As expected, Washington and its NATO arm have rejected the Kremlin’s joint security proposal, preferring dire consequences to peace. By rejecting the Kremlin’s proposal, Washington and the Europeans have told the Kremlin that Washington intends to continue its aggressive policy of placing NATO and US missile bases on Russia’s borders and arming Ukraine for attack on Donbass. The rejection also tells Moscow that Ukraine and Georgia, formerly constituent parts of Russia broken off during the period of Russian weakness following the collapse of the Soviet government, remain candidates for NATO Membership despite the Kremlin’s statement that Russia will permit no such membership. Vladmir Vasilyev, the parliamentary leader of the ruling Russian party said:
We have waited a long time for a reasonable decision to prevail in Washington, but this is not happening. We only hear about sanctions, and about weapons being sent into the conflict zone. We cannot accept this. The Americans are pumping up Ukraine with missile systems, grenade launchers, and other supplies.There are also instructors there to train them how to use this equipment. This is a great danger. It is preparation for military action, and nothing else. Military action against the peaceful population that lives there.
The Russophobic neoconservatives who dominate US foreign policy controlled the decision and got what they want. But will they want the consequences? Washington offered to “engage in dialogue” and “listen to Russian concerns,” completely useless reassurances to the Russians. The Kremlin has already conveyed its concerns, and they have been ignored. The Kremlin made it clear that the time for talking is over and that they are not going to be drawn into endless talk that goes nowhere. At this point the Kremlin cannot possibly back down without inviting even more provocations. So get ready for the dire consequences.
The outcome will not be favorable for Washington. American corporations have told Biden to forget about sanctions as the sanctions hurt US companies worse than they hurt Russia, and NATO is already cracking under the strain of expectations that Russia is going to start playing hardball. Two NATO members, Croatia and Bulgaria, have announced that they won’t be sending any troops to join NATO in any confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, and Germany denied the British flyover permission for their airlift of arms to Ukraine. European governments understand that NATO lacks the military means for a confrontation with Russia. The available US and NATO troops are just token forces. Washington is reduced to deploying 1k soldiers in Bulgaria and Romania to reassure the countries and deter Russia. 1k soldiers have no possibility of deterring any Russian army, as the countries understand. No thanks, said Bulgaria. Stoltenberg’s assurance that NATO has “plans in place” to activate 5k French troops and the US will be sending 8.5k troops has the opposite effect of providing comfort. No Russian force would take any notice of such a small number of soldiers. What Stoltenberg has shown is not strength, but Western military weakness.
Washington might be thinking in outmoded ways. It was once thought that a few US soldiers scattered about would prevent an attack because of reluctance to go to war with the US. But the Kremlin has already made it clear that the current security situation is unacceptable to them and that they are not going to continue living with insecurity. I don’t think war is close at hand unless Washington succeeds in provoking Ukraine to invade Donbass in order to solidify Washington’s hold on Europe and the election for Biden by causing Russian intervention. In which case, it would be a short war with Ukraine sacrificed for Washington’s political purposes. Instead, Russia will target all of Europe with their hypersonic missiles, including the US bases in Poland and Romania and all military facilities in Ukraine as well as Kiev. They will let Europe live under the strain of rising tensions. Europeans are more harmed than benefitted by American hegemony, and sooner or later Europeans will conclude that NATO is a greater threat to them than Russia. Washington’s decision to reject the security proposal is nonsensical. I suspect the consequence will be a reduction in American power. Washington will replace Russia as the country whose concerns are ignored.
As of Jan 27, Syria security remains precarious despite a slight improvement in the country’s northeastern, northwestern and southern regions. In the northeastern region, the SDF announced on Jan 26 that it had retaken control of Geweran prison in the city of al-Hasakah where hundreds of ISIS terrorists were holding up. The terrorists launched a large attack on the prison late on Jan 20 to free their comrades. However, they ended up capturing the entire prison and nearby areas. The SDF said that its military operation to secure the prison and nearby areas, codenamed the People’s Hammer, was successfully concluded. More than 1,600 terrorists surrendered after running out of water, food and medical supplies. 32 hostages who were held by the terrorists were also freed. However, the SDF’s victory is questionable to say the least. An unknown number of terrorists are still holding up at some parts of Geweran as well as in nearby areas, possibly to carry out suicide attacks. Gun shots and explosions as still being heard in the vicinity of the prison as of the morning of Jan 27. It’s also worth noting that British special forces were spotted along with other formations of US-led coalition near Geweran prison on Jan 25.
On the same day, news sources revealed that the SDF and the US-led coalition, who failed to storm Geweran prison for five consecutive days, were holding talks with the terrorists occupying the prison. Their evacuation to central Syria was reportedly discussed. The terrorists, many of whom are foreigners, may have withdrawn to central Syria after reaching a deal with the SDF and the US-led coalition with help from British negotiators. More than two thousand terrorists who were holding up at Geweran prison are still missing. It appears that only the weak and injured terrorists have surrendered to the SDF, while the commanders and more experienced terrorist have fled on their own or under a deal. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the battle of Geweran prison claimed the lives of 124 ISIS terrorists, seven civilians and 50 personnel of the SDF and its security forces. Regardless of the outcome of the battle, ISIS attack on Geweran prison was a large blow to the SDF and the US-led coalition. ISIS is yet to share its account of the attack’s last days. The terrorist group will likely reveal the number of the terrorists who managed to flee the prison very soon.
In the northwestern region, known as Greater Idlib, the situation remains calm as of Jan 27. A few, minor ceasefire violations by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its allies were reported on Jan 25-26. However, there were no casualties. A harsh snowstorm affecting Greater Idlib and nearby areas will likely keep the situation in the region calm at least for another week. Meanwhile, the situation in central Syria remains tense. Government forces and their allies continue to operate against ISIS in the region. On Jan 26, Russian fighter jets and Syrian attack helicopters carried out more than 50 airstrikes on hideouts, equipment and personnel of ISIS in: the outskirts of the town of Ithriyah in the eastern Hama countryside; the outskirts of the town of al-Sukhnah in the eastern Homs countryside and the outskirts of the town of al-Resafa in the southern Raqqa countryside. The Russian and Syrian airstrikes were likely a response to an attack by ISIS cells’ that targeted a convoy of the SAA near the ancient city of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs on Jan 24. Seven service members of the SAA were killed and 24 others were wounded as a result of the attack. A tank and seven light military vehicles were also damaged. The attack highlights the threat posed by ISIS cells in the central region. This threat will not likely end anytime soon. In Syria’s southern region, which includes Daraa, al-Quneitra and al-Suwayda, the situation has been clam. No attacks on government forces were reported as of Jan 27. Security measures implemented by the government appear to be working, at least for the time being.
In its response to Russia’s proposals on security guarantees, the US has left the main question about non-expansion of NATO to the east unanswered, Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday. Lavrov told reporters:
There is no positive reaction on the main issue in this document. The main issue is our clear position that further NATO expansion to the east and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation are unacceptable. There is a reaction that allows us to count on the start of a serious conversation, but on secondary issues. As for the content of the response, I think it will become known to the general public in the very near future, because, as our American colleagues told us, although they prefer the document to remain for a confidential diplomatic dialogue, it has been agreed with all US allies and with the Ukrainian side. Therefore, I have no doubt that in the very near future it will leak.
Lavrov stressed that Moscow is considering the US and NATO responses on security guarantees as a whole. According to Lavrov, the US deliberately aims to avoid discussing the need to follow the principle of indivisibility of security, and Russia is not ready to accept this. Lavrov said:
The principle that one should not strengthen one’s security at the expense of the security of others is deliberately avoided. Neither the Istanbul nor the Astana declarations are mentioned by our Western partners in the discussions on European security that are currently taking place. We cannot accept this.
The minister added that Russia will soon send an official request to the US and NATO and ask why they regard provisions of the principle of indivisibility of security separately from each other. Russia’s next step after receiving the responses of the US and NATO to its European security proposals will be determined by President Putin. Lavrov concluded:
After an interdepartmental consultation, we will brief the president, and the president will decide on our next steps.
In December, the US received the list of security proposals from Russia expected to de-escalate tensions between Moscow and NATO over the situation in eastern Ukraine. The draft agreements were later published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website. The documents suggest that the sides provide legally binding written guarantees to each other not to deploy troops and military equipment in areas where they could be viewed as a threat to the other side and also restrict the deployment of Russia and US nuclear weapons abroad. In addition to that, Moscow suggested that the US and NATO make a commitment not to continue the alliance’s expansion to the east and never accept Ukraine or any other former Soviet republic into NATO.
A specter haunts the collective West: total zombification, courtesy of an across-the-board 24/7 psyop imprinting the inevitability of “Russian aggression.” Let’s pierce the fog of hysteria by asking Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov what’s going on:
I can absolutely say that to date, the Russian armed forces have not created a strike group that could make a forceful invasion of Ukraine.
Well, Reznikov is obviously not aware that the White House, with access to arguably privileged intel, is convinced that Russia will invade “any minute now.” The Pentagon doubles down:
It’s very clear the Russians have no intention right now of deescalating.
Thus the necessity expressed by spox John Kirby of readying a multinational NATO response force of 40k troops, “if it is activated to defeat aggression, if necessary.” So “aggression” is a given. The White House is “refining” military plans (18 at the last count) for all manners of “aggression.” As for responding in writing to the Russian proposals on security guarantees, well, that’s far too complex. There is no “exact date” when it will be sent to Moscow. And the proverbial “officials” have begged their Russian counterparts not to make it public. After all, a letter is not sexy. Yet “aggression” sells. Especially when it may happen “any-minute-now.” “Analyst” hacks are yelling that Putin “is now almost certain” to deliver a “limited strike” in “the next ten days,” complete with an attack on Kiev: that configures the scenario of an “almost inevitable war.” Vladimir Dzhabarov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Council Committee on International Affairs, prefers to get closer to reality: the US is preparing a provocation to push Kiev to “reckless actions” against Russia in the Donbass. That ties in with foot-soldiers of the Lugansk People’s Republic reporting that “subversive groups prepared by British instructors” arrived in the area of Lisichansk.
Luminaries such as the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen, NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg and “leaders” from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland announced, after a video call, that “an unprecedented package of sanctions” is nearly ready if Russia “invades.” They billed it as “international unity in the face of growing Russia hostility.” Translation: NATOstan begging Russia to please invade asap. Of the EU 27, 21 are NATO members. The US rules over the whole lot. So when the EU announces that “any further military aggression against Ukraine would have very serious consequences for Russia,” that’s the US telling NATO to tell the EU “what we say, goes.” And under this strategy of tension environment, “what we say” means applying raw, imperial Divide and Rule to keep Europe totally subjugated. One should never forget that Maidan 2014 was an operation supervised by Obama/Biden. Yet there’s still plenty of unfinished business when it comes to bogging down Russia. So the viscerally Russophobic War Party in DC now has to pull all stops ordering NATOstan to cheerlead Kiev to start a hot war, and thus trap Russia. Zelensky The Comedian even went on the record wanting to “go on the offensive.” So, time to release the false flags. The indispensable Alastair Crooke has outlined how ‘encirclement’ and ‘containment’ effectively have become Biden’s default foreign policy. Not Biden, actually, but the amorphous combo behind the earpiece/teleprompter-controlled puppet I have been designating for over a year as Crash Test Dummy. Crooke adds:
The attempt to cement in this meta-doctrine currently is being enacted out via Russia (as the initial step). The essential buy-in by Europe is the party-piece to Russia’s physical containment and encirclement.
“Encirclement” and “containment” have been exceptionalist staples, under various guises, for decades. The notion entertained by the War Party that it’s possible to carry both across a three-way-front, against Russia, China and Iran, is so infantile to render any analysis idle. It does call for a drink and a good laugh. As for extra sanctions for the imaginary “Russian aggression,” a few benevolent souls had to remind Little Tony Blinken and other “Biden” combo participants that Europeans would be much more lethally affected than Russians, not to mention these sanctions would turbocharge the collective West’s economic crisis.
A short recap is essential to frame how we ended up mired in the current hysteria swamp. The collective West blew the chance it had to build a constructive partnership with Russia similar to what it did with Germany after 1945. The collective West also blew it when reducing Russia to the role of a minor, docile entity, imposing that there’s only one sphere of influence on the planet: NATOstan, of course. And the Empire blew it when it targeted Russia even after it had allegedly “won” against the USSR. During the 1990s and the 2000s, instead of being invited to participate in the construction of the “common European home,” with all its glaring faults, post-Soviet Russia was forced to be outside looking in on how this “home” was upgraded and decorated. Contrary to all the promises made to Gorbachev by assorted Western leaders, the traditional Russian sphere of influence, and even former USSR territory, became objects of dispute in the looting of the “Soviet heritage,” merely a space to be colonized by NATO’s military structures.
Contrary to the hope of Gorbachev, who was naively convinced that the West would share with him the benefits of “the dividends of peace,” a hardcore Anglo-American neoliberal model was imposed over the Russian economy. Added to the disastrous consequences of this transition was the sentiment of national frustration by a society that was humiliated and treated like a vanquished nation in the Cold War, or WW3. That was Exceptionalistan’s fatal mistake: to believe that with the USSR vanishing, Russia as a historic, economic and strategic reality would also disappear from international relations. And that’s why War Inc, the War Party, the Deep State, however you wanna call them, are freaking out now, big time. They dismissed Putin when he formulated a new paradigm in Munich in 2007, or when he returned to the Kremlin in 2012. Putin made it very clear that Russia’s legitimate strategic interests would have to be respected again. And that Russia was about to recover its de facto “veto rights” in managing world affairs. Well, the Putin doctrine was already being implemented since the Georgian affair in 2008.
Ukraine is a patchwork of morsels that belonged until recently to different empires, Austro-Hungarian and Russian, as well as several nations, such as Russia, Poland and Romania. It regroups Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and has millions of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers with deep historical, cultural and economic links with Russia. So Ukraine was a de facto new Yugoslavia. The fatal mistake committed by Brussels in 2014 was to force Kiev as well as the Ukrainian population as a whole to make an impossible choice between Europe and Russia. The inevitable result would have to be Maidan, completely manipulated by American intel, even as Russians clearly saw how the EU switched from the position of honest broker to the lowly role of American chihuahuas. Russophobic US hawks will never renounce the spectacle of their historical adversary bogged down in a slow-burning fratricidal war in the post-Soviet space. As much as they will never renounce Divide and Rule imposed over a discombobulated Europe. And as much as they will never concede “spheres of influence” to any geopolitical player.
Without their toxic imprint, 2014 could have played in quite a different manner. To dissuade Putin to restore Crimea to its rightful place, Russia, it would have taken two things: for Ukraine to be decently managed after 1992, and not to force it to choose the Western camp, but to make it a bridge, Finland or Austria-style. After Maidan, the Minsk agreements were as close as possible to a viable solution: let’s end the conflict in Donbass; let’s disarm the protagonists; and let’s re-establish control of the borders of Ukraine while providing real autonomy to Eastern Ukraine. For all that to happen, Ukraine would have needed a neutral status, and a double security guarantee, by Russia and NATO. And to render the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU compatible with the close links between Eastern Ukraine and the Russian economy. All that would have perhaps configured a European vision of decent future relations with Russia. Yet the Russophobic Deep State would never allow it. And the same applied to the White House. Barack Obama, that cynical opportunist, was too engulfed by the dodgy Polish context in Chicago and not free from the exceptionalist obsession with deep antagonism to be able to build a constructive relationship with Russia.
Then there’s the clincher, revealed by a high-level US intel source. In 2013, the late Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski was presented with a classified report on Russian advanced missiles. He freaked out, and responded by conceptualizing Maidan 2014, to draw Russia into a guerrilla war then as he had done with Afghanistan in the 1980s. And here we are now: it’s all a matter of unfinished business. A final word on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In the thirteenth century, the Mongol Empire established its suzerainty over Kievan Rus, the Christian orthodox principalities that correspond today to northern Ukraine, Belarus and part of contemporary Russia. The Tartar yoke over Russia, from 1240 to 1552, when Ivan The Terrible conquered Kazan, is deeply imprinted in Russian historical consciousness and in the debate about national identity. The Mongols separately conquered vast swathes of China, Russia and Iran. Centuries after Pax Mongolica, what an irony that the new pact of steel between these top three Eurasian actors is now an insurmountable geopolitical obstacle, smashing all elaborate plans by a bunch of trans-Atlantic historic upstarts.
Last Thursday French Prime Minister Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran held a press conference in which they outlined the timetable for a gradual easing of the country’s many Covid-19 restrictions. Véran talked of an ‘encouraging evolution’ in the fight against the virus, despite the fact that France had in the previous week recorded an average of over 300k daily cases. As of Feb 2, the wearing of masks outdoors will no longer be mandatory and a fortnight later the French will be able to experience once more the pleasure of standing at a bar with a glass of whatever takes their fancy. Since the start of this month, this practice has been outlawed. Why a customer standing in a bar is at greater risk from Covid than one who is sitting has never been adequately explained. But the inexplicable has become the commonplace in France. Why, for example, if there is an ‘encouraging evolution’ in the fifth wave of Covid sweeping across France, did the country report a record number of new cases yesterday? The figure of 501,635 is the first time that France has notched more than half a million cases in one day; in the same period Britain recorded 94,326 positive tests. A more troubling statistic released in France on Tuesday was the 30k people currently in hospital with the virus, the highest number since Nov 2020.
But the biggest question that remains unanswered is what exactly is the point of the vaccine pass, which came into force on Monday? Initially launched in July, in its original form the pass permitted the double vaccinated to visit bars, cinemas, sports venues, etc, as well as the unvaccinated who could prove they had tested negative in the last 24 hours. The new pass demands three vaccines and removes the option of a negative test. Yesterday Olivier Véran disclosed that so far 9m French people who are double-vaccinated have not yet had their third dose. They have until Feb 15 to take up that option; if they don’t their existing vaccine pass will be annulled. When asked why so many had not yet had a booster jab, Véran said:
I think that everybody has not yet understood the message.
That condescending remark is indicative of a government that increasingly is losing the confidence and support of the people. Some among those nine million may not be aware that their current pass will expire in the middle of next month if they don’t have a third jab, but a great many are conscious of the situation and have decided against another vaccination either because they don’t feel it’s necessary for them or as an act of defiance against their belligerent government. The French can be a bloody-minded lot when they want to, and Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that he wants to ‘piss off’ the unvaccinated (by which he means anyone without three jabs) had the opposite effect to the one he intended. Instead of meekly submitting to Macron’s wish, they have decided against having that third jab, just to ‘piss off’ their President. They have also now seen through the pointlessness of the vaccine pass. It has done nothing to reduce infection; on the contrary, the spread of the virus has accelerated in recent weeks, certainly compared to England, a country that more and more French look to as the exemplar in how to exit the pandemic. In an interview in front of the Senate last month Jean-François Delfraissy, the president of the Scientific Council and one of the most prominent professors throughout the pandemic, was asked for his view on the vaccine pass. he replied:
Does the pass really protect? You have the answer. The answer is no … since we can be vaccinated and still be a carrier of the virus.
So why is the pass in place? It’s a political act, part of Macron’s bid for re-election in April. Since its inception, the pass has been supported by the tranche of society crucial to Macron if he is to secure a second mandate. A poll last week revealed that 80% of over-65s are in favour, as are 69% of respondents categorised as ‘affluent.’ By contrast, only 49% of the poorest and 57% of those aged 25 to 34 approve. The young working-class are a political demographic of little consequence to Macron; but well-off senior citizens are of great significance, as they are being courted by Éric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse. Macron said in Oct 2020, when he announced a curfew in Paris and eight other cities, just one of many measures he has taken that has proved divisive and futile:
It’s tough to be 20 in 2020.
It’s even tougher to be 22 in 2022. Macron’s political pass may well pay off in the short term but the damage it is doing to France socially, economically and morally will be felt for a long time.
German lawmakers debate making vaccines mandatory for ALL adults after politicians U-turned on earlier pledge not to force Covid jabs on anyone Rachael Bunyan, Mail Online, Jan 26 2022
German lawmakers are today set to debate making the coronavirus vaccine mandatory for all adults after politicians backtracked on an earlier pledge not to force obligatory jabs on anyone. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has already come out in favour of making vaccines mandatory in Germany. Lawmakers will debate in parliament on three options: obligatory vaccinations for all adults or for everyone above 50, or no mandate at all. German politicians of all stripes long insisted that there would be no vaccine mandate. But the tide turned late last year amid frustration that a large number of holdouts was hampering the fight against Covid-19. If mandatory vaccination is passed, the move would see Germany follow in the footsteps of Austria by making Covid jabs compulsory amid rising infections across Europe. It comes as Germany today reported a new record of 164k Covid infections in one day. Scholz had predicted in December that mandatory vaccination would take effect in February or early March, but that timetable has slipped, partly because of the path the Chancellor has chosen.
The government isn’t putting forward legislation itself, but leaving groups of lawmakers to come up with cross-party proposals and then allowing members of parliament to vote according to their conscience rather than along party lines. That device that has been used before to tackle ethically complicated medical questions, most recently in early 2020 to decide on rules for organ donors. On Wednesday, lawmakers are due to kick off proceedings with an ‘orientation debate.’ It isn’t yet clear when legislation will go to a vote, but it appears that it could be well into the spring before any law takes effect. Three proposals have emerged so far from lawmakers in Scholz’s three-party governing coalition. There is a call for a vaccine mandate for everyone age 18 and above, which would be valid for two years and cover a maximum three shots, with fines for holdouts. A rival proposal calls for obligatory counseling meetings for the unvaccinated, to be followed by a vaccine mandate for over-50s if progress is unsatisfactory. And one group wants to prevent any mandate. Exactly how compliance would be checked is unclear. Germany lacks a central vaccination register. Various calls for protests to take place in front of the Reichstag parliament building before and during the debate were distributed on the messaging service Telegram. Opponents of compulsory vaccination say it violates the second article of the constitution, which guarantees citizens control over their own bodies.
As of Tuesday, at least 73.5% of Germany’s population was fully vaccinated and 50.8% also had received a booster. The pace of vaccinations has slowed again after speeding up last month. But around 75% of the population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, less than in other western European countries such as France, Italy or Spain, where the equivalent figures are 80%, 83% and 86%. And the number of Covid cases in Germany is rising rapidly, with a new record of 164k Covid infections being reported on Wednesday by the Robert Koch Institute. The 166 deaths recorded on Wednesday took Germany’s cumulative COVID-19 toll to 117,126. The center-right Union bloc, the main opposition party, has insisted that the government should produce its own legislation and complained that Scholz has failed to provide leadership. Last month, the German parliament approved legislation that will require staff at hospitals and nursing homes to show that they are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 by mid-March. Last week, neighboring Austria became the first European country to approve a vaccine mandate for all adults, which will become law on February 1 and be enforced from mid-March. Some other European countries have introduced mandates for specific professions or age groups. Greece has a mandate for over-60s and Italy for over-50s.
Anger has raged on in Europe for months over the introduction of vaccine mandates and new Covid restrictions, with weekly protests being held in countries such as Germany and Austria. At the weekend protesters, some of whom wearing ‘Unvaccinated, I’m not a lab rat’ T-shirts, gathered in Berlin to demonstrate against potential mandatory vaccination in Germany. Meanwhile regular large-scale demonstrations, some of which have drawn upwards of 40k protesters, have taken place in Austrian capital Vienna. Last week, hundreds of demonstrators marched in Paris to protest against the introduction of a new Covid pass. It restricts the lives of those who refuse to get vaccinated by banning them from domestic flights, sports events, bars, cinemas and other leisure venues. In Sweden, where vaccine certificates are required to attend indoor events with more than 50 people, some 3k demonstrators marched though central Stockholm last Saturday and assembled in a main square for a protest organized by the Frihetsrorelsen or Freedom Movement. Swedish media reported that representatives from the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement attended the action with a banner. Police closely monitor the group, which has been associated with violent behavior at demonstrations.
Meanwhile, thousands of people marched through the the Czech Republic’s capital last month Sunday to protest against compulsory Covid vaccination for certain groups and professions. The protesters gathered at Wenceslas Square in central Prague to question the effectiveness of the current vaccines and reject the vaccination of children before marching through the capital, chanting ‘Freedom, freedom.’ The previous government released an order in early December, making vaccination mandatory for the 60 and over age group, as well as medical personnel, police officers, firefighters and medical students. The order is due to take effect in March, but it still might end up being overturned. Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ administration was replaced later in December by a new government formed by five parties that won October’s parliamentary election, led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala.
Appearing during a White House press briefing Wednesday, Anthony Fauci decreed that children under the age of four will eventually be subjected to a “three-dose regimen” of COVID vaccines. He declared:
Dose and regimen for children 6 months to 24 months worked well, but it turned out the other group from 24 months to 4 years did not yet reach the level of non-inferiority, so the studies are continued. It looks like it will be a three-dose regimen. I don’t think we can predict when we will see an EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] with that.
He told reporters that he couldn’t give an exact timetable on when this would happen, but was adamant it would. He said:
We need to be patient. That’s why the system works. The FDA is very scrupulous in their ability and in their effort to make sure that, before something gets approved for any age, and especially with children … that they will be safe, and that they will be effective.
Last week, Fauci suggested that he wants to see the FDA authorise the vaccines for toddlers within a month. He said during an interview:
My hope is that it’s going to be within the next month or so and not much later than that, but I can’t guarantee that. I can’t out-guess the FDA. I’m going to have to leave that to them.
However, after the interview, Fauci sent CNBC a statement clarifying that he’s not involved in the decision making process at the FDA and didn’t know when the agency will clear the shots. He wrote:
I did not at all mean to imply that the authorization would come within a month. I meant that we do not know. I am not involved in that decision.
CDC Data has shown that children make up less than 0.1% of Covid deaths since the beginning of the pandemic in Mar 2020. To date, 259 of around 860k recorded US Covid deaths have been among children under the age of five. A study out of the University of Utah last October (before Omicron) found that exactly 50% of children who contract the virus have asymptomatic cases. WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan previously said that the body does not see it as necessary for healthy children to take Covid booster vaccines. Swaminathan said last week:
The aim is to protect the most vulnerable, to protect those at highest risk of severe disease and dying. Those are our elderly population, the immunocompromised with underlying conditions, and also health care workers.
Four Communist-style posters featuring images of Biden and Fauci with mocking messages of COVID-19 mandate compliance appeared across Washington DC over the weekend. Photos and videos of the life-size posters have now taken social media by storm, with thousands of people sharing the posts. A Twitter account @LeighWolf snapped photos of the posters taped to the outside of a building on N St NE, just south of New York Avenue, after leaving a coffee shop Saturday. LeighWolf told the Washington Examiner: “I was floored. Couldn’t believe I was seeing this in the wild in DC.” LeighWolf said a lady then walked up and asked him if he had posted them or if he was there to take them down. That’s when he began taking video. In the video shared on Twitter, the lady is seen ripping the posters off the wall. LeighWolf asked her why and if all art must comply. She can be heard in the Twitter video saying:
Yes! It’s a public health concern! It’s alarmism! It’s dangerous propaganda! I live in the neighborhood! This is bullshit!
Noam Blum also spotted posters in Glover Park, near the intersection of Calvert St and Wisconsin Ave. Blum told the Washington Examiner:
I rarely see street art of this type coming from a right-wing (or however you want to call it) point of view, so it felt more noteworthy than some anti-Trump poster, which are a dime a dozen.
Blum noted that one of the posters portraying Biden as a saint with the text, “Good kids are compliant kids,” includes children looking up and wearing pins showing their allegiance to Fauci and vaccine mandates. Blum said on Twitter:
Hard to spot, but the kids are wearing pins that say “Hug me, I’m vaccinated,” a picture of Fauci and one that says “‘VACCINATED but still stay away from me.”
Photos show another poster depicting Biden angrily holding a mallet with the initials of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration on it. “COMPLY” is used as a border. A third poster shows Fauci dressed as a priest holding a large vaccine with text saying, “TRUST THE SCIENTISM.” Biden is also portrayed sitting on a throne holding a large coronavirus molecule (sic – RB), with the text “MANDATE! SEGREGATE! SUBJUGATE!” Social media replies to the posters praised the artwork and included many people asking how more can be ordered for distribution across the country. One reply to LeighWolf said:
We need these everywhere. Billboards, bus, stops. Schools. Let’s go. Time to Fight the Power and Rage Against the Machine.
Another reply played down the idea of the posters mocking the Biden mandates, saying:
I don’t see it as mocking. It’s a warning. This IS what’s happening. We are going to be the next USSR or WWII Germany if we can’t turn this around.
Other replies asked who the artist is. Neither LeighWolf nor Blum know who the artist is or who put up the posters. Many posts are suggesting that the artist remains anonymous for safety.
US and allies discussing deploying more troops to Eastern Europe prior to any Russian invasion of Ukraine CNN, Jan 26 2022
The US and a handful of allies are in discussions to deploy thousands more troops to Eastern European NATO countries before any potential Russian invasion of Ukraine as a show of support in the face of Moscow’s ongoing aggression, three US officials familiar with the discussions tell CNN. Among the countries considering accepting the deployments are Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. The deployments would number approximately 1k personnel to each country and would be similar to the forward battle groups currently stationed in the Baltic States and Poland.
The 60k US troops already based in Europe that Biden can use to defend Ukraine against Russia Daily Mail, Jan 26 2022
Nearly 64k US troops stationed in Europe could be deployed to the continent’s eastern flank if Biden makes such a call to counter growing Russian aggression at the border with Ukraine. The USS Truman has already been placed under NATO command for the first time since the end of the Cold War, while 40 warships, 175 aircraft and 90 tanks situated throughout Europe could also be readied for conflict. Biden has ordered 8.5k US-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe, while military officials have presented him with a plan to send 50k more if the security situation deteriorates and Russia launches an invasion into Ukraine. The US had about 175k troops stationed abroad as of Sep 2021. A total of nearly 64k of them were stationed in Europe. Command for the US’s 40 warships is based in Italy, and the US has already sent ships to the Black Sea. Germany houses the largest deployment of US troops in Europe, and only Japan and America have more US troops based there. There are 35,468 US troops in Germany: 21,585 Army, 13,009 Air Force and small numbers of troops from the Marine Corps and Navy. There are 21 US military bases across Germany, with the largest presence at Stuttgart, headquarters of EUCOM and AFRICOM, and Ramstein, headquarters of USAF operations in Europe. Italy has the second highest US presence in Europe, with 12,436 troops, 4,081 belonging to the Army, 4,742 Air Force and 3,497 Navy. The Naples port is the headquarters of the Sixth Fleet, or US Naval Forces Europe-Africa. The Aviano Air Base is home to two US F-16 fighter jet squadrons. The F-16 is a popular air-to-air combat jet used by 25 air forces. In the UK there are 9,576 US troops, almost entirely members of the Air Force with small numbers of service members from other branches. Spain has 3,423 US troops, Belgium has 1,143, Greece has 429, Portugal has 259, and Romania has 132. A handful of other nations have a US troop presence smaller than 100. There are also currently more than 150 US military advisers in Ukraine who have operated at a training ground near Lviv for years. It includes SOF, mostly Army Green Berets, and National Guard trainers from Florida’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
As it did in 1941. Transnistria should be very apprehensive, boxed in as it is by Moldova/Romania and Ukraine.
Decision to send US troops to Romania exists, it is not conditioned by possible intervention of Russia in Ukraine Agerpres.ro, Jan 26 2022
The Minister of National Defence, Vasile Dincu, declared on Wednesday evening that the decision regarding the deployment in the next period of a contingent of 1k American troops in Romania has existed for a long time and is not directly related to the situation in the region and, as such, it is not conditioned by a possible Russian intervention in Ukraine. The minister thus responded when asked on Antena 3 to comment on a CNN piece of news according to which the American administration has already decided the number of American troops to be sent to Romania, and that, based on the high-level dialogue, three NATO member states on the flank Eastern Europeans agreed to receive 1k US troops on their territory: Romania, Poland and Hungary.
President after the CSAT meeting: Romania must be prepared for any possible scenario Nineoclock.ro, Jan 26 2022
President Iohannis welcomed again the announcements of his American and French counterparts regarding the readiness of the US and France to increase their presence in Romania. He said: “The current security crisis created by Russia is not just about Ukraine, it’s not just about regional security in the Black Sea and not even about European security, it’s about the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic area. Romania continues to support the current approach at the Euro-Atlantic level, showing that the country has been very actively involved from a diplomatic point of view in adopting decisions at NATO and EU level using its geographical position and strategic interest in the stability of NATO’s Eastern Neighbourhood and the European Union. I have said this constantly and I repeat that we are ready to host an increased NATO presence on our soil. In fact, following the announcements of the US and France, we are in contact with the two allies to establish concretely the arrangements for the military presence of the two partners.”
President Erdogan’s visit to Albania of strategic importance Anadolu, Jan 26 2022
It is estimated that more Albanians and Bosnians live in Turkey than in Albania and Bosnia. Most emigrated to Turkey after the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and during Yugoslavian rule in the 50s and 80s to escape systematic repression. They are organized in various Balkan and Rumelian associations and actively try to influence Turkey’s policies towards the Balkans. Therefore, whatever happens in the Balkans has a direct impact on Turkey as well. Turkey itself is an inseparable part of the Balkans. Turkey has done its best to promote relations with all Balkan countries, wherein Albania sits at the center of this perspective. Albania is a full member of NATO since 2013. It has the potential to directly influence events in Kosovo, as the second independent Albanian country; in North Macedonia, where Albanians conprise one third of the country; and Montenegro where the government directly depends on the Albanian minority. The country strongly supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina and opposes the nationalistic claims of Serbia to create Greater Serbia at the expense of Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Kosovo is only Kosovo because of pan-Albanianism. The agreements signed during the visit of Prime Minister Edi Rama to Turkey on Jan 6 2021 were a new and historic starting point. As a result of that visit, the Joint Political Declaration on the establishment of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council was signed between Turkey and Albania, which has been on the agenda for years, and relations between the two countries were raised to the level of Strategic Partnership. Cooperation between Albania and Turkey is built by NATO. Turkey has continuously provided military education to Albanian military personnel in various areas related to security, including logistics, modernization of the armed forces, and infrastructure of the Albanian army. Albania has signed a contract for the purchase of surveillance drones as well. Albania and Turkey also held many joint military exercises. Turkish policy-makers have always stated that Ankara supports the membership of the Western Balkan countries in transatlantic institutions. Many studies have shown that Turkey and the EU are not competitors in the Balkans but complementary actors.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Wednesday the extension of Operation Unifier for three years, and the deployment of 60 more troops to Ukraine in the coming days. Trudeau made the announcement following a cabinet meeting, alongside Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly, and Defence Minister Anita Anand. On top of the additional 60 personnel, Trudeau said there is capacity to increase the number of boots on the ground to up to 400. “The biggest contribution that Canada can make to Ukraine right now is people. We have trained, our soldiers have trained over 30k Ukrainian soldiers. We should not underestimate the importance of this training mission,” said Anand.
Democrats in the House of Representatives are planning to expedite a massive bill that would dramatically increase US security assistance to Ukraine and lay the groundwork for substantial new sanctions on Russia, hastening a war-friendly posture without opportunity for dissent as concerns over a military invasion abound. Pelosi told members on a caucus call Tuesday that she’s looking to skip marking up the bill and move it straight to the House floor, setting up the possibility of a vote as soon as early next week, two congressional sources told The Intercept. One of the sources, a senior Democratic aide, told The Intercept: “This is how the space for non-military options gets slowly closed off in Washington, without any real debate.” Last week, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Gregory Meeks introduced the legislation, which has 13 co-sponsors, as a companion measure to the Senate’s Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act proposed earlier this month. The Senate bill, introduced by Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez, boasts 41 Democratic co-sponsors, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Whip Dick Durbin and progressives Chris Murphy and Jeff Merkley. The legislation would send $500m from the Foreign Military Financing program to Ukraine for 2022. That amount would have made Ukraine the third-largest recipient of funding from the State Dept’s FMF account in 2020, surpassed only by $3.3b to Israel and $1.3b to Egypt. That year, the FMF program gave Ukraine $248m. The legislation would also give Ukraine priority for excess defense equipment transfer and funds to counter Russian disinformation through programs like RFE/RL. It would further aim to bolster Ukraine’s cyber-defense and direct the president to consider imposing sanctions on Russia in the event of a cyber-attack on Ukraine. The Democrats’ effort to accelerate the bill comes days after a group of senators met with Ukrainian leaders in Kyiv to extend US support for the country’s sovereignty. Despite the show of Democratic and Republican unity during the trip, no Republicans have co-sponsored Meeks’ or Menendez’s bills. Senate Democrats also have not publicly indicated the timeline on which they would like to vote on their legislation.
Stoltenberg has just finished an address and virtual press conference on NATO and the US State Dept separately presenting their written responses to Russia’s security demands of the past couple months. The Russian demands include a pledge for NATO not to admit Georgia and Ukraine, both which border Russia, into the military alliance, to guarantee that the US and NATO not base missiles in Ukraine within a few minutes’ striking distance of Moscow, and to withdraw forces and military equipment from some of the fourteen Eastern European nations brought into NATO since 1999. Those are reported to have been Russia’s demands. But there has been a disturbing lack of transparency on both sides. The State Dept has insisted that Russia not release or divulge the contents of the response it delivered to Russia within the past two hours, and today Russian government news media report that Russia has agreed to that stipulation. The American ambassador to Russia delivered the US response to the Kremlin late at night Russian time. The delivery wasn’t confirmed until that time, at least. The NATO secretary general was the first Western official to publicly speak about the US and NATO responses, although he spoke at night Belgium time, whereas it was the middle of the workday for Blinken and Biden. The US has just delivered 300 more Javelin missile systems to Ukraine, but rather than addressing Russia’s concerns over the steady US and military build-up all along its western flank, which is increasing by the day, Stoltenberg began his talk by insisting Russia withdraw its forces from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. What he was referring to was Crimea (and possibly the Donbass), the independent political entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Transnistria. There are 1,500 Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria and Russian troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia (reinforced since the Georgian-Russian war of 2008). Crimea has been part of Russia since 2014. The sole consolation he offered was more talk in several formats. Not a single compromise on anything specific. What Stoltenberg did by not mentioning them but the NATO partners who claim them as “occupied territories” (the exact terms used by the US and NATO), is to cast Russia as the aggressor in all four cases, a military occupier. In plain language, on behalf of the collective West, he gave Russia an ultimatum to retreat from the above four locations. Most ominously, he laid stress on NATO’s Article 5 collective military response mechanism. He also highlighted the fact that Biden recently announced the activation of the first tranche of 8.5k US troops for service with the 40k-troop NATO Response Force, a combat-ready, rapidly deployable strike force. Far from attempting to even symbolically assuage any of Russia’s concrete security concerns, the US and NATO are issuing diktats to Russia as above. By delivering the two responses to the Russian government at night, the West has assured its narrative reaches the world several hours before Russia can respond. The prognosis for peace is as dire as it can be.
US ambassador gives Russian Foreign Ministry US response to Russian security proposals TASS, Jan 26 2022
US ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan on Wednesday delivered Washington’s written response to Russian proposals for security guarantees to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko. “The head of the US diplomatic mission delivered a written response from the US administration to the draft bilateral agreement on security guarantees that was earlier proposed by the Russian side,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The meeting was requested by the US ambassador, who spent slightly more than a half hour inside the Foreign Ministry building. Lavrov told the State Duma earlier on Wednesday that Russia won’t publish a US response on security guarantees, if asked, but will disclose the general meaning of the replies. On Dec 17 last year, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft agreements on security guarantees addressed to the US and NATO, which say NATO won’t expand eastward, deny membership to Ukraine and limit deployment of serious offensive weapons, including nuclear ones.
US ambassador leaves Russian Foreign Ministry’s building without comment TASS, Jan 26 2022
US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan has left the building of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Smolenskaya Square, after being there for a little over 30 minutes, a TASS correspondent reported on Wednesday. The diplomat declined to comment both upon his arrival and after visiting the Russian Foreign Ministry. CNN reported earlier that the US intends to hand Moscow written responses to proposals on security guarantees as early as Wednesday. After Sullivan’s arrival at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Bloomberg reported that the US might send Russia a written response to the proposals on security guarantees. Against this backdrop, Stoltenberg announced that he would give an online press conference at 19:00 CET (21:00 Moscow Time). Lavrov told the State Duma earlier in the day that Russia would not publish a US response on security guarantees, if asked, but would disclose the general meaning of the answers. On Dec 17 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry published draft agreements on security guarantees that Moscow expects from Washington and NATO. The two treaties, one with the US and the other with NATO, stipulate that NATO would halt its eastward expansion, deny membership to Ukraine, and introduce limits on the deployment of serious offensive weapons, including nuclear ones.
Italian Jets and US Choppers Train Recovery Drills in Romania NATO, Jan 26 2022
Earlier in January, the Italian Air Force Eurofighter detachment supporting NATO’s enhanced Air Policing in Romania conducted multi-domain training with the US Army 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion of the 227th Aviation Regiment in eastern Romania. The activity consisted in the simulation of an operational scenario for the recovery of a downed pilot in hostile territory. Four Eurofighter 2000 aircraft were deployed to control the area identified and eliminate any threats. American Blackhawk helicopters then approached the extraction area to locate, secure and extract the survivor. On their way out of the extraction zone, Italian Eurofighters escorted the helicopters on their return to base move, where the downed pilot was taken care of. Colonel Morgan Lovisa, commander of the Italian Eurofighter detachment at Mihail Koglaniceanu, Romania, said: “Our air force team conducted Personnel Recovery drills with the US Army; Personnel Recovery is often referred to as the life insurance for combat pilots. It was a very welcome opportunity to conduct this exercise here during our NATO deployment in Romania. The cooperation of Italian Air Force and US Army on Romanian territory underscores the interoperability among NATO Allies and their ability to stage multi-domain drills together; this fosters cohesion of the Allied armed forces and their operational readiness.”
Degnan is emblematic of the new breed of post-Cold War American diplomats, using the term in the formal sense. She doesn’t speak the local languages, in her case neither Georgian nor Russian, though her website states she’s “learning basic Georgian,” no doubt as in “take my bags” and “do what I say or you’re fired.” Her academic training is in journalism and law, not international relations, history, languages or Caucasus area studies. What distinguishes the model is its unbridled entitlement and universal contempt for other “inferior” nations, cultures and peoples. Her comments follow, but to understand her and her type the next two paragraphs from her site are useful: “Ambassador Degnan was the Senior Civilian Representative to Brigade Combat Team Salerno in Khost, Afghanistan, where she earned the Sec State’s Expeditionary Service Award, one of many awards she has received throughout her career. Ambassador Degnan was also the Political Advisor to the four-star Commander of US Naval Forces Europe and Africa, and the Political Counselor at the US Mission to NATO. In Washington, Degnan served as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Dept of State under John Kerry, as a Special Assistant to Sec State Madeleine Albright, and as a Special Assistant to three Under-Secs State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, William Burns and Nicholas Burns.”
Degnan helping “Georgia fulfill its trans-Atlantic destiny.”
In the lengthy address celebrating the 30th anniversary of US-Georgian diplomatic relations, Ambassador Kelly Degnan highlighted that “we face a resurgent, revanchist Russia, intent on reinstating its empire through establishing a privileged sphere of influence.” Noting that Russia has “clearly demonstrated its lack of respect for Georgia and other countries’ sovereignty,” she asserted that it is the only country in Europe occupying the territory of sovereign nations. [NATO troops in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia evidently aren’t in that category for her.] She stressed that Georgia has repeatedly faced Russian aggression over the centuries: “Dating back to 1801 when Russia annexed the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in violation of the 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk, then again in 1921 when the Kremlin invaded and occupied the Democratic Republic of Georgia in violation of the Treaty of Moscow, and of course, more recently in 2008. It was Russia that crushed Georgia’s first Republic in 1921, desecrated Georgia’s churches, and unsuccessfully tried to smother the Georgian language. In stark contrast to Russia’s disrespect for Georgia’s culture, faith, language and traditions, the US, Europe, and Georgia have a common vision of shared prosperity, freedom, and dignity based on mutual respect.” [Russia is not in Europe, is instead a primitive Asiatic backwater, in her advanced cosmopolitan view.] Meanwhile, Ambassador Degnan reaffirmed that in Washington there is a “strong interest and bipartisan support” for the common goals of the US and Georgia. “The US has a huge interest and desire to see Georgia fulfill its trans-Atlantic destiny.” She also underlined US efforts to modernize the Georgian Defense Forces, Coast Guard and Border Police, pointing out: “The US has invested over $1.5b in helping Georgia strengthen its resiliency, defend its borders, and support its territorial integrity. The US understands that our global network of alliances and partnerships is our greatest strength, and Georgia is a valued part of that network. That is why the US supports Georgia’s membership aspiration toward NATO, where Allies work together to promote…our collective security.”
The US government warned Belarus that the White House could take action against Minsk if Russian troops invade Ukraine from the Belarusian territory, State Dept spox Ned Price said during a briefing on Jan 25. Price remarked: “If Belarus allows to use its territory for the attack on Ukraine, it will face a quick and determinated response from the US and our allies.” Besides, NATO could also revise deployment of its forces in the neighboring countries if the Russian troops remain in Belarus permanently.
‘We have a sacred obligation’: Biden threatens to send troops to Eastern Europe Politico, Jan 26 2022
During the commander-in-chief’s trip to a gift shop. Biden said: “I made it clear to President Putin that we have a sacred obligation, Article 5 obligation to our NATO allies, and that if in fact he continued to build up and/or was to move, we would be reinforcing those troops.”
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have received about 300 Javelin missile systems and 79 tonnes of security assistance from the United States, the US embassy in Kyiv said in a statement. “Tonight, the third shipment of $200m in assistance authorized by President Biden arrived at Boryspil Airport in Kyiv. The US stands with Ukraine, and we will continue to provide Ukraine the support it needs,” the embassy sad on Facebook.
Additional defense support to Ukraine provided by USA, UK, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic Interfax Ukraine, Jan 26 2022
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has thanked the US, Great Britain, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and the Czech Republic for providing additional “defense support” for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Kuleba said at an online briefing on Wednesday: “Despite the fact that our state is not a member of NATO, and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not apply to Ukraine, we are grateful to the US, Great Britain, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and other NATO members for providing additional defense and security support to our Armed Forces, some by their readiness for the coordinated imposition of sanctions against Russia. Some are strengthening the Ukrainian army with weapons and military equipment. Some are strengthening cyber-security. Some help us to keep the financial and economic system calm and stable. We are grateful for the support of our partners at this time of challenges, but it will be in vain if we, Ukrainians, do not do the same.”
For years Western governments, their loyal oppositions and their servile (and controlled) news media have portrayed the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin as irrationally hostile toward NATO, often contrasting his alleged behavior to that of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin. The above characterization of Putin is inaccurate. He didn’t say much if anything about the unprecedented NATO expansion in 2004, when seven nations (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) were incorporated into the military bloc. Six of those were formerly in the Warsaw Pact and three of them former republics of the Soviet Union which now border Russian territory. When Putin was prime minister in 2010 President Dmitry Medvedev attended the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, the first time any Soviet or Russian head of state had done so. The following year Russia offered NATO the use of an airfield at Ulyanovsk for the transport of non-lethal aid for the war in Afghanistan. If there’s anything noteworthy about Putin in regard to NATO over the past twenty-two years it’s the indisputable fact that he has not challenged it. Nevertheless (if not indeed exactly because of that), for the past several years, particularly since April of last year, he has been accused in the West of bearing a visceral, virulent, ineradicable animus toward NATO, which is portrayed as something barely short of a social service agency instead of the usurpation of the OSCE and the UN it is. As has been typical of wars waged by NATO, openly and in a barely disguised manner, as those against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, the propaganda model has never varied. It can be described as that of the three Ds: demonize the leader, dehumanize the people, destroy the nation. Yugoslavia, the first test case, no longer appears on the map. How would what the US touts as a reasonable Russian leader have dealt with the current Ukrainian crisis? How would the person Putin is regularly compared to, and never to his credit, Boris Yeltsin, have acted? He who was the most complacent, the most compliant pro-American head of state in Russian history, routinely coached by American ‘advisers’? Roughly two weeks into NATO’s air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, the first such war against a sovereign European nation and the first time a European capital was bombed since WW2, Yeltsin made a comment that was published in newspapers and on websites around the world. What even the most subservient, the most forbearing of Russian leaders said was this: “I told NATO, the Americans, the Germans, don’t push us towards military action. Otherwise there will be a European war for sure and possibly world war.” The news articles containing that quote also reported that the then-chairman of the State Duma, Gennady Seleznyov, stated Yeltsin had issued an order to point Russian strategic (nuclear-tipped) missiles at the NATO nations involved in the war against Yugoslavia. A spokesman for Seleznyov later “clarified his remarks,” but the message had been delivered. This was in reference to a nation that was separated from Russia by two others (Romania and Ukraine) and not one that shares over 1,400 miles of land and sea borders. Not one, Ukraine, where over a decade ago the US Missile Defense Agency discussed deploying components of the US-NATO anti-ballistic missile shield. What the world should be amazed at is not Russia’s misgivings over NATO effecting a cordon militaire along what the alliance terms its eastern flank, from the Arctic Circle to the South Caucasus, thus blocking Russia off from Europe, but the fact that it’s taken so long for Russia to voice those concerns.
According to a recent international Gallup poll, the US is overwhelmingly considered the greatest threat to world peace, with Pakistan, China, North Korea, Israel and Iran (in that order) trailing distantly behind. The Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars cost trillions of dollars and killed millions of people (mostly civilians). We now regret starting them, and never would have if we’d had a basic understanding of the situation we were getting into. We’re about to embark on a new war with Russia, a far more formidable foe. Full-scale nuclear conflagration isn’t inconceivable. Those who underrate the possibility of nuclear apocalypse haven’t looked carefully at the numerous times we’ve come close in the past. Consider the Russians’ point of view. Since the hopeful days of Perestroika and Glasnost, they’ve seen a nuclear-armed NATO expand right up to their borders. Does anyone remember how the US reacted to nuclear missiles 70 miles from our coast? Can we blame them for feeling threatened? Russia has demanded a guarantee that Ukraine not become a member of NATO. American negotiators call that non-negotiable. We’re teetering on the edge of unimaginable horror. Why aren’t Americans who yearn for a peaceful world speaking out? Why aren’t you?
The Independent has put out an early (and strong) entry for “Worst Journalism of the Year” award, reporting yesterday the death of Hungarian gymnastics coach Szilveszter Csollany under the headline:
Anti-vax Olympic gold medalist Szilveszter Csollany dies of Covid, aged 51
The glaring issue with this headline becomes clear just three paragraphs into the article:
While Csollany had, according to (Hungarian newspaper) Blikk, expressed anti-vaccination views on social media, the six-time World Championship medallist had been vaccinated to allow him to continue to work as a gymnastics coach.
The journalism is terrible, criminally bad. The evidence supplied for Csollany’s supposed “anti-vaccination views” is non-existent. Second-hand hearsay, at best. No direct quotations, no sources provided. OffGuardian would be ashamed to publish something so flimsy. Any outlet should. But, of course, that isn’t the most egregious part. The supposed “anti-vaxxer” had been vaccinated. To bury that in the body, under that headline, is deliberate deception. They know many people will read the title and assume he hadn’t had the vaccine without ever reading the body of the text, and they are relying on that to spread an intentionally false impression. The very definition of disinformation.
After deliberately misrepresenting the man’s life, they proceed to do the same to his death. Not even granting him the respect of an honest appraisal of his last weeks alive, they totally ignore all the relevant questions pertaining to the man’s health. They never question why a previously healthy 51-year-old would ever need to be put on a ventilator, or consider how ventilator-associated pneumonia or ventilator-induced trauma may have contributed to his death. The article readily admits he died “of Covid” despite being vaccinated, but never even attempts to explain that, sparing a throwaway sentence suggesting “he contracted the virus soon after receiving his jab, and thus had not built sufficient levels of antibodies,” which is not supported by any medical opinion or sources. Having admitted he WAS vaccinated, and only a short time before he died, the article never considers even for a second the obvious logical conclusion: That the vaccine may have played some part in his death, or killed him outright. It doesn’t even refute the idea, it simply refuses to acknowledge its existence.
But really, the worst aspect of this black hole of integrity is not the deliberately misleading headline, or the lack of even the most basic journalistic ethics, it is deeper than that. There is an unspoken message concealed within the tone of the writing, and a shifting of linguistic definitions that comes with it. The implied thought buried in the text is that, even though he was vaccinated, his alleged doubts mean he was still an “anti-vaxxer” and therefore deserved to die. That he brought the Covid curse down upon his head through his expressing “anti-vaccination views.” As if he called down God’s wrath through speaking heresy. This is not the first time we have seen the narrative try and separate the meaning of “anti-vaxxer” from a person’s vaccination status. In Australia the Northern Territories Premier Michael Gunner recently told the media:
If you support or give comfort to anybody who argues against the vaccine, you are an anti-vaxxer, I don’t care what your personal vaccination status is.
Yes, in Australia an anti-vaxxer can be a vaccinated person who “gives comfort” to someone who argues against the vaccine, they don’t have to agree with the anti-vaxxer they simply have to tolerate them. It’s a dark age belief system, where to even hear heresy spoken is to be tainted by it. This is all part of the redefining, really the broadening, of what people even mean by “anti-vaxxer” in the first place. Yet more “pivoting of our language.” Szilveszter Csollany is accused of “expressing anti-vaccination views” on social media, but in our current climate that can mean almost anything. Opposing vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, or the giving of untested vaccines to children. All have been described as “anti-vax” positions. You could have every vaccine you’ve ever been offered, but decline the Covid “vaccine” to wait for long-term safety data, and still find yourself branded an “anti-vaxxer.” And now, finally, you can actually be vaccinated, but be labelled an “anti-vaxxer” because you may have previously expressed doubts or asked questions.
The injection has become the quite literal equivalent of a religious rite, where your beliefs are just as important as your actions, maybe even more so. The vaccines are “safe and effective,” that’s the mantra for the modern age, chanted in televised chapels. In the beginning, people were told that if you were anti-vaxxer you would die, for the vaccines are the new blood of Christ, and by accepting them into your heart you are promised life eternal. This conditioning has gone so deep people are inverting it and spitting it back out: Now, if you die, you must have been an anti-vaxxer. Being vaccinated, but not believing in the vaccine, is just as bad as rejecting the vaccine, and you will remain unvaccinated in spirit. And like a modern-day ducking stool, if – like poor Szilveszter Csollany – you get the vaccine and die anyway, it shows only that your faith was not strong enough, you were secretly an anti-vaxxer at heart, and the press will say as much in your obituary.
The media all talk this way. I can’t tell if they do it dishonestly to create this bizarre atmosphere of religious fervour, or they don’t even realise they’re doing it because they’re so caught up in zealotry. And I’m not sure which is worse. Either way, the endpoint is clear: A world where being “anti-vaccination” is no longer defined by what you do, but by what you sayand think or even what you allow others to think. An all-purpose label, so vague as to be functionally meaningless, but universally applied to anyone who diverts as much as one degree from the mainstream course, turning them into an outsider who must be shunned. It really is a cult. There’s no other way to describe it.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Center for Disease Control, told the media on Friday that the CDC is intending to “pivot the language” regarding the Covid19 vaccines. Speaking to the press briefing, Dr Walensky had a very obvious message she really wanted to hammer home:
And what we really are working to do is pivot the language to make sure that everybody is as up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines as they personally could be, should be, based on when they got their last vaccine. So, importantly, right now, we’re pivoting our language. We really want to make sure people are up to date. That means if you recently got your second dose, you’re not eligible for a booster, you’re up to date. If you are eligible for a booster and you haven’t gotten it, you’re not up to date and you need to get your booster in order to be up to date.
You can watch the full briefing here. It’s pretty clear that “say ‘up to date’ not ‘fully vaccinated’” was underlined in the memo. As was “pivot the language,” but what does it actually mean? Well, that should be clear, it means people who were “fully vaccinated” will soon be “not fully vaccinated.” Can we take a moment to appreciate the term “pivot the language”? That is some nice newspeak, beautiful. Up there alongside “enhanced interrogation.” The use of the term “up to date” in place of “fully vaccinated” is likewise deliberately crafted political language, turning a hard-and-fast reality into an ever-extending continuum. Normalising the open-ended nature of the new “vaccinations.” We did warn you this would happen, you will NEVER be fully vaccinated. The good news is that this could be the breaking point for a lot of people who have gone along peacefully up until now, and if you doubt that just look how nervous Walensky is in saying it, and listen to how much trouble she’s going to avoiding the phrase “not fully vaccinated.” She knows this is going to alienate a lot of people. Could be our side is about to get some considerable reinforcements.
Degnan helping “Georgia fulfill its trans-Atlantic destiny.”
Niqnaq 