Peter Myers Digest Feb 3, 2023
(1) Trump says Ukraine War would have never happened if he was in the White House; could negotiate end ‘within 24 hours’
(2) Emmanuel Todd: Third World War has begun—LGBT (West) vs Patriliny (Rest of the World)
(3) Todd: US monetary control of the world will collapse if Russia survives with Chinese support
(4) On the brink of an Unthinkable Abyss
(5) Archbishop Viganò: Great Reset is a Globalist plot to enslave and subjugate the whole of humanity
(6) Economist (2021): anti-Lockdown protests drew the Anarchist left & the Conservative Right; Covid-19 was faked to provide excuse for Great Reset
(1) Trump says Ukraine War would have never happened if he was in the White House; could negotiate end ‘within 24 hours’
Feb 1, 2023
Trump says he could negotiate end to Russia-Ukraine war ‘within 24 hours’
“As I have said many times before, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would have never happened if I was in the White House. Not even thinkable, not even a possibility,” Trump said.
Trump says he could negotiate end to Russia-Ukraine war ‘within 24 hours’
In a new video release from former President Donald Trump’s campaign war room, the 2024 hopeful called for an end to the war in Ukraine and claimed that if he were president, the war wouldn’t have happened in “a million years,” but that he would’ve been able to negotiate it’s end “within 24 hours” if he were to take the reins right now.
He began by blaming President Joe Biden for the “dangerous, explosive, and escalating” conflict between Russia and Ukraine, saying his “weakness and incompetence has brought us to the brink of nuclear war.”
“And now, Biden is doing what he said 10 months ago would lead to World War III,” Trump continued. “He is sending in American tanks. It’s far past the time for all parties involved to pursue a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine before this already horrific catastrophe spirals out of control and ends up leading, indeed, to World War III.”
He noted that potential war would be “like no other” war that came before because it would likely be nuclear.
“As I have said many times before, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would have never happened if I was in the White House. Not even thinkable, not even a possibility. We must end this ridiculous war and demand peace in Ukraine now before it gets worse. And believe it or not, it would be easy to do. It would be very easy to do,” the former president concluded in the first video, which was shared to Twitter.
In a follow-up, Trump’s war room added another video message from the Republican politician.
“A major disaster is brewing. If I were president, the Russia-Ukraine war would never have happened, never in a million years,” he began. “But even now, if I were president, I’d be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war within 24 hours. It can be done.”
He then went on to say that he believes the US “helped lead Russia” into fighting Ukraine by allowing them to try and take a small part of the country.
“You have to say the right things, not the wrong things. I think we helped lead Russia into that war by saying ‘Well if they took a small part of the country that would be okay.’ Such a tragic waste of human life when you look at all that’s happening there, those cities are obliterated,” Trump said, before reiterating his warning about potential nuclear war.
“First comes the tanks, and then come to the nukes. Get this crazy war ended now. It can be done. And in fact, it’s easy to get done,” he continued. “When I’m president, we will be a strong country again. People will never be playing these games like they’ve been doing to the United States of America. They don’t respect us anymore. They respected us greatly two and a half years ago. They don’t respect us anymore. Thank you very much,” he ended the video.
(2) Emmanuel Todd: Third World War has begun—LGBT (West) vs Patriliny (Rest of the World)
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/01/emmanuel-todd-on-the-third-world-war.html
January 14, 2023
Emmanuel Todd On The Third World War
The French Le Figaro has an interview with the well known anthropologist Emmanuel Todd.
Emmanuel Todd: «La Troisième Guerre mondiale a commencé»
“The third world war has began” is his new thesis. Todd is quite famous for correctly predicting the devolution of the Soviet Union long before it happened. He was quite alone at that time.
I once had a piece on Todd’s later predictions for the U.S. and Europe which still seems spot on. I also quoted him in a piece on social decline as a national security issue.
Unfortunately the Figaro piece is paywalled. But Arnaud Bertrand has done us the favor of translating the gist. Here is his slightly edited thread:
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand – 15:42 UTC · Jan 13, 2023
Emmanuel Todd, one of the greatest French intellectuals today, claims that the “Third World War has started.”
Small ?? translating the most important points in this fascinating interview.
He says “it’s obvious that the conflict, which started as a limited territorial war and is escalating to a global economic confrontation between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, has become a world war.”
