sometimes by as much as 40 percent.
The army was decimated by desertions and riddled with mujahideen spies. Supplementing the army was the KHAD, or secret police, numbering 100,000 men.
Hope for Stabilizing the Region Was Failing
Soviet planners had hoped that the invasion and coup would stabilize the situation enough for the DRA army to take control.
In fact, their strong-armed tactics devastated morale in the Afghan Army and led to further desertions and defections.
Even worse, enraged mujahideen took to the field and engaged Soviet forces in open battle outside Kandahar, in Jalalabad, and along the Salang highway.
After the Soviets’ massive firepower overwhelmed them, the mujahideen retreated into the mountains along the Afghan border and switched to guerrilla-style tactics.
The Soviets followed.
The Red Army deliberately waged war on Afghan civilians and drove them over the border into Pakistan. By doing so, they hoped to deny the mujahideen local support and a native population to hide among.
In 1980, the Soviets mounted a large-scale offensive into the Kunar Valley that resulted in the expulsion of nearly all of the valley’s 150,000 residents.
A similar offensive was undertaken to the south in the Sultani Valley. Supporting these Soviet attacks were clearing operations south of Kabul and around Kandahar that destroyed dozens of villages. Similar operations were launched throughout the country in 1981, but with little long-term success.
Guerrilla Attacks and Civilian Casualties
In the face of the Soviet onslaught, mujahideen forces retreated into the mountains or melted into a population made friendly by repeated Soviet and Afghan Army atrocities.
When the mujahideen did come out and fight, they subjected Soviet forces to a constant stream of guerrilla attacks.
DRA troops were no match for the mujahideen. In daring assaults in April and September of 1981, the mujahideen temporarily seized Kandahar from DRA forces and left only after the Soviet Air Force bombed them.
Compounding anti-Soviet sentiment brought about by the Red Army’s complete disregard for Afghan civilian casualties was the brutality of the common Soviet soldiers, who regularly took out their frustration on the Afghan populace.
An Afghan farmer passing through a Soviet roadblock could count upon his valuables being stolen and his wife being raped. Mounted Soviet troops seemed to take great joy in shooting at Afghans along the road. Soviet advisers, officers, and NCOs treated their Afghan proxies with contempt.
The frustration of the Soviet fighting man was easy to understand.
Soviet soldiers were conscripts who often received only three weeks of basic training before being sent to savage Afghanistan.
Once there, a new recruit was bullied by veteran soldiers and brutal NCOs. Soldiers were badly paid, ill fed and clothed, and lived in tents.
Many soldiers found relief from their situation in the form of the opium or locally produced alcohol. Hungry conscripts sometimes traded their weapons to the Afghans for food. Fevers and infections caused by unsanitary camp conditions decimated thousands of Soviet recruits.
Hills Swarming With Mujahideen
Despite the Soviets’ various campaigns of annihilation, the hills outside the major Afghan cities were swarming with mujahideen.
Soviet army units were confined to their bases and traveled only on the main roads.
Traveling at night in anything other than a large convoy was suicidal.
The Soviets, like their American counterparts in Vietnam, were heavily reliant on helicopters for movement through the hostile countryside. Also mirroring the American approach in Southeast Asia, the Soviets used only a bare fraction of their military might, refusing to delegate more men and material than were absolutely necessary.
They even went so far as to call the 40th Army in Afghanistan a “limited contingent of forces.”
By 1981, the mujahideen numbered as many as 150,000 fighters organized into seven main Sunni Islam parties.
Three Islamic fundamentalist organizations had roots reaching back to the 1960s, and a fourth group formed in 1982 to serve as an umbrella organization and raise money for the cause throughout the Islamic world. There were also three “moderate” parties.
These were formed after the 1978 coup, and although not as radical as the other four groups, they were still Muslim organizations. There were also three smaller Shiite groups with ties to Iran.
Excellent Fighters, but Poor Soldiers
The average mujahideen fighter was an illiterate farmer or herder. Although they were excellent fighters, mujahideen tended to be poor soldiers.
They disliked field craft, were reluctant to crawl even when under fire, and were often unwilling to conduct sabotage missions, as these were not seen as glorious and honorable.
They were terrified of Soviet land mines, which often maimed rather than killed—the former being considered a fate worse than death.
Mujahideen saw firearms as a status symbol, and most were excellent shots. They took great pride in their centuries of tribal warfare and raiding, and consequently they believed that they had little to learn from Pakistani and Western advisers about how to fight a modern superpower.
In 1982, the closest thing the mujahideen had to a central command was the Afghan Bureau of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI.
Led by General Mohammed Yousaf, the Afghan Bureau operated numerous training camps in the border area, provided advisers from the Pakistani Army, and funneled supplies to the mujahideen.
These were provided by the American Central Intelligence Agency, which bought weapons from sellers all over the world, including China, Egypt, and, ironically, Israel, which sold equipment it had captured during the various Arab-Israeli wars.
The Afghan Bureau also tried to coordinate mujahideen attacks. This inevitably led to conflicts.
Afghan leaders were interested in disrupting Soviet supply lines and sabotaging infrastructure, while mujahideen commanders wanted to engage Soviet troops in open combat.
Still, some highly valuable and successful attacks were carried out. In one bold raid, mujahideen fighters loyal to Ahmad Shah Massoud fought their way onto Bagram Air Base, attacked Soviet barracks packed with sleeping troops, and hit the airstrip, destroying 23 aircraft.
They then retreated to their bases in the nearby Panjshir Valley.
Ahmad Shah Massoud
In the aftermath of the airport raid, the Soviets launched a massive counteroffensive against the Panjshir Valley designed to destroy mujahideen forces and install permanent DRA army garrisons there.
The Panjshir Valley juts out from the Hindu Kush, pointing like a dagger at Kabul and Bagram Air Base.
The Salang highway, the road over which 90 percent of the Soviets’ supplies were carried, went right past the valley entrance.
Running through the valley is the Panjshir River. The banks were dotted with villages, farms, and vineyards. Dozens of canyons were home to small, isolated villages. At the beginning of the war, some 100,000 people of Tadjik origin resided there.
The valley was also home to the mujahideen’s most feared commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Born in 1953 in Herat, Massoud was part of Afghanistan’s minuscule educated class, having attended the French-run Lycee Istaqlal and the Russian Polytechnique Institute (both located in Kabul) where he studied engineering.
Massoud was an accomplished athlete, voracious reader, and spoke French, Pashto, and Dari.
During his time in Kabul, he became politically active, joining the Jamiat-e Islami party.
When Mohammad Daoud seized power in 1974, Massoud fled to Pakistan, where he underwent military training and studied the art of war, particularly the campaigns of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap.
He returned to Afghanistan in 1978 and began operations in the Panjshir Valley, quickly gaining a cadre of tough, loyal followers who waged a guerrilla war against DRA forces.By 1980, Massoud controlled the entire valley.
The Ambitious “Panjshir V”
Massoud’s rebel army was a pan-Afghan force numbering more than 3,000 Tadjiks, Pashtuns, Turkmen, and Uzbek fighters.
He divided the valley into 25 field commands, each defended by a small unit called a sabbet.
These were supplemented by a number of moutariks, or mobile companies. Each moutarik numbered about 75 men and was subdivided into platoons of three.
Moutarik fighters received extra rations and a welfare benefit for their families back home. Each unit had in its arsenal three machine guns, three RPG-7 grenade launchers, one mortar, and a ZPU-2 antiaircraft gun.
Panjshir V, as the Soviet operation was called, was ambitious.
At the valley entrance, the Soviets deployed the 103rd Guards Airborne Division, the 66th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, one regiment from the 108th Division, one regiment from 201st Division, the 345th Parachute regiment, and elements of the 866th and 181st Separate Motorized Rifle Regiments.
There were also significant DRA forces, four infantry regiments, and parts of the 37th Commando Brigade.
Under the Soviet plan, heliborne troops from the 103rd Guards Airborne Division would seize villages and hilltops throughout the valley and pin down mujahideen fighters.
At the same time, Soviet/Afghan motorized forces would advance along both banks of the Panjshir River. In this way, the Soviets hoped to bring Massoud’s army to battle and destroy it in detail.
To mislead Massoud as to the actual target, a diversionary attack would be launched against the Ghorband district to the north.
The Panjshir V campaign began on May 15, 1982. The diversionary attack against Ghorband succeeded in fooling Massoud, who sent significant reinforcements to the Ghorband district in Parwan Province.
The next night, several Soviet reconnaissance companies advanced to the valley’s entrance; lead elements of 108th Division advanced a short way into the valley.
On the morning of May 17, the Soviets unleashed a massive aerial and artillery strike up and down the Panjshir Valley.
Then Soviet heliborne troops landed at key high points.
Even though Massoud was surprised by the move, his forces, armed with numerous ZPU-2 antiaircraft guns, managed to shoot down two helicopters and damage several others.
There was also severe fighting for control of the landing zones, but the Soviets had put dozens of gunships in the air, and the mujahideen were outgunned and had to withdraw.
In all, the six Soviet battalions were inserted.
In the meantime, elements of the 108th Division slowly advanced up the valley along a battalion-wide front.
The vanguard encountered a never-ending stream of man-made obstacles and land mines that had to be cleared by engineers and sappers deployed up front.
The mujahideen engaged the lead forces, sparking fierce and lopsided clashes as Soviet firepower and close air support were brought to bear.
There were dozens of small engagements as well, as Soviet forces cleared out the numerous canyons running out from the valley. In contrast to the pounding they were giving Soviet troops, the mujahideen left DRA troops largely alone.
This encouraged defections, so many that the Soviets had to pull several DRA units out of the valley.
In an effort to trap mujahideen forces engaging elements of the 108th Division on the second day of the advance, one Soviet and one Afghan battalion landed at the village of Mata, halfway up the valley.
Mujahideen forces there were quickly overcome, allowing the combined Soviet/DRA force to occupy the heights above the village.
The next day, a similar force landed at Astana, and on the 22nd two Soviet and two Afghan battalions landed at Evim, 60 miles inside the valley at an important crossroad through which the mujahideen received supplies and reinforcements.
The Evim operation was the scene of particularly heavy fighting as Massoud did not want a large enemy force on the ground so far up the valley. After sundown, several moutariksconverged on the landing zone and launched a determined assault on Soviet/DRA forces there.
The assaults were repelled with heavy losses.
Although impressive on paper, the landings did not prevent mujahideen forces from continuing to move at will throughout the valley. They knew the terrain too well and could move at night.
Nor did the heliborne insertions keep the mujahideen from withdrawing before a Soviet advance.
Massoud’s moutarikshad ample warning, as any Soviet attack was preceded by an artillery barrage lasting up to half an hour.
After the barrage, the moutarikswould pull back to a prepared position farther up the valley while a small rear guard sniped at the advancing column. Such tactics resulted in a steady trickle of Soviet casualties and vehicle losses and ensured that the moutarikssurvived to repeat the process.
The battle for Evim marked the end of Panjshir V. On May 25, Soviet forces began a gradual withdrawal to Bagram, completing it three days later.
Control of the valley was handed over to DRA units, but their bases were gradually overrun by the mujahideen. The Soviets returned to the valley in September and, after another impressive show of force, once again left DRA forces in control.
By the end of the year, however, Massoud’s forces regained effective control of the valley. In all, Panjshir V cost the Soviets 2,000 casualties, 17 tanks, and a dozen aircraft. DRA losses totaled 1,200, including numerous defectors. The mujahideen lost 180 fighters.
The civilian toll was much greater.
In 1983, Massoud signed a truce with the Soviets. By agreeing to a cease-fire, Massoud allowed his forces a chance to rest and re-arm. Other mujahideen commanders were furious, since the unilateral truce freed up Soviet forces for operations against them.
The Soviets returned to the Panjshir Valley in 1984. Informers in Kabul tipped the ISI, who informed Massoud and sent emergency supplies to him.
The Soviet offensive began on April 20 with a massive high-altitude bombardment by TU-16 bombers.
This was supported by SU-24 medium bombers that struck individual targets. After the air strikes, which did little more than bounce the rubble and announce the coming attack, the 108th Motor Rifle Division, along with the 8th and 20th Afghan Infantry Divisions, moved into the valley.
They advanced in typical Soviet fashion, with a long artillery barrage preceding every movement.
As the divisions made their way up the valley, airborne battalions landed behind villages and other suspected mujahideen strongpoints. The raids netted few prisoners—Massoud’s fighters simply avoided the valley floor and sniped at the ponderous Soviet column from surrounding hilltops.
Under such conditions, it took the 108th MRD eight days to advance 50 miles to the village of Khenj.
In the second part of the operation, several Soviet airborne battalions helicoptered into the valley’s side canyons in an attempt to cut off the mujahideen line of retreat.
In one instance, a Soviet battalion landed at the village of Dash-i-Ravat, 13 miles beyond the main advance. On a hilltop deep inside mujahideen territory, the battalion was badly exposed. Several moutariks converged on the landing area and inflicted heavy casualties on the isolated paratroopers.
By May 7, the Soviets felt that they had accomplished all of their objectives and gradually began withdrawing, again leaving DRA garrisons at various spots along the valley. These were highly vulnerable, and troops had to be resupplied by air.
In June 1985, Massoud’s forces attacked the DRA base at Peshghor. In a dawn attack, they penetrated the base’s minefield and stormed the defenses under cover of a rocket and mortar barrage. Afghan resistance collapsed. Massoud captured more than 400 prisoners, including five DRA colonels from Kabul.
When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in the Soviet Union in 1986, he announced plans for a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, which he famously called “a bleeding wound.” Such a withdrawal required the DRA army to take the lead against the mujahideen.
The Ministry of Defense decided to launch an operation aimed at destroying the massive mujahideen facility at Zhawar Kili. Although planned by the Soviets, the assault would be a largely DRA operation, with the 7th, 8th, 14th, and 25th Infantry Divisions, the 38th Commando Brigade, and the Soviet 666th Air Assault Regiment in support. The attack was commanded by Afghan General Mohammed Delavar.
Zhawar was the center of mujahideen activity in Paktika Province; through it flowed 20 percent of the mujahideen supplies.
It was the site of an 11-cave storage facility housing a barracks, hospital, mosque, and electrical power plant. Zhawar fell under the purview of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a mujahideen commander loyal to the fundamentalist Hezb-Islami party.
Haqqani was regarded as a competent and brave leader, a favorite of the ISI and the United States.
As such, he received millions of dollars in military aid, including the much-vaunted Stinger missiles. Haqqani had stationed at Zhawar a permanent regiment of 500 fighters supported by nine ZSU-1 and ZSU-2 antiaircraft guns, a dozen M-12 multiple rocket launchers and two T-55 tanks.
Stationed north and east of Zhawar was a quartet of mujahideen units belonging to other parties. The complex lay south of Khost at the end of a canyon, a few miles from the Pakistani border.
The main route to Zhawar was through the Manay Kandow Pass, whose entrance was dominated by the mountainous Dharwi Ghar.
Atop Dhawri Ghar was a cave protected by a large overhang.
The DRA assault began on April 2. After a massive artillery barrage, a half dozen MI-8 helicopters landed a battalion of the 38th Commando Brigade east of Zhawar, unknowingly inside Pakistan.
The battalion quickly came under heavy attack by the mujahideen, and Delavar decided to insert the rest of the brigade into the fight.
Dozens of helicopters flew over the battlefield and landed Afghan commands on the heights east of Zhawar.
The mujahideen shot down three helicopters and destroyed several more on the ground. Haqqani’s fighters attacked the landing zones, over-running four. He also brought in reinforcements from Pakistan.
The combined force enveloped and pounded the trapped commandos, killing dozens and capturing nearly 600.
In the meantime, Soviet bombers pounded the cave complexes, collapsing the entrances to a pair and trapping more than 150 mujahideen, including Haqqani who, although badly wounded, managed to escape.
For three days DRA forces, the 7th Infantry Division in the west and the 8th Infantry Division in the east, tried and failed to blast their way through the mujahideen positions.
After suffering heavy casualties and exhausting their ammunition, the two divisions pulled back. In their place, the 14th and 25th Infantry Divisions moved up and attacked mujahideen fighters holding Manay Kandow Pass.
This attack, too, went nowhere as mujahideen inside the caves were invulnerable to air and artillery strikes.
After 10 days of fruitless efforts, Delavar called off the attack.
While artillery and aircraft pounded the region, the DRA resupplied and reinforced its exhausted units. Delavar was sacked.
The offensive was restarted on April 17 with a two-pronged assault; the 25th Infantry Division advanced on the east while the 14th Infantry Division moved on the west.
Like its predecessor, the 25th Infantry Division encountered heavy resistance. DRA commanders finally decided to forgo the standard massive artillery preparation in favor of a snap attack that took the mujahideen by surprise and swept them from the mountain. DRA forces pushed out to the east and outflanked the remaining mujahideen facing them. Haqqani was wounded again, and rumors that he had been killed demoralized the mujahideen.
With no one to rally the mujahideen forces, Zhawar fell later that day. DRA troops and Soviet advisers rigged the complex with explosives and destroyed the extensive stores.
That night, the head of the Hezb-Islami party, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, launched a counterattack, but patrols approaching Zhawar found the base abandoned. The battle had cost the mujahideen 100 dead, as well as the vast stores at Zhawar.
The DRA lost 1,500 dead or wounded, 500 prisoners, and 13 aircraft.
The base at Zhawar was back in mujahideen hands 48 hours after the DRA abandoned it.
By the beginning of 1989, the situation in Afghanistan had changed radically. The influx of American-supplied Stinger missiles had given the mujahideen a powerful weapon with which to counter Soviet/Afghan airpower.
In Pakistan, President Zia ul-Haq and the head of the ISI had been killed in a plane crash.
That February, the last Soviet forces withdrew from the country.
The seven mujahideen parties formed an interim government in waiting. The alliance was eager to go on the offensive; its leadership felt that a large show of force would bring about the final collapse of the Communist regime.
Their target was Jalalabad, at the foot of the Hindu Kush. Connecting it to the Khyber Pass to the east and Kabul 33 miles to the west, Highway 1 ran right through the city. A few miles east was the Kunar River; the Samarkel Ridge commanded the highway.
By taking the city, the mujahideen alliance hoped to demoralize the DRA and grab a swath of the country that they would declare “Free Afghanistan.” From there, they planned to go for the jugular and attack Kabul. The operation was carried out with the full approval of the new head of the ISI, General Hamid Gul. The DRA had plenty of time to prepare for the attack.
Stationed in Jalalabad were the 11th Infantry Division and the 1st Border Brigade. The government had filled the ranks with replacements and stockpiled supplies in the city. The DRA units manned a formidable ring of defenses including concrete bunkers, minefields, and barbed wire.
Some 7,000 mujahideen gathered for the assault, with contributions from all seven of the major parties and an eighth group of well-equipped Arab jihadi led by a rich Saudi calling himself Abu Abdullah.
His real name was Osama bin Laden.
Other important contingents were personally led by Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Like Massoud, Hekmatyar had attended school in Kabul, where he studied engineering.
In the mid-1970s, he founded the Hezb-Islami party, which sought to establish an Islamic caliphate in Afghanistan in the mold of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, whom he greatly admired. Hekmatyar was virulently anti-Soviet, but also anti-American. Seeking to consolidate power, he had also waged war on other mujahideen parties. He was a bitter rival of Massoud.
The campaign began in early March 1989 with a mujahideen assault on Samarkel Ridge. Supported by a massive rocket and mortar barrage, the mujahideen took the ridge after three days of fighting.
The mujahideen then fought their way into the village of Samarkel on the ridge’s western slope. The next target was Jalalabad airfield, which they attacked on March 8.
There, the mujahideen went up against a battalion of crack DRA troops who held their ground in the face of several determined assaults. Advancing behind a line of T-55 tanks captured at Samarkel, the mujahideen finally managed to take the airport, but the DRA counterattacked later that day and retook it.
Four days into the battle for the airport, a battalion of DRA Special Guards was flown in from Kabul. The frontal assaults continued until late March, with the mujahideen suffering more than 1,400 casualties. DRA forces lost 1,000.
Tired of seeing their fighters impaled on the defenses of Jalalabad, mujahideen commanders decided to starve the city into submission. Unfortunately for them, the siege was not airtight.
Some commanders along the highway allowed convoys to slip through in exchange for a portion of the supplies. And since the DRA still held the airport, the Soviets were able to resupply government forces from the air.
Mujahideen commanders also had difficulty coordinating attacks, with many unwilling to make the first move for fear their men would bear the brunt of the fighting. What attacks were carried out were badly exposed to Soviet high-level bombing and Scud missile attacks.
By July, the mujahideen siege had collapsed. On July 6, the DRA launched a counterattack aimed of Samarkel Ridge, which they took two days later. In defeat, the rivalry between Massoud and Hekmatyar slipped into outright war, with the two parties fighting each other throughout the rest of the year.
The Communist regime in Kabul managed to stay in power until 1992, falling only after the Soviet Union itself broke up.
A fractious mujahideen coalition led by the Jamaat-i-Islami failed to bring peace and was ousted by the Taliban in 1996. For the next five years, the Afghan resistance called the Northern Alliance was led by Massoud.
He was assassinated on September 9, 2001—two days before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Haqqani became a minister in the Taliban government and, on September 29 he was appointed commander of Taliban forces.
He fights on today out of Waziristan, having survived several American attempts to kill him. Hekmatyar still leads the Hezb-Islami party, which is closely allied with the exiled Taliban. He too has survived numerous assassination attempts.
Despite losing nearly 15,000 troops in a decade-long incursion, Soviet commanders never grasped the concept that, in order to defeat an insurgency, they first must win the loyalty of the civilian population. Their oafish tactics had the opposite effect.
By forcing millions into refugee camps in Pakistan, they created a limitless pool of angry youth from which the mujahideen could recruit more troops. The war could never have been won so long as Pakistan remained a mujahideen safe haven. American and NATO forces in Afghanistan today confront exactly the same problem, and like their Soviet predecessors two decades ago, they have to date devised no workable solutions.
The ravaged nation remains a bleeding wound in the seemingly endless war on terror.
Lessons for Leaders: What Afghanistan Taught Russian and Soviet Strategists
Thirty years ago this month, Gen. Boris Gromov became the last serviceman of the Soviet 40th Army to cross the Friendship bridge from Afghanistan into Uzbekistan, heralding the end of a Soviet military intervention that had lasted nearly a decade.
That intervention, which began in December 1979 (with 30 military advisors and some guards remaining beyond February 1989), did not only fail to firmly anchor Afghanistan to the so-called socialist camp, as the Soviet Politburo had hoped, but contributed to the demise of the USSR by imposing formidable human, financial, economic, political and reputational costs on the already declining empire; needless to say, it caused numerous casualties and widespread grievances among Afghans as well.
Debates continue to this day about the full array of national-level, organizational-level and personal-level factors that led the Communist Party leadership—including General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and a handful of other Politburo members—to adopt a resolution on Dec. 12, 1979, authorizing the deployment of a “limited contingent of Soviet troops” to Afghanistan.
However, even with that debate unfinished, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan offers plenty of lessons to explore—some of which can, perhaps, be applied by the U.S. and its allies as Washington leans toward ending its own military campaign in this war-plagued Central Asian country.
The following is a selection of military-political lessons gleaned mostly from the recollections of Soviet strategists who were involved in making and executing the fateful decision to send troops to Afghanistan, as well as from writings by some of post-Soviet Russia’s prominent military analysts.
Where possible, the author made an effort to relay these strategists’ analysis of the failures and successes of the intervention because he felt that such assessments, based on first-hand experience, are not always given their due in English-language literature on the subject.
The lessons listed below, which are discussed in greater detail in subsequent sections of this research paper, are lined up in the order in which they would have come up—starting with the Soviet leadership’s decision to consider sending a large contingent of troops into Afghanistan, moving onto its management of the actual intervention and, finally, onto its decision to withdraw the troops and beyond. All of these lessons are meant for consideration by nations’ military-political leadership.
Lesson 1:
Before making final decisions on issues of fundamental importance, such as military intervention, determine what national interests are at stake, what options exist for advancing or defending those interests and what costs and benefits each of these options would generate, both direct and indirect; and do not let leaders’ personal ambitions impact the ultimate decision.
Lesson 2:
Ensure a sufficiently broad and comprehensive inter-agency process of reviewing potential decisions to use force, factoring in the views of all key stakeholders in general and those to be tasked with implementing the decisions in particular.
Lesson 3:
Examine aspects of a country’s history relevant to your planned undertaking.
Lesson 4:
Once the decision to send troops has been made, formulate the goals of the intervention and communicate them clearly to the agencies involved in implementation; also, shape your messaging to other key stakeholders likely to influence the outcome of the intervention.
Lesson 5:
If you do decide to go in, develop an exit plan in advance.
Lesson 6:
Once in, ensure effective inter-agency coordination and cooperation.
Lesson 7:
Rather than try to mold your local allies in your own image, empower them, encouraging self-reliance, and pay attention to indigenous traditions.
Lesson 8:
You cannot succeed in a military intervention unless the side on whose behalf you intervene is willing to fight for your joint cause.
Lesson 9:
Talk to moderates on the opposite side.
Lesson 10:
When leaving, leave…
Lesson 11:
…but before you leave, secure enforceable guarantees that POWs and MIAs are found and brought home, and give the returning soldiers proper welcome and care.
Lesson 12:
…also before you leave, secure firm and enforceable agreements that would not only meet your own minimum requirements for a negotiated settlement, but also those of your local allies, because the end of an intervention by itself cannot end hostilities.
Lesson 13:
Even after you leave, prevent mission creep.
Lesson 14:
Last but not least: Be willing to learn the lessons.
Only some of these lessons were inferred as the intervention unfolded, while most were drawn years after the withdrawal of the Soviet 40th Army—which made up the bulk of the so-called limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, or OKSVA—on Feb. 15, 1989.
Of course, such hindsight could not have changed anything in the intervention.
We should also bear in mind that “where you stand depends on where you sit”: As some of the passages below demonstrate, some of the “lesson learners” tend to cast their own and their comrades-in-arms’ actions in a favorable light while criticizing the conduct of their peers from other agencies.
Despite the occasional bias, these lessons could still prove useful to policymakers faced with the stark dilemmas of a possible military intervention.
In particular, some of the entries at the end of the list could, perhaps, prove instructive for the U.S. leadership as it contemplates whether or how to end its own intervention in Afghanistan.
Finally, those in charge of applying these lessons should keep in mind historian Ernest May’s procedure for ensuring against amateurism in drawing historical analogies, as described by Graham Allison and Niall Ferguson in their Applied History Manifesto: “Put the analogy as the headline on a sheet of paper; draw a straight line down the middle of the page; write ‘similar’ at the top of one column and ‘different’ at the top of the other; and then set to work.
If you are unable to list at least three points of similarity and three of difference, then you should consult a historian.”
And here is yet another group of lessons...
The Lessons (in far greater detail…)
Lesson 1:
Before making final decisions on issues of fundamental importance, such as military intervention, determine what national interests are at stake, what options exist for advancing or defending those interests and what costs and benefits each of these options would generate, both direct and indirect; and do not let leaders’ personal ambitions impact the ultimate decision.
Winston Churchill once famously observed that the key to Soviet decision-making is “national interest.”
If Churchill was right, then anyone with access to transcripts of Politburo meetings from 1979 should expect to find some kind of discussion on the Soviet national interests at stake in Afghanistan, as well as opportunities for advancing these interests with an intervention.
In reality, the author’s review of transcripts of the Soviet leadership’s deliberations on Afghanistan revealed that while Politburo members did discuss some of the Soviet national interests that were at stake, they failed to take stock of potential, direct and indirect, costs and benefits that their country would encounter if they decided to advance those interests by means of a full-fledged military intervention in Afghanistan.
A failure to grasp that the costs of such an intervention would significantly outweigh the benefits led the Soviet leadership to make an erroneous decision on Dec. 12, 1979, in favor of sending troops en masse into Afghanistan. In addition to horrendous human costs on all sides of the conflict, that decision cost the Soviet Union’s stagnating economy dearly through a combination of such factors as Western sanctions and expenditures needed to sustain the intervention. Moreover, in the decade after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan turned into a hotbed of instability.
This did not only spill over to affect post-Soviet Russia’s Central Asian allies, but also gave a home base to al-Qaeda, which in turn supported the insurgency in Russia’s own North Caucasus. In the end, therefore, the intervention undermined rather than advanced such Soviet interests as having neutral or friendly neighbors and sustainable development of the Soviet economy.
The author’s review of Soviet deliberations on Afghanistan prior to Dec. 12, 1979, reveals a variety of justifications for intervention put forward by different members of the country’s leadership—including ones that concern Soviet national interests such as ensuring the survival of Moscow’s allies and having friendly neighbors. Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov and some other Politburo members, for instance, pointed out the need to bolster the rule of the pro-Moscow People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)—which had come to power in an April 1978 coup—and save it from being overthrown by opposition forces.
The coup, which the Soviets preferred to call the “April Revolution,” had resulted in the ouster of Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan and his eventual succession by PDPA General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki; by the fall of 1979, however, Taraki had been assassinated at the behest of his rival and party colleague Hafizullah Amin, who took over as PDPA leader and president of what became the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA).
This power grab gave Politburo members new cause for concern: One of the arguments they considered in favor of intervention was the perceived need to prevent Amin from initiating a rapprochement with the West, which they saw as a possibility, according to a secret Central Committee memo signed by several Politburo members—including Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, KGB chairman Yuri Andropov and Ustinov, the defense minister—as well as Boris Ponomaryov, chief of the Central Committee’s International Department.
In his 1995 book about the intervention, “The Tragedy and Valor of Afghanistan,” Gen. Alexander Lyakhovsky wrote that Andropov and Ustinov told a meeting of select Politburo members in Brezhnev’s study on Dec. 8, 1979, that they feared Amin’s interest in mending fences with Washington could eventually allow the U.S. to deploy medium-range nuclear-armed missiles in Afghanistan to target the Soviets’ Baikonur cosmodrome, among other facilities. (More generally, Lyakhovsky, who served in Afghanistan in 1987-1989, blamed the decision to intervene on what he saw as a strategic disinformation campaign pursued by the U.S. and its allies, among other things.)
The Soviet leadership also feared that, if allowed to establish a presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. would be able to collect telemetry during launches of newly designed Russian missiles, since most of the main testing ranges were located in southern parts of the Soviet Union, according to a 1999 article by Gen. Valentin Varennikov, who was not a Politburo member but was intimately involved in planning and carrying out the intervention as deputy chief of the Soviet General Staff.
Some of the post-factum analysis of the intervention also made references to the Soviet Union’s geopolitical interest in keeping Afghanistan anchored to the Cold War-era “socialist camp” of countries. For instance, Gen. Ivan Pavlovsky, who had commanded Soviet ground troops as deputy defense minister in 1967-1980, believed that several key factors played a role in the decision to send in troops, including the possible strengthening of American positions on the Eurasian continent, the deterioration of Soviet relations with China, China’s rapprochement with the U.S. and a dramatic increase in the influence of Islamic fundamentalism within Afghanistan. Varennikov wrote in his memoirs, entitled “The Unrepeatable,” that the Soviet leadership’s decision hinged on “the calculation that the presence of our troops in Afghanistan would cool the hot heads of Amin’s supporters, and even those of the opposition forces, and … would prevent possible encroachments by the Americans and stabilize the situation.”
General of the Army1 Makhmut Gareyev, the chief Soviet military advisor to the Afghan army after the withdrawal, wrote in a 1994 article called “Why and How We Went Into Afghanistan” that he saw the USSR’s “geopolitical interests” in general as the main driver of the decision to intervene. Among those interests he singled out the Soviet Union’s need to have loyal or at least neutral neighbors to ensure the security of the country’s frontier regions, particularly in the south.
It should be noted that in addition to the need to defend the aforementioned interests, various other justifications for the intervention were offered in the course of discussions by the Politburo.
Not all of them look plausible. For instance, one rationale cited during the Dec. 8 meeting of five Politburo members in Brezhnev’s study was the need to prevent Iraq from getting access to Afghanistan’s uranium deposits, which Baghdad could have then used to build nuclear weapons.
That concern was raised by Ustinov and Andropov, according to Lyakhovsky’s aforementioned book.
Another justification cited by the duo was the need to disrupt what they saw as U.S.-supported efforts by Turkey to build a new Ottoman empire that would incorporate the Soviet Union’s Central Asian republics, according to the book.
The top Soviet decision makers in the Central Committee’s Politburo did see some downsides to an intervention too, including the reversal of Soviet-U.S. détente and the inevitable damage to the USSR’s reputation in the world as a whole. Less than nine months before the intervention, when the Afghan government had asked Moscow for help against an uprising in Herat, Gromyko, the foreign minister, allegedly told fellow Politburo members that the Soviet army would be branded “an aggressor” if it were sent into Afghanistan and that it would have to “first and foremost fight the Afghan people,” according to a transcript of the March 18, 1979, deliberations by Politburo members cited in Lyakhovsky’s book. Gromyko warned that Brezhnev’s summits with American and French leaders would have to be cancelled.
According to the same source, Andropov agreed it would be wrong to send troops. “We can only prop up the [April 27, 1978] revolution in Afghanistan with our bayonets, but this is completely unacceptable for us” and “we cannot run such a risk,” Andropov said as almost 9,000 DRA soldiers mutinied against Taraki’s regime.
The Politburo meeting concluded with the consensus that troops should not be sent, but that the Soviet Union will expand military aid to Taraki’s regime.
However, the issues raised at this and other Politburo meetings represented just a fraction of the costs that the Soviet Union could incur. In the end, in its decision-making process, the Politburo neither took full stock of the exact interests at stake nor produced a comprehensive review of all the potential, direct and indirect, costs and benefits of sending troops into Afghanistan.
This flew in the face of warnings from some of the Soviet Union’s top military strategists—warnings that the Politburo ultimately ignored. One senior Soviet military officer said to have comprehensively assessed the costs of a campaign before it began was the commander of Soviet Ground Forces, Ivan Pavlovsky. Pavlovsky inspected the state of affairs in Afghanistan in August-November 1979 and concluded that Soviet troops should not be sent there.
In a 1999 article for the aforementioned Rodina journal Pavlovsky recalled citing seven reasons not to intervene militarily in a report he sent to Ustinov upon his return from the 1979 trip to Afghanistan.
These included: his perception that the April 27, 1978, socialist “revolution” did not enjoy significant popular support; the lack of a working class and mass belief in Islam; widespread possession of arms; porous, ill-guarded borders that would allow the U.S. and its allies to ship in arms; an inevitable popular backlash against such an intervention; and the resulting deterioration in relations with the U.S. and NATO.
Anatoly Chernyaev, who was a senior international affairs analyst at the Central Committee when the decision to intervene was made, was quick to point out that it could not have possibly generated a net benefit for the Soviet Union. “Have we really acted only for the sake of revolutionary philanthropy? The argument that we had to do so to secure the border is ridiculous,” he wrote on Dec. 30, 1979, three days after Soviet commandos stormed Amin’s residence outside Kabul in an operation code-named Storm-333 to kill him and bring Babrak Karmal to power, as Moscow’s troops poured across the Soviet-Afghan border. In Chernyaev’s view, the Soviet Union could have reaped “political and prestige dividends” if only it had chosen to prop up socialist factions in Afghanistan without a large-scale military intervention. Beyond seeing no benefits from the intervention, Chernyaev—who went on to become assistant for international affairs to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary who ended the intervention—saw serious costs too.
In a diary entry dated Nov. 1, 1980, he lamented that the intervention cost “several million [in cash] every day, and … the blood of our soldiers also every day.” The head of the Moscow-based Institute of the Economy of the Global Socialist System, Oleg Bogomolov, made similar points in a memo sent to the Central Committee at about the same time as Chernyaev recorded his thoughts.
“With the sending of troops to Afghanistan our policy … has crossed the permissible boundaries of confrontation in the third world,” Bogomolov wrote in the 1980 memo. “The benefits of this action turned out to be insignificant in comparison with the damage that was inflicted on our interests.” The costs, as seen by the authors, included: the emergence of a hotbed of instability on the “southern flank of the USSR”; generating dissent among the Soviet Union’s allies regarding the intervention; burying any prospects for normalizing Soviet-Chinese relations; facilitating consolidation within the anti-Soviet coalition of states that “girded the USSR from West to East”; stalling Soviet-U.S. detente; and strengthening the West’s technological and economic sanctions against Moscow (something Russian President Vladimir Putin may find all too familiar in the wake of his intervention in Ukraine).
The author of the 1980 memo and other informed sources have also pointed out the “economic burden” the invasion placed on the Soviet economy—and it was no small burden, indeed. As of the late 1970s, Soviet aid accounted for half of all foreign aid to the DRA, according to Vladimir Toporkov, a KGB officer who advised Afghanistan’s security establishment in the 1980s and went on to become a general in post-Soviet Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
By his calculations, the overall costs, including both aid and funding for Soviet military operations in Afghanistan, totaled the equivalent of $50 billion in 1979-1989.
That sum by itself was “neither catastrophic nor painful” for the Soviet economy, according to Toporkov.2 However, if one were to count not only direct but also indirect costs, such as Western sanctions imposed on the USSR over its Afghanistan campaign, these were a significant destabilizing factor, for the Soviet Union, according to Toporkov’s study, “The Influence of the Afghan Factor on Economic Processes in the Soviet Union in 1989-1992,” published by the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military-Historical Journal in 2004.
Like Toporkov, generals Gareyev and Lyakhovsky also waited for the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan to end before publicly weighing its pros and cons, with both of them concluding that its costs had outweighed the benefits.
Gareyev, who retired shortly after his time as chief Soviet military advisor to the DRA army, wrote in his 1994 article that the primary cost of the campaign was that “the Soviet Union found itself in international isolation,” its relations with the U.S., NATO and China deteriorating.
He also wrote in a 1996 book called “My Last War” that “the protracted war in Afghanistan and the need for continued support of the regime in Kabul generated huge financial and material costs, undermining the already limping economy” of the USSR and sapping its military strength. “The decision of the Soviet leadership to stage an armed intervention into Afghan affairs ended up generating more minuses than pluses,” he wrote in the 1994 article, published in the Russian Defense Ministry’s Oriyentir journal.
Lyakhovsky, for his part, believed that one of the costs vastly underestimated by the Soviet leadership was how strong local resistance to the intervention would be: “Scant regard toward the Afghans played an important role too. Ustinov, for example, thought that some of the rebels would instantly lay down arms, while the rest would flee as soon as the Soviet troops appeared in Afghanistan,” he wrote in a 1999 Rodina article called “How the Decision to Send Troops to Afghanistan Was Made.”
“In practice, however, underestimating the adversary cost the USSR dearly. The same thing happened in Chechnya in 1994,” Lyakhovsky wrote, referring to Russia’s first war with separatist Chechnya.
In addition to failing to fully anticipate the costs and benefits that the Soviet Union would encounter if it were to try advancing its interests in Afghanistan by means of military intervention, some Soviet leaders let their personal ambitions influence the fateful decisions they made on their country’s behalf. For instance, Varennikov wrote of “our leaders’ ambitions” in his 1999 article, headlined “Those on Top Wanted Glory, the Military Opposed the War.”
When listing reasons for the intervention, he referred specifically to Ustinov’s personal ambitions: “It was difficult to call Dmitry Fyodorovich an outstanding political leader. However, at one point I sensed how he began to want to try on the laurels of a strategist and a victor.” While Ustinov’s personal feelings may indeed have been a contributing factor, they were not as decisive as Brezhnev’s. In his diary Chernyaev bluntly blamed the intervention on Brezhnev’s desire to take revenge on Amin. Chernyaev wrote in his dairy on Feb. 5, 1980, that some of Brezhnev’s confidants must have managed to “play on” the Soviet leader’s “demential indignation” over Amin’s decision to have Taraki ousted and then killed. That Brezhnev was agitated by Taraki’s murder is also confirmed by his personal physician, Yevgeny Chazov. “In spite of the decline of his ability for critical perception, he took that event much to heart,” Chazov recalled in his book, “Health and Power: Memoirs of a Kremlin Doctor.” According to him, Brezhnev was most infuriated with the way Amin undermined the Soviet leader’s personal credibility by killing Taraki whom Brezhnev had hosted and publicly promised support to a month earlier. “What will they say in other countries? How can one trust Brezhnev’s word if his assurances of support and protection remain just words,” Chazov quoted Brezhnev as saying. Gareyev, in his post-factum analysis, also wrote that Taraki’s murder on Oct. 9, 1979, had “pushed Brezhnev toward that step” of sending in troops.
After the killing “there was no longer any carefully considered analysis of the situation” by Soviet decision makers and “much was being done in haste,” according to Gareyev’s 1994 article. Lyakhovsky, in his 1999 article in the Russian government’s Rodina journal, also said that Brezhnev’s view on military intervention in Afghanistan changed after Taraki’s murder.
Lesson 2:
Ensure a sufficiently broad and comprehensive inter-agency process of reviewing potential decisions to use force, factoring in the views of all key stakeholders in general and those to be tasked with implementing the decisions in particular.
One reason the Soviet leadership erred in its decision to send a military contingent to Afghanistan was that the decision-making circle was very narrow. Had the political leaders included the country’s top military strategists, the decision could have been the opposite. According to one authoritative account by then First Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Kornienko, “a narrow group” that consisted of only five of more than a dozen Politburo members at the time “made the final political decision” to send troops. Those were Brezhnev, Andropov, Ustinov, Gromyko and Mikhail Suslov. Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin, also a Politburo member, was absent from the meeting, according to Kornienko’s recollection of the events, which he published as part of his memoirs, “Cold War: Testimony of a Participant.”3
According to Kornienko’s account, the hand-written, two-paragraph resolution passed by this small group on Dec. 12, 1979, was “formalized retroactively” with signatures from the remaining Politburo members. “Thus, not even all the members of the Politburo made the fateful decision,” according to Kornienko, whose recollection is corroborated in Lyakhovsky’s book.
Notably, even though the decision was adopted only by a handful of Politburo members, its signatories framed it as a resolution of the entire Central Committee, even though most of its members had not been consulted before it was made; other high-level officials were likewise kept out of the loop.
Chernyaev was equally dismayed by the narrowness of the decision-making: “I think that in the history of Russia, even under Stalin, there has not yet been such a period when such important actions were undertaken without a hint of the slightest coordination with anyone, [without any] advice, discussion, careful consideration, even if only in a very narrow circle,” he wrote in his diary in December 1979. It is notable that despite their key positions, both Chernyaev and other senior officials in the Central Committee staff were kept in the dark not only about the exact reasons for the decision to send in troops but also about who actually initiated that decision. It was only in 1985 that one of Chernyaev’s colleagues told him Kornienko had claimed in a casual chat that it was, in Kornienko’s view, his boss, Foreign Minister Gromyko, who had convinced Brezhnev to send in troops.
In addition to being too narrow, the circle of decision makers also suffered from a lack of reliable information.
The fact “that the information was distorted did not allow the country’s top leadership to understand the processes taking place in Afghanistan and prevent fatal mistakes,” Gareyev wrote in his book.
As Col. Nikolai Vasilyev, a military historian, explained in his own 2014 article on the lessons of the Soviet military intervention: “Many leaders, including members of the Politburo, adapted themselves to the opinion of L. I. Brezhnev. The intelligence and other agencies were required to confirm the ‘sagacity of the leader,’ and the information and recommendations of analysts and experts that did not fit into the pre-planned framework were thrown away.” The quality of information fed to the Politburo’s top brass did not improve even after Soviet troops were deployed and learning about the situation in Afghanistan first-hand. “Most likely, the General [Secretary] doesn’t even know what is happening around us.
Briefings from Afghanistan are prepped for him so that they’re full of ‘complete normalization.’ As for information from the West, it’s probably ‘at the level of Pravda’ [the Central Committee newspaper], since he’s long been kept in ‘spare-him mode.’ So he’s not even aware of what he’s done,” Chernyaev wrote in his dairy on Feb. 9, 1980. As important, Chernyaev believes the ageing Brezhnev could not have drawn sound conclusions from the information even if it had not been distorted to please him because of the extent to which his mental capabilities had deteriorated. In a Sept. 29, 1982, diary entry Chernyaev describes how Brezhnev, in Baku to laud the performance of Soviet Azerbaijan, had become so senile by the third year of the Soviet campaign that, 10 minutes into a televised speech, he did not realize he was reading the wrong text even after it explicitly referred to “Afghanistan” instead of “Azerbaijan.”
Even when accurate information on Afghanistan did make it to the top decision makers, they often rejected it as they suffered from cognitive bias, dismissing dissenting views even when they were presented by key stakeholders who would be tasked with executing the decisions.
Top Soviet military commanders felt particularly slighted by their exclusion from the decision-making process. As Vasilyev, the military historian, lamented in his article, published by the Defense Ministry’s Military-Historical Journal, “The Special Commission of the Politburo for Afghanistan, headed by Foreign Minister A. A. Gromyko, in effect replaced the Council of Defense of the USSR and, in part, its working body, the General Staff.
… Among them [the commission members] there were no professionals of military strategy.” Chief of the Soviet General Staff Nikolai Ogarkov, his first deputy Sergei Akhromeyev and Varennikov, a deputy of Ogarkov’s, had been asked to present their thoughts about sending troops sometime before the pared-down Politburo meeting Dec. 12. The trio argued that a Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan would be “impossible and inconceivable, first and foremost from the political standpoint,” according to Chernyaev’s diary. Rather than heed their advice, Ustinov, the Soviet defense minister and a Politburo member, dismissed their arguments, telling them “not to discuss [orders]” and to present a detailed plan of the operation.
Ogarkov, it should be noted, objected to the intervention on more than one occasion. When summoned to the Politburo on Dec. 8, 1979, Ogarkov called on its members to reject Gromyko and Andropov’s arguments in favor of reversing the Soviet leadership’s previous position, which had been to refrain from sending troops. He repeated his calls again the following day in Brezhnev’s presence, warning that “we will turn all of eastern Islamism against ourselves and lose politically across the world,” only to be shut down by Andropov: “You were invited not to have your opinion heard, but to write down the Politburo’s directives and organize their implementation.”
That conflict, according to Varennikov, led to a dramatic deterioration in Ogarkov’s relations with Andropov; Ogarkov lost his post after Andropov succeeded Brezhnev as general secretary. One senior Soviet commander who lost his post even before the campaign had begun, possibly over his opposition to the intervention, was the aforementioned commander of Soviet Ground Forces, Pavlovsky. As described above, after his travels in Afghanistan in summer-fall of 1979, Pavlovsky claims he pleaded with the Soviet military-political leadership not to send a contingent, but his advice was not heeded; shortly afterwards he was relieved from his post.
In his 1994 article Gareyev criticized the Soviet political leadership for ignoring Ogarkov’s views and telling him to stick to military planning. “As life has repeatedly proved, political decisions prove viable and grounded only when they take into account all aspects, including foreign policy, economic, ideological and military-strategic considerations,” he wrote, adding: “The General Staff cannot determine policies, but they must actively participate in crafting military aspects of this policy and ignoring these aspects can lead to major political failures.”
Interestingly, while telling the General Staff to stick to military planning, the Politburo would not even heed the staff’s advice on such a key element of that planning as the personnel strength of the intervening force. Ogarkov had responded to the political leadership’s order to develop an intervention plan with a proposal for deploying 30-35 divisions, but his request was shot down, according to Gareyev’s recollections of the events, which he shared with University of Kansas history professor Jacob Kipp in 1996 and also put on paper for his other book on the subject, entitled “Afghan Suffering.”4 However, the Politburo authorized only 75,000-80,000 servicemen, according to Lyakhovsky’s book (at the time, a typical Soviet infantry division had 13,000 servicemen).5
Lesson 3:
Examine aspects of a country’s history relevant to your planned undertaking.
There’s a joke that says Americans learn about the history of other countries by invading them. The Soviets, you could say, merely recalled what they had already learned about Afghanistan’s history by invading it. Had the Soviet leadership factored in the way that Afghan tribes’ intense and enduring dislike for outside powers and their local clients had foiled previous empires’ attempts to anchor the country, that may have influenced Moscow’s final analysis about sending in troops and helped to save them from a costly mistake.
None of the transcripts of Politburo discussions about intervening in Afghanistan contains any significant discussion of Afghan history. Analyzing how Afghans had fought off various past encroachments, by the British Empire among others, would have perhaps made Soviet leaders more averse to using force to accomplish anything there. The absence of such discussions is especially ironic given that one of Soviet ideology’s most revered figures warned how “unruly” Afghans could be: None other than Friedrich Engels observed between the first and second of the three Anglo-Afghan wars that Afghans’ “indomitable hatred of rule, and their love of individual independence, … prevents their becoming a powerful nation; but this very irregularity and uncertainty of action makes them dangerous neighbors … [for whom] war is an excitement.” The Politburo members could have also examined how Joseph Stalin staged an abortive military intervention in Afghanistan in an effort to prop up Amanulla Khan, the sovereign from 1919 to 1929 who signed the 1921 Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty, but then had to abdicate his throne in a revolt. In 1929 Stalin sent 1,000 Red Army soldiers into Afghanistan disguised as Afghan soldiers to operate jointly with some of Khan’s loyalists, according to Lyakhovsky’s book and a 1999 article in Rodina by Pavel Aptekar. The joint Soviet-Afghan unit took Mazar-i-Sharif in April 1929, but Stalin then had to recall his troops after learning that Khan had fled to India.
Some Soviet officers came to the same conclusions as Engels, but only after being sent to Afghanistan to take part in the 1979-1989 intervention. “It was impossible to defeat those Afghan bearded men and their sons, with whom we then had to fight. They were ready to fight their whole lives, and they had nothing to lose from it because they had nothing to their name, just like now. This is a proud, freedom-loving people. They have nothing but their faith and the desire to live the way they want and consider to be right,” KGB officer Vladimir Garkavy, who completed multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan in 1979-1984, wrote in his book. Gromov also cited history in his 1999 Rodina article on Afghanistan. “Any interference from the outside is deemed to fail in a country where tribes have struggled against each other for centuries and where nationalism is extremely developed,” he wrote in his book, which contains more useful insights on the intervention than a New York Times op-ed he co-wrote with Dmitry Rogozin; entitled “Russian Advice on Afghanistan,” that January 2010 piece is essentially a wish list Moscow had at the time for U.S. conduct in Afghanistan.
Lesson 4:
Once the decision to send troops has been made, formulate the goals of the intervention and communicate them clearly to the agencies involved in implementation; also, shape your messaging to other key stakeholders likely to influence the outcome of the intervention.
The Soviet leadership’s marching orders for its military contingent, OKSVA, were anything but clear—with the exception of the secret order to immediately replace Amin with Karmal. The fact that the Soviet leadership failed to define what would constitute the ultimate long-term success once the initial goal of regime change had been achieved made it difficult for both that leadership and commanders on the ground to understand, once Amin was removed, whether the Soviet intervention was succeeding, failing or stagnating, other than by measuring how much territory the DRA regime controlled at any time. In the absence of a well-defined mission, Soviet commanders oscillated between merely providing support to DRA forces and actually leading combat engagements, while some of the military advisors pressed for a troop surge that could expand the mission to sealing Afghanistan’s borders. In addition to failing to clearly communicate their goals to their own troops, Soviet leaders also failed to communicate their goals in Afghanistan to the international community as a whole, making it easier for the U.S. to win support in its efforts to isolate and punish the USSR over the intervention.
The lack of a clear long-term mission was evident in the key documents kicking off the Soviet intervention, both on the political and the military side. The two-paragraph Politburo resolution initiating the troop deployment, entitled “Concerning the Situation in ‘A,’” stated neither the reasons for the campaign nor its goals. The military directive to execute the Politburo’s decision, issued jointly by the Defense Ministry and the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Force on Dec. 24, 1979, gave only a vague idea of why troops were being sent into Afghanistan, proclaiming it was to “give international aid to the friendly Afghan people and also to create favorable conditions to interdict possible anti-Afghan actions from neighboring countries.” (Defense Ministry newspapers such as Red Star didn’t provide “any sensible explanation” either, according to Gareyev’s 1994 article.) In his book, Gareyev recalled that Directive 312/12/001, signed by Ustinov and Ogarkov, stated that Soviet troops were being sent into Afghanistan for “fulfillment of international duty.” “What that duty constituted was to be decided by each commander and soldier themselves,” Gareyev wrote. According to one website maintained by Soviet veterans of the Afghan war, the directive did not provide for Soviet troops’ participation in combat. That created ambiguity in its interpretation, even though the 40th Army did get involved in fighting almost immediately. For instance, Marshal Sergei Sokolov, the deputy defense minister in charge of the ministry’s Operational Group in Afghanistan in 1980, told Soviet military advisors there in January of that year that “special attention should be paid to the inadmissibility of Soviet troops’ involvement in the armed struggle against the rebels; their [the troops’] functions are completely different.” Several days later, however, the same commander, under pressure from Afghan allies, sanctioned the use of “one or two units of Soviet troops” to oust the mujahedeen from an artillery depot, according to Gareyev’s 1994 article. In addition, while Sokolov’s boss, Ustinov, also under pressure from the Afghan leadership, “demanded that Soviet troops engage in active combat operations,” General Staff chief Ogarkov, opposed to the intervention from the outset, tried to restrain the troops’ involvement in large-scale military operations, according to Gareyev. Gromov, commander of the 40th Army, which made up the bulk of OKSVA, described in his book how he prioritized minimizing Soviet casualties and criticized Kabul for constantly pleading with Moscow to have his troops step up operations while trying to find ways to prevent using its own troops. Gareyev—who commanded no units in Afghanistan and, therefore, bore no personal responsibility for casualties—appears to have criticized what he saw as the 40th Army commanders’ passiveness, writing in his book that some of their most important combat operations “were undertaken only at the request of the Afghan leadership and under pressure from the Soviet leadership.”
(In the end, a decision to limit involvement in combat operations appears to have prevailed among the Soviet top brass: At some point as many as 70 percent of the 40th Army’s forces were tasked with ensuring transportation of humanitarian supplies and 60 percent of its activities were geared toward peacekeeping and nation-building, such as helping to build infrastructure and training the DRA army, according to Gromov’s estimates.)
The Soviet military’s top brass also appears not to have spelled out rules of engagement when sending in the troops. “The inadmissibility of the use of weapons against the civilian population is stipulated by international legal norms, but what about the ‘civilian’ armed with an automatic rifle or a grenade launcher? Wait till he shoots?” asked Gareyev in his book. He also recalled: “As strange as it may sound, from the very beginning of the introduction of troops and until the end of their stay in Afghanistan there was no clear line on whether our troops in this country should fight or not.”
As a result, some Soviet commanders displayed “covert resistance to attempts to force the troops to fight,” Gareyev wrote. The Soviet political leadership’s lack of a “clear goal” and a “definite plan of action” had a direct impact on military operations. In fact, in Gareyev’s view, the Soviet leadership continued to have neither “a definite political, strategic plan nor an integral concept of the use of troops in Afghanistan from the very beginning and in essence until the end” of the campaign.
Lyakhovsky concurred in his book that Soviet leaders had failed to spell out to the troops what they would be doing in Afghanistan, lamenting in his book that “the political leadership of the USSR formulated the strategic goals of the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan in a vague and unclear way,” except, again, for the goal of replacing Amin with Karmal, which was not made public. According to Gromov, however, the 40th Army did at least have clear initial goals. The first was to keep the “April Revolution from dying,” he wrote in reference to the April 1979 coup d’état that had brought the Moscow-friendly PDPA to power. The second goal was to prevent external aggression. The 40th Army “handled that [first] task brilliantly,” but then the PDPA’s leadership managed “craftily to drag the 40th Army into a large-scale guerilla war,” Gromov wrote.
While criticizing the Soviet political leadership for failing to formulate and communicate clear goals for the campaign in Afghanistan, Gareyev and other officers involved in the campaign had their own ideas on what these goals should be. In Gareyev’s view, which he shared with Ogarkov in December 1979, the Soviet military contingent should have been tasked with sealing Afghanistan’s borders and establishing control over all major settlements, communications and other infrastructure, arguing that the Soviet command should send 40 rather than four divisions to accomplish these goals.
Lev Rokhlin, who commanded infantry regiments in Afghanistan and then fought in Chechnya, concurred with Gareyev’s view that the Afghan borders had to be sealed, but also thought OKSVA should have refrained from siding with any of the warring parties in the country, according to a 1999 article of his in Rodina, “I Was Not Afraid to Fight.” It should also be noted that the Soviet command did task 50,000 soldiers with securing Afghanistan’s borders as of 1986, according to Akhromeyev, Ogarkov’s first deputy at the General Staff, but that number was insufficient to stop the inflow of arms and rebels. In general, it is doubtful that such a goal would have been achievable. If the experience of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and Russia’s own experience in Chechnya during the two campaigns there are any guide, a complete sealing of borders would have proved problematic, at best.
That’s why, perhaps, Vladimir Kryuchkov, who served as deputy chairman of the KGB during most of the intervention before heading up the agency in 1988, believed the mission should have been limited to a special operation to replace Amin with Karmal. “I remain convinced that a short special operation” to effect regime change “would have been the best outcome,” Kryuchkov was quoted as saying in a 1999 issue of Rodina.
In addition to failing to clearly communicate their goals to their own troops, Soviet leaders also failed in their communications with allies, foes and the international community on the issue. For instance, while official Soviet statements cited the Soviet-Afghan Friendship treaties of 1921 and 1978 as giving legal grounds for the intervention, portrayed by the Soviet propaganda machine as “international aid to the friendly Afghan people,” the Politburo decision makers did not even bother to have their Dec. 12, 1979, resolution approved by the Soviet parliament, though such a move may have somewhat increased the “official” credibility of their decision in the eyes of their allies. Lyakhovsky noted this problem in his 2005 book: “The then leadership of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] did not consider it necessary to submit this question for discussion by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. It was simply announced as ‘international assistance’—end of story.”
Lyakhovsky’s boss, Varennikov, thought it was wrong not to reach out to the international community on the decision to send troops into Afghanistan. “What was the main mistake that our leadership made after making a decision to deploy troops? That we did not announce it.
We should have preempted the Americans and others by announcing it to the whole world: The leadership of Afghanistan repeatedly asked us for military assistance,” Vasilyev quotes Varennikov as saying. Moreover, the propaganda dimension of the Soviets’ efforts vis-à-vis the Afghan public did not become a priority until the sixth year of the campaign. It was in 1985 that the Soviet military-political leadership made the decision to “organize special propaganda in relation to the population and opposition of Afghanistan” and that was done in response to an increase in Western “information influence” there, according to a 2003 article on the “informational and psychological struggle” in Afghanistan by Col. Yuri Serooky in the Russian General Staff journal Military Thought.
To be fair, it is unclear whether such propaganda could have made much of a difference in the battle for Afghan hearts and minds even if launched on Day 1 of the intervention. After all, it would have been very difficult to make Afghans forget whose troops had poured into the president’s palace and killed Amin in the Storm-333 operation—no matter that Afghan leaders, including both Taraki and Amin himself, had asked the Soviets some 20 times to send in troops, according to Gareyev’s 1994 article and Lyakhovsky’s 1999 article.
Lesson 5:
If you do decide to go in, develop an exit plan in advance.
It should also be noted that the Soviet military had no exit plan when going in. The first draft of such a plan was developed only in 1980, according to Gareyev’s book, which cites Yuri Drozdov, the former chief of the KGB’s so-called “Illegals Program.” According to Varennikov’s 1999 article, however, it was not until 1983 that Soviet commanders submitted a proposal for withdrawing troops for consideration by the country’s political leadership. Of course, the development of an exit plan in advance could not have influenced the outcome of the intervention. In the end, Gromov, the last commander of the 40th Army, had many months to plan the withdrawal and executed it both leaving months’ worth of supplies for the remaining DRA forces and minimizing losses among OKSVA personnel during the withdrawal itself. However, had the intervention gone wrong in the early stages of the campaign (e.g., if Afghan rebels had inflicted massive losses on the advancing troops or a significant unexpected event had emerged, such as a major military conflict elsewhere), then a hasty, unplanned withdrawal could have cost a lot of lives.
Also, while the military component of the exit was well planned and executed, the diplomatic component fell short. As discussed further down, the Soviets failed to secure either assurances for the return of their own POWs and MIAs or the effective enforcement of other signatories’ obligations on ending aid to the rebels. The latter accelerated the fall of the PDPA regime, bringing instability to the disintegrating Soviet empire’s southern frontiers.
Lesson 6:
Once in, ensure effective inter-agency coordination and cooperation.
Both the preparation and the execution of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan revealed that inter-agency coordination and cooperation was inadequate. That by itself could not have decided the outcome of the campaign, but inter-agency rivalry did limit the OKSVA command’s situational awareness, causing a range of problems, including the diminished effectiveness of combat planning and operations.
Initial coordination was so ineffective that key figures were kept in the dark about their colleagues’ plans even within a single agency. For instance, the chief Soviet military advisor in Afghanistan, Gen. Saltan Magomedov, had no idea that commandoes of the General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate would storm Amin’s palace, in cooperation with KGB commandos and other forces, to replace him with Karmal. When Ustinov called this star-studded advisor in December 1979 sometime prior to the attack and asked to be briefed on “readiness for Operation Storm-333,” Magomedov did not know what his superior was talking about, according to Gareyev’s book. When Magomedov admitted this, Ustinov suggested he contact the KGB representative in Kabul. When Magomedov did that, he got “hints, not … the necessary information,” Gareyev wrote.
Moreover, according to Gareyev’s 1994 article, Soviet military advisors in Afghanistan learned that Soviet troops had entered the country from foreign radio broadcasts.
Cooperation across agencies was equally if not more problematic. Both Gromov and Gareyev listed multiple instances when Defense Ministry and KGB personnel would fail to coordinate their actions in Afghanistan. Being army generals, both blamed the lack of cooperation on the KGB, particularly when it came to interactions with the General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU. KGB agents in Afghanistan would sometimes refuse to share intelligence they had collected directly with the Soviet armed forces’ commanders there, sending it to superiors at KGB headquarters in Moscow instead. “As a result, we [40th Army Command] would learn about actions supposedly planned by the mujahedeen from Moscow,” Gromov wrote.
“Such situations arose with depressing consistency and created certain tensions between military intelligence [GRU] officers and their colleagues from the State Security Committee [KGB],” Gromov wrote.
It was only in 1985, six years after the campaign began, that inter-agency intelligence coordination meetings began to take place at 40th Army headquarters so that representatives of the GRU, KGB, Interior Ministry and Foreign Ministry could jointly examine and analyze intelligence, according to Gromov.
Lesson 7:
Rather than try to mold your local allies in your own image, empower them, encouraging self-reliance, and pay attention to indigenous traditions.
As stated above, the Soviet Union spent the equivalent of billions of dollars arming and training DRA forces, including Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and security troops.
The results proved to be far from either lasting or sufficient, however. DRA troops proved unable either to hold on to territorial gains made by the Soviet 40th Army or to withstand rebel offensives after Moscow withdrew the army and then discontinued aid.
The implosion of the DRA forces—which proved to be no match for the rebels in skills, tactics or morale—brought instability to the southern frontiers of the Soviet empire.
One of the senior Soviet officials to criticize the quality of DRA forces’ training by their Soviet advisors was Leonid Shebarshin, then a general in the KGB’s foreign intelligence branch.
While some Soviet military commanders sought to portray their efforts to train the Afghans as adequate, blaming poor results on the Afghans’ ineptitude, Shebarshin offered searing criticism of the trainers themselves in his memoirs. “What was the source of the [Soviet commanders’] distrust of the [Afghan] ally? How did it happen that two thousand advisers, including colonels and generals, failed to create a single fully combat-capable and reliable unit in the Afghan army?
How did it happen that the tactics of the Afghan army’s actions are not based on modern realities but on the hopelessly outdated experience of war in the open spaces of Russia?” wrote Shebarshin, who spent more than a decade in the region, conducting more than 20 trips to Afghanistan and eventually becoming chief of KGB operations in the Middle East.
In Shebarshin’s view, one reason the training of Afghan troops proved to be ineffective was that the Soviet commanders never learned how to delegate powers to their trainees: “We did teach something to Afghans, no doubt.
But mainly we ordered them around and commanded them, ‘stitching them on’ to our operations, imposing our decisions, while loudly shouting about the weak fighting capacity of the ally.”
Gareyev agreed with Shebarshin’s assessment on the lack of Soviet commanders’ trust in their Afghan allies, but blamed it in his book on KGB operatives.
Whether it was the lack of trust that adversely affected soldiers’ conduct, or the other way around, is unclear. What is clear, however, from all the Soviet commanders whose writings and statements were reviewed for this article, is that this conduct was subpar.
Rather than try to press their Afghan allies into some Marxist-Leninist mold, the Soviets should have encouraged the PDPA leadership to revert to indigenous traditions of power sharing to ensure national reconciliation and subsequent self-reliance. As Gromov wrote in his book, “A puppet-string mentality grew so strong among Afghans that they could no longer act independently, without the help of the Soviets.”
Chernyaev was even starker in his assessment of the Afghan leadership’s overdependence on the Soviets for making crucial decisions: “Karmalism is the dogmatism of Marxism-Leninism plus parasitism in relation to the USSR,” he wrote on Aug. 28, 1987, in his diary.
As Gareyev wrote: “In the early 1980s, in relation to Afghanistan, the most realistic thing was [for Soviet-policymakers] to avoid striving for the creation of a similar, obedient and unconditionally socialist state, but to support more moderate forces that enjoyed the support of the majority of the population and to push for reconciliation of the parties from the very beginning.” Gromov struck a similar note. “It is impossible to make country like Afghanistan, with its completely different way of life, with different religion, low level of development, a country that lives in its fourteenth century according to its calendar, similar to the Soviet Union. It would be a real absurdity,” Gromov wrote.
Lesson 8:
You cannot succeed in a military intervention unless the side on whose behalf you intervene is willing to fight for your joint cause.
No amount of training and empowering your local allies will help an intervention succeed unless those allies are actually willing to fight for your joint cause. The Soviets intervened to bring Karmal’s PDPA faction to power, going as far as assassinating a president to make way for their protégé. But the PDPA lacked a sufficient number of loyalists willing to fight for that cause, and many of the tens of thousands of men conscripted into the Moscow-aligned Afghan forces preferred to either avoid battle or outright desert when given orders to fight opposition forces.
Gromov vented repeatedly in his book about Afghan civil and military authorities’ failure to hold on to territorial gains made by Soviet forces, implying that differing priorities played a part. “The local Afghan leadership, despite its pro-Soviet sentiment, was not interested in having us conduct combat operations with maximum efficiency. Only a few of them [Afghan officials] tried to consolidate their power and govern in the provinces that we had ‘cleared.’ Obviously, they understood that sooner or later the war would end and there would be no one to face the music but them,” Gromov wrote of his first tour of duty, which ended in 1982 with him commanding an infantry division. His second tour of duty, which he began in 1985 as the General Staff’s representative in Afghanistan, was not marked by significant changes. Gromov called the situation he returned to that year “a dead end”: “One and a half months after our battalions returned to [their] military camps, we were again forced to conduct operations” in the same areas, he wrote in his book. “Our experience has shown that the results we achieved during our combat operations are not then utilized by the Afghans.
About one and a half to two months after completion of an operation everything would go back to square one: Mujahedeen would again take the districts from which we had knocked them out; they would restore their old bases with weapons and ammunition, coming very close to our sites again and resume shelling and attacks.
The question is: What did we fight for so long, sacrificing our guys in the mountains? It was necessary to stop,” Gromov wrote in 1985. Akhromeyev, first deputy chief of the General Staff, lamented the same problem at around the same time: “There is not a single piece of land left in this country that a Soviet soldier has not taken, yet most of the territory is in the hands of the rebels,” he told a Politburo meeting chaired by Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, on Nov. 13, 1986. “We control Kabul and the provincial centers, but we cannot establish authority in the conquered territory. We lost the fight for the Afghan people,” Akhromeyev said. Indeed, as of 1986, only 8,000 of some 31,000-35,000 villages were under Afghan government control, according to estimates by Mohammad Najibullah, who succeeded Karmal as PDPA head in May 1986, which he shared with Soviet diplomat Yuly Vorontsov in October of that year, according to Gromov’s book. As of 1989, the authorities’ controlled only 18 percent of the country’s territory, according to Gromov.
Gromov confirmed his impressions of Afghan soldiers’ and administrators’ conduct during his third and final tour of duty in 1987-1989 when he was commanding the 40th Army. “A time will soon come when revolutionary leaders will be left alone with their problems. They will be left one on one with the opposition. Only in this way can I explain the numerous instances of treason and betrayal by the Afghan military, which we encountered wherever we went,” he wrote in his 1994 book “Limited Contingent.”
Some of the officers from Afghanistan’s Ministry of State Security were no more enthusiastic about standing up to the mujahedeen than their Soviet Defense Ministry counterparts or civilian administrators, according to Gromov.
In his book he described how Soviet forces would “mop up” areas, detaining suspected mujahedeen and passing them on to the Afghans, only to encounter the same suspects again during the next mopping-up operation three or four months later. It was most likely that Afghan security agents would simply let these suspects go without investigating them or prosecuting them in court, Gromov surmised.
Not only were Afghan authorities and troops far from committed to the Soviet cause, they sometimes actively sabotaged it. Gromov complained that opposition field commanders like Ahmad Shah Massoud had “broad networks of informants in the Afghan army and government,” making it difficult to keep combat plans secret. Moreover, Afghan soldiers kept deserting to the opposition forces, taking their arms with them, including even howitzers and heavy armored vehicles. Equipment transfers by government troops “constituted a formidable source of arms and ammunition for the rebels,” Gromov wrote. Thousands would desert from the Afghan ministries of defense, security and internal affairs. According to one Russian account, a 1993 memoir called “Pursuing the Lion of Panjshir,” the number of deserters totaled 34,000 in 1983 alone. Even some DRA Air Force pilots would desert, reportedly flying their Soviet warplanes and helicopters to Pakistan, while some of those who stayed on would deliberately drop their bombs away from the designated targets, according to Gromov, who claims to have “documented a multiplicity of such instances.” He also wrote that some of the DRA servicemen tasked with observing enemy positions and providing targeting data would supply coordinates of locations where their personal enemies lived rather than mujahedeen.
Desertion from DRA forces became particularly widespread in the late 1980s as it became clear that OKSVA would be leaving. Of the 370 Afghan tank crewmembers trained in the city of Termez in Soviet Uzbekistan in 1989 and used to form a new tank brigade, only 127 made it to Kabul, according to Gareyev; the rest deserted, with several trainees fleeing during every night-time stopover en route.
Even when faced with an existential threat to the regime, some DRA commanders could not stop theft of military stocks or prevent desertions among their soldiers. When departing Soviet troops left three months’ worth of supplies for the DRA army, including almost 1,000 armored vehicles, 3,000 other vehicles and 14,400 assault rifles, many of these supplies did not reach the designated recipient because they were either stolen and sold to insurgents or seized by insurgents by force, according to Gareyev.
Gromov described how entire military camps that his withdrawing army had outfitted with everything from security perimeters to slippers next to beds would be looted by corrupt DRA commanders and their subordinates within days of being handed over and the goods then sold in local private shops.
Lesson 9:
Talk to moderates on the opposite side.
In theory, the Soviets were bound by their ideological dogmas to offer unconditional support for the PDPA only. In reality, while supporting Afghanistan’s ruling socialist regime, Soviet commanders did not refrain from reaching out to some of the moderate leaders among the mujahedeen, even though they espoused such “hostile ideologies” as political Islam and Pashtun nationalism. Such outreach proved to be important not only in reducing combat losses, but also in creating opportunities for reconciliation, which ultimately remained unused.
The Soviets likewise managed to establish direct contacts between commanders and chiefs of staff of Soviet units and “a multiplicity of [rebel] field commanders,” using Soviet military intelligence agents as liaisons, according to Gromov.
Gromov dedicated quite a few pages in his book to describing his contacts with such leaders, including Massoud, whose stronghold was in the Panjshir valley. “We were particularly interested in individual gangs’ attitudes toward the Afghan state authorities and the Soviet troops,” he wrote. Gromov noted that some of the field commanders would deal with OKSVA top brass, but would refuse to deal with official Afghan authorities. “Apparently, the mujahedeen believed they would benefit more from dealing with the Russians.
In addition, constant cooperation with the command of the Soviet troops gave them certain guarantees that this or that grouping would not be destroyed in the near future,” he wrote.
Those field commanders who cooperated with OKSVA would even sometimes receive medicines and food from the Soviet contingent, according to Gromov.
Overall, however, this cooptation fell short, mostly due to ideological dogmas. “Having bet on PDPA members and ignoring the Afghan elites established over the centuries, the Soviet leaders made themselves hostage to all these Tarakis, Amins, Karmals, Najibs [short for Najibullahs] and the like. This they understood much later, however,” Vasilyev, the military historian, wrote.
However, not all of this outreach was a waste. The contacts between Gromov and Massoud may have contributed to the latter’s desire to take a cooperative stance toward post-Soviet Russia.
Once the DRA regime fell apart and the Taliban rose to power, Massoud became one of the leaders of the so-called Northern Alliance, which post-Soviet Moscow supported in its effort to prevent an expansion of the Taliban’s influence into Central Asia in the 1990s.
Lesson 10:
When leaving, leave…
When describing how he engineered the withdrawal of the 40th Army in his book, Gromov does not cite the popular Russian adage “when leaving, leave,” sometimes attributed to Cicero.
However, the description itself proves that he persistently tried to do just that despite pressure from DRA rulers.
Had Gromov not been so persistent, Najibullah may have succeeded in persuading Moscow to keep the troops in-country, and the result of that “success” would have been only delaying the fall of his regime at the cost of more OKSVA casualties.
Moreover, had the Soviet soldiers stayed for three more years, they would have found the state they had sworn to defend vanish in December 1991.
Even as it was, the subsequent process of dividing Soviet units among the 15 newly independent republics proved to be chaotic and antagonistic at times, which would have seriously affected both the supplies and the morale of OKSVA had the contingent still been deployed.
Come 1992, and even the largest of the ex-Soviet republics, Russia, would have lacked the resources possessed by the USSR in 1989 to smoothly and securely withdraw the 40th army had post-Soviet Moscow claimed it for its own. In reality, when 1992 came, there were only seven “Soviet” military advisors left in Afghanistan and they all left the country in April of that year.
In his book Gromov describes multiple instances when Najibullah and some of the Soviet leaders kept coming up with options that would commit Soviet troops to stay in Afghanistan even after the announcement about withdrawal.
In 1988 “the government of Afghanistan made truly ‘heroic’ efforts to stop the 40th Army from leaving at any cost,” Gromov recalled in his book.
To do so, the Afghan Defense Ministry made repeated attempts to draw OKSVA into “large-scale combat,” while DRA diplomats argued that the withdrawal should be suspended because Pakistan was failing to fulfill its commitments under the 1988 Geneva Accords.
In one instance, also in 1988, Najibullah said that he would agree to the withdrawal of the 40th Army, but asked that Soviet volunteers guard Kabul’s airport and the Hairatan-Kabul highway, which would have required a 12,000-strong division, according to Gromov’s book.
A secret Central Committee memo of Jan. 23, 1989, described several options for providing military support to the DRA after the withdrawal, including one similar to what Najibullah asked for—to leave a 12,000-man division to guard the highway so that the Soviets could continue shipping aid. Another option was to ask the U.N. to deploy peacekeepers and keep Soviet troops in until they arrive.
A third option was to withdraw OKSVA, but have Soviet military units guard convoys with aid. The fourth option was to “withdraw almost all Soviet troops,” but leave some units behind so they could guard key parts of the Hairatan-Kabul highway. The fifth and final option was to withdraw all troops, but have the Soviet military send in ammunition and other supplies to fully equip and maintain Afghan government units guarding the highway.
Ultimately, the Soviet leadership rightly concluded that keeping in regular troops was not an option and withdrew all personnel except advisors, who at one point totaled 2,000, according to an interview Gareyev gave the Rodina journal in 1999.
The Soviet departure did not suffice to end the civil war, as some may have hoped based on the mujahedeen’s stated goal of driving out the Soviets; however, subsequent events proved that the Soviets’ Afghan allies could hold onto power even without Soviet soldiers and, therefore, without significant Soviet casualties, as long as Moscow continued to materially support the government.
Lesson 11:
…but before you leave, secure enforceable guarantees that POWs and MIAs are found and brought home, and give the returning soldiers proper welcome and care.
Describing how the last battalion of the 40th Army crossed into Termez under his command on Feb. 15, 1989, Gromov wrote how ordinary people embraced the returning soldiers heartily, but how also “not a single commander in Moscow even thought about how to organize greeting” them. “Were we supposed to greet ourselves? The attempt to overlook the withdrawal of the 40th Army from Afghanistan became another instance of tactlessness by those who worked in the Kremlin… They could have at least sent someone from the huge government staff or the Defense Ministry to meet us in Termez. It’s not every day we complete the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan,” Gromov wrote. He also wrote that some of the Soviet citizens welcoming home his last battalion were relatives of Soviet soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan.
“Some of them, having received official notices and even having buried their loved ones, still hoped: What if he was alive, what if he would come out now?” Gromov wrote. Overall, 15,051 Soviet servicemen were killed in Afghanistan, according to a 2001 study edited by Col. Gen. Grigory Krivosheyev. As for Afghans, some 800,000-1,500,000 of them died during the intervention, according to one scholarly estimate.
Of those who did return, many suffered from post-traumatic disorders that often went untreated, while also encountering public disapproval from those with anti-war sentiments, much as Vietnam veterans initially did in the U.S.
The author of this paper encountered one such veteran in 1999. The former sniper, broad-shouldered, had served in a Soviet commando unit in Afghanistan and said the only means of relaxation his commanders had provided was an aquarium.
He also said his complaints about what he later realized to be a post-traumatic stress disorder were dismissed by commanders with phrases like: “What psychological stress?
Have you seen the size of your arms?” (meaning, presumably, that his physical fitness precluded any medical conditions).
According to a book by KGB officer Vladimir Garkavy, who completed multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan, “despondency, apathy and despair have become the companions of many veterans.” Garkavy wrote that some 500 veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan committed suicide in 2007 alone.
In addition to failing to organize a proper welcome to the returning troops or ensure adequate treatment of their war-induced disorders, the Soviet authorities also did not bother to include a clause on the return of Soviet MIAs in any of the so-called Geneva Accords,6 which were signed in 1988 and included three Afghan-Pakistan bilateral agreements on ending the war and a declaration on international guarantees signed by the U.S. and Soviet Union and meant to cut off U.S. and Soviet aid to the warring sides.
At the time, Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, “who concluded these treaties, seemed to be concerned only about convincing the public that they were not personally involved in the deployment of Soviet troops to Afghanistan and to disclaim responsibility for it.
Soviet soldiers and officers who were in captivity … were of little interest to them,” Lyakhovsky wrote in his book. According to Varennikov’s 1999 article, he and other Soviet commanders pleaded with Shevardnadze during a 1987 meeting to include clauses on reciprocal closure of rebel bases in Afghanistan and he agreed to push for them, but none made it into the accords.
Gromov also wrote in his book that the leadership of the 40th Army and Soviet Defense Ministry “insisted” the Soviet government insert a clause on the return of Soviet POWs and MIAs into the accords because “we had no moral right to leave Afghanistan until we liberated our soldiers or at least ascertained their fates.”
However, these demands were disregarded. According to the Krivosheyev study, 417 Soviet soldiers went missing or were taken captive in Afghanistan during the intervention, with 130 of them later found and returned home, leaving 287 MIAs and POWs as of Jan. 1, 1999; by 2013 the list had been whittled down to 263 people, according to a Moscow-based veterans’ organization.
Lesson 12:
…also before you leave, secure firm and enforceable agreements that would not only meet your own minimum requirements for a negotiated settlement, but also those of your local allies, because the end of an intervention by itself cannot end hostilities.
Had the Soviet Union managed to secure enforceable commitments from other external powers involved in the conflict to discontinue aid to the Afghan rebels in exchange for doing so itself, it might have at the very least delayed the fall of the friendly regime in Kabul. Moreover, that could have created a stalemate that would have made some of the warring factions more inclined to achieve national reconciliation. This, in turn, could have led to the emergence of a regime that would have been neutral toward Moscow rather than hostile like the Taliban. The latter ultimately gained the upper hand in Afghanistan in the 1990s before being ousted from power by a U.S.-led coalition and, at the time of this writing, was negotiating a power-sharing agreement with Washington.
Gareyev, Gromov and Kryuchkov all pointed out in their books and interviews that the Soviet withdrawal may have robbed the mujahedeen of one of their rhetorical casus belli, but it did not and could not have ended hostilities, as the rebels strove to finish off Najibullah’s regime. Yet the new Soviet leadership (Gorbachev and his team) was so keen to withdraw from Afghanistan that a POW/MIA clause was not the only one they forgot to insert into the Geneva Accords: While the U.S.-Soviet declaration obliged both countries to cut aid to warring factions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other sponsors of the Afghan mujahedeen either were not bound by the accords or ignored them, continuing to supply aid and rightly calculating that the Soviets were in no mood to enforce agreements as their country grew weaker.
Gromov wrote that Pakistan was failing to abide by the accords even as the Soviets honored their obligations: “We knew that the government of Pakistan did not really fulfill most of the clauses of the signed agreements. As before, insurgent bases operated on the territory of that country, [and] weapons were continuously flowing from there,” he wrote in his book. Gromov refrained from evaluating Pakistan’s failure to honor its commitments, but Gareyev was blunt in his criticism of the Soviet leadership’s failure to make Islamabad comply: “Neither the Soviet nor the Russian foreign ministries did anything to achieve the implementation of the Geneva Accords by the United States and Pakistan…
[While] the Soviet troops left, all the military bases and training centers of the mujahedeen in Pakistan remained. Soviet military aid to the Republic of Afghanistan was stopped, but the supply of weapons and ammunition to the mujahedeen continued,” he wrote.
“Why did we need long and expensive negotiations with the Americans and Pakistanis and the Geneva Accords if only one side abided by them and the other was not going to do anything? It would have been easier to withdraw the Soviet troops unilaterally and resolve the issue without any diplomatic games,” Gareyev wrote. Former KGB officer Garkavy struck a similar note in his book. He criticizes the Soviet leadership for committing to end assistance to Afghanistan in exchange for a U.S. commitment to end assistance to the mujahedeen because such reciprocity did nothing to stop aid that the Afghan rebels were getting from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Kuwait.
In addition to trying to obtain enforceable guarantees from external stakeholders, the Soviets could have also done more to press their own client into reconciliation when still providing the DRA with substantial aid because such aid could be used as leverage. As Gareyev wrote, “there were no tangible results in the implementation of the policy of national reconciliation. The concept of political settlement in Afghanistan put forward by the Afghan leadership was perceived by many [PDPA] party leaders as a loss of its current leading role in governing the country and, for many members of the leadership, as having to leave the government positions they held.”
Lesson 13:
Even after you leave, prevent mission creep.
Even when the bulk of the troops have been withdrawn and only a small contingent of military advisors are left behind to help the ally retain positions, it is important to continue avoiding mission creep. Otherwise, leaders of the (no longer) intervening power may find themselves in the same predicament as Al Pacino’s character in “Godfather III” when he exclaimed: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” According to Gareyev, such mission creep nearly occurred again after the 40th Army was withdrawn with only 30 Soviet advisors and some guards left behind. The general recalled in his book how Dmitry Yazov, the-then defense minister, told him—when dispatching him to Afghanistan in 1989 to act as the chief Soviet military advisor after the 40th Army’s withdrawal—that his task was to make sure Najibullah’s regime survives for at least three or four months; if it did, Yazov argued, then maybe a political resolution of the conflict could be attained in that time.
But, seeing Najibullah’s regime last for a year after the OKSVA withdrawal, some top officials in the KGB and Foreign Ministry began to assert that Najibullah’s troops and their Soviet advisors had been on the defensive long enough and should now initiate “decisive, offensive actions in all directions,” Gareyev wrote. He also wrote that he had had a hard time convincing some leaders in Moscow to refrain from such “adventurist aspirations” that “could only lead to the most negative consequences.” It is easy to see how, if DRA forces would have gone on a major offensive, they could have suffered a disastrous defeat, strengthening the case made by Najibullah and some of his supporters in Moscow – who tried to prevent withdrawal of OKSVA – from brining the troops back in.
Lesson 14:
Last but not least: Be willing to learn the lessons.
Last but not least, strategists of an intervening power need to be willing to infer and internalize lessons that the intervention has generated. Otherwise, they will be more likely to repeat mistakes and less likely to replicate some of the intervention’s successes.
An estimated 620,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were rotated in and out of Afghanistan during the 10-year campaign. (The author of this paper still remembers, as an adolescent, the sinking feeling upon seeing his father, Soviet Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Saradzhyan, pack for another komandirovka to Afghanistan at the time.)
However, while the rank-and-file learned to fight in the country’s rugged mountains because it was a matter of survival, not all of their commanders did. Members of the military-political leadership need to be willing to learn the lessons that present themselves during a campaign—that is the final lesson inferred for this paper from Soviet commanders’ and officials’ recollections of the country’s intervention in Afghanistan.
According to Gromov, in the summer of 1981, with the intervention well into its second year, the Soviet Defense Ministry decided to send the commanders of several military districts to Afghanistan for several days to learn the lessons learned there by the OKSVA. Many of the dispatched high commanders and their staff officers showed no real interest, however, thinking the lessons would be of little use to them because the local war was local whereas they had been preparing for a major international conflict with NATO. Ironically, though his book came out in 1994 when Russians troops were fighting an anti-insurgency campaign in the mountains of Chechnya, which was in some ways similar to Afghanistan, Gromov did not draw such a parallel. Rather than focus on lessons, some of the commanders spent much of their time in Afghanistan examining whether barracks were tidy, “whether the soldiers’ beds were made and there were slippers next to the nightstands,” Gromov wrote.
When these visiting commanders did venture out to combat areas, they were asking why there is no loudspeaker communication between the commander and his artillery unit. “By and large, no one got interested in the experience we acquired. It was simply ignored and it was not integrated into education. Apparently, they believed it was better to keep silent about the war in Afghanistan.
I think the reason the war was initiated should not affect whether the invaluable combat experience [accumulated over its course] is studied or not,” Gromov wrote. Soviet advisors likewise did not apply the inferable lessons when shaping the Afghan military they were advising. “How did it happen that the structure of the Afghan armed forces was created exactly according to our model and the experience of a nine-year war did not yield any changes in that structure,” KGB general Shebarshin wrote in his book after more than 20 tours of duty in Afghanistan.
Finally, a year and a half after ascending to the post of general secretary in March 1985, Gorbachev too faulted the Soviet military top brass for failing to infer and learn some lessons from the Afghan war. “In Afghanistan, we have been fighting for six years,” Gorbachev told a Nov. 13, 1986, meeting of the Politburo. “If you do not change the approaches, then we will be fighting there for another 20-30 years.
This would cast a shadow on our ability to influence the development of events. I must also tell our military that they are learning poorly from this war. … In general, we have not found the keys to solving this problem. Are we going to fight endlessly, as testimony that our troops are not able to deal with the situation? We need this process completed soon,” he said.
Thoughts and summy of the 14 lessons.
As demonstrated above, the Soviet leadership made a number of mistakes, first [1] when contemplating whether to intervene in Afghanistan, then [2] during the intervention and, finally, [3] when withdrawing the troops.
Some of these mistakes were particularly costly, such as the failure to take full stock either of the hierarchy of vital national interests at stake in Afghanistan or of the costs and benefits of intervention. Had the leaders in Moscow paid attention to the full array of potential costs presented to them, they may have avoided the fateful error of sending troops en masse across the Soviet-Afghan border.
The Soviet leadership also erred in failing to clearly formulate the troops’ mission beyond regime change, creating confusion and debates among top commanders about what it is they were supposed to achieve in Afghanistan once Amin was replaced with Karmal and how.
Whatever the mission, the Soviet military operations would have probably dealt greater setbacks to the armed Afghan opposition at lower costs to the Soviet troops if the various Soviet government agencies had fostered effective coordination of their activities from the very beginning—including, first and foremost, the sharing of intelligence on the ground.
The Soviets eventually learned the importance of such sharing and corrected the mistake.
However, even such coordination, or better training of DRA forces by their mentors, could not have led to a decisive defeat of the opposition forces as long as many of the DRA forces remained unwilling to fight.
Therefore, it was a matter of time before the Soviets realized that their only option was to leave. That was the right decision, which was made in spite of pressure from the DRA ruling elite. However, while leaving was the right move and its military component (the actual withdrawal of troops) was executed well, the diplomatic and political aspects of that maneuver were not without flaw. Not only did the Soviet government fail to secure guarantees for the return of POWs and MIAs, but it also failed to secure enforceable commitments from other external powers involved in the conflict to discontinue aid to the Afghan rebels in what could have at the very least delayed the fall of Najibullah’s regime.
The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was not what bankrupted the Soviet Union or led to its collapse, contrary to U.S. President Donald Trump’s January 2019 take on Soviet Russia’s experiences in Afghanistan, which he offered as he argued in favor of a U.S. troop withdrawal from the country. Rather, as Yegor Gaidar convincingly demonstrated, a combination of structural economic and other factors played the lead role in the demise of the Soviet empire. However, that intervention, which caused horrendous hardship for many Afghans, did contribute to the demise by imposing formidable human, financial, economic, political and reputational costs on the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Soviet leaders did eventually realize some of the mistakes they had made in Afghanistan and sought to correct them.
Not all erroneous decisions can be reversed and some of them can have disastrous consequences.
Therefore, if faced with a situation that passes May’s test for historical analogies to the Soviet predicament vis-à-vis Afghanistan, Western leaders would do well to learn from those mistakes, rather than make their own, even if some senior Russian legislators are now planning to convince their compatriots that the Soviet intervention was the right thing to do.
And so… now we have the American debacle…
And this here it kind of sums things up from the point of view of American “allies” and other neocons throughout the American military empire. They are not happy…
…and emotion is clouding their judgement.
Debacle.
Yeah. It’s a mess.
What is HELL is America and the UK doing there in the first place?
Well, here’s some clear and true points well stated…
The USA should stay?
And let’s not forget what he said in his younger days as the President of Singapore. This next video has to be one of the very best video clips that I have ever seen in my life. Check it out…
And now, since you all know a little bit of history, and a little bit about the UK and RUssian experience, you should be well equipped to read this great article…
Nasrallah: Afghanistan is worst debacle in US history, Biden hopes for civil war
Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, on August 17, 2021, on the occasion of the commemoration of the 9th night of Ashura, two days before the martyrdom of Imam Hussein.
Transcript:
[…] My last point is Afghanistan, which I quickly mentioned before. What is happening in Afghanistan right now is an emergency situation that is grabbing the attention of the whole world. Inside the United States, this is the main event all are talking about, and of course everyone blames each other, just like in Lebanon, people are all the same: the Republican Party blames the Democrat Party, blames Biden, and describes the scene as a humiliation for the United States, (a proof of) weakness, helplessness, failure, historic defeat, shame, disgrace, etc. If we want to faithfully describe (the political situation in the United States), we can say that they are tearing each other apart. The same goes for the position of European countries, of the leaders of certain European countries [United Kingdom, France, Germany…], who speak with very strong and very negative words to assess the situation in Afghanistan.
Suppressed crocodile tears: that’s all British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has to offer all his Afghan allies that the Royal Army won’t evacuate.#Afghanistanhttps://t.co/HbIh7DR9ay
— Le Cri des Peuples (@cridespeuples2) August 21, 2021
It is indeed a striking and vitally important spectacle, filled with lessons to be learned, and we all must…
It is not something that one or two speeches is enough to describe, for the situation continues to develop, and deserves everyone to watch it carefully and think about it seriously, very seriously.
This should not simply be of interest to (pseudo-)experts (in) strategic (issues), who are very numerous today, ma sha Allah, experts, analysts, no: all men and women (must feel) that what is currently happening in Afghanistan (is their concern), and all that has been said so far remains little in the face of the importance and consequences of what is happening in Afghanistan, at the historical, strategic, ideological, cultural, political, psychological and moral levels.
And those who must be the most assiduous in the reading (and the interpretation) of this (considerable) event to draw the strategic and historical consequences from it are the peoples of this region. Yes, the people of the Middle East must be the first to care about what is happening. Because what is happening in Afghanistan is a very big and even masterful lesson.
The images that you see and have all seen on TV screens speak for themselves… and all the media around the world (follow and broadcast what is happening), because however strong the censorship system of the United States may be, (it is powerless to prevent the mass distribution of these images).
On the subject of social networks and the Internet, which the United States has opened up and spread around the world to instrumentalize them in color revolutions here and there, they find themselves caught in their own trap, because even inside of the United States, the government of Biden can certainly influence such newspapers or such television channels (to dissuade them from broadcasting these humiliating images), but how could it prevent millions and tens of millions of users of social networks who disseminate and share these images?
And glory to God, these are exactly the same images as in Vietnam!
As in Saigon, the (American nationals) climbed stairs to access a helicopter on a roof (and escape), we see exactly the same thing happening at Kabul airport! It’s extraordinary ! A real photocopy! Can we believe that this is just a coincidence?
PHOTO 1: US diplomat evacuate US from embassy via helicopter as the #Taliban enter #Kabul from all sides. #Afghanistan (2021)
PHOTO 2: US diplomat evacuate US from embassy via helicopter as the PAVN & Viet Cong capture of Saigon, Vietnam (1975) pic.twitter.com/YamWmzjOay
— Stefan Simanowitz (@StefSimanowitz) August 15, 2021
History repeats.
Either way, the images of Afghanistan and the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the very movement that the United States fought for 20 years and expelled (from power), before handing the country over to them on a silver platter…
The Taliban flag flies over Kabul airport.
I have already mentioned Afghanistan in my previous speech [cf. below], and today Biden took the floor to try to defend himself…
I said before that instead of rushing to achieve the withdrawal of his troops, as long as the American forces were present , and since the Afghan forces (formed by the USA) have 300,000 to 400,000 members —between soldiers and police forces— he should have cut a deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban, in favor of the formation of a transitional government, which would have avoided everything that happened, allowing the United States to withdraw with dignity.
Why didn’t he do this?
Because he couldn’t bear to stay any longer (in Afghanistan). Honestly! It was not out of respect that Biden did not do this.
And don’t take my word for it, listen to what Biden himself said! Listen to Biden, listen to his Secretary of State and his National Security Advisor… Because now they are forced to explain themselves to the American people…
They do not explain themselves to the peoples of the world, but to the American people who is amazed at these humiliating images of defeat and failure.
Listen to his explanations, and you will understand the American point of view.
I’m not going to make you a (full) TV report, but I hope everyone will listen carefully to what Biden said yesterday, today, and what American (authorities) will say in the days to come.
Give seriously some time to their statements, as this will give a good understanding of the historical and strategic consequences of the (humiliating) defeat and (monumental) failure of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan. It is a matter of concern to us as peoples of the region, and gives us lessons that we can use for our present and our future.
I’m going to stop on two points (of Biden’s speech).
In his speech today, he said
“We have spent over a trillion dollars, that is over a thousand billion dollars! They spent a trillion dollars in Afghanistan! And they left crestfallen, empty-handed, with Honaïn’s shoes as the saying goes, humiliated, defeated, ashamed, in disgrace. And this according to the admission of their own media, and Western media. What does this prove?
That they have failed (miserably), that they have been routed, that they are helpless, ignorant and stupid.
Biden himself said that the US did not foresee that the Afghan government and forces would collapse so quickly, and was surprised that they neither fought nor resisted. The Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor said the same thing. What does this indicate?
People imagine the United States to be a demigod, omniscient, analyzing and mastering everything at their fingertips, knowledgeable about everything, able to plan everything through its state-of-the-art study and planning centers with top notch skill and technology, with huge & infaillible plans, etc.
But the reality is far from all that!
In our region, the United States is ignorant, unable to understand anything!
For decades, they have been repeating the same mistakes, deploying the same experiments and the same calculations doomed to failure!
This is one of the lessons to be learned!
Biden says it is not the fault of the United States, but the fault of the Afghan forces who did not fight. But my dear, these Afghan forces, you left them without air force, because the air force is in your hands, (and you did not allow them to develop it), while claiming that you spent a trillion dollars .
This is the first point.
Second, these Afghan forces were led by your generals, who prepared doomed (war) plans for them! What (war) plans did you concoct, what (military) advice did you provide to these Afghan forces?
Third, what did Biden want (ultimately)? What does his confession reveal? Because he did not know how to hold his tongue, too entangled in his defense (awkward, and he unmasked himself).
He wanted a civil war!
He wanted the Afghan forces to wage war on the Taliban, a war between hundreds of thousands (of fighters) against hundreds of thousands (of fighters), and he would just have to sit down and enjoy the spectacle. bloody in Afghanistan.
Whereas if he had humanity, and cared (for the well-being) of people as he claims, he would have presided over an agreement and a settlement of the conflict before withdrawing from Afghanistan.
(This contempt for the lives of Afghans) is an ethical and moral downfall of the American administration!
This moral degradation is emphasized even by leading politicians and commentators in the United States and elsewhere.
This is why Biden says today that he wanted a political solution (between the Afghan government and the Taliban), but that Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan President, did not want it. You see? Biden pins the blame on him, and claims to be faultless!
These words reminded me of those verses of the Qur’an which speak of the devil:
“[And Satan will say when the matter is decided: “It was God Who gave you a promise of truth: I too promised but I failed in my promise to you. I had no authority over you except to call you but ye listened to me.] Then reproach not me but reproach your own souls. » [Quran, 14, 22]
(The damned) are invited not to impute to the devil (their bad actions which will lead them to Hell), but to only blame themselves!
What were the American administrations doing with all the those tax dollars in Afghanistan? pic.twitter.com/winabg5GEn
— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) August 16, 2021
It was you (pro-US Afghans) who put yourselves at the service of the Americans, who listened to them and obeyed them, who placed your hopes in them and bet on them, but they got to the point where they told you (quite simply) fare well, « Bye-bye » [Nasrallah says it in English].
And what kind of « Bye-bye » are we talking about?
What is happening at Kabul airport is incredible, it is heartbreaking and sad. Because in the end (these Afghans who want to flee) are human beings. We have all seen this (American military) plane advance with dozens of people around it, without worrying about them, without the pilot stopping, while he could have run over them!
And he saw that people had clung to the plane, but took off anyway! Whether they fall and crash (horribly to the ground) or not, that’s not his problem!
Desperate Afghans trying to flee the Taliban hanging on to US military plane to get out of Kabul and fall to their deaths. Low flying US Apache helicopters chasing Afghan civilians off the runway with their rotor blades. But Julian Assange is the criminal? pic.twitter.com/RPT1o48MqL
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) August 16, 2021
This is the United States! What I’m telling you is all over the media, I’m not inventing anything! They embarked police dogs, but did not embark the Afghans who collaborated with them!
They embarked equipment which costs only money, but did not embark human beings, who are human beings, men, with human rights! Such is the United States, (this is their true face)!
Everything that is happening in Afghanistan, even if in Lebanon we are absorbed by our daily problems, I hope that we will pay attention to it and will consider it as the pivotal moment that it is, because for 50 or 60 years, there was nothing like it.
And this will have a great impact on international policies, international relations, international alliances. And today, those who observe and comment on these events most attentively are the Israelis!
If the US stopped supporting Israel tomorrow, Tel Aviv would fall faster that Kabul.
— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) August 16, 2021
Because when Biden said, and this is a message to all of America’s allies in the region (including Israel), when Biden was defending himself, he said something very, very, very, very, very, very, very… (repeat it until you lose your breath) important, and I hope America’s “friends” in Lebanon and the region will read this very carefully.
Biden said
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war in the place of anyone else.“
If anyone expects the Americans to come and fight for them, this is what Biden says!
Listen up Taiwan.
Listen up Australia.
Listen up South Korea.
Listen up Europe.
And in order not to fight for anyone else, he is ready to endure a historic and humiliating defeat in Afghanistan! When we talk about Lebanon or whatever, in comparison, it is only an (insignificant) detail (in the eyes of the Americans).
At least 40 people have died since Monday in a stampede and shooting in Kabul International Airport, TOLOnews TV channel reported – citing a Taliban commander who is inside the airport.
According to him, the people died after “foreign troops opened fire” as well as a stampede
— ASB News / MILITARY (@ASBMilitary) August 17, 2021
In conclusion, in what is happening in Afghanistan, are very big and very important lessons, and we must take advantage of them and act accordingly, at the cultural, ideological & emotional levels, at the level of our choices, of our hopes, of our our reading (of events), of our alliances, of our infrastructure, at the economic, political, military, security levels, etc.
This was my conclusion during my last speech, when I said that we must only rely on God and on ourselves!
We must not wait for the United States, nor their training, nor their advice, nor their support, nor their false promises, nor their plots! We do not want their good nor their evil.
Of course no good can come from them. The good resides in our people, in our (Arab-Muslim) Community, in our region, in the Arab-Muslim peoples. It is on them that we must rely. Because we have all these possibilities and capacities.
This is so sweet.
The Iranian interpreter got emotional when Sayyed Nasrullah said Iran never abandones its allies, biggest evidence being the dismembered hand of martyr Qassem Soleimani in Iraq where he was assassinated beside his ally and friend Abu Mahdi Al Muhandishttps://t.co/m1nRrXbkkA
— Marwa Osman || د. مروة عثمان (@Marwa__Osman) August 20, 2021
I am done on this subject.
I will meet you tomorrow, for the 10th night (of the month of Muharram, the eve of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein), the night of the last meeting, and of the big fare well.
Peace be upon you, O my master Aba ‘Abdillah al-Hussein, and on the souls who dwell in your court! On you, from me, the Peace of God, forever, as long as I exist and as long as night and day last! May God not make this the last time I am visiting you! Peace be upon Hussein, upon ‘Ali son of Hussein, upon the children of Hussein and upon the companions of Hussein!
Peace be upon you, as well as the Mercy of God and His blessings.
I’ve never seen the American people so inconsolable before. If their mothers had died tragically, it wouldn’t be that much grief. Didn’t imagine a defeat in godforsaken Afghanistan would be so devastating.
Has the Dollar Empire given up the dream of a global empire?
Haven’t seen strong signals to conclude “yes.”
What is the national hierarchy in the Financial Empire?
The Financial Empire is a global debt based financial system administered by the City of London and Wall Street, and enabled by NATO & Six Eyes (Five Eyes [USA+UK+Aus+Can+NZ] + Israel)?
The Global Financial Empire’s hierarchical structure looks like the following:
Core: SIX Eyes – English Union, huge debt generators, negative trade balance (U$A, UK)
Conquered: EU/Germany,.., Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea – Debt distributors, positive trade balance (supporting the US$)
Capital Rich: Russia, China, Brazil, Africa, Iran, ME – (Resource/Asset rich)
Circumference countries: ROW
The U$A is the top management layer, CEO/CFO. It has a board seat. Why is it creating lots of IOUs?
The Financial Titanic (Dollar Empire) is taking water (Debt) at an exponential rate. This is UNSUSTAINABLE. Are Americans sleeping or having fun while music is playing?
The average age of a global reserve currency is 94 years (80-110). It is said the US$ started on its reserve trajectory in 1921.
When will this Financial Titanic break?
Something to ponder about while you read over the next article.
Here's another article.
Despair in the Empire of Graveyards
Or Gilbert and Sullivan Come to Afghanistan, Depending on Your Perspective
Forty-six years ago in a previous comedy I was in Saigon, recently having been evacuated from Phnom Penh in an Air America—CIA—Caribou carrying, in addition to me, several ARVN junior officers and perhaps a dozen BUFEs (Big Ugly Fucking Elephants, the ceramic pachyderms much beloved of GIs).
America had already embarked on its currently standard policy of forcing small countries into wars and then leaving them in the lurch.
Caribou aircraft.
In Cambodia this led to the reign of Pol Pot, the ghastly torture operation at Toul Sleng, and a million or so dead. In the unending fight for democracy, casualties are inevitable.
At the time Saigon was tense because Ban Me Thuot had fallen and the NVA roared down Route One toward Saigon.
To anyone with the brains of a doorknob, the American adventure in Vietnam was coming to an end, but the embassy was studiedly unconcerned.
Embassies do not have the brains of a doorknob, but are keenly aware of public relations. Acknowledging the inescapable is not their way.
As usual, Washington would rather lie than breathe, and did.
As in Cambodia, so in Nam, and so later in Afghanistan.
Apparently a genius at State realized that a lot of gringo expats lived in Nam—the number six thousand comes to mind, but may be wrong—and that six thousand hostages taken when Saigon fell would be bad PR.
So the embassy in Kabul—Saigon, I meant to say, Saigon—quietly announced that expats could fly out on military aircraft from Ton Son Nhut.
They didn’t, or at least many didn’t. The NVA continued its rush toward Saigon.
The expats didn’t fly out because they had Vietnamese wives and families and were not going to leave them, period. These wives may not have had the trappings of pieces of paper and stamps and maybe snippets of ribbon. These things do not seem important in Asian war zones. But the expats regarded them as wives. Period. The family went, or nobody did. Period.
The embassy didn’t understand this because embassies are staffed by people from Princeton with names like Derek who wear pink shirts and don’t know where they are. The ambassador is usually a political appointee being rewarded for campaign contributions and probably doesn’t speak the language as few gringos spikka da Pushto or Vietnamese or Farsi or Khmer. For example, nobody at all in the embassy in Cambodia spoke Khmer.
The rank and file of State are better suited to a high-end Rotarian barbecue than a Third World city teeming with strange people in funny clothes eating God knows what horrible things in winding frightening alleys.
And so the State people could not understand why an American would marry one “of them,” as in the embassy I once heard a gringa put it. It was a good question. Why would a man marry a pretty, sleek, smart, self-reliant woman who wanted family and children? It was a great mystery.
The Taliban—NVA, I mean–NVA kept coming closer. A PR disaster loomed.
Meanwhile the PR apparatus insisted that the sky wasn’t really falling even as it did and no, no, no the US had not gotten its sit-down royally kicked by a ratpack of rice-propelled paddy maggots, as GIs described the opposition.
Many in government seemed to believe this. This was an early instance, to be repeated in another part of Asia, of inventing a fairyland world and then trying to move into it.
Finally State faced reality, a novel concept. It allowed quietly that expats and their families could fly out, military. It was getting late, but better than nothing.
The comedic value of this goat rope grew, becoming more amusing by the hour. I was trying to get a young Vietnamese woman out as she had worked for the embassy and we suspected things might not go well with her under the NVA.
Call her Linda. Linda and I took the bus to Tan Son Nhut. The Viet gate guards gave her a hard time, envying her for getting out while they could not, but we got in.
I was going to tell the State people that we were married but that while I was in Can Tho, by then in VC hands, see, the marriage papers had slipped from my carrying case.
This was obvious bullshit, but I guessed that if I made a huge issue of it they would bend rather than get in a megillah with a reporter, no matter how unimportant.
We found ourselves in a long line of expats with their families leading to the door of a Quonset hut, inside of which a State official was checking papers. Some of the expats had around them what appeared to be small villages of in-laws, brothers of wives, sisters, everything but the family dog.
An official with a bull horn told us to write down all their names and the relationships on clipboards being passed around. Tran Thi Tuyet Lan, sister, for example.
Then a genius at the embassy or Foggy Bottom realized that something resembling a third of Viet Nam was about to come out, listed as in-laws.
Policy changed, at least in Washington which was as usual blankly ignorant of reality on the ground. At Tan Son Nhut this meant telling men that they had to leave parts of their families behind, which they weren’t going to do.
This would not look good above the fold in the Washington Post. Dozens of Americans taken captive because the State Department would not let their families out.” All was confusion because the US had spent years telling itself that the disaster couldn’t happen. What to do?
American ingenuity kicked in. At the Quonset hut the guy with the bullhorn announced, “From now on, all mothers-in-law are mothers, all brothers-in-law are brothers. Change your forms.” All along the line, magic markers went through “in-law.”
This meant that some women had two mothers, but this under the circumstances seemed a minor biological quibble.
The guy with the bull horn was at most three feet from the guy in the Quonset hut who was certifying papers as valid. He solemnly looked at the papers with their strike-through’s, , certified them as correct, and that was that. A field expedient.
Hours and hours went by. Night came. Tempers frayed. Nobody seemed to have planned how actually to get these people out. Nobody seemed to have planned anything. Finally a 130 howled in.
This was the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, a four-engine turboprop cargo bird and a magnificent plane. It taxied over. The engines did not shut down. The prop wash was strong and hot.
The tail ramp dropped.
The waiting mob were rushed aboard without ceremony. There were no seats in the dark cavern of the fuselage. That would have required planning, which no one in Washington had thought of. The air reeked of burned aviation kerosene. We squatted on the cargo deck while an Air Force guy with a bullhorn warned, “Keep the kids’ hands out of the expansion slots, you’ll lose them.”
The real-world Air Force didn’t have people named Derek in pink shirts and if you told it all rules off, get the job done, it did. Ramp up, fast taxi, takeoff run, tight corkscrewing climb with the engines running at power I didn’t know they had.
The NVA and VC were now very close due to incompetent planning (have I mentioned incompetent planning?) and might have SAM-7s so it wasn’t a good idea to fly over territory they now controlled. Cutting and running from a stupid war run by generals as clueless as they were careerist, with Saigon spinning below, seen through open doors amid tightly packed peasants going they had little idea where.
Days later when we got to San Fran on a chartered airliner, hundreds of refugees were dumped into the main concourse, no immigrations, customs, or paperwork.
And now we have done it all over again in Kabul, complete with helicopters over the embassy and a panicked evacuation undertaken way too late and sudden concern for turncoat Afghans who made the mistake of working for the US. There is talk of importing 20,000 Afghan refugees to America. I find it amusing that many conservatives, who thought the war was peaches because it was about democracy and niceness and American values, now object to importing people their dimwitted enthusiasms put in line to be killed. Use and discard. Countries and people.
There was the now-traditional underestimation of the speed of the insurgent advance, the predictable deprecation of the “good” Afghans for not fighting with sufficient enthusiasm for the Empire: If they didn’t care enough to defend their country, Biden would say with earnest cluelessness, what could we do?”
So why did this happen? Why another rush to the exit as the world laughs? Which the world is doing. In a sentence, because if you do something stupid and it doesn’t work, it probably won’t work when you do it again.
The psychological explanation is slightly more complex. Vietnam is a good example. America invaded a country of another race, utterly different culture, practicing religions GIs had never heard of, speaking a language virtually no Americans spoke, a country exceedingly sick of being invaded by foreigners, most of them white. in Afghanistan the designated evil was terrorism, in in Viet Nam communism, but the choice of evils doesn’t matter. You have to tell the rubes at home something noble sounding.
Then the Americans did as they always do, training the ARVN, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, to fight the communists to impose democracy, which the Viets had not asked them to do. But when you ask some Viets (Bodes, Laos, Iraqis, Afghans) to fight other Viets (Bodes, etc.) to kill their own people for the benefit of the invaders, they are not greatly charmed.
With a predictability that makes sunrise seem chancy, they desert, fight lackadaisically, with officers charging the US pay for soldiers who do not exist, and probably go over to the other side en masse when the collapse comes. Which latter the Afghan army just did. Duh, as the kids say.
The speed of the Taliban advance took Americans by surprise because officers are liars and had been hiding the deplorable state of the “Afghan” army, its numbers, morale, degree of training, and phenomenal rates of desertion.
Often the American officer corps thinks that if it can just have a little more time, they can win, so lying is a part of the war effort.
Biden bought into this, announcing that the Afghan army vastly outnumbered the Taliban and was better armed and trained and the insurgents couldn’t possibly do what they proceeded to do.
Another reason is that the American style of war recruits its enemies. Soldiers are not the Boy Scout defenders of civilization that so many like to imagine. They kill a lot of civilians, many tens of thousands in the bombing of cities such as Baghdad and Hanoi.
Ground troops come to detest the natives whom they designate gooks, zipperheads, sand niggers, camel jockeys, and the like.
They commit war crimes that, when discovered, are called “isolated incidents,” when in fact they are common.
Fragmentation bombs produce such things as a little girl crying with her belly torn open and intestines falling out while her mother goes stark raving bugfuck mad watching her daughter bleed to death and she can do nothing about it.
But it is for democracy and American values, and anyway the ragheads breed like flies, and besides, CNN won’t air it.
Today drone strikes hit weddings and other gatherings.
When you kill people in a village, the young men join the insurgents, wanting revenge. When a few thousands were killed in Nine-Eleven, Americans exploded in rage. Three thousand is a small fraction of the numbers killed in, say, the attack on Baghdad.
The Iraqi soldiers killed in a hopeless attempt to defeat the Americans were sons, fathers, husbands, brothers of other Iraqis. How much love do we think it engendered in Iraqis? This seems not to occur to Washington.
Militaries at bottom are amoral. Afghans know of the torture operations at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Americans seem to dismiss such things as minor. They are not. Afghans seeing Moslems lying in pools of blood at Abu Ghraib, or being paraded around naked in hoods, are going to want to kill someone. Guess who.
American wars last a long time because no one has an incentive to end them. American casualties are low, especially now with the killing mostly done from the air against peasants with no defenses.
No important American ever gets killed. American wars are all class wars, with the dying being done by blue-collar suckers from Kansas or the deep South, not by Bush II, Hillary, the other Clinton, Bolton, Bannon, Obama, Blinken, Biden, Cheney, Kamala, Trump, and the rest of those not required to fight.
The US public has little idea of what goes on in its wars because the corporate media hide them. the Pentagon having learned that the media are their worst enemy, not the Taliban.
It would not surprise me if one unfettered camera crew, filming the corpses and mutilated children and devastation, could force an end to such a war.
Americans are not heartless but calculatedly uninformed. Wars are also extremely profitable for those who provide the bombs, fuel, vehicles, and so on. If the US loses a war, the contracts stop, and equally if it wins.
Keeping it going for decades provides a steady revenue stream.
What’s not to like?
Finally, or as much as I am going to worry about, there is the 1955 Syndrome, the engrained belief that America is all powerful.
This is arrogance and self-delusion. In the Pentagon you encounter a mandatory can-do attitude a belief that the US military is indomitable, the best trained, armed, and led force in this or any nearby galaxy.
In one sense this is necessary: You can’t tell the Marines that they are mediocre light infantry or sailors that their aircraft are rapidly obsolescing, their ships sitting ducks in a changing military world, and that the whole military enterprise is rotted by social engineering, profiteering, and careerism.
But look around: The US has failed to intimidate North Korea, chase the Chinese out of its islands in the South China Sea, retrieve the Crimea from Russia, can’t intimidate Iran, just got run out of Afghanistan, remains mired in Iraq and Syria, failed to block Nordstream II despite a desperate effort, and couldn’t keep Turkey from buying the S-400.
The Pentagon plans for the wars it wants to fight, not the wars it does fight. The most dangerous weapons of the modern world are not nukes, but the Ak-47, the RPG, and the IED. Figure it out.
And now the US comes home, leaving Afghanistan in ruins for decades. Use and discard.
Here's another note, collected over the week...
Dear [redacted]
” China will not initiate trouble but is not afraid of trouble “
” Willing to talk ? The door is wide open !
Want to fight ? We will entertain you ! “
Absolutely, Chua !
In a nutshell, that’s my life philosophy !
Or as President Xi Jinping said
准 备 打 仗 打 胜 仗
Zhun3 Bei4 Da3 Zhang4 Da3 Sheng4 Zhang4
Be ready to fight victoriously !
And then we have this little blub that also came to the MM mailbox...
From [redacted]
Peace can sometimes only be achieved via well armed and the readiness in hit back.
The reason US and NATO dare not attack Russia is because they are well armed with nuclear weapons, and putin has made it clear that “don’t F with a nation with nuclear weapons.” putin also warn US, “if there is any missile fly toward Russia, Russia will regard it as nuclear attack, and will immediately response with nuclear missiles. ” this is why no one dare to bomb the Russian (including their military bases in Syria.)
When trump visited Beijing before starting the trade war, China offer trump $235b worth of deal. Guest what happen next?
Trump think that China is afraid of US, and thinking he can demand more from China. He has instead begin his first stage of trade war and announce to move on to the 2nd stage within months. He then claim that trade war is easy to win.
What trump didn’t expect is that China hit back.
China never stab on anyone on the back. China has made it clear all the times, “China will not initiate trouble and are not afraid of trouble”
China also make it clear: ” willing to talk? The door is wide open! Want to fight? We will entertain you.”
So, China simply respond to a situation initiated by the crusaders Nd not stabbing on people back. We should not expect China simply stood there fir people to bomb.
In Australia, China has issue numerous warning before hitting back.
China outline a 14 grievance created by Australia.
In Chinese history, they rather build wall, marrying princess, and initial a tribute system to keep peace, but if someone push too hard thinking they are in the position of strength, they will eventually be crushed .
This is not back stabbing. This is a last resort to keep peace.
The defeat of the crusaders in the Korean war allow China to enjoy the next 50 years of relative peace with the crusaders.
Today, the armed with AK47 Taliban successfully chase away the crusaders simply because they fight back.
Only when the crusaders are defeated, the Afghanistan people can then rebuilt their nation and looking forward to a better future with China belt and road.
Asia will again become the world most peaceful and wealthy region before the end of 21st century when China successfully chase away the trouble maker from the region.
The crusaders can also enjoy peace and prosperity if they change their mindset and get rid of their corrupt, low quality fake democratic political system. They need to control property price, nationalised industry that provide basic needs to the people like water, electricity, mining, health, pension fund, education, public transport etc like what China do.
Wealth redistribution from Wall Street to allow the 99% also doing well. This will automatically make a nation strong, a society in harmony.
Cheers
[redacted]
.
I have to tell you that there has been a lot of messages, articles, comments and thoughts flowing back and forth all week. Here's another...
Whether you supported the 20-year war in Afghanistan or not, if you are American, you paid for it. Two Trillion Dollars. Your personal tax tab is 7 thousand dollars.
If you sent a relative or friend into this horror in South Asia, you paid an emotional price also.
If your relative or friend lost his or her life, you paid again, most grievously.
If you are one who returned, PTSD is taking a toll on your life. You pay every night and day, psychologically.
If you came back with traumatic wounds, you pay each moment as you try to rehabilitate and recover.
And with all these payments and losses you sit in front of a TV or monitor and watch the most feckless, incompetent leadership on the face of the Earth. You see total disorder, amateur thinking, and disgraceful performance of State Dept. and US Military. The top command and elected officials, the top counselors and advisers, each and every one clueless, ignorant, flummoxed by reality. They know nothing and can do nothing. Yet, they lead the country.
If you are fond of NATO, the alliance just took a huge hit.
So, the 75 years of unity and the 20 years of joint operations in Afghan are tossed away unilaterally. NATO is fracturing.
They know Biden is a fraud and the US is aimless.
You finally hear from the President of the United States, the reasoning that was the policy and follow through. It makes no sense. The old man is irrational.
Day after day this continuing catastrophe you see the same imbeciles prove over and over that they don’t know how to think, organize, lead or inspire.
Admiral John Kirby spokesman for the Defense Dept., Ned Price spokesman for State Dept., Jan Psaki spokeswoman for the WH, all of them know nothing, have no facts to report, seem bewildered by simple questions.
Listening to Jake Sullivan, NSC explains, is more naïveté and kindergarten-level thinking.
Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin are a quiniela of incompetence, both are lost in Critical Race Theory and too busy to win a war, command an evacuation, secure billions of dollars in lethal weaponry or answer a simple question with believable facts. Two Four-Star Dumb and Dumbers.
These dolts cut off the US government pipeline for the citizens caught inside Afghanistan, their lifeline to the State Dept. and consular staff has gone just when they need them.
These jackasses sent off all the resources their citizens needed for evacuation.
They inadvertently point blame to the Clown-in-Chief Biden, who reflexively blames Trump for the policy Biden created.
Then the inept US military took six days to bring in 7000 troops to work security at the airport. These troops, they told us, were pre-positioned and ready to go. Another massive failure of military logistical performance.
There are more days of this until the artificial deadline on the 31st. The odds are there will be 20-30,000 Americans and Afghanis who worked for and with our military left behind. This is totally unacceptable. They will become hostages to Taliban authorities.
The only good result of this debacle is it hurts Biden politically and makes a change in the Congress much more likely in 2022.
Biden’s Kabul is worse than Ford’s Saigon and Carter’s Tehran. And it is far from over.
As a citizen, you are embarrassed, ashamed, insulted, depressed, left helpless, enraged, and damn angry at the juvenile operational disaster in plain sight at Kabul airport.
Biden and Harris should be impeached. The entire NSC staff should be fired. The JCS chief and the JCS staff and the SOD should be fired. The State Dept. from top-down to consular staff should be fired.
It is their turn to pay for this national embarrassment, geopolitical disaster, and human tragedy.
August 12, 2021. History will register it as the day the Taliban, nearly 20 years after 9/11 and the subsequent toppling of their 1996-2001 reign by American bombing, struck the decisive blow against the central government in Kabul.
In a coordinated blitzkrieg, the Taliban all but captured three crucial hubs: Ghazni and Kandahar in the center, and Herat in the west. They had already captured most of the north. As it stands, the Taliban control 14 (italics mine) provincial capitals and counting.
First thing in the morning, they took Ghazni, which is situated around 140 kilometers from Kabul. The repaved highway is in good condition. Not only are the Taliban moving closer and closer to Kabul: for all practical purposes they now control the nation’s top artery, Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar via Ghazni.
That in itself is a strategic game-changer. It will allow the Taliban to encircle and besiege Kabul simultaneously from north and south, in a pincer movement.
Kandahar fell by nightfall after the Taliban managed to breach the security belt around the city, attacking from several directions.
In Ghazni, provincial governor Daoud Laghmani cut a deal, fled and then was arrested. In Kandahar, provincial governor Rohullah Khanzada – who belongs to the powerful Popolzai tribe – left with only a few bodyguards.
He opted to engage in an elaborate deal, convincing the Taliban to allow the remaining military to retreat to Kandahar airport and be evacuated by helicopter. All their equipment, heavy weapons and ammunition should be transferred to the Taliban.
Afghan Special Forces represented the cream of the crop in Kandahar. Yet they were only protecting a few select locations. Now their next mission may be to protect Kabul. The final deal between the governor and the Taliban should be struck soon. Kandahar has indeed fallen.
In Herat, the Taliban attacked from the east while notorious former warlord Ismail Khan, leading his militia, put up a tremendous fight from the west. The Taliban progressively conquered the police HQ, “liberated” prison inmates and laid siege to the governor’s office.
Game over: Herat has also fallen with the Taliban now controlling the whole of Western Afghanistan, all the way to the borders with Iran.
Tet Offensive, remixed
Military analysts will have a ball deconstructing this Taliban equivalent to the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Satellite intel may have been instrumental: it’s as if the whole battlefield progress had been coordinated from above.
Yet there are some quite prosaic reasons for the success of the onslaught apart from strategic acumen: corruption in the Afghan National Army (ANA); total disconnect between Kabul and battlefield commanders; lack of American air support; the deep political divide in Kabul itself.
In parallel, the Taliban had been secretly reaching out for months, through tribal connections and family ties, offering a deal: don’t fight us and you will be spared.
Add to it a deep sense of betrayal by the West felt by those connected with the Kabul government, mixed with fear of Taliban revenge against collaborationists.
A very sad subplot, from now on, concerns civilian helplessness – felt by those who consider themselves trapped in cities that are now controlled by the Taliban. Those that made it before the onslaught are the new Afghan IDPs, such as the ones who set up a refugee camp in the Sara-e-Shamali park in Kabul.
A new generation of IDPs in Afghanistan.
Rumors were swirling in Kabul that Washington had suggested to President Ashraf Ghani to resign, clearing the way for a ceasefire and the establishment of a transitional government.
On the record, what’s established is that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin promised Ghani to “remain invested” in Afghan security.
