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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

I like Alastair Crooke simply because he is the best informed analyst for the Middle East, with extensive experience,. He lives there. When he speaks, I listen. I should also mention, he is on of the very few AltMedia personalities who has quoted my work.

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Steve Naidamast's avatar

To continue discussing the details and minutia of what is occurring in Ukraine is a waste of time, no matter who is making the presentation, with exception of the extraordinary Alistair Crooke, who is now the only analyst I listen to.

Ukraine is done. The conflict itself will end when Russia decides to end it. That's it.

Anything the West does, short of a nuclear exchange, is just the West wasting everyone's time and money. The West has no capable weapons to speak of in terms of taking on Russia's advanced systems. In terms of the economies of scale required to support industrial-level warfare as Russia is currently doing, there is no single or combined set of western economies that can achieve this since the West no longer produces anything. This is especially true of the United States.

So where Trump is just playing checkers (which is probably the extent of his mental capabilities), President Putin is playing 3-dimensional chess.

And even our illustrious Pentagon personnel have no clue as to how to even apply military, scientific mathematics to the conflict, which the Russian Armed Forces rely on everyday for their decision-making activities.

President Putin and President Xi are simply waiting out The Empire until it collapses internally, which it will. They they will then take over the West economically and force it to adopt to the newly evolving world order.

Beyond this, everything else is just noise...

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Jo Waller's avatar

I disagree. It's not noise. It's people's lives. And Trump is not playing checkers, he's playing with them.

Admittedly Ukraine cannot win, even if the EU and UK join them during a 'ceasefire', start rearming them and jump feet first into the meat grinder along with them.

But winning was never the point. The point was to extend Russia. Which has been successful and the US managed to topple Syria because of the Ukraine proxy war.

What Trump is doing, again successfully, by pretending to be nice and to talk about peace is trying to get the EU to up military spending and get human lives on the battle field.

It's extremely important, although we all know the West can't defeat Russia, that we all wake up to this.

Looking at you alt media with the exception of this writer and Brian Berletic.

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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

Quite right -- not 'noise" but people's lives, The noise just muffles the screams. In the case of Syria, the Russian commitment to Ukraine had nothing to do with the fall of Syria -- that was Assad's fault for not following Russia's advice. Had he done that he would still be in power.

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Jo Waller's avatar

? perhaps the Russians could have been more persuasive if not so otherwise engaged.

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joao coelho's avatar

Yes it is a scam to get you involved in their shows just like the main stream media. And the fact is that none of these experts really know what is going on inside the halls of decision making in the Kremlin, not even Pepe Escobar. I myself just wait for the end.

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RainyNights's avatar

You say ‘checkers’. I say tic tac toe.

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Davy Ro's avatar

Couldn't agree more about the duran lads. Especially Alexander, Jesus Christ I'm positive if he's reincarnated, he wants to come back as an American. The amount of times he states how fantastic America is is getting annoying. I mean how much death & destruction does America have to cause before he realises. It's America who has caused more death & destruction in the last 60 or 70 years than all previous countries combined. I'm positive he must believe dropped 2 atomic bombs on its own civilians. When will they realise America & foreign policy are from 2 different planets? Trump is a conman, he is a liar. All American politicians are liars usually genocidal ones. That's the difference, both A's honestly believe Trump is some sort of white dove for Christ's sake. Do they think for 1 second Trump would be wanting peace in Ukraine, if they were hammering the Russians? Of course not he'd be sending even more money & weapons. I seem to remember Trump doing that before for some reason. How much proof do these 2 need before they admit their blind naive optimism about Trump is total fantasy. Alister Crooke has it 100% right yet again. Trump can't do shit to Iran especially with Russia standing behind them. His masters from Israel are hell bent on attacking Iran. It's obvious the Americans are telling the Russians everything they want to hear. But the Russians always say, it's the actions that count, not the words. Especially when dealing with the Great Satan. Brian is 100% correct in my opinion, just like USAID. They're not giving up on it, They're redirecting it, just the same as what they want to with Russia. I'm certain Putin can see through their bullshit, although he's been naive not just once or twice before concerning the Americans.

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J Huizinga's avatar

Don’t neglect watching Mercouris on the yt channel “smalltownvoice1” where he has a Chinese analyst as interlocutor. He seems much freer in opinions than on the Duran.

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Remsomm's avatar

Trump Schnump. Brian Berletic is right, America loves war. War for oil, gas and uranium. Russia isn't keen on having it stolen. But they will try, and try again...and again. Just ask Saddam Hussein, Ghaddafi and Assad.

This is a good site for and in-depth understanding of the state of energy and how it makes the world wobble www.ourfiniteworld.com

Fun fact: USA imports 27% of it's nuclear reactor fuel from Russia!

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Jo Waller's avatar

The US needs energy dominance to try and control the supply to China. The US loves primacy above all else. War is one of their tools.

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Remsomm's avatar

That is definitely part of the equation - however, the largest oil producers in the world are the USA (14.7%), Saudis (13.2%) and Russia(12.7%).

In terms of oil consumption the USA uses 20.27%, Russia (3.47%) and Saudi Arabia(3.4%).

Which makes the USA a net importer of oil. This is where the trouble lies, since cheap energy drives the world economy and if you need to buy oil you are at the mercy of oil exporting nations ie. OPEC+

Then another good statistic of real economy is how many million metric tons of steel a country produces.

China (1000 mmt), USA