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Tue, 26 Oct 2021
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Is the Ukraine on the brink of war (again)?

soldier ukraine
Just a few weeks ago I wrote a column entitled "The Ukraine's Many Ticking Time Bombs" in which I listed a number of developments presenting a major threat to the Ukraine and, in fact, to all the countries of the region. In this short time the situation has deteriorated rather dramatically. I will therefore begin with a short recap of what is happening.

First, the Ukrainian government and parliament have, for all practical purposes, declared the Minsk Agreements as dead. Truth be told, these agreements were stillborn, but as long as everybody pretended that there was still a chance for some kind of negotiated solution, they served as a "war retardant". Now that this retardant has been removed, the situation becomes far more explosive than before.

The issue of the Minsk Agreements brought to the fore the truly breathtaking hypocrisy of the West: even though Russia never was a party of these agreements (Russia signed them as a guarantor, not as a party), the West chose to blame Russia for "not implementing" these agreements, that in spite of the fact that everybody knew that it was the Ukraine which, for fear of the various Neonazis movements, simply could not implement these agreements. This kind of "in your face" hypocrisy by the West had a tremendous impact on the internal Russian political scene which, in turn, greatly strengthened the position of those in Russia who never believed that a negotiated solution was possible in the first place. In that sense, these agreements represented a major victory for the Kremlin as it forced the West to show the full depth of its moral depravity.

Radar

The dangerous US/NATO strategy in Europe

NATO Dynamic Manta anti-submarine warfare exercise

NATO Dynamic Manta anti-submarine warfare exercise
The NATO Dynamic Manta anti-submarine warfare exercise took place in the Ionian Sea from February 22 to March 5. Ships, submarines, and planes from the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Belgium, and Turkey participated in it. The two main units involved in this exercise were a US Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine and the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle together with its battle group, and a nuclear attack submarine was also included.

Soon after the exercise, the Charles de Gaulle carrier went to the Persian Gulf. Italy, which participated in the Dynamic Manta with ships and submarines, was the entire exercise "host nation": Italy made the port of Catania (Sicily) and the Navy helicopter station (also in Catania) available to the participating forces, the Sigonella air station (the largest US / NATO base in the Mediterranean) and Augusta (both in Sicily) the logistics base for supplies. The purpose of the exercise was the hunt for Russian submarines in the Mediterranean that, according to NATO, would threaten Europe.

Comment: As the above demonstrates - and suggests going forward - we can quite probably look forward to more belligerent rhetoric and aggressive provocations against Russa from Biden-bolstered NATO and its war-mongering flunkies in Europe. And if they continue in this vein, it will not end well.

See also:


Cross

Interview with Archbishop Viganò: COVID agenda aims to destroy national sovereignties and the divine mission of the Church

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
© Rome Life Forum
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
'If our opposition is firm and courageous like at the time of the martyrs, we will have done our part to obtain from heaven those graces which can change the lot of humanity and delay the persecution of the end times'

Interview given by His Excellency Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò To "Deutsche Wirtschaftsnachrichten"[1]

Deutsche Wirtschaftsnachrichten: Your Excellency, how are you personally living the crisis of the Corona virus?

Archbishop C. M. Viganò: My age, my status as Archbishop, and my habit of a withdrawn life are perhaps not representative of what the majority of people are undergoing; nevertheless, for a year now I myself have been unable to travel, to visit people who need a word of comfort. In the presence of a true pandemic I would have no problem accepting willingly the decisions of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, because I would recognize their desire to protect people from contagion. But in order for there to be a pandemic, it requires first of all isolating the virus; it requires that the virus is serious and that it is not possible to cure it promptly; it requires that the victims of the virus represent a large segment of the population. We know instead that SARS-CoV-2 was never isolated but only sequenced[2]; that it is able to be cured over time, using available treatments, and that instead the WHO and local health officials have boycotted such treatments by imposing absurd protocols and experimental vaccines; that the number of deceased people in 2020 is absolutely in line with the median number of deceased from the preceding years[3]. These data are now admitted by the scientific community, even though the media remain conspiratorially silent about them.

What we have witnessed is a plan that is not at all scientific, and that ought to arouse universal indignation. We know, by the admission of those involved, that this pseudo-pandemic was planned for years[4], primarily by weakening national health systems and pandemic plans[5].We know that a very specific script was followed that was conceived in order to give the same response in every country and to streamline diagnoses, hospitalizations, treatments, and above all containment measures and the information being given to citizens on the global level. There is a directorate that continues to manage COVID-19 with the single purpose of forcibly imposing limitations on natural liberties, constitutional rights, free enterprise and work.

Comment: Very few are as candid and informed as the Archbishop! A Must Read!


Brain

BlueAnon and cognitive dissonance: Pushing Biden left is the new three dimensional chess

Trump/Biden
© The Intercept
Former US President Donald Trump • US President Joe Biden
Remember the time when Democrats used to ridicule Republicans and crucify the QAnon clan for believing against all hope in Donald Trump? Well guess what, Democrats now have their own cult and it's called BlueAnon. This religion of Bidenism is just as disconnected from reality as the sect of Trumpism but with a twist; whereas Trumpists celebrated ignorance, Bidenists actually think they are smarter than everyone else. Such is the injury of cognitive dissonance; once it sets in, it enmeshes fools and intellectuals alike in a web of confirmation bias that makes it impossible for most to break free of their preconceived notions.

Before people think that I am writing this article motivated purely by schadenfreude as I watch loyalists getting mugged by the epiphany of the latest neoliberal stooge in the White House, let me admit that I too once was a Kool-Aid guzzling Democrat who unflinchingly believed in Barack Obama. Not only did I travel to more than 16 states as an unpaid volunteer working directly for his campaign, not only did I register thousands of voters on his behalf and raised thousands of dollars for his campaign, I also wrote a speech idea that was incorporated into Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. In fact, his closing lines were the words that I wrote a day before the decisive contest in the Palmetto state.


Star of David

Israeli ambassador seeks to exploit Black struggle in US

Erdan/Netanyahu
© Reuters
Gilad Erdan with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has previously targeted the BDS movement and is now seeking to break up Palestinian and Black solidarity.
Last month, Gilad Erdan, Israel's ambassador to the United States and United Nations, took a trip to the American South to learn about the civil rights movement.

Ostensibly, he learned about Jim Crow discrimination and ongoing racism. Yet he understood so little that he rejected any comparison between American racism and segregation and Israel's denial of equal rights to Palestinian citizens and military rule over Palestinians in the occupied territories.

The undertaking was mainly about optics.

Cross

The Pope-Sistani riddle

Francis Sistani
© AFP/Ayatollah Sistani's Media Office
Religious leaders Roman Catholic Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Sistani
March 6, 2021
Francis and Sistani delivered anti-war, anti-genocide and anti-sectarian messages beyond the comprehension of most Western media.

By any historical measure, it was a game-changer: the first meeting since the 7th century between a Roman Catholic Pope and a Shiite spiritual leader regarded as a "source of emulation."

It will take a long time to assess the full implications of the immensely intriguing 50-minute face-to-face conversation, with interpreters only, between Pope Francis and Grand Ayatollah Sistani at his humble home in a Najaf alley near the dazzling Imam Ali shrine. An avowedly imperfect parallel is that for the Shiite community of the faithful, Najaf is as pregnant with meaning as Jerusalem is for Christianity.

The official Vatican spin is that Pope Francis went on a carefully choreographed "pilgrimage" to Iraq under the sign of "brotherhood" - not only in terms of geopolitics but as a shield against religious sectarianism, be it Sunnis against Shiites or Muslims against Christians.
Pope Francis
© Ayatollah Sistani’s Media Office/AFP/Stringer
Pope Francis arriving in the Iraqi shrine city of Najaf, on March 6, 2021.

