Musings from the Margins #2: From Atlanta and Haiti, to Niger, the Western War Against Africans and Collective Humanity Intensifies

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​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka
BAR editor and columnist
BLACK AGENDA REPORT

Image: BookmanAcademy.com

The war against Africans intensifies, the puppets and stooges do as they are ordered, while others are satisfied with empty gestures. But the revolutionary path is unchanged, as Ajamu Baraka explains in his observations of the current moment.

1) The term “Black Misleadership Class,” was a popularization by the late Bruce Dixon in the pages of Black Agenda Report (BAR) of a very serious concept rooted in an understanding of the class dynamics and structures of late or monopoly capitalism in the Western colonial/capitalist states and the neocolonial state relationships between those Western states and the still colonized world – albeit with flag independence. Within the West and particularly in the U.S., Bruce and the writers at BAR identified the professional/administrative petit bourgeoisie as the “Black Misleadership class.” Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral and others identified that same petit-bourgeois and aspiring bourgeois class as the “misleaders” in Africa.

2) Today the petit-bourgeois class, from Atlanta that is championing Cop City, to Haiti where it is opening the door to another violent assault from the White West, to the puppet states in West Africa threatening intervention against Niger, are the shameless servants to white colonial power. Targeting and overthrowing that class element must be seen as a central strategic target for advancing the global African revolutionary project.

3) Uncle Tomism functions at an international level. Congressmen Hakeem Jeffries and Gregory Meeks, and Vice President Kamala Harris are all buck-dancing Negros for white power.

4) Rwanda’s intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo to protect U.S. and Western mining interests, support for the racist deportation of policies of the U.K., from which deportees from Africa are being sent to Rwanda, to the role that Rwanda troops were solicited to play in Mozambique to protect French natural gas interests, all make president Paul Kagame the biggest Uncle Tom, house Negro on the continent.

Paul Kagame has long been a tool of Western imperialism.

5) The one thing the current crisis is exposing and can never be completely reversed, is the class basis of state policies. That is why a working class-based political challenge, even a social democratic one, would be deeply threatening to the capitalist dictatorship.

6) South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa sent letters of invitation to 70 countries for the upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa. Guess who didn’t make the cut – U.S., UK and France.

7) Even though President Ramaphosa can appear militant by not inviting key Western nations, his people will not forget that he caved to pressure from the white capitalist class in South Africa that was allowed to keep their blood money from centuries of exploiting Africans by essentially disinviting President Putin from attending in person. South African capital supported the demands from the West that Putin not attend because he is supposed to be a war criminal. Imagine that – Western nations claiming the moral high ground on international criminality.

8) How revolutionary is the call for reparations within the ongoing existence of a settler-colonial state? It seems like the way the demand for reparations is framed by non-radical liberal forces makes the issue deeply conservative.

The logic of reparations seems to depend on two things from Africans: recognition of the existing state which confers and affirms its legitimacy, even while demanding restitution or repair, and secondly and more contradictorily, the demand for reparations from the existing state creates a convergence of interest between the aggrieved group and the state to maintain the viability of the state in order for the state to be in a position to provide repair!

Even if the state conceded to the demand in whatever form agreed to – that is highly unlikely because African revolutionary forces don’t have the institutional power to force that concession from the state and if we had that power, we would be well on the way to overthrowing the state where real and substantial reparatory power would occur.

9) The responsibility of the revolutionary at the center of the empire is to help to inoculate the masses against the crude propaganda that is still able to mobilize the multinational working class and colonized masses to embrace policies and a worldview that is counter to their objective interests.

10) Both bourgeois parties are involved in a systematic assault on democracy and human rights. The task of revolutionaries must be to defend democracy and struggle for people(s)-centered human rights as part of the transitional program toward socialist reconstruction.

11) For the U.S. and its Western allies, intervention in Haiti is not a criminal assault but a rescue mission even though the Haitian people said they don’t need to be rescued by the White West. What they want is for the “collective West” to stop interfering in their national affairs and respect their sovereignty.

