Can someone tell me how the Russian airforce is going? In all honesty I hear very little about it. Is that a conscious choice by Russia not to use it ,or is it because cheap Stingers and Manpads really have grounded the use of planes?

Posted by: Brother Ma | Nov 7 2022 22:56 utc | 103

Weird item from Italian paper La Repubblica on Monday (in Tass): “US, NATO believe talks on Ukraine possible if Kiev takes Kherson”
https://tass.com/politics/1533195 .
“According to the paper, Washington is in constant contact with Brussels and its allies on this issue as well as instilling this idea into the mind of the Kiev regime. The return of Kherson, a strategic target from the point of view of gaining sea access and control over water resources may change the course of the conflict and when the city is taken it will be possible to hold negotiations from the position of force. According to the newspaper, this is the first time that the White House allowed for such a specific scenario. According to the article, this is caused by two aspects. The first one is the alleged threat, however remote, of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons which would require a large-scale response. The second one is China’s expanded influence on Russia. According to the newspaper, a complete defeat of Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin whose regime change is no longer discussed as one of the options would lead to worse consequences for the US such as Russia falling under China’s full control.”
Evidently at least some people in Washingtopn think that Kherson is likely to fall, which might lead to the complete defeat of Mr. Putin, regime change in Russia, Russia falling under China’s “full control.” Wishful thinking on all counts of course, except possibly the first, if Russian can’t mobilize, train, equip, and deploy reinforcements there fast enough to prevent it. But seems to reflect the thinking (daydreaming ?) of at least some in the U.S. administration. After which an armistice could be negotiated.

Posted by: Seward | Nov 7 2022 23:03 utc | 105

B9k9 | Nov 7 2022 22:50 utc | 101
You would make a good carpenter. Many nails hit squarely/problems nailed in that post.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Nov 7 2022 23:11 utc | 107

Anon | Nov 7 2022 16:21 utc | 6
“……nations that have been more squeamish about providing military aid such as Australia”
Fuck off.
Australia “outranks” Spain, Italy, + most of Europe in donated military aid.
Excuse my blood pressure, but if Russia is so very very very very dangerous….then every European country should be well ahead of us in the charity queue.
We just sent 30 more Bushmasters to be scrap metal in some farmers field ….
€€ we outrank France, Slovakia, Lithuania Netherlands, Greece Italy Belgium Spain Luxembourg Slovenia Finland Croatia New Zealand Portugal Bulgaria South Korea Austria and Romania.
We aren’t in NATO.. and given the belligerence of NATO and countries like Finland…. Grrrrrrgh 🤬🤬🤬🤬🇺🇦
Source: Antezza et al (2022) “The Ukraine support tracker” Kiel WP
ifw-kiel-de/ukrainetracker
$$$- Bushmaster armored car transferred from Australia demilitarised by Russian special forces in the Donbass in an ambush.
(Australia plans to send 30 more to AFU)
https://t.me/azmilitary11/27889
https://twitter.com/SprinterMonitor/status/1589394572039589889?cxt=HHwWgsDUpaf81I4sAAAA
https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1589349916157284352?cxt=HHwWgMDQhf_UwI4sAAAA
The British MRAP Mastiff demilitarised in an ambush…
(With Australia, everything is a competition with the poms)

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 7 2022 23:24 utc | 109

@Allan Kaplan | Nov 7 2022 17:24 utc | 29
The first draft of the protocols emerged in 1858 just when Bismarck consulted the Rothschilds and the deal they made helped finance Bismarcks unification of Germany.
The draft came out in bookform around the time when the leader of freemasonry, Lord Palmerston died in 1865.
It is believed that it was a masonic operation from the beginning.
And the Russian role was that Sergei Nilus, a freemason, brought together older fragments and the work happening during 1901-1904. It was translated by Edward VIIs associate and registered in the British museum around 1906. In 1907 Edward told a Rothschild that they wouldnt be welcome unless his conditions were fulfilled.
By that time Edward VII was the leader of freemasonry and Palmerston had mentored him from a young age
Palmerston and Edward VII during their time where the superiors of the masonic bankers and the financiers would simply follow their instructions. Disobedience would mean death penalty.
It may be the case that Jack The Ripper, which was a masonic message in 1888, was a warning to the Rothschild clan.
A warning to the canonical five branches of that clan in the form of the ritual murders of the five canonical victims of Ripper.
If there was no threat they might have preferred peace and joint ventures with Germany and other nations under fair conditions – not giving Britain a priviledged status.
Britain knew what they themselves were planning together with their financiers and attributed it to a separate jewish-led conspiracy.
Britain leading freemasonry gave them a significant advantage for perception management

Posted by: petergrfstrm | Nov 7 2022 23:29 utc | 111

IMO, Crooke redeemed himself from last week’s poor result, “Stumbling Towards ‘Principled’ Armageddon”. Recall, his previous effort proclaimed “They Rule Over Dysfunctional Ruin, but They Rule”, which he links to in his concluding paragraph,
“However, Biden’s Washington apparently is not disposed to hear. It seems determined to show that ‘it rules’ — even if that means to rule over ruins (i.e. Europe), as Biden stumbles towards his ‘principled’ Armageddon to save the “liberal order”.”
Crooke appears to have awakened and writes a few gems like this one:
“This cycle is ending precisely because the rest of the world sees it as ‘naked’ — a naked Emperor — a grasping primacy, justified through self-attributed superiority, that once may have held some validity, but which today has descended into narcissism and sociopathy — woke anti-culture and weaponised dysfunctionality — used as coercive tools by which to ‘rule’.”
Someone earlier today mentioned cycles and I thought then of posting a comment that linked Crooke to it, but something happened to change that idea. Since he’s back to his usual rhythm of writing short preliminary essays for al-Mayadeen then having its more expansive version published at Strategic Culture, I hope his SCF effort will soon prove my hypothesis correct. Touching on temporal and historical cycles IMO is quite proper, although I don’t expect Crooke will go as far as Vico.

Posted by: karlof1 | Nov 7 2022 23:39 utc | 113

Telegram channels have been reporting that Polish mercs near where Azov is being deployed have been refusing to follow near suicidal orders. Should be interesting the next few weeks…

Posted by: Colonel Applewhite | Nov 7 2022 23:45 utc | 115

Brother Ma | Nov 7 2022 22:56 utc | 104
Re RuSF.
According to Konashenkov’s reports, each day he cites the RuAF flew xx sorties and destroyed xx?
Of course, because anything the Russian military states has been immediately disregarded as “nonsense” and “propaganda” from Hour1, Day1, no one other than telegram carries the tallies.
If and when a Russian plane or heli is shot down, the western media has its headlines for the next week, (month).
So, to answer. The Russians say their airforce works effectively every day.
And the west laughs and mocks.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 7 2022 23:48 utc | 117

Still, the main issue is whether Putin and the rest of the Russian leadership are going to let their hatred of waging war on Ukrainians and dreams of a peaceful settlement yield them endless war with Western Ukraine.
It should be clear to anyone who is not a useful idiot at this point that the US and UK are eager to drag this out as long as they can.
Does Putin really want endless war and terrorism in the Ukraine to be his legacy? If not, he needs to wrap this up asap.

Posted by: My Comment | Nov 7 2022 23:55 utc | 119

The Russians and DPR took took Donetsk airport 8 years ago and it has been under DPR control since, not sure what you are referring too? Is the footage you are watching many years old?
I too thought it was taken 8 years ago, apparently it’s been getting kicked back and forth.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/19140
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 7 2022 23:53 utc | 119
Nope, it never has left Russian hands.
It has been periodically shelled by Ukrainian forces with some skirmishes taking place near the airport.
In fact, recently DPR/Russia pushed the Ukrainians back a few miles SW of the airport.

Posted by: Haassaan | Nov 8 2022 0:00 utc | 121

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Nov 7 2022 22:47 utc | 100
From my indirect observations, the problem goes beyond Deep State. The rules of conduct in D.C. calcified to total rigidity, gone are the days when POTUS could reach a conclusion to, say, solve Missile Crisis and implement quickly, with only minor deprecations heard (although a key concession was secret). Today there are innumerable taboos that would have to be broken to pull out something like that.
Stephen Cohen stated exactly this and noted how extremely dangerous it is.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From The Secret Team by Fletcher Prouty and Jesse Ventura 2011:

On this particular night there had been a heavy raid on Rotterdam. He sat there, meditating, and then, as if to himself, he said, “Unrestricted submarine warfare, unrestricted air bombing—this is total war.” He continued sitting there, gazing at a large map, and then said, “Time and the Ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.”

John Kennedy rode into office on the shoulders of strong CIA support, re-appointed Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover, and then crashed against the beaches of Cuba with the leaderless Bay of Pigs operational disaster. This episode, coming as it did at the very threshold of his term, awakened him abruptly to the stark realities, gross ineptitude, and sudden dangers of secret operations; and it caused him to study with great care what had gone wrong and where the inherent dangers lay. Supreme Court Justice William 0. Douglas recalling a discussion he and Kennedy had about the Bay of Pigs said, “This episode seared him. He had experienced the extreme power that these groups had, these various insidious influences of the CIA and the Pentagon on civilian policy, and I think it raised in his own mind the specter: Can Jack Kennedy, President of the United States, ever be strong enough to really rule these two powerful agencies? I think it had a profound effect . . . it shook him up!”
The eminent, experienced, and wise Supreme Court Justice states the problem precisely when he says, “Can . . . the President of the United States ever be strong enough to really rule these two powerful agencies?” Can any President learn about, comprehend, and then believe what he has learned about this whole covert and complex subject? Can any President see in this vast mechanism, in which there is so much that is untrue and hidden, the heart and core of the real problem? Will any President be prepared to confront this staggering realization when and if he does uncover it? Is this perhaps the great discovery which President Kennedy made, or was about to make? It is not just the CIA and the DOD that are involved. It is also the FBI, the AEC, the DIA, elements of State and of the Executive Office Building, NSA and the hidden pulse of secret power coursing through almost every area of the body politic. It extends beyond into governmental business, the academic world, and certain very influential sectors of the press, radio, TV, papers, magazines, and the publishing business. Before any President can rule this covert automatic control system, he must find out it is there—he must be aware of the fact it exists—and he must devise some means to discover its concealed activity.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 8 2022 0:11 utc | 123

Posted by: Seward | Nov 7 2022 23:03 utc | 106
Weird item from Italian paper La Repubblica on Monday (in Tass): “US, NATO believe talks on Ukraine possible if Kiev takes Kherson”
https://tass.com/politics/1533195 .
Which one is more conducive to talk? Russia takes Kiev or Ukraine takes Kherson?

Posted by: KitaySupporter | Nov 8 2022 0:14 utc | 125

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 8 2022 0:11 utc | 124
Thanks for that excerpt. I never really pondered that last part much before. It’s true – the Pentagon and CIA have, I don’t know if “infiltrated” is even the right word for it, co-opted the media and social media. Has there ever been a case of a President flouting them on something and unfavorable press coverage planted w/ in the Mighty Wurlitzer to hurt him or bring him in line?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Nov 8 2022 0:21 utc | 127

So I’ve concluded its not the system but human nature that is the prime determinant.
If the Russians can make a deal to have greater control within the dollar system, using their irreplaceable mineral wealth as a bargaining chip, I’d say it would be near damn impossible to have the people reject that offer outright in exchange for perpetual war.
Posted by: B9k9 | Nov 7 2022 22:50 utc | 101
Interesting… I have a similar approach applying principles from experience and other fields to political-social arenas where I have little direct expertise. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I won’t be surprised if you are right but I don’t see it. Russia territorially and culturally-historically seems to exhibit the mentality of a leviathan, a giant. Supertankers can take days to turn around. Similarly Russia, over several decades, has very slowly turned from wanting to rejoin Europe to now wanting either to leave or to teach her a deep, long-coming lesson, a once-in-an-epoque teaching moment, so that they, being territorial partners, can coexist peaceably.
The Western Alliance from top to bottom is ‘agreement-incapable.’ Having slowly and reluctantly come to this conclusion, which in no small part formed the basis of the conviction that military resistance was finally choiceless, RF is not going to negotiate anything less than the return of NATO back to 1990 borders, or perhaps disbandment altogether. But again: the West is agreement-incapable therefore I suspect the time for jaw-jaw is over and we are now in war-war. Not full-blown nation state versus nation state war, but a situation where facts on the ground will do the talking, not worthless meetings around tables, be they tactical facts on Ukraine territory including military moves and civilian conditions (food supply, power failures etc.) or macro trade flows, world wide depressions and such like. At some point the West will be in a position that leads to only one end, namely an abandonment of their hegemonic designs on world money flows and control. The West will have turned to new approaches.
To this end, I think the West is in for a long, slow humiliation process because such changes take time. This winter promises to be telling that way. I suspect the consummation devoutly wished by Putin et alia is popular movements resulting in substantive reforms of western polities such that the current corrupt Money Power are entirely uprooted. At that point they should become agreement-capable and be willing and able to join multipolar unions of sovereign states – if such a thing indeed happens and the WEF agenda is part of a globalist initiative in which Russia and China are core participants. Hard to tell… (I have reservations about such unions absent the agenda of resisting the US-led hegemon but that’s another issue.)
In any case, my read is that Russia is a giant who takes a long time to go to confrontation or war, but when she does wants substantively profound results. What’s at stake is far more than a border dispute with a NATO-funded Ukraine. What has to happen is that the West goes from being agreement-incapable to agreement-capable which will take nothing less than regime change. No small thing.
If that is not achievable, then bifurcation – Iron Curtain II.
Anyway, I like your more middle-way projection and look forward to seeing what finally transpires.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 8 2022 0:43 utc | 129

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 8 2022 0:11 utc | 124
I missed a short paragraph (first emboldened one below) in the above excerpts at the beginning which explained how the High Cabal quote was from Churchill during WWII.
Thusly:

CHAPTER 1
THE “SECRET TEAM”—THE REAL POWER STRUCTURE
The most remarkable development in the management of America’s relations with other countries during the quarter-century since the end of World War II has been the assumption of more and more control over military, financial and diplomatic operations at home and abroad by men whose activities are secret, whose budget is secret, whose very identities as often as not are secret—in short, by a Secret Team whose actions only those implicated in them are in a position to monitor and to understand.
For the purposes of this historical study, the choice of the word “Team” is most significant. It is well known that the members of a team, as in baseball or football, are skilled professionals under the direct control of someone higher up. They do not create their own game plan. They work for their coach and their owner. There is always some group that manages them and “calls the plays.” Team members are like lawyers and agents, they work for someone. They generally do not plan their work. They do what their client tells them to do. For example: this is true of agents in the Central Intelligence Agency. It is an “Agency” and not a “Department” and its employees are highly skilled professionals who perform the functions their craft demands of them. Thus, the members of the highest level “Secret Team” work for their masters despite the fact that their own high office may make it appear to others that they, themselves are not only the Team but the Power Elite. This recalls a story related by the Rt. Hon. Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, of Great Britain, during WW II.
Winston Churchill had left the Admiralty to become Prime Minister. Frequently he would come down to the Admiralty basement on his way from #10 Downing Street, to his underground, bomb-proof bedroom. He made it his practice to visit the Officer in Charge for up-to-date Intelligence and then stroll into the Duty Captain’s room where there was a small bar from which he sometimes indulged in a night-cap, along with his ever-present cigar.
On this particular night there had been a heavy raid on Rotterdam. He sat there, meditating, and then, as if to himself, he said, “Unrestricted submarine warfare, unrestricted air bombing—this is total war.” He continued sitting there, gazing at a large map, and then said, “Time and the Ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.”
This was a most memorable scene and a revelation of reality that is infrequent, at best. If for the great Winston Churchill, there is a “High Cabal” that has made us what we are, our definition is complete. Who could know better than Churchill himself during the darkest days of World War II, that there exists, beyond doubt, an international High Cabal? This was true then. It is true today, especially in these times of the One World Order. This all-powerful group has remained superior because it had learned the value of anonymity. For them, the Secret Team and its professionals operate.

Am very leary of books purporting to tell it how it is with secret government agencies. Suspect most of the time they are managing narratives that have leaked out. Have yet to read clear accounts of who the CIA et alia report to apart from differing speculations about different secret societies. Mayhap. For me it’s like UFO’s: if there is clear and present evidence, fine; otherwise I’d rather not try to guess one way or another. However that they do report to higher masters is almost certain. Because that’s how human nature functions in groups.

Posted by: Scorpion | Nov 8 2022 0:52 utc | 131

What do NATO and their leader think will happen if Ukraine fails to take Kherson?

Posted by: Simon | Nov 8 2022 1:05 utc | 133

New here. Love you long time. Thanks for keeping me informed about everything but the plandemic. Retired 38 year career US bureaucrat. Ukraine is going nowhere but the dustbin of bad notions. Sad that the bad hearts who control US foreign policy and war profits have spilled rivers of blood there.

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 1:21 utc | 135

Quentin Dempster: (onetime respected abc.gov.au journalist) (although if I were to reappraise his career with what I know now….maybe his pedestal would topple)

Former PM Tony Abbott wants Australia to reimpose conscription of young (18 year old) Australians for military and national service. Non-compliance? Jail .. one presumes. Libs gave us the lethal follies of Vietnam war and Iraq war.
Next? War with China?.

https://twitter.com/QuentinDempster/status/1589372041135652864
A: Yes.
Twitterverse:
> Oh dear, King and country time again is it?
> How convenient … his daughters are no longer in that age group. And he doesn’t have sons.
> As he once said “Shit happens” when referring to deaths in the armed forces
> Incidently; what’s Tone’s military service history?
> They have already pushed the war agenda with the China\USA rhetoric, where RWNJs think its eminent. So I guess this is phase 2
> This country was ONCE worth fighting for….I couldn’t give a rats arse if china invaded…. My standard of living would surely improve
§§ Add the ever expanding US military occupation of Australia, the installation of nuclear bombers here, the nuclear submarine shell-game and the increased commitment of Australia to the boondoggle in Ukraine (Australian troops are already in UK “training” Ukrainians) …..the plans and scaffolding for a future war are obvious.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 1:37 utc | 137

reply to Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 1:44 utc | 139
Absolutely immoral, tragic, and unnecessary.

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 1:50 utc | 139

Algeria formally applies for admission to BRICS
At the end of July, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that his country was interested in joining BRICS
RABAT, November 7. /TASS/. The Algerian authorities have filed a formal application to join the BRICS group.
https://tass.com/world/1533335
“Tebbun stressed that accession to BRICS would allow Algeria to avoid participation”
… twitter- @WallStreetSilver:
“Algeria is Europe’s largest provider of natural gas after Russia and Norway… Algeria has the 11th largest gas reserves in the world.
BRICS is turning into the world’s source for commodities. If they can figure out a BRICS currency.”
> Maybe the USA will decide that Algeria needs a little more “freedom and democracy”
> Maybe the USA should apply to join BRICS also 😁
> BRICS is an acronym that started as BRIC in 2001, coined by Jim O’Neill (a Goldman Sachs economist) for Brazil, China, India, and Russia.
> RIP John: | John McAfee: “I am working with BRICS – a group of 5 G20 countries, through their contractor: http://newsilkroadbrics.com And their Coin: NSRT
The goal of BRICS is total independence from the USD and US financial instruments and institutions. I think you all know why I support this idea:)”
https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1273598026733535233
>Q: Why not just #bitcoin?
McAfee: “No privacy. No smart contracts. No dapps , no …… It no longer has any value.
An old technology that no longer serves any purpose in the CryptoSphere.”
https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1273600632419692545
I guess that’s why McAfee got “Gaddafied”….
Algeria to Get Higher Gas Price in New Deals With Italy, Spain
29 September 2022
Algeria will benefit from higher natural gas prices as it locks in deals with two European Union nations anxious to secure enough natural gas supplies for the coming winter.
State-controlled Algerian energy producer Sonatrach Group concluded a deal with Italy’s Enel SpA on Wednesday and said it will soon announce one with Naturgy Energy Group SA, ending a months-long stalemate with the Spanish utility over contractual price revisions.  
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-29/algeria-to-get-higher-gas-price-in-new-deals-with-italy-spain?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 2:25 utc | 141

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 2:24 utc | 141
Thanks buddy. This round is on me.

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 2:26 utc | 143

Putin does not need major offensives but simply time. Then everything will take care of itself. What is happening in Germany is worse than a war, except perhaps a nuclear war. Companies that have been around for 450 years, survived the 30-year war, economic crises, World War I and World War II, are going under because of the current energy policy. They are disappearing. In war, something breaks, some people die. What is broken can be rebuilt, the knowledge is still there. Now the knowledge disappears. And this is only the beginning. The people have not yet understood that in fast motion a country or its economic basis is destroyed. Otherwise, they would go mad with fear and anger.
Now it’s official: Our gas will only last until February 2023. At the most. Without gas there is also no electricity. People will freeze to death and starve. A large part of them is already dead and just doesn’t know it yet. The German dies quietly and in loyalty to the government, including Ukraine. Our new fellow citizens from the Middle East, will fight for their lives, as they are used to. If there is no more Germany, the EU will also cease to exist. Everything changes for the worse. So Putin can only win. He just has to sit by the river and wait for the corpses of his enemies to float by.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Posted by: Uwe | Nov 8 2022 2:53 utc | 145

@ Posted by: Uwe | Nov 8 2022 2:53 utc | 146 “Putin does not need major offensives but simply time.”
In time, China will likely swallow Russia much like Canada was swallowed by the US after a decade or two of independence in the 6os-70s.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Nov 8 2022 3:02 utc | 147

Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 2:26 utc | 144
I was an Aussie backpacker in my very early 20s when I went on the obligatory day trip to the “white cross” cemetery at Verdun.
My grandfather had fought (survived) at (I thought) Bullecourt, ….and ANZAC Day was a huge, big deal in the family, with a great uncle at Gallipoli, and a father a Japanese POW at Kanchanburi, (8th div) and his brother a Tobruk rat and New Guinea (9th div)….
Somehow I’d got to my 20s only half listening, not really understanding any of it…
So one day I turn up at the cemetery all blasé and bravado, ready to tick yet another “must do” tourist activity off my bingo card….. when… I turned around and actually *saw* the field…acres of white crosses…. All vibrant adventurous youths.. lads of my own age… dead in a field.
I was overwhelmed and became very emotional… I had to go and hide from my tour group… it was sobering and solemn and I’ve never been blase about wars and their needless stupid deaths since.
I wept for the white crosses in France, and I weep for the sunflower flags in Ukraine.
A full century has passed, and nothing has been learned.
I hate this war.
[‘Bullecourt, more than any other battle, shook the confidence of Australian soldiers in the capacity of the British command; the errors, especially on April 10th and 11th, were obvious to almost everyone’. Charles Bean, Official Historian. Accession Number: E00603]
>The Australians had 3,000 men killed or wounded; many survivors remained bitter about such a futile waste.
[My maternal grandfather, the little I remember of him, was a morose, humorless old bastard…. and his dour presence was attributed by family as a consequence of his war experience. And my dad suffered many physical, and more insidiously, mental scars from his years of starvation in the Japanese “holiday” camp in Burma).
Once this bullshit in Ukraine is finally over, the men who fought, and their families, and the civilians caught in the middle, will all continue to suffer for generations.
I hate all war.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 3:19 utc | 149

This is the same war. We just had a short recess for countries to restock and switch sides. It’s still WWII. The National Socialists, both Fascists and Nazis, have rebranded themselves as “Globalists,” but they follow the same methods and technics. Their method was based on Leninism. It has the communists controlling the major industries while allowing small amounts of free Enterprise in small businesses. Most of Europe, the US, Canada, and others have switched to being Globalists. Russia has bucked the trend, overthrew communism, and continued the role of the Allies.
The war isn’t over oil in Donbass. It is still over Crimea. That is not only Russia’s deep water shipyards, it is also its path for commerce with more than half of the world. That is how it competes in Southern and Eastern Europe, Northern and Western Africa, Central and South America. The Ukrainians and the rest of the Globalists must fight against that competition in order to keep control of the Western hemisphere.
China has its own brand of communism. The globalists use it to disrupt markets to help them gain power, but China isn’t “partnered” with the Globalists. Neither is North Korea. While we can’t view them as allies, we should partner with them, and every other country, when the partnership benefits both sides. If one could remove the Globalist control of USA, we and Russia would partner in most areas, and the entire world would be better off.

Posted by: barstool | Nov 8 2022 3:28 utc | 151

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Nov 8 2022 3:02 utc | 148
That looks more like a white imperialist anti China projection than any actual knowledge of Chinese civilisation historical behavior.

Posted by: Surferket | Nov 8 2022 3:41 utc | 153

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 3:19 utc | 150
Wow. I do too. I knew quite a few WW 2 vets. Guys who fought mostly in the Pacific. Guam and Iwo Jima. My uncle and Godfather was a B-25 Mitchell pilot with 4 battle stars. My dad was lucky. He landed in France the day Germany surrendered. I joined a congressional audit agency in ’82 and retired a couple of years ago. I have a Russian better half who taught school in France for 20 years. She’s from St. Petersburg. Old Soviet education and she’s wonderful. 🙂

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 3:48 utc | 155

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 3:19 utc | 150
Ha. I’m becoming Sir Toby Belch.

Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 4:04 utc | 157

The horse race to be the next NATO chief is already staged for Freeland as you can read about in a ZH posting with the title
US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent As Next NATO Chief

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 8 2022 4:17 utc | 159

@ psychohistorian | Nov 8 2022 4:17 utc | 158
the bimbo who led the lima group and their failed attempt to install juan guiado… a good choice, lol…
@ Biswapriya Purkayast | Nov 8 2022 4:27 utc | 162
i like yalensis’s input..

Posted by: james | Nov 8 2022 4:42 utc | 161

Interesting article here from The Reading Junkie, speculating on how many American troops have already been killed in Ukranazistan:
https://readingjunkie.com/2022/11/05/how-many-american-servicemen-has-biden-sacrificed-in-ukraine/
The fact that the Bidet regime all of a sudden admitted it has “boots on the ground” in Ukranazistan indicates as strongly as it is possible to get that so many American forces have already been killed that it will soon become impossible to hide the losses and that some kind of explanation has to be concocted to account for the dead.

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Nov 8 2022 4:54 utc | 163

Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 8 2022 4:17 utc | 158

US Wants Official Of Ukrainian Descent As Next NATO Chief

Would that be Ukrainian Khazar, Ukrainian Gypsy, Cossack, Tartar?
I can already tell you he/she/it will be of the same ‘descent’ as the Shmyhal, Zelensky,Reznikoff …
The prophecy of the Book that Cannot be Named is fulfilled with every passing day …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Nov 8 2022 5:15 utc | 165

Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Nov 8 2022 5:21 utc | 167

Every day I realise more and more that Nineteen Eighty Four was an instruction manual.

You’re decades late to the party …

Posted by: Arch Bungle | Nov 8 2022 5:27 utc | 167

B, I agree with you – and I disagree.
I have no qualms with the idea that Biden does not really want peace. Caitlin Johnstone’s recent piece reporting on the words of Admiral Charles Richard certainly show that Corporate America is out for bear. They have wrecked the Keynesian state in the US, they have wrecked US Labor, they are wrecking Europe and the want Russia and China too. Richard says that Russia is only the ‘warmup’ to the ‘big one.’
On the other hand – on the other hand, there is no question that the negotiations front in Europe is building fast. The latest evidence are the 100,000 people who marched in Rome Saturday – and mind you, Italy – the EU’s third largest economy – is the weak link in the ‘weapons first’ chain, with only one in four Italians approving sending arms to Ukraine. And they’re not the only ones. Polling data shows that in France, the Netherlands, even Germany, the anti-weapons front is very strong (my analysis: https://myke-simonian.medium.com/on-ukraine-arms-meloni-is-increasingly-embattled-2da11295dbb). The very fact that after all this time of swatting the opposition away by calling us ‘Putin Lovers,’ Biden feels the need to even ‘message’ peace is a big deal.
Will the US give up? Of course not. Republican or Democrat, Corporate America is determined to get back into the world driver seat, and Biden thinks he is the right man to do it.
Which is why I am calling on eveybody here who can vote tomorrow to do so, and to vote to deprive him of his rubberstamp Congress. I don’t care if that means voting Republican, Working Families Party, Libertarian or something else, so long as it is a candidate with a proven record on arms shipments to Ukraine. I do not care if it means voting for a person you find distasteful. The danger of world war is enormous, it is in our faces, and right now, that is a far more present danger than ‘fascism’ just because the Democrats lose the House and/or Senate.
My full argument can be found here: https://myke-simonian.medium.com/on-tuesday-vote-anti-war-whatever-the-party-even-the-gop-4e1be6a85245
Thanks for grinding these pieces out, day after day. I know it takes work.

Posted by: Myke Simonian | Nov 8 2022 5:59 utc | 169

Regarding the waste and tragedy of war, the Irish have 2 moving songs:
The Green Fields of France (Willie McBride)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ntt3wy-L8Ok
And the Band played waltzing Matilda
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY

Posted by: Exile | Nov 8 2022 6:31 utc | 171

@ Saint Jimmy, #171
“The ranch country of northwest South Dakota on Tuesday is going to have a blizzard of 15 cm of snow driven by 80 kmh winds. Too bad that’s not happening in the battle space of Ukraine and hastening the coming of the winter freeze up…
Posted by: DakotaRog | Nov 8 2022 5:55 utc | 169
Yep. The uncollected Ukrainian and meathead mercenary bodies wouldn’t rot as quickly as in summer when they draw flies.
Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Nov 8 2022 6:00 utc | 171”
The coyotes would eat well no matter the season. Maybe some golden eagles, crows, and magpies still around that would join in. Its truly amazing how much carrion a golden eagle can eat.

Posted by: DakotaRog | Nov 8 2022 7:08 utc | 173

@ watcher and exile – Redgum – I Was Only 19

Posted by: lex talionis | Nov 8 2022 7:32 utc | 175

Here are the real news:
The weapons that the U.S. has been pouring into the most corrupt country in the world with no questions asked are starting to Show up in all Kinds of interesting places, including Finnland amd Germany. that was to be expected by everybody but the unbelievably stupid western politicians. No wonder the west is panicking and sending Fake Sullivan all over the place. But it’s too late. When the first plane is downed by a Stinger from Ukraine somewhere in western europe, the fun will start in earnest.

Posted by: Franz Beckenbauer | Nov 8 2022 8:41 utc | 177

“about wars and their needless stupid deaths”
“A full century has passed, and nothing has been learned.”
Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 3:19 utc | 150
Those that started those wars do not see them as stupid. They are as useful as a hammer is to a carpenter. So they have learned the lesson of how to use it many many centuries ago.
The big problem, which can not be easily fixed, is that the Masses don’t understand what the real purpose of these wars is. In a few words, to cull them & steal from others. These big events happen more or less every one or two generations, so as to make it harder for the majority to catch on what is really going on. The rest is done by the Education SYSTEM and Hollywood in the the case of the US of A. Too few catch on to make a real difference in how the scam is run.
I have no clue how other wars were but WW I was simply insane in how it was conducted. To glorify anything in it is simply absurd (indicative of the inability to think critically). I personally am disgusted when I see the military appearing at these events. For me it is simply further glorification of these institutions which sent people to die for NOTHING. Just looking at Europe todays shows that the people who died during WW I and II, died for nothing. They did die for the Financiers and for people holding power in their countries. Iraq veterans in US are a good example of this.
Memorializing the dead soldiers should be done as private citizens, as those uniforms are just symbols of passports to death for nothing.
OK, now lets get back to Reality.

Posted by: Tom_12 | Nov 8 2022 8:44 utc | 179

Not to sound like another one of those nutty “Come on Putin, Fuck ’em!” figures, but I am wondering what exactly Russia is waiting for when it’s obvious it could pull the plug and terminate Ukraine any time it wants.
Posted by: pachinko | Nov 7 2022 18:29 utc | 48
But you are one of those figures. You don’t seem to read very much of what’s being discussed here. Most russians have friends or family in Ukraine. They don’t want to “pull the plug on” or “terminate” them.
If some satanist jew and a group of thugs took your friends or someone from your extended (or close) family hostage, would you be yelling and hooting to bomb all of them to smithereens or to cut their electricity, heating and water?
Besides, it’s worth waiting for the West to stew in its own problems a while more. Who knows, the EU might collapse. Being from Europe, I would be very happy to see that.

Posted by: Jusses | Nov 8 2022 8:56 utc | 181

Posted by: bevin | Nov 7 2022 21:27 utc | 78
But it is not illegal nor even considered bad taste to abstain from voting for UN resolutions condemning Nazism, as the European countries routinely do.

Posted by: bottle | Nov 8 2022 9:31 utc | 183

For entertainment purposes only – no animal was harmed in the making of this comment. But I cannot guarantee none will be harmed after reading it. Please don’t kick the cat!
Some people like to say: “It’s time to call a spade a spade.” But I say no sir!
It’s time to call a spade a very handy tool that makes it much easier to dig a decent hole in the ground.
So, @karlof1 #114
Not Crooke again?
Really, must we? OK then, I read it. But it was at your suggestion Karl, so don’t blame me.
In a word?
Tedious.
IMO Crooke appears to have awakened into a febril stupor. Where is this current concatenation going to end up? Probably in a 1950s era East side basement bar reading dry incomprehensible poetry to a bunch of vacant headed beatniks!
How does this meandering mind-bending haze end up at the stunning, unexpected and sudden conclusion of Biden stumbles towards his ‘principled’ Armageddon to save the “liberal order”? For frankly, Horatio, it Doth not Follow, old chum.
The psycho-clones in DC and London don’t give a shit about the “liberal order” – to suggest they do is plain nuts – there is nothing to this West v Russia/China issue than pure unadulterated Global Power – nothing else is on the table or matters to these madmen.
What they craze, demand and obsess over is Control. Power and Control. There is nothing “liberal” about any of it.
The “liberal order”? Liberalism? Dah Mockracy? Hate Speech? #MeToo? Free Dumb of Speech? Equal Pay for Women? Black Lives Matter? Wokism? Trans Rights and Toilets? Pussy Hats? Ukrainian borders? Freedom seeking Iranians? The Taiwanese? Uyghurs in Xinjiang? Kurds in Syria or Turkey? The Twitterverse? Climate Change? Electric vehicles and solar panels? COP27? Civil War statues? Critical Race Theory?
Seriously, FFS, please get a grip!!! Because this is delusional thinking par excellence. It’s not only succumbing to the Pathological Neoliberal Propaganda, it’s literally swimming inside of it.
” They “ do not give a shit about any of it. Means to end baby! That’s it. Period.

Everything is in play. And Washington knows it.

Aah no. Washington does not know ‘it’. Because Washington cannot comprehend wtf Putin and Xi are even talking about. It’s like an alien language to them. Washington – Dems and Repubs both sides, all of them, the Technocrats, the Military, the Intel supremos, the Deep State head-kickers, the Ivy League morons are all clueless idiots. Brain Dead and Dysfunctional. Those beings Evolution Selects for the Scrap Heap. The Walking Dead Zombies of this World.
When they try to read what is sent to them they are overcome by an X rated version of Dyslexia on steroids. To them Putin is the idiotic grunting of a baboon on heat. It’s Putin and his mob they intend to be metaphorically herded onto a caravan of tumbrils – not Biden, Bojo, or themselves
Because nothing gets in. Nothing at all. They do not expect to lose, ever. Out of the question. Impossible. Because they are operating on a completely different level of consciousness and awareness to Russia/China/RoW. As far removed as a compassionate methodical Nurse is to a psychopathic serial killer – they cannot compute or connect.

In Europe, the recognition of national polarities, and a return to its free trading origins may prove to be its off-ramp from Europe-wide deepening fractures.

Huh? What free-trading origins? Europeans origins are nothing other than slave-owning colonialist thievery and war-mongering conqueror paradigms. What’s with this making saints out of devils? These assholes have not been misled by “evil neoliberal neocon Americans” – these obnoxious self-righteous narcissistic racist European assholes wrote the damn Rule Book! What on earth is Crooke smoking?

Europe quietly is going multi-polar!

Oh bollocks. Take another ‘puff’.

Biden’s Washington apparently is not disposed to hear.

Well Doh! Tell us something we didn’t know for crying out loud. That’s one hell of a “conclusion” to arrive at – not! /s

Should we then scrap the model in which we are so heavily invested? Perhaps rather, we should attend to upcoming trends that behave differently to that which our old model predicts — the more persistent the surprises, the more likely we need a new model.

Death to this gobbledygook. My Kingdom for some coherency! Do a writers course at least. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. And make some logical sense the average person will understand while you do it.
But there is still more word salad to come, this time about

…. the radical identity politics of the French Revolution!

