Strategic Culture Foundation

1. France Detains Journalist Who Covered Killings of Civilians in Egypt-Libya Border Operation

Ariane Lavrilleux faces investigation in attempt to identify sources of leak that revealed joint operation that led to extrajudicial killings in Western Desert between 2016 and 2018

By MEE staff

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French police detained a journalist on Tuesday in connection with her reporting on alleged French complicity in extrajudicial killings of civilians in Egypt's Western Desert between 2016 and 2018, according to investigative news website Disclose.

The journalist, Ariane Lavrilleux, who is a French national, co-authored the investigative series Egypt Papers, which was published in November 2021.

The investigation claimed that France has provided intelligence to the Egyptian authorities as part of Operation Sirli, which was then used by Cairo to "kill civilians" suspected of smuggling across the border with Libya, rather than terrorists, as was agreed.

According to leaked classified defence documents cited by Disclose, the French military was implicated in at least 19 air strikes against civilians between 2016 and 2018.

The French government has not denied the reports.

Operation Sirli began in February 2016 during the presidency of Francois Hollande. It continued despite reservations expressed by both French military intelligence and the air force about the way Egypt was using the intelligence, Disclose reported.

One such note was addressed to French defence minister Florence Parly on 22 January 2019, before French President Emmanuel Macron's official visit to Egypt.

In response to the revelations two years ago, Herve Grandjean, spokesperson for the defence ministry, said that the ministry had "taken legal action after this massive leak of classified documents", without specifying who was targeted by the complaint.

Disclose said on Tuesday that the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) searched Lavrilleux's home looking for evidence related to her sources.

"The objective of this unacceptable attack on press freedom is to identify the Disclose's sources, which made it possible to reveal the military operation Sirli, carried out by France in Egypt on behalf of the dictatorship," the website said in a press release.

"Accompanied by an investigating judge, police officers from DGSI placed the journalist in police custody as part of an investigation for compromising national defence secrets and revealing information which may lead to the identification of a protected agent," the statement added.

Reporters Without Borders denounced Lavrilleux's arrest, saying in a Tweet: "We fear that the DGSI's actions will undermine the secrecy of sources."

Meanwhile, Lavrilleux's lawyer Virginie Marquet warned that the crackdown "risks seriously undermining the confidentiality of journalists' sources", and told AFP that her client had "only revealed information of public interest".

Last year, two US advocacy groups filed a joint complaint asking France's national anti-terrorism prosecutor and the UN to investigate Paris' complicity in crimes against humanity in Egypt in connection with Operation Sirli, according to Disclose.

France detains journalist who covered killings of civilians in Egypt-Libya border operation

2. After Failure of Ukraine’s ‘Spring Offensive,’ U.S.-NATO Escalate War Against Russia

By Andre DAMON

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On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Joe Biden will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in an effort to mobilize support for the US-NATO war against Russia.

Their appearance follows the failure of Ukraine's "spring offensive," which has made no significant territorial gains despite the loss of tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops. On Monday, Zelensky's government announced that it had dismissed all of its deputy defense ministers, following the firing last month of the country's defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov.

Adding to the context of crisis and desperation, just one day ahead of Zelensky's appearance at the UN, the New York Times published a report refuting claims that a September 6 missile attack on a Ukrainian market that killed at least 15 civilians was a deliberate massacre by Russian "terrorists." Instead, the Times reported, the disaster was the result of an allegedly accidental Ukrainian missile strike—suspiciously timed to correspond with the arrival of Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Ukraine the same day.

The mass dismissal of the entire leading ranks of the Ukrainian defense ministry is an all but open admission that the counter-offensive failed. Zelensky is being flown into Washington for emergency talks. It is evident that the Biden administration is responding to the military setback by escalating the war. It is demanding that Congress pass a further $21 billion in weapons and aid to Ukraine, adding to the more than $150 billion that has already been allocated. It is also moving to send long-range missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory.

The US media's coverage is more and more directly using the language of open war against Russia. "How to wage the financial war against Russia's economy," read an editorial in the Washington Post.

The New York Times' Thomas Friedman, one of America's leading war propagandists, called in an op-ed Friday for the US to urgently lift any remaining restraints on the intervention. "Ukraine needs to inflict as much damage on Putin's army as fast as possible," Friedman wrote.

"That means we need to massively and rapidly deliver the weaponry Ukraine needs to break Putin's lines in the country's southeast. I'm talking the kitchen sink: F-16s …; MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, which could strike deep behind Russian lines—whatever the Ukrainians can use effectively and fast."

Friedman concluded that "securing justice in war almost always requires the total defeat and occupation of the aggressor."

Openly expressing Washington's aims, Friedman declared, "Ukraine is a game-changing country for the West" because "its integration into the European Union and NATO someday would constitute a power shift that could rival the fall of the Berlin Wall and German unification."

Last week, Reuters reported that the Biden administration is making preparations to send to Ukraine the long-range ATACMS missile, which is capable of striking hundreds of miles behind Russian lines, putting the Russian capital of Moscow itself at risk of attack with NATO weapons.

On Friday, a group of Republican senators issued a statement calling for the Biden administration to send the ATACMS missile system to Ukraine.

"We write to urge you to immediately send MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine," the senators wrote. "Additional delay will only further undermine US national security interests and extend this conflict."

They continued, "The recent Ukrainian strike on the Sevastopol naval port using the British Storm Shadow long-range weapon demonstrated the battlefield effectiveness of such weapons."

The letter referred to last week's strike by Ukraine on two Russian warships in dry dock at the port of Sevastopol. While previously Ukrainian officials had not admitted to carrying out strikes inside Russia, they boasted about their responsibility for last week's attack.

More importantly, they openly admitted to using the NATO-provided missiles to carry out the strike, with one official telling Sky News, "It was Storm Shadow," referring to the long-range missile provided by the UK to Ukraine earlier this year.

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken effectively endorsed Ukraine using NATO long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, declaring that it is "up to them to make decisions about what can be most effective when it comes to restoring their territorial integrity."

There is a clear trajectory of these developments. Even as its Ukrainian proxy forces suffer one military catastrophe after another, the US is escalating its direct involvement in the war, increasingly abandoning the pretense that it is not waging a war against Moscow.

In an indication of what is actually being discussed behind the scenes, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö warned of the threat of a nuclear escalation of the war in an interview published Sunday in the New York Times.

Niinistö warned, "We're in a very sensitive situation. Even small things can change matters a great deal and unfortunately for the worse. That is the risk of such large-scale warfare." He concluded, "The risk that nuclear weapons could be used is tremendous."

In fact, what the United States seeks to present as self-assurance is in reality desperation. Facing a deepening economic and social crisis, US imperialism is seeking to preserve its global hegemony and the dominance of the US dollar in global economic life, which it perceives as being increasingly threatened by the rise of China.

The deepening military crisis creates pressure for the United States to intervene directly to stave off disaster. Now that NATO weapons are being used for strikes inside Russia, how much more room does the United States have to escalate? The next step is the deployment of US and NATO troops, and even the deployment—or use—of nuclear weapons in the conflict.

This disaster can and must be averted. The sentiment for the development of a mass strike movement in the American and Canadian auto industries points to the social force that must be mobilized to stop the war drive of the imperialists. The war is, fundamentally, a "war on two fronts," not only against the countries the United States seeks to dominate and subjugate, but against the working class at home, which the ruling class is seeking to discipline and suppress as part of America's transition to wartime production.

The central task in the fight against war is to unify the social demands of workers with the fight against the predatory foreign policy of American imperialism.

After failure of Ukraine's "spring offensive," US-NATO escalate war against Russia – World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org)

3. U.S. Project to Split Syria Up Is Entering a New Phase in Suwayda

Suwayda is just the newest proposed project in a long list of U.S. regime change projects which have resulted in dividing a sovereign nation into small pieces.

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Thousands of Druze in Suwayda, in the southwest of Syria near Jordan, have been protesting inflation and economic woes facing all of Syria because of U.S.-EU sanctions, and the economic collapse after the long armed conflict. But, recently, they are calling for regime change, and the U.S. is supporting them.

In late August, Ben Cline of Virginia, French Hill of Arkansas and Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, all Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, entered Syria from Turkey illegally, without any VISA, via the Bab al-Salam crossing north of Aleppo, under the control of Al Qaeda linked terrorists. They met with Syrian opposition members living in terrorist control areas.

Recent media reports are circulating that Congressman French Hill discussed the Suwayda protests on the phone for more than an hour with the spiritual leader of Syria's Druze community, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri.

The Syrian conflict began in March 2011 not far from Sawayda; however, the city did not get involved in the "Arab Spring". The Druze are a close-knit minority, neither Christian nor Muslim, who have communities in Suwayda, the Damascus suburb of Juramana, and Lebanon.

The Druze attempted to sit-out the 2011 conflict, and preferred to be neutral. The instigators of the violence in Deraa in March 2011 were followers of Radical Islam, and wanted 'regime change' to install a pro-U.S. government in Damascus. The Obama administration, with VP Joe Biden, supported the terrorists fighting for "Holy War" because they were the only available boots on the ground. The CIA ran a multi-billion-dollar project supplying and training the terrorists in Turkey who crossed the border into northern Syria. In 2017, Trump cut the CIA program off, which has since left Syria in a quiet stalemate.

Suwayda is an agricultural area, and though it is close to Deraa, it did not have a stake in the uprising to install an Islamic State in Syria. Suwayda, similar to Aleppo, kept its collective head down and kept working hoping that the armed conflict between U.S.-NATO and the Damascus central government would pass them by, and they could survive on the sidelines.

The Druze and the Christian community of Syria are minorities under a secular Syrian government which has protected minorities. The armed opposition was comprised of followers of Radical Islam, such as those who are aligned with Al Qaeda and ISIS. The Druze have no connection with Radical Islam or "Holy War". For this reason, they felt collectively as if the conflict did not include them, and they wanted no part in it.

But now, after 13 years of armed conflict which has turned into a status quo, Suwayda has taken the center stage and is protesting and they are asking for 'regime change' as well as economic reforms.

Why now, after years of neutrality and dodging the fighting? Experts have pointed a finger at the U.S., which is instigating the protests and promising support. Damascus, Aleppo and Homs are all quietly suffering the same economic hardships, but they are not protesting. Electricity is supplied just a few hours per day, gasoline is very expensive and the prices of basic food stuffs have gone up by the day, making some basic needs now a luxury item.

Expert analysis in the early days of the 2011 conflict pointed to the overarching U.S. goal of breaking Syria into small pieces, such as the U.S.-NATO attack achieved in Yugoslavia. Small places, each governed by different leaders, would be easier to control and denominate for U.S. interests.

The protesting Druze in Suwayda are separatists. They are asking for their small piece of the pie from the U.S. map of the new Middle East. Suwayda, Deraa and the U.S. occupation military base at Al Tanf would be connected in a crescent shaped border with Jordan and Iraq.

The Al Tanf base is positioned to prevent Iranian cargo from entering Syria on the Baghdad-Damascus highway.

Deraa was the starting point of the March 2011 conflict. The Al Omari Mosque was used as a weapons storage for the terrorists who were supplied with Libyan arms confiscated from the U.S. military and transferred through the neighboring U.S. military base in Jordan.

Recently in Suwayda, protesters attacked the Ba'ath Party headquarters which has an arsenal stored there for use by the Syrian Arab Army.

The original map drawn by the U.S. State Department in 2011, showed Syria cut into small pieces. It now appears that the northwest province of Idlib is proposed to be part of the Turkish occupied border area, and the border with Turkey north of Aleppo is also proposed to be under Turkish administration, which they would like to annex later. The U.S. sends no humanitarian aid of any kind to Syria, even for the 7.8 magnitude earthquake relief, except to Idlib alone, which is under terrorist control. The former ISIS leader of Idlib, Mohammed al-Julani, has already changed into a suit and tie and has given interviews to U.S. media in an effort by the State Department to rebrand his image as a western supported leader, transformed from his time with ISIS and Al Qaeda.

The Kurds are also on the same separatist band wagon with Idlib and Suwayda. The Kurds were a sizable community in the northeast of Syria, but were never the majority, who were Arabs and Christians. But, the Kurds had the backing of the U.S. military who partnered with them in the fight to defeat ISIS. The actual victors over ISIS was the Syrian Arab Army, the Iraqi Army, Russian military, along with the U.S. military and Kurds. The Kurds have established their own Communist administration under the tremendous financial support of the U.S. government. Usually the U.S. government takes a dim view of Communism, but in the case of the Kurds they have fully supported them, which reinforces that fact that the U.S. government will work with, and support any group, as long as it is in the U.S. interest.

Suwayda is just the newest proposed project in a long list of U.S. regime change projects which have resulted in dividing a sovereign nation into small pieces. Yugoslavia was the first, and the next big U.S.-NATO regime change project was the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has left Iraq split into the northern section of Kurdistan, and the southern section of Iraq, which has never recovered from the U.S. invasion and destruction.

Then Libya was attacked in 2011 by U.S.-NATO forces for regime change, and is now split into two separate sections with separate governments. Sudan and Yemen were both attacked and split up.

A project still in progress is the partition of Syria into at least five sections, and also on the drawing board in Washington, DC. is the partition of Lebanon, which will first depend on the culmination of the partition of the south of Syria including Suwayda.

Lebanon has been purposely left without a President for one year, and a government and parliament which is flying on auto-pilot. Israel's goal, which is jointly a U.S. goal, is to contain Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon and to cut off its support from Iran, and Syria.

When Condoleezza Rice called for a New Middle East, she was referring to an Arabic styled patchwork quilt, made up of bits and pieces of formerly defiant and resistance supporting countries, who had called for the end of the occupation of Palestine as a core national cultural value. The American-engineered New Middle East demands forgetting resistance, and acquiescing to normalization with Israel as the prerequisite to peace and prosperity.

4. NATO Blames Its Failure to Protect Children From Sex Trafficking on Chinese Social Media Apps

A Chinese social media app can't be more dangerous than ideologies which enable millions of registered maniacs to prowl the streets in search of childish prey.

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As part of the EU's drive to make Big Tech march in lockstep with it, the Vichy Ireland regime recently fined TikTok an impressive €345m for not sufficiently protecting children with its algorithms. As this is the same American controlled Irish regime, which refused to collect €13 billion, plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes Apple owed them, one can only conclude it is one rule for the American-owned Apple outfit, and another for Chinese firm TikTok.

Though that Sinophobia first attracted me to the story, it is the faux concern for children the fine represents that particularly concerns me. Although TikTok and similar social media platforms are particularly addictive to children, children's autonomy is being undermined so much on line and in schools and other gatherings that it is hard to believe our EU and U.S. bosses think of them as anything else but lambs to their psychological and sexual slaughter.

According to America's National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are close to one million registered sex offenders in the United States, with creepy Joe Biden's power base of Wilmington, Delaware having an astounding one sex offender for every 107 residents.

Think about that for a moment. If you are an American soccer mom, whose kids do all the Little League and cheerleading stuff well balanced American kids quite rightly do, chances are some well-connected sex predator is eyeing them up.

This is not to say that all American children are equally at risk. They are not. But go look at this interview with a pregnant 14 year old American child prostitute and follow it up with this interview with a 13 year old American child prostitute. Whatever one thinks about the "life choices" those two children have made, one need only look at a few minutes of each video to see that they are children, young totally vulnerable children thrown into a world most of us should fear, for their sakes, to our marrow.

We have all seen the memes of Congolese child slaves mining the cobalt for Greta Thunberg's electric cars. But many of the "more fortunate" of those children are trafficked to Greta's European Union or to the U.S. where the exploitation and bare-faced denial of that exploitation continue.

Greta's Civilised Sweden, as this report explains, now has its own imported child soldiers, with children as young as ten packing heat in one or other of the countless drug armies that blight Greta's green Swedish paradise.

In checking out these pictures of recently disappeared children in Ireland, note that many of them are from ethnic, non-Irish backgrounds and that their consequent marginalisation indicates they are more at risk of being abducted than are "normal" children who live in environments where more safeguards are in place.

Not that Irish children are very safe. The fate of six year old Mary Boyle has yet to be resolved, over fifty years since she went missing close to her family home. Lost Boys: Belfast's Missing Children tells the story of Thomas Spence and John Rodgers, two of the five young boys who vanished from the streets of Belfast in the early 1970s when the Troubles were gathering pace.

Belfast was also the site of the Kincora Boys Home, whose children were sex trafficked out to the British Royal Family, MI5 bosses and Loyalist murder gangs to bribe them into murdering uppity Catholics.

And then we also have 14 year old Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe, who was murdered in the very strangest of circumstances, which are the subject of a forthcoming documentary by ace investigative journalist Donal McIntyre.

Although there is a major debate in Britain about how some specific ethnic groups are over-represented in child rape figures, there should be no debate that raping children is as big a problem in Britain as it in in the U.S. or Ireland, which is also plagued by organ harvesting gangs.

Although my July 15^th article on Ukraine's booming child sex trafficking industry alluded to verified accounts of them bring trafficked for sex through Dublin's hotels, there has been no further news on that non-story, presumably because dixie cup children are only of utility if they can be used to smear Russian President Putin, Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova or some similar worthy, who has nothing whatsoever to do with child sex trafficking in America, Sweden, Britain or Ireland.

When I returned to that topic on July 29^th, I singled out British asset Karim Khan for especial opprobrium not because his brother was involved in those above-mentioned child sex grooming scandals but because his Ukrainian investigations were so shoddy and he lacks any credibility in the matter.

Whereas Khan is part of NATO's libels against both Russia and China, as his own native Britain has 67,000 registered sex offenders, many of whom have gone AWOL, it is obviously no paradise for all of King Charles' most vulnerable subjects.

If the wholesale rape of English, Irish, Swedish and American children is an issue, then the wholesale punishment of Chinese social media behemoths or the scapegoating of obscure Russian mothers is not going to change matters all that much as long as the cancer at the heart of Western society remains untouched.

That cancer is best espoused in this video with "internet celebrity" Amouranth who explains in this short clip that she receives tens of thousands of dollars in tips for performing the most mundane activities online and that her earnings peak when she falls asleep in front of the camera and slackens when she wakes up.

Were we to add up all the morons who pay Amournanth over $1 million a month with all the other OnlyFans and Twitch addicts to the number of NATO's registered sex offenders we would have a gang of disreputables far in excess of the 2 million or so members of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, who may or may not have their own TikTok addiction issues.

Whatever about China's TikTok land, we have our own dopamine issues here, which are accentuated not only by TikTok but by the EU rainbow washing its suspect drugs and ideologies to children in schools, on TV and online.

Although much of Chinese education may be a little too intense for our delicate tubbies, some one in three of all Chinese university students study STEM subjects and not their own navels, as Ireland's TikTok critics increasingly do. The problem, if such there is, is not with TikTok per se but with society, where the Chinese plough ahead and NATO's youngsters have, to Jeffrey Epstein's friends at least, lost all of their utility, save that of being trafficked human sex dolls.

And though NATO's reincarnated Sodom and Gomorrah will trundle along for some time yet, it cannot end well for an empire that thinks a Chinese social media app is more dangerous to its children than their own ideologies which enable millions of registered maniacs to prowl its streets in search of childish prey.

5. Fire in Transcaucasia – Again

The Pashinyan circle – very close to the Soros crowd – had in fact abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh for at least the past three years.

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It's fire in Transcaucasia. Literally. All over again.

Azerbaijan went all out against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh by bombing the regional capital Stepanakert with Israeli surface-to-surface LORA missiles and Israeli Harop kamikaze drones.

The Tor air defense system of the Armenian Armed Forces near the Khankendi-Khojaly road was destroyed by Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones, and all mobile communications were completely cut off in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This sort of light blitz was compounded with an info war/ soft power offensive: an avalanche of videos nearly in real time extolling the military exploits coupled with a humanitarian subtext – as in we are determined to protect the Armenian population.

Compare it to the Armenian side, led by Prime Minister Pashinyan: not only they totally lost the information war in a flash but only emitted sparse, incomprehensible communiqués.

From the start there were two key questions in the air. Would Baku just be satisfied with the final annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh or would it also attack southern Armenia? To invade an encircled territory would pose no problem – considering that Yerevan, in the past three years, did next to nothing to improve its defense.

Then a more ambitious framework started to take shape. Baku may be implementing a cunning Hegemon-devised plan: to play Pacifier of Nagorno-Karabakh, under the Western aegis, to swing pro-Russian Armenia to the status of pro-Western Armenia while reformatting southern Armenia and Karabakh – either transferred to Azerbaijan or under a newly defined joint control.

Why Russia cannot impersonate Armenia

The crucial fact is that the Pashinyan circle – very close to the Soros crowd – had in fact abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh for at least the past three years (Pashinyan has been in power for five). That directly interferes with the mandate of the CSTO – which in the end is forced to recognize the same facts on the ground; hence CSTO obligations do not apply in terms of "helping" Armenia.

All that would change only in case Yerevan decided to keep Nagorno-Karabakh: this means Armenia would take up arms.

As it stands, Russia will not intervene militarily. At best, diplomatically. Russia won't impersonate Armenia to solve an Armenian problem. Iran for the moment is "studying the situation". Tehran would only intervene if Baku decides to cut off southern Armenia and create a corridor towards the Nakhichevan enclave.

Russian peacekeeping forces, on site since 2020, have no right to use weapons. They will remain passive – and only react if attacked. Russian command explains that Moscow is tied up by agreements with both Baku and Yerevan and can only act on joint decisions.

Russian soldiers, incidentally, are the only ones helping Nagorno-Karabakh residents, including over 1,000 children so far, to leave their historical abode, which they may never see again. No Western "power" is helping on the humanitarian front.

In the end, it was Russian peacekeepers who will mediate a Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire, supposed to start this Wednesday at 13:00 local time. Whether it will be respected is a completely different story.

Even before the ceasefire, Pashinyan predictably asked for Hegemon help: that's the "pivot" scenario in play, reorienting a historical Russian region towards the declining West. Nagorno-Karabakh is just a pretext.

To cut to the chase, Pashinyan's road to power was facilitated with only one objective: play the Hegemon's – and Turkish – game. Turkey, predictably, stated via Erdogan that "we support Azerbaijan".

What Pashinyan is actually working on is preparing the terrain for political repression. Yerevan's Republic Square was boiling hot. Angry protesters – later dispersed – were chanting "Nikol is a traitor". "Nikol", from his bunker, called Little Blinken for help.

The head of the "Mother Armenia" bloc Tevanyan called for an impeachment of Pashinyan. The National Security Service of Armenia warned about the possibility of mass unrest.

Pashinyan in fact was unmistakable: "Armenia will not bow down to provocations and will not fight for Nagorno-Karabakh". This in fact may seal the end of the story.

For all the discomfort imposed on the Foreign Ministry, Moscow made it clear that what Pashinyan stated in October 2022 and again in May 2023, recognizing Azeri supremacy over Nagorno-Karabakh, changed the terms of the November 2020 armistice.

In a nutshell: the Pashinyan gang sold out Nagorno-Karabakh.

And there's nothing a UN Security Council meeting on Nagorno-Karabakh this Thursday can do to alter the facts on the ground.

Maidan revisited

After a swiftly victory with its mini-blitz, Baku now is sitting pretty, ready to negotiate. Under its own terms, of course: we negotiate only after you capitulate.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry went straight to the point: the only "path to peace" is the complete withdrawal of the Armenian Armed Forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the dissolution of the regime in Stepanakert.

It's quite possible that a majority of Armenians may agree with it (no polls yet). After all a thorny, intractable problem will be "solved" and life will go back to normal. Only one thing is certain: Russia will be blamed for it, not the Pashinyan gang.

It's no wonder that it took the ever unplugged Dmitri Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, to perfectly sum up  the whole affair:

"One day, one of my colleagues from a fraternal country told me: 'Well, I'm a stranger to you, you won't accept me.' I answered what I had to: 'We will judge not by biography, but by actions.' Then he lost the war, but strangely stayed in place. Then he decided to blame Russia for his mediocre defeat. Then he gave up part of the territory of his country. Then he decided to flirt with NATO, and his wife defiantly went to our enemies with cookies.

Guess what fate awaits him…"

As for how this drama will play out inside Russia, it's quite possible that considering the fact Baku and Yerevan seem to be acting in concertation to eject Russia from this part of Transcaucasia, Russian public opinion in the end may be even comfortable with the idea of leaving it for good, to the benefit of the Hegemon and the Turks.

Yet the Kremlin, of course, may have its own – inscrutable – ideas.

6. O Complexo de Napoleao dos EUA

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A psiquiatria prefere ignorar a possibilidade da insanidade em massa e concentrar-se em perturbações individuais, apesar de existir uma grande quantidade de provas históricas de que sociedades e nações inteiras podem ser dominadas por perturbações mentais de um tipo ou outro. Seja como for; o Complexo de Napoleão – assim chamado em homenagem a Napoleão Bonaparte, que era baixo demais para o líder nacional de seu tempo, além de incrivelmente desagradável e cheio de si para compensar – não é, em qualquer caso, um diagnóstico médico reconhecido.

Trata-se de uma determinada condição mental ou conjunto de traços de caráter que afeta homens de baixa estatura física, fazendo com que sejam excessivamente agressivos e auto-afirmativos, usem sapatos com grandes tacões para parecerem um pouco mais altos e se irritam por serem chamados de "coisinha", "homenzinho", "mordedor de joelhos" e outros epítetos depreciativos.

Aqui está uma descrição bastante genérica do Complexo de Napoleão feita por um psicólogo:

• Homens com Complexo de Napoleão podem ser excessivamente agressivos e exibir comportamentos indevidamente dominador em ambientes sociais. Além disso, tais homens têm dificuldade em aceitar derrotas ocasionais.
• Os indivíduos com a síndrome podem ultrapassar quaisquer limites para conseguirem as coisas que desejam, mesmo que isso seja moral ou eticamente errado. Essas pessoas podem até cometer crimes para ganhar ou possuir o que desejam.
• Concentram-se mais no trabalho dos outros do que no seu próprio. Consequentemente, tais indivíduos se entregam tanto às obras dos outros, que esquecem completamente ou ignoram as suas próprias.
• Além da natureza agressiva, essas pessoas estão sempre de olho nos concorrentes, pois não querem ser inferiores a ninguém. Eles acreditam que o sucesso é definido pelo facto de serem melhores do que qualquer pessoa que conhecem.
• A síndrome de Napoleão é especialmente prejudicial porque os homens com este complexo ficam felizes quando os outros falham ao seu redor. Pelo contrário, ficam tristes quando outros conseguem algo.
• Muitas vezes, o complexo de Napoleão provoca muitos danos sem precedentes, uma vez que os homens que sofrem deste complexo vêem as pessoas à sua volta como seus adversários.

Isso se aplica a alguns dos homens que são naturalmente baixos durante toda a vida. Mas imagine agora como um homem alto deve se sentir ao perceber de repente que está a ficar cada vez mais baixo! A sensação de encolher rapidamente, como o General Decker no filme de Tim Burton Marte Ataca!, é matéria de pesadelos. Deve ser uma experiência realmente aterrorizante – o suficiente para fazer um homem correr, e não andar, até o psiquiatra mais próximo para obter algumas pílulas mágicas. Felizmente, tais incidentes parecem confinados ao subgênero de terror e comédia de ficção científica e não foram atestados nos anais da ciência médica.

O que acontece, e não muito raramente, é que nações inteiras encolhem, por vezes em tamanho geográfico e população e sempre em termos de estatura geopolítica e poder econômico. Os impérios são especialmente propensos a encolher subitamente: os impérios espanhol, russo, otomano e britânico encolheram todos em apenas uma década. Em cada caso, foi uma experiência traumática para as suas sociedades e a sua recuperação psicológica demorou por vezes muitas décadas.

O que o mundo está agora a testemunhar é o rápido encolhimento dos Estados Unidos e dos seus vários Estados vassalos na Europa e em outros lugares. A sua liderança parece estar permanentemente enfurecida e atacando em todas as direções. Enquanto isso, está se autodestruindo ativamente em todos os níveis:

• As suas políticas de sanções estão perturbando a sua economia e minando o seu sector financeiro. Fez todo o possível para minar o status de moeda de reserva do dólar americano, tornando-o tóxico e arriscado para grande parte do mundo. Entretanto, o seu apetite pela dívida cresceu a tal ponto que apenas os juros da dívida nacional consumirão uma parte significativa do orçamento.
• O seu militarismo descontrolado está na verdade a desarmá-lo, ao enviar os seus arsenais para a Ucrânia onde são destruídos. Ao contrário do setor civil, onde emprega talentos estrangeiros, o seu sector da defesa carece lamentavelmente de cérebros cultivados internamente.
• Está a destruir-se politicamente:: os dois partidos do duopólio político pois tentam ambos destruir simultaneamente os seus principais candidatos presidenciais, minando simultaneamente a pouca fé que ainda restava na integridade dos sistemas judicial e eleitoral.
• A sua diplomacia degenerou num espetáculo de um homem só, onde os EUA gritam as suas exigências a um planeta pouco receptivo, o seu presidente insulta líderes nacionais respeitados e quebra tantas promessas e acordos que nenhuma nação, agindo racionalmente, por sua própria vontade, deveria querer celebrar novos acordos ou tratados com ele.
• Muitas, se não a maioria, das suas famílias foram minadas pelo feminismo e por políticas sociais que tornam uma escolha irracional para os homens casar e constituir família. Isto dura há tanto tempo que várias gerações de homens e mulheres, que cresceram órfãos de pai e com mães que elevaram o egoísmo a uma virtude, já não têm a menor ideia do que significa estar em família. Muitas delas não querem mais ter filhos. Na verdade, se o contrato intergeracional acaba, as crianças tornam-se acidentes. Dessa forma, sucede a extinção biológica.
• Praticamente todas as suas instituições foram minadas por políticas que discriminam homens brancos capazes em busca do fantasma da diversidade, resultando em setores públicos e privados marcados por uma uniformidade de incompetência. Uma vez que tal nação se torna incapaz de atividades produtivas, a ênfase mudou para o consumo – a crédito – sem planos de alguma vez reembolsar os países que produzem os produtos que consome. Escusado dizer que isto não terminará bem.
• Em particular, as suas outrora excelentes universidades foram minadas por políticas que favorecem os filhos dos ricos, por um lado, e os membros de várias classes de vitimização, por outro, e uma preocupação muito pouco saudável com a perversão sexual, mascarada pelo termo inventado de "gênero". Onde instituições outrora ilustres como Harvard consideram adequado ministrar um curso sobre "sexo anal" e professores são despedidos pelo uso politicamente incorreto de pronomes pessoais, a educação está verdadeiramente morta.
• A sua economia está lamentavelmente desequilibrada, fortemente desviada dos produtos e da produção e em direção aos serviços e ao consumo. Como sinal revelador disso, a produção caiu recentemente muito, mas o consumo de energia não. Numa economia saudável, a indústria é o principal consumidor de energia; numa economia doente, é o consumo e os serviços.
• Apesar de tudo isto, o seu sector financeiro ainda é muito grande, mas apenas no sentido em que as pústulas inflamadas tendem a inchar imediatamente antes de rebentarem, resultando por vezes em sépsis e morte. Todos preveem que isto se aproxima e é por isso que dezenas de nações apressam-se a aderir à organização BRICS, sendo o seu principal know-how organizacional a prevenção de moedas tóxicas (como o dólar americano e o euro) na condução do comércio internacional. Mas e os países que nunca poderão ser admitidos nos BRICS porque as suas moedas nacionais são tóxicas? Bem, quando tudo mais falha, sempre há a morte!

A TERAPIA DA HUMILHAÇÃO

A morte é certamente eficaz como tratamento para o Complexo de Napoleão, assim como para todos os outros complexos, síndromes e distúrbios. Tendo procurado uma terapia eficaz para o Complexo de Napoleão, não descobri nenhum bom candidato. A terapia da humilhação parece bastante útil para diminuir os seus efeitos na sociedade envolvente, mas também tende a levar à depressão e ao suicídio. A terapia de humilhação foi certamente eficaz para Napoleão Bonaparte, tal como administrada pela Rússia.

Os russos claramente não perderam a receita dessa pílula amarga e estão prontos para administrá-la a qualquer um que ultrapasse uma das suas invisíveis linhas vermelhas. É claramente melhor ser amigo da Rússia do que estar morto, mas a morte pode ser evitada se a terapia da humilhação for eficaz.

Para os EUA, a derrota retumbante na sua guerra por procuração com a Rússia na antiga Ucrânia, que está atualmente em preparação, poderia definitivamente fazer parte de uma terapia de humilhação eficaz, mas apenas para aqueles que têm prestado atenção, e o seu número é bastante baixo. Quantos americanos se sentiram pessoalmente humilhados pelo espetáculo da retirada precipitada e desordenada da América do Afeganistão? Muito poucos, ao que parece, já que saltaram direto para a próxima aventura condenada na antiga Ucrânia. Para aqueles que estão nos corredores do poder de Washington, nenhuma humilhação parece suficiente. Na verdade, eles parecem prosperar com isso!

Nem os americanos, nem os seus vassalos europeus, parecem minimamente perturbados ou pensativos pelo espetáculo dos seus líderes nacionais a humilharem-se incessantemente no cenário mundial. Para ser humilhado é preciso ter vergonha; mas e se a vergonha, juntamente com a inteligência, a integridade, os princípios, a honestidade e várias outras virtudes, desaparecerem completamente? Pois bem, ainda há a morte – a forma final de tratamento com 100% de sucesso: paciente desaparecido, presumivelmente curado.

No meio de tudo isto, há um vislumbre de esperança: alguns dos jovens, corajosos e talentosos homens americanos parecem ter descoberto uma saída deste redemoinho de corrupção e decadência: estão a casar com mulheres de fora do Ocidente – não para as trazer para dentro do Ocidente, como "noivas por correspondência", mas emigrar e obter cidadania estrangeira através do casamento como "irmãos de passaporte". Este desenvolvimento enfureceu as feministas americanas, e os irmãos de passaporte sem dúvida acham a sua raiva bem encantadora. Casar para se mudar para o estrangeiro é uma boa estratégia para eles, mas é terrível para a sociedade que deixam para trás, pois nenhuma sociedade alguma vez evitou o colapso após a partida dos seus jovens.

Enquanto isso, aqui está mais alguma terapia de humilhação: Randy Newman, "Pessoas Baixas"

Pessoas baixas não têm razão
Pessoas baixas não têm razão
Pessoas baixas não têm razão
Viver
Eles têm mãozinhas
E olhinhos
E eles andam por aí
Contando grandes mentiras
Eles têm narizinho
E pequenos dentinhos
Eles usam sapatos plataforma
Em seus pés nojentos
Bem, eu não quero pessoas baixas
Não quero pessoas baixas
Não quero pessoas baixas
'Por aqui
Pessoas baixas são iguais
Como você e eu
(Um tolo como eu)
Todos os homens são irmãos
Até o dia em que eles morrerem
(É um mundo maravilhoso)
Pessoas baixas não têm ninguém
Pessoas baixas não têm ninguém
Pessoas baixas não têm ninguém
Amar
Eles têm perninhas de bebê
E eles ficam tão baixos
Você tem que pegá-los
Apenas para dizer olá
Eles têm carros pequenos
Isso tem bip, bip, bip
Eles têm pequenas vozes
Indo peep, peep, peep
Eles têm dedinhos sujos
E pequenas mentes sujas
Eles vão te pegar toda vez
Bem, eu não quero pessoas baixas
Não quero pessoas baixas
Não quero pessoas baixas
'Por aqui…

15/Setembro/2023

[*] Escritor
O original encontra-se em boosty.to  a tradução em sakerlatam.org
Este artigo encontra-se em resistir.info

7. It’s Hard to Find Fulfillment in a Civilization That Revolves Around Corporate Profits

Corporate profits are our life. Corporate profits are our religion. Most of us pour more of our energy into generating corporate profits throughout our lives than the most pious monk pours into worshipping any deity.

By Caitlin JOHNSTONE

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It's so hard to live as an authentic human being in a civilization whose every molecule is wrapped around something as vapid and soulless as corporate profit.

It's what most of us pour most of our life force into. Most people work all day generating corporate profits to pay bills that go toward corporate profits and pay off loans from giant banks for their corporate profits or rent from real estate giants for their corporate profits. Then they come home, eat some products from giant megacorporations that they purchased at a supermarket chain, and unwind by watching entertainment created by corporations to draw as many eyeballs as possible or scrolling through social media platforms designed by corporations to be as addictive as possible. We do this while being surrounded all day by advertising designed to pull us into generating more corporate profits.

Corporate profits are our life. Corporate profits are our religion. Most of us pour more of our energy into generating corporate profits throughout our lives than the most pious monk pours into worshipping any deity. Not because we want to, but because we have to. We were born into this bizarre civilization where everything revolves around corporate profits instead of love, relationships, connection, thriving, purpose, or personal depth.

Is it any wonder then that so many of us are suffering from addictions and depression and anxiety? I mean, how could we not be? Take a normal healthy human animal and throw it into the mess of this dystopian corporate nightmare and tell me how it's meant to live a happy and satisfying life. It's like expecting dolphins and orcas to live happy and satisfying lives in concrete pools at theme parks, or factory farmed pigs living in cages barely bigger than their bodies. It's just not the kind of living we're built for.

The blink of an eye ago our ancestors were hunter-gatherers living off the land, spending most of their waking lives under the open sky. Now all of a sudden we're expected to sit eight hours a day in a cubicle staring at screens for no other reason than to help the corporation that employs us increase its profits, then commute home under a barrage of advertising in a vehicle made by a corporation using fuels extracted by a corporation, and spend all our free time feeding into the profits of other corporations. Everything in us is screaming that this is insane and unacceptable.

That's why some people try to spend time in nature; it's one of the few ways you can get your head above all the corporate bullshit for a bit and take a few desperate breaths of what it's like to be a normal human organism. "Nature" used to just be "the world"; there was no other, separate thing from nature that we spent all our time in, pouring all our life force into, dedicating all our thoughts and feelings to, from whence we could escape for a few hours on the weekend as a luxury. Now we live in civilization and sneak out every now and then into this other thing, nature, where screens aren't blaring at us and the trees don't speak the language of the babbling narratives in our heads — though, if we're honest with ourselves, our minds are still mostly preoccupied with the pushing and pulling demands that civilization makes of us the entire time.

The only way to live in this civilization without its madness warping you and twisting you in on yourself is to change your relationship with mental narrative to such an extent that you can recognize that civilization is nature — that the human animal and its products are not separate from anything else in this biosphere we arose from. With a fair amount of dedicated inner work one can come to recognize that this sea of language we exist in is just narrative that we don't need to invest any of our life force in believing, and that all the words and thoughts are just energy like all the rest of nature.

From that point of view, a busy office full of chattering humans is not experientially much different from a busy forest full of chattering birds and insects — it's just two different expressions of nature. An advertisement is not experientially much different from crashing waves — it's just the sights and sounds of nature taking different energetic shapes. If you're not imbuing any of the narratives inside or outside of your head with the power of belief, it's all just a beautiful expression of nature.

That's the only way to live as a happy and healthy human organism in this civilization, from my point of view. Everything else is just varying degrees of insanity. Adjusting from an unwholesome relationship with mental narrative to a wholesome one lets you live a happy and fulfilling life among the humans, who are actually a staggeringly beautiful and thrilling animal when you can see them with fresh eyes.

And, as an added benefit, changing your relationship with narrative will greatly aid you in seeing through the consent-manufacturing propaganda that's used by the powerful to keep the dysfunctionality of this civilization going. If enough people snap out of their unhealthy relationship with narrative, a healthy world will suddenly become possible.

It's Hard To Find Fulfillment In A Civilization That Revolves Around Corporate Profits – Caitlin Johnstone

8. Over Assange, Britain’s Press Prefers to Serve Power Not Media Freedom

We might have expected British journalists to have turned the Julian Assange case into a cause celebre for press freedom and free speech. Not at all. Most of the mainstream media are silent or hostile, and are acting as instruments of the state.

By Peter OBORNE

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Just over ten years ago, Lord Justice Leveson proposed tougher legislation of newspapers amidst general horror that journalists had hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler.

His proposals were greeted with fury.

In the Daily Mail Richard Littlejohn said they meant the "suppression of free speech." This was, added Littlejohn, the "classic hallmark of a fascist regime."

Mike Harris for the Daily Telegraph warned that "three centuries of press freedom will be consigned to the dustbin of history, with investigative journalism almost impossible and shackles imposed on our much-loved local press".

Every title from the Murdoch press, Associated Newspapers and the Telegraph – the hegemonic groups which account for approximately 75% of mainstream newspaper readership – denounced the Leveson reforms.

Meanwhile they united to launch a concerted campaign – the so called free speech network – to block them.

It was one of the most effective campaigns in modern times.

Behind the scenes politicians were nobbled. Deals were struck. Leveson Two – the section of the enquiry which would have examined links between politicians, the police and press – was blocked.

Let's contrast the campaign against Leveson with British media coverage of the US attempt to extradite Julian Assange.

Another Watergate?

As I write Assange rots in a cell in high security Belmarsh prison, where he has been held for years. Any day now could see the WikiLeaks publisher sent to the United States for trial on trumped up espionage charges – then dumped in a US jail for the rest of his life.

The consequences of such a judgement could not be more grim for free speech.

Any story which depends on obtaining documents from US government sources will become impossibly dangerous.

Break another Watergate scandal? Forget it.

"Julian Assange is by far the most important case involving free speech this century"

No British journalist would dare to handle the material, let alone publish it. Any journalists involved could find themselves subject to extradition.

The more serious the story, and the more it needed to be published, the greater the danger.

Let's spell this out.

Julian Assange is by far the most important case involving free speech this century. No wonder the late Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed so many of the US lies about the Vietnam war, gave such powerful testimony for Assange before his death in June this year.

Ellsberg, the principled former marine who leaked the so-called Pentagon papers, said that he felt a "great identification" with Assange.

Cause celebre?

So you would have expected British journalists and newspaper editors to have turned the Assange case into a cause celebre for media freedom.

Wrong.

The Assange story has been treated by much of the British media like an embarrassing family secret.

As I discovered when I carried out a survey of recent press reporting.

The Times claims to be Britain's foremost paper of record. There have been a handful of news stories such as 'Assange not allowed to attend Vivienne Westwood's funeral' and no opinion piece since the start of 2021.

That one wasn't friendly. Written by James Ball, a former WikiLeaks staffer, the headline announced: 'Assange is no hero. I should know – I lived with him and his awful gang'.

There has been a comparable lack of reporting in the Telegraph. Not much in the Financial Times. Ditto the Sunday Times – the paper once edited by the formidable investigative editor Harold Evans – and the Sunday Telegraph.

Richard Littlejohn, the columnist for the Daily Mail who absurdly compared the Leveson proposals to fascism, mocked Assange in a contemptible article as he emerged from incarceration at the Ecuadorian embassy in London: claiming that "he stank the place to high heaven".

The New Statesman is a sad case. Once a beacon of the liberal left, a  hatchet job on Assange by Suzanne Moore in April 2019 set the tone.

"Wikileaks was the future once," wrote Moore. "Remember? We were all excited about the vast info dumps revealing horrific war crimes and the killings of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then it became something else. It became him, and he did not care if the information he was releasing was helping Trump or Putin, outing gay men in Saudi Arabia, identifying informants or rape victims. Their names were out there and they were at risk."

To think that the New Statesman was once a supporter of press freedom, human rights and the radical left. Or that its editor Jason Cowley, occupies the same chair as Kingsley Martin or Anthony Howard.

To be fair to Suzanne Moore she did state that it was wrong to extradite Assange.

Not so the Economist, which actually supports extradition. The paper argued in April 2019 that "the central charge – computer hacking – is an indefensible violation of the law. Neither journalists nor activists, like Mr Assange, have carte blanche to break the law in exercising their First Amendment rights. They are entitled to publish freely; not to break and enter, physically or digitally, to do so."

"Even those titles which oppose extradition tend to do so superficially"

In preparation for this piece I have repeatedly approached the magazine's spokesperson asking if its position has changed. There have been no replies to my emails. Until the Economist publishes an editorial to the contrary, we must assume that the paper still supports extradition.

Even those titles which oppose extradition tend to do so superficially.

They fail to highlight the full horror of Julian Assange's ongoing incarceration in Belmarsh. That the CIA plotted to assassinate Assange.

Or the magnitude and horror of what he revealed about the US led war on terror.

Such as the video of US helicopter gunmen laughing as they shot at and killed 12 unarmed civilians in Iraq – including a Reuters photographer and his assistant. The US refused even to discipline the perpetrators.

The core revelation that civilian casualties in Iraq were far higher than the US had admitted. The systematic abuse at Guantanamo Bay. That 150 innocent inmates were held for years without charge.

And so on.

Old Bailey

No titles have properly reported the story, and virtually all of those that have, are from outside the mainstream media.

Only a handful of reporters regularly attended Assange's four-week hearing three years ago at the Old Bailey: one from the specialist agency Central Court News, another from the Press Association; and court reporter James Doleman filing daily reports for Bridges for Media Freedom. There was a reporter from the Morning Star.

A BBC representative attended every day but appears not to have filed anything at all.

The former British ambassador Craig Murray, sitting in the public gallery with the Assange family, filed a series of brilliant daily reports. No British paper provided anything comparable.

The Assange case proves the argument made by Noam Chomsky that mainstream media should be understood as an instrument of state and corporate power.

I rang up the one figure from the mainstream media who has broken from this paradigm: Peter Hitchens has used his Mail column (credit to Mail editor Ted Verity) to make the case against extradition. "It could happen any day now", he warned last month.

"After yet another brief, unsuccessful court hearing, a column of vans and police cars roars out of Belmarsh prison in London and hurries to Heathrow, where a manacled, stooped and blinking prisoner is handed over to American officials and bundled aboard a plane bound for Washington DC."

Hitchens added: "He faces absurd charges of spying, when he never spied. His crime was to embarrass the US government by selectively releasing information that Washington had tried and failed to keep secret. I do not think this is a crime, here or there."

Hitchens named several British columnists. "Charles Moore. Danny Finkelstein. Matthew Parris. Janice Turner. These are all people I respect greatly, people who are prepared to say difficult or unpopular things. They believe in liberty under the law. I would love to see their voices raised in favour of Assange. I just don't think that they've made the connection. It's not too late for them to do so."

Research by Nicholas Brookes.

Over Assange, Britain's press prefers to serve power not media freedom

9. The Ukrainian Morale in the Battlefield: A Snapshot

It's now firmly established that the Ukrainian counter-offensive turned out to be the feeder of a bloody meat grinder of astonishing proportions.

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It's now firmly established that the Ukrainian counter-offensive turned out to be the feeder of a bloody meat grinder of astonishing proportions.

