State power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force. The state can train subjects, but it can never develop free people who take their affairs into their own hands, for independent thought is the greatest danger that it has to fear.
--Rudolf Rocker
In trying to find ways to effectively counter Russia and China’s partnerships in Africa, Washington – and its Western followers – is not content to just go for the honey or the vinegar – so officials are resorting to both at the same time.
Typically, the Western modus operandi has been to establish a footprint in the target foreign country through military intervention under a security pretext with the hope of eventually pivoting to an economic one. Recent history suggests that elites haven’t quite been able to make the transition before their plans go pear-shaped. Unable to get their hands on the prize – typically, the country’s natural resources – they eventually either get kicked out (as was the case with France in Mali), or end up cutting their losses (like the US did in Afghanistan).
Russia and China have been able to effectively exploit the void created by misguided Western foreign military adventures. In the case of Mali, Russia offered the transitional government military helicopters, radars, and weapons, in addition to “soldiers and trainers” reportedly operating in the African country (according to reports, these are from the Wagner private security company, but officials have distanced themselves from the group). Moscow is now parlaying that foothold into expanded cooperation.
“We paid special attention to the practical aspects of organizing deliveries from Russia of wheat, mineral fertilizers and petroleum products that are so much needed by the people of Mali today in conditions of illegitimate Western sanctions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference, in May, with his Malian counterpart, Abdoulaye Diop. France and the US sanctioned the country in the wake of delayed elections following two coups, all under the watch of Paris' Operation Barkhane and the EU’s training mission headquartered in the capital, Bamako.
And now Washington is forging ahead with a new tool to threaten African countries that defy its interests. The ‘Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act’ would target African governments, officials, and businesses doing business with Russia, qualified as “manipulation” and “exploitation” of Africans to Russia’s benefit. The plan is in the same spirit as the ‘Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act of 2017’ and the ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act’,targeting Iran, Russia, and North Korea… but which also risks threatening India for purchasing a S-400 Russian missile defense system.
The same act was leveraged to halt the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for the transport of Russian gas into Western Europe under threat of American sanctions – effectively opening up a potential new market for US liquified gas exports.
At the same time, the Western G7 bloc has proposed a $600 billion plan to build foreign infrastructure in Africa and Latin America, with Washington pledging $200 billion and the EU another $300 billion, and private businesses expected to get on board to invest. What are they going to do – sanction some of these countries and then demand that they take Western cash? How awkward.
The idea is to counter China’s Belt and Road project, albeit a decade late and hundreds of billions of dollars short. The message here is clear. These countries can either deal with Russia, China, and other American adversaries and get buried in sanctions, or else they can accept this wonderful opportunity to let Washington and its Western allies into the country to build nice things.
A long-standing US criticism of China is that it exploits its Belt and Road project to ‘debt trap’ countries and impose its influence. But it’s not like Washington’s intent towards underdeveloped countries is purely altruistic.
For an example, look to how the US-funded Marshall Plan for post-WWII Europe helped establish CIA front companies around the continent. Or when Washington funds ‘civil society’ projects in underdeveloped target countries that end up being exposed as operations to subvert the government – one such example being a Twitter-like social media project in Cuba, funded by USAID and uncovered by the Associated Press in 2014.
Speaking at the G7 Summit in Germany, US President Joe Biden said that investment projects include an industrial-scale vaccine manufacturing facility in Senegal, a global subsea telecommunications cable passing through the Horn of Africa, new solar projects in Angola, and a nuclear reactor plant in Romania. But at best, it’s playing catch-up with the $59 billion spent by China last year alone on the 144-country venture.
Only time will tell how much of the announcement is window dressing and marketing – a valid concern given that this is the second year in a row that the proposal has been tabled at the G7 Summit, only to be rebranded and recycled a year later with little else happening in the interim.
“These strategic investments are areas of – critical to sustainable development and to our shared global stability: health and health security, digital connectivity, gender equality and equity, climate and energy security,” Biden said, evoking all the warm and fuzzy buzzwords expected of him. But the true measure of the initiative will be in whether it can successfully replace Washington’s strategy of setting fire to foreign nations for the primary purpose of being able to step in afterwards and offer to help clean up.
On June 5 Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest and most influential newspapers, splashed the pictures and names of 9 people, including mine, above the headline “Putin’s network in Italy: the influencers and opinion leaders who produce propaganda for Moscow”.
According to the clumsy article that accompanied this sensationalist title a “secret Russian disinformation network” was uncovered by an investigation carried out by “intelligence agencies”. The only source cited by the article is a report by Copasir (Comitato Parlamentare per la Sicurezza della Repubblica), a parliamentary security committee that is tasked with overseeing the activities of intelligence agencies rather than conducting its own intelligence operations. But this is not the only oddity. Though the article is signed by the newspaper’s assistant editor-in-chief and another senior journalist, it contains so many factual errors, wrong attributions and outright fabrications that the informed reader is left with the impression that the authors of this hack job knew very little about the material they were handling and never before had heard the names of the people they accused of being Putin’s disinformation agents in Italy. Ignorance of the matter didn’t stop them from blithely making us the target of a defamation campaign that, given the current Russophobic hysteria, could put our livelihoods and even personal safety at risk.
Although Italian public figures deemed “too friendly to Russia” had already been profiled by obscure foundations and think tanks in the past, this is the first time names, pictures and personal details are splashed on the pages of an Italian newspaper and widely circulated on the Net. By choosing Corriere della Sera as an outlet for the nefarious and reprehensible practice of doxxing, those who commissioned this hit piece may have intended to legitimise intimidation tactics they have long adopted in Ukraine and tried in Hong Kong and Belarus during colour revolution attempts. This is a clear sign that the information war is getting hotter and anyone who dares to question the official narrative spun in NATO circles can end up in the crosshairs of those who police it. Freedom of expression is one of those fabled “European values” that is currently destined for export only.
The authors of the fact-free article published by Corriere della Sera reached a paroxysm of ludicrousness by claiming that Putin (no less!) had quoted Manlio Dinucci’s book during his Victory Day speech in Red Square. Apparently one day we influence the Kremlin, the next we put on our Kremlin agent’s hats and go on a mission to influence Italians. Suspend your disbelief. Such is the power of the mysterious network i am suspected of being part of that we can coordinate our activities without knowing one another, without any interaction and without receiving instructions from any Russian control centre, let alone payment for our tireless “propaganda” efforts. Is Russia relying on telepathy to communicate with her agents abroad? Has a microchip been implanted in our brains to turn us into unwitting propaganda machines? No explanation would be too far-fetched when the aim is to discredit the work of the analysts, journalists, reporters, academics, and even a member of parliament who make up the magical world of Putin’s disinformation agents in Italy.
As expected the publication of that defamatory article by Corriere della Sera immediately conjured up memories of McCarthyism and the newspaper was accused of engaging in a witch hunt. Understandably, it also caused public uproar and indignation.
Adolfo Urso, the senator who heads Copasir, in an official note tried to distance himself and his committe from the scandal by claiming that “Copasir has never conducted its own investigations on alleged influencers and that it has received a specific report only after the publication of the article”.
A few days later, in an attempt to put the matter to rest, the specific report he mentioned was declassified and made available to the public. But the report, oddly titled “Hybrid Bulletin”, contained only two of the names mentioned in the article.
To explain such discrepancy Adolfo Urso added that the missing names might be listed in three “Hybrid Bulletins” that are still classified. Weeks later, on June 17, at a press conference held during his trip to Washington, he denied that any of these reports contained our names. According to Copasir, the “bulletins” were compiled by DIS, the Department of Information for Security, which coordinates the activities of AISI (focusing on internal security) and AISE (focusing on foreign intelligence), in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and AGCOM, the authority that was originally set up to safeguard pluralism of information and fair competition in the telecommunication market.
Though Copasir tried to reassure the public by insisting that it had launched an internal investigation to find out who leaked classified information to Corriere della Sera, anyone who is even vaguely familiar with the track record of Italian intelligence agencies holds out little hope that such investigation will yield any results. The general consensus is that a cover up is far more likely.
While Copasir denied any responsibility in the matter and its president claimed he had heard about these reports from the press, on May 20, more than two weeks before the infamous article appeared in Corriere della Sera, Politico, a US news outlet that enjoys excellent relations with the US establishment, published a piece titled “Infowars: Putin’s propaganda permeates Italian media” in which it denounced the attitude, described as too soft, of Italian media towards Russia.
From Politico we learn that Copasir had opened “an investigation into a Russian disinformation network in Italy” the previous week, therefore around mid-May.
Why was an American news outlet aware of this investigation before it became newsworthy in Italy? From Politico we also learn that Andrea Romano, an MP from the ultra-Atlanticist Partito Democratico (PD) had pushed for the Copasir investigation despite it falling outside the remit of this committee. Politico attributes to Romano the following statement: “Disinformation is part of Russia’s military strategy, as investigations by numerous European parliaments have found. Putin’s regime is very effective in its capacity to penetrate democratic debate, to confuse, and create doubts.”
Politico also mentions Adolfo Urso, the president of the parliamentary security committee who publicly denied any knowledge of the report. According to Urso, Russia has deliberately targeted Italy in a hybrid war fought with fake news and disinformation that pollutes public opinion. Since 2016, at least 13,000 instances of fake news have been documented by the EU’s task force, he said. “The aim is not just to confuse but to condition choices”.
The impression, after reading Politico’s article, is that both the “Hybrid Bulletins” and the hit piece published by Corriere della Sera are the product of a joint effort between Copasir, EU-NATO think tanks, media/academia/intelligence outfits and the “fact-checking” organizations they control.
The fact-checkers aka “disinformation experts” embedded in both mainstream media and social media companies often have a military and/or intelligence background, which reflects the importance NATO assigns not only to policing and weaponizing the narrative, but also gathering information on those who question it. The current witch hunt indicates that after banning all Russian media from the Western infosphere they have now moved on to the next target, Western independent thinkers and reporters whose influence on public opinion they fear even more.
At a time when doublespeak has become the rule, it is hardly surprising that one of the latest reports containing a black list was compiled by the Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU) together with Open Dialogue Foundation, the Polish-Ukrainian NGO linked to Soros’ Open Society and International Renaissance Foundation. Silencing dissidents in the West while championing and funding them in countries the US has labelled “authoritarian” is clearly their idea of human rights and open dialogue. The report was proudly presented by Andrea Romano at the Italian Parliament’s press room on June 28. Romano is the same Democratic Party MP who had solicited the Copasir investigation.
Since smear campaigns targeting independent media and journalists were launched at around the same time in several NATO countries, and nearly identical accusations were made against us, the hypothesis that these attacks were coordinated is not so far-fetched.
In Anglophone countries hit pieces such as the one published by NBC news on June 8 “Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators” cited the Institute for Strategic Dialogue as a source. Another hack job published by The Guardian on June 19, “Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists identified”, also mentioned the same Institute funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, UK, US, several EU countries and NGOs.
If during the Cold War, at a time when European countries still enjoyed a modicum of sovereignty, NATO resorted to clandestine stay-behind networks such as Gladio in Italy, today these networks operate in full view, though they are less structured: in keeping with RAND doctrine they resemble swarming pods and clusters that influence every aspect of civil, political, economic, cultural life in NATOstan.
Back in 2015 the European Council had already asked the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (Federica Mogherini) to address “Russia’s disinformation campaigns”. It led to the creation of the East Stratcom Task Force. In addition, the Joint Communication on Countering Hybrid Threats set up the Hybrid Fusion Cell within the European External Action Service to act as a single focus for the analysis of hybrid threats. In 2017 the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, which supports the activities of NATO in this field, was launched in Helsinki.
NATO built an EU-wide pipeline of researchers, university centers, journalists, fact-checkers and NGOs with the necessary technical, linguistic and subject-matter knowledge to give a veneer of credibility to propaganda stories by creating an array of seemingly scientific tools and methods. It also provided them with additional specialised staff, such as experts in data mining and analysis to organise, aggregate and process vast amounts of digital data. On 1 June 2020 the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) project started its activities. The EDMO consortium includes the Athens Technology Center (Greece), Aarhus University (Denmark), and the fact-checking organisation Pagella Politica/Facta (Italy).
A second phase of the project saw the establishment of national/regional digital media observatories across Europe, IDMO being the Italian one. IDMO was set up in 2021 with the participation of Luiss University, RAI, TIM, Gruppo GEDI La Repubblica, Tor Vergata University, T6 Ecosystems, NewsGuard (linked to NeoCons and US government officials, including former CIA director Michael Hayden), Pagella Politica/Facta, Alliance of Democracies Foundation (the brainchild of NATO ex-Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen), Corriere della Sera, Fondazione Enel, Reporters Sans Frontieres, The European House Ambrosetti.
The swarm of fact-checking/disinformation outfits that have jumped on the EU gravy train of transmedia surveillance and narrative management is constantly expanding and is intertwined with US military and intelligence structures, operations, and goals. So much so that NATO StratCom CoE and the European CoE for Countering Hybrid Threats are virtually interchangeable.
The information gathering capability of this swarm far exceeds that of STASI, as the GDR security agency had to rely on informers and listening devices planted in apartments. In today’s Europe anyone using an electronic device is automatically under surveillance and those who express dissenting opinions are a prime target for harassment, intimidation and smear tactics aimed at discrediting them and their work.
2. A study published by Columbia University Press, “Russian Active Measures: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”, contains the Italian dossier “Russian influence on culture, the academic world and Italian Think Tanks” authored by Fondazione Gino Germani.
Thanks to Max Sargeson for contributing this video, which he explains thus:
It's a case that hasn't been reported on even locally in Australia; a man named Simeon Boikov has just been sentenced to prison apparently for publicly outing a paedophile, and being a Putin supporter. He seems to be held in "special housing" (code for solitary) and not allowed visitors because the nature of his crime makes him a national security risk. This is one of the first genuine cases of a political prisoner in Aus I'm aware of.
Note that he was charged with breaching a suppression order, rather than criminal defamation. As hushed as this all is, there has been no denial from the authorities that the named subject was, in fact, a paedophile.
The statistics are very concerning and show a deepening decline in births this year. It is actually WORSE than it looks on this chart, as I will show later.
I have tabulated this data:
And here’s a more visual graphical presentation of the DROP in births in Sweden, by month:
You can see that not only is the drop in births in Sweden significant, but it is also gradually deepening every month! It looks as if an inexorable force is preventing previously healthy Swedes, who plan families and are encouraged by their government to have children, from actually conceiving and completing their pregnancies.
What could cause this?
Vaccination of Young People in Sweden
Take a look at this helpful chart from Our World in Data. Go back 9 months and look at the younger 18-49-year-old categories. Look at their vaccination progress from April to August 2021:
Young people of Sweden were assured by the Swedish authorities that Covid vaccines are definitely very safe and effective. Swedes, especially young people, trust their government. So, they took Covid vaccine shots, did not think much about them, and continued whatever they were doing, such as making babies, just like the Swedish government encouraged them to do.
They probably did not notice that the number of pregnancies was dropping.
What About Other Countries?
Sweden is NOT alone. I reported on a dramatic (and similar to Sweden) decline in births in Germany, Switzerland, North Dakota, and the UK:
Taiwan, which also vaccinated young people 9 months prior, is recording a whopping 23% drop in birth rates! Such a drop is a depopulation-level event if this trend continues.
Sweden is also a very interesting case because this country was never locked down. So people were free to party, date, have fun, and so on, just like always. If you could possibly place blame on “lockdowns” for other countries, Sweden proves that lockdowns are NOT the cause — since it never locked down its citizens.
Mind you, 9 months ago, less than half of young Swedes were vaccinated. None yet received vaccine boosters.
What will happen to Sweden’s birth rate months from now, with the childbearing age people getting more vaccines and more boosters 9 months prior? Young people ended up being 80% vaccinated in Sweden and many were later boosted. I, naturally, hope that this disturbing trend will somehow disappear, but I fear that it will worsen.
It is time to start worrying and sound some alarms. Are you worried?