12) After having set the stage for an armed intervention into Haiti because the Biden administration cares so much about Black life and democracy, the Biden administration searched for a Black face for its white power move on Haiti. For months it cajoled and threatened but it couldn’t find a state in the Americas region beyond the pathetic little mini states of Jamaica and the Bahamas willing to kill Haitians and die for the U.S.

13) Kenya with the help from Rwanda and the blessings of the Caribbean Union (CARICOM), as the front organization, was selected to serve as the strike force for the assault on Haiti and the Haitian people. Both states were happy to accommodate and stated that they saw their role as the realization of Pan-African solidarity, and, therefore, a duty.

And the response from the white left, the Black misleadership class and even some elements of the Black left to this expression of neoliberal Pan Africanism – crickets.

14) “Biden signs proclamation to honor Emmett Till with a national monument.” I can’t wait for the day when Black people reject any symbolic gestures from this settler state. We don’t want to be on your money, postal stamps and you can also take back Juneteenth but still give the people off on that day.

15) The opportunism and immorality of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is consistent with Democrats who can't even call out the obvious racism of Israel.

16) Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, AOC, the squad, they all need to go. Anti-imperialists, the poor and the working class have no representation in the fake capitalist democracy monopolized by two corporate parties. This is why I'm a socialist and committed to People(s) Center Human Rights and radical change.

17) We are supposed to go along with the fiction that Netanyahu is more than a white supremacist fascist and international criminal. Oh, and tell the Palestinians living under a brutal fascist occupation that you can't be a fascist and Jewish. Palestinians have human rights.

18) Before Anderson Cooper's discussion (interrogation) of Cornel West's stance on NATO and Biden's war in Ukraine, can anyone remember another anti-war voice being given space in the capitalist media at that level? But hey, in this Orwellian context we shouldn't be surprised.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Ajamu Baraka is Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition..

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France never stopped looting Africa, now the tables are turning

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Brad Pearce
THE CRADLE

With the fear factor finally removed, Africa’s quest for genuine independence is steadily coming to fruition.

The 26 July coup in the West African nation of Niger, which threatens to undermine French and US military presence in the region, has shed light on the historical exploitation and continued practices of Francafrique - the term used to describe the persistent exploitation by the former French Empire in Africa.

France heavily relies on nuclear energy, with 68 percent of its power coming from nuclear plants. It obtains 19 percent of the uranium required to run these plants from Niger. Despite this significant contribution toward France's energy needs, only 14.3 percent of Nigeriens have access to a power grid, and even that is often unreliable. This stark contrast highlights the disparities and ongoing exploitation by rapine foreign powers throughout the African continent. 

The Legacy of Francafrique

Francafrique has been known for its exploitative systems designed to profit from African resources, using pressure, capital, and frequently outright force to maintain control over its former empire. As a result, many African states, including Niger, continue to face poverty and underdevelopment.

Burkina Faso’s young, charismatic leader Ibrahim Traore recently spoke at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg and decried the fact that Africa is resource-rich, but its people are poor, and criticized African leaders seeking hand-outs from the west, as they perpetuate dependency and poverty. He also described what is being imposed on Africa as a form of slavery, stating:

“As far as what concerns Burkina Faso today, for more than eight years we’ve been confronted with the most barbaric, the most violent form of imperialist neo-colonialism. Slavery continues to impose itself on us. Our predecessors taught us one thing: a slave who cannot assume his own revolt does not deserve to be pitied. We do not feel sorry for ourselves, we do not ask anyone to feel sorry for us.”

France's inability to justify its presence in Africa with a coherent narrativefurther complicates the situation. Paris cannot openly confess its greed, feign a "civilizing mission," or admit to any responsibility due to its past crimes. This lack of purpose weakens French power on the continent, leading to violence and poverty in its wake.

West Africa's drive for further independence has left Atlanticists concerned about the opening this leaves for Eurasian powers like Russia and China to increase their influence in Africa. The West's reaction reflects a lack of respect for the sovereignty of African countries, viewing the continent merely as a theater to maintain global dominance.

Since the Ukraine war's onset in early 2022, Atlanticists have expressed alarm over the unwillingness of Global South states to support the west's anti-Russia policies, a trend further amplified by the shift to multipolarism everywhere. This weakening of western hegemony has opened a path for many nations to avidly explore their geopolitical options and diversify their economies.

A report from the Munich Security Conference held in February highlighted this very real schism with the West:

“Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have steadily lost faith in the legitimacy and fairness of an international system which has neither granted them an appropriate voice in global affairs, nor sufficiently addressed their core concerns. To many states, these failures are deeply tied to the west. They find that the western-led order has been characterized by post-colonial domination, double standards, and neglect for developing countries' concerns.”

Fleeced by the CFA Franc

The aftermath of the Second World War marked a significant shift in global power dynamics, and the victorious powers sought to establish a new world order that would maintain peace and promote economic balance. 

In the context of African colonies, where colonial troops played a major role in the allied victory, the victorious powers, including France, aimed to retain economic control and benefit from their former colonies even as the world moved towards decolonization.

This included the establishment of new currency systems, with French leader Charles De Gaulle creating two currencies collectively known as the CFA Franc in 1945 for former colonies in the Western and Central zone.

As the push for political independence grew stronger in the late 1950s, France organized referendums in its African colonies to vote on accepting a constitution drafted by the French. 

Guinea, led by former trade unionist Sekou Toure, opposed accepting the French constitution and voted overwhelmingly against it. In a furious response, De Gaulle’s government withdrew all French administrators from Guinea and took action to sabotage the country's infrastructure and resources. The harsh measures by Paris aimed to serve as an example of what would happen to any former French colony that resisted France's agenda.

During the Cold War, the Communist states exploited such actions by presenting themselves as liberators and allies of African countries that sought independence from European influence. This stance has led to some Africans viewing countries like Russia as more equitable partners compared to France.

Over the years, France has demonstrated a pattern of intervening militarily - over 50 times since 1960 - in African countries to secure governments that remain compliant with French economic interests, particularly related to the continued use of the CFA Franc.

The system by which the CFA Franc operates has historically been one of a fixed exchange rate where the currency has unlimited convertibility but is permanently pegged to the French currency, previously the Franc and then the Euro. 

African currency under French control

This means that African countries cannot influence the value of their own currency, and the difference in value makes it so that France can buy African products artificially cheap while Africans are able to buy fewer goods with the money they exchange.

Worse yet, France had requirements to store, and thus profit from, the foreign reserves owned by its former colonies, though the requirement of holding 50 percent of their foreign exchange reserves in a French-ran bank was dropped for the western zone in 2019. 

Under this scheme, African states received a nominal amount of interest, but the bank benefited from lending that capital out at higher rates and attaining massive profits off of African resources and labor. This is despite the fact that many countries in Francophone Africa are major gold exporters and thus have a multitude of options for storing wealth to back a currency in alternative central banks.

While the CFA Franc system has provided some benefits in terms of stability and preventing Zimbabwean-style hyperinflation, it has also come under scrutiny for imposing requirements on African countries that are not placed on more powerful nations. The lack of control over their own currency has hindered economic growth and made these countries vulnerable to global economic shocks.

Northern African states such as Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco chose to leave the CFA Franc upon gaining independence and have experienced relatively higher prosperity. Similarly, Botswana's success with its own national currency demonstrates that proper management can lead to stable democracy and economic growth, even for less developed nations.

Exclusive rights and privileges

The CFA Franc system has been the geopolitical equivalent of one’s father insisting he manages their savings while leaving them out of his will. There are benefits to having a trade and currency zone, such as the current ECOWAS union that covers the Western part of the continent, but by design under the CFA Franc system, independence has been an illusion by which France has fleeced these countries. 

France has been dependent on Africa for its status as a world power for more than a century. Among other privileges it has carved out for itself in post-colonial treaties, France has had the exclusive right to sell military equipment to former colonies, and enjoys the first right to any natural resources discovered. Paris makes great use of these privileges: as just one example, 36.4 percent of France’s gas is sourced from the African continent.

Moreover, a vast network of French business interests, which include major multinational companies, dominate industries such as energy, communications, and transportation in many African countries. France's government also supports French businesses in Africa in several ways, including through an enormous public company called COFACE which guarantees French exports into these underdeveloped markets. 

Towards independence and self-reliance

This economic dependence has contributed to the perpetuation of a system where African states remain weak, pliant, and reliant on resource exports, primarily benefiting French companies and interests. Additionally, African states are obligated to ally with France in any major conflict, further eroding their national sovereignty. 

The African continent suffers from many ailments, but perhaps the most persistent and nefarious are a lack of sovereignty and access to capital. Meanwhile, much of Europe’s prosperity has been derived from looting the Global South for centuries. 

The case of Brussels, built on the wealth derived from the brutal exploitation of the Congo under Belgian King Leopold II, is a stark reminder of the deep-rooted impact of colonialism. When the monarch’s crimes against humanity were discovered, he was ultimately forced to bequeath the majority of his fortune to the Belgian state upon his death. 

Not wanting to do so, he embarked on an enormous series of public works to spend his ill-gotten gains, creating modern Brussels. Now the EU and NATO meet there and audaciously give disingenuous lectures about universal human rights while surrounded by the profits of some of the most brutal cases of oppression in human history. 

While military governments often face challenges in achieving their stated goals, it is evident that Western-backed "civil democracies" have also struggled to significantly improve the security and well-being of the African public. 

The path to solving Africa's problems lies in transformative leaders who can shrug off the legacy and remaining shackles of colonialism and enable the continent to carve out a genuine, homegrown path to independence and self-reliance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Brad Pearce writes about issues of colonialism and anti-imperialist struggles.

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Reader-Comments at Russia’s RT News, And Censorship in America

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Eric Zuesse

On March 20th, Russia’s RT News headlined “US announces more weapons for Ukraine”, and reported that, “The US Department of Defense announced on Monday that it will send Ukraine another $350 million worth of military aid. The further supplies come as Ukraine reportedly gears up for a spring offensive, despite suffering heavy losses in Donbas. The package is the 34th tranche of military aid doled out to Ukraine by the US since August 2021. … The US has given Ukraine more than $32.5 billion in military aid since last February, out of more than $110 billion allocated by the administration of US President Joe Biden for military and economic assistance to Kiev.”

Some reader-comments there were against Russia’s Government, such as “Trish: What a disaster for Russia, the sooner Putin goes the better.” But others were instead against America’s Government, such as “TBTB: And the US says it is not party the war? It instigated it with NATO expansion to Russia's borders, a coup in Ukraine to install a neo-Nazi proxy regime, arming it, training it, financing it, providing it with war plans and intelligence, plus mercenaries and diplomatic support. If this is not being party to the conflict, at minimum, then when Russia hits back no one should be surprised. It is self-defense. It has already knocked out a US sophisticated spying drone that was collecting intelligence on live combat and passing it to its neo-Nazis to kill Russians.”

Whereas the comment from “Trish” is similar to many that I have read at U.S. news-sites, the one from “TBTB” is so fundamentally different from that American norm so that it raises the question as to whether it is reflecting information that appears on Russian news-sites but not on American ones. If that is the case, then why would that be so? Is it because the comment reflects realities that are hidden in U.S. news-media, or instead because it reflects non-realities that are prohibited to be published in the U.S.?

If it reflects realities that are hidden in U.S. news-media, then why would ANY realities be hidden in U.S. news-media? Should they be?

If it instead reflects non-realities that are prohibited to be published in the U.S., then who is doing this censorship and who ought to be legally authorized to make such censorship-decisions in the U.S.? Is there a severe need in the U.S. for new legislation which will delineate how news-censorship in the U.S. is to be done? Would it be best to continue the current legal standard in America that censorship in America is ONLY a private right of publishers, and NOT a right that America’s Government has? Since 95%+ of the news that Americans receive is from organizations that are controlled by America’s fewer-than-a-thousand billionaires, is almost all of the censorship in America being done on behalf of those fewer-than-a-thousand billionaires? If so, then how is that affecting U.S. politics and the Government itself?

America’s Founders, who wrote the U.S. Constitution including its First Amendment, gave no indication that when they wrote and the states passed into law the First Amendment, the objective was to give America’s richest one-hundred-thousandth of the U.S. population in the future the exclusive ultimate power to censor the news that the American public will be receiving.

Of course, this is an enormous problem in America if the reader-comment is entirely true that “The US ... is not party the war? It instigated it with NATO expansion to Russia's borders, a coup in Ukraine to install a neo-Nazi proxy regime, arming it, training it, financing it, providing it with war plans and intelligence, plus mercenaries and diplomatic support. If this is not being party to the conflict, at minimum, then when Russia hits back no one should be surprised. It is self-defense. It has already knocked out a US sophisticated spying drone that was collecting intelligence on live combat and passing it to its neo-Nazis to kill Russians.” That would then be a deeply and dangerously dysfunctional U.S. Government. Would it be an authentically Constitutional U.S. Government?

However, if that reader-comment is false, then why has no evidence been presented to the American public that each one of that comment’s clauses and assumptions is false? Would not even that indicate a very deep dysfunctionality to today’s American press? If the comment is false, why have all U.S. news-media not, in regard to each of its clauses, disclosed evidence that it is false?

Either way, have not America’s news-media failed? And, if the news-media have failed, then isn’t America’s Government even worse — and constantly violating its Constitution? Or: Did America’s Founders WANT there to be a widely deceived American public?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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Biden Keeps Lying About The US “Not Trying To Surround” China

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Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST
THIS IS A REPOST • FIRST RUN ON JULY 10, 2023

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

President Biden had a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria during which he defended his controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine and suggested that the US can continually support Ukraine the way it supports Israel rather than adding it to the NATO alliance.

About halfway through the interview Biden said something about China that’s worth flagging, because the claim he makes is self-evidently false, and it’s not the first time he’s made it.

Describing the conversations he’s been having with China’s President Xi Jinping, Biden said the following:

“We’re going to put together the Quad which is India, Australia, the United States and Japan. I got a call from him [Xi] on that. He said why are you doing that. I said we’re not doing that to surround you, we’re doing that to maintain stability in the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea. Because we believe the rules of the road about what constitutes international air space, international space and the water should be maintained.”

Biden uttered this same bogus talking point about not trying to surround China last month at the private fundraising event where he made headlines by calling Xi a “dictator”:

“But what he was really upset about was that I insisted that we — we reunite the Qu- — so-called Quad. He called me and told me not to do that because it was putting him in a bind. I said, All we’re doing — we’re not trying to surround you, we’re just trying to make sure the international rules with air and sea lanes remain open.”

instituting the AUKUS alliance which is specifically set up to menace China, moving nuclear-capable bombers to Indonesia, signing a military deal with Papua New Guinea, working to station missile-armed marines at Japan’s Okinawa islands, staging provocations in Taiwan, and getting into increasingly confrontational encounters with Chinese military vessels and aircraft off China’s coast as part of its dramatically increased military presence in the area.

So of course the US is trying to surround China, as evidenced by the mountains of US war machinery that are being moved into areas surrounding China. Biden can babble all he wants about wanting to secure sea lanes and protect international waters, but only a drooling idiot would believe the world’s most powerful empire is militarily surrounding its top geopolitical rival as an act of defense.

And Beijing is under no illusions about this. Xi said in a speech earlier this year that “Western countries — led by the U.S. — have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us, bringing unprecedentedly severe challenges to our country’s development.”

So Biden isn’t trying to fool the Chinese government with his “We’re not trying to surround you” schtick — he’s trying to fool you. He’s trying to fool the Western public and the allies of the United States, who would get spooked if the US president openly admitted to a deliberate campaign of military encirclement against an economic superpower they all trade with extensively.

You simply cannot understand the geopolitics and major conflicts of the 2020s without understanding that the US empire has been actively amassing military threats in the immediate surroundings of its top two rivals — China and Russia — that it would never tolerate anyone else amassing anywhere near the United States. The single dumbest thing the US empire asks us to believe nowadays is that surrounding its two biggest foes with war machinery is a defensive action, rather than an act of extreme aggression.

The best advice I can offer about US-China tensions is to ignore the words and watch the actions. Ignore what officials say about wanting peace and not trying to surround China and supporting the One China policy etc, and just watch all the US war machinery that’s being rapidly added to that region. The US empire is better at international narrative manipulation than any power structure that has ever existed in human history, but what they can’t spin away is the concrete maneuverings of solid pieces of war machinery, because they are physical realities and not narratives.

All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone


Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 
 

 

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Source: Wagner Could Fall Into Enemy Hands

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DEBORAH L. ARMSTRONG

It's clear that many Africans see Russia as different from other European states. They actually see Moscow as a savior agains their white colonizers.

After nearly two months of silence, which began when Yevgeny Prigozhin led some 8,000 Wagner troops on an “armed rebellion” that ended with his apparent ouster in Belarus, my source on all things Wagner has resurfaced with concerns about the future of the private military company.

In recent years, the PMC “Orchestra” performed in military operations in Syria and Ukraine and provided security in troubled African countries where it fought terrorism and protected state leaders. Though Wagner has gained a reputation on par with the finest armies in the world, the organization is currently in a difficult position with its leadership in question. My source expressed concerns that a loss of control over Wagner could pose serious threats to the Russian Federation.

 

Wagner has handled complex military assignments in all kinds of geopolitical and geographical conditions despite speculation about their activities. Up until now, the PMC has been operating under the control of well-trained regular armies, and Russian leadership has guided the private company in urban assaults and heavy combat missions in Ukraine.

But in spite of the Musicians’ participation in the defense of Russian national interests, it remains a private organization and its role is determined by its direct leadership, which is in question now. Aside from its service to Russia, Wagner has operated as a private business where its priority is profit and its customers are willing to pay. This means that the PMC can be influenced by outside interests which might not be in alignment with Russia’s priorities.

Wagner’s highly trained and experienced fighters could be in demand by other world leaders, especially in the African continent, where the PMC could play a deciding role. This might attract leaders whose interests are not necessarily in lockstep with the Kremlin. And if the Orchestra falls into the hands of unscrupulous leaders during this chaotic time of geopolitical upheavals, there could be serious consequences for Moscow not just in Africa but in other parts of the world. This is the concern my source contacted me with.

But former US Marine Corps Intelligence Officer, Major Scott Ritter, thinks such concerns are overblown.

Scott Ritter during his recent book tour in Russia. Photo: Scott Ritter Extra

“I think the last thing Wagner will ever do is put itself at odds with the Kremlin,” Ritter told me via direct messaging on Facebook. “Wagner’s future is in Africa for the time being. This role cannot be carried out without the blessing, formal or otherwise, of the Kremlin.”

Ritter is currently a respected author in the Russian realm, whose reports and analysis about the Ukrainian conflict have garnered the attention of hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise might still be watching, and believing, the propaganda dished out by mainstream news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the BBC, and all others whose editorial views are in alignment with the interests of their corporate owners.

 

The former UN nuclear weapons inspector, who publicly disagreed with claims that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, has been targeted by the mass media and social media networks which attempt to silence his dissenting views. In the latest round of punitive actions, the tech giant YouTube deleted his channel, and the channel of Jeff Norman, who produces the popular bi-weekly podcast, “Ask the Inspector.” The good news is that you can still catch his show on Rumble.

A screen shot of “Ask the Inspector” on Rumble. You can watch it by clicking in the video at the bottom of this article. .

As a journalist, I value Ritter’s expertise and knowledge of military tactics as well as his intelligence background and analytical skills, which is why I contacted him about my source’s latest revelations.

The Russian government needs to proceed cautiously, my source warns, in order to minimize potential risks and prevent negative consequences, given the potential that PMC Wagner could be misused.

However, it’s also important to note that Wagner’s fighters are not likely to be enthusiastic about any task that would threaten their homeland. At least, as far as any direct threat is concerned. But indirect threats might not be as much of a concern, according to my source, who advises the Russian government to closely monitor PMC Wagner and stay on alert.

Scott Ritter Extra Ep. 90: Ask the Inspector

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. You can support Deborah’s writing at Paypal or Patreon, or donate via Substack.

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