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'The Crazy American': How Col. Andy Milburn's drunken antics torpedoed top US mercenary group

Alexander Rubinstein
The Grayzone
Fri, 03 Feb 2023 00:00 UTC
Millburn
© sandboxx.us
Col. Andy Milburn • The Mozart Group
Amid allegations of drunken rampages across Kiev, Mozart Group co-founder Andy Milburn has disbanded his mercenary firm. Milburn is now lashing out at The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal for exposing his intoxicated tirade against the Ukrainian soldiers he trained.

One of the most prominent mercenary firms operating out of the United States has collapsed under its director's weight. Mozart Group co-founder and retired Marine Col. Andy Milburn has been involved in a series of drunken episodes both on and off camera which have led Ukrainian military officers to dub him "the crazy American."

With tens of billions of US military aid flowing into the Ukraine conflict zone, this might be one of the best times in the history of warfare to run a mercenary group. This February 2, however, Milburn was forced to announce the closure of his company.

Comment: See also:

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Red Pill

Pfizer's business model is actual fascism

Ben Bartee
The Daily Bell
Fri, 03 Feb 2023 18:13 UTC
antifa flag
The corporate media and their Antifa footsoldiers bandy about the term "fascism" quite freely. Somehow, through magnificent logic-pretzel contortions, they claim that resistance to government mandates to inject yourself with experimental drugs is not resistance to fascism, but fascism itself.

Truly, they have a wondrous capacity to invert reality.

But, for all the revisionism, fascism as a governing ideology actually means something very specific.

Progenitor of the ideology, Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, infamously defined fascism - or, alternatively, corporatism — as the "merger of corporate and state power."

Let's examine true 21st-century techno-fascism, and how it works in the real world:
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Alarm Clock

'Twenty minutes of fighting and we surrendered', says UK-Trained Ukrainian conscript

Oleg Burunov
Sputnik
Thu, 02 Feb 2023 06:16 UTC
ukrainian recruit training england
© AFP 2023 / DANIEL LEAL
A Ukrainian recruit speaks with instructors during a five-week combat training course with the UK armed forces near Durrington in southern England on October 11, 2022
Moscow has repeatedly warned that the training of Ukrainian soldiers in Western countries confirms the direct involvement of the United States and NATO in the conflict in Ukraine.

A group of Ukrainian soldiers who were trained at a UK military base last summer, surrendered after 20 minutes of the first fighting against Russian forces near Svyatogorsk in the Donetsk People's Republic, Armed Forces of Ukraine conscript Artyom Kovalenko, a member of the group, told Sputnik.

He recollected that before arriving "at the Workop base in Britain", they reached the Western Ukrainian city of Lvov, from where they crossed the border to Poland and then took a bus to enter the UK.

Comment: See also:

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X

US shoots down alleged Chinese spy balloon


Sputnik
Sat, 04 Feb 2023 19:30 UTC
chinese spy balloon
© Twitter / Brad Panovich / Travis Huffstetler
The balloon, which the United States has claimed is a Chinese surveillance balloon, first became public knowledge on Thursday, though Bloomberg reported earlier on Saturday that the Biden administration has known about the craft since January 28.

The US Military shot down the Chinese balloon that has been flying over the United States over the past few days on Saturday afternoon. Witness video of the balloon's destruction was first posted on social media and live streamed by national media. The balloon was reportedly shot down off the East Coast of North Carolina.

The Chinese government says the balloon is a civilian vessel designed to monitor weather patterns that had blown off course. The balloon was reportedly flying at about 66,000 feet.

Comment: See also: The Chinese 'spy balloon' story as manufactured crisis: An alternative reading

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Document

In Douma cover-up, OPCW's new smoking gun backfires

Aaron Maté
The Gray zone
Fri, 03 Feb 2023 06:30 UTC
In a new phase of a multi-year cover-up, the OPCW has accused Syria of a chemical attack in Douma. But to make the case, the OPCW breaks its own rules and offers an argument that its own findings undermine.

Douma Syria gas attack
In the latest chapter of an international cover-up scandal, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has directly accused Syria of committing a deadly chemical attack in the town of Douma. A new report from the chemical watchdog's Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) alleges that Syrian forces dropped two chlorine gas cylinders and killed 43 civilians on April 7, 2018.

The report received an immediate and unequivocal endorsement from the US Department of State, the British Foreign Office and French Foreign Ministry - the diplomatic branches of the countries that rushed to bomb Syria in response to the events in Douma.

The IIT's conclusion follows years of refusal by OPCW leaders to account for the suppression of the Douma probe's initial findings.

The OPCW's first report, finalized in June 2018 by a separate Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), raised doubts that a chemical attack occurred in Douma. It also left open the possibility that the incident was staged, presumably by insurgents who controlled the area at the time. Leaked documents reveal that this original report was doctored, and, along with other critical material, concealed from public view. The following month, a delegation of US officials lobbied the FFM team to conclude that chlorine gas was used as a weapon in Douma and that the Syrian government was responsible. A follow-up report, released in March 2019, omitted the original's key findings and endorsed the US-led narrative of a chlorine attack.

Comment: See also:

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Propaganda

They're not worried about "Russian influence", they're worried about dissent

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com
Sun, 05 Feb 2023 06:23 UTC
Hamilton 68
Being labeled a Russian propagandist all day every day for criticizing US foreign policy is really weird, but one advantage it comes with is a useful perspective on what people have really been talking about all these years when they warn of the dangers of "Russian propaganda".

I know I'm not a Russian propagandist. I'm not paid by Russia, I have no connections to Russia, and until I started this political commentary gig in 2016 I thought very little about Russia. My opinions about the western empire sometimes turn up on Russian media because I let anyone use my work who wants to, but that was always something they did on their own without my submitting it to them and without any payment or solicitation of any kind. I'm literally just some random westerner sharing political opinions on the internet; those opinions just happen to disagree with the US empire and its stories about itself and its behavior.

Yet for years I've watched people pointing at me as an example of what "Russian propaganda" looks like. This has helped inform my understanding of all the panic about "Russian influence" that's been circulating these last six years, and given me some insight into how seriously it should be taken.
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Eye 1

The Chinese 'spy balloon' story as manufactured crisis: An alternative reading

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 05 Feb 2023 04:30 UTC
Chinese balloon
© The Billings Gazette/AP
Previous constant headlines of the Ukraine-Russia war were put on pause Friday into Saturday as the American public's attention and discourse got temporarily consumed by the bizarre Chinese 'spy balloon' saga, which grew more dramatic by the hour until it was shot down by the Pentagon over the Atlantic Ocean.

But few are currently asking the necessary deeper questions related to the timing. Given the last major balloon crisis to take over 24/7 network news coverage ended up being a complete hoax (remember the "balloon boy" stunt of 2009 which had the world breathless and on edge for a full news cycle?), the current context to the Chinese balloon story and the question of cui bono is worth a deeper dive...

Entrepreneur and geopolitical commentator Arnaud Bertrand, who as a Westerner has spent many years living in China and frequently attempts to correct the often misleading analysis of mainstream press reports, offers an 'alternative view' of what's fast unfolding below [emphasis ZH's)...
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Cardboard Box

Europe's food prices set to soar up to 50% higher due to energy crisis

Tim Morizet
RTL
Sat, 04 Feb 2023 21:36 UTC
grocery supermarket europe
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has not only affected European security. It has also severely impacted the cost of living.


Comment: Europe sanctioned Russia, not the other way around, and so this rise in costs is solely the fault of Europe's pathocrats.


In Europe, prices for food and drink rose more in 2022 than ever before, with customers paying 10-15% more for products than the previous year. Inflation is set to continue through 2023.

Banana storage costs are now five times higher

Bananas, Luxembourg's favourite fruit, are set to become more expensive due to energy costs. The fruit is often kept in cold storage to ripen before it is placed in stores, which is becoming ever more expensive. Christophe Vandenbroeck, director of a cold storage site, explained that pallets of the fruit arrive in Anvers from Costa Rica and are kept in storage for 5-6 days before being shipped to supermarkets.

Comment: It should come as no surprise that a wave of strike action and protests attended by millions of people has erupted across Europe: France rocked by protests as 2 MILLION march against government reforms in 2nd wave of mass strikes to hit this month

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Stock Down

EU to face diesel shortage & fuel price hike due to anti-Russia sanctions, warns Hungary's Energy Ministry


Al Mayadeen
Sat, 04 Feb 2023 17:53 UTC
diesel truck tanker
© AP/Michael Probst
Diesel and other fuel is delivered to a gas station in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, Jan 27, 2023
The Hungarian Energy Ministry said on Saturday that Europe may face an increase in diesel prices in light of the upcoming ban on Russian oil commodities that is expected to come into force on February 5.

Russia used to account for half of the EU's energy needs. Therefore, a bloc-wide ban will most likely trigger a fuel shortage across the continent.

On Friday, the G7 and Australia announced that they have agreed to implement a price cap on Russian fuel shortly after the EU issued a similar announcement.

Comment: Most of the trucks that carry Europe's freight are powered by diesel-powered, which means that the already fragile supply chain, that is also suffering due to strike action, will take yet another hit and could cause shortages of a great many other items: Strikes disrupt shipments at several oil refinery sites in France

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Car Black

Jury sides with Elon Musk over 2018 tweets claiming he would take Tesla private

Kari Paul, Erin McCormick
The Guardian
Fri, 03 Feb 2023 17:45 UTC
Musk +
© Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Elon Musk
Elon Musk and Tesla have been cleared of wrongdoing in a lawsuit over a pair of tweets from the executive that investors say cost them billions of dollars.

After less than two hours of deliberation wrapping up a three-week trial, a jury in San Francisco ruled on Friday that the Tesla CEO had not deceived investors with two tweets posted in August 2018 about a Tesla buyout that never happened.

Musk had tweeted that he planned to take the electric carmaker private at $420 a share, and had "funding secured" to do so. The posts triggered stocks to surge over a 10-day period before falling back after Musk abandoned the deal, investors argued.

The decision marks an important victory for Musk, who is embroiled in several lawsuits and has aggressively fought any charges that he was guilty. The executive, who now is the CEO of Twitter after purchasing the company months ago for $44bn, has repeatedly defended his ability to tweet broadly.

The case was seen as a test of whether or not Musk could be held liable for his freewheeling use of Twitter. The billionaire testified on multiple days of the trial, arguing that his tweets were a democratic way to communicate and did not always affect Tesla stock the way he expected. "Just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly," he told the jury.
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