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Explosions Cause Major Damage to Both Nord Stream Pipelines
D. DeCamp – Antiwar. com
European officials on Tuesday said massive leaks in the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that were caused by explosions were likely the result of sabotage, raising questions on who the culprit might be. The Nord Stream pipelines connect Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea … Two underwater explosions were recorded earlier on Monday near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea …According to a report from Germany’s Der Spiegel, the US had foreknowledge of a possible attack on the pipelines. Citing unnamed sources, Spiegel reported that the German government received a tip over the summer from the CIA that Nord Stream could be attacked, and Berlin assumed both pipelines could be targeted. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has long been in the crosshairs of Washington and the US had tried to stop its construction …
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How ‘Social Justice’ is Corrupting Science
New York Post
Nature Human Behavior, one of the most prestigious journals for social-science research, recently published an editorial, “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans,” that generated tremendous pushback among academics and intellectuals concerned about the spread of social-justice ideology into science. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for one, said the journal was “no longer a peer-reviewed scientific journal but an enforcer of a political creed.” In short, the editorial took the position that scientific truth should defer to politics. The journal now considers it appropriate to suppress research that “undermines — or could reasonably be perceived to undermine — the rights and dignities” of people or groups, as well as “text or images that disparage a person or group on the basis of socially constructed human groupings.”
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Biden Commits US to War for Taiwan
Patrick J. Buchanan
… For the fourth time in his presidency, Biden has said the U.S. will fight for Taiwan, though that could mean all-out war with China, which claims Taiwan as its sovereign territory and which has a growing stockpile of strategic missiles and nuclear weapons to validate its claim. …. Yet we have no such commitment, no such obligation, though Biden appeared to be establishing one as head of government, head of state and commander in chief …. No U.S. president after Richard Nixon has challenged China’s claim that there is but “one China” and Taiwan “is a part of China.” How many battle deaths, how many war dead, are we willing to sacrifice to prevent Beijing taking political control of an island of 23 million Taiwanese 6,000 miles away from the United States?
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How a Party of Neo-Fascist Roots Won Big in Italy
Associated Press
The Brothers of Italy party, which won the most votes in Italy’s national election, has its roots in the post-World War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement. Keeping the movement’s most potent symbol, the tricolor flame, Giorgia Meloni has taken Brothers of Italy from a fringe far-right group to Italy’s biggest party. A century after Benito Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome, which brought the fascist dictator to power, Meloni is poised to lead Italy’s first far-right-led government since World War II and become its first female premier … It was in those years that a young Meloni, who was raised by a single mother in a Rome working-class neighborhood, first joined the MSI’s youth branch and then went onto lead the youth branch of Fini’s National Alliance.
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Giorgia Meloni is leader of the nationalist “Brothers of Italy” party, which won more votes than any other in a recent national election. Here she speaks fervently about her outlook, and why globalists hate her. With English subtitles. Runtime: 2:52 mins.
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A new report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a program of the US Department of Education, confirms what most parents already knew: shutting down the schools because of the panic over covid was a disaster for American schoolchildren … It was clear to anyone truly following the science that school shutdowns were unnecessary and harmful … The one positive development from the school closures is that many parents discovered how concepts like critical race theory had been snuck into the government school curriculum. This has led to a parental uprising and a renewed focus on electing individuals to school boards who are committed to stopping government schools from indoctrinating children with political and social beliefs or undermining parents’ values.
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A record-high 48 people were shot dead in Sweden this year, Swedish media reported Friday … This means that Sweden has already reached a new record in terms of fatal shootings, and the number is expected to be much higher before the end of the year … Gang-related deadly shootings have escalated and spread across the Nordic country with authorities struggling to contain the war-like violence. According to a report published last year by the National Council for Crime Prevention, Sweden is at the top of European rankings when it comes to fatal shootings.
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Success for Party of ‘Sweden First’ Energizes Global Right
Associated Press
The Sweden Democrats party was founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads in the 1980s. Today, the rebranded and reformed nationalist party stands on the edge of unprecedented influence. Following a weekend election held amid fears of rising crime, the anti-immigration party is the now second-most popular party in the Scandinavian country. The development is the latest global example of a political force once widely deemed socially unacceptable moving into the political mainstream. Vowing to put “Sweden first” and to “make Sweden good again,” the slogans of party leader Jimmie Akesson echo those that have resonated with ex-President Donald Trump’s supporters in the United States. Its surge has energized right-wing forces in Europe as they eye further gains against the left.
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Iranian President’s Holocaust Remarks Spark Outcry in Israel
Associated Press
The Iranian president’s comment that “there are some signs” that the Holocaust happened but that the issue required more research sparked an outcry on Monday from Israeli officials, who denounced the remarks as antisemitic Holocaust denial. Hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi made the comment during an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” on the eve of his visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. When asked whether he believed the Holocaust happened, Raisi said there “are some signs that it happened.” He added: “If so, they should allow it to be investigated and researched.” Soon after the interview aired, outrage spread in Israel, a country home to tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors. The chairman of Israel’s official Holocaust memorial center, Yad Vashem, rebuked Raisi as a “despicable anti-Semite.”
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Modern slavery is a growing challenge thanks to a mix of armed conflict, climate change and the global pandemic, a new UN report says. International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates suggest that 50 million people – or one out of every 150 people alive – are trapped in forced labour or forced marriages. That is up nearly 10 million on its numbers from five years ago. The ILO said the fact things were getting worse was “shocking” … The UN’s labour organisation is keen to stress that slavery is not confined to poor countries far away from the Western world – more than half of all forced labour happens in wealthier countries in the upper-middle or high-income bracket.
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Winners and Losers From the Ukraine War
Patrick J. Buchanan
.. If Russia has been badly bled and Ukraine has suffered irretrievable losses of land and soldiers, who then are the winners? And who benefits from a continuation of this war, which will bring thousands more dead and wounded Russians and Ukrainians? America? Is this new Cold War II with Russia, into which we appear to have plunged, in the national interest of a United States that so welcomed the peaceful end of the old Cold War three decades ago? … As Russians and Ukrainians kill one another in the Donbas, and hatred of Russians for Americans grows, how is that good for the USA? Perhaps we ought to invest as much time and energy trying to end this war as we do to defeat and humiliate Russia, which will not bring us peace.
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Farewell Gorbachev
Eric Margolis
… Mikhail Gorbachev, a soft-spoken bureaucrat from the rural Stavropol region, seemed unlikely to assume leadership of the mighty Soviet Union. But three previous chairmen of the Union had died from age-related infirmities. The Communist Party’s ruling circles decided that their nations needed youth, rejuvenation and a battle against corruption. So Gorbachev was named the new party chairman. He wasted no time in unleashing a torrent of reforms known a ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika.’ …The USSR collapsed, splintering into pieces … Former President Mikhail Gorbachev died last week aged 91 after a long illness. Like US president Jimmy Carter, he struggled to spare the world from the threat of nuclear war. He made many mistakes, but Gorby was a great man, a great statesman and a great human being.
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Gorbachev's Look at Soviet History: Insightful and Naive
Basil Dmytryshyn – Institute for Historical Review
Just how and why did the Soviet Union collapse? Was the demise of this once-mighty empire inevitable? In this important book, the last leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the last President of the USSR, offers answers to these questions and provides valuable insights on the 70-year Soviet experiment, including its origins and collapse, an assessment of his tenure as the last Soviet leader, and reflections on current global issues. On My Country and the World is organized into three parts … Gorbachev tried to maintain the multi-national USSR, but reorganized on a voluntary basis. What he failed to appreciate is the deeply entrenched resentment based on the fact that the country’s many non-Russian nationalities (who made up nearly half the total population) had been forcibly brought under Moscow’s control …
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The Russian military has lost almost 6,000 troops during the fighting in Ukraine, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Wednesday. Fatalities on the Ukrainian side are ten times higher, with 61,207 Kiev troops killed, according to the minister. It’s the first time that Russia announced its losses during the military operation since late March when the number of killed servicemen stood at 1,351, according to the defense ministry. “Our losses to date are 5,937 dead,” Shoigu revealed. He also praised the work of military medics, saying that 90% of the Russian troops who had been wounded during fighting were able to return to action after treatment.
