RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18952/europe-energy-victim

In this thesis [by Andrew Korybko, a ‘Moscow-based analyst’ financed by Russia’s autocratic government], which charges Europe with being the victim of an American plot, everything is false.

The truth is that Europe is a victim only of itself.

It was not the Americans who destroyed the German, French or Belgian nuclear capabilities.

It was not the Americans who banned the exploitation of shale gas in Europe.

The truth is that Europe has destroyed much of its ability to supply itself with natural gas.

Is it not high time for Europeans finally to face up to their responsibilities?

A common line of argument between Russian state propaganda and American conspiracy circles is proliferating these days, namely: the war in Ukraine was allegedly fomented by the Americans to destroy Europe.

For example, the American conspiracy website Revolver News easily refers to the geostrategic considerations of a leading expert on the war in Ukraine, Andrew Korybko. Incidentally, Korybko is also a ‘Moscow-based analyst’ financed by Russia’s autocratic government: a mere detail.

In this thesis, which charges Europe with being the victim of an American plot, everything is false. It is a childish and disempowering falsehood — which makes it attractive to unquestioning minds.

The truth is that Europe is a victim only of itself.

It was not the Americans who destroyed the German, French or Belgian nuclear capabilities.

It was not the Americans who banned the exploitation of shale gas in Europe. The founder and president of Center for Industrial Progress, Alex Epstein, explains:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18951/palestinians-iran-target-women-jews

This latest wave of terrorism is the direct result of the massive campaign of incitement against Israel and Jews by many Palestinians, including those belonging to the Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians have already made it clear that their true goal is to replace Israel, not live alongside it. The plan is to replace Israel with a fundamentalist Islamist state, controlled by the mullahs in Iran, who have no compunctions about beating an Iranian woman to death for not covering her hair.

If Iran’s mullahs are committing such atrocities against their own people, it is not hard to imagine what they will do to their much-hated enemies… Iranian missiles, eventually with nuclear warheads, are clearly being developed not just for Israel.

Consider the “new Axis of Evil,” Russia and Iran, complete with Iranian drones now being used by Russia against Ukraine. Imagine if those drones were, instead, nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles from Iran — especially as Russia will reportedly be in charge of Iran’s “compliance” and “excess” enriched uranium. An Iran with nuclear weapons would doubtless be a most welcome addition to Russia’s proxy arsenal.

The Biden administration would be doing a great service to Jews and Arabs alike by calling out the Palestinians for their continued campaign of incitement to violence against Jews.

In the past few years, the Palestinians have made it a habit to step up their manufactured incitement against Israel and Jews on the eve of Jewish holidays. This year has not been an exception.

In the days preceding the Jewish New Year holiday, celebrated in mid-September, Palestinian leaders, spokesmen and factions went on a frenzied campaign of threats, lies and misinformation that triggered a wave of violence and terrorism against Jews.

https://asiatimes.com/2022/10/were-nord-stream-explosions-really-a-military-accident/

The Baltic Sea’s floor is littered with WWII-era munitions and weapons.

On September 27, two explosions severely damaged Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, setting off wild speculation about possible sabotage.

Another two breaks in the pipeline, a tad to the north in Sweden’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), were later identified but no explosions were reported.  According to news sources citing Danish officials, each explosion was equivalent to 500 kilograms of TNT, the size of very large anti-shipping mines.

Not only the US Navy (together with its NATO allies) but also the Russian Navy conduct naval exercises in the Baltic Sea and many believe either the Russians or Americans are clandestinely responsible for the two blasts. Predictably enough, the two sides have blamed each other in loud and emphatic terms – without corroborating or credible evidence.

Unmentioned amid the incendiary speculation is the explosive condition of the Baltic seabed, which is loaded with dumped artillery shells, chemical weapons including Tabun nerve gas and mines. Under an agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Britain and the Soviet Union dumped approximately 69,000 tons of Germany’s chemical weapons stockpile into the Baltic Sea in 1947-48.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18950/russia-ally-nuclear-iran

As one of the signatories of the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the flawed nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, Russia, as well as China, will ultimately have a say in any new agreement that emerges from the Vienna talks.

Rather than seeking to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Beijing and Moscow are more interested in forming an alliance with Iran to counter what they denounce as America’s unilateralism, and thwarting “draconian” US sanctions.

Given Moscow’s open hostility towards the West, it is abundantly clear that the Kremlin wants to exploit the weakness of the Biden administration to ensure the negotiations provide an even more unsatisfactory deal than the one signed off by Barack Obama in 2015, one that completely fails to address the very real threat Iran’s nuclear weapons will pose to the wider world.

From Moscow’s perspective, having a nuclear-armed Iran, one that is Russia’s ally, will greatly enhance its ability to challenge the West.

In return, Iran has formed a new “axis of evil” with Moscow, providing it with weaponry, such as sophisticated drones, to support its war effort in Ukraine, while at the time providing assistance to Tehran to evade the effects of Western sanctions.

While these two despotic regimes seem determined to forge an ever closer alliance, however, their objectives are completely at odds with the demands of their respective citizens, whose primary concern is securing their freedom, not supporting the military aspirations of the ruling elites.

There is growing concern in Washington that US President Joe Biden is preparing to sign a new deal with Tehran once the midterm elections have been concluded, and that his officials are prepared to sign a far weaker version of the deal than that originally agreed to in 2015.

That would be a grave miscalculation on the part of the Biden administration.

This should be the moment when the US and its allies are intensifying the pressure on both Iran and Moscow, not capitulating to their interests with a weak nuclear deal which will only encourage them to indulge in further acts of aggression against the West and its allies.

The nationwide anti-government protests sweeping Russia and Iran demonstrate that, despite the efforts of these two rogue regimes to increase the level of military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, the overwhelming demand of the majority of ordinary Russians and Iranians is freedom from dictatorial rule.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/02/pushing-the-envelopes-in-ukraine/

For all the dramatic late-summer Ukrainian success, we are witnessing yet another deadlock in the war—one that supposedly will be resolved by escalations on all sides.  

Mutually Exclusive Agendas 

A rebooted Ukraine is clamoring for more offensive arms. It claims it can win the war, with victory now giddily defined as sending every Russian back home in disgrace.  

Russia is screaming threats about using nuclear weapons—though how Vladimir Putin would use them remains in dispute. Putin is ominously no longer qualifying his Strangelovian threat with the adjective tactical, as he calls up 300,000 more troops.  

An addled and non-compos mentis Joe Biden only nominally remains the leader of the West. He initially refused to send offensive arms to Ukraine, and then offered to evacuate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But now Biden 2.0 has blasted Putin as a killer, someone equivalent to the domestic semi-fascists he blasted in his Phantom of the Opera hate speech.  

Biden has called for Putin’s removal. But until Putin’s demise, he wants still more sanctions against Russia. Yet it is hard to distinguish who is more detached from reality—Biden, suffering from cognitive decline as he talks to dead people and shakes the hands of ghosts, or a physically ailing and paranoid Putin. Meanwhile American Vice President Kamala Harris is rambling about a mythical American alliance with lunatic North Korea and the need to disperse federal help to storm-ravaged Florida on the basis of race. 

The United States is sinking knee-deep into recession. Once again it is hit with spiraling fuel prices. No matter: Biden promises to borrow still more billions of dollars for Ukrainian aid as he drains the last drops of the strategic petroleum reserve that he inherited almost full. 

Biden is on record that there will not be a negotiated end to the war. He instead believes, to paraphrase Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, that the proxy disaster must serve the permanent weakening of Russia, the deserved humiliation of Putin, and his removal from office.

So how does it all end, or will it all end, with so many mutually exclusive and escalating agendas? 

The Ukrainians survived the initial Russian effort to decapitate their government and absorb Western Ukraine. Months later they are still frantically trying to push Russians back to, and even well beyond, their areas of control prior to February 23.  

Ukraine’s ultimate hopes seem threefold: (1) reestablishing their pre-2014 borders, (2) finding permanent collective security within the West, formally through NATO to acquire future deterrence from the Russian war machine, and (3) weakening the economic and social fabric of Russia itself to the point that it is no longer a superpower capable of such aggression. Translated that means Ukraine wishes to be a permanent proxy of the West, which will pledge its own strategic security on behalf of Zelenskyy’s agendas. 

Russia Has Other Plans 

As for the Russians, their idea of dissecting Ukraine by incorporating its eastern half and then gradually wearing down, whether economically or militarily, Western Ukraine, for now has failed.  

But Vladimir Putin is not entirely foolish. He has pivoted by redefining victory as institutionalizing and declaring as “Russian” the disputed borderlands, and soon Crimea, that he grabbed in 2014. To fight there, he will allege, is to go on the offensive inside Russia. He believes his misadventure in a year or two will still be seen as worth the terrible costs to the Russian people and the thousands of Russian and Ukrainian dead—if he can brag that he still insidiously continues to reclaim lost lands of the Russian Empire.  

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18946/persecution-of-christians-august

When the 12-year-old girl was produced at court and said that she had converted of her free will and married her Muslim kidnapper, the judge—ignoring the girl’s young age and distraught demeanor—ordered the accused released and the girl returned to him, even though there was massive contrary evidence to indicate that the girl was being coerced to lie under duress. The evidence included a voice recording of her Muslim husband threatening to butcher the girl’s two brothers if she failed to support him in court. — Morningstar News, August 23, 2022, Pakistan.

“Police and judiciary tend to support those who commit crimes such as forced conversions, child marriages and sexual violence because they believe they will receive a heavenly reward for helping convert someone to Islam, regardless of how intentional or coercive the conversion is.” — Sherkan Malik, human rights activist, Morningstar News, August 23, 2022, Pakistan.

“In the rare cases where a girl is returned to her family, the culprits are never held accountable. In other words, the supposedly law-preserving authorities act as implicit, if not explicit, partner in such heinous crimes.” — Report, copticsolidarity.org, August 9, 2022, Egypt.

“I am writing to you out of deep concern for the safety and well-being of the indigenous Coptic women and minor girls in Egypt who have been increasingly targeted for trafficking, forced marriage, and forced conversion.” — Petition, copticsolidarity.org, August 9, 2022, Egypt.

[T]hroughout the month of August… a total of eleven Coptic churches in Egypt supposedly “caught fire,” none of which was reported in the Western press…. In every one of those eleven fires, Egyptian authorities denied arson as a possible cause, citing instead “natural” or accidental causes such as faulty wiring, electric overloads, and so on, even though there was obvious foul play in at least one case…. — copticsolidarity.org, August 31, 2022, Egypt.

“Constant killings and maiming of innocent Christians by terrorists and herdsmen bandits [Muslim Fulani] have become very common here in Taraba state,” said Ayuba Matthew, a local. “So also, kidnappings of Christians has become a problem.” — Morningstar News, August 17, 2022, Nigeria.

“Incitement against the Copts is daily in Egypt! Accusing the Copts of being infidels [kuffar] is daily in Egypt! Mockery of Christianity and the sacred things of Christianity and the accusation that the Bible is distorted [moharraf] occurs daily in Egypt!” — Magdi Khalil, noted author, YouTube, August 15, 2022, Egypt.

“They forced me to sing Christian songs as they began chopping off my husband’s hand.” …. Apparently fearful of worse repercussions, the “family has yet to file a police report.” — Morningstar News, August 16, 2022, Egypt.

A recent video report found that, although Christians make up only 1.6% of the Muslim nation’s population, they account for 90% of Islamabad’s sanitation workers…. [M]any sanitation job listings in Pakistan often advertise “for non-Muslims only”: working in garbage all day is for “infidels,” not ritually clean Muslims. — dw.com and Morningstar News, August 11, 2022, Pakistan.

Although deemed by some Westerners as a relatively progressive Arab nation, Qatar continues to indoctrinate its children with hate for and violence against “infidels,” including Christians and Jews…. — impact-se.org, July 2022, Qatar.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of August 2022:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18947/iran-chained-volcano

Today’s Damavand [volcano] s made of a new generation of Iranians who don’t give tuppence about the Islamic Republic’s arcane narrative, and prefer life in the modern world, warts and all, to the North Korean-style society that “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei is trying to impose on Iran.

The uprising was triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year old woman on a family visit to Tehran.

Within 24 hours of her death, allegedly as a result of beatings by security agents, Amini’s name was known to almost all Iranians and, within 48 hours, it had become a symbol of resistance to tyranny across the world.

By the time of writing this column, we had received the names of 84 people, including nine women and six children, killed by security, while semi-official figures put the number of arrests at over 1,800.

The uprising has spread to over 300 towns and cities, some of which are witnessing protests for the first time in recent history.

Early in its existence, the Khomeinist regime established self-preservation as its highest goal. Khomeini called it “the obligation of obligations” (oujab al-wajebat in Arabic), asserting that to protect the regime, even Islam could be set aside.

Regime protection forces, excluding the national army, number over 600,000 men. Islamic security is organized in nine different units, at least four of them trained and equipped for crushing street protests.

All security units, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), benefit from numerous advantages, notably salaries that are 30 percent higher than comparable ones in the national army.

The latest uprising is different from previous ones in a number of ways…. This time, the almost unanimous call is for regime change.

Until this writing, Khamenei, who shed tears for the death of George Floyd in the United States, has been silent on the eruption that threatens his regime.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18926/russia-influence-latin-america

Of particular concern is that Russia has not only been strengthening its relations with old Latin American partners — such as Cuba and Nicaragua, hailing back to the Cold War, and with Venezuela — but that it is now forging new and stronger relationships with countries that were traditionally oriented towards the US, such as Brazil and Argentina.

“Recent demonstrations of Russia’s hostile intent toward the U.S. and our partners in the Western Hemisphere include Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov’s January 2022 suggestion that Russia might deploy military forces to Venezuela or Cuba… and Nicaragua’s June 2022 re-authorization for limited numbers of Russian troops and equipment to enter the country for training missions and other forms of support.” — Dr. Evan Ellis, research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and senior associate at the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, July 20, 2022.

Russia’s actions in Latin America have been significantly deteriorating the security situation there, as well as enabling China to gain influence.

In June, Putin and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro confirmed their intention to strengthen their strategic partnership.

“In 2020, Russia Today (RT)’s Spanish-language media outlets more than doubled their social media followers from 7 million to over 18 million. These disinformation campaigns are just one part of Russia’s broader efforts to influence national elections throughout the region this year. Russia’s relationship with its key regional partners— Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua—allow Moscow to expand its air and sea access to project military power throughout the region.” — General Laura Richardson, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, March 8, 2022.

“Agreements with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Brazil allow Russian warships to make port calls on short notice. Russia doubled its naval deployments in this region, increasing from five (2008-2014), to 11 (2015- 2020). Russia seeks inroads in the hemisphere by providing security training through $2.3 billion in weapons and military equipment sales in the last 10 years, to include direct sales to Venezuela.” — Gen. Laura Richardson, testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, March 8, 2022.

While 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries have signed onto China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Biden’s Build Back Better World, launched in June 2021 to counter China, has not even taken off yet. Unlike the BRI, financed by the People’s Republic of China, Build Back Better has to rely on private investors’ willingness to take risks.

So far, Biden has nothing to show… while Russia and China continue to consolidate their gains.

Russia has been seeking to expand its influence in Latin America, especially since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and Russia’s subsequent international isolation.

Russia’s way of enlarging its influence in Latin America is comparable to its tactics in Africa, where it has primarily sought influence through arms deals, the use of its mercenaries, election interference, and disinformation.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18944/erdogan-threatens-greece

“We have only one sentence for Greece: Do not forget Izmir [the city of Smyrna]. Your occupying the [Aegean] islands will not stop us; we will do what is necessary when the time comes. You know what we say: ‘Unexpectedly one night we shall come to [conquer] you.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sondakika.com, September 4, 2022.

“The final years of the Ottoman Empire were catastrophic for its non-Turkish, non-Muslim minorities. From 1913 to 1923, its rulers deported, killed, or otherwise persecuted staggering numbers of men, women and children in an attempt to preserve ‘Turkey for the Turks,’ setting a modern precedent for how a regime can commit genocide against its own citizens in pursuit of political ends, while largely escaping accountability.” — George N. Shirinian, Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923.

The Turkish attacks against the Greeks and Armenians of Smyrna began [in 1922] with looting, rapes and massacres, and ended with a fire that destroyed the Christian districts of the city.

“In September 1922, the richest city of the Mediterranean was burned, and countless numbers of Christian refugees killed. The city was Smyrna, and the event was the final episode of the 20th Century’s first genocide — the slaughter of three million Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire. The slaughter at Smyrna occurred as warships of the great powers stood by — the United States, Great Britain, France and Italy.” — Lou Ureneck, Smyrna, September 1922.

The Republic of Turkey actually boasts of its genocide.

Since the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, no factual information has been taught to Turkish schoolchildren about the extreme brutality, massacres, rapes, pillaging and other atrocities that indigenous Greeks and Armenians of Smyrna were subjected to at the hands of the Turks. The truth about the identity of the arsonists is categorically denied. For the past 100 years, Turkey has blamed the victims of the genocide for their own extermination.

September 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the genocide in Smyrna. Although the Turkish government still takes pride in its slaughter, everyone else would do well to remember and honor the memories of the victims and prevent further Turkish aggression. One way for Western governments to do this is officially to recognize the 1913-23 genocide, but above all, stop Erdogan’s continued threats against Greece.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/29/can-the-eu-survive-europes-conservative-election-wave/

 The European Union, no bastion of political tolerance to begin with, is letting it be known: It will not tolerate conservative parties sweeping into power among its members. Good luck with that. With each new national election the EU’s power looks weaker and weaker.

The latest example of this come from Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, a passionate partisan of God, family, culture, and life, whose right-leaning coalition won Italy’s national election in a landslide, despite threats from the EU.

“If things go in a difficult direction, I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools,” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said, in what can only be called a threat.

“We have tools”? This is an election in a sovereign country of which von der Leyen is not a citizen. Her remarks amount to interference with a sovereign nation’s democratic election.

As a warning to others, the EU recently suspended 7.5 billion euros in funding to conservative Viktor Orban’s Hungary due to alleged “corruption,” even though, by the EU’s own data, Hungary is nowhere near the most corrupt country in Europe.

It’s not as if Meloni’s victory came from nowhere. The EU’s leftist bureaucrats have been losing their grip over the continent they once ruled for some time now, but they don’t seem to realize it.