by Ghassan and Intibah Kadi for the Saker Blog Who remembers the Herman’s Hermits and their 1967 song ‘There’s a Kind of Hush’? The hush the song speaks of is a hush of love, and it was a world of dreams in the sixties in the West, despite the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights protests in the USA and other global conflicts. The peace movements were strong and vibrant, and
By The Ister for the Saker Blog They say that great myths die hard, but as it fades into obscurity will anyone really miss the Saudi state? Because the Kingdom’s cosmopolitan elite longed to be like the West, they imported European sports cars and erected enormous skyrises using slave labor. Riyadh and Jeddah transformed into shopping centers and hubs of oligarchic largesse while the oil-rich sheiks appeased the conservative populace
Did they expect us to treat them with any respect? Roger Waters (The Final Cut) Long ago, I learned the hard way that what I call “professional ideologues” count every damn penny and I sure do NOT want you to post a full article of theirs, lest they threaten me with lawsuits (already happened twice): to them, money is far, far, more important than propagating any truths, believe me. So
By Pepe Escobar and first posted at Asia Times Moscow is painfully aware that the US/NATO “strategy” of containment of Russia is already reaching fever pitch. Again. This past Wednesday, at a very important meeting with the Federal Security Service board, President Putin laid it all out in stark terms: We are up against the so-called policy of containing Russia. This is not about competition, which is a natural thing
Middle East Observer Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTS8uVQl4QM Description: TV report on the strategic importance of Ma’rib province for the fate of the ongoing conflict in Yemen, particularly following reports that Sana’a-led forces were on the verge of taking control over the entire Ma’rib governate. Source: Al Maydeen TV (Important Note: Please help us keep producing independent translations for you by contributing as little as $1/month here: https://www.patreon.com/MiddleEastObserver?fan_landing=true) Transcript: Television presenter: Welcome. The Yemeni army and
Intro by the Saker: following my article on the situation in the Ukraine, I got the following email from a reader from Budapest: “You mention about how the Ukrainian government persecutes Russian speakers. In addition, they are also persecuting Hungarian speakers. They have been banning the Hungarian language, Hungarian flag, etc., and the Hungarian community has been threatened with graffiti about their extermination, typically sprayed on the Hungarian community centers,
[this analysis was written for the Unz Review] While the Ukraine has mostly been out of the news, there were bigger stories out there, things have gone disastrously wrong under “Ze” (Zelenskii) and the Ukraine is now looking at several time bombs which could explode at any minute. Here is a partial list of problems which the Ze administration will have to deal with in 2021: (in no particular order)
Original link: http://middleeastobserver.net/nasrallah-it-was-groups-trained-by-soleimani-that-drove-us-army-out-of-iraq-in-2011/ Description: In an extensive interview in late 2020, Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah provides a detailed explanation of the identity of the “resistance groups” that he says were responsible for militarily driving the U.S. army out of Iraq in 2011. Nasrallah explains that the overwhelming majority of the operations carried out on U.S. forces between 2003 and 2011 were carried out not by Al-Qaeda and its likes, but
by Ljubiša Malenica for the Saker Blog The abrupt dissolution of the USSR and the emergence of the United States as the sole superpower in the last decade of the twentieth century influenced both the political ordering of the world and the ideological foundation upon which said ordering relied. Where previously existed two conflicting worldviews, with their own specific characteristics, the end of the Soviet Union signaled the fall of
By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times The late Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski for some time dispensed wisdom as an oracle of US foreign policy, side by side with the perennial Henry Kissinger – who, in vast swathes of the Global South, is regarded as nothing but a war criminal. Brzezinski never achieved the same notoriety. At best he claimed bragging rights for giving the
By Larry Romanoff for the Saker Blog From their experiences in the formulation, manipulation and control of public perception and opinion with the CPI, both Lippman and Bernays later wrote of their open contempt for a “malleable and hopelessly ill-informed public” in America. (1) Lippmann had already written that the people in a democracy were simply “a bewildered herd” of “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders” (2) who should be maintained only
By Godfree Roberts – selected from his extensive weekly newsletter : Here Comes China You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe Having recently read Godfree’s latest book, Why China Rules the World, I learned about trial spots, the history of these and how basically everything that is accepted by the population, gets trialed first, by the population. We change pace on this regular sitrep and instead of bringing together a wide
by Francis Lee for the Saker Blog 1. Jack London and the Iron Heel The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel by the American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. It is considered to be one of the earliest examples of modern dystopian fiction. It was the fourth of London’s earlier output which included, People of the Abyss (which was in fact journalism rather than literature) and the two novels,
A good sub-title for this interview could be “Lavrov Unplugged”. A quote from the transcript (which incidentally was available faster than any other transcript from the The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation ): “… when it became clear that Russia did not want to live in the house of “a self-appointed boss,” all these complications began to emerge. …. All this started when this signal was not
By Nat South for the Saker Blog This is part of a series on air missions carried in proximity to Russian borders, (NATO members and Sweden), principally intelligence-gathering missions, supported by air tankers. Flights tracked were mostly either over the waters of the Baltic, Black Seas and more rarely, Barents Seas. The latest briefing follows on an article written back in May 2020, [1] on my blog with several visuals
Foreword by the Saker: Today I am not posting an analysis, but a recollection of an episode of my past. I hope that you, dear readers, will not mind. If you do, let me know and this will be the last one. Anyway, this is how one night I met a quite remarkable officer who later became a good friend. I first met Igor Morozov in 1991, in Moscow. I
A more sovereign Germany closer to Russia and China may be the straw that breaks the US hegemon’s back By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Last week we traced the necessary historical and geopolitical steps to understand Why Russia is driving the West crazy. And then, last Friday, right before the start of the Year of the Metal Ox, came the bombshell, delivered with customary
By Larry Romanoff for the Saker Blog In the revelation of propaganda as a tool of public mind control and its use for war marketing, it is worthwhile to examine the historical background of Bernays’ war effort. At the time, the European Zionist Jews had made an agreement with England to bring the US into the war against Germany, on the side of England, a favor for which England
from Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog The only optimistic part of President Joe Biden’s first foreign policy speech is, “We’re also stepping up our diplomacy to finish the war in Yemen — a war which has produced a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe. I’ve asked my Middle East squad to ensure our support for the United Nations-led initiative to enforce a truce, open humanitarian channels, and restore long-dormant peace talks.
By Pepe Escobar posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times Have an auspicious Year of the Ox, everybody. And to celebrate it in style, fleetingly alleviating our burden in these times of trouble, let’s plunge into a dream within a dream, going back to the future for a game-changing moment in Chinese history. Chinese New Year’s Day, 1272. At the time, that fell on January 18. Kublai Khan,
