intellectjuweel: August 2022

die verdienen het tenminste ....

As a result of terrorist shelling of the center of Donetsk during the farewell ceremony to Olga Kachur, at least 5 people were killed in the city, 6 were moderately injured. The fire was fired from American M777 howitzers. At the moment, the shelling of Donetsk continues. Nazi degenerates in Kiev say that it is “the Russian army and separatists are shelling Donetsk.”

Photo and video. Part 18+

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59419
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59420
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59422
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59425
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59429
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59430
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59433
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59437
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59438
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59441
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59442
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59443
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59450
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59452

je eerlijkheid of je leven ........

lees of je leven ervan afhangt

Niqnaq
οἱ θεοὶ πολλοί, οἱ ἄνδρες ὀλίγοι
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colonel cassad
August 4, 2022 – 4:54 pm

Clearly focused military operations
Colonel Cassad, Aug 4 2022 1745

    (No Title)
    Dmitri Stef, Watfor, Aug 4 2022 1518

    Source: https://ram.komica2.net/00/src/1659594333981.jpg

    China is gradually revealing maps of “clearly focused military operations” announced in response to the dramatic visit of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei Airport. Our friend Artem Maltsev understood the details. In short: welcome to the Fourth Crisis in the Taiwan Strait. As in 1996, the main argument so far is ballistic missile launches, as well as naval maneuvers and actions to practice the landing operation. NOTAMs of the planned exercise areas have already been published.

    At first glance, it may seem that China is surrounding the island from all sides, preparing for a blockade or something worse. Samples of infographics replicated in Chinese social networks with the deployment of aviation and fleet right off the coast of the island are clearly aimed at creating exactly this effect. In fact, the closest squares southwest and northeast of Taiwan are missile arrival zones, while aviation and surface ships are likely to stay at some distance. The latter is clearly noticeable in the example of the previous crisis of 1995-1996, when the angle of one of the “squares of arrival” carefully touched the border of the 12-mile zone. Today, the corresponding square will be moved demonstratively deep into territorial waters, gently touching the border of the now inland waters of Taiwan. For truly independent states, sovereignty over inland waters is equivalent to sovereignty over land. For China, of course, as well as for the good half of the international community, there are no sovereign waters near the island of Taiwan, because China is united and indivisible. However, the military and political leadership of the People’s Republic of China made an appropriate gesture – extremely gently and cautiously.

    Now about rivets (Заклёпки): over the past 24 hours we have already seen at least 11 launches of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles: according to preliminary data, these are DF-11 and DF-15 complexes. After mass production in the 1990-2000s, the arsenal of these missiles may approach 1,500 units. For comparison, in the two years of the previous crisis, China has fired only 6 missiles of the same class. In addition, the newest PHL-16 MLRS of unusual caliber participated in the shelling: 370 mm. In fact, this complex is specially designed to shell the main territory of Taiwan as a more “cost-effective” replacement for short-range ballistic missiles (in this role it can be compared to the now well-known HIMARS MLRS, and to mention the repeatedly voiced thesis about the rapprochement and mixing of the category “heavy MLRS” and “tactical BR”). In the near future, we can also expect the launch of more advanced BR: the notorious “aircraft carrier killer” DF-21D and her older sister of the intermediate range DF-26. Rumors about the demonstration of the DF-17 with a new-fashioned hypersonic glider are also circulating. It would be interesting to look at the results of tests of these missiles against mobile surface targets, but frankly, it is doubtful that the Chinese towed a target ship to the right area in advance.

    In general, the missile arsenal of China today represents a kind of unknown relationship between large-scale samples of complexes of past generations and their more modern and advanced analogues. Accordingly, mass launches of BRs such as DF-16 and DF-21 can be a signal of confidence in the depth of the newest part of its “powder cellar.” The opposite is also true. In any case, the islanders can only enjoy the fireworks: despite Taiwan has a fairly advanced missile defense system (Patriot PAC-3 and local Tien Kung-III), it still falls short of the shooting areas. From a military point of view, it is clear that these launches will not bring anything fundamentally new to the “strait equation.” The possibility of massive “bombing-calibration” of Taiwan has been considered one of the main trump cards of China for a relatively long time in the event of an escalation of the conflict. But the experience of known events well shows that even with objectively limited utility of missile defense systems, the armed forces scattered in urban agglomerations are able to perfectly absorb such strikes while maintaining stability.

PS. The Ministry of Defense of Japan claims that China launched 4 ballistic missiles over Taiwan, which flew across the island and fell into the ocean. Earlier, Japan reported that during missile firing, 5 Chinese missiles fell in the economic zone of Japan. In addition to shooking muscles, due to the exercises, problems with air traffic and navigation in Taiwan began. Local so far. Whether they will be systemic will depend on how long China maintains a high degree of military activity around the island, which, due to the difficulties for transport communication, causes economic damage to Taiwan.

Shelling of Donetsk
Colonel Cassad, Aug 4 2022 12:58

As a result of terrorist shelling of the center of Donetsk during the farewell ceremony to Olga Kachur, at least 5 people were killed in the city, 6 were moderately injured. The fire was fired from American M777 howitzers. At the moment, the shelling of Donetsk continues. Nazi degenerates in Kiev say that it is “the Russian army and separatists are shelling Donetsk.”

Photo and video. Part 18+

https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59419
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59420
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59422
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59425
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59429
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59430
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59433
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59437
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59438
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59441
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59442
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59443
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59450
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/59452

Korsa is a hero of Russia
Colonel Cassad, Aug 4 2022 10:18

Olga Kachura is a hero of Russia. Putin signed a decree awarding Olga Kachura (call sign “Corsa”) the title of Hero of Russia. Posthumously. Yesterday she was also awarded the title of Hero of the DPR. Olga Kachura died yesterday in the Gorlovka area.

Korsa Died
Colonel Cassad, Aug 3 2022 14:54

Olga Kachura, who was known under the call sign “Corsa,” died near Gorlovka. For many years, she has been in continuous command of the DPR Grad MLRS division. She fought in 2014. With the beginning of the special military operation, she was constantly at the front, working in various areas. In fact, Olga Kachura was the most famous female commander in the DPR army. Heavy loss. Peace to dust.
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helen buyniski
August 4, 2022 – 9:37 am

Washington Robot
Helen of desTroy, Aug 4 2022

Volodymyr Zelensky is the West’s ideal vessel for laundering its worst ideas. Forget fighting till the last Ukrainian – this canary in the filthiest ideological coal mine the international banking cartels could build might just lead the empire all the way to that great mushroom cloud in the sky.

Despite the Ukrainian president’s profound lack of geopolitical awareness, his declaration over a month ago that the “international community” must help Taiwan resist Chinese “aggression” now, before Beijing attacks the poor little heavily-armed island, served to open the door to the absurd spectacle the world beheld this week. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tottered around the wayward province visiting silicon chip factories in order to fluff up her stock portfolio and maybe even goad Xi Jinping into launching a military campaign to retake Taiwan that would quickly flatten US forces. Seven months into Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, Zelensky remains the darling of the western intelligentsia, rolled out at every opportunity to demand more money for the weapons his soldiers are quietly offloading on the dark web, more sanctions against those dastardly Russians, more martial-law-style crackdowns at home, and more calls for violence against civilians.

The shoulderless thespian is thriving in his position as NATO’s golden boy, and both parties seem quite happy with what amounts to the world’s most expensive fin-dom (that’s “Financial Domination”) relationship in human history. Clad in man-of-the-people olive drab, Zelensky plays the role of solemn warrior-monk, convincing the US and Europe to open their hearts and wallets for the war effort to the point of adopting ruinous, self-sabotaging sanctions they clearly cannot afford in order to Save Democracy. Who knew that Uncle Sam, perhaps grown bored of enjoying the riches extracted by force from other countries, really just wanted to be told to bend over and open his wallet like the dirty little cash-slut he was? How many lives would have been saved in Libya if Muammar Gaddafi had just whipped out one of those petrodollar-imperiling gold dinars and told Barack Obama to suck on it? But it’s all fun and games for Zelensky to declare Biden a dirty little debt pig and send him down to the ATM every hour to withdraw more funds. Washington and its NATO partners are faced with a thornier crisis. One can print unlimited amounts of money, if one doesn’t mind inflating the currency and triggering a recession death-spiral the likes of which the industrialized West may not survive. But one can’t just print HiMARS rocket launchers, or Javelin missiles, or any of the other expensive toys Ukraine has been consuming for eight years now. Even the most skilled disinformation architects cannot fight fire with bullshit. Because Zelensky has been wedged into every pop culture event of 2022, from the tripping hordes at Glastonbury to a recent much-mocked Vogue photoshoot by Annie Leibowitz, the herd animals of the West have long since forgotten all about the media establishment’s slew of relatively recent warnings that the country NATO was propping up was not only the most corrupt in eastern Europe but also a hive of wannanazi thugs bankrolled by incongruously Jewish billionaire Igor Kolomoisky.

Far from the corrupt puppet of capital he was revealed to be in the Panama Papers, Zelensky has been reinvented as a Hero of Our Democracy™, just as the diminutive dictator Dr Anthony Fauci came to embody “the Science” during the mini-Dark Age from which much of the West has yet to emerge. The wisdom of neither figure can be questioned, unless one wants to risk social exile. Thus anything the Kiev regime says or does is automatically anointed with the fairy dust of Democracy. This has given the West a magnificent opportunity to shred what’s left of the Enlightenment-era notion of human rights. Zelensky unveiled an all-digital state that serves as a turn-key social credit score? Nice, let’s go full Minority Report at home! Zelensky outlawed opposition parties? Cool, fewer names on the ballot means voters have less chances to make a mistake! Zelensky has banned Russian music and art? Awesome, let’s burn all the nasty cultural artifacts that make us ashamed of our uncultured ignorance! Zelensky has declared it a war crime to demand accountability in how he spends US taxpayers’ money? Chuck Schumer’s already got it covered! Zelensky wants to go to war with China?

[record-scratch]

Coming from any other eastern European kleptocrat, such a suggestion might have been shrugged off as the egotistical bloviation of a spoiled child, dismissed with a nervous chuckle and appeased with another eight-ball. But Zelensky has the ears of every self-disrespecting “democracy” on the planet, and what he says is lapped up by the narrative managers of western media as gospel. If the man wants war with China, he will find some NATOad willing to hop to it. Zelensky’s June call for a preemptive strike against China was picked up by no less than the WaPo, which acknowledged that while the comments risked “upsetting Ukraine’s delicate balancing act with China,” they had emanated from the mouth of their Democracy Hero, who insisted that “aggressors must be confronted wherever they emerge.” Never mind that the US, chief backer of the Ukrainian military effort, has long been the biggest and boldest aggressor on the planet – Zelensky’s paymasters knew not to take such rhetoric personally. But Zelensky had raised the bar for Our Democracy with his geopolitical ambition. There’s a difference between duping Europe into starving itself of wheat and fuel for the coming winter and threatening China’s territorial ambitions. While Europe – its ruling class at least – is possessed by a self-flagellatory compulsion that ensures it will respond with only gratitude the more it suffers because of its Ukraine boosterism, Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that western interference in the Taiwan question will not be tolerated. Not by the US, and certainly not by the likes of Zelensky, a man who doesn’t know the difference between Chiang Kai-Shek and Shrek, a clown who just a few years ago was playing piano with his dick on TV for an excruciating 44 seconds.

Washington hemmed and hawed for a good long time trying to appease its shoulderless enfant terrible without incurring the wrath of Xi. Biden dribbled half-baked promises to protect Taiwan from big bad China only for his cabinet to hurriedly walk them back lest someone in Beijing take the old man’s ramblings seriously. But after the very public canonization of Democracy Hero, surely Washington couldn’t refuse both his longstanding plea for a no-fly zone in Ukraine (which even the most simpering yes-men had acknowledged would amount to a declaration of war against Russia) and his plea for aid to Asian Ukraine-equivalent Taiwan (which would amount to a declaration of war against China)! The US was caught in the awkward position of having two invites to the nuclear-armageddon ball, thanks to Zelensky’s unerring instinct for deploying other people’s money, but not even enough ammo for one great-power war after shipping years’ worth of stockpiles to Ukraine. Eventually Mark Esper, the former Raytheon lobbyist who served as Defense Secretary under Trump, went rogue and declared there should be an end to the “One China” policy that had essentially served as a “don’t ask/don’t tell” for the Taiwan question for nearly half a century. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the war machine’s cue and hopped on a plane to visit the contested island, claiming to be interested in inspecting its “vibrant Democracy” but actually setting up tours of semiconductor factories whose stock she wanted her hubby to buy. Such an unabashed display of the great American political virtues – greed, hypocrisy, and sheer bull-headed stupidity – had Democrats and Republicans alike hard as they braced for the eeeevil Chinese to shoot down her heroic plane. When Beijing failed to live up to their (utterly baseless) prediction, there were eruptions of bipartisan high-fiving and fulsome media tributes. Biden came out looking like a cowardly stick in the mud for refusing to go along with the pointless provocation and instead cautioning his sister in dementia that the Pentagon “didn’t think it was a good idea right now.”

And Zelensky? While he did his job well in paving the way for the US to try to start a world war with yet another superpower against which it’s hopelessly unmatched, the Ukrainian leader is sounding more and more like his American counterpart every day, hopelessly in over his head. Both are figureheads for the neocon policy apparatus that takes its orders from BlackRock and Vanguard, the asset managers that control the global economy; neither man can be said to have any real role in his country’s governance, or understand how to function in such a role should he somehow be thrust into one; both are supposed to, when in doubt, shut up and look presidential. But neither Biden nor Zelensky have been able to manage that last directive, and both are rapidly reaching the end of their usefulness with the people they were assigned to hoodwink. Even if Zelensky still commands the worshipful adulation of the West, a growing number of Ukrainians are sick of what look for all the world like efforts by his handlers to turn the war tearing their country to pieces into a luxury product. A hologram of the man recently made its debut in a bizarre Star Wars-themed broadcast at a London tech fair.

While it was ostensibly aimed at selling the idea of Ukraine as the digital democracy of the future, the high-profile introduction of a synthetic version of the West’s Democracy Hero carried more than a faint hint that the man himself might be getting to be too much trouble, especially after he fired both the head of the SBU and his chief prosecutor last month, claiming they were traitors. At best, NATO was merely constructing a contingency plan in case their golden boy ended up a headless, limbless torso floating in the Dnipro; at worst, they might help that plan along, given his plummeting popularity at home. With no real allies left in Ukraine outside his own inner circle, Zelensky is singing not just for his supper but for his life. It’s only natural Zelensky, like Biden, would be drawn to the sort of geopolitical catastrophe that could hide his rank incompetence beneath a greater chaos – say, a shooting war between the US and China over Taiwan. Just as Zelensky tries to drag the US into a standoff with Beijing, so is Biden trying to pull Europe into such an unwinnable conflict with Russia. But a scheme by the UK and Europe to bar Russia from the global shipping insurance market, which would have (theoretically) kept the bulk of its oil from reaching overseas customers – a tactic hailed as genius by the media establishment just two months ago – has thus far failed to launch. Indeed, European countries appear to be getting cold feet – literally – regarding shoveling their increasingly finite supply of wealth into the bottomless pit the war has become. A recent survey indicates that for Europeans, the looming possibility of dying on Democracy’s freezing-cold hill has become decidedly less appealing as it becomes more likely.

After all, no matter who “wins” these unwinnable conflicts, the victor will be expected to serve up his own country on a silver platter for foreign investors to gorge themselves. A recently-published paper by think tank RAND Corporation titled “Rebuilding Ukraine” describes how “state enterprises are a chokehold on the economy” which reduce “public confidence in government and deter private investors.” The document is a love-letter to rampant privatization of the same strain that nearly sank the Russian economy post-USSR and which international financial cartels are eager to unleash everywhere, especially China, and serves as a handy reminder that Kiev’s vaunted “digital state” is all programmed and run by a private company, one that is ironically quite cozy with Moscow.

Whoever is duped into kicking off WW3 – and Washington is already scraping bottom, trying to goad North Korea’s Kim Jong-un into playing that role by rubbing his faux-assassination in his face – the carnage will be used to justify the complex controlled demolition required to set the stage for the technocratic prison state the World Economic Forum has been gleefully advertising to us for so long. A global food shortage, a worsening international financial crisis, a few flashy natural disasters, some more bogus pandemics and maybe an asteroid threat to top it all off will be causally linked not only to the war itself but to our shameful consumption habits, which will have to go. Despite the scientific battering it’s taken over the last several decades, ‘climate change’ remains central to this societal shift, as it is only through linking our enjoyment of the material world to a crippling guilt over having somehow destroyed something beautiful through that enjoyment that we can truly be alienated from our own emotions, that which makes us human. While we’re being reprogrammed, the ruling class must create such an all-encompassing sense of crisis that it can dupe at least a few of us into believing that a 24/7/365 real time panopticon surveillance system, central bank digital currencies, an international biometric control grid and a social credit score are the only logical response. Such a system will unlock all kinds of monetizable assets in the newly-standardized, soulless human. All wars, as the saying goes, are bankers’ wars, and when your hopelessly corrupt financial system is hanging by a thread, turning human suffering into gold is always a safe bet.

Ultimately, for these types, it really doesn’t matter who wins the war, because the war is never really over. It might retreat behind the scenes from time to time, but a bloodthirsty hegemon with hundreds of military outposts and bioweapons labs holding the planet hostage cannot simply be switched off – it is an ecosystem larger than many governments, requiring tremendous amounts of capital to merely exist. Nevertheless, this empire’s grip is slipping. Beneath the grandstanding about Democracy and the caricatures of Evil menacing it lurk the same centuries-old vultures, the same deep-rooted financial cartels fighting over the same scraps of flesh. Whoever rises to take the place of the US had better have a plan to deal with them.
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off-guardian
August 4, 2022 – 8:38 am

Why do we continue to partake of the geopolitical pantomime?
Kit Knightly, Off-Guardian, Aug 4 2022

Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan yesterday. It was quite an event. People were asking Is this brinksmanship dangerous? or Will the Chinese shoot down Pelosi’s plane? Protesters took to the streets of Taipei, the Chinese military is holding live-fire drills in the South China sea … and then Pelosi left, and nothing has actually happened, has it? Taiwan is just another fake binary. At the press conferences and photo-ops, everyone was wearing masks. In Beijing and Washington, they are still pushing vaccine passes and vaccine mandates and vaccine boosters. They are still talking about Covid and Climate Change and central bank digital currencies. They very much agree about the need to control you, muzzle you, surveil you and inject you. They are all still peddling those globalist Big Lies, even while the sabre-rattling has made a lot of people forget that fact. Everyone really needs to wake up to this reality.

Moscow to expand “safe & convenient” biometric payment system
Riley Waggaman, Off-Guardian, Jul 3 2022

“Pay by biometrics.” Don’t tell me what to do. Your Still-Very-Stranded-In-Tbilisi Correspondent mused at the end of June that the West’s never-ending barrage of sanctions might disrupt digital cattle-tagging efforts in Russia. This is probably true in “backwards” regions that can’t boast a single Smart or Safe City. How embarrassing. But it is definitely not true in Moscow, which is lorded over by a dancing Boston Dynamics robot named Sergey Sobyanin. Last week, Sobyanin’s robo-deputy, Maxim Liksutov, who is also a friendly automaton, announced Moscow would be expanding its “safe and convenient” Face Pay system.

The auto-generated text attributed to confirmed robot Maxim Liksutov (source)

“What is Face Pay?” maybe you are asking. It’s when you pay with your face. Sobyanin began installing his homebrewed biometric payment system in Metro stations last year. What kind of feedback has Sobyanin’s safe and convenient payment method received, according to trustworthy and reliable data cited by Moscow City Hall? As Liksutov explained in his recent op-ed for Vedomosti, Muscovites love Face Pay, because it’s safe and convenient. In fact, commuters can’t stop fantasizing about paying with their faces. It’s what they crave. It’s plainly obvious the people demand more Face Pay. Liksutov understands their cravings; he has the medicine:

    Among the disadvantages that we still need to work on, passengers indicated a small number of turnstiles that can be passed through using biometrics. Most stations have 1-2 Face Pay turnstiles installed, at some stations we have already increased their number at the request of users. After updating the turnstiles in the metro, at least 200 more will be able to accept payment by biometrics. If necessary, we will further increase the number of such turnstiles.

We know what you are thinking: can my small child also pay with his or her face? Sure, why not? Probably soon:

    Passengers are asking to implement Face Pay passes on social cards, including for students and schoolchildren — we are discussing and evaluating this possibility.

Maybe some of you feel uncomfortable about transitioning into a payment system that automatically deducts digital rubles from your Sber account when a camera recognizes your face? But why would this bother you? China is already doing it — and Russia is doing it better, according to Liksutov:

    Facial recognition fare collection system is being implemented in China, but we are ahead … Face Pay has been tested on local self-driving buses. Moscow is the first city in the world where the facial recognition system for fare payment works on a large scale. The service is available at all 250 metro stations, as well as at the Kutuzovskaya station of the MCC.

Did we mention that Face Pay is “safer and more reliable than paying with a bank card,” and is also very, very convenient? Sergey Sobyanin is committed to making sure every Muscovites is safe and forever-free from being inconvenienced:

    Payment by biometrics in the Moscow metro, launched on behalf of Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, is an important stage in the development of our ticketing system and a convenient way for passengers to pay for travel, which we will continue to develop.

According to local media reports, Moscow City Hall has been flooded with Thank You cards. As Katyusha.org wrote, every patriotic Russian supports the ongoing construction of “a biometric concentration camp in Moscow.” Remember: Face Pay is 100% voluntary. There will never be a point in time when not-paying-with-your-face will be discontinued, due to being unsafe and inconvenient. That will never happen.

Actual directions for how to properly pay with your face using Moscow’s Face Pay. (source)
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wsws
August 4, 2022 – 3:57 am

Biden wants war with China
Andre Damon, WSWS, Jul 4 2022

The USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) during RIMPAC 2022 exercises

This week’s trip by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan has enormously escalated the US conflict with China, triggering the greatest military crisis in the Taiwan Strait in a generation. Today, Taiwan will be subjected to an effective military blockade as China conducts live-fire exercises on the island’s periphery. Two Chinese aircraft carriers are steaming toward Taiwan, facing off with an American aircraft carrier battle group and two Amphibious Ready Groups (ARG) operating in the waters nearby. Amid a military crisis that threatens to eclipse the raging war against Russia in Ukraine, no US media figure has seriously sought to explain, much less ask, the obvious question: Why did the US House Speaker, with the support of the White House, go to Taiwan?

The claims by White House spokesperson John Kirby that the trip changes “nothing” about US relations with China is absurd on its face. The Trump and Biden administrations had identified actions that China sees as unacceptable violations of its sovereignty and proceeded to do them, one after another, systematically dismantling the One China policy that governed the normalization of relations between the US and China since the 1970s. Biden knows full well, and China has warned publicly, that if the US repudiates the One China policy, thus effectively recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation, China will retake the island militarily. Biden himself has pledged to go to war against China if that happens. In other words, the Biden administration is carrying out a course of action that it consciously knows will lead to a military conflict with the world’s most populous country. Biden wants, de facto or de jure, a state of war with China, which is regarded in Washington as the greatest threat to American global domination. In March of last year, Blinken said:

    The President has instructed the DoD to hold China as its pacing challenge. China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system.

The US geopolitical motivations for going to war with China were laid out by Elbridge Colby, the principal author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, who declared on Twitter Tuesday that a conflict with China over Taiwan “makes sense for Americans’ concrete economic interests.” Unless China is contained militarily, Colby warns of a future in which “China will have a controlling influence over more than 50% of global GDP. It will be the gatekeeper and the center of the global economy.” And, “the yuan will be the dominant currency.” In his 2021 book The Strategy of Denial, Colby advocates a policy of goading China into military action as the aggressor, writing:

    Perhaps the clearest and sometimes the most important way of making sure China is seen this way is simply by ensuring that it is the one to strike first. Few human moral intuitions are more deeply rooted than that the one who started it is the aggressor and accordingly the one who presumptively owns a greater share of moral responsibility.

In other words, the US is seeking to identify all of China’s “red lines,” cross them, and then pretend to be surprised when China responds with military action. The geopolitical aims of US imperialism are only one component of the US war drive. Facing an uncontrollable medical, economic, and social crisis, the US ruling class is eager to use military conflict as a means to secure “national unity.” The escalation of the conflict with China will be accompanied by sweeping attacks on the social and economic rights of the working class and demands that workers sacrifice their living standards in the name of the war effort. Biden’s insane and homicidal war plan has been met with the support of the entire US political establishment. On Tuesday, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, along with 25 other Senate Republicans, published a statement declaring:

    We support Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.

An editorial in the Republican-aligned WSJ declared:

    The Taiwan crisis looms… Arms deliveries need to move faster, and of the kind that would do the most to deter a potential invasion.

Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote a NYT op-ed praising Pelosi’s trip, stating:

    Ms Pelosi was right in not letting China decide who can and cannot visit Taiwan.

In that op-ed, Menendez announced that he and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham would introduce a bill, titled the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, which would increase US military spending on arming Taiwan by an order of magnitude. Menendez wrote:

    Our legislation would reinforce the security of Taiwan by providing almost $4.5 billion in security assistance over the next four years and recognizing Taiwan as a “major non-NATO ally”—a powerful designation to facilitate closer military and security ties. It would also expand Taiwan’s diplomatic space through its participation in international organizations and in multilateral trade agreements.

This would mark the effective end of the One China policy in the US. In other words, the Democrats are embracing the signature policy of the Trump administration. Amid Biden’s efforts to provoke a war with China, the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have kept silent on Pelosi’s trip, refusing to answer direct questions by reporters. But Sanders’ attitude was made clear by the statements of a surrogate, his foreign policy adviser Matt Duss, who in an interview with The Intercept fully backed the aims of the US military buildup.

Duss advocated “improving security for Taiwan,” and “prioritizing Taiwan’s security and self-defense.” He condemned “rampant threat inflation” by those warning of the consequences of Pelosi’s Taiwan trip, saying “engaging in a pattern of threat inflation regarding Taiwan is counter-productive.” In other words, those who warn that Pelosi’s actions threaten all of humanity are the real problem, not the arsonist Pelosi and the US military. The Intercept interviewer condemns “progressives” who frame the “US-China relationship as being primarily about US actions when there has been, you know, increasing authoritarianism in China.” These statements make clear, yet again, that there is no section of the Democratic Party or US political establishment that seriously opposes US militarism, no matter how reckless or dangerous the White House’s actions. In the face of the entire US political establishment lining up in support of the escalation against China, it is the working class that forms the social base for the struggle against war. Workers, already facing a massive cost-of-living crisis and looming recession, must reject “sacrifice” in the name of the US’s xenophobic anti-China campaign and unite with their Chinese fellow workers in the struggle against war.

Britain joins US imperialism’s anti-China provocations
Robert Stevens, WSWS, Aug 3 2022

HMS Richmond in Portsmouth naval yard in Mar 2021 with the UK’s two aircraft carriers,
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles. A few weeks later HMS Richmond was sent
into the Taiwan Straits in a major provocation against China.

Britain is standing squarely behind US imperialism’s naked aggression against China, threatening to drag the population into a catastrophic war. Pursuing an anti-China foreign policy has been one of the central themes of the Conservative leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson, with candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak competing over who is the most hawkish. Sunak opened his campaign with a press release declaring that China and the Chinese Communist Party “represent the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century.” Truss responded that it was her Foreign Office and not Sunak’s Treasury that had taken “the toughest stance” against China. During last week’s debate, Sunak castigated Truss for previously saying that Britain was entering a “golden era” in its relationship with China. Truss disowned her statement, saying:

    I think that was almost a decade ago.

It was six years ago, and it was the policy of David Cameron’s Tory government. Despite warnings from the US, Britain became a founding member of Beijing’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, hoping to position itself as a key player in China’s access to European markets. A series of high-level meetings culminated in the 2015 state visit of President Xi to Britain, hosted by the queen. The shift in policy was breakneck, with the government seeking to replace its role as a key US intermediary within the European Union, jettisoned by Brexit in 2016, with an even more slavish support for US imperialism. Washington’s price for a close partnership and the promise of a trade deal included an immediate halt to Britain’s orientation to China—its main global competitor. In a piece published in The Atlantic Tuesday entitled “Why Britain Changed Its China Stance,” author Tom McTague commented:

    From 2020 onward, Britain transformed itself from China’s best partner in Europe to its harshest critic, sweeping away decades of foreign-policy consensus in the most drastic such shift in the Western world. To look at British foreign policy now is to see almost a complete overlap with the US, whether on the Iranian nuclear deal, climate change, the importance of spending more on defense, NATO, the threat posed by Russia or now China.

Britain’s close involvement in US war plans against China was highlighted this week by the provocative visit to Taiwan staged by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With China’s military on high alert, the Guardian reported that a delegation from the UK’s House of Commons foreign affairs select committee would make the same trip in November or early December. The committee is headed by Tory MP and former army lieutenant colonelTom Tugendhat, expected to be handed a top position in a Truss cabinet. Behind the diplomatic provocations are extensive military preparations. By Mar 2021, the government’s Ministry of Defence had published its Integrated Review of foreign and defence policy and a further strategy document, “Defence in a Competitive Age”, directly targeting both Russia and China. In May that year, at the behest of NATO, the UK launched its largest Carrier Strike Group since the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas war, centred on the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. It played a critical role in inflaming tensions with Russia in the Black Sea before doing the same against Beijing in the South China Sea in Sep 2021. HMS Richmond, a Type 23 frigate warship deployed with the carrier strike group, sailed through the Taiwan Strait—the first time a UK frigate had done so in more than a decade. That same month, the US, Britain and Australia announced the formation of the AUKUS anti-China military pact, focussed on the deployment of nuclear-powered submarines. The Taiwan Strait provocation was authorised by head of the Royal Navy Admiral Sir Tony Radakin on the same day he was interviewed by Johnson for the position of Head of the Armed Forces. It was announced soon after that Radakin would be appointed Chief of the Defence Staff, a post he took up in Nov 2021. Within the top ranks of the military, the drumbeat for war with China is relentless. Last month, the new head of the Royal Navy Admiral ‘Sir’ Ben Key told the Council on Geostrategy:

    Focusing solely on the Russian bear risks missing the tiger. The risk of focusing solely on Russia is that you miss the long-term strategic challenge posed by China.

Key’s speech came 10 days after US Republican Representative Steve Chabot, a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, intervened in the pages of the Telegraph to insist that America’s allies in Europe, particularly the British, “step up” the arming of Taiwan. This is now the de facto policy of the UK government, despite Britain having no formal diplomatic ties with Taipei due to its abiding by the historic “One China” policy. In her role as foreign secretary, Truss gave a speech in April rejecting “the false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security” and declaring:

    We need a global NATO. We need to preempt threats in the Indo-Pacific, working with our allies like Japan and Australia to ensure the Pacific is protected. And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves. All of this will require resources. We are correcting a generation of under-investment.

Given Britain has already sold £338m worth of military equipment to Taiwan since 2017, Truss is writing a massive cheque to be picked up by the working class through pay and spending cuts. The foreign secretary told the House of Commons Select Committee on Jun 29 that Britain and its NATO allies would seek to improve on the script used for their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine:

    We should have been supplying defensive weapons into Ukraine earlier. We need to learn that lesson for Taiwan. Every piece of equipment we have sent takes months of training, so the sooner we do it the better.

The bellicose threats and provocations of British imperialism against nuclear armed China could not be more reckless or deluded. Dominic Nicholls, the Telegraph’s defence and security correspondent, noted on Radakin’s appointment:

    Since 2014, China has launched more submarines, warships, principal amphibious vessels and auxiliaries than the total number of ships currently serving in the navies of the UK, Germany, India, Spain and Taiwan, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. In terms of tonnage, China is launching the equivalent of the entire Royal Navy every four years.

Beijing warned in the Global Times after HMS Queen Elizabeth’s deployment that it would not hesitate to make an example out of Britain, “to execute one as a warning to a hundred.” On Tuesday, after the UK Foreign Select Committee trip to Taiwan was revealed, Chinese ambassador Zheng Zeguang told British MPs in a press conference that the UK should not “dance to the tune of the United States.” Vowing that if any MP set foot in Taiwan there would be “severe consequences,” he warned, “those who play with fire will get burnt.” Such is the crisis wracking British imperialism in a period of severe decline, its dependence on the US and desperate effort to redirect unprecedented social tensions outward to a foreign foe, that it is set on forcing a confrontation. The danger of a catastrophic conflict can only be averted by taking power out of the hands of the maniacs in parliament. Responding to the fall of Johnson and the Tory leadership contest, the Socialist Equality Party has demanded an immediate general election to “expose the Tory-Labour conspiracy to drag Britain into WW3,” “rouse opposition to the war policies of the government and to agitate for mass action by the working class to defeat the savage assault on living standards and democratic rights.” In the emerging struggles of the working class, the fight against war must be made a central issue, based on a socialist programme for the unification of the working class across the globe in a struggle against its war-mad governments.

Ukrainian top intelligence official reveals US involvement in missile strikes against Russia
Jason Melanovski, Clara Weiss, WSWS, Aug 4 2022

Lt-Gen Igor Konashenkov

On Tuesday, Russian Defense Ministry spox Konashenkov stated:

    Contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, Ammerica is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.

Konashenkov’s statement came in response to Monday’s interview by the British Telegraph with Maj-Gen Vadim Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, in which Skibitsky acknowledged that Ukraine was not only using US-manufactured, US-delivered HIMARS long-range missiles to target Russian fuel and ammunition depots and battlefield headquarters in eastern Ukraine, but that Ukraine was also relying on “real-time information” in these strikes. The Telegraph paraphrased Skibitsky as saying that before every strike, discussions took place between the US and Ukraine “that would allow Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.” In other words, the US is directly involved in the decision-making process for Ukrainian military strikes on Russian targets. In his statement, Konashenkov declared:

    This statement represents an official recognition by Ukraine that the Biden administration is directly responsible for all rocket attacks approved by Kyiv on residential areas and civilian infrastructure facilities in settlements of Donbas and other regions that caused mass deaths of civilians. The Russian Ministry of Defense has marked it and will keep in mind this official confession.

The US has not denied these accusations. Following Skibitsky’s highly provocative revelations, the Pentagon merely issued a statement declaring:

    We are providing them with detailed, time-sensitive information to help them understand the threats they face and defend their country against Russian aggression.

The US involvement in the imperialist proxy war against Russia has become ever more overt and provocative in recent months. After ramming through a record $40b for weapons for Ukraine in Congress, on top of billions of direct military aid pledged by the White House to Ukraine since Feb 24 alone, the US began delivering HIMARS to Ukraine in late May. They are now being used for a major offensive by the Ukrainian army, which is seeking to reconquer parts of southern Ukraine that have been occupied by Russia. In July, a Pentagon spox refused to preclude that these missiles would be used to attack the Russian-built Kerch Bridge, which connects the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea with the Russian mainland. Since then, the US has publicly acknowledged that it is considering plans to send fighter jets to Ukraine, a move that as Biden stated just a few months ago, could “start WW3.”

The statements by Skibitsky to a leading British newspaper and the marked absence of an explicit denial by the Pentagon mark yet another major provocation of Washington against Russia. Skibitsky’s interview was published the same day as the first grain shipment from Ukraine since the start of the NATO-provoked war left the Black Sea city of Odessa, heading for the port of Tripoli, Libya Lebanon. The ship’s departure marked the beginning of a 120-day deal brokered by the UN and Turkey and signed by Russia and Ukraine in July to resume vital grain shipments amid an ongoing global food crisis. The White House has been conspicuously absent from the negotiations around the deal with the US press insisting that it had no prospect of succeeding. Another 16 ships filled with corn, wheat, sunflower seeds and oil are ready to depart. They will require Ukrainian ships to lead them out as Ukraine mined its ports and shores following the Russian invasion in February. A Joint Coordination Center located in Istanbul is charged with overseeing the export of Ukrainian grain throughout the 120-day timeframe.

So far the war between Ukraine and Russia—both major grain exporters—has caused a reduction to the world’s grain supplies of 27 million metric tons. According to the UN’s World Food Program, the war has caused 47 million people to experience “acute hunger.” Prior to the war, Ukraine was expected to be the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fourth largest exporter of wheat for the 2021-2022 harvest year, according to the International Grains Council. In addition, the former Soviet Republic is also a major exporter of barley, sunflower oil and rapeseed. Russia, meanwhile, is the world’s largest wheat exporter and was expected to export 36.5 million metric tons of wheat for the 2021-2022 harvest year. Countries in Africa and Asia, such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, imported a large amount of Ukrainian wheat and were already considered “food insecure” as the war loomed. Well aware of this information and despite already skyrocketing food prices and the clear threat of further shortages and even famine and warnings by the Putin regime about its “red lines” in Ukraine, the Biden administration recklessly pushed ahead with its provocations against Russia in the weeks and months leading up to the invasion. Following the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports on Tuesday, Zelensky warned that any failure to continue shipments will be blamed on Russia. Turning the historical record on its head. Zelensky stated in a video address:

    We cannot be under any illusion that Russia will simply refrain from trying to disrupt Ukrainian exports. Russia consistently provoked famine in African and Asian countries, which have traditionally imported significant amounts of Ukrainian food. And now the threat of a price crisis and a certain food shortage is also present for some European countries.

