Who were those Useful Idiots…
Strategically, Russia would be crazy if it weren’t funding Green Groups to scare the West out of using its own resources and hobbling its own energy grid.
Russia has the motive, the means and the opportunity. Ask not whether Putin was funding some Greens, but whether Putin would not be.
These dark money trails across international borders are almost impossible to pin down, but there are clues, leaks and links suggesting Russia was sending hundreds of millions of dollars to support anti-fossil-fuel Green environmentalists.
Yesterday Russian troops did a hostile takeover of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. So in that spirit it’s time to ask if Russia was funding Western Greens was it preparing for War or just worried about walruses?
Would Good Global Citizen Russia say No Thanks to a chance to gain dominant control of a key strategic market?
A lesson in energy masochism
The Wall Street Journal / The Australian
A mere 15 years ago, countries in the EU produced more gas than Russia exported. Yet European production has plunged by more than half during the past decade. Putin has happily filled the supply gap.
In 2020 Russia exported nearly three times more gas than Europe produced. What’s amazing is that Europe increased its reliance on Russian gas even after Gazprom repeatedly suspended pipeline exports to Ukraine.
Europe still had the gas, it just needed to be convinced not to use it:
Europe had an estimated 966 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable wet natural gas resources as of 2013, about enough to supply the EU for 60 years. Much of this is located in eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. But France, Britain, The Netherlands and Germany are also sitting on shale deposits.
In 2014, a NATO bigwig and former Prime Minister of Denmark claimed the Russians were fuelling the opposition to frakking.
Former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen blamed Russia for fuelling the fracking opposition. “Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas,” he noted in 2014.
“I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations — environmental organizations working against shale gas — to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas,” said Rasmussen…
According to DeSmog (remember them?) this was revealed at a London’s Chatham House event in 2014 and was not supposed to be leaked (or maybe it was?). DeSmog’s entire ammunition against this quote is that Rassmussen later said “it was my interpretation”, which confirms that he said it.
Four years later US congressmen were releasing reports describing potential funding chains from Russia to non-profit environmental groups.
Russian-funded environmental group gave millions to anti-fracking groups
Kevin Mooney, Washington Examiner, June 14, 2018
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who chairs the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, released a report in March that explores Russia’s motives for disrupting America’s energy sector.
“Russia benefits from stirring up controversy about U.S. energy production,” Smith said in a press release. “U.S. energy exports to European countries are increasing, which means they will have less reason to rely upon Russia for their energy needs. This, in turn, will reduce Russia’s influence on Europe to Russia’s detriment and Europe’s benefit. That’s why Russian agents attempted to manipulate Americans’ opinions about pipelines, fossil fuels, fracking and climate change. The American people deserve to know if what they see on social media is the creation of a foreign power seeking to undermine our domestic energy policy.”
Smith’s report describes the Russian scheme to use nonprofit entities to influence and sway U.S. public policy and public opinion against fracking. The evidence in the report shows that Russia has been using U.S. environmental groups to spread what Smith aptly describes as “propaganda” to undermine America’s natural gas revolution.
Росгвардия
The SeaChange Foundation, in San Francisco has apparently given out “about $400 million” between 2007 and 2015 to “environmental groups that have worked to block fracking and pipeline construction that make natural gas development and distribution possible.” Downstream recipients include the Tides Foundation, which received $8 million, and the U.S. Climate Action Network ( $7.3 million). SeaChange also gave $30 million to the Energy Foundation which then funded the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
A 29-year CIA veteran Kenneth L. Stiles analyzed the links, and followed the money, as much as anyone could. The dollars track back from local Virginia green groups right through one or two layers of NGO’s and back to opaque Foundations in Bermuda which were set up by people who also used to work with a Russian Minister and friend of Putin.
Could be a coincidence…
CIA Veteran Sees Russian Connection to 2 Groups Opposing Fracking, Pipelines
Kevin Mooney, Aug 25, 2017, TheDailySignal
Two of these local environmental groups “are, without a doubt, agents of influence to Moscow through [a] networking system of shell companies and foundations,” Stiles said.
The Russians “executed a political agenda with little or no paper trail,” the letter explains, by using a Bermuda-based shell company, Klein Ltd., “to funnel tens of millions of dollars” to a San Francisco-based nonprofit called the Sea Change Foundation that focuses on climate change.
The Sea Change Foundation then moves the money in the form of grants to other nonprofit environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund.
