Puppet Masters
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to the most serious confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, prompting Putin to pivot towards China.
Since the invasion, Putin has changed the narrative of the war, casting it as an existential battle between sacred Russian civilisation and an arrogant West which he says is in cultural, political and economic decline.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger attends a luncheon at the US State Department in Washington, DC, on December 1, 2022.
The polarizing foreign policy figure, who served as secretary of state and national security advisor under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died on Wednesday at his home in Connecticut, according to a statement from his consulting firm, Kissinger Associates.
Having escaped Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, Kissinger later became a prominent political scientist and geopolitical consultant, and worked his way through the corridors of power in Washington.
Comment: Kissinger's near unparalleled position in US geopolitics, even in the last months of his life, was evident in his visit to China in July of this year: President Xi meets with China's 'old friend' Henry Kissinger in Beijing, Washington says visit was not on behalf of US gov't
Evans' latest report in the Jerusalem Post, entitled "America needs to bomb Iran," reeks of Zionist hatred for Sunni and Shia Muslims. Evans and his benefactors make sure every good Christian is a card-carrying Arab hater, Russia hater, China hater, and bigot against everyone and everything that is not in the interest of Israel. Good Christians applaud the Zionists blasting babies and their moms into the sky or burying them beneath a hundred tons of rubble in Gaza.
He appears frequently on Fox News (Rupert Murdoch), CNN World News (David Zaslav), NBC (Brian L. Roberts), ABC (Disney-Vanguard Group), CBS (Shari Redstone), the Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch), USA Today (Japan's Softbank), the Washington Times (Unification Church - Sun Myung Moon), and the Jerusalem Post (Eli Azur).
Isn't it interesting the number of Jewish owners that control these media conglomerates? And the two owners, not of a Zionist persuasion, certainly have no love lost on the American people or Greeks for that matter. The recently departed Pat Robertson of 700 Club harped on bombing Iran for decades and often broadcast from Israel during the height of the Christian Broadcasting Network's success. The show is a bastion of so-called Judeo-Christian belief. The underpinnings of unrealistic Christian support for Israel, no matter what, is a much deeper topic. However, readers might want to look into the Hudson Institute,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing pressure from within his government to end the cease-fire with Hamas and resume the military campaign in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing pressure from within his government to end the cease-fire with Hamas and resume the military campaign in Gaza.
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu on social media on Wednesday, saying the current coalition government would dissolve if the war against Hamas is halted. Officials from the U.S., Israel and Qatar are in negotiations regarding a second extension of the cease-fire with Hamas.
Comment: See also:
- Scott Ritter: Hamas winning battle for Gaza
- The Gaza truce is a sign that Hamas can't be defeated
- Israel and its allies are repurposing the goals and lies of 1948 - in Gaza in 2023
- White House fears pause in fighting will let journalists see what's been happening in Gaza
- War fatigue: Poll finds majority of Americans want Ukraine and Gaza ceasefires
- Pentagon publishes proposal for the ethnic cleansing, colonization of Gaza and destruction of Lebanon
- Ex-CIA analyst: US responsible for Gaza genocide by empowering Netanyahu
If I had a dime for every time I heard someone say that JFK (reportedly) saying he wanted to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces led to his assassination I'd be a very wealthy man.
For decades, I've done work on Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal and the refusal of the US establishment to even acknowledge its existence.
But, incredibly, I'd not heard that there might be a connection between the two — the JFK assassination and Israel's nukes — until a year or two ago.
If JFK apparently making a rhetorical statement about the CIA is a go-to basis for many that the CIA actually killed him, what about the fact that, as I wrote this summer: "60 Years Ago, JFK Tried to Stop the Israeli Bomb"?
The Minister for the Cabinet Office during the pandemic added that his view on the need for lockdowns changed at the end of February 2020 due to information supplied by "friends outside Government".
His comments provide new support for the theory that Western Governments imposed lockdowns during March 2020 because its key decision-makers were convinced that the virus was man-made and possibly an escaped bioweapon.
Mr. Gove said he initially shared Boris Johnson's concerns about "overreacting" and the economic consequences.
At the very end of February, I was inclined to give substantial weight to the Prime Minister's concerns. It was only in the succeeding days that I became more and more convinced actually that action was required.
Comment: See also:
- Compelling Evidence That SARS-CoV-2 Was Man-Made
- Man-made virus? Patents provide evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was manufactured in lab
- Rare side effects from COVID vaccines may have been seen in 15 year old animal studies
- Did COVID-19 escape Fort Detrick vaccine trial? Evidence that virus originated in US bioweapons lab
- COVID Mass Vaccination Experiment: Prepare For The Worst With This Health Protocol
The Magician steps onto the stage, his black cloak swirling about him. Centre stage, he flourishes his hat: It is empty. He punches it lightly to demonstrate its solidity. The Magician then picks up certain objects and places them into his hat. Into it goes Ansar Allah's seizure of an Israeli-owned vessel (the situation is being 'monitored'); into it goes the Iraqi strikes on U.S. bases (barely noticed by the main-stream media); into it too go the 1,000 missiles fired into northern Israel by Hizbullah; into it goes the hot war in the West Bank. The Magician turns to the audience - the hat is empty. But the audience knows those objects have a physical reality, but somehow they are magically obfuscated.
It is in this way that the western main-stream media maintains deterrence by playing down the state of war through what Malcom Kyeyune describes as "a simulacrum of peace" - of a gently subsiding conflict and the quieting deployment of (paraphrasing Kyeyune) a very "post-modern question": What exactly is the meaning of civilian 'non-combatant' anyway?
One aspect to the image of easing conflict is the hostage exchange that has been agreed. It is both real, and at the same time it underpins the simulacrum that once Hamas is annihilated, and the hostages released, then the problem of 2.3 million Palestinians can go into the magician's hat, and be eased from sight. For some, the hope is sincere and well intentioned - that once the fighting ceases, it will stay ceased, and that an end to the bombardment in Gaza might open a window to some political 'solution' - if it can be extended sine dei.
'Solution' being here but a polite word for the EU's attempted bribery of Egypt and Jordan. Reportedly, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, visited Egypt and Israel to present them with financial offers ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the dispersal of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip elsewhere - effectively to facilitate the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the Strip in line with Israel's aims of ethnically-cleansing Gaza.
Comment: Israel's big picture is evolving in ways it never imagined - to potential results it never considered.
On Nov. 1, the U.S. Air Force was forced to explosively "terminate" the flight test of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). This meant blowing it up in the air after it exhibited unspecified in-flight anomalies to engineers monitoring its progress.
The test launch, carried out by the U.S. Air Force's Global Strike Command, is, according to the Air Force, "part of routine and periodic activities intended to demonstrate that the United States' nuclear deterrent is safe, secure, reliable, and effective to deter 21st century threats and reassure our allies."
The U.S. Air Force maintains some 400 Minuteman III, stored in silos and ostensibly on 24-hour alert to respond to any potential strategic threat targeting the United States and/or its allies. The Minuteman III has been the land-based component of the "nuclear triad" of U.S. strategic deterrence (the other two being the sea component of Trident missiles onboard Ohio-class submarines and the air component of specially designated B-52 and B-2 manned bombers).
Comment: Checkmate.
At the same time, whenever polling emerges showing that Donald Trump is performing well in 2024 matchups, a deluge of panicked articles, tweets (or is it "X"s?), social media posts, and the like emerge, reassuring readers that polls aren't predictive and providing a variety of reasons that things will improve for President Biden.
As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Elections analysts seem to know that they are obliged to mouth the words that Trump can win, but deep down, they don't believe them. The notion that Biden is the favorite is deeply internalized, likely for a variety of reasons.
So let us set the record straight: Trump can win. Not in a "maybe if all the stars align and then Russia changes the vote totals (even somehow in states like Michigan that use hand-marked paper ballots)" kind of way. Just flat out: Trump can win.
Comment: Trump - like him or not. Biden - or not.
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