This campaign is inextricably tied to war. Assange is being persecuted for exposing war crimes, under conditions where the US and its allies are preparing even greater horrors through their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and their confrontation with China.
In a feature article published last Thursday, the well-known German weekly magazine Der Spiegel pointedly asked whether the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was “hunting” associates and supporters of Julian Assange.
The persecuted WikiLeaks publisher remains in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison while the UK authorities seek to facilitate his extradition to the US. There, Assange faces 175 years’ imprisonment for exposing the war crimes committed by American imperialism and its allies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Over recent years, a wealth of material has been published laying bare the scope of the US campaign against Assange and its gross illegality. In October 2021, Yahoo! News issued an article, based on the statements of 30 former and current US officials. It asserted that the CIA and the Trump administration had plotted to kidnap or assassinate Assange while he was an internationally-recognised political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy.
There are well-documented allegations that UC Global, the security company contracted by the Ecuadorian authorities to provide security to the embassy, was secretly collaborating with the US authorities. UC Global whistleblowers have attested to this, and the unlawful surveillance material, including videos of Assange’s privileged discussions with his lawyers, has been publicly released.
The Der Spiegel article provides additional information. It paints a picture of a global dragnet established by the US government and its agencies to target not only Assange, but also his collaborators. Much of the material is anecdotal, but the standing of those providing it, together with the context of established US state operations against WikiLeaks, makes for a persuasive case.
Summarising the material it collected, Der Spiegel writes: “At one point, a lawyer in London lost her laptop; at another, a journalist researching Assange’s case had medical data stolen. The office of Assange’s Spanish defence lawyers was broken into in a bizarre way. In Ecuador, a Swedish software developer has been held in the country for nearly four years on flimsy grounds. Elsewhere, Assange supporters who prefer to remain anonymous reported similar spooky incidents.
“That they are connected cannot be proven. Nor has it been possible to determine the authors beyond doubt in any case so far. It could be a matter of coincidences. ‘But who is to believe that?’ asks Assange’s lawyer Aitor Martínez, who is certain that it is a concerted campaign by U.S. authorities, whose often dubious methods WikiLeaks has exposed quite a few times. ‘It’s a vendetta against Julian Assange,’ says the Spaniard. And the focus is not only on companions and family members of Assange, but also on lawyers and journalists, who by law should be particularly protected from wiretapping.”
everal case studies are provided.
One concerns Andy Müller-Maguhn, a German collaborator of Assange and a computer expert. In addition to having met frequently with Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, Müller-Maguhn plays a pivotal role in WikiLeaks’ operations by managing funds for the organisation donated through the German Wau Holland Foundation.
The Der Spiegel report recounts that Müller-Maguhn discovered in March 2018 a high-powered spying device in a Southeast Asian apartment where he sometimes resides. The small surveillance implant had been expertly soldered into one of Müller-Maguhn’s secure mobile phones. Der Spiegel commented: “It is equipped with U.S. made chips and cannot be detected with a normal frequency locator.”
Other incidents followed, with Müller-Maguhn describing the situation as the “edge of surreality.” In one instance, “in June 2019, he was waiting for his wife in Milan when he spotted an ‘unkempt guy’ across the street pointing a telephoto lens at him through a plastic bag. ‘When he sees me looking at him,’ he takes off.”
In another incident…………………………….
The German citizen has filed a legal case against the spying in the German federal courts. His account is lent substantial credence by the fact that the US government has openly admitted to targeting him.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigations named Müller-Maguhn as a potential WikiLeaks courier in the 2016 Mueller report…………………………..
Lawyer targeted
Aitor Martínez, one of Assange’s Spanish lawyers, also appears to have been targeted. Der Spiegel pointedly notes: “For him, too, the series of oddities apparently began in the spring of 2017, when CIA chief Pompeo declared WikiLeaks an enemy intelligence agency.”
Pompeo made that declaration in response to WikiLeaks’ publication of Vault 7, a trove of CIA documents proving that the agency was running a global hacking operation aimed at gaining access to smartphones, televisions and even electric vehicles. The agency was also developing technologies to falsely ascribe its own illegal actions to other nations, such as Russia and Iran. The clear implication of Pompeo’s assertion was that WikiLeaks would be treated as an enemy state or a terrorist organisation.
…………………………………………..
In the most serious attack, masked men broke into Martínez’s Spanish legal office on the night of December 16, 2017. They appeared to be looking for something, which the lawyer suspects was a computer server that they did not find.
The timing suggests coordination with UC Global, along with the US authorities………………………………………………………………….
…………….the Justice Department, which is now overseeing Assange’s attempted extradition, was potentially tag-teaming with spying agencies in criminal operations such as attempted burglaries.
Significantly, Martinez stated that his apartment was broken into last year, but nothing was stolen. That would suggest that this gangster campaign against Assange’s associates continues, despite his imprisonment and the extradition proceedings.
Another individual whose story is recounted by Der Spiegel is Ola Bini, a Swedish computer expert. He was arrested in Ecuador, where he was working, almost simultaneously with the Ecuadorian government’s expulsion of Assange from its London embassy on April 11, 2019. Bini, who says he has never worked for WikiLeaks, but did meet with Assange at the embassy, was accused of hacking into Ecuadorian government communications and attempting to destabilise its government.
Bini has been subjected to a years-long legal ordeal. While an Ecuadorian court acquitted him in January, prosecutors have filed an appeal, so he cannot leave the country.
Der Spiegel recounted some of his experiences with surveillance:………………………………………..
Reports since 2019 have indicated that the Ecuadorian campaign against Bini has been coordinated with US officials.
The spying and dirty tricks perpetrated against WikiLeaks’ associates, including lawyers, underscores the fact that the persecution of Assange is the spearhead of a broader assault on democratic rights, with global implications.
This campaign is inextricably tied to war. Assange is being persecuted for exposing war crimes, under conditions where the US and its allies are preparing even greater horrors through their proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and their confrontation with China. As in the 20th century, war is incompatible with fundamental civil liberties, which governments erode in a bid to suppress widespread opposition to militarism among workers and young people.
The lawless campaign against WikiLeaks is yet another exposure of the fraud of Washington’s claims to be defending “democracy” and “human rights” in Ukraine or anywhere else. What emerges is an imperialist regime that will use all methods, including criminal, to stamp out opposition to its illegal wars and interventions.
WASHINGTON – With more than $100 billion in U.S. weaponry and financial aid flowing to Ukraine in less than a year – and more on the way to counter Russia’s invasion – concerns about arms falling into terrorists’ hands and dollars into corrupt officials’ pockets are mounting.
The special inspector general who has overseen aid to Afghanistan since 2012, and some House Republicans, warn of the need for closer oversight of the military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The scale of the effort is massive. The $113 billion appropriated by Congress in 2022 approaches the $146 billion spent in 20 years for military and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, though the cost of sending U.S. troops there was far higher.
“When you spend so much money so quickly, with so little oversight, you’re going to have fraud, waste and abuse,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in an interview. “Massive amounts.”
Among the American public and on Capitol Hill, support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion remains strong. But it is softening. An Associated Press poll in late January showed that 48% of U.S. adults say they favor the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, with 29% opposed and 22% saying they’re neither in favor nor opposed. That’s a drop from May 2022, when 60% of U.S. adults said they were in favor of sending Ukraine weapons.
Support could erode further among Americans and Ukrainians, according to members of Congress and Sopko, without greater transparency and accountability for the tens of billions spent. The costs to American taxpayers can be expected to increase as the Biden administration sends increasingly sophisticated and expensive arms to Ukraine, including Abrams battle tanks.
Assuring that the aid ends up in the right hands, they say, demands greater oversight.
U.S. struggles to account for billions sent to Ukraine
The Pentagon spent $62.3 billion in 2022 on Ukraine for weapons, ammunition, training, logistics, supplies, salaries and stipends, according to the Joint Strategic Oversight Plan for Ukraine Response report. Inspectors general for several agencies released the report in January.
The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development spent $46 billion for activities ranging from border security to basic government services such as utilities, hospitals, schools and firefighting. Other government agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, spent another $5 billion.
The report noted the difficulty U.S. agencies had accounting for the billions spent.
The Pentagon, for example, was “unable to provide end-use monitoring in accordance with DoD policy” in Ukraine, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general. “End-use monitoring” includes tracking serial numbers of weapons and ammunition to ensure they’re used as intended.
……………………. With few U.S. troops or State Department personnel in Ukraine, keeping inventories is difficult, the report said. Moreover, the vast amount of money complicates the effort. The report notes the danger of corrupt officials siphoning it off.
“State is overseeing unprecedented levels of security assistance in Ukraine, presenting significant risk of misuse and diversion given the volume and speed of assistance and the wartime operating environment,” according to the report…………………….
Lack of Ukraine oversight draws parallels to Afghanistan corruption
Ukraine has a history of corruption, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made stamping it out a priority.
Ukraine ranks 116th out of 180 nations on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. On Feb. 14, the defense minister named new deputies after news reports showed officials in the defense ministry had bought food for troops at inflated prices.
Corruption corrodes the public’s faith in government, said Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan. Elites in Afghanistan skimmed U.S. aid money, and the obvious corruption alienated Afghans…………………….
‘Need truth tellers’: Republicans demand more oversight
“But he wants another $2 billion from us to help pay for his Natrium small reactor. That speaks volumes. We are supposed to help poor Bill Gates pay for his expensive toy, which has absolutely no utility whatsoever for anything, other than making proliferation risks greater. And the reactors are intended for export.”
In Ohio, Larry Householder, the former Speaker of the House, is facing trial in federal court in Cincinnati on charges of directing $61 million to pass and defend a billion dollar nuclear bailout bill.
In July 2021, FirstEnergy entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, paid a $230 million penalty and acknowledged that it paid the money to Householder and others through a non profit to get the bailout bill passed.
In South Carolina, in October 2021, Kevin B. Marsh, 66, former SCANA CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors, was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
Federal officials alleged that Marsh intentionally defrauded ratepayers while overseeing and managing SCANA’s operations – including the construction of two reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station – so the company could obtain and retain rate increases imposed on its rate-paying customers and qualify for up to $2.2 billion in tax credits.
In late 2016, confronted with information that the project was delayed and that the tax credits were at risk, Marsh and others withheld that information from regulators in an effort to keep the project going.
Marsh’s false and misleading statements, as well as other false and materially misleading statements made by his co-conspirators, allowed SCANA to obtain and retain rate increases imposed on SCANA’s rate-paying customers.
And in Illinois, in March 2022, a federal grand jury indicted the powerful Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, on racketeering and bribery charges for allegedly using his official position to corruptly solicit and receive personal financial rewards for himself and his associates.
Two years earlier, Commonwealth Edison Company, the largest electric utility in Illinois, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, paid $200 million to resolve bribery allegations related to the Madigan case. Madigan’s House carried water for ComEd and its corporate parent, Exelon, allowing it to charge Illinois ratepayers as much as $2.3 billion to keep afloat Exelon’s two struggling nuclear plants.
Linda Pentz Gunter of Beyond Nuclear has been tracking the corruption in the nuclear power industry.
Do you see this as a positive story – that the Justice Department is bringing these prosecutions against major corporations and politicians, that they are focusing their fire on serious corporate corruption?
“Absolutely,” Gunter told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “When we watched the Householder press conference unfold and we listened to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney and the way they spoke about this, they were furious that they had to expend this kind of time on politicians that should be just doing their jobs. The U.S. Attorney in particular talks about the fentanyl crisis and all of the other things they were trying to deal with, and instead they had to spend this extraordinary amount of time on corrupt politicians, politicians who ought to know better. They represent us. You don’t expect them to be lawbreakers.”
It was so surprising to us. We think of the FBI as an organization that investigates citizen activist groups. To see the FBI actually taking the time to thoroughly investigate this case – was quite encouraging. It’s not surprising to see a leading Democrat in Illinois be so easily bought and so corrupt, as it is by no means restricted along party lines. If you look at the history of political corruption, it’s not restricted to one party or another. But finally you are seeing some justice.”
“Nuclear power is so uneconomical now,” Gunter said. “Nuclear power is almost completely dependent on the government for not only its continued existence, but also for new reactor construction. It’s almost completely dependent on federal bailouts, which is our money. They cannot stand on their own two feet financially.
To see the industry exposed for the kinds of skullduggery and corruption that is going on at our expense is very satisfying.”
The West Virginia legislature last year repealed its ban on nuclear power facilities. And earlier this year the Associated Press reported that Bill Gates is considering West Virginia as a location for his nuclear power efforts. Here is the opening of that story:
“Bill Gates is looking to West Virginia as he plans for the next phase of his effort to reboot U.S. nuclear energy technology: powering the east coast.”
“Microsoft co-founder Gates, who visited a closed down coal-fired plant in Glasgow, West Virginia on Monday, said he needs to see how his Natrium nuclear reactor demonstration in Wyoming performs before making any announcements about new sites.”
“The Kemmerer, Wyoming sodium-cooled nuclear reactor is taking over the site of a current coal-powered plant and was scheduled to be online by 2028, but is facing delays because its only source of fuel was uranium from Russia, now at war with Ukraine.”
“However, during a visit to the American Electric Power plant, which closed in 2015, Gates called the West Virginia’s Legislature’s decision last year to repeal the state’s ban on nuclear power facilities ‘quite impressive’ and said he’s looking for sites to expand his efforts to the east coast.”
So, Bill Gates wants to bring his nuclear power plants to the East Coast. And there is the West Virginia legislature upending its ban a year before he arrives on the scene to scope out locations.
No ground has been broken yet on any of these so-called new advanced reactors. But are there still any new plants under construction in the United States?
“In Georgia, you have the only two new nuclear power plants still under construction,” Gunter said. “These are the Vogtle 3 & 4 reactors – also Westinghouse AP1000 – also paid by Georgia ratepayers in advance through this construction work in progress law. That means you get a surcharge in your rates while they are building them, also heavily subsidized, originally pushed through by President Obama with federal subsidies, massively over budget. We are looking at costs as high as $34 billion for these two reactors if and when they are completed. They are constantly delayed. They were supposed to be online years ago. Now they are supposed to be online this year. Now it’s maybe next year. And it keeps getting pushed back.”
“The Georgia case exemplifies many of the problems with nuclear power, front and center being the fact that nuclear power is too slow and too expensive to be useful in any form for addressing the climate crisis.”
“There are other arguments against it – waste and security and safety. But just too slow and too expensive knock it out as a contender. And yet at same time as you just mentioned, you have people like Bill Gates trying to get his Natrium small reactor started. And Bill Gates, effectively an American oligarch, a billionaire, has to still come cap in hand to the federal government. His TerraPower nuclear energy company is putting in $2 billion.”
“But he wants another $2 billion from us to help pay for his Natrium small reactor. That speaks volumes. We are supposed to help poor Bill Gates pay for his expensive toy, which has absolutely no utility whatsoever for anything, other than making proliferation risks greater. And the reactors are intended for export.”
“These so-called new small reactors are based on old designs that have safety issues and that produce plutonium and raise proliferation concerns. They are eyeing the export market, not necessarily for here in the United States. But they have to build them somewhere first. The fact that he is eyeing West Virginia is interesting.”
Give us the lay of the land. How many nuclear power plants are operating in the United States? How many new ones? And what is the prognosis for nuclear power in the USA?
“There are the two traditional full-sized nuclear power reactors being built in Georgia. And then there are the 92 reactors still operating in the United States. There are quite a few closing. We are seeing a flurry of shutdowns – Vermont Yankee, Pilgrim, Oyster Creek, Indian Point – having reached the end of their affordable life. The tune then changed a bit. They started asking for bailouts. The Palisades reactor in Michigan closed, but the new owner, Holtec, in charge of decommissioning it, is trying to grab some of the federal funding in the Inflation Reduction Act to reopen the reactor. That presents all sorts of complications as Holtec is not a reactor operator and has never operated a nuclear power plant.”
“The owner of Palisades is Holtec, a decommissioning and waste company. It has never operated a reactor. There is a level of desperation in the industry. It is inevitably declining because it is inflexible, unaffordable, the costs due to the immense risks involved are killing them too. They are aging and degrading. They are not economical to run anymore.”
What percentage of electricity are we getting from nuclear power?
“It’s under 20 percent in the United States. Globally, it dropped to below ten percent for the first time. In this country, it would be on a downward trajectory, but we need to see what’s going to happen with these license renewals and these requests for federal dollars to keep reactors open that otherwise would be unaffordable to run.”
If we shut them all down, how do we replace the 20 percent?
“Nothing gets shut down overnight obviously. But the renewable energy sector is the fastest growing sector in this country. HB 6 in Ohio not only delivered these massive subsidies to FirstEnergy to keep its failing nuclear reactors open, it also eliminated mandates for wind and solar altogether.”
