Uncategorized

US government May Be Complicit in the Emergence of Covid

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Russia’s Defense Ministry says it’s investigating the possible role of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the creation of the Covid-19 virus.

In a press briefing on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, claimed that US-backed bio-laboratories in Ukraine had been conducting questionable research and clinical tests on Ukrainian citizens, and that “over 16,000 biological samples, including blood and serum samples, were exported from the territory of Ukraine to US and European countries.”

He went on to explain that a statement from Jason Crow, a member of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who warned Americans that their DNA samples could be used to create targeted biological weapons, caused Russia’s Defense Ministry to “take a fresh look” at the origins of the Covid pandemic.

“Taking into account the interest of the US administration in the study of narrowly targeted biological agents, such statements force us to take a fresh look at the causes of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the role of US military biologists in the emergence and spread of the Covid-19 pathogen,” Kirillov said.

Russia now suspects that USAID might have been directly responsible for the emergence of the Covid-19 virus, according to Kirillov, who pointed to a Lancet article by Columbia professor Jeffry Sachs, who suggested that the virus was likely created in a lab with the help of the America’s latest achievements in the field of biotechnology.

Kirillov pointed out that since 2009, USAID had been funding a program known as “Predict,”conducting research into new coronaviruses which involved the capture of wild bats infected with such pathogens, and that one of the project’s contractors, Metabiota, had been known for its military biological activities on the territory of Ukraine.

In 2019, the agency shut down the ‘Predict’ program while the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security coincidentally began studying the spread of a previously unknown coronavirus.

“The implementation of the COVID-19 development scenario and USAID’s emergency phasing out of the Predict program in 2019 suggest the deliberate nature of the pandemic and US involvement in its occurrence,” Kirillov said.

He added that the recent emergence of the monkeypox virus, as well as the US’s purported history of using biological agents against its enemies, has led Moscow to observe a “clear trend” of pathogens which for whatever reason are of interest to the Pentagon, eventually turning into pandemics.

The US has repeatedly denied using biolabs in Ukraine to conduct military research and claims the “46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities and disease diagnostic sites” were used to assist Kiev in improving biological safety, security and disease surveillance for both human and animal health.

The exact origins of the Covid-19 virus have yet to be conclusively proven. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated in February 2021 that it was most likely transmitted from an animal, possibly a bat, to humans.

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Western Hegemony's Collapse

The Age of Russia-West Cooperation Is Over

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The West is trying to protect its power from an emerging multipolar world, so countries like Russia that reject Washington’s “rules-based order” have no other option but resistance, a senior Russian diplomat has said. After the present crisis in Ukraine, there can be no return to attempts at integration with the US and its allies, he believes.

Russia’s attack against Ukraine became “a milestone on the path towards a new world order,” Russian foreign ministry official Aleksey Drobinin wrote in a keynote article on Wednesday. He heads a department responsible for academic research and strategic planning on behalf of the ministry.

“Regardless of the duration and outcome of the special military operation, even now we can acknowledge that a three-decade-long period of mostly constructive, if problematic cooperation with the West is gone for good,” he said.

The breakup dispels “the last illusions” that Russians may have about the merits of a “friendly takeover” of their country by the US and its allies after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the analyst added.

He assessed that amid the current confrontation, the “irrational equation of Western with ‘progressive,’ Western with ‘attractive’” by some people in Russia was no longer “up to date.” Such moods, he said, persisted in various forms since the time of Peter the Great, who ruled the country in the late 17th and early 18th century.

The 3,500-word article gives a preview of the upcoming update of Russia’s foreign-policy concept, a document that guides the work of the foreign ministry and other parts of the government. Moscow perceives as inevitable the arrival of a multipolar world order, which would replace a brief moment of US-led unipolarity that emerged in the 1990s.

Several “civilizational” blocs, each led by a powerful nation like the US, China or Russia, will be the stakeholders in the future, but the exact configuration is yet to be determined, Drobinin predicted.

The diplomat accused the US of actively undermining international institutions and of otherwise destabilizing the world in a fruitless attempt to delay the reduction of its power. Russia is at the forefront of opposing Washington, he said.

“We have to realize that the Russophobic-minded collective West is a dangerous and motivated … opponent that remains strong, has a leading military-technological potential and controls a large portion of the global markets, financial resources, logistical chains and flows of information,” he warned.

Russia will pursue closer ties with non-Western players, foster regional integration, help create new international financial and management mechanisms that would be free from Western control and otherwise ensure that it would have a say in how the future multipolar world would work, Drobinin said.

“For many [nations] the acute problems are access to cheap energy (not a switch to ‘green’ technology), socio-economic development (not the ultraliberal version of human rights), security and sovereign equality (not the imposed Western-style electoral democracy),” he argued.

As for dealing with nations that Russia deems “unfriendly,” it is currently “only possible on a one-shot transactional basis … in cases where Russia would benefit and where there is no suitable alternative,” the diplomat said.

According to Drobinin, Moscow hopes that Europe would distance itself from Washington and become a force of its own, as political forces pursuing sovereignty and national interests gain power.