Should the deal actually move forward, it could double the volume of grain leaving Ukraine, according to Michael Magdovitz, a commodities analyst with Rabobank. Magdovitz told the WaPo:

    If this proves even reasonably successful, it will go a long way to alleviating shortages of grains across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

While the deal could potentially alleviate food shortages in regions previously dependent on Ukrainian grain, US workers will see little reprieve as the US imports little grain from Ukraine or Russia. In fact, the rising food prices within the US were largely due to other factors, such as climate volatility and logistical issues caused by the ruling class’s homicidal COVID-19 policies. The increased use of biodiesel has also motivated farmers to produce less wheat, Pete Levangie, CEO of Bay State Milling, told the WaPo. In regards to US workers, “In terms of what the average consumer will feel with their weekly food budget, it won’t move the dial,” Levangie told the Post. As his comments demonstrate, the current food crisis is primarily a result of both the domestic and the war policies of the US government.
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moon of alabama
August 4, 2022 – 1:52 am

Ukraine SitRep – On The Ground Report – Ukrainian Frontline Collapses
Moon of Alabama, Aug 3 2022

Below is a slightly edited machine translation of a piece which appeared yesterday on the Ukrainian site Censor.net. The piece was promoted by Yuri Butusov, a well-known Ukrainian military correspondent. It is originally a social media post by someone who was on the front line in Pisky, immediately northwest of Donetsk city. Over the last two to three months the Ukrainian side has used its positions in the vicinity of Donetsk city to more or less randomly shell the civilian population on the Russian affiliated side. After some serious protests the Russian military command agreed to launch a dedicated counter-artillery operation to shut down the deadly Ukrainian harassment. Its daily ‘clobber reports’, here is yesterday’s, have since included lines like these on nearly each and every day:

    As part of counter-battery warfare 2 artillery batteries of Giatsint howitzers near Dzerzhinsk and Novhorodskoye, Donetsk People’s Republic have been hit. 4 platoons of Grad MLRS and 9 artillery platoons at firing positions near Seversk, Kirovo, Artemovsk, Avdeevka, Peski, Orlovka, Shakhterskoye, Velikaya Novoselka in Donetsk People’s Republic, Dobropolie in Zaporozhye Region, Shirokoye, Bereznevatoye in Nikolaev Region, Russkaya Lozovaya and Nortsovka in Kharkov Region.

The systematic counter-artillery campaign has seriously deteriorated the already rare Ukrainian firepower. The Russian side has also changed the primary direction of its thrust from the northern front of the Sievierdonetsk-Lysichansk-Siversk direction to a push further south. The current offensive operation is concentrated north-west and west of Donetsk city in the direction of Avdivka. There is an envelope operation going on its north and south to surround that extremely heavily fortified town. The red territory to the left of the red line marks parts of recent progress. Source: Live UA map.

Pisky is the southern part of that envelope operation.

Following intense artillery preparations Russian forces are currently – slowly, slowly – clearing the lines of reinforced concrete bunkers and ditches that have been build on the Ukrainian side over the last 8 years. Here now is the view of that battle from the Ukrainian side (edited machine translation, for an alternative translation see this.) (Note: 300 is the military cargo designator for wounded people, 200 is for dead soldiers):

    Pisky. Meat grinder
    Author: Serhiy Gnezdilov

    What is there to lose, what else can be taken from me on the sixth day of my personal hell, in Pisky, a kilometer from the first street of Donetsk, Ukraine? The bodies of those who were dearer to me than my family are lying under the heat in the trenches, broken by 152 caliber. As I wrote earlier, 6,500 shells per damn village in less than a day. It’s been six such days already, and I can’t imagine how even a small number of our infantry survived in this barrage of enemy fire. No, I’m not whining. Two mortars 82 and 120 are working on our side. Sometimes they wake up and “sneeze” two artillery barrels in the direction of Donetsk. We hardly respond. There is no counter-battery fire, from the word go, the enemy puts artillery shells in our trenches without any problems, dismantles very strong, concrete positions in tens of minutes, pushing our defense line without pause or minimal rest. The day before yesterday, the line broke, and a river of 200 or 300 [killed/wounded] was poured. I will not publish any statistics, it is forbidden in our country, but you have no idea the number and percentage of losses. This is a hell of a meat grinder, where the battalion simply holds back the onslaught with their bodies. For almost a week, we have been waiting for at least some kind of help that would hit the enemy’s artillery, we, I repeat, are being fired with impunity with everything that the Russian military system is rich in, their aviation was working today. I am proud of the leadership of the battalion that remained here with us. The combatant is with us, everyone is with us, contused, light 300, bandaged and returned after a couple of hours to the position, if you can call these bottomless ravines that way.

    There is a war going on. But without a counter-battery fight, it turns into a senseless meat grinder, where an insane amount of our infantry is ground up in a day. Did you really want the truth? Here it is, the naked truth. The reserve goes to the position, closes the breakthrough, and after five minutes, only one of the 15 people remains intact. The bodies lie on the ground. If it’s a light 300, maybe you’ll be lucky, you’ll faint, and you’ll get out on foot, you’ll reach the medics. They just took a 300 [wounded]. He shouted all the way: “Where is the support? Where is the artillery? Why were we abandoned? Why didn’t anyone cover us?” I don’t know, my friend, why no one covered us… He screams, and I’m ashamed that I’m still safe and sound, only a couple of good deafening. I threw up, I pissed myself, I’m sorry, and I’m back in action. All reserves are destroyed, military equipment is on fire, the enemy approaches and without any problems occupies our positions after another barrage of artillery. Right now we are losing Pisky, all our human and material resources are almost exhausted. Denys, a resident of Mariupol, who told me “well, I trust the arrestee [Zelenski advisor Arestovich], we will return everything back very soon” is dead. He was wounded twice, they bandaged him right in the trench, they told him, Denchyk, go to the evacuation, but he answered “guys, I will not abandon you.” Both wounded for the first time, and after the second wounding, he continued to shoot back. We still haven’t taken his body. On the ruins of Pisky, he lies with his arms outstretched and his gaze frozen. He asks for revenge. How can I refuse his latest request? How can we all leave Dan?

    I believe that Dimka survived after all. Because he could not die, having recently returned from the hospital, having just proposed to his girlfriend. They say that after one of the parishes he simply disappeared. He fell asleep in the earth. But I believe that this is a mistake and he is alive. Foolish hope and expectation. I know, my country does not like to think aloud. But, I was left with no choice between victory and arrest. The truth should be heard, not whispers in the kitchen. Of course, he will fly separately for this post, because how? Yes, does the state lie to its own citizens? I won’t be surprised if someone says today: “Kremlin agent Sirozh talked about the brilliant plan of the victors on the Donetsk front, let’s hang him on the peacemaker.” I amused to say that everything is under control. Now in Pisky, everything is not under anyone’s control, but for some reason the situation is being hushed up. Ring broken bells while we cover Pisky with bodies. We need artillery. Give us something here to hold on to.

Now put yourself into the position of Serhiy Gnezdilov, Denys or Dimka. Then think about the politicians who sweet talk of heroic Ukrainian resistance and send these men to be slaughtered for no possible gain. Sorry Serhiy, more artillery wont do it. The Russian side would just grind it up within days. How many of the 120 US M-777 howitzers that were given to Ukraine still exist? Maybe 10 or so, most of them damaged? There are other operations going on. North of the Donetsk front there is a thrust towards Bakhmut (also known as Artomovsk). Yesterday Soledar, north of Bakhmut was reported to be mostly captured. Vershyna and Zaiseve, south of it, are also gone or will fall soon.

The Ukrainian side has loudly announce an upcoming counter offensive on the southern front towards Kherson city. But the number of Russian units in that larger area have since been increased to a level that makes a new Russian offensive towards Mykolaiv (Nikolaev), Kryvyv Rih (Krivoy Rog) or Zaporitzhia more likely than anything the Ukrainian side could possibly do.

The Russian side also wages a continuous campaign against Ukrainian reserves, brigade headquarters and military installations or temporary storage sides far behind the immediate front line. These less visible attacks kill huge numbers of Ukrainian troops. From yesterday’s ‘clobber report’ (also here):

    As a result of Russian Aerospace Forces strike on combat positions of 54th Mechanized Brigade of AFU near Mar’inka in Donetsk People’s Republic, more than 50 nationalists of 2nd Battalion of this unit have been destroyed. High-precision weapons of the Russian Aerospace Forces struck on a temporary deployment point of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion near Nikolaev city. The attacks have resulted in the elimination of up to 250 nationalists and 20 units of military equipment. High-precision strikes of the Russian Aerospace Forces have eliminated up to 500 nationalists of 92nd Mechanised Brigade of AFU and large amount of military equipment in Merefa and Chuguyiv in Kharkov Region. Shelling of combat positions of 16th Battalion of 58th AFU Motorized Infantry Brigade near Artemovsk have resulted in the elimination of over 130 nationalists. The remaining battalion servicemen, numbering up to 70, hurriedly left their positions and departed for Konotop, Sumy Region, where they were disarmed and declared deserters. 21st Battalion of 56th Motorized Infantry Brigade, which had suffered significant losses near Peski, came under artillery fire of AFU during its retreat to Vodyanoye and was almost completely eliminated.

Notice the last paragraph. The unit in Pisky (Peski), where Serhiy Gnezdilov reported from, was retreating towards Vodiane (Vodyanoye), north of Pisky (see the second map above). On their way the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) opened fire on them, killing nearly everyone who had survived the Russian attacks against Pisky. Was this punishment for the already late retreat? Or was it a misidentification by a forward artillery observer who thought that those retreating Ukrainian forces were attacking Russian units? I don’t know, but …

By the way, the enemy casualty numbers given by the Russian ministry of defense are likely overestimated (as all such numbers are). But even if only half of those ~900 claimed yesterday really were wounded or killed on the day before the losses are still devastating. In 1967, at the very height of the Vietnam war, US casualties, dead and wounded, were at maximum about 200 per day. We see a multiple of those on the Ukrainian side each and every day. This is not sustainable. The Ukrainian government should have given up the uneven fight months ago. It is an immense crime to further urge it on.
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caitlin johnstone
August 4, 2022 – 1:22 am

The US Military Was Just Used To Help A Dementia Patient Try To Start WW3
Caitlin Johnstone, Aug 3 2022

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan after a brief but diplomatically corrosive visit, the aftereffects from which may be felt for years to come. Toward the end of her speech alongside Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, Pelosi’s brain underwent one of its increasingly common software glitches, causing her to begin babbling inarticulately. Here is a transcript of what Nancy Pelosi’s brain said:

    In our earliest days at our founding of our country, Benjamin Franklin, our presidency, said, freedom and democracy. Freedom and democracy, one thing, security here. If we don’t have- we can’t have either, if we don’t have both.

Of course Benjamin Franklin was neither a president of the United States nor a “presidency” and the quote Nancy’s floundering brain was reaching for was “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” These are not difficult things to remember or articulate for someone with functioning gray matter. This is right up there with other famous neural malfunctions by the speaker, like her “Bernie loves hearing” gibberish from last year or her bizarre “Good morning, Sunday morning” restart in the middle of an interview a couple of years ago, and it calls to mind a DC pharmacist’s casual remark in 2017 that he had filled prescriptions to treat Alzheimer’s disease for some powerful decision makers on Capitol Hill. None of which would be a problem, if we were talking about some little old lady whiling away her twilight years at a retirement home in Florida. But we are not; we are talking about one of the most powerful elected officials in the most powerful government on earth, third in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president. More importantly, we are talking about someone who just participated in an incendiary visit to Taiwan which has ensured the escalation of dangerous cold war tensions between major world powers, and could potentially have triggered a hot war with China.

US war machinery, including aircraft carriers and large planes, were mobilized to provide security for Pelosi’s visit ahead of her arrival. The US military was literally just used to help a dementia patient try to start WW3. China’s response to Pelosi’s provocation has thankfully been relatively measured, though we’re about to see Taiwan fully encircled by the Chinese navy for a show of force unlike anything we’ve seen in decades, and Chinese sanctions upon Taiwanese commerce are still being announced. There will be political pressure in Beijing to escalate tensions with the US so as not to look weak, and the intensity of the new cold war has certainly been ratcheted up a notch, but when it comes to hot war it looks like humanity’s better angels have prevailed for now. None of this makes it acceptable for the world’s most powerful government to send a politician whose brains are leaking out her ears to try to stir up hostilities under cover of its military forces. The world is a worse place now than it was before Pelosi’s plane touched down. Less safe, less wealthy, less kind, and more frightening. Not one ordinary person has benefitted from her insanely hawkish provocation made in her final years on this earth, especially not the people of Taiwan. The US empire is sick, and it is playing sick games with all our lives. As far as I’m concerned, its downfall can’t come soon enough.
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military summary
August 3, 2022 – 8:12 pm

Military Summary And Analysis
Military Summary, Aug 3 2022

This video describes the military situation in Ukraine on Aug 3.
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helen buyniski
August 3, 2022 – 8:06 pm

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colonel cassad
August 3, 2022 – 1:06 pm

Chinese answer
Colonel Cassad, Aug 3 2022 09:58

In the morning, China’s response to the American provocation has so far been expressed in:

    Condemnation at the diplomatic level.
    Military exercises with missile firing, including missiles potentially capable of carrying nuclear charges, but so far with non-nuclear warheads.
    Partial blockade of the island by exercise zones. So far, at least until August 8.
    Requirements for airlines not to fly in Taiwanese airspace.
    Suspension of the project for the construction of the $5b CATL plant for the production of batteries, offering 10k jobs in the US.
    Embargo on the supply of natural sand to Taiwan (on the island it is used to produce cement and glass).
    Suspension of imports from Taiwan to China of two species of fish and citrus fruits.
    Prohibition for Chinese companies to cooperate with Taiwan’s Democracy Fund and Fund for International Cooperation and Development.
    In general, it can be expected that China’s main response will be in the economic plane. In general, it is obvious that current events have brought the future war for Taiwan closer.

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vanessa beeley
August 3, 2022 – 12:19 pm

Twitter facilitates cyber terrorism and NATO-proxy war crimes in Ukraine
Vanessa Beeley, Aug 3 2022

Ukrainian Special Forces (SSO) sniper

Louise Mensch an online blogger with a sizeable following on Twitter effectively called upon the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces to assassinate Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett. Mensch whose Substack account includes titles such as “Yes Vladimir Putin has Parkinson’s disease” a claim refuted by CIA Director William Burns responded to Bartlett’s comment that she was on the ground in Donbass recording the Ukrainian criminal use of petal or butterfly mines in residential areas of Donetsk and surroundings.

Eva Bartlett’s on-the-ground report on butterfly mine deployment against Donetsk civilians

One twitter account asked Bartlett if she was “on the scene,” Bartlett replied “yes” and Mensch called in the Special Forces, tweeting: “hear that @SOF_UKR?” Multiple twitter accounts reacted in horror at this flagrant violation of international law applicable to cyber operations that should protect users against what qualifies as terrorism according to journalist George Eliason based in Ukraine since before 2014.

George Eliason “Louise Mensch directs a UA military hit against Journo Eva Bartlett”

What did Twitter do in response to the multiple reports of incitement to violence? It failed to respond to many reports including mine and when it did respond it claimed that Mensch “hadn’t broken their safety policies.” This effectively means that while Twitter will suspend accounts for pointing out the criminality of Western foreign policy, it will endorse the targeting of an independent journalist reporting on the murder of civilians with prohibited weapons. Twitter has previously declared links to the CIA surveillance operations. Now it appears Twitter is involved in facilitating the potential assassination of journalists who challenge the CIA/MI6 narratives in Ukraine. Other accounts were suspended for calling out Mensch’s leading to multiple tweets accusing Twitter of supporting fascism:

    Hey @TwitterSupport why are you not taking down the tweet that is calling for the death of a journalist, yet deleted & censored the tweet drawing attention to that fact? Can you explain? We would all like to know. Fiorella’s tweet was a screenshot of a tweet that’s still up also.

Steve Sweeney, International Editor of the Morning Star also demanded a response from Twitter:

    So @FiorellaIsabelM is locked out of her account but @LouiseMensch tweet encouraging Ukrainian forces to kill @EvaKBartlett is absolutely fine? Care to explain this one @TwitterComms? I’ll be writing a news story about it (again) tomorrow so will be in touch for comment.

Butterfly or Petal Mines kill and maim civilians and particularly children who don’t realise they are not toys

According to a statement from the DPR Ministry of Foreign Affairs: To activate the prohibited anti-personnel mine PFM “Lepestok” requires a push force of only 5 kg. It’s scary to imagine what such a mine can do to a child. In order to avoid health hazards, the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC created an interactive map (https://mine.dnr-sckk.ru/)with areas most infected by PFM “Lepestok” mines. This is not an exact map of minefields, but in areas marked with red shading, you need to take the greatest care and caution:

    drive only on paved roads, avoiding any movement on grass/ground;
    carefully watch your step;
    do not pick up any unfamiliar objects;
    in case of hazard detection, call 101.

Warning graphic image:

Eva Bartlett has tweeted about the hideous injuries caused by these mines and recorded her experiences on her Telegram channel:

    Footage from Donetsk where brutal Ukrainian-fired “petal” or “butterfly” mines litter the streets. Harrowing to walk now, when it could be so easy to make one wrong step and lose a foot or leg. Some of the mines I saw were circled in chalk or paint or other, some were curbside with a “warning, mines!!” sign nearby. Even when the mines are identified with signs or chalk/other around, they can be difficult to actually see. So imagine how easy it is to step on them if no one has put any sort of warning. Horrors. Ukrainian-instigated horrors. I shudder to think of the elderly selling goods in street or walking in the street. A colleague mentioned seeing an older man ready to poke at the little clump of a mine with his cane….thankfully he interviewed & prevented that older man from being maimed or killed.

These Lepestok cluster mines are banned under international humanitarian law and their use is deemed a war crime under the Geneva Convention. To children these deadly weapons appear as toys and will tear and rip limbs apart if picked up or trodden on.

In 2005, Ukraine ratified the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use, stockpiling and production of anti-personnel mines. Thus, Kyiv violates its international obligations. Russia has now provided the additional information requested by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Security Council Chairman Zhang Jun which includes photographic evidence. This follows attacks by Ukrainian forces at the end of July bombarding Donetsk with the lethal mines. The missiles hit city center at the intersection of Vatutin Boulevard and Universitetskaya. Several civilians were reported to have been injured and killed by the mines and an employee of the Emergencies Ministry (responsible for mine clearance) was injured. According to the DPR MFA there are 11 victims including a child up to the 2nd August. Several thousand mines are estimated to have been scattered in central Donetsk. This assessment is based on the main method of mining with the help of the MLRS “Uragan” (Hurricane), the rocket which contains 12 mine distribution canisters with 320 Lepestok anti-personnel mines, the use of which has been repeatedly recorded by the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC. It is not surprising that the UN which is nothing more than an extension of US/UK neocolonialism is not rushing to investigate the Ukrainian use of these insidious weapons against civilians and children. It will focus only on the crimes that can be attributed to Russia by NATO member states while ignoring much of the evidence that counters the conclusions they are tasked to corroborate. While Bartlett puts her life at risk to record the war crimes being committed by Zelensky’s forces (NATO proxies) including the various Nazi battalions. Mensch is protected by another instrument of power, Twitter. Those who retweeted Bartlett’s graphic images of injuries from the mines were suspended or forced to delete the “offending” tweets. Had it existed would Twitter have also deleted the images of naked children skin-stripped by Napalm to conceal the US war crimes against women and children in Vietnam? Probably.

The penalties for telling the truth

As legendary journalist John Pilger has said:

    If those who support aggressive war had seen a fraction of what I’ve seen, if they’d watched children fry to death from Napalm and bleed to death from a cluster bomb, they might not utter the claptrap they do.

Bartlett is recording what must be seen if the US/UK-generated perpetual war is ever to come to an end. She is risking her life to provide the horrific insights into these wars and the crimes committed by those who violate the Geneva Convention with impunity because they are protected by NATO member states and are carrying out their orders. Mensch is not only enabling these crimes and effectively the mutilation of civilians, she is calling for the hunting down of Bartlett by the SSO headquartered in Kyiv. The SSO duties include direct action, special reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, sabotage, psychological warfare. (Wikipedia). The SSO has a focus on Donbass as it was formed in 2016 due to the failure by Ukrainian ultra-nationalist forces to quell the resistance in Eastern Ukraine. The SSO were modelled on the NATO Reaction Forces and it is effectively a deadly Military Intelligence unit. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Special Forces wing made of foreign fighters was initiated by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s intelligence directorate (GUR). This regiment is separate from the regular international legion but recruits from the force. Mensch chose to trigger the greatest threat to Bartlett’s life and Twitter chose to facilitate this terrorism linked to Nazism and Ultra-nationalism in Ukraine. I take this personally, not only because of my long time friendship with Eva but because the media sphere is rapidly becoming a very dangerous one for any independent journalist who is putting their lives on the line to report in high risk, high profile war zones.

Screenshot from UK Column News report on the ‘disinformation’ intelligence complex

Soon the greatest risk will not be from the falling missiles or sniper bullets but from the concerted efforts of the NATO ‘disinformation’ clusters and their associated intelligence and military agencies who will carry out disappearances and assassinations at the behest of their line managers in the respective state departments and foreign offices.This is the Julian Assange effect coming to fruition. We all warned about it and we all campaigned against it but unless we ALL rise up to defend the courageous few we will sleepwalk into fascism. Thank you Eva Bartlett for what you do.
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By niqnaq | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0) :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - :: :: - :: - ::
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