The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-37

February 12, 2023

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

Feb 6 – NYT Plants False Claims Over China's Balloon Communication
Feb 8 – China Rejects "Shoot First, Talk Later" Attitude
Feb 11 – Airforce Spent Millions To Shot Down A Failed U.S. Weather Balloon – Biden Is Happy It Did So
Related:
– Weather Balloons (U.S.: 75,000 per year!) – National Weather Service
– US jet shoots down ‘unidentified object’ over northern Canada – CNN
– New unidentified ‘cylindrical’ object shot down over Canada – Washington Post
– Multiple F-35s shot down in 3-hour dogfight with Chinese balloon – Duffelblog
The Air Force is said to be 'encouraged' by the outcome

Feb 6 – Earthquake Damage In Syria Must Lead To Sanction Relief
Related:
– Turkey-Syria earthquake: Aid gap reveals western double standards – Elijah J Magnier / MEE
– Turkey earthquake opened 190-mile-long fissure, satellite images show – Yahoo
– As Anger Swells Over Quake, Turkey Detains Building Contractors – NY Times

Trollstoy @Trollstoy88 – 10:55 UTC · Feb 11, 2023

A new fault formed in Turkey after the earthquake.

The depth of the fault is ~30 m, and the width is ~200 m.
Meanwhile, the number of victims in Turkey and Syria has exceeded 23 35 thousand and the number of injured is already about above 100 thousand.
Embedded video

Feb 7 – NYT On Ukraine – Real Reporting, Propaganda For Balance, Ominous Warning
Related:
– Zelensky is Getting Desperate – Newsweek
– Zelensky takes credit for derailing Minsk agreements – RT
The Ukrainian president claimed he personally refused to implement the deals for peace in Donbass
– Olaf Scholz furious after minister ‘went behind back’ over Ukraine tanks – Yahoo
– Setting the Record Straight; Stuff You Should Know About Ukraine – M. Whitney – UNZ
– Ukraine’s rocket campaign reliant on U.S. precision targeting, officials say – Washington Post
– Russia blocks access routes for Western arms supplies to Ukraine: Moscow defence ministry – SCMP
– The 3rd world war has begun: Escalation in Ukraine will change everything- Emmanuel Todd
(vid, 1:45h, English subs) – Elucid – Must view!

Feb 8 – Hersh: "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline"
Feb 9 – Some Small Corrections To Seymour Hersh's New Nord Stream Revelations
– Craig Murray: Sy Hersh & The Way We Live Now – Consortium News
– Ray on Sy Hersh’s Article on Blowing Up Nord Stream (vid, 20m) – Ray MavGovern
Ray makes an important point about shocks effects of incidents like the Reichstag fire and the Nord Stream destruction
– Nord Stream pipeline & sabotaging peace w/Jeffrey Sachs (Live) (vid, 30m) – The Duran
– Washington owes world an explanation of Nord Stream explosion: Global Times editorial – Global Times

Feb 10 – Twitter Censorship And The Crapification Path Of Social Media
Related:
– The FBI’s Most Controversial Surveillance Tool Is Under Threat – Wired
– Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news – Washington Examiner
Major ad companies are increasingly seeking guidance from purportedly "nonpartisan" groups claiming to be detecting and fighting online "disinformation." These same "disinformation" monitors are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and shutting down disfavored speech, according to sources familiar with the situation, public memos, and emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.
– Freelancers Wanted: Help Knock Out the Mainstream Propaganda Machine – Matt Taibbi

> State-directed censorship is scary, but the more disturbing activity we’re seeing inside companies like Twitter involves what you might call “offensive” information operations, a type of aggressive official messaging that all governments practice but is supposed to be restricted by law in the United States.
…
The irony is the entire field of “disinformation studies” itself has the features of an inorganic astroturfing operation. Disinformation “labs” cast themselves as independent, objective, politically neutral resources, but in a shocking number of cases, their funding comes at least in part from government agencies like the Department of Defense. Far from being neutral, they often have clear mandates to play up foreign and domestic threats while arguing for digital censorship, de-platforming, and other forms of information control. <

—
Other issues:

Covid-19:

Vaxxing Risks for the Elderly – Ron Unz / UNZ
SARS-CoV-2 variant biology: immune escape, transmission and fitness – Nature
The pandemic after the pandemic: Long covid haunts millions of people – Washington Post

Iran:

Behind The Iranian Riots (Oct 22) – Moon of Alabama
Iran’s unrest triggers explosion of fake news – Grayzone
Iran has largely crushed protests, but a spirit of defiance still burns – Yahoo
Iran Trade Mechanism INSTEX is Shutting Down – Bourse and Bazaar

Use as open (not Ukraine related) thread …

Posted by b on February 12, 2023 at 15:24 UTC | Permalink

Comments

If it will be permitted. Note one Anthony Fauci is a main author.
https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(22)00572-8#%20
Published in Cell January 11 of this year. Begins with a Summary in plain English, followed by an Introduction in plain English. The story Fauci gives here is completely at odds with what has previously been sold. It would be a gift from Heaven to any plaintiff’s attorney except that the authors are confident they are above the law.
Also directly addresses the viremia issue that caused long wandering comments threads here. Much of the article is simply a review of what was long settled knowledge before 2019.

Posted by: oldhippie | Feb 12 2023 15:38 utc | 1

February 2023 pegs out a new all-time low for Antarctic sea ice, as of now.

“On 8 February 2023, at 2.20 million square kilometres, the Antarctic sea ice extent had already dropped below the previous record minimum from 2022 (2.27 million square kilometres on 24 February 2022). Since the sea ice melting in the Antarctic will most likely continue in the second half of the month, we can’t say yet when the record low will be reached or how much more sea ice will melt between now and then,” says Prof Christian Haas, Head of the Sea Ice Physics Section at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), with regard to the current developments in the Antarctic. “The rapid decline in sea ice over the past six years is quite remarkable, since the ice cover hardly changed at all in the thirty-five years before. It is still unclear whether what we are seeing is the beginning of a rapid end to summer sea ice in the Antarctic, or if it is merely the beginning of a new phase characterised by low but still stable sea ice cover in the summer.”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230210115551.htm

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Feb 12 2023 15:58 utc | 2

This is by far the most momentous of these week-in-review posts you have given us,b, and for that I thank you.
Most important is the monumental scale of the catastrophic earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. Our prayers must go to both nations for what has happened there. As you post, b, to say these were earthquakes doesn’t do justice to what took place – it was a rift in the techtonic plates which occasioned casualties on a different scale from that of a single quake, no matter the strength of the occurrence.
Today is in Orthodoxy the pre-Lenten feast day (all Sundays are feast days, even in Lent, for Orthodox Christians) of the Prodigal Son. I omitted noting last Sunday’s feast, that of the Publican and the Pharisee. These are known as Preparatory feast days – two more being observed before Lent itself begins.
Our prayers this morning are for all families affected by this catastrophe. Thank you, b. May it bring nations closer together in spite of the enormous rifts being orchestrated by those who would keep us apart.

Posted by: juliania | Feb 12 2023 16:23 utc | 3

The Hersh story has the alternosphere going bonkers. Pepe Escobar writes “A little narrative problem is that Norway, unlike the U.S. Navy, still does not have any operational P-8 Poseidon.”
That’s not a small problem Pepe, that means that the terrorist attack on Nord Stream could not have happened the way Hersh said it did.
Ergo: Hersh or (more likely) his source is simply lying.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 16:25 utc | 4

And the whole trigger by bouy-thing doesn’t work because the explosions where 65 kilometres and more than 12 hours apart.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 16:41 utc | 5

@Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 16:41 utc | 7

And the whole trigger by bouy-thing doesn’t work because the explosions where 65 kilometres and more than 12 hours apart.

Interesting. Do you have a reference for the 12 hour difference. The notoriously unreliable Wikipedia claims it was even longer, 17 hours.

On 26 September at 02:03 local time (CEST), an explosion was detected originating from Nord Stream 2; a pressure drop in the pipeline was reported and natural gas began escaping to the surface southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. Seventeen hours later, the same occurred to Nord Stream 1, resulting in three separate leaks northeast of Bornholm.[8][9] All three affected pipes were rendered inoperable;

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 16:54 utc | 6

Jörgen Hassler@4….not lying, he just doesn’t have all the info. I found it interesting Pepe in his article mentions the flight tracker data showing the P8’s flight path, unfortunately he failed to credit the original source for that flight tracker data info. The P8 came in from Greenland or near, likely Thule, met up with a KC tanker over the Baltics and took a drink for just over an hour. The P8 was flying on fumes, most refueling takes about 30 mins or less. It hung out flying loops until air space was clear then dropped down to release height. Likely remote drone type devices, after release the P8 returns to altitude taking a straight flight path back the way it came. The P8 is the smoking gun. Matters little what caliber.
Cheers M
When watching the flight tracker data, the airspace over the entire area was empty at the time, except for the P8. After a few hours the air space is crammed with regular air traffic again….suggesting a NOTAM was issued.

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 12 2023 16:58 utc | 7

Nazi Germany was a nation with the size and potential economic capacity of a state like California. Both of USA and URSS were more than capable of beating Nazi Germany when either of these successfully transitioned over to a total war economy. At the very beginning, more so Washington than Moscow, if only because USA was more developed.
The reason that Washington dragged its feet was because that wouldn’t really care about Nazi Germany and was hoping the nazis would destroy Moscow. D-Day happened when Washington started taking the war seriously after this became apparent that USSR had fully transitioned into a total war economy and was in the process of steamrolling Nazi Germany. The reason to finally shift to a total war economy and get into the war wasn’t to defeat Nazi Germany, as this had already become apparent that Moscow was going to do that, even if Washington hadn’t gotten involved but to ensure that Russians wouldn’t take Berlin and liberate nations like France.
Nazis had always expected Washington to stay out of the war as long as they were winning because they had support from a large segment of American politicians, industrialists and media elites in combination with so much of American population not wanting to enter another total war after so many young men who fought in the great war came back with severe post-traumatic stress disorders from modern weapons…
Europeans and anything, outside of nations like Russia, China, India and Brazil, often fail to realize just how large is USA, not just geographically but population and natural resource wise. USA already had the industrial development that USSR lacked at the start of the war, along with having both a large population and larger potential industrial capacity than all of the axis powers combined. When Washington decided to actually enter the war, its government began using the emergency powers granted from a formal war declaration to order all of existing industrial base that had been previously making consumer goods to be retooled into full scale production of military goods. Automotive factories were famously retooled to make vehicles like aircraft, battle tanks, armored troop carriers and landing craft at a scale that Nazi Germany, along with the other two axis powers, never had any hope of matching. American commercial shipyards went from producing blue water commercial shipping vessels to warships and attack submarines. When combining this with the population size, Washington was always going to beat a nation like Nazi Germany once deciding to enter the war, rather than just selling weapons to other nations involved in the war.

Posted by: Waye Cool | Feb 12 2023 16:59 utc | 8

Norwegian:
This is from the first report on SVT. “Den första explosionen registrerades vid klockan 02.03 på natten mot måndagen och den andra vid klockan 19.04 på måndagskvällen.”
The times are exact because the explosions were so powerful that they registered as small earthquakes.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 17:08 utc | 9

Washington and Brussels might start imposing secondary sanctions on countries that are going to help Moscow evading sanctions. Belgrade is already planning to sanction Moscow. I wonder if more powerful ones like Beijing, New Delhi, Jakarta, Brasilia and Ankara will comply.

Posted by: Enrhumée | Feb 12 2023 17:11 utc | 10

thanks b! that article on ‘multiple f 35’s shot down…’ is hilarious…
““It’s a balloon. We think your airplanes just suck,” read a statement from China’s People’s Liberation Army. “Actually, we know they suck because we make a lot of the parts here.”

Posted by: james | Feb 12 2023 17:15 utc | 11

@Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 17:08 utc | 11
Thank you, that is 17 hours as Wikipedia claimed. I agree this doesn’t fit very well with the Hersh article.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 17:16 utc | 12

I wouldn’t get why Russian media do Chinese propaganda instead of remaining neutral. Chinese people despise Russians and wouldn’t even consider Russia as a great power, much less as China’s equal, which would be a delusional take from them – China isn’t even as developed as a country like Azerbaijan and Chinese people are poorer than Belarusians.
Heck, Chinese men want to rape and impregnate Russian women to derussify and annex Russia’s far eastern region.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if Washington and Beijing secretly work together for screwing Moscow up, considering Guoanbu wouldn’t delete russophobic messages on Sina Weibo and Xi Jinping would need Chukotka or Sakha for China becoming an arctic state.

