Re: Sympathy for the Devils...
Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 4:33 pm
Biden Slips: Calls Openly for Removal of Putin
by Ray McGovern Posted onMarch 26, 2022
Feeling his oats after effusive adulation from leaders of NATO – and Japan at the G-7 summit – Biden gave us the Mother of All Faux Pax this afternoon in Poland. (No, sadly, it was not some kind of Polish joke.)
Echoing imperious King Henry II of England, Biden uttered the equivalent of "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest" … or troublesome president? The priest, of course, was Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. The president is Vladimir Putin, who had already warned a complete break in Russia-U.S. relations.
Referring in all but name to President Putin, Biden said, "This man cannot remain in power." Reminder that should not be necessary: Prudent presidents have been reluctant to say that of the leader of other countries – sometimes even when the two are at war. Nor do I need to point out the inevitable hurdle to the cooperation necessary to negotiate a halt to invasions and introduce a ceasefire. Is it all the same to Biden that the carnage continue, with rhetorical promises of support, weapons that are blown up as soon as they cross the border into Ukraine, and crocodile tears.
This will not end well. Among other things, it amounts to public confirmation, at the chief-of-state level, no less, that U.S. involvement in Ukraine (particularly since the U.S.-arranged coup d’etat on Feb. 22, 2014) has been "regime change" in Russia.
That coup has been accurately labeled "the most blatant coup in history". The main orchestrator, caught on tape arranging for a new Ukrainian prime minister, was Victoria Nuland – now number three at the State Department telling her nominal boss Tony Blinken what to say and do on Ukraine.) See Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Salon.
Coup No Surprise: Neither Was Russia’s Reaction
After Nuland openly bragged in Dec. 2013 of the US having invested $5 Billion in Ukraine’s aspirations to join the West, and then orchestrated the coup two months later, one agency of the US intelligence community, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) got it right, presaging what slipped out of Biden’s lips earlier today. In an annual "National Security Strategy" report mandated by Congress, DIA Director LT Gen. Vincent Stewart on Dec. 2015 signed off on the following text:
"The Kremlin is convinced the United States is laying the groundwork for regime change in Russia, a conviction further reinforced by the events in Ukraine. Moscow views the United States as the critical driver behind the crisis in Ukraine and believes that the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Yanukovych is the latest move in a long-established pattern of U.S.-orchestrated regime change efforts."
For some reason, the mainstream media gave no play to that key finding. Let’s see how they play Biden’s confirmation of it.
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/03/26 ... -of-putin/
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Biden’s reality check in Europe
Russian General Staff dy head Gen. Sergey Rudskoy during briefing on special operation in Ukraine, Moscow, Mar. 25, 2022
The takeaway from the US President Joe Biden’s European tour on March 25-26 is measly. Dissenting voices are rising in Europe as western sanctions against Russia start backfiring with price hikes and shortages of fuel and electricity. And this is only the beginning, as Moscow is yet to announce any retaliatory measures as such.
The unkindest cut of it all is that the Russian Defence Ministry chose Biden’s trip as the perfect backdrop to frame the true proportions of success of its special operation in Ukraine. The US and NATO’s credibility is perilously close to being irreparably damaged, as the Russian juggernaut rolls across Ukraine with the twin objectives of ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘denazification’ in its sights.
The Russian General Staff disclosed on Friday that the hyped up Ukrainian Armed Forces, trained by the NATO and the US, have sustained crippling losses: Ukrainian air force and air defence is almost completely destroyed, while the country’s Navy no longer exists and about 11.5% of the entire military personnel have been put out of action. (Ukraine doesn’t have organised reserves.)
According to the Russian General Staff’s deputy head Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy, Ukraine has lost much of its combat vehicles (tanks, armoured vehicles, etc.), one-third of its multiple launch rocket systems, and well over three-fourths of its missile air defence systems and Tochka-U tactical missile systems.
Sixteen main military airfields in Ukraine have been put out of action, 39 storage bases and arsenals destroyed (which contained up to 70% of all stocks of military equipment, materiel and fuel, and more than 1 million 54000 tons of ammunition.)
