> West Jerusalem has been sidelining diplomacy in favor of a “military solution” to the Gaza war, Moscow said
> Israel has been using peace negotiations to mislead the international community and hide its true intentions in Gaza, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky has said. > > Speaking at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Polyansky accused West Jerusalem of “stubbornly seeking a military solution to the problem, while attempting to ignore the decisions of the UNSC.” > > “The Security Council is united in the understanding that the rescue of the remaining Israelis and foreigners by military methods is impossible and that there is no alternative to negotiations. The Israeli society understands and recognizes this as well,” the diplomat said. > > “However, the Israeli leadership, unfortunately, continues to treat the negotiations only as a ‘smokescreen’ designed to distract the international community.”
> By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory
> On 6 August, a court in Berlin sentenced a young woman called Ava Moayeri to a fine of €600 for shouting “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” One of Moayeri’s lawyers, Alexander Gorski, deplored this as “a rather dark day for freedom of expression in Germany.” > > He’s right, even if his comment is an all too understated response to a scandalous miscarriage of justice. Indeed, it is hard to answer the question of what is wrong with this sentence, because, quite literally, everything is. Judge Birgit Balzer’s reasoning, for one thing, was embarrassingly shoddy, irresponsibly misinformed, and ethically and legally misguided, about which more below. > > Beyond Balzer’s failure to do justice to the important issue she had to adjudicate, the case and sentence also represent a larger problem, in Germany and beyond: the West’s perverse pampering of Israel. One form taken by this pampering is to allow the Israeli regime to abuse the memory of the Holocaust, a genocide targeting Jews, to claim impunity for its own crimes against humanity, including genocide targeting Palestinians. > > Balzer, too, explicitly invoked the Holocaust to justify her sentence. Yet Moayeri, the daughter of Communists from Iran, made clear that she has nothing to do with either glorifying violence or antisemitism. On the contrary, her concern is with showing solidarity to the Palestinian victims of Israeli violence and standing up for their rights. Balzer felt entitled to disregard this perfectly plausible position, attribute entirely unproven motives to Moayeri, and, on that fundamentally flawed basis, punish her. In effect, it is clear that Moayeri’s right to peaceful protest and a perfectly legitimate political position was suppressed to protect Israeli narratives from any challenge. And these narratives, in turn, are used to shield Israel from accountability for its crimes, and thus they also withhold help from Israel’s victims.
The whole article is worth reading and perhaps bookmarking as the author takes apart the legal case against this activist for Palestine showing how it doesn't even fit the standards of German law.
A leading name in cybersecurity, Crowdstrike was deeply involved in the ‘Russiagate’ hoax
> Before a faulty software update dragged the company’s name into global headlines on Friday, Crowdstrike had a long history of involvement with US intelligence agencies, and played a key role in the ‘Russiagate’ hoax. > > Crowdstrike released a defective update to its cloud-based security software on Friday that left an array of users around the world – including banks, airlines, media outlets, and government agencies – unable to use their IT systems. > > The company issued a fix within several hours of the problem being identified, but thousands of flights remained canceled or delayed into Friday afternoon, while hospitals, police departments, and businesses continued to report issues getting back online.
> [...]
>Less than a year after Crowdstrike was founded, Kurtz and Alperovitch brought on board former FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry to head up its cybersecurity consultation wing. By 2014, Henry’s department was issuing a flurry of hacking and espionage accusations against China, Russia, and North Korea, with information provided by Crowdstrike helping the US Justice Department issue indictments that summer against five Chinese military officers who allegedly hacked US energy corporations.
> [...]
> Crowdstrike was hired by the US Democratic National Committee to investigate the theft of data from its servers in 2016. Published by WikiLeaks, the data revealed that the DNC had rigged the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders, and that Hillary Clinton had effectively paid to control the committee. > > Crowdstrike concluded that Russia was behind the breach, with Henry testifying to Congress that the company “saw activity that we believed was consistent with activity we’d seen previously and had associated with the Russian government.”
News about the expiration of a Washington-Riyadh deal may be fake, but an arrangement that is key to the dollar’s success has eroded
> News about the expiration of a Washington-Riyadh deal may be fake, but an arrangement that is key to the dollar’s success has eroded
> It is said that works of fiction can often convey certain truths better than a newswire. That is perhaps the light in which to view reports circulating around the internet recently about the expiration of a 50-year ‘petrodollar’ treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia. > > The agreement is a piece of fiction. The spurious reports appear to have originated in India or in the murky tangle of websites aimed at crypto investors. There was an official agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia signed in June of 1974 and another, secret one reached later that year according to which the Saudis were promised military aid in exchange for recycling their oil proceeds into US Treasuries. The deal whereby Riyadh would sell its oil in dollars was informal, and there was no expiration date. The petrodollar system as we have come to known largely grew organically. > > However, this fiction points to an underlying truth: the petrodollar has entered a long twilight from which there will be no return. No other economic arrangement has done more to ensure American preeminence over the last half-century. Yet in its essence it represented an implicit oil backing to the dollar that would be maintained. To borrow an idea originally expressed by financial analyst Luke Gromen, it is ultimately America’s inability and unwillingness to maintain this backing that is gradually dooming the system.
> Origins of the Petro-Dollar
> When the US abandoned the dollar’s gold peg in 1971, thus ending the Bretton Woods arrangement, the international financial system was thrown into chaos. What ensued was a turbulent period of high inflation and major adjustments to the new reality of free-floating currencies. Untethered from even the pretense of a gold backing, the dollar unsurprisingly devalued and inflation ran rampant. By the summer of 1973, it had lost a fifth of its value against other major currencies. > > This should have marked the end of the two and a half decades of post-war dollar primacy. And yet quite a peculiar thing happened: the dollar’s role as reserve currency and primary instrument of trade only expanded. The reason is that the Americans managed to steer the oil trade into dollars, starting with the Saudis in 1974 and soon thereafter extending to all of OPEC. This established a de facto commodity backing for the dollar. Since the oil market is much larger than the gold market, it actually gave the dollar even greater scope. > > In exchange for agreeing to sell their oil in dollars, Saudi Arabia became a protectorate of the US military. Many have seen this deal as a Godfather-like “offer you can’t refuse” for the Saudis. > > It probably was a good bet. Many things have transpired in Saudi Arabia in the intervening half century, but one thing that has resolutely not happened is a color revolution or US regime-change operation.
> [...]
> China introduced yuan-priced oil contracts in 2018 as part of an effort to make its currency tradable globally. [...] What got the needle moving was the Ukraine conflict – or rather Washington’s unhinged reaction to it. And here we arrive at the meeting point of a deep-seated economic trend and a geopolitical flashpoint. > > With Moscow limited by sanctions in where it could market its oil, China significantly ramped up purchases of discounted Russian crude, with settlement in yuan. Legendary analyst Zoltan Pozsar called this development “dusk for the petrodollar… and dawn for the petroyuan.” > > It goes beyond China. The BRICS group as a whole has, as a stated objective, increasing trade in local currencies, an objective that has gained urgency in light of Washington's capricious and overbearing use of sanctions. India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer, has become the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude since 2022, paying for Russian crude in rupees, dirhams, and yuan. As the BRICS group consolidates and new financial infrastructure and trade networks coalesce, the non-dollar oil trade will only grow. > > In January 2023, Saudi Arabia even openly stated that it was willing to sell oil in currencies other than the dollar, [...] November of that year, the Kingdom sealed a currency swap deal with China, a surefire precursor of plans to do future business in local currencies. > > The petrodollar arrangement has been very good for the Saudis and historically they have not shown a strong eagerness to give it up. No doubt contributing to this is a certain hesitancy about breaking with the Americans. Things do not tend to end well for the leadership of oil-producing countries who stop doing the bidding of the US. Yet the times are changing and Riyadh seems to sense that.
>[...]
> The US is now fighting to maintain all the benefits of this broken system, the responsibility for which it is neither equipped nor willing to take any longer. If the dollar isn’t pegged to gold and isn’t even implicitly backed by oil, and Washington won’t preserve its integrity, then it is hardly up to the task of facilitating trade in critical resources. A system as deeply entrenched as the petrodollar won't disappear overnight, but when its economic foundation has eroded, it can only be maintained for so long by bluster and smoke and mirrors.
There's that hope again. The only question is how quickly. I won't live to see communism but it would sure be nice to live to see the fall of the last capitalist empire and hope on the horizon.
It's not about removing supply chain inputs. The US has no near term plans to cut off reliance on Chinese chemicals or other industrial inputs. However those are low value. The profit margins on them are low and it leaves China dependent on the US as customers to keep their own industry humming by producing products and services. The US wouldn't have cared if China forever remained a low value producer of Walmart toys, cheap cookware and chemicals, those were never threats to the US and its bourgeoisie.
By contrast, these things are targeted at things up the value chain, at high tech industries with high profit margins, places where important innovation with military applications and applications for the newest $1000 must have consumer treat good like smartphones or VR headsets, etc.
Who makes the money in a smartphone? Is it the contracted company making the chips and circuit-boards, the displays, RAM, etc? The company who assembles it? Or is it the company who puts it in a shiny store in the US for $1000? Most of the money is made at that last step and even some of the money at earlier steps is diverted into having to pay fees to license patents held by western countries and their vassals which is another way the west keeps China down and a lever they're increasing using to prevent them from producing goods at all.
They are not at this point attempting to completely sever trade, rather they are keeping out Chinese brands, this is a form of decoupling, it's targeted decoupling. They are also moving to try and reduce reliance on Chinese inputs in the categories you mention by trying to source from India among other places but that will take more time (a decade or decade and a half might be optimistic predictions on their part), however that doesn't matter in the near term as simply blocking these types of products has the desired effect (stated on multiple occasions) of keeping Chinese innovation down, of keeping them 10 years behind the US in terms of cutting edge technology.
I'm not claiming that China couldn't retaliate and gut-punch the US into a recession but they won't because it would hurt their own industry, hurt their image of impartiality, and hurt their plans for a peaceful rise and displacement of the US. So short of just not doing trade with the US suddenly, China doesn't have reciprocal levers of equal pain to pull to hurt US high tech because the west is already established in the high ground and thanks to multiple betrayals on the national security and spying front plus the fact that the US has been restricting their ability to buy (to suppress them) China has already begun phasing them out. Also such threats never cowed the US in the first place, Microsoft and NVIDIA and others went to the government pleading at times for more reasonable policies and were rebuffed because the choice was not keep the Chinese market and suppress China it was either suppress the Chinese competition and keep existing markets or keep the Chinese market for a while then lose all markets. At the end of the day having a walled garden where they are guaranteed no competition from Chinese companies is better than an open market where they are losing badly to superior products at better prices from China.
I'd say it's not superficial, it's just step 1 of the plan. The most important part. They've slapped restrictions on chip exports for NVIDIA, they've prevented ASML from selling China cutting edge lithography tech, China is trying other approaches but honestly they're not as good as the ASML approach and it will take years for them to get a real breakthrough into production which buys the west time and potentially distance in their minds. That's part one, to maintain dominance and markets for the profits of their bourgeoisie.
If it works there is a chance that growth slows in China, they experience problems and problems can lead to cracks, discontent and the possibility of undermining or a color revolution. Even if that doesn't happen it's laid the groundwork for turning the screws on China, for guaranteeing profits and markets for western bourgeoisie which will be safe from competition. Then comes step 2 "friendshoring" where they try to move those other things you mention out of China gradually, to India, to perhaps a newly de-industrialized and cheaper to operate in Europe whose social safety nets have been gutted in the name of militarism against Russia, etc. This may or may not be allowed but if it is then step 3 is slapping as much of an embargo on China as possible, sanctioning goods, starting color revolutions and fomenting terrorism along the belt and road to disrupt it, trying to squeeze it and Russia into a corner and seize the rest of the world for themselves with various methods to try to get a Soviet Union decline and break-up repeat scenario. Obviously the Ukraine situation and Gaza genocide have thrown the seeds for big wrenches for this part of a plausible plan but they can still do stages 1-2 which is cold war 2.0 with two spheres, either you're in the US sphere and get to buy from it or the China-Russia sphere and trade and direct purchasing by consumers between the two will be extremely limited. Of course this time you have a rising Africa and the US is not in the position of strength it was in the first cold war but it would buy them time.
So much for those people who thought the US was bluffing about decoupling. It was always going to happen gradually unless an actual conflict between the US and China in the SCS broke out.
And no, it was first Huawei, then Chinese cranes, then Tiktok, then DJI. Beginning to see a pattern are we? They've moved from high technology in the network sector they could actually plausibly make an argument for to industrial tech like the cranes and consumer entertainment like drones and tiktok.
Also likely a confession of US capabilities. If they're claiming Chinese drones can be used to take down US communications or launch hacking attacks then I guarantee US devices that phone home at all already have this capability and the NSA can do it with the flip of a switch to cause China problems.
Soon it'll be more consumer electronics brands, TP-Link is probably soon because they're like Huawei in that they're in the networking business, they're in millions of homes and businesses and they're a Chinese brand. After that they'll go after Chinese TV brands, Chinese everything. They'll still make your Xbox in China but it'll be a US corporation affiliated with the NSA that is pocketing most of the product with an implicit threat that they'll move off-shore to Vietnam or India if wages go too high for workers. Prevention of China moving up the value chain is in full effect and steaming on ahead.
We are entering scary times and things are only going to accelerate and get much, much worse. No one is pulling any brakes. There isn't going to be any wake up and pause to think moment, slowly this run-away train is moving and the bourgeoisie not presently on board will be swept up by the momentum just the same within a few years regardless of their desires to the contrary.
Let's not forget this push and this particular bill (though amended since) predates the October 7th rebellion against the zionists and all that has happened since.
It's not about crushing these particular protests (though their existence has lent impetus to crushing all avenues of media they don't control), it's about preventing the next ones. It's about continuing to have control of the narrative. And much more importantly than that is it's about profit for American capitalists. They can't invest in tik-tok, they can't profit off it, they don't own it. And lastly it's about global control. CIA tells their "former" officers in Facebook or Twitter or any other American company to prop up a color revolution in Mongolia or wherever? They do so with glee and give them data on anyone trying to interfere. CIA tries to tell tik-tok's global company to do the same? They'll refuse to honor it, say they'll comply only with US law with regards to activities in the US.
> A video of a Jewish woman arguing with Indians over anti-Israeli ‘propaganda’ has gone viral
> A Jewish woman from Australia was taken into police custody in the state of Kerala in southern India for tearing down posters supporting Palestine, Indian media have reported.
> A video of a heated exchange between a woman and the locals, who questioned her move, has gone viral on social media. In the footage, the woman can be heard claiming that the posters promoted “racism and propaganda.” The scene took place in the city of Kochi, known, among other things, as home to the oldest group of Jews in India, although just a handful of them remain.
> After a brief investigation, the woman was tried in court in the Thoppumpady ward of Kochi, according to the New Indian Express. Her friend was not arrested, as her involvement could not be established. Meanwhile, two officials from the Australian embassy have reached out to help with the legal procedures, according to Indian media outlets.
> The tourist has been charged under section 153 (provoking riots) of the Indian Panel Code (IPC), which is a bailable offence, at the Fort Kochi Police Station.
> A police complaint filed by the SIO notes that the banners showed pictures of a child standing in front of a battle tank along with a description reading “silence is violence, stand up for humanity.” After West Jerusalem launched its offensive in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, the organization’s president Syed Sadatullah Husani claimed that Palestine is the “most oppressed country in the world” and argued that support for Palestine is in India’s “best interests.”
The US has torpedoed Palestine’s bid to become an official member of the UN
> America was the sole Security Council member to vote against the resolution
> The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have paved a way for Palestine to become a member of the world body.
> Palestine is currently a “permanent observer state” at the UN that participates in many meetings but does not have voting rights.
> The draft resolution debated on Thursday contained a recommendation to the UN General Assembly to hold a vote on updating Palestine’s status within the organization. The document was rejected with 12 votes in favor, one against, and two abstentions.
> US Alternative Representative for Special Political Affairs Robert Wood said that “there are unresolved questions as to whether [Palestine] meets the criteria to be considered a state.” He argued that Palestine cannot be admitted to the UN as long as the militant group Hamas controls Gaza.
The usual "but what about Hamas" from the US that would be replaced by some other excuse if they didn't exist in order to allow their outpost of Isn'treal to continue the extermination and occupation of its genocidal settler white supremacist state.
> Speaking at the Security Council, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that the vote had shown that “for Washington, [the Palestinians] do not deserve to have their own state.”
> “Today’s use of the veto by the US delegation is a hopeless attempt to stop the inevitable course of history. The results of the vote, where Washington was practically in complete isolation, speak for themselves,” Nebenzia said.
> Palestinian Ambassador Majed Bamya said after the vote that the PA was “not deterred in our pursuit for Palestinian freedom and independence.”
> Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council who introduced the resolution, called Palestine’s admission “a critical step toward rectifying a longstanding injustice” and said that “Peace will come from Palestine’s inclusion, not from its exclusion.”
> Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour, at times emotional, told the council after the vote: "The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will and it will not defeat our determination. We will not stop in our effort."
> [The Zionist Occupation]'s Foreign Minister Israel Katz commended the United States for casting a veto.
Other coverage:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-vote-thursday-palestinian-un-membership-2024-04-18/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/18/us-veto-palestine-membership-request-united-nations-council
The “discovery” in Germany of Ukrainian kids ‘kidnapped” by Russia exposes Kiev’s lies, Russian ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova says
> Over 160 Ukrainian children allegedly “kidnapped by Russia” have been discovered living in Germany, the country's Federal Criminal Police (BKA) has confirmed.
> The head of Ukrainian national police, Ivan Vygovsky, on Wednesday hailed the discovery, telling national media that he had discussed the issue with Holger Munch, president of the BKA, during a meeting earlier in this week.
> Allegations by Kiev that Moscow kidnapped Ukrainian children en masse have been exposed as a lie after some of the purported victims have been found in the EU, according to Russian children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. She is among the officials to have been accused of abducting youngsters from Ukraine amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
> When asked for clarification by RT Deutsch, the BKA said its officers had identified the children after they were flagged as “kidnapping” victims by Kiev. Their personal details were checked against German records.
> The majority of the youngsters had entered Germany as refugees accompanied by their parents or legal guardians, the police said. In a handful of cases, suspicion of “unlawful transfer” remained, the statement added, without offering further details.
> Responding to the revelations, Lvova-Belova said Moscow has “long been drawing the attention of the international community to the fact that Ukraine has created a systemic myth regarding the children, who it claims had been ‘deported’ to Russia.”
> Last year, Lvova-Belova was named alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the key suspects in its investigation into the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of minors during the Ukraine conflict. Moscow dismissed the claim as politically motivated, arguing that Kiev had lied to the court about what in reality was an evacuation of civilians from areas affected by the hostilities.
> In her remarks about the German discoveries, Lvova-Belova said her office had identified multiple cases in which children described by Kiev as abductees were actually residing with their parents at home or in other nations, “never having been separated from their families.”
Reminder: this accusation was the basis for the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Putin as well as several other top officials and several sanctions.
The zionists almost have to start a war with Iran or at least draw it's ire and another attack. They've totally run out of sympathy from the people of the west, their propaganda isn't working in too many places and everyone is talking about the genocide they're doing. If they can hit Iran, get Iran to hit them back even harder or get into a war they can play the victim again and I think they hope that will allow them to paper over the genocide and replace it with everyone talking about how Isn'treal isn't great but Iran is worse, etc, etc.
Funnily enough the same liberals who love crying "whataboutism" towards us will be the first to buy the "shut up and support Isn'treal, do you condemn Iran or not, stop talking about the Palestinians" because they are a people divorced from historical events and context.
But who knows, maybe they'll chicken out and hit some proxies of Iran instead, declare that vengeance and go home if they think the US won't save them.
No but their landleeches might. The guy who found this out works for Amazon hosting and lived in an apartment complex that installed them. He investigated and complained about this and was brushed off.
Imagine if a Chinese company did this. Liberals would be hooting and hollering about Xi Jinping personally breaking into your apartment to rearrange your anime collection and take pictures of the files on your computer. There'd be immediate calls to ban the company from all business dealings within the US. But because it's a US private corporation that abuses the shit out of the proletariat there'll be a some pressure to fix it and they'll maybe eventually get around to doing it and get a slap on the wrist if anything for this and a slap on the wrist for the rent fixing collusion.
Much as how WW2 offered a reset on capitalism by destroying a lot of the means of production and allowed a struggling capitalism a shot in the arm, doing this, creating all these cheap labor markets (and it's working to do a bit of that at home with inflation and all that's going on, high rents, etc) will likewise give US capitalism a shot in the arm, more time to defeat China. It's a cold-blooded but rational plan assuming it is a plan and it could be.
And as long as the proletariat of the western world is complacent, blames China and Russia and maybe an inept long-departed figure-head of government and buys the anti-communist propaganda (or hijacks communist aesthetics with reactionary social pushes to drive people away) I fear we are still many decades away potentially from seeing socialist movements genuine socialist movements in the west gain any power if this type of thing works.
I'll admit it's not as great as it once was but I do think one reason the US especially wants to gut punch Kaspersky is because they're developed advanced security systems for industrial systems which Kaspersky previously revealed western backed state actors were very interested in trying to learn more about. These types of systems would be on the front line against western intelligence agency hacking campaigns.
Kaspersky actually set the standard for HIPs and behavior control some years ago, they're no longer an exclusive pack leader there but their software very quickly had a lot of granularity in control making it one of the better fully loaded packaged solutions.
Right now I don't see any good software that really has everything packaged together. It's all configurators and gui's for Windows systems plus bolted on other aspects like firewall control.
The former president encouraged his party to scuttle a bill that was used by the FBI to spy on his campaign
> The former president encouraged his party to scuttle a bill that was used by the FBI to spy on his campaign
> A group of conservative lawmakers have defeated an effort by House Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a vote on funding the FISA surveillance act. While the act once enjoyed bipartisan support, the GOP’s pro-Trump faction have soured on it since it was used to wiretap the former president’s campaign.
> Drafted in 2008, Section 702 of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) grants US intelligence agencies the power to monitor messages from abroad made through American networks like Google. The provision, which must be reauthorized every year by Congress, also allows these agencies to ‘indirectly’ collect data from millions of American citizens.
> Once collected, this intelligence is stored for five years, during which it can be searched – for example by name, phone number, or email address – by the agencies without a warrant.
> Ahead of an April 19 deadline to renew Section 702, 19 conservative Republicans opposed a procedural vote on Wednesday that would have brought the measure – along with three other ùnrelated bills – to a full floor vote later this week. With 193 votes in favor and 228 against, the floor vote has effectively been postponed unless Johnson can win back the support of the 19 defectors.
> Among the dissidents are stalwart backers of former President Donald Trump, like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. Other Republican critics of the surveillance state, like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, voted to bring Section 702 to the floor, arguing that they deserve a chance to hold an open “vote on whether the government needs a warrant to spy on you,” Massie wrote on X.
> “I will not support any version of FISA that doesn’t protect Americans from spying by our own government,” Greene said after Wednesday’s vote. “The American people deserve transparency in this process.If we can’t protect our citizens from their own government, then FISA SHOULD DIE!”
> Prior to the vote, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to encourage Republicans to “KILL FISA.”
> “IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS,” Trump continued, adding: “THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!”
> Back in 2016, the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page. However, the agency’s warrant application was built heavily on a dossier of salacious and unproven gossip collected by former British spy Christopher Steele, and omitted key information that would have ensured its rejection.
> Along with a group of progressive Democrats, Gaetz, Greene, and other conservatives want a renewed Section 702 to come with amendments prohibiting the warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
> After Wednesday’s vote, Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill that he would “reformulate another plan” to pass the contentious legislation, without giving any further details. The bill “is too important to national security,” he added. “I think most of the members understand that.”
Very cool to be honest. Very good to see this kind of thing happening.
How about you share your opinion and stop caring about what others think and what internet circle-jerk chamber you're in. Right or wrong, at least you'll be in a position to be your genuine-self and maybe just learn something about the other side and your own position by doing so.
Washington appears desperate to absolve Kiev of any blame in the terrorist attack on Moscow, while failing to invite trust
> Washington appears desperate to prevent Ukraine from being associated, in any way, with the horrific murderous rampage in the Russian capital
> By Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the Valdai Club
> The United States of America is trying to control and manipulate the media and political interpretation of the tragic terrorist attack in Moscow last month. In the Western information space, Washington is forming a narrative to try to distract attention from its proxy, Ukraine.
> At certain points, ISIS was a useful tool for the Americans in Syria. There is published evidence suggesting that the US operated in parallel with the terrorist group against the Syrian government. The fact that Washington was ready to offer a coherent version of events from the first minutes after the attack in Moscow is in itself extremely paradoxical.
> Consider this. The Americans have spent decades trying to determine the cause of crimes on their own soil, such as the assassinations of leading US political figures. They lack the resources, attention and enthusiasm to determine who was behind the sabotage of pan-European energy infrastructure: the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
> However, within 15 minutes, they provided “accurate” information about who organized the terrorist attack in Moscow.
> I am convinced that the Russian government has no intention of defending ISIS if this organization is indeed behind it. The statements of President Vladimir Putin and senior officials show that the Russian position is strictly based on facts. They indicate that the terrorists who carried out the attack were heading towards the Russia-Ukraine border, which they intended to cross.
> Does this mean, to interpret the American line, that ISIS and the Ukrainian government are coordinating their actions? The creators of this tale should have thought several steps ahead about what conclusions could be drawn from it.
> What’s clear is that the US is trying to fill the information vacuum, to offer its interpretation of events in order to divert any suspicion from those it needs now – it looks like some sort of cover-up operation. After all, when American leaders are taken by surprise and such episodes occur, intelligence chiefs often admit directly in congressional hearings that the services did not foresee this or that event. In the case of the Moscow attack, however, the Americans suddenly came up with a coherent version of events within 15 minutes. This is reminiscent of how, within 24 hours of Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 American elections, false accusations of Russian involvement in the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States were beginning to circulate.
> Kiev understands that its own space for maneuver is shrinking and its resources are being depleted. In fact, it is fighting “on life support”: if the flow of resources dries up, the conflict will stop then and there. All that remains is the gradual radicalization of its own people. Ukraine’s habit of dehumanizing its opponent promotes increasingly irrational thinking, and it is only a short step away from justifying terrorist acts.
> I believe that the calibrated, reasoned, fact-based line that the Russian government is now taking will eventually lead us to a point where we know exactly who ordered this crime. We see a significant gap between how calmly and rationally (as much as possible in this situation), our country’s top officials are handling the investigation and how our Western opponents are trying to present us with their pseudo-reality. The aims of the organizers of the terrorist attack will not be achieved: one of them was to strike at the weak points of our society.
I will note all US connected cyber-security companies from anti-viruses like Norton and Trend Micro to the British (Five Eyes) Sophos to various bespoke companies that provide investigative services and more specialized software are FULL to the brim with "former" NSA, FBI, CIA agents. And are in fact (not accusation) all little more than cut-outs for the US/Five-Eyes intelligence alliance and subject to their full use for data collection, not adding their own government malware even when discovered organically to signatures until a foreign company does, and knowing of course the software's internal weaknesses and bug that such government malware may exploit to evade.
The US has long had anger towards Kaspersky because one of their foolish contractors who was writing malware for them used it on his computer, it's job includes finding and sending samples of new novel malware back and it found some he was writing and sent it. Kaspersky claims they deleted the information but the US government has been on a crusade against it earlier than that to be honest because it has helped states like Iran against things like Stuxnet and other US government malware campaigns.
But it's more than that, it's part of a wider campaign to push Russian and Chinese companies out of high technology, to hurt them, to weaken them, to injure and maim them. And it's part of the same sphere of things as pushing Dutch company ASML to shoot itself in the foot by not selling to the Chinese which weakens both the Chinese and a European company so is a good thing.
Kaspersky has long been ahead of the pack among traditional AV's, not because of its signatures which are no longer an advantage for any company but because of its other modules such as Host Intrusion Prevention/Behavioral Analysis and Control.
What's unclear to me is whether they will simply stop sales and prevent them from collecting money or if the ban is intended to prevent their distribution of updates, to do DNS stuff to attempt to break the functionality of the application and criminalize Americans using it.
What's interesting is Kaspersky has also long been a favorite of pirates as it famously played well with cracked software, was less prone to false-flagging and more accurate in its assessment of what was a real threat and what was just cracked suspicious software.
The White House is reportedly preparing to impose a complete ban on software made by Russia’s Kaspersky Lab
We'll see if this holds up in court but I have a feeling the walls are closing in, the boot is falling, the illusion of freedom Americans have been granted will be stripped away soon.
This is not an isolated thing, it happens in the context of things like pushes to force logging on VPN providers, to crack down on piracy, to further control the internet and technology space.
How soon before we can talk of a US great firewall against foreign software of Chinese or Russian origin?
And unlike Chinese and Russian bans which have no reach, no long-arm of the law approach that can force the rest of the world to comply via financial sanctions, the US has the ability to actually impose these bans successfully not only on its own population but on the world if it so wishes.
> The use of Kaspersky Lab’s products is seen as a threat to national security, officials in Washington reportedly say
> Washington is planning to bar US businesses and individuals from using software created by the Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed government officials familiar with the matter. The move is seen as “unprecedented,” as measures of the kind have never targeted private companies and citizens.
> The comprehensive ban is currently being finalized and could be imposed as soon as this month, the sources told the news network. The new regulation would use “relatively new Commerce Department authorities built on executive orders” by Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump to prohibit Kaspersky Lab from providing certain products and services in the country, they added.
> According to the sources, the order is aimed at mitigating risks allegedly posed by Kaspersky’s software to critical US infrastructure.
The same old story in other words, vague, unspecific, without any proof allegations of possible harm to national security without an explained mechanism or proof the threat exists.
> As part of preparatory works for the move, the US Department of Commerce has made an “initial determination” to ban certain transactions between the Russian cybersecurity company and US citizens, the sources added.
> They haven’t, however, provided any details regarding the full scope of a final order against Kaspersky products, but said that it would focus on the firm’s anti-virus software.
> In 2022, the Federal Communications Commission placed the internet-security provider on a list of companies deemed a threat to US national security. Following the move, Kaspersky said in a statement that the decision had been made on “political grounds” rather than on the basis of “a comprehensive evaluation of the integrity of Kaspersky’s products and services.”
> In 2017, US regulators banned federal government use of Kaspersky software. Back then, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited increased fears that the firm had ties to state-sponsored spying programs as a key reason for the move.
> Later, the company filed two lawsuits against the decision taken by the Trump administration, saying the bans were unconstitutional and that they caused Kaspersky Lab undue harm. In 2018, the District of Columbia court dismissed both cases, having upheld the ban imposed by Washington.
This was definitely an interesting read, I've never heard of the Marxist he references before though.
A possibility of conflict with Russia or China in space is no longer theoretical, General Stephen Whiting of US Space Command has said
> China has built a “kill web over the Pacific Ocean to find, fix, track and, yes, target US and allied military capabilities,” Whiting said, describing Beijing’s efforts as moving at “breathtaking speed.”
> Since 2018, Russia has doubled and China has tripled the number of their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites in orbit, while also testing and fielding anti-satellite weapons. Meanwhile, the US has “the world’s best space architectures,” but its military constellations are “optimized for a benign environment,” he said.
Oh my goodness, you mean just like the US who has built a web of surveillance over the entire world and established a separate branch of its military just to counter, attack, subvert, and militarize space?!?
The same US that once complained when the US attempted to move NSA assets to compromise a Chinese satellite that it moved away and evaded them at speed?
Lol, optimized for an environment of total dominance where others can't fight back or field the same capabilities.
> Russian and Chinese space weapons “hold at risk our modern way of life and how we defend this nation, and we must be able to deter and counter these threats when called upon to achieve space superiority,” the general said.
Yes, they will be part of deterrence to destroy your imperialist capitalist way of life by removing any advantage and crippling your ability to control the rest of the world.
Translation: Give us more money to further militarize space in an ill-conceived attempt to maintain dominance and the ability to destroy enemy capabilities that can only ever end in a Kessler syndrome.
> Washington recently accused Moscow of having undisclosed anti-satellite capabilities, possibly nuclear in nature. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the US claims were “unfounded” and a ploy to manipulate arms control talks. The Russian embassy in Washington has also accused the US of using “Russophobic slogans” to mask its own plans to militarize space.
Russia has every right to deploy any kind of anti-satellite capabilities against the belligerent, aggressive, number one threat to peace the US including nuclear ones if those are needed to take out the vast array of cheap Musk Starshield/Starlink constellations in an all-out war of direct US aggression and as a way to deter them from starting one.
> Lloyd Austin said the US remains “committed” to funding [the zionist occupation], denying mounting accusations of genocide
> The United States does not have any evidence that [the zionist occupation] is committing genocide in Gaza as it carries out its war against Palestinian militant group Hamas, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said.
> Austin, who was delivering opening remarks on the Pentagon’s 2025 budget request, was interrupted twice by anti-[genocide] protesters who made it into the hearing room on Capitol Hill, demanding that the US “stop funding Isn'trael” and supporting a “genocide” in Gaza. The demonstrators forced the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to pause while police removed them from the room.
> Asked by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) if he agreed with the protesters’ claims of genocide, Austin said he did not.
> “We don’t have any evidence of genocide,” Austin replied. “I would remind everybody that what happened on October 7 was absolutely horrible.”
> Last month, UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese concluded in a report that there are, in fact, “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Isn'trael’s commission of genocide is met.”
> The UN has also warned of further humanitarian “catastrophe” if the Isn'treali Occupation Forces (IOF) goes through with a planned ground offensive in Rafah, the last remaining Palestinian shelter in Gaza. On Tuesday, Prime Minister [of the Zionist Occupation Regime] Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had set a date for the offensive to begin.
> Although the Biden administration has chided [the zionist occupation] for not doing enough to protect aid workers and other civilians in Gaza, it has refused to throttle back support for the IOF or to place conditions on weapons shipments.
> The Pentagon chief further stated on Tuesday that the US remains “committed” to assisting [the zionist occupation] in “defending its territory and people.”
Russian S-400 systems for Iran to defend itself from the zionist fascists when?
At this point it does seem smarter for Iran to play the waiting game. Sooner or later the guard of the zionists will lapse a little, if they strike back in 45 days or so it will be less expected. If they can afford to patiently wait even longer, into summer it will be even less expected.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that his government has picked a date for a ground operation in the Gaza city of Rafah
> A coalition partner has threatened to pull support from the prime minister should he fail to attack the Palestinian city
> Isn'traeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government has set a date for a major ground operation in Rafah, the last remaining Palestinian shelter in Gaza.
> The Isn'traeli leader is under pressure both from close ally the US, which sees the promised offensive as a major threat to civilians, and from members of his own coalition, who demand military action. Some 1.3 million people, most of them displaced from other parts of the Palestinian enclave, are estimated to be crammed into the city, which is located at Gaza’s border with Egypt.
> In a short video statement on Monday night, the prime minister said that achieving a victory over the militant group Hamas “requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen – there is a date.”
> Earlier in the day, Isn'trael’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu, stating that if he “decides to end the war without a broad attack on Rafah in order to defeat Hamas, he will not have a mandate to continue serving as prime minister.”
The Israeli air force is reportedly training to strike at Tehran’s atomic program should Iran retaliate for the Damascus consulate bombing
> The Israeli air force is reportedly training to strike “sensitive sites”
> If Tehran responds to the Damascus embassy attack by bombing Israel, West Jerusalem will launch strikes against the Iranian nuclear program, a London-based Arabic outlet has reported citing an anonymous Western security official.
> Two generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and several other officers were killed in the Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus last week. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed that Israel would “receive a slap in the face” in return.
> According to Elaph News, the Arabic-language online outlet operating from the UK, Israel has been training pilots to strike at “sensitive sites” in Iran, which might be those involved in Tehran’s nuclear program.
> The Sun noted that an Israeli attack on any of them would mark an “unprecedented escalation” in the Middle East conflict.
> The US “will remain supportive of Israel” and provide it with all the support, weapons and equipment needed for this mission, the source told Elaph. US President Joe Biden has assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington will stand by West Jerusalem “in all circumstances,” the source added.
Exactly the one I thought of. Glad someone saved it.
Oh wow do not reverse image search the source of this image. It looks like it's from some anti-feminist book. Complete cringe.
A lot to say without much actual proof. Those things COULD be used to persecute the LGBTQ+ community but that doesn't mean they are. As could many things, a country could selectively enforce all kinds of much more neutral sounding laws exclusively on gay people as a means of persecution.
I'm sorry but without any proof I'm not ready to go throwing them out and cede to liberals and reactionary anti-communist rainbow-washing forces that they are actually indeed so. There's so much misinformation about the DPRK it's not even funny.
If being gay is considered a decadent act by the government
That one IF is doing a huge amount of lifting, your argument falls apart when you take it out.
which it likely is,
Proof, we need proof, not "I feel like it is". And yes all countries have persons in them, including those attached to the party who hold backwards views on a variety of things.
In particular I'll note Eastern notions of frowning on something are not the same as western active persecution. There are also issues of things lost in translation. China doesn't criminalize being gay but they very much crack down on LGBTQ-CIA organizations (we need a Buttigieg rat emoji) that advance a western, liberal slant.
I make no claims they are some bastion of rights for queer people as they're likely not given their history and material circumstances but I think this whole post is making a mountain out of a molehill of evidence. You can't just leap from one conclusion to another more severe one.
At the end of the day cfgaussian's take is mine but I think OP jumped the shark with a sweeping and unsupported by evidence alarmist proclamation.
Two Vienna convention violations in as many weeks. I can’t help but think the Zionists doing it first helped them think they could get away with it since by comparison it’s a mere raid.
I think this is to try and set the stage for forcing Europe to sanction/decouple from China just as they forced them to do that to Russia. It's setting up pretexts of "well we've already tried sanctioning Russia but that didn't stop them and now we know why it's because the Chinese are supporting them so now if you --erm we that is-- want to win in the Ukraine you have to punish China and break up this friendship" which obviously won't drive the Chinese to drop the Russians and their support for them but could drive Europeans into further self-sabotaging and imploding their economies which may allow the US to drive some skilled workers from select skilled industries to a limited re-shoring in the US.
That or just laying out excuses before the hammer falls and they lose so they can seamlessly use the loss in Ukraine to say "hey, we lost in Ukraine BUT it wasn't our fault, China did it, China supported Russia so it's not our fault". In either case it's an excuse to turn up the heat on China, to talk more national security threat nonsense and imposes embargoes on high tech goods from China to Europe, and so on.
While I cannot say for certain, I think there's something to be said about them both maneuvering to get on the US's good side in the post-cold-war, US total hegemony era of geopolitics.
Russia for its part really wanted to be part of NATO and join with western capitalism, something it was eventually denied and eventually realized it would never get.
China on the other hand still had the US as its largest trading partner and was trying to grow its productive forces and move up the value chain without drawing attention to itself or making itself a target or enemy of the US. To do that not getting in the way of US goals was probably necessary as if they started vetoing things like the old Soviet Union the attention and the anger and attacks on them likely would have started sooner. One can argue endlessly about what they should have done, the impacts, etc, it was simply caution on their part and biding their time while they built their own power and diversified their interests beyond the US and its vassals in Europe.
Basically everyone was letting the US do its thing and there's a good chance we must remember that even without UN approval the US may very well have done many things anyways in the late 2000s/early 2010s in its position as hegemon.
As usual it's couched in the usual language of soft escalation they used in Vietnam and countless other places, the suggestion the troops will have non-combat roles, repair roles, free up Ukrainian troops but we all know the truth is if that was all they did it wouldn't have a meaningful impact so they're going to be in combat, in Ukrainian uniforms or plain fatigues with patches off or fatigues with patches on. Salami-slicing.
NATO members must send troops to Ukraine or accept defeat to Russia, former US military adviser Edward Luttwak writes
> Strategist Edward Luttwak has argued that members of the US-led bloc will have to deploy troops to prevent a Russian victory
> NATO nations can only forestall an inevitable loss to Russian forces in Ukraine by deploying their troops to the former Soviet republic, a former adviser to the US military has claimed.
>“The arithmetic of this is inescapable: NATO countries will soon have to send soldiers to Ukraine, or else accept catastrophic defeat,” military strategist Edward Luttwak wrote in an oped published on Thursday by the British online media outlet UnHerd. “The British and French, along with the Nordic countries, are already quietly preparing to send troops – both small elite units and logistics and support personnel – who can remain far from the front.”
> The conflict can’t be won without direct troop deployments because regardless of the quantity and quality of weapons sent to Kiev, Ukrainian forces are too outnumbered by the Russians, Luttwak argued. “This means that unless [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decides to end the war, Ukraine’s troops will be pushed back again and again, losing soldiers in the process who cannot be replaced.”
> European NATO members face a “momentous decision” because with US forces facing a growing threat of a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan, it will be up to them to provide the manpower that Ukraine needs, Luttwak said. “If Europe cannot provide enough troops, Russia will prevail on the battlefield, and even if diplomacy successfully intervenes to avoid a complete debacle, Russian military power will have victoriously returned to central Europe,” he added.
> NATO-Russia relations have deteriorated so much amid the Ukraine crisis that the Western alliance is already in “direct confrontation” with Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
> Putin has warned that NATO would risk triggering a nuclear conflict if its members send troops to Ukraine.
Russian foreign policy could change significantly, depending on the results of the investigation into the atrocity
>The heinous act of terrorism at the Crocus City Hall concert venue just outside Moscow on Friday night – which is confirmed to have killed more than 130 people at the time of writing – has perhaps shaken Russia more than anything since a similar attack on a theater in the capital in 2002. > >This latest atrocity will certainly have a major impact on the Russian people’s consciousness and the nation’s public security. It could also lead to serious changes in Moscow’s foreign policy, depending on the results of the investigation into the source of the attack and its masterminds. Considering the enormously high stakes involved in its findings and conclusions, there is no doubt that the investigation will have to be incredibly thorough. > >The US government’s version of an Islamic State connection to the attack has been met with skepticism by Russian officials and commentators. Firstly, they were surprised by how quickly – virtually within minutes – Washington pointed the finger at the group. What also drew the attention of Russian observers was the US reference to an IS-linked news site which had claimed responsibility for the crime. Normally, all such sources are subjected to thorough checks. But not this time. Figures in Russia have also noted that American spokesmen immediately, and without prompting, declared that Ukraine was in no way linked to the act of terror. > >Other criticisms of the American version include the style of the attack (no political statements or demands were made); the admission by one of the captured attackers that he had shot innocent people for money; and the fact that this was not planned as a suicide operation. Many experts have pointed out that IS is far from its prime, and that Russian forces defeated its core elements in Syria years ago. This has allowed speculation to grow about a false flag attack. > >Ukraine, true to form, and alone among the nations of the world, has suggested that the Crocus City atrocity was an operation carried out by Russia’s own secret services, launched to facilitate a further tightening of the political regime and a new wave of mobilization. Clearly nonsensical, this interpretation invoked in many Russian minds the old proverb, “liar, liar, pants on fire.” > >Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his five-minute address to the nation on Saturday, refrained from rolling out the Kremlin’s own version. His words and his demeanor were calm, but the style of his remarks was stern. Those behind the attack “will be punished whoever they are and wherever they may be,” the president declared. The direction of Putin’s thinking was revealed by the two facts – not conjectures – he raised: that the terrorists, having fled the scene of the assault, had been apprehended not far (100km or so) from the Ukrainian border, and that “information” had been obtained that they intended to cross the border into Ukraine, where “they had contacts.” > > The results of the Russian investigation will be enormously important. If Moscow concludes that the attack was conceived, planned, and organized by the Ukrainians – say, the military intelligence agency GUR – Putin’s public warning would logically mean that the agency’s leaders [and Zelensky potentially] will not just be “legitimate” targets, but priority ones for Russia.
(Rest of the article at the link)
Could Kiev, whose connections with Islamists are well known, be behind the massacre in Crocus City Hall?
> By the Directorate 4 team, an analytical and monitoring center researching Islamic radicalism and fundamentalism
> On March 22, Russia suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks in recent history, in the course of which 137 people were killed and 182 others were injured. The four terrorists who carried out the attack chose one of the largest exhibition and concert venues in the country, Crocus City Hall, in the city of Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of Moscow, which hosts large events every day.
> Even though the investigation is still ongoing, the West has already claimed that the Islamic State (IS) is responsible for the tragedy. This was first reported by some media outlets, including Reuters and CNN, and was later picked up by Western officials. For example, on Monday, this was stated by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
> However, when we compare this terrorist attack with other IS attacks, we notice more differences than similarities.
Summary (read article for full text):
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Early on IS's mode of operation was to call believers to join them in the Caliphate in Syria
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However as they lost territories they began to call on followers to conduct attacks abroad where they lived
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Their standard for claiming attacks was as simple as someone contacting a bot and swearing an oath, often the perpetrator was the only one who died but it didn't matter and this is also why it occasionally took credit for attacks it had no involvement in.
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The attack at Crocus does not match their pattern of behavior
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Four people who had not previously known each other were recruited to carry out the terrorist attack. One of them was in Türkiye in February, and from there he flew to Russia on March 4.
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According to unofficial information, he met with a certain “Islamic preacher” in Istanbul. However, it is also known that the terrorists corresponded with the “preacher’s assistant.” According to Fariduni, this anonymous person sponsored and organized the terrorist attack.
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After arriving in Russia, the main suspect visited Crocus City Hall on March 7 in order to see the site where the crime was to be committed. From this, we may conclude that the attack was to take place soon after his arrival from Türkiye. On the same day, the US embassy in Russia warned its citizens to avoid large gatherings “over the next 48 hours” due to possible attacks by extremists.
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None of the terrorists planned to “join the Houris in paradise,” as is usual for IS followers.
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After shooting people in Crocus City Hall and setting the building on fire, they did not attack the special forces which arrived at the scene and instead got in a car and fled from Moscow. Neither did they wear “suicide belts” – a characteristic detail of IS followers who are ready to die after committing their crime.
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Another detail which is uncharacteristic for IS is the monetary reward promised to the terrorists. The payment was supposed to be made in two installments – before and after the attack. The terrorists had already received the first payment, amounting to 250,000 rubles ($2,700).
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The most important detail is the location where the terrorists were detained. Traffic cameras allowed intelligence services to monitor where they were headed. They were eventually detained on the federal highway M-3 Ukraine – a route which used to connect Russia and Ukraine but lost much of its international importance after the deterioration of relations between the two countries in 2014, and particularly after the start of Russia’s military operation in 2022.
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The terrorists were detained after passing the turn to route A240, which leads to Belarus. At that moment, it became obvious that there was only one place where they could be headed: Ukraine.
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Despite the fact that the terrorists were armed, only one of them, Mukhammadsobir Fayzov, put up resistance. All of the terrorists were detained alive, which was most likely an order given to the security forces involved in the operation. However, as we mentioned above, the terrorists themselves did not want to die.
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This, too, is uncharacteristic for IS, since someone who carries out a terrorist act, especially an outsider, is always considered “disposable.” Even if he makes it out alive, no one will help him. Moreover, in earlier years, IS usually didn’t take responsibility for an attack if the perpetrator remained alive, as this could harm him during the investigation. However, later the organization no longer cared about this due to the deplorable state in which it found itself.
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All this comes down to the fact that compared to other attacks carried out by IS in the past few years, this one is strikingly different when it comes to the level of preparation, detailed planning, and financial compensation.
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Since 2015, it has been known that the Security Service of Ukraine tried to recruit radical Islamists with the goal of carrying out sabotage and terrorist attacks, etc. on Russian territory. Ukraine’s intelligence services were also active among the terrorists in Syria.
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Ukraine is the place of residence not only for many terrorists, but also IS administrators and those who sympathize with the terrorists. It has also been a way of crossing into the EU of at least one Islamic extremist terrorist who intended to carry out an attack in the west according to western intelligence.
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The quick and repetitious insistence from the west with which they (who were in no position to know all the facts not being the victim country or in possession of the terrorists or the site of the crime) and their media have insisted that IS and IS alone did this and that Ukraine was not in any way responsible seems to strongly indicate they are hiding something and attempting to plant the seeds of doubt already for any connection that the investigation may discover.
The self-deception practiced by journalists writing about the country is leading to dire consequences
> The self-deception practiced by journalists writing about the country is leading to dire consequences
> By Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal
> Western media coverage of every Russian election is bad. But this time it was even worse than usual.
> Instead of lashing out at the incompetence on display, it's more constructive to explore why rational discussions about the country continue to appear impossible.
> Reason versus conformity to the group
> One of the first things learned sociology is that humans are in a constant battle between instincts and reason. Over tens of thousands of years, we have developed the instinct to organize in groups as a source of security. This is the result of evolutionary biology as survival demands that we organize into “us” versus “them”. In-group loyalty is augmented by assigning contrasting identities of the virtuous “us” versus the evil “other”, which helps stop an individual from straying too far from the pack.
> Yet, human beings are also equipped with reason and thus the ability to assess objective reality independent of their immediate circle. In international relations, it's imperative to place yourself in the shoes of the opponent. The rationality required to see the world through the perspective of the “other” is vital for reaching mutual understanding, reducing tensions, and pursuing a workable peace.
> Every successful peace process and reconciliation in history has been based on this.
> We expect journalists to be objective in their reporting of reality, which is especially important during war. But this seems to be almost impossible, especially during conflicts. When human beings experience external threats, their herd instincts are triggered as society demands group loyalty and we punish those who deviate. The political obedience demanded during war time usually results in the weakening of freedom of speech, the role of journalism, and democracy.
> Why did Russians vote for Putin?
> If we use our reason and resist our tribal instincts, it should not be difficult to understand the popularity of Putin. While the 1990s was a golden period for the West, it was a nightmare for Russians. The economy collapsed and society disintegrated with truly horrific consequences.
> The country's security also collapsed, as NATO expansion meant there was no chance to agree an inclusive European security architecture. This had been outlined in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe in 1990 and the OSCE founding documents.
> A weakened Russia meant that its interests could be ignored, and NATO was able to invade Moscow's ally Yugoslavia, in violation of international law.
> When Putin took over the presidency on 31 December 1999, it was commonplace in the West to predict that Russia would share the fate of the Soviet Union. That is eventual collapse.
> However, Russia has instead become the largest economy in Europe (by PPP), its society has healed from the disastrous 1990s, its military might has been restored, and new international partners have been found in the East and Global South, as evidenced by the growing role of BRICS.
> Furthermore, most Russians believe it's not a good idea to have major disruptions to leadership in the middle of a NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine that is deemed an existential threat. Don't change horses in midstream as the American proverb, often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, advises.
> Mikhail Gorbachev argued that Putin “saved Russia from the beginning of a collapse”.
> Today, any Western journalist repeating this would be immediately branded as a “Putinist” – implying a betrayal of the “us”. Western journalists cannot acknowledge the immense achievements of Russia since 1999 as it could be interpreted as lending legitimacy and signalling support for the "bad" side.
> The price of self-delusion
> Acknowledging Putin's achievements over the past 25 years is treated as expressing support for him, which is tantamount to treason.
> Meanwhile, journalists hardly ever discuss Moscow's security concerns and the extent to which our competing interests can be harmonized. Instead, Russian policies are conveyed by referring to derogatory descriptions of Putin’s character.
> As in our other wars, conflicts are explained by the presence of a bad man and if we could just make him go away, then the natural order of peace would be restored. Putin, the narrative contends, is our most recent reincarnation of Hitler and we constantly live in the 1940s where an adversary must be defeated and not appeased.
> How can journalists then explain to their audience Putin’s popularity and the reasons for his huge personal vote when it is not allowed to say anything positive about the Russian president? Unable to live in reality and unable to place ourselves in the shoes of the opponent - how are we supposed to have sensible analysis and policies? As I always warned my students of international relations: Do not hate your rivals, it produces poor and dangerous analysis!
> How can we pursue our interests when we have committed ourselves to self-delusion and have banned reality from our analysis
> I have attempted to explain for two years why the anti-Russian sanctions were doomed to fail and why Russia will win the war, only to be told that it is Russian propaganda to undermine support for sanctions and to challenge the narrative of a pending Ukrainian victory. Reality be damned! Ignoring reality results in a distorted picture of Russia which predictably leads to miscalculations.
French troops may be sent to Ukrainian regions bordering Belarus, Aleksey Goncharenko has said
> Troops may be sent to the regions bordering Belarus in order to free up Kiev’s units to be sent to the front
> France is preparing to send troops to Ukraine, Aleksey Goncharenko, a senior Ukrainian MP, wrote on his Telegram channel on Wednesday. The official is currently in France for a meeting of the committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
> According to Goncharenko, who represents the city of Odessa in the Ukrainian parliament, Paris is considering deploying a military force to the Ukrainian regions bordering Belarus, discussions about which “are proceeding effectively.”
> “I’m in contact with my French colleagues. And I can already say that everything is serious... There is talk about a deployment of European soldiers to the border with Belarus, [a mission] that will free the Ukrainian military stationed there and allow it to move to other directions. This will help strengthen our eastern and southern fronts,” Goncharenko wrote.
> According to the MP, his sources close to President Emmanuel Macron claim the French leader is “very determined” to send troops to Ukraine, but the number of soldiers is still being discussed. Goncharenko claims that in order to form the force, France wants to create a coalition of allies, which could include Poland and the Baltic states. Germany is unlikely to join the effort, he notes, as Berlin sees boots on the ground as “an unnecessary escalation” and is “afraid of a direct confrontation with Russia.”
> The MP also stated that Macron wants to create “a joint base for training [of military personnel] and the production of ammunition” in Ukraine. Two locations in the West of the country are currently being considered for the purpose.
> “It looks like France is tired of Russia. Europe is preparing to show strength,” Goncharenko concluded.
Prior coverage on this: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4020135
Related alarming headlines strongly suggesting escalation from the west: Putin won’t be allowed to ‘dictate peace terms’ in Ukraine – Germany's Scholz
> Germany will not let Russian President Vladimir Putin forcibly alter Ukraine’s borders or impose the terms of peace, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed.
> Some 2,000 soldiers would be sent in the “initial stage” of the operation, Sergey Naryshkin said
> France is preparing its forces for deployment to Ukraine, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin claimed in a statement on Tuesday. Paris allegedly seeks to send as many as 2,000 troops to Ukraine, he said.
> French President Emmanuel Macron said last month that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of Western soldiers being sent to aid Kiev in its fight against Moscow, branding Russia an “adversary” while denying Paris was “waging war” against it.
> In the statement on Tuesday, the SVR chief said the French Armed Forces had become “concerned” about the rising number of French [mercenary] nationals dying in Ukraine.
> The casualty level has supposedly surpassed a “psychological threshold” and could trigger protests, the statement said, adding that Macron’s government was concealing this information and “delaying” the moment it would have to be revealed.
> According to the spy chief, the French military is worried about the government’s plans to send the contingent to Ukraine, considering that such an operation would be difficult to conduct without Russia noticing.
> The French soldiers would indeed become “a legitimate priority target for attacks by the Russian Armed Forces,” Naryshkin said.
> The claims come as the chief of staff of the French Army, Gen. Pierre Schill, said in an interview on Tuesday that France is prepared to take part in the “toughest engagements” militarily, and is ready to face any international developments. He added that Paris could assemble a division of 20,000 troops within 30 days and an army of 60,000 by joining with divisions from other NATO allies.
> Russian President Vladimir Putin has also claimed this week that Western mercenaries, including French nationals, are dying in Ukraine “in large numbers.” Commenting on a potential NATO deployment to Ukraine, the president also warned that this would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”
(non-archived link: https://www.rt.com/news/594517-france-prepare-deploy-troops-ukraine/)