Russia could “offer to Europe a scheme of future cooperation that would on the one hand support autonomist desires of the Europeans and on the other hand would ensure that our nation would not face any kinds of threats from the European direction,” he wrote. Pursuing that goal would be a challenge, he acknowledged.

via RT

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

In Praise of Cynicism

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by Emmet Sweeney

The herd instinct is as much a characteristic of people as of animals. There is an inherent desire to blend in with the crowd, to not stand out, to not be seen as odd. According to evolutionary psychologists we inherited this from pre-human ancestors, where sticking with the crowd, looking and acting like all the others, helped ensure survival. Whatever one feels about evolutionary psychology, there is no question that the herd instinct is also found among people, where it manifests itself in following the latest trend – whatever trend one’s nature is drawn to; the latest fashion in clothes, or (for the more high-brow) art, literature, music, or even science. In short, moving with the times. But, whilst following the herd undoubtedly helps animals stay alive, among humans it’s just as likely to get you killed (notwithstanding the short-lived social benefits). One obvious example that springs to mind is the hordes of young men who rushed to “join up” at the beginning of World War 1. No doubt they believed, on some level at least, that they were doing a great service to their country, or perhaps the world in general, as they marched against the Germans, whom the mass media of the time had convinced them were barbarians or “Huns.” But the Germans were not barbarians, and millions of young men throughout Europe were butchered in a needless and pointless war that should never have happened in the first place.

The herd instinct also played a major part in the COVID affair of the past two-and-a-half years.

The perplexing question as to why some people saw through the COVID scam from the beginning whilst others – the great majority – fell for it hook, line, and sinker, is one that has exercised the minds of many since March 2020. Whilst it was possible to delineate broad categories of those who were liable to be believers and those liable to be skeptics, there were always almost as many exceptions as there were those who fitted the categories. In general, for example, religious people tended to be more skeptical; yet some of the most fanatical followers of the COVID-cult were also religious – including the vast majority of clergymen. Again, it was noted that the working class, especially manual workers, tended to be skeptical, but here too, many of the blue-collar class were fanatical believers – including the great majority of trade union representatives.

One very useful analysis of the problem was provided by Belgian clinical psychologist Professor Mattias Desmet. Observing how so many people accepted the COVID fear narrative uncritically, Desmet concluded that such persons were suffering from what he termed “mass formation psychosis,” a condition similar in many ways to hypnosis. The ground for this condition had been prepared beforehand, said Desmet, by the dissolution of families and communities, ongoing in Western societies for several decades. Huge numbers of people found themselves socially isolated, suffering anxiety, and living without purpose. When the COVID “crisis” was announced, the isolated masses suddenly found a new purpose – the “defeat” of COVID – as well as an object of fear (the virus). All that was needed was for everyone to abide by the measures media and governments deemed necessary for defeating the virus – masks, vaccination, and social distancing. This battle fulfilled the need for meaningfulness and connection. However, one result was that those who did not participate in the battle, and who questioned government measures and strategies, came to be viewed almost as much an enemy as the virus itself. Not only did they undermine the community’s efforts in the “war” against the virus, but they posed a threat to the continuity of the new social bond.

There is much to be said for Desmet’s analysis, and he undoubtedly accurately described a substantial segment of the modern population in the urbanized West. However, his thesis could perhaps be criticized for a few omissions. First and foremost, it really should come as no surprise that most people came to believe there was a deadly virus at large, given the unrelenting fearmongering on the part of the media and the government who, it should be remembered, effectively and completely suppressed any counter-narrative. The great majority of the public, in short, were completely unaware that a counter-narrative existed. To them, every scientist and expert agreed that COVID was a lethal disease and that the only way to stop it was by adhering to the (ever changing) government measures. In short, many of the believers weren’t suffering from a psychosis; they just accepted the stuff the media was shovelling at them in an unrelenting stream. Secondly, the herd instinct was undoubtedly involved. “Everyone” agreed that COVID was dangerous and needed to be defeated. Since most people will go with the trend, the pressure to conform was considerable. And thirdly, huge numbers of people did quite well out of the lockdowns. Government employees, in particular, received extremely generous furlough payments for sitting at home twiddling their thumbs. If you could make a lot of money, whilst simultaneously patting yourself on the back for helping to stop a deadly plague, what’s not to like about that?

So, it wasn’t so much that believers were hypnotized or suffering mass psychosis; they just trusted the media, the government and the “general consensus.” Which brings me onto the far more interesting question of why so many did not believe the media, the government, or their friends/work-mates. The psychology of the skeptics has never been seriously considered. Sure, the media and government branded us variously as “conspiracy theorists,” “fascists,” or just “nut-cases,” but these were nothing more than terms of abuse – epithets hurled at us in an effort to cow us and make us conform. One epithet they did not to my knowledge hurl – and one which might more reasonably have described us – was “cynics.”

Cynicism and cynics have had a bad press in modern times, and one can readily see why: It is not in the interests of the great and the good (as our rulers like to style themselves) to be called out for their empty posturing and rampant hypocrisy. This, after all, is an age that has replaced all real virtue with virtue-signalling. This is an age where Jeffrey Epstein can be described, in an online dictionary, as a “philanthropist.” But cynicism is not, as the powerful would have it, a noxious mental attitude which leads one to view the world through a jaundiced eye. Nor are cynics joyless curmudgeons, as many imagine. Cynics can be personable, friendly, and good company. The one and only thing that separates the cynic from the non-cynic is that he/she sees through your motives almost immediately. As such, cynicism, rather than a character flaw is, in my opinion, a very useful survival tool, and perhaps even more. The ancient cynics – who, by the way, were highly respected philosophers – saw right through the posturing of the great men of their time. Recall the famous story of Diogenes who, when approached by Alexander “the Great” with an offer of any favour the king could bestow, asked Alexander to stop blocking his sunlight. But the cynics also saw through their own posturing. Indeed, the primary goal of the ancient cynic was to identify and uproot his own hypocrisy and egotism. When a man knows himself, they argued, he will learn the truth about his own ignoble motives; he will see the serpent of jealousy and envy lurking at the root of even his closest friendships. As movie reviewer Barry Norman put it some years ago: “This week is Oscar Week, and the air is full of the wailing and cries of anguish of actors who have been passed over for an Oscar, and of the laughter of their friends.” When a man understands this about himself, said the cynics, he will be able to identify it in others, and society at large. And it was for that reason that the cynics scorned convention. They scorned to run with the herd and drift with the current trend.