Interestingly, following the intense high-precision strikes on the bases and training camps, foreign mercenaries are leaving Ukraine. During the past week, 285 mercenaries escaped into Poland, Hungary and Romania. Russian forces are systematically destroying the Western shipment of weapons.
Most important, the mission to liberate Donbass is about to be accomplished. Simply put, the main objectives of the first phase of the operation have been achieved.
Apart from Kiev, Russian troops have blocked the northern and eastern cities of Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov and Nikolaev, while in the south, Kherson and most of Zaporozhye region are under full control — the intention being to not only to shackle Ukrainian forces but to prevent their grouping in Donbass region. (See my article Dissecting Ukraine imbroglio, Tribune, March 21, 2022)
“We did not plan to storm these cities from the start, in order to prevent destruction and minimise losses among personnel and civilians,” Rudskoy said. But, he added, such an option is not ruled out either in the period ahead.
It stands to reason that Washington and European capitals are well aware that the Russian operation is proceeding as scheduled and there is no stopping it. Thus, the NATO’s extraordinary summit on March 24 confirmed that the alliance is unwilling to get into a military confrontation with the Russian Army.
Instead, the summit decided to strengthen the defence of its own territories! Four additional multinational NATO combat groups of 40,000 troops will be deployed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia on a permanent basis. Poland’s proposal to deploy NATO military units in Ukraine was outright rejected.
However, Poland has certain other plans, namely, to deploy contingents to the western regions of Ukraine to support the ‘fraternal Ukrainian people” with the unspoken agenda of reclaiming control over the historically disputed territories in the those regions. What Faustian deal has been struck in Warsaw on March 25 between Biden and his Polish counterpart Duda remains unclear. Clearly, vultures are circling Ukraine’s skies. (See my blog Biden wings his way to the borderlands of Ukraine, March 24, 2022)
Indeed, if Poland makes a bid for Ukrainian territory (with Biden’s tacit support), would Belarus be far behind to take control of the regions of Polesie and Volyn in Ukraine? Possibly not. Suffice to say, in the period since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 when the US moved into the driving seat, Ukraine has lost its sovereignty and is now perilously close to vanishing altogether from Europe’s map!
Washington — Biden personally, having been the Obama administration’s point person in Kiev in 2014 — should carry this heavy cross in history books.
As for European leaders, they find themselves in a surreal world, out of touch with the stunning realities of a new world order. Eighty-year old Biden with limited grasp of the torrential flow of events, made an astounding proposal in his press conference in Brussels on Thursday that Ukraine should replace Russia in the G20!
But Biden has a soulmate in the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen whose latest threat is that Russian oil and gas companies “will not be allowed to demand payment for fuel in rubles.” She is blissfully unaware that the EU has no more effective means to pressure Russian companies!
Russian President Vladimir Putin caught the western leaders huddled in Brussels by surprise with his announcement that Russia will promptly start charging “unfriendly” countries in rubles for gas supplies. There are over 45 unfriendly countries on the list — the US and EU members plus the UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Montenegro and Switzerland. (See the RT’s explainer What buying gas in rubles means for Russia and the West.)
Effectively, Moscow is on the one hand strengthening the weakened ruble, while on the other hand, messaging that it is pioneering a new wave internationally to bypass the dollar as commodity currency.
Yet, Moscow is also continuing to routinely supply Russian gas for transit to Europe through Ukraine to meet the requests of European consumers (109.5 mln cubic meters as of March 26!) The point is, despite rhetoric and grandstanding, Europe recently increased its gas purchases from Russia significantly against the backdrop of astronomically high spot prices!
The European Council meet at Brussels on March 25 with Biden in attendance failed to adopt any concrete measures to address the energy price growth, and could not come up with a unified approach to Russia’s decision to receive payments for its gas only in rubles.
Apropos the European Commission’s proposal to establish a new system of common purchase of gas to prevent outbidding, the final statement of the European Council merely says that the leaders agreed to “work together on voluntary common purchase of gas, LNG and hydrogen,” meaning that common purchases may be carried out only by those EU countries who are willing to unite. [Emphasis added.]
It is a long haul for Europe to dispense with Russian gas. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday: “There are gas shortages, and that is why we need to talk to Russians. Europe will move towards reducing its dependence on the Russian gas, but can this happen in the coming years? This is very difficult.”
“Europe consumes 500 billion cubic meters of gas, while America and Qatar can offer 15 billion, up to the last molecule… That is why German and Austrian politicians told me: “We cannot just destroy ourselves. If we impose sanctions on Russia in the oil and gas domain, we will destroy ourselves. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot before rushing into a fight.” This is how certain rational people in the West see it today.”
With the doomsday predictions of Russian military failure in Ukraine coming unstuck and the blowback from Russia sanctions beginning to bite, Europeans are caught in a bind. They will be resentful as time passes.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/bidens- ... in-europe/
**********************************************
A few more quotes from Scott Ritter's Twitter account:
***************************
Who’s the war criminal?
March 25, 2022 Stephen Millies
The smoldering wreckage of a passenger train in Serbia after being hit by two missiles launched from a NATO F-15, April 12, 1999. At least 20 commuters were killed.
On March 16, President Joe Biden called Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin a war criminal. How is this different from the white-supremacist Sen. Lindsey Graham demanding Putin’s assassination?
One week later, Biden ordered flags lowered to half-mast across the United States upon the death of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Albright has been called an unindicted war criminal. Albright was known as the Butcher of Serbia.
In the former Yugoslavia, the 1998-1999 conflict there is called by some “Madeleine’s War.” Albright, a key member of the Clinton administration, championed the 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia by NATO — which started exactly 23 years ago this month.
Before that in Iraq. Here’s what Albright, then Clinton’s Secretary of State, said in 1996 on the CBS show “60 Minutes” in an interview with Lesley Stahl:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it”.
The actual figure given by a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report in 1995 was that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the U.S. sanctions. But to war criminal Albright, “the price is worth it.”
Children died because Iraq was forbidden by sanctions to import so-called dual-use items like chlorine, which is used to purify water and treat sewage. As a result typhoid and other water-borne diseases soared.
The notorious interview is known around the world for its defense of mass murder. But you won’t find any mention of it in the New York Times’ obituary of Albright.
This is the great, liberal New York Times, that claims to include “all the news that’s fit to print.” Nobody should trust its coverage of the war drive against Russia.
The 81 million people who voted against Trump and racism shouldn’t trust Joe Biden, either. Racist Lindsey Graham is trying to stop Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson from becoming the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
But when it comes to Russia, Biden and Graham see eye-to-eye.
Why aren’t Kissinger, Cheney & Bush arrested?
If Biden is so concerned about war criminals, why hasn’t he had Henry Kissinger arrested? The former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor committed war crimes on three continents.
Millions more people were killed in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam because Kissinger and Nixon refused to sign a peace treaty until 1973. If they had signed the same treaty in 1969 ― as Vietnam asked them to ― 20,000 less GIs would have come home in a box.
Kissinger gave the go ahead for the original 9/11, the bloody overthrow of the elected socialist Chilean president Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973.
“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,” said Kissinger. “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
That’s self-determination according to the U.S. State Department and Wall Street.
“You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende,” Kissinger told the dictator Pinochet, who had thousands tortured to death.
Kissinger also gave a green light for the Indonesian dictator Suharto to invade East Timor. One out of three people in East Timor were killed.
Kissinger wanted to invade Cuba for its military support of the People’s Republic of Angola in defeating the Nazi army of then-apartheid South Africa.
Angola saved thousands of African lives by sending the CIA mercenary Costas Georgiou to the firing squad and thus intimidating other killers for hire.
U.S. and NATO-paid mercenaries have flocked to Ukraine. Alongside fascist gangs like the Azov Battalion, they are propping up Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has banned every political party except his own.
Let’s not forget the war crimes of Dick Cheney and the Bush family. Former Vice President Cheney called the torture of thousands of Muslims to be “enhanched interrogation.” Cheney’s sidekick ― befuddled White House occupant George W. Bush ― presided over a million people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
George’s daddy ― President George H.W. Bush ― invaded Panama. The Pentagon never revealed the number of people killed there.
Earlier as CIA director, Daddy Bush had Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 bombed on Oct. 6, 1976. All 73 people on board were killed; it was a revenge murder for Cuba’s support of African liberation.
Capitalism built on war crimes
War crimes made America “great.” Over a hundred Indigenous nations were invaded.
Massacres started with the Pilgrims and extended beyond Wounded Knee. Keeping the political prisoner-of-war Leonard Peltier in jail for 46 years is a war crime.
The African Holocaust never stopped either. U.S. and world capitalism was built upon it.
Wall Street became the country’s financial center by being the banking house for Southern slave owners. While today New York City has municipal green markets, it once operated a slave market on Wall Street.
By recognizing Belgian King Leopold’s “Congo Free State,” U.S. President Chester Arthur provided political cover for murdering 8-to-15 million Africans for rubber profits. President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.
Locking up 2.2 million people is a war crime. As a U.S. Senator, Joe Biden pushed through the 1994 “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act” that guaranteed imprisoning hundreds of thousands more Black, Indigenous and Latinx people.
Stealing half of Mexico was a war crime. In the so-called Mexican-American War of 1846-48, a slave-holders’ army invaded Mexico, which was an abolitionist nation. General Zachary Taylor’s artillery pounded the city of Matamoros, killing hundreds of civilians. Villages were pillaged and plundered. In the end the U.S. occupied and took all or parts of the current states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona. Millions of acres of Mexican land were stolen from the Indigenous Peoples and Mexican farmers who lived there; more than a hundred thousand died. South Carolina’s John Calhoun, speaking in praise of the seizure of Mexican land, declared, “Ours is the government of the white man!”
A rerun of Yugoslavia?
President Biden was directed to call President Putin a war criminal because the Pentagon wants a rerun of the Yugoslavia tragedy.
NATO planes bombed Yugoslavia, the last socialist country in Europe, for 78 days in 1999. Yugoslavia’s elected President Slobodan Milošević was kidnapped and framed on war crimes charges because he resisted NATO.
Milošević died suddenly just as it looked like he could win an appeal. For some observers this was reminiscent of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin Jack Ruby dying suddenly after he was granted a new trial.
The Pentagon wants to give President Putin the same treatment or just be assassinated. To the banksters that run the United States, it’s intolerable that the six million square miles of the Russian Federation isn’t occupied by U.S. and NATO troops.
Neither Joe Biden nor the New York Times has ever denounced the deaths of over 14,000 people in the Donbass. This real war crime was committed at the hands of a Ukrainian regime supported by the U.S. and NATO.
The Russian Federation is giving indispensable help to anti-fascists in Ukraine. Don’t be fooled by the capitalist media. Hands off Russia and the Donbass!
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... -criminal/
Well, THANK GOD IT"S NOT TRUMP!"
"We always knew he was a lying sack of shit, possibly senile, but we never thought it would come to this because he wasn't Trump."
This guy is like Ronald Raygun all over again: thru a strategy of 'compromise suicide' he has stymied anything progressive in this country just as Ronnie did from the other side while taking us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. The former prez, obnoxious, venal, ignorant and corrupt(those no bar to success in capitalist society) was unreliable in the foreign affairs field, an obstacle to the imperial program. He tried bribing his fellow Owners with the people's money to go along with his ego-driven behavior, but it was never enough. But Joe, he's the Man, he'll get the job done even when he doesn't really know what he is doing.
We owe a great debt to Ford and the BAR crowd, besides alerting us to the scam that was Obama they were the first to point out that the 'lesser evil' wasn't so 'lesser' at all...
by Ray McGovern Posted onMarch 26, 2022
Feeling his oats after effusive adulation from leaders of NATO – and Japan at the G-7 summit – Biden gave us the Mother of All Faux Pax this afternoon in Poland. (No, sadly, it was not some kind of Polish joke.)
Echoing imperious King Henry II of England, Biden uttered the equivalent of "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest" … or troublesome president? The priest, of course, was Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. The president is Vladimir Putin, who had already warned a complete break in Russia-U.S. relations.
Referring in all but name to President Putin, Biden said, "This man cannot remain in power." Reminder that should not be necessary: Prudent presidents have been reluctant to say that of the leader of other countries – sometimes even when the two are at war. Nor do I need to point out the inevitable hurdle to the cooperation necessary to negotiate a halt to invasions and introduce a ceasefire. Is it all the same to Biden that the carnage continue, with rhetorical promises of support, weapons that are blown up as soon as they cross the border into Ukraine, and crocodile tears.
This will not end well. Among other things, it amounts to public confirmation, at the chief-of-state level, no less, that U.S. involvement in Ukraine (particularly since the U.S.-arranged coup d’etat on Feb. 22, 2014) has been "regime change" in Russia.
That coup has been accurately labeled "the most blatant coup in history". The main orchestrator, caught on tape arranging for a new Ukrainian prime minister, was Victoria Nuland – now number three at the State Department telling her nominal boss Tony Blinken what to say and do on Ukraine.) See Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Salon.
Coup No Surprise: Neither Was Russia’s Reaction
After Nuland openly bragged in Dec. 2013 of the US having invested $5 Billion in Ukraine’s aspirations to join the West, and then orchestrated the coup two months later, one agency of the US intelligence community, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) got it right, presaging what slipped out of Biden’s lips earlier today. In an annual "National Security Strategy" report mandated by Congress, DIA Director LT Gen. Vincent Stewart on Dec. 2015 signed off on the following text:
"The Kremlin is convinced the United States is laying the groundwork for regime change in Russia, a conviction further reinforced by the events in Ukraine. Moscow views the United States as the critical driver behind the crisis in Ukraine and believes that the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Yanukovych is the latest move in a long-established pattern of U.S.-orchestrated regime change efforts."
For some reason, the mainstream media gave no play to that key finding. Let’s see how they play Biden’s confirmation of it.
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/03/26 ... -of-putin/
*****************************
Biden’s reality check in Europe
Russian General Staff dy head Gen. Sergey Rudskoy during briefing on special operation in Ukraine, Moscow, Mar. 25, 2022
The takeaway from the US President Joe Biden’s European tour on March 25-26 is measly. Dissenting voices are rising in Europe as western sanctions against Russia start backfiring with price hikes and shortages of fuel and electricity. And this is only the beginning, as Moscow is yet to announce any retaliatory measures as such.
The unkindest cut of it all is that the Russian Defence Ministry chose Biden’s trip as the perfect backdrop to frame the true proportions of success of its special operation in Ukraine. The US and NATO’s credibility is perilously close to being irreparably damaged, as the Russian juggernaut rolls across Ukraine with the twin objectives of ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘denazification’ in its sights.
The Russian General Staff disclosed on Friday that the hyped up Ukrainian Armed Forces, trained by the NATO and the US, have sustained crippling losses: Ukrainian air force and air defence is almost completely destroyed, while the country’s Navy no longer exists and about 11.5% of the entire military personnel have been put out of action. (Ukraine doesn’t have organised reserves.)
According to the Russian General Staff’s deputy head Colonel General Sergey Rudskoy, Ukraine has lost much of its combat vehicles (tanks, armoured vehicles, etc.), one-third of its multiple launch rocket systems, and well over three-fourths of its missile air defence systems and Tochka-U tactical missile systems.
Sixteen main military airfields in Ukraine have been put out of action, 39 storage bases and arsenals destroyed (which contained up to 70% of all stocks of military equipment, materiel and fuel, and more than 1 million 54000 tons of ammunition.)
Interestingly, following the intense high-precision strikes on the bases and training camps, foreign mercenaries are leaving Ukraine. During the past week, 285 mercenaries escaped into Poland, Hungary and Romania. Russian forces are systematically destroying the Western shipment of weapons.
