#German Marshall Fund

[xtruss]

World: The West Isn't Buying Into China's Year of Diplomacy

Chinese President Xi Jinping at a press conference in Shaanxi, on May 19, 2023. A new poll indicates that the West does not believe that China is contributing to Global Security. Florence Lo/Pool/AFP Via Getty Images

Western nations increasingly see China as an interventionist power that is not improving global security, according to recent polling, as Beijing struggles to square its desired peacemaker image with the political realities of its expanding global influence.

The Pew Research Center conducted a 30,000-person survey across 24 nations between February and May and found that people living in European, North American and Indo-Pacific democracies are particularly wary of China's influence. The sentiment was less strong, though still present, among African and South American respondents.

A median of 71 percent of the 30,000 people polled felt that China does not contribute either much or at all to international peace and stability, versus 23 percent who felt China does. Americans (80 percent), Dutch (86 percent), British (80 percent), Germans (80 percent), and French (75 percent) were among those who felt most strongly that Beijing is a negative influence on global affairs.

Democratic Indo-Pacific nations emphatically agreed, with 87 percent of South Koreans, 85 percent of Australians, and 85 percent of Japanese feeling the same.

The list of nations—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland and South Africa, and Australia—is dominated by Western liberal democracies, with inherent ideological tensions likely somewhat explaining the negative views of Chinese foreign influence.

But only in Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria did a majority of respondents say Beijing contributes either a fair amount or a great deal to international peace and stability.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

China—already considered by many an economic and technological superpower—is still shaping its military and diplomatic clout abroad. Major decades-long investment in the former is openly intended to eventually challenge American hegemony, but on the diplomatic battlefield, Beijing is following a less publicly combative path.

Among the salient diplomatic issues that have helped shape global opinions of China this year are one striking success and one ongoing failure.

The former was the landmark Iran-Saudi Arabia normalization deal signed in April, in which China unexpectedly brokered a détente few thought likely given the deep and historic animosity between the Middle East's power players.

But China's unconvincing neutrality regarding Russia's war on Ukraine has somewhat eroded global trust in Beijing, particularly among the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific nations rallying to Kyiv's cause. China's de facto backing for Russia has undermined its continued calls for peace and the anemic peace plan it proposed in March.

North vs. South

Larger issues involving China—among them the fate of Taiwan, the situation in the South China Sea, lingering frustrations about the pandemic, the brewing showdown with the U.S., human rights, and concerns about political interference—have "completely dwarfed" Beijing's diplomatic efforts, Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told Newsweek.

"Publics have evidently not seen either the Saudi-Iranian deal as particularly significant or the Chinese efforts on Ukraine as particularly credible," Small said.

Small noted Beijing will not necessarily be too concerned with continued Western skepticism.

"In one sense, the argument for what China has been trying to do on Ukraine and in some of these other efforts was positioning in the 'Global South,'" he said. "The view on their side had been that no one in Europe is going to take this seriously, but they are able to position themselves through this in the Global South as an actor that approaches these issues in a neutral way."

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and China's President Xi Jinping deliver a joint statement in Moscow, on March 21, 2023. China's de facto support of Russia's war on Ukraine has angered Western nations. Mikhail Tereshchenko/Sputnik/AFP Via Getty Images

But the poll's findings also suggest that Beijing's self-framing might not be playing out as it hoped. A median of 57 percent of those surveyed said they felt China interferes in other countries affairs either a fair amount or a great deal.

The sentiment was most notable in Europe, where a majority of national respondents excluding Hungarians agreed, as well as in North America. A majority of all those in Indo-Pacific nations apart from Indonesia saw Beijing as interventionist.

Even in the four of the six African and South American nations surveyed a majority said China intervened at least somewhat in other countries' affairs. Fifty percent of South Africans and 46 percent of Argentinians also agreed.

"It's such a mantra in Chinese foreign policy, so foundational in the way that they frame things that this is not what they do, and it is the antithesis of the Western approach," Small said.

Against this backdrop, Small added, it is "striking" to see so many nations feeling that China is indeed intervening abroad. The data suggests, he said, that the perception of Chinese anti-interventionism is being "shredded."

Recent months have seen a renewed China-U.S. effort to thaw chilly bilateral relations. In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. And earlier this week, Blinken told CNN the U.S. wants to "put some stability into the relationship."

But the long-term disputes show no signs of easing. While visiting Tonga this week, Blinken hit out at what he called China's "increasingly problematic behavior" in the Indo-Pacific.

In Europe too, major nations are increasingly concerned about Chinese espionage and influence, even if leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are still courting investment.

Worsening Euro-Atlantic ties with Beijing, Small said, might accelerate a brewing confrontation.

"To a certain extent, this will validate an analysis on the Chinese side that starts to write off the West," he said, and instead focus on a "winnable" public opinion battle in the developing world.

— Newsweek Magazine | By David Brennan | July 27th, 2023

[mokhosz]

Hegedűs azt mondja: csak formálisan volt az, a releváns magyar vezetőknek tudniuk kellett róla. Nem hiba történt, hanem magas szintű magyar és orosz politikai vezetés közötti információ-átadás. Az orosz részről megszerezni kívánt adatok nem a magyar külpolitikára vonatkoztak, hanem a minisztériumon napi szinten átmenő nagyon értékes NATO és EU-s információkra, amelyek így lehívhatóvá és elérhetővé váltak az orosz fél számára. Így Magyarország a nyugati szövetségi rendszerrel szemben az orosz hibrid hadviselés önkéntes ötödik hadoszlopává vált.

[mariacallous]

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg believes that the West will hasten the end of the war in Ukraine if it steps up military aid to Kyiv.

Source: Stoltenberg at a German Marshall Fund event on 19 September, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Stoltenberg noted that "the quickest way to end the war is to lose it", but this would lead not to peace but to Russian occupation.

"Today, President [sic] Putin believes he can achieve his goals on the battlefield. And he believes that he can wait us out. That is why he continues to wage his brutal war. I do not believe that we can change Putin’s mind. But I do believe that we can change his calculus," he added.

The NATO secretary general believes that in order to achieve this, the West must provide Ukraine with as much weaponry as possible so that the Kremlin leader abandons the idea that he can seize Ukrainian territory by force.

"The paradox is that the more weapons for Ukraine we are able to deliver, the more likely it is that we can reach a peace and end to the war. And the more credible our long-term military support, the sooner the war will end," Stoltenberg concluded.

Background: 

Earlier, Stoltenberg also expressed scepticism about Putin's warning about red lines amid discussions on whether to allow Ukraine to launch long-range strikes against Russia using Western-supplied weaponry.

He also revealed that the Russians lied at a meeting with NATO representatives shortly before the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Fast Facts: Prince Philip

CNN Editorial Research

September 13, 2022

Personal

Birth date: June 10, 1921

Death date: April 9, 2021

Birth place: Corfu, Greece

Birth name: Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark

Father: Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Mother: Princess Alice of Battenberg

Marriage: Queen Elizabeth II (20 November 1947- 9 April 2021, his death)

Children: Edward, Earl of Wessex (10 March 1964); Andrew, Duke of York (19 February 1960); Anne, Princess Royal (15 September 1950); King Charles III (14 November 1948)

Military: British Royal Navy, 1939-1953

Other Facts

Full title: HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Thistle, Order of Merit, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, Companion of the Order of Australia, Companion of The Queen’s Service Order, Privy Counsellor.

His ancestry is not Greek by blood, but English, Russian, German/Prussian, and Danish.

The youngest of five children and the only son.

A third cousin of his wife, the Queen, and like her, he is a great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria.

His interests were painting, environmental conservation, horses, flying, and sailing.

He has written books on birds, the environment, carriage driving, and other subjects.

After earning his RAF wings in 1953, Philip logged more than 5,900 hours in 59 different types of aircraft over the next 44 years.

Timeline

1922 - The overthrow of his brother, King Constantine I of Greece, causes Prince Andrew, Princess Alice and their five children to leave Greece and settle in Paris.

1930 - After his parents’ separation in 1930, Philip is sent to England and raised there by his maternal grandmother and uncle.

1940 - Serves as a midshipman, his first posting, on the HMS Ramillies of the Mediterranean Fleet.

1942 - Becomes a sub-lieutenant in the British Royal Navy.

July 1942 - Promoted to first lieutenant and executive officer aboard the HMS Wallace, a destroyer, and participates in the Allied landings in Sicily during World War II.

February 1947 - Becomes a naturalized British citizen and a commoner, using the surname Mountbatten, an English translation of his mother’s maiden name.

Prior to taking the British oath of citizenship, being sixth in line to the throne of Greece, he renounces all claims to titles in both Greece and Denmark.

July 10, 1947 - King George VI and Queen Elizabeth announce Elizabeth’s engagement to Philip.

November 19, 1947 - Invested as a Knight of the Order of the Garter and is given the titles of Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich.

November 20, 1947 - Marries Princess Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey.

His name changes from Lt. Philip Mountbatten to His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

1948 - Appointed as a personal aide-de-camp to his father-in-law, King George VI.

1950 - Promoted to lieutenant-commander.

June 1952 - Promoted to commander, but his naval career ends with the death of King George VI and his wife’s ascension to the throne on February 6.

1953 - Appointed admiral of the fleet, field marshal of the Army and marshal of the Royal Air Force.

Designated regent presumptive by an act of parliament.

In the event of the Queen’s death or incapacitation, Philip would rule as regent for Prince Charles.

1956 - Launches the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which rewards children for achievements in personal development and community involvement.

1956-1970 - Serves as president of the Royal Yachting Association.

1957 - By Queen’s decree, is “granted style and titular dignity of a Prince of the United Kingdom.”

He is invested as a Grand Master and First or Principal Knight of the Order of the British Empire.

This decree restores his birth title of prince.

1961-1981 - First president of the World Wildlife Fund - UK.

1964-1986 - President of the International Equestrian Federation.

June 1968 - Awarded the Order of the Merit by the Queen, an honor bestowed to those of “great achievement in the fields of the arts, learning, literature, and science.”

Restricted to 24 members.

1975-1980 - Serves as president of the Royal Yachting Association for the second time.

1981-1996 - Serves as president of World Wildlife Fund International.

1996-present - President Emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund.

April 9, 2005 - Philip and the Queen are the only senior members of the royal family who do not attend Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles’ civil wedding ceremony. They do attend the dedication service.

November 10, 2005 - His 58th wedding anniversary makes him the longest-serving British consort, outliving the wife of King George III, Queen Charlotte.

October 23, 2006 - Inspects British forces in southern Iraq.

May 3-8, 2007 - Philip and the Queen visit the United States for the 400th anniversary of America’s first British settlement in Jamestown in 1607.

They attend the Kentucky Derby on May 5 and a state dinner at the White House on May 7.

April 1, 2009 - Along with the Queen, meets US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at Buckingham Palace.

June 10, 2011 - His 90th birthday makes him the oldest-serving royal consort.

December 23-27, 2011 - Undergoes treatment for a blocked coronary artery at Papworth Hospital.

June 4-9, 2012 - hospitalized for a bladder infection at King Edward VII Hospital in London.

He misses part of the Jubilee celebrations commemorating the Queen’s 60th anniversary on the throne.

August 15-20, 2012 - Treated at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for a bladder infection.

June 7-17, 2013 - A patient in London Clinic having been admitted for abdominal pain, he has exploratory surgery the following day and is released following his recuperation.

January 26, 2015 - Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott awards that nation’s top honor, Knight of the Order of Australia, to Philip for his life of service throughout the Queen’s reign.

May 4, 2017 - Buckingham Palace announces that Philip will step down from public life after August 2017.

August 2, 2017 - Attends a parade of the Royal Marines at Buckingham Palace, carrying out the last of his thousands of public appearances before stepping back from public life.

April 3, 2018 - Philip is admitted to a London hospital to undergo planned surgery on his hip.

January 17, 2019 - Involved in a traffic accident when his car collides with another vehicle carrying two women, aged 28 and 45, as well as a nine-month-old baby boy.

In a statement the following day, a spokesperson said the Duke of Edinburgh had a “precautionary check-up on doctor’s advice that confirmed Philip had no injuries of concern.”

It is later announced that he will not face any charges over the accident.

February 9, 2019 - Buckingham Palace announces that Philip has surrendered his driving license following his January traffic accident that left a female driver injured.

December 20, 2019 - Philip is admitted to the hospital over a “pre-existing” condition, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.

He leaves the hospital on December 24.

April 20, 2020 - Philip makes a rare public statement thanking those working across the UK to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

February 16, 2021 - Philip is taken to a London hospital after feeling unwell, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.

On March 3, he undergoes a medical procedure for a heart condition.

March 16, 2021 - Philip leaves King Edward VII’s Hospital where he was recovering and returns to Windsor Castle, according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.

April 9, 2021 - Dies at the age of 99.

September 8, 2022 - Queen Elizabeth II dies, and Charles ascends to the throne.

🖤🤍🖤

[beardedmrbean]

Russia is already spreading disinformation in advance of the 2024 election, using fake online accounts and bots to damage President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, according to former U.S. officials and cyber experts.

The dissemination of attacks on Biden is part of a continuing effort by Moscow to undercut American military aid to Ukraine and U.S. support for and solidarity with NATO, experts said.

A similar effort is underway in Europe. France, Germany and Poland said this month that Russia has launched a barrage of propaganda to try to influence European parliamentary elections in June.

With Donald Trump opposing U.S. aid to Ukraine and claiming that he once warned a NATO leader that he would "encourage" Russia to attack a NATO ally if it didn't pay its share in defense spending, the potential rewards for Russian President Vladimir Putin are high, according to Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund.

“Not that they didn’t have an incentive to interfere in the last two presidential elections,” said Schafer, who tracks disinformation efforts by Russia and other regimes. “But I would say that the incentive to interfere is heightened right now.”

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that there’s “plenty of reason to be concerned” about Russia’s trying to interfere in the 2024 election but that he couldn’t discuss evidence related to it. He added: “We’re going to be vigilant about that.”

U.S. officials and experts are most concerned that Russia could try to interfere in the election through a “deepfake” audio or video using artificial intelligence tools or through a “hack and leak,” such as the politically damaging theft of internal Democratic Party emails by Russian military intelligence operatives in 2016.

The type of pro-Russia online propaganda campaigns that thrived on Twitter and Facebook ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now routine on every major social media platform, though it’s rare for individual accounts to go as viral now as they once did.

Those influence operations often create matching accounts on multiple sites, which vary drastically in their moderation policies. Accounts from one pro-Russia campaign that Meta, the owner of Facebook, cracked down on late last year, an English-language news influencer persona called “People Say,” are still live on other platforms, though some are dormant.

A “People Say” account on X is still visible, but it has only 51 followers and hasn’t posted in almost a year. Its counterpart on Telegram, which has become a home for some Americans on the far right, is still actively posting divisive content and has almost 5,000 subscribers.

A perfect storm

Moscow and its proxies have long sought to exploit divisions in American society. But experts and former U.S. officials said Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the country's deepening political polarization and sharp cuts in disinformation and election integrity teams at X and other platforms provide fertile ground to spread confusion, division and chaos.

“In many ways it’s a perfect storm of opportunity for them,” said Paul Kolbe, who worked for 25 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and is now a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “I think, for a lot of reasons, we will see the same approach, but amplified and, I think, with some of the constraints that you might have seen taken off."

In the 2022 midterm elections, Russia primarily targeted the Democratic Party to weaken U.S. support for Ukraine, as it most likely blames Biden for forging a unified Western alliance backing Kyiv, according to a recently released U.S. intelligence assessment.

In what appears to be an effort to deepen divisions, Russia has amplified the political dispute between the Biden administration and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over security at the Texas border over the past month. Russian politicians, bloggers, state media and bots have promoted the idea that America is headed to a new “civil war.”

It was a quintessential move by a Russian regime with a long tradition of trying to manipulate existing political rifts, like immigration, to its advantage, experts said.

But there’s so far no sign that Russia’s disinformation operation in Texas has had any significant impact, said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council.

“So far, Russian operations targeting the U.S. have been opportunistic. They see whatever narrative is rising to the top, and they try to push it,” Brooking said. “Disinformation isn’t created in a vacuum. The more polarized a country is, the easier it is for foreign actors to infiltrate and hijack its political processes.”

The artificial intelligence threat

The bigger Russian threat to the 2024 election, Brooking and other experts said, could prove to be artificial intelligence-created fake audio.

An orchestrated deepfake or leak may not unfold on the national stage; instead, it could target a particularly crucial swing state or district, experts said. It might aim to discourage some voters from going to the polls or sow distrust about the accuracy of ballot counting.

The most likely disinformation scenario will be “hyper-personalized, localized attacks,” said Miles Taylor, a senior Trump administration homeland security official who has warned of the risks of another Trump presidency.

Deepfake audio, which is easy to create and difficult to detect, has been used in recent elections in multiple countries. In the U.S. last month, a fake Joe Biden robocall told New Hampshire Democrats not to vote in the state's primary. In the United Kingdom in November, a fake audio of London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for pro-Palestinian marches.

And two days before Slovakia’s parliamentary elections in September, a fake audio clip purported to show the leader of a pro-Western political party discussing how to rig the election. The audio was eventually debunked, and it’s unclear what effect it had on the election. But a pro-Russia party opposing aid to Ukraine won the most votes.

While an emerging cottage industry claims that software can identify whether audio or video is authentic or a deepfake, such programs are often wrong.

Past Russian efforts

Alleged Russian information operations against Ukraine over the past two years open a window into some of the Kremlin’s tactics.

A study published Wednesday by the Slovakian cybersecurity company ESET found that a pro-Russia campaign has been spamming Ukrainians with false and dispiriting emails about the war with claims of heating and food shortages.

In a coordinated effort near the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, cyberattacks temporarily knocked key Ukrainian websites offline, while residents received spam texts telling them that ATMs in the country were down.

Other apparent Russian efforts to sow division are much simpler.

Last year, celebrities who sell personalized videos on the website Cameo, including Priscilla Presley, Mike Tyson and Elijah Wood, were tricked into inadvertently recording messages that denigrated two major enemies of the Kremlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

The messages were overlaid with text falsely claiming that the celebrities were calling for those leaders to step down. Representatives for Wood and Presley said the celebrities recorded the videos thinking they were helping a fan with addiction. A representative for Tyson said the videos of him were fake.

In the American mainstream

In the U.S., though, Russia’s propaganda themes are now often echoed in comments from some Republican lawmakers and pro-Trump commentators, including the portrayal of Ukraine’s government as deeply corrupt.

The adoption of Russian state rhetoric in America’s political debate is a victory for Moscow, experts said. Putin’s goal is to spread doubt and division among Americans.

“An equally nice outcome for them is just what we had last time, where a third of the country doesn’t believe the vote,” Schafer said. “Democracy is questioned; the system gets questioned. So they don’t necessarily need to see their guy win to have it be a good outcome for them.”

It remains extraordinarily difficult for a remote cyberattack to take over voting systems in the U.S. and change vote counts. The American intelligence assessment of the 2022 midterms found no indication that Russia had tried to hack into election systems or ballot counting that year.

But Kolbe, the former CIA directorate of operations official, said the Kremlin would most likely see trying to penetrate U.S. voting systems as a low-risk undertaking.

“I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d be hard-pressed to find where they would see the risk part of the equation. It gets close to zero.”

Such interference could come with plausible deniability. On the day of the 2022 midterm elections, the Mississippi secretary of state’s website, which hosts the official polling place finder for voters in Mississippi, was knocked offline most of the day after pro-Kremlin hacktivists on Telegram called for supporters to join in a low-level cyberattack against it.

Still, U.S. officials and disinformation analysts say Russia’s ability to manipulate voters shouldn’t be overstated. When it comes to spreading disinformation and fueling distrust in election authorities and election results, the biggest threat comes from within America’s fractured, polarized society, not from the outside.

“I am very skeptical, whether it’s 2016 or 2024, that the United States political and media culture needs any push from Russia,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who specializes in Russia and information warfare.

“The Kremlin has every interest in seeing an American public, or American leadership, that’s less inclined to support Ukraine, that’s less inclined to punish Russia. Those incentives are certainly there,” he said. “But we’re already doing a pretty good job of that at home. I don’t know how much of a nudge the Kremlin thinks it needs to lend it.”

[lboogie1906]

Congressman Kwanza Hall (born May 1, 1971) recognized for his leadership as a civil servant and business executive, was elected in 2020 to complete the term of Congressman John R. Lewis. A large portion of his career has been dedicated to social justice and economic opportunity, in which he combines his various professional experiences including a fellowship with the German Marshall Fund and appointments on the Board of Directors for many nonprofits, including the World Affairs Council and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

He was born in Atlanta to Leon W. Hall, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s youngest lieutenant. His mother, Evelyn Cloyd Hall, was a civil rights activist and community organizer. He graduated from Benjamin E. Mays High School and attended MIT until 1995.

He became the IT Senior Project Manager for the Fulton County. He worked as the Vice President of Technology for GoodWorks International. He served as Director of Business Development at MACTEC Engineering and Consulting. He started his 15-year combined stint on the Atlanta City Council and Atlanta School Board. After serving three years as a member of the Board of Education, he was elected to the City Council for District 2 in 2005 where he stayed for 12 years.

He supported key legislation including expanding the beltline overlay and allocating funding for streetscape projects to improve pedestrian safety. He was honored for his advocacy for parks and greenspaces by Park Pride. The Atlanta chapter of the American Institute of Architects created the annual Kwanza Hall Award for civic leadership in architectural design. Georgia State University awarded him the Pioneer Award. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation recognized him. He was a candidate for mayor of Atlanta in 2017.

He served 33 days as the Democratic Representative for Georgia’s 5th district. He was a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia. He became the Managing Partner at Homz Global and the CEO and Managing Partner at Chattahoochee Trails Park and Water Hub. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 19, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Yesterday the far-right House Freedom Caucus called for an end to any discussions of raising the debt ceiling until the Senate passes its bill calling for extreme budget cuts. Today, former president Trump announced on his social media channel that “REPUBLICANS SHOULD NOT MAKE A DEAL ON THE DEBT CEILING UNLESS THEY GET EVERYTHING THEY WANT (Including the ‘kitchen sink’).” THAT’S THE WAY THE DEMOCRATS HAVE ALWAYS DEALT WITH US. DO NOT FOLD!!!”

(In reality, Congress raised the debt ceiling without conditions three times when Trump was president as Trump added an astonishing almost $7.8 trillion to the national debt, much of it thanks to his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations before the coronavirus pandemic hit.) 

Immediately after Trump’s demand, the Republicans walked away from negotiations over the budget that they are demanding before they will vote to raise the debt ceiling. 

Then, hours later, they came back to the table. 

Meanwhile, the headline in the Washington Post read: “World watches in disbelief and horror as U.S. nears possible default.” The story by Rachel Siegel and Jeff Stein revealed that at the meeting of the G7 leaders in Hiroshima, Japan, this week, the finance ministers for the G7—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union—have been pulling U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aside to ask her what is going to happen.

“Around the world,” Siegel and Stein write, “experts have been watching in disbelief as the U.S. flirts with its first default, fearful of the potential international economic ramifications—and astonished by the global superpower’s brush with self-sabotage.”

“[T]he debate over the debt ceiling is unnerving,” Michal Baranowski, managing director of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. told Siegel and Stein. “We really need the U.S. as a strong leader in world affairs during this time of deep global instability. I worry that the debt ceiling debate burns up valuable political oxygen that I would rather the U.S. spend for leadership abroad. It makes the U.S. look inward-looking, at best.”

Time is running out for Congress to pass a measure that will raise the debt ceiling. 

Meanwhile, today at the G7 meeting—which Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky will attend—leaders announced a new slate of sanctions on more than 300 targets designed to block workarounds that have permitted Russia to continue its war against Ukraine. “Today’s actions will further tighten the vise on [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s ability to wage his barbaric invasion and will advance our global efforts to cut off Russian attempts to evade sanctions,” Treasury Secretary Yellen said in a statement.  

In retaliation, Russia announced that it would not allow consular access to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in March on false charges of espionage. It also banned a somewhat random list of 500 Americans from entering Russia, including former president Barack Obama, comedian Stephen Colbert, 45 members of the House of Representatives, former ambassadors to Russia, various journalists, and me (!), accusing us of being hostile to Russia. 

The statement also aligned Putin with far-right Republicans who back Trump, blaming those on the list for being “directly involved in the persecution of dissidents in the wake of the so-called ‘storm of the Capitol.’” One of those banned was Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who killed Ashley Babbitt as she attempted to break into the chamber of the House of Representatives, where more than 60 representatives and staffers were holed up, on January 6, 2021.

Also today, Washington, D.C., police lieutenant Shane Lamond was arrested on charges that he warned Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, that he was about to be arrested just before January 6, 2021, and then lied about it to investigators. As head of the department’s intelligence unit, Lamond monitored extremist groups but appeared to support the Proud Boys. “Of course I can’t say it officially,” Lamond told Tarrio in a message on January 8, “but personally I support you all and don’t want to see your group’s name or reputation dragged through the mud.”

The Republicans’ threat to blow up the U.S. economy—and, with it, the global economy—comes at a time when the economy is, in fact, quite strong and President Biden’s measures have significantly reduced the deficit after Republican tax cuts exploded it. Destroying the economy on Biden’s watch would undoubtedly help to hamstring his reelection campaign. It would also kill popular support for his return to a government that supports ordinary Americans rather than concentrating wealth at the top of the economy, as Republicans insist—contrary to economic studies—will expand the economy and benefit everyone.   

Their attack on the economy is more than that, though: it is an attack on the nation’s global standing. Yesterday, Christopher Chivvis, the director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment, wrote that the debt ceiling crisis brings into question “how serious Washington is about leading the world…. In an era of global strategic competition, the United States will be entering the ring with one hand tied behind its back if its leaders can’t make progress on their domestic disagreements and moderate vicious political polarization.” 

“Foreign leaders will doubt American reliability more and more, hurting Washington’s relationships with the very countries whose loyalty it’s competing for with Beijing,” he wrote, as other countries doubt that the U.S. can commit to a program for longer than a single administration. Moreover, the crisis will hurt the power of the dollar, whose domination of the international monetary system has brought the U.S. extraordinary advantages. 

“Washington’s dysfunction also helps its autocratic adversaries in the global contest over ideology,” Chivvis notes. 

Indeed.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bopinion]

2023 / 19

Aperçu of the Week:

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

(Leonard Cohen, singer-songwriter and poet from Montréal)

Bad News of the Week:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecasts that Germanys economy will continue to grow. The easing in supply chains, the high order backlog and the revival in foreign demand would ensure a gradual economic recovery in Germany, says the OECD's latest economic report. So the threat of recession does not seem to be coming. So all is well? No. Because pretty much everything else in the report for Germany is negative.

The OECD began its work (still as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation OEEC) after World War II to provide scientific support for the Marshall Plan funds for economic reconstruction in Europe. In the spirit of Keynesianism, it independently evaluates national developments and economic policies always in the context of the national economy - with an emphasis on "national", so the people. In other words, a kind of voice of reason.

And this voice calls Germany to more action in many areas. Because the path to mastering the necessary ecological and digital transformation is a long one. For example, it calls for the modernization and digitization of public administration. This must become leaner, less complicated and, above all, faster, especially in the area of infrastructure planning. In addition, spending efficiency must be improved and prioritized, while at the same time tax concessions must be reduced.

In addition, the report notes, more decisive action needs to be taken on the mobility turnaround, where many opportunities are not being exploited. Which can also be applied to necessary changes in the energy and agriculture sectors. Key message: too little is being done for climate protection. And too slowly. In concrete terms, the pace of emissions reduction would have to be tripled (!) in order to achieve the planned - and there is no alternative - climate neutrality by 2045. A realistic look at the willingness of decision-makers and voters to change makes this seem illusory. And what will happen then? One thing is certain: nothing good.

Good News of the Week:

The big strike has been averted. The EVG - the largest of the many railroad unions - had announced a strike for 50 hours starting tonight. Which would have paralyzed not only all long-distance traffic in the center of Europe (even foreign companies would not be able to cross Germany if the infrastructure control was not active), but also freight and local traffic. And this with demands that I consider excessive, despite all my fundamental sympathy for the representation of employee interests: A 10 percent wage increase is not enough for the union. Excuse me?

I was already thinking about how to get to the office on Monday and Tuesday, since I can't park there. And the public parking lots in the outskirts of Munich, where you can transfer to the (non-striking) subway, have nowhere enough capacity. And my son's return from a student exchange in Paris on Tuesday evening wouldn't have worked either. Although they have tickets for the French TGV, but it could not go on German rails. But now, fortunately, the strike has been called off.

A judge had yesterday intervened in summary proceedings against the union, predicting that the "proportionality" of the strike would not stand up to due process, which would have been invoked by the public Deutsche Bahn AG, by far the largest railroad company in Germany. Again, the voice of reason. As I said, I am an advocate of employee interests. But when their enforcement, because it involves infrastructure, affects large sections of the population, a special responsibility goes with it.

I would have come to some sort of arrangement, and so would my son. Uncomfortable, but not impossible. But an employee has to show up at his workplace. If he is unable to do so due to a loss of transportation, he is left alone with this; the principle of "force majeure" does not apply. There are many commuters in Munich from the surrounding area, even from further away, 100 km are not uncommon. They can't work from home because they work in industry, for example, and can hardly operate their welding machine or drive their forklift from home. Should they then call a cab? Or take a bicycle? That's absurd.

That's why I'm glad that there is a neutral, higher-level authority in the form of the courts. What intervenes when - as in this case - there is no longer any proportionality to fight for one's own interests in a fundamentally justified way. The so-called autonomy of collective bargaining is a good institution. It gives employees and employers the opportunity to autonomously negotiate basic rules for their cooperation without the government being able or allowed to interfere. However, when positions are deadlocked, as in this case, it takes the state to intervene in a regulatory capacity. In order to do justice to its existential care for the population.

Personal happy moment of the week:

In the week that is ending, my daughter turned 20. And next week my son will be 15. When I think of younger children who wake you up three times in the night, cheat Lego bricks under bare feet, throw up all over a silk shirt, roll on the floor screaming in the supermarket, ask for a dog or a Playstation every day, think it's funny to hide the car keys and never ever want to go to school again - I am above all one thing: relieved that they are out of the woods.

I couldn't care less...

...about today's state elections in Bremen, a city-state in the north. Because there, by far the highest gains went to a pseudo-party called "Citizens in Anger," which nearly quintupled to 10.5%. It has neither a meaningful program nor capable personnel, but draws its raison d'être solely from its name. Why is it elected? According to a poll conducted before the polling stations today, primarily for three reasons: "Stands for values that the CDU (conservative) used to represent.": 74%. "Disappointed with other parties.": 66%. "Only vote for them because the AfD (right-wing populists) can't be elected this time.": 54%. Well thank you very much. Sometimes I regret that the only qualifications you need to vote are citizenship and age.

As I write this...

...I realize that listening to the radio is yesterday's news for me. When I smoke a cigarillo outside, I involuntarily hear what music is playing on the radio at the neighbor's - a farm, where it resounds over the yard. One after the other, a cheap German pop song from the 70s, "It's raining men" and Kraftwerk came on. Phew. Cheers to Apple Music and my own playlists!

Post Scriptum

Actually, the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 would have taken place in Ukraine last night. Because the winning country of the previous year always hosts the contest in the following year. For obvious reasons, this time it will be the second-placed Great Britain. Since the security situation for an international event in Liverpool is undoubtedly better than in Kiev. And I write this before it even started: it was a great show despite dubious quality music. And the - due to the actually hosting country - colors blue-yellow also perfectly fit the winner Sweden. Once again I wonder if I am woke, as I like this event, which is considered the biggest queer event in the world.

PS: I should be right. Also with the already traditional punishment of Germany: last place - as in the years before. Which has nothing to do with the songs or the performers. But with - in this case missing - sympathy. A category in which we Germans have nothing to gain. To quote the refrain with which our candidate Jendrik lost two years ago: "I don't feel hate, I just feel sorry."

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.3

686 – Maya king Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ahk' assumes the crown of Calakmul. 1043 – Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England. 1077 – The Patriarchate of Friûl, the first Friulian state, is created. 1559 – The second of two the treaties making up the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis is signed, ending the Italian Wars. 1721 – Robert Walpole becomes, in effect, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, though he himself denied that title. 1851 – Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand after the death of his half-brother, Rama III. 1860 – The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins. 1865 – American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America. 1882 – American Old West: Robert Ford kills Jesse James. 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for a light, high-speed, four-stroke engine, which he uses seven months later to create the world's first motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen. 1888 – Jack the Ripper: The first of 11 unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London, occurs. 1895 – The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality. 1920 – Attempts are made to carry out the failed assassination attempt on General Mannerheim, led by Aleksander Weckman by order of Eino Rahja, during the White Guard parade in Tampere, Finland. 1922 – Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1933 – First flight over Mount Everest, the British Houston-Mount Everest Flight Expedition, led by the Marquis of Clydesdale and funded by Lucy, Lady Houston. 1936 – Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and death of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the infant son of pilot Charles Lindbergh. 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces begin an assault on the United States and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula. 1946 – Japanese Lt. General Masaharu Homma is executed in the Philippines for leading the Bataan Death March. 1948 – Cold War: U.S. President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries. 1948 – In Jeju Province, South Korea, a civil-war-like period of violence and human rights abuses begins known as the Jeju uprising. 1955 – The American Civil Liberties Union announces it will defend Allen Ginsberg's book Howl against obscenity charges. 1956 – Hudsonville–Standale tornado: The western half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is struck by a deadly F5 tornado. 1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech; he was assassinated the next day. 1969 – Vietnam War: United States Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announces that the United States will start to "Vietnamize" the war effort. 1973 – Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs. 1974 – The 1974 Super Outbreak occurs, the second largest tornado outbreak in recorded history (after the 2011 Super Outbreak). The death toll is 315, with nearly 5,500 injured. 1975 – Vietnam War: Operation Babylift, a mass evacuation of children in the closing stages of the war begins. 1975 – Bobby Fischer refuses to play in a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, giving Karpov the title of World Champion by default. 1980 – US Congress restores a federal trust relationship with the 501 members of the Shivwits, Kanosh, Koosharem, and the Indian Peaks and Cedar City bands of the Paiute people of Utah.[16] 1981 – The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. 1989 – The US Supreme Court upholds the jurisdictional rights of tribal courts under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in Mississippi Choctaw Band v. Holyfield. 1993 – The outcome of the Grand National horse race is declared void for the first (and only) time 1996 – Suspected "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski is captured at his Montana cabin in the United States. 1996 – A United States Air Force Boeing T-43 crashes near Dubrovnik Airport in Croatia, killing 35, including Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. 1997 – The Thalit massacre begins in Algeria; all but one of the 53 inhabitants of Thalit are killed by guerrillas. 2000 – United States v. Microsoft Corp.: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust law by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors. 2004 – Islamic terrorists involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings are trapped by the police in their apartment and kill themselves. 2007 – Conventional-Train World Speed Record: A French TGV train on the LGV Est high speed line sets an official new world speed record. 2008 – ATA Airlines, once one of the ten largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in five years and ceases all operations. 2008 – Texas law enforcement cordons off the FLDS's YFZ Ranch. Eventually 533 women and children will be taken into state custody. 2009 – Jiverly Antares Wong opens fire at the American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York, killing thirteen and wounding four before committing suicide. 2010 – Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, a tablet computer. 2013 – More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2016 – The Panama Papers, a leak of legal documents, reveals information on 214,488 offshore companies. 2017 – A bomb explodes in the St Petersburg metro system, killing 14 and injuring several more people. 2018 – YouTube headquarters shooting: A 38-year-old gunwoman opens fire at YouTube Headquarters in San Bruno, California, injuring 3 people before committing suicide.

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Scottish triathlete and world champion on her way to Oscar glory.

Scottish-born (Stirling) Lesley Paterson, 42, is an athlete, screenwriter and film producer who found fame in 2011 winning her first of three Triathlon World Championships, securing the rights to the film adaptation of the novel All Quiet On The Western Front for screen adaptation 16 years ago alongside producer Ian Stokell. It cost $200,000 (£165.591) to secure the rights.

A particular race in Costa Rica, she went into this race needing to win the money to pay for the novel and she broke her shoulder the day before the race.

She co-wrote the screenplay for a 2022 remake of All Quiet on the Western Front, which won seven BAFTAs

The pair picked up the Bafta for best-adapted screenplay. Was a “tough journey” to get the novel made into a film, using her triathlon race winnings to renew the rights deal each year.

Three years ago, the couple enlisted the help of German producers Berger and Grunert to bring the project to life.

Eventually, in 2020, a conversation at a film trade fair in Berlin brought them into a partnership with a German team led by director Edward Bergen. His main experience was in television, and their lead actor Felix Kammerer had never appeared in a film before, but Netflix commissioned the film and production got underway.

The original book, which remains the best-selling German novel of all time, was "always important" to the producers, having first read it as adolescents, a "unique opportunity" that they "approached with respect."

Lesley attended in Stirling, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 - Allan's Primary and Stirling High.

And is nominated for nine Oscars at tonight’s Academy Awards. Both Lesley and the new film version of All Quiet on the Western Front will be at the 95th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. The German language film, made by Netlfix, has been nominated in nine categories including Best Adapted Screenplay.

All Quiet On The Western Front is widely expected to win an Oscar 🎥, something that will bring to a close an almost year-long awards season that has seen it grace red carpets and awards shows podiums.

Lesley and her husband Simon Marshall, a sports psychologist, have now set up their own production company and hope to make a film in Scotland at the end of the year.

It's a psychological thriller, set in the highlands of Scotland. It's very intense and moody and deals with mental health issues but lots of action in there too. She has the script, a great director and a wonderful production team, and they’ve applied for all sorts of funding like BFI and Creative Scotland. The goal is to shoot in October, and November and support the industry in Scotland.

#Bafta #AllQuietOnTheWesternFront #ErichMariaRemarque #LesleyPaterson #EdwardBerger #Ian Stokell #JamesFriend #VolkerBertelmann #WWI #PaulBäumer #FelixKammerer #ImWestennichtsNeues #novel #Netflix

[redeyedroid]

CW for war, bombing, and descriptions of horror.

Valentine's night is the anniversary of one of the most controversial events of the Second World War, the bombing of Dresden. The Combined Bombing Offensive itself is profoundly controversial, the morality of it debated and questioned for nearly 80 years now.

Dresden is a lightning rod to both the far left and right, though for different reasons. The left use it to accuse the arch imperialist, Winston Churchill of being a war criminal. Neo-Nazis use it to say that Germany was innocent and German civilians were the real victims of genocide. And there are others beyond these people, who remember because they either know the full story, or don't, because they know something awful happened that should be commemorated and we should do everything we can to prevent anything like it happening again.

This is footage of a raid on Pforzheim that took place shortly after the attack on Dresden. A small town in southwest Germany, very little of pre-war Pforzheim remains, because the RAF destroyed 83% of the town that night, and killed a quarter of it's population in ways identical to what happened in Dresden. The tactics and manner of the raid were the same. But Dresden is widely remembered and Pforzheim is not.

And this is because Josef Goebbels intended for Dresden to be.

The Nazi propaganda apparatus made Dresden world famous, inflating the death toll and it's effects, to portray Germany as the victim of Allied aggression. Holocaust denier, anti-semite and goat-fucking piece of shit, David Irving repeated Nazi lies (and added a few of his own) when he wrote about the raid in the 60s. Kurt Vonnegut, who was in the city that night and survived the raid, used Irving's account as source material when writing Slaughterhouse Five.

The myths have taken root while the truth is as horrific, if not worse.

Dresden and Pforzheim were stops on a long line that began with Zeppelins in 1915 and went through towns and cities including Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, Hamburg and Tokyo before ending at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Airpower was a novel concept in The Great War, the technology undeveloped. The Germans bombed the UK, killing 1,414 civilians, and - less well known - the British dropped 660 tons of bombs on Germany. Bombing was largely ineffective, in strategic terms, achieving little, but heralded an era where the aeroplane would dominate.

Between the wars, influential theorists like Giulio Douhet predict the destruction of civilisations, entire wars decided by countries being bombed into dust, their populations giving up en masse under a rain of bombs. These ideas are very seductive to interwar generals and air marshals, starved for funding and relevance, and give rise to a generation of proponents eager, when they get the chance, to win a war with air power alone.

The Germans try and, their air force not designed, equipped or led for the task, fail. The Blitz will kill thousands of British civilians and cause great suffering, but does not bring about the collapse of the UK's economy, nor break the morale and will to resist of it's people.

(This gives rise to a strange and awful exceptionalism. When it is pointed out that bombing had not broken Britain's population, and expecting it to do so to Germany's was a shaky idea, this will be dismissed. The British are made of sterner stuff than the German, you see; and, if it hasn't worked so far, this is merely a case of not enough bombs having been dropped and shows the need for vast numbers more to be dropped.)

It will be the British and Americans that truly attempt to bomb their enemies into submission.

The strategies differ. The Americans prefer to fight in daylight, concentrating attacks against industrial and transportation targets, claiming a precision to their attacks that doesn't exist in practice. They use close formation as defence, their bombers equipped with large numbers of machine guns to fight back against German interceptors. Later, they use escort fighters to engage the Germans and, in huge air battles in late 1943 and early 1944, they break the Luftwaffe's ability to contest the air.

The RAF operates differently. Bomber Command flies by night, and targets population centres. Navigating to target is a problem. They struggle to drop bombs within 5 miles of the target and it is only with the coming of large, four-engined bombers and a new leader in Arthur Harris that the campaign coheres in 1942 and 1943.

Harris is a demagogue, steadfastly refusing to allocate his aircraft to tasks he sees as distractions from the main effort of destroying German cities. He will fight the navy, who want him to bomb German U-Boat bases and who need long-range aircraft to patrol the Atlantic. He will argue against bombing the U-Boat's bases in France. His crews will call him 'Butch'. Not out of affection, but for his seeming indifference to the appalling losses they suffer. It is short for 'Butcher'. But he is a very effective administrator and moulds a new, highly destructive force that will lay waste to Germany.

They study the construction of German buildings, calculate the correct mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs and determine how best to make cities burn. Their bombers carry 4,000lb blast bombs nicknamed cookies and small incendiary bombs. The cookies devastate buildings and roads, creating craters, rubble and huge obstacles that hinder rescue and fire-fighting. But that is not their main purpose. The shock wave from their explosions blow out doors and windows in a large area, creating airflow for fires. The RAF drop 68,000 cookies on Germany and 3 million phosphorous incendiaries, because phosphorous cannot be extinguished by water. Bullet-shaped, they punch through roofs, into attics, offices, shops and homes, setting fire to whatever they can, wherever they land.

In the footage of the Pforzheim raid, you can see the flashes of high explosive bombs detonating, the fires caused by incendiaries, and 55 seconds in you can see clusters of target indicators falling slowly into the inferno.

The British employ fireworks companies to develop slow-burning flares of different colours and intensities. They use these target indicators to mark where bombers are to drop bombs. They identify a phenomenon known as creepback - the natural tendancy of bomber crews to drop bombs slightly short so they can get the hell out and go home - and factor it into their planning, setting aiming points beyond the part of a city they want bombed, allowing creepback to sweep the whole city instead. Mass destruction becomes a scientific pursuit.

Master Bombers are introduced, senior airmen who orbit cities at altitudes above the bomber stream and direct the bombing. At Dresden, the Master Bomber will see the primary target overwhelmed with flame and direct bombers onto new parts of the city to burn as much of the city as possible.

The RAF fly diversions, spoofing attacks against cities far away from the real targets. They fly nuisance raids on nights when the main force is resting. They fly precision attacks against specific targets - famously on a night in May 1943 two dams in the Ruhr valley are breached by bouncing bombs. Harris does not like such missions and lends them little support, though he will take credit.

It is euphemistically called area bombing, the attacks against cities a campaign of 'dehousing' when what it is is an attempt to kill German civilians, the workers that keep the economy functioning and their families.

A thousand bombers are sent to Cologne in May 1942, but it is Operation Gomorrah, a week-long campaign against Hamburg a year later that realises the potential of area bombing.

Atmospheric conditions are good, the deployment of a new invention called window - strips of aluminium foil that disrupts radar - renders German defences ineffective, and the introduction of H2S - the world's first ground-mapping radar, and which picks up Hamburg's geography very well - means that bombing is very accurate. Gomorrah is a great success for Bomber Command.

The fourth raid of the week, on 27th July 1943, will see fires combine and burn so intensely a column of superheated air will rush skywards. This sucks in air at ground level, feeding the flames. Winds reach 150mph. Fires burn at 800 degrees celsius and reach 300m into the heavens. 8 square miles of Hamburg is devastated in one of the first documented firestorms of the war. It will become the aim of the RAF to do this on every raid to every city they attack. What happens to Dresden and Pforzheim will not be accidental.

40,000 people die in Hamburg that week. Most are buried in mass graves, their bodies unidentified, testament to the horrific ways they are killed.

Some will die in explosions, their bodies torn to pieces, or are left seemingly untouched, their internal organs pulverised. Others are trapped or crushed under collapsing buildings. They are gassed by the fumes caused by detonations, or suffocated as fires suck the air from their shelters. They burn alive, their bodies reduced to ash. They boil and roast as the firestorm takes hold. Oil and fuel from storage tanks spreads across the harbour and waterways and ignites, preventing escape. The charred corpses of adults shrink to the size of small children. The tar on the streets melts, trapping fleeing civilians who then die, stuck to roads as the city burns around them.

Later in the year, the Allies, thinking forward to the invasion of Normandy and seeing air supremacy as a prerequisite to success, will issue the POINTBLANK directive, aiming their airforces at German aircraft manufacture and industry. The USAAF lose 585 men in a single raid on the ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt and Regensburg in August 1943.

Harris pays lip service to POINTBLANK, continuing to bomb German cities. He embarks on a long campaign against Berlin that winter, deviating occasionally to attack other targets. Berlin, modern, with wide streets, massive ferroconcrete flak towers and sophisticated air defences, resists the assault and doesn't burn. On 31st March 1944, the RAF suffers it's worst day of the war, losing 96 bombers and 691 men on a raid against Nuremberg.

Bombing switches to targets in support of the invasion, both before and after D-Day. Harris will be brought in line and reluctantly sends Bomber Command against targets throughout France. Thousands of French civilians perish under American and British bombs.

Later, as the war in Europe enters it's final phases, the bombers switch back to attacking targets in Germany. They destroy what remains of the German oil industry, and then do the same to it's transport network, crippling it's economy beyond salvage. The intensity and scale of the attacks defy imagination. The Allies drop more bombs on German-occupied Europe in 1945 than they do from 1939 to 1943.

And they attack Dresden.

The Red Army is closing in on Germany's borders and Dresden is a transport hub, shuttling troops and supplies from west to east. It's industries are critical. And it is untouched. It has not been bombed. The rumour is that Winston Churchill has family living there and has ordered the RAF to leave it alone. It's leadership is incompetent and has not prepared for a raid or built large public shelters. It's defences have been stripped, anti-aircraft guns sent to the front or other cities. The RAF only lose 6 bombers, 3 of which are hit by bombs from other aircraft.

The RAF hit neither Dresden's rail yards, nor it's industries, which are concentrated in the suburbs. It targets the old town, densely packed with narrow streets, and it burns. A firestorm rapidly overwhelms it's emergency services and consumes the city. Maybe 25,000 die. Maybe more. USAAF bombers attack the city the following day, hampering rescue efforts. Some of the Americans get lost and bomb Prague instead.

10 days later, the RAF bomb Pforzheim, killing 17,600 people.

In March, the USAAF creates a firestorm in Tokyo. At least 90,000 Japanese die. High-level attacks over Japan are ineffective because the jetstream prevents accurate formation bombing. So the Americans use low-level attacks using napalm incendiary bombs. Bombers return from Tokyo with their aluminium fuselages blackened by smoke. Some bombers, caught in turbulence created by the firestorm, crash.

Japanese cities, their housing traditionally made of wood, are turned to ash and cinder. US bombers drop so many incendiaries on Japan that operations are temporarily suspended because they run out of supplies. Then, in August, they drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Later, one of the justifications offered for the nuclear strikes - and one that dismisses the long-term effects of radiation - will be that they were much less bad than what was already being done to Japan's cities.

55,573 Bomber Command aircrew and around 600,000 German civilians were killed in the campaign to destroy Germany from the air. It was undoubtedly effective. The German economy was dealt massive, decisive blows from which it could not survive and prosper. The lost production, the resources devoted to repairing and restructuring industry, and to defending Germany from the bombers marked a definitive success for the Allies. 30% of German artillery production was devoted to anti-aircraft weaponry. It's aircraft production became so decentralised that the wings, fuselages and cockpits of aircraft would be constructed in different locations and brought to another to be assembled. Complexes were built into tunnels under mountains to protect from attack. Large detachments of workers were organised to repair factories and help industry recover from raids.

But while the bomber's contribution went a long way to winning the war, it remains a war-winning failure. Just like the British before them, German morale did not break. Armies had to conquer the Nazi realm. The navy had to maintain control of the oceans. Air power did not win the war alone.

The bombing campaign can be argued from a position of necessity. Britain had no other way of engaging with Nazi Germany on mainland Europe from May 1940 until mid-1943. This was intolerable to those running the war, both in Britain and abroad. For political, military and economic reasons, Germany had to be bombed.

The morality and ethics of it is a much harder thing grapple with. Wars escalate and radicalise and warp the worldviews of those involved. They are snowglobes of horror and atrocity. Choices that seemed unthinkable at the beginning became obvious and logical the longer the war went on. The lives of enemy civilians mattered far less than the lives of Allied servicemen and women, and amid the escalating evils and devastation perpetrated by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan the arguments of ruthless men like Harris and the USAAF's Curtis LeMay appeared reasonable. The scale of death and destruction got exponentially larger as technology developed and militaries learnt and became more efficient. Pre-war moralities were abandoned in favour of a victory that had to be total. Bombing shortened the war. It is unknowable if that led to fewer people dying. Or, even if it did, whether that made it the right thing to do in the circumstances.

It is a terrible and grotesque thing to deliberately go out night after night to kill as many civilians as possible in the unproven belief that it will bring about victory. Had the RAF concentrated against industrial and transportation targets, it would likely have had a greater effect on the course of the war and killed far fewer civilians. What was done sits very uneasily with me.

To my mind any moral justification rests on one thing. When, twelve weeks after Dresden, Germany surrendered, the bombing stopped. If the Allies had lost, the killing would have only just started.

Further reading:

[hotnew-pt]

Eleições EUA 2024: O futuro da relação transatlântica, com Ian Lesser do GMF #ÚltimasNotícias #Portugal

Hot News Em ano de eleições decisivas, nenhuma o é mais para os destinos da segurança europeia do que as eleições presidenciais dos Estados Unidos do próximo dia 5 de novembro. Para falar sobre o futuro da relação transatlântica, a FLAD recebe no próximo dia 23 de Setembro, às 18h30, Ian Lesser, distinguished fellow e conselheiro da Presidente do German Marshall Fund of the United States, para a…

[mariacallous]

The NATO alliance turned 75 this year. For some, this milestone proves how important the trans-Atlantic alliance is to U.S. and global security. More than seven decades of alliance coordination to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges is nothing to sneeze at, after all. But for others, the alliance’s age is evidence of NATO’s increasing irrelevance—the international security equivalent of a senior citizen shaking a cane at the state of the world and missing the boat on the questions that really matter, such as Gaza or Chinese economic coercion. Not to mention the long-standing perception that Europe isn’t pulling its weight when it comes to defense spending.

For any number of geopolitical reasons, pundits have wrongly predicted the demise of NATO for decades. Yet recent polling suggests that there is something deeper at work when it comes to how different age groups think about the alliance. The German Marshall Fund’s 2023 Transatlantic Trends survey discovered that younger respondents view NATO as less important, and Chinese and Russian influence more positive, than older generations do. In other words, Gen Z is not necessarily buying the assumptions that many of us older, crotchety folks make about the enduring importance of NATO.

Google “NATO and Gen Z,” and you’ll discover that NATO is now a dating term that, for some, means “Not Attached to an Outcome.” In the complex jungle (hellscape) that constitutes the social media and online dating world, NATO is a way to say that one is OK with the dating journey and not dedicated to any particular relationship destination, such as marriage. It is mindfulness and living in the moment applied to meeting and getting to know another person and potential romantic partner.

Now, the NATO alliance is very much wedded to certain strategic outcomes: deterring Russia, tackling climate change, advancing democracy, and countering authoritarianism being some of the alliance’s key priorities. But taking a step back and thinking about what it will take for the alliance to have another 75 years ahead of it, NATO and its member states might usefully consider applying a “Not Attached to an Outcome” philosophy to its way of doing business:

Setting up good options. A positive dating experience is often contingent on having sizable and flexible resources; you never know when you’re going to meet someone, and those dinners don’t pay for themselves. Applied to NATO, countries need to think about how to build themselves robust, flexible capabilities that give current and future decision-makers the ability to jump on critical opportunities. While defense spending is a critical component of future-option building, so is developing NATO’s capability to respond to broader challenges that are not strictly military, such as enhancing civilian infrastructure and resilience building.

Build resonance in order to build relevance. One-sided lectures are a great way to bring a first date to an abrupt end. Talking at our publics and saying NATO is working on Very Important Things is necessary but not sufficient; people know when they are being messaged to, and ultimately, a few words in a summit declaration have very little practical meaning for the overwhelming majority of the trans-Atlantic public. Rather, NATO, with its member states in the lead, should better, and more actively, engage diverse stakeholders in their polities to understand how they view the world and how NATO can be relevant to grappling with those challenges. What challenges resonate with our communities? What role can NATO play in addressing those challenges?

How can we build resonance in practice? Many in the United States are rightly concerned with illegal immigration on the southern border, a view that many are quite vocal about. The part of the argument that is not often articulated is that failure to support Ukraine will almost undoubtedly lead to a broader conflict in Europe that will embroil the United States and send economic shockwaves around the world. Tackling the southern border under those strategic conditions would be exponentially more difficult.

Be open to connection—but be prepared to walk away. Not being attached to an outcome means being ready to pursue a relationship for as long as it runs its course—but no longer. As the alliance looks to the future, it should pursue its institutional partnerships for as long as the vibes remain good. For example, right now NATO is building connections with Australia, Japan, and South Korea because they are like-minded democracies that have useful insights and capabilities to help the alliance grapple with difficult global challenges. Yet the alliance must also move more quickly when circumstances change; NATO was arguably slow to recognize the emerging threat from Moscow, and many of its member states are finding it difficult to insulate themselves against the risk of Chinese economic and political coercion. Enhancing early warning and intelligence-sharing capabilities can usefully help the alliance understand when it’s time to walk away and pursue other options.

Focus on the benefits, not the burdens. Another good way to get ghosted: focusing conversations on one’s drawbacks rather than strengths. For decades, under the moniker of better burden-sharing, the United States has been pillorying European allies about defense spending and the continent’s collective inability to deliver military effects. It should hardly be surprising, therefore, that many policymakers—particularly in Washington—are convinced that NATO allies are free-riding on U.S. military largesse. Yet a recent study I co-authored for the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that at least 25 NATO allies are spending more than 3 percent of their GDPs on programs that have utility for national security programs. In other words, allies are shouldering collective security responsibility. It’s a good news story and highlights that NATO has a lot to offer.

Be authentic. Many conversations about NATO are inherently technical: what work the allies are doing on a particular issue or who has spent what on military capabilities or advanced technologies. But at the end of the day, alliances are made of people. They are multifaceted pacts among and between citizens and governments to build a better world. Ultimately the alliance must be about, and focus on, the people it serves and the people who work for and serve the alliance.

Ultimately, NATO’s duration and continued relevance is not a foregone conclusion. Perhaps it never was. So if NATO is to make it to 150 years, new generations need to come to their own understanding of why the alliance is—and will remain—a useful national security partnership. And in this, what matters is the journey, the process of the discourse, and the process of continual, open engagement. The process is, in many ways, the product because it is how a renewed understanding of the values and strengths of the alliance gets rooted in our democracies—and will make NATO the partner of choice for global security leadership for decades to come.

[head-post]

EU intensifies engagement with NATO

After decades of defence co-operation with the US, European leaders started to take defence seriously, increasing military spending and strengthening ties with NATO, according to The Parliament.

NATO Headquarters and the European Union’s political institutions work to ensure European security. NATO was created in 1949 to contain the Soviet Union after its triumph in the war. Two years later, the main goal of the EU’s founders was to ensure a lasting peace between France and Germany.

Since then, both organisations largely achieved their goals and expanded their membership. Yet history knows few cases of coordination between them. Ian Lesser, head of the Brussels office at the German Marshall Fund, said:

NATO and the EU live in the same city but in different worlds.

However, the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022 forced the two organisations to co-operate more closely. Since then, the EU oversaw more than 108 billion euros in aid to Ukraine, imposed 14 sanctions packages against Russia and banned imports of many of the country’s energy products. As a result, the bloc increasingly intruded into the pan-European security and defence sphere traditionally occupied by NATO.

NATO now comprises 32 allies, including 23 of the EU’s 27 member states, excluding Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, and Malta. Finland joined last year and Sweden joined earlier this year, abandoning more than 200 years of formal neutrality.

The United States accounted for about two-thirds of all NATO spending last year, due to its huge economy and defence spending of 3.5 per cent of GDP. Within NATO, this figure is second only to Poland, which spent 3.9 per cent of its GDP on defence.

Global threat

The possibility of former US President Donald Trump taking the presidency again has prompted European leaders to start seriously considering their own capabilities.

There is also a desire among European institutions to increase the EU’s role in defence. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the war in Ukraine was a “wake-up call for Europe to give itself the means to defend and protect itself and to deter potential adversaries.”

We will continue to extend our co-operation with NATO to cover all threats, including new dangers linked to cyber, hybrid or space, and to strengthen our transatlantic partnership.

The threat is reflected in official NATO documents. In July, at a summit in Washington to mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary, leaders made a joint statement that “China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values.”

By the time escalation across the globe reaches an extreme point, European powers should be able to take care of themselves.

Read more HERE

[beardedmrbean]

The political institutions of the European Union are in turmoil with a cash-for-favours corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament with the potential to spread.

Former European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili is one of four people in detention, charged by Belgian prosecutors with "participation in a criminal organisation, money laundering and corruption." 

She has already been booted out of her political parties and affiliations and stripped of her vice presidency, accused of accepting bribes from Qatar.

Gleaming speeches about the Gulf state in the European Parliament, voting in favor of files related to Qatar in committees, on which she didn't sit, and attending numerous unregistered events in the country are the alleged links between Kaili and Doha.

In a statement published online, the Mission of Qatar to the EU called the allegations "baseless and gravely misinformed."

While official details of the scope and depth of the police investigation in Belgium remain scant, the activities of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and other EU bodies will now come under increased scrutiny.

EU experts are questioning whether the existing anti-corruption measures in place suffice.

"When there is highly complex and entrenched policymaking like there is in the EU, it becomes untransparent, and then it makes it easier to buy influence," Jacob Kirkegaard from the German Marshall Fund told DW News. "You can buy a vice president of the European Parliament for €600k! Are they really that cheap?"

"This is clearly a woman who wasn't afraid of being caught. It indicates that whatever measures and processes the European Parliament has, have no deterrent effect," he said. "Even stupid people, if they were afraid, wouldn't do it.”

Transparency measures

So what measures are in place at the EU?

It has a database, in which NGOs, lobby groups, consultants, charities, and any other organizations wanting to influence lawmaking must register.

All those listed in the Transparency Register are required to declare their budgets, and any donations above €10,000 (ca. $10,545) for NGOs.

Significantly though, Fighting Impunity, the NGO at the heart of the current corruption scandal, is not on the register.

Its president, former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, is also in detention. And Eva Kaili's partner Francesco Giorgi works there too. Furthermore, Fighting Impunity shares an office with the Italian non-profit No Peace Without Justice, whose director was also arrested in this case.

"With the loopholes in the system, this was bound to happen," Paul Varakas, president of the Society of European Affairs Professionals (SEAP), which helps lobbyists apply to the Transparency Register, told DW.

In 2021, the European Parliament refused to apply the principle of "strict conditionality" attached to the Transparency Register, which would have forced them to only meet with registered lobbyists.

Senior officials in the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, are already bound to this principle and only allowed to meet with lobbyists who are listed on the register.

But the MEPS argued that it would infringe on their "freedom of mandate" and rejected moves to force them to disclose all their meetings.

"That's how they [Fighting Impunity] were doing it," said Varakas. "You had an NGO influencing decision-making without having to disclose anything. They were invited by an MEP who didn't have to declare. It was simple for them."

SEAP and other organizations are now saying that while mandatory registration (and disclosure requirements attached to it) might be burdensome for smaller actors, such as NGOs, the pressure on the European Parliament to fall in line on the "conditionality principle" will be immense.

In the wake of the scandal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has repeated a call for an ethics body to be set up that would oversee all EU institutions.

"We have one with very clear rules internally in the Euroepan Commission and I think it is time to discuss where we could establish this overall for all EU institutions" she said at a press conference in Brussels on Monday.

Diplomatic immunity

MEPS also enjoy diplomatic immunity so that they can carry out their political work without fear of prosecution.

According to a Protocol on privileges and immunities of the EU, they cannot "be subject to any form of inquiry, detention or legal proceedings in respect of opinions expressed or votes cast by them in the performance of their duties."

Immunity is not valid, however, "when a Member is found in the act of committing an offence and shall not prevent the European Parliament from exercising its right to waive the immunity of one of its Members."

If necessary, MEPs do have the right to request their immunity is upheld but the press office of the European Parliament said so far no request of that nature had been made by Eva Kaili.

Prosecuting judges in Belgium have also not asked for the immunity to be lifted.

"If there is no request for immunity to be withdrawn then that suggests that the judge has concluded that the criteria have been met for immunity to no longer apply," said European Parliament spokesperson Jaume Duch in Strasbourg.

In the past, immunity requests have been made in regard to extradition requests. But because the crimes are alleged to have been committed in Belgium, extradition would not apply in this case.

[veale2006-blog]

John 8:32 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Countdown to the US explosion begins after Biden's failed trip to the Middle East.

The fake US President Biden failed to get oil during his recent trip to the Middle East with his hand outstretched. This means that the countdown to the explosion of the United States and Western Europe has begun. The revolution is in the air, and there will be no turning back, numerous sources agree.

Biden's handlers hoped to use Iran as an "enemy" to justify massive arms sales in exchange for oil. Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Remma bin Bandar al-Saud, summed up the opinion of the region, calling the "oil for security" paradigm "outdated and reductionist." The absence of weapons for oil means the absence of oil for the United States and its client states. The absence of oil means the absence of economic activity.

Meanwhile, the Khazarian mafia, like a dying beast, spits out fear porn, biological weapons and threats of war in a desperate attempt to prevent the inevitable. However, their medical mafia is systematically hunted down and killed, as this video shows.

Let's now look at the real meaning of Biden's visit to the Middle East. His inability to get permanent free oil in exchange for money printed out of nothing will have consequences far beyond the United States. This will mean the end of the BIS, the UN, the EU and perhaps even the papacy.

To understand why this is the case, we need to look through some background material. First, the BIS, or central bank of central banks, was founded in 1930 using Asian gold. This gold was lent to the Germans to help them fulfill their obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, signed at the end of the First World War. In return, the Asians were promised that the United Nations would be created as a world parliament with ancient royal families. East and West (family of dragons), acting as background overseers.

However, at the end of the Second World War, the victorious Allies broke their promise to spend the gold they were given on the development of the entire planet. Instead, their Marshall Plan developed only the countries they controlled (now known as the G7).

In retaliation, the Asians cut off any further access to their gold. When the U.S. ran out of gold, we had the "Nixon shock" of 1971. It was then that the dollar was separated from gold. Instead, the countries of the world had to buy oil for dollars.

It was a giant sugar high for the USA. The countries of the world had to have a trade surplus with the United States in order to buy oil. This has led to a strong dollar and free money for Americans. However, as a result, the US industry has lost its competitiveness, and more than 50 years of trade deficits have turned the US into the country with the largest debt in world history.

Then, finally, in 2008, the rest of the world decided to stop lending to the US, which led to the "Lehman shock".

Then the Americans were able to buy time by promising to put a black communist as president. At this point, readers should know that communism was created by the Vatican or, I should say, the P2 Freemasons who control the Vatican, and that Obama was/is their domestic slave.

In any case, Obama's ploy convinced Asians to hand over 700 tons of gold to the Federal Reserve Board under the leadership of Alan Greenspan. This was used more than a thousand times to create $23 trillion that allowed the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION to exist until 2020.

When the money ran out in January 2020, the West, controlled by the Khazarian mafia, responded with a massive attack using biological weapons and vaccines. They hoped to kill enough people to stay in power. This attempt failed.

They also managed to get some funding for the US CORPORATION by promising to bring back Barack Obama with Joe Biden acting as his figurehead.

Now, as a result of the general disgust at the antics of the fake Biden regime, this money has been cut off. This is the prehistory of truly historical events that are unfolding before our eyes.