Of every 100 people who joined Ukrainian units last Fall, months before the counter-offensive, only 10 to 20 remain. The rest are dead, wounded or incapacitated. These stats were confirmed by the online publication Poltavashchyna.

It's quite enlightening to check the following snapshot of the Ukrainian frontlines only five months ago, in Spring, slightly before the start of the counter-offensive. The data was leaked by Ukrainians. The authenticity of the documents has been fully confirmed.

This is a report prepared by the temporary acting commander of the 2nd mechanized battalion of military unit A4007, Captain Dmytro Bilyi. He is reporting directly to the commander of the military unit.

Bilyi says that between April 19 and 20, 2023, he as temporary acting commander as well as other officers have concluded that the 2nd battalion had reached critically low morale and psychological conditions.

The battalion had also suffered numerous sanitary and irretrievable losses. Most soldiers refused to perform combat missions. The level of morale in different companies was evaluated as ranging between 20% and 42%.

This is a list of soldiers from military unit A7097 who have voluntarily left a position called "Sadik". Translation: the Ukrainians lost control over this strong point, Sadik, because of these guys. Among them there is a Captain, Mykhailo Shabunin.

This is another report about a group of soldiers who have "voluntarily" abandoned the battlefield.

This is an urgent report on the critically low level of combat readiness of the 5th company of the 2nd battalion. The staffing of the company fell to 60% – and the unit needs to be withdrawn from the frontline.

This is the personal data of 10 servicemen that left. So relatives and friends can actually get some info about soldiers.

This is an urgent report by Major Dmytro Hnatyuk, commander of the 2nd batallion on massive "voluntary" withdrawing of firing positions Yaremche, Dakh, Derevo, Polohy, Halych.

Hnatyuk managed to get some 10 soldiers to return to their positions. The rest didn't.

What next?

The documents above paint a clear picture of what was going on in the frontlines back in April. The situation now may be even more dire. The Ukrainians already started their counteroffensive with very low morale. No wonder the actual results were catastrophic.

And yet none of that should elicit complacency. There's a feeling that as it stands all's quiet in the Donbass front. Not really. Ukrainians continue to assault Russian positions with maniacal persistence. After all they dispose of infinite numbers of infantry – faithful to Kiev's "logic" of war to the last Ukrainian.

The Kiev machine is now being retooled, and new units are being prepared. Russians did destroy an astonishing number of Western weaponry, but Kiev's forces are not depleted – yet.

There was quite a lot of expectation that after the failed counter-offensive Kiev would negotiate. That won't happen. The Hegemon won't allow it. So the "counter-offensive", 2.0 or whatever, will continue. Kiev's forces are getting ready for renewed action before the Summer of 2024. So Russia better get its own devastating offensive rolling – sooner rather than later.

Never forget: the Hegemon's Plan A is yet another Forever War. There's no Plan B.

10. Mackinder, a “Biblia” Estrategica, reconsiderada

Já faz tanto tempo que Brzezinski formulou originalmente a concepção de Mackinder que a diplomacia clássica murchou.

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Em 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, o "condutor" original por trás da transformação do Afeganistão num atoleiro de "lama" para o qual a Rússia seria arrastada, escreveu o seu célebre livro The Grand Chessboard (O Grande Tabuleiro de Xadrez – NT). Foi um trabalho que incorporou "para sempre" a doutrina Mackinder onde "aquele que controla o coração da Ásia controla o mundo" no zeitgeist dos EUA.

Notavelmente, seu subtítulo era American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (A Primazia Americana e seus Imperativos Geoestratégicos– NT). Brzezinski já tinha escrito no seu livro que, sem a Ucrânia, a Rússia nunca se tornaria a potência central; mas com a Ucrânia, a Rússia pode e faria. Assim, a doutrina de Mackinder, a máxima "Aquele que controla o coração", foi codificada na "lei dos canhões" dos EUA – para nunca permitir um coração unido. E a Ucrânia passou a ser vista como a articulação em torno da qual girava o poder central.

Brzezinski ordenou ainda que este "Grande Jogo de Xadrez" fosse um jogo de pura primazia dos EUA: "Não, ninguém mais joga", insistiu ele; é um jogo puramente para um. Assim que uma peça de xadrez for movida; "nós" (os EUA) simplesmente viramos o tabuleiro ao contrário – e movemos as peças de xadrez do outro lado (para "eles"). Não há "outro" neste jogo", alertou Brzezinski.

Este é o dilema de hoje – já passou tanto tempo desde que Brzezinski formulou originalmente a noção de Mackinder, que a diplomacia clássica tornou-se obsoleta.

Foi Henry Kissinger, no entanto, quem deu a Mackinder a sua célebre reviravolta: "Aquele que controla o dinheiro controla o mundo" iria tornar-se a hegemonia financeirizada do dólar e da banca.

Mas, Kissinger, nisso, estava errado desde o início. Sempre foi: "Aquele que tem capacidade de produção, matérias-primas, alimentos, energia (humana e fóssil) e dinheiro vivo pode mudar o mundo". Mas Kissinger simplesmente ignorou essas condições adjuntas e, em vez disso, baseou os EUA na criação de uma "teia de aranha global de dólares armados (toque nela e a teia de sanções o envenenará). Além disso, este sistema foi multiplicado através de Wall Street, que analisou o acesso a bilhões de dinheiro recém-criado apenas para os cumpridores.

Kissinger, no entanto, desenvolveu a doutrina da "triangulação" num aceno a Mackinder: Os EUA deveriam procurar aliar-se à Rússia contra a China, ou estar com a China, em oposição à Rússia. Mas nunca permitir que a China e a Rússia se unam contra o Ocidente. O coração deve estar sempre fraturado.

Estas "regras" estão impressas nos circuitos mentais de Washington. No entanto, as noções que os sustentam têm pouca validade hoje. A massa terrestre, os Estados militarizados (coração da Ásia) versus as potências navais (os Atlanticistas) dificilmente refletem os atuais instrumentos de poder mais abstratos.

A esfera do dólar, por exemplo, tem sido sem dúvida uma fonte de poder dos EUA (impondo aos estados a compulsão de comprar e manter dólares) desde o Acordo de Bretton Woods e os acordos em Petrodólar. Criou uma enorme demanda sintética pelo dólar, que inicialmente funcionou bem para Washington. Mas agora, nem tanto.

Era bom demais para ser verdade – imprima e se dane com as consequências. Dívida? Não importa; imprima um pouco mais. Washington exagerou (a tentação política foi demasiado grande).

E assim, a "hegemonia" do dólar deixou de ser uma ferramenta de projeção de poder para se tornar a principal fonte de vulnerabilidade dos EUA. Dito de forma simples, a enorme oferta de dólares e a dívida em dólar de Washington transformaram "o dólar" numa faca claramente de dois gumes; Isso vai contra o Ocidente agora. Financeiramente pesada, a base industrial ocidental atrofiou-se e encolheu – desencadeando uma sociedade estadunidense de dois níveis, caracterizada por enormes desigualdades.

O atual conflito na Ucrânia sublinhou as deficiências do poder hegemônico que surgem especificamente de uma base industrial negligenciada.

Mackinder, se estivesse aqui hoje, talvez precisasse ajustar o seu modelo, distinguindo entre a terra que está "fora" de um conjunto de políticas econômicas (o bloco asiático, africano e o Sul Global, liderado pelos BRICS), e aquela que está "dentro ": isto é, dentro de um paradigma consumista "costeiro" liderado pela dívida.

Vinculados ao que foi mencionado acima estão os custos específicos associados a esse armamentismo excessivo (ou seja, "guerra" financeira "total"). O Tesouro dos EUA usou diversas variações: dívida (para colapsar, em primeiro lugar, a posição global da Grã-Bretanha no pós-guerra); taxas de juros armadas para "reduzir ao tamanho" o milagre econômico japonês do início da década de 1980. A França e o Ocidente empregaram a guerra para acabar com as aspirações de Gadhafi por uma esfera pan-africana usando um dinar de ouro, em vez do franco ou do dólar. E ainda houve a sanção sem precedentes contra a Rússia que, paradoxalmente, deu origem a uma força econômica russa renovada, em vez de um colapso financeiro (como era esperado).

Mais uma vez, vemos a contradição do fio duplo da "espada de sanções": O Wall Street Journal observou que os europeus estão ficando mais pobres – como resultado dos bloqueios, mas mais exatamente por se juntarem ao "projeto" de guerra financeira de Biden, destinado a colocar a Rússia de joelhos):

"Em 2008, a zona euro e os EUA tinham produtos internos brutos (PIB) equivalentes e a diferença do PIB é agora de 80%. O Centro Europeu para a Economia Política Internacional, um grupo de reflexão com sede em Bruxelas, publicou uma classificação do PIB per capita dos estados estadunidenses e dos países europeus: a Itália está logo à frente do Mississippi, o mais pobre dos 50 estados, enquanto a França está entre Idaho e Arkansas, respectivamente 48º e 49º. A Alemanha não salva a cara: fica entre Oklahoma e Maine (38º e 39º). O salário médio estadunidense é agora uma vez e meia superior ao da França. "

Valeu a pena os líderes da UE hipotecarem o futuro da Europa em prol da solidariedade à Casa Branca? De qualquer forma, a estratégia de sanções não funcionou.

Bem… os EUA e a UE estão no meio de uma nova reviravolta na "história" geoestratégica de Mackinder em como evitar o surgimento de um centro unificado: É um modelo variante da capacidade tecnológica japonesa de "reduzir ao tamanho": é claro que a ferramenta do "Plaza Accord" (1985) de manipulação das taxas de juro contra um Japão "derrotado" e complacente não funcionará contra a China.

Em vez disso, a China está sendo submetida a um cerco tecnológico acompanhado de uma campanha de estigmatização, na qual seu líder está sendo destruído, enquanto a economia chinesa é espremida com proibições cada vez maiores à tecnologia para exportação ou cooperação. Todos os dias, a MSM ocidental comemora as dificuldades econômicas resultantes enfrentadas pela China:

"O crescimento meteórico [da China] abrandou, um breve aumento pós-pandemia desapareceu e os analistas apontam para problemas estruturais profundos que minam as perspectivas futuras da China. Xi e a camarilha dominante (sic) estão lutando para enfrentar os novos desafios colocados pelo amadurecimento da economia da China… A economia da China já pareceu o novo motor do mundo [como o Japão já fez]… mas uma sensação de estagnação está se intensificando".

É verdade. O desgaste prolongado dos EUA na economia chinesa prejudicou o crescimento. As exportações chinesas tanto para os EUA como para a Europa estão diminuindo e o desemprego juvenil é, de fato, uma preocupação ativa para a liderança chinesa.

Mas a China compreende bem que isto é guerra: "Guerra Estratégica Mackinder". Numa recente viagem a Pequim, a secretária do Comércio dos EUA, Gina Raimondo, alertou que a incerteza prevalecente, alimentada também pelas duras ações tomadas pelo governo chinês contra as empresas estrangeiras, está tornando a China "ininvestível" aos olhos dos investidores estadunidenses.

Parem! Parem um momento para assimilar o que disse o secretário do Comércio: Adotem nosso modelo econômico ou iremos rechaçá-los!

A secretária Yellen também proferiu recentemente um discurso sobre a relação EUA-China, sugerindo que a China prosperou em grande parte graças a esta ordem de mercado anglo-saxônica de "trabalho livre", mas agora estava orientando-se para uma postura orientada pelo Estado – uma postura que "é de confronto" em relação aos EUA e aos seus aliados". Os EUA querem cooperar com a China, mas total e exclusivamente nos seus próprios termos, disse ela.

Os EUA procuram um "engajamento construtivo", mas que deve estar sujeito à garantia dos seus próprios interesses e valores de segurança: "Comunicaremos claramente à RPC as nossas preocupações sobre o seu comportamento… ao mesmo tempo que nos envolvemos com o mundo para fazer avançar a nossa visão para um ordem econômica global aberta, justa e baseada em regras". Yellen terminou dizendo que a China deve "respeitar as regras internacionais de hoje".

Não é de surpreender que a China não aceite nada disso.

É um paralelo exato com o que ocorreu em 2007 no Fórum de Segurança de Munique. O Ocidente insistia que a Rússia concordasse com o paradigma de segurança global da NATO. O Presidente Putin desafiou o Ocidente: "Vocês atacam continuamente a Rússia – mas não nos curvaremos". A Ucrânia é hoje o campo de testes para o desafio de 2007.

Dito de forma simples, o discurso de Yellen demonstra uma completa falha em reconhecer que a "revolução" Sino-Russa não se limita à esfera política, mas se estende também à esfera econômica. Mostra quão importante é a "outra guerra" – a guerra para moldar uma saída das garras da "Ordem" global liderada pelo Ocidente – tanto para Putin como para Xi.

Já em 2013, num discurso sobre as lições aprendidas com a desintegração da União Soviética, Xi apontou a causa desta implosão para "as camadas dominantes" (com o pivô para a ideologia ocidental do mercado liberal da era Gorbachev-Yeltsin), que levou a União Soviética ao niilismo.

O argumento de Xi era que a China nunca tinha feito este desvio desastroso para o sistema liberal ocidental.

Putin respondeu: "[A China] conseguiu da melhor maneira possível, na minha opinião, utilizar as alavancas da administração central (para) o desenvolvimento de uma economia de mercado… A União Soviética não fez nada disso, e os resultados de uma política econômica ineficaz tiveram impacto na esfera política".

Washington e Bruxelas simplesmente não entendem isso. Em termos simples, a avaliação de Xi e Putin é que o desastre soviético foi o resultado de uma virada imprudente em direção ao liberalismo ocidental; em contrapartida, o "Ocidente coletivo" vê o "erro" da China – para o qual a guerra tecnológica financeirizada está sendo perseguida – como seu afastamento do sistema mundial "liberal".

Esta incompatibilidade analítica está simplesmente impressa nos circuitos mentais de Washington. Isto também explica de alguma forma a convicção absoluta do Ocidente de que a Rússia é tão fraca e frágil financeiramente, devido ao erro primordial de evitar o sistema "Anglo".

O ponto culminante: Washington está violando a (sua própria) Regra Número Um de Brzezinski: o "imperativo" de garantir que a Rússia e a China não se unam contra o Ocidente.

A grande questão hoje é se a tecnologia militarizada como um "imperativo geoestratégico" para dividir a heartland será mais eficaz para alcançar esse fim do que o dólar militarizado.

Na semana passada, a Huawei lançou seu novo smartfone equipado com seu próprio processador 9000s de fabricado pela empresa chinesa de semicondutores SMIC, usando um processo de fabricação de classe 7nm. Há menos de um ano, quando os EUA introduziram o seu conjunto abrangente de sanções contra a indústria chinesa de semicondutores, os "especialistas" prometeram que isso mataria a indústria, ou pelo menos congelaria seu processo tecnológico no padrão de 28 nm. A China agora pode evidentemente produzir chips de 7 nm em massa de forma totalmente independente. O iPhone 14 Pro tem chips de 4 nm, então a China está quase no mesmo nível, ou talvez 1 ou 2 anos atrás.

Numa única jogada, observa Arnaud Bertrand, a China demonstrou que os esforços dos EUA para prejudicar a Huawei e a indústria chinesa de semicondutores foram ineficazes. O que as sanções alcançaram? Elas contribuíram para a construção de um ecossistema de semicondutores nativo que não existia antes delas. Outros países "entenderam": forneçam os seus semicondutores a empresas ocidentais e os EUA não hesitarão em transformar o setor numa arma para fins geopolíticos. Compre chinês, diz Bertrand.

Esta semana, a China lançou um fundo de investimento de 40 mil milhões de dólares para apoiar a sua indústria de semicondutores.

Traducao: Saker LATAM