THE WEST

Pasta and Fiorella engage in a wide-ranging discussion with Kharkov resident Gonzalo Lira about the current situation in Ukraine and the prospects for the near future, as the war seems to be progressing to a conclusion with a victory for Russian arms. Gonzalo states his views about the moral and sociopolitical implosion of the West, and his belief that the multilateral axis headed by Russia, Iran, and China may eventually conquer “the West” (AKA “the US Empire”), still being led to disaster by the warmongering sectors of the American ruling class.

PEPE ESCOBAR—What’s fascinating is that Ankara under Erdogan always seems to be exhibiting a sort of “devil may care” attitude.

Take the seemingly insoluble situation in the Idlib cauldron in northwest Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra – a.k.a. al-Qaeda in Syria – honchos are now involved in “secret” negotiations with Turkish-backed armed gangs, such as Ahrar al-Sharqiya, right in front of Turkish officials. The objective: to boost the number of jihadis concentrated in certain key areas. The bottom line: a large number of these will come from Jabhat al-Nusra.

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS—Most of the world sees this as “US gangsterism.”  But no one does anything about it.John Wight asks:  “Does anybody really think that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams care one bit about the welfare of the Venezuelan people? These are thugs in tailored suits whose views are far closer to Al Capone than to Thomas Jefferson.”  https://www.rt.com/news/452274-venezuela-us-intervention-gangsterism/President Maduro’s failure to arrest Juan Guaido, the puppet chosen by Washington to be the Empire’s front man in Venezuela, might spell the end of Venezuelan democracy.  The Venezuelan military will wonder why they are at risk when all Maduro has to do is to arrest Guaido, try the traitor, and execute him.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—The ‘hidden’ and extremely uncomfortable truth is: most of Southeast Asia is actually absolutely unfit for tourism. It is deeply, and terribly injured, even, a broken part of the world which has never been allowed to leave its brutal, feudal system behind. Its people are barely surviving in the straightjacket of extreme capitalism. All sorts of imported rubbish, from brainless pop music to the lowest grade of Hollywood films, junk food, mass media and ‘fashion’ as well as ‘me-me-me habits’ have been put to work in order to irreversibly ruin their traditional cultures. Generally, people here are unhappy; often thoroughly confused. Societies from Thailand to Indonesia and the Philippines are becoming increasingly violent.

Jordan, for its part, [as a longtime satellite of the West in the region] has also acknowledged that it allowed the UN to arrange for the entry and passage of 800 Syrian “civil defense workers,” according to Reuters, citing Mohammad al-Kayed, spokesman for the Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry. The Jordanian authorities later revisited the numbers, saying that only 422 White Helmets members have actually made it into the country.