Concern in Israel that masses of E. Ghouta refugees will stream to its Golan border

Via Debka

A Russian promise on Monday, Feb. 26 to set an evacuation route for civilians to leave besieged Eastern Ghouta has sparked deep forebodings in Israel. This promise accompanied an announcement by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu that President Vladimir Putin had ordered a daily five-hour “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, which has left hundreds dead. It is estimated in Israel that between 50,000 and a quarter of a million inhabitants of the embattled enclave near Damascus may be directed through this evacuation route to Quneitra opposite the Israeli Golan.

Israeli authorities are fearful on two counts: In the absence of Syrian facilities, Israel will be confronted with the sudden responsibility to supply their basic needs for food, water, medicines and shelter; but, most of all, the certainty that hostile entities will exploit this mass exodus to disguise the infiltration of terrorist networks right up to Israel’s northern doorstep. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are already contending with these threats to their security.

The Russian evacuation route will initially serve to bring urgent food and medical assistance to the 400,000 inhabitants of Eastern Ghouta, who have been besieged for weeks under savage Syrian government, Iranian and Hizballah bombardment. But the evacuation will equally serve the Assad regime for distancing a large Sunni population away from Damascus. And so, rather than allowing the refugees to reach such population centers as Homs or Hama, they will be permitted to exit through a single door, one heading south to Quneitra.

DEBKAfile reports that the Russian truce-cum-evacuation initiative was prompted by more than humanitarian concerns. It was based on the positive start in the truce negotiations that the Assad regime has secretly launched with the two main rebel groups fighting in Eastern Ghouta. They are the Faylaq al-Rahman organization, which is linked to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and Jaish al-Islam, a collection of Sunni Muslim Salafi extremists. Both groups have committed to evicting from the enclave the fighters of Saryat al Tahrir, most of whose members are affiliated to Al Qaeda.
However, seen from Israel, the immediate consequence of a Russian-guaranteed truce of this kind will be the opening of the floodgates for a new peril to reach its northern border. As matters stand now, there is nothing much Israel can do except hold on and hope for the best.

ENDGAME RUSSIA: NATO SPRAWL INVADES EASTERN EUROPE, NO MORE ILLUSIONS

Written by Robert Bridge; Originally appeared at strategic-culture.org

In the past, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) justified its militarization of large swaths of Eastern Europe by pointing to the omnipresent threat of terrorism, or some ‘rogue’ foreign state, inherently understood to be Iran. Today the mask has slipped and it is no longer denied that NATO’s primary target is Russia.

But first, a trip down nightmare lane. The road to ruin – at least as far as US-Russia relations were concerned – began immediately following the 9/11 terror attacks. Three months after that fateful day, in December 2001, George W. Bush informed Vladimir Putin that the US was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a strange move considering that the treaty had kept the peace between the nuclear superpowers since 1972. This geopolitical “mistake,” as Putin rightly defined it, allowed the US to begin the process of deploying a missile defense system, smack on the border with Russia, allegedly to shield the continent against an attack by Iran. Never mind the fact that Tehran had absolutely no reason, not to mention the wherewithal, to carry out such a suicidal mission. But Washington has never been one to let facts get in the way of a forced move on the global chess board.

Endgame Russia: NATO Sprawl Invades Eastern Europe, No More Illusions

Thus, the Bush administration advocated on behalf of a land-based missile defense system with interceptors based in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. However, due to serious objections from Russia, not to mention the apprehensive citizens of the host countries, the plan had reached an impasse in 2008 – just as Obama was replacing Bush in the White House. Some would call that impeccable timing. What happened next can only be described as a devious sleight of hand on the part of Washington.

In September 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, announced to great fanfare that the US would “shelve” the Bush plan. This announcement was received in Moscow and beyond as a sign that America’s first black president was truly the real deal when it came to working on behalf of global peace. Suddenly, it appeared that the Bush reign of error had been an ugly anomaly, a bad eight-year dream. That grand illusion lasted for about as long as it took to read that sentence.

Barack Obama, the man who had seduced the global masses with his velvety albeit telepromoted delivery, shifted gears the very next day, announcing that the US would be deploying, in four phases, sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles in Eastern Europe instead. An opinion piece in the New York Times, penned by then Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, provided all the information to understand that the world had been hoodwinked.

“Steady technological advances in our missile defense program — from kill vehicles to the abilities to network radars and sensors — give us confidence in this plan,” Gates wrote. “The SM-3 has had eight successful tests since 2007, and we will continue to develop it to give it the capacity to intercept long-range missiles like ICBMs. It is now more than able to deal with the threat from multiple short- and medium-range missiles — a very real threat to our allies and some 80,000 American troops based in Europe that was not addressed by the previous plan.”

“We are strengthening — not scrapping — missile defense in Europe,” he concluded.

With the benefit of hindsight and common sense, it seems that Washington’s plan from the start was to move forward with the sophisticated SM-3 system; the bulky Bush initiative just provided the necessary distraction to usher in the advanced Obama plan, which presents a major threat to the global strategic balance.

But all that is ancient history compared to what is happening today. Under the guise of ‘Russia aggression,’ a concept that was peddled to the unsuspecting masses based on the fake news of a Russian ‘invasion’ of Ukraine and Crimea, compounded by claims that Russia somehow swayed the 2016 US presidential elections, US-led NATO has dropped all pretensions and declared open season on Russia. Combined with Donald Trump’s empty threat that the US would exit NATO if member states did not start spending more on defense (2 percent of annula GDP), Eastern Europe has become a veritable hothouse of paranoia-driven militarization.

In what the Kremlin has described as the greatest amassing of military assets on its border since World War II, NATO troops and hardware have set up camp from as far north as Estonia, down through Latvia and Lithuania, into Romania and Poland, where the rotation of US troops is now standard operating procedure.

Meanwhile, massive military games aimed at deterring the Russian bogeyman continue unabated on Russia’s border. In April, British journalist Neil Clark described just one of these exercises, dubbed Summer Shield. The NATO military exercises “got underway at the Adazi military base. Soldiers from Latvia, the US, Bulgaria, Estonia, Canada, Lithuania, the UK, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Germany and also non-NATO member Sweden are taking part in the drills,” Clark wrote.

He then went on to make a rather unsettling yet accurate observation: “Today’s mantra regarding ‘Russian aggression’ is the 2003 equivalent of ‘Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ to be repeated ad nauseum by anyone supporting NATO’s Drang nach Osten. And like the WMD claim, it’s based on zero evidence.”

Such reckless behavior would have been difficult to fathom less than a decade ago.

But these are brave new times, and American madness has settled upon the realm of foreign relations like a noxious cloud, forcing client states to crack open their tattered wallets or be left out in the cold when the big, bad Russian bear comes a knocking.

Consider the case of Romania, one of Europe’s poorest countries. Prompted by Donald Trump’s warning that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members must fork over 2 percent of their GDP on military spending, Bucharest just made a down payment on a $1 billion American-made M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System), as well as four new multi-function corvettes.

Romanian Defence Minister Mihai Fifor told Jane’s that these exorbitant purchases would “improve Romania’s national and allied defense capability” and emphasized that Romania’s commitment to the 2% of GDP spending cap “for the next 10 years is strong”.

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said, “We want those procurement programs to also strengthen our defence industry based on offset arrangements where possible”.

This was not the first American military incursion into Romania under the guise of guarding against Iran and other alleged rogue players.

In May 2016, the US activated its $800 million missile shield in Romania, which Russia obviously views as a direct threat.

“At the moment the interceptor missiles installed have a range of 500 kilometers, soon this will go up to 1000 kilometers, and worse than that, they can be rearmed with 2400km-range offensive missiles even today, and it can be done by simply switching the software, so that even the Romanians themselves won’t know,” Vladimir Putin told reporters during a visit to Greece in May 2016.

“We have been saying since the early 2000s that we will have to react somehow to your moves to undermine international security. No one is listening to us,” Putin warned.

It remains to be seen how long NATO tone deafness will continue before the militarization of Eastern Europe gets completely out of control and the situation becomes untenable. Or perhaps the point of no return has already come to pass and, fait accompli, we are merely enjoying an illusory calm before the storm.

Comments:

Q: Since ABM systems cannot be used until the ICBMs have been launched, isn’t it an appropriate defense to attack these ABM systems, maybe 30 seconds before an ICBM launch?

A: It is well known that the MDS is not capable to defend against full scale nuclear attack from Russia. What US hopes for is that within 10-15 years it might become capable to defend against retaliatory counterattack after the first strike – meaning that, after a full scale nuclear attack against Russia, Russia will be left with less than 20% of it’s capability and then, they hope, they will be able to defend themselves with the MDS. That’s what I hear from military experts.

As of now, neither side is able to attack the other with ICBM’s because retaliatory counterattack is guaranteed to destroy the attacker – that’s what nuclear parity is all about. With the MDS program US is trying hard to tip the scale in their favor.

Natural gas sets the stage for an armed conflict in the East Mediterranean

Via GEFIRA,

Source: shutterstock.com

The efforts of individual countries to access the gas fields in the south-eastern part of the Mediterranean make the area very vulnerable to new conflicts and war and can also lead to a dispute within NATO and affect Europe’s energy security, putting the EASTMED pipeline in question. The war for natural resources is looming large.

The first problem is the relationship between Cyprus and Turkey. Ankara, the only capital which recognizes North Cyprus, says that all activities related to the extraction of gas in the Cypriot area are an encroachment on the interests of North Cyprus. While Turkey does not recognize agreements between Cyprus and other countries on the issue of economic exclusive zone (EEZ) or licenses for gas exploration in Cypriot territorial waters, Nicosia holds the opposite opinion. Ankara, through the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) puts forward claims that it is entitled to look for gas and oil in Cypriot waters and has the right to defend its interests there. Cyprus issued a number of concessions to various mining companies on more than half of the blocks (i.e. parts of the economic exclusive zone on which companies could explore gas or oil) located within the Cypriot EZZ. President Erdoğan warned Cyprus and international gas exploration companies that the violation of Turkish interests would have bad consequences.1)In the middle of February 2018 the warning was made good and so the Saipem 1200 mining vessel operating for Italian company – Eni was blocked by Turkish ships. Italy responded by sending a military ship to the area.2)This shows how explosive the situation is now that two NATO member states want to pursue economic goals without backing them with diplomacy.

It is worth mentioning that also in February a Turkish coast guard boat rammed a Greek patrol ship in the Aegean Sea,3)which shows that the Turkish government is willing to use military force.

The deepening cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Israel and Italy regarding the EastMed gas pipeline project4)is another flashpoint. The new pipeline, whose aim will be to supply gas from the Caspian Sea to Southern Europe, would weaken the transit role of the Turkish TANAP.

Another potential conflict is the one between Turkey and Egypt over the rich Zohr gas field discovered only in 2015. Ankara does not recognize the 2003 Cypriot-Egyptian EEZ accords and the 2013 sea border agreements between Cairo and Nicosia, which assign the Zohr gas field to Egypt.5)6)At the beginning of February 2018, the Egyptian government warned Turkey that further interference in this area would be met with a decisive reaction.7)

The relations between Turkey and Egypt are already strained. Though Turkey was a supporter of the Egyptian Brotherhood and Mohamed Mursi, who took power in Egypt in 2011, nowadays there is no love lost between Ankara and Cairo, because in 2013 the Trukey-friendly government was toppled. In a 2016 interview, President Erdoğan gave vent to his anger, calling the current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a “putschist” who killed thousands of his own people.8)

The sea area between Israel and Lebanon is the most explosive area, which extends along the edges of three Lebanese gas exploration Blocks: 8, 9, 10 of which Block 9 is said to be the most profitable and is claimed by Israel. In the first half of February 2018, Lebanon signed a contract for exploratory and production works with Italian Eni, French Total and Russian Novatek.9)Since the works are to be carried out in Block 9,10)Israel described Lebanon’s action as “very provocative”,11)paving the way for a military showdown. In response to it, the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasr Allah threatened to target Israeli offshore gas platforms.12)

The Israeli media are already speculating about the third Lebanese war and suggest that the Hezbollah attack on Israel is inevitable.13)In mid-February, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that Washington could help resolve the dispute between Israel and Lebanon, but Hasan Nasr Allah refused to have talks with the United States, a dishonest broker. Hezbollah is supported by Iran as is Lebanon by Turkey. Tel Aviv accuses Ankara of supporting Hamas, while Turkey says it merely defends Islam and Palestinians.14)The presence of Israeli troops in Cyprus is perceived by President Erdoğan as interference in the Turkish sphere of influence. It was in June 2017 that Israeli commandos carried out the largest military exercises so far, aimed at counteracting a possible annexation of Cyprus by Turkey.15)

Gas deposits in the Eastern Mediterranean attract the attention of European, Russian, Iranian, Turkish and American armed forces. Cyprus occupies here a strategically important place. The number of players is a sum of the countries directly involved and their allies. Gas, like crude oil, has the potential of igniting a new wave of violent encounters between enemies and friends.

References

1. Erdogan warns Greece, Cyprus over gas search, Aegean islets, ABC News 2018-02-13.
2. Italy sends frigate to Cyprus’s EEZ, Ekathimerini 2018-02-13.
3. Greece says won’t tolerate border challenges after Turkish collision, Reuters 2018-02-15.
4. Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Israel sign MoU for East Med gas pipeline, New Europe 2017-12,05.
5. Egypt defends Cyprus gas deal after Turkey criticism, Daily Mail 2018-02-08.
6. Egypt rejects Turkey’s stance on Cyprus demarcation agreement, Energy Egypt 2018-02-09.
7. Egypt warns Turkey over eastern Mediterranean economic interests, Reuters 2018-02-07.
8. Erdoğan blasts Egypt’s ‘putschist president’ Sisi in al-Jazeera interview, Al Araby 2016-07-22.
9. Risking Israeli dispute, Lebanon signs deal with 3 oil firms, The Washington Post 2018-02-09.
10. Lebanon to begin offshore energy search in block disputed by Israel, Reuters 2018-02-09.
11. Israel, Lebanon argue over offshore energy block, Cyprus Mail, 2018-01-31.
12. Hezbollah threatens Israeli offshore gas rigs with missiles, Ynetnews 2018-06-02.
13. Rockets, missiles and more: predicting the third Lebanon war, Jeruselem Post 2018-02-09.
14. Turkey rejects Israel’s claim Ankara helps Hamas, The Jerusalem Post 2018-02-15.
15. Israeli Commandos Heading to Cyprus for Largest-ever Drill, Haaretz 2018-02-15.

Selling out Turkey to Russia

What I really think is that this is a charade. In fact, the US is making room and facilitating the full entry of Russia into the Middle East, its takeover of the critical gates to the Mediterranean Sea from the Turks, while at the same time facilitating the undermining of Israel through the setting up of a One-State Solution.

If the two-state solution is no longer in the cards, the only alternative is the one-state solution. Right? But isn’t that what the Iranians said all along? Isn’t that the position of Israel’s sworn enemy? Yes, the one-state solution, democratic and multi-cultural!

Trump is just a cover – and a soother of the Israelis’ worst fears, but in fact he is setting up their demise under the guise of US support. Every time there is a further retreat by the US from its strongholds in Syria, this time East Ghouta, all we hear about is North Korea and how hard the US might come down on them.

The North Koreans and the South Koreans, for those who follow at a minimum the latest developments, are doing just fine, hob-nobbing like two brothers at the Olympics, talking about concrete steps towards reunification, while all the MSM are on another planet describing an upcoming unprovoked war as a matter of convenience.

The US is actually assisting, in this way, in cleaning up thousands, tens of thousands of an overpopulation of disposable young Arab males, while at the same time assisting in giving control over Syria back to its legitimate government, under Russian ownership. Furthermore, it closes its eyes to the incredible advance of the Iranian and Hezbollah forces to the very border of Israel, while talking about “high minded” issues like the nonsensical Embassy move to Jerusalem.

By using the false issue of Kurdistan as a direct hit on Turkey, the US is basically pushing its ally into the arms of its centuries-old enemy, which is Russia. If Russia were to take control over the Bosporus and Dardanelles militarily, it would never, ever be able to subdue the Turk guerrillas who would oppose such a perceived humiliation. But if the Turkish government declares itself a vassal of Russia – their savior from the Kurdish threat, that would bring full legitimacy to its capitulation… even if the Turks fought against such an existential threat for about 500 years. All of that goes up like the vapors of a narghile pipe.

The end of the Cold War actually took place in-between 1979-83 with the final Madrid Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which means that the world is now being carved up in a different way, finally rolling up the loose ends, specifically the difficult-to-sell American retreat from Europe and the Middle East.

Gods we don’t believe in anymore, but pray to

Every large organization, especially nations and civilizations, is held together by a mythology, or narrative. What they do and how they do it is driven by the foundational narrative that instructs all of the participants.

Organizations fall when some inherent/foundational tenets in their narrative eventually come up against an uncooperative physical reality. Often, this is because the physical world has changed, and the myths now contradict the new reality. When that happens, you’d think the primary task of an organization’s elites is to manage the modification of the narrative myth to accommodate the new reality and continue as a renewed/redefined entity thereby.

However, what they typically do is try to save the narrative at all costs. That narrative, after-all, is what places them in a privileged position, and so they have a vested interest in keeping it alive. Change is necessarily going to place their position at risk. As long as fundamental concepts need only modification, this can be handled. If fundamental concepts have to be jettisoned, the enterprise and their place in it is necessarily subject to far greater risk of going out of control. I suspect this is largely what happened to the Soviet Union as it tried to modify its fundamental principles. It went out of control, and was hi-jacked in a weak moment. So, the result is inertia until a dam breaks somewhere and the floodwaters carry the whole thing away.

The USM’s mythology/narrative problem is a fractal of the West’s much larger mythology/narrative problem. The whole Western enterprise is founded on a 500+ yr old mythology that is running headlong up against new realities. Its ideas of Progress, of Exceptionalism, of being the pinnacle of Development of Justice and Governance, are running into the realities of resource depletion, economic and martial decline, and a lazy, decadent & corrupt political elite, as against competitors who are on the opposite trajectory. To the the extent that the Pentagon’s mythology was written in the context of a surging West, it borrows much of Western mythology. The Pentagon hasn’t re-written its mythology, and probably can’t until the West re-writes the larger version.

In classical physics, inertia is proportional to mass. As the largest organization on the planet (or at least employer), it shouldn’t surprise us that the US DoD exhibits the most organizational inertia.

Solzhenitsyn’s Damning History of the Jews in Russia – a Review

 

“The Jews accumulated wealth by cooperating with each other. (p. 31).”

“They made profits by taking the peasants’ grain to the point of impoverishing them (and causing famine), turning it into brandy, and then encouraging drunkenness. (p. 21, 24).”

“Jews forced peasants into lifelong debt and crushing poverty by requiring payment, in cattle and tools, for liquor. (p. 31).”

Jan Peczkis

The translation of Solzhenitsyn’s book appears to have been done without permission from his family, and this might be why this lengthy and detailed review is no longer available on the page of the book on Amazon.com, where it originally appeared.

The book might disappear altogether from Amazon, so if you want to get your Kindle copy, act now. Otherwise you can find it on many sources on the internet.

Jews had enormous influence in the English and American media at the turn of the century – this is what most people in America and UK were told about Russian Jews (Click for Hi-Res image)
The translator, Columbus Falco, describes the censorship of this book when it appeared in 2002:

“Published in the original Russian in 2002, the book was received with a firestorm of rage and denunciation from the literary and media world, from the Jews, and from almost the entire intelligentsia of the established order in the West…

Immense efforts have been made by the Russian authorities and also by the Western liberal democratic power structure to ignore 200 YEARS TOGETHER, to suppress it as much as possible, and above all to prevent and interdict the book’s translation into foreign languages, most especially into English, which has become essentially the worldwide language of our epoch…

The Russian authorities have to this date refused to allow any official English translation of the book to be published”. (p. 2).

CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLZHENITSYN’S MAGNUM OPUS
So what is so naughty, naughty about this book?

Most of it consists of unremarkable information that can be found in standard, non-censored texts. [For details, see comments.]

Agree with author Solzhenitsyn or not, but recognize the fact that he is no lightweight. Solzhenitsyn goes into considerable detail about many different historical epochs, and clearly has a deep knowledge of the issues that he raises. His approach is balanced. He is sympathetic towards Jews as well as critical of Jews.

The latter evidently does not sit well with many, because it does not comply with the standard Judeocentric narrative, in which Jews are just victims and can do no wrong. Worse yet, a famous writer is bringing sometimes-unflattering information about Jews to light, and this is threatening. Hence the censorship.

JEWS IN 19TH CENTURY TSARIST RUSSIA
Far from living in oppression, Russia’s Jews not only had more freedom than the serfs, but also more than the Russian traders and merchants. (pp. 16-17), and this was also true of more recent times. (p. 45). Soon after the Partitions of Poland, Derzhavin visited the area and reported on the Jews in the then-current manorial society. The Polish nobility had turned over the management of their estates to the Jews (p. 21), and the Jews engaged in conduct that brought them short-term profits and long-term antagonisms.

Consider the PROPINACJA. The Jews accumulated wealth by cooperating with each other. (p. 31). They made profits by taking the peasants’ grain to the point of impoverishing them (and causing famine), turning it into brandy, and then encouraging drunkenness. (p. 21, 24). Jews forced peasants into lifelong debt and crushing poverty by requiring payment, in cattle and tools, for liquor. (p. 31).

In addition, a system of bribery protected this arrangement. Thus, the Polish magnates were on the “take” of part of the wealth squeezed by Jews out of the peasantry, and, without the Jews and their inventiveness, this system of exploitation could not have functioned, and would have ended. (p. 22). Solzhenitsyn adds that, “…the Jewish business class derived enormous benefit from the helplessness, wastefulness, and impracticality of landowners…” (p. 54).

The Jews kept moving around in order to prevent an accurate count of their numbers—in order to evade taxes. (p. 25). A delegation of Jews travelled to St. Petersburg to try to bribe Russian officials to suppress Derzhavin’s report. (p. 28). In 1824, Tsar Alexander I noticed that Jews were corrupting local inhabitants to the detriment of the treasury and private investors. (p. 32).

Jews were not forced into “parasitic” occupations: They chose them. (p. 31). By the late 19th century (the time of the pogroms), Russian anger had boiled over, focusing on such things as Jews not making their own bread, massive overpricing and profiteering, enriching themselves while impoverishing the muzhik, and taking control of forests, lands, and taverns. (pp. 78-80).

Nor is it true that the Jews were kept out of “productive” occupations. To the contrary. A concerted 50-year tsarist effort to turn Jews into farmers attracted few participants (p. 33), and ended in failure. (p. 58). None of the rationalizations for its failure are valid: Other newcomers to Russian agriculture (Mennonites, Bulgarian and German colonists, etc.), facing the same challenges as the Jews, did quite well. (p. 36). Jewish farmers neglected farm work (pp. 34-35), and kept drifting back into selling goods and leasing of their property to others to farm. (pp. 56-57). The century-later efforts by the Communists, to get Jews into farming, fared no better. (p. 208, 251).

Jewish resistance to assimilation is usually framed in terms of the GOY excluding the Jew. It was the other way around. For the first half of the 19th century, rabbis and kahals strenuously resisted enlightenment, including the proffered Russian education to Jews. (p. 38).

Jews have always tended to exaggerate the wrongs they have experienced from others. (p. 42). This applies to such things as double taxation, forced military service, expulsion from villages, etc. (p. 42, 46, 50).

The Jews of the Vilnius (Wilno), Kaunas, and Grodno regions sided with the Russians during the Poles’ ill-fated January 1863 Insurrection. (p. 69). This confirms Polish sources.

Mainstream Judaism did not conduct ritual murder. However, it is possible that some Jewish cults did so. (p. 40). [For more, see my review of BLOOD PASSOVER]. As for the PROTOCOLS, their authenticity was rejected early-on by the tsarist government. However, this did not erase legitimate grievances about Jewish influence. (p. 174).

JEWS IN COMMUNISM: THE USUAL EXCUSES

We often hear that Communist Jews were “not real Jews”. This nonsense is equivalent to saying that Lenin and other Russian Communists were “not real Russians”—a contrived distinction that Solzhenitsyn refuses to make. (p. 117). [For more, see comments].

One common exculpation for Jews supporting revolutionary movements, and then Communism, is that of the tsarist system preventing Jews from improving their lot. This is nonsense. Once the Jews accepted the Russian education system, their numbers increased, to such a spectacular extent (by about 1870: p. 63, 71), in Russian higher education, that quotas (numerus clausus) had to be imposed upon them. This nowadays-called affirmative action became necessary because Jews were wealthier and thus unfairly advantaged in schooling-related matters. (p. 88).

Hungary is instructive. There, Jewish grievances were the least valid. Hungarian Jews had enjoyed atypical freedoms and a high standard of living, and there had been no pogroms. Yet the 1919 Hungarian Communism was especially dominated by Jews, and was odiously cruel. (pp. 153-154).

Another exculpation for Jews in Communism was the alleged need for defense against pogroms conducted by the Whites. Not so. The massive influx of Jews into the Soviet apparatus occurred in late 1917 and 1918, but the White pogroms did not begin until 1919. (p. 121).

THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF JEWS IN COMMUNISM

One can easily make lists of Jews in high positions in the Soviet Union. Influential Jews commonly occurred at a rate 10 or more times the abundance of Jews in the USSR. (e. g, pp. 143-on, 225-on). [For more, see comments]. Whether or not motivated by “ethnic solidarity”, Jews in authority tended to promote other Jews to high positions. (p. 138).

However, the Jewish role in Communism goes far beyond what is apparent in any such “grocery list”. For instance, consider what some call the Judaization of academia, and its impact on the bloody events of 1917. Solzhenitsyn comments, “The February Revolution was carried out by Russian hands and Russian foolishness. Yet at the same time, its ideology was permeated and dominated by the intransigent hostility to the historical Russian state that ordinary Russians didn’t have, but the Jews had. So the Russian intelligentsia too had adopted this view.” (p. 98).

Now consider the October Revolution. Lenin contended that the Bolshevik success in the revolution had been made possible by the role of the large Jewish intelligentsia in several Russian cities. (p. 119). Furthermore, according to Lenin, the October Revolution was preserved by the actions of Jews against the attempted sabotage by government officials. (p. 128).

The energy and high intelligence of the Jews made them indispensable. (p. 129, 189). In fact, Solzhenitsyn suggests that Soviet Communism lost its ideological fervor, and began slowly to die of “Russian laziness”, already in the late 1960s, all because the Jews were largely gone. (p. 317).

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

Dekulakization was not just an economic measure. It was a tool to uproot peoples and destroy their traditions and culture. For this reason, Stalin’s dictatorship can in no sense be accepted as a nationalist (Russian) phenomenon. (p. 221).

Religious Judaism was never persecuted as intensely by the Communists, in the 1920s and 1930s, as was Russian Orthodox Christianity. (p. 306). High-level Jew Lazar Kaganovich directed the destruction of the Church of the Redeemer. He also wanted to destroy St. Basil’s Cathedral. (p. 223).

The famous mobile gas chambers were not invented by the Nazis. They were developed, in 1937, by Isai Davidovich Berg, a leading Jew in the NKVD. (p. 237).

COMMUNISM IS OK—UNTIL IT NO LONGER SERVES JEWISH INTERESTS

Solzhenitsyn notes the irony that, in the West, there was little effective concern about the victims of Communism until it turned on the Jews. He quips,

“15 million peasants were destroyed in the ‘dekulakisation’, 6 million peasants were starved to death in 1932, not even to mention the mass executions and millions who died in the camps, and at the same time it was fine to politely sign agreements with Soviet leaders, to lend them money, to shake their ‘honest hands’, to seek their support, and to boast of all this in front of your parliaments.

But once it was specifically JEWS that became the target, then a spark of sympathy ran through the West and it became clear what sort of regime this was.” (p. 346; Emphasis is Solzhenitsyn’s).

NOWADAYS JEWS DODGE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY AND BLAME THE RUSSIANS

Alexander Solzhenitsyn describes the standard double-standard (one which Poles are all too familiar with), as he describes current Jewish attitudes,

“There are so many such confident voices ready to judge Russia’s many crimes and failings, her inexhaustible guilt towards the Jews—and they so sincerely believe this guilt to be inexhaustible almost all of them believe it! Meanwhile, their own people are coyly cleared of any responsibility for their participation in Cheka shootings, for sinking the barges and their doomed human cargo in the White and Caspian seas, for their role in collectivization, the Ukrainian famine and in all the abominations of the Soviet administration, for their talented zeal in brainwashing the ‘natives’. This is not contrition.” (p. 335).

Of course, Solzhenitsyn is not insinuating that Jews are collectively guilty for Communism. However, Jews should accept collective liability for Communism and its crimes in much the same way that Germans accept collective liability for Nazism and its crimes. (p. 141, 321). Until they do so, this issue of the Zydokomuna (Judeo-Bolshevism) will not go away.

JEWISH INFLUENCE IN COMMUNISM WAS FAR GREATER THAN ANY “GROCERY LIST” OF JEWISH COMMUNISTS

We keep hearing that Jews at no time constituted a majority of the leadership in Communism. This is technically true, but it does not tell the whole story.

Refer to: Esau’s Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, by Albert S. Lindemann:

To begin with, Jewish Communists were noted for their high intelligence, verbal skills, assertiveness, ideological fervor, etc. (p. 429).

Not surprisingly, few non-Jewish Communist leaders approached the caliber of the Jewish Communist leaders. For example, Lindemann reminds us that, “Jewish or gentilized, Trotsky was a man of unusual talents.” (p. 447). In addition, “Trotsky’s paramount role in the revolution cannot be denied…” (p. 448). This can be generalized, “Other non-Jews might be mentioned but almost certainly do not quite measure up to Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Yoffe, Sverdlov, Uritsky, or Radek in visibility inside Russia and abroad, especially not in the crucial years from 1917 to 1921.” (p. 432).

Finally, influential Jews did not have to act alone. In fact, Jews had the skill of influencing non-Jews to think in Jewish ways. Lenin can validly be understood as a “Jewified gentile” (pp. 432-433). The same can be said for the renegade-Pole Dzerzhinsky (p. 442, 446), as well as the Russian Kalinin, who was called by Jewish Bolsheviks “more Jewish than the Jews”. (p. 433).

I. JEWISH COMMUNISTS INFLUENCED NON-JEWS TO GO ALONG WITH THEIR THINKING

Let us elaborate on Feliks Dzerzhinsky. Refer to: The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police:

Author Leggett describes how Dzerzhinsky grew up in Vilna [Wilno, Vilnius], which he describes as a cosmopolitan city with a strong Jewish element and a focal point of socialist ferment in Tsarist Russia. (p. 34). He adds that, “Dzerzhinsky came under the influence of Martov, future leader of the Menshevik Party, by whom he was introduced into Jewish circles, both proletarian and of the intelligentsia; he made many Jewish friends and zealously learned Yiddish. The Bund—Jewish social democratic workers’ organization in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, founded in 1897—helped Dzerzhinsky in his political activity, for instance in late 1899. Dzerzhinsky’s close friend and schoolmate in Vilna was Mikhail Goldman…” (pp. 24-25).

The strong Jewish influence very much extended to Dzerzhinsky’s personal life. Leggett continues, “Goldman’s sister, Julia, was for several years Dzerzhinsky’s romantic love…formed a deeply romantic attachment, lasting from 1905 to early 1910, for another Jewish woman, Sabina Feinstein, sister of a prominent SDKPiL member. Very soon afterwards, in November 1910, Dzerzhinsky married Sofia Sigizmundovna nee Mushkat, who was likewise Jewish…” (p. 25).

As if to underscore the fact that Jewish influence in Communism is much greater than just the “grocery list” of Jewish Communists, Leggett writes of “Rosa Luxemburg [Luksemburg], celebrated for her intellectual brilliance and her political passion.” (p. 24). So intoxicated had “Bloody Feliks” (“KRWAWE FELEK”) Dzierzinski become of Luksemburg’s ideas that he actually clashed with Lenin on the resurrection of the Polish state. Only that it was the non-Pole Lenin supporting the restoration of the Polish nation and renegade-Pole Dzerzhinsky opposing it, in accordance with Luxemburg. (pp. 23-24).

The foregoing can be generalized. Refer to: The Crucifixion of Russia: A History of the Russians and the Jews A new English translation of Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn comments,

“The February Revolution was carried out by Russian hands and Russian foolishness. Yet at the same time, its ideology was permeated and dominated by the intransigent hostility to the historical Russian state that ordinary Russians didn’t have, but the Jews had. So the Russian intelligentsia too had adopted this view.” (p. 98).

II. JEWS AS THE “BRAINS” BEHIND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND THE EARLY SOVIET UNION

See my review of: The Rulers of Russia

III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JEWS IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AS NOTED BY SOME JEWS

See my review of: The new Poland,

IV. DECADES BEFORE THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, JEWS HAD PLAYED AN INDISPENSABLE ROLE IN KEEPING REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS GOING IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY, AND IN MAKING RADICAL MOVEMENTS EVEN MORE RADICAL:

See my review of: Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia

V. COMMUNISM PERMEATED MUCH OF PRE-WWII JEWISH THINKING, NOTABLY IN POLAND

Refer to: Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto

(My Review was Feb 12, 2012)

Moshe Arens wrote: “The years preceding World War II were a time when Socialists throughout the world were preaching the `class struggle’ and `solidarity of the proletariat.’ Many of them, not only avowed Communists, saw the Soviet Union as the pioneer and leader of this `struggle.’ This was also true in Palestine, where the Socialist Zionists had achieved a dominant position in the Jewish community.” (p. 7). The so-called “proletarian” camp included the Socialist Zionists and the non-Socialist Bund. (p. 9). Arens notes: “The Socialist Zionist movements, attached to Marxist ideology…” (p. 44). ZOB leader Anielewicz was a member of Hashomer Hatzair with its “Marxist approach to Zionism”. (p. 113). Hashomer Hatzair and Left Po’alei Zion showed their true colors (pardon the pun) in preferring that the red flag be hoisted over the fighting Ghetto instead of the blue-white Zionist flag. (p. 287).

ZOB leader Hersh Berlinski exhibited undisguised disloyalty to Poland as he said that his support was to the USSR over Poland. (p. 142). As for the Warsaw Ghetto rank-and-file soldiers, Arens refers to them as: “…younger generation, their orthodox Marxist thinking giving rigidity to their arguments.” (p. 106). Who can blame Poles for their reluctance to support the Uprising owing to its taint of Communism? (p. 71; 200-201; 226)

VI. A RATHER CANDID DISCUSSION, ABOUT JEWS IN COMMUNISM, BY LEADING JEWISH COMMUNISTS

See my review of: “Them”: Stalin’s Polish puppets

VII JEWISH COMMUNISM AS A FORM OF JEWISH NIHILISM

See my review of: Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism

——–

CONCLUSION: Since Jews Take Collective Credit for Their Albert Einsteins and Jonas Salks, Should They Not Also Assume Collective Liability for Jewish Mass-Murderers Such as Genrikh Yagoda and Lazar Kaganovich?

HOW THE MASSIVE OVER-INVOLVEMENT OF JEWS IN COMMUNISM LONG INFLAMED POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS

The ZYDOKOMUNA (Judeo-Bolshevism) cannot be wished away. In addition, the Jewish share of blame for Communism is not erased just because there were non-Communist Jews. Finally, since Jews regularly call on Poles to “come to terms with the past”, in a collective sense, for the actions of only SOME Poles, the Jews should be held to the same standard.
To learn of the dominance of Jews in the leadership of the early decades of the Soviet Union, please click on, and read my detailed review of, The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies).
See also THE RULERS OF RUSSIA, by Denis Fahey. (1940). Condon Printing Company, Detroit.
For details on the massive long-term Jewish overrepresentation in the leadership of the Soviet Communist Secret Police (the NKVD), responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people, please click on, and read my detailed review, of Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 26: Jews and Ukrainians.
Also see THE JEWISH CENTURY. My Amazon review is dated October 29, 2010.
For a scholarly Russian-language primary source on the Jewish leadership that had dominated the NKVD, please click on, and read my detailed English-language review, of Kto Rukovodil NKVD, 1934-1941: Spravochnik.

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Syria-Israel encounter – February 10, 2018

A long and overdue report regarding what happened on Feb 10, 2018 when the SyAAD engaged the Zionists; but we had to wait for a personal reason; and as always on this page, the blunt truth.

On 05:00 Feb 10, 2018 a formation of Zionist jets launched 16 Popeye Turbo ALCM (320km range) from Lebanese airspace toward Riyad Qayasa AFB (aka T4 AFB) which the SyAAD managed to detect and intercept the majority of. (we cannot disclose any more) after foiling their attack, SyAAD fired a single long range missile against the Zionist formation which after exploding the fragmented warhead hit a Zionist F-15 damaging it.

When the Zionist’s raid was foiled, a second Zionist formation took off to reattempt an attack on the SyAAF base; at 0600 few minutes after taking off, a Syrian S-200VE missile scored a direct hit against an enemy F-16I over the occupied Golan Heights and we all saw the aftermath. (The jet was downed while fully armed contradicting the Zionists’ media story that it was shot down after it “successfully” raided the Syrian airbase)

When their F-16I was shot down, the Zionist air force was put on full alert and attempted what is known as SEAD or “Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses” like they did back in 1982 in Southern Lebanon.

The first batch of long-range and anti-radiation missiles fired by the Zionists were completely shot down and non of it made it to its targets. They were hit with that surprise and for the first time in their history they Zionists attempted to overwhelm the Syrian Air Defenses by firing projectiles from outside of Syrian Airspace but most were without a specific target; and mainly to overwhelm the air defenses so that the projectiles and anti-radiation missiles might have a chance in hitting their attempted targets.

SyAAD also fired a short/medium range missile and destroyed an AH-64 Apache helicopter, while another one was damaged. The enemy claimed one of their choppers was out of services due to a mechanical error

After their miserable failure to hit anything significant, the enemy thinking that they had already overwhelmed the SyAAD, they sent an armed drone that entered the Syrian Airspace from the Lebanese airspace and was shot down over al-Zabadani

They only managed to hit a single air defenses guidance radar in the South, and a single launcher (we cannot specify but it was NOT an S-200 as they claimed)

An enemy F-15 formation attempted to target the Syrian Air Defenses from over Jordanian airspace, and again, an SyAAD S-200 scored a direct hit against another enemy F-15 near the Jordanian/Palestinian border line; parts of the missile and the F-15 were recovered in Jordan, but Zionist media and officials claimed that it belonged to the same F-16 that was downed in Occupied Golan Heights (So basically they are saying a jet that was hit with a 217kg warhead was still able to fly North where there are not airbases to land after being hit; this lie might work on civilians but not on us)

Syrian Air Defenses imposed what is known as A2/AD or Anti-Access/Area Denial that extended from Northern Damascus all the way over Southern Syria, Southern Lebanon, Northwestern Jordan and Northern Palestine; in which not a single enemy fighter was able to move freely and the enemy was going crazy trying to hit the Syrian Air Defenses batteries and failed. And you all saw SyAAD missiles and missile boosters over Lebanon and Jordan.

To give you an example of how the enemy lie regarding whether they hit their target or not; they claimed they hit all of their targets but wasn’t it few weeks ago when the Zionists claimed they have destroyed the S-200 regiment that fired a missile at one of their F-16s in Lebanon and we told you back then their claims are baseless and there was minor material damage?! Well evidently, the same battery they claimed they destroyed shot down one of their jets just few weeks after.

Finally, the Syrian Air Defenses put down the enemies “long hand” and showed the enemy again that just because Syrian command chooses not to move in certain occasions, it does not mean SyAAD is not capable of reacting; never mistake patience with weakness, and choice with inability. And we`ve always said that on this page way back since 2013.

This is what happened to the best of our ability to share in terms of details. Those who follow us know very well that we never share anything we are not sure of, and we never sell dreams nor sugarcoat events. Another post is coming regarding the aftermath and our personal thoughts.

Syrian Arab Army

Russiangate: Melania? . . . Et tu?

An acquaintance told me recently that Melania is ‘almost certainly a KGB asset‘. There you go, case closed…

Erebus says:

Your acquaintance is not wrong, but it was the GRU, who took over the operation when the KGB disbanded, in collusion with rogue, communist elements in SOVA (who recruited Melania in the mid ’80s and managed her early career) that added some of the clever touches we’re seeing today.

It is, of course plain to anyone who knows him that Trump had no plans to run for any Presidency, but that Melania’s constant insinuations skilfully massaged his ego to the point where he imagined himself in the Oval office, barking “You’re Fired” at anyone who came in. Once his candidacy was announced, the Kremlin’s political experts created and managed the strategies and tactics that Melania’s handlers fed to her and the later recruited Ivanka, who in turn fed them to Jared and the campaign staff. Everyone, you may recall, said they wouldn’t work, that they weren’t working, and that the polls were right, but Melania/Ivanka stuck to their guns. Of course, they themselves had no idea, but that’s why Trump thinks Ivanka walks on water.

Meanwhile, other GRU operatives were sowing weak, easily debunked evidence of “Russian collusion” amongst the American intelligence agencies, the DNC, Hillary campaign officials, and of course the media, selectively reinforced by verbal communications from deep, “reliable & trusted” sources from inside the Kremlin itself. This had the effect of causing the Crappers to believe they were on to something big, focused their attention on Trump (who remains oblivious) and his aides, but also manoeuvred them into exposing themselves publicly as the fools and serial liars they had ever been. Totally discredited, they’ll serve to cover Melania’s trail by making laughable anything they may say later should her’s and/or Ivanka’s operational covers be blown.

And that is how the Office of the President came to be run from the Kremlin via Trump Tower in NY, while the nominal POTUS goes to rallies, tweets, plays golf, and occasionally enjoys a little sword dancing. All in all, a daring operation, brilliantly executed. I swear that I’ve often seen the hand of the Serbian, and even elements of Czech intelligence services in this operation, but it’s all plausibly deniable. Wheels within wheels…

Anyway, one of the greatest intelligence coups in history, and the hand of Putin is evident throughout. We’ll see how good a POTUS Putin will turn out to be. Running the Presidencies of two opposing super-powers simultaneously, one of them by remote control, would normally present a challenge for any man, but the general consensus in E. European intelligence circles is that Putin’s actually enjoying himself. FWIW, those same circles say he’ll run off with Melania when this is all over, so take that with a grain of salt.

The US is Executing a Global War Plan

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Washington is moving inevitably on a global war plan. That’s the grim conclusion one has to draw from three unfolding war scenarios.

Ultimately, it’s about American imperialism trying to assert hegemony over the international order for the benefit of US capitalism. Russia and China are prime targets for this global assault.

The three unfolding war scenarios are seen in Syria, North Korea and Ukraine. These are not disparate, disassociated conflicts. They are inter-related expressions of the American war plans. War plans which involve the moving of strategic military power into position.

Last week’s massacre of over 100 Syrian government forces by American warplanes near Deir ez-Zor was an audacious overt assault by the US on the Syrian state. The US, along with other NATO allies, have been up to now waging a seven-year proxy war for regime change against Russia’s ally, President Assad. The massacre last week was certainly not the first time that US forces, illegally present in Syria, have attacked the Syrian army. But it seems clearer than ever now that American forces are operating on the overt agenda for regime change. US troops are transparently acting like an occupation army, challenging Russia and its legally mandated support for the Syrian state.

Heightening international concerns are multiple reports that Russian military contractors were among the casualties in the US-led air strike near Deir ez-Zor last week.

Regarding North Korea, Washington is brazenly sabotaging diplomatic efforts underway between the respective Korean leaderships in Pyongyang and Seoul. While this inter-Korean dialogue has been picking up positive momentum, the US has all the while been positioning nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 bombers in the region, along with at least three aircraft carriers. The B-2s are also reportedly armed with 14-tonne bunker-buster bombs – the largest non-nuclear warhead in the American arsenal, designed to destroy North Korean underground missile silos and “decapitate” the Pyongyang leadership of Kim Jong-un.

American vice-president Mike Pence, while attending the Winter Olympics in South Korea, opening last week, delivered a blunt war message. He said that the recent detente between North Korea and US ally South Korea will come to an end as “soon as the Olympic flame is extinguished” – when the games close later this month. This US policy of belligerence completely upends Russia and China’s efforts to facilitate inter-Korean peace diplomacy.

Meanwhile, the situation in Eastern Ukraine looks decidedly grim for an imminent US-led invasion of the breakaway Donbas region. Pentagon military inspectors have in the past week reportedly arrived along the Contact Zone that separates the US-backed Kiev regime forces and the pro-Russian separatists of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Donetsk’s military commander Eduard Basurin warned that the arrival of Pentagon and other NATO military advisors from Britain and Canada indicate that US-armed Kiev forces are readying for a renewed assault on the Donbas ethnic Russian population.

Even the normally complacent observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), charged with monitoring a nominal ceasefire along the Contact Zone, have lately begun reporting serious advancement of heavy weapons by the Kiev forces – in violation of the 2015 Minsk Peace Accord.

If the US-led Kiev forces proceed with the anticipated offensive next month in Donbas there are real fears for extreme civilian casualties. Such “ethnic cleansing” of Russian people by Kiev regime forces that openly espouse Neo-Nazi ideology would mostly likely precipitate a large-scale intervention by Moscow as a matter of humanitarian defense. Perhaps that is what the US planners are wagering on, which can then be portrayed by the dutiful Western news media as “another Russian aggression”.

US-based political analyst Randy Martin says: “It is undeniable that Washington is on a war footing in three global scenarios. Preparation for war is in fact war.”

He added: “You have to also consider the latest Nuclear Posture Review published by the Pentagon earlier this month. The Pentagon is openly declaring that it views Russia and China as targets, and that it is willing to use nuclear force to contest conventional wars and what the Pentagon deems to be asymmetric aggression.”

Martin says that it is not clear at this stage what Washington wants exactly.

“It is of course all about seeking global domination which is long-consistent with American imperialism as expressed for example in the Wolfowitz Doctrine following the end of the Cold War,” says the analyst.

“But what does Washington want specifically from Russia and China is the question. It is evidently using the threat of war and aggression as a lever. But it is not clear what would placate Washington. Perhaps regime change in Russia where President Putin is ousted by a deferential pro-Western figure. Perhaps Russia and China giving up their plans of Eurasian economic integration and abandoning their plans to drop the American dollar in trade relations.”

One thing, however, seems abundantly clear. The US is embarking on a global war plan, as can be discerned from the grave developments unfolding in Syria, the Korean Peninsula and Ukraine. Each scenario can be understood as a pressure point on Moscow or China to in some way acquiesce to American ambitions for global dominance.

To be sure, Washington is being reckless and criminal in its conduct, violating the UN Charter and countless other international laws. It is brazenly acting like a rogue regime without the slightest hint of shame.

Still, Russia and China are hardly likely to capitulate. Simply because the US ambition of unipolar hegemony is impossible to achieve. The post-Second World War order, which Washington was able to dominate for nearly seven decades, is becoming obsolete as the international order naturally transforms into a multipolar configuration.

When Washington accuses Moscow and Beijing of “trying to alter the international order to their advantage” what the American rulers are tacitly admitting is their anxiety that the days of US hegemony are on the wane. Russia and China are not doing anything illegitimate. It is simply a fact of historical evolution.

So, ultimately, Washington’s war plans are futile in what they are trying to achieve by criminal coercion. Those plans cannot reverse history. But, demonically, those plans could obliterate the future of the planet.

The world is again on a precipice as it was before on the eve of the First and Second World Wars. Capitalism, imperialism and fascism are again center stage.

As analyst Randy Martin puts it: “The American rulers are coming out of the closet to show their true naked nature of wanting to wage war on the world. Their supremacist, militarist ideology is, incontrovertibly, fascism in action.”

What Joe Biden — Thinker and Strategist — thinks

Former US Vice President Joseph Biden delivered an impassioned speech which alternated between attacking Russia and praising the US-led world order, while omitting the essence of the ongoing Cold War redux.

Biden, a former senator and America’s second-highest official for two terms, took to the podium at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Friday evening to deliver a moving speech about the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the “liberal world order.” He said NATO members must oppose these “malign activities” and stick to their values, even though the US did not do this under the administration he was part of.

Russia-bashing is a popular game for Western politicians nowadays. Biden was not the first speaker at the MSC to focus on the menace of the East, although unlike Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, he didn’t address his anti-Kremlin rally cry to a nearly deserted hall. On the contrary, it was packed full, including by some former Obama officials like John “you don’t invade a country on phony pretext”Kerry, the ex-Secretary of State.

And the audience heard a lot about how the Kremlin is so weak that it threatens the very core of the world order (don’t ask, just take his word for it).

Russia is a “nation in a serious decline,” Biden said, and it suffers from the stranglehold oil and gas have on the economy (Russian energy exports were 11.78 percent of GDP in 2016, amid the oil price crisis, compared to 20.32 in 2000). Russia maintains a “network of partnerships solely through coercion,” said the former vice president of a nation which has over 1,000 military bases throughout the world. Russia’s population is “aging and shrinking” (Russia’s demographic situation is typical among countries in which women can make careers, birth control is not frowned upon, and people are not forced to rely on their children in old age, although it is enduring a birth gap stemming from three generations ago, when 26 million people were lost in World War II).

The Kremlin is dealing with its weakness by undermining the West in general and “democratic ideals” on its borders in particular, the former VP believes, because “any alternative that can attract support jeopardizes the wealth, power and privilege of those oligarchs in charge.” For instance, Ukraine – which could be called Biden’s pet project – supposedly chose those “democratic ideals” in 2014, when armed mobs kicked out its democratically-elected president who already submitted to the demands of the opposition leaders. And then, the new Kiev went after Ukrainian people in the east who didn’t share such ideals, sending tanks against unarmed civilians and later shelling cities engulfed by rebellion.

But at least the government in Kiev enjoys a steadfast protection of its sovereignty – another value that Washington holds in great regard, according to Biden, and Moscow sees as nothing but a nuisance. The vice president can attest to that personally. He ordered Poroshenko to sack his prosecutor general or else kiss US-backed credit goodbye. But, well, the man was allegedly a “corrupt son-of-b***h.”

So how exactly is the Kremlin “abusing its power,” according to Biden? “By using its hard military power,” said the man who helped oversee the NATO destruction of Libya, once Africa’s most socially developed and richest nation. By “manipulating energy supplies” said Biden, a staunch opponent of having more gas pipelines from Russia to Europe – which would undermine Ukraine’s ability to blackmail Russia and Europe by holding its gas transit hostage, and incidentally prevent LNG (from America and Qatar) from being a more attractive alternative source for Europe. By “weaponizing corruption,” said the man whose son joined the board of directors of Burisma – a Ukrainian oil company – shortly after the US supported the Euromaidan.

But, of course, the biggest offense is Russia’s alleged election meddling all around the world. He berated Russians for buying political advertising on Facebook, which, according to the FBI, had no tangible effect on the outcome of the election. Biden called the ads “thousands of attempts to meddle” in the 2016 campaign.

“They have no damn right!” he roared. “No right whatsoever. It’s our sovereign right to be able to conduct our elections unfettered. Period!”

Yes, we know. American intelligence officials believe meddling in other nations’ elections is their job and won’t allow anyone else to cut in. America first!

But Biden has a few ideas on how to deal with the ‘weak-yet-very-dangerous’ Russia. The West needs more NATO, more cybersecurity, and more sanctions on Russia – sanctions which the US, conveniently, is not damaged by, unlike European nations. The West also needs to inform the public about how bad Russia is – because they are apparently not convinced that heating their homes with Russian gas or hearing what Russian media have to say compromises their ‘core values.’

The West also needs to “tell the Russian people the truth and where we stand,” which, Biden believes, will erode public support for the “small group in the Kremlin willing to do whatever it take to protect themselves and keep their illegal grip on power.” Because, again, this worked so well for the Ukrainians, who are now governed by honest, liberal-minded officials accountable to their people. Mikhail Saakashvili, Washington’s darling, used the term “mafia state” to describe them in a recent interview, but he may have a chip on his shoulder after being kicked out of Ukraine.

“I am still hopeful that the time will come – it may not come in the near future – but eventually the people of Russia will look West and out of that deep black hole they have been staring into for the last 150 years or longer,” Biden mused.

But Russians have been looking West for quite some time. And they have even been led “by the power of the US example,” as the whole world has been told to do. They are now simply ignoring the stipulation to “do as we say, not as we do.”

Alexandre Antonov for RT
@alantonov