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Tu felix austria Nordstream 2 verhindere

21. Februar 2022

Neham­mer zu Ukraine-Krise: Nicht­in­be­trieb­nah­me von Nord Stream 2 bei rus­si­scher Invasion

Ein “inten­si­ves Sank­ti­ons­re­gime der EU” sei “auf Knopf­druck akti­vier­bar”, betont Kanz­ler Neham­mer ange­sichts der Ent­wick­lun­gen im Ukraine-Konflikt

src: click

Ich möch­te ja wis­sen, wo der Knopf ist, von dem der da spricht. Also - unter ande­rem auch in wel­chem Land.

Zum Ver­ständ­nis. 80% der in Öster­reich ver­brauch­ten Erd­gas­men­ge wird aus Russ­land bezo­gen (weni­ger eine poli­ti­sche Abhän­gig­keit, als eine preis­tech­ni­sche). Das bestehen­de Pipe­linenetz (ohne Nord­stream 2) reicht für die Grund­ver­sor­gung aus. Ener­gie­wen­de hät­te mit­tel­fris­tig eine Ver­brauchs­stei­ge­rung von Erd­gas von 30% und mehr bedingt. Die ist dann eher nicht drin.

Aber Haupt­sa­che der Neham­mer kann sich auf US Linie posi­tio­nie­ren, nach­dem die Medi­en­an­fra­gen seit vier Wochen nur “ist Strolz zu eigen­sin­nig und zu wenig Macher?” als Agen­da posi­tio­niert haben - und außer acht gelas­sen haben, dass das Agen­da­set­ting in der Fra­ge von den US betrie­ben wur­de. Und wie. (Zuerst über nen Pod­cast streu­en, dann über die Nuland behaup­ten, dann empört tun, dass die behaup­te­te Einig­keit nicht exis­tiert, dann die BBC berich­ti­gen las­sen, dann über DW und ande­re Think­tank bespiel­te Medi­en­part­ner Strolz dafür dass er die Posi­ti­on nicht ändert zum letz­ten Trot­tel abstem­peln, dann bestär­ken dass man Nord­stream 2 als US auch uni­la­te­ral (zuerst mit nur eini­gen euro­päi­schen Part­nern, spä­ter auch dezi­diert uni­la­te­ral) ver­hin­dern wür­de, dann haben die publi­zier­ten Inter­views mit den EU Offi­zi­el­len begon­nen bei denen unklar war basie­ren auf wel­chem Infor­ma­ti­on­stand die gege­ben wur­den, die sich ein­deu­ti­ger zum Rote Linie Kon­zept geäus­sert haben, dann wur­de auf der Münch­ner Sicher­heits­kon­fe­renz von allen Medi­en wie­der ver­stärkt die Einig­keit zwi­schen Baer­bock und Har­ris her­aus­ge­stri­chen, auch wenn der kei­ne Ände­rung im Wor­d­ing zugrun­de lag. Dann kippt Neham­mer. (Immer auf die Klei­nen, oder..?))

Was für ein guter Speichellecker.

Die Ukrai­ne ist jetzt sicher viel beru­hig­ter, dass durch Öster­reich bezo­ge­nes rus­si­sches Gas jetzt aus­schließ­lich über “ihr” Pipe­linenetz geht. 

Wobei, mit soet­was macht man kei­ne Scher­ze - also die Ukrai­ne wür­de die Men­ge wohl nicht mal mer­ken. Irgend­wo zwi­schen Öster­reich ist ein gro­ßes Land und Rundungsfehler.

Aber der Neham­mer, der wirds mit der EU Posi­ti­on dem Putin aber zeigen!

Die Medi­en jubeln. End­lich Öster­reich auch auf NATO Linie! Ver­zei­hung, EU Linie.

Ich bin ja dafür dass Öster­reich Nord­stream 2 im Allein­gang ver­hin­dert. Da muss man schon kon­se­quent blei­ben. Wenn man in der öffent­li­chen Wahr­neh­mung so ein mora­li­scher Macher wie der Neham­mer sein will.

Da darf die 80%ige Abhän­gig­keit auch in Zukunfts­pro­jek­ten nicht so mit hin­ein­spie­len. Da muss jetzt diver­si­fi­ziert wer­den. Damit wie der Exper­te von der Colum­bia auf der Münch­ner Sicher­heits­kon­fe­renz sagt, die Ener­gie­wen­de schnel­ler ange­sto­ßen wird indem man US fos­si­le fuel Unter­neh­men und die Fracht­schiff­fahrt stärkt, und bei uns kein Geld für sozia­len Aus­gleich, oder Sub­ven­tio­nen durch Abschöp­fen der Preis­span­ne mehr übrig ist.

Das muss einem die Demo­kra­tie in der Ukrai­ne schon wert sein.

Es sind sich ja auch alle Medi­en einig, dass der ehe­ma­li­ge Komi­ker dies­mal aber eine herz­zer­rei­ßen­de Rede gehal­ten hat. Und sein Ver­tei­di­gungs­mi­nis­ter erst, der wur­de auf Presse-Tour mit Kame­ras bei­na­he von Gra­na­ten getroffen!

Wie gesagt, der Neham­mer muss hier kon­se­quent sein, und not­falls auch Nord­stream 2 gegen den Wil­len Deutsch­lands und Frank­reichs stoppen!

Das ist die Rich­tungs­po­li­tik die wir brauchen.

HaaaaaaHaaahahahahahaaaahhaha

20. Februar 2022

Die deut­sche Medi­en­auf­sicht befas­se sich mit der Sen­de­tä­tig­keit der DW in Deutsch­land, da die Anstalt kei­ne deut­sche Rund­funk­li­zenz besit­ze, berich­tet das Medi­en­por­tal DWDL. Weil die Deut­sche Wel­le vom Staat finan­ziert wird, wür­de sie auch kei­ne Lizenz bekommen.

src: click

Overspecific non denial denials

19. Februar 2022

I final­ly under­stand the “struc­tu­ral poli­ti­cal decisi­ons made in the nine­ties” reference.

I came across a debun­king site today with “quiz­zes and games” but no “about us” sec­tion, just a short con­ta­ct page that then links to the EEAS Press Team for media inqui­ries, but also has a dis­c­lai­mer on the site, that it doesnt repre­sent EU posi­ti­ons in any offi­cial capacity. 

The lan­guage used on the site also is stran­ge­ly casu­al in its seman­tic coloring.

While I most­ly agree with what the site is pre­sen­ting to debunk fake rus­si­an nar­ra­ti­ves on the Ukrai­ne con­flict, one argu­ment made struck me as stran­ge­ly overspecific.

Mythos 4: „Die NATO und der Wes­ten sind Schuld an der aktu­el­len Kri­se. Hät­ten sie sich an ihre Ver­spre­chen gehal­ten, die Alli­anz nicht zu erwei­tern, wür­de Russ­land sich nicht bedroht fühlen.“
Falsch. Solch ein Ver­spre­chen wur­de nie­mals gege­ben und auch nicht von der NATO gefor­dert. Rus­si­sche Staats­me­di­en haben oft behaup­tet, dem sowje­ti­schen Prä­si­den­ten Michail Gor­bat­schow wäre „münd­lich“ ver­spro­chen wor­den, dass die NATO sich nicht über die Gren­zen des wie­der­ver­ein­ten Deutsch­lands hin­aus aus­wei­ten wür­de. In Wahr­heit hat Gor­bat­schow selbst die­se Behaup­tun­gen in einem Inter­view 2014 bestrit­ten und gesagt, dass „das The­ma einer ‚NATO-Erweiterung‘ über­haupt nicht bespro­chen wur­de und in den Jah­ren auch nicht auf­kam. Das sage ich mit vol­ler Ver­ant­wor­tung. Nicht ein ein­zi­ges ost­eu­ro­päi­sches Land hat das The­ma ange­spro­chen, nicht ein­mal, nach­dem der War­schau­er Pakt 1991 auslief.“

Die­se soge­nann­ten ver­ba­len Abkom­men sind rei­ne Fik­ti­on. Die NATO-Mitglieder haben nie poli­tisch oder recht­lich bin­den­de Ver­spre­chen gege­ben, die Alli­anz nicht über die Gren­zen des wie­der­ver­ein­ten Deutsch­lands hin­aus auszuweiten.

Die Behaup­tung, dass die NATO ver­spro­chen habe, sich nicht zu erwei­tern, ist eine fun­da­men­ta­le Fehl­dar­stel­lung der Natur der Alli­anz. Die NATO als Ver­tei­di­gungs­al­li­anz „ver­grö­ßert“ sich nicht im impe­ria­lis­ti­schen Sin­ne. Ent­schei­dun­gen über NATO-Mitgliedschaften lie­gen bei den ein­zel­nen Bewer­ber­län­dern und den aktu­el­len 30 NATO-Alliierten. Jeder sou­ve­rä­ne Staat kann sei­nen Weg selbst bestim­men und angren­zen­de Staa­ten – in die­sem Fall Russ­land – haben kein Recht einzuschreiten.

src: click

*Upbeat sigh* OMG, how beau­ti­ful… The intrinsic natu­re of the alli­an­ce. What a won­der­ful­ly poe­tic, nay - phi­lo­so­phi­cal argu­ment… --- Wait a minute!

