Bush-Era Neocons Should Shut The Fuck Up About Iraq (And Everything Else)

Caitlin Johnstone | March 15, 2023

David Frum and Max Boot, two neoconservatives who helped grease the wheels for the invasion of Iraq, have some thoughts they’d like to share with us as we approach the 20th anniversary of that horrific and unforgivable war. Both of these perspectives can be read in widely esteemed mainstream publications, because everyone who was responsible for inflicting that war upon our species has enjoyed mainstream influence and esteem to this very day.

Both men concede in their own ways that the war was a mistake, while simultaneously cheerleading the US proxy war in Ukraine that has brought humanity closer to nuclear armageddon than it has been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both men mix their Iraq War retrospectives with war apologia, historical revisionism, and outright lies. And both men should shut the fuck up. About everything. Forever.

Frum’s article is posted in The Atlantic, where he is a senior editor, and it is titled “The Iraq War Reconsidered“. Frum is credited with authoring George W Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, which marked the beginning of an unprecedented era of US military expansionism and “humanitarian interventions” in geostrategically valuable nations after 9/11.

Nord Stream pipeline blasts stirred up toxic sediment

The explosions happened in a dumping ground for chemical warfare, but other contaminants proved most toxic to marine life.

Katharine Sanderson

Nature | March 15, 2023

The harbour porpoise is among the species threatened by the Nord Stream blasts.Credit: Minden Pictures/Alamy

The explosions that blasted holes in the underwater Nord Stream gas pipelines kicked up long-buried toxins at levels high enough to threaten marine life for more than a month, analysis of the site suggests.

Last September, a series of four explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines — which run from Russia to Germany — close to the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, releasing more than 100,000 tonnes of methane into the sea and the atmosphere. It isn’t clear who was behind the explosions, but the most recent speculation is that a pro-Ukrainian group was responsible.

It is Zugzwang for Biden in Ukraine

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | March 08, 2023

New York Times reported Tuesday that a ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ sabotaged Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic on Sept. 27, 2022

There is a cardinal difference between the Washington Post report of June 18, 1972 by Alfred Lewis breaking the news of the Watergate burglary and the sensational claim by the New York Times on Tuesday — per a CNN report — that “intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group” sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines. 

The WaPo reported on Watergate several months after Richard Nixon’s thumping victory for a second term as president, while the Times’ claim has been advanced even before Joe Biden has announced his candidacy for the November 2024 election. 

Ukraine conflict, after a year

Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents | February 27, 2023

Over the last few weeks, February 24, 2023 was the most observed day on geopolitical stage. The famous, and posing as dignified, MSM ceaselessly predicted and propagated: Russia is going to begin a new offensive on February 24, 2023 in Ukraine.

But there was nothing like that.

A year has passed since Russia began its Special Military Operation in Ukraine. The imperialism’s proxy war in Ukraine is older, since 2014. This older part is either forgotten or goes unuttered by a section of analysts.

Guns are busy in the Ukraine battle fields, however. Civilian life is devastated in the European country.  Millions of Ukraine civilians in their land and spread out in countries in Europe are going through unfathomable suffering – cannon-fodder of an imperialist war!

Russia’s Ukraine offensive in suspended animation

M. K. Bhadrakumar

Indian Punchline | February 24, 2023

In a clandestine visit to Kiev, US President Joe Biden (C) met Ukrainian president Zelensky and his wife Olena, Feb. 20, 2023

The general expectation that the first anniversary of Russia’s special military operations in Ukraine would mark the commencement of a big military offensive has been belied, going by the speeches by President Vladimir Putin and the US President Joe Biden, separated by a few hours on February 21, in Moscow and Warsaw. 

Neither said anything very original. Putin cut himself loose towards the end of his speech by dropping a bombshell that Russia is suspending its participation in the New START treaty, which is its last nuclear weapons pact with the US. But the foreign ministry in Moscow has since clarified that Russia will continue to observe the terms of the treaty till 2026. 

Seymour Hersh Responds to His Critics

Eric Zuesse

Countercurrents | February 17, 2023

The cover-up by the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media of Seymour Hersh’s blockbuster self-published February 8th investigative-news report that Joe Biden himself had ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, wasn’t only the virtually total blackout of it that was engaged in by almost all ‘news’-media in The West — their failing to report that Hersh had issued any such news-report — but was ALSO the denigration of it by the very few that did mention it. Almost only non-mainstream news-media in The West DID report about it, and the four mainstream ones that did were treating it casually and briefly.

Nord Stream Sabotage Is The Dumbest U.S. Act In Years, Says Seymour Hersh

Countercurrents | February 17, 2023

Seymour Hersh, the famous investigative journalist, has slammed U.S.’s alleged involvement in bombing the Nord Stream gas lines as one of the “dumbest” decisions taken in years, warning that the move will have “horrific” consequences for Europeans and further undercut the already “supremely useless” NATO alliance.

Speaking to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman for an interview on Wednesday, Hersh outlined his recent report on the destruction of the pipelines last year, which found that the U.S. played a key role in planting and detonating explosives on sections of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea.

“I think the consequences politically for us are enormous,” he said, adding that the long-term effects for Europe would be “horrific” and “cut into the notion that they can depend totally on America, even in a crisis.”

Ukraine Truths with Scott Ritter

The Truth About the Russian Wagner Group / Ukraine’s Future and Rage Against the War Machine Controversy

THE ECONOMICS OF THE UKRAINE PROXY WAR

[THIS IS POSTED HERE FOR NON-PROFIT, NON-COMMERCIAL, EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE.]

More Evidence That The West Sabotaged Peace In Ukraine

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE | February 06, 2023

Days after the war in Ukraine began it was reported by The New York Times that “President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to mediate negotiations in Jerusalem between Ukraine and Russia.” In a recent interview, Bennett made some very interesting comments about what happened during those negotiations in the early days of the war.

In a new article titled “Former Israeli PM Bennett Says US ‘Blocked’ His Attempts at a Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal,” Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following:

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in an interview posted to his YouTube channel on Saturday that the US and its Western allies “blocked” his efforts of mediating between Russia and Ukraine to bring an end to the war in its early days.

On March 4, 2022, Bennett traveled to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin. In the interview, he detailed his mediation at the time between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he said he coordinated with the US, France, Germany, and the UK.

Bennett said that both sides agreed to major concessions during his mediation effort.

…

But ultimately, the Western leaders opposed Bennet’s efforts. “I’ll say this in the broad sense. I think there was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin and not [negotiate],” Bennett said.

When asked if the Western powers “blocked” the mediation efforts, Bennet said, “Basically, yes. They blocked it, and I thought they were wrong.”