Most important, the mission to liberate Donbass is about to be accomplished. Simply put, the main objectives of the first phase of the operation have been achieved.
Apart from Kiev, Russian troops have blocked the northern and eastern cities of Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov and Nikolaev, while in the south, Kherson and most of Zaporozhye region are under full control — the intention being to not only to shackle Ukrainian forces but to prevent their grouping in Donbass region. (See my article Dissecting Ukraine imbroglio, Tribune, March 21, 2022)
“We did not plan to storm these cities from the start, in order to prevent destruction and minimise losses among personnel and civilians,” Rudskoy said. But, he added, such an option is not ruled out either in the period ahead.
It stands to reason that Washington and European capitals are well aware that the Russian operation is proceeding as scheduled and there is no stopping it. Thus, the NATO’s extraordinary summit on March 24 confirmed that the alliance is unwilling to get into a military confrontation with the Russian Army.
Instead, the summit decided to strengthen the defence of its own territories! Four additional multinational NATO combat groups of 40,000 troops will be deployed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia on a permanent basis. Poland’s proposal to deploy NATO military units in Ukraine was outright rejected.
However, Poland has certain other plans, namely, to deploy contingents to the western regions of Ukraine to support the ‘fraternal Ukrainian people” with the unspoken agenda of reclaiming control over the historically disputed territories in the those regions. What Faustian deal has been struck in Warsaw on March 25 between Biden and his Polish counterpart Duda remains unclear. Clearly, vultures are circling Ukraine’s skies. (See my blog Biden wings his way to the borderlands of Ukraine, March 24, 2022)
Indeed, if Poland makes a bid for Ukrainian territory (with Biden’s tacit support), would Belarus be far behind to take control of the regions of Polesie and Volyn in Ukraine? Possibly not. Suffice to say, in the period since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 when the US moved into the driving seat, Ukraine has lost its sovereignty and is now perilously close to vanishing altogether from Europe’s map!
Washington — Biden personally, having been the Obama administration’s point person in Kiev in 2014 — should carry this heavy cross in history books.
As for European leaders, they find themselves in a surreal world, out of touch with the stunning realities of a new world order. Eighty-year old Biden with limited grasp of the torrential flow of events, made an astounding proposal in his press conference in Brussels on Thursday that Ukraine should replace Russia in the G20!
But Biden has a soulmate in the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen whose latest threat is that Russian oil and gas companies “will not be allowed to demand payment for fuel in rubles.” She is blissfully unaware that the EU has no more effective means to pressure Russian companies!
Russian President Vladimir Putin caught the western leaders huddled in Brussels by surprise with his announcement that Russia will promptly start charging “unfriendly” countries in rubles for gas supplies. There are over 45 unfriendly countries on the list — the US and EU members plus the UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Montenegro and Switzerland. (See the RT’s explainer What buying gas in rubles means for Russia and the West.)
Effectively, Moscow is on the one hand strengthening the weakened ruble, while on the other hand, messaging that it is pioneering a new wave internationally to bypass the dollar as commodity currency.
Yet, Moscow is also continuing to routinely supply Russian gas for transit to Europe through Ukraine to meet the requests of European consumers (109.5 mln cubic meters as of March 26!) The point is, despite rhetoric and grandstanding, Europe recently increased its gas purchases from Russia significantly against the backdrop of astronomically high spot prices!
The European Council meet at Brussels on March 25 with Biden in attendance failed to adopt any concrete measures to address the energy price growth, and could not come up with a unified approach to Russia’s decision to receive payments for its gas only in rubles.
Apropos the European Commission’s proposal to establish a new system of common purchase of gas to prevent outbidding, the final statement of the European Council merely says that the leaders agreed to “work together on voluntary common purchase of gas, LNG and hydrogen,” meaning that common purchases may be carried out only by those EU countries who are willing to unite. [Emphasis added.]
It is a long haul for Europe to dispense with Russian gas. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said yesterday: “There are gas shortages, and that is why we need to talk to Russians. Europe will move towards reducing its dependence on the Russian gas, but can this happen in the coming years? This is very difficult.”
“Europe consumes 500 billion cubic meters of gas, while America and Qatar can offer 15 billion, up to the last molecule… That is why German and Austrian politicians told me: “We cannot just destroy ourselves. If we impose sanctions on Russia in the oil and gas domain, we will destroy ourselves. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot before rushing into a fight.” This is how certain rational people in the West see it today.”
With the doomsday predictions of Russian military failure in Ukraine coming unstuck and the blowback from Russia sanctions beginning to bite, Europeans are caught in a bind. They will be resentful as time passes.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/bidens- ... in-europe/
**********************************************
A few more quotes from Scott Ritter's Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter?ref ... r%5EauthorOur President calls for regime change in Russia the same week he promulgates policy that embraces preemptive nuclear strikes in non-nuclear situations. His administration is planning on deploying Dark Eagle hypersonic missiles in Europe later this year. A madman rules America.
***
The absurdity of a President of one country, sitting on an approval rating of 40% which is trending lower, calling for the removal of the President of a second nation, who has an approval rating of 71% that is trending higher, should be evident to all. Biden is not a serious man.
***************************
Who’s the war criminal?
March 25, 2022 Stephen Millies
The smoldering wreckage of a passenger train in Serbia after being hit by two missiles launched from a NATO F-15, April 12, 1999. At least 20 commuters were killed.
On March 16, President Joe Biden called Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin a war criminal. How is this different from the white-supremacist Sen. Lindsey Graham demanding Putin’s assassination?
One week later, Biden ordered flags lowered to half-mast across the United States upon the death of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Albright has been called an unindicted war criminal. Albright was known as the Butcher of Serbia.
In the former Yugoslavia, the 1998-1999 conflict there is called by some “Madeleine’s War.” Albright, a key member of the Clinton administration, championed the 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia by NATO — which started exactly 23 years ago this month.
Before that in Iraq. Here’s what Albright, then Clinton’s Secretary of State, said in 1996 on the CBS show “60 Minutes” in an interview with Lesley Stahl:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it”.
The actual figure given by a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report in 1995 was that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the U.S. sanctions. But to war criminal Albright, “the price is worth it.”
Children died because Iraq was forbidden by sanctions to import so-called dual-use items like chlorine, which is used to purify water and treat sewage. As a result typhoid and other water-borne diseases soared.
The notorious interview is known around the world for its defense of mass murder. But you won’t find any mention of it in the New York Times’ obituary of Albright.
This is the great, liberal New York Times, that claims to include “all the news that’s fit to print.” Nobody should trust its coverage of the war drive against Russia.
The 81 million people who voted against Trump and racism shouldn’t trust Joe Biden, either. Racist Lindsey Graham is trying to stop Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson from becoming the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
But when it comes to Russia, Biden and Graham see eye-to-eye.
Why aren’t Kissinger, Cheney & Bush arrested?
If Biden is so concerned about war criminals, why hasn’t he had Henry Kissinger arrested? The former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor committed war crimes on three continents.
Millions more people were killed in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam because Kissinger and Nixon refused to sign a peace treaty until 1973. If they had signed the same treaty in 1969 ― as Vietnam asked them to ― 20,000 less GIs would have come home in a box.
Kissinger gave the go ahead for the original 9/11, the bloody overthrow of the elected socialist Chilean president Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973.
“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,” said Kissinger. “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
That’s self-determination according to the U.S. State Department and Wall Street.
“You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende,” Kissinger told the dictator Pinochet, who had thousands tortured to death.
Kissinger also gave a green light for the Indonesian dictator Suharto to invade East Timor. One out of three people in East Timor were killed.
Kissinger wanted to invade Cuba for its military support of the People’s Republic of Angola in defeating the Nazi army of then-apartheid South Africa.
Angola saved thousands of African lives by sending the CIA mercenary Costas Georgiou to the firing squad and thus intimidating other killers for hire.