Reports indicate the Pentagon plans to redeploy 3,000 troops and Marines to Afghanistan and another 4,000 to the region to evacuate the US Embassy and US citizens in Kabul.
The alleged offer to Ghani actually originated in Doha – and came from Ghani’s people, as I confirmed with diplomatic sources.
The Kabul delegation, led by Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of something called the High Council for National Reconciliation, via Qatar mediation, offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal as long as they stop the onslaught. There’s been no mention of Ghani resigning, which is the Taliban’s number one condition for any negotiation.
The extended troika in Doha is working overtime. The US lines up immovable object Zalmay Khalilzad, widely mocked in the 2000s as “Bush’s Afghan.” The Pakistanis have special envoy Muhammad Sadiq and ambassador to Kabul Mansoor Khan.
The Russians have the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov. And the Chinese have a new Afghan envoy, Xiao Yong.
Russia-China-Pakistan are negotiating with a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) frame of mind: all three are permanent members. They emphasize a transition government, power-sharing, and recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political force.
Diplomats are already hinting that if the Taliban topple Ghani in Kabul, by whatever means, they will be recognized by Beijing as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan – something that will set up yet another incendiary geopolitical front in the confrontation against Washington.
As it stands, Beijing is just encouraging the Taliban to strike a peace agreement with Kabul.
The Pashtunistan riddle
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has minced no words as he stepped into the fray. He confirmed the Taliban leadership told him there’s no negotiation with Ghani in power – even as he tried to persuade them to reach for a peace deal.
Khan accused Washington of regarding Pakistan as “useful” only when it comes to pressing Islamabad to use its influence over the Taliban to broker a deal – without considering the “mess” the Americans left behind.
Khan once again said he “made it very clear” there will be no US military bases in Pakistan.
This is a very good analysis of how hard it is for Khan and Islamabad to explain Pakistan’s complex involvement with Afghanistan to the West and also the Global South.
The key issues are quite clear:
1. Pakistan wants a power-sharing deal and is doing what it can in Doha, along the extended troika, to reach it.
2. A Taliban takeover will lead to a new influx of refugees and may encourage jihadis of the al-Qaeda, TTP and ISIS-Khorasan kind to destabilize Pakistan.
3. It was the US that legitimized the Taliban by striking an agreement with them during the Donald Trump administration.
4. And because of the messy withdrawal, the Americans reduced their leverage – and Pakistan’s – over the Taliban.
The problem is Islamabad simply does not manage to get these messages across.
And then there are some bewildering decisions. Take the AfPak border between Chaman (in Pakistan’s Balochistan) and Spin Boldak (in Afghanistan).
The Pakistanis closed their side of the border. Every day tens of thousands of people, overwhelmingly Pashtun and Baloch, from both sides cross back and forth alongside a mega-convoy of trucks transporting merchandise from the port of Karachi to landlocked Afghanistan. To shut down such a vital commercial border is an unsustainable proposition.
All of the above leads to arguably the ultimate problem: what to do about Pashtunistan?
The absolute heart of the matter when it comes to Pakistan’s involvement in Afghanistan and Afghan interference in the Pakistani tribal areas is the completely artificial, British Empire-designed Durand Line.
Islamabad’s definitive nightmare is another partition. Pashtuns are the largest tribe in the world and they live on both sides of the (artificial) border. Islamabad simply cannot admit a nationalist entity ruling Afghanistan because that will eventually foment a Pashtun insurrection in Pakistan.
And that explains why Islamabad prefers the Taliban compared to an Afghan nationalist government. Ideologically, conservative Pakistan is not that dissimilar from the Taliban positioning. And in foreign policy terms, the Taliban in power perfectly fit the unmovable “strategic depth” doctrine that opposes Pakistan to India.
In contrast, Afghanistan’s position is clear-cut. The Durand Line divides Pashtuns on both sides of an artificial border. So any nationalist government in Kabul will never abandon its desire for a larger, united Pashtunistan.
As the Taliban are de facto a collection of warlord militias, Islamabad has learned by experience how to deal with them. Virtually every warlord – and militia – in Afghanistan is Islamic.
Even the current Kabul arrangement is based on Islamic law and seeks advice from an Ulema council. Very few in the West know that Sharia law is the predominant trend in the current Afghan constitution.
Closing the circle, ultimately all members of the Kabul government, the military, as well as a great deal of civil society come from the same conservative tribal framework that gave birth to the Taliban.
Apart from the military onslaught, the Taliban seem to be winning the domestic PR battle because of a simple equation: they portray Ghani as a NATO and US puppet, the lackey of foreign invaders.
And to make that distinction in the graveyard of empires has always been a winning proposition.
A nation is made of race, ethnicity, culture, and identity. Ernst Renan called it a “daily plebiscite.” He said a nation needs a “common will in the present,” and the wish to perform great deeds in the future. Identity is a feeling, but feelings, emotions, personalitiesandbeliefs come from the blood. We don’t create ourselves, and we can’t be other than what we are. Polities are temporary, but peoples endure.
I remember September 11, 2001. I never knew what people meant by “blood running cold” until I looked at New York City from my favorite hill and saw the smoking ruin where the Trade Center had been. I felt a deeply personal insult.
An abstraction called “America” hadn’t been attacked. This was something real. “Freedom” wasn’t under attack. It was my city, my people, my country that these savages had assaulted. American unity was awesome. President George W. Bush could have asked for anything from the country. The grief and righteous anger could have changed the world.
Now these feelings seem absurd and embarrassing. Patriotism is at a record low, even among conservatives. It’s hard to define what “America” means, or if it even exists.
Part of this is because the response to the attacks had nothing to do with defending America. President Bush could have stopped immigration, worked to defend the Christian faith he supposedly holds, and renewed patriotism. He did none of these things. Multiculturalism and anti-white preferences are far stronger today. Rather than seizing the moment to push assimilation and patriotism in schools, they teach Critical Race Theory and other anti-white ideas. Islam, once a marginal force in American life, has joined homosexuality and black identity as one of our national totems.
In 2001, the attackers entered the country legally through holes in our immigration laws. The holes are still there and immigration is worse than ever. The Muslim population of the United States has grown continuously, despite support for a total ban on Muslim immigration. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, was a black nationalist who once argued for ending the Union — and no black congressmen ever said that was wrong. We fought in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring “democracy” to foreigners, who rightly hated us for trying to turn them into something they were not. The Iraq War’s most lasting consequence, and the greatest impact of the so-called Christian Right, may have been to destroy what was left of Christianity in Iraq. A SEAL team eventually killed Osama bin Laden. Crowds cheered, but that seems hollow now.
What was the purpose of the wars? If they were to “spread democracy,” they failed. If they were to defend the “American way of life,” they failed. The America of 2021 is a nightmare to a patriot from 2001. It’s bad enough that today’s “American way of life” is imposed on us, let alone on foreigners. If the War on Terror was supposed to keep us “safe,” that also failed. America seems far more besieged than before 2001, despite trillions spent and intrusive surveillance. America even faces the possibility of real defeat in a conventional war against great powers. If our government took foreign terrorism seriously, we would not have a porous border.
What happened over the last 20 years is something deeper. Thousands of Americans are still in Afghanistan, and the defense secretary said the world’s sole superpower has “no capability” to go outside the Kabul airport to get them out. “There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this [Afghan proxy] army and this government in 11 days,” said General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Incredibly, he didn’t resign. President Biden bizarrely defended himself by saying that the scenes of desperate people fleeing the country and falling off airplanes were from “four, five days ago.”
We had to leave Afghanistan, but it’s astonishing that we had no plan to protect Americans, secure weapons, or even protect the airport. Those in charge pay no price for failure.
After September 11, Americans thought American power had been roused and we would smite our enemies. Instead, we sacrificed thousands of young men to bring “democracy” to foreigners. Iraqi and Afghani cooperation (or collaboration) went no farther than a paycheck. Many Americans even died at the hands of their supposed “allies” in “green on blue” attacks, which killed more than 150 coalition troops by 2020.
Now we have a supposed “obligation” to bring in Afghans. How many “green on blue” attacks will we get in the homeland? President George W. Bush (in)famously defended the wars by saying that “we will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America.” Now, it appears we fought Afghans “there” so we could bring Afghans “here.” If an estimated 99 percent of Afghans want to make Sharia the basis of law, it’s hard to claim we are bringing “pro-American” Afghans here. The ones who come will learn in no time to complain about “white supremacy.”
The United States could have pulled out of Afghanistan in late 2001 after removing the Taliban and still continued the hunt for Bin Laden, who was in Pakistan. The US could have declared victory after it killed Bin Laden. Instead, the country spent trillions trying to turn Afghanistan into a liberal democracy. This included propping up a miserably corrupt government, promoting female politicians who never visited their constituencies, spending more than $780 million on “gender programs,” celebrating “Pride Month,” and, most infamously, punishing American soldiers who tried to stop child abuse by Afghan allies. And we were supposed to be fighting for the “good guys?”
There isn’t even an “Afghanistan.” It is a patchwork of tribes. Rather than working with the tribes, the United States tried to impose an artificial “national” government. The United States rejected the idea of re-establishing the Afghan monarchy, which had the support of most tribes. Instead, America imposed Hamid Karzai. The ungrateful stooge now blames the USA and NATO for his country’s collapse. Old ethnic and tribal patterns have re-emerged.
The Taliban is mostly Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group. Just as in 2001, the old “Northern Alliance” is coming together in Panjshir, led by the son of the legendary commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, a Tajik. Afghanistan’s tribal society may make it almost impossible for foreigners to conquer, but it also makes it almost impossible to unify. Turning tribal groups into Afghans is hard enough. America should never have tried to turn them into proto-Americans.
Indeed, we can’t even turn refugees into Americans. And they certainly won’t be grateful. The most prominent “refugee” in American life is Rep. Ilhan Omar. She said September 11 was nothing more than “some people did something,” and brags, “This is not going to be the country of white people.” Tucker Carlson says she’s proof our country is “not very good at resettling refugees.” The Hmong, another group of American “allies” imported after Vietnam, have been a disaster for America and a burden on social services.
America itself is turning into a tribal society. Pat Buchanan explains:
The more diverse we have become, it seems, the less united we have become, even about public manifestations of patriotism — the American flag, the national anthem, the pledge of allegiance. Nor do our history, holidays and heroes unite us as once they did.
Is the system that rules us worth defending? No. If that makes me a “traitor,” I would say only that there is nothing to betray. Our rulers have already betrayed us.
The Afghan and Iraqi wars did nothing to protect this country. They made things worse. Every servicemen sent was sacrificed by a government that doesn’t deserve them. Soldiers deserve respect, but their commanders and politicians deserve scorn. I have yet to hear one veteran say the wars were worth it. Even the legendary Pat Tillman came to oppose the Afghanistan War — before he was accidentally killed by his own comrades. “Were all our sacrifices wasted?” heartbroken veterans ask. Yes.
Reportersbragaboutgetting the military to purge white soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who had a racial consciousness. Perhaps we should thank them. Eighty-five percent of those who died in Afghanistan were white. Their government clearly doesn’t appreciate them. Afghanistan was not worth one life, nor are the interests of politicians and financiers.
The military teaches Critical Race Theory. General Mark Milley was telling Congress less than two months ago why we had to study “white rage.” He should have been studying intelligence reports on the Taliban.
Patriots must not die for the interests of those who despise them. If China moves on Taiwan, let journalists, defense contractors, and affirmative action pets do the fighting. The Global American Empire’s interests are not ours.
After September 11, it was common for liberals to mock the idea of a “War on Terror,” How do you fight an idea? No one is mocking the fight against “hate.” If those in power want to wage war, it may be against us.
President Biden’s “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” is designed to spy on white advocates and censor us. The Patriot Act and other national security laws pushed through after September 11, 2001 are now used against American citizens. If the FBI decides you are under investigation, it can seize your assets, and there is nothing you can do. The United States government has lost all moral authority to call Russia or China authoritarian. Even the Taliban is mocking Facebook (whichis underincreasing pressureby the federal government to censor content) for hypocrisy on free speech.
Even liberal news outlets are now doubting the supposed “militia” plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It appears the FBI wasencouragingtheplot, not thwarting it. (An FBI agent involved in the investigation was just arrested for assault.) Shun anyone who ever talks about violence. He’s probably a government employee looking to justify his paycheck.
PayPal and the ADL are teaming up to investigate the financial transactions of users to fight “racism.” When a system mouthpiece, Jimmy Fallon, mentioned that whites were a declining share of the population, the audience applauded, which even Mr. Fallon found bizarre. And there was the widespread celebration at the death of Ashli Babbitt, who was a misguided victim.
When I see the scenes of retreat and shame in Afghanistan, I feel humiliation, but also schadenfreude. This strips naked the fools who have been sending soldiers to die. I long for the America that was, and mourn for the brave men who died for a government that doesn’t deserve them. And yet there is a certain satisfaction in the ruling class’s humiliating defeat.
The Jewish publication Tablet, marveling at the desire of the American elite to destroy its own country, says:
[T]here are no institutional elites left to ask whether it’s a good idea to purge the combat ranks of the U.S. military by targeting “white supremacism.” America’s all-volunteer military is 43% minority, but the majority of its combat units are made up of white males. So why purge them? To make America vulnerable to foreign adversaries? Maybe the elites are more fearful of the domestic cohort still armed with a powerful group solidarity — i.e., patriotism — and most likely to defend what the elites are determined to destroy.It’s frightening to see American leadership pulling America apart at the seams. And it’s shocking to see our constitutional order ripped to shreds as the establishment undercuts property rights, imposes capricious public health regulations, mandates experimental medical treatments, and holds political prisoners.
This author is right. The elite wants to unmake the middle class and sees patriotic white men as the real threat. This leaves us with a tragic choice between our people and “our” government. On September 12, 2001, I’d have attacked someone who even suggested there was a distinction. Today, I find myself a man without a country. I don’t discount the possibility of a solution within the system. We must obey the law, pay our taxes, and fight to reclaim our rights. But there may be no electoral solution. Our future may be South Africa.
We should talk openly of secession That is how this country began. Those who rule us don’t value the Founders, but we do.
Two decades after September 11, America’s rulers are disgraced, humiliated, and unaccountable. What legitimacy do they have besides their courts and their guns? We must build alternative institutions that can win the loyalty of our people. We must provide for them in the dark times that are coming.
As we turn our backs on the Regime, we do not turn our backs on America. America can survive the degenerate ruling class on the Potomac. If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it’s that a strong tribe can outlast a failing empire.
We are the nation. America is ours and always will be. Renan had an “abridged hymn of every fatherland” that quoted from a Spartan song: “We are what you were, we will be what you are.” If we can get enough whites to believe that, anything is possible. The empire is dying; let the nation be reborn.
The years ahead will be dark, but we should rejoice. We live at arguably the most important time in our people’s history. America, Western Civilization, and the white race can survive only as one. It’s up to us.
Had, enough? Here's another...
Oh, did you see this?
Biden forfeits his Afghan victory by defending his Deep State advisors
By Michael Hudson, first posted at Unz Review and Expanded for The Saker Blog
President Biden put a popular flag-waving wrapping for at America’s forced withdrawal from Afghanistan in his 4 PM speech on Monday. It was as if all this was following Biden’s own intentions, not a demonstration of the totally incompetent assurances by the CIA and State Department as recently as last Friday that the Taliban was over a month away from being able to enter Kabul. Instead of saying that the massive public support for the Taliban replacing the United States showed the incompetent hubris of U.S. intelligence agencies – which itself would have justified Biden’s agreement to complete the withdrawal with all haste – he doubled down on his defense of the Deep State and its mythology.
The effect was to show how drastic his own misconceptions are, and how he will continue to defend neocon adventurism. What seemed for an hour or so as a public relations recovery is turning into a denouement of how U.S. fantasy is still trying to threaten Asia and the Near East.
By throwing all his weight behind the propaganda that has guided U.S. policy since George W. Bush decided to invade after 9/11, Biden blew his greatest chance to burst the myths that led to his own bad decisions to trust U.S. military and state officials (and their campaign contributors).
His first pretense was that we invaded Afghanistan to retaliate against “its” attack on America on 9/11. This is the founding lie of U.S. presence in the Near East. Afghanistan did not attack us. Saudi Arabia did.
Biden tried to confuse the issue by saying that “we” went into Afghanistan to deal with (assassinate) Osama Bin Laden – and after this “victory,” we then then decided to stay on and “build democracy,” a euphemism for creating a U.S. client state. (Any such state is called a “democracy,” which means simply pro-American in today’s diplomatic vocabulary.)
Hardly anyone asks how the U.S. ever got in. Jimmy Carter was suckered by the Polish Russia-hater Brzezinski and created Al Qaeda to act as America’s foreign legion, subsequently expanded to include ISIS and other terrorist armies against countries where U.S. diplomacy seeks regime change. Carter’s alternative to Soviet Communism was Wahabi fanaticism, solidifying America’s alliance with Saudi Arabia. Carter memorably said that at least these Muslims believed in God, just like Christians. But the Wahabi fundamentalism army was sponsored by Saudi Arabia, which paid for arming Al Qaeda to fight against Sunni Moslems and, early on, the Russian-backed Afghan government.
What is so typical of America’s aggressive Cold War mindset is that it could have much more easily (and at much lower cost) won Afghanistan by honey, by having so much more to offer economically than did Russia. Documents released from Soviet archives show that:
None of the Soviet documents list terrorists going into the USSR as a concern in 1979. The Soviet worry was the incompetence and worse of their Afghan Communist clients, the declining Soviet influence (much less control) in the country, and the possibility of Afghanistan going over to the Americans.
Soviet Politburo documents that first became available in the 1990s show the real Soviet fear was that the head of the Afghan Communist regime, Hafizullah Amin, was about to go over to the Americans. (Egyptian president Anwar Sadat famously flipped in 1972, ejected thousands of Soviet advisers, and became the second largest recipient, after Israel, of U.S. foreign aid.)[1]
This policy predates President Carter, of course.
It was endemic in America’s Cold War force-oriented strategy since the 1950s.
Over 60 years ago, for instance, I sat in on a meeting with Fidel Castro’s representatives trying to get support from the Democratic Party and Kennedy for their overthrow of the Batista regime.
Imagining that it was the Republicans and the Dulles brothers that were the hardliners, they expected that the incoming Democratic Party diplomacy would find their self-interest in giving economic support to help Cuba’s economy recover from the corrupt dictatorship.
My father warned them that the Democrats would be just as force-oriented.
On my visits to Cuba, it was obvious that the population and even many government officials would have welcomed a deal whereby the loosened their Castroite economic policy in exchange for U.S. aid.
The United States has never tried to use this tactic in the Caribbean or Latin America, any more than it has done in Afghanistan.
That is the neocon mentality:
“Do it by force, don’t give any other country a choice.”
A “market-based” tradeoff of aid for economic policy acquiescence is not U.S. policy. Offering a carrot still leaves the choice to America’s designated adversary.
The only way to make sure that a country will obey is to confront it with brute force.
That is the mentality behind U.S. support for Maidan and the neo-Nazi Bandaristas opposing Russia instead of simply trying to help reform Ukraine.
And so it has gone in Afghanistan. After Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama funded Al Qaeda (largely with the gold looted from destroying Libya) to fight for U.S. geopolitical aims and oil in Iraq and Syria.
The Taliban for its part fought against Al Quaeda.
The real U.S. fear therefore is not that they may back America’s Wahabi foreign legion, but that they will make a deal with Russia, China and Syria to serve as a trade link from Iran westward.
Biden’s second myth was to blame the victim by claiming that the Afghan army would not fight for “their country,” despite his assurances by the proxies whom the U.S. installed that they would use U.S. money to build the economy.
He also said that the army did not fight, which became obvious over the weekend.
The police force also did not fight. Nobody fought the Taliban to “defend their country,” because the U.S. occupation regime was not “their country.” Again and again, Biden repeated that the United States could not save a country that would not “defend itself.” But the “itself” was the corrupt regime that was simply pocketing U.S. “aid” money.
The situation was much like what was expressed in the old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto finding themselves surrounded by Indians. “What are we going to do, Tonto,” asked the Lone Ranger.
“What do you mean, ‘We,’ white man?” Tonto replied.
That was the reply of the Afghan army to U.S. demands that they fight for the corrupt occupation force that they had installed.
Their aim is to survive in a new country, while in Doha the Taliban leadership negotiates with China, Russia and even the United States to achieve a modus vivendi.
So all that Biden’s message meant to most Americans was that we would not waste any more lives and money fighting wars for an ungrateful population that wanted the U.S. to do all the fighting for it.
President Biden could have come out and washed away the blame by saying: “Just before the weekend, I was told by my army generals and national security advisors that it would take months for the Taliban to conquer Afghanistan, and certainly to take control of Kabul, which supposedly would be a bloody fight.”
He could have announced that he is removing the incompetent leadership engrained for many years, and creating a more reality-based group.
But of course, he could not do that, because the group is the unreality-based neocon Deep State.
He was not about to explain how
“It’s obvious that I and Congress have been misinformed, and that the intelligence agencies had no clue about the country that they were reporting on for the last two decades.”
He could have acknowledged that the Afghans welcomed the Taliban into Kabul without a fight.
The army stood aside, and the police stood aside.
There seemed to be a party celebrating the American withdrawal.
Restaurants and markets were open, and Kabul seemed to be enjoying normal life – except for the turmoil at the airport.
Suppose that Biden had said the following:
“Given this acquiescence in support for the Taliban, I was obviously correct in withdrawing the American occupation forces.
Contrary to what Congress and the Executive Branch was told, there was no support by the Afghans for the Americans.
I now realize that to the Afghan population, the government officials that America installed simply took the money we gave them...
... and put it into their own bank accounts...
... instead of paying the army, police and other parts of civic society.”
Instead, President Biden spoke about having made four trips to Afghanistan and how much he knew and trusted the proxies that U.S. agencies had installed.
That made him seem gullible.
Even Donald Trump said publicly that he didn’t trust the briefings that he was given, and wanted to spend money at home, into the hands of his own campaign contributors instead of abroad.
Biden could have picked up on this point by saying,
“At least there’s a silver lining: We won’t be spending any more than the $3 trillion that we’ve already sunk over there.
We can now afford to use the money to build up domestic U.S. infrastructure instead.”
But instead President Biden doubled down on what his neocon advisors had told him, and what they were repeating on the TV news channels all day: The Afghan army had refused to fight “for their country,” meaning the U.S.-supported occupation force, as if this was really Afghan self-government.
The media are showing pictures of the Afghan palace and one of the warlord’s office.
I did a double-take, because the plush, wretched-excess furnishings looked just like Obama’s $12 million McMansion furnishings in Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama officials are being trotted out by the news spinners.
On MSNBC, John Brennan warned Andrea Mitchell at noon that the Taliban might now back Al Qaeda in new destabilization and even use Afghanistan to mount new attacks on the United States.
The message was almost word for word what Americans were told in 1964:
“If we don’t fight the Vietcong in their country, we’ll have to fight them over here.”
As if any country has an armed force large enough to conquer any industrial nation in today’s world.
The whole cast of America’s “humanitarian bombing” squad was there, including its harridan arm, the Democratic Party’s front organizations created to co-opt feminists to urging that Afghanistan be bombed until it treats women better.
One can only imagine how the image of Samantha Power, Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton, Susan and Condoleezza Rice, not to mention Indira Gandhi and Golda Maier, will make the Taliban want to create its own generation of ambitious educated women like these.
President Biden might have protected himself from Republican criticism by reminding his TV audience that Donald Trump had urged withdrawal from Afghanistan already last spring –and now, in retrospect, that the Deep State was wrong to advise against this but that Donald was right.
That is what his order for withdrawal was acknowledging, after all. This might have detoothed at least some Trumpian criticism.
Instead, Mr. Brennan and the generals trotted in front of the TV cameras criticized Biden for not prolonging the occupation until the fall, when cold weather would deter the Taliban from fighting.
Brennan stated on Andrea Mitchell’s newscast that Biden should have taken a ploy out of his “The Art of Breaking the Deal” by breaking the former president’s promise to withdraw last spring.
Delay, delay, delay.
That is always the stance of grabitizers refusing to see the resistance building up, hoping to take what they can get for as long as they can – with the “they” being the military-industrial complex, the suppliers of mercenary forces and other recipients of the money that Mr. Biden curiously says that we spent “in Afghanistan.”
The reality is that not much of the notorious $3 trillion actually was spent in Afghanistan.
It was spent on Raytheon, Boeing and other military hardware suppliers, on the mercenary forces, and placed in the accounts of the Afghan proxies for the U.S….
…maneuvering to use Afghanistan…
…to destabilize Central Asia on Russia’s southern flank and western China.
It looks like most of the world will quickly recognize the Afghan government, leaving the U.S., Israel, Britain, India and perhaps Samoa isolated as a recalcitrant block living like the post-World War I royal families still clinging to their titles of dukes, princes and other vestiges of a world that had passed.
Biden’s political mistake was to blame the victim and depict the Taliban victory as a defeat of a cowardly army not willing to fight for its paymasters.
He seems to imagine that the army actually had been paid, provided with food, clothing and weapons in recent months simply because U.S. officials gave their local proconsuls and supporters cash for this purpose.
I understand that there is no real accounting of just what the $3 trillion U.S. cost was actually spent on, who got it the shrink-wrapped bundles of hundred-dollar bills passed down through America’s occupation bureaucracy.
(I bet the serial numbers were not recorded. Imagine if that were done and the U.S. could announce these C-notes demonetized!)
The U.S. is now (20 years after the time it should have begun) trying to formulate a Plan B.
Its strategists probably hope to achieve in Afghanistan what occurred after the Americans left Saigon: An economic free-for-all that U.S. companies can co-opt by offering business opportunities.
On the other hand, there are reports that Afghanistan may sue the United States for reparations for the illegal occupation and destruction still going on as the country is being bombed in Biden’s flurry of B-52 anger.
Such a claim, of course, would open the floodgates for similar suits by Iraq and Syria – and the Hague in Holland has shown itself to be a NATO kangaroo court.
But I would expect Afghanistan’s new friends in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to back such a suit in a new international court, if only to block any hopes by U.S. companies of achieving by financial leverage what the State Department, CIA and Pentagon could not achieve militarily.
In any case, Biden’s parting shot of nasty bombing of Taliban centers can only convince the new leadership to solidify its negotiations with its nearest regional neighbors with their promise to help save Afghanistan from any American, British or NATO attempt to try and come back in and “restore democracy.”
The world has seen enough of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s “rules based order”.
And President Biden’s pretended history on whose mythology U.S. policy will continue to be based.
Add: It is not an accident that the politicians backed by the United States are so corrupt, ruling corrupt bureaucracies that increasingly alienate local populations.
There is a deliberate thought-out reason why American diplomats choose to work with such opportunistic grabitizers as clients whom they place in control.
It is precisely such people whom the U.S. sponsors can trust.
Suppose that you have some truly democratic idealists whose aim is to develop their country.
The problem is that such individuals cannot be trusted to follow U.S. diplomatic aims.
They may act on their own – and go their own way, independently of U.S. direction.
That is a risk that U.S. diplomats never choose to take.
The result is much like corporate bureaucracy, where opportunistic CEOs choose yes-men (or yes-women if they seek protective coloration by posturing as more woke). Such subordinates will support the boss in his own maneuvering, not serve the welfare of the firm.
That is why Boeing preferred financial managers to engineers, whose logic might not be that of the increasingly financialized company.
The aim of U.S. “aid” is not to help the country – or even to help “America” – but to help U.S. arms exporters, contractors, big engineering firms, and neocon ideologues in the CIA and State Department, along with ambitious generals in the military seeking a path to promotion and retirement on the board of directors of the military-industrial complex.
All this was expressed crisply by Zbigniew Brzezinski in famous advice for U.S. hegemonic strategy on the Eurasian continent:
Its aim should be…
“to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together.”
What kind of local leader indeed could one expect to implement such policy?
Here's yet another. Man! I am intentionally whipping a dead horse. But by the time this is all over, you all won't want to hear anything else about this section of the world...
When Ichiro played in the Major Leagues, he was always hounded by a mob of Japanese journalists and photographers, starting with the first day of Spring Training.
Sick of this, he told an interviewer he wished they would just disappear.“From your life?”“No, from this earth.”
The USA, though, is not being pestered but deformed, debilitated and, well, frankly destroyed by a host of people, many of whom you may not have heard of, so let’s us:
Imagine there’s no George Soros,
No Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch or Klaus Schwab, too.
No Jeff Zucker, Mark Zuckerberg, Arthur Sulzberger,
Jonathan Greenblatt, Larry Fink, David Solomon,
Robert Iger, Charles Scharf, Jamie Dimon,
Steve Schwarzman, Jeremy Zimmer, Len Blavatnik,
Andy Slavitt, Jeffrey Zients, Anthony Fauci,
Jessica Rosenworcel, Janet Yellen, Gary Gensler,
Betsy Berns Korn, Mort Fridman or, what the hell,
Nancy Pelosi also, mostly because she’s so icky.
Even more than most lists, it’s highly incomplete, but you get the idea.
Or maybe not. It’s too eclectic, you say, if not confusing.
What do they have in common?
They are all social engineers, out to remake America in ways that have nothing to do, at least initially, with the wishes of its majority…
… so there goes your democracy.
And that's the way it is, Jack!
As new norms are relentlessly propagandized, legalized then imposed, most Americans will learn to embrace their newly cowed, castrated selves.
Many clearly have.
When I tried to indict a cynical and sinister Uncle Sam in my last article, one who has wrecked not just dozens of foreign countries, but America itself, several readers took offense, not at Sammy, the Jew-jerked puppet, but me!
Clearly, they identify with the steel boots that are pinned on their faces, so fine, let them embrace their increasingly wretched fate, but what about others? What about their children?
Due to their parents’ nauseating cowardice, American kids are inheriting hell.
Notice I didn’t bother to list Biden, not because he’s already dead, but because American politicians are merely cabana boys and girls for their social engineering paymasters.
From president on down, they decide absolutely nothing.
Truly moronic…
… Americans keep waiting for the next election to vote in their savior…
… or they vote for an “independent” candidate as a symbolic gesture.
By merely voting, however, they endorse a system that’s openly destroying them.
With voting machines that can’t be audited, American presidential elections are designed to be rigged, with one of two vetted candidates allowed to win to keep the intramural bickering and catfight lurching along, to distract the dummies from seeing what’s going on.
(The last American politician with any integrity was Cynthia McKinney, and they’ve chased her all the way to Bangladesh. Once disappeared, she’s never mentioned by any former colleague, such is their collective cowardice.)
In any case, you don’t want to turn a clown like Obama or Trump, say, into a martyr or, God forbid, national hero, to be worshipped for centuries.
Not that America is likely to last another decade, especially since most of its “patriots” are curled up, with their eyes shut tight, as waves of degeneracy, idiocy and infamy lap over them.
As their family graves are routinely crapped on by their ruling wardens, these pant-soiling patriots keep muttering, “Please don’t fire, deplatform or cancel me, massa! I’ll do whatever you say. I’ve never whispered one bad word about you, not even online. I’ve only used my internet privilege to spit at Afghan refugees and Mexican dishwashers, but no, no, no, I’m no racist! Black lives matter! Please give me the blackest flip-flop to french kiss!”
Conditioned by Hollywood to enjoy others being chopped or blown up, many Americans are getting a kick out of the current terror and panic in Afghanistan.
Some justify this sick schadenfreude by saying these Afghans are collaborators who fully deserve their punishment or even death, but guess which country has provided the most collaborators, by far, to the evil empire?
America, of course.
To the millions who have fought for war profiteers and Jews, you must add all the employees of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon, etc., as well as all the academics who go along with the perverted, mostly Jewish-led social engineering agenda, and the journalists who spew nonsense and lies daily, on and on, so that, really, about the only innocent Americans are the little kids, those who will inherit a hellish, denatured reality as constructed by their clueless or spineless parents, not to mention an astronomical mountain of debts, as brought into being by a Jewish-dominated banking system.
Many Americans are also laughing at the quick collapse of the Afghan Army, but 66,000 of them did die fighting the Taliban and other opposition groups (who themselves suffered 51,191 deaths). 117,191 Afghan men, then, laid down their lives over conflicting versions of Afghanistan.
Do prove me wrong, but the only country that’s going down without any fight whatsoever is the United States of America.
But, but, but America has just created the largest military budget in history to "counter" China. Obviously a grand World War III is planned. What then? Can America destroy China?
China, Russia conclude joint military exercise
Updated 12:54, 14-Aug-2021
CGTN
A five-day joint military exercise between China and Russia, named ZAPAD/INTERACTION-2021, concluded Friday in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
A four-phase exercise was held on Friday morning and attended by more than 10,000 service personnel and main battle armaments, including aircraft, artillery and armored vehicles of various models.
Chinese Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu observed the exercise and held talks later in the day.
Wei said that the Chinese and Russian armed forces have supported each other in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating the high-level development of relations between the two militaries.
The two militaries should enhance strategic coordination and comprehensive and practical cooperation, so as to make greater contributions to the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, and safeguarding world peace and stability, Wei said.
Russia is willing to enhance strategic communication with China, deepen cooperation in areas such as counterterrorism and work together to safeguard regional peace and stability, Shoigu said.
The two ministers also observed the signing of cooperation documents.
They announced the conclusion of the exercise in the afternoon of the day.
The exercise was the first joint military exercise held in China since the COVID-19 outbreak.
By Pepe Escobar: The Saker Blog and cross-posted at the Unz Review.
The first Taliban press conference after this weekend’s Saigon moment geopolitical earthquake, conducted by spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, was in itself a game-changer.
The contrast could not be starker with those rambling pressers at the Taliban embassy in Islamabad after 9/11 and before the start of the American bombing – proving this is an entirely new political animal.
Yet some things never change. English translations remain atrocious.
Here is a good summary of the key Taliban statements, and
– No problem for women to get education all the way to college, and to continue to work. They just need to wear the hijab (like in Qatar or Iran). No need to wear a burqa. The Taliban insists, “all women’s rights will be guaranteed within the limits of Islamic law.”
– The Islamic Emirate “does not threaten anyone” and will not treat anyone as enemies. Crucially, revenge – an essential plank of the Pashtunwali code – will be abandoned, and that’s unprecedented. There will be a general amnesty – including people who worked for the former NATO-aligned system. Translators, for instance, won’t be harassed, and don’t need to leave the country.
– Security of foreign embassies and international organizations “is a priority.” Taliban special security forces will protect both those leaving Afghanistan and those who remain.
– A strong inclusive Islamic government will be formed. “Inclusive” is code for the participation of women and Shi’ites.
– Foreign media will continue to work undisturbed. The Taliban government will allow public criticism and debate. But “freedom of speech in Afghanistan must be in line with Islamic values.”
– The Islamic Emirate of Taliban wants recognition from the “international community” – code for NATO. The overwhelming majority of Eurasia and the Global South will recognize it anyway. It’s essential to note, for example, the closer integration of the expanding SCO – Iran is about to become a full member, Afghanistan is an observer – with ASEAN: the absolute majority of Asia will not shun the Taliban.
For the record, they also stated that the Taliban took all of Afghanistan in only 11 days: that’s pretty accurate. They stressed “very good relations with Pakistan, Russia and China.” Yet the Taliban don’t have formal allies and are not part of any military-political bloc. They definitely “won’t allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for international terrorists”. That’s code for ISIS/Daesh.
On the key issue of opium/heroin: the Taliban will ban their production. So, for all practical purposes, the CIA heroin rat line is dead.
As eyebrow raising as these statements may be, the Taliban did not even get into detail on economic/infrastructure development deals – as they will need a lot of new industries, new jobs and improved Eurasian-wide trade relations. That will be announced later.
The go-to Russian guy
Sharp US observers are remarking, half in jest, that the Taliban in only one sitting answered more real questions from US media than POTUS since January.
What this first press conference reveals is how the Taliban are fast absorbing essential P.R. and media lessons from Moscow and Beijing, emphasizing ethnic harmony, the role of women, the role of diplomacy, and deftly defusing in a single move all the hysteria raging across NATOstan.
The next bombshell step in the P.R. wars will be to cut off the lethal, evidence-free Taliban-9/11 connection; afterwards the “terrorist organization” label will disappear, and the Taliban as a political movement will be fully legitimized.
Moscow and Beijing are meticulously stage-managing the Taliban reinsertion in regional and global geopolitics. This means that ultimately the SCO is stage-managing the whole process, applying a consensus reached after a series of ministerial and leaders meetings, leading to a very important summit next month in Dushanbe.
The key player the Taliban are talking to is Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan. In yet another debunking of NATOstan narrative, Kabulov confirmed, for instance, “we see no direct threat to our allies in Central Asia. There are no facts proving otherwise.”
The Beltway will be stunned to learn that Zabulov has also revealed, “we have long been in talks with the Taliban on the prospects for development after their capture of power and they have repeatedly confirmed that they have no extraterritorial ambition, they learned the lessons of 2000.” These contacts were established “over the past 7 years.”
Zabulov reveals plenty of nuggets when it comes to Taliban diplomacy: “If we compare the negotiability of colleagues and partners, the Taliban have long seemed to me much more negotiable than the puppet Kabul government. We proceed from the premise that the agreements must be implemented. So far, with regard to the security of the embassy and the security of our allies in Central Asia, the Taliban have respected the agreements.”
Faithful to its adherence to international law, and not the “rules-based international order”, Moscow is always keen to emphasize the responsibility of the UN Security Council: “We must make sure that the new government is ready to behave conditionally, as we say, in a civilized manner. That’s when this point of view becomes common to all, then the procedure [of removing the qualification of the Taliban as a terrorist organization] will begin.”
So while the US/EU/NATO flee Kabul in spasms of self-inflicted panic, Moscow practices – what else – diplomacy. Zabulov: “That we have prepared the ground for a conversation with the new government in Afghanistan in advance is an asset of Russian foreign policy.”
Dmitry Zhirnov, Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, is working overtime with the Taliban. He met a senior Taliban security official yesterday. The meeting was “positive, constructive…The Taliban movement has the most friendly; the best policy towards Russia… He arrived alone in one vehicle, with no guards.”
Both Moscow and Beijing have no illusions that the West is already deploying Hybrid War tactics to discredit and destabilize a government that isn’t even formed and hasn’t even started working. No wonder Chinese media is describing Washington as a “strategic rogue.”
What matters is that Russia-China are way ahead of the curve, cultivating parallel inside tracks of diplomatic dialogue with the Taliban. It’s always crucial to remember that Russia harbors 20 million Muslims, and China at least 35 million. These will be called to support the immense project of Afghan reconstruction – and full Eurasia reintegration.
The Chinese saw it coming
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi saw it coming weeks ago. And that explains the meeting in Tianjin in late July, when he hosted a high-level Taliban delegation, led by Mullah Baradar, de facto conferring them total political legitimacy. Beijing already knew the Saigon moment was inevitable. Thus the statement stressing China expected to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan”.
What this means in practice is China will be a partner of Afghanistan on infrastructure investment, via Pakistan, incorporating it into an expanded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) bound to diversify connectivity channels with Central Asia. The New Silk Road corridor from Xinjiang to the port of Gwadar in the Arabian Sea will branch out: the first graphic illustration is Chinese construction of the ultra-strategic Peshawar-Kabul highway.
The Chinese are also building a major road across the geologically spectacular, deserted Wakhan corridor from western Xinjiang all the way to Badakhshan province, which incidentally, is now under total Taliban control.
The trade off is quite straightforward: the Taliban should allow no safe haven for the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), and no interference in Xinjiang.
The overall trade/security combo looks like a certified win-win. And we’re not even talking about future deals allowing China to exploit Afghanistan’s immense mineral wealth.
Once again, the Big Picture reads like the Russia-China double helix, connected to all the “stans” as well as Pakistan, drawing a comprehensive game plan/road map for Afghanistan. In their multiple contacts with both Russians and Chinese, the Taliban seem to have totally understood how to profit from their role in the New Great Game.
The extended New Axis of Evil
Imperial Hybrid War tactics to counteract the scenario are inevitable. Take the first proclamation of a Northern Alliance “resistance”, in theory led by Ahmad Masoud, the son of the legendary Lion of the Panjshir killed by al-Qaeda two days before 9/11.
I met Masoud father – an icon. Afghan insider info on Masoud son is not exactly flattering. Yet he’s already a darling of woke Europeans, complete with a glamour pose for AFP, an impromptu visit in the Panjshir by professional philosopher swindler Bernard-Henri Levy, and the release of a manifesto of sorts published in several European newspapers, exhibiting all the catchphrases: “tyranny”, “slavery”, “vendetta”, “martyred nation”, “Kabul screams”, “nation in chains”, etc.
The whole set up smells like a “son of Shah” [of Iran] gambit. Masoud son and his mini-militia are completely surrounded in the Panjshir mountains and can’t be de facto effective even when it comes to regimenting the under 25s, two-thirds of the Afghan population, whose main worry is to find real jobs in a nascent real economy.
Woke NATOstan “analyses” of Taliban Afghanistan don’t even qualify as irrelevant, insisting that Afghanistan is not strategic and even lost its tactical importance for NATO. It’s a sorry spectacle illustrating how Europe is hopelessly behind the curve, drenched in trademark neo-colonialism of the White Man’s Burden variety as it dismisses a land dominated by clans and tribes.
Expect China to be one of the first powers to formally recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, alongside Turkey and, later on, Russia. I have already alluded to the coming of a New Axis of Evil: Pakistan-Taliban-China. The axis will inevitably be extended to Russia-Iran. So what? Ask Mullah Baradar: he couldn’t care less.
Now, let's focus on China, as China will play a major role in this region.
Sitrep : Here comes China : Military Drills, Extortion, the ‘Religious Freedom Balkanization’ Plan for China
The main news of the day is the Biden administration’s effort to sell 40 155mm M109A6 Medium Self-Propelled Howitzer artillery systems, 1,698 precision guidance kits for munitions, spares, training, ground stations and upgrades for previous generation of howitzers, to the island of Taiwan in a deal worth up to $750 million. China is, to say the least, livid.
US ‘large-scale’ military exercises cannot scare China, Russia
The US has begun two “large-scale” military exercises. The first is a joint Indo-Pacific military exercise led by the US Indo-Pacific Command with the participation of Japan, Australia and the UK. The other is the “Large-Scale Exercise 2021” held by US Navy around the world and is reportedly the largest naval exercise since 1981. A US military scholar told media that it is intended to demonstrate to China and Russia that US naval forces can simultaneously meet challenges in the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, South China Sea and East China Sea.
Chinese, Russian militaries to hold joint drill in NW China
YINCHUAN — A joint military exercise by the Chinese and Russian armies will be held from Aug. 9 to 13 at a training base of the People’s Liberation Army in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region.
The exercise, named ZAPAD/INTERACTION-2021, is the first joint military exercise held inside China since the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the exercise’s leading group.
While we are right at the end of the Tokyo Olympics, the force is strong for canceling or otherwise interfering with the upcoming Beijing 2022 Games.
This is what Radio Free Asia (and people should recognize that for what it is), reports, and this is clearly within the human rights wars.
2021-07-27 — The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday said it had to “remain neutral” on global political issues in response to a request from the U.S. Congressional commission that asked it to postpone and relocate the 2022 Beijing Winter Games if China does not end its human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in its Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The reply came in response to a letter that the bipartisan U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) sent to IOC president Thomas Bach. The commission made the letter public on July 23.”
Despite these efforts to do something to China, anything, before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese are keeping cool: “Off the field, observers noted that the success of the Tokyo Olympics under huge pressure is a desperately needed inspiration for the world. Tokyo’s experience in carrying out a major international event under such circumstances sets an example for next year’s Beijing Winter Olympics, experts said. ”
United States blackmail.
And then during the time of writing, the news broke. Part of the Xinjiang story, is pure hard blackmail: the US-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) blackmailed, bribed, and extorted a Chinese company and its US cooperative partner for $300,000 by threatening to hype up fabricated “forced labor” issues related to China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The complete Xinjian story of forced labor, a genocide (with no dead people), prison camps et al is falling apart like an overripe watermelon that just smashed itself falling off the watermelon buggy and is not fit for eating any longer.
A MUST READ report…
While we are on the topic of extortion, Alex Rubinstein did some undercover work.
He says:
“Using a friend’s company on my application and adopting a fake persona, I attended a three-day summit on religious freedom where leading figures in the Democratic Party including Nancy Pelosi, USAID Director Samantha Power and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken ...
...joined up with anti-gay Evangelicals,
...a slew of shady NGOs and
...multiple bonafide cults to ratchet up pressure against China.”:
From this ‘Davos of Religious Freedom’, we see top democrats, top republicans, the Christian far right, some clear cults, NGO’s with no history, and just about every anti-China organization in the world right across the spectrum.
The objective? Balkanization under the guise of religious freedom as the new front in the new China cold war.
This report is incredibly detailed and would need some time to read through.
It is however recommended to understand the vast array of forces aligned in the new cold war against China.
The recent visit of US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, despite the usual initial nice and welcoming words apparently did not go down well. “A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that the talks were in-depth, frank, and beneficial to the relationship between the two countries.”
Days later the story changed materially. “We will no longer make unilateral efforts to maintain the public opinion atmosphere in China-US relations. Using illegal sanctions as a pretext, the US, aided by Canada, has effectively kidnapped a high-ranking Chinese corporate official, Meng Wanzhou, and is still threatening her with possible imprisonment. No other nation behaves so brazenly in defiance of international norms.
“The basis for such changes is that Chinese society has become fed up with the bossy US and we hold no more illusion that China and the US would substantially improve ties in the foreseeable future.
The Chinese public strongly supports the government to safeguard national dignity in its ties with the US and firmly push back the various provocations from the US.
In the face of the malicious China containment and confrontational policy adopted by the two recent US administrations, the Chinese people are willing to form a united front, together bear the consequences of not yielding to the US, and win for the country’s future through struggles.
In other words, Chinese society would unconditionally support whatever tough counterattacks the Chinese government would launch in the face of US-initiated conflicts in all directions toward China.
The US should abandon forever the idea of changing China’s system and policies through sanctions, containment, and intimidation.
We hope US allies in the Asia-Pacific, especially Japan and Australia, can weigh the situation.
They should not act as accomplices of the US’ China containment policy and place themselves at the forefront of confronting China, or they are betting their own future.”
And this is the message that is still prevailing in China and internal to her people.
Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou was in the dock in a Canadian court this last week but at the time of writing, I have not seen any reports.
Chinese Technology is amazing…
Check out this video…
Amazing!
Further details:
Far more world leaders visit China than America: “If leadership diplomacy was an Olympic sport, Beijing beats Washington to the gold medal.”
In 2019, 79 foreign leaders visited China, while only 27 called on the United States.
More world leaders have visited China than the United States in every year since 2013. Many US allies visited China more often than the United States, including those of South Korea, Germany, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and New Zealand.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said ties with Southeast Asia are a priority for China and called for “multilateralism with Asian characteristics”, as the country seeks to counter US moves in the region.
“China has always made Asean its priority for diplomacy in the region … and firmly supports Asean’s central role in regional cooperation,” Wang said, according to the Chinese foreign ministry readout on Thursday.
“Both sides should conduct frequent communication on all levels, and continue with mutual understanding and support for each other’s core interests.”
Judges had already dismissed parts of two cases after it was revealed FBI agents hadn’t properly informed them of their rights against self-incrimination.
U.S.-listed Chinese firms must disclose Chinese government interference risks.The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that Chinese companies listed on U.S. markets must disclose the risks of the Chinese government interfering in their business as part of their reporting obligations.
Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter: Here Comes China. You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
Further selections and editorial and geopolitical commentary by Amarynth.
Geopolitical moves:
Most of the geopolitical space was taken up by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Soon Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, moved in, boots ‘n all, with SCO.
A geopolitical story of note is the confirmed friendship between Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un pledging to strengthen their friendly relations as they exchanged messages on the 60th anniversary of a bilateral landmark defense treaty.
Under the 1961 agreement, China and North Korea must automatically defend each other when one of them is attacked. Xi said he is ready to work with Kim to “take bilateral friendly cooperation to a new level and deliver more benefits to the two countries and two peoples.”
Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case suffered a major blow.
A Canadian judge ruled that HSBC documents showing that US authorities had made selective, misleading and “outright false” claims about the Huawei CFO could play no part in the case.
[Ed: Under Hong Kong’s controversial extradition law one had to commit a crime. Under Canadian law one can be extradited if they “may” have committed a crime].
On Taiwan, the Chinese have put down their red lines and a warning: “We advise the US and the island of Taiwan not to misjudge the situation and not to underestimate our determination and will to punish their provocation. They must be prepared to face a sudden blow.”
Well, I heard that President Biden is going to throw some more billions of dollars for more High Speed Train development in the United States. I am sure that the lawyers, the accountants, and the bankers are all very excited about the money. But look at what is going up in Africa…
Made by America? Nope. Made by China.
Two good-feel-good stories:
Pandas
Wild Giant pandas are no longer endangered, but they are still vulnerable with a population outside captivity of 1,800.
Authorities have expanded their habitats and replanted bamboo forests to feed them.
The number of Siberian tigers, Amur leopards, Asian elephants, and crested ibis has also “visibly increased” as a result of conservation efforts.
And those wandering elephants are still wandering. Excepting western reporting considers this story as: “Cuddly elephants are the latest propaganda weapon in President Xi Jinping’s propaganda offensive to present a more ‘lovable’ global image of China.
The elephants are just one manifestation of Beijing’s decade-long obsession with boosting what it calls its ‘discourse power.’” Sydney Morning Herald.
I’ve seen western reporting say things like: Marauding and destructive elephant herd in China demolishes the countryside. So, now we know, even good-feel-good stories out of China are weaponized.
(Could we imminently expect a headline saying .. marauding Chinese elephants EAT pandas in JinJiang? Xi Jingping personally responsible for giving the order. For those who find themselves temporarily without a sense of humor, this is meant as humor although it illustrates the media from the west that will use anything and everything to continue the media war).
It is hard to choose what to put first from this growing Chinese juggernaut. Let’s start with banks:
The world’s top banks are Chinese: ICBC, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China hold the top four positions for the fourth year in a row. ICBC has been at the top of the table for nine consecutive years.
Its Tier 1 capital has grown to $439.9bn, the highest individual bank total on record and a $59.7bn increase YoY.
Capital levels continue to grow significantly, up 18.6% YoY compared to the global average of 12.7%. They now account for 30% of global aggregate Tier 1 capital in the Top 1000 compared with 11% in 2011 and 5% in 2001.
GDP grew 18.3% in Q1 and 12.7% in H1 YoY. Urban unemployment is 5%, and 6.98 million new urban jobs, 63.5 percent of the annual target, were created in the first half. Per capita disposable income increased 12.6% YoY.
Exports up 32.2% in June, from 27.9% in May, YoY. Imports increased by 36.7% y/y last month, down from 51.1% y/y growth in May. The trade surplus was $51.5 billion in June, and to $45.5 billion in May.
January – May, Chinese trade with Germany, $92.8 billion, grew 36% YoY and France $32.9 billion rose 44%. China has proposed cooperating with Germany and France for Africa’s development and aims to reopen investment deal with EU.
Six new projects broke ground at Gwadar Port, a flagship of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC): a fertilizer factory, an animal vaccine factory, a lubricant factory and an exhibition center.
A 300MW imported coal power plant has been in construction since 2019 and the Power Purchase Agreement was signed earlier this year.
Beijing’s investigation of Didi jolted global markets and tech startups canceled overseas IPOs. Keep, backed by SoftBank, Alibaba-backed medical data solutions provider, and Ximalaya, the podcast app, all canceled IPOs, admitting that regulators had discouraged them from listing overseas.
The Financial Times says the “debacle signals [the] end of [a] steady stream of New York listings for Chinese companies.”
China’s Tech Crackdown Hits Wall Street’s Wallet. U.S. listings of Chinese companies have accounted for nearly 8 percent of Goldman Sachs’s underwriting fees so far this year, and over 12% of underwriting revenue over the previous five years. Didi Chuxing is just the tip of the iceberg.
Remember, the Chinese work together as one singular organism
You try to hurt it, and all Hell will break loose, the people in the United States and the West have absolutely no concept or idea of what they are going up against. It’s like those cocky Space Marines in Aliens II (the movie) and then were FUCKING slaughtered in three minutes.
The Chinese are not what everyone thinks.
The Chinese work together.
Compliance in China
A Global Times op-ed explains that Chinese tech companies are moving from an era of “barbaric growth” to an “era of compliance,” in which internet companies learn to observe domestic laws and regulations. China has long held restrictions on foreign investment but a loophole, called a VIE, allowed companies to bypass those rules. Chinese internet companies “should now step out of the gray area and move toward normalized corporate governance.
How Chinese clampdown targets offshore listings: China’s securities regulator is setting up a team to review plans by Chinese companies for initial public offerings (IPOs) abroad, including those using a corporate structure that Beijing says has led to abuse.
In a separate act of decoupling, the U.S. Commerce Department today added 14 Chinese entities to its growing economic blacklist over their participation in “China’s campaign of repression, mass detention, and high technology surveillance” in Xinjiang. The companies include AI and other tech firms based in Xinjiang, Beijing, and Chengdu.
Couriers delivered 49 billion pieces in H1, up 46% YoY, and added an average of 2 billion pieces of express delivery per month, with business volume approaching 10 billion in a single month, constantly hitting new record highs.
TikTok will stop requiring employees to work an extra day every two weeks, following a similar move by its local rival Kuaishou. Under the arrangement, workers were paid double their regular daily rate when working on weekends and triple during legal holidays, a bonus that some young professionals preferred to better work-life balance.
Two of China’s three best-selling electric vehicles in June were Shanghai-built Tesla models, shining a light on the U.S. automaker’s popularity in the world’s largest auto market despite recent setbacks there like a regulatory probe into the safety of its autopilot system.”
China is embarking on a building spree for battery swapping centers, as the nation’s network of swapping centers numbered 716 at the end of June, nearly three times the amount at the end of last year.
Shanghai Microelectronics sells its 600/20 flagship lithography machine for 90 nm chips. By Q4, it will offer machines for 28 nm, replacements for ASML’s 1980Di machine and next year will offer 14 nm. machines. “China has world-class EDA(Electronic design automation) startups–companies with worldwide customers.”
For the SpaceONauts – China’s space sector is getting too big and too busy to report on in this Sitrep and magazine format and I’m sure there are media focused on the sector. Just a little while ago, we have this reusable suborbital spacecraft with its successful first launch. It leaves earth horizontally, and returns vertically, like an airplane.
China and Syria signs rebuilding and BRI investments
Until a little while ago, at the time of writing, this was a rumor. Now it is fact.
Chinese FM arrives in Syria, meets officials and signs agreements
There is another similar type of rumor, very small in the press as yet, that China is now active in the Ukraine in terms of rebuilding and perhaps farming contracts. This is very small currently but keep your eyes open.
On these two items, one has to remember the ‘double helix’ of China and Russia.
This is but a fraction of what I gleaned from the Here Comes China newsletter. Godfree has some delicious longer reads in his newsletter: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
And if all this isn't enough, then let's start talking about America and how it fits with the changing global situation...
A new American president is presenting a program for renewal of human values in the marketplace unheard of since the 1930s but still projecting American military domination and environmental destruction far beyond the awareness of most Americans.
Continued insistence that Russia and China are major global threats to everyone and not just American monopoly capitalists resonate not only in the cosmic void between the ears of our mentally disabled foreign policy experts but echo in the minds of innocent Americans since that’s all they get from major, and all too often minor media.
The charge that China is conducting genocide on its Islamic people coming from the butchers of hundreds of thousands of Islamic people in the middle east would be a dreadful sick joke if not so incredibly evil, but poor souls condemned to network media remain stuck in a misinformation chamber amplifying our ruling power’s message day in and day out.
The fact that growing majorities have little or no faith in government or media is a hopeful sign but until we totally clean out the sewage system much of corporate news has become, the stench that wafts up remains a carrier of the information pandemic.
While alleged economic threats from China actually do offer market competition to the empire ( and market competition is supposed to be good, according to the theology preached by the priest-rabbi-therapists of the church of capital ) and China is under the control of communists who at least try, not always with success, to force it to work for the common good and not just the minority of Chinese capitalists, why and how and to whom is that a threat?
Only to America where majorities exist in numbers of those in debt but never those who vote nationally.
This is called “our” democracy by many wishful thinkers still unaware that the political process is owned and operated by the wealthiest minority, which spends billions to maintain political control by purchase and rental of candidates and office holders.
Citizens innocently proclaiming this hustle as “our” democracy are like past slaves referring to “our” plantation.
If they were the minority house negroes of the time they could afford such fantasy but the overwhelming majority who toiled in the fields and suffered the most brutal treatment had no such luxury.
And as if the treatment of these two powerful nations didn’t show enough imperial idiocy, that of a nearly helpless tiny nation currently, as usual, under assault, is greater indication of lunacy bordering on stark raving insanity.
After 60 years of a murderous attempted strangulation of the Cuban political economy, that tiny nation survives with the support of the overwhelming majority of governments on earth.
Recently at the United Nations 184 countries voted to end the filthy American embargo with only Murder Inc. headquartered in the USA and Israel still, as always out of step with the overwhelming majority while spouting humanitarian rhetoric and practicing murderous brutality.
This still finds well meaning people waving flags and quoting bibles and constitutions as though these fabled symbols clean up the reality of degenerate social practice as hypocritical as a rapist claiming victims only to assure they do not suffer sexual frustration.
The anti-Cuban lobby, second only to that of Israel in its control of American foreign policy, was originally a creature of the Cuban upper classes who escaped to Miami from the revolution that was working to spread education, jobs, health care and other necessities of life to the greatest number of people who had long been denied by American partnership with Cuban ruling power.
They loom large in the current scenario of an alleged uprising against the terror and horror of millions of people eating, going to school and getting health care despite the ugly embargo and other violent attempts to smother the island of 11 million so that capital might again profit from gambling and drugs, as it did before 1960.
Meanwhile, another bloody lie in Afghanistan has ended with the Taliban, the group we were allegedly protecting poor afghans from, has taken over the government of their own country.
This after billions have been spent and hundreds of thousands murdered in pursuit of profits while good people here have been fed stories about emancipating women and educating afghans to the joys of democracy like ours, where hundreds of thousands of Americans live in the street while we spend trillions to kill people and billions to care for pets.
And far beyond wretched national policies looms the global curse of what private profit industrial and war marketing are doing to the environment shared by humanity and not just one or anther national identity group often claiming super status with a special connection to deities ranging from Santa Claus to the Easter bunny for all they are worth in the material world.
Words about democracy are not balanced by deeds of mass murder, oppression and absolute support for rich minority rule that assures continued profit making from exploitation of workers whether they clean toilets, drive buses, pilot airplanes or walk dogs.
Like the sex workers who use their private parts to create private profits for their entrepreneurial pimps, those who create, package and deliver the consumer goods that are the foundation of the economy are doing it for the benefit of owners and investors rather than their own which would be far better served if they owned and ran the businesses they form the foundation for while others get rich on their labor.
Facing horrible news at what the future of humanity looks like under the environmental stress called climate change, more people than ever are working to end foul methods of economics that assure disaster for humanity but trying to do so while maintaining market rules of private profit assures further destruction or worse, simply throwing people out of work they do only to survive and thus destroy hope of survival.
The future must be to keep people alive by assuring the public good before any pursuit of private profit. We do not need professional economists to explain that capitalism is the only answer to social problems all the while collecting fat salaries and investment opportunities while society fails more quickly under their rule.
In truth, if workers are doing dirty work that affords them salaries so they can pay their rent, mortgages and other life supports, but it costs society billions to have to clean up the mess they create, we would all best be served by paying them to not go to work.
We’d be saving the billions we’d have to spend to clean up the mess they created in service to private profiteers and assure their survival by using those mammoth savings to help them learn and get better jobs for them and everyone else, that serve all of us and not simply minority investors.
As the world grows more threatened and conditions become more dangerous with the USA holding several hundred military bases in foreign countries and surrounding Russia and China with troops and war ships, immediate action must be taken to both confront environmental conditions that threaten us all and war like preparations that are profitable to a criminal minority while threatening the planet and all its people.
In short, we need global democratic communism before anti-social capitalism destroys us all.
Let’s not forget the Amazing HST that has revolutionized China, and is now changing all of Asia…
Video of Chinese HST. Good watch.
Now, let’s move on to the biggest project of the century; the BRI…
The Belt and Road Initative
From my mail box by [redacted].
Here we focus on making people understand that the Belt & Road Initiative is the Endeavor of the Century.
And it’s not a small task with the pervasive anti-China propaganda.
Why ? because the BRI will decrease poverty, will open perspectives, will connect lands & seas, will create bonds between nations, will provoke many occasions to work together and learn from each other personally, will boost education (technical & philosophical).
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Yes, capitalists & upper class people (Americans, Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Europeans, Japanese, Indians, Pakistanis, Koreans, Africans, Latin Americans, Down Under-ians etc.) will profit more, so what ?! They got the money and the organization ! Let’s be realistic !
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A bit of Real Politik, please, as Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin said to Angela Merkel at the occasion of her valedictory visit to him. If this project, which is supposed to be finished in 2049, (for the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China) can achieve only 50 % of its potential, the World will not be a paradise but it will be a much much better place because true, physical development will be possible for so many people on Earth. Imagine it as a Marshall Plan to the square.
True development means first and foremost public utilities and infrastructures (clean water, power grids, roads & bridges, schools buildings etc.). I think it was Lenin who said that the Bolshevik Revolution is the power of the Soviets plus the electrification of Russia.
According to an article by MK Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat, the total amount of money injected in the BRI projects to now is in the order of 4 trillions, with a “t” !
Imagine the 2.2 trillions wasted in Afghanistan and the 5.7 trillions lost in Irak channeled to infrastructural, health & educational (all levels) improvements in the USA !
China became Europe’s first commercial partner this year with exchanges worth almost one trillion, with a “t”.
Speaking of Europe, Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance minister can testify to the unexpected and respectful Chinese interventions in the so-called Greek crisis within the framework of the Belt & Road Initiative.
It is obvious that we need to be aware of the ecological dimension and many industrial projects were utterly careless for our natural environment but the Climate Change narrative and Green narrative are fabrications to brainwash in order not to allow true and respectful of nature development. Watch Professor William Happer’s video or for those speaking French, François Gervais’s videos.
As Vijay Prashad said rightly, in the mind of the Crusaders, most of the Planet are pools of slaves and microscopic pockets of house niggers/ching-chongs/wogs/snow white house niggers (if you want a nicer, politically correct ,acceptable & respectful expression:compradore bourgeoisie) for them to use & abuse so they can live the high life. Of course, a global project for true and solid development like the Belt & Road Initiative
(development of the mind & true industrialization)
is absolutely anathema to them.
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What is happening now in the West is the slow ( maybe not so slow) motion of the plutocrats to crush the offspring of the middle class created post 1945 because even the crumbs they “gave” your parents cannot be “given” to you anymore since new poles of power re-emerged, depriving them (relatively for now but the tendency will increase with time) of guaranteed long term slave laborers and cheap natural resources so they want to “give” even less here because in THEIR SYSTEM, the profits are less.
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In technical words, that’s the system of empire or the British system (aka closed paradigm) the eternal foe of the open paradigm or the American System of Physical Economy (and true development) by Henry Charles Carey (1793-1879) who was also the economic adviser to President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
I want to remind everyone of Jeff’s 6 E s describing the PBC’s (Psychopathic Barbarian Crusaders) usual modus operandi : Extortion, Extraction, Expropriation, Enslavement, Evangelization & Extermination.
I would like to remind everyone a conversation between Roman historian Tacitus (56-c.120) and his father-in-law, the general Agricola (40-93). Agricola was at the time of the chat governor of the province of Britain, he was looking in the direction of Ireland and confided to his son-in-law his wish to conquer it.
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Tacitus replied it would be a loss for the empire since those barbarians are not even fit to be trained as slaves. Agricola said that Tacitus was naive because to leave a pocket of freedom is a danger for Rome, it would give a small hope to the subjugated people. The English oligarchy learned from the “right” people !
Exploitation & Intimidation form an eternal pair.
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But in an open paradigm, that mentality of false scarcity for justifying oligarchical control will not be accepted.
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For those who can’t stand Lyndon Larouche (1922-2019), be informed that he was a genius and a philosopher king, without a crown like Confucius (551 BCE-479 BCE) and Plato (427 BCE- 347 BCE). The mere fact that the oligarchy felt the need to fabricate a sordid story of stolen documents to convict him to years of hard labor speaks volumes.
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He also predicted the 2008 crisis years in advance, not a small feat since most of the garden variety economists were clueless, I don’t even think they were bought off, I would grant them too much brain by adhering to such a hypothesis… Larouche might sound a little bit granddiloquent in certain speeches but it was the natural expression of a man confident in the quality of his mind because he truly developed it.
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Last but not least, he insisted on exposing the epistemological warfare, denouncing the dionysian sex, drug and rock’nd roll “culture”, skillfully and surreptitiously downgrading the possibilities of the human mind, making people easier to corral.
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The Frankfurt school, the ‘societal’ changes, the ‘ecological’ battles were all used as red herrings to the true socio-economic struggles. Mai 68 in France was a color revolution to get rid of Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), try to explain that to a Parigot bobo completely brainwashed by the contemporary doxa !
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His analysis of Universal History is outstanding. Webster Tarpley, a brilliant historian having writtten ” 9-11, terror made in USA ” has been part of his organization.
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For those having difficulties to watch “The Revival of the American System with Chinese Characteristics”, I suggest 12 sessions of 5 minutes. I’m not being sarcastic, sometimes simplistic means can give great results…
To recapitulate, if you are not filthily rich or do not wield formidable power (meaning you don’t have money to give or positions to offer) but are willing to devote some time in order to be useful for the cause of an advanced & refined mankind :
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FOCUS ON PROMOTING THE BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE AND TRY TO EDUCATE AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE ON EPISTEMOLOGICAL WARFARE
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Which is (the worst form of slavery is the mental form, please remember Plato’s allegory of the Cave and don’t forget one of the six E s is Evangelization) because both are powerful multi-generational (not only do we need to understand Real Politik but also that a great Endeavor will take the efforts of many people over more than one generation) tools to escape the clutch of the imperial aka British system.
And a message for all thos neocons who wants World War III with China & Russia…
Things are not going to happen as you think.
Never forget that the Chinese are super patriotic
If you try to hurt the Chinese now, they will SLIT YOUR FUCKING THROAT.
Of course, there is no one at the helm in the United States these days. What ever professional diplomatic corps that used to exist has been sacked and replaced with toadies who are just political donors. And they have no concept of the shit-load of trouble that they are walking into.
It absolutely reminds me of the Hungarian and Polish leadership that tried to take on Genghis Khan and his hordes of blood-thirsty killers.
Here’s a Chinese preschool.
Do not mess with the Chinese.
Now, a few years older. Here’s a video of Chinese “cub scouts” (Optional in Elementary School)…
Elementary School.
Next a video of Chinese Middle School Students (Mandatory. Everyone in China get’s this training.). When a kid is in middle school, they must attend Summer training at different levels. They make up the basis for the conscript army.
Chinese mandatory Middle School Training.
Next a video of some Chinese Para-Military. There are all sorts of para-military forces embedded within China. This group is a regulatory arm of the Corruption Police. Of course, they are all trained in the warrior arts.
Chinese Paramilitary.
Next video shows some of what China’s professional warrior class can do. China is hardly a “peasant army fielding old AK-47 clones”.
China’s professional warriors.
And of course, everyone knows that China is no match for America’s professional military with it’s “Warrior Culture”, massive numbers of high-technology weapons, and the “never-give-up-Rambo spirit!
sayed salahuddin @sayedsalahuddin - 11:59 UTC · 22 Aug 2021
Almost all parts of Afghanistan enjoying peace for a week now after over 42 years of war, but Kabul airport has become the most violent part.
We went from the history behind Afghanistan and the various military empires that tried to conquer it, to the gnashing of the teeth and wailing of the American cheerleaders who are in shock and pain.
Then, we started to review how this obscure nation fit in with the global power play and that means the “collective West” and Asia. Where “Asia” is China, Iran and China together.
Then, if that isn’t enough…
…we see that China continues to grow.
And even though the “news” about China is all doom and gloom…
… no one in the “West” has any idea of what a force China is right now, and how insurmountable a united Asia is against the fat, weak, corrupt United States and it’s vassals.
There is no question that for the twenty years that the United States has been in Afghanistan not one American leader read any history…
… not one American diplomat or military general or expert had any idea about what was actually going on in that section of the globe.
And since Afghanistan was such an enormous drain in money, resources, and “news”, once can only imagine the poverty of United States ability in other Geo-political arenas.
The best thing for the United States to do right now is to die quietly in a hole somewhere and allow the rest of the world to carry on.
Provocative?
Yes, I suppose, but it is accurate.
Proud transgender American military.
We know that with the enormous outlay of military funding that the United States fully plans to engage China in a serious war. And they plan to do it not only in the South China Sea, but on Chinese soil. This will not work out the way that everyone plans.
As I have said before, China is a serious, serious nation, that does not play.
Video of the future of Africa with Chinese help.
China is a serious serious nation that does not play.
Read my Deagel reports, if you don’t know what I am talking about. Right there is everything that you need to know about the future of the world. And what you can do about your little part of it.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
This is a full reprint in HTML of the fourth chapter (Chapter 4) of the first part (Part I) of the massive volume titled "The 33 Strategies of War". Written by Robert Greene (with emotional support from his cats). I read this book while in prison, and found much of what was written to be interesting, enjoyable, and pertinent to things going on in my life. I think that you will as well.
You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Cut your ties to the past; enter unknown territory. Place yourself on “death ground,” where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive.
Part I
Chapter 4
Create a sense of urgency and desperation; The Death Ground Strategy
You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved in what you do. The only way to change is through action and outside pressure. Put yourself in situations where you have too much at stake to waste time or resources–if you cannot afford to lose, you won’t. Cut your ties to the past; enter unknown territory where you must depend on your wits and energy to see you through. Place yourself on “death ground,” where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive.
Cortes ran all that aground with the ten ships. Cuba, to be sure, was still there, in the blue sea, with its farms, its cows and its tame Indians; but the way to Cuba was no longer through sunny blue waves, rocked in soft idleness, oblivious of danger and endeavor; it was through Motecucuma's court, which had to be conquered by ruse, by force, or by both; through a sea of warlike Indians who ate their prisoners and donned their skins as trophies; at the stroke of their chief's masterly hand, the five hundred men had lost that flow of vital memories and hopes which linked up their souls with their mother-island; at one stroke, their backs had been withered and had lost all sense of life. Henceforward, for them, all life was ahead, towards those forbidding peaks which rose gigantically on the horizon as if to bar all access to what was now not merely their ambition, but their only possible aim--Mexico, mysterious and powerful behind the conflicting tribes.
- HERNAN CORTES: CONQUEROR OF MEXICO, SALVADOR DE MADARIAGA, 1942
THE NO-RETURN TACTIC
In 1504 an ambitious nineteen-year-old Spaniard named Hernan Cortes gave up his studies in law and sailed for his country’s colonies in the New World. Stopping first in Santo Domingo (the island today comprising Haiti and the Dominican Republic), then in Cuba, he soon heard about a land to the west called Mexico–an empire teeming with gold and dominated by the Aztecs, with their magnificent highland capital of Tenochtitlan. From then on, Cortes had just one thought: someday he would conquer and settle the land of Mexico.
Over the next ten years, Cortes slowly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming secretary to the Spanish governor of Cuba and then the king’s treasurer for the island. In his own mind, though, he was merely biding his time. He waited patiently while Spain sent other men to Mexico, many of them never to return.
Finally, in 1518, the governor of Cuba, Diego de Velazquez, made Cortes the leader of an expedition to discover what had happened to these earlier explorers, find gold, and lay the groundwork for the country’s conquest. Velazquez wanted to make that future conquest himself, however, so for this expedition he wanted a man he could control, and he soon developed doubts about Cortes–the man was clever, perhaps too much so. Word reached Cortes that the governor was having second thoughts about sending him to Mexico. Deciding to give Velazquez no time to nurse his misgivings, he managed to slip out of Cuba in the middle of the night with eleven ships. He would explain himself to the governor later.
The expedition landed on Mexico’s east coast in March 1519. Over the next few months, Cortes put his plans to work–founding the town of Veracruz, forging alliances with local tribes who hated the Aztecs, and making initial contact with the Aztec emperor, whose capital lay some 250 miles to the west. But one problem plagued the conquistador: among the 500 soldiers who had sailed with him from Cuba were a handful who had been placed there by Velazquez to act as spies and make trouble for him if he exceeded his authority. These Velazquez loyalists accused Cortes of mismanaging the gold that he was collecting, and when it became clear that he intended to conquer Mexico, they spread rumors that he was insane–an all-too-convincing accusation to make about a man planning to lead 500 men against half a million Aztecs, fierce warriors known to eat their prisoners’ flesh and wear the skins as trophies. A rational man would take the gold they had, return to Cuba, and come back later with an army. Why stay in this forbidding land, with its diseases and its lack of creature comforts, when they were so heavily outnumbered? Why not sail for Cuba, back home where their farms, their wives, and the good life awaited them?
Cortes did what he could with these troublemakers, bribing some, keeping a close eye on others. Meanwhile he worked to build a strong enough rapport with the rest of his men that the grumblers could do no harm. All seemed well until the night of July 30, when Cortes was awoken by a Spanish sailor who, begging for mercy, confessed that he had joined in a plot to steal a ship and return that very evening to Cuba, where the conspirators would tell Velazquez about Cortes’s goal of conquering Mexico on his own.
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, bring struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.
- HAGAKURE: THE BOOK OF THE SAMURAI, YAMAMOTO TSUNETOMO, 1659-1720
Cortes sensed that this was the decisive moment of the expedition. He could easily squash the conspiracy, but there would be others. His men were a rough lot, and their minds were on gold, Cuba, their families–anything but fighting the Aztecs. He could not conquer an empire with men so divided and untrustworthy, but how to fill them with the energy and focus for the immense task he faced?Thinking this through, he decided to take swift action. He seized the conspirators and had the two ringleaders hanged. Next, he bribed his pilots to bore holes in all of the ships and then announce that worms had eaten through the boards of the vessels, making them unseaworthy.
Pretending to be upset at the news, Cortes ordered what was salvageable from the ships to be taken ashore and then the hulls to be sunk. The pilots complied, but not enough holes had been bored, and only five of the ships went down. The story of the worms was plausible enough, and the soldiers accepted the news of the five ships with equanimity. But when a few days later more ships were run aground and only one was left afloat, it was clear to them that Cortes had arranged the whole thing. When he called a meeting, their mood was mutinous and murderous.
This was no time for subtlety. Cortes addressed his men: he was responsible for the disaster, he admitted; he had ordered it done, but now there was no turning back. They could hang him, but they were surrounded by hostile Indians and had no ships; divided and leaderless, they would perish. The only alternative was to follow him to Tenochtitlan. Only by conquering the Aztecs, by becoming lords of Mexico, could they get back to Cuba alive. To reach Tenochtitlan they would have to fight with utter intensity. They would have to be unified; any dissension would lead to defeat and a terrible death. The situation was desperate, but if the men fought desperately in turn, Cortes guaranteed that he would lead them to victory. Since the army was so small in number, the glory and riches would be all the greater. Any cowards not up to the challenge could sail the one remaining ship home.
There is something in war that drives so deeply into you that death ceases to be the enemy, merely another participant in a game you don't wish to end.
- PHANTOM OVER VIETNAM, JOHN TROTTI, USMC, 1984
No one accepted the offer, and the last ship was run aground. Over the next months, Cortes kept his army away from Veracruz and the coast. Their attention was focused on Tenochtitlan, the heart of the Aztec empire. The grumbling, the self-interest, and the greed all disappeared. Understanding the danger of their situation, the conquistadors fought ruthlessly. Some two years after the destruction of the Spanish ships, and with the help of their Indian allies, Cortes’s army laid siege to Tenochtitlan and conquered the Aztec empire.
You don't have time for this display, you fool," he said in a severe tone. "This, whatever you're doing now, may be your last act on earth. It may very well be your last battle. There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one more minute...." "...Acts have power," he said, "Especially when the person acting knows that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well be one's last act on earth. I recommend that you reconsider your life and bring your acts into that light.... Focus your attention on the link between you and your death, without remorse or sadness or worrying. Focus your attention on the fact you don't have time and let your acts flow accordingly. Let each of your acts be your last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will your acts have their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, for as long as you live, the acts of a timid man." "Is it so terrible to be a timid man?" "No. It isn't if you are going to be immortal, but if you are going to die there is not time for timidity, simply because timidity makes you cling to something that exists only in your thoughts. It soothes you while everything is at a lull, but then the awesome, mysterious world will open its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will realize that your sure ways were not sure at all. Being timid prevents us from examining and exploiting our lot as men."
-JOURNEY TO IXTLAN: THE LESSONS OF DON JUAN, CARLOS CASTANEDA, 1972
Interpretation
On the night of the conspiracy, Cortes had to think fast. What was the root of the problem he faced? It was not Velazquez’s spies, or the hostile Aztecs, or the incredible odds against him. The root of the problem was his own men and the ships in the harbor. His soldiers were divided in heart and mind. They were thinking about the wrong things–their wives, their dreams of gold, their plans for the future. And in the backs of their minds there was always an escape route: if this conquest business went badly, they could go home. Those ships in the harbor were more than just transportation; they represented Cuba, the freedom to leave, the ability to send for reinforcements–so many possibilities.
For the soldiers the ships were a crutch, something to fall back on if things got ugly. Once Cortes had identified the problem, the solution was simple: destroy the ships. By putting his men in a desperate place, he would make them fight with utmost intensity.
A sense of urgency comes from a powerful connection to the present. Instead of dreaming of rescue or hoping for a better future, you have to face the issue at hand. Fail and you perish. People who involve themselves completely in the immediate problem are intimidating; because they are focusing so intensely, they seem more powerful than they are. Their sense of urgency multiplies their strength and gives them momentum. Instead of five hundred men, Cortes suddenly had the weight of a much larger army at his back.
Like Cortes you must locate the root of your problem. It is not the people around you; it is yourself, and the spirit with which you face the world. In the back of your mind, you keep an escape route, a crutch, something to turn to if things go bad. Maybe it is some wealthy relative you can count on to buy your way out; maybe it is some grand opportunity on the horizon, the endless vistas of time that seem to be before you; maybe it is a familiar job or a comfortable relationship that is always there if you fail. Just as Cortes’s men saw their ships as insurance, you may see this fallback as a blessing–but in fact it is a curse. It divides you. Because you think you have options, you never involve yourself deeply enough in one thing to do it thoroughly, and you never quite get what you want. Sometimes you need to run your ships aground, burn them, and leave yourself just one option: succeed or go down. Make the burning of your ships as real as possible–get rid of your safety net. Sometimes you have to become a little desperate to get anywhere.
The ancient commanders of armies, who well knew the powerful influence of necessity, and how it inspired the soldiers with the most desperate courage, neglected nothing to subject their men to such a pressure.
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
THE DEATH-AT-YOUR-HEELS TACTIC
In 1845 the writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, then twenty-four, shook the Russian literary world with the publication of his first novel, Poor Folk. He became the toast of St. Petersburg society. But something about his early fame seemed empty to him. He drifted into the fringes of left-wing politics, attending meetings of various socialist and radical groups. One of these groups centered on the charismatic Mikhail Petrashevsky.
Three years later, in 1848, revolution broke out all across Europe. Inspired by what was happening in the West, Russian radical groups like Petrashevsky’s talked of following suit. But agents of Czar Nicholas I had infiltrated many of these groups, and reports were written about the wild things being discussed at Petrashevsky’s house, including talk of inciting peasant revolts. Dostoyevsky was fervent about freeing the serfs, and on April 23, 1849, he and twenty-three other members of the Petrashevsky group were arrested.
After eight months of languishing in jail, the prisoners were awakened one cold morning and told that today they would finally hear their sentences. A few months’ exile was the usual punishment for their crime; soon, they thought, their ordeal would be over.
They were bundled into carriages and driven through the icy streets of St. Petersburg. Emerging from the carriages into Semyonovsky Square, they were greeted by a priest; behind him they could see rows of soldiers and, behind the soldiers, thousands of spectators. They were led toward a scaffold covered in black cloth at the center of the square. In front of the scaffold were three posts, and to the side was a line of carts laden with coffins.
Lord Naoshige said, "The Way of the Samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate."
- HAGAKURE: THE BOOK OF THE SAMURAI, YAMAMOTO TSUNETOMO, 1659-1720
Dostoyevsky could not believe what he saw. “It’s not possible that they mean to execute us,” he whispered to his neighbor. They were marched to the scaffold and placed in two lines. It was an unbelievably cold day, and the prisoners were wearing the light clothes they’d been arrested in back in April. A drumroll sounded. An officer came forward to read their sentences: “All of the accused are guilty as charged of intending to overthrow the national order, and are therefore condemned to death before a firing squad.” The prisoners were too stunned to speak.
As the officer read out the individual charges and sentences, Dostoyevsky found himself staring at the golden spire of a nearby church and at the sunlight bouncing off it. The gleams of light disappeared as a cloud passed overhead, and the thought occurred to him that he was about to pass into darkness just as quickly, and forever. Suddenly he had another thought: If I do not die, if I am not killed, my life will suddenly seem endless, a whole eternity, each minute a century. I will take account of everything that passes–I will not waste a second of life again.
The prisoners were given hooded shirts. The priest came forward to read them their last rites and hear their confessions. They said good-bye to one another. The first three to be shot were tied to the posts, and the hoods were pulled over their faces. Dostoyevsky stood in the front, in the next group to go. The soldiers raised their rifles, took aim–and suddenly a carriage came galloping into the square. A man got out with an envelope. At the last second, the czar had commuted their death sentences.
It had long been known, of course, that a man who, through disciplined training, had relinquished any desire or hope for survival and had only one goal--the destruction of his enemy--could be a redoubtable opponent and a truly formidable fighter who neither asked nor offered any quarter once his weapon had been unsheathed. In this way, a seemingly ordinary man who, by the force of circumstances rather than by profession, had been placed in the position of having to make a desperate choice, could prove dangerous, even to a skilled fencing master. One famous episode, for example, concerns a teacher of swordsmanship who was asked by a superior to surrender a servant guilty of an offense punishable by death. This teacher, wishing to test a theory of his concerning the power of that condition we would call "desperation," challenged the doomed man to a duel. Knowing full well the irrevocability of his sentence, the servant was beyond caring one way or the other, and the ensuing duel proved that even a skilled fencer and teacher of the art could find himself in great difficulty when confronted by a man who, because of his acceptance of imminent death, could go to the limit (and even beyond) in his strategy, without a single hesitation or distracting consideration. The servant, in fact, fought like a man possessed, forcing his master to retreat until his back was almost to the wall. At last the teacher had to cut him down in a final effort, wherein the master's own desperation brought about the fullest coordination of his courage, skill, and determination.
- SECRETS OF THE SAMURAI, OSCAR RATTI AND ADELE WESTBROOK, 1973
Later that morning, Dostoyevsky was told his new sentence: four years hard labor in Siberia, to be followed by a stint in the army. Barely affected, he wrote that day to his brother, “When I look back at the past and think of all the time I squandered in error and idleness,…then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift…every minute could have been an eternity of happiness! If youth only knew! Now my life will change; now I will be reborn.”
A few days later, ten-pound shackles were put on Dostoyevsky’s arms and legs–they would stay there for the length of his prison term–and he was carted off to Siberia. For the next four years, he endured the most abysmal prison conditions. Granted no writing privileges, he wrote novels in his head, memorized them. Finally, in 1857, still serving the army period of his sentence, he was allowed to start publishing his work. Where before he would torture himself over a page, spend half a day idling it away in thought, now he wrote and wrote. Friends would see him walking the streets of St. Petersburg mumbling bits of dialogue to himself, lost in his characters and plots. His new motto was “Try to get as much done as possible in the shortest time.”
Some pitied Dostoyevsky his time in prison. That made him angry; he was grateful for the experience and felt no bitterness. But for that December day in 1849, he felt, he would have wasted his life. Right up until his death, in 1881, he continued writing at a frantic pace, churning out novel after novel–Crime and Punishment, The Possessed, The Brothers Karamazov–as if each one were his last.
Interpretation
Czar Nicholas had decided to sentence the Petrashevsky radicals to hard labor soon after their arrest. But he wanted to teach them a harsher lesson as well, so he dreamed up the cruel theater of the death sentence, with its careful details–the priest, the hoods, the coffins, the last-second pardon. This, he thought, would really humble and humiliate them. In fact, some of the prisoners were driven insane by the events of that day. But the effect on Dostoyevsky was different: he had been afflicted for years with a sense of wandering, of feeling lost, of not knowing what to do with his time. An extremely sensitive man, that day he literally felt his own death deep in his bones. And he experienced his “pardon” as a rebirth.
The effect was permanent. For the rest of his life, Dostoyevsky would consciously bring himself back to that day, remembering his pledge never to waste another moment. Or, if he felt he had grown too comfortable and complacent, he would go to a casino and gamble away all his money. Poverty and debt were for him a kind of symbolic death, throwing him back on the possible nothingness of his life. In either case he would have to write, and not the way other novelists wrote–as if it were a pleasant little artistic career, with all its attendant delights of salons, lectures, and other frills. Dostoyevsky wrote as if his life were at stake, with an intense feeling of urgency and seriousness.
Death is impossible for us to fathom: it is so immense, so frightening, that we will do almost anything to avoid thinking about it. Society is organized to make death invisible, to keep it several steps removed. That distance may seem necessary for our comfort, but it comes with a terrible price: the illusion of limitless time, and a consequent lack of seriousness about daily life. We are running away from the one reality that faces us all.
As a warrior in life, you must turn this dynamic around: make the thought of death something not to escape but to embrace. Your days are numbered. Will you pass them half awake and halfhearted or will you live with a sense of urgency? Cruel theaters staged by a czar are unnecessary; death will come to you without them. Imagine it pressing in on you, leaving you no escape–for there is no escape. Feeling death at your heels will make all your actions more certain, more forceful. This could be your last throw of the dice: make it count.
While knowing that we will die someday, we think that all the others will die before us and that we will be the last to go. Death seems a long way off. Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream.... In sofar as death is always at one's door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly.
--Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1720)
KEYS TO WARFARE
Quite often we feel somewhat lost in our actions. We could do this or that–we have many options, but none of them seem quite necessary. Our freedom is a burden–what do we do today, where do we go?Our daily patterns and routines help us to avoid feeling directionless, but there is always the niggling thought that we could accomplish so much more. We waste so much time. Upon occasion all of us have felt a sense of urgency. Most often it is imposed from outside: we fall behind in our work, we inadvertently take on more than we can handle, responsibility for something is thrust into our hands. Now everything changes; no more freedom. We have to do this, we have to fix that. The surprise is always how much more spirited and more alive this makes us feel; now everything we do seems necessary. But eventually we go back to our normal patterns. And when that sense of urgency goes, we really do not know how to get it back.
Leaders of armies have thought about this subject since armies existed: how can soldiers be motivated, be made more aggressive, more desperate? Some generals have relied on fiery oratory, and those particularly good at it have had some success. But over two thousand years ago, the Chinese strategist Sun-tzu came to believe that listening to speeches, no matter how rousing, was too passive an experience to have an enduring effect. Instead Sun-tzu talked of a “death ground”–a place where an army is backed up against some geographical feature like a mountain, a river, or a forest and has no escape route. Without a way to retreat, Sun-tzu argued, an army fights with double or triple the spirit it would have on open terrain, because death is viscerally present. Sun-tzu advocated deliberately stationing soldiers on death ground to give them the desperate edge that makes men fight like the devil. That is what Cortes did in Mexico, and it is the only sure way to create a real fire in the belly. The world is ruled by necessity: People change their behavior only if they have to. They will feel urgency only if their lives depend on it.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, they began to question Han Hsin. "According to The Art of War , when one fights he should keep the hills to his right or rear, and bodies of water in front of him or to the left," they said. "Yet today you ordered us on the contrary to draw up ranks with our backs to the river, saying 'We shall defeat Chao and feast together!' We were opposed to the idea, and yet it has ended in victory. What sort of strategy is this?" "This is in The Art of War too," replied Han Hsin. "It is just that you have failed to notice it! Does it not say in The Art of War : 'Drive them into a fatal position and they will come out alive; place them in a hopeless spot and they will survive'? Moreover, I did not have at my disposal troops that I had trained and led from past times, but was forced, as the saying goes, to round up men from the market place and use them to fight with. Under such circumstances, if I had not placed them in a desperate situation where each man was obliged to fight for his own life, but had allowed them to remain in a safe place, they would have all run away. Then what good would they have been to me?" "Indeed!" his generals exclaimed in admiration. "We would never have thought of that."
-RECORDS OF THE HISTORIAN, SZUMA CHIEN, CIRCA 145 B.C.-CIRCA 86 B.C.
Death ground is a psychological phenomenon that goes well beyond the battlefield: it is any set of circumstances in which you feel enclosed and without options. There is very real pressure at your back, and you cannot retreat. Time is running out. Failure–a form of psychic death–is staring you in the face. You must act or suffer the consequences.
Understand: we are creatures who are intimately tied to our environment–we respond viscerally to our circumstances and to the people around us. If our situation is easy and relaxed, if people are friendly and warm, our natural tension unwinds. We may even grow bored and tired; our environment is failing to challenge us, although we may not realize it. But put yourself in a high-stakes situation–a psychological death ground–and the dynamic changes. Your body responds to danger with a surge of energy; your mind focuses. Urgency is forced on you; you are compelled to waste no more time.
The trick is to use this effect deliberately from time to time, to practice it on yourself as a kind of wake-up call. The following five actions are designed to put you on a psychological death ground. Reading and thinking about them won’t work; you must put them into effect. They are forms of pressure to apply to yourself. Depending on whether you want a low-intensity jolt for regular use or a real shock, you can turn the level up or down. The scale is up to you.
Stake everything on a single throw. In 1937 the twenty-eight-year-old Lyndon B. Johnson–at the time the Texas director of the National Youth Administration–faced a dilemma. The Texas congressman James Buchanan had suddenly died. Since loyal Texan voters tended to return incumbents to office, a Texan congressional seat generally came available only every ten or twenty years–and Johnson wanted to be in Congress by the time he was thirty; he did not have ten years to wait. But he was very young and was virtually unknown in Buchanan’s old district, the tenth. He would be facing political heavyweights whom voters would heavily favor. Why try something that seemed doomed to failure? Not only would the race be a waste of money, but the humiliation, if Johnson lost badly, could derail his long-term ambitions.
Unlimited possibilities are not suited to man; if they existed, his life would only dissolve in the boundless. To become strong, a man's life needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted. The individual attains significance as a free spirit only by surrounding himself with these limitations and by determining for himself what his duty is.
-THE I CHING, CHINA, CIRCA EIGHTH CENTURY B.C.
Johnson considered all this–then decided to run. Over the next few weeks, he campaigned intensely, visiting the district’s every backwater village and town, shaking the poorest farmer’s hand, sitting in drugstores to meet people who had never come close to talking to a candidate before. He pulled every trick in the book–old-style rallies and barbecues, newfangled radio ads. He worked night and day–and hard. By the time the race was over, Johnson was in a hospital, being treated for exhaustion and appendicitis. But, in one of the great upsets in American political history, he had won.
By staking his future on one throw, Johnson put himself in a death-ground situation. His body and spirit responded with the energy he needed. Often we try too many things at one time, thinking that one of them will bring us success–but in these situations our minds are diffused, our efforts halfhearted. It is better to take on one daunting challenge, even one that others think foolish. Our future is at stake; we cannot afford to lose. So we don’t.
Act before you are ready. In 49 B.C. a group of Roman senators, allied with Pompey and fearing the growing power of Julius Caesar, ordered the great general to disband his army or be considered a traitor to the Republic. When Caesar received this decree, he was in southern Gaul (modern-day France) with only five thousand men; the rest of his legions were far to the north, where he had been campaigning. He had no intention of obeying the decree–that would have been suicide–but it would be weeks before the bulk of his army could join him. Unwilling to wait, Caesar told his captains, “Let the die be cast,” and he and his five thousand men crossed the Rubicon, the river marking the border between Gaul and Italy. Leading troops onto Italian soil meant war with Rome. Now there was no turning back; it was fight or die. Caesar was compelled to concentrate his forces, to not waste a single man, to act with speed, and to be as creative as possible. He marched on Rome. By seizing the initiative, he frightened the senators, forcing Pompey to flee.
Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day
-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821
When danger is greatest.--It is rare to break one's leg when in the course of life one is toiling upwards--it happens much more often when one starts to take things easy and to choose the easy paths.
-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844-1900
We often wait too long to act, particularly when we face no outside pressure. It is sometimes better to act before you think you are ready–to force the issue and cross the Rubicon. Not only will you take your opponents by surprise, you will also have to make the most of your resources. You have committed yourself and cannot turn back. Under pressure your creativity will flourish. Do this often and you will develop your ability to think and act fast.
Enter new waters. The Hollywood studio MGM had been good to Joan Crawford: it had discovered her, made her a star, crafted her image. By the early 1940s, though, Crawford had had enough. It was all too comfortable; MGM kept casting her in the same kinds of roles, none of them a challenge. So, in 1943, Crawford did the unthinkable and asked out of her contract.
Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habituation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more.
-MEASURE FOR MEASURE, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616
The consequences for Crawford could have been terrible; to challenge the studio system was considered highly unwise. Indeed, when she then signed up with Warner Brothers, predictably enough she was offered the same mediocre sorts of scripts. She turned them down. On the verge of being fired, she finally found the part she had been looking for: the title role in Mildred Pierce, which, however, she was not offered. Setting to work on the director, Michael Curtiz, she managed to change his mind and land the role. She gave the performance of her life, won her only Best Actress Oscar, and resurrected her career.
In leaving MGM, Crawford was taking a big chance. If she failed to succeed at Warner Brothers, and quickly, her career would be over. But Crawford thrived on risk. When she was challenged, when she felt on edge, she burst with energy and was at her best. Like Crawford, you sometimes have to force yourself onto death ground–leaving stale relationships and comfortable situations behind, cutting your ties to the past. If you give yourself no way out, you will have to make your new endeavor work. Leaving the past for unknown terrain is like a death–and feeling this finality will snap you back to life.
Make it “you against the world.” Compared to sports like football, baseball is slow and has few outlets for aggression. This was a problem for the hitter Ted Williams, who played best when he was angry–when he felt that it was him against the world. Creating this mood on the field was difficult for Williams, but early on, he discovered a secret weapon: the press. He got into the habit of insulting sportswriters, whether just by refusing to cooperate with them or by verbally abusing them. The reporters returned the favor, writing scathing articles on his character, questioning his talent, trumpeting the slightest drop in his batting average. It was when Williams was hammered by the press, though, that he played best. He would go on a hitting tear, as if to prove them wrong. In 1957, when he carried on a yearlong feud with the papers, he played perhaps his greatest season and won the batting title at what for a baseball player is the advanced age of forty. As one journalist wrote, “Hate seems to activate his reflexes like adrenaline stimulates the heart. Animosity is his fuel!”
For Williams the animosity of the press and, with the press, of the public, was a kind of constant pressure that he could read, hear, and feel. They hated him, they doubted him, they wanted to see him fail; he would show them. And he did. A fighting spirit needs a little edge, some anger and hatred to fuel it. So do not sit back and wait for people to get aggressive; irritate and infuriate them deliberately. Feeling cornered by a multitude of people who dislike you, you will fight like hell. Hatred is a powerful emotion. Remember: in any battle you are putting your name and reputation on the line; your enemies will relish your failure. Use that pressure to make yourself fight harder.
Keep yourself restless and unsatisfied. Napoleon had many qualities that made him perhaps history’s greatest general, but the one that raised him to the heights and kept him there was his boundless energy. During campaigns he worked eighteen to twenty-hour days. If necessary, he would go without sleep for several days, yet sleeplessness rarely reduced his capacities. He would work in the bath, at the theater, during a dinner party. Keeping his eye on every detail of the war, he would ride endless miles on horseback without tiring or complaining.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial's point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. An if we live, we live to tread on kings; If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
-KING HENRY IV, PART I, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616
Certainly Napoleon had extraordinary endurance, but there was more to it than that: he never let himself rest, was never satisfied. In 1796, in his first real position of command, he led the French to a remarkable victory in Italy, then immediately went on another campaign, this time in Egypt. There, unhappy with the way the war was going and with a lack of political power that he felt was cutting into his control over military affairs, he returned to France and conspired to become first consul. This achieved, he immediately set out on his second Italian campaign. And on he went, immersing himself in new wars, new challenges, that required him to call on his limitless energy. If he did not meet the crisis, he would perish.
When we are tired, it is often because we are bored. When no real challenge faces us, a mental and physical lethargy sets in. “Sometimes death only comes from a lack of energy,” Napoleon once said, and lack of energy comes from a lack of challenges, comes when we have taken on less than we are capable of. Take a risk and your body and mind will respond with a rush of energy. Make risk a constant practice; never let yourself settle down. Soon living on death ground will become a kind of addiction–you won’t be able to do without it. When soldiers survive a brush with death, they often feel an exhilaration that they want to have again. Life has more meaning in the face of death. The risks you keep taking, the challenges you keep overcoming, are like symbolic deaths that sharpen your appreciation of life.
Authority: When you will survive if you fight quickly and perish if you do not, this is called [death] ground.... Put them in a spot where they have no place to go, and they will die before fleeing. If they are to die there, what can they not do? Warriors exert their full strength. When warriors are in great danger, then they have no fear. When there is nowhere to go, they are firm, when they are deeply involved, they stick to it. If they have no choice, they will fight.
-The Art of War, Sun-tzu (fourth century B.C.)
REVERSAL
If the feeling of having nothing to lose can propel you forward, it can do the same for others. You must avoid any conflict with people in this position. Maybe they are living in terrible conditions or, for whatever reason, are suicidal; in any case they are desperate, and desperate people will risk everything in a fight. This gives them a huge advantage. Already defeated by circumstances, they have nothing to lose. You do. Leave them alone.
Conversely, attacking enemies when their morale is low gives you the advantage. Maybe they are fighting for a cause they know is unjust or for a leader they do not respect. Find a way to lower their spirits even further. Troops with low morale are discouraged by the slightest setback. A show of force will crush their fighting spirit.
Always try to lower the other side’s sense of urgency. Make your enemies think they have all the time in the world; when you suddenly appear at their border, they are in a slumbering state, and you will easily overrun them. While you are sharpening your fighting spirit, always do what you can to blunt theirs.
Conclusion
The world is in the midst of World War III right now. It is being fought with things that are strange and unusual, and it is not being reported. In fact, the “news” is instead sending everyone off on “wild goose chases” down “rabbit holes”. No one actually knows what is going on.
It is critically important that you secure yourself and your family, and maintain a calm head through all of this. Let those around you make rash, foolish decisions, panic, and worry. That is not for you.
Recognize who you are, and where you are. Then, steely and calmly conduct your affirmation campaigns to wrest control of the reality that surrounds you and bend it to your will. You have this ability. Make it so.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my 33 Strategies of War index here..
It’s pretty obvious. Don’t you know. The propaganda onslaught. The “classified” documents, the full spread of dis-info plummeting the American citizenry to hate China as the great evil. Yeah. You have to be a blind moron not to see what is coming.
Now, I have repeatedly argued that the American government is a wreck, that it’s leadership are “brain dead”, and somehow the entire crooked mess is running on auto-pilot straight towards the abyss. Since I have been making these accusations, not one single person has been able to come forward and prove to me otherwise.
What we do know is that America is following a well documented historical progressing that leads towards a major war.
Massive propaganda campaign.
Hybrid warfare at all levels.
A setting up of where the fields of conflict will occur.
A manipulation of “allies” to engage conflict as proxies.
And finally…
A trigger event or “incident” that will set everything in motion.
I argue that this trigger event is the Coronavirus pandemic. With a secondary excuse for a “fall back” contingency to be Taiwan.
There is a full wide “shotgun approach” to provide a wide selection of potential incident vectors from with the Untied States can capitalize upon to use as an excuse to generate a war.
But, it’s proven that the Coronavirus was in the USA months before China…
Yes. That is very true.
But it does not matter.
The lies and the narrative is being driven top down in favor of a war, and it “ain’t stopping for shit”. Never the less, the “safe” inoculation strain was released in the United States a full six months before the deadly lethal version COVID-19B was released on CNY in China. As this video clearly states…
Yup, released in the USA months before the bio-weapons attack on China.
Lies, Lies, and then more lies…
If is functionally the case that every single article in the “West” must contain negative things about China. But this is wrong and it is really rather counter-productive. As China is spending it’s resources to make Asia successful, and to help everyone associated with it.
The only things that America can point to as accomplishments are wars and things that happened fifty years ago. There has been ZERO positive, good, supporting efforts in any ways, shape of form originating out of the Untied States for a long, long, LONG time.
If China buys a steel factory, the American media is all aghast and in hysterics!
Who or what is driving all the things that I have listed above? China, Iran? Russia? Nope every single one has a direct budget path that is directly traced to the United States Federal Budget out of the Untied States Congress.
This looming fiasco is being driven by the United States Congress.
Now, I have gone into great detail about the bio-weapons carpet bombing of China by the (then) head of the Bio-Weapons office, John Bolton.
I have also covered, also in great detail the failure of the Hong Kong “Color Revolution”.
As well as the Uighur Muslim insurgency in XinJiang.
Not to mention the collapse of the United States NGO-backed Tibet movement.
I have also spent time discussing what happened when the Trump assault flotilla / armada entered the South Pacific Sea in late 2020, and sailed home “with it’s tail between it’s legs”.
As well as the realities of what is going on in Taiwan.
Well, you know that these idiots in the United States Congress don’t read MM. Have no concept of anything other than their echo chambers, have never fought in a real war, and have no concept of who the fuck they are threatening.
A quick and dirty summary of some of the major elements…
Here’s a simple map of what has been going on regarding China. There are many more efforts involved, but if I put them all on the map it would be unreadable. So I greatly simplified it to this simple diagram.
A look at the results so far…
And now, here is the state of affairs. The United States was able to install “puppet military regimes” in both Myanmar, and Thailand, but was unsuccessful with Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. All the NGO and “color revolutions” inside of China failed. All of the bio-weapons attacks inside of China failed. All of the insurgency efforts inside of China failed.
It’s like a sickness
There is nothing that can stop this massive anti-China effort from coming to it’s natural conclusion. America will find an excuse. An “incident” will be triggered, and then Congress will declare war, and then all Hell is going to break out.
Though, in truth all the preparations will be in place long before Congress “rubber stamps” the war. Congressional approval will only be a formality.
But China is not run by morons, and idiots. It is meritocracy. You can we well assured that China will not wait to be attacked before making it’s own very substantial moves.
And it can really get you down.
All this negatively, the hopelessness of it, and your singular ability to do anything about it is frustrating and so very stressful.
America is so frustrating right now.
War is like a board-game I
So while (in the game of chess) the United States side is moving it’s rooks, pawns, knights and bishops in play for a check-mate…
America is playing Chess.
…the Chinese see this, and are playing Go. And they are moving their pieces in a very complex and intricate manner.
The Chinese play Go.
You know…
…there are so many interesting facets to this entire Geo-political arena right now, that we really need to sit down and look at things in a far simpler way. Like the games mentioned above, they cut away all those details and just look at the kinds of people who are pushing for war, and those who are pushing back.
Thus we have this substantially simplified narrative.
Never the less, if you really want to get down into the dirt and details, references abound. No, I am not talking about the flood of anti-China bullshit cascading out of the government mouthpieces in America. That is all just bullshit.
Instead, I am talking about writings from third party, supposedly (mainly) “disinterested parties” look at the entire thing askance from a distance. Like this article, for instance…
COVID-19, Hillary Clinton’s “mission” and neo-Lysenkoism. Column by Gennady Onishchenko
The main political outcome of the anthrax controversy story after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack was more than serious. The well-known Hillary Clinton, then a senator from New York, then Secretary of State and candidate for President of the United States, came to Geneva after the events of September 2001 to attend a meeting of the working group on the development of a mechanism for monitoring compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. She came not just like that, but with a very specific “mission”.
Let me remind you that the origins of this convention, which was adopted in 1972 and then ratified by almost all UN countries, were the USSR, the United States and the United Kingdom. It was the first international disarmament treaty to prohibit the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological and toxin weapons, as well as their destruction.
But after the ratification of this document, an important issue remained unresolved — a mechanism for monitoring compliance with the convention was needed. At that time, this mechanism was being developed by extremely reputable experts, including from Russia. And so Hillary Clinton, under the pretext that her country was the target of an attack using biological weapons, said that the United States is withdrawing from work on a control mechanism. And without their participation, this document could not be adopted. At the same time, Hillary knew perfectly well that it was in the United States that biological weapons were used against her people, even a congressional commission came to this conclusion, although their conclusions were half-truths.
And the truth was that in the United States, which considers itself a beacon of democracy and freedom, the first terrorist act using biological weapons in the third millennium was committed. And with a high degree of probability, the US military and, possibly, some politicians were behind this terrorist attack. And this was done solely to address political issues, including to justify US military operations abroad.
An investigation conducted in the United States itself proved conclusively that the anthrax strain used in mailings was developed back in the 1950s as a combat formulation. The research was conducted in the same military laboratory at Fort Detrick, from where, as the investigation found out, the most dangerous strain was leaked. Although Washington claimed that Fort Detrick had not been engaged in offensive biological weapons programs since the mid-1960s, from what we know, there is great doubt that this secret military laboratory has switched to flower breeding.
In addition, it was simply impossible to carry out an operation to distribute combat anthrax spores alone: the pathogen had to be not only isolated, but also cultivated, accumulated a sufficient amount of it, packaged, and so on. All of this was even theoretically impossible to do without anyone noticing.
Realizing that in the event of any international investigation, all this will come out, the United States decided to torpedo the creation of a mechanism for monitoring compliance with the convention. It was with this “mission” that Hillary Clinton came to Geneva. The Americans were very afraid that everything would come out: if there was a mechanism, they would have to host an international working group, which would not have representatives of the United States and which would have full authority to request any documents, question all witnesses, and so on. This is what the Americans were so afraid of. It was important for them to hide the fact that sending out spores was not the act of a lone terrorist, but the result of a conspiracy.
And now, in 2021, the United States is trying to get out of the situation in which it drove itself and the whole world in 2001. Everyone understands that today there is a danger not of biological warfare (this is still unlikely), but of what is much more terrible — biological terrorism. But in the absence of a legitimate internationally recognized control mechanism, which was never developed due to the fault of the United States, today this area is completely uncontrolled.
When a World Health Organization (WHO) commission arrived in China earlier this year to investigate where the COVID-19 pandemic started, it had no real authority. WHO tried to simulate the control mechanism, but they did not succeed. Well, there were market experts in Wuhan, interviewed someone, but they were not allowed in any laboratories, and China had every right to do so. As a result, the WHO published a helpless four-page report, on the basis of which no serious conclusions about the origin of the pandemic are simply impossible.
Russia sees all these dangers, so back in 2006 at the G8 summit, which was held in St. Petersburg, at the initiative of our country, a document was adopted concerning the spread of infectious diseases. The document emphasized that we are aware of all the risks in this area, including those associated with possible man-made cases of the spread of dangerous infections.
So all the accusations against China from the United States about the origin of COVID-19 are attempts by the Americans to regain priority in research in the field of the use of the most uncontrolled weapons of mass destruction to date — biological weapons. Two decades after the events of September 2001, the United States is trying to take revenge, which is why it is so actively “hitting” China.
At the same time, let’s not forget that the United States deliberately delayed the development of science in this area for two decades in order to conceal its crimes, which in its consequences is comparable to the famous Lysenkoism.
In fact, we are dealing with the phenomenon when the American civilization, which considers itself the greatest and most powerful, actually demonstrates a primitive conceit.
For no reason at all, the United States has assumed the right to decide everything for everyone, interfering in the affairs of other countries.
At the same time, for two decades now, they have been demonstrating their helplessness in terms of their willingness to bear responsibility even to their own people.
(Lysenkoism is a recognized anti-scientific concept, the founder of which is considered an academician Trofim Lysenko, which existed in the USSR in the 1930s-1960s. The consequence of this concept was the persecution of scientists, as well as the denial of the science of genetics, which had a detrimental effect on Soviet agriculture. In a figurative sense, the persecution of scientists for their "politically incorrect" scientific views is now called Lysenkoism or neo-Lysenkoism. — Approx. FAN).
Complex eh?
Yes, it is always so easy to get all caught up in the interesting details. When none of them really matter at all.
They do not matter.
What is actually going on is really quite simple. The American leadership is panicking. They have run the nation into the ground, and the people are very, very restless. The entire nation is coming apart at the seams, and the leadership must find some way to place blame. Because if they accept the blame, they will be hanging from nooses on light posts.
They chose China.
America is falling apart at the seams, and today the police must ride around in tanks and armored cars, as America is ripe for an explosion of anger as this video plainly shows…
America is falling apart at the seams.
America is a mess….
It is undeniable. America is a fucking mess. It really is. The people are brain dead either on drugs or electronic manipulation feeding a steady diet of hate, fear, and addiction. The oligarchy live inside well guarded and protected enclaves like the castles of yore. And when you see the reality it slaps you right in the face.
As in this reality video… go ahead watch it. I double-dare you.
America is a mess.
Blame it all on China…
The Chinese leadership is not having any of this, and knows full well where this is all leading towards.
They have had centuries of strife, hunger, starvation, looting and war. If you think that they will not fight for their place on the earth, you are sadly mistaken.
What China had to go through for the past 100 years is beyond imagination.
For a big part of it, China had to suffer shameless looting from Western imperialists, had land and resources stolen, and saw millions of its people massacred by Japanese invaders. All these atrocities left the China obliterated and the repercussions rung on for decades and set China into years of poverty and famine.
For a big part of the past 100 years China had been working their arse off to repair the damage and get their people out of poverty, increase the literacy rate and restore prosperity to the country.
And for 90 of the past 100 years you hardly hear the West talk about “human rights”, but all of a sudden when China’s economy seem to be threatening Western dominance of the world, the Western countries started to gang up on them with fabricated claims of human rights violation.
Only those countries who have been in the same boat as China, those who have been bullied, looted and taken advantage of by the shameless Western powers understand all the BS that China is getting.
-Jong Mun Goh
Distill everything
So really, if you want to distill everything into it’s simplest components, its really American Leaders want a war where the Chinese leaders die.
Sounds harsh. But it's accurate.
Trump era policy papers list specifics about targeting the Chinese leadership to institute a USA favorable "regime change".
It’s difficult to see any hope…
It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?
No hope in America these days.
And now we have to cope with the reality…
These millions of dollars that is pouring towards Hate-hate-hate-china will manifest into something one way or the other. You simply do not irradiate the minds of 330 million people and not have something happen as a result of it.
Such as shown in this video.
Hate-hate-hate-China
And this hate is manifesting…
Black on Asian crime is up in triple digits, and it is horrible. And what is the American government doing? Why it is funding more and more hate. Well, sure it’s going to result in people getting hurt, but it’s going to also result in other things as well. Be careful what you wish for.
Check out this video…
This is the Internet MEME about the United States (out of China)…
A mere four years ago, everyone in China had a good opinion of America. That started to change under Trump, and Biden has just kicked that opinion to the ground and stomped on it. To most Americans it doesn’t matter. But the truth is that it DOES matter.
If America is ever going to catch up to the rest of the world it just cannot isolate and threaten. It just looks like some kind of sick mentally retarded psychopath prison escapee. Check out this video meme.
Video Meme
But you know…
Life, real life is nothing like the brain-dead, zombies that are trying to cope in America today. The reality is that the rest of the world is actually doing pretty well, and China is doing great. Precisely because they concentrate on the needs of the people and not grabbing everything for personal profit and fighting wars to make money. Which is the USA model.
I want to ram this idea home with a “bitch slap” of reality. Here’s a sexy “everyday” video of a typical Chinese girl, in her house, making delicious typical healthy Chinese food for her Chinese family.
You wonder why the Chinese are happy, and healthy? Well it is because they eat well, live a stress free life, and are not taxed and regulated into oblivion. To either die, want to die or quiver in nervous exhaustion on some street corner. That’s why!
Check out this great sexy video! There’s few things sexier than a happy woman and food, glorious food!
Typical Chinese housewife.
And in Russia
It’s not like the “entire world is going down the tubes”. the rest of the world is doing well. None of those “new” “progressive” ideas where everyone can be a slob and do “their own thing” as a sign of “freedom”. People elsewhere, outside of the “bastions of freedom” are living quite well.
Check out this article, translated from Russian HERE.
“Still then go to bed” Why an American is surprised how a Russian woman makes a bed (says an American)
In everyday moments, residents of Russia often surprise me, probably because they are more demanding of cleanliness in the house. Still, for an American, some habits that are unacceptable for a Russian at all are quite normal, for example, walking around the house in shoes or collecting dirty dishes. Yes, a lot depends on the person, but the mentality is also very influenced. Therefore, in this publication I want to write about a rather curious difference in such a simple action as making a bed.
To be honest, every time I was surprised that my girlfriend, even living alone, kept the bed made. But I attributed it to the fact that she does not want to look in front of me inappropriately, women 🙂 However, the other day I realized that making a bed is a routine thing. In the morning, the girl insistently asked me to get out of bed, because it was time to bring me to a “decent look”.
With this process, I helped, but in my head I wondered: “Why complicate it so much?” Before that, I did not even notice that many Russians have a bed made quite difficult. That is, it is not enough just to carefully lay the blanket on top and throw a few pillows on top. Russians are serious about this matter, so you need to perfectly lay the blanket evenly, use a blanket or blanket on top, decorate it with pillows.
Again, I wonder how picky the Russians are sometimes, especially when compared to the Americans. The fact is that most People in America do not fill the bed at all, because the bedroom is a personal space. If the owner does not want to carefully bring the bed in perfect order every day, then he will not do this. And overall, I also don’t see anything wrong with not making the bed, especially if there is a bedroom. But before you go to bed, you do not need to prepare a place for bed.
But I was much more amazed when the girl told how in childhood Russians were taught to make beds. In kindergarten, time was necessarily allocated after an hour of sleep, when children had to independently bring the beds to the desired appearance. It’s funny that the beloved shared the story with some discontent. Because even in kindergarten there were certain requirements, the blanket was folded in a certain way, the blanket was flat, and the pillow had to stand, while a little at an angle.
I listened, and I felt sorry and funny at the same time. So that’s where all this desire to perfectly make a bed before you have breakfast comes from. When, if not from an early age to accustom the child to order? Probably, there would be a similar practice in America, then maybe I would also not be able to safely leave the bed “as it happens”. Although there is an interesting observation about Americans, the older, the more likely the bed is to be made.
…
And in the Middle East…
Isn’t this just wonderful?
Life in the Middle East.
And back in China…
Han traditional period clothing has really become a fashion statement. China, being traditional and conservative in culture has embraced these styles. You cannot go a day without seeing someone wear these clothes, and the little girls love to wear them. Not only are they cool appearing, but they are super comfortable, and very elegant.
Chinese little girls.
Why is the rest of the world doing far better, being far happier while (on a GDP level) making far less money, and obeying social rules of “normal” behaviors and roles? What is going on?
The Western Financial Empire is collapsing
The financial empire that the “West” has created is a “house of cards”.
Aplan, organization, or other entity that is destined to fail due to a weak structure or foundation (likened to a literal house of cards, which is built by balancing playing cards against one another, and is very easily toppled).
-House of Cards Idiom
To keep it running, there must be inflation. As long as the inflation isn’t too bad (read: too noticeable; Keeping up with yearly employee raises of 2%) it is tolerated, and the entire corrupt system runs.
But when the leadership is incompetent, or crazy, or a disaster hits, and they make gargantuan sized budgets with no oversight, then inflation expands past this 2% marker. And it becomes noticeable.
Congress has authorized nearly $4 trillion in spending over the past year to help address the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but only about $3 trillion of it has been spent.Roughly a third of that money went directly to struggling families through stimulus checks, expanded unemployment payments and food stamps.-Congress has already approved $4trillion
Initially, the way to control the “rabble” is to lie. The media would report that inflation is under control and not that bad. Such as this Forbes Article (always a mouth piece for the Federal Government).
Aug 11, 2021 · Is Inflation Under Control? The price of a number of products has been on the rise since the first wave ofthe pandemic in April 2020. However, despite the 500% increase in the cost of freight from China, the consumer price index for the 12 months ending June 2021 stood at 2.2% compared to 1.8% for the 12 months ending June 2020.
-Is Inflation Under Control?
Ah.
But it’s all just another puzzle piece in this large playing-board.
War is like a board-game II…
Well, Perhaps to better illustrate what is going on, we should consider that the Chinese are actually playing a layered strategy game such as Mahjong. Instead of Go (as I suggested earlier).
So maybe it’s better to visualize the Chinese playing Mahjong. Both Go and Mahjong are very simple games, that get very complex, very quickly with layers upon layers of strategic moves.
The Chinese play Mahjong.
And that while the United States have many very capable people, those in positions of power are actually simpletons drunk on power.
So by all observation, America is actually just playing checkers…
America is actually playing checkers.
And China is playing it expertly.
China has allied with China with the tightest relationship ever, and the agreements and the joint efforts are simply astounding. Right now units are being cross trained in use of each other’s equipment. So that Russian military can use Chinese equipment and the Chinese can use Russian equipment. Not to mention that the leaders of both nations are in the supreme military headquarters of each nation.
As is illustrated in this video. Not that any American would ever see it. These videos are banned in America. Well, they are, but luckily MM is a “small potatoes” operation.
China has allied with China with the tightest relationship ever, and the agreements and the joint efforts are simply astounding.
In this clamorous kaleidoscope of United States centered insanity…
We can see elements of reason from those who lie outside of irradiated, and bombarded nation. We can see that calm heads, and minds exist. We can see that thoughtful intentions are being manifested. We can see that there is a changing and a turning of the world towards something better. And over time, seriously, the USA looks more an more like a real cesspool.
Don’t believe me? Look at this video from the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana…
New Orleans
And this video of New York City. This is the largest and most prized American cities. It is “the shining city on the hill”.
New York City
And this video from Boston, Massachusetts. Even in the safe “bedroom communities” guns are being fired. Robberies are being committed and no one is safe.
Boston, Massachusetts
And this video. I believe that it is Chicago, Illinois. Mob rule. Very little support of the government. Hatred abounds. Crime is normal.
Chicago, Il.
And this video from New York City. The police must go out in mass, as the people, all unemployed, mostly on drugs, are always in danger. It is mob or crime rule and those that desire safety and security have moved out of the city.
New York City
As you all can see, the United States is a mess. The government has very little control over the nation. It is falling apart at the seams, and the smart people are fleeing to safer areas where they can have some degree of control over their personal lives.
Meanwhile the government is demanding the rest of the world be like the Untied States because it is the “shining city on the hill”. It cannot get any more bizzaro than this!
War is like a board-game III
Yet, you know, judging from the just insane actions that we observe happening in the United States today, perhaps the game of checkers is really giving the Washington DC leadership more credit than what is due. By all accounts and purposes, it looks like America is playing a different kind of game. No, it’s not chess. No, it’s not checkers. It’s Tic-tac-toe.
Game of Tik-tac-toe.
And China, well they are far more sophisticated. No, they are not playing Go. Nor are they playing Mahjong. They are engaged in a competitive Sudoku puzzle.
When we first traveled to China, in the early 1990s, it was very different from what we see today. Even in Beijing many people wore Mao suits and cycled everywhere; only senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials used cars. In the countryside life retained many of its traditional elements. But over the next 30 years, thanks to policies aimed at developing the economy and increasing capital investment, China emerged as a global power, with the second-largest economy in the world and a burgeoning middle class eager to spend.
One thing hasn’t changed, though: Many Western politicians and business executives still don’t get China. Believing, for example, that political freedom would follow the new economic freedoms, they wrongly assumed that China’s internet would be similar to the freewheeling and often politically disruptive version developed in the West. And believing that China’s economic growth would have to be built on the same foundations as those in the West, many failed to envisage the Chinese state’s continuing role as investor, regulator, and intellectual property owner.
Why do leaders in the West persist in getting China so wrong? In our work we have come to see that people in both business and politics often cling to three widely shared but essentially false assumptions about modern China. As we’ll argue in the following pages, these assumptions reflect gaps in their knowledge about China’s history, culture, and language that encourage them to draw persuasive but deeply flawed analogies between China and other countries.
[ Myth 1 ]
Economics and Democracy Are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Many Westerners assume that China is on the same development trajectory that Japan, Britain, Germany, and France embarked on in the immediate aftermath of World War II—the only difference being that the Chinese started much later than other Asian economies, such as South Korea and Malaysia, after a 40-year Maoist detour. According to this view, economic growth and increasing prosperity will cause China to move toward a more liberal model for both its economy and its politics, as did those countries.
It’s a plausible narrative. As the author Yuval Noah Harari has pointed out, liberalism has had few competitors since the end of the Cold War, when both fascism and communism appeared defeated. And the narrative has had some powerful supporters. In a speech in 2000 former U.S. President Bill Clinton declared, “By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products, it is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values: economic freedom. When individuals have the power…to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say.”
But this argument overlooks some fundamental differences between China and the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, and France. Those countries have since 1945 been pluralist democracies with independent judiciaries. As a result, economic growth came in tandem with social progress (through, for example, legislation protecting individual choice and minority rights), which made it easy to imagine that they were two sides of a coin. The collapse of the USSR appeared to validate that belief, given that the Soviet regime’s inability to deliver meaningful economic growth for its citizens contributed to its collapse: Russia’s eventual integration into the global economy (perestroika) followed Mikhail Gorbachev’s political reforms (glasnost).
In China, however, growth has come in the context of stable communist rule, suggesting that democracy and growth are not inevitably mutually dependent. In fact, many Chinese believe that the country’s recent economic achievements—large-scale poverty reduction, huge infrastructure investment, and development as a world-class tech innovator—have come about because of, not despite, China’s authoritarian form of government. Its aggressive handling of Covid-19—in sharp contrast to that of many Western countries with higher death rates and later, less-stringent lockdowns—has, if anything, reinforced that view.
China has also defied predictions that its authoritarianism would inhibit its capacity to innovate. It is a global leader in AI, biotech, and space exploration. Some of its technological successes have been driven by market forces: People wanted to buy goods or communicate more easily, and the likes of Alibaba and Tencent have helped them do just that.
But much of the technological progress has come from a highly innovative and well-funded military that has invested heavily in China’s burgeoning new industries. This, of course, mirrors the role of U.S. defense and intelligence spending in the development of Silicon Valley.
But in China the consumer applications have come faster, making more obvious the link between government investment and products and services that benefit individuals. That’s why ordinary Chinese people see Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Huawei, and TikTok as sources of national pride—international vanguards of Chinese success—rather than simply sources of jobs or GDP, as they might be viewed in the West.
Thus July 2020 polling data from the Ash Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government revealed 95% satisfaction with the Beijing government among Chinese citizens. Our own experiences on the ground in China confirm this.
Most ordinary people we meet don’t feel that the authoritarian state is solely oppressive, although it can be that; for them it also provides opportunity. A cleaner in Chongqing now owns several apartments because the CCP reformed property laws. A Shanghai journalist is paid by her state-controlled magazine to fly around the world for stories on global lifestyle trends. A young student in Nanjing can study propulsion physics at Beijing’s Tsinghua University thanks to social mobility and the party’s significant investment in scientific research.
Many Chinese believe that the country’s recent economic achievements have actually come about because of, not despite, China’s authoritarian form of government.