Klein Ltd, the shell company that supplies the money operates out of Bermuda and isn’t required to disclose the identity of donors. Klein itself was formed by a law firm in Bermuda called Wakefield Quin. The top administrators of that, in turn, apparently have also held top positions in investment groups owned by a Russian Minister and friend of Putin:
The Russian connection with Klein, and from there to Virginia, comes in the form of Bermuda-based law firm Wakefield Quin, which was instrumental in Klein’s formation in March 2011. The law firm shares the same address with Klein and 20 other companies, congressional investigators determined.
Wakefield Quin’s top lawyers and administrators have held what the lawmakers’ letter to the treasury secretary describes as “directorship positions” with an investment group owned by Leonid Reiman, “a Russian minister of telecommunications and a longtime friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
Having friends of Putin helping you save your environment takes on a whole new flavour now.
________________________________________
A few things have become very evident in the last few days.
Biden ended the US oil self-sufficiency. When asked about the Keystone pipeline Buttigieg said “We Don’t Want ‘Permanent Solutions’ to Short Term Problems”. I.e., calling the Ukraine disaster a meaningless short term problem. By ending our self-sufficiency Biden insured world dependency on Russian Oil. By refusing to return US production to normal Biden is supporting the Russian attack. By refusing to end Russian oil imports he is supporting their war efforts with US CASH!!!
Who’s side is Biden and the Left really on??????
420
Obviously not ours.
220
Whose side are the Democrats on???
Quite a simple answer based on Democrat policies & deeds.
Democrats under Joe Fraud refuse to discontinue buying Russian oil/gas, thereby continuing to support Russian funding of their aggression.
Under Obama there was the agreement to for a contract supplying g Russia with American uranium.
Generally all US foreign policy introduced by Trump has been reversed to make way for weaker pro Russian policies.
This applies to other policies introduced to stop Russian allies as well.
Trump policies to reverse anti Israel powers in the Middle East have been scrapped together with the gas/oil pipeline across the Mediterranean.
Biden’s lust for money & corrupt activities of his family have more than likely made him a target for blackmail forcing him to favour policies to advance other powers.
As I’ve said, quite simple to see what’s going on!
330
House Democrats Block Bill To Approve Keystone XL Pipeline For ‘American Energy Independence From Russia’
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/house-democrats-block-bill-approve-keystone-xl-pipeline-american-energy-independence-russia
enemy is not Russia and China, enemy is your own government, ditto for Russian and Chinese people.
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
western nations have this kind of government since 1914.
190
They are on the side of whoever pays them. The fact that most of them are government paid does not enter their tiny brains.
Biden has been a corrupt politician for 41 years. He became president with help from China and Russia. It could have been worse. Hillary. It can get worse. Kamala.
We now await China’s move.
140
this are people who vetting all candidates for american president:
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), founded in 1921, is a United States nonprofit think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. It is headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Massachusetts. Its membership, which numbers 5,103, has included senior politicians, numerous secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and senior media figures.
40
I saw the CFR list you printed, searched and searched, and could find no one I could trust.
30
Biden received more money from China and Ukraine than from the US.
Shows where his allegiances lie. (and yes, I do mean “lie”).
And it went steadily downhill since then, with help from his partners-in-crime, the traitors in the Dems, the RINOs, and in Silicon Valley.
50
In times of war, both sides will do whatever it takes to win. The problem of course is neither side will win next time around thanks to modern weaponry, and they know it. So, eventually some common sense will prevail and they will come to some sort of arrangement to share the spoils of the world and create a new NWO to replace or augment the UN.
141
As you say Peter, the stakes are high come round 2 – or whatever. American exceptionalism has taken a big hit notwithstanding its military spending far outstrips other countries. This old order that allowed the US to overthrow democracies and assassinate leaders it did not like; to use ITS power of veto to get its way like ” shock and awe” the bombing of Baghdad and Kirkuk; the destabilization of Iraq. Hardly a peep of outrage from the Western media and it’s populace. Pax Americana?
80
We are governed by idiots and crypto-tyrants.. Energy policies have kneecapped us for no benefits at all while covid policies revealed the tyrants lurking in every level of government.
270
Yes, but we the people keep voting for them in either major party. So, who are the real idiots?
150
Here at home in Australia we have a ONE PARTY STATE.
We are governed by a liberal/ Labor/Green coalition.
This single coalition is selling the same policies, served up by different salesmen but with the same, “not fit for consumption policies”. Those policies when examined favour Globalisation, One World Government, the much advertised Great Reset!!
It’s time we had an Opposition. It’s time Australia got back on track.
I’d love to vote again!
281
I hate hearing the sentiment that it is the fault of the conned that they have been. With respect I suggest you have been gaslit by the narcissists in power to take responsibility for their evil and treasonous activity. As if you or I could have done anything when they substituted a dodgy constitution decades ago and gerimandered seats etc etc. Individually we have as much chance of changing The System as the bloke that stood in front of the tanks in Tienanmin square. Was it his fault he got squished?
11
PeterS
March 5, 2022 at 5:55 am · Reply
Yes, but we the people keep voting for them in either major party.
Ha Ha Ha, Ho Ho Ho
2004 United States presidential election George W. Bush member of Skull and Bones vs John Kerry member of Skull and Bones.
coincidence, move on, nothing to see here…It is all democratic process
60
All this week, most of Europe has been overwhelmingly reliant on gas and coal for its power:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2022/03/04/why-europe-needs-russian-gas/#comment-212958
There are a set of graphs illustrating the “advantages” of going Green.
80
Blackrock says Russia-Ukraine war will ‘accelerate’ green energy transition
In other words, we have people on “our” side who want to lose the war before it has even started by accelerating our moves to “green” energy. How about we just surrender and save us the pain and trouble of destroying ourselves by accelerating our moves to reducing our emissions to net zero?
200
What could possibly go wrong with solar powered electric tanks and planes?
I am sure the Russians and Chinese would want to play fair and would only do battle on nice sunny days, preferably on flat ground as hills do lower the range of an EV
231
More ways to nobble our military.
110
Perhaps: Buys Blackrock time to divest investments before the tail falls out of the industry.
40
Tony,
War has changed (for now) and tanks are now more vulnerable than ever. Missile and drone tech have made them into steel coffins . This war will end with drones doing all the damage – just look at the recent conflicts in the middle east . This dumpster fire has everyone pouring fuel on it and the people of Ukraine will suffer until sanity prevails or resources run out . No amount of windmills or solar panels will save them .
30
Clever manipulation by the Ruskies, but now people can see through the fog, so what are we going to do about it.
31
Nothing we can do unless you want a nuclear war.
11
U.S.-Mexico Border Disguised As Ukrainian Border So Democrats Will Defend It
March 3rd, 2022 – BabylonBee.com
https://babylonbee.com/news/4d-chess-us-mexico-border-disguised-as-ukrainian-border-so-democrats-will-defend-it?utm_source=Gab&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=Gab
100
Now we have the Vic Labor govt forging ahead with their lunacy of heaps more offshore TOXIC, UNRELIABLE wind energy.
And these disasters will have to be replaced within 20 years FOREVER because experience shows that Offshore wind has a shorter lifespan than even onshore wind.
But who cares as long as they can stuff up our grid even faster and ensure we throw in as much hindrance as possible for new worthwhile REAL jobs for our future.
And of course no change to climate or temp by 2050 or 2100 at all. Just look up the latest co2 countries’ emissions and co2 level from NOAA or Tassie CSIRO Cape Grim.
So why are we doing this and why do we want to cripple ourselves?
210
Why? Because they are lunatics. How? Because we have idiots who vote for those lunatics.
111
Yes.
But, we don’t have any leaders with vision or character to inspire the masses.
Hobson’s choice, but I know who is going last, second last and third last on my ballot.
61
Nothing will change, green zombies have taken over the West, the war is lost. People actually think that if we stop all fossil fuels and cover the country in glass, steel, concrete and lithium these floods and bushfires will never happen again, so rebuild on the same sites again and blame the government again when it happens again. Just witness the pile on the disaster chief coped when he outlined the obvious. The brainwashing of the next generations are complete, the green blob is growing and its turned into a monster with CCP/USSR characteristics. Goodluck with that kids. Watching their ABCCP and its ” We must stop fossil fuels “
150
Start applying treason and subversion laws.
100
We’d run out of politicians in about 6 months!!
80
Ed Zuiderwijk
March 5, 2022 at 7:38 am · Reply
Start applying treason and subversion laws.
you assume that you are majority — be careful what you wish for, last 2 years show you who is in charge and who is going to end up in jail.
50
Yes Russia has its own interests at heart when it funds green groups to undermine its enemies both military and economic.
China does it times 1000. And the USA tries to shape the world in the interests of the people controlling government. And even puny little Australia tries to shape parts of the world nobody else is interested in.
This is Spy v Spy stuff. And of course it is good when our side does it and bad when their side does it, except when it is good when their side does it.
The approach is correct. Follow the money. At least then people can open their eyes a little wider.
110
So how many people really understand the composition of our atmosphere? Answer hardly anyone.
Nitrogen is about 78.08%
Oxygen is about 20.96%
Argon is about .93%
So these 3 gases are about 99.97% of the air we breathe.
All other TRACE gases make up the other 0.03% and water vapour is the most important GHG and is much higher at the equator and very little at the poles.
But it doesn’t leave much for co2 and all the other trace gases does it?
We’re told that co2 in 1750 was about 280 ppm or about 0.028% of our atmosphere and today is about 418 ppm or about 0.0418% of our air.
Of course even Dr Hansen and Bill McKibben tell us that 350 ppm of co2 wouldn’t be harmful (???), so how do we reduce co2 back to 1988 or 1990 levels?
Sounds very easy doesn’t it, perhaps we should tell China, India and all the other developing countries? SARC.
https://eo.ucar.edu/basics/wx_1_b_1.html
140
Well, that makes sense!
40
Coal spiking to $440/tonne, Newcastle.. Now where are those pundits that were saying coal would be a stranded asset by 2020 and warned banks about funding the mining of this material, when the price was less than $70/ tonne.
Evidently when looking for investment vehicles, look to where the greens are prognosticating terminal decline
80
John Kerry: Putin’s Useful Climate Idiot
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the West’s Era of Illusions. It was an era in which Western elites obsessed about solving climate change because the climate crisis was far more dangerous than issues of war and peace and the stability of the international system. They even convinced themselves that climate change causes war, so climate change policy could double as national security policy; and, for many years, the annual round of kumbaya UN climate talks was the apogee of international relations.
In a BBC World Service interview, presidential climate envoy John Kerry expressed concern about the amount of greenhouse gas being emitted from the war in Ukraine. Kerry was just getting warmed up with a string of platitudes that show him as a deluded climate relic, unable to come to terms with the reality that Putin has imposed on the world. “Equally importantly,” Kerry complained, “you’re going to lose people’s focus,” as if the first invasion of a sovereign European country since the Second World War is an annoying distraction.
Hopefully, Kerry continued, Putin would realize that Russia’s land is thawing, and the people of Russia are at risk.
Kerry concluded with an expression of pure self-deception, saying he hopes Putin “will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.” Stay on track? Russia has never hidden its intention to avoid cutting its emissions. Russia’s second Nationally Determined Contribution, submitted in November 2020 under the Paris climate agreement, is to limit its 2030 emissions to “no more than 70% of 1990 levels.” The document is careful to avoid pledging to cut or reduce emissions. The 1990 baseline year was the last one before the collapse of the highly inefficient and heavily polluting centrally planned Soviet economy. Thus, the 70% limit actually enables Russia to increase its emissions by 34% – and that’s before taking account of any changes in forestry and land use that would allow Russia to claim credit for negative emissions.
Despite Kerry’s claim about the thawing of their frozen north, Russians’ indifference to climate change predates Putin’s rise to power. During preparation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) first assessment report in 1990, Soviet scientists argued that warming might be beneficial at northern latitudes. Yuri Izrael, the Soviet academician and chair of the IPCC’s working group examining potential impacts of global warming, emphasized the doubt and uncertainty of climate change and disputed claims that it would be harmful.
At a 2005 conference on avoiding dangerous climate change organized by Britain during its G-8 presidency, Putin’s former economic adviser, Andrei Illarionov, challenged the premise of the conference. “Anyone who is frightened about the prospect of global warming is welcome to come and live in Siberia,” Illarionov told a journalist.
90
“Russia’s land is thawing,”
Does that mean that large areas of Russia will be opened up to crop production?
Seems to me to be a huge plus !
60
I wonder if those who looked the other way at the stolen election expected such a total world wide catastrophe as the result? And this might only be the tip of the iceberg to how bad it could get.
110
One of the social media subjects that gets one tossed off, is said to be anything to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop according to Fox News today. What always worries me is the revelations of alleged huge payments to Hunter from both Russian and Chinese sources ostensibly for his alleged occupation of company higher offices positions. More so is the allegation that this income is side distributed to the family. The actual secreting of this laptop into the bowels of the FBI or other US Security units with refusal to allow public investigation, along with being a no-go area on social media is a matter of extreme importance and concern, with Russia on the charge.
The insistence of the Biden administration that it will put the average US citizens through the punishment of rapidly rising energy prices and COL increases – a politically damaging action to its own cause – is enough for the people to question if Biden is either held in a blackmail embrace by Russia or China by the way he is acting on the question of cutting off Russian oil and gas supplies (the income from which it is said allows Putin to continue his war), or if he is acting in his own best pecuniary interests in his decisions. It leads to needing further investigating just how AOC and her confederates are funded, on the grounds they are said to have a stranglehold over the Democrat Party, profess to not permitting further expansion of the fossil fuel industry in the USA regardless of the seriousness of the need. Something is very odd in the way the USA is governed currently.
130
Gee, What Could Putin Possibly Have on Biden That Would Make Joe Keep Buying Russian Oil?
Biden is also sending, depending on your source, roughly $74 million to Russia EVERY DAY for oil.
Why hit Putin with sanctions if you’re handing him mad stacks for oil? Something is up. Biden could open the Keystone XL pipeline. He could “drill, baby, drill” in the States and tap into what might be billions of barrels of oil, but White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki refers to that idea as a “misdiagnosis.”
So instead, Biden is helping to pay for Putin’s war.
I remember thinking it was weird that Biden’s first move on his first day in the White House was to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Are the tree-huggers really the first people he needed to kowtow to? Or was Mr. “10% for the big guy” cutting into our ability to produce oil so we would buy 24% more from Russia to cover his son Hunter’s tracks?
Joe and Hunter have some ‘splainin’ to do.
A 2020 Senate committee report stated the following:
Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and widow of a former Moscow mayor, sent Hunter Biden $3.5 million for his investment firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners. The report found no reason for the payments.
. There was “potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Ch@nese nationals.”
. “Records also note that some of these transactions are linked to what ‘appears to be an Eastern European pr@stitution or human trafficking ring.’”
Hunter has lost three laptops. One of them, as he told a pr@stitute (after making a s@x tape), contains “videos of me doing crazy f***ing s@x!” that could be used to blackmail him because of his dad. He believes that laptop was stolen by Russians he had been getting hammered with on an 18-day bender.
Another Hunter Biden laptop shows Joe Biden met with Burisma, a Ukrainian company that paid Hunter $50,000 worth of cheddar every month to sit on their board, even though he has no experience in the energy sector and can’t speak Ukrainian.
I love that Hunter Biden is such a screw-up that he records incriminating videos with h@okers on his computers and then somehow loses them. It reminds me of the Ashley Biden diary where she states that, as a child, she was taking showers with her dad. She also wrote in the diary that she believes she was m@lested as a kid. The journal is so juicy, the FBI invaded the homes of three journalists to get information about it, including an early morning raid on Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe.
The Bidens are practically an organized crime family.
What Have We Learned? Not much. We’ve always known Hunter, Joe Biden, and his brother James are throat-deep in foreign money. We know that lefty news and social media are covering for the Bidens like a M@slim bride covers herself on her wedding day.
What we need to know is this: What, if anything, does Putin have on Biden? Or, what does the Biden crime family gain from standing by as Putin re-assembles the Soviet Union?
80
Surely the “Green groups” in question should be called traitors, not useful idiots? Why isn’t it acknowledged they were actually collaborating with a hostile foreign power to harm their own nations?
70
Ukraine must teach Taiwan and Australia about the severe limitations of assistance one can expect if attacked by a nuclear power. All those new allies Morrison says we have to help keep us safe are currently showing just how limited those treaties really are if one is attacked by a nuclear armed nation that simply threatens to use those weapons if a NATO nation takes an active part using troops etc in such a war. I don’t blame the allies for avoiding nuclear war, but the limitations in such circumstances on countries like ours are severe.
Logically, all nations that can afford to do so now have to go nuclear. The guarantees of safety are shown to be all but useless. Russia and China can basically cut much of the world up as they please if the Ukrainian war is anything to go by as seen when the chips for Ukraine were down. Greg Sheridan in today’s The Weekend Australian implies as much as he again berates the Australian Armed forces preparedness for modern warfare.
Peter Dutton looks to have been an excellent choice for his Ministry position. He’s about the first Minister of Defence able to learn anything beyond WW2 about Defence matters. Morrison shows he will listen and act, but his timeframe is woeful. Our Defence position is the result of repeated Parliaments regarding it as a waste of time and money, handy only for passing huge funds to an underperforming State in SA, and protecting his own seat, imo.
100
I can understand that the eagle was a symbol of strength and empire, all the was from ancient Rome to the modern USA.
What I don’t understand is why Eastern empires adopted the two-headed eagle and what that represents. It goes back before radiation was a thing, so it isn’t about mutants or that kind of stuff.
20
Likely related to Janus (looking forwards and back –January &c)
20
The two headed eagle in the traditional Russian Shield refers to one looking to the west and the other looking to the east
70
Makes sense Len. Thanks.
20
Coming from Nigg, the local Oil Capital turned woke capital of Wind, I just can’t help asking why we are not talking about the European Elephants in the room. Close to us there’s a great smell from the UK Government with Matriarch Carrie nudging many ( it seems). Countless claims that the Tories are Greenies under the wrong flag, etc. So are we to believe that Ra’ Putin was in cohoots with the conservatives ( and labour). More you read and get told, the less you know… …………
Live and let live. Get an education about how Physics and Chemistry works and you just get all hett up about these politicians…..
20
https://www.thelist.com/728075/the-truth-about-boris-johnsons-wife-carrie/ gives a rundown on her origins and genealogy; she’s certainly a suitably bizarre consort for a chap whose full catalogue of offspring is likely obscured by non disclosure agreements and such like.
20
If Western Leaders Will Not Stop Putin By Force, They Should Help Negotiate Peace
If there is an off-ramp that might prevent what now appears to be the inevitable reduction of Ukraine to rubble, then Western leaders should not block it with bellicose talk and weak half-measures.
Meanwhile, our leaders appear to be living in a fantasyland where their expressions of solidarity with Ukraine mean something tangible. Economic sanctions, the banning of Russian products from store shelves, the exclusion of Russian cats from cat shows, and the seizure of mega-yachts owned by Russian oligarchs, among other weak and inchoate responses from the West, are not going to stop Russian artillery and missiles from reducing Ukrainian cities to rubble in the coming days and weeks. The Ukrainians have fought bravely and inspired the world with their valor, but a new phase of the war is beginning, and Western leaders need to think seriously about what’s coming, and how this will end.
But they are not sending military aircraft, and they are not sending troops. The United States will not even impose sanctions on Russian oil or entertain the idea of ramping up domestic oil production to offset Russian imports. A White House flack told reporters aboard Air Force One this week: “We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy.” So that’s that.
The West, it seems, is trying to go right up to the line of belligerence without crossing it. Helping Ukraine, but not helping too much.
Right now, there is a galling lack of seriousness and clarity among them. On Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., took to Twitter to call for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as if that’s a realistic option to end the crisis and avert catastrophe in Ukraine.
His comment follows other reckless comments in recent days from U.S. lawmakers and former generals calling for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. A no-fly zone would mean NATO warplanes shooting down Russian warplanes. It would mean open war with Russia. That’s precisely what some neocons in Washington want, for reasons of their own, but it’s not something the vast majority of Americans want.
Here is the hard truth: If the West is not going to send warplanes and troops, if we are not going to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by force of arms, and by our inaction allow the bombardment of Ukrainian cities to proceed, then we need to be honest with the Ukrainians about that.
41
This is a rerun of a film made in 1939. A chap called Adolf Hitler marched his few battalions into the Rhineland just as Mr Putin marched into Crimea. That went so well he asked Austria to join his team and the Sudetenland since they both spoke German much as the Donbas region in Ukraine. Then he thought he should have half of Poland and so it was just as Putin is dividing Ukraine. Well there was lots of arm waving and many strong words spoken but no one actually did anything to stop Mr Hitler and no one is actually doing anything to stop Mr Putin although the same arm waving and strong words are issuing forth. Mr Hitler faced his first sign of European resistance when he invaded France and conquered it in a matter of weeks. Mr Putin will not face any resistance until he gets to the German border where he can pause to clean up Poland before he takes back the old East Germany, rebuilt and modernised, because Germany in their march to net zero has allowed their once omnipotent Wehrmacht to shrink beyond a viable defense force. Same movie different director.
51
Lawrie:
Interestingly I’ve just been reading about the Munich year. You’re fairly accurate and Hitler did march into the Rhineland which had been German but was occupied by the French for many years. He then bullied the Austrian Chancellor and got concessions, then marched in to applause by the locals.
The Sudetenland was the closest analogy to the present, Czeckoslovakia being an amalgamation of German, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian and Rumanian speakers much as the Ukraine has Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Rumanian and (? Byelorussian) speakers. The original 1938 crisis arose from a dictatorial Central Government discriminating against non-Czech speakers, much as in The Ukraine. There was much less violence than in the Ukraine and the Sudetenlanders didn’t want to join Germany (at the start) but were not getting any response from the Central Czech government. The West dithered and disagreed and eventually forced separation on the Czechs. This was followed by unrest in Slovakia and Ruthenia, and Hungary and Poland both grabbed bits of land (in Poland’s case getting back the bit that Czechoslovakia had swiped from them in 1919).
Later Poland got divided between Germany and Russia (not for the first time – see the Tripartite partition in the 1700s.) In fact people in eastern Europe found they changed Rulers quite regularly. I knew a chap from one of the Baltic countries who at school
learnt Ukrainian (along with Polish as he lived near the border). In high school he started learning German as a foreign language until Stalin took over the country and switched to Russian, then back to German. In his subsequent career he walked across a lot of Europe picking up Czech, Rumanian, Bulgaria, Serbo-Croat, Italian and French where he ended up after 3 years, and decided to move far away from Europe. He wasn’t the only one in the factory, we had Eddie who spoke 14 languages owing to borders moving. and Foreman Tom who only spoke good old australian but whose message was understood by all when he swore.
10
Demons at Meta-Facebook Whine About Russia Restricting Their Reach After They Eliminated 90% of Conservative Content on Their Platform Since 2017 and Banned the US President
On Friday Russia blocked access to Facebook after imposing partial restrictions on the social media giant last week for refusing Russia’s request to stop fact-checking the state media.
Telangana reported — The Russian government said on Friday that it will begin to “partially restrict” access to Facebook, after the social network put restrictions on four Russian state-linked media outlets — the television network Zvezda, news agency RIA Novosti, and the websites Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru.
On Friday afternoon Facebook, Meta President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, tweeted out that “soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information…”
This is rich coming from Facebook — the far left company that stifled free speech in America and destroyed the right to free speech in the USA.
We weren’t the only ones to be affected. The algorithmic change caused President Donald Trump’s engagement on Facebook posts to plummet a whopping 45%.
In contrast, according to Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) dis not appear to have suffered a comparable decline in Facebook engagement.
This is a criminal act. Facebook took our money for advertising and promised a fair playing field. Facebook lied to us and every conservative group in America.
Since 2017, despite the fact that we have 635,000 Gateway Pundit Facebook fans, we receive almost nothing from Facebook.
Facebook did this to a number of top conservative sites we contacted.
A Gateway Pundit June study of top conservative news outlets found that Facebook has eliminated 93% of traffic to top conservative websites.
Facebook eliminated conservative content after the 2016 election.
So when Facebook whines about being censored by Russia — We would like to remind them of who they are. Look in the mirror, Facebook. You are looking at yourself.
Obviously, Russia is only following your lead.
60
I find it amazing how many ‘useful idiots’ there are here.
Folks who see the entire world & the Russian invasion of Ukraine
ONLY through the lens of USA domestic politics.
Us it a form of self imposed blindness ?
Or something more sinister
By Putin’s secretly paid supporters i nhe USA and even here in Oz ?
The facts remain obvious :
Putin has launched an murderous invasion of Ukraine.
And Ukraine is asking, begging for help from anyone willing to help.
What’s so hard to understand about the words
PUTIN’s INVASION ?
And thanks Jo, for posting this blog.
Of course Putin has been funding Greenist groups
in the West to undermine our gas & oil production.
11
On the topic of useful idiots in the west, the Australian mining engineer John Grover told the story in 1983 about the Soviet-inspired and organized anti-nuclear power movement around the world that was completely successful in Australia. see here.
40
https://climatechangedispatch.com/sea-change-foundation-soros-support-many-of-same-environmental-groups/
The San Francisco foundation under scrutiny by House Republicans for alleged ties to Russian anti-fracking funding supports many of the same environmental groups that liberal billionaire George Soros does.
A report released Tuesday by the conservative Media Research Center found that Mr. Soros, a top Democratic Party donor, has given more than $75.5 million to 10 of the same environmental nonprofits that also received funding from the Sea Change Foundation.
30
Thanks Dennis. Well spotted.
10