Biden’s $61b and Kiev’s conscription crackdown: Ukrainians are fleeing the NATO bloodbath, not Russia
Editorial, Strategic Culture, Apr 27 2024
This week saw Biden proclaiming the Congressional passing of $61b in additional military aid to Ukraine as “a good day for world peace.” Biden’s exaltation is ghoulish. The obscenity is that more Ukrainians will be sacrificed for Western imperialism and its brutal neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. The clueless, cynical Western media narrative is that a freedom-loving democratic Ukraine is bravely fighting against Russian aggression. Ukrainian men are, according to this fairytale, courageously battling to defend their country and to save the rest of Europe from Russian invasion. That’s why the US Congress this week passed a bill to send $61b in more military aid to Ukraine. Biden had been desperately appealing to Congress to take a stand with Ukraine to defeat Russian aggression. America’s NATO allies have likewise reiterated the same nonsense mantra. Most people who live outside the echo chamber of Western media know this depiction is total baloney, to use one of Biden’s favorite catchphrases.
The conflict in Ukraine is a US-led NATO proxy war to strategically defeat Russia. The grand scheme got going after the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014. The Kiev regime, fronted by a conman Jewish puppet president Vladimir Zelensky, is a neo-Nazi dictatorship. It’s a corrupt junta where the elite like Zelensky have siphoned off billions of dollars and euros donated by Western governments courtesy of their unwitting taxpayers. This week we saw proof of the Kiev rump reich in action when it announced that it would cut off consular services to all Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 who are currently residing abroad. It is estimated that since the conflict escalated in Ukraine in Feb 2022 nearly five million Ukrainian citizens fled to EU states. Of these, about 20%, or one million, are adult males. The cutting off of consular services to any citizen by its government is an unprecedented drastic action. That alone should alert observers that the “government” in question is far from normal. Laughably, the Western media reported the banishing of consular services by the Zelensky regime as if it were somehow banal. In other words, they conveniently covered up for what is a disgraceful violation of international norms.
The reason for the Ukrainian embassies’ taking such action is to force Ukrainian males abroad to declare their details and register for a new conscription drive by the Kiev regime. Zelensky’s regime earlier this month passed into law much tougher mobilization powers to dragoon Ukrainian men into the armed services. The new law is deeply unpopular among Ukrainian people for sound reasons. They are being sent to the frontline to be slaughtered by vastly superior Russian forces in a futile war for the NATO side. It is estimated that 500k to 600k Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in more than two years of fighting. Millions more have been wounded and maimed. A whole generation of Ukrainian men has been destroyed at a rate that is on par with World War One-type carnage. According to the UN, the civilian death toll from the conflict is around 10k. All deaths are regrettable, but the relatively low number of collateral casualties is a testament to Russia’s efforts to avoid civilian targets. One may question, therefore, why millions of Ukrainians jumped in their cars and 4x4s to take up residence in Europe if they weren’t being targeted by Russian forces. It is also notable that most Ukrainians have gone to seek safety in Russia more than any other country in Europe. So much for Russia being an evil aggressor.
Zelensky and his NATO puppet regime make the preposterous claim that the Ukrainian military death toll is around 31k. Of course, the real, 16-fold higher figure must be denied, otherwise the Western propaganda would be shamed for the bloodbath that NATO and its regime have instigated. If for argument’s sake, the impossibly lower figure could be believed, then the question is why is the Kiev regime so desperate to launch its recent draconian conscription. Zelensky has talked about the need to recruit up to 500k new soldiers. This is an implicit admission that the higher death toll of 500k to 600k is indeed accurate if such many replacements must be found. When the Kiev regime announced its new recruitment drive earlier this month, it was followed immediately by a rush of Ukrainians to embassies across Europe to renew their documents such as passports and driving permits. The rush was because they did not want to have to return to Ukraine to renew their documents otherwise they would be subjected to forcible conscription. Already, there are myriad reports and videos (not covered by Western media to be sure) of Ukrainian males being snatched off the streets by Kiev regime thugs for military service. Many others have gone into hiding within the country. There have been scandals about Ukrainian families being extorted by recruitment officers for thousands of dollars to spare fathers and sons. Thousands of others have risked their lives by trying to swim across rivers to neighboring countries.
It is a measure of how vindictive and callous the Kiev regime is that it is taking the extreme measure of now denying consular services to its male citizens abroad. The objective is to flush out up to one million recruits for the killing fields along the 1k-km frontline with Russia in the east of the country. Here’s where the Western propaganda story becomes absurd. To avoid being dragged back to Ukraine, many of those living abroad are expected to renounce citizenship. If they do not have valid passports and cannot renew their documents they become stateless and illegal. That means hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will by necessity have to claim political asylum in EU states. In short, their predicament is that they cannot return to their home country out of fear of persecution. How ridiculous is that? The US and its European vassals have donated up to $300b in public money to prop up a regime whose own citizens are fleeing in fear.
The latest splurge of $61b by the US will not help Ukraine win the NATO-orchestrated proxy war against Russia. The largesse will merely prolong the agony of Ukraine and prop up the corrupt NeoNazi regime. Already, up to half a million Ukrainian soldiers have been slaughtered in a futile criminal war for Western imperialist interests. Many independent military analysts agree that the critical shortage is Ukrainian manpower. Zelensky and his henchmen are trying to squeeze more bodies into the abattoir. Washington and the European minions are feeding the military profiteering killing machine in tandem with the Kiev regime’s manhunt for new cannon fodder.
It’s heinous and diabolical. It’s also shockingly flagrant, unless that is, you rely on Western media for your “information.” The truth is the Western public is supporting a regime that even its citizens are cowering in fear of. It’s a double whammy. The West is subsidizing a regime that is needlessly killing its people instead of engaging in peaceful diplomacy with Russia to end this war. And millions of Ukrainians are living in European countries rent-free placing huge strains on housing and services for European citizens. All because Uncle Sam and European lapdogs are pushing a criminal proxy war. Ukrainians aren’t fleeing from Russian aggression. They are fleeing the horrible parasitic Ukrainian regime and the bloodbath that NATO has unleashed.
Israel uses foreign mercenaries in Gaza
Steven Sahiounie, April 27, 2024
The international community is not only silent about Israel’s genocide but also sends foreign mercenaries to fight alongside IOF in Gaza. The IOF summoned hundreds of reserve soldiers to reinforce its ranks in preparation for its ground attack on the Gaza Strip. To bolster their Israeli ranks the IOF promoted an influx of people holding Israeli passports and living in foreign countries. However, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that Tel Aviv contacted international security contractors to provide fighters to perform military tasks during its ongoing war in Gaza.
Pedro Diaz Flores Corrales, aged 27 years, is a former soldier in the Spanish army and had previously fought as a mercenary in both Ukraine and Iraq. In addition to this, he is known for belonging to a fascist political group, the so-called neo-Nazi movement, according to the Middle East website Monitor. The group is involved in illicit arms trafficking, as well as mercenary exploitation. Corrales justified his decision to fight alongside the IOF, and said that each participant in the fighting receives about €3.9k/wk salary, and perks associated with the tasks they perform. El Mundo reported that it had seen pictures of Corrales surrounded by mercenaries of different nationalities, including French, Germans, and Albanians, and even American Marines or members of the Special Forces who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, or Kosovo.
Last October, French media circulated news about a large number of French fighters joining the fight alongside the IOF. A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory revealed in the past the presence of hundreds of European mercenaries who volunteer for military service in the ranks of the IOF, as part of special forces, especially in the Gaza Strip. Organizations directly linked to right-wing Jewish and Christian groups within Europe are organizing projects and campaigns to invite Europeans to join the IOF, as well as to join campaigns to support illegal settler operations against Palestinians in the West Bank. Intending to use them in tunnels of Hamas, Israel offers Kurdish PKK terrorists $2.2k to join the frontlines in its genocidal war against Palestinians with thousands of terrorists and mercenaries already transported to Israel. The Israeli government made a contract with PKK terrorists, with whom they agreed to a salary of ₪9k ($2.2k) in addition to $25k compensation in case of death or injury.
Israel intends to use PKK terrorists in its land attack on Gaza, as it does not want to send its own soldiers into the tunnels of Hamas. Nearly 2k terrorists and mercenaries from Europe, Iraq, Syria and the US have moved into Israel. Peshmerga forces from northern Iraq have also been sent to the front lines in Israel. Calls are being made to recruit militants to fight for Israel, and many organizations have been carrying out extensive activities, such as the “Kurdish-Israeli Friendship Union” founded by Mordecai Zaken, the “Kurdish Institute” and the “Israeli Jewish Kurds.”
Israeli organizations have been negotiating with Peshmerga to send Kurds from northern Iraq to Israel, reminding them of the support given by the Tel Aviv regime to them since 1958. In Ayn al-Arab, an Israeli colonel and his team of seven people have been carrying out activities to find people experienced in urban warfare. The mercenaries recruited from Iraq and Syria were given Israeli citizenship identities. These were then transported to Israel by three planes. The last flight took off on Oct 29 from Erbil. Eight of those whom Israel sent to the front were killed in Gaza.
