From the crisis in Ukraine to the ISIS in Iraq, from increasingly extreme weather to surviving in a world ruled by psychopaths, your hosts, their colleagues (and occasional guests) explore the deeper truths driving world events by exposing the manipulations behind what passes for 'news'.
One year on from the dramatic events that ushered in an extremist government in Ukraine, and with a delicate ceasefire in place between East and West, we'll be looking at where things might go from here.
Behind the Headlines airs live this Sunday, 22 February 2015, from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 7-9pm UTC / 8-10pm CET.
Running Time: 01:46:00
Download: MP3
Here's the transcript of the show:
Joe: Hi and welcome to Behind the Headlines on the sott radio network. Thanks for tuning in again this week. We are back as usual, every Sunday night - well, some of us are; some of us get here a bit late, but that's alright.
Niall: High everyone. Niall here. Who's here?
Voice: Hey, how you doin'?
Niall: Ha ha!
Joe: Exactly. So, yeah, we are going to be discussing stuff that's been going on over the past week. As usual, things just keep chugging along, heading towards that precipice somewhere off in the distance, that we can't quite see, but we know it's there somewhere, waiting.
Niall: You know, sometimes I think we spend too long trying to make sense of things. Because, you think you see a pattern, right? And you think, you've got a good idea what's going on here, a good idea what's going on there, and it makes sense; until, somebody or some group does exactly the opposite of what they'd either said they were going to do or they're making the decision to do something that runs contrary to their past actions.
Joe: Give us an example, there.
Niall: Classic example's what's going on here in the Turkish/Syrian border. Turkey's just signed up to a three year deal to train up to 5000 new terrorists - oh, excuse me: "moderate, free Syrian rebels", whatever, per year, to pump into Syria. Now, we didn't think that Erdogan saw the light of day when he was having his deals with Putin back in December, but we at least entertained that notion that maybe, maybe, maybe, Turkey was reconsidering the way that it did business and would not - let's say - "help certain powers" to keep doing what they're doing in the Middle East"; that they might just change tack and do something different?
Joe: Mmmm...
Niall: Ah, no.
Joe: No, but I suppose that's missing the nature of the kind of situation in the Middle East. There's a belief or an assumption that everything that's going wrong in the Middle East is entirely at the fault of the Western Powers, like the US or the UK etc.,
Niall: No.
Joe: But obviously, a lot of it is to do with internal, meta-political dynamics within the Middle East, which Turkey is - more or less - part of. And the Turks have their own reasons for wanting to get rid of Assad as well or keep their hand in in terms of the direction that Syria goes in, etc. So, it can all get very complicated and we can't really rely on any one strategy or think that any one strategy will persist for any significant length of time because things change quite quickly. These people are in it for themselves; they're not driven by a solid, noble ideology that they'll stick to to their dying day, type thing, they'll switch sides or switch groups depending on what comes into play on any given week or day, you know?
Niall: Yeah. I'm giving up on noble, but I'd like at least consistency for God's sake!
Pierre: Geo-politics is a complicated matter. There are so many parallels and variable actors involved in this or that topic/affair, that it's difficult to maintain a global, lasting consistency. Interests change; statesmen change; resource changes; objective of this one or that one change; it's like quicksand.
Niall: Yeah. But actual reality doesn't change. The same patterns, the same things, really move slowly on the ground. Things may change fast in the ...{inaudible}... but on the ground... you know what I mean? So, what I'm saying is it's either that the wind has changed direction so fast with these people, or they're so incapable of taking a fixed stance because they're just unsure.
Pierre: Maybe both, and a third factor as well: in geo-politics, a lot of things happen... in backstage?
Niall: Yeah, behind the scenes.
Pierre: Unseen, invisible, behind the scene. So, it's difficult because we cannot infer from the visible actions and statements what is really going on behind. And sometimes, they are smart - sometimes. The smokescreens, the diversions; so they will have a mouthpiece saying white why they are plotting for black, or there are third actors impersonating or reading something that they have another one...
Niall: Exactly. Well, I allowed for that with news this week that Greece has made a temporary deal with the European Central Bank to basically continue - stay with the program - and to receive another bridging loan for the next four months. I mean there, I can see they're buying time, if that makes sense. Four months.
Pierre: Yeah, that's the way I see it too. Four months is not so bad. It's buying time indeed, because if Syriza - and I think that would be the right move - decides to go with another partner; not Europe - maybe Russia - we're talking about a national economy, national finance; it's a big boat. You cannot U-turn like that in a few days or a few weeks. Four months is very short, even if they have a contingency plane in their mind, to implement it properly. Because, even if the solution is signed now, to implement it - to prepare the term - will take time. Otherwise, it can lead to some disasters and another point is that, as I said, even if they have a contingency plan ready now, they must not separate themselves from public opinion. So they first have to show that they are willing to play ball with Europe authorities to show that, "You see? We made a lot of concessions and Europe didn't hear, didn't listen to what we asked for, and they forced austerity measures on us. So we have no other choice than accepting this Russian loan." And then they can depict themselves as victims because let's remember that is was not part of Syriza mandate to leave Europe; the mandate given by the people was mainly the end of austerity measures. That is a paradoxical injunction. Obviously, you cannot stay within the Eurozone while ending the austerity measures because that is almost the raison d'être of the EU - to impose this Neoliberal, harsh, prioritising, unfair policy leading to more and more austerity; I mean, austerity for normal people. The top 0.1% being the one who benefits from the austerity imposed on the rest of the population.
Niall: Yeah, two headlines in connection with this: apparently there was a story in Der Spiegel. The European Central Bank are putting out feelers that a Greek exit from the Euro - at least - is very likely. They seem to expect it at this point - or at least they have accepted it into their realm of possibility - so that the public front of, "No way. Absolutely no way is Greece not going to pay us out every single cent", is the hard-line being taken in public while those realities are creeping in behind the scenes. Second related thing is: just before the Greek elections, somebody must have been spying on the Syriza boys because they were in Russia on visits. Various different people - even some of the independents who it can't have been known that they would end up being in the independent government - anyway, they were in Russia meeting certain people and the Financial Times discreetly - in an article about possible trouble here with the Greek exit from Europe vis-à-vis Russian relationships with the EU - lets it be known that the Greek Foreign Minister is very buddy-buddy with a certain Aleksandr Dugin.
Some of you may have heard of this guy. Aleksandr Dugin is basically talked about in hushed tones in the West because he's a dark, dark person. They call him a Neo-fascist. He's kind of an unknown, basically an intellect; may or may not be close to the Kremlin; has this whole Eurasian ideology, I suppose - set of ideas about Russia's future role in the World - and people in the West are saying, "Oh God, Putin is actually carrying out the kind of stuff this guy's saying. They'll take over the world via a massive Eurasian empire." So, the soon-to-be Greek foreign minister is meeting with this guy for lunch or something and the Financial Times are just letting us know that we know. I think they are nervous that there's something going on in the background and they're aware of it.
Pierre: Yeah, there's a lot of stake for Greece indeed. But at the same time, Greece economy is in such a terrible state that they don't have much to lose any more. But on the other side, Europe has a lot to lose as well. It can lose money; it can lose as well its territorial integrity because if Greece leaves and it's a success...
Niall: And others will, yeah.
Pierre: And that makes sense because Greece is not the only country in Europe that is suffering atrociously from those so-called 'austerity measures'; people are suffering in Italy, in Ireland, in Portugal, in Spain, in France, and the only reason why this idea of exiting Europe is not even considered by people is because there is this strong belief that leaving Europe equals financial death. But, nobody left Europe so nobody knows if this is financial death. And anyway - again - we reach a point where those austerity measures are so harsh that what is true is that if you stay within Europe, you have financial, economic and social death.
Niall: Um hmm. The situation in Ireland, actually, there was a mass protest going on - I think - a couple of days ago. They started arresting, rounding up certain agitators - people leading protests - specifically against the water tax surcharge, but really the anger is with the austerity program; but that's where it comes from.
They arrested five people. They're in prison - they've been there for two or three days and they're now on hunger strike and I don't know where it's going, but there's a very, very good chance that the next government in Ireland - or any of the other peripheral EU countries - will go the way of Greece in that they'll have either a brand-new party or a party that is voted in on the basis of drawing the line and saying, "That's it, stop; we're not going along with this anymore".
Pierre: Yeah, and I think the problem is systemic. Greece is only one symptom of a deep crisis Europe is experiencing. Before this whole Greece drama, you had elections in several European countries - including France - where the first party became the anti-European party. So, it seems to me that Europe might be ripe for explosion.
Niall: Yeah. The only way to keep going with the EU project is to just beat people harder - squeeze them harder. They've left themselves with this 'all or nothing'.
Pierre: Yeah, and if there was no Russia - no possible contingency plan - it could work. But if - and it's a big if, eh? It's not done yet - but if Greece exits with the support of Russia and survives the financial and economic attack it will be subjected to - because, no doubt, international finance will beat hard on independent Greece to prove the point I was describing before: if you leave the Eurozone you're dead - if they survive, if it works with the support of Russia, so the more they put pressure on the European people, the more those people will want to follow the Greek example.
Niall: Besides financial attack, how far would the EU be willing to go? It's a year to the day that the new regime was put in power in Kiev - more or less - is it 22nd of February last year?
Joe: Well, more or less. I mean, it took a few days, but yeah.
Niall: That didn't come out of the blue. There was a slightly different situation of course because they were not already in the European Union, but the same pattern of IMF loans, increasing debt, can't pay back the loans, and then, "Here, you've got to slash this and this and this"; that's basically Ukraine being attacked over the long-term. And in the meantime you've got countless US non-governmental organisations working in the background, working on the minds of Ukrainians: "Look West. It's the best."
Joe: Yeah, the whole thing's such a sham, you know? When the West started this campaign to spread freedom and democracy basically - or democracy let's say; freedom and democracy are synonymous, obviously; once you've got democracy, you've got freedom; once you've got Western democracy, you've got freedom, supposedly - but that all began even prior to the fall, the collapse, the break-up of the former Soviet republics etc., in Eastern Europe that the US government had its eye on pulling those countries away from the Russian sphere of influence.
So we're talking here in the late 1980's when they began to develop policies and implement policies to throw money and resources - human resources and other resources - at these countries and into these countries to just rabble-rouse and agitate for Western-backed governments, or Western leaders or Western-looking political parties etc., to take power in these countries because obviously as soon as the Soviet Union - or after the Soviet Union - fell, there were obviously people in positions of power there who were naturally aligned with Russia; so they had a lot of work to do to turn all of that around and convince not only the people of the countries but also the political class to basically totally change or shift their ideological perspective Westwards, and they did so with all of these pseudo/semi-governmental organisations - or fully governmental organisations - like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros was in there working at the beginning with his Open Society Foundation's and Freedom House and different groups - NGO's they're called - that supposedly have no association with government but are clearly financed directly or indirectly by governments so it's a complete joke to call them non-governmental organisations. But they went into all of these countries throughout the 1990's, and we can talk then about Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia - and the break-up of that into several countries and they did exactly the same thing.
Niall: Same pattern.
Joe: Essentially fomenting... you know...
Niall: Well, it began with IMF loans.
Joe: Yeah.
Niall: 1974 or something.
Joe: Yeah, well 1974 they started financially to try and put their... you mean Yugoslavia, specifically?
Niall: Um hmm.
Joe: I mean, the whole flavour of the revolutions or 'Colour Revolutions' that have happened in various different places like in Serbia and former Yugoslavia; in Georgia in the 'Rose Revolution' that put that nutbag, Saakashvili in power...
Niall: Hey, he's got a new lease of life.
Joe: ...and then he got booted out again. Well he's been inducted into Ukrainian politics. It'd be the best place for him, because it's just basically a complete Western puppet-state. But, the flavour of all of these colour revolutions had and has - every time they have them - a flavour of the 1960's 'Flower-Power' revolutions; well, not revolutions but flower-power movements and anti-war movements in the US in the 60's, you know?
So, it's almost like the ruling elite in the US kind of took an example from those and saw how effective they were. Of course, in the US at the time, the 'Anti-War Movement' and 'Peace and Love' and 'Ban The Bomb' and 'Flower-Power' were all very much suppressed - not only by the government but the media; the media took a very dim view of it in the US - but exactly the same type of social activism has been exported by the US and gets massively favourable media attention - Western media attention - when it happens in these other countries and when they say it's about spreading democracy in these countries, it's about opening the market up for... it's free market capitalism, essentially. They want the country to open up and they have no problem throwing tens of millions of dollars - and in the case of Ukraine over the past twenty years, five billion dollars...
Voice: ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
Joe: At LEAST one million dollars, if not more. And the reason they have no problem doing that is that when they open it up and they put in a client regime - a Western puppet in power who will pass these kind of, not austerity measures necessarily - austerity measures maybe these days - but in the past it was deregulation essentially of business and corporations which were very favourable to private industries; selling off state assets to private Western corporations - they make a lot of money from that - but they also make a massive amount of money - and here I'm talking about ten-times or a hundred times what they invest in creating all these groups to rally for revolution. They make ten or a hundred times as much back in the sale of arms, because one of the first things in all of these Eastern European countries and the former Yugoslavia as well when they've been revolutionised by the West and Western client government is put into power, they immediately start selling them billions and billions and billions worth of weapons that they don't really need - and in fact, contribute to instability essentially; because when one country starts arming, other countries start to get jittery and that's especially the case with Russia. So, this policy they've pursued has done exactly the opposite. It's nothing to do with democracy because the other thing that they do is the governments that they put in power tend to crack down on freedom of the press. They do it very subtly but they start to censor different organisations.
In Ukraine, for example, the new wonderful democracy-fuelled Ukrainian government just recently - or over the course of the past year let's say, but just recently - it was announced that they had banned over one hundred Russian media outlets in Ukraine; they were all decredited, basically. They were no longer allowed to operate in Ukraine. So there's lots of misnomers; lots of wrong ideas about these things; just basically lies that people are taught to believe about it. It's not about democracy and it's not about freedom and it's not about Western values - unless you understand what Western values really are. They swing from one to the other; they use the example of these, say, semi-authoritarian or semi-totalitarian type governments that were, let's say, the way Russia was ruled in those Soviet republics and Allied states, where there wasn't much, let's say, freedom of the press or there wasn't much room for other political parties. They have to change this. So, they go in with a revolution; they spend billions on these activist groups over a long period of time.
One other thing they do is they all finance - this USAID and National Endowment for Democracy - they finance exit polls that wouldn't have happened otherwise but they get in there and start saying, "Exit polls are the epitome of Western freedom and democracy; you've got to have an exit poll after an election", because obviously core to these destabilisations and overthrow of governments is, you have an election you've got to get rid of the other one. So it has to be a free and fair election. You can't just go in and kick out the guy in an armed coup - unless it's Ukraine - and just impose your Western-backed puppet. You've got to have a free and fair election. So one of the things they use is they introduce exit polls after elections.
But the twist to it is that they obviously control and pay and finance all the polling clerks or pollsters, who go out and get all the exit poll data. And then they announce - and I think this was probably the case in 2004 in Ukraine and the Orange Revolution when Yanukovych actually won, and then they announced USAID and NED and Soros had funded all sorts of exit polls - and they announced fraudulent or fake exit poll results, because that was the one things that would get people up in arms: "See, we told you that this guy is rigging the elections; Yanukovych didn't actually win because everybody knows all you Ukrainians wanted Yushenko", the Western choice in 2004. So basically, Yanukovych's win in 2004 was overthrown and that was the Orange Revolution and Yushenko came into power and they basically just started fighting with each other, you know?
At the time, the West had forced Timoshenko, the Gas Princess, to not run against Yushenko so that her followers would give their support and blah blah blah so he would win, but then within a year or two of them being in power together - because she got the position of Finance Minister or something - they were suddenly fighting and at each other's throats and then she left the government and the whole thing fell apart. And then less than six years later Yanukovych is elected as President of Ukraine in what even the West had to agree was free and fair elections.
So, in such a short period of time, if it was such a travesty and obvious fraud in 2004 when Yanukovych won, based on these exit polls, how did a majority of people in the country swing back to Yanukovych in 2010? The whole thing's just ridiculous, you know, and it's just evidence of complete manipulation of the entire electoral, political and media processes in Ukraine for such a long time. And what they do is they switch from the Soviet-era type government where you don't have much freedom of the press and you do have other political parties but they don't have much money or funding or whatever so they don't get very far.
