The Pentagon has failed its first-ever audit, according to the second highest ranking Pentagon official.

"We never thought we were going to pass an audit, right? Everyone was betting against us that we wouldn't even do the audit," Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters Thursday at the Pentagon, as quoted by Defense News. The DoD's Office of Inspector General is expected to release the full-scope audit Thursday.

"Some of the compliance issues are irritating to me, because the point of the audit is to drive better discipline in our compliance and our management systems and our procedures… some of those things frustrated me because we have a job to do and just have to follow our procedures," the official said.

One area of concern was tracking inventory of military equipment. The Pentagon's central database identified inventory that didn't exist in the real world, Defense News noted.

Still, Shanahan was upbeat that the public and the taxpayers shouldn't be too concerned about the failed audit. Instead, taxpayers can be encouraged that the audit was actually completed, Shanahan said, according to the report.

Approximately $918 million was budgeted to simply complete the audit, Federal News Network reported in January. Some 1,200 DoD staff members have worked on the audit full-time since it started last December.

The Pentagon, with a sprawling yearly budget of more than $700 billion under the Trump administration, successfully resisted undergoing an audit for almost 30 years. US President George H.W. Bush signed the Chief Financial Officers Act in 1990 that required all federal agencies to conduct annual audits, but the Pentagon was able to skirt around the law until finally agreeing to an audit last December.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201811151069848289-pentagon-fails-audit-never...

“THE ART OF WAR”

The destroyers of Libya are now « for Libya »

by Manlio Dinucci

After Emmanuel Macron’s failure to solve the Libyan crisis, it’s now Giuseppe Conte’s turn to take a shot at it. It’s true that Rome is better placed than Paris, insofar as it enjoys the support of the White House. However, there is little chance that any progress of any sort will be made, since these « fairy godmothers » are in fact the big bad wolves who recently devoured Libya.

A crescent moon (a symbol of Islam) designed like a stylised hemisphere which, flanked by a star and the words “for/with Libya”, represents a world which « wants to be on Libya’s side » - this is the logo of the « Conference for Libya » organised by the Italian government, a fact illustrated by the three-coloured flag in the lower section of the crescent moon/hemisphere.

The International Conference is taking place on 12-13 November in Palermo, on the island of Sicily, which only seven years ago was the principal base from which NATO, under US command, launched its war to demolish the State of Libya. The war was prepared by financing and arming certain tribal sectors and Islamist groups in Libya which were hostile to the government of Tripoli, and by infiltrating special forces into the country, among whom were thousands of Qatari commandos camouflaged as « Libyan rebels ». Then, in March 2011, the US and NATO aero-naval attack was launched – it lasted seven months. The aviation flew 30,000 missions, of which 10,000 were attack missions, and used more than 40,000 bombs and missiles.

By the will of a vast political group stretching from left to right, Italy also took part in the war, not only by deploying its aviation and its navy, but also by offering the USA and NATO the use of seven air bases - Trapani, Sigonella, Pantelleria, Gioia del Colle, Amendola, Decimomannu and Aviano.

With this war in 2011, NATO demolished the State of Libya, situated on the Southern shore of the Mediterraean facing Italy, a State which had achieved – admittedly with certain notable internal disparities - « high levels of economic growth and human development » (as the World Bank itself declared in 2010), « superior to that of the other African countries ». The proof of this is that almost two million immigrants, most of them Africans, had found work in Libya. At the same time, using its own sovereign treasury, Libya had made possible the development in Africa of independent economic organisations and an African currency.

As the emails from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prove, the USA and France came to an agreement to block, at whatever the cost, Kadhafi’s plan to create an African currency, an alternative to the dollar and the CFA Franc imposed by France on 14 African ex-colonies.

After the demolition of the State and the murder of Mouamar Kadhafi, in the chaotic situation which followed, a vicious fight began, both internal and international, to share out the loot - the enormous oil and natural gas reserves; the immense underground Nubian reserves of fossil water; this white gold, in perspective more valuable than the black gold; the Libyan territory itself, of primary geostrategic importance; the sovereign treasure, approximately 150 billion dollars invested overseas by the Libyan State, and « frozen » in 2011 in the most important European and US banks, or in other words – stolen. For example, of the 16 billion Euros of Libyan wealth blocked by the Euroclear Bank in Belgium and Luxembourg, more than 10 billion have disappeared. « Since 2013 », according to the RTBF (RadioTelevision Francophone Belge - « hundreds of millions of Euros, taken from this treasure, were sent to Libya to finance the civil war which triggered a serious migrant crisis ».

Many African immigrants in Libya were imprisoned and tortured by Islamic militias. Now in the hands of traffickers and international manipulators, Libya became the main land of transit for a chaotic migratory flood, which, each year in the Mediterranean caused more victims than NATO bombs in 2011.

We can not keep silent, as even the organisers of the counter-summit in Palermo did – the truth is that at the origins of this human tragedy are the wars waged by the USA and NATO which, seven years ago, demolished an entire State in Africa.

Manlio Dinucci

Translation 

Pete Kimberley

Source 

Il Manifesto (Italy)

 

Source:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article203909.html

 

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from Eric Zuesse

Right now, we live in a mono-polar world. Here is how US President Barack Obama proudly, even imperially, described it when delivering the Commencement address to America’s future generals, at West Point Military Academy, on 28 May 2014:

The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. 

[Every other nation is therefore ‘dispensable’; we therefore now have “Amerika, Amerika über alles, über alles in der Welt”.]

That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us. 

[He was here telling these future US military leaders that they are to fight for the US aristocracy, to help them defeat any nation that resists.]

In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away. 

[He was proud of the US Government’s effectiveness at propaganda, just as Hitler was proud of the German Government’s propaganda-effectiveness under Joseph Goebbels.]

Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine’s economy; OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine.

Actually, his — Obama’s — regime, had conquered Ukraine in February 2014 by a very bloody coup, and installed a racist-fascist anti-Russian Government there next door to Russia, a stooge-regime to this day, which instituted a racial-cleansing campaign to eliminate enough pro-Russia voters so as to be able to hold onto power there. It has destroyed Ukraine and so alienated the regions of Ukraine that had voted more than 75% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama overthrew, so that those pro-Russia regions quit Ukraine. What remains of Ukraine after the US conquest is a nazi mess and a destroyed nation in hock to Western taxpayers and banks.

Furthermore, Obama insisted upon (to use Bush’s term about Saddam Hussein) “regime-change” in Syria. Twice in one day the Secretary General of the U.N. asserted that only the Syrian people have any right to do that, no outside nation has any right to impose it. Obama ignored him and kept on trying. Obama actually protected Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate against bombing by Syria’s Government and by Syria’s ally Russia, while the US bombed Syria’s army, which was trying to prevent those jihadists from overthrowing the Government.

Obama bombed Libya in order to “regime-change” Muammar Gaddafi, and he bombed Syria in order to “regime-change” Bashar al-Assad; and, so, while the “US Drops Bombs; EU Gets Refugees & Blame. This Is Insane.” And Obama’s successor Trump continues Obama’s policies in this regard. And, of course, the US and its ally UK invaded Iraq in 2003, likewise on the basis of lies to the effect that Iraq was the aggressor. (Even Germany called Poland the aggressor when invading Poland in 1939.)

No other nation regularly invades other nations that never had invaded it. This is international aggression. It is the international crime of “War of Aggression”; and the only nations which do it nowadays are America and its allies, such as the Sauds, Israel, France, and UK, which often join in America’s aggressions (or, in the case of the Sauds’ invasion of Yemen, the ally initiates an invasion, which the US then joins). America’s generals are taught this aggression, and not only by Obama. Ever since at least George W. Bush, it has been solid US policy. (Bush even kicked out the U.N.’s weapons-inspectors, so as to bomb Iraq in 2003.)

In other words: a mono-polar world is a world in which one nation stands above international law, and that nation’s participation in an invasion immunizes also each of its allies who join in the invasion, protecting it too from prosecution, so that a mono-polar world is one in which the United Nations can’t even possibly impose international law impartially, but can impose it only against nations that aren’t allied with the mono-polar power, which in this case is the United States.

Furthermore, because the US regime reigns supreme over the entire world, as it does, any nations — such as Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ecuador — that the US regime (which has itself been scientifically proven to be a dictatorship) chooses to treat as an enemy, is especially disadvantaged internationally.

Russia and China, however, are among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and therefore possess a degree of international protection that America’s other chosen enemies do not. And the people who choose which nations to identify as America’s ‘enemies’ are America’s super-rich and not the entire American population, because the US Government is controlled by the super-rich and not by the public.

So, that’s the existing mono-polar world: it is a world that’s controlled by one nation, and this one nation is, in turn, controlled by its aristocracy, its super-rich.

If one of the five permanent members of the Security Council would present at the U.N. a proposal to eliminate the immunity that the US regime has, from investigation and prosecution for any future War of Aggression that it might perpetrate, then, of course, the US and any of its allies on the Security Council would veto that, but if the proposing nation would then constantly call to the international public’s attention that the US and its allies had blocked passage of such a crucially needed “procedure to amend the UN charter”, and that this fact means that the US and its allies constitute fascist regimes as was understood and applied against Germany’s fascist regime, at the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1945, then possibly some members of the US-led gang (of the NATO portion of it, at least) would quit that gang, and the US global dictatorship might end, so that there would then become a multi-polar world, in which democracy could actually thrive.

Democracy can only shrivel in a mono-polar world, because all other nations then are simply vassal nations, which accept Obama’s often-repeated dictum that all other nations are “dispensable” and that only the US is not. Even the UK would actually gain in freedom, and in democracy, by breaking away from the US, because it would no longer be under the US thumb — the thumb of the global aggressor-nation.

Only one global poll has ever been taken of the question “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” and it found that, overwhelmingly, by a three-to-one ratio above the second-most-often named country, the United States was identified as being precisely that, the top threat to world-peace. But then, a few years later, another (though less-comprehensive) poll was taken on a similar question, and it produced similar results. Apparently, despite the effectiveness of America’s propagandists, people in other lands recognize quite well that today’s America is a more successful and longer-reigning version of Hitler’s Germany. Although modern America’s propaganda-operation is far more sophisticated than Nazi Germany’s was, it’s not entirely successful. America’s invasions are now too common, all based on lies, just like Hitler’s were.

On November 9th, RT headlined “‘Very insulting’: Trump bashes Macron’s idea of European army for protection from Russia, China & US” and reported that “US President Donald Trump has unloaded on his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, calling the French president’s idea of a ‘real European army,’ independent from Washington, an insult.”

On the one hand, Trump constantly criticizes France and other European nations for allegedly not paying enough for America’s NATO military alliance, but he now is denigrating France for proposing to other NATO members a decreasing reliance upon NATO, and increasing reliance, instead, upon the Permanent Structured Cooperation (or PESCO) European military alliance, which was begun on 11 December 2017, and which currently has “25 EU Member States participating: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.” Those are the European nations that are now on the path to eventually quitting NATO.

Once NATO is ended, the US regime will find far more difficult any invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, Yemen 2016-, and maybe even such as America’s bloody coup that overthrew the democratically elected Government of Ukraine and installed a racist-fascist or nazi anti-Russian regime there in 2014. All of these US invasions (and coup) brought to Europe millions of refugees and enormously increased burdens upon European taxpayers. Plus, America’s economic sanctions against both Russia and Iran have hurt European companies (and the US does almost no business with either country, so is immune to that, also). Consequently, today’s America is clearly Europe’s actual main enemy.

The continuation of NATO is actually toxic to the peoples of Europe. Communism and the Soviet Union and its NATO-mirroring Warsaw Pact military alliance, all ended peacefully in 1991, but the US regime has secretly continued the Cold War, now against Russia, and is increasingly focusing its “regime-change” propaganda against Russia’s popular democratic leader, Vladimir Putin, even though this US aggression against Russia could mean a world-annihilating nuclear war.

On November 11th, RT bannered “‘Good for multipolar world’: Putin positive on Macron’s ‘European army’ plan bashed by Trump (VIDEO)”, and opened:

Europe’s desire to create its own army and stop relying on Washington for defense is not only understandable, but would be “positive” for the multipolar world, Vladimir Putin said days after Donald Trump ripped into it.

“Europe is … a powerful economic union and it is only natural that they want to be independent and … sovereign in the field of defense and security,” Putin told RT in Paris where world leader gathered to mark the centenary of the end of WWI.

He also described the potential creation of a European army “a positive process,” adding that it would “strengthen the multipolar world.” The Russian leader even expressed his support to French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently championed this idea by saying that Russia’s stance on the issue “is aligned with that of France” to some extent.

Macron recently revived the ambitious plans of creating a combined EU military force by saying that it is essential for the security of Europe. He also said that the EU must become independent from its key ally on the other side of the Atlantic, provoking an angry reaction from Washington.

Once NATO has shrunk to include only the pro-aggression and outright nazi European nations, such as Ukraine (after the US gang accepts Ukraine into NATO, as it almost certainly then would do), the EU will have a degree of freedom and of democracy that it can only dream of today, and there will then be a multi-polar world, in which the leaders of the US will no longer enjoy the type of immunity from investigation and possible prosecution, for their invasions, that they do today. The result of this will, however, be catastrophic for the top 100 US ‘defense’ contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, because then all of those firms’ foreign sales except to the Sauds, Israel and a few other feudal and fascist regimes, will greatly decline. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to keep the Sauds to the agreements he reached with them back in 2017 to buy $404 billion of US weaponry over the following 10 years.

If, in addition, those firms lose some of their European sales, then the US economic boom thus far in Trump’s Presidency will be seriously endangered. So, the US regime, which is run by the owners of its ‘defense’-contractors, will do all it can to prevent this from happening.

However, right now, Chris Hedges reports that Ecuador is in the process of killing Julian Assange, who is a major and well-known bane of America’s sellers to the US ‘Defense’ Department. Hedges wants to keep his American aristocratic funder (the owner of Truthdig), and so he doesn’t say that — nor how — the US regime itself is actually forcing Ecuador’s Government to do this. Hedges seems not even to care much about the ultimate perpetrator of this slow murder that he describes as being in process. Hedges instead focuses only against what Ecuador’s President, Lenín Moreno, is doing, that’s slowly murdering Assange. He also implicates Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the U.K. government, and US V.P. Mike Pence.

But actually, the top decision-maker, who ordered this crime, this murder, is Donald Trump, who won the US Presidency with Assange’s investigative-journalism help. That’s the kingpin, and all the others are merely soldiers in the US President’s organized crime. They all represent the US aristocracy, but only Trump is the commander here. The US regime — first under Obama, and now under Trump — is 100% of what’s forcing Ecuador’s Government to kill Julian Assange inside its London Embassy. Ecuador is doing this job, for the US regime, so excruciatingly that Assange will either soon be committing suicide, or else he will die more slowly, from the ever-increasing “torture” that Ecuador’s Government is applying, and which is also destroying Assange’s health. Or else, he will give himself up to the American ‘justice’ system (which Assange’s mother, Christine Ann Hawkins, explained on November 3rd would likely mean either to charge him with ‘espionage’, or else to apply indefinite detention at Guantanamo, without charge, trial or any access to the public).

There will then be ‘news’-coverage by the American propaganda-media, to demonize him. Ecuador’s President wants to do his job for his US masters (the US aristocracy) but not to get blame for the inevitable result. All along the line, the aristocracy know how to preserve deniability, and advise their agents so as to shift blame downward, whenever they can’t succeed in shifting it to the victim that they’re destroying. However, the ultimate blame belongs truly to the owners of the US regime. Even most ‘alternative news’ media might not (and they, in fact, do not) report this fact (because most of even the ‘alternative’ media are owned by aristocrats), but it’s clearly the case. And most of the public don’t care much about it, anyway, and continue to subscribe to those ‘news’ media, which the aristocrats are actually controlling, and to buy the products they advertise, producing yet more income for the aristocracy. The public thus helps the aristocracy to fund the aristocracy’s propaganda-vehicles, to control the public, to vote for the aristocrats’ candidates, and so control the government.

A multi-polar world could enable this to change. But it can’t change in a mono-polar world. Julian Assange has been trapped by, and in, this fascist mono-polar world. He is its enemy, and they are murdering him; but, above all, Donald Trump is murdering him.

But this is not a partisan operation on behalf of only a faction of the US aristocracy. The Hedges article links through to an important June 29th news-report in the Washington Times, titled “Mike Pence raises Julian Assange case with Ecuadorean president, White House confirms”. It makes clear that Moreno is doing the bidding of the White House, and that the White House is “heeding calls from Democrats wary of Mr. Assange.” America, after all, is a two-party dictatorship: both partiesrepresent the same aristocracy, and murdering Assange is in the agenda of both of its factions, not of just one of the two parties. The US aristocracy are united on this matter. And that’s how this mono-polar world is being run.

 

Source:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/11/16/the-meaning-of-a-multi-polar-world/

 

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By CJ Hopkins

 

OK, so, that was a close one. For a moment there, I was starting to worry that the Democrats weren’t going to take back the House and rescue us from “the brink of fascism.” Which, if that had happened, in addition to having to attend all those horrible stadium rallies and help the government mass murder the Jews, we would have been denied the next two years of Donald Trump-related congressional hearings and investigations that we can now look forward to … I’m going to go ahead and call them the Hitlergate Hearings.

Staging these hearings has always been a crucial part of the Resistance’s strategy. As history has proved, time and time again, when literal fascists take over your democracy, outlaw opposing political parties, and start shipping people off to concentration camps and revoking journalists’ White House access, the only effective way to defeat them is to form a whole buttload of congressional committees and investigate the living Hitler out of them. This is especially the case when the literal fascists who have commandeered your democracy are conspiring with a shifty-eyed Slavic dictator whose country you have essentially surrounded with your full-spectrum dominant military forces, and who your media have thoroughly demonized, but who is nevertheless able to brainwash your citizens into electing his fascist puppet president with a few thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads.

Once you’ve determined that has happened (which it obviously has), the gloves have to come off. No more prancing around in pussyhats, not with Russian Hitler in office! No, at that point, you really have no choice but to wait two years until your opposition party (which Hitler somehow forgot to ban) regains control of the House of Representatives (which Hitler somehow forgot to dissolve), wait another two months until they take office, and then immediately start issuing subpoenas, auditing Hitler’s financial records, and taking affidavits from former hookers. I realize that may sound extreme, but remember, we’re talking literal fascists, backed by literal Russian fascists, who are going around emboldening literal fascism, and making literal fascist hand gestures on television, and doing all kinds of other fascist stuff!

Now, OK, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering, if Trump is really a fascist, not to mention a Russian intelligence asset, why hasn’t the “Resistance” just assassinated him? Many of them are ex-CIA, after all, or are otherwise members of the Intelligence Community. Why bother with all these congressional hearings? Why not just go in there and kill him?

Well, the problem with that apparently is, they have to follow “the rule of law,” which prevents them from just assassinating people, and “regime-changing” governments that are not playing ball, and, you know, staging military coups, arming and training sadistic death squads, and sanctioning thousands of children to death. That kind of stuff is not just wrong, like, morally, or whatever, it is also illegal. So, even though a Russian agent, who is also literally Adolf Hitler, stole the election from Hillary Clinton, and is remaking America into a fascist dictatorship, the only recourse the “Resistance” has is to mount these congressional investigations and publicize them in excruciating detail until November 3, 2020, at which point all this “Fascism” hysteria will just disappear into the ether like the “War on Terror” hysteria did the moment Trump won the nomination.

But that’s two years from now, which is almost an eternity. In the meantime, the neoliberal “Resistance” has got some serious investigating to do! And not just Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s treasonous activities as a Russian agent. No, we’re talking congressional investigations of his tax returns, his Deutsche Bank statements, takeout receipts, dry cleaning tickets, his entire fascistic financial history! And then there’s that emoluments thing! And that Kavanaugh thing! And that security clearance thing! And that bimbo thing! And some other things! And, well, I think it’s pretty safe to assume we are on the road to Subpoena City!

The corporate media appear to agree. Scanning the post-election coverage, it looked like most “Resistance” journalists got the official press release. The Guardian started taking live bets on which investigations the House would launch first. The New York Times, in its ongoing efforts to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from the fascistic “muzzling” its editorial staff are certain that Trump is about to subject him to in order to prevent him from presenting evidence of Trump’s formative years in the GRU (and possible links to the Skripal assassins), published a “roadmap” Mueller can follow to “send incriminating evidence directly to Congress,” bypassing the Nazified Justice Department!

According to CNN (a dissident samizdat owned by the Turner Broadcasting division of Warner Media, LLC, which, in turn, is owned by AT&T, a multinational conglomerate holding company), “House Democrats are preparing to unleash the full force of their oversight powers on the Trump administration” in series of “high-octane Democratic-controlled hearings,” which Jim Acosta will be covering live, if he has to take out every jackbooted Nazi intern on the Hill to do it! I could go on, but you get the picture. And for anyone who doesn’t, here it is…

The next two years will be a demonstration of the power of the global capitalist empire and its predominant propaganda machine the likes of which the world has never witnessed. By November 3, 2020, they will need to have brainwashed enough Americans into voting for whatever global capitalist puppet the Democrats end up nominating to defeat Donald Trump in the general election, which isn’t going to be a cakewalk. To do this, they will need to foment such an atmosphere of mindless hysteria, emotional exhaustion, and paranoia that anyone to the left of Mussolini will stagger to the polls on election day and vote for the Democrat just to make it stop.

In addition to the Hitlergate Hearings, each and every excruciating moment of which will be broadcast live and then milked to death by the corporate media’s experts and pundits, they will continue to subject us to a torrent of messaging designed to convince us that Donald Trump is simultaneously Hitler and a Russian operative, and that America is literally “on the brink of fascism,” and that anyone who questions this narrative is a Putin-loving Trumpian fascist, and a hate criminal, and probably a “domestic terrorist.”

None of this messaging will need to make sense. The goal of the “Resistance” is not to present a credible case that Donald Trump is literally a fascist or a Russian operative, or that global capitalism is in any real danger of being torn asunder by literal fascism (whatever your definition of fascism is). The goal of the “Resistance” is to make it unmistakably clear who is really running things, and what happens to annoying billionaire ass clowns who get elected president without their permission, and to the ignorant rabble who elect such ass clowns, or who vote to leave the European Union (which, of course, they will never allow to happen, except perhaps in some nominal sense).

In other words, the global capitalist ruling classes are about to teach the world a lesson. It is the same basic lesson they have been teaching the world since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. They taught it in the former Yugoslavia. They taught it in Greece, and Iraq, and Libya. They have taught it throughout the Middle East. They are about to teach it throughout the West. The lesson is, resistance to global capitalism is not just futile, it is suicidal. The lesson is, play with identity politics and all that “cultural wars” stuff to your heart’s content, but fuck with global capitalism and we will squash you like a tomato bug.

The Hitlergate Hearings, the fascism hysteria, the Russian mind control paranoia, and the rest of the concerted propaganda campaign we have been subjected to since 2016 (and are about to experience the full force of) are all just parts of a broader effort, not just to crush the “populist” insurgency that began in the West with the Brexit referendum, continued with Trump, and then spread throughout Europe, but to crush all hope for any future rebellions against global capitalism and its ideology, regardless of whether they stem from the Left or Right. (If you think they’re just focused on the neo-nationalists, you obviously haven’t been paying attention to the ongoing demonization of Corbyn, Mélenchon, Sahra Wagenknecht, and assorted other “populist” leftists.)

In the old days, this was the part where the king would mount the usurper’s head on a spike to remind everybody who was boss. Nowadays, of course, we do it on television, or the Internet, like when we hung Saddam, or sodomized Gaddafi with a bayonet. They’re not going to do anything like that to Trump, who is, after all, an American usurper, but they are going to make an example of him.

So, get out your popcorn, and your pitchforks, and so on, and get ready to cheer them on as they do. The future of democracy hangs in the balance! And, if you’re on the Twitter, make sure you fulfill your daily Calling-Trump-a-Fascist and Feeding-the-Fascism-Hysteria quotas. And Putin, of course. Don’t forget Putin…and whatever other mindless hysteria the capitalist ruling classes need us to parrot. Trust me, in about two years, when the post-Putin-Nazi celebrations begin, and people are running around in the streets burning effigies, hooting vuvuzelas, and hunting down anyone wearing the wrong hat, you’re not going to want to be mistaken for having been on the “populist” side of history.

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/11/19/the-hitlergate-hearings/

 

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USA – The World’s Invasion Nation

 

 

Or How Big Brother Grips Americans’ Minds to Support Invasions

 

By Eric Zuesse

 

On November 29th, Gallup headlined “Democrats Lead Surge in Belief US Should Be World Leader” and reported that “Three-fourths (75%) of Americans today think the United States has ‘a special responsibility to be the leading nation in world affairs,’ up from 66% in 2010. The surge is driven by Democrats, whose belief in this idea has increased from 61% eight years ago to 81% now.” This finding comes even after the lie-based and catastrophic US invasions of Iraq in 2003, and of Libya in 2011 (and of so many others, such as Afghanistan, where the US and Sauds created the Taliban in 1979). Americans — now even increasingly — want ‘their’ (which is actually America’s billionaires’) Government to be virtually the world’s government, policing the world. They want this nation’s Government to be determining what international laws will be enforced around the world, and to be enforcing them.

Most Americans don’t want the United Nations to have power over the US (its billionaires’) Government, but instead want the US Government (its billionaires) to have power over the United Nations (which didn’t authorize any of those evil, lie-based, US invasions).

Not only would doing this bankrupt all constructive domestic functions (health, education, infrastructure, etc.) of the US federal Government, but it would also increase the global carnage, as if the US Government hasn’t already been doing enough of that, for decades now.

The leadership for this supremacist craving comes straight from America’s top, not from the masses that are being sampled by the Gallup organization, who only reflect it — they are duped by their leaders. Here is how US President Barack Obama (a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2009, for nothing at all but his ‘kindly’ but insincere verbiage when he had been a candidate) stated this widespread delusional American belief in American global moral supremacy, when addressing the graduating class at West Point Military Academy, on 28 May 2014:

The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation*. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come…America must always lead on the world stage.

[*Every other nation is therefore ‘dispensable’; we therefore now have “Amerika, Amerika über alles, über alles in der Welt”.]

This had certainly not been the objective of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he set up the U.N. just before his death in 1945; he instead wanted the U.N. to evolve into a democratic government of the world, with elected representatives of each and every one of the world’s governments — to evolve into becoming the global international republic — regardless of whether or not the US Government approves or disapproves of another nation’s government. The idea on which the U.N. was founded was not to involve the US Government in the internal affairs of other nations, not to be the judge jury and executioner of other governments that it doesn’t like, nor to dictate what other nations should or should not do within the given nation’s boundaries. FDR intended that there instead be democratically represented, at the U.N., each and every nation, and each and every people within that global government, where each of these national governments is (hopefully but not necessarily) a democracy.

FDR was just as opposed to dictatorship internationally, as he was opposed to dictatorship nationally, and he recognized that inevitably some governments will disapprove of other governments, but he was deeply committed to the view that a need exists for laws and law-enforcement between nations, on an international level, and not only within the individual nations, and that each nation is sacrosanct on its own internal laws. He respected national sovereignty, and opposed international empire. (This was his basic disagreement with Winston Churchill, then, and with American leaders such as Obama and Trump now.) Unlike President Obama (and evidently unlike the vast majority of today’s Americans) FDR didn’t want this international government to be an American function, but instead an entirely separate international governmental function, in which there is no international dictatorship whatsoever — not American, and not by any other country. He knew that this is the only stable basis for international peace, and for avoiding a world-annihilating World War III.

Barack Obama rejected FDR’s vision, and advocated for the United States as being (and even as if it already had been for a century) virtually the government over the entire world, which “must always lead on the world stage.” Adolf Hitler had had that very same international vision for his own country, Germany, “the Thousand-Year Reich,” but he lost World War II; and, then, when FDR died, Hitler’s vision increasingly took over in America, so that ideologically, FDR actually lost WW II, when Harry S. Truman took over the White House and increasingly thereafter, until today, when the US commits more invasions of foreign countries than do all other nations in the world combined. Americans (apparently, as shown in this and other polls) like this, and want more of it. Nobody else does.

For example, nobody (except the US and Saudi and Israeli aristocracies and their supporters worldwide, which are very few people) supports the US regime’s reinstitution of sanctions against Iran, which the US regime is imposing as the global dictator. America’s economic sanctions are like spitting into the face of FDR, who had opposed such imperialistic fascism in the more overtly military form when Hitler’s regime was imposing it. It’s also spitting at the U.N.

This latest Gallup finding displays an increase, but nothing that’s at all anomalous as compared to the decades-long reality of imperialistic US culture. For decades now, Gallup’s polling has shown that the most respected of all institutions by the American people is the nation’s military — more than the church, more than the Presidency, more than the US Supreme Court, more than the press, more than the schools, more than anything. America is invasion-nation. This is true even after the 2003 invasion of Iraq on the basis of blatant lies, which destroyed Iraq — a nation that had never invaded nor even threatened to invade the United States. The American people are, resolutely, bloodthirsty for conquest, even after having been fooled into that evil invasion, and subsequent decades-long military occupation in Iraq, and after subsequent conquests or attempted conquests, in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere — all destroying nations that had never invaded nor even threatened America. Why? How did this mass-insanity, of evil, come to be?

How is this aggressive nationalism even possible, in America’s ‘democracy’? It’s actually no democracy at all, and the public are being constantly fooled to think that it is a democracy, and this deception is essential in order for the public to tolerate this Government, and to tolerate the media that lie for it. This widespread deceit requires constant cooperation of the ‘news’-media — and these are the same ‘news’-media that hid from the public, in 2002, that the US Government was outright lying about “WMD in Iraq.”

The public simply do not learn. That’s a tragic fact. Largely, this fact results from reality being hidden by the ‘news’-media; but, even now, long after the fake ‘news’ in 2002, about the US regime’s having possessed secret and conclusive evidence of “Saddam’s WMD,” the published ‘history’ about that invasion still does not acknowledge the public’s having been lied-to at that time, by its Government, and by the ‘news’-media. So, the public live, and culturally swim, in an ongoing river of lies, both as its being ‘news’, and subsequently as its having been ‘history’. This is why the public do not learn: they are being constantly deceived. And they (as Gallup’s polls prove) tolerate being constantly deceived. The public do not rebel against it. They don’t reject either the politicians, or the ‘news’-media. They don’t demand that the American public control the American Government and that America’s billionaires lose that control — especially over the ‘news’-media.

Honesty is no longer an operative American value, if it ever was. That’s how, and why, Big Brother (the operation by the international-corporate billionaires) grips Americans’ minds to support foreign Invasions. Americans support liars, and it all comes from the top; it’s directed from the top. It is bipartisan, from both Democratic Party billionaires and Republican Party billionaires. National politicians will lose their seats if they disobey.

A good example, of this Big-Brother operation, is America’s Politifact, the online site which is at America’s crossover where ‘news’ and ‘history’ meet one-another. It’s controlled by billionaires such as the one who founded Craigslist. Millions of Americans go to Politifact in order to determine what is true and what is false that is being widely published about current events. The present writer sometimes links to their articles, where I have independently verified that there are no misrepresentations in an article. But, like the ‘news’-media that it judges, Politifact is also a propaganda-agency for the (US-Saud-Israeli) Deep State, and so it deceives on the most critically important international matters.

An example of this occurred right after the US regime had overthrown, in February 2014 in a bloody coup, the democratically elected Government of Ukraine, and replaced it by a rabidly anti-Russian racist fascist or nazi Government on Russia’s doorstep, a regime that was selected by the rabidly anti-Russian (but lying that it wasn’t) Obama regime. This Politifact article was dated 31 March 2014, right after over 90% of Crimeans had just voted in a referendum, to rejoin Russia, and to depart from Ukraine, which the Soviet dictator had transferred them to, separating them from Russia, in 1954. (None of that history of the matter was even mentioned by Politifact.)

The Politifact article was titled “Viral meme says United States has ‘invaded’ 22 countries in the past 20 years”, and it was designed to deceive readers into believing that “Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea” reflected the real instance of “invasion” that Americans should be outraged against — to deflect away from America’s recent history as being the world’s actual invasion-nation. This propaganda-article said nothing at all about either Crimea or Ukraine except in its opening line:

A Facebook meme argues that Americans are pretty two-faced when it comes to Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea.” 

It then proceeded to document that the exact number of American invasions during the prior 20 years wasn’t 22, and so Politifact declared the allegation “false” (as if the exact number were really the entire issue or even the main one, and as if America’s scandalous recent history of invasions were not).

So, it’s on account of such drowning-in-propaganda, that the US public not only respect what US President Dwight Eisenhower derogatorily called the “military-industrial complex,” but respect it above even the US Presidency itself, and above all other US institutions (as Gallup’s constant polling demonstrates to be the case).

Here’s the reality: The same group of no more than a thousand super-wealthy Americans control both the United States Government and the weapons-manufacturing firms (such as Lockheed Martin), which are the only corporations whose only customers are the US Government and its chosen allied governments. So, these few people actually control the US Government’s foreign relations, and foreign policies. They create and control their own markets. This is the most politically active group of America’s super-rich, because they own America’s international corporations and because their business as owners of the military ones is military policy and also diplomatic policy, including the conjoining of both of those at the CIA and NSA, including the many coups that they (via their Government) engineer.

They also control all of the nation’s major news-media, which report international affairs in such a manner as to determine which foreign governments will be perceived by the mass of Americans to constitute the nation’s ‘enemies’ and therefore to be suitable targets for the US military and CIA to invade and conquer or otherwise “regime-change” — such as have been the lands of North Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Venezuela, etc., at various times.

The weapons-manufacturers won’t have any markets, at all, if there are no ‘enemy’ nations that are deemed by the public to be suitable targets for their weapons. ‘Enemy’ nations, and not only ‘allies’ (or ‘allied’ nations), are necessary, in order for the military business to produce the most profits. Overwhelmingly, if not totally, the chosen ‘enemies’ are nations that have never invaded nor even threatened to invade the United States; and, so, in order to keep this Government-funded business (the war-profiteering and associated international natural-resources extractions businesses) growing and thriving, what’s essential is continuing control over the nation’s ‘news’-media.

As Walter Lippmann wrote in 1921, “the manufacture of consent” is an essential part of this entire operation. It happens via the media. Even Germany’s Nazis needed to do that. Any modern capitalist dictatorship (otherwise called “fascism”) does. The US regime, being a capitalist dictatorship, certainly does.

Physically, Hitler lost, but his ideology won, he won even as nazism (racist fascism) instead of merely as fascism, and this racism is shown because the US regime is rabidly racist anti-Russian (not merely anti-communist), and has been so for at least a century. (Maybe it’s what Obama actually had secretly in mind when he said “That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.” And Trump is no less a liar than Obama, and he continues this aim of ultimately conquering Russia.)

They say they’re only against Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, but Putin shows in all polls of Russians, even in non-Russian polls, to be far more favorably viewed by Russians than either Barack Obama or Donald Trump are viewed by Americans. This is why regime-change-in-Russia is increasingly becoming dominated by US economic sanctions and military, and less dominated by CIA and other coup-organizers. The actual dictatorship is in America, and it requires participation by its ‘news’-media. Demonizing ‘the enemy’ is therefore crucial. It is crucial preparation for any invasion.

The United States Government spends at least as much money on its military as do all of the other governments in the world combined. Its ‘news’-media (that is to say, the media that are owned by, and that are advertised in by, the corporations that are controlled by, the same small group of billionaires — America’s billionaires — who fund the political campaigns of both the Democratic Party’s and the Republican Party’s nominees for the US Congress and the Presidency) may be partisan for one or the other of the nation’s two political Parties, but they all are unitedly partisan for the international corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, that America’s billionaires control, and that sell only to the US Government and to the foreign governments that are allied with the US Government. They also are partisan for the US-based oil and gas and mining international corporations, which need to extract at the lowest costs possible, no matter how much the given extractee-nation’s public might suffer from the deal. “Three-fourths (75%) of Americans today think the United States has ‘a special responsibility to be the leading nation in world affairs,’” and the actual beneficiaries of this mass-insanity are the owners of those US-based international corporations, the military and extraction giants.

Anthony Cordesman, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, headlined on 15 August 2016, “US Wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen: What Are The Endstates?” and he said,“Once again, the United States does not seem to be learning from its past. The real test of victory is never tactical success or even ending a war on favorable military terms, it is what comes next.”

But he ignored the main reason why these invasions had occurred. America’s weapons-manufacturers won’t have any markets, at all, if there are no ‘enemy’ nations that are deemed by the American public to be suitable targets for their weapons. Cordesman is there calculating success and failure on the basis of the myths (such as that the US Government cares about those “Endstates”), not of the realities (that it craves targets). The realities focus upon the desires of the owners and executives of the weapons-manufacturers and the extraction-firms, for ongoing and increased profits and executive bonuses, and not on the needs of America’s soldiers nor on the national security of the American people. Least of all, do they focus upon the needs — such as the welfare, freedom, or democracy — of the Iraqi people, or of the Syrian people, or of the Libyan people, or of the Yemenite people.

It’s all just lies, PR. Those invasions served their actual main functions when they were occurring. “The Endstates” there are almost irrelevant to those real purposes, the purposes for which the invasions were, and are, actually being done.

Here’s an ideal example of this mass mind-control: On 19 November 2017, Josh Rogin at the Washington Post headlined “The US must prepare for Iran’s next move in Syria” and reported that:

A task force of senior former US diplomatic and military officials has come up with suggestions for how Trump could prevent Iran from taking over what’s left of liberated Syria and fulfill his own promise to contain Iranian influence in the region.

“Most urgently…the United States must impose real obstacles to Tehran’s pursuit of total victory by the Assad regime in Syria,” the report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America states. “Time is of the essence.”

The underlying presumption there was that the US regime has legitimate authorization to be occupying the parts of Syria it has invaded and now occupies, and that Iran does not. But the reality is that the US regime is occupying Syria instead of assisting Syria’s Government to defeat the US-Saud-Israeli invasion to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government, by stooges who will be selected by the Saud family who own Saudi Arabia, and the reality is that Iran’s forces there are invitees who are instead assisting Syria’s Government against the Saudi-Israeli-American invasion. In other words: this WP article is basically all lies. Furthermore, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America is a front-organization for the fascist regime that rules Israel, and the WP hid that fact, too, so its cited ‘expert’ was a mere PR agency for Israel’s aristocracy. So, this is Deep-State propaganda, parading as ‘news’.

Americans actually pay their private good money to subscribe to (subsidize) such bad public ‘news’papers as that. The billionaire who happens to own that particular ‘news’paper (the WP), Jeff Bezos, had founded and leads Amazon, which receives almost all of its profits from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud-computing division, which supplies the US ‘Defense’ Department, CIA, and NSA.

For example, “without AWS and Prime, Amazon lost $2 billion in the 1st quarter of FY18. … These losses come from Amazon’s retail business. About 60% of Amazon’s revenue comes from retail and that’s where Amazon is losing money.” Amazon is profitable because of what it sells mainly to the Government, but also to other large US international corporations, and they all want to conquer Syria. None opposes that evil goal. Although Bezos doesn’t like the Sauds, he has actually been (at least until the Khashoggi matter) one of their main US media champions for the Sauds to take over Syria. It’s all just a fool-the-public game. It works, it succeeds, and that’s what Gallup’s polls are demonstrating. The public never learns. It’s a fact, which has been proven in many different ways.

This reality extends also to other nations, allies of the US aristocracy, and not only to the US regime itself. For example, on 27 November 2018, a whistleblowing former UK Ambassador, Craig Murray, who is a personal friend of Julian Assange, headlined “Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies”, and he proved that Britain’s Guardian had lied with total, and totally undocumented (and probably even totally non-credible), fabrications, alleging that Julian Assange of WikiLeaks had secretly met (in 2013, 2015, and 2016) with Paul Manafort of the Trump campaign.

The UK, of course, is a vassal-nation of the US aristocracy, and the Guardian is run by Democratic Party propagandists (paid indirectly by Democratic Party and conservative Tony-Blair-wing Labour Party billionaires) and therefore fabricates in order to assist those Parties’ efforts to impeach Trump and to dislodge Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party’s leadership. However, each of America’s two political parties (like the UK’s aristocracy itself) represents America’s aristocracy, which, like Britain’s aristocracy, is united in its determination to eliminate Assange — they are as determined to do that to him, just as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud was determined to eliminate Jamal Khashoggi. ‘Democracy’? This? It is Big Brother.

Only if the population boycott lying individuals and organizations, is democracy even possible to exist in a nation. Democracy can’t possibly exist more than truth does. In political matters, deceit is always treachery; and its practitioners, whenever the evidence for it is overwhelming and irrefutable, should experience whatever the standard penalty is for treachery. Only in a land such as that, can democracy possibly exist. Elsewhere, it simply can’t. The only basis for democracy, is truth. Deceit is for dictators, not for democrats. And deceit reigns, in the US and in its allied countries. Is this really tolerable? Americans, at least, tolerate it.

When Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the far-right Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal editorialized against Obama on 10 October 2009, by saying that “What this suggests to us — and to the Norwegians — is the end of what has been called ‘American exceptionalism’.”

Little did anyone then know that after winning re-election upon the basis of such war-mongering lies from Obama, as that “America remains the one indispensable nation”, Obama in February 2014 would go so far as to perpetrate a bloody coup overthrowing the democratically elected Government of one “dispensable” nation, Ukraine. And then, on 28 May of 2014, Obama would be telling America’s future generals, that “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation” and that Obama would, in that speech, explicitly malign Ukraine’s neighbor Russia.