He believes that “Putin made a big mistake early on, which is [that] on the eve of the war [everyone saw Ukraine] not as a fledgling democracy, but as a society in decay and a “failed state” in the making. […] I think the Kremlin’s calculation was that this decaying society would crumble at the first shock. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope.”
He says he agrees with Mearsheimer’s analysis of the conflict: “Mearsheimer tells us that Ukraine, whose army had been overtaken by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of the NATO, and that the Russians had announced that they would never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. From their point of view, the Russians are therefore in a war that is defensive and preventive. Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because since this is an existential question for them, the harder it would be, the harder they would strike. The analysis seems to hold true.”
He however has some criticism for Mearsheimer:
“Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one ‘game’ of power among others. After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, what’s one more debacle? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: ‘We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us’. Nothing would be existential for America.
Insufficient analysis which today leads Biden to proceed mindlessly. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the ‘economic power’ of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.
If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained, backed by China, American monetary and financial controls of the world would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund their huge trade deficit for nothing. This war has therefore become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. This is why we are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other.”
He firmly believes the US is in decline but sees it as bad news for the autonomy of vassal states:
“I have just read a book by S. Jaishankar, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs (The India Way), published just before the war, who sees American weakness, who knows that the confrontation between China and the US will have no winner but will give space to a country like India, and to many others. I add: but not to Europeans. Everywhere we see the weakening of the US, but not in Europe and Japan because one of the effects of the retraction of the imperial system is that the United States strengthens its hold on its initial protectorates. As the American system shrinks, it weighs ever more heavily on the local elites of the protectorates (and I include all of Europe here). The first to lose all national autonomy will be (or already are) the English and the Australians. The Internet has produced human interaction with the US in the Anglosphere of such intensity that its academic, media and artistic elites are, so to speak, annexed. On the European continent we are somewhat protected by our national languages, but the fall in our autonomy is considerable, and rapid. Let’s remember the Iraq war, when Chirac, Schröder and Putin held joint anti-war press conferences.”
He underlines the importance of skills and education: “The US is now twice as populated as Russia (2.2 times in student age groups). But in the US only 7% are studying engineering, while in Russia it is 25%. Which means that with 2.2 times fewer people studying, Russia trains 30% more engineers. The US fills the gap with foreign students, but they’re mainly Indians and even more Chinese. This is not safe and is already decreasing. It is a dilemma of the American economy: it can only face competition from China by importing skilled Chinese labor.”
On the ideological and cultural aspects of the war: “When we see the Russian Duma pass even more repressive legislation on ‘LGBT propaganda’, we feel superior. I can feel that as an ordinary Westerner. But from a geopolitical point of view, if we think in terms of soft power, it is a mistake. On 75% of the planet, the kinship organization was patrilineal and one can sense a strong understanding of Russian attitudes. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism.”
He continues: “The USSR had a certain form of soft power [but] communism basically horrified the whole Muslim world by its atheism and inspired nothing particular in India, outside of West Bengal and Kerala. However, today, Russia which repositioned itself as the archetype of the great power, not only anti-colonialist, but also patrilineal and conservative of traditional mores, can seduce much further. [For instance] it’s obvious that Putin’s Russia, having become morally conservative, has become sympathetic to the Saudis who I’m sure have a bit of a hard time with American debates over access for transgender women in the ladies’ room.
Western media are tragically funny, they keep saying, ‘Russia is isolated, Russia is isolated’. But when we look at the votes at the UN, we see that 75% of the world does not follow the West, which then seems very small.
With an anthropologist reading of this [divide between the West and the rest] we find that countries in the West often have a nuclear family structure with bilateral kinship systems, that is to say where male and female kinship are equivalent in the definition of the social status of the child. [Within the rest], with the bulk of the Afro-Euro-Asian mass, we find community and patrilineal family organizations. We then see that this conflict, described by our media as a conflict of political values, is at a deeper level a conflict of anthropological values. It is this unconscious aspect of the divide and this depth that make the confrontation dangerous.”
There you go. Is he right on everything? I don’t know, but Emmanuel Todd is certainly always a very singular and interesting thinker, with a vastly different analysis from the depressingly predictable bad takes that usually dominate French media.
(3) Todd: US monetary control of the world will collapse if Russia survives with Chinese support
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/01/13/696259/Russia-sanctions-monetary-control-US-imperial-system–
‘US monetary control of world will collapse’ due to Ukraine war: French expert
Friday, 13 January 2023 3:30 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 13 January 2023 6:35 PM ]
US monetary control of the world will collapse if Russia resists Washington’s sanctions and survives with Chinese support during the course of the war with Ukraine, a leading historian has warned.
In an interview with Le Figaro on Friday, French historian and anthropologist Emmanuel Todd said, “If the Russian economy offers long-term resistance to sanctions and manages to bleed the European economy white and manages to survive with Chinese support, US monetary control of the world will collapse and with it, the US’ ability to finance its mammoth trade deficit for next to nothing.”
Todd stressed that the US and its European allies are involved in the war and cannot get out of it before Moscow.
“This war has become existential for the United States. It cannot get out of the conflict before Russia. They cannot let go. This explains why we are now in an open-ended war, in a confrontation that is bound to result in the collapse of one side or the other,” Todd added.
He also recalled a piece of analysis offered by Professor John Mearsheimer, a leading politician at the University of Chicago, who argued that whereas for Russia this conflict was “existential,” for the US it was just another game among other countries, and that victory or defeat in it would be of little importance to the US.
“But this analysis is insufficient. Biden now has to hurry. America is fragile and the Russian economy’s resistance is pushing the US imperial system toward the abyss. Nobody had expected the Russian economy would be able to withstand the ‘economic power’ of NATO,” Todd said, referring to Mearsheimer’s analysis.
He is convinced that the United States is in a long-term drawdown and, given its declining influence in the world, wants to push for more influence in its “main bulwarks” acquired after World War II, namely Europe and Japan.
Meanwhile, Todd went on to say that the collapse of the European economy poses many risks for the United States itself.
The expert further emphasized that the war in Ukraine “leads to a real economy that allows for gauging the real wealth of states and their productive capacity.”
He also mentioned the doubling of Russian wheat production after the imposition of the first major sanctions in 2014, as well as Russia’s leading position in the construction of nuclear power plants not only domestically but also abroad.
Todd believes that a military conflict’s outcome depends on both sides’ ability to produce weapons. The historian also notes that engaging in a war of attrition would reduce the influence of advanced US military technologies used by Ukraine.
He further emphasized that “we have transferred so many industries that now we don’t know if our military factories are able to maintain their desired production speed or not.”
Russia launched the war on Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the 2014 Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Since then, the US and its European allies have imposed unprecedented waves of economic sanctions against Moscow while supplying large rafts of heavy weaponry to Kiev. Moscow has been critical of the weapons supplies to Kiev, warning that they will prolong the war.
(4) On the brink of an Unthinkable Abyss
https://johnmenadue.com/ukraine-the-ignominious-unravelling-has-begun/
Ukraine: The ignominious unravelling of the West has begun
By Cameron Leckie
Jan 28, 2023
Western powers appear to have no viable strategy to bring the Ukraine war to an end. The best they can do is keep Ukraine on life support. But, as Sun Tzu put it, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. …
The starting mindset of Western leaders, after decades of internalising anti-Russian propaganda, (best encapsulated by the infamous, and empirically false claim that “Russia is but a gas tank masquerading as a country”) was an overestimation of their own strength and an underestimation of Russia’s. This resulted in a mistake for the ages, with the assumption that the imposition of the harshest possible sanctions on Russia would be such a “slam dunk” outcome that no rigorous thinking through of the implications was required.
What actually resulted however was that the West has entrapped itself in a positive feedback loop – continuing to escalate the war on economic (nine rounds of sanctions) and military fronts (more support and wonder weapons to Ukraine) with an ever-weakening and less effective hand. No positive feedback loop is sustainable, and as I concluded in July of last year, and is becoming increasingly clear, events in Ukraine will result in the demise of the West as a major power bloc.
Now we are at the point where the inevitable and ignominious unravelling of the Ukrainian project, both within Ukraine and its Western partners is becoming impossible to hide. …
Last December, the President of the European Commission claimed that over 100,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed (an average of over 350 killed per day). Colonel Douglas Macgregor’s latest estimate suggests that over 150,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed (an average of 450 killed per day). A recent intelligence estimate by German military intelligence suggests that Ukraine is losing hundreds of soldiers killed every day just in the battle for Bakhmut alone. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ukraine is suffering horrendous casualties.
What is truly shocking however is the apparent ratio of Russian casualties to Ukrainian. Colonel Macgregor suggests a ratio of eight Ukrainian’s being killed for every one Russian. Whilst it is impossible to confirm this, it does seem plausible that Ukraine is suffering far more casualties than Russia for multiple reasons. First and most importantly, Russia has an overwhelming advantage in firepower, particularly with artillery. Numerous figures have been provided by both Ukrainian and Western sources on this difference, with ratio’s ranging anywhere from five to nineteen to one in Russia’s favour. Secondly, the apparent slow ‘progress’ by Russia’s forces is an indicator of their strategy. Namely to batter the Ukrainian’s senseless with its overwhelming superiority in firepower, only then risking troops in an assault once there is little resistance left. Third, Ukraine continues to reinforce locations that are supposedly “strategically unimportant” such as around Bakhmut, which actually facilitates the Russian “demilitarisation” of Ukraine. Finally, and in stark contrast to Russia’s circumstances (where previously trained reservists have been mobilised and most provided with months of refresher training), the training being provided to Ukrainian troops is clearly insufficient to develop the individual skills and physical stamina required of a soldier let alone the collective training required at platoon, company or battalion level.
Ukraine’s casualties are despite the mindbogglingly enormous support provided by the Western powers. Yet the limitations of this support are becoming all too clear. The provision of main battle tanks to Ukraine provides a pertinent example. Ukraine started the war with well over 2000 main battle tanks. We were then told that the Ukrainian Army had more tanks a month into the war than when they started. Ukraine also received around 500 Soviet era tanks from former Warsaw Pact nations. 100 or thereabouts Challenger, Leopard 2 or M1 tanks represents maybe four per cent of the tanks it already had in service or has already been provided. You don’t need to be a military expert to understand that providing a small number of tanks, with hurriedly trained crews, and the logistics burden of multiple platforms, will not make any significant difference to the outcome.
The last weeks of political theatre associated with the provision of tanks to Ukraine should be seen for what it is. A form of jockeying to prepare the ground for the blame game that will follow Ukraine’s (and NATOs) ultimate defeat. The same could be said of Angela Merkel’s recent comments on the Minsk II Accord’s which were viewed by the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, France, and no doubt other NATO powers as a mechanism to buy time, rather than a pathway to the peaceful resolution of the crisis. There is also a change in the rhetoric emanating from various power centres such as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warning that it will be “very, very difficult” to force Russia out of Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile there is the unresolved issue of responsibility for the Nord Stream terrorist attack. As reported in the Washington Post, numerous European officials have concluded that there “is no evidence at this point that Russia was behind the sabotage,” implying that one or more NATO countries destroyed the energy infrastructure of another.
As others have noted, the ideologues in control of Western countries have no reverse gear. The only way is forward, no matter the cost or how slim the chances of success. Yet again we see the lack of pragmatism with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock now claiming that the EU countries are “fighting a war against Russia.”
Meanwhile, in a brilliant must read article, retired United Kingdom diplomat Alistair Crooke gets to the nub of what is driving the United States on its Ukrainian misadventure, where he argues that the resilience of Russia to the financial armageddon that was launched upon it has shattered “the plate-glass floor to western convictions about its ability to ‘manage the world’.” <https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/01/23/the-most-egregious-mistake/> The United States has boxed itself into a corner from which it cannot escape with its Ukraine project.
It is difficult to predict what will happen next. The Western powers appear to have no viable strategy to bring the war to an end. The best they can do is keep Ukraine on life support while they try to figure something out, within an environment where Russia ratchets up the pressure on the battlefield and domestic pressures mount. But as Sun Tzu put it, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. The best option would be for the key Western leaders, in particular President Biden, to seek immediate negotiations with President Putin without pre-conditions. The worst option would be to continue the escalation cycle, which ultimately could lead to direct conflict between NATO and Russia, and potentially nuclear war.
As we stand on the brink of an unthinkable abyss, I for one hope that pragmatism makes a return.
(5) Archbishop Viganò: Great Reset is a Globalist plot to enslave and subjugate the whole of humanity
https://www.thevoid.uk/void-post/vigano-the-great-reset-and-the-new-world-order-lifesite/
Speech delivered by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on August 28, 2021.
Considerations on the Great Reset and the New World Order
We should have understood – I wrote it some time ago – that the Great Reset plan was not the result of the ravings of some “conspiracy theorist” but the crude evidence of a criminal plan, conceived for decades and aimed at establishing a universal dictatorship in which a minority of immeasurably rich and powerful people intends to enslave and subjugate the whole of humanity to the globalist ideology. The accusation of “conspiracy theory” could perhaps have made sense when the conspiracy was not yet evident, but today denying what the elite has planned since the 1950s is unjustifiable. What Kalergi, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, Klaus Schwab, Jacques Attali and Bill Gates have been saying since World War II has been published in books and newspapers, commented on and taken up by international bodies and foundations, made up precisely by parties and government majorities. The United States of Europe, uncontrolled immigration, the reduction of wages, the cancellation of trade union guarantees, the renunciation of national sovereignty, the single currency, the control of citizens under the pretext of a pandemic, and the reduction of the population through the use of vaccines with new technologies are not recent inventions, but the result of a planned, organized and coordinated action – an action that clearly shows itself perfectly adhering to a single script under a single direction.
(6) Economist (2021): anti-Lockdown protests drew the Anarchist left & the Conservative Right; Covid-19 was faked to provide excuse for Great Reset
https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/07/03/the-anti-lockdown-movement-is-still-going-strong
Britain | Opposites attract
The anti-lockdown movement is still going strong
It has united the anarchist left and anti-establishment right
Jul 3rd 2021
Jam for freedom pumps out Oasis and Bob Marley covers, but the band has a political mission too: to oppose covid-19 lockdowns. Young, racially diverse crowds gather to sing along to “We are the 99%”, its anthem. “Stick your poisonous vaccine up your arse,” go the lyrics. The “99%” refrain is borrowed from Occupy, a left-wing movement. But between songs some fans shout “Free Tommy”, a reference to Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, a right-wing group.
Throughout the pandemic opponents of lockdowns have held hundreds of protests, many motivated by a conspiracy theory also popular in America: that covid-19 was faked to provide an excuse for systematic regime change. Groupings include Stand Up x (which accuses Bill Gates, a billionaire philanthropist, of putting microchips in vaccines) and Teachers Against Abuse (set up to “protect children from the dangers and abuses of the covid regime”.) On June 26th several thousand protesters marched in London, and a crowd chanted abuse outside the home of Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer.
In America covid-19 conspiracists were backed by Donald Trump as president. In Britain they are countercultural. A poll on June 14th by YouGov found that 71% of English adults supported extending lockdown, with just 24% opposed. Vaccines, too, are hugely popular. Some 85% of adults have had a first shot, and 63% a second.
The delay of “Freedom Day”, which was supposed to see lockdown restrictions lifted almost entirely on June 21st, has probably been a boon for protesters. One says he was surprised by the number of vaccinated people joining in, either because they wanted to get back to normal or because they have become concerned about possible side-effects since being jabbed.
The protests attract both anarchist left and anti-establishment right. Piers Corbyn, the brother of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s former, far-left leader, has shared platforms with David Kurten, once a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party, a populist outfit that campaigned for Brexit, and now leader of the right-wing Heritage Party. Activists have united around “freedom”, discussing John Locke and Ayn Rand. Many incorrectly cite Magna Carta, a royal charter from 1215, as proof that government lockdowns are illegal. Some write an oath of allegiance to a baron in Scotland, which they claim absolves them from having to follow laws.
Many want their movement to grow into a libertarian opposition to the “Great Reset”. This is the name given by the World Economic Forum, the organisation that runs an annual talkfest for the world’s great and good at Davos in Switzerland, to the technocratic measures it champions to tackle emerging global problems. Its proposals include digital identification passes and policies to curb climate change. Some plan to campaign for a school voucher system, so parents can save their children from government indoctrination. A member of Jam for Freedom says the band aims to become “the alternative to the satanist paedophiles who run Hollywood”.
Protest movements survive when campaigners form tight friendships. Those opposing lockdowns needed to band together, says one activist, because they were “attacked by their friends and family, just for thinking critically”. Another says he has become close to people on both far left and far right, as well as to feminists who “write about the patriarchy, something that I have no interest in”. Even as lockdowns ease, he insists, the political barriers won’t go back up, because of a “growing understanding that there is a bigger thing happening” that needs to be opposed. “Ideological differences become relatively minor in the presence of a vast cover-up,” says Noam Yuchtman of the London School of Economics. “It makes you feel like you are part of a super-important club.”
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Opposites attract”
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Peter Myers