U.S. and NATO-paid mercenaries have flocked to Ukraine. Alongside fascist gangs like the Azov Battalion, they are propping up Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has banned every political party except his own.
Let’s not forget the war crimes of Dick Cheney and the Bush family. Former Vice President Cheney called the torture of thousands of Muslims to be “enhanched interrogation.” Cheney’s sidekick ― befuddled White House occupant George W. Bush ― presided over a million people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
George’s daddy ― President George H.W. Bush ― invaded Panama. The Pentagon never revealed the number of people killed there.
Earlier as CIA director, Daddy Bush had Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 bombed on Oct. 6, 1976. All 73 people on board were killed; it was a revenge murder for Cuba’s support of African liberation.
Capitalism built on war crimes
War crimes made America “great.” Over a hundred Indigenous nations were invaded.
Massacres started with the Pilgrims and extended beyond Wounded Knee. Keeping the political prisoner-of-war Leonard Peltier in jail for 46 years is a war crime.
The African Holocaust never stopped either. U.S. and world capitalism was built upon it.
Wall Street became the country’s financial center by being the banking house for Southern slave owners. While today New York City has municipal green markets, it once operated a slave market on Wall Street.
By recognizing Belgian King Leopold’s “Congo Free State,” U.S. President Chester Arthur provided political cover for murdering 8-to-15 million Africans for rubber profits. President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.
Locking up 2.2 million people is a war crime. As a U.S. Senator, Joe Biden pushed through the 1994 “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act” that guaranteed imprisoning hundreds of thousands more Black, Indigenous and Latinx people.
Stealing half of Mexico was a war crime. In the so-called Mexican-American War of 1846-48, a slave-holders’ army invaded Mexico, which was an abolitionist nation. General Zachary Taylor’s artillery pounded the city of Matamoros, killing hundreds of civilians. Villages were pillaged and plundered. In the end the U.S. occupied and took all or parts of the current states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona. Millions of acres of Mexican land were stolen from the Indigenous Peoples and Mexican farmers who lived there; more than a hundred thousand died. South Carolina’s John Calhoun, speaking in praise of the seizure of Mexican land, declared, “Ours is the government of the white man!”
A rerun of Yugoslavia?
President Biden was directed to call President Putin a war criminal because the Pentagon wants a rerun of the Yugoslavia tragedy.
NATO planes bombed Yugoslavia, the last socialist country in Europe, for 78 days in 1999. Yugoslavia’s elected President Slobodan Milošević was kidnapped and framed on war crimes charges because he resisted NATO.
Milošević died suddenly just as it looked like he could win an appeal. For some observers this was reminiscent of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin Jack Ruby dying suddenly after he was granted a new trial.
The Pentagon wants to give President Putin the same treatment or just be assassinated. To the banksters that run the United States, it’s intolerable that the six million square miles of the Russian Federation isn’t occupied by U.S. and NATO troops.
Neither Joe Biden nor the New York Times has ever denounced the deaths of over 14,000 people in the Donbass. This real war crime was committed at the hands of a Ukrainian regime supported by the U.S. and NATO.
The Russian Federation is giving indispensable help to anti-fascists in Ukraine. Don’t be fooled by the capitalist media. Hands off Russia and the Donbass!
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... -criminal/
Well, THANK GOD IT"S NOT TRUMP!"
"We always knew he was a lying sack of shit, possibly senile, but we never thought it would come to this because he wasn't Trump."
This guy is like Ronald Raygun all over again: thru a strategy of 'compromise suicide' he has stymied anything progressive in this country just as Ronnie did from the other side while taking us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. The former prez, obnoxious, venal, ignorant and corrupt(those no bar to success in capitalist society) was unreliable in the foreign affairs field, an obstacle to the imperial program. He tried bribing his fellow Owners with the people's money to go along with his ego-driven behavior, but it was never enough. But Joe, he's the Man, he'll get the job done even when he doesn't really know what he is doing.
We owe a great debt to Ford and the BAR crowd, besides alerting us to the scam that was Obama they were the first to point out that the 'lesser evil' wasn't so 'lesser' at all...