PEPE ESCOBAR sums up and explains the developing situation in the aftermath of Prigozhin’s death, his plane supposedly shot down by a missile—but whodunnit? He also delves into the prospects for Wagner in Africa Francophone and beyond, their immediate task to wipe out the US-controlled Jihadists wreaking havoc in the Sahel.
MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY—The SAC study includes chilling details. … the authors developed a plan for the “systematic destruction” of Soviet bloc urban-industrial targets that specifically and explicitly targeted “population” in all cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw. The SAC document includes lists of more than 1100 airfields in the Soviet bloc, with a priority number assigned to each base. A second list was of urban-industrial areas identified for “systematic destruction.” SAC listed over 1200 cities in the Soviet bloc, from East Germany to China, also with priorities established. Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively. Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145, including “population” targets. … According to the study, SAC would have targeted Air Power targets with bombs ranging from 1.7 to 9 megatons.
E.J. CURTIN—Nothing could be truer. When in 2014 the U.S. engineered the coup in Ukraine (coups being an American specialty), it allied itself with neo-Nazi forces to oppose Russia. This alliance should have shocked no one; it is the American way. Back in the 1980s when the U.S. was supporting death squads in Central America, Ronald Reagan told the world that “The Contras are the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers.” Now the Ukrainian president Zelensky is feted as a great hero, Biden telling him in an Oval Office visit that “it’s an honor to be by your side.” Such alliances are not anomalies but the crude reality of U. S. history.
CHRIS HEDGES—There was once a wing of the Democratic Party that stood up to the war industry. J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire, and, of course, Dennis Kucinich. But that was largely decades ago. The new Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America, but the arms industry. The massive military budget, $858 billion in military spending allocated for fiscal year 2023, is an increase of $45 billion over the Biden administration’s budget request, and nearly $80 billion more than the amount appropriated by Congress for the current fiscal year.
EDITOR—Russia has been observing and collecting intel on where Ukraine ammo/weapons dumps are for a long time, says Garland, and they use this constantly enhanced information to modulate the enemy’s options. In the case of the long-awaited (and announced!) “counter-offensive”, Moscow apparently has decided to decapitate the Ukrainian military’s options (read: NATO), by blowing up many of their critical logistical centers.
