Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

John Rachel interviews Finian Cunningham

"What about if Americans in greater numbers boycotted elections with the explicit reason being that they don’t recognize the process? I mean total boycott...."

Finian Cunningham Interview: An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy

Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Finian Cunningham for his current thoughts.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Second-time recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism (December 2020). His prolific output of excellent political analysis and commentary can be accessed at Strategic Culture Foundation, Sputnik News, and RT.

We focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We are looking for paradigm-shift ideas for improving the prospects for peace. His responses below of are exactly as he provided. Here is what Finian had to say.

Q. We hear a lot of terms and acronyms bandied about. ‘Deep State’ … ‘MIC’ … ‘FIRE sector’ … ‘ruling elite’ … ‘oligarchy’ … ‘neocons’. Who actually defines and sets America’s geopolitical priorities and determines our foreign policy? Not “officially”. Not constitutionally. But de facto.

FC: All of the above terms can be used interchangeably to convey different facets of the power structure in the United States, and other nations. The ruling class comprises primarily corporate and financial interests of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex as well as combines of accumulated wealth. This nexus of power is nothing mysterious. It is the apex of the political and economic power of a social minority – the 1% is another term – that is the norm for capitalist society, as is explained in conventional class analysis. Writers like Michael Parenti and the late William Blum, among others, have described it well. The term “deep state” is a useful one because it conveys the continuity of power and powerful interests that remain entrenched regardless of which political party or personage is in the presidential or congressional office. The politicians do the bidding of the ruling class to serve their economic and political interests. This condition of permanent entrenched power accounts for why policies change little from one administration to another, whether Democrat or Republican. That’s why foreign policies change little, if at all. The unspoken foreign policy of the US is to serve the imperialist interests of its ruling class (Wall Street banks, commodity multinationals, overseas investors) and to maximize militarism for the financial benefit of the big and ancillary corporations that comprise the military-industrial complex.

The political party labels are irrelevant. The ship of state is charted for a collision course with perceived global rivals. Those rivals are of course portrayed as “enemies” and “threats”. That narrative or propaganda is required to “justify” (legitimize) the policy of antagonism and militarism, which is essentially a criminal warmongering policy.

For example, if we look back over the last decade from the Obama administration, through Trump to the present Biden one, there is fundamentally no difference in foreign policy. Even though we went from Democrat to Republican back to Democrat and despite differences in presidential personalities. Obama launched the “Pivot to Asia” with its keynote policy of antagonizing China. Obama also unleashed the policy of confrontation with Russia. Of course, Obama didn’t originate these policies. The antagonism towards perceived geopolitical rivals goes back decades to the Cold War. But certainly under Obama, there seemed to have been a step-change in pursuing more conflict with China and Russia. From Obama through Trump to Biden, the foreign policy of aggression has not only continued but has also been intensified. This is an illustration of the “deep state” at work. The objective of the ruling class's interests is to confront China and Russia in order to project US imperial power or hegemonic ambitions of global dominance for the capitalist advantages of its de facto governing corporate structure. The political party labels are irrelevant. The ship of state is charted for a collision course with perceived global rivals. Those rivals are of course portrayed as “enemies” and “threats”. That narrative or propaganda is required to “justify” (legitimize) the policy of antagonism and militarism, which is essentially a criminal warmongering policy. This, in my view, explains why the United States aided and abetted by subordinate “allies” are drumming up war with China over Taiwan and with Russia over Ukraine. The collision course is set by the ruling class in accordance with their interests, not by the majority of American citizens. This speaks of the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the US and its allies. More accurately, the US and its Western vassal states are acting like fascist powers because the policies are fixed by corporate power and reinforced with immense militarism. There is no democratic accounting for the war fixation. Citizens are held hostage by the warmongering deep state.

Q. We’ve had decades of international tensions. Recent developments have seen a sharp escalation in the potential for a major war. The U.S. apparently cannot be at peace. “Threats” against the homeland are allegedly increasing in number and severity. The trajectory of our relations with the rest of the world appears to be more confrontations, more enemies, more crises, and more wars. <> Is the world really that full of aggressors, bad actors, ruthless opponents? Or is there something in our own policies and attitudes toward other countries which put us at odds with them, thus making war inevitable and peace impossible?

FC: The United States in its capitalist formation as described above needs conflict and ultimately war like a drug addict needs a narcotic fix. The US cannot function without militarism because of the nature of its corporate capitalist economy and in particular the dominance of the military-industrial complex. The US economy is a hyper-militarized one befitting a fascist state. In order to justify this totally abnormal and undemocratic functioning, which is also criminal by the way, then there is the imperative need for a propaganda cover of legitimizing narrative about “enemies and threats”. This illusory narrative is dutifully sustained by the corporate-controlled media which reinforces, and never questions, nostrums about “foreign enemies” and “foreign threats”.

China, for example, is continually portrayed as a national security threat, an expansionist power and a threat to Taiwan in particular. The US claims to “defend” Taiwan from a Chinese threat. Under international law and US own domestic law, China has sovereignty over Taiwan in what is known as the One China Policy. Since Obama, through Trump and Biden, the US has increased sales of strategic weapons to Taiwan. This so-called US policy of “strategic ambiguity” is really more accurately called the “strategic destabilization” of China with the aim to antagonize Beijing. Beijing has repeatedly said it aspires to peaceful reunification with the island of Taiwan, but Washington relentlessly militarizes the situation by massively arming Taiwan, inciting separatist politics and inciting Beijing to react with military measures, which arguably are a legitimate response to defend its sovereignty. Can you imagine if the shoe was on the other foot?

This week, the United States’s government-funded organization the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is organizing a “world democracy summit” in Taiwan (Oct 25-27). (See this article https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/10/25/western-media-smear-president-xi-aggressive-china-as-cia-front-holds-secessionist-summit-in-taiwan/)

The summit called for a challenge to “authoritarian regimes”. In other words, a CIA front organization (NED) is fomenting sedition and secession on Chinese sovereign territory. And yet in the US media, this week all we heard about were unsubstantiated warnings that Chinese President Xi Jinping is going to take China in a more aggressive direction over the next five years of his third term in office.

Meanwhile the Chinese foreign ministry this week urged the United States to stop demonizing China as a global threat and for Washington to work together in a mutual partnership for world development and peace. So it is clear who the aggressor is here.

In relation to Russia, in the months before the war in Ukraine blew up in February this year, Moscow had set out a detailed proposal for a comprehensive security treaty in Europe. The proposed treaty called on the US-led NATO military bloc to stop expanding eastwards towards Russia’s borders, as it has done relentlessly since the supposed end of the Cold War in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moscow’s security treaty proposals were simply trashed by the United States. No negotiations were conceivable for Washington. It insisted on NATO expansion and the “right” to continue arming a radical anti-Russian regime in Ukraine which Washington has bankrolled with weapons and military trainers since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014. That US deep state policy of antagonism, militarism, and aggression (regardless of who is in the White House) has led to the current war in Ukraine with Russia which the US and its NATO allies are doing everything to escalate, even if it runs the risk of a nuclear cataclysm.

As with Taiwan and China, the United States is on a fixed course of confrontation with Russia using Ukraine as the conduit. It is blatantly obvious who the aggressor is. And it should be blatantly obvious that the motive for this aggression is the paramount need to keep the US capitalist economy and its fascist power structure functioning through hyper-militarism.

Q. Our leaders relentlessly talk about our “national interests” and our “national security”, warning that both are under constant assault. Yet, we spend more than the next nine countries combined on our military. Why does such colossal spending never seem to be enough?

FC: Because American capitalism is a war-driven economy. The military-industrial complex is so embedded and prevalent that US capitalism would not function without conflict, tensions, and ultimately war. No other nation comes close to the warmongering record of the United States. Five years after World War II, it was bombing millions of Korean civilians to death. William Blum puts the number of wars and conflicts the US has engaged in since World War II at dozens and scores. What for? To “defend democracy and law and order?” How ridiculous and obscene! The entire power structure of the US would collapse without war – or its latent version of tensions and conflict with “foreign enemies”. That power structure equates to deadly serious vested interests. It’s what President Eisenhower warned about in 1961 and two years later his successor John F Kennedy was assassinated because he threatened the militaristic power structure from growing peace talks with the Soviet Union. JFK’s assassination – a president’s head blown off in broad daylight during a motorcade watched by millions of citizens – is perhaps the single most horrific example of the fascist deep state made manifest, which is the brutal, sickening reality beneath the patina of “American democracy”.

Q. It’s evident that you, and the many individuals who follow you and support your work, believe that America’s direction in both the diplomatic sphere and in the current conflict zones represents exercise of government power gone awry. Can you paint for us in broad strokes the specific changes in our national priorities and policies you view as necessary for the U.S. to peacefully coexist with other nations, at the same time keeping us safe from malicious attacks on our security and rightful place in the world community?

FC: The United States needs to be democratized. Its power structure and economy need to be demilitarized and made to work for the benefit of the majority of citizens. In short, I believe a socialist society is the best solution. But the fight for genuine democracy and peace comes with a hard struggle because of the vested interests of the status quo. However, with the evident collapse of US capitalist society (and other Western states), the task is being made more necessary and in some ways easier because it is becoming starkly evident that the existing system is bankrupt, corrupt, criminal, and unsustainable for the majority of working people – who really do want peaceful societies and peaceful international coexistence.

I believe that peaceful international relations with China, Russia and the United States and other nations are very possible. The primary threat to our human existence comes from the United States under its prevailing system. If that system can be transformed into a peaceful, democratic, socialist economy by a mass movement of Americans then the world will be likewise transformed. The key is the demilitarization of the US requiring a social change that goes way beyond its present oligarchic capitalist system. That is the biggest historic challenge the whole world wants to see being achieved. It won’t happen unless American citizens get organized politically. If they don’t then a world war is in danger of happening. If a war happens, and the planet survives it, then the best we can hope for is the defeat of the US deep state and an opening for democratic transformation by the American citizens. The peaceful option is of course desired but the US oligarchy is making violence almost inevitable.

Q. The general public, especially when it’s aware of the self-sabotaging results of our current foreign policies and military posturing, clearly wants less war and militarism, preferring more peaceful alternatives on the world stage and greater concentration on solving the problems at home. As peace activists, we are thus more in line with the majority of citizens on issues of war and peace, than those currently in power.
What happens if we determine that those shaping current U.S. policy don’t care what the citizenry thinks, are simply not listening to us? What if we conclude that our Congress, for example, is completely deaf to the voice of the people? What do we do? What are our options then? What are the next concrete steps for political activists working toward a peaceful future?

FC: What about if Americans in greater numbers boycotted elections with the explicit reason being that they don’t recognize the process? I mean total boycott. And for the citizens to be organized and conscious about what their objectives are: they will only engage with politics, voting, and form-filling, when a party is on the ballot sheets that genuinely represents their class needs as workers and aspirations for peaceful foreign relations. Maybe Americans should go on strike and bring the system to a crash. And the same goes for Europeans, by the way.

• • •

We are grateful to Finian Cunningham for sharing his valuable and thought-provoking views. The interview was arranged by John Rachel, Director of the Peace Dividend Project. The Peace Dividend strategy is not a meme or a bumper sticker. It is an end-to-end methodology for challenging the political establishment and removing from power those compromised individuals who work against the interests of the great majority of U.S. citizens. The only hope for our hyper-militarized nation is each and every one of us having a decisive voice in determining the future we want for ourselves and our children.

Print this article

an>[/su_animate]

Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted.
DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP...
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW

Please share this article as widely as you can.

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN·

First run on Oct 20, 2022

Celebrated in mainstream US media for its anti-Russian trolling, the Twitter operation known as NAFO was founded by a Polish antisemite to raise money for a militia that has hosted war criminals, white nationalists and wanted murderers.

Whether they know it or not, anyone who has checked Twitter for recent coverage of the Ukraine proxy war has likely encountered at least one of the thousands of trolls that comprise NAFO, or the “North Atlantic Fellas Organization.” Thanks to the efforts of NAFO and its “fellas,” any journalist or prominent figure critical of Ukraine or NATO on Twitter is likely to receive hundreds of replies accusing them of being paid by Russian President Vladimir Putin (or even performing fellatio on him) from accounts with Shiba Inu dog avatars.

Since its inception several months ago, NAFO has earned gushing praise from the Washington Post, which hailed it for “show[ing] that the tables could be turned on Russia, when it came to trolling.” The arms industry-funded, Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), meanwhile, hosted an online panel highlighting NAFO as an instrumental weapon in the Russia-Ukraine infowars.

Yet NAFO’s beltway boosters often gloss over its role as a fundraising machine for the Georgian Legion, a US-backed Ukrainian fighting group that stands accused of gruesome battlefield atrocities. Several former members of the Legion have produced first-hand testimony documenting its perpetration of war crimes, including the torture and execution of POWs and civilians.

One NAFO founder explained that he chose the Georgian Legion as a funding recipient precisely because of the unit’s reputation as a band of “mercenaries and criminals” that was willing to carry out barbarous acts which could cause foreign governments to shy away from supporting it. Another NAFO founder has praised the Georgian Legion’s leader for “killing Russians since the ’90s.”

Among the Georgian Legion’s most notorious members are US fugitive and murderer Craig Lang, as well as Paul Gray, an American whose past involvement in several neo-Nazi organizations was never mentioned during the friendly primetime interviews he was granted by Fox News and its local affiliates.

While providing a financial feeding tube to a militia that revels in its own atrocities, NAFO continues to attract effusive support from mainstream US journalists and think tankers who portray the operation as little more than a grassroots expression of online solidarity with Ukraine.

Obsessively online interventionists find meaning and purpose as “fellas”

Employing cartoon memes of the Shiba Inu dog breed, NAFO’s postmodern aesthetic, irreverent style and dedication to viciously trolling any critic of the Ukraine proxy war has garnered the adulation of Western media and interventionist government officials alike.

To outsiders, the lingo that flows through internal NAFO chats might seem unintelligible: “fellas” refers to members; “nafoarticle5” is a call to action that urges “fellas” to dog-pile on a particular social media post; “vatnik” serves as a pejorative for Russians and virtually anyone critical of the US-backed proxy war. Phrases such as “NAFO expansion is non-negotiable” and sarcastic claims that they are funded by the CIA (which they simultaneously claim “doesn’t exist”) are also ubiquitous.

Behind the anonymously named Twitter accounts of NAFO members lies a base of extremely online, mostly male civilians seeking a sense of purpose and community. Some participants have tattooed Shiba Inu avatars onto their bodies while others have published photos of their newborn babies in the arms of an adult sporting a NAFO shirt.

One member of the troll operation tweeted a photo of an elaborate NAFO tattoo emblazoned on his arm, but has since deleted it.

In public, NAFO leaders market the image of a charity-focused community of do-gooders, however, many posts by its fellas reflect the kind of psychologically deranged outbursts familiar to young adult men who spend endless hours ranting on a messaging platform built for gamers. In mid-October, for example, an administrator complained that she was forced to ban two members of the NAFO Discord for publicly plotting the murder of a third member of the community.

While US corporate media have declared that within NAFO “there is no command structure,” effectively releasing the group’s founders from accountability for the fellas’ behavior, this reporter found all the hallmarks of an organizational hierarchy. The group’s Discord server is run by founders, assigned administrators, moderators, and “forgers” who make memes used for harassing people on social media. “Verified fellas” are granted access to otherwise locked channels, while regular “fellas” are assigned more mundane roles.

“It’s preferred that people who are not heavily involved in the day to day do not speak on behalf of NAFO or what NAFO is to the press,” one administrator wrote in the server’s announcement’s channel.

Inside NAFO’s social media crowdfunding nexus

There are three ways to obtain a NAFO avatar and become a verified “fella.” The first is to make a donation to the Georgian National Legion through an email address attached to PayPal and belonging to Taras Reshetylo, a field commander of the Georgian Legion. Another way to join is by donating to an organization called “Protect Ukraine Defenders,” or a merchandise purchase from a website called Saint Javelin. Saint Javelin’s logo depicts the Virgin Mary bearing a US-manufactured Javelin missile.

How to get a fella:

Donate to the @georgian_legion, @vorobyov, or make a purchase from @saintjavelin

Once you’ve done this please send your proof of donation or purchase to @Kama_Kamilia and @BravoKilo6464 with a description of your fella requests ❤️

— North Atlantic Fella Organization (@Official_NAFO) September 19, 2022

Though distinct from NAFO at its foundation, Saint Javelin sold merchandise for the organization and recently incorporated NAFO into its brand. For months, all of Saint Javelin’s proceeds from NAFO merchandise went directly to the Georgian Legion, according to its website. Like NAFO, Saint Javelin estimates that it has raised huge sums for the war — more than a million dollars.

Besides fundraising for the Georgian Legion, Saint Javelin passes on proceeds to United24, an initiative launched by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine.” It also channels money to the Ukrainian World Congress, an organization which has defended the legacy of World War Two-era Nazi collaborator and mass murderer Stepan Bandera, branding him “the undisputed symbol of Ukraine’s lengthy and tragic struggle for independence.”

Saint Javelin’s partnership with Zelensky’s United24 aims to help raise funds to build an “army of drones.”

💥 HUGE announcement.

In our goal to build a Vatnik free Ukraine, Saint Javelins has joined forces with President Zelensky’s @united24_gov_ua

Together we are building an “Army of Drones”. Donate directly: https://t.co/S551GWwM2H pic.twitter.com/Yk8mZR5dWl

— Saint Javelin (@saintjavelin) July 25, 2022

The Saint Javelin website was launched by a former journalist named Christian Borys whose employment history spans NATO state-funded outlets including Canada’s CBC and Britain’s BBC. Borys has also authored articles for the US government-sponsored outlet Radio Free Europe.

One of Borys’ most notorious journalistic escapades consisted of a night of bar-hopping in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, where he patronized an antisemitic restaurant and returned with a review for Vice News portraying it as one of the city’s many weird and wonderful haunts.

The Golden Rose Synagogue in Lviv was the oldest synagogue in what is now Ukraine, built in 1582, destroyed in 1941.

Today the site hosts a "Jewish-themed restaurant," where there are no prices because "it’s Jewish tradition to haggle." Diners get black hats with fake sidelocks. pic.twitter.com/KriTf41B59

— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) February 12, 2022

The restaurant converts anti-Jewish tropes into a marketing gimmick; its waiters dress as Orthodox Jews who haggle with patrons over the prices of menu items. “If you play your cards right [it’s] ridiculously cheap,” Borys gushed in his review.

Noting that Lviv “was home to around 220,000 Jewish people,” Borys wrote that “the population now only hovers around 1,100,” Strangely though, he neglected to explain how the genocidal rampage of Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists helped violently extinguish the local Jewish population. He merely stated that the restaurant “pays homage [to the local Jewish population] in a weird way.”

The Ukrainian ethnic-owned restaurant contains a terrace that overlooks the ruins of “one of the most important synagogues in Eastern Europe.”

In the same 2015 article, Borys described going to a bar where “you’re served by little people,” visiting another that forces you to recite ultra-nationalist slogans before entering, and emptying an AK-47 clip in a target depicting Putin’s face at a local shooting range.

VICE News publishes a “supplied” photograph of President Zelensky being handed a Saint Javelin t-shirt by the country’s Minister of Defense

On Twitter, Borys erupted with glee when a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was spotted wearing a Saint Javelin patch. He seemed equally thrilled when his former employer published photographs from an unstated source of Ukraine’s Defense Minister Olekseii Reznikov handing President Zelensky a Saint Javelin t-shirt.

In the NAFO Discord chat, Borys suggested paying protesters to hold NAFO demonstrations outside Russian embassies.

A retired Marine and amateur conflict pundit named Matt Moores claimed to have established the relationship between NAFO and Borys after co-founding the former organization. On October 7, NAFO was incorporated into the Saint Javelin brand, with the latter becoming the former’s parent company, according to a post by a NAFO administrator in the Discord server’s announcement channel.

The third organization for which NAFO fundraises, Protect Ukraine Defenders, was launched by a well-connected functionary of the Brussels-based intelligentsia named Ievgen Vorobiov. Vorobiov started as an intern for the European Union state-funded Centre for European Policy Studies think tank, then moved on to gigs at the Polish government-founded Polish Institute of International Affairs and Foreign Policy magazine. Before founding Protect Ukraine Defenders, Vorobiov spent nearly four years at the European Union Advisory Mission in Ukraine.

The mural "Saint Javelin" is completed, #Kyiv. It was realized by artists from the creative group Kailash-V.
📸ZMiST pic.twitter.com/emHCvoTama

— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) May 28, 2022

An anchor for amplifying pro-proxy war Twitter accounts

While Twitter has responded to NATO state pressure to suppress accounts associated with Russian state media, and has banned numerous other users for simply questioning the official Western version of events in Ukraine, organizations connected with NAFO have seen explosive growth since the Ukraine proxy war began. Saint Javelin, for its part, has received verification from Twitter and amassed nearly 70,000 followers since launching an account this February.

A NAFO founder who operates under the pseudonym “Kama Kamilia” had less than 200 Twitter followers in April 2022; today they broadcast to an audience of over 22,000. NAFO co-founder Christian Borys had less than 5,500 followers in February 2022 and now boasts more than 36,000. Similarly, Matt Moores’ Twitter account grew by more than 16,000 followers since January.

“Kama Kamilia” has explicitly linked the Georgian Legion’s follower count to the popularity of his NAFO organization: “I think they had 4,000 followers when we started [now] they have… more than 20,000.” As of early October, that number is more than 110,000.

In September, the Discord tech company granted NAFO “partnered” status, meaning it now serves as a corporate “role model” and is considered one of “the best servers out there.” Yet it is composed of just over 3,000 members, raising questions about the tens of thousands of new followers NAFO has suddenly accumulated on Twitter.

NAFO’s expansion has also driven the growth of hundreds, if not thousands, of otherwise insignificant Twitter accounts which have participated in online harassment and used the group to push crowdfunding efforts.

One NAFO-stylized account which the Georgian Legion follows and at least one administrator of the NAFO Discord boasted that they were able to purchase gear for a Ukrainian soldier named “Igor.” In the photographs attached to the Tweet, Igor can be seen wearing a Nazi Sonnenrad patch.

Guys, you remember Igor?
Here is he with the helmet, the plate carrier, and boots we got him.
Rain uniform and gloves are on the way.

Happy soldier! ♥️🫡

Thank you #NAFO pic.twitter.com/R7qytI0r3o

— ✨діана кулик✨ (@IamBohhi) October 12, 2022

The war crimes of the Georgian Legion

Behind the goofy Shibu Ina avatars and rambunctious chat sessions lies a mission that defines NAFO: to raise as much money as possible for the Georgian National Legion. One administrator of the official NAFO discord put it succinctly: “NAFO has always been about supporting the Georgian Legion first and foremost.”

I assume it’s because then we’d turn into a place that would need to vet all sorts of places. The scope hasn’t shifted beyond the Georgian Legion and St Javelin. So it’s the same reason we don’t list come back alive, Mriya, and many other charities out there.

— FriendlyKozak 🇺🇦 (@KvotheTheArcane) September 6, 2022

Another administrator stated on July 2 of this year that “$43,000 (USD) has been raised by the fellas for the Georgian Legion.” Three months later, a NAFO member estimated the figure to be “likely totaling over $1 million,” a metric of the explosive growth of the group. “It is the most organic movement I’ve been involved with,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

While NAFO fundraises for several allied organizations, supporters are most frequently directed to donate to the Georgian Legion. Matt Moores, the US Marine veteran who co-founded NAFO and describes himself as “very online,” has explained in interviews that NAFO “started as a fundraiser really.”

“Beyond the memes, beyond the jokes, beyond the humor, there is a real component of it with, you know, fundraising. These little cartoon dog avatars that they have, each one of them is made by a volunteer, a fella forger, in our community and these little small donations have raised close to $300,000 so far,” Moores explained.

With an existing Twitter following, Moores reached out to someone who posts online under the Kama Kamilia in May. It was then that NAFO was born.

“I was looking and saw that someone was posting these little cartoon dogs and using them to, you know, mock and to belittle these, you know, propaganda statements and the supposed achievements of the Russian military and just trying to throw these little jabs wherever you could get them in,” Moores said. “One day someone asked Kamil ‘how do I get one of these?’ And he said ‘if you send $20 or whatever it is to the Georgian Legion we’ll make you one of these.’ So from there it has really gotten quite out of hand.”

Little is known about the NAFO co-founder “Kama Kamilia,” as corporate media outlets hyping them as a pro-Ukraine influencer extraordinaire have refused to disclose his real name. However, this reporter and researcher Moss Robeson have determined that he is Kamil Dyszewski, a 29-year-old Polish national and failed criminologist-turned-video game reviewer living somewhere near London.

The NAFO founder has posted a number of antisemitic memes, including some mocking Jewish victims of the Holocaust, seemingly glorifying Adolf Hitler, and calling for the deportation of President Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to Tel Aviv.

NAFO founder Kamil Dyszewski (@Kama_Kamilia) is an antisemitic gamer from Poland pic.twitter.com/q5YPmDOFYZ

— Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) October 14, 2022

“I just stumbled my way through life, now into this. What fuels it for me is the absolute hatred and vitriol I have towards the Russians,” Dyszewski has said. “I just found a way which we could expedite the process of getting them [the Russian government] removed.”

Dyszewski explained that he chose the Georgian Legion to be the recipients of the funds he raised because he believed their reputation as “mercenaries and criminals” would preclude them from receiving support from foreign governments.

The fighting group, which was incorporated into the official Ukrainian military, is led by Mamuka Mamulashvili, a Georgian-born veteran of several conflicts against Russia who swore to execute Russian POWs, an act which constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

“We will not take Russian soldiers… we will not take prisoners, not a single person will be captured,” Mamulashvili has said. “Yes, we tie their hands and feet sometimes. I speak for the Georgian Legion, we will never take Russian soldiers prisoner. Not a single one of them will be taken prisoner.”

Mamulashvili’s comment came in response to a viral video which depicted one of his fighters casually executing wounded Russian POW’s.

Mamulashvili is a key suspect in the massacre by snipers of 49 protesters in Maidan square in 2014, a likely false flag attack designed to intensify opposition to the elected government of Ukraine. At the same time, he has been awarded the National Hero of Ukraine recognition, the highest national title in the country.

As warlord Mamuka Mamulashvili boasts of executing Russian POWs, the legion he commands carried them out just five miles from Bucha on March 30. I expose this war criminal's longstanding ties to key American foreign policy officials for @TheGrayzoneNews https://t.co/naSeNsEJgm

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) April 8, 2022

In a March 2022 interview with this reporter, Henry Hoeft, an American veteran named who volunteered with the Georgian National Legion, described witnessing war crimes committed by members of his unit. According to Hoeft, two men “blew a checkpoint” after members of the Georgian Legion accused them of being Russian spies. His fellow soldiers “shot their car up [and] black-bagged them.”

Georgian Legion fighters then “fucking slit their throats in the basement of the fucking building,” Hoeft recalled. “We don’t even know if they were actually spies or just people who ran a checkpoint.”

Former Ukraine volunteers describe savage war crimes by the Georgian Legion — the same group that NAFO was founded to fundraise for as its founder believed their reputation as "mercenaries & criminals" would preclude them from foreign support. Read more https://t.co/4OIo8PSK8y pic.twitter.com/zhkvGFfQ98

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) October 20, 2022

Another former American volunteer in Ukraine known only by the alias Benjamin Velcro described witnessing fellow Georgian Legion volunteers torture and execute a captured teen whom he estimated was “about 18.”

Velcro remarked, “We’d been told to take no prisoners.”

The Georgian Legion veteran continued: “We made a lesson to him. We fucking cut his achilles heels and made him swim across the Severdonetsk river and he drowned. Or he was shot. We were all taking kind of like practice shots at him to see how well our shot was as he swam without achilles heels… either way he’s dead,” Velcro said.

“Of course those fucking Georgian Legion guys did that stuff because they’re Georgians and they’re retards,” Velcro remarked.

The Georgian Legion has hosted two other notorious US foreign fighters profiled by The Grayzone: Craig Lang and Paul Gray. Lang was a member of the group before he returned to the United States, where he is wanted for robbed and murdering a married couple to finance his return trip to Ukraine. The Federal Bureau of Investigations has obtained video showing Lang participating in war crimes in eastern Ukraine, including “beating and drowning a girl after a fellow fighter injected her with adrenaline so that she would not lose consciousness as she was drowned.”

DHS is 'concerned' over Nazis returning after fighting in Ukraine. I examine two Americans now fighting Russia, one a veteran of various street brawls against leftists and the other a lunatic that murdered a couple in Florida & tortured women in Donbas https://t.co/3zkGHAznhN

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) May 31, 2022

Gray, who is still active with the Georgian Legion, has been involved with multiple US-based neo-Nazi organizations, including Atomwaffen, which is listed as a terrorist organization by several countries. On its Twitter account, the Georgian Legion promoted a Fox News appearance by Gray. Similarly, Mamulashvili has posted Lang’s photograph on his Facebook page.

The Georgian Legion boss, Mamulashvili, has enjoyed close ties to Washington throughout years of low-intensity conflict in the eastern Ukraine, junketing to Capitol Hill for meetings with lawmakers with seats on foreign affairs committees in the House and Senate.

Though NAFO co-founder Moores speaks only infrequently about the Georgian Legion, he makes no secret of his support for the outfit: “Anywho, how about those Georgians,” he has written on Discord. “Boy they sure do kill Russians good, I’ll tell you what.” Similarly, Moores has praised the warlord Mamulashvili, marveling that “this dude has been killing Russians since the 90s.”

On Twitter, Moores posts under the handle “@iAmTheWarax,” where he has discussed Mamulashvili’s surprised reaction to the fact that “cartoon dogs” were raising thousands of dollars for his legion.

something i wish was on video is the convo between reshet and mamuka of georgian legion where mamuka asked where the tens of 1000s of dollars were coming from and reshet says "cartoon dogs online" then naturally mamuka asks what the dogs want and reshet says "khachapuri recipe."

— matthew. (@iAmTheWarax) September 4, 2022

Moores, a former banker who joined the Marine Corps to “pursue his childhood dream” of becoming a tank operator, was first deployed to Libya in 2011, where the US and NATO overthrew and murdered the country’s longtime leader, Muammar Gaddafi, instantly transforming a once prosperous African country into a despotic hellhole. Moores has described his experience in Afghanistan, a country occupied, destabilized, and abandoned by the US military, as “based.”

For his part, Kamil Dyszewski – or Kama Kamilia as he is known online – has promoted the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and celebrated the Ukrainian government’s October 8 suicide bombing attack on the Kerch bridge, retweeting several posts from fellow NAFO members that photoshopped Shiba Inu dogs into the scene of the attack. In the Discord server, Dyszewski wrote, “I need Russia to apologize for its audacity to exist. It can do so by ceasing to exist.”

The Grayzone has closely reviewed NAFO’s Discord server and gained access to channels accessible only to verified members. As the second part of this two part investigation will show, the server is a cesspool of hatred, with fellas delighting in videos of wounded and dying Russians and cracking gay jokes at their expense. Prominent journalists can also be found in the chats colluding with NAFO leaders on how to spin their coverage of the troll farm and cultivate support from DC power-brokers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here. If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal here or sustain his reporting through Patreon here..

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted.
DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP…
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW

Did you sign up yet for our FREE bulletin?

First name or full name

Email

By continuing, you accept the privacy policy

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

Fred Reed
CROSSPOSTED WITH THE SAKER BLOG

October 22, 2022

Pleasurable excitement ripples through the usual boredom of Washington, and the resident curiosities enjoy exquisite frissons, over the possibility of nuclear war over the Ukraine. Some official of the EU, or maybe it was the mediocrity in the White House with the truculence problem, but anyway, one of the geniuses ruling the planet’s fate, has said that if Russia used nukes, the Russian army would be destroyed, grrr, bowwow, woof. Exactly how it would be destroyed, the sayer didn’t say. Anyway, the threats and counter threats swirl around the idea that a nuke war between Russia and the West might occur. Maybe, with tactical nukes in the Ukraine, about which nobody gives a rat’s nether region. The world is full of damned fools.

But: The general staffs of both Russia and China are, whatever else you may think of them, sane. They know of America’s massive nuclear forces. They are not going to launch an atomic war. Sane behavior cannot be relied on with Washington’s second-rate lawyers, but the generals in the Pentagon are not crazy. They like hobbyist wars and big budgets, but if Biden ordered a nuclear strike, they would be likely to suddenly remember that Congress has to declare war and, seeing that their radar screens were empty of incoming missiles, say, “Mr. President, we are not authorized to do that.” And recommend a committee.

What would such a war be like? Let’s guess.

America is fragile. We don’t notice because it works smoothly and because when a local catastrophe occurs—earthquake, hurricane, tornado—the rest of the country steps in to remedy things. The country can handle normal and regional catastrophes. But nuclear war is neither normal nor regional. Very few warheads would serve to wreck the United States beyond recovery for decades. This should be clear to anyone who actually thinks about it.

Defense is impossible. Missile defenses are meaningless except as money funnels to the arms industry. This is not the place to go into decoys, hypersonics, Poseidon, maneuvering glide vehicles, bastion stationing, MIRV, just plain boring old cruise missiles, and so on. Coastal cities are particularly easy targets, being vulnerable to submarine-launched sea-skimming missiles. Washington, New York, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle for starters— all gone.

A modern country is a system of systems of systems, interdependent and interconnected—water, electricity, manufacturing, energy, telecommunications, transportation, pipelines, and complex supply chains. These are interconnected, interdependent, and rely on large numbers of trained people showing up for work. Modern warheads are not the popgun squibs of Hiroshima. Talking of repair any time soon after the nuclear bombing of a conurbation is foolish because the city would have many hundreds of thousand of dead, housing destroyed, massive fires, horrendously burned people with no hope of medical care, and in general, populations too focused on staying alive to worry about abstractions like supply chains.

The author paints a picture that even idiotized populations can use to understand the danger hanging over all of us. And all of it, let's make that clear, is criminally unnecessary.

The elimination of transportation might cause more death than the bombs. Cities, suburbs, and towns cannot feed themselves. They rely on a constant, heavy influx of food grown in remote regions. This food is shipped by rail or truck to distribution centers, as for example Chicago, whence it is transshipped to cities like New York. Heavy megatonnage on Chicago would disrupt rail lines and trucking firms. Trains and trucks need gasoline and diesel which come from somewhere, presumably in pipelines. These, broken by the blast, burning furiously, would take time to repair. Time is what cities would not have.

What would happen in, say, New York City even if, improbably, it were not bombed? Here we will ignore the likelihood of sheer, boiling panic and resultant chaos on learning that much of the country had been flattened. In the first few days there would be panic buying with shelves at supermarkets being emptied. Hunger would soon become serious. By day four, people would be hunting each other with knives to get their food. By the end of the second week, people would be eating each other. Literally. This happens in famines.

Most things in America rely on electricity. This comes from generating plants that burn stuff, usually natural gas or coal. These arrive on trains, which would not be running, or in trucks, not likely to be running. They depend on oil fields, refineries, and pipelines unlikely to function. All of the foregoing depend on employees continuing to go to work instead of trying to save their families. So—no electricity in New York, which goes dark.

This means no telephones, no internet, no lighting, and no elevators. How would this work out in a city of high rises? Most people would be nearly incommunicado in a lightless city. Huge traffic jams would form as people with cars tried to leave—to go where?—as long as gasoline in the tank lasted.

Where does water come from in New York? I don’t know, but it doesn’t flow spontaneously to the thirtieth floor. It needs to be pumped, which involves electricity, from wherever it comes from to wherever it has to go. No electricity, no pump. No pump, no water. And no flushing of toilets. River water could be drunk, of course. Think of the crowds.

In all likelihood, civil society would collapse by the end of the fourth day. The more virile ethnics would surge from the ghettos with guns and clubs to feed. Police would have disappeared or be either looking after their families or themselves looting. Civilization is a thin veneer. The streets and subways are not safe even without a nuclear war. The majority would be unarmed and unable to defend themselves. People who had never touched a gun would suddenly understand the appeal. If you think this would not happen, give my best to Tinker Belle.

Thus it would not be necessary to bomb a city to destroy it, only to cut it off from transport hubs for a couple of weeks. An attacker would of course destroy many cities in addition to the necessary infrastructure. Those who plan nuclear wars may be psychopaths, or just insular geeks fiddling with bloodless abstractions, but they are not fools. They have carefully calculated how to most seriously damage a target country. In no more than a couple of months, perhaps two hundred million people would starve to death. Do you think this fantastic? Tell me why it is fantastic.

Parenthetically, in my days of walking the E-ring in the Pentagon, I read manuals on how to keep soldiers fighting after they had received lethal doses of radiation. They don’t die immediately and, depending on dosage, might be administered stimulants to keep them on their feet, or so the manuals said. These manuals also discussed whether these walking dead should be told that they were about to die. The authors used the evocative phrase “terrain alteration” to describe landscapes with all the trees lying on their sides, and we have all heard of “overkill.” After a nuclear war, millions would slowly die of radiation—read up on Nagasaki and Hiroshima—and burned corpses would rot in the streets, too numerous for burial by survivors with other things on their minds.

How would the next season’s crops be planted? Answer: they wouldn’t be. Where would fertilizer come from? Parts for tractors, trucks, harvesters? Making these requires functioning factories which require electricity, raw materials, and workers. If the attacker chose to hit agricultural lands with radiation-dirty cobalt bombs, these regions would be lethal for years. Nuclear planners think about these things.

Among “defense intellectuals,” there is, or was when I covered such things, insane talk of how America could “absorb” a Russian first strike and have enough missiles in reserve to destroy Russia. These people should be locked in sealed boxes and kept in abandoned coal mines.

Note also that Biden, Blinken, and Bolton, bibbety bobbety boo, and their families, live in DC, the priority target. While the rats are aboard the ship, they won’t sink it. If they are discovered boarding a Greyhound out of Washington at three a.m., dressed as washerwomen, it will be time to worry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Fred Reed, who has referred to Oprah Winfrey as looking "like five hundred pounds of bear liver in a plastic bag," takes a jaundiced and highly irreverent view of all things sacred-journalism, marriage, affirmative action, federal scams, governmental uselessness, women, men, fellow reporters, and popular culture. On the other hand, he has a kind word for drunks, bar girls, and children. Neither a liberal nor a conservative-he describes these as "twin halves of the national lobotomy"-he is just Fred. He figures it is enough. Anything more would be multiple-personality disorder. Fred has spent many years doing things your mother wouldn't want you to do, such as living in alleys in Taipei, Bangkok, and Saigon, with some of the strangest people ever to crawl this weary earth. Once a war correspondent in Viet Nam and Cambodia, then for years a police reporter in places the media don't admit exist, he spent most of a decade writing a syndicated column on matters military.

Selected Comments from Original Thread

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted.
DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP…
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW

Did you sign up yet for our FREE bulletin?

First name or full name

Email

By continuing, you accept the privacy policy

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

Brian Berletic
BRAVE JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST
THE NEW ATLAS

The most complete analytical dossier on recent events in Thailand, by a truly credible witness.

The New Atlas

SOURCE: Land Destroyer

ภาษาไทย: เหตุผลที่ "อเมริกา" อยู่เบื้องหลังการ "ชุมนุม"

Virtually every aspect of "student protests" in Thailand are funded and backed by the US and aimed at destabilizing a key partner of China, reversing Thai-Chinese relations, and advancing Washington's Beijing containment policy.

Thailand is a key partner of China's and has pivoted toward Beijing at Washington's expense;
Protesters are backed by pro-US billionaire-led opposition parties;
US-backed billionaire-led opposition vowed months ago to "take to the streets;"
US government funds core protest leader Anon Nampa via National Endowment for Democracy (NED);
US also funds orgs trying to "rewrite" Thailand's constitution;
US funds fake news fronts posing as "independent journalism;"
Despite "pro-human rights" slant, opposition parties are led by worst human rights offenders in Thai history.

August 19, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - The Southeast Asian Kingdom of Thailand has tilted too far toward China for Washington's liking.

The country - with nearly 70 million people and the second largest economy in Southeast Asia - counts China as its biggest trade partner, its largest source of foreign direct investment, the largest source of tourism with China providing more tourists per year than all Western nations combined, and a key partner in developing infrastructure including the already under-construction China-Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore high-speed rail link that will only further cement these ties.

Thailand is also replacing its aging US military hardware with Chinese alternatives including Chinese-made main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, naval vessels including the Kingdom's first modern submarines, and jointly developed projects like the DTI-1 multiple rocket launcher system. Thailand and China have also conducted joint military exercises in recent years.

To reverse this trend - the United States is attempting to destabilize Thailand politically and economically - topple the current government and place into power a political opposition led by abusive billionaires who have specifically vowed to roll back Thai-Chinese relations.

This has manifested in protests the Western corporate media has claimed are "student-led" and "organic" despite what are clearly centrally led protests with easily identifiable leaders tied directly to US government funding.

The protests are leveraging a nation-wide network created by US government organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, and other funding mechanisms to overwrite Thailand's indigenous institutions with Western-style alternatives across Thailand educational, labor, media, and political spaces.

The protests also have direct ties to US-backed opposition parties including those of fugitive billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party and corrupt billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit of Future Forward/Move Forward Party and even foreign opposition movements the US is funding in China's territories of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Thailand's US-backed Billionaire-led Opposition

Thailand's political opposition - while portrayed by the Western media as "progressive liberals," is in fact run by two corrupt billionaires.

One - Thaksin Shinawatra - is a convicted criminal who currently hides abroad as a fugitive. Despite this - he still openly runs his political party Pheu Thai - as New York Times would note in their 2013 article, "Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand Wields Influence from Afar."

Thaksin also runs a number of nominee parties operating in lockstep with Pheu Thai - including Future Forward/Move Forward Party headed by fellow billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

Image: US, British, and European embassy staff regularly accompanied pro-Western billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit when facing charges for his various corruption and sedition cases.

Image: Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit had attempted to distance himself from Thaksin Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party during an FCCT event in Bangkok before the 2019 elections - but admitted he had voted for it and attended their rallies. His party's platform is identical to Pheu Thai's, his party headquarters literally next door to theirs, and Pheu Thai eventually, literally nominated him as their pick for PM. Pheu Thai and Future Forward have functioned as an indistinguishable opposition front ever since.

Thaksin had served as Thai prime minister from 2001-2006 and openly and repeatedly served US interests at the expense of Thailand's own best interests.

These ties and interests included:

In the late 1990's, Thaksin was an adviser to notorious private equity firm, the Carlyle Group. He pledged to his foreign contacts that upon taking office, he would still serve as a "matchmaker" between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. It would represent the first of many compromising conflicts of interest that would undermine Thailand's sovereign under his rule.

Thaksin was Thailand's prime minister from 2001-2006. Has since dominated the various reincarnations of his political party - and still to this day runs the country by proxy, via his nepotist appointed sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

In 2001 he privatized Thailand's resources and infrastructure including the nation's oil conglomerate PTT - much to Wall Street's delight.

In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program.
In 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before the 2011 elections that saw Thaksin's sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksin’s "red shirt" "United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship" (UDD) in Washington DC.

Since being ousted from power in a 2006 military coup, Thaksin Shinawatra has been represented by US corporate-financier interests via lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group,PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts, Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR), Kobre & Kim, Bell Pottinger (and here) and most recently by Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam & Partners.

Ahead of Thailand's 2019 elections Thaksin Shinawatra would create a myriad of nominee political parties in the event one or more of his core parties were disbanded by courts for the obvious fact he is a fugitive and those acting on his behalf are aiding and abetting a criminal.

This included Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit's Future Forward Party (now renamed Move Forward) whose headquarters is literally next door to Thaksin's Pheu Thai HQ on Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok.

Both parties hold joint press conferences, have identical political platforms, and Thaksin's Pheu Thai even nominated Thanathorn as their candidate for prime minister following the 2019 elections - as Bangkok Post in their article, "Pheu Thai offered Thanathorn nomination for PM's post," reported.

US-backed Billionaire-led Party Has Anti-Chinese Foreign Policy Platform

Thanathorn - the heir of his parents billion dollar autoparts manufacturing fortune and before entering politics helped bust unions at his family's factory - maintained an anti-Chinese foreign policy platform during his 2019 election campaign.

Articles like Bloomberg's "Thailand needs hyperloop, not China-built high-speed rail: Thanathorn," illustrates clearly the agenda US-backed political parties and leaders like Thanathorn represent - particularly in rolling back Thai-Chinese relations. The article would note:

A tycoon turned politician who opposes Thailand’s military government has criticised its US$5.6 billion high-speed rail project with China because hyperloop technology offers a more modern alternative.

It should be noted that not only does the "hyperloop" exist only as crude prototypes versus China's high-speed rail technology already moving billions of people a year - the Thai-Chinese high-speed rail line is already under construction with a new grand station nearing completion built specifically to serve as, among other things, a terminal for Chinese-built high-speed trains. .

Image: Thailand's massive Bang Sue Grand Station nears completion and will serve as a terminal for Chinese-built high-speed trains.

Thus - Thanathorn's proposed "alternative" would mean cancelling actual ongoing construction and waiting years if not indefinitely for theoretical "hyperloop" technology to be developed let alone deployed. In other words - Thanathorn would cancel an important infrastructure project that would greatly expand the movement of goods and people across Asia, just to spite China on Washington's behalf and leave Thailand with absolutely nothing except PowerPoint presentations as an alternative.

Image: Thanathorn ran in 2019 on a platform that included cancelling Thai-Chinese rail projects in favor of the nonexistent "hyperloop." It was a proposed policy that would have served only Washington's interests at Thailand and China's expense.

He has also openly criticized Thailand's attempts to modernize its military via arms deals with China, with his party co-founder even defending proposed military budget cuts by claiming," "in today's world, no one engages in wars any more."

US-backed Billionaire Vowed to Take to Streets Just Months Ahead of "Organic Protests"

Just months ago - after losing the 2019 elections by millions of votes and his party being disbanded for blatant election law violations - Thanathorn vowed to take his pursuit of power to the streets.

Thai PBS' article, "Thanathorn vows to bring people onto streets after rally in downtown Bangkok," would note as early as December 2019 that:

Addressing the demonstrators, Thanathorn said the rally was just a harbinger of more political activities against the Prayut government. He threatened to “bring people to the streets...”

Many of the protesters and organizations present during rallies openly led by Thanathorn are now the very same ones leading current protests. And while Thanathorn is not leading the protests from the front in order to maintain the illusion they are "student-led," they have adopted his "3-finger salute" and he openly eggs them on through the media his family owns and personally on social media through his official public account.

Members of Thaksin and Thanathorn's political parties regularly attend and directly participate in recent protests.

Mobs that billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit vowed to put into the streets just months prior are finally here and receiving widespread support from the same Western media organizations, embassies, and fronts that backed his and Thaksin's bid for power during the 2019 elections.

US Government Funds Core Protest Leader Anon Nampa

While these billionaire-led opposition parties push the protests from behind politically and through media concerns they own in the country - the protests themselves are led by an army of US-funded fronts posing as "nongovernmental organizations."

The most prominent of these is "Thai Lawyers for Human Rights" (TLHR) whose staff member - Anon Nampa - is openly a member of the protest's core leadership.

TLHR's US government funding was openly displayed on the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website in 2014.

Its name has since been removed from NED's website but continues to receive US funding through the NED via the "Union for Civil Liberty" (UCL) of which it is a member.

The UCL is still listed on NED's current webpage for programs it funds in Thailand. TLHR is listed as a member of UCL on its official website next to other recipients of US NED funding including the Cross Cultural Foundation, the Human Rights Lawyers Association, and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL).

Before TLHR and its members began leading rallies - founding members admitted TLHR is entirely funded by foreign governments.

Even the Bangkok Post previously reported this - despite apparently "forgetting" this fact more recently in its reporting.

The Bangkok Post in a 2016 article titled, "The lawyer preparing to defend herself," would admit (emphasis added):

...[TLHR] receives all its funding from international donors including the EU, Germany and US-based human rights organisations and embassies of the UK and Canada.

Thus, a front posing as "pro-democracy" and representative of the Thai people receives none of its support from people actually living in Thailand and instead - from foreign capitals with obvious ulterior motives.

In addition to an award presented by the French Embassy, the US State Department awarded TLHR member Sirikan “June” Charoensiri the 2018 "International Women of Courage Award" presented by US First Lady Melania Trump.

The US embassy in Bangkok openly praised TLHR in its own post celebrating the award, exclaiming:

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok is proud of Sirikan “June” Charoensiri’s work as a lawyer and human rights defender, and for being recognized by the Secretary of State as an International Women of Courage award recipient.

Ms. Sirikan is a co-founder of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), a lawyers’ collective set up to provide pro bono legal services for human rights cases and to document human rights violations.

Thus - an organization carefully cultivated by the US government for years - propped up financially and politically and even awarded for carrying out Washington's agenda in Thailand - is now leading protests aimed at overthrowing the elected government of Thailand.

Anon Nampa shares the stage with likewise compromised "student leaders" of the "Student Union of Thailand" (SUT) - who are open supporters of Thailand's US-backed billionaire-led opposition parties and enthusiastic supporters of US-funded unrest in Hong Kong.

One of the founders of SUT - Parit "Penguin" Chiwarak - has visited the US Embassy at least twice and specifically to meet US Ambassador Glyn Davies - a US National War College graduate who studied, "non-military instruments in persuasive, inducement, and coercive strategies."

Image: Rangsima Rome used to protest side-by-side US-funded agitator Anon Nampa before "graduating" into billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit's political party Future Forward/Move Forward as a member of parliament. Claims that protests are not a function of the billionaire-led opposition are clearly false.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Brian Berletic (aka James Cartalucci / Land Destroyer) is a brave American journalist and former Marine currently residing in Thailand. His video channel New Atlas offers extensive and timely analysis on world events, focusing on the clash of civilisations between the US empire and the emergent multipolar Eurasian bloc led by China, Russia and Iran .

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Unfortunately, most people take this site for granted.
DONATIONS HAVE ALMOST DRIED UP…
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW

Did you sign up yet for our FREE bulletin?

First name or full name

Email

By continuing, you accept the privacy policy

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

MK Bhadrakumar
FORMER INDIAN AMBASSADOR

Two massive terrorist strikes misfired spectacularly and a terrible beauty is born in the Ukraine war. These two carefully planned attacks in quick succession — on Nord Stream gas pipelines and Crimean Bridge — were intended as a knockout blow to Russia. According to President Vladimir Putin, people ‘who want to finally sever ties between Russia and the EU, weaken Europe’ are behind the Nord Stream blasts. He named the US, Ukraine and Poland as ‘beneficiaries’.

India should expect the defeat of the US and NATO, which completes the transition to a multipolar world order.

Last Wednesday, Russia’s domestic intelligence service FSB identified Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, as the mastermind behind the Crimean attack. The New York Times and Washington Post also pointed fingers at Kiev, quoting ‘sources’. While Nord Stream-1 has been crippled, one of the strings of Nord Stream-2 remains intact. Putin said last week that the pipeline could be restored and Russia could deliver about 27 billion cubic metres of gas. ‘The ball is on the side of the European Union, if they want — let’s turn on the tap,’ he said.

But mum’s the word from Brussels. It is a profoundly embarrassing moment for the EU. The triumphalism has vanished as Europe is threatened by years of recession caused by the blowback from sanctions against Russia, where the US insisted on the cut off of energy ties with Moscow. The EU has now become a captive market for Big Oil and is left to buy LNG from the US at the asking price, which is six to seven times higher than the domestic price in the US. (Contracted price for long-term Russian supply for Germany used to be about $280 per 1,000 cubic metres as against the current market price hovering around $2,000.)

Plainly put, the Europeans have been nicely played by the Americans. India should take note of the US’ sense of entitlement. Basically, the Biden administration created a contrived energy crisis whose real aim is war profiteering.

The Crimean Bridge attack of October 8 is much more serious. Zelenskyy crossed a red line that Moscow had repeatedly warned him against. Putin has disclosed that there have also been three terrorist attacks against the Kursk NPP. Russians will settle for nothing less than the ouster of the Zelenskyy regime.

Russia’s retaliation against Ukraine’s ‘critical infrastructure’, something Moscow refrained from so far, has serious implications. Since October 9, Russia has begun systematically targeting Ukraine’s power system and railways. Noted Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin told Izvestia that if this tempo was kept up for a week or so, it ‘will disrupt the entire logistics of the Ukrainian military — system for transporting personnel, military equipment, ammunition, related cargo, as well as the functioning of military and repair plants.’

ABOVE: Footage of the consequences of the explosion on the Crimean bridge

The Americans are cocooned in a surreal world of their self-serving narrative that Russia ‘lost’ the war. In the real world, though, Ivan Tertel, KGB chief in Belarus, who has an insider view of Moscow, said last Tuesday that with Russia boosting its troop strength in the war zone — 3 lakh troops who have been mobilised plus 70,000 volunteers — and the deployment of advanced weaponry, ‘the military operation will enter a key phase. According to our estimates, a turning point will come in the period from November of this year to February of next year.’

Policy-makers and strategists in Delhi should make a careful note of the timeline. The bottom line is, Russia is looking for an all-out victory and will not settle for anything less than a friendly government in Kiev. Western politicians, including Biden, understand that there is nothing stopping the Russians now. The US’ weapon kitty is running dry as Kiev keeps asking for more.

When asked whether he’d meet Biden at the G20 in Bali, Putin derisively remarked on Friday, ‘He (Biden) should be asked whether he is ready to hold such negotiations with me or not. To be honest, I don’t see any need, by and large. There is no platform for any negotiations for the time being.’

However, Washington has not yet thrown in the towel and the Biden administration remains obsessed with exhausting the Russian military — even at the cost of Ukraine’s destruction. And, for the Russians too, there is still much to be worked out on the battlefield: the oppressed Russian populations in Odessa (which suffered unspeakable atrocities from the neo-Nazis), Mykolaiv, Zaporizhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov are expecting ‘liberation’. It’s a highly emotive issue for Russia. Again, the overarching agenda of ‘demilitarisation’ and ‘denazification’ of Ukraine must be taken to its logical conclusion.

When all that is over, Putin knows Biden will not even want to meet him. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said last week, ‘Anyone who seriously believes that the war can be ended through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations lives in another world. Reality looks different. In reality, such issues can only be discussed between Washington and Moscow. Today, Ukraine is able to fight only because it receives military assistance from the United States…

‘At the same time, I do not see President Biden as the person who would really be suitable for such serious negotiations. President Biden has gone too far. Suffice it to recall his statements to Russian President Putin.’

India should expect the defeat of the US and NATO, which completes the transition to a multipolar world order. Sadly, Indian elites are yet to purge their ‘unipolar predicament’. Europe, including Britain, is devastated and there is palpable discontent over the US’s ‘transatlantic leadership’. Indo-Pacific strategy is hopelessly adrift. New power centres are emerging in India’s extended neighbourhood, as the OPEC’s rebuff to Washington shows. A profound adjustment is needed in the Indian strategic calculus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, IN HIS OWN WORDS / SOURCE

M.K. Bhadrakumar • I was a career diplomat by profession. For someone growing up in the 1960s in a remote town at the southern tip of India, diplomacy was an improbable profession. My passion was for the world of literature, writing and politics – roughly in that order. While doing doctoral research on the works of Tennessee Williams, however, friends encouraged me to have a fling at the Civil Services Examination. As it turned out, before I could figure out the momentous import of what was unfolding, fate had pitchforked me into the top ranks of the merit list and ushered me into the Indian Foreign Service. Roughly half of the 3 decades of my diplomatic career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Other overseas postings included South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, and Turkey. I write mainly on Indian foreign policy and the affairs of the Middle East, Eurasia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific.

Finian Cunningham Interview: An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy

John Rachel interviews Finian Cunningham

"What about if Americans in greater numbers boycotted elections with the explicit reason being that they don’t recognize the process? I mean total boycott...."

an>[/su_animate]

Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读

Keep truth and free speech alive by supporting this site.
Donate using the button below, or by scanning our QR code.

How the pro-Ukraine NAFO troll operation crowd-funds war criminals—

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN·

First run on Oct 20, 2022

Celebrated in mainstream US media for its anti-Russian trolling, the Twitter operation known as NAFO was founded by a Polish antisemite to raise money for a militia that has hosted war criminals, white nationalists and wanted murderers.

Obsessively online interventionists find meaning and purpose as “fellas”

Inside NAFO’s social media crowdfunding nexus

An anchor for amplifying pro-proxy war Twitter accounts

The war crimes of the Georgian Legion

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

On Going Seriously Boom

Fred Reed
CROSSPOSTED WITH THE SAKER BLOG

October 22, 2022

What would such a war be like? Let’s guess.

The author paints a picture that even idiotized populations can use to understand the danger hanging over all of us. And all of it, let's make that clear, is criminally unnecessary.

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Thailand: US-backed Opposition’s Violence Intimidates Critics, Paves Way for Regime Change

Brian Berletic
BRAVE JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST
THE NEW ATLAS

Thailand: US-backed Opposition's Violence Intimidates Critics, Paves Way for Regime Change

The most complete analytical dossier on recent events in Thailand, by a truly credible witness.

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

A war Russia set to win

MK Bhadrakumar
FORMER INDIAN AMBASSADOR

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Finian Cunningham Interview: An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy

John Rachel interviews Finian Cunningham

"What about if Americans in greater numbers boycotted elections with the explicit reason being that they don’t recognize the process? I mean total boycott...."

an>[/su_animate]

Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读

Keep truth and free speech alive by supporting this site. Donate using the button below, or by scanning our QR code.

How the pro-Ukraine NAFO troll operation crowd-funds war criminals—

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN·

First run on Oct 20, 2022

Celebrated in mainstream US media for its anti-Russian trolling, the Twitter operation known as NAFO was founded by a Polish antisemite to raise money for a militia that has hosted war criminals, white nationalists and wanted murderers.

Obsessively online interventionists find meaning and purpose as “fellas”

Inside NAFO’s social media crowdfunding nexus

An anchor for amplifying pro-proxy war Twitter accounts

The war crimes of the Georgian Legion

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

On Going Seriously Boom

Fred Reed CROSSPOSTED WITH THE SAKER BLOG

October 22, 2022

What would such a war be like? Let’s guess.

The author paints a picture that even idiotized populations can use to understand the danger hanging over all of us. And all of it, let's make that clear, is criminally unnecessary.

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Thailand: US-backed Opposition’s Violence Intimidates Critics, Paves Way for Regime Change

Brian Berletic BRAVE JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST THE NEW ATLAS

Thailand: US-backed Opposition's Violence Intimidates Critics, Paves Way for Regime Change

The most complete analytical dossier on recent events in Thailand, by a truly credible witness.

กรุณาเปิดแคปชั่นใน YouTube (CC) แล้วกดเลือกภาษาไทย (Thai subtitles available)

References: Land Destroyer (The New Atlas) - The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests": https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/20... The New Atlas - Why is Washington Backing Violent Mobs in Thailand?: https://youtu.be/CEzpYKVfcKU

NOTE: Brian Berletic (The New Atlas / Land Destroyer) produces these articles literally risking his life. Please support his work as much as you can!

The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests"

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

A war Russia set to win

MK Bhadrakumar FORMER INDIAN AMBASSADOR

Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Keep truth and free speech alive by supporting this site.
Donate using the button below, or by scanning our QR code.

Fred Reed
CROSSPOSTED WITH THE SAKER BLOG

Brian Berletic
BRAVE JOURNALISM AT ITS BEST
THE NEW ATLAS

References: Land Destroyer (The New Atlas) - The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests": https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/20...
The New Atlas - Why is Washington Backing Violent Mobs in Thailand?: https://youtu.be/CEzpYKVfcKU

MK Bhadrakumar
FORMER INDIAN AMBASSADOR