No more shadow play. It’s now in the open. No holds barred.
Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record.
The money quote:
“Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.”
Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now.
Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal.
Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force.
That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.
Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow.
And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes.
Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October.
Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.
The sponsors remain the same
Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress.
The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects.
Let’s go pop. To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”. Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op. ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them.
That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian SBU. Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs.
It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow.
The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of…
… Donald Trump.
Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target.
ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same. The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”
But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit, to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov – the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.
It’s got to go till the last Ukrainian
The three exhibits above complement what the head of NATO’s
military committee, Rob Bauer, previously told a security forum in Kiev: “You need more than just grenades – you need people to replace the dead and wounded. And this means mobilization.”
Translation: NATO spelling out this is a war until the last Ukrainian.
And the “leadership” in Kiev still does not get it. Former Minister of Infrastructure Omelyan: “If we win, we will pay back with Russian oil, gas, diamonds and fur. If we lose, there will be no talk of money – the West will think about how to survive.”
In parallel, puny “garden-and jungle” Borrell admitted that it would be “difficult” for the EU to find an extra 50 billion euros for Kiev if Washington pulls the plug. The cocaine-fueled sweaty sweatshirt leadership actually believes that Washington is not “helping” in the form of loans, but in the form of free gifts. And the same applies for the EU.
The Theater of the Absurd is unmatchable. The German Liver Sausage Chancellor actually believes that proceeds from stolen Russian assets “do not belong to anyone”, so they can be used to finance extra Kiev weaponizing.
Everyone with a brain knows that using interest from “frozen”, actually stolen Russian assets to weaponize Ukraine is a dead end – unless they steal all of Russia’s assets, roughly $200 billion, mostly parked in Belgium and Switzerland: that would tank the Euro for good, and the whole EU economy for that matter.
Eurocrats better listen to Russian Central Bank major “disrupter” (American terminology) Elvira Nabiullina: The Bank of Russia will take “appropriate measures” if the EU does anything on the “frozen”/stolen Russian assets.
It goes without saying that the three exhibits above completely nullify the “La Cage aux Folles” circus promoted by the puny Petit Roi, now known across his French domains as Macronapoleon.
Virtually the whole planet, including the English-speaking Global North, had already been mocking the “exploits” of his Can Can Moulin Rouge Army.
So French, German and Polish soldiers, as part of NATO, are already in the south of Kiev. The most possible scenario is that they will stay far, far away from the frontlines – although traceable by Mr. Khinzal’s business activities.
Even before this new NATO batch arriving in the south of Kiev, Poland – which happens to serve as prime transit corridor for Kiev’s troops – had confirmed that Western troops are already on the ground.
So this is not about mercenaries anymore. France, by the way, is only 7th in terms of mercenaries on the ground, largely trailing Poland, the US and Georgia, for instance. The Russian Ministry of Defense has all the precise records.
In a nutshell: now war has morphed from Donetsk, Avdeyevka and Belgorod to Moscow. Further on down the road, it may not just stop in Kiev. It may only stop in Lviv. Mr. 87%, enjoying massive national near-unanimity, now has the mandate to go all the way. Especially after Crocus.
There’s every possibility the terror tactics by Kiev goons will finally drive Russia to return Ukraine to its original 17th century landlocked borders: Black Sea-deprived, and with Poland, Romania, and Hungary reclaiming their former territories.
Remaining Ukrainians will start to ask serious questions about what led them to fight – literally to their death – on behalf of the US Deep State, the military complex and BlackRock.
As it stands, the Highway to Hell meat grinder is bound to reach maximum velocity.
Long gone are Western headlines heralding Ukraine’s NATO-trained and armed forces and the prospects of them able to “sweep Putin’s conscripts aside,” as former British Army Colonel Hamish De Bretton-Gordon claimed in an article published as recently as June this year.
As Ukraine’s offensive forces broke across extensive Russian defenses all along the line of contact from Zaporozhye to Kharkov, the realization that Washington, London, and Brussels underestimated the Russian Federation economically, politically, diplomatically, and most importantly, militarily and industrially, began to set in.
Russian Military Production Grows, Western Stockpiles Dry Up
Today, different kinds of headlines now appear across the collective West’s media. The New York Times recently reported in an article titled, “Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say,” that Russia ammunition production was at least seven times greater than the collective West.
The same article acknowledged that Russia had increased its tank production two-fold and was producing 2 million artillery rounds per year, a number that is larger than the combined planned expansion of shell production of the US and European Union some time between 2025 and 2027. Not only is Russia out-producing the West, it is producing weapons and ammunition at a fraction of the cost of Western arms and munitions.
As Russian military industrial production expands, producing more tanks, artillery, cruise missiles, and ammunition for the ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces find their sources of arms and ammunition drying up.
The BBC would report in a recent article, “Poland no longer supplying weapons to Ukraine amid grain row,” that:
One of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, Poland, has said it is no longer supplying weapons to its neighbour, amid a diplomatic dispute over Kyiv’s grain exports.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Poland’s focus was instead on defending itself with more modern weapons.
While both Poland and the BBC attempt to frame the decision as motivated by growing tensions between Poland and Ukraine, the reality is Poland had a finite amount of expendable arms and ammunition it could send Ukraine, and it has expended those stocks. This leaves a much smaller number of more modern systems Poland has acquired for its own defense. Neither Poland nor its foreign arms suppliers produce weapons and ammunition in the quantities required to sustain Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, meaning that should Poland continue supplying Ukraine from this point forward, it will eventually find itself “demilitarized.”
Other nations are failing to deliver much anticipated weapon systems. This includes the ATACMS ballistic missile Ukraine has demanded from the United States for months now, and despite claims of its arrival being imminent, Reuters in a recent article has ruled them out once again ahead of the Pentagon’s next assistance package.
Germany’s air-launched cruise missile, the Taurus, has also failed to turn up in additional assistance packages. Bloomberg in its article, “Germany Plans Additional $428 Million in Military Aid to Ukraine,” noted that Berlin is still weighing “a multitude of political, legal, military and technical aspects,” before finally sending any.
It should be noted that neither missile, along with a wide array of other so-called “wonder weapons,” has any prospect of changing the outcome of the fighting in Ukraine. While the missiles, if delivered, will result in tactical victories for Kiev, they will have little to no impact on the fighting strategically.
What remains of Western military assistance to Ukraine is inadequate amounts of ammunition, older and/or increasingly inappropriate armored vehicles including relics of the Cold War like the Leopard 1 main battle tank, and “training” for Ukrainian soldiers conducted in compressed timelines producing entirely unprepared soldiers almost certain to perish within days of arriving at the battlefield.
The US-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is unsustainable, and it appears many in the halls of power across the collective West are coming to grips with that.
Delusion Persists
However, elsewhere in the Western media, a deep sense of delusion is still reflected in articles that, despite admitting Ukraine’s failures, believe a “rethink” of Ukraine’s military strategy could help win what is obviously transforming into a “long war.”
For example, The Economist in its article, “Ukraine faces a long war. A change, of course, is needed,” admits the long-anticipated offensive “is not working,” but goes on to demands more offensive and defensive capabilities for Ukraine, including additional air defense systems and “reliable supplies of artillery,” both of which objectively do not and will not exist in the necessary quantities Ukraine requires for years to come.
At one point in the article, The Economist insists on Europe “beefing up its defense industry,” apparently oblivious to the lead times involved in doing so being measured in years – years Ukraine does not have.
The collective West apparently realizes their plans are failing to end the war in their favor sooner rather than later, but appear unaware that the “long war” they now realize awaits them is beyond their capability to fight by proxy or otherwise. The proxy war, designed to “extend Russia,” is now making Russia stronger militarily and industrially. At the same time, the conflict and the sanctions the West imposed on Russia are serving as a catalyst for other nations to pivot away from the US-led unipolar world and instead invest in a multipolar alternative, fearing that eventually the West may target them in a similar manner.
It is clear that the harder the collective West attempts to place Ukraine in a stronger position at the negotiation table, the weaker Ukraine and its Western sponsors become. The longer this conflict continues, the worse it will be for Ukraine and its sponsors. For the collective West, winning their proxy war is impossible militarily and industrially, but accepting this reality appears equally impossible for the collective West’s leadership psychologically.
U.S. intelligence was too quick to leak information about the German investigation to TheNew York Times.It raises the distinct impression that the real culprit is nervous about the investigative work of Seymour Hersh.
President Joe Biden meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the Oval Office, March 3, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
Back in 2000, the television series “Andromeda” premiered, based upon unused material from Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek series and franchise. The plot is premised on the notion of a spaceship, “Andromeda,” frozen in time, which is given the opportunity to reverse the clock and undo history.
The series ran five years.
Fast forward to the present.
History has dealt a tough hand to the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, who openly confessed his intent to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipeline system which delivered Russian natural gas to Europe through four pipelines (Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, consisting of two pipelines each).
Since then, the Biden White House was compelled to deny the president’s stated intent after an explosive report by Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailed damning information which, if true (and there is no reason to suspect it’s not) casts the responsibility for a series of underwater explosions that took place on Sept. 26, 2022, on Biden himself.
Hersh’s report was ignored by the mainstream media in the United States, with neither The New York Times, for whom Seymour Hersh wrote on national security issues for many years, nor TheWashington Post even hinting that the greatest living investigative journalist had broken a blockbuster story.
Enter the “Andromeda” — not the spaceship of the eponymous television series, but rather a Bavaria C50 15-meter (49-foot) yacht based out of the German Baltic port city of Rostock. On March 7 — nearly a month after Hersh self-published his article on Substack — a team of German reporters from the ARD capital studio, Kontraste, Südwestrundfunk (SWR) and Die Zeitcollaboratively reported that they had uncovered the existence of “the boat that was allegedly used for the secret operation.”
The boat was “a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, apparently owned by two Ukrainians.” According to the story, “the secret operation at sea was carried out by a team of six people.”
According to the German reporting, the team — five men, consisting of a ship captain, two primary divers, two supporting divers and a female doctor — used the Andromeda to transport the team, along with the explosives used to destroy the pipelines, to the scene of the crime. The boat was returned to Rostock in “an uncleaned condition,” allowing German law enforcement officials, who carried out a search of the vessel between Jan. 8-11, to detect “traces of explosives” on a table in the ship’s cabin.
The same day the German reporting on the new Nord Stream attack narrative broke, TheNew York Timesran a front-page story entitled “Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, US Officials Say.”
For the first time, TheNew York Times referred to Hersh’s reporting, writing, “Last month, the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article on the newsletter platform Substack concluding that the United States carried out the operation at the direction of Mr. Biden,” before closing with “U.S. officials say Mr. Biden and his top aides did not authorize a mission to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, and they say there was no U.S. involvement.”
As if echoing the Biden White House denials, TheNew York Times led off with this:
“New intelligence reporting amounts to the first significant known lead about who was responsible for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe” (emphasis added.)
TheNew York Times, it seems, was more than happy about proceeding with its own anonymous intelligence sources, while dismissing Hersh’s.
The problem with both the German reporting and that of The New York Times (whose source was clearly referring to the same data reported by the German reporters) is that the Andromeda narrative doesn’t hold water.
Take, for instance, the Tom Clancy-like tale of derring-do that has four allegedly Ukraine-affiliated divers defy physiology by conducting dives that would require the use of a decompression chamber for them to survive an ascent of 240 feet (the depth of the Nord Stream pipelines that were destroyed). A rule of thumb is that decompression takes approximately one day per 100 feet of seawater plus a day.
This means that the team of divers would have required three days of decompression per dive. But to decompress, one needs a decompression chamber. For a dive involving two divers, the Andromeda would have to have been outfitted with either a two-person Class A decompression chamber, or two single-person Class B chambers, as well as the number of large oxygen bottles needed to operate these chambers over time. \
A simple examination of the interior cabin space of the Bavarian C50 yacht would quickly dispossess one of any notion that either option was viable.
Simply put — no decompression chamber, no dive, no story.
‘Traces’ of High Explosives
There is another aspect of the story to probe. According to the German reporting, law enforcement officials detected “traces” of high explosives on the tables in the cabin of the Andromeda.
According to the Swedish Prosecution Authority, in a statement released on Nov. 19, 2022, Swedish investigators discovered “traces of explosives on several of the foreign objects that were found” at the site of the explosions.
These explosives, according to a Nov. 22, 2022, report issued by Nord Stream AG, the Swiss-based parent company that owned the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, produced “technogenic [i.e., “of or pertaining to a process or substance created by human technology”] craters with a depth of 3 to 5 meters” separated “by a distance of about 248 meters.”
“The section of the pipe between the craters is destroyed, the radius of pipe fragments dispersion is at least 250 meters,” the report noted.
In a report to the United Nations, both Denmark and Sweden said that the damage done to the Nord Stream pipelines was caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive.”
It should be noted that underwater pipelines like those used in Nord Stream are designed to withstand proximal explosions from devices up to several hundred kilograms in size. Indeed, in locations such as the Baltic Sea, where unexploded military ordnance from multiple world wars abounds, the threat of a drifting device striking a pipeline and detonating is quite real.
