CIA taught Ukraine how to target Putin’s Achilles heel

Comment: Anyone who supports President Trump after he blessed this sabotage and his strikes against Venezuela must be delusional. Trump certainly deserved to be given the benefit of the doubt after the Russiagate hoax and January 6 psyops but unfortunately, he has proved to be just like all the other Presidents - wholly under the thumb of the Zio-cons. 

In the bin with you. 

--------

 

The Telegraph (UK)

Attacks on oil refineries have cost Moscow $75m a day, according to US intelligence

The CIA secretly taught Ukraine how to target crucial components of Russia's oil refining infrastructure and its sanction-busting shadow fleet, according to officials.

Despite Washington pulling back its support for Kyiv's war effort under the Trump administration, it has emerged that US intelligence and military officers continued to find new ways to stifle Vladimir Putin's war machine.

Since June, the CIA, with Donald Trump's blessing, has been covertly providing specific intelligence to bolster Ukraine's aerial offensive against oil refineries inside Russia, according to the officials.

The move came amid Mr Trump's growing frustration with Putin's unwillingness to negotiate while Russian forces accelerated attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The US has long shared intelligence with Kyiv that helps with attacks on Russian military targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and provides advanced warning of incoming Russian missiles and drones.

Under persuasion by Ukraine sceptics in the White House, led by JD Vance, the vice-president, and his allies, Mr Trump froze military aid in March and intelligence sharing was suspended as a result.

However, The New York Times, citing officials, said the CIA heavily lobbied for the agency to keep sharing intelligence.

Before summer, the impact of the strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure - which often hit storage depots or structures easily repaired - had been relatively minimal.

Under a new plan, crafted by the CIA and US military, the campaign was concentrated exclusively on oil refineries, targeting a newly found Achilles heel.

A CIA expert had identified a coupler device that is so difficult to replace that it could lead to a facility remaining shut for weeks.

The strikes became so successful that Russian oil refining was reduced by as much as a fifth on certain days, cutting exports and leading to domestic fuel shortages.

It was costing its economy an estimated $75m (£55m) a day, according to US intelligence.

In response, Mr Trump praised the strikes for the leverage and deniability they gave him as Putin continued to stonewall negotiations, according to the sources.

It was first reported in October that Washington was closely involved in the planning of such strikes, but it wasn't known that the CIA was responsible for the new focus of the campaign and identifying specific weaknesses in its energy infrastructure.

In late November, Ukraine also began a maritime campaign against Moscow's shadow fleet, a clandestine network of hundreds of vessels carrying sanctioned oil to keep the Russian economy afloat.

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Taming the sound and fury of the Empire of Chaos

Pepe Escobar | Strategic Culture Foundation

 

Close the door, put out the light
You know they won't be home tonight
The snow falls hard and don't you know
The winds of Thor are blowing cold

Led Zeppelin, No Quarter

In a matter of less than a year, Russian scientific know-how came up with four bangers:

1. Oreshnik: hypersonic missile, already tested in the Ukraine battleground.

2. Burevestnik: Or "Stormbringer", with that nice Deep Purple ring. Nuclear cruise missile with unlimited range.

3. Poseidon: nuclear-powered torpedo, capable of loitering underwater, undetected, for unlimited time; then, at a command, strikes enemy coasts with a nuclear payload, provoking a radioactive tsunami. Largely exceeds the destructive power of the Sarmat, Russia's largest ICBM.

4. Khabarovsk: nuclear sub. Call him The Messenger of Doom: capable of delivering at least 6 Doomsday-enabling Poseidons.

President Putin was crystal clear when detailing some key facts. The "compact nuclear systems" used in the Burevestnik and the Poseidon "can also be adapted to create new energy sources, including for the Arctic."

Putin also stressed how both Burevestnik and Poseidon "use only Russian-made parts". Praise the Lord for those chips from upgraded Soviet washing machines.

And there's a lot more to come following the tracks of Burevestnik and Poseidon: "I'm talking about...the Avangard system, or the serial production of the Oreshnik missile system...soon the heavy intercontinental Sarmat missile." 

 

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The Rubio Doctrine: Neocons are back!

Ron Paul | Mises Institute

According to several recent news reports, the two major Trump foreign policy shifts last week are the handiwork of Marco Rubio, the President's Secretary of State and (acting) National Security Advisor. As with all neocon plans, they will be big on promises and small on delivery.

First up, according to Bloomberg it was Rubio who finally convinced President Trump to take "ownership" of the US proxy war on Russia, and for the first time place sanctions on Russia. Up to this point President Trump chose to portray himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. But with this move against Russia's oil sector he can no longer credibly claim that this is "Joe Biden's war."

The Trump move followed a confusing few weeks since the Trump/Putin Alaska summit in August. After that meeting Trump dropped the neocon position that a ceasefire in the Russia/Ukraine war must occur before any peace negotiations. It was a sign that Trump was looking more realistically at the war. He also said he did not think Ukraine would win, which is pretty obvious.

A surprise call to Putin the day before Ukrainian president Zelensky was to arrive in town just over a week ago reinforced that position and Zelensky left Washington empty-handed. He was seeking Tomahawk missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.

Then out of the blue President Trump last week announced through his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the US would be sanctioning Russia's two largest oil companies until Russia declares a ceasefire in the war before negotiations. That won't happen, but what it does mean is that Rubio and the neocons have successfully gotten Trump to step on the escalation escalator. That is what they always do. It will be much harder to back down now.

At the same time the US Administration was jumping deeper into the Russia/Ukraine war, a long-time neocon dream was suddenly back in play. Although in Trump's first term a "regime change" operation was attempted against Venezuela, it failed spectacularly. But the neocons have long dreamed of overthrowing the Venezuelan government - they almost got their way back in 2002 - and suddenly after several weeks of extrajudicial murder on the high seas in the name of fighting the drug war, President Trump announced that land strikes on Venezuela would begin soon. 

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Lavrov talks Russia-NATO relations, arms control and dialogue with US: Key takeaways from the foreign minister’s speech — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union

RT

Moscow has no intention of attacking the US-led military bloc and is prepared to give official guarantees to that effect, the top diplomat has said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has outlined Moscow's vision of relations with an increasingly belligerent NATO, US President Donald Trump's administration, and the security architecture in Eurasia.

Lavrov touched on these and other topics at an international security conference in Minsk, Belarus on Tuesday. Here are the key takeaways from his address:

Russia-NATO relations

Moscow "has repeatedly said that we have had no intention of attacking any of the current NATO and European Union member states," Lavrov stressed. He added that Russia is prepared to give official guarantees to this effect as part of a future security architecture in Eurasia.

According to the foreign minister, EU leaders are studiously avoiding these discussions, aiming instead for "security guarantees against Russia, as opposed to with Russia."

Lavrov claimed that the West is openly preparing for a "new big European war" against Russia and key ally Belarus. He said there is ongoing militarization across most European NATO member states.

"NATO's expansion has not stopped for a single minute, despite assurances not to move eastward by an inch given to Soviet leaders," he said, accusing the West of seeking to preserve its "global dominance" despite the dawn of a new era.

The Western military bloc is attempting to establish a foothold as far afield as the Asia-Pacific, with a view to containing China, North Korea, and Russia, Lavrov stated.

Russia-US dialogue

Russia needs "guarantees" that a potential summit between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, "will yield a concrete result," the foreign minister explained.

Tentative discussions on a meeting in Budapest, Hungary began after the two presidents spoke by phone earlier this month. Last week, Trump clarified there are no plans for talks in the near future, as he wants to make sure it would not be "wasted time" in terms of resolving the Ukraine conflict. On Sunday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov similarly said that both Moscow and Washington have to do a substantial amount of "preparatory work before top-level negotiations can take place."

Moscow hopes that the US president "really wants a stable peace," Lavrov said. He expressed incredulity at the apparent change in Trump's rhetoric in recent days, as the US president called for an immediate ceasefire along the current front lines. Moscow has rejected this scenario, insisting that the root causes of the Ukraine conflict should be addressed first. 

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Anti-Russian Propaganda and Preparation for War Against Russia

Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet.org

While deep state propaganda convinces public opinion that Russia is evil, armies are being prepared for war before our very eyes. The Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Pierre Schill, has just announced to the National Assembly that he is preparing for the next war against Russia. Meanwhile, the Polish Deputy Prime Minister has announced that he will intercept Vladimir Putin's presidential plane. Alone against all his allies, Donald Trump is trying to preserve world peace.

The confrontation between President Donald Trump and the coalition of British, American, Israeli, and Ukrainian deep states is likely to extend to the Far East. In Japan, Sanae Takaichi has just formed a LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) government thanks to his alliance with the Innovation Party, which shares his warmongering views.

Far East

Although Prime Minister Takaichi is the first woman to hold this office, she is nonetheless a champion of "Japanese imperialism" from the Showa era. Barely inaugurated, she announced her intention to rewrite the National Defense Strategy (NDS), the Defense Enhancement Program (DBP), and the National Security Strategy (NSS). These texts are, in principle, updated every ten years, but will be reformed seven years ahead of schedule.

Sanae Takaichi claims that she simply wants to honor President Trump's wish that each US ally devote 5% of its GDP to defense; everyone has understood that she wants to restore the Emperor's army, amend the Constitution to end Japanese neutrality, and attack the Korean Peninsula and the People's Republic of China.

To be clear, her predecessor and outgoing Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, sent an offering to the Yasukuni Shrine in memory of Japanese criminals against humanity. Ishiba is the largest private collector of World War II memorabilia. His home is a shrine to war criminals.

Ms. Takaichi certainly did not go to the Yasukuni Shrine this year, unlike in previous years. She refrained from using anything too provocative, and Shigeru Ishiba went there very rarely. But she did appoint seven men from among the parliamentarians corrupted by the Moon sect as ministers and secretaries of state.

Following the assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, by a victim of the Moon sect, the police discovered that she had not only bribed him, but also parliamentarians from her own party, the Liberal Democratic Party. In previous years, she had paid them half a billion dollars. Yes, half a billion dollars. The largest parliamentary corruption scandal in history; a scandal that remains unsolved and has only led to three indictments.

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Putin 'most popular leader in the world' - Tucker Carlson

RT

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most popular leader in the world, American journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed, in an interview with RTVI US. Outside of Western Europe, Canada, and the "Anglo-sphere," it is almost impossible to meet someone who doesn't like Putin, Carlson told the network.

"He is the most popular leader in the world, by far," Carlson said, noting that the primary reason for Putin's global popularity is the fact that he has "put his own country's interests above his own in a lot of ways. In ways that Western leaders don't."

Asked if his perspective on Putin's worldview had changed after an interview with him in February 2024, Carlson said that he was surprised to realize that the Russian president "actually likes the West." And that he probably likes it "way more than anyone who would potentially replace Putin."

In his interview with RTVI US, Carlson also suggested that the US, Western Europe, and most of the industrialized world, are "in a decline phase" while Russia is experiencing a "spiritual revival" and is proving to be a prosperous country with "a sense of self-worth and a sense of purpose." He further proposed that this was one of the reasons the West "hates it so much" and wants to destroy it.

RTVI US is a subsidiary of RTVI (Russian Television International), a privately-funded Russian-language television network with headquarters in Moscow and New York.

Carlson told Germany's Bild, in July, that while Putin had been doing a "great job for Russia," Western leaders were failing their people.

"Your country is going down, Russia is going up. You should be mad at your own leaders. You are mad at Putin instead," he told the outlet. Carlson went on to suggest that German officials were attacking Putin and Russia to distract the public from domestic economic and migration issues. 

EU Declares War On Its Own Members

Simplicus The Thinker

Yesterday, two near-simultaneous acts of sabotage saw explosions ripping through oil refineries in both Hungary and Romania. In Hungary it was the MOL in Százhalombatta, which reportedly receives Russian oil, while in Romania the Petrotel-Lukoil, a subsidiary of the Russian parent company.

As one commentator writes, these attacks came literally hours after the European Council had just approved to ban Russian gas starting in 2026:

The timing here is exceptionally curious because this attack came just hours after the European Council essentially locked in its position to almost completely ban Russian gas imports, with new contracts being outlawed at the beginning of 2026, and all long term contracts forcibly expiring in 2028. A similar ban on oil imports is expected in the near future. Hungary and Slovakia have pledged to issue legal challenges to the ban.

As of this writing, there were reports that a new explosion lit up a refinery in Bratislava, Slovakia—which allegedly processes Russian oil from the Druzhba pipeline. But subsequent follow-ups appear to show these were fake—though it’s as of yet uncertain.

The real attacks on Romania and Hungary came just days after Europe essentially gave carte blanche for terror attacks across the EU by way of several top European officials openly condoning not only the Nord Stream attacks, but even attacks against Hungarian oil pipelines. Here Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski addresses Hungary’s Peter Szijjarto:

  

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Is Peace with Russia Possible?

Armstrong Economics

ANSWER: Europe and NATO are the aggressors – not Putin. Zelensky is meeting with Trump today. Trump has to realize who his real opponents are. Peace with Russia is easy if you do what is right. Putin warned Zelensky that the Minsk Agreement was the key. Zelensky has been taking his orders from NATO, NEOCONS, and never from his own people. I had two employees there, and I can say many people questioned if he was even legitimately elected. We have witnessed what the EU and NATO did in Romania. Do you really think they were hands-off in Ukraine? There would have BEEN NO WAR if the EU, NATO, and Neocons had not lied and honored the Minisk Agreement.

 You cannot defeat Putin and think that is somehow the answer. When Khrushchev had to back down after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a coup occurred, and Brezhnev took power, deepening the Cold War.

Then there was a proposal that Russia join NATO when the USSR collapsed. Just as our Neocons in the CIA killed JFK to keep war on the table and rejected his peace initiatives, the Russian Neocons staged coup #2 and overthrew Gorbachev. That is when Yeltsin stood on the tank and pleaded with the military not to fire on their own people. The military stood down, and the coup collapsed. Anyone who thinks they can beat Putin and force him out of Ukraine is not just a fool; they are a dangerous asshole. You will get coup #3, and this time you will get the Russian Neocons in full power. Just imagine if John McCain had become president with Lindsey Grachm as his VP. You would probably be dead by now. 

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Tradition against corruption: Why Putin’s message matters for the entire world

RT 

In his recent Valdai speech, President Vladimir Putin declared that the age of a single model for all has ended, and that nations now moor themselves in their own traditions, drawing strength from culture, faith, and history. Across the globe, ancestral values are reawakening as globalism and cultural imperialism are receding. The world is witnessing a rising concert of sovereign civilizations.

Putin spoke with clarity about the condition of the world. He stated that there is no shared agreement on how the international order should be structured. Mankind has begun a long era of searching. The path forward will be marked by trial and error, by turbulence and storms. No blueprint exists. No authority dictates the outcome. We live in open history, raw and uncertain.

Yet amidst this chaos, Putin said, nations must hold on to anchors. They cannot drift with the currents of instability. The true anchor lies in culture, in the ethical and religious values that have ripened through centuries, in geography, and in the space each civilization inhabits. These form the compass of identity. They provide the foundations on which nations can build a steady life, even as winds howl and waves rise.

Traditions are at the heart of this compass. Each nation possesses its own. Each tradition is unique, shaped by its land and history. Respect for these traditions, Putin said, is the first law of order among peoples. Attempts to force a single model upon the world have always failed. The Soviet Union tried to impose its system. The United States then took up the baton. Europe joined shortly after. Each failed. What is artificial cannot last. What grows from outside roots will wither. Only what is born from within endures. Those who honor their own heritage rarely trample upon the heritage of others.

Putin's message is multipolar. Each people must return to its foundations and draw strength from within. Each nation must define its own path, rooted in its own culture. This is the end of uniformity, the end of a single model for all. Across the world, we see it now. The Global South turns to its own heritage. Even in the West, patriotic fragments of society search for their forgotten roots. When nations focus on their own growth, they find it easier to deal with others as equals.

Putin gave a clear indication of renewal within Russia. He told of young women who now step into bars and clubs in sarafans and kokoshnik headdresses, the dress of their ancestors. This is no costume trick. It demonstrates that Western attempts to corrupt Russian society have failed. What was meant to weaken the spirit has instead roused it. The old costume now enters the modern street as a symbol of defiance and pride. Tradition, far from being buried, returns with greater strength, and the youth themselves carry it forward.

The same current flows across the globe. 

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Putin compares ideology of modern West to USSR

RT

Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn a parallel between the Soviet Union and the present-day US and EU, accusing them of imposing their own political systems on other countries.

Speaking at a plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday, the president suggested that political systems which force their own values on others don't last.

"The Soviet Union once erred by imposing its system. Then, the United States has taken up that baton. The EU has also distinguished itself," Putin said.

"A nation that respects its own tradition, as a rule, does not encroach on the traditions of others," the Russian president concluded. 

The Empire of Mediocrity and the End of the World

Global Politics

Vladimir Putin has harmed no American. Russia has not stood in the way of any American’s dream. As for the billionaires though, those American and British money bags, the Russians are posing an insurmountable hurdle for their investments. And we all know nothing can stand in the way of their progress. Unfortunately for the human race, mediocrity cannot rule either. Here is a prophesy as real as any newsreel you will view today, the “end all” conclusion for American “exceptionalism”.

Do you know where Crimea is? Seriously now, a gaff by presidential hopeful Gary Johnson the other day proved once and for all, not even educated Americans have a very big “mental map” of our world. I was a geography student first and teacher second, and I can tell you categorically that very few of America’s leaders know US history and geography, let alone world names and places. If Johnson had known where Aleppo, a city in northwest Syria was, I would have been amazed. 99% of Americans could not point to Syria on a map if their lives depended on it. Not even college students I once polled, would be able to reliably find Moscow, or even St. Louis in Missouri for that matter. Get this, if a geography bee were slated to solve world crises, the United States would end up a third world banana republic. Don’t take my word, read this study published by National Geographic, or this 2014 one from the US Government’s Accountability Office, or this Telegraph report that shows one quarter of Americans do not even know Earth revolves around the sun. Some of you will perceive my path to proving a “Putin point” later on. Others should take heed, the complacent billionaires need chastising:

“Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.”  Dale Carnegie

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Enough and Not Too Much

Patrick Armstrong
Strategic Culture

Moscow will not engage in an exhausting arms race, and the country’s military spending will gradually decrease as Russia does not seek a role as the “world gendarme,” President Vladimir Putin said. Moscow is not seeking to get involved in a “pointless” new arms race, and will stick to “smart decisions” to strengthen its defensive capabilities, Putin said on Friday during an annual extended meeting of the Defense Ministry board. “Intelligence, brains, discipline and organization” must be the cornerstones of the country’s military doctrine, the Russian leader said. The last thing that Russia needs is an arms race that would “drain” its economy, and Moscow sure does not want that “in any scenario,” Putin pointed out.

– RT, 22 December 2017

It’s easy to forget it today, but the USSR was, in its time, an “exceptionalist” country. It was the world’s first socialist country – the “bright future“; it set an example for all to follow, it was destined by History. It had a mission and was required by History to assist any country that called itself “socialist”. The USSR had bases and interests all over the world. As the 1977 USSR Constitution said:

the Soviet state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the revolution and for building socialism and communism. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making turn from capitalist to socialism.

A novus ordo seclorum indeed.

Russia, however, is just Russia. There is no feeling in Moscow that Russia must take the lead any place but Russia itself. One of the reasons, indeed, why Putin is always talking about the primacy of the UN, the independence of nation states, the impermissibility to interfere in internal activities – the so-called “Westphalian” position – is that he remembers the exceptionalist past and knows that it led to a dead end. Moscow has no interest in going abroad in search of internationalist causes.

Internationalism/exceptionalism and nationalism: the two have completely different approaches to constructing a military. The first is obsessed with “power projection“, “full spectrum superiority“, it imagines that its hypertrophied interests are challenged all over the planet. Its wants are expensive, indeterminate, unbounded. The other is only concerned with dealing with enemies in its neighbourhood. Its wants are affordable, exact, finite. The exceptionalist/interventionist has everything to defend everywhere; the nationalist has one thing to defend in one place. It is much easier and much cheaper to be a nationalist: the exceptionalist/interventionist USA spends much more than anyone else but always needs more; nationalist Russia can cut its expenditure.

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La-La-Land: US Media Cites Fake News Disinfo Site to Prove 'Russia' Behind 'Theory' Clinton Hitmen Killed Seth Rich

Sott.net via RT

The man who first reported on the discredited Steele dossier has a brand new conspiracy theory about Russia. The idea that DNC staffer Seth Rich was killed on the order of Hillary Clinton was invented by - guess who?

Yahoo News Chief Investigator Michael Isikoff, who is also the co-author of hit Russiagate book 'Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,' has a new example of how the nefarious Russians supposedly subverted democracy in the US. According to him, it was Russian intelligence that started a conspiracy theory about the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich on July 10, 2016 during an apparent botched robbery.

The supposed Russian disinformation showed up three days after Rich's death on a website called WhatDoesItMean.com. Befitting of the site's '90s design, it is, well, a badly written thriller fiction about Rich trying to expose the corruption of the Clinton campaign to the FBI, and instead being ambushed by her hit team. It is complete with a gun battle "just blocks from the White House" - all based on a 'report' by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). 

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When the Deep State Controls Deep Thinking and Russophobia

Phil Butler

NEO

As citizens interested in policy, we can learn a great deal from the quasi-academic studies on Russian foreign relations strategies. A cursory review of any English language archive of academic papers on Putin, Russia, or even the word “oligarch” will produce a score of experts with doctorates who “know” exactly what Russia and her president are “up to.” My latest excursion into the knowledge vault at Academia.edu may be the benchmark for all future Russophobic genius.

In a white paper entitled “Putin’s Grand Strategy and US National Interests,” Dr. Christopher Marsh just comes right out and calls Russia a bunch of criminals led by an archvillain. From my perspective as an American citizen who actually studied Russia-US policy and detente objectively, it’s discomforting to know the military and our military industrial complex hold this dangerous attitude. I’ll explain why.

Dr. Christopher Marsh is a Senior Fellow in the Center for Strategic Studies at the Joint Special Operations University at US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). While this begins to sink in, let me explain that Dr. Marsh is “teaching” America’s brave, stalwart, and truthfully loyal Doberman Pinchers (Navy Seals etc.) that their missions to thwart Putin are from God. Or, for those agnostics on Seal Team Six, that anybody they snuff out from behind with a custom made Winkler belt knife deserves it. Sorry, I’m no pacifists, but academic propaganda fed into skilled killers is where the metal hits the meat. Marsh is just full of it, let me show you.

The white paper in question begins with the pretense that the author intends to “examine” whether or not Putin and Russia have a strategy. The author sets up his audience by pretending objectivity, then carries on to brainwash his readership (and class audience) that Putin does indeed want to take over the world. Here is the lead in:

“One of the most significant questions surrounding Russian foreign policy is whether or not Russian president Vladimir Putin has an overarching strategy.”

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Putin Sets The Table To Leave The Dollar Behind

Rory Hall
The Daily Coin

This is twice that Russian President Putin has said on the global stage the Federal Reserve Note no longer deserves the status and privilege of “world reserve currency” that allows unlimited printing of the currency. The first time he made mention he actually said that it was a threat to Russia’s national security.

In a speech at the International Economic Forum, in St. Petersburg, Russia, “Russian Davos”, President Putin reaffirmed his position regarding the Federal Reserve Note and it’s international role. For the record, we see the abuse of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve Note, U.S. dollar, in similar light as President Putin. The current status of “world reserve currency” should not be allowed in this day and time. The absolute abuse of power, excessive power granted and the ability to shackle entire nations through the use of a currency that is not even their own should have never been allowed but it is way past time for this system to be dissolved.

In a speech at a plenary session, Mr Putin accused Washington of seeking to “extend its jurisdiction to the whole world.” “But this model not only contradicts the logic of normal international communication. The main thing is, it does not serve the interests of the future.” Source

As recently we pointed out Russia has been and is, apparently readying, a gold backed cryptocurrency to use as global trade settlement. When a man steps up to the microphone and says to the world – “The main thing is, it (U.S. dollar) does not serve the interests of the future.” while at the same time announcing that Russia, along with China, are working on a global trade settlement mechanism outside the dollar, well, you would have to be some kind serious stupid to ignore those words. 

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Bipartisan Support for Trump’s Aggressive Iran Policy Reveals the Hollowness of Russiagate

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News

In early May, MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow — known as one of the top promoters of the new Cold War and Russiagate in American media — emphatically endorsed regime change in Venezuela after she claimed that President Donald Trump’s hawkishness towards the South American country had changed, all because of a single phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. 
 
Though Maddow’s claims were arguably the most extreme in suggesting that Trump was “taking orders” from Putin on Venezuela, she wasn’t alone in making them. For instance, Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks also made the claim that the Trump-Putin phone call on Venezuela was “direct evidence that he is literally taking orders from Putin.” In addition, several corporate media outlets supported this narrative by suggesting that Trump “echoed” Putin’s Venezuela stance after the phone call and directly contradicted his top staffers and even himself in doing so.

Yet now, strangely, those same corporate media voices remain silent on the Trump administration’s other regime-change project — in Iran — despite the fact that the Putin-led Russian government is set to be the biggest winner as tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic boil over and threaten to send the Middle East into a fresh bout of destruction and chaos.  

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran have grown in recent months, analysts in both corporate and independent media have speculated about what country is set to benefit the most from the U.S.’ campaign of “maximum pressure” and regime change against the Islamic Republic. Of the many analyses, two countries have stood out as likely beneficiaries: Russia and China.

The cases for China and Russia’s benefit are somewhat similar given that the Trump administration’s focus on Iran results in less pressure on both Russia and China. This is despite the fact that, officially, the U.S.’ current National Defense Strategy explicitly calls for focusing attention on preparing for a “long war” against Russia and China to prevent either from superseding the U.S. as a global superpower. Yet, with the U.S. focused on regime change in Iran and Venezuela, Russia and China can avoid bearing the brunt of U.S. military adventurism, either directly or by proxy, while the U.S. wears itself thin by trying to do it all at once.

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Putin’s Choice: Risk Starting a War – or Give In to US’s Greater Israel Plan

Strategic Culture Foundation
via Blogfactory

Secretary of State Pompeo was in Sochi on 14 May for talks with his counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. And in his opening address, Lavrov observed: “I believe it’s time to start building a new, more responsible and constructive matrix of how we see each other. We are ready to do so, of course, if our US partners are interested in doing so as well … The fact that we are meeting for the second time in the past two weeks inspires certain optimism. Let’s give it a try and see what happens”. 

President Putin subsequently hosted Pompeo for a short discussion, noting: “I got the impression that the President [Trump] is in favour of restoring Russia-US ties and contacts – and of resolving issues of mutual interest. For our part, we have said many times, that we would also like to restore relations on a full scale”.

It is clear that Mr Putin’s impression of a US possible apertura arose from Trump’s call to him on 3 May, in which co-operation on assuring ‘strategic stability’ was discussed. The remarks by both Lavrov and Putin indicate both a readiness and a generosity (i.e. calling the US Administration “our US partners”) that is a mite surprising, given the extent to which Washington has been inserting its spanners into all, and everything, Moscow recently has tried to do.

Why this Trump initiative – managed by two foremost US war hawks – precisely now? Ok, the Mueller investigation is closed, but Moscow will not be naïve enough to imagine that this draws a line under the Russian malign intervention narrative. Mueller has simply gifted the claim to Congress.

In one sense, Moscow’s warmth may be a surprise, but in another, it is not. America has viewed Russia as a ‘forever’ adversary, ever since Britain and America facilitated the return of Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin to the Bolshevik Revolutionaries, in order to disrupt Russia. And even as Trump was calling Putin, the Rand Corporation was releasing its paper, ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’ which outlines specific “geo-political cost-imposing” policy options. Any shift by America from this belligerency, of course would be significant, and would warrant exploration. President Putin repeatedly has warned of the unthinkable consequences for humanity, should these two states decisively enter into conflict. This is the existential threat par excellence.

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The Problem with Wikipedia and the Digital Revolution

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts 
Global Research

esterday (April 10, 2019) a reader alerted me to the fact that I am being smeared on Wikipedia as a “vocal supporter of the current Russian government and its policies.” The reader also reports that an article in the Daily Beast calls me a “Putin worshiper.” The reader says that he tried to edit the Wikipedia entry without success, and he urged me to give it my attention.
 
I do not know whether the person who wrote my Wikipedia entry intended to smear me or is merely uninformed. However, dissenting voices do get smeared on Wikipedia. It is an ongoing problem for many of us. For years readers and people who know me would make corrections to my Wikipedia biography, but as soon as the corrections were made, they would be erased and the smears reinstalled.

The problem with Wikipedia is that it is an idealistic approach based on the belief that truth is more likely to emerge when everyone has a voice than when explanations are provided by a select group of experts or peers. This idealistic approach is not without merit. Moreover, it might work very well with subjects and people who do not have ideological opponents or are of no threat to those intent on controlling explanations.

The problem arises when a subject or a person is controversial and is especially the case if the person’s arguments disprove or dissent from official explanations. In The Matrix in which we live, truth-tellers are unwelcome to those who control the explanations in order to advance their agendas. Until truth-tellers can be silenced or completely censured, the practice is to discredit them with smears. Thus, I and many others have been described as “conspiracy theorists” for reporting factual information that contradicts the official and unproven explanation of 9/11, anti-semites for criticizing Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and influence over U.S. foreign policy, and as “Russian agents” or “Putin stooges” for keeping the record straight about Ukraine, Syria, and Putin’s effort to avoid military conflict with the West.

In the pre-Internet age it was difficult to smear people. Newspaper editors would allow letters to the editor to correct factual mistakes or to provide a different interpretation of a collection of facts, but shied away from smears. This doesn’t mean that smears never happened, but not with the abandon of the Internet era.

Open works in process like Wikipedia, Internet comment sections and social media are ideally suited for smearing people and broadcasting the smears worldwide prior to any correction of them. Thus, the digital revolution has been a godsend to government agencies such as the CIA, State Department, Mossad, the Israel Lobby, corporations and other private interest groups, ideological movements such as neoconservatism and Identity Politics, and politicians, all of whom have agendas that are furthered by controlling the explanations.

As money is the highest value for many people, there is an unlimited supply of people who can be hired to smear those who challenge official explanations. A smear can start in a comment section, move to social media, and from there to a website and on to Wikipedia.

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“The Russians are Still Coming” “Without RussiaGate”: The “Fake News” Witch-hunt against the Independent Media

Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

From one day to the next,  following the release of the Mueller report, the shaky RussiaGate consensus created by the corporate media has collapsed.  

What the Mueller investigation contends is that there is no proof that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 presidential elections. 

The demise of the RussiaGate narrative, however, does not mean that the Trump administration will renew its relations with the Kremlin. “The Russians are still coming”… without RussiaGate. Russia is still portrayed as a threat to America’s National Security. 

In this regard, the objective of the Neocons has been achieved. The Trump administration, with its hawk team of  advisers including Pompeo and Bolton, not to mention Gina Haspel at the CIA, is towing the line. 

Corporate and Political Rivalries

The RussiaGate narrative was required to sustain the multibillion dollar contracts in favor of the military industrial complex including the 1.2 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program.

What was at stake in 2016 were fundamental rivalries within the US establishment marked by the clash between competing corporate (and political) factions, each of which was intent upon exerting control over the incoming US presidency.

In this regard,  Trump was not entirely in the pocket of the lobby groups. He was not a groomed politician. As a member of the business establishment, he had his own corporate sponsors and fund raisers. His stated foreign policy agenda including his “commitment” to revise Washington’s relationship with Moscow did not fully conform with the interests of the defence contractors.

Prior to the elections, a smear campaign was launched by the media on behalf of the  “Clinton faction”. At the height of the election campaign Trump was portrayed by the US media as  “an agent” of the Kremlin, a modern Manchurian candidate.  Barely a month before the November 8 2016 elections, former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leo Panetta  intimated that Trump represented a threat to National Security. The Atlantic (October 8, 2016),  described Trump is a “Modern Manchurian Candidate”. 

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The Great Fraud of National Zionism

The Saker

[This article was written for the Unz Review] 

The Defining Event for the USA

 

There is no doubt that the 9/11 false flag (now even admitted (by direct implication) by NIST!) was a watershed, a seminal event in our history. While millions (or even billions) watched in horror as the twin towers burned, a small group of Mossad agents stood nearby and danced in overwhelming joy. Why exactly were these Israelis dancing? Surely there was more than just Schadenfreude in this spontaneous expression of euphoria?  Considering that these three dancing Israelis were just the tip of a much bigger iceberg, we can rest assured that there were many more folks dancing in joy that day, especially in Israel.

Why were these Mossad agents so blissful?  The answer is obvious: 9/11 put the following notions front and center of the concerns of most people in the USA:

• We are under attack and in grave, imminent, danger
• Islam wants to destroy our way of life
• Those who did 9/11 also want to destroy Israel
• We need to ask the Israelis to share their “expertise” in dealing with Islamic terrorism
• Draconian laws and new police powers need to be passed to protect us from mass murder
• If you are not with us, then you are with the terrorists

Almost a decade before 9/11, in 1992, Francis Fukuyama had explained to us that history itself was coming to an end while Samuel P. Huntington explained to us in 1996 that we were witnessing a “clash of civilizations.” This kind of “scholarly” research created the perfect political background to an already rather disquieting perception of the upcoming Year 2000. In 2001, when all hell broke loose, the general public was already well prepared for it (just like the AngloZionist elites who had already prepared the huge “Patriot Act” long before the Twin Towers came down).

9/11 was as much the culmination of a significant preparatory effort as it was the trigger for a decade or more of wars.

Still, all this immense effort into shaping the West’s perceptions was not good enough to hammer the sufficiently hysterical mindset into most people, in spite of the best efforts of the legacy Ziomedia to explain to us that Bin Laden decided that “we” were next in line for some kind of horrible (possibly nuclear) terrorist attack. Inside the USA the constant fear-mongering of the legacy Ziomedia did induce the suitable hysterical panic, while in the rest of the world things were not going quite as well. Especially not in Europe (which was vitally needed as a fig-leaf to pretend like the GWOT was not a US-Israeli thingie, but that there was a large “coalition of the willing” formed of the best and brightest countries out there). Something else, bigger and better, was needed and, sure enough, it was found: a mass exodus of poorly educated immigrants, the vast majority of them from Muslim countries.

While the (totally fictional and therefore totally unsuccessful) GWOT was petering out, the AngloZionists directed their stare at Libya and its leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi had warned that unless Europe was willing to pay Libya to contain the many millions of African refugees, a major catastrophe would happen. He explained that “Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in“, “we don’t know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans” and “we don’t know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions.”

The AngloZionists heard his message loud and clear and proceeded to immediately (and illegally!) overthrow and brutally murder Gaddafi (it is still unclear how many Israelis were dancing the day Col. Gaddafi was murdered).  Almost exactly a decade after 9/11 the Zionists finally had their “catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor,” but this time the victim was the entire European continent.

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