The past decade has, if anything, strengthened Chinese leaders’ view that economic reform is possible without liberalizing politics. A major turning point was the financial crisis of 2008, which in Chinese eyes revealed the hollowness of the “Washington consensus” that democratization and economic success were linked. In the years since, China has become an economic titan, a global leader in technology innovation, and a military superpower, all while tightening its authoritarian system of government—and reinforcing a belief that the liberal narrative does not apply to China.
That, perhaps, is why its current president and (more crucially) party general secretary, Xi Jinping, has let it be known that he considers Gorbachev a traitor to the cause for liberalizing as he did, thereby destroying the Communist Party’s hold on the USSR. And when Xi announced, in 2017, that the “three critical battles” for China’s development would fall in the areas of reducing financial risk, addressing pollution, and alleviating poverty, he also made it clear that the objective of these reforms was to solidify the system rather than to change it. The truth, then, is that China is not an authoritarian state seeking to become more liberal but an authoritarian state seeking to become more successful—politically as well as economically.
In much Western analysis the verb most commonly attached to China’s reforms is “stalled.” The truth is that political reform in China hasn’t stalled. It continues apace. It’s just not liberal reform. One example is the reinvention in the late 2010s of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Empowered by Xi to deal with the corruption that had become so prevalent early in that decade, the commission can arrest and hold suspects for several months; its decisions cannot be overturned by any other entity in China, not even the supreme court.
The commission has succeeded in reducing corruption in large part because it is essentially above the law—something unimaginable in a liberal democracy. These are the reforms China is making—and they need to be understood on their own terms, not simply as a distorted or deficient version of a liberal model.
One reason that many people misread China’s trajectory may be that—particularly in the English-language promotional materials the Chinese use overseas—the country tends to portray itself as a variation on a liberal state, and therefore more trustworthy. It often compares itself to brands with which Westerners are familiar. For example, in making the case for why it should be involved in the UK’s 5G infrastructure rollout, Huawei styled itself the “John Lewis of China,” in reference to the well-known British department store that is regularly ranked as one of the UK’s most trusted brands.
China is also often at pains to suggest to foreign governments or investors that it is similar to the West in many aspects—consumer lifestyles, leisure travel, and a high demand for tertiary education. These similarities are real, but they are manifestations of the wealth and personal aspirations of China’s newly affluent middle class, and they in no way negate the very real differences between the political systems of China and the West.
Which brings us to the next myth.
[ Myth 2 ]
Authoritarian Political Systems Can’t Be Legitimate
Many Chinese not only don’t believe that democracy is necessary for economic success but do believe that their form of government is legitimate and effective. Westerners’ failure to appreciate this explains why many still expect China to reduce its role as investor, regulator, and, especially, intellectual property owner when that role is in fact seen as essential by the Chinese government.
Part of the system’s legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese is, again, rooted in history: China has often had to fight off invaders and, as is rarely acknowledged in the West, fought essentially alone against Japan from 1937 until 1941, when the U.S. entered World War II. The resulting victory, which for decades the CCP spun as its solo vanquishing of an external enemy, was reinforced by defeat of an internal one (Chiang Kai-shek in 1949), establishing the legitimacy of the party and its authoritarian system.
Seventy years on, many Chinese believe that their political system is now actually more legitimate and effective than the West’s. This is a belief alien to many Western business executives, especially if they’ve had experience with other authoritarian regimes. The critical distinction is that the Chinese system is not only Marxist, it’s Marxist-Leninist. In our experience, many Westerners don’t understand what that means or why it matters. A Marxist system is concerned primarily with economic outcomes.
That has political implications, of course—for example, that the public ownership of assets is necessary to ensure an equal distribution of wealth—but the economic outcomes are the focus. Leninism, however, is essentially a political doctrine; its primary aim is control. So a Marxist-Leninist system is concerned not only with economic outcomes but also with gaining and maintaining control over the system itself.
That has huge implications for people seeking to do business in China. If China were concerned only with economic outcomes, it would welcome foreign businesses and investors and, provided they helped deliver economic growth, would treat them as equal partners, agnostic as to who owned the IP or the majority stake in a joint venture. But because this is also a Leninist system, those issues are of critical importance to Chinese leaders, who won’t change their minds about them, however effective or helpful their foreign partners are economically.
This plays out every time a Western company negotiates access to the Chinese market. We have both sat in meetings where business executives, particularly in the technology and pharmaceutical sectors, expressed surprise at China’s insistence that they transfer ownership of their IP to a Chinese company. Some have expressed optimism that China’s need for control will lessen after they’ve proved their worth as partners. Our response? That’s not likely, precisely because in China’s particular brand of authoritarianism, control is key.
A Leninist approach to selecting future leaders is also a way the CCP has maintained its legitimacy, because to many ordinary Chinese, this approach produces relatively competent leaders: They are chosen by the CCP and progress through the system by successfully running first a town and then a province; only after that do they serve on the Politburo.
You can’t become a senior leader in China without having proved your worth as a manager.
China’s leaders argue that its essentially Leninist rule book makes Chinese politics far less arbitrary or nepotistic than those of many other, notably Western, countries (even though the system has its share of back-scratching and opaque decision-making).
Familiarity with Leninist doctrine is still important for getting ahead. Entry to the CCP and to a university involves compulsory courses in Marxist-Leninist thought, which has also become part of popular culture, as evidenced by the 2018 TV talk show Marx Got It Right. And with handy apps such as Xuexi Qiangguo (“Study the powerful nation” and a pun on “Study Xi”) to teach the basics of thinkers including Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Xi Jinping, political education is now a 21st-century business.
The Leninist nature of politics is also evidenced by the language used to discuss it. Political discourse in China remains anchored in Marxist-Leninist ideas of “struggle” (douzheng) and “contradiction” (maodun)—both seen as attributes that force a necessary and even healthy confrontation that can help achieve a victorious outcome. In fact, the Chinese word for the resolution of a conflict (jiejue) can imply a result in which one side overcomes the other, rather than one in which both sides are content. Hence the old joke that China’s definition of a win-win scenario is one in which China wins twice.
China uses its particular authoritarian model—and its presumed legitimacy—to build trust with its population in ways that would be considered highly intrusive in a liberal democracy. The city of Rongcheng, for example, uses big data (available to the government through surveillance and other data-capturing infrastructure) to give people individualized “social credit scores.” These are used to reward or punish citizens according to their political and financial virtues or vices.
The benefits are both financial (for example, access to mortgage loans) and social (permission to buy a ticket on one of the new high-speed trains). Those with low social-credit scores may find themselves prevented from buying an airline ticket or getting a date on an app. For liberals (in China and elsewhere), this is an appalling prospect; but for many ordinary people in China, it’s a perfectly reasonable part of the social contract between the individual and the state.
Such ideas may appear very different from the outward-facing, Confucian concepts of “benevolence” and “harmony” that China presents to its international, English-speaking audience. But even those concepts lead to considerable misunderstanding on the part of Westerners, who often reduce Confucianism to cloying ideas about peace and cooperation. For the Chinese, the key to those outcomes is respect for an appropriate hierarchy, itself a means of control. While hierarchy and equality may appear to the post-Enlightenment West to be antithetical concepts, in China they remain inherently complementary.
Recognizing that the authoritarian Marxist-Leninist system is accepted in China as not only legitimate but also effective is crucially important if Westerners are to make more-realistic long-term decisions about how to deal with or invest in the country. But the third assumption can also mislead those seeking to engage with China.
[ Myth 3 ]
The Chinese Live, Work, and Invest Like Westerners
China’s recent history means that Chinese people and the state approach decisions very differently from Westerners—in both the time frames they use and the risks they worry about most. But because human beings tend to believe that other humans make decisions as they do, this may be the most difficult assumption for Westerners to overcome.
Let’s imagine the personal history of a Chinese woman who is 65 today. Born in 1955, she experienced as a child the terrible Great Leap Forward famine in which 20 million Chinese starved to death. She was a Red Guard as a teenager, screaming adoration for Chairman Mao while her parents were being re-educated for being educated. By the 1980s she was in the first generation to go back to university, and even took part in the Tiananmen Square demonstration.
Then, in the 1990s, she took advantage of the new economic freedoms, becoming a 30-something entrepreneur in one of the new Special Economic Zones. She bought a flat—the first time anyone in her family’s history had owned property. Eager for experience, she took a job as an investment analyst with a Shanghai-based foreign asset manager, but despite a long-term career plan mapped out by her employer, she left that company for a small short-term pay raise from a competitor.
By 2008 she was making the most of the rise in disposable incomes by buying new consumer goods that her parents could only have dreamt about. In the early 2010s she started moderating her previously outspoken political comments on Weibo as censorship tightened up. By 2020 she was intent on seeing her seven-year-old grandson and infant granddaughter (a second child had only recently become legal) do well.
Had she been born in 1955 in almost any other major economy in the world, her life would have been much, much more predictable. But looking back over her life story, one can see why even many young Chinese today may feel a reduced sense of predictability or trust in what the future holds—or in what their government might do next.
When life is (or has been within living memory) unpredictable, people tend to apply a higher discount rate to potential long-term outcomes than to short-term ones—and a rate materially higher than the one applied by people living in more-stable societies. That means not that these people are unconcerned with long-term outcomes but, rather, that their risk aversion increases significantly as the time frame lengthens. This shapes the way they make long-term commitments, especially those that entail short-term trade-offs or losses.
Thus many Chinese consumers prefer the short-term gains of the stock market to locking their money away in long-term savings vehicles. As market research consistently tells us, the majority of individual Chinese investors behave more like traders. For example, a 2015 survey found that 81% of them trade at least once a month, even though frequent trading is invariably a way to destroy rather than create long-term fund value.
That figure is higher than in all Western countries (for example, only 53% of U.S. individual investors trade this frequently); it’s also even higher than in neighboring Hong Kong—another Han Chinese society with a predilection for gambling and a similar, capital-gains-tax-free regime. This suggests that something distinctive to mainland China influences this behavior: long-term unpredictability that’s sufficiently recent to have been experienced by or passed on to those now buying stocks.
That focus on securing short-term gain is why the young asset manager in Shanghai left a good long-term job for a relatively small but immediate pay raise—behavior that still plagues many businesses trying to retain talent and manage succession pipelines in China. People who do take long-term career risks often do so only after fulfilling their primary need for short-term security. For example, we’ve interviewed couples in which the wife “jumps into the sea” of starting her own business—becoming one of China’s many female entrepreneurs—because her husband’s stable but lower-paid state-sector job will provide the family with security.
The one long-term asset class in which increasing numbers of Chinese are invested—that is, residential property, ownership of which grew from 14% of 25-to-69-year-olds in 1988 to 93% by 2008—is driven also by the need for security: Unlike all other assets, property ensures a roof over one’s head if things go wrong, in a system with limited social welfare and a history of sudden policy changes.
China’s rulers see foreign engagement as a source less of opportunity than of threat, uncertainty, and even humiliation.
In contrast, the government’s discount rate on the future is lower—in part because of its Leninist emphasis on control—and explicitly focused on long-term returns.
The vehicles for much of this investment are still the CCP’s Soviet-style five-year plans, which include the development of what Xi has termed an “eco-civilization” built around solar energy technology, “smart cities,” and high-density, energy-efficient housing. Ambition like that can’t be realized without state intervention—relatively fast and easy but often brutal in China. By comparison, progress on these issues is for Western economies extremely slow.
Decisions—by both individuals and the state—about how to invest all serve one purpose: to provide security and stability in an unpredictable world. Although many in the West may believe that China sees only opportunity in its 21st-century global plans, its motivation is very different. For much of its turbulent modern history, China has been under threat from foreign powers, both within Asia (notably Japan) and outside it (the UK and France in the mid 19th century). China’s rulers, therefore, see foreign engagement as a source less of opportunity than of threat, uncertainty, and even humiliation.
They still blame foreign interference for many of their misfortunes, even if it occurred more than a century ago. For example, the British role in the Opium Wars of the 1840s kicked off a 100-year period that the Chinese still refer to as the Century of Humiliation. China’s history continues to color its view of international relations—and in large part explains its current obsession with the inviolability of its sovereignty.
That history also explains the paradox that the rulers and the ruled in China operate on very different time frames. For individuals, who’ve lived through harsh times they could not control, the reaction is to make some key choices in a much more short-term way than Westerners do. Policy makers, in contrast, looking for ways to gain more control and sovereignty over the future, now play a much longer game than the West does. This shared quest for predictability explains the continuing attractiveness of an authoritarian system in which control is the central tenet.
. . .
Many in the West accept the version of China that it has presented to the world: The period of “reform and opening” begun in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping, which stressed the need to avoid the radical and often violent politics of the Cultural Revolution, means that ideology in China no longer matters. The reality is quite different. At every point since 1949 the Chinese Communist Party has been central to the institutions, society, and daily experiences that shape the Chinese people. And the party has always believed in and emphasized the importance of Chinese history and of Marxist-Leninist thought, with all they imply. Until Western companies and politicians accept this reality, they will continue to get China wrong.
Maybe, so says the Harvard Elite…
Here’s an article out of China. Commenting on Bloomberg saying that China WILL BE ISOLATED from the rest of the world. Yeah.As if you can isolate the world’s factory. Sure….
Dynamic zero-case route won’t get China ‘isolated’: Global Times editorial
Bloomberg reported that China’s zero-tolerance strategy of COVID-19 “risks leaving it isolated for years.” But on Tuesday, statistics published by China’s Ministry of Commerce showed that China’s foreign trade in the first seven months of this year reached a high compared with the same period last year, and last year saw a surge in China’s foreign trade. This is a slap on the face of the “China isolation” theory.
China did not close its door due to the pandemic. Economic exchanges are the core of the current international exchanges, which is proven by the growth in China’s foreign trade. As for people-to-people exchanges, there has been a major decline at the global level. China has done a good job in controlling its borders and explored a set of methods to achieve safe international exchanges during the pandemic. This set of methods is worth being improved and is expected to be valued by other countries.
China will host the Winter Olympic Games six months from now. It could be another peak of the infections of coronavirus. Beijing is determined to host the Games well – it will not allow large-scale infections in Chinese society, and ensure the pandemic does not spread among delegates from all the participating countries. We believe given China’s tight prevention and control, athletes for the Games will not fear coming to China.
US media outlets, represented by Bloomberg, have been holding a twisted mentality toward China’s anti-virus achievements. China has avoided serious losses of life, and its economic recovery is leading the world. They pretend not seeing these and are reluctant to admit them. Not long ago, Bloomberg released a wired COVID Resilience Ranking that put the US on top of the list, which has become the laughing stock of the international community.
China is capable of carrying on the dynamic zero-case route. With the development of vaccines, strong mobilization and organization ability has turned into welfare for the Chinese people. Many Western countries also want to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – zero-case is better. The US once suspended flights with all European countries, and Australia has recently deployed defense force to help enforce lockdown. But they cannot reach the status of zero-case. Thus, it was a forced choice of them to downplay the pandemic.
Although the US has registered over 617,000 coronavirus deaths so far, the country still undertook a recent rebound in daily new cases – a daily average of over 124,000 new cases were reported in the past week. If Washington has the opportunity to put the number of new case down to zero, it will inject all efforts to tout about it.
We can hardly rule out the possibility that some American elites are jealous of China’s capability of having dynamic zero cases. They’d rather see China toppled by the COVID-19 epidemic just like the US. Then they would get a chance to clamor that China’s vaccines are not effective. Anyway, they don’t want to see any good from China. And when China does good, they will spare no efforts to mislead the international community to neutralize the influence of China’s success in fighting the virus.
China is a country that seeks truth from facts. The success of its dynamic zero-case policy has laid a solid foundation for China’s fight against the epidemic in the future. With the high rate of vaccination and a better preparation of the medical service system, China will have the ability to adjust its defensive strategy based on future needs. Many people have taken for granted that China fears getting back in touch with the rest of world because Chinese society has been accustomed to zero cases.
What China will do is to adapt to the world’s new normal due to an increase of global interactions while ensuring its domestic line of defense is robust enough against imported infections. The US has done nothing on this. But China has accumulated abundant experiences in the past year and beyond. Chinese people have managed what seemed impossible for Americans, and Chinese people will continue doing so.
Instead, it is hard to predict if the US – a super spreader of the pandemic – will face up to external pressure to hinder it from opening to the world. If the same number of Chinese and American people are traveling in a third country where the epidemic is mild, which group is more concerning to local people? Fortunately, the recent summer and winter Olympic games are not held in the US, or else how many countries dare to send delegations?
As China and the US follow their respective paths – taking into account their respective adjustment capabilities – time will tell which country will open up to the world more smoothly with better overall results. Time is neutral and its answer will be unbiased.
Meanwhile, while the United States screams and hollers and threatens…
Three Chinese think tanks published a joint research report on Monday criticizing the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University, the Taihe Institute and Intellisia gathered dozens of former politicians, intellectuals, scholars, policy- and decision-makers and practitioners to contribute to the report.
According to the report titled “‘America Ranked First’?! The Truth about America’s Fight against COVID-19,” the United States deserves to be the world’s No. 1 anti-pandemic failure, the world’s No. 1 political-blaming country, the world’s No. 1 pandemic spreader, the world’s No. 1 politically-divisive country, the world’s No. 1 currency-abusing country, the world’s No. 1 turbulent country during the pandemic, the world’s No. 1 disinforming country, and the world’s No. 1 country advocating origin tracing terrorism.
The report said the U.S. failed to contain the virus and had the most COVID-19 cases and deaths in the world. As of August 7, 2021, the United States had reported 35,530,951 cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 613,658 deaths while some U.S. media still rated the country number one in the world for its pandemic response.
“The latest absurd example is the Bloomberg reporting on a ranking, COVID resilience ranking, the United States comes No. 1, this can’t be taken seriously,” Martin Jacques, a senior fellow from Cambridge University, said at a presser about the report via video link.
Jacques also argued if the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t happen amid fraying China-U.S. relations, the story could’ve been much different, adding, “COVID-19 is probably the greatest test of governance the world has seen since the Second World War, the United States and the West failed miserably.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen U.S. business closures and waves of unemployment occurring faster and on a larger scale than expected. The lower class and other vulnerable groups are facing higher risks of unemployment. The gap between rich and poor further widened as wealth flowed into the hands of a few more quickly, said the report.
It also noticed that social unrest is a “chronic disease” in the United States as the pandemic is acting as an “amplifier” to further exacerbate social tensions. This year, the U.S. topped the list of crime rates in developed countries, much higher than countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Spain, as well as many developing countries. Social unrest manifests itself in three main ways: guns out of control, hate crimes and political chaos.
The report found that lack of common sense and scientific knowledge were direct causes for the U.S. failing to constrain the pandemic’s impact, and pointed the finger at former U.S. President Donald Trump for spreading fake news about the virus.
“Donald Trump might be the strongest driving force on creating fake COVID-19 information,” it said.
The report blamed the pandemic for tearing up U.S. society, with conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus exacerbating bully attitudes and discrimination towards Asian Americans.
Democrats and Republicans were divided on virus containment measures, especially mask mandates and America’s laissez-faire on containing the virus had also had a ripple effect on other countries. “After the outbreak of the pandemic, over 20 million U.S. citizens went abroad, accelerating the spread of the virus,” the report said.
Wang Wen, executive dean from Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University, said: “When it comes to issues like vaccination, social distancing, and almost any policies regarding COVID-19 containment, U.S. politicians have barely reached a consensus. This is the tragedy of America’s political and social system.”
It also identified a lack of responsibility from the U.S. in terms of providing COVID-19 vaccines to other countries. Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center estimated that by the summer of 2021, the United States may have a surplus of 300 million or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported on May 17 that the United States had exported only 3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine
“Exported vaccines from the U.S. take up less than one percent of its total vaccine production,” said the report.
Do you all know what this reminds me of?
Seriously. It reminds me of this…
Appearing on The Moment podcast, Tarantino shared a childhood story about how his mother used to side with his teachers after they called him out for writing screenplays in school.
According to Tarantino: "In the middle of her little tirade, she said, 'Oh, and by the way, this little 'writing career,' with the finger quotes and everything. This little 'writing career' that you're doing? That shit is over."
"When she said that to me in that sarcastic way, I go, 'OK, lady, when I become a successful writer, you will never see one penny from my success. There will be no house for you. There's no vacation for you, no Elvis Cadillac for mommy. You get nothing. Because you said that.'"
As for a true emergency? "Yeah. I helped her out with a jam with the IRS," Tarantino admitted. "But no house. No Cadillac, no house."
He added, "There are consequences for your words as you deal with your children. Remember, there are consequences for your sarcastic tone about what's meaningful to them."
Tarantino is absolutely right about that.
Negative comments parents make can have a lifelong impact on their children's lives — no matter how small they may seem to those hurling them. Consider this another reminder that you should always support your kids' dreams, no matter how far-fetched they may seem.
And that’s the USA today. It was a cocky arrogant, bullshit nation, ruled by psychopathic personalities that have done everything in it’s power to put the rest of the world down. Now it is collapsing and still being a jack-ass.
Here’s a golden gem from the old Seinfield television show…
No soup for you!
“No Soup For You” or “NO SOUP 4 U” is a catchphrase that was initially uttered in a 1995 episode of the American comedic sitcom Seinfeld. Online, the phrase is often used in the context of message boards and forums in reply to other users who have made requests or demands that are denied or cannot be fulfilled.
The USA is a mess. The UK is a mess. The South Africa is a mess. Israel is a mess. And the degree of how much of a mess it is is directly tied to how closely that nation is connected to the Untied States.
So Australia wants to be connect to the United States hip to hip, then you can expect Australia to collapse just like America is collapsing. Iceland, which isn’t, is not collapsing. Sweden which is following the EU led American directives, is a mixed bag. Like I said. The closer the nation is tied to America, the more of a fucked up mess it is today.
So what?
Well, to see what is actually going on, you have to take a couple of steps back and look at the Big BIG picture.
And how can you deal with this?
Well, you really don’t need to get into the details. You just need to concentrate on your life, and your family life selfishly. The only things that you have any control over is your immediate reality.
Guys, guys, guys. It seems like the world is coming apart at the seams. So what can you do?
You turn off the “news”. You walk outside. You listen to the birds. You go into a restaurant and have a delicious meal. You smell the air. You hop on a bicycle and ride. You play with your kitties, or romp with your dog.
After a few days of this, then you take in MEASURED “news”.
If you live in Idaho, what the Hell is going on in New York should be of no concern to you. If you read anything about China, but haven’t been there in the last two years, then discard it as noise. Who gives a fuck of Mr. XXXXX says YYYYY that will do ZZZZZ? It’s all just a blimp on the big picture.
People! The ONLY way for you all to get through this period of strife is to be a Rufus.
That’s the ONLY way.
How do you control your reality?
You be a Rufus.
Listen to me.
You center your mind. You shut down the “news”. You kick away all the negative influences in your life. You stop eating processed food and replace it with good delicious home cooked fresh foods. You perform meditations. You operate your affirmation campaigns. You spend time with loved ones and pets. You smile. You help people in your community. You make friends and associations in your community and you cultivate them. Be the best you can be. And you be a Rufus.
Or in an easier to read format…
You center your mind.
You shut down the “news”.
You kick away all the negative influences in your life.
You stop eating processed food and replace it with good delicious home cooked fresh foods.
You perform meditations.
You operate your affirmation campaigns.
You spend time with loved ones and pets.
You smile.
You help people in your community.
You make friends and associations in your community and you cultivate them.
Be the best that you can be.
And you be a Rufus.
Be the Rufus?
Be the Rufus. This is what I mean when I say that you must be part of something larger; be part of your community. Be a giver. Not a taker. Lord knows there are far too many money-grubbing taker in this world. Contribute. Help. Make the day of someone just a little bit better. Buy a coffee for a coworker. Smile.
Be the Rufus.
Yes. We must be the Rufus. Sure this guy would probably get in trouble for being late. Maybe his boss will dock his pay. If it was America, he might even lose his job. But not here. Not now. He’s a Rufus, and he “felt” that something was amiss. He did not wait. he did not call the police. He took action.
He selflessly helped others in need.
Be the Rufus.
In a world that is seemingly “off the rails”, with a terribly inefficient, corrupt and moronic government, where everything is going wrong and you are being pinched by all sides with a crazy media shouting at you “it’s China’s fault!”…
Be the Rufus.
A Rufus saves others.
That’s it really.
You must be the Rufus.
Be part of something bigger than yourself. Be the Rufus.
It doesn’t take much. All it takes is to be aware and contribute to the general well being of your community. If there is trash on the road in front of your house, you clean it up. You don’t wait for the government to do so. If your grass needs cut, you cut it. If your neighbor needs a hand you give it to him. If your mailbox is an eyesore, then spruce it up.
When an emergency happens, you as the Rufus, spring into action. Be the Rufus.
A Rufus is helpful.
Be the Rufus!
When an emergency happens, you take part and be helpful.
Be the Rufus.
Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s hard. Like preventing an infant from having seizures. But a Rufus does what ever is necessary. Be that Rufus. Be the best you can be.
A Rufus does what ever it takes.
So yeah, the United States is collapsing. The leadership are a group of self-centered ignoramuses. And you might be stuck, trapped and inside this massive cesspool on fire. What can you do?
Again.
Focus on you. Be part of your community. Smile. Make other feel good about themselves and want to see you. Be helpful. Devote good efforts to make your house good, calm, strong and cohesive. Spend time with pets and loved ones. Eat healthy food. Do your affirmation campaigns. Be the Rufus.
Just being helpful is all it takes.
Just be helpful.
Sometimes you have to take extraordinary measures.
Here’s a military soldier abandoning his post to rescue a three year old from getting squashed by an income horde or cars and trucks. Yikes!
Save the baby!
A Rufus is there to help others.
A Rufus is part of the community. They are appreciated. They are loved. They are the organized person that everyone know that they can count on. They are the guiding light that everyone in need turns to.
A Rufus is there.
You see, once you change your mind and decide to participate within a community, and be helpful to others you change. Your mind; and then your entire being, becomes a service to others sentience. STO.
The madness in the United States today is mostly and primarily affecting three other sentience’s;
Service to self (STS).
Service for another (SFA).
Disjointed Sentience (DJS).
By changing your being, and by doing your prayer affirmation campaigns you are able to create a kind of “non-physical” zone around you and your family and community. It’s not ironclad, though. But it is certainly strong enough to take most of the hits and pings from the society that surrounds yours.
Certainly brute force assaults, and intentional disruptive attacks can damage what ever you can throw up, but if you just follow the basic format that I have provided, you all will be fine. You all will be just fine. You will be just fine.
The False Flag Event
The American “leadership” (whatever it leads is another question) seems to be intent in generating a false flag event to trigger a war with China. We all can prevent that within our affirmation campaigns, and we can isolate our communities from any successful chaos that might result as an effect of it.
Do not fear the insanity.
Just focus on you, your family and friends, and your community. Stick to the basics, and play the “long game”. Everything will be quite different one decade from now. All you all want to do is “ride it out” unscathed. To do this, just follow MM advice and Be The Rufus.
You don’t have to rescue anyone. You just need to be extra considerate. You need to be more humane and understanding. You need to be sensitive to the needs of those around you and be helpful to them.
Be the helpful Rufus.
A Rufus makes it his job to help others. To keep his community clean, and patrolled and away from crime. A Rufus holds his society responsible for what ever happens to it, and works to correct wrongs, and punish those who are selfish or corrupt at all levels. A Rufus participates…
A Rufus contributes.
A Rufus lends a hand to those in need.
A Rufus goes and visits a dying friend, no matter what the law says, and comforts him as only a meat-pie lady could A Rufus cares about the feeling of others. A Rufus helps the children; the animals; the cats; and the dogs. A Rufus is always there to make the community a better place to live in.
A Rufus helps others.
A Rufus doesn’t drive past an gawk at a car accident. They get out of their car and help. They do what ever they can. They are the people that make the community and their actions are attractive and contagious. All it takes is a few Rufus’s in the community and soon, others will start acting that way too.
Be the Rufus.
Make the world a better place.
Help others. Be the Rufus.
A Rufus volunteers.
When there is a need in the community, the Rufus doesn’t complain. They don’t bitch and moan, they go out and work. They volunteer, and if there isn’t any kind of organization to correct the problems, they set one up themselves.
A Rufus makes a difference.
Even if it is hot, and you are suffering from heat exhaustion. A Rufus “takes it on the chin”. A Rufus makes a difference in their community.
A Rufus is the person that you can count on.
A Rufus is not perfect, and is jut a human. But the Rufus strives to be more than just a user; a complainer, a parasite on society. A Rufus contributes.
A Rufus contributes.
Here’s some unpaid volunteers in China. They are working long, long days, and then collapse in the public areas to get some sleep before they begin again. A Rufus makes the world a better place.
Be the Rufus.
You can make the world a better place.
..
Be the Rufus.
Final words
You are never alone if you are part of a community. You might be weak in some areas, but the community will compensate. And your strengths can be used to make the community strong. Remember the rule of three. Three people make a community. Be part of your community. And the bigger; the better.
You WILL BE appreciated. As this video clearly shows.
Be part of your community.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Oh man! I was hoping that the fantasy that “America will regain it’s power and strength and continue to rule the world” will dissipate.
Not so.
Over the weekend, I have been bombarded with articles talking about how America is ready to fight for democracy™ and freedom™ again! This time against China.
And that, all that is needed is a few billions of dollars, and some pluck from “Allies”, and then China would “be toast“.
Bombarded. Non-stop cascade of news “articles” (disguised propaganda pieces) and comments (often with a sizable portion of ‘bots – there just can’t be that many brain-dead people in the United States, can there?)
As in what the fuck?
Can’t I just get a break.
I guess not. Sigh.
And then you have these gung-ho “patriots” who think that everyone else outside of America are rats that need to be stepped on and killed, like some kind of vermin.
Generational warrior culture, eh?
Ever hear of Genghis Khan?
Dude, I just and to enjoy my day. I want to walk, and relax. I want to eat fine delicious food. I want to drink some nice wine. I want to play with the pets, smell the lush moist air, and cavort with pretty girls.
But noooo…
I have to endue a flood of anti-China bullshit and endure comments on how America is going to kick-some -Chinese-ass. Sheech!
I know. I know. I KNOW.
You fund half a billion dollars in anti-China propaganda, of course it’s going to materialize. The only thing that I am surprised about is that there’s no Hollywood movies depicting Rambo-like American soldiers gloriously bayoneting the evil Chinese in a war picture.
Maybe. Soon.
Proud American soldiers to fight communism for liberty, freedom and democracy!
First off, let’s recognize the fact that the United States Military Empire believes that it can use nuclear weapons while avoiding a MAD all-out nuclear response.
Yup! That’s true.
These fucking moron “geniuses” in Washington DC actually believe that they can use nuclear weapons against either Russia or China, and that they will NOT shoot nuclear weapons back.
Can you fucking believe it?
Let’s look at this article to flush out this curious fantasy…
Dr. Strangelove’s Spoon Benders: How the U.S. Military Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Cynthia Chung is the President of the Rising Tide Foundation and a writer at Strategic Culture Foundation, consider supporting her work by making a donation and subscribing to her substack page for free.
“MindWar must be strategic in emphasis, with tactical applications playing a reinforcing, supplementary role. In its strategic context, MindWar must reach out to friends, enemies, and neutrals alike across the globe…
...through the media possessed by the United States which have the capabilities to reach virtually all people on the face of the Earth…
State of the art developments in satellite communication, video recording techniques, and laser and optical transmission of broadcasts make possible a penetration of the minds of the world such as would have been inconceivable just a few years ago.
Like the sword of Excalibur, we have but to reach out and seize this tool; and it can transform the world for us if we have the courage and integrity to enhance civilization with it.
If we do not accept Excalibur, then we relinquish our ability to inspire foreign cultures with our morality.
If they can then desire moralities unsatisfactory to us, we have no choice but to fight them on a more brutish level.”
– “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory” by Col. Paul Vallely and Maj. Michael Aquino, a document written to increase the influence of the “spoon-benders” in the U.S. military.
About one year ago, the U.S. military conducted a simulation of a “limited” nuclear exchange with…
…Russia.
This was strange news on several accounts.
For one, this sort of thing is not typically announced in the candid detail U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper described to journalists, giddy that he got to “play himself” in this war game scenario.
It was as if he were preparing for a Hollywood movie doing his best John Wayne impression:
“If you got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”
However, the most concerning revelation of this simulated exercise was the announcement to the American people that;
“it might be very possible to fight, and win, a battle with nuclear weapons, without the exchange leading to an all-out-world-ending conflict.”
In other words, throw your cares to the wind, that is, the “spirit wind” known as kamikaze, because…
They explained that their confident calculation on being “victorious” in this exercise completely relied on the supposition that such a confrontation would remain “limited” in its nuclear exchange.
“It’s a very reasonable response to what we saw was a Russian nuclear doctrine and nuclear capability that suggested to us that they might use nuclear weapons in a limited way,”
It seems what senior Pentagon officials are really saying here about the predictability of the Russians, is that there seems to be a line the Russians won’t cross in the case of a nuclear conflict…
…but the Americans sure will.
Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists tried to play down the “rodeo circus” and reduce the high profile announcement of the U.S. military exercise.
Instead Hans stated it was simply a marketing gimmick to “justify” the new nuclear weapons since we are entering the new budget phase. “So all of this has been played up to serve that process.” stated Kristensen.
I don’t know about you but I am getting some serious déjà vu.
Didn’t we already go through all of this with the disastrous JIC-502 spookery?
JIC-502 intelligence report titled “Implications of Soviet Possession of Atomic Weapons” drafted in Jan 20th 1950, turned out not to be an intelligence report at all but rather a sales pitch.
It began in a dangerous manner, claiming that a nuclear-armed Soviet Union had introduced the notion that;
“a tremendous military advantage would be gained by the power that struck first and succeeded in carrying through an effective surprise attack.”
It was JIC-502 which would be the first to put forward [1] a justification for the preventive first strike concept, supported by [2] a massive military buildup under the pretense of pre-emptive war.
NSC-68 would be drafted the same year and called for a massive military buildup to be completed by 1954 dubbed the “year of maximum danger,” the year JIC-502 claimed the Soviets would achieve military superiority and be able to launch war against the U.S.
But the Soviets never did launch such a war, and all claims of their capabilities let alone their intentions turned out to be entirely fraudulent…
…so what was it all for?
Did the U.S. have to put everything into expanding their military, turning away from the concept of a nation at peace made up of citizen soldiers and instead towards a nation in perpetual war?
Isn’t this a made up of the Nietzschean fantasy of Übermensch (Beyond-Man) super soldiers, the very thing that Eisenhower warned against?
Did this all have to happen in defense of “peace and security” of the free world?
Why were the predictions of the JIC-502 completely unfounded?
Were the predictions based off of corrupted data?
Did the Soviets simply change their mind?
…Or was it never about a pre-emptive war but rather was always about global dominance.
What would the American people think if they knew the truth, that their entire military industrial complex was never built for the protection of the “free world” in opposition to dictators and despots but rather the very opposite? That it simply thought its ideology the superior one, the only lawful dictatorship that had the right to rule, even if it meant by force.
In the words of Vallely/Aquino:
“If we do not accept Excalibur, then we relinquish our ability to inspire foreign cultures with our morality. If they can then desire moralities unsatisfactory to us, we have no choice but to fight them on a more brutish level.”
This may look like just a “rodeo circus” but it is far far worst.
What do Jedi Warriors, Spoon-benders, the First Earth Battalion and Men Who Stare at Goats Have in Common?
For those who need a refresher of the film Dr. Strangelove’s synopsis, it is about what could happen if a lunatic had the authority to bypass the U.S. president and cause a nuclear escalation between the U.S. and USSR.
In the movie, it is U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper who initiates a nuclear attack to destroy the USSR under the premise that once the U.S. government is briefed on the situation, they would have no choice but to commit 100% towards a hostile attack against the USSR, in order to prevent nuclear retaliation.
Air Force General Jack Ripper
The reason why General Jack Ripper is fully convinced that it is absolutely necessary to destroy the USSR is because he believes that the communists are conspiring to pollute the “precious bodily fluids” of the American people.
Fluoridation is the most monstrouslyconceived and dangerouscommunist plot we have ever had to face.
-GeneralJack D. Ripper
Gen. Jack Ripper
Gen. Jack Ripper goes on to describe how he first discovered this Soviet ploy, after sexual relations with a woman and how he felt empty inside but that luckily he was astute enough to be able to accurately deduce the cause of this feeling of emptiness as due to being drained of his “life essence”, all part of the communist conspiracy for sure.
General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: [very nervous] Lord, Jack.General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen... tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?General Jack D. Ripper: [somewhat embarassed] Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.-- General Jack D. Ripper
In other words, Gen. Jack Ripper is unequivocally insane.
Gen. Jack Ripper is absolutely insane. Much like Washington DC is today.
Unfortunately, this type of thinking in the U.S. military is not reserved to pure fiction.
Sometime in the late 1980s then Col. Paul Vallely, Commander of the 7th Psychological Operations Group and then Maj. Michael Aquino, PSYOP Research & Analysis Team Leader authored a paper titled “From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory”, which discusses the necessity to wage perpetual psychological warfare against friend and enemy populations alike, and even against the American people.
As stated in the paper:
“MindWar must target all participants to be effective.
It must not only weaken the enemy; it must strengthen the United States.
It strengthens the United States by denying enemy propaganda access to our people, and by explaining and emphasizing to our people the rationale for our national interest in a specific war…
There are some purely natural conditions under which minds may become more or less receptive to ideas, and MindWar should take full advantage of such phenomena as atmospheric electromagnetic activity, air ionization, and extremely low frequency waves.”
Of course the terms “enemy” and “national interest” are not elaborated on, nor is the matter of free will even considered but rather that mind control is not only “natural”, it is essential.
Besides the overtly fascist and occultist content in the paper, the proposal had a disturbing similarity to the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program launched by the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon.
TIA was a global propaganda and mega-data-mining plan that was supposedly scraped after a series of negative news stories.
On Aug 17th, 2005 The New York Times published an article that discussed how “a military intelligence team repeatedly tried to contact the FBI in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ring leader of the Sept. 11 attacks” as reported by veteran Army intelligence officer Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer.
The information came from the highly classified intelligence program “Able Danger”, which had successfully identified the terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers of the 9/11 terrorist attack in mid-2000, well over a year before the actual 9/11 attack.
According to New York Times article, Shaffer learned later that lawyers associated with the Special Operations Command of the Defense Department had canceled the FBI meetings “because they feared controversy if Able Danger was portrayed as a military operation that had violated the privacy of civilians who were legally in the United States.” (Able Danger was linked in its function to the TIA program)
However, this is only part of the truth, the by far uglier truth is that they were already fully aware of the 9/11 terrorist ring and didn’t want a wrench thrown into the gears so to speak.
In addition, Gen. Stubblebine III, Gen. Schoomaker, Gen. Downing and Gen. Boykin are the four names most often cited as promoters of programs like the “Goat Lab,” “Jedi Warriors,” “Grill Flame,” “Task Force Delta,” (aka the spoon-benders) and the “First Earth Battalion,” and have held top posts within the military intelligence and Special Operations commands.
Gen. Stubblebine III, Gen. Schoomaker, Gen. Downing and Gen. Boykin are the four names most often cited as promoters of programs like the “Goat Lab,” “Jedi Warriors,” “Grill Flame,” “Task Force Delta,” (aka the spoon-benders) and the “First Earth Battalion,” and have held top posts within the military intelligence and Special Operations commands.
These were the programs that promoted the idea that one could learn to bend a metal spoon, walk through walls, and burst the hearts of goats with the use of “mind over matter” techniques.
In 1979, Lt. Col. Channon presented a 125 page document called “The First Earth Battalion,” which outlined “non-lethal” techniques that would soon be adopted by the military.
These techniques were many and included the use of atonal noises as a form of combat psychological warfare and widespread experimentation with psychoelectronics and other means of debilitation.
On March 10th, 1991, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz while serving as chief policy advisor to then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, wrote the memo “Do We Need a Non-Lethal Defense Initiative?” in which he wrote, “A U.S. lead in non-lethal technologies will increase our options and reinforce our position in the post-Cold War world.”
American military are strongly influenced by Washington DC politics.
Though no mention was made of Col. Alexander, who spear-headed the non-lethal weaponry campaign, Alexander at the time of the memo had retired from active duty and was heading the Non-Lethal Weapons Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
In 1990, Col. Alexander published “The Warrior’s Edge” and states its goal as to:
“unlock the door to the extraordinary human potentials inherent in each of us. To do this, we, like governments around the world, must take a fresh look at non-traditional methods of affecting reality.
We must raise human consciousness of the potential power of the individual body/mind system – the power to manipulate reality.
We must be willing to retake control of our past, present, and ultimately, our future.” (emphasis added)
Investigative journalist Jon Ronson, in his book “The Men Who Stare at Goats”, goes through how ‘psychic warriors’ such as Uri Geller and Jim Channon were called back into government service after 9/11, and that a series of meetings in 2004 were held between Gen. Schoomaker and Jim Channon to start a think tank which would utilize “First Earth Battalion” techniques in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Non-Lethal Techniques of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and al-Qa’im
According to a 1998 International Committee of the Red Cross presentation before the European parliament intended on evaluating how “non-lethal” the non-lethal technologies promoted by Alexander, Channon et al. actually are in reality, it was found that non-lethal weapons are simply defined as weapons with a less-than 25% fatality rate.
Perhaps this is what the senior Pentagon officials were referring to in their “limited” nuclear exchange scenarios.
Perhaps this is what the senior Pentagon officials were referring to in their “limited” nuclear exchange scenarios.
Included in the list of non-lethal weapons now widely used in the U.S. military are lasers, extremely low frequency (ELF) weapons, and various chemical, biological and audio stun weapons that can cause permanent damage such as blindness, deafness and destruction of the gastrointestinal system.
…
…
Sigh.
…
According to Ronson and The New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, many of the torture techniques employed at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the less-well-known al-Qa’im near the Syrian border in Iraq, are based on Channon and Alexander’s non-lethal conceptions.
Jim Channon actually confirmed this in an email correspondence with Ronson.
At one point in his investigation, Ronson asks Stuart Heller, friend of Jim Channon, if he could name one soldier who was “the living embodiment” of the First Earth Battalion, to which Heller responds unhesitatingly “Bert Rodriguez.”
Ronson continues in his book, “In April 2001, Bert Rodriguez took on a new student. His name was Ziad Jarrah.”
Rodriguez taught Jarrah “the choke hold and the kamikaze spirit. You need a code you’d die for, a do-or-die desire.” Rodriguez added, “Ziad was like Luke Skywalker. You know when Luke walks the invisible path? You have to believe it’s there…
Yeah, Ziad believed it.
He was like Luke Skywalker.”
Rodriguez trained Ziad Jarrah for six months.
On Sept 11, 2001, Ziad Jarrah took control of the United Airlines flight 93 as part of the orchestrated 9/11 terrorist attack.
On Sept 11, 2001, Ziad Jarrah took control of the United Airlines flight 93 as part of the orchestrated 9/11 terrorist attack. Trained by the United States military.
Meet Dr. Strangelove
At the end of the film Dr. Strangelove we are finally confronted with the “top lunatic” so to speak who was really in charge this whole time.
For all the “top brass” in the war room, nobody was really in control of the situation this entire time since the entire “war scenario” was set-up as a positive feedback loop within the doomsday plan of a lunatic.
Dr. Strangeglove.
You see, the belief that one can bend spoons, walk through walls, and burst the hearts of goats is not the problem.
It is the belief held by top officials within the U.S. military industrial complex that their ideology of appropriate morality is to prevail.
Therefore, one must use these mind-over-matter techniques to achieve the ultimate goal, “the power to manipulate reality”, that global dominance can be achieved without wiping out the world.
Therefore, one must use these mind-over-matter techniques to achieve the ultimate goal, “the power to manipulate reality”, that global dominance can be achieved without wiping out the world.
That somehow “it might be possible to fight, and win, a battle with nuclear weapons, without the exchange leading to an all-out-world-ending conflict,” and if not…
…we may all die for a lunatic’s dream in the process.
Sweet Jesus!
Oh, but that’s only an appetizer. You see, not only is the entire city of Washington DC bat-shit crazy but they have corrupted the military rank and file. These once-brave soldiers now have become psychopathic “yes men” to mad-men.
And they are playing with dangerously power weapons.
Weapons that could launch a global pandemic (been there – done that.)
Weapons that could destroy and collapse trade (been there – done that.)
Weapons that could alter the reality of America (been there – done that.)
Weapons that could devastate entire nations …
…pending..
Here is an uber lucid article by Christopher Black on what the PBCs (Psychopathic Barbarian Crusaders) truly want.
.
I like that. Psychopathic Barbarian Crusaders. Sounds so apt.
I’m aware that I might be unfair because the vast majority of Western people don’t qualify to be PBCs (Psychopathic Barbarian Crusaders)…
.
…but unhappily, most of the western movers & shakers (either in a leadership position or being cowardly and ignorant sidekicks) qualify for such an inglorious denomination.
.
We are at a crossroad. Everyone reading this should be perfectly aware of the geopolitical Damocles’ sword hanging on us all.
.
It’s impossible for anyone to be fully disconnected from geopolitics, the one guided by philosophy and ethics but also the Real Politik one because living in a fantasy world (un monde de bisounours, as they say in France or un monde de câlinours as said in Quebec) never helped anybody living on Earth.
.
But having principles and at the same time being aware of the ruts of the world is maybe the Middle Way.
.
At least it might help us deal with the events that unfold due to the madness of men.
.
The madness of men.
General Jack D. Ripper: Your Commie has no regard for human life, not even his own. And for this reason, men, I want to impress upon you the need for extreme watchfulness. The enemy may come individually, or he may come in strength. He may even come in the uniform of our own troops. But however he comes, we must stop him. We must not allow him to gain entrance to this base. Now, I'm going to give you THREE SIMPLE rules: First, trust NO one, whatever his uniform or rank, unless he is known to you personally; Second, anyone or anything that approaches within 200 yards of the perimeter is to be FIRED UPON; Third, if in doubt, shoot first then ask questions afterward. I would sooner accept a few casualties through accidents rather losing the entire base and its personnel through carelessness. Any variation of these rules must come from me personally. Any variation on these rules must come from me personally. Now, men, in conclusion, I would like to say that, in the two years it has been my privilege to be your commanding officer, I have always expected the best from you, and you have never given me anything less than that. Today, the nation is counting on us. We're not going to let them down. Good luck to you all.-- General Jack D. Ripper
The US-Japanese Alliance Against China Risks World War
In 2003, when several lawyers, including myself, visited North Korea to learn more about socialism there, we were shown US Army documents captured in 1950 by the communist forces.
In 1950, the communist forces seized control of Seoul and overran the American Army headquarters.There, they secured all the documents, cypher’s, and data that they found.
The documents confirmed that it was the US and its puppets in South Korea that invaded the north, not the other way round.
Their objective was to crush the local communist forces. Set up strongly fortified launching zones, and then attacking China.
Their plan failed and ended in an American rout.
Battle for Seoul.
But what did surprise me was the evidence in the documents that the Americans also had the help and advice of Japanese Army officers who had remained in Korea at the end of the war between the US and Japan that ended in 1945.
Two growing empires went to war in the Pacific against each other but in the end the defeated and occupied Japanese soon joined the growing American empire.
And it was its drive for world domination and Korea was the first proof of their fealty to the US.
A fealty tolerated not only because of their defeat but also because American capital and Japanese capital have the same interest; the subjugation and exploitation of China.
The Japanese worked with the American military to take over Korea and launch towards China for eventual capture and domination.
On July 6, 2021 the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister stated at a Liberal Democratic Party function, that if China acted to take control of Taiwan…
… as is its right to do since it is an integral part of China…
… then Japan would defend Taiwan.
Why?
Well, because because such an action by China would represent an “existential threat to Japan.”
“If a major incident happened, it’s safe to say it would be related to a situation threatening the survival of Japan.
If that is the case, Japan and the US must defend Taiwan together.”
Why it would be an “existential threat to Japan” ?
He did not explain.
…
The Chinese will never forget what the Japanese did to China. They have never forgiven.
That he spoke for the leadership of Japan is clear.
Now keep in mind…
That any interference (by anyone) in China’s actions regarding the Chinese Provence of Taiwan…
…would be an aggression against China…
…and would be in absolute violation of the Japanese Constitution.
For this constitution prohibits Japanese Self-Defense Forces from taking any offensive actions.
And this is a quite clear violation of the UN Charter.
…
In response China has stated time and again that it is prepared to defeat both the US and Japan…
…if they try to interfere when China retakes control of Taiwan.
Which (unfortunately) every action by the Americans and Taiwanese is provoking them to do.
…
Of course…
The Americans recognize that they do not have enough strength in the region to interfere alone.
And so they have lured Britain, France, and Germany, as well as the ever-eager Australians, to send in naval forces to the South China Sea to support the American and Japanese assault plans.
It is more than ironic to see four nations that were bitter enemies of Imperial Japan in World War II, now colluding with Japan.
Not only that, but to once again attack China and that Germany, an ally of Japan in the Second World War, once again is attempting to throw its weight around in the world.
What is the matter with these people?
The Chinese have a long and bitter memory of the Japanese invasion and occupation of their lands in the 1930s and 40’s just as the Koreans have the same bitter memories of Japanese occupation.
The Chinese have a long and bitter memory of the Japanese invasion.
The Chinese have a long and bitter memory of the Japanese invasion.
But we realize now that the defeat of the fascists and militarists in Germany and Japan in 1945 was not their final defeat.
The governments who fought those two nations also had fascist elements within them.
These elements, these people, hoped that the Nazis would crush communism in the USSR and the Japanese would do the same in China.
…
Instead, the elements of world capital that supported or tolerated fascism and relied on imperialism to increase their profits.
And they quickly reorganized.
And, led by the far right in Washington, created the NATO military alliance to continue the assault on the USSR and now on Russia, China and other independent nations.
They wear different clothes now.
American neocons pushing for war.
But they use the same lies and techniques of propaganda as the Nazis and Japanese militarists as they prepare for another war against China and Russia.
…
On July 30, 2021 the Chinese government had to warn the British government and its naval task force, led by the new British aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth, to keep away from its territorial waters or face the consequences.
British aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth.
Yet, at the same time the US and France conducted military exercise with dozens of US F22s and French Rafale aircraft near Hawaii.
All this while the French beef up their forces in Tahiti.
And while the Americans have dispersed their fleet of bombers and fighters including F35s from their big base on Guam, which the Chinese can destroy quickly, to smaller bases, making it more difficult for China to destroy those aircraft.
This type of dispersal is usually seen in war settings, when war is on going or imminent.
At the same time the Germans announced that they will be sending a frigate to the South China Sea in support of the Americans and Japanese.
While the Americans sent more ships into the Taiwan Strait this week. Some may see all this as sabre rattling.
But that is a lot of sabres, and they are doing a lot more than just rattling them.
As Hans Rudiger Minow stated in German Foreign Policy,
“The intensification of western manoeuvres and their growing focus on combat missions, which are highly realistic under current circumstances, coincide with prognoses by high-ranking US military officials, predicting that a war between the United States and China is probable in the near future.
For example, recently NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Ret. Adm. James G. Stavridis, was quoted with the prognosis that “our technology, network of allies and bases in the region, still overmatch China” – for now.
However, “by the end of the decade – if not sooner” the People’s Republic “will be in a position” to “challenge the US” at least “in the South China Sea.”
Recently Stavridis published a novel in which he depicted a fictional war erupting between the USA and China in 2034.
In the meantime, he considers “we may not have until 2034 to prepare for this battle – it may come much sooner.”
Some of his colleagues in the military are predicting that “it is not about 2034,” the Big War could come earlier – possibly even “2024 or 2026.”
But it is not China that is seeking a war.
So who is pushing this insanity?
American neocons.
Who is pushing for war…?
The propaganda machines in the west, all part of the military-industrial complex, are legion.
But one of the worst is the Hudson Institute.
Founded in 1961 by Herman Khan, formerly of the Rand Institute, who was famous for playing nuclear war games and theorizing on the possibilities of using nuclear weapons in war.
Its current leadership and membership include fascists like Mike Pompeo, Seth Cropsey and many others who served in various US government regimes or the US military establishment.
Seth Cropsey’s bio states,
“Cropsey began his career in government at the US Department of Defense as assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and subsequently served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, where he was responsible for the Navy’s position on efforts to reorganize DoD, development of the maritime strategy, the Navy’s academic institutions, naval special operations, and burden-sharing with NATO allies.
In the Bush administration, Cropsey moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to become acting assistant secretary, and then principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Cropsey served as a naval officer from 1985 to 2004.
“From 1982 to 1984, Cropsey directed the editorial policy of the Voice of America (VOA) on the solidarity movement in Poland, Soviet treatment of dissidents, and other issues. Returning to public diplomacy in 2002 as director of the US government’s International Broadcasting Bureau, Cropsey supervised the agency as successful efforts were undertaken to increase radio and television broadcasting to the Muslim world.”
In other words…
…
Cropsey penned a recent article published in The Hill, a US right wing journal covering events in Washington entitled ,“Japan Signals An Opening for US in Countering China”.
In it he praised the statement by Taro Aso that Japan will support Taiwan (in case of China acting to take control of its island).
The justification being [1] that China seeks “world dominance” and [2] that there will be a war with the USA in the near future (and Japan wants to be on the winning side).
LOL.
He further states that the Japanese have now made a “decisive shift” in foreign and military policy.
Is Japan an independent nation, or a proxy vassal of the United States?
He dismisses the Japanese constitutional prohibition on Japanese offensive actions and calls for Japan to increase it military forces and support to “counter” China.
He wrote:
“Defending Taiwan is a difficult proposition. The PLA is at its strongest within the First Island Chain, particularly around Taiwan, given Beijing’s concentration of naval, air, and missile forces.
To defend the island, the US and its allies would have to operate squarely within China’s missile range, jeopardizing the high-value capital assets upon which American combat power depends.“However, Japan and the US both field significant submarine fleets — Japan’s small but quiet battery-powered boats are an effective counterpart to America’s larger nuclear-powered attack submarines.
Submarines are immune to the missiles upon which the PLA would rely to gain sea and air control over Taiwan.
If supported by a sufficient fast-boat mining effort, and a robust enough network of mobile ground-launched anti-ship and anti-air missiles, a Japanese-American submarine surge could defeat a PLA invasion of Taiwan, or at minimum prevent the fait accompli for which China hopes.Given this strategic reality.”
He calls for more military exercises with the US and Japan, France, and Britain and their other allies to “prepare for war.”
He then adds the lie that “preparing for war is essential to deterring it” when what he really means is that America is preparing for war in order to wage war.
Come on!
Everyone knows that America is planning to attack China. Destroy it. Invade it, Conquer it, and then convert it into a vassal state. Let's be real. Please!
The forces of peace and reason in the world must denounce these war preparations as a danger to the entire world for a war on China…
….will bring in Russia…
…and others (nations that no one is thinking about)…
… it will lead to world war…
…then to nuclear war…
… and (possibly) the end of humanity.
…
And the author goes on to say…
We must denounce these criminals and demand the International Criminal Court prosecutor take action to warn the Americans, and indict the leaders of the US allies over which it has jurisdiction, their propagandists like Seth Cropsey, and all the rest who are conspiring to commit aggression, the supreme war crime, the final act of insanity, because it seems to me that is what war with China will be, the final act in the human drama.
We wont have to wait for abrupt climate change to finish us off.
But the ICC says nothing about all this and the UN Security Council is rendered impotent.
So who then is left to object, to say enough is enough, to hell with the criminals and their wars, except us, the people, But what can we the people do?
Yes, protest, petition, write, shout, cry, join peace groups like the one I belong to, the Canadian Peace Congress, do anything you can but get up, stand up, as Bob Marley called for us to do, and as John Lennon demanded, Give Peace A Chance.
…
Give peace a chance.
…
Noble thoughts, but it ain’t gonna happen.
Obviously he has been sleeping under a rock for the last 75 years. You cannot write letter or petition anyone. They are above all this. They are a run-away locomotive and it is fast approaching a rickety old bridge that is long in need of repair.
It will not go well.
What about Russia?
All the time all this “saber rattling” is going on by the United States Military Empire, and the hate-hate-hate narratives are flooding the “news” media, what else is going on that isn’t being reported?
Remember boys and girls. To know what is really going on, look for what IS NOT being reported.
Well, Russian and Chinese troops and military have been practicing and coordinating their military strategies ALL YEAR.
Of course you would NEVER hear about this on FOX “news”, CNN, BBC, or any other mainstream “news” website. Check out some of these videos…
Russian troops training in XinJiang and then eating fine Uighur food.
And then here’s another.
Russian and Chinese commanders address their troops.
Here’s a great movie showing how Russian soldiers are being trained to use Chinese weapon systems, while the Chinese are also being trained to use the Russian weapons systems.
Here’s a great movie showing how Russian soldiers are being trained to use Chinese weapon systems, while the Chinese are also being trained to use the Russian weapons systems.
Let’s dig a little deeper. Shall we?
This next article is from a pro-Japan, pro-American author that tries to rationalize Japan going to war with China over Taiwan. He comes to the conclusion that ABSOLUTELY Japan would go fight the Chinese…
…and with help from the USA, probably would win.
How Far Would Japan Really Go to Defend Taiwan?
Japan defense report says Taiwan's 'stability' is integral to its 'security', putting Tokyo's pacifist forces on a new collision course with Beijing
When Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said on July 5, 2021 that Tokyo would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion, Beijing’s sharp response was predictable.
“We will never allow anyone to meddle in the Taiwan question in any way,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the day after Aso made his surprise remark.
“No one should underestimate the resolve, the will, and the ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
But Aso’s statement was no slip of the tongue. A week later, on July 13, Japan released its annual defense report, which for the first time mentioned the importance of maintaining “stability” around Taiwan because it “is important for Japan’s security.”
China’s response, again, was sharp and immediate.
The Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times ran an op-ed stating that “Japan will ‘lose badly’ if it defends Taiwan secessionists.”
…
…
China does not play. Do not take the warning lightly.
…
Chinese DF-41 armed with ten (x10) nuclear warheads well within the range of Japan. One missile launch of these independently directed, AI controlled, hypervelocity MIRV’s will completely destroy ten of Japan’s largest cities, and if not send Japan into the Iron age, will thrash it’s economy to zero.
The piece quoted an anonymous Beijing-based military analyst as saying, “Even the US could not defeat China militarily in the West Pacific region now, so what makes Japan believe it’s able to challenge China with force?”
Good question.
While the motivations behind Tokyo’s recent statements are unclear, Japan and Taiwan are openly on the same side.
In Asia’s intensifying new Cold War, where an increasingly assertive and militarily powerful China is the obvious but usually unspoken adversary.
Japan and Taiwan do not share official diplomatic relations — Tokyo recognizes Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China.
However, the two sides are known to share intelligence through back channels.
In May last year, as Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen began her second term in office, then-chief Cabinet secretary, now prime minister, Yoshihide Suga said that Japan is eager to develop its ties with Taiwan.
Eager.
(I wonder if American money played a role? Hum.)
…
…
Japan’s annual foreign policy report, known as the Diplomatic Bluebook, describes Taiwan in its latest edition released on April 27 this year as an “important partner and friend.”
It also said Japan backs Taiwan’s campaign to attend the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Bluebook stated diplomatically that Taiwan had been successful in fighting the Covid-19 virus and “there should be no blank spaces on the world map.” China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province that should be “reunited” with the mainland, strongly opposes Taiwan’s participation in any international bodies.
The Bluebook also said that Japan would cooperate with “more countries” to promote freedom of navigation and the rule of law in the Asia-Pacific region.
In matters of geostrategic importance, Japan already works closely with the US, India and Australia under the so-called “Quad.”
Yup. This is the Pacific "NATO" that was set up by neocon Mike Pompeo.
Taiwan could be seen as a silent partner, or at least an ally, to the strategic grouping because it is a vital link in the China-focused island chain of defense which stretches from Japan’s main islands to Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines and the Malaysian part of Borneo.
America Is Betting Big on the Second Island Chain | RANDSep 08, 2020 · The United States has deep and abiding interests in the Second Island Chain. But China's growing influence in the region could complicate U.S. plans. Washington will almost certainly seek to strengthen security cooperation with Pacific Island states in the Second Island Chain and bolster defensive positions on U.S. territories in the region.
However, the bigger question remains: what exactly would Japan be prepared to do if China did try to invade Taiwan?
What would Japan do?
Whatever the anonymous military analyst quoted in the Global Times might think, Japan certainly has the means to challenge China militarily.
On December 21, 2020, the Japanese government approved the ninth consecutive rise in military spending, marking a historic record of 5.34 trillion yen (US$51.7 billion.)
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), as they are formally known, are comprised of nearly 250,000 active personnel and another 50,000 in reserve, and are equipped with the latest weaponry and technology procured mainly from the US.
Hum. China has the world’s largest army, with more than 2 million active personnel
The Japanese Navy is believed by military analysts to be the strongest in the region after America’s…
…and thus superior to China’s still underdeveloped but steadily growing naval forces.
LOL. Don't be so sure.
China’s underdeveloped military forces…
Um. Sure. What ever you want to believe.
…
Some history
Do not negotiate with the United States.
I want to remind you all that when it seems like America is “losing”, then “the gloves come off”, and real nasty things will take place.
Like in Korea when the Chinese Army routed the American forces…
In late 1950 American forces suffered a series of disastrous defeats in Korea at the hands of Chinese troops, and the report from a Pentagon committee in early December emphasized the importance of accelerating the development of bioweapons such as Q Fever, plague, and anthrax together with the necessary delivery mechanisms for covert use, while especially praising the CIA for its effectiveness in that regard. This secret report was eventually declassified by a FOIA request in 1996.Around the same time that report was being written, a British sergeant retreating through a deserted North Korean village before advancing Chinese troops observed American military personnel, masked and gloved, carefully removing large quantities of feathers from special containers and flinging them into the empty houses before he was warned away by American MPs. He later stated that he had obviously witnessed “a clandestine operation” of some sort and mentioned that a few days afterward he was required to take an unspecified vaccine. This curious vignette appears in Unit 731, a 1989 historical account of Japan’s biowarfare program written by two BBC journalists, but oddly enough the incident was removed from the American edition of that same book.Months later, the North Korean foreign minister issued a formal complaint to the United Nations that America had used illegal biological warfare, attacking his own troops and those of China with smallpox. These mysterious outbreaks had occurred a few months earlier, but only in areas recently occupied by retreating American forces. The accusations briefly appeared in the Western media, but were ridiculed and hotly denied by American government spokesmen.Around the same time that Communist troops were sickening and dying, around two hundred American soldiers in the same theater had also been suddenly stricken by a mysterious outbreak of Songo fever, never before seen in Korea but with symptoms quite similar to smallpox and a specialty of America’s Japanese biowarfare mentors. Strict censorship prevented these stories from reaching the American media until many months later, at which point our government claimed that the illnesses had been spread by Chinese troops. But the disease seemed entirely absent from the hundreds of miles of Korean territory the enemy forces had traversed, and only appeared in a narrow belt along the front lines, with our stricken servicemen believing that they seemed to be spread by infected field mice or voles. Voles had long been regarded by American researchers as an excellent vector for their bioweapons, and when interviewed years later for a history of the Korean War, one of the leaders of our local CIA efforts explained that his covert operations had created a defensive belt along the front lines.
The use of bio-weapons, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons will be the direct result if the United States is unable to achieve it’s objectives.
Thus, we see WHY after eight (8x) bio-weapons targeting livestock in China, John Bolton, the head of the Bio-Warfare office under President Trump) launched COVID-19B against the Chinese. As well as the two follow up bio-weapons in July and late August.
So now…
The “drums of war” are beating again. And they are louder than ever. They are so loud that it is giving me a headache.
What’s China (and Russia) to do?
According to the Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Beijing has made substantial progress in the construction of a third aircraft carrier as Type 003, which is …
“slated to become the largest surface combatant in the Chinese People’s Army Navy (PLAN) and significantly upgrade China’s naval capabilities.”
Type-003.
But the crux of the strategic matter is that Article 9 of Japan’s supposedly pacifist, post-World War II constitution.
it specifically outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes.
And the Japanese Self Defense Force (JSDF) are therefore legally only allowed to defend the country if it comes under attack.
Only if it comes under attack.
But Mr. Aso has argued that Taiwan is situated only 112 kilometers from some islands that are part of Okinawa prefecture and therefore a Chinese invasion could represent an “existential threat” to Japan’s security.
You know. Too close for comfort.
It's like having a restaurant next to a gas station. The gas station is robbed, so the restaurant owner gets his gun and goes over to the gas station to shoot everyone. You know. Just in case.
In that direction, the Japanese navy’s first aircraft carrier since World War II is nearly ready to deploy. It is designed to carry up to 28 light or 14 larger aircraft.
Woo woo.
Jeffrey Hornung, a political scientist at the US-based Rand Corporation, wrote in a May 10 paper that Japan would not need to get directly involved in a military conflict over Taiwan.
But, he suggests, if Washington sought to defend the democratic, self-ruled island, “at a minimum, the United States would require access to its bases in Japan, which would execute combat operations in, over and around Taiwan.”
Yada. Yada. Yada.
The JSDF would in that way “act as a force multiplier for any US-led operation. That means US requests for Japanese involvement would be almost certain.” In other words, Japan’s involvement would be limited to “non-combatant, rear-area support roles” in fields such as “supply, maintenance, transportation, engineering and medical services,” Hornung writes.
Okinawa is proximal to Taiwan and the US base there would be at the front of any military action against China.
…
….
If Japan wanted to get involved.
…
If China decided to attack Okinawa, or for argument’s sake any base on Japanese territory, such an attack could be interpreted as an act of aggression and Japan would have the right to act in self-defense.
But that scenario also raises another important question: would the US be prepared to intervene and defend Taiwan? The US and Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, shared a defense treaty before Washington established diplomatic relations with China on January 1, 1979.
..
On that day, the US withdrew its recognition of the Republic of China and terminated the 1955 “Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of China.” Because either party had to notify the other about the termination a year in advance, the treaty remained in place – at least nominally – until January 1, 1980.
Then it ENDED.
The now null-and-void 1955 treaty, which stipulated that if one country came under attack the other would provide military support, was in certain aspects replaced by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
…
Under the Act, the US was no longer be obliged to defend Taiwan, the US embassy in Taiwan was closed and relations were maintained through a non-profit corporation registered in the District of Columbia known as the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which functions as a de facto embassy.
…
The ambiguity of the relationship is evident in a Taiwan Relations Act clause that says that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities.”
…
The Act’s intention appears to be to dissuade Taiwan from declaring independence from China, while at the same time discouraging China from invading Taiwan. But that all came into force when Jimmy Carter was America’s president and China was still a fairly poor country, not the regional superpower it has become today.
As Beijing celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1, President Xi Jinping reiterated his pledge to incorporate Taiwan into the mainland.
“Solving the Taiwan question and realizing the complete reunification of the motherland are the unswerving historical tasks of the Chinese Communist Party and the common aspiration of all Chinese people,” Xi said in a speech.
Every Chinese must work together, “resolutely smashing any ‘Taiwan independence plots,’” the Chinese leader added. China has recently flexed its muscles in that direction with air force jets and bombers making frequent incursions into Taiwan’s airspace.
…
In this new geopolitical environment, it would be impossible for the US to stay idle if Xi turned his tough rhetoric into military action and actually sent forces to invade Taiwan.
In that scenario, Japan could and would not stay neutral.
To be sure, Deputy Defense Minister Aso is known for his public gaffes, which are often corrected or denied by the government after being uttered.
But as Corey Wallace, a foreign policy expert at Kanagawa University in Yokohama was quoted saying in the July 12 issue of Foreign Policy, the slip this time may have been deliberate and reflect what Japanese officials have long believed privately.
Either way, Xi is playing with certain fire by talking about Taiwan’s “reunification” with the mainland.
LOL. Taiwan is PART of China. Xi Peng can say anything he wants about his nation. And the rest of the world can howl. He's not playing with fire. Just like Joe Biden is not playing with fire when he announces a new road project in West Virginia.
Even with China’s recent military and naval build-up, Beijing still faces formidable odds in invading Taiwan, which would almost inevitably result in a wider conflict – one Japan could inevitably play a crucial, military role.
…
Do not be so sure…
Don’t be so sure. Seriously. There are MANY things in play here. Keep in mind that a war with China, in such close proximity would devastate that nation to a point that it might turn into such a churned up mass of radioactive rubble that it would need to be renamed “Commode”.
…
Let’s keep in mind WHO we are talking about…
China is not some nation filled with bicycle riding peasants who were issued a cheap SKS clone. China is a fierce strong proud, and patriotic nation. Their children speak both English and Chinese by the time they are in middle school. Everyone attends scouts, and gets full-military training in elementary school. It is a nation that promotes STEM graduates by demonstrated merit, punishes those who violate the rules with extreme harshness, and never bluffs.
Chinese boy scouts… Check out the videos.
Chinese boy scouts 1
And, here’s another…
Chinese boy scouts 2
Still not convinced…
Scot training focuses on group communication, working together as a team, and mastery of fighting skills.
How about this one…
Chinese scouts are coed.
It is so easy to forget who the Chinese actually are…
With a non-stop anti-China barrage hitting everyone 24-7, all year it is so easy to villainize people who you only know by the two dimensional cardboard cut out that Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Tom Collins created. It’s not even remotely true.
Do not lulled into believing that the Chinese are backwards, and ill-prepared. Or that they are starving and cannot wait to be “liberated” for democracy™.
Not only are the Chinese skilled, work as a team (automatically) but there are BILLIONS of them, all working together for the common good. Anyone who wants to tangle with this dragon is seriously in need of a lobotomy.
There’s billions of Chinese. Don’t piss them off!
China is not a third-world military. They are peer-capable with the best that America has. What’s more they outnumber everything that the United States can compile against it. And never forget, they WILL USE nuclear weapons if attacked.
Count on it.
You are a fucking idiot if you don’t realize this.
China is a serious, serious nation that does not play.
It’s so easy to think that China would be an “easy kill”, if all you see and read in within your own bubble of isolation. Much like those kings who “pooh-pooh” the offers by Genghis Khan for trade. But then they found out that their large army of 20,000 knights on white horses were no match for 5,000,000 angry, pissed off, huns riding in at dawn.
Chinese soldiers.
And let’s not forget that the vast bulk of technology comes from China. China posses the vast number of factories, and consists of thousands of design centers. No, not the “technology centers” that you see in the USA which is really a nice building, and staffed with one or two engineers that outsource to China, the rest being marketing, finance, attorneys and IT folk. No, China is the place where the real things are designed and made.
Stuff that isn’t advertised. Like robotic “hand grenades”. How would you like your base or complex over-run with these little guys each one a bomb?
Cute robot hand-grenades.
.
Trying to avoid war…
Let’s look at how China is trying to avoid war. Let’s look at what they are doing to make any war with China a very, very costly mistake….
While China has not publicly released a new nuclear posture statement that supersedes the 2006 White Paper, the construction of new missile silos configured to hold solid-fuel ICBMs possessing multiple warheads changes the nuclear posture options for China.
The most likely change is to transition from a pure retaliatory strike capability (“counterattack in self-defense”) to a launch-on-warning posture.
This posture means the Chinese missiles would leave their silos when an attack was detected.
This differs from the previous posture, where the missiles would be waiting for a nuclear attack to actually occur.
Given China’s declared nuclear policy, a launch-on-warning posture allows China to retain its no-first-use policy while simultaneously ensuring the survivability of its nuclear forces.
A US-Sino nuclear arms race is already underway – and we know who the winner will be
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of 'SCORPION KING: America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
Since the 1960’s, China has maintained a no-first-use nuclear policy and pledged never to engage in an arms race. However, thanks to the destabilizing impact of US nuclear policy, it has begun an arms race – and it plans on winning.
A quick history lesson: China detonated its first atomic weapon on October 16, 1964. In doing so, it became the fifth country – after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France – to possess nuclear weapons. Since then, China has developed and deployed a modest arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons delivery systems, with the goal of maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrent against other nuclear-armed powers, with a particular focus on the US.
The 2006 Defense White Paper, issued by China’s State Council Information Office, provides the most authoritative description of the country’s nuclear strategy.
China’s fundamental goal, the White Paper states,
“is to deter other countries from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against China.”
This deterrence comes from
“principles of counterattack in self-defense” (i.e., “assured retaliation”.) China “remains firmly committed to the policy of no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances.”
Moreover, it
“unconditionally undertakes not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.”
The White Paper goes on to declare that China
“stands for the comprehensive prohibition and complete elimination of nuclear weapons,” and that it believes in the “limited development of nuclear weapons” while aiming “at building a lean and effective nuclear force capable of meeting national security needs.” In conclusion, the White Paper notes, “China exercises great restraint in developing its nuclear force,” and “it has never entered into and will never enter into a nuclear arms race with any other country.”
From its inception in 1966, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force has relied upon a single missile – the DF-5 – as its primary strategic nuclear delivery system.
A massive, two-stage liquid-fuel rocket which, depending on what variant one is talking about, can deliver a single warhead (DF-5A), three warheads (DF-5B) or 10 warheads (DF-5C) to targets 12,000 km (7,456 miles) from the point of launch.
Chinese silo-based, liquid fueled, MIRV, ICBM’s the DF-5B and DF-5C.
The DF-5, based in hardened concrete silos, was designed to be able to survive a nuclear attack in sufficient numbers to enable China to deliver a country-killing nuclear counter-strike.
The DF-5, however, had several operational drawbacks which, as the strategic nuclear capabilities of potential adversaries (i.e., the United States) improved, made its survivability in a nuclear conflict more problematic.
First and foremost, as a liquid-fuel rocket, it is loaded into its silo with empty fuel tanks (the fuel and oxidizer used are highly corrosive, and if stored in the missile, would make it unusable in a matter of months.) Before it can be launched, therefore, the DF-5 must be fueled, a process that can take several hours.
The Chinese also stored the DF-5 without its warheads. As such, while the missile is being refueled, special teams would be bringing the nuclear warheads from nearby storage shelters and mounting them on the missile body.
The DF-5 is extremely vulnerable during this time, and as the accuracy and time of flight capabilities of US nuclear forces (in particular the Trident D5 system) improved, the Chinese assessed that their DF-5 nuclear deterrent was vulnerable to being taken out by a first strike.
Beginning in the 1970’s, China began developing solid-fuel rockets for use as mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The first of these, the DF-31, was deployed in 2006, as a road-mobile system.
DF-31 mobile solid fueled ICBM.
By 2013, the Chinese produced and fielded an improved version, the DF-31A. The DF-31 is armed with a single nuclear warhead.
In 2016, China completed testing for a more modern solid-fuel ICBM, the DF-41, which has begun to enter service as a mobile missile. The DF-41 carries 10 independently targeted nuclear warheads.
DF-41 MIRV ICBM. This is the mainstay of the Chinese ICBM fleet. All have ten nuclear warheads, can reach anywhere in the globe, and can be launched in minutes.
Between the DF-5, DF-31, and DF-41 missile systems, China was assessed, as of 2019, of possessing around 218 nuclear warheads (It has an additional 68 nuclear warheads carried on submarines and manned bombers.)
But even with this mix of silo-based DF-5s and mobile DF-31/41 missiles, China believed its forces remained vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike by American nuclear and, increasingly, conventional forces.
After all, that is what all the military policy planners in Washington DC are discussing right now. A first strike attack against China prior to an invasion.
This concern appeared to be magnified in the aftermath of the American withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019, and the emerging threat of intermediate-range missiles appearing on the periphery of China’s borders.
The first sign that China was adapting to this new reality came in the form of significant improvements and additions to its massive Jilantai training area, located near the city of Jilantai in China’s Inner Mongolia province.
Constructed in 2013, the Jilantai training area was the premier training grounds for the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, with specialized training constructed for both silo- and mobile-missile operations.
Around 2016, however, China began constructing new silos that appeared to be too small to hold the massive DF-5, leading Western analysts to assess that the Chinese were preparing to house their solid-fuel ICBMs, either the DF-31, DF-41 or both, in a silo configuration.
The importance of this distinction is that, while mobility provides for an element of survivability in a classic nuclear exchange scenario, the mobile missiles are vulnerable to loiter weapons.
Loiter weapons are in great use by the United States, such as armed drones, or precision stand-off weapons, such as the kind of ground-launched cruise missiles being developed by the US in the post-INF treaty era.
By placing some of its solid fuel ICBMs in silos, China virtually eliminates the threat from drones and cruise missiles, and because these missiles don’t have to be fueled, reduces the vulnerability to US strategic nuclear weapons such as the Trident D5.
The scope and scale of the silo construction led some analysts to conclude that perhaps the Jilantai training area was going to assume a limited operational posture, based upon the number of silos under construction.
This assessment was made moot, however, by the discovery of what many analysts believe is a massive missile base, containing 120 silos, under construction near Yumen in Gansu province, and another, containing a potential 110 additional silos, near the city of Hami in Eastern Xinjiang province.
Gansu province in China.
These silos appear to be similar to the new ones seen at the Jilantai training area, leading analysts to assess that the Chinese intend to load them with either the DF-31, DF-41 or both.
Many analysts believe that China may opt only to load a few of these silos with missiles, creating the potential for a “shell game” defense that would complicate nuclear targeting by the US.
But even if only 80 of these silos were loaded with DF-41 ICBMs, China’s warhead total would expand considerably, adding up to 800 new warheads to their arsenal.
Chinese nuclear weapons as understood by the West.
While China has not publicly released a new nuclear posture statement that supersedes the 2006 White Paper, the construction of new missile silos configured to hold solid-fuel ICBMs possessing multiple warheads changes the nuclear posture options for China.
The most likely change is to transition from a pure retaliatory strike capability (“counterattack in self-defense”) to a launch-on-warning posture.
This means the Chinese missiles would leave their silos when an attack was detected instead of waiting for a nuclear attack to actually occur.
Given China’s declared nuclear policy, a launch-on-warning posture allows China to retain its no-first-use policy while simultaneously ensuring the survivability of its nuclear forces.
However, if one is an American strategic nuclear planner, one cannot ignore the reality that China is edging close to having a legitimate first-strike capability, especially if it places missiles in every one of the silos under construction.
Faced with a potential first-strike capability from both Russia and China…
… and in light of the growing cooperation between Russia and China on defense issues…
…regarding what both nations view as the growing threat from the United States…
… the US may be compelled to look at increasing its nuclear arsenal, or dramatically altering its own nuclear force posture and composition, in order to match this emerging threat.
This, however, would be a prohibitively expensive proposition.
Which leaves arms control.
The Biden administration is currently trying to tie US arms control talks about reducing the strategic nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia to China.
Russia has rejected this out of hand, noting that it has nothing to do with the Chinese nuclear arsenal, and therefore the US should be approaching China directly on this matter.
US-China nuclear reduction talks, however, are impractical when one compares the relative threat posed by 200-plus Chinese ground-based ICBMs.
While the US arsenal of several thousand strategic warheads housed in a nuclear triad consisting of silo-based ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and air-delivered nuclear weapons.
The level of reductions in the US arsenal that would make any strategic nuclear forces reduction talks viable for China could not be matched by China, and as such would be politically impossible for the US to agree to.
If, however, the Chinese were to complete the two new silo bases and fill them with DF-41s, each of which armed with 10 warheads, then the US and China could negotiate mutually acceptable reductions based on strategic parity.
Such negotiations would be complicated by the need to factor in not only Russia, but also the nuclear arsenals of France and the UK (as American NATO allies), as well as the nuclear arsenals of lesser powers such as Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea.
The bottom line, however, is that China appears to have breached its commitment “never to engage in a nuclear arms race of any kind.”
The facts show that China entered this new phase of nuclear weapons development and deployment as a reaction to developments by potential adversaries (i.e., the US).
However, let there be no doubt – this is an arms race.
The placement of the Chinese silo bases appears, by intent, to be outside the range of anticipated US intermediate-range weapons, such as cruise missiles.
This means that there will be increased pressure placed on the States to field a new generation of silo-based ICBMs to replace the aging Minuteman III missiles.
As well as a new generation of submarine-launched missiles…
And missile-carrying submarines…
And a new generation of manned bomber…
… all in numbers greater than current forecasts call for.
The US cannot afford to enter this kind of arms race with China. Simply put, China has out Ronald Reagan-ed the US, flipping the Cold War theory that the US outspent the Soviet Union, bankrupting it, and accelerating its collapse on its head…
… so that it’s the US that’s being outspent, bankrupting itself, and pushing itself closer to collapse.
Hopefully, the US leadership is wiser than their Soviet counterparts before them. But, if history has shown us anything, the US is addicted to the power it believes it accrues by possessing a large nuclear weapons arsenal, and like any addict, liberating oneself from its drug of choice is difficult, if not impossible.
And keep in mind that the Chinese and the Russians possess hyper-velocity missile technology
Why Hypersonic Missiles Are Real Game Changers – by Gordog
A Technical Look at the Science Behind the Headlines
by Gordog
The Americans are now crying ‘uncle’ about Russia’s hypersonic weapons. After the most recent flight test of the scramjet-powered Zircon cruise missile, the Washington Post on July 11 carried a Nato statement of complaint:
"Russia’s new hypersonic missiles are highly destabilizing and pose significant risks to security and stability across the Euro-Atlantic area," the statement said.
At the same time, talks have begun on the ‘strategic dialog’ between the US and Russia, as agreed at the June 16 Geneva Summit of the two presidents. The two sides had already agreed to extend the START treaty on strategic weapons that has been in effect for a decade, but, notably, it was the US side that initiated the summit—perhaps spurred by the deployment of the hypersonic, intercontinental-range Avangard missile back in 2019, when US weapons inspectors were present, as per START, to inspect the Avangard as it was lowered into its missile silos.
But what exactly is a hypersonic missile—and why is it suddenly such a big deal?
We all remember when Vladimir Putin announced these wonder weapons in his March 2018 address to his nation [and the world]. The response from the US media was loud guffaws about ‘CGI’ cartoons and Russian ‘wishcasting.’ Well, neither Nato nor the Biden team are guffawing now. Like the five stages of grief, the initial denial phase has slowly given way to acceptance of reality—as Russia continues deploying already operational missiles, like the Avangard and the air-launched Kinzhal, now in Syria, as well as finishing up successful state trials of the Zircon, which is to be operationally deployed aboard surface ships and submarines, starting in early 2022. And in fact, there are a whole slew of new Russian hypersonic missiles in the pipeline, some of them much smaller and able to be carried by ordinary fighter jets, like the Gremlin aka GZUR.
The word hypersonic itself means a flight regime above the speed of Mach 5. That is simple enough, but it is not only about speed. More important is the ability to MANEUVER at those high speeds, in order to avoid being shot down by the opponent’s air defenses. A ballistic missile can go much faster—an ICBM flies at about 6 to 7 km/s, which is about 15,000 mph, about M 25 high in the atmosphere. [Mach number varies with temperature, so it is not an absolute measure of speed. The same 15,000 mph would only equal M 20 at sea level, where the temperature is higher and the speed of sound is also higher.]
But a ballistic missile flies on a straightforward trajectory, just like a bullet fired from a barrel of a gun—it cannot change direction at all, hence the word ballistic.
This means that ballistic missiles can, in theory, be tracked by radar and shot down with an interceptor missile. It should be noted here that even this is a very tough task, despite the straight-line ballistic trajectory. Such an interception has never been demonstrated in combat, not even with intermediate-range ballistic missiles [IRBMs], of the kind that the DPRK fired off numerous times, sailing above the heads of the US Pacific Fleet in the Sea of Japan, consisting of over a dozen Aegis-class Ballistic Missile Defense ships, designed specifically for the very purpose of shooting down IRBMs.
Such an interception would have been a historic demonstration of military technology—on the level of the shock and awe of Hiroshima! But no interception was ever attempted by those ‘ballistic missile defense’ ships, spectating as they were, right under the flight paths of the North Korean rockets!
The bottom line is that hitting even a straight-line ballistic missile has never been successfully demonstrated in actual practice. It is a very hard thing to do.
Consider that a modern combat rifle with a high-velocity cartridge can fire a bullet at a speed of about 1,200 meters per second [1.2 km/s]. That is barely one fifth the speed of an ICBM warhead, and only about half the speed of a short or intermediate-range ballistic missile. Clearly, intercepting anything that flies double or even five times the speed of a rifle bullet is going to be a daunting task. [Note from our previous discussion on the space race and the technicalities of orbital flight, that the ICBM does not reach orbital velocity, but flies on a suborbital trajectory—although it does exit the atmosphere].
Between the two, speed and maneuvering, the latter is much more effective in evading defensive interception.
We know this from many actual battlefield results. When the US launched large salvoes of subsonic Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria in 2017 and again in 2018, a number of them were intercepted by Syrian air defenses. But not nearly all. Many did get through despite the T-Hawk’s relatively slow speed of about 500 mph, which is only about M 0.7. But the cruise missile’s ability to fly low to the ground and maneuver in flight, changing direction constantly, make it a tough target to hit. Likewise in the Falklands War, the Argentines used subsonic and fairly short-range, French-made Exocet sea-skimming cruise missiles to sink several large British warships, including a then-state-of-the-art Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Sheffield.
Even bird hunters know this, and will use a shotgun that scatters many pellets over a wide area rather than a bullet-firing rifle to take down slow-flying, but maneuvering, land and waterfowl! Obviously, if you combine high speed WITH maneuvering, you will have a missile that is going to be very difficult to stop. [If not impossible, with something like the Avangard, which reaches ICBM speeds of up to M 25!].
But let’s lower our sights a little from ICBMs and IRBMs [and even subsonic cruise missiles] to a quite ancient missile technology, the Soviet-era Scud, first introduced into service in 1957! A recent case with a Houthi Scud missile fired at Saudi Arabia in December 2017 shows just how difficult missile interception really is:
At around 9 p.m…a loud bang shook the domestic terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.‘There was an explosion at the airport,’ a man said in a video taken moments after the bang. He and others rushed to the windows as emergency vehicles streamed onto the runway.Another video, taken from the tarmac, shows the emergency vehicles at the end of the runway. Just beyond them is a plume of smoke, confirming the blast and indicating a likely point of impact.
The Houthi missile, identified as an Iranian-made Burqan-2 [a copy of a North Korean Scud, itself a copy of a Chinese copy of the original Russian Scud from the 1960s], flew over 600 miles before hitting the Riyadh international airport. The US-made Patriot missile defense system fired FIVE interceptor shots at the missile—all of them missed!
Laura Grego, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, expressed alarm that Saudi defense batteries had fired five times at the incoming missile.
‘You shoot five times at this missile and they all miss? That’s shocking,’ she said. ‘That’s shocking because this system is supposed to work.’
Ms Grego knows what she’s talking about—she holds a physics doctorate from Caltech and has worked in missile technology for many years. Not surprisingly, American officials first claimed the Patriot missiles had done their job and shot the Scud down. This was convincingly debunked in the extensive expert analysis that ran in the NYT: Did American Missile Defense Fail in Saudi Arabia?
This was not the first time that Patriot ‘missile defense’ against this supposedly obsolete missile failed spectacularly:
On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi Scud hit the barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 14’th Quartermaster Detachment.A government investigation revealed that the failed intercept at Dhahran had been caused by a software error in the system's handling of timestamps. The Patriot missile battery at Dhahran had been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the system's internal clock had drifted by one-third of a second. Due to the missile's speed this was equivalent to a miss distance of 600 meters.
Whether this explanation is factual or not, the Americans’ initial claims of wild success in downing nearly all of the 80 Iraqi Scuds launched, was debunked by MIT physicist Theodore Postol, who concluded that no missiles were in fact intercepted!
Shooting down Scud missiles is difficult, and governments have wrongly claimed success against them in the past.Governments have overstated the effectiveness of missile defenses in the past, including against Scuds. During the first Gulf War, the United States claimed a near-perfect record in shooting down Iraqi variants of the Scud.Subsequent analyses found that nearly all the interceptions had failed.
Why is shooting down Scuds so difficult? Because this was arguably the world’s first hypersonic missile [it flies at M 5 and does MANEUVER]!
If we take a closer look at this missile, we see that it is propelled nearly throughout its entire flight. This is the key. The warhead only separates from the missile body a few miles [mere seconds], before reaching its target. That missile body contains a means for maneuvering the missile, by means of thrust vector—using graphite paddles that move into and out of the rocket engine exhaust stream, as seen here. So it will be jinking and jibing as it enters the terminal phase of flight—making it a very hard target to radar track and shoot down!
Once the warhead separates, the spent missile body falls harmlessly to the ground, as it did just outside the Riyadh airport, landing on a nearby street. It is this now uselessly falling body that could be locked onto by air defense radars and hit by interceptor missiles—while the warhead itself sails unobstructed overhead.
The only real problem with those ancient Scuds was their accuracy. They could be off by hundreds of meters. But of course, accuracy and missile guidance systems have come a long way since then. The modern successor to the Scud, the Russian truck-launched Iskander, has an accuracy of about 5 meters! It too, is really a hypersonic missile that reaches M 7, but has a range of only 500 km—which was dictated by the now-defunct INF treaty, from which the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew.
The Russian Iskander-M cruises at hypersonic speed of 2,100–2,600 m/s [Mach 6–7] at a height of 50 km. The Iskander-M weighs 4,615 kg carries a warhead of 710–800 kg, has a range of 480 km and achieves a CEP [circular error probable] of 5–7 meters. During flight it can maneuver at different altitudes and trajectories to evade anti-ballistic missiles.
Iskander is generally described, at least in the west, as a ‘quasi-ballistic’ missile. But ‘quasi’ or not, the US considers the Iskander a very dangerous weapon, and a type of weapon which it does not yet possess. In fact, the US’ attempts to develop its very first hypersonic missile have been rather slow out of the blocks. Its first flight test attempt with the proposed Lockheed-Martin AGM183 [aka ARRW] in April of this year, did not even manage to release the rocket from the wing of the B52 carrier! The second attempt, on July 29, managed to get the rocket to release, but the engine failed to fire!
Clearly the US is many years away from fielding a working hypersonic missile. These early tests were only supposed to test the rocket, and carried a dummy ‘glide vehicle’ which is supposed to separate from the rocket once it reaches a speed of about M 6 or so, and then glide to its target while maneuvering.
The prototype missile would carry a frangible surrogate for that [glide] vehicle that would disintegrate after release.
However, it is unclear how an unpowered gliding body is going to accomplish aerodynamic maneuvering INSIDE the atmosphere. The concept of boost-glide, which is used by Avangard, works by hoisting the glide vehicle up above the atmosphere, at ICBM speed, where the ‘glider’ can then skip off the upper layers of the atmosphere like a flat pebble skipping over the surface of a still pond.
The overall flight range of AGM183 is a claimed 1,000 miles [1,600 km]. Clearly such a short-range missile, and reaching a speed of only about M 8 at most [based on statements of reaching its target in a flight time of 10 to 12 minutes] is not going to be able to use the boost-glide means of maneuvering, which requires exiting the atmosphere.
The Technical Deep Dive (If you are not inclined to follow technical details jump to the conclusions.)
So let’s look at Russian hypersonic technology in a little more detail, so that we may understand more than just what the technically-challenged media are telling us. From what the Russian military has already fielded, we can see that hypersonic missiles come in all shapes and sizes. Some, like Avangard, are launched by powerful ICBM rockets and have ICBM-like striking range. Others, like Zircon, are more like a Tomahawk or Kalibr cruise missile, powered by an air-breathing engine, and able to aerodynamically maneuver throughout their flight to the target—but flying about ten times faster.
Others, like Kinzhal, which appears to be an evolution of the Iskander [itself an evolution of the Scud] are powered by relatively small rockets and are designed to maneuver gas-dynamically [thrust vectoring], again, during all phases of flight, right up to the target.
These are the three primary types for purposes of basic classification. They all fly very fast [up to M 25 for Avangard], but they use different propulsion systems, and different means of maneuvering. Let’s begin with the Kinzhal, since we already understand the basics of how a Scud or Iskander works. In the case of Kinzhal, it is launched from a very high speed and height by a MiG31 interceptor aircraft, which is designed to fly up to 1,500 km at a cruising speed of M 2.4, at a height of about 20 km.
By carrying even an unmodified Iskander up to this speed and height, its range could easily double, to about 1,000 km—since the rocket chemical energy required to reach that height and speed would be saved, and could be expended on increasing its flight range.
The range given for Kinzhal is 2,000 km, but it is not clear if that includes the flight range of the MiG31 carrier aircraft. My guess would be that it does. The MiG has a combat radius of over 700 km at its M 2.4 cruise speed. That means that after release, the Kinzhal would need to fly for about 1,300 km before hitting its target—for an overall system range of 2,000 km. In fact, the MiG could fly a significant portion of its flight subsonically, saving fuel, and accelerate up to supersonic cruise speed, or even its top speed of M 2.8, only in the last couple of hundred km, before launching Kinzhal. It would then circle back and return to base subsonically again. This would increase range even more.
Either way, it is a safe bet that the overall range to a target, say a US aircraft carrier, from the takeoff point of the MiG [now deployed in Syria], is realistically going to be no less than the stated 2,000 km, if not more. This is certainly a game-changer for US naval dominance! Carrier-based aircraft would have no chance to fly far enough from their floating airfield to intercept a MiG31 launching a Kinzhal at 1,000 km or more distance from the ship. The F/A-18 has a combat radius for air-to-air missions of only 740 km. Obviously, it is not going to be able to reach the MiG launching from outside of 1,000 km.
Now let us look at the Zircon cruise missile that Nato is complaining about. So far, this missile has been successfully test-flown at target distances of up to about 450 km. The Russian MoD says its range is actually in excess of 1,000 km, and that flight tests to maximum range will be forthcoming.
This too is a game-changer. The Zircon will be carried by Russia’s new class of surface warships in the frigate or ‘small destroyer’ size, as well as on the new Yasen-class cruise missile nuclear subs that are now coming into service. These state-of-the-art subs will also carry subsonic Kalibr cruise missiles with a maximum range of 4,500 km! Combined with the air-launched Kinzhal, the US Navy will face some very stiff challenges—from the air, from the sea, and even from under the sea. It should be noted that both the Zircon and Kinzhal are not exclusively anti-ship missiles. They can just as readily target land objects, including Nato command and control centers—which Putin has said Russia will do, in the event of any kind of western aggression!
But Zircon is also a technological tour de force. The unique feature of the Zircon is its scramjet engine. This is the first time that the world has a production engine of this type—something which has long been a goal for both the US and Russia.
Not surprisingly, the Russians flew the world’s first scramjet prototype back in 1991—the Kholod, which means ‘cold’ in Russian. Remarkably, in the Yeltsin détente atmosphere of the early nineties, the Russian developers of the world’s first functional scramjet engine, the Central Institute of Aviation Motors [CIAM] invited Nasa to participate in the flight tests at the Sary Shagan test range in Kazakhstan. The results were published in the US professional literature, here, and here.
But despite this technology boost from Russia, the US has not been able to keep up. Its experiments with scramjet engines, although wildly hyped in the media, have been dormant for several years. It appears that the US has given up on the idea of building a working scramjet engine for the time being—much as they gave up, decades ago, on the idea of building a closed-cycle rocket engine, having deemed the technology ‘impossible.’
So what is a scramjet engine anyway? To fully understand this, let’s first look at how a turbojet engine works. Here is a picture that is worth a thousand words. Air enters the front of the engine and is then compressed by a number of rotating blades on a series of wheels, similar to a fan or propeller. The compressed air is then passed into the burner, or combustion chamber, where fuel is squirted in and the result is a high temperature and high-pressure gas that then drives the turbine wheels—which are bladed in a way similar to the compressor wheels up front.
The turbine wheels and compressor are on a single shaft and rotate at the same speed—so it is the energy of the gas driving the turbines, that drives the compressors. The remaining energy in the gas is squeezed out through a nozzle, which accelerates the gas flow, which, in turn, creates thrust—on the principle of Newton’s Third Law, action-reaction. The force of the fast-moving mass flow of gas out the nozzle, must be compensated by a REACTION force in the opposite direction [forward thrust], as per the conservation of momentum principle. Hence all jet engines, whether air-breathing or rocket, are called reaction engines.
[Incidentally, the heart of any liquid-fuel rocket engine is a turbopump, which is basically a gas turbine engine. It has a burner, where some amount of the fuel and oxidizer are burned, supplying gas to drive a turbine wheel or wheels, which then drive two ‘compressor’ pumps [also wheels], that pressurize the oxidizer and fuel, which is then delivered to the main combustion chamber under great pressure.]
Now what happens when you want to go very fast with a turbojet engine? Well, you basically hit a wall, due to the physics of airflow]. The faster you go, the greater the ram pressure on the front of the engine. This ram pressure [technically called dynamic pressure, or ‘Q’] is like kinetic energy—it increases by the square of speed. [KE = M x V^2 / 2; Q = rho x V^2 / 2; they are the same except mass is replaced by density, rho, since we are dealing with a flowing fluid instead of a solid particle!]
In simple terms, dynamic pressure [aka ram pressure] is what you feel on your hand when you stick your hand out the window of your car while driving on the highway.
The results of this quadratic pressure rise with speed are profound! At a typical passenger jet cruise speed of 450 knots, or M 0.8, the pressure increase from ram effect, at the front of the engine fan, is about 1.5. Also, the engine inlet must SLOW the airflow down to about M 0.5, so that the rotating blades can work efficiently.
If you increase flight speed to M 2, the pressure rise at the engine face due to ram effect is seven-fold! At this speed, you don’t even need a compressor or turbines.
This is the idea of the ramjet engine—you need no moving parts, just an air inlet that is designed to slow down the airflow to below sonic velocity, turning kinetic energy into pressure energy. The combustion chamber is simply a pipe with fuel squirters, where that compressed air is burned with fuel, and then expelled through a nozzle, exactly as on the turbojet. In fact the afterburner on supersonic fighter jets works exactly like a ramjet engine—fuel is squirted in and combusts with air that was used for cooling the combustion chamber walls upstream [only a small amount of air is burned in a turbojet engine, with air to fuel ratios of over 50, compared to about 15 for a car engine.] An illustration of an afterburner shows the simple basic geometry.
But the ramjet hits a speed limit too, just like the turbojet. In both cases it has to do with the falling efficiency of the engine inlet at higher speeds: more of the kinetic energy of the high-speed airflow is converted into heat, rather than usable pressure. In a turbojet, the heat limit is reached by about Mach 3, when the heat of that incoming air exceeds the materials limit of the compressor blades. In the ramjet, eliminating those unneeded blades and all the other moving parts raises the temperature limit to a much higher value—so flight up to about Mach 5 is possible.
Above those speeds, the Ramjet faces a different kind of problem. As flight speeds continue to increase, the efficiency of turning that kinetic energy into pressure continues to decrease steeply. This pressure loss is due to a series of shockwaves generated by slowing down the airflow in the engine inlet passage, upstream of the combustion chamber. The biggest shockwave and biggest pressure loss happens when the flow finally transitions to below sonic velocity. This is called the normal shockwave, because it is perpendicular [normal] to the inlet wall, as seen in this illustration of a supersonic inlet and its shockwaves.
So the speed limit comes because most of that ram pressure is not recoverable—it is simply dissipated into heat by the inlet shockwaves.
Enter the scramjet. Here, the flow is never actually slowed to below sonic velocity. That’s why it’s called a SCramjet, for supersonic combustion—the airflow through the combustion chamber is well above Mach 1, perhaps closer to Mach 2. By comparison, the flow in a turbojet enters the burner at just M 0.2, ten times slower—and in the afterburner and ramjet, it is about M 0.5.
This solves the speed limit issue of not having any more pressure energy available. But it comes with HUGE challenges. At a flight speed of M 6 or 7, the craft is moving at a speed of about 2,000 m/s. The main challenge is the flame front speed of combustion. Even if it took only one hundredth of a second to combust the air-fuel mixture, it would require a combustion chamber 20 meters long! That is hardly practical of course, but is in line with the flame propagation speed of aviation kerosene. That is why the afterburner jetpipes on supersonic aircraft are several meters long.
So we see that each type of airbreathing engine, turbojet, ramjet and scramjet, has its own speed limit, as shown graphically here. Even the scramjet will run into a wall at some point. The vertical measure is specific impulse [ISP], which is engine efficiency, per mass of fuel burned. We see that ISP decreases the faster we go, in any type of engine—it simply means that fuel use rises much faster than flight speed!
But back to the main challenge of the scramjet, which is flame speed. This is strictly a limit of the chemical physics of fuel combustion. Hydrogen burns ten times as fast as kerosene, but is not a practical fuel—it must be cooled to near absolute zero to be liquid, and so is not storable, and cannot be launched at will without time-consuming fueling. All of the previous scramjet experimental prototypes, both US and Russian, used cryogenic liquid hydrogen fuel. But the Zircon uses a kerosene-based fuel innovation that the Russians call Detsilin-M.
The exact means by which the Russians have achieved this fuel chemistry is of course a tightly held secret, but it is clearly a remarkable breakthrough in chemical engineering—comparable to the breakthrough in materials science that led to the closed-cycle, oxygen-rich staged combustion rocket engine in the 1960s [which the US still has not demonstrated].
In a previous discussion here, the technically-inclined commenter and longtime gyroplane pilot PeterAU1, dug up some interesting material about ‘doping’ kerosene with certain additives to enhance flame front speed. But the technicalities of that subject are beyond the scope of this relatively brief introductory discussion. [Although I’m sure we may hear more in the comments section!]
Conclusions:
The bottom line is that the Zircon represents not only a formidable and very deadly weapon—but it is indicative of the engineering capabilities of the Russian aerospace industry. It is an impressive achievement that is in fact groundbreaking. As mentioned already, Zircon is only the beginning of scramjet engine use by the Russian military. The next generation of such missiles, like the already mentioned Gremlin, will be even smaller and more capable in range and speed. At some point in the future, we may even see scramjet engines on superfast civil aircraft—but that is probably a long way off yet.
An even bigger engineering accomplishment is the astonishing Avangard boost-glide vehicle. But I will leave that remarkable story for another discussion.
The bottom line is that these new Russian technologies are in fact tilting the global military balance going forward. They are game-changing because they are UNSTOPPABLE with today’s air defense technology. Just like the Plains Indians couldn’t hope to stop, with their bows and arrows, the US cavalry with their repeating rifles.
Even more profound may be the psychological effect that Russia’s engineering accomplishments must be exerting on the American psyche, which is used to assuming that they have the smartest engineers and make the best military hardware.
That is demonstrably NOT the case anymore.
And that may be the biggest game-changer of all!
China’s hyper-velocity missile.
The smart thing…
Knowing the Chinese, it’s just a simple matter of treating the Taiwanese as brothers and sisters. Inviting them over to China (as they can travel easily back and forth now) and let the Taiwanese decide for themselves if they want to reunify with China or not.
Face it.
China is doing so much better than Taiwan is.
Oh, sure, Taiwan is wealthy. But it is Western wealth. All the money is concentrated in the hands of a few greedy oligarchs. It’s not spread out among the people. And when the Taiwanese come into China they see the life that they SHOULD be living in Taiwan. They see what COULD happen in Taiwan, if the nation unified together.
Like in this amazing video here… A Taiwanese girl comes to China for the first time and here’s her impressions…
Taiwanese girl comes to China for the first time. These are her impressions.
Conclusion
If America “jumps the gun” and initiates hostilities before 2023, it will quickly escalate and go nuclear and Russia and China together would level America. The QUAD allies might talk big, but one the nuclear detonations start to happen, you can pretty much expect them to sit “the game” out.
If the United States holds off on hostilities past into 2023, what we would see is an economic contraction in the United States and the Western client states. A decline in the value of the US dollar and rampant inflation. Depending on American actions, the military budget will be seen as bankrupting the country, and meanwhile China is prospering and looking like some kind of space-age utopia. This comparison between the two would be strikingly obvious, and exacerbated with the 2022 Olympic games. This would be a very dangerous time indeed. This is the time where it is difficult to predict.
If the hostilities delay to 2025 or later, then there won’t be much that America can do. It has shot it’s last wad, and spent up all it’s fuel. The nation is running on vapors right now, and whatever advantages it once had, it has been squandered away by the greedy and evil.
Now matter how you look at it, China is clearly the superior governance model…
This is America in 2021. This is it. Look closely at the video…
America in 2021.
And this is China in 2021. Watch the video…
Quick Summary
Technology has completely changed the balance of forces globally. Yet the evil, corrupt and powerful somehow believe that they can prevent this new reality, and capitalize upon it for personal profit. By all accounts, they are about two decades too late, and they understanding of reality is inaccurate.
How the world adjusts to this new reality is open to conjecture, as it could go very bad to just a minor discomfort. It all depends on a number of variables that are in play right now. Stay tuned.
And keep in mind…
Next time you read some gung-ho neocon advocating war because America is strong, and has perfected small unit warfare…
… remember this video of Chinese boy and girl scouts…
Chinese boy and girl scouts.
And this one too…
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Somehow, everyone is assuming that those nations that “signed up to support the United States in the “containment” of China, would actually do so. And, I have argued “don’t be so sure”.
And while there might be a few “hanger’s on” such as Australia (only if the Morrison government remains in power), the chances are slim that the QUAD would exist and remain viable.
…Were there to be a conflict between the USA and China.
To Americans, it seems that America is still strong and powerful and has a trio of “toadies” (nations that it can “push around”) and who will “stand by the United States” and do what ever it wants.
This is not true.
It’s not 1980.
No matter what the American mainstream and alternative media wants to say. The truth is that the rest of the world really doesn’t give a shit about America. They don’t care about Americans. They want America bullshit out of their lives, and are only going along with America now, out of survival. Once America shows signs that it can no longer punish these people, they will abandon America faster than you can shake a leg.
Asia has united into one enormous and powerful group. And all the nations bordering on this entity either wants to be part of it, or be independently respected by it. They most certainly do not want to piss off this massive, enormous united Asia.
The rest of the world is not at all like it is portrayed in the American media.
It’s an exciting period full of CHANGE.
The United States Military Empire is collapsing in upon itself. And this is creating voids where the rest of the world can rejoice and start living “normal” lives again. This is not just some nice phrases. It’s the absolute truth. The United States has become the world’s captor, torturer and all-around bully. Americans call this “policing the world for democracy”.
As shown in this micro-video…
In this article, we look at the probable alignments with the United States Military Empire construction known as “The QUAD”. And we put it in context with the great global realignments that are taking place.
How the USA views China
But this narrative is for American consumption. It is a fantasy. It is a lie. And it will end up getting a lot of Americans killed.
This isn’t your standard BBC or CNN, or FOX “news” fare.
This is the real deal and what is actually going on.
The following is from Fred Reed, and judging from the comments in the comments section, about 75% of the American commenters are indigent and aghast that Fred would write something other than “American Rambo can kick anyone’s ass”. It’s a great read. Check it out…
How Taiwan Will Fall Into Beijing’s Lap, Like an Overripe Mango
I will now explain war, or some of it. If you wonder how some mutt in Mexico with a computer thinks he knows about strategy, well, look at what we have in Washington. How could I be worse?
In geopolitical circles, blather swirls over whether the United States can defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion in a regional war. Sez I, it doesn’t matter whether it can if it won’t, and China will likely get the island without invading. The key is to think about how things look from Taiwan.
Washington is vague about whether it would militarily defend Taiwan. Taiwan presumably has noticed. Further, America does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country. More waffling. The implication is that Washington might, or might not, do something, or something else, depending on unspecified things, probably or at least possibly.
This sounds like hedging, a disguised American recognition that this isn’t 1955, and China is no longer a bamboo republic that makes pencils and cheap plastic buckets for Walmart. As China’s military power grows, and thus the cost of a war, America’s equivocation will likely become more equivocal. Throw in that America does $550 billion in commerce annually with the Middle Kingdom, including countless things America doesn’t make but can’t do without, and war with China doesn’t look real feasible. This too has probably occurred to Taipei.
The fashion in naval circles is to talk about the First Island Chain, which is a sort of barrier along the coast of China, the Kuriles, Japan, Okinawa in the Ryukyus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and even Borneo. The idea, apart from some fairly silly notions about “containing China,” is that these islands will want to join with Washington, which is somewhere else, to fight China, which is right there, to defend Taiwan, which also is right there.
Now, who would actually defend Taiwan—that is, go to war with China? Japan? Note that Japan is within missile range of China, and probably does not want missiles of large warhead raining down on Tokyo. Japan gets ninety percent of its petroleum from the Persian Gulf and, If Tokyo’s reserves of oil run out, Japan stops. All of it. China has pretty good submarines these days. The beltway Hawklets might say, “Don’t worry. We have magic anti-submarine stuff, no prob.” Given America’s military record, would you buy a used car from these people?
Do you suppose the Japanese have thought of this?
Washington might say, not to worry, we have antimissile gadgets, THAAD, and Patriot, and Aegis, and we can escort your tankers. But none of these weapons has much of a track record, and neither does America.
Further energizing Japan’s likely unenthusiasm for fighting Washington’s wars is that trade with China is crucial to the Japanese economy, and that Taiwan isn’t all that valuable to Tokyo. Today Japan trades with Taiwan, and with China. If Taiwan became part of China, this trade would probably continue with nothing changing but the letterhead.
Lastly, Japan may have noticed America’s propensity for getting its vassals (or allies, clients, or poodles, take your choice) into wars and then leaving them in the lurch. Think Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan and, soon, Syria and Iraq. This would leave Japan in a shooting war with China, all by itself. If the gringos lose a war, they can just go home. Japan is not mobile.
The Japanese might whisper into American ears, “All cool, Round Eye. But it’s just your empire on the line. It’s our ass. we’ll sit this one out.”
South Korea might think similar thoughts regarding use of its air bases, especially given that the Korean peninsula has a land border with China. Washington doesn’t. Seoul needs a war with the Middle Kingdom like it needs smallpox. “Tell you what, Round Eye, bugger off….”
Taiwan would get wind of this through back channels if not by sheer deduction.
How would a regional war over the Taiwan Strait look to an adult commander of an aircraft carrier? He might think, “Hmmm. Squinty-eyed rascals good engineers. Make’m Mars probe, worke’m. Train go three hundred sixty miles hour. Work’em. Maybe make’m missiles work’em good too. Hmmmm. Bad juju.”
The Navy’s PR operation will say that Chinese missiles don’t really amount to anything, this to protect the budget for its favorite bathtub toys and the only surface ship that justifies the existence of the Navy. But of course China can build swarms of missiles to arrive simultaneously.
Further, realists in Washington might ask themselves what would happen if the war didn’t go as planned, as wars usually don’t, and a carrier and three destroyers became marine barbecues before sinking. War games and Pentagon studies suggest that this is quite likely. To save face, the hawks would have to turn a regional war into a world war, which America would win. “Win.” Millions would die and the world economy stop. Never underestimate the influence of vanity in world affairs.
Taiwan could divine all of this. It could also divine that the Navy had divined it.
In recent years China has shown itself to be very good at engineering all manner of things, and has emphasized antiship missiles, including but not limited to terminally guided ballistic missiles of range far greater than that of carrier aviation. Do they work as advertised? We don’t know. A carrier captain would probably want someone else to find out.
Despite growly aphasic pronunciamientos from the White House, and chirpy assurance from Navy PR, grownups in the Pentagon might think, “You know…maybe a war with China isn’t a great idea. How about lunch instead at a really good rib joint on the Hill?”
Taiwan would know of these doubts. This would further undermine hope of American defense.
Now, suppose that China keeps on doing what to all appearances it is doing: increasing its amphibious- assault assets, improving and enlarging its already highly non-negligible air force, building missiles and increasing its number of marines. Meanwhile the Chinese navy grows like kudzu on a Georgia road cut. China can increase its forces across the Strait virtually without limit. The US cannot. At some point, past or future, Taiwan will face assault forces it has no chance whatever of repelling by itself. Taipei would notice this.
Further suppose that China keeps doing what else it has been doing for some time: practicing amphibious assaults that could at any moment become real assaults. Thus no one—read, America—would know whether the attack would come in two months, five years, or never. This would require keeping defensive forces, such as carriers, on station constantly and at a high state of readiness. Militaries do not do this well, and it is expensive. Moreover, after long periods of peace militaries do not mobilize quickly as it is discovered that there aren’t many of things there ought to be lots of because of some budget cut, or something, and the whole enterprise turns into a gargantuan goat-rope.
What kind of attack might Taiwan expect? I haven’t talked to the Chinese General Staff for weeks now, and so am making this up. But the goal would probably be to get the war over before America had time to react. Keeping invaders out is one thing, getting them out another. So, maybe a sudden attack with ballistic missiles to crater runways with simultaneous mass missile attack on air defenses with amphib ships simultaneously setting sail. At fifteen knots it would take about eight hours to reach the island. With heavy air support from China’s highly non-negligible air force, Chinese troops might well get ashore and into cities before America’s hypergalactic indomitable military could get its thumb out of…well, never mind. The Americans would be caught flatfooted by a fait accompli. Washington would face the joyful choice of bombing Chinese soldiers inside Taiwanese cities, or—this is Saturday Night Live territory—undertaking a land war in Asia against China.
It may be that Taiwan has thought of this.
Finally, there is TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. While little known in America, TSMC makes most of the world’s high-end chips, including those of Apple and…the Pentagon. America currently is not able to make its own.
This throws a fascinating wild card into things. If in an attack, TSMC were destroyed, by either side, or captured and held hostage, the effects would be no end entertaining. Today’s world, perhaps more than most people know, depends on chips. An astonishing proportion of advanced chips come from the island. Replacing its fab lines somewhere else would take years. The other, though lesser, source of chips is Samsung in South Korea, also in Chinese missile range. Washington is trying to cripple China’s tech by not allowing it access to advanced chips. Presumably this increases Beijing’s incentive to annex Taiwan.
Anyway, Biden couldn’t risk losing Taiwan as it would affect the midterms. But what it comes to is that with China being the largest trading partner of something like 165 countries, war isn’t real practical. The Taiwanese have probably figured this out.
So what does Taiwan do, seeing an overwhelming invasion force looming and not believing that Washington is really going to go to war to defend it? The choice would be to fight, be devastated as it lost, and face harsh conditions after—or to come to the best agreement it could and surrender without fighting. Anyone want to make bets?
Correction: Last week, in a moment of brainlock, I said that Pompeo was in the Navy. No, the Army. Mea culpa.
Some selected comments…
I’ve a hunch that, that is a key factor in China’s desire in getting its “lost province” back?. Taiwan integrated into China proper would then have a huge share, even a near monopoly on certain high capacity chips.
Since we’ve allowed a great bulk of our industrial/infrastructure base to be outsourced, we’ve become dangerously dependent on others to maintain this menagerie.
We could eventually (maybe) rebuild our capacity but is the skill set even here anymore to do that or sustain it?.
We may go berserk & launch a war against China but if China does indeed have those hypersonic missiles available then they could send much of the pacific fleet to Davy Jones’ locker. And since it takes years to build those naval vessels we, out of desperation may go nuclear?. Then it’s Adios Muchachos..
So, me thinks that we’re rapidly approaching a scenario that there is very little we can do about it. Accept that we screwed the pooch big time in allowing so much our productivity base to be so gutted & in doing so, hamstrung our very future (we’ll never admit that!).
We can swallow our pride & acknowledge what we’ve done to ourselves? (fat chance!).
Gracefully accept we’re a waning power? (fat chance!).
Or, freak out & go berserk that we’re no longer the top dog & launch a conflagration that’ll turn this world into a charnel house? (Most likely).
I really don’t think most Americans realize how completely batsh*t insane & evil their leaders & the psychos in the Pentagon truly are?. Maybe sanity will prevail, but looking at the zio-America lunatic asylum, it doesn’t bode well..
-BluEidDvl
The ‘junk’ sold in Walmart and Target, most of which are now being sourced OUTSIDE of China, are ‘AMERICAN’ goods, albeit made in foreign countries such as Vietnam.
Chinese companies hardly sell to the US market which has become marginal to the Chinese economy, as ‘Chinese’ exports now account for less than a few percent of China’s GDP.
Those so-called ‘Chinese’ exports to the USA consist mostly of ‘AMERICAN’ goods such as Apple’s iPhones, manufactured in China by Asian contract manufacturers like Foxconn. But those contract factories are now being relocated to lower-cost countries such as Vietnam.
The rest of ‘Chinese’ exports which consist of industrial commodities such as LED panels are now being routed to Mexico where OEMs assemble them into final products such as TVs.
In a few more years, ‘Chinese’ exports to the USA, while still large, in total volume will nevertheless decline further to less than 1% of China’s GDP which will be driven more by domestic consumption and internal demand over the next few decades.
The days when China was the ‘factory of the world’ is over.
-antibeast
What this author misses is that many Chinese-based manufacturers have their plants in Taiwan. The companies are headquartered in Beijing or Shanghai, and use Taiwan for manufacturing because labor is actually cheaper and more skilled than many places in China.
So, would China bomb the crap out of Taiwan, knowing they’re destroying their own factories?
How about another thought – would China bomb the crap out of Taiwan in an effort to control it’s government – only to then turn around and rebuild it?
Look at what happened in Hong Kong; China assimilated the former colony almost without a fight.
As much as I hate to do this – I sort of agree with Alfred Thayer Fred, I think. Once the real pressure is on, Taiwan will come to an “agreement” with the PRC and allow itself to be subsumed into greater China. Thereby ending the “Two-China” position that’s lasted since the early 1950s.
-RonCharest
Let someone in one of the QUAD nations explain…
The issue is whether or not the QUAD nations will stick with the USA and go against China. It’s so easy to find armchair strategists. Especially in America where they have been fed a steady diet of “American exceptionalism” and “military might”.
Let’s see what some of the more influential people (who speak English) in these QUAD nations have to say…
And then there’s Russia
Of course, the Ignorant Americans are all thinking that Russia and China are somehow enemies…
Russia has no love for China so don’t be so sure about them coming to China’s aid.
-MarkinLA
Hardly.
The Russian-China Alliance
Merry Christmas and Happy new Year, from China and Russia with love! This analysis by “Larchmonter” in 2014. Written seven years ago. He’s a contributor of the site, “The Vineyard of the Saker”, a describes what may be a game-changer in terms of the geopolitical status quo. In short, The American Empire dying a fast death, and Russia and China may be able to pick up the pieces and create a system not based on cold, brutal, myopic psychopathy.
Article HERE. All credit to him, and realize that it is very dated. China and Russia have make considerable joint progress since this was written.
Vladimir Putin said it clearly: “Russia and China will have a significant effect on the entire system of international relations. The relationship will be a significant factor in world politics and will affect the contemporary architecture of international relations . . .” And to state precisely what this relationship means in geopolitical sea change, President Putin continued: “Russia and China have never had such trusting relations in the military field as they do now. Military exercises have been in joint war games at sea and ground both in Russia and China.” (1)
Update: Russia and China have vastly increased the strength of their relationship.
Russia and China are celebrating their “strategic partnership”, and have beenvastly expanding their cooperation since 2014. Their closealliance is based oneconomic and geopolitical considerations. While it is mutually beneficial, it alsohas its limitations. However, in the mid-term, both China and Russia appear tobewilling to overlook potential fields of tension, for instance in Central Asia.
-Russia and China: The Potential of Their Partnership
The mega trade deals we have seen this year and military exercises are more than normal cross-border trade or cooperative events between neighbors or partners. (2) The ‘relationship’ is affecting the global order. The two nations are forming a resistance front against destabilization and the weapons of chaos of a unipolar system.
Update: China and Russia has vastly increased military cooperation; to include military liaison in each military headquarter, trade in the latest military weapons systems, and avionics, and engines.
The closeness of ChinaandRussia’s cybersecurity relationship is not dependent on their ties with each other, but is defined in relation to the US. Just as China and Russiaadvocate for multipolarity to challenge the perceived US’s unipolarworld view and values, their cooperation in cyberspacedemonstratesthe same focus on the US.
-China-RussiaCybersecurityCooperation
Russia and China are working together to stabilize international trade, diplomacy and military balances; yet, ironically, this is disruptive.
Russia and China are sovereign nation resistance fighters against the Hegemon. The Hegemon is the unipolar Empire of the United States.
Hegemon = United States Military Empire
This context of geopolitical strategies is paramount to bear in mind. The Hegemon is threatening to contain both Russia and China economically with exclusionary trade agreements (TPP and TTIP) that leave China and Russia out or marginalized as second tier members, while each is bordered militarily with nuclear weapons on missiles of the trade partners, Hegemon’s allies and vassals. (This is the so-called missile defense shield of the West.)
Update: This United States effort has failed and collapsed.
These hegemonic trade agreements will shut out China and Russia from further integration with the two groups. Limits for growth, suppression of development due to monopoly of intellectual properties, oppressive clean energy and pollution control regimes, limits on construction and sale or purchase and use of certain commodities will slow infrastructure projects, not only within both nations, but constrict each nation from contracting for projects in other nations (their own partners that are emerging or developing nations).
Update: The Trump efforts to conduct these suppressive actions have all collapsed completely.
Thus, the Hegemon has the strategic intention to limit the elimination of poverty in the world, and control trade everywhere on the globe. The unipolar world will be finalized and secured by the Hegemon. There will be Elites and there will be poverty forever for most of the remaining nations.
Update: This was written during President Obama's term in office, and before President's Trump and Biden. Today in August 2021, it is clear that the attempt to create a unipolar world has utterly and completely failed.
Of course, the resistance and evolutionary partnering by Russia and China has made this hegemonic outcome impossible, unless one or both Russia and China are destabilized and/or regime change ensues. Therefore, what both nations face is an economic and military challenge that clearly is existential in threat level. Russia is first, and China is next on the hegemonic hit list.
Update: The United States Military Empire has attacked both Russia and China using every weapon at it's disposal, short of direct military engagement. Including bio-weapons authorized by John Bolton, who tried to induce starvation in China, and then the three lethal viruses unleashed in China in 2020. All efforts have so far, failed dramatically.
Full Spectrum Battlefield
The threat against China and Russia is a full spectrum battlefield: they are facing potential AirSeaSpaceCyberElectromagnetic warfare, not exempting chemical, biological and nuclear; soon to include laser and hypersonic weapons; economic warfare; and war by proxy armies, NGO organizations, covert operators and agents, with global media demonization and propaganda in psyops mode.
Update: China has perfected shutting down all these expensive systems. I have written extensively on it. And it is the primary reason why the Trump 8-carrier battle armada went home in 2020 in defeat.
Each nation in the resistance partnership had to permit the other to look, touch and feel deeply into one another’s most treasured defense secrets, once armed against the other, now united with a new partner.
Update: This is true, and partially the reason why Russia and China are so close right now.
They knew they were in the same ‘foxhole’ facing the same enemy. And they both understood, that in time, neither would survive without the other. There had never been a hegemon so desperate or so fundamentally weak, yet so powerfully equipped to destroy all normalcy, perhaps, most of humanity, if need be, for it to survive. China-Russia had to protect one another and then try to save humanity and world order.
The initial United States attack was economic, not military. It hit Russia.
Background of the Resistance to the United States Military Empire
Neither Russia nor China presented themselves as rivals to the Hegemon, and both considered they had trade partnerships, geopolitical cooperative relationships and multitudinous common interests with the Hegemon. There were some irritations at the edges, but nothing was truly confrontational, except that which was instigated, paid for, planned and managed by the Hegemon with its vassals.
Update: This was the case in 2014. From 2016 to present, it's been a full-spectrum hybrid-war against both China and Russia. With China taking the brunt of the assaults.
So, economy, military and terrorism are the main battlefields in this full spectrum containment and destabilization against the Hegemon’s two greatest resistors. (This resistance is to unipolar domination in all its manifestations.)
Thus, we came to 2014. Because of the Sochi Olympics, the year 2014 became the focus of the color revolution rebirth in Ukraine. The ‘planners’ in the State Department and CIA had eight years to aim a two-prolonged destabilization that turned the failed Orange Revolution in Kiev into the Maidan. We all are very aware that this transformation was evil at its core, illegal, murderous, unconstitutional and had only one aim – to present Russia with an armed, psychologically-tuned, xenophobic Ukrainian force that would, first sweep away the Russian language, then the Russian speakers, i.e., Ukrainian citizens, in East Ukraine, next to Rostov and along a virtual open border, with nominally few defenses, merely, formal ‘crossings’ with no vestige of militarization on either side.
This violent upheaval was timed perfectly while President Putin presided over a $50 Billion investment in developing Sochi, hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics, eight years of stewardship identifiable as his greatest public project and intended to lift the internal spirits of his people, while demonstrating, as the Chinese had in 2008 with a Summer Olympics, that Russia, too, was back to greatness, accomplished and peaceful, a tourist attraction year-round in Sochi, and all troubles were in the past.
President Xi had announced he would attend the opening ceremonies. China and Russia were coming of age and were proud to show support in all matters of interest to both. They had voted as one to stop the American air attack on Syria, vetoing the resolution in the Security Council, and demanding resolution of the conflict by diplomatic means. So, in peace and war, sports and commerce, the two leaders scheduled six meetings for 2014. Some would be bi-lateral, some within the context of multi-lateral groups in which both held membership.
Update: Over the last seven years since this article was written both Russia and China operated as a singular block to oppose any United States Military Empire moves against each other. This block has been largely successful.
But Ukraine and the Maidan coup also attacked China in its pocketbook and its plans for East Ukraine and Crimea. China has a long history of interaction with Ukraine. Not just the modern ‘state’ of Ukraine, peeled off from the Russian Federation, in 1991, by Yeltsin in the Belovezha Accords. They were linked by technology and science study in the days before the Soviet Union threatened China and the two had hot shooting border wars, 1960-1989.
In December 2013, the Chinese and Ukraine had signed a strategic partnership agreement that was inclusive of guarantees of a shield against nukes because Ukraine has signed the non-proliferation treaty. China was guaranteeing Ukraine protection from any aggressor, quite unusual in China’s foreign policy actions. This was signed on December 5, 2013.
Update: Contrary to what the American "news" media says, President Putin says Russians and the Ukraine are "brothers". Here.
Chinese scientists and technicians trained in Ukraine, studied in Ukraine, and purchased from Ukraine when it was the home base of rockets, missiles, aircraft engines, and other software and metallurgically-supported systems.
Ukraine was where Russia (Soviet Union) had invested hundreds of billions of dollars in institutes and industries for computation, mathematics and weapons development. Ukraine was from whom the Chinese bought the incomplete aircraft carrier that China has since finished and called the Liaoning.
The Chinese recently were coming back to Ukraine and the Black Sea wealthier than ever, and desiring to help Ukraine with infrastructure while getting food from the fertile fields, grains, vegetables and fruits.
In Crimea, the Chinese were interested in the Kerch Bridge project and possible tunnel from Russia to Crimea.
These are China’s strengths today – infrastructure, roads, rail, fibre optic, ports, bridges, and building what they saw as the western depot for the Eurasian Economic Belt, and New Silk Road.
China understood Ukraine was Russian, at least the east and south were Russian. They had the contracts with Ukraine in Russian and Chinese. These contracts and diplomatic partnerships were part and parcel the Chinese connecting the dream of President Xi’s Eurasian Silk Road with the Putin Eurasian Union dream.
Ukraine was crucial because both dreams had merged into one gigantic Eurasia Development concept to be powered with Russian energy sources and Chinese wealth.
Update: This week.Aug 05, 2021 · OnJune 30, ChinaandtheUkraine signed a major agreement regarding the financing and construction of transport infrastructure. China-Ukrainerelations have improved considerably since the blocking by Kyiv of a Chinese takeover of the Motor Sich company in March 2021.
-AnewChina-Ukrainepartnership - OBOReurope
Ukraine was to function as the turntable to Europe, north, west, east and south. Ukraine benefited from the gas pipeline to Europe. It could have become a very rich transit point. Instead, Kiev chose suicide and began to kill its own citizens, going into virtual bankruptcy, losing its sovereignty, and festering into freakish and zombified ghoulery. Ukraine embraced fascism and Nazism, as it waged a war of attrition upon its entire nation. So far, Ukraine is losing the war against Ukraine, predictably, logically and tragically. However, it did stop China’s investments, forestalled the Ukrainian development projects, and does not permit itself to trade with anyone the Hegemon does not approve. (We all remember ‘Czech apples’, a sad consequence of similar vassal behaviour by the Czechs.)
Update: Substantial changes in the Ukraine has made most of this ancient history.
As events developed in late winter, two things happened on Feb. 23, 2014: Kiev fell to the junta’s snipers and the Olympics ended. The Sochi Olympics were a huge, resplendent success, despite the unprecedented West’s media campaign to disparage and nullify the actuality. The media might as well have declared the sun gone from the sky and all the oceans had dried.
Sochi and Putin had triumphed, no disaster, no terrorism, just a brilliant project with a superb display of Russian culture and expertise. The Russians also dominated the winter sports and competitively defeated American athletes in most venues. Sochi has since hosted the Formula 1 race in August.
The facility has been declared by the racers and the industry as the best racetrack facility in the world. Again, you can’t make this stuff up. Putin was on a roll. The more the West demonized him the greater Russia looked, the higher his approval ratings and the more China wanted him as a partner, a unique partner.
China’s Unique Partnership
China has 58 or so partnership agreements with various nations. There are many categories. They created a new definition for its supreme category with Russia: Comprehensive Strategic Collaborative Partnership.
Since there is this unique partnership that sets it apart, we should look closer at what is going on since 2014.
This should be seen an evolutionary event, not merely a resistance movement against the United States Military Empire.
Update: Call it what you may, the Russia and China alliance is much stronger than other other treaty and relationship in the history of the world.
Nature provides what it needs for a species to survive. Humanity is seeing this within the relationship of China and Russia.
I call it the Double Helix, merely because it is apt as a metaphor, not because every biologic or chemical fact in DNA is represented in the relationship. But similarities exist and Double Helix depicts this evolution nicely.
Update: President Putin has referred to the relationship between Russia and China as "symbiotic". A symbiosis is an evolved interaction or close living relationship between organisms from different species, usually with benefits to one or both of the individuals involved.
To decode the DNA of the relationship in this Double Helix of Bear and Dragon, we can look closer at the ‘base pair molecules’ of each strand.
First, there are the ‘helices’ that each strand comprises. These are the complimentary characteristics that make this new genetic partnership work. They are what we would normally evaluate to decode any single nation’s ‘DNA’.
Some nations have similar, some less.
But none have as much as or as profoundly essential to sustain continued growth and development and separation from the United State Military Empire.
Helices
Geography that spans thousands of miles of common borders (2,607 mi.), natural resources and multi-ethnic masses of peoples, large defensive militaries, recent emergence as developing economies, self-reliant market capitalist systems with state-managed controls, millionaires and billionaires and relatively modest middle class tiers, deep distrust of Communism as an economic solution, and massive state-owned enterprises in the key industries.
What one nation lacks, the other has.
What one nation excels in, the other aspires.
What one nation needs immediately, the other is ready to deliver.
What one nation needs over time, the other is prepared to supply or access for the duration.
And most clearly, both nations have the same existential threat from the same source, using the same means to threaten both. Ergo, the unique partnership.
A quote from Lu Shiwei, a senior research fellow with the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University: “The close relationship between China and Russia is not only out of economic concerns, as the two complement each other’s economy. These active efforts are also a reflection of political necessity and desire.” (emphasis mine)
Wealth, energy, military, finance, banking, Space, satellites, education, IT, chemicals, microelectronics, water, agriculture, transportation, infrastructure, and a common dream, while confronting a common enemy are the significant molecules. Upon these markers, the Double Helix was formed. It was a process, not a sudden event. But it was evident in 2014 as a repeated event. It was to geopolitics as Sochi was to sport. It was unique and it happened.
Let’s visit these ‘molecules’ and look at what has transpired just in this momentous year of 2014.
Molecules
We’ll turn on the lights with energy molecules. Oil, gas and coal, nuclear and LNG acquisition, provisioning, transport, pipelines, storage, exploration, resource development, innovation and technological development, and, probably, reverse engineering of Western tools, as well as investment, loans, advanced payments, equity purchases, and job creation. The following ‘deals’ are ‘base paired’, not merely supply-purchase deals. This is far beyond vendor-customer in nature.
Gas: Two gigantic projects, the Power of Siberia and the Altai Pipeline.
The first is in Eastern Siberia. It will is delivering gas from terminal in Vladivostok to China, and at Blagoveshchensk across Amur River. It was signed May 21, 2014 between Gazprom and CNPC. It is a 30-year deal, later extended 5 years by agreement in October.
The second project is in Western Siberia and will bring is bringing gas to North-western China. Gazprom and CNPC signed the deal originally in 2006, it was put on hold, restarted in 2014 at APEC by Putin, November 9th.
What is key to these are the establishment of infrastructure, manufacture and supply of pipe, construction crews, job creation in support of two of the largest projects in mankind’s history, simultaneously. This along a border that historically has been a hotspot, where wars have been fought between the two nations.
Presidents Putin and Xi said do it.
And, it is done.
September, it began with Russian shovels and Chinese advance payments, $25 Billion. Once connected, the two nations will are receiving ‘marrow’ transfers each requires to continue growth. Siberia and the Far East come alive as viable sectors of the Russian economy; China receives clean energy and moves people into its Northwest and North, and some into Far East Russia.
Its foreign investments in Russia pay dividends, and Chinese capital grows. The plans go deeper, and involve more than finance, acquisition of commodities and exploitation of natural resources. More, later, in this energy section.
Update: It appears that Russia will be supplying all the gas needs of China.
The Russian energy project, "Power of Siberia", one of the largest gas pipeline projects on the planet, will begin by the end of 2019, expected to not only meet China’s heavy demand for gas but also benefit both sides as a large amount of jobs will be created.
-China-Russia energy cooperation deepens - CGTN
Someone had best tell this ill-informed commenter;
You are perhaps forgetting that China imports nearly all of its oil, and about 40% of its food (mostly from the U.S.) It also imports a great deal of coal from the U.S. for its coal-fired generators. And most of its alfalfa hay for feeding livestock. (Yes, really.)
Cut off China’s oil imports, and stop exporting food, hay, and coal to China (and freeze its U.S. assets, like Smithfield pork) and suddenly China is no longer in a position to wage war against anyone.
-The Scarlet Pimpernel
Oil: Rosneft has access to Chinese ‘advance payments’ and is accessing them to pay its off-shored loans coming due in December and first quarter 2015.
This mechanism is a product of deals signed in early 2014. The loans were to buy TNK-BP for $31 Billion and are not a result of falling prices.
The acquisition deal was encouraged by China, and China indicated at the time it would buy equity in Rosneft so the liquidity to complete the deal was in Rosneft’s hands in timely fashion. These agreements now seem prescient as the economic war ensues using oil price collapse, off-shore credit denial and rubble shorting in Forex trading.
China has now received much greater supplies of Russian oil and an increased involvement with Rosneft shares and has an alliance to develop technologies in exploration, drilling, extraction and transport. Rosneft and CNPC, likewise, are seen to be less rivals for oil and more partners. This has been indicated in the works for Arctic exploration and development and off-shore Crimea for oil and gas.
Update: Oil and Gas are flowing from Russia into China.
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China, Japan and South Korea are major buyers of Russian oil, various long pipelines, then, are built to transport the oil from Europe to East Asia.
With more than 4,800 kilometers, the ESPO pipeline, also known as the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, starts from Tayshet central-south Russia to northeast China's oil city of Daqing, able to supply about 15 million tons of oil every year.
The Yamal LNG is China's first large-scale energy cooperation project with Russia under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China also built tankers to ship LNG through sea routes thanks to China-Russia cooperation on Arctic exploration.
China and Russia are poised to further deepen their energy cooperation as their top leaders both pledged provide policy support during a bilateral energy business forum in June.
As comprehensive strategic partners of coordination, China and Russia enjoy deepening cooperation in all spheres, which has forcefully promoted the two nations' common development and revitalization, Chinese President Xi Jinping said.
Describing energy cooperation as the "most significant, most fruitful and most wide-ranging" area of bilateral cooperation, Xi said the two sides' close coordination has played a positive role in safeguarding the fair, just, reasonable and orderly international energy order.
To consolidate and deepen their energy cooperation, Xi made four proposals.
Firstly, business entities should lead the cooperation and stick to the principles of mutual benefits, win-win results and being commercially viable. Financial insurance and energy cooperation should be enhanced for mutual support and mutual promotion.
Secondly, new potentials should be tapped to upgrade the cooperation. Cooperation in energy technical standard should be strengthened for mutual recognition and synergy. Technological innovation, the integration of information technology with the energy sector, and cooperation in energy research and development (R&D) should all be deepened. Experience sharing, capacity building and think tank exchanges should be enhanced for mutual learning.
Thirdly, the cooperation should promote the integration of interests, and aim for a more comprehensive and integrated cooperation along the whole industrial chain. The two sides should focus on the present while looking into the future, stick to complementary advantages and win-win results to expand and deepen their cooperation.
Fourthly, cooperation in global energy governance should be stepped up for the sustainable development of energy. The two sides should work together to firmly safeguard multilateralism and actively conduct multilateral cooperation to play a constructive role in the global energy governance system.
Xi said China and Russia enjoy broad prospects and tremendous potentials in energy cooperation. "I would like to work with President Putin to lead and promote our governments in creating an even better business environment for our enterprises and provide more comprehensive policy support."
He expressed belief that companies of the two countries, under the shield of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era, will work together to further promote their cooperation to benefit the two peoples.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the energy business forum was jointly initiated by him and Xi last year as a platform for the two sides to explore expanding cooperation in oil and gas, electric power and renewable energy.
Energy cooperation has become an important and integral part of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination, and the fastest growing area of bilateral cooperation, and it is mutually beneficial, Putin said.
The two countries have made positive progress in energy cooperation in infrastructure construction, trade, and technological R&D, Putin said, adding that important oil and gas pipelines and large-scale cooperation projects are making headway as scheduled.
"The Russian government will improve related laws, regulations and policies to create a favorable market environment for foreign companies to invest and operate in Russia," he said.
-China-Russia energy cooperation deepens
Coal: Siberian and Far East coal development, Rostech and Shenhua Group agreed to are exploring and develop coal deposits in Siberia and Far East. They will are constructing coal-fired plants that will sell electricity in Russia, China and other Asian countries.
The two companies will also build has built a marine coal terminal at Port Vera in the Primorsky Territory, Far East. That project begins 2015, operational 2018-2019.
Update: Russia helps China when the Australian Morrison government stops coal exports.
Mar 11, 2021 · In December, Elgaugol, the company behind the Elga coal project in the Russian Far East, agreed to launch a joint venture with China’s Fujian Guohang Ocean Shipping Group that will export metallurgical coal to China. The Elga project aims to ship 30 million tons of coal to China in 2023, almost doubling Russia’s total coal exports to China, which stood at around 33 million tons in 2019.
-Russia looks to replace banned Australian coal exports to China.
They will build are building high voltage transmission lines to China. Social and transport infrastructure will be are being developed concurrently.
So, this coal ‘deal’ is not a typical commodity deal. It is long-term, and builds the Far East and North China. It brings a permanent electrical utility produced in Russia to the people and industries of China. It expands a port; it uses trucks, rail, and GPS systems that are co-developed.
Update: More agreements and treaties between Russia and China on coal.
In December 2020, Russia’s Elgar Coal Company and China’s Fujian Air China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co., Ltd. signed an agreement to establish a joint venture to export coking coal to China. The related project is expected to supply 30 million tons of coal to China from 2023-this will nearly double Russia's total coal exports to China from about 33 million tons in 2019.
-Russia wants to increase coal exports to China and replace ...
Nuclear: Rosatom will is building the Tianwan NPP (nuclear power plant), 7th and 8th power blocks. They are already building have completed the 3rd and 4th power blocks.
They will build have built in Harbin two power units.
Rosatom may will participate in VVER reactors (pressurized water) with two fast breeder reactors, floating nuclear power plants.
Presently, China has deals with Westinghouse for 26 nuclear units. Clearly, the Chinese would prefer to have their inland reactors Russian-design and supplied than locked into Westinghouse technology. (The two are different and fuel sources are particularly mutually exclusive, as Ukraine is finding out as it turns to the U.S. for refueling.)
Update: China and Russia are increasing their nuclear technology exchanges.
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May 20, 2021 · The Tianwan plant in Jiangsu Province is the biggest such project between China and Russia, which is a joint venture by Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corporation and Atomstroy, a subsidiary of Russia's nuclear power giant Rosatom. The Xudapu plant in Liaoning Province is a new joint project between the two countries.
-China-Russia cooperation: A new type of major-country ...
LNG: Construction of a plant in Northern Russia. Yamal LNG and CNPC and development of South Tambeiskoye field. Equity stake for China in Vladivostok LNG is part of the deal.
Update: Ever since Trump and Biden initiated a hybrid-war against China, Russia has stepped in and forged strong relationships with China all across the board.
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Jun 02, 2021 · Russian energy giant Novatek and China's Zhejiang Energy signed an agreement on long-term liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies from the Arctic LNG 2 project at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Wednesday.
-Russia’s Novatek agrees long-term Arctic LNG supplies to China
Things That Fly
Some military, some dual use, some civilian.
But we’ll begin with GPS and see how the ‘Double Helix’ is working in Space.
Satellites: Both China and Russia have GPS satellite systems. GLONASS is the Russia system. Beidou is the Chinese system. The Russian system is larger, more mature and covers the entire globe. The Chinese system is new, limited in coverage and not mature nor densely accurate and improving every month.
The Chinese often do things in measured, metric, stages. An agreement to place ground stations inside China by Russia will gives China a global GPS capability for its defense and second strike weapons, as well as for its commercial use for the world’s soon to be largest navy and the world’s largest most diverse ocean and fishing fleet. (Two teens swapping kisses couldn’t get closer.)
Update: Russia and China will explore space together.
With their agreement, the partners are signaling an alternative to a U.S.-led order in space. On March 9, 2021, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and Russian Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the joint construction of an autonomous lunar permanent research base.
-The Strategic Implications of the China-Russia Lunar Base
Russia will has put GLONASS stations in one of China’s airfields and on a navigable river as pilot projects to develop cooperation in the field of navigation.
The airport project will currently aids landing and signal monitoring systems using zonal-navigation methods that will be working on GLONASS and Beidou constellations. (It should be noted that most airfields in China are dual-use military-civilian and the PLA controls most traffic in the air.)
Russia’s advanced systems and experience will enable provide training for Chinese air traffic controllers and aero navigation teams to learn modern satellite technologies. The river navigation project will currently monitors and correct and track boats on internal water routes.
Auspiciously, Beidou was named for the Great Bear constellation.
Space: Roscosmos Federal Space agency. China is interested engaged in building Russian rocket engines and joining manned space exploration, navigation satellite and remote sensing projects.
Production of electronic component parts, materials science, construction of spacecraft and rocket engines are in the works in process.
Exchange of manned spacecraft visits to Russian and Chinese orbiting stations and joint expeditions to deep space are beginning talks mature. Space is a battlefield according to the U.S. defense doctrine.
The Double Helix sees dual use potential.
Update: China and Russia are both going to be part of the Chinese space station, and the Lunar Moon Base.
Aircraft: Nov. 11, 2014, Aviation Industry Corp China and Rostec signed an agreement. Russia and China are forming possess a working group to carry out a project to distribute products, and prepare and implement projects in Russia, China, and 3rd countries, and to provision for warranty servicing and ensuring post-warranty service of equipment.
Update: China and Russia are forming a massive joint aerospace industry. It is trans-borders, and will have the strengths of both nations participating.
The China-Russia International Aircraft Cooperation, or CRAIC, wants to begin constructing the first CR929 before the end of the year. The collaboration has already shortlisted several subcontractors, most of whom are reportedly subsidiaries of China’s state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC).
-China And Russia Want To Start Building The 1st CR929
This creates strategic cooperation in development of aircraft, helicopters, engines, aircraft materials, avionics and radar equipment. This brings a new phase and transition to comprehensive cooperation between two state-owned corporations.
Long haul aircraft: Joint venture, similar to Russian-Italian JV for Sukhoi SuperJet 100. $10 Billion project to compete with Boeing and Airbus.
Update: In process. Mature.
May 30, 2016 · The project is part of a reported $13 billion aviation cooperation deal signed in 2014 during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China. The long-haul plane will be developed inRussia and assembled in China.A special engineering center will be created inRussiatoundertake technical and electronics production.
-Russian-Chinese passenger jet to take on Boeing & Airbus
Dual use aircraft heavy helicopter: Russia and China will build is building a heavy helicopter probably based on the Mi-26 from Russian Helicopoter-Rostvertol. It will be for China and third parties, initially.
Update: Mature and in process.
Aug 30, 2019 · China and Russia have fully agreed upon and signed a commercial contract on a joint heavy helicopter development project, said Miao Wei, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, on Wednesday. "For the next step, the Chinese government will accelerate the progress for a project approval and finish it as…
-China, Russia Sign Heavy Helicopter Deal | DefenceTalk
S400: Triumf air defense missile systems; six battalions. Delivery will be started in 2016, $3 Billion. Rosboronexport and Chinese Defense Ministry signed on 11-26-14.
China gets state of the art missile defense. This nullifies Japan’s air power, U.S. air power, and protects the Double Helix’s Asian Pacific flank. Nothing in the missile defense arsenal of any nation is as important as this system, and now, China will get it.
Russia is was building the S500 for itself. That is the nature of technology capacity intrinsic to Russia. It has marched for forty years with derivations, updates, refinements and new systems that have protected the Motherland and the territories of its allies. Russian defense is the world standard.
Update: Forget about the S400. Already these systems have been delivered to China and are in operation. It seems that the production of the S400 has stopped, and it looks like the most advanced S500 systems are now being supplied to China. Especially since the United State Military Empire is Hell-bent on a war.
Apr 08, 2021 · Pondering whether China should consider the S-500 for its own air and space defense arsenal, Lin recalled the long history of Russian-Chinese cooperation …
- Chinese Media Impressed by Russia’s S-500
Now, from the Arctic to Vietnam, Russia and China will have has a defense system facing the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force missile command. Similarly, these systems will proliferate along the New Silk Road as Eurasia infrastructure develops. Force multiplication for Russia’s southern underbelly on China’s investment means a safer more secure Russia.
Submarines: AIP technology, propulsion acoustic stealth and long duration submergence technology transfer with the sale of an Amur 1650.
Update: Amazing developments in submarine technology and massive shipbuilding events have placed substantially modernized and capable submarines in both the Russia and Chinese fleets.
According to RIA Novosti, a state-controlled Russian news agency, Russia and China are collaborating on a new submarine design (in Russian). The project is being coordinated by Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation.
-China And Russia In Mysterious New Submarine Project
Air-independent propulsion using electrochemical generators and new combat systems for electronic warfare, a passive antenna sonar to detect silent targets at long range make this a submarine platform for defensive second strike (MAD).
Update: Amazing developments in submarine systems age going on in response to the belligerence of the United States Military Empires desire for war.
Aug 25, 2020 · On Tuesday, Russia's Sputnik news agency quoted an official as saying Russia was designing a 'non-nuclear' submarine with China. Viktor Kladov, Director for International Cooperation and Regional Policy of the state arms export corporation
-Russia working with China to design submarine, missile ...
Russia is pursuing this sea-based deterrence and China also is expanding its extensive submarine fleet for a second deterrence platform system.
Tests of Russian Bulava ICBM from submerged sub, the Vladimir Monomakh, signaled this capability for Russia back in 2013.
Update: Amazing developments in submarine systems age going on in response to the belligerence of the United States Military Empires desire for war.
Aug 27, 2020 · According to RIA Novosti, a state-controlled Russian news agency, Russia and China are collaborating on a new submarine design (in Russian). The project is being coordinated by Russia's …
- China And Russia In Mysterious New Submarine Project
This transfer of technology assures that China will have it also.
An Amur 1650 would be equipped with 18 missiles. China has been testing MIRV-ed warheads for its missiles since 2010.
Update: Amazing developments in submarine systems age going on in response to the belligerence of the United States Military Empires desire for war.
Aug 26, 2020 · "We are currently cooperating with the Chinese side on a joint project of a new generation non-nuclear submarine," Viktor Kladov, a director of Russian state-owned defense corporation Rostec, told...
-Russia and China Working Together on Advanced Weaponry ...
This deal calls for 4 submarines, joint development and construction, to begin 2015, 2 built in Russia, 2 built in China.
Update: Amazing developments in submarine systems age going on in response to the belligerence of the United States Military Empires desire for war.
Aug 20, 2020 · That cooperation in air and missile defense could also support the submarine component of Russia-China strategic cooperation in the Arctic is reasonably clear, but the analyst then makes the most...
-China and Russia Might Be Headed Towards Naval Supremacy …
IT and Microelectronics: Russian rocket, space and defense enterprises will buy electronic components from China worth $1 Billion.
Update: Russia and Chinese trade, agreements and research in the high-technology fields are astounding in their scope and breadth.
While Russia and China are signing joint agreements to develop high-tech research centers and initiatives, the outlook is more complex beneath the surface. These trends reflect the result of mutual interests and alignment of technological imperatives, which have contributed to the expansion of high-tech efforts between the two countries.
- The Resilience of Sino-Russian High-Tech Cooperation ...
Working with China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp for dozens of items as alternatives to U.S.-sourced parts.
Update: Russia and Chinese trade, agreements and research in the high-technology fields are astounding in their scope and breadth.
In our new report, A new Sino-Russian high-tech partnership: authoritarian innovation in an era of great-power rivalry, published today by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre, we map out the unique ecosystem underpinning expanding technology cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. China and Russia have not only expanded their military cooperation but are also undertaking more extensive technological cooperation, including in 5G, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, new media and the digital economy -A new Sino-Russian high-tech partnership emerges as US tensions mou…
Russia will need to purchase these alternative items for 2-2.5 years until their own industry can manufacture electronic components that are radiation-resistant for Space and match military standards for mil systems. This has been a $2 billion American supply in the past.
No Longer.
China is now supplying those parts.
Update: Russia and Chinese trade, agreements and research in the high-technology fields are astounding in their scope and breadth.
May 25, 2021 · Russia is developing an array of autonomous weapons platforms utilizing artificial intelligence as part of an ambitious push supported by high-tech cooperation with neighboring China. - Russia Is Building an Army of Robot Weapons, and China's ...
Technology Parks: October 14, 2014 a memorandum to jointly build high-tech parks in each country to further innovation in science and technology. In Shaanxi, China, in the town of Xixian Fendong, a technology park of four square kilometers, and in Moscow, at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, 200,000 sq. meters of buildings will be built.
China and Russia are deepening and expanding their ties — economic, military, technological — as external pressures limit their access to overseas markets and technology. Both countries hope the collaboration will help to compensate for domestic deficiencies and to compete successfully with the United States in today’s critical technologies. This bilateral relationship, currently celebrating its 70th anniversary, has ebbed and flowed in the decades since the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China opened diplomatic relations. This relationship, now upgraded to and characterized as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era,” is continuing to evolve amid today’s great power rivalry. For Moscow, certain Chinese products, services and experience may be the lifeline for its industry, government, and military need to wean themselves from high-tech Western imports. For Beijing, Russia’s skilled engineers and mathematicians are a valuable resource for tech and defense industry giants that are hungry for talent and faced with increasingly unfavorable conditions in the United States and Europe. And its military hopes to draw on Russian proficiency in designing advanced weapons and experience using emerging capabilities on today’s battlefields.Consequently, the Sino-Russian strategic partnership has increasingly concentrated on technology and innovation. In the wake of Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in May 2015, the Chinese and Russian governments have signed a series of agreements to develop new realms of cooperation. In June 2016, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development signed the “Memorandum of Understanding on Launching Cooperation in the Domain of Innovation.” The notion of these nations as linked in a “science and technology cooperation partnership for shared innovation” has been elevated as a major pillars of this relationship.-Defense One
Satellite offices for the Chinese park in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Heilongjiang will follow on.
In Russia, offices in Kaliningrad, Vladivostok and the Russian republic of Tatarstan. Two sovereign wealth funds, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and the Chinese Investment Corporation are leading the investments.
Cyber Security: International cyber security agreement is set for was set up during the first half 2015. Prevention of cyber incidents developing into full-scale conflict, collaboration in the operation of nation Internet segments, closer interaction on international platforms dedicated to cyber security issues.
It is going to be broader than a cyber non-aggression pact.
The Russians and Chinese are discussing a new Internet to break the monopoly and intrusion by the U.S. and NSA, CIA, etc.
Update: Russia and China are both working together to fight the United States Military Empire's control of cyber-warfare and blaming it on them. Remarkable progress is being made to this end.
Dec 16, 2020 · Russia and China concluded a bilateral cybersecurity agreement in May 2015, described by some media as a „non-aggression pact.“ While the framework of the pact was largely borrowed from its previous agreement under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the effectiveness of implementing its „commitment not to hack fighting each other“ remains in question.
- Russia China Cybersecurity Agreement
Education: 100,000 student exchange program. Already 25,000 Chinese in Russian higher education, 15,000 Russians in Chinese education and internships.
Far Eastern Federal University will teach Russian to Chinese students.
Joint University in China will have Moscow State University curriculum as core. Already Moscow State and Beijing University of Technology opened a university in the city of Shenzhen. It opened in Sept. 2016.
Update: The centers for education, research, technology and development are located inside of both Russia and China.
Jun 20, 2019 · The agreement between Tsinghua and Saint Petersburg will lead to the creation of a Russian Research Institute at the Beijing university, which will conduct research on Russia-China relations in areas such as industrial development, education, science and technology.
-Academic ties grow between Russia and China
China as Russia’s Bank
It is evident from the nature and size of interactions between China and Russia, China has determined to construct a floor for the Russian economy. Just as the Federal Reserve secretly saved the EU banking systems by QE and passage of funds to select banks in the EU, China is doing similarly with Russia during the sanctions regime.
Update; Apr 09, 2021 · China and Russia each scaled back their U.S. Treasury holdings, with Russia channeling cash into renminbi holdings. And China has ramped up the digital currency drive it began in 2014, with the ...
-Analysis | China and Russia announced a joint pledge to ...
Instead of creating debt, it is swapping currencies and keeping corporations liquid, taking equity positions in state-owned enterprises, making loans and advances on deals both within Russia and between Russia and China.
Update: China, Russia move to unseat the dollar as the No.1 currency. China is not slackening its pace in mounting Beijing’s challenge to the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Now that the International Monetary Fund has included the yuan (renminbi) in the Special Drawing Rights (the currency basket that provides additional support to ...
-China, Russia move to unseat the dollar as the No.1 currency
There were three wounds to the Russian economy.
First, prior to United States sanctions there was heavy flight of foreign investment out of Russia.
Second, United States sanctions brought on more of that loss of capital investment and a credit crunch.
Third, the drop in the price of oil affected the ruble. So, credit loss, liquidity loss, tax revenue loss and a battered currency has slowed growth and caused inflation inside Russia.
Not so today.
Update: Jul 14, 2021 · China cheers Russia’s move away from US dollar in favor of yuan. Beijing has welcomed Russia’s decision to cut the US currency from its National Wealth Fund and give the yuan a bigger role, China’s Foreign Ministry has announced. Last week, Russia fully eliminated the US dollar from its National Wealth Fund, reducing its share from 35% to ...
-China cheers Russia’s move away from US dollar in favor of ...
Both Russia and China have invested heavily in gold, manufacturing capability, and discharging the American debt that they have acquired over the last few decades. The end result has not only make their economies stronger, but enabled them to implement electronic currency, and in China this is a mature technology that 99.5% of the people use.
China’s Capacity
China has the wealth to manage these issues in the short term. Russia’s reserves and gold cache, natural resources and intellectual property are collateral for any contingency.
Russia’s economic size (GDP) is comparable to the sum of 3 provinces in China – Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shanghai taken as one economy. The Chinese have 31 provinces and autonomous regions. So, managing a floor for Russia economically as a reserve force is easy for the Chinese.
Premier Li indicated that, “China may be able to help reduce the damage (of sanctions) as Russia looks east for business and financing, but it is far from a total offset.” Oct. 13, 2014
The intention is clear. China needs Russia, not just Russian gas and oil.
Update: Mar 27, 2020 · China and Russia have used the new coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to lead efforts at the United Nations to lift American and European sanctions against a number of countries, including Syria. They have sized on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ recent call for a nationwide ceasefire in Syria to demand sanctions relief.
-Exclusive - China, Russia Lead Campaign to Avoid ...
Currency: Currency swap agreement signed by Premier Li Oct.13, 2014, duration 3 years, extendable.Yuans and rubbles will be used as settlements of trade. This deal is empowering for the yuan as an international currency, likewise Russia’s rubble. It also empowers the BRICS nations to have more input in international finance as it diminishes the dollar’s use for settlements.
Update: Jun 06, 2019 · Russia and China sign deals worth US$20 billion as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s growing friendship bears fruit ... security and trade. After six years' working overseas in Brussels and ...-Russia and China sign deals worth US$20 billion as Xi ...
Sberbank financing letters of credit in yuans with Russian companies. Provides safety through diversification of currencies. Pairing on the Moscow and Shanghai stock exchanges since Dec. 2010. Russian firms have been using HKD and yuan.
Banking: Agreement between Russian VTB Bank and Bank of China.
Another deal is VTB, VEB and Russian Agriculture Bank, all hit by sanctions, signed framework agreement with Export-Import Bank of China to open credit lines.
Update: Jun 17, 2019 · Another alternative is China’s CIPS (China International Payments System), which several Russian banks have also connected to, especially to ease banking operations between the two countries, according to Vladimir Shapvalov, also of the CBR, who said at last week’s SPIEF conference: “As for the cooperation on payment systems, a range of banks are already connected to CIPS, …
-Russian & Chinese Alternatives For SWIFT Global Banking ...
Credit Card: Union Pay of China has replaced Visa and Mastercard, while Russia develops its own national brand credit card system. The Russian credit card system UEC (universal electronic card) was implemented in 2017. Both Russia and China “leapfrogged” the credit card system with QR based electronic e-payments.
Update: The China National Advanced Payment Systems (CNAPS) 中国人民银行现代化支付系统 is the primary domestic electronic payment system in China. Unlike the separation of ACH and wire payment systems in the United States., CNAPS encompasses both ACH-type (low-value) payments and wire-type (Real Time Gross Settlement “RTGS”) payments.
-Treasurer’s Guide to China Payments | PNC Insights
Finance: China Development Bank (CDB) agreed to financing $500 million for Russian mobile phone operator MegaFon. CDB also agreed on annual financing of $1 Billion to the Russian Grid.
FDI Equity stakes: A stake in Gazprom’s Vladivostok liquid natural gas terminal, and shares purchased by CNPC in oil producer Rosneft. New privatization of part of Rosneft, maybe up to 9%. Already China holds 0.6% since 2006. Not only state-owned enterprises, but large private corporations and entrepreneurs are poised with capital investment in Russia.
Russia is rated one of the top economies (despite sanctions, ruble drop, threats and vodka weaknesses) by leading analysts and investment gurus. Russia should begin to show GDP growth rates that seem unthinkable today (5-6%) in 4-5-6 years. China will pump-prime large sectors of this, and get excellent returns on its investments. Further out, 10-15 years, Russia will be robust and stable with a growth outlook and diversified line-up of products and services and a nearby Eurasian market easy to service.
Motor Vehicles: Great Wall Motors plant in central Russian Tula Region to build 150,000 Haval four-wheel drive vehicles/yr. $522 million per year investment, 2500 jobs.
Petrochemical Technologies: Joint venture construction of a rubber production plant between petrochemical companies Sibur and Sinopec, oil company, to be based on Russian technologies located in Shanghai. Rus-China split 25.1-74.9. Technology transfer. The two have previously worked together in Rasnoyarsk for rubber production in Siberia. Split is reversed in Russia’s favour there. Rubber produced will be supplied to China.
Construction: Bridges and transport links across Russian-Chinese border. Rail companies Russian Railways and China Railway Corp. have agreed on logistics centres, development of passenger traffic and reduction of tariffs.
Update: Apr 28, 2021 · Three of the six ‘economic corridors’ of the BRI pursue this goal: the New Eurasia Land Bridge aims to connect China to Poland by rail links through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus, the China, Mongolia, Russia Economic Corridor aims to build rail and road links through Russia to Estonia and Finland, and the China, Central Asia, West Asia Economic Corridor would link Central Asia to Turkey, …
-Ambivalent partners: The complex Russia-China relationship
Infrastructure: High Speed Rail project: Moscow to Kazan 770 kilometers. It will ultimately link to Beijing. The China side is Beijing to Urumqi, Xinjiang.
Moscow subway extensions to be built by Chinese investors, New Moscow district. Total deal for $10 Billion, signed May 19, 2014; 93 miles, 70 stations.
This is a key foreign investment partnership project. Deal between Mosinzhproekt and China Railway and Construction and China International Fund.
Housing: 460,000 housing units (25 million sq. meters of housing) to be built for Russian Family Housing program of the Construction, Housing and Utilities Ministry, June 25, 2014. Talks began in China in May 2014.
Kostroma Region: China’s interest in jewellery industry, agriculture and wood processing. Investors and manufacturers form Shandong and Guangdong provinces have made tours. Work on organizing modern agriculture enterprises, developing agritourism and logistics.
Thus, there was organic necessity for the evolutionary change in the relationship of China and Russia. The commodities and energy deals between the two are annual at $40 Billion, but now will go to $200 Billion/yr. Trade between the two is at $90 Billion. Comparatively, the EU trade is $413 Billion. China is in danger with EU dependency. China’s own economic slowdown is completely the result of the EU being generally in recession.
As Russia develops and trade expands, China will have an economy it can influence and, partially, remotely manage, especially in its growth sectors and technological innovations. These sectors and innovations will spur China’s internal growth, and that follows its five-year plan to substitute export dependence with internal development.
It helps stabilize China’s economy.
SCO Eurasian Security
Barely known to most people, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will become the key Eurasian organization through which the diverse national interests of India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, and Vietnam are served in a cooperative environment.
United in their economic development through the reality of Eurasia Economic Belt, all their security issues versus terrorism, separatism and criminal drug and human trafficking are handled within SCO. Though it is not a military alliance, it uses joint military and policing activities in an interesting array.
Ultimately, SCO is a defensive layer against destabilization proxies (think ISIS, Taliban, AQ, East Turkistan Islamic Movement, PKK, PUK Kurds) that may be mounted against any one or more member states. Should Turkey finally come into the fold of SCO, along with Iran, NATO will be neutralized against member states. These SCO developments are in the cards. It takes time, but India and Pakistan are in line to full membership in 2015, and then Iran and Turkey will complete a powerhouse of SCO members, all with the same interests, no matter how diverse the cultures and ideologies.
There is a generally unspoken tool of destabilization – Islamic terror in the form of direct Wahhabi-driven conflict (AQ, ISIS, Taliban, etc.) and the more covert separatist programs that affect both nations (and in Russia’s case, its Middle East allies and customers, who just happen to be investment partners with China for oil and infrastructure projects).
China was susceptible to destabilization in Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and, perhaps, Inner Mongolia, though unlikely in any to be remotely eventful while China is a vibrant economy. Full bellies and fat wallets don’t arm rebellions.
Xinjiang. China has won the hearts and minds of the Uighur Muslims there. And have located enormous military presence there designed to counter any United States Military Empire NGO / CIA efforts there.
Tibet. China has crushed the Untied States backed insurgency and terrorist cells, and have increased trade and travel to that once isolated region with high speed trains, and generous investments to the local indigenous peoples there.
Taiwan. Still in play, but it is unlikely that the desire for independence will survive in the next decades.
Hong Kong. China completely suppressed the United States Military Empire backed NGO’s and terror cells. IN 2020, Donald Trump threw up his hands and announced “We lost Hong Kong”.
It was so generally peaceful in Xinjiang, that up until 2012, unarmed police were the rule for security forces in the Province (Autonomous Region). Until several unarmed policewomen and men were stabbed to death by terrorists-separatists trained by AQ and Taliban in Pakistan, the Chinese never used repression or harsh tactics. Now that the terrorists get Syria-based training by off-shoot Wahhabi fanatics, the PLA military is being used, specially trained police teams and a regime of control is being brought to parts of Xinjiang.
China is using Chechnyan Republic President Kadyrov’s tactics with terrorists. They are killing them on sight in large numbers whenever possible. Those who go to trial, if violent or plotters of violence, get the death penalty.
Actually, three years of organ harvesting while doing hard labor and then killed with a single bullet to the back of the head after you eat a McDonald's Happy Meal.
Eurasia development faces embedded potential ethnic, tribal, Islamic and criminal forces that will have to be dealt with as China pushes into Central Asia and works with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Rubbing their “hands together”, the U.S. and NATO remnants and paid allies in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have been planning to stir security problems.
Update. All this has failed. The United States Military Empire has pulled out of Afghanistan, and all the neighboring nations are enthusiastically embracing the BRI.
Not Global Military Alliance
Most profoundly, the Double Helix is not a global military alliance. Both nations eschew military alliances beyond regional.
However, the test of the double helix bonding had to work out the military affinities, or the existential threat would not be blunted and turned away. Both militaries had to be able to imagine a force structure and force protection that conjoined their defenses, systems, intelligence, communication and command integration if needed.
This unity might take years, but they had no time to waste. This could not be superficial, so they had to permit intrusive sharing. This might be difficult because their languages were so different. They overcame all obstacles because of necessity and leadership. President Putin and President Xi had identical needs. Their nations were subjects of containment by the United States Military Empire with its allies who surrounded their nations with an array of full spectrum platforms and systems that challenged them 24/7, any weather, any phase of the moon.
China and Russia were growing rich while the United States Military Empire was growing poor, and China and Russia were growing, while the United States Military Empire was shriveling its once-great economy with endless wars, debt, waste and corrupt practices.
Surprise
The great expanse of Russia from the Baltic and Black and Caspian seas to the Pacific, Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan as an east-west territory now had an East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia adjunct – China.
Russia could be seen as even larger than largest geographically. Her pipelines, highways, airports, seaports and weapons systems would be connecting and protecting nations from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean, as well as from the Eastern Europe borders to the Kurill Islands and Vladivostok, touching China for border crossings at Zabikalsk-Manzhouli and Pogranichy-Suifenhe in Heilongjiang Province along the Black Dragon/Amur River.
This unity is about much more than Harbin’s massive ice sculptures or Russia’s massive oil and gas reserves buried deep below snow, ice and frozen rock. This Double Helix was going to be about strategic surprise.
China had surprised the United States Military Empire twice before with weapons.
One was its satellite killer (kinetic hit-to-kill vehicle) that took out one of its own old satellites in 2007. Another more advanced test was launched in 2013. What made this tough for the Intel agencies to know in advance was the missile carrying the ASAT weapon was launched from a road mobile launcher.
The other surprise was China’s carrier killer missile, land based, that could take out a carrier from one thousand miles away. The Mach 10 DF-21D is indefensible except by electronic countermeasures and luck.
Both weapons were exactly what China needed to shock the U.S. Space command and the U.S. Navy. They are still stunned and worried by the Chinese capacity and their own Intel failure. Both weapons are land-based and mobile, making the Chinese defenses agile and elusive.
While threats abound, the Double Helix grows
On the Chinese side are people, masses of people, one third of whom have been raised from serfdom to middle class in just 30-plus years. The Chinese have also mastered ‘opening up’ their economy to venture capital, industrialization and service sector organizations, without losing control to foreign interests.
They have kept a central bank separated from IMF and from the Federal Reserve and western central bank systems.
They have kept state management control of all strategic industries.
They have used foreign direct investment to spectacular advantage, forcing joint ventures to ultimately share intellectual property, patents and design copyrights.
The Chinese have forced technology transfers wherever they needed to have state-of-the-art and could not reverse engineer it.
They learned every capitalist trick from studiously analyzing the American rise from frontier agricultural nation to the greatest global economic power. The Chinese admire America’s rise into an economic behemoth while fearing its government and global hegemony.
Most importantly, the Chinese protected the RMB, the yuan, from manipulation.
They carefully introduced the yuan to trading partners, but never allowed their currency to fully trade as a Forex currency. China pegs its yuan to the U.S. dollar, thus restricting manipulation and speculation. There is no float rate and interest rates are state-controlled. The yuan gradually became convertible from dollars, yens, Swiss francs, Euros, Hong Kong dollars and rubbles. The Chinese use RMB for bilateral settlement, case by case.
The China-Russia plan for international reserved currency is to propose a bundle of currencies, not one, as the dollar serves today. If the IMF does not act favorably, there may be turmoil coming to that system.
China has many allies for such a move. This clearly signals, though they are the largest economy, they do not desire or plan for dominance or to expose themselves to the concept of being the unipolar nation by replacing the United States. They want influence and cooperative leadership positions in new international institutions, and the Chinese signal that policy in every way. The Dragon prefers to be the Panda, most of the time.
Rise of Shanghai
The Chinese shrewdly used the Hong Kong dollar and Hong Kong stock exchange and the former royal colony’s banks for their own flexibility until they were ready to dwarf what once was thought to be Asia’s financial heart.
Shenzhen, next door to Hong Kong, had been selected by Deng Xiaoping for the initial showcase of ‘opening up’ for a good reason. Hong Kong was the enormous port for imports and exports, and Hong Kong was the last ‘western’ banking centre that capitalists trusted doing business with Beijing.
Now that center of finance and banking would be Shanghai; a Shanghai stock market and the RMB that would soon rule Asia because Beijing had the scale to do it. One of the unmentioned realities of the recent Occupy Central and the ‘yellow umbrella’ circus in Hong Kong is the city will be second to Shanghai soon, and it will be at the economic mercy of Beijing. Shanghai will be the new world center of banking and finance in a decade or two. This is now assured with Eurasia development, New Silk Road, Maritime Silk Road and the Double Helix.
London, desperately grasped a piece of the Chinese currency action just in time. It will be a RMB clearing house, an offshore RMB center. New York’s financial industry may not yet understand that it, too, will succumb to the Dragon’s wealth creation sometime in the coming decades.
These are reasons for containment and destabilization by the United States Military Empire and the Elites who do understand this inevitability. But, Eurasia tips the globe to the East. And the ‘Double Helix’ is one centrifugal force spinning the power toward Asia and Eurasia.
Scale–Size Matters
Scale matters if a nation knows how to use it (for example, China does, India doesn’t). Scale in factory output, cheap labor, high savings rate, massive infrastructure development, and logistics were things never seen on earth until China.
Even the U.S. during WWII could not match what China was now doing.
And all the while, the earnings were piling up by the trillions in the Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the People’s Bank of China (Central Bank of PRC).
In terms of cash on hand, China’s horde of cash and U.S. Treasury Bills and purchases of gold was unprecedented.
The dynamics has changed the Dragon not only into ‘the factory of the world’. China became one of the shrewdest bankers of the world.
China’s state-managed economy enables it to do things other countries don’t do. China can direct its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to invest in projects domestically or in foreign projects.
This is actually another form of geopolitical financial power.
The treasuries of those SOEs are like bank accounts at the disposal of the Central Government. The Premier, presently, Li Keqiang, is the economic Czar, so to speak. The seven members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo execute the five-year plans, with President Xi Jinping setting the targets philosophically and Premier Li directing the government bureaucracy, banks and SOEs to achieve the goals.
Growth Matters
Growth is everything to Chinese new-born capitalists. Growth is a word and event that is not happening in the Empire of the United States Military Empire .
EU is in reverse and the U.S. is a phantom economy, sucking assets from the middle class and expanding a dependent base in a highly vertical reformation of the economy.
Elites have it all.
The good jobs and careers are gone. Social conflict is rising. America has lost its way. No five-year plan for growth, no one-year plan, not even a plan for the next quarter.
The U.S. economy has been built to serve the Elites and their need for greed.
All processes serve that need well.
The markets are rigged in dark pools, derivatives and criminality that goes unchecked, save a few ‘insider trading prosecutions’ and ‘big bank fines’ that feed the government with ‘revenues’ or transfers of wealth from stockholders (middle class) that are not direct taxes.
Wealth Matters
In China, the wealth is in the control and management of the state. Savings are used for the wealth development of the nation and its people.
Yes, one million millionaires and hundreds of billionaires have done well in the rapid growth of China.
However, they do not have elite control of the economy.
They play their role in the public and private sectors, and in foreign investments and tourism, but they don’t alter the public plans or manipulate the public markets (though they try, as it is human nature to be greedy or criminal or irresponsible).
The revenues in the coffers of capitalist China enable President Xi to make any project in any country happen.
He is bankrolling the BRICS development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Eurasian Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road development.
These are like multiple Marshall Plans without the military conquest.
They are meant to transform other trading partners from dirt poor into middle class economies capable of buying Chinese products, using Chinese expertise, and ultimately, purchasing services from China.
It is elementary economics. Invest in a nation, build its infrastructure, expand trade with it, educate their young; then that nation emerges from poverty, develops its own production capacity, and matures.
All the while, the trade partner climbs the value chain of products and services China offers.
China can do this on a scale unlike any nation ever.
It does it in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East (except the U.S. has pushed back with ISIS to destroy Iraq and Syria, and with AQ in Libya where China has massive infrastructure and oil investments. Likewise, China has previously agreed upon Ukraine and Crimea development investments pre-the junta coup.)
So, with Russia so close and in need of what China can do on such large scales, the gigantic natural resources exploitation and infrastructure needs of Russia have met the gigantic financial capacity and commodity needs of China. The resolution of the hegemonic threat through peaceful means was logical and a product of the minds of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Thus, the Double Helix.
The Result facing the United States Military Empire
The U.S. and NATO would need Michael the Archangel to defeat China-Russia, and from all signs, he’s aligned with the Bear and its Orthodox culture.
There is no weapon, no strategy, no tactic conceivable in the near future (which is all the Double Helix needs) to damage either of these rising economies now that they are ‘base pairs’.
China will get stronger and bigger.
Russia will get stronger and bigger.
And within the next three to five years, the international systems of finance and banking and trade settlement, currencies and credit ratings and development loans will be thoroughly changed.
It is tantamount to disarmament of the United States Military Empire ‘s most dangerous weapons.
Ironically, only the United States Military Empire ‘s military will remain.
The United States Military Empire will lose its most devastating weapons that enslave, subject, humiliate, ruin and change regimes – its economic weapons.
Future
The better part of the world’s nations will have moved on to solving problems. Nations will think in different terms and relationships. Sovereignty and regions will matter again. Cooperation will regulate competition.
Win-win will replace domination.
What was once ‘honorable and necessary’ will be looked at as criminal, if war and chaos is the only solution a former United States Military Empire or alliance can offer.
Perhaps, some form of NATO and its Islamic Wahhabi terror forces it has been cultivating with the Saudis, Qataris and other devils with billions of dollars will persist. But they will ultimately grow cold and brittle and not be viable unless they become pirate marauders. There will be no economic sustenance available for such forces.
China acting in its own interests?
Of course, China is acting in its own interests.
But any organism – and a nation is not an edifice, it is an organism – has life-sustaining needs. And the China organism needs blood.
That blood is oil and gas.
The China organism needs a nervous system that can’t be shut down by shock wave or sabotage. IT security and radars, satellites and on-ground defense systems are imperative components of such a nervous system.
And the organism of China, huge as it is, packed densely with people, needs stability for sleep, for rest, for meditation.
Russia, as powerful a nuclear force in the world, has China’s enormous back, adds to its blue water defenses, mans the digital and electronic turrets, and changes and hardens the geographic, economic and financial targets that the United States Military Empire could use to contain, destabilize and cause regime change in Beijing, thereby, toppling the state governance by the Communist Party of China.
There are no substitutes for the decades ahead of such a vital molecular bonding as the Double Helix.
Equality of Effect
So, the double helix metaphor works for both in equanimous ways.
Russia receives its blood through yuans, loans, use of Union Pay credit card system, joint ventures, advance payments, dependable contracts and logistical solutions.
China provides a territorial shield and additional force multiplication for Russia’s nervous system.
Finally, stability, too, is necessary for Russia to breathe and get forward momentum in critical areas of development.
There will always be housing for Russians in Russia now that China is close.
China can put up tens of thousands of housing units in a few months, if not days.
There will be alternate sources of food.
The most basic needs of Russian people are secured with the double helix pairing. China bought the largest pork producer in America and is already shipping pork to Russia.
China is so efficient in some food processes that American scallops are shipped to China for cleaning, then come back to U.S.
Foreign Policies and Societies
Metaphor or not, the Double Helix is real.
It serves as the new DNA structure but does not change the external policies or internal societies of either nation. It merely is the new organism architecture against which the United States Military Empire will flail.
Now the two sovereign nations will be presenting themselves as one double helix.
This ‘one’ is not a merger, not an alliance, not even a commonality of interests.
Those are represented through SCO, APEC, etc.
This ‘one’ is force multiplication and projection of power within a fourth dimension of geopolitics. It multiplies all the molecules or magnifies them. To attack or target the IT or satellites of either is to strike both.
Destabilize either, and both are struck.
Contain one, both are contained. Demonize one, both are vilified.
Custer found that it was not just Lakota Sioux he faced. He faced Arapaho, Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, Santee and seven bands of Lakota (Blackfeet, Brule, Hunkpapa, Oglala, Minniconju, Sans Arc and Two Kettle).
This was an object lesson.
Historically, on the plains of America, Native Americans had done the same as China and Russia. Their error was not to do it much sooner and everywhere long before they were overwhelmed by the invading immigrants.
China and Russia have acted in timely fashion.
Dragon-Bear
China-Russia have become impossible to defeat militarily, impregnable to sanctions and economic destabilization, and have created a unique partnership.
China and Russia are co-ventures into a new international architecture built on sovereign states’ responsiveness to each nation’s own people.
Looking across the Black Sea from Romania or across Ukraine from Poland, Lithuania or Germany, or from across the Atlantic like Canada or the United States, you see the Bear-Dragon.
Likewise, looking across the Pacific or the East China Sea or South China Sea at China you will see the Dragon-Bear.
The United States Military Empire and its vassals will understand that attacking one is an attack on both.
The Double Helix cannot be undone. Russia and China are the founders of the Eurasian Economic Marketplace of 3.5 billion (half the world). It has a thirty-year initial mission.
And during those thirty years they will have built the New Silk Road, the Maritime Silk Road, the Eurasian Economic Belt, and lifted Iran, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Stans of Central Asia, Mongolia, the Southeast Asian nations and probably, fixed parts of Ukraine, and parts of Eastern Europe, some southern European nations and, maybe, some North African nations in the meanwhile.
China and Russia are unified as one.
Geopolitical Surprise
Now, let’s return to the Shoigu in Zhongnanhai mystery. And let’s think of geopolitical surprise. Imagine if General Shoigu and Premier Li Keqiang were discussing North Korea. Background: Putin has been reaching out to Glorious Leader Kim’s regime, and we know the deal Putin would want to get done with Pyongyang’s regime: Give up the nukes, and the Double Helix will protect you.
Give up the nukes and we’ll force the U.S. to leave the Korean peninsular.
Give up the nukes and China and Russia will develop your infrastructure.
Give up the nukes and begin integration with the South economically and that process will include Russia and China.
Give up the nukes and you will never walk alone.
North Korea could look at Iran and see that Russia and China have shielded Iran. And if Iran moves away from nukes, the Double Helix protects her. Syria has given up chemical weapons and Syria, for all the ISIS and NATO chaos, stands because of Russia and China.
Let us take a look again at General Shoigu’s itinerary. Who did Shoigu go to after Beijing? Pakistan. Who aids North Korean nuke program? Pakistan. Shoigu was not traveling this route in this sequence by happenstance.
China is drawing Pakistan away from the U.S. and wants to coordinate anti-terror operations with Islamabad. There also is the withdrawal of NATO and the U.S. from Afghanistan. Russia, China and Pakistan will take on this burden in order to get development of the Eurasian Silk Road and Economic Belt established. Everything is changing in South Asia. China and Russia will fill the vacuum.
It is quite the nature of China to encourage Russia to send symbolic messages to those who might need another tap on the head. Iran and North Korea are regional and global threats that the Double Helix wants to turn into partners and markets.
Tough Cop?
Shoigu went forward with that “portfolio”. He represented ‘the base-paired one’. The Chinese know their limits and their weaknesses. They might bully the Southeast neighboring fishermen and even cut off an American naval ship. But they are not the tough cop Russia is.
The Chinese are the soft interlocutor, the mollifier. The only time China gets tough is in business negotiations or if you insult the Party or the People.
However, this nuclear disarming or chemical weapons disarming small regimes is the rough and tumble of the street and alleys, something Russia knows and China does not aspire to.
It takes a 8th Dan martial arts President who destroys opponents with his armed forces in real world combat to get the focused attention of Pyongyang and Islamabad. He did in Syria and is doing it in Iran. He generally uses military protective shield with economic development deals.
North Korea is desperately trying to weaponize their atomic devices. Pakistan would be the bearer of this technology. It is conceivable Pakistan’s military assistance deal with Russia, signed by Shoigu, would have ‘rewards’ for staying out of North Korea’s nuclear program.
The meeting in Beijing just may have been to assure Shoigu that all the financing needed to stabilize the Korean peninsula will be available if and when Putin gets Kim to join with the sovereignists and force the Hegemon off the Korean Peninsula.
Regional Effect
What this would mean for China and Russia beyond safety and security is a new market, more easily exploited mineral resources, a fast developing economy that can use what both nations have.
North Korea can add additional military as regional reserve forces should the Hegemon linger in Asian Pacific.
Nuclear disarmament automatically means South Korea is actively drawn into the Eurasian Economic Belt. It leaves the region with no threat against the Hegemon’s allies, Japan and Philippines. America’s Pacific Century ends when the nukes go away in North Korea.
Vladimir Putin might think this way. For what is North Korean’s regime but a criminal gang (oligarchs wrapped in dead communist rhetoric and delusional arrogance)? Putin knows this species and how to deal with it. Only the Double Helix could make this transformation happen. Neither nation alone has been able to influence the Kim dynasty by itself.
The Chinese have been insulted by Pyongyang and frustrated by Kim. The Chinese public laughs at the buffoonery of the North Korean regime. Beijing only wants him around so the U.S. does not move closer up the Peninsula. But the new reality of Eurasia emerging changes the outlook for Kim. Opportunity and advantage turn his way. A mortal threat to his regime can be removed, and he can still have sovereign security. Win-win-win in a deft surprise move.
Such a cataclysmic geopolitical event of Pyongyang surrendering its nukes would force the U.S. to concede its raison d’etre for a presence on the landmass in the Asia Pacific region. South Korean public pressure for U.S. forces to leave would be rising. Okinawa would want the U.S. out. Eventually, the U.S. would be merely ‘one of several’ using the blue waters of the Western Pacific and Asian coastal seas. The U.S. would logically have to return to Hawaii as its most western outpost. After all, it would be protecting no one from any threat any longer.
Russia and China would be the regional defenders of peace and stability, and further south, India and Vietnam would join, not the U.S. Navy.
The U.S. may be an Asian Pacific nation, but no more so than Chile or Mexico. What the U.S is not is an Asian nation, nor a Eurasian nation. What the U.S. would become is what it always should have constrained itself to – a North American nation.
Japan
Everything becomes harmonized economics after such an event. Japan needs Eurasian assistance. The West has used up two generations of young people in Japan, manipulating its economy and government. Its dynamic innovation and growth is moribund. They cannot even manufacture a safe vehicle airbag or run a nuclear power plant safely.
It’s all manufactured, designed, and packaged in China.
Philippines
Perhaps, the Philippines would remain close to the U.S., but it will be a singular Asian vassal in the South China Sea.
Manila may align with Australia, but eventually the Maritime Silk Road and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will entice them to choose progress with Asia or perpetual colonization by the United States Military Empire.
Update: Jul 27, 2021 · In her brief remarks, Philippine Ambassador to China Erlinda Basilio expressed to the Chinese guests the Filipino people’s commitment to their centuries-old friendship with the Chinese people, and she explained that, inspired by a popular Filipino song, the Embassy chose the theme “Hawak Kamay” to convey how Filipinos will not abandon their Chinese friends in their time of need.
-Philippines - China Friendship Day: A Day of Smiles in Beijing
What happens in Taiwan?
Taiwan will remain the last Chinese choke bone if China is foolish enough to open wide the Dragon’s mouth and take the bait. The latest local Taiwan city elections which damaged the KMT powerbase heightens the U.S. ‘Free China’ agitators. It certainly sets back Cross-Straits progress. However, if that means Xi will have to play rough, he has the economic leverage as the tool to use, not his military.
Taiwan is in perpetual recession. The once great ‘grey box’ and pirate copyist economy of the 80’s and 90’s has been eclipsed by South Korean semi-conductor, device and chip manufacturing and soon will feel the rise of Vietnam, Malaysia and other South-east and South Asia players in Taiwan’s national electronic sport. Most Taiwanese investment capital seems to be heading to the Mainland, Brazil or Taiwan’s nearby competitors. Foxconn is everywhere but Taiwan, including Brazil.
This leaves angry Taiwanese students for the U.S. to manipulate. And perhaps there will be strident resistance groups against Cross-Straits unification, but hunger and despondency will change the dynamics once the U.S. retreats and all those young minds see Eurasia develop as China has on the other side of the narrow straits. They can Skype and Tweet for revolution, even hold coloured umbrellas, but that does not bring in foreign investment to rebuild their own economy.
The Dragon typically has endless patience. Taiwan will test President Xi’s patience for certain. He hoped to see Taiwan in a Hong Kong-like arrangement of ‘One China-Two systems’. That is not going to happen before the U.S. retreats to Hawaii.
The U.S. has infinite capacity to inflict pain and suffering on its most loyal vassals. No one in America, except Taiwanese-Americans, will even know of the pain suffered in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Tainan until the U.S lets go.
North Korea changes everything.
The Far East and Siberia, the North of China, Mongolia, the Arctic, the Yellow Sea and Sea of Japan become a zone of trade, tourism and growth when North Korea steps down from the precipice. If Iran with nukes is unacceptable to Russia and China, certainly North Korea is worse. Both nations, Russia and China, have worked assiduously to prevent proliferation. And they have immediately rewarded nations that give up WMDs.
The Sony False Flag
Sony is hacked! It has to be the North Koreans! Demonization of North Korea is predictable. The FBI says so. However, nearly all independent hacking experts, those with vast experience in government security of IT and anti-hacking work, agree the Sony hack is not North Korean.
First, understand the Internet connections in Asia. North Korea has one ISP. Just as China has second tier status on the Internet and all connections go through only Shanghai, North Korea can get on and off the Internet only through one route. Easy for NSA to monitor. Easy to prove. But we get no hard proof, easy to provide. We get a short form handout white paper-like slice of FBI baloney. So, unless the hack came from a 3G phone network, it had one port of entry to the Internet, namely Star Joint Venture Co.
The U.S. must make certain North Korea remains nuclear. And it is swiftly moving to put ‘terror status’ back on Pyongyang. The hope within the Hegemon’s brain trust, to use the term lightly, is that this will stop Russia and China from offering economic help in return for the nukes. But the result will be whatever the double helix can arrange if they can arrange it with Kim.
What would follow?
With North Korea emptied of its arsenal, the Double Helix may move next to expose the secret program the Japanese have for nukes. Fukishima melt down was a double disaster, because like Dimona in Israel, the nuclear secrets leaked out for the world to know that what Japan, like Israel, was desperate to cover up was a weapons program abetted by the U.S. and France.
Whatever comes from the Double Helix of China-Russia, it will be a surprise that stuns the Hegemon, for certain. That is the style of both nations. The world has gotten closer to ‘better’ in 2014, while it has gotten ‘worse’. That is because, though bad things will always happen, better things will always happen, also. Flames and death in Ukraine and the Middle East are terrible, but the emergence of Eurasia is a budding flower, and it is poison only to the Hegemon.
Civilizations Win
Most of us will live to see a new international, global dynamic. Some of us will feel its nourishment. Some of us will be stuck in the cavern of Elites who have run the world for centuries. Just as the North Pole shifts, geopolitical poles shift. Economic poles shift, also. A containment policy or exclusionary trade treaty or covert destabilization program cannot stop 3.5 billion people inspired by two enlightened leaders who have the same metaphorical DNA. The tectonic shift is too much for mere mortals of the West who have run out of ideas, lies, bullets, bombs, false flags and proxies to win and control mankind. The Hegemon has bad DNA that cannot adapt to the fresh air and sunlight of the truth. Humanity will win its freedom and civilizations will prosper.
Russians and Chinese Win
Russians and Chinese citizens will look within their own civilizations for solutions to the challenges and threats cast at them by the United States Military Empire. The motivations exist to create wise solutions that are not martial, nor dominant, nor exploitative nor unjust.
Relying on experts and NGOs of the West will be understood as opening the doors to the enemy and housing the terrorists and saboteurs sent by the United States Military Empire.
The resistance to United States Military Empire is an historic lesson to the civilizations of Russia and China. The allure of the West is stripped off once-empowering words, models and ideals like ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, ‘friendship’, ‘allies’, ‘partners’, ‘success’, and ‘security’. The patina of ‘exceptional’ and ‘greatness’ has worn away.
The peoples of Russia and China are heirs to great civilizations. They have cultures and institutions that are grounded in sage principles and centuries of profound accomplishments in art, science, technology and human endeavors. They need not emulate any other nation or culture or educational system.
Sovereignty, like individuality, is the unique identity that must be cherished. Then, international cooperation and partnership is grounded on strengths of those choosing to join with others out of free choice not coercion.
What to look forward to…
The events to look forward to in Russia-China relations in 2021 include the continued growth of Russian-Chinese trade, the signing of a docking agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and China, Chinese investments in the Russian Far East, and the strengthening of cooperation between the two countries in the process of solving international problems.
Strategic partnership
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the most accurate commentary on the relations between the two countries at his annual press conference in December.
There is a national consensus in Russia on the development of relations with China and that regardless of the election results, Russia and China will be strategic partners in the long historical period ahead. The logic of a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and China has been formed, and relations between the two countries are moving forward in all spheres.
Common challenges and threats in the international arena
In 2021, Russia and China will maintain the same position on major global issues, including the resolution of the Korean crisis and the Syrian conflict. 2020 saw the joint initiative of Russia and China on the ‘double pause’. This position is constructive and is the only initiative that so far promises to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Korean crisis.
Cooperation between the two countries on the situation on the Korean Peninsula is the most successful example of foreign policy coordination between independent and sovereign powers in the world today. The two countries can use this experience to develop a consistent policy on Syria and focus on the settlement of the situation in that country after the conflict.”
The U.S. Factor
Foreign policy factors will also help strengthen Russian-Chinese relations, while both countries will have to encounter tough challenges.
In the U.S. National Security Strategy announced by Biden, Russia and China are described as countries that issue serious challenges to Washington. This means that the U.S. will develop a corresponding strategy for our two countries and those regions in which we are interested.”
The U.S. will try to prevent China and Russia from consolidating their positions in these regions. However, that factor will only contribute to the strengthening of Russian-Chinese relations.
Investment in the Far East
The trend of steady growth in the volume of trade between the two countries is seen as one of the achievements of Russian-Chinese relations in 2017. According to data from China’s General Administration of Customs, in the first 11 months of 2017, the trade volume between Russia and China grew by 21.8% compared to last year, reaching $76.06 billion.
It should be noted that our trade volume is less significant today and more attention should be paid to the structure of trade. At the moment that structure has not changed and is dominated by energy.”
Trade volume may grow in 2021 due to an increase in Russian exports of non-raw materials to China, including electronic platforms.
There is demand in the Chinese market for Russian sunflower oil, as well as for expanded trade in flour and flour products. There is a need for dialogue with China on the issue of expanding quotas for Russian producers.” Cooperation in the Far East could also be a driver for the development of Russian-Chinese trade and economic relations in 2021.
Chinese investments currently amount to $4 billion, accounting for 7% of total investments in the region and 85% of total foreign investments.
The increase in Chinese investments in the region is likely to come from the development of LNG projects, cross-border infrastructure development, the development of over-development zones, and the active participation of Chinese companies in housing construction.”
Eurasian Economic Union agreement with China
The Eurasian Economic Union’s economic partnership agreement with China is almost ready to be signed, probably in early 2022.
One of the most anticipated events is the agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and China. However, the agreement still needs to be improved in terms of its practical content. For a long time, the significance of the docking has remained only at the political level and should involve specific economic projects.”
This is a non-preferential agreement, i.e. it does not provide for reduction of tariffs. But it is very important for the Eurasian Economic Union, because the integration union needs to be legitimized, including for the World Trade Organization and the integration process in the Asia-Pacific region. This is politically important.
Increased tourist traffic
The Russian tourism industry is very much looking forward to the 2018 group travel visa-free agreement being modified due to current conditions. Under the new agreement, the minimum group size will be reduced to three people and the possible in-country stay was extended to 21 days, and no Russian invitation is required.
With the introduction of electronic document delivery methods, the work of tour companies will be simplified. Russian tourists will be able to travel to China in small groups without individual visas, and Chinese tourists will be able to recuperate and treat in sanatoriums in Russia that offer a 21-day course of treatment.
Much of the growth of Chinese tourists is being pinned on electronic visas. The system was introduced within the Vladivostok Free Port in 2020. It is expected that the system will be extended to eight regions from 2021. The system is most popular among Chinese citizens: 2,300 Chinese tourists have already used it to travel to Vladivostok.
E-visa is an important initiative to attract individual tourists to Russia. It is expected that the electronic visa system will be introduced in Kaliningrad, the westernmost point of Russia, and in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, which are popular with Chinese tourists.
Finally, let’s summarize…
Asia has united. America is not the “bright and shining city on the hill” that stands for freedom and “democracy”, but rather a corrupt military empire that is thrashing about as it collapses.
The entire world can see this.
And while the United States Military Empire has been trying to set up the QUAD, and a list of vassal states to fight it’s wars for them, the leaders who agree to do so, can kiss their sweet nations good-by. A unified Russia-china alliance would render their entire nations into radioactive rubble.
Thus my argument that (for the most part) the QUAD would collapse, and what ever military effort that the United States Military Empire would cobble together would be lost in quick flashes of light and enormous causalities.
Finally, the state of decay of the US state might already be so advanced that we can consider it as profoundly dysfunctional and basically collapsing/collapsed.
The first option (soft landing) is unlikely, yet highly desirable.
The second option (chaos-induced retreat) is more likely, but much less desirable as it is only a single step back to then make several steps forward again.
The last option (profoundly dysfunctional and basically collapsing/collapsed) is, alas, the most likely, and it is also, by far, the most perilous one.
For one thing, options #2 and #3 will make US actions very unpredictable and, therefore, potentially extremely dangerous. Unpredictable chaos can also quickly morph into a major war, or even several major ones, so the potential danger here is very real (even if totally unreported in Zone A).
This, in turn, means that Russia, China, Iran, the DPRK, Venezuela or Cuba all have to keep their guard up and be ready for anything, even the unthinkable (which is often what total chaos generates).
What do you think?
Of course, the Ignorant Americans are all thinking that Russia and China are somehow enemies…
Russia has no love for China so don’t be so sure about them coming to China’s aid.
-MarkinLA
Hardly.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
This is a full reprint in HTML of the third chapter (Chapter 3) of the first part (Part I) of the massive volume titled "The 33 Strategies of War". Written by Robert Greene (with emotional support from his cats). I read this book while in prison, and found much of what was written to be interesting, enjoyable, and pertinent to things going on in my life. I think that you will as well.
AMIDST THE TURMOIL OF EVENTS, DO NOT LOSE YOUR PRESENCE OF MIND
THE COUNTERBALANCE STRATEGY
In the heat of battle, the mind tends to lose its balance. Too many things confront you at the same time—unexpected setbacks, doubts and criticisms from your own allies. There’s a danger of responding emotionally, with fear, depression, or frustration.
It is vital to keep your presence of mind, maintaining your mental powers whatever the circumstances.
You must actively resist the emotional pull of the moment—staying decisive, confident, and aggressive no matter what hits you. Make the mind tougher by exposing it to adversity. Learn to detach yourself from the chaos of the battlefield. Let others lose their heads; your presence of mind will steer you clear of their influence and keep you on course.
[Presence of mind] must play a great role in war, the domain of the unexpected, since it is nothing but an increased capacity of dealing with the unexpected. We admire presence of mind in an apt repartee, as we admire quick thinking in the face of danger.... The expression "presence of mind" precisely conveys the speed and immediacy of the help provided by the intellect.ON WAR, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, 1780-1831
THE HYPERAGGRESSIVE TACTIC
Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) had been through it all. He had lost his right eye in the siege of Calvi and his right arm in the Battle of Tenerife. He had defeated the Spanish at Cape St. Vincent in 1797 and had thwarted Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign by defeating his navy at the Battle of the Nile the following year. But none of his tribulations and triumphs prepared him for the problems he faced from his own colleagues in the British navy as they prepared to go to war against Denmark in February 1801.
Nelson, England’s most glorious war hero, was the obvious choice to lead the fleet. Instead the Admiralty chose Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson his second-in-command. This war was a delicate business; it was intended to force the disobedient Danes to comply with a British-led embargo on the shipping of military goods to France. The fiery Nelson was prone to lose his cool. He hated Napoleon, and if he went too far against the Danes, he would produce a diplomatic fiasco. Sir Hyde was an older, more stable, even-tempered man who would do the job and nothing more.
Nelson swallowed his pride and took the assignment, but he saw trouble ahead. He knew that time was of the essence: the faster the navy sailed, the less chance the Danes would have to build up their defenses. The ships were ready to sail, but Parker’s motto was “Everything in good order.” It wasn’t his style to hurry. Nelson hated his casualness and burned for action: he reviewed intelligence reports, studied maps, and came up with a detailed plan for fighting the Danes. He wrote to Parker urging him to seize the initiative. Parker ignored him.
More life may trickle out of men through thought than through a gaping wound.
THOMAS HARDY, 1840-1928
At last, on March 11, the British fleet set sail. Instead of heading for Copenhagen, however, Parker anchored well to the north of the city’s harbor and called a meeting of his captains. According to intelligence reports, he explained, the Danes had prepared elaborate defenses for Copenhagen. Boats anchored in the harbor, forts to the north and south, and mobile artillery batteries could blast the British out of the water. How to fight this artillery without terrible losses? Also, pilots who knew the waters around Copenhagen reported that they were treacherous, places of sandbars and tricky winds. Navigating these dangers under bombardment would be harrowing. With all of these difficulties, perhaps it was best to wait for the Danes to leave harbor and then fight them in open sea.
Nelson struggled to control himself. Finally he let loose, pacing the room, the stub of his lost arm jerking as he spoke. No war, he said, had ever been won by waiting. The Danish defenses looked formidable “to those who are children at war,” but he had worked out a strategy weeks earlier: he would attack from the south, the easier approach, while Parker and a reserve force would stay to the city’s north. Nelson would use his mobility to take out the Danish guns. He had studied the maps: sandbars were no threat. As for the wind, aggressive action was more important than fretting over wind.
Nelson’s speech energized Parker’s captains. He was by far their most successful leader, and his confidence was catching. Even Sir Hyde was impressed, and the plan was approved.
So Grant was alone; his most trusted subordinates besought him to change his plans, while his superiors were astounded at his temerity and strove to interfere.
Soldiers of reputation and civilians in high places condemned, in advance, a campaign that seemed to them as hopeless as it was unprecedented.
If he failed, the country would concur with the Government and the Generals.
Grant knew all this, and appreciated his danger, but was as invulnerable to the apprehensions of ambition as to the entreaties of friendship, or the anxieties even of patriotism.
That quiet confidence in himself which never forsook him, and which amounted indeed almost to a feeling of fate, was uninterrupted. Having once determined in a matter that required irreversible decision, he never reversed, nor even misgave, but was steadily loyal to himself and his plans.
This absolute and implicit faith was, however, as far as possible from conceit or enthusiasm; it was simply a consciousness or conviction, rather, which brought the very strength it believed in; which was itself strength, and which inspired others with a trust in him, because he was able thus to trust himself.MILITARY HISTORY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT, ADAM BADEAU, 1868
The next morning Nelson’s line of ships advanced on Copenhagen, and the battle began. The Danish guns, firing on the British at close range, took a fierce toll. Nelson paced the deck of his flagship, HMS Elephant, urging his men on. He was in an excited, almost ecstatic state. A shot through the mainmast nearly hit him: “It is warm work, and this day may be the last to any of us at any moment,” he told a colonel, a little shaken up by the blast, “but mark you, I would not be elsewhere for thousands.”
Parker followed the battle from his position to the north. He now regretted agreeing to Nelson’s plan; he was responsible for the campaign, and a defeat here could ruin his career. After four hours of back-and-forth bombardment, he had seen enough: the fleet had taken a beating and had gained no advantage. Nelson never knew when to quit. Parker decided it was time to hoist signal flag 39, the order to withdraw. The first ships to see it were to acknowledge it and pass the signal on down the line. Once acknowledged there was nothing else to do but retreat.
The battle was over.
On board the Elephant, a lieutenant told Nelson about the signal. The vice-admiral ignored it. Continuing to pound the Danish defenses, he eventually called to an officer, “Is number sixteen still hoisted?” Number 16 was his own flag; it meant “Engage the enemy more closely.” The officer confirmed that the flag was still flying. “Mind you keep it so,” Nelson told him.
A few minutes later, Parker’s signal still flapping in the breeze, Nelson turned to his flag captain: “You know, Foley, I have only one eye–I have a right to be blind sometimes.” And raising his telescope to his blind eye, he calmly remarked, “I really do not see the signal.”
Torn between obeying Parker and obeying Nelson, the fleet captains chose Nelson. They would risk their careers along with his. But soon the Danish defenses started to crack; some of the ships anchored in the harbor surrendered, and the firing of the guns began to slow. Less than an hour after Parker’s signal to stop the battle, the Danes surrendered.
The next day Parker perfunctorily congratulated Nelson on the victory. He did not mention his subordinate’s disobedience. He was hoping the whole affair, including his own lack of courage, would be quietly forgotten.
Interpretation
When the Admiralty put its faith in Sir Hyde, it made a classical military error: it entrusted the waging of a war to a man who was careful and methodical. Such men may seem calm, even strong, in times of peace, but their self-control often hides weakness: the reason they think things through so carefully is that they are terrified of making a mistake and of what that might mean for them and their career.
This doesn’t come out until they are tested in battle: suddenly they cannot make a decision. They see problems everywhere and defeat in the smallest setback. They hang back not out of patience but out of fear. Often these moments of hesitation spell their doom.
There was once a man who may be called the "generalissimo" of robbers and who went by the name of Hakamadare.
He had a strong mind and a powerful build. He was swift of foot, quick with his hands, wise in thinking and plotting. Altogether there was no one who could compare with him.
His business was to rob people of their possessions when they were off guard.
Once, around the tenth month of a year, he needed clothing and decided to get hold of some.
He went to prospective spots and walked about, looking.
About midnight when people had gone to sleep and were quiet, under a somewhat blurry moon he saw a man dressed in abundant clothes sauntering about on a boulevard. The man, with his trouser-skirt tucked up with strings perhaps and in a formal hunting robe which gently covered his body, was playing the flute, alone, apparently in no hurry to go to any particular place.
Wow, here's a fellow who's shown up just to give me his clothes, Hakamadare thought.
Normally he would have gleefully run up and beaten his quarry down and robbed him of his clothes. But this time, unaccountably, he felt something fearsome about the man, so he followed him for a couple of hundred yards.
The man himself didn't seem to think, Somebody's following me. On the contrary, he continued to play the flute with what appeared to be greater calm.
Give him a try, Hakamadare said to himself, and ran up close to the man, making as much clatter as he could with his feet.
The man, however, looked not the least disturbed. He simply turned to look, still playing the flute. It wasn't possible to jump on him. Hakamadare ran off.
Hakamadare tried similar approaches a number of times, but the man remained utterly unperturbed. Hakamadare realized he was dealing with an unusual fellow. When they had covered about a thousand yards, though, Hakamadare decided he couldn't continue like this, drew his sword, and ran up to him.
This time the man stopped playing the flute and, turning, said, "What in the world are you doing?" Hakamadare couldn't have been struck with greater fear even if a demon or a god had run up to attack him when he was walking alone.
For some unaccountable reason he lost both heart and courage.
Overcome with deathly fear and despite himself, he fell on his knees and hands. "What are you doing?" the man repeated.
Hakamadare felt he couldn't escape even if he tried. "I'm trying to rob you," he blurted out. "My name is Hakamadare." "
I've heard there's a man about with that name, yes. A dangerous, unusual fellow, I'm told," the man said.
Then he simply said to Hakamadare, "Come with me," and continued on his way, playing the flute again.
Terrified that he was dealing with no ordinary human being, and as if possessed by a demon or a god, Hakamadare followed the man, completely mystified. Eventually the man walked into a gate behind which was a large house.
He stepped inside from the verandah after removing his shoes. While Hakamadare was thinking, He must be the master of the house, the man came back and summoned him.
As he gave him a robe made of thick cotton cloth, he said, "If you need something like this in the future, just come and tell me. If you jump on somebody who doesn't know your intentions, you may get hurt."
Afterward it occurred to Hakamadare that the house belonged to Governor of Settsu Fujiwara no Yasumasa.
Later, when he was arrested, he is known to have observed, "He was such an unusually weird, terrifying man!"
Yasumasa was not a warrior by family tradition because he was a son of Munetada. Yet he was not the least inferior to anyone who was a warrior by family tradition.
He had a strong mind, was quick with his hands, and had tremendous strength.
He was also subtle in thinking and plotting. So even the imperial court did not feel insecure in employing him in the way of the warrior. As a result, the whole world greatly feared him and was intimidated by him.LEGENDS OF THE SAMURAI, HIROAKI SATO, 1995
Lord Nelson operated according to the opposite principle. Slight of build, with a delicate constitution, he compensated for his physical weakness with fierce determination. He forced himself to be more resolute than anyone around him. The moment he entered battle, he ratcheted up his aggressive impulses.
Where other sea lords worried about casualties, the wind, changes in the enemy’s formation, he concentrated on his plan. Before battle no one strategized or studied his opponent more thoroughly. (That knowledge helped Nelson to sense when the enemy was ready to crumble.) But once the engagement began, hesitation and carefulness were dropped.
Presence of mind is a kind of counterbalance to mental weakness, to our tendency to get emotional and lose perspective in the heat of battle.
Being more careful is not what we need; that is just a screen for our fear of conflict and of making a mistake. What we need is double the resolve–an intensification of confidence. That will serve as a counterbalance.
In moments of turmoil and trouble, you must force yourself to be more determined. Call up the aggressive energy you need to overcome caution and inertia. Any mistakes you make, you can rectify with more energetic action still. Save your carefulness for the hours of preparation, but once the fighting begins, empty your mind of doubts. Ignore those who quail at any setback and call for retreat. Find joy in attack mode. Momentum will carry you through.
In moments of turmoil and trouble, you must force yourself to be more determined. Call up the aggressive energy you need to overcome caution and inertia.
The senses make a more vivid impression on the mind than systematic thought.... Even the man who planned the operation and now sees it being carried out may well lose confidence in his earlier judgment.... War has a way of masking the stage with scenery crudely daubed with fearsome apparitions. Once this is cleared away, and the horizon becomes unobstructed, developments will confirm his earlier convictions--this is one of the great chasms between planning and execution.--Carl von Clausewitz, ON WAR (1780-1831)
THE DETACHED-BUDDHA TACTIC
Watching the movie director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) at work on a film set was often quite a surprise to those seeing it for the first time. Most filmmakers are wound-up balls of energy, yelling at the crew and barking out orders, but Hitchcock would sit in his chair, sometimes dozing, or at least with his eyes half closed.
On the set of Strangers on a Train, made in 1951, the actor Farley Granger thought Hitchcock’s behavior meant he was angry or upset and asked him if anything was wrong. “Oh,” Hitchcock replied sleepily, “I’m so bored.” The crew’s complaints, an actor’s tantrums–nothing fazed him; he would just yawn, shift in his chair, and ignore the problem. “Hitchcock…didn’t seem to direct us at all,” said the actress Margaret Lockwood. “He was a dozing, nodding Buddha with an enigmatic smile on his face.”
It was hard for Hitchcock’s colleagues to understand how a man doing such stressful work could stay so calm and detached. Some thought it was part of his character–that there was something inherently cold-blooded about him. Others thought it a gimmick, a put-on.
Few suspected the truth: before the filmmaking had even begun, Hitchcock would have prepared for it with such intense attention to detail that nothing could go wrong.
He was completely in control; no temperamental actress, no panicky art director, no meddling producer could upset him or interfere with his plans. Feeling such absolute security in what he had set up, he could afford to lie back and fall asleep.
Hitchcock’s process began with a story-line, whether from a novel or an idea of his own. As if he had a movie projector in his head, he would begin to visualize the film. Next, he would start meeting with a writer, who would soon realize that this job was unlike any other. Instead of taking some producer’s half-baked idea and turning it into a screenplay, the writer was simply there to put on paper the dream trapped in Hitchcock’s mind.
He or she would add flesh and bones to the characters and would of course write the dialog, but not much else.
When Hitchcock sat down with the writer Samuel Taylor for the first script meeting on the movie Vertigo (1958), his descriptions of several scenes were so vivid, so intense, that the experiences seemed almost to have been real, or maybe something he had dreamed. This completeness of vision foreclosed creative conflict. As Taylor soon realized, although he was writing the script, it would remain a Hitchcock creation.
Once the screenplay was finished, Hitchcock would transform it into an elaborate shooting script.
Blocking, camera positions, lighting, and set dimensions were spelled out in detailed notes. Most directors leave themselves some latitude, shooting scenes from several angles, for example, to give the film editor options to work with later on. Not Hitchcock: he essentially edited the entire film in the shooting script. He knew exactly what he wanted and wrote it down. If a producer or actor tried to add or change a scene, Hitchcock was outwardly pleasant–he could afford to pretend to listen–but inside he was totally unmoved.
Nothing was left to chance. For the building of the sets (quite elaborate in a movie like Rear Window), Hitchcock would present the production designer with precise blueprints, floor plans, incredibly detailed lists of props. He supervised every aspect of set construction.
He was particularly attentive to the clothes of his leading actresses: according to Edith Head, costumer on many Hitchcock movies, including Dial M for Murder in 1954, “There was a reason for every color, every style, and he was absolutely certain about everything he settled on. For one scene he saw [Grace Kelly] in pale green, for another in white chiffon, for another in gold. He was really putting a dream together in the studio.” When the actress Kim Novak refused to wear a gray suit in Vertigo because she felt it made her look washed out, Hitchcock told her he wanted her to look like a woman of mystery who had just stepped out of the San Francisco fog. How could she argue with that?
She wore the suit.
Hitchcock’s actors found working with him strange yet pleasant. Some of Hollywood’s best– Joseph Cotten, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman–said that he was the easiest director to work for: his nonchalance was catching, and since his films were so carefully staged as not to depend on the actor’s performance in any particular scene, they could relax.
Everything went like clockwork.
As James Stewart told the cast of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), “We’re in the hands of an expert here. You can lean on him. Just do everything he tells you and the whole thing will be okay.”
As Hitchcock sat calmly on the set, apparently half asleep, the cast and crew could see only the small part each one played. They had no idea how everything fit into his vision. When Taylor saw Vertigo for the first time, it was like seeing another man’s dream. The film neatly duplicated the vision Hitchcock had expressed to him many months before.
Interpretation
The first film Hitchcock directed was The Pleasure Garden, a silent he made in 1925. The production went wrong in every conceivable way.
Hitchcock hated chaos and disorder; unexpected events, panicky crew members, and any loss of control made him miserable.
From that point on, he decided, he would treat filmmaking like a military operation.
He would give his producers, actors, and crew no room to mess up what he wanted to create. He taught himself every aspect of film production: set design, lighting, the technicalities of cameras and lenses, editing, sound. He ran every stage of the film’s making. No shadow could fall between the planning and the execution.
Establishing control in advance the way Hitchcock did might not seem like presence of mind, but it actually takes that quality to its zenith. It means entering battle (in Hitchcock’s case a film shoot) feeling calm and ready.
Setbacks may come, but you will have foreseen them and thought of alternatives, and you are ready to respond.
Your mind will never go blank when it is that well prepared. When your colleagues barrage you with doubts, anxious questions, and slipshod ideas, you may nod and pretend to listen, but really you’re ignoring them–you’ve out-thought them in advance. And your relaxed manner will prove contagious to other people, making them easier to manage in turn.
It is easy to be overwhelmed by everything that faces you in battle, where so many people are asking or telling you what to do. So many vital matters press in on you that you can lose sight of your goals and plans; suddenly you can’t see the forest for the trees.
Understand: presence of mind is the ability to detach yourself from all that, to see the whole battlefield, the whole picture, with clarity. All great generals have this quality. And what gives you that mental distance is preparation, mastering the details beforehand. Let people think your Buddha-like detachment comes from some mysterious source. The less they understand you the better.
Understand: presence of mind is the ability to detach yourself from all that, to see the whole battlefield, the whole picture, with clarity.
For the love of God, pull yourself together and do not look at things so darkly: the first step backward makes a poor impression in the army, the second step is dangerous, and the third becomes fatal.--Frederick the Great (1712-86), letter to a general
KEYS TO WARFARE
We humans like to see ourselves as rational creatures. We imagine that what separates us from animals is the ability to think and reason. But that is only partly true: what distinguishes us from animals just as much is our capacity to laugh, to cry, to feel a range of emotions. We are in fact emotional creatures as well as rational ones, and although we like to think we govern our actions through reason and thought, what most often dictates our behavior is the emotion we feel in the moment.
We maintain the illusion that we are rational through the routine of our daily affairs, which helps us to keep things calm and apparently controlled. Our minds seem rather strong when we’re following our routines. But place any of us in an adverse situation and our rationality vanishes; we react to pressure by growing fearful, impatient, confused. Such moments reveal us for the emotional creatures we are: under attack, whether by a known enemy or unpredictably by a colleague, our response is dominated by feelings of anger, sadness, betrayal. Only with great effort can we reason our way through these periods and respond rationally–and our rationality rarely lasts past the next attack.
Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity–precisely the time when you need strength. What best equips you to cope with the heat of battle is neither more knowledge nor more intellect. What makes your mind stronger, and more able to control your emotions, is internal discipline and toughness.
Understand: your mind is weaker than your emotions. But you become aware of this weakness only in moments of adversity–precisely the time when you need strength.
No one can teach you this skill; you cannot learn it by reading about it. Like any discipline, it can come only through practice, experience, even a little suffering. The first step in building up presence of mind is to see the need for it–to want it badly enough to be willing to work for it. Historical figures who stand out for their presence of mind–Alexander the Great, Ulysses S. Grant, Winston Churchill–acquired it through adversity, through trial and error. They were in positions of responsibility in which they had to develop this quality or sink. Although these men may have been blessed with an unusual amount of personal fortitude, they had to work hard to strengthen this into presence of mind.
The first quality of a General-in-Chief is to have a cool head which receives exact impressions of things, which never gets heated, which never allows itself to be dazzled, or intoxicated, by good or bad news.
The successive simultaneous sensations which he receives in the course of a day must be classified, and must occupy the correct places they merit to fill, because common sense and reason are the results of the comparison of a number of sensations each equally well considered.
There are certain men who, on account of their moral and physical constitution, paint mental pictures out of everything: however exalted be their reason, their will, their courage, and whatever good qualities they may possess, nature has not fitted them to command armies, nor to direct great operations of war.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821
The ideas that follow are based on their experience and hard-won victories. Think of these ideas as exercises, ways to toughen your mind, each a kind of counterbalance to emotion’s overpowering pull.
Expose yourself to conflict. George S. Patton came from one of America’s most distinguished military families–his ancestors included generals and colonels who had fought and died in the American Revolution and the Civil War. Raised on stories of their heroism, he followed in their footsteps and chose a career in the military. But Patton was also a sensitive young man, and he had one deep fear: that in battle he would turn coward and disgrace the family name.
Patton had his first real taste of battle in 1918, at the age of thirty-two, during the Allied offensive on the Argonne during World War I. He commanded a tank division. At one point during the battle, Patton managed to lead some American infantrymen to a position on a hilltop overlooking a key strategic town, but German fire forced them to take cover. Soon it became clear that they were trapped: if they retreated, they would come under fire from positions on the sides of the hill; if they advanced, they would run right into a battery of German machine guns. If they were all to die, as it seemed to Patton, better to die advancing. At the moment he was to lead the troops in the charge, however, Patton was stricken by intense fear. His body trembled, and his legs turned to jelly. In a confirmation of his deepest fears, he had lost his nerve.
At that instant, looking into the clouds beyond the German batteries, Patton had a vision: he saw his illustrious military ancestors, all in their uniforms, staring sternly down at him. They seemed to be inviting him to join their company–the company of dead war heroes. Paradoxically, the sight of these men had a calming effect on the young Patton: calling for volunteers to follow him, he yelled, “It is time for another Patton to die!” The strength had returned to his legs; he stood up and charged toward the German guns. Seconds later he fell, hit in the thigh. But he survived the battle.
From that moment on, even after he became a general, Patton made a point of visiting the front lines, exposing himself needlessly to danger. He tested himself again and again. His vision of his ancestors remained a constant stimulus–a challenge to his honor. Each time it became easier to face down his fears. It seemed to his fellow generals, and to his own men, that no one had more presence of mind than Patton. They did not know how much of his strength was an effort of will.
The story of Patton teaches us two things. First, it is better to confront your fears, let them come to the surface, than to ignore them or tamp them down. Fear is the most destructive emotion for presence of mind, but it thrives on the unknown, which lets our imaginations run wild. By deliberately putting yourself in situations where you have to face fear, you familiarize yourself with it and your anxiety grows less acute. The sensation of overcoming a deep-rooted fear in turn gives you confidence and presence of mind. The more conflicts and difficult situations you put yourself through, the more battle-tested your mind will be.
There was a fox who had never seen a lion. But one day he happened to meet one of these beasts face to face. On this first occasion he was so terrified that he felt he would die of fear. He encountered him again, and this time he was also frightened, but not so much as the first time. But on the third occasion when he saw him, he actually plucked up the courage to approach him and began to chat. This fable shows that familiarity soothes our fears.FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
Second, Patton’s experience demonstrates the motivating power of a sense of honor and dignity. In giving in to fear, in losing your presence of mind, you disgrace not only yourself, your self-image, and your reputation but your company, your family, your group. You bring down the communal spirit. Being a leader of even the smallest group gives you something to live up to: people are watching you, judging you, depending on you. To lose your composure would make it hard for you to live with yourself.
Be self-reliant. There is nothing worse than feeling dependent on other people. Dependency makes you vulnerable to all kinds of emotions–betrayal, disappointment, frustration–that play havoc with your mental balance.
Early in the American Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant, eventual commander in chief of the Northern armies, felt his authority slipping. His subordinates would pass along inaccurate information on the terrain he was marching through; his captains would fail to follow through on his orders; his generals were criticizing his plans. Grant was stoical by nature, but his diminished control over his troops led to a diminished control over himself and drove him to drink.
In the words of the ancients, one should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths. Lord Takanobu said, "If discrimination is long, it will spoil." Lord Naoshige said, "When matters are done leisurely, seven out of ten will turn out badly.
A warrior is a person who does things quickly." When your mind is going hither and thither, discrimination will never be brought to a conclusion. With an intense, fresh and unde-laying spirit, one will make his judgments within the space of seven breaths. It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit to break right through to the other side.HAGAKURE: THE BOOK OF THE SAMURAI, YAMAMOTO TSUNETOMO, 1659-1720
Grant had learned his lesson by the time of the Vicksburg campaign, in 1862-63. He rode the terrain himself, studying it firsthand. He reviewed intelligence reports himself. He honed the precision of his orders, making it harder for his captains to flout them. And once he had made a decision, he would ignore his fellow generals’ doubts and trust his convictions. To get things done, he came to rely on himself. His feelings of helplessness dissolved, and with them all of the attendant emotions that had ruined his presence of mind.
Being self-reliant is critical. To make yourself less dependent on others and so-called experts, you need to expand your repertoire of skills. And you need to feel more confident in your own judgment. Understand: we tend to overestimate other people’s abilities–after all, they’re trying hard to make it look as if they knew what they were doing–and we tend to underestimate our own. You must compensate for this by trusting yourself more and others less.
It is important to remember, though, that being self-reliant does not mean burdening yourself with petty details. You must be able to distinguish between small matters that are best left to others and larger issues that require your attention and care.
Suffer fools gladly. John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, is one of history’s most successful generals. A genius of tactics and strategy, he had tremendous presence of mind. In the early eighteenth century, Churchill was often the leader of an alliance of English, Dutch, and German armies against the mighty forces of France. His fellow generals were timid, indecisive, narrow-minded men. They balked at the duke’s bold plans, saw dangers everywhere, were discouraged at the slightest setback, and promoted their own country’s interests at the expense of the alliance. They had no vision, no patience: they were fools.
On a famous occasion during the civil war, Caesar tripped when disembarking from a ship on the shores of Africa and fell flat on his face. With his talent for improvisation, he spread out his arms and embraced the earth as a symbol of conquest. By quick thinking he turned a terrible omen of failure into one of victory.CICERO: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROME'S GREATEST POLITICIAN, ANTHONY EVERITT, 2001
The duke, an experienced and subtle courtier, never confronted his colleagues directly; he did not force his opinions on them. Instead he treated them like children, indulging them in their fears while cutting them out of his plans.
Occasionally he threw them a bone, doing some minor thing they had suggested or pretending to worry about a danger they had imagined.
But he never let himself get angry or frustrated; that would have ruined his presence of mind, undermining his ability to lead the campaign. He forced himself to stay patient and cheerful. He knew how to suffer fools gladly.
We mean the ability to keep one's head at times of exceptional stress and violent emotion.... But it might be closer to the truth to assume that the faculty known as self-control--the gift of keeping calm even under the greatest stress--is rooted in temperament.
It is itself an emotion which serves to balance the passionate feelings in strong characters without destroying them, and it is this balance alone that assures the dominance of the intellect.
The counter-weight we mean is simply the sense of human dignity, the noblest pride and deepest need of all: the urge to act rationally at all times. Therefore we would argue that a strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions.ON WAR, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, 1780-1831
Understand: you cannot be everywhere or fight everyone. Your time and energy are limited, and you must learn how to preserve them. Exhaustion and frustration can ruin your presence of mind. The world is full of fools–people who cannot wait to get results, who change with the wind, who can’t see past their noses. You encounter them everywhere: the indecisive boss, the rash colleague, the hysterical subordinate. When working alongside fools, do not fight them. Instead think of them the way you think of children, or pets, not important enough to affect your mental balance. Detach yourself emotionally. And while you’re inwardly laughing at their foolishness, indulge them in one of their more harmless ideas. The ability to stay cheerful in the face of fools is an important skill.
Crowd out feelings of panic by focusing on simple tasks. Lord Yamanouchi, an aristocrat of eighteenth-century Japan, once asked his tea master to accompany him on a visit to Edo (later Tokyo), where he was to stay for a while. He wanted to show off to his fellow courtiers his retainer’s skill in the rituals of the tea ceremony. Now, the tea master knew everything there was to know about the tea ceremony, but little else; he was a peaceful man. He dressed, however, like a samurai, as his high position required.
One day, as the tea master was walking in the big city, he was accosted by a samurai who challenged him to a duel. The tea master was not a swordsman and tried to explain this to the samurai, but the man refused to listen. To turn the challenge down would disgrace both the tea master’s family and Lord Yamanouchi. He had to accept, though that meant certain death. And accept he did, requesting only that the duel be put off to the next day. His wish was granted.
In panic, the tea master hurried to the nearest fencing school. If he were to die, he wanted to learn how to die honorably. To see the fencing master ordinarily required letters of introduction, but the tea master was so insistent, and so clearly terrified, that at last he was given an interview. The fencing master listened to his story.
However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no one disputed. There was a more serious problem.
He lay in his bunk pondering upon it.
He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he would not run from a battle.... A little panic-fear grew in his mind. As his imagination went forward to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities.
He contemplated the lurking menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled his visions of broken-bladed glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to be impossible pictures.
He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro. "Good Lord, what's th' matter with me?" he said aloud.
He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.
"Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.... For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously unsatisfactory. He found that he could establish nothing.
He finally concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into the blaze, and then figuratively to watch his legs to discover their merits and faults. He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still and with a mental slate and pencil derive an answer. To gain it, he must have blaze, blood, and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and the other. So he fretted for an opportunity.THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, STEPHEN CRANE, 1871-1900
The swordsman was sympathetic: he would teach the poor visitor the art of dying, but first he wanted to be served some tea. The tea master proceeded to perform the ritual, his manner calm, his concentration perfect.
Finally the fencing master yelled out in excitement, “No need for you to learn the art of death! The state of mind you’re in now is enough for you to face any samurai. When you see your challenger, imagine you’re about to serve tea to a guest. Take off your coat, fold it up carefully, and lay your fan on it just as you do at work.” This ritual completed, the tea master was to raise his sword in the same alert spirit. Then he would be ready to die.
The tea master agreed to do as his teacher said. The next day he went to meet the samurai, who could not help but notice the completely calm and dignified expression on his opponent’s face as he took off his coat. Perhaps, the samurai thought, this fumbling tea master is actually a skilled swordsman. He bowed, begged pardon for his behavior the day before, and hurried away.
When circumstances scare us, our imagination tends to take over, filling our minds with endless anxieties.
You need to gain control of your imagination, something easier said than done. Often the best way to calm down and give yourself such control is to force the mind to concentrate on something relatively simple–a calming ritual, a repetitive task that you are good at. You are creating the kind of composure you naturally have when your mind is absorbed in a problem. A focused mind has no room for anxiety or for the effects of an overactive imagination. Once you have regained your mental balance, you can then face the problem at hand. At the first sign of any kind of fear, practice this technique until it becomes a habit. Being able to control your imagination at intense moments is a crucial skill.
Unintimidate yourself. Intimidation will always threaten your presence of mind. And it is a hard feeling to combat.
During World War II, the composer Dmitry Shostakovich and several of his colleagues were called into a meeting with the Russian ruler Joseph Stalin, who had commissioned them to write a new national anthem. Meetings with Stalin were terrifying; one misstep could lead you into a very dark alley. He would stare you down until you felt your throat tighten. And, as meetings with Stalin often did, this one took a bad turn: the ruler began to criticize one of the composers for his poor arrangement of his anthem. Scared silly, the man admitted he had used an arranger who had done a bad job. Here he was digging several graves: Clearly the poor arranger could be called to task. The composer was responsible for the hire, and he, too, could pay for the mistake. And what of the other composers, including Shostakovich? Stalin could be relentless once he smelled fear.
Shostakovich had heard enough: it was foolish, he said, to blame the arranger, who was mostly following orders. He then subtly redirected the conversation to a different subject–whether a composer should do his own orchestrations. What did Stalin think on the matter? Always eager to prove his expertise, Stalin swallowed the bait. The dangerous moment passed.
Shostakovich maintained his presence of mind in several ways. First, instead of letting Stalin intimidate him, he forced himself to see the man as he was: short, fat, ugly, unimaginative. The dictator’s famous piercing gaze was just a trick, a sign of his own insecurity. Second, Shostakovich faced up to Stalin, talking to him normally and straightforwardly. By his actions and tone of voice, the composer showed that he was not intimidated. Stalin fed off fear. If, without being aggressive or brazen, you showed no fear, he would generally leave you alone.
The key to staying unintimidated is to convince yourself that the person you’re facing is a mere mortal, no different from you–which is in fact the truth. See the person, not the myth. Imagine him or her as a child, as someone riddled with insecurities. Cutting the other person down to size will help you to keep your mental balance.
Develop your Fingerspitzengefuhl (fingertip feel). Presence of mind depends not only on your mind’s ability to come to your aid in difficult situations but also on the speed with which this happens. Waiting until the next day to think of the right action to take does you no good at all. “Speed” here means responding to circumstances with rapidity and making lightning-quick decisions. This power is often read as a kind of intuition, what the Germans call “Fingerspitzengefuhl” (fingertip feel).
Erwin Rommel, who led the German tank campaign in North Africa during World War II, had great fingertip feel. He could sense when the Allies would attack and from what direction. In choosing a line of advance, he had an uncanny feel for his enemy’s weakness; at the start of a battle, he could intuit his enemy’s strategy before it unfolded.
To Rommel’s men their general seemed to have a genius for war, and he did possess a quicker mind than most. But Rommel also did things to enhance his quickness, things that reinforced his feel for battle.
First, he devoured information about the enemy–from details about its weaponry to the psychological traits of the opposing general.
Second, he made himself an expert in tank technology, so that he could get the most out of his equipment.
Third, he not only memorized maps of the North African desert but would fly over it, at great risk, to get a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield.
Finally, he personalized his relationship with his men. He always had a sense of their morale and knew exactly what he could expect from them.
Rommel didn’t just study his men, his tanks, the terrain, and the enemy–he got inside their skin, understood the spirit that animated them, what made them tick. Having felt his way into these things, in battle he entered a state of mind in which he did not have to think consciously of the situation. The totality of what was going on was in his blood, at his fingertips.
He had Fingerspitzengefuhl.
Rommel
Whether or not you have the mind of a Rommel, there are things you can do to help you respond faster and bring out that intuitive feel that all animals possess. Deep knowledge of the terrain will let you process information faster than your enemy, a tremendous advantage. Getting a feel for the spirit of men and material, thinking your way into them instead of looking at them from outside, will help to put you in a different frame of mind, less conscious and forced, more unconscious and intuitive. Get your mind into the habit of making lightning-quick decisions, trusting your fingertip feel. Your mind will advance in a kind of mental blitzkrieg, moving past your opponents before they realize what has hit them.
Finally, do not think of presence of mind as a quality useful only in periods of adversity, something to switch on and off as you need it. Cultivate it as an everyday condition. Confidence, fearlessness, and self-reliance are as crucial in times of peace as in times of war. Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed his tremendous mental toughness and grace under pressure not only during the crises of the Depression and World War II but in everyday situations–in his dealings with his family, his cabinet, his own polio-racked body. The better you get at the game of war, the more your warrior frame of mind will do for you in daily life. When a crisis does come, your mind will already be calm and prepared. Once presence of mind becomes a habit, it will never abandon you.
The man with centre has calm, unprejudiced judgment. He knows what is important, what unimportant. He meets realilty serenely and with detachment keeping his sense of proportion. The Hara no aru hito [man with centre] faces life calmly, is tranquil, ready for anything.... Nothing upsets him.
If suddenly fire breaks out and people begin to shout in wild confusion [he] does the right thing immediately and quietly, he ascertains the direction of the wind, rescues what is most important, fetches water, and behaves unhesitatingly in the way the emergency demands.
The Hara no nai hito is the opposite of all this.
The Hara no nai hito applies to the man without calm judgment. He lacks the measure which should be second nature. Therefore he reacts haphazardly and subectively, arbitrarily and capriciously. He cannot distinguish between important and unimportant, essential and unessential.
His judgment is not based upon facts but on temporary conditions and rests on subjective foundations, such as moods, whims, "nerves."
The Hara no nai hito is easily startled, is nervous, not because he is particularly sensitive but because he lacks that inner axis which would prevent his being thrown off centre and which would enable him to deal with situations realistically....
Hara [centre, belly] is only in slight measure innate. It is above all the result of persistent self-training and discipline, in fact the fruit of responsible, individual development.
That is what the Japanese means when he speaks of the Hara no dekita hito , the man who has accomplished or finished his belly, that is, himself: for he is mature. If this development does not take place, we have the Hara no dekita inai hito, someone who has not developed, who has remained immature, who is too young in the psychological sense. The Japanese also say Hara no dekita inai hito wa hito no ue ni tatsu koto ga dekinai: the man who has not finished his belly cannot stand above others (is not fit for leadership).HARA: THE VITAL CENTRE, KARLFRIED GRAF VON DURCKHEIM, 1962
Authority: A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
REVERSAL
It is never good to lose your presence of mind, but you can use those moments when it is under threat to know how to act in the future. You must find a way to put yourself in the thick of battle, then watch yourself in action. Look for your own weaknesses, and think about how to compensate for them. People who have never lost their presence of mind are actually in danger: someday they will be taken by surprise, and the fall will be harsh. All great generals, from Julius Caesar to Patton, have at some point lost their nerve and then have been the stronger for winning it back. The more you have lost your balance, the more you will know about how to right yourself.
You do not want to lose your presence of mind in key situations, but it is a wise course to find a way to make your enemies lose theirs. Take what throws you off balance and impose it on them. Make them act before they are ready. Surprise them–nothing is more unsettling than the unexpected need to act. Find their weakness, what makes them emotional, and give them a double dose of it. The more emotional you can make them, the farther you will push them off course.
Conclusion
The world is in the midst of World War III right now. It is being fought with things that are strange and unusual, and it is not being reported. In fact, the “news” is instead sending everyone off on “wild goose chases” down “rabbit holes”. No one actually knows what is going on.
It is critically important that you secure yourself and your family, and maintain a calm head through all of this. Let those around you make rash, foolish decisions, panic, and worry. That is not for you.
Recognize who you are, and where you are. Then, steely and calmly conduct your affirmation campaigns to wrest control of the reality that surrounds you and bend it to your will. You have this ability. Make it so.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my 33 Strategies of War index here..
This is a full reprint in HTML of the second chapter (Chapter 2) of the first part (Part I) of the massive volume titled "The 33 Strategies of War". Written by Robert Greene (with emotional support from his cats). I read this book while in prison, and found much of what was written to be interesting, enjoyable, and pertinent to things going on in my life. I think that you will as well.
PART I
2. DO NOT FIGHT THE LAST WAR
THE GUERRILLA-WAR-OF-THE-MIND STRATEGY
What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. Be ruthless on yourself; do not repeat the same tired methods. Sometimes you must force yourself to strike out in new directions, even if they involve risk. What you may lose in comfort and security, you will gain in surprise, making it harder for your enemies to tell what you will do. Wage guerrilla war on your mind, allowing no static lines of defense, no exposed citadels—make everything fluid and mobile.
Theory cannot equip the mind with formulas for solving problems, nor can it mark the narrow path on which the sole solution is supposed to lie by planting a hedge of principles on either side. But it can give the mind insight into the great mass of phenomena and of their relationships, then leave it free to rise into the higher realms of action. There the mind can use its innate talents to capacity, combining them all so as to seize on what is right and true as though this were a single idea formed by their concentrated pressure--as though it were a response to the immediate challenge rather than a product of thought.ON WAR, CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ, 1780-1831
THE LAST WAR
No one has risen to power faster than Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). In 1793 he went from captain in the French revolutionary army to brigadier general. In 1796 he became the leader of the French force in Italy fighting the Austrians, whom he crushed that year and again three years later. He became first consul of France in 1801, emperor in 1804. In 1805 he humiliated the Austrian and Russian armies at the Battle of Austerlitz.
For many, Napoleon was more than a great general; he was a genius, a god of war. Not everyone was impressed, though: there were Prussian generals who thought he had merely been lucky. Where Napoleon was rash and aggressive, they believed, his opponents had been timid and weak. If he ever faced the Prussians, he would be revealed as a great fake.
Among these Prussian generals was Friedrich Ludwig, prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746- 1818). Hohenlohe came from one of Germany’s oldest aristocratic families, one with an illustrious military record. He had begun his career young, serving under Frederick the Great (1712-86) himself, the man who had single-handedly made Prussia a great power. Hohenlohe had risen through the ranks, becoming a general at fifty–young by Prussian standards.
To Hohenlohe success in war depended on organization, discipline, and the use of superior strategies developed by trained military minds. The Prussians exemplified all of these virtues. Prussian soldiers drilled relentlessly until they could perform elaborate maneuvers as precisely as a machine. Prussian generals intensely studied the victories of Frederick the Great; war for them was a mathematical affair, the application of timeless principles. To the generals Napoleon was a Corsican hothead leading an unruly citizens’ army. Superior in knowledge and skill, they would out-strategize him. The French would panic and crumble in the face of the disciplined Prussians; the Napoleonic myth would lie in ruins, and Europe could return to its old ways.
In August 1806, Hohenlohe and his fellow generals finally got what they wanted: King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, tired of Napoleon’s broken promises, decided to declare war on him in six weeks. In the meantime he asked his generals to come up with a plan to crush the French.
Hohenlohe was ecstatic.
This campaign would be the climax of his career. He had been thinking for years about how to beat Napoleon, and he presented his plan at the generals’ first strategy session: precise marches would place the army at the perfect angle from which to attack the French as they advanced through southern Prussia. An attack in oblique formation–Frederick the Great’s favorite tactic–would deliver a devastating blow. The other generals, all in their sixties and seventies, presented their own plans, but these too were merely variants on the tactics of Frederick the Great. Discussion turned into argument; several weeks went by. Finally the king had to step in and create a compromise strategy that would satisfy all of his generals.
He [Baron Antoine-Henri de Jomini] --often quite arbitrarily--presses [the deeds of Napoleon] into a system which he foists on Napoleon, and, in doing so, completely fails to see what, above all, really constitutes the greatness of this captain--namely, the reckless boldness of his operations, where, scoffing at all theory, he always tried to do what suited each occasion best.
FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI, 1849-1930
A feeling of exuberance swept the country, which would soon relive the glory years of Frederick the Great. The generals realized that Napoleon knew about their plans–he had excellent spies–but the Prussians had a head start, and once their war machine started to move, nothing could stop it.
On October 5, a few days before the king was to declare war, disturbing news reached the generals.
A reconnaissance mission revealed that divisions of Napoleon’s army, which they had believed was dispersed, had marched east, merged, and was massing deep in southern Prussia. The captain who had led the scouting mission reported that the French soldiers were marching with packs on their backs: where the Prussians used slow-moving wagons to provision their troops, the French carried their own supplies and moved with astonishing speed and mobility.
Before the generals had time to adjust their plans, Napoleon’s army suddenly wheeled north, heading straight for Berlin, the heart of Prussia. The generals argued and dithered, moving their troops here and there, trying to decide where to attack. A mood of panic set in. Finally the king ordered a retreat: the troops would reassemble to the north and attack Napoleon’s flank as he advanced toward Berlin. Hohenlohe was in charge of the rear guard, protecting the Prussians’ retreat.
On October 14, near the town of Jena, Napoleon caught up with Hohenlohe, who finally faced the battle he had wanted so desperately. The numbers on both sides were equal, but while the French were an unruly force, fighting pell-mell and on the run, Hohenlohe kept his troops in tight order, orchestrating them like a corps de ballet. The fighting went back and forth until finally the French captured the village of Vierzehnheiligen.
Hohenlohe ordered his troops to retake the village. In a ritual dating back to Frederick the Great, a drum major beat out a cadence and the Prussian soldiers, their colors flying, re-formed their positions in perfect parade order, preparing to advance. They were in an open plain, though, and Napoleon’s men were behind garden walls and on the house roofs. The Prussians fell like ninepins to the French marksmen. Confused, Hohenlohe ordered his soldiers to halt and change formation. The drums beat again, the Prussians marched with magnificent precision, always a sight to behold–but the French kept shooting, decimating the Prussian line.
Never had Hohenlohe seen such an army. The French soldiers were like demons. Unlike his disciplined soldiers, they moved on their own, yet there was method to their madness. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, they rushed forward on both sides, threatening to surround the Prussians. The prince ordered a retreat. The Battle of Jena was over.
Like a house of cards, the Prussians quickly crumbled, one fortress falling after another. The king fled east. In a matter of days, virtually nothing remained of the once mighty Prussian army.
THE BAT AND THE HOUSE-FERRETS
A bat fell to the ground and was caught by a house-ferret. Realizing that she was on the point of being killed, she begged for her life. The house-ferret said to her that she couldn't let her go, for ferrets were supposed to be natural enemies to all birds. The bat replied that she herself was not a bird, but a mouse. She managed to extricate herself from her danger by this means. Eventually, falling a second time, the bat was caught by another house-ferret. Again she pleaded to the ferret not to eat her. The second ferret declared that she absolutely detested all mice. But the bat positively affirmed that she was not a mouse but a bat. And so she was released again. And that was how she saved herself from death twice by a mere change of name. This fable shows that it is not always necessary to confine ourselves to the same tactics. But, on the contrary, if we are adaptable to circumstances we can better escape danger.
FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
Interpretation
The reality facing the Prussians in 1806 was simple: they had fallen fifty years behind the times. Their generals were old, and instead of responding to present circumstances, they were repeating formulas that had worked in the past.
Their army moved slowly, and their soldiers were automatons on parade. The Prussian generals had many signs to warn them of disaster: their army had not performed well in its recent engagements, a number of Prussian officers had preached reform, and, last but not least, they had had ten years to study Napoleon–his innovative strategies and the speed and fluidity with which his armies converged on the enemy. Reality was staring them in the face, yet they chose to ignore it. Indeed, they told themselves that Napoleon was the one who was doomed.
You might find the Prussian army just an interesting historical example, but in fact you are likely marching in the same direction yourself. What limits individuals as well as nations is the inability to confront reality, to see things for what they are. As we grow older, we become more rooted in the past. Habit takes over. Something that has worked for us before becomes a doctrine, a shell to protect us from reality. Repetition replaces creativity. We rarely realize we’re doing this, because it is almost impossible for us to see it happening in our own minds. Then suddenly a young Napoleon crosses our path, a person who does not respect tradition, who fights in a new way. Only then do we see that our ways of thinking and responding have fallen behind the times.
Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue into the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today. You must cut yourself loose from the past and open your eyes to the present. Your tendency to fight the last war may lead to your final war.
When in 1806 the Prussian generals...plunged into the open jaws of disaster by using Frederickthe Great's oblique order of battle, it was not just a case of a style that had outlived its usefulness but the most extreme poverty of the imagination to which routine has ever led. The result was that the Prussian army under Hohenlohe was ruined more completely than any army has ever been ruined on the battlefield.--Carl von Clausewitz, ON WAR (1780-1831)
THE PRESENT WAR
In 1605, Miyamoto Musashi, a samurai who had made a name for himself as a swordsman at the young age of twenty-one, was challenged to a duel. The challenger, a young man named Matashichiro, came from the Yoshioka family, a clan itself renowned for swordsmanship. Earlier that year Musashi had defeated Matashichiro’s father, Genzaemon, in a duel. Days later he had killed Genzaemon’s younger brother in another duel. The Yoshioka family wanted revenge.
I never read any treatises on strategy.... When we fight, we do not take any books with us.
MAO TSE-TUNG, 1893-1976
Musashi’s friends smelled a trap in Matashichiro’s challenge and offered to accompany him to the duel, but Musashi went alone. In his earlier fights with the Yoshiokas, he had angered them by showing up hours late; this time, though, he came early and hid in the trees. Matashichiro arrived with a small army.
Musashi would “arrive way behind schedule as usual,” one of them said, “but that trick won’t work with us anymore!” Confident in their ambush, Matashichiro’s men lay down and hid in the grass. Suddenly Musashi leaped out from behind his tree and shouted, “I’ve been waiting long enough. Draw your sword!”
In one swift stroke, he killed Matashichiro, then took a position at an angle to the other men. All of them jumped to their feet, but they were caught off guard and startled, and instead of surrounding him, they stood in a broken line. Musashi simply ran down the line, killing the dazed men one after another in a matter of seconds.
Musashi’s victory sealed his reputation as one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen. He now roamed the country looking for suitable challenges. In one town he heard of an undefeated warrior named Baiken whose weapons were a sickle and a long chain with a steel ball at the end of it. Musashi wanted to see these weapons in action, but Baiken refused: the only way he could see them work, Baiken said, was by fighting a duel.
REFRESHING THE MIND When you and your opponent are engaged in combat which is dragging on with no end in sight, it is crucial that you should come up with a completely different technique. By refreshing your mind and techniques as you continue to fight your opponent, you will find an appropriate rhythm-timing with which to defeat him. Whenever you and your opponent become stagnant, you must immediately employ a different method of dealing with him in order to overcome him.THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS, MIYAMOTO MUSASHI, 1584-1645
Once again Musashi’s friends chose the safe route: they urged him to walk away. No one had come close to defeating Baiken, whose weapons were unbeatable: swinging his ball in the air to build up momentum, he would force his victim backward with a relentless charge, then hurl the ball at the man’s face. His opponent would have to fend off the ball and chain, and while his sword arm was occupied, in that brief instant Baiken would slash him with the sickle across his neck.
Ignoring the warnings of his friends, Musashi challenged Baiken and showed up at the man’s tent with two swords, one long, one short. Baiken had never seen someone fight with two swords. Also, instead of letting Baiken charge him, Musashi charged first, pushing his foe back on his heels. Baiken hesitated to throw the ball, for Musashi could parry it with one sword and strike him with the other. As he looked for an opening, Musashi suddenly knocked him off balance with a blow of the short sword and then, in a split second, followed with a thrust of the long one, stabbing him through and killing the once undefeated master Baiken.
A few years later, Musashi heard about a great samurai named Sasaki Ganryu, who fought with a very long sword–a startlingly beautiful weapon, which seemed possessed of some warlike spirit. This fight would be Musashi’s ultimate test. Ganryu accepted his challenge; the duel would take place on a little island near the samurai’s home.
It is a disease to be obsessed by the thought of winning. It is also a disease to be obsessed by the thought of employing your swordsmanship. So it is to be obsessed by the thought of using everything you have learned, and to be obsessed by the thought of attacking. It is also a disease to be obsessed and stuck with the thought of ridding yourself of any of these diseases. A disease here is an obsessed mind that dwells on one thing. Because all these diseases are in your mind, you must get rid of them to put your mind in order.
TAKUAN, JAPAN, 1573-1645
On the morning of the duel, the island was packed. A fight between such warriors was unprecedented. Ganryu arrived on time, but Musashi was late, very late. An hour went by, then two; Ganryu was furious.
Finally a boat was spotted approaching the island. Its passenger was lying down, half asleep, it seemed, whittling at a long wooden oar. It was Musashi. He seemed lost in thought, staring into the clouds. When the boat came to shore, he tied a dirty towel around his head and jumped out of the boat, brandishing the long oar–longer than Ganryu’s famous sword. This strange man had come to the biggest fight of his life with an oar for a sword and a towel for a headband.
Ganryu called out angrily, “Are you so frightened of me that you have broken your promise to be here by eight?” Musashi said nothing but stepped closer. Ganryu drew his magnificent sword and threw the sheath onto the sand. Musashi smiled: “Sasaki, you have just sealed your doom.” “Me? Defeated? Impossible!” “What victor on earth,” replied Musashi, “would abandon his sheath to the sea?” This enigmatic remark only made Ganryu angrier.
Then Musashi charged, aiming his sharpened oar straight for his enemy’s eyes. Ganryu quickly raised his sword and struck at Musashi’s head but missed, only cutting the towel headband in two. He had never missed before. In almost the same instant, Musashi brought down his wooden sword, knocking Ganryu off his feet. The spectators gasped. As Ganryu struggled up, Musashi killed him with a blow to the head. Then, after bowing politely to the men officiating over the duel, he got back into the boat and left as calmly as he had arrived.
From that moment on, Musashi was considered a swordsman without peer.
Anyone can plan a campaign, but few are capable of waging war, because only a true military genius can handle the developments and circumstances.
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, 1769-1821
Interpretation
Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Book of Five Rings, won all his duels for one reason: in each instance he adapted his strategy to his opponent and to the circumstances of the moment.
With Matashichiro he decided it was time to arrive early, which he hadn’t done in his previous fights. Victory against superior numbers depended on surprise, so he leaped up when his opponents lay down; then, once he had killed their leader, he set himself at an angle that invited them to charge at him instead of surrounding him, which would have been much more dangerous for him.
With Baiken it was simply a matter of using two swords and then crowding his space, giving him no time to react intelligently to this novelty.
With Ganryu he set out to infuriate and humiliate his haughty opponent– the wooden sword, the nonchalant attitude, the dirty-towel headband, the enigmatic remark, the charge at the eyes.
Musashi’s opponents depended on brilliant technique, flashy swords, and unorthodox weapons. That is the same as fighting the last war: instead of responding to the moment, they relied on training, technology, and what had worked before.
Musashi, who had grasped the essence of strategy when he was still very young, turned their rigidity into their downfall. His first thought was of the gambit that would take this particular opponent most by surprise. Then he would anchor himself in the moment: having set his opponent off balance with something unexpected, he would watch carefully, then respond with another action, usually improvised, that would turn mere disequilibrium into defeat and death.
Thunder and wind: the image of DURATION. Thus the superior man stands firm And does not change his direction. Thunder rolls, and the wind blows; both are examples of extreme mobility and so are seemingly the very opposite of duration, but the laws governing their appearance and subsidence, their coming and going, endure. In the same way the independence of the superior man is not based on rigidity and immobility of character. He always keeps abreast of the time and changes with it. What endures is the unswerving directive, the inner law of his being, which determines all his actions.THE I CHING, CHINA, CIRCA EIGHTH CENTURY B.C.
In preparing yourself for war, you must rid yourself of myths and misconceptions. Strategy is not a question of learning a series of moves or ideas to follow like a recipe; victory has no magic formula. Ideas are merely nutrients for the soil: they lie in your brain as possibilities, so that in the heat of the moment they can inspire a direction, an appropriate and creative response. Let go of all fetishes–books, techniques, formulas, flashy weapons–and learn to become your own strategist.
Thus one's victories in battle cannot be repeated--they take their form in response to inexhaustibly changing circumstances.
--Sun-tzu (fourth century B.C.)
KEYS TO WARFARE
In looking back on an unpleasant or disagreeable experience, the thought inevitably occurs to us: if only we had said or done x instead of y, if only we could do it over.
Many a general has lost his head in the heat of battle and then, looking back, has thought of the one tactic, the one maneuver, that would have changed it all.
Even Prince Hohenlohe, years later, could see how he had botched the retaking of Vierzehnheiligen.
The problem, though, is not that we think of the solution only when it is too late. The problem is that we imagine that knowledge is what was lacking: if only we had known more, if only we had thought it through more thoroughly.
That is precisely the wrong approach.
What makes us go astray in the first place is that we are unattuned to the present moment, insensitive to the circumstances. We are listening to our own thoughts, reacting to things that happened in the past, applying theories and ideas that we digested long ago but that have nothing to do with our predicament in the present. More books, theories, and thinking only make the problem worse.
My policy is to have no policy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1809-1865
Understand: the greatest generals, the most creative strategists, stand out not because they have more knowledge but because they are able, when necessary, to drop their preconceived notions and focus intensely on the present moment. That is how creativity is sparked and opportunities are seized. Knowledge, experience, and theory have limitations: no amount of thinking in advance can prepare you for the chaos of life, for the infinite possibilities of the moment. The great philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz called this “friction”: the difference between our plans and what actually happens. Since friction is inevitable, our minds have to be capable of keeping up with change and adapting to the unexpected. The better we can adapt our thoughts to changing circumstances, the more realistic our responses to them will be. The more we lose ourselves in predigested theories and past experiences, the more inappropriate and delusional our response.
It can be valuable to analyze what went wrong in the past, but it is far more important to develop the capacity to think in the moment. In that way you will make far fewer mistakes to analyze.
If you put an empty gourd on the water and touch it, it will slip to one side. No matter how you try, it won't stay in one spot. The mind of someone who has reached the ultimate state does not stay with anything, even for a second. It is like an empty gourd on the water that is pushed around.
TAKUAN, JAPAN, 1573-1645
Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency in the mind.
The first step is simply to be aware of the process and of the need to fight it. The second is to adopt a few tactics that might help you to restore the mind’s natural flow.
Reexamine all your cherished beliefs and principles. When Napoleon was asked what principles of war he followed, he replied that he followed none. His genius was his ability to respond to circumstances, to make the most of what he was given–he was the supreme opportunist. Your only principle, similarly, should be to have no principles. To believe that strategy has inexorable laws or timeless rules is to take up a rigid, static position that will be your undoing. Of course the study of history and theory can broaden your vision of the world, but you have to combat theory’s tendency to harden into dogma. Be brutal with the past, with tradition, with the old ways of doing things. Declare war on sacred cows and voices of convention in your own head.
Our education is often a problem. During World War II, the British fighting the Germans in the deserts of North Africa were well trained in tank warfare; you might say they were indoctrinated with theories about it. Later in the campaign, they were joined by American troops who were much less educated in these tactics. Soon, though, the Americans began to fight in a way that was equal if not superior to the British style; they adapted to the mobility of this new kind of desert combat. According to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel himself, the leader of the German army in North Africa,
"The Americans...profited far more than the British from their experience in Africa, thus confirming the axiom that education is easier than reeducation."
What Rommel meant was that education tends to burn precepts into the mind that are hard to shake. In the midst of combat, the trained mind may fall a step behind–focusing more on learned rules than on the changing circumstances of battle.
When you are faced with a new situation, it is often best to imagine that you know nothing and that you need to start learning all over again. Clearing your head of everything you thought you knew, even your most cherished ideas, will give you the mental space to be educated by your present experience–the best school of all. You will develop your own strategic muscles instead of depending on other people’s theories and books.
Erase the memory of the last war. The last war you fought is a danger, even if you won it. It is fresh in your mind. If you were victorious, you will tend to repeat the strategies you just used, for success makes us lazy and complacent; if you lost, you may be skittish and indecisive.
Do not think about the last war; you do not have the distance or the detachment. Instead do whatever you can to blot it from your mind. During the Vietnam War, the great North Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap had a simple rule of thumb: after a successful campaign, he would convince himself that it had actually been a failure. As a result he never got drunk on his success, and he never repeated the same strategy in the next battle. Rather he had to think through each situation anew.
Ted Williams, perhaps baseball’s greatest pure hitter, made a point of always trying to forget his last at-bat. Whether he’d gotten a home run or a strikeout, he put it behind him. No two at-bats are the same, even against the same pitcher, and Williams wanted an open mind. He would not wait for the next at-bat to start forgetting: the minute he got back to the dugout, he started focusing on what was happening in the game taking place. Attention to the details of the present is by far the best way to crowd out the past and forget the last war.
Keep the mind moving. When we were children, our minds never stopped. We were open to new experiences and absorbed as much of them as possible. We learned fast, because the world around us excited us. When we felt frustrated or upset, we would find some creative way to get what we wanted and then quickly forget the problem as something new crossed our path.
All the greatest strategists–Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Musashi–were childlike in this respect. Sometimes, in fact, they even acted like children.
The reason is simple: superior strategists see things as they are. They are highly sensitive to dangers and opportunities. Nothing stays the same in life, and keeping up with circumstances as they change requires a great deal of mental fluidity. Great strategists do not act according to preconceived ideas; they respond to the moment, like children. Their minds are always moving, and they are always excited and curious. They quickly forget the past–the present is much too interesting.
Defeat is bitter. Bitter to the common soldier, but trebly bitter to his general. The soldier may comfort himself with the thought that, whatever the result, he has done his duty faithfully and steadfastly, but the commander has failed in his duty if he has not won victory--for that is his duty.
He has no other comparable to it. He will go over in his mind the events of the campaign. "Here," he will think, "I went wrong; here I took counsel of my fears when I should have been bold; there I should have waited to gather strength, not struck piecemeal; at such a moment I failed to grasp opportunity when it was presented to me." He will remember the soldiers whom he sent into the attack that failed and who did not come back.
He will recall the look in the eyes of men who trusted him. "I have failed them," he will say to himself, "and failed my country!" He will see himself for what he is--a defeated general.
In a dark hour he will turn in upon himself and question the very foundations of his leadership and manhood. And then he must stop! For if he is ever to command in battle again, he must shake off these regrets, and stamp on them, as they claw at his will and his self-confidence. He must beat off these attacks he delivers against himself, and cast out the doubts born of failure.
Forget them, and remember only the lessons to be learned from defeat--they are more than from victory.DEFEAT INTO VICTORY, WILLIAM SLIM, 1897-1970
The Greek thinker Aristotle thought that life was defined by movement. What does not move is dead. What has speed and mobility has more possibilities, more life. We all start off with the mobile mind of a Napoleon, but as we get older, we tend to become more like the Prussians. You may think that what you’d like to recapture from your youth is your looks, your physical fitness, your simple pleasures, but what you really need is the fluidity of mind you once possessed.
Whenever you find your thoughts revolving around a particular subject or idea–an obsession, a resentment–force them past it. Distract yourself with something else. Like a child, find something new to be absorbed by, something worthy of concentrated attention. Do not waste time on things you cannot change or influence. Just keep moving.
Absorb the spirit of the times. Throughout the history of warfare, there have been classic battles in which the past has confronted the future in a hopeless mismatch. It happened in the seventh century, when the Persians and Byzantines confronted the invincible armies of Islam, with their new form of desert fighting; or in the first half of the thirteenth century, when the Mongols used relentless mobility to overwhelm the heavy armies of the Russians and Europeans; or in 1806, when Napoleon crushed the Prussians at Jena.
In each case the conquering army developed a way of fighting that maximized a new form of technology or a new social order.
You can reproduce this effect on a smaller scale by attuning yourself to the spirit of the times. Developing antennae for the trends that have yet to crest takes work and study, as well as the flexibility to adapt to those trends.
As you get older, it is best to periodically alter your style.
In the golden age of Hollywood, most actresses had very short careers. But Joan Crawford fought the studio system and managed to have a remarkably long career by constantly changing her style, going from siren to noir heroine to cult queen.
Instead of staying sentimentally attached to some fashion of days gone by, she was able to sense a rising trend and go with it. By constantly adapting and changing your style, you will avoid the pitfalls of your previous wars. Just when people feel they know you, you will change.
Reverse course. The great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky suffered from epilepsy. Just before a seizure, he would experience a moment of intense ecstasy, which he described as a feeling of being suddenly flooded with reality, a momentary vision of the world exactly as it is.
Later he would find himself getting depressed, as this vision was crowded out by the habits and routines of daily life. During these depressions, wanting to feel that closeness to reality again, he would go to the nearest casino and gamble away all his money.
There reality would overwhelm him; comfort and routine would be gone, stale patterns broken. Having to rethink everything, he would get his creative energy back. This was the closest he could deliberately come to the sense of ecstasy he got through epilepsy.
Dostoyevsky’s method was a little extreme, but sometimes you have to shake yourself up, break free from the hold of the past.
This can take the form of reversing your course, doing the opposite of what you would normally do in any given situation, putting yourself in some unusual circumstance, or literally starting over. In those situations the mind has to deal with a new reality, and it snaps to life. The change may be alarming, but it is also refreshing–even exhilarating.
To know that one is in a certain condition, in a certain state, is already a process of liberation; but a man who is not aware of his condition, of his struggle, tries to be something other than he is, which brings about habit. So, then, let us keep in mind that we want to examine what is, to observe and be aware of exactly what is the actual, without giving it any slant, without giving it an interpretation. It needs an extraordinarily astute mind, an extraordinarily pliable heart, to be aware of and to follow what is; because what is is constantly moving, constantly undergoing a transformation, and if the mind is tethered to belief, to knowledge, it ceases to pursue, it ceases to follow the swift movement of what is. What is is not static, surely--it is constantly moving, as you will see if you observe it very closely. To follow it, you need a very swift mind and a pliable heart--which are denied when the mind is static, fixed in a belief, in a prejudice, in an identification; and a mind and heart that are dry cannot follow easily, swiftly, that which is.
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI, 1895-1986
Relationships often develop a certain tiresome predictability. You do what you usually do, other people respond the way they usually do, and around it goes. If you reverse course, act in a novel manner, you alter the entire dynamic. Do this every so often to break up the relationship’s stale patterns and open it to new possibilities.
Think of your mind as an army.
Armies must adapt to the complexity and chaos of modern war by becoming more fluid and maneuverable. The ultimate extension of this evolution is guerrilla warfare, which exploits chaos by making disorder and unpredictability a strategy.
The guerrilla army never stops to defend a particular place or town; it wins by always moving, staying one step ahead. By following no set pattern, it gives the enemy no target.
The guerrilla army never repeats the same tactic. It responds to the situation, the moment, the terrain where it happens to find itself. There is no front, no concrete line of communication or supply, no slow-moving wagon.
The guerrilla army is pure mobility.
That is the model for your new way of thinking. Apply no tactic rigidly; do not let your mind settle into static positions, defending any particular place or idea, repeating the same lifeless maneuvers. Attack problems from new angles, adapting to the landscape and to what you’re given. By staying in constant motion you show your enemies no target to aim at. You exploit the chaos of the world instead of succumbing to it.
REVERSAL
There is never any value in fighting the last war. But while you’re eliminating that pernicious tendency, you must imagine that your enemy is trying to do the same–trying to learn from and adapt to the present.
Some of history’s worst military disasters have come not out of fighting the last war but out of assuming that that’s what your opponent will do.
When Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, he thought the United States had yet to recover from “Vietnam syndrome”–the fear of casualties and loss that had been so traumatic during the Vietnam period–and that it would either avoid war altogether or would fight in the same way it had, trying to win the fight from the air instead of on the ground.
He did not realize that the American military was ready for a new kind of war.
Remember: the loser in any battle may be too traumatized to fight again but may also learn from the experience and move on. Err on the side of caution; be ready. Never let your enemy surprise you in war.
Conclusion
My latest article (prior to this one) underlines this entire strategy. Which is WHY all the American Generals and Admirals are telling the politicians and neocons in Washington DC to “Stand Down”. They, those on K-street in Washington DC want to fight against China or Russia. But the generals strongly advise against it.
Personally, the United States is in need of a shake-up, and maybe it’s time for a serious “house cleaning” in Washington DC as well. Maybe it would be a good thing to see Washington DC erased from the map. I am sure that the world would be a much calmer and nicer world.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my 33 Strategies of War index here..
This is a full reprint in HTML of the first chapter (Chapter 1) of the first part (Part I) of the massive volume titled "The 33 Strategies of War". Written by Robert Greene (with emotional support from his cats). I read this book while in prison, and found much of what was written to be interesting, enjoyable, and pertinent to things going on in my life. I think that you will as well.
PART I
SELF-DIRECTED WARFARE
War, or any kind of conflict, is waged and won through strategy. Think of strategy as a series of lines and arrows aimed at a goal: at getting you to a certain point in the world, at helping you to attack a problem in your path, at figuring out how to encircle and destroy your enemy. Before directing these arrows at your enemies, however, you must first direct them at yourself.
Your mind is the starting point of all war and all strategy. A mind that is easily overwhelmed by emotion, that is rooted in the past instead of the present, that cannot see the world with clarity and urgency, will create strategies that will always miss the mark.
To become a true strategist, you must take three steps.
First, become aware of the weakness and illness that can take hold of the mind, warping its strategic powers. Second, declare a kind of war on yourself to make yourself move forward. Third, wage ruthless and continual battle on the enemies within you by applying certain strategies.
The following four chapters are designed to make you aware of the disorders that are probably flourishing in your mind right now and to arm you with specific strategies for eliminating them.
These chapters are arrows to aim at yourself. Once you have absorbed them through thought and practice, they will serve as a self-corrective device in all your future battles, freeing the grand strategist within you.
DECLARE WAR ON YOUR ENEMIES
THE POLARITY STRATEGY
Life is endless battle and conflict, and you cannot fight effectively unless you can identify your enemies. People are subtle and evasive, disguising their intentions, pretending to be on your side.
You need clarity. Learn to smoke out your enemies, to spot them by the signs and patterns that reveal hostility. Then, once you have them in your sights, inwardly declare war. As the opposite poles of a magnet create motion, your enemies–your opposites–can fill you with purpose and direction. As people who stand in your way, who represent what you loathe, people to react against, they are a source of energy. Do not be naive: with some enemies there can be no compromise, no
middle ground.
Then [Xenophon] got up, and first called together the under-officers of Proxenos.
When they were collected he said:
"Gentlemen, I cannot sleep and I don't think you can; and I can't lie here when I see what a plight we are in.
It is clear that the enemy did not show us open war until they thought they had everything well prepared; and no-one among us takes the pains to make the best possible resistance.
"Yet if we give way, and fall into the king's power, what do we expect our fate will be?
When his own half-brother was dead, the man cut off his head and cut off his hand and stuck them up on a pole.
We have no-one to plead for us, and we marched here to make the king a slave or to kill him if we could, and what do you think our fate will be?
Would he not go to all extremes of torture to make the whole world afraid of making war on him?
Why, we must do anything to keep out of his power!
While the truce lasted, I never ceased pitying ourselves, I never ceased congratulating the king and his army.
What a vast country I saw, how large, what endless provisions, what crowds of servants, how many cattle and sheep, what gold, what raiment!
But when I thought of these our soldiers--we had no share in all these good things unless we bought them, and few had anything left to buy with; and to procure anything without buying was debarred by our oaths.
While I reasoned like this, I sometimes feared the truce more than the war now.
"However, now they have broken the truce, there is an end both to their insolence and to our suspicion.
There lie all these good things before us, prizes for whichever side prove the better men; the gods are the judges of the contest, and they will be with us, naturally.... "
When you have appointed as many commanders as are wanted, assemble all the other soldiers and encourage them; that will be just what they want now.
Perhaps you have noticed yourselves how crestfallen they were when they came into camp, how crestfallen they went on guard; in such a state I don't know what you could do with them....
But if someone could turn their minds from wondering what will happen to them, and make them wonder what they could do, they will be much more cheerful.
You know, I am sure, that not numbers or strength brings victory in war; but whichever army goes into battle stronger in soul, their enemies generally cannot withstand them."
-ANABASIS: THE MARCH UP COUNTRY, XENOPHON, 430?-355? B.C.
THE INNER ENEMY
In the spring of 401 B.C., Xenophon, a thirty-year-old country gentleman who lived outside Athens, received an intriguing invitation: a friend was recruiting Greek soldiers to fight as mercenaries for Cyrus, brother of the Persian king Ataxerxes, and asked him to go along.
The request was somewhat unusual: the Greeks and the Persians had long been bitter enemies. Some eighty years earlier, in fact, Persia had tried to conquer Greece.
But the Greeks, renowned fighters, had begun to offer their services to the highest bidder, and within the Persian Empire there were rebellious
cities that Cyrus wanted to punish.
Greek mercenaries would be the perfect reinforcements in his large army.
Xenophon was not a soldier. In fact, he had led a coddled life, raising dogs and horses, traveling into Athens to talk philosophy with his good friend Socrates, living off his inheritance.
He wanted adventure, though, and here he had a chance to meet the great Cyrus, learn war, see Persia. Perhaps when it was all over, he would write a book. He would go not as a mercenary (he was too wealthy for that) but as a philosopher and historian.
After consulting the oracle at Delphi, he accepted the invitation.
Some 10,000 Greek soldiers joined Cyrus’s punitive expedition. The mercenaries were a motley crew from all over Greece, there for the money and the adventure.
They had a good time of it for a while, but a few months into the job, after leading them deep into Persia, Cyrus admitted his true purpose: he was marching on Babylon, mounting a civil war to unseat his brother and make himself
king.
Unhappy to be deceived, the Greeks argued and complained, but Cyrus offered them more money, and that quieted them.
The armies of Cyrus and Ataxerxes met on the plains of Cunaxa, not far from Babylon. Early in the battle, Cyrus was killed, putting a quick end to the war.
Now the Greeks’ position was suddenly precarious: having fought on the wrong side of a civil war, they were far from home and surrounded by hostile Persians.
They were soon told, however, that Ataxerxes had no quarrel with them.
His only desire was that they leave Persia as quickly as possible. He even sent them an envoy, the Persian commander Tissaphernes, to provision them and escort them back to Greece.
And so, guided by Tissaphernes and the Persian army, the mercenaries began the long trek home–some fifteen hundred miles.
A few days into the march, the Greeks had new fears: their supplies from the Persians were insufficient, and the route that Tissaphernes had chosen for them was problematic.
Could they trust these Persians?
They started to argue among themselves.
The Greek commander Clearchus expressed his soldiers’ concerns to Tissaphernes, who was sympathetic: Clearchus should bring his captains to a meeting at a neutral site, the Greeks would voice their grievances, and the two sides would come to an understanding.
Clearchus agreed and appeared the next day with his officers at the appointed time and place–where, however, a large contingent of Persians surrounded and arrested them.
They were beheaded that same day.
One man managed to escape and warn the Greeks of the Persian treachery.
That evening the Greek camp was a desolate place. Some men argued and accused; others slumped drunk to the ground. A few considered flight, but with their leaders dead, they felt doomed.
That night Xenophon, who had stayed mostly on the sidelines during the expedition, had a dream: a lightning bolt from Zeus set fire to his father’s house.
He woke up in a sweat.
It suddenly struck him: death was staring the Greeks in the face, yet they lay around moaning, despairing, arguing.
The problem was in their heads.
Fighting for money rather than for a purpose or cause, unable to distinguish between friend and foe, they had gotten lost.
The barrier between them and home was not rivers or mountains or the Persian army but their own muddled state of mind.
Xenophon didn’t want to die in this disgraceful way.
He was no military man, but he knew philosophy and the way men think, and he believed that if the Greeks concentrated on the enemies who wanted to kill them, they would become alert and creative.
If they focused on the vile treachery of the Persians, they would grow angry, and their anger would motivate them.
They had to stop being confused mercenaries and go back to being Greeks, the polar opposite of the faithless Persians.
What they needed was clarity and direction.
Xenophon decided to be Zeus’s lightning bolt, waking the men up and illuminating their way. He called a meeting of all the surviving officers and stated his plan:
We will declare war without parley on the Persians–no more thoughts of bargaining or debate.
We will waste no more time on argument or accusation among ourselves; every ounce of our energy will be spent on the Persians.
We will be as inventive and inspired as our ancestors at Marathon, who fought off a vastly larger Persian army.
We will burn our wagons, live off the land, move fast. We will not for one second lay down our arms or forget the dangers around us.
It is us or them, life or death, good or evil.
Should any man try to confuse us with clever talk or with vague ideas of appeasement, we will declare him too stupid and cowardly to be on our side and we will drive him away.
Let the Persians make us merciless.
We must be consumed with one idea: getting home alive.
The officers knew that Xenophon was right.
The next day a Persian officer came to see them, offering to act as an ambassador between them and Ataxerxes; following Xenophon’s counsel, he was quickly and rudely driven away.
It was now war and nothing else.
Roused to action, the Greeks elected leaders, Xenophon among them, and began the march home.
Forced to depend on their wits, they quickly learned to adapt to the terrain, to avoid battle, to move at night.
They successfully eluded the Persians, beating them to a key mountain pass and moving through it before they could be caught.
Although many enemy tribes still lay between them and Greece, the dreaded Persian army was now behind them.
It took several years, but almost all of them returned to Greece alive.
Political thought and political instinct prove themselves theoretically and practically in the ability to distinguish friend and enemy. The high points of politics are simultaneously the moments in which the enemy is, in concrete clarity, recognized as the enemy.
CARL SCHMITT, 1888-1985
Interpretation
Life is battle and struggle, and you will constantly find yourself facing bad situations, destructive relationships, dangerous engagements.
How you confront these difficulties will determine your fate.
As Xenophon said, your obstacles are not rivers or mountains or other people;
your obstacle is yourself.
If you feel lost and confused, if you lose your sense of direction, if you cannot tell the difference between friend and foe, you have only yourself to blame.
Think of yourself as always about to go into battle. Everything depends on your frame of mind and on how you look at the world.
A shift of perspective can transform you from a passive and confused mercenary into a motivated and creative fighter.
We are defined by our relationship to other people.
As children we develop an identity by differentiating ourselves from others, even to the point of pushing them away, rejecting them, rebelling.
The more clearly you recognize who you do not want to be, then, the clearer your sense of identity and purpose will be.
Without a sense of that polarity, without an enemy to react against, you are as lost as the Greek mercenaries.
Duped by other people’s treachery, you hesitate at the fatal moment and descend into whining and argument.
Focus on an enemy.
It can be someone who blocks your path or sabotages you, whether subtly or
obviously;
It can be someone who has hurt you or someone who has fought you unfairly;
It can be a value or an idea that you loathe and that you see in an individual or group.
It can be an abstraction: stupidity, smugness, vulgar materialism.
Do not listen to people who say that the distinction between friend and enemy is primitive and passe.
They are just disguising their fear of conflict behind a front of false warmth.
They are trying to push you off course, to infect you with the vagueness that inflicts them.
Once you feel clear and motivated, you will have space for true friendship and true compromise.
Your enemy is the polar star that guides you.
Given that direction, you can enter battle.
He that is not with me is against me.
--Luke 11:23
THE OUTER ENEMY
In the early 1970s, the British political system had settled into a comfortable pattern: the Labour Party would win an election, and then, the next time around, the Conservatives would win.
Back and forth the power went, all fairly genteel and civilized.
In fact, the two parties had come to resemble one another.
But when the Conservatives lost in 1974, some of them had had enough. Wanting
to shake things up, they proposed Margaret Thatcher as their leader. The party was divided that year, and Thatcher took advantage of the split and won the nomination.
I am by nature warlike.
To attack is among my instincts.
To be able to be an enemy, to be an enemy--that presupposes a strong nature, it is in any event a condition of every strong nature.
It needs resistances, consequently it seeks resistances....
The strength of one who attacks has in the opposition he needs a kind of gauge; every growth reveals itself in the seeking out of a powerful opponent--or problem: for a philosopher who is warlike also challenges problems to a duel.
The undertaking is to master, not any resistances that happen to present themselves, but those against which one has to bring all one's strength, suppleness and mastery of weapons--to master equal opponents.
-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, 1844-1900
No one had ever seen a politician quite like Thatcher.
A woman in a world run by men, she was also proudly middle class–the daughter of a grocer–in the traditional party of the aristocracy.
Her clothes were prim, more like a housewife’s than a politician’s.
She had not been a player in the Conservative Party; in fact, she was on its right-wing fringes.
Most striking of all was her style: where other politicians were smooth and conciliatory, she confronted her opponents, attacking them directly. She had an appetite for battle.
Most politicians saw Thatcher’s election as a fluke and didn’t expect her to last. And in her first few years leading the party, when Labour was in power, she did little to change their opinion.
She railed against the socialist system, which in her mind had choked all initiative and was largely responsible for the decline of the British economy.
She criticized the Soviet Union at a time of detente.
Then, in the winter of 1978-79, several public-sector unions decided to strike.
Thatcher went on the warpath, linking the strikes to the Labour Party and Prime Minister James Callaghan.
This was bold, divisive talk, good for making the evening news–but not for winning elections.
You had to be gentle with the voters, reassure them, not frighten them. At least that was the conventional wisdom.
In 1979 the Labour Party called a general election.
Thatcher kept on the attack, categorizing the election as a crusade against socialism and as Great Britain’s last chance to modernize.
Callaghan was the epitome of the genteel politician, but Thatcher got under his skin.
He had nothing but disdain for this housewife-turned-politician, and he returned her fire: he agreed that the election was a watershed, for if Thatcher won, she would send the economy into shock.
The strategy seemed partly to work; Thatcher scared many voters, and the polls that tracked personal popularity showed that her numbers had fallen well below Callaghan’s.
At the same time, though, her rhetoric, and Callaghan’s response to it, polarized the electorate, which could finally see a sharp difference between the parties.
Dividing the public into left and right, she charged into the breach, sucking
in attention and attracting the undecided. She won a sizable victory.
Thatcher had bowled over the voters, but now, as prime minister, she would have to moderate her tone, heal the wounds–according to the polls, at any rate, that was what the public wanted.
But Thatcher as usual did the opposite, enacting budget cuts that went even deeper than she had proposed during the campaign.
As her policies played out, the economy did indeed go into shock, as
Callaghan had said it would, and unemployment soared.
Men in her own party, many of whom had by that point been resenting her treatment of them for years, began publicly to question her
abilities.
These men, whom she called the “wets,” were the most respected members of the
Conservative Party, and they were in a panic: she was leading the country into an economic disaster that they were afraid they would pay for with their careers.
Thatcher’s response was to purge them from her cabinet.
She seemed bent on pushing everyone away; her legion of enemies was growing, her poll numbers slipping still lower.
Surely the next election would be her last.
[Salvador Dali] had no time for those who did not agree with his principles, and took the war into the enemy camp by writing insulting letters to many of the friends he had made in the Residencia, calling them pigs.
He happily compared himself to a clever bull avoiding the cowboys and generally had a great deal of fun stirring up and scandalizing almost every Catalan intellectual worthy of the name. Dali was beginning to burn his bridges with the zeal of an arsonist....
"We [Dali and the filmmaker Luis Bunuel] had resolved to send a poison pen letter to one of the great celebrities of Spain,"
Dali later told his biographer Alain Bosquet.
"Our goal was pure subversion.... Both of us were strongly influenced by Nietzsche....
We hit upon two names: Manuel de Falla, the composer, and Juan Ramon Jimenez, the poet. We drew straws and Jimenez won....
So we composed a frenzied and nasty letter of incomparable violence and addressed it to Juan Ramon Jimenez.
It read: 'Our Distinguished Friend: We believe it is our duty to inform you--disinterestedly--that your work is deeply repugnant to us because of its immorality, its hysteria, its arbitrary quality....' It caused Jimenez great pain...."
THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY: A BIOGRAPHY OF DALI, MEREDITH ETHERINGTON- SMITH, 1992
Then, in 1982, on the other side of the Atlantic, the military junta that ruled Argentina, needing a cause to distract the country from its many problems, invaded the Falkland Islands, a British possession to which, however, Argentina had a historical claim.
The officers of the junta felt certain that the British would abandon these islands, barren and remote.
But Thatcher did not hesitate: despite the distance–eight thousand miles–she sent a naval task force to the Falklands.
Labour leaders attacked her for this pointless and costly war.
Many in her own party were terrified; if the attempt to retake the islands failed, the party would be ruined.
Thatcher was more alone than ever.
But much of the public now saw her qualities, which had seemed so irritating, in a new light: her obstinacy became courage, nobility.
Compared to the dithering, pantywaisted, careerist men around her, Thatcher seemed resolute and confident.
The British successfully won back the Falklands, and Thatcher stood taller than ever. Suddenly the country’s economic and social problems were forgotten.
Thatcher now dominated the scene, and in the next two elections she crushed Labour.
Interpretation
Margaret Thatcher came to power as an outsider: a middle-class woman, a right-wing radical. The first instinct of most outsiders who attain power is to become insiders–life on the outside is hard–but in doing so they lose their identity, their difference, the thing that makes them stand out in the public eye.
If Thatcher had become like the men around her, she would simply have been
replaced by yet another man.
Her instinct was to stay an outsider.
In fact, she pushed being an outsider as far as it could go: she set herself up as one woman against an army of men.
At every step of the way, to give her the contrast she needed, Thatcher marked out an opponent: the socialists, the wets, the Argentineans.
These enemies helped to define her image as determined, powerful, self-sacrificing.
Thatcher was not seduced by popularity, which is ephemeral and superficial.
Pundits might obsess over popularity numbers, but in the mind of the voter–which, for a politician, is the field of battle–a dominating presence has more pull than does likability. Let some of the public hate you; you cannot please everyone.
Your enemies, those you stand sharply against, will help you to forge a support base that will not desert you.
Do not crowd into the center, where everyone else is; there is no room to fight in a crowd.
Polarize people, drive some of them away, and create a space for battle.
Everything in life conspires to push you into the center, and not just politically.
The center is the realm of compromise.
Getting along with other people is an important skill to have, but it comes with a danger: by always seeking the path of least resistance, the path of conciliation, you forget who you are, and you sink into the center with everyone else. Instead see yourself as a fighter, an outsider surrounded by enemies.
Constant battle will keep you strong and alert. It will help to define what you believe in, both for yourself and for others.
Do not worry about antagonizing people; without antagonism there is no battle, and without battle, there is no chance of victory.
Do not be lured by the need to be liked: better to be respected, even feared.
Victory over your enemies will bring you a more lasting popularity.
The opposition of a member to an associate is no purely negative social factor, if only because such opposition is often the only means for making life with actually unbearable people at least possible.
If we did not even have the power and the right to rebel against tyranny, arbitrariness, moodiness, tactlessness, we could not bear to have any relation to people from whose characters we thus suffer.
We would feel pushed to take desperate steps–and these, indeed, would end the
relation but do not, perhaps, constitute “conflict.”
Not only because of the fact that…oppression usually increases if it is suffered calmly and without protest, but also because opposition gives us inner satisfaction, distraction, relief…
Our opposition makes us feel that we are not completely victims of the circumstances.
GEORG SIMMEL, 1858-1918
Don't depend on the enemy not coming; depend rather on being ready for him.
--Sun-tzu, The Art of War (fourth century B.C.)
KEYS TO WARFARE
We live in an era in which people are seldom directly hostile.
The rules of engagement–social, political, military–have changed, and so must your notion of the enemy.
An up-front enemy is rare now and is actually a blessing.
People hardly ever attack you openly anymore, showing their intentions, their desire to destroy you; instead they are political and indirect.
Although the world is more competitive than ever, outward aggression is discouraged, so people have learned to go underground, to attack unpredictably and craftily.
Many use friendship as a way to mask aggressive desires: they come close to you to do more harm. (A friend knows best how to hurt you.)
Or, without actually being friends, they offer assistance and alliance: they may seem supportive, but in the end they’re advancing their own interests at your expense.
Then there are those who master moral warfare, playing the victim, making you feel guilty for something unspecified you’ve done.
The battlefield is full of these warriors, slippery, evasive, and clever.
Understand: the word “enemy”–from the Latin inimicus, “not a friend”–has been demonized and politicized.
Your first task as a strategist is to widen your concept of the enemy, to include in
that group those who are working against you, thwarting you, even in subtle ways.
(Sometimes indifference and neglect are better weapons than aggression, because you can’t see the hostility they hide.)
Without getting paranoid, you need to realize that there are people who wish you ill and operate indirectly.
Identify them and you’ll suddenly have room to maneuver.
You can stand back and wait and see or you can take action, whether aggressive or just evasive, to avoid the worst.
You can even work to turn this enemy into a friend.
But whatever you do, do not be the naive victim.
Do not find yourself constantly retreating, reacting to your enemies’ maneuvers.
Arm yourself with prudence, and never completely lay down your arms, not even for friends.
As one travels up any one of the large rivers [of Borneo], one meets with tribes that are successively more warlike.
In the coast regions are peaceful communities which never fight save in self-defense, and then with but poor success, whereas in the central regions, where the rivers take their rise, are a number of extremely warlike tribes whose raids have been a constant source of terror to the communities settled in the lower reaches of the rivers....
It might be supposed that the peaceful coast people would be found to be superior in moral qualities to their more warlike neighbors, but the contrary is the case.
In almost all respects the advantage lies with the warlike tribes.
Their houses are better built, larger, and cleaner; their domestic morality is superior; they are physically stronger, are braver, and physically and mentally more active and in general are more trustworthy.
But, above all, their social organization is firmer and more efficient because their respect for and obedience to their chiefs and their loyalty to their community are much greater; each man identifies himself with the whole community and accepts and loyally performs the social duties laid upon him.
WILLIAM MCDOUGALL, 1871-1938
People are usually good at hiding their hostility, but often they unconsciously give off signals showing that all is not what it seems.
One of the closest friends and advisers of the Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Tse-tung was Lin Biao, a high-ranking member of the Politburo and possible successor to the chairman.
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, though, Mao detected a change in Lin: he had become effusively friendly.
Everyone praised Mao, but Lin’s praise was embarrassingly fervent.
To Mao this meant that something was wrong.
He watched Lin closely and decided that the man was plotting a takeover, or at the very least positioning himself for the top spot.
And Mao was right: Lin was plotting busily.
The point is not to mistrust all friendly gestures but to notice them.
Register any change in the emotional temperature: unusual chumminess, a new desire to exchange confidences, excessive praise of you to third parties, the desire for an alliance that may make more sense for the other person than for you.
Trust your instincts: if someone’s behavior seems suspicious, it probably is.
It may turn out to be benign, but in the meantime it is best to be on your guard.
You can sit back and read the signs or you can actively work to uncover your enemies–beat the grass to startle the snakes, as the Chinese say.
In the Bible we read of David’s suspicion that his father-in-law, King Saul, secretly wanted him dead.
How could David find out?
He confided his suspicion to Saul’s son Jonathan, his close friend. Jonathan refused to believe it, so David suggested a test.
He was expected at court for a feast.
He would not go; Jonathan would attend and pass along David’s excuse, which would be adequate but not urgent.
Sure enough, the excuse enraged Saul, who exclaimed, “Send at once and fetch him unto me–he deserves to die!”
David’s test succeeded because it was ambiguous.
His excuse for missing the feast could be read in more than one way: if Saul meant well toward David, he would have seen his son-in-law’s absence as
no more than selfish at worst, but because he secretly hated David, he saw it as effrontery, and it pushed him over the edge.
Follow David’s example: say or do something that can be read in more than
one way, that may be superficially polite but that could also indicate a slight coolness on your part or be seen as a subtle insult. A friend may wonder but will let it pass. The secret enemy, though, will react with anger. Any strong emotion and you will know that there’s something boiling under the surface.
Often the best way to get people to reveal themselves is to provoke tension and argument.
The Hollywood producer Harry Cohn, president of Universal Pictures, frequently used this strategy to ferret out the real position of people in the studio who refused to show what side they were on: he would suddenly attack their work or take an extreme position, even an offensive one, in an argument. His provoked directors and writers would drop their usual caution and show their real beliefs.
Understand: people tend to be vague and slippery because it is safer than outwardly committing to something. If you are the boss, they will mimic your ideas. Their agreement is often pure courtiership. Get them emotional; people are usually more sincere when they argue. If you pick an argument with someone and he keeps on mimicking your ideas, you may be dealing with a chameleon, a particularly dangerous type. Beware of people who hide behind a facade of vague abstractions and impartiality: no one is impartial. A sharply worded question, an opinion designed to offend, will make them react and take sides.
Man exists only in so far as he is opposed.
GEORG HEGEL, 1770-1831
Sometimes it is better to take a less direct approach with your potential enemies–to be as subtle and conniving as they are.
In 1519, Hernan Cortes arrived in Mexico with his band of adventurers.
Among these five hundred men were some whose loyalty was dubious.
Throughout the expedition, whenever any of Cortes’s soldiers did something he saw as suspicious, he never got angry or accusatory. Instead he pretended to go along with them, accepting and approving what they had done.
Thinking Cortes weak, or thinking he was on their side, they would take another step. Now he had what he wanted: a clear sign, to himself and others, that they were traitors. Now he could isolate and destroy them.
Adopt the method of Cortes: if friends or followers whom you suspect of ulterior motives suggest something subtly hostile, or against your interests, or simply odd, avoid the temptation to react, to say no, to get angry, or even to ask questions. Go along, or seem to turn a blind eye: your enemies will soon go further, showing more of their hand. Now you have them in sight, and you can attack.
An enemy is often large and hard to pinpoint–an organization, or a person hidden behind some complicated network. What you want to do is take aim at one part of the group–a leader, a spokesman, a key member of the inner circle.
That is how the activist Saul Alinsky tackled corporations and bureaucracies.
In his 1960s campaign to desegregate Chicago’s public-school system, he focused on the superintendent of schools, knowing full well that this man would try to
shift the blame upward.
By taking repeated hits at the superintendent, he was able to publicize his
struggle, and it became impossible for the man to hide.
Eventually those behind him had to come to his aid, exposing themselves in the process.
Like Alinsky, never aim at a vague, abstract enemy.
It is hard to drum up the emotions to fight such a bloodless battle, which in any case leaves your enemy invisible.
Personalize the fight, eyeball to eyeball.
Danger is everywhere.
There are always hostile people and destructive relationships.
The only way to break out of a negative dynamic is to confront it.
Repressing your anger, avoiding the person threatening you, always looking to conciliate–these common strategies spell ruin.
Avoidance of conflict becomes a habit, and you lose the taste for battle.
Feeling guilty is pointless; it is not your fault you have enemies.
Feeling wronged or victimized is equally futile. In both cases you are looking inward, concentrating on yourself and your feelings.
Instead of internalizing a bad situation, externalize it and face your enemy.
It is the only way out.
The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible--for she often read aloud when her husband was absent--soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had given me no reason to
fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters...Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her [reading] instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief....
Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words, on me, was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences--cold and harsh--sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up
not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the white man's power to
perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. "Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave."
I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This was just what I needed; and got it at a time, and from a source, whence I least expected it.... Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife.... That which he most loved I
most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, 1818-1895
The child psychologist Jean Piaget saw conflict as a critical part of mental development. Through battles with peers and then parents, children learn to adapt to the world and develop strategies for dealing with problems. Those children who seek to avoid conflict at all cost, or those who have overprotective parents, end up handicapped socially and mentally.
The same is true of adults: it is through your battles with others that you learn what works, what doesn’t, and how to protect yourself. Instead of shrinking from the idea of having enemies, then, embrace it. Conflict is therapeutic.
Enemies bring many gifts.
For one thing, they motivate you and focus your beliefs.
The artist Salvador Dali found early on that there were many qualities he could not stand in people: conformity, romanticism, piety.
At every stage of his life, he found someone he thought embodied these anti- ideals–an enemy to vent on. First it was the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who wrote romantic poetry; then it was Andre Breton, the heavy-handed leader of the surrealist movement.
Having such enemies to rebel against made Dali feel confident and inspired.
Enemies also give you a standard by which to judge yourself, both personally and socially.
The samurai of Japan had no gauge of their excellence unless they fought the best swordsmen; it took Joe Frazier to make Muhammad Ali a truly great fighter.
A tough opponent will bring out the best in you.
And the bigger the opponent, the greater your reward, even in defeat.
It is better to lose to a worthy opponent than to squash some harmless foe.
You will gain sympathy and respect, building support for your next fight.
Being attacked is a sign that you are important enough to be a target.
You should relish the attention and the chance to prove yourself.
We all have aggressive impulses that we are forced to repress; an enemy supplies you with an outlet for these drives. At last you have someone on whom to
unleash your aggression without feeling guilty.
Leaders have always found it useful to have an enemy at their gates in times of trouble, distracting the public from their difficulties.
In using your enemies to rally your troops, polarize them as far as possible: they will fight the more fiercely when they feel a little hatred.
So exaggerate the differences between you and the enemy–draw the lines clearly.
Xenophon made no effort to be fair; he did not say that the Persians weren’t really such a bad lot and had done much to advance civilization. He called them barbarians, the antithesis of the Greeks.
He described their recent treachery and said they were an evil culture that could find no favor with the gods.
And so it is with you: victory is your goal, not fairness and balance. Use the rhetoric of war to heighten the stakes and stimulate the spirit.
What you want in warfare is room to maneuver.
Tight corners spell death.
Having enemies gives you options.
You can play them off against each other, make one a friend as a way of attacking the other, on and on.
Without enemies you will not know how or where to maneuver, and you will lose a sense of your limits, of how far you can go.
Early on, Julius Caesar identified Pompey as his enemy. Measuring his actions and calculating carefully, he did only those things that left him in a solid position in relation to Pompey.
When war finally broke out between the two men, Caesar was at his best.
But once he defeated Pompey and had no more such rivals, he lost all sense of
proportion–in fact, he fancied himself a god.
His defeat of Pompey was his own undoing.
Your enemies force on you a sense of realism and humility.
Remember: there are always people out there who are more aggressive, more devious, more ruthless than you are, and it is inevitable that some of them will cross your path.
You will have a tendency to want to conciliate and compromise with them.
The reason is that such types are often brilliant deceivers who see the strategic value in charm or in seeming to allow you plenty of space, but actually their desires have no limit, and they are simply trying to disarm you.
With some people you have to harden yourself, to recognize that there is no middle ground, no hope of conciliation.
For your opponent your desire to compromise is a weapon to use against you.
Know these dangerous enemies by their past: look for quick power grabs, sudden rises in fortune, previous acts of treachery. Once you suspect you are dealing with a Napoleon, do not lay down your arms or entrust them to someone else. You are the last line of your own defense.
Authority: If you count on safety and do not think of danger, if you do not know enough to be wary when enemies arrive, this is called a sparrow nesting on a tent, a fish swimming in a cauldron–they won’t last the day.–Chuko Liang (A.D. 181-234 )
REVERSAL
Always keep the search for and use of enemies under control. It is clarity you want, not paranoia.
It is the downfall of many tyrants to see an enemy in everyone.
They lose their grip on reality and become hopelessly embroiled in the emotions their paranoia churns up.
By keeping an eye on possible enemies, you are simply being prudent and cautious.
Keep your suspicions to yourself, so that if you’re wrong, no one will know. Also, beware of polarizing people so completely that you cannot back off.
Margaret Thatcher, usually brilliant at the polarizing game, eventually lost control of it: she created too many enemies and kept repeating the same tactic, even in situations that called for retreat. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a master polarizer, always looking to draw a line between himself and his enemies. Once he had made that line clear enough, though, he backed off, which made him look like a conciliator, a man of peace who occasionally went to war.
Even if that impression was false, it was the height of wisdom to create it.
Conclusion
Reading this, I cannot help but understand why Trump and his crew of dinosaurs were so rabidly inclined to label the biggest trading partner as an enemy. This article describes why.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my 33 Strategies of War index here..
I think that is important to address the issue of Taiwan and China. I believe that I need to do so because the USA is trying to start a war there. The drums for war are beating loudly. Really, really loudly. What the HELL is going on?
America is a military empire and it needs a war to exist. It’s always wanted one, two or three, as well well know. Right now the USA is involved in eight simultaneous wars, which could be reduced to seven if the (so called Afghanistan pull out) actually occurs.
But yeah. All evidence is that the United States is “throwing it’s weight around” trying to provoke a mighty World War.
(To) throw one's weightaround, to To use one’s wealth or standing to manipulateothers; to act officiously.
This expression dates from the early twentiethcenturyand uses weight in the sense of “authority.” John P. Marquand had it in H. M. Pulham, Esquire (1941): “Bo-jo was a bastard, a big bastard.
-Throwweightaround - Idiomsby The FreeDictionary
All you need to do is read the slant of the “news” out of America. Such as this piece of reprehensible trash…
I will admit that the anti-China articles have improved in their “sneakiness”. All you need to do is read the text to pull out the “boiler plate” anti-China screeds. Like this one from my Tech channels…
And the source for all this information? Why it’s the “United States Government”. That’s it. No other information on names or actual validation channels. Jeeze!
So the USA is busily running their anti-China screed, and they are still poking the Panda. But will it result in a hot war over Taiwan?
We should look into this. Here we tie together some most excellent articles and then weave them together for a better, more comprehensive picture about what is going on, why and who the culprits are.
We will start with this, it is one of the better articles on the subject. Edited to fit in this venue and all credit to the author.
We are witnessing the fourth Cross-Strait Crises. Chinese and American armed forces are undertaking dangerous, spectacular and threatening show of military might. What makes the present crisis different from the previous ones is the fact that it happened during and after the mutual cold-war declaration by Washington and Beijing in Anchorage, Alaska on March 18-19, 2021
The world is wondering how far this military show will go. Many are afraid of a shooting war involving China, Taiwan and the U.S. Indeed, many are even afraid of the possibility of the third world war which will kill us all.
However, I do not share such pessimistic views. My view is that the inter-China cold war is likely to remain cold, not hot, because none of the three actors involved in the conflict – two Chinas and the U.S.- will gain from the shooting war.
The Sino-American shooting war – if there will be one – will be ignited somewhere else.
Summary
My argument may be summarized as follows.
First, the U.S. does not want the inter-China hot war, because through its ambiguous Taiwan policy, it can continue to sell weapons to Taiwan and, at the same time, keep Taiwan as the primary outpost of its China containment policy.
Second, China is not eager to declare a hot war with Taiwan, because Taiwan has not provided the reasons for China’s Taiwan invasion.
What would force an invasion of Taiwan by China?
There are four reasons for China’s Taiwan invasion including [1] the declaration of Taiwan independence, [2] internal turmoil inside of Taiwan, [2] military alliance with another country, [3] acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and [4] negotiations under the violation of the 1992 Consensus for “one-China”.
None of these conditions are present.
Therefore, China has no reason to invade Taiwan.
Taiwan does not want a war with China
Third, Taiwan does not want the hot war with China for the reason that it will be most likely defeated. As well as the cost of such defeat will be too high in terms of economic development and the loss of its identity. In fact, if and when China wins, it is extremely likely that both of the two China’s will be united under the banner of PRC.
The U.S. does not want inter-China hot War
To understand Washington’s role in the inter-China conflict, it is important to understand its Taiwan policy.
Washington’s Taiwan policy is based on [1] the three joint communiqués, [2] the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 (TRA) and [3] the Six Assurances imposed by Ronald Reagan in 1982.
The followings are the contents of the three Communiqués, TRA and the Six Assurances.
The First China-U.S. Communiqué (28 February 1972)
The U.S. Government acknowledges (not accept or recognize) that all Chinese in either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but One China
Taiwan is a part of China
The U.S. Government does not challenge this position
. It reaffirms its interest in peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by Chinese themselves
With this prospect in mind, it affirms its ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all the U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan.
The Second China-U.S. Communiqué (January 1, 1979)
Neither should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region or any other region of the world.
Each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony
The government of the USA acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China
PRC is the sole legal government of China
Third China-U.S. Communiqué (August 17, 1982)
The U.S. Government attaches great importance to its relation with China.
It has no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity or interfering in China’s internal affairs or pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’
The U.S. Government states that it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan
Its arms sale to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms the level of those supplied in recent years
It intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan, leading over a period of time to a final solution.
The U.S. Taiwan policy cannot be changed by the president and requires the consent of the Congress.
The Taiwan Relations Act (enacted by the U.S. Congress on April 10, 1979)
The principal contents of the Act is in Section 2 of the Act
Taiwan is treated as a country, a nation or a state as sub sovereign nation
Informal diplomatic relations are carried out by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)
The U.S. Government normalizes its diplomatic relations with PRC (Beijing) under the condition that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.
Any efforts to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means including by boycotts, or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific are grave concern to the U.S.
The Sino (Taiwan)-U.S. Mutual Defence Treaty is terminated.
The U.S. Government does not intervene in case of invasion by People’s Republic of China (PRC)
The U.S. Government provides arms of defensive character and maintains the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan
The decision related to the quantity and the quality of defence articles and services is determined by the Congress and the president.
The Six Assurances
The administration of Ronald Reagan unilaterally added in 1982 “Six Assurances” to the TRA and this has become the mains part of the U.S. Taiwan policy
The U.S. Government has not agreed to set a date of the termination of its arms sale to Taiwan.
The U.S. Government has not agreed to consult with PRC (China) or ROC (Taiwan) for arms sales to Taiwan.
The U.S. Government does not perform the mediation role between ROC and PRC
The U.S. Government has not agreed to revise the TRA
The U.S. Government has not revised its position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan
The U.S. Government will not exercise pressure on Taiwan to enter into negotiation with PRC.
The positive aspect of Washington’s Taiwan policy is the termination of the bloody civil war between ROC and PRC which caused the two cross-strait crises (1954 and 1958); the civil war lasted until 1979.
But, the end of the inter-China civil war was also desirable for Washington as well, because Washington badly needed China to counter the aggressive assertiveness of the Soviet Union in Asia.
So, Washington and Beijing were strange bed fellows with different dreams. Another possible reason for the U.S. initiative to end the inter-China civil war was the fear of Beijing’s victory over Taipei, which means the loss of a lucrative American arms market and reliable outpost of China containment strategy.
On the other hand, Washington’s Taiwan policy is characterized by the amazing ambiguity of Washington’s perception of the cross-strait problems and tactics which was most likely designed to maximize the American interests at the expense of China’s interests.
What comes out of the three communiqués, the TRA and the six assurances may be summarized in terms of the issue of regional hegemony, the legal status of Taiwan and the American arms sales.
Regional ambiguity
In the second communiqué of 1979, there are items preventing China from becoming a hegemonic power in the region. Neither the U.S. nor China should seek for hegemonic power in Asia. But the U.S was already the hegemonic power there.
The second feature of Washington’s Taiwan policy is its contradictory and ambiguous position regarding the legal status of Taiwan.
In the joint communiqués, the U.S. acknowledges that China is one and Taiwan is a part of China and that Beijing is the sole legal government of China. But this should mean that since Taiwan is a part of China, Beijing should also govern Taiwan.
But, in the Taiwan Relations Act, Taiwan is given the status of a de facto sovereign country.
China can argue that Washington did not respect the contents of the joint communiqués. But Washington can say this: “We have never accepted one-China regime, we said we acknowledged the regime”. Here, we see the strategic political ambiguity of Washington.
In fact, in the TRA, it says that Taiwan is treated as a nation of sub sovereignty. The U.S. has established de facto diplomatic relations with Taiwan conducted through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT).
Here, Washington’s position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan is not clear. The hidden purpose of the U.S. could be to make the sovereignty issue ambiguous so that it can change its position in function of needs.
Washington’s Arms Sales to Taiwan
Now, as for the issues of arms sales to Taiwan, the U. S. is even more ambiguous.
In the third communiqué, the U.S. says that it has no long-run plan of arms sales to Taiwan.
Yet in the same communiqué, the U.S. says that it will reduce arms sales, which contradicts each other.
In the TRA, the Sino (ROC)-U.S. defence Treaty is terminated.
This is a very, very important point. One that is purposely being left out of all media communication originating out of the United States. The TRA ended Taiwan as a US Protectorate.
Therefore, Washington should not intervene militarily if and when Taiwan is in armed conflict with Beijing.
But, already, in media, the US intervention in case of PRC’s Taiwan invasion is openly discussed.
One wonders what the reliability of the joint communiqués, the TRA and the Six Assurances is. It’s as if the United States simply ignores inconvenient rules, treaties, and agreements that it has signed.
Now, in the Six Assurances, it is written that the U.S. has no date for the ending of its arms sales to Taiwan. The U.S. is not obliged to consult PRC or ROC for its arms sales to Taiwan. So, Washington has absolute freehand in handling the arms sales to Taiwan.
In short, the U.S. Taiwan policy is so confusing and so ambiguous that it has useful flexibility for the sales of arms to Taiwan. The following table shows the pattern of American arms sales to Taiwan.
Table: Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan by U.S. Presidents
The table above allows these observations.
Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan has increased over the years, which is contrary to what the U.S. Government had promised.
The Trump administration spent as much as US$ 4.45 billion per year which represents as much as 30% of Taiwan’s annual defense budget of $15 billion
By and large, the Republican Party sells more than the Democrats.
Washington sells more when the anti-Beijing liberal party of Taiwan, the Democratic and Progressive Parry (DPP) is in power, that is, under the DPP government of Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008) and under the DPP government of Tsai Ying-wen (2016-2021)
This has an important meaning.
Remember that the DPP is the party which seeks independence of Taiwan.
Hence, the data can be interpreted as Washington’s strategy of encouraging the independence movement leading to ROC-PRC tension and more U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
So the United States is actively encouraging an armed conflict between Taiwan and China. Though everyone realizes that ultimately Taiwan would be absorbed into China as a result of the conflict.
So, Does the USA want a Hot War over the Taiwan strait?
Now, coming back to the question of whether the U.S. wishes hot war over the Taiwan Strait, the answer is that it will not want the hot war.
The USA does not really want a Hot War, even though it is provoking one.
The reason is because, the hot war means the unification of China and Taiwan will no longer be able to play the role of Washington’s primary China-containment outpost and its function of being the lucrative market of American military equipment’s.
Neither PRC (People’s Republic of China) nor ROC (Republic of China-Taiwan) wants the hot War.
Are Taiwan and China enemies as described in the Western media?
When we discuss Taiwan and China, it is important to remember that they once were enemies. This was around fifty years ago.
The army of the ROC was defeated in 1949 and Chiang Kai-sek fled to Taiwan and continued the Republic of China which was created in 1912 by Sun Yat-sen. The civil war between ROC and PRC continued until 1979.
Even though the civil war was terminated, the ROC and PRC relations have not been smooth partly because of the past history and partly because of different political and economic regimes. In other words, there are always the possibilities of hostility in the cross-strait relations.
However, they have established viable relations which have been beneficial to both through political and economic cooperation.
The Risk of full Taiwan Independence from China
Aside from the American and British media harping on the desire for Taiwan to be free of the “oppressive yoke” of the “brutal Communist Dictatorship”, the real truth is something else entirely.
The evolution of the Taiwanese political orientation may be measured in terms of the way in which its presidents consider the legal status of Taiwan vis-à-vis PRC.
The evolution of Taiwanese political leaders’ perceptions of Taipei-Beijing political relations is shown below. By and large, such relations have evolved by the following periods.
The civil war period (1949-1979)
The period of good relations (1979-1998)
The period of hostility (1998-2008)
The resumption of high level dialogue period (2008-2016)
The frozen relation period (2016-2021)
The period of civil war (1949-1979) was characterized by two cross-strait crises and never ending armed conflict between two Chinas.
During the friendly relation period (1979-1998), Deng Xiaoping met frequently the head of the Nationalist Party, Kuomintang (KMT) in order to develop cooperative relations.
President Chiang Ching-kuo (1980-1988) of KMT, son of Chiang Kai-shek, declared the three NOs:
No declaration of independence,
No unification of Chinas and
No use of force between the two Chinas.
On July 9, 1999, President Lee Teng-hui (1988-2000) of KMT defined the ROC-PRC relation as “country to country relations.” So, there is no need for the independence declaration.
However, Lee’s visit to the Cornel University Alumni in 1995 alarmed Beijing and it led to the 1996 show of military might of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of PRC.
This was, in fact, the third Taiwan Strait crisis.
During the period of hostility (1998-2008), President Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008) of the anti-PRC party, DPP, changed the name of “Chunghwa Post Co.” to “Taiwan Post Co.” He changed also the name of “China Petroleum Corporation” to “Taiwan Petroleum Corporation.”
But, under KMT president Ma Yong-Jeou (2008-2016), the old names came back. This episode shows how Taiwanese people are sensitive about the identity of Taiwan vis-à-vis China of main land.
In 2008, Ma Ying-Jeou of KMT (2008-2016) took over the power and the friendly relations across the Strait were resumed.
The year 2008 was marked by the efforts of PRCs president Hu Jintao to improve the bilateral relations across the Taiwan Strait. On March 26, 2008, he talked to President G.W. Bush, who endorsed the 1992 consensus on “One China”..
President Hu Jintao also met the Chairman of the KMT, Wu Po-hsing, who also accepted the 1992 Consensus.
As for President Ma, he defined the bilateral relations as “One Country on each side” or “two states in the same nation.”
In 2016 began the current period of contention. The power went back to DPP and Tsai Ying-wen became President. Tsai’s perception of Taiwan’s legal status was not more certain than those of other Taiwan presidents.
Her victory has put Beijing in even uncomfortable position. In 2016, Beijing cut all communications with ROC.
But, in the same year, some leaders in Taiwan being aware of the deteriorating cross-strait relations formed a Taiwanese delegation composed of eight magistrates and city mayors went to Beijing to improve the relations.
However, the cross-strait relations were not peaceful. In 2018, PLA conducted military exercises which surely alarmed Taiwan.
In 2019, Xi Jinping reaffirmed his position in favor of “one China, two systems.”
President Tsai Ying-wen refused Xi Jinping’s idea.
To the surprise of the world, in 2020 Tsai Ying-wen won the election again; the world was expecting that she would take more radical position regarding Taiwan’s independence.
True, her victory has encouraged the independence movement in Taiwan and pro-independence political parties and civic organizations asked for a referendum on independence.
However, Tsai maintained her position that since Taiwan is already independent country, there is no need for the declaration of independence.”
To sum up, none of the presidents of the major parties, the KMT and the DPP, opted for the declaration of Taiwan’s independence.
True, there are some pro-independence parties such as The Taiwan Independence Party, the Taiwan Solidarity and the Formosa Alliance, but they have no electoral support.
Thus, the danger of Taiwan’s declaration of independence seems nonexistent and therefore, Beijing has no reason to invade for now.
Taiwan People’s Perception
What has intrigued me is the Taiwanese people’s perceptions regarding Taiwan’s legal or political status. There are four public opinion polls which are meaningful.
In the poll of 2008 by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) no less than76% of the respondents rejected the idea of “one China, two systems.”
In the 2017 poll by MAC, 85% of the respondents said that the future of Taiwan should be determined by the Taiwanese themselves.
In the 2019 poll by MAC, 75% of the respondents rejected the 1992 Consensus (There is only one China which should be governed by PRC).
In the 2020 poll by the Academia Sinica, one finds very interesting phenomena.
73% of the respondents identified themselves as Taiwanese.
27.5% of them identified themselves as Chinese-Taiwanese
2.4% of them identified themselves as Chinese
52.3% of them would prefer the postponement of the question of Taiwan independence and keep the status quo
35.1% of them prefer immediate independence
5.5% of them would prefer immediate or eventual unification of China.
In the Poll of MAC, 90% of the respondents refused PLA’s military threats.
To sum up, the Taiwanese are eager to greater autonomy, even independence, but they seem to avoid military confrontation by postponing the solution of the independence issue.
In short, Taiwan does not want a shooting war with China.
Economic Cooperation
There is another reason why the ROC-PRC hot war will not take place. It is the cross-strait economic cooperation.
Taiwan has achieved a remarkable success in economic development.
In the 1960s, the per capita GDP was as low as $60. Now, in 2020, its GDP (nominal) was $730 billion USD and the per capita GDP was $32,000. This is, in fact, the miraculous achievements of the Taiwanese people.
The information industries account for 35 % of the country’s industrial production. The semi-conductor producers such as Taiwan Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and the United Microelectronic Corporation (UMC) are world leaders. Taiwan is the 13th largest producer of steel; its steel products are exported to 130 countries. The most spectacular entrepreneurial performance has been shown by the SMEs accounting for 85% of industrial outputs.
Such achievement has been possible because of the courage, the innovative entrepreneurial spirit, the productivity and, especially the hard work of the Taiwanese.
However, Washington’s economic aid, its imports of Taiwanese products and technology transfer have all contributed. In addition, we should not forget the cooperation between Mainland China and Taiwan.
Under President Chiang Ching-kuo (1978-1988), two important semi-official organizations were was established: the Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) under ROC’s Mainland Affairs Council and the Association of Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) under PRCs Taiwanese Affairs Office.
These two organizations have been the center of bilateral political and economic cooperation. They have initiated the three links: postal services, transportation and trade.
The Taiwan’s Investment Guidelines and similar measures taken by ROC have led to mutual business investments.
In fact, 40 % of Taiwan’s outbound FDI stock went to Mainland China. Chinese tourists contribute to more than 40% of ROCs tourist industry. The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement of 2010 is another mechanism of the bilateral economic relations.
Above all, Taiwan depends heavily on China for trade. In 2020, the value of Taiwan’s total exports was $ 345 billion of which 29.7% went to China. In the same year, the value of Taiwan’s total imports was $ 286 billion of which 22% came from China.
It is true that the RCO-PRC relations are not peaceful. But these economic relations are beneficial enough to keep the status quo as long as possible.
The conclusion of my analysis is that none of the three actors involved in the cross-strait drama wants shooting war.
China doesn’t
Taiwan doesn’t
The United States doesn’t.
The United States. The U.S. does not want the hot war because it will mean [1] the unification of China, [2] the loss of Taiwan as the primary China-containment outpost and [3] the loss of the lucrative arms market.
Taiwan. Taiwan does not want the shooting war, because it will mean the complete destruction of its economy, and the loss of its autonomy becoming one of the Chinese provinces.
China. China does not risk the hot war because [1] Taiwan prefers the status quo; [2] it has no intention of getting weapons of mass destruction; [3] there is no internal turmoil; [4] it does not seek military alliances.
But the United States wants high stress and tension
However, even without the shooting war, as long as the Sino-U.S. cold war continues, the cross-strait tension will continue.
Washington will sell more military equipment and services and Taiwan will have to play the dangerous role of Washington’s the primary outpost of China containment strategy and that of main buyer of American military weapons.
I wish to add this.
The bilateral conflict between two Chinas like all other major bilateral conflicts is an integral part of Washington’s strategy of global hegemony. One of the most productive components of the American global hegemony is the proxy war, that is, some member country of Washington’s alliances will fight for the U.S.
Japan might be asked to play this role, because Japan is the best qualified for such task; it is a world class military power and it has the ambition of dominating Asia again; to do so, Japan has to destroy China. I hope I am wrong in thinking such an awful thing.
Finally, I would like add this too…
Taiwan is a country which has achieved an amazing economic miracle of which all Chinese should be proud. Taiwan has established viable democracy under very challenging conditions; this is a regime which will surely contribute to the further advancement of China’s socio-political system.
…
Well, perhaps it is the Taiwan oligarchy that is pushing this issue. Not the Taiwanese government, and not the American government. Perhaps it is the oligarchy inside of Taiwan, and the greedy evil neocons in America that is driving up the stress levels in the Taiwan strait.
Because if Taiwan, China and the USA doesn’t want a war, then why are we talking about this?
Twenty years ago, a group of neoconservative think tanks used their power to push for disastrous wars in the Middle East. Now, a new set of think tanks staffed with many of the same experts and funded by Taiwanese money is working hard to convince Americans that there is a new existential threat: China.
At MintPress, we have been at the forefront of exposing how Middle Easterndictatorships and weapons contractors have been funneling money into think tanks and political action committees, keeping up a steady drumbeat for more war and conflict around the world.
Yet one little-discussed nation that punches well above its weight in spending cash in Washington is Taiwan.
By studying Taiwan’s financial reports, MintPress has ascertained that the semi-autonomous island of 23 million people has, in recent years, given out millions of dollars to many of the largest and most influential think tanks in the United States.
This has coincided with a strong upsurge in anti-China rhetoric in Washington, with report after report warning of China’s economic rise and demanding that the U.S. intervene more in China-Taiwan disputes.
These think tanks are filled with prominent figures from both parties and have the ears of the most powerful politicians in Washington.
It is in their offices that specialists draw up papers and incubate ideas that become tomorrow’s policies.
They also churn out experts who appear in agenda-setting media, helping to shape and control the public debate on political and economic issues.
Twenty years ago, a group of neoconservative think tanks like the Project for a New American Century, funded by foreign governments and weapons manufacturers, used their power to push for disastrous wars in the Middle East.
Now, a new set of think tanks, staffed with many of those same experts who provided the intellectual basis for those invasions, is working hard to convince Americans that there is a new existential threat: China.
The Brookings Institute
In 2019, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) — for all intents and purposes, the Taiwanese embassy — donated between $250,000 and $499,999 to the Brookings Institute, commonly identified as the world’s most influential think tank.
Taiwanese tech companies have also given large sums to the organization.
In turn, Brookings Institute staff like Richard C. Bush (a former member of the National Intelligence Council and a U.S. national intelligence officer for East Asia) vociferously champion the cause of Taiwanese nationalists and routinelycondemn Beijing’s attempts to bring the island more closely under control.
TECRO featured prominently among myriad defense interests on the donor rolls for both the Atlantic Council, left, and Brookings Institute
In mid-April 2021, Brookings held an event called “Taiwan’s quest for security and the good life,” which began with the statement that…
“Taiwan is rightly praised for its democracy. Elections are free, fair, and competitive; civil and political rights are protected.”
...
“most consequential” challenge to the island’s liberty and prosperity is “China’s ambition to end Taiwan’s separate existence.”
According to another organization’s latest financial disclosure, TECRO also gave a six-figure sum to the Atlantic Council, a think tank closely associated with NATO.
The Atlantic Council
It is unclear what the Atlantic Council did with that money, but what is certain is that they gave a senior fellowship to Chang-Ching Tu, an academic employed by the Taiwanese military to teach at the country’s National Defense University.
In turn, Tu authored Atlantic Council reports describing his country as a “champion [of] global democracy,” and stating that “democracy, freedom and human rights are Taiwan’s core values.”
A menacing China, however, is increasing its military threats, so Taiwan must “accelerate its deterrence forces and strengthen its self-defense capabilities.”
Thus he advises that the U.S. must work far more closely with Taiwan’s military, conducting joint exercises and moving towards a more formal military alliance.
In 2020, the U.S. sold $5.9 billion worth of arms to the island, making it the fifth-largest recipient of American weaponry last year.
Other Taiwan-employed academics have chided the West on the pages of the Council’s website for its insufficient zeal in “deter[ring] Chinese aggression” against the island. “A decision by the United States to back down” — wrote Philip Anstrén, a Swedish recipient of a fellowship from the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs — “could damage the credibility of U.S. defense guarantees and signal that Washington’s will to defend its allies is weak.”
Anstrén also insisted that “Europe’s future is on the line in the Taiwan Strait.” “Western democratic nations have moral obligations vis-à-vis Taiwan,” he added on his blog, “and Western democracies have a duty to ensure that [Taiwan] not only survives but also thrives.”
The reason this is important is that the Atlantic Council is an enormously influential think tank.
Its board of directors is a who’s-who in foreign policy statecraft, featuring no fewer than seven former CIA directors.
Also on the board are many of the architects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and James Baker. When organizations like this begin beating the war drums, everybody should take note.
…
The Hudson Institute
Perhaps the most strongly anti-Beijing think tank in Washington is the conservative Hudson Institute, an organization frequented by many of the Republican Party’s most influential figures, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice-President Mike Pence and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.
The words “China” or “Chinese” appear 137 times in Hudson’s latest annual report, so focused on the Asian nation are they. Indeed, reading their output, it often appears they care about little else but ramping up tensions with Beijing, condemning it for its treatment of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Uyghur Muslims, and warning of the economic and military threat of a rising China.
Over the years, Hudson’s efforts have been sustained by huge donations from TECRO.
The Hudson Institute does not disclose the exact donations any sources give, but their annual reports show that TECRO has been on the highest tier of donors ($100,000+) every year since they began divulging their sponsors in 2015. In February, Hudson Senior Fellow Thomas J. Duesterberg wrote an op-ed for Forbes entitled “The Economic Case for Prioritizing a U.S.-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement,” in which he extolled Taiwan’s economy as modern and dynamic and portrayed securing closer economic ties with it as a no-brainer. Hudson employees have also traveled to Taiwan to meet and hold events with leading foreign ministry officials there.
The Hudson Institute also recently partnered with the more liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) to host an event with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who took the opportunity to make a great number of inflammatory statements about the “ever more challenging threats to free and democratic societies” China poses; applaud the U.S.’ actions on Hong Kong; and talk about how Taiwan honors and celebrates those who died at the Tiananmen Square massacre. TECRO gave the CAP between $50,000 and $100,000 last year.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
It is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), however, that appears to receive the most Taiwanese money.
According to its donor list, Taiwan gives as much money to it as the United States does — at least $500,000 last year alone.
Yet all of the Taiwanese government money is put into CSIS’s regional studies (i.e., Asia) program. Like Hudson employees, the CSIS calls for a free trade agreement with Taiwan and has lavished praise on the nation for its approach to tackling disinformation, describing it as a “thriving democracy and a cultural powerhouse.”
Although acknowledging that the reports were paid for by TECRO, CSIS insists that “all opinions expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the authors and are not influenced in any way by any donation.”
In December, the CSIS also held a debatesuggesting that “[w]ithin the next five years, China will use significant military force against a country on its periphery,” exploring what the U.S. response to such an action should be.
Like the Atlantic Council, the CSIS organization is stacked with senior officials from the national security state. Its president and CEO is former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, while Henry Kissinger — former secretary of state and the architect of the Vietnam War — also serves on its council.
The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD)
The CSIS accepts money from the Global Taiwan Institute and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) as well. The former is a rather shadowy pro-Taiwanese group that appears not to disclose its funding sources.
The latter is a government-funded organization headed by former Taiwanese President You Si-kun.
Every year, the TFD publishes a human rights report on China, the latest of which claims that “the Chinese Communist Party knows no bounds when it comes to committing serious human rights violations” — accusing it of “taking the initiative” in “promoting a new Cold War over the issue of human rights” and trying to “replace the universal standing of human rights values around the world.”
Ultimately, the report concludes, China “constitutes a major challenge to democracy and freedom in the world.”
Joseph Hwang of The War College in Taiwan speaks at a CSIS about how Taiwan acts a buffer to protect US data infrastructure from China
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
The TFD has also been a major funder of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a far-right pressure group that insists that Communism has killed over 100 million people worldwide.
Last year, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation added all global COVID-19 fatalities to the list of Communist-caused deaths on the basis that the virus started in China.
The Foundation also employs Adrian Zenz, a German evangelical theologian who is the unlikely source of many of the most controversialandcontested claims about Chinese repression in Xinjiang province.
Other funded anti-China Think-Tanks
In the past 12 months, TECRO has also donated six-figure sums to many other prominent think tanks, including…
MintPress reached out to a number of these think tanks for comment but has not received any response.
“It would be naive to believe that Taiwan’s funding of think tanks is not pushing them to take pro-Taiwan or anti-China positions,” Ben Freeman, the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, told MintPress, adding:
After all, why would Taiwan keep funding think tanks that are critical of Taiwan? There’s a Darwinian element to foreign funding of think tanks that pushes foreign government funding to think tanks that write what that foreign government wants them to write. Taiwan is no exception to this rule.”
TECRO is not just sponsoring American think tanks, however.
the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
It has also given funds to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a hawkish and controversial group described as “the think tank behind Australia’s changing view of China.” The country’s former ambassador in Beijing described ASPI as “the architect of the China threat theory in Australia” while Senator Kim Carr of Victoria denounced them as working hand-in-hand with Washington to push “a new Cold War with China.”
ASPI was behind Twitter’s decision last year to purge more than 170,000 accounts sympathetic to Beijing from its platform.
“We must be ready to fight our corner as Taiwan tensions rise,” ASPI wrote in January, having previously castigated the West for being “no longer willing to defend Taiwan.”
Who is behind all this money, ultimately?
ASPI — like Brookings, the Atlantic Council and others — are directly funded by weapons manufacturers, all of whom also have a direct interest in promoting more wars around the world.
Thus, if the public is not careful, certain special interests might be helping move the United States towards yet another international conflict.
While the situation outlined above is concerning enough, the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative’s research has shown that around one-third of think tanks still do not provide any information whatsoever about their funding, and very few are completely open about their finances.
Freeman maintains that, while there is nothing inherently wrong with foreign governments funding Western think tanks, the lack of transparency is seriously problematic, explaining:
This raises a lot of questions about the work they’re doing. Are their secret funders saying what the think tank can do in a pay-for-play scheme? Are the funders buying the think tanks silence on sensitive issues? Without knowing the think tank’s funders, policymakers and the public have no idea if the think tank’s work is objective research or simply the talking points of a foreign government.”
Freeman’s study of the Taiwanese lobby found that seven organizations registered as Taiwan’s foreign agents in the U.S.
Those organizations, in turn, contacted 476 Members of Congress (including almost 90% of the House), as well as five congressional committees.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was their most frequent contact, the Californian being contacted 34 times by Taiwanese agents. Pelosi has been a great supporter of Taiwanese nationalists, successfully promoting pro-Taiwan legislation and proudly announcing that the U.S. “stands with Taiwan.”
Foreign agents working on behalf of Taiwan also made 143 political contributions to U.S. politicians, with former Alabama Senator Doug Jones the lead recipient (Pelosi was third).
Losing China, regaining Taiwan?
The reports listed above understand the dispute as purely a matter of Chinese belligerence against Taiwan and certainly do not consider U.S. military actions in the South China Sea as aggressive in themselves.
That is because the world of think tanks and war planners sees the United States as owning the planet.
America has the right to go and do anything that it desires anywhere on the globe at any time.
To this day, U.S. planners bemoan the “loss of China” in 1949 (a phrase that presupposes the United States owned the country).
After a long and bloody Second World War, Communist resistance forces under Mao Tse-tung managed to both expel the Japanese occupation and overcome the U.S.-backed Kuomintang (nationalist) force led by Chang Kai-shek. The United States actually invaded China in 1945, with 50,000 troops working with the Kuomintang and even Japanese forces in an attempt to suppress the Communists. However, by 1949, Mao’s army was victorious; the United States evacuated and Chang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan.
The Kuomintang ruled the island for 40 years as a one-party state and remains one of the two major political groups to this day.
The war between the Communists and the Kuomintang never formally ended, and Taiwan has now lived through 70 years of estrangement from the mainland. Polls show a majority of Taiwanese now favor full independence, although a large majority still personally identify as Chinese.
While many Taiwanese welcome an increased U.S. presence in the region, Beijing certainly does not.
American military is getting ready for a war
In 2012, President Barack Obama announced the U.S.’ new “Pivot to Asia” strategy, moving forces from the Middle East towards China. Today, over 400 American military bases encircle China.
In recent months, the United States has also taken a number of provocative military actions on China’s doorstep.
In July, it conducted naval exercises in the South China Sea, with warships and naval aircraft spotted just 41 nautical miles from the coastal megacity of Shanghai, intent on probing China’s coastal defenses.
And in December, it flew nuclear bombers over Chinese vessels close to Hainan Island.
Earlier this year, the head of Strategic Command made his intentions clear, stating that there was a “very real possibility” of war against China over a regional conflict like Taiwan.
China, for its part, has also increased its forces in the region, carrying out military exercises and staking claims to a number of disputed islands.
A new Director of National Intelligence (DNI) report notes that China is the U.S.’ “unparalleled priority,” claiming that Beijing is making a “push for global power.” “We expect that friction will grow as Beijing steps up attempts to portray Taipei as internationally isolated and dependent on the mainland for economic prosperity, and as China continues to increase military activity around the island,” it concludes.
In an effort to stop this, Washington has recruited allies into the conflict. Australian media are reporting that their military is currently readying for war in an effort to force China to back down, while in late April 2021 President Joe Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to shore up a united front against Beijing vis-a-vis Taiwan.
In February, the Atlantic Council penned an anonymous 26,000-word report advising Biden to draw a number of red lines around China, beyond which a response — presumably military — is necessary. These included any military action or even a cyber attack against Taiwan. Any backing down from this stance, the council states, would result in national “humiliation” for the United States.
American fantasy dreams
Perhaps most notably, however, the report also envisages what a successful American China policy would look like by 2050:
[T]he United States and its major allies continue to dominate the regional and global balance of power across all the major indices of power;… [and head of state Xi Jinping] has been replaced by a more moderate party leadership; and … the Chinese people themselves have come to question and challenge the Communist Party’s century-long proposition that China’s ancient civilization is forever destined to an authoritarian future.”
In other words, that China has been broken and that some sort of regime change has occurred.
Forked tongue speak
Throughout all this, the United States has been careful to stress that it still does not recognize Taiwan and that their relationship is entirely “unofficial,” despite claiming that its commitment to the island remains “rock solid.”
Indeed, only 14 countries formally recognize Taiwan, the largest and most powerful of which is Paraguay.
Along with a military conflict brewing, Washington has also been prosecuting an information and trade war against China on the world stage.
Attempts to block the rise of major Chinese companies like Huawei, TikTok and Xiaomi are examples of this.
Others in Washington have advised the Pentagon to carry out an under-the-table culture war against Beijing.
This would include commissioning “Taiwanese Tom Clancy” novels that would “weaponize” China’s one-child policy against it.
And, bombarding citizens with stories about how their only children will die in a war over Taiwan.
Republicans and Democrats constantly accuse each other of being in President Xi’s pocket, attempting to outdo each other in their jingoistic fervor.
Last year, in 2020, Florida Senator Rick Scottwent so far as to announce that every Chinese national in the U.S. was a Communist spy and should be treated with extreme suspicion.
As a result, the American public’s view of China has crashed to an all-time low.
Only three years ago, the majority of Americans held a positive opinion of China. But today, that number is only 20%. Asian-Americans of all backgrounds have reported a rise in hate crimes against them.
Cash rules everything around me
How much of the United States’ aggressive stance towards China can be attributed to Taiwanese money influencing politics?
It is difficult to say.
Certainly, the United States has its own policy goals in East Asia outside of Taiwan.
But Freeman believes that the answer is not zero. The Taiwan lobby “absolutely has an impact on U.S. foreign policy,” he said, adding:
At one level, it creates an echo-chamber in D.C. that makes it taboo to question U.S. military ties with Taiwan.
While I, personally, think there are good strategic reasons for the U.S. to support this democratic ally — and it’s clearly in Taiwan’s interest to keep the U.S. fully entangled in their security — it’s troubling that the D.C. policy community can’t have an honest conversation about what U.S. interests are.
But, Taiwan’s lobby in D.C. and their funding of think tanks both work to stifle this conversation and, frankly, they’ve been highly effective.”
Other national lobbies affect U.S. policy.
The Cuban lobby helps ensure that the American stance towards its southern neighbor remains as antagonistic as possible.
Meanwhile, the Israel lobby helps ensure continuing U.S. support for Israeli actions in the Middle East.
Yet more ominously with Taiwan, its representatives are helping push the U.S. closer towards a confrontation with a nuclear power.
While Taiwanese money appears to have convinced many in Washington, it is doubtful that ordinary Americans will be willing to risk a war over an island barely larger than Hawaii, only 80 miles off the coast of mainland China.
Despite hopes by some that with Joe Biden a new US foreign policy will follow – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reaffirmed Washington’s committment to seeking conflict in the South China Sea under the guise of “standing with Southeast Asian claimants.”
Reuters in their article, “US stands with SE Asian countries against China pressure, Blinken say” would claim:
.
Secretary Blinken pledged to stand with Southeast Asian claimants in the face of PRC pressure,” it said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, which is also a major trade route. The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
The United States has accused China of taking advantage of the distraction of the coronavirus pandemic to advance its presence in the South China Sea.
The US announcement confirms that a confrontational posture toward China will continue regardless of who occupies the White House – as US tensions with China are rooted in unelected Western special interests and their desire to remove China as a competitor and potential usurper in what US policy papers themselves call “US primacy in Asia.”
US Primacy in Asia
One such paper titled, “Revising US Grand Strategy Toward China,”…
…published by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2015…
…not only spelled out the US desire to maintain that primacy in Asia vis-a-vis China…
… but also how it would use overlapping claims in the South China Sea as a pretext to justify….
…an expanded military presence in the region and as a common cause to pressure China’s neighbors into a united front against Beijing.
The paper would note specific US goals of militarizing Southeast Asia and integrating the region into a common US-led defense architecture against China.
It is a policy built upon the US “pivot to Asia” unveiled as early as 2011 and a policy that has been built upon in turn during the last four years under the Trump administration – demonstrating the continuity of agenda that permeates US foreign policy.
Turning Disputes into Conflict
Maritime disputes are common throughout the world – even in the West.
Just at the end of last year, the Guardian in an article titled, “Four navy ships to help protect fishing waters in case of no-deal Brexit,” would report:
Four Royal Navy patrol ships will be ready from 1 January to help the UK protect its fishing waters in the event of a no-deal Brexit, in a deployment evoking memories of the “cod wars” in the 1970s.The 80-metre-long armed vessels would have the power to halt, inspect and impound all EU fishing boats operating within the UK’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which can extend 200 miles from shore.
In terms of such disputes, the waters of the South China Sea are no exception.
Not only does China have overlapping claims with the nations mentioned in the Reuters article – each nation listed has overlapping claims with one another.
This results in sporadic disputes between all of these nations – occasionally resulting in the seizing of vessels and the temporary detaining of boat crews.
However – these disputes are regularly settled through bilateral methods – including disputes between Southeast Asian nations and China itself.
A high-profile example of this unfolded in 2015 where a US-led legal case was brought to the Hague on behalf of the Philippines regarding Chinese claims over the South China Sea.
While the Hague ruled in the Philippines’ favor – Manila declined to use the ruling as leverage against Beijing or to seek Washington’s assistance – and instead pursued bilateral talks with Beijing directly on its own.
It is a case that demonstrates the desire by Washington to escalate what are ordinary maritime disputes, into a regional or even international crisis – not unlike the US’ strategy in the Middle East which it uses to justify its perpetual military occupation there.
More recently the issue of the South China Sea has come up at ASEAN Summits.
Al Jazeera in its article, “ASEAN summit: South China Sea, coronavirus pandemic cast a shadow,” would cite Malaysia’s take on the issue, noting:
“The South China Sea issue must be managed and resolved in a rational manner,” Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told the meeting. “We must all refrain from undertaking activities that would complicate matters in the South China Sea. We have to look at all avenues, all approaches to ensure our region is not complicated further by other powers.”
While the US poses a champion for Southeast Asia – it is clear that its efforts are unwelcome and viewed instead as a source of instability – not a path toward resolution.
It is almost certain that it is Washington the Malaysian foreign minister was referring to when he mentioned “other powers.”
Just as the US nominated itself as protector of European “energy security” in its bid to obstruct the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 pipeline – the US has inserted itself into relatively routine maritime disputes in the South China Sea – not to “stand with” the nations of the region, but to serve as an excuse to impose its “primacy” over them.
The nations of Southeast Asia count China among their largest trade partners, sources of tourism, and for several – a key military and infrastructure partner.
The prospect of a regionally destabilizing conflict originating over long-standing disputes in the South China Sea benefits no one actually located in Asia – and only serves the interests of those beyond Asia seeking to divide and reassert their rule over it.
Who are these people?
Who are these Taiwan Oligarchs that want to start World War III? Most are old men. The youngest is in their 60’s. Most are in their mid to late 70’s and much older. What are they trying to do, and why? Are they so fixated in what happened fifty years ago that they cannot see what is going on right now, and what a bright future lies ahead for them?
MM is providing their names right here for you all to see.
Yeah. I wonder how much of a shame it would be for these people to suddenly stop provoking a war beacause of other issues that they need to deal with.
Conclusion to all of this
The governments do not want wars or conflict in the South China Sea, but the oligarchs do.
They are pushing, and pushing, and pushing for a war.
And “red lines” have been established.
For China to invade Taiwan.
For China to attack American cities.
For Taiwan to get involved with the United States.
And the wealthy oligarchy are pushing these limits.
And this is what is going on right now.
How successful will the oligarchy be? It’s a matter up to the government leadership.
A final word…
It’s propaganda that is pushing the world towards world war III. And this propaganda is very devious and very destructive.
The following is from the US defense department. It shows the nuclear delivery systems of American, China and Russia compared. Imagine that, the only nuclear delivery systems that America has according to the media are airborne!
From the US Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review.
Do you believe it?
You shouldn’t. It’s false; it’s a lie.
But many do believe it. And that why there is an inherent danger in all these oligarchs pushing the world towards world war III.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
It's true, and as time goes on it appears that America is just the big bad neighborhood bully that everyone is afraid of, and that no one ever stands up to. That is until one day...
This is a pretty damning and frightening title, don’t you think? Well, it’s true and it’s accurate. But you won’t ever see anyone be so absolutely blunt as MM here. This isn’t salacious and eye catching as some kind of “click bait” for “doom porn”. Never the less, it’s a real and serous issue. And we are talking about it here, simply because the “drums of war” are beating loudly inside of America.
American war drums are beating loudly.
#7 ·
It's a shame that everyone is China bashing these days, and all of that is based on the USA government controlled press.
If anyone were to do some research on the subject of China's claim to sovereignty over these South China Sea Islands, then they would quickly agree with China's stance.
However, almost all are like "LindaLou" who watched "some" of a morning program "Inside China" and immediately made up his/her mind that China was bad and should be condemned for standing up for their rights.
If this were the USA, making these claims, then ALL of the pandering USA citizens would be following the government press and saying "YES, YES, YES".
The citizens of the USA should be very mindful of the fact that you're being manipulated to believe whatever the government wants you to believe.
Ever watched "1984" ?
Listen to me.
.
Please.
.
America is not able, and is not capable, of fighting either Russia, or China on their territory. And would suffer catastrophic losses at a horrific level. Probably one that would result in the absolute collapse of the country (the entire United States as a nation) to a point where it is completely unrecognizable afterwards.
And you know, many, many people are starting to wake up to this fact. Even the most deluded sheeple. Some Americans. Maybe in numbers as high as 1% are scratching their heads and asking… what? You want to fight?
Why?
You're not suggesting that taking out China would be as easy, are you?
I guarantee you that the US cannot defeat China. We are no longer the world's leading super power and, in fact, we're on the verge of becoming #3.
China is #1 and we're close to coming in behind Russia.
#18 ·
Any of the following areas of American provocation would result in the nuclear detonation upon American cities…
China over Taiwan.
China over Tibet.
China over Hong Kong.
China over Xinjiang.
China over the South China Sea.
Russia over the Ukraine.
The American military planners are aware of this fact. And so they have been conducting all sorts of studies, and war games, to find solutions where America would win a war again either Russia, China or both simultaneously.
They can’t find ANY.
Many in the know, believe America has two options when it comes to winning a world war against China and Russia. Also, what most agree on is the fact that America cannot win a conventional war against either power, or both.
- Can America Win World War III? A Critical Analysis
Of course, because everyone is “dancing around it” and refuses to look at the issue “face to face” the actual study results (studies… many) are coded in euphemisms. Instead of saying that the United States military was wiped off the face of the globe, the studies say…
"...there were challenges and difficulties that were encountered..."
Instead of saying that all the United States carriers were non-functional after three days, the reports read…
"...the Navy needs to invest money to improve defensive capabilities in a new and contentious environment...".
Instead of saying that half of the expensive and elaborate high cost weapons and equipment were no longer operable, the reports stated…
"...challenges in training must be addressed..."
These euphemisms have become the “New Speak” of American Imperial Policy. As this quote outlays…
"Question: So you think that the United States can no longer be called a democracy?"Answer: Democratic countries do not engage in blackmail and threats against other sovereign states, do not interfere in their internal affairs. They do not violate international law, do not use military force and economic sanctions bypassing the UN. They do not trample on human rights or restrict freedom of speech on their territory and abroad. They do not try to use racism of all stripes to solve internal problems, nor do they lure extremists and terrorists to their side for geopolitical purposes. They do not allow transnational corporations to interfere in the work of the government, imposing their own interests on the country and society, much less block the legitimate head of state in social networks and mass media. In democratic countries, the administration that came to power does not disavow the decisions of its predecessors simply because there has been a personal antagonism between them."
But a "democratic country" is whatever America defines it as--at any given moment!
America is just like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland: “When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
Torture is Enhanced Interrogation.
Coup D'etats are Regime Change.
Kill Lists are a Disposition Threat Matrix.
Wars of Aggression are Wars of Choice (or Pre-emptive kinetic military action).
Ignorance is Strength....
As a former high-level Bush Regime official boasted, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Welcome to the American Rules-Based Order.
-Posted by: ak74 | May 4 2021 23:21 utc | 30
And this use of euphemisms has been seriously misinterpreted by the American leadership elite who mistakenly believe that they can fight either or both Russia and China simultaneously and win in any conflict. And here you have Metallicman saying that this is simply not true.
Fifty years of fighting small, lightly armed military, in under-developed nations that rely on obsolete technology and who, at best engage in GuerillaWarfareshould not be considered the same thing as fighting a determined, skilled, peer capable military in Asia.
Well, this is well understood.
But whether or not American military is able to fight a war is not a concern to the bureaucracy in Washington DC. Whether they are able to profit from the threat of war is. And thus we have this curious article…
Warships sink. Bases burn. F-35s die on the runway. Can $24 billion a year — 3.3 % of the Pentagon budget — fix the problem?
WASHINGTON: The US keeps losing, hard, in simulated wars with Russia and China. Bases burn. Warships sink. But we could fix the problem for about $24 billion a year, one well-connected expert said, less than four percent of the Pentagon budget.
“In our games, when we fight Russia and China,” RAND analyst David Ochmanek said this afternoon, “blue gets its ass handed to it.”
In other words, in RAND’s wargames, which are often sponsored by the Pentagon, the US forces — colored blue on wargame maps — suffer heavy losses in one scenario after another and still can’t stop Russia or China — red — from achieving their objectives, like overrunning US allies.
No, it’s not a Red Dawn nightmare scenario where the Commies conquer Colorado.
But losing the Baltics or Taiwan would shatter American alliances, shock the global economy, and topple the world order the US has led since World War II.
Hey! Boys and Girls! I've got news for you all. The US no longer leads the world. It just thinks it does. The American Leadership shill haven't read the reports yet. -MM
Body Blows & Head Hits
How could this happen, when we spend over $700 billion a year on everything from thousand-foot-long nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to supersonic stealth fighters?
Well, it turns out US superweapons have a little too much Achilles in their heels.
“In every case I know of,” said Robert Work, a former deputy secretary of defense with decades of wargaming experience, “the F-35 rules the sky when it’s in the sky, but it gets killed on the ground in large numbers.”
Even the hottest jet has to land somewhere.
But big airbases on land and big aircraft carriers on the water turn out to be big targets for long-range precision-guided missiles.
Once an American monopoly, such smart weapons are now a rapidly growing part of Russian and Chinese arsenals — as are the long-range sensors, communications networks, and command systems required to aim them.
So, as potential adversaries improve their technology, “things that rely on sophisticated base infrastructure like runways and fuel tanks are going to have a hard time,” Ochmanek said. “Things that sail on the surface of the sea are going to have a hard time.”
That’s why the 2020 budget retires the carrier USS Truman decades early and cuts two amphibious landing ships, as we’ve reported.
It’s also why the Marine Corps is buying the jump-jet version of the F-35, which can take off and land from tiny, ad hoc airstrips, but how well they can maintain a high-tech aircraft in low-tech surroundings is an open question.
While the Air Force and Navy took most of the flak today at this afternoon’s Center for a New American Security panel on the need for “A New American Way of War.” the Army doesn’t look too great, either.
Its huge supply bases go up in smoke as well, Work and Ochmanek said. Its tank brigades get shot up by cruise missiles, drones, and helicopters because the Army largely got rid of its mobile anti-aircraft troops, a shortfall it’s now hastening to correct.
And its missile defense units get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming fire.
“I think it’s unanimous from all the soldiers involved that we got this one right,” said the Army’s project manager for the Future Tactical Unmanned Aerial System. Manned aircraft, FARA and FLRAA, are also moving out sharply.
- Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“If we went to war in Europe, there would be one Patriot battery moving, and it would go to Ramstein. And that’s it,” Work growled. “We have 58 Brigade Combat Teams, but we don’t have anything to protect our bases, so what different does it make?”
Worst of all, Work and Ochmanek said, the US doesn’t just take body blows, it takes a hard hit to the head as well.
Its communications satellites, wireless networks, and other command-and-control systems suffer such heavy hacking and jamming that they are, in Ochmanek’s words, “suppressed, if not completely shattered.”
The US has wargamed cyber and electronic warfare in field exercises, Work said, but the simulated enemy forces tend to shut down US networks so effectively that nothing works and nobody else gets any training done.
“Whenever we have an exercise and the red force really destroys our command and control, we stop the exercise,” Work said, instead of trying to figure out how to keep fighting when your command post gives you nothing but blank screens and radio static.
The Chinese call this “system destruction warfare,” Work said: They plan to “attack the American battle network at all levels, relentlessly, and they practice it all the time.”
In short, if Biden rashly sends the military to Taiwan’s defense, he could be sending us to our greatest naval defeat in our history.
If the president’s military advisers convince him to attack military targets on the mainland, the results would be mushroom clouds over U.S. cities.
-1945
The $24 Billion Fix — And Cuts
So how do you fix such glaring problems?
The Air Force asked RAND to come up with a plan two years ago, and, surprisingly, Ochmanek said, “we found it impossible to spend more than $8 billion a year.”
That’s $8 billion for the Air Force. Triple that to cover for the Army and the Navy Department (which includes the US Marines), Ochmanek said, and you get $24 billion.
Yes, these are very broad strokes, but that’s only 3.3 percent of the $750 billion defense budget President Trump will propose for the 2020 fiscal year.
Work was less worried about the near-term risk — he thinks China and Russia aren’t eager to try anything right now — and more about what happens 10 to 20 years from now. But, he said, “sure, $24 billion a year for the next five years would be a good expenditure.
So what does that $24 billion buy?
To start with, missiles. Lots and lots of missiles. The US and its allies notoriously keep underestimating how many smart weapons they’ll need for a shooting war, then start to run out against enemies as weak as the Serbs or Libyans. Against a Russia or China, which can match not only our technology but our mass, you run out of munitions fast.
Specifically, you want lots of long-range offensive missiles. Ochmanek mentioned Army artillery brigades, which use MLRS missile launchers, and the Air Force’s JAGM-ER smart bomb, while Work touted the Navy’s LRASM ship-killer. You also want lots of defensive missiles to shoot down the enemy‘s offensive missiles, aircraft, and drones. One short-term fix there is the Army’s new Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (MSHORAD) batteries, Stinger missiles mounted on 8×8 Stryker armored vehicles. In the longer term, lasers, railguns, and high-powered microwaves could shoot down incoming missiles much less expensively.
The other big fix: toughening up our command, control, and communications networks. That includes everything from jam-proof datalinks to electronic warfare gear on combat aircraft and warships. The services are fond of cutting corners on electronics to get as many planes in the air and hulls in the water as possible, Ochmanek said, but a multi-billion dollar ship that dies for lack of a million-dollar decoy is a lousy return on investment.
In the longer run, Work added, you want to invest heavily in artificial intelligence: not killer robots, he said, but “loyal wingmen” drones to support manned aircraft and big-data crunchers to help humans analyze intelligence and plan. Of course, you have to find the money for new stuff somewhere, which means either raising the defense budget even further — unlikely — or cutting existing programs. Ochmanek was unsurprisingly shy about specifics, saying only that the services could certainly squeeze out $8 billion each for new technologies.
Work was a little harder-edged. He said cutting a carrier and two amphibious ships over the forthcoming 2020-2024 budget “seems right to me.” He argued the US Army has way too many brigade combat teams — tanks and infantry — and way too little missile defense to protect them. And he bemoaned reports the US Air Force will retire the B-1 bomber, one of its few long-range strike aircraft: If the Air Force doesn’t want them, he said, give them to the Navy, revive the old VPB “Patrol Bomber” squadrons, and load them with Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles to sink the Chinese navy. Pentagon leaders should challenge the armed services to solve very hard, very specific problems.
Work said: Sink 350 Chinese navy and coast guard vessels in the first 72 hours of a war, or destroy 2,400 Russian armored vehicles. Whoever has the best solution gets the most money. Those are hardly easy goals, Work said, but they’re also doable with technology now in development.
Easy Solution. The immediate problems could be fixed with technology already in production, Ochmanek said. For $24 billion, “I can buy the whole kit,” he said. “It’s all mature technologies and it would scare the crap out of adversaries, in a good way.”
It’s all about the money…
According to Washington DC K-Street neocons, the solution is more money. Not, instead, to rethink the value of conducting war against a peer-capable enemy. Especially one that has no intention on invading America. And they should think about the consequences…
No matter how one calculates it, fighting China over Taiwan would harm American interests and security without even holding the potential for benefit.
We must resist the temptation to act on the presumption that we can always choose to fight because we will always win.
The future of our country might hinge on getting this right.
-1945
The only threat to America these days is domestic. Internally, America is collapsing and the rest of the world isn’t. But… Let’s suppose that the money-grabbing Washington “think tanks” have made the necessary Power Point PPT presentations and convinced, actually convinced, those that control the utilization of the military that it is indeed possible to win a war. What then? Well let’s look at the situation from this point of view…
Biden Can’t Assume America Beats China in a Taiwan War
Joe Biden will face a host of difficulties and challenges when he assumes office on January 20, but perhaps none more consequential than deteriorating China-U.S. relations.
It is the potential flashpoint of Taiwan that will have the greatest urgency. Many in Washington are advocating a shedding of the decades’ old policy of “strategic ambiguity,” in favor of an overt declaration that we would come to the defense of Taiwan if China ever seeks to reunify the island by force.
Well. According to the UN, and both China and Taiwan, Taiwan is Han Chinese and part of China. It operates independently like Hong Kong does. But in no way is it an American territory. Which is something that the United States media and the neocons in Washington DC wants everyone to believe.
Assumed in such advocacy is the presumption the U.S. Armed Forces would be able to successfully accomplish that mission. For at least three major reasons, those assumptions are badly misplaced.
First, the risk is high that on purely military fundamentals, the United States would fail to successfully prevent a resolute and committed Chinese assault. As the most recent Department of Defense annual report to Congress on China details, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – remains on a multi-decade modernization push that has seen them develop a substantial defensive capability, known as anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD).
China’s A2/AD strategy, the Pentagon report explains, is designed to “dissuade, deter, or, if ordered, defeat third-party intervention during a large-scale, theater campaign such as a Taiwan contingency.”
Their strategy includes the use of modern weaponry including warships, new fighters, increasingly lethal missile forces, heavy armor, and cyberattack capability.
When comparing the armed forces of the United States and China, we are still substantially more capable than China. Our ability to project power, for example, remains ahead of China.
Critically, however, the balance of power near China’s shores would give them virtually EVERY military advantage.
Repeated wargames conducted in the United States pitting the U.S. against China in a Taiwan scenario reveal the ugly truth.
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense and current RAND analyst David A. Ochmanek revealed earlier this year that simulation exercises have exposed troubling results when the U.S. intervenes in war between China and Taiwan.
The American side, Ochmanek admitted, has “had its ass handed to it for years.”
The reasons for the simulated combat losses aren’t hard to understand.
Over the past few decades, the Chinese have developed modern weapons of war and have improved the quality of their fighting force substantially above where they were when the U.S. dismantled Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army in 1991.
Though our military is globally superior any fight within the so-called “first island chain” near China’s coast would play to Beijing’s tactical advantage.
As if 2020, this is now obsolete. According to the United States military, and the Trump White House the "first island chain" delimitation line is no longer an American advantage.
It is an area of Chinese military advantage.
Our conventional and nuclear power deter China from ever attacking the U.S. mainland or Armed Forces – but if we choose to intervene in their back yard, they would have the advantage.
Second, in the event of war, Taiwan may defend itself not merely by targeting the attacking Chinese forces, but by hitting military bases on the Chinese mainland.
If the U.S. joins the fight against China, it is unlikely China would differentiate whether an attack against its mainland came from a Taiwanese or American source and may well prompt a Chinese retaliation against U.S. targets either in the region (such as in Japan, South Korea, Guam, or Hawaii) or directly on our continental homeland. The risk would then rise precipitously of a nuclear response against American Cities on American soil.
Third, even if we overcame all the difficulties and imposed an outright defeat on the Chinese, there’s no guarantee China wouldn’t try again and we would be saddled with permanently garrisoning Taiwan, indefinitely making its security our responsibility. It would also all but guarantee a new war with China, as an American military presence across the Strait would entice Beijing to prepare for the next round. Taiwan is a core interest of China and they would never quit fighting.
As China has repeatedly warned the brain-dead American leadership, that Taiwan is Chinese territory.
Any American killing of Chinese people on Chinese soil would result in American deaths on American soil.
Of course, the idea that China would stick to a conventional strategy and isolate Taiwan and allow it to work with the United States unencumbered is another major illusion.
There is a much higher chance of San Fransisco turned to a flat, glassed over radioactive plain than this scenario coming into being. The Chinese leadership does not think like an American oligarch.
We would have to spend scores of billions annually to perpetually defend Taiwan, placing severe strain on our economy, diverting military forces and resources from everywhere else in the world, and require a major increase in the size of our military and thus base defense budget.
Undertaking such a burden as the “prize” for successfully preventing China from taking Taiwan could literally bankrupt our country and leave us more vulnerable than we’ve been since before World War I.
If you thought that Afghanistan's trillions of dollars was a waste, you ain't seen nothing yet.
China would make that look like play-money.
China could turn Taiwan into Verdun if it wanted to. And America would be trapped in throwing trillions of dollars into that sink hole, all to the glee of the neocons on K-street.
It should be beyond clear that it is not in America’s interests to take such an enormous risk. Naturally, the United States is a genuine advocate for freedom and self-determination across the globe.
It is not, however, our responsibility to be the global guarantor of every land and peoples’ freedom on the planet.
It would be a tragedy beyond compare if in trying to defend one country’s freedom, we put at risk our ability to guarantee our own.
Why are we even talking about this?
Well? Why?
Like him or hate him. Bernie Sanders made a great point thirty years ago (30 years!) that is even more pointed now. And it describes exactly what is going on right now. It describes the WHY everyone in Washington DC is talking about war with China, or War with Russia…
This video was made exactly 30 years ago.
Now, China at that time was truly third world. Over 90% of it’s people lived in poverty. But the government did exactly what Bernie Sanders proposes in this video, and now look at China today.
Now we have America looking to start a major war.
Idiots!
The next war will reduce all of America to slag. All of it. And the nations… nations… fractured remains that rise up, will be fourth world nations working hard to become more than just a radioactive banana republic.
How a War Against China Could Cripple the United States
Once China has decided to use military force to reunify Taiwan, their first actions will be covert actions designed to quietly set the stage for the assault of their main combat forces.
The assumption is...
The first action that will signal a full-on war has begun will be an initial, major barrage of ballistic missiles screaming across the strait at multiple civilian and military targets.
Once that happens, everything happens at warp speed.
The first barrage of missiles will target critical infrastructure and seek to destroy Taiwan’s ability to respond to the Chinese onslaught.
They will target military airfields to make them unusable, seek to destroy aircraft on the ground, especially those with the ability to conduct command and control and to direct other weapons (like AWACs-type craft); missile boats and Aegis-type destroyers in their births; anti-air and missile batteries on the ground.
“We warn those ‘Taiwan independence’ elements – those who play with fire will burn themselves, and Taiwan independence means war.”
— Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian
In the early hours of the battle, Taiwanese troops are shocked, confused, lack clear communications, and are fighting in the rear and from the front at the beaches.
Also an assumption.
China’s initial objectives will be to secure at least one of the three airfields and capture one or more beach landing sites by the end of the first day of fighting.
If they do, they will have a chance to open an airbridge and beach landing site through which they can pour more and more material with limited opposition. Like at the Normandy beach landings in 1944, once the invading force breaks through at the beach, it is almost impossible for the defenders to win.
The defenders’ primary objective is to identify and destroy all Chinese efforts on the island as quickly as possible, retain control of all airfields, and keep the beaches impregnable.
If China is not successful in landing the knock-out blow within the first 48 hours, it will likely have to switch its efforts to dramatically increasing its use of ballistic and cruise missiles, fighter and bomber sorties, and ship-to-shore missiles to try and force an opening at one or more beach landing zones.
They will try to overwhelm the island through brute force. If Taiwan is successful at preventing any large scale incursions either on the beach or via airborne or air-assault operations, their chances of thwarting the invasion increase dramatically. But they still won’t be out of the woods.
If China cannot penetrate the beach after two weeks of fighting, they may shift to a siege mentality, in which they will continue sustained bombing of the island, but at a reduced rate while putting into effect a naval blockade.
If things broke well for Taiwan, it is entirely possible that they could prevent China from opening any beachheads against their defenses. A naval blockade, however, will be more difficult to overcome.
Without any ability to replace the missiles and other ammunition they expend, no way to medically evacuate their wounded, or to import oil to power their warships, fuel their armored vehicles, and generate electricity – not to mention feed the population.
Though Taiwan can inflict serious damage to the PLA military, China’s capacity to absorb the damage and replace losses – while maintaining a blockade – is unlikely to be enough to stave off eventual defeat.
Taipei’s hope that by holding out long enough the U.S. will come riding to a the rescue will, one way or another, be dashed.
Constraints on U.S. Response
As Admiral Philip Davidson said in recent Congressional testimony, it would take American ships based in Alaska 17 days to reach Taiwan; 21 days from the U.S. West Coast.
Which is the entire idea behind the QUAD. To have massive military forces within close proximity of China. And thus American military would stream from Australia into the South Pacific Sea.
Beijing’s attack will require a no-notice launch to minimize the Taiwanese defender’s ability to man their positions, but possibly the greater purpose will be to ensure the U.S. Navy and Air Force are caught flat-footed and unable to mount an effective response.
To even have a chance at success, U.S. Forces in the Pacific region would have to have months to prepare.
They would have to bring personnel strength up near 100%, make all their ships and aircraft combat ready and fully supplied with wartime ammunition and fuel stocks.
That will never happen. At best American equipment is at 35% readiness, with a goal of some day reaching 50% readiness.
Any shortfalls in personnel, ships, and planes would have to be redeployed from other theaters to bring the Pacific naval and air fleets up to full capacity. None of those will be possible with a no-notice surprise attack by Beijing – and that vulnerability will put the U.S. president in a real bind.
Crisis in the White House Situation Room
The instant the first report reaches the Situation Room, the White House will assemble a crisis response team of senior advisors to begin analyzing the situation and debating potential responses.
Some will suggest the president order immediate long-range missile attacks against Chinese invasion air and naval forces in an attempt to aid the defenders.
Others may advocate hitting the Chinese bases supporting the invasion.
China will likely warn Biden that any attack on China-proper will result in missile strikes on American cities with conventional warheads* (still very lethal).
Word is that America HAS been warned. And the type of weapon used has not be specified.
*One of the biggest problems that Americans make is assuming that everyone else thinks like them.
As Mike Sweeny recently wrote for Defense Priorities, such attacks against targets on the Chinese mainland will inflame the Chinese domestic audience against the United States in increase the pressure for a nuclear response.
Again. There is a serious fundamental difference between China and America. In China, day to day public option does not matter. Decisions are not made by mob rule. They are made by merit-appointed true experts and the decisions are always sound. If China believes that the advantage would be to eviscerate New York City with a cluster of six nuclear war heads, then it will do so, and what the newspaper reader on the street thinks will not factor into the equation.
The risk of a war between Washington and Beijing escalating to nuclear is higher than many understand.
Duh!
But the president will face enormous pressures to act militarily in the face of Chinese aggression.
Taiwanese officials will certainly be pleading for the U.S. to intervene. Those in the United States who are already China hawks will almost certainly advocate “limited” military retaliation.
They will argue that Washington cannot stand passively by while China swallows a leading democratic country in Asia.
To refuse to act would be tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s infamous appeasement at Munich and encourage China to try and conquer other nations militarily. In all fairness, such concerns would not be without merit.
But Biden’s ability to respond militarily would be far more limited than would be commonly understood.
If Congress declared war on China or gave Biden authority to launch a military strike, the best he could do would be to unleash a relatively few cruise missiles and order some long-range bombing sorties from regional bases.
Those would have some impact but be insufficient to stop China’s invasion.
“China’s navy is viewed as posing a major challenge to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain wartime control of blue-water ocean areas in the Western Pacific.”
—Congressional Research Service analysis
To engage in sustained operations in support of Taiwan’s defenses, it would take the U.S. Navy and Air Force months to properly enter the war theater.
Trying to rush our military into a fight as soon as it can reach Taiwan would be near suicidal, as we would be arriving to the fight in sub-optimal condition, not fully resourced – and would face the full brunt of the Chinese air and naval forces (which are about double the size of the U.S. Pacific fleets). As importantly, PRC air and naval forces have long had existing plans to fight a U.S. force sent to aid Taiwan and have conducted countless computer simulations and field exercises.
We would be outnumbered, out-prepared, and out-gunned while fighting a motivated enemy engaged in what it considers an existential battle.
Duh! If Texas was Attacked how would American react? The same kind of visceral reaction should be expected of China.
All of the recent U.S.-based computer simulations reach similar conclusions.
In short, if Biden rashly sends the military to Taiwan’s defense, he could be sending us to our greatest naval defeat in our history.
If the president’s military advisers convince him to attack military targets on the mainland, the results could be mushroom clouds over U.S. cities.
The leaders in Washington DC believe that the loss of a city like Los Angles would be acceptable “collateral losses” in the quest to maintain Democracy off the coast of China.
Fortunately, however, there are superior options for Biden to choose that don’t involve dead Americans.
Preserving U.S. Military Power, Maintaining Security and Freedom
If China bull-headedly turns to violence to take Taiwan by force, the U.S. Government’s overriding priority will be to safeguard American security, freedom, and prosperity.
America's "freedom", and "prosperity"? Americans are so used to repeating the narrative that they no longer know what the words mean.
If Biden resists the temptation to respond immediately, he can dramatically shift the balance of power back in America’s favor by adopting realistic and attainable diplomatic and military strategy that features isolating, resisting, and containing China.
LOL. As if that is going to happen. Did you see any reasoning or strategy in the Alaskan meeting in April 2021 between Washington and China?
If China is foolish enough to gamble its future by attacking Taiwan – and America is smart enough to stay out of the war – the PRC will be severely weakened from its current status.
I disagree.
The entire world relies on Chinese manufacturing. And factories do not grow on trees. There are no quality alternatives for precision manufacturing, high technology products or innovation. Everything has been outsourced to China, and that includes Japanese products and design, German products and design, Korean products and design and all the rest.
The United States has, for some time, championed Taipei building a defensive fortress that would make any Chinese attempt to invade prohibitively expensive.
If anything, (America) should encourage Taiwan to expand further their defenses.
Even if China were successful in catching Taiwan unprepared, the surprise would not be complete, and Taipei would still have the ability to launch retaliatory strikes against the Chinese.
Unlike the United States, Taiwan would have no incentive to resist attacking mainland targets and would attack mainland airfields, naval bases, rocket and missile launch sites, and Chinese defense industry targets.
It would be very difficult seeing that the Chinese can render all missiles inactive by energy beam weapons.
They would also successfully sink some Chinese warships, knock out some fighter jets, and destroy thousands of their troops.
Maybe.
But China does not think like that.
Let me tell you what is more probable.
Nothing happens. Then one day the news says that Taiwan has embraced China as a co-family member. And has decided to get closer to the mainland.
That is the kind of level of strategy that we are dealing with here. Not the crude "blow 'em up" Rambo style of neocon warfare.
The net result of even a successful attack would gouge the PLA, severely weakening their ability to wage war; if Taiwan somehow held out and prevented an island takeover, the PLA would be set back decades and the PRC itself at risk of falling internally.
Um. Not even remotely realistic.
Any nation that can build two (x2) 4000 bed hospitals in ten days, or a 80 story skyscraper in a week, would have no problem replenishing military forces.
In either event, America’s advantage over China would be significantly increased, our ability to protect U.S. interests global continue to be unmatched, and our people continue in complete freedom.
Americans living in "freedom"? Obviously he was doing drugs when he wrote this. I think that he is just rolling off some trite sayings without thinking, rather than adding constructive dialog to make his points with.
Moreover, we would then have decades to increase our defenses from Guam to Hawaii to the West Coast – should that be deemed necessary – to ensure China could never, even decades into the future, successfully mount a cross-Pacific attack.
With what money? When it would take a wheel-barrel full of $100 bills to buy a hamburger?
What Americans think China’s military is like…
This is exactly what Americans think that the Chinese military is today. It’s what most people think. It’s a group of peasant, illiterate, with little training using 1980’s era hand-me-down old Soviet Union weapons. Where, their only strength is in their enormous numbers of people.
What China’s military is actually like…
This has rapidly become my favorite video. This is what the Chinese military is actually like.
This is a singular unit in XinJiang, you know the place; where the gateway to the BRI is, and where America must stop at nothing to disrupt it.
You probably know of it though the propaganda campaign about Uighur Muslims in Concentration Camps and other bullshit. You know. That America “must do something to help those poor oppressed Muslims”. As if the American oligarchy ever cared about Muslims at all, ever.
And some of the technologies that China has. Their quads operate and behave quite differently than what the American units do. And it’s very interesting. You have to keep in mind that all, and every Chinese person is a member of the irregulars. They all have military training, and the enormous size of the Chinese military is only the active “professional” warrior class. Not the irregulars.
And every squad has one of these curious weapons. They also have this other “neato” gun which is sort of a pocket howitzer that is the size of a rifle.
Chinese knives are sure cool, eh?
A personal mortar. Also standard with all squads…
The jeep howitzers are pretty cool too…
And aside from the regular training, and the mandatory of all military train for every single 14 year old boy and girl in China, you have elements of training that is simply not present in the United States, such as being able to shoot, and load a weapon with one hand. As in this movie…
And of course, since all the parts and engines, and subsystems of all the latest military hardware is contracted out to China, it should be no surprise that their home-gown, home-design, and home-manufactured weapons systems would be equal or better than the American ones that spawned them…
All the videos
If you cannot access all or some of the videos you can get them all HERE. Some good stuff, especially if you are a military buff.
Conclusion
In sum, by staying out of a China vs. Taiwan war, not only would America maintain our current strength, our national security would be stronger.
Conversely, if we foolishly insert ourselves into their fight, we will suffer severe damage to our Armed Forces at a minimum, placing our national security around the world at higher risk; in a worst-case, American cities could smolder in radioactive waste for years to come.
No matter how one calculates it, fighting China over Taiwan would harm American interests and security without even holding the potential for benefit.
We must resist the temptation to act on the presumption that we can always choose to fight because we will always win.
The future of our country might hinge on getting this right.
MM Comments
Ah. Perhaps. I can parse though many of his comments and poke holes through them.
(Taiwan) "...would attack mainland airfields, naval bases, rocket and missile launch sites, and Chinese defense industry targets."
Perhaps if he looked at a map he would see how ridiculous this statement is.
Taiwan would try.
And the planes wouldn’t be able to fly with directed energy beam weapons causing them to fall out of the sky.
And even if they could make it back, where would they land.
All the airfields would be cratered.
Ok. You can never predict the outcome of a military operation.
Certainly [1] the failure of the Trump administration to cause starvation in China by using drone launched bio-weapons against livestock didn’t work. The [2] aggressive “color revolution” in Hong Kong didn’t work. The [3] attempt at destabilizing Xinjiang didn’t work, and most certainly [4] the COVID bio-weapon attack against China on CNY with the lethal B-strain did not work.
Any military action in defense of Taiwan… … has a very small likelihood of working.
Chances are that it would not be successful.
And the participation of the American military against China WILL LAUNCH a hot war against America. Which would have at least a few of the following characteristics.
Destruction of Guam
Destruction of Diego Garcia
End of all trade with China… resulting in a collapse of many American industries as they still rely on Chinese trade to operate.
Probable war with Australia and the destruction of Australian Cities.
Russian involvement for certain as an ally of China.
Destruction of the cities in Hawaii.
And a high chance of nuclear destruction of American cities.
I would suggest the destruction of every city over a population of 750,000 in America. That would include all the “big names”. Perhaps the capital of the United States could relocate to Salina , Kansas.
All of these potential issues have an over 65% chance of happening if the USA gets involved and tries to provoke a war regarding China.
So the question really is… …just how out of touch, insane and crazy is the United States leadership? Would they be that foolish to tangle with Russia and China over some South China Sea incident?
Well…
Maybe this next article will provide the answer…
CIA Wokeness
Michael Tracey writes about a weird CIA video that is making the rounds (emphasis added):
In a mind-blowing marketing video first published on March 25, but which had escaped widespread notice until recent days, the CIA enthusiastically endorsed several key tenets of what has now indisputably become a hegemonic left/liberal ideological and rhetorical construct:
“I am a woman of color,” the video’s protagonist, an unnamed CIA officer, triumphantly proclaims. “I am a cisgender millennial who’s been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box-checking exercise.”
She continues, “I used to struggle with imposter syndrome. But at 36, I refuse to internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be. I am tired of feeling like I’m supposed to apologize for the space I occupy.”
I have to admit that I do not know what the words are supposed to mean. (Nor does my Firefox spellchecker. It flags them.) I also do not understand the phrases. To me they sounds like utter bullshit. But if the CIA wants to hire more such people I am all for it. Folks who can not leave their personal issues at the door typically muck up their workplace and create productivity problems. A less effective CIA will be a plus for the rest of the world.
But it will certainly enable the already insane leadership to go blindly towards a very dangerous path.
And that path looks, more and more everyday, like a high-speed rail straight to Hell.
It’s all over the chat rooms. America has the best training, the most capable leaders, the strongest military, and the best manufacturing in the world. While China is what? “A third world, has been nation, that has stolen more than it contributes”, right? That’s the narrative. This is typical…
(This article is) Complete BS. You don't understand how military power and capability works.
China doesn't have any Carrier groups, not one. That is a BIG deal.
They can't project any significant sea / air power.
They also don't have any significant amphibious assault capabilities such as the USMC.
Their air-force isn't close in capability.
The majority of their service members have very rudimentary training at best. There is much more to "staff" a military than just hand a rifle to a 16 year old peasant. A 155mm artillery shell or 1000 lb air delivered bomb takes care of numbers.
#34 ·
But the interesting retort is here…
I completely understand how military power and capability works. I didn’t say they could or would invade the US. I said we couldn’t defeat them in a context of their island building in the South Pacific. They’ve been testing and demonstrating anti-satellite weapons for over a decade. They don’t have a lot of carriers but they have a lot of submarines to take out carriers. They don’t have the capability to deliver an invasion force on the US but they definitely have that capacity throughout the South Pacific.They have massive manufacturing capacity and we have dwindled ours to virtual non-existence. In WWII, our fleet was decimated in short order but we had massive manufacturing capacity and we cranked out ships and carriers in droves. Where are we going to do that today? Where are we going to make the electronic components to drive a modern fleet?
Read that carefully. We get our legitimate Mil-Spec electronic parts from China and we get fake parts from China. Where are we going to get them when we go to war with China and have to rebuild a fleet?What about training? We’re training them on how to defeat us:
If you think of China as a backwards country where the soldiers would be 16-year-old peasants, I think you’re wrong.Then you have to consider the likelihood of China using a tactical nuke. Are they crazy enough? They don’t have to be; they need only convince our President that they might be.
But it doesn’t matter. Decades of anti-China propaganda and an onslaught in the belief that America is a nation of Rambo’s has created a situation where everyone is living in this fantasy world…
They would not stand a chance vs the US today.
China has never won a war. They are defensive by nature, they are not an offensive power. historically they build walls. Their "islands" are an example of that. They don't plan on projecting force, they plan on defending what they see as their's.
China can't build a jet engine worth a poop. China can't come up with their own ideas and relies on stealing to make their military products - so how do you conclude they can figure out how to out-think the west?
China has virtually NO access to oil/gas/coal should a war happen. Sounds like a short war.
Their navy would have a fair fight with japan.
If I recall correctly, Japan was beaten without any foot troops...
Ah. A bunch of “arm chair” warriors debating some war that is on the other side of the world. A place where they never visited, and a society and culture that they know nothing about. It’s 2021. China has been very clear about what would happen;
Taiwan, and the SCS islands are all Chinese territory.
Kill one Chinese person on Chinese land, and China will retaliate in an equal measured manner.
They have already demonstrated this…
April 2020 China’s first Type-075 amphibious assault carrier, designed for launching helicopters, caught fire. It was mysterious how it happened. The Chinese Navy put out the fire, and repaired the damage and launched the ship as scheduled.
Then…
July 2020 The Navy’s USS Bonhomme Richard burned for days at its pier in San Diego. After the fire was put out, the Navy registered the destruction as “total” and wrote off the vessel as a total loss.
The Chinese Do Not Play.
A fine reminder…
Here’s a fine reminder for all the jack-asses that believe that American could shoot and kill Chinese people, on Chinese land, and somehow go unscathed…
And let’s continue…
We need to look at the full scope about what it going on…
The full scope
American leadership are clueless psychopaths.
Their toadies are sociopaths that run the levels of government.
The bureaucracy that serves them has been politically and socially corrupted beyond usefulness.
Never the less, all studies point to catastrophic consequences if the United States tries to get involved in a war with either Russia or China.
And Russia and China have signed mutual military treaties so that they will work together if the USA tries to instigate a war.
The public is not aware of this. And because of that, we have a situation where American and their leadership wants a war. And this was made obvious in the April 2021 meeting in Anchorage Alaska.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are not FOOLS. They know exactly what the stakes are, and they will absolutely not permit any “wars of democracy” to land anywhere near them. And if they do… oh, Lordy. God help the American citizenry. There will not be any mercy.
Why?
Because the Chinese know history…
.
Make no mistake.
The Chinese will fight to the death to guarantee that they will not be exterminated like vermin by the psychopaths in Washington DC. They will guarantee it.
Like it or not, but Trump has a real chance of winning the 2024 elections. This in fact will be the best thing ever because the whole world will immediately turn their backs on USA the way they did.
Personally I can't wait for him to f*ck USA up and try to start a war with either China or/and Iran. About time USA get its ass whipped.
Do not worry, the “new and improved” military forces are more than ready to deal with 16 year old goat-herders with malfunctioning cheapo Chinese AK-47 clones…
Check out what the fuck happened to the enormous Armada that steamed to China in 2020. Nope, it did not go as planned. It was a fiasco, and President Trump sacked the top military brass for not following through on his wishes.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Uh oh. Yup. As if the last four years of “the fire hose of disinformation” wasn’t bad enough, It appears that the neocons on K-street in Washington DC are gearing up for “round two”. Ugh!
This model for propaganda is known as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “...propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”
A Senate committee has overwhelmingly passed the draft Strategic Competition Act in April 2021, which takes aims at China on multiple fronts, including military, economy and technology.
Of course, China will “take it on the chin“.
To "take it on the chin"
Meaning; this is a boxing metaphor meaning don't shy away from difficulty stand up for yourself don't complain get on with it be a man; be strong accept the challenge admit your mistakes andacceptcriticism
-Totake it on the chinmeaning
The United States is now the world’s most important powerhouse in technology, military might, and innovation. For China, being taken as a competitor by the U.S. is like to be chosen as a competitor by Mike Tyson, says Liu Baocheng.
The act is calling for over $1 billion to increase Washington’s already extensive global influence.
This includes over $650 million to fund foreign militaries in the Indo-Pacific region. The money would go to QUAD members to increase their size, train them to use American military equipment, and expand the size of their military bases so that American troops can use them.
It also includes some $450 million (in a separate budget element) for the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative. Which sounds really good. But is really funding to support US Navy operations in the South China Sea off the coast of China. Bases and facilities are being expanded to allow for American troops and equipment to be put in place prior to military excursions. This is what happened with Saudi Arabia prior to the Invasion of Iraq by America.
And yet another $300 million to counter Chinese influence around the world. Which is on all fronts, from direct bribes to various national oligarchies, to anti-China “message campaigns” to terrorist efforts, and of course the NGO’s that conduct “color revolutions”. In other words, to give money to terrorists, and instigators so that they would directly fight with Chinese as proxies instead of American CIA, and military troops.
Funding also covers investments to expand American exports to developing markets. Which means that since the primary export of America is military technology, this money would be used to get nations all over the globe to buy American weapons systems and locate”advisors” to help train, use and maintain the systems.
There’s a huge program to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Which of course includes generous propaganda efforts about “Uighur Muslims”, and efforts to create strife and war in that entire region.
And finally there are techniques (not so much in funding) to convince American companies leave the Chinese market. Such as telling McDonalds that it is more profitable to stop selling burgers in China, but instead sell them in Angola. Or telling Starbucks that the Chinese market isn’t going to grow and that they should invest in Iceland instead.
Liu says this type of ideological confrontation is really on the escalation, both [1] domestically in the U.S. (get American to hate China more), and that the U.S. is also trying to [2] persuade its allies to be against China (have the rest of the world hate China as well).
He said this act would hit China for a time being.
China relies very heavily on imports and exports, although it has the most self-sufficient industrial chains, and also is on its rapid transformation to be more self-reliant. As China plays a very important role in the international supply chain, this act will also hurt the world; particularly the U.S.
Now all this comes on top of the massive anti-efforts by Trump and his neocon friends from 2016 to present. What propaganda you might ask?
The fact that Western public opinion on China is marching in lockstep with the State Department’s call for Cold War aggression reflects the convergence of state, military, and corporate media interests which monopolize our media ecosystem. Behind the State Department’s bluster and the military “Pivot to Asia” exists a quiet, well-oiled machine that is busy manufacturing consent for war on China. Too often, the hawkish policy stances it enshrines are taken as objective ‘truth’ rather than as pro-war propaganda working in the interests of weapons corporations and political elites.
We call it Sinophobia, Inc.—an information industrial complex where Western state funding, billion dollar weapons manufacturers, and right-wing think tanks coalesce and operate in sync to flood the media with messages that China is public enemy number one. Armed with state funding and weapons industry sponsors, this handful of influential think tanks are setting the terms of the New Cold War on China. The same media ecosystem that greased the wheels of perpetual war towards disastrous intervention in the Middle East is now busy manufacturing consent for conflict with China.
By saturating our news and newsfeeds with anti-China messages, this media machine is convincing average people that a New Cold War is in their interests. In reality, the hype of an imagined ‘China threat’ only serves the interests of the political elites and defense industry CEOs who stand to profit from this disastrous geopolitical escalation.
-Manufacturing consent for Sinophobia
The cynical hypocrisy of the world’s No1 propagandist: US pledges $300mn to fund massive global anti-China media machine
Here's an article by Tom Fowdy, who is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia. this was written on 26 Apr, 2021 15:2, and reprinted here with editing to fit this venue. Of course, all credit to the author.
Chinese- and Russian-funded journalism is ‘disinformation,’ but when Washington spends millions on ‘independent’ news outlets and buying journalists to get favorable coverage of its policies, it’s called ‘spreading information.’
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The US Senate last week passed a bumper anti-China bill titled the “Strategic Competition Act”.
Backed by Chuck Schumer (Dem – New York) as one of his biggest priorities since becoming the Majority leader, the 270+ page document contains scores of recommendations and provisions on formalizing America’s “geopolitical competition” against Beijing.
This is a very comprehensive bill including in the fields of military, diplomacy, technology, trade and more.
There’s little question it will be passed into law, having already cleared the Senate and with the anti-Chinese sentiment in Washington being routinely bipartisan.
The bill also notably pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in various capacities for media focused initiatives against China.
This includes up to $300 million in an openly described effort to spread information on the “negative impact” of China’s $1 trillion-plus Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in participating countries.
A complete network of “anti-Chinese influence” programs.
A scheme to “train journalists” with the goal of countering Beijing.
And of course, millions more in funding for Radio Free Asia. So that it can expand its coverage in the specified languages of Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan and Uighur.
In short, it’s a mammoth propaganda push.
Watch out!
All the time, we hear so much about “Chinese/Russian propaganda,” “disinformation,” etc, and often its impact is depicted in highly threatening or sensational ways. Yet rarely, if ever, is it reported how the west actively and openly engages in psychological warfare with the goal of changing politics and governments in targeted countries. Of course, all the while playing the perpetual victim.
Here it is in the new US bill in black and white.
It is as clear as crystal.
Yet very few will balk or take notice at the explicitly ambitious effort to attempt to attack China…
…to destabilize various regions of China…
…to promote unrest and…
…ideally, to “balkanize” the country.
This, of course, is not new; it’s what America has always done.
Western political thought is built on the assumption that it owns a monopoly over what is conceived as ‘political truth,’
That it is the source of all enlightenment and, in wielding that ‘monopoly,’ has a divine mandate to evangelize that ‘truth’ to others.
This draws up a binary logical distinction that everything the west advocates is always motivated by good faith, as opposed to self-interest.
And of course, and that everyone who opposes this agenda is always motivated by bad faith and evil motivations.
My main question is this: will we be able to determine which journalists have received State Department training? If so, will there be disclaimers added to the articles that were written by such journalists? 🤔
— bob742omb (@bob742omb) April 26, 2021
This underlines the mentality of western journalism, that it is the only impartial and verifiable source of the ‘truth’.
And that everyone who questions it is advocating ‘propaganda’ – a term which usually only emotionally resonates with “enemy states.”
This mindset distorts the more nuanced reality that all states engage in such behavior.
…And that the staple assumption of ‘western truth’ is subsequently used to shape the global narrative against designated targets.
…And to justify aggressive, self-interest-driven policies under the guise of “moral concern”.
…And to make people unable to question them.
The US has a long history of such psychological warfare, both explicit and implicit.
One of the most famous instances is what was revealed as Operation Mockingbird.
This operation was where the CIA secretly infiltrated the mainstream media at home and abroad, collaborating with journalists to push US foreign-policy interests.
Many journalists – including Pulitzer Prize winners – joined the CIA’s payroll.
They ended up intentionally writing fake stories to disseminate the agency’s agitprop.
And many were given falsified or fabricated information in support of the CIA’s mission.
This was during the Cold War.
But the program has never been officially discontinued, and why would it stop today in the wake of a new Cold War with China?
A “global discourse”
The Strategic Competition bill clearly illustrates that Washington places primary importance on dominating the “global discourse” in accordance with its interests, and it is arguably very good at doing this through a multitude of methods.
In addition to its efforts with journalists, America also has an army of think tanks funded by various interests.
Usually defense industries, who are designated to create studies in order to legitimize and market Washington’s foreign-policy goals.
Then they coordinate with the press which gives them favorable coverage.
They are capable of feeding terms, ideas and concepts to shape coverage in their favor.
Such as creating “talking points” such as “wolf warrior diplomacy,” “economic coercion,” “Indo-Pacific” and so on.
All of which don’t make arguments as much as they create “assumptions” to shape public thinking accordingly.
Then, of course, there’s the actual state media.
Instruments like “Radio Free Asia” (RFA) are never earmarked by social media as “state affiliated media”.
When it should be.
In the way the likes of CGTN and RT are described.
All this, despite the fact that RFA is a US government-funded tool directly spreading propaganda on behalf of Washington.
The bill’s text makes its purpose explicit: RFA will be utilized to promote unrest and resistance in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong and even within China itself, something which would be deemed a malign form of foreign interference if done towards the west.
Yet the shocking part about it is, this is not all for China itself.
The US wants to interfere and manipulate the politics (and minds) of the citizens of hundreds of countries against Beijing.
It is planning to do so by spreading deliberate “negative” information concerning the BRI, with, of course, no consideration of its upsides whatsoever.
This means the American propaganda effort will span Latin America, South-East and Central Asia, as well as Africa.
Yet many in the west are happy to pass this behavior off as normal or acceptable, because the west is deemed the source of “truth” and “enlightenment” with the responsibility to “save” the backwards non-west.
In this case, we definitely need to talk more about organized, American-led disinformation and pure, geopolitically motivated propaganda.
Notwithstanding the onslaught of daily negative coverage as it is, Beijing needs to be ready to combat this effort and desperately improve the efficiency and credibility of its own media, especially in pointing out this kind of agenda and helping people think more about what they are consuming.
The ten rules of war propaganda were set forth by the historian Anne Morelli in her book The Principles of War Propaganda.
Well, let’s look at these rules.
In doing so, we will see that our mainstream media follow them exactly.
Anyone who follows the media reports in the West must realize that our Western media, free, objective, and critical, are engaged in war propaganda.
There are 10 well-known rules of war propaganda that are easy to check.
Rule 1: We don’t want war
The West supposedly never wants wars.
Even so, the West wages more wars than all other nation states put together.
Germany is fighting in Mali to supply the French nuclear power plants with uranium (officially against terrorists, of course).
Germany fought in Afghanistan for 20 years, so long that most have already forgotten what it was all about.
Germany has been militarily active in Kosovo for over 20 years to build democracy, but the Albanian mafia still rules there under the protection of the Bundeswehr. And so on.
All of these – and also the other – wars of the US-dominated West in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and on, all have one thing in common: Of course, the West did not want them at all, but was forced to war by the evil rulers.
This is the official reading every time, and none of the “rulers” has ever attacked a country in the West.
It was always the other way around, the West attacked.
But: “We don’t want the war”
Rule 2: The opposing camp is solely responsible for the war
See point one. Assad is allegedly responsible for the war in Syria, although the media in the West consistently keep silent about the CIA operation “Timber Sycamore” with which the CIA started the war.
If this is new to you, it’s no wonder.
Der Spiegel, for example, has never reported on how you can find the term “Timber Sycamore” when you search the Spiegel archive.
The relevant documents of the CIA were published in Washington years ago. If this is new to you, check it out.
It is always done that way. So it was with Iraq, Libya and all other wars in which the West is fighting.
The blame was placed on the other side, concealing that the West started the wars itself.
Rule 3: The leader of the opposing camp has the face of the devil
This is the classic.
The choice of words is crucial.
Putin, Assad and whoever are “potentates”, “autocrats”, “dictators” who commit all the deadly sins of the world.
When a war is imminent, the media bring – in order to make the population ready for war – the inevitable formulations of the “Second Hitler”, from whom the world must be saved.
Of course, the enemies do not have “governments”, they are “regimes”.
With all these formulations the “enemy” is dehumanized, the public should feel hatred and be ready to overthrow such an evil person, even at the cost of thousands of lives.
This is what is called “hatespeech” in modern German and what the same media, that use this hate propaganda against unloved heads of government, always find very bad.
Rule 4: We defend a good cause and not special interests
Of course, the US wanted to bring human rights, democracy and prosperity to Iraq.
Of course, it wasn’t about the oil wells that US corporations have secured for themselves.
Not even in Libya, where France (one of the driving forces in the war) has secured many oil wells.
And Mali is about the fight against terrorism, not the uranium on which the French nuclear industry depends.
And of course Syria is not about oil or the only Russian naval base in the Mediterranean, it is only about democracy, human rights and prosperity.
Wherever a government is critical of the West and where there are also natural resources (or where one of the main enemies China and Russia can be harmed), the West finds democracy and human rights very important.
But if a government is pro-Western and allows the West access to natural resources, such as the absolutist Saudi dictatorship, then democracy and human rights are not so important.
Incidentally, this is the key to understanding why Russia, which was a political friend under Yeltsin, has become enemy number one again under Putin:
Under Yeltsin, Western corporations had secured control of Russian oil and gas.
Putin ended that by 2003, and suddenly he was the number one villain.
It doesn’t say that in the “quality media”, but it was actually so banal.
Rule 5: The enemy commits atrocities deliberately; on the other hand, when we cross the line, it is unintentional
We experience this one all the time.
If the US is undoubtedly bombing a hospital in Afghanistan, then that is “collateral damage” and it was an accident.
Nobody is punished, the “quality media” quickly forget it and do not ask for clarification.
On the other hand, it is enough if someone claims without evidence that Russia or Syria bombed a hospital and the media in the West are reporting not only for days, but also afterwards, so that the public does not forget who it must hate.
Rule 6: The enemy uses illegal weapons
That is also a classic.
We have all heard many times that Assad uses “barrel bombs”.
Nobody really knows what that actually is, but it sounds pretty nasty.
The USA constantly uses barrel bombs, except they are called “cluster bombs” and the “quality media” are almost always shyly silent about them.
Why? Well, because these weapons are internationally banned.
Whether Assad uses this weapon has not been proven at all, but as a precaution the media have come up with a separate word for it so that the readers don’t even get the idea that the West could also use such weapons.
“…But he does that all the time.”
Rule 7: We suffer only slight losses; the enemy’s losses are enormous
This rule only applies when the war has entered its critical phase.
Before the war it was the other way around.
Before the war it was reported that the enemy was aggressive and, for example, had killed so many of “our” soldiers again when violating a ceasefire.
This is to prepare the public for a war.
We have been seeing this in Ukraine for years.
The “quality media” always report when it gets “hotter” there that the rebels have killed so many Ukrainian soldiers.
In doing so, they keep silent about the fact that the mostly Ukrainian shelling of residential areas preceded them, in which civilians were killed.
But you don’t find out about that from the “quality media”, you have to read the reports of the OSCE.
The “quality media” did not consider the fact that the OSCE presented a report in November 2020 in which it stated that almost 75 percent of civilian casualties in Donbass were due to the Ukrainian armed forces.
Rule 8: The artists and intellectuals support our cause
Notice how often celebrities have their say in the media who think the Western wars are good for moral reasons.
Celebs have spoken out against Assad, Gaddafi, and Saddam in recent years.
This is particularly evident in the American media.
In 2019 a prominent “benefit concert” for Venezuela took place in the Colombian border town of Cucuta.
Famous artists appeared in the middle of the jungle to sing against Maduro. Conveniently right next to the US military base there.
And for Navalny, for example, Western celebrities wrote an open letter to Putin in April 2021.
It did not contain any truths and probably hardly anyone has read it.
It was just important to be able to name the celebrities in the headlines of the media who are against Putin.
There are innumerable examples of this method of war propaganda.
But none of this has anything to do with politics, after all, what politician is interested in a singer’s opinion?
These reports only have the purpose of giving the public the feeling that the position of the West is morally correct.
And thus the fans of the stars are to be influenced accordingly and to follow their idol.
It’s all about emotions, not the actuality.
Rule 9: Our concern is something sacred
Of course, after all, it is supposedly about the “holy” values of the West, that is to say about democracy and human rights.
You can also kill people for this.
This is probably the oldest means of war propaganda in world history.
In ancient Rome one had to bring civilization to the barbarians, of course it was not about the enrichment of the generals.
Caesar moved to Gaul as a practically bankrupt man and came back very rich.
Later the Spaniards had to bring the “savages” in America the right faith so that they would not burn in the hell to which the Spaniards sent them on the occasion.
It wasn’t about the gold, of course.
And the British Empire wanted to bring civilization back to the “backward” colonies, because the poor, backward people in the colonies couldn’t rule themselves.
What I am writing here so ironically is true.
You can read it in the documents from the corresponding periods.
There was always a “sacred” reason for urgently going to war.
And today the “holy” concerns are democracy, human rights, women’s rights and so on.
It’s still the same principle as in antiquity, only the “sacred” concern changes every now and then.
Rule 10: Anyone who questions our propaganda is a traitor
Today the word “traitor” is out of date.
Today you can choose to say “Putin understanders”, “Kremlin trolls”, “conspiracy theorists”, “Chicom”, “fifty center”, “anti-Americans” and whatever other names are currently circulating.
Anyone who disagrees is demonized and marginalized.
But all of these terms have one thing in common: They identify the named person as an opponent of “Western values” or democracy. Ergo: it’s a traitor.
It’s shocking, but the German media is actually doing war propaganda like in the darkest times in history.
And not just since yesterday, it happened in 1991 in the First Gulf War with the incubator lie and has not been less since then, on the contrary, it has become more, and the techniques have been refined more and more.
Do you think it is a coincidence that the media works exactly according to the propaganda textbook?
Since many good people have found themselves susceptible to the narrative that China is the global supervillain…
…conspiring to overthrow western Christian values by any means necessary…
… I believe some lessons should be brought to bear.
Anti-Nation state fanatic George Soros stated at the 2020 Davos Summit that China has become the greatest threat to his vision for Open Society (right behind Trump’s USA). This was echoed by Lord Malloch Brown’s 2020 Global Government Speeches.
China’s deep alliance with Russia and the increased integration of the Eurasian Economic Union with the 135 nation strong Belt and Road Initiative form the basis of an alternative multipolar paradigm has kept imperialists up at night for the past several years.
The prospect of a US-China-Russia alliance has been one of the greatest threats to empire which peeked in the weeks before COVID-19 arose onto the scene as the US-China Trade Pact successfully entered its first phase (and has since fallen into shambles) as well as Trump’s repeated calls for “good relations with Russia.”
Amidst the surge of anti-China media psy ops published across Five Eyes nations, countless patriots of a conservative bent have found themselves absorbed into a red-scare manic hysteria.
Understanding the nature of the current psy ops, and new red scare deflection underway…
… it is necessary to review some seriously underappreciated facts of recent history…
… and since former secretary of State Sir Henry Kissinger (a genuine Knight of the British Empire), figures prominently in this story, it is wise to start with his relationship with China.
Although he is celebrated for being an “enlightened” liberal politician who helped China open up to the west after the dark days of Mao’s Cultural Revolution by extending western markets to China…
… the truth is very different.
A devout proponent of world government and population control, Kissinger had been the tool selected during a particularly important period of human history to advance a new ordering of world affairs.
The Division of the World Into Producers and Consumers
Since the world was taken off the gold reserve system way back in 1971, a new age of “post-industrialism” was unleashed onto a globalized world.
Humanity was given a new type of system which presumed that both our nature and the cause of value itself were located in the act of consuming.
The old idea that our nature was creative, and that our wealth was tied to producing, was assumed to be an obsolete thing of the past… a relic of a dirty old industrial age.
Under the new post-1971 operating system, we were told that the world would now be divided among producers and consumers.
The “have-not producers” would provide the cheap labor which first world consumers would increasingly rely on for the creation of goods they used to make for themselves.
“First world” nations were told…
…that according to the new post-industrial rules of de-regulation and market economics…
… that they should export their heavy industry, machine tools and other productive sectors abroad…
…as they transitioned into “white collar” post-industrial consumer societies.
The longer this outsourcing of industries went on, the less western nations found themselves capable of sustaining their own citizenries…
… building their own infrastructure…
…or determining their own economic destinies.
In place of full spectrum economies that once saw over 40% of North America’s labor force employed in manufacturing, a new addiction to “buying cheap stuff” began, and a “service economies” took over like a cancer.
To make matters worse, the many newly independent nations struggling to liberate themselves from colonialism…
…were told that they would have to abandon their dreams of development…
…since those goals would render the formula of a producer-consumer stratified society impossible to create.
Those leaders resisting this edict would face assassination or CIA overthrow.
Those leaders who adapted to the new rules would become peons of the new age of “Economic Hitmen”.
China and the West: The Real Story
By the time Deng Xiaoping announced the “opening up” of China in 1978, Kissinger had already managed the economic paradigm shift of 1971…
…which transformed U.S. Foreign Policy from a pro-development orientation towards a new policy of depopulation.
One that ended up targeting the poor nations of the global south under the logic that the resources under their soil were the lawful possession of the USA.
The NSSM 200 (titled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests”) outlined its objective “Assistance for population moderation should give emphasis to the largest and fastest growing developing countries where there is a special US and strategic interest”.
… which was begun in full with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes to 20% …
…that ensured a vast destruction of small and medium businesses across the board.
Believing China (then still largely an impoverished third world country) to be desperate enough to accept money and short-term salvation…
…after years of trauma induced by the Cultural Revolution.
Under Kissinger’s logic, China would receive just enough money to sustain a static existence but would never be able to stand on its own two feet.
Unbeknownst to Kissinger, China’s leaders under the direction of Zhou Enlai, and his disciple Deng Xiaoping had a much longer-term strategic perspective than their western partners ever imagined.
While receiving much needed revenue from foreign exports, China began to slowly create the foundations for a genuine renaissance which would be made possible by…
…slowly learning the skills…
… leapfrogging technologies…
…and acquiring means of production which the west had once pioneered.
Zhou Enlai had first enunciated this visionary program as early as 1963 under his Four Modernizations mandate (Industrial, agricultural, national defense and science and technology).
And then restated this program in January 1976 weeks before his death.
This program manifested itself in the July 6, 1978 State Council Forum on the “Principles to Guide the Four Modernizations”.
Informed by the findings of international exploratory missions conducted by economist Gu Mu’s delegations around various advanced world economies (Japan, Hong Kong, Western Europe).
The findings of Gu Mu’s reports laid out the concrete pathways for full spectrum economic sovereignty.
A sovereignty with a focus on cultivating the cognitive creative powers of a new generation of scientists.
Scientists that would drive the non linear breakthroughs needed for China to ultimately break free of the rules of closed-system economics which technocrats like Kissinger wished the world adhere to.
Deng Xiaoping broke from the radical Marxism prevalent among the intelligentsia by redefining “labor” from purely material constraints and elevating the concept rightfully to the higher domain of mind saying:
“We should select several thousand of our most qualified personnel within the scientific and technological establishment and create conditions that will allow them to devote their undivided attention to research.
Those who have financial difficulties should be given allowances and subsidies…
We must create within the party an atmosphere of respect for knowledge and respect for trained personnel.
The erroneous attitude of not respecting intellectuals must be opposed. All work. Be it mental or manual, is labor.”
Over the course of the coming decades, China learned, and like any student, copied, reverse engineered and reconstructed western techniques as it slowly generated capacities that ultimately allowed them press on the limits of human knowledge outpacing all western models.
Project 863 focused on areas of space, lasers, energy, biotechnology, new materials, automation and information technology.
This project became the driver for creative innovation guided by the National Science Foundation and was upgraded to the 973 Basic Research Program in 2009 to: “1).
Project 973 supported [1] multidisciplinary and fundamental research of relevance to national development; [2] Promote frontline basic research; [3] Support the cultivation of scientific talent capable of original research; and [4] Build high-quality interdisciplinary research centers.”
The fruits of these long term programs was beginning to be felt and by 1996, discussion for a New Silk Road reviving the ancient trade routes connecting China to Europe and Africa through the Middle East and Caucasus was beginning with conferences hosted by Beijing under President Jiang Zemin.
One of the few western participants at these Chinese events was the Schiller Institute, whose founders delivered a full day seminar in 1997 describing the program that would finally come back to life in 2013 when Xi Jinping made it the focus of China’s foreign policy outlook under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Why did this program wait until 2013 to blossom onto the world stage when obvious momentum was already in motion in 1997?
George Soros and the Attack on the Asian Markets
From May 1997, George Soros’ targeting of the Southeast Asian “Tigers economies” of Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, and Malaysia with…
…speculative short sales of their local currencies…
…and which resulted in months of vast anarchy across all of Asia and the world more broadly.
Currencies collapsed from 10-80% over the next 8 months and took many years to begin to recover.
Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammed was brave enough to call out Soros’ economic warfare.
He did much to help his nation weather the storm by imposing capital controls to maintain some semblance of stability.
He ended up calling out the speculator saying:
“as much as people who produce and distribute drugs are criminals, because they destroy nations, the people who undermine the economies of poor nations are too.”
Chinese President Jiang Zemin followed suit calling Soros “a financial sniper” and stated he would not let the speculator enter Chinese markets.
“The ultimate target is China.
The British are particularly worried about the increasingly close collaboration between China and the ASEAN nations, which are being integrated into the massive regional and continental development projects initiated by China under the umbrella of the Eurasian Continental Land-Bridge program.
Such real development policies offer the alternative to the cheap-labor, colonial-style export industries of the “globalization” model
- the model that has led to the financial bubbles now bursting worldwide.”
The Tumultuous Years of 1997-2013
With the advent of the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management…
(whose meltdown nearly took down the world economy in 1999 if not bailed out by central banks),
…followed by the Y2K/tech bubble explosion of 2000, the world markets nearly collapsed on several occasions.
9-11 unleashed a new era of warfare which deflected attention from the rot of the financial system while derivatives were deregulated.
And ‘Too Big To Fail’ banking formed in short order growing far beyond the powers of any nation state to rein in.
Under this period of destabilization, wars, terrorism and easy money speculation, China and its Eurasian allies moved slower to rebuild the physical basis of their existence…
…with the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization…
… long term planning…
… and a slow but steady focus on real (vs speculative) economic activity.
The fact that China was among the only nations of the world to keep national controls over their central bank and maintain Glass-Steagall bank separation were not lost on the enemies of humanity…
…all of whom are still yearning for a world-wide bankers’ dictatorship.
This process continued until it became evident that the western unipolar agenda would stop at nothing…
…including nuclear war…
…in order to assure the total subservience of all nation states.
With Obama unveiling his Asia Pivot (air-sea battle) plans against China along with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) economic attack on China.
The veil was now lifted to the true ugly face behind the liberal fascist smiles and it became clear that the full spectrum dominance military encirclement of Russia’s perimeter was being fully extended to China’s perimeter as well.
The Revival of the New Silk Road
It was in the face of this existential threat that Xi Jinping emerged as the new leader of China.
And a historic crackdown of party corruption on all levels Federal, Provincial and Municipal was begun in force.
Although China is often accused of intellectual theft, the reality is that it has begun to clearly outpace western nations becoming a pioneer on every level of science and technology.
… since it is very well understood that it would become the basis for a new world system…
…as the old globalized paradigm comes crashing down faster than the Hindenburg.
The Real Perpetrators Laugh as a New Cold War Hysteria is Orchestrated
It is perhaps an irony that those figures who have been caught time and again attempting to destroy the foundations of both the USA, China and Russia have deflected attention from their own actions by promoting the idea that China is the USA’s natural enemy.
The reality is China is currently not only reviving the ancient silk road paradigm that focused on a harmony of interests and mutual self interest through economic and cultural exchange…
In this 1920 document China’s first President outlined the superiority of the American system of political economy which he studied deeply beginning in his early student days in the USA.
And upon which he explicitly modelled his new republican China and his three Principles of the People (premised on Lincoln’s principle of a nation for, by and of the people).
Sun Yat-sen (a Christian Confucian revolutionary) is not only the beloved founding father of the republic of China celebrated to this day, but stated his views pro-American views in the following terms
“The world has been greatly benefited by the development of America as an industrial and a commercial Nation.
So a developed China with her four hundred millions of population, will be another New World in the economic sense.
The nations which will take part in this development will reap immense advantages.
Furthermore, international cooperation of this kind cannot but help to strengthen the Brotherhood of Man.”
Both mainstream and alternative media outlets that tend to be sympathetic to conservative values have bit the bait…
…and are now blind to the fact that those oligarchical social engineers managing the World Economic Forum…
…and drooling over a new era of World Government…
… population reduction and technocratic feudalism…
…are laughing at all of those fish in their nets whose ignorance to history and other cultures are leading them to their own self-destruction.
…
Upon this backdrop we have this little interesting take on events…
U.S. Four Star Generals Ask DNI To Stop Lying
These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is spilling over the world:
Dear Director of National Intelligence,we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents.We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those judgmentsUnfortunately, we have none that we could provide.You say that Russia thought to manipulate Trump allies and to smear Biden, that Russia and Iran aimed to sway the 2020 election through covert campaigns and that China runs covert operations to influence members of Congress.Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately no soldier got hurt by those rumors.Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things. They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries.Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET.We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments.*Sincerely
The Generals
----PS: *Either that or shut the fuck up.
The above may well have been a draft for the letter behind this report:
America’s top spies say they are looking for ways to declassify and release more intelligence about adversaries’ bad behavior, after a group of four-star military commanders sent a rare and urgent plea asking for help in the information war against Russia and China.The internal memo from nine regional military commanders last year, which was reviewed by POLITICO and not made public, implored spy agencies to provide more evidence to combat "pernicious conduct."
Only by "waging the truth in the public domain against America’s 21st century challengers” can Washington shore up support from American allies, they said. But efforts to compete in the battle of ideas, they added, are hamstrung by overly stringent secrecy practices.
“We request this help to better enable the US, and by extension its allies and partners, to win without fighting, to fight now in so-called gray zones, and to supply ammunition in the ongoing war of narratives," the commanders who oversee U.S. military forces in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America, as well as special operations troops, wrote to then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire last January.
“Unfortunately, we continue to miss opportunities to clarify truth, counter distortions, puncture false narratives, and influence events in time to make a difference," they added.
The generals must have been seriously miffed to write such a letter.
There have been a number of published intelligence judgments where the NSA had expressed low confidence in conclusions made mainly by the CIA.
The NSA is part of the military.
Between two bureaucracies such an accusing letter or internal memo is the equivalent of a declaration of war.
It is doubtful that the intelligence folks would win that fight.
That gives some hope that the Office of the DNI and the agencies below it will now lessen their production of nonsensical claims.
….
The CIA/FBI/17+ known/unknown agencies are clearly a security apparatus that’s gone out of control when even the USA’s “nine regional [four-star general] military commanders” are out of the loop and pleading to be better informed.
Worryingly, though, they ask for “ammunition in the ongoing war of narratives,” which they apparently are ready to go right along with.
Western news media, of course, has become but a compliant weaponized appendage of that security apparatus, and democracy, which depends on informed voters, is nowhere in control of any of this.
Down this slippery slope, lies fascism.
US needs a correct mindset to compete with China: Global Times editorial
It must be emphasized that it's the sacred right of all 1.4 billion Chinese people to have a better living standard through the country's development. The US elites fear and try to contain China's development, and turn the normal competition between the two countries into a zero-sum game. This is immoral and runs counter to human rights that they trumpet. Washington cannot say one thing but do another. Blocking the economic and technological progress of developing countries is the biggest sin of the 21st century. They need to bear in mind that it's not the privilege of the Americans and Westerners to live a decent life.
Around and around the water goes down the drain. Those in the water are desperately trying to throw out anchors and shoot flare into the night skies above. But no one is aware.
The warning alarms are ringing loudly
While the United States might believe that it represents the entirety of the “free world” and thus ALL nations that “matter”. This is a complete falsehood. The rest of the world is really, seriously getting fed up, and angry.
Since Joe Biden took over the White House on January 20, the US has been pushing for what it calls an allied approach against China on trade and other issues. So far, that approach appears to be gaining some traction, as the US and some of its allies, including the EU and Japan, are reportedly mulling harsher trading rules targeting China.
Chinese officials have repeatedly registered their displeasure with such an approach of forming small circles or clans among so-called democratic economies to harm other countries’ interests.
However, China’s legitimate concerns have been largely overshadowed by what appears to be a coordinated smearing campaign against China by the West and their media. Not many countries, including developing economies that may also be targeted by the West’s “tougher” rules against China, spoke up. Even if some did, their voices are often ignored.
But at the EU’s trade policy day this week, where EU officials repeated long-standing grievances against China’s industrial policies and the state-owned companies, the new head of the WTO offered a very powerful and pragmatic repudiation of the group’s approach to gang up on China.
“I’ll just be very open,” said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who made history in March when she became the first woman and first African to head the WTO, as she warned against targeting China. “When China feels it’s being targeted and it’s only about China, then you get a lot of resistance.”
In the speech, Okonjo-Iweala went further to warn countries not to “use the WTO or trade as kind of a weapon to solve” political issues. She did not name names, but that is a reference to the plan pushed by the US, the EU and Japan to try to “weaponize the WTO” and international trading rules to serve their ill-willed, selfish political interests in containing China’s economic rise.
The WTO chief was eloquent and understandably diplomatic in issuing a dire warning against such a dangerous trend in global multilateral trading system. But in case some in the West might need a more straightforward reminder, here is the bottom line: The era when a small group of powers can decide others’ fate is long gone. The global multilateral system is no longer a tool that they can deploy at will.
Moreover, today’s China is no longer the same country that was easily invaded by the so-called Eight-Nation Alliance over a century ago. It is now the world’s second-largest economy, the world’s largest trading nation, and the biggest contributor to global economic growth. China will not be intimidated and pushed around by a few so-called advanced countries.
To put the WTO chief’s warning into more blunt terms, China will not sit idle and allow the US and its allies to use the WTO as a weapon against itself. Any such attempt should and will be met with forceful resistance.
And that resistance won’t just come from China.
The US and its allies might being targeting China directly, but whatever reform plans they push forward at the WTO will also hit other developing countries, which have similar economic policies and development plans as China. In fact, while the US and its allies may have put China on the spotlight, their true intention is to pull the WTO and global trading rules further into their favor and away from the developing economies.
The WTO, whose operations and authority have been seriously undermined by the US, is in dire need of reform. But any reform plan should be discussed and decided by all of its 150 or so members, not just by the US and its allies. The reforms should make the WTO more balanced to serve not only advanced economies – as it is in many cases – but also developing economies – which make up two-thirds of its membership.
Conclusion
Ok, so it’s really clear. Billions of dollars are pouring out of the United States towards the demonization of China, and towards instigation of internal strife and NGO-backed revolutions.
This will not happen quietly.
American readers will get the brunt of the propaganda. Most Americans, Brits, and Australians (as well as other member of the “Western Alliance”) will start seeing their news feeds clogged up with very healthy does of anti-China “news”.
Some of it will be subtle; existing real news with injections of anti-China phrases and content interspersed.
Some of it will be direct, in your face. It might consist of lies, or half-truths. All will be distortions.
Some of it will be directed at any nations that support China. If Cambodia does something in favor of the BRI, you can well expect a healthy dose of anti-Cambodia articles to start appearing as well.
But that’s not all.
The new funding is specifically directed at fomenting military operations inside of China itself.
There will be more attempts at “color revolutions”, “pro-democracy” actions, and covert insurgency operations.
There will be an increase in Social Justice Warrior interruptions; all designed to tear apart the strong Chinese social and familial value system.
There will be training to these ends, and clandestine efforts to stop China at all casts so that it collapses from the outer edges, and internally from the middle.
Every time you read an anti-China “news” article, realize that it is part of a triad of articles across different platforms all sending the same messages, and with that they interlock with your reading habits to interject, at key points, other anti-China screeds. All with the ultimate desire to have you (the reader) “foaming at the mouth” ready for war with China.
Here’s what they want the sheeple to turn into… (from my inbox)
Filthy Scumbag Communist Traitors are constantly trying to convince you that it’s normal to go through life living off handouts and dependent on the government for survival.
Communists want you to believe you are a victim and that others are to blame for your circumstances.
Communists employ censorship and violence to force their beliefs on you because they are incapable of forming valid arguments. Because there is no valid argument to convince you to accept that your prosperity must depend on the degree of your worship of the state.
You can not be convinced by logic or reason that you’re better off poor and powerless than rich and in control of your destiny.
Real Americans believe in and practice self-reliance. Real Americans accept responsibility for their circumstances and make the necessary sacrifices of their time and attention to improve the quality of their lives.
Real Americans Are Entrepreneurs. Real Americans create opportunity and prosperity. Real Americans are not victims because Real Americans Are Champions.My Fellow Americans Please Help To Make America Greater Than We Already Are And To Help Keep America Great By Starting Your Own Business Or Expanding Your Existing Business.Capital Funding And Comprehensive Training And Mentoring Are Available to All American Patriots Regardless Of Your Current Credit Score Or Current Or Past Circumstances.
This comes from a reader who admitted that they never visited China, never obtained a passport, but knows what China is because…
…well they said it’s “obvious”.
Sheeple. The United States Congress has decided to militarize the sheeple to ready them for war.
Last Minute additions
Video: US President Biden administration will provide US$300 million per year to promote fake news against China. 美國總統拜登政府將每年提供3億美元，以宣傳針對中國的虛假新聞.
Expect more hate crimes targeting Asian American in the coming months and years. 預計在未來數年內，將有更多針對亞裔美國人的仇恨犯罪。
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please note that this article has a large number of videos. It is important for you to watch them to get the full impact of the message. None of the videos are longer than four minutes, but they might take some time to download depending on your service provider.
There’s a bunch of dunder-head idiots inside the United States that wants to get involved in a war. Whether it is with Russia, or Iran, or China. They want a war. And they are justifying war like they are some middle-school boys planning on a swing set in the playground. It’s dangerous, but it’s all there in black and white.
Right up front in our faces….
Rep Ted Yoho had a PR nightmare this week after reportedly calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez some ungentlemanly terms. Though this is the controversy du jour, we should not lose sight that actual policy is more important than sound bites. Yoho recently announced plans to submit legislation this week for the “Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act” that would commit the United States to war against China if Beijing attacks Taiwan. Such a proposition has long been popular in the Beltway. Before tying the United States to Taipei’s fate, however, a closer analysis is warranted.
-Should the United States Go to War with China if Taiwan is Attacked?
But, you know, this time is really different. Oh, now. The “boys” won’t be a marching off to war. It will pretty much be “game over” for the Old US of A.
They don’t seem to understand just how meager and vulnerable the United States actually is.
The truth is that America is so weak and disorganized right now, that the slightest “event” could have everyone fighting each other like a scene out of a Hollywood movie.
And to make this point, just how absolutely RIPE America is ready for social upheaval and tearing other Americans apart, I have to show a clip from a movie. It’s one that most non-Americans are confused by. But here, now that you understand the real context behind the deeper meaning of the scene, you can well appreciate it.
America is ripe and ready for this…
Exactly… THIS…
Sorry that the quality is on the poor side. But the point is there. Listen to it, and embrace it.
American against American. Black against white. Urban against rural. Rich against poor. Spanish against Anglos.
Notice how the wealthy oligarchy observes and knows what is going on, but they either [1] divert their eyes because they don't want to see, or [2] watch the events with glee. Others also watching look up it with horror, disgust, and a state of trying to monitor the situation reasonably. This piece of video art is a masterpiece.
And I'm not saying that solely because they use Lynyrd Skynyrd music as the backdrop.
I am not the only one saying this. It’s pretty much well-established inside of America today.
The church fight scene in Kingsman: The Secret Service is hands down one of the most memorable action sequences in recent history. But there are actually layers to what makes it so great – layers beyond the primal gratification we collectively derive from seeing someone (rightfully) get the shit kicked out of them.
-Bosshunting
People are angry. They’re angry about the Covid lockdowns. They’re angry because they are losing their jobs and can’t pay the rent and feed their families. They’re angry because the stores are all out of the food and supplies they need to survive.
They are angry because they get beaten up by the cops if they don’t keep a certain distance from each other in public. They’re angry at the politicians who pretend to be helping but in truth are making things worse with partisan, self-serving bullshit. And African-Americans are angry because they find themselves — yet again — in the crosshairs of deadly racism.
In short, Americans are as mad as hell.
America is on the verge of an explosion. I can feel its rumblings already. My guess is it’s already started happening in a small way, and within the next year or two it is going to spread like wildfire.
…
Right now, virtually the entire country is in a really bad mood, and unfortunately some people will choose to resort to violence.And it can happen in places that you might not expect. For instance, an argument over social distancing rules at a McDonald’s in Oklahoma resulted in three people getting shot…But as our world gets even crazier, more people than ever are going to be going off the deep end.Our nation is so deeply divided, and explosions of anger and hatred are becoming increasingly common. So many Americans are willing to “shoot first and ask questions later”, and the shooting of a 25-year-old African-American man in Georgia is causing a national uproar…
-End of the American Dream
Rage
Take this…
People are screaming at each other a lot these days. The most recent example is a viral video, seen by millions of people since last week, of a woman who went ballistic because a service dog was sitting near her in a Delaware restaurant.The dog in question belonged to a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. But that didn't stop the woman from unleashing a three-minute, profanity-laced tirade. I'm sure all the diners at Kathy's Crab House lost their appetite that evening."It is disgusting to have an animal in a public restaurant ... I think it's gross!" the woman screams. (This is a family-friendly publication, so I can't print much more of what she said.)It seems everybody is furious today. We've created a culture of outrage. People are offended, and if you aren't offended by what offends them, they are offended by your lack of offense.We are addicts. We crave a daily fix of rage. We rant on Facebook and Twitter because we need a regular dose of vitriol to fuel our habit. Then we turn on a newscast to watch agitated political commentators throw more gasoline on the flames.The rage burns on both sides of our political divide. White supremacists march with tiki torches to spread hate. Black Lives Matter activists loot stores and smash windows. Former NFL fans burn football jerseys on barbecue grills. Campus lectures require police protection because leftists have threatened right-wing speakers. Madonna drops expletives and threatens to blow up the White House because she's so mad President Trump won the election.Is there anything we don't get angry about these days? Depending on which side of an issue Americans stand, we are offended by Starbucks coffee, Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Target restrooms, CNN, Fox, Nike shoes, the real cause of hurricanes or whatever the actress Jennifer Lawrence said yesterday.Our rage has become so absurd that a shopper at a Hobby Lobby craft store was offended by cotton stalks (yes, cotton stalks!) in the fall décor aisle. She took her protest online and demanded that the store stop selling dried cotton bouquets for $12.99 because slaves were used in the 1800s to harvest the plants.Honestly, it makes me wonder if the real cause of global warming is the alarming increase in human anger. We're going to burn up this planet with our rage if we aren't careful.
- Is America About to Explode?
Ok, to America isn’t just being led by psychopathic madmen with an IQ of a sixth grader, but that the American people are all worked up in a lather; in a frenzy. And the pressure is ON.
Now, couple this environment with the wealthy aristocratic and oligarchy inside the Washington Beltway that want to start a war with China. You know for “democracy”, and “freedom”!…
Back to China
But back to the subject at hand…
… if the fucking morons in Washington DC really want to engage in a Hot War with China…
… they will be doing it with Russia as well.
As they both; Russia and China, share self-defense interests.
Here’s how a neocon journal characterizes going to a hot war with china. Here’s one of the precious few “con” points of view. As most view points are “we can fight the world and win! Rah! Rah!” So I was greatly relieved to read this contrary article from the K-street in Washington DC.
Well…
…sort of at least.
There would likely be no dispute from any American that we affirm and endorse the prospect that the people of Taiwan ought to be free, deserve to determine their own form of government, and above all to decide whether it is in their interests to unify with China. But what price should America be asked to pay to underwrite the freedom aspirations of another country?Any conflict against China over Taiwan would result in American service men and women being killed, likely in large numbers. China’s military has been built over the past two decades specifically to deter the U.S. from attacking them–via anti-access, area denial (A2/AD)–but if deterrence fails, to build a defense force that would be able to sink our ships, knock out our satellites, and shoot down our fighters from great distances; if it ever came to a ground war, they have more than 375 million military-aged males from which to draw for their Army.
And keep in mind that the TOTAL population of the USA is less than that. That’s right. There are more Chinese military males than Americans in total.
United States Population (2021) - Worldometerhttps://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-populationThe current population of the United States of America is 332,526,757 as of Thursday, April 15, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. the United States 2020 population is estimated at 331,002,651 people at mid year according to UN data.
And they are not some idiotic, uneducated simpletons either. They are not “cannon fodder”.
But even he “get’s it” and understands the risks. Well, some of them at least…
Though Yoho was initially hailed as a more libertarian member of Congress, and even introduced a resolution in 2015 that would have reined in the president’s warmaking powers, the proposal to use U.S. troops for Taiwan’s defense is not characteristic of outside-the-box thinking championed by political renegades, but instead comes from the worst pages of the establishment’s playbook.
Instead, the best way for America to help Taiwan would be to enable them to build an A2/AD defensive bubble of their own to deter China.
But we must ensure our security first and foremost. Committing ourselves to a war against China for the benefit of another government would be a tremendous mistake because the cost to us could be a lost war, or a victory so expensive it bankrupts us and puts our own security in peril.
However you look at it, extending security guarantees to Taiwan is not in America’s interests.
-Daniel L. Davis
But he really doesn’t fully understand the risks. In his mind, and you read it for yourself, he has identified two possible outcomes of a war with China. Which are;
America could lose the war, and have to return home. (Vietnam, Afghanistan)
A victory so expensive it bankrupts the nation.
To which I must posit the most OBVIOUS outcome that for some reason the fucking idiots on K-street in Washington DC are somehow missing…
That World War III could erupt, all cities in America are destroyed, and the rest of the work sacks what remains, and America becomes a footnote in the history books. While a united-Asia administers a radioactive North America as a “backwater: for slave labor.
Here’s some video clips from various history/war movies. Let them serve as a reminder that any conflict with China, Russia, Iran or any combination will be up-front, personal, and on American soil.
Sierra Leon
This is about Sierra Leon. Rich oligarchy in the UK used the people of Sierra Leon to create a war of distraction so that they could mine diamonds. Here we see the one faction, the “rebels” enter a town and create havoc.
Shooting an RPG during the Sierra Leon civil war.
Do not be under the impression that this cannot happen inside of America. America is terribly balkanized, and this is EXACTLY what the oligarchy needs to further their plans.
In Blood Diamond, the sinner ripe for enlightenment is Danny Archer (DiCaprio), a native of Zimbabwe who makes a point of referring to the country by its old colonial name, Rhodesia. A former Angolan mercenary, Danny now (the film is set in the late nineties) smuggles Sierra Leone diamonds into Liberia in return for guns and rocket-launchers, which go to the rebel army (the RUF)—the army we’ve seen mowing down women and children, training young boys to be rapists and mass murderers, and conscripting hardier men to work in the diamond fields.
-NYMag
The difficulties in the country were compounded in March 1991 when conflict in neighbouring Liberia spilled over the border into Sierra Leone. Momoh responded by deploying troops to the border region to repel the incursion of Liberian rebels known as the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), led by Charles Taylor. Sierra Leone’s army came under attack not only from the NPFL but also from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), led by former Sierra Leone army corporal Foday Sankoh, who was collaborating with the Liberian rebels; this was the beginning of what would be a long and brutal civil war.
In April 1992 Momoh was deposed in a coup led by Capt. Valentine E.M. Strasser, who cited the poor conditions endured by the troops engaged in fighting the rebels as one of the reasons for ousting Momoh. A National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) was established with Strasser as the head of state. During Strasser’s administration the civil war escalated, with the RUF increasing the amount of territory under its control, including lucrative diamond mines—the source of the “blood” or “conflict” diamonds used to fund its activities. There were disturbing reports of atrocities committed against the civilian population not only by rebel forces but also by some government troops. Civilians were subject to horrific acts of mutilation, including having their limbs, ears, and lips cut off. Incidents of rape and forced labour were widespread, and many civilians were used as unwilling human shields or held in captivity and subjected to repeated acts of sexual violence by the combatants. Forced conscription was pervasive and made many civilians, including children, unwilling participants in the conflict.
And here’s the most important statement;
Still, in the years after the war, Sierra Leone was consistently rated as one of the world’s poorest countries.
Any civil war in America will not be one that can be easily mended. A war will have long-term damage to what America is, and the fantasies that it stands upon.
Wealthy oligarchs treat the world as their property and use people and citizens as pawns to do their bidding.
And make no mistake, a Civil War is result during any global internal war. this time, the nation will not be unified against a common enemy. It will remain balkanized where every “man for himself” will carve out their existence.
Of course, the scene is not from Blood Diamond, but it could be. The situation in Sierra Leon was very awful.
As I watched the senseless brutality, the shooting of mothers and children as they fled, I was torn up, divided. I thought, Why do I need to see this? Then I thought, This happened in Sierra Leone and is still happening in parts of Africa—I need to see it. Then I thought, If I need to see it, I need to see more than a sneering villain with an eye patch. I need to understand how this man—and the people under him—become the monsters they are.
-NYMag
But enough of the fiction.
.
TheSierra Leone Civil War was an armed conflict in theWest African country of Sierra Leone from 1991 t0 2002. The war began on March 23, 1991, when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh, with support of Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor andhis group, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NFPL), attempted to overthrow the government of Sierra Leonean President JosephMomah.TheSierraLeone Civil War (1991-2002)
Or, anywhere in Africa or South America
The story line is identical. It’s just the climate, the societies, and the people that are different. Do you think that because America considers itself a First-Class nation that it is somehow immune to these kinds of conflicts?
Do you believe that this would NEVER happen in the United States, simply because the wealthy people in the Untied States are kind, caring, compassionate and religious?
This is what happens when the government of a country becomes big, bloated and terribly corrupt…
The situation was further complicated when Siaka Stevens, the third prime minister, took office in 1968. He served for 17 years and during his term, created a one-party political system which led to the further dismantling of public administrative offices and extreme levels of corruption. In 1985, the fourth prime minister, Joseph Momoh, proved to be one and the same. Under his watch, Sierra Leone suffered an absolute economic crisis. Public officials were left unpaid and, in retaliation, many looted and destroyed government property and offices. This included public school teachers which led to the complete collapse of the public educational system. By 1991, Sierra Leone was one of the most impoverished countries in the world, and its citizens were dissatisfied with their living conditions.
-World Atlas
A very important review. Does it sound somewhat familiar; like it might actually happen in America…
In 1982, as Sierra Leone’s government and economy worsened, a group of Sierra Leone University, Fourah Bay College students set up a paramilitary organization.
They were led by their group leader Alie Kabbah.
They fled to eastern Sierra Leone to form a political organization to rebel against the Temne tribe's All People’s Congress (APC). This was the governing party of the time.
Their organization became the RUF.
Its objectives were to [1] overthrow of the Sierra Leonean government, [2] oust corrupt officials, and [3] re-allocate Sierra Leone’s wealth to benefit the general population
And you do not think that it could happen in the United States?
America is RIPE for war. But on in a far away land, but rather back on US soil, up front and personal.
Wealthy oligarchs have plans for America.
Meanwhile oligarchs (working behind the scenes) tried to recruit people to do their bidding.
In Sierra Leon, throughout the 1980s, neighboring Libyans infiltrated into Sierra Leone with the intention of recruiting rebels.
This was part of Libyan President, Colonel Muammar Gadhafi’s Pan-African initiatives to recruit dissidents against western influence in Africa. He wanted to create a "new Africa" where American influences would be removed completely.
Now, while training in Libya, Foday Sankoh from Sierra Leone met Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.
The two decided to form a pact, or an agreement. After establishing a relationship, Sankoh and Taylor agreed to support guerilla wars in their respective countries.
Both had hopes of overthrowing their country’s governments and creating political change.
And so it started.
In 1989, the Civil War in Liberia began.
Under the leadership of Charles Taylor, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) launched a guerilla war against the Liberian government. This led to Liberia’s civil war.
He won the war, and came to power.
Once Taylor was in power in Liberia, he supported Sankoh’s invasion and guerilla war in Sierra Leone. For after all, they were close buddies and shared the same vision and objectives.
Or maybe you don’t think that these kinds of political alignments cannot happen. Like the Antifa, or the BLM, or the Marxists, or the Far-Right.
Civil war broke out in Sierra Leon in 1990 under the command of former Sierra Leonean army corporal Foday Sankoh.
He launched his first attack in villages in Kailahun District in eastern Sierra Leone on March 23, 1991.
This small band of men who called themselves the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
After that he began to attack villages in eastern Sierra Leone on the Liberian border.
The government of Sierra Leone, overwhelmed by a crumbling economy and corruption, was unable to put up significant resistance.
Within a month of entering Sierra Leone the RUF controlled much of the Eastern Province.
And so it begins…
Fighting continued in the ensuing months, with the RUF gaining control of the diamond mines in the Kono district.
Then, they were successful in pushing the Sierra Leone army back towards Freetown.
On April 29, 1992, a group of young soldiers led by Capt. Valentine Strasser, apparently frustrated by the Sierra Leon government's failure to deal with rebels, launched a military coup.
This ended up sending President Momoh into exile in Guinea.
They established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) with Yahya Kanu as its chairman.
But Kanu was assassinated by fellow NPRC members, who accused him of trying to negotiate with the toppled APC administration.
And so after a period of bloodletting, on May 4, 1992,Captain Valentine Strasser took over as chairman of the NPRC.
As well as thend Head of State of Sierra Leone.
And did it change anything?
No.
The NPRC proved to be nearly as ineffectual as the Momoh government in repelling the RUF.
More and more of the country fell to RUF fighters.
By 1995 the RUF held much of the countryside.
They were also near the major populated cities, and were on the doorstep of Freetown.
To retrieve the situation, the NPRC hired several hundred mercenaries from the private firm Executive Outcomes.
Within a month they had driven RUF fighters back to enclaves along Sierra Leone’s borders.
So now that the new “reformed” government was able to suppress the RUF rebels, is that the end of the story?
No.
In January 1996, after nearly four years in power, Strasser was ousted in a coup by fellow NPRC members.
This was led by his trusted deputy Maada Bio.
The new(est) government took immediate actions to change the course of Sierra Leon.
As a result of popular demand and mounting international pressure, the NPRC agreed to hand over power to a civilian government.
Bio reinstated the Constitution and called for presidential and parliamentary elections. A a "democracy" was reconstituted.
Elections were held in April 1996.
In the second round of presidential elections in early 1996, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, candidate of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) defeated John Karefa-Smart of the United National People's Party (UNPP). Kabbah was a diplomat who had worked at the UN for more than 20 years.
So an internationalist took power of the democratic Sierra Leon.
And eventually, after nearly a solid six years of bloody fighting, parliamentary elections were conducted. And this time, under the system of proportional representation.
South Vietnam
Let’s look at Vietnam.
Ah, most MM readers won’t even remember the daily newscasts about the “proud American soldiers who died”.
But let’s not look at the American side of the involvement. Instead, let’s look at the actions of the American puppet government set up in South Vietnam…
Corruption played a signficant role in thwarting American objectives in Vietnam by contributing to the South Vietnam government’s lack of legitimacy. The heavy handed and corrupt government of South Vietnam actually made the countryside fertile for the insurgency of the Viet Cong and the communist. Successive governments left much to be desired and too readily turned a blind eye to corruption and incompetence.
An important cause for dissension among the ARVN soldiers was the widespread corruption and war profiteering that prevailed, not only among the civilian population but also among military officers. Corruption, of course, had long been common in South Vietnam. However, as infiation increased in the 1970’s and military pay failed to keep pace, corrupt practices drove wedges between the troops and their officers. Corruption had another adverse effect; it siphoned funds that could have been used to buy critically short supplies and ammunition. It has been estimated that as much as 25 percent of ARVN’s military payroll was in the name of dead or deserted soldiers who were kept on the roll so that corrupt officers could collect their salaries.
ARVN soldiers of South Vietnam.
The Republic of Vietnam, headed from 1954 to 1963 by Ngo Dinh Diem, was venal, reactionary, inefficient, and corrupt. Although Diem inherited a functional administration from the French, he failed to pursue judicial, economic, and administrative reforms, empower subordinates to exercise government authority, or create a system of oversight to curb corruption. Consequently, corruption abounded in all forms. In spite of Diem’s personal revulsion of corruption, the Ngo family was the biggest practitioner of nepotism. His close relatives filled the top ambassadorial, cabinet, and civil service posts.
In 1960, the Groupe Caravelliste, comprising 18 senior Vietnamese politicians, publicly condemned regime oppression and corruption in detail. Weeks later, a poorly planned military coup provided the regime withthe opportunity to crack down even more, including the imprisonment of the Groupe Caravelliste. At this point, Diem began to withdraw into himself, reducing his circle of confidants, and isolating himself even further from the public view. Nhu began to step up his persecution of “subversives,” as well as factionalizing the officer corps through corruption, extortion, and espionage.
The United States attempted to “fix” the incompetence, corruption, and oppression of the Diem administration by having him removed from office by a military coup. However, the problem remained. Like the Catholic Diem, who failed to connect with the predominantly Buddhist population, the military leaders who took control after the coup complicated matters by perpetuating corruption and failing to take the war to the Viet Cong insurgents.
The effectiveness of the gradually professionalizing South Vietnamese Army deteriorated rapidly as soldiers in the field lost confidence in their leaders and the government. In a matter of months, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam lost credibility with the population it was supposed to defend and with its American advisors.
Within the government of South Vietnam corruption, nepotism, extortion, and incompetence remained the norm afterwards with various leaders all the way through to President Thieu in the 1970s. A province chief might be removed here or there and replaced with a more competent and honest leader; however, the same problems would continue.
ARVN soldiers at rest.
The top leadership of the government and army remained as dependent as ever on the United States. The Saigon government remained a network of cliques, held together by American subsidies, a group of people without a coherent political orientation, bent on their own survival. Free-flowing aid lined the pockets of South Vietnamese generals and bureaucrats, deepening the corruption problem, not solving it.
Corruption was (and is) endemic throughout the developing world and even, at times, in much of the developed world. To have expected South Vietnam to be an exception was perhaps unrealistic. In fact, corruption was widespread in North Vietnam as well as in the South, giving lie to a common assumption that there was something morally pristine about the highly disciplined North. In fact, the problem of corruption had become so acute in the North that, in 1967, Ho Chi Minh himself felt compelled to go on the radio and inveigh against this troublesome plague.
More ARVN soldiers.
In the 1970s widespread corruption and war profiteering prevailed, not only among the civilian population but also among military officers. Corruption, of course, had long been common in South Vietnam. However, as infiation increased in the 1970’s and military pay failed to keep pace, corrupt practices drove wedges between the troops and their officers. For example, there were reports that the wounded had to pay helicopter pilots to fly medical evacuation missions.
President Thieu did make efforts to remove some of the more corrupt senior officials from office, but his actions proved to be a mere drop in the bucket. Corruption had another adverse effect; it siphoned funds that could have been used to buy critically short supplies and ammunition.
It has been estimated that as much as 25 percent of ARVN’s military payroll was in the name of dead or deserted soldiers who were kept on the roll so that corrupt officers could collect their salaries.
United States supplied tank used by the ARVN military in South Vietnam.
Syria
And of course, we could look at Syria.
Do you all think that it is any different? Aside from the new vehicles, the different weapons and drone systems, and the kinds of “news” reporting, do you actually think that somehow the United States is immune from all this boomeranging back?
All you need to so is read some history.
And China…
…well China has a long and horrible history of invasions and abuse. They KNOW what it is like to be hurt, destroyed and sacked. They know.
And if you all think that they are going to allow some pot-bellied neocon from the state of Kansas or Arkansas cheer on a war against them without consequence, then you are very, very, VERY mistaken.
China – Nanjing
Most Americans have absolutely no idea what the Chinese went through and why they are the way they are today.
A person who goes though a divorce is far more understanding of someone in the throes of marital troubles than say an unmarried 20-year old. And this is true about nations as well. Perhaps the American leadership would be very hesitant on poking Russia or China if they knew what it was like to see your beloved homeland reduced to rubble.
The Nanjing Massacre refers to the 40-day slaughter committed by the Japanese army in the early stages of their invasion of China, which cruelly claimed the lives of more than 300,000 civilians and captured soldiers. One third of the city was razed and property losses were beyond count.Some believe that the Nanjing Massacre, along with Auschwitz Concentration Camp and bombing of Hiroshima (the first use of atomic weapons in combat) were the three greatest tragedies of WWII. Some refer to the massacre as the “Asian Auschwitz.”
-ChinaToday
Nah…
It would never happen in America. You see, America is “exceptional“.
On December 13, 1937, after seizing Nanjing, the Japanese army carried out a bloody slaughter of unparalleled savagery in violation of international law. As stated in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, "Estimates indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanjing and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000....
These figures do not take into account those persons whose bodies were destroyed by burning, or by being thrown into the Yangtze River, or were otherwise disposed of by the Japanese Army." The Chinese Military Tribunal for War Crimes in Nanjing stated in a verdict that "during the period from December 12 to 21, 1937, it was estimated that more than 190,000 Chinese prisoners of war and civilians were shot with machine guns in large groups by the Japanese Army and their bodies were incinerated…
In addition, more than 150,000 people were killed in small or scattered groups, and their bodies were collected and buried by charity organizations. Altogether, more than 300,000 people were murdered." After capturing the city, Japanese troops employed all kinds of brutal methods in their killing, such as decapitation, skull splitting, slicing open the stomach, pulling out the heart, drowning, burning, cutting off reproductive organs, dismemberment, and piercing the vulva or anus. Equally unthinkable, there was a killing contest between two second lieutenants, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, to see who could win by being the first to kill 100 Chinese. When they met on December 12, Mukai had killed 106 and Noda 105. John Rabe, Wilhelmina (Minnie) Vautrin, and John Magee recorded the incidents of rape carried out by Japanese soldiers after the fall of Nanjing in their diaries, photographs, and films. It is roughly estimated that more than 80,000 women were violated in Nanjing, of whom more than 65,000 were killed. The Japanese army also committed frenzied acts of arson and looting. According to incomplete statistics calculated after the war, Japanese soldiers looted 2,406 sets and more than 309,000 pieces of appliances or utensils, 5,920 boxes and more than 5.9 million articles of clothing, 710 kilograms of gold and silver, plus 6,345 pieces of jewelry, 1,815 boxes, 2,859 sets, and 148,600 volumes of books, more than 28,400 ancient calligraphy scrolls and paintings, more than 7,300 antiques, more than 6,200 animals bred as livestock, and more than 720 million kilograms of grain.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Chinese Military Tribunal for War Crimes in Nanjing, after collecting a large amount of evidence and confirming all the findings, pronounced death sentences for the principal culprits of the massacre, Iwane Matsui, Akira Muto, and Tadayuki Furumi.
The crimes of the Japanese aggressors will forever be recorded in the history of the Chinese war of resistance against Japan.
-CRI
Or Germany…
Germany
Let’s not forget what happens to “scapegoats” when they are targeted for their “privilege”…
And not just in Germany. all the rest of Europe had to deal with the actions of a handful of crazed fanatics in Germany…
Europe
I suppose that I could go on and on.
And you all would turn off my MM and go watch cute and funny kitty videos, check out the latest vehicles out of Detroit, or look up TenderPotRoastRecipe.
But all that you are reading…right now… in real time sounds AWFULLY familiar. Throw away the details and the names. Look at what is going on. It sounds like the kind of nonsense out of Sierra Leon in the 1980’s, or the bullshit in Saigon in the 1960’s in South Vietnam. It sounds like the bullshit leading up to “the war on terror” in the Middle East, or the crap nonsense made by Hitler as he demonized the Jews, or the Japanese demonized the Chinese.
Yet somehow…
Somehow, America can have another war with China, or Russia, or Iran or all three, and you know that magically it will happen in far away lands that Americans never herd of before.
China wants to fight the USA? It’s a nation of leadership by merit. They are not a military Empire like the USA. They just want for Chinese people to live in China free of foreign (namely USA) interference.
This idea that China wants war is ludicrous. It’s just political posturing.
Political Posturing
When someone pretends to have a particular opinion or attitude. This is done so that they can achieve their objectives without discussing the real reasons behind them.
It’s clear as day that the people who are running this (supposedly) Progressive Liberal Democrat administration, are actually war-mongering neocons.
If you don’t think this is really happening, then you probably need to rethink that:
StratCom just issued a warning to Americans that we might be nuked as a result of the Biden Regime escalating tensions with these two nuclear powers.
#USSTRATCOM Posture Statement Preview: The spectrum of conflict today is neither linear nor predictable.
We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option.
pic.twitter.com/4Oe7xkl05L
— US Strategic Command (@US_Stratcom) April 20, 2021
Yes, they are that crazy.
But is there anyone, anyone at all inside the Pentagon that is really aware of what the stakes are today? Well, read this great article by Pepe…
Yes, and the regular disclaimers abound. All credit to the author. Formatted to fit this venue, etc.
What you are about to read is part of an internal report by one of my top business/intel sources in the Beltway for the past decade and a half. Readers who received it include JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Evelyn de Rothschild and wife Lynn, Blackrock’s Larry Fink, Michael Bloomberg – who would never hire me as a Bloomberg columnist… – Blackstone’s Stephen Schwartzman, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and other assorted Masters of the Universe. I received a copy with all their addresses – which for obvious reasons I cannot make public.
This is a MAJOR bombshell – in the sense that the financial Masters of the Universe are now fully aware of sensitive intel not shared with non-military players. The question is what they’re gonna do about it.
The section of the reports starts HERE:
“While Rome burns which I use as an extended metaphor about the hundreds of US cities that burned last summer, and the US faces internal disintegration, the Pentagon admits that the US cannot face a two front war.
The US cannot face a one front war in Europe alone and would be defeated in five to ten minutes. It is not widely known that the key means that the US has chosen conventionally to defend Europe was by its superior airpower which outguns the Russians. However, what also is not widely known is that the US will be defeated in Europe by the Russians in five to ten minutes by the Russian hypersonic missiles destroying all NATO and European commercial airfields including those in England as it merrily sends its warships towards the Kerch Peninsula.
Whether all of our F-35 trillion dollar aircraft will be blown up too in five minutes depends on how fast the US can fly them out of harm’s way to some foreign shore. The remaining key question then is whether the US can evacuate Europe fast enough via a Dunkirk exit to escape to England or whether all the US forces will join their NATO comrades in a Russian prisoners of war camp.
The answer is that it cannot escape as it would take more than the two weeks time to evacuate. This has been confirmed to me by the highest US military authorities.
The US use of recent sanctions on Russia was to send the message that the nation killer that they call SWIFT-CHIPS is in the US toolkit as the US reply to an invasion of the Ukraine. (It goes without saying that Nord Stream Two would be over and the pipeline presently in operation from Russia to Europe would be shut down.) The US thus is sitting back in this poker game in smug self-confidence that the Russians would not dare to invade the Ukraine, causing the US to pull the trigger on throwing Russia out of SWIFT-CHIPS payment system to their Iranian-style doom.
But the US has not seen the Russian cards in their hand yet, which would be to exercise their super financial weapon of closing the Strait of Hormuz with their ally Iran which is willing to cooperate, according to our best intelligence sources.
We have discussed this scenario with the Goldman Sachs derivative specialists in oil who predict the oil price would rise to $500.00 to a $1,000.00 a barrel on such a closing. This would result in a triggering and the implosion of the 600 trillion to 2.5 quadrillion derivative market. In effect, it would end up destroying the entire world financial system.
The cataclysm that would hit the US would lead (as in Germany did in 1933) to a 50% unemployment rate or more. This would automatically begin the instigation of the complete overthrow of the US government. A government right now. which is barely hanging on by a thread (after last summer’s riots when the US military refused to intervene out of fear that its forces, as in Russia in 1918, would disintegrate along racial lines).
The defeat of the US in Europe would constitute the death knell of the US Empire as when Rome was sacked by Alaric. And make no mistake, there would be cheering all over the world.
[Now comes the killer part, which left me, well, speechless]
The myth of fissures between Russia and China should be dispelled by the following article in the Asia Times. There, where is sitting on Putin’s desk a major offer by a major company to finance the redirection of all oil and natural gas now going to Europe. Instead it would be redirected to China via pipeline.
It would constitute the largest commercial transaction in world history.
China could then depend on receiving from Russia the natural resources that presently come by sea. And Russia can replace all European imports to Russia by substitution and where that is not possible from China.
This very deep article should be read very carefully. The hundreds of billions of dollars for this project are available today according to the highest intelligence sources.
Here is an important quote from the article:
“A closely guarded secret in Moscow is that right after German sanctions imposed in relation to Ukraine, a major global energy operator approached Russia with an offer to divert to China no less than 7 million barrels a day of oil plus natural gas. Whatever happens, the stunning proposal is still sitting on the table of Shmal Gannadiy, a top oil/gas advisor to President Putin.”
[And then the report links to my story]:
Definitive Eurasian alliance is closer than you think. And things are proceeding well in advance than anyone actually realizes. And America is in no state to take on any major global power as it currently stands. It’s a foolish exercise in futility, and a death sentence for the participants.
Modern America 2021.
So what is going to happen?
I hold no “magic crystal ball”. No one does.
If I could characterize the state of affairs inside the Untied States government today, numerous examples come to mind…
A Train Wreck
A bunch a crazed maniacalmegalomaniacs are all crammed in the tiny engine of a locomotive, and everyone is trying to grab the controls to wheel and right this big, long enormous train back onto the tracks safely. Some are just there to stop the others. Some are earnestly trying to put the brakes on. Some are trying to increase the speed. Some are fighting among themselves, and some are lighting firecrackers at everyone's feet to see what will happen next. All are evil, out of control and running amok.
An Alien Monster trying to get out
The United States today is like the Alien monster that has incubated inside the host human (from the Alien movie). It is starting to get out, and the poor host is in a state of panic and fear.
I wrote an article on this theme. It is HERE.
Evil psychopath child playing with live dynamite
This is what it looks like. Especially after the "Long Telegram", and the Alaska meeting between China and the USA.
A suicidal man trying to get killed intentionally
It's almost that the people inside of Washington DC have no scruples, no idea of what reality is, and believe that they are somehow sitting on thrones in the clouds somewhere in their magical city of Olympus. Do they have a "death wish"? It most certainly seems that way, doesn't it?
What will happen, I don’t know. But keep your eyes open. Realize that the only idiots are in Washington DC and their colonies in the UK, and Australia. The rest of the world are watching from the spectator stands with popcorn in their right hand, and a Civil-Defense helmet in their left hand.
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Well, well. Here’s some thing for thought. What? You didn’t think that the United States couldn’t be contained, did you?
I struggle to understand people like Cohen (and Blinken and Pompeo and Albright and the rest of them). I don't think pathologizing them as psychopaths or sociopaths is definitive. Simply evil comes closer. And yet we let them rule us.
-Posted by: NoOneYouKnow | Apr 14 2021 19:26 utc | 2
.
Indeed, everything on the “news”, almost without exception, is about how America is doing this to “contain China”, and doing that “to sanction Iran”, and doing this other such thing to “contain Russian actions”. You read this automatically, and you automatically get this idea in the back of your mind that…
.
America is out of control.
It is everywhere doing everything.
America is super powerful.
No one dares fight back.
.
And that is only because America controls the “news” media over most of the Western world, and if you read, speak or think in English, your thoughts are being manipulated.
But,you know, don’t you think that it is pretty fucking sick for the United States to try to contain anyone? I mean, that’s what “freedom” and “liberty” is supposed to be all about. It’s supposed to be a “live and let live”, and only fight at the very last possible moment when someone gets up in your face…
Instead, the US is out in everyone else’s face and “laying down the law”.
A schoolyard bully located in The state of Alabama purportedly assaulted a 9-year-old female, resulting in the girl having a major concussion, a pair of black eyes in addition to a head rife with bruises. Institution authorities were adamant that this particular young lady had not been picked on, rather these bruises were self-inflicted and that the girl had some personality “issues”. Not that a bully had beat her to a pulp.
.
That’s what the USA is today.
It’s a big bully, and when anyone tries to point it out, the toadies of the bully come up with all kinds of excuses.
It is NOT, not, not sustainable.
And unless it stops, and stops quickly, someone’s nose is going to get awfully bloody.
Unless the bullying stops, some of the victims of the bullies are going to rise up and go “Sandy Hook” on their asses.
Here’s The 20-Point Plan For How Russia Could Contain The US
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s dramatic declaration that his country “will pursue the policy of active containment of the US on all fronts” if American pressure on Russia doesn’t soon end inspired a unique 20-point plan for what this could look like in practice.
Russia’s Anti-American Containment Policy
Russia finally appears to be serious about “decoupling” from the West after over half a decade of its well-intended and passionate efforts to enter into a rapprochement with it following the onset of the Ukrainian Crisis.
This event was a game-changer which would push Russia to accelerate its foreign policy diversification strategy towards non-Western countries, especially those in the Global South.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov is evidently very serious about this after dramatically declaring in February 2021 that his country “will pursue the policy of active containment of the US on all fronts” if American pressure on Russia doesn’t soon end.
He promised to [1] prevent foreign meddling in his country’s democratic processes, [2] promote multipolarity across the world, and [3] impose counter-sanctions on the US.
Markov’s 10 Euro-Centric Proposals
Prior to Ryabkov’s policy announcement, Russian expert Sergey Markov predicted ten ways in which his country could respond to more EU sanctions against it. As Google Translated into English from his original Facebook post and slightly edited for clarity, these are:
“1. Russia may recognize the DPR and the LPR and accelerate their integration into Russia;
2. Russia may impose strict sanctions in the economy against the EU;
3. Russia may cease to consider the interests of Europe in Syria and Libya;
4. Russia may impose strict restrictions on the work of Russian-speaking media that are supported by the EU;
5. Russia may limit the work of NGOs, with which the EU tries to influence Russian public opinion;
6. Russia may tighten the position regarding the Russophobic regime in Ukraine and start working on its elimination and replacement with a pro-Russian government;
7. Russia may switch its economic projects from the EU to other countries, especially the East;
8. Russia may significantly increase its military resources in the Kaliningrad region and other regions close to the EU;
9. Russia may begin to react significantly more strictly to the Russophobic policies of EU countries such as Poland, the Baltic countries, Romania;
10. Russia may dramatically reduce consultations with France and Germany on important global strategic issues. This will reduce the impact of France and Germany in the world.”
Korybko’s 10 Non-Western Proposals
I regard all ten of his proposals as viable options.
However, you have to understand and believe that they are (never the less) quite Euro-centric and reactionary.
For that reason, here are ten non-Western ones that could prospectively be paired with Markov’s and pursued even in the event that the West temporarily stops provoking Russia:
1. Rigorously implement “DemocraticSecurity” at home to safeguard Russia’s domestic political processes in accordance with Ryabkov’s vision;
2. Thoroughly articulate the unofficial national ideology of multipolarity and actively promote these views abroad through foreign policy & civil society outreaches, including through academia and the media;
3. Export bespoke “Democratic Security” solutions to at-risk Global South states modeled off of the CentralAfricanRepublic, Congo Republic, and Togo precedents to help defend others from US HybridWar threats;
4. Double down on “military diplomacy” with China through increased cutting-edge arms sales and joint military drills in order to send a message of unwavering security solidarity with the People’s Republic;
6. Prioritize progress on the N-CPEC+/RuPak Corridor in order to fulfill President Putin’s envisioned Arctic-Indian Ocean corridor that he first publicly proposed in October 2019 while speaking at the Valdai Club;
7. Ensure that Azerbaijani President Aliyev’s six-country regional integration platform is a success in turning the South Caucasus into the zone of geostrategic convergence between Russia, Iran, and Turkey;
8. Bring together steps 4-7 to ultimately create an expanded Golden Ring in the Eurasian Heartland which would function as the center of gravity for the emerging Multipolar World Order;
9. Continue practicing “vaccine diplomacy” to creatively establish strategic inroads in non-traditional partners that could then be courted to contribute to the collective cause of multipolarity;
Ryabkov’s official announcement that Russia is seriously countenancing the creation of an anti-American containment strategy proves that the Kremlin is finally fed up with the West’s games.
Markov’s prior ten proposals for how his country could react to the potential EU-initiated worsening of bilateral relations are thought-provoking and deserve to be considered.
However thy are nevertheless Euro-centric and reactionary.
The addition of these other points, which are non-Western in focus can be added to the mix. As such they can be proactively undertaken even without Brussels taking the first step by sanctioning Russia.
Taken together, this 20-point containment strategy should hopefully give Russian decision makers a better understanding of the full range of options available to them.
They probably won’t implement every proposal, but it’s likely that at least some of them will see the light of day, though it might still take time for their effects to be felt as would be the case with my long-term policy suggestions.
Comments
Is the greater public ever going to get a clear view of the difference behind the "rules based order" of the West (we own the money system and make the rules) and the negotiated International law based order?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 20 2021 17:05 utc | 4
You know, most American don’t have a clue to what is going on in Russia. it’s the same thing about China. It’s been a near non-stop hate-fest against Shina for the last five years, and yet the American (and Western) readership still hasn’t a clue as to anything. It’s all the same old nonsense.
And they are all falling for it. It’s like this…
Well…
These other nations are fed up.
They are linking together. They are investing time and money and doing so with very little “fan fare” and publicity. You might read about one thing or the others in your travels of daily “news” reading. But that’s about it. You read about a rail line in Pakistan, and an oil pipeline in the Black Sea. But since most people don’t know geography or history they have no context to put everything into context.
Russia has stopping playing games.
China has stopped playing games.
They have set things up for a big “spring loaded” global powers reset, and are just waiting for the USA-led Western powers to walk into the trap.
Mouse Trap.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my “International America and the rest of the world” index here…
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There’s a lot of talk in the United States these days. It’s all about how “evil” the Chinese are, and how “evil” the Russians are, and how “evil” the Iranians are. And along with this well publicized narrative is the flood of articles about “how strong” and “how invincible” the American military is. It’s almost like, well it’s exactly like, America is on a war-footing and is readying the population for a long drawn out, multi-generational war, with Asia.
It’s a big mistake.
I guess that the American “leadership” wasn’t paying attention in history class. Perhaps they should ask the ghosts of NapoleonBonaparte and Hitler how that all worked out.
But one of the unspoken realities is the illusion that Asia won’t fight back. That it is inconceivable. And that any far in far-away Russia, or far-away China, or far-away Iran will stay far away.
Far… far… away.
And that, even if it did somehow manage to “throw a few punches” back at the United States, that the (good ol’) USA will manage to absorb them, quickly recover, and continue living a great and exceptional life as the “leader of the free world”, and that “brilliant city on the hill”. America is “exceptional” don’t you know…
And I for one am going to tell you that this is delirious wishful thinking.
Back in the day
This attitude that “we are strong and invincible” and that “we can tell the world what to do, or else” is thuggish bullying. And it’s more than just irritating, it’s disgusting. But for historians (well, I am an amateur, but you all know what I mean) it’s frightening.
History is full of stores of the proud rulers of nations. They would live inside their huge stone forts. they would have these huge banners fluttering in the azure blue skies, and they would have gaggles of beautiful maidens attending to them. And they would have large armies of “Heavy Cavalry” and “Knights in singing armor” . They would have thousands of these armed knights.
And they would sit inside their castles, on their thrones, and eat their lamb, drink their mead, and cavort with their wenches. They would make proclamations. They would be delirious and drunk with power, and totally and completely unaware of true and real dangers elsewhere in the world.
I feel a lecture coming on…
Genghis Khan and the “Brilliant Cities on the hill”
Genghis Khan was the Emperor of the Mongol Empire. He must have been one of the most ferocious people ever to live on the planet Earth. Genghis marked his reign with blood, feasts, and love of different women. People like Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin look like amateurs when we compare them to Genghis Khan.
This fierce Mongol knew how to rule, and he successfully did it for many years in the 13th century. There wasn’t a person back in the day, who would not be scared of Genghis Khan’s power.
But before he came to power, he was not all that well known. And, as such he was dismissed as a “uncouth”, “uncultured” barbarian. Which he pretty much was…
The knights at their tournaments, in their finery, armor and emblems of ancestry, believed they were the foremost warriors in the world, while Mongol warriors thought otherwise.
Mongol horses were small, but their riders were lightly clad and they moved with greater speed. These were hardy men who grew up on horses and hunting, making them better warriors than those who grew up in agricultural societies and cities.
Their main weapon was the bow and arrow. And the Mongols of the early 1200s were highly disciplined, superbly coordinated and brilliant in tactics.
The Mongols were illiterate, religiously shamanistic and perhaps no more than 700,000 in number. Their language today is described as Altaic, a language unrelated to Chinese, derived from inhabitants in the Altay mountain range in western Mongolia.
They were herdsmen on the grassy plains north of the Gobi Desert, south of Siberia's forests. Before the year 1200, the Mongols were fragmented, moving about in small bands headed by a chief, or khan, and living in portable felt dwellings.
The Mongols endured frequent deprivations and sparse areas for grazing their animals. They frequently fought over turf, and during hard times they occasionally raided, interested in goods rather than bloodshed. They did not collect heads or scalps as trophies.
-Genghis Khan
…but that is besides the point.
The Mongol Empire conquered all Asia, and no enemy could withstand Genghis Khan and his bloodthirsty army. Oh yes, even though Mongols loved to compromise, they were known for their brutal physical power.
But they were much more than that. The Mongols under Genghis Khan were fair, just and orderly. You just don’t get on their bad side.
Genghis Khan created a body of law that he was to work on throughout his life. This included outlawing the tradition of kidnapping women. The kidnapping of women had caused feuds among the Mongols, and, as a teenager he had suffered from the kidnapping of his young wife, Borte, and he had devoted himself to rescuing her.
In addition, Genghis Khan declared all children legitimate, whomever the mother. He made it law that no woman would be sold into marriage. The stealing of animals had caused dissension among the Mongols, and Temujin made it a capital offense. A lost animal was to be returned to its owner, and taking lost property as one's own was to be considered thievery and a capital offense. Temujin regulated hunting – a winter activity – improving the availability of meat for everyone. He introduced record keeping, taking advantage of his move years before to have his native language put into writing. He created official seals. He created a supreme officer of the law who was to collect and preserve all judicial decisions, to oversee the trials of all those charged with wrongdoing and to have the power to issue death sentences. He created order that strengthened his realm and improved his ability to expand its territory.
-Genghis Khan
People believed that one Mongolian man could defeat ten or more warriors of other culture. And that was true. Genghis Khan proved many times how strong his army was, defeating his enemies against all the odds.
Nowadays, the only news we can hear about Mongolia is that Russians are trying out their nuclear weapons in the steppes of this ancient empire. Or that the Chinese are placing farming robots to herd cattle in inner Mongolia.
We forget that modern Chinese, and modern Russians are the direct descendants of the Mongol warriors of Genghis Khan.
What about this “uncouth barbarian”…
Genghis Khan was one of the most deeply feared historical figures in the world for a good reason. Historians estimate that Genghis Khan is responsible for over 40 million deaths, and at that time it was equal to 11 percent of the world’s population. For comparison, we can look at World War II, which has put “only” around three percent of the world’s population, 60-80 million people, to the graveyard. What Genghis Khan did is downright scary when we put it in perspective, right?
Not bad for an “evil” uncouth barbarian.
Genghis Khan was the most feared human of the 13th century, who could destroy dynasties just by moving his little finger. He created the Mongol Empire all by himself and earned his eternal spot in the history books. However, a lot of people had to suffer for Genghis Khan to succeed.
In cities the Mongols were forced to conquer, Genghis Khan divided the civilians by profession. He drafted the few who were literate and those he could use as translators. Those who had been the city's most rich and powerful he wasted no time in killing, remembering that the rulers he had left behind after conquering the Tangut and the Jurchens had betrayed him soon after his army had withdrawn.
It is said that the Genghis Khan's military did not torture, mutilate or maim. But his enemies are reported as having done so. Captured Mongols were dragged through streets and killed for sport and to entertain city residents. Gruesome displays of stretching, emasculation, belly cutting and hacking to pieces were something European rulers were using to discourage potential enemies – as was soon to happen to William Wallace on orders from England's King Edward I. The Mongols merely slaughtered, and preferred doing so from a distance.
The city of Nishapur revolted against Mongol rule. The husband of Genghis Khan's daughter was killed, and, it is said, she asked that everyone in the city be put to death, and, according to the story, they were.
-Genghis Khan
Oh yes, the Mongolians were known for their horrendous torturing techniques. One of the most popular was pouring molten silver down the throat and ears of a victim.
Genghis Khan also liked bending his enemy’s back until the backbone snapped. If that sounds barbaric, skip this next part. So, the Mongols once celebrated victory over Russians in a very bizarre way. They picked all the Russian survivors, dropped them on the ground and put a heavy wooden gate on top of them. Then, Genghis Khan and the entire Mongol army had a huge banquet on that wooden gate. They ate, drank, and watched how Russians were dying one by one from the suffocation, pressure, and wounds.
Genghis Khan had so much power that he could do whatever he wanted. For instance, when Genghis occupied some new area, he would kill or enslave all the men and share all the women amongst his tribe.
Genghis Khan would even make beauty contests of captured women to decide which woman is the most beautiful one. Yeah, he was having his Miss Universe competition before it was cool. So, the queen of those beauty competitions would win the privilege to become one of many Genghis Khan’s women.
The rest of the Mongolian army would share all the other contestants. It shows us once again how cruel and barbaric Mongols were. I suppose that it was a different time and a different place, but the fact remains that when you have lost, your cities destroyed, and sacked, the victor can do whatever they want. And they wanted sex.
Lots and lost of sex.
Genghis Khan was able to destroy entire “impenetrable” cities easily.
When we look at what Genghis Khan achieved with the Mongol Empire, we cannot help but appreciate his mastermind as a warlord. It surely looks like Genghis Khan had three dragons with him just like Khaleesi.
I cannot find any other explanation of Genghis Khan’s success.
I mean, he defeated Jin Dynasty’s one million troops with only 90,000 Mongolians by his side. Yes, Genghis Khan managed to win a war with ten times fewer troops than his opponent’s army.
Jin Dynasty.
On top of that, he was invading China, so he had to overcome all the “little” problems such as the Great Wall of China.
Genghis Khan with his army had destroyed over 500,000 of Chinese troop before getting control of Northern China and Beijing. The rest of the Chinese army had to surrender to the power of Genghis Khan.
Destroying Jin Dynasty is only one of many examples of how great of a warlord Genghis Khan was. Also, he had some brutal and loyal men by his side, so let’s not rule out the dragon theory.
Physical force is not enough to achieve something as great as Genghis Khan did.
Yes, there is no doubt that he is the greatest and most brutal warlord in history, but he was also a very wise man. In 1201, during a battle, Genghis Khan was shot by an enemy archer. Needless to say, he was not happy about it.
So, after the Mongolian army won the battle, Genghis Khan spent some time looking for the man that shot him. He even pretended that it was not him who got shot, but his horse, so the enemy archer would have the courage to confront Genghis.
An unbelievable thing happened when the archer finally stepped out of the crowd and confessed shooting Genghis Khan.
Instead of killing his enemy, Genghis Khan recognized his talent and asked him to join the Mongolian army. The archer became a great general and loyally served Genghis for many years. That is one of the reasons why Mongol Empire was such a success back in the 13th century.
It is not a secret that Genghis Khan loved to have some bedroom time with all the different women. Whenever Genghis would conquer new land (he did it more frequent than people scroll Facebook nowadays), he would also get himself a couple of new wives.
As well as a gaggle of some “playthings”.
Genghis did that because he liked beautiful women, but it was also a very convenient way to demonstrate his power. Spreading his blood line all over Asia ensured peace in the entire Mongol Empire.
So, how many children did Genghis Khan have? It is pretty much impossible to tell the number, but historians estimate that today, around eight percent of men from Asia are his descendants. I cannot even start to process this number, but apparently, Genghis Khan was a great lover. No one in the history is even close to having such a wide family tree. So, next time when you talk about Genghis Khan, remember that it is a great chance that he is your ancestor.
Torture time.
Genghis Khan was a man of reason. He let the people in the Mongol Empire live a happy life as long as they followed his rules.
However, Genghis Khan cruelly punished everyone who tried to break those rules.
In Hungary and Poland the Mongols were outnumbered but tactically superior. They defeated several Hungarian armies. In early April, 1241, at the Battle of Lenica (Liegnitz) in Poland, they defeated an army that is said to have included heavily armored Teutonic knights. Dying in the battle was the most powerful of Polish dukes, Henryk II (Henry II).
-Genghis Khan
For example, when the governor of one of the cities in the Khwarazmian Empire took over Genghis Khan’s trade caravan and killed all the traders, Genghis Khan went berserker.
He sent 100,000 Mongols to the Khwarazmian Empire and killed thousands of people, including the governor.
Genghis Khan poured molten silver into the governor’s eyes and mouth until the poor guy roasted from the inside. That was a clear sign that anyone, stupid enough to harm the Mongol Empire, would have to face devastating consequences.
While Genghis Khan was consolidating his conquests in what had been the Khwarezmian Empire, a force of 40,000 Mongol horsemen pushed through Azerbaijan and Armenia. Without Genghis Khan they defeated Georgia's Christian crusaders, captured a Genoese trade-fortress in the Crimea and spent the winter along the coast of the Black Sea. In 1223, as they were headed back home, they met 80,000 warriors led by Prince Mstislav of Kiev. The Battle of Kalka River (map location) commenced. Staying out of range of the crude weapons of peasant infantry, and with better bows than opposing archers, they devastated the prince's standing army. Facing the prince's cavalry, they faked a retreat and drew the prince's armored cavalry forward, taking advantage of the over-confidence of the mounted aristocrats. Lighter and more mobile, the Mongols strung out and tired the pursuers and then attacked, killed and routed them.
-Genghis Khan
History shows that spreading fear worked perfectly in Genghis Khan’s favor. He still needed to invade some rebellious places from time to time, but for the most of the time, people in The Mongol Empire behaved really well.
Genghis Khan could be as powerful and respected as he wanted, but he still had to surrender to the laws of nature. Genghis Khan died in 1227, at the age of 65.
And why is all this important?
History tells us that psychopathic personalities in charge of nations that possess science, technology, and modern works tend to be blinded to the realities of the world. They become drunk with power, and forget that there are “bigger fish in the sea” and that you should not discount them because they are different…
…or they look different…
…or that they are “book worms”…
…or are drunk on vodka all the time…
…or whatever bullshit reinforcements that you want to believe. Genghis Khan serves as a stark and frightening reminder that there is always someone bigger, and better, and stronger than you are. And you should mistake their polite actions, their calm words, their soft tone of voice for a sign of weakness.
The result could be lethal.
"Let me control the media and I will turn any nation into a herd of pigs"
- Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
Consider the reality
I could type until my fingers fall off, and no one is going to believe the statistics that pretty much show that a FIRE based economy isn’t capable of rebuilding, creating, or structuring anything. I can show you historical examples, you you all would ignore them. I can show you charts and graphs, but they will remain oblivious.
A FIRE economy is any economy based primarily on the finance, insurance, and real estate sectors. Finance, insurance, and real estate are United States Census Bureau classifications. Barry Popik describes some early uses as far back as 1982. Since 2008, the term has been commonly used by Michael Hudson and Eric Janszen. It is New York City's largest industryand a prominent part of the service industry in the United States overall economy and other Western developed countries.
-Wikipedia
I argue that strategically, a nation that makes, creates and builds things is far superior to that that talks about things, writes about things, and tabulates numbers on spreadsheets. And this superiority manifests in numerous ways.
The historical displacement of America’s industry for replacement by lawyers, economists, bankers and real estate tycoons.
But rather than get into all the charts and the graphs, it get’s tiresome don’t you know, instead we are going to greatly simplify things and look at the far simpler model.
So what we are going to so is simplify the equations.
An exercise in simplification
We are going to create an imaginary nation, roughly the the same size and structural organization of the United States. We are going to call it “Freedom United!”.
And…
We are also going to create another nation, this is going to be a unified Asia that includes Russia, China and Iran. We will call it “Asia First!”
And…
Does this map remind you of anything?
How about this…
Genghis Khans empire.
Comparisons
What we are going to do is compare the two collective communities. For each one is comprised of a group of separate states or independent nations, all brought together under a common banner.
And when we do compare them, we see this…
Ah…
And the first thing that should strike the reader is that there is a major “real estate difference” involved.
Asia First! is much larger, geographically, than Freedom United! is.
But it’s more than that…
"Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’."
- George Orwell, Looking back on the Spanish War, Chapter 4
The second thing that you must note it it is not only bigger, but it has more people, more factories, and more resources.
But let’s simplify things and note that while Freedom United! and Asia First! both have factories and R&D centers, the nature of them, and the location of them within the geographical territories are quite different.
Freedom United! has pretty much “offshored” it’s manufacturing capability to other nations and places, and what remains are “think tanks”, “conceptional Research” and “study centers”. They are staffed by bankers, accountants and highly paid diversity directors. Further, their location tends to be centralized to the major cities within the nation body.
Cities like Yorker City, San Chicago, and New Angles have their “industry” very close to the densely packed urban centers. And while there are certainly scattered factories and manufacturing center peppered throughout the nation, the vast bulk of them at located at the urban city centers.
Something like this…
Meanwhile, Asia First! not only has more factories, but they are scattered throughout the entire nation. Furthermore, they tend to make real physical things. Not spreadsheets, Power Point Presentations, and accounting evaluations. The owners and the executives are all merit driven as it is their culture. All the leadership can, if needed, go onto the factory floor and make the parts and equipment products themselves.
Like Freedom United!, they also tend to cluster, but instead of clustering with the major population centers, they cluster inside manufacturing communities that are widely separated and located in the vast tracks of the countryside.
Here’s a map of Guangdong. It is a collection of many, many, many smaller towns that host many, many, many factories. This area is a designated Tier 1 city in China and it is north of the principal city of Shenzhen. For your shit’s and giggles, MM used to live in one of these cities here in this region. It’s all factories, and hills. Factories and hills. Factories and hills.
Dongguang
.
The Human bridge is really a hassle I will tell you what. That’s the icon at the far lower left of the picture. I go over it maybe once ever few months. It’s traffic as far as the eye can see!
Now for our purposes, we will consider ASIA FIRST! to be much like this. Which regions of scattered communities and factories all spread out over wide expansive terrain.
It looks something like this…
Now…
Let’s compare the two nation states
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X
When you compare the two nations you notice something very important to our calculus here. No matter how smart, how prosperous, how beautiful or how exceptional one nation is compared to the other… a nation with a bigger population, and more factories, and resource will be able to out-produce and out-survive a lesser nation.
It’s the “Risk” strategy.
IntheRiskgame, the goal is simple: playersaimto conquer their enemies’ territories by building an army, moving their troops in, andengaginginbattle. Depending on therollofthedice, a player will either defeat the enemy or be defeated. This exciting game isfilledwithbetrayal, alliances, and surprise attacks.
We saw that during World War II with the Nazi Germans. While their military weapons industry was top rate, and the quality of their equipment was the best in the world, it was the ill-trained, masses and hordes of soldiers from Russia that was able to overwhelm Germany.
This idea that huge quantities of “average” soldiers, and mediocre equipment can compensate for very specialized, and efficient, and expensive weapons systems is not new. It’s just not well reported as the Freedom United! military-industrial lobby is desirous of keeping this issue quiet and “under wraps”.
Let’s compare the two nations side by side…
All this is very interesting, but let’s get to the point.
A comparison with the events of the last few years leading up to today.
America takes on Asia…
Freedom United! is just getting “clobbered” on the international scene. It is a military empire that has few remaining exports of value. It exports aircraft, and wheat, and some very specialized machines, but that’s about it. It’s primary revenue generating venue is in the banking, finance and real estate venues.
This nation has been fighting numerous wars all over the globe, and it’s leadership are drunk with power, and oblivious to the true realities of the world.
So, where they got this idea is unknown, they get this idea that they can take on and fight with Asia First! And that they would win!
What’s more, they seriously believe that they could draw out the battle and fighting for a long, long time.
Not just years and decades, but generations…
Mike Pompeo in India working on the QUAD to fight against China.
.
Now they know that it would be very difficult to fight on the geographical territory of Asia First! as it would result in a complete nuclear retaliation.
Asia First! combined has an enormous nuclear arsenal. It is far bigger, more technologically advanced, and with a larger military than what Freedom United! has.
Thus, they need to be able to fight Asia First! is such a way that Nuclear MAD doctrine is avoided.
They also know that they need to “bleed out” Asia First! in such a way as to give them time to overtake the nation through attrition. So they have established other areas by which the fighting can take place.
Create a MAJOR “false flag” event to ignite a war-footing.
Keep the fighting conventional. Avoid nuclear weapons.
Fight by proxies on predetermined proxy nation locations.
Bleed Asia First! through dominance on the oceans, and in Space.
Isolate Asia First! in all ways and means.
Prevent war from hitting the mainland Freedom United!
The battles are designed to occur on proxy locations.
The idea is to have wars and battles taking place in far-away lands, so that no one in Freedom United! is harmed, and a direct nuclear strike with Asia First! can be avoided. These proxy war locations (already decided upon by FREEDOM UNITED!) are shown in gold.
And of course, the idea is that Freedom United! would fight Asia First on these designated battlefields. These areas are known as the QUAD.
It’s a brilliant plan.
Except one thing.
Some of those QUAD areas are considered to be Asian First! territory. And pretending that they are not is a egregious mistake. And Asia First! has said so explicitly. These are “RED LINES” that one dare not cross.
But the leadership of Freedom United! just chucked, and pretended that they didn’t hear the statements.
A Battle Rages
So let’s go through the logical progression of things.
Logical.
Progression.
Of events as we know them.
Freedom United! creates a series of “false flags” to justify a war with Asia First!. There are a number of events stacked up that are ready to go. The question is which one will Freedom First! use to “get the ball rolling”?
And within a short period of time there are global military actions globally.
Initially, it looks like everything is going to plan. One or two QUAD members decide to “sit the conflict out”, but the rest support the effort in varying degrees.
Trade slows to a trickle and even stops.
The people of Freedom United! are all in gleeful patriotism, and conventional fighting is occurring all along the “doorsteps” of Asia First!. As planned! Off in far-away lands!
American media constantly pushes for war because they have no idea what real war is. To them, going to war is like spanking a child: possibly backfiring socially, but no real danger to their own lives. Most of the time, they just send bombers and take cool videos. When guys have to be sent on the ground, their deaths can be used to fuel the national hard-on America has for its military. I call it the "thank you for your service culture.
America has waged war on minor nations for so long that they can't even imagine that fighting another nation might result in aunt Nancy meeting her creator early. To them, Afghanistan, Iraq, China, Russia, it's all the same.
Also, the infantile thinking in terms of good and bad doesn't help.
Posted by: Eeny | Apr 12 2021 18:32 utc | 12
They can sit down in front of their televisions set, and social media feeds and feel so proud and patriotic about how strong and powerful their military is, and finally doing something about all those evil dirty filthy Asia First! people.
But then something happens.
Those “neutral” QUAD nations are not all independent. Some of them are actually geographically part of Asia First! They are not considered to be “protectorates of Freedom United!” instead they are recognized by the UN as actual sovereign territory of Asia First!, and…
…when the military operations in support of the False Flag events start to occur, action starts to unfold very rapidly.
Asia First! decides that enough is enough, and that this bullshit must end. So it unleashes a combined military horror upon Freedom United!.
All Hell breaks loose.
The event was is brief and is over quickly. All in all an equal exchange of nuclear conflagration occurs to both nation states. No one is spared.
But…
The nuclear strike has been planned for decades. It’s not spontaneous.
And one nation decides to end it, and it remains the victor who lays the terms of surrender of the other nation.
Which nation would be the winner, and which would be the loser, do you suppose?
It looks like this…
Global Devastation
We can see what happens.
Not only are the designated battlefields (pre-established by Freedom United!) hit with crippling nuclear salvos, but the “untouchable” cities of Freedom United! are also targeted. In fact, ALL of the major urban ares of Freedom United! are erased from the globe.
All of the major cites of Freedom United are erased from the map. All of the military bases in support of the military empire of Freedom United! are turned into slag and glass. The capital, and all the leadership locations are craters surrounded by radioactive wasteland.
Freedom United! ceases to be a nation.
The world is in big trouble.
It did come at a price.
Asia First! also took some hits and they did not survive unscathed. But we can clearly see that even though there was an equal exchange of hostilities, the nation that suffered the worst was Freedom United! by the simple geography of it’s cities and manufacturing base.
The Aftermath
Now consider the years following this nuclear exchange.
How was the globe able to recover, and which nations recovered the best?
And…
Which nations are best able to recover?
Which nations would be able to recover within a decade?
Which nations would be able to recover within 50 years?
Let’s take a look at that…
Recovery Suggestions
Well, there are far too many variables at play to make any kind of reasonable determine what could happen. All we have are the numbers and the proportions. Asia First! could lose 75% of it’s population and still be better off than Freedom United! And then there is the destruction of factories and cities, and the ability to rebuild. In all aspects, Asia First! would be far better equipped to rebuild, stabilize the situation, and begin all over.
Not so with Freedom United!
Because of this, and the fact that Freedom United! is already balkanized, it seems logical that whatever the condition of Freedom United! would be after a major nuclear exchange, it would fracture into many different singular, independent cities, and independent nations. Some would be healthier than others. Some would be absolutely horrible and horrid places to live, while others might be generally unscathed.
We can also say that there would probably be some serious internal domestic conflict as a nation of “independence” (and high levels of gun ownership and decades of “race bating”) and government actions that pit one group against another…
… that there would be a relatively long period of adjustment to the new normal.
There might be efforts to maintain the original constitution, while there might be efforts to maintain the independence of the individual states. There might be efforts to carve out new states and new territories, as well as neighboring nations deciding to annex some of the lands that are now “up for grabs”.
No matter, how contentious, how difficult, how problematic, and how confused, one thing is certain, the Federal Government will no longer exist, and it would take a herculean effort to keep the Freedom United! national unity intact after a global nuclear exchange.
Conclusion
Humanity is at a dangerous crossroads. Nuclear war has become a multi-billion dollar undertaking, which fills the pockets of US defense contractors. What is at stake is the outright “privatization of nuclear war”. Massive amounts of money have been allocated by the Joe Biden Administration to feed the weapons industry including the Pentagons’ 1.3 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program first launched under Obama, is ongoing under the Biden administration.Michel Chossudovsky, April 12, 2021
This post looks at the world like the simplified game of “Risk”. The nation with the bigger population and armies will be able to offset what ever technical advantage you might possess. This is not always true, of course. (Consider the Incas when they met the Spanish in search of gold.) But it is often true enough to say that perhaps 80% of modern conflict follows this rule.
We can wish that advantage can be mitigated by brilliant generals (Carl von Clausewitz, and Rommel), or exciting cutting edge technology (radar, sonar, stealth, cruse missile, hyper-glide technology, drones, nuclear weapons), and elite and specialized training (Seals, Green Berets) but for the most part these advantages are on the Tactical level, not on the Strategic level.
Avalon Hill’s game “Squad Leader” simulates tactical level military warfare on the Eastern Front between Germany and Russia during World War II.
But we have to take into account something else. This is something that is rarely if ever addressed…
… incompetence at the leadership level.
The public faces change, but the stupidity remains because, like Rome, you can change the leadership… but the system is faulted and humans will abuse it.
When Germany ran over France in 1941 the French generals were ill prepared to deal with the Germans. When World War II broke out, Stalin was so incompetent, that he locked himself in the room and got drunk waiting for people to haul him away and arrest him.
When Genghis Khan attacked Europe, and the Silk Road, many nations and city state had an unrealistic understanding of the threat that was facing them, and they had an artificially inflated idea of what they were capable of.
Like the 20,000 armored knights that rode into battle to take on 4 million angry Huns... none survived.
In this overly simplified scenario we discount advantages on the tactical level.
Instead we compare geography and leadership (only). In this set of goggles it is quite obvious that Asia First! has a decided advantage over Freedom United!. Yet, as much fun as this very frightening scenario plays out, we do not know what to expect, and our guesses can be wildly inaccurate.
But, and yet, given the little what we know, and what we have learned from history, there is a case that the scenario presented here has a 60% likelihood of occurring. The Freedom Forever! nation will not easily recover at any pre-confligation level, and it is ridiculous to assume that it would. No matter what “secret weapon” the neocons in control of the nation might think.
We need only review the catastrophic mistakes of the Hungarians when they encountered the Huns of Genghis Khan to underline this point.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my Theories of Collapse Index here…
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The world is moving ever forward. Such as this notice on MoA. This and these kinds of things are becoming more and more common in the West these days…
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
Maintenance mode
Temporary Blog Closure
March 24, 2021 in Uncategorized by craig
In view of our understanding that the High Court has found some articles on this blog to be in contempt of court, and in view of the fact that the Crown Office had sought to censor such a large range of articles, this blog has no choice but to go dark from 15.00 today until some time after tomorrow’s court hearing, when it will be specified to us precisely how much of the truth we have to expunge before we can bring the blog back up.
This is a dark day for the entire team here. We will be looking to appeal this to the Supreme Court and if required (though we very much doubt it will be) to the European Court of Human Rights.
-Posted by: Bluedotterel | Mar 24 2021 16:46 utc | 1
Bang, bang, and then bang. One after another things have started to happen faster and faster. It began in Alaska with a stunning, just stunning insulting display of ignorance and rudeness from the United States. Followed quickly by the military, social, industrial, and cultural realignments between Russia and China. With then Iran getting on board, creating the combined enormous Asian block.
Belt and Road isn’t going away. China is making more rigorous lending decisions while focusing somewhat less on heavy-duty construction and more on digital technology, says a Council on Foreign Relations task force report released on March 23. The 190-page report, titled China’s Belt and Road: Implications for the United States, was written by Jennifer Hillman and David Sacks of the CFR based on the findings of an independent task force chaired by former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and retired Admiral Gary Roughead.For the U.S., calibrating an effective response to Belt and Road is tricky. The Obama administration pursued constructive engagement with China. As Belt and Road ramped up and became more of a threat, the Trump administration was more confrontational, but without allies’ support. The Biden administration aims to build more of a united front of nations to counter Chinese influence. Reflecting the difficulty of striking the right balance, the Council on Foreign Relations report says the U.S. response “has been too little, too late,” but also says “its blanket condemnation risks alienating partners.”
The American leviathan has set up the pieces, and is going full bore toward international global conflict. All stops have been pulled. All fail-safes have been removed. And now, it’s a matter of getting the minions and toadies in line so that the wars can be fought on their national geography instead of inside of America.
Um…
It’s not going to happen that way, but you just cannot reason with idiots.
I always knew there was something fundamentally wrong with the world.
-Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 24 2021 19:57 utc | 36
The Article
This is a great article. Just great.
As Patrice says…
It's clear from the tone of the author, which mirrors much of independent, assaulted and outraged humanity, that many observers are waiting with bated breath...
...for the emergence of a powerful and invincible countervailing alliance...
...(one that is) capable of finally stopping the reign of brutal violence and disgusting hypocrisy imposed by the US empire.
And that alliance, perforce, as to be the sinorussian alliance.
The blood-curdling hypocrisy of the West leaves truly decent and sovereign nations no choice.
As Pepe Escobar puts it in this remarkable and indispensable dispatch:
One has to applaud the gall of the “Western partners”. It’s 18 years since Shock and Awe – the start of the bombing, invasion and destruction of Iraq. It’s 10 years since the start of the total destruction of Libya by NATO and its GCC minions, with Obama-Biden “leading from behind”. It’s 10 years since the start of the savage destruction of Syria by proxy – complete with jihadis disguised as “moderate rebels”. Yet now the “Western partners” are so mortified by the plight of Muslims in Western China!
This is a complete reprint of a most excellent article from Pepe, and reproduced from HERE. All credit to the author. Please kindly note that it was reformatted to fit this venue but aside from that left intact in all of it’s glory.
With a Russia-China-Iran triple bitch slap on the hegemon, we now have a brand new geopolitical chessboard
It took 18 years after Shock and Awe unleashed on Iraq for the Hegemon to be mercilessly shocked and awed by a virtually simultaneous, diplomatic Russia-China one-two.
March 2021: The FMs of the two greatest powers defying Washington meet for close strategic consultation.
How this is a real game-changing moment cannot be emphasized enough; 21st century geopolitics will never be the same again.
Yet it was the Hegemon who first crossed the diplomatic Rubicon. The handlers behind hologram Joe “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Nance” Biden had whispered in his earpiece to brand Russian President Vladimir Putin as a soulless “killer” in the middle of a softball interview. [Conducted by ABC News maggot, George Stephanopoulos, although media stenographers and propagandists in the Western bloc are all fully interchangeable. —Ed]
Not even at the height of the Cold War the superpowers resorted to ad hominem attacks. The result of such an astonishing blunder was to regiment virtually the whole Russian population behind Putin – because that was perceived as an attack against the Russian state.
Then came Putin’s cool, calm, collected – and quite diplomatic – response, which needs to be carefully pondered. These sharp as a dagger words are arguably the most devastatingly powerful five minutes in the history of post-truth international relations.
In For Leviathan, it’s so cold in Alaska, we forecasted what could take place in the US-China 2+2 summit at a shabby hotel in Anchorage, with cheap bowls of instant noodles thrown in as extra bonus.
China’s millennial diplomatic protocol establishes that discussions start around common ground – which are then extolled as being more important than disagreements between negotiating parties. That’s at the heart of the concept of “no loss of face”. Only afterwards the parties discuss their differences.
Yet it was totally predictable that a bunch of amateurish, tactless and clueless Americans would smash those basic diplomatic rules to show “strength” to their home crowd, distilling the proverbial litany on Taiwan, Hong Kong, South China Sea, “genocide” of Uighurs.
Oh dear. There was not a single State Dept. hack with minimal knowledge of East Asia to warn the amateurs you don’t mess with the formidable head of the Foreign Affairs Commission at the CCP’s Central Committee, Yang Jiechi, with impunity.
Visibly startled, but controlling his exasperation, Yang Jiechi struck back. And the rhetorical shots were heard around the whole Global South.
They had to include a basic lesson in manners: “If you want to deal with us properly, let’s have some mutual respect and do things the right way”. But what stood out was a stinging, concise diagnostic blending history and politics:
The United States is not qualified to talk to China in a condescending manner. The Chinese people will not accept that. It must be based on mutual respect to deal with China, and history will prove that those who seek to strangle China will suffer in the end.
And all that translated in real time by young, attractive and ultra-skilled Zhang Jing – who inevitably became an overnight superstar in China, reaping an astonishing 400 million plus hits on Weibo.
The incompetence of the “diplomatic” arm of the Biden-Harris administration beggars belief. Using a basic Sun Tzu maneuver, Yang Jiechi turned the tables and voiced the predominant sentiment of the overwhelming majority of the planet.Stuff your unilateral “rules-based order”. We, the nations of the world, privilege the UN charter and the primacy of international law.
So this is what the Russia-China one-two achieved almost instantaneously: from now on, the Hegemon should be treated, all across the Global South with, at best, disdain.
An inevitable historical process
Pre-Alaska, the Americans went on a charming offensive in Japan and South Korea for “consultations”. That’s irrelevant. What matters is post-Alaska, and the crucial Sergey Lavrov-Wang Yi meeting of Foreign Ministers in Guilin.
Lavrov, always unflappable, clarified in an interview with Chinese media how the Russia-China strategic partnership sees the current US diplomatic train wreck:
As a matter of fact, they have largely lost the skill of classical diplomacy. Diplomacy is about relations between people, the ability to listen to each other, to hear one another and to strike a balance between competing interests. These are exactly the values that Russia and China are promoting in diplomacy.
The inevitable consequence is that Russia-China must “consolidate our independence: “The United States has declared limiting the advance of technology in Russia and China as its goal. So, we must reduce our exposure to sanctions by strengthening our technological independence and switching to settlements in national and international currencies other than the dollar. We need to move away from using Western-controlled international payment systems.”
Russia-China have clearly identified, as Lavrov pointed out, how the “Western partners” are “promoting their ideology-driven agenda aimed at preserving their dominance by holding back progress in other countries. Their policies run counter to the objective international developments and, as they used to say at some point, are on the wrong side of history. The historical process will come into its own, no matter what happens.”
As a stark presentation of an inevitable “historical process”, it doesn’t get more crystal clear than that. And predictably, it didn’t take time for the “Western partners” to fall back into – what else – their same old sanction bag of tricks.
Here we go again: a US, UK, EU, Canada “alliance” sanctioning selected Chinese officials because, in Blinken’s words, “the PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.” [sic]
The EU, UK, and Canada didn’t have the guts to sanction a key player: Xinjiang party chief Chen Quanguo, who’s a Politburo member. The Chinese response would have been – economically – devastating.
Still, Beijing counterpunched with its own sanctions – targeting, crucially, the German far-right evangelical nut posing as “scholar” who produced the bulk of the completely debunked “proof” of a million Uighurs held in concentration camps.
Once again, the “Western partners” are impermeable to logic. Adding to the already appalling state of EU-Russia relations, Brussels chooses to also antagonize China based on a single fake dossier, playing right into the Hegemon’s not exactly secret Divide and Rule agenda.
Mission (nearly) accomplished: Brussels diplomats tell me the EU Parliament is all but set to refuse to ratify the China-EU trade deal painstakingly negotiated by Merkel and Macron. The consequences will be immense.
So Blinken will have reasons to be cheerful when he meets assorted eurocrats and NATO bureaucrats this week, ahead of the NATO summit.
One has to applaud the gall of the “Western partners”. It’s 18 years since Shock and Awe – the start of the bombing, invasion and destruction of Iraq. It’s 10 years since the start of the total destruction of Libya by NATO and its GCC minions, with Obama-Biden “leading from behind”. It’s 10 years since the start of the savage destruction of Syria by proxy – complete with jihadis disguised as “moderate rebels”.
Yet now the “Western partners” are so mortified by the plight of Muslims in Western China.
At least there are some cracks within the EU illusionist circus. Last week, the French Armed Forces Joint Reflection Circle (CRI) – in fact an independent think tank of former high officers – wrote a startling open letter to cardboard NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg de facto accusing him of behaving as an American stooge with the implementation of NATO 2030 plan. The French officers drew the correct conclusion: the US/NATO combo is the main cause of appalling relations with Russia.
These Ides of March
Meanwhile, sanctions hysteria advance like a runaway train. Biden-Harris has already threatened to impose extra sanctions on Chinese oil imports from Iran. And there’s more in the pipeline – on manufacturing, technology, 5G, supply chains, semiconductors.
And yet nobody is trembling in their boots. Right on cue with Russia-China, Iran has stepped up the game, with Ayatollah Khamenei issuing the guidelines for Tehran’s return to the JCPOA.
1. The US regime is in no position to make new demands or changes regarding the nuclear deal.
2. The US is weaker today than when the JCPOA was signed.
3. Iran is in a stronger position now. If anyone can impose new demands it’s Iran and not the US.
And with that we have a Russia-China-Iran triple bitch slap on the Hegemon.
In our latest conversation/interview, to be released soon in a video + transcript package, Michael Hudson – arguably the world’s top economist – hit the heart of the matter:
The fight against China, the fear of China is that you can’t do to China, what you did to Russia. America would love for there to be a Yeltsin figure in China to say, let’s just give all of the railroads that you’ve built, the high-speed rail, let’s give the wealth, let’s give all the factories to individuals and let the individuals run everything and, then we’ll lend them the money, or we’ll buy them out and then we can control them financially. And China’s not letting that happen. And Russia stopped that from happening. And the fury in the West is that somehow, the American financial system is unable to take over foreign resources, foreign agriculture. It is left only with military means of grabbing them as we are seeing in the near East. And you’re seeing in the Ukraine right now.
To be continued. As it stands, we should all make sure that the Ides of March – the 2021 version – have already configured a brand new geopolitical chessboard. The Russia-China Double Helix on high-speed rail has left the station – and there’s no turning back.
Conclusion
Oh, Pepe said it so clearly and so wonderfully. Today there is a massive new Geo-political alignment, and it is the direct result of insanity and poor leadership from the West. And they are so very incompetent that they have no idea with the kind of “fire” that they are playing with.
Even with an enormous military, control of all media and communication, and some hidden ultra-powerful technology, the leadership is so seriously incompetent, the systems so hopelessly flawed, and the participants so absolutely corrupted that a catastrophic collapse of their government is imminent.
I hope and pray that I am wrong.
That all this will “blow over” and just go away, and I can fall into the “dust bin” with the rest of the “doom and gloom” predictors throughout history. Let’s hope the MM is wrong.
Meanwhile, the insanity of what the West is today is gearing up. It’s the same-old, same-old. Only on a bigger scale. So the carpet bombing of China by biological weapons dis not work. So the aggressive attacks on trade and technology did not work. So the enormous armada of ships to the South China Sea did not work. So the riots and revolution in Hong Kong did not work…
…and neither will “boots on the ground” in Xinjiang either.
…nor “saving” Taiwan from China.
…nor a strong QUAD.
But they still have dreams of conducting “the rape of Nanjing” in modern Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. They still have dreams of invading and seizing Chinese held islands. They still have the dreams of sinking all cargo ships on the high seas. They still believe that all this can be ignored…
…as long as they control the American media.
EXCEPT…
Only Americans read American media.
They do not control the thoughts of the world. And the world is getting mightily pissed. Gosh! It’s going to be one fuck of a year.
As a reminder. This is what a “double tap” looks like. As this video from Boston, Massachusetts clearly shows…
Be careful of your neighbors when you shovel your driveway.
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To understand where the United States is heading today, we should look through the lens of the past. And while I can refer to Rome, the Soviet Union, Athens and Sparta, and a host of other historical precedents, instead, we will focus on something different than the political issues. Here we will focus on the visceral hatred that develops between Americans when they fight against each other.
Yes. We are going to discuss the American Civil War.
A history lesson
Most generals in the Civil War were trained at West Point. That
training, along with experiences in the Mexican-American War and
skirmishes with Indians, taught them how to lead men into battle. One
Civil War general stands out in bold contrast to what he called the
“P’inters.” That was Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) was a Confederate general during the Civil War (1861-65). Despite having no formal military training, Forrest rose from the rank of private to lieutenant general, serving as a cavalry officer at numerous engagements including the Battles of Shiloh, Chickamauga, Brice’s Crossroads and Second Franklin.
Known for his maxim “get there first with the most men,” Forrest was relentless in harassing Union forces during the Vicksburg Campaign in 1862 and 1863, and conducted successful raiding operations on federal supplies and communication lines throughout the war.
In addition to his ingenious cavalry tactics, Forrest is also remembered for his controversial involvement in the Battle of Fort Pillow in April 1864, when his troops massacred black soldiers following a Union surrender. After the Civil War Forrest worked as a planter and railroad president, and served as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He died in 1877 at the age of 56.
-History.com
His military skills grew out of the rugged experiences of life in
frontier western Tennessee, and his leadership skills grew out of his
inborn commanding, even frightening, personality.
Forrest enlisted in the Confederate army, alongside his
fifteen-year-old son, as a private. He was quickly made a cavalry
officer and rose to the rank of Lieutenant General during the war.
He never wrote a book on military practices and likely never read one
on that topic. As far as formal schooling was concerned, he had only
about six months of it. In his own manner and by his example, he
displayed a military prowess and innate genius that ranked him among the best generals of that war and of all times.
His sayings bear witness to his personality and style, but also capture the essence of a natural born leader of men in battle.
“When you see anything blue, shoot at it, and do all you can to keep up the skeer.”
“Always git the most men thar fust, and then, if you can’t whup ’em, outrun ’em.”
“Whenever you meet the enemy, no matter how few there are of you or how many of them, show fight.”
“The way to whip an enemy is to git ’em skeered, and then keep the skeer on ’em.”
When recruiting soldiers from among Tennessee boys, he told them, “I wish none but those who desire to be actively engaged,” and then no doubt with a gleam in his eye, he added, “Come on, boys, if you want to have a heap of fun and kill some Yankees.”
To the Confederates, he was known as “the Wizard in the saddle,” but to the enemy, he was called “that devil Forrest.” Union General William Sherman said he was “the most remarkable man our Civil War produced.” The Union Secretary of War Stanton said, “There will never be peace in Tennessee until Forrest is dead.”
At least twenty-nine horses were killed out from under him, but he
took consolation in having personally killed at least that many Union
soldiers. He even killed one of his own subordinates in a fight after
Forrest implied the officer was a coward. Forrest himself was wounded in
that skirmish, which was just one of at least three times he was shot
during the war.
For all of his aggressiveness, Forrest was quite adept at winning battles by stealth and deception. When parlaying with enemy officers, he would have troop movements going on in sight of the enemy officers giving the impression that his forces were larger than they really were. When one Yankee complained after surrendering that he had been deceived, Forrest replied, “Ah, Colonel, all is fair in love and war you know.” At other times, when surrounding an enemy stronghold, Forrest would warn them that unless they surrendered, “I will have every man put to the sword.” His reputation for ruthlessness caused many an enemy to bow before such threats.
When the occasion called for direct attack and battle, Forrest was
always up to the task, both personally and as the commander. Finding
himself having ridden into the middle of a group of Yankee soldiers at
the Battle of Shiloh, Forrest began lashing right and left with his
sword. A Yankee soldier put a gun in Forrest’s side and fired, lifting
him up out of the saddle. Forrest continued fighting and then grabbed a
Yankee soldier by the neck and used him as shield until he escaped from
the enemy.
When Forrest’s cavalry found itself surrounded at the Battle of Parker’s Crossroads, he gave the command, “Charge them both ways.” Once again, his boldness and unorthodoxy in battle paid off. Until the very end of the war when he told his men, “You may do as you damn please, but I’m a-going home,” Forrest fought to win. This fighting spirit not only undid the courage of his opponents, it often put him at odds with the Confederate higher command.
Early in the war, Forrest’s cavalry found itself surrounded along with other Confederate troops at Fort Donelson in northwestern Tennessee. The other generals met to talk about how to go about surrendering to U. S. Grant’s surrounding forces. Forrest fumed at their decision. “I did not come here to surrender my command.” Taking his men and others who could ride along behind them, Forrest’s cavalry, which he called his “Critter Company,” broke through the lines and escaped.
Much later in the war, when General Braxton Bragg refused to pursue the fleeing Yankee army after the Battle of Chickamauga, Forrest reached his limits of serving under Bragg. Then when portions of his command were taken away, Forrest confronted Bragg personally. After calling him a coward and a liar, Forrest concluded his verbal attack on Bragg by telling him, “You have threatened to arrest me for not obeying your orders promptly. I dare you to do it, and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life.”
It would be the independent commands, and especially raids on enemy forts, where Forrest excelled as a commander. When Forrest was cut loose from the larger army units and command structure and was given free rein to disrupt supply lines and harass the enemy from the rear, he excelled. One of his staff officers said, “He was unfit for command under a superior; he was like a caged lion on the field of battle where he was not himself commanding.”
Forrest himself summed up his accomplishments by noting that he and
his Critter Company had fought in some 50 battles, inflicting 16,000
casualties on the Union, had captured or destroyed some 300 wagons and
67 artillery pieces, had dismantled some 200 miles of railroad, and had
cost the United States at least $15 million.
It is no wonder that Nathan Bedford Forrest has been viewed as one of the great military leaders of the war. It is not surprising that his name sent shivers into the hearts of his enemies. At the same time, Southerners took comfort in hearing the pounding of the hoofs of Forrest’s cavalry as it rode throughout middle Tennessee and other parts of the Confederacy.
Conclusion
Nice little tale. It’s the story of a man who lived and served perhaps 150 years ago. That’s it, eh? Just a nice little tale. Close the history book, and go check your news feed. Eh?
People are capable of extraordinary feats and activities. And this fellow was a ruthless General for the Confederate States; states that believed that they were wronged by the Federal Government and wanted no part of it any longer. And while history has been rewritten that the American Civil War was about “slavery”, it was really all about the freedom for the people within the States to live life as THEY chose. Not what the Federal Government decided for them.
In the big picture, after the American Civil War, nothing really changed.
And because of all this, we have the problems that America is dealing with today.
But…
That is not the point that I want to make. The point that I want to make is that all of his anger, his angst, and his hatred was directed at his fellow Americans. It was directed at people who attended the same churches his family attended, drive the same wagons his family drove. Walked the same roads, used the same Post Offices, ate the same foods and spoke the same language as he did.
Do not be so sure that ideology will not change people into monsters. It will.
Be alert, and do everything in your power to prevent history from reoccurring.
Do you want to see similar posts?
I hope that you found this post curious. Please take care. You can view other similar posts in my SHTF Index, here…
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find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you.
Do not believe what the media says. It’s all lies.
Do not believe what you think they are trying to cover up either. Many people have been tricked into this “tar baby”, and just end up propagating the alternative mantras.
Look at the few “raw” facts…
Donald Trump was in the hospital for three days and then was miraculously “cured”. Ok. I know it’s all fucked up, and sounds like a political stunt in a very partisan election year. But… could it have been something else instead…?
Think about it.
What happened when he went to the hospital?
Oh, you know, the “normal” precautions. Suddenly America went DEFCON ONE. Airborne command centers were engaged and all military ICBM silos were manned and the VP and other leadership were shuffled away to secret and secure hardened facilities. Airborne command posts were fully manned and the entire nation was put on the highest alert.
Then, after three days everything went back to normal.
…
So…
…
Odd.
…
To me, as former ONI – MAJ, this appears to me as a…
… staged precaution…
…or…
… clear “dry-run” practice…
…for the “unthinkable”.
And when I say “unthinkable”, I mean exactly that. A launch of a rather nasty nuclear war.
If you all do not realize why I think like this then check out my post about what America has been up to for the last four years, here.
Strange? You betya!
What’s even stranger is the timing of this “sickness”, and the instigation of DEFCON ONE in America.
It happened at the same time when the Chinese military discovered COVID-20 hitting the population centers of China.
Imagine that!
SADS-CoV
More lethal. More contagious. Of a completely different strain than COVID-19, and both "novel" and "never before seen" viral pathogens. Only instead of your lungs filling up with fluid, and crystallizing so that they feel like cement, you die by vomiting to death. (You can also shit your self to death as well. You end up with chronic and painful gastrointestinal diarrhea.)
Both this and the COVID-19 coronavirus are both wildly contagious and you can get it from touching a surface that someone touched days or even weeks ago. Another interesting thing about it (and all the bio-weapons launched against China since 2016) is the enormous size of the virus. It's a honker, big monster.
The Facts
Americans never have any “facts”.
At best, it’s distortions and partial truths.
The American media is owned and run by the United States government. Not only do they control the mainstream media and all “fact checking” of it. But they also control the alternative media as well. They control both the alt-right and the alt-left media.
You will NEVER see real “news” any longer.
All you will see are one of perhaps three major narratives. All which are designed to move you for thinking things or thoughts that run counter to what you are supposed to think. Which is why you WILL NEVER SEE ANYTHING LIKE THIS POSTED ON THE REST OF THE INTERNET.
Only here, on MM were you able to get any of the following “firsts” first, in “real time”…
COVID-19 is an American bio-weapon. The eighth in four years.
COVID-20 secured by China on October 2020 by the PLA.
The big picture about the HK, Thailand, and the Beirut missile attack.
Just here.
Only HERE.
…
And additionally to that…
Not only are you all kept stupefied and ignorant of what is going on through drugs, distractions and economic suppression. The government completely covers up the true and real activities as they happen in real time.
You will never realize what is going on or happening until long after the events occur. If ever. And the reason for this is that in a "democracy" run by public opinion, the opinions and thoughts of the citizens get in the way of what the government is trying to achieve. For good or worse.
This reminds me of some horrific movies.
It does.
Not that the movies depicted cover ups. After all, what kind of a movie would it be if you couldn’t have all the excitement of action and adventure…?
But it did remind me of those 1980’s movies that were trying to warn people that nuclear war was a terrible, terrible thing and that you just cannot assume that it will never happen.
Thoughts that somehow have been forgotten over the years. Instead a new, fresh crop of bright-eyed American neocons have approached the stage. And they, along with their psychopath President are playing with nuclear war, and military action like five year olds with firecrackers.
People! If you keep this bio-weapon nonsense up, you are going to see the combined forces of Asia Bitch-slap the United States into the pre-stone-age.
Only this time, there are no adults to supervise…
Washington has declared war on China. The administration and its allies hope that the war will be “cold,” but have no strategy for keeping it so. I find it noteworthy that the most belligerently anti-Chinese members of the current U.S. Senate are also its youngest.
They came to adulthood after the end of the post-World War II “Cold War” and have no experience of its anxieties. They appear to take its sudden end as predestined – something that was so inevitably right ideologically that it can and should be taken for granted. Their military experience, if any, has been in the contemporary equivalent of the 19th century’s Indian Wars – combat with gun-toting farmers with no air forces, air defenses, navies, guided missiles, or nuclear weapons with which to answer U.S. hostility.
To paraphrase Hilaire Belloc’s riff on Britain’s hubris in its colonial wars:
“Whatever happens, we have got
Close air support and they have not.”
The Cold War was radically different from this. It was a global struggle between two competing ideological blocs and nuclear-armed power centers capable of destroying not just each other but all life on the planet except maybe the cockroaches. It began as a series of squabbles over the spoils of a worldwide war. Each side strove to consolidate spheres of politico-military and economic influence and deny the other access to them.
But each learned to avoid confrontations that might lead to armed combat directly with the other.
Each limited itself to proxy wars aimed at sustaining or imposing its ideology somewhere not in the grip of the other.
Each sought to minimize and contain interaction with the other. That was not difficult, given the utter lack of interdependence between the two and the blocs of nations they formally and informally commanded.
The struggle we Americans have now initiated with China has none of these characteristics. To analogize it to the Cold War of 1947 – 1991 is intellectually lazy.
More important, it is profoundly misleading and delusional. The Sino-American split is not the sequel to a bloody world war.
However politically convenient it may be for Americans to cast antagonism to China in all-encompassing Manichean terms, this is a contest born of contending national self-images and ambitions, not ideologies.
The struggle with China on which Americans have embarked is a bilateral contest in which others may or may not choose to take sides, not one between two committed blocs of nations.
China is both a much less inherently hostile and far more robust rival than the Soviet Union was.
The Movie “By Dawn’s Early Light”
Fear of a global thermonuclear war was very real in the 1980s. At the height of the cold war the Soviet Union had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at the US and NATO countries and we had just as many aimed at Russia and Warsaw Pact countries too.
What people feared was that some minor conflict between the US and the USSR would spiral out of control and we’d fire our missiles at them and they at us which would essentially send what was left of mankind back to the stone age. Movies like The Day After (1983), Threads (1984) and Testament (1983) explored life post nuke war and the picture they painted weren’t nice ones.
But after the Soviet Union began to collapse and the cold war started to wind down in the late 1980s and early 90s fear of a nuclear war between “us and them” began to diminish. Surely with the United States and the Soviet Union on good terms a nuclear war would be out of the question. Right?
The main crux of the movie By Dawn’s Early Light (1990) was that no, in fact the possibility of a nuclear war was actually GREATER now that controls over these weapons were slowly being relaxed in the Soviet Union.
In By Dawn’s Early Light, separatists steal a missile from Russia and fire it back into the country from Turkey making it seem like that NATO was at fault. And an automatic Russian defense program fired off a few nukes of their own towards the US in retaliation for this strike.
What follows are the President of the US and the Russian Premier trying to deescalate the crisis, even as Washington DC is nuked, the President presumed killed and the Secretary of the Interior, the highest surviving member of the government left alive, takes the reigns of the country. ..
And if the real President who is still alive wants to stop the war, the first question the new Secretary of the Interior President asks the military commanders is if we’re winning the war or losing it?
Are we winning the war, or losing it?
The other side of By Dawn’s Early Light is of the crew of a B-52 bomber on the way to deliver their payload of nukes to Russia, and them debating the merits of killing millions upon millions of people for a war that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
Eventually (spoiler alert) they turn their bomber around and head back home which causes the Russians to turn some of their bombers around too. And while the real President and the Premier see this as their chance to stop the war, the Secretary of the Interior President sees it as a sign of weakness and orders the B-52 shot down.
The American Air Force B-52 bomber crew is being told by the Navy Fighter Pilots that they have orders to shoot them down.
I originally saw By Dawn’s Early Light when it premiered on HBO and bought the VHS of the film when that came out a few years later. But honestly I hadn’t checked out the film in many years. While the special effects of the movie do look a bit dated, I did find that even 20+ years on the tension of By Dawn’s Early Light slowly builds and is maintained throughout the film right up until the very end.
I still found myself tensing up as the crew of the B-52 slowly comes to the realization that tonight’s flight isn’t a drill or the real President debating the Secretary of the Interior President on why it’s not a good idea to continue a war where every time one side fires a shot tens of thousands of civilians die.
While we’re probably not facing a situation like By Dawn’s Early Light in our immediate future, we still live in a world where there are thousands of nukes here in the US and thousands more overseas. And all it takes is one of those falling into the wrong hands to ruin everyone’s day.
So…
What the fuck is the matter with these neocon war-hawks in Washington DC? What is their friggin’ malfunction?
Neocons run America today.
While I genuinely believe that Trump would much rather work with both Russia, China and other nations of the multipolar alliance in lieu of blowing up the world, these aforementioned neocons think otherwise evidenced by Pompeo’s October 6 speech in Japan.
In this speech, Pompeo attempted to rally other Pacific nations to an anti-Chinese security complex known as the Quad (USA, Australia, Japan and India). With his typically self-righteous tone, Pompeo stated that “this is not a rivalry between the United States and China. This is for the soul of the world”. Earlier Pompeo stated “If the free world doesn’t change Communist China, Communist China will change us.”
Pompeo’s efforts to break China’s neighbours away from the Belt and Road Initiative have accelerated relentlessly in recent months, with territorial tensions between China and Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei being used by the USA to enflame conflict whenever possible.
It is no secret that the USA has many financial and military tentacles stretching deep into all of those Pacific nations listed.
Where resistance to this anti-China tension is found, CIA-funded “democracy movements” have been used as in the current case of Thailand, or outright threats and sanctions as in the case of Cambodia where over 24 Chinese companies have been sanctioned for the crime of building infrastructure in a nation which the USA wishes to control.
Pompeo’s delusional efforts to consolidate a Pacific Military bloc among the QUAD states floundered fairly quickly as no joint military agreement was generated creating no foundation upon which a larger alliance could be built.
-Win-Win vs Lose-Lose: The Time Has Come for the World to Choose
The world is on dangerous territory, and the idiots in Washington DC (and they are idiots for even considering the use of WMD’s in all their forms) are going to plunge the world into a darkness that I am truly fearful of.
If you can, watch the 1984 movie titled “Threads”. Learn about which I speak.
The Movie “Threads (1984)”
This is perhaps one of the most masochistic films ever made. You are taken into the personal world of two British families in Sheffield (site of a major NATO installation), who have children that are about to be married. Thousands of miles away, World War 3 slowly starts, and the ultimate horror happens. Thermonuclear war breaks out.
First shown by the BBC on 23 September 1984, Threads was must-watch TV. Accompanied by documentary On The Eighth Day and followed by a lengthy discussion on Newsnight, it’s a grim and unflinching depiction of what would happen to Britain if the unthinkable happened – if a political conflict between the US and Russia were to escalate into full-blown nuclear war.
An uncompromising reportage-style drama, Threads was the first film to realistically depict the horrors of a nuclear winter. Shocking, harrowing and hard to watch, it nonetheless made an important contribution to an increasingly urgent debate about the world’s ever-growing nuclear stockpile.
Threads focuses on two families linked by an unplanned pregnancy. Manual worker Jimmy Kemp (Reece Dinsdale) and middle class Ruth Beckett (Karen Meagher) must face the fact that they are having a baby, and that their old way of life will soon be over. Their concerns are those of any new parents: hopes and fears for their child, building a home together, saying goodbye to the Friday night pint at the pub. We also follow local government chief Clive Sutton (Harry Beety) as he struggles to put emergency plans into place amidst the growing likelihood of war. It soon becomes very clear that the city is woefully underprepared for a crisis of any kind, but in that very British way Sutton and his officials carry on regardless – unaware that, in the face of the storm to come, all preparations are ultimately futile.
I think it would be useless to repeat all that the other users have said about "Threads" since I cannot do better but agree with everything. This has to be THE most graphic representation of nuclear war.
And I used to think "The Day After" was disturbing.
I was able to cope to the whole movie, but let's say it wasn't easy at all. I can still hear in my head the yells of the panicked citizens as the mushroom cloud rises in the distance when it hits Crewe…
or see the bottles of milk…
or the corpse (which bears a striking resemblance with E.T.!) burning in the firestorm…
or see survivors keeping as gold what is taken nowadays as granted: supermarket plastic bags…
...and what they put inside is simply disgusting.
When I found out my local video store had a copy of this film, I rushed to get it, as I was impatient to see this movie I have heard so much about. The impatience to see the movie was rewarded by nothing more than a really bad aftertaste of radioactive fallout.
I liked the movie not for the quality of the actors, but for the overall realistic representation of the holocaust and for the great job done with a small budget. I give a thumbs up to that.
-airodyssey26 June 2000
Nuclear war is NOTHING to take lightly.
The world, literally, grinds to a halt, in one of the most scientifically accurate depictions of nuclear war since “War Game, The” (1965).
Framing this drama are news reports about growing political tension around the world. We learn piecemeal, through snippets of television reports and glimpsed newspaper headlines, that in recent months a coup in Iran has been followed by a Soviet occupation.
Having just purchased this on DVD I was eager to watch it after waiting years to see it after it was unofficially banned from ever being shown on the BBC again. I was four when it was first shown and my parents switched it off, too frightened to watch it themselves never mind let me see it.
I have to say it is absolutely terrifying and utterly terrifying in the extreme.
This could have actually happened!
I was impressed by the way the film conveyed what it would be like if thousands of megatons of atomic bomb was dropped on the U.K.
Normal life comes to an abrupt stop.
One minute people are shopping in their local supermarket, going to the pub and wallpapering their new flat and suddenly they are plunged into Hell.
Civilization is blown back into the stone age.
The most scary part was the way the authorities were shown unable to cope with the scale of the attack (perhaps why the BBC never aired it again). We always think that it could never be that bad because someone would come to our rescue, someone would maintain control.
But no, the bombs / missiles keep raining down and down prompting one traumatized emergency committee member to scream, "not another one!"
They just did not expect so devastation and are completely helpless. Later soldiers shoot people for food, people wish for death and the emergency committee, those meant to be running things, die in the supposed protective bunker, trapped by rubble.
Ten years later, nothing is back to normal. What young people there are behave like wild animals, raping and fighting and speaking in a bizarre caveman manner.
Since the Cold War ended people have stopped being frightened of nuclear weapons. Everybody in every country should watch this film and realize that if there ever was a nuclear war, still possible with growing tensions between a superpower and its rivals, those left alive would wish they had been caught in the blasts and killed outright.
I don't recommend this for sensitive viewers.
-charlieboy809 September 2005
Unlike the US film “Day After, The” (1983) (TV), the film gives detailed information as to what is happening on a scientific basis. You are shown how a worst-case scenario can happen, and what the effects are, as you follow the surviving members of the two families through the aftermath.
I've always said that no film can really scare you as an adult as films scared you when you were a kid. My benchmark for that being watching 'The Omen' on video when i was about 13, nothing has ever quite lived up to it in the effect it had on me.
Rewatching 'Threads' a while back makes me change my mind.
I remember first seeing it in Ireland on the BBC when I guess i was about 14. Even in Ireland, a neutral country, anxiety about nuclear war was a big thing when we were kids in the 80's.
'Threads' does really get to you, its very unsettling and disturbing. Unlike fictional horror films, 'Threads' is hugely different in one respect - it's real.
This is what would happen, you can't distance yourself by saying it's make believe. There are still thousands of nuclear weapons armed and primed to be launched within minutes, 24 hours a day, everyday. Now we even have a country, the US, that says it's ready to use them, even if no one else does first.
Rewatching it, the dated production values don't detract from the film's power. It seems to bring the film even closer to the ordinary and the everyday. It's the film's ordinariness that makes it so viscerally disturbing - Hollywood special effects would at least have allowed you to distance yourself from it somewhat.
In fact the film is more realistic for not having them. Someone else mentioned the scene of the woman in the shopping center urinating where she stood out of pure terror as she sees the bomb go off a mile or two away from her - that's the scene that stayed with me the most too.
Its depressing to think in 2004 we are living in a world where politicians are again talking about 'winnable' wars using nuclear weapons.
In many things in life you get a second chance if you make mistakes, I don't think nuclear weapons use will give us the luxury of finding out afterwards was it all worth it. Watch "Threads' and see if you think 'winnable' nuclear war is something you want to give yourself or your children.
-BenjAii7 December 2004
What follows is a complex sequence of small scale political escalations, events that are alluded to but never fully or coherently explained. By themselves, none of the steps towards conflict seem irreversible, but together they constitute a crisis.
All this occurs firmly in the background of the characters’ lives, and is largely ignored: TV reports are turned over to something more interesting, newspapers are delivered without headlines being read. It’s only as the crisis deepens that people start to pay attention.
The early 80s were the first time in a generation that full scale nuclear war seemed not only possible but probable.
It’s hard to imagine now, nearly thirty years after its demolition, but in 1984 the Berlin Wall was a very solid and enduring dividing line between two opposing world powers: the countries of NATO, including the US and Britain on one hand, and those united by the Soviet-sponsored Warsaw Pact on the other. Europe was very much at the center of these international tensions, and those old enough to remember the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis just over twenty years earlier knew that political conflict could escalate quickly and unpredictably.
Capable of being launched in minutes, and with a time-to-target of between 4 and 6 minutes, the US’s Pershing II missiles had hard target capability – meaning they could take out weapons silos and command bunkers buried deep below ground.
Both sides knew that a massive and all-encompassing preemptive strike was the only way to win a nuclear war. The stakes were incredibly high. Indecision or delay – of even a few minutes – could mean the difference between survival and total annihilation.
I was about eleven or twelve when this harrowing made-for-TV docu-drama was repeated by the BBC, back to back with 'The War Game'. 'The War Game' didn't faze me much, for various reasons, but 'Threads' - that grabbed me instantly and wouldn't let go.
It was not only horribly real, seeing a lower-middle class family rather like my own suddenly plunged back into the dark ages by a nuclear holocaust, it was also entirely believable (the cold war was still very much an ongoing concern back in the eighties) and shockingly compelling.
I wanted to look away, but couldn't.
I wanted to run from the room in fright, but couldn't.
For better or worse, this film showed in full, unflinching, uncompromising detail exactly what it would be like if your home town got nuked, and gave us graphic realism in spades.
Melting milk-bottles, spontaneous urination, houses reduced to rubble in seconds, burning cats, dead kids, gore, vomit, armed traffic wardens shooting looters, filth, decay, disease…it's certainly not a barrel of laughs, but Mick Jackson's aim was to shut up all the ignorant gung-hos who believed a nuclear war could be "won".
He succeeded, unequivocally. The scene that made the deepest impact on me was the ravaged makeshift classroom with a ragged bunch of shell-shocked adults dazedly watching an ancient videotape of a schools programme (Words and Pictures, in fact) in an attempt to regain their numeracy and literacy skills.
That was a show we used to watch at school. Work it out for yourself. In short, this is a downbeat, depressing, bleak and utterly horrible film, but I recommend it wholeheartedly to everyone. The cold war may be gone, but the threats portrayed are still very real.
-world_of_weird16 September 2004
People had become used to the jargon that surrounded the debate about a nuclear future – IBMs, kilotons, radiation sickness, fallout – but what did the words really mean? What would a nuclear war actually look like? Few in Britain at the time had any idea. Threads would change all that.
If the film was going to be a useful contribution to the nuclear debate, it needed to incorporate the latest scientific thinking and research, and an impressive number of physicists, psychologists and other scientists and theoreticians were consulted during production, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Joseph Rotblat and cosmologist Carl Sagan (who had also conducted experimental research on radiation in the 60s).
But Threads was not just about presenting research; if it was to be effective as a drama it needed a suitable story on which to hang the science. Jackson turned to a dramatist known for his naturalistic portrayals of ordinary British life, Barry Hines.
Hopelessness and helplessness pervade the script. The growing nuclear threat becomes just one more pressure on a society already dealing with high unemployment and degradation of local services. Public protest about the two inevitably become conflated: anxiety about a future of nuclear destruction is interwoven with anxiety for a future without jobs. At the root of both is a fear of society’s impending collapse.
The scenes of death, destruction and disease are so realistic, I had to shower after seeing this film for the first time.
But what is most disturbing is that the film includes the long-term effects of global thermonuclear war, going into weeks, months, years, even decades.
!3 years afterwards.
Words can't describe how this movie affected me in 1985, but I'll try. I happened upon a presentation of "Threads" when I was about 11 years old. As a Navy family, we were stationed in Washington D.C. After viewing it, I was frightened to the point of vomiting. I had nightmares for weeks. The world was a very unstable place at the time with a Soviet government that seemed to change monthly.
The cast does an admirable job here. Dialog is kept to a damaging minimum. There is no soundtrack other than screams of misery and explosions. Very effective. While you can't compare a TV production, there is effective use of stock footage. The interspersed scientific facts regarding the aftermath punctuate the film brilliantly.
While other films about the same topic, like "The Day After" and Testament", were reasonably effective in their messages, I think they failed where "Threads" succeeded. In the aforementioned films, there's a glimmer of hope.
In "Threads" there is no hope, only death, misery and dread.
I believe I saw "Threads" before the TV broadcast of "The Day After" because my reaction was one of slight indifference. After seeing Mick Jackson's and Barry Hines' work, "The Day After" is like a day at Disneyland. No film portrays the world on the brink and over the edge as effectively. Highly recommended.
-huladog557 November 2005
When the unimaginable does happen, Threads becomes something else…
Shocking images blend the mundane with the horrifying: milk bottles melting in the firestorm, bodies burning to ash in the rubble. Nothing is left untouched or undefiled by radiation. Life returns to subsistence levels as nuclear winter settles over the UK. Sickness, starvation and death become inescapable. Survivors hoard bits and pieces of broken objects – all that remains of life before the blast – in dirty plastic carrier bags. A scavenged dead rabbit becomes an unimaginable feast.
The film holds no-one responsible for all this except, perhaps, those at the very top of the chain. It calmly sets out the steps to war, with local officials no more to blame for the chaos than those left dazed and destitute once the firestorm has passed. Ultimately, all preparations to survive are futile, a child’s toy windmill in the path of a hurricane.
It’s the visual images that stay with you: a sudden splash of crimson blood against a grey wall when all before was colorless; children laboriously unpicking precious scraps of fabric one strand at a time; the pristine black silhouette of an undamaged marble tomb – as if death is the only thing in the world that has retained its sharp outline.
All this is delivered to us with a coolness, a deadpan detachment that is sickeningly unsettling. As time passes, characters simply disappear from the story – and we are left to imagine what has happened to them. It’s in the most offhand way that we discover the fates of those in the command center under Town Hall.
The film holds no-one responsible for all this except, perhaps, those at the very top of the chain. It calmly sets out the steps to war, with local officials no more to blame for the chaos than those left dazed and destitute once the firestorm has passed. Ultimately, all preparations to survive are futile, a child’s toy windmill in the path of a hurricane.
The film ends thirteen years after the nuclear attack, and the final frames of the film will burn into you like no other film ever will. There can be no question that this film MUST be re-released in the USA on DVD, so that it’s message will be heard and felt.
My boyfriend had been dogging me for months to watch this movie, which he (erroneously, I think) described as sci-fi. Now, I've never been a fan of sci-fi movies, as I think most of them are over-done, corny, etc. Add to that the fact that the movie was made 23 years ago, and I pretty much decided it wasn't going to be my cup of celluloid tea.
Was I ever wrong. Not only was it the singular most horrifying movie I've ever watched, it's timely as hell, and it's done documentary-style, so there aren't any overblown emotional scenes to detract from its realism. This movie scared me on such a profound level that I actually felt like I was having a panic attack and had to shut it off halfway through, during the "hospital" scene.
Mind you, I've never in my entire life been so disturbed by a movie that I just couldn't watch anymore. I sobbed, hard, for a good 15 minutes and couldn't sleep for most of that night. I have yet to finish the second half.
That said, I can't recommend it to the faint-of-heart. It will hit you on such a visceral level that everything in your reality will seem a little duller and less important after having watched it. I'm still amazed at how the events outlined in this movie are as much a threat to us now as they were in 1984. Twenty-three years later, we are no further from preventing a nuclear holocaust. If anything, the threat is more imminent.
If you can stomach it, you won't regret it.
-brrrnor18 February 2008
In 2020, it feels as if those safer times are ending. This is an important film that has become more, not less, relevant since it was first released.
It’s still one of the most traumatic things I’ve ever watched. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but it truly is something everyone should watch.
Not yet convinced?
The United States is run by psychopaths that think that they have been given powers by God, and that they are invincible. They have followers that believe this as well, and they are all in charge of a massive nuclear arsenal and they are running around the world stirring up trouble galore.
Nothing good is ever going to come of this.
It will not be a scene from “The walking dead”. It will be something else. If you live, you might have to wait thirty years before you will see taste pizza again. If might never, ever be able to drive a car ever again, and forget about checking out your Facebook page, or attending any kind of university. It’s all over.
It’s game over.
Forever, and your life will be forever changed.
If you earnestly believe that Donald Trump and company will usher in a better world for you and your fellow Americans, you are delusional. He has been one wrecking-ball after the other, and aside from plunging the entire globe into a global recession, he unleashed a global pandemic and is RIGHT NOW toying with the idea of launching nuclear weapons.
Nothing . good . will . come . of . this.
Reality Check
Most Americans are unaware of the true realities involved. In fact, media in America is a mountain-sized discharge of manipulation and nonsense to give the illusion of understanding and objectivity. While it is none of the sort.
An attack on China is a de faco attack on Russia. Both military have officers stationed in their respective military headquarters.
Any attack on China will NOT be limited to a distant South China Sea. They will retaliate. They will make it personal. America will never be the same afterwards. If you think that America is falling apart at the seams now, can you imagine what would happen with the top 20 cites in smoldering run, zero internet, radio or television, and where every other person has a gun…
…
Think about it.
Look at what is going on now. Look at the “hybrid-war” with China. Only four short years ago, China had our “most favored trading partner status”. And what is not said, and what you just cannot find in the alternative media…
Eight American initiated biological weapons attacks on Chinese food supplies and livestock. Followed by the release of COVID-19 on the most important holiday in China, CNY 2020. It didn't work, so the USA sent a flotilla of two assault carrier groups and five nuclear carriers to the South China Sea...
...which returned with "their tail between their legs" when the directed energy weapons ringing China turned off all the electronics, sensors, engines, and systems on the Naval vessels and aircraft. Planes started to fall out of the sky. Ships became uncontrollable. Nuclear reactors started to scram.
And yet...
After all this. COVID-20 is launched inside of China. At the same time that President Trump gets "sick" and goes into "hiding" and America goes DEFCON ONE.
Russia out-numbers the USA in nuclear weapons, and China is substantially superior to the United States in key strategic military technology (like hyper-velocity weapons, directed energy beams, drone hardware, swarm drones, and captive munitions).
But if you tell these neocons any of this, they shout you down with…
“America is number one”
“God is on our side”.
“America has never lost a war!”
“You are delusional, America is the best!”
And so on and so forth.
The neocons have co-opted the American patriotic conservative movement arguing that blowing up people, places and things are signs of American greatness.
.
Ah…
Still not convinced that these neocon “patriots” don’t believe that a nuclear war is “winnable”…
In addition to a nuclear first strike, the United States and her allies have a decided advantage of quick strike, long range battlefield capabilities because of superior aircraft and carrier strike capabilities. The Chinese have developed and are close to making operation, carrier-busting weapons platforms. A major advantage enjoyed by the US is about to be totally negated by an advancement in Chinese technology.
-Can America Win World War III? A Critical Analysis | The ...
Yes, you read that correctly.
America needs to strike FIRST, using nuclear weapons because both China and Russia have well-organized defensive weapons.
Crazy, eh?
Well, they seem to temper their enthusiasm for war with some caution…
The downside of a nuclear first strike by the United States would be that the US would also take a significant beating as Russian and probable Chinese and Indian nuclear forces would have time to retaliate.
However, the US submarines could do much of the damage, because of geographical proximity, before our enemies could get many of their missiles off the launching pads. If the deep space platform missiles were successful along with the “Rods from God” in targeting Russian and Chinese nuclear submarines, the United States could win a decisive victory.
With regard to the “Rods from God”, does anyone think that the recent destruction of the four chemical plants in China was truly an accident?
-Can America Win World War III? A Critical Analysis | The ...
So…
It’s pretty much all there in black and white.
Conclusion
An odd thing happened in October 2020. The President, Donald Trump was carted off to a hospital for three days and the United States went DEFCON ONE. Then things returned back to normal.
The excuse was that he was sick. That he had the COVID-19. But that he was cured miraculously, and is now feeling better than ever. His die-hard fans and believers are pretty much spit between…
It’s a sign from God that he is the messiah.
See, COVID-19 is not as bad as the flu.
It doesn’t matter what “everyone thinks”. I am not in Middle School, nor am I a member of the American sheeple. I just do not care what everyone else thinks.
COVID-20 (SADS-CoV) was launched, and discovered inside of China by the PLA at the same time that Donald Trump went "into the hospital" and DEFCONE ONE was initiated in America.
I know that all the evidence is pointing to an out-of-control leadership that is implementing long term strategies that require the use of nuclear weapons to achieve.
Trump followers have a near-religious belief in his ability and purpose.
And while it is clear that the Overseers will not permit radical changes to the Earth environment, they will permit a wide degree of latitude in how the PTB and their oligarchy-run governments operate. You can well expect things to get dicey.
Now, I am NOT saying that it will happen. Instead, what I am saying is that all the evidence points to plans within plans that involve this exact kind of human-generated calamity. And absolutely no-one is considering or what is aware of what is actually going on.
Were I to be one of the merit-driven leaders in Russia or China, I would instigate a pre-emptive first strike to prevent a belligerent United States, run by religious fundamentalist psychopaths, from destroying the rest of the world in their zeal for a utopia where Jesus comes down from heaven to purify the universe.
Either way, it’s a sick mess.
Be aware, but be safe.
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Ambassador Fox:Your refusal to comply with my orders has endangered the entire success of this mission. I can have you sent to a penal colony for this.Mr Scott:That you can, sir, but I won’t lower the screens.Ambassador Fox:Your name will figure prominently in my report to the Federation Central.Doctor McCoy:Well, Scotty, now you’ve done it.Mr. Scott:Aye. The haggis is in the fire for sure, but I’ll not lower my defenses on the word of that mealy-mouthed gentleman down below. Not until I know what happened to the Captain.
-Star Trek, A Taste of Armageddon 1967
This is not your red vs. blue kind of conflict. This is not the SA fighting the SS. This is not the Northern “Boys in Blue” marching against “Johnny Reb” in grey. This is not the glorious Allied forces fighting the evil Nazi’s. This is something different and on a completely different level.
I anticipate the normal horrors of war, and mayhem. But only this time it will be up front, up close, and right in your face. It will be like the hand to hand, street to street conflicts going on in the Bosnia / Hertivogania conflict. Only this time, it will include all sorts of unexpected and dangerous “innovations”.
And for all of you who think that you and your trusty .303 will be able to fight back against under-educated hordes, you are woefully wrong. Both sides have no idea just how nasty things can be. And both sides are going to spill a lot of blood, and there will be great sadness and agony in the process. All the time, the oligarchy will sit away smug inside their bunkers isolated from the carnage that they set upon the world.
The following is an interesting article. Some military-trained conservatives decided to visit an Antifa riot, and they were wholly unprepared for what they encountered. It’s a good read whether or not you agree with their intent, or their politics. Just take note that war is never what you expect.
The smart man avoids war, and runs away from conflict.
The following article is titled “Antifa Reality Check”. It was posted by NC Scout on September 5, 2020. It is reproduced with minor editing to fit this venue. All credit to the author.
“Very basic background. My friend is a prior service 1st LAR 0311, 0351. (from Wiki: 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion is a fast and mobilized armoredterrestrial reconnaissance battalion of the United States Marine Corps.) Multiple tours in the early to late 2000s, then DoE, then was put through selection and went to work for Colonel G____ as a team member. Since leaving, he has been doing contract work.
He is an experienced and capable meat eater and the furthest thing from a pussy or coward. Try to learn from his experiences.
“Me and three of my buddies were in Portland this weekend, got attacked by Antifa. There’s a Twitter video with millions of views on it. They ended up on Hannity and Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro etc., of us getting beaten with bats and rocks the size of cantaloupes thrown at us, getting spit on etc. We were all carrying pistols as well. Opportunity, ability and jeopardy, we were in a deadly force situation and we could easily articulate the use of deadly force, but they had pepper sprayed us. They were using industrial strobe lights on us, etc. We couldn’t PID our target and what lied beyond it, They did a great job of taking our situational awareness away, it was fucking incredible.
Bro my perspective on this changed so much.
The reason we were there wasn’t to counter protest or some shit, **** and *****, two of the guys with me, one of which is a bronze star and Purple Heart recipient. They’re both in the hiring process for the Portland Police Department. One is from Ohio and one is from Virginia. They both flew in that day just so they could come check out the city before they move their families across the nation.
Something else that I should make perfectly clear. We went to the Federal Courthouse first. There wasn’t a whole lot going on down there. We walked around and took some pictures. Bumped into a Sheriff at one point. Talked to him for a while. We asked him if the riots were over? He said fuck no, they’re trying to fuck a police station up right now on 47th and Burnside, We asked him if we could go, and he said yeah, it’s still a peaceful assembly, it hasn’t been declared a riot yet….
So, legit, we walked into this thing blind, in hindsight it was stupid on our part, I had no idea that they were like that. If it had been a full-blown riot we would not have gone. Bottom line, man, if you had ever given me a scenario like this and said hey, you’re sober, and you have a gun, and somebody is hitting you with a bat and throwing rocks at you that could kill you or put you in a coma, you try to get away but they cut you off with a convoy of vehicles and the assault starts again. They impede your movement and beat you with bats… Would you shoot?
I’d be like, yeah what fucking planet are you from?
But in all the training that I’ve been through my life, I’ve never been in one where in the first five seconds of the scenario you’re blinded with a strobe light and sprayed with pepper spray…. That changes everything. They were throwing these rocks from 15 feet back in the crowd, you couldn’t see who the fuck through it, etc. things like that…. It’s just a good talking point for guys that carry concealed, but you need to think through all these different scenarios.
It got way worse after that video ended, they chased us for 11 city blocks. They had a convoy of about 25 vehicles that cut us off at the next intersection, They had scouts on the corner with radios, they had a drone following us, they had a bull horn calling us Nazis, and the crowd was following a red strobe light that was up in the air on a stick, so they would announce Nazis and then people would follow the red strobe light, That video is just the beginning, I’ve got a fucking fractured hand from a baton, everyone of us has black and blue bruises up and down their legs and back, I had a guy spit in my face from 6 inches away, call me a pussy and a coward for not doing anything about it, and then tell me that he was going to find where I live, rape my mother, rape my children in front of me and then kill me.
I’ve never been more angry about something in my fucking life, the level of restraint that it took for us to not fight back in any capacity whether that was with a gun or fists is incredible. All of us have kids at home. The only thing going through all of our minds was we have to be able to justify deadly force if we’re going to go that route, there’s also hundreds of these people, we can’t see straight because of all the pepper spray, and it’s hard to PID exactly who is throwing these rocks and hitting us with batons, because they would hit you and fucking run and their buddy would run up and hit you. It was an incredibly stressful situation, they did a very good job tactically of taking away your situational awareness, and in my opinion complicating your legal defense when you split one of their faces open with a hollow point.
As we were running from the crowd after about the third block or so, we’re sprinting because the mob head caught back up to us and vehicles were trying to cut us off, I put my hand on the back strap on my appendix, And I heard somebody yell “Hey bro, whatever you’re reaching for, don’t reach, just keep running, they’re still 30 feet behind you. Keep running straight.”
We get 11 blocks down the road and this black Chevy Impala is ghosting us down the street, he’s kind of been in our shadow since block two or three He rolls his window down and starts asking us a bunch of questions. Why are we here, what are we doing, telling us we need to get the fuck out of here, asking us where our car is etc., we pretty much told him to get the fuck away from us because we didn’t know who he was. I finally asked him at one point, Who the fuck are you, man, you need to leave us alone, and he was like I’m the fucking police, bro, who are you?
So he pulled his car over and he and his partner talked to us. He was one of the special programs guys, either with SWAT or SRT or whatever. He was the one that yelled at me not to reach, and tried to help us out. He said he knew that we’ve been pepper sprayed and we’re having trouble seeing, I kind of snapped at him, Like hey motherfucker, You’ve been watching this whole thing fucking unfold and you didn’t intervene at all or light the crowd up or something? He started laughing and he was like, Man, if I got out and tried to help you guys, my fucking car would be on fire right now, and I’d be running next to you.
Bottom line: don’t go to an Antifa protest where you can put yourself in that situation. And if you find yourself in that situation, expect them to employ tactics that take away your situational awareness, and complicate the use of force continuum.”
Conclusion
War is something that should be considered as an option of last resort. It doesn’t matter if you are two people having a disagreement, or two nations involved in some kind of trade dispute. All war is ugly, crazy and unexpected.
Here, we have well trained soldiers going against militant civilians on their turf. They entered equipped, and read to go “hot” if need be. They had to be arrogant, for they were moving into an environment that was hostile and they were not concerned. In my “book”, it makes them cocky.
When I see Donald Trump sending Two complete assault carrier battle groups to the Chinese coastline, so close that you could see everyone with your own eyes. And then, expecting to threaten China in that action, I see the same kind of cocky invincibility as is written here.
Real war is not a Tom Clancy novel, it is not Rambo or Arnold Schwarzenegger killing hundreds of people with single shots to the forehead. It’s actually very uncomfortable, very horrible, and something that you don’t want to have any part of.
Expect to be surprised, tricked, betrayed, and killed.
Right now the United States is in the opening stages of Civil War, and the fact that the President is doing nothing (and don’t give me those excuses that he is powerless) tells me everything that I need to know about who is behind this, and what the objectives are.
Any president that can ban cat videos on cell phones, arrest foreign CEO’s by proxy, unleash a global bio-weapon the COVID-19, and blow up BRI shipping ports with a micro-nuke most certainly…
…most certainly…
…stop all the riots and unrest going on in the country today.
So. Everyone. Avoid all the conflict. Do not be under the impression that you will be able to fight off invading urban youth marching and screaming into bullhorns. It won’t be that way. You all won’t be playing cowboys and Indians inside a wooden stockade fort.
It will be black urban youth hyped up on drugs with kill-lust in their eyes. They will ride into your neighborhoods in brand new vehicles and pickup trucks mounting full automatic weapons. They will use drones, and fly bombs, and firebomb your community. They will attack, while flanking units go behind you and kidnap your family. They will leave raw earth, fire and blacked destruction in their wake.
Learn the lessons listed here in.
If you haven’t already, relocate to a quiet and boring place where you can ride out the up coming shit storm.
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Have you ever wondered why some people become filthy rich while others remain poor for their entire lives? Ah, well if you haven’t you should of. It pretty much explains the nature of the universe, don’t you know.
Here we are going to look at a a “successful” loser.
We are going to tear his life apart, dissect it and study it. For we want to know how a person who was such a terrible General, so much that everyone realized it, that he still continued and was able to maintain his position without troubles of demotion. Why do some absolutely awful people get into such powerful positions?
…
No. This isn’t a rehash of the “Peter Principle”.
In the 1969 book, "The Peter Principle," authors Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull wrote that workers in a hierarchical structure get promoted to the level at which they are incompetent and stay at that level for the rest of their careers.
Well, I don’t have the answer to that question. It’s a complex one and involved many factors, but we can look at certain people. We can study them. And they we can see what we would do different if we were in their shoes. We must realize that we are not perfect, and that we have faults.
And the true man (or woman) in control of their life is one that knows their faults and compensates for them.
Introduction
Why did the South lose the Civil War? That question has produced many books, lectures, and heated discussions from both historians and Civil War buffs. Now, it is my personal belief that all it takes is one bad leader to totally destroy a nation and lose a war. Indeed, the tales of all those cities that misjudged Genghis Khan can so very clearly illustrate this. Now, as far as the American Civil War goes, one of the many answers that could be given can be summarized in two words: Braxton Bragg.
Bragg achieved the rank of full general in the American Civil War.
With a military background, he quickly rose through the ranks after his adopted state of Louisiana seceded. (He was originally from North Carolina.) Early on, he led a group of volunteers in capturing a federal arsenal in Baton Rouge. During the first year of the war, he proved to be an apt troop trainer. He later became a corps commander under General Albert Sidney Johnston at the Battle of Shiloh. After Johnston was killed at Shiloh, he was succeeded by P. G. T. Beauregard. When Beauregard left his command for health reasons, Bragg inherited the leadership of the Army of Tennessee, which would be the primary Confederate military force in the western theater of the war.
Most people will not turn down a promotion, especially if it comes with greater pay and prestige—even if they know they are unqualified for the position.
Skilled in training troops and having earned praise for his leadership in early battles, Bragg seemed worthy of his rise in the ranks.
A terrible General
Yet, despite the early signs of success, General Bragg became a strong contender for the title of “worst high-ranking Confederate general.”
There is certainly no shortage of grist for the mill when making the case against Bragg. Quite a few of his fellow commanders, most of whom served under him, were contemptuous of his leadership.
Artillery officer E.P. Alexander said that Bragg was “simply muddle headed.”
On several occasions generals in his army sent letters to President Jefferson Davis asking that Bragg be sacked.
General Frank Cheatham, after the Battle of Stones River, vowed never to serve under Bragg again.
After that same battle, General John C. Breckinridge, seething over a failed charge Bragg had forced him to make, challenged Bragg to a duel.
Even General Forrest was infurated
Nathan Bedford Forrest was never known as a commander easy to work alongside, but his greatest outburst against a commander came after the Battle of Chickamauga. Having won a great battle, arguably in spite of his own actions, Bragg refused to follow up his victory with further pursuit of the Union Army. This was too much for Forrest. After nearly begging Bragg for the chance to put his cavalry on the heels of the Union troops, Forrest turned from supplicant to accuser. Forrest said, “You have played the part of a damned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it.” He then told Bragg that he would never obey any orders from him.
Historians hated him…
Historians have not been gentle with Bragg either.
David Donald said Bragg was “tense, punctilious, arrogant, a martinet, and a dawdler.”
T. Harry Williams said Bragg “lacked the determination to carry through his purpose.”
Douglas Southall Freeman, after comparing Bragg with Robert E. Lee, pondered, “How different might have been the fate of Bragg and perhaps the Confederacy if that officer had learned . . . from Lee.”
James McPherson said that it was “bumblers like Bragg” who lost the war in the west.
Bruce Catton, with a little more balance in his observation, said, “Braxton Bragg was as baffling a mixture of ability and sheer incompetence as the Confederacy could produce.”
Biography
Even Bragg’s biographers were critical. Grady McWhiney said Bragg had “failed as a field commander,” that he had “no real taste for combat,” that he had no ability to inspire confidence in other commanders, that he was “notoriously inept at getting along with people he disliked,” and that he had failed to learn from his mistakes. To make matters worse, McWhiney noted that Bragg was “not lucky.”
The first volume of McWhiney’s biography, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat, was published in 1969.
It was 1991 before the second volume appeared, and it was authored by one of McWhiney’s graduate students, Judith Lee Hallock.
This prompted another historian to speculate that McWhiney had found his subject “so nauseous that he abandoned the project.” Hallock disagreed, but she had her own criticisms of Bragg. She thinks his worst problem was his inability to establish and maintain group solidarity within his army. After noting other such problems as Bragg’s not being able to distinguish friends from enemies, not recognizing the abilities of his subordinates, and being a poor judge of character, she summed up his faults with this: “He could manage everything but people.”
Private Sam Watkins, in his outstanding memoir of Confederate service titled Company Aytch, expressed continual grumbling from himself and others about his service under Bragg. He said…
“None of Bragg’s soldiers ever loved him. They had no faith in his ability as a general. He was looked upon as a merciless tyrant.”
What was Bragg’s problem?
The answers and speculations are many. His health didn’t help his leadership duties. Migraine headaches, boils, and dyspepsia plagued him, especially in times of overwork and stress. He also suffered from rheumatism and nervousness.
Besides the responsibilities of leadership, Bragg was personally prone to drive himself relentlessly in his work. One general said he was “the most laborious of commanders, devoting every moment to the discharge of his duties.”
Bragg likely had psychosomatic problems as well. McWhiney said that at times Bragg “lost touch with reality.”
Compounding all this was his use of calomel, a mercury-based purgative, which had severe side effects. It is also possible that his physicians prescribed opium to Bragg for his ailments. That might explain some of his tendencies to lose track of what he was doing in the midst of a battle.
Halleck said it might also explain his paranoia toward fellow officers.
Grady McWhiney also attributes Bragg’s failures to his penchant for frontal attacks.
This was a topic that McWhiney developed more fully in his book Attack and Die and then repeated in his biography. Southern commanders were obsessed with frontal attacks, which were based on military tactics from previous wars.
Civil War weaponry had made such attacks extremely costly in terms of casualty counts. But if this line of argument is taken, it begs the question of why Bragg was unsuccessful when the same tactics were used by almost every other general in both Northern and Southern armies.
The Theater of War
Since Bragg’s command was in the western theater of the war, most of his battles were in Tennessee. In contrast with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia which spent much of the war in a confined region of Virginia, the Army of Tennessee, Bragg’s command, covered a wider area and suffered from greater hardships in terms of supply and support from the Confederate government. Bragg was given a near impossible task in defending Tennessee and the western Confederacy.
Consider also the size of the armies of the Civil War.
George Washington led about 15,000 men at the most during his years in the American War for Independence. Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans with less than 6000 men. Bragg and other full generals were commanding armies four times the size of Washington’s army and ten times the size of Jackson’s.
Bragg is usually given high marks by the historians for his ability to organize and supply his troops. His West Point education and experience in the Mexican-American War had equipped him for leadership. But the logistics and demands of leading an army of such size was beyond even most trained military officers.
Primarily, it was battlefield actions that unhinged Bragg.
Bragg tended to lose his grip on the reality of what was happening in the proverbial “fog of battle.” He judged victories as defeats and defeats as victories. He was indecisive when decisiveness was needed and was decisive when discretion was needed. He exasperated his commanders, lashed out at them at the wrong times, closed his ears to their counsel, and generally destroyed any chances of coherent, unified leadership.
Wins and Losses…
Bragg failed in the western campaign.
He lost Stones River and Perryville and abandoned Chattanooga.
He failed to follow the unexpected and decisive victory at Chickamauga and was not able to hold the seemingly unconquerable defensive position on Lookout Mountain. But then what commander in the west did succeed?
Albert Sidney Johnston lost his life and the Battle of Shiloh.
John Pemberton lost Vicksburg.
John B. Hood abandoned Atlanta and went on to destroy the Army of Tennessee in his epic failures at Franklin and Nashville.
Joseph E. Johnston was perhaps the best commander in the west, but his record was one of strong defenses followed by skilled retreats.
Was Bragg a total failure?
That question calls for a lot of reflection that goes beyond the complaints of his subordinates.
History has not been kind to him.
It is hard to imagine fans of the Confederacy decorating their walls with pictures of Bragg or naming their sons “Braxton” in his honor. To a large degree, McWhiney was on target when he said that Bragg was simply just not lucky.
Conclusion
It’s easy for us, sitting in our comfortable chairs, to judge a man for his deeds or misdeeds over a hundred years ago. But that is not what we are doing here. We are trying to learn from his mistakes, and in so doing, imagine what we would have done differently were we to be in his place.
Here is a man that was very good in military logistics, and was promoted over and over again for various reasons. Eventually reaching the rank of General.
And in that role, he was a failure.
This could happen to anyone, and everyone. Just because you can fix a race car engine, does not mean that you have the ability to be a race car driver. Or if you are a wonderful cook, that you can create and expand a large chain of fast food restaurants. Or, more contemporaneously, if you are quite adept at building casinos and golf courses, you might not be qualified to lead a nation as big as the United States.
Which is a law, I believe that is missing in Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power”, which should be “know your limits, and know your strengths”.
To be successful you need to build up, or compile a small group of people that have strengths to complement your weaknesses. If you are strong in organization, but weak in finance, you need to find a strong finance person to work with. And if you are and the finance person are weak in Sales, perhaps you should consider adding a strong and experienced salesman to your group.
This is what Ronald Regan did when he was President of the United States, he staffed competent people, and then managed them. This is what Xi Peng is doing today.
Do not believe that you know everything and that your decisions are always ideal. That is a fantasy.
The idea that one lone person can do it all, and be the ultimate best is a uniquely American fantasy. It is false. Don’t ever believe that you are in your role or position because you are somehow “special” or that “God granted you that position”. Instead look at what you need to make your situation a success, and realize too that your weakness can absolutely kill any prior “good” work that you have accomplished.
Do not fall into the narcissistic trap of self-superiority. Do not believe that you, and only you, knows how to do things. That is an illusion.
Work as part of a team toward well-defined and common goals. You will succeed.
Do you want more?
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You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a recently emerged human pathogen that has spread widely since January 2020. Initially, the basic reproductive number, R0, was estimated to be 2.2 to 2.7.
Here we provide a new estimate of this quantity.
We collected extensive individual case reports and estimated key epidemiology parameters, including the incubation period.Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6.
We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus.
- Title: The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimated
There’s a sizable percentage of people (Americans) who have absolutely no concept of what war is like. When elements of war starts raising it’s ugly head, they come up with other ideas and excuses what it could be. Anything but war. Anything but posturing for war. Anything.
To most Americans, war is a distant concept. It is something that you do in far-away third-world shit-holes. It’s where you tromp through deserts or slosh through jungles. It’s where you are issued an “assault rifle”, ride in helicopters and expensive sleek jets blow up Arabs riding white Toyota trucks.
That’s not war. That’s a “police action”, or as I like to refer to it… “conflict lite”.
Real wars occur when one nation tries to suppress another nation.
Hitler attacks Poland.
Japan attacks China.
Syria attacks Kuwait.
Suppressing China’s Rise
Lose-lose is a situation where no participant has any option that is positive. As such, strategy in a lose-lose situation is aimed at minimizing loss as opposed to winning.4 Examples of a Lose-Lose Situation - Simplicable
The United States has spent the last three years engaged in efforts to suppress China’s rise.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
It’s called a “lose – lose” strategy because (since the USA and China are both economically co-dependent) the only way to suppress China was to accept suppression of the USA in the process.
The idea was that China would “lose more” than what America would lose.
This is the Alt-Right “standard narrative” that “China needs the USA more than the USA needs China”.
So they implemented it on all sorts of levels…
Radical protests by “pro democracy” agitators in Hong Kong.
Uyghur Muslim assaults and aggression.
A on-going propaganda war.
Pressure on Taiwan.
Arrest of the President of Huawei.
Propaganda against advanced 5G, AI and robotic technologies.
A plague that wiped out the wheat crop.
A virus that wiped out the Chicken and poultry industry… in waves.
A virus that wiped out the pig industry, propagated by advanced drones.
Now, the deadly lethal COVID-19 virus on CNY eve of all times!
Some of it is so obvious that you have to be in complete denial not to acknowledge it… like the Arrest of the CEO of Huawei in Canada. Apparently her Chinese company sold products to Iran. And the United States wants everyone to boycott Iran.
Well, nationality is just an excuse… don’t you know.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
Another example is the on-going biological warfare being conducted against China. Trying to decimate it’s livestock, it’s chickens, it’s pork, it’s wheat crops…
…didn’t work. Though.
Oh… it’s just bad luck. Right?
Or as one website stated… “It’s God’s will”.
Good one that.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
And now the COVID-19 coronavirus attack on CNY eve. I mean, if it would have happened on Christmas eve, most Americans would be suspicious. But they aren’t.
Its just a “nothing burger”, don’t you know.
Conflicts look like this. Open your eyes.
You see people. Major conflicts start JUST LIKE THIS.
And everyone around you is in denial.
Just . Like . This.
Byretaliatinginthedecades-old tariff war, Trump hasnochoice. Either China eventuallybankruptstheUnitedStatesortheUnitedStates bankrupts China. Finally, thereisthethirdcommonsensedesiredoutcome: bothpartiessettlefor free trade withzero tariffs.
- Trump's Strategy in the China Trade War
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
A hidden war…
When Hitler banned guns in Germany, the American media didn’t make a peep. When Stalin started starving the Lithuanians, the American media called it just bad weather and poor planning. When unrest started to hit Bosnia, the American media called it “isolated terror events”.
Trump’s key figures in the China Trade negotiations. All are neocons who earnestly want a lose-lose strategy.
The geo-political situation today is very complex. I cannot predict what will happen. I really cannot.
But you and I have a front-row seat to it.
Unfortunately.
The “big guns” came out to suppress China…
What I can say is that the COVID-19 bioweapon attack…
…and it actually was one – ask Xi Peng …
After all, he put his military on DEFCON ONE over it. Why are all the nuclear silos fully manned right now? Why is the Navy on high alert? Why are 100% of the militia called up? Why are all ports and entry points under lock-down? Why are all incoming packages frozen in customs and the internet completely locked solid?
Because of the... flu?
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
… is that China handled the COVID-19 event exceptionally well. And the COVID-19 virus…
… still…
…it still got loose.
President Trump appoints VP Pence to handle the COVID-19 outbreak. He referred to it as Democrat Hype, and a “Hoax”. He further claimed that it is not as bad as the flu.
Not at all what the Trump Administration was expecting.
The decision to utilize biological warfare against China was hatched in the White house, and most certainly by resident neocons within the administration.
Now all people are getting infected. Not only Asians. And the mutation is observable. The current strains running through Iran, Italy and the USA are off-shoot “branches” from the “original” Chinese COVID-19 viral strain.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
People(!) brace yourself for some spicy times. You can believe whatever you want. You can believe this is natural if you wanna. You can believe that China is the scourge of the Earth and the USA is a gift from God. You can believe anything your heart desires…
But…
The USA is not China.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
The USA does not have the ability to handle a large influx of seriously ill people. It cannot handle people dropping like flies in the middle of the street or while they are driving their cars. It cannot handle disruptions of the food and petrol supplies. It cannot handle large conditions that tax the medical system.
You all know this is true.
Which is why many Americans are running to the gun stores first, then getting food.
Panic shopping in the United States. No one thinks that this is really bad, but they are stocking up just in case. How do I know? Well, no one is wearing a mask. They are also in a crowd. Further, they are not buying food, they are buying towels and soda. They believe that the COVID-19 is “just” another strain of the flu.
I take no joy in this. It greatly saddens me…
… and now to my point in all this…
Introduction
There’s a sizable percentage of people (Americans) who have absolutely no concept of what war is like.
They think that war is 9-11, that it is Pearl Harbor, that it is bombs exploding, and fires raging, and sleek jets flying.
Oh… sometimes.
But in reality war, real war, is not the made-for-television narrative. It is something that is usually done in secret, behind the scenes.
War is ANY conflict between nations.
War can be any kind of conflict between nations. Whether it is subtle, organized, planned, overt, or serendipitous. Scene from the Chinese movie with Jet Li titled “Fearless.”
Most wars are conducted in secret and hidden behind curtains of confusion and obfuscation. It’s “CIA type stuff”. It’s strange events “out of the blue”.
It’s a leading doctor gets sick here, and a report ends up missing there. It’s mass deaths in a obscure location over there.
It’s things like an explosion inside the North Korean nuclear weapons silo.
It’s things like pigs and chickens start dying all over China…
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
When elements of war starts raising it’s ugly head, they come up with other ideas and excuses of what it could be. Anything but war. Anything but posturing for war. Anything.
Anything.
But people, listen up.
There will not be any announcements. No one is going to point at a person, place or thing and tell everyone to start fighting it. Instead, it will be conducted behind the scenes for a long time…
You see, it would be an absolute failure of the governments on both sides if it broke out into the open.
Scene from the movie about an out of control pandemic that hits the United States; “Carriers”.
It will be the worst kind of enemy; one that you cannot see and hurt and attack.
Like the movie "Invasion of the body snatchers."
This is a war that China has been dealing with since 2017, and keeping quiet and just smiling. But they have been dealing with it; fighting with it; and just keep on keeping on. They keep plugging away like the energizer bunny.
It’s got a visible face and a hidden face.
No one wants the true situation; that the agents of war; the COVID-19, has mutated to infect everyone and has washed up on the shores of the good ol’ USA.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
You had all best be wearing a mask and exercising rigorous hand washing discipline, as well as avoiding all contact outside of your homes.
Starting RIGHT NOW.
A taste of war
The neocons in the Trump administration strongly believed that they could launch this COVID-19 and it would be contained within China, and only kill Asians. They were convinced because their “experts” told them that this is what would happen.
Which explains why Trump and his administration keeps on saying the narrative that it isn't as bad as the flu...
The neocons expected that it would cause mass casualties that would overwhelm the Chinese hospital system. They figured that with a mortality rate of 10% it would cripple China for years.
The “experts” said…
Orville Schell (his father was the co-founder of Helsinki Watch) has been a card-carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which represents the highest, deepest echelon of the National Security State, and which has architected the anti-China consensus at the highest level of government and leadership in the US.
If we go to war with China--kinetic conflict--this will be in large part the doing of the CFR.
See here for a sampling of the type of tripe they routinely throw out about China. Remember, this is considered the elite "expert consensus".
The WHO is lying for China when it praises its response. https://www.cfr.org/blog/who-and-china-dereliction-duty (Compare this to what Dr. Bruce Aylward reported. Dr. Aylward was previously the UN lead for the Ebola outbreak, and he would know what he's talkng about).
Xi is aping Stalin
https://www.cfr.org/blog/china-likely-enter-another-long-period-severe-dictatorship
China is the perfect dictatorship https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/podcast-perfect-dictatorship
China is the bully of Asia https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/podcast-china-bully-asia
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
But…
…that didn’t happen.
China enacted DEFCON ONE. They locked the entire nation down. They took immediate and fast action and was able to control the mortality rate to 3% in the infected areas.
A 3% mortality rate is what you have when you go into DEFCON ONE, build three hospitals, offer free medical care, and lock the entire nation down. It's what you get when you take drastic action to control a weaponized viral pathogen.
But you can expect a much higher mortality rate when you are dealing with for-profit hospitals, a media that is saying everything is fine, and a government run by the "deep state".
Maybe, China would have collapsed by now, if China was like America with [1] a contentious political structure, [2] a huge and slow moving bureaucracy, and [3] a culture of being a “lone wolf” where it’s every man for himself…
Maybe…
But…
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
The Neocons made terrible assumptions…
But that cartoon image of China is seriously wrong.
China took a whole bunch of steps when they realized they had to repurpose big chunks of their hospital systems to [respond to the outbreak].
The first thing is, they said testing is free, treatment is free.
Right now, there are huge barriers [to testing and treatment] in the West. You can get tested, but then you might be negative and have to foot the bill.
In China, they realized those were barriers to people seeking care, so, as a state, they took over the payments for people whose insurance plans didn’t cover them. They tried to mitigate those barriers.
The other thing they did: Normally a prescription in China can’t last for more than a month. But they increased it to three months to make sure people didn’t run out [when they had to close a lot of their hospitals].
Another thing: Prescriptions could be done online and through WeChat [instead of requiring a doctor appointment].
And (fourthly) they set up a delivery system for medications for affected populations.
- Bruce Aylward
China is not the United States. It is a very serious nation that does not mess around. It is run by experts who are in their positions through merit, not popularity.
And more…
The average case fatality rate is 3.8 percent in China, but a lot of that is driven by the early epidemic in Wuhan where numbers were higher.
If you look outside of Hubei province [where Wuhan is], the case fatality rate is just under 1 percent now. I would not quote that as the number. That’s the mortality in China — and they find cases fast, get them isolated, in treatment, and supported early.
Second thing they do is ventilate dozens in the average hospital; they use extracorporeal membrane oxygenation [removing blood from a person’s body and oxygenating their red blood cells] when ventilation doesn’t work.
This is sophisticated health care.
They have a survival rate for this disease I would not extrapolate to the rest of the world. What you’ve seen in Italy and Iran is that a lot of people are dying.
This suggests the Chinese are really good at keeping people alive with this disease, and just because it’s 1 percent in the general population outside of Wuhan doesn’t mean it [will be the same in other countries].
- Bruce Aylward
The suppression strategy was a terrible mistake.
The people who came up with this suppression strategy were wrong.
Somehow the COVID-19 virus mutated. Whether it was a natural mutation, or had "help" from a lab is unknown. But the inherent "safety protocols" mutated away and resulted in an indiscriminate virus instead of a "safe and controllable" weaponized virus.
Like in the original "Drudge Dred" movie titled "Demolition Man" where the evil leadership resurrected Wesley Snipes with training to become a master criminal. And Judge Dred trained to knit. Only they added a special mind block - you cannot kill the leadership.
Wesley Snipes tries but can't. The evil leader laughs, and looks at him... his new puppet. So Wesley snipes orders his chief henchman to kill him instead.
It's sort of like that,
Wesley Snipes plays the evil villain that was trained to become a master criminal by the current government leadership.
Plus…
None of the neocons have any real-world experience with the horrors of war. They don’t know that things can go “tits up” very quickly and FUBAR, then “all bets are off”.
You know, it's not just war. It's projects. It's industry. It's investments. It's relationships. The jokers in Washington has spent so much time playing politics and living in the neocon echo chamber that they are oblivious to the realities outside of it...
They did not realize that war is the last resort action of fools.
China is not the United States. It is a very serious nation that does not mess around. It is run by experts who are in their positions through merit, not popularity.
They tried to implement a “lose – lose” strategy in order to contain China. China wanted a “win – win” the neocons wanted a “lose lose” because they actually believed that it was attainable. Both nations would lose, but China would be far more damaged than the United States would be…
…it’s the alt-Right narrative; “They need us more than we need them.” It’s ridiculously false.
It is mind-blowing off-the-charts false.
It is one of the biggest lies ever made, and yet the dumbed-down alt-Right American population actually believes it.
The Lose – Lose strategy was used by the Trump Negotiation team to resolve trade issues from 2016 to 2020. It’s based on the alt-Right narrative that “China needs the United States more than the United States needs China.” It’s wrong. Terribly wrong. And this move, this calculation based on this failed idea is what brought a weaponized viral agent to America.
The inescapable fact is that the neocon perceptions of what China actually is, and capable of, as well as what American capabilities are wildly divergent from reality.
I blame the belief in the propaganda bubble that surrounds America, but it doesn't really matter now.
Things did not go as planned…
China took drastic measures… going DEFCON ONE, and fully controlled and sealed the outbreak;
Ambitious, agile, and aggressive
The team began in Beijing and then split into two groups that, all told, traveled to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and the hardest hit city, Wuhan. They visited hospitals, laboratories, companies, wet markets selling live animals, train stations, and local government offices. “Everywhere you went, anyone you spoke to, there was a sense of responsibility and collective action, and there’s war footing to get things done,” Aylward says.
The group also reviewed the massive data set that Chinese scientists have compiled. (The country still accounts for more than 90% of the global total of the 90,000 confirmed cases.) They learned that about 80% of infected people had mild to moderate disease, 13.8% had severe symptoms, and 6.1% had life-threatening episodes of respiratory failure, septic shock, or organ failure. The case fatality rate was highest for people over age 80 (21.9%), and people who had heart disease, diabetes, or hypertension. Fever and dry cough were the most common symptoms. Surprisingly, only 4.8% of infected people had runny noses. Children made up a mere 2.4% of the cases, and almost none was severely ill. For the mild and moderate cases, it took 2 weeks on average to recover.
A critical unknown is how many mild or asymptomatic cases occur. If large numbers of infections are below the radar, that complicates attempts to isolate infectious people and slow spread of the virus. But on the positive side, if the virus causes few, if any, symptoms in many infected people, the current estimated case fatality rate is too high. (The report says that rate varies greatly, from 5.8% in Wuhan, whose health system was overwhelmed, to 0.7% in other regions.)
To get at this question, the report notes that so-called fever clinics in Guangdong province screened approximately 320,000 people for COVID-19 and only found 0.14% of them to be positive. “That was really interesting, because we were hoping and maybe expecting to see a large burden of mild and asymptomatic cases,” says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “That piece of data suggests that’s not happening, which would imply that the case fatality risk might be more or less as we currently have.” But Guangdong province was not a heavily affected area, so it is not clear whether the same holds in Hubei province, which was the hardest hit, Rivers cautions.
Much of the report focuses on understanding how China achieved what many public health experts thought was impossible: containing the spread of a widely circulating respiratory virus. “China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile, and aggressive disease containment effort in history,” the report notes.
The most dramatic—and controversial—measure was the lockdown of Wuhan and nearby cities in Hubei province, which has put at least 50 million people under a mandatory quarantine since 23 January. That has “effectively prevented further exportation of infected individuals to the rest of the country,” the report concludes. In other regions of mainland China, people voluntarily quarantined and were monitored by appointed leaders in neighborhoods.
Chinese authorities also built two dedicated hospitals in Wuhan in just over 1 week. Health care workers from all over China were sent to the outbreak’s center. The government launched an unprecedented effort to trace contacts of confirmed cases. In Wuhan alone, more than 1800 teams of five or more people traced tens of thousands of contacts.
Aggressive “social distancing” measures implemented in the entire country included canceling sporting events and shuttering theaters. Schools extended breaks that began in mid-January for the Lunar New Year. Many businesses closed shop. Anyone who went outdoors had to wear a mask.
Two widely used mobile phone apps, AliPay and WeChat—which in recent years have replaced cash in China—helped enforce the restrictions, because they allow the government to keep track of people’s movements and even stop people with confirmed infections from traveling. “Every person has sort of a traffic light system,” says mission member Gabriel Leung, dean of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. Color codes on mobile phones—in which green, yellow, or red designate a person’s health status—let guards at train stations and other checkpoints know who to let through.
“As a consequence of all of these measures, public life is very reduced,” the report notes. But the measures worked. In the end, infected people rarely spread the virus to anyone but members of their own household, Leung says. Once all the people in an apartment or home were exposed, the virus had nowhere else to go and chains of transmission ended. “That’s how the epidemic truly came under control,” Leung says. In sum, he says, there was a combination of “good old social distancing and quarantining very effectively done because of that on-the-ground machinery at the neighborhood level, facilitated by AI [artificial intelligence] big data.”
Deep commitment to collective action
How feasible these kinds of stringent measures are in other countries is debatable. “China is unique in that it has a political system that can gain public compliance with extreme measures,” Gostin says. “But its use of social control and intrusive surveillance are not a good model for other countries.” The country also has an extraordinary ability to do labor-intensive, large-scale projects quickly, says Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development:
“No one else in the world really can do what China just did.”
Nor should they, says lawyer Alexandra Phelan, a China specialist at Georgetown’s Center for Global Health Science and Security.
“Whether it works is not the only measure of whether something is a good public health control measure,” Phelan says. “There are plenty of things that would work to stop an outbreak that we would consider abhorrent in a just and free society.”
-ScienceMag
So China handled this biological weapons event expertly. They did so in a way that surprised the world. And while many find their techniques questionable, they begrudgingly admit that most other nations could not replicate their action.
What matters is that the COVID-19 that was supposed to cause strife in China has boomeranged, mutated, and like the “green slime monster” struck into the soul of America. And America is not ready for it.
American leadership is still, as of 3MAR20, treating it as a race-specific pathogenic organism. Even though all evidence shows otherwise. They are telling everyone over and over that the flu is far worse.
They say that flu is far worse.
Nothing to worry about here. The monsters are only harmless slime. This is a scene from the 1960’s class “B” science fiction movie: “The Green Slime”.
Lord help us all.
Why this matters…
Like I said. Anything can happen.
It could fizzle out to be nothing…
It could be contained like China contained it…
Or it could be a genuine SHTF event.
Let’s look at historical examples of other SHTF events and try to imagine what it must have been like for the participants of these events.
[1] The Massacre of Usipetes and the Tencteri
The Usipetes and the Tencteri were two ancient tribes who were massacred by the legions of Julius Caesar in 55 BC. We have known about their slaughter for thousands of years from ancient texts, including Caesar’s own account from his book on the Gallic Wars. However, we were never sure exactly where it happened, until 2015 when Dutch archaeologists claimed they found the site of the bloodbath near the town of Kessel.
According to ancient sources, the conflict began in the winter of 56 BC when the two tribes (who were referred to as Germanic but may have actually been Celtic) crossed the Rhine into Gaul after being driven away from their homeland by the Suebi.
The Usipetes and the Tencteri asked Caesar for permission to settle in Gaul, which was denied.
After negotiations failed, the Roman legions launched an attack on their camp and killed everyone in sight.
“there was also a great crowd of women and children and these now began to flee in all directions.
I sent the cavalry to hunt them down…
When they reached the confluence of the Meuse and the Rhine, they saw they had no hope of escaping farther.
A large number of them were killed and the rest flung themselves into the river, where they perished overcome by panic, exhaustion, and the force of the current.”
In his personal account, Caesar said there were around 430,000 people and that he slain them all. Modern scholars put the number at around 150,000 to 200,000, and some of them definitely survived as the tribes were still mentioned the following century. They opine that the inflated number was because Caesar wanted to portray them as a great threat and himself a protector of Rome.
In war, everyone is killed. Women, children and innocents are not spared. Later, the victors will write and boast about their success in the destruction.
[2] Genghis Khan Beheaded People For Being Over 90 Centimeters (3′) Tall
When Genghis Khan was 20, he led an army against the tribe that
killed his father and got his revenge. The Tatar army was crushed, and
Genghis Khan set about exterminating the people in an incredibly unusual
way.
Every Tatar man was lined up and measured against “the linchpin of a
wagon,” which is the axle pin in the middle of the wheel. Anyone who was
taller than these pins—which were 90 centimeters (3′) high—was to be
beheaded.
The criteria used to select survivors from the conquered is often arbitrary.
[3] The Severed Hands of Avaris
Severed Hands.
A few years back, archaeologists were excavating the ruins of Avaris and found, for the first time, concrete evidence of an ancient Egyptian practice that had been, up until that point, only read about in texts – cutting off the hands of vanquished enemies.
This evidence came in the form of 16 severed hands, all of them right ones,
buried in four pits throughout the former Egyptian capital. Two of the
pits, each containing a single hand, were found in what was believed to
have been the throne room, indicating that the presentation of the
trophies was part of a much grander ceremony.
The hands were around 3,600 years old
and came from an oft-forgotten part of Egyptian history called the
Second Intermediate Period or the Hyksos Period. It was defined by the
arrival of a new group of people called the Hyksos who conquered Lower
Egypt and installed one of their own as king. Therefore, Salitis of the
Hyksos became the first pharaoh of the 15th dynasty and, in the process,
also moved the capital to the city of Avaris.
Up until this discovery, this custom had only been referenced in ancient art and writing. However, one point that is still being debated is whether this practice was introduced by the Hyksos or was already present in Egyptian society before their arrival.
Once captured, do not assume that you would be sent off to a prison camp. There are other fates that can await you.
[4] Genghis Khan Victims’ Bones Were Mistaken For Mountains
In 1211, Genghis Khan turned his focus to modern-day China and attacked the Jin Empire. It was a reckless decision. The Jin Empire controlled 53 million people, and the Mongols had one million. Still…
… Genghis Khan won.
Within three years, the Mongols had made their way to Zhongdu (now
Beijing). The city walls were 12 meters (39 ft) high and stretched 29
kilometers (18 mi) around the city. It seemed impossible to get in, so
they didn’t try.
Instead, the Mongols starved Zhongdu out.
By summer 1215, the people there were so hungry that cannibalism was running rampant inside its walls. Finally, they surrendered, and the Mongols sacked and burned the city.
The massacre was horrific.
Months later, a passing eyewitness wrote that “the bones of the slaughtered formed white mountains and that the soil was still greasy with human fat.”
No matter how hungry you are, the fate that can occur in the hands of the enemy can be far worse.
[5] Interesting Mongol War Tactics: Cats, Swallows and Human Fat
Real war is based on surprise and the use of unconventional weapons and strategies.
The first large-scale Mongol attack in Xi Xia happened at the mighty fortress at Volohai.
Unable to breach the walls of Volohai, Genghis Khan resorted to a clever trick. He sent a message from his encampment to the Tangut general announcing that he would end his siege in exchange for a gift of one thousand cats and ten thousand swallows.
Astonished by the unusual request, the fortress commander gratefully complied.
After the animals arrived in the Mongol camp, Genghis Khan ordered his men to tie a small cotton-wool tuft to the tail of each creature then set the tuft afire.
When the panicked and frightened animals were turned loose, they made directly for their nests and lairs inside Volohai, igniting hundreds of small fires.
While the panicked defenders were preoccupied with putting out fires, Genghis Khan’s warriors stormed the city in conquest.
Here’s another example…
The Mongol siege against the walled town of Kusong exemplified Koryo’s [Korea’s] heroic resistance.
General Sartai brought the full array of his medieval assault weapons to bear against the city’s defenses. While Mongol troops attempted to undermine the defensive walls by tunneling under them, formidable lines of catapults hurled large boulders and molten metal at the town.
Special assault teams used siege towers and scaling ladders against the earthen walls and pushed flaming carts against the city’s wooden gates.
Perhaps the most grisly tactical weapon used at the siege of Kusong was the catapult-launched fire-bomb. The Mongols boiled down their captives and used liquified human fat to fuel a weapon which produced fires that were practically inextinguishable.
Kusong’s defenders refused to surrender and stubbornly held on for thirty terrifying days and nights.
An old Mongol general, inspecting the ramparts during the siege, commented that,
"...I have never seen [a city] undergo an attack like this which did not, in the end, submit."
In the end Kusong remained in Koryo’s hands.
Unconventional war is a strategy that generally results in victory. Expect the unexpected.
[6] Genghis Khan Exterminated 1.7 Million People To Avenge One Person
The marriages might have been strategic alliances, but that didn’t
mean there wasn’t any love involved. One of Genghis Khan’s daughters
loved her husband, a man name Toquchar. Genghis Khan loved him, too, as
his favorite son-in-law.
Genghis Khan’s troops attacked Nishapur and slaughtered every person there. By some estimates, 1,748,000 people were killed. Other historians dispute that number, but there’s no doubt that his armies killed everyone they found.
Women, children, babies, and even dogs and cats were tracked down and murdered. Then they were beheaded, and their skulls were piled into pyramids—a request by Genghis Khan’s daughter to ensure that no one got away with a simple wounding.
In War decisions can be made for emotional, not strategic reasons.
[7] Ancient “Barbarian” Warfare in Northern Europe
Archaeologists excavated 2,095 human bones and bone fragments—comprising the remains of at least 82 people—across 185 acres of wetland at the site of Alken Enge, on the shore of Lake Mossø on Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula. Scientific studies indicate that most of the individuals were young male adults, and they all died in a single event in the early first century A.D. (Around the time of Christ.)
Unhealed trauma wounds on the remains, as well as finds of weapons, suggest that the individuals died in battle.
The team didn’t dig up the entire 185 acres, but the researchers extrapolated that more than 380 people may have been interred in boggy waters along the lakeshore some 2,000 years ago, based on the distribution of the remains that were excavated.
In large scale conflicts, very few people will remember your heroism and the battles that you fought. You will be forgotten.
[7] The Mongols Had A Victory Feast On Top Of The Russian Nobility
In 1223, the Mongolian army was making its way through Russia and had
just won the Battle of the Kalka River. The Russian army had
surrendered, their towns had been captured, and the Mongolians decided
to celebrate.
The generals and nobility of the Russian army were forced to lie down
on the ground. Then a heavy wooden gate was thrown on top of them,
chairs and tables were set on top of the gate, and the army sat down for
a feast.
They held their victory celebration on top of the still-living bodies of their enemies, eating and drinking while Russian princes were crushed to death beneath their feet.
Do not expect leniency because you are rich, wealthy or powerful. In fact, you might be singled out for special treatment.
[8] Genghis Khan Diverted A River Through An Enemy’s Birthplace To Erase It Off The Map
When Genghis Khan found the Muslim kingdom of Khwarezmia, he did
something unusual: He took the peaceful route. A group of diplomats were
sent to the city, hoping to establish a trade route and diplomatic
ties.
The governor of Khwarezmia, though, didn’t trust them. He thought the
diplomats were part of a Mongolian conspiracy and had them executed. He
killed the next group they sent, too.
Genghis Khan was furious. He had tried to be nice, and he’d been
repaid with dead diplomats. He set up an army of 200,000 soldiers,
attacked, and completely destroyed Khwarezmia.
Even after he’d won, Khan sent two armies to burn down every castle, town, and farm they found to make sure that no hint of Khwarezmia survived. According to one story, he even diverted a river to run through the emperor’s birthplace, just to make sure it would never appear on a map again.
When the victor wants to erase you, your people, your city, your nation, your society and your culture, they can do it.
[9] Slaughter at the bridge
About 3200 years ago, two armies clashed at a river crossing near the
Baltic Sea. The confrontation can’t be found in any history books—the
written word didn’t become common in these parts for another 2000
years—but this was no skirmish between local clans. Thousands of
warriors came together in a brutal struggle, perhaps fought on a single
day, using weapons crafted from wood, flint, and bronze, a metal that
was then the height of military technology.
Struggling to find solid footing on the banks of the Tollense River, a narrow ribbon of water that flows through the marshes of northern Germany toward the Baltic Sea, the armies fought hand-to-hand, maiming and killing with war clubs, spears, swords, and knives. Bronze- and flint-tipped arrows were loosed at close range, piercing skulls and lodging deep into the bones of young men. Horses belonging to high-ranking warriors crumpled into the muck, fatally speared. Not everyone stood their ground in the melee: Some warriors broke and ran, and were struck down from behind.
Strong evidence suggests this wasn’t the first battle for these men. Twenty-seven percent of the skeletons show signs of healed traumas from earlier fights, including three skulls with healed fractures. “It’s hard to tell the reason for the injuries, but these don’t look like your typical young farmers,”
Standardized metal weaponry and the remains of the horses, which were found intermingled with the human bones at one spot, suggest that at least some of the combatants were well-equipped and well-trained.
“They weren’t farmer-soldiers who went out every few years to brawl. These are professional fighters.”
Body armor and shields emerged in northern Europe in the centuries just before the Tollense conflict and may have necessitated a warrior class.
“If you fight with body armor and helmet and corselet, you need daily training or you can’t move,”
When the fighting was through, hundreds lay dead, littering the swampy valley. Some bodies were stripped of their valuables and left bobbing in shallow ponds; others sank to the bottom, protected from plundering by a meter or two of water. Peat slowly settled over the bones.
Within centuries, the entire battle was forgotten.
Being in possession of the best technology and training might not provide you the advantage that you think it will.
[10] Genghis Khan Nearly Erased A Kingdom From History For Not Sending Troops
When Genghis Khan attacked Khwarezmia, he asked the conquered kingdom of Xi Xia to send him troops. They refused.
Xi Xia tried to take a bold stand against their oppressor, and they quickly regretted it. The Mongolian army swarmed through Xi Xia, destroying everything that they found. They systematically exterminated every member of the population.
They hadn’t written down their own stories, so the only records of their existence came from neighboring countries. Their language wasn’t recovered for more than 700 years. It took until the mid-20th century for archaeologists to unearth stones that had their writing on them. In the meantime, every word they had spoken was forgotten.
Genghis Khan died during the battle, most likely from being thrown from his horse. Still, the Mongolian army carried out his work. They slaughtered every person they found, even after their leader was dead and their enemy had surrendered.
You and your entire culture and society can be erased from history by the mistakes of your leadership.
Conclusion
That last lesson is poinent.
You and your entire culture and society can be erased from history by the mistakes of your leadership.
Scene from the movie “Carriers”. It is a movie about a lethal virus that hits the United States.
What was the Trump administration doing launching biological weapons against China? Did they actually believe that it would eventually bring China to “heel”; a nation much larger than the United States geographically, and with a population four times larger and ruled by merit?
What were they fucking thinking?
Geographically China is larger.
Population wise, China is four times larger.
Education wise, China has far more skilled STEM scientists.
Politically, China is a monolithic conservative culture. America is balkanized into disparate groups.
Chinese leadership are there through merit, America’s through graft & popularity.
China possesses the vast bulk of factories, resources, materials, and a motivated citizenry. America is a service economy dependent upon reputation and the petro-dollar.
For the last ten years, China has won every single military simulation that the United States conducts.
China is allied with Russia militarily, and socially. The USA is allied with Britain, and Australia and hosts a wide range of “client states”.
China is the “factory for the world”, America is the big piggy-bank based on the stability of the petro-dollar.
Jet Li in the Chinese movie “Fearless”.
Meanwhile, by all appearances, China is not doing anything.
They are just taking the hits and smiling.
Scene from the movie “Real Steel”.
They are practicing the well understood technique of using your foe’s weakness against him. This is Kungfu. This is martial arts. This is fundamental to understanding China.
Mosttraditionalorclassicalmartialartsuses the opponents strength againstthem. Thelistwouldbetoolongtogivethemallbutwillinclude: traditionalKarate (anystyle) Kungfu (anystyle) AikidoJudoTKD (traditional-nosportstkd) Mostpeoplehavethewrongideaconcernkarateandothertraditionalmartialarts.
- Martial arts using opponents strength against them
China knew (I surmise) that the virus would mutate. They always do. While there are species-specific viruses in the world, none are race-specific.
It implies that that a race-specific configuration is not stable.
Since it is not stable, that means that it has a “half-life” and soon mutates to fit a wide ranging biological host.
So now the SHTF COVID-19 biological attack has boomeranged back to it’s source.
For the last one hundred years the American government has cultivated the American citizenry into herd-mentality sheep. It’s rule over mobs of people, it serves the oligarchy well. It does not however, serve a crisis SHTF event well.
Americans are not being safe and treating this virus as the biological weapon that it is. They are treating it as if it is a variation of the flu. This is a very dangerous assumption.
How many face masks do you see? America is treating this virus as some variation of the flu and are treating it as such. They expect that it MIGHT hit them, and if so, they MIGHT get sick, and if sick, they MIGHT need to go to the hospital. All of these assumptions are false.
Things will probably go worse in America than what China experienced in January / February 2020.
Be safe.
This COVID-19 outbreak will hit America with the same level of ferocity that it did Wuhan.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
When the first person in China died, China went DEFCON ONE and locked the entire nation down. They built three hospitals (in ten days) and moved medial staff from all over the nation to Wuhan.
So far, as of today 4MAR20, eight people died in America. Test kits are under-supplied and do not work. The President and the media are telling everyone that it is nothing to worry about. To stay calm and wash hands often.
The Wuhan mortality rate was almost 4% a few weeks after DEFCON ONE. Now, the entire nation mortality is 1%.
My guess is that America’s mortality rate will approach the 10% figure as planned by the neocons in the White House. This is horrible. Please everyone… please be safe.
Jet Li in the movie “Fearless”.
Start Chinese-level personal measures now, today. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Avoid people. Sanitize. Inside clothes and outside clothes. Pets inside. Work from home or order things remotely. Isolate and self quarantine yourselves.
And Robitussin will not help you. It’s NOT the flu.
The death rate from seasonal flu is typically around 0.1% in the U.S., according to The New York Times.
The death rate for COVID-19 appears to be higher than that of the flu.
-Livescience.
“Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 0.1% of those infected, he said.
The World Health Organization had said last week that the mortality rate of COVID-19 can differ, ranging from 0.7% to up to 4%, depending on the quality of the health-care system where it’s treated.
Early in the outbreak, scientists had concluded the death rate was around 2.3%.
-WHO
This illness will rock America to it’s core and it will…
Impact the 2020 Presidential elections.
Impact the American economy.
Impact the global economy.
Impact the way the local government and schools and businesses operate.
Impact all the various disparate balkanized sub-groups within America.
Jet Li from the Chinese movie “Fearless”.
"Now we’re facing another kind of war, against the coronavirus. Trump got rid of our pandemic specialist two years ago and has defunded the Centers for Disease Control because he continues to ignore science."
-Variety
End Quotes
The World Health Organization (WHO) has shipped testing kits to 57 countries. China had five commercial tests on the market 1 month ago and can now do up to 1.6 million tests a week; South Korea has tested 65,000 people so far. The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in contrast, has done only 459 tests since the epidemic began.
The rollout of a CDC-designed test kit to state and local labs has become a fiasco because it contained a faulty reagent. Labs around the country eager to test more suspected cases—and test them faster—have been unable to do so. No commercial or state labs have the approval to use their own tests.
In what is already an infamous snafu, CDC initially refused a request to test a patient in Northern California who turned out to be the first probable COVID19 case without known links to an infected person.
-ScienceMAg
A Los Alamos National Laboratory analysis of the outbreak in China in December 2019 and January 2020 puts the unrestrained R0 of Covid-19 at between 4.5 and 6.6. (The R-naught figure indicates the contagiousness of a disease in a given environment. If the number is above one, it’s spreading.)
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimated[Excerpts:] Integrating uncertainties in the exponential growth rate estimated from the ‘first arrival’ approach and the uncertainties in the duration of latent and infectious periods, we estimated the values of R0 to be 6.3 and 4.7. The high R0 values we estimated have important implications for disease control.The 2019-nCoV epidemic is still rapidly growing and spread to more than 20 countries as of February 5, 2020. Here, we estimated the growth rate of the early outbreak in Wuhan to be 0.29 per day (a doubling time of 2.4 days), and the reproductive number, R0, to be between 4.7 to 6.6.How contagious the 2019-nCoV is in other countries remains to be seen. If the value of R0 is as high in other countries, our results suggest that active and strong population-wide social distancing efforts, such as closing down transportation system, schools, discouraging travel, etc., might be needed to reduce the overall contacts to contain the spread of the virus.
This shockingly high original Chinese R0 value meant a doubling of the number of cases every few days, and subsequently, regional hospitals were overrun by infected patients. The Chinese experience indicates how it may spread in the West and the 3rd world. Critically, the often-quoted case fatality rate (CFR) of “only” 2% for Covid-19 occurs when severely affected patients have access to first-class medical treatment, with teams of nurses and doctors caring for them in isolation ICUs.
About 15% of people infected with the virus will develop severe symptoms (pneumonia, etc.) requiring intensive individual treatment in order to survive.
Once hospitals are swamped and many of the medical staff become infected, the CFR can swiftly rise to above 15%. This is believed to be the situation inside the Wuhan City quarantine zone.
An infectious disease with an R-naught above five, and the number of cases doubling every two days, is like a biological atomic bomb chain reaction, particularly in the age of jet travel to all points of the globe.
The USA and the West will quickly run out of Chinese-made PPE, medication, and hospital supplies. For example, China has nationalized the U.S.-owned factory that makes our N-95 masks and will, instead, keep them for their own use. The Chinese have seen Trump’s tariffs as outright economic warfare. Now, in my judgment, they are going to repay us by withholding shipments of PPE and medical supplies. China will leverage its present status as “factory to the world” to their best advantage while they still retain it. These critically needed supplies will be kept in China for their own use during the pandemic, and understandably so.
So, now it will be a race to see if America can set up enough factories to manufacture our own PPEs and other medical supplies rapidly enough to meet our soon-to-be exploding needs. China’s providing, or withholding, of required medical supplies will constitute a World War dimension of the pandemic. They will not send infected travelers to Western cities: they don’t need to do this. That ship has sailed; that horse is out of the barn.
Covid-19 will now travel on its own, with asymptomatic “super spreaders” carrying the virus from country to country for as long as unrestricted air travel is permitted. Then it will spread within each country, with every Western and third-world city a potential Wuhan.
China’s recent history teaches us that interpersonal social interaction has to be reduced as much as possible to get the R naught number down to controllable levels, but this radical reduction comes at a heavy price. When people don’t go to work out of fear of infection, or after being ordered by their governments to self-quarantine at home, economies shrink and eventually collapse. After weeks of forced home quarantine, China is now trying to restart critical factories, but this risks boosting their R0 number once again, leading to more hospitals being overrun and another round of chain-reaction contagion.
...
As usual, I just watched the most recent YouTube video by Dr. John Campbell (Covid-19 Thursday monring 27 Feb). Since he has gained global exposure, he’s getting emails from physicians all over the world, including Iran and China.
He typed up an email he received from the city of Chengdu, population 16 million, which relates their mandatory quarantine rules as China struggles to get Covid-19 under control. When the virus runs rampant and hospitals are overrun, as in Wuhan and Hunan Province, the death rate soars to over 15%, according to many accounts.
Under the strict quarantine rules in the image below, the death rate can be kept to below 2%, but at the cost of crippling the economy.
Now, just imagine trying to enforce this level of social control in American cities.
-Americanpartisan
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America is an empire. It is an oligarchy that is ruled and controlled by the wealthiest interests in the world, and many of them are neocons. These neocons that believe that power-projection will never result in “push-back” on American soil. To this end, they heavily promote the idea of mobile military platforms; fleets of aircraft carriers that sail the world and exert military influence where ever they travel.
My argument is legion against these mobile armadas;
The role of the American military should be defensive, not offensive. (Coast Guard NOT international Navy).
They are expensive.
They can be destroyed.
When fighting a nation that has the ability to fight back, the loss of an aircraft carrier would be the last thing that anyone should worry about. The loss of New York, Chicago, Washington and LA, should be what you worry about instead.
Keep in mind that Japan lost all of their aircraft carriers during world war II, and America lost a sizable number as well. They are NOT invincible.
Here is an article that expounds on that point. I think that it is a good read. Please check it out.
Translated by Eugenia. Recently, the American journal The National Interest published an article with a telling title: “5 Reasons Russia and China Might Not Be Able to Sink a U.S. Aircraft Carrier”. The author of the article discusses these reasons in detail. All of them are, by the way, pretty self-evident. I obtained this from the Russian translation by Eugenia. All credit to both the Russian translation and the original authors.
“Unsinkable” American Aircraft Carriers: Five Nonsensical Statements
So there’s five reasons, right…
The first one turned out to be (do you believe this?) that “the American aircraft carrier is big and fast . . . “.
The second one – “it has many weapons . . . “.
The third reason – “it is well defended . . .”.
The fourth reason – “it acts prudently . . . “.
And, finally, the fifth – “the American military technologies are the best in the world . . .”.
Such is a collection of simplistic propagandist clichés that the American propaganda machine is pounding into the head of the Western common man.
OMG!
It is important to understand that the National interest is not some “yellow” paper; this in an analytical journal that is expected to offer responsible and professional publications.
It is the voice piece for solid and thoughtful military planning and decision making efforts.
A Large And Fast Coffin With A Propeller
Let us take a closer look at the way the author of the article – an
expert and political analyst – explains to his readers why the American
aircraft carriers are invulnerable and unsinkable . . .
First Reason
OK, the first thesis. The American aircraft carries is indeed large
and fast. It has 25 decks; its maximal height is 80 meters; it displaces
100,000 tons of water and can carry 70, or even up to 90, aircraft of
different types.
Aircraft carrier cross section.
Unfortunately, one small detail spoils this lovely picture: a large target is easier to hit!
But the Americans simply cannot make their aircraft carriers smaller. The reason is simple: they are insanely expensive.
The carries have to be made in such enormous size, simply because if they are made smaller, more of them will be needed. Flexibility of the American aircraft carrier fleet would in such case increase, but the price would skyrocket.
Carl Vincent aircraft carrier.
Judge by yourself: a modern aircraft carrier costs the US approximately $13 billion (that is how much the newest “Gerald Ford” cost), and the carrier air wing (the Navy version of F-35) based of the carrier costs additional $7 billions.
Plus, there are the ships of the “carrier strike group” – multiple guided missile warships, destroyers equipped with Aegis combat system, and stealthy attack submarines.
Thus, one such group costs the Americans around $50 billion dollars!
Aircraft carrier strike group.
And, by the way, these $50 billions are never able to move as quickly as the “expert” in the National Interest asserts . . .
But in America nobody is concerned with such details.
The author does not shy away from stating:
“The aircraft carriers are constantly moving when deployed at up to 35 miles per hour – fast enough to outrun submarines – finding and tracking them is difficult.
Within 30 minutes after a sighting by enemies, the area within which a carrier might be operating has grown to 700 square miles; after 90 minutes, it has expanded to 6,000 square miles”.
It sound great but in reality not one American aircraft carrier can reach this speed. The maximal speed that it can maintain – for a limited time – is 30 knots.
The key word here is LIMITED time.
If anyone thinks that an aircraft carrier can immediately upon
entering the open sea accelerate to 30 knots (almost 56 km per hour) and
keep racing on the waives, he is very much mistaken.
This is impossible.
In reality, 95% of their time American aircraft carriers move in an economy mode at the speed no faster than 14 knots (about 26 km/hour). When airplanes take off or land on the carrier, the carrier is seriously limited in its ability to change speed or course.
An aircraft carrier is not a bike. If this floating airdrome turned from side to side all the time, pilots would not be able to make landings.
Soviet missile Granit being loaded into launch tubes
Another small detail: who would give to an aircraft carrier 30 min so it could escape from the battle zone?
Even the old Soviet missile “Granit” (note that the American still do not have anything like it), which our nuclear submarine cruisers of 949-project “Antey” type are armed with, fired from its maximal distance would reach its target in just slightly more than 500 second.
Cross section showing the anti-ship launch tubes.
This means that when a missile is fired, an American aircraft carrier would have time to get away from the point of its detection at its maximal speed to no more than 7.5 km.
Such distance is definitely within the range covered by the self-targeting mechanism of “Granit”. Thus, the missile will reach its target and, if not neutralized by the air defense systems (which is not very probable), destroy the target.
Furthermore, as the American “expert” should know, no one will fire at an aircraft carrier group just one missile!
Every our “Antey” submarine is equipped with 24 such missiles. Additionally, I believe, if the Chief of Staff of our Navy plans an operations to destroy an American aircraft carrier, such operation will involve more than one “Antey”.
The first submarine of Project 949 was laid down in the mid-1970s and was commissioned in 1980. In 1982 an updated and larger version (Project 949A) replaced the earlier version. In total thirteen submarines were constructed. The Oscar class was designed to attack NATO carrier battle groups using long-range SS-N-19 \"Shipwreck\" anti-ship missiles and targeting data provided by the EORSAT satellite system.
- Oscar-class submarine | Military Wiki
If all 24 “Granit” missiles are fired simultaneously, it will be all but impossible to intercept them. Most of them fly at a very low altitude: they creep just above the surface of the ocean.
Just one missile flies above – it guides the whole pack to the target. If the adversary destroys the guiding missile, it is immediately substituted by one of the remaining missiles flying below.
Project 949A Antey Submarine.
When the Soviet engineers designed these missiles, they incorporated elements of the artificial intelligence in their design: the missiles communicate with each other selecting their targets in such a way, so that two missiles accidentally do not hit the same small target.
For example, our missiles know how to select the main target, and if that target is an aircraft carrier, the “Granits” would not self-target the accompanying warships – they will target specifically the carrier.
In addition, the missiles know other little tricks that certainly will come as a “unpleasant” surprise for the Americans, such as the ability to interact with the Naval Space System of Intelligence and Guidance (NSIG).
It seems, however, that the author of this American article has not idea that NSIG exists. However, such a system existed back in the Soviet Union – named “Legend”.
It’s Russian descendant is “Liana” that has broad capabilities to detect and follow American aircraft carrier groups in the ocean. This system is capable of guiding missiles to targets even after their have been launched.
Liana is the second-generation Russian system for space-based surveillance and targeting. Work on the project began in the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- Ocean Surveillance - Liana - Lotus C and Pion-NCC
Obviously, no matter how good the weapons are or how sophisticated the detection system is – there is no 100% guarantee that an aircraft carrier will be destroyed by the first missile launch. However, the probability that by using all means at our disposal we will be able to sink it…
… is pretty high.
All the aircraft carriers in the world placed on one info-graphic.
Armed To The Teeth And Very Careful…
Let us find out who provides serious American journals with such analytical trash.
Who is this fantastic American “expert” that has no problem misleading his readers?
He is Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer of the Lexington Institute, a well-known organization, by the way. He is also a Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University where he taught strategy to graduate students and lectured at the Harvard University’s School of Government.
We can only guess what kind of strategy this expert in strategic
thinking taught his students. I think we can appreciate the quality of
the government officials trained on the lecture of this illustrious
“expert”.
But let us return to the reasons why we, supposedly, will never be able to sink an American aircraft carrier.
Second and Third Reasons
The second and third reasons, according to Thompson, is that an
American aircraft carrier “has lots of weapons and can defend itself . .
.” Who could have thought? Really, one immediately senses that he is
dealing with a true professional looking into the heart of the matter
An aircraft carrier is indeed loaded with weapons.
Thompson, however, does not seem to understand that these are offensive and not defensive weapons. A carrier is completely incapable of defending itself! The air defense and defense against submarines are expected to be provided by the accompanying ships.
During World War II, American Aircraft carriers were targeted and sunk.
Loren Thompson says that these ships are numerous and well armed, and that is why a carrier will never be sunk. I am almost afraid to remind that an attack on the carrier will not be conducted single handedly, either!
And I would like to interject, that a modern nuclear missile detonated 25 miles away would severely damage a carrier group, if not sink it entirely.
...and...
The purpose of a carrier group is to go up against nuclear-armed major powers.
During the Soviet regime, a whole regiment of missile-armed Ty-22 aircraft was designated for the destruction of one American aircraft carrier. This means dozens of airplanes. Plus submarines armed with cruise missiles. Plus other means of attack and destruction at our Navy’s disposal.
As history teaches us: 70 years ago during the World War II the presence of a large number of accompanying ships did not prevent the Japanese from sinking many an American aircraft carrier. In two years from 1942 to 1944 they successfully sunk as many as 11 of them!
We should think the offensive weapons advanced significantly since those times.
Fourth Reason
Tu-22 M3M bomber.
For example, the fighter-interceptor Tu-22 M3 (long distance supersonic missile-armed bomber – editor note). These Soviet-time airplanes are being thoroughly modernized, and the equipment of these newly modernized machines Tu-22 M3M will include, in particular, anti-ship new generation missiles X-32. For some reason, they are rarely mentioned in press, but these are fantastic missiles.
After launch, the come up to 40 km and fly at the speed almost 5 time faster than the sound. After coming upon the target, they descend on it almost vertically.
Russian anti-ship new generation missile X-32.
Today, the United States Navy does not possess any weapon even remotely close in its characteristics to our X-32. The Americans also do not have any air defense system capable of intercepting this missile . . .
That is why the fourth reason that, as The National Interest asserts, makes the enemy incapable of destroying American aircraft carriers is particularly important.
What is this reason?
Oh yes – they “do not take chances”.
When, perhaps, it would be better not to leave the base and go into the open ocean at all? It is so much safer . . .
But if you are out there . . .
Take chances or not, but on the way to the area of conflict with our (Russian) Navy (in the North Atlantic, for example) the American aircraft carries would have to pass through straits, narrow channels, where…
… naturally, our submarines and other forces would be waiting for them…
…and, according to the Russian customs, welcome them…
… with the “bread-and-salt” of cruise missiles seasoned with torpedoes, mines, and bombs . . .
In any case, the traditional Russian welcome for the aircraft carriers will be assured!
Captain’s quarters inside one of the American Aircraft Carriers.
Whether you are careful or not, but you cannot arrive from
Jacksonville, an American Navy base on the US East coast, to our shores
(for example, to the area of responsibility of the Northern Navy with
its mane bases on the Kolsky peninsula) bypassing several well-known
narrow channels and straits.
The Americans themselves during the Cold War constructed anti-submarine barriers in those places with the goal of preventing our subs from getting into the Atlantic. The best-known examples – the barrier along the line the North Cape – Medvezhyi (Bear) island and between Iceland and Faroe islands . . .
Fifth Reason
The last, fifth, reason of the invincibility of the American aircraft carriers, according to Loren Thompson, is the greatest achievement of his expert-analytical approach.
The reason is a fact self-evident for every American that the Americans are generally the best in the world and they possess the best technologies, including the military ones.
However, this is not exactly a fact.
For example, the Russian technologies of the anti-ship cruise missiles are definitely better than their American counterparts. Everyone who knows anything and learned anything knows that. In particular, the military experts are paying close attention to the Russian hypersonic missiles of the new generation.
The Americans do not appear to be amenable to reason but some of their allies are more or less adequate. Thus, recently the media in the Great Britain created a veritable hysteria on the subject of the new Russian missile “Zircon”.
When an aircraft carrier is lost, so are all the aircraft and air wings associated with it.
The first to raise alarm was the British newspaper TheIndependent.
It stated: “It is impossible to stop “Zircon”. Even the newest air
defense systems are yet to come to the British Navy will only be able to
destroy target at the maximum speed of 3700 km/hour, whereas “Zircon”
can reach 6000 or even 7400 km/hour”.
The Daily Star offered further development of the theme about the scary Russians:
“Russia produces deadly missiles capable of destroying the entire Royal Navy in one hit. A representative of the British Foreign Ministry believes that the Russian “Zircon”, which cant carry a nuclear warhead, completely changes the rules of war at sea. Our aircraft carriers simply could not be deployed where the Russians have these missiles . . .”
Another British newspaper, The Mirror, carried on in the same alarmist tone.
It wrote:
“The Russian missile moves with the speed twice as fast as the speed of the sniper bullet. It can send the most advanced ships to the bottom of the sea. The experts say that out Navy today has no defense against this terrible weapon.
The appearance of “Zircon” in the Russian arsenal make both our aircraft carriers costing $7 billion each useless”.
The Daily Mail added the final accord to this panicky choir:
“Russia created an invincible cruise missile that travels at 4600 miles per hour and is capable of destroying a British aircraft carries with one hit. This deadly missile “Zircon” can be launched from the land, sea, or air carriers.
It covers 155 miles in 2.5 minutes. Its appearance make the very idea of the aircraft carrier groups meaningless, and we simply do not have anything to counter it with”.
The Americans might, of course, hope that our “Zircon” is a threat exclusively to the British aircraft carriers.
Regardless of what they think, the facts say differently: any attempt by the American Navy to test in the real battle conditions whether or not the Russians can sink their aircraft carrier will most likely end quite badly for the US of A.
Conclusion
While the American military and public lie safely ensconced within the “echo chamber” of “enormous military might”. The idea that American overseas projection – the carrier Navy can we eliminated within minutes has taken hold in the rest of the world.
This might be true, or might be wrong.
I, for one, hope that we never find out.
The systems for Empire projection, that America has relied on for the last 70 years, is coming to a close. What the evolution is pointing towards is…
America to step-down and stop being the world’s policeman.
The idea of carrier battle groups is a dangerous and outdated concept.
The idea that they can be used against a well-equipped and motivated enemy and nuclear weapons WILL NOT be used is insanity.
Losing all 12 carriers is possible along with the destruction of all of the biggest cities on American soil.
This is a terrible reality, and it may come to fruition unless United States stops it’s Empire-building role, and concentrates on domestic issues and tranquility.
If you enjoyed this post, you might find other posts in the SHTF index to your liking…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
It’s nice to think that we are “modern”, “enlightened”, “progressive’ and “forward thinking”. But, unfortunately that is a big lie. Humans, at best, can only sustain a calm period of coexistence for a handful of decades. No longer. The fact and the truth is that blood was spilled ruthlessly for most of human history.
Routinely.
If you are living in the belief that wars will forever be isolated from you, then buckle up. It can hit with surprising suddenness and completely alter the landscape of your reality forever.
It’s the historical norm.
Will Rogers quote.
Prepare yourself for a painful recap of the most savage wars that ever took place. Fought over religion, political supremacy, or conquest, the conflicts of the past killed tens of millions and left the land we live today blood-soaked.
War can occur anywhere, at any time, and affect anyone. No one is immune.
1. French Wars of Religion – 3 million
Expert Tip: Wars over ideology can be very fierce, bloody and dangerous.
It was an awful time to believe in God.
A death toll of 3 million is a good introduction, especially because we will first explore a war erupting solely because some overzealous folks couldn’t agree to what religion is better.
My God is better!
No! You are wrong. My God is better!
Hell with you and what you think! You need to die!!!!
The French Wars of Religion is an umbrella term for the many frictions that opposed the Catholics (and the Huguenots (Reformed Protestants)). Once started, everyone wanted in on it. They were fighting each other over interpretations of Biblical passages, for goodness sake!
He said this!
But, he meant that!
Die! Heathen scum!
Indeed, once it started there was no stopping it. It moved on and took on “legs of it’s own”. Lordy! Carried out throughout the 16th century, it aroused other European powers into picking sides.
Ugh!
The north of Hesse, also known as Hesse-Cassel, became reformed, or Calvinist in 1605, while Hesse-Darmstadt in the south became Lutheran. Both Hesse and Brandebourg, which was also reformed, had suffered greatly during the Thirty Years War and for this reason the Huguenot refugees were made welcome.
I know it’s confusing. Here’s the official take…
Huguenots were a religious group of French Protestants. Huguenots were French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism.
The term has its origin in early-16th-century France.
It was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard were mainly German Lutherans.
- Wikipedia
Women and children are being tortured by soldiers in front of a statue of Louis XIV. A Protestant minister is in a basket because he refused to worship the Host. . Persecution of the Huguenots according to Romeyn de Hooghe
And yet another opinion…
The French Wars of Religion were a prolonged period of war and popular unrest between Catholics and Huguenots (Reformed/Calvinist Protestants) in the Kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598. It is estimated that three million people perished in this period from violence, famine, or disease in what is considered the second deadliest religious war in European history (surpassed only by the Thirty Years' War, which took eight million lives).
- French Wars of Religion - Wikipedia
What happened was scandalous mostly because the Catholic Church considered the atrocities a sign a divine retribution.
Yeah...
God approves of this war. He told me.
Massacre of Vassy .On March 1, 1562, 300 Huguenots holding religious services in a barn outside the town wall of Vassy, France, were attacked by troops under the command of Francis, Duke of Guise. More than 60 Huguenots were killed and over 100 wounded during the Massacre of Vassy. Francis claimed he did not order an attack but was instead retaliating against stones being thrown at his troops.
And still yet another explanation…
The massacre of Huguenots at Vassy in 1562 began the Wars of Religion between the Catholics under the leadership of the Duke of Guise and the Huguenots under the leadership of Prince de Conde and the King of Navarre. The war was interrupted briefly, but flared up again after the infamous...
- Huguenot Wars - World History
I know.
I know, I’ve given three instances of explanation, and still I haven’t figured it all out. It’s nuts. It’s crazy. It’s insane.
We look back at this time and shake our heads. But, you know…
… it was a different time and place.
The above painting depicts the most “memorable” event of the French Wars of Religion – the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. Huguenots were slaughtered in the tens of thousands in a feast of savagery that lasted several weeks.
You will be surprised to know the changed little since then. Aside from technology advances and the ability to manipulate large groups of people by ideology…
… nothing has changed.
Expert Tip: We are not more enlightened today compared to the past.
The French Wars of Religion – the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre.
Yeah, yeah… I know. It’s really difficult to get a feel for what was going on at that time. Woodcuts cannot compare to colorful photos and dramatic images. Their clothes are odd and their customs are strange. It’s difficult to imagine. I mean … men wore tights with cod pieces for Pete’s sake!
Well… anyways…
So let’s move forward to something more recent, then.
2. Great African War – 3.5 million
Africa. Most Americans don’t give a flying fudge about it. The Great African War in all it’s incarnations happened under the Clinton and Bush years. No one cared.
Yet…
…millions died in the hot steamy jungles of the Congo. They fought over… well, it’s not precisely known exactly what they fought about…
…power, money, drugs, sex…
… gold, fun, religion…
… magic, God, spirits, voodoo…
…and potatoes.
The Second Congo War was so bloody and violent that people started calling it the “Great African War.”
Explaining the loose ends of African politics in under two paragraphs is a daunting task…
A deadly cocktail of inter-ethnic violence, genocide, and warring factions turned the Democratic Republic of Congo into a hellish tropical nightmarish steamy land of never ending suffering and misery.
Who’s to blame?
The fall of the former colonial empires left Africa with so many wounds the crystallization of the new nations was hastened and often uninspired…
Everyone was fighting everyone else for so many, many, many reasons. It’s difficult to sort it all out. It was a bloody free for all of torture, misery, and death.
Almost all neighboring states sent troops to support one side or the other for the duration of the conflict (1998 – 2002).
The Congo conflict showed once more the awful consequences of
bringing a war to poor communities. The hundreds of thousands that died
in combat were soon joined by the millions that perished through disease
and starvation.
Do you know what the worst part is?
Even after a peace treaty had been signed, war is still smoldering, claiming lives on such a constant basis that it is no longer news.
Sort of like those shootings in Chicago…
Or the news that Trump is gonna be impeached any day now…
The Congo conflict showed once more the awful consequences of bringing a war to poor communities. The hundreds of thousands that died in combat were soon joined by the millions that perished through disease and starvation.
Expert Tip: Some people fight first and then look for an excuse later on.
Check out the war that almost saw France conquer Europe.
3. Napoleonic Wars – 4.5 million
For those of you who are unaware, after the French Revolution…
…when the millions of poor and middle class overthrew the French oligarch aristocrats…
… they didn’t know how to govern.
They were incompetent. So in order to control the people (then, collective known as the “rabble”) they started to engage in war.
Wars, you see, are a great distraction away from the domestic problems at home.
The Battle of Aspern-Essling was fought May 21-22, 1809, and was part of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).
From the chaos of the French Revolution, came military leaders. And, one military ruler emerged with the ambition of leading France to greatness.
Napoleon Bonaparte was such a brilliant military tactician that he convinced his fellow countrymen to crown him emperor. Consider the fact that French did that just ten years since they guillotined their last king.
Yeah…
Pure genus!
— Not. —
Rule by popular opinion is idiotic. It get’s people killed.
America! Listen up and learn something why don’t ya?
Expert Tip: Rule by manipulated mob is called “democracy”. It only favors the wealthy oligarchy.
The Napoleonic Wars was probably the first time a European power attempted continental hegemony. Between 1803 and 1815, it became sort of a cliché to hear the news of Napoleon’s army won another decisive battle against various coalitions of Austrian, Prussian, and Russian forces.
The French were on a winning streak.
Nothing could stop them.
So…
They kept on pushing. They kept on prodding. They keep on… they were so confident that they would forever keep on winning.
Expert Tip: Learn to stop when you are ahead.
The formidable French forces aligned and ready for battle.
Like I said… America listen up!
Napoleon’s winning strike came to an end with him foolishly attacking Russia during the winter.
I mean… what were they thinking?
Expert Tip: Do not declare war on Asia. They always win.
The battle of Borodino and the long retreat to France are amongst the bloodiest episodes of the Napoleonic Wars.
After attacking Russia, the French military was devastated. Less than 10% survived and made it back home.
It’s easy to see the Napoleonic Wars as a rehearsal, one hundred years before the “Great War” (World War I) would plunge Europe back into darkness. More than 4.5 million lost their lives, of which a third were French.
That’s what always happens when you follow a charismatic lunatic.
Expert Tip: Do not follow a charismatic lunatic.
4. Reconquista – 7 million
The Iberian Peninsula was the set of a bloody conflict. It was the first major front for Muslims and Christians to slaughter each other.
Christians fought Muslims in the South of Spain and it was horribly tragic.
What we know today as Spain and Portugal might have held Moorish names…
… if it weren’t for the painstakingly way with which the early Christian kingdoms fought the invaders back across the Gibraltar Strait.
And make no mistake, it was bloody.
Expert Tip: Do not live on migration routes.
The kingdoms of Asturias, León, Castile, Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal fought over the course of seven centuries to reconquer what it took the Moors only five years.
The Iberian Peninsula was the set of a bloody conflict. It was the first major front for Muslims and Christians to slaughter each other.
You will be surprised to know that the Reconquista formally ended in
1492, the same year Christopher Columbus went across the pond to
discover the New World. The fall of Granada marked the end of Muslim
claim in Western Europe.
Going back to 732 AD, the Islamic Moors conquered almost all the
entire peninsula and even crossed the Pyrenees to modern day France.
There probably is one alternate reality where Europe gets fully
conquered by armies chanting the name of Allah.
Check out another religious conflict that went too far.
5. Thirty Years’ War – 8 million
The Thirty Years War
... a European war of 1618–48 which broke out between the Catholic Holy Roman emperor and some of his German Protestant states and developed into a struggle for continental hegemony with France, Sweden, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire as the major protagonists. It was ended by the Treaty of Westphalia.
- More about Thirty Years War
The United States has been in Afghanistan for twenty years now. It, like most of the wars of the last seventy or so years, are proxy wars in third world shit-holes.
Third World ShitholeunknownNounreferringtoanyimpoverishedforeigncountryinwhichcrime, graft, andcorruptionaremodusoperandi.
- Urban Dictionary: Third World Shithole
It involves, pretty much, expensive planes dropping expensive munitions on mud and clay huts, while “boots on the ground” act as personal bodyguards for the local rich and powerful so that the “interests” of the American oligarchy are maintained.
Nah. I’m not biased. Eh?
Now, imagine that instead of twenty years fighting uneducated tribesmen, we’ve got a full on military presence fighting war like what we experienced during “D Day” for…
…um… like…
…thirty years.
Wars are never pretty. Americans have never really fought an all-out war. At most we had the American Civil War and the Revolutionary war. But if you lived outside the conflict areas, you pretty much could live your life in peace. Not so during the Thirty Years war. No one, no place, and nothing was safe.
The Thirty Years’ War coined just how messed the political map of the European continent was in the 17th century.
What started as a localized conflict between various Protestant and Catholic states (duh!) evolved into a full-scale conflagration. It was one that ravaged Central Europe and left behind the bulkiest death toll the continent has ever since in such a short time.
Every power had a good pretext to join the Thirty Years’ War.
War is good!
Save the King!
Power to the People!
We are the best! They are the worst scum imaginable!
Kill them all. Rape their women! Kill their babies,all for our King!
By far the most flamboyant intervention was that of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who engaged in one of the most bizarre adventures that took his troops deep into southern Germany.
Thirty Years' War in British English noun a major conflict involving principally Austria , Denmark , France, Holland , the German states , Spain , and Sweden , that devastated central Europe, esp large areas of Germany (1618–48).
- Thirty Years' War definition and meaning | Collins English
Humans can become awfully cruel to each other and atrocities towards others becomes normalized.
The Thirty Years’ War brevetted cruel execution methods like so-called Defenestration. In this “humane” procedure, soldiers threw out the windows the civilians of the captured cities.
The first all-out war that engulfed Europe showed major powers just how “fun” can be to fight on a continental scale. What followed was much worse.
The human condition. In Europe. The most “civilized” place on the planet.
Expert Tip: No place is immune from war or conflict.
Europe was not the only place where people enjoyed slaughtering each other.
6. Chinese Civil War – 8 million
Following in the footsteps of Russia, when they over threw their oligarchy, the poor Chinese peasants tried to do the exact same thing. They set up factions and fought each other on a very bloody and enormous land mass.
Expert Tip: Oligarchies tend to anger the peasants & serfs. This results in war.
Nationalist prisoner captured by the Marxists and paraded before the townspeople before being tortured and killed.
The Chinese Civil War opposed forces loyal to the Republic of China to the army assembled by the Communist Party.
Oligarchy = Nationalist Republic of China.
The fighting poor = Communist Party
What followed was a bewildering war with a temporary and curious anomaly.
Killings were everywhere. Friends killed friends, brothers killed brothers, and no one was safe.
Probably the strangest fact about the conflict was that it took a decade-long hiatus. Between 1936 and 1946, the Nationalists and the Communists formed a United Front that opposed the territorial claims of Imperial Japan.
Once WWII ended, the two enemies were back at each other’s throats.
Gun boat on the river. It was an effective platform for firepower at critical towns and villages.
Mao Zedong (the leader of the Communist Party) rose as a leader during the Great March, a strategic retreat of the Communist forces that would weight decisively in their victory.
The Communists (the rural poor) won, and chased the oligarchy to the island of Taiwan. Which now is the remaining stronghold for the remaining remnants of Chinese “blue blood”.
The Chinese have known thousands of years of conflict in a very up-front and personal way. And when the communists took over, they failed miserably. They did not know how to do anything right, and millions died by starvation, poverty and internal “turf wars”.
Expert Tip: Never allow yourself to be disarmed by progressive Marxists.
Their last conflict was in 1966 when the progressive Marxists lost it completely. They, in turn, were overthrown by a government that embraced a new kind of socialism. It’s socialism with capitalism; or in other words “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
America should take note.
Expert tip: China is communist in name only.
The Chinese, a nation of merit, has known complete suffering and devastation for centuries. They view war as a terribly personal thing that must be avoided at all costs. However, if it cannot be avoided…
…It must be dealt with quickly and absolutely.
7. Russian Civil War – 9 million
Now, according to American media and history books, there was this pesky “Russian Revolution”. It was a time when the communists overthrew the the Tsar.
What they fail to tell you is that it was like the “French Revolution”. The downtrodden peasants over thrown the ruling oligarchy. Then once the oligarchy was neutered, a group of idealistic Marxists took over. They started killing everyone…
…all in the name of a progressive utopia.
The Russian revolution enabled progressive Marxists to over throw the ruling oligarchy. The rest of the world trembled that it might occur again in their communities.
One century ago, Russia had a hard time deciding its political future. There were many participants. But, all being said and done it was really down to two sides;
The wealthy oligarchy.
The uneducated poor.
The Red Army (the idealistic poor) and the White Army (the defenders of the oligarchy) faced each other in a bloody war. It was a war that claimed millions of lives and kept the country in turmoil for six years.
Everything started once the impoverished people of Russia have had enough with their Tsar and the rest of the ruling oligarchy.
The pageantry of the ruling Russian oligarchy rivaled pre-Napoleonic France. Bet you’se guys never saw these pictures in your American history books, eh?
In just one year (1917), the Russians went through two revolutions.
One toppled the century-old monarchy…
… while the other gave way to the Communist takeover.
You might be surprised to know that Russia’s future was quite uncertain in the early phases of its civil war.
Republicans, pro-monarchists, fascists – all wanted to fill in the power vacuum and exploit the gullible babushkas. Historians are still not sure what made Russia such a fertile ground for Communist Marxist ideology.
Expert Tip: People will accept governance in just about any form as long as it’s not an oligarchy.
I attribute it to being treated like dirt by the wealthy aristocrats.
Although a lot of fighting took place throughout the Russian Civil War, the bulk of the victims is represented by civilians who happened to side with the losers.
Lenin and the gang cleansed society and painted it in blood.
The new Marxists killed their enemies, and if you were lucky, you got to go to a Gulag.
That might answer why the Soviet Union saw little internal political friction throughout its existence. Why? Well, everyone who could possibly… remotely… be a threat was killed.
Expert Tip: Progressive Marxists eventually kill everyone.
Now…
Check out the atrocities committed by a bunch of Spanish soldiers!
8. Spanish Conquest of Peru – 9 million
As late as 1528, the Inca Empire was a cohesive unit, ruled by one dominant ruler, Huayna Capac.
He died, however, and two of his many, many sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar, began to fight over his empire. (Being a King has sexual advantages, don’t you know…)
For four years, a bloody civil war raged over the Empire and in 1532 Atahualpa emerged victoriously.
It was at this precise moment, when the Empire was in ruins, that Pizarro and his men showed up: they were able to defeat the weakened Inca armies and exploit the social rifts that had caused the war in the first place.
The Spanish conquest of Peru is a dark chapter of human history, one that holds the story of the 9 million Incas that perished.
Francisco Pizarro is the man responsible for conquering an entire
empire with only a handful of well-equipped soldiers. The conquistador
put to work superior weapons and a cunning plan.
Expert Tip: Beware of strangers with advanced technology and a love of gold.
In November of 1532, Inca Emperor Atahualpa was captured by the Spanish: he had agreed to meet with them, feeling that they did not pose a threat to his massive army. This was but one of the mistakes the Inca made.
Later, Atahualpa’s generals, fearing for his safety in captivity, did not attack the Spanish while there were still only a few of them in Peru: one general even believed Spanish promises of friendship and let himself be captured.
The soldiers and people of the Inca Empire did not meekly turn over their homeland to the hated invaders. Major Inca generals such as Quisquis and Rumiñahui fought pitched battles against the Spanish and their native allies, notably at the 1534 Battle of Teocajas.
Later, members of the Inca royal family such as Manco Inca and Tupac Amaru led massive uprisings: Manco had 100,000 soldiers in the field at one point. For decades, isolated groups of Spaniards were targeted and attacked. The people of Quito proved particularly fierce, fighting the Spanish every step of the way to their city, which they burned to the ground when it became apparent that the Spanish were certain to capture it.
The drawing below shows the climax of the Spanish blitzkrieg against the Incas. Pizarro ambushes emperor Atahualpa, who is captured and executed.
The climax of the Spanish blitzkrieg against the Incas. Pizarro ambushes emperor Atahualpa, who is captured and executed.
Although the Incas rebelled multiple times against the foreign
invaders, there was little they could do regarding fighting the
infectious diseases the Europeans brought with them. The Spanish
conquest of the Inca Empire formally ended in 1572.
Although many of the native people fought back fiercely, others allied themselves with the Spanish. The Inca were not universally loved by the neighboring tribes they had subjugated over the centuries, and vassal tribes such as the Cañari hated the Inca so much that they allied themselves with the Spanish: by the time they realized that the Spanish were an even bigger threat it was too late. Members of the Inca royal family practically fell over one another to gain the favor of the Spanish, who put a series of puppet rulers on the throne. The Spanish also co-opted a servant class called the yanaconas: the yanaconas attached themselves to the Spaniards and were valuable informants.
The Inca had skilled generals, veteran soldiers and massive armies numbering in the tens or hundreds of thousands. The Spanish were greatly outnumbered, but their horses, armor, and weapons gave them an advantage that proved too great for their enemies to overcome. There were no horses in South America until Europeans brought them: native warriors were terrified of them and at first, the natives had no tactics to counter a disciplined cavalry charge. In battle, a skilled Spanish horseman could cut down dozens of native warriors. Spanish armor and helmets, made of steel, made their wearers practically invulnerable and fine steel swords could cut through any armor the natives could put together.
By that time, the second most advanced civilization of the New World booked a one-way ticket into oblivion.
Pizarro ambushes emperor Atahualpa, who is captured and executed.
The next page reveals another bloody conflict that shocked the medieval world.
9. Conquests of Tamerlane – 17 million
Here we have a very powerful and ruthless man. His name was Tamerlane, and he was the most powerful general under Genghis Khan.
Initially, Greater Mongol State was the name of the Mongol Empire. In the world’s history, Mongol Empire was the only empire that managed to take over and rule a number of countries and territories. But before it happened, war was declared. It happened from the year 1207-1472.
When I rise, the world shall tremble!
Take a good look at Tamerlane, the ruthless ruler responsible for killing 5% of the world population throughout the years he campaigned.
Timur, historically known as Tamerlane (1336 - 1405), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. Timur rose through the ranks by gaining the respect of local chieftains due to his personal valor in combat and his brigandage. His actions, whether raiding or in combat, caused many to flock to him. It was during a battle that arrows struck his right arm and leg which left him partially paralyzed. Because of this, Europeans referred to him as ‘Tamerlane’ or ‘Timur the Lame.’
Timur was born in Transoxania a member of Barlas tribe. He rose to power among the Ulus Chaghatay. The Ulus Chaghatay was nomadic tribal confederation that formed the central region of Mongolian Chaghadaid khanate. Timur's story is similar to Genghis Khan; How true these stories are is up for debate.
- When I rise, the world shall tremble! Tamerlane’s Deadly Drive into India—Part I
Tamerlane (also known as Timur the Lame) had the ambition of
restoring the Mongol Empire, almost 150 years after the death of Genghis
Khan. Between 1370 and 1405 he toured Asia, sacking cities, painting
their walls with blood, and destroying all the key power structures.
Timur played good cop – bad cop with the people he conquered. His most notable civilian bloodsheds are the sacking of Delhi (100,000) and crushing the revolt of Isfahan (200,000).
Expert Tip; Better to be alive and living in poverty than to be killed clutching your possessions.
You will be surprised to know Tamerlane was close to engaging in a
conflict that would have blown to pieces the Asian continent. Luckily,
he died before ordering his army to attack the Ming dynasty of China.
The self-entitled “Sword of Islam” cut deep and merciless. Compiling
the sources of the time, we confront horrifying statistics. More than 17
million perished because ambitious Tamerlane dreamt of taking over the
world.
The doors of Tamerlane.
Check out China’s less know rebellion!
10. An Lushan Rebellion – 21 million
Starting December 16, 755-February 17, 763, An Lushan Rebellion happened. It was during China’s Tang Dynasty. The war actually started when An Lushan who happened to be an ex-Tang general declared himself to be the new emperor.
The An Lushan rebellion was the end and a new start into reclaiming the Tang dynasty. It did not only affect the royal empire but the people as well were affected due to this warfare. It took years before the wounds of the past were healed in the empire.
- An Lushan Rebellion - The Devastating An-Shi Rebellion
Starting December 16, 755-February 17, 763, An Lushan Rebellion happened. It was during China’s Tang Dynasty. The war actually started when An Lushan who happened to be an ex-Tang general declared himself to be the new emperor.
At first glance, the An Lushan Rebellion seems to deserve just a footnote.
Expert Tip: History will never be able to coney the suffering of you or your people.
That’s the error most historians make when they fail to check the
numbers. More than 21 million perished as a result of an attempted coup
that was close to overthrowing one of the most influential dynasties of
the time.
General An Lushan detonated order and peace once he proclaimed himself emperor of Northern China in 755 AD.
Take a good look at the man who can be held responsible for the mess.
General An Lushan detonated order and peace once he proclaimed himself
emperor of Northern China in 755 AD. Seven years of turmoil followed,
during which China lost one-third of its population.
The painting below depicts the flight of the emperor from the capital of Chang’an, immediately before Lushan’s army seized it.
The flight of the emperor from the capital of Chang’an.
Although going that far, killing that many people, the rebellion eventually failed and came to an end in 763 AD.
The restored Tang became severely weakened and would exit the stage of history in less than two centuries later.
You have to see Spain’s second carnage in the New World…
11. Spanish Conquest of Mexico – 24 million
Only three decades after Christopher Columbus had discovered the New World the Spaniards were already busy exterminating the local populations at a ferocious scale.
TheSpanishConquest (1519-1521) April 21, 1519--theyearCeAcatl (OneReed) byAztecreckoning-- markedtheopeningofashortbutdecisivechapterinMexico'shistory. Onthatdayafleetof 11 Spanishgalleonssailingalongtheeasterngulfcoastdroppedanchorjustoffthewind-sweptbeachontheislandofSanJuandeUlúa.
- The SpanishConquest (1519-1521) : Mexico History
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Spanish–Mexican War, was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
More than 24 million died throughout the Spanish conquest of what is
modern day Mexico. Compared to that, the bloody sacrifices so engraved
in Aztec culture appear like a bruise your mother kisses to make it go
away.
How could less than 2,000 conquistadors overcome an army of 300,000
Aztecs, their well-fortified capital of Tenochtitlan, and the advantage
of the home ground? How could tens of millions be slaughtered in a
matter of decades?
The story of the Spanish conquest, as it has been commonly understood for 500 years, goes like this: Montezuma surrendered his empire to Cortés. Cortés and his men entered Tenochtitlán and lived there peacefully for months until rebellious Aztecs attacked them. Montezuma was killed by friendly fire. The surviving conquistadors escaped the city and later returned with Spanish reinforcements. They bravely laid siege to Tenochtitlán for months and finally captured it on Aug. 13, 1521, with the Spanish taking their rightful place as leaders of the land we now know as Mexico. Conquest accomplished.
"History is messy, and this story tidies up all of that mess and turns the messy, unpleasant war that took place 500 years ago into a nice, tidy dramatic narrative that has a hero [Cortés] and antihero [Montezuma] and has some kind of climactic, glorious ending," says Restall.
In When Montezuma Met Cortés, Restall revises this story. He ditches the word "conquest" and instead refers to the time as the Spanish-Aztec war. He says Cortés was a "mediocrity" with little personal impact on the unfolding of events and refocuses on complex territorial battles between the Aztecs and their rivals.
The Tlaxcallan Empire, which allied with the Spanish, was the driving force, outnumbering conquistadors 50-to-1 during the war with the Aztecs. Smallpox and a betrayal from an Aztec ally dealt the final blow. The wondrous island city fell, but it would take years for the Spanish to establish control in New Spain.
-NPR
Hernán Cortés exploited European style warfare to its maximum.
Cortez the Killer.
For the superstitious Aztecs, the horse and the guns appeared as the weapons of the Gods.
The Spanish contingent also boosted its numbers by initiating an alliance with the local Tlaxcala.
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
Nevertheless, the biggest aid came in an invisible form. European germs proved to be a formidable army and childhood diseases like small pox and measles met no natural immunity in the bodies of the indigenous populations.
Yup. Biological warfare wiped out a complete empire.
Expert Tip: Beware of the use of biological warfare. It’s fighting war by stealth.
Explore on the next page another Chinese conflict that killed millions!
12. Qing vs. Ming – 25 million
Medieval China saw enough dynastic drama to make the wars in the West look like children’s play. Maybe that’s why Chinese movies and drama always focus on that time period.
Qing soldiers cutting hair of Chinese officals after Ming dynasty fall.
Between 1618 and 1683, China completed a full transition from its
southern Ming emperors to the new ruling elite coming all they from
northern Manchuria. You could say that in this fragment of history the
Starks were victorious.
As you suspect, the Ming did not leave without a fight. The Manchu
(Qing) retaliation was unprecedented. More than 25,000,000 lost their
lives in a conflict that spread across the entire land.
China is a nation of people who know nothing other than war, and want to avoid it at all costs.
Whole provinces like Sichuan and Jiangnan were completely depopulated, and chronicles mention massacres like the one of Yangzhou where 800,000 innocent souls perished.
Expert Tip: Major wars result in the depopulation of large swaths of territory. Entire states can end up empty.
The expression “women and children first” had a terrifyingly different meaning for the Qing generals.
At this point, we need to stress the fact that Qing Manchurians were foreigners who managed to conquer China mostly through betrayal and manipulation.
Their savagery will be avenged similarly just three centuries later.
Qing empire.
Check out the biggest land empire ever and the bloodshed it created.
13. Mongol Conquests – 35 million (+ 200 million bonus)
The Mongol Empire: Expansion of the Mongol empire from 1206 CE-1294 CE. During Europe’s High Middle Ages the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history, began to emerge. The Mongol Empire began in the Central Asian steppes and lasted throughout the 13th and 14th centuries.
- The Mongol Empire | Boundless World History
Mongols dominated the battlefields with their slim and fast mounted archers that made the most of Europe’s sluggish armored knights.
Watching a live world map of the world Mongol expansion shows just how quick and efficient the steppe riders moved across Eurasia.
The Mongol expansion was rapid and ruthless.
Mongols dominated the battlefields with their slim and fast mounted archers that made the most of Europe’s sluggish armored knights.
1. In 1201, Genghis Khan was shot in the neck during a battle and asked the defeated army who had shot “his horse”, trying to downplay the injury. The archer voluntarily confessed that he shot Genghis Khan himself and not his horse. He refused to beg for mercy saying if Genghis Khan desired to kill him, it was his choice, but if he would let him live, he would serve Genghis Khan loyally. Genghis Khan spared him, turning him into a great general. – Source
2. When Genghis Khan sent a trade caravan to the Khwarezmid Empire, the governor of one of the city seized it and killed the traders. Genghis Khan retaliated by invading the empire with 100,000 men and killing the governor by pouring molten silver down his eyes and mouth. Genghis Khan even went so far as to divert a river through the Khwarezmid emperor’s birthplace, erasing it from the map. – Source
3. Genghis Khan killed an estimated 40 million people, resulting in a man-made climate change. The Mongol invasions effectively cooled the planet, scrubbing around 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere. – Source
4. Genghis Khan’s chief adviser was a captured scholar named Yelu Chucai. His contribution to the Mongol Empire was to suggest that the Mongols not kill everyone, but tax them instead. – Source
5. Genghis Khan would marry off a daughter to the king of an allied nation, dismissing his other wives. Then he would assign his new son-in-law to military duty in the Mongol wars, while the daughter took over the rule. Most of his sons-in-laws died in combat, giving him shield around the Mongol lands. – Source
A typical Mongol siege of a normal Chinese fortified city.
Mongol warriors had the bad habit of executing hundreds of thousands of civilians at a time, making religious fanatics believe the Antichrist descended upon Earth.
Extermination Blues – Robin Trower
6. There’s a place in Mongolia called Ikh Khorig that was declared sacred by Genghis Khan. The only people allowed to enter were the Mongol Royal Family and a tribe of elite warriors, the darkhat, whose job was to guard it, punishment for entering being death. They carried out their task for 697 years, until 1924. – Source
7. Legends abound regarding the cause of Genghis Khan’s death, ranges from a fall from his horse while hunting, to an arrow to the knee, to an assassination plot executed by a captured princess. – Source
8. Genghis Khan exempted the poor and clergy from taxes, encouraged literacy, and established a free religion, leading many people to join his empire before they were even conquered. – Source
9. Shah Jahan, the emperor who built the Taj Mahal was a direct descendent of Genghis Khan – Source
10. The Mongols celebrated a victory over the Russians by laying survivors on the ground, dropping a heavy wooden gate on them, and then having a victory banquet on top of it while the victims suffocated and were crushed to death. – Source
Khutulun was the only daughter and youngest child in a family with 15 children. Her sibling rivalries growing up helped fashion her into the person she became. Because her father, Kaidu ruler of the Changatai Khanate, favored the old Mongol ways, Khutulun grew up in a nomadic lifestyle. This lifestyle gave her specialized training in wrestling, horseback riding, and as a warrior. It is said that when her father feuded with her uncle, Kublai Khan, she rode by his side throughout the campaigns.
The armies of Genghis Khan and his lieutenants operated like a surgeon, performing a lobotomy on most states of Asia and Eastern Europe.
Expert Tip: When confronting a large, disciplined Asian nation it is best to be their friends. The alternative is extermination.
11. Töregene Khatun, the daughter-in-law to Genghis Khan, ruled the Mongol Empire for 5 years at the height of its power and was arguably the most powerful woman in the history of the world – Source
12. The Mongols killed so many people in the Iranian Plateau that some historians estimate that Iran’s population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century. – Source
13. Mongols were actually outnumbered in most of their victories in battles. They still managed to deceive their enemies by elaborate ruses like mounting dummies atop horses and tying sticks to the horses’ tails to create dust storms. – Source
14. In 1258, the Mongols destroyed Baghdad. Survivors said that “the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river and red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed.” The siege marked the end of the Islamic Golden Age. – Source
15. The Mongols pulled their bowstrings back with their thumb. To prevent damage to their thumbs they created thumb rings. – Source
The only thing that stopped the world from becoming one giant pasture for Mongol horses was the sudden death of their supreme ruler.
You do not mess around with a powerful Asian nation.
16. Khutulun was a warrior princess. She was a Mongol princess who won 10,000 horses wrestling every man who wanted to marry her. – Source
17. People of the Mongol empire never washed their clothes or themselves because they believed washing would pollute the water and anger the dragons that controlled the water cycle. – Source
18. In 1254 C.E. Genghis Khan organized a formal religious debate between teams of Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. The debate went on for multiple rounds on a variety of theological topics until the participants became so drunk that it concluded without any clear winner. – Source
19. Genghis Khan is considered the “most successful biological father in human history” with over 16 million descendants in Central Asia. – Source
20. In his youth, Genghis Khan killed his half-brother Bekhter for not sharing food.
The Mongol Horde were knocking at the gates of the former Roman empire.
21. Mongol leader Genghis Khan never allowed anyone to paint his portrait, sculpt his image or engrave his likeness on a coin. The first images of him appeared after his death. – Source
22. Genghis Khan invaded China with 90,000 troops and dominated the largest army in the world, the Jin Dynasty’s 1 million+ troops, and destroyed over 500,000 of them in the process and gained control of Northern China and Beijing. – Source
23. Mongols had rules against spilling noble blood over the ground. Instead, they used loopholes like making them bend backward until their backbones snapped, pouring molten silver into eyes and ears, and being rolled up in a rug and trampled to death by the Mongol cavalry. – Source
24. The Mongol Empire installed empire-wide messenger/postal stations 15-40 miles apart, stocked with food and fresh mounts that required passports for use, allowing for communication over the largest continuous empire in history. – Source
25. The deadliest war in the history was WWII, but the Mongol Invasions are a close second, despite occurring 700 years earlier, when the world’s population was only a fifth of what it was in 1945. – Source
Just when the people of Europe were celebrating the end of the Mongol menace, another wave of death immediately followed suit and bathed the continent in blood throughout the 14th century.
The riders have brought with them the bubonic plague.
Expert Tip: “Double Tap” is the only way to make sure.
Let’s visit again the slaughterhouse China was in the past…
14. Three Kingdoms War – 38 million
The Three Kingdoms War is one the bloodiest military conflicts in Chinese history.
The Three Kingdoms War is one the bloodiest military conflicts in Chinese history.
Most people perceive China as a monolith that existed peacefully
since its inception until today. That is far from being true. Back when
Europe was enjoying relative stability under Roman rule, the Celestial
Empire confronted one of the most prolonged crisis.
Between 184 and 280 AD China was divided in three empires – Wei, Shu,
and Wu. The three emerged after the breakdown of the Han dynasty and
would be again reunited by the Jin monarchs.
A map of the three kingdoms.
All historians base their life loss estimates on two national
censuses that give a difference of 38 million. Whether the calculations
were accurate will remain a mystery. Nevertheless, one thing is clear.
China has a formidable capacity of regenerating its population.
It seems that the Chinese were so happy once the century-long conflict ended that they celebrated mostly in their beds.
Expert Tip: After conflict have lots and lots of sex.
As we approach the end of the list, the death toll rises to emotional levels.
15. World War I – 40 million
World War I proved once more just how messed up Europe’s political map was at that time.
World War I, international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the U.S., the Middle East, and other regions. It led to the fall of four great imperial dynasties and, in its destabilization of European society, laid the groundwork for World War II.
- World War I | Facts, Causes, & History | Britannica
World War I was a war that started to use technology to kill people with rapid ease in mass quantities.
An intricate network of alliances, friendships, and protectorates
turned the continent into a field of domino pieces waiting for the first
push. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was
nothing but a pretext for nations to jump at each other’s throat with a
ferocity never seen before.
12 Technological Advancements of World War ITanks.Flamethrowers.Poison Gas.Tracer Bullets.Interrupter Gear.Air traffic control.Depth Charges.Hydrophones.Aircraft Carriers.Pilotless Drones.
- 12 Technological Advancements of World War I | Mental Floss
The four short years of WWI would have made Napoleon and Genghis Khan
jealous. Breakthrough technologies meant that soldiers could kill each
other more efficiently. Airplanes and chemical weapons are just a few of
the innovations that gave WWI its sad reputation.
Gas warfare, heavy machine guns and trench warfare, along with airplanes and tanks were introduced during World war I.
The belief that WWI was a trench war is not far from the truth. Machine guns turned offensive warfare into mass suicide, so opponents often settled with bombarding each other’s positions and squabbling for the higher ground.
Expert Tip: Wars are not gallant and “Righteous”, they are dangerous and lethal events. Flee while that is still an option open to you.
Those lucky enough to survive WWI gave it a nickname that proved to
be inaccurate. The “War to End All Wars” was followed after two decades
by something even more frightening.
Check out China’s less know civil war!
16. Taiping Rebellion – 44.5 million
The Taiping Rebellion highlights one more time China’s incredible potential in hosting epic scale warfare.
The Taiping Rebellion was a civil war in China from 1850 to 1864. It was led by Hong Xiuquan. The Taiping Rebellion was against the ruling Qing Dynasty.About 20 million people died. [source?] Most of them were civilians. Hong established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天囯). When it was most powerful, it had about 30 million people joining in it.
- Taiping Rebellion - Simple English Wikipedia
Capture of a British prisoner during the Taipeng war.
Also known as the Taiping Civil War, the conflict lasted between 1850 and 1864 and produced the most dramatic death toll in history at that time.
Uniforms and gear of the troops during the Taipeng war.
The rebellion started with the millenarian movement of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace, which tried to overthrow the Qing dynasty.
Expert Tip: When the word “peace” is used as part of a slogan or name for a military organization, run away and flee. Nothing good can ever come of it.
The Taiping Rebellion, from 1851 to 1864, was the deadliest civil war in history. This column provides evidence that this cataclysmic event significantly shaped China’s Malthusian transition and long-term development that followed, especially in areas where the experiences that stemmed from the rebellion led to better property rights, stronger local fiscal capacity, and rule by leaders with longer-term governance horizons.
- A Most Uncomfortable Thought About The Taiping Rebellion And The Black Death – Maybe That’s How Development Starts?
As you seen saw far on the list, every significant political change
in the history of China came with savagery. The Taiping Rebellion counts
as the bloodiest civil war in history and makes the American equivalent
look like a banquet.
The Taipeng war was dangerous and bloody.
The man responsible for the uprising was Hong Xiuquan. He considered himself the brother of Jesus Christ and wanted to establish an empire based on his take on Christianity.
Expert Tip: Avoid people who claim religious or heavenly connections.
Although unsuccessful, the conflagration further weakened China’s
Manchurian dynasty and set the stage for the victorious Communist
Revolution we talked about earlier.
Let’s end the list with the bloodiest war that ever took place.
17. World War II – 58 million
As you probably guessed, World War II sits comfortably at the top of the charts.
World War II summary: The carnage of World War II was unprecedented and brought the world closest to the term “total warfare.”On average 27,000 people were killed each day between September 1, 1939, until the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945.
- World War II - World & US History Online
Countries brought each other close to total annihilation in a global
conflict that lasted six years. The lure of extremist doctrines was
enough to convince millions to take arms and engage in bloodshed like
never seen before.
World War II threw the entire globe into upheaval with death and destruction on all continents.
From the total of 58 million deaths, more than 40 million were
civilians. Genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, as well as the inevitable
epidemics and starvation, left the world (especially Europe) in ruins.
Between 1939 and 1945 our planet became a large war machinery that
ran on steel and flesh, veiling the future with clouds of dark smoke.
The romantic view on war finally met its doom in the Stalingrad
slaughterhouse and the Nazi extermination camps.
Nazi Germany was a major “player” during World War II, but other nations were just as guilty in the way that they handled things and their relationships.
Hopefully, humanity will never repeat the mistakes that led to WWII. Naturally, some pessimists saw in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki grand finally a preview for a third installment – the all-out war that will wipe civilization and send survivors back to the Stone Age.
Expert Tip: Wars always use the latest in killing technology. Expect the worst, and take the necessary precautions.
Conclusion.
It’s nice to think that we are “modern”, “enlightened”, “progressive’ and “forward thinking”. But, unfortunately that is a big lie. Humans, at best, can only sustain a calm period of coexistence for a handful of decades. No longer. The fact and the truth is that blood was spilled ruthlessly for most of human history.
We erronously believe that wars and bloodshed are behind us.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I argue that we have never been closer to global warfare and at a level that is beyond our comprehension.
It will involved WMD technology, whether it is nuclear or biological, and it will begin stealthy. Most people will be unaware that there is a war going on and that “chess pieces” are moving into position until it is too late.
The only thing that we can do is prepare for a SHTF event. That means get to know all of your neighbors, be prudent in your stockpiling of food, and supplies (for use or barter) and have a garden and fruit bearing trees. Make sure that you are armed and very, very skilled at using them. Finally, do not be timid about fighting. You will need to assess who your friends and your enemies are and kill them if need be.
May your preparations never come to fruition. God bless.
If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to check out my SHTF index page. Here…
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Being a father means many things. Often, in our politically correct, feminized, beta-ruled world, the father is neglected as if he knows nothing and has no purpose other than be a hand-maiden to the mother. That’s nonsense. The father has a terribly important role in raising children. And this article will illustrate it.
Introduction
Like the Yin and Yang, two people are required to raise a well-developed personality. One must take on the loving, caring and nurturing role. The other must take on the determined, strong and laborious role.
Like how “wisdom” = “knowledge” + “emotion”, raising a well-developed child requires both attributes of personality. When one attribute (or side) is larger than the other, an imbalance occurs. In a child, this imbalance can manifest all sorts of problems.
You do not want a “powder puff boy”, nor do you want a “she-woman amazon girl”. You want a well-rounded, well-developed and healthy child. One that will be smart, understanding, and capable.
My Narrative
When I was growing up, I was taught by my Catholic father to be kind and embrace the teachings of the New Testament in the Bible. I worked hard at it, and any time it seemed that I would not be giving of myself, careful of others, or sacrificial I was punished.
So, as a result, I was always giving away my money. I was always being the last one chosen in sports because I was not aggressive enough, and I was always getting picked on and beat up because I was not assertive enough.
My mother refused to allow me to play football. It was too dangerous she said. My father refused to allow me to stand up to neighborhood boys. “It’s turn the other cheek time” he said.
Over the years, it got worse and worse. I became the perfect downtrodden beta-male. I was the runt of the class.
So, when I was a “Junior” in eleventh grade, my coach at the school pulled me aside and allowed me to use the weight-lifting equipment reserved for the football team. He saw that I was getting harassed, and knew that I could not join any sports, even if I wanted to, I was working in the coal mines after school at that time.
Every opportunity I went to the weight room and worked out. I would lift and push myself. Each time thinking over and over how I was being pushed around by the other bullies and miscreants. It was so bad that even younger kids were doing so.
One would pin my arms with the others would seal my pencils and break them before my eyes and then gut punch me. Others would pull down my pants, and other would do tricks like throw water on me, steal my homework, destroy my art and science projects and other affairs. Each time, the school did nothing. When my parents found out they did nothing.
I suffered in torment.
I was alone.
So every day, I poured all my anger, hate and disgust into pushing iron. Each push, each lift I imagined what I would do. Each instance my rage burned brighter and brighter.
I got really strong and my body bulged with muscles.
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Some dimwit failed to notice that I was turning into a snarling giant. He, an underclassman, started to pick on me…
He pulled the tie-the-shoelaces-together and push me to the floor trick.
When I fixed my shoes and stood up, he was still laughing.
He taunted me. “What’s ya going to do? Cry. Oh, boo-hoo“.
I snapped.
I fucking lost it.
I went to a nearby desk and tore off a 1/4″ steel rod from the bottom of it. Then I went right up to him, and with my left arm I twisted his arm out of it’s socket and held him up high about a foot off the ground.
The entire time he’s howling in pain, and writhing in agony.
Two teachers ran up. The very same ones that told me to take the abuse. The very same ones that told me to ignore it. The very same ones that allowed this torment to continue for… years.
Fuck that. Fuck them!
The fucking kid is sobbing. Tears are rolling down his cheeks. Nearby girls are screaming at me. “Stop it!” They yelled at the tops of their voices.
Yeah. As if. Those same bitches were only moments ago snickering at me lying on the ground.
The teacher is threatening me with detention. Everyone is freaking out.
But, but…
I’m not backing down.
I pushed harder. His bones cracked. He howled in pain!
AAAAArrrrrrwwwwww!
“Stop! Stop! Please stop!” he begged. He pleaded. He cried.
But, you know what?
I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t forget, and I couldn’t forgive. I remembered in bright vivid color all the other snide remarks, the tricks, the endless mindless torment and how no one… no fucking person… came to my aide. I also remembered when I came home beaten up with black eye, how my father…
…they very same father that told me to take it in the first place…
…yelled at me and punished me for “allowing it to happen”.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
I didn’t care. I was in an emotional rage AND that kid was going to be made to suffer.
…
OK.
Long story short, after he promised never… never, ever to pick on me again, I set him down. Then I took that 1/4″ steel rod and wrapped it around his neck.
When he went home his parents had to figure out how to remove it and understand the circumstances behind how it got there in the first place.
And yeah… there was some blow-back. However, nothing matched the pure satisfaction of watching him writhe in pain and the look of utter terror and horror on the faces of everyone else.
I was NEVER bothered or picked on ever again.
…
Boys need to be assertive, and be able to fight for their position within society. They are not girls. Do not pretend that society is progressive, modern and enlightened.
So my son was being bullied pretty badly at school. People would make
fun of his accent, use racial slurs towards him, throw open milk
cartons at him at lunch, start rumors about him, they put his book bag
in the toilet once, and a bunch of fucked shit kids do to each other.
My son had told on the main perpetrator to me and his mother and I went to the school and told them about my concerns and the school gave him a stern talking to which only stopped him for a few weeks and then he continued to bully my son.
So I went to the school and complained again and the administration had told me that they spoke to the kid and he had told them that he was just joking and he didn’t mean any of the stuff he was saying and that they were actually friends anyway the assistant principal told me that “boys will be boys” and that it was not out of the ordinary for boys to make fun of each other, but since the kid had admitted to doing it they gave him in-school suspension which is essentially a slap on the wrist.
So after that I realized that nothing was going to happen if I kept running back to the administration every time my son came home crying so I took matters into my own hands.
(Now I’m going to tell you something about me. In my home country I was an amateur boxer but due to the financial situation I was in, my mother did not want me to box she wanted me to work and study, so I cut a deal with her if I made that if to the Olympics I would go pro after but If I failed I would stop and work and go to university. Anyway I failed and stopped boxing and got a job and finished my studies.)
Ok, so what I did was taught my son how to fight. Everyday after I get home from work for the past 9 months I take him to the local boxing gym and taught him how to hit the bag, throw combinations, taught him about foot work and movement, how to work the speed bag, how to dodge, hit the pads and everything I else I knew from my old days as a boxer.
It worked wonders for my son not only did he become physically stronger, he also became mentally strong, he stopped coming home crying, he started to make friends and it had a real positive effect on him.
When I would ask him If he was still getting bullied he said it didn’t bother him what people he didn’t care about said about him, So I figured that was the end of the bully problem, I was wrong.
Two weeks ago I get a call from school that my son had gotten into a fight and that I had to go pick him up because he and the other boy were both suspended for 5 days for fighting.
When I go to pick my son up he is covered in blood, which was alarming at first but then he told me that it was not his blood it was the other boy, the one who put his bag in the toilet kept walking up to him and using racial insults towards him and my son told him If he didn’t stop he was going to beat him up, and he kept his promise.
Turns out my son broke the other kids nose, busted his lip and hit the other kids eye and it had swollen shut. My son has some bruises on his face but nothing compared to the other kid.
Now my son has been getting yelled at a lot by his mother, she made him write and apology letter to the boy…
…. the boys parents…
…to the principal…
…to the teacher…
…to the security guard who broke it up and she is really mad at me and blames me for this because I taught him how to fight but I honestly could not be more proud of him.
Sorry for the horrible grammar English is not my first language.
– Anonymous
Conclusions
Boys need to be assertive, and be able to fight for their position within society. They are not girls. Do not pretend that society is progressive, modern and enlightened.
It isn’t.
I hope that you enjoyed this post. If you want to read some similar posts please feel free to visit my happiness subject index…
You’ll not find
any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Every school-child knows about General Custer and how he was surrounded and engaged with the Indians and eventually perished. Few Americans know about any other battles where American took great causalities and losses.
That is because the American news media is a propaganda machine. And in it, American NEVER lose wars, battles or suffers defeat. America is the unstoppable army filled with Rambo's.
It's not true.
And people should stop believing this lie. War is a dangerous activity and the tables and tides can turn in a moment's notice.
Here we look at one of the numerous defeats that the American military suffered at the hands of a small group of "primitives" in a "third world shithole" in Vietnam.
There's lessons galore to the reader who wants to learn a thing or two...
I strongly believe that everyone should study history. Not the names of people, places and things. No. But rather the stories of those who have lived in trying times, and under unique situations. We should learn from their tales; learn the lessons that they can offer us, and apply them to our own lives.
We know now…
We know now, that the Vietnam war never should have happened.
With President Trump declassifying the President Kennedy Assassination documents, we can see how frighteningly easy it was for the Military / political leadership and “deep state” to murder him. And, as soon as he was dead and gone, the new President Lyndon B. Johnson drove America into war.
Oh yes.
The documents now released by the government clearly show how President Kennedy was assassinated. Eight shooters were involved, and the entire military, CIA, political staff, and “deep state” were all involved. All the details regarding the shooting teams, the radio frequencies used, the body-doubles, the switches, and the handlers, are all well documented and very clear in excruciating detail. We know everyone’s names… that is excluding those still alive and working in Washington D.C.. We know just about everything.
Oh…
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Yes, I remember.
We fought “Communism”, we fought against the “Domino Theory“. We fought for “liberty” and Democracy”. At least that was what the Mainstream media poured into our collective minds. When in reality, we were starting the military-industrial engine, that would grow to become an uncontrollable global monster.
And…
We allowed it to happen.
From the death of President Kennedy, until way into my High School years, we were bombarded with news about how “we were winning the war in Vietnam“. We all believed it. Whether it was Johnson speaking, or Nixon. It was the same narrative. Happy times! War is good for the just causes and we were winning!
All bullshit.
We weren’t winning anything. In the end, Vietnam collapsed and turned communist and the only people who won were the members of the military-industrial complex that funded that war.
It was a different kind of war…
For the first time in American history, the Industrial-military complex, aligned with the “deep state” took control of the nation. As such it began fighting wars.
Wars…
Wars…
Wars…
Wars everywhere, and wars with no exit strategy. The idea was not to solve problems, resolve conflicts or provide global stability for American interests.
The goals were to become a mechanism for profit.
Money is the reason why America is so busy fighting wars all over the globe today. It’s the greed of big business, and their political accomplices.
Instead of ending wars in a brief but nasty period of time… two years, three years or four years. The wars became “open ended” and were driven as profit mechanisms.
This did not sit well with the bulk of the American citizenry. They wanted, what all citizens want; happiness, liberty and freedom and accountability. But that is not what they got. And instead they watched the news report daily on the death and carnage as fellow Americans died in rice paddy’s as expensive jets bombed mud huts and killed water buffalo.
Most people reading this will have NEVER experienced a single year without America fighting some kind of war.
A simple discussion.
We are not going to cover the crimes inherent in this.
Instead, we are going to look at the war from the perspective of an individual fighting “in the trenches” in a far away land. While the fat cats in Washington, D.C. and in the walnut and mahogany lined walls of industry drank their cocktails and counted their stacks of Benjamins, it was the “average Joe” that had to do the dirty work.
There are many lessons to be learned here, so please sit back and pay attention.
The article is titled " VC Overrun Fire Support Base Mary Ann". It was written on December 30, 2013 , by pdoggbiker and found on the Vietnam War Website. All credit to the author, and everything else.
I was in elementary and middle school during this entire debacle, and I have a lot of respect for those that came before and fought and died alongside their friends and comrades.
Please give this masterful piece of work the respect that it deserves.
Those of us not having nine months in country were reassigned to other units within the country; I went to the 101st Airborne Division with many of my friends, others I knew, went to the Americal Division near Chu Lai…
…some flew out to FSB Mary Ann temporarily until a permanent home can be determined.
This deadly attack occurred on their second night there!
SHTF! Boom! Boom! Small arms fire…
Running down the hallway of the battalion tactical operations center (TOC), Captain Paul S. Spilberg charged into a cloud of tear gas just as he reached the commander’s quarters.
Staggering blindly back the way he had come, Spilberg made it to the north exit, crawled up the stairs and out the door into the fresh but bullet-ridden air. Forcing his eyes to focus, the shaken captain was stunned to hear the fire of AK-47s and the crash of rocket-propelled grenades from inside the base’s perimeter. In amazement he watched as numerous small figures darted catlike among the spreading flames. Everywhere he looked he saw the scurrying silhouettes, who were enemy sappers feeding the chain of explosions devouring Fire Support Base Mary Ann on that afternoon in 1971.
Four days before the fatal attack, Spilberg had arrived at the FSB by helicopter. He was an old hand there, having previously served at Mary Ann as a company commander.
Along with three assistants, he now had returned as a marksmanship instructor. His team had established a training course using targets on a crude rifle range set up on the FSB’s southwest slope.
The battalion commander, Lt. Col. William P. Doyle, was a serious professional.
Along with the Company C commander, Captain Richard V. Knight, Doyle had molded this handful of reluctant draftees into one of the better combat units still in the field in 1971.
Mary Ann was in a generally quiet sector, and the soldiers atop the hill had come to regard their outpost as something of a rear echelon area rather than what it actually was — the division’s most forward firebase.
Photo taken the day before the attack.
It starts.
Three hours later the American firebase was rocked from within by a series of powerful explosions. Spilberg was asleep deep inside the TOC.
The structure was a sturdily reinforced, half-buried bunker, and from its interior Spilberg initially had a hard time recognizing the muffled crashes. Thinking the base was taking mortar fire, he rolled off his cot and began pulling on his boots and shirt.
TOC
Before leaving the bunker, he grabbed his .45-caliber pistol from under his pillow.
Hindsight; earlier that day.
On the afternoon of March 27, 1971, after the soldiers had completed their target practice, the three officers remained on the shooting range. They plinked with various weapons and talked awhile, and then Doyle and Knight headed for the mess tent.
Spilberg remained behind to take a few more shots. He had only the base’s mascot dog for company.
The mongrel suddenly bristled and began barking and growling at something downslope that Spilberg could not locate. He had never seen the amiable mutt behave like that, but try as he might he could not detect what was agitating the animal.
Finally deciding the dog must have scented a tiger or cobra, Spilberg set out after the other officers.
Much later he related: ‘I never said anything to Doyle about that dog being on alert, but I should have known. It bothered me for years and years. It was my second tour. I should have known.’
Young Viet Cong soldiers.
Sappers storm the base.
One of the sappers had thrown tear gas into the TOC officers’ quarters, and Colonel Doyle was trying desperately to escape his gas-filled room.
As he struggled to unlatch the plywood door, a satchel charge detonated in the hallway, blowing the door from its hinges and flattening him. Picking himself up, he turned toward the door and faced a sapper wearing nothing but bush shorts, a gas mask and a full-body coating of camouflage.
Viet Cong soldiers with RPG.
When the Communist drew back to hurl
another satchel charge, Doyle raised his own .45 and shot him square in
the chest. As the man fell backward the bomb went off, blowing him to
bits and flattening Doyle a second time. Three more charges exploded in
the hall before Doyle was able to dig through the rubble and leave the
bunker.
Viet Cong soldiers assaulting a fortified position.
By then he was bleeding from
fragmentation wounds in one leg and both arms. He was unable to hear
through his blood-filled ears, and could barely see through gas-seared
eyes.
For 45 minutes, the infiltrators sprinted throughout the firebase, expertly planting their charges among the frantic, befuddled Americans. As the assault concluded, the TOC was a towering pyre.
Spilberg picked up a damaged M-16 he found on the ground. Wincing from three grenade fragments in his back, he made for Knight’s company command post to see if the captain had survived.
The CP was a bonfire and beginning to collapse. As he reached the crumbling entrance, Spilberg could hear ammunition exploding in the flames. He peered inside but saw only a blazing vision of hell. Somewhere within that inferno, Knight lay dead.
Company C commander, Captain Richard V. Knight
The company CP and battalion TOC had
been the primary targets for the brilliantly executed sapper assault,
and Knight was one of 30 Americans killed. On the morning of March 28,
Doyle and Spilberg were among the 82 wounded GIs evacuated.
The first indicator that something bad was afoot had come on the night of March 25-26. Lieutenant Scott Bell was on patrol, on what was supposed to be his last night on the hill.
As he squinted into the surrounding silent, mist-cloaked jungle, he sensed an almost tangible uneasiness in the air, and felt a primordial sense of dread that motivated him to organize one last big rat kill before his departure. Maybe that would keep his men alert.
Firebase Mary Ann, 1971 Vietnam.
The last big rat kill.
The soldiers knew the drill.
They constructed ingenious rattraps from empty C-ration cans laced with cheese and blasting caps. All night the men counted miniature explosions as squirrel-sized Asian rats died in the competition between platoons.
By dawn there were 130 dead rodents laid out in neat lines in front of the CP. These were the last fireworks here for Bell and Company A.
The next morning they moved out and were replaced by Captain Knight and his Charlie Company, who were transferred in from Chu Lai.
Charlie Company settled into the new position and started policing the area in preparation for a visit from the brigade commander, Colonel William Hathaway, who had been unhappy with Company A on his last inspection.
Knight hurriedly set his men to work disposing of dead rats, marijuana cigarette butts, empty whiskey bottles and other such junk left behind by their predecessors. When Hathaway, accompanied by Doyle and Knight, walked the perimeter that afternoon, he was delighted with the improvement over what he had seen a week earlier.
Hathaway, however, did not inspect the tactical outer wire because, he later explained,’somewhere along the line you have to put the trust in the company commander.’
The day after the attack.
Additional trip flares were triggered by the prop blast of CH-47 helicopters as they landed at and took off from the FSB.
The Americans did not replace the flares.
In hindsight, Hathaway thought overconfidence might have been another factor contributing to the debacle.
Overconfidence.
‘Charlie Company, commanded by Captain Knight, was certainly the best company in that battalion, and probably one of the best companies in this division,’ Hathaway said later. ‘One of the problems was that they were so good they were a little contemptuous of the enemy.
They were the hunters, not the hunted.’
But the outer defenses were not in order.
As Lieutenant Jerry Sams, leader of C Company’s 2nd Platoon, later explained: ‘The sergeant major was on everybody’s ass about policing the area before the inspection, and they had my platoon out there picking paper off the wire.
Those helicopters would come in and kick up all kinds of crap.
I had to send the guys out two or three times, and it was one of those typical Army things where everybody’s bitching and raising hell. They were accidentally setting off trip flares in the wire — all our early warning devices that would have come in mighty handy later on that night.’
Con Thien.
Another cause for the false sense of security was that there had been
no signs of an impending attack. Major Alva V. Hardin, the 196th
Infantry Brigade’s intelligence officer, later testified, ‘We had no
intelligence to indicate there would be an attack on Mary Ann.’
Lack of Listening Posts.
The lack of listening posts outside the wire was another critical mistake. When Hathaway learned Doyle had not deployed LPs beyond the outer perimeter, he concurred. ‘Listening posts were not a policy,’ explained Hathaway.
‘I considered listening posts outside the wire a hazard. I considered the danger of people getting wounded, either by defensive fires or somebody getting excited and firing on the perimeter, to be greater than the necessity for the listening post.’
Base Mary Ann.
Mary Ann had been constructed on the bulldozed summit of a ridge running northwest to southeast.
In profile the elevation looked like the back of a camel, with the base stretching 500 meters across both humps. It was 75 meters wide between the humps, and 125 meters broad at each end. A continuous trench that was knee- to waist-deep and had 22 bunkers formed the perimeter.
Inside the perimeter were 30 buildings of various styles, giving the appearance of a shantytown. The whole thing was surrounded by two belts of concertina wire.
Layout of Fire Base Mary Ann.
Two dirt roads interrupted the trench and wire line of the perimeter. Doyle had tried unsuccessfully to have chain-link fencing flown in to close the openings, but higher headquarters, noting that the base was soon to be turned over to the ARVN, decided against providing construction materials for the soldiers of South Vietnam.
The road openings remained.
Easing up the guard…
With the 196th Infantry Brigade already scheduled for redeployment to Da Nang, Doyle had ceased all construction projects within and around Mary Ann and had started packing for the move.
By March most of the base’s mortars and artillery had been airlifted to nearby LZ Mildred to fire on enemy positions in that sector. By March 27, all of Mary Ann’s starlight scopes and ground radars had been shipped to the rear for maintenance.
On the night of the attack, the infantry under Doyle at Mary Ann consisted of 231 Americans and 21 South Vietnamese, plus the battalion training team, battalion intelligence officer, the sergeant major, an interpreter and 22 transient soldiers from Companies A, B and D. The transient troops spending the night at the base were in no mood to remain on alert.
Specialist 4 Harold Wise was one of those who had just arrived. ‘Thirty percent of the guys on the hill were heads,’ he said later. ‘Marijuana, heroin, whatever you wanted. The guys in the sensor hooch next to the tactical operations center were potheads, and a lot of people congregated there to buy stuff, but unless they knew you, you didn’t come in.
They had locks on the door of their hooch.
Nobody did it in the open. It wasn’t brazen. If an officer saw somebody doing it, he’d bust the guy. Some of the officers and sergeants knew what was going on, but as long as you did your job, they didn’t say anything.’
The drug problem on the base, although not as pronounced as in other areas, was still sufficient to benefit the enemy.
Battery C, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery (155mm), was aligned in battery formation atop the base’s highest elevation. The infiltrators quickly destroyed both of the unit’s howitzers. Staff Sergeant Easton Rowell, the chief of the firing battery, was wounded six times. He later groused, ‘We took a screwin’ because the grunts on that hill were a bunch of potheads!’
Viet Cong enemy.
VC 409th Sapper Battalion
The attackers were from the Main Force VC 409th Sapper Battalion.
This unit was known for operating against the ARVN in Quang Nam province, and at that time was thought by out-of-date U.S. intelligence to be 15 to 20 kilometers east of Mary Ann, preparing for a major push against the South Vietnamese.
At 0200 hours on March 28, an American searchlight crew conducted a cursory 20-minute illumination sweep of the slope outside the exit to the firing range.
The hillside had been cleared of vegetation, but still was punctuated by boulders and tree stumps, all of which provided good hiding places for the small enemy. Seeing nothing unusual, the GIs shut down their light and headed for their bunker.
The explosions started 10 minutes later.
Infiltration by Viet Cong sappers.
The 409th sappers were experts in their trade. With AK-47s strapped
to their backs, grenades in their belts and satchel charges fastened to
their chests, they wore nothing but khaki shorts and soot. They crawled
silently, slowly and steadily through the jungle, using their fingertips
as probes.
Claymore mine.
When they detected trip flares, they used lengths of bamboo, carried
in their teeth, to tie down the strikers. When they felt wires leading
to Claymore mines, they used wire cutters to cut the lines. They were
careful to cut only two-thirds of the way through the strands of
concertina, then used their fingers to break the rest of the way through
the wire silently and without shaking the large coils.
VC sapper.
Approaching from the southwest, the infiltrators cut four big gaps through the concertina, two holes on each side of the road where it left the perimeter.
They repeated the procedure 50 meters farther on, through the second barrier, although the wire there was in such a state of disrepair that many sappers simply walked across the rusty, breaking steel strands. Another 30 yards and they came to the final concertina barrier.
Rather than risk having the snip of cutters heard by some alert sentry, the infiltrators simply spread a gap through the wire, tying it open with bamboo strips.
Viet Cong sappers approach an American Fire Base.
The sappers were well-rehearsed. Splitting up into three- and six-man squads in the zone between the inner wire barrier and the bunkers facing southwest, the assault teams waited until 0230 hours.
Then their supporting mortars opened with accurate fire on the TOC and CP on the base’s southeast side, and on the remaining U.S. mortar and artillery positions in the northwest area.
All Hell breaks out.
A card game in the radio room was just breaking up when the first rounds hit.
The explosion hurled Wise onto his back, knocked off his glasses, broke his left arm and sprayed the front of his body head-to-foot with fragments. Using his right arm to drag himself into his hooch, he shook awake his roommate, Pfc Peter Detlef, and then hid behind his reel-to-reel tape deck as he seated himself on the floor and tried to cover the door with his M-16.
When Detlef, still half asleep, tried to go through the door, another explosion blasted the door off its frame and on top of him.
As the VC had anticipated, most
defenders were immobilized by confusion. One radioman never bothered to
crank up his radio to report the situation, but simply rolled off his
cot onto his hut’s dirt floor and hid beneath his mattress until the
shooting stopped.
Fire erupts all over the base.
Inside the TOC, Spc. 4 Stephen Gutosky grabbed his radio mike and
reported: ‘Be advised, we are taking incoming at this time! Stand by and
I’ll see if I can get a direction on it!’
When he realized with a start that he was still inside the TOC, he
shouted into his microphone: ‘I can’t get outside to see where it’s
coming from! Just fire all the counter mortars and counter rockets you
got ASAP!’
By that point the south end of the
TOC was burning from the inside after a satchel charge set off a case of
white phosphorus grenades. Yet Doyle still refused to abandon his
position. After ordering Gutosky to radio for helicopter gunships and
illumination, the wounded colonel said, ‘I’m going out to see what’s
going on!’
Doyle did not realize how badly he was hurt. He was almost deaf and
blind from tear gas, powder burns and explosion concussions. The
shrapnel wounds in his arms and legs would take months to heal.
Nonetheless he made it to the top of the exit steps, raised his M-16 and
started to aim at a couple of infiltrators outside the bunker — but a
third, unseen enemy soldier threw a grenade at him. It landed at his
feet and exploded as he turned to head back inside, blowing him down the
stairs.
Sachel charge as used by the Viet Cong.
The entire TOC was now burning. Lieutenant Edward McKay, the TOC
night duty officer, started to panic in the ovenlike bunker. ‘We gotta
get outta here!’ screamed McKay.
‘Not yet!’ hollered Doyle.
‘We’re all going to die!’ sobbed McKay.
Summoning his last element of strength, Doyle slapped the hysterical
junior officer hard across the face and snarled, ‘Shut up, lieutenant!’
It was now 0251, and radio telephone operator (RTO) David Tarnay managed to raise LZ Mildred.
Radio telephone operator.
Spilberg
heard Tarnay shouting into his microphone, he bounded back inside the
blazing TOC. Grabbing a handset, he shouted to Lieutenant Thomas Schmitz
at LZ Mildred: ‘I want artillery 50 meters out, 360 degrees around our
position. On my command be prepared to fire on the firebase!’
Grabbing a handset, he shouted to Lieutenant Thomas Schmitz at LZ Mildred: ‘I want artillery 50 meters out, 360 degrees around our position. On my command be prepared to fire on the firebase!’
Spilberg realized that calling down fire on his own position was likely the only way to save the surviving Americans there.
Fire on my POS.
Doyle next grabbed the mike and informed Schmitz they were being
forced to evacuate the TOC and would temporarily lose radio contact.
With Tarnay and Gutosky carrying all the radio equipment they could, and
with the now-incoherent McKay slung over Tarnay’s shoulder, the handful
of resolute GIs made their way to the firebase aid station, where
Tarnay put McKay on a cot and then tried to get a radio working.
It was now 0251, and radio telephone operator (RTO) David Tarnay managed to raise LZ Mildred.
Doyle and Spilberg left the aid station and crossed the compound to the Charlie Company CP. When they arrived they found that it too was an inferno, its sandbagged entrance collapsed.
Throughout Mary Ann, unprepared Americans were shot and blown apart by the VC sappers, who seemed to know precisely where to concentrate their assault.
Fighting back.
ARVN helped plan the attack.
Later, some survivors would accuse the South Vietnamese of
cooperating with the attackers. Specialist 4 Steven Webb was the only
U.S. soldier who was with the base’s ARVN contingent throughout the
fight. Despite later rumors that ARVN troops had fired on Americans that
night, Webb said he never saw it happen.
Nevertheless, suspicion and
bitterness lingered. One of Knight’s NCOs, Staff Sgt. John Calhoun,
later remarked, ‘It was an inside job.’
Specialist 4 Edward L. Newton concurred. ‘That morning before the
attack, an ARVN officer came up to our bunker and asked how we got out
of the perimeter,’ he recalled. ‘We asked him why he wanted to know. He
said because he and his men wanted to go down there fishing. We thought
it was kind of peculiar. We said we did not know for sure.’
The officer, who wore the insignia of a South Vietnamese first
lieutenant, persisted in his questioning of the Americans until some of
them told him the easiest way in and out was the south end and on the
road running past the rifle range to the water point.
Specialist 5 Carl Cullers later claimed: ‘[I saw] an ARVN going
behind the rifle range. It was more or less a joke at first. One of the
cooks said, `Hey Cullers, there’s an NVA down there,’ and I said, `Quit
joking,’ and he said, `Wait, and I’ll point him out to you.’ I knew he
was an ARVN by his size. He had gone out beyond the rifle range, and
down the slope for about 20 minutes. I took it for granted he had gone
down to defecate.’
Specialist 5 Carl Cullers later claimed: ‘[I saw] an ARVN going behind the rifle range. It was more or less a joke at first. One of the cooks said, `Hey Cullers, there’s an NVA down there,’ and I said, `Quit joking,’ and he said, `Wait, and I’ll point him out to you.’ I knew he was an ARVN by his size. He had gone out beyond the rifle range, and down the slope for about 20 minutes. I took it for granted he had gone down to defecate.’
Sergeant Andrew Olints of Company D was next to the helipad at dusk
on the 27th when ‘an ARVN chopper came out, and fifteen of those little
suckers got on,’ as he later reported. ‘They were thrilled to death,
jumping on, pushing each other. I didn’t think the thing would take off,
it was so overloaded. We had no idea what was coming, but in retrospect
it sure looked like they did.’
Sergeant Andrew Olints of Company D was next to the helipad at dusk on the 27th when ‘an ARVN chopper came out, and fifteen of those little suckers got on,’ as he later reported. ‘They were thrilled to death, jumping on, pushing each other. I didn’t think the thing would take off, it was so overloaded. We had no idea what was coming, but in retrospect it sure looked like they did.’
Specialist 4 Gary Noller, an RTO at LZ Mildred, later wrote: ‘I remember an incident where a GI came to the TOC and said that an ARVN was signaling with a flashlight to someone outside the wire.’
He said he went to check it out. ‘[I] did encounter an ARVN with a GI flashlight near the east perimeter wire,’ Noller remembered. ‘I told him not to use it, in English, which he probably didn’t understand, and then reported this to an officer.
The incident was not treated seriously by the officers, but added credence as far as the GIs were concerned that some of the ARVN were not on our side.’
Wholly SHTF!
In one of the most dramatic events of the night, Lieutenant Barry McGee, who had been sleeping atop bunker No. 10 when the attack started, stumbled half asleep into his platoon CP with several of his men just as the enemy targeted the position.
McGee was the leader of C Company’s 3rd Platoon, which manned bunkers Nos. 9 through 13. As he and his men grabbed their weapons and prepared to return outside, two mortar rounds hit the bunker, half demolishing it and dislodging a heavy ceiling beam that fell on the lieutenant, seriously injuring his head.
A medic dressed the wound, and after about 15 minutes the men in the platoon CP noted that the explosions outside seemed to be ending.
Scramble.
McGee had just lurched to his feet, turned to the door and said, ‘All right, let’s go!’ when a grenade sailed through the door, exploded and blew the medic, Spc. 5 Carl Patton, back into McGee. Realizing he had lost his weapon, McGee grabbed Patton’s M-16 and again headed for the door.
Another satchel charge detonated on the roof, caving it in and killing 22-year-old Sergeant Warren Ritsema when a beam fell on him.
The blast knocked down McGee, who again lost his weapon. He staggered to his feet and stumbled outside, incoherent with pain and frustration.
When the short, stocky, powerfully built and unarmed lieutenant collided with a sapper outside the bunker, McGee wrestled him to the ground and strangled him with his bare hands.
It was quite a feat for somebody already half-dead from a fractured skull. The lieutenant’s corpse was later found atop the VC he had choked lifeless.
Another sapper had shot McGee in the back.
At 0320, Spilberg and Doyle were at
the southern end of Mary Ann, believing the attack was almost over. But
then, partly obscured by the billowing smoke, another team of sappers
started back up the hill, throwing grenades in all directions.
All out assault.
Apparently searching for their own dead and wounded, the VC broke
contact and withdrew when the first helicopter gunship finally arrived
overhead.
The Viet Cong withdrew when the first helicopter gunship finally arrived overhead.
It was commanded by Captain Norman Hayes, Troop D, 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry. Hayes radioed LZ Mildred that he had arrived at his objective and to lift and shift the artillery fire Spilberg had earlier ordered.
Mildred ceased firing except for illumination rounds.
When Hayes’ searchlight illuminated VC in the wire, they opened up on the gunship with small arms. As Hayes later put it, ‘We engaged, and I know that anything we fired on ceased firing on us.’
Firebase before the assault.
Hayes made repeated passes over the base, dropping grenades and strafing targets of opportunity, despite two of his guns becoming inoperative almost immediately after his arrival on station.
He made repeated radio calls for additional gunships and medevacs, but by the time he ran low on fuel and had to return to Chu Lai, no additional aircraft had arrived. Because of the chaotic state of communications, the brigade and division were under the misconception that Mary Ann had been subjected to nothing more than mortaring.
Hayes actually had time to return to Chu Lai, refuel, reload and repair his guns, and then fly all the way back to Mary Ann, before medical helicopters began arriving.
Colonel Hathaway and Lt. Col. Richard Martin, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery, arrived with the medevacs. Spilberg was almost amused at their reaction to the devastation, later remarking: ‘They were in a state of shock. They had just walked into Auschwitz.’
Despite having a gutful of fragments, Spilberg at first refused to leave the base.
He wanted all his wounded men taken out before him, and when Doyle told him to board a chopper he simply climbed in one door and out the other side.
Not until Hathaway gave him a direct order did Spilberg finally leave. He was later awarded the Silver Star.Spilberg also recommended Doyle for a Silver Star, but Hathaway refused to endorse the nomination.
He later said he was tortured by the decision, explaining, ‘I just felt that although he had conducted himself with a certain amount of valor, the situation had occurred because of shortcomings on his part.’
At 1600 the next day, the enemy hit the ruins of Mary Ann with 12.7mm
machine gun fire, sweeping the enclosure from a ridgeline to the north.
One GI was wounded in the attack.Fifteen dead sappers were collected from within the base, although blood trails indicated several dead and wounded had been dragged back into the jungle.
After the debacle, however, the South Vietnamese decided they did not want to garrison Mary Ann. The FSB was closed and abandoned on April 24, 1971.
General Creighton Abrams, commander of the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, held 23rd Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. James Baldwin responsible for the disaster, and relieved him of his command. The 23rd ID’s name had been eternally tarnished three years earlier because of the My Lai massacre.
Many in the U.S. Army suspected that Baldwin would not have been fired had he been in any other division.
What happened at Mary Ann was a failure at the most basic level of
soldiering. The Company had been warned by its South Vietnamese Kit Carson scout that it had been infiltrated by enemy spies posing as ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) soldiers.
What happened at Mary Ann was a failure at the most basic level of soldiering. The Company had been warned by its South Vietnamese Kit Carson scout that it had been infiltrated by enemy spies posing as ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) soldiers.
All electronic sensors had been pulled from the perimeter the day before the attack.
Not a single ARVN soldier came to the aid of the Americans, and the enemy left their Vietnamese brothers alone throughout the assault.
The Americans also took fire from the ARVN part of the compound.
Mary Ann was a classic case of intelligence failure. The clues, quite simply, were never added up.
Fire Support Base Mary Ann was scheduled to be turned over to the ARVN in a matter of days. Nobody had bothered to tell the soldiers who died defending it.
Both Hathaway and Doyle received career-ending formal reprimands. Being blamed for the Mary Ann tragedy was a crushing blow to Doyle. He and his wife divorced soon after his release from the hospital.
He remarried in April 1972 — just two weeks before receiving his letter of reprimand from Army chief of staff General William Westmoreland. Doyle cut his honeymoon short in order to make a personal but futile appeal to Westmoreland.
Doyle developed a severe drinking problem, and he died of a heart attack in March 1984. He was 52. Hathaway and Spilberg were among those following his caisson to the gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery. While delivering the funeral oration, Spilberg spoke for many when he referred to Doyle as ‘the last casualty of Firebase Mary Ann.’
This article was written by Kelly Bell and originally published in the April 2006 issue of Vietnam Magazine. Pictures provided from the internet and placed into the story line by John Podlaski
In memory of those who lost their lives that night:
Capt. Richard V. Knight, Company C, 1-46th Infantry 1st Lt. John L. Hogan, Battery B, 1-14th FA, attached to 1-46th Infantry 1st Lt. C. Barry McGee, Company C, 1-46th Infantry S.Sgt. Terry H. Price, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sgt. Michael L. Crossley, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sgt. Warren P. Ritsema, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sgt. Ronald James Becksted, Company C, 1-46th Infantry
Sp4 Victor R. Bennett, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Richard J. Boehm, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Richard R.. Carson, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 James E. Edgemon, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Myron B. Johnson, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Robert J. Schumacher, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Donald M. Stotts, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pfc. Druey L. Hatfield, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pfc. Michael S. Holloway, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pfc. Laymon Palmer, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pfc. Dallas D. Robinson, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pfc. Paul A. Sheer, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pvt. Steven D. Plath, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Pvt. Clark V. Shawnee, Company C, 1-46th Infantry Sp5 Kyle S. Hamilton, HHC, 1-46th Infantry Pfc. Wilbert S. Dupree, HHC, 1-46th Infantry Sgt. Michael J. Bayne, Company A, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Larry W. McKee, Company A, 1-46th Infantry Sp4 Larry D. Austin, Battery C, 3-16th FA Sp4 Clifford W. Corr, Battery C, 3-16th FA Sp4 Roger D. Whirlow, Battery C, 3-16th FA Pfc. Donald C. Bennett, Battery C, 3-16th FA Pfc. William W. Kirkpatrick, Battery C, 3-16th FA
Conclusion
War is a nasty business. We, especially today us contemporaneous Americans, are accustomed to “winning wars” and “winning battles”. Every defeat is turned into a victory without any opportunity to learn from our mistakes.
I argue that it is well past the time to learn from our mistakes.
Vietnam was a “third world shit hole”, and we lost. Image what damage could be expected were America’s leadership to pick a fight with the wrong foe; a nation that does NOT play, and who has the latest in military technology and weapons.
Learn from our past and vow never to repeat those mistakes.
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Before the Iranian Revolution, which began in 1978, Iran was a
steadfast U.S. ally. Consequently, the Iranian military arsenal was
packed with American-made weapons. Iranian infantry carried M-16s;
Iranian tankers drove M-60 Pattons; Iranian pilots flew F-4 Phantoms and
F-14 Tomcats — a superb airframe, that was immortalized by the movie Top Gun.
Iranian F-14 tomcat aircraft. This aircraft has been in use by the Iran military ever since the 1980’s, and has been upgraded using non-American parts and components.
Since that revolution, however, Iran has been barred from purchasing weapons or, more importantly, components and spare parts for its ageing military.
Successive ways of economic sanctions, moreover, have constricted the country’s military budget, thus making it more difficult to purchase new arms for those willing to sell (Russia and China, most notably).
The Iranians have confronted this restriction by either developing their own weapons or by scavenging the global arms market for spare parts and “smuggling them” into their country.
Iran still operates some Tomcats that are being modernized to extend their operative life. Domestic upgrades include avionics, weapons (R-73E, AIM-54A+“Fakkur”, AIM-54A, AIM-7E and AIM-9J are among the air to air missiles adapted to the aircraft’s fire control system) and color scheme: indeed the plane was give a three-tone Asian Minor II camouflage pattern resembling the one adopted by Russian 4th and 5th generation fighter planes and U.S. Aggressors.
- The Aviationist
But despite Iran’s threat to the West through its sponsorship of terrorism, there are individuals who are unsurprisingly willing to put profit before security.
Alexander George, a British pensioner, was jailed for shipping F-4 and MiG parts to Iran, thus violating the American “Weapons of Mass Destruction” embargo. George utilized front companies, which he had established in both Dubai and Malaysia, to smuggle into Iran essential components for the Iranian Air Force’s ageing fleet.
In return, he made almost $7 million.
What is the role the Tomcat could play in a hypothetical war against Israel?
As already explained in the blog post about the possible long range strike on Iran’s nuclear program, IRIAF interceptors, should play “hide and seek” with the enemy forces: they could hide from the incoming packages and try to achieve some kills during the egress phase. They could be effective by simply disturbing the strike packages to let them “feel” the threat and waste some gas.
The Tomcats could somehow be effective against isolated targets, like drones, mainly before or after the first waves of air strikes: even a UAV kill could play a role in the psychological war against Israel.
For sure, radar activation would be reduced to a minimum: during the most intense part of the air campaign their AWG-9 radar would be either jammed (although it was domestically modified or locally upgraded to make it more jamming-resistant) or detected as soon as switched on, with the latter hypothesis implying the risk of interception by enemy fighters.
-The Aviationist
Iranian F-14 fighter aircraft in operation.
The 77-year-old received a two-and-a-half year sentence and has been disqualified from managing a company for nine years.
George had been working with a couple, Paul and Iris Attwater, who purchased used aircraft spare parts with dual-use — i.e., they could be used for both civilian and military aircraft — from the U.S.
They used their company, Pairs Aviation Limited, to avoid any suspicions.
According to “IRIAF 2010“, the book published by Harpia Publishing and written by Tom Cooper, Babak Taghvace and Liam F. Devlin, that I consider one of the most detailed sources about Iran’s Air Force, due to the lack of some spare parts, the fleet of more than 40 Tomcats is roughly divided into “airworthy” and “fully mission capable aircraft”.
The first fly without primary weapon systems and/or no AWG-9 radar; the second can perform QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) and air defense missions.
-The Aviationist
The British couple, then, sent the components to George’s front companies, which then smuggled them into Iran.
The Attwaters received a suspended six-month prison sentence for their involvement — they pleaded guilty, and that probably saved them from a severer sentence.
For their involvement, they made an estimated $650,000 profit.
Iranian desert camouflage on a F-14 fighter.
“These three sold banned items that ended up in Iran. They didn’t
care what these parts might be used for, as long as they got paid,”
Simon York, the leading investigator of HM Revenue and Customs.
“This was a calculated and cynical attempt to undermine strict trade
embargoes and internationally agreed controls. They knew the rules and
weaved increasingly elaborate plans to stay under the radar,” added
York.
Hence, although IRIAF officials have described the current fleet of F-14s as “completely overhauled” and “improved”, and referred to it a a “new generation of bombers” in the recent past, only a small amount of Tomcats can be used for air defense purposes in spite of the large amount of spare parts that Iran was able to clandestinely collect after the type was retired by the U.S. Navy and the efforts of various domestic companies to produce some specific parts and subsystems.
-The Aviationist
George, however, denied the allegations and claimed that he instead
shipped wheelbarrows, goggles, and gloves for the construction industry.
Iran hasn’t been the only nation to try and circumvent international embargoes. Israel faced a similar conundrum back in the 1960s-1970s. The French government had imposed an arms embargo. Nonetheless, the Israeli government and the Israel Aerospace Industries worked with Dassault, a French aerospace company, to produce an Israeli variant of the Mirage 5 fighter jet. The jet proved a great success, accounting for more than 100 kills in the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
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From 2016 through 2019, the United States under the guidance and direction of Donald Trump was enmeshed in trade negotiations with China. For most of that time, the negotiations were rocky and a period of discord and confusion reigned. Things become worrisome, and as a result, the world economy went into a recession and things began to take on a very gloomy outlook.
Then, in October of 2019, it was announced that the trade talks were resolved and that Phase One of the trade negotiations would be implemented. Here we discuss these issues, trends and the related affairs that colored this sequence of events.
There is a lot to learn here, as it involves diplomacy, expectations, society, culture, manufacturing, the global environment, and industry. Rather than look at it from the simplistic black-and-white “cardboard cutout” of how it is presented in the American media, let’s look at it in detail. It’s a very interesting study of the affairs of men and nations.
We will start with a recap.
A Brief Historical Recap
The US-China trade dispute erupted publicly in March 2018.
Its origins, however, go back to August 2017, when the Office of US Trade Representative (USTR) issued a preliminary report charging that China’s ‘2025 Plan’ projected passing the US in next generation technology development (5G wireless, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity).
China’s plan represented a fundamental challenge to US global economic—and military—hegemony next decade, according to the USTR.
Made in China 2025 is a strategic plan of China issued by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his cabinet in May 2015. With it, China aims to move away from being the world’s “factory” and move to producing higher value products and services. It is in essence a blueprint to upgrade the manufacturing capabilities of Chinese industries.
That initial USTR report was followed by a second report released in March 2018. That report concluded and confirmed what the first report had raised. Both reports argued that China represented a threat in nextgen technology development that the US could not ignore.
Dr. Christopher Ashley Ford, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, gave a speech at the Multilateral Action on Sensitive Technologies (MAST) Conference, in which he explained that “countries that choose Huawei technology are opening the door to Chinese access to their domestic networks and local companies, as well as potential surveillance by Chinese officials, posing a potential threat to their national security and economic well-being.”
- State Department Highlights Chinese Technology Threats
The trade war with China only then commenced, with Trump imposing an initial $50 billion in tariffs on China imports.
An initial tentative agreement was reached between the main negotiators, the US team led at the time by US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, in May 2018.
But you know, that tentative deal was quickly scuttled. The kibosh was put on it and it was shit-canned.
Neocons aborting the plan 1.
This is because US neocons, China hardliners, Pentagon, and the US Military Industrial Complex and friends in Congressional defense appropriations committees organized their forces and got Trump to nix the deal.
The scuttled deal included some serious concessions by China. That included [1] China agreeing to buy $1 trillion more in US farm goods over five years and [2] agreeing to allow US banks and financial institutions to have 51% ownership control of their operations in China.
These are really big deals.
But, the neocons would not have any of that. They wanted to rule the world and wouldn’t give an inch any way in any manner. Only America will be in charge. Only America can rule, tell other nations how to live and define the trade agreements. And if war is necessary to put other nations “in their place”, then so be it.
China reiterated their earlier (and substantial) concessions over the summer of 2018, but to no avail. The neocons would nave none of it.
The main issue was not the US trade deficit.
Nor IP guarantees.
Nor tech sharing of US companies in China.
Nor even majority ownership of US operations in China.
The main issue was the development of nextgen technologies—AI, 5G, and cyber. US Neocons aligned with the Pentagon-Military Industrial Complex, now led by Robert Lighthizer, the head of the USTR. These neocons did not want any nation to have any kind of technical superiority over America and they would fight it “tooth and nail” and economies, world trade, and prosperity be damned!
America MUST be number one, or nothing.
NOTHING!
Other notable neocons included Peter Navarro, special trade adviser to Trump.
Not to forget the largest neocon of them all, John Bolton, who demanded China slow, and even share its nextgen technology development with the US, or else no deal!
"We want your technology and you WILL give it to us.
If you don't well, we will put every pressure possible on you. And, oh by the way, don't think that we are not capable of planting swine flu to destroy all your pork products, launch revolutions and unrest in your cities, and maybe even sink a few ships if that's what it take to put you all in your place.America is the biggest, the best and the most powerful. Never forget that."
Seriously!
Negotiations stalled thereafter as Trump turned his focus to the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations and the 2020 midterm elections approached.
Six months burned away, and the trade negotiations, were dead in the water. The neocons convinced president Trump to “hold fast”, that China is still a third-rate nation and that the trade “wars” are sending China back twenty years.
But they were deluding themselves.
All the signs pointed to a reality that was at odds with American perceptions. Indeed, the Chinese had many “cards up their sleeves” and many of the assumptions that American advisors had on China were simply not true.
What’s worse, the American people started to notice this.
Negotiations were restarted in January 2019 after the midterm elections, and another five months of negotiations between the parties took place until another tentative deal was reached in May 2019.
Neocons aborting the plan 2.
That tentative deal once again was blown up at the last minute by the Lighthizer-Navarro neocon faction now in control of negotiations, with Mnuchin in tow as a co-chair.
That tentative deal once again was blown up at the last minute by the Lighthizer-Navarro neocon faction now in control of negotiations, with Mnuchin in tow as a co-chair.
As the China delegation prepared to come to the US to sign off in May 2019, the US raised new additional demands:
[1] China had to share its nextgen technology development with the US.
[2] China to cease subsidizing its state owned enterprises.
[3] China to provide assurances it would not devalue its currency to offset US tariffs (which now totaled $200 billion).
[4] The existing US tariffs would remain in effect even if an agreement were reached. They would not be removed.
These were the new terms, “Too bad” they said.
All these demands were publicly communicated in the week prior to the May 2019 meeting in Washington D.C. when the deal was scheduled to be signed off.
It seems like they were totally and wholly devoted to terminating the deal, rather than trying to find some common ground from which to negotiate to in good faith.
Neocons aborting the plan 3.
Understandably, the China delegation came and returned home in a day.
The Neocons had scuttled a deal once again. Nextgen technology was the crux. Either China capitulated on nextgen tech or there was no deal, according to the Neocon-Pentagon position.
The Neocons had scuttled a deal once again. Nextgen technology was the crux. Either China capitulated on nextgen tech or there was no deal, according to the Neocon-Pentagon position.
Trump thereafter met China president, Xi, in Osaka Japan at the G20 meeting. They both agreed once again to restart negotiations. Both also agreed to keep a hold on the level of existing tariffs and not raise them further in the meantime.
But Trump broke the pledge in late July 2019.
On the advice of his neocon trade negotiators, he raised tariffs on the remaining $250 billion of China imports. The understanding with Xi not to raise more tariffs was thus shattered.
China raised tariffs of its own on US goods in response.
On the advice of his neocon trade negotiators, he raised tariffs on the remaining $250 billion of China imports. The understanding with Xi not to raise more tariffs was thus shattered. China raised tariffs of its own on US goods in response.
Trump threatened to raise existing tariffs by another 5%, to 25% and 30%, and levy more on all the remaining China imports in December 2019.
The trade war was intensifying.
China took steps to stabilize the situation. China stopped intervening briefly in global money markets to prevent its currency, the Yuan, from devaluing and allowed it to fall 5%-7%–a move that essentially negated Trump’s additional 5% tariff hike.
China stopped intervening briefly in global money markets to prevent its currency, the Yuan, from devaluing and allowed it to fall 5%-7%–a move that essentially negated Trump’s additional 5% tariff hike.
Stock and bond markets plummeted on the mere prospect of a trade war now morphing into a currency war. The trade war, based mostly on tariff hikes, was about to expand the economic conflict beyond mere tariff measures.
Uh oh!
It will be the USD (inflated with mountains of debt) against a rising currency the yuan (that represents the bulk of world wide manufacturing).
Tariffs were already slowing the global economy. A currency war would quickly spread beyond US and China and inject even more instability into the already slowing global economy.
Both China and Trump peered over the cliff of a pending broader economic war between the two economies—and then backed off.
Both China and Trump peered over the cliff of a pending broader economic war between the two economies—and then backed off.
This continued all Summer until September 2019.
Fast forward, the outcome by September 2019 was yet another resumption of negotiations between the two parties, followed by the announcement of a ‘Phase 1’ deal on trade.
So why did Trump ‘stand down’ and agree to a deal now, after escalating his threats and actions over the summer?
The reasons pointed to American problems as a result of the “trade dispute”. You see, America was not as robust as the government would like everyone to believe. Thus, clearly it had to do with [1] the US economy softening in the 3rd quarter combined with [2] a growing discontent in the farm sector. This discontent is over Trump’s handling of the trade dispute that was beginning to bite hard on US farm sector sales. You see, American farmers were heavily dependent on exports to China.
The reasons clearly have to do with [1] the US economy softening in the 3rd quarter combined with [2] a growing discontent in the farm sector. This discontent is over Trump’s handling of the trade dispute that was beginning to bite hard on US farm sector sales. You see, American farmers were heavily dependent on exports to China.
As the trade dispute between the countries had intensified over 2018-19, Trump had placated farm interests by providing an extra $28 billion in direct farm subsidies.
But it wasn’t enough.
According to some sources, no fewer than 12,000 farms went bankrupt in 2018 alone. The $28 billion was going mostly to agribusiness and not getting down to independent farmers who needed it most.
According to some sources, no fewer than 12,000 farms went bankrupt in 2018 alone. The $28 billion was going mostly to agribusiness and not getting down to independent farmers who needed it most.
Farm sector trade associations were demanding Trump settle the trade dispute and their voices grew louder after the August escalation between the US and China.
"This trade war of YOURS is killing US. Please stop it, resolve it, or do whatever it takes, and do it soon. You are killing us!"
So too were other notable business groups, like the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, raising their complaints about the now rapid deterioration of the negotiations.
"I thought that we would come to a mutually fair and agreeable trade agreement. Not one that is contentious, where we are making all the demands, and forcing China into a corner in which they will never agree to. This is not only stupid in the short term, but unwise in the long term. STOP POKING THE PANDA BEAR!"
So too were other notable business groups, like the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, raising their complaints about the now rapid deterioration of the negotiations.
The trade war was beginning to clearly impact general business investment and manufacturing in the Midwest US, and not only in the US but worldwide.
The entire global economy started to slow affecting everything and everyone.
US business investment on new plant and equipment turned negative in the 2nd quarter and promised to continue to slump, while business inventory investment was also being pared. If actions wouldn’t reverse, the entire “deck of cards” could go “belly up”.
On January 8 the World Bank released its report Global Economic Prospects, which confirmed what most people had suspected all along. The World Bank estimates global economic growth to decelerate by 0.1 percentage points in 2019, and the decline could continue well into 2020 as well.
Part of this could be attributed to the Donald Trump factor — free trade is being threatened like never before. However, it is also because the world has been awash in cash after 2008. Any attempt to bring back financial sobriety will mean a bit of belt-tightening, and hence an inevitable slowdown.
The trade war was beginning to impact beyond the farm sector.
By August the US manufacturing sector began to contract, joining what had now become a global manufacturing recession.
Moreover, at the end of August it was also beginning to appear that the manufacturing contraction in the US was potentially spilling over to the larger services sector.
While manufacturing PMIs were contracting in the US, the even larger Services sector PMI had begun to decelerate sharply in terms of growth rate.
Chase bank research was estimating that, with the new Trump tariffs on China consumer good imports set for September and December, consumer spending would be reduced on average by no less than $1,000 per household.
Of equal concern, the new round of Trump tariffs on consumer goods now threatened to slow US consumer spending—the only sector of the economy still holding up in terms of growth. If it does in fact impede growth, there could be disastrous consequences for America, Americans the reelection chances of Donald Trump.
"A key measure of consumer spending unexpectedly dropped for the first time in seven months in September, raising concerns about one of the brightest spots in the US economy.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday retail sales fell 0.3% last month, the first decline since February and compared with a 0.6% rise in August. Retail sales account for more than two-thirds of economic output.
Consumer activity, along with hiring, has propelled an economy that has been otherwise roiled by a trade dispute between the Trump administration and China."
Chase bank research was estimating that, with the new Trump tariffs on China consumer good imports set for September and December, consumer spending would be reduced on average by no less than $1,000 per household.
It was this growing economic slowdown in the US—combined with the growing political discontent in the farm sector and from other major non-farm business organizations—that pushed Trump to concede to the Phase 1 deal.
President Donald Trump’s trade war provided the kind of real-world experiment that practitioners of the dismal science so desperately crave, but the results weren’t all that different from what their econometric models predict. In a new paper, “The Impact of the 2018 Trade War on U.S. Prices and Welfare,” economists Mary Amiti of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Stephen J. Redding of Princeton University and David Weinstein of Columbia University document what economists have told us for decades: that tariffs are a tax on the consumer.
Trump may say, and believe, that “billions of dollars will soon be pouring into our Treasury from taxes that China is paying for us,” but China isn’t paying the taxes. U.S. consumers are. And as for the president’s belief that tariffs will “cure” the nation’s trade deficit, which he sees as a sign of weakness, today’s data suggest otherwise.
The study found that the waves of tariffs throughout 2018 resulted in “substantial increases” in the prices of intermediate and final goods, the cost of which was borne entirely by U.S. consumers. There was little improvement in the “terms of trade,” which means exporters didn’t lower their pre-tariff prices. And the higher price of imports enabled U.S. producers to raise their prices. What’s more, the tariffs introduced inefficiencies by disrupting supply-chain networks. And the customs duties were insufficient to offset the loss to consumers.
Trump’s 2020 election interests had become more paramount than the concerns of the neocons and militarists who were demanding China capitulate on the nextgen tech issue or no deal.
A rapid about face by Trump occurred by late August-early September and China was once again invited to resume talks in Washington in early October.
The content of the Phase 1 deal reached October 11, 2019 reveals that Trump abandoned his ‘big deal or no deal’ position. He retreated from the neocon ‘non negotiable’ demand, that was holding up a deal since May 2018. This demand was that China capitulate on the nextgen tech issue or no trade deal.
The content of the Phase 1 deal reached October 11, 2019 reveals that Trump abandoned his ‘big deal or no deal’ position. He retreated from the neocon ‘non negotiable’ demand, that was holding up a deal since May 2018. This demand was that China capitulate on the nextgen tech issue or no trade deal.
Placating his farm sector political base to get China to resume purchases, and taking China’s 51% ownership concession desperately wanted by US big banks (i.e. the primary demand of the Mnuchin faction on the US negotiating team), became Trump’s new priority demand in Phase 1.
Neocon John Bolton fired.
The nextgen technology issue so critical to the neocons was clearly demoted and removed from the bargaining table by the US.
In Phase 1 China got its ‘partial’ deal—and absent any concessions on the nextgen tech issue. That was left for a Phase 2 or even Phase 3, as Trump put it in his press conference the same day.
Trump’s advisers believe he wants to impose a 25 percent tariff on foreign autos, hoping to raise the cost on foreign competition and persuade U.S. consumers to buy American-made cars. But critics — which include many of his fellow Republicans and even some of his own advisers — caution it could raise costs for consumers and be a disaster for jobs.
Those critics also (unsuccessfully) urged Trump to not put tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, but this time the stakes are far higher.
So far, the president has tariffs on foreign washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum and some Chinese-made goods. In total, the tariffs cover about $85 billion worth of products. It sounds like a big number, but it is less than 4 percent of the United States’ total imports last year ($2.4 trillion)
Trump got what the China delegation had already offered way back in 2018: i.e. 51% ownership and resumption of big purchases of US farm products.
In short, Trump caved in and in effect “took the money and ran”. His 2020 re-election interests took precedence over the neocon-military concerns over China’s nextgen tech development. He announced to the world that the USA and China came to an agreement and trade deal.
In short, Trump caved in and in effect “took the money and ran”. His 2020 re-election interests took precedence over the neocon-military concerns over China’s nextgen tech development. He announced to the world that the USA and China came to an agreement and trade deal.
What’s In the Phase 1 Deal?
Important to note, the Phase 1 deal itself is not yet a signed agreement. It’s a verbal understanding between Trump and China’s vice-premier and chief negotiator, Liu He.
In his press conference announcing the deal on October 11, Trump admitted the parties were yet to sign off even on Phase 1 but hoped that it could be done within 5 weeks; that is by the time Trump and Xi meet again at the APEC conference in Chile in November.
Increased purchases of farm products by China.
Trump boasted repeatedly the Phase 1 deal included up to $40-$50 billion in new US farm purchases by China.
Over what period was not clear, however. Trump vacillated from saying current levels of China farm purchases were $8 billion, or maybe $16 billion, or was $17 billion at prior peaks.
He really didn’t know. Or maybe it was $20 billion, as one side comment was made in the press conference. It sounded like $40 billion was the target agreed to in principle and over the course of the next two years.
But that was the ceiling apparently.
Trump declared there’s “never been a deal of this magnitude for the American farmer”. Of course that wasn’t true. But the Trump hyperbole and spin was in.
Americans can have controlling interest in their companies on Chinese soil.
Another major agreement area in Phase 1, according to Trump, was China’s confirmation it would allow US companies to own 51% of their operations in China. As Trump put it, “banks will be very very happy”.
More US multinational corporations could now shift even more production to China.
A Suspension of an additional 5% tariff hike over the already applied 25% tariff hike.
On the important tariff front, in Phase 1 Trump agreed only to
suspend his threatened 5% tariff hike (raising rates from 25% to 30%)
due the following week of October.
What’s NOT In Phase 1
What’s not in Phase 1 reveals clearly that Trump clearly capitulated
on the nextgen tech issue in exchange for resumption of farm purchases
and the 51% US bank ownership in China offer.
No Intellectual Property protections.
What was agreed to in ‘IP, or intellectual property’ protections was
left vague in Phase 1. Trump admitted only some IP issues were included
in Phase 1 but didn’t say what. IP was mostly left to Phase 2, per
Trump.
No details on how China can control the value of the yuan.
Equally vague was the understanding in Phase 1 on how China might agree not to devalue the Yuan, its currency. That was key to the US since devaluation would offset Trump tariffs.
Trade representative, Lighthizer, provided some vague commentary during the Trump press conference about how China and the US would meet to work out some rules in that regard. But the devaluation issue itself was irrelevant.
China had consistently over the preceding 15 months of trade war intervened in money markets to keep its currency from devaluing, and did so even as the rising US dollar was the primary cause of the pressure on the Yuan to devalue, as it other currencies worldwide as well.
If anything was driving the devaluation it was the rising US dollar, not a policy action by China to enact a devaluation.
No action on nexgen technology.
Tech issues were in general put off.
As Trump declared, would be “largely done in Phase 2”, or maybe even a Phase 3. And Phase 2 would not begin until and if Phase 1 verbal understandings were ‘signed off’ in writing five weeks from now by Trump and Xi in Chile.
Further revealing no agreement on the strategic nextgen tech issue, Trump indicated the US would continue its policy attacking China’s 5G tech company, Huawei, as well as selectively ‘blacklist’ other Chinese AI companies in the US.
That was, he added, “a separate process”.
So the nextgen tech issue is now a separate track, in effect decoupled from the trade negotiations. It is very unlikely it will be reintroduced in Phase 2, should that subsequent round even occur, which is not likely in any substantive way before the 2020 US elections.
No reduction on existing tariffs.
Also left out of Phase 1 was any US reduction of existing tariffs on
China imports. That continuation of tariff levels included the $160
billion of China consumer goods exports to the US scheduled for December
15, 2019.
China can continue to subsidize it’s state-owned businesses.
The US also apparently failed to attain its demand that China reduce
its subsidies to its state owned enterprises—a strange proposal given
that the US just subsidized its business sector with trillions of
dollars with Trump’s 2018 tax cuts.
How and Why Trump Folded in the Trade War with China
As usual, Trump talked tough before his G20 meeting with Xi Jinping in Osaka, Japan.
“China will face 25% tariffs on the $300 billion of the remaining imports,”
It was frightening and terrifying, and the world shook. But lo and behold, he not only came up empty handed, but he also caved in numerous ways, including reversing his ban on Huawei.
What happened?
To summarize Trump’s astonishing loss at the negotiations with China:
He didn’t raise new tariffs (on the $300 billion of Chinese goods)
He reversed his ban on Huawei as well as eight other Chinese hi-tech companies, which were sentenced into the “entity list” just a month and half ago. (Now the whole “Huawei is a security threat” has been revealed as an utter hoax!)
He accepted more talks (though, without any deadline targets).
In exchange for all of this, all Trump got was China’s promise to buy more agricultural goods. Ah yes. Once again soybeans and farmers play an immense role in trade decisions.
Tech Bomb Neutralized
How did this happen?
First, China quickly neutralized Trump team’s “nuclear option”. With that option (or idea) being to shut down Huawei, at all levels, in the United States.
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology company that provides telecommunications equipment and sells consumer electronics, including smartphones and is headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
It’s not a bad play. As it has worked before.
The US was trying the same playbook that worked with Japan in the 1980s. That time, the US banned Toshiba to bully Japan into the infamous Plaza Accord. But, don’t you know, China isn’t Japan!
ThePlazaAccordorPlazaAgreementwasanagreementbetweenthegovernmentsof France, West Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, todepreciatetheU.S. dollarinrelationtotheJapaneseyenandGermanDeutsche Markbyinterveningincurrencymarkets.
-Wikipedia
This time, however, was different.
Indeed, China and Huawei had a surprise for the US team. Huawei announced that it had been preparing for just this kind of an emergency for many many years.
They were ready.
This time, however, China and Huawei had a surprise for the US team: Huawei announced that it has been preparing for just this kind of an emergency for many many years. They were ready.
Huawei’s CEO (Ren Zhengfei) went on the offensive.
With the media hounding him for rebuttals and sound bites, he responded in a measured and methodical manner. In all, he laid out some pretty surprising comments and announcements. In which [1] he claimed that HiSilicon (a Huawei subsidiary) can make most of the semiconductor chips that Huawei uses, and [2] that Huawei has been working on a secret operating system (“Hong Meng” or “Ark OS”) that can replace both Android and Microsoft Windows!
Huawei did not need American semiconductor chips.
Huawei did not need American or Korean operating systems.
Some media outlets reported that this OS, referred to as "Hongmeng OS", could be released in China in either August or September 2019, with a worldwide release in the second quarter of 2020. On 24 May 2019, Huawei registered "Hongmeng OS" as a trademark in China.
- Harmony OS - Wikipedia
The reaction on the social media was unmistakable. Make no mistake. Anyone who was not an American was rooting for Huawei. Yes, the “underdog” which sold 200 million smartphones last year and half of them were outside China.
Hisilicon Technologies Co., Ltd. (海思半導體) is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company wholly owned subsidiary of Huawei. Founded in 1991 as ASIC Design Center of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., HiSilicon became an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Huawei in 2004.
- HiSilicon - WikiChip
The reaction on the social media was unmistakable. Make no mistake. Anyone who was not an American was rooting for Huawei. Yes, the “underdog” which sold 200 million smartphones last year and half of them were outside China.
Americans had no idea. The Trump negotiation team were blindsided by this. American industry were stunned.
Now, Google and Microsoft were scared.
What if Huawei really launched a good decent OS that can take on Android and Windows? Worse, what if all the other Chinese smartphone companies switched to Hong Meng?
About 65% of worldwide Android users are using Chinese brands!
China is a major player when it comes to the production of smartphones. In addition to having a hand in many of the most recognizable tech brands, China has a number of its own brands that have become quite popular internationally. Are any smartphones not made in China? You can find a phone that’s not manufactured in the People’s Republic–if you’re willing to hunt.
While the US was trying to kill Huawei, it seemed like Huawei was about to kill Android.
The roles were reversed, and America wasn’t ready.
And the implications are far worse.
For the US would lose all its abilities to spy on the world, if both the hardware and the software are Chinese! Truth be told, this is the real reason why Google started lobbying the Trump administration to lift the ban on Huawei.
As for the US semiconductor companies, they also started seeing signs of Chinese independence in the chip-designing area.
China announced a new home-grown CPU that could compete with Intel and AMD. This would be the first time a non-American company would make its own CPU. And another Chinese company announced it will start mass production of memory chips (DRAM).
China announced a new home-grown CPU that could compete with Intel and AMD. This would be the first time a non-American company would make its own CPU. And another Chinese company announced it will start mass production of memory chips (DRAM).
To summarize: US plans for crushing Huawei fell flat and (depending on your point of view) even backfired.
US plans for crushing Huawei fell flat and backfired.
Chinese Economy
How about China’s economy? Are Trump’s tariffs crushing the Chinese economy? Was China on the verge of collapse due to starvation, famine and a rising tide demanding “democracy”?
Not really.
Of course, you wouldn’t be able to tell, with the American propaganda machine in full force, churning out bullshit…
"China’s economy grew at mere 6 per cent in the third quarter of 2019 compared with a year earlier, its slowest pace in about 30 years, delivering another blow to global growth and underlining many of the challenges facing President Xi Jinping.
The country’s trade war with the US, slowing income growth and cooling manufacturing investment took a toll on the world’s second-largest economy between July and September, according to the figures released by the (American) National Bureau of Statistics on Friday."
- The Worst Chinese Economy in 30 Years
Meanwhile, the American economy is roaring forward ever skyward…
"The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States expanded 2.30 percent in the second quarter of 2019 over the same quarter of the previous year. GDP Annual Growth Rate in the United States averaged 3.20 percent from 1948 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 13.40 percent in the fourth quarter of 1950 and a record low of -3.90 percent in the second quarter of 2009."
- United States GDP Annual Growth Rate | 2019
Um… I might not be the smartest fellow in the world, but I am pretty sure that 6.0% is a lot better than 2.3% growth. No matter how you look at it.
What’s going on?
During Jan-May 2019, China’s exports to the US fell about 5%, but China’s exports to the EU rose more than 14%. And, guess what, EU is China’s #1 trading partner (and ASEAN is the #2 trade partner), while the US is #3.
During Jan-May 2019, China’s exports to the US fell about 5%, but China’s exports to the EU rose more than 14%. And, guess what, EU is China’s #1 trading partner (and ASEAN is the #2 trade partner), while the US is #3.
So, China keeps growing at a healthy pace. In fact, the IMF predicts a healthy 6.2% real GDP growth for China this year!
But here’s the kicker.
While China’s exports to the US fell 4.8%, the reverse — US exports to China — fell by a whopping 24% (for the first five months of 2019).
The talking is over. Now we’re fighting a real trade war — and here on my farm in Iowa, I’m on the front line.
The dispute between the United States and China poses a direct threat to my livelihood. Because of the new and emerging tariffs on both sides, the things I grow will sell for less and the things I buy will cost me more.
This week the price of hogs dropped $12 for every pig I sell. This morning, soybeans are down 40 cents a bushel — a $1.7 billion loss to the value of U.S. soybeans. And if I want to make new capital purchases of machinery or grain bins — anything made with steel or aluminum — I’ll have to pay a higher amount.
For years, we’ve engaged in a war of words with China over trade. American officials have complained about everything from China’s currency manipulation and subsidized industries to a trade deficit that hit a record level in 2017. The difference between what Americans bought from China and what Chinese bought from the United States reached $375 billion last year. President Trump recently demanded that the United States reduce this gap by at least $100 billion.
Last month, Trump fired a salvo, announcing new tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum. China retaliated a few days ago with a long list of new tariffs, affecting about $50 billion of American-made products. Many fruits and nuts, for example, will face a 15 percent tax. So will a variety of stainless steel pipes.
China also slapped a 25-percent tax on pork products — a category that affects me directly because I raise hogs. We try to sell every part of these animals, from the meat to the offal. Even before the trade war erupted, pork prices weren’t very good. Now they have dropped to the lowest prices since 2003.
Now things are going from bad to worse.
The Trump administration responded on Tuesday by proposing more than 1,300 new tariffs on Chinese products, including televisions, chemicals and machinery. They’re also worth about $50 billion, in a tit-for-tat move that aims to match China’s latest round.
Now China has shot back. On Wednesday, it added tariffs to more than 100 U.S. products, including cars and planes. This round affects me, too. If the Chinese impose the announced tariff of 25 percent on soybeans, another major product on my farm, it will lower my price $2.50 a bushel.
China isn’t the only market for my pork and soybeans. Reducing our access to this important destination, however, has global repercussions. The bottom line is that what I produce is suddenly worth less money. My competitors in Argentina and Brazil must be celebrating their good luck.
What will tomorrow bring? Nobody knows. Today, however, is bad enough: My farm business is now under siege, held hostage by a trade war that my neighbors and I never wanted. Yet, U.S. Trade Ambassador Robert Lighthizer says we can’t worry about me, it is the big picture that is important. All I can say to him is that the financial bullets are real, and they hit with real impact on us in agriculture.
To be sure, Trump isn’t doing anything he said he wouldn’t do. He has talked tough on trade from the moment he announced his candidacy. I supported his election, but also harbored deep reservations about his trade agenda. Now my fears have come to fruition.
My hope is that the president will make good on the promise that he’s a master negotiator. Perhaps he’ll bargain his way out this mess. Many of the new tariffs have yet to take effect. They’ve already shaken markets and taken an economic toll, but they are threats rather than realities. Perhaps a round of productive bargaining will sweep them away.
- Impact of Chinese trade war: What American farmers produce is suddenly worth less money
So, US exporters and farmers are hurting real bad.
And Trump cannot win re-election without the support of those “great soybean/corn/pork farmers.”
As for the tariffs on the last $300 billion of imports from China, 600 major US corporations and influential trade groups — Walmart, Nike, Apple etc. — strongly lobbied against the tariffs and held a few days of hearing/testimony with the US Dept. of Commerce.
Behind the doors, corporate lobbyists were probably threatening US politicians — “If you don’t stop these tariffs, we will fund your opponent in the coming election and destroy you!”
Then, to really really rub it in, Apple announced one day before the G20 meeting that they were going to move manufacturing of high-end desktop computers (Mac Pro) from the US to China!!!
Yes, it is true, China can cripple the US economy in many ways. Rather than actually carrying out these threats, the Chinese government warned US corporations whose subsidiaries are making hundreds of billions of dollars every year in China — note that this is not reflected in the official trade surplus/deficit calculations.
Then China made these corporations lobby the Trump administration. This is much more effective.
At the same time, China has also been opening up certain sectors in the last month. For example, Morgan Stanley was allowed to become a majority holder in its joint venture; and US corporations would be free to compete
in oil/gas sectors in China. Such actions create allies who will put
the pressure on US politicians to not escalate the trade war.
As for manufacturing, China is moving ahead with artificial intelligence, robotics, 5G, IoT etc. The Chinese really don’t want to be stuck with low-end manufacturing. If some of these jobs move to Vietnam, Thailand etc., that’s fine.
China needs only four or five more years before it fully catches up with the US in major sectors such as semiconductor, biotechnology and civil aviation. While the Chinese government has officially stopped talking about “Made in 2025,” you can bet it has been accelerated to “Made in China 2023.”
Thus, the Chinese government’s plan is to just ride out America’s temper tantrum for a few more years.
The US needs a completely new paradigm for the 21st century. Unfortunately, Washington elites are totally clueless.
Washington elites are totally clueless.
Sun Tzu said, “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory, but tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” The latter approach is more appealing to Trump, the real estate salesman and TV reality star.
Total capitulation? Art of the Deal? There are actually some very interesting global dynamics at play and lessons to learn. First, to summarize, Trump announced a ‘Phase 1’ of trade deal with China.
Moreover, to the dismay of many of his supporters who are virulently anti-China, he said the following: “There was a lot of friction between the US and China. Now it’s a love fest! That’s a good thing.”
Why Trump made the deal with Phase One
As I have written numerous times over the last 1.5 years, the trade war with China was a futile effort.
China is too strong.
The US is too dependent on China.
It is also impossible to move any meaningful amount of manufacturing out of China.
Moreover, Trump is facing re-election and now, to make things worse, possible impeachment by Democrats. He needs a win. The best solution is to get a partial deal and declare victory.
Winners and Losers
While the US didn’t get its biggest demand (structural changes to the Chinese system) Trump certainly won some decent concessions. These include
China opening up its financial sector to Wall Street
US companies operating in China without joint ventures or technology transfer
Currency deal (strengthening Yuan)
Chinese purchase of agricultural products
Winner #1: The people who run the US are the financial guys — Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Blackstone, Fidelity, Vanguard, Citigroup etc. These guys don’t give a damn about manufacturing,
which is a low-profit operation. The mega and easy profits are made in
stocks, bonds, mutual funds, insurance, derivatives etc.
The ultimate dream of these Wall Street types is to tap into the Chinese market, which has the world’s largest middle class with the fastest growing wealth. Starting next year, these financial guys will be able to set up fully foreign-owned firms that specialize in futures, securities and mutual funds.
Winner #2: China comes out as a winner, even though it has suffered and compromised quite a bit in the negotiations.
First, the US attack has forced Chinese companies to accelerate their plans for technology independence.
Second, the trade war has helped strengthen the Chinese communist party and has increased the sense of nationalism among the public. China has now proven to the world and itself that it can stand up to the US — it didn’t fold in the trade war; numerous countries have refused to ban Huawei or drop out of the Belt and Road Initiative in spite of a lot of American pressure; and US corporations like the NBA and Apple have bowed to China.
Third, the opening up of China will create competition and eventually improve Chinese companies.
Finally, fourthly this truce will stabilize China’s economy and stop America’s hybrid wars (non-war wars). Indeed, just watch how quickly the protests in Hong Kong fizzle out; and watch how the Uyghur “concentration camp” story gets forgotten by the US media.
Partial Winners: US corporations are partial winners, and US farmers will go back to where they were before.
US corps will be able to export more, when the Yuan becomes stronger.
Of course, it depends on how much and how fast Yuan rises. Also, Trump
says that China has agreed to buy $40 or $50 billion worth of US
agricultural products, but farming is not like a factory where you can
double the output easily. So, farmers will just go back to the status
quo before the trade war began.
Just like Bush didn’t break China, Trump won’t break China by forcing
another 20 or 25% rise in Yuan’s value. In fact, that will work just
fine for China, which wants to (1) move its economy more towards
consumption and (2) make Yuan an international currency.
Losers: First, all the rabid anti-China, anti-communist and anti-globalist conservatives are going to be deeply disappointed.
We are not decoupling with china and, worse, we are becoming more interconnected with China. There’s a big crowd on social media who spew insane things like China is our biggest enemy every day! Followers of Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Gordon Chang, Kyle Bass etc. will be going through the five stages of grief.
Also, the losers will be those who dreamed of manufacturing jobs
streaming back from China to the US. (They may come back 10-15 years
from now when industrial robots are much smarter).
Phase 1 Conclusion, and on to Phase 2
In his White House briefing, Trump also mentioned a couple of times that this deal is good for world peace. Whether he meant it or not, the sentiment is right. The concept of “Chimerica” may have a chance to live a little longer.
However, there is a catch: US elites may still be dreaming of the “Phase 2” of the deal.
What’s in Phase 2
This is the failed dream-plan to stop the rise of China. Many conservatives hope that this will be implemented to put China in it’s “rightful” place.
This includes “structural changes” to China’s economy — basically making China open up its entire economy to foreign banks/corporations and dismantle its socialist system. It is intended to dismantle the Chinese “Communist with Chinese characteristics” system and replace it with American-style democracy…
As if that is EVER going to happen!
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019. Also, we can expect more legislation. The legislation will hamper Chinese interests. Geng Shuang, China’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson, warned the US about consequences. He said that the legislation is the “wrong decision of the U.S.”
He also said, “Chinese side will have to enact effective countermeasures,” according to a CNBC report.
Shuang warned that if the Senate passes the bill, the bilateral relationship between the US and China could deteriorate. The deal will hamper US interests in China.
Notably, China is an important market for US stocks like Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA). Apple suppliers are located in China. Notably, car sales in China contribute significantly to Tesla’s revenues. However, the above events might give President Trump an extra edge during the trade talks. The legislation needs President Trump’s approval.
-Market Realist
Such changes will mean that there won’t be any state-owned enterprises or government-directed plans like “Made in China 2025.”
From the beginning, US elites were trying to break China like they did with Japan in the 1980s.
In the Plaza Accord, the US forced Japan to double the value of Yen, move car manufacturing plants from Japan to the US, accept crippling sanctions on Toshiba, and handover valuable semiconductor technology patents to the US. All these were possible because the US still occupied Japan. And the lead American negotiator who made it all possible was … Robert Lighthizer … who’s now been leading the charge against China for more than two years.
Unlike Toshiba … Huawei and other Chinese companies now under the “entity list” can survive without US technology or market. Unlike Japan … China is a fully independent country.
Head’s up…
Phase 2 will never happen.
It is highly unlike there will be a ‘Phase 2’ in anything but a token discussion level. And if there is, it is extremely unlikely it will include any meaningful concessions by China on next gen tech—i.e. AI, 5G, cybersecurity.
China has now clearly prevailed in blunting Trump and the neocon offensive in that regard.
For their part, Trump and US military-industrial-Pentagon interests will continue to pursue blocking China on the tech issue in ways decoupled from trade negotiations.
Various other measures will now be the focus, such as attacking and blacklisting China tech companies in the US and even elsewhere among US allies. Perhaps even delisting them from US stock exchanges, as a recent Washington ‘trial balloon’ proposed.
Trump did not go there on the eve of the recent negotiations.
It would certainly have ‘blown up’ the trade deal once again if he had. But that—blacklisting and delisting—remain as likely US tactics in the months to come. For the technology war—i.e. the real war behind the tariffs and trade war—has only just begun between the two countries.
And a broader economic war involving non-tariff measures is almost certain to erupt after the 2020 elections.
A ‘Phase 2’ follow up negotiations is tentatively set for after the Phase 1 sign off in November in Chile. Not much will come of it, however, so long as Trump insists on maintaining the current level of 25% tariffs on China imports to the US.
Trump likes the current level of tariffs and the revenue it brings in, which allows him a somewhat independent source of financing for his domestic programs independent of the US Congress passing legislation and authorization bills which he now won’t get.
On the other hand, Trump may temporarily suspend the planned tariff hikes on $160 billion of consumer goods due December 15, 2019 should the US economy continue to weaken in the 4th quarter, which is more likely than not.
But it will be a temporary suspension, not a dropping of the tariffs.
The 15 month long US-China so-called trade war is over.
There will be further discussions but no significant changes before the US 2020 election. What Trump got in Phase 1 is all he’s going to get.
He’s probably promised the neocons, who have lost out on this Phase 1 deal, even more aggressive action against China companies doing business in the US. That’s their ‘concession prize’.
Worst case, Phase 1 might not even be finalized, should the neocon-Pentagon-Military Industrial Complex faction regroup and try to scuttle the deal, once again for a third time. There’s always that possibility.
-Counterpunch
Meanwhile, China is putting the Neocons on warning… do NOT mess with us.
This is China's most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and it has an operational range of more than 14, 000 kilometers. The DF-41 is capable of carrying about 10 independently targetable nuclear warheads which can hit any target on earth. DF-41 is now the world's longest range missile ahead of US LGM-30 Minuteman which has a reported range of 13,000 kilometers.
- China unveils Dongfeng-41 missiles that ‘can strike US
…the US realized that gunboat diplomacy or nuclear diplomacy are off the table.
For decades, the United States has taken China’s ballistic missile capability for granted, assessing it as a low-capability force with limited regional impact and virtually no strategic value. But on October 1, during a massive military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Beijing put the U.S., and the world, on notice that this assessment was no longer valid.
In one fell swoop, China may have nullified America’s strategic nuclear deterrent, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and U.S. missile defense capability. Through its impressive display of new weapons systems, China has underscored the reality that while the United States has spent the last two decades squandering trillions of dollars fighting insurgents in the Middle East, Beijing was singularly focused on overcoming American military superiority in the Pacific. If the capabilities of these new weapons are taken at face value, China will have succeeded on this front.
The ghosts of Opium Wars and the Century of Humiliation made sure that China was prepared for this moment.
A Failed Trump Trade Policy
Trump’s trade war with China is clearly a net failure. Trump could have gotten the same deal back in 2018, more than a year ago. Instead, the dispute was allowed to escalate, with the effect of causing business uncertainty and slowing investment in the US and worldwide due to the 15 month trade war.
The trade war has clearly played a part in the global manufacturing recession now underway, which threatens now to spread to services and consumption and precipitate a general recession in the US economy and possibly even worldwide.
Trump has pushed the global economy to the brink of a worldwide
currency war in the process as well. He has drained $28 billion thus
far from business and consumer spending in order to collect tariff
revenues that he’s diverted in turn to the farm sector in subsidies that
otherwise might not have been necessary. Small business, household
consumers, and failing small farmers have paid the price and will
continue to do so in higher prices from continuing tariffs.
Despite 15 months of trade war with China—and a series of ‘softball’ trade deals with South Korea, Japan, and Mexico-Canada—the US trade deficit as of August 2019 has reached record deficit levels of $55 billion that month and an annual rate of nearly $700 billion a year. The trade wars have been totally ineffective in reducing the US trade deficit—if that was ever the goal.
If we look at the ratio of #exports to #GDP (currently 19.51%) and the #distribution by country (just about 20% to the #US), we realize that only about 3.9% of #China's GDP is coming from exports to the US.
That is less than the annual growth of GDP.
In other words, China's #economy grows by much more than all the exports to the US - every year.
This puts the potential pressure the #USA can put on China via protectionist policies in quite some perspective.
Of course, the actual exports have a multiplier, as suppliers to exporting companies would also suffer from a further closing down of the US economy.
But the main message remains: 80% of Chinese exports don't go to the US (and increasing as trade with #Africa grows), and overall the Chinese economy is less and less dependent of foreign #currency coming from exports. #TradeWar
-Harold Bachmann
Now some humorous Dilbert on this matter…
Links about China
Here are
some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader,
might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.
China and America Comparisons
As an
American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United
States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Who
doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what
China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in
China.
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
What is China like?
The
purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world,
outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they
might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank
you.
And while
America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources,
and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has
done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and
you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
Summer in Asia
Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…
Some Fun Videos
Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While
there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Not, that I want to get too political, but this video that is playing all across China pretty much says it all. It’s all about the Trump Trade War. And it shows how the Chinese feel about it.
This post is about a movie that is playing all over China this Summer. It is allegorical. While it is a story about a British Boxing champion, and his involvement within China, there are very CLEAR parallels about what is going on in the Trump Tariff situation.
China has this allegorical movie about the Trump USA trade war with China that has been playing all over China during the Summer of 2019. It’s well worth the watch, and it says quite a bit if you only just listen.
Viewing it garners mixed feelings from the precious few Americans who have watched it. There are two types of reactions;
[1] On one hand, Yeah! They don’t like the tariffs and trade situation. Great! Well, tough cookies! Suffer! See what we care. We can wait this out. You must play by our rules. If you don’t like it, well then too bad! We can always find other trading partners.
[2] On the other hand, well… um… maybe China would be a far better friend than an enemy. Who knows what they are really capable of or have planned.
Rush Limbaugh comments
To understand the situation let’s look at Rush Limbaugh. He’s a major voice in Conservative circles in America, and perhaps one of the few Republicans that haven’t sold out the American people for some song and dance. You know, like Jeff Sessions, Jeb Bush, and John McCain has. He’s still a trooper, slogging through the Washington swamp, and enduring the slings and missiles from the American mainstream media.
Here’s what Rush (El’ Rush-bo) has to say on the “Trump Chinese Tariff issue”…
RUSH:
So the president started here with China. He is dead set on winning this trade war with the ChiComs.
Now, the thing about this that I think will go over a lot of people’s heads unless there’s somebody like me explaining this, is he takes what to most people is a complex issue: The China trade deals.
I mean, it is a miasma to a lot of people.
It’s so convoluted and confusing that nobody knows really what the stakes are.
Why is it happening?
What’s it all about?
Trump takes this complex issue that nobody has even paid attention to for decades and does his best to make it understandable and important, and here is how that sounded.
THE PRESIDENT:
We’re talking to China. We’re not ready to make a deal. But we’ll see what happens. But, you know, we’ve been hurt by China for 25, 30 years. Nobody’s done anything about it, and we have no choice but to do what we’re doing. We called them on manipulation, and they brought their numbers back, and they brought ’em back rapidly. We have an open dialogue. We’ll see whether or not we keep our meeting in September. If we do, that’s fine; if we don’t, that’s fine. But it’s time that somebody does what we are doing.
RUSH:
When he talks about “the numbers,” he’s talking about their currency manipulation. They tried to deflate their currency on Wednesday, and it worked to the point of rocking our stock market down 900-some-odd points, and then Trump had some harsh words for ’em and they revalued the next night, and the stock market rebounded.
Of course, the panic that ensued on that one day when the market dropped 900 points was typical of the kind of reporting we get in the media today.
Rush is correct. This is exactly what has happened. (More or less.)
Though, the truth is closer to the fact that China has been keeping the USD-to-Yuan rate artificial for the last twenty years or so. Not, as you might have the impression, naturally at 6.3:1 and then suddenly changed. So yes. They stopped propping up the rate, and it fell like a brick and messed up the USA stocks.
However, how it is being reported is a bit of a lie and a manipulation.
As reported; The USD to Yuan rate has been normal for the last twenty years. Suddenly China manipulated it’s currency to hurt the USD.
But that is a partial truth, equating to an outright lie. The last twenty years has been anything but normal. Here’s a better picture…
The True Situation: China has been artificially propping up the USD – Yuan exchange rate to slow down it’s hyper-active business section for the last twenty years. It has done this for selfish reasons, and the USA has benefited with this exchange rate. When the Trump Tariff wars hit a “road bump” the Chinese stopped propping up the exchange rate. They did so purposefully, (I personally believe) in order to aid in their tariff negotiations with President Trump. They did this to achieve negotiation advantage.
The trade wars initiated by Donald Trump has had an effect on China, though it is not as severe as the mainstream America makes it out to be.
So yeah. The exchange rate was artificial.
And yeah, China affected it, causing a drop in the USA stock exchange.
However, the details on this event and this exchange are not being reported accurately at all. Instead it is being reported in such a way as to make it appear that China is manipulating the currency exchange rate for their benefit. When the exact opposite occurred. They STOPPED manipulating their currency rate.
So even El’ Rush-bo is confused. He’s sitting pretty in the USA. He’s never been to China. Knows nothing about China except what he’s read from “experts”. Most of whom haven’t been to China in years.
Hey! If I am going to talk about golfing (for example). I sure as heck better know the difference between a driver and a putter. What a slice is, and how it differs from a hook. As well as to know what a "slow green" is.
I just can't watch a baseball game, eat a hotdog and chat about golf, when I have never been on a golf course. Played a round. Or owned any clubs.
Rush calls them “Chi-Coms”, Chinese Communists. Which they actually call themselves, but which means something totally different when heard by a Chinese compared to an American.
American Person;
"Chinese Communism" means hard-core tyrannical Marxist government. Similar to what is present in North Korea, and Cuba.
Chinese Person;
"Chinese Communism" is socialism with Chinese characteristics.
There are no political parties as all of the Chinese people want the same thing; a traditional life that is safe from interference. Free Market Reaganomics implemented by Mr. Deng in the 1980's led to the "great recovery" resulting in what China is today.
I would say that the problem with American media is that no one ever really … I mean… really reports. They just put their own individual “spin” on the day’s events. Their popularity within America is determined whether their audience agrees or disagrees with what they have to say.
Even if it is completely and totally wrong.
How the American mainstream media reports the effect of the Trump Tariffs on China as a whole. Absolutely not accurate at all. Bloodied, but in no way knocked out of the going.
The goal of the American mainstream media is to manipulate the people. This manipulation serves a purpose. It keeps Americans living in a constant state of fear and anxiety, from which they can be easily manipulated. Much like sheep, cattle, or chickens. They have been doing so for decades.
American mainstream media manipulation of reported content to invoke fear and mob-behaviors in the public by controlling the dialog.
The Movie
Now, this here is the Chinese response to the Donald Trump “Trade War” with China. It is a (sort of) friendly warning (China to President Trump) that is playing in all the movie theaters in China this Summer.
Bet you all weren’t aware of that!
I wonder why? Where’s all those “Chinese experts” and “China policy planners”, aren’t they aware of this? What about all those “talking heads” on the mainstream news, and the conservative political commentators?
No where to be found.
That is simply because they are all actors playing a role. Which, of course, is to manipulate. They tell you what YOU WANT TO HEAR, or arouse a fear to manipulate you to take some kind of action.
Nah. They have about as much awareness about China, as you the reader does about the block buster Pop hit 芒种. Which is absolutely zilch.
News reporting in America is dead. It only took about twenty years for the people to start realizing it. Today, it’s all just actors and actresses reading scripted lines. Those rare few that remain genuine to their beliefs, such as Rush Limbaugh, are only as good as their experiences. Without personal first-hand experiences, they are just fellow strangers espousing opinions.
Anyways…
This micro video runs for 1.47 minutes. It’s short but sweet and is a message straight from Beijing to Washington. I do think that it is worth a watch, even if you don’t like China, Chinese people, or Chinese food.
Watch it for the reasons why other Americans have watched it… to either gloat and feel superior, or to sit back and ponder the enormity of the situation.
I think it is well worth the watch, and so here it is…
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
—– Video Start
—- Video End
WISE UP!
The “old rules” of global politics will no longer work.
Oh, you don’t think that it has anything to do with trade? Watch the clip again, and pay attention to the English dialog…
Who do you think you are?
You collect money from me. You don't share it.
Do as I say.
You are not qualified to make deals with me.
And the discussion continues…
If you quit, you can take this business too. I can get anybody to take care of it.
And then, the sheer arrogance of the Westerners reaches an explosion point when he says…
Will somebody get this yellow piece of fat to get out of here!
After that we see how the Westerner battles and demolishes the Chinese man. It’s strong. It’s vicious, and he dies.
He’s dead. The Westerner has won.
Then, it’s payback time.
That's the clip and that's the message. The point is that Westerners misunderstand politeness for strength and advantage. It takes merit, skill and ability to defeat arrogance, bravado and strength.
Now, let me tell you my take…
America is a global power on the decline.
China is a rising global power.
China would prefer to work with America for their own benefit. While America would like to use China to advance their social-economical standing.
Well… duh!
You might not want to hear this, but it is true. Compare the stats. How many new parks were built in the USA compared to China? How many skyscrapers? How many bridges? How many High Speed Trains? How many hospitals? How many new schools.
Of course, the statist would simply point and say “ah, well… China is a third world nation, it doesn’t take much to move it forward“. Except that it isn’t, and wasn’t. The tyranny of communism devastated it. It took up until 1976 until it was finally vanquished, and Reaganomics was instituted by Mr. Deng that turned the nation around.
Don't thank Mr. Deng. Yes, he introduced it, but it was the Great Ronald Reagan that introduced the technique to the world. Too bad that the Bush dynasty made fun of it, and allowed progressive politics under the guise of RINO activists to force America to become what it is today.
Meanwhile, [1] China is growing. That is simply not mistakable.
And [2] America, held down with the burden of progressive Marxism, a swamp-like government filled with crooks and swindlers, is on the decline.
But don’t believe me. Look at the charts why don’t ya…
Whether you believe me or not, this chart tells the entire story quite succinctly. The “trade wars” is happening and reaching a peak in 2019 simply because the United States wants to remain the dominant economic leader in the world. It’s all really that simple.
These kind of charts abound, and while they might differ by a few months one way or the other, the message is all quite clear. The USA is in decline, and China is ascendant.
Chart of real GDP comparing the United States with China. Check out the dates. Now compare the dates with the implementation of the Trump Tariff Wars.
Americans don’t want either of these two things to occur. They want the status quo. They want inflation to stop, and for the march of progressiveness to end, and for them to get back just a few of the freedoms that they have lost over the years. Nothing too demanding. Just a few things…
Some things to ponder
It’s pretty difficult to “bring back American industry” to America when all the manufacturing talent is Chinese. Yeah. That’s right. Who the heck do you all think has been making those products that you have been buying for the last 20 to 30 years? Elves? Dwarfs?
Here, Manufacturing Talent represents skilled and educated factory professionals. Process engineers, manufacturing engineers, build planners, tool and die makers, test and quality experts and other similarly skilled people.
America used to have them. But spending twenty years in soup kitchen lines has caused many of them to change careers and take up other occupations. Most especially during the Obama presidency.
It’s going to be pretty difficult to disassemble the manufacturing equipment, and process tanks when they are now the property of Chinese nationals. When a non-Chinese company wants to operate in China they must create a joint-venture with a Chinese national. This person will, by law, own 51% of the company and if forbidden by law to give controlling interest to a non-Chinese person. (Which is why WOFE business structures were created in China.)
Just to put this in perspective, a single automated "break"... the machine that cuts and folds sheet metal panels is the cost of an Lamborghini. A company is not going to start from scratch and order up five or six of these units without passing on the costs to the consumer.
It’s going to be pretty difficult to train American workers to work in the (brought back) factories. American can do the work. Though it will be at roughly 10x the rate of the Chinese worker, and maybe 20x if it is a union factory.
You see the only people that can train them will be denied the required H1-B or Q1 visas (as all are now in the hands of software engineers out of India).
Even if everything went well, it will take a minimum of two years to “bring a factory back” to the United States. There are regulations to meet, people to pay off (and yes, boys and girls, capital-project bribery is common in the United States), and agency approvals to meet. After all, consider the difficulties and hurtles one must go through to make sure that the tiger-striped bo-bo fly isn’t endangered.
These are all HARD and REAL issues that no one is addressing.
At that, the company owners will need to make a strong business decision.
China does not mess around. They are a serious, serious nation that deserves respect. Do not poke the dragon. They have read the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, and they well know Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally .
This decision is, “what is the easiest and most cost effective solution to the Trump Tariff Wars with China?”
Leave the factory in China. Allow the USD-Yuan exchange rate to plummet, and charge American consumers for the difference.
Relocate the factory to the United States. Retrain staff from scratch. Order brand new processing equipment all over again, from non-Chinese sources. Have the equipment paid for out of the capital budget (somehow). Wait until it is made, debugged, and then start trial production in two years. In the mean time, work out other temporary “work around” solutions.
Relocate the factory to a cheap labor nation other than China. Here there would be the same issues as with relocating the factory to the United States. However, it will cost less to do, have far less regulation to deal with, and will have substantially reduced labor costs.
The answer is clear.
So, if American companies start to do this, how will it benefit America and Americans?
The Bigger Picture
Both the IMF and the World Bank now rate China as the world’s largest economy based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), a measure that adjusts countries’ GDPs for differences in prices. In simple terms, this means that because your money stretches further in China than it would in the US, China’s GDP is adjusted upwards.
And it won’t be too long before China’s economy surpasses the US’s by other measures, too. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) predicts it will happen in 2029.
- The World Economic Forum
Every world leader can see the trends and using the forecasts as a kind of crystal ball, they can see where to “place their bets” for long term trading and economic policy. It’s not with the United States.
Ah. You don’t believe me? Well, check out the data…
Europe views China as the world’s leading economic partner. Not the USA, and long term strategies and alliances will increasingly indicate that fact.
And while there are all sort of other factors that might enter the picture, and alter the outcome to some degree or the other, the fact is quite clear…
The USA can no longer afford to conduct business as usual. The world is changing. And like the contentious business climate (1980’s through 2010) that forced companies to down-size, up-size, re-size, re-structure and go though all sorts of gyrations (while the bloated US government just got bigger and bigger), the US government will have to go through that as well.
Requires a serious downsizing of the military and the scope of it’s use. America can no longer afford fighting eight nations simultaneously, policing the globe, operating thousands of military bases on foreign lands and being the proxy fighting force for the global oligarchy.
America requires a serious downsizing, or elimination, of numerous agencies. They are too large. Far too bloated. Filled and staffed with inefficient workers that take in far too much operational costs compared to their output.
Requires “Business Level” staff cuts, and budget cuts all across the Federal Government.
Requires a serious replacement for the Federal Reserve. (Of course!)
None of this will be easy, and it will be fought aggressively by the progressive cabal.
Group photo of the American Senate in 2019.
Knowing this, and the reader must agree, these steps must be taken immediately to sustain and continued American economic dominance in the global arena.
Oh, and about 芒种…
Now, here’s your opportunity to “get a leg up” on all those “experts” pontificating on China and the Trump “trade war”. Learns something that these “experts” haven’t a clue about, why don’t ya.
Yeah, 芒种 is a very popular song all over China, and everyone is singing and dancing to it. It’s sort of a Austin, Texas version of a Korean pop song, done to Chinese traditional beat.
Look, all that I am saying is that unless you open your eyes to see things AS THEY REALLY ARE, and stop listen to the news that tells you what you want to hear you will follow the pied piper to a very dark place.
Most Americans haven’t a clue as to what China is, how it operates, and how formidable it is. They think it is a backward, but huge, version of Mexico, North Korea, or Cuba.
They are convinced that the ONLY things China makes is cheap and inexpensive junk products. Not realizing that China has been supplying most of the world’s electronics for decades and designing and manufacturing the engines, mechanisms, and equipment used in high end cars and jet aircraft for years as well.
Americans pontificate on this false narrative, carrying on and on about the “junk” that “China floods” the USA with. Not at all giving credit to the American retailers that are actually the ones doing it. Factually, China manufactures just about everything. But most of the low-quality and cheap products end up in the USA simply because the American retailers want it that way.
Which is really strange when you think about it. The disconnect between reality and perception is so amazing and so stark that it is mind-blowing to me.
"OMG! What my friends and family think about China is so... so... off the wall, and nonsensical that it blows my mind. China is really, really, REALLY not what everyone thinks. They seriously have no idea, and they are wrong... really wrong about everything."
-My intern Aijia (from London) discussing the perceptions her friends have of China compared to her experiences after spending one month in China.
As far as all that “freedom” that everyone talks about having in America…
The USA hasn’t been a Republic since the 12th amendment.
It hasn’t been for small government since the American Civil War, and the citizens haven’t had any Rights since President Wilson and FDR changed the Constitution. Not to mention given Congressional power to the Judicial courts, and Federal agencies.
What Rights do you have if you have to pee in a cup to work?
Today America is a progressive Marxist “utopia” and it is only a few short years away from full implementation of hard-line Stalinist controls. Yes. It is. It really, really is.
How democracy ends.
Just follow all the “bread crumbs” from President Wilson , through FDR up to and including Clinton and Obama. America today looks nothing like the 1789 Constitution. (1776 Constitution + 1789 Bill of Rights.)
Point of no return.
America is not what everyone thinks it is.
With that being plainly understood take note. China is not what everyone thinks it is either.
The fastest trains are in China.
Ya all, best open up your eyes before it’s too late.
Trade wars are dangerous things to get involved in. Ultimately you want a win-win situation where every party gets some advantage.
While I do appreciate what Donald Trump is trying to do with the Chinese, he’d best stop listening to the moron (deep state RINO plants) that are advising him. They are only going to get the USA backed into situations that will be very uncomfortable.
How America handles this ascendancy of China at this time, will determine the future relationship with the largest and (will be) the most important nation on the planet. I do think it would be a very good idea to keep on their good side.
For our children.
Just sayin’ you all.
Links about China
Here are
some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader,
might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.
China and America Comparisons
As an
American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United
States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Who
doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what
China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in
China.
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
What is China like?
The
purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world,
outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they
might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank
you.
And while
America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources,
and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has
done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and
you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
Summer in Asia
Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…
Some Fun Videos
Here’s a collection of some fun videos taken all over Asia. While
there are many videos taken in China, we also have some taken in
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Japan as well. It’s all in fun.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Are you a Robot?[/caption]
America.[/caption]
(@Partisangirl) 
AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT
Kabul airport on the morning Of August 16, 2021
(@ASBMilitary) 
As importantly, PRC air and naval forces have long had existing plans to fight a U.S. force sent to aid Taiwan and have conducted countless 
![Specialist 5 Carl Cullers later claimed: ‘[I saw] an ARVN going behind the rifle range. It was more or less a joke at first. One of the cooks said, `Hey Cullers, there’s an NVA down there,’ and I said, `Quit joking,’ and he said, `Wait, and I’ll point him out to you.’ I knew he was an ARVN by his size. He had gone out beyond the rifle range, and down the slope for about 20 minutes. I took it for granted he had gone down to defecate.’](https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SNAG-X0052.jpg)
![The reasons clearly have to do with [1] the US economy softening in the 3rd quarter combined with [2] a growing discontent in the farm sector. This discontent is over Trump’s handling of the trade dispute that was beginning to bite hard on US farm sector sales. You see, American farmers were heavily dependent on exports to China.](https://metallicman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/5107_Fig5-1024x718.png)
