VIDEO Soros, MB Obama Connected Family Business of Perpetual War – Prepare For Nuke War, US Tanks Flood Into Europe
-Russian Crimea: One Year Later
-NATO Declares Information War On Russia
-Prominent neocon intellectual Robert Kagan. (Photo credit: Mariusz Kubik,
March 20, 2015 By Robert Parry
-NATO Declares Information War On Russia
-Prominent neocon intellectual Robert Kagan. (Photo credit: Mariusz Kubik,
March 20, 2015 By Robert Parry
Exclusive: Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan have a great mom-and-pop business going. From the State Department, she generates wars and – from op-ed pages – he demands Congress buy more weapons. There’s a pay-off, too, as grateful military contractors kick in money to think tanks where other Kagans work, writes Robert Parry.
Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia – and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats.
This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.
Not only does the broader community of neoconservatives stand to benefit but so do other members of the Kagan clan, including Robert’s brother Frederick at the American Enterprise Institute and his wife Kimberly, who runs her own shop called the Institute for the Study of War.
Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (which doesn’t disclose details on its funders), used his prized perch on the Washington Post’s op-ed page on Friday to bait Republicans into abandoning the sequester caps limiting the Pentagon’s budget, which he calculated at about $523 billion (apparently not counting extra war spending). Kagan called on the GOP legislators to add at least $38 billion and preferably more like $54 billion to $117 billion: http://www.brookings.edu/support-brookings/annual-reporthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-defense-spending-talk-is-cheap/2015/03/19/a145ac08-cda6-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html
“The fact that [advocates for more spending] face a steep uphill battle to get even that lower number passed by a Republican-controlled Congress says a lot — about Republican hypocrisy. Republicans may be full-throated in denouncing [President Barack] Obama for weakening the nation’s security, yet when it comes to paying for the foreign policy that all their tough rhetoric implies, too many of them are nowhere to be found. …
“The editorial writers and columnists who have been beating up Obama and cheering the Republicans need to tell those Republicans, and their own readers, that national security costs money and that letters and speeches are worse than meaningless without it. …
“It will annoy the part of the Republican base that wants to see the government shrink, loves the sequester and doesn’t care what it does to defense. But leadership occasionally means telling people what they don’t want to hear. Those who propose to lead the United States in the coming years, Republicans and Democrats, need to show what kind of political courage they have, right now, when the crucial budget decisions are being made.”
So, the way to show “courage” – in Kagan’s view – is to ladle ever more billions into the Military-Industrial Complex, thus putting money where the Republican mouths are regarding the need to “defend Ukraine” and resist “a bad nuclear deal with Iran.”
Yet, if it weren’t for Nuland’s efforts as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, the Ukraine crisis might not exist. A neocon holdover who advised Vice President Dick Cheney, Nuland gained promotions under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and received backing, too, from current Secretary of State John Kerry.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, speaking to Ukrainian and other business leaders at the National Press Club in Washington on Dec. 13, 2013, at a meeting sponsored by Chevron.
Confirmed to her present job in September 2013, Nuland soon undertook an extraordinary effort to promote “regime change” in Ukraine. She personally urged on business leaders and political activists to challenge elected President Viktor Yanukovych. She reminded corporate executives that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” and she literally passed out cookies to anti-government protesters in Kiev’s Maidan square.
Working with other key neocons, including National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman and Sen. John McCain, Nuland made clear that the United States would back a “regime change” against Yanukovych, which grew more likely as neo-Nazi and other right-wing militias poured into Kiev from western Ukraine.
In early February 2014, Nuland discussed U.S.-desired changes with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (himself a veteran of a “regime change” operation at the International Atomic Energy Agency, helping to install U.S. yes man Yukiya Amano as the director-general in 2009). https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/21/did-manning-help-avert-war-in-iran-4/
Nuland treated her proposed new line-up of Ukrainian officials as if she were trading baseball cards, casting aside some while valuing others. “Yats is the guy,” she said of her favorite Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Disparaging the less aggressive European Union, she uttered “Fuck the EU” – and brainstormed how she would “glue this thing” as Pyatt pondered how to “mid-wife this thing.” Their unsecure phone call was intercepted and leaked.http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
Ukraine’s ‘Regime Change’
The coup against Yanukovych played out on Feb. 22, 2014, as the neo-Nazi militias and other violent extremists overran government buildings forcing the president and other officials to flee for their lives. Nuland’s State Department quickly declared the new regime “legitimate” and Yatsenyuk took over as prime minister.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had been presiding over the Winter Olympics at Sochi, was caught off-guard by the coup next door and held a crisis session to determine how to protect ethnic Russians and a Russian naval base in Crimea, leading to Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and annexation by Russia a year ago.