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Crowds at separate weekend rallies headlined by former US president Donald Trump and his favored nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano, raised their right hands in unison, a gesture critics of the two politicians compared to the Nazi salute. New York State Senator Anna Kaplan, a Jewish Democrat, said Sunday in a statement that both rallies invoked Nazi imagery. “Last night at a rally held by the former President, and today at a political rally held by a candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, supporters were urged to hold up their right hands in a unified salute that should shock the conscience of every American for its remarkable similarity to the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute used by the Nazis,” Kaplan wrote. “I call on these campaigns to immediately end the use of this shocking salute in their rallies.”
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Israel’s Netanyahu Employs ‘Exact Methods’ of Nazi Propagandist Goebbels, Says Israeli Minister
The Times of Israel
Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, the head of the Yisrael Beytenu party, on Sunday [Sept. 11] accused political rival and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu of employing the “exact methods” of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi party’s chief propogandist, as well as Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. The comparison sparked political outrage, and he later said he had not intended to harm anyone … “It’s a blood libel,” Liberman said while entering the government’s cabinet meeting on Sunday. “These are Netanyahu’s methods, exactly like those of Goebbels and Stalin, to make the most severe, absurd accusation and repeat it a million times until people get used to the absurdity,” Liberman said.
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The Brothers of Italy party, which is tipped to win national elections at the weekend, suspended one of its candidates on Tuesday after he was found to have praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in online posts. Brothers of Italy traces its roots back to a neo-fascist group set up after World War Two, but its leader Giorgia Meloni, expected to be Italy’s next prime minister, has looked to distance herself from the far-right and says her party is mainstream conservative. Critics, however, say fascist sympathisers still flourish in its ranks and La Repubblica newspaper published this week a social media comment posted eight years ago by party candidate Calogero Pisano, hailing Hitler as a “great statesman”.
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The Fall of Los Angeles
Joel Kotkin – Spiked
For much of the 20th century, Los Angeles symbolised the future … Conditions in LA today are bordering on the medieval. Anyone visiting some of the most famous districts of urban Los Angeles – notably downtown, Hollywood and Venice Beach – sees clear signs of destitution, including sprawling homeless encampments, vast numbers of people living in vehicles and rampant crime. Last year, a UN official compared conditions on LA’s Skid Row, a poor downtown neighbourhood, to those of Syrian refugee camps. Smash-and-grab thefts at local 7-Elevens and the persistent theft of goods from railyards suggest this is a city that has lost control to the modern version of lawless highwaymen … Despite massive expenditures, the city’s streets teem with more than 60,000 homeless residents, including 2,000 along upmarket Venice Beach … The economy has also stagnated.
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Nearly Half of San Franciscans Have Been Victims of Theft, New Poll Says
San Francisco Standard
Nearly half of San Franciscans have been a victim of theft in the past five years, and a quarter have been threatened or physically attacked, according to a new poll. Findings from the SF Chronicle survey underscored the challenges of the city and the unhappiness of its residents, with 65% saying life in SF is worse today than when they moved here. The survey also found that 39% of residents have had their property damaged in the past five years. The new poll of residents confirms the findings of The Standard’s poll of voters prior to the June 2022 election. By far, both studies found that the No. 1 reported problem in the city is homelessness, followed by crime/ safety … Many San Franciscans report that they do not plan to stay in the city long-term, with 37% of residents saying they would likely leave the city in the next three years.
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More than one in five Swedes voted for the radical anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) party in elections on Sunday. Now the second-largest political party in the country, its anticipated 73 MPs are expected to play a crucial role in supporting a ruling right-wing coalition – if not a formal position in the government itself. It would be the first time the nationalist party has come anywhere close to the levers of power in Stockholm. A focus during the election campaign on issues around immigration and violent crime have put the SD’s agenda at the heart of mainstream Swedish politics like never before. It is a watershed moment for a party founded by Nazi sympathisers, shunned for decades by the mainstream – and now on the cusp of playing a kingmaking role in a country better known for its stable and predictable politics.
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How Liberal Elites Detest Middle America
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Biden described the Middle Americans of 2022. Only now they’re known as “MAGA Republicans,” and no more anti-American assemblage is to be imagined. In a speech he labored on for days, the president described that half of the Republican Party he sees as wedded to “semi-fascism.” … Biden is here hypocritically denouncing as “backward” moral stands championed by his own Catholic faith — opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage — that he himself held not so long ago … The catalogue of sins and crimes Biden attributes to MAGA Republicans — extremism, violence, mendacity, authoritarianism — not only raises a question as to the state of the soul of the nation; it raises a question of its continuance as a democratic republic.
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Europe Commits Suicide by Sanction
Ron Paul
… European sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year will likely go down in history as a prime example of how sanctions can result in unintended consequences. While seeking to punish Russia by cutting off gas and oil imports, European Union politicians forgot that Europe is completely dependent on Russian energy supplies and that the only people to suffer if those imports are shut down are the Europeans themselves … Last week an estimated 100,000 Czechs took to the streets of Prague to protest NATO and EU policy. In France, the “Yellow Vests” are back in the streets protesting the destruction of their economy in the name of “defeating” Russia in Ukraine. In Germany, Serbia, and elsewhere, protests are gearing up.
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King Charles III: A Friend to UK Jewry, With Special and Historic Ties to Israel
The Times of Israel
With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the United Kingdom has a new king in Charles III, who at the age of 73 is the oldest person to ascend the British throne. Charles has long had a good relationship with British Jews, and in recent years has also shored up his bona fides with Israel.
… Charles himself has abiding ties to British Jewish leaders and institutions, and has shown a keen interest in the stories and lessons of the Holocaust … In 2022, Charles commissioned portraits of seven Holocaust survivors to be displayed at Buckingham Palace for International Holocaust Remembrance Day … In 1994, Charles said that when he became king he could be “defender of faiths” rather than taking the traditional vow to be “defender of the faith.” -
A Great British Historian and Military Thinker: J.F.C. Fuller
James Alexander – Institute for Historical Review
… Fuller was more than a brilliant thinker. Of inestimable help in publicizing ideas that demanded a revolutionary change in the conventional British military thinking of the time was Fuller’s gift — one might even use the word genius — for vivid, forceful and persuasive writing … Fuller’s renown is not merely as a military prophet and innovator, nor, obviously, is it due to his commitment to a short-lived political movement. He is remembered today primarily as a masterful writer of history, and as a historian who artfully described the underlying forces behind historical events.
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In 2010, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced plans to award French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard an honorary Oscar. Many in the Jewish community revolted. Calling on the Academy to rescind the Oscar, the right-wing Zionist Organization of America called Godard a “virulent antisemite,” arguing that Godard had a record of making antisemitic comments and putting antisemitic language into his films. Jewish press outlets reported accusations that the filmmaker was an antisemite. Such claims of antisemitism were a constant throughout the long and idiosyncratic career of the pioneering French New Wave filmmaker, who died Tuesday …
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The Syrian Oil Ministry released a statement on 9 August accusing US forces occupying Syria of being responsible for the theft of most of the country’s oil. “The amount of oil production during the first half of 2022 amounted to some 14.5 million barrels, with an average daily production of 80.3 thousand barrels, of which 14.2 thousand are delivered daily to refineries,” the oil ministry’s statement said. The statement went on to say that “US occupation forces and their mercenaries,” referring to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), “steal up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83 percent of Syria’s daily oil production.
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David Barnea, the head of Israel’s spy agency the Mossad, said on Sept. 12 that Iran would not be granted “immunity” even if the US returns to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal. “Even if a nuclear deal is signed it will not give Iran immunity from the Mossad operations,” Barnea said … In response, a spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry said: “We do not expect a terrorist regime [to do] anything other than terrorist actions.” … Israel has … carried out assassinations and acts of sabotage inside the Islamic Republic in an attempt to end the talks. For the past three decades. Israeli officials and their western sponsors have claimed Iran is anywhere from “years” to “days” away from developing a nuclear weapon.
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Is `Autocracy’ America’s Mortal Enemy?
Patrick J. Buchanan
In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden declared to the nation and world: “We are engaged anew in a great battle for freedom. A battle between democracy and autocracy.” … Are autocracy and democracy in a climactic ideological crusade to determine the destiny of mankind? For if that is the future, it is surely not America’s past. Indeed, in the two-century rise of the United States to world preeminence and power, autocrats have proven invaluable allies … In our war with Hitler’s Germany, America’s crucial ally who did more fighting than any other to ensure victory, the USSR’s Joseph Stalin, was the greatest tyrant of his age.