He did it, in this speech, which implicitly called all nations except the US “dispensable.” He had carefully planned and orchestrated Americans’ hostility toward Russia. His successor, Trump, lied saying that he wanted to reverse Obama’s policies on this, and Trump promptly, once becoming elected, increased and expanded those policies. Whatever a deceitfully war-mongering country like this might be, it’s certainly no democracy. Because democracy cannot be built upon a ceaseless string of lies.

Originally posted at strategic-culture.org

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2018/12/11/usa-the-worlds-invasion-nation/

 

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by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Endless war in Syria continues despite most parts of the country liberated from US-supported terrorists.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (MZ below) said work continues to implement "the Russian-Turkish Memorandum on Idlib of September 17...to eliminate the terrorist presence in that zone at minimal cost to civilians."

 

She failed to explain that Erdogan betrayed Putin straightaway, supporting the scourge of terrorism in Idlib, and elsewhere in the country, he pretends to oppose.

He continues occupying northern Syrian territory illegally - wanting it annexed, a major obstacle to the country's liberation. Washington's imperial objective in Syria is the single greatest obstacle to conflict resolution.

The good news is that displaced refugees continue returning to liberated areas. Russia is spearheading the delivery of humanitarian aid to countless thousands of Syrians.

The US, other Western countries and UN supply none, except to areas controlled by terrorists, the pattern throughout years of war - Obama's war, now Trump's, wanting Syria transformed into another US vassal state, Assad toppled, a pro-Western puppet replacing him.

That's what endless war has been about since launched. MZ at best only touches on the hardest of hard truths, including US support for ISIS and other terrorists - pretending to be combatting the scourge of terrorism it supports, in Syria and in other countries.

MZ: "We regard our role in the socio-economic reconstruction of Syria as an important element in strengthening Russia-Syria relations," adding:

"Intensive contacts are underway which seek to advance the political settlement in Syria, to form a Constitutional Committee and then to launch it in Geneva under the decisions taken by the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi."

MZ failed to explain that years of diplomatic talks in Geneva, Astana, and Sochi since 2012 achieved no significant breakthroughs - because Washington, NATO, the Saudis and Israel want endless war, not resolution.

Success in the country to liberate areas has come on the ground from Syrian forces, greatly aided by Russian aerial operations - not diplomacy.

To her credit, MZ condemned illegal US occupation of northern and southern Syrian territory. Conflict resolution is unattainable as long as things remain the same - along with support for jihadists in the country by Washington and its imperial allies.

The US-installed regime in Kiev mobilized thousands of forces for war on Donbass along its border. It appears imminent, likely more intensively than in 2014 and 2015.

MZ: "(W)e continue to see alarming reports from that region. According to available information, Kiev is plotting an armed provocation on the line of contact, taking advantage of the imposed martial law, including in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, to stage a surge attack in the direction of Mariupol in order to seize the Donetsk-controlled areas along the Sea of Azov and reach the border with Russia." 

"The attack is to be conducted by a massed troop contingent that the AFU has been reinforcing over the past few months, as repeatedly reported by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. From December 1 to 7 alone, OSCE monitors discovered 190 units of heavy weapons prohibited by the Minsk Agreements outside the designated storage facilities."

Puppet president Poroshenko appears hellbent for full-scale war along Russia's border - in cahoots with the US, Britain and France, perhaps intending another cross-border provocation, aiming to draw Moscow into the conflict, likely wanting the Trump regime to get directly involved.

The human rights situation in Ukraine is deplorable, things deteriorating, not improving, MZ explained.

Nazi-infested fascists run things, contemptuous of fundamental rights of ordinary people, treating them ruthlessly, why Poroshenko is overwhelmingly reviled, his approval rating in single digits.

He's waging war on independent journalists, human rights workers, and anyone criticizing his regime. Russian nationals in the country are endangered, including Russian diplomatic missions and diplomats, MZ saying:

"We have the capacity to respond to (abusive actions). And we will do so unless measures are taken to protect the security of" Russian personnel in the country.

The Kiev regime "should know (it's) gone too far. (It) will not get away with" its hostile actions.

"Kiev is using the contrived anti-Russia hysteria to curry favor with the nationalist electorate, intimidate Russian speakers and drive them underground, as well as demonstrating activity, even though the goal of this activity is unclear. Those who refuse to toe the line following such 'preventive treatment' are arrested (or) killed."

"The recent statements made by the Ukrainian authorities regarding their commitment to democratic European values sound especially cynical against the backdrop of the ongoing excesses." 

"But their Western curators pretend not to see this and even express their support. The flagrant violations of human rights in the fields of language, ethnicity and religion are rapidly pushing Ukraine towards a red line."

The Big Lie about (nonexistent) Russian US election meddling refuses to die since surfacing in 2016 - proof never backing accusations because none exists.

Virtually everyone in Washington and the West knows what's going on - while going along with the colossal hoax, part of longstanding Russia bashing.

MZ: "The recent statements made by the Ukrainian authorities regarding their commitment to democratic European values sound especially cynical against the backdrop of the ongoing excesses." 

"But their Western curators pretend not to see this and even express their support. The flagrant violations of human rights in the fields of language, ethnicity and religion are rapidly pushing Ukraine towards a red line."

The material was rubbish amounting to nothing. "Even a schoolchild can understand that all this is a fanciful and brazen fake," said MZ.

"No evidence has been found of the participation of Russian citizens...organizations," or anyone else connected to the Kremlin involved in US election meddling - a longstanding US specialty worldwide.

Moscow respects international law and the sovereign rights of other nations - polar opposite how the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial allies operate.

Phony claims about Russian meddling amount to "a theater of the absurd," said MZ, calling for "an end to this farce."

Hardliners in Washington consider Russia their number one enemy. It's long past time for Kremlin officials to stop pretending the US and Moscow are partners. Suggesting or believing it is utter nonsense.

US rage against Russia risks direct confrontation. The same goes for China and Iran. It's why I've often said and repeat again that things could be heading for potentially humanity destroying nuclear war by accident or design.

WW I and II were waged with conventional weapons, other than the gratuitous nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war was won.

The next global war, if waged, could and likely will involve use of nukes in earnest. If so, Einstein was right. Future war(s) thereafter will be with sticks and stones - providing anyone on earth survives.

 

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman).

 

Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/kremlin/31-12-2018/142150-russian_for...

 

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