Tag: perpetual war

WHY THE MEDIA DON’T WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE NORD STREAM BLASTS 

No one but the terminally naïve should be surprised that security services lie – and that they are all but certain to cover their tracks when they carry out operations that either violate domestic or international law or that would be near-universally rejected by their own populations.

Which is reason enough why anyone following the fallout from explosions last September that ripped holes in three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea supplying Russian gas to Europe should be wary of accepting anything Western agencies have to say on the matter.

In fact, the only thing that Western publics should trust is the consensus among “investigators” that the three simultaneous blasts deep underwater on the pipelines – a fourth charge apparently failed to detonate – were sabotage, not some freak coincidental accident.

Someone blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, creating an untold environmental catastrophe as the pipes leaked huge quantities of methane, a supremely active global-warming gas. It was an act of unrivaled industrial and environmental terrorism.

If Washington had been able to pin the explosions on Russia, as it initially hoped, it would have done so with full vigor. There is nothing Western states would like more than to intensify world fury against Moscow, especially in the context of NATO’s express efforts to “weaken” Russia through a proxy war waged in Ukraine.

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Misleadership in the Bronx: AOC, the Fraud Squad, Military Recruiters and U.S. Imperialism

On Monday March 20th 2023, U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat co-hosted a “Student Services Fair” at Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx. As the official flier indicates, there was a large military presence . Alarmed that the two U.S. politicians, especially one who is a self-described “democratic socialist” and affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), were hosting this career fair, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized a counter-recruitment protest.

‘The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today’

The official flier for the event listed seven representatives that would headline the fair. Six of them represented branches of the military. Protestors observed dozens of uniformed military personnel walk into the fair through the main entrance, while AOC snuck in and out through back doors. She refused to address her constituents’ questions and instead sent a U.S. Marine colonel outside to address us. The military officer bragged about his time training Saudi troops and the countries he and his government have invaded.

The “duck test” is a form of abductive reasoning, usually expressed as “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics. It is used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be. This same reasoning can be applied here to deduce that this “student services fair” was in fact a military recruitment fair. Yet somehow, AOC continues to deny that the military played a major role at this event.

Dr. Martin Luther King was crystal clear on this question in 1967 , exactly a year before the U.S government assassinated him: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” AOC herself has been on record speaking out against predatory military recruitment tactics targeting our youth. Why then did she decide to host a fair giving these predators access to disenfranchised high school students? The Bronx Anti-War Coalition understands that anytime and anywhere we see military enlistment officers or representatives of the U.S. service academies near our youth, we must confront them and chase them out of our communities.

After her security detail briskly whisked her through a backdoor clear of our protest, she decided to respond to us via instagram . Like other U.S. politicians who practice duplicity, she has a true gift for evasion. She smeared and lied about us in a nine minutes and thirty second video while doubling down on why she has a “responsibility” to inform Bronx youth about U.S. military enlistment “opportunities.” Did it not occur to AOC and her inner-circle to denounce the genocidaires in her monologue? Too busy victimizing herself, at no point did the Congresswoman address the reasons we were outside protesting: 1) to defend the multinational, working-class youth being used as cannon fodder to fight imperialist wars, 2) to stand for the Black, Indigenous and Latinx soldiers murdered on U.S. military bases, such as Abdul Latifu, Vanessa Guillén, Elder Fernandes, and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz, among hundreds of others, and 3) to give voice to the millions of victims in the Global South targeted and murdered by U.S. sanctions, drone attacks and unprovoked invasions.

This article explores why the anti-war movement has a responsibility to continue to confront AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Bernie Sanders and any faux leftist professional politician and sheepdog who go along with the bipartisan pro-imperialist and pro-war status quo.

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Ukraine Attempts to Blame Russia for Humiliating Pentagon Leak

The Pentagon announced it was trying to remove from the internet a major leak of secret documents which have exposed plans relating to Ukraine’s war on Russia. For his part, Elon Musk sarcastically highlighted the vain attempt, saying on Twitter: “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”

The American billionaire derided on Twitter the Pentagon’s attempt to remove social media posts containing leaked classified documents relating to the conflict in Ukraine. The day before his tweet, the New York Times newspaper indicated that officials were not successful in removing the publications from the internet. 

The leak was described to the News York Times by a senior intelligence official as “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” the intelligence sharing apparatus between the Anglo countries – the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Some of the documents were found on Twitter and other sites on April 7, a day after US officials announced that they were investigating a potential leak of classified Ukrainian war plans. These war plans include an alarming assessment of Ukraine’s faltering air defence capabilities and notes that 12 brigades are being formed for Ukraine, including nine trained by the US and other NATO allies.

One of the leaks, dated February 23, is labelled “Secret/NoForn,” meaning it was not meant to be shared with foreign countries, and thus confirms the secrecy of the documents.

It is the belief of Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, that the leak is “a significant breach in security” that could hamper Ukrainian military planning as it reportedly prepares for a spring offensive. “As many of these were pictures of documents, it appears that it was a deliberate leak done by someone that wished to damage the Ukraine, US, and NATO efforts,” he said.

The Kremlin said it had no doubts about the participation of the US or NATO, direct or indirect, in the conflict in Ukraine. None-the-less, the leaks would still provide a fascinating insight for decisionmakers in Moscow.

The New York Times reported that the leaks appear to be legitimate Defense Department documents. None-the-less, this did not stop Ukrainian officials from suggesting that the leak was only part of a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at influencing Ukraine’s possible spring offensive.

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US Is Spying On Zelensky: Here’s What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files

The highly classified Pentagon documents which were leaked online in recent weeks, but which began being confirmed and reported as authentic by The New York Times and others only in the past few days, contain some embarrassing revelations. This has sent DOJ and US intelligence officials scrambling to discover the source of the leaks.

CNN is confirming Monday based on one of the documents which appeared online that the US has been spying on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky – a disclosure which has caused officials in Kiev to be “deeply frustrated”.

“One document reveals that the US has been spying on Zelensky,” CNN reports. “That is unsurprising, said the source close to Zelensky, but Ukrainian officials are deeply frustrated about the leak.”

The US intelligence document suggests that American officials have been worried about possible Zelensky decision-making to strike deep into Russian territory, which would escalate the war and potentially bring Russian and NATO into direct clashes:

The US intelligence report, which is sourced to signals intelligence, says that Zelensky in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of reaching that far.

An additional possibility is that the US intelligence community might be monitoring the Ukrainian presidency’s office as part of efforts to oversee and account for how the tens of billions in aid sent to Kiev is being utilized. 

The Washington Post details that “many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.”

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Sen. Lindsey Graham Says He Would Support Sending American Troops To Taiwan

The United States should aggressively train Taiwanese forces “so they can fight like Ukrainians,” send F-16 jets to the island, install nuclear-tipped missiles in its submarines, and dispatch American troops to defend the nation, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News Sunday on April 9.

Graham said that Congress needs to ask itself, “‘Should we have a defense agreement with the island of Taiwan?’ We don’t,” he said. “But yes, I’d be very much open to using U.S. forces to defend Taiwan because it’s in our national security interest to do so.”

Graham said he believes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing is “setting the stage possibly for a blockade of Taiwan.”

“The Communist Chinese party is going to test us dramatically this year and next year before the election,” he said. “In 1961, the Russians tried to isolate West Berlin. So I’m fearful that the Chinese may be setting conditions to blockade Taiwan in the coming months or weeks, and we need to respond forcefully if they do that.”

Graham cited Taiwan’s role in producing microchips and the risk of the CCP—which is militarizing at a rapid rate—gaining “a monopoly on the digital economy” as a reason for defending the island.

Taiwan makes more than 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90 percent of the most advanced versions.

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Leaked Document Appears to Show NATO Special Operations Forces are in Ukraine

A Pentagon document that has appeared on the internet as part of a trove of leaks shows the number of NATO special operations forces that are inside Ukraine, according to The Guardian.

The Guardian report reads: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”

According to a copy of the document circulating on Twitter, the authenticity of which has not been verified, there are 97 NATO special operations soldiers inside Ukraine, including 14 Americans.

The French government denied on Saturday that its forces were inside Ukraine. “There are no French forces engaged in operation in Ukraine. The documents cited do not come from the French armies. We do not comment on documents whose source is uncertain,” a spokesman for the minister of France’s armed forces said.

The New York Times first reported on Thursday on the leaked documents that appeared online. The documents show US planning for a Ukrainian counteroffensive and appear to be authentic as the Biden administration is scrambling and the Justice Department launched an investigation into the leak.

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GOP embraces a new foreign policy: Bomb Mexico to stop fentanyl

A growing number of prominent Republicans are rallying around the idea that to solve the fentanyl crisis, America must bomb it away.

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants.

“We need to start thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia,” Waltz, a former Green Beret, said in a short interview.

Not all Republican leaders are behind this approach. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser who’s weighing his own presidential run, said unilateral military operations “are not going to solve the problem.” And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), for example, is “still evaluating” the AUMF proposal “but has concerns about the immigration implications and the bilateral relationship with Mexico,” per a Republican staff member on the panel.

But the eagerness of some Republicans to openly legislate or embrace the use of the military in Mexico suggests that the idea is taking firmer root inside the party. And it illustrates the ways in which frustration with immigration, drug overdose deaths and antipathy towards China are defining the GOP’s larger foreign policy.

