Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil!

Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil!

by C.A. Matthews

Did you get a chance to read Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh’s excellent exposé on who and how and when the Nord Stream LNG pipelines were blown up? If you haven’t read his article yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so now. Go on, click on the blue link. We’ll wait. 

Here’s a quick excerpt from it for those in a rush:

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. (…)

Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible. – Seymour Hersch, How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline

And for clarification, in case you've come across persons attempting to besmirch Mr. Hersh’s distinguished career:

[Hersh] went to Vietnam and covered the war as a freelance reporter. In 1969, he heard about an Army lieutenant, William Calley, who had been secretly court martialed for his role in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians, and, after investigating it as a freelance reporter, he broke the news of what became widely known as the My Lai massacre, in which he wrote, “The Army says Lieutenant Calley deliberately murdered at least 109 Vietnamese civilians during a search and destroy mission in March 1968, in a Viet Cong stronghold known as Painesville.” Hersh 's story was picked up by 33 newspapers through the wire service. He was working as a freelance reporter when he revealed that. 

That incident took place in March 1968. It involved the deliberate killing by company Sea First Battalion, 20th Infantry, of South Vietnamese civilians. The U.S. Army originally denied all of his claims, insisting that they were all made up and were all fiction but they ultimately ended up admitting most of his revelations, including the fact that Lieutenant Calley was convicted of murder of 22 civilians and was sentenced to life in prison, though he was pardoned in 1974. For that reporting, which prompted not mean tweets, but threats of all kinds of violence from many serious sectors, Hersh won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.—Glenn Greenwald, Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline? System Update #39 (February 10, 2023)

Seymour Hersh is one of the most highly respected journalists in the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the top award in Western journalism, for his reporting on US war crimes in Vietnam.

He has spent decades building up sources inside the US government. Hersh has also earned accolades for exposing US atrocities and cover-ups targeting Iraq, Iran, and Syria. —Ben Norton, US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports

Things are making a whole lot more sense now—at least they should to those who have been watching and/or reading mainstream media outlets and fell for the “Russia blew up its own pipeline!” nonsense. The rest of us who regularly follow independent journalists online and nurse a healthy sense of skepticism toward anything coming out of the mouths of US government spokespersons weren’t surprised at all by Hersh’s reporting. But I realize that there is still a lot of head scratching in the “Vote Blue No Matter Who” crowd. Some of these heavily propagandized folks are willing to admit that they couldn’t fathom why any country would destroy its own profitable pipeline, even if they are ruled by “Bad Man (not Orange) Putin,” a man portrayed in the mainstream media as a combination of Trump and Stalin.

The most surprising thing to me in Hersh's article was the Norwegians’ uncontained enthusiasm for the sabotage plan. They were happy to go along with planting the concrete-covered C4 explosives on the Nord Stream liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines. No one had to twist the Norwegians’ arms to drop the sea buoy that boosted the signal from the US to detonate the bombs three months after they were planted. The bombs then exploded and destroyed three out of four of the pipelines. (Hey, nobody’s perfect, and the surviving pipeline has since been turned off. Mission accomplished!)

I wonder if the Norwegians realized that by helping the United States destroy property belonging to oil companies from the EU, Germany, France, and several others (49%), and Russia (51%) that they were, to all intents and purposes, participating in an act of war. Think about it. Blowing up a liquefied natural gas pipeline that doesn’t belong to you is a very aggressive act. It’s not something one country should do to another without expecting to experience some serious consequences in return.

In the past, as soon as one country discovered their property had been destroyed by another country, a call for war was issued and fighting ensued. Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that nowadays the Big Oil companies sit down at the boardroom table and discuss how they’ll proceed from this point onward before they come to blows.

Big Oil companies? Did you actually think I meant to type “the US, Germany, Russia, and Norway need to sit down and talk things over” in regard to blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines? No, I meant to type Big Oil, and you'll see why in a moment.

We’re intelligent adults here, so I feel I can speak frankly with you about this matter. We both know that the US government wasn't ultimately in charge of this pipeline sabotage operation. Oh no. Whenever human beings are discussing anything to do with the largest multinational corporations on the planet like Big Oil, we have to admit that they, the corporations, are the ones exercising all the power. Simply put, it is the corporations who are calling all the shots. Big Oil is our ultimate ruler.

In short, Joe Biden wasn’t the first to express a long-held desire to blow up Russia's profitable LNG pipeline. It was the Western Big Oil companies that have wanted the Nord Stream put out of commission for some time now. Chevron signed a deal and made some comments about cornering the market in Ukraine’s fossil fuel industry back in 2013, right before the US overthrew Ukraine's popularly elected president, Viktor Vanukovych, in the Maidan Coup of 2014. Unfortunately for Mr. Vanukovych, he expressed an interest in doing business with a Russian oil company over Chevron, a US oil company. (Interesting coincidence, the timing of the Maidan Coup, don’t you think? Well, it did get then Vice President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, a cushy job at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Nothing to see here, move along, please.)

 Investigative journalist Ben Norton points out:

Just hours after Nord Stream was sabotaged, NATO members Norway, Denmark, and Poland announced the official opening of a new natural gas pipeline, the Baltic Pipe. (...)

Since the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up, Norway has replaced Russia as Europe’s largest supplier of pipeline gas.

Norwegian gas shipments to Germany in particular have reached record highs. In 2021, Norway had provided Germany with less then 20% of its gas supply. By 2022, that figure had shot up to 33%.

Meanwhile, the United States has also become the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) exporter (tied with Qatar).

European imports made up the “lion’s share” of US LNG exports in 2022, quickly replacing Asia as the new top market.  —US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports

Putting competitor oil corporations and pipelines out of business is how capitalism works. You didn’t think it was all about “sharing the market” and “friendly competition” among these mega-billion dollar corporations, did you? Competition is for suckers! Building a monopoly in a commodity market is where it’s at in the sick and twisted socioeconomic system of capitalism.

 Getting rid of your competitors forever is a good enough reason to have your favorite puppet government sabotage and blow up an LNG pipeline and risk a nuclear war by doing so. These psychopathic/sociopathic Big Oil CEOs don't seem to worry very much about the fate of humanity. If they ever did, would they have covered up fossil fuel's part in causing greenhouse gases and exacerbating the climate catastrophe for the past half century?

Helping out your fellow CEOs at Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and the rest of the military-industrial complex to make mega-profits is a good idea, too. Military equipment uses a lot of fossil fuels to run and be maintained. So helping them sell more and more armaments will help Big Oil's bottom line. And it's always a great idea to cooperate with the War Machine, that is, if we haven’t nuked the entire planet into a cinder before then.

Trillions of dollars in profit for Big Oil CEOs and their shareholders is worth the political fall out from causing what could be the largest methane leak in human history. (You didn't think blowing up the Nord Stream wouldn't have a massive environmental impact, did you?) Really, it was worth it. It’s not like the oil companies themselves deal much with the press, the irate public, the environment, and the maligned pipeline owners. That’s what their bought-off politician-puppets are for. 

That’s right. That’s why Big Oil lobbyists give so much money to politicians worldwide. Politicians are tasked with creating the circumstances where capitalists can do what capitalists do best: Create monopolies and make themselves evermore increasing profits. And if it takes a war and causing an environmental disaster... then so be it.

As the great Ralph Nader says:

No other institutions consistently Rule over as Much in the World as the Giant Global Corporations – not governments, not armies, not religions and certainly not trade unions. These fictional corporate entities have largely achieved transcendent imperial status, as they amass coordinated control over capital, labor, technology and governments because they have secured the rights bestowed upon human beings. In a confrontation or a conflict or even a contract, it is no contest: mere people don’t have a chance.

As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis warned in 1933, we have created a “Frankenstein monster” in our midst, whose unifying lust for power and control on behalf of their profits know few limits. From How to Rescue Our Democratic Society: Constitutionally Render Corporations Unequal to Humans

I’ll venture to say that Big Oil knows zero limits on their power. These avaricious corporations dictate both domestic and foreign policy for the US government. And our paid-for politician-puppets obediently do as they're told.

There was never any question about who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. The half-owners, Gazprom of Russia, could have just turned off a valve on the pipeline and shut it down. There was no need for them to waste expensive and dangerous explosives to stop the flow of liquefied natural gas. Any rational adult could reason that the Russians had no motive to blow up the Nord Stream. It was highly profitable. Only the owners of the new Baltic Pipe (built by Poland, Denmark, and Norway) and the US-aligned oil companies had the motive. And they're all making money hand over fist, charging four times last year's cost for LNG to heat homes in Europe.

Their motive here is greed, pure and simple—the greed of the US and EU oil companies who didn't like cheap Russian natural gas flooding the market. And who suffers? Just the people in both the Europe and the US this winter who can't afford to heat their homes. Just the people of Ukraine caught in the middle of a shooting match. Nobody really in the eyes of the multinational corporations.

It's the greedy oil corporations who are the "bad guys” in this story. They ordered their puppet, the US government, to destroy a pipeline belonging to Russia, a fellow nuclear power. The saddest thing is that sabotaging another country's pipeline (or even shooting down another country's weather balloons) could lead to a grave misunderstanding, spark World War III, and get us all killed.

You know what? Big Oil can pay for its own wars from now on. They can afford it—they make trillions of dollars in profits, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be without money anytime soon. Since they are so good at buying politicians, they can go ahead and buy mercenaries (which make up a good percentage of those fighting for Ukraine currently) to do the warring for them. Better yet, let’s tell Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to use their private spaceships to transport all the CEOS and their mercenaries to the moon or Mars where they can fight over who gets to rule the LNG market without interruptions. We’ll all be much safer and happier here on Earth if none of them ever come back.

 

Related Links:

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

US blew up Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany, journalist Seymour Hersh reports
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/02/08/us-nord-stream-pipelines-seymour-hersh/

My Sources Corroborate Sy Hersh's Nord Stream Report
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/my-sources-corroborate-sy-hershs

Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the Nord Stream bombing: A lesson and a warning https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/10/pers-f10.html

Sen. Mike Lee ‘Can’t Rule Out’ That the US Blew Up Nord Stream
https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/10/sen-mike-lee-cant-rule-out-that-the-us-blew-up-nord-stream/

Glenn Greenwald: Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipeline? System Update, Episode #39 https://rumble.com/v291nvo-system-update-show-39.html

INSANE: US Confirmed to Be Behind Nordstream Pipeline Attacks: Seymour Hersh  https://www.youtube.com/live/DUwfPWJQ7Pc

Nord Stream pipeline & sabotaging peace w/Jeffrey Sachs
https://www.youtube.com/live/ySNyAaw4VEI

Here's How US Blew Up Nordstream Pipeline (NEW PROOF)
https://rumble.com/v28vpee-heres-how-us-blew-up-nordstream-pipeline-new-proof.html

Seymour Hersh reveals how the US blew up Nord Stream 2 https://mate.substack.com/p/seymour-hersh-reveals-how-the-us

How The United States Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline https://youtu.be/A68z2iQHUhE

Sy Hersh and the Way We Live Now https://popularresistance.org/sy-hersh-the-way-we-live-now/

Ukraine Signs $10 Billion Shale Gas Deal with Chevron https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-chevron/ukraine-signs-10-billion-shale-gas-deal-with-chevron-idUSBRE9A40ML20131105

Sitting in the Dock at the Hague (Ukraine War Series) https://bernie2016.blogspot.com/2022/03/sitting-in-dock-at-hague.html 

Biden covers up plans for US shooting war against Russia in State of the Union address https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/02/09/pers-f09.html

How to Rescue Our Democratic Society: Constitutionally Render Corporations Unequal to Humans https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/11/how-to-rescue-our-democratic-society-constitutionally-render-corporations-unequal-to-humans/

How A Pipeline Company Paid Minnesota Millions To Police Protests https://popularresistance.org/how-a-pipeline-company-paid-minnesota-millions-to-police-protests/

Zelensky Admits He Refused to Implement Minsk Peace Deal https://popularresistance.org/zelensky-admits-he-refused-to-implement-minsk

Former Israeli PM Bennett Says US ‘Blocked’ His Attempts at a Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal https://scheerpost.com/2023/02/08/former-israeli-pm-bennett-says-us-blocked-his-attempts-at-a-russia-ukraine-peace-deal/

Why Are We Repeating History? https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/why-are-we-repeating-history.html

Seen on Twitter:

According to the US Navy Underwater Destruction Team, the Nord Stream Pipeline committed suicide when the prison guards fell asleep.
(Pic: "Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 8, prepares mock explosives😂 for a pierside training event")https://t.co/ATwZRUaYd8

— Andy Seaward (@Beatle_Ed1) February 9, 2023

The Peace Eagle

words and original artwork by C.A. Matthews

We don't have to submit to this. We don't have to keep sleepwalking into dystopia and armageddon to the beat of manipulative sociopaths. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and we've got a whole lot more at stake here than they do. --Caitlin Johnstone, Advocating World War Three is Just Mainstream Punditry Now

Some days it’s hard to get out of bed knowing just how screwed up the world is. You want to turn over, go back to sleep, and wake up to the sound of angels blowing trumpets, calling us all heavenward in the Rapture (even if you don’t really believe in that sort of thing). You just want to get things over with, you know?

Headlines yelling that nuclear war is “survivable” and “necessary” to rub some other country’s leader’s face into the (radioactive) dust seem to trigger these feelings in me. I don’t believe for one moment that nuclear war is a preferable or survivable event. I actually passed my chemistry test on radioactive isotopes in high school. I know that I don’t want anyone to be bombarded by them or caught in an explosion that generates them for the next several hundred thousand years.

When it came to picking a theme for the blog this depressing week, I was leaning toward writing about the upcoming midterms because it’s a slightly less blood pressure rising topic. But then the news about “The Squad” (more like “The Frauds”) hit the Twitterverse and their antics struck a chord in me. The Frauds sent out a letter to the so-called Democratic Party leadership pleading for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in order to put an end to the suffering there. About a day later The Frauds retracted the self-same letter and pledged their undying love for the military industrial complex instead. Yeah, they actually backed out of promoting a diplomatic end to hostilities in order to help killer capitalists sell more arms to a corrupt government we helped to set up in a coup in 2014, a government with openly Neo-Nazi militias that have been shelling the ethnic Russian Donbass region for eight+ years.

Representative Ilhan Omar of The Frauds even went as far as to tell peace protesters at a town hall meeting that they didn’t have the right to tell her how to vote. Uh, these folks are your constituents, Ms. Omar, so they have every right to tell you they don’t appreciate you supporting an unpopular war. You, as their Congresswoman, are supposed to pipe down and listen to their concerns instead of insulting them. If there was one member of “the boutique left” I would have expected to be in favor of a peaceful, diplomatic end to war, it would have been an immigrant from war-torn Somalia such as Rep. Omar. I guess the benefits of negotiating peace are null and void when there are big DNC donors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon involved.

Perhaps the worse news I’ve heard this week is that Senator Bernie Sanders has also renounced all diplomatic measures to bring an end to this war over liquefied natural gas pipelines and selling American oil to European markets at super-high profits. Bernie, the man who boasted he voted against the Iraq War not once but twice, is a now war hawk? Wow. Talk about a gut punch.

Most persons of the socialist/eco-socialist persuasion have moved on from following Bernie too closely after he went on the road to sell Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to unwitting voters, but this news still hurts. The Fraud Squad has always come across as a bunch of faux progressives, all-too-ready for their next glossy magazine cover shoot, but I thought Bernie was the real deal for a while and wouldn’t give in so easily. We live and learn.

The one upbeat note this week was attending a Zoom meeting with US Senate candidate Matthew Hoh and his special guest Roger Waters, formerly of the band Pink Floyd. Roger is quite a peace and justice activist, and he doesn’t pull any punches. When Roger used a few choice expletives to describe how little regard he holds for the members of the Fraud Squad who support endless wars, Matt told him that it was okay to use the F word because, “War is the obscenity.” I like how that short sentence sums up so many peoples’ feelings on the topic. (I support Matt, a disabled veteran and peace activist, and encourage North Carolina voters to vote for him on November 8.)

Back to the prospects of endless war/nuclear Armageddon: As I walked through our junk-filled garage earlier this week, I came across an old metal eagle plaque. The eagle hung on the front of the house when we moved in, but I took it down and replaced it with a metal peace sign. I didn’t throw the eagle plaque away because we recycle, re-purpose, and re-use everything in this household. I’d thought about turning the scowling eagle into something like a dove a while back, but life intervened and I’d forgotten about it. Today I’m painting that damn blood-covered, warmongering American eagle and transforming it from a “war hawk” into a “Peace Eagle.”

No more wars for oil and blowing up LNG pipelines so US Big Oil can sell fuel to Europe at obscene prices! The American eagle is going to become a protector of the peace and dignity of all humankind, not just for those who write establishment politicians large donation checks. Unlike The Fraud Squad, I’m proudly sending out my "letter" supporting a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the proxy war. I’m not retracting it no matter how many nukes the US/NATO war machine threatens to rain down on my head

If you have a metal eagle plaque or any kind of symbol of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, may I suggest you get out your paints or needle and thread and do a few alterations to it? Please post your Peace Eagle photos here in the comments or email them to us or send us a Twitter DM. It’s time to speak out loudly against suicidal/homicidal/genocidal narcissists who want to nuke the planet in order to increase their stock portfolio profits.

It’s time to make the Peace Eagle the symbol of our land. And to paraphrase Roger Waters: Screw the war hawks!

 

A description of what the colors/symbols mean on the Peace Eagle:

I first painted the aluminum eagle plaque all white as a base to hold the other colors, and because I wanted the eagle not to be associated with war such as the brown-bodied bald eagle has become in the US. The rainbow-colored flight feathers symbolize that the Peace Eagle protects people of all races, colors, ethnicities, nationalities, and gender identities. The shield boasts a peace sign with pink and light blue stripes,  signifying that the Peace Eagle will protect the most vulnerable in our society against those who would harm them. The olive branch remains the same—a sign of peace and generosity. The quiver of arrows of the American eagle have been transformed into a bouquet of coneflowers or echinacea, a native flower known for its healing properties and beauty. Together beneath the wings of the Peace Eagle we can protect our country’s natural wonders and provide food, health care, justice, and healing for all.

Related Articles:

Advocating World War Three is Just Mainstream Punditry Now https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/advocating-world-war-three-is-just

The Military Industrial Complex Strikes Again https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/28/the-military-industrial-complex-strikes-again/

Chris Hedges: Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/listen-to-this-article-stop-worrying

Worthless House Progressives Retract Mild Peace Advocacy Under Pressure from Warmongers https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/worthless-house-progressives-retract  

The West Must Stop Blocking Negotiations Between Ukraine and Russia https://therealnews.com/vijay-prashad-the-west-must-stop-blocking-negotiations-between-ukraine-and-russia

US Lowering Nuclear Threshold by Upgrading Nukes in Europe https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/31/russia-says-us-lowering-nuclear-threshold-by-upgrading-nukes-in-europe/ 

New Study Finds the Rest of the World Supports China and Russia https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world 

NATO Had Plans for a Preemptive Strike on Russia... https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/10/30/nato-had-plans-for-a-preemptive-strike-on-russia-using-the-cover-of-a-french-led-naval-exercise-in-the-mediterranean/

Is Russia Poised to Win the Ukraine War? (video) https://youtu.be/EyXhwbj6_yA

The Official Narrative on Ukraine https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-official-narrative-on-ukraine

Mick Wallace Calls Out the Squad (video) https://youtu.be/HgAbCqd2DWE

Ilhan Omar Uses Identity Politics as a Shield for Pro-War Votes https://youtu.be/3jni7sofUf4

Finland Will Allow NATO to Place Weapons on Border with Russia https://www.newsweek.com/finland-will-allow-nato-place-nuclear-weapons-border-russia-1754925

House Progressives Pushed Negotiations with Russia Then Buckled Under Pressure https://truthout.org/articles/house-progressives-pushed-negotiations-with-russia-then-buckled-under-pressure/

"This is What Price-Gouging Looks Like": Exxon Profits Break All-Time Records  https://truthout.org/articles/this-is-what-price-gouging-looks-like-exxon-profits-break-all-time-records/

Seen on Twitter:

"War is the obscenity." --@MatthewPHoh

— READ TheRevolutionContinues.substack.com (@cynthianna3) October 28, 2022

— Living in a recessionary dystopian hellscape (@breakify547) October 28, 2022

The so-called progressives in the neoliberal fascist democrat party have declared war on peace & everyone who advocates for peace & restraints on U.S. & Western imperial power. For these progressives peace is a Kremlin talking point!

— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka) October 29, 2022

Back in March, Ilhan Omar sounded a lot like the antiwar protesters she demonizes today as Putin puppets.

Her rhetoric then was purely performative, while her actions ultimately reinforced the objectives of Empire.

This is why we call them the #fraudsquad. pic.twitter.com/RM64jQCP6Y

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 28, 2022

Imagine retracting & opposing a letter to the president which stated:

“It’s America's responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to help end the war."

That’s what @PramilaJayapal, @AOC & the fraud squad did this week.

There are no peacemakers or progressives in Congress.

— Ryan Knight ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) October 30, 2022

Whee! Let's Start World War 3!

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” -- US Army General Omar Bradley, Armistice Day 1948

 

Whee! Let's Start World War 3!  

By Coast Watcher  

Capitalism loves war! And it loves it with a passion Romeo and Juliet could only have dreamed of. 

The profits that roll in from the vast military industrial complex’s sales to nations around the world alone are far greater than the GNP of most countries. Of course, in order to sell armaments there needs to be an actual war—or at least the threat of one. Armed tension is a great incentive for weapon sales. That way all those potent weapons systems can be bought and deployed immediately or at least stored until they could be used or sold on to others by their use-by date. 

But not all weapons ever reach their intended user. According to a recent CBS News report up to 30% of the weaponry sent to Ukraine doesn’t make it to the front lines. [Editor's note: The CBS News link about black market arms sales in Ukraine was taken down because of the Ukrainian government's pressure, but you can now watch it here: https://www.bitchute.com/embed/g5OgTXkzzLy9/] Instead they find their way onto the lucrative black market, where they'll end up in the hands of terrorist organizations. (Generally this means people who’ve had enough from the US government and could use these weapons to make their point.) 

It’s not only the MIC that profits from war or a perpetual state of armed tension. Big Oil in the shape of Standard Oil sold its product to both Axis and Allies during World War I. The vehicle industry makes out like bandits, too. GM and Ford continued to operate quite openly in Germany during the Nazi regime of World War II. 

US corporations are rather practical-minded when it comes down to things such as working with Nazis. They figure making a buck means a buck made--whether or not it comes from your side or the other in a conflict. 

Computer-related hardware sales are another major factor when it comes to starting a war, but sometimes the banging of war drums fails to achieve the desired effect. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent controversial visit to Taiwan caused China to end trade in microprocessor chips of the kind that fit in the American Javelin missile system, the very weapon currently being sold by the US to Ukraine. Production of the weapon is now suspended until another supplier can be found.

Oops.

Pelosi’s visit is a classic example of an insider stock-trader capitalist seeking to profit from war or near-war conditions. (For even more eye-opening insight into how deeply America's and China's economies are intertwined, check out this NPR story.) The Pelosi family’s investment in Taiwanese industry is a matter of record. Whether it’ll ever yield them profits is debatable since her provocative visit to the island has goaded China into action.

The Chinese government warned Biden that the Speaker’s visit would “cross a red line.” Biden retorted that he didn’t recognize red lines—something he also said prior to Russia’s similar warning  about Ukraine's bombing of the Donbass region. Their intervention to defend ethnic Russians is nearing the point where over a quarter of the country is now under control of the Russian Army.

It’s quite reasonable to assume it won’t be long before negotiations are begun in earnest to end the Ukrainian war. What’s left of Ukraine will remain a poor relation in Europe, saddled with immense debt to the United States for generations. There are even rumors that parts of the country will be given to Poland as a reward for supporting the NATO forces in this entirely preventable conflict.  

All this needless death and mayhem was set in motion by the US/NATO forgetting the Minsk Accords in order to shut down the Russian/German built Nord Stream 2 liquid natural gas pipeline so that Europe would be forced to purchase their energy supplies from the US. It's not like that this foolhardy military escapade has affected the price of gasoline and foodstuffs for average Americans though, right?

Pelosi's visit to Taiwan heralds the US military industrial complex's next money-generating event. Biden's recent remarks and Pelosi's trip have provoked the Chinese Navy to conduct exercises geared toward a possible intervention in their breakaway province. Naval exercises are to take place in both the island’s “national waters” (which aren’t officially recognized by any maritime nation) and in the Taiwanese Straits.  

Biden has warned China that the latter move is violating a previous understanding about the Straits. This is a clear indication that the US is contemplating military action to protect Taiwan from invasion from the mainland. It’s practically a given that conventional military exchanges between the US and China could escalate to a full-on nuclear war, one that could annihilate the entire planet.

Could it be the capitalists' answer to global warming is a nuclear winter? 

The super-rich somehow believe they’ll be safe, tucked away in their luxury bunkers in the south of New Zealand. But who will wash their dishes and grow their food if the rest of the world's population succumbs to radiation poisoning?

Has capitalism gone too far in its greed for new opportunities for weapon sales? Indications are that it has. Are the US and the West in general ready and prepared to wage an all out nuclear war, the final military conflict on Earth?  

US plans to cope with a nuclear holocaust have been in place for decades. New York recently ran a series of public service announcements on TV showing what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. From the procedures outlined in the ads it amounts to little more than the old “duck and cover” ideas of the 1950s and are about as effective (read: not very). Experts agree that the best response to an attack with modern nuclear weapons is to put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.

Most people dwell in a blissful mental state of denial, a place where the prospect of all out nuclear war is but a remote possibility. To these deluded folks today will be the same as yesterday. Tomorrow, of course, will be the same as today. There’s food to buy, a roof to keep over your head, work to think about... Existence as we know it and all life on Earth can’t possibly come to an end because of the simple and malevolent greed of the military industrial complex. 

Can it?

For more background info, read:

Nancy Pelosi, Stay Out of Taiwan!
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/02/pers-a02.html

A Brief History of Taiwan  https://www.thoughtco.com/brief-history-of-taiwan-688021

BIO: Coast Watcher is beginning to wonder if everyone isn't a little bit suicidal. Or maybe, just maybe, average people have been fooled into thinking that their MIC corporate-owned political leaders actually care about their safety and nuclear holocaust is necessary? Either way, we've got to wake up and toss these 1% warmongers out and fight like hell to build a safer and healthier world.

From The War Does Not Want A Global NATO: 

In 1955, 10 years after the U.S. dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima (Japan), the Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet wrote a poem in the voice of a 7-year-old girl who died in that terrible act. The poem was later translated into Japanese by Nobuyuki Nakamoto as “Shinda Onnanoko” (“Dead Girl”) and frequently sung in commemorations of that atrocity. Given the harshness of war and the escalation of conflict, it is worthwhile to reflect once more on Hikmet’s beautiful, haunting lyrics:

I come and stand at every door
But no one hears my silent tread.
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

I’m only seven, although I died
In Hiroshima long ago.
I’m seven now as I was then.
When children die, they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame.
My eyes grew dim; my eyes grew blind.
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit, I need no rice.
I need no sweets, nor even bread.
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead, for I am dead.

All that I ask is that for peace
You fight today, you fight today
So that the children of the world
May live and grow and laugh and play.

Related Articles:

Where We Stand on August 6 and 9, 2022 https://popularresistance.org/where-we-stand-on-august-6-and9-2022/

The World Does Not Want A Global NATO https://scheerpost.com/2022/08/01/the-world-does-not-want-a-global-nato/ 

NATO-Backed Network of Syria Dirty War Propagandists Identified https://mate.substack.com/p/nato-backed-network-of-syria-dirty

US empire preparing to discard Zelensky regime, pivoting to Taiwan to make up for its losses  https://popularresistance.org/amnesty-international-report-exposes-ukraines-violations-of-international-law-deliberate-use-of-civilians-as-human-shields/

War With Iran (podcast/article)  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/listen-to-this-article-war-with-iran#details  

"Russian Propaganda" Just Means Disobedience https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/russian-propaganda-just-means-disobedience  

Westerners Think They Are Free-Thinking Individualists And It's Effing Adorable  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/westerners-think-they-are-free-thinking

The US made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China  https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114964240/new-battery-technology-china-vanadium 

Soldiers Speak Out Against America's Misguided Wars https://popularresistance.org/the-chris-hedges-report-soldiers-speak-out-against-americas-misguided-wars/

Big Chip In US China Crisis
https://popularresistance.org/big-chip-in-us-china-crisis/

Scott Ritter & Richard Medhurst: Will Taiwan Be the Next Ukraine? (video) https://youtu.be/J4rhvCv5_hc

This Is How It Ends (Pelosi's Destroying Ongoing Chinese/American Negotiations Over Climate Change) https://rumble.com/v1f7zg3-this-is-how-it-ends.html

Government Secrets Podcast: How GM & Ford Helped The Nazis
https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/governmentsecrets/id/23833361

Seen on Twitter:

The only people who are applauding the Democrats are the ones financially and physically healthy.

— Jacob 🌹⸸ 🏴⚛️︻╦╤─ ☮️🏳️‍🌈💚 (@JacobPenn13) August 6, 2022

So, the Democrats passed an Inflation Reduction Act that will have minimal impact on inflation and a Climate Bill that will make things significantly worse...and now we're supposed to believe those are good things?

— Gritty is the Way (@Gritty20202) August 8, 2022

True dat. The satanic heartless slave-drivers use all the means at their disposition to maintain the ‘world order’ that is always rigged to profit only the 1% status quo. In the #US 1/2 of all the tax money is used to protect & defend the global 1% https://t.co/V5sEM0Lyzn pic.twitter.com/ySVq6W6d0l

— Robert Reed, MLIS | 🍀🍀#freeAssange !🍀🍀 (@RobertR41182121) August 8, 2022

When Will Foreign Leaders Start Asking To Speak To America's REAL Government?

"We can see that the empire moves the same way on important matters regardless of who we elect by simple naked-eye observation of the empire's behaviors from year to year."https://t.co/zc5nz3IaBf

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 8, 2022