And then they introduce a Western electoral process which is based on complete manipulation of the population to vote for only one person. So people get exactly the same thing; you know, they try and present it as the Western model, it being the opposite extreme of the former Soviet or Authoritarian type government but it's exactly the same. Look at America: the American people don't have a choice. They get a choice between two parties that have reigned supreme forever and there's nothing to choose between either of them, but everybody in America thinks they have the freedom to choose because it's freedom and democracy - "we can choose whichever government we want"; no, you can't. And it's exactly the same as the way it happened in the USSR and the Soviet Republics. But at least there it was more honest; the people understood that's the way it was. Here, you're being manipulated and lied to into believing that you have a democratic choice when you don't - you CLEARLY don't - and that's the way they've done it in Ukraine and that's the way they've done it in other Eastern European countries where they basically force the people through mass manipulation of the population through activism, through throwing millions and millions of dollars at all these kind of groups to rally for...
I mean, one of these groups actually said that they model themselves on Coca-Cola's marketing department. They got Coca-Cola's marketing manual and they just used that for their campaign to put their person in power, you know? And people just go along with it, you know? So is that any better? When you're being manipulated into voting for someone as opposed to being told that you have to vote for this person? There's no difference; and in fact, it's actually worse...
Pierre: Worse.
Joe: ...because when you're manipulated into voting for these people... well, I don't know if it's worse - it's a toss-up - but the way that they treat these countries after they've had these colour revolutions - the way that they sell off all of the State businesses; people generally speaking experience a significant drop in their standard of living, in their incomes; it's worse, and that's why we argue... you know, people call us "Commie-lovers" and all these different silly names and stuff, but when you look at it coldly and cleanly, you see that it is actually worse: what the people in the West get today is worse as a model - in terms of the electoral process and the democratic process that isn't really a democratic process - and what they get as a result of it and what it allows people - these vulture-capitalists - to do in their countries - they actually end up probably being worse off - or at least a good percentage of them end up being worse off, especially the poorest - because at least in the kind of socialist or communist countries, there was a base-line where everybody had the entitlement to healthcare and education and basically a roof over your head. But that's not true for millions of people in the West; if you can't make it on your own, tough shit, you don't get anything. You die in the street or whatever because you can't go to the hospital or you die of hypothermia because you can't afford a house and you can't get a job, you know?
Niall: Yeah.
Pierre: Yeah, there are major inequalities in these Neo-con regimes and there's another point: you stressed the fact that those countries that fall into a pro-West, totalitarian regime, pseudo-democratic, get worse; this point - and if you look at Iraq, Afghanistan, to name just a few, we can see how the collapse was dramatic - economically, financially, socially - the country just crashed down. And the interesting thing is that the major tenet of the whole Western policy is, "We will intervene or will support this change because now the country is in a bad state and we have the ability to improve it" - basically to improve the living conditions of local citizens.
Joe: Yeah, but they're lying.
Pierre: And the right of freedom, but they lie, indeed, and the facts are here to prove that they lie. If you just look at the current living conditions in the countries where the US intervened - directly or indirectly - it's obvious. And the sad thing is that again, we go back to the same realisation, it is very sad, but it is engineered - the social engineering - it is very sad that most people do not see the major discrepancy between the promise or the main motivation, the main reason, main excuse: "We intervene to improve living conditions" and the result: a dramatic worsening of living conditions.
Joe: Yeah, and it's horrible the way they hype it up - and what they push for, you know? What they've been pushing for in Ukraine prior to the Maidan - which was a year ago today - but in the months prior to that where you had all of the activism on the streets and all of them were Western-backed, Western-funded NGO's that went out and... you know, they just throw photocopiers and reams and reams of paper at all these people and get young people out onto the streets and they're all handing out flyers and graffitiing slogans and logos on walls and they're setting up T.V. stations to give them 24hr coverage and just bombard the people with this propaganda to get them all worked up and agitated for, "Yay, freedom and democracy. Let's get out there and overthrow the corrupt elite." And it obviously took with quite a lot of people - particularly in Kiev - and they really hype the freedoms aspect of it where all of these NGO's, technically their mission or their remit on their website's is to lobby for freedom of the press and changing government policy, changing government laws; and these are organisations that are funded by the West that are talking about changing legislation in the Ukrainian government.
But, anyway, it's all in the context of freedoms: freedom of information basically - that the government has to be more accountable and more transparent because that's what democracy is all about - transparent government - so that people are informed and the people can take a direct, participatory democracy, essentially, where they get to have a say in how the country is run. That's what they talk about over and over and obviously the media is very important in that so the media have to be empowered to get access to that information to then give it to the people etc., and citizen journalism - all of that - it's all wonderful, it all sounds so great, you know?
And this is all coming from the US. All of this written by the US - by US corporations and US organisations and the US government, fundamentally. And yet, USAID, which is the pre-eminent US government regime changer around the world, like the actual means to destabilise countries, is overseen by USAID which is what it sounds like, you know, the US giving aid to other countries in terms of cash and resources, but for a specific objective. And even USAID acknowledged that the American political party practices would not satisfy the measure of democ....
[audio breaks up]...the measure of democracy would not be met by either of the two parties in the United States. They said that in 1999. And yet, they're lobbying and pushing all of these extreme freedoms on other people and if anybody said, "So are you doing this?" they'd be like, "Well, no. But, we want it for them - but not for us. So do as we say, but not as we do", basically.
Obviously when we talk about the motivations behind this - which is largely financial and power and control, you know - they may now and again - these people who implement these policies, and even the ones who are a bit duped by it - you'd think - well, they're getting something out of it as well; a large salary, a lot of them, and sometimes they get positions, etc., - but you'd wonder now and again, they may think, "Should we really be interfering with this country? We're talking about changing things up here, radically, in this country; who comes next? What if the people we put in power - or help to put in power as we see it - are worse than the ones before? Should we even be doing this? Is it not a bit dicey? Is it not a bit of a dubious proposition to have this kind of interference in other countries?" But then I figured it's more or less like a bunch of US policemen being told that the franchise owner of a Dunkin' Donut shop was mistreating his employees and noticing that there's a real enthusiasm there, among those cops to go into that Dunkin' Donut shop and really shake things up, you know?
If it wasn't a Dunkin' Donut shop, they might have said, "Well, is he doing anything illegal? Do we have any right to do this?" But as soon as it's Dunkin' Donuts, it's like, "Yeah, let's get the hell in there. Now! Kick the door down!" you know, because it's Dunkin Donuts and obviously my analogy here is that Dunkin' Donuts is greed, right? Once there's an incentive there, that overrides any considerations, any moral or critical thinking considerations because they just see the Dunkin' Donuts and they're like, "Hmm let's get in there", "Yeah that's a good idea. Freedom and democracy? Yeah."
Pierre: And you mention an important point: Legal. Is it legal to raid or to destroy or to modify this Dunkin' Donut shop? And one of the most fundamental acts in international law is that countries are sovereign. How do you reconcile this most fundamental law with the fact that countries - particularly the US - decides most of the time very naturally, without the consent of the international community - the UN - most of the time, sometimes decides to mess with the internal affairs of a foreign country which is by definition and legally speaking, sovereign?
Niall: Well, they've spent decades explaining to us little people that sovereignty no longer exists in this globalised, post-modern world; there's no such thing as a nation state; that we're all one global civil society now; we're all the same, you know; we all want the same thing, we're told; and there's no reason why everybody shouldn't be on board. In fact, anyone being sovereign is being out of line; is being a rebel; is being an agitator. I think they see countries in this way. About the point about do they ever stop and go, "Well, if we go and do this, what will the consequences be?" George Soros recently wrote - in passing, he was talking about some other people say that, "There's a risk of us bringing regime change to Russia because what if an even more extremist nationalist comes into power behind him?" "I thought about that but I don't think the risk is so high; I think it's still worth it." And this is Madeleine Albright speaking here - she's asked about the sanctions against Iraq that killed half a million children, was the price worth it? And she said, "Yes, the price was worth it. We have our goal and really you people don't mean anything." An all-out war with Russia? It certainly doesn't seem to bother Soros.
Joe: Yeah, well he's a private individual. That's why he can just go back into his bunker.
Niall: Or up into his spaceship, yeah.
Pierre: And the Madeleine Albright statement, I think it connects to the concept of psychopathy, here; clearly. And values that are ours, like the value of the life, human children, I guess for a psychopathic individual it is not relevant, or even on the contrary, I guess some psychopaths might have a kick being part of killings.
Niall: But I think it's primarily that people are functional for them - they are themselves a natural resource, human beings.
Pierre: Yeah. Exactly.
Niall: So they don't really want to slaughter everyone - although that tends to happen more often than not - I think if that was their primary aim, they would have let-fly more often than they do.
