Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

The war in Ukraine has become a media war and a psychological operation of enormous proportions. However, as Russia's victory becomes increasingly clear, the media is beginning to take a more nuanced and truthful approach. Here we will briefly highlight some lesser-known aspects of the issue.

1. A red line – an existential threat | During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US said of the Soviet Union, which was sending shiploads of missiles to Cuba: "This is crossing a red line, an existential threat to the US. If the Soviet Union crosses it, there will be war." Fortunately, mature leaders talked and found a good solution, and there was no war.

In 2008, Putin said about NATO's eastward expansion: "This is crossing a red line, an existential threat to Russia. If the US/NATO crosses it, there will be war.“ The US responded: ”Ukraine is free to decide who it wants to belong to." And there was war.

2. The promise that was broken | The promise made by the US, NATO, and West Germany upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was a prerequisite for East Germany's incorporation into West Germany, was crystal clear and referred to on several occasions: “NATO would not expand eastward, not one inch.” Some 30 documents, minutes, telegrams, memos, and correspondence have been collected at George Washington University, where they were released in 2017.

The US and NATO have behaved as if this promise was never made or never had any validity. Former NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg tried to explain it away by saying that "no written agreement was ever made." Jens Stoltenberg should know that a verbal promise is just as valid as a written promise. And as an aside: the agreement between Kennedy and Khrushchev was also verbal.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

Examples from other wars | If you can point to the other person and give a good reason to say He started it!, you can get away with war, even if it's based on an outright lie. In international law, it is forbidden to start a war unless someone has attacked you first. To some however it is so imperative to start one, that they would create a false attack against themselves to legitimize it.

When we look at the USA's wars after the Second World War, this is a recurring pattern. All of the wars for which the US has been responsible were started because of false, self-created events, and all were probably illegal under international law.

Examples include the Vietnam War, the Iraq War in 1990, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq again in 2003, Libya in 2011, and Syria in 2011, to name but a few. As long as it looks credible, we buy it. And in hindsight, we forgive our friends, no matter how horrible what they did was. Love is blind, especially when a lot of money is involved.

The war between Israel and the Palestinians has the same problem, but that's for another article. For the war in Ukraine, there are two theories that dominate.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

Dramatically different versions—The Russian version of the war in Ukraine dramatically differs from the version we are presented with in Norway. One of the versions is heavily tainted with lies, deception, and propaganda. The problem is which one. Because the Western version is well covered, this post will look at the issues as seen from the East. Such an angle is not only legitimate - it is necessary.

The West did not want to help Russia.—Resentment towards Russia is old. Several of the countries in the old Soviet Union experienced economic problems when the union was dissolved and the Berlin Wall fell. Jeffrey Sachs - a well-known American economist - led the work on economic reform in Poland in the 1990s with financial support from the US. Afterward, he was asked by Russia to assist them in the same process, but this time Washington clearly said NO, helping Russia was out of the question. He has since publicly criticized the US and the IMF for letting Russia collapse, saying: "Washington wanted Russia to go under. There was no interest in a prosperous, stable Russia. The goal was control."

Even then, Russia was an enemy, and the Cold War was still hanging on.—The result for Russia in the 1990s was a massive economic crisis, hyperinflation, and a collapse in living standards. A small group of oligarchs took control of large parts of the country's resources - often with Western assistance and corruption, and Russian fortunes were invested in the West. As Putin came to power and began to re-establish state control over the energy sector (such as Gazprom, Rosneft, etc.), he was increasingly seen as an obstacle to US-style "reforms".

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

In connection with the war in Ukraine, the USA owes several apologies to the Russians. Once they are given, it will be pretty clear who should do what with whom to achieve lasting peace, even though the war in Ukraine wasn't started on Donald Trump’s watch.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

Image: © Bob Moran / Bob Moran Art

"The white man, him speak with forked tongue." – Anon.

March 1, 2025: As [Minister of Foreign Affairs] Espen Barth Eide said on nrk.no: "The West is criticized for having double standards in the war in Ukraine and the Middle East. We must take active steps to avoid this perception." But there are two standards out there—one for Russia and one for the US.

A murder and an attempted murder

Sergei Skripal—In March 2018, an attempt was made on Sergei Skripal's life in England. The Russians were suspected but did not admit to the crime. The condemnation from the West was harsh and massive, the language was coarse, and as many as 153 Russian diplomats were sent home, one of them from Norway. In addition, various sanctions were introduced.

Jamal Khashoggi—In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly brutally executed and dismembered in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul. The murder was carried out by a commando group of five men from Saudi Arabia, probably ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. There was no reaction from Western countries, no diplomats were expelled, no sanctions were imposed and arms exports from the USA continued as usual. The language used here was mild or completely absent.

Conclusion: An anti-Russia campaign—There is little doubt that the Skripal incident served to discredit Russia to such an extent that there is reason to believe it was designed and carried out by MI6 and the CIA for this purpose. Below we will take a closer look at the background to the war in Ukraine, and show that there is "a rule for them" and "a rule for us". The duality is not due to incompetent politicians. It is because an "Anti-Russia campaign" is still going on, many years after the end of the Cold War. The US and the UK are leading the campaign, and Norwegian politicians are participating uncritically.

Reidar Kaarboe
Hva Mener Partiene

The "10/7" incident was carefully planned

In retrospect, it seems clear that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency knew about Hamas' plans for October 7, 2023, but failed to act on the orders. Netanyahu wanted as many Israelis as possible to die that night so that the rage would be maximized and his plans could be given "legitimacy" to be implemented. The Israeli army probably accounted for half of the Israelis killed that night. Lies were also spread about rapes and child murders that were later disproved.

Netanyahu was given carte blanche to start the extermination. Getting back those who were kidnapped was probably less important. Three of them were shot by Israeli soldiers as they escaped from the Palestinians, even though they had removed their upper bodies and were shouting in Israeli. And the Palestinian negotiators were executed by Israel on two occasions, something you wouldn't expect from people who want the kidnapped back home. It wasn't until Gaza was bombed to rubble that the exchange got serious. We have thus had to deal with a carefully planned and executed mass murder, war crimes, and genocide by Israel, Israel got its "9/11" on "10/7".

Pepe Escobar
Harry Vox (Comment)

The postmodernist econo-cultural vision of Europe has failed abysmally, as the ambitions of its architects were always based on false foundations and vastly exceeded their capabilities. More than four-fifths of the world has rejected their evil vision; the active resistance to it has barely even begun to take form. But it is already clear that there will be no Great Reset, and the global imperialists who believed they were destined to rule the world and own everything in it will be lucky to survive the series of regime changes over the next decade that are among the probable consequences of the Euro-Russian War:

The leadership in Moscow is making it very clear, to internal and international audiences, the new deal consists in slow cooking the Kiev racket inside a massive cauldron while polishing its status of financial black hole for the collective West. Until we reach boiling point – which will be a revolution or a putsch.

In parallel, The Lords of (Proxy) War will continue with their own strategy, which is to pillage an enfeebled, fearful, Europe, then dressing it up as a perfumed colony to be ruthlessly exploited ad nauseam by the imperial oligarchy. Europe is now a runaway TGV – minus the requisite Hollywood production values. Assuming it does not veer off track – a dicey proposition – it may eventually arrive at a railway station called Agenda 2030, The Great Narrative, or some other NATO/Davos denomination du jour.

Batiushka (for The Saker Blog)

The Barbarian West

By the fifth century AD the barbarians had moved into Western Europe in significant numbers, bringing about the fall of Old Rome in what is now Italy in 410. Curiously, the barbarianism they brought with them, combined with the systematic brutality of Old Rome by the most brutal of them, the Franks, survives today. Indeed, we can state quite clearly that many in Western Europe have remained barbarians, knowingly or unknowingly supporting the ‘Frankish’ warlord aristocracy/ oligarchy which administrates (but not controls –control is from elsewhere) the Western world till this day. At first the barbarians took over only Western Europe, but then they expanded to its immediate neighbours in Eastern Europe, the Near East and along the African coasts. However, from 1492 on there began the Western European occupation and exploitation of the New Worlds. Barbarianism had literally gone global.

Gaius Baltar

Some knowledgeable people, apparently including the Pope, are beginning to suspect that there may be more going on in the world than just the war in the Ukraine. They say that World War 3 has already started and things will get worse from now on. This can be difficult to determine while we are participating in the unfolding events and do not have the benefit of the historical perspective. It is doubtful that people back in 1939 realized that they were looking at the start of a major worldwide conflict, although some may have suspected it.

The current global situation is in many ways like a giant jigsaw puzzle where the general public only sees a tiny part of the complete picture. Most don’t even realize that there may be more pieces and don’t even ask these simple questions: Why is all this happening and why is it happening now?

Things are more complicated than most people realize. What they see is the evil wizard Vladimir Saruman Putin invading innocent Ukraine with his orc army – for absolutely no reason. This is a simplistic view, to say the least because nothing happens without a reason. Let’s put things in perspective and see what is really going on – and why the world is going crazy before our eyes. Let’s see what World War 3 is all about.

Gilbert Doctorow
gilbertdoctorow.com

It has been my rule not to join the vast majority of my fellow political commentators at the scrimmage line in sterile debates of the one subject of the day, week, month that has attracted their full attention. Their debates are sterile because they ignore all but a few parameters of reality in Russia, in Ukraine. For them, ignorance is bliss. They do not stir from their armchairs nor do they switch channels to get information from the other side of the barricades, meaning from Russia.

I will violate this overriding rule and just this once join the debate over how Russia’s ‘special military operation’ will end.

Nearly all of my peers in Western media and academia give you read-outs based on their shared certainty over Russia’s military and political ambition from the start of the ‘operation,’ how Russia failed by underestimating Ukrainian resilience and professionalism, how Putin must now save face by capturing and holding some part of Ukraine. The subject of disagreement is whether at the end of the campaign the borders will revert to the status quo before 24 February in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality or whether the Russians will have to entirely give up claims on Donbas and possibly even on Crimea.

As for commentators in the European Union, there is exaggerated outrage over alleged Russian aggression, over any possible revision of European borders as enshrined in the Helsinki Act of 1975 and subsequent recommitments by all parties to territorial inviolability of the signatory States. There is the stench of hypocrisy from this crowd as they overlook what they wrought in the deconstruction of Yugoslavia and, in particular, the hiving off of Kosovo from the state of Serbia.