More about Silvio Berlusconi’s Mafia Ties

Com­ment: Ital­ian prime min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni’s Mafia ties are becom­ing more vis­i­ble. A mem­ber of the fas­cist P‑2 lodge, Berlus­coni has “more con­nec­tions than a switch­board.” Suc­ces­sor to Mus­solin­i’s fascisti, the P‑2 has been a major focal point of these broad­casts for decades. (Berlus­coni is pic­tured at right.) Berlus­coni and his Ital­ian fas­cist milieu also […]

FTR#1311 How Many Lies Before You Belong to the Lies?, Part 26

The war in Ukraine has served to make the nor­mal­iza­tion of Nazis almost rou­tine. This broad­cast high­lights that nor­mal­iza­tion, places it in a broad­er his­tor­i­cal con­text and sets forth essen­tial back­ground infor­ma­tion that flesh­es out under­stand­ing of the phe­nom­e­non.

Points of Analy­sis and Dis­cus­sion Include: 

1a.–The pro­gram begins with review of a crit­i­cal insight made by Glenn Pinch­back, an offi­cer at Fort Sill, Okla­homa. This insight encap­su­lates an ide­o­log­i­cal dynam­ic that has, in part, result­ed in the nor­mal­iza­tion of Nazis via the Ukraine war.

1b.–Exemplifying the nor­mal­iza­tion of Nazis is the white­wash­ing of the Plast orga­ni­za­tion by the New York Times, which presents it as a nor­mal sum­mer camp.

2.–A more accu­rate por­tray­al of the Plast orga­ni­za­tion was pre­sent­ed by Scott Rit­ter: “ . . . . Plast is to Ukrain­ian nation­al­ists like the Hitler Youth was to Ger­man Nazis. . . .”

3.–The white­wash­ing of Plast can be seen as deriv­ing from the cul­ti­va­tion of Ukrain­ian and oth­er East­ern Euro­pean fas­cist groups by the Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion.

4.–For the sec­ond time this year, Azov Nazis were fet­ed as heroes at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty.

5.–Stanford fel­low and con­ser­v­a­tive lumi­nary Fran­cis Fukuya­ma was among those who cel­e­brat­ed the Azov Nazis.

6.–Azov’s Nazis evolved direct­ly from the Third Reich col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment of Ukraine. Roman Svarych, WWII Ukrain­ian Nazi satrap Yaroslav Stetsko’s per­son­al sec­re­tary in the 1980’s, was instru­men­tal in the spawn­ing of Azov. Svarych was the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice of Ukraine under three dif­fer­ent admin­is­tra­tions. (That is the equiv­a­lent of U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al.)

7.–Ukrainian revi­sion­ist Volodymyr Via­tro­vych served as Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion in Ukraine.

8.–Ukrainian school chil­dren are now taught the doc­trine of fas­cist and anti-Semit­ic ide­o­logue Ulas Sam­chuk.

9.–Apologists for the Ukrain­ian fas­cists cite Vlodymyr Zelensky’s Jew­ish her­itage as proof that Ukraine isn’t infest­ed with Nazis. Zelen­sky is exten­sive­ly net­worked with the Azov Nazis.

10.–Former U.S. Air­borne sol­dier Bri­an Boyenger appears to have assist­ed the Geor­gian Legion in the Maid­an false-flag sniper killings. Boyenger also pre­sides over Task Force Plu­to, which has incor­po­rat­ed U.S. Nazis into its ranks, includ­ing indict­ed mur­der­ers.

11.–Former Marine and U.S. Nazi Christo­pher Pohlhaus is train­ing Amer­i­can Nazis to fight in Ukraine. One won­ders if his trainees will return to the U.S. in order to sub­due those who fig­ure to be blamed for “los­ing” Ukraine.

FTR #1154 Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now, Part 14: The Yellow Journalism Peril, Part 2

Con­tin­u­ing analy­sis of the weaponized media cov­er­age of both the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic and Chi­na, this pro­gram begins with reprise of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in our last broad­cast detail­ing the activ­i­ties of Adri­an Zenz, the Ger­man Nazi fel­low-trav­el­er and End Times Chris­t­ian who has become a “Go-To” source on Chi­na for West­ern media. 

In addi­tion to being cit­ed by the vaunt­ed “New York Times” as a source jus­ti­fy­ing boy­cott of the movie “Mulan,” Zenz is has been ele­vat­ed to the sta­tus of “anthro­pol­o­gist” by the British Guardian in its alle­ga­tions about Tibet being sub­ject to mass labor depor­ta­tions.

(We note in pass­ing that Zenz derives his polit­i­cal grav­i­tas from the milieu of the OUN/B and the SS Gali­cian Divi­sion, and the Dalai Lama him­self has exten­sive his­tor­i­cal and oper­a­tion links with the Nazi SS.)

Much of the pro­gram details the stark real­i­ty of the ASPI–the Aus­tralian Strat­e­gy Pol­i­cy Insti­tute.

Anoth­er “Go-To” source for reports on alleged Chi­nese human rights abus­es, the ASPI is a less-than-objec­tive jour­nal­is­tic source.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion of the ASPI include:

1.–The ASPI ” . . . . was found­ed by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment in 2001 and is fund­ed by the country’s Depart­ment of Defence. . . .”
2.–The ASPI ” . . . . is spon­sored by a host of weapons man­u­fac­tur­ers, includ­ing Raytheon Aus­tralia, Lock­heed Mar­tin, Northrop Grum­man, MBDA Mis­sile Sys­tems, Saab AB, Thales, and Austalia. . . .”
3.–In addi­tion, the ASPI has ” . . . . exten­sive sources of for­eign fund­ing, includ­ing the US State Depart­ment, UK For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office (FCO), gov­ern­ment of Japan, and NATO. . . .”
4.–The above infor­ma­tion has been revealed by ” . . . . Australia’s For­eign Influ­ence Trans­paren­cy Scheme — enact­ed by the cen­ter-right Lib­er­al Par­ty to mon­i­tor alleged threat of ‘Chi­nese polit­i­cal inter­fer­ence’ in the coun­try  . . . .”
5.–” . . . A recent pro­file of ASPI in the Aus­tralian Finan­cial Review notes that the orga­ni­za­tion has ‘been accused of foment­ing anti-Chi­na hys­te­ria, to the alleged ben­e­fit of its bene­fac­tors.’ . . .”
6.–” . . . . ASPI has been so bel­li­cose it has come in for crit­i­cism from major fig­ures in Aus­tralian for­eign pol­i­cy cir­cles. . . .”
7.–” . . . . For­mer Aus­tralian For­eign Min­is­ter Bob Carr has slammed ASPI for push­ing a ‘one-sided, pro-Amer­i­can view of the world’, while the for­mer Aus­tralian ambas­sador to Chi­na Geoff Raby added that ASPI is ‘the archi­tect of the Chi­na threat the­o­ry in Aus­tralia’. . . .”
8.–” . . . . Aus­tralian Sen­a­tor Kim Carr of the Labour Par­ty has echoed the crit­i­cism of ASPI, con­demn­ing the think tank for seek­ing to “pro­mote a new cold war with Chi­na” in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the US. . . . high­light­ing ASPI’s exten­sive fund­ing from the US State Department’s Glob­al Engage­ment Cen­ter, head­ed by for­mer CIA offi­cer and Navy fight­er pilot Lea Gabrielle. . . .”
9.–ASPI sources alle­ga­tions from ” . . . . Bit­ter Win­ter . . . a project of the Cen­ter for Stud­ies on New Reli­gions (CESNUR) . . . .”
10.–Discussed at length in FTR #521, CESNUR (through its Bit­ter Win­ter blog) ” . . . . have vig­or­ous­ly defend­ed fanat­i­cal Chi­nese reli­gious move­ments includ­ing Falun Gong and the Church of the Almighty God, or East­ern Light­ning. . . . East­ern Light­ning is noto­ri­ous for mass kid­nap­pings, assaults, and mur­der­ous vio­lence against per­ceived ‘demons’ or non-believ­ers, includ­ing blud­geon­ing a woman to death for refus­ing to give recruiters her phone num­ber in 2014 . . .”
11.–In addi­tion: ” . . . . CESNUR has also tak­en up the cause of the Japan­ese dooms­day cult, Aum Shin­rikyo which was respon­si­ble for the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attack. . . .”
Passtime of Mas­si­mo Intro­vi­gne and J. Gor­don Melton of CESNUR

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The nation­al secu­ri­ty connections–American and international–of the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies, anoth­er source for the Yel­low Jour­nal­ism Per­il; the fas­cist con­nec­tions of Mas­si­mo Intro­vi­gne of CESNUR, includ­ing his links with the P‑2 and Opus Dei milieux, as well as the Latin Amer­i­can fas­cist group Tra­di­tion, Fam­i­ly and Prop­er­ty; the affin­i­ty of Intro­vi­gne and fel­low CESNUR oper­a­tive J. Gor­don Melton for vam­pire cul­ture; advo­ca­cy in a U.S. Navy jour­nal for armed pira­cy against Chi­na.

FTR #999 “In Politics, Nothing Happens by Accident”: Weaponized Feminism and the #MeToo Movement, Part 2 (The Crucible)

“A lib­er­al’s idea of courage is eat­ing at a restau­rant that has­n’t been reviewed yet.”–Mort Sahl.

The sub­ti­tle for this pro­gram comes from the play The Cru­cible by Arthur Miller. An alle­go­ry about McCarthy­ism, the play uses the Salem Witch Tri­als as a vehi­cle for illus­trat­ing the hys­ter­i­cal, unjust mode of accu­sa­tion used against those pil­lo­ried by the anti-Com­mu­nist witch hunts in ear­ly 1950’s Amer­i­ca. Mr. Emory feels that the com­par­i­son with the weaponized fem­i­nism being used as a vehi­cle for psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare and the (in some cas­es) unfair destruc­tion of careers of those the right sees as obstruc­tive is alto­geth­er appro­pri­ate.

Exem­pli­fy­ing this com­par­i­son is the use of mali­cious tweets in a San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle sto­ry about direc­tor Oliv­er Stone’s caveat about the Har­vey Wein­stein case.

We reprint the com­ments from a trust­ed asso­ciate here, with a few minor edi­to­r­i­al changes.

“Unlike Stone, we feel lit­tle sym­pa­thy for Wein­stein and how ‘it’s not easy what he’s going through either’. Oth­er than that, what he said is total­ly ratio­nal. ‘Wait and see, which is the right thing to do’.

What a misog­y­nist! What, you don’t think that a loud and psy­chot­ic media witch hunt [hence The Cru­cible comparison–D.E.] isn’t the calm, respon­si­ble thing to do? Stone must be unsta­ble! After all, he believes crazy things like JFK being killed by more than one per­son. As for the Play­boy Play­mate? Well, it wouldn’t sur­prise me if Stone did some­thing like this (again…Hollywood), but with some­one like Stone, who has been the tar­get of CIA cam­paigns since 1991, I am not assum­ing any­thing.

Well, luck­i­ly we have calm, ratio­nal lib­er­als on social media to apply some ratio­nal­i­ty and objec­tiv­i­ty to this sto­ry! Twit­ter is such a (present par­tici­ple, exple­tive delet­ed) sew­er… Note the Ira Madi­son guy active­ly trolling for Oliv­er Stone dirt on behalf of Tina Brown’s Dai­ly Beast. Man, some things nev­er change… Got to love these jour­nal­ists from ‘The Wrap’, they don’t even have to write anti-Stone hit pieces, they just go to twit­ter and copy and paste.”

The Cru­cible anal­o­gy man­i­fests direct sub­stance in the vicious tweet­ing that occu­pies much of the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle arti­cle. The pro­gram then sam­ples the vicious, “Crucible”-like exco­ri­a­tion of long-time CIA tar­get Oliv­er Stone.

We note that the Har­vey Wein­stein case is sig­nif­i­cant not because of what Wein­stein appears to have done–with Oliv­er Stone’s caveat to be born in mind–but the tim­ing of the sur­fac­ing of alle­ga­tions which have been mount­ing for many years. (The cat­a­logu­ing of those appar­ent inci­dents as “oppo­si­tion research” has, in all prob­a­bil­i­ty, been going on for a long time.)

With the #MeToo phe­nom­e­non, in gen­er­al, there is a con­spic­u­ous lack of due process. What vet­ting of the charges is tak­ing place, oth­er than pub­lic rep­e­ti­tion via tweet? Of course, sex­u­al harass­ment gen­er­al­ly occurs with no wit­ness­es oth­er than the par­tic­i­pants, so it is the aggres­sor’s word ver­sus the vic­tim’s. Still, it is a sce­nario that is ripe for exploita­tion in the con­text of the four “B’s” of Amer­i­can pol­i­tics: Bul­lets, Bribes, Beds, and Black­mail.

A more cir­cum­spect approach would be to exam­ine this from a counter-intel­li­gence stand­point: What sort of polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions do the accusers have? Franken accusers Twee­den and Menz track to the right, and the pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence does NOT hold up: The Franken “grop­ing” pho­to is clear­ly a gag and the com­i­cal­ly bawdy/libidinous aes­thet­ic of the USO tour on which it occurred is obvi­ous from the oth­er pho­tos dis­played in the descrip­tion for FTR #998.

The pho­to of Menz and Franken at the Min­neso­ta State Fair (with Franken alleged­ly grop­ing the accuser) took place with the alleged vic­tim’s hus­band and father present. Menz and her hus­band vot­ed for Trump.

No sale.

Fur­ther­more, what seri­ous exam­i­na­tion of the accusers’ sit­u­a­tions is occur­ring? Did they have large sums of mon­ey wired to their bank accounts? After lend­ing momen­tum to the destruc­tion of promi­nent lib­er­als, is any­one tak­ing care to exam­ine if they then accept a lucra­tive arrange­ment (book or act­ing con­tract or well-paid cor­po­rate posi­tion) with a major com­mer­cial play­er?

We are not say­ing that any nec­es­sar­i­ly did, but is ANYONE doing due dili­gence on such mat­ters?

We make a num­ber of obser­va­tions in con­nec­tion with the Har­vey Wein­stein case:

1.-Weinstein hired Malia Oba­ma as an intern in ear­ly 2017.
2.-Weinstein was a major con­trib­u­tor to both Barack Oba­ma and Hillary Clin­ton (in 2016) among oth­er Democ­rats.
3.-Assuming that the accu­sa­tions against Wein­stein are sub­stan­tive, and they may well be, it appears that “oppo­si­tion research” has been con­duct­ed on his sit­u­a­tion by the right for some time.
4.-As Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt is alleged to have said: “In pol­i­tics, noth­ing hap­pens by acci­dent. If it hap­pens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
5.-Psychological war­fare relies heav­i­ly on the cre­ation of asso­ci­a­tions to effect a goal: Bill Clin­ton’s remark­able indis­cre­tion with Moni­ka Lewin­sky was mid­wived by George H.W. Bush counter-ter­ror spe­cial­ist and Bush White House holdover Lin­da Tripp. One can pon­der the pos­si­bil­i­ty that high­light­ing asso­ci­a­tion between Wein­stein and Hillary was meant to cre­ate res­o­nance with the Moni­ka Lewin­sky case . . . A Bush admin­is­tra­tion appointee, Tripp (who, with the aid of Lucy Gold­berg, pre­cip­i­tat­ed the Lewin­sky imbroglio) had a high secu­ri­ty clear­ance, hav­ing worked for the Army’s Secret Intel­li­gence Com­mand at Fort Meade and for the Delta Force at Fort Bragg, N.C. (Note that the Delta Force func­tions in a counter-ter­ror­ist capac­i­ty. ‘Counter-ter­ror­ism’ is the rubric under which the Bush pri­vate intel­li­gence net­works oper­at­ed.) . . . ”
6.- In the con­text of the above, the pos­si­bil­i­ty that the Weinstein/Malia Oba­ma link may have been intend­ed to broad­en the psy­cho­log­i­cal asso­ci­a­tion from Clinton/Lewinsky/Weinstein to Weinstein/Obama is one to be con­sid­ered.
7.- One of the cen­tral fig­ures in the take­down of Har­vey Wein­stein was Ambra Bat­ti­lana.
8.- Bat­ti­lana was also cen­tral to the take­down of P‑2 Lodge mem­ber and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Sil­vio Berlus­coni of Italy. Ms. Bat­ti­lana gets around. “In pol­i­tics, noth­ing hap­pens by acci­dent. If it hap­pens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
9.-In an impor­tant detail not includ­ed in the audio file of the pro­gram itself (but in this descrip­tion), Ronan Far­row, who played a fun­da­men­tal role in break­ing the Har­vey Wein­stein case, has a back­ground in the State Depart­ment, spe­cial­iz­ing in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. Far­row is the son of Mia Far­row and Woody Allen. ” . . . . Post-law school: Lands a job at the State Depart­ment, as a spe­cial advi­sor focus­ing on con­flict in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. . . .”
10.-Farrow con­tin­ued his work for State in 2011. ” . . . . 2011: Starts work­ing along­side Hillary Clin­ton with a lengthy title: Spe­cial Advi­sor to the Sec­re­tary of State for Glob­al Youth Issues and direc­tor of the State Department’s Glob­al Youth Issues office. . . .”
Anoth­er con­sid­er­a­tion to be weighed is the effect that some of the sex­u­al harass­ment imbroglios may be hav­ing on the well-doc­u­ment­ed, insid­i­ous con­cen­tra­tion of media own­er­ship. The Fox News sex­u­al harass­ment lit­i­ga­tion con­tributed to Mur­doch’s unload­ing of Fox to the Dis­ney Corp. Key Wein­stein cor­po­rate hold­ing Mira­max was obtained from Dis­ney in the ear­ly ’90s. Abi­gail Dis­ney, grand daugh­ter of Roy Dis­ney (broth­er of Walt and co-founder of the Dis­ney enter­tain­ment empire) is among the cast of char­ac­ters vying for stew­ard­ship of the Wein­stein enter­tain­ment prop­er­ties.

The pro­gram high­lights ele­ments promi­nent in the Wom­en’s March who are allied with Louis Far­rakhan. Like our dis­cus­sion of Glo­ria Steinem as (per­haps) the ulti­mate man­i­fes­ta­tion of weaponized fem­i­nism, this will be pre­sent­ed at greater length in the next pro­gram and the descrip­tion for it.

Fun­da­men­tal in the con­sid­er­a­tion of this very dif­fi­cult top­ic is the intel­li­gence/­counter-intel­li­gence sce­nario Mr. Emory pre­sent­ed in FTR #998: From the stand­point of counter-intel­li­gence analy­sis, the #MeToo phe­nom­e­non sig­nals a superb tac­tic for polit­i­cal destruc­tion: a) infil­trate a woman into the entourage or pro­fes­sion­al envi­ron­ment of a male politi­cian, media or busi­ness fig­ure tar­get­ed for destruc­tion; b) have her gain the trust of her polit­i­cal tar­get and his asso­ciates (the car­di­nal rule for a good dou­ble agent is “make your­self indis­pens­able to the effort”); c) after suf­fi­cient pas­sage of time, sur­face the alle­ga­tions of sex­u­al harass­ment; d) IF the oppor­tu­ni­ty for actu­al sex play and/or flir­ta­tion presents itself, take advan­tage of it for lat­er use as political/rhetorical ammu­ni­tion; e) with accusers hav­ing the tac­ti­cal lux­u­ry of remain­ing anony­mous, the oper­a­tional tem­plate for a form of sex­u­al McCarthy­ism and the prece­dent-set­ting con­tem­po­rary man­i­fes­ta­tion of a sex­u­al Star Cham­ber is very real–the oper­a­tional sim­i­lar­i­ties between much of the #metoo move­ment and the Salem Witch Tri­als should not be lost on the per­se­ver­ing observ­er; f) prop­er vet­ting of the accu­sa­tions is absent in such a process; g) for a pub­lic fig­ure in the U.S., prov­ing delib­er­ate defama­tion (libel/slander) is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult and lit­i­ga­tion is very expensive–the mere sur­fac­ing of charges is enough to taint some­one for life and the exor­bi­tant expense of lit­i­ga­tion is pro­hib­i­tive for all but the wealth­i­est among us.

FTR #993 Update on Ukraine (Preparations for WWIII?)

High­light­ing recent, alarm­ing aspects of the Ukraine cri­sis, the broad­cast under­scores how past and present may sig­nal the begin­ning of World War III in a man­ner not unlike how frac­tious events in the Balka­ns trig­gered the First World War.

With Ukraine now receiv­ing U.S. arms, includ­ing mod­i­fied stinger anti-air­craft mis­siles, the Nazi “pun­ish­er” bat­tal­ions in that coun­try’s East may be in a posi­tion to trig­ger one or more provo­ca­tions that could lead to con­flict between nuclear-armed Rus­sia, NATO and the U.S.

Since the Don­bass mili­tias have no air force, the stingers would appear to be deployed in the event of a wider, Ukraine/Russia war.

Nazi ele­ments active in the Maid­an coup spawned the Azov and oth­er “pun­ish­er” units. With more infor­ma­tion sur­fac­ing that indi­cates that the Maid­an sniper shoot­ings were a provo­ca­tion-derived event, the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Svo­bo­da and Pravy Sek­tor-linked ele­ments could dri­ve devel­op­ments in the Don­bass toward World War III is one that deserves more atten­tion than it will receive.

A fright­en­ing devel­op­ment, vir­tu­al­ly unre­port­ed in the U.S., con­cerns uni­lat­er­al moves by the Poroshenko gov­ern­ment to move away from the Min­sk peace plan and to rebrand the con­flict in East­ern Ukraine as “occu­pa­tion” by an “aggres­sor” Rus­sia.

This appears to pave the way for a wider, deep­er con­flict which could, ulti­mate­ly, draw in the U.S. and NATO: ” . . . . Accord­ing to [Dmitri] Kise­ly­ov, the new law, which awaits Poroshenko’s sig­na­ture, makes prepa­ra­tions for war and includes lan­guage indi­cat­ing a bel­li­cose new approach to the con­flict. The mis­sion in Don­bass is no longer described as an ‘anti-ter­ror­ist oper­a­tion.’ Rather, the mis­sion now is to send armed forces against ‘mil­i­tary for­ma­tions of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion’ in Don­bass.

Mil­i­tary head­quar­ters are estab­lished to coor­di­nate the oper­a­tion to be waged in Don­bass. While up until now the self-declared republics of Donet­sk and Lugan­sk were con­sid­ered under the Min­sk Accords as nego­ti­at­ing par­ties, now there are only ‘occu­pa­tion admin­is­tra­tions’ of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion on these ter­ri­to­ries, with Rus­sia iden­ti­fied as an ‘aggres­sor.’ . . . .”

The dan­ger of Poroshenko seek­ing to play the “war card” to dis­tract from Urkaine’s dire eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances and his own failed gov­ern­ment are real. Con­flict with Rus­sia could also deflect from Trump’s and the GOP’s fail­ures at home: ” . . . . On the eco­nom­ic front, the Euro­pean Union has refused to extend 600 mil­lion euros of cred­it to Ukraine due to cor­rup­tion. The Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund recent­ly refused a tranche of $800 mil­lion over fail­ure to intro­duce reforms. Mean­while, in 2019 Ukraine is due to start repay­ing ear­li­er loans. This will come to $14 bil­lion a year, which amounts to half the state bud­get of Ukraine.

Due to dire eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, Poroshenko and oth­er gov­ern­ment offi­cials in Kiev have become deeply unpop­u­lar, and with dimin­ished chances for elec­toral suc­cess may see war as polit­i­cal­ly advan­ta­geous. . . .”

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion just approved the sale of sniper rifles and, more sig­nif­i­cant­ly, anti-tank Javelin mis­siles to Ukraine. This should be eval­u­at­ed against the back­ground of the recent moves by Kiev (increas­ing the dan­ger for an esca­lat­ed con­flict) as well as  the activ­i­ties of Kurt Volk­er, the “ex”-CIA offi­cer, NATO func­tionary, George W. Bush State Depart­ment offi­cial and Atlantic Coun­ci­cl Senior advi­sor serv­ing as the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s point-man in Ukraine.

Might anti-air­craft mis­siles be next? As the arti­cle below notes, the Don­bass sep­a­ratists don’t actu­al­ly have an air force, so it would be a curi­ous deci­sion to start send­ing them anti-air­craft weapons. ” . . . . The pro­posed trans­fer — which also would include anti­air­craft arms that would be defined as defen­sive weapon­ry — comes as fight­ing between Ukrain­ian troops and Russ­ian-backed sep­a­ratists. . . . The util­i­ty of anti­air­craft weapon­ry, for exam­ple, is unclear, as the Russ­ian-backed rebel army has no air force. The war is fought along a line of trench­es that has not moved much since Feb­ru­ary 2015. . . .”

Accord­ing to a report back in June, the Pen­ta­gon recent­ly mod­i­fied shoul­der-fired stinger mis­siles to shoot small down drones that are dif­fi­cult for reg­u­lar Stinger mis­siles to hit. It’s not at all incon­ceiv­able that the anti-air­craft weapons the Pen­ta­gon and State Depart­ment have in mind are those Stinger mis­siles, mod­i­fied for the pur­pose of shoot­ing down sep­a­ratist drones.

Also keep in mind that the shoul­der-launched stringer mis­siles are among the weapons that ter­ror­ists would love to obtain and the Ukrain­ian troops get­ting trained on these sys­tems may include the neo-Nazis fight­ing in Ukraine’s army get­ting trained by US mil­i­tary advi­sors like the Azov batal­lion. ” . . . . The Amer­i­can train­ing at the Yavoriv base in west­ern Ukraine is focused on forg­ing a dis­ci­plined, pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary from the mix of vol­un­teer groups that first fought the Russ­ian incur­sion, rather than plac­ing bets on any high-tech weapons sys­tems. . . .”

When you read that, remem­ber that the “mix of vol­un­teers groups” includes neo-Nazis, includ­ing the Azov Bat­tal­ion.

In oth­er words, if Stinger mis­siles real­ly are part of the mil­i­tary pack­age, and just not yet announced, those lit­tle night­mares could eas­i­ly end up in neo-Nazi hands and the US mil­i­tary could even be the ones train­ing them on how to use them. We’ll see if that’s how it plays out, but we can’t rule it out.

The arms sales described above are being real­ized under the super­vi­sion of Trump’s new point man for Ukraine, “ex”-CIA, State Depart­ment and NATO func­tionary Kurt Volk­er. From Volk­er’s Wikipedia entry: ” . . . . Volk­er began his career in for­eign affairs as an ana­lyst at the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency in 1986. . . . In July 2005, Volk­er became the Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for Euro­pean and Eurasian Affairs, serv­ing in that posi­tion until he was appoint­ed Unit­ed States Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to NATO in July 2008 by Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. . . . and a Senior Advi­sor at the Atlantic Coun­cil since Octo­ber 2009. . . . .”

We note that the arms sales to Ukraine effect­ed on Volk­er’s watch come after the removal of John Cony­ers (D‑MI), one of the most vocif­er­ous Con­gres­sion­al oppo­nents of arm­ing and train­ing the Azov Bat­tal­ion and sim­i­lar Nazi units.

Next, we take stock of how Cony­ers, “The Krem­lin’s Man in Con­gress,” was removed fol­low­ing a gam­bit by “Alt-Right” blog­ger, Trump ally and misog­y­nist Mike Cer­novich to finance the solic­i­ta­tion of pro­fes­sion­al­ly dam­ag­ing infor­ma­tion about polit­i­cal oppo­nents. “. . . . In Novem­ber, the Trump-back­ing social media agi­ta­tor Mike Cer­novich offered to pay $10,000.00 for details of any con­gres­sion­al sex­u­al harass­ment set­tle­ments, and said on Twit­ter that he would cov­er the expens­es of ‘any VICTIM of a Con­gress­man who wants to come for­ward to tell her sto­ry.’ Short­ly before post­ing that offer, a source pro­vid­ed Mr. Cer­novich with a copy of a sex­u­al harass­ment set­tle­ment that led in Decem­ber to the res­ig­na­tion of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Cony­ers Jr., Demo­c­rat of Michi­gan, until then the longest-serv­ing mem­ber of the House. . . .”

In FTR #981, we exam­ined the Ukrain­ian fas­cist foun­da­tion of much of the “Rus­sia-Gate” psy-op,” fol­low­ing that with detailed exam­i­na­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Paul Man­afort may have actu­al­ly been work­ing as a U.S./Western intel­li­gence asset or agent, delib­er­ate­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ing the Maid­an sniper fire that sound­ed the death knell for the Yanukovich regime.

This pro­gram updates the boil­ing sew­er that is Ukraine, uti­liz­ing infor­ma­tion from Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy (which feeds along the low­er right-hand page of this web­site.) We take note of sev­er­al key points:

1.–Corruption in Ukraine remains ram­pant and “rule by oli­garch” con­tin­ues unabat­ed under Poroshenko, an oli­garch him­self and the for­mer finance min­is­ter for Yanukovich.
2.–Supporters of Maid­an have been high­ly crit­i­cal of the con­tin­u­a­tion of this grotesque sta­tus quo.
3.–Among the per­pe­tra­tors of ongo­ing, insti­tu­tion­al­ized cor­rup­tion in Ukraine has been the son of Arsen Avakov, the inte­ri­or min­is­ter and a patron of the Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion. ” . . . . Cor­rup­tion con­tin­ues at high lev­els. For exam­ple, the case of Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov’s son, who sold back­packs to the army at six times their nor­mal price, alleged­ly caus­ing dam­age in the six-dig­it euros. . . .”
4.–Investigation of Avakov, jr’s activ­i­ties has been [pre­dictably] inter­dict­ed. ” . . . .When the Nation­al Anti-Cor­rup­tion Bureau searched the man’s house, the Nation­al Guard, under the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the inte­ri­or min­is­ter inter­vened and halt­ed the search — under the pre­text of hav­ing to vacate the build­ing because of a bomb threat. . . .”
5.–The two arti­cle series sets forth greater detail on the sniper shoot­ings at the Maid­an, which look more and more to be a provo­ca­tion. ” . . . . In Feb­ru­ary 2016, Maid­an activist Ivan Bubenchik con­fessed that in the course of the mas­sacre, he had shot Ukrain­ian police offi­cers. Bubenchik con­firmed this in a film that had attract­ed inter­na­tion­al attention.[10] . . . .”
6.–An Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary alleges that eth­nic Geor­gian snipers were involved in the Maid­an shoot­ings, fur­ther indi­cat­ing that the Maid­an sniper shoot­ings were a pos­si­ble provo­ca­tion. (The doc­u­men­tary does come from a Berlus­coni-con­trolled out­let, how­ev­er it dove­tails cred­i­bly with oth­er avail­able infor­ma­tion. UNA-UNSO, the lat­est iter­a­tion of the UPA was very active in the cau­ca­sus and Chechens have been work­ing with Pravy Sek­tor and ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with the Azov Bat­tal­ion. As dis­cussed in FTR #850, for­mer Geor­gian pres­i­dent Mikhail Saakashvili became the gov­er­nor of Odessa province and is very close to Ihor Kolo­moisky, anoth­er patron of the Azov Bat­tal­ion.) “In an Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary on the Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 Maid­an mas­sacre, seri­ous accu­sa­tions were made against sev­er­al politi­cians in Ukraine. . . .  In the doc­u­men­tary, three Geor­gians, incrim­i­nat­ing them­selves for their own par­tic­i­pa­tion, report that some of the lead­ers of the protests, who are today mem­bers of Kiev’s par­lia­ment, had sup­plied weapons to the snipers, who, at the time, indis­crim­i­nate­ly killed police­men and demon­stra­tors. Offi­cial­ly, this mas­sacre is still being attrib­uted to Ukrain­ian repres­sive organs or to unspec­i­fied Rus­sians. The Geor­gians also report that the cur­rent speak­er of the par­lia­ment, Andriy Paru­biy, was often seen in the hotel, from where the snipers were fir­ing that day. As ‘Maid­an Commander,‘Parubiy had been in charge of con­trol­ling armed gangs on that square. The man, whose real role at the time remains unclear, was a guest at a con­fer­ence held by the Kon­rad Ade­nauer Foun­da­tion and a speak­er at NATO events. . . .”
7.–Parubiy was one of the main orga­niz­ers of the Orange Rev­o­lu­tion, which brought Vik­tor Yuschenko to pow­er and installed OUN/B deriv­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions in pow­er in Ukraine, sort of a “pre-Maid­an” Maid­an.” . . . .  Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from the par­ty, this expe­ri­enced protest activist became one of the main orga­niz­ers of the 2004 ‘Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.’  . . .”
8.–Andriy Paru­biy was the first defense min­is­ter of the Ukraine inter­im gov­ern­ment and a mem­ber of the OUN/B‑redux Svo­bo­da Par­ty. His role in the events dove­tails with the pos­si­ble par­tic­i­pa­tion of fas­cist and Nazi snipers who were to par­tic­i­pate in the Azov Bat­tal­ion. “. . . . The Geor­gians’ accu­sa­tions also impli­cate, at least indi­rect­ly, the ‘Com­man­der of the Maid­an,’ Andriy Paru­biy. Paru­biy comes from the Ukrain­ian fas­cist scene. In the ear­ly 1990s he was one of the founders of the extreme right-wing Social Nation­al Par­ty of Ukraine. Since 1996, he was the leader of its mil­i­tarist street fight­ing sub­sidiary ‘Patri­ot of Ukraine.’ Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from the par­ty, this expe­ri­enced protest activist became one of the main orga­niz­ers of the 2004 ‘Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.’ In 2013, he assumed the same func­tion at the Maid­an, where he was respon­si­ble for none oth­er than secu­ri­ty and the ‘self-defense units,’ which were often made up of heav­i­ly armed thugs. In the Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary, it was report­ed that Paru­biy was going in and out of Hotel Ukraina, from where numer­ous dead­ly shots were being fired. Paru­biy, claims that the hotel from which these shots were being fired — which was firm­ly under the Maid­an demon­stra­tors’ con­trol — had been tak­en over ‘by snipers who arrived from Rus­sia and who were con­trolled by Rus­sia.’ . . .”

We con­clude with anoth­er exam­ple of just what the con­tem­po­rary Ukrain­ian polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment is man­i­fest­ing. Ukraine’s offi­cial under­stand­ing of its own WWII his­to­ry and the Holo­caust had anoth­er man­i­fes­ta­tion of Orwellian his­tor­i­cal revi­sion­ism. This time it was by Poroshenko rein­forc­ing the Orwellian revi­sion. ” . . . . As we report­ed back in Octo­ber, Ukrain­ian media out­let Radio Svo­bo­da — the Ukrain­ian arm of the US Gov­ern­ment-fund­ed arm of RFERL — post­ed a pic­ture from the US Holo­caust Muse­um. It is an image of Pol­ish Jews being deport­ed to a death camp. There was just one prob­lem. Radio Svo­bo­da claimed the pic­ture was from 1949 of Ukraini­ans being deport­ed to Siberia. In fact, so effec­tive was Radio Svoboda’s forgery that Pres­i­dent Poroshenko him­self tweet­ed it claim­ing it showed Ukraini­ans being deport­ed. . . . Today it emerged that a major Ukrain­ian media out­let has struck again. In a Decem­ber 20th arti­cle about the hor­rors of the NKVD (Sovi­et fore­run­ner of the KGB), media out­let “Ukrin­form” also bor­rowed a pic­ture from the US Holo­caust Muse­um, this time of Ukrain­ian Aux­il­iary Police­men shoot­ing a Jew­ish child and moth­er — and fraud­u­lent­ly claimed it was actu­al­ly of the NKVD shoot­ing peo­ple. The cap­tion reads in trans­la­tion: ‘Atroc­i­ties of the Chekhists: the exe­cu­tion of a moth­er and child by the NKVD’. . . .”

Pro­gram High­lights Include:

1.–Review of the pos­si­ble role of Nazi hack­er, Glenn Green­wald asso­ciate and Ukraine res­i­dent Andrew “Weev” Aueren­heimer in the high-pro­file hacks: ” . . . . [Peter W.] Smith also reached out to ‘Guc­cifer 2.0’—an alias the U.S. intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty has linked to Russ­ian state hackers—and was advised to seek the help of a white nation­al­ist hack­er who lives in Ukraine. . . . [Pax] John­son said he also sug­gest­ed that Smith get in touch with Andrew Auern­heimer, a hack­er who goes by the alias “Weev” and has col­lab­o­rat­ed with John­son in the past. . . .” We note that Charles C. John­son, an asso­ciate of Mike Cer­novich, was involved with this maneu­ver.
2.–Review of Atlantic Coun­cil fel­low Dmitri Alper­ovitch (co-founder and chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer of Crowd­strike, the cyber-secu­ri­ty firm that led the charge to attribute the high-pro­file hacks to Rus­sia. Kurt Volk­er is also close­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Atlantic Coun­cil. ” . . . . Dmitri Alper­ovitch is also a senior fel­low at the Atlantic Coun­cil. . . . The con­nec­tion between [Crowd­strike co-founder and chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer Dmitri] Alper­ovitch and the Atlantic Coun­cil has gone large­ly unre­marked upon, but it is rel­e­vant giv­en that the Atlantic Council—which is is fund­ed in part by the US State Depart­ment, NATO, the gov­ern­ments of Latvia and Lithua­nia, the Ukrain­ian World Con­gress, and the Ukrain­ian oli­garch Vic­tor Pinchuk—has been among the loud­est voic­es call­ing for a new Cold War with Rus­sia. As I point­ed out in the pages of The Nation in Novem­ber, the Atlantic Coun­cil has spent the past sev­er­al years pro­duc­ing some of the most vir­u­lent spec­i­mens of the new Cold War pro­pa­gan­da. . . . ”

Update on Ukraine, Maidan Snipers

In FTR #982, we high­light­ed indi­ca­tions that the Maid­an sniper shoot­ings may have been a provo­ca­tion and that Paul Man­afort may have encour­aged the blood­shed. Among the per­pe­tra­tors of ongo­ing, insti­tu­tion­al­ized cor­rup­tion in Ukraine has been the son of Arsen Avakov, the inte­ri­or min­is­ter and a patron of the Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion. ” . . . . Cor­rup­tion con­tin­ues at high lev­els. For exam­ple, the case of Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov’s son, who sold back­packs to the army at six times their nor­mal price, alleged­ly caus­ing dam­age in the six-dig­it euros. . . .” “In an Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary . . . . three Geor­gians, incrim­i­nat­ing them­selves for their own par­tic­i­pa­tion, report that some of the lead­ers of the protests . . . . had sup­plied weapons to the snipers, who, at the time, indis­crim­i­nate­ly killed police­men and demon­stra­tors. . . . The Geor­gians’ accu­sa­tions also impli­cate, at least indi­rect­ly, the ‘Com­man­der of the Maid­an,’ Andriy Paru­biy. Paru­biy comes from the Ukrain­ian fas­cist scene. In the ear­ly 1990s he was one of the founders of the extreme right-wing Social Nation­al Par­ty of Ukraine. Since 1996, he was the leader of its mil­i­tarist street fight­ing sub­sidiary ‘Patri­ot of Ukraine.’ Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from the par­ty, this expe­ri­enced protest activist became one of the main orga­niz­ers of the 2004 ‘Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.’ In 2013, he assumed the same func­tion at the Maid­an, where he was respon­si­ble for none oth­er than secu­ri­ty and the ‘self-defense units,’ which were often made up of heav­i­ly armed thugs. In the Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary, it was report­ed that Paru­biy was going in and out of Hotel Ukraina, from where numer­ous dead­ly shots were being fired. . . .”

FTR #951 Fascism: 2017 World Tour

The events over­tak­ing the Unit­ed States are echoes of events occur­ring world­wide. This “2017 World Tour” exam­ines aspects of ascen­dant glob­al fas­cism, includ­ing his­tor­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal trends stretch­ing back to the World War II peri­od.

Yet anoth­er of the fascist/Nazi/racist influ­ences on Steve Ban­non is French writer Charles Mau­r­ras. A doc­tri­naire anti-Semi­te, he was sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment for col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Third Reich.

Set­ting Mau­r­ras’s activ­i­ties in an his­tor­i­cal con­text, we recap an excerpt from FTR #372 (August of 2002) detail­ing the French Fifth Col­umn that sub­vert­ed the French mil­i­tary resis­tance to the armies of the Third Reich. Mau­r­ras’s L’Ac­tion Fran­caise was among the jour­nals influ­enc­ing French fas­cists, who saw the Ger­man inva­sion as a vehi­cle for elim­i­nat­ing democ­ra­cy and, at the same time, blam­ing the defeat on gov­ern­ment of Leon Blum, whose mur­der was advo­cat­ed by Mau­r­ras.

In Italy, Bepe Gril­lo’s Five Star Move­ment is lead­ing in the polls, and may come out ahead in the 2018 elec­tions. Observers have seen the par­ty as an heir to Mus­solin­i’s black­shirts. We note, in pass­ing, that the pop­ulist ide­al­ism offi­cial­ly endorsed by Five Star is sim­i­lar to aspects of many left-pop­ulist agen­das, while incor­po­rat­ing fea­tures of con­tem­po­rary fas­cist pol­i­tics.

Trav­el­ing north­ward, we observe the resus­ci­ta­tion of Slo­va­kian fas­cism and the cel­e­bra­tion of Nazi quis­ling Josef Tiso’s World War II col­lab­o­ra­tionist gov­ern­ment. Social media/Facebook are a key ele­ment of the suc­cess of the “neo-Tiso’s.”

An American/Swedish axis, of sorts, man­i­fests as a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort between Trumpenkampfver­bande sup­port­er Richard B. Spencer and Daniel Friberg, a key fig­ure in the Swedish fas­cist milieu of Carl Lund­strom.

Trav­el­ing to Asia, we note the re-emer­gence of Japan­ese fas­cism, insti­tut­ed in the Abe gov­ern­ment by orga­ni­za­tions like Nip­pon Kai­gi. In addi­tion to insti­tut­ing revi­sion­ist teach­ing in the Japan­ese edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, the Abe gov­ern­ment is cur­tail­ing that coun­try’s free press.

Sev­er­al of Abe’s cab­i­net min­is­ters are sup­port­ive of Hitler’s elec­toral strat­e­gy, see­ing it as a blue­print for the imple­men­ta­tion of Japan­ese reaction–among them Tomo­mi Ina­da, the new defense min­is­ter.

The pro­gram con­cludes with a look at Naren­dra Mod­i’s Hin­du nationalist/fascist gov­ern­ment and it selec­tion of a hard-line anti-Mus­lim big­ot to gov­ern the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: review of Mod­i’s BJP as a cat’s paw for the Hin­du nationalist/fascist RSS; dis­cus­sion of the eco­nom­ic links between Ger­man and French indus­tri­al­ists that under­lay the devel­op­ment of the French Fifth Col­umn inspired, in part, by Charles Mau­r­ras; review of the links between Carl Lund­strom, Wik­iLeaks and Assange aide Joran Jer­mas, a doc­tri­naire Holo­caust denier; review of the “Naz­i­fied AI” at the heart of Cam­bridge Ana­lyt­i­ca’s data manip­u­la­tion engine.

FTR #894 Physicians, Heal Thyselves: Hypocrisy and the Trump Campaign

From the Repub­li­can Par­ty to Euro­pean polit­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al elites to “The New York Times,” every­one is “shocked, shocked” at the fascis­tic nature of the Trump can­di­da­cy. They should­n’t be–his can­di­da­cy is the direct out­growth of pow­er­ful forces that have been at work in this coun­try for decades. After high­light­ing two op-ed pieces from the “Times,” accu­rate­ly not­ing the vir­u­lent fas­cism at the root of the Trump phe­nom­e­non, the broad­cast notes that nei­ther Europe, where fas­cism is on the march once again, nor the Amer­i­can so-called “pro­gres­sive sec­tor,” which has embraced the “Eddie the Friend­ly Spook,” Glenn Green­wald and Julian Assange are in a posi­tion to com­plain. Snow­den, Green­wald, Assange et al embody PRECISELY the same forces per­co­lat­ing at the sur­face of the Trump waters. Much of the broad­cast con­sists of excerpts of an impor­tant new book: “The Dev­il’s Chess­board: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of Amer­i­ca’s Secret Gov­ern­ment” by David Tal­bot. In that wor­thy vol­ume, Tal­bot chron­i­cles the role of the Dulles broth­ers and Sul­li­van and Cromwell in the cap­i­tal­iza­tion of Hitler’s Ger­many and the cov­er-up of the Nazi flight cap­i­tal pro­gram, Dulles’s long col­lab­o­ra­tion with Nazi Gen­er­al Rein­hard Gehlen, Gehlen’s pur­suit (with Dulles) of the Cold War as a con­tin­u­a­tion of Hitler’s war against the U.S.S.R., the Dulles/Gehlen col­lab­o­ra­tion in the for­ma­tion of the fas­cist net­works known as “Stay Behind/Gladio.” The pro­gram con­cludes with review of the Cru­sade For Free­dom, a Dulles project which cul­mi­nat­ed in the for­ma­tion of a Nazi branch of the GOP. Pro­gram High­lights Include: the gen­e­sis of the Bor­mann net­work and its appar­ent col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Dulles net­works; Prescott Bush, Sr.‘s role as the Sen­ate’s liai­son with Dulles’s CIA; the roles of Richard Nixon, Ronald Rea­gan, William Casey and George H.W. Bush with the Cru­sade For Free­dom; “The New York Times” and its own incor­po­ra­tion of Third Reich alum­ni as part of its col­lab­o­ra­tion with CIA.

FTR #787 The Muslim Brotherhood Spring (I Told You So)

We recall the tsuna­mi of praise, Hosan­nas and Hal­lelu­jahs gush­ing forth from the world’s media and polit­i­cal pun­dit­ry, hail­ing the “Arab Spring” as the dawn­ing of a new enlight­en­ment in that part of the world, they missed the boat–-fundamentally. We, on the oth­er hand, were warn­ing that this phe­nom­e­non was an Under­ground Reich oper­a­tion. Events in Egypt and Turkey have borne out our hypoth­e­sis in grim­ly con­vinc­ing­ly fash­ion.

Now THAT’s Comedy! Beppe Grillo’s Counter-Culture Fascism

Italy’s recent elec­tions saw the Five Stars Move­ment of come­di­an Beppe Gril­lo win­ning a share of the vote that will enable it to play a key role in form­ing the next coali­tion gov­ern­ment. There are indi­ca­tions of the par­ty’s sym­pa­thy for fas­cism and neo-fas­cism. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Gril­lo appears to be anti-Semit­ic as well.