As might be imagined, the cynics viewed human nature as essentially selfish, which in fact accorded well with the Christian doctrine of Original Sin, but which is diametrically opposed to the current – and trendy – notion of the inherent goodness of humanity. And it should be noted that this poisonous idea (man’s default goodness), attributed with some justification to Rousseau, has caused havoc in virtually every area of modern life.

Having searched long and hard for the common denominator among rejecters of COVID-ism, I am now fairly certain that cynicism is it. An outlook which scorns popular conventions and which automatically looks for the catch in everything, was far more likely to see through the COVID-deception. Because for the cynic, everyone has an angle, everyone has an agenda; and usually it’s not for the benefit of others. The cynic asks, first and foremost, cui bono? Cynics of course are found in all walks of life and in all professions. They’re also found in all religions and in no religions at all. And yet there were indeed certain patterns; certain areas where the cynics seemed to be concentrated. Many religious people, it has been noted, saw through the COVID-scam, but many did not. And here’s the interesting thing: As a rule, it was what we might call the unconventionally religious who saw through it; among Catholics, followers of tradition and attenders of the Latin Mass; among Protestants, traditionalist evangelicals. The “mainstream” (how aptly named) joined the COVID-cult enthusiastically. Skeptics and cynics too were heavily concentrated among the working class – especially amongst manual workers and those employed in difficult and dangerous occupations. Living in a harsh reality, the blue-collar worker, if he is not a cynic at the start, tends to become one quite quickly. Blue-collar workers vote less frequently in elections than do professionals. Many do not vote at all. I am reminded of a classic statement of the cynic’s philosophy by a coal-miner colleague of my father’s in Scotland several decades ago. During a break, some of the men got to discussing politics: What was the best system, was it socialism, communism, capitalism, or some other ism? Will Rhodes (for that was the philosopher’s name) said nothing during all of this, and eventually one of the men asked his opinion (Will was quite old and was respected for his age and experience; he had travelled the world with the British Army). As my dad told the story, Will spat a large tobacco spittle into the dirt and answered; “There’s only one f..ing ism, and that’s me-ism.”

Such a person, one might imagine, would not be easily convinced that politicians, newspaper editors, or pharmaceutical CEO’s had his best interests at heart.

What then makes a cynic? In my opinion, a cynic can be born or made. Repeated betrayals, dashed hopes and dashed dreams, can certainly go a long way towards the finished product. When Saint Paul said, “Put not your trust in men, for all men are liars,” he expressed an admirable cynic sentiment, as did Jesus when He addressed those around him as “You, who are evil.” But it seems to me that the true cynic is not just the product of others’ betrayals; the true cynic is the man or woman who has suffered some deep wound that has threatened his/her very existence or sanity and as a result of which has come to properly know himself/herself. Finding the shadow lurking there, he recoils in horror at himself and recoils even more when he realizes that the same shadow lurks in all other people. Almost nothing that we do does not involve a large element of self-interest. Realizing the truth about himself, the cynic philosopher sought to act, at least a little, from genuinely non-selfish motives. And that should be the goal of all us modern cynics.

Emmet Sweeney is the author of several works dealing with problems in the history of the ancient Near East.

Military Affairs

Jeffrey Sachs on Ukraine, WW3?

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🇺🇲🇷🇺🇺🇦 American economist Jeffrey Sachs: “Ukraine will disappear from the map, or a third world war will begin”

Among the well-known Americans who disagree with the official White House version of events in Ukraine, a serious addition: the economist Jeffrey Sachs has warned that the conflict in Ukraine will not end with the defeat of Vladimir Putin. “Ukraine will disappear from the map, or the third world war will begin,” he gave a forecast of the development of events during the Free Thoughts on the Future conference.

It is noteworthy that Sacks blames the West for starting the current conflict, saying that there is only one option to end hostilities – NATO must admit that it will not expand at the expense of Ukraine. The arrogance of the Western military alliance, which refused to take into account the demands of Russia to ensure its security, is the reason for the outbreak of hostilities in the center of Europe. And if the West really wants peace, Sachs believes, it needs to end the war against Russia, not on NATO terms, but with Moscow’s interests in mind.

The situation around Taiwan and Kosovo shows us what kind of world we have entered – a world where it is possible to very quickly slide into a large-scale conflict.  The US and the West are showing so far that they are able to control the situation and turn the spiral of escalation back, but it is clear that their actions are more and more spontaneous, not strategic.  And this in itself is a sign of their weakening, which is inevitably followed by destabilization around the world.  The hegemon is losing the reins of power.

But the main front is now in Ukraine, where the West has made its main bet for entering the next round of the struggle for world domination, since its elites believe that Russia can be seriously weakened there.  In this they are mistaken, Russia will come out stronger from the SMO in Ukraine.

Current Events

The Achilles Heel of US Energy is Uranium.

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With the largest nuclear fleet in the world (93 nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of 95 GW, generating 20 % of US electricity), the US has almost completely lost its uranium mining. The US imports 95 % of its uranium.

At the same time, the US is heavily dependent on Russia for uranium, comparable to Europe and gas: every seventh tonne burned in US reactors comes from Russia. Moreover, 28% of uranium enrichment services for US electricity generation are provided by Russia’s Rosatom. The dependence is critical, to say the least. The United States will not be able to replace that capacity, either in ores or enrichment, even within a few years. And it is a great resource for Russian counter-sanctions, if the government really wanted to impose them. The same “uranium for roubles” at Sberbank would solve the bank’s problems with all the sanctions.

On the Road to Serfdom ?

