Tag: perpetual war

Former U.S. officials have held secret Ukraine talks with prominent Russians

A group of former senior U.S. national security officials have held secret talks with prominent Russians believed to be close to the Kremlin — and, in at least one case, with the country’s top diplomat — with the aim of laying the groundwork for potential negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, half a dozen people briefed on the discussions told NBC News. 

In a high-level example of the back-channel diplomacy taking place behind the scenes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with members of the group for several hours in April in New York, four former officials and two current officials told NBC News. 

On the agenda of the April meeting were some of the thorniest issues in the war in Ukraine, like the fate of Russian-held territory that Ukraine may never be able to liberate, and the search for an elusive diplomatic off-ramp that could be tolerable to both sides. 

Sitting down with Lavrov were Richard Haass, a former diplomat and the outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations, current and former officials said. The group was joined by Europe expert Charles Kupchan and Russia expert Thomas Graham, both former White House and State Department officials who are Council on Foreign Relations fellows. 

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Burns Calls Ukraine War Major ‘Opportunity’ for CIA Recruiting Spies

CIA Director William Burns said in a speech on Saturday that the war in Ukraine provides his spy agency a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to recruit Russians.

“Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership, beneath the steady diet of state propaganda and practiced repression. That disaffection creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us at CIA, at our core a human intelligence service,” Burns told the Ditchley Foundation in the UK, according to The Hill.

Burns mentioned how the CIA has been openly trying to recruit people inside Russia using social media. “We’re not letting it go to waste. We recently used social media — our first video post to Telegram, in fact — to let brave Russians know how to contact us safely on the dark web. We had 2.5 million views in the first week, and we’re very much open for business,” he said.

The CIA published a video on Telegram and YouTube in May asking Russians to contact the spy agency with links using Tor, a web browser that encrypts user activity. The idea is to use Tor to access a CIA site on the dark web that the agency uses to gather information from people around the world. The CIA has been posting similar instructions on social media throughout the war.

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Report Shows How Military Industrial Complex Sets Media Narrative on Ukraine

Wealthy donors have long funded think tanks with official-sounding names that produce research that reflects the interests of those funders (Extra!, 7/13). The weapons industry is a major contributor to these idea factories; a recent report from the Quincy Institute (6/1/23) demonstrates just how much influence war profiteers have on the national discourse.

The Quincy Institute—whose own start-up funding came mainly from George Soros and Charles Koch—looked at 11 months of Ukraine War coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, from March 1, 2022, through January 31, 2023, and counted each time one of 33 leading think tanks was mentioned. Of the 15 think tanks most often mentioned in the coverage, only one—Human Rights Watch—does not take funding from Pentagon contractors. Quincy’s analysis found that the media were seven times more likely to cite think tanks with war industry ties than they were to cite think tanks without war industry ties.

With 157 mentions each, the top two think tanks were the Atlantic Council and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Both of these think tanks receive millions from the war industry. The Atlantic Council has long been the brain trust of NATO, the military organization whose expansion towards Russia’s borders was a critical factor in Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine. (See FAIR.org, 3/4/22.) Both think tanks receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, companies which have already been awarded billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts as a result of the war in Ukraine.

CSIS was revealed in a New York Times expose (8/7/16) to produce content that reflected the weapons industry priorities of its funders.  It also “initiated meetings with Defense Department officials and congressional staff to push for the recommendations” of military funders.

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9/11: Whodunnit? and Why It Matters to the Peace Movement

“I have chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived — yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace . . .”— PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, JUNE 10, 1963

Sixty years later it behooves us more than ever to penetrate the tenacious ignorance of which Kennedy spoke. To honor my friend and colleague, TRANSCEND member Prof. Graeme MacQueen, who passed away in April, this editorial addresses topics he was passionate about, namely peace, justice and truth, in particular 9/11 truth.

If we’re not willing to open our minds to the abundant evidence refuting the narrative, fed to us mere minutes after the heinous crimes of 9/11 unfolded before our eyes, that a band of foreign militants from the Middle East was solely responsible for those crimes, then we risk continuing to fall prey to propaganda leading to unending wars and suffering.

Johan Galtung introduced me to Graeme at a 2011 TRANSCEND symposium in North Carolina. 9/11 was not on the formal agenda, but came up in side conversations as the 10-year anniversary approached. Galtung has always promoted open dialog on challenging topics, bucking the penchant of academic institutions and major media platforms to ignore dissenting views on 9/11 and dismiss them as crazy conspiracy theories. He thus proposed adding a session on 9/11 to the symposium and opening it to the general public. Three of us presented our views, followed by Q and A.

Galtung accepted the official narrative that 9/11 was perpetrated by foreign Muslim extremists, viewing it as blow-back from the many injustices the US had inflicted on the Middle East. He called it a public execution of 3 buildings (World Trade Center 1 and 2, and the Pentagon) that symbolized the US military-financial complex. 

Graeme and I enumerated unexplained anomalies pointing to complicity of key agents within the US Government and cast doubt on the culpability of Al-Qaeda operatives. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9/11, confessed involvement only after being subjected to prolonged torture via waterboarding, while videos of Osama bin Laden claiming credit for the attacks look suspiciously fake.

We all agreed, however, along with most peace activists, that the US response to the events of 9/11 was reprehensible: declaring the unending war on terror, fomenting widespread Islamophobia, curtailing civil liberties, decades-long military incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq that ruined both countries and cost countless lives. The US leadership justified its violent response by the fear, outrage and desire for revenge that swept across much of the nation, horrified at the shock and awe it had witnessed that fateful day. How could that have been prevented?

Imagine what our world might look like if the propaganda machine set in motion the morning of 9/11 had failed. What if most journalists, commentators, engineers, pilots, firefighters, police, and politicians on mainstream media had pressed for answers to valid questions, like:

How could damage and fires on the upper floors have caused both twin towers to explode and disappear into their footprints? How could World Trade Center 7, a third skyscraper not hit by a plane, have imploded symmetrically at free fall speed? How could an alleged hijacker who flunked flight school on small planes have executed a harrowing maneuver to ram a passenger jet into the Pentagon going 500 mph at ground level? How did the US, with its hundreds of billions in defense spending, fail to defend the nerve center of its military headquarters in the nation’s capital? 

Once it was announced hijacked planes were crashing into buildings, why did Secret Service agents allow President Bush to remain in a Florida classroom with children, leaving them vulnerable to attack? Who made money on a significant increase in stock market betting right before 9/11 that prices of American and United Airline stocks would drop? 

What if honest eye-witness journalists, who in the morning had reported explosions both before and during the destruction of the towers, had continued to develop that thread and ask deeper questions throughout the day and following days, rather than being diverted by select experts and pundits who silenced the “explosion” theme, supplanting it with unproven assertions that Osama bin Laden did it.

Had these questions — many raised also by 9/11 victims’ family members — been relentlessly pursued, the flimsy tale of Muslim extremists from remote parts of the world with no ties to any government being the lone perpetrators of this apocalyptic theatrical display would have soon disintegrated.

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Tony Blair and The Iraq War: Digging Deeper into the Death of David Kelly

In little more than two weeks, we mark the 20th anniversary of the Welsh scientist and authority on biowarfare, Dr David Kelly. [1]

Listeners to this station will remember a discussion about the man in March 2023, the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Our past guest, Dr David Halpin outlined some of the reasons he, Dr Stephen Frost, and a list of determined skeptics doubted the official story of his passage due to suicide and were mobilizing in support of not just public hearings, but a public inquest to get to the bottom of his death, which they suspected was a murder which benefited the government of the UK, and Prime Minister Tony Blair in particular. [2]

The oft repeated assertion among many such skeptics, including Liberal-Democrat MP Norman Baker, was the claim that weapons of mass destruction was a key to a motive behind his elimination. Iraq supposedly still had WMDs. They could be launched at the insistence of Big Bad Saddam to cause tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people in some innocent country – maybe even America! But David Kelly, acclaimed and high profile weapons instructor that he was, publicly challenged this claim. Hence, ripping away the fundamental reason for going to war with Iraq.

However, there may be another motive that could potentially lead to an even darker agenda. Dr. Kelly was the head of biological defence at the Government’s secretive military research establishment  in Wiltshire, England. He was the brain behind much of the West’s germ warfare programmes. . [3]

If Dr. Kelly was knowledgeable of anything untoward, and was willing to blab to the public, might that also be a reason for doing him in? After all, soon after the suspicious releases of anthrax letters post 9/11, followed an astonishing level of deaths of top scientists in the field of microbiology. Was Kelly a target? Or unfinished business? [4]

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Biden Close To Approving Cluster Bombs, Banned In 120 Countries, For Ukraine

President Biden is said to be close to approving controversial cluster munitions for Ukraine. CNN on Friday cites administration sources to say he is “strongly considering” approval of the transfer. 

“Officials told CNN that a final decision is expected soon from the White House, and that if approved, the weapons could be included in a new military aid package to Ukraine as soon as next month,” the report says.

“These would undoubtedly have a significant battlefield impact,” a US official said to the outlet. CNN further acknowledges that “Cluster munitions, which the US has stockpiled in large numbers since phasing them out in 2016, could help fill that gap, officials said.”

The White House would likely receive significant support from bipartisan lawmakers in Congress, given that’s precisely where the initiative to supply Kiev with cluster munitions originated. 

In March a Republican letter to the president chastised the White House’s “reluctance to provide Ukraine the right type and amount of long-range fires and maneuver capability to create.”

That particular letter had been signed by influential, high-level GOP Congress members, including: Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike Rogers the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

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Zelensky Says No Elections In Ukraine Until War Is Over

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told BBC last week that there will be no Ukrainian presidential election in 2024 if martial law is still in effect, The New Voice of Ukraine reported.

Zelensky’s five-year term is due to end in 2024, but his comments suggest that it will be extended indefinitely if the war isn’t over by then. He made similar comments about Ukraine’s parliamentary elections, which are due to be held in October of this year, in an interview with The Washington Post last month.

When asked if parliamentary elections will be held this fall, Zelensky said, “If we have martial law, we cannot have elections. The constitution prohibits any elections during martial law. If there is no martial law, then there will be.”

However, in the latest interview he “expressed hope that there would be peace in Ukraine next year, and life would be returning to normal.”

Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, also said this month that elections can’t happen in Ukraine under martial law, which Zelensky declared when Russia invaded. “Ukrainian legislation stipulates it is impossible to hold any elections during martial law. And this makes sense,” he said.

Stefanchuk added that if elections happen, it could “lead to the rupture of the state, which our enemy is waiting for. That is why I think the most correct and wise decision is to hold elections immediately after the end of martial law.”

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US to send $500 million in weapons, military aid to Ukraine, officials say

The Pentagon will announce it is sending up to $500 million in military aid to Ukraine, including more than 50 heavily armored vehicles and an infusion of missiles for air defense systems, U.S. officials said Monday, as Ukrainian and Western leaders try to sort out the impact of the brief weekend insurrection in Russia.

The aid is aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which has been moving slowly in its early stages. It wasn’t clear Monday if Ukrainian forces will be able to take advantage of the disarray in the Russian ranks, in the aftermath of the short-lived rebellion by Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenary group that he has controlled.

An announcement on the aid package is expected Tuesday. This would be the 41st time since the Russian invasion into Ukraine in February 2022 that the U.S. has provided military weapons and equipment through presidential drawdown authority. The program allows the Pentagon to quickly take items from its own stocks and deliver them to Ukraine.

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Bombing Mexican Cartels Won’t Stop Fentanyl

Americans continue to overdose on illicit fentanyl despite increased seizures of the drug coming north from Mexico. Several prominent Republicans are suggesting that the U.S. respond with wartime tools such as airstrikes and troop deployments. But combining the war on drugs with the war on terror is a surefire recipe for costly engagement abroad and little progress in reducing fentanyl-related harm at home.

During his presidency, The New York Times reported last year, Donald Trump expressed interest in using missiles to attack Mexican drug cartels and destroy their labs. Reps. Mike Waltz (R–Fla.) and Dan Crenshaw (R–Texas) helped revive that idea in January, when they introduced a joint resolution that would authorize the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against “foreign nations, foreign organizations, or foreign persons” involved in fentanyl production or trafficking.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) argues that the military should “go after these organizations wherever they exist.” Several GOP presidential hopefuls, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have echoed that sentiment.

There is little reason to believe these strikes would be as precise or effective as proponents claim. “Even a campaign of air strikes against cartels could easily escalate,” says Benjamin H. Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities. “Cartels could retaliate,” he notes, and “strikes are bound to fail to affect fentanyl shipments, let alone meaningfully damage cartels.”

Mexico hawks like Waltz say the U.S. has “done this before,” citing Plan Colombia, a Clinton-era counternarcotics and counterterrorism initiative. But “claiming that Plan Colombia was a success is just plain false,” says Javier Osorio, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona whose research focuses on criminal violence in Latin America.

When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) “demobilized after the peace agreement in 2016,” Osorio says, coca cultivation “skyrocketed.” He notes that “it’s even higher than before the U.S. started conducting aerial eradications” of coca fields. A similar counternarcotics program in Mexico, the Mérida Initiative, has been “a total disaster,” Osorio says: It has not stopped drug trafficking, and years after the initiative began, Mexico’s top law enforcement official was still “in bed” with the Sinaloa cartel.

The war on drugs has helped turn Latin America into the most violent region in the world, leading to increased black market activity and corruption. “If airstrikes miraculously kill off a cartel, another will fill the gap,” Friedman says, “likely with considerable violence between criminals as the market shifts.” According to Osorio, “There’s always going to be someone willing to kill and die for supplying drugs when there’s such a huge market.”

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The real casualties of Russia’s ‘civil war’: the Beltway expert class

Numerous serious casualties were incurred during Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s supposed “coup.” The Grayzone offers an in-depth look at the massacre carried out by some of America’s top Russia experts against their own credibility.

When Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched a supposed revolt against Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 23, sending his forces on a march toward Moscow following a series of tirades against the country’s defense establishment, Washington’s expert class overflowed with an orgy of regime change fantasies. 

For just over 12 hours, everyone from former US ambassador to Russia and noted Hitler apologist Michael McFaul to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to neocon pundit Anne Applebaum exploded with seemingly libidinal excitement about a supposed “civil war” that was certain to feature “Russians…killing Russians,” along with “lots of casualties” and Putin “probably hiding somewhere.”

It was as though the Soviet Union was collapsing all over again, and Prigozhin, a character named on the FBI’s most wanted list whom the US government has sanctioned for leading what it described as a “transnational criminal organization,” was suddenly a white knight storming into Moscow to liberate Russia from “the Putin regime” on the back of a tank. Move over, Juan Guaido.

Expecting a bloodbath and seismic political upheaval, corporate networks like CNN had budgeted wall-to-wall coverage of the coup that wasn’t, filling cable news green rooms with rent-a-generals, K Street think tankers, and war-hungry former diplomatic corps hacks.

On the afternoon of June 24, however, news broke across the US that Prigozhin had struck a deal with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to end his protest and go into exile. Thus ended a largely bloodless affair that ultimately saw fewer documented deaths than the January 6 Capitol Riot.

Though the supposed revolt in Russia burned out faster than a Leopard tank on the way to Zaporizhzhia, we now know that a number of serious casualties were incurred inside the DC Beltway. The Grayzone obtained an exclusive look at the massacre some of America’s top Russia experts carried out against their own credibility.

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