Bad Guys

Minnesota judge reinstates third-degree murder charge against ex-officer Chauvin in Floyd death

George Floyd and Derek Chauvin

George Floyd and Derek Chauvin
A Minnesota judge on Thursday reinstated a charge of third-degree murder against ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, now on trial for the death last year of George Floyd while in police custody.

The trial began Tuesday with jury selection. Chauvin already faced charges of second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree manslaughter, according to CNN.

Comment:


Attention

Emails show Zuckerberg-funded group overruling election officials, accessing mail-in ballots BEFORE election

Maricopa ballots
© Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images
Ballots are counted by Maricopa County Elections Department staff in Phoenix, Ariz., on Oct. 31, 2020.
Emails and documents obtained by the Wisconsin Spotlight allege that individuals affiliated with Mark Zuckerberg's Center for Tech and Civic Life took control of election procedures, including giving left-wing advisers "access to boxes of absentee ballots before the election."

In new, bombshell revelations, investigations reveal the $1.6 million spent in the city of Green Bay led to the "infiltration of the November presidential elections by liberal groups and Democratic activists," according to the group.

The Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) placed Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein as the city's point man for the organization's effort in the Wisconsin city, who has previously worked for Democratic candidates and interned for a "fiercely liberal" Democrat from the New York City Council.

He attempted to assist Green Bay election officials in "curing" absentee ballots that were returned to the city clerk due to errors in inaccuracies.

"Can we help with curing absentee ballots that are missing a signature or witness signature address?" he wrote to Green Bay city clerk, Kris Teske in an Oct. 7 email.
election email

Bad Guys

The Great Reset: Corporate Socialism, or 'Capitalism' with Chinese Characteristics

great reset
Welcome to my city - or should I say, "our city." I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes.

It might seem odd to you, but it makes perfect sense for us in this city. Everything you considered a product, has now become a service. We have access to transportation, accommodation, food and all the things we need in our daily lives. One by one all these things became free, so it ended up not making sense for us to own much.1
This is the vision of a blogger for the World Economic Forum (WEF). This report from the future to the past, our present, is not "a utopia or dream of the future," we are told. Yet the future just so happens to meet all the criteria of the Great Reset: low to no carbon emissions, nearly 100% reusable products, "sustainability," a happy, compliant population.

We shall see that our concern about the Great Reset is not, as the New York Times would have it, a baseless conspiracy theory.2 Rather, the Great Reset is not a conspiracy at all; it's an openly avowed plan.

The Great Reset is a phrase first used by Klaus Schwab and the WEF to describe a new kind of capitalism. In their book, COVID-19: The Great Reset, WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret write that the COVID-19 crisis should be regarded as an "opportunity [that can be] seized to make the kind of institutional changes and policy choices that will put economies on the path toward a fairer, greener future."3

Thus, the Great Reset aims to use COVID-19 as an "opportunity" to reset capitalism in order to address climate change and to bring about so-called economic "fairness." We know what the COVID crisis is, although we may disagree on its dangers and our governments' responses to it. And we know what climate change is, although disagreements about its dangers and causes abound. But what is this "fairer" future, and how would the Great Reset bring it about?

Light Saber

Censorship-happy Twitter suddenly concerned about 'public conversation' as Russia cracks down on illegal content

twitter russia
© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
FILE PHOTO.
Twitter's complaints about Russian regulators slowing down its traffic would be a lot more credible if the platform hadn't been so eager to turn into a partisan echo chamber and place itself above the law in its own homeland.

On Wednesday, Russia began throttling Twitter as a way of pressuring the San Francisco-based company to remove over 3,100 posts found to be in violation of Russian law. Specifically, this includes 450 instances of child pornography and more than 2,500 incitements to underage suicide.

Twitter responded by saying it was "deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public conversation."

Comment: See also: