By John Lough Mar. 25 2015 19:16

President Vladimir Putin’s messages to his domestic and foreign audiences are escalating tensions with Western countries and forcing him to up the stakes for fear of appearing weak at home.

Putin faces a formidable communications challenge because of the need to maintain domestic support for his actions in Ukraine — both among the elite and in society at large — while also trying to prevent the emergence of a more unified Western response to his policies.

This agenda is complicated by Putin’s need to accommodate different elements within his domestic power base that disagree over policy on Ukraine.

For the domestic audience, Putin’s priority, the message remains predictably nationalistic and triumphal. On March 15, state television aired a two-and-a-half-hour documentary, ”Crimea: Journey to the Motherland,” timed to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Watched by one of the biggest television audiences in Russia in recent years, the film provided a hagiographical depiction of the Russian president as the architect and hands-on manager of the operation to save the majority-Russian population of Crimea.

Its narrative rested on graphic messages about the allegedly violent intentions of Western-backed Ukrainian nationalists. It continued the Russian state media’s relentless vilification over the past year of Ukrainians and their Western supporters.

But the film also surprised in a number of ways. Structured around excerpts from a long interview with Putin in the immediate aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, it contained remarkable detail about how the operation was carried out after Putin and his security chiefs saw that they could exploit revolutionary turmoil in Ukraine by regaining control of territory that in their view had never ceased to be Russia’s.

Given the careful editing that must have been involved, the decision by the Kremlin to include Putin’s statement that the military plan for retaking Crimea was supported by nuclear deterrence measures was especially striking. It indicated another audience for the film: the United States and its NATO allies.

This international audience will draw its own conclusions from the film. NATO countries will note that Putin’s justification for intervention in Crimea was ostensibly to save Russian lives.

Worryingly for Western governments, this can also apply to all the major cities in eastern Ukraine (not just the territories currently under the control of separatist forces). Moreover, Putin’s frank admission, contrary to earlier denials, that he had sent regular military forces to Crimea as part of the plan to seize control of the peninsula further undermined the Kremlin’s line that Russia has not intervened militarily in the Donbass region.

Western capitals will also pay attention to the apparent evidence of command-and-control problems during the Crimean operation. Putin said that one military unit did not deploy to its directed location because it believed that the commander in chief had changed his mind. Putin had to intervene personally to resolve the issue.

When asked about the “buzzing” of the U.S. minesweeper USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea by a SU-24 fighter aircraft, Putin said that he had not given the order for this and that military commanders had ”behaved like hooligans.”

More broadly, Western audiences will note that despite Putin’s public support for a peaceful settlement in the Donbass, Russian propaganda continues to keep up its high-pitched anti-Western, anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.

This continues to repeat the accusation that Western countries orchestrated the revolution in Ukraine in 2014 with the express intent of inflicting damage on Russia.

Together with Putin’s statements in the film, the recent start of military exercises involving elements of Russia’s Northern, Baltic and Black sea fleets sends a clear signal to the Russian audience, as well as to NATO countries and Kiev, that Moscow is not preparing to back down over Ukraine.

This, of course, runs counter to Russia’s efforts to conduct a charm offensive toward some southern European countries using economic blandishments. These efforts aim to split the EU, and to undermine the West’s collective will to maintain sanctions against Russia and provide support to Ukraine.

Putin’s messages at home and abroad reflect a disturbing lack of policy options beyond maintaining pressure on both Kiev and the West to prevent Ukraine developing on a Western as opposed to a Russian model.

His continued references to Russians and Ukrainians as one people also show that he is in denial about the alienation that his policies have created between the two countries.

Within his power base, Putin appears to be trying to reconcile the views of two different groups on Russia’s strategy toward Ukraine. One group favors taking all necessary measures now to disable Ukraine’s integration drive with the West, including openly testing NATO’s security guarantees to the Baltic states.

A smaller, less powerful group would prefer to play the long game by seeking a peace settlement in the Donbass and pulling Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence over the longer term, but without breaking all ties with the West.

In an effort to balance the two groups, Putin has been positioning himself as backing diplomacy based on the Minsk agreements while providing no indication of how Russia might achieve a broader peace settlement with Ukraine.

Putin’s silence on this issue is a powerful, albeit unintended, message to audiences in Russia, Ukraine and the West that he has created a crisis that has moved beyond his control.

By Michael Cavna March 26 at 4:45 PM
IN THE Martin Scorsese-directed “Life Lessons,” within the larger film “New York Stories,” a grizzled abstract painter played by Nick Nolte is cleaned-up and charismatic in tux and tales – yes, tales, because a man with an ego the size of his Manhattan loft has to lubricate his big exhibition opening not only with Smirnoff’s Gold, but also silver tongue. And fortunately for Nolte’s “action” artist, Lionel Dobie, he has literal war stories to tell these bejeweled patrons — shaggy anecdotes about how his X-rated doodles were once dropped beyond enemy lines, as renderings intended to deflate the fighting hearts and minds and cartoon-helpless eyes of the humble foot soldier.

Airdropped wartime propaganda dates back decades – including leaflets being emptied from a French balloon over 19th-century Prussian troops. And cartoons notably filled the strafed skies during World War II, when anti-Nazi leaflets with Hebrew-text drawings represented one type of psychological airstrike. So deploying caricatures and cartoon iconography easily interpreted even by illiterate troops is certainly nothing new.

Yet still, it can be bracing to see a newly deployed cartoon that puts the “graphic” in graphic arts.

Ten days ago, the United States dropped a visually head-turning (and -churning) leaflet cartoon over Raqqa, the power center

To continue, please go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/03/26/shock-and-draw-heres-the-graphic-cartoon-u-s-airdropped-on-isis/

Bill Browder’s book has been on the New York Times best-seller list for six weeks, as readers devour his insights into Vladimir Putin’s Russia. (Simon and Schuster)

House of Commons passes unanimous motion to punish those responsible for Sergei Magnitsky’s death

By Terry Milewski, CBC News Posted: Mar 26, 2015 2:57 PM ET Last Updated: Mar 26, 2015 8:09 PM ET

At first, nobody listened. Who was Bill Browder, anyway? He wasn’t the darling of the New York Times best-seller list when he started his campaign. What standing did he have to say that Vladimir Putin, a proud member of the G8 club, was little more than a vicious gangster?

Back then, six years ago, when Kremlin goons beat his lawyer to death in a prison hospital, Browder was just a talented investor – born in the U.S. but now a British citizen – trying to make his fortune in the rock-and-roll stock markets of post-Soviet Russia.

Browder was tolerated for a while. The Russians let him make some money, and even let him pester the oligarchs with demands for transparency. Then, they kicked him out of the country.

‘[Putin’s] on thin ice in the sense that anything could happen that might set the Russian people off.’- Bill Browder, author of Red Notice

But they didn’t stop there. Once rid of Browder, Kremlin officials stole his companies and used them to engineer a massive tax fraud on the Russian state – walking off with $230 million. Then, when Browder’s idealistic young lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, blew the whistle, Magnitsky was imprisoned, brutalized, denied medical care and finally murdered by goons with rubber truncheons.

Now, by telling the whole, horrifying tale, Browder has opened a window on the black heart of Putin’s Russia – and, this time, everyone’s listening. His book, Red Notice, has been a best-seller for six straight weeks.

Putin ‘a very scared man’

“I’ve been screaming bloody murder since Sergei Magnitsky was killed in 2009,” Browder says, “and most people thought this was an isolated problem. Who knew what the real story was? Bill Browder has some problem with Putin – so what?”

Read more at http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bill-browder-s-nasty-glimpse-into-the-black-heart-of-putin-s-russia-1.3010521

IDF soldiers take part in Operation Protective Edge.. (photo credit:ANNA GOLIKOV)

By BENJAMIN RUNKLE, WILLIAM CALDWELL

03/29/2015

Perhaps nowhere was “the war of narratives” more actively pursued by a terrorist organization than in last summer’s Gaza war.

The American-born jihadist Omar Hammami, who became a leader in the Somali Islamist terrorist organization al-Shabaab, once observed: “The war of narratives has become even more important than the war of navies, napalm, and knives.”

Although Hammami himself met his demise in 2013, his insight remains true today. Perhaps nowhere was “the war of narratives” more actively pursued by a terrorist organization than in last summer’s Gaza war. For although the IDF was successful on the tactical and operational levels during Operation Protective Edge, at the strategic level Israel lost the information operations campaign.

This point is most clearly demonstrated with regards to global perceptions of the IDF’s adherence to the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC ). In December, we took part in an assessment of Operation Protective Edge by five retired American generals sponsored by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and while we were not provided with specific IDF targeting data, we were able to glean a number of observations about targeting methodology from talking to multiple sources.

In our report, we agree with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.

Martin Dempsey’s statement that “Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties.” We concluded that the IDF’s conduct during the operation represents an admirable case of restraint, on par with and in some cases exceeding US procedures for minimizing civilian casualties.

Conversely, Hamas violated the LOAC in terms of the nature of its attacks against Israel, which were mostly indiscriminate or intended to terrorize Israel’s civilian population.

Hamas also significantly increased the danger to civilians in Gaza – and consequently increased the number of civilian fatalities – by locating its rockets, command and control facilities and munition depots at protected civilian sites such as mosques, schools, hospitals, and in residential areas.

Further, Hamas unlawfully discouraged and, reportedly, in some cases prevented civilians from leaving areas they knew would be targeted by the IDF. If Hamas did not intentionally use Gaza’s population as human shields, at a minimum it clearly acted with a reckless disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.

Yet despite the chasm between IDF efforts to spare Gaza’s civilians and Hamas’s apparent willingness to incur civilian casualties on both sides of the conflict, international condemnation primarily fell upon Israel.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated in regards to IDF operations: “There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes.” Amnesty International claimed that Israeli forces displayed “callous indifference to the carnage caused.” And even the US State Department asserted that “Israel could have done more to prevent civilian casualties.”

This disparity between reality and international perceptions of Operation Protective Edge was largely the result of the IDF losing the war of narratives. Hamas understood it could not defeat the IDF on the battlefield, and hence pursued a strategy of undermining Israel’s legitimacy by exploiting an asymmetric advantage in information operations.

Hamas supported false claims against the IDF by distorting stories and images and by manipulating the international media covering the war. Hamas operated an array of websites and social media accounts with each online outlet tailored to a specific audience: its Arabic-language content focused on glorifying jihad against Israel and the number of rockets fired into Israel, whereas its Western languages websites emphasized Israel’s aggression and civilian deaths.

This disinformation was coupled with restrictions on international journalists’ movements and reported coercion. Even the Foreign Press Association condemned Hamas for conducting “blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox” intimidation of international journalists in the Gaza Strip who attempted to film rocket launches, while concurrently providing the media free access to Gazan hospitals to obtain images of bloody civilians.

Conversely, Israeli strategic communications proved largely incapable of overcoming Hamas’s narrative.

As one IDF officer whom our team interviewed admitted, “We are good at doing the right things, but not very good at talking about them.” Another Israeli general conceded that “information operations were pretty poor in this operation.”

This is not to say the IDF public affairs branch was complacent or inactive in response to Hamas’s efforts. The IDF’s strategic communications during Operation Protective Edge were by all accounts better than in the 2006 Lebanon War or during Operation Cast Lead.

It was a success with regard to Israel’s domestic audience – one public opinion poll last summer showed that 95 percent of Israeli Jews believed the military campaign in Gaza was justified. Yet Israel was not nearly as effective at garnering broader international support for its actions or marshaling significant international condemnation of Hamas’s actions.

In our judgment, Israel encountered a series of institutional and external challenges that reduced the effectiveness of its information operations campaign.

First, there is a roles and capability mismatch. The IDF views its strategic audiences as the military and the Israeli domestic audience. Responsibility for international audiences fell to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which lacked the timely military information, videos and images, and the understanding of military operations and the laws of war to effectively inform international reporting.

Second, the IDF’s public affairs branch had a difficult time countering Hamas’s claims of civilian casualties due to procedural impediments to releasing full-motion videos and other forms of intelligence because they were classified or subject to a potential investigation by the military advocate-general. This is not a problem for Hamas, which is not held to the same standard as the IDF to conduct an investigation into war crimes by its operatives.

Read more at: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-war-of-narratives-in-Operation-Protective-Edge-395516

On this day in 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the U.S.
The 7.2 million dollar deal came in handy amid difficult financial circumstances in Russia, and the U.S. acquired a territory rich in oil and gas.

(Wikicommons)

Very few of you know me personally.

Those of you who know me personally may not know that I am a feminist. I support equality for all. Actually, I am a humanist, I believe in equality for all.

I saw this video, today, and it struck me deeply.  I have seen women mistreated, treated as lower life forms, unfairly suppressed and oppressed and treated as less than men. I think this is patently unfair. I have a figure of 51% in mind, that women comprise 51% of the human race.  Yet somehow men treat women as lesser, only because men are bigger, more muscular and have built a mostly male-dominated society.

I believe in an empowered woman. A woman who is equal to men. I believe in giving women as many advantages as men enjoy. This can only help the species, humans, mankind. This can help you and me. I think this video might help awareness by all, provide inspiration for some women and hopefully make men realize how they should treat women – as equals.

I thank Safwan Nasser El Din for personally responding to my request for more information.

The story of a victim of society, victim of sexual harassment and a victim of patriarchal society.Victim trip beginning of

Movie victim – sexual harassment

Safwan Nasser El Din

surrender its current condition for liberation from confront sexual harassment and fight restrictions society. The victim’s journey from accepting her state of submission to breaking free from the shackles of Society and fighting back Against sexual harassment

Eyewitness productions presents (The Victim)

A Film By Safwan Nasser El Din

Starring EnasEllithyBasemFouad Mohammed Abdel Aziz

1st assistant Director Mahmoud Mohamedy 2nd assistant Director HayamHecham D.op Mahmoud Fawzey Edited & VfxAkramYosri

Music By Islam Zaki Executive Producer Mohamed Hassan Oka Location Manager Mohammed Samir Voice Artist Lamis Ezzat Ali Stylist Dina Aaziz Making Ahmed Milano Produced

I was playing with some Russian trolls on Facebook today.

Trolls are not known for great English skills, and the one I was dealing with certainly fit that category.

He wrote: “People without country dont have any right to open their mcdonalds mouth especially when they have stoled a land after killing the original people.”  

No, I didn’t change any of the spelling or punctuation.  He really is that bad.

Americans are renowned for being obese and eating at McDonalds, so he tried to get in a double whammy.

He also raised the ever-effective argument that Americans are always invading other countries and killing hundreds of thousands of indigenous people.  You know, natives.

It’s a cross I bear. Americans must know that much of the world believes that the US invades other countries to take their land, take their oil, and kill their people.  Why? Because, according to all the trolls on the internet, we like it.  It’s not at all true, but if you’re going to wallow in the mud with the pigs, oops, the trolls of the world, you must know how they think.

So…  I decided to throw him a “crazy Ivan”.  Ivan was part of his Facebook name, but I’m referring to an old Cold War movie called “Red October”, where a Soviet submarine supposedly did a crazy change in navigation every half hour while a US submarine tracked it.

My crazy Ivan, however, was a word that I fully intended to use to distract him.  A word I made up.  Here was part of my response to him:

You’re definitely not a paid Russian troll, you’re just obnoxious, smarmy and teradiferous!

Insulting him as not a paid troll is one thing, using obnoxious and smarmy are intended to make him break out the online dictionary.  Teradiferous, however, was a word I made up on the spot and has absolutely no meaning.  When I google the word I get all kinds of suggestions, which should either confuse him, entice him to research further (not likely), or come back boasting of his prowess of the English language.

Actually, my intent is to close down my browser and ignore him.  Trolls ‘get off’ whenever I respond, especially if I get mad.

I want him to say, in the words of the Rolling Stones: “I can’t get no, satisfaction”.

Winter IO Sphere: The Winter edition of the IO Sphere has been published andposted. The theme for this issue is “The State of the Joint IO Enterprise.” The IO Sphere is available in PDF version and e-reader versions for Kindle, Nook, iBooks, and other types of e-reader hardware and can be downloaded directly to your system from the website.

Source: http://home.iosphere.org/

I have been reading quotes from Russian sources, attributed to Ron Paul, and not believing they were authentic.

They were.

Here they are, from his own website, copied and cited, per request of his website.

Ron Paul, in my opinion, is a stooge of Putin, a fool and a dangerous troll.

These words read as if they were taken straight from RT, SputnikNews or TASS.  If he actually believes these words, Ron Paul is a fool for spreading them. Ron Paul, by writing and publishing these words, is a Russian troll, paid or unpaid.

I only wonder who in Russia fed him these words.  I wonder if he is being paid, directly or indirectly, by Russia.

I never considered Ron Paul as a serious entity. Now I firmly stand against him.

written by ron paul

It was one year ago last weekend that a violent coup overthrew the legally elected government of Ukraine. That coup was not only supported by US and EU governments — much of it was actually planned by them. Looking back at the events that led to the overthrow it is clear that without foreign intervention Ukraine would not be in its current, seemingly hopeless situation.

By the end of 2013, Ukraine’s economy was in ruins. The government was desperate for an economic bailout and then-president Yanukovych first looked west to the US and EU before deciding to accept an offer of help from Russia. Residents of south and east Ukraine, who largely speak Russian and trade extensively with Russia were pleased with the decision. West Ukrainians who identify with Poland and Europe began to protest. Ukraine is a deeply divided country and the president came from the eastern region.

At this point the conflict was just another chapter in Ukraine’s difficult post-Soviet history. There was bound to be some discontent over the decision, but if there had been no foreign intervention in support of the protests you would likely not be reading this column today. The problem may well have solved itself in due time rather than escalated into a full-out civil war. But the interventionists in the US and EU won out again, and their interventionist project has been a disaster.

The protests at the end of 2013 grew more dramatic and violent and soon a steady stream of US and EU politicians were openly participating, as protesters called for the overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Senator John McCain made several visits to Kiev and even addressed the crowd to encourage them.

Imagine if a foreign leader like Putin or Assad came to Washington to encourage protesters to overthrow the Obama Administration!

As we soon found out from a leaked telephone call, the US ambassador in Kiev and Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, were making detailed plans for a new government in Kiev after the legal government was overthrown with their assistance.

The protests continued to grow but finally on February 20^th of last year a European delegation brokered a compromise that included early elections and several other concessions from Yanukovych. It appeared disaster had been averted, but suddenly that night some of the most violent groups, which had been close to the US, carried out the coup and Yanukovych fled the country.

When the east refused to recognize the new government as legitimate and held a referendum to secede from the west, Kiev sent in tanks to force them to submit. Rather than accept the will of those seeking independence from what they viewed as an illegitimate government put in place by foreigners, the Obama administration decided to blame it all on the Russians and began imposing sanctions!

That war launched by Kiev has lasted until the present, with a ceasefire this month brokered by the Germans and French finally offering some hope for an end to the killing. More than 5,000 have been killed and many of those were civilians bombed in their cities by Kiev.

What if John McCain had stayed home and worried about his constituents in Arizona instead of non-constituents 6,000 miles away? What if the other US and EU politicians had done the same? What if Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt had focused on actual diplomacy instead of regime change?

If they had done so, there is a good chance many if not all of those who have been killed in the violence would still be alive today. Interventionism kills.

Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Source link: http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/february/22/interventionism-kills-post-coup-ukraine-one-year-later/

(Source: AP)

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 12 Issue: 58

The Kremlin press service announced last week that President Vladimir Putin would not celebrate the 15^th anniversary of his first election, which occurred on March 26, 2000 (RBC.ru, March 26). Indeed, many murky circumstances cloud his improbable arrival to the summit of power as Boris Yeltsin’s hand-picked successor, which he probably does not wish to reflect upon at present; the image of his omnipotent leadership needs to remain spotless. So instead, Putin opted to mark the day with an address to the board of the Federal Security Service (FSB), in which he revealed that Western special services were already planning actions to destabilize the internal situation in Russia during the parliamentary elections in 2016 and presidential elections in 2018 (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, March 26). One issue that Putin did not find opportune to mention was the murder of his defiant liberal opponent Boris Nemtsov, exactly a month prior, right under the shadow of the Kremlin’s towers (Moscow Echo, March 27).

The investigation of this meticulously planned and professionally executed crime has stalled as the inconsistencies in the officially established “Chechen connection” have mounted, while Ramzan Kadyrov, the despotic ruler of Chechnya, has made it clear that his lieutenants were off limits for Russian law (Kommersant, March 27). If Putin was angry at his security services for letting such demonstrative political “punishment” happen (as some leaks suggested), he has swallowed that feeling (Grani.ru, March 23). Disappearing from public view for ten days, he attracted much anxious attention to his indispensable dominance over Russian politics. The re-appearance was supposed to dispel any further doubts about the firmness of his “manual control” (Forbes.ru, March 25). In order to reinforce the message, he even ordered snap military exercises of unprecedented scale—but chose not to personally attend any of the well-advertised war games (Ezhednevny Zhurnal, March 24).

Normally, Nemtsov would have been forgotten as an irrelevant episode in the epic story of Putin’s remodeling of Russia’s society, but he has not been. The improvised memorial on the bridge where he took his last breath was first vandalized and then dismantled under the cover of night, but flowers and candles have stubbornly reappeared (Moskovsky Komsomolets, March 28). Putin may have at his disposal legions of police to instill fear and the propaganda machine to fan hatred, but Nemtsov had something he cannot possess: The belief that Russia has a future without Putin. Greater effort is put into sustaining the virtual mobilization for giving a “proper response to all internal and external threats to national security” (as Putin ordered)—but all this is just leading to self-isolation (Kremlin.ru, March 26). The ruling siloviki (security services personnel) have Soviet-era experience in how to suppress dissent, and they have learned the tricks of corruption under the guise of “traditional values”; but they completely lack effective management skills and see innovation as a subversive attempt to foster liberalization. The sad fiasco of the project for building a “wonder-village” of modern technologies at Skolkovo is a testimony to this phenomenon (RBC.ru, March 23).

Yet, asserting Russia’s “greatness” primarily by military means still resonates positively with public opinion, while the abandoned goals of modernization and building closer ties with Europe are not inviting any second thoughts. According to a recent Levada Center poll, as many as 68 percent of respondents are confident that Russia is a great power (compared with 47 percent in November 2011), and half of respondents see the restoration of this status as Putin’s main achievement, supporting also the view that the dialogue with the West should be conducted only from a position of strength (Levada.ru, March 23, 27). What the data also shows, however, is that support for territorial expansion has eroded, while awareness of the economic costs of Western sanctions is on the rise. Seeking to counter the deepening economic pessimism, the government is proceeding slowly with revisions of the key targets of the 2015 budget and promising to maintain the level of expenditures by tapping into financial reserves (Kommersant, March 28). It is evident for most economists, however, that the imperative political demand for maintaining priority funding for the military and rearmament results in nearly inevitable painful cuts to social programs (Moscow Echo, March 27).

Read more at http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=43720&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=e317bc6ff803d2eb6a409062f9c4022e#.VRs17pPF9Cy

By SEAN CARNEY

People welcome soldiers of the U.S. Army arriving in Ruzyne barracks during the “Dragoon Ride” military exercise in Prague March 30, 2015. REUTERS/David W Cerny

Reuters

A surge of Anti-American messages from the Kremlin has failed to catch on in the Czech Republic, where locals aren’t shunning visiting U.S. troops as forecast by Russian media but instead coming out in droves to welcome them.

The American convoy is passing through the country on its way back to Germany as it wraps up Operation Dragoon Ride, a multi-day tour of the Baltic nations, Poland and the Czech Republic.

The overwhelming support from Czechs, which was somewhat unexpected, is dampening concerns among Western leaders that the Czechs were moving closer to Moscow’s orbit. “The whole entire way there have been people along the roads, thanking us, waving to us,” Cpl. Tristan Miller of Iron Troop, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, told Stars and Stripes.

He said that he had been expecting far less support. “We see American flags all over the place. It’s been amazing, probably the highlight of my military career so far,” Mr. Miller said.

Several anti-NATO and anti-U.S. protests were announced by Czech pro-Russian organizations ahead of the convoy’s arrival. 

The flames were fanned by Kremlin-sponsored television and Internet sites such as RT and Sputnik News, which generated a wave of stories saying Czechs were strongly against foreign troops entering the country and likening the convoy’s visit to a foreign occupation.

Some Western diplomats have worried that Prague was out of step with the European Union’s opposition to the Kremlin’s recent incursions into Ukraine and other nearby countries. The left-leaning Czech coalition government has been restrained in its criticism of Moscow. President Milos Zeman has drawn criticism for calling the Ukraine conflict a civil war, downplaying any Russian involvement, and for his plans to attend a Moscow military parade in May.

“I do think the symbolism [of him] probably being the only EU head of state standing on a platform reviewing a [Russian] military parade at a time when that military is destabilizing a European nation…is not really a good message to send,” Andrew Schapiro, the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, told Czech television Monday.

Yet ordinary Czechs, some wary of being labeled Russophiles, have become active in voicing support for their fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Czechs have come out by the thousands in recent days to wave American flags and offer the troops Czech beer and cakes.

Lukas Hurt, a translator from the small town of Ceska Trebova, said he was happy to see the warm welcome for the U.S. troops and proud that regular Czechs were standing up to the Russian provocation.

Social media since have been abuzz since Sunday with photos of Czechs smiling for the camera with American service men and women, juxtaposed against older photos of the violent Moscow-led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Czech defense minister Martin Stropnicky said Tuesday Russia’s anti-Western propaganda has backfired, leading to increased support for NATO.

On Tuesday, some of the American soldiers will visit ‎the city of Pilsen, or Plzen, to pay homage to American soldiers who died freeing the western part of Czechoslovakia in 1945. Also Tuesday, a concert fwith a range of Czech musical legends will accompany a public gathering at the Prague military base that is hosting the U.S. troops.

The troops return Wednesday to their base in Germany.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2015/03/31/czech-mates-locals-support-american-troops/#?mod=wsj_valettop_email

FINAL SCHEDULE April 28 – 30, 2015 in Nashville, TN We can’t tell you how excited we and our CATS partners are to have such a spectacular highly interdisciplinary lineup for InfowarCon 2015. From a Hollywood Producer to the Swedish MoD to a Minister-turned-Cyber-Theorist and of course, the DoD, it’s safe to say you can expect the unexpected this year. InfowarCon 2015 will be focusing on: ▪ ISIS / Cyber Terrorism ▪ Russian Cyber Theory ▪ The Use of Social Media & Perception Management as a Weapon of War Have you registered to attend yet? Join our intimate group (maxed at 60) in a special non-published location, to explore the intricacies of evolving cyber conflict. Look over the outstanding agenda below; we’re certain you won’t want to miss this! Be sure to register soon if you haven’t! Agenda for Days 2 & 3 (Click Here to View on IWC.com!) DAY 2 Mathew G. Devost, President/CEO, Fusion X, Conference Chair An Overview: I/O-IW, Russia, ISIS, Perception Management: Why Are We Losing? Winn Schwartau, CEO,The Security Awareness Company, Founder of InfowarCon IW-I/O Modeled on Analogue Network Security: A CyberWar Framework Erik Biverot, Coordinator, Cyber Security/Info Assurance, LTCA(A), CATS, Swedish National Defence University Ingvar Hellquist, Sr. Advisor, Cyber Security, COL(A)(Ret.), CATS, Swedish National Defence University T-incident Reports in Sweden and European Union Bjorn Palmertz, Senior Analyst, CATS, Swedish National Defence University Russian Influence Activities in the Baltic States Lars Nicander, Director, CATS, Swedish National Defence University How to Create a Hybrid Defence Mikael Tofvesson, Head of Global Monitoring & Analysis Section, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency Sweden is Restarting its Psychological Defense Dr. Hans Mumm, Branch Chief, Continuous Monitoring, Joint Duty Assignment (GS-15), Adjunct Prof. AMU, Division Chief of Cyber Network Defense, CIO, ODNI, GS-15 UAVs, Drones, Policies, and Extremists Jorge Sebastiao, Senior BDM at International Turnkey Systems Group (ITS), Bahrain Middle East Cyberwar from a Middle East Perspective Tim Thomas Russian IW and an Analysis of Dr. Igor Nikolaevich Panarin G. Mark Hardy, USNR, Ret., CEO, National Security Corporation Disruptive Tactics for Disrupting Terrorist Financial Operations Spencer Wilcox, Special Assistant to the CSO and Managing Security Strategist, Exelon Corporation The Orlando Doctrine & Digital Strikeback: Redefining Self Defense in Cyberwar for the Private and Public Sectors DAY 3 Dr. Andrey Trufanov, Institute of Engineering and Transportation, Irkutsk, Russia A Comprehensive Network Peacebuilding Paradigm for Infowar Scenarios Joel Harding, Consultant, IO/IW/Cyber Applied Russian Information Warfare Richard Thieme, CEO, Thiemworks The Modern Wired Terrorist Mind: Understanding Necessary for Defeat Michael Masucci, Director, Producer; Commissioner of the Arts, Santa Monica & Los Angeles, CA ISIS, Media Management, and Influence Christopher Paul, PhD, Senior Social Scientist, RAND, National Defense Research Institute Improving Assessment and Evaluation of DoD Efforts to Inform, Influence, and Persuade Travis Hartman, L-3 Corporation Reverse Forensics on the Internet of Things Col. Harry D. Tunnel, IV, US Army (Ret.) Developing Cyber War Capabilities: Teaching Kinetic Impact Through Cyber Attacks Neal Pollard, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown Cyber Treaties, Negotiations, and Statecraft in the Age of CyberWar

I’ll be there.  You should be there.  http://infowarcon.com/

FINAL SCHEDULE April 28 – 30, 2015 in Nashville, TN We can’t tell you how excited we and our CATS partners are to have such a spectacular highly interdisciplinary lineup for InfowarCon 2015. From a Hollywood Producer to the Swedish MoD to a Minister-turned-Cyber-Theorist and of course, the DoD, it’s safe to say you can expect the unexpected this year. InfowarCon 2015 will be focusing on: ▪ ISIS / Cyber Terrorism ▪ Russian Cyber Theory ▪ The Use of Social Media & Perception Management as a Weapon of War Have you registered to attend yet? Join our intimate group (maxed at 60) in a special non-published location, to explore the intricacies of evolving cyber conflict. Look over the outstanding agenda below; we’re certain you won’t want to miss this! Be sure to register soon if you haven’t! Agenda for Days 2 & 3 (Click Here to View on IWC.com!) DAY 2 Mathew G. Devost, President/CEO, Fusion X, Conference Chair An Overview: I/O-IW, Russia, ISIS, Perception Management: Why Are We Losing? Winn Schwartau, CEO,The Security Awareness Company, Founder of InfowarCon IW-I/O Modeled on Analogue Network Security: A CyberWar Framework Erik Biverot, Coordinator, Cyber Security/Info Assurance, LTCA(A), CATS, Swedish National Defence University Ingvar Hellquist, Sr. Advisor, Cyber Security, COL(A)(Ret.), CATS, Swedish National Defence University T-incident Reports in Sweden and European Union Bjorn Palmertz, Senior Analyst, CATS, Swedish National Defence University Russian Influence Activities in the Baltic States Lars Nicander, Director, CATS, Swedish National Defence University How to Create a Hybrid Defence Mikael Tofvesson, Head of Global Monitoring & Analysis Section, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency Sweden is Restarting its Psychological Defense Dr. Hans Mumm, Branch Chief, Continuous Monitoring, Joint Duty Assignment (GS-15), Adjunct Prof. AMU, Division Chief of Cyber Network Defense, CIO, ODNI, GS-15 UAVs, Drones, Policies, and Extremists Jorge Sebastiao, Senior BDM at International Turnkey Systems Group (ITS), Bahrain Middle East Cyberwar from a Middle East Perspective Tim Thomas Russian IW and an Analysis of Dr. Igor Nikolaevich Panarin G. Mark Hardy, USNR, Ret., CEO, National Security Corporation Disruptive Tactics for Disrupting Terrorist Financial Operations Spencer Wilcox, Special Assistant to the CSO and Managing Security Strategist, Exelon Corporation The Orlando Doctrine & Digital Strikeback: Redefining Self Defense in Cyberwar for the Private and Public Sectors DAY 3 Dr. Andrey Trufanov, Institute of Engineering and Transportation, Irkutsk, Russia A Comprehensive Network Peacebuilding Paradigm for Infowar Scenarios Joel Harding, Consultant, IO/IW/Cyber Applied Russian Information Warfare Richard Thieme, CEO, Thiemworks The Modern Wired Terrorist Mind: Understanding Necessary for Defeat Michael Masucci, Director, Producer; Commissioner of the Arts, Santa Monica & Los Angeles, CA ISIS, Media Management, and Influence Christopher Paul, PhD, Senior Social Scientist, RAND, National Defense Research Institute Improving Assessment and Evaluation of DoD Efforts to Inform, Influence, and Persuade Travis Hartman, L-3 Corporation Reverse Forensics on the Internet of Things Col. Harry D. Tunnel, IV, US Army (Ret.) Developing Cyber War Capabilities: Teaching Kinetic Impact Through Cyber Attacks Neal Pollard, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown Cyber Treaties, Negotiations, and Statecraft in the Age of CyberWar http://infowarcon.com/

A Nazi swastika symbol spelled out in human beings, just one of the many over-the-top features of this fantasy-land production from Crimea

The whole thing is so fantastic and so far from any part of the truth that it would be comical – except that it is being fed to the Russian public as representing the truth about Ukraine. Lying in general – and particularly about Ukraine – has become the Kremlin’s new obsession.

By Mat Babiak for Euromaidan Press, Aug 10, 2014

Today in Russia something scary happened. On live television, broadcast nationally, live from occupied Crimea in the city of Sevastopol, a musical Olympic-esque ceremony and rock concert was performed at a motorcycle expo attempting to depict Ukraine and its revolution in ways worst described by Russian state propaganda to date. The performance, broadcast nationally on the Rossiya-2 network, was the most egregious example to date of Russia’s attempts to instill fear in the population, glorify terrorists operating in the east, and ring in the new era of Soviet restoration. Russian media described it as “patriotic.”

What exactly happened and is this an exaggeration?

Judge for yourself by linking below to further comments and a video: http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/08/10 … tion-of-the-soviet-union/

Source: http://www.ukrainebusiness.com.ua/news/12984.html

What a crock of crap.

“Oxford University warns authors not to write about bacon, pork to avoid offending Muslims”. I am consistently amazed at how PC everybody has to be, to the detriment of life for normal people.

When Oxford University takes the concerns of Jews and Christians into account, I might listen. In the meantime, Oxford, bugger off.

Oxford University Press (OUP) explained that their books must take into consideration other cultures of the world and must avoid mentioning pigs or “anything else which could be perceived as pork,” the International Business Times reported.

The move was revealed during a discussion on free speech during BBC Radio 4’s “Today,” following last week’s terror attacks in Paris.

“I’ve got a letter here that was sent out by OUP to an author doing something for young people.” Presenter Jim Naughtie said. “Among the things prohibited in the text that was commissioned by OUP was the following: Pigs plus sausages, or anything else which could be perceived as pork.

“Now, if a respectable publisher, tied to an academic institution, is saying you’ve got to write a book in which you cannot mention pigs because some people might be offended, it’s just ludicrous. It is just a joke,” he said.

The move was condemned by Muslim Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, the Times reported.

“That’s ludicrous,” he said. “That’s absolute, utter nonsense and when people go too far that actually brings the whole discussion into disrepute.”

OUP defended the move by saying it needs to make its books available to the “widest possible audience.”

“Many of the educational materials we publish in the U.K. are sold in more than 150 countries, and as such they need to consider a range of cultural differences and sensitivities,” a spokesman told the Daily Mail. “Our editorial guidelines are intended to help ensure that the resources that we produce can be disseminated to the widest possible audience.”

In a statement later, the company said its commitment to “academic and educational excellence” is “absolute,” the London Evening Standard reported.

FOR THE ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK

Source: http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/03/01/oxford-university-warns-authors-not-to-write-about-bacon-pork-to-avoid-offending-muslims/

There are only 10 seats left for InfoWarCon 2015.

Take a look at the agenda and you will WANT to sign up.

$299.00 for 3 action filled days that include all food, endless libations, and the great city of Nashville to visit at the conclusion of the conference.

Contact Betty and she will help you in any way she can. betty@infowarcon.com.

Agenda is at www.infowarcon.com/agenda

Just between us, I’m going for the company.  Almost all my heroes will be there.  People who have thought long and hard about the subjects and those with tremendous experience doing Information Warfare – all in one of the most intimate settings imagineable.

Many will be there only via VTC, which is almost as good as being there.  I had to make a choice, InfowarCon or some other great meetings and events.  InfowarCon gets my nod.

I’ve known many of these people for 20 years, many only through email and reading what they write. The biggest character of all is Winn Schwartau.  He’s a nut (in a good way).  Scary smart and his mind is always racing.