Though there was no evidence that Putin had instigated the Ukraine crisis – and indeed all the evidence indicated the opposite – the State Department peddled a propaganda theme to the credulous mainstream U.S. news media about Putin having somehow orchestrated the situation in Ukraine so he could begin invading Europe. Former Secretary of State Clinton compared Putin to Adolf Hitler.
As the new Kiev government launched a brutal “anti-terrorism operation” to subdue an uprising among the large ethnic Russian populations of eastern and southern Ukraine, Nuland and other American neocons pushed for economic sanctions against Russia and demanded arms for the coup regime. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”] https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/
Amid the barrage of “information warfare” aimed at both the U.S. and world publics, a new Cold War took shape. Prominent neocons, including Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century which masterminded the Iraq War, hammered home the domestic theme that Obama had shown himself to be “weak,” thus inviting Putin’s “aggression.”
In May 2014, Kagan published a lengthy essay in The New Republic entitled “Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire,” in which Kagan castigated Obama for failing to sustain American dominance in the world and demanding a more muscular U.S. posture toward adversaries.http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117859/allure-normalcy-what-america-still-owes-world
According to a New York Times article about how the essay took shape and its aftermath, writer Jason Horowitz reported that Kagan and Nuland shared a common world view as well as professional ambitions, with Nuland editing Kagan’s articles, including the one tearing down her ostensible boss.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/us/politics/historians-critique-of-obama-foreign-policy-is-brought-alive-by-events-in-iraq.html?_r=1
Though Nuland wouldn’t comment specifically on her husband’s attack on Obama, she indicated that she held similar views. “But suffice to say,” Nuland said, “that nothing goes out of the house that I don’t think is worthy of his talents. Let’s put it that way.”
Horowitz reported that Obama was so concerned about Kagan’s assault that the President revised his commencement speech at West Point to deflect some of the criticism and invited Kagan to lunch at the White House, where one source told me that it was like “a meeting of equals.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Obama’s True Foreign Policy ‘Weakness.’”] https://consortiumnews.com/2014/06/23/obamas-true-foreign-policy-weakness/
Sinking a Peace Deal
And, whenever peace threatens to break out in Ukraine, Nuland jumps in to make sure that the interests of war are protected. Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande hammered out a plan for a cease-fire and a political settlement, known as Minsk-2, prompting Nuland to engage in more behind-the-scenes maneuvering to sabotage the deal.
In another overheard conversation — in Munich, Germany — Nuland mocked the peace agreement as “Merkel’s Moscow thing,” according to the German newspaper Bild, citing unnamed sources, likely from the German government which may have bugged the conference room in the luxurious Bayerischer Hof hotel and then leaked the details.
Picking up on Nuland’s contempt for Merkel, another U.S. official called the Minsk-2 deal the Europeans’ “Moscow bullshit.”
Nuland suggested that Merkel and Hollande cared only about the practical impact of the Ukraine war on Europe: “They’re afraid of damage to their economy, counter-sanctions from Russia.” According to the Bild story, Nuland also laid out a strategy for countering Merkel’s diplomacy by using strident language to frame the Ukraine crisis.
“We can fight against the Europeans, we can fight with rhetoric against them,” Nuland reportedly said.
NATO Commander Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove was quoted as saying that sending more weapons to the Ukrainian government would “raise the battlefield cost for Putin.” Nuland interjected to the U.S. politicians present that “I’d strongly urge you to use the phrase ‘defensive systems’ that we would deliver to oppose Putin’s ‘offensive systems.’”
Nuland sounded determined to sink the Merkel-Hollande peace initiative even though it was arranged by two major U.S. allies and was blessed by President Obama. And, this week, the deal seems indeed to have been blown apart by Nuland’s hand-picked Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, who inserted a poison pill into the legislation to implement the Minsk-2 political settlement.
The Ukrainian parliament in Kiev added a clause that, in effect, requires the rebels to first surrender and let the Ukrainian government organize elections before a federalized structure is determined. Minsk-2 had called for dialogue with the representatives of these rebellious eastern territories en route to elections and establishment of broad autonomy for the region.
Instead, reflecting Nuland’s hard-line position, Kiev refused to talks with rebel leaders and insisted on establishing control over these territories before the process can move forward. If the legislation stands, the result will almost surely be a resumption of war between military forces backed by nuclear-armed Russia and the United States, a very dangerous development for the world. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Poison Pill for Peace Talks.”] https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/19/ukraines-poison-pill-for-peace-talks/
Not only will the Ukrainian civil war resume but so will the Cold War between Washington and Moscow with lots of money to be made by the Military-Industrial Complex. On Friday, Nuland’s husband, Robert Kagan, drove home that latter point in the neocon Washington Post.
The Payoff
But don’t think that this unlocking of the U.S. taxpayers’ wallets is just about this one couple. There will be plenty of money to be made by other neocon think-tankers all around Washington, including Frederick Kagan, who works for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, and his wife, Kimberly, who runs her own think tank, the Institute for the Study of War [ISW].
Kimberly Kagan, founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War.
According to ISW’s annual reports, its original supporters were mostly right-wing foundations, such as the Smith-Richardson Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, but it was later backed by a host of national security contractors, including major ones like General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and CACI, as well as lesser-known firms such as DynCorp International, which provided training for Afghan police, and Palantir, a technology company founded with the backing of the CIA’s venture-capital arm, In-Q-Tel. Palantir supplied software to U.S. military intelligence in Afghanistan.
Since its founding in 2007, ISW has focused mostly on wars in the Middle East, especially Iraq and Afghanistan, including closely cooperating with Gen. David Petraeus when he commanded U.S. forces in those countries. However, more recently, ISW has begun reporting extensively on the civil war in Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons Guided Petraeus on Afghan War.”] https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/09/neocons-guided-petraeus-on-afghan-war-2/
In other words, the Family Kagan has almost a self-perpetuating, circular business model – working the inside-corridors of government power to stimulate wars while simultaneously influencing the public debate through think-tank reports and op-ed columns in favor of more military spending – and then collecting grants and other funding from thankful military contractors.
To be fair, the Nuland-Kagan mom-and-pop shop is really only a microcosm of how the Military-Industrial Complex has worked for decades: think-tank analysts generate the reasons for military spending, the government bureaucrats implement the necessary war policies, and the military contractors make lots of money before kicking back some to the think tanks — so the bloody but profitable cycle can spin again.
The only thing that makes the Nuland-Kagan operation special perhaps is that the whole process is all in the family.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offerhttps://consortiumnews.com/2014/06/25/continuing-parrys-3-book-offer/
—-
“Prepare For Nuclear War” Russia Warns Citizens As US Tanks Flood Into Europe
March 20, 2015 By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
“Prepare For Nuclear War” Russia Warns Citizens As US Tanks Flood Into Europe
March 20, 2015 By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A new Ministry of Defense (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief (MChS) has issued an order for all companies employers to prepare for nuclear war, while at the same time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has slammed the US for flooding Europe with tanks and armored vehicles.
According to this report, the MChS issued their order on 16 March to companies and employers to immediately provide their workers with radiation suits and gas masks as part of the “war orders” issued by President Putin. and which we had previously reported on.
With these “war orders” being necessitated after the uncovering of a United Kingdom plot to launch a nuclear first-strike against the Federation this week, a situation made even graver after the arrest Tuesday (17 March) of US Navy Captain Heather E. Cole for her failing to, likewise, launch American nuclear weapons against Russia on Monday (16 March) this report continues, the Kremlin remains “alarmed” that no one seems to be in charge of the United States anymore.
Raising this “state of alarm” even higher, this report says, was that Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov has still been unable to contact President Barack Obama whom he had just met during a private White House visit a few weeks ago in Washington D.C. wherein the American leader stated he may not be able to stop this war.
With massive combat operations now existing in all of the Federations 9 time zones, the MoD further states in this report, the General Staff has ordered the immediate deployment to combat status of tens-of-thousands more troops bringing the number to over 80,000 now preparing for war.
The MoD further confirms in this report that the Federations strategic nuclear bombers have been mobilized in Crimea and that Iskander nuclear missiles are now being deployed in the Kaliningrad region, which borders Poland and Lithuania, too.
Important to note, this MoD report says, are that the Federations military actions are solely in response to the aggressive war moves of the United States against Russia, which includes tomorrows start of the US Army’s 1,100 mile armored column journey along the western border, dubbed “Dragoon Ride”, comprised of American troops from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment and the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade (providing air support).
Equally important note, this report continues, is that the threat against the Federations northern border with Norway, where thousands of Norwegian troops continue their “Joint Viking” deployment of armored vehicles and artillery against Russia, continues with no end in sight.
Most ominously, however, MoD experts in this report say, was President Obama’s order this week to immediately deploy to Germany 800 tracked and wheeled vehicles, which when combined with the 220 Abrahams main battle tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles the US has sent to Eastern Europe, the 120 Abrahams battle tanks and armored vehicles sent to Latvia, and the hundreds of other tanks and armored vehicles stuffed into Norwegian caves for a US Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB)…all within the past 8 months…the addition of these estimated 1,400 “vehicles of war” to Europe by the Americansclearly show the deadly intentions of the West against Russia.
And to anyone doubting the intentions of the US in wanting to wage war against Russia, this report grimly reminds everyone, it was just 11 months ago that the Obama regime was trumpeting its removal from Europe of America’s last remaining battle tank on the continent, and as we can, in part, read as reported by the Stars and Stripes News Service on 19 April 2014:
“Amidst the still-ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the Obama administration is moving the last U.S. battle tanks from Germany and, thus, from Europe.
At the same time, the Pentagon also is disbanding two of the U.S. Army’s heavy brigades in Germany. Last year, the 170th Infantry out of Baumholder disbanded, while the 172nd Separate Infantry Brigade at Grafenwöhr is in the process of doing the same.
John Vandiver reports for Stars and Stripes, April 4, 2014, that the U.S. Army’s 69-year history of basing main battle tanks on German soil quietly ended last month when 22 Abrams tanks, a main feature of armored combat units throughout the Cold War, embarked for the U.S.
On March 18, the remaining tanks were loaded up at the 21st Theater Sustainment Command’s (TSC) railhead in Kaiserslautern where they then made the journey to the shipping port in Bremerhaven, Germany. There they boarded a ship bound for South Carolina.
“There is no [U.S.] tank on German soil. It’s a historic moment,” said 21st TSC spokesman Lt. Col. Wayne Marotto.”
As to why and how our world went from last April when no US battle tanks remained in Europe, to 11 months later when they continue to flood onto the continent in the hundreds and thousands, and in the face of a massive Russian military response, should be plain to see for anyone caring to.
Now all that remains to happen is the “planned” false flag incident forcing us all into a war very few will ever know the true reasons for, but which the majority of whom, sadly, will also become its casualties.
March 20, 2015 © EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com. Freebase content licensed under CC-BY and GFDL.
—-
Phone Tap: US Asst Sec. State Nuland Scheming in Ukraine with Ambassador Pyatt. “F*CK EU”
Feb 7, 2014
Phone Tap: US Asst Sec. State Nuland Scheming in Ukraine with Ambassador Pyatt. “F*CK EU”
Feb 7, 2014
Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt scheming to influence political events in Ukraine, a country with a democratic government but torn by violent protests. This has actual footage of mayhem in Ukraine cut into the White House press conference.
—
Victoria Nuland’s Admits Washington Has Spent $5 Billion to “Subvert Ukraine”
Feb 9, 2014
Victoria Nuland’s Admits Washington Has Spent $5 Billion to “Subvert Ukraine”
Feb 9, 2014
American Conquest by Subversion: Victoria Nuland’s Admits Washington Has Spent $5 Billion to “Subvert Ukraine” “After three visits to Ukraine in five weeks, Victoria Nuland explains that in the past two decades, the United States has spent five Billion dollars ($5,000,000,000) to subvert Ukraine, and assures her listeners that there are prominent businessmen and government officials who support the US project to tear Ukraine away from its historic relationship with Russia and into the US sphere of interest (via “Europe”).
Victoria Nuland is the wife of Robert Kagan, leader of the younger generation of “neo-cons”. After serving as Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson, she is now undersecretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.” Diana Johnstone
Hear Victoria Nuland’s very concise, almost victorious speech
—
Nuland Grilled on Neo-Nazis in Ukraine & Money U.S. is Spending
May 12, 2014
Nuland Grilled on Neo-Nazis in Ukraine & Money U.S. is Spending
May 12, 2014
“displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore.” [link below] Congressman Dana Rohrabacher has questions for Victoria Nuland and he also points out that Yanukovych was democratically elected as President of Ukraine [coup supporters disregard democracy]
—
Russian Crimea: One Year Later
March 22, 2015 by Tony Cartalucci | New Eastern Outlook
Russian Crimea: One Year Later
March 22, 2015 by Tony Cartalucci | New Eastern Outlook
NATO calls Crimea “invaded” and “occupied.” NATO has taught the world well what invasion and occupation really looks like, and Crimea isn’t it. In 2001, NATO invaded and began the occupation of the South-Central Asian country of Afghanistan. The invasion and occupation has left tens of thousands dead, many more displaced, and has resulted in continued chaos and violence up until and including present day. Throughout the conflict, revelations of abuses, mass murder, and other atrocities including systematic torture have been exposed, perpetrated by invading NATO forces and their Afghan collaborators.
The war has also resulted in the use of armed drone aircraft which regularly kill men, women, and children indiscriminately along the Afghan-Pakistani border – a campaign of mass murder ongoing for nearly as long as the conflict has raged.
In 2003, NATO-members joined the United States in the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. An estimated 1 million people would lose their lives, including thousands of Western troops. For nearly a decade the United State occupied Iraq, and during its attempts to prop up a suitable client regime, laid waste to the nation. American forces in their bid to exercise control over the Iraqi population would conduct sweeping assaults on entire cities. The city of Fallujah would be leveled nearly to the ground, twice.
The US also maintained prison camps across the entire nation. Some vast and spanning, others dark and secret, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and the atrocities carried out there. In addition to Western armed forces, a significant number of paid mercenaries participated in both the occupation and the atrocities carried out during it, including the mass killing of civilians resulting in criminal cases still reverberating through Western legal systems and undermining Western credibility worldwide.
This is what real invasions and occupations look like. The armed entrance into a nation, the absolute subjugation of all its people through maximum force – or as the US calls it “shock and awe” – and an occupation by gunpoint with tanks and troops in the streets of a people who do not want them there, and who are willing to fight and die to drive them out.
So when in March of 2014, Crimea was returned to Russia and NATO called the move an “invasion” and “occupation,” the world was reasonably concerned. Some were concerned because they equated the words “invasion” and “occupation” with the levels of mass murder and decimation associated with NATO’s decades of foreign interventions – believing that such violence was now unfolding in Crimea, this time at the hands of the Russians. Others were concerned because of the obvious falsehood within which NATO was framing events in Crimea.
The Difference Between NATO and Russian Interventions
NATO’s intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan ran into heavy resistance while Russia’s intervention in Crimea did not, because of several crucial differences. First, NATO was invading nations literally oceans away. The targets of their military aggression shared no common history with the West, no cultural, religious, or linguistic similarities, and surely no mutual contemporary shared interests. No significant party within either Iraq or Afghanistan asked the West to intervene beyond token proxies arranged by the West itself.Crimea on the other hand, had once existed as part of Russia. Many in Crimea identify themselves either as Russians, or of Russian descent. They speak Russian and observe Russian customs. Many in Crimea recognize that the soil beneath their feet has been soaked in Russian blood to defend it from aggression throughout history, including against the Nazis in World War 2.
When the government of Ukraine was violently overthrown by an overtly US-backed coup in Kiev, and many of the familiar symbols and movements that had in the past taken power with the help of Adolf Hitler in the 1940’s began stirring in western Ukraine again, turning to Russia for protection was only natural. Not only did the people of Crimea ask Russia to intervene, a referendum was held that overwhelmingly quantified their request.
Aside from storming several military bases and some tense moments in stand-off’s with Ukrainian troops, there was no violence when Russian forces began moving into Crimea.
A Year On, All is Well…
A Year On, All is Well…
Life in Russian Crimea today is exceedingly normal. While a war rages on next door in Ukraine, the people of Crimea enjoy peace, stability, and a sense of unity and hope for the future. Even with economic setbacks delivered by NATO’s attempts to take the horrors they’ve created within Ukraine, and recreate them on the other side of the border in Russia, people are still able to conduct business more or less as they did before the conflict began. Some say the economy has actually improved despite the sanctions.
Of course, the transition, with an armed conflict unfolding just across the border, is not seamless. Euronews would report mixed feelings in Crimea, stating in its article, “Crimea economy one year on after Russian annexation,” that:
For many locals the biggest worry is the spiralling cost of food. Kyiv’s refusal to recognise the border means it can’t legally export to Crimea directly.
Most supplies come from Russia by ferry but bad weather can delay shipments for days. Many products are just not available. Regional government data showed inflation jumped 38 percent and the cost of food increased by almost a half from March through to December. Not a single Russian supermarket chain has opened in Crimea.
But a poll at the end of January by a Ukraine market research agency recorded that more than half of the 800 people questioned believe they are better off financially since joining Russia.
Despite this, after only a year, and considering the circumstances, Crimea is faring well, especially compared to neighboring Ukraine. Logistical networks will surely be restructured and markets will surely adjust. With the West desperately seeking to portray Crimea’s state one year after returning to Russia as dire as possible, that the best they can do is cite the disappearance of “McDonald’s” and “Apple” stores as “proof” that Crimea is “suffering,” bodes well for the Crimean people.
While NATO calls this an “invasion” and “occupation,” it is ironically NATO itself that has taught the world so well what a real invasion and occupation looks like, making their recent claims against Russia in Crimea ring particularly hollow. Also ironic is the fact that the NATO-backed regime in Kiev, Ukraine, is imposing upon its own people the conditions and horrors generally associated with a real invasion and occupation. That some call the conflict in Ukraine one of several “proxy wars” NATO is waging around the world, this should come as no surprise.
—
NATO Declares Information War On Russia
NATO and StratCom information warfare includes “military steps”
March 22, 2015 by Kurt Nimmo
NATO Declares Information War On Russia
NATO and StratCom information warfare includes “military steps”
March 22, 2015 by Kurt Nimmo
The Supreme Commander of NATO, Gen. Philip Breedlove, said on Sunday the West must engage in an information war with Russia in order to counteract its “false narratives” on social media.
“We need as a western group of nations or as an alliance to engage in this informational warfare. The way to attack the false narrative is to drag the false narrative into the light and expose it,” Breedlove said.
In July, NATO announced a concerted effort to counter the Russian narrative on Ukraine. According to UK ambassador Adam Thomson, the response includes “military steps.”
“Nato needs to be able to pop the Russian myths that are propagated about Nato itself… it needs to be able to look after its own equity in this, if you like,” Thomson said during a NATO summit in September.
In July Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Italy Lithuania, Poland, and the UK signed a memorandum agreeing upon the establishment of a StratCom Centre of Excellence in Riga, Latvia.
StratCom is short for the United States Strategic Command. It is the combat command run by the Pentagon responsible for information warfare and other operations.
“The conflict between Russia and Ukraine clearly shows how important an information campaign can be in gaining the upper hand in a military conflict. Strategic communication is also becoming increasingly important in the context of NATO-led operations,” said said Latvian Minister of Defense Raimonds Vejonis during a visit to Norfolk, Virginia.
State Department Runs Social Media War Against Russia
State Department Runs Social Media War Against Russia
The U.S. State Department is currently engaged in a social media propaganda war against Russia. For instance, on Twitter, the U.S. has established the Russian language UkrProgress account and claims 14,000 people follow it, most from the Russian Federation.
In June, Marie Harf, the deputy spokesperson for the State Department, tweeted about UkrProgress:
The mission of UkrProgress is to counter what the United States considers Russian propaganda on the conflict in Ukraine.
“This account has criticized Russia’s actions in a much freer style than the official statements” issued by the U.S. State Department, writes the Russia & India Report. “For example, the photos of so-called ‘American mercenaries’ in Ukraine published by the Russian media have been labelled by UkrProgress as ‘a cheap trick by the Kremlin’. UkrProgress often retweets American diplomats and embassies around the world, including the U.S. embassy account in Moscow (which has 23,000 subscribers).”
There are a number of videos “on YouTube on Ukrainian-Russian subjects, filmed by order of the State Department,” the website continues.
Unmentioned by Breedlove is the fact the United States or its proxies in Ukraine have initiated DDOS (denial of service) cyber-attacks against the Russian Foreign Ministry website and social media channels. These attacks are in response to the growing popularity of Russia’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The German and Ukrainian government accuses Russia of similar behavior. In January the Ukrainian CyberBerkut hacker group claimed responsibility for a series of DDoS attacks that took down German government websites after the announcement of a meeting between German chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk.
CyberBerkut specializes in attacks on NATO websites and U.S. private military companies.
—
Related previous posts on this blog
No comments:
Post a Comment