Ukraine Notes - The Long Proxy War IV

Of Madness and Men. Women, some of them.

Mainstream Media - A suppurating infection within the body politic.

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>>> Miseries Of War <<<

. . . from the 17th century French Line Engraver Jacques Collot - his Miseries of War collection, reflecting upon the cycle of life and death in Europe. War. Exhaustion. Peace. Peace - Preparation for the next war. Collot depicted soldiers pillaging and burning villages, killing or taking the inhabitants as prisoners along with livestock, war scenes and summary executions of soldiers. Villagers grew to oppose the military, would round them up, execute them by various means or break their bones, so causing them to live out shortened, miserable lives as crippled beggars.

That was then. This is now.

In The West, Militarism is revered by Political Elites and Mainstream Media personalities. A rare occasion where they honour the lower educated working class. The Religious Class is notably silent. They generally are, if not boosting for foreign wars. The West thus exhibits a form of Fascist Italy, a union of State Power, Private Capital along with privatized Armaments Manufacturers and a form of Nazi Germany, Veneration of the Military. Weapon systems are sacralized in name - U.S. Hellfire Missiles. Rods from God (a once planned project to place in orbit massive Tungsten Rods, to fall out of orbit onto a target as a kinetic, radiation free, hypersonic weapon).

John Harding, a 59-year-old English veteran of the 1982 Falklands War and a participant in the war in Syria on the side of the Kurds. In The Ukraine, he was a paramedic militant in the Azov Regiment "Navoz", as reported.

A Soldier of (Mis-)fortune. He is a prisoner of the Eastern Ukrainian Provinces, "the villagers". During interrogation, Harding prays that the British Prime Minister will save him, as he faces the death penalty. He says he loves his daughter. He fought with the British Army in The Falklands War, a one-sided conflict and perhaps a cause for an overestimation of his successes. Argentina was no peer competitor to The British Armed Forces, as the then French President aided the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by providing the British Armed Forces with the electronic codes to disable otherwise unstoppable French Exocet Missiles that would destroy British ships. So selling out the Argentine Armed Forces. Always a weakness in one's own defense systems if using another countries' armaments, contract arrangements not withstanding.

>>> Propaganda & State Power <<<

The agents of propaganda function deep within our societies. They come looking as every mother's son (and daughter, as the saying goes), they speak well, are well dressed and generally well educated. They are well paid. They are also manipulative, well calibrated, measured and dangerous. Their propaganda kills - indirectly. Media propaganda creates the pretext and cover for the very material actions to follow, military and covert. Their narratives are highly scripted and are delivered with conviction. Where facts emerge that severely contradict official narratives, they reflexively fall back on the standard Western political algorithm - keep lying but if no longer tenable, dismiss war crimes of Nuremberg trial proportions as "mistakes". As the liberal democrat evergreen favourite President Barack Obama did regarding the second Iraq Campaign, a entire other story. Would John Harding and those like him understand that the intentions of mainstream media is both to install beliefs and maintain mechanisms of addiction? Moreover, those who have not the slightest awareness of the workings of modern media shall be its ardent defenders and promoters.

Peoples have never yet been successfully led by a majority but always only by a minority. Adolph Hitler, September, 1934.

It could be that the purpose of this experienced English mercenary's life is to serve as a head note to a geo-politics essay. But questions arise that cannot be addressed and so will not be. Russia incidentally does not have the death penalty. The Ukrainian State does. He fought as a mercenary in the Ukrainian State in this Ukrainian Civil War. It is more than a civil war, but it was a civil war. Now a War of Separation, the outcome will not be decided by his political enablers, invisible to him.

This man has been effectively propagandized - very effectively. There will be no mercy accorded him by "the villagers". Many Ukrainian civilians died in the Eastern Ukrainian Provinces, including children, from Armed Forces of The Ukraine [AFU] direct attacks on civilian infrastructure using Western weapons - see below. This has received limited coverage in The West.

“Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state". Attributed to Adolph Hitler.

John Harding and those like him had no decent education, nor the intellectual constructs or modes of thought to reason out the myriad contradictions within State Messaging. He was convinced to fight for Queen and Country, yet the Queen's men, the British Armed Forces, were not committed to this campaign, save special forces and trainers, of whose activities receive small coverage in The West. Likewise other Western Government’s Armed Forces. He thus was abandoned by The Mainstream Media, the Public Education System and the Governments that funds the latter. With good reasons. Encouraging people to fight as mercenaries is a crime under International Law. As pointed out to those intending to assist ISIS in Syria so many years ago. But we do not have International Law really. We have the Rules Based International Order which is something else entirely, but not the subject of interest here.

“The Russian barbarian, exposed to the contempt of The World” (certain Western countries are the world, the white Anglo-Christian ones). Puck magazine anti-propaganda media publication, 1903, New York.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire, French Enlightenment Historian, 1765.

We see the effects of decades of media and government vilifying Russia and the effect of the Russia leader on Western Leadership. Notably accelerated after Vlad Putin's well received 2007 Munich address where he saw U.S. global dominance as untenable and a future with Russia within Western Europe. He questioned U.S. hegemonic primacy and foreign wars. Some did not like that. Washington has struck back and they will sacrifice Europe . Making Germany less competitive than the U.S. in global markets has been their long sought desire. Installing American weapon systems in Europe places them at risk. How manipulated (and paid off?) has the European leadership shown themselves to be?

British and American Mainstream Media face no consequences for their obvious lying and unsupported claims made regarding foreign countries and foreign leaders who are no longer favourites. Mercenaries or privateers who are encouraged to go to war in another country do not have the benefit of Geneva Convention rules for prisoners. The pro-London and Washington media, boosting for the US-NATO-UK Ukrainian Proxy War on Russia, do not explain this.

Leading church authorities do not condemn the true causes of the Ukrainian War, nor condemn managing editors of mainstream media publications nor their production teams, script writers, front line personalities nor the intelligence agencies that provide editorial, based around false narratives, designed to boost support for The War. These classes know that they escape punishment. The liberal intellectual class, the traditional source of critical analysis, have sold out to personal prosperity. None of these classes face down the bullets.

Not found on their bookshelves . . .

As one former British Special Forces officer (SAS) and former British mercenary in The Congo remarked to me (by then a work colleague) - "You have to live to spend it". Shot twice. He lived. Others didn't. He never described himself as a special military contractor. He and others like him were there to protect British interests. He was tall, well spoken and with a strong confident voice, was always polite, well organized, uncommonly deferential to women. His secretary thought him the best manager she ever had. She was probably right. Every mother's son. He also liked killing coloured people. Sometimes laughed about it. Every white mother’s son. Foreign Policy must run on Racism. Domestic Policy against Racism a necessary illusion.

What church authorities and the mainstream media do emphasize are parochial matters of personal probity, of personal conduct, matters of self. What it means to be a good person. Outcomes in one's life always a matter of personal choice. There is no such thing as Society, nor the influence of Predatory Economics by the Financial Elite. The nature and morality of State Power remains unexamined. The last war The Churches criticized was the last of the Indo-China Wars, the Vietnam War and it was not all of them.

The Kyiv Government is issuing conscription papers to Ukrainian civilian men, as reported. Kyiv's situation is desperate. Western Governments can demonstrate resolve by issuing conscription papers to their own civilian populations to go fight in The Ukraine. That avenue of resolve is closed off. They show no inclination to committing their professional armed forces, beyond covert special forces. Sending advanced weapons without trained personnel leads to some weapons going to the Russian Armed Forces, then their Design Bureaus to be reverse engineered. Some small arms go to the underground markets. Battlefield data informs that the life expectancy of a Ukrainian conscript is some six to eight weeks, from intake. Upon reaching the Line of Contact, so-called, one's life expectancy drops to under two weeks. When detected by Russian Systems, it runs out to hours or minutes. Surrender may not be an option. You may be shot in the back by AFU commanding officers. As reported.

“We will tolerate dissent so long as it is not effective” - John Gorton, Australian Prime Minister, 1968-1971.

Of President Putin's forecast concerning the collapse of The Western Elites - “Such a detachment from reality, from the demands of society, will inevitably lead to a surge of populism and the growth of radical movements, to serious social and economic changes, to degradation and, in the near future, to a change of elites", this is by no means certain.

