Ia bukatuta?
Aipatu bezala, soilik daturik garrantzitsuenak edo eta nabarmenenak aipatuko ditut…
(Datu asko nire twitter-en kontuan ikus daitezke: @tobararbulu)
Biden et al. say we have to pay high gas prices to defend the “liberal world order.” But in 9 days, Biden will beg Saudi Arabia — which he said must “pay the price” for killing a Washington Post journalist — to pump more oil. Why? So that the U.S. won’t.
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The Sirius Report@thesiriusreport
The reality of the Ukraine war continues to be reported. Lives needlessly lost to continue a war that is driven by a western ideological hatred of Putin and Russia. History will come to remember this.
Txioa aipatu
Christopher Miller@ChristopherJM
uzt. 4
I spoke today with a long-time Ukrainian soldier & contact who’s been in Donbas since 2014; he’s now in a leadership role. He was wounded by 82mm mortar days ago & hospitalized. 2 pieces of shrapnel remain stuck in him. He confirmed Ukrainian forces are suffering huge casualties.
Erakutsi haria
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Scott Ritter at RPI Houston: ‘Two-Front War: Biden’s Mouth is Writing Checks the US Military Can’t Cash’ Watch Ritter’s great speech here: YouTube: https://youtu.be/QIIoyh2LdCo Odysee: https://odysee.com/@RonPaul:d/sc
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Black in the Empire@blackintheempir
The arrogant leaders of the West confidently claimed they would send Russia back to the Stone Age, destroy their military, take back Crimea and have Russian citizens drive Putin out of office. What they’ve done is destroy their own economies and put their own seats in danger
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Those who support Tulsi should also support Glenn Greenwald. They share a common set of values.
Txioa aipatu
Glenn Greenwald@ggreenwald
uzt. 4
Living outside the US for any extended time provides insight into its greatest flaws but also its merits. There are so many valid criticisms of the US – its foreign militarism and domestic repression – but its foundational rights and aspirations remain worthy of celebration.
Erakutsi haria
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@joeroganv “She’d [@TulsiGabbard] be a amazing leader. But the thing is they are scared of her…she has all the qualities they want. You want a woman president, there you go. You want a woman of color, there you go. You want a woman who’s a veteran, there you go.”
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The WEF chose her. Tulsi didn’t choose the WEF.
The internet remembers. https://web.archive.org/web/20220221212747/https://www.younggloballeaders.org/community?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=Gabbard+&x=0&y=0&status=&class_year=§or=®ion=#results…
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The impossible is about to happen: Germany’s trade balance set to turn negative next month.
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The fall of Germany in one chart: German total mkt cap as % of global mkt cap has hit another All-Time low at 1.97%. Only 1 German comp, Linde, is among global Top100 when measured by mkt cap. 2nd largest comp SAP #110, 3rd largest Deutsche Telekom #123, 4th largest Siemens #127
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*BORIS JOHNSON: WE ARE GOING TO NEED A LOT MORE OPEC+ OIL
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BERNIE SANDERS, Liz Warren, & other PROGRESSIVES are urging Biden to impose CLIMATE SANCTIONS on countries that do not meet western climate standards — w/ a focus on CHINA & BELT & ROAD.
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Germany‘s trade balance has crashed. It used to be strongly in surplus, but went slightly negative in May due to problems with energy imports and lower exports. It took a major crisis driven by geopolitical events instead of planned policy decisions.
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Our leaders are spending billions of taxpayer dollars on a war with no clear objective. Have they already forgotten the trillions spent in Afghanistan? Here’s an article I wrote with @DanielLDavis1
about the harsh realities of the war in Ukraine.
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The People’s Party@PeoplesParty_US
Just a thought: maybe the US needs some of these funds for…its own people?
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No country is threatening or pushing the U.S. into a corner. 800+ military bases is complete overkill
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He’s right!
Txioa aipatu
@zei_squirrel
uzt. 5
Mick Wallace, leftist member of the European parliament: “Why are we so quiet about challenging the US when they threaten human rights?”
Erakutsi haria
Bideoa, hemen. https://twitter.com/i/status/1544216200644902914
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Gosh! 15%! Perhaps you could inform your readers that Russia exports twice as much annually as Ukraine. https://theguardian.com/world/2022/jul
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Paris has announced the nationalisation of EDF, France’s largest electricity company.
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While some MEP’s talk sense about #China, others bow to #NATO who warn us of China building its Military + bullying it’s neighbours – But NATO forgot to tell us that #US spend more on Military than the next 9 countries together+ China hasn’t dropped a bomb on anyone in 40 years..
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1544741497920159745
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The wonderful #Kiev regime, darling of ‘the west’, where all opposition is banned but NeoNazis are welcome. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/comm
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Report: #Ukraine military sells #French howitzers to #Russia. French lawyer and politician Regis de Castelnau revealed on June 22 that two CAESAR #howitzers had fallen into the hands of the Russian military. Now it seems they were sold at a bargain price. https://ussanews.com/2022/07/06/ukr
Erakutsi haria
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Black in the Empire@blackintheempir
After the U.S. backed coup of Ukraine in 2014, the U.S. being caught on tape picking their new Gov’t, Biden on video bragging about firing their prosecutor and Zelensky banning opposing Parties we are still pretending it is a sovereign nation and a democracy.
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Black in the Empire@blackintheempir
The goal to remove Putin from office has turned into Macron losing his majority, Boris Johnson in danger of losing his power and Biden continuing to lose support and all but guaranteeing even greater losses in November. Wait til you see what happens to the rest when winter comes
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Russia isn’t fighting Ukraine, they are fighting NATO in Ukraine
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I’ve been looking for this clip!
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1544126445458362369
Erakutsi haria
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The main opposition party in the Putin dictatorship is the Communist Party of Russia but in the Zelensky democracy, the Ukrainian Communist Party, as well as most of the opposition parties are banned.
Authoritarian versus democracy?
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At the French Consulate General in St. Petersburg – locals built an impromptu memorial to 10-year-old Veronika Badina who was killed by Ukrainian artillery in Donetsk, presumably with a French-supplied CAESAR howitzer
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The principle reason for US wanting to continue the Ukraine war is because Russia is destroying US hegemony and the USD. It is also why Washington would like to see China dragged into a war with Taiwan.
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The conflict in Ukraine makes a lot more sense when you listen to Putin himself explain it instead of the media hacks & think tankers who are paid six figures to misrepresent everything he says
Txioa aipatu
MSM Unmasked@MsmUnmasked
uzt. 7
Putin says if Finland and Sweden “want to join NATO, they are free to do it” because unlike Ukraine, they haven’t been turned into an “anti-Russia” i.e. “a bridgehead for trying to destabilize a Russia itself
Bideoa, henen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545065617790754817
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NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept has branded China as a “security challenge” to North Atlantic control of the South China Sea
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Russia hasn’t really started anything serious yet in Ukraine. – Vladimir Putin
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In order to regain the confidence of the people, those in positions of power need to put the well-being of the people first, and stop playing politics with our lives.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545002617243242496
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Perhaps if we go a little deeper are they now no longer citizens of a sovereign nation but rather a part of a global agenda & Western dominion? It does appear indeed that the goals of NATO imperialists are of higher importance than anything the people of the Britain may want.
Erakutsi haria
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Fiorella Isabel@FiorellaIsabelM
“This very collective West is the direct instigator, the culprit of what is happening today.” Putin reminds all that the West, not Russia, started the war in Ukraine via an organized COUP in Kiev in 2014.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545320557582884870
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Fiorella Isabel@FiorellaIsabelM
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Boris Johnson’s departure: “Everyone said that Russia should be isolated, but for now his own party isolated Johnson.”
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545435071225683975
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There is now an accelerated move to implement a stable multipolar world so that all nations can mutually benefit from economic, scientific and cultural exchanges, eliminating political and military conflict, allowing a new paradigm of cooperation and diplomacy to unfold.
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“Maybe the war could have been avoided if Zelensky had been forced to pledge that his country would not join NATO, or had been forced to grant a high degree of autonomy to Luhansk and Donetsk in the east,” Abe noted, according to ‘The Economist’.
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China bought $18.9bn equivalent of Russian oil, gas and coal in the 3 months to end of May, almost double the amount from a year earlier. Note China is increasing volume and this is not due to spiking energy prices.
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Joe Biden finishes reading a sentence from the teleprompter with “…end of quote. Repeat the line.”
Bideoa, hemen:https://twitter.com/i/status/1545452368204005376
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Remember when every member of the Squad voted to steal $40 billion from the American people to give to our weapons manufacturers so we could send weapons to the most corrupt country in Europe that had Nazi Battalions in their Army? Those were the good old days
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The Sirius Report@thesiriusreport
European Commission has blocked a 1.5bn euro loan to Ukraine given concerns that Kiev will not be able to repay the money. West is never going to get a single euro back.
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Spanish activist Liu Sivaya: after eight years #Ukraine is still bombing #Donetsk, with #NATO weapons, four children killed in the last two days. In total 412 children have been killed in the #Donbass region since 2014, all victims of NATO. Their names are recorded.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545454211000942596
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Boris Johnson has finally taken a sensible decision and resigned. Better today than tomorrow. Even better would have been if he had never made it to P.M.
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Bojo will be remembered as a clown and an imperial narcissist. He bears responsibility for UK intransigence on the Ukraine war and for opposing Scottish self-determination. The damage he did will outlive him.
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have no hope at all for change in the UK, which will swap a sociopath for another — the pool of possible successors to Boris Johnson are all hawks and economic fascists.
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Historians are yet to write about America’s Fuit Ilium (Troy is no more) Vergilius recounts the end of Troy in his Aeneid. Maybe John Mearsheimer will write about the Ukraine war as ushering in the eclipse of US hegemony.
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The United States Could Not Win and Will Not Fight a War Against Russia http://imetatronink.com/2022/07/the-un
(Ikusi sarrera honen bukaeran, JF T-A)
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If Poland ends up being the reasonable party here and letting them move stuff through their territory I’m going to have a sensible chuckle.
Txioa aipatu
Clint Ehrlich@ClintEhrlich
uzt. 9
Russia is threatening “harsh measures” if Lithuania does not lift its partial blockade of Kaliningrad. Maria Zakharova said the situation has already taken too long to resolve; Russia may act “in the coming days.“
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The West, which once declared such principles of democracy as freedom of speech, pluralism and respect for dissenting opinions, has now degenerated into the opposite: totalitarianism. – Vladimir Putin.
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A really robust debate on foreign policy here between leftists who seek medium support for US proxy wars, and leftists who seek full support for US proxy wars: #Dissent
Txioa aipatu
Dissent Magazine@DissentMag
uzt. 5
Our Summer 2022 issue, FOREIGN POLICY, is out today. https://dissentmagazine.org/issue/summer-2022
Erakutsi haria
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
The more fundamental error is the idea that incurring debt requires someone to borrow from. It’s a vision of a nonmonetary economy, as if we were lending each other garden tools
(Mine: Try to leatn Money Monetary Theory, MMT)
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The Capitalist System has always been based on ‘Exploitation’ – Never before has it been so obvious that Capitalism has failed – The promotion of the War in Ukraine by #US + #EU Member States is another effort to cover up its demise – At great expense to the citizens of US + EU..
Txioa aipatu
Mick Wallace@wallacemick
eka. 22
It costs $2 Billion1 to become President of the #US – Paid for by the likes of BigPharma, Fossil Fuel Industry and the Military Industrial Complex, who then make the big decisions. So the big payers run the place – How can the US claim to have a Democracy…?
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1539538279527333888
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This is what I mean by “Bosnia tactics”:
Txioa aipatu
Pedro L. Gonzalez@emeriticus
uzt. 9
This is actually the West’s Ukraine strategy: maximize the number of civilians killed to create moral outrage in the public to support increased Western involvement while frustrating every attempt to end the war peacefully.
Erakutsi haria
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We have built databases of ruin—archives of intensely-detailed personal records so vast as to hold every individual life at ransom. The inevitable leaks are ineradicable, and cannot be cleaned up: “The Internet never forgets.” In time, the mosaic will leave no life unrevealed.
Data on more than 1 billion people were leaked from a Shanghai police database. The most astounding aspect of this case may be that it likely wasn’t a hack, writes @tculpan https://trib.al/BLUJZDV
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Over the past 13 years, China has spent a total of $600 billion on its 39,000 km high-speed rail system. That’s $200 billion less than what the US will spend on the military this year alone.
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A just voice in the European Parliament. Should be heard by more people.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545727471303028738
(Where are the Basques?)
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Two Prime ministers who supported Zelensky have resigned #kajakallas announced her resignation as Prime Minister of #Estonia 
Soon after expelling Russian diplomats, her coalition government collapsed #BorisJohnson wanted to look stronger than #Putin
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Ukraine and Zelensky can kiss my ass.
How dare he demand almost a trillion2 dollars when this could have been solved diplomatic instead of the money laundering military adventure for the elites.
When are USA citizens going to be any kind of priority?!
(Tara: Try lo learn MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). In order to make inversions you don’t need citizens’ taxes, JF T-A.)
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#Putin: This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world.We have many supporters, including in the US and Europe, and even
more so on other continents and in other countries
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The Sirius Report@thesiriusreport
Reality versus alt media hyperbole. EC official Frans Timmermans: Europe is in danger of highly damaging very very strong conflict and strife this winter over high energy prices and should make a short-term return to fossil fuels to head off the threat of civil unrest.
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Black in the Empire@blackintheempir
The US Gov’t hopes to destroy Russia’s military and economy and make their citizens suffer enough to drag Putin’s approval rating down to a number almost as low as Joe Biden
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President #Putin: Having realised their policies are increasingly detached from reality, common sense and truth, supranational & globalist in nature ruling Western elites began resorting to openly despotic methods and raising degree to which they manipulate public consciousness.
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News for Azerbaijan 
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erabiltzaileari erantzuten
This also happened in international chess. Former world championship challenger Sergey Karjakin, a Putin supporter, was banned by FIDE from the candidates final tournament. Another Russian espousing pro-NATO views was allowed to participate.
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#Lavrov: West wants ‘Ukraine’s victory over Russia on the battlefield’ rather than negotiations There is probably nothing to discuss with the West b/c using its approaches doesn’t let Ukraine proceed to the peace process, but forces Ukraine to take its weapons,use on it civilians
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The G-20 is likely to meet again in November. Crisis management used to be its forte — e.g. after the financial meltdown of 2007/8, which Wall Street caused and the rest of the world had to suffer.
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The war in Ukraine can and must be stopped. This requires a grasp of today’s political and economic realities, which apparently neither Washington nor Brussels even attempt to understand.
A “Grotian moment” has taken place, a shift in geopolitics that requires recalibration by Washington and Brussels. There is no going back to pre-2022 business as usual. The rules are changing.
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NATO Summit in Madrid was a big ‘Love In’ for Military Industrial Complex. #NATO is not a Defence alliance, it’s a War Machine – just ask people of #Afghanistan #Iraq #Libya – NATO’s real goal is defence of #US Hegemony – All discussion of this is chilled in land of Free Speech.
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China’s Wang Yi tells Australia to act as partner, not opponent
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Hannibal Khoury ➐@The_Cyrenian
One of these people is a threat to human-civilization and world peace, the other is Vladimir Putin.
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Putin’s recent remarks were a clear warning to US, NATO and Ukraine: Russia is ready for anything. Start peace negotiations, or escalate the conflict at your peril. – Media
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#Russia, following #China‘s #BRI, charts an important land trade route through the Caucasus and #Iran to #India – which will avoid U.S. or #NATO unilateral coercive measures (wrongly called #sanctions)
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#Zakharova: The Vladimir Zelensky’s regime has no intention of stopping its criminal activities. This fully suits Western countries, which have a unique opportunity to equip their armies with new weapons by sending obsolete military hardware to Ukraine.
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Irish MEP @wallacemick asks the #European Parliament why they side with the brutal #Washington regime against Europe’s biggest trading partner, #China which poses no threat at all.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1545914164564090880
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NATO Summit in Madrid was a big ‘Love In’ for Military Industrial Complex. #NATO is not a Defence alliance, it’s a War Machine – just ask people of #Afghanistan #Iraq #Libya – NATO’s real goal is defence of #US Hegemony – All discussion of this is chilled in land of Free Speech..
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1546029761113251840
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@tobararbulu # mmt@tobararbulu
Who did you vote for then? Actually for a female Democrat… Tulsi Gabbard, who is genuine and speaks her mind. My take on the US elections – interview to the Swiss-German journal “Zeitgeschehen im Fokus” https://dezayasalfred.wordpress.com/2020/12/11/my-take-on-the-us-elections-interview-to-the-swiss-german-journal-zeitgeschehen-im-fokus/
Honen bidez: @AlfreddeZayas
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#India has been buying and reselling #Russian oil – at a higher price – to the dopey #Europeans, who think they are ‘punishing’ #Russia . Now they are ‘concerned’. 
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The Sirius Report@thesiriusreport
Zakharova: Russia has completed preparations for retaliatory measures against Lithuania and the EU in response to the blockade of Kaliningrad and will apply them in the coming days.
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“NATO is not a defense alliance, it’s a war machine. Ask the people of Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya.”
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1546535262423060480
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#Ukraine: Today Ruslan Onishchenko, the commander of the Neo-Nazi Tornado battalion, was released from prison by the Zelensky regime, alongside thousands of other criminals. Onishchenko was previously condemned to 10 years imprisonment for rape, torture and murder of civilians.
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Hedges: “At no time, including the Cuban missile crisis, have we stood closer to the precipice of nuclear war.“
NATO: The Most Dangerous Military Alliance on the Planet
The massive expansion of NATO, not only in Eastern and Central Europe but the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia, presages endless war and a potential nuclear holocaust.
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Kevork Almassian
@KevorkAlmassian
The war in Ukraine
is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement and Biden has staffed his team with neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia
, Afghanistan
, Iraq
, Syria, and Libya
Full video: https://youtu.be/2TI6obP4dR4
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Putin signs decree offering Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians. A move that stunned NATO and it’s vassal states.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin: “…sanctions against Russia cause much greater harm to the countries imposing them. The further use of sanctions could lead to more severe and even catastrophic consequences for the global energy market.”
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1546546774453538818
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The Sirius Report@thesiriusreport
Putin has extended the decree on the simplified process leading to Russian citizenship to all residents of Ukraine. This is a hugely telling statement and demonstrates Putin has no issue with the Ukrainian people or the Ukrainian military.
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Spain has imported 8,752 GWh of Russian LNG, which represents 24.4% of the total gas imported in June. Normally, Russia supplies 2,000 and 2,500 GWh each month, effectively quadrupling exports to Spain in June.
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Zelensky’s latest release of psychotic criminals follows his amnesty this March for formerly state-sponsored Tornado Battalion members jailed for the rape of children, among other crimes
Txioa aipatu
Denis Rogatyuk@DenisRogatyuk
uzt. 11
#Ukraine: Today Ruslan Onishchenko, the commander of the Neo-Nazi Tornado battalion, was released from prison by the Zelensky regime, alongside thousands of other criminals. Onishchenko was previously condemned to 10 years imprisonment for rape, torture and murder of civilians.
Erakutsi haria
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Be like Orban.. or become like BoJo! This is the choice for European country leaders.
Txioa aipatu
George Szamuely@GeorgeSzamuely
uzt. 11
Some thoughts on the downfall of Boris Johnson.
Bideoa, hemen: https://twitter.com/i/status/1546508234697150465
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Exceptional article: “U.S. China Policy Is Heading Towards Disaster” “The United States is embarking on an unwinnable Sisyphean quest that will end up hurting its interests more than stopping China’s rise”
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The Bank of Russia is to create a system of national indices that can replace foreign price indicators. The first index reflects the cost of a ton of wheat on terms of delivery to the port of Novorossiysk in rubles. *Wipes tear* 
This is huge. Finally. https://fontanka.ru/2022/07/06/714
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The U.S continues the Cuban embargo & sanctions against Venezuela & Nicaragua. This 1960 doc shows the State Department’s admission that the foreign policy with Cuba was to do everything to weaken its economy. This extends to all nations who fight back. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499
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Three Illuminating Quotes About The War In Ukraine Chomsky: “Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”
(Ikusi sarrera honetan, beherago, JF T-A)
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China And Russia Want To Replace US Dollar With BRICS Currencies
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Russia has become the second largest supplier of natural gas to Spain, overtaking Algeria.
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Caitlin Johnstone again hits the nail on the head: “The human species is at an adapt-or-perish juncture… we will either drastically change the way we operate, or we will wipe ourselves out by nuclear war or environmental cataclysm.”
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Another clown in the international stage is Lech Walesa, who thinks that Poland should promote “regime change” in Moscow or instigate a massive uprising in Russia.
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Josep Borrell laments that the Global South will not join the EU in its vendetta against Russia. Has it occurred to the Brussels bureaucrats that the Global South thinks that the EU has opportunistic values and its narratives are only self-serving?
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The smokescreen of massmedia propaganda makes it impossible to understand the causes and goals of the Ukraine war, which can be stopped tomorrow, if we want it.
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NATO has zero interest in peace, but continues using the Ukrainians in their proxy war against Russia, which thus far has boomeranged against Europe and the world economy.
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Ukraine is somewhere lost between demagogy and hypocrisy, while we are given a hogwash about “European values” — I suggest starting with the self-determination of the peoples concerned.
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The Yemen humanitarian disaster deepens while Joe Biden legitimizes the Saudi crimes by making an official visit. As an American I say “not in my name”.
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Bloomberg: Russia has overtaken Algeria in terms of gas supplies to Spain
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Three Illuminating Quotes About The War In Ukraine
Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, and Chris Hedges have lent their expertise to the subject of the war in Ukraine with some recent comments that help bring some much-needed clarity to an often confusing and always contentious issue. Here they are:
“I’ve spent my career working in the mainstream, and I’ve covered probably seven, eight, nine shooting wars; I’ve never seen coverage so utterly consumed by a tsunami of jingoism, and of manipulative jingoism as this one.”
~ John Pilger
This comment comes from a recent interview with the legendary Australian journalist by the South China Morning Post, and it says so much about the information ecosystem we now find ourselves floundering around trying to understand things in.
From the earliest days of the invasion it was clear that the western world was being smashed with a deluge of propaganda unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. In the first full month of the conflict, American network TV stations gave more coverage to the war in Ukraine than any other war that the US has been directly involved in, including Iraq and Vietnam. Literal Iraq war architects were some of the first pundits sought out for analysis of the conflict by the mainstream press, and calls for insane escalations against Russia succeeded in pushing the Overton window of acceptable debate in the direction of warmongering extremism and away from support for diplomatic solutions.
And this was all easily piped into mainstream consciousness because the way had been lubricated by years of Russia hysterica resulting from the mass scale psychological operation known as Russiagate. America’s most dangerous confrontation in generations just so happens to have been preceded by years of media-generated panic about that very same country, despite the Ukraine invasion having ostensibly nothing whatsoever to do with the conspiracy theory that the Kremlin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government. Heckin’ heck of a coincidence right there, buddy boy.
“It’s quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the ‘unprovoked invasion of Ukraine’. Look it up on Google, you will find hundreds of thousands of hits. Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.“
~ Noam Chomsky
This quote, from an interview last month with Ramzy Baroud, is self-evidently true and should be pointed out more often.
People don’t go adding the same gratuitous adjectives and modifiers to something over and over again unless they’re trying to manipulate how it’s perceived. If your neighbor always referred to his wife as “my wife who I definitely never beat,” you’d immediately become suspicious because that’s not how normal people talk about normal things. We don’t say “round Earth” or “the Holocaust that totally happened,” we just say the words, because their basic nature is not seriously in dispute and we’ve got nothing invested in manipulating or obfuscating people’s understanding about them.
The need of the political/media class to continually bleat this phrase “unprovoked invasion” over and over again is itself a confession that they know they’re not telling the whole truth. It’s the imperial propaganda version of this classic tweet:
My “Not involved in human trafficking” T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.
Chomsky outlines many of the provocations the US/NATO power structure engaged in prior to the conflict, which countless western analysts spent years warning was coming as a result of the provocative actions that were already being taken by the empire. The invasion could easily have been prevented with a little diplomacy and some low-cost, high-reward concessions like honoring the Minsk agreements and providing assurances of neutrality for Ukraine, but they chose provocation and escalation instead. Add to that the exponentially increased shelling of the Donbas by Kyiv immediately prior to the invasion and you can understand why empire spinmeisters are working so hard to push the “unprovoked” line.
None of this is to say that Russia is blameless in this war; if I provoke someone into punching somebody they are still morally responsible for having thrown the punch, but I am also responsible for having provoked it. Russia is responsible for its actions, and the US/NATO/Ukraine power structure is responsible for its actions. Putin is responsible for invading, the western empire is responsible for provoking that invasion. Not complicated.
In the same interview Chomsky also says that “censorship in the United States has reached such a level beyond anything in my lifetime” regarding this war. That assessment plus Pilger’s testimony about war propaganda unlike anything he’s ever seen shows that imperial narrative management is at an all-time high, which wouldn’t be happening unless the empire had some major agendas it wanted to roll out in the coming years.
“At no time, including the Cuban missile crisis, have we stood closer to the precipice of nuclear war.“
~ Chris Hedges
Echoing the urgent warnings that Stephen Cohen was making at the end of his life, a new article by Hedges outlines the profoundly dangerous games the empire is playing with a nuclear superpower in its continually escalating proxy war against Moscow.
The observations by Pilger and Chomsky about how much effort is going in to manipulating people’s understanding of this war make sense when you realize that the agendas the empire is trying to roll out against Russia now and then China later down the road stand not only to throw the world into poverty and starvation, but to wipe us off the face of this planet.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no good reason the world’s most powerful government needs to risk the life of everyone on earth in a bid to secure planetary domination. It is possible for all nations and peoples to simply get along and collaborate toward the common good together. All that would need to happen is for these agendas of total hegemony to be abandoned.
Unfortunately the managers of empire don’t seem to have any plans to abandon their goal of global conquest anytime soon, so we the ordinary people of this world may end up having to force the issue with them at some point in the interests of our very survival.
This is a hell of a time to be alive, but man they’ve been keeping it interesting.
oooooo
Friday, July 8, 2022
The United States Could Not Win and Will Not Fight a War Against Russia
Posted by William Schryver
(Adapted from a Twitter thread posted July 1, 2022)
(https://www.imetatronink.com/2022/07/the-united-states-could-not-win-and.html)
I continue to be convinced the US/NATO could never win and will never fight a war against Russia in eastern Europe – unless the #EmpireAtAllCosts death cult somehow seizes the reins of power, in which case, it will become the biggest catastrophe in US military history, and very possibly result in a civilization-ending nuclear war.
For me, one of the most intriguing aspects of the unprecedented levels of propaganda beclouding the ongoing Ukraine War are the incessant claims, from the very beginning, of the alleged strategic, tactical, and logistical ineptitude of the Russian military.
The theme of the bumbling Russians was clearly preconceived and coordinated, and commenced in earnest within the first 24 hours of hostilities. CIA/MI6 fronts like Oryx, Bellingcat, and the war-mongering Kagan family propaganda mill The Institute for the Study of War have pumped out this narrative so relentlessly that it has now been almost universally enshrined as “received wisdom” in the western state-controlled corporate media and among large numbers of clueless, arms industry-compromised former generals – even to the point of entering into the body of assumptions embraced by many “experts” who I expected to be more discerning.
It has given rise to countless evidence-free myths, from the #FakeNews downing of two IL-76 jumbo transports packed with Russian paratroopers, to the persistent meme of thousands of Russian tanks and armored vehicles allegedly abandoned for mechanical breakdown, lack of fuel, or other logistical failures.
One of the more inexplicable narratives included in this disinformation package has been the allegation that Russian troops are poorly trained conscripts who are thrown into the meat grinder with antique weapons, little ammo, and so little food they are literally starving.
These tall tales are then woven back into the main strand of the narrative: the Russian army is a disorganized mob of demoralized “orcs” whose only real talent is plundering household appliances, raping young women, and randomly gunning down old folks on the streets.
Attached to this constant refrain are repeated comparisons to the allegedly incomparable professionalism, organization, training, and weaponry of US/NATO forces. The implication is that any undersized company of exceptional American soldiers would be more than a match for an entire oversized battalion of incompetent Russians.
I’ve concluded this unrelenting narrative must have as its aim the persuasion of the general public and policy-makers in NATO countries that western militaries are so vastly superior to their Russian counterparts that no one should entertain reservations about making war against them.
Connected to this theme is a recurring baseless assertion that the Russian nuclear arsenal is in a state of total disrepair, and that, were nuclear war enjoined, very few Russian missiles would even make it out of their silos, let alone fly long enough and straight enough to then be summarily dispatched by the fictional impenetrable American missile defense shield.
In other words, we have virtually nothing to fear from the bumbling Russians – that “gas-station masquerading as a country” – as the late Fighter Ace in Reverse John McCain was fond of saying.
And thus we continue to hear calls for immediate NATO intervention into the war; the establishment of a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, and “boots on the ground” to teach the amateurish third-world Russian army a lesson it will not soon forget.
Never mind the numerous reports from western mercenaries and foreign legion volunteers who managed to escape back to their home countries after very brief and terrifying “tours of duty” in Ukraine, all of whom relate similar accounts.
They talk about encountering overwhelming firepower for the first time in their military careers, and they soberly warn anyone else thinking of embarking on a “safari” to kill Russians that it was “nothing like Iraq” and they feel very lucky to have made it out alive – often without ever firing their weapon, nor having even seen a Russian soldier.
Never mind also the fact that, to my knowledge, there are few if any conscripts among the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, and few if any reports in Russian independent media sources of demoralized, under-supplied Russian battalions in any theater of the war.
Quite to the contrary, every indication I have seen suggests that Russian morale is sky high, both among the soldiers doing the fighting and the Russian public at home. To be sure, there have been Russian casualties – they are, after all, going up against what was, on February 24, 2022, the largest and best-armed land force on the European continent (outside of Russia).
(Data Source: Global Firepower – Military Strength Comparisons)
Best estimates are ~5000 Russian Federation KIAs (killed in action) plus ~8000 of their DPR / LPR (Donetsk People’s Republic / Lugansk People’s Republic) allies, or ~13,000 KIA in total.
These numbers pale in comparison to the western propaganda “think tank” fantasies of ~100k total Russian casualties, including 35k – 50k KIAs, which, were it true, would be unmistakably reflected both in the morale of the army itself and the public at home – and it clearly is not.
Nor is any of this manufactured narrative consistent with the desperate and incessant Ukrainian appeals for massive replenishment of lost heavy weaponry, air-defense systems, and ammunition, as well as the total mobilization of poorly trained and equipped “territorial guard” troops and expansion of the conscript window to include boys, old men, and now even women.
On the other side, Russian troops are regularly rotated off the battlefield, rested and refitted, then returned to the front. Russia has deployed ~15% of its total professional force, has not ordered a general mobilization, and has approximately the same number of soldiers in the theater that they started with (175k – 200k).
So I leave the reader to judge the facts of the matter in terms of Russian military ineptitude and massive logistical failures.
And with that preface, let’s turn to the primary question: could NATO fight and win a war against the Russians on this same battlefield?
My answer is an emphatic NO – for three distinct but equally disqualifying reasons:
1) There is zero persuasive evidence that NATO soldiers, weaponry, training, logistics, and command are superior to that of the Russians.
2) Sufficient NATO forces could NEVER be assembled, equipped, and sustained to defeat the Russians in their own backyard.
3) The very attempt to concentrate sufficient US forces in the region in order to take on the Russians would very likely result in the disintegration of the global American Empire and its massive network of overseas bases – thereby rapidly accelerating the already-in-progress transition to a multipolar world.
As to point #1 above, it bears repeating what I have argued multiple times in recent weeks: this war has seen the Russian military quickly evolve into a battle-hardened and quick-to-adapt fighting force. The US has not faced such a force since World War II.
Many believe the US is a “battle-hardened” force. This is utter nonsense. Of the many thousands of troops currently manning US combat units, only a minute fraction has experienced ANY battle whatsoever, and NONE have experienced high-intensity conflict such as is taking place in Ukraine.
Indeed, I submit that one of the inadvertent and unforeseen byproducts of this war is that, even as the NATO-trained and equipped Ukrainian army has been devastated, the Russian army has been transformed into the single most experienced army on the planet.
Needless to say, this is NOT what US/NATO strategists intended to achieve. But it does explain why we now see them doubling-down on efforts to prolong this war – both to (hopefully) degrade Russian capabilities, and to buy time for themselves to determine what to do next.
You see, if NATO had to go to war today against Russia, and all their troops and equipment could be magically teleported to the battlefield, they simply could not sustain high-intensity conflict for more than about a month, as this excellent analysis persuasively argues: The Return of Industrial Warfare.
The zealous disciples of indisputable American military supremacy will undoubtedly reply:
“Overwhelming American air power alone would devastate Russian military capabilities in a matter of days; a couple weeks at most.”
The average Call of Duty warrior believes such nonsense, but I’m confident very few in the Pentagon harbor such delusions.
To the contrary, they understand perfectly well that Russian best-in-class air defenses would shred attempted US/NATO airstrikes. It would be a stunning massacre, the results of which after even the first 48 hours would see wiser heads calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Not only that, but even attempted, but catastrophically failed NATO airstrikes against Russia would result in a massive series of counterstrikes against NATO bases and warships at distances never seen in previous wars. It would be a no-holds-barred affair.
Staging areas in Poland and Romania would be hit first and hardest, but strikes would very likely range over all of Europe and the Mediterranean. Russian missiles and submarines would sink several ships within hours, including, almost certainly, a US carrier.
This, of course, is the nightmare scenario – one which very conceivably risks an escalation to nuclear war.
But it also assumes that Russia would stand by idly as NATO concentrated forces in the region sufficient to launch a war in the first place.
In my estimation, the Russians would NOT sit back and watch the US/NATO methodically conduct a Desert Storm-style buildup over the course of a year (or more) – which is how long it would take to assemble a force large enough to launch a war against Russia.
Just as they preempted Ukrainian designs to retake the Donbass and Crimea, they would likewise strike NATO forces long before they reached a level of strength sufficient to conduct operations against Russia.
One final observation on this whole notion of the US/NATO making war against Russia:
People neglect to consider the fact that US forces are dispersed all around the world, in over 750 foreign bases of varying sizes and strategic importance.
US Overseas Military Bases
In other words, most fail to appreciate the fact that US military might is highly diluted, and the only way to possibly concentrate a force sufficient to take on the Russians would be to literally evacuate almost every significant US base on the planet.
Japan, Korea, Guam, Syria, Turkey, multiple African nations, etc. A massive power vacuum would be created all around the world, and would constitute an irresistible temptation for “hostile powers” to exploit.
It would spell the end of American global empire and hegemony.
1 Amerikar bilioi bat = mila milioi europar.
2 Amerikar trilioi bat = europar bilioi bat.