Maverick Boris Johnson, like Donald Trump, Deposed by the Globalists

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Editor’s Note: This is an excellent description of the “political dog fight under the carpet” in the so-called West: the juggernaut Globalists and the weakling defenders of the traditional national order. What is missing is identifying who are the Globalists, the ultimate minuscule clique at the top, the “wizards” behind the curtain. Still a good round-up of recent events.

by Graham Hryce, an Australian journalist and former media lawyer, whose work has been published in The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Sunday Mail, the Spectator and Quadrant.

The Tory leadership candidates are a ‘confederacy of dunces’ united to tear Johnson down at the behest of global elites.

The global elites are no doubt still celebrating the political demise of Boris Johnson. In one sense, they are entitled to do so – after all, it was the dysfunctional and anti-democratic political culture they spawned over the past thirty years that brought him down.

With scant loyalty to the economic and cultural traditions of the countries in which they have accumulated nearly unchecked power, these new overlords have ushered in a globalised economy that has gradually and – ever more tumultuously since the 1990s – replaced the older economic order grounded in the nation state. The previous national elites were pushed aside in most Western democracies and now maintain only limited influence culturally and within certain traditional conservative parties.

All important institutions in most Western democracies have come under the control of the global elite. This includes the large transnational corporations, the financial sector, universities, the bureaucracy, the professions, legal institutions, large sections of the media. In addition to advocating an economic program that has impoverished and hollowed out the working and middle classes, their myriad ideologies – perhaps most prominent of which are catastrophic climate change, identity politics and political correctness – have decisively won the ‘culture wars’ in most Western societies.

The dramatic economic and ideological changes brought about by this cohort have also fundamentally reshaped and revolutionised politics in the West. Indicative of this is that both the Democratic Party in America and the Labour party in the United Kingdom have been fully taken over by these forces, and both have long since abandoned their traditional working-class constituencies.

These elites have also divided, and in some countries – such as France – completely destroyed traditional conservative and centrist parties. In the process, they have generated a powerful anti-democratic populist political backlash – personified by Donald Trump – that threatens to seriously destabilise democracy in the West.

It was the historian Christopher Lasch who first pointed out the intrinsically dysfunctional and anti-democratic aspects of the political culture created by the global elites in his book ‘The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy’, published in 1994.

For a brilliantly satirical account of precisely how the greed-driven global elites operate in the UK, both at a personal and institutional level, readers should consult Quentin Letts’ 2017 book ‘Patronising Bastards – How the Elites Betrayed Britain’.

Boris Johnson is at heart a traditional conservative politician (not for nothing is he the biographer of Winston Churchill), so it is not surprising that, within the West’s fractured and volatile contemporary political culture, his career has been a controversial and turbulent one.

Pushing through Brexit against the determined opposition of the global elites and the institutions they control – including the powerful Remainer segment of the Tory party (led by the gormless Theresa May), the former speaker of the House of Commons, the Supreme Court, and the woke establishment media – was a remarkable achievement.

So too was winning the 2019 election with an eighty-seat majority that brought substantial numbers of traditional working-class voters (in the so-called “Red Wall” seats) back within the Tory party fold for the first time in decades.

No contemporary British conservative politician other than Johnson could have accomplished either of these things. Paradoxically, however, it was these very achievements that the global elites could never forgive Johnson for.

Johnson tried to placate them by embracing their climate change program and even their misguided foreign policy of perpetuating the conflict in Ukraine. But these concessions were never going to be enough to save him.

Johnson’s poor political judgment and erratic behaviour – including his fragmented domestic political program, his sacking of Dominic Cummings, his indulging of the crassness and narcissism of his younger millennial wife, and his arrogant refusal to create a viable support base within the Conservative party – certainly played a part in his downfall.

It is a moot point as to whether Johnson could have survived had he behaved differently. I suspect that he was simply incapable of doing so.

What sealed Johnson’s political fate, however, was his anachronistic vision of the United Kingdom as an independent nation state that needed to integrate its displaced working class economically and politically (his “levelling up” program) – a worldview fundamentally at odds with the globalised perspective of the ruling elites.

The global elites are determined to destroy the nation state and the nineteenth century bourgeois values that underpinned it – hence their fervent and ruthless commitment to transnational ideologies and organisations, most notably the European Union.

They also despise the traditional working class, whose lives, values and culture they have upended, and whose economic security they have progressively destroyed over the past five decades. There is simply no place within their economic and cultural vision of a brave new world for those people that Hilary Clinton so contemptuously and revealingly described as “deplorables.” After all, didn’t this lot vote in droves for Brexit?

Now completely abandoned by traditional labour and centrist parties that once protected their interests, it is this group that has now – what other choice did it have? – turned in desperation to populist leaders such as Trump.

Therein lies the root of the intractable instability and irrationality at the heart of contemporary politics in most Western democracies.

Like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, each Western democracy is disintegrating in its own peculiar fashion. Johnson attempted to reverse this process in the United Kingdom by keeping working class voters within the Tory party. Now that Johnson has gone, however, these voters will desert the Tories and look for a populist alternative. This will create even more political instability and ensure that the Conservative Party cannot win the next election.

One aspect of this process of political disintegration is the poor quality of politician that it inevitably throws up.

The last thing that the global elites want are politicians of real stature; rather, they seek pliable non-entities that simply mouth their ideologies endlessly, and who can be controlled and dismissed when and as the elites see fit.

Johnson, for all his manifold faults, was a genuine political leader – and virtually uncontrollable.

Rational political discourse and debate is now impossible, it is the global elites that created in the West this irrational mode of politics, in which opponents are not debated but only “cancelled” – as Johnson has been.

It is now standard practice to use minor transgressions against the canons of political correctness – sensationalised ad nauseam by a compliant and debauched media – to depose political leaders. This is precisely what happened in Johnson’s case.

What were the egregious crimes that necessitated Johnson’s political cancelling? He and his staff at Number 10 had a few late-night drinks in breach of the Covid lockdown regulations (for which they later paid the requisite fines); and Johnson appointed an obscure MP party whip against whom historical allegations of sexual impropriety (some dating back to 2005) had been made. Johnson is also alleged to have lied about both matters.

These are not serious offences in any meaningful sense. But such ‘crimes’ contravene the deep-seated puritanism and narcissistic eagerness to be offended that are at the heart of the elites’ politically correct worldview.

These are mere hypocritical pretences for ‘cancellation’ – simply the ‘justification’ for the vituperative political campaign that the Labour Party and the Remainer faction of his own party waged against Johnson for months. A complicit and woke media did the rest.

Tony Blair took the UK into an unlawful war in Iraq that led to nearly a million deaths, but the elites took that in stride. Having a few drinks late at night, however, apparently requires the dismissal of a conservative prime minister.

As to the consequences of Johnson’s sacking, we only have to take a glance at the politicians who emerged as his potential replacement as prime minister.

Five candidates presented themselves for approval in the first two televised debates. Having observed them, Jonathan Swift’s epigram came immediately to mind: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

Such a group of political dullards has rarely been assembled in one room. None of them could possibly lead the Tories to an election victory in two years’ time.

Let us describe the leading candidates in turn.

Rishi Sunak is a failed chancellor and multi-millionaire who previously worked for Goldman Sachs. His wife is even wealthier than he is, and until recently had arranged her affairs such that she paid no tax at all in the UK. Sunak preaches the virtues of austerity to the average Briton. Like Johnson, Sunak also breached the Covid regulations and was fined. It was Sunak’s mutinous resignation from the cabinet that triggered Johnson’s resignation. A more typical representative of the global elite one could not find – even Quentin Letts could not have invented him.

Liz Truss, a former Remainer, of whom Alistair Campbell said this week: “Liz Truss would be so appalling as Prime Minister that it’s almost unthinkable, which means it could happen.” Journalist John Crace described her as “a politician totally without effect ….. an ideologue without ideas.”

Penny Mordaunt is a failed defence secretary, who Tory peer Daniel Moylan branded this week as “incompetent.” Former Brexit minister David Frost said that she was “missing in action” when they worked together. Mordaunt was this week caught out in a blatant lie as she attempted to backpedal from her unqualified support for transgender athletes.

The first two televised debates – in which the candidates tore into each other like deranged pit bulls – were such unedifying spectacles that this week’s third debate was cancelled at the behest of Sunak and Truss, no doubt in order to preserve whatever small shreds of credibility and dignity the candidates may still have possessed.

When conservative commentator Peter Hitchens was asked this week who his favourite candidate was, he replied: “What is your favourite disease?” Does anyone seriously believe that any of them can unify a Tory party that has been torn apart by Johnson’s political assassination?

The new prime minister will be selected by a vote of the 160,000 Tory party members – rather than the entire British electorate – and on Wednesday the party unsurprisingly selected Sunak and Truss as the final two candidates who will vie for that vote.

In deposing Johnson, a serious political crisis has been created – Nicola Sturgeon and Sinn Fein cannot believe their luck – that can only hasten the demise of democracy in the UK.

Flawed though he was, Johnson will leave office with a record of substantial achievement behind him – “mission largely accomplished, for now” as he jauntily put it in his bravura farewell speech in the Commons this week. (Pointedly, arch Remainer Theresa May refused to applaud Johnson’s speech.)

It is absolutely certain, however, that none of the dunces that joined together to depose Boris Johnson will ever will ever find themselves in the position of departing office with such an array of accomplishments.

Saving Ukrainians from Themselves

Escalation is Inevitable

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by Emmet Sweeney

When a war begins, if one side or both has no interest in a negotiated settlement, then escalation is inevitable. This is the case with the current conflict in Ukraine where, right from the beginning, the Ukrainian side (and its Western backers) has shown no interest in a peaceful resolution. If things continue on this trajectory, then a wider and much more devastating war will most certainly be the result. I lived in Ukraine for almost a year, between August 2017 and June 2018, and, while I do not claim any special knowledge of the country, I did learn a few things which surprised me. I learned, for example, that virtually all of the country speaks Russian – this in contrast to Western media misinformation which habitually portrays Russian-speakers as a small minority.

I learned too that the country is almost evenly divided between those friendly toward Russia and hostile toward Russia. Those in the north and west of the country, while speaking Russian or the Russian-Ukrainian dialect Surzhyk, do not consider themselves Russian and are generally hostile toward Russia; those in the south and east, while describing themselves as Ukrainians, also see themselves as Russian. Their attitude is somewhat analogous to North Irish Protestants who, whilst describing themselves as Irish, also see themselves as British. This being the case, it became clear to me that the Maidan revolution of 2014, which overthrew the mildly pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, could have no other result than setting the two halves of the country on a collision course. In short, the Obama administration, in helping to topple Yanukovych’s government, knowingly and deliberately fomented inter-communal conflict. This being the case, an unbiased observation of the facts, readily available to everyone with access to the internet, leads to several straightforward conclusions.

First and foremost, every government in Kiev since the Maidan revolution of 2014 has been defined by its hostility toward Russia and all things Russian. As such, and inasmuch as Maidan overthrew a democratically elected government, then it is reasonable to conclude that the current war began in 2014. This is all the more clear when we realize that roughly 14,000 people – mainly Russian-speakers and mainly civilians – were killed in the aftermath of the Maidan coup. The current phase of fighting began two days before the Russians launched their Special Military Operation, when Kiev launched an intensified artillery bombardment of the breakaway territories of the Donbas, which Moscow recognized as independent just two days earlier.