This is the quo­te they are referencing.

Rus­sia Bey­ond the Head­lines: One of the key issu­es that has ari­sen in con­nec­tion with the events in Ukrai­ne is NATO expan­si­on into the East. Do you get the fee­ling that your Wes­tern part­ners lied to you when they were deve­lo­ping their future plans in Eas­tern Euro­pe? Why didn’t you insist that the pro­mi­ses made to you – par­ti­cu­lar­ly U.S. Secreta­ry of Sta­te James Baker’s pro­mi­se that NATO would not expand into the East – be legal­ly encoded? I will quo­te Baker: “NATO will not move one inch fur­ther east.”

Mikhail Gor­ba­chev: The topic of “NATO expan­si­on” was not dis­cus­sed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in tho­se years. I say this with full respon­si­bi­li­ty. Not a sin­ge Eas­tern Euro­pean coun­try rai­sed the issue, not even after the War­saw Pact cea­sed to exist in 1991. Wes­tern lea­ders didn’t bring it up, eit­her. Ano­t­her issue we brought up was dis­cus­sed: making sure that NATO’s mili­ta­ry struc­tures would not advan­ce and that addi­tio­nal armed for­ces from the alli­an­ce would not be deploy­ed on the ter­ri­to­ry of the then-GDR after Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­ti­on. Baker’s state­ment, men­tio­ned in your ques­ti­on, was made in that con­text. Kohl and [Ger­man Vice Chan­cellor Hans-Dietrich] Gen­scher tal­ked about it.

Ever­ything that could have been and nee­ded to be done to soli­di­fy that poli­ti­cal obli­ga­ti­on was done. And ful­fil­led. The agree­ment on a final sett­le­ment with Ger­ma­ny said that no new mili­ta­ry struc­tures would be crea­ted in the eas­tern part of the coun­try; no addi­tio­nal tro­ops would be deploy­ed; no wea­pons of mass dest­ruc­tion would be pla­ced the­re. It has been obser­ved all the­se years. So don’t por­tray Gor­ba­chev and the then-Soviet aut­ho­ri­ties as naï­ve peop­le who were wrap­ped around the West’s fin­ger. If the­re was naï­ve­té, it was later, when the issue aro­se. Rus­sia at first did not object.

The decisi­on for the U.S. and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisi­ve­ly made in 1993. I cal­led this a big mista­ke from the very begin­ning. It was defi­ni­te­ly a vio­la­ti­on of the spi­rit of the state­ments and assuran­ces made to us in 1990. With regards to Ger­ma­ny, they were legal­ly ensh­ri­ned and are being observed.

src: click

I then dug up an inter­view with Nina Khrush­che­va that goes into more details.

Inter­view­er: And exp­lain the histo­ry of US pro­mi­ses to rus­sia around not expan­ding NATO.

Krush­che­va: Well, thats a… the­res a lot of deba­te going on about this. Appar­ent­ly James Baker in 1990 tal­king with then for­eign minis­ter Edu­ard She­vard­nad­ze, the soviet for­eign minis­ter, did say that [NATO] wouldnt push one inch bey­ond the cur­rent bor­ders. Then the ques­ti­on of cour­se… They were tal­king about east ger­ma­ny and uni­fi­ca­ti­on of ger­ma­ny after 89, after the Ber­lin wall fell. […] But they were tal­king about east ger­ma­ny that it wouldnt go fur­ther and actual­ly, we’­ve seen that ger­ma­ny in fact keeps that pro­mi­se. So it is ques­tion­ab­le… They may have meant the who­le Nato expan­si­on, but may­be they only meant ger­ma­ny. I think the more important part is the con­ver­sa­ti­on bet­ween Bill Clin­tons secreta­ry of sta­te, War­ren Chris­to­pher and Boris Jel­zin, when then the­re cer­tain­ly was a pro­mi­se that it wouldnt go - at least not in Jel­zins time - as Clin­ton put it to Jel­zin. But of cour­se Jel­zin wasnt plea­sed, but he couldnt do anything at the time and as we know in 98, the­re was a decisi­on by US con­gress that the expan­si­on could hap­pen, but once again Clin­ton said, its not going to hap­pen in your time. So thats why the Rus­si­ans now, when they are cal­ling for the arran­ge­ment of 97, they talk about that very moment in 1998, when the US Con­gress deci­ded that Nato could expand.

src: click

Then lets look at the docu­ments released sur­roun­ding the talks bet­ween Baker and She­vard­nad­ze - the natio­nal secu­ri­ty archi­ve is very hel­pful in that regard, sim­ply summerizing -

Washing­ton D.C., Decem­ber 12, 2017 – U.S. Secreta­ry of Sta­te James Baker’s famous “not one inch east­ward” assuran­ce about NATO expan­si­on in his mee­ting with Soviet lea­der Mikhail Gor­ba­chev on Febru­a­ry 9, 1990, was part of a cas­ca­de of assuran­ces about Soviet secu­ri­ty given by Wes­tern lea­ders to Gor­ba­chev and other Soviet offi­cials throughout the pro­cess of Ger­man uni­fi­ca­ti­on in 1990 and on into 1991, accord­ing to declas­si­fied U.S., Soviet, Ger­man, Bri­tish and French docu­ments pos­ted today by the Natio­nal Secu­ri­ty Archi­ve at Geor­ge Washing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).

The docu­ments show that mul­ti­ple natio­nal lea­ders were con­si­de­ring and rejec­ting Cen­tral and Eas­tern Euro­pean mem­bers­hip in NATO as of ear­ly 1990 and through 1991, that dis­cus­sions of NATO in the con­text of Ger­man uni­fi­ca­ti­on nego­tia­ti­ons in 1990 were not at all nar­row­ly limi­ted to the sta­tus of East Ger­man ter­ri­to­ry, and that sub­se­quent Soviet and Rus­si­an com­p­laints about being mis­led about NATO expan­si­on were foun­ded in writ­ten con­tem­pora­ne­ous mem­cons and tel­cons at the hig­hest levels. 

The docu­ments rein­for­ce for­mer CIA Direc­tor Robert Gates’s cri­ti­cism of “pres­sing ahead with expan­si­on of NATO east­ward [in the 1990s], when Gor­ba­chev and others were led to belie­ve that wouldn’t hap­pen.”[1] The key phra­se, but­tres­sed by the docu­ments, is “led to believe.”

src: click

So whats that stran­ge over­spe­ci­fic non deni­al deni­al doing on a debun­king site, that seems to be affi­lia­ted with the Euro­pean Action Ser­vice Press Team, but then also not in an offi­cial capacity?

Debun­king the debun­kers. Might beco­me a new trend…

This is how wes­tern pro­pa­gan­da works? (Unsu­re, actually…)

edit: Also the­re are stran­ge, obvious con­tent errors on the site as well, like the fol­lowing state­ment: “Mitt­ler­wei­le ist die Ukrai­ne der größ­te Han­dels­part­ner der EU mit einem Han­dels­an­teil von über 40 %.” The whois names the regis­trant as Vade­ar Con­sul­ting, based in Bel­gi­um. Accord­ing to b2bhint ano­t­her com­pa­ny of the foun­ders (TIPIK) is using a com­mon address also used by about 50 other com­pa­nies, situa­ted in Brussels (amongst them finan­cial and law agen­ci­es), and the com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on con­sul­ting com­pa­ny is by far not the only enter­pri­se the foun­ders have boot­strap­ped. Ano­t­her com­pa­ny they are run­ning from the same address mind you - is a sub­si­dia­ry of an IT solu­ti­ons pro­vi­der, acti­ve in twel­ve coun­tries. Make of that what you will. 🙂

edit2: Ah Der Spie­gel caught that as well - via fefe:

Bonns Ver­tre­ter Jür­gen Chro­bog erklär­te damals laut Ver­merk: „Wir haben in den Zwei-plus-Vier-Verhandlungen deut­lich gemacht, dass wir die Nato nicht über die Elbe hin­aus aus­deh­nen. Wir kön­nen daher Polen und den ande­ren kei­ne Nato-Mitgliedschaft anbieten.“
Auch Bri­ten, Fran­zo­sen und Ame­ri­ka­ner lehn­ten eine Nato-Mitgliedschaft der Ost­eu­ro­pä­er ab. US-Vertreter Ray­mond Seitz sag­te: „Wir haben gegen­über der Sowjet­uni­on klar­ge­macht – bei Zwei-plus-Vier- wie auch ande­ren Gesprä­chen –, dass wir kei­nen Vor­teil aus dem Rück­zug sowje­ti­scher Trup­pen aus Ost­eu­ro­pa zie­hen wer­den.“ Zwei Jah­re spä­ter kor­ri­gier­ten die Ame­ri­ka­ner ihre Politik.

ori­gi­nal src: click and click

The lies, the lies, the lies…

19. Februar 2022

So - first lets put it on record that the posi­ti­on of “we, the allies of the west” now swit­ched from “Rus­sia is going to inva­de”, to “Rus­sia is not so dumb to inva­de, they are going to play this as a con­flict of attri­ti­on” - which is pro­bab­ly cor­rect from my point of view - at this very moment - as well - btw.

But the lies are still so effing outra­gious. So Ian Brem­mer is cur­r­ent­ly buil­ding a new nar­ra­ti­ve, whe­re Putin (always the devil hims­elf) has been allo­wed to walk over red lines in the past, without con­se­quen­ces - most­ly in terms of “cyber­at­tacks” (unat­tri­bu­t­ed cyber­at­tacks most­ly, btw - but who needs pro­of the­se days…) - and now is high on his short term suc­cess, lashing out like a bul­ly at a UN ral­ly (Why does the US come to mind, while for­mu­la­ting that men­tal image?). But now that has chan­ged, and NATO stan­ding in abso­lu­te unity will act as a detrac­tor (so gre­at, always the things you coi­ned as a rea­li­ty two days ear­lier, turn out to have been the most important all along…), and show Putin that he cant con­ti­nue his pro­vo­ca­ti­ons, and divi­de Nato mem­bers, etc, etc.

Slight issue with that. Putin hims­elf was on a pro­mo­ti­on tour for bila­te­ral diplo­ma­tic dis­cus­sions with the US, eight mon­ths ago, sta­ting several times, that they are open to dis­cuss a bila­te­ral posi­ti­on against cyber­at­tacks, but the US has refu­sed to hear them under Oba­ma, under Trump, and always rejec­ted direct talks on the matter.

See: click

Sure, its a poli­ti­cal gam­bit, but Putin “having been encou­ra­ged by how devas­ta­tin­g­ly effec­ti­ve his cyber attacks were, and now belie­ving he can use them again and again becau­se the west was too timid to react” - is the oppo­si­te of what was part of the public diplo­ma­tic sta­ging as the pre­cur­sor of the conflict.

But who needs to fact­check, when they have a jour­na­lism that never shows any pro­fes­sio­nal cour­te­sy? And ins­tead is exch­an­ging smi­les with for­mer public repre­sen­ta­ti­ves on how far wes­tern infor­ma­ti­on war­fa­re is allo­wed to go… (Last blog ent­ry. Read it.)

Sh*t - its almost like some peop­le belie­ve that the public cant fact­check state­ments or poli­ti­cal back­ground affiliations.

Brem­mer has held rese­arch and facul­ty posi­ti­ons[which?]at New York Uni­ver­si­ty, Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, the East­West Insti­tu­te, the World Poli­cy Insti­tu­te, Law­rence Liver­mo­re Natio­nal Labo­ra­to­ry, and the Asia Socie­ty Poli­cy Insti­tu­te, whe­re he has ser­ved as the first Harold J. New­man Dis­tin­guis­hed Fel­low in Geo­po­li­tics sin­ce 2015.[cita­ti­on nee­ded]

In 2013, he was named Glo­bal Rese­arch Pro­fes­sor at New York Uni­ver­si­ty.[11] and in 2019, Colum­bia University’s School of Inter­na­tio­nal and Public Affairs announ­ced that Brem­mer would teach an App­lied Geo­po­li­tics cour­se at the school.[12]

Brem­mer ser­ves on the President’s Coun­cil of the Near East Foun­da­ti­on, the Lea­ders­hip Coun­cil for the Con­cordia Sum­mit, and the board of trus­tees of Intel­li­gence Squa­red. In 2007, he was named as a “Young Glo­bal Lea­der” of the World Eco­no­mic Forum, and in 2010, foun­ded and was appoin­ted Chair of the Forum’s Glo­bal Agen­da Coun­cil for Geo­po­li­ti­cal Risk. In Decem­ber 2015, Brem­mer was knigh­ted by the government of Ita­ly.[13]

Coun­cil mem­ber of the Near East Foun­da­ti­on, Leders­hip coun­cil of the Con­cordia Sum­mit, Board of trus­tees of Intel­li­gence Squa­red (seems like an out­lier, and judge on ame­ri­can idol?) - but doesnt read tran­scripts of public inter­views Putin gave eight mon­ths ago to NBC

Named “Young Glo­bal Lea­der” by the WEF, Chair of the Glo­bal Agen­da Coun­cil for Geo­po­li­ti­cal Risk at the WEF, but doesnt read tran­scripts of inter­views Putin gave eight mon­ths ago.

Also sh*t its Alp­bach all over again! (Man­da­to­ry cur­se, becau­se look, we’­ve found us ano­t­her “Young Glo­bal Lea­der” here. (And all the best peop­le have taught at Colum­bia once more…))

Oh, and on the point of coor­di­na­ting public nar­ra­ti­ves. You get payed for repea­ting what was sta­ted in the brie­fing room of the white house two days ear­lier, of cour­se. Then a jour­na­list asks you what the new nar­ra­ti­ve is. Then you repeat that. As an inde­pen­dent poli­ti­cal sci­en­tist. At the Munich Secu­ri­ty Conference.

Thats job security.

And if Rus­sia attacks the United Sta­tes or our Allies through asym­metric means, like dis­rup­ti­ve cyber­at­tacks against our com­pa­nies or cri­ti­cal infra­st­ruc­tu­re, we are pre­pa­red to respond. 

We’re moving in lock­step with our NATO allies and part­ners to deepen our collec­ti­ve defen­se against thre­ats in cyberspace.

Two paths are still open. For the sake of the his­to­ric respon­si­bi­li­ty Rus­sia and the United Sta­tes share for glo­bal sta­bi­li­ty, for the sake of our com­mon future — to choo­se diplomacy.

src: click

Thats how pro­pa­gan­da works in the west.

edit: Oh second out­right lie in one state­ment “I think ger­ma­ny being cut off from rus­si­an gas moves euro­pe in the direc­tion of rene­wa­bles fas­ter.” Bullsh*t. The pro­mi­se of a social­ly just ener­gy tran­si­ti­on reli­es on fos­si­le fuels beco­m­ing more expen­si­ve, but in terms of the sta­te being able to skim off the dif­fe­rence in taxes, so it can redis­tri­bu­te it in com­pen­sa­ti­on pay­ments for the not so aff­lu­ent, and use the inco­me to sub­si­di­ze indus­tries that are working towards sus­taina­bi­li­ty but that arent eco­no­mi­c­al­ly via­ble yet. While fos­si­le fuels pro­du­ced will get used by non allied part­ners, at lower pri­ces, becau­se rus­sia still needs tra­ding part­ners and to aqui­re for­eign cur­ren­cy. The last part is ack­now­led­ged in the interview.

The ent­i­re pro­spect of a car­bon tax on impor­ted goods into the EU is based on that princip­le as well. Pri­ma­ri­ly so.

But what does a f*cking payed cro­ney care. Or Habeck for that mat­ter, who in public inter­views pret­ty ear­ly on into the esca­la­ti­on of the Ukrai­ne con­flict (pro­bab­ly without having been ful­ly brie­fed) also couldnt con­cep­tua­li­ze the dif­fe­rence. And by dif­fe­rence I mean money lan­ding in US’ cor­po­ra­te hands (fos­si­le fuel com­pa­nies and freight ship­ping, mind you) that should have acce­le­ra­ted Ger­ma­nys green tran­si­ti­on. But whos bit­ing the hand thats fee­ding their polit­cal care­ers, right?

If the jour­na­list in front of them does a *blink blink* with their eyes, and not much else.

Third faux pas - is the mat­ter of fact way, the expert sta­tes how ger­ma­ny was whip­ped into posi­ti­on, while fran­ce wasnt. You have to hear it to belie­ve it. Watch the video.

New question: Do you like information warfare?

19. Februar 2022

After that video, watch this one: click

Now, do you still like infor­ma­ti­on war­fa­re (IW)?

Now the reverting of prior logic begins

19. Februar 2022

Pri­or logic: Rus­sia will sta­ge fal­se flag attacks, to rec­ti­fy an inva­si­on of Ukraine.

Cur­rent logic: Pro rus­si­an sepa­ra­tists in eas­tern Ukrai­ne have see­ded vide­os on social media net­works citing riot like con­di­ti­ons to rec­ti­fy a gene­ral mobi­liz­a­ti­on of their for­ces, that were crea­ted two days befo­re tho­se con­di­ti­ons bro­ke out, as indi­ca­ted by metadata.

So rus­si­an mili­ta­ry is still at the bor­ders, fal­se flag is not used as offi­cial rea­so­ning to enter a war. Rus­sia will sup­port pro rus­si­an sepa­ra­tists in eas­tern Ukrai­ne, and use the credi­ble thre­at of for­ce to advan­ce mili­ta­ry goals to gene­ra­te poli­ti­cal out­co­mes using sepa­ra­tists and, at this time, likely also covert ope­ra­ti­ons, but not their mili­ta­ry in an offi­cial capacity.

Prac­ti­cal­ly the same as “Rus­sia will inva­de the Ukrai­ne using cri­sis actors as a pre­text”. Just not in scope, inten­si­ty - and also ulti­mate­ly not prova­ble to a lar­ge extent.

As a result ger­ma­nys posi­ti­on has beco­me to urge rus­sia to use its influ­ence on sepa­ra­tist groups to deesca­la­te the situa­ti­on, not a gene­ral push to trig­ger sanctions.

The poli­ti­cal decisi­on makers under­stand the dif­fe­rence. For as long as it is possible.

The gene­ral public is pushed to cele­bra­te “US intel­li­gence reports were cor­rect”, des­pi­te - them not having been used as a pre­text for war.

Fun how that works.

The nuan­ces of not going to war.

Reinventing Czechias, Lituhanias and Slovakias Democratic Image

17. Februar 2022

By GLOBSEC Poli­cy Insti­tu­te, AMO, Free­dom House Lit­hua­nia, and the GMFUS.

Good to know that not only Chi­na is buy­ing influ­ence by cour­ting smal­ler coun­tries wit­hin the EU (*wave bund­le of cash emo­ji*) for poli­ti­cal moti­ves. Just throw in the word demo­cra­cy about 200 times and you should be fine.

Keep Germany down

17. Februar 2022

Sh*t, a for­mer US ambassa­dor is not on message.

Bet­ter not report any of it in the main­stream of wes­tern media. Bet­ter not ask him to com­ment. Bet­ter make up tal­king points (to be used in polit talk­shows), that the issue star­ted in the ear­ly nine­ties. Bet­ter finan­ce think­tanks and ent­i­re insti­tu­tes ful­ly. Bet­ter push for state­ments of non ger­man poli­ti­ci­ans about ger­ma­nys poli­tics, and take over the media cir­cuit to make the inqui­ry “if ger­ma­ny is not in line with US announ­ce­ments” an accu­sa­ti­on and the most pres­sing issue over the past week.

Bet­ter go with wes­tern propaganda.

Mat­lock has taught diplo­ma­cy at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and Hamil­ton Col­le­ge. In a 1997 inter­view, Mat­lock offers some advice to pro­spec­ti­ve diplo­mats: have an opti­mistic natu­re, get a libe­ral edu­ca­ti­on, do not expect to chan­ge the world, know the coun­try, know your own coun­try, faith­ful­ly repre­sent your government, find the mutu­al inte­rests, and remem­ber that timing is ever­ything.[13]

[…]

Sin­ce lea­ving government ser­vice, Mat­lock has occa­sio­nal­ly joi­ned with other experts to cri­ti­ci­ze U.S. for­eign poli­cy. On June 26, 1997, he signed an Open Let­ter to Pre­si­dent Bill Clin­ton cri­ti­ci­zing plans for NATO expan­si­on.[60] His rea­son for oppo­si­ti­on, as given in tes­ti­mo­ny befo­re the Sena­te For­eign Rela­ti­ons Com­mit­tee, was his belief that NATO expan­si­on would pre­clu­de signi­fi­cant nuclear arms reduc­tion with Rus­sia, and con­se­quent­ly incre­a­se the risk of a nuclear attack by ter­ro­rists.[61]

Mat­lock drew the ire of many Repu­bli­cans during the 2004 pre­si­den­ti­al elec­tion cam­pai­gn when he signed the Offi­cial State­ment of Diplo­mats and Mili­ta­ry Com­man­ders for Chan­ge, which cri­ti­ci­zed the poli­ci­es of Pre­si­dent Geor­ge W. Bush and endor­sed Sena­tor John Ker­ry for pre­si­dent.[62]

On Jan 4, 2007, Mat­lock joi­ned with Geor­ge Shultz, Wil­liam Per­ry, Hen­ry Kis­sin­ger and Sam Nunn to advo­ca­te a goal of a world free of nuclear wea­pons.[63] On 23 Sep­tem­ber 2008 after a two-day con­fe­rence at the Car­ne­gie Endow­ment for Inter­na­tio­nal Peace, he joi­ned several other for­mer ambassa­dors to issue a joint state­ment on how Rus­sia and the United Sta­tes might move for­ward in their rela­ti­ons.[64] He has endor­sed the Glo­bal Zero Initia­ti­ve, a plan to eli­mi­na­te all nuclear wea­pons by 2030.[65] Mat­lock has also signed an open let­ter of May 13, 2011 asking the imple­men­tors of the New START trea­ty bet­ween the U.S. Rus­sia to make public the loca­ti­ons and aggre­ga­te num­bers of nuclear wea­pons, in order to pro­mo­te trans­pa­ren­cy and redu­ce mistrust.[66][67]

On Jan 18, 2011 he co-signed an open let­ter to Pre­si­dent Oba­ma urging a United Nati­ons reso­lu­ti­on con­dem­ning Israe­li sett­le­ments in the occu­p­ied ter­ri­to­ry.[68]

Mat­lock has been open­ly cri­ti­cal of the Ame­ri­can mass media’s coverage of the Ukrai­ne cri­sis. On Jan 26, 2022 he publis­hed an review of Richard Sakwa’s arti­cle “Whis­per it, but Putin has a point in Ukrai­ne” on his per­so­nal blog, sta­ting agree­ment that Rus­sia desi­res a neu­tral Ukrai­ne and pushing back against claims that Rus­sia seeks to annex Ukrai­ne.[69] On Feb 15, 2022, he publis­hed an op-ed in Antiwar.com, ques­tio­ning the vali­di­ty of the media nar­ra­ti­ve around the cur­rent sta­te of Russia–Ukraine rela­ti­ons, sta­ting “May­be I am wrong – tra­gi­cal­ly wrong – but I can­not dis­miss the sus­pi­ci­on that we are wit­nessing an ela­bo­ra­te cha­ra­de, gross­ly magni­fied by pro­mi­nent ele­ments of the Ame­ri­can media, to ser­ve a domestic poli­ti­cal end.”[70]

src: click

Nord Stream 2 will not become operational if Russia attacks Ukraine

15. Februar 2022

Josep Bor­rell says it’s ‘qui­te rea­son­ab­le and qui­te clear’ that con­tro­ver­si­al pipe­line would be stop­ped in event of a Rus­si­an invasion.

[…]

Spea­king on BBC Radio 4’s Today pro­gram about poten­ti­al sanc­tions on Rus­sia, Bor­rell said it was “qui­te rea­son­ab­le and qui­te clear” that Nord Stream 2 “will not” be allo­wed to ope­ra­te in the event of a Rus­si­an strike.

src: click

Without words.

Oh lord, let me be your servant, lord…!

15. Februar 2022

Über­schrift bezieht sich auf den sel­ben Komi­ker, der unten die Rüs­tungs­stra­te­gie der US auch für den Lai­en begreif­bar macht - und soll in etwa aus­drü­cken - die US sind so von ihren lei­der nicht wähl­ba­ren Eli­ten indok­tri­niert und in Sach­zwän­gen gebun­den, dass sie ger­ne für die Mobi­li­sie­rung ihrer Wäh­ler­schich­ten im mitt­le­ren Wes­ten einen dege­ne­rier­ten ultra­kon­ser­va­ti­ven Got­tes­pre­di­ger an die Staats­spit­ze wäh­len, der im Ide­al­fall glaubt Got­tes Werk zu voll­enden. Weil dann hat er genug Demut und schaut auch auf die Leu­te - oder irgend ein Bullsh*t den nie­mand beim zwei­ten Hin­se­hen auch nur annä­hernd glaubt, aber der die emo­tio­na­le Ent­schei­dungs­fin­dung der Wäh­ler highjackt.

Das war vor 30 Jah­ren. So alt war der Sager des Komi­kers. Heu­te ist das alles noch ein wenig degenerierter…

Was war noch­mal Bidens Ticket ins Oval Office? Jahr­zehn­te­lan­ge pro­ze­du­ra­le Erfah­rung in Poli­tik und Ver­wal­tung, sowie Sach­kom­pe­tenz, oder?

Für NBC reichts.

Oh bit­te und auch inhalt­lich dran­blei­ben. “The­re was no way, we would ever going to unite Afgha­ni­stan, no way that was gon­na hap­pen.” Oh REALLY? Geschichts­stun­de? Kurz­zu­sam­men­fas­sung der Pres­se­mit­tei­lun­gen des Außen­am­tes seit 2001? Größ­ter Feh­ler im Wie­der­auf­bau­pro­zess des Iraks? Aber wenns der Gott­kai­ser voll der Gna­den, dem Idio­ten von NBC in nem per­sön­li­chen Inter­view ver­zählt wie alter­na­tiv­los das war, dann muss das wohl schon immer die Wahr­heit gewe­sen sein. Bloß nicht die Posi­ti­on bei Kriegs­be­ginn nachschlagen.

Das war der Moment in dem die Posi­ti­on geän­dert wurde -

und das hier war die Posi­ti­on zu Kriegs­be­ginn (im zwei­ten Absatz ange­ris­sen).

Für NBC reichts.