“The nuclear energy industry says we need all kinds of energy, including nuclear. But actually nuclear energy, because of the federal subsidies needed to keep it open, effectively shuts out renewables. In fact, we need to shut down the nuclear energy plants in order to fully fund and support renewal energy measures. Every dollar you invest in energy efficiency reduces more carbon faster than that same dollar invested in nuclear power. It’s more expensive to keep a nuclear power plant open than it is to initiate the same amount of energy from new renewables. You can bring renewables on in a couple of years. These reactors that they are building have taken a decade or more and are still not complete.”
They predicted that even the new small reactors would be operational by 2016. Here we are in 2023, and only one company just got a design certification permit. That tells you how slow that progress is.”
“We have the tools in place. We have energy efficiency, solar and wind. We could do weatherization programs with that money that would reduce use dramatically. But instead, the immense lobbying power of the energy companies has successfully maintained an outdated, dangerous and damaging status quo that should have been replaced decades ago.”
Then you have all of these non profit leaders pushing nuclear power.
“Yes, you even have people like Oliver Stone who has made a pro-nuclear film, based on one book. You have Bill Gates, who we have talked about. Richard Branson, a UK billionaire. There are a number of them. You wish that all of these people with more money than God would use their money on something useful. It baffles my mind that Bill Gates wants to knock out malaria on one hand but on the other hand wants to pockmark the planet with nuclear reactors that release harmful radiation routinely, nevermind the devastation if a major accident were to occur. The press loves the person who changed their minds – people like Stuart Brand of the Whole Earth Catalog.”l
[For the complete q/a format Interview with Linda Pentz Gunter, see 37 Corporate Crime Reporter 8(11), February 13, 2023, print edition only.]
And the clear message coming from Moriarty, with the consensus of foreign affairs minister Penny Wong, is that for all Australia knows, the US could run nuclear warheads through the country, without informing anyone, and that’s what governments going back decades have agreed to.
Washington’s proposed rotating of B-52s through the north is understood to be a threat to Beijing, and coupled with the broad US access to our military sites, as well as the joint facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape, these arrangements likely hardwire us into any US war on China.
After a midmorning break on budget estimate proceedings, defence secretary Greg Moriarty delivered a response to a question put by Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John earlier in the day, which has since escalated the current debate over Australia relinquishing sovereignty to the US.
Steele-John quizzed Moriarty, on 15 February, as to whether B-52 bombers that will be “cycling through” the country, following the US Army having built storage space for six such fighters as part of its upgrade of RAAF Base Tindal, “will be solely conventionally capable, not nuclear capable”.
“It’s clear that stationing of nuclear weapons in Australia is prohibited by the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, to which Australia is fully committed,” advised Moriarty, adding that this treaty, nor that of non-proliferation, prevent foreign aircraft visiting or transiting local airfields or airspace.
According to the defence head, “successive Australian governments have understood and respected the longstanding US policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons on particular platforms”.
And the clear message coming from Moriarty, with the consensus of foreign affairs minister Penny Wong, is that for all Australia knows, the US could run nuclear warheads through the country, without informing anyone, and that’s what governments going back decades have agreed to.
Unimpeded access
When Steel-John further queried Moriarty as to whether this could see nuclear weapons transiting, Wong intervened stating that the question involves talk of “rotational forces under an agreement with another government”, so she’d like to provide an answer after the “opportunity to consult”.
The pre-prepared response later delivered by Moriarty included the admission that “US bomber aircraft have been visiting Australia since the early 1980s and have conducted training in Australia since 2005”. And over this time, Canberra has respected Washington’s policy of warhead ambiguity.
Moriarty added that this policy is in line with the 2014 Force Posture Agreement between the two nations, which provides the US with unimpeded access to certain local military facilities, of which it gains operational control over when it’s carrying out any construction activity at such a site.
The FPA officially established that US troops rotate through the north of Australia, with their number now having grown to 2,500 marines annually, as well as having improved interoperability between the nations’ air forces. And it’s this agreement that’s led to the construction of a B-52 storage site.
Washington’s proposed rotating of B-52s through the north is understood to be a threat to Beijing, and coupled with the broad US access to our military sites, as well as the joint facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape, these arrangements likely hardwire us into any US war on China.
Ambiguity abounds
“As I understand from that, secretary, the government’s reading of Australia’s treaty obligations does not prohibit nuclear armed B-52s from being temporarily present in Australia,” Senator David Shoebridge suggested to Moriarty following his explanation of the opaque US stance on warheads.
However, at this point, Wong cut in on what appeared to be a fairly straightforward assessment coming from the Greens senator in regard to what the defence secretary had just explained.
“There’s no suggestion,” the foreign minister countered. “No one at this table has talked about nuclear armed B-52s.”
Wong then reiterated some of the points made by the defence secretary that clearly led to Shoebridge’s assumption: Canberra has long understood and respected “the longstanding US policy of neither confirming nor denying” and this doesn’t impinge on our international obligations.
Shoebridge then framed it in a different way, as he asked whether Defence considers this nation isn’t under any obligation to prevent nuclear armed US bombers from entering if they’re not a “permanent presence”. However, the minister, again, claimed he was “reading more into it”.
Then, after further reasonable prodding from the Greens member, Wong, quite tellingly, explained that she and the defence secretary weren’t in a position to go any further than the answer that was provided, and she then implied it was unfair to the community to posit further “hypotheticals”.
Whilst initial diplomatic moves made by Wong since taking over the foreign affairs portfolio have served a modicum of hope that the mounting tensions between Beijing and Canberra might be allayed, her December visit to the US saw this dashed.
Wong and defence minister Richard Marles were in Washington to meet with US secretary of state Antony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin late last year, as part of the annual AUSMIN conference, which had a focus on countering China’s “destabilising military activities” this time.
And the conference saw Austin extend an invitation to Japan – which is a part of the QUAD security arrangement, along with this country, the US and India – to join in the US Force Posture Initiatives, which are the operational arrangements established under the FPA, on Australian soil.
The resurrected QUAD has become of increasing importance with its new focus on Beijing. In fact, Anthony Albanese’s first act as prime minister was to fly to Japan for a QUAD meeting, while the following month saw him in Madrid for a NATO conference, which had China on its agenda.
And while the Albanese administration hasn’t repeated the hawkish ravings that former PM Scott Morrison and defence minister Peter Dutton were spouting at the end of their reign, the US presence in Australia, likely guarantees involvement in a war with China prior to any official decision.
Ending at the starting line
Following Wong’s explanation that all that could be said had been, Shoebridge put it to Moriarty that he understands that Australia doesn’t challenge the US on warhead ambiguity, and he then asked whether our treaty obligations aren’t breached by B-52s potentially carrying nuclear arsenal.
In response, the minister became even more ruffled than she had been prior, and she reiterated that the various treaties aren’t being threatened.
Wong then accused Shoebridge of drumming up concerns, to which he countered that he wasn’t “fearmongering” and put the question to the defence secretary one more time.
“I think the minister has outlined Australia’s treaty obligations,” Moriarty told the Greens senator, as he brought the exchange regarding B-52s to a close.
“As I said, under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, to which we are fully committed, stationing of nuclear weapons is prohibited.”
Her father Ernst Albrecht, President of the German state of Lower Saxony from 1978 to 1990, brought unrehabilitated Nazis into his administration and carried out a black-flag terrorist operation designed to discredit the left-wing Red Army Faction.
In the wake of the Russo-Ukrainian war, terms like “European values” have come back into the mainstream. One of the people who has been most responsible for this is Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission who is now a nearly omnipresent figure in the media.
According to Ursula, “European values” represent only the highest attributes of humankind: freedom, justice, solidarity, and rule of law.
Of course, anyone with even a passing knowledge of history can tell you that these are nothing but euphemisms. Not long ago, “European values” meant something very different. Those values drew the borders of the world in oceans of blood, both of Europeans and those they conquered. A look at the history of Ursula’s aristocratic European family can show us the true face of these “European values” and how the ruling class profited from imposing them on the world.
Sins of the Father
“If we succeed in bringing people of above-average capabilities to governance an autocracy or the rule of the few will be able to create a better order than the rule of the people.” – Ernst Albrecht
Ursula von der Leyen is the scion of two aristocratic German families. She was born Ursula Albrecht, the daughter of a prominent European bureaucrat, CDU party leader, and former governor of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht. The family carefully nurtured a cosmopolitan image as Ernst spent most of his life working for the EU and various precursor organizations. Growing up, Ursula was nicknamed “Röschen” (Rosie in English) by her father, and images of the happy family featured heavily in her father’s political advertisements……………………………………………………………………….
The rank-and-file of the Nazi regime, the army of people who physically made the Nazi machine do the murderous work of subjugating and exterminating an entire continent went almost entirely unpunished for their crimes.
In the case of people like Hans von der Groeben, they were rewarded with jobs in the new “de-Nazified” West German government. Despite the pretenses of a new Germany, only the names changed. The same bureaucrats labored toward the same goal, the destruction of the Soviet Union and its people, by any means necessary. The state machinery once called the Greater German Reich had now simply been absorbed into a new structure, now called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Now in the position of the deputy, Ernst Albrecht took on the same role his boss had in the 1940s, this time with “blood and soil” replaced with “European values.”
Although Ernst Albrecht was a few years too young to have been a Nazi himself, throughout his long political career he made his sympathies very clear. Ernst was an elitist dripping with contempt for the common people and wanted to bring about what he deemed elite rule in Germany as opposed to the rule of the “uninsightful” mob. Given that he never missed a chance to venerate the Third Reich and its killers, it is very clear whom Ernst considered elite………….
During his time as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (one of Germany’s two largest political parties) government of the German state of Lower Saxony, Ernst successfully wooed members of the neo-Nazi Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP) into the ranks of the CDU………………
When he came to power, one of the elites Ernst entrusted to rule was his justice minister, a jurist by the name of Hans Puvogel. Once again, he picked a fanatical Nazi. …………………………… as far as anyone knows he went to the grave a committed Nazi. For his part, Ernst Albrecht simply never mentioned it. The strategy of simply pretending the Third Reich never existed paid off once more as Albrecht himself faced no real consequences.
……………. Ernst did not just work for Nazis, fill his cabinet with Nazis and invite Nazis into his party; he also spent a great deal of time courting Nazi voters. Ernst and his deputies were fixtures at Nazi veteran events throughout Lower Saxony.
Albrecht’s deputy minister, close friend, and Nazi officer Wilfried Hasselmann even gave the keynote speech at a Knight’s Cross Association dinner in 1978, in which he venerated the worst killers of Hitler’s Reich as brave and honorable men, whose courage was an example for future generations who would be inspired by their “European values.”……………………………………………………………………………
It is not at all unfair to ask where Ursula von der Leyen’s family’s money and power came from, and what they did to earn it, especially given that Ursula has benefitted enormously from her family’s wealth and connections to further her own career, which can stand on its own as an example of corruption, severe scandal, incompetence and, possibly, even outright treason. Her time as a politician shows that Ursula’s apple has not fallen far from the Albrecht family tree.
Ursula first entered politics in 2003 when she was defeated via technicality in a Hanover regional election primary by CDU stalwart Lutz von der Heide. This was unacceptable for Ursula’s father Ernst, who launched a full-court press alongside his old deputy and Wehrmacht artillery officer Wilfried Hasselmann.
The two set to work both campaigning for Ursula and smearing her opponent, who had held the seat for more than 15 years at this point. At the time, Ursula had a long-running column in far-right tabloid Bild, a newspaper founded by ex-Nazi propagandist and CIA asset Axel Springer which has been sanctioned dozens of times for violations of German law and, through this, she was able to effectively amplify their attacks on von der Heide. Soon, all of Germany was reading the latest dirt about a primary for a small regional election.
The campaign was decisive and, in the second round of voting, Ursula won by a two-thirds majority. It was a safe seat so, as the new CDU candidate, Ursula was elected easily. Considering this, it is impossible to separate Ursula von der Leyen from her father’s legacy.
Two years later, she was picked by Angela Merkel to serve as Minister of Labor and Family Affairs, despite her almost non-existent political experience. In this role, she was mostly noted for cutting social services for the blind and trying to ban heavy-metal albums, a resumé that would not seem to justify further promotion.
Despite this, she was promoted to Minister of Defense in 2013, a move which baffled the opposition. It was here that the “European values” of Ursula von der Leyen began to show their shape once more.
Ursula’s mandate was to expand and increase readiness of the Bundeswehr, and she set about the job with gusto. She began a constant drumbeat for war, arguing that the German army was too small and unprepared to face whatever new enemy she conjured up on that day. Be it Afghanistan, Iran, China, Russia or Syria, Ursula consistently advocated for more weapons, more war, and more money. Ursula even proposed a German foreign legion to bolster the ranks of the Bundeswehr, a proposal that was met with horror and condemnation from all sides.
Almost immediately, she said that the ministry required outside help and hired one of the favorite and mostcriminalconsultants of the neo-liberal political class, the CIA-affiliatedMcKinsey…….. McKinsey’s tendrils reach into governments and corporations throughout the world, and it exemplifies the “revolving door” among government, intelligence and big business.
It was more than just a consultancy: McKinsey was given direct control of the ministry, with consultant Katrin Suder awarded a new position inside the ministry to “reform the armaments sector.” Ursula shoveled nearly half a billion euros into the coffers of McKinsey and others for “consulting” services, and received absolutely nothing in return. The unelected Suder was seen so often beside von der Leyen that the opposition joked she was Ursula’s new bodyguard.
This brazen corruption became known as the “consultant affair” and was so severe that it led to a parliamentary inquiry, with opposition from both the left and right demanding answers from von der Leyen. Ursula responded mostly by stonewalling, simply refusing to answer questions or provide information, eventually destroying evidence of her misdeeds before she could be brought before Parliament. As there was no evidence, the inquiry failed. For her role in the affair, Katrin Suder was awarded the Bundeswehr Cross of Honor by von der Leyen.
The scandal was so serious, so brazen and so utterly baffling that the opposition Social Democratic Party openly accused Ursula von der Leyen of treason, working in the interests of the United States government as opposed to Germany:
As Federal Defense Minister, von der Leyen behaved as the U.S. President wanted when he called for increase in military spending: higher military budgets, increased armaments instead of disarmament. And although this minister got into trouble because of her high spending on consulting firms and various personnel decisions and was anything but a role model, she became President of the EU Commission. That is a key function and it is important for the U.S.
The decision for von der Leyen happened quietly backstage. No sensible person can explain why she was given this important office. A partial explanation is that she had the support of important countries from Eastern Europe. The United States has a great influence on these states.
In the first major critical case, von der Leyen immediately and unequivocally represented the U.S. position, where she said Iran itself is to be blamed for the confrontation in the Middle East and for the execution of the Iranian general. With her, the United States can probably also stake a claim on other occasions and play a key role in shaping the internal structure of the European Union. Ursula von der Leyen is the perfect example of an ‘agent of influence.’ – Albrecht Müller, SPD member of parliament January 2, 2021
……………………… Further investigations in 2019 revealed that the special forces unit was not only infested with open neo-Nazis, but they had been actively planning to overthrow the German government for at least three years. Furthermore, despite being repeatedly warned, Ursula von der Leyen and her army of consultants had at best done nothing and at worst actively exacerbated the issue…………………
Despite all of this, Ursula was considered a favorite to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as secretary general of NATO. Given the alliance’shistory with Nazis, it should be no surprise that her ties to the far right were either ignored or, more likely, counted in her favor.
The reason Ursula was not chosen was because she had once again failed upwards and had already been elected president of the European Commission in a close election which she won despite almost universal condemnation from German politicians both from her own party and the opposition. ……………
Ursula was the first woman to hold this position, and the second with any connection to the Nazis: Former Wehrmacht artillery officer and Nazi law professor Walter Hallstein had gotten his start in politics arguing for the virtues of the Nuremburg race laws as a young man, demonstrating his lifelong commitment to “European values.”
Officials have stopped short of ruling out that US strategic bombers are carrying nuclear weapons to Australia, but the government insists any such move would not breach this country’s international obligations.
Key points:
United States bombers with nuclear capability frequently fly in Australian air
The US has a policy of refusing to confirm or deny if those bombers carry nuclear weaponry
The federal government says it respects US secrecy on nuclear weapons
During a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday Greens senators sought details on whether visiting American aircraft such as the B-52s operating out of the Top End are ever nuclear armed.
The committee was told the United States had a longstanding policy of “neither confirming or denying” the presence of nuclear weapons under its practice of maintaining global operational unpredictability. ……..
Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty said the “stationing of nuclear weapons” in Australia was prohibited under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, but the treaty did not prevent visits by the US bombers.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong backed the secretary’s statement and accused Greens senators of trying to “make a political point”.
“This is the Australian position: We understand and respect the longstanding US policy of neither confirming or denying. That is the position,” Senator Wong said.
“But we remain fully committed to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, and we will fully comply with our international obligations, which are understood by the United States.”
Under further questioning from Greens senator David Shoebridge, the foreign minister said it would not be appropriate to elaborate. …………………….
