NATO GANGSTERISM

PEPE ESCOBAR—ISIS-K, which sports a global jihadi mindset, has typically viewed the Taliban as a group of dirty nationalists. Earlier jihadi members used to be recruited from the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Yet now, apart from former soldiers, they are mostly young, disaffected urban Afghans, westernized by trashy pop culture.

It’s been hard for ISIS-K to establish the narrative that the Taliban are western collaborators – considering that the NATO galaxy continues to antagonize and/or dismiss the new rulers of Kabul.

PEPE ESCOBAR—No one ever lost money underestimating NATO’s capacity to reach the depths of inconsequential stupidity. Moscow does not even bother to talk to these clowns anymore: as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has pointed out, “Russia will no longer pretend that some changes in relations with NATO are possible in the near future.”

Moscow from now on only talks to the masters – in Washington. After all, the direct line between the Chief of General Staff, General Gerasimov, and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General Todd Wolters, remains active. Messenger boys such as Stoltenberg and the massive NATO bureaucracy in Brussels are deemed irrelevant.

ANDREI MARTYANOV—As I am on record for years–I feel better when Russian and American militaries speak to each other. Russia, obviously, is not going to allow US troops to be stationed in all those Stans, but I want to stress another tremendously important point: there IS a very real threat of Jihad and terrorism which should not be discounted against the background of the US escape from Afghanistan. We can only speculate (yet again) on the complexity of this issue, but it is an established fact that exchanges between Russia and the US regarding these matters exist and [the practice] is steady.

Vladimir Orlov, a military analyst and expert at the Center for Political and Military Journalism, told PolitRussia about two modern anti-missile systems that the Americans could transfer to Ukraine. First of all he is talking about Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems, which Americans sell to the whole world. Their effectiveness has been repeatedly questioned, especially after the incident with the Yemeni Houthis’ missile strike on the oil rigs of Saudi Arabia.

“If the U.S. places such systems in Ukraine, it won’t make much difference,” the expert opined.

Another thing is if the Americans decide to send the THAAD system to Ukraine.

STALKER ZONE— On September 8, the Riga District Court confirmed the decision of the Vidzeme District Court that human rights activist and scientist Aleksandr Gaponenko committed a criminal offence by spreading anti-fascist statements. For these “crimes”, the court punished the scientist with 10 months in prison. He was awarded a suspended sentence and two years of probation.

This is a landmark decision, since previously anti-fascists in Latvia were persecuted only by the secret police and they did it surreptitiously. The decision of the Riga Court of September 8 means that the state has resorted to institutional means of reprisals against anti-fascists. Indirectly, the court’s decision recognised that fascism is a key element of the state ideology, an element that cannot be criticised under the threat of criminal punishment.