They will double down. The iron fist of The Authoritarian State will crush dissent, however mild. As the former Australian Prime Minister alluded to during Vietnam Anti-War Demonstrations. As fully understood by Julian Assange, Australian journalist and detainee of the US-UK National Security Apparatus, 2012 - present. Now spreading throughout The Democratic West.

Ruling Elites, increasing devoid of civic obligations via the ordinary function of Government (their charities are a sleight of hand and some outright financial frauds), do notice the discontentment amongst the population and move in entirely predictable ways to deal with moves against them - by attacking first. They conflate their existence with that of The State. Attacks upon them and legitimate desires to remove them are hga threat to Democracy and the survival of The State itself. The people are labelled unruly, anarchic and (usually) subversively acting under foreign influences, with no legitimate claims. In fact, what most want is stable, honest government, equitable arrangements in all affairs, a non-depreciating money system and a well regulated militia. They will have none of these and the militia, that being The Armed Forces, is increasingly unregulated. Foreign policy lies within the realm of The Generals and the Intelligence Agencies; diplomats have diminishing influence.

>>> German Militarism - Headless Horsemen Redux<<<

"Madness in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nation states and epochs, it is the rule" - Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th century German historian and cultural critic.

German Air Force General Ingo Gerhartz stated at the Kiel International Sea Power Symposium recently - “For credible deterrence, we need both the means and the political will to implement nuclear deterrence if necessary”. This brings to mind President G. W. Bush's doctrine of Preemptive Strike Theory, reflexively repeated by U.S. vassal state leaders like the Australian Prime Minister at that time and essentially to mean that we reserve the right to decide if a foreign country is of sufficient threat to us, by our own reasoning and to thus launch a preemptive, terminal strike against them. If anything remains democratic - not much is - war remains democratic. The "other side" has a vote. The rest is obvious.

Russian high performance jet with nuclear and non-nuclear capable hypersonic missile. Russian hypersonic missiles continue to be used with effectiveness in The US-NATO-UK Ukraine Proxy War on Russia, in The Ukraine, from Russian supplies that ran out months ago, as per Western reports. Russia is conducting war games in its Far East with Chinese Forces, to the west of Japan, with munitions and artillery it ran out of months ago, as reported.

Interestingly, General Gerhartz was not censured by the German Leadership. One may conclude he writes or states German State foreign policy, now militarized. Some German military commanders have not observed the lessons of the outcome of The Second World War. This could be seen as a response to a desperate domestic economic crisis affecting millions of disenfranchised German people who cannot afford to live at any minimum or decent standard. Military adventurism costs. They get squeezed. The Government faces direct action from them. Every reason to expect violence, to be dismissed as entirely due to foreign influences. The German Leadership has learnt nothing from the progress of their Proxy War on Russia via The Ukraine. That lesson is - Take on Russia, be destroyed. There is one difference here. The Russian Government policy was to remove Kyiv attacks on the Eastern Provinces, minimizing civilian loss of life. No "shock and awe" strategy, essentially meaning carpet bombing and indiscriminate death. So, winning hearts and minds of the population so as to integrate them into Russia. The Russian Armed Forces took hits in street battles to remove AFU fighters and AZOV Nazi units embedded within population centres. Germany may not receive such felicitous treatment. That is, whether the Russian Armed Forces would be tasked to go beyond military targets and obliterate population centres remains unclear. Or remains to be seen. British WWII air-force bombings over Germany destroyed both armaments factories and the towns near by where the skilled workers lived - and died. A war crime strictly, but they do it anyway.

"The blood of millions can be pledged only if they know that the conflict does not serve a particular class, but that it benefits the entire people" - Adolph Hitler, April 9, 1927.

They never do - benefit the entire people. Charlie Chaplin, the famous early 20th century English American film and stage actor, director and producer, closely studied Adolph Hitler's public political addresses by attending Movietone Newsreels in New York city theatres that screened these continuously. He concluded, here in his exact words, that Adolph Hitler was "a performative genius". So was Chaplin. Both rehearsed in front of mirrors. They knew something about it.

Much German Government propaganda may now follow, to convince the people that a new foreign war is their war.

>>> The Age Of Consequences <<<

The highly trained-to-NATO standards AFU had numerical superiority, were on their home territory, were trained and prepared for several years and so had control of the terrain and were highly motivated as they were defending their home territory - west of The Eastern Provinces which they themselves were attacking- along with a fanatical hatred of Russians. Results count. They have lost.

This is a loss for the US, NATO and UK war planners and intelligence agency tacticians. A Ukraine loss will dwarf failures in Afghanistan. Interestingly, Afghanistan stands as the United States’ longest war. In The West, it receives no attention by the Mainstream Media and thus constitutes a media blackout. Parochial affairs and talk back radio from the know nothing class act to crowd out otherwise serious analysis by professionals.

Russian and Chinese specialists study the The West very closely. Their leadership knows more about The West than Western leaders know about them.

It was self-evident that US, NATO and UK war planners were planning an attack on Russia after it became militarily exhausted from The Ukrainian Campaign, their Special Military Operation and the Russian economy had collapsed. It is The West that is collapsing. It is more than an economic collapse. Groups, societies and national states all have sustaining myths. What is occurring in The West is also a loss of belief.

What physically counts are countries which have The Critical Assets for Geo-Political Power: Resources, Industrial Manufacturing, Supply Chain Capacity and Networks and Military Power to protect these from U.S. and U.K. Spoilers. Russia, China along with the other BRICS countries and those lining up to join the Chinese OBR (One Belt Road) massive infrastructure program have all these things (prior Substack essay). The leadership of those remaining Western countries that stay out of this to follow Washington diktats will stagnate their countries. Those countries currently are Australia (under U.S. economic occupation), New Zealand (wavering), Japan (still under U.S. military occupation), Canada (just another Washington vassal), U.K. (collapsing everywhere), Singapore (another fake democracy run by a pro-Washington Chinese clique), Western Europe and some Stan States.

Additionally, former colonized countries come with long memories, aided by teaching their histories in school. They'll remain polite and diplomatic as their former imperial political masters sweep though their regions, selling security and a militarized foreign policy which come, as always, with armaments deals.

They, on the other hand, want trade and prosperity for all, not war profits for elites. The West no longer has anything to offer - them nor their own populations. The essence of the preconditions for collapse.

>>> The End Of The Gold Rush <<<

Of High Noon & Desperadoes. Never ever start something that you cannot finish. World's finest fighting force? The Russian Armed Forces.

The anger of Western leadership and the elite billionaire class, directed at Vladimir Putin, arose as the Russian President put an end to the gold rush that was the pillaging of The Ukraine and its state assets, The Ukraine Money Show, as he did put an end to the pillaging of Russian state assets after the sometimes sober former Russian President Yeltsin moved on. President Putin remains unforgiven. The West did not want normalized economic arrangements with Russia, as Russia sought. What was sought in Vlad Putin as Russian President was a sober Yeltsin. A well behaved, compliant leader with no quirks who just gave the shop away to the usual Neo-Liberal Interventionist Pillaging of weaker countries with bought off leaderships. Something, somewhere went wrong. Very wrong. For them.

The outcome of The US-NATO-UK Ukrainian Proxy War on Russia was never in doubt, according to some U.S. and Russian military professionals. The Russian Armed Forces will win. Of note . . .

• The Russian Armed Forces continue to strike Ukrainian and Western targets within The Ukraine. They continue to strike with precision Hypersonic Missiles that they ran out of months ago and are unable to replenish, as reported.

• The Russian Armed Forces rewrote the Operational Art of War. The Ukraine SMO will be studied for decades. "It took everyone by surprise". Not everyone, just everyone who thought they were in charge.

From someone who knew about military campaigns . . .

“Never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake” - Napoleon Bonaparte, 19th century French Imperial Ruler.

He went on to say - “War is an experiment in planning and having less mistakes than your enemy”.

• Here, the Russian Armed Forces have not destroyed Ukrainian central government functions, media or non-military electronic communications. President Zelenskyy of The Ukraine remains where he is. He is no impediment to them.

• Rather than attack with the standard formulaic ratio of three times as many Russian personnel to Ukrainian, with air cover, the Russian Armed Forces committed far less service personnel, as reported. This gave them a numerical disadvantage, the opposite of operational doctrine. They took hits early on as plans got underway. They were prevailing overall, as reported. There was no interest in taking Kyiv, a very effective feint to divide the AFU. It is not the size of the army but the power within the army, as Napoleon also observed.

• Western mainstream media take briefs from Ukrainian media who take briefs from The Ukrainian Government who take briefs from Western Intelligence Agencies. Western mainstream media have been qualifying their reports with "According to the Ukrainian Government . . . ", a phrase that gives them an out later on while convincing readers that the truth lies other than where it is. Many may disregard that qualifier, as they hope.

• There will be a serious moment of cognitive dissonance when it becomes impossible to hide war outcomes (the physical remapping of The Ukraine to Russian Government terms), possibly followed by a recognition within The West that Western Media is a system of constructed lying. Within Eurasia? This they know.

• What follows from any broad recognition of widespread Western Media and Government deceptions is that the hardships that many will increasingly endure - the personal inconveniences of cold water, no heating, high food costs and no rent money - is that this was all avoidable. No money for social programs and infrastructure restoration, yet billions or tens of billions of dollars is spent on The Ukraine War Effort. That money mostly being spent in The West, first going to Defense Departments, then to the Armaments Industries. As former French President General Charles De Gaulle observed, America and Britain do not live in Europe. In Europe, Winter Is Coming.

• The US-NATO-UK Proxy War has shown that Western Leadership will sacrifice any and all commitments to Green Energy. They never believed it. They were always behind popular, informed opinion. Resistant. Coal is now front and centre in Europe. Environmental activists have demonstrated a capacity for planning and violent confrontation. One cannot overstate the importance of keeping the Freedom for Ukraine narrative intact nor overemphasize the absolutely critical propaganda that Vlad Putin is a very, very dangerous and threatening person.

• Worse still is the reported (by few) conformist intelligence that is fed up the line to Western political elites. It proved a sobering moment when the Russian Armed Forces successfully fielded Hypersonic Weapons. The U.S. Armed Forces’ two recent hypersonic missile tests ended in failure, as reported.

• Contrary to popular propaganda, the Russian President has been open concerning the objectives of their Special Military Operation. Remove the capacity of the AFU to attack the Eastern Ukrainian Provinces, remove major weapon systems close to the Russian State and de-Nazify The Ukraine.

>>> Censoring, Logic, Indoctrination <<<

Certain Western Mainstream Media instruct us not to read Russian President Vladimir Putin's addresses. Reasons given include that they are long and rambling. Long they can be. Deliberate, structured and sometimes historically referencing. This is a form of Western Media unlegislated and unregulated censorship, private market censorship, inconsistent with Western free market doctrine. Of those exercising censorship, they themselves must read the Russian President’s addresses and draw conclusions.

If it is true that reading this President's addresses would cause us to think much less of him and by extension the Russian State and the Russian People, we would be told to read them.

We are told the opposite.

We were told to ignore specialists’ assessments concerning the presence of Iraqi WMDs and supposed Iraqi plans for an incipient attack on The Forces of Eternal Goodness, here the United States and Britain. That is, a technologically backward third world country was suddenly in a surprising position of overpowering capability and had intentions and capacities, completely unknown to the largest and overwhelmingly pervasive Western Intelligence Apparatuses ever in technological history, to launch over intercontinental distances, highly accurate and devastating attacks on The West. Reasons were given. We are free; they are not. One did not have to be inside the tent to know these false claims for what they were.

The officer responsible for preparing U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's emergency address to the United Nations concerning the Iraqi Government’s deadly biological weapons and big guns program, his Chief of Staff, has admitted - "we lied". He added that pictures of Iraqi biological facilities were created on computers in The State Department. That address we were supposed to read. The subsequent rebuke not. There were no WMDs. They knew it. A case of fixing the intelligence to suit Washington political strategists, at that time. Some spoke out. Some lost their employment. Some spoke in support. They got to say sorry. Certain Western leaders fell into line with Washington diktats. They remain unindicted war criminals under international and domestic laws and thus fugitives from justice. Some now perform important work and give important addresses on important matters of peace, power, prosperity and the eternal foreign threats to other important people. What there are is a few million dead Iraqis, mostly non-combatants, as the street artwork above implicates. There were also hundreds of thousands of young Iraqi girls trafficked into prostitution into adjacent Arab countries. Few who live among The Forces of Universal Goodness know this. Something else not to be read.

People made money. Mission accomplished.

The mark of effective indoctrination is a population who have some glimmer of thought that indeed have they been lied to about the past enemy, by those they thought were trustworthy, while simultaneously believing what they are now told about the new enemy is the truth.

People are fooled. Mission accomplished.

Courtesy of this publication of the British Ministry of Defense - Integrated Operating Concept (undated) page 5 paragraph 3. Word emphasis is theirs:

“The triumph of narrative increasingly determines defeat or victory and hence the importance of information operations. They can be used to support conventional military operations and those utilizing proxies and deniable para-military forces, military coercion, offensive cyber operations, and of course lawfare.

Established techniques such as assassination, deception, economic coercion, espionage, theft of intellectual property and subversion gain potency through the clever use of cyber, digitized information, and social media.

Psychological insights into how these channels can be manipulated enhance their effectiveness.

The combined effect is designed to force an adversary to become politically cowed, thus achieving objectives without the need to escalate above the threshold of war”.

Further remarks are directed to the “Cyber and the Electromagnetic Domain”.

When you cannot win The War, you can win the Media War. Here “information” means misinformation.

Motivations behind their media strategies are vaguely described. Desperation could be one of them. The Vogue photo shoot of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and his wife, seen here below and dated July 27, might be that desperation media manoeuvre of US-NATO-UK war strategists, before the complete collapse of the Western Ukrainian Forces. A sort of advanced rescue mission of their former good intentions. Bonaparte himself also remarked upon such things. People believe what they read, some of them. He observed - "If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days". That was then. This is now and now the key personalities of media are qualified and chosen. Curated. A much misused term now. The days where you could work your way up, inside a major media operation, from mail room assistant to managing editor or television anchor person entirely on talent and talent alone have gone.

A photo shoot in leading fashion magazines requires a pretty face. A pretty vacant face. To qualify for a front cover of Vogue suggests that you must be very special. Yet that market segment of fashion magazine consumers is probably not `given over to abstruse geo-political historic reasonings. More so the parochial matters of personal grooming and wellness, the very ephemeral here and now, so intended to spare readers the burdens of coming to terms with the grand sweeping affairs of history. This fashion magazine media piece has the appearance of a script from the Intelligence Agency operators. This class know the market for the necessary war propaganda goes way beyond the readers of fashion magazines. This was a subtle pitch to all the other media outlets. Media on media. The entire world of media reproduced it. A very deft piece of Western media agit prop. Deftly avoided is, inter alia, the background chitchat of the Ukrainian leadership shifting state funds to personal accounts that reside in British Commonwealth Tax Havens.

Out of professional courtesy and respect does one accord credit where credit is due.

Following, a photo of this young Eastern Ukrainian woman who also has a pretty face. Circa 2014. Here she is. A photo of her and her young baby follows. Fashion magazines like family photos, sentimental story of love and devotion, that first meeting of a couple, the children they have.

They buy into The War? Buy into all The War.

Killed by artillery shelling of the Western Ukrainian Armed Forces on the civilian areas of the Eastern Provinces, 2014. While in a park. Notice her top. Some weapon systems come courtesy of the French Federal Government.

The physical makeup departments of fashion magazine houses work wonders on a person's face. Then digital post-processing, for perfection. They could be challenged with the face of this Eastern Ukrainian civilian woman.

To the dedicated followers of fashion magazines. This one's for you.

Her face destroyed by artillery shelling of the Western Ukrainian Armed Forces on the civilian areas of the Eastern Provinces, 2014.

Now you know. You can’t say you don’t.

Western Mainstream Media - The Friendly Face of Fascism.

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