Defence mulls methods to make warships more deadly
Any military conflict provides the most lucrative opportunities for so-called black transplantologists. This criminal business particularly thrived in Kosovo, from where there was a prodigious flow of organs to Europe. Today, Ukraine is the number one base for black transplantology.
The illegal organ market was created in Ukraine long before the outbreak of hostilities. After Kiev unleashed a war in the Donbas in 2014, this criminal business began to flourish, and today the war-torn country has become “a gold mine”. Years ago, OSCE representatives confirmed that dozens of military and civilian bodies with the organs cut out had been found in the war-torn territories of Donbass.
During a war, a huge number of people go missing, get injured and often end up on the operating table, where organs can be extracted from them without any legal procedures. Their bodies are then sent to the crematorium and these persons are reported missing. Often, dying soldiers become unwitting donors, but also their wounded comrades whose lives could have been saved. Civilians are not exempt from this practice.
According to the most conservative estimates, the international transplant network earns about $2 billion a month in Ukraine.
Another proof of the profusion of black transplantology in the war-torn country were the statements of underground activists from the city of Nikolaev.
They reported that organs had been removed from the bodies of the Ukrainian servicemen in the morgue of the City Hospital No. 1. Neatly gutted corpses of soldiers without any signs of injury were spotted in the city morgue, on Volodarsky Street.
This criminal business is also burgeoning on the front lines.
On February 7, Wagner fighters showed the newly captured Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut, where they found a container for transporting organs.
Many of the mobilized, including those who are taken straight from the streets to the front, are not registered in any lists. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian servicemen are also considered missing. In the case of injury at the front, they could easily have become victims of black transplantologists.
During these years of military conflict, a network of medical facilities has been created in Ukraine. Contacts have been established to work with the European and US markets. High-ranking political and military officials will certainly be involved in this lucrative, but criminal, business.
Rt.com 8 Feb 23, More than 10 million volumes have been pulled from the shelves, a senior Rada MP has said.
Ukraine has removed millions of copies of Russian-language books from its public libraries, Yevgeniya Kravchuk, a senior member of the country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, said on Monday.
She stated that the Culture Ministry had provided recommendations on what titles should be taken off the shelves.
This move was provoked by an initiative declared by the Ukrainian government to “overcome the consequences of Russification,” which in practice means purging schools of certain literature, renaming streets, and dismantling monuments to Russian historical figures……………….
Ukraine has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, and many Ukrainian speakers are fluent in Russian.
In June, the Ukrainian Education Ministry proposed removing more than 40 books by Russian and Soviet authors from the curriculum. The list included the works of such renowned classical writers as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Alexander Pushkin, as well as Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Sholokhov, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for literature. Ukrainian Culture Minister Aleksander Tkachenko urged the world in December to “boycott” Russian culture, arguing that Moscow has been using it for propaganda………………….. https://www.rt.com/russia/571099-ukraine-purges-russian-books/
On February 16, 2022, a full week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the Ukrainian Army began the heavy bombardment of the area (in east Ukraine) occupied by mainly ethnic Russians. Officials from the Observer Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were located in the vicinity at the time and kept a record of the shelling as it took place. What the OSCE discovered was that the bombardment dramatically intensified as the week went on until it reached a peak on February 19, when a total of 2,026 artillery strikes were recorded. Keep in mind, the Ukrainian Army was, in fact, shelling civilian areas along the Line of Contact that were occupied by other Ukrainians.
We want to emphasize that the officials from the OSCE were operating in their professional capacity gathering first-hand evidence of shelling in the area. What their data shows is that Ukrainian Forces were bombing and killing their own people.This has all been documented and has not been challenged.
So, the question we must all ask ourselves is this: Is the bombardment and slaughter of one’s own people an ‘act of war’?
We think it is.And if we are right, then we must logically assume that the war began before the Russian invasion (which was launched a full week later) We must also assume that Russia’s alleged “unprovoked aggression” was not unprovoked at all but was the appropriate humanitarian response to the deliberate killing of civilians. In order to argue that the Russian invasion was ‘not provoked’, we would have to say that firing over 4,000 artillery shells into towns and neighborhoods where women and children live, is not a provocation? Who will defend that point of view?
No one, because it’s absurd. The killing of civilians in the Donbas was a clear provocation, a provocation that was aimed at goading Russia into a war. And –as we said earlier– the OSCE had monitors on the ground who provided full documentation of the shelling as it took place, which is as close to ironclad, eyewitness testimony as you’re going to get.
This, of course, is a major break with the “official narrative” which identifies Russia as the perpetrator of hostilities. But, as we’ve shown, that simply isn’t the case. The official narrative is wrong. Even so, it might not surprise you to know that most of the mainstream media completely omitted any coverage of the OSCE’s fact-finding activities in east Ukraine. The one exception to was Reuters that published a deliberately opaque account published on February 18 titled “Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling”. Here’s an excerpt:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov voiced alarm on Friday over a sharp increase in shelling in eastern Ukraine and accused the OSCE special monitoring mission of glossing over what he said were Ukrainian violations of the peace process….
Washington and its allies have raised fears that the upsurge in violence in the Donbass could form part of a Russian pretext to invade Ukraine. Tensions are already high over a Russian military buildup to the north, east and south of Ukraine.
“We are very concerned by the reports of recent days – yesterday and the day before there was a sharp increase in shelling using weapons that are prohibited under the Minsk agreements,” Lavrov said, referring to peace accords aimed at ending the conflict. “So far we are seeing the special monitoring mission is doing its best to smooth over all questions that point to the blame of Ukraine’s armed forces,” he told a news conference.
Ukraine’s military on Friday denied violating the Minsk peace process and accused Moscow of waging an information war to say that Kyiv was shelling civilians, allegations it said were lies and designed to provoke it.” (Russia voices alarm over sharp increase of Donbass shelling, Reuters)
Notice the clever way that Reuters frames its coverage so that the claims of the Ukrainian military are given as much credibility as the claims of the Russian Foreign Minister. What Reuters fails to point out is that the OSCE’s report verifies Lavrov’s version of events while disproving the claims of the Ukrainians. It is the job of a journalist to make the distinction between fact and fiction but, once again, we see how agenda-driven news is not meant to inform but to mislead.
The point we are trying to make is simple: The war in Ukraine was not launched by a tyrannical Russian leader (Putin) bent on rebuilding the Soviet Empire. That narrative is a fraud that was cobbled together by neocon spin-meisters trying to build public support for a war with Russia. The facts I am presenting here can be identified on a map where the actual explosions took place and were then recorded by officials whose job was to fulfill that very task. Can you see the difference between the two? In one case, the storyline rests on speculation, conjecture and psychobabble; while in the other, the storyline is linked to actual events that took place on the ground and were catalogued by trained professionals in the field. In which version of events do you have more confidence?
Bottom line: Russia did not start the war in Ukraine. That is a fake narrative. The responsibility lies with the Ukrainian Army and their leaders in Kiev.
And here’s something else that is typically excluded in the media’s selective coverage. Before Putin sent his tanks across the border into Ukraine, he invoked United Nations Article 51 which provides a legal justification for military intervention. Of course, the United States has done this numerous times to provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to its numerous military interventions. But, in this case, you can see where the so-called Responsibility To Protect (R2P) could actually be justified, after all, by most estimates, the Ukrainian army has killed over 14,000 ethnic Russians since the US-backed coup 8 years ago. If ever there was a situation in which a defensive military operation could be justified, this was it. But that still doesn’t fully explain why Putin invoked UN Article 51. For that, we turn to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who explained it like this:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Article 51 as his authority, ordered what he called a “special military operation”…. under Article 51, there can be no doubt as to the legitimacy of Russia’s contention that the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass had been subjected to a brutal eight-year-long bombardment that had killed thousands of people.… Moreover, Russia claims to have documentary proof that the Ukrainian Army was preparing for a massive military incursion into the Donbass which was pre-empted by the Russian-led “special military operation.” [OSCE figures show an increase of government shelling of the area in the days before Russia moved in.]
..The bottom line is that Russia has set forth a cognizable claim under the doctrine of anticipatory collective self-defense, devised originally by the U.S. and NATO, as it applies to Article 51 which is predicated on fact, not fiction.
