Home » Posts tagged 'war' (Page 22)

Tag Archives: war

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

CON26


Up Stories Evia 2021
The IPCC came out with another report today, which is a lead-in to another climate conference, this time in Glasgow in Oct-Nov 2021. All the headlines and reactions are exactly the same as they always are: There is no time to lose!, We have to act now!, but also: There is still hope! Since it’s all the same, I thought I’d repost an article from December 2015, ahead of the Paris conference named COP21. All I had to do was change the number and call this one not CON21 but CON26.

No, we’re not going to act in time, and no, there is no hope to halt the degradation of our planet. It’s all long baked into the cake, and if it wasn’t we’d still not stop it. We can do things as individuals but not as a group, let alone as a species. We cannot change our approach to the problems because we cannot change who we are.

I don’t know what makes me lose faith in mankind faster, the way we destroy our habitat through wanton random killing of everything alive, plants, animals and people, through pollution and climate change and blood-thirsty sheer stupidity, or if it is the way these things are being ‘protested’.

I’m certainly not a climate denier or anything like that, though I do think there are questions people gloss over very easily. And one of those questions has to be that of priorities. Is there anyone who has thought over whether the COP21 stage in Paris is the right one to target in protest, whatever shape it takes? Is there anyone who doesn’t think the ‘leaders’ are laughing out loud in -plush, fine wine and gourmet filled- private about the protests?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Michael Klare, An All-American Path to War?

Michael Klare, An All-American Path to War?

The single scariest night of my life may have been on October 22, 1962, when I thought that all the duck-and-cover moments of my childhood were coming home to roost. President John F. Kennedy appeared on national television (and radio) to warn us all to duck and cover. The Soviet Union, it seemed, had managed to emplace medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba that could reach major East coast cities. He was ordering a naval “quarantine” of the island.  As he put it, “We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth, but neither will we shrink from the risk at any time it must be faced.”

That was the beginning of what came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Of course, I’m here today, so neither New Haven, where I was then a freshman in college, nor New York, where I grew up, had its Hiroshima moment, nor did anyplace else in the U.S., Russia, or Cuba.  Still, it felt too close for comfort.

Despite all the years of the Cold War still to come, I never again felt that unforgettable sense that a nuclear war might break out.  But never say never, not on a planet filled with such weaponry, not when its two major powers, the U.S. and China, are increasingly facing off, particularly over the island of Taiwan.

Last month, for instance, Admiral Sam Paparo, commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet, called China a “pacing threat,” explaining that “I worry about China’s intentions. It doesn’t make a difference to me whether it is tomorrow, next year, or whether it is in six years…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The System Isn’t There To Protect Us From Criminals, It’s To Protect Criminals From Us

The System Isn’t There To Protect Us From Criminals, It’s To Protect Criminals From Us

Listen to a reading of this article:

Iraq war architect Donald Rumsfeld has died. Not in a prison cell in The Hague, not murdered by bombs or bullets, but peacefully in his home, surrounded by loved ones, a week and a half shy of his 89th birthday.

The imperial media are giving their fallen master a king’s tribute, with headlines describing the psychopathic war criminal as “a cunning leader“, “a man of honor and conviction“, or simply as “Former defense secretary at helm of Iraq, Afghanistan wars“.

The cancerous Washington Post, who just the other day mocked the life of the late antiwar hero Mike Gravel with an obituary branding him the “gadfly senator from Alaska with flair for the theatrical,” describes the child killer Rumsfeld as the “influential but controversial Bush defense secretary” in its headline about his death. 

The New York Times wasn’t much better. Take the headline “Mike Gravel, Unconventional Two-Term Alaska Senator, Dies at 91 — He made headlines by fighting for an oil pipeline and reading the Pentagon Papers aloud. After 25 years of obscurity, he re-emerged with a quixotic presidential campaign.” Compare this to the headline “Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary During Iraq War, Is Dead at 88 — Mr. Rumsfeld, who served four presidents, oversaw a war that many said should never have been fought. But he said the removal of Saddam Hussein had ‘created a more stable and secure world.’”

There’s been criticism as well, of course; online sentiments about Rumsfeld’s death have not been nearly as worshipful and hagiographic as they’ve been toward other disgusting war whores like John McCain…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Putin Charges US With Using Dollar To Wage “Economic & Political War”

Putin Charges US With Using Dollar To Wage “Economic & Political War”

Yesterday Russia announced the dramatic news at its own ‘Davos-style’ economic forum in St. Petersburg which is running this week that it will dump the US dollar from its $186 billion National Wealth Fund. As we detailed previously it comes as Washington continues to tighten the sanctions screws on Moscow, blaming it for everything from a series corporate cyberattacks that’s appeared to target American infrastructure to election interference to expansionist aims in Ukraine to cracking down on opposition activists.

On Friday President Vladimir Putin hinted further at the rationale behind what was obviously a retaliatory and defiant we don’t need the US strong bit of messaging from Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov at the forum – who emphasized the day before, “We can make this change rather quickly, within a month”. Putin followed during his address by charging the United States with using the dollar as a tool to “wage economic and political war” on rival countries. Thursday’s prior National Wealth Fund announcement had delineated it will alternately pursue investments in euro, Chinese yuan as well as gold assets.

Via Reuters

Putin in his Friday speech hung a further threat over Washington, saying according to Reuters that Russia “may consider settling transactions for oil and gas in other national currencies and the euro.” 

And further, “Putin said it would be a serious blow to the US dollar if Russia’s oil companies stopped using the currency, but that Moscow did not want to do that.” Here’s more of his comments addressing this future provocative last-ditch scenario:

Putin also said European nations should pay for Russian gas in euros, as Moscow pursues its de-dollarization efforts amid US sanctions.

“The euro is completely acceptable for us in terms of gas payments. This can be done, of course, and probably should be done,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Fauci Files, The WuFlu and the War to Come

The Fauci Files, The WuFlu and the War to Come

Isn’t is amazing how quickly things seem to change when it’s in the interest of those that think they run the world? For years we’ve been trying to get access to Hillary Clinton’s missing e-mails as Secretary of State but to no avail. However, at the most opportune time in the collapsing COVID story, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails are uncovered and broadcast to the world.

The same mechanism, FOIA, that Hillary has stonewalled us on for six years uncovers Fauci’s emails in six weeks?

Doesn’t that strike you as just the slightest bit odd?

Fauci was the hero bureaucrat facing down the evil and ignorant President Trump over COVID-19. He became a national celebrity playing down treatments like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, flip-flopped on wearing masks and running cover for a corrupt WHO/CDC while whitewashing his own involvement in COVID’s origin.

For all intents and purposes this lying, evil, Janus-faced troll set policy for the entire country.

And from the moment anyone broke a story about the origins of COVID-19, the damage control began behind the scenes and the public shaming and deplatforming began.

And democrats of all stripes cheered him on, simply because he came with the right credentials and an antipathy to Trump.

As the face of the the scientific establishment, he terrorized millions into submission of Americans using fear over a virus not much more deadly than the annual flu. His constant changing the goalposts on ending lockdowns and spread prevention guidelines while needing to remain in front of the narrative kept people crazy with imaginary death statistics, fraudulent models and overwrought case counts while elevating the prevention principle beloved by state-worshipping Boomers and their younger ‘adjacents’ to its most ludicrous extreme.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Build Back Better Slogan of DAVOS

QUESTION: Why is the press so blind to the simple fact that all of these leaders are using the same slogan? This has never happened in history before.

HE

ANSWER: Journalists are willfully blind or those who are not are gagged by management. I would say it is fairer to blame the management for selling out their newspapers and TV platforms. I can confirm from people there at DAVOS in January 2019 that this slogan “Build Back Better” was being talked about back then.

All the information I have pointed to this COVID being man-made, and deliberately released I believe in China for the intentional purpose of blaming China in the hope to compel them to join this Build Back Better agenda that was ready to roll out. I reported in April 2020 that the agenda was revealed then and there within days of the March COVID Crash, which was also orchestrated.

The Green Climate Fund of the United Nations has written:

While COVID-19 is causing untold suffering, the international response to this unprecedented health crisis in modern times offers an opportunity to direct finances towards bolstering climate action. GCF will continue to make critical investments in climate-resilient water resource management, health care facilities, agriculture, and livelihoods – all of which are essential to subduing and overcoming the pandemic. Similarly, we will step up our efforts to catalyse green investment to relaunch economies on low-emission, climate-resilient trajectories. 

Note that they spell CRYSTAIZE as “catalyse” proving this was NOT of American origin.

The real $64 million question remains: Did Fauci just run off at the mouth and got himself in trouble? Or is this part of the plan to start a war with China to blame them for COVID to force them to BUILD BACK BETTER?…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

From the Notebook: A Critical Shift in the War for Oil

From the Notebook: A Critical Shift in the War for Oil


Davos really do think they are too clever by half. Despite prognostications to the contrary, negotiations with Iran over a new JCPOA are nearing completion which Biden/Obama will sign off on after putting up a bit more token resistance to lifting sanctions.

Why do I say this? Nordstream 2.

Biden backed down on Nordstream 2 and, at The Davos Crowd’s insistence, he will back down on the JCPOA.

Davos needs cheap energy into Europe. That’s ultimately what the JCPOA was all about. The basic framework for the deal is still there. While the U.S. will kick and scream a bit about sanctions relief, Iran will be back into the oil market and make it possible for Europe to once again invest in oil/gas projects in Iran.

Now that Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer going to be leading Israel, the probability of breakthrough is much much higher than last week. The Likudniks in Congress and the Senate just lost their raison d’etre. The loss of face for Israel in Bibi’s latest attempt to bludgeon Gaza to retain power backfired completely.

U.S. policy towards Israel is shifting rapidly as the younger generations, Gen-X and Millennials, simply don’t have the same allegiance to Israel that the Baby Boomers and Silent generations did. It is part of a geopolitical ethos which is outdated.

So, with some deal over Iran’s nuclear capability in the near future, Europe will then get gas pipelines from Iran through Turkey as well as gain better access to the North South Transport Corridor which is now unofficially part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lithium, Cobalt, and Rare Earths: the Post-Petroleum Resource Race

Lithium, Cobalt, and Rare Earths: the Post-Petroleum Resource Race

Thanks to its very name — renewable energy — we can picture a time in the not-too-distant future when our need for non-renewable fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal will vanish. Indeed, the Biden administration has announced a breakthrough target of 2035 for fully eliminating U.S. reliance on those non-renewable fuels for the generation of electricity. That would be accomplished by “deploying carbon-pollution-free electricity-generating resources,” primarily the everlasting power of the wind and sun.

With other nations moving in a similar direction, it’s tempting to conclude that the days when competition over finite supplies of energy was a recurring source of conflict will soon draw to a close. Unfortunately, think again: while the sun and wind are indeed infinitely renewable, the materials needed to convert those resources into electricity — minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and the rare-earth elements, or REEs — are anything but. Some of them, in fact, are far scarcer than petroleum, suggesting that global strife over vital resources may not, in fact, disappear in the Age of Renewables.

To appreciate this unexpected paradox, it’s necessary to explore how wind and solar power are converted into usable forms of electricity and propulsion. Solar power is largely collected by photovoltaic cells, often deployed in vast arrays, while the wind is harvested by giant turbines, typically deployed in extensive wind farms. To use electricity in transportation, cars and trucks must be equipped with advanced batteries capable of holding a charge over long distances. Each one of these devices usessubstantial amounts of copper for electrical transmission, as well as a variety of other non-renewable minerals. Those wind turbines, for instance, require manganese, molybdenum, nickel, zinc, and rare-earth elements for their electrical generators, while electric vehicles (EVs) need cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and rare earths for their engines and batteries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

People against Politicians Who Always Want War

QUESTION: Are you saying that the people left alone do not hate each other, it is the politicians?

FK

ANSWER: Yes. They do not teach hatred in school in Israel or the Arab world directly. They will teach biased history but that is in all countries. There are families who have lost people and that is why the old adage was you kill your enemy and his family for the son will only grow up to avenge their father’s death. The hostility is fostered at the political level.

Today, we have a very serious problem. As Matt Taibbi has reported, journalists once challenged the Spy State. Now, They’re Agents of It. If we look at the polls on Russia, the media in pushing Hillary’s agenda have turned Russia into an evil empire. The press in the United States REFUSED to ever investigate the fact that the bankers were blackmailing Yeltsin in 2000 which is why he withdrew in 2000 and handed it to Putin. That is why Hillary blamed the Russians because she was behind trying to take over Russia for the bankers. The media has ensured there will be World War III because they have promoted the propaganda and never investigated anything.

The people are not the problem. If the politicians were removed, things would be different. Take the famous Treaty of Versailles of 1919 when Germany surrendered at World War I. The French politicians insisted that is where it would take place because the previous Treaty of Versailles of 1871 is where the French surrendered and the German Empire was born. Politicians have long memories. When I had meetings in Yugoslavia, I heard about the justification for genocide against Muslims because of their Jihad against the Serbs during the 14th century when the Ottoman Empire was expanding…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Literally Armageddon”: 53 Killed In Gaza & 5 Israelis Dead As UN Warns “Full-Scale War” Imminent

“Literally Armageddon”: 53 Killed In Gaza & 5 Israelis Dead As UN Warns “Full-Scale War” Imminent

After overnight sustained rocket fire from Gaza and at the same time Israeli airstrikes pounding the strip, the combined death toll reached to at least 50, with hundreds more injured, into Wednesday. International reports are citing over 50 Palestinians killed in Gaza alone, many among these children.

Middle East Eye cites the following numbers by late into the afternoon (local time): “At least 53 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its bombing campaign in the besieged territory on Sunday morning.”

“That number, accurate as of Wednesday afternoon, includes 14 children and three women, with a further 320 people wounded with injuries of varying degrees of severity, according to Gaza’s health ministry.”

And on the Israeli side, local reports cite that “three Israeli women were killed in rocket attacks, with more than 50 injured, including two women in serious condition: an 81-year-old as well as a 30-year-old who was hit by shrapnel in her upper body.”

This takes the death toll on the Israeli side to five since the start of fighting early this week.

Overnight airstrikes on Gaza, via Middle East Eye

The IDF announced that 16 among the Gaza dead were militants – some of them “senior commanders” – while also counting “hundreds” of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets fired into Israel, many reaching deep into central Israel and scoring direct hits on heavily populated residential areas.

Israeli media is reporting that multiple members of Hamas’ “General Staff” were eliminated in airstrikes Wednesday:

The dead men were identified as Bassem Issa, the head of the Gaza City brigade since 2017 and head of the group’s cyber network and missile improvement project Jamaa Tahla. According to the Shin Bet, Tahla was the right-hand man of Muhammad Deif and the central leader of the group’s efforts to improve its military capabilities.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

So Who Wants a Hot War?

It’s The Media’s Job To Normalize War: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

It’s The Media’s Job To Normalize War: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Exactly zero percent of the world’s worst criminals are in prison. Imperialists. War profiteers. Ecocide profiteers. The very worst of thieves are financial elites. The system isn’t designed to protect us from society’s worst, it’s designed to protect society’s worst from us.

I don’t write much about the specific individuals who drive the oligarchic empire because individuals are not the problem, the system is. Right-wing conspiracy analysts prefer to focus on specific corrupt elites because they like to think if you just got rid of them, capitalism would work fine. And it just wouldn’t. If you rounded up and executed all the sociopathic ruling elites today but left our current systems intact they’d just be replaced tomorrow. A competition-based model where war, corruption, oppression and exploitation remain profitable guarantees this.

A lot of right-wing conspiracy analysis today ultimately boils down to “These bastards are ruining the capitalism!” But capitalism is already ruined, and ruinous. As long as it’s profitable to destroy each other and our ecosystem, the ruin will continue. That’s the real problem. Making it about individuals feeds into the false impression that the individuals are the problem, and absolves us of our collective responsibility to move out of our competition-based model to one in which we collaborate with each other and our ecosystem to create a healthy world.

As long as we have systems in which it’s advantageous to be sociopathic enough to do whatever it takes to get ahead, we will find ourselves ruled by sociopaths. The names and faces on those sociopaths are ultimately irrelevant. They’re a symptom of the underlying disease.

It’s the mass media’s job to normalize war and abnormalize peace. It’s our job to do the exact opposite.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Setting the Scene for Global Destruction. Now It’s the Arctic

The U.S. is preparing for war in the Arctic, and the “boiling point” might not be far away, Brian Cloughley writes.

On April 8 the front pages of the main U.S. newspapers noted that President Biden was “open to compromise” and a quick glance prompted optimism that Uncle Joe might be seeing some sense about international developments. He said that “Debate is welcome. Compromise is inevitable. Changes are certain,” which is a deep and important statement that would be immensely heartening if it referred to U.S. relations with China and Russia.

Alas, his words referred to purely domestic affairs, in that the White House was preparing to compromise with the blinkered Republican Party which is intent on defending business interests — and especially those concerned with weapons’ production — at the expense of the average citizen. Joe declared that he is “sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced,” which is an understandable point of view. But the way he’s heading in foreign policy means that these ordinary people, and everyone else in the U.S. and all round the world, may well be conned, and possibly terminally. They are facing ever-increasing danger of being destroyed, because Joe is backing the sabre-brandishers in their encouragement of confrontation and provocation that could well lead to major war.

Make no mistake : there is going to be no such thing as “limited” war if the U.S.-Nato military alliance continues to goad and antagonise Russia and China. If there is a clash of military forces there will be escalation, and the ensuing conflict will inevitably heighten the risk of nuclear exchanges which would destroy the planet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meditations On US Forces Firing A Howitzer Into The Empty Desert “Just To Say We’re Here”

Meditations On US Forces Firing A Howitzer Into The Empty Desert “Just To Say We’re Here”

I saw a line in a recent New Yorker article about America’s endless wars, and it’s been been rattling around in my head ever since:

“In Syria, McKenzie visited the Green Village, a community of decrepit apartment blocks near a bombed-out oil facility that served as the operational headquarters for the final push to erase the caliphate, in 2019. These days, the only military action there is from U.S. forces firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert, at no specific target, ‘just to say we’re here,’ one officer told me.”

U.S. forces firing a 155-millimetre howitzer twice a week into the surrounding desert, at no specific target, “just to say we’re here.”

Tell me that’s not the sexiest line you have ever read in your entire life. The poetical beauty! The ennui! The oh-so-relatable existential ache! Oh God, I need a cigarette.

I mean it just hits on so many different levels. Could you ask for a better snapshot of life within the soulless US war machine than a small cast of Beckettian soldiers, waiting around near a bombed-out oil facility for a Godot who never arrives, firing heavy artillery rounds into the desert twice a week for no reason whatsoever? You just want to hang it in an ornate wooden frame with the caption “YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK, LADIES AND GENTS” and then shove it so far up Tom Cotton’s personal anatomy that it takes an entire emergency room team to extract it.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Warns NATO Against Sending Any Troops To Ukraine As “Frightening” Escalation Looms

Russia Warns NATO Against Sending Any Troops To Ukraine As “Frightening” Escalation Looms

The Kremlin’s latest statements out Friday amid the potential new Ukraine crisis which has seen a serious flare-up in fighting in the Donbass region, along with what appears to be far bigger-than-usual troop movements on Russia’s side of the border, has raised the stakes further.

Russia has vowed it will take “extra measures to ensure its own security” should it observe any deployment of NATO troops inside Ukraine, the Kremlin statement said Friday according to Reuters.

It firmly warned against any potential looming NATO troop movements following Brussels voicing concern the day prior over the widespread reports and videos purporting to show a significant Russian build-up of forces along Ukraine’s eastern border.

Archive image of NATO exercises in Europe, via Allied Joint Force Command Naples

Reuters reports Russia’s Friday statement and “warning” as follows:

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the situation at the contact line in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed separatist forces was quite frightening and that multiple “provocations” were taking place there.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Taran, and “condemned recent escalations of Russian aggressive and provocative actions in eastern Ukraine,” the Pentagon said.

“Our rhetoric [over Donbass] is absolutely constructive,” Peskov said in response to journalists’ questions. “We do not indulge in wishful thinking. Regrettably, the realities along the engagement line are rather frightening. Provocations by the Ukrainian armed forces do take place. They are not casual. There have been many of them.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the Russian troop movements across the border, calling the situation “muscle-flexing” likely to lead to “provocations” for which Ukraine’s army is “ready”…

russia, nato, united states, ukraine, zerohedge, war, world war 3

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress