This, from yesterday's New York Times, is supposed to be a news piece:

An Alliance of Autocracies? China Wants to Lead a New World Order.

Written by Steven Lee Myers, the NYT's bureau chief in Beijing, the piece is full of false and unsupported assertions. It changes explicit Chinese statements in support of democracy and human rights into the opposite. It is also untruthful about the sources of its quotes:

China hopes to position itself as the main challenger to an international order, led by the United States, that is generally guided by principles of democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law.

Such a system “does not represent the will of the international community,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, told Russia’s, Sergey V. Lavrov, when they met in the southern Chinese city of Guilin.

In a joint statement, they accused the United States of bullying and interference and urged it to “reflect on the damage it has done to global peace and development in recent years.”

There is no evidence and no quote in the piece to support the assertion that the unilateral  "international order, led by the United States" is in fact "guided by principles of democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law." The wars the U.S. and its allies have waged and wage in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and other countries are, in fact, not in adherence to the rule of international law nor are they executed with respect for human rights or the principles of democracy.

The Wang Yi quote in the second paragraph is taken completely out of context. By placing it after his false assertions the author insinuates that Wang Yi rejected the "principles of democracy, respect for human rights and adherence to rule of law."

Wang Yi did not do that at all. He did in fact the opposite.

Here is the original quote from the report of Wang Yi's meeting with Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov:

Wang Yi said, the so-called "rules-based international order" by a few countries is not clear in its meaning, as it reflects the rules of a few countries and does not represent the will of the international community. We should uphold the universally recognized international law.

The there is the Joint Statement from the Lavrov-Wang Yi meeting which contradicts the New York Times insinuation:

The world has entered a period of high turbulence and rapid change. In this context, we call on the international community to put aside any differences and strengthen mutual understanding and build up cooperation in the interests of global security and geopolitical stability, to contribute to the establishment of a fairer, more democratic and rational multipolar world order.

1. All human rights are universal, indivisible and interrelated. …
2. Democracy is one of the achievements of humanity. …
3. International law is an important condition for the further development of humanity. …
4. In promoting multilateral cooperation, the international community must adhere to principles such as openness and equality, and a non-ideological approach. …

The Chinese Foreign Ministry report about the issuance of the above Four Point Statement quotes Wang Yi as saying:

Today, we will issue a joint statement on several issues of current global governance, expounding the essence of major concepts such as human rights, democracy, international order, and multilateralism, reflecting the collective demands of the international community, especially developing countries. We call on all countries to participate in and improve global governance in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness and equality, abandon zero-sum mentality and ideological prejudice, stop interfering in the internal affairs of any country, enhance the well-being of people of all countries through dialogue and cooperation, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.

In no way has China rejected human rights, democracy or the rule of law. The New York Times author simply construed that.

The third NYT paragraph quoted above is likewise false. The Joint Statement did not urge the U.S. to “reflect on the damage it has done to global peace and development in recent years.” There is nothing in there that could be construed as such. The U.S. is not even mentioned in the Joint Statement.

The quote the NYT author uses is not from the official Joint Statement, as falsely claimed, but from a Chinese State TV's summarization of a press conference:

Both foreign ministers said that the international community believes that the United States should reflect on the damage it has done to global peace and development in recent years, stop unilateral bullying, stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs, and stop pulling "small circles" to engage in group confrontation.

Unsupported assertions about the motives of the "U.S. led" order, out of context quotes that turn the actual statements by the Chinese foreign minister into their opposite and missattribution of a news summary as a diplomatic statement is something that one would not expect from a news outlet but from a propaganda organ.

That is then, obviously, what the Times has become.

Thought of making another joke about the boat but that ship has now sailed.

Your host will, hopefully, be back by tomorrow.

Use as open thread …

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Use as open thread …

Your host feels somewhat drained. Several posts I started to write over the last few days turned out to be rubbish and got trashed.

That is sure sign that I need a few days off. I'll leave an open thread on top and will check in once a day to release blocked comments. Aside from that I will be mostly offline.

See y all next week.

b.

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Use as open thread …

I am feeling a bit like the operator of that excavator. There is too much to do and too little motivating progress.

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Those are 200,000 metric tons stuck in sand and gravel on both ends. Too much weight for the usual tugs to pull it off.

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They will probably have to lighten the ship and dredge the sand at both end . That may well take several days or weeks.

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These swimming walls are now too big. They are difficult to maneuver. With this height of the load the slightest gust of wind will move the ship in unintended ways. There was a sand storm in the area when this one got stuck. Unless a crew is extremely attentive and immediately uses the bow and rear thrusters any gust will push it off course. Add the bank effect which sucks the ship towards the canal walls and such an outcome is inevitable.

Brendan Greeley @bhgreeley – 12:40 UTC · Mar 25, 2021

Water moves differently around a boat in a tight canal than it does in the open ocean. When water gets squeezed between the hull and the sand, the water accelerates, and its pressure drops /2
When the hull gets too close to the bank, the pressure drop sucks the hull in to the bank. This is called the "bank effect." In shallow water, like in the Suez, the stern moves toward the bank, but the bow moves away. The boat spins. /3
The bigger the hull, the more water it displaces, the stronger the effect. The closer the hull is to the bank, the stronger the effect. So big, wide boat = strong bank effect. And container ships are getting HUGE. /4

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Fifteen years ago I wrote about a record breaking ship I had photographed in Hamburg's harbor:

TEU Monsters

Cont. reading: Stuck In Mud

News & views …

The Doha agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban includes a promise by the Taliban to not attack U.S. troops or major cities. In exchange the U.S. promised to leave Afghanistan by May 1. The problem for the U.S. is that leaving Afghanistan will inevitable lead to a new Taliban regime, likely within a few months. It would make the U.S. look weak. That is something that Washington inherently dislikes.

In early March the Biden administration launched a new Afghanistan peace initiative. It proposed to create a new interim government with participation of the Taliban and under a new constitution. The idea is to uphold some picture of normalcy that can hold for a few months while the U.S. skips out. We said that the idea was unlikely to fly:

President Ghani is furious about Blinken's letter. Other interest groups in the Afghan government also reject it. They think it is a bluff. Unless the U.S. stops the money flow to Kabul and pulls out its troops there is no need for Ghani and other to proceed.

The Taliban will also reject the proposals. They want the U.S. to leave and they feel sure that, after that, they can win the civil war and reinstall their Islamic Emirate. Their backers in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are likewise convinced that there is no need to change course.

The new U.S. proposal is a dead end.

Today President Ashraf Ghani made a counterproposal which has a similar chance to be realized:

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will propose a new presidential election within six months, under a peace plan he will put forward as a counter-offer to a U.S. proposal that he rejects, two senior government officials told Reuters.

Ghani will unveil his proposal at an international gathering in Turkey next month, signalling his refusal to accept Washington's plan for his elected government to be replaced by an interim administration, the officials said.
…
"The counterproposal which we are going to present at the Istanbul meeting would be to call for early presidential elections if the Taliban agree on a ceasefire," one senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

Another Afghan government official said: "The president would never agree to step aside and any future government should be formed through democratic process, not a political deal."

A third senior official also said Ghani's proposal would include possible early elections, although he did not specify the exact time frame for the vote. The third official said Ghani had already shared his road map with Khalilzad.
…The Afghan officials said that as part of Ghani's counter-proposal, his government would ask the U.N. to closely observe the new election to ensure it is accepted by all sides.

There is no way that a credible election could happen in Afghanistan within the next few years. If the U.S. wants to get out of Afghanistan while leaving behind some functioning government its must move Ghani out of the way. As The U.S. holds the purse without which Ghani can't do anything that should not be too hard to do.

Meanwhile the Taliban have offered their own plan which would allow for the U.S. to have some time to save face:

Cont. reading: Afghanistan – More Dead End Proposals Seek Time To Allow U.S. Face Saving Exit

Ten years after it began, and after a short lull in fighting, the war on Syria seems now to resume on several fronts.

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Last week Bloomberg published an op-ed by the Turkish President Erdogan in which he begged for 'western' help:

Now, as talk of democracy, freedom and human rights are in vogue anew, humanity’s actions in Syria will be the ultimate measure of our sincerity. I believe that restoring peace and stability in the region depends on genuine and strong Western support for Turkey.
…
Unfortunately, the moderate rebels, our local partners, have become the target of a coordinated smear campaign despite their hard work and sacrifice to defeat ISIS and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, another designated terrorist organization.

The safe zones, which Turkey created in cooperation with its local partners, are proof of our commitment to Syria’s future. These areas have become islands of peace and stability, as well as self-sustaining ecosystems.

Those 'islands of peace' in the Turkish occupied Idleb and along the Turkish border have seen lots infighting between the Al-Qaeda aligned Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and 'moderate rebels' of various Islamists hue. HTS has mostly won out and is ruling the area in cooperation with Turkish occupation troops. But to control the area costs lots of money and Turkey is currently short of it. Erdogan's recent firing of its central bank head led to another fall of the Turkish economy:

The dollar rose by as much as 15% vs the Turkish lira, and the BIST-100 stock-market index traded 10% lower after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to replace Governor Naci Agbal with Sahap Kavcioglu — the third change at the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) in two years.

Thus Erdogan is asking for more money while threatening to push more refugees towards Europe:

Cont. reading: Syria – The War Is Resuming On Several Fronts

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• March 15 – U.S. And Its Five Eye Partners Use 'Persuasion', Sabotage And Disinformation To Gain Vaccine Supremacy
  Related:
  Sputnik V: EU Sacrifices Its Citizens by the Thousands on the Altar of Anti-Russia Point-Scoring – MintPressNews

• March 16 – Britain's Nuke Increase Is In Breach Of Its NPT Obligations
  Related:
  UN Press Briefing – March 17 – United Nations

> [W]e do express our concern at the UK’s decision to increase its nuclear weapons arsenal, which is contrary to its obligations under Article VI of the NPT. It could have a damaging impact on global stability and efforts to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons.

At a time when nuclear weapon risks are higher than they have been since the Cold War, investments in disarmament and arms control is the best way to strengthen the stability and reduce nuclear danger. <

• March 17 – The New Yellow Peril – Causes And Effects
  Related:
  Foreigners in their own country: Asian Americans at State Department confront discrimination – Politico

• March 18 – U.S. Aggressiveness Will Accelerate Its Demise
• March 19 – U.S. Aggressiveness Follow Up
  Related:
  Fireworks and fury set New Cold War tone in Alaska – Asia Times
  In the West, and especially the USA, today, we observe an inability to imagine, understand, come to terms with or tolerate difference. – Strategic Culture
  In the USA, all politics is about one country only: itself. – Gilbert Doctorow Antiwar
  Joe Biden’s dire opening chapter on the world stage – Spectator
  Why US senators are upset with Modi govt – Indian Punchline

> Suffice to say, President Joe Biden had given an impression that his era would be “different”. He held out a raft of promises that diplomacy is back at the centre of US foreign policy. By doing so, Biden won enormous credit with world capitals. Yet, before the Biden presidency reaches the 100-day mark, the new administration is busy weaponising sanctions and acting like a bully on the world stage. <

Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-023

The 'western' media reporting of the spat between Biden and Putin is typically bad.

The Guardian @guardian – 18:15 UTC · Mar 18, 2021

'Takes one to know one': Putin-Biden spat escalates over 'killer' accusation

That was not what Putin had said:

Ivan Pentchoukov @IvanPentchoukov – 16:56 UTC · Mar 19, 2021

Can't believe how many outlets are running with the same totally false translation of what Putin said.

The idiom Putin used is much closer to "the names you call others is what you should be called."

The official Kremlin transcript agrees with Ivan's formulation:

[D]ifficult, dramatic, and bloody events abound in the history of every nation and every state. But when we evaluate other people, or even other states and nations, we are always facing a mirror, we always see ourselves in the reflection, because we project our inner selves onto the other person.

You know, I remember when we were children and played in the yard, we had arguments occasionally and we used to say: whatever you call me is what you are called yourself. This is no coincidence or just a kids’ saying or joke. It has a very deep psychological undercurrent. We always see ourselves in another person and think that he or she is just like us, and evaluate the other person’s actions based on our own outlook on life.

There is an additional passage of interest which sets out rules for future talks that I have not seen reported in 'western' media:

I know that the United States and its leaders are determined to maintain certain relations with us, but on matters that are of interest to the United States and on its terms. Even though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a different genetic, cultural and moral code. But we know how to uphold our interests. We will work with the United States, but in the areas that we are interested in and on terms that we believe are beneficial to us. They will have to reckon with it despite their attempts to stop our development, despite the sanctions and insults. They will have to reckon with this.

We, with our national interests in mind, will promote our relations with all countries, including the United States.

Secretary of State Blinken's meeting with the Chinese foreign minister in a shabby Alaskan hotel was another diplomatic train wreck:

Cont. reading: U.S. Aggressiveness Follow Up

The foreign policy of the current U.S. administration is exactly the same as the foreign policy of the previous one. In short: disastrous.

There are dozens of examples: The "maximum pressure' campaign against Iran continues, the sanctions on Venezuela will be upheld or even strengthened, the bombing of Syria, no change on Yemen and so on.

The problem is that none of these 'we are tough guys' policies achieves any purpose.

From the outside world the behavior and tough talk of U.S. officials is seen as juvenile. It demonstrates a  lack of knowledge, wisdom and strategy.

Consider these recent headlines about China:

• Blinken Rallies ‘Quad’ Democracies to Counter Assertive China – February 17, Bloomberg
• Blinken warns China against 'coercion and aggression' – March 16, Reuters
• Blinken denounces China's 'strings attached' vaccine diplomacy – March 17, Nikkei
• U.S. sanctions 24 Hong Kong and Chinese officials ahead of Blinken's key meeting – March 17, AP
• Bolstered by allies, Biden officials take blunt message to first China talks – March 17, AP

> The United States will take an uncompromising stance in talks with China on Thursday in Alaska, officials have said, in the first face-to-face meetings between senior officials from the two rivals since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.

Beijing has called for a reset to ties, now at their lowest in decades, but Washington has said the Alaska talks will be a one-off, and any future engagement depends on China improving its behavior. <

Then, after days of badmouthing China, it finally dawned on Blinken that he needs China's help.

• Blinken urges China to convince North Korea to denuclearize – March 18, AP
• China must persuade North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, says Blinken – March 18, Guardian

Why, after so many bad words towards it, would China help the U.S. with solving the North Korea problem? It has zero incentive to do so.

The same aggressive behavior can be seen with regards to Russia. Baseless accusations of Russian election interferences are followed with more sanctions and threats topped off with Biden calling Russia's President Putin a 'killer'. As the Canadian Russia expert Paul Robinson writes:

As for Biden’s comments, well what can one say? Didn’t he just order the bombing of Syria. Doesn’t that make him a ‘killer’ too? Politicians should avoid this sort of language. I suspect, though, that what this and the intelligence report mentioned above indicate is that Russiagate, with its allegations of Trump-Putin collusion to undermine American democracy, has done irreparable damage to US-Russia relations. One gets the impression that there is now a deep, deep hatred of Russia within the US government, a hatred that prevents any sane analysis of Russian intentions and actions, as well as of US national interests. I fear that this will last for quite a long time.

Andrei Martyanov adds:

Cont. reading: U.S. Aggressiveness Will Accelerate Its Demise

News & views …

The New York Times reports of a mass murdering of Asian people near Atlanta. Its front page summary says: "The motive for the killings was unclear."

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However, the suspect, one Robert Aaron Long, does not leave much doubt about his motive.

via The Daily Mao – bigger

The guy thinks that China has covered up the source of the Covid virus and thus declared China to be "THE GREATEST EVIL OF OUR TIME".

One wonders how that "unclear motive" got planted into the dude's mind.

Cont. reading: The New Yellow Peril – Causes And Effects

Less than a month ago the British government pleaded with Iran to 'come back into compliance' with the nuclear deal:

“I don’t think that we should be sending a signal that we are going to overlook this non-compliance or just brush it under the carpet,” James Cleverly, Britain’s junior foreign minister who covers the Middle East and North Africa, told the BBC.

“This is in Iran’s hands, they are the ones breaching the conditions of the JCPOA, they are the ones that can do something about this, and they should come back into compliance,” he said.

In fact it is the U.S. and its European proxies, including Britain, which are not in compliance with the JCPOA. Iran has exceeded some technical limits of the nuclear deal. But it is allowed to do so under §26 and §37 of the deal as the other parties are not in compliance with their duties under the deal.

It is also Britain which is now threatening to break another nuclear treaty:

Britain is lifting the cap on the number of Trident nuclear warheads it can stockpile by more than 40%, Boris Johnson will announce on Tuesday, ending 30 years of gradual disarmament since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The increased limit, from 180 to 260 warheads, is contained in a leaked copy of the integrated review of defence and foreign policy, seen by the Guardian. It paves the way for a controversial £10bn rearmament in response to perceived threats from Russia and China.

The UK has signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a nuclear weapon state. Britain, by increasing its stockpile of nuclear weapons, is now in breach of Article VI of the treaty:

Article VI

Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

In previous communication to other NPT states Britain has explicitly linked the number of nuclear warheads it has to its Article VI obligation. In a speech to the UN 2015 Review Conference of the NPT Baroness Anelay, Minister of State at the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, said:

Madam President, the United Kingdom remains firmly committed to step-by-step disarmament, and our obligations under Article Six. We announced in January that we have reduced the number of warheads on each of our deployed ballistic missile submarines from 48 to 40, and the number of operational missiles on each of those submarines to no more than eight.

This takes our total number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120. And this will enable us to reduce our overall nuclear warhead stockpile to not more than 180 by the mid 2020s.

The UK has argued to be in compliance with its Article VI obligations because it was reducing the number of nuclear warheads. It thus can not claim to be in compliance with the treaty when it increases that number.

The just published Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy which introduces the British policy change argues on page 76 that the higher numbers are necessary:

Cont. reading: Britain’s Nuke Increase Is In Breach Of Its NPT Obligations

The U.S. and some of its allies are engaged in efforts to malign the Russian Sputink V vaccine and to promote the more expensive mRNA vaccines produced by 'western' companies.

Back in November we warned that the vaccine competition would be ruthless:

The mRNA vaccines hyped in the U.S. media are simply too expensive to be used around the world. If we want to limit the global effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic we will have to use the cheaper vector based vaccines.

That the AstraZeneka vaccine was immediately attacked in U.S. media by an unqualified writer quoting an investment bank and the U.S. pharma promoting (Remdesivir!) Antony Fauci is quite suspicious. Pfizer and Moderna expect to make billions of dollars with their vaccines. They will use all possible ways and means to defeat any potential competition.

Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, recently noted how unfair competition practices are used to keep some vaccines away from nations who urgently need it:

Producers are struggling for the global vaccine market worth $100 billion, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Some producers compete unfairly, sell a small batch of vaccines at a lower price on the condition to be an exclusive supplier, Putin said, speaking at a video meeting on measures to boost investment activity in Moscow.

"We see how competitors behave in the global vaccine market worth $100 billion. They come, sell a small batch of their vaccine at a discount, on the condition that everything else will be purchased only from this producer," he said.

To no one's astonishment the U.S. government is directly involved in manipulations of vaccine accessibility. As Brazil Wire found:

Cont. reading: U.S. And Its Five Eye Partners Use ‘Persuasion’, Sabotage And Disinformation To Gain Vaccine Supremacy

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• March 8 – U.S. Launches New Afghanistan Initiative Which Is Unlikely To Fly
  Related:
  – With clock ticking before exit deadline, U.S. appears poised to postpone troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

> Although the administration has vowed to consult closely with allies that have troops in Afghanistan, officials from several European nations said they were not informed in advance about the details of the U.S. proposals outlined by Blinken.

“I wouldn’t call it consultation; it’s selective informing,” said one senior European official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about sensitive diplomacy. An official from another coalition government said they first became aware of Blinken’s letter only after reading about it in the media. <

• March 9 – In Support Of Regime Change – The New York Times Continues To Disinform Its Readers
  Related:
  – The Sovietization of the American Press – Matt Taibbi

• March 11 – Opinion: The Pentagon Has An Admirable Hail Mary For Washington DC. It Also Needs A Plan B.
  Related:
  – 6 Questions Officials Still Haven’t Answered After Weeks of Hearings on the Capitol Attack – Pro Publica

• March 12 – Oil Spill Caused By Israeli Attacks On Iranian Oil Bound for Syria
  Related:
  – Russian and Syrian Forces Destroy Al Qaeda Facilities in Northern Syria – Syria News

• March 13 – Why The War In Ukraine May Soon Resume
  Related:
  –Ukraine seeks to justify its future offensive against the Donbass with a bogus “peace plan” and ultimatum – Donbas Insider
  –Ukrainian senior academic proposes renaming city of Uman after Nazi collaborator – Times of Israel

—
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-021

Several Russia watchers – Patrick Armstrong, Andrei Martyanov and Andrei Raevsky – are musing about a renewed attack by the government of Ukraine on its eastern Donbass region. The Donbass separated in 2014 after the U.S. driven coup in Kiev installed an anti-Russian government which then waged a war on its ethnic Russian east.

There have been a number of reports about heavy Ukrainian equipment moving east and other hints of military preparations. Russia has seen enough such signs to issue a strong warning:

"I would like to warn the Kiev regime and the hotheads that are serving it or manipulating it against further de-escalation and attempts to implement a forceful scenario in Donbass," [Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova] said, commenting on the statement of head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Contact Group for settlement in Donbass Leonid Kravchuk on some "radical steps" of Kiev if Russia refuses to recognize itself as a conflict side in eastern Ukraine.
…
Zakharova recalled that the Minsk Agreements clearly outline the conflict sides in Donbass as Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk. "The unwillingness of Ukrainian negotiators to recognize this fact and their refusal to find agreements with Donbass is the reason that hinders the establishment of long-lasting peace in the region," the diplomat noted.

The main catalyst for such a war is the sorry state of the government in Kiev. The country is in in the midst of a constitutional crisis:

[T]he Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) recently plunged the country into one of its deepest crises in its 30-year history. Specifically, on October 27, 2020, the Court declared that the main elements of Ukraine’s anti-corruption legislation, adopted between 2014 and 2020, were unconstitutional. In response, President Zelensky introduced legislation calling for the early termination of all Constitutional Court judges. Later, in December, he suspended the chairman of the Court for two months.

The result was widespread chaos in Ukraine’s political system. Zelensky’s actions were of questionable legality and provoked harsh criticism from all political sides. The ramifications of the Court’s decision include the cancellation of over 100 pending corruption investigations, a development that potentially could endanger future EU-Ukraine trade and economic cooperation Ukraine under the 2014 Association Agreement.

After the 2014 Euromaidan coup an 'independent' National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) was created to oversee the investigation and prosecution of corrupt state officials. The NABU has since been used by the U.S. embassy to bring criminal cases against those oligarchs it dislikes and to cover for those it likes. The constitutional court found that NABU is a criminal investigation agency outside the control of the executive branch which is a contradiction to the Ukrainian constitution.

The crisis has since escalated:

President Zelensky has now taken several provocative steps, including proposing legislation that voids the Constitutional Court's anti-corruption rulings and begins the process of dismissing and replacing those justices who supported that decision. None of these actions are supported under present-day Ukrainian law. The rhetoric between the president and the Constitutional Court is also escalating, with Constitutional Court Chairman Tupitskyi warning that the president’s actions threaten the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Calls for impeachment proceedings are being raised in the Rada, and Zelensky yet again escalated the crisis on February 3, 2021 by blocking pro-Russian TV channels controlled by Victor Medvedchuk. The legality of the latter action was even questioned by the EU, who told Zelensky that while Ukraine possessed the right to protect itself from disinformation, it still had to comply with international standards and “fundamental rights and freedoms.”

The pressure on Zelensky is growing as he tries to navigate the fine line of obeying the law as written while simultaneously claiming that the very integrity of the country is at stake. And Zelensky’s problems are only mounting, with the Cabinet of Ministers recently calling for the dismissal of the head of NABU and the IMF delaying the next tranche of financial support, in part because of Ukraine’s failure to implement a comprehensive anti-corruption program.

Polling numbers for Zelensky have sharply declined. Right wing city councils call on Zelensky to outlaw the largest opposition party. Meanwhile the pandemic puts a record number of people into hospitals while a meager vaccination campaign is failing.

A war against the eastern separatist could be a Hail Mary attempt by Zelensky to regain some national and international support.

But nothing will happen on the frontline without the consent or even encouragement from Washington DC. The Biden administration is filled with the same delusional people who managed the 2014 coup in Kiev. They may believe that the NATO training the Ukrainian army received and the weapons the U.S. delivered are sufficient to defeat the separatist. But the state of the Ukrainian military is worse than one might think and the separatist will have Russia's full backing. There is no question who would win in such a fight.

As a commentator at Turcopolier remarked:

If the US is not careful it is going to give the Russians another opportunity to show to the World their military prowess, the flexibility of their Military District system allowing multi front operation and their unfailing support for an ally. As well as potentially letting the Russians show to Europe that they have nothing to fear, if they stop at 30 miles or so and basically go back home. All whilst the US demonstrates the opposite, but then reinforcing DC may trump the World.

The Wall Street Journal reports today:

Israel has targeted at least a dozen vessels bound for Syria and mostly carrying Iranian oil out of concern that petroleum profits are funding extremism in the Middle East, U.S. and regional officials say, in a new front in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Since late 2019, Israel has used weaponry including water mines to strike Iranian vessels or those carrying Iranian cargo as they navigate toward Syria in the Red Sea and in other areas of the region. Iran has continued its oil trade with Syria, shipping millions of barrels and contravening U.S. sanctions against Iran and international sanctions against Syria.

Some of the naval attacks also have targeted Iranian efforts to move other cargo including weaponry through the region, according to U.S. officials.

The attacks on the tankers carrying Iranian oil haven’t been previously disclosed. Iranian officials have reported some of the attacks earlier and have said they suspect Israeli involvement.

The 'exclusive' leak to the WSJ, by U.S. officials(!), is designed to damage the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahoo.

It explains a number of recent incidents which Israel had claimed to be 'Iranian aggressions' but which were caused by Israel itself or were in obvious retaliation for Israeli deeds.

In mid February oil which had leaked from an unknown tanker damaged the beaches of Palestine:

Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice on Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country's worst ecological disasters.

Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel's coast last week after a heavy storm.
…
The Environmental Protection Ministry and activists estimate that at least 1,000 tons of tar, a product of an oil spill from a ship in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, have already washed up on shore. The ministry is trying to determine who is responsible. It declined commenting on details of the investigation because it was ongoing.

What made this event curious was the unusual Israeli attempt to censor reporting on it:

Cont. reading: Oil Spill Caused By Israeli Attacks On Iranian Oil Bound for Syria

UNITED STATES – JANUARY 7: Workers install more robust fencing along the
east side of the U.S. Capitol,following the riot at the Capitol the day before.
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Opinion by Editorial Board, Kabul Post

The Pentagon inherited a particularly daunting challenge in Washington DC, where a deal struck by the Capitol Police committed the Pentagon to withdraw its remaining troops by May 23 — little more than 100 days after the new president’s inauguration. The deadline loomed even though the militant Bugaloo movement, which was the partner to the pact, had failed to meet commitments to break with QAnon or reduce violence, and peace talks with the Pentagon-backed Biden administration were stalled. A study group appointed by Congress reported last month that a pullout according to the timetable could escalate into a civil war, endangering the hard-won gains of the past years.

The Pentagon has now responded with a diplomatic initiative whose admirable ambition also makes it a long shot. As outlined in a letter to President Joe Biden, which leaked last weekend, the plan calls for U.N.-sponsored talks among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa about “a unified approach to supporting peace in Washington DC”; new negotiations hosted by Iran between the government and the Bugaloo to “finalize a peace agreement”; and a proposal for a 90-day reduction in violence, which “is intended to prevent a Spring Offensive by the Bugaloo.”

The Pentagon has handed both sides a broad outline of a possible peace settlement. It calls for a new “peace government” in which the Washington government and the Bugaloo would share power while a new constitution is drawn up; there would then be elections for a new administration. Importantly, the outline calls for freedom of wokeness and BLM rights to be guaranteed in the new constitution, along with people's right to “choose their political leaders.” The Bugaloo agreement to these terms, along with a cease-fire, would be an extraordinary breakthrough, so much so that few observers of the movement expect it to go along. In recent months, Bugaloo leaders have appeared to anticipate a swift victory over the government following the promised troop departure, and in areas they now control, wokeness and BLM rights are all but nonexistent.

Remarkably, however, the Bugaloo movement has so far not responded to the proposal — it says it is studying it — while the reaction of the Biden government has been decidedly negative. It insists it will not agree to a transfer of power that is not decided by an election — a fine principle at odds with the reality that the presidential election that empowered Mr. Biden was badly flawed. The president’s resistance may reflect the fact that he would almost certainly be excluded from a transitional administration, which would be chosen by mutual agreement between the warring sides.

Mr. Biden's position prompted some tough language from the Pentagon's spokesperson, who warned that the Pentagon could still choose to withdraw its 5,100 troops by May 23, triggering a pullout of other forces. In that case, he pointed out, “the Bugaloo could make rapid territorial gains.” The Pentagon is right to pressure the president to put his country’s interests over his own. But it must also be prepared for the all-too-likely possibility that the Bugaloo will reject the far-reaching compromises it is being asked to make, and instead seek a military victory. In that case, the Pentagon must be prepared to leave its forces in place.

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