While it might be in vogue for people, organizations, and governments in the West to embrace the knee-jerk conclusion that Russia’s military intervention constitutes a wanton violation of the United Nations Charter and, as such, constitutes an illegal war of aggression, the uncomfortable truth is that, of all the claims made regarding the legality of pre-emption under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is on solid legal ground.” (“Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: Crime of Aggression”, Consortium News)
Here’s a bit more background from an article by foreign policy analyst Danial Kovalik:
“One must begin this discussion by accepting the fact that there was already a war happening in Ukraine for the eight years preceding the Russian military incursion in February 2022. And, this war by the government in Kiev… claimed the lives of around 14,000 people, many of them children, and displaced around 1.5 million more … The government in Kiev, and especially its neo-Nazi battalions, carried out attacks against these peoples … precisely because of their ethnicity. ..
While the UN Charter prohibits unilateral acts of war, it also provides, in Article 51, that “nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense… ” And this right of self-defense has been interpreted to permit countries to respond, not only to actual armed attacks, but also to the threat of imminent attack.
In light of the above, it is my assessment.. that Russia had a right to act in its own self-defense by intervening in Ukraine, which had become a proxy of the US and NATO for an assault – not only on Russian ethnics within Ukraine – but also upon Russia itself.” (“Why Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is legal under international law”, RT)
So, has anyone in the western media reported on the fact that Putin invoked UN Article 51 before he launched the Special Military Operation?
No, they haven’t, because to do so, would be an admission that Putin’s military operation complies with international law. Instead, the media continues to spread the fiction that ‘Hitler-Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet empire’, a claim for which there is not a scintilla of evidence. Keep in mind, Putin’s operation does not involve the toppling of a foreign government to install a Moscow-backed stooge, or the arming and training a foreign military that will be used as proxies to fight a geopolitical rival, or the stuffing a country with state-of-the-art weaponry to achieve his own narrow strategic objectives, or perpetrating terrorist acts of industrial sabotage (Nord-Stream 2) to prevent the economic integration of Asia and Europe. No, Putin hasn’t engaged in any of these things. But Washington certainly has, because Washington isn’t constrained by international law. In Washington’s eyes, international law is merely an inconvenience that is dismissively shrugged off whenever unilateral action is required. But Putin is not nearly as cavalier about such matters, in fact, he has a long history of playing by the rules because he believes the rules help to strengthen everyone’s security. And, he’s right; they do.
And that’s why he invoked Article 51 before he sent the troops to help the people in the Donbas. He felt he had a moral obligation to lend them his assistance but wanted his actions to comply with international law. We think he achieved both.
Here’s something else you will never see in the western media. You’ll never see the actual text of Putin’s security demands that were made a full 2 months before the war broke out. And, the reason you won’t see them, is because his demands were legitimate, reasonable and necessary. All Putin wanted was basic assurances that NATO was not planning to put its bases, armies and missile sites on Russia’s border. In other words, he was doing the same thing that all responsible leaders do to defend the safety and security of their own people.
Here are a few critical excerpts from the text of Putin’s proposal to the US and NATO: [on original]………………………….
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Putin was worried about. He was worried about NATO expansion and, in particular, the emergence of a hostile military alliance backed by Washington-groomed Nazis occupying territory on his western flank. Was that unreasonable of him? Should he have embraced these US-backed Russophobes and allowed them to place their missiles on his border? Would that have been the prudent thing to do?
So, what can we deduce from Putin’s list of demands?
First, we can deduce that he is not trying to reconstruct the Soviet empire as the MSM relentlessly insists. The list focuses exclusively on security-related demands, nothing else.
Second, it proves that the war could have easily been avoided had Zelensky simply maintained the status quo and formally announced that Ukraine would remain neutral. In fact, Zelensky actually agreed to neutrality in negotiations with Moscow in March, but Washington prevented the Ukrainian president from going through with the deal which means that the Biden administration is largely responsible for the ongoing conflict. (RT published an article today stating clearly that an agreement had been reached between Russia and Ukraine in March but the deal was intentionally scuttled by the US and UK. Washington wanted a war.)
Third, it shows that Putin is a reasonable leader whose demands should have been eagerly accepted. Was it unreasonable of Putin to ask that “The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and… military alliances.. in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security”? Was it unreasonable for him the ask that “The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories”?
Where exactly are the “unreasonable demands” that Putin supposedly made?
There aren’t any. Putin made no demands that the US wouldn’t have made if ‘the shoe was on the other foot.’
Forth, it proves that the war is not a struggle for Ukrainian liberation or democracy. That’s hogwash. It is a war that is aimed at “weakening” Russia and eventually removing Putin from power. Those are the overriding goals. What that means is that Ukrainian soldiers are not dying for their country, they are dying for an elitist dream to expand NATO, crush Russia, encircle China, and extend US hegemony for another century. Ukraine is merely the battlefield on which the Great Power struggle is being fought.
There are number points we are trying to make in this article:
Who started the war? Answer– Ukraine started the war
Was the Russian invasion a violation of international law? Answer– No, the Russian invasion should be approved under United Nations Article 51
Could the war have been avoided if Ukraine declared neutrality and met Putin’s reasonable demands? Answer– Yes, the war could have been avoided
The last point deals with the Minsk Treaty and how the dishonesty of western leaders is going to effect the final settlement in Ukraine. I am convinced that neither Washington nor the NATO allies have any idea of how severely international relations have been decimated by the Minsk betrayal. In a world where legally binding agreements can be breezily discarded in the name of political expediency, the only way to settle disputes is through brute force. Did anyone in Germany, France or Washington think about this before they acted? (But, first, some background on Minsk.)
The aim of the Minsk agreement was to end the fighting between the Ukrainian army and ethnic Russians in the Donbas region of Ukraine. It was the responsibility of the four participants in the treaty– Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine– to ensure that both sides followed the terms of the deal. But in December, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with a German magazine, that there was never any intention of implementing the deal, instead, the plan was to use the time to make Ukraine stronger in order to prepare for a war with Russia. So, clearly, from the very beginning, the United States intended to provoke a war with Russia.
On September 5, 2014, Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia all signed Minsk, but the treaty failed and the fighting resumed. On February 12, 2015, Minsk 2 was signed, but that failed, as well. Please, watch this short segment on You Tube by Amit Sengupta who gives a brief rundown of Minsk and its implications: (I transcribed the piece myself and any mistakes are mine.) …………………. [Transcription on original]
There’s no way to overstate the importance of the Minsk betrayal or the impact it’s going to have on the final settlement in Ukraine. When trust is lost, nations can only ensure their security through brute force. What that means is that Russia must expand its perimeter as far as is necessary to ensure that it will remain beyond the enemy’s range of fire. (Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev have already indicated that they plan to do just that.) Second, the new perimeter must be permanently fortified with combat troops and lethal weaponry that are kept on hairtrigger alert. When treaties become vehicles for political opportunism, then nations must accept a permanent state of war. This is the world that Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and the US created by opting to use ‘the cornerstone of international relations’ (Treaties) to advance their own narrow warmongering objectives.
We just wonder if anyone in Washington realizes whet the fu** they’ve done?
This is an interesting insight both into the Inquiry and the background to nuclear power in the UK. The information and comments are as relevant today as they were all those years ago. TakingUpHildasTorch.
Hilda Murrell (born in 1906) was a British rose grower, naturalist, diarist and campaigner against nuclear power and nuclear weapons. She was murdered in 1984 in disputed circumstances.
Having predicted the 1973 oil crisis, Murrell became increasingly concerned by the hazards posed by nuclear energy and weapons. She began to research this highly technical field and in 1978 wrote a paper entitled “What Price Nuclear Power?” in which she challenged the economics of the civil nuclear industry. After the 1979 US accident at Three Mile Island, she turned her attention to safety aspects and homed in on the problem of radioactive waste, the disposal of which she concluded was the industry’s Achilles’ heel.
In 1982 the Department of the Environment published a white paper on the British Government’s policy on radioactive waste management. Murrell, now in her late 70s, wrote a critique of it which she developed into her submission “An Ordinary Citizen’s View of Radioactive Waste Management” to the first formal planning inquiry into a nuclear power plant in Britain, the Sizewell B Pressurised Water Reactor in Suffolk.
She was scheduled to present her paper at the Sizewell B Inquiry, but on 21 March 1984 her home in Shrewsbury was burgled and a small amount of cash was taken. She was then abducted in her own car. Though the vehicle was soon reported abandoned in a country lane five miles outside Shrewsbury, the Police took another three days to find her body in a copse across a field from her car. Who killed her – and why – has been the subject of books and films. The conviction in 2005 of a man for her abduction and murder failed to answer many of the questions surrounding her death.
The reasons for this enduring enquiry are exposed at length in ‘A Thorn In Their Side’, a book published in 2012. The author is Hilda’s nephew, Robert Green, with whom she had a close relationship and who was a commander in naval intelligence during the Falklands war. He has followed and chronicled the case meticulously.
Was this just a random, bungled burglary by a lone 16-year-old – as the police would have it – or was it an operation involving several individuals on behalf of a government agency, namely the security services? Read more: The Guardian March 2012 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/mar/20/who-killed-hilda-murrell
TEHRAN- Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani on Friday night attacked French President Macron for his disparaging remarks about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program while meeting the Israeli prime minister in Paris.
“The French president vilifies Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities at a time when he seems to have overlooked that the Zionist regime has dozens of nuclear warheads, does not accept any international surveillance, having a dark history of occupation and military aggression, and is the greatest threat to regional and global peace and security,” Kanaani remarked.
The spokesman emphasized that instead of feigning concern over Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, which are governed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, France should inform the world about how the Zionist regime obtained nuclear weapons.
France is internationally responsible for aiding Israel to get access to nuclear arms.
Nasser Kanaani condemned Macron’s meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of a regime that its name is synonymous with organized terror, bloodshed, devastation, and displacement of women and children in West Asia, especially Palestine.
Kanaani also urged the French authorities to change their wrong strategy, get back to the tenet of respect for one another, and stop jeopardizing bilateral relations.
In what Austin journalist Christopher Hooks has called “one of the stupidest news cycles in living memory,” the entire American political/media class is having an existential meltdown over what the Pentagon claims is a Chinese spy balloon detected in US airspace on Thursday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his scheduled diplomatic visit to China after the detection of the balloon. The mass media have been covering the story with breathless excitement. China hawk pundits have been pounding the war drums all day on any platform they can get to and accusing the Biden administration of not responding aggressively enough to the incident…………………
China’s foreign ministry says the balloon is indeed from China but is “civilian in nature, used for meteorological and other scientific research,” and was simply blown far off course. This could of course be untrue — all major governments spy on each other constantly and China is no exception — but the Pentagon’s own assessment is that the balloon “does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit.”.
So everyone’s losing their minds over a balloon that in all probability would be mostly worthless for spying, even while everyone knows the US spies on China at every possible opportunity. US officials have complained to the press that American spies are having a much harder time conducting operations and recruiting assets in China than they used to because of measures the Chinese government has taken to thwart them, and in 2001 a US spy plane caused a major international incident when it collided with a Chinese military jet on China’s coastline, killing the pilot.
The US considers it its sovereign right to spy on any nation it chooses, and the average American tends more or less to see it the same way. This is highlighted in controversies around domestic versus foreign surveillance, for example; Americans were outraged over the Edward Snowden revelations not because spy agencies were conducting surveillance, but because they were conducting surveillance on American citizens. It’s just taken as a given that spying on foreigners is fine, so it’s a bit silly to react melodramatically when foreigners return the favor.
Foreign surveillance of sensitive U.S. sites is not a new phenomenon. “It’s been a fact of life since the dawn of the nuclear age, and with the advent of satellite surveillance systems, it long ago became an everyday occurrence,” as my colleague and former CIA analyst George Beebe puts it.
U.S. surveillance of foreign countries is likewise quite common. Indeed, great powers gathering intelligence on each other is one of the more banal and universal facts of international relations. Major countries even spy on their own allies, as when U.S. intelligence bugged the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Typically, even when such surveillance is directed against the United States by a rival power, it does not threaten the safety of Americans and it poses manageable risks to sites where secrecy is of the utmost importance. However — in the context of rapidly increasing U.S.–China tensions — foreseeable incidents like these can quickly balloon into dangerous confrontations.
Now let’s contrast all this with another news story that’s getting a lot less attention.
“The US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines – a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese in the South China Sea and around Taiwan,” writes the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. “With the deal, Washington has stitched the gap in the arc of US alliances stretching from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south. The missing link had been the Philippines, which borders two of the biggest potential flashpoints – Taiwan and the South China Sea.”
“The US hasn’t said where the new bases are but three of them could be on Luzon, an island on the northern edge of the Philippines, the only large piece of land close to Taiwan – if you don’t count China,” writes Wingfield-Hayes……..
NewsWeek, BY SHAUN WATERMAN ON 01/27/23 “…………………………………………….. Assange’s physical and mental health have declined severely during more than a decade in confinement — first sheltering from U.S. authorities in the Ecuadorian embassy in London from 2012-2019, where he lived in two rooms and never left the building, and for the last almost four years, since he was dragged from the embassy by British police in April 2019, in Belmarsh fighting extradition.
…………………… The proceedings in London continue to drag on. It has been more than a year since the High Court cleared the way for his extradition and his appeal was filed in August. But the court continues to weigh it, with no deadline to reach a decision. Even if he loses, there remains the possibility of an appeal to the British Supreme Court, or to the European Court of Human Rights. Assange could be in the U.S. within months, but he might remain in Britain for years.
His family says that with uncertainty about his extradition hanging over him like the sword of Damocles, he has lost weight and become depressed and anxious.
A confinement of uncertain duration
The worst part about the confinement is having no idea when or how he would be able to leave, Stella Assange said. “It is the uncertain duration that makes it so hard to bear … It’s a kind of torture.”…………..
The uncertainty has exacerbated Assange’s physical and mental deterioration, his wife said. In October 2021, during a High Court hearing about his extradition, Assange, attending via video link from Belmarsh, suffered a “transient ischaemic attack” — a mini-stroke. He has been diagnosed with nerve damage and memory problems and prescribed blood thinners.
“He might not survive this,” she said.
As a remand prisoner, not convicted or sentenced, and facing extradition, not prosecution, Assange is an anomaly in Britain’s most secure prison — designed to hold “Category A” inmates such as IRA militants, jihadis and murderers. One of a tiny handful of unconvicted prisoners, prison regulations require him to be treated differently, his wife said.
“He’s supposed to be able to get visits every day, he’s supposed to be able to work on his case,” she said, “But that’s only on paper. The way the prison system works, it is more efficient to treat everyone like a Cat A prisoner rather than to try to adapt the rules for individuals. In reality, that just doesn’t translate at all.” She said Assange is allowed one or two legal visits, and one or two social visits each week.
In between visits, time can stretch. And the isolation has been hard on him……………………………..
Phone calls, his half-brother Gabriel Shipton told Newsweek from Assange’s native Australia, are limited to 10 minutes. “You’ll just be getting into it and click, it’s over.”
Neither the governor’s office at Belmarsh, nor the press office for the British Prison Service, responded to emails requesting responses to detailed questions.
A source of inspiration and power
Assange gets thousands of letters and parcels from all over the world, Stella Assange said, but the authorities interdict banned items, such as books about national security, paintings and other forbidden objects.
His father, John Shipton, told Newsweek from Australia that Assange draws a lot of inspiration and power from the letters that people write to him. During their phone conversations, he will often read snippets or recall memorable letters, Shipton said. “He loves getting them … You can hear him light up a bit” when he talks about them………………………………………… more https://www.newsweek.com/2023/02/10/julian-assanges-biggest-fight-notorious-prison-isnt-over-extradition-1774197.html
Never before has a publisher been charged under the U.S. Espionage Act. The Assange prosecution poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of speech and a free press.
President Biden, currently embroiled in his own classified document scandal, knows this, and should immediately drop the charges against Julian Assange
“The first casualty when war comes is truth,” U.S. Senator Hiram W. Johnson of California said in 1929, debating ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a noble but ultimately failed attempt to ban war. Reflecting on World War I, which ended a decade earlier, he continued, “it begins what we were so familiar with only a brief period ago, this mode of propaganda whereby…people become war hungry in their patriotism and are lied into a desire to fight. We have seen it in the past; it will happen again in the future.”
Time and again, Hiram Johnson has been proven right. Our government’s impulse to control information and manipulate public opinion to support war is deeply ingrained. The past twenty years, dominated by the so-called War on Terror, are no exception. Sophisticated PR campaigns, a compliant mass media and the Pentagon’s pervasive propaganda machine all work together, as public intellectual Noam Chomsky and the late Prof. Ed Herman defined it in the title of their groundbreaking book, “Manufacturing Consent,” borrowing a phrase from Walter Lippman, considered the father of public relations.
One publisher consistently challenging the pro-war narrative pushed by the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has been the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Wikileaks gained international attention in 2010 after publishing a trove of classified documents leaked from the U.S. military. Included were numerous accounts of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the killing of civilians, and shocking footage of a helicopter gunship in Baghdad slaughtering a dozen civilians, including a Reuters journalist and his driver, on the ground below. Wikileaks titled that video, “Collateral Murder.”
The New York Times and other newspapers partnered with Wikileaks to publish stories based on the leaks. This brought increased attention to the founder and editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange. In December, 2010, two months after release of the Collateral Murder video, then-Vice President Joe Biden, appearing on NBC, said Assange was “closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon papers.” Biden was referring to the 1971 classified document release by Daniel Ellsberg, which revealed years of Pentagon lies about U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam.
With a secret grand jury empanelled in Virginia, Assange, then in London, feared being arrested and extradited to the United States. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum. Unable to make it to Latin America, he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He lived inside the small, apartment-sized embassy for almost seven years. In April 2019, after a new Ecuadorian president revoked Assange’s asylum, British authorities arrested him and locked him up in London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison, often called “Britain’s Guantánamo.” He has been held there, in harsh conditions and in failing health, for almost four years, as the U.S. government seeks his extradition to face espionage and other charges. If extradited and convicted in the U.S., Assange faces 175 years in a maximum-security prison.
While the Conservative-led UK government seems poised to extradite Assange, a global movement has grown demanding his release. The Progressive International, a global pro-democracy umbrella group, has convened four assemblies since 2020 called The Belmarsh Tribunals. Named after the 1966 Russell-Sartre Tribunal on the Vietnam War, convened by philosophers Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sarte, The Belmarsh Tribunal has assembled some of the world’s most prominent, progressive activists, artists, politicians, dissidents, human rights attorneys and whistleblowers, all speaking in defense of Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
We are bearing witness to a travesty of justice,” Jeremy Corbyn, a British Member of Parliament and a former leader of the Labour Party, said at the tribunal. “To an abuse of human rights, to a denial of freedom of somebody who bravely put himself on the line that we all might know that the innocent died in Abu Ghraib, the innocent died in Afghanistan, the innocent are dying in the Mediterranean, and innocents die all over the world, where unwatched, unaccountable powers decide it’s expedient and convenient to kill people who get in the way of whatever grand scheme they’ve got. We say no. That’s why we are demanding justice for Julian Assange.”
Corbyn is joined in his call by The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and Der Spiegel–major newspapers that published articles based on the leaked documents. “Publishing is not a crime,” the newspapers declared.
Never before has a publisher been charged under the U.S. Espionage Act. The Assange prosecution poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of speech and a free press. President Biden, currently embroiled in his own classified document scandal, knows this, and should immediately drop the charges against Julian Assange.
Covert Action Magazine, By Eva Bartlett, August 23, 2022 Excellent photographs
Ukraine continues to fire internationally-banned anti-personnel mines on civilian areas of Donetsk and other cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), in violation of international law and of the mine ban convention Ukraine signed in 1999 and ratified in 2005.
Since July 27, Ukraine has been firing rockets containing cluster munitions filled with banned PFM-1 “Petal” (or “Butterfly”) anti-personnel mines all over Donetsk and surrounding areas. Each rocket contains over 300 of the mines. Already by August 3, the DPR’s Ministry of Emergency Situations noted that Ukraine had fired several thousand of the prohibited mines on Donetsk.
As of August 15, 44 civilians, including two children, have suffered gruesome injuries. Another mine victim died in hospital.
Younger children don’t know that the mines aren’t toys, and elderly often simply don’t see them, or likewise don’t understand the danger, as was the case with an elderly lady with dementia who, on August 8, lost a foot as a result of stepping on a mine while she was going to work in her garden plot.
Tiny but powerful, these insidious mines are designed not to kill but to tear off feet or hands. Their design allows them to float to the ground without exploding, where they easily blend in with most settings and generally lie dormant until stepped on or otherwise disturbed.
According to Konstantin Zhukov, Chief Medical Officer of Donetsk Ambulance Service, a weight of just 2 kg is enough to activate one of the mines. Sometimes, however, they explode spontaneously. An unspoken tragedy on top of the already tragic targeting of civilians is that dogs, cats, birds and other animals are also victims of these dirty mines.
In the grass, or surprisingly even on sidewalks and streets, it is very easy to overlook them or mistake them for a leaf. Even when I’ve seen such mines marked with warning signs or circled, it still took me quite a bit to actually see them.
In its relentless deploying of these mines, Ukraine has targeted all over Donetsk, as well as Makeevka to the east and Yasinovataya to the north. Ukraine has fired them elsewhere, including the hard-hit northern DPR city of Gorlovka, as well as regions in the Lugansk People’s Republic in previous months.
In fact, according to DPR authorities, Ukraine began using the mines in March, during battles for Mariupol, and in May was already firing them into DPR settlements. Also in early May, while in Rubiznhe in the Lugansk People’s Republic, I was warned that Ukraine had been littering nearby areas with the mines, something confirmed by locals when I went to nearby Sievierodonetsk on August 12.
Ukraine turns Donetsk into a minefield
I first saw the Ukrainian-fired mines on July 30, in Kirovskiy, western Donetsk, just days after Ukraine began showering the city with them.
Mine clearance sappers had isolated mines scattered in a field, to detonate after they had destroyed mines in the courtyard of an apartment complex. Amidst the tall grass, wild plants and garden plots, the mines would have been impossible for a non-sapper to spot, and very easy to disturb and lose a foot or hand in doing so.
Although I’d been assured that sappers had cleared the path, I still watched every step I took. And generally for the duration of my time in the DPR, I looked down while walking, watching for mines that could have been moved by wind or rain.
Behind a wall at one end of the apartment complex courtyard, sapper timer-detonated the eight mines they’d found scattered around the playground, lanes and walkways.
On a central Donetsk street the next morning, I saw a grouping of seven mines on a curbside, gathered either by sappers or some courageous local, with warnings to pedestrians and drivers of their presence.
They were so plentiful that marking them however possible was the only way to mitigate the immediate danger of someone randomly stepping or driving over them until they could be neutralized by the sappers……………………………………………………………
Media Claims Russia is Laying the Mines
As with most of its war crimes against the civilians of the Donbass, Ukraine and NATO media invert reality and claim Russia is the guilty party. They cry crocodile tears for the Donetsk children Ukraine has targeted, also disingenuously claiming the now-famous video of a DPR soldier detonating a mine by throwing a tire at it was a Ukrainian soldier demining Russian-fired mines.
The notion that Russia would explode mines over the city is not a reality-based idea. Most of the population are ethnic Russians, a significant number who now happily hold Russian citizenship. And further, it is Russian and DPR sappers putting themselves at risk to clear the streets, walks and fields of the mines.
In fact, a 21 year old DPR sapper lost a foot to such mine. Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Colonel Sergey Neka, told me of his injury: “After the cleansing of territories from explosive objects, returning back to the transport, a mine fell from the building, as a result of which it exploded under his feet and he lost his foot.”
In Makeevka, Igor Goncharov, the Chief Physician of the bombarded orphanage, spoke to me about his anger that Ukraine was targeting the property, insisting it had been deliberate, that since 2001 the orphanage was well-known to various international organizations, as well as Kiev, because, “It was the only one specialized in HIV.”
According to him, “American law allowed the adoption of HIV-positive children, so the United States was the only state that adopted HIV-infected children, so we were well known both within Ukraine and the Russian Federation and abroad. When they shoot, they know where they shoot,” he said of Ukraine.
“I think that this is not just inhumane, it is without morality, without conscience and without honour.”
I asked him to address Ukrainian and Western claims that it was Russia which deployed the mines, Russia which is shelling Donetsk and surrounding areas, knowing full well any average local resident could likewise easily debunk the claims.
“Even without being educated in military matters, it’s easy to localize the craters. Which way they are located indicates which side they were sent from. We know perfectly well where they shoot from. It’s all from Peski, Avdeevka, Nevelskoye. You can hear the crash and the whistle coming first. Ballistics can be defined. All the shelling comes from the Ukrainian side, it is unambiguous.”
Even without that logical thinking, let’s recall that Ukraine has been committing war crimes in the Donbass for over eight years, violating the Minsk Accords signed in 2014 and 2015. That Ukraine would use Petal mines from its enormous stockpile, after already shelling and sniping civilians, it not at all out of the question.
Ukrainian nationalists openly declare they view Russians as sub-human. School books teach this warped ideology. Videos show the extent of this mentality: teaching children not only to also hate Russians and see them as not humans, but also brainwashing them to believe killing Donbass residents is acceptable. The Ukrainian government itself funds Neo-Nazi-run indoctrination camps for youths.
The convention, “prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs).” Further, as outlined, Ukraine is, “in violation of Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty due to missing its 1 June 2016 clearance deadline without having requested and being granted an extension.”
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