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Everything posted by Shady Ray
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Local news in Munich saying Thomas MĂĽller out with a knee injury for the Hungary match on Wednesday...likely longer should they advance to the knock-outs.
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One of the things that was really interesting about the NATO summit last week was the inclusion of language strongly criticizing China in the final readout. This is the first that I recall NATO taking on China in such direct and confrontational language and it will be very interesting to see whether the electorates within Europe get on board with shifting (at least some of) the focus of the alliance towards a much more distant adversary. If conflict with China truly is in the cards, and the Europeans are expected to participate, being able to effectively convince Western Europeans to change their views will be one of Biden and his administration's biggest tasks. From a European Council on Foreign Relations poll from earlier this year (all of which is worth a read for an eye-opening wrt European views on the US): ECFR: The Crisis of American Power: How Europeans See Biden's America
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Finns ain't fucking around. Edit: What PittsburghTiger said
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This is one of my favorite things about living here...no 24-hour news cycle whatsoever. No Fox News type shit and "no talking heads" outside of three or four long-serving evening chat show hosts that are along the lines of old school US political interview shows. A presenter and a politician or a few politicians, all asked questions about some random issues of the day. No split screens, no hucksters talking over each other. No name calling. Nothing. None of the tension that turns neighbors into dueling yard-sign vigilantes or causes people to see themselves entirely through the lens of their political team. We have two main TV stations, "Das Erste" and "Das Zweite". Literally, "The First" and "The Second". Creative Germans, I know. They are public media outlets somewhat along the lines of PBS and our TV news comes from here. There is hardly any advertising outside of sports programming and we all pay 17.50 euros a month to fund these stations via a license fee, and they don't fuck around when it comes to collecting this. Fail to pay it after six months, they'll send your file to court...fail to pay after a year, and they'll seize property of the amount owed with a knock on the door at 8 AM. No excuses. We get our TV news at 8:15 PM via a program on The First called Taggesschau (Daily Show) and almost all adults in the country watch it religiously. Every night, the Taggeschau bell comes on, and the country watches the news together. There is one presenter, out of a total of 15 possible presenters, who constantly rotate, and no one really even knows their names or who will be presenting on a given night. They are plain, well-kept, pleasant. etc. but otherwise, they have no personality and, as such, no cult of personality. They have no following, and thus, no power to influence. They present no opinions and they use standard, non-loaded wording in high German. They simply read the news starting with international, then domestic, then national weather. Done. No culture war shit. Nothing designed to rile up the viewers. They are highly regulated and expected to remain completely neutral when they cover politics. Here is a link to last night's Taggeschau. In German, of course, but you can get the idea. This is essentially the extent of our TV news media. https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts-43359.html Local news is done purely by state, so there is for example Bavarian Rundfunk, or Southwest Rundfunk, or Berlin Rundfunk that covers state and local topics and they have their own channels, also with an evening show that is the same way. No personalities, highly regulated, etc. There is an ombudsman for the two stations who occasionally critiques the news formally, the most recent being findings of being too one-sided in the 2008 financial crisis and re the 2014 Russian-Ukraine war. And you are right, given the history here, government involvement with the press is very, very sensitive. I would say that there is a slight bend towards Merkel-style-centrism with occasional hostility towards the Alternative fur Deutschland, as they are seen as too far to the right for polite company, but otherwise it is pretty neutral. A communist Chancellor candidate from Die Linke party is going to be treated just as fairly/aggressively/probingly as someone from the Center parties, both in the Taggeschau or in one of the interview programs. Merkel has gotten some softballs as of late, but I think it is because it is a seismic shift coming with her departure and no one wants to see her battered on the way out. But they are pretty tough on all pols, for the most part. I don't know if it is a chicken and egg situation when compared to the US, but the population genuinely doesn't like seeing their politicians railroaded with gotchas or sleazy edits, and they don't like seeing the media targeted for criticism by politicians. They just want to hear a conversation and they want it done quietly. Radio media is also subject to this system of oversight and license fees. Print news isn't regulated and it is still very big here (as in "paper delivered to your newspaper box" print news), and there is more variety here across partisan perspectives. The two German Papers of Record, the SĂĽddeutsche Zeitung here in Munich, and Frankfurt Allegemeine Zeitung in Frankfurt, are center-right and center-left, respectively, and everyone knows the slight bent and filters accordingly. The other three big ones, Die Zeit, Die Welt, and Der Spiegel are all center right and left, also. But there is absolutely nothing like a hyper-partisan widely-viewed news outlet here. We have tabloids like "Bild", which is actually the most read paper in Germany, but when page 1 has some big political gossip and page 6 has an article asking Germans who should be Mrs. November with an image of a bunch of German women flashing their tits, it isn't really an outlet people turn to for actual news.
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Biden really doesn’t have another option at the moment but to shift the US position on NS2. Germany has refused to abandon the project despite massive U.S. pressure both behind-the-scenes and in public for years under Trump and continuing early on in the Biden Administration by Blinken. Continuing to escalate the issue via rhetorical threats, or by pushing Germany to buy US LNG as an alternative, or by increasing sanctions on companies working on NS2, etc. was not going to succeed and was only going to increase the likelihood of an even higher-profile falling-out between the U.S. and Europe’s most economically powerful member-state, which ultimately only benefits Putin in the long-run. Plus, you now have Macron openly stating that sanctions aren’t working against Russia, which supports the premise that a unified front on Russia is at risk of crumbling if things aren't recalibrated to accept domestic political realities on the ground here. And it is very much political, given that both France and Germany have huge federal elections over the next 10 months in which energy policy and Russian relations are extremely important. The modus operandi of center-left to center-right German politicians is to pay lip-service to the US...but only so long as it doesn’t cost them electorally by allowing them to be portrayed by opponents as deferring to the US at the expense of Germany, or by allowing Germany to blatantly appear as an American vassal state. There is a sensitivity here to being used as a US puppet that multiple ex-administrations have failed to grasp. See Bush Jr re Iraq and Trump re, well, everything he ever said. By giving in to such overt pressure from Washington, both of these narratives would absolutely take hold and could prove costly for a whole bunch of ambitious (yet ultimately talentless) politicians across the spectrum. Recent polls have shown over 75% of the German people want the pipeline finished, with 17% against, so it is a political loser and there are Bundestag elections which will determine Merkel's successor in the Fall. While I think support could theoretically be as low as 65% approval in actuality, it isn't less than that. No politician is going to play games politically with energy policy initiative with 2/3rds-plus popular support during election season. "Three-Quarters Majority for Nord Stream 2" "Are you for completing NS2 in spite of USA opposition?" Roughly that same number extrapolates to the corresponding political parties in the most recent electoral polling for the upcoming Bundestag elections. And even within those parties who do officially oppose completing NS2 on paper (the Greens and the Free Democratic Party), the rank-and-file of those parties still overwhelmingly support the completion of the pipeline. "Greens Also Strongly Support the Pipeline" "Are you for completing NS2 in spite of USA opposition? According to Party Preference in Percent" Night after night on German political shows like Annie Will and Maybrit Illner, guests from the far right to the far left, and the SPD and CDU in the middle, harp on the fact that (at least as of a few months ago) the US still imports over 550k barrels of Russian oil every day, providing billions to Putin’s government annually, which makes it really easy to hang the label of "self-interested hypocrites" on the US govt and their arguments. Voters are regularly referred to the dumpster fire known as Ukrainian domestic politics, as well as the legitimate energy challenges that a non-coal-fueled/non-nuclear-fueled Germany is going to face in the very near future. With those arguments taken together -rightly or wrongly - allowing construction of NS2 to be squashed by external US pressure is a losing political argument domestically and no amount of U.S. pressure was going to change that at the voter level. I think the Biden Administration rightly realized the realpolitik of the situation and has now opted to find a way to preserve at least a public image of Transatlantic unity in pursuit of greater issues down the road, while trying to now contain the negative economic fallout to Ukraine, which Germany seems willing to assist with to some degree. Just last week the German govt floated the idea of contributing euros/environmental infrastructure upgrades to make Ukraine whole with respect to the amount of lost transit fees and (at least nominally) suggested that Russia must continue to use Ukrainian pipelines for gas transport as per the current Russian-Ukraine transit agreement. Now, I highly doubt that Germany is going to insist on the renewal of that provision come the agreement’s expiration in 2024, as part of the domestic appeal of NS2 (albeit unspoken) is to limit Germany's exposure to the continued instability of Ukraine and the unreliability of its leadership. However, I do think they will at least contribute somewhat in order to keep Ukraine’s economy from cratering even deeper than its abysmal state until things settle down, albeit solely in effort to throw a bone to the US for backing off.
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I don't think (particularly after 2020) Lukashenko shits without Putin's permission.
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I think you hit the nail on the head with respect to the situation needn't being overshadowed with Belarus and Russia. Unfortunately, in retrospect, my posts detracted from that, and to be honest, in the time since I have posted about it I have actually felt quite bad about it. To the degree that I wanted to hop back on and acknowledge it. It truly is irrelevant what his attachment to Azov was, and I genuinely do not want to come across as someone who linked the criminal treatment of him by Lukashenko to his past connections. In my mind I wasn't doing that, and while I know that I stated that multiple times in my threads, in retrospect it definitely came across that way. While I do link all of these things together in my mind as part of the continuing Russia/West tensions, it was not the place to do so here. Now, for background as to why I often get involved with the Ukraine-Russia topic, (and have for years, going back to TOS) my honest position is that I am very concerned on this particular conflict. I know it well. I deal with it to some degree professionally and I have had many discussions as of late on it within my profession (government relations attorney) on the topic of "things here in Europe are not trending in the right direction". We are heading for a major realignment geopolitically, IMO, and I pray we get there with as minimal pain as possible. As I have posted in other threads, it is precisely something like this Ukraine-Russia tension that start big wars, as they are both unreliable in their own ways, and in my opinion, in the current environment it is a powder keg waiting to happen. And if you are like me, sometimes you feel like the only thing that you can do in this world is to type shit out, as insignificant as it is, to the few places where you think someone will listen. It is silly, but it is human. And I am in a period of frustration on this subject and to be very honest, this board is about the only place in my life where I can do that freely. In my mind, this Russia/Belarus/Ukraine trifecta of disaster has the potential to rupture the transatlantic alliance like no other, and I think that is an inevitability unless the powers of Europe, the US and Russia come to some type of arrangement on it. I see things like what happened in Ukraine last month, and this hijacking, all as part of the positioning here and it is not a simple situation. There is absolutely no military solution here and playing games with guns here is going to be disastrous. In my opinion, mistakes made here could easily have consequences for the world far, far more devastating than Iraq did and I feel that the US leadership is deliberately down-playing the degree in which Ukraine is crumbling under the current leadership and under the weight of vigilante lawlessness that is all over the country. There are a variety of reasons for that, none of them good. As is clear from my posts, I despise Azov with a passion. While perhaps they played a justified role at the outset, they are a boil that should have been lanced long ago and now they have only increased their influence. I have watched as they have become increasingly oppressive in Ukrainian life, actively recruiting Neo-Nazis from across Europe, re-injecting a very dangerous ideology into a continent that quite frankly, isn't immune to such things taking hold. I think they need to be reigned in and I think our leadership is in a position to greatly influence just that. But I fear that our pathetic politicians won't. I do not see them as something that American taxpayers should be funding, or justifying; I do not see them as harmless, and I do not see them as insignificant. I see them as the latest iteration of US-funded fascism/extremism and I believe that our approach to the Ukrainian situation is foolish and will not end well. But that is for another time. But, to illustrate my point re Azov, this article in The Nation is - in my opinion - is the best summary of what is actually going on over there. It is highly sourced, verified and accurate. It is two years old, but nothing has changed for the better. So that said, again, apologies for being seen as muddying the waters.
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Yes, I do view them as a full-blown Neo-Nazi group. And, no, I am not trying to stir up sediment. And no, Azov's affiliation/wholesale embrace/acceptance/proliferation of nazi ideology is not arguable. It is factual. And it is only your apparent binary view of the world of Russia vs. USA that allows you to consider anything to the contrary. What do you need beyond the Wolfsangel and annual SS glorification? Do you need the UN to condemn them as Extreme Right? Do you need the ADL to do so? How about members of the EU Parliament? How about the Simon Wiesenthal Center? Am I leaving any out? Or is it still arguable? Are going to just say "Neo-nazi" affiliated isn't the same as actual "Neo-Nazis"? OK, we can agree to disagree. Perhaps Andriy Biletsky, the head of Azov's military and political wings, who I quoted earlier supporting Roman Protasevich's claim of being a journalist with no work-product, was just confused as to Fascism when he said ON THE FUCKING RECORD: "It is the Ukrainian nation's mission to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade against semite-led untermenschen". Oh, I guess because he publicly made the statement 2010, it was worthwhile to continue to fund and arm him for four years after Minsk was signed and defend his unit's Neo-Nazism as "arguable". Here is Bellingcat on this group of "arguable" Nazis: Believe me, I can go on and on proving this groups filth. And it is not arguable. With respect to your question regarding the selfie and his FB page, you raise a very good point that I will admit that I took for granted. I have seen posts on this on various sites, including journos that I very much trust, but I admit that is something that I may have overlooked. I absolutely stand by the link to the V-Kontakte page. It is absolutely consistent with the other images published in the Belsat article that I linked to, and I am not going to discount it simply because it is VKontakte. But I definitely need to look into the selfie. Sincere appreciation for pointing that out. That doesn't change the fact that his own father in 2020, his commander yesterday, and other comrades acknowledge his affiliation with Azov...regardless of whether that was fighting or a non-publishing journalist - and in my opinion, his affiliation with them is news. I cite once again to one of the highest rated think-tanks on the area, Jamestown...https://jamestown.org/program/belarus-stages-what-it-sees-as-major-security-operations/ Again - and I know I am like a broken record - but I am not defending Lukashenko or Putin. In fact, I would love for them to be toppled. And my point goes much more to our support of Azov than it does demanding the fair treatment and release of this kid. And I have gone out of my way to reiterate that. I am very, very, adamant about the Ukraine issue personally. I am very concerned about it and I see it as a situation where the US is blindly sleepwalking into a conflict that will have profound, profound implications on the place where I live. And unfortunately, for myself, as a resident of Europe, if the US decides to shit-fart its way into yet another armed conflict like it has continually done in Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc., it isn't going to be an "oops, my bad" for me like it is for a bunch of know-nothings who rely on a deficient and pathetic media to provide our continual support for war. But my initial gripe is exactly as @Mrs Whiggins stated above...this is not about whataboutism...this is about bringing attention to very, very complicated issues that are not nearly as cut-and-dry as they are made out to be, and they are issues that should be covered. I have legitimate and severe concerns about steps the US is taking in Ukraine...both from a transatlantic alliance position and that of an American. And as long as we sit there and say that Azov's extremism is "arguable", and allow for their funding - whether direct or indirect, and not listen to what they themselves claim to be, we are running the risk of waltzing into very terrible situations because the topic of Russia has become hyper-politicized in the US. Now, I have spent far too much time on this debate for today (albeit an enjoyable one), and I have a nice new bottle of Lagavulin 16 waiting on me which I am going to break into on the back porch, but I will check back in early tomorrow and respond when I can.
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I literally linked you the Biletsky's statement confirming he was fighting with Azov (or perhaps, "struggling"...could be either). And while you may not know who Biletsky is, he is the head of Azov who currently heads the political party "The Social National Assembly" in Ukraine...which is fascist. Here it is again...you can simply machine translate the rest it if you need. https://archive.ph/ZDppJ Yes, Roman really, together with Azov and other military units, fought against the occupation of Ukraine. He was with us near Shirokin, where he was wounded. But his weapon as a journalist was not a machine gun, but a word. And you make my point...Fergal Keane is brilliant..and reported from the front lines. Like actual reporters do. Guess who you can't provide a similar link for? Go on. Show me the journalistic proof. Send me anything resembling such a link for this guy. And THAT is my point. Media should cover such a topic. Yet, they don't. You aren't going to get me to defend Lukashenko or fucking Putin...but unlike you, I understand that there are fascists who we support in Ukraine and I would like to at least it mentioned that he was alongside them.
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GW Hayduke, sorry, but I don't really know how to multiquote, so I am going to respond to your points as best I can. Azov is neo-nazi. Our congress has now finally admitted the same. Four years too late, but finally. Ultimately, true thinkers like Ro Khanna, John Conyers etc knew it...but our government continued to strip it out of bills while it was convenient to do so: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/380483-congress-bans-arms-to-controversial-ukrainian-militia-linked-to-neo-nazis I do not think the media should label him a Nazi. If you look at my prior posts, I simply say that if the media going to tell me all about his life, they should include mentioning the years in which he was imbedded in a nazi-organization. It actually is pretty simple. I am an ardent, ardent anti-fascist, and have become even moreso as I have gotten older. I am repulsed by our funding of Azov, I am repulsed by our enabling of them, and I am repulsed by our media's white-washing of them. And I will speak out against fascism in all forms until the day I die. If you are going to actually come in here and tell me the Azov's linkage to national socialism is tenuous, then I am not quite sure what to do about that. We can agree to disagree. But if that is your position, then I would say that you need to do some research...or listen to the UN...or listen to the EU. Because it is fucking known. The German ambassador literally issued a fucking official communique directed at Azov's celebration of the atrocities committed by SS Galicia four weeks ago, but go ahead. You know the truth. But as I have said, this is much, much more important to discuss on the Ukraine thread, so I will leave it at that and move it over there if you would like to discuss SS Galicia, Azov, war crimes, Ukrainian fascism, etc.
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The picture of him in Azov fatigues was from the linked Vkontakte account (Russian FB), which is locked, but still there. You can see the timestamp from 2015, and, if you have the stomach to fight through the revulsion triggered by modern-era Nazi rallies that your tax dollars paid for, just sift through the hundreds of images showing how many people turned out to support National Socialists in Ukraine in 2015. Let there be no doubt that there is significant Nazi support in Ukraine. MAGA-type chuds galore...it is honestly stunning how similar the physical features/demeanor is. https://vk.com/photo-72444174_368416418 The rest was linked through Jake Hanrahan - a verified, real-deal actual "embedded reporter" who received the DuPont award for excellence in journalism out of Columbia U School of Journalism for his work on international hate groups, served jail time in Turkey after being embedded with the Kurds fighting the Turks - who is one of the best reporters on the planet when it comes to guerrilla warfare, on the ground with Ukrainians in Donbas, on the ground in Syria, Gaza, Myanmar etc. And, who, by the way has probably the best podcast out there on disinformation, the bullshit known as Q, weapons trafficking, etc. He ain't gonna toe the line of either side, but he is legit. There are other links relating to his likeness from Bellingcat contributor, Oleskiy Kuzmenko, which to me seem more tenuous for sure. Although the image of the cover of Black Sun has absolutely been verified as coming from that date, as there are plenty of archival records from back then showing the same cover, the imaging that Black Sun uses on their covers is traditionally filtered, so I would not stand behind that. https://www.bellingcat.com/author/oleksiykuzmenko/ And you go to my point...metadata can be manipulated and disinformation is absolutely out there, it is not as cut and dry as we would like. So I am more than happy to be wrong. In fact, I would love to be. I would love to see some journalism from him showing that he was a journalist while with Azov. I would love to be wrong about the fact that he is standing alongside an individual with glasses in front of the guy that (at least from the photos from 2015, looks exactly like Protasevich), Stanislav Goncharov, who is now in jail on the charges of "inciting hatred against another race", which frankly is a stunning, stunning charge given his ink, but who did a front-page interview on Belsat.TV, (oh, which is a media organization directly funded by YOUR US tax dollars), in which he showed off his lovely tattoos, and justified them saying, "I support the idea of National Socialism...it is the only form of life." And honestly, I would give this guy 100% the benefit of the doubt as a freedom fighter had it not been for the fucking hitler and auschwitz homage tattooed across his fucking back. https://naviny.belsat.eu/ru/news/otstante-ot-tatuirovok-on-priehal-pomogat-dobroe-slovo-pro-terror-mashinu/ And I am not reading propaganda here...I am reading directly from the headlines "Get over the tattoos, a word from the Terror Machine" from the publication, Belsat.TV, that our taxpayer dollars fund. The outlet actually often does outstanding work...but they don't apparently have a "Nazi" filter on their code of journalistic conduct, but for the sake of this discussion, I feel their timestamps and image archives are pretty solid. You can auto translate if you would like, but here are the choice photos and translations directly from that US-supported publication back in 2016, which is absolutely consistent with the Azov thread I posted above. So if the Russians manipulated it, they would have had to manipulated half his face back when this article was published back in 2016, 5 years before he was illegally arrested. I took the direct photo image from the US-funded publication...oh, and notice the weapon. Spoiler for NSFW content. And let's put it this way, the "88" tattooed across his chest is something that I am not allowed to send as a German permanent resident, so you can look that up yourself if you don't know it. You can see the imagery on it. Take of this what you will, but my point remains...we fund Nazis. We fund Ukrainian Nazis and we fund Belarusian Nazis. And our media owes us the truth about what we are doing.
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I actually agree with a lot of what you say here. And, as usual, I really appreciate and enjoy your informed take. Let’s not mix this up and presume that I defend the sleaze that is Russia’s behavior in this conflict. But out of respect for the board who may not want to sift through more of my ramblings on Ukraine, I will spoiler discussion about Ukraine below, even though it is very much related to the Belarus situation, as all three of these are at risk of converging into a situation that goes hot.
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If that was the impression you took from that, I apologize. I genuinely tried to deliver a nuanced position. So to be clear: 1. Lukashenko and his associates should hang, both for this incident, but even moreso for the multitude of lives they have taken and atrocities they have committed against innocents. 2. The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, who Protasevich was - at least embedded - with during the years in which unspeakable atrocities against innocent civilians which occurred with weapons and tech supplied by your tax dollars and by mine, should hang next to them. Just because I despise one, doesn't mean I can't despise the other, as well. Systemic atrocities against innocents are atrocities against innocents, regardless who commits them.
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First off, you can't claim Kremlin propaganda and then turn around and push the mother of all Ukrainian propaganda outlets, Euromaidan Press as somehow non-propagandistic, as is shown by the fact that they basically yada yada over Azov's true nazi characteristics in that exact piece. And I don't really see an interview with his parents as anything particularly dispositive. Plus, he literally admits being in the Donbas, with Azov, during that exact period of time with a Belarusian unit within Azov. Hell, Andriy fucking Biletsky admitted it on his own Telegraph channel. And he had plenty photos taken along with Azov...and specifically the Belarusian Detachment, Pahonia, on his Facebook page before it was locked. But you are exactly right. This IS about Lukashenko. This is about a gross miscarriage of justice and criminality. NONE of this justifies his actions. And herein lies is my point...when Western media completely ignores this stuff, it paves the way for foreign influencers, such as the Kremlin, to seed the debate on its own terms. I actually agree with you that some of these items items as outlined in the Meduza piece most likely are disinformation. But plenty of it isn't. He was with Azov, he, at least, during that time was photographed in Nazi apparel. He didn't publish sweet fuck all. He never criticized the unit. He never released a photo outside of his FB. So when the media ignores it wholly, it allows those much less-versed on this topic than you or I to fill in their own narratives. The alternative would be for the media to stop with the incessant hagiography pieces and just tell us the full fucking story, even if it does take some of the shine off of a person who is, ultimately, the victim here . Which they don't do. Faith in the media is one of the single biggest deterrents to foreign disinformation campaigns. And while we rightly and justly condemn the right wing in the US for constantly assaulting the media, we should at the same time expect our media to not constantly take black vs. white, good vs. evil in every foreign policy piece that they issue and simply report. But you are right, the atrocities committed by self-proclaimed neo-Nazis in Ukraine that we as Americans have funded/armed directly in our names for years is probably better discussed in the Ukraine thread, as Lukashenko's atrocious behavior should stand alone to be highlighted. Apologies to the board for that.
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I think you raise a great point here. With respect to Ukraine, my feeling is that the rank-and-file political class are nationalists, but not hardcore Neo-Nazis or anything. They are incompetent idiots, but they aren't Nazis. They obviously have legitimate objectives against Russia and they want a more independent/Western-oriented state...but they certainly turn a blind eye towards the extreme right. Part of this is because the Neo-Nazi right in Ukraine doesn't particularly poll well, so they aren't a threat politically...but also because Ukraine is screwed militarily without them. And that's the dirty little secret. Far-right extremism runs rampant in certain Ukrainian military circles, particularly with respect to the most capable fighting elements on the front lines. So, when we arm them, we are inevitably arming actual, self-proclaimed Nazis. As in Bandera-loving, celebrating-SS Galicia-annually, Wolfsangel-waving, exterminate-the-untermenschen Nazis. Hell, the German ambassador to Ukraine just a couple of months ago had to issue a statement basically saying, "Hey, dumbfucks...quit letting your military units and state employees march in honor of the fucking 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS every year. Jesus, you people." So, to expect the tech and weaponry that we supply Ukraine to be withheld from their front lines in Donbas is naive. It is that age-old American foreign policy conundrum of: well, the really evil people get the job done, so we will hold our nose and give them the best killing technology on the planet and cross our fingers that they only point it at [insert adversary du jour]. Which, of course, they always end up turning on villagers and innocents along the way. And of course, while it isn't particularly appetizing, I guess they feel that it sometimes has to be done. But we should at least be aware of it as taxpayers. In each of the three annual spending bills before the 2018 Congressional ban on directly arming Azov came into place, a similar restriction was inserted into early drafts of House spending bills, only to be removed before passage. So Congress knew who we were arming, they just didn't care enough to even pay lip-service in stopping it. Which is really unfortunate, because we now see time and time again that fascists from around the world, including multiple instances of American citizens, come to Ukraine to get all trained up by fellow nazis, and then head home with weapons training and a head full of insane ideology that has been reinforced by newfound "brothers-in-arms" on the front lines. Hell, just a few months ago Ukraine made a public display of deporting to Americans who belonged to Atomwaffen Division/The Base who had joined up with Azov and were producing Neo-Nazi videos. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/ukraine-deports-american-neo-nazi-atomwaffen-division With respect to Belarus, I don't think that neo-Nazism is nearly as big of a concern, thankfully. Belarus does not have nearly the history of glorifying its association with the SS, as many in Western Ukraine do. And Belarus was absolutely decimated by the Nazis, so there is no pathetic revisionism there. Belarus also doesn't have the internal linguistic/cultural divide that Ukraine does, so I would not expect any conflict there to descend into what we see in Ukraine. Ultimately, Belarus is a tragic dictatorship increasingly bound to Moscow. Ukraine, on the other hand, is just an absolutely pathetic excuse for a state...both in its former, pre-Maidan iteration and its current condition. It basically vacillates between incompetent boobs running the government, with Neo-Nazis in control of critical elements of the military. And it's for that reason that despite all the pressure and positioning by the US pushing for Ukrainian accession to the EU, it'll never happen. The electorate here knows the score on this subject.
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No one is saying he is a super spy. But he sure as fuck isn't Havel or Walesa. And to compare him to them is a bit of a stretch and dishonors both of those honorable men. I am simply saying he is more than some tween journalist with a big heart operating a social media channel in a hot conflict zone. Ultimately, you and I fundamentally agree with the degree to which the US engages in intel/regime-change ops around the world, and more specifically, in Ukraine and Belarus. You seem to believe that their uprisings are organic; I believe that they show all the signs of tried and true color revolutions that the US engages in around the world and has facilitated for decades. That doesn't mean that I side with the other side...as I have said in the past, I am long removed from the US, with no intention of returning, and I no longer see its actions as good or bad, but rather purely geopolitical and interesting as a subject for casual study. But I digress. But, let me get this straight...an 18 year old Belarusian, decked out in full Azov Battalion gear, standing under the Wolfsangel during a march literally dedicated to PRAISING the atrocities of the Nazi-Era Einsatzgruppen, who from his own Facebook page is seen sporting Sva Stone swastika-clad clothing (a brand which, btw, is illegal in Germany, due to its well-known fascistic nature), who has no attributable journalistic works/photographs to his name during this timeframe beyond his own FB page (which has now been conveniently deleted), was not acting as a press agent (read, propagandist) for Azov, but rather as an independent and objective journalist? Ok, well we can disagree on the applicability of Occam's Razor here. Perhaps he was just old enough at 18 to "cover" the single most important geopolitical conflict of 2014 on the front lines as a journalist, but just wasn't mature enough yet to know that swastikas=bad. Do "embedded journalists" deck out in the gear of their "embedded" entities to march in cities that are no longer hostile locations like he did here in Mariupol in 2015? Because, that isn't my experience in following war correspondents for decades now. I don't recall one single war correspondent marching with Serbian ethnonationalists in the 1990s and claiming to "cover" them. I don't recall it in Gulf War 1 or 2 (Electric Boogaloo). I don't recall it on either side in Afghanistan. I don't even recall it in Iraq, where our media certainly was compromised. I don't recall it in my research on Vietnam. As a matter of fact, I only recall it in circumstances where "journalists" acted as propagandists. But the reasons that I should give a shit about the fate of someone decked out in Azov fatigues at a march through the streets of a secured Mariupol, standing under the Wolfsangel, are pretty much lost on me. And those images of him were dated 2015, from his own FB feed, before it was locked. And that goes to my point...The NY Times and Guardian bio-pieces that I referenced certainly did not cover his employment with RFE/RL. Those pieces didn't even mention his "embedded" position with Azov. Do you not think that such a position within journalism - on the front lines of the war with Russia in 2014 - would be the absolute highlight of his young journalistic career? Then why COMPLETELY ignore it? Why not show his prior journalistic work? Why not touch on that period of his brief career to date? Could it be that it isn't relevant to the reader getting to know this freedom fighter, or could it be that perhaps, just perhaps, that Facebook posts from his teenaged years, which have now been inexplicably removed, don't support the idea of a young 18 year old photo-journalist, but rather a kid who decided to play soldier with a bunch of neo-Nazis who got caught up in something waaaaay over his head. Did he ever publish photographs that were in any way detrimental to the human-scum known as Azov on his limited platforms, of which (knowing that barbaric group) should have been plentiful? No, he didn't. Did he ever speak against Azov after his time as an "embedded journalist" ended? No, he didn't. Does the leader of the Azov Battalion, Andriy Biletsky - a known war criminal and fascist - to this day still support him and claim that he fought with them? Yes, he does. As recently as yesterday. If an "embedded reporter" accompanied the original Nazi Einsatzgruppen (to which Azov to this day honors) through their atrocious march through Belarus, Ukraine and Wester Russia in 1941, yet never once published photos capturing this group in any other light other than hagiographic, would that make such a reporter a reporter or a propagandist? I think we both know this answer. Of course, none of this exonerates Lukashenko, but when you say that there is even one degree of virtue over the existing regimes, is that truly the case? The UN has documented Azov's beheadings of civilians, mass rapes of Russian-Ukrainian villages, published calls for mass cleansing of ethnic Russians, systemic rape of the mental and physically disabled, forced sodomy and even the documented anal-electrocution of a mentally handicapped man...the list goes on and on. And it is documented. So, no, these people aren't "a damn site better". They are just as filthy and deserve just as brutal of an ending. Lampposts for all of them. Swing in that strong Eastern European breeze, the lot of them. The difference between the two is that while we amplify the atrocities of Russian-aligned dictators with a steady drumbeat of news coverage disavowing their acts - and deservedly so - we, at most, issue dated and occasional "below the fold" articles reporting on the atrocities of those fascists who we literally arm in Ukraine...and yes, I know that our arms are technically banned from Azov as of late 2018 (of course, that comes 4 YEARS AFTER they were documented by reputable NGOs and the UN as engaging in the above!), but do you honestly believe that non-Azov recipients of our military aid don't immediately funnel them to - as you said - their most effective fighting force against the Russians? Come on. This is more than "a nasty bunch". These are genocidal nazis, who are associated with this guy and who warrant mentioning in this story, assuming truth is what we are after. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_14th_HRMMU_Report.pdf And let me be clear...NONE of this is conclusive. NONE if this justifies Lukashenko's barbarism. NONE of this justifies the suffering that this kid is likely experiencing today. But it absolutely is worth mentioning the fucking word "Azov" in the same stories in which we lionize this guy as a freedom fighter. So no, the media in the US hasn't covered this. No, the media has not focused on his history with the US State Department. No, the media hasn't disclosed that his prior non-RFERL employer was completely USAID financed. The media hasn't covered the fact that American taxpayers bankrolled the organization that started Nexta. And that is relevant. And that is journalistic malpractice and it is THAT which frustrates me. We deserve better from our media. The American people deserve to know that this isn't a dissident journalist/activist along the lines of Walesa or Havel. They deserve to know the full story, which they currently are not getting and that is for one simple reason...it doesn't support the narrative that they want us to see. They don't want us to see how much we armed Azov. They don't want us to see how involved we were in what went on over there. They don't want us to see what our taxes finance in atrocities and they don't want us to know the degree of fucking filth that we support. So they don't cover it. And notwithstanding the content of this post, fuck Lukashenko, may he meet his painful demise soon.
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Longcat 'bout to longcat: One of the things that is interesting here is that there is a lot more going on here than just a rogue state acting in rogue ways. That entire region (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) has been (and remains) full of cloak-and-dagger shit-particularly since 2014- and Lukashenko pulling such a brazen stunt just to get at a run-of-the-mill dissident journalist never sat right with me. Belarusian dissident journos living in the Baltics and Poland crisscross Belarusian airspace alllllllll the time and some 26 year old journalist - regardless of how capable he may be in his profession- isn’t a rational justification for such internationally-alienating behavior. Geopolitics 101 freshmen simply chalk this up to Lukashenko wanting to stifle dissent, but any analysis beyond that would indicate there is more to it than that. Lukashenko is a brute, he certainly is not irrational. He certainly doesn’t pull this shit without Putin’s acquiescence and he certainly was not so foolish as to act with an unawareness of the fallout that was to come by such a repulsive act. Unfortunately, in this binary world of “pro-democracy Ukrainian/Belarusian freedom fighter” vs. “Russian stooge/asset”, all nuance is lost and it looks like that is once again happening here. European media has started to recognize over the past few hours that there was at least some type of active, “on-the-ground” relationship between Protasevich and Azov Battalion - which is a war-crime-committing, openly Neo-Nazi Ukrainian regiment and has been designated as such by the U.S. Congress. BBC has reported on this relationship, as has the Times of London and various German language media outlets. Crickets in the US, of course. This group is full of unabashed Nazi scum, although, in Protasevich’s defense, not exclusively so, so his association with them should not impute, per se. To note…Azov Battalion is particularly despised here in Germany because they still commemorate Einsatzgruppen atrocities as honorable, which obviously brings renewed attention to things that Germans would like to move on from. Frankly, they have been/continue to be pivotal to the Ukrainian operations in the Donbas (and the continued power of the existing government, at large), yet they are a complete fucking embarrassment to the rest of civilized Europe. Anyway, on the radio here in Germany this morning there were quite some lively discussions over to what extent we should lionize someone who - at a minimum - served as a very effective propagandist for Azov, as can be seen in his prior journalistic work. As I have said in prior posts, there is a widespread Neo-Nazi element within Ukrainian society. It is true and it is not propaganda. And unfortunately, Russian propagandists seize on it to exploit the anti-Russian movement as a whole, and American media completely ignores it, thus rendering both of them completely unreliable. Now, of course, the Russians - as is typical of them - are pumping out their bullshit propaganda saying he was a full, fighting member of the Azov Battalion during the Donbas conflict; and Western-European media, of course, have now scrambled saying he was a mere embedded journalist with Azov doing the Lord’s work in spreading democracy to Ukraine. In my opinion, the truth - as is typically the case on this particular conflict - is somewhere in the middle, as I do not believe that anyone over there in positions of leadership -whether for or against the existing regimes- are particularly moral/admirable as individuals. There are pictures showing him in formation with Azov and the notorious neo-Nazi commander of Azov, Andriy Biletsky - piece of fascist shit of the highest order - apparently issued a statement on Telegram that says that Protasevich was a member of the battalion, that he was wounded in fighting near Shyrokyne…and that “his weapon was not a gun, but the written word.” It is also worth noting that Protasevich: had ties to the US intel apparatus (via the below) which are not being reported, which is so fucking frustrating when trying to give US media the benefit of the doubt as being an honest and comprehensive source of information. met with the U.S. State Department in D.C. literally two days (as per his own Facebook account, which has now been locked) after going into self-imposed-exile in Poland. Then, shortly thereafter, joined as a reporter for multiple media outlets that were funded by the US, most notable of which was Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. (RFERL has done great things in the past, but come the fuck on, RFERL is THE US-run state media for East Europe/Russia). Then went to work for USAID-funded Euroradio.fm in Belarus. USAID, for better or worse, has long been proven to have EXTENSIVE ties to US intelligence in many different capacities worldwide. He then left these positions in late December 2019/early January 2020 to establish the Nexta channel on Telegram, which immediately became the voice of the opposition in Belarus and was instrumental in what unfolded a few months later re Belarusian protests. And that is what is solidly reported/verified/provable. The Russian propaganda goes much, much further…just as the US media completely ignores it, so I will not address that here. But it is fucking frustrating when publications such as The NY Times and Guardian (as they each did yesterday) do extensive bio-pieces on Protasevich, starting at age 16…literally every single aspect of his post-adolescent life…and then just gloss the fuck over his entire 4 year-western-affiliated connections/employment/Azov history and then fail to scrutinize quite an extensive social media/photographical trail of this guy that definitely paints him in a light beyond that of “good journalist”. It ignores the proven relationship with Azov entirely, which truly is a matter of journalistic malpractice or just straight dishonesty. Curious and disappointing. And to be clear, I don’t think that any of these facts are disqualifying from what the media paints him to be…but they should be noted, and they aren't for some reason. Now, to the issue at hand…none of the above changes the fact that Lukashenko is a complete and total piece of shit of the highest order who deserves to swing from lamppost immediately. As in 'yesterday'. And it doesn’t change the fact that what he did re that flight was illegal, terroristic and warrants the absolute highest level of international solidarity in inflicting maximum damage to his power and to the Belarusian state apparatus’ continued ability to stifle and oppress freedom. And it doesn’t change the fact that journalists should be protected, particularly those of whom have engaged in dangerous reporting with less than savory characters. I simply bring up the background to set groundwork for what I think is honestly going on: This was a brazen counter-intelligence operation. If you are a paranoid power-whore like Lukashenko, and there is a perceived western-funded American journalist, with extensive ties to Azov, who had jut been at the Delphi Economic Forum allegedly to cover Tsikhanouskaya in Greece, and was headed to the city in which Tsikhanouskaya -your highest profile western-supported adversary lives - and you think there is a treasure trove of intel onboard that plane that could potentially implicate your internal, hidden enemies…then you feel justified in making this move. If you see some dissident 20 some-odd year journalist living in self-imposed exile-which are a dime a dozen- you don’t. If Protasevich was indeed affiliated with western intel, that laptop and phone- and Protasevich as a relatively young and “soft” sort of fella - could potentially be a gold mine for Belarusian (and Russian) intel agencies. At a minimum, Lukashenko would have massive, massive levels of intel on internal adversaries and, potentially, TONS of information on the exile community in Poland/Vilnius/Riga’s interactions with the West. This was value for internal, security-apparatus use and certainly not for some internal PR initiative. And if I was involved in revolutionary shit in Minsk at the moment, I'd be shitting my pants now. This entire region will start to make much, much more sense to people once one stops viewing it as democracy vs. authoritarianism and evolves to the correct viewpoint of sleazy fucks involved in intel op vs. intel op....all the fuckin' time. Because that is what it is. No one is good here. Everyone outside of the powerless are unfortunately compromised. For anyone who is interested, here is a couple-day-old analysis from Jamestown. Jamestown is considered top-tier when it comes to integrity, and they are hated in Russia, so I see them as relatively honest brokers.
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Grainau, Deutschland. Eibsee with the Zugspitze in background. Grainau and the Eibsee from the Zugspitze:
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Publicly trashing the ongoing diplomatic efforts of the administration to get back into JCPOA with Iran while literally standing next to the Sec of State. Unreal.
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This is going to be fascinating to watch play out. In my opinion, the well-deserved sanctions that are incoming on Belarus arising out of this stunt are ironically going to serve as the final push of momentum needed to fully return Lukashenko/Belarus completely back into the Russian fold...momentum which has materialized over the past year or so after watching Lukashenko flirt with a more independent posture re Europe and Ukraine in recent years before. Russia will certainly assist an already beleaguered Belarus (at least those powerful individuals/interests in that be in that God-forsaken state) to the extent required to absorb said sanctions and - if Russian "counterrevolutionary ops" in Minsk are airtight, which they are likely to be - will provide Russia with increased opportunities to do what they really want to do in Minsk, which an orderly ushering of Lukashenko out in favor of a more palatable (and even more compliant) replacement. He has long been seen as a loose cannon who isn't loved by any measure by Putin, and in the right circumstance will be sent to early retirement (in whichever form may be required) by Moscow if the possibility presents itself. I would not be a bit surprised to see leadership change occur within 12-24 months unless some type of genuine, public, collective action catches hold. My fear is that the chance for that to happen passed last year, as my impression is that Lukashenko (and Putin) is not nearly as likely to be caught off guard as he was last year.
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Fuck yeah, they did. Had they not been established to the degree that they already were, their careers would have been over. The concept for the book started with an article they had written, and when ADL et al went after them calling them anti-semites and blocking the publication in basically every US magazine/journal, they had to take it to Europe to be published. Then they basically said, “Oh, ok...We’re gonna do a book on it now.”
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With respect to the issue of US aid to Israel, it is absolutely unparalleled...not only in expenditures, but HOW the aid is structured. From the outstanding book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by Profs John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, University of Chicago and Kennedy School professors, respectively (and pardon the highlights, they are from some old research, but the entirety is valuable for context: This is somewhat dated, as the book came out 15 years ago, but the amounts have only increased, along with the ridiculously undeserved special treatment.
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This is the way.
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