Computer modeling shows that a 600-kilogram high explosive charge detonated approximately 5 meters from a 34mm-thick steel pipeline filled with gas would not compromise the structural integrity of the pipeline.
At the location of the explosions, the Nord Stream pipelines consisted of 26.8 mm steel pipes with an addition 33.2 mm of concrete coating, for a total thickness of 60 mm. The weight of a single pipe section was over 11 tons.
In short, a standard high-explosive charge of several hundred kilograms would not be sufficient to cause the destruction that occurred on the Nord Stream pipeline.
Enter Hersh, who reported that the explosives used were “shaped charges.”
With a shaped charge, the energy of the explosion is focused in one direction, usually by creating a concave shape in the explosive that is them lined with a metal sheet, so that it usually achieves an armor- and/or concrete-penetrating effect.
Without getting too technical, the design of an underwater shaped charge that would be sufficient to penetrate concrete-lined steel pipe at a depth of 240 feet is not common knowledge. The charge would have to be prepared by qualified explosives experts and ideally tested prior to being employed operationally to validate the design and functionality of the device.
These are not tasks undertaken by a small ad hoc team of Ukrainian underwater saboteurs, but rather state-sponsored actors with access to military grade explosives and testing facilities.
Strike two for the German reporting.
But the most glaring deficiency in the German reporting deals with the detection of “trace explosive” onboard the Andromeda. This information would identify the precise explosive used. Moreover, when compared and contrasted with the “trace explosive” found by the Swedes at the location of the Nord Stream attacks, it could provide a clear linkage between the Andromeda and the attacks.
But Sweden has sealed the files of its investigation into the Nord Stream attack on national security grounds, meaning that it will not cooperate with Germany to see if the explosive traces found at the scene of the Nord Stream crime match those onboard the Andromeda.
The obvious reason behind this decision: because the two traces won’t match. One — the Swedish sample — points to the culprit. The other — the Andromeda sample — is evidence of a cover up.
Strike three, and you’re out.
The German government’s crude effort to manufacture an alternative narrative regarding who attacked the Nord Stream pipeline fails the smell test — in short, it stinks. The holes in this story are such that even the most gifted screenwriters could not turn this Andromeda tale of changing history into something remotely believable. In short, Gene Roddenberry would not be impressed.
Moreover, the fact that the U.S. intelligence community was quick to leak information about the German investigation to TheNew York Times appears to be de facto evidence of U.S. complicity in this cover up.
And the reason for this cover up is quite clear: the Germans and Americans both fear the reporting being done by Hersh.
The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”. How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings? If Hersh’s report can be trusted—and I think it can—then we must assume that senior-level advisors in the Biden administration as well as the president himself deliberately perpetrated an act of industrial terrorism against a long-term friend and ally, Germany. What Biden’s involvement in the act implies, is that the United States now claims the right to arbitrarily decide which countries may engage in commerce with which others. And, if for some reason, the buying and selling of energy supplies conflicts with Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives, then the US believes it has the right to obliterate the infrastructure that makes such trade possible. Isn’t this the rationale that was used to justify the blowing up of Nord Stream?
Sy Hersh has done the world a service by exposing the perpetrators of the Nord Stream sabotage. His expose not only identifies the people involved but also infers that they should be held accountable for their actions. But while we don’t expect any thorough investigation in the near future, we do think the magnitude of the attack has been a “wake up” call for people who cling to the belief that the Unipolar model can produce morally-acceptable outcomes. What the incident shows is that unilateral action inevitably leads to criminal violence against the weak and defenseless. Biden’s covert operation hurt every man, woman and child in Europe. It’s a real tragedy. Here’s a quote from a recent interview with Hersh:
“I think this story has the same potential for destroying the ability of our president to rally the American people behind the war because it shows something that is so dark and so Unamerican. You know, this isn’t us. We’re not talking about us. This is a bunch of intelligence officers and CIA people….” Seymour Hersh 2:29 min
#SeymourHersh, whom the war media now wants to smear for exposing #Biden's act of environmental and energy security #Terrorism, represents the best of journalism in the #USA, having exposed US crimes like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the torture at Abu Ghraib prison. pic.twitter.com/YwjS3dPZWB
He’s right, isn’t he? The Biden administration has vastly miscalculated the impact these revelations will have on the public. The reputational damage alone is going to be immense, but they will also be used as the prism through which many critics see the war. In fact, there are signs that that may already be happening. On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the real objective of Washington’s war was not simply to “weaken” Russia and eventually splinter it into smaller pieces, but to force a split between Germany and Russia. Here’s what he said on Saturday:
According to Lavrov, the US decided that Russia and Germany cooperated “too well” over the past 20-30 years, establishing a powerful alliance based on Russian resources and German technology.
“That began to threaten the monopoly position of many American corporations. Therefore, it was necessary to somehow ruin it, and do it literally,” the minister said.
“There is an aspect here that’s related to the fact that friendship between countries, national reconciliation between them, as it happened between Russians and Germans, has become an eye sore for those who don’t want anyone to appear somewhere on this planet, who will compete with the main hegemon, which the US has declared itself to be,” Lavrov added.” (Lavrov says US officials essentially acknowledge Nord Stream blasts were US handiwork”, Tass)
Lavrov’s comments reinforce our own view that the conflict was concocted by Washington’s foreign policy experts who realized that German-Russo economic integration posed a serious threat to America’s dominant role in the global order. That is why Nord Stream became the primary target of US aggression, because the pipeline was the vital artery that connected the two continents and drew them closer together into an economic commons that would eventually become the world’s biggest free trade zone. This is what Washington feared most, and that is why Biden and Co. took such desperate steps to prevent the strengthening of economic relations between Germany and Russia. In short, Nord Stream had to be destroyed because Nord Stream marked the end of the unipolar world order.
Instead, of expanding on this belabored theory, let’s take a minute and see if we can figure out something about Hersh’s shadowy “source” of information. Allow me to frame it in the form of a question:
Why did Sy Hersh’s source provide him with detailed, top-secret information about the Biden administration’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline?
a. The source is a Kremlin stooge who wanted to subvert the war-effort and inflict serious damage on the United States
b. The source is an America-hating “Commie” who loathes democracy and freedom
c. The source is an adrenaline junkie who enjoys putting himself, his family, his career and his freedom at risk.
d. The source is a concerned American who thought that revealing information about the destruction of Nord Stream would prevent the neocons from leading the country into a catastrophic war with Russia
If you chose “d” then pat yourself on the back, because that is the right answer. No one in their-right-mind would take the risks that Hersh’s source took unless he felt the country was in grave danger. And, keep in mind, we might not even know what that what that danger is yet, since we don’t know what future escalations the neocons are planning. For example, it could be that US plans are already underway to deliver F-16s and long-range missile systems that will be used to strike deeper into Russian territory. It could be that the neocons want to detonate a nuclear device in Ukraine as part of a “false flag” operation. Or it could be that Biden plans to organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ (Uk, Poland, Romania) that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. Any of these developments represent a serious escalation in the hostilities which would increase the probability of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia. In Joe Biden’s own words, “That’s what you call World War 3.”
He’s right, it would be WW3, which might explain why Hersh’s source summoned the courage to provide the author with the damning information about Nord Stream. He might have believed that the world was on the fasttrack to nuclear annihilation, so he risked his own life for ours. “No greater love hath any man…”.
And the source is not the only person who put himself at risk. Hersh could face charges as well. In fact, I would argue, that if Hersh was not as widely-respected as he is, he would probably be sharing a cell with Julian Assange right now. After all, what is the difference between what Assange did and what Hersh did?
Not much, except for the fact that Hersh’s stellar reputation makes him “untouchable. (We hope.)
In any event, if the motive behind the article was to prevent nuclear Armageddon, then we are very grateful for their bravery and selflessness.
Even so, there might have been other motives driving the article which are worth our consideration. Let’s imagine, for a minute, that Hersh’s source has information concerning the neocons plans for the near future. In other words, it is quite possible that the sabotage of Nord Stream alone was not the main impetus for Hersh’s report, but some other sinister plan on the horizon, that is, a military escalation that could trigger a catastrophe of unprecedented severity.
As we said earlier, such a plan might involve F-16s and long-range missile systems, or a nuclear “false flag” operation, or it could be that Biden will organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. US combat troops in Ukraine would make a direct clash with Russia effectively unavoidable. It would put the US on-track for another World War, which is what the neocons want. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is the most probable near-term scenario; the forming of a US-backed coalition organized to directly engage Russia in Ukraine. Here’s a “Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on President Biden’s Travel to Poland:
From February 20th – 22nd, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will travel to Poland. He will meet with President Andrzej Duda of Poland to discuss our bilateral cooperation as well as our collective efforts to support Ukraine and bolster NATO’s deterrence. He will also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a group of our eastern flank NATO Allies, to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for the security of the Alliance. In addition, President Biden will deliver remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, addressing how the United States has rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and democracy, and how we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.” (The White House, Washington DC)
As it says in the official statement, Biden will not merely talk to the Polish president about “collective efforts to support Ukraine”, but will also discuss US-Polish “bilateral cooperation as well”. But what type of bilateral cooperation does Biden want besides more weapons? Combat troops? Is that what Biden is looking for; coalition boots-on-the-ground to make up for Ukraine’s heavy casualties? Here’s an article from a website called Notes From Poland that announces a sharp uptick in Polish recruitment goals. Not surprisingly, the article does not explain the reason why Poland intends to more-than-double the size of its army within a year’s time.
Up to 200,000 people can be called up for military exercises in Poland next year, including some who have never put their name forward for service but are deemed to have “useful skills”…. The exercises can last up to 90 days, and failure to attend is punishable by jail or a fine….
The pool of people who can be called up are those aged 55 and under who have been through so-called military qualification, which is compulsory for all men turning 19 and during which the candidate’s health category and fitness for military service are determined….
Poland will increase defence spending to 3% of GDP next year, one of the highest levels in NATO, to protect itself from “voracious imperial Russia”.
Its new Homeland Defence Act will also more than double the number of troops serving in the armed forces https://t.co/KlEA1cHOo — Notes from Poland (@notesfrompoland) March 19, 2022
Until 2009, Poland had compulsory military service for men, but that was scrapped in favour of a fully professional army. However, in recent years the growing threat of Russia has pushed the government to seek to increase the size and strength of the armed forces.
In 2017, a new Territorial Defence Force was established. This year’s Homeland Defence Act foresees a doubling in the size of the armed forces, from the current 143,500 troops…” (“Up to 200,000 Poles to be called up for military training next year“, Notes From Poland)
Are we expected to dismiss this sudden expansion of the Polish military as a mere coincidence or is it more likely that a deal has already been made with Washington regarding future troop deployments to Ukraine?
According to the White House statement, Biden will “also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9)” which is a group of nine NATO countries in Eastern Europe that became part of the US-led military alliance after the end of the Cold War…and includes Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All nine countries were once closely associated with the now dissolved Soviet Union, but later chose the path of democracy. Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are former signatories of the now dissolved Warsaw Pact military alliance led by the Soviet Union…Check it out:
All members of the B9 are part of the … NATO (and all) have been critical of President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014… Last year NATO adopted its new Strategic Concept, in which all Allies agreed that ,,the Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies security and to peace and stability in the Euro–Atlantic area”. Now, on the road to the Vilnius Summit we should make sure that the Alliance is fully prepared to face this threat.” (“Who are the Bucharest Nine, countries on NATO’s eastern flank?”, Indian Express)
An army of Russophobes; is that what they want to create?
It sure looks like it.
Maybe, we’re making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’; that’s certainly a possibility. But now that the Russian army is advancing on all fronts along the Line of Contact, we think that the desperate neocons are bound to do something colossal. In fact, we are sure of it. Check out this clip from an article at Larry Johnson’s web site, “The Son of a New American Revolution”:
Now for the bad news. The Biden Administration and our European allies either are preparing for a major military action in the Ukraine war or they know something bad is going to happen soon, probably in Belarus, because warnings were just issued for foreign citizens to bug out of Belarus and Russia:
The French Foreign Ministry urged its citizens to leave Belarus without delay.
Canada urges its citizens to leave Belarus immediately because of the risk of arbitrary application of local laws and hostilities in Ukraine — Canadian Foreign Ministry.
The U.S. on Monday issued a top-level advisory telling American citizens to leave Russia immediately and cease travel to the country as Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine continues, citing risks of harassment and wrongful detention for Americans specifically.
“Do not travel to Russia due to the unpredictable consequences of the unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces, the potential for harassment and the singling out of U.S. citizens for detention by Russian government security officials, the arbitrary enforcement of local law, limited flights into and out of Russia, the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, and the possibility of terrorism,” reads the alert.
I do not believe in coincidence. This is a coordinated action and signals the situation in Russia and Belarus is going to turn dangerous in the near future. Maybe it has something to do with the United States training Islamic radicals to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia and Belarus.” (“Sy Hersh Speaks and NATO Warns of Escalation in the War in Ukraine?“, Son of a New American Revolution)
Something is afoot although we cannot be certain whether it will materialize or not. But—keep in mind—there would be no need for terrorist attacks, false flags or additional combat troops if the official narrative was actually true and the Ukrainian army was winning the war. But that is not what’s happening. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing and losing badly. In fact, they don’t even have sufficient ammunition stockpiles to sustain long-term fighting. Here’s the story from Reuters:
“NATO is expected to ask its members to raise its ammunition stockpiles which have been badly depleted by the war in Ukraine... the pace of deliveries to Ukraine, where Kyiv’s troops are firing up to 10,000 artillery shells daily, has drained Western inventories and exposed holes in the efficiency, speed and manpower of supply chains.
“If Europe were to fight Russia, some countries would run out of ammunition in days,” a European diplomat told Reuters… the stockpiles are running even lower due to the conflict in Ukraine…. The war also cast a spotlight on the lack of industrial capacity necessary to ramp up production quickly, after decades of dwindling government orders saw many production lines vanish….
How do you take a country to war with Russia without enough ammo to fight the enemy?
The incompetence is mind-boggling, and it’s not a short-term problem either. Western nations no longer have the industrial base to provide the necessary supplies and equipment for “large-scale, high-intensity warfare.” Building up capacity will take years. In the meantime, the war will be settled by well-equiped Russian combat troops who will continue to grind away at the demoralized Ukrainians who increasingly find themselves outmanned and outgunned at every turn. This is from an article at the UK Telegraph:
“With Russia back on the offensive after significant Ukrainian combat successes around Kharkiv and Kherson in the second half of 2022, the past few weeks have been the bloodiest so far of an already bloody war, with both sides taking extraordinarily heavy casualties. Expect it to get worse.
Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov says Russia has mobilised “much more” than 300,000 troops, perhaps up to half a million, and these are pouring into Ukraine in preparation for what is expected to be a major offensive in the coming days and weeks. Although Kyiv has also been building up its forces and supplying them with modern equipment donated by the West, Putin has a much greater advantage in troop numbers than he did when he invaded a year ago. Despite repeated optimistic reports of Russia running low on artillery shells – a battle winner in this conflict – Putin’s war stocks are vast, and his factories have been working around the clock to churn out even more.
Under pressure towards the end of last year, Russia withdrew its forces to positions of strength, trading ground for time as it massed resources for a planned hammer blow while grinding down the Ukrainians in the east, softening them up for the assault to come..
Until now, the narrative in the West has been that Ukraine is comfortably winning this war…The reality is more complex….: the truth is that recent promises of new combat equipment for Ukraine – especially longer range missiles, tanks and other armoured vehicles – are unlikely to be fulfilled in time to have an impact in this battle if Putin launches his offensive on the timetable Kyiv predicts….
We must therefore be prepared for significant Russian gains in the coming weeks. We need to be realistic about how bad things could be – otherwise the shock risks dislodging Western resolve. The opposite occurred last summer and autumn, as flagging support in parts of Europe and the US was galvanised by Ukrainian success.” (“Vladimir Putin is about to make shock gains“, UK Telegraph)
And this is from the New York Times:
Exhausted Ukrainian troops complain they are already outnumbered and outgunned, even before Russia has committed the bulk of its roughly 200,000 newly mobilized soldiers. And doctors at hospitals speak of mounting losses as they struggle to care for fighters with gruesome injuries. … The first stages of the Russian offensive have already begun. Ukrainian troops say that Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that Russian forces have been trying to seize since the summer, is likely to fall soon. Elsewhere, Russian forces are advancing in small groups and probing the front lines looking for Ukrainian weaknesses.
The efforts are already straining Ukraine’s military, which is worn out by nearly 12 months of heavy fighting. … Losses among Ukrainian forces have been severe. Troops in a volunteer contingent called the Carpathian Sich, positioned near Nevske, said that some 30 fighters from their group had died in recent weeks, and soldiers said, only partly in jest, that just about everyone has a concussion.
At one frontline hospital in the Donbas, the morgue was packed with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers in white plastic bags. In another hospital, stretchers with wounded troops covered in gold foil thermal blankets crowded the corridors, and a steady stream of ambulances arrived from the front nearly all day long.” (“Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault”, New York Times) Note: Lifted from Moon of Alabama
And one more excerpt from the Paper of Record:
The problem is that Ukraine is losing the war. Not, as far as we can tell, because its soldiers are fighting poorly or its people have lost heart, but because the war has settled into a World War I-style battle of attrition, complete with carefully dug trenches and relatively stable fronts.
Such wars tend to be won — as indeed World War I was — by the side with the demographic and industrial resources to hold out longest. Russia has more than three times Ukraine’s population, an intact economy and superior military technology. At the same time, Russia has its own problems; until recently, a shortage of soldiers and the vulnerability of its arms depots to missile strikes have slowed its westward progress. Both sides have incentives to come to the negotiating table.” (“Russia and Ukraine Have Incentives to Negotiate. The U.S. Has Other Plans”, New York Times)
Get the picture? The war will undoubtedly drag on for some time, but the outcome is now certain. And as the noose tightens in the east and the prospects for success grow more remote, we think the neocons are bound to do something even more desperate, foolhardy and violent. We expect the next move will be an attempt to build a coalition of the willing (UK, Romania, Poland and US) that will push the reluctant NATO allies to the breaking point by pitting a makeshift US-led Army against Russia Forces on Ukraine’s killing fields. With every reckless action, Uncle Sam increases the probability of a critical split within NATO that will end Washington’s stranglehold on Europe and lay the groundwork for a new order.
On January 20th, the great American military and geostrategic analyst Brian Berletic, who has had a stunningly high percentage of his predictions turning out to have been 100% accurate, did a youtube at his “The New Atlas” Website, headlining “US, Allies Send More Weapons to Ukraine in Absence of Real Solution”, and it had been sparked by Berletic’s advance knowledge that America and its allies would probably decide to send to Ukraine some of the German-manufactured Leopard tanks and some of the U.S.-manufactured Abrams tanks. Near the end of his video, at 25:24 in it, he summarized what the prior portion had already documented to be the case: that these tanks will be useless to turning the tide of this war away from a Russian victory, and into a U.S.-and-allied victory.
Then, on January 25th, came the announcements that America, Germany, and Poland, had, in fact, decided to do this (send those tanks to Ukraine), and the BBC reported that, “Germans endured months of political debate about concerns that sending tanks would escalate the conflict and make Nato a direct party to the war with Russia.” The reason why Germany’s leaders ultimately decided to go along with these supplies to Ukraine isn’t that they had concluded that doing so wouldn’t “escalate the conflict and make Nato a direct party to the war with Russia” (and that’s oblique terminology for “globalize the war in Ukraine and turn it into a very hot WW III between NATO (the U.S.) and Russia”) but was instead that “The US and Germany had resisted internal and external pressure to send their tanks to Ukraine for some time.” The BBC, being an extension of Britain’s own military contractors — such as the world’s 7th-largest weapons-manufacturer, BAE Systems — many of which had been lobbying heavily for this decision, refused to define, or to say anything about, what stood behind that amorphous phrase “external pressure”; and, so, as usual, what was causing what was happening here was being ignored; only the result was being reported. Its cause (source) was banned from being even discussed in the ‘news’-media. However, on Tuesday, January 24th, Politico bannered “U.S. closer to approving ‘significant number’ of Abrams tanks to Ukraine”, and reported that, “On Tuesday, shortly after news broke of the possible U.S. move, POLITICO reported that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also plans to announce that German Leopards are heading to Ukraine. Last week, Scholz told U.S. lawmakers [in Switzerland, at the pro-imperialist WEF in Davos, where many billionaires and U.S.-and-allied Governments meet privately each year and which has increasingly come to replace the United Nations that the anti-imperialist FDR had initiated to serve as the basis for international laws, and for these imperialists to come to replace those international laws, by imposing America’s “rules-based international order”] that Berlin would approve the transfer only if the U.S. donated its own tanks first.” But, still, the key individuals who stood behind this supposedly crucial international agreement, to possibly start what could quickly become a nuclear World War Three, wasn’t, at all, being indicated; it was, instead, hidden, and that question wasn’t mentioned, at all — as-if it didn’t ‘really’ matter who, or how, and why, this decision to “escalate the conflict and make Nato a direct party to the war with Russia” had been made — what had caused it to be made.
Sending these additional armaments to Ukraine runs exactly opposite to public opinion in at least the imperial country itself.
As Russia’s war against Ukraine approaches its one-year mark, 33 percent of Americans think the United States is doing too much to help Ukraine, 21 percent think the U.S. is doing too little, and 38 percent think the U.S. is doing about the right amount to help Ukraine. This compares to a Quinnipiac University poll on February 28, 2022 after the war started, when 7 percent of Americans thought the U.S. was doing too much to help Ukraine, 45 percent thought the U.S. was doing too little, and 37 percent thought the U.S. was doing about the right amount to help Ukraine.
So: Why is America’s NATO driving its members to shovel yet more weaponry into Ukraine? Is it because these countries are “democracies”? Brian Berletic has a different answer — and, unlike the propagandized one, it recognizes that that is a pure scam excuse (like the invasion and occupation of Iraq used in 2003). The “MIC” Military-Industrial Complex (and that’s controlled by the leading stockholders in the top-100 ‘Defense’ firms) is behind it. NATO is the trade-organization for those international corporations, and it (especially in the U.S. and UK) runs their Governments. That’s why this is being done.
Now that Ukraine’s government will be receiving those tanks, Ukraine is expecting ultimately to receive American jet fighters and missiles that will enable Ukraine to invade Russia at least as far as Moscow — which is only 300 miles away from Ukraine. On the afternoon of January 25th, Reuters headlined “Ukraine sets sights on fighter jets after securing tank supplies”, and reported that Yuriy Sak, who advises Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, told Reuters, “They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us Himars systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get.” If they get nuclear weapons, those will certainly be operated by Americans. And, of course, that has been the U.S. goal ever since Obama started by no later than June of 2011 to plan his coup to take Ukraine.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
With Kiev exposed for a lie that could have triggered a third world war, it is time to examine past deceptions that Western media promoted.
A missile that exploded on Polish soil on November 15 killed two civilians and destroyed farm equipment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western corporate media rushed to blame the explosion on Russia in apparent hopes of triggering NATO’s Article 5, which requires NATO states to defend one another militarily when attacked by a hostile force.
Polish and NATO members including US President Joseph Biden have since confirmed the missile that struck Poland was, in fact, a Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missile. Yet Zelensky is sticking to his line, blaming Russia for the strike, while NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg still insists that “Russia bears ultimate responsibility.” Meanwhile, the media outlets that reflexively pointed the finger at Russia have been forced to take a step back from their initial reporting.
“Russian missiles hit Poland, the territory of our friendly country. People died,” Zelensky insisted on November 15, the night of the attack. “The longer Russia feels impunity, the more threats there will be to anyone within reach of Russian missiles. To fire missiles at NATO territory! This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a very significant escalation. We must act.”
Zelensky held firm the following day, despite mounting evidence that his own country’s air defenses were responsible, declaring “I have no doubt that this is not our missile… I believe that this was a Russian missile, based on our military reports.” By this time, most analysts rejected the Ukrainian president’s assessment, including the founder of the US government-sponsored intelligence cutout Bellingcat, who wrote “At this point I think it’s fair anyone saying that a Russian missile hit Poland based on the current evidence is being irresponsible.”
A Russian attack on NATO member Poland could have triggered Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which compels its member states to consider “an attack against one Ally” to be “an attack against all Allies.” Such a mobilization would have amounted to World War III.
Despite the clear risk of such a catastrophic escalation – or perhaps because of it – Western corporate media immediately blamed Russia for the strike, never even posing the question of why Russia would consider Polish farmland such an important military target that it would be willing to risk a full-scale war with the 30-member NATO alliance.
Initially, the Associated Press ran with the headline “Russian missiles cross into Poland during strike on Ukraine.” The article cited a “senior US intelligence official,” and later, “a second person.”
On November 16, AP began redirecting the link to its original article to a correction that stated, “The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on information from a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people. Subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.”
Time Magazine ran with the headline, “Russian Missiles Cross Into Poland During Strike, Killing Two,” and cited the AP report.
Fox News similarly announced, “Russian missiles cross into NATO member Poland, kill 2: senior US intelligence official, citing the Associated Press. MSNBC also blamed a “Russian missile” for the strike in its headline.
Then there was CNN, which reported, “Poland says Russian-made missile killed two, will consider invoking NATO Article 4.” NATO Article 4 deals with the meetings between NATO states that are to take place in the event one of them is “threatened” and would theoretically precede any invocation of Article 5. Like CNN, Reuters cited the Polish Foreign Ministry and ran the headline, “Poland says Russian rocket hit its territory as NATO weighs response.”
The New York Times stated in the second sentence of its report on the missile strike that “the blast came as Russia fired roughly 90 missiles into Ukraine.” Two lines later, the Times stated “local media suggests a Russian missile strike.” Readers of the paper of record would have to scroll down several times to even read that Russian officials denied responsibility.