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Leaked documents expose US-NATO Ukraine war plans

The New York Times has reported “a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine” through the leak of classified documents which have been shared on social media. It correspondents cited “senior Biden administration officials” who apparently tipped the outlet off to the story. Documents circulating on Telegram which closely resemble those referred to by the Times are reproduced at the end of this article.

The Times writes, “Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed. The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analysts said… The analysts warned that documents released by Russian sources could be selectively altered to present the Kremlin’s disinformation.”

Neither the New York Times nor the “military analysts” it cited explain how the documents were altered, or why they have the appearance of tampering. However, because the leaked documents have arrived in the form of photographs of printed documents, rather than original files, the possibility of forgery or alteration must be considered.

The leaked documents claim that Russia has sustained troop losses ranging from 16,000 to 17,500 while Ukrainian losses amount to as many as 71,500 – a staggering differential that stands at odds with the triumphalist narrative projected by Kiev. They are dated March 1 2023 and appear to be part of an ongoing briefing effort to analyze the war’s progress and plan a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Grayzone obtained the documents from a public Telegram channel. Though they resemble those described by the Times, we can not confirm their authenticity.

According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is investigating the leak while the White House is “working to get them deleted.” Twitter owner Elon Musk appears to have confirmed the pressure campaign, sarcastically commenting, “Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet – that works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all.”

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DRONES AND MOTOS

THE LOOK ON Miriam’s face was abject fear. Her pink, white, and green veil had mostly slipped from her head, and her dark eyes grew wide as she stared down at her lavender smartphone. In a flash, she pulled it to her ear. “Allo!” she said, her pitch rising as her other hand nervously cradled her chin.

In the courtyard of her family’s tree-lined compound in a well-to-do neighborhood in Niger’s capital, members of Miriam’s ethnic group had been describing jihadist attacks on their historic community in a rural region to the north. Now, the six or seven men wearing tagelmusts — a combination of turban and scarf worn by Tuareg men to provide protection from sun and dust — were also glued to their phones as chimes announced incoming texts and calls. Voices on the phones sounded panicked. There were gunshots, and a familiar roar rumbled through the desert scrubland 100 miles away. At any moment, relatives warned, they expected an attack by the “motorcycle guys.”

Over the last decade, Niger and its neighbors in the West African Sahel have been plagued by terrorist groups that have taken the notion of the outlaw motorcycle gang to its most lethal apogee. Under the black banners of jihadist militancy, men on “motos” — two to a bike, their faces obscured by sunglasses and turbans, armed with Kalashnikovs — have terrorized villages across the borderlands where Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger meet. These militants, some affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group, impose zakat, an Islamic tax; steal animals; and terrorize, assault, and kill civilians.

Jihadist motorcyclists, Miriam reminded me, had thundered into the village of Bakorat on March 21, 2021. As described afterward by one of the survivors, the motos “swept into the village like a sandstorm, killing every man they saw. They shot one of my uncles in front of me. His 20-year-old son ran to save him, but he perished as well. We found them, slumped over each other.” Attacking in overwhelming numbers and with military precision, the jihadists executed men and boys while looting and burning homes. “They attacked the well like it was a military objective, opening fire on the dozens of men there. As they killed, I heard the attackers saying, ‘This is your time … for working with the state,’” another survivor told Human Rights Watch. “I collapsed, seeing the carnage … my father, my brothers, my cousins, my friends lying there, dead and dying.” Human Rights Watch said more than 170 people were massacred near Bakorat and Intazayene villages and nearby nomad camps that day. Miriam and her relatives put the number at 245.

As we sat in the courtyard, it all seemed to be happening again.

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Chinese team behind extreme animal gene experiment says it may lead to super soldiers who survive nuclear fallout

A team of military medical scientists in China says it has inserted a gene from the microscopic water bear into human embryonic stem cells and significantly increased these cells’ resistance to radiation.

They said success in this unprecedented experiment could lead to super-tough soldiers who could survive nuclear fallout.

From water bear to super soldier

The water bear, also known as tardigrade or moss piglet, is an eight-legged animal smaller than 1 millimetre long and the hardiest creature on Earth. Over years of scientific testing, it has survived -200 degrees Celsius, more than anour hour in boiling water and after flying in space.

The water bear’s toughness comes in part from a gene that can generate shieldlike proteins to protect its cells against radiation and other environmental damage.

The Chinese team said it had found a way to introduce this gene into human DNA using CRISPR/Cas9, a gene-editing tool now available in most bio-labs.

In their laboratory experiment, nearly 90 per cent of the human embryonic cells carrying the water bear gene survived a lethal exposure to X-ray radiation, according to the team led by professor Yue Wen with the radiation biotechnology laboratory at the Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing.

There has been a growing interest in the study since Yue and his colleagues published their findings in the Chinese-language journal Military Medical Sciences in October, according to a Beijing-based life scientist.

“This is amazing, considering the big difference between the water bear and a human,” said the researcher who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the technology.

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