#scott Ritter

[389]

In just two weeks:

○ The Cradle was banned by Meta (Facebook, Instagram).

○ Resistance News Network (RNN)'s Telegram channel was banned in the EU.

○ Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested at Bourget Airport in France for 'lack of moderation' that allegedly allowed for criminal activity to take place.

○ Scott Ritter's home was raided by the FBI over 'unregistered foreign agent' allegations.

○ Journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested at Heathrow Airport under the UK Terrorism Act.

Who/what will be next?

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[workersolidarity]

🇵🇸🇮🇱 EX-WEAPONS INSPECTOR AND US MARINE SCOTT RITTER ON THE GENOCIDAL ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE

ReporterfyMedia

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[punishedsaints]

[jloisse]

«C'est la plus grande défaite d'Israël et ils ne le savent pas encore»—Scott Ritter

«Tout ce qui s'est passé depuis le 7 octobre a retourné l'opinion internationale contre Israël», soutient l'ex-officier du renseignement américain.

Israël n'est pas entré dans la bande de Gaza pour vaincre le Hamas, mais pour procéder à une punition collective contre le peuple palestinien innocent

Assoiffées de vengeance, les forces de défense israéliennes, qui viennent de hisser leur drapeau sur l'hôpital al-Shifa et font des fêtes electro dans Gaza, «n'ont apporté que honte à leur réputation».

«Israël, vous faites exactement la pire chose qui soit. Le Hamas est en train d'être adopté par des personnes qui ne l'auraient jamais adopté.»

Et de conclure: «l'idée d'un Etat palestinien est aujourd'hui largement répandue, comme elle ne l'a jamais été.»

[ksenka-zarazka]

oh man i just looove stumbling upon stuff like this.

hm, who’s this fella? far-right activist, conspiracy theorist, a corrupted politican, you name it?

right… why am i not surprised russia recruits peope made in their image

is that even a thing? history of the soviet union, really? anybody want to have a degree in North Korea history?

i know it doesn’t get worse after sexual predator shit but RT is a cherry on top. poor guy, imagine losing your marine corps salary and turning to writing articles for this dumpster.

[tron]

[kramlabs]

Scott Ritter kills it in this interview, especially on Russophobia and the looming 2026 nuclear conflict

недоговороспособны

[xtruss]

'Ultimately, US Will Abandon The Philippines As A Broken Tool'

— Global Times | July 07, 2024

Scott Ritter. Photo: Courtesy of Ritter

Editor's Note:

Recent tensions in the South China Sea, driven by Philippine provocation and US instigation, between China and the Philippines have raised concerns. Can the Philippines Bear the Consequences of Being Used as a Pawn by the US? How does the US benefit from this? How to view the portrayal of China as a "Bully" in Western media? Global Times reporter Ma Ruiqian recently interviewed Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, over these pressing issues.

Global Times: Some believe that the US is turning the Philippines into a "new colony" to maintain its interests in the Asia-Pacific region. How does the US benefit from this? Can the Philippines bear the consequences of being used as a pawn by Washington?

Scott Ritter: No nation can emerge from a war intact. War is a very destructive process. Normally, a war will have a loser and a winner. But when you're a tool, you're a loser, no matter what. As a tool, your objectives, desires and needs aren't being considered by the person using the tool. The person using the tool is using it to further his or her objectives. In this case, the US is using the Philippines to further its domination of the Pacific and US neocolonial hegemony over the Pacific.

The Philippines was once a US colony and has been ruled as a neocolonial extension of America ever since they achieved their independence from the US. The Philippines is a nation that has important geopolitical gravitas; its location in the Pacific makes it ideal for a nation like the US seeking to extend its power into the Pacific.

Cartoon: Carlos Latuff

The US can use the Philippines as a blocking mechanism to counter China's activities in the South China Sea. It can also use the Philippines as a base of operations to fall back on, to launch attacks against China, or to project US power. They seek to exploit Filipino manpower as a proxy force for the US, so that in any future conflict, it's Filipinos who are paying the price in terms of dead bodies, not the Americans. Eventually, like any tool, they will be broken. Regardless of whether the US achieves its objectives or not, the Philippines will be a broken nation, and that's not an ideal outcome.

Global Times: There are nine US military bases in the Philippines. How do you interpret the US' intentions in acquiring these bases? What does this mean for the Philippines?

Scott Ritter: None of these bases are what I would call major military installations. In some ways, it would be better for the Philippines if the US had a major military base. Because that shows a major commitment to the Philippines. It says "we are here to stay." However, these nine bases can only be used by the US for small and medium-sized military operations, primarily to train the Philippine military. These small bases are something that the US establishes when it wants to come in, cause trouble, then leave. This is a disaster for the Philippines. This only sets them up for failure because the military power that the US will be projecting to the Philippines is not meaningful military power. It's not sustainable military power. It's only enough to get the Philippines in trouble. Then the US will leave, abandoning it as a broken tool at its disposal.

Global Times: If you had the opportunity to speak with the leaders of the Philippines, what advice would you give them on developing international relations and resolving the South China Sea issue?

Scott Ritter: First of all, I would say that avoiding war should be the No.1 priority. The Philippines will never defeat China militarily, nor should they ever try to defeat China militarily. If China was a grossly irresponsible nation seeking to project its military power in the region to become a regional hegemony, I would say the Philippines would be correct in seeking US assistance. But China is not seeking to do that. China's buildups in the South China Sea are not because of the Philippines. It's designed to be a bulwark against US expansion. The Philippines should not interpret what China is doing in the wrong way.

Behind the Scenes. Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

China is a major regional power, and the Philippines needs to accept this reality. China exists, and it's up to the Philippines to sit down with the Chinese and have an honest discussion about the best way forward for both nations. The history of China shows it will listen and respond. The way to resolve this isn't by turning to the US and saying, "Come in and let's pick a fight with China." This would be my advice to the Philippines: If you have a problem with China, and I think you do, you need to talk with China. Diplomacy is the answer. China is not threatening you with military force and will seek to resolve the situation to the mutual benefit of both parties.

Global Times: How do you view the portrayal of China as a "bully" to smaller countries in Western media? How should China deal with such "China threat" narrative?

Scott Ritter: What you're hearing is completely aligned with what the US does right now. When the US calls China a "regional bully," it's because the US is a regional bully. So, in order to defend its policies, the US has to project what it is onto China. This makes China look worse than the US is, and that works when people don't understand the reality of China.

We have oversimplified China, turning it into a cartoon character of a "bad nation," an "evil nation." We continue to build upon the prejudices that exist in the US about communism. If we're going to talk about China, we need to understand that we need to study it. But we don't want to do that, because once we study and understand a nation, it becomes difficult to engage in propaganda against it and to shape the minds of Americans against China. We need Americans to be ignorant about China.

Pentagon’s Secret Anti-Vax Campaign Against China Reveals Manila is Seen as Nothing More Than Consumable, June 16, 2024, Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

I think China needs to allow more Americans to come to China, to expose them to the reality of the country. This should be done not by telling Americans what China is, but by letting them discover China for themselves and learn about it. This is a form of information warfare, but one that I don't think China needs to fear. I think China is very proud of what it has become, the nation it is, and the contributions it has made to the world.

Once we see the truth about China, we will be in a better position to evaluate the misinformation being spread by our government and then pressure our government to learn to live in peace and harmony with China. If we view the Chinese as normal, rational people, and show respect for their culture and history, there will be no need for confrontation. Instead, the focus will be on peaceful cooperation and coexistence rather than confrontation.

[cinemafromcinema]

Scott Ritter (Former United States corps intelligent officer): “What I can say, with you know, as much certainty as an outside observer with no direct connectivity with Iranian government could say is that, there will be an Iranian response and it will be significant and it will register…”

[fspgrad]

Scott Ritter on Widening the War in Ukraine and Its Shockingly Devastati...

[zee-man-chatter]

Israel is committing SUICIDE if they do this in Egypt" Scott Ritter | Redacted with Clayton Morris

Newly leaked documents show Israel's plan for pushing 2.3 million Palestinians out of Gaza and into Egypt. Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter says this would be a war crime and Egypt won't stand for it. Further Ritter says this would be suicide for Israel if it continues down this path.

[theculturedmarxist]

While it’s been a while since yours truly has posted on the war in Ukraine and our determination to mix things up with China, we seem to be in an intermediate phase of sorts. Major country leaders in the West remain focused on the conflict. The Collective West is trying hard at the G20 to muscle more countries in line, after an embarrassing fail in a similar exercise with Global South invitees to the Munich Security Conference. Biden and then Janet Yellen went for Kiev photo ops with Zelensky. That Biden trip, which made the Administration neglect of the East Palestine toxic train blast more galling, gave Republicans, most of all Trump, an easy win.

But there are more signs of anxiety and erratic behavior by key players. While the structure of the system looks the same, more and more energy is being pumped into it. Either it will be released somehow, say by an aggressor de-escalating, or the pressure will keep rising until we have a state change. And state changes means the system becomes chaotic. The September 2008 financial crisis was an example.

While we won’t dwell on China escalation today, the over-the-top, paranoid response to Commies under the bed peregrinating balloons looks like big-time displacement activity. We are in no position to whack China so we’ll whip ourselves in a frenzy over something we can (eventually) destroy.

Then the US and its NATO stooges went into effrontery overdrive at the Chinese presenting a high-minded napkin doodle and overselling it as a peace plan. Mind you, there were cool-headed ways of saying China has no nexus to this conflict save via its burgeoning friendship with Russia, and the latter means it can’t pretend to be a fair minded interlocutor.

Instead, the ham-handed outrage made the West look anti-peace, as opposed to anti China trying to play nicer hegemon. And then we have the conveniently-timed reheating of the lab leak theory on shoddy “new” evidence, and the House launching a “cut China down to size” committee.

The most charitable interpretation is China demonization is being readied as the next shiny object to divert attention from the coming Ukraine defeat, which will be very hard to ‘splain away. But there are competing interests at the top, with the Atlanticists very much committed to breaking Russia, not caring what the effect might be on the China project.

While arms makers theoretically make out no matter what, they can’t deliver quickly enough to make a difference in Ukraine, and they run the risk of having Russia demonstrate that our super-pricey, over-fussy weapons aren’t very effective in combat. So even more demand for hardware is not necessarily a boon. To fight an industrial war, we need lots of comparatively low tech munitions that they don’t regard as lucrative enough to interest them.

Mind you, the fact that principals are trying to increase pressure does not mean that they will succeed. Propaganda and optics and arm-twisting off and on allies only goes so far. A realistic trajectory for the Ukraine conflict is Western support will fizzle out as the Russian campaign continues to drain Western weapons stocks.

In keeping with that possibility, recall all of the drama of the buildup to the “anniversary” of the launch of the Special Military Operation last week. Western pundits and the press blathered on about how Russia was going to launch its over-anticipated offensive, even though Russia has insisted that it does not have a timetable for this campaign. Oh, and Putin’s overdue State of the Unions speech was not on the date when Russian forces moved into Donbass, but when Putin announced Russia was recognizing the breakaway republics.

Biden tried to upstage Putin with his trip to Kiev and then a speech in Warsaw. But Putin refused to play to demands of warmongers by stating that Russia was not going to full militarization. He delivered an otherwise informationally dense and long talk, treating his zinger, the suspension of Russia’s participation in the START treaty, as almost an afterthought at the end.

Not only did Russia not meet escalation expectations last week, Ukraine didn’t either. Zelensky had promised a big speech for the anniversary of the invasion, and Ukraine boosters expected something more, if not an offensive, at least a stunt, as in a headlines-getting jab that made Ukraine look like it was on the front foot even if in the end it would not affect outcomes. The Kerch Bridge bombing and the misuse of the grain corridor to attack the Sebastopol naval base are examples.

And there’s evidence that Ukraine is closer to the end of its rope than the press would have you believe. Brian Berletic has been relentlessly chronicling how US weapons deliveries to Ukraine have been falling, to the degree that the US has stopped putting numbers on many items. The commitment that Biden made in his Kiev trip was meager. Dima at Military Summary pointed out that Ukraine shelling has fallen markedly in the last week, suggesting Ukraine is forced to ration ammo. Dima has also been pointing out that the daily Russian “clobber lists” have almost no tank kills on them, contrary to earlier in the war, and instead mainly features destroyed armored and too often, passenger vehicles. That suggests that either Ukraine is hoarding its remaining tanks for its long-touted counter-offensive, or is really pretty much out of them. Big Serge, in a new piece, mentioned (as Dima has) rumors of a few of the Polish Leopard tanks having been deployed to Bakhmut. If true, Big Serge argues that would be proof that Ukraine is unable to accumulate reserves for a later offensive.

To use the new Big Serge piece as a point of departure, I have to differ with one of his high level points. He contends the Russians have been slow to launch their big offensive because they are having to make a very large reorganization from a military optimized for fighting small wars to one able to engage in a large scale, protracted conflict (Douglas Macgregor recently said Russia is now planning for an up to 30 month war).

It may very well be true that Russia is finding the process of changing its military organization to be time-consuming, but Big Serge, like many others, particularly those from military backgrounds, seem impatient for Russia to launch a big attack. Again, remember Russia has repeatedly disavowed having a timetable. The one thing they have promised, per General Sergey Surovkin, is to wage a grinding war, for among other reasons, to preserve Russian lives. This isn’t just politically sound; Russia also has comparatively few professional troops and needs to risk them only when the potential payoff is high.

Yours truly has opined that Russia’s moves are going to be even more reactive to events than one might normally expect in a war. Part of that is due to Russia facing layered opposition: its immediate combatant is Ukraine, but as we all know, it is fighting the Collective West. Russia is pressing and testing the West across all lines of combat: military, economic, geopolitical. For instance, it is too often simply not admitted that Russia controls Ukraine’s future. Only Russia can restore Ukraine’s grid; the West cannot begin to afford a rebuild. Russia does not need to point that out; it will come into play in due course.

So I hazard that the principles that are guiding Russia’s actions in the near-term in Ukraine are:

Paraphrasing Napoleon: “Don’t get in your enemy’s way when he is making a mistake” Don’t make sudden moves around crazy people

As Big Serge and others have pointed out, Ukraine’s strategy, such as it is, is close to ideal for Russia. Admittedly, Russia is in the midst of the difficult process of cracking Ukraine’s extensive fortifications without wasting Russian lives. That is why Russia is faced with the embarrassment of Ukraine still being able to shell civilians in Donetsk.

But thanks to the partial mobilization, Russia has hardened its positions all along the very long line of contact, which is also comparatively easy to keep supplied. Due to Ukraine’s need to maintain coalition support (mentioned as a major objective by Alex Vershinin in a late December 2022; Big Serge expands upon this idea), Ukraine is desperate to maintain the appearance of success. As many have pointed out, that translates into a refusal to make tactical retreats (save trivially) to preserve men and materiel. Worse, as we see particularly in Bakhmut, Ukraine keeps pouring forces and weapons into doomed positions.

So why, at least for now, should Russia do anything more than let Ukraine keep breaking its military on the shoals of Russians at the line of contact, and also keep pressing on as many potentially exploitable targets to force Ukraine to keep those positions defended and limit their ability to redeploy forces?

As frustrating as it is for war-watchers, Russia could keep the meat-grinder approach going until the Ukraine forces really do start collapsing, as in run out of ammo, are unable to send in reinforcements, and show other signs of serious inability to execute. Mind you, Russia still has a lot to do just to accomplish its immediate goal of clearing the Donbass and forces stationed close enough to shell it. Russia has also vowed to take all of the oblasts that voted to join the Russian Federation, so “liberating” the rest of Zaporzhizia would seem to be high on the list (the timing of Kherson would seem to be more up in the air due if nothing else to Kherson City being in an undesirable location).

The dealing with crazy people part also argues for making the war as boring as possible, and a slow grind serves that end too. The way to give the West an off ramp is to provide them the space to move the war off the front pages and then rationalize the abandonment of Ukraine (via greatly reduced support).

Putin’s biggest obstacle here would seem to be domestic hawks, who seem to get share of mind out of proportion to their numbers due to being both highly vocal and very good sources of day-to-day information on Telegram. Putin seems at least for the moment to have persuaded most Russians that not pursuing a war-time economy is the soundest long-term approach and I suspect he’ll continue to prevail in that debate. As long at the Russia public isn’t demanding a faster resolution of the conflict, the Russian leadership ought to have a fairly free hand with pacing.

Ukraine, despite being weakened, still has agency. And the US, with the Nord Stream bombing, has demonstrated it can be ruthless and utterly unprincipled.1 So far, all we have seen are failed or pinprick attacks that nevertheless get coverage, like the rumored but apparently never happened attack on a Russian plane in Belarus, or drone attacks meant for Moscow that didn’t get there.

Big Serge, along with many others, has discussed the rumor that Ukraine and Moldova will cook up a pretext for Ukraine to move on Transnistria. On paper, it’s not well enough defended to stand up to a determined Ukraine attack, and too far from Russia for it to readily send in reinforcements. So this could be a very big bloody nose for Russia and a huge morale booster.

The wee problem with this picture is the huge ammo dump that Russia is protecting. Russia could and presumably would blow that up, which per Moldovan (as in not Russia friendly) sources would be a nuclear level blast. On top of that, as Scott Ritter discussed long form in a recent talk with Garland Nixon and Andrei Martyanov, Russia’s Foreign Ministry made very clear that if Ukraine made a move on Transnistria, that would be an act of war against Russia. That would give Russia license to do things (to the mystery of Western military types) that it has refrained from doing, like taking out the Ukraine leadership. The noisemaking about that scheme seems to have died down.

But Russian officials have warned of intel on other provocations, such as chemical weapons and drums of radioactive material (along with hazmat gear!) being moving into Ukraine to stage false flag attacks that would be attributed to Russia. So until the US and NATO get over themselves, we could still see a lot of nasty developments.

And we keep seeing far too many stories in high profile Western outlets about how Ukraine can or must win, despite the lack of realistic ideas for how that happens. So expect if nothing else for the press to try to keep the emotional dial turned up to 11 even if the battlefield action remains a slow, bloody slog.

_____

1 Even if you do not believe Sy Hersh’s account, there is no way it happened without US approval and support in that Sixth Fleet lake called the Baltic Sea.

[workersolidarity]

Watch "Scott Ritter: The CIA has been supporting Banderists since 1945" on YouTube

A detailed explanation from former weapons inspector Scott Ritter on how the CIA has been supporting Ukrainian Nazis, not Neo-Nazis, literal 1940's Ukrainian Nazis, consistently since 1945.

The Nationalist movements and color revolutions that finally broke up the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991 were fomented and supported by the CIA.

The CIA, which essentially has acted as a secret army for Wall Street since its inception, was funding, training and arming literal Nazis in Ukraine from the moment World War II ended.

Like Operation Gladio in Western Europe, the CIA worked tirelessly in Eastern Europe to support Nationalist movements within the Soviet Union with the goal of regime change, and they won.

Those efforts have since blossomed into the Geopolitical realities of today. From the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics, to the expansion of NATO and to the origins of the Ukraine Proxy-war.

All of it stems from the decision to support Far-Right Nationalist Terrorists and Nazis for generations.

[tilos-tagebuch]

Scott Ritter: Why I no longer stand with Israel, and never will again

A contemporary witness document as a mandatory reading for anyone who wants to assume political responsibility for world peace.

Source: https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-i-no-longer-stand-with-israel