Secondly, the initial phase of the Special Military Operation did not by any means constitute an all-out war against Ukraine. On the contrary, it was as much a political/propaganda statement as anything else, apparently intended to shock the Ukrainians into coming to the negotiating table. This is made very clear from the fact that the Russians went out of their way to avoid civilian and even Ukrainian military casualties. Soldiers were not attacked; military hardware and installations were the main target. In making a somewhat mad dash towards Kiev, which the Russian forces almost completely surrounded within a few days, Putin evidently hoped to demonstrate to the Ukrainian regime what Russia was capable of, and thereby persuade Zelensky’s government to begin serious and meaningful talks. And there were signs, to begin with, that some elements within the Kiev political establishment were willing to consider this option. But, rather than go down that road, proponents of negotiation were labelled traitors and executed, or simply murdered. Several prominent Ukrainian politicians suffered this fate in the first few weeks of the campaign. By mid-April it was clear to Moscow that the softly softly approach was not working. A series of meetings, described as “negotiations” by the media, did take place, but the fact that the Ukrainian delegations habitually arrived late, and dressed in t-shirts and jeans, made it perfectly clear that they had no serious intent. Indeed, their attitude can be seen as a calculated insult to the Russians.

Thirdly, the new phase of Russia’s Special Military Operation, which focused on destroying the Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, represented a major escalation of the conflict. Russian forces, overstretched and in many cases isolated, suffered significant casualties during the first “shock and awe” propaganda phase of the campaign. While the Russians at that time made little effort to kill Ukrainian troops, the Ukrainians by contrast made great efforts to kill as many Russians as possible. This evidently caused considerable anger within the Russian political and military establishment, and by late April the kid gloves, so to speak, were off. Ukrainian troop positions within the Donbas were now subjected to intense artillery and missile bombardment, leading ultimately to colossal Ukrainian casualties. It is possible that Kiev has been losing anything between 300 and 500 men per day since late April. By now many thousands have been killed. And still there is not the slightest hint that the Ukrainians are willing to negotiate. It would appear that Zelensky and his government are perfectly happy to fight to the last Ukrainian. (He of course can always retreat to his beach-side mansion in Miami or one of his palatial residences in Israel). But why is there no appetite for negotiation within his government?

The answer to that lies across the Atlantic Ocean, in Washington DC.

Zelensky was elected in 2019 on a promise of making peace with Russia. At that time, the President of the US was a man who had repeatedly called for better relations with Moscow and had advocated working with his Russian counterparts on several issues of concern to America and the West in general. His efforts in this regard were stymied by continual and unrelenting attacks from the Democratic Party, which accused him of being a Russian stooge and of having been elected in the first place through “Russian interference” in the 2016 election. By 2020 Donald Trump was out of office and one his fiercest critics, Joe Biden, ensconced in the Oval Office. Biden, like the rest of the Democratic Party elite, had been consistently and almost pathologically anti-Russian for much of his political career, and his election signalled a return to an openly hostile attitude towards Moscow. Meanwhile Zelensky, who had made little or no effort to fulfil his promise of normalizing relations with Russia in the previous few months, immediately took his cue from Washington and resumed the antagonistic stance of his predecessor Poroshenko. Indeed, he went even further; accelerating the expansion of Ukraine’s army in the Donbas and importing massive amounts of offensive weaponry. Not once did he make any attempt that we know of to implement the conditions of the Minsk Accord, which would have provided for the recognition of Lugansk and Donetsk (the two provinces of the Donbas) as semi-autonomous regions and would have ended the sporadic artillery bombardments against those territories which had been ongoing since 2014. Observing these developments, the Russians made repeated efforts throughout 2021 to have the West, and the American administration in particular, listen to their concerns. Such calls fell on deaf ears, as Biden, echoing the incessant demonization of Putin in the Western media, described the latter as a “murderer” and a “thug.” Meanwhile, the arming and supplying of Ukraine continued unabated, as did the calls for admission of Ukraine into NATO – the very step described as Russia’s “Red Line” by Putin in 2008.

It was against this background that Russia began major military exercises near the Ukrainian borders in late 2021. In hindsight, this would appear to have been Putin’s last attempt to have the West listen. If such was the case, it proved utterly futile. Far from backing off, the Russophobic rhetoric in the Western media went into overdrive, as did the calls for the accession of Ukraine into NATO and the EU. Meanwhile, the bombardment of ethnic Russians in the Donbas resumed, as Zelensky apparently believed that the anti-Russian bombast of Western media and politicians would be backed by armed support if things came to a head. And this may explain very much of what has been happening: The Ukrainian leadership, convinced that the West “had its back,” went out of its way to provoke Moscow. Not only did the bombardment of Donbas intensify in late January and early February, but Zelensky now proclaimed his wish to make Ukraine a nuclear armed power, as well as to gain NATO membership at the first opportunity.

It is impossible to believe that Western governments and intelligence agencies did not understand that such actions were guaranteed to produce a military response from Russia. But if such be the case, it means that the West, and Washington in particular, actually wanted the Russians to attack. That they knew Russia was going to attack is beyond question, for they warned about it repeatedly in the weeks beforehand. (Curiously enough, Zelensky himself seems not to have believed them). But all of this begs the question: Why would the West apparently want such a war?