Posted by: Chily | Feb 12 2023 17:19 utc | 13

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 12 2023 16:58 utc | 9
I think the attack was probably carried out the way you describe. I remember Scott Ritter saying something similar back when it happened.
Thing is, as an ex reporter, an honest one, I take issue with Hersh. If you don’t have all the facts you can’t make things up.
I think this all comes down to the toxic us media tradition of attributing facts to anonymous sources. During my ten years as a reporter I never did that.
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t have them, but I either double checked and found a quoteable source, or I was convinced of the truth of the statement to print it as something I knew (and thus taking the risk of looking a fool if it turned out to be wrong).
Btw: do you know your way around maritime trackers? Could you find out if there even where any atle class minesweepers in the area the weeks before the explosions?
I don’t think it’s the normal area of operations for the norwegian navy.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 17:23 utc | 14

‘Hole’ in Russia’s budget had set a record since 1998…
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/02/06/dira-v-rossiiskom-byudzhete-ustanovila-rekord-s-defolta-1998-goda-a33105

Posted by: Milice | Feb 12 2023 17:25 utc | 15

“..That’s not a small problem Pepe, that means that the terrorist attack on Nord Stream could not have happened the way Hersh said it did.
Ergo: Hersh or (more likely) his source is simply lying.” Jörgen Hassler@4
You missed out the interesting bit-the motive.
If, as you say, Hersh or his source was lying, why would he do so? According to your theory the “lie” is easily enough detected.
So easily that I think that we can assume that Hersh would have realised that his source was lying.
Why would he do this ?
Your comments all lead in one direction. They are designed to cast doubt on the story’s authenticity.
What are your motives?
We know what the motives of others trying to discredit the story are-they want to protect Biden and the US from being called to account.
I doubt that you share that motive, perhaps the importance of the story’s central charges elude you.
These are a couple of reasons why the story is important:
1/ It describes an act of war by the United States against Germany and Russia.
2/ It outlines a course of action designed to bypass the US Constitution, carried out not by the CIA or any other agency arrogating power but by the President, himself.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 12 2023 17:34 utc | 16

@bevin | Feb 12 2023 17:34 utc | 18
Arguments based on supposed motives only have little value beyond constructing hypotheses that must be checked against verifiable facts.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 17:43 utc | 17

Posted by: bevin | Feb 12 2023 17:34 utc | 18
I’m unsure why you ask that, I just wrote I concur with sean the leprechauns assessment of how events unfolded. And I constantly call the attack ‘terrorist’.
What that means for your president or the sacramental piece of paper you call a constitution — well I don’t care. I know that will be hard for an American to accept, but it’s the truth.
Was it an act of war? According to international law it clearly was.
I think the problem is not Hersh, he is probably just sloppy, the problem is the source. Any reporter knows that all sources have an agenda. The agenda of this one is probably to get the cia off the hook and the mi6 out of the picture.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 17:49 utc | 18

oldhippie wrote: “directly addresses the viremia issue that caused long wandering comments”
What long wandering comments about viremia?
You are the only person I have seen making any comments about viremia and now that you discovered Fauci, also babbling about viremia, you think you can babble about it some more?
FYI: vascular damage, cardiac damage and clotting disorders that are caused by covid (even mild cases) can and do occur without any evidence of the virus floating around in the blood plasma.

Posted by: jinn | Feb 12 2023 18:05 utc | 19

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 17:43 utc | 19
Some thing just struck me. If the reason for the “leak” is to save cia and mi6, why the Norway thing? Doesn’t make sense.
This is pure speculation, but suppose they are also trying to get some one else out of the picture. Who?
Well the cia/mi6 have the capacity to carry out the attack, but the Baltic is a complicated sea (I live just a hundred meters from it, so I know the beast well). Thus you would want some one with knowledge of the local conditions.
The norwegians? Well they are close, but the fjords are very different from the Baltic. Just north of the blast sites, on the Swedish main land, you find Karlskrona. That’s the site of the high command of the Swedish navy and our biggest naval base. The Swedish navy opposed the nord stream pipelines because they claimed they were a threat to our national security. (Something about service stations that could be used by the Russians to spy on us if I remember correctly.)
How’s that for a coincidence?

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 18:05 utc | 20

European officials had no clue about whereabouts of 86% of CBR’s frozen assets.
https://tass.com/economy/1574329

Posted by: Fleur Bleue | Feb 12 2023 18:14 utc | 21

uh maybe the source wants to make sure Biden is implicated, what is the problem with that? the CIA doesn’t run everything in Washington, the president himself is a major player, which is why the CIA and FBI wanted to get rid of Trump in the first place. the president can drive things sometimes. I don’t see how that discredits the story, and i’m not sure why people want to.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Feb 12 2023 18:21 utc | 22

@Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 18:05 utc | 23
Good point. That is an alternative (motive based) hypothesis, and a plausible one. We need to understand what the facts are telling us to figure out which hypothesis is true. I agree the Baltic Sea is very different from both the Norwegian Sea and the fjords.
Maybe the Swedish navy wanted to “qualify” for Swedish membership in NATO? As we all know, Swedish NATO-membership has been on the agenda. We can speculate like that, but only the facts can provide the answers. To be clear, I have no information that the Swedish navy was involved.
The wars in Ukraine and Syria prove that CAI/MI6 prefer to operate via proxies. It seems to me they would prefer to blame someone else (including ‘allies’) even if they bombed NS2 themselves.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 18:25 utc | 23

Posted by: pretzelattack | Feb 12 2023 18:21 utc | 25
The source’s motive doesn’t discredit the story as long as the facts check out. Problem is they don’t.

Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 18:37 utc | 24

The video by Emmanuel Todd is terrific. I really don´t like to watch these talking heads, but this really is a must see. He covers a lot of ground and no one could have said it better. Thanks b.

Posted by: c | Feb 12 2023 18:38 utc | 25

Feb 12 2023 16:25 utc | 4
‘operational capability’ is a tested weapon system, with x aircraft, associated trained crews for a set of missions for the x aircraft and the huge logistics tail for the x aircraft. the system is used prior that milestone, which for norway is likely 2026.
norway received its 1st p-8 in june 2022….. ‘operational capability’ is not necessary to use a profit driven weapon, see f-35, which has not proven a large and important part of its requirements but has been used for years, mainly for the headlines.
that threblig of mistake is not alone in the article: the norweigan version us dod an/tps 75 radar going in up north norway is primarily a transportable warning and control radar, with imaging usage that can do intelligence if used for such.
my disagreement with hersch is he does not get inside report on the undersea surveillance which is highly classified and has the proof!
if hersch were wrong germany, sweden and usa could unclas the sensor records….
rather than shoot down weather balloons all over north america.

Posted by: paddy | Feb 12 2023 18:39 utc | 26

Amarynth recently republished an essay about The City which I remember reading when it was first published last November. In it is mention of a FOIA document which drew my attention:

…a copy of a document that was released by the CIA under a FOIA request. It is not a CIA document and it is not clear why it would have been in the possession of the CIA. The document is not redacted, but the original author is not identified. The salient point of this document indicates the existence of a group somewhere within the CIA that operates independently, acting under the auspices and authority of the CIA but with its own purpose and agenda unrelated to the remainder of the organisation. The document maddeningly lacks precise details but the implication is that this group does not report to any part of the CIA and that its activities may not even be known by the CIA executive. I had read of, or heard rumors about, such a group before, but this was the first bit of documented evidence of it.

IOW, it is suggested that there is a force operating not only beyond the law but not accountable nationally.
Sy Hersh references this same phenomenon in his recent substack essay where Pulitzer Prize journalists (small “j” journalist, referencing Emmanuel Todd’s capital “J” Journalists who today dominate the media) now publish:

There were subsequent newspaper revelations in the aftermath of the Watergate scandals about the Agency’s spying on American citizens, its involvement in the assassination of foreign leaders and its undermining of the socialist government of Salvador Allende.
Those revelations led to a dramatic series of hearings in the mid-1970s in the Senate, led by Frank Church of Idaho, that made it clear that Richard Helms, the Agency director at the time, accepted that he had an obligation to do what the President wanted, even if it meant violating the law.
In unpublished, closed-door testimony, Helms ruefully explained that “you almost have an Immaculate Conception when you do something” under secret orders from a President. “Whether it’s right that you should have it, or wrong that you shall have it, [the CIA] works under different rules and ground rules than any other part of the government.” He was essentially telling the Senators that he, as head of the CIA, understood that he had been working for the Crown, and not the Constitution.

Another matter which goes mostly unremarked in this recent constellations of provocations and revelations of deceptions is Bennett’s recent “peace negotiations” interview, pointing the finger at the primary alleged NS culprit which Hersh also identifies. Is this misdirection, I wonder, perhaps on several levels? Why now?
~~
Discerning signal from noise I leave to others more skilled in these matters but diagnosing the malady correctly is necessary to moving forward in the interest of humankind.
Things are not as they appear.
My neighbors and I are not deplorable sheep, the peoples of the world are not our enemy; the oligarchys’ playing field of foreign policy is dangerous delusion through which they harm and destroy authentic democracies.
—
https://thesakeris.global/2023/02/11/the-city-of-london/

Posted by: suzan | Feb 12 2023 18:42 utc | 27

“Multiple F-35s shot down in 3-hour dogfight with Chinese balloon”
the immensity of the success was underscored by general brown…
getting 7 usaf f-35’s off the ground in one week is cause for a national day of thanksgiving!

Posted by: paddy | Feb 12 2023 18:48 utc | 28

That’s odd how Western media are starting to ‘debunk’ theories of the ‘high-frequency active auroral research program’ causing Türkiye-Syria’s earthquakes…

Posted by: Cala | Feb 12 2023 19:00 utc | 29

Wikipedia on P-8 Poseidon:
On 29 March 2017, Norway signed a contract for five P-8As, to be delivered between 2022 and 2023.[128] On 13 July 2021, Boeing
rolled out first P-8As Poseidon aircraft from the paint shop for Norway.[129] The first aircraft was delivered on 18 November 2021. It is to be operated by the 133 Air Wing, 333 Squadron at Evenes Air Station.[130]
Posted by: Jörgen Hassler | Feb 12 2023 16:25 utc | 4
“A little narrative problem is that Norway, unlike the U.S. Navy, still does not have any operational P-8 Poseidon.”
… that means that the terrorist attack on Nord Stream could not have happened the way Hersh said it did.
Ergo: Hersh or (more likely) his source is simply lying.
————-
“Ergo” of Jörgen is not straightforward. Another possible conclusion is the Wikipedia is more reliable in this case than Pepe Escobar cite.

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 12 2023 19:03 utc | 30

Sputnik News:
Lavrov: US Officials Admit That They Are Responsible for Nord Stream Explosions
Copied, since many can’t access Sputnik News (obviously, I can):

Earlier this week, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh wrote an investigative piece describing in detail how US deep-water divers had planted explosives under three Nord Stream pipelines during the NATO Baltops drills last summer. The explosives were detonated remotely on September 26, 2022, at the order of President Joe Biden, Hersh wrote.
Officials in the United States admit that they were behind the explosions at the Nord Stream pipeline, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday.
“Now they even enjoy talking about it,” the foreign minister said, adding that the US sabotaged the Russian pipeline in order to destroy a powerful alliance based on Russian energy resources and German technology that began to threaten the monopoly of many American corporations.
Lavrov’s comments come on the heels of a bombshell revelation by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh, who wrote an investigative piece earlier this week into the gas pipeline explosions. Based on information from sources, the journalist wrote that during the NATO Baltops exercise in the summer of 2022, US Navy divers planted explosives under the Nord Stream pipelines, which were detonated three months later at the order of US President Joe Biden. According to Hersh, Biden decided to sabotage Nord Stream after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team.
Hersh also cited a source with direct knowledge of the US operational planning as saying that Norway played a key role in helping the United States organize the attack and keep the Swedish and Danish navies in the dark. The Pentagon has denied responsibility for the blasts.
Sputnik has analyzed Flightradar24 data showing that US and German navy aircraft regularly circled over the sites of future explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines during the NATO Baltops 22 exercise last summer.
Between June 8 and June 16, 2022, German and US maritime surveillance aircraft P-3 Orion and P-8 Poseidon carried out regular flights over the sites of future Nord Stream blasts. The military aircraft descended to low altitudes and turned off transponders in almost every flight, so some of their trajectories remained unrecorded.
On June 8, the American Poseidon aircraft circled over the sites of three future explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines northeast of Bornholm Island. The German P-3 Orion aircraft then flew over a future blast site east of the island. On June 9, the Poseidon aircraft flew over the sites northeast and east of Bornholm.
From June 11 to June 15, the US Poseidon aircraft circled precisely over the sites of future Nord Stream sabotage acts every day, often making many turns and loops at low altitude. On June 16, the German P-3 Orion flew over the area. The minimum flight altitude of US and German military aircraft over the Baltic Sea around the location of the gas pipelines was less than 600 meters (0.4 miles). However, it could have been even lower in those parts of the flights that were not recorded by the open monitoring system.
Late last month, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland hailed the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, saying that “the [US] administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out that Nuland’s words were “proof of the Biden administration’s approval of the terrorist attack that destroyed civilian infrastructure, as well as evidence of Washington’s motive for undermining global energy security.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for his part, described the pipeline explosions as a “tremendous opportunity,” which would enable EU nations to become less dependent on Russian energy.
The blasts occurred on September 26, 2022 at three of the four strings of Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually. The incidents halted gas deliveries to Germany ahead of the cold season, prompting a gas price hike and a scramble for alternative sources in the European Union. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched separate investigations into the sabotage, with German media reporting trust issues among the three EU nations. The Russian chief prosecutor’s office said it had opened an inquiry into possible international terrorism.

I note that Sputnink News does not mention any Norwegian plane in the article.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 19:07 utc | 31

Leprechaun: is it know who operated P-8 flight that you have found?
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Feb 12 2023 16:58 utc | 9

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Feb 12 2023 19:07 utc | 32

@Piotr Berman | Feb 12 2023 19:03 utc | 33
https://www.forsvaret.no/en/news/articles/first-p-8
Norway’s first new P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft touched Norwegian ground for the first time at 21:30 Norwegian time on Thursday 24 February 2022.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 19:22 utc | 33

FWIW, some many moons ago I read in some book about Watergate that Hersh said, that he would intentionally change details in his pieces to protect his sources.
Also there might be other reasons why things don’t add up completely. Maybe his source wasn’t involved in all the details, maybe plans needed to be changed, etc.
For me Hersh’s story plus the 2nd whistleblower and the P8 flight track give enough credibility that I believe he got the basics quite correct. Maybe there will be other revelations. Didn’t he say that more will be coming?

Posted by: Zet | Feb 12 2023 19:23 utc | 34

Zylensky is a war criminal.

Posted by: RexL | Feb 12 2023 19:25 utc | 35

Western museums are starting to do historical revisionism to erase Russian culture.

Posted by: Vilapede | Feb 12 2023 19:26 utc | 36

Some of us get it: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/us-is-preparing-australia-to-go-to-war-against-china-claims-former-diplomat/news-story/33cc01cd8b99c721ae5c792da5948e70
Yes, it is a garbage tabloid – but it occasionally runs articles that would never fly at more respected outlets.

Posted by: Rae | Feb 12 2023 19:29 utc | 37

b 🙂

– Multiple F-35s shot down in 3-hour dogfight with Chinese balloon – Duffelblog
The Air Force is said to be ‘encouraged’ by the outcome

Brief yet hilarious article. All good humor is based on truths. LOL
@ bevin | Feb 12 2023 17:34 utc | 18
Have you carefully parsed the articles by Helmer, Whitney, Escobar & others along with multiple RF media, including official statements & remarks ?
Reds under the Beds, is now, covert CIA posters ? At the very least personally impugned.
Why has Hersh never been targeted by the State or Agencies of factions for his supposed extremely damaging ‘scoops’ ? Could it be because he is literally used by various competing factions from time to time re their internal power-plays, hm ?

Posted by: Outraged | Feb 12 2023 19:31 utc | 38

CEIP claimed Russia’s growing use of renminbis would be no threat to dollars and this could end up to hurt Moscow.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/dollar-dominance-russia-china-yuan-currency-war-greenback-western-sanctions-2023-2
CBR should exchange 70% of its renminbis reserve for reais, rupees, dongs, ringgits, riyals, bahts, rupiahs and dirhams to have a diversity of currencies. Depending on China seems like a stupid thing to do but, hey, they’re same people who let most of CBR’s foreign-exchange reserves within Washington’s vassals before launching an invasion against another of Washington’s vassals. I wouldn’t think Russian officials have any idea what they are doing.

Posted by: Fëanor | Feb 12 2023 19:33 utc | 39

Jörgen Hassler@20
So now it would seem clear that Norway did have the aircraft in question and had had them for about six months when the pipelines were blown up. It is quite possible that the ‘planes, though in Norwegian livery, were piloted by US airmen. It doesn’t matter, though it might to Congress.
As to my nationality, its irrelevant but I am not a US citizen, or resident. And have no great respect for the US Constitution. On the other hand Biden and the military have sworn oaths to protect and respect the said document. It matters little to me but it might to Congress.
I am not an American but I am a student of US history and I have noticed that, starting with Clinton in 1993, we have had a succession of Presidents who have vied with each other in their contempt for the law and for any code of morality.
Perhaps some who know the history more can explain of there has ever been a more openly, boastful corrupt and criminal President in the country’s history.
As has been mentioned before : Nordstream makes both Iran Contra and Watergate look like minor scandals.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 12 2023 19:48 utc | 40

The US and Canadian governments continue to amuse us by shooting down balloons with F-22 aircraft.
Now that Russia and China know this is the response, every time the US does a provocation in Taiwan, Ukraine, or elsewhere, just send a swarm of 200 – $2700 balloons over the NORAD system.
You can buy them in bulk on Alibaba…
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-hot-sale-surveillance-balloon-with_60454941082.html

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 12 2023 19:56 utc | 41

bevin @18–
IMO, it wasn’t Biden as he doesn’t have the brain for that anymore. But you do have the “place” correct–the office of the president. Lurking in that office is the person(s) who did the planning, IMO NSA Sullivan, who has a very dark neocon background and the “proper” scruples for such work. Sure, Biden okayed it and is thus ultimately responsible, but the real criminal is Sullivan and his crew, for it did take a small crew to do the planning and then the job itself.
I see there were no replies to my suggestion of the Thunderball scenario as a basis after someone had put forward the action as a James Bond type of thing, which it most certainly was. Recall that Thunderball was made in 1965, so the sort of underwater craft used to deliver explosives, to the mining and emplacement, etc., have had almost 60 years to become very sophisticated and capable of doing the job. I recall some neocon saying that we have all these tools lying around so why not put them to use–We can do it, so let’s do it. And we’ve never suffered any punishment for any of our criminal acts before.

Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 12 2023 20:01 utc | 42

Woke Imperialism du Jour
This all-female aircrew will make Super Bowl history in pregame stadium flyover
These flyovers and the national anthem have always disgusted me at sporting events.
I hear this year there will be no cryptocurrency ads like last year when they were being plugged by Matt Damon, LeBron James and I don’t remember who else. Whaddaya wanna bet that the Pentagram buys some expensive commercial airtime for some woke recruitment.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:04 utc | 43

The pipeline wasn’t exactly a one party thing. Idiots like Ted Cruz were also bitching about it for a long time. What if Brandon, Blinkin’, Noodland, etc. actually think they’re scoring points with the electorate when they brag about destroying it/saying it will not move forward? What if the vast majority of Americans don’t even know what’s in the Constitution other than the first two amendments? They certainly aren’t taught real American history in high school; it’s too “woke.”

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:11 utc | 44

@Jörgen Hussler
The Hersh story has the alternosphere going bonkers. Pepe Escobar writes “A little narrative problem is that Norway, unlike the U.S. Navy, still does not have any operational P-8 Poseidon.”
That’s not a small problem Pepe, that means that the terrorist attack on Nord Stream could not have happened the way Hersh said it did.
Ergo: Hersh or (more likely) his source is simply lying.
The Norwegian P-8 was delivered in March 2022. It had all the navigational systems and the sonar buoy drop equipment on it. What was still missing is the full submarine combat system and its controls. The Norwegians are developing that themselves. That is why the P-8 has not yet been declared ‘operational’.
But it was there and it could do the required job.
Helmer has a similar ridiculous piece on Hersh’s reporting as Pepe has. Helmer claims that the British were involved because someone hacked the phone of Liz Truss and that she send some ‘It’s done’ SMS to the U.S. after the pipeline went up.
But the hacking was found out about before the pipeline incident happened and she surly wasn’t allowed to use the phone that the Brits knew was compromised.

Posted by: b | Feb 12 2023 20:12 utc | 45

Surprised that b chose to post the covid links, given how triggered many here are by having their previous conclusions challenged.
With respect the the Ron Unz article, what he ignores is that introducing a “vaccine” (really an inoculation) during a pandemic encourages any virus to mutate in order to survive. This was fact was announced by virologists not dependent on sponsorship by big pharma early in this health crisis.
As should be obvious, it is in the financial interests of big pharma to encourage virus mutation, so that additional products can be developed and sold.
Full disclosure: 70 y.o. never received any flu (covid) inoculations. Not been seriously ill in this century, since my kids stopped bringing new viruses home from school.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 12 2023 20:13 utc | 46

Outraged@41
So you accuse me of cavalierly impugning the motives of Hersh’s critics, while hinting that Hersh himself, who hasn’t been able to find an American publisher for years, is in some way an asset of the Deep State?
I can only assume that your handle has been hi-jacked.
There is no doubt that, over the years Hersh’s revelations have caused very real embarrassment to those at the core of the Deep State. The Church Committee being as close to a near death experience as the CIA has had since its unfortunate birth.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 12 2023 20:14 utc | 47

That’s hilarious how y’all believe Russia is some regional power and Moscow’s voice actually matters. No one gave a single fig about Russia. This country was EU’s gas station that couldn’t even get respected by Moscow’s former vassals at this point. Moscow has the delusional project to pivot to Asia but seems like no one in Asia would want to meet Sergey Lavrov because Russia has nothing to offer but its natural resources, which already is selling at low prices anyway.

Posted by: Lune | Feb 12 2023 20:17 utc | 48

karlof1@45
I agree that Biden no longer has the brain to make rational decisions-which are left to the collective ‘brains trust’ (God help us!) that he has assembled.
On the other hand Joe’s instincts are evil and criminal- the brain is what might have restrained him from blowing up Nordstream, boasting that he was going to do so and telling the world that he used a billion dollar IMF loan to protect his son’s boss and benefactor from the law. So perhaps he is to blame and Nuland, Sullivan et al, bad as they are are not quite as stupid as they now appear.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 12 2023 20:20 utc | 49

Posted by: Vilapede | Feb 12 2023 19:26 utc | 39
Another example: https://www.rt.com/news/553248-national-gallery-renames-dagas/
What a sad time to be an American or Briton or German. All any of this does is prove that Russia is correct re: Donbass and genocide/ethnic cleansing and explains why we in the west weren’t and still aren’t allowed to know the full breadth and scale of the yearslong NATO/Nazi campaign to de-Russianize and re-define Ukraine as a country. Now anything Russia related is being erased without a peep of dissent, and in fact mostly to slack jawed cheers.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:21 utc | 50

Posted by: Lune | Feb 12 2023 20:17 utc | 51
Don’t feed the troll.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:21 utc | 51

Lune@51
Look at a map. Visit a library. Don’t drink so much.

Posted by: bevin | Feb 12 2023 20:23 utc | 52

@ Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:21 utc | 54
Time on his hands since he lost his job licking John McCain’s ummm… stamps.

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Feb 12 2023 20:23 utc | 53

Jacques Sapir implied EU could remain competitive without Russian energies if lowering wages to 25%…

Posted by: Larkette Duboisya | Feb 12 2023 20:25 utc | 54

One kind of trollish behavior — not limited to trolls btw — is pouncing on a brand-new blog posts with lengthy prefabbed comments. Speaking of which, whatever happened to c1ue?

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 20:26 utc | 55

“If America and everyone is so racist, terrible, and evil — as the ideologues, politicians, teachers, and celebrities say it is — then it is perfectly alright to treat society with a total disrespect and disregard for any and all past social norms. That new attitude of being justified to not care about law and order, combined with the new lax social justice policies — has led to a massive increase of crime and suffering in minority communities. ” From: The New Progressive World Order or: Rage Against The Deux Ex Machina

Posted by: kana | Feb 12 2023 20:27 utc | 56

Images of the unknown object that the Chinese intercepted over Rizhao were posted to Weibo.
https://i.redd.it/739qn9lvftha1.jpg

Posted by: too scents | Feb 12 2023 20:31 utc | 57

Posted by: Milice | Feb 12 2023 17:25 utc | 17
Moscow Times??? Well, that was your 1st mistake…
As for this:

‘Hole’ in Russia’s budget had set a record since 1998…

https://www.usdebtclock.org/ says “Hold my beer!”.
Advisory: if you have a condition that is triggered by fast-moving, flickering images you should not open this link. Some of the figures move almost as quick as a speedometer on a Kinzhal.

Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 12 2023 20:32 utc | 58

Good grief. Just had a long formatted comment flushed by the MoA platform software. I had two links in it. One was to an ArsTechnica article confirming what b wrote @ #46 re: the hack having been discovered when she was still the Foreign Minister and the other to a tweet by Kim Dotcom which I believe is the very basis of Russia’s demands to know more about the alleged “It’s done” text message supposedly sent to Blinken. IOW, unless the Russians had hacked Truss’ phone a second time (first time was a Samsung, next one was an iPhone, FWIW) the whole thing is made up bullshit. Such a text message was likely never sent and Dotcom is pranking everyone.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:33 utc | 59

Seems like Tehran felt abandoned by Beijing…
https://agsiw.org/abandoned-by-china-iran-gravitates-toward-russias-orbit

Posted by: Lycra | Feb 12 2023 20:35 utc | 60

Speaking of which, whatever happened to c1ue?
Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 20:26 utc | 56
LOL. As much as c1ue was condescending and repetitive about the environmental stuff, and often dead wrong about what happened and why, in Texas during the freeze of 2021 , I never considered him a troll. And from what james told me a week or two ago, he’s just busy with his professional pursuits and taking a break from commenting here.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:36 utc | 61

Tom_Q: I did try to define trollish behavior as not limited to trolls. Apparently I failed.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 20:38 utc | 62

According to Régis Le Sommier, Muscovite restaurants continue to sell Coca-Cola. That’s a shame how Russians wouldn’t replace Coca-Cola with Baikal, which would let PK Aqualife OOO to increase its production by building more factories to fully replace Coca-Cola and alternatives.
With this kind of mentality, Russia will never move forward and develop itself.

Posted by: Gorge | Feb 12 2023 20:38 utc | 63

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 20:38 utc | 64
Ha. Nah, the lack of reading comprehension skill falls on my end this time. I didn’t read your comment carefully enough because I was too busy LingOL.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:41 utc | 64

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 20:33 utc | 61
I experienced some glitchiness for a few minutes, with both the ‘Post’ and ‘Preview’ buttons greyed out.
Although I see the original post @17 that I was responding to has now gone. Maybe there’s an issue that causes posting to go wonky when b is doing some cleaning up?

Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 12 2023 20:47 utc | 65

Tom_Q:
The veriest test of Americanness is not just the inability but the sheer unwillingness to read what is in front of his face.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 20:47 utc | 66

On the gas pipes, we don’t have to know everything when we know a lot. . .regarding evidence:

Direct evidence is evidence of a fact based on a witness’s personal knowledge or observation of that fact. A person’s guilt of a charged crime may be proven by direct evidence if, standing alone, that evidence satisfies a jury beyond a reasonable doubt of the person’s guilt of that crime.
Circumstantial evidence is direct evidence of a fact from which a person may reasonably infer the existence or non-existence of another fact. A person’s guilt of a charged crime may be proven by circumstantial evidence, if that evidence, while not directly establishing guilt, gives rise to an inference of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The law draws no distinction between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence in terms of weight or importance. Either type of evidence may be enough to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, depending on the facts of the case as the jury finds them to be. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 12 2023 20:49 utc | 67

re : the authority under which cia acts
I specifically recall L.Fletcher Prouty quoting from the charter signed by Pres Truman that legally established the cia and defined the scope of its activities. Whether it was Prouty speaking and/or quoting the charter doc in his book [Secret Team] I am no loger certain. Prouty had access to that doc because of his own authority to act as liaison between cia and the US Military services, in which he operated as the Chief [Liaison Officer between cia and the USAF, USArmy and USNavy…[his precise title I do not recall, but it is publicly available info.]
Re: the authority under which cia was established. That Charter doc includes the phrase [I cannot be certain now of each word]
“…and as may be assigned from time to time by the President.”
John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles was given as the author of the cia Charter for HST’s signature.
Prouty, himself, made clear note of this “loophole” that legalized just about any activity. For example, after a Presidebt has died, any activity can be explained as having been previously authorized by the now dead President…even docs can be created after-the-fact and who can say otherwise? Verbal or non-verbal orders can be produced or claimed at will. [So? Whattaya gonna do about it?]
My recall of this matter goes back over 35 years ago, but that “loophole” is clear, if not actually verbatim. Never forgot it. How could I?

Posted by: chu teh | Feb 12 2023 20:51 utc | 68

On the vaccine, I recollect a video put out by Dr John Campbell. He displayed a graph showing that there were clearly various side effects from the vaccination. But the incidence of those side effects was greater for those who got Covid.
During the pandemic I knew and heard of many who’d got Covid, not necessarily the elderly, and who’d been seriously ill – near death. Also some deaths. I also heard of several cases of “Long Covid” in younger friends and acquaintances. Local hospitals were triaging at some stages so there was no doubt the pandemic was serious.
The question is not whether mistakes were made in the handling of the pandemic. There were bound to have been many. It’s whether there was some sort of conspiracy to inflict on us unnecessary treatment. It’s a question it’s OK to ask since we do know our governments can’t be trusted in other matters.
I saw no evidence of that and don’t believe it. There was nothing to see except a bunch of politicians and medics going all out to counter the pandemic.
The suggestion of a world wide conspiracy is a nuisance. It’s directing attention away from matters that do need to be looked into. Why did Germany, and particularly Denmark, cope better than the UK? What did they do that we in the UK didn’t do? What was the death rate in Russia, where vaccine take-up was said to be slow? Why were alternative treatments not looked at more carefully?
And there was an ugly streak of authoritarianism that often emerged. How could we better handle pandemics in the future without violating civil liberties. And did the pharmaceutical companies play their part adequately?
Plus the question still unanswered. Where did this disease come from?
Dozens of questions like that – but when public attention is directed mainly at a conspiracy that didn’t exist, it’s unlikely there’ll be much pressure to get them answered.

Posted by: English Outsider | Feb 12 2023 20:51 utc | 69

The Russians will establish a naval base in Port Sudan, first since the Soviet days.

The Sudanese authorities approved a deal on the establishment of a naval base of the Russian Navy in Port Sudan. As a result of the bidding, Russia agreed to revise a number of parameters of the deal, which the Sudanese insisted on in order to give the agreement a go. As a result, despite the resistance of the Americans, there will be a deal. And in the medium term, Russia will have its first deployment point in Africa since the days of the Soviet Union.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad/33158

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 20:53 utc | 70

@Don Bacon | Feb 12 2023 20:49 utc | 69

The law draws no distinction between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence in terms of weight or importance.

US law applies in the US only.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 20:55 utc | 71

What is this, dump on Americans day? And Hack’s not here to chime in. Too bad, you lack your best.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 12 2023 20:57 utc | 72

@ Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 20:55 utc | 73
re: US law applies in the US only.
That’s okay. Biden, Blinken and Austin are covered.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Feb 12 2023 20:59 utc | 73

Bacon:
As an American who has taught two generations of Americans, I know whereof I speak. Although, to be fair, there is worse: Germans for instance.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 21:01 utc | 74

Norwegian: if US law applied in the USA only, then Assange would be a free man. Or dead under suspicious circumstances.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 21:08 utc | 75

too scents | Feb 12 2023 20:31 utc | 59
I must have missed this story. Looks a lot like the surveillance blimp pictured at the top of this article, although it’s designed to operate tethered to the ground.

Posted by: S.P. Korolev | Feb 12 2023 21:15 utc | 76

@malenkov | Feb 12 2023 21:08 utc | 77

Norwegian: if US law applied in the USA only, then Assange would be a free man. Or dead under suspicious circumstances.

It is not the law that keeps him in prison, but lawlessness.

Posted by: Norwegian | Feb 12 2023 21:18 utc | 77

Norwegian: Only if you think that law is some fluffy Enlightenment fairness ideal. In reality law is a a pretext for the exertion if power.

Posted by: malenkov | Feb 12 2023 21:21 utc | 78

Posted by: West of England Andy | Feb 12 2023 20:47 utc | 67
I think it has to do with certain URLs. For some reason it never accepts links to some sites. When I repost with the link spread out, it always works. This happened the other day for this Substack article (which I still recommend reading).
ht tp s ://ez. substack. c om/p/the-rot-economy
Fingers crossed it goes through as such. Just remove the spaces.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 21:40 utc | 79

The Pentagram wants to send Special Ops propagandists back (?) to Ukraine.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/pentagon-wants-to-return-special
Her conclusion follows, but I recommend reading the whole thing as the last bit is really general commentary on the state of media here in “the west” since January of 2021 (and I’d argue since December 2013).

As we discussed recently, it’s very silly that there’s a major push in the US power alliance to begin administering more government propaganda in order to “counter Russian propaganda” when Russian propaganda has no meaningful influence in the western world. Before RT was shut down it was drawing just 0.04 percent of the UK’s total TV audience. The much-touted Russian election interference campaign on Facebook was mostly unrelated to the election and affected “approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content” according o Facebook, while research by New York University into Russian trolling behavior on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 election found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.” A study by the University of Adelaide found that despite all the warnings of Russian bots and trolls following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the overwhelming majority of inauthentic behavior on Twitter during that time was anti-Russian in nature.
In reality, this push we’ve been seeing to pour more and more energy into propaganda, censorship, and other forms of narrative control has nothing to do with “taking apart Russian propaganda” and everything to do with suppressing dissent. The US empire has been frantically ramping up propaganda and censorship because the “great power competition” it has been preparing against Russia and China is going to require economic warfare, massive military spending, and nuclear brinkmanship that no one would consent to without lots of manipulation. Nobody’s going to consent to being made poorer, colder, and less safe over some global power struggle that doesn’t benefit them unless that consent is actively manufactured.
That’s why the media have been acting so weird lately, that’s why dissident voices are getting harder and harder to find online, that’s the purpose of the new “fact-checking” industry and other forms of narrative control, and that’s why the Pentagon wants congressional funding for its propaganda operations in Ukraine. The fact that the empire’s “great power competition” happens to be occurring at the same time as widespread access to the internet means that drastic measures must be made to ensure its information dominance so it can march the public into playing along with this agenda. The more desperate our rulers grow to secure unipolar planetary domination, the more important controlling the narrative becomes.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 21:52 utc | 80

RE: Pentagon propaganda in Ukraine, is it even possible that a good percentage of it hasn’t been literal Nazification of the Ukrainian collective consciousness and erasure or denigration of Russian culture/influence?
I really wish some cables would come forth in a leak demonstrating proof of my theory, which again, is that since at least 2013 the US via the CIA, NED and various NGOs has been disseminating pro-Bandera, anti-Russia propaganda and actively recruiting for groups like the Azov Battalion. IOW poisoning the minds of Ukrainians in order to manufacture not just consent, but an appetite for deadly conflict and “cleansing” Eastern Ukraine of the Slavic/Russia-friendly undesirables. There’s just no way in hell that none of Vicky Nuland’s bragged-about $5Bn in “aid” to that country over God knows how many years wasn’t put to continuing, fomenting and nurturing Bandera/Nazi ideologies.
Similar is underway here at home as Johnstone’s article alludes.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 21:58 utc | 81

b @46
The story with Truss I heard was hysterical.
The compromised phone was detected and replaced as you’d expect but she just went straight back to using the same old ICloud account since she’s just that kind of genius.

Posted by: S.O. | Feb 12 2023 22:10 utc | 82

@ bevin | Feb 12 2023 20:14 utc | 48
Mistaken. No impostor.
Have read his every article since Mai Lai whilst events were in train, in real time, very especially so Abu Ghraihb. 51 years. Why has he not suffered a fatality via suicide, overdose, window/balcony fall/jump, car/plane/boat accident, imprisoned under the espionage act of for false pedophile charges or simply instantaneous combustion, to shut him the f*ck up ?
‘Cause he is a useful, alternately, faction managed perceived credible outlet. What other possible explanation given the body of his ‘scoops’?
No one should be relentlessly impugned for failing to accept his supposed personal impunity, integrity or infallibility, etc.
In any case, the partisan ’50’s style Cold War anti-Russia, rah-rah-rah USA all the Way, we are such clever & cunning Evil f*cks, style it was written in one finds offensive & unforgivable, given current situ, regardless of, ‘content’.
Which takes nothing whatsoever away from the known demonstrable exercise of contra-consitutional Imperium hijacked on behalf of the dementia ridden Prez, nor the aggressive Act of undeclared War, the ultimate War Crime, nor the internal US conspiracy to commit & conceal, along with further Acts of War against Treaty allies & further war crimes conspiratorial conduct with suborned vassals, etc.
Peace

Posted by: Outraged | Feb 12 2023 22:13 utc | 83

Gorge | Feb 12 2023 20:38 utc | 65
coke is it! it’s the real thing. maybe after things simmer down, Moscow will buy the world a coke?
“Dear God: help Moscow divest, and help us all to get our priorities straight.”

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Feb 12 2023 22:21 utc | 84

https://news.sky.com/story/us-military-shoots-down-another-unidentified-object-12809826

US military shoots down fourth unidentified flying object – described as ‘octagonal structure’
The take down is the fourth in just over a week and the third in as many days after objects were shot down in Alaska and Canada on Friday and Saturday respectively.

Apparently nobody can pick up a phone.

Posted by: too scents | Feb 12 2023 22:22 utc | 85

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 21:58 utc | 83
There are videos on Telegram which do show anti-Russian and pro NATO school books, even pre-school books. I didn’t save or bookmark them though :-/

Posted by: Zet | Feb 12 2023 22:22 utc | 86

Posted by: S.O. | Feb 12 2023 22:10 utc | 84
For one thing the original compromised phone wasn’t even an Apple product and thus didn’t use the iCloud. I tried to post the link earlier and it caused my comment to be auto-flushed, but here’s the relevant blurb:

Two photos published by Getty Images in May 2018 (this story’s intro image) and September 2019, show Truss using what is almost certainly a Samsung Galaxy Note8, a model that falls somewhere between the two extremes. This phone was eligible to receive security updates through at least October 2021, but the last major OS version release able to run on it was Android 9. That omission made it impossible for users to get additional security protections introduced in the September 2019 rollout of Android 10.

You can find the article at ArsTechnica dated October 31 of last year (2022).

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Feb 12 2023 22:25 utc | 87

JROTC and sexual violence in US schools. The real groomers are and always have been the USM, the coaches, teachers, admin, civic orgs like PTA and churches, Boy Scouts, etc.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/06/efvs-f06.html
The Times also reported that at least 33 of the program’s instructors were charged in sexual misconduct cases involving students. As a result of the recent spotlight, the Pentagon has admitted to 114 allegations of violence, sexual abuse or sexual harassment by JROTC instructors over the last 10 years.
However, according to Jackie Speier, a former Democratic congresswoman from California, the abuse is far more rampant. “It is chilling to think that after we have been addressing this issue for over 10 years within the military—where we know that cases exceed 20,000 to 30,000 a year and only 5,000 report, and we know that the chain of command has been part of the problem—to come and see this going on in our classrooms, in high school, is traumatizing to me, to be quite honest,” she said.

Posted by: rjb1.5 | Feb 12 2023 22:39 utc | 88

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