Pierre: I think both are compatible because in psychological studies of psychopathy there are some depictions of the way psychopaths see other human beings, and it is - as you say - basically as items, objects.
Joe: Yeah, and they don't consider the future really. They don't tend to consider the results of their actions.
Pierre: Yeah, and they see them as objects, and when you see people using objects, sometimes they USE objects for their own interest; sometimes they DESTROY objects. Nonetheless, the object is still considered an object.
Joe: Yeah, they just walk away. So, it's kind of a joke and there's stuff going on in Ukraine still; the ceasefire doesn't seem to be holding that well. Nobody trusts each other, basically. The rebels certainly have no reason to trust Kiev and their NATO masters and as a result of that genuine mistrust from the rebels towards Kiev, Kiev then decides that it can't trust the rebels. But, there has to be an assessment on balance here of who's the aggressor and who's not, and who needs to make some atonement, essentially. But that's not what Kiev or NATO are about. So, there's some suggestion that they might want to take Mariupol; that that might be a new front. I mean, they may be taking a 'wait and see' approach.
I mean, the whole Minsk agreement is a bit tenuous - it's 'by the end of the year' some kind of a hard agreement would be made on autonomous status for Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk, but then where the boarders are going to be and... you know, the whole thing sounds so implausible because part of the Ukies, the Kiev, the NATO demand was that the control over Ukraine's boarders would be restored; and obviously what they're talking about here is the boarder behind the rebels in Donetsk and Lugansk. I mean, the main thing they've been fighting for is the freedom to have close ties, cultural ties etc., with Russia, and that would tend to suggest that they would control the boarder and that the dictates of Kiev would not be along that boarder, but rather it would be whatever the people of Lugansk and Donetsk wanted along with the Russians. So, that's almost impossible - that seems to me to be an impossible stipulation of the agreement, you know? Because Kiev is obviously going to want to lock down that boarder because they're going to be invaded by Russia at any moment.
Niall: Yeah, it's absurd; I can imagine it. But I think what was the concession that was given there was: first, some kind of referendum - which they've already had actually, but okay, let's do it again in these two provinces and then that would produce "legitimate" government representatives of the two regions. Then, they would settle on the extent to which they're autonomous, in some way federalised from Kiev. And then, that therefore means that that border behind them remains the boarder of Ukraine with Russia.
Joe: Yeah, of course. And it's going to be governed by Kiev, from Kiev; they want to have central authority. But that's like having your enemy at your back, basically - they're going to have a bunch of border guards controlling who goes in and out. I mean, that's a flashpoint right there. I mean, unless the Western puppets in Kiev suddenly have a bunch of lobotomies or something, there's no way they're going to change their attitude. I mean, they all rabidly hate Russia, you know?
Pierre: Yeah, the way I interpret this Minsk agreement and meeting is that a) on an international politics level, there was the officialisation of a major change in European policy - German and French policy - and it might have consequences in the future. And in Minsk we clearly saw the division between on one side US and UK that are very much pro-war in Ukraine and we know what, it's because of Russia, basically. And on the other side we see Germany and France who see the conflict escalating and who don't want a war in their backyard and economic sanctions that are harming their national economies. So there was this political aspect, and I think there was a more mundane - if we can use this word - more mundane consideration that was the Debaltsevo pocket of thousands of Kiev soldiers that were surrounded, that were about to be slaughtered who were to surrender otherwise, and the Minsk agreement came maybe as an attempt to save those soldiers but the problem is that Poroshenko - which it was very interesting to see how Poroshenko reacted to this whole Debaltsevo business. Because all along, he's been denying the seemingly obvious fact: that his troops were surrounded. Figures were about 5000 troops; it doesn't seem much compared to the US armies for example, but the Ukrainian army, 30,000 soldiers, we're talking one sixth, 15%...
Joe: Well, it was up to 8000, so it could have been almost a quarter or more than a quarter...
Pierre: Yeah, almost a third.
Joe: They were the best that they could muster. And it's an example of the fact that they could only muster 30,000 out of a purported maximum of six million of military age and able to join the military. Six million?? in Ukraine, could get 30,000 who were able for active service? It not only says a lot about the nature of the rebellion, the nature of the Maidan revolution and how many people were actually involved in it? And then, the nature of or the extent to which the Ukrainian people actually support what's going on in Ukraine. And it's got nothing to do with most of the Ukrainian people either; it's a NATO war, basically - a NATO proxy war. And in that sense, Poroshenko is exposed as just a Willy Wonker chocolate king, and that's all he is; he has no clue. I mean, he's been in Ukrainian politics before and he's completely corrupt. In 2004 he was in government with Yushchenko, but he resigned because he was accused of corruption.
I mean, if you look back at the history of Ukraine, every single person - they talk about Yanukovych who was kicked out last year - but every single one of them: the Gas Princess, Timoshenko is just completely corrupt to the core, so was Mr. Orange Revolution Yanukovych and all of the other names - every one of them are just as bad and worse than each other, trying to out-do each other in terms of corruption. But, they hold up one guy, Yanukovych; and the Ukrainian people knew that and that's why I don't believe anything about the whole Maidan thing. Anybody who was on the Maidan prior to the violent episode were there protesting on the streets for radical change of everybody - not just Yanukovych - EVERYBODY, all of them. They didn't want anybody in power. I don't know who they were going to choose from or what they were going to do, because that's who they've got to pick from.
Niall: Well, that's why there was only a 30% turnout in their elections this year.
Joe: Right, exactly. So, the whole thing is just one big, giant propaganda lie basically.
Pierre: To give you an idea of the level of motivation or demotivation in the Ukrainian army, apparently during the Debaltsevo debacle there were anti-surrendering Ukrainian troops that were shooting at their partners...
Niall: Yeah, the whole story when it comes out is going to be so sordid. The reason why they were trapped from the beginning was because, yes, they had barrier troops behind them to shoot anyone trying to just flee.
Joe: Yeah, because they were meant to go in from Debaltsevo...
Niall: And that was how I think the rebels were able to take a town behind them to the North West and therefore create this cauldron. It's been resolved this week... the Donbass militia says there are between three and three and a half thousand dead Ukrainian soldiers; they killed them, basically.
Pierre: Yeah, they had no other choice.
Joe: But that's why you had Merkel and Hollande running around: because they knew this was happening, they have at least some objective analysts etc., and people on the ground who are telling them, "This is a bad situation. We need to stop or this is really going to turn into a route for us in terms of what we're trying to do. And if the rebels in Eastern Ukraine really win this victory in a really outright kind of fashion, and there isn't some kind of a peace deal where everybody is seen to back down and say, "We don't want to go on any further", then they're going to run rampant, they don't know where it'll stop, you know?
And Poroshenko had no clue about that, apparently. Poroshenko was there playing the hardass, hard-line deal maker at Minsk and I think somebody had to go up and tell him, "Listen, you understand what's going on here?" and he's like, "No. What do you mean?" and it's like, "what are you even here for you big, chocolate..." he's just there as a puppet head, you know? Just to make it appear like there's some actual Ukrainian representation, as if they have some legitimate government; as if it isn't a completely, fundamentally failed state - beyond a failed state in the sense that it's a client, puppet state that has no national sovereignty any more. The only thing that's legitimate in Ukraine is the Ukrainian people. There is no sovereign leadership in Ukraine. It's absolutely pathetic.
I mean, People in Ukraine should be extremely and so supremely ashamed of their leaders. I mean, they should have another revolution and kick out NATO and everybody.
Voice: Off with their heads!!
Joe: Off with their heads, yeah - if that's what it said.
Pierre: Poroshenko, in a sense, killed the 3000 or 4000 of his own soldiers by denying all along that they were surrounded; by not accepting to surrender - you don't accept to surrender, if you don't recognise that you're surrounded - and all that for probably purely political motivations. Because, in his government there are some very pro-war individuals and recognising a defeat - it's a partial defeat - was non-accepted.
Joe: Right. So, the whole point of the Minsk thing was not about peace and I think the rebels understand that it's not really a genuine ceasefire, an agreement and a peace-deal; it was simply to stop them from achieving this clear-cut victory that would have gone against NATO and the WEST and the US and Kiev, and therefore they should have no confidence in the terms of the deal. It was just a stop-gap; it was to pause the whole thing so that we can...
Pierre: Buy time.
Joe: Buy some time, basically, and think about what we can do.
Niall: After Minsk I, Poroshenko - the dumbass - went on T.V. and said, "We've used this ceasefire to re-arm, reload..."
Joe: Yeah, exactly.
Joe + Niall: Why would anybody trust him?
Pierre: And imagine the impact. At least 10% of the Ukrainian army was destroyed in Debaltsevo because Poroshenko lied and was in denial all along the political process although the authorities gave him the opportunity - they HANDED him, Merkel and Hollande - the opportunity to stop the blood-bath.
Niall: Yeah.
Pierre: And you imagine the rest of the troops - their mental state - after this betrayal by their own leader; after this major loss and major defeat. I think from this point it can only go worse.
Niall: So, Poroshenko was at the Maidan one year anniversary ceremony. Apparently there were big crowds so whoever is in Kiev still believes - there's still quite a lot of believers waving EU flags, American flags. And he got up there to let them know that Ukrainian SBU - their secret services - told him that they had recorded conversations between Yanukovych and Russian state security officials preparing for the shooting together, in advance. He's talking about the snipers at Maidan a year ago.
Joe: He's a lying sack of... BEEP.
Niall: Well, he got the right response. The crowd was, "ROAR!! Glory to Ukraine! Death to Moscow!"
Joe: Which NGO organised that rent-a-crowd? You know what I mean? I mean, it's ridiculous. The contention that the Russians or Yanukovych had anything to gain from shooting all those people - they had everything to LOSE from shooting all those people. To believe that, you'd have to assume they're completely brain dead in terms of their strategy or their ability to foresee consequences of actions. Because obviously what was going to happen by shooting 80 protesters, was that you were going to incite the rebellion even more and force Yanukovych to flee. How smart do you have to be to figure that out: that if I shoot all of these people in this climate that, with the full backing of the West that is pushing this "Revolution", and it's all against me, and I've already been forced to back way, way down, and sign this agreement a few days previously, how smart do you have to be to realise that that would be the end of me completely? I would have to leave the country. I would have to flee if that happened.
So, that's the last thing he would have done unless he wanted to literally or, you know, figuratively shoot himself in the foot or end the whole thing for him. But he's been accused of doing that - when it's clear that you always have to go back to who benefits? And who benefits was the right-sector, the Neo-Nazi, violent element within - that came from who knows where - within this Maidan thing that had been carrying it on for the few weeks previous to these shootings, when it got extremely violent, when they brought out the guns and the petrol bombs en masse.
Those are the people who are going to benefit from 80 of their number being shot by police. And they benefited because Yanukovych had to flee. The agreement that he had signed that basically met all the demands of the genuine protesters was scrapped and it was turned into a violent coup d'etat where he was forced to flee on pain of death and the entire government resigned, and the Prime Minister that was selected by Nuland and Pyatt - the ambassador in Ukraine - a few weeks previously in their telephone call, was immediately made Prime Minister. And all of the people that they wanted in power got into power.
It's ridiculous. It's just such a counter-intuitive suggestion. But then, you expect that from such an idiot like him. He's just a puppet, you know? He's a blathering idiot.
Niall: Yep.
Joe: And of course, there's actual video evidence of those protesters. I don't know how many people have watched the videos of that day of several of the protesters actually being shot? They're all facing up a street that leads up to the central bank and the parliament in Kiev, and they're trying to advance against police lines; and the police are behind a barricade about 100yds ahead of them and this group of protesters - and they're right-sector, basically - have their shields and they're hiding behind some trees just off the side of the road, facing the police up ahead of them. And it's very clear that one of them - because you see the bullet hitting the tree - one of them is shot from behind, and directly behind them is Maidan square which has been the seat of the revolution and completely ...[inaudible]... by the right sector and all of these violent groups for weeks at this point. And all of the buildings are held by them and the building directly behind them - about 50yds directly behind them - is the Ukraine Hotel which is being used as a triage centre for anybody who got injured, so it's completely under their control as well. And then there were other reports of other people who were shot that aren't on video and evidence from the bullet holes that they were all shot from the side of the protesters: all of the bullets either came from behind them or the side of them, which was all protester-held territory.
So there was a fifth column in there. There was an element in there that was amongst the protesters that was tasked with shooting the protesters, creating that kind of bloodshed to justify a violent coup, which is what the US does. That's what the US has done for decades, so it's not surprising that that happened. But to hear Willy Wonka come out and say it was the Russians is just laughable, you know? Stick to the chocolate!
Niall: Something similar happened in Moscow in '93. There was a protest against Yeltsin's government and people were being shot, and they didn't know where it... a lot of journalists were hit as well - and to this day, it's a mystery as to who did it, but we can make an educated guess: secret teams, they tend to do that - turn up at these opportune moments. It happened in Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, 2011. It also happened in Sarajevo in '94.
Joe: It happened in Venezuela...
Joe + Niall: 2002.
Niall: The Sarajevo one was notorious because there was less of an internet awareness, at least amongst some alternative media people at the time. It took years to realise that the shooters were not Serb snipers. But everyone remembers it was Serb snipers. Of course, they were demonised for other atrocities as well, like there was a notorious bombing. It was reported as a car-bombing in Sarajevo that really ignited the Bosnian war in '95. Years later, it came out that someone in the US State Department was aware that actually there were plastic explosives left in place and timed to go off with the protests in Sarajevo, right at the height of tensions to really get the conflict going. Planted by Muslim terrorists who were brought in from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia.
Joe: It's a tactic that's all of US 20th century foreign policy. It's on record that in Vietnam, after the Vietnam War when one of the two Diem brothers was going to become President, and the US didn't want that to happen: they didn't like him because he was a bit nationalistic in his orientation. And the CIA were obviously all over the place as part of the Vietnam War. But they planted lots of bombs using plastic explosives.
There's one account from one guy who actually admits - a former CIA agent - that he actually planted a plastic explosive bomb amongst a group of demonstrators who were rallying in support of Diem, and that's what they do - they just blow things up and create chaos and...
Pierre: Blame someone.
Joe: Well, in that case, they were blaming a faction that was against Diem and wanted him gone and stuff. In Vietnam it was just horrible; they manipulated the entire situation against Kennedy's wishes, but by this stage Kennedy was dead, obviously - killed by the same people, more or less - and go in and killed him, just had him executed by this gang, a pseudo-gang, a bunch of terrorists, essentially. It's different names and the same tactic over and over again, you know, where they shunt in a bunch of right-wing, right sector, fundie Muslims or whatever you want to call them, to shake things up and blow things up and kill whoever they want to kill and basically destabilise the country. If they can't destabilise it politically then they'll destabilise it violently in the sense of physically, by igniting some kind of a violent confrontation and that can spill over into a civil war if necessary or they can stop it short if it has already achieved their ends. But if the opposition is too strong and it's - to some extent - well organised and aware of them, they'll let a civil war brew for as long as is necessary. That's what's happening in Syria.
Niall: Well, they might just really detonate Ukraine now. I think we got a clue today. A bomb went off at a pro-peace protest/rally whatever, in Kharkov.
Joe: Yep.
Niall: Which is Ukraine's second largest city, killing at least two protesters - no, they weren't protesting anything. I think they were mainly Ukrainian...
Joe: Yeah, they were people from Kharkov marching for peace and no more war, stop the war, and who wants to...
Niall: And who wants to keep it going?
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Who wants to keep it going? Who has the most benefit keeping it going, you know?
Niall: In the absence of being able to launch another, a third wave assault against the Donbass/Novo-Russian militia, this is what they'll do; they will just start blowing their own people up all over the place, "And maybe then we'll get enough support behind us and get a million troops?"
Joe: Yeah, but they'll have to really work at it, you know?
Pierre: Maybe not.
Joe: ISIS, on the other hand, are still on the go. Was it a week or so ago, they supposedly killed 20 Christians - we spoke about this last week so maybe it was more than a week ago - on a beach somewhere in Libya, but nobody knows exactly where it is. And if you look at some images from that video - I mean, there's no really horrific images or anything like that from it, but there's images of these guys in orange jumpsuits being marched along a beach and them kneeling down on a beach and they're supposed to be being beheaded, etc. But in one of those images - there's a still from the video - the guys in the orange jumpsuits are being marched along and the ISIS boogeymen are in their traditional ninja gear, you know? But if you look at that image that's a still from the video, about three or four of them in a line, looking down the line, about three or four of the ISIS guys are at least 7ft tall.
Niall: How do you know?
Joe: Because they've got a guy in an orange jumpsuit beside them and they're head and shoulders above him. And he doesn't look like a... he's not a midget or anything - that's not the right word - he's not a vertically challenged person; he's a normal looking guy in an orange jumpsuit. And they guy behind him and two guys behind him are also...