Earlier in the war, in an article on “Ukraine’s online propaganda,” the New York Times sought to downplay the Ukrainian government’s penchant for pushing fake news, arguing that Kiev’s information war merely “dramatize[s] tales of Ukrainian fortitude and Russian aggression.” The article quoted an unnamed Twitter user, who wrote, “Why can’t we just let people believe some things? … If the Russians believe it, it brings fear. If the Ukrainians believe it, it gives them hope.”
The US media’s support for Ukraine’s propaganda efforts meant that it covered some of the most suspicious events without a hint of skepticism, and thereby encouraged more.
These questionable incidents included the following:
On March 8, Western media reported that a Mariupol maternity hospital was attacked by Russian aircraft. Zelensky claimed the attack was evidence of Russian “genocide” against Ukraine. However, a key witness – a pregnant woman in the hospital photographed by AP – stated that no such airstrike occurred, and that nearby explosions were caused by Ukrainian artillery shells.
New witness testimony about Mariupol maternity hospital ‘airstrike’ follows pattern of Ukrainian deceptions, media malpractice@KitKlarenberg on the unraveling of another propaganda piece that highlights the AP's unsavory relationship with Azovhttps://t.co/PZ77TbWupT
On March 16, the Ukrainian government blamed a targeted Russian airstrike for destroying the Mariupol Dramatic Theater and causing anywhere from 300 to 600 deaths. Western corporate media promoted the Ukrainian narrative of the event despite a total absence of footage showing a missile strike, no images or evidence of large numbers of dead civilians inside, no images or evidence of any attempted rescue, and testimony by Mariupol locals asserting the Azov Battalion fighters that controlled the theater’s grounds staged the explosion to provoke NATO military intervention. Photographic evidence showed that Azov fighters removed all vehicles from the theater’s parking lot one day before the explosion.
The BBC & CNN's lone source for 300 dead in the Mariupol theater is a single pro-Azov official no longer in the city.
13 days since the suspicious blast & still no photo or video evidence, no images of casualties or rescuers, no independent confirmation. https://t.co/3dnLkmMEuS
The Kramatorsk train station bombing that was blamed on Russia despite the fact the Tochka-U missile responsible for the blast contained a serial number matching others in Ukraine’s arsenal and originated from Ukrainian-controlled territory.
NATO-aligned Italian TV channel La7 scored a fantastic own goal. It showed the serial number of the Tochka-U missile that hit Kramatorsk station.Thanks to the serial number SH91579 the missile was traced back to the Ukrainian army. pic.twitter.com/lEsuGnf9DC
As the war grinds on, elements in the Biden administration appear to be growing impatient with the tall tales of their Ukrainian clients. “This is getting ridiculous,” an unnamed NATO official told the Financial Times on November 16. “The Ukrainians are destroying our confidence and they are openly lying. This is more destructive than the missile.”
The Associated Press journalist who reported a US intelligence official’s false claim that Russia had launched missiles at Poland last week has been fired.
As we discussed previously, AP’s anonymously sourced report which said “A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people” went viral because of the massive implications of direct hot warfare erupting between Russia and the NATO alliance. AP subsequently retracted its story as the mainstream political/media class came to accept that it was in fact a Ukrainian missile that had struck Poland.
AP’s firing of reporter James LaPorta looks at this time to be the end point of any accountability for the circulation of this extremely dangerous falsehood. AP spokesperson Lauren Easton says no disciplinary action will be taken against the editors who waved the bogus story through, and to this day the public has been kept in the dark about the identity of the US official who fed such extremely egregious misinformation/disinformation to the public through the mainstream press.
Important that AP accounts for publishing the false claim that Russia fired missiles into Poland. But the much more important task is finding out why an anonymous senior US intelligence official fed AP that false claim. https://t.co/6YmAn0VDap
It is utterly inexcusable for AP to continue to protect the anonymity of a government official who fed them such a profoundly significant falsehood. This didn’t just affect AP staff, it affected the whole world; we deserve to know what happened and who was responsible, and AP has no business obstructing that knowledge from us.
LaPorta’s firing looks like this is yet another instance where the least powerful person involved in a debacle is being made to take the fall for it. A powerful intelligence official will suffer no consequences for feeding false information to the press — thereby ensuring that it will happen again — and no disciplinary action will be taken against LaPorta’s superiors, despite the absolute buffoonery that subsequent reporting has revealed on their part.
Internal AP communications viewed by The Post show some confusion and misunderstanding during the preparations of the erroneous report.
LaPorta shared the U.S. official’s tip in an electronic message around 1:30 p.m. Eastern time. An editor immediately asked if AP should issue an alert on his tip, “or would we need confirmation from another source and/or Poland?”
After further discussion, a second editor said she “would vote” for publishing an alert, adding, “I can’t imagine a U.S. intelligence official would be wrong on this.”
“I can’t imagine a US intelligence official would be wrong on this.”
Can you imagine not being able to imagine a US intelligence official being wrong? This would be an unacceptable position for any educated adult to hold, much less a journalist, still less an editor, and still less an editor of one of the most influential news agencies on earth.
These are the people who publish the news reports we read to find out what’s happening in the world. This is the baby-brained level of thinking these people are serving the public interest with.
Antiwar commentator Daniel Larison writes the following of the AP editor’s shocking quote:
Skepticism about official claims should always be the watchword for journalists and analysts. These are claims that need more scrutiny than usual rather than less. If you can’t imagine that an intelligence official could get something important wrong, whether by accident or on purpose, you are taking far too many things for granted that need to be questioned and checked out first.
Intelligence officials of many governments feed information to journalists and have done so practically ever since there was a popular press to feed information to, and that information certainly should not be trusted just because an official source hands it over. It is also always possible for intelligence officials to just get things wrong, whether it is because they are relying on faulty information or because they were too hasty in reaching conclusions about what they think they know.
Whether the AP’s source was feeding them a line or was simply mistaken, a claim as provocative and serious as this one should have been checked out much more thoroughly before it got anywhere near publication. The AP report in this case seems to have been a combination of a story that was “too good to check” and a culture of deference to official sources in which the editors didn’t feel compelled to make the effort to check.
"If you can’t imagine that an intelligence official could get something important wrong, whether by accident or on purpose, you are taking far too many things for granted that need to be questioned and checked out first." https://t.co/u6VWdxsOG3https://t.co/4D7S9PisM3
Indeed, the only reason the press receive such explicit protections in the US Constitution is because they are supposed to hold the powerful to account. If the editors of a wildly influential news agency will just unquestioningly parrot whatever they are fed by government officials while simultaneously protecting those officials with anonymity, they are not holding the powerful to account, and are in fact not meaningfully different from state propagandists.
They are state propagandists. Which is probably why they are sipping lattes in the AP newsroom while Julian Assange languishes in prison.
As Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic observed, this is far from the first time AP has given the cover of anonymity to US government officials circulating bogus claims of potentially dangerous consequence, like the time it reported an official’s evidence-free assertion which later proved false that Iran had carried out an attack on four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, or the time it let another one anonymously claim that “Iran may try to take advantage of America’s troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Irresponsible journalism from the AP, but this strikes me as quite damning and suggests it's more than just one reporter that's the problem. After all, this isn't even close to the first time the AP has published a false, war-baiting claim by a anon official. pic.twitter.com/id4bWr4zdz
Powerful government official who fed AP a false story: Zero accountability
AP editor who asked if a report should immediately be published upon receipt of the story: Zero accountability
Second AP editor who says she can’t imagine a U.S. intelligence official would be wrong: Zero accountability
Journalist who wrote the story: Singular accountability
In a sane society, power and responsibility would go hand in hand. A disaster would be blamed on the most powerful people involved in its occurrence. In our society it’s generally the exact opposite, with the rank-and-file taking all of the responsibility and none of the power.
Our rulers lie to us, propagandize us, endanger us, impoverish us, destroy journalism, start wars, kill our biosphere and make our world dark and confusing, and they suffer no consequences for it. We cannot allow them to continue holding all of the power and none of the responsibility. This is backwards and must end.
A mere less than 24 hours ago, before the dust had settled from the explosion and before investigators could come to any definitive conclusions after the deadly incident on the Polish border village of Przewodów, the Western public was already being harangued and forewarned to stay away from ‘conspiracy theories’ as the early mainstream headlines – pushed especially based on an anonymous US official in an Associated Press report – were fast out the gate with “Russian missiles hit Poland, killing two”.
“Article 5” – the NATO collective defense treaty which many had long worried would be the first invoked act leading to WWIII, began trending on Twitter, as Western officials issued confident statements of ‘solidarity’. Almost immediately and without evidence, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded “action” from the West over the supposed brazen aggression against a NATO member. “Hitting NATO territory with missiles… This is a Russian missile attack on collective security! This is a really significant escalation. Action is needed,” Zelensky said his Tuesday night video address.
And then as missile crash site images widely circulated on the internet, leading even Western sources to express doubt that the projectile was launched by Russia, enter no less than the foreign minister of Ukraine, who attempted to preempt what he slammed as a developing Russia-promoted “conspiracy theory”. Like with many other aspects to this war, some of the most obvious common sense questions were quickly declared “off limits” before they could even be asked.
Russia now promotes a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile of Ukrainian air defense that fell on the Polish theory. Which is not true. No one should buy Russian propaganda or amplify its messages. This lesson should have been long learnt since the downing of #MH17.
Warsaw then stopped just short of any talk of Article 5, but then floated Article 4 as the basis of an emergency NATO security meeting for Wednesday, which calls for “consultations” in the event a NATO country is under threat.
But what a difference a few hours, and a skeptical refusal to blindly jump on the war! bandwagon, makes. First, as we reported overnight, President Joe Biden explicitly said that based on preliminary information, it is “unlikely” that the rocket strike in Poland originated in Russia. Oops. This as based on the available emerging evidence it seemed clear the culprit was more likely an errant Ukrainian anti-air missile. “It’s unlikely in the minds of [sic] the trajectory that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see,” Biden had said. But this admission conveniently came well after the US president seized the ‘fog of war’ moment to unveil another massive $37 billion emergency aid package for Ukraine almost simultaneous to the border incident.
Now on Wednesday, Poland and NATO officials have also done a reversal of the initial kneejerk ‘blame Russia’ reporting which momentarily sent the world into a frenzy of anxiety over the prospect of WWIII. Polish President Andrzej Duda has said the explosion that killed two people now appears to be an “unfortunate accident” and not an “intentional attack.”
What is left to say after all of this? Here are the facts…
UKRAINE tried to start WW3 yesterday when a UKRAINIAN missile struck a NATO country and killed innocent civilians.
Ukrainian leaders LIED and BLAMED RUSSIA. The AP wrote it up unquestioningly.
Ukrainian Leaders LIED to try and initiate full-blown WW3.
Recall that the initial reaction out of Moscow was that either Ukraine or Poland was staging a “deliberate provocation” in so quickly hurling blame on Russia for an aggressive act. Warsaw officials had even in the hours after demanded that Russia make an apology if it was an accident.
But President Duda alongside NATO HQ is quickly reversing the entire narrative, according to more from Axios:
Duda added that the projectile that caused the blast was “most likely” Russian-made, but officials have “no proof at the moment that it was a missile fired by the Russian side.”
Ukraine has previously denied it was to blame for the blast and accused Moscow of a “serious escalation.” Russia also denied responsibility.
Of course, it’s always been the case that Ukraine’s anti-air missile arsenal is entirely “Russian-made” – particularly its S-300s.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a similar assessment, saying it was most likely an errant Ukrainian missile:
“Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks,” the NATO Secretary General told reporters after an emergency meeting of the alliance’s Security Council.
He stressed that the investigation into the explosion is still ongoing but that there is “no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack. And we have no indication that Russia is preparing offensive military actions against NATO.”
To be expected, he quickly followed by still laying blame on Russia for the overall war and series of events which led to the deadly border explosion. “But let me be clear. This is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” the NATO chief said.
The missile that hit Poland killing two people was a Ukrainian air defense missile and there is no evidence to suggest the incident was an intentional attack by Russia, Poland's President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday. https://t.co/UBcRxX6lSQ
Without addressing Zelensky’s prior day shrill rush to get NATO to declare military action based on collective security, Stoltenberg stressed, “this is not Ukraine’s fault.” As NATO defense officials continue to meet to determine a way forward, and as the whole drama has clearly fizzled out (again, only after it emerged it was Ukraine’s rocket), likely the alliance will quietly move on in a “nothing to see here” manner.
But what about the next time a similar border tragedy or incident on NATO-land plays out? Will the same “Russia is attacking NATO!” narrative prevail before anyone is allowed to ask simple questions? Will the war drums beat before there’s so much as a forensic investigation? Will there be a mushroom cloud before pesky rational skepticism disrupts the “consensus”? As the past ten years of war in Syria and Western intervention there have demonstrated, this is the likely inevitable scenario of how NATO and Russia will stumble into direct conflict at this rate.
In the meantime, as for the below still lingering question, we won’t hold our breath…
After the Crash 