The traditional Left answer to such a question would be: It serves the interests of the “military-industrial complex,” and there is no question that arms manufacturers have been running a handsome profit at the American taxpayers’ expense since hostilities commenced. However, such an answer is inadequate. The Biden administration, as well as its allies in Europe, must have known that war with Russia in Ukraine would have potentially devastating economic consequences for the West – and most particularly for America’s European partners. I need not go through the list of commodities and raw materials which Europe imports from Russia and on which Europe depends. Natural gas from Russia, alone and by itself, is crucial for the survival of much of the European economy. That the West, and Europe in particular, not only sided with and armed Ukraine, but went so far as to launch an economic war against Russia, could only have been prompted by a positively suicidal impulse on the part of those in control. And this is all the more true when we consider that the economies of Europe and North America were already reeling from two years of enforced lockdowns and the impact of colossal money-printing to finance them. Thus with America and Europe facing hyper-inflation and economic meltdown, the latter two regions deliberately make things worse by provoking a war with Russia and then waging an economic war on that country which could only backfire on the Europeans and Americans. Just what exactly is going on here? Do the powers-that-be actually want an economic collapse in Europe and America?

I would suggest that they do.

In order to understand the reason for this, we need to consider events of the past two-and-a-half years. In March 2020 Western governments, propelled by an unprecedented media campaign of scaremongering, locked their countries and economies down. I need not go into the details of all that happened at that time; suffice to say that the lockdowns were demanded by a relatively tiny elite of billionaires and trillionaires who, though their investment corporations of Blackrock and Vanguard, and a few others, own virtually all of the media, as well as the banks, pharmaceutical companies, arms industries, oil industry, etc. Their control of the media gave them control of the narrative, whilst their vast wealth has permitted them to corrupt and gain de facto control of important international NGOs such as the WHO and much of the UN. The purpose of these economically ruinous and wholly unnecessary lockdowns was specifically to wreck the Western and ideally the world economy. This was essentially a controlled crash. But why did they want to do this? In order to understand that, we need to cast our minds back to the last economic crisis, of 2008.

In 2008 years of greed, dishonesty and criminality on the part of the corporate globalist elite produced its inevitable result. Major banks began to fail and the stock market crashed in a way not seen since the Great Crash of 1929. However, rather than let economic reality assert itself and run its course, governments across the West declared that the banks were “too big to fail” and commenced bailing them out with billions and ultimately trillions of dollars and euros. This of course was money the governments of America and Europe did not have, so they began printing it. “Quantitative Easing” is the preferred euphemism. It was pointed out at the time, by more than one respected economist, that this was the worst solution possible – equivalent more or less to putting a plaster on a cancer. Money-printing, they said, was only a delaying tactic – one that would make the day of reckoning, when it finally did come, so much more traumatic. And by early 2019 it began to look like that day of reckoning had arrived. Trump’s two half-hearted attempts to end money-printing and raise interest rates even by a tiny percentage immediately produced chaos in the stock market, and it was clear that healthy interest rates could never again be established without utterly demolishing the entire financial systems of Europe and America.

The events of 2008 terrified the plutocrats (or oligarchs, or Davos set, call them what you will). Populism, both of the right and the left, was on the rise, and revolution was in the air. Banks and the corporate world in general were being openly blamed for the fiasco, and there was genuine fury on the part of working people – who had lost livelihoods and homes by the million – when they saw banks and bankers being rewarded rather than punished for their criminality. This was exacerbated by the knowledge that the bill for the newly-printed billions which bailed out the “fat cats” would ultimately be picked up by the taxpayer. The question for the plutocrats was: How to avoid taking the blame for the next and much worse crash which money-printing made inevitable? The answer they arrived at, apparently, was: blame a virus.

That, in essence, was the raison d’etre for the media-created “COVID crisis” and attendant economically suicidal lockdowns.

But a problem arose. By some miracle, the complete economic meltdown had not fully materialized by the end of 2021, and the COVID-scare showed every sign of having run out of steam. Sure, there was already massive and accelerating inflation, yet still, there was food in the shops and people were not yet reduced to bread-lines or rationing. A new scapegoat was needed, and the job of economic demolition completed. How about a war with a nuclear-armed power, say, Russia?

And that’s precisely where we find ourselves today. The proxy war against Russia will continue because “the West,” or rather the oligarchs who control the West, want it to continue. It will continue until the economies of the West go down in flames – because that is its very purpose. If the war damages Russia’s economy too, so much the better; but that is not really the point. The point is, when Europeans and Americans begin to die of cold and hunger either this winter or next, the Davos set can always say, “It’s Russia’s fault.” Meanwhile the commodities, gold, and real-estate which they purchased using the trillions of newly-printed money which the American government so generously gave them, will cushion them from any ill-effects of the collapse. On the contrary, they can then buy up everything for a song. And that is their “Great Reset.”

On the Road to Serfdom ?

It’s Official: Your DNA is Weaponized

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A House Intelligence Committee member warns Americans against using DNA testing kits

Biosamples gathered by various DNA testing services could be sold and used to develop bioweapons specifically tailored to target certain groups or even individuals, US lawmakers have claimed at the Aspen Security Forum – echoing concerns long voiced by Russian officials.

“There are now weapons under development, and developed, that are designed to target specific people,” US Representative Jason Crow (D-Colorado), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in Colorado on Friday. “That’s what this is, where you can actually take someone’s DNA, take their medical profile, and you can target a biological weapon that will kill that person or take them off the battlefield or make them inoperable.”

Given that threat, Crow added, it’s troubling that expectations of privacy for personal data have diminished over the past 20 years, to the point that young people have “very little expectation of privacy” and readily give their data to private companies, such as DNA testing services.

“People will very rapidly spit into a cup and send it to 23andMe and get really interesting data about their background,” Crow said. “And guess what? Their DNA is now owned by a private company. It can be sold off with very little intellectual property protection or privacy protection.”

He added that the US will need to create new guidelines for protection of personal health data, including DNA, “because that data is actually going to be procured and collected by our adversaries for the development of these systems.”