The What? Until today, I had never heard about that load of imaginary codswallop in my entire life. God truly hates me. Of that I am now certain.
But no, there’s still more on how to talk about absolutely nothing, to no end without end:

Empires had existed for millennia, but their virtue was having been driven by a vigorous cultural energy until the energetic impulse finally fades to a rustle amongst the leaves

Get me a bunch of Flowers and a Vase forthwith Pasquale. All this waxing lyrical like a forlorn Yeats but who never really could cut it at Cambridge is going to my head. My Kingdom for a Metaphor that works dear Hamlet.
Like I said Tedious. Painful and Tedious! Finally succumbing to ennui and utter despair!
Woe is me, only to then be further bashed into silence when appraised it was that very same French Revolution what did deliver to us a modern life of existential, nihilistic, amoral and predatory imperialism.
Oh poor me, I cry out in vain dear Horatio my love! Maybe Marie Antoinette was right after all. The answer was always Cake!
Cake and nudity ….

… the rest of the world sees it as ‘naked’ — a naked Emperor — a grasping primacy, justified through self-attributed superiority, that once may have held some validity, but which today has descended into narcissism and sociopathy — woke anti-culture and weaponised dysfunctionality — used as coercive tools by which to ‘rule’.

Really? When is enough enough Alastair mon ami?
– weaponised dysfunctionality – jeezus really? Was that absolutely necessary?
– coercive tools by which to ‘rule’ – and One Tool to Rule them All! ~Tada!
OMG, please stop!
Surprisingly, or maybe strangely, the best part of this entire piece was actually written by a Saud:

Well where the F*** were you in 2001, 2003 and ever since pal? Oh yeah, I remember. You were All In and All the Way with the US of A! Oh yeah baby!
Well sorry, but F*** You Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz, and all your inbred Cousins
Don’t come crying crocodile tears on my lap you self-righteous pathological little smarmy prick.
Stick it where the sun don’t shine! And find yourself a better press agent than Alastair Crooke.
No more Alastair Crooke for me. I value my sanity. Ha ha.

Posted by: SeanAU | Nov 8 2022 9:44 utc | 185

I believe there are anti-war protests in Europe. But it seems these protests do not get much visibility in the news. Does anyone have an overview of which countries have protests?

Posted by: Passerby | Nov 8 2022 9:47 utc | 187

Bonaparte and (separately) Hitler have taught the world twice that blitzkrieg and crushing victories can be followed by severe defeats.
Russia is unlikely to forget that teaching.

Posted by: lahire | Nov 8 2022 9:49 utc | 189

I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on. It is all too insane and too contradictory, too mysterious.
Like now Russia seems to be getting really serious: reinforcements, bombing the whole nation putting out the lights..
Yet attacks by Kiev go on unabated apparently..
And fuel flows in to Kiev’s forces, unabated, apparently…
And that’s just the beginning of the insanity – how can Germany and UK etc. be literally killing their own nations and their own citizens in the name of sanctions that anyway DON’T WORK ?
I fail to see any rationality anywhere. Anyone know where i can find some?

Posted by: abrogard | Nov 8 2022 9:58 utc | 191

@ Paul Greenwood # 184
“US will walk away and leave Europe in the mess it left Iraq and Afghanistan…….no doubt EU Commission is underwriting the cost of US weapons to Kiev – another VdL secret deal to be discovered down the road ?”
When a few days ago Bandella was elected as the new head of the notorious French nationalist RN, previously FN, and the blond avenging angel of the petite bourgeois, Lepen, resigned, the door was opened to Europe’s new right-wing conservatism on a large scale. Count on 2027.
We now have Italy, Sweden, Hungary and with Bandella quite right-wing extremists who might warm to the Republicans but not to Trump. Germany’s AfD will become at least member of the governing part of the government, not just a opposition.
If these nationalists are not sufficiently bribed, NATO will break up. And then the whole circus will start all over again: the Europeans will start bashing each other’s heads in again. They will never accept digital currencies and all this woke nonsense.

Posted by: Ted | Nov 8 2022 10:05 utc | 193

Posted by: lahire | Nov 8 2022 9:05 utc | 182
As you can see I’ve done my research.
I. WITHOUT INVESTIGATION, NO RIGHT TO SPEAK
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it.
Too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into the social and historical facts of a
problem and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be
nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to
deprive you of the right to speak? Many comrades merely keep their eyes shut and talk
nonsense all the time, and for the Communist Party that is disgraceful. How can a communist
keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’ t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://prchistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/%25E6%25AF%259B%25E6%25B3%25BD%25E4%25B8%259C%25E8%25AE%25BA%25E8%25B0%2583%25E6%259F%25A5%25E7%25A0%2594%25E7%25A9%25B6.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjbj6Pqr577AhWqMjQIHenpDjgQFnoECA4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0ni2JE4JEWKb9fMZouwEP1

Posted by: Surferket | Nov 8 2022 10:32 utc | 195

@Surferket #195
Truly devastating and sorry for overlooking that
I will rather stick to the Confucean wisdom, though …

Posted by: lahire | Nov 8 2022 11:04 utc | 197

@SeanAu
Enjoy the lunar eclipse..
Yes. Had a magnificent view. No cloud. Very red. Very black. I don’t bother with Halloween, but it should have been tonight… great ghoulish vibes

Posted by: Melaleuca | Nov 8 2022 11:37 utc | 199