So, even the media - the mainstream media - is now looking at that and they're agreeing with what some people have said. Maybe some people have gone too far and said the whole things have been staged where ISIS have been killing these people that it's all been staged, starting with the Western hostages last year, etc. Some of them are saying that it's completely staged. But the Western media is actually agreeing that this is evidence. There's no suggestion that these people weren't actually killed, but that this is maybe evidence that the video was...
Niall: ISIS is trying to be tricksy with us.
Joe: Well, ISIS is doing something weird with their videos where they're pasting in people or they're taking...
Voice: Worst. Movie. EVER!
Joe: It WAS the worst movie ever. I can't remember - there's probably been a few Western media outlets - but they actually agreed that it's evidence or it's suggestive of the video not being a genuine video; that ISIS in some way manipulated the video evidence for some unknown reason.
Niall: So, let's just go with the basics here. This is an attack in Libya where 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians, are beheaded. And the immediate reaction to that was for Egyptian and Libyan air force to blow the hell out of wherever it's supposed to be, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Niall: Because the headline I saw was that somebody in the British Foreign Office was pleased to see that "Egypt is now on board with us in the war against ISIS". Among other things, ISIS plans to invade and occupy Europe through Libya. Okaaay...
Joe: Right. They're coming to Rome, yeah.
Niall: Urm, yes: "Italy Shuts Down Embassy in Libya".
Joe: But, it's interesting that there was a report today or yesterday in The Telegraph. On Italian Twitter - or maybe not Italian but mainly eligible Italian Twitter users in English, kind of lampooning that suggestion where ISIS said, "God willing, we will be in Rome by..." you know...
Niall: Next week.
Joe: Yeah. Whenever. And people are posting pictures on Twitter. One of them was the hashtag, "We are coming to Rome", and they put a picture of tailbacks on a highway - of long tailbacks outside Rome - saying, "Are you sure?" And then someone else said, "Don't try coming over the Alps on Elephants. The Romans are wise to that trick by now." And then someone posted a picture of the Costa Concordia that your guy crashed a couple years ago off the coast of Italy, there - the Italian captain of a ferry, the Costa Concordia, sank it because he drove it too close to the rocks - they put up a picture of that and said - his name was Schettino - and they said, "Don't let Schettino steer your ships. He has a tendency to get too close to islands. And there were a few others in that theme, just making fun of the idea that they were coming to Rome.
Niall: Well, there's an extremely tragic element to this as well. It's absurd, but I think what's going on here - one aspect of it - is that every day almost - every week, certainly - hundreds of Libyan refugees and people who've come through Libya are drowning trying to get Italy or somewhere else in Europe. In fact, it's probably something like tens of thousands a month are fleeing; it's so bad there. And somebody has pasted in or inserted in the suggestion that, "Oh my God, they're all coming from North Africa. Therefore, ISIS will hide among them as a fifth column."
Joe: No, but ISIS has said that themselves - whoever ISIS is, you know.
Niall: Oh, even better. Well, they can speak for them.
Joe: Jen Psaki in the State Department speaking on behalf of ISIS said that... I don't know, ISIS, whoever they are, said that as psychological warfare...
Niall: Jen got promoted.
Joe: I know... said that as psychological warfare, they would send half a million refugees from North Africa into Europe and hide themselves among them, and this would be psychological warfare. So, ISIS are going to round up half a million people and put them on boats over to Europe and say, "Now. There you go. There's some psychological warfare for you."
Pierre: It's a smart move: demonize even more the Muslim population within European minds.
Joe: Yeah, and to close European borders. And al-Shabaab, which is another kind of MI6...
Niall: They're losing control of Libya. I think what's happening is the civil war has got to the point where there's a risk that, let's say, former green revolutionary league...
Joe: Gaddaffiites.
Niall: Gaddaffi believers would actually take control. I think that they've been saying, "Oh, we've no intention of sending ground troops to Libya or anything." Well, of course you don't; you'll just do what you did before; you'll carpet bomb the place.
Joe: Yeah, or do it in secrecy.
Pierre: I have a question about this Middle East policies and political events. According to - what's his name - Thierry Meyssan, you know this journalist who was writing about 9/11 at the time. He is now living in Syria becoming some sort of specialist of politics in the Middle East and according to his own analysis, there has been a major change in geopolitics from the US who has now decided - unlike Israel - the US would have decided to fight ISIS - to really fight ISIS - and to do so through a proxy that will be Egypt. Hence, the recent deal where Egypt got some French fighter jets. Does it make sense to you? I'm puzzled about it.
Joe: What was the question?
Pierre: Is this analysis from Meyssan, stating that now there is a division that appear between the US and Israel: on the one side Israel who wants to keep on pushing ISIS; on the other side the US does not want to support ISIS anymore - it wants to fight it. And the way they've decided to fight it is to proxy through Egypt, basically, hence the recent purchase of fighter jets.
Joe: Well that kind of would presume that Israel wouldn't know that the US was doing that and wouldn't be unhappy about that.
Pierre: No, no, he assumes it's in the open - I mean, between the initiates; between the US and Israeli representatives - and that there is a growing tension between them.
Joe: Yeah, it's possible. I see the question raised a lot as to why ISIS never threatens, let alone attacks, Israel. You'd think that a crazy fundie Muslim group would have Israel as their main target - historically - but they never say a word about Israel. And Israel use ISIS for a bit of propaganda now and again. It seems the Israelis are mostly preoccupied with Palestinians. Netanyahu has tried to compare ISIS to Hamas in the past, saying basically that they're' the same. And Hezbollah in Lebanon - that ISIS is the same as Hezbollah, which is just pure nonsense, you know. But I don't think many people take Netanyahu very seriously anymore because of the things he has said, particularly his crass electioneering about trying to bring all the Jews from France back to Israel or Jews from Europe back to Israel, because they're under this deadly dire threat.
He's not a serious person, you know? I don't think many Israeli leaders have been taken as serious people. They have never really acted very seriously because their position is fundamentally untenable for various reasons, but obviously there is a big Israeli lobby in the US and European countries so I think that's where Israeli power lies in terms of keeping other Western European and US nations or governments in line or certainly non-critical, or not too critical, of Israel because they have a very effective lobby. I don't know much about how lobbies work; it's got to be more than just money, right? But maybe money is a lot in that respect. But, you know, lobby groupsand governments, that's what they do. They lobby politicians to say one thing or don't say another thing and stay on song on this or don't. Obviously there's some influence there because in many cases different lobby groups have been able to influence government policy that was kind of detrimental to the host government itself.
Niall: Yeah, exactly.
Joe: So okay, money talks, but you'd think there might be another layer or level of the manipulation going on there. I don't know what it is.
Pierre: You were mentioning Netanyahu's statements about Hezbollah and ISIS being the same basically. So interestingly, General Wesley Clark, who is retired now but who was a major military leader in the US stated officially, "ISIS got started through funding from our friends and allies to fight to the death against Hezbollah." So, there are two statements here that are quite incompatible. On one side, Netanyahu saying Hezbollah = ISIS; on the other side, General Wesley Clark stating ISIS was created by friends and allies to fight Hezbollah. It's opposite statements.
And what's also interesting is that quite a leading figure - a figure of authority, American General - states openly in mainstream media that ISIS was created by our friends and allies.
Joe: Well, of course. I don't think anybody is in any doubt that ISIS was of course created by the friends and allies of the US because they obviously couldn't exist and do what they've been doing without a large amount of support - financial and other support from a nation state. You know, you don't get to do what they've done without having that backing. It's the same as the Eastern Ukrainian rebels, you know? I mean, it's almost certain that Russia is supporting them in various different ways and Russia has every right to do so because that's the rules of the game that have been established long ago. I mean, the US wouldn't hesitate for a second to support certain groups in like, Mexico, or something like that, if they thought there was a threat to US national security. If there was a revolutionary government come into power in Mexico that was very anti-US and there was an opposition to that, the US wouldn't hesitate for a second to help that group.
So, I find it amazing how they can get away with this demonization of Russia as if it's some kind of like the worst possible sin you could ever, ever commit in any realm of endeavour for Russia to be supporting the rebels, when the US and European countries have been doing it like dozens, hundreds of times for the past hundred years. It's like everybody does that - what are you talking about?!