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Whose Rules? Our Rules! in the Rules-Based International Order
David Bromwich – The Nation
… The US has been king since we installed the Bretton Woods financial system in 1944 and oversaw the founding of the United Nations in 1945. As Stephen Wertheim showed in Tomorrow, the World, the plans for our ascendancy go back as far as 1940. Still, what to make of the situation? … How hard it is for Americans not to assume the US is invincible! The people who run things have gone on assuming it … The most obvious fact about America today is that we are the most militarized of nations. With all the energy we can spare from arming ourselves, we sell weapons to help other people kill each other.
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Israel Lobby’s Power Comes From the Benjamins
Philip Weiss
If you had any question why Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia and destroyed his own credibility by making friends with the murderous Crown Prince, AIPAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel gave you the answer Tuesday night … The Benjamins don’t just sway the Congress, they impact the White House too. This was the main purpose of Biden’s humiliating trip: to try to extend the “normalization” deals between Israel and Arab neighbors to include Saudi Arabia. Biden’s policy is all but indistinguishable from Donald Trump’s, and the Israel lobby is very happy. The takeaway is that Money matters in politics, and Democratic campaign money is pro-Israel, because a large portion of that money comes from the older Jewish community, which still loves Israel.
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AIPAC’s New Strategy: Spend Millions on Elections, Don’t Mention Israel
Eli Clifton - Responsible Statecraft
… Now that the super PAC [United Democracy Project] is active, raising over $27 million, and running ads to support or oppose Democratic primary candidates for the 2022 midterms, it’s becoming clear what UDP’s fundraising and spending strategy is: raise money from hawkish Trump supporting GOP big donors and spend on ads to benefit Democratic candidates who won’t question U.S. policy towards the U.S.’s biggest foreign military aid recipient. Curiously though, the ads paid for by UDP, affiliated with the largest pro-Israel group in the country, don’t mention the groups’ central issue: Israel … Two of UDP’s biggest individual funders are Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus and hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Both contributed $1 million to the UDP super PAC. Both are Trump backers and Republican Party megadonors …
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The American People, Unlike US Congress Leaders, Are Not United for Israel
Ron Paul Institute
A Pew Research Center poll conducted in March indicates that Americans have rather evenly divided views in regard to the government of Israel. While 48 percent of polled Americans stated they have a favorable view of the Israeli government, nearly as many — 44 percent — said they have a negative view. In contrast, among United States Congress top leadership members — both Republican and Democratic, the support for the government of Israel appears unanimous and over the top. “The United States takes great pride in our ironclad bond with Israel,” proclaimed US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a May 4 press release concerning the anniversary of the Israel’s Independence Day.
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[ Address given in London, England, and, slightly modified, in Guadalajara, Mexico ] … As long as the power of what Desmond Tutu calls “the very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system and the American media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace. That’s why no task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.
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Almost seven decades have passed since a U.S.-orchestrated coup toppled Iran’s then Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, the notorious move still fuels Iranians’ deep distrust of America today. On the occasion of the anniversary of the U.S.-led coup in Iran, Ali Bahadori Jahromi, the spokesman for the Iranian government, said Friday that putting trust in the United States in international ties is “meaningless,” citing it as one of the three lessons for Iran from the 1953 coup d’etat. In August 1953, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in cahoots with the British spy agency, toppled the popular government of Mosaddegh in Iran … “The U.S. government holds a record in interventions, invasions and coups against independent countries and governments,” he said …
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A Sniper in the Woods, a Hypnotized Insider: UK Spooks’ Secret Plans to Kill Hitler
R. Philpot - The Times of Israel
The plan was simple in conception but fiendishly difficult in execution. A lone sniper would hide in the woods around the Berghof, waiting for Adolf Hitler to pass on his daily 20-minute stroll in the Bavarian Alps. With his SS bodyguards ordered to keep their distance, the Nazi tyrant would be effectively alone and exposed. Although it never got off the drawing board, Operation Foxley — the UK intelligence service’s secret plan to assassinate Hitler — shines a fascinating light on British thinking about how to kill the head of the Third Reich — and what the consequences might be. It also reveals the depths of British knowledge about Hitler’s daily routine and security, as well as some startling omissions and misconceptions.
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US Miscalculations Are Now Legion — But What to Do Now?
Ted Galen Carpenter - Responsible Statecraft
The Biden administration continues to misconstrue international realities with respect to U.S. policy toward Russia. One common feature linking those multiple miscalculations is arrogance. U.S. officials cling to the assumptions of a bygone era when U.S. power and influence vastly eclipsed that of any other nation — or combination of nations. Washington enjoyed that status in the initial decades after World War II … Even warnings and implied threats from the Biden administration have not dislodged such countries from refusing to join the U.S.-led effort to isolate Russia. Such a response graphically illustrates the rapidly growing limits to Washington’s influence — and the continuing refusal of U.S. leaders to face that reality … Crucially, U.S. leaders must understand that major powers such as Russia cannot and will not be intimidated.
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Putin Fairly Deconstructed: a Man, a Myth, the State
Anatol Lieven - Responsible Statecraft
Philip Short has achieved something that in present circumstances might almost be called miraculous: a fair, balanced and insightful biography of Vladimir Putin … It is indeed one of the best books to have been written on the modern history of Russia and Russia’s relations with the West … The portrait that Short draws is of a man with strong, even violent emotions, which are most of the time rigidly suppressed but occasionally break out with intense force … As I can testify myself from hearing him speak over the years, he was extremely well-informed with a quite remarkable memory and gift of detail … Putin has always been loyal to the state and the idea of Russia as a great power … “America, the global power, believes that its role is to lead. Russia refuses to be led.”
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Portrait of Power: Demystifying Vladimir Putin
Sean McMeekin – Claremont Review
… Putin is also a less visionary statesman than his admirers believe. Nor is Putin an especially original thinker. Certainly he is more cunning, more genuinely curious about the world and how it really works, and consequently more effective, than most Western statesmen today … The closer one looks at Putin and his political career, the less remarkable he appears. Putin is at his core a quintessential Russian state servant, a career bureaucrat who ascended to national leadership because of his more mundane qualities, not because of any that made him stand out … We can find solutions to our own policy dilemmas neither by emulating Putin’s approach to statecraft nor by demonizing him as a new Hitler whose villainy gives meaning to our increasingly empty national life. Our salvation must come from within.
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Faneuil Hall is one of the most famous sites in Boston. There’s a longtime effort in the works by activists and ministers to rename it because of its namesake’s role in the slave trade. Rev. Kevin Peterson sees this fight as a spiritual one. “On a certain level, racism is a spiritual crisis represented in our nation,” Peterson said. “Peter Faneuil was a racist and a person who represented anti-Blackness. So I’m here passionately trying to help rewrite the story in Boston about how we need to be a multiracial democracy.” … Peterson and more than two dozen people gathered in front of Boston City Hall to once again demand the name change because Peter Faneuil was a known enslaver … Samuel Pierce from nearby Dorchester supports changing the name. He said it’s a continuation of recent efforts to address civil rights in the city.
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Do Young Americans Know Anything?
Video – Fleccas Talks
Are young Americans hopelessly ignorant? If this on-the-street survey is any indication, it certainly seems so. Justin speaks with randomly chosen young Americans to ask some absurdly simple questions, including: How many states are in the US? What is 3x3x3? How many eggs are a dozen? What’s the future of a country in which such people are supposed to determine its political leadership and major laws and policies? Runtime: 4:17 mins.
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Was Alexander Hamilton Gay?
History on the Net
… Hamilton certainly had a colorful career and death, but this accusation is based on amateur psychoanalysis and extremely circumstantial evidence. If Hamilton was gay, he certainly did a fine job of hiding it throughout his adult life. The myth of Hamilton’s homosexual past centers on his relationship with John Laurens of South Carolina … They were kindred spirits, but no hint of a sexual relationship exists. Hamilton in fact requested that Laurens find him a wife … Hamilton did have an affair with a married woman in 1791 … Thus, while Hamilton was an adulterer, his known and suspected affairs were all with women, not men. The Alexander Hamilton rumor, unfortunately, has been seized upon by activist groups who want to make him a champion of gay rights, for which there is not a shred of evidence.
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How, When, Do We Come Together Again?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… For a nation, a country, a people, a democracy to endure, there needs be a broad consensus of belief, culture, custom and politics … For a nation, especially a great world power like the United States, some things are indispensable to its preservation. A democratic republic needs to preserve the value of its currency, to defend its borders against illegal mass migrations and invasions, to preserve law and order, especially in its great cities. Which of these requisites exist today? … The preservation of a democracy also requires the confidence of its people in its defining institutions … In summary, we are a country whose people have a diminishing confidence in almost all of its institutions, from big business to the churches, universities and media.
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A Quarter of America’s 400 Wars Have Been in the Middle East and Africa, Study Finds
Middle East Eye
A major new study has concluded that US military interventions “increasingly” target the Middle East and Africa, making up more than a quarter of the country’s campaigns throughout its history. From its founding in 1776 to 2019, the US has undertaken almost 400 military interventions, with more than a quarter occurring in the post-Cold War period, the report also found. The first major study of its kind, titled Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776-2019, also found the post-9/11 era resulted in “higher hostility levels”, with US military adventures becoming “overwhelmingly commonplace” … Today, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute puts the cost of the US military at more than $800 billion annually, accounting for almost 40 percent of global military spending.
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On Russian Invasion, US Intel Got it Right — But Policymakers Stumbled
G. Beebe, A. Lieven - Responsible Statecraft
… The Biden administration’s apparent belief that threats of draconian economic sanctions and stiff military countermeasures could prompt Putin to rethink the costs and benefits of an invasion was a fundamental misreading of Russia’s threat perceptions. Moscow has made clear for years that it regards Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO as a redline, something that would threaten Russia’s core security interests. In Georgia in 2008 and again in Ukraine in 2014, it had demonstrated that it was willing to use force to prevent such outcomes. Attempting to deter Russia from enforcing that redline was a fool’s errand. Vital national interests are just that — issues perceived as essential to a nation’s survival.
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Americans Must Face the Hard Truth on Afghanistan
Daniel L. Davis - National Interest
One year ago, the Afghan government and military disintegrated in one of the most remarkable, sudden, and widespread collapses in modern military history. Looking back, not just at the year since that collapse but the twenty years that preceded it, there are some important lessons for the United States to acknowledge. Key among them: foreign interventions to “promote democracy” and “fight terrorism” have been exposed as expensive failures. We fail to apply these lessons to our future peril … The plain truth of the matter is that the war was never winnable … Of course, none of those advocates for keeping the war going forever paid any price for their arrogant, presumptuous behavior (in fact many of them still hold highly-paid positions to this day). But 2,443 Americans paid with their lives …
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A look at the “Russian Liberation Army,” a little-known World War II military force made up of Russian soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and then volunteered to fight the Soviet regime. This ten-minute Russian-language video, with English subtitles, includes wartime footage of a swearing-in ceremony of RLA soldiers. The RLA was commanded by former Soviet General Andrei Vlasov, who also headed the German-backed anti-Stalinist “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,” a provisional “government-in-exile.”
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Photos of “Soviet citizens” who fought on the side of Germany and her allies during World War II. Especially noteworthy were the troops of the “Russian Liberation Army” (ROA), which was the military arm of the anti-Stalinist “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,” headed by former Soviet general Andrei Vlasov.
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General Andrei Vlasov addresses the founding conference of the anti-Stalinist “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia,” a German-backed, anti-Soviet Russian “government-in-exile.” At the historic meeting in Prague, Nov. 14, 1944, he reads, in Russian, the Committee’s stirring proclamation to the Russian people, and the world. Video in Russian, with English subtitles. Runtime: 1:17 mins. Vlasov, a former Soviet General, was also commander of the German-supported “Russian Liberation Army.” At the end of the war US authorities turned him over to the Soviets, who hanged him in Moscow.
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Vilfredo Pareto: Influential `Fascist’ Sociologist and Philosopher
James Alexander – Institute for Historical Review
… One of the most widely respected Italian political theorists and sociologists in this century is Vilfredo Pareto. Indeed, so influential are his writings that “it is not possible to write the history of sociology without referring to Pareto.” Throughout all of the vicissitudes and convulsions of twentieth-century political life, Pareto remains “a scholar of universal reputation.” Pareto is additionally important for us today because he is a towering figure in one of Europe’s most distinguished, and yet widely suppressed, intellectual currents. This broad school of thought … stands in staunch opposition to rationalism, liberalism, egalitarianism, Marxism …