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Coming to your dinner plate soon? Potentially unsafe GM tomatoes

By Claire Robinson – GMWatch – January 10, 2022

Sanatech’s CRISPR gene-edited tomato engineered to contain higher levels of a sedative substance, GABA, is being sold on the open market in Japan.

While GABA is reportedly viewed as a health-promoting substance in Japan, findings in studies are mixed and there are no studies at all showing that eating the gene-edited tomato has health benefits or is even safe.

In an article about the development, the journal Nature Biotechnology quotes Maarten Jongsma, a molecular cell biologist at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, who studies the effects of plant compounds on human nutrition, as saying “There’s no consensus” on the health benefits of consuming GABA.

Nor is there evidence that it can cross the blood-brain barrier and reach the central nervous system, adds Renger Witkamp, a nutrition scientist also at Wageningen.

Nature Biotechnology notes:

“Sanatech has been careful not to claim that its tomatoes therapeutically lower blood pressure and promote relaxation. Instead, the company implies it, by advertising that consuming GABA, generally, can achieve these effects and that its tomatoes contain high levels of GABA. This has raised some eyebrows in the research community, given the paucity of evidence supporting GABA as a health supplement.”

The article also reports on news regarding the purple tomato developed by Cathie Martin at the John Innes Centre in the UK using older-style transgenic GM (genetic modification).

Martin says she expects a regulatory decision from the U.S. Department of Agriculture by the end of February for her purple tomatoes. Martin’s targeting of the U.S. is no surprise, given the weak regulation of GM crops in that country.

Like Sanatech, Martin plans to initially market her GM tomatoes directly to the public. Nature Biotechnology reports that she has not conducted human intervention studies comparing the health effects of high-anthocyanin and conventional tomatoes and does not plan to make health benefit claims.

But this means little, as the John Innes Centre and the media have been hyping the supposedly cancer-fighting qualities of the tomatoes over several years, despite warnings from health organizations that these claims are not supported by evidence.

GMWatch notes that Martin’s tomatoes, like the high-GABA ones, have also not been safety tested in animals or humans.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

Wind will be Competitive! (Secretary Chu from 2011)

By Robert Bradley Jr. | MasterResource | January 6, 2022

“’Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel,’ Chu told an event at the Pew Charitable Trusts.” (below)

Energy history matters. In the marketplace, what energies performed and at what cost; in energy policy, who said what and when. In this regard, intermittent, dilute energies have a bad history.

Obama’s DOE Secretary Steven Chu has a ten-year anniversary of a statement that is now falsified. As reported by the American Security Project in “Wind, Solar Becoming Cost Competitive: Chu,”

Clean sources of energy such as wind and solar will be no more expensive than oil and gas projects by the end of the decade, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama’s administration has been encouraging companies to invest in green growth, calling it a new source of jobs and fearing that other nations — led by China — are stealing the march.

“Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel,” Chu told an event at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“So the country and the companies who develop those renewable energy and resources that become cost competitive without subsidy all of a sudden have a world market. And, boy, we can’t lose that world market,” he said.

The US Congress has rejected attempts to mandate curbs on carbon emissions blamed for climate change, with many members of the Republican Party arguing that reducing dependence on fossil fuels would be too expensive.

But the Obama administration has been hoping to seek bipartisan cooperation on what it hopes are less controversial efforts such as encouraging renewable energy….

Wind energy, never competitive with fossil fuels, remains uncompetitive as demonstrated by the desperate attempt by the Biden Administration in BBB (Build Back Better) to extend the Production Tax Credit for a 14th time. Yes, what began in 1992 for wind’s PTC was extended in 1999… 2002 … 2004 … 2005 … 2006 … 2008 … 2009 … 2012 … 2014 … 2015 … 2016 … 2019 … 2021.

It’s time to pull the plug and let the market decide between energies. The government–the taxpayers–should be neutral.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

What they REALLY mean by “living with Covid”

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | January 10, 2022

Why are media dialling back on the Covid hysteria? Is it because the “pandemic” is really over? Or is it an important part of the gaslighting process?

The past few days, even weeks, have seen a definite alteration in the media’s attitude to the Covid “pandemic”.

There have been numerous examples of what, if the media were not so tightly controlled, might be referred to as “dissent”. But, since the media is tightly controlled, we must call it an apparent change in the message.

Famously, Dr Steve James, a consultant anaesthetist, confronted UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid over the weakness of the science supporting vaccine mandates. Note this was actually aired on Sky News.

A few days ago Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, went on Good Morning America to discuss the “Omicron” wave, and ended up pointing out that most “omicron deaths” have multiple co-morbidities.

In another interview, with Fox News, Dr Walenksy said the CDC was going to publish data on how many people had died of Covid, and how many died with it.

This begs a series of important questions.

  1. Why is the director of the CDC (seemingly) engaging with these Covid skeptic arguments after two years of pretending they don’t exist?
  2. Why would Sky News air, and then tweet out, the video clip of a doctor challenging the health secretary?
  3. Why is the Guardian running headlines like “End mass jabs and live with Covid, says ex-head of vaccine taskforce”and quoting medical personnel who say we need to “treat Covid like the flu”?
  4. Why are new studies being promoted that claim T cells from ordinary colds can “protect you from Covid”?

There’s no denying the messaging, the deceleration of the narrative. There’s a new thread being woven into the story: “living with Covid”.

For over a month that has been a popular buzz phrase all over the Western press.

On December 1st, Forbes headlined:

Why Endemic Covid-19 Will Be Cause For Celebration

An article which argued, among other things, that “Endemic Covid-19 will be no worse than seasonal flu”. This sentiment has been repeated ad nauseum across multiple outlets.

We already mentioned the Guardian article from January 8th, there’s also an earlier one from Dec 5th titled “From pandemic to endemic: this is how we might get back to normal”.

CNBC ran three almost identical stories on this topic in the space of two weeks:

On New Year’s Day, Vox had a piece titled:

Despite omicron, Covid-19 will become endemic. Here’s how.

Bloomberg is reporting that Omicron signals the end “of the acute phase of the pandemic”.

Just yesterday the New York Post headlined: “COVID will become endemic by later this year, ex-Biden task-force head predicts”, and USA Today asked “The pandemic is changing. Will omicron bring a ‘new normal’ for COVID-19?“

And earlier today Channel 4 opined that “Covid in 2022” means “learning to live with the virus”.

The messaging isn’t just media-based, either. Reports are coming out that “living with Covid” is going to be the UK government’s strategy moving into 2022, with an official publication on this topic expected “within weeks”.

So, “living with the virus” is going to be added to the Covid phrasebook alongside “flatten the curve” and “the new normal”. But what does it actually entail?

When they say “living with Covid”, what do they really mean?

Well, firstly, let’s not make the mistake of trusting any government, media, or “expert”, just because they start telling 20% of the truth.

They are liars, they have an agenda, this is always true, you should always be aware of it, even when – or especially when – they are suddenly telling you what you want to hear.

They have not seen the light, they are not correcting their mistakes, they not finally seeing sense, and they are not switching sides.

There have been no Damascene conversions. There is no wave of guilty consciences sweeping through the elite.

They have an agenda. They always have an agenda.

You should also dispel all notions of “getting back to normal” from your mind. That isn’t happening.

How do we know? Because they said so.

Half the articles talking about “living with Covid” go into detail about how things won’t really change. Take this one, from the Guardian yesterday:

‘Living with Covid’ does not have to mean ditching all protective measures

It outlines that Covid could become endemic soon, that the mass testing of asymptomatic people may be counter-productive and possibly should stop, but it doesn’t reverse course on masks or vaccines and leaves the door wide open for a new “variant” to jump-start more lockdowns in the future:

“Living with Covid” does not have to mean reversing every protective measure. If better ventilation and face masks reduce the impact of winter respiratory illnesses, that is a positive, even if the NHS is no longer under imminent threat of being overwhelmed. We will also need to remain vigilant about the threat from new variants, which could still cause big setbacks. There is no guarantee that another variant, more infectious and more virulent than Omicron, could emerge in the future. Scientists say that supporting global vaccination efforts will be crucial to securing the path to normality.

Masks, working from home, and social distancing in crowded settings could all be “sticking around”, according to one of the above CNBC articles. And “Covid Boosters could become like annual flu shots”.

Meanwhile, “experts” are warning that even once Covid is endemic we should prepare for “surges” every three or four months.

It seems “living with the virus” means maintaining the status quo, loosening a few restrictions, but leaving the path clear for new waves of fear porn should the need arise.

But why? Why are they doing this now?

It could be that there are splits and factions, fractures along the floors of the corridors of power. Perhaps some members of the great big club want to halt the Pandemic where it is, afraid that any more progress along the “Great Reset” path may imperil their own position or their own wealth.

Maybe.

What I see as more likely is that they sense they have over-extended themselves already, and that stretching further could break their entire story to pieces.

To use an apt metaphor, imagine the “Great Reset” agenda as an invading army, marching through town after town, winning battle after battle and burning as they go.

There comes a point where you have to stop. Your supply lines are pulled taut, your men are tired and numbers dwindling, and the occupied citizens are putting up more and more resistance. Push on now, and your entire campaign could crumble.

What you do in that situation is withdraw to a defensible position and fortify it. You don’t give back the land you’ve taken, or not much of it at least, but you stop pushing forward.

The people whose land you have invaded will be so glad the war is over, so tired of fighting, they’ll be so relieved by the respite before realising how much of their land you’ve taken away. They may even say “let them keep it, as long as they stop attacking us”.

That’s how conquest works, from the days of ancient Rome and beyond. A cycle of aggression followed by fortification.

When we switch from “pandemic” to “endemic”, we won’t be getting our rights back, the vaccine passes and surveillance and the culture of paranoia and fear will remain, but people will be so relieved at the pause in the campaign of fear and propaganda they will stop resisting.

They won’t push back, and the “New Normal” will literally become just that, normal.

Hell, they’ll probably greenlight funding for anything Bill Gates wants to do to make sure “Covid is the last pandemic”.

And then, one day when people are nice and docile again, a new variant will come back, or we’ll need a “climate lockdown”, and the push for control of every aspect of our lives will start up again in earnest.

The best thing we can do is not fall into the trap.

The press politicians and Big Pharma didn’t all just realise the truth, they’re just using some small parts of truth they’ve been ignoring for two years to fortify their position.

But that doesn’t make it a bad thing.

The very fact they feel the need to do so shows that the resistance is building, and that they’re are trying to lull us into relaxing.

Now would be the worst time to stop fighting.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

UK Deployed 31 Nuclear Weapons During Malvinas War

By Richard Norton-Taylor | Declassified UK | January 3, 2022

British warships deployed to the South Atlantic after Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands [Islas Malvinas] in 1982 were armed with dozens of nuclear depth charges. Prince Andrew served on HMS Invincible, which carried 12 nuclear weapons.

The revelation is contained in a new file released to the National Archives. Marked “Top Secret Atomic,” it shows that the presence of the nuclear weapons caused panic among officials in London when they realized the damage, both physical and political, they could have caused.

The military regime in Argentina claimed the Falkland islands and invaded on April 2, 1982. The U.K. government under Margaret Thatcher dispatched a naval task force to the South Atlantic to retake the islands.

A Ministry of Defence (MoD) minute, dated April 6, 1982, referred to “huge concern” that some of the “nuclear depth bombs” could be “lost or damaged and the fact become public.” The minute added: “The international repercussions of such an incident could be very damaging.”

Nuclear depth bombs are deployed from navy ships to attack submerged submarines.

The unidentified official who wrote the minute continued:

“The secretary of state [John Nott] will wish to continue the long-established practice of refusing to comment on the presence or absence of UK nuclear weapons at any given location at any particular time.”

Heated Row

The existence of the weapons provoked a heated row between the MoD and the Foreign Office. The latter asked the MoD to “unship” the weapons. The Navy refused to do so.

The MoD noted the principal arguments in favour of keeping the weapons on board. It stated:

“In the event of tension or hostilities between ourselves and the Soviet Union concurrent with Operation Corporate [the codename given to liberating the Falklands] the military capability of our warships would otherwise be severely reduced.”

One document in the file says there was no risk of an “atomic bomb type explosion.” But there was a threat of the “disposal of fissile material” if any of the weapons was damaged which could lead to up to 50 “additional deaths” from cancer.

Even if there was no pollution in the event of a damaged or sunk nuclear weapon the Argentinians might get hold of nuclear technology and “we might have had to face acute embarrassment in the non-proliferation field,” recorded a MoD official.

Keeping Secret

A plan to offload the weapons at the British base on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean was rejected by the Navy. It said this would delay the passage of the task force to the Falklands and that the operation would not be kept secret.

Instead, the weapons were transferred from the frigates and destroyers to the larger aircraft carriers, HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, where the weapons could be better protected. Prince Andrew served as a helicopter pilot on Invincible during the war.

By the middle of May 1982, the Hermes had 18 nuclear weapons on board and Invincible 12, while the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship, Regent, had one, according to the file. The ships were within the “total exclusion zone” imposed by Britain around the Falkland Islands, the documents say.

The file does not say whether any of these were “inert” surveillance rounds used to monitor the “wear and tear on the weapons”, as academic Lawrence Freedman put it in his Official History of the Falklands Campaign, published in 2005.

Surveillance and training rounds were used to test the depth charges to see how they would perform. They were identical to live weapons except the fissile material was replaced by depleted uranium and inert substances.

But even the presence of inert rounds caused alarm in the Foreign Office. Its top official, Sir Antony Ackland, wrote to Sir Frank Cooper, his opposite number in the MoD: “I was very glad to have your confirmation that HMS Sheffield was not carrying an inert round when she was hit.”

The destroyer sank on May 10, 1982 after being attacked by an Argentinian Exocet missile six days earlier.

Nuclear Free Zone

The Foreign Office was also anxious about the presence of the nuclear weapons because of the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco. This established a nuclear free zone in Latin America and surrounding waters, including the Falklands.

Although Britain had signed and ratified the treaty’s protocols other countries, including Argentina, had not done so. According to Freedman, Margaret Thatcher insisted that no ship carrying nuclear weapons would enter the three-mile territorial waters around the Falklands which would be a “potential breach” of the Tlatelolco treaty.

The MoD admitted in 2003 that British ships in the task force carried nuclear weapons and that a weapon container had been damaged. But the number of weapons had not been revealed before this document was transferred to the National Archives in Kew, south west London.

But a number of documents from the file have been weeded by the MoD or the Cabinet Office. They include an intriguing note, dated April 11, 1982, beginning “The Chiefs of Staff believe…” What they believed we are not allowed to know.

What About Gibraltar?

Many more documents are missing from a separate file, now declassified, entitled “Gibraltar: Impact of the Falklands Crisis”.

Gibraltarians, like the Falkland Islanders, inhabited a British “Overseas Territory” and were concerned because Spain supported Argentine claims of sovereignty over the islands just as it claimed Gibraltar, the large rock and British base on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula.

Whitehall weeders have withheld no fewer than 73 documents from the Gibraltar file. They have done so under exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act, and, specifically, sections 27(i), 40 (2), and 41.

These cover information whose disclosure might “prejudice” the interest of the U.K. abroad, “personal data” and “information provided in confidence.” Passages in other documents in the file have also been excised.

What has the British government to hide? Documents declassified previously may offer some clues. Thatcher repeatedly expressed concern about the implications of the Falklands crisis for Gibraltar.

Despite the public rhetoric, successive U.K. governments have been prepared to negotiate about sovereignty of the Falklands and sought a joint sovereignty agreement with Spain over Gibraltar in 2000 and again in 2002.

Thatcher’s government secretly offered to hand over sovereignty of the Falklands islands two years before the invasion by Argentine forces in 1982. The cabinet’s defence committee approved a plan whereby Britain would hand Argentina titular sovereignty over the islands, which would then be leased back by Britain for 99 years.

Lord Carrington resigned as foreign secretary over the Argentine invasion of the Falklands. He told the subsequent Franks Committee, which inquired into the run-up to the invasion, that British policy had been one of neglect and hoping for the best. “We did not have any cards in our hands”, he said.

Richard is a British editor, journalist and playwright, and the doyen of British national security reporting.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Americans ‘underestimate gravity of situation,’ Russia warns after European security talks

Key security issues ‘still pending,’ Moscow’s envoy says after Geneva discussions

RT | January 10, 2022

While the US delegation came to Europe to “seriously” discuss Moscow’s security proposals, on Monday, they have not shown an understanding of how the key issues need to be resolved, Russia’s top negotiator said afterwards.

The Americans “underestimate the gravity of the situation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters after bilateral with his US counterparts in Geneva. Russia has laid all of its cards on the table in the proposals made public last month, and those represent “demands that we cannot retreat from,” he added.

Ryabkov described the Geneva talks as useful because they discussed the matters previously considered off the table, and said he did not think the situation was hopeless. The greatest difference of views between the US and Russia was on the further expansion of Washington’s NATO military bloc.

“For us, it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine never ever becomes a member of NATO,” Ryabkov said, and Moscow is insisting that the institution amend its policies to reflect this reality.

“We are fed up with loose talk, half-promises, misinterpretations of what happened in different negotiations behind closed doors,” he said, referring to the State Department’s claims in recent days that NATO and the US never promised Moscow that NATO would not expand to the east.

“We do not trust the other side, so to speak,” Ryabkov said. “It’s over, enough is enough.”

Following Monday’s talks in Geneva, Ryabkov will meet with NATO representatives on Wednesday, and with the OSCE on January 13, after which Moscow will make a decision whether to continue the negotiations further.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

What War With Russia Would Look Like

By Scott Ritter | Consortium News | January 10, 2022

If ever a critical diplomatic negotiation was doomed to fail from the start, the discussions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine and Russian security guarantees is it.

The two sides can’t even agree on an agenda.

From the Russian perspective, the situation is clear: “The Russian side came here [to Geneva] with a clear position that contains a number of elements that, to my mind, are understandable and have been so clearly formulated—including at a high level—that deviating from our approaches simply is not possible,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the press after a pre-meeting dinner on Sunday hosted by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who is leading the U.S. delegation.

Ryabkov was referring Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands to U.S. President Joe Biden in early December regarding Russian security guarantees, which were then laid out by Moscow in detail in the form of two draft treaties, one a Russian-U.S. security treaty, the other a security agreement between Russia and NATO.

The latter would bar Ukraine from joining NATO and rule out any eastward expansion by the trans-Atlantic military alliance. At the time, Ryabkov tersely noted that the U.S. should immediately begin to address the proposed drafts with an eye to finalizing something when the two sides meet. Now, with the meeting beginning on Monday, it doesn’t appear as if the U.S. has done any such thing.

“[T]he talks are going to be difficult,” Ryabkov told reporters after the dinner meeting. “They cannot be easy. They will be business-like. I think we won’t waste our time tomorrow.” When asked if Russia was ready to compromise, Ryabkov tersely responded, “The Americans should get ready to reach a compromise.”

All the U.S. has been willing to do, it seems, is to remind Russia of so-called “serious consequences” should Russia invade Ukraine, something the U.S. and NATO fear is imminent, given the scope and scale of recent Russian military exercises in the region involving tens of thousands of troops. This threat was made by Biden to Putin on several occasions, including a phone call initiated by Putin last week to help frame the upcoming talks.

Yet on the eve of the Ryabkov-Sherman meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken simply reiterated these threats, declaring that Russia would face “massive consequences” if it invaded Ukraine.

“It’s clear that we’ve offered him two paths forward,” Blinken said, speaking of Putin. “One is through diplomacy and dialogue; the other is through deterrence and massive consequences for Russia if it renews its aggression against Ukraine. And we’re about to test the proposition of which path President Putin wants to take this week.”

It is as if both Biden and Blinken are deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to reading Russia.

Ryabkov has alluded to a fact already made clear by the Russians—there will be no compromise when it comes to Russia’s legitimate national security interests. And if the U.S. cannot understand how the accumulation of military power encompassed in a military alliance which views Russia as a singular, existential threat to its members’ security is seen by Russia as threatening, then there is no comprehension of how the events of June 22, 1941 have shaped the present -day Russian psyche, why Russia will never again allow such a situation to occur, and why the talks are doomed before they even begin.

As for the American threats, Russia has given its response—any effort to sanction Russia would result, as Putin told Biden last month, in a “complete rupture of relations” between Russia and those countries attempting sanctions. One need not be a student of history to comprehend that the next logical step following a “complete rupture of relations” between two parties that are at loggerheads over matters pertaining to existential threats to the national security of one or both is not the peaceful resumption of relations, but war.

There is no mealy-mouthed posturing by Foggy Bottom peacocks taking place in Moscow, but rather a cold, hard, statement of fact—ignore Russia’s demands at you own peril. The U.S., it seems, believes that the worst-case scenario is one where Russia invades Ukraine, only to wilt under the sustained pressure of economic sanctions and military threats.

Russia’s worse-case scenario is one where it engages in armed conflict with NATO.

Generally speaking, the side that is most prepared for the reality of armed conflict will prevail.

Russia has been preparing for this possibility for more than a year. It has repeatedly shown a capability to rapidly mobilize 100,000-plus combat-ready forces in short order. NATO has shown an ability to mobilize 30,000 after six-to-nine-months of extensive preparations.

What would a conflict between Russia and NATO look like? In short, not like anything NATO has prepared for. Time is the friend of NATO in any such conflict—time to let sanctions weaken the Russian economy, and time to allow NATO to build up sufficient military power to be able to match Russia’s conventional military strength.

Russia knows this, and as such, any Russian move will be designed to be both swift and decisive.

First and foremost, if it comes to it, when Russia decides to move on Ukraine, it will do so with a plan of action that has been well-thought out and which sufficient resources have been allocated for its successful completion. Russia will not get involved in a military misadventure in Ukraine that has the potential of dragging on and on, like the U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. Russia has studied an earlier U.S. military campaign—Operation Desert Storm, of Gulf War I—and has taken to heart the lessons of that conflict.

One does not need to occupy the territory of a foe in order to destroy it. A strategic air campaign designed to nullify specific aspects of a nations’ capability, whether it be economic, political, military, or all the above, coupled with a focused ground campaign designed to destroy an enemy’s army as opposed to occupy its territory, is the likely course of action.

Given the overwhelming supremacy Russia has both in terms of the ability to project air power backed by precision missile attacks, a strategic air campaign against Ukraine would accomplish in days what the U.S. took more than a month to do against Iraq in 1991.

On the ground, the destruction of Ukraine’s Army is all but guaranteed. Simply put, the Ukrainian military is neither equipped nor trained to engage in large-scale ground combat. It would be destroyed piecemeal, and the Russians would more than likely spend more time processing Ukrainian prisoners of war than killing Ukrainian defenders.

For any Russian military campaign against Ukraine to be effective in a larger conflict with NATO, however, two things must occur—Ukraine must cease to exist as a modern nation state, and the defeat of the Ukrainian military must be massively one-sided and quick. If Russia is able to accomplish these two objectives, then it is well positioned to move on to the next phase of its overall strategic posturing vis-à-vis NATO—intimidation.

While the U.S., NATO, the EU, and the G7 have all promised “unprecedented sanctions,” sanctions only matter if the other side cares. Russia, by rupturing relations with the West, no longer would care about sanctions. Moreover, it is a simple acknowledgement of reality that Russia can survive being blocked from SWIFT transactions longer than Europe can survive without Russian energy. Any rupturing of relations between Russia and the West will result in the complete embargoing of Russian gas and oil to European customers.

There is no European Plan B. Europe will suffer, and because Europe is composed of erstwhile democracies, politicians will pay the price. All those politicians who followed the U.S. blindly into a confrontation with Russia will now have to answer to their respective constituents why they committed economic suicide on behalf of a Nazi-worshipping, thoroughly corrupt nation (Ukraine) which has nothing in common with the rest of Europe. It will be a short conversation.

If the U.S. tries to build up NATO forces on Russia’s western frontiers in the aftermath of any Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia will then present Europe with a fait accompli in the form of what would now be known as the “Ukrainian model.” In short, Russia will guarantee that the Ukrainian treatment will be applied to the Baltics, Poland, and even Finland, should it be foolish enough to pursue NATO membership.

Russia won’t wait until the U.S. has had time to accumulate sufficient military power, either. Russia will simply destroy the offending party through the combination of an air campaign designed to degrade the economic function of the targeted nation, and a ground campaign designed to annihilate the ability to wage war. Russia does not need to occupy the territory of NATO for any lengthy period—just enough to destroy whatever military power has been accumulated by NATO near its borders.

And—here’s the kicker—short of employing nuclear weapons, there’s nothing NATO can do to prevent this outcome. Militarily, NATO is but a shadow of its former self. The once great armies of Europe have had to cannibalize their combat formations to assemble battalion-sized “combat groups” in the Baltics and Poland. Russia, on the other hand, has reconstituted two army-size formations—the 1st Guards Tank Army and the 20th Combined Arms Army—from the Cold War-era which specialize in deep offensive military action.

Even Vegas wouldn’t offer odds on this one.

Sherman will face off against Ryabkov in Geneva, with the fate of Europe in her hands. The sad thing is, she doesn’t see it that way. Thanks to Biden, Blinken and the host of Russophobes who populate the U.S. national security state today, Sherman thinks she is there to simply communicate the consequences of diplomatic failure to Russia. To threaten. With mere words.

What Sherman, Biden, Blinken, and the others have yet to comprehend is that Russia has already weighed the consequences and is apparently willing to accept them. And respond. With action.

One wonders if Sherman, Biden, Blinken, and the others have thought this through. Odds are, they have not, and the consequences for Europe will be dire.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Last Chance Saloon: best chance to ease East-West tensions cannot be missed

By Tony Kevin | Pearls and Irritations | January 7, 2022

We are at a crunch point now in Russia-US relations. Their high-level talks starting next week will be closely observed by China, Russia’s de facto strategic ally. The coming days and weeks will determine the shape of world security for decades to come. 

On Monday, January 10, vital Russia-US talks will start in Geneva. Russia’s delegation will be headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and the US by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

These are ‘precursor’ negotiations – ‘talks about talks’, in the old strategic arms limitation treaties (SALT) terminology. Russia is driving the pace. The US is in reactive mode, trying unsuccessfully to slow things down, to trim Russia’s sails. So far they are not succeeding.

Russia’s best-case scenario for Monday is this. Successful precursor talks will be followed soon after by substantive detailed Foreign Minister level negotiations, led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with participation of top military brass from both sides. Russia will seek to secure detailed US-Russia agreements on mutual security guarantees in Europe.

Unusually, Russian drafts of these agreements were handed over by Russia to the US and at the same time made public on December 17. Russia will want to achieve these solemn written mutual commitments, as well-summarised by Patrick Lawrence in Consortium News on  December 28.

  • NATO will cease all efforts to expand eastward, notably into Ukraine and Georgia.
  • NATO guarantees that it will not deploy missile batteries in nations bordering Russia.
  • An end to NATO military and naval exercises in nations and seas bordering Russia.
  • The effective restoration of the treaty covering intermediate-range nuclear weapons. The US abandoned the INF pact in August 2019.
  • An ongoing East-West security dialogue.

These desired agreements would be backed up by early NATO-Russia negotiations to achieve corresponding agreements at that level. Finally, the two presidents would formally seal the deal.

Russia’s worst-case scenario: that if the US fails to negotiate towards this complete package – if the US tries in its usual way to equivocate, delay, or cherry-pick Russia’s proposed deal – Russia will terminate the talks.

Russia-US and Russia-NATO relations would then enter the deepest of deep freezes since the worst years of Cold War One. Russia would focus its economic and diplomatic resources entirely on relations with the East and South – backstopped by the Belt and Road Initiative of its reliable friend China. Russia would effectively stop trying to dialogue with US and NATO Europe and call the US bluff on enhanced sanctions.  On the now highly militarised Russia-NATO frontier, armies, navies and tactical intermediate range missile forces (sufficient to destroy most of Europe and European Russia) would confront each other. Risks of East-West war by provocation or accident would be far greater than in the years 1989-2014, before the sharp deterioration in East-West relations brought about by the illegal 2014 Ukraine coup.

These present talks instigated by Russia are thus really the Last Chance Saloon: the last opportunity maybe for decades to pursue relaxation of East-West tensions – ‘détente’, in the old nearly — forgotten word of late Cold War One. Russia has had enough of years of creeping security deterioration and has drawn its red lines. These are not in my view ‘ultimatums’ though they do demand major military pullbacks by the US and NATO not matched by Russia, because almost all Russian forces are within Russian territory. In my view these proposed written agreements would enhance European and global security if achieved.

In 2021, Russia decided that it has had enough of decades of Western duplicity and creeping aggression, as persuasively analysed by Marshall Auerback in The Scrum, December 1, 2021.

Russia has seen how under successive US presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden, a strategically destructive pattern of US and NATO behaviour had emerged since 1999, when President Bill Clinton welshed on the solemn though unwritten 1989-91 agreements between Reagan and George H.W. Bush with Gorbachev, that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe following the reunification of Germany.

As the West offered soothing words and prevarications, NATO expanded, first with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in 1999. There were further large expansions in 2004 and 2009, bringing NATO right up against Russia’s Western frontiers. Provocatively, NATO then listed Ukraine and Georgia as candidates for NATO membership. The West successfully engineered an anti-Russia ‘colour revolution’ in Ukraine in 2014 and nearly succeeded in doing so in Belarus in 2020. It continued even to try to subvert Russia itself through lavish funding of anti-government human rights NGOs. Military and naval manouevres and build-ups continued on Russia’s Western approaches.

An angry Russia saw every expansion and interference as Western betrayals and as violations of its sovereignty and strategic depth. Russia was initially too weak to do anything about it. As Putin rebuilt Russian strength and morale, Russia began to fight back: first in Georgia in 2008, then in Crimea and East Ukraine in 2014, and in Belarus since 2020.

World events have now decisively turned in Russia’s favour. The global strategic balance is shifting. China firmly has Russia’s back, as seen in recent statements by President Xi Jinping and China’s Foreign Minister. China has repelled Western regime-change pressures in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and around Taiwan. Iran has joined the Belt and Road initiative. The West was expelled from Afghanistan. Syria has somewhat stabilised.

Russia and China see now that they are stronger against their common Western adversary if they stand together.  Important non-Western powers and groupings such as India, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN are quietly adjusting their diplomacy to suit. The Quad is dead in the water, and AUKUS is a diplomatic joke.

In publishing these draft treaty texts, Russia is appealing to the world outside the Atlantic alliance to see that its cause is just, and in accordance with the five principles of peaceful coexistence proposed by China to the non-aligned world in 1954.

These five principles as articulated by Chinese foreign minister Zhou Enlai first appeared in the Sino–Indian Agreement signed in April 1954, and subsequently at the Bandung Conference of non-aligned nations, which Indonesia hosted one year later. These principles are mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in the internal affairs of others, equality for shared benefit, and peaceful coexistence.  These are very much the stated principles of current Russian foreign policy.

Quite suddenly, the West is on the diplomatic defensive. Its years of salami-slice aggression against Russia and China are now coming to an end.

For years since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the West used the vital consensus agreed by Reagan and Gorbachev, that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, as cover for creeping aggression in Eastern Europe, violating and weakening Russia’s sphere of security.

Now, with the Russian initiative last week for the UN Security Council P5 to reaffirm the Reagan-Gorbachev doctrine, with which the Western nuclear powers had perforce to agree, the tables have been turned.

Putin is in effect telling the West now: we all agree that none of us can allow military conflict between us to escalate to nuclear war. But we and China are strong enough now to defeat you in non-nuclear conflicts close to our borders,  if you should be foolish enough to instigate such conflicts. These are the military facts of the matter: Russia could easily occupy Ukraine and China could easily occupy Taiwan. And you, the US and NATO, could not stop this without risking nuclear war.

Putin has no wish to invade Ukraine but he is determined to stop now the erosion of Russia’s security. The new harder and more confident tone in Russian diplomatic language is unmistakable.  A confused West has not yet worked out how to respond. Urgent talks have taken place between Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and between the US and NATO. One hopes that Biden has been preparing the ground for a prudent Western accommodation.  A wise old owl, he can smell the coffee.

Putin is now holding the strongest negotiating cards. My betting — indeed my hope — is that Russia will achieve its demanded mutual security guarantees in Europe in coming weeks.

International security – Australia’s security — will be greatly strengthened if he succeeds.

Much could still go wrong. There are troublemakers in the Western bloc whose careers depend on maintaining East-West tensions at just below the level of war. They will try hard to subvert and derail Russia’s goals.

In Australia there is almost complete public ignorance of this subject matter. Be prepared for massive disinformation in coming weeks from the US-fed think tanks like ASPI and our mainstream media, and a hysterical whipping-up of alleged threats of imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.  This propaganda offensive is already under way.

Australia sadly no longer has the intellectual resources for an informed and balanced public discussion of these momentous developments. Ignorance and groundless fears of Russia prevail. Dissenting voices such as mine have been marginalised and almost silenced.

One might hope there is more reality-based knowledge in our national security community. But if there is, they are not telling the public. I fear that there too, ignorance and prejudice have taken hold. We are leaving the strategic thinking on Russia to our Big Brother.

I expect this article to be either mocked or ignored. But let us see how events develop in coming weeks.

Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, having served as ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, as well as being posted to Australia’s embassy in Moscow. He is the author of six published books on public policy and international relations.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

A BBC Complaint

By Toby Young | The Daily Sceptic | January 9, 2022

A reader has shared with us the complaint he submitted yesterday to the BBC about the way in which Radio 4 presented the news that Britain’s Covid death toll has reached 150,000 – a figure which is also on the front of most of today’s papers:

The 1800 News on Radio 4, Saturday January 8th 2022 began with this headline:

“More than 150,000 people now have died of Covid in the UK since the start of the pandemic two years ago.”

This clearly stated that the deaths of 150,000 people had been as a result of contracting Covid. This is at best misleading, at worst a falsehood. The truth is stated on the BBC website, which said, correctly, “More than 150,000 people in the UK have now died within 28 days of a positive Covid test since the pandemic began.”

This isn’t a question of semantics. It’s a really important point and a crucial distinction between accurate news reporting and ‘number theatre’ (as Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter calls it). I can include two of my neighbours who died ‘with Covid’ and went down in the Covid total, even though one in fact died from the leukaemia that had kept him in hospital (where he caught Covid) for two years as he deteriorated, and another from liver cancer, also catching asymptomatic Covid in hospital.

On the 1800 News the Health Correspondent Katherine da Costa made no attempt to contextualise the figure of 150,000 in terms of annual normal deaths in the UK (this might in fact have strengthened her piece), interviewed a family member of a victim without clarifying the actual cause of death, and ignored the much larger number of people who have died of other causes.

Although Ms Da Costa did not repeat the inaccurate headline, she did not qualify her reference to the number of deaths by making it clear, as the news website did, that these were of people who had died within 28 days of testing positive. It was also quite evident that the interviewee had no framework of reference for the 150,000.

There is a stark contrast here with the coverage by Nick Triggle which always contextualises the figures and makes it clear what they actually are, without seeking to sensationalise as the inaccurate headline in the 1800 did.

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

Early treatment book is now available on Amazon

By Steve Kirsch | January 9, 2022

COVID is a very treatable disease if it is treated early using an early treatment protocol. There are lots of such protocols that are highly successful. This new book documents one such protocol.

Since March of 2020, Brian Tyson and George Fareed, two physicians with impeccable credentials, have been treating COVID patients of all ages in Imperial Valley, CA using early treatment protocols.

Their track record is extraordinary. If you started treatment within 7 days of first symptoms, only 2 people were briefly hospitalized and there were no deaths. The earlier you start treatment, the better the results and the faster you recover.

Their book is now available at Amazon (if you buy it now on Kindle for $5.95, it will be delivered Jan 24). It is a #1 best seller as you can see below.

The entire pandemic response was unnecessary: COVID is very treatable if treated early

This book shows that we’ve known about effective treatments since March 2020.

Had the CDC publicized such treatments, it would have made the entire pandemic response completely unnecessary: lockdowns, vaccines, mandates, masking, business closures, etc. Everyone would have gotten natural immunity and the pandemic would have ended with virtually no deaths.

Tyson and Freed tried contacting the FDA, CDC, and NIH, but nobody would talk to them or return their calls. The same is true today. They are just “too busy” to talk to them. Keeping patients out of the hospital and morgue is not a priority for them.

The same is true of the mainstream media. The NY Times refused to run op-eds about early treatments and CNN said that they were too busy covering the vaccines and people dying from COVID that they didn’t have the resources to talk about early treatment protocols that would have prevented everything.

Instead of promoting early treatment using repurposed drugs, the CDC instructed people to just stay home and do nothing until they were so sick that they had to go to the hospital. Even after drugs in the Tyson/Fareed protocol like ivermectin and fluvoxamine have been proven time and time again to work in clinical trials and, in the case of ivermectin, published in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, the NIH still fails to acknowledge them rating them NEUTRAL. This means that most doctors will not use them.

On May 24, 2021, I offered $2M to anyone who could show that the NIH made the proper decision on these two drugs, but nobody came forward.

In short, nobody in the world thought they made the right decision (or at least could justify it). But they are the authorities and we cannot question their judgement, ever.

The CDC doesn’t want you to share this post with anyone

The CDC would like you to know the following:

  1. You need to follow our advice. Do not think. Do not ask questions. Just do as you’re told. We are the CDC and we always know best.
  2. Trust us: early treatments don’t work. Ignore all the data from these physicians. Even though we’ve never even talked to them or looked at their data, we know they are wrong. We don’t even have to look at their data to know that they are wrong. The data does not matter. It is our opinion that matters. Got it?
  3. Do not share this post with anyone, especially your doctor, anyone in mainstream media, or Congress. Do not to do anything to disrupt Big Pharma’s profits.
  4. Even if you did share it, nobody would believe you anyway; they will think you are crazy. We have totally brainwashed pretty much everyone except for a relatively small number of people.
  5. Don’t read the book. This book will destroy our credibility as well as that of the NIH and FDA. You may not be able to deal with the cognitive dissonance. Just do what we say. Don’t worry, be happy.
  6. If you feel you must read the book, ask your doctor to prescribe Versed and take it as directed before you read the book. That way, after you are done reading it, you won’t remember anything.
  7. If the public finds out about this book, a lot of people are going to be very upset about how they’ve been fooled. You wouldn’t want that to happen now, would you?

January 10, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment