EDITOR—The idea of NATO troops to Ukraine is a nonstarter, opines Garland Nixon. Neither the US, nor the West, have the capability now to match Russia and her allies in terms of military hardware output and quality, nor in the superiority of her battle-hardened armies. We are watching the spectacular collapse of an Empire. Meanwhile, other aggressive parts of the Empire can’t even properly defend themselves, as was demonstrated during the Iranian drone/missile attack on Israel. It took the assets of the collective West to degrade a bit the Iranian assault and even then they could not stop (as they claim) many of Tehran’s missiles.
IMPERIALISM
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JEFF J. BROWN—”The ROK Right-wing, as I said, is descended from people who collaborated with the Japanese in the colonial occupation and benefitted from Japan’s annexation of Korea.
The ROK’s wealthy elite have simply switched one master for another. They worship big powers and hate their own countrymen. They hate Korea and love Japan and America. They want ROK to be subordinated to Japan and USA forever because they benefit from such a state…”
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How America’s Military-Industrial Complex Wins All of Its Wars Against America’s Taxpayers
by eric zuesse15 minutes readERIC ZUESSE—The “Supplemental” this year (Ukraine+Gaza+Taiwan) totals to $95.3B, which causes the original $886B ‘Defense’ (or Aggression) budget for this fiscal year to be: $886B+752.5B+95.3B=$1,733,800 billion, or $1.734T. However, even that is incomplete, because the entire U.S. intelligence community, CIA, DIA, and the many others, is classified, its budgets are secret, hidden from the public, and, of course, these are also important parts of the U.S. military; so, perhaps annual U.S. military spending is now around $2T. On 12 March 2024, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence headlined “DNI RELEASES FY 2025 BUDGET REQUEST FIGURE FOR THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM” and publicly revealed (in accord with a 2007 law) “the aggregate amount of $73.4 billion in requested appropriations for the Fiscal Year 2025 National Intelligence Program (NIP),” and on 20 April 2024 I shall request from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community the IC’s latest Audit Report in order to determine how complete that $73.4B figure is. I start with the assumption that it is the bare minimum of what the complete number is, and that what the maximum might be, and what the reality is, have remained top secret in this dictatorship.
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SCOTT RITTER; CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND IRAN, WHAT IS IT REALLY ABOUT?
by Scott Ritter7 minutes readEDITOR—Scott Ritter presents his uniquely insightful analysis of events in the Middle East and beyond offering clarification for the moves by various players in a confrontation —especially US, Iran and Israel—that could easily escalate into a global conflagration.
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Occupied Nation: How the CIA Created Modern Germany
28 minutes readKIT KLARENBERG—Those few analysts who predicted the invasion of Ukraine well in advance universally failed to anticipate Berlin would support and facilitate any U.S. counterattack, particularly in the financial sphere. They believed Germany possessed the requisite autonomy and sense not to commit willful economic suicide in service of Empire. After all, the country’s stability, prosperity and power were heavily dependent on cheap, readily accessible Russian energy. Voluntarily ending that supply would be inescapably disastrous. For this failure, they can be forgiven. Berlin, particularly in the wake of reunification, has successfully presented itself to the world as sovereign, led by sensible people acting in the best interests of their nation, and Europe. In truth, ever since 1945, Germany has been a heavily occupied nation, drowning under the weight of U.S. military installations, and its politics, society and culture aggressively shaped and influenced by the CIA.