Connexion
Israel is now vowing to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack, and while the Biden regime claims to have told Netanyahoo that the U.S. won’t aid in any offensive action, they are still promising to provide air defense… just like they did when Tehran retaliated for Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of The Cradle, Sharmine Narwani, reported that an Iranian military security official revealed exclusively to The Cradle that the U.S. reached out and asked Iran to allow Israel “a symbolic strike to save face,” which was “outright rejected” and met with warnings that any attack from Israel targeting Iran will be met with immediate action.
~~~~~
Choreographed retaliations impacting Iran proper, or its interests anywhere else, as during the mild and lawful Round One Iranian barrage, were rejected by Iran for Round Two.
Iran warned ANY support of Zion’s aggression by the deranged West (such as needed aerial refueling and air defense) will bring retaliation on their bases throughout the region, and closing Hormuz, perhaps selectively a la Houthis?!
Zion is committed to regaining permanently lost deterrence. F-UKUS is committed to Zion. The circle is about to be squared
Enfin, la vérité de La Palice sort de bouche de António Guterres. Ne possédant aucune force d'action pour sanctionner les criminels de guerre, il plaide pour un cessez-le-feu urgent. En faisant ainsi, son rôle se limite à un rabbin lamentateur, un imam inopérant ou un prêtre impuissant qui implore Dieu durant ses prières pour arrêter ce génocide. Monsieur António Guterres, il est temps de fermer votre club de complaisances. Mes respect Monsieur Guerres ! Je m'excuse ce n'est pas lapsus ou une faute de (...)
Nos lecteurs proposent / Israël , Benjamin Netanyahou , Bernard-Henry Levy , Sionisme/AntisionismePour satisfaire les agences de notations financières, le ministre écrase les collectivités de tout son poids, pour qu’elles rendent jusqu’au dernier centime. Maintenant c’est au tour des rentiers d’être dans l’œil mauvais du gouvernement. Ce gouvernement donne l’impression de gratter les fonds de tiroir à la recherche des rares poches de revenus qui échappent encore à sa convoitise. Un État dispendieux, dilapidant l’argent public sans compter, endetté à hauteur de 3.000 milliards, dont 900 supplémentaires sous le seul mandat du ministre de l’Économie. Bruno Le Maire s’attaque encore, comme depuis de nombreuses années, aux collectivités territoriales, qui n’ont de cesse de gérer leur budget au centime près, avec méthode et discipline, sans jamais invoquer le droit à l’erreur. Ces mêmes collectivités subissent des coupes budgétaires chaque année, sans jamais avoir le droit de s’indigner. En proposant de restreindre à nouveau les ressources des collectivités, le ministre affiche là une vision économique à court terme, ignorant les conséquences désastreuses sur la vie quotidienne de nos concitoyens. Les maires et élus locaux, en première ligne, se voient contraints de faire face à des coupes budgétaires drastiques, compromettant ainsi des investissements essentiels pour pallier l’État défaillant, dans l’éducation, la santé, l’aménagement du territoire… Aucun secteur public n’est épargné. Où vont nos impôts !
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In this interview, we are joined by the renowned geopolitical expert Pepe Escobar, who delves into the pages of his latest book “Eurasia v. NATOstan”. Brace yourself for an insightful exploration of the imminent collision between the Western Empire of Chaos and the emerging multipolar world order led by Eurasia. @SyrianaAnalysis
A l’occasion du 30ème anniversaire de l’attentat du 06 avril 1994 contre l’avion des présidents rwandais et burundais qui a
L’article Repentance pour le Rwanda: Macron joue encore contre la France est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
our moi, les premières racines de cette guerre remontent à l’effondrement de l’Union soviétique. Les néoconservateurs états-uniens, ont immédiatement réalisé qu’une fenêtre d’opportunité s’ouvrait pour modifier durablement l’équilibre géopolitique mondial en leur faveur et éviter le retour d’un challenger susceptible de contester l’hégémonie mondiale acquise par les USA
L’article Entretien du général (2S) Dominique Delawarde avec Rivarol est apparu en premier sur Strategika.
By Daniel McAdams The minimum wage outlaws jobs. The only question is which jobs are outlawed. In California, any job that can be done for...
$20 Minimum Wage In California To Bring Higher Prices, Layoffs & Automation
Ces musiciennes se déplacent de village en village... en vélo. Jusqu'au 7 avril, Les Oiselles, un orchestre cyclo-itinérant, joue dans l'Hérault pour une première tournée 100 % féminine.
Villeneuvette (Hérault), reportage
« On est des meufs et on envoie du bois ! » avertissait Sarah avec défi, quelques heures avant leur première entre femmes jeudi 28 mars, à Villeneuvette. Cette Ariégeoise aux longs cheveux blonds a fini par troquer son vélo pour une guitare et un micro. Ses partenaires, venues de Bretagne, de (...)
US Ambassador April Glaspie with Saddam Hussein, 1990: ‘[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait…’
Israel is provoking an expanded regional war that it cannot win
By Abdel Bari Atwan at Rai Al Youm.
When and how will Iran retaliate?
Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a man of few words. When he publicly threatens a harsh response to Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus — which killed seven people including senior Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commanders — that means retaliation is impending.
The question is whether it will be immediate or postponed for few days; and, also, if it will be carried out directly by the IRGC or by its paramilitary allies in South Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, or both.
If there’s a war, there is no need for the element of surprise, and it may be militarily or politically unwise to defer it. The decision to retaliate was already taken by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council at an emergency meeting convened immediately after news broke of the airstrike on the consulate, according to a source close to the council. This could entail launching hundreds or thousands of missiles at Israeli targets, and even striking Israeli diplomatic missions in the Gulf region or elsewhere.
The demonstrations held by thousands of Iranians in Tehran to condemn the Israeli attack were different to previous rallies held in support of Gaza. This time, demonstrators criticised their own political leaders for their failure to respond firmly and directly to a succession of earlier Israeli assassinations and attacks, and demanded they retaliate decisively this time. Iranian leaders are bound to take account of this growing frustration with their policy of ‘strategic patience’.
Allied resistance groups are likely to play a role in this retaliation. Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has said retaliation is certainly coming. Abu Ali al-Askari of Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah spoke of thousands of armed fighters prepared to cross from Jordan into occupied Palestinian to join the struggle there. As for the Yemenis, they have no need for a call-to-arms. They began their battle against Israeli-linked shipping — and then the US navy — in support of Gaza months ago.
The reference to Jordan was significant. Some weeks ago, tens of thousands of Iraqi Hashd ash-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) members rallied at the Iraqi-Jordanian border and chanted calls for it to be opened so they could reach Palestine and fight in defence of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In the event of an expanded war, US military bases in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the Gulf region could also be targeted. Washington had reached secret understandings with Tehran not to expand the Gaza war into a regional one. But it did not live up to its side and failed to restrain its Israeli ally. By carrying out a succession of deliberately provocative attacks against Iranian targets, and further escalating the genocidal war against civilians in Gaza, Netanyahu belittled and humiliated Biden, and demonstrated that it is he who calls the shots in the White House.
If the Iranian state join the prospective war directly alongside its Lebanese, Iraqi, and Yemeni allies, I expect that the Syrian army will do to. Shortly after the al-Aqsa Flood operation, the Iranian foreign minister visited Damascus to sound the Syrian president out about the need to join the war on all fronts in support of the Palestinian resistance. According to high-level Syrian sources, President Bashar al-Asad replied: “Syria is a state, not a front. If the Iranian state enters into this war, we will be by its side, without hesitation.”
Iran is a regional superpower with a huge arsenal of missiles, drones, and submarines. It has been a nuclear breakout state for three years and may have already manufactured nuclear weapons. If it enters a war that Israel forced on it by attacking its consulate — a blatant violation of its sovereignty — it may prove to be the region’s last war, and the beginning of the end of the Zionist occupation state in its current form.
It would probably be a rolling conflict, starting with a limited retaliation and escalating into all-out war. The occupation state has been reopening public shelters. Its settlers have been stocking up on food and cash. The military has been placed on alert, air defence reservists have been called up, and home leave for combat units cancelled. Its current leaders want a war and are preparing for one.
But it is a war it cannot win. It failed, despite the full backing of the US, to overcome the resistance fighters of the miniscule and vulnerable Gaza Strip after six months of merciless bombardment. Can it withstand a war against the Axis of Resistance led by Iran?
‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.’
King Henry V, 1415, the Hundred Years War.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.
The Mechanism: how the “order” based on made-up rules is descending into savagery
As the de facto North Atlantic Terror Organization celebrates its 75th birthday, taking Lord Ismay’s motto to ever soaring heights (“keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down”), that thick slab of Norwegian wood posing as Secretary-General came up with a merry “initiative” to create a 100 billion euro fund to weaponize Ukraine for the next five years.
Translation, regarding the crucial money front in the NATO-Russia clash: partial exit of the Hegemon – already obsessing with The Next Forever War, against China; enter the motley crew of ragged, de-industrialized European chihuahuas, all in deep debt and most mired in recession.
A few IQs over average room temperature at NATO’s HQ in Haren, in Brussels, had the temerity to wonder how to come up with such a fortune, as NATO has zero leverage to raise money among member states.
After all, the Europeans will never be able to replicate the time-tested Hegemon money laundering machine. For instance, assuming the White House-proposed $60 billion package to Ukraine would be approved by the U.S. Congress – and it won’t – no less than 64% of the total will never reach Kiev: it will be laundered within the industrial-military complex.
Yet it gets even more dystopic: Norwegian Wood, robotic stare, arms flailing, actually believes his proposed move will not imply a direct NATO military presence in Ukraine – or country 404; something that is already a fact on the ground for quite a while, irrespective of the warmongering hissy fits by Le Petit Roi in Paris (Peskov: “Russia-NATO relations have descended into direct confrontation”).
Now couple the Lethal Looney Tunes spectacle along the NATOstan front with the Hegemon’s aircraft carrier performance in West Asia, consistently taking its industrial-scale slaughter/starvation Genocide Project in Gaza to indescribable heights – the meticulously documented holocaust watched in contorted silence by the “leaders” of the Global North.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese correctly summed it all up: the biblical psychopathology entity “intentionally killed the WCK workers so that donors would pull out and civilians in Gaza could continue to be starved quietly. Israel knows Western countries and most Arab countries won’t move a finger for the Palestinians.”
The “logic” behind the deliberate three tap strike on the clearly signed humanitarian convoy of famine-alleviating workers in Gaza was to eviscerate from the news an even more horrendous episode: the genocide-within-a-genocide of al-Shifa hospital, responsible for at least 30% of all health services in Gaza. Al-Shifa was bombed, incinerated and had over 400 civilians killed in cold blood, in several cases literally smashed by bulldozers, including medical doctors, patients and dozens of children.
Nearly simultaneously, the biblical psychopathology gang completely eviscerated the Vienna convention – something that even the historical Nazis never did – striking Iran’s consular mission/ambassador’s residence in Damascus.
This was a missile attack on a diplomatic mission, enjoying immunity, on the territory of a third country, against which the gang is not at war. And on top of it, killing General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, his deputy Mohammad Hadi Hajizadeh, another five officers, and a total of 10 people.
Translation: an act of terror, against two sovereign states, Syria and Iran. Equivalent to the recent terror attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow.
The inevitable question rings around all corners of the lands of the Global Majority: how can these de facto terrorists possibly get away with all this, over and over again?
The sinews of Liberal Totalitarianism
Four years ago, at the start of what I later qualified as the Raging Twenties, we were beginning to watch the consolidation of an intertwined series of concepts defining a new paradigm. We were becoming familiar with notions such as circuit breaker; negative feedback loop; state of exception; necropolitics; and hybrid neofascism.
As the decade marches on, our plight may at least have been alleviated by a twin glimmer of hope: the drive towards multipolarity, led by the Russia-China strategic partnership, with Iran playing a key part, and all that coupled with the total breakdown, live, of the “rules-based international order”.
Yet to affirm there will be a long and winding road ahead is the Mother of All Euphemisms.
So, to quote Bowie, the ultimate late, great aesthete: Where Are We Now? Let’s take this very sharp analysis by the always engaging Fabio Vighi at Cardiff University and tweak it a little further.
Anyone applying critical thinking to the world around us can feel the collapse of the system. It’s a closed system alright, easily definable as Liberal Totalitarianism. Cui bono? The 0.0001%.
Nothing ideological about that. Follow the money. The defining negative feedback loop is actually the debt loop. A criminally anti-social mechanism kept in place by – what else – a psychopathology, as acute as the one exhibited by the biblical genocidals in West Asia.
The Mechanism is enforced by a triad.
1. The transnational financial elite, the superstars of the 0.0001%.
2. Right beneath it, the politico-institutional layer, from the U.S. Congress to the European Commission (EC) in Brussels, as well as comprador elite “leaders” across the Global North and South.
3. The former “intelligentsia”, now essentially hacks for hire from media to academia.
This institutionalized hyper-mediatization of reality is (italics mine), in fact, The Mechanism.
It’s this mechanism that controlled the merging of the pre-fabricated “pandemic” – complete with hardcore social engineering sold as “humanitarian lockdowns” – into, once again, Forever Wars, from Project Genocide in Gaza to the Russophobia/cancel culture obsession inbuilt in Project Proxy War in Ukraine.
That’s the essence of Totalitarian Normality: the Project for Humanity by the appallingly mediocre, self-appointed Great Reset “elites” of the collective West.
Killing them softly with AI
A key vector of the whole mechanism is the direct, vicious interconnection between a tecno-military euphoria and the hyper-inflationary financial sector, now in thrall with AI.
Enter, for instance, AI models such as ‘Lavender’, tested on the ground in the Gaza killing field lab. Literally: artificial intelligence programming the extermination of humans. And it’s happening, in real time. Call it Project AI Genocide. — Sidebar: [01] [02] [03] [04] [background]
Another vector, already experimented, is inbuilt in the indirect assertion by toxic EC Medusa Ursula von der Lügen: essentially, the need to produce weapons as Covid vaccines.
That’s at the core of a plan to use funding of the EU by European taxpayers to “increase financing” of “joint contracts for weapons”. That’s an offspring of von der Lügen’s push to roll out Covid vaccines – a gigantic Pfizer-linked scam for which she is about to be investigated and arguably exposed by the EU’s Public Prosecutor Office. In her own words, addressing the proposed weapons scam: “We did this for vaccines and gas.”
Call it Weaponization of Social Engineering 2.0.
Amidst all the action in this vast corruption swamp, the Hegemon agenda remains quite blatant: to keep its – dwindling – predominantly thalassocratic, military hegemony, no matter what, as the basis for its financial hegemony; protect the U.S. dollar; and protect those unmeasurable, unpayable debts in U.S. dollars.
And that brings us to the tawdry economic model of turbo-capitalism, as sold by collective West media hacks: the debt loop, virtual money, borrowed non-stop to deal with “autocrat” Putin and “Russian aggression”. That’s a key by-product of Michael Hudson’s searing analysis of the FIRE (Finance-Insurance-Real Estate) syndrome.
Ouroboros intervenes: the serpent bites its own tail. Now the inherent folly of The Mechanism is inevitably leading casino capitalism to resort to barbarism. Undiluted savagery – of the Crocus City Hall kind and of the Project Gaza Genocide kind.
And that’s how The Mechanism engenders institutions – from Washington to Brussels to hubs across the Global North to genocidal Tel Aviv – stripped down to the status of psychotic killers, at the mercy of Big Finance/FIRE (oh, such fabulous seafront real estate opportunities available in “vacant” Gaza.)
How can we possibly escape such folly? Will we have the will and the discipline to follow Shelley’s vision and, in “this dim vast vale of tears”, summon the transcending Spirit of Beauty – and harmony, equanimity and justice?
Nous sommes dans une guerre des nerfs, soutenue par une forme de fatalité insupportable, illustrées par ces résolutions au conseil de sécurité qui n’aboutissent jamais. On a des condamnations, des espoirs de trêves, des négociations. Mais aucun cessez-le-feu.
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Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), reportage
Dès l'entrée, on est saisi par un bruit de cascade. C'est l'eau qui dégringole des robinets tordus et vient asperger un torse musclé en céramique, dans l'installation Wet Men de l'artiste suisse Lou Masduraud. Ça n'éclabousse pas, mais ça décoiffe.
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The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.
Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.
December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”
January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.
January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.
February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.
February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.
Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.
Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).
Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.
March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.
March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.
March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.
March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.
March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.
ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms
The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi– similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.
And that brings us to the Tajik connection.
There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.
The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.
All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.
A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.
And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.
The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.
Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.
Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.
Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.
Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.
Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.
The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.
The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.
After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.
That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.
Oleh Tyahnybok, with McCain and Nuland
The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs
Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.
Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.
One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.
The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.
The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.
Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,
As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.
Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).
The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.
But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.
The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.
But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.
Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.
In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.
Comment cette perte a-t-elle été rendue possible ? Gemini fonctionne sur un principe proche du chat GPT. Dans un premier temps, la première version avait fait rire tout le monde. Avec des amis, nous nous étions amusés à lancer le logiciel sur une question en principe connue de tous les érudits : les origines de la guerre de Cent Ans. Le chat GPT fonctionne comme un mouvement brownien, une réponse en appelant une autre, dans un déroulement A-B-C etc., mais sans qu’il y ait de cohérence entre A et C, seulement entre A et B, puis B et C. Ainsi, rapidement, la dissertation automatique s’est égarée dans les guerres de religion, sautant donc de la période 1337-1453 au XVIe siècle, sans s’en rendre compte. Oui, mais ça, c’était la première version, et il semble que les suivantes se soient améliorées. Pourtant, dès l’arrivée de cet outil, on pouvait s’inquiéter de ce que les entreprises du chat GPT, dans le contexte tendu de pré-guerre civile américaine, permettent à l’idéologie de s’en emparer, ce qui réduirait à rien l’intérêt présenté par le progrès technique. Eh bien, c’est exactement ce qui est arrivé, de sorte que ce progrès tourne au cauchemar intellectuel, où l’on voit nos jeunes gens infectés par le virus, se transformant les uns après les autres en rhinocéros comme dans le théâtre de Ionesco.
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Starhawk, Américaine juive d’origine russe, est une écrivaine de renommée des mouvements écoféministes et néopaïens. Militante engagée pour la justice sociale et environnementale dont l’influence s'étend à l'échelle mondiale, elle […]
The post L’écrivaine écoféministe Starhawk boycotte Israël : voici pourquoi appeared first on Investig'action.
Les données fournies par ce recensement devraient permettre de mieux connaître ce pays fascinant et d'en corriger – peut-être – les abyssales inégalités. Démonstration à partir de 4 cartes et 3 photographies d'Hervé Théry.
- Amérique du Sud / Amérique du sud , Brésil , Cartes géopolitiques, Géopolitique, Minorités, Population, Cartographie, Amérique latine, Recensement de la population, Géographie de la population, 2022 , 2024Farmers in the EU get Technocracy, and they are fighting for their lives and livelihoods: “We cannot live; we are being strangled.” Meanwhile, stupid and...
RELENTLESS: Polish Farmers Stage 600 Protests In A Day Against EU Crippling Green Policies
La plainte déposée contre le député Julien Bayou par son ex-compagne Anaïs Leleux a provoqué des remous chez Les Écologistes. L'exclusion possible de ce pilier du parti est désormais sur la table.
« Julien Bayou, c'est cet homme qui se dit féministe tout en brisant des femmes. Et ils le savent. Tous. C'est toujours comme ça. Ils savent. » Ces mots, rapportés par Les Jours, Anaïs Leleux les a prononcés le 6 mars dernier dans une librairie parisienne, devant la presse.
Les violences psychologiques qu'aurait (...)
« Mawda – Autopsie d'un crime d’État ». C'est le titre de la nouvelle BD du dessinateur belge Manu Scordia. Artiste et militant, le montois a réalisé une œuvre articulant, avec brio, […]
The post Trois questions à Manu Scordia sur sa dernière BD politique appeared first on Investig'action.
By Mac Slavo The ruling class and elitists of the planet have been demonizing farming while investing heavily in the fake food industry. Already, most...
Why is the biggest political story of our era so underreported?
with thanks to Ramin Mazaheri via Ramin’s Substack.
I have returned to Paris and can report that things are as politically bleak as ever, continuing a trend which began with the rubber bullet-smashing of the Yellow Vest movement in 2019. The European Union has become truly American (which was often alleged to be the ultimate goal): it’s politically apathetic.
There are no domestic political movements to report on – the French MSM just reports on Ukraine, Israel and (as usual) ecology.
This is not as it used to be.
Prior to the six months of bloody Saturdays over 2018-19 France had seen a full decade of incredible political activism. Leftist planning agendas were full of protests, gatherings and strikes concerning: Sarkozy’s bailouts in late 2008, Hollande’s hopeful Socialist Party election, his subsequent U-turn on austerity, the forceful imposition of austerity by Brussels, the fabrication of Macron, his immediate detestation, the spectacularly unprecedented support for – and then the spectacularly unprecedented repression of – les gilets jaunes – this was a 10-year period of intense, intense activism.
Were it not for Israel’s latest and most brutal invasion of Gaza, and combined with Macron’s incredible 7-years-running refusal to interact with the press (the exact opposite of Sarkozy), I’m not sure I’d have much work to do here?
There is a story to cover, and it’s the most important one, but it’s almost impossible to cover via PressTV news reports: the obvious failure of the pan-European project.
This is the biggest political story of the 21st century, and yet it’s going undiscussed year after year. Brexit put it on the front pages, and then so did the Yellow Vests, but Euroscepticism has been suppressed for four years now.
But what’s a bigger story in the 21st century than the economic, political and confidence collapse of the biggest economic bloc in the world?
The war on the Muslim world since 9/11? That’s something, indeed, but this is the re-sundering of a region which was already suppressed by two centuries of colonialism and then neo-colonialism.
The rise of China? That was something inevitable and unstoppable, due to the superior planning and cohesion of socialist-inspired governments. Of course, China’s sudden rise was aided by the Great Financial Crisis which devastated the West, who then exacerbated it with their predictably awful, inequality-generating policies of bailouts, austerity, QE and ZIRP.
Fifteen years ago who did not expect that a united Europe, and one working in what is now clearly lockstep with the United States, would become an unstoppable project?
That’s the big story: that Europe has not just stopped in its tracks but stagnated, regressed, devolved, disappointed, etc. and etc.
It’s truly historical. What the demise of the pan-European project means is the end of the “social democratic” model: if any region had implemented a “third way” between liberalism and socialism it was Europe. The alleged solution of “social democracy” goes way back to the 1890s – what we have witnessed hasn’t been the “death of communism” but the “death of social democracy” instead.
What a story, no? It was as the proponents of socialist democracy always predicted: social democracy inevitably reverts back to mere liberal democracy. It’s truly historical.
Back in the US someone recently asked me why I kept referring to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, saying it was old history, and it made me pause. They never talk about it in the US anymore, that’s true. However, as soon as I returned to France I was confronted with multiple references to it in journalism and art. But they only get the dates right – roughly.
Yes, Europe took a more far-right economic approach (austerity) than the US (Europe had more social democracy to roll back, of course), but the problem is not the 2007-8 Great Financial Crisis nor austerity – the problem is the pan-European project itself, and this is precisely what is suppressed.
It is easy to suppress, or just be confused, because the timelines are so similar: the pan-European project didn’t truly begin until the undemocratic passage of the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, which was forced through thanks to the chaos surrounding the Great Financial Crisis and subsequent European Debt Crisis (starting 2009).
Why has nobody kept referring to the Lisbon Treaty of 2009? I am definitely one of the very few journalists who do. Now that the UK is out the Anglophone world doesn’t care, I suppose.
The 15-year summation of the pan-European can only be judged to be atrocious, but who is talking about these things: the decrease in economic power; the sustained collapse in the euro’s value; the constant, continent-wide protests against the decisions of Brussels; the decrease in democratic credibility; the increase in militaristic domestic repression; the decrease in social economic protections for the average person; the rise of neo-fascist parties – what on earth does this reporter who has covered the EU since birth have to do get some real talk about United Europe anymore?
The Fall of Phaeton, 1605, Peter Paul Rubens
Ukraine will make or break the pan-European project
The European Union succeeds at nothing and nor do they stand for anything, so they’re desperate for any rallying cry for “Europe!”, and they’ve found one in Ukraine.
Of course, Europe has already failed Ukraine: their weaponry is being defeated, their production capabilities aren’t up to the job, everybody knows they’re just setting Ukraine up for the same debt traps they laid for country like Greece, and they have failed (purposely) to find a diplomatic solution. Their only success is in their spectacularly prejudiced prioritising of Ukrainian refugees: this was, of course, to keep flooding the labor market with desperate, low-wage accepting workers amid record-high inflation – anything to keep wage demands down.
The reality is that Ukraine is going to either be the EU’s final undoing, or it will somehow lead to the “more Europe” that is the only way this misguided economic-but-not-political federalist project could ever possibly succeed.
Europe’s leaders know Ukraine is their best – given the far-right victories looming in European Parliament elections this spring – chances, which are diminishing, to rally Europe behind the pan-European project and away from Euroscepticism.
Remember that in two years Macron has gone from “we must not embarrass Russia” to calling other European countries “cowardly” for not buying Ukraine even more weapons, and even threatening to land NATO troops. Why the huge shift?
Of course war is good for business – France has soared to become the #2 arms merchant in the world. But in a bloc which has a pre-Covid history which no one in the 1% wants anyone to remember, it’s only via war with Russia that European public opinion could possibly be united in favor of “Europe!”.
European imperialists have run out of racism and now can only rely on nationalist prejudice – this is what the EU has revealed itself to be. Furthermore, during the 2010s we were constantly told in France that the pan-European project was the only reason war didn’t break out in Europe – recall how the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, amid mass anti-austerity repression? This is justification is now out the window.
No peace, no public opinion in public policy, no prosperity – no success for the EU, and when will success ever arrive?
Now isn’t the time, Europeans are being told, to argue about the lack of results in the pan-European project – Putin is at the doorstep. Marine Le Pen fairly accused Macron of creating a situation – surrounding this week’s French Parliamentary approval of a 10-year military pact with Ukraine – where, “You’re either with Macron or you’re with Putin”. That’s not just Russophobia or scapegoating – that is the summation of Macron’s whole political policy now.
Nobody – no popular democratic majority – has ever been or will ever be with Macron, but the fabrication of false unity is what Ukraine is being manipulated for here in Europe.
But it’s going to be even bigger than that in the coming months and maybe even years, namely: “Either you’re with the pan-European project or you’re with Putin”.
After all, how else can support for the pan-European project possibly be created in 2024? They cannot stand on their results, and they cannot stand on hopes that the project will suddenly become workable, profitable, democratic, morally responsible, inspire confidence, etc.
The failure of Europe – that’s the biggest story of the 21st century.
<—>
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His latest book is France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese. Any reposting or republication of any of these articles is approved and appreciated. He tweets at @RaminMazaheri2 and writes at substack.com/@raminmazaheri
By The Freedom Articles Whether via the demonization of carbon, or now nitrogen, the worldwide attack on farming continues. Farmers are being forced to stop...
Announcement submitted courtesy of Julian Rose Communiqué of the Presidium of the National Council of the NSZZ of Individual Farmers “Solidarity” We express firm opposition...
Acier, aluminium, cuivre… Aujourd'hui, la majorité des métaux issus des produits en fin de vie sont recyclés. Mais la France pourrait faire encore mieux en la matière, estime l'Agence de la transition écologique (Ademe) dans une récente étude mise en avant à l'occasion de la journée mondiale du recyclage, le 18 mars.
Ces matériaux vont devenir encore plus indispensables pour la transition énergétique avec la construction de véhicules électriques, le stockage d'énergie ou encore les réseaux d'électricité, (...)
US Troops as close as 2.5 miles from China Mainland and key city Xiamen.
By Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com
Taiwan Confirms Presence Of US Green Berets On Islands Very Close To China’s Coast
Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng confirmed on Thursday the presence of US Army Special Forces soldiers in Kinmen, a group of islands that are controlled by Taiwan but located just off the coast of mainland China.
Some parts of the Kinmen islands are just 2.5 miles away from the mainland Chinese city of Xiamen. The presence of US troops on the islands was first reported by Taiwanese media last month.
Chiu confirmed the highly provocative deployment when asked about a new report from the US outlet SOFREP that said US Green Berets have taken up “permanent positions” as military advisors in Kinmen. The US soldiers are also deployed in Penghu, a Taiwanese-controlled archipelago about 30 miles west of the main island of Taiwan and 70 miles east of mainland China.
The SOFREP report said the US Green Berets were stationed at the Taiwanese Army’s amphibious command centers. The deployment was carried out under provisions in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which called for the US to create a comprehensive training program for the Taiwanese military.
The new collaboration includes the US troops training Taiwanese forces on the Black Hornet Nano, a compact military drone. Chiu said the presence of the US Green Berets was a “learning opportunity” for Taiwan’s military.
The US has significantly increased its military and diplomatic support for Taiwan in recent years, ratcheting up tensions with China. Last year, the US deployed around 200 troops to Taiwan, marking the largest known US military presence on the island since the US pulled its troops out after Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979.
The US also recently began providing Taiwan with unprecedented military aid. Since 1979, the US has always sold weapons to Taiwan but never financed the purchases or provided arms free of charge until last year.
Vendredi 8 mars, lors de la manifestation pour les droits des femmes, des militantes pro-palestiniennes ont été agressées par des hommes cagoulés et armés du collectif "Nous vivrons". Nous avons […]
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The saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.
By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture.
The Four Stooges saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge in Crimea with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.
President Putin, in his comprehensive interview to Dmitry Kiselev for Russia 1/RIA Novosti, did not fail to address it:
“They are fantasizing, encouraging themselves, first of all. Secondly, they are trying to intimidate us. As for the Federal Republic of Germany, there are constitutional problems there. They correctly say: if these Taurus hit that part of the Crimean Bridge, which, of course, even according to their concepts, is Russian territory, this is a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Yet it gets curioser and curioser.
When the transcript of the Taurus leak was published by RT, everyone was able to hear Brigadier General Frank Gräfe – head of operations of the German Air Force – speaking with Lieutenant Colonel Fenske from the German Space Command Air Operations on the plan to deploy Taurus systems in Ukraine.
A key point is that during the plotting, these two mention that plans were already discussed “four months ago” with “Schneider”, the successor of “Wilsbach”.
Well, these are German names, of course. Thus it did not dawn on anyone that (Kevin) Schneider and (Kenneth) Wilsbach could instead be… Americans.
Yet that did raise the eyebrows of German investigative journalist Dirk Pohlmann – who I had the pleasure to meet in Berlin years ago – and his fellow researcher Tobias Augenbraun.
They found out that the German-sounding names did identify Americans. Not only that: none less than the former and the current Commanders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.
The Four (actually Six) Stooges element gets an extra boost when it is established that Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz and his Totalenkrieg Minister Pistorius learned about the Taurus plan no less than four months later.
So here apparently we have a clear cut case of top German military officers taking direct orders regarding an attack on Crimea – part of the Russian Federation – directly from American officers in the Pacific Air Forces.
That in itself opens the dossier to a large spectrum ranging from national treason (against Germany) to casus belli (from the point of view of Russia).
Of course none of that is being discussed on German mainstream media.
After all, the only thing that seems to disturb Brigadier General Gräfe is that German media may start seriously prying on the Bundeswehr’s Multiple Stooges methods.
The only ones who actually did proper investigation were Pohlmann and Augenbaun.
It would be too much to expect from German media of the “Bild” type to analyze what would be the Russian response to the Multiple Stooge shenanigans against Crimea: a devastating retaliation against Berlin assets.
It’s so cold in Alaska
During the jolly Bundeswehr conversation yet another “plan” is mentioned:
“Nee, nee. Ich mein wegen der anderen Sache.” (“No, no. I mean the other matter.”) Then: “Ähm … meinst du Alaska jetzt?” (“Ahm, you mean Alaska now?”)
It all gets juicier when it is known that German Space Command Air Operations Centre officer Florstedt will meet none other than Schneider next Tuesday, March 19, in Alaska.
And Gräfe will also “have to go back to Alaska” to explain everything all over again to Schneider as he is “new” in the post.
So the question is: Why Alaska?
Enter American shadowplay on a lot of “activities” in Alaska – which happen to concern none other than China.
And there’s more: during the conversation still another “plan” (“Auftrag”, meaning “mission”) also surfaces, bearing a not clearly understandable code name sounding like “Kumalatra”.
What all of that tells us is that the Crash Test Dummy administration in the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon seem to betting, in desperation, on Total War in the black soil of Novorossiya.
And now they are sayin’ it out loud, with no shadow play, and coming directly from the head of the CIA, William Burns, who obviously sucks at secrecy.
This is what Burns told the members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week:
“I think without supplemental assistance in 2024, you’re going to see more Avdeevkas, and that – it seems to me – would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States.”
That spells out how much the Avdeevka trauma is impressed on the psyche of the U.S. intel apparatus.
Yet there’s more: “With supplemental assistance, Ukraine can hold its own on the front lines through 2024 and into early 2025. Ukraine can continue to exact costs against Russia, not only with deep penetration strikes in Crimea, but also against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”
Here we go: Crimea all over again.
Burns actually believes that the humongous $60 billion new “aid” package which must be approved by the U.S. Congress will enable Kiev to launch an “offensive” by the end of 2024.
The only thing he gets right is that if there’s no new package, there will be “significant territorial losses for Ukraine this year.”
Burns may not be the brightest bulb in the – intel – room. A long time ago he was a diplomat/CIA asset in Moscow, and seems to have learned nothing.
Apart from letting cats and kitties galore out of the bag. It’s not only about attacking Crimea. This one is being read with surpreme delight in Beijing:
“The U.S. is providing assistance to Ukraine in part because such activities help curb China.”
Burns nailed his Cat Out of the Bag Oscar win when he said “if we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea”.
The inestimable Andrei Martyanov perfectly summed up the astonishing incompetence, peppered with tawdry exceptionalism, that permeates this performance by Burns.
There are things “they cannot grasp due to low level of education and culture. This is a new paradigm for them – all of them are ‘graduates’ of the school of ‘beating the crap from defenseless nations’ strategic ‘studies’, and with the level of economic ‘science’ in the West they cannot grasp how this all unfolds.”
So what is left is panic, as expressed by Burns in the Senate, mixed with the impotence in understanding a “different warrior culture” such as Russia’s: “They simply have no reference points.”
And still they choose war, as masterfully analyzed by Rostislav Ishchenko.
Even as the acronym fest of the CIA and 17 other U.S. intel agencies have concluded, in a report shown to Congress earlier this week, that Russia is “almost certainly” seeking to avoid a direct military conflict with NATO and will calibrate its policies to steer clear of a global war.
After all the Empire of Chaos is all about Forever Wars. And we are all in the middle of a do or die affair. The Empire simply cannot afford the cosmic humiliation of NATO in Novorossiya.
Still every “plan” – Taurus on Crimea-style – is a bluff. Russia is aware of bluff after bluff. The Western cards are now all on the table. The only question is when, and how fast will Russia call the bluff.
The endless ennui and envy of those incapable of abandoning phantom pains. Most useful putty in the hands of Empire
By Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar at the Indian Punchline.
Ever since its ignominious defeat in the Napoleonic wars, France is entrapped in the predicament of countries that get sandwiched between great powers. Following World War II, France addressed this predicament by forging an axis with Germany in Europe.
Caught up in a similar predicament, Britain adapted itself to a subaltern role tapping into the American power globally but France never gave up its quest to regain glory as a global power. And it continues to be a work in progress.
The angst in the French mind is understandable as the five centuries of western dominance of the world order is drawing to a close. This predicament condemns France to a diplomacy that is constantly in a state of suspended animation interspersed with sudden bouts of activism.
But, for activism to be result-oriented, there are prerequisites needed such as the profiling of like-minded activist groups, leadership and associates and supporters and sympathisers — and, most important, sustainment and logistics. Or else, activism comes to resemble epileptic fits, an incurable affliction of the nervous system.
The French President Emmanuel Macron’s halcyon days in international diplomacy ended with the recent dissolution of the Franco-German axis in Europe, which dated back to the Treaties of Rome in 1957. As Berlin sharply swerved to trans-atlanticism as its foreign-policy dogma, France’s clout diminished in European affairs.
The stakes are high in the reconciliation meeting on Friday as Macron travels to Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who not only snubbed him by ruling out the use of ground troops from European countries in the Ukraine war, but also digging in on Taurus missile issue arguing that it would entail assigning German staff in support to Ukraine, which, he announced on Wednesday in the Bundestag, is simply “out of the question” while he remained the chancellor.
Of course, this is not to decry Macron’s formidable intellect — such as when he declared in a blunt interview in late 2019 with the Economist magazine that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice” and needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power lest it will “no longer be in control of our destiny.” Macron’s prescient remark preceded the war in Ukraine by 3 years.
According to the newspaper Marianne, which interviewed several French soldiers, the military reportedly estimates that the Ukraine war is irretrievably lost already. Marianne quoted a senior French officer saying derisively, “We must make no mistake facing the Russians; we are an army of cheerleaders” and sending French troops to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable” . At the Élysée, an unnamed advisor argued that Macron “wanted to send a strong signal… (in) milli-metered and calibrated words”.
Marianne’s editor Natacha Polony wrote: “It is no longer about Emmanuel Macron or his postures as a virile little leader. It is no longer even about France or its weakening by blind and irresponsible elites. It is a question of whether we will collectively agree to sleepwalk into war. A war that no one can claim will be controlled or contained. It’s a question of whether we agree to send our children to die because the United States insisted on setting up bases on Russia’s borders.”
The big question is why Macron is doing this nonetheless — going to the extent of cobbling together a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Europe. A range of explanations is possible starting with Macron posturing and trying to earn political points at minimal cost, motivated by personal ambitions and intra-European friction with Berlin.
But then, until fairly recently, Macron was a supporter of dialogue with Moscow. The perception in most European capitals, including Moscow, is that Macron is making an attempt to bring the Ukrainian crisis to a new level by announcing western combat deployment against Russia publicly as an obvious political manipulation.
The geopolitical salience is that Macron who once not too long ago called for dialogue with Moscow and offered his mediation in it, who made the famous declaration of a “Greater Europe” in 2019 and maintained contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin thereof; who as of February last year, while speaking about Russia’s “certain defeat” in Ukraine, called for avoiding Moscow’s “humiliation”; who repeatedly underscored his commitment to the matrix of diplomacy attributed to Charles de Gaulle, which assigned France the role of a “bridge between East and West” — has now swung to the other extreme of harsh Euro-Atlantic rhetoric.
This appalling inconsistency can only be seen as stemming out of the unfavourable development of events in the scenario of the Ukrainian crisis with the prospect of a Russian defeat in the war no longer in the cards even remotely and replaced by the growing possibility that peace will ultimately be attainable only on Russia’s terms. Put differently, the power dynamic in Europe is shifting dramatically, which, of course, impacts Macron’s own ambitions to “lead Europe.”
Meanwhile, Russian-French relations have also been undergoing a stage of fierce competition and rivalry — even confrontation — in a number of areas. For a start, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet said in an interview with Le Parisien in January that Russia’s victory in Ukraine would lead to 30% of world wheat exports being controlled by Moscow. For Paris, this is a question of the sustainability of one of the key sectors of French national economy.
French agriculture is marked by its history that had its beginning with the Gaulois in 2000 BC. It needs to be understood that In modern history, French Revolution of 1789, which altered every part of the French social order and led to the abolition of privileges for upper classes, was also an Agricultural Revolution, which allowed a broad land redistribution. Suffice to say, the bond of French people to their agriculture is very strong.
As it is, African states are changing the structure of grain imports due to the technical regulations introduced by the European Union as part of its green agenda and French farmers consequently face rising costs, and over and above that, there is now also the looming loss of regional market share to Russia.
This is on top of the inroads Russia is making in arms exports to the African continent lately. In politico-military terms too, France has lost ground to Russia in the resource-rich Sahel region, its ex-colonies and playpen traditionally. The fact of the matter is that the birds are coming to roost over France’s neo-colonial strategies in Africa, but Paris prefers to put the blame on Russia’s Wagner group which has moved in to fill the security vacuum in Sahel region, as anti-French forces have come to power in several countries at once — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, CAR.
In the best traditions of geopolitics, France has begun retaliating in regions sensitive to Russian interests — Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine where Russian military presence is in French crosshairs. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine is the most strategic turf where Macron hopes to achieve a bigger French presence.
Through that, Macron hopes to advance his leadership ambitions in Europe as the navigator of the EU’s foreign policy strategy in a wide arc from the African continent across the Mediterranean to Transcaucasia — and potentially all the way to Afghanistan.
All this is unfolding against the historic backdrop of an inevitable US retrenchment in Europe as Indo-Pacific hots up and the simmering rivalry with China becomes an all-consuming passion for Washington. Indeed, alongside, the towering presence of Russia across Europe is beginning to be felt intensely as it surges as the number one military and economic power in the strategic space between Vancouver and Vladivostok.
Today, the paradox is, then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had proposed way back in 2008 a legally binding pan-European security treaty, which would develop a new security architecture in Europe, involving the reshaping of existing, and creating new institutions and norms regulating security relations in Europe in a wider geopolitical space stretching east “from Vancouver to Vladivostok.” But, alas, the US encouraged the Europeans to see the so-called ‘Medvedev Initiative’ as a trap to enfeeble NATO, the OSCE, the EU and other European bodies, and reject that wonderful idea which would have anchored the post-cold war era firmly on a binding security architecture.
By Aaron & Melissa Dykes A new trailer for The Minds of Men — literally the only video we ever uploaded to YouTube in 12...
À Moulins, le débat public sur le projet de mine de lithium d'Échassières qui s'est ouvert le 12 mars cristallise les contradictions de la transition énergétique.
Moulins (Allier), reportage
Qu'est-ce qui électrisait l'ambiance de la salle des fêtes de Moulins le soir du mardi 12 mars ? La présence de la presse, l'air déterminé de la centaine de riverains présents, mais, surtout, l'enjeu du débat : l'ouverture d'une mine de lithium à Échassières, dans l'Allier, là où s'échouent les derniers contreforts du (...)
Bien sûr, il y a la guerre en Ukraine, et les grands shows présidentiels devant les caméras, avec une pluie d’annonces tonitruantes sur les réformes, les décisions, les mesures. Et puis il y a la réalité en salle des machines : à force de vouloir tout gérer à la baguette et dans un isolement hautain et déconnecté des réalités, à force de réduire les états-majors de la bureaucratie à de simples rôles d’exécutants, la machine se bloque.
Donc, mardi, Emmanuel Macron a convoqué les 700 fonctionnaires-clés qui tiennent la machine étatique pour leur dire de se mettre au travail. Selon les insiders, le malaise est, il faut le dire, profond.
Vu du point de vue d’Emmanuel Macron, il se formalise ainsi :
« Nous avons un devoir qui est de nous remettre en question collectivement pour aller plus vite, pour que notre travail soit plus perceptible et pour associer mieux les gens […]. Je sens une urgence parce que sinon les gens n’écouteront plus que la colère », a averti le chef de l’Etat. La grande crise des démocraties occidentales est « avant tout une crise de l’efficacité de l’action publique »
Emmanuel Macron
Vu du point de vue des hauts fonctionnaires qui nous parlent discrètement de leurs malheurs, la désobéissance se cache de moins en moins.
C’est par exemple le cas de l’étatisation de l’assurance-chômage, que Bruno Le Maire a annoncée avant même la ministre du Travail. Les fonctionnaires du ministère du Travail savent qu’elle servira à réduire les droits à indemnisation des chômeurs. Dans un biotope de gauche, l’idée passe mal. Alors les fonctionnaires du Travail font tout pour retarder l’opération.
Les mêmes phénomènes surviennent (on y reviendra dans d’autres éditions) au sein de l’Education Nationale, où les groupes de niveau voulus par Gabriel Attal sans concertation poussent l’administration de la rue de Grenelle à faire la tortue.
En réalité, Macron a contre lui les “bureaux”, à qui il évite pourtant une douloureuse cure d’amaigrissement.
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Déterrant une info bien masquée par les médias israélo-embarqués, David Cronin a écrit sur le projet de financement européen de Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). Soit ce fabricant d'armes israélien qui […]
The post Trois questions à David Cronin sur le financement européen d’Israël appeared first on Investig'action.
Les Palestiniens de Gaza se sentent humiliés et on les comprend. La communauté internationale est incapable de leur assurer une aide humanitaire minimale par voie terrestre. Au lieu de cela, […]
The post Ziad Medoukh : « L’aide humanitaire qui arrive par parachute est une honte » appeared first on Investig'action.
By Tyler Durden As of Wednesday, there are just 18 days left until Easter celebrations begin. For those who have recently visited the supermarket, egg...
Time For A Backyard Chicken Coop? Supermarket Egg Prices Soaring Once-Again
PEPE ESCOBAR Interview: Ukrainian PR Stunt on the Russian Border, NATO in Ukraine, Multipolarity and More
The ‘Rockstar of Geopolitics’ Returns to the DDG Show! Discussing Desperate Attempts to Create Chaos Before Russian Elections, NATO Troops in Ukraine, the Collective West Running Out of Options for ‘Project Ukraine,’ and More!
Dans « La subsistance au quotidien », la sociologue Geneviève Pruvost raconte son immersion auprès d'un couple de paysans-boulangers en yourte, hors des clous mais inséré dans un tissu social alternatif peuplé de solidarités.
Un paysan coupant du bois de chauffage, une boulangère pétrissant son pain à la main, une maraîchère récoltant ses légumes bios et vérifiant la ponte de ses poules… Aussi cliché font-elles, ces scènes n'appartiennent pas au monde rural disparu au cours du XXᵉ siècle, avec l'avènement de (...)
Depuis cinq mois, Israël court après des “victoires tactiques” pour retrouver son image de toute-puissance militaire perdue le 7 octobre. Mais cette diversion infructueuse signifie que Tel-Aviv est désormais confronté […]
The post En quête de victoires “tactiques”, Israël est confronté à une défaite “stratégique” appeared first on Investig'action.
Viscose, coton, cellulose, polyéthylène, microbilles, colle… À compter du 1ᵉʳ avril prochain, toutes les boîtes de serviettes, tampons et autres produits de protection intime féminine devront afficher la composition de leurs produits, annonce la Répression des fraudes dans un communiqué publié le 8 mars.
Sur leurs emballages ou, à défaut d'espace suffisant, sur la notice d'utilisation, les fabricants devront également indiquer, pour chacun des composants, « le détail des substances et matériaux incorporés (...)
Bien sûr, il est utile de lutter contre la prostitution des mineures. Le sujet ne fait pas débat.
Le projet de la ministre El-Hairy, chargée de l’Enfance, de la Jeunesse et des Familles, est toutefois un peu particulier. Il ne vise pas les femmes mineures qui offrent leur corps contre espèces sonnantes et trébuchantes. Il vise les mineures qui envoient des images d’elles, dénudées, contre de l’argent, sur Internet. La pratique est évidemment illégale, mais elle repose, de fait, sur un consentement de la jeune fille.
La ministre, sans surprise, y voit de la prostitution pure et simple, et annonce la mise en place de “maraudes numériques” payées par l’Etat pour expliquer aux jeunes filles qui pourraient être tentées par cette pratique que tout cela, ce n’est pas bien.
Comme lors de maraudes classiques dans la rue, les agents de ces maraudes numériques iront “sur des tchats pour parler, alerter” les jeunes. Ils pourront par exemple “rappeler que vendre une vidéo dénudée, c’est grave”.
Sarah El-Hairy
Donc, l’Etat va payer des fonctionnaires pour expliquer aux habitants de ce beau pays ce qui est grave et ce qui n’est pas grave. S’agissant des mineures, le gouvernement ne voit pas d’inconvénient à passer par-dessus l’épaule des familles pour s’adresser directement aux adolescentes et leur dire ce qu’elles doivent faire ou non.
La suite des propos de la ministre montre bien qu’il s’agit là du début d’un engrenage dont les frontières sont appelées à s’élargir sans cesse :
La ministre déléguée chargée de l’Enfance, de la Jeunesse et des Familles alerte également sur “un nouveau risque qui se développe”, celui du “petit copain qui devient proxénète, dans une relation d’emprise”. Pour Sarah El Haïry, “il faut briser le tabou de la prostitution”.
Sarah El Hairy
On a bien compris la logique. On commence par mettre en garde sur la diffusion consentie de vidéos payées. Puis on glisse vers la “relation d’emprise” du petit copain. Les étapes suivantes, c’est quoi ? Donner des conseils conjugaux ou matrimoniaux ? Des conseils vestimentaires ? Alimentaires ? Pour protéger la jeunesse, puis, progressivement toute la population.
La théorie du Nudge bat son plein, décidément.
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Quel est le lien entre féminisme et écologie ? Réponse en vidéo des militantes de la manifestation pour les droits des femmes à Paris ce 8 mars.
« On ne naît pas femme, on en meurt », « un homme de qualité n'a pas peur de l'égalité », « sorcières en colère ». Sur la place Gambetta, dans le centre de Paris, des centaines de femmes sont pressées en ce 8 mars pour fournir les rangs de l'annuelle manifestation pour les droits des femmes.
Parmi elles, quelques pancartes aux slogans écoféministes. Reporterre a demandé à (...)
En cette Journée internationale des droits des femmes, on a décidé de revenir sur la façon dont la question des violences sexuelles a été instrumentalisée par Israël à des fins […]
The post La cause des femmes instrumentalisée par Israël appeared first on Investig'action.
China and Geopolitics is LIVE with journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar TODAY March 8th at 10am eastern, 6pm Moscow!
We discuss a series of events hosted in Russia and attended by our guest on multipolarity, and how they contrast with NATO’s march to WWIII which has intensified in recent weeks.
What is the U.S. and its NATO vassals offering via Biden’s SOTU speech and Macron’s threats, and how does it compare to the Russia and China-led alternative?
Pour le 8 mars, Reporterre vous propose des essais, romans, bandes dessinées, documentaires... Bref, une sélection féministe et engagée pour célébrer la journée internationale des droits des femmes.
LIVRES
• Féministe des champs
Des femmes qui reprennent seules, ou en couple lesbien, une exploitation agricole ; qui décident de s'installer dans une communauté rurale exclusivement féminine… Dans Féministe des champs, la sociologue Constance Rimlinger ne s'intéresse pas seulement aux personnes qui quittent (...)
Dans les Vosges, sept femmes ont lancé un collectif d'agricultrices, Les Filles de la plaine. Découvrez le reportage, en photos, de Reporterre.
Frebécourt (Vosges), reportage
Les Filles de la plaine, c'est l'histoire de sept femmes. Ce collectif est né d'une envie : celle d'apprendre, de s'entraider, et de faire leur nid dans un monde orchestré par le patriarcat. Néopaysannes, tout juste installées ou sur le point de sauter le pas, toutes rêvaient de plonger leurs mains dans la terre. Seulement, la vie (...)
Lateo.net - Flux RSS en pagaille (pour en ajouter : @ moi) 