Moscow has been warning about the dangers of uncontrolled gathering of DNA samples for years, with President Vladimir Putin stating back in 2017 that according to Russian intelligence services, biological samples were being harvested “purposefully and professionally” all over Russia by various NGOs and other organizations for unclear purposes.

Over the past years, the Pentagon has “significantly expanded its research potential not only in the field of creating biological weapons, but also obtaining information about antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases in populations of specific regions,” Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force, claimed in May.

In a series of briefings starting in March, the Russian military has been presenting evidence of the Pentagon’s alleged involvement in funding biolaboratories in Ukraine. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, the US poured more than $224 million into biological research in Ukraine between 2005 and early 2022.

While Washington admitted its support of 46 biological research facilities in Ukraine over the past 20 years, it insists it was all part of a peaceful public health project. The US military accused Russia and China of “spreading disinformation and sowing mistrust” about its efforts to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction – while Western media dismissed the claims as a conspiracy theories and science fiction.

Concerns over customized bioweapons extend beyond human DNA data, according to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities and Armed Services Committee, who spoke on a panel with Crow. America’s adversaries can also direct bioweapons specifically at US livestock and crops to create a food security crisis, she claimed.

“There’s a number of ways we can look at biological weapons and the need to make sure not only are we securing human beings, but then also the food that will sustain us,” Ernst added.

A report issued earlier this year by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission suggested that China could someday attempt to wage biological warfare against genetically modified American crops, given its increased “interest in US agriculture” and GMO-related intellectual property.

“While China’s main interest in obtaining GM seeds from the United States is in improving its crop yields, the potential weaponization of agricultural IP is possible,” it said. “Similar to hacking a computer code, Beijing could easily hack the code or DNA of US GM seeds and conduct biowarfare by creating some type of blight that could destroy US crops.”

Eastern Europe Awakening

Serbian Interior Minister A. Vulin: Foreign Spies Forced Me Into Taking Anti-Russia Stance

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A major foreign intelligence service has been pressing Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin over his attitude towards Russia and China, the official revealed on Saturday. The minister expects a large media campaign against him to kick off next week.

“One of the largest intelligence services in the world, if not the largest, told me that my stance was unacceptable and that if I do not change [it] and do not abandon the policy that I am pursuing … then I will not be a member of the government and they will do absolutely everything to smear me,” Vulin told media outlet Pink.

A media campaign against him is expected to begin next week, Vulin claimed. Despite the pressure, the minister said he refused to cooperate in any way with the foreign spies. “I haven’t worked and won’t work for anyone except for the Serbian people, the Serbian state, and I won’t be completely loyal to anyone, except for the president of all Serbs, Aleksandar Vucic,” the minister said.

The condition was that I start working for this foreign intelligence service. I will not, even at the cost of my own life.

The minister also urged the country’s president to keep Serbia neutral, as well as to maintain good relations with Russia and China, regardless of external pressure.

Top Serbian officials have repeatedly said the country faced mounting foreign pressure amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Belgrade, however, has refused to join any anti-Russian sanctions or other hostile acts by the collective West, maintaining that Serbia will continue pursuing its own interests, while keeping its long-standing ties with Moscow.

Vulin has taken a particularly strong position amid the ongoing crisis. Early in July, the minister said the US and the EU have been openly pressing Serbia into becoming “a NATO foot soldier” in order to become “someone who wants to engage in a conflict with Russia.”

“We are very clear: We will not engage in a conflict with Russia, we will not engage in other people’s wars, we will not be someone else’s foot soldiers,” he declared back then.

Military Affairs

On Persian Military Strategy

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by Alexander Kharchenko

Since we are talking about the Iranian military-industrial complex, I will share my observations. For 5 years in Syria, I worked side by side with the Iranians and saw their Wunderwaffe on the battlefield.

At first it seemed strange to me that the Iranians make low-quality copies of AKs, crooked gun barrels and terrible tank shells from which the crew is dying. At the same time, they had good thermal imagers, ATGMs, and their attack UAVs chopped up ISIS in thin slices in the long ago 2017. Let’s figure out this paradox.

It is useless to compare the Russian military-industrial complex with the Iranian one. We have different philosophies. We wanted to fight head on with NATO, while the Iranians were preparing Afghanistan for the Americans to the tenth degree. The Persians* realize that in open combat against the NATO armada they have no chance. Therefore, their military strategy requires those types of weapons that the Russian army has not paid attention to for decades.

Based on the Afghan experience, the Persians realized that the defeat of the armed forces did not at all mean defeat in the war. The Iranians learned to conduct professional guerrilla warfare. In Syria, Yemen and Iraq, they honed their skills in building “territorial defense”. Highly motivated and poorly trained natives of one village, under the guidance of an Iranian mentor, became a formidable force capable of resisting both ISIS and Hadi forces.

The Iranians were preparing to burn American convoys from ambush, so they produced tens of thousands of large-caliber sniper rifles, ATGMs and thermal imagers. In addition, they mastered the production of cheap but effective UAVs for strikes against American bases. Reconnaissance of American positions requires thousands of UAVs with good cameras, and they were able to arrange their production because it was critical to their safety. At that time, we were building rockets capable of circumnavigating the globe.

While we were modernizing the nuclear triad, the Persians, with the help of a powerful ideology and competent actions of the special services, turned their nation into a weapon of a new kind. You can still defeat an army, but you can never defeat a whole nation. And from the Persians, we can learn not only the experience of building UAVs.

(c) Alexander Kharchenko

@OpenUkraine 🇮🇷 Leading pro-Russian Ukrainian channel on Iranian military industrial complex and warfare:

*Most people are not aware that Persians make up only ~55% of Iran’s population and when one wants to show respect one calls all of them “Persians” – ZradaXXII.