Pierre: I think there's an extra dimension to their anti-Russian sentiment in that I think those psychopathic individual or ponerised individual - might not be all of them psychopaths - they have much difficulties to digest that finally they have a quite notable opponent and they're not winning all the time and they're not crushing the enemy all the time and it becomes almost a mantra in Jen Psaki press conferences: whatever question is asked, or almost 90% of the questions, she has an answer, "IT'S PUTIN! IT'S PUTIN!"
Joe: Putin did it!
Pierre: It becomes caricature.
Joe: Yeah; it already is, you know?
Pierre: And the way it says the Americans are not really happy with Putin, because, Putin - maybe for decades - is the first leader who successfully oppose this destructive imperial machine.
Joe: Um hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think they've removed the word 'hypocrisy' from the dictionary - I think recent prints have removed the word 'hypocrisy' so that no one understands what it means anymore; because that's the only way that people in the West could actually listen to the propaganda and not have a problem with it, you know? Because it's such blatant hypocrisy, right in your face, people must have forgotten what the word hypocrisy means, therefore it must have been removed from the dictionary; that's all I can conclude. And schoolbooks.
Maybe it happened like ten years ago in preparation for this and we just didn't notice? I'm going to go and look in the dictionary now.
Niall: We have no need for it any more. Yeah, it's incredible. It's really valuable, as well.
Joe: Yeah. I was just going to say about ISIS, the thing I want to say about ISIS, the Italian Twitter people making fun of ISIS: that's an appropriate response, because it's so farcical, you know? I mean, I'm kinda heartened to see that response from people because it is such a charade, such overblown theatre that I'm glad people can still see that. And it was highlighted just this past week: CNN ran a story saying that ISIS was trying to recruit Western women to join the Jihad by putting pictures of Nutella and kittens on Facebook and social media to show Western women that they have a normal lifestyle - like they eat kittens covered in Nutella... oh, no, no, they eat Nutella and pet kittens. They probably do eat kittens covered in Nutella, but... Maybe that's what CNN should have said...
Voice: You should not drink and bake.
Pierre: So the reasoning, if I understand what you just said correctly, is that, imagine you're a Western woman; you go on Facebook; you see this publication from ISIS with kitten and Nutella, and then you think, "Oh, ISIS is good. So, let me quit my job, my kids, my family; I'll quickly pack; I'll buy a ninja suit before leaving, with a ISIS logo on the hood and I'll travel..." where do you travel? Syria?
Joe: Turkey, Syria...
Pierre: Yeah, Turkey; hotbed...
Joe: You go for a week on the beach in Turkey and then you go over to Syria for some Jihad...
Pierre: But, that's a BRILLIANT recruitment technique and campaign, eh? I think million of Western women will join.
Joe: But the strange thing is, there's a story in the news right now coming just after that Nutella and kittens are being used to attract Western women to ISIS. There's a story about three British... I suppose they're school girls?
Niall: They're schoolgirls. 15 and 16.
Joe: Yeah, 15 and 16. They left the UK last Tuesday.
Niall: They've disappeared; they don't know where they are.
Joe: They don't know where they are but they're saying that they worried that they may have gone to join the Jihadisphere - they may have taken a shuttle to the Jihadisphere. But that's kind of interesting because that came out I think on the same day, or that happened on the same day as CNN talked about kittens and Nutella.
Niall: Joe, there are dozens, dozens; every country is reporting missing teenagers. There's one in Austria where the government's trying to get these girls back; one of them's now pregnant.
Joe: Right. But CNN is trying to say that's they're explanation for it. Kittens and Nutella...
Niall: They're trying to explain it. There is some network in nearly every European and North American country that is getting hundreds or thousands of girls to go to this place. I don't understand here what's going on, exactly. I think it's partly to do with Westerners basically losing their minds. I mean, kids today are just born in a world that is so effed up that they have no concept of reality. And I think that they get there and they realise, "Holy shit. What did I just do?" But, it's also partly drugs. They're getting mixed in with guys that do drugs; next thing, they're with police informants, next thing...
Pierre: Yeah.
Niall: And they do try to sex up this ISIS thing back in the home countries, in Europe and in North America. Yeah, it could be partly sex. I mean, there were stories about needing shipments of condoms, "Please send them out here to our places in Syria." I mean, there seem to be wild, wild stuff going on out there. I'm not kidding. They had someone brought in to help deal with the outbreak of STD's.
Joe: Um hmm.
Pierre: Yeah.
Niall: And they found that 86% of the thousand or so Jihadists they did tests on - I think the Saudis sent doctors - all had STD's.
It's hard for us to imagine, but there's a kind of blend of pornography at level of... All the basest things come together: cutting off heads, sex orgies, drugs; it's pure expression of materialism and that attracts people.
Joe: Certain people, yeah.
Pierre: But for millennia, when I was hearing the description, it reminded me of how, for millennia, among some armies - particularly mercenary armies, during the Roman empire, for example - a good way for General or Consul to attract or form a massive army was the permission of killing, raping and looting. Killing: the beheading. Raping: the STD and watching pornography and other kind of things. And looting: money.
And these are three main factors to attract psychopathic individual: violence, deviant sex, money.
Niall: There's a story today about a 19yr old Jihadist arrested in the UK. Actually, no; the story is now updated to him being sentenced for plotting to behead another British soldier. 19 and MI5 were saying, "We don't understand how he was radicalised so fast." He was brought up a Jehovah's Witness of Congolese origin or something - somewhere in London. Then, he rejects his religion as a teenager; starts doing drugs; starts stealing people's credit cards to pay for prostitutes; six months later he's a Jihadist attending talks by radical clerics; then he's caught with a black flag of Islam, a 12inch blade and somehow there's some intelligence saying that he was going to go to this base to... It's just
Joe: Um hmm. Yeah, there are people out there - it's like a nexus of fantasy and reality that comes together and makes it all very surreal, you know? al-Shabaab are going to attack the UK now as well after their Westgate Shopping Mall a couple of years ago in Kenya. This is al-Shabaab from Somalia; they have called for attacks on London's Oxford Street and the Westgate Shopping Centres in the UK - because the Westgate Shopping Centre they attacked in Nairobi was part of a Western chain. Apparently they don't like that shopping centre or something - I don't know.
But it's coming at the right time: ISIS is invading Europe from Libya into Italy and al-Shabaab/al-Kebab are going to, you know...
Pierre: It's a pinch attack!
Joe: ...a pincer movement!
Pierre: Yeah. The South, ISIS; and the North, the al-Kebab or...
Joe: al-Kebab. But they have a longer sail though, because they have to get all the way to London from Somalia.
Niall: They're coming over the Mexican border as well. And they're coming down the North from the Arctic; apparently they're turning up in Ottawa...
Joe: Right. Disguised as Eskimos? Disguised as penguins!
Borat: Wa wa wee wa, issa very nice!
Joe: What the hell is that? Anyway...
Niall: What was that? It's insane, but the crazy thing is that the stories, as they get more ludicrous, there does seem to be like a delayed wave, where in the background, people's brains are so turned to mush that they're picking up these things and actually bringing them into reality. The World's gone insane.
Joe: The World has just gone insane, I think.
Pierre: I think there's a spiral - psychologically speaking - in people's mind, where there are two ways, basically. And the way they want us to follow is there is such a level of hysterization that you don't think straight at all and you believe those utterly ridiculous lies, which hysterizes you even more. "They're everywhere! In Ottawa, Italy. We're surrounded, basically. We're surrounded by raping, beheading, crazy individuals." So, you freak out even more, you think even less and you swallow even bigger lies that make you even more crazy, more freaking out and etc., etc. There's a way they want us to believe, but it's the [...] because on the other side, if you have a bit of critical thinking, the lie's being bigger and bigger, it's easier for the ones that think to see that it's pure and simple ...[inaudible].
Niall: Yeah. But the darker reality to it - if there is one - is that there are these people around us all the time. I mean, in the US, judges let rapists off because, "Well, the girl kind of deserved it because she was wearing a short dress." There's a mentality and an understanding among "civilised" countries that we're surrounded by certain types who have certain needs and, okay, if there's a place for them over there, they'll go over there and do it. Some of the fighters who went to Ukraine, went there for the joy of killing people.
Pierre: Of course.
Niall: Safari killing. They call it "Safari Killing".
Pierre: I don't know if you mentioned it in previous shows, but there were reports of some advertisements or some deals where actually, kind of "Safari" clients could go there - there was a price that had to be paid by the tourist for the kind of shooting. A civilian, $200 - it was something like that. So, yeah. It's not unlike the reports you read about those paedophile organised networks, rings, where they don't get their kick from sex anymore; it's about torture and killing, basically. We heard about those hunting sessions: human hunt. Why is it the same? In those two different environments: this kind of top Western society and over there in the Middle East desert. It's because it appeals to the very same psychopathic substratum.
Niall: Yep.
Joe: Yeah. And, you know, meanwhile climate chaos continues: the US is iced over. There was a satellite picture where...
Pierre: 90%
Joe: Well, anywhere north of Houston; anywhere north and east of Houston was - well, with the exception of really southern states, but - all across the US was just totally covered in ice, you know, at a certain point in time; ice or snow.
Niall: And the CIA has an explanation for why it's happening.
Pierre: Global warming.
Niall: No...
Joe: Yeah, Putin did it.
Niall: Putin did it.
Joe: That's what they're saying; seriously, people.
Niall: "Can Russia Control the Weather? Climate researcher says CIA fears hostile nations are triggering floods and droughts."
Joe: Yep.
Niall: Any comment?!
Pierre: Ice and snow and was very cold. It went to -9, -15, -20...
Joe: And people should take note that the record low temperatures that have been broken, a lot of them at this point - given the past several winters - they're breaking records from last year or the year before in some places, you know? Where for the 100 or 200 year old record that was broken last year has now been broken again this year.
Pierre: There's an important point here.
Joe: Yeah, it's getting worse, basically.
Pierre: Yeah. Usually, the mainstream media try to depict chaotic patterns; so, "It's just a spike. We had a spike down - temperature-wise - but tomorrow we're going to have a spike up." But when you start to break low temperature records again and again, years after years, it makes just more than a spike: it suggest a TREND.
Joe: Yep, absolutely. And the UK has been getting a pretty horrible winter recently. It seems to coincide a lot where, not just the East Coast of the US but the Midwest as well, but definitely the East Coast of the US, when it's getting cold, cold temperatures, it seems to really hit the UK. And the UK stands out because it doesn't usually get such severe weather in winter time. I mean, okay, Scandinavia etc., is snowy and stuff, but they don't usually get that much snow. But it's cold weather and snowy weather but also with storms. And it's been the same case over the past few years, where they've had repeated, very strong winds and high tides lashing the coastlines and flooding from I think last year and the year before - they had had flooding and they're worried about it again because there's a major storm heading there right now.
Pierre: Which is very unusual because - you lived in Ireland, so you know that better than me - but the typical winter in Ireland is you have depressions over Iceland or west of Ireland, that brings wind - eastward winds - that is moist, but that come from the Atlantic Ocean that is not so cold. That's why the typical day in winter in Ireland is rainy, cloudy and windy and not so cold. So having this conjunction of wind, cold temperature and snow, it is very unusual. It suggests change in the weather patterns that are quite fundamental. It's a different system.
Niall: Yeah. What's the accumulated snowfall in Boston? It's something like 11ft in the last month?
Joe: Yeah, it's ridiculous at this point.
Niall: People are jumping out of their windows. They're not killing themselves, but they're jumping into like these HUGE snowdrifts...
Voice: The numbers all go to 11.
Pierre: You know, yesterday, in Lyon, France - Lyon is not at the mountains, it's in the Rhone Valley and it's in the very north of France; it's not very far from the Mediterranean sea - about 300km. They had a snowfall rate of 5cm - that is, 2 inches - per hour.
Joe: Per hour, yeah.
Pierre: Yeah; for hour and hour and hour. High weather block there, like what we see in the US.
Joe: Yeah. And there's a picture today of the Hudson River around Manhattan being not completely iced over, but full of free floating ice, basically. And it really reminded me of that image from The Day After Tomorrow - which was more dramatic: it had snow up to the level of the bottom of the sky scrapers - but it's kind of getting there, you know? It's almost like a first step in that direction. A definitive step in that direction.
Pierre: Niagara Falls is frozen. Again!
Joe: Yeah, it's been totally frozen for, yeah, in a number of years, yeah. So, it's all happening.
Niall: The Middle East might finally get some peace when the ice age comes, because there's been a second massive blanketing of snow in a month.
Pierre: 25cm.
Joe: Yeah. But, that's a Mediterranean thing that's really, really strange. It's very strange and it's been happening over the past few years consistently, repeatedly, in wintertime. But it's particularly bad this year, so it's getting worse, effectively. But, the last place you would expect to see snow, historically, traditionally, based on a normal climate, is the far end of the Mediterranean. Cyprus, for example, had snow the other day, and Turkey as well, but not necessarily Northern Turkey - the mountains in Turkey - but Istanbul, right on the straights of Constantinople and more or less the Black Sea, it was having a massive amount of snow, but a lot of places in Turkey are having snow. A lot of places in Greece are having snow. These are all Mediterranean climates. And then, obviously, just past Turkey and south of Turkey and on past Cyprus, you've got Israel and Palestine and Lebanon, and Lebanon had a lot of snow in that area in the Middle East.
Niall: Damascus got nearly a foot of snow. It's in the desert.
Joe: But that's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous.
Pierre: And it's all the more ridiculous when you understand why Mediterranean weather is so typical and so unlikely to get snow; because the Mediterranean Sea is a rather warm sea. The average temperature of the Mediterranean Sea in winter - the southern part close to Egypt, Lebanon and Israel - is about 15 degrees Celsius; that's 15 degrees above freezing point. That is the maximum temperature where you get snow, okay?
So, it means you have to get very cold air mass moving from where? From the Arctic, which is very far away. Here we're talking about 30 degrees north, latitude. So, it means you probably have a very destructive jet-stream, very meandering, that makes a huge valley that goes down very much, down to above Africa - maybe Saudi Arabia - that sucks down, [makes whooshing noise] this massive quantity of Arctic air, literally coming from the arctic - from the Pole - and the temperature of this cold and into such snowfalls.
Niall: Meanwhile, Moscow has its warmest winter...
Pierre: Yeah, because this meandering, it can go one way or the other way. That's the definition of meandering: you can turn right, you can turn left. And just to give you an example, to how unusual this weather is: I spent 11 years in Marseilles on the Northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea that is colder, of course. I think we experienced once temperatures that were below zero and we experienced snow once, in 11 years. And we're talking about the North Coast, here.
Niall: Yeah. It happens all the time, now.
Joe: Yep.
Niall: Well, I think we may have found the Nemesis, Pierre. Did you see this story about the close pass?
Pierre: No??
Niall: A group of astronomers from the US, Europe, Chile and South Africa have determined that 70,000 years ago, a recently discovered dim star is likely to have passed through the solar system's distant cloud of comets - the Oort cloud. No other star is known to have ever approached our Solar System this close, five times closer than the current closest star, Proxima Centauri.
Pierre: So, five times closer than Proxima Centauri, it gives a...
Niall: 0.8 light years.
Pierre: Exactly. I was going to say that.
Niall: Is that about right to the theory of the model?
Pierre: No.
Niall: No. What's the model say?
Pierre: Roughly Pluto, which is 90 astronomical units.
Niall: That's far, far shorter.
Pierre: Yes.
Niall: So, this could be something else.
Pierre: Yes, or our model are wrong.
Niall: Or the model's wrong, because it seems like they began with the observation that something happened 70,000 years ago and then worked their way out from that. No sorry, excuse me; "A recently discovered dim star". They say they've made an observation of a star and calculated that it may have come that close.
Pierre: The distances don't fit our model, A). And, B) the timing doesn't fit our model either, because the frequency of this hypothesised twin sun is much higher than that; it's about a... millions of years.
Niall: 26.
Pierre: Exactly. Or 27... yeah: 26.9, thank you. 26.9 million years. With the passage that happened almost 26 million years ago, not 7... they say 700,000 years ago?
Niall: 70,000 years ago.
Pierre: 70? That doesn't fit our model. It doesn't mean that it's not valid because our model is only an hypothesis.
Niall: But their calculation would have brought it within the Oort cloud; i.e., burst through, bowling ball effect. Maybe other objects besides a binary twin would do that?
Pierre: That's possible. There might be several death stars. This being said, the Oort cloud is only an hypothesis as well, eh? Nobody proved the existence of the Oort cloud so, here we're piling up assumption to more assumptions and it would be interesting to know how they found those data.
Joe: Alright, well I think we'll leave it there for this week, folks. Thanks for listening, thanks to our chatters, and we'll back next week...
Voice: In case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight.
Joe: Exactly. In case we don't see ya. Well, we won't see you, actually, but you'll hear us next week with another show. So, until then, have a good one.
Niall: See you next week. Bye Bye.
Pierre: Goodbye.
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