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“Now listen you pundits, you gamblers, you fools.
Don’t you feel that water boiling up all around you?
There’s an absence that I see when I look in to your eyes.
Do you feel that madness way down deep inside?”
In a personal quest to discover the on-scene realities of war-torn Ukraine, it is first essential to ask the most fundamental of questions.
- Does the presentation of the concept of truth remain a valid argument?
- Are facts, those established by close investigation and scrutiny, no longer part of one’s God-given faculties of comprehension, critical thinking, inquiry, and self-preservation?
- And, should the pursuit for knowledge be ignored at the whim of mere personal opinion?
- The world is closer than ever before to nuclear annihilation. That is one fact that must be considered. And,… now is not the time for ignorance.
*
At this perilous time in history, as with too many wars previous, it is ignorance that has driven the civilized part of the world to provide the necessary “approval ratings” of war. On the long list of US-inspired wars and colour revolutions globally, each time the “Masters of War” quickly and tightly pulled the mask of propaganda over the eyes, the minds and the heartstrings of good-hearted men and women. It is natural and correct for all of sound conscience to abhor the horrors of war. However, goodness is too easily abused by the evil that drives other men to war.
Ignorance is not stupidity. Far from it. Certainly, the natural reaction to this perceived personal defamation is at best terse. But the charge of ignorance is instead one of a quantification of knowledge only. For, it defies even the deepest ravages of reason for a person to insist that their personal opinion of current events, for which they have very little accumulation of knowledge beyond Main Stream Media, must be considered superior to that of those who aspire to a factually based investigation and historical argument instead.
For years, many journalists who have offered to the public excellent work in establishing the truth of current news events via their own inquiry and investigation have overlooked the role of public ignorance in war.
Quality journalism is increasingly preaching only to the choir. The real horror is that… there are far too few left in the congregation who will even bother to listen to the sermon. It is this ignorance, thus defined, that again drives a world to war in Ukraine. And nuclear destruction.
The stakes at this moment, the survival of mankind, are far too high not to challenge ignorance. There must be a return to a demand for reason, comprehension, debate and critical examination of all facts. If not, we shall surely perish; all the while uselessly pointing fingers at each other.
Is it not time to finally demand public consideration of the most important and fundamental of age-old questions?:
What… the… f**k?!
“I see those bombs drop almost everywhere.
Yet, across this world, it seems that nobody cares.
In a world where fact and truth you believe are lies…
It reveals a madness way down deep inside.”
Recently, former US congressman and contrarian Ron Paul penned an article titled, “Is Putin the New Coronavirus?”. When considering the previous two years plus propaganda juggernaut which similarly ramped up fear of a purportedly “deadly” virus, Ron Paul’s comparison is all the more accurate.
The overnight media switch from Omicron/ Covid fear to Russia fear has been turned up to eleven here in Britain. Sadly, also in Wales: a nation full of warm-hearted people with a love of freedom and where good cheer and laughter fill the air in the pubs every night. This is a lovely country where politeness and courtesy are the rule rather than the exception. Where children are well behaved and education, until recently, was far better than their western contemporaries.
The Welsh well remember the ravages of empire. Family bonds of those from the coal mining valleys almost universally go back to the times when a man’s life was worth far less, literally, than that of a horse. That coal mining history forged a bond between family and friends that is implicit in the cheerful banter of the pubs.
However, the cheerful banter has of late turned away from Corona to Putin and onto war.
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Image on the right: Kerry Mullis
Two years ago I left Wales barely in front of a Covid-19 propaganda machine of fear akin to a Wehrmachtblitzkrieg.
I had tried to inform my friends about Nobel Prize winner Kerry Mullis, who created the PCR test, and who, before his death, had informed the public that his test is inaccurate for virus testing. I informed them about Dr Robert Malone, one of the creators of the mRNA vaccine technology, and Malone’s own warnings against their use. And I told them of the similar additional warnings of Michael Yeadon, for eighteen years the Chief Science Officer of Pfizer that rushed those vaccines to market.
Those at the pub had never heard of any of the three men much less read their articles. However, it was the opinion of the pub that my offering of information was merely someone else’s opinion- my own- not science. Therefore their own opinion, they said, was just as valid as any Nobel laureate. Opinion vs. Opinion. And, that’s that!
But at this juncture, ignorant opinion is driving the world to nuclear war. Unlike Covid-19, nuclear war is without question universally deadly for all. Any choice of ignorance regarding the Ukrainian war will affect everyone and without exception. That is not opinion. That’s the reality of thermonuclear war.
*
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine commenced I bit my tongue as the propaganda machine delivered its limited message into the pubs once again as a self-serving, streamlined, palatable but utterly rubbish narrative, merely parroting the pro-war nonsense of the BBC, ITV and Sky News.
Across Wales and too much of the media controlled world that narrative can be summed up as 1) Putin kills women, children and little babies. 2) Putin is a dictator whose countrymen hate him and want to kill him. 3) The Ukrainian Army are freedom fighters. 4) Russia is losing the war to the freedom fighters. 5) The freedom fighters would finish winning the war if NATO would just step in.
That’s a lot to work with.
So, I said nothing, despite receiving vastly different news via my own network of news sources that was multinational, cross-referenced and at the very least an important counter to these many limited opinions. While again listening to this broad brush of BBC reasoning, one evening I succumbed to a momentary demand for reason. I tentatively posed several irrefutable and factual questions that anyone with even a minimal knowledge of post-Maidan Ukraine would, or should know:
- Do you know who Stepan Bandera was?
- Do you know what the Right Sector is and what it stands for?
- Do you know what the Azov Battalion is and its influence on the Ukraine military and the Ukrainian presidency?
- Do you know about the Minsk accords are and who is violating them?
- Do you know who committed the Odessa massacre?
Rather than generating the inquiry and debate I had hoped to encourage amongst some of my closest friends, their ad hominem attacks boldly stated that all I had presented was merely my own opinion and unrelated to any facts or edification on my part at all. This surprised me. Their synopsis, as I was told, again and again, was that all my questions were the result merely my own delusional opinion. As were my facts. So, in the minds of those who refused to be informed the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Right Sector and Azov Battalion was not riddled with Nazi influencers and allegiance. The BBC had told them so, or ITV, or Sky News.
Opinion vs. Opinion. And, that’s that!
However, how does that limited media driven opinion wash when confronted with facts about the Ukrainian politician, Andriy Parubiy. He has served as Deputy Speaker and Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament from 2014 to 2019 and has also been the Secretary of National Security and the Defense Council of Ukraine. Andriy Parubiy is a Nazi. He has proudly proclaimed this many times before his parliament, before the Ukrainian military and the public on TV.
That’s a fact.
In a well presented article this past week by Olga Sukharevskaya titled, “Under the Wolfsangel: The uncomfortable truth about radical ideologies in Ukraine,” the author, who is Ukrainian, attempts in great detail to educate the reader about the Right Sector, the Azov battalion, the violations of the Minsk accords and the true popularity of Ukraine’s “hero” president. Zelensky’s complicity in allowing the ideological holdovers of Nazi Germany to infect the Ukrainian military is not opinion. It is history presented using facts. Except in the minds of those who refuse to read them.
Opinion vs. Opinion is not peculiar to the wonderful people of Wales at all; it is a malady that is certainly worldwide and provided here only as an example to be considered. Like the Welsh, it is fully understandable why the world has not been provided with the full story by their chosen media offerings before developing pro-war opinions.
What was most surprising was that almost no one showed interest or inclination to an inquiry of these new facts presented of the matter. What was shocking was that too many wished to, instead, cast out this inconvenient information wholesale as, again, being merely an opinion, one with the same weight as their own.
Opinion vs. Opinion… and that’s that!
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Don’t you feel that madness boiling up deep inside
Proving that no man was ever born true.
There’s that mirror that you look in every day before you die.
Do you see that madness there in your own eyes?
The power of memory seems similarly challenged. If it were not the learned amongst us would easily recall the distortions of truth applied to the previous lead up to the wars and US bravado in Panama, Granada, Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Mali, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and the colour revolutions of Sudan, Brazil, Venezuela, Egypt, Belarus and of course Ukraine 2014.
But the foremost example of US media propaganda applicable to all these conflicts is one that no one should ever forget: the lead-up to the Iraq war. That US-inspired war destroyed Iraq and caused the deaths of hundreds daily and then in the aftermath tens of thousands more from the resultant sectarian violence.
Image below: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up vial of simulated anthrax at UN Security Council meeting as he makes the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
At this very moment, it is time to well remember the very public testimony of US four-star General, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then US Secretary of State Colin Powell just before the invasion of Iraq. Sitting before the UN security council in 2003, all the while waving a small glass vile filled with a deadly yellow something, Powell, looking directly at the assembly in a close-up shot that was broadcast by every media outlet on earth, stated unequivocally to all:
“My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources…These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
Powell’s assurances were utter rubbish.
A four-star general had been fooled- lied to- by his country’s own CIA and the full breadth of his military intelligence. Powell was not a fool, nor stupid, but his scripted theatrics directly contributed to that war and the deaths of over 200,000 innocent Iraqis. No WMDs were ever found. Powell had been ignorant.
He was supposed to be.
Powell ultimately admitted, after resigning two years later, that his playing that part in the war was “a blot” on his career. He clearly stated in an ABC News interview,
“I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.”
Judging from the current popular support for increased war in Ukraine, the public would do well to apply this parable to their limited personal opinions today. Regardless of which war of the past twenty years, the lies have always revolved around the same script. Opinion vs. Opinion. And, that’s that!
Now, forevermore silence fills the air.
Not a bird, blade of grass, or child is there.
Gone forever, gone for good, so long to humankind.
You revealed that madness… way down deep inside.
–From the song: “The Madness Inside” -Ruben Eldridge (2018)
*
As reported a week ago it is the opinion of 34% of Americans that NATO should risk nuclear destruction and send Americans to die in Ukraine before being vaporized themselves. US faux-president Joe Biden strangely called Russian president Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” yet, using correct history as a judge, this title is certainly more appropriate as the mantle cast upon the shoulders of Clinton, Bush and Obama, or in Britain; Thatcher, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Johnson. All repeatedly and with seeming factual impunity- thanks to their media- orchestrated war and death using the lie of “national interest.”
However, reports from the other side- the non-western media-indicate that the Ukrainian Army (AFU) is in a shambles, its command and communications centres almost non-existent, its ammunition depots substantially destroyed, re-supply being bombed to impossibility, and almost all the strategic cities of Eastern Ukraine encircled, under siege, or about to be from Kyiv to the Donbas. Reports of the Nazi affiliated Right Sector and Azov battalion forces indiscriminately targeting Russian Ukrainians and mining the safe passages are coming out daily in scores of on-scene videos interviews.
In a sign that this narrative is substantially closer to the mark, this past week, Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, reportedly told Zelensky to surrender and accept Putin’s ceasefire terms which have been offered four times before. Presumably, Israeli’s Mossad, Shin Bet and IDF, who have good reason to detest all things Nazi, are of an accurate “opinion” regarding the facts applied to the Right Sector, Azov Battalion, and Mr Zelensky himself.
To further this indictment, in a recent article by Mike Whitney titled, “The Man Who Sold Ukraine,” the author showcases the history behind this little man of a puppet and how and why the president of Ukraine cares not a wit about the Ukrainian people. Certainly, considering the history presented by Whitney applied to further on the ground reports the charge that Zelensky is continuing the war only due to foreign and NATO instructions seems to ring true.
Already media is presenting the horrors of war as solely the fault of an evil Putin, and the AFU as the angelic saviours sans swastika. One only needs to closely examine the recent Mariupol Theatre bombing while remembering the previous cautionary tale by Colin Powell.
Dozens of on-scene interviews attest that it was the AFU, that has publicly called for the killing and castration of Russian separatists of the Donbas, Luhansk and Donetsk, who rounded them up, placed them in the building, and bombed it.
Of course, the western narrative is the opposite, claiming Putin used aircraft to bomb the theatre. Certainly, someone is lying. But when it comes to the atrocities of war only one opinion can be factually correct. The other is rubbish.
Image on the right: Douma false flag chemical attack
Soon, it appears that Zelensky will be forced to accept a cease-fire due to military realities, but a stoppage of hostilities will likely only be temporary. Beyond Powell’s ignorance of the facts of war and his country’s “false flag” operations past in Iraq, the more recent working example that should also come immediately to mind is the false flag Douma Chemical weapons attack in Syria on April 7, 2018. It happened just as a cease-fire commenced. It was proven that the UK funded White Helmets carried out the attack using Chlorine gas, not Sarin as originally claimed by western media. But the White Helmets were provided with an Academy Award for their crimes and public opinion returned to war.
Opinion vs. Opinion. And, that’s that!
But it is not an opinion that Ukraine has been operating Bio-Weapons labs. Russia provided its presentation of evidence to the UN Security Council last week of the discovery of multiple US/ Ukraine bio-weapons labs. US congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard threw the US congress into an uproar of alternate opinion by confirming this news. Dutifully, all turned truth on its head by accusing Gabbard of “treason.”
So, a Douma-redux in the days to come is certainly plausible.
But just like Iraq, or Syria and the other US-backed wars and revolutions, the charges levelled in the aftermath of Douma did not serve truth, only the ignorance of war. Syria was destroyed, thousands killed… but ignorance got off scot-free.
As challenged by Mike Whitney, Zelensky is doing his real job: ignore any proposed armistice. NATO is hoping that a Douma-like false flag- chemical or otherwise- will do the trick of forcing the minds of the uninformed to insist on approving a NATO entry into Ukraine.
If the Mariopol theatre bombing proves to be any additional example of false flag media, as veteran correspondent Eric Zuesse documents, we have only begun to witness the possible horrors as a desperate AFU resort to a horror campaign against the people of Eastern Ukraine that they have been slaughtering for eight years anyway, killing, by UN reports, at least 14,000. Media will, of course, lap up and regurgitate the false charges to pull on the heartstrings of the ignorant once again.
However, just like all modern wars, it is high time to place this indictment of willful ignorance in the dock of truth and fact. The enlightened world must now indict the public for their previous complicity.
To these charges, ignorance…will not be a defence!
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It would of course be the height of professional hypocrisy for this author to insist that his opinion offered here, regardless of the facts and citations provided herein, are beyond further investigation. For any journalist to do so, before providing proper inquisition, would be that of mere opinion thus similarly and blindly consumed in the same manner as MSM and mass public opinion.
However, if there is one small truth that has not met resistance in the conflict zones I have travelled to, it is: Those displaced by war do tell the truth.
When a man has lost his family, a woman has lost a husband or child, and they cannot return to their homes, no longer is that person interested in the personal vagueries of war. Their outrage cuts to the bone and that bone is not opinion, it is truth, their truth and their facts. Rarely can it be denied. So, I will go to these refugee camps and investigate.
Ignorance must be exposed. All men must be deputized with marshalling that truth, shouldering that cross before all others, and piercing their lance of investigation directly into the minds of those who would merely tip back another pint before toddling off to enjoy the soothing mental libations of the BBC, ITV, Sky News or MSM. Better known as ignorance.
The world is being rapidly destroyed by Opinion vs. Opinion.
And, that’s that!
So, I will take up my own challenge. Tomorrow… I leave for Ukraine.
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Dedication: For the boys at the pub.
Read Part II and III:
Destination Ukraine: Will Poland Go Rogue? Warsaw’s Ulterior Motive? The Lviv Connection
By , April 21, 2022
The Lies…and the Eyes…of Ukraine. Reporting from Lviv
By , April 19, 2022
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Author’s Note: This is the prelude (Part One) to my multi-part series coming from the conflict zones and refugee camps of Poland, Russia, Crimea and Ukraine. Please help spread the word by posting each on social media of your choice. Peace!
Brett Redmayne-Titley has spent the last decade travelling and documenting the “Sorrows of Empire.” He has authored over 200 articles all of which have been published and often republished and translated by news agencies worldwide. An archive of his many articles can be found at watchingromeburn.uk. He can be contacted at live-on-scene ((@))gmx.com.
Featured image is from South Front