Kurdish singer and actor Idan Amedi, who plays in the Netflix TV series “Fauda,” announced that he voluntarily joined the IOF and shared images from the Gaza Strip. The IOF are using social media influencers like Amedi. Images of Amedi calling on Kurds to kill Palestinians are broadcast on Israeli television. Meanwhile, Duran Kalkan, one of the ringleaders of the PKK in Qandil, blamed Hamas and made statements in favor of Israel. There are a total of 4.6k foreign volunteers in the ranks of the IOF, in addition to many dual citizens from all over the world, whether in active or reserve service. Israel relies on private security contractors, most notably the local company Global CST. The mercenaries working for this company are accused of committing crimes against humanity in the conflicts in which they participated in Latin America, South Ossetia and Africa.
The PKK said they have sent 2k mercenaries to Israel to fight in Gaza. The PKK is an international recognized terrorist organization which has killed over 30k people in Turkey over three decades. The IOF are afraid to enter the tunnels dug by Hamas, and fear that they will not emerge from the tunnels alive, and for this reason they use PKK and other mercenaries for this purpose, and mercenary fighters from European countries, Iraq, Syria, and America have arrived in Israel. The Kurdish PKK members sent to Israel are mainly from northern Iraq, and were sent with the help of Masoud Barzani. It is estimated that there are about 200k Kurdish Jews in the area, some of whom have been sent.
Foreigners fighting for Israel in Gaza are war criminals and mercenaries along with the IOF. In December, Thomas Portes, a member of the French National Assembly, revealed a letter he had sent to the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti , asking him to investigate some 4,185 French citizens believed to have been fighting with the IOF. The letter, posted on Twitter, calls for the investigation of war crimes the French volunteers might have been participating in while fighting in Gaza, where war crimes have widely been reported. French volunteers make up some 45 % of the total foreign volunteers joining the IOF as mercenaries. In contrast, the French people have been pouring in their hundreds of thousands into the streets in support of Palestine and demanding a ceasefire.
According to Israel’s Defense Ministry report, published in 2016, Americans contribute 29% of the foreigners joining the IOF annually, followed by the British, at 5%. Some 100 Brits are currently serving in the IDF as it continues its genocidal war in Gaza. 80% of the mercenaries usually serve for 18 months within the ranks of the IOF and get the same pay and treatment as regular IOF personnel. The majority of them join the IOF’s combat infantry, responsible for the daily killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. On top of their regular monthly salaries, they receive nearly $7k after they complete their training. Not a single European country, or the US and the UK, has publicly warned its own citizens against joining the IOF. The foreign fighters have participated in the war crimes taking place in Gaza.
A study published in the journal of Sociological Forum in Jun 2022 reports that at least 1.2k Americans are serving in the IOF at any given time. The study found that, on any given year, some 3.5k foreign Jewish soldiers have been serving in the IOF over the last two decades. 21 American soldiers were killed when the IOF suffered its biggest single day loss in Gaza at the hands of the Palestinian Resistance fighters, who killed a total of 24 soldiers of the invading IOF.
While precise number of American citizens fighting in Gaza is unknown, they are thought to be in their hundreds. Since the Israeli attack on Gaza started on Oct 7, at least 10k people living in the US have received draft notices from the Israel army to report for duty. Many of them do have dual Israeli citizenship, making accountability for possible war crimes a tricky legal issue, despite America’s Neutrality Act, dating back to the founding days of the US, making it illegal for any American citizen to take part in any foreign war, or establish a militia for that purpose. However, the Act has not been reinforced recently, as hundreds of Americans have participated in wars in Ukraine, in Libya in 2011 and now in Gaza.
Besides the US, foreign fighters joining the IOF come from at least five European countries, including Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. According to Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, there were some 18k Italian nationals working and living in Israel when the war started, among them 1k who work for the IOF. Not a single Western government has, so far, taken any action to punish its citizens fighting for Israel as it carries out genocide in Gaza.
Israel has become the only country to openly support an independent Kurdish state, a result of good ties between Kurds and Jews. In Sep 2017, Israel became the first and so far only country to openly voice support for “the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own,” as Netanyahu said. The Kurds have been and will continue to be reliable and long-term allies of Israel since they are, like us, a minority group in the region, according to Kurd-Israel analysts.
The relationship between Israel and PKK and also the Peshmerga forces of northern Iraq, is nothing new. One of the biggest supporters of Massoud Barzani’s failed independence referendum in 2017 was Israel. While Israel was being established, many Jewish Kurds immigrated to Palestine. There are currently more than 200k Jewish Kurds living in Israel. Mickey Levy, who was once elected as the Speaker of the Knesset, is one of them.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has remained silent amid Israel’s escalating war in Gaza. With delicate political and economic ties to the US, Israel and Iran, it’s hoping to avoid being dragged into a regional conflict.
The Kurdistan Region is a pro-American island in a sea of anti-American sentiment. If the war escalates, there will be pressure on it from both sides. The two main parties are the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the main political power lies with the KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, who has studiously avoided commenting on the war in Gaza. Although the KRG has no official ties with Israel, the two governments have economic ties and Israel has supported the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.
Should the Kurdish authorities take a pro-US and Israel tilt in the war on Gaza, Iran-backed parties in Baghdad could decide to turn up the pressure on the KRG, and for this reason the Kurds are trying to avoid taking a position. They want to maintain a balance in the middle and appear neutral in the current war, while they will express sympathy for the Palestinians as a moral issue and consider the Kurdistan Region and its people to be uninvolved, say regional analysts. In contrast, the Kurdistan Region’s two Islamist parties, the Kurdistan Islamic Union and the Kurdistan Justice Group, have loudly condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
There are also economic considerations. Until the Kurdistan Region’s independent oil exports were suspended in Mar 2023, Israel was a major destination of Kurdish crude starting in 2014. According to media reports, it received 183kb/d in February, although the amount fluctuated from month to month.
The US are trying to make the Kurds partners with Israel. But, many Kurds take the side of the people of Gaza and the Palestinian resistance. Some have warned that the Kurds, who side with Israel in Gaza, would become a new target in the Islamic world together with Israel. For other Kurds, there is a sense of empathy with the Palestinian suffering, but they also feel that there’s an immense double standard against the Kurds. This is leading the Kurds to refrain from showing any public support for Palestinians.
The $61b question is what Trump does now
Martin Jay, Apr 26 2024
Until just a few days ago, no one in the world had heard of Mike Johnson. The Republican House speaker in the House of Representatives made world acclaim when he threw his weight behind an aid package for Ukraine totalling some $61b and throwing the cat among the pigeons in so doing. Johnson has made a lot of friends in the Democratic party and lost a few from his own party in making the aid package happen, while he insists that he was briefed by intelligence experts which urged him to rush the bill through. Perhaps he was offered incentives. We may never know. But the deal that went through was so unprecedented that it has left many Republicans wondering if there is any point in having a majority in the House at all, especially given that the southern border issue is still left hanging while Ukraine’s borders take precedent with US lawmakers.
The move was a decisive victory for Biden though, at least in the short term whereas for Trump many analysts are saying that his one master card he had to play during the elections, that he personally will stop the war in Ukraine along with the spending, has now been shown to be a busted flush. For Biden and for his western elitist surfs, the objective was clear: keep the business of war going as long as possible with Zelensky in power to extract maximum profits. The flawed thinking is of course that those who signed off the aid package are literally using the plastic sacks of cash as a way of keeping warm as they chuck it onto the bonfire of the vanities otherwise known as the war that Biden didn’t want but was very much brought about by a nervous reaction to the so-called election interference in 2016. The real flaw in the failed joined-up thinking is that the money will have some if any impact on the war itself. The real crisis Zelensky has is not so much with military hardware as he claims but more with infantry. This latest tranche of military aid will provide missiles, which is the new thinking from Kiev and the NATO knuckleheads. Just like the Americans were convinced they could win the war in Vietnam with air superiority, the thinking now in Ukraine is that missiles and missile defences are the game changer.
However, no one can blame Biden for the stunt which drew Trump in and made him now a signed-up member of the crankies. Analysts now point out that Trump has crossed one of his own red lines and will not have the punch it will require to win in December as he and many of his supporters actually backed the bill. Was he playing a bluff? Will he say once in office “I only signed it as I knew it would put Biden in a much tougher hole to climb out of but now I’m president, I’m going to stop the war in an instant by stopping the cash flow”? Hard to say. It’s hard to double-guess Trump’s mind, when he doesn’t even know himself and so many of his decisions are about his own self-preservation and glutenous business cravings rather than salient political common sense. But can this money have any real impact between now and December, given what we know about stockpiles in the US and how long it takes to get kit to Ukraine, even if it is ready and good to go? Russia will of course take advantage of this military failure of Zelensky and push ahead with their tanks on firm ground now, with the winter well behind them, with Biden playing a high-stakes gamble that Americans won’t be asking him in the middle of next winter how is it that he can’t find $160b-odd for fighting poverty in the US, while he can to pay the salaries of civil servants in one of the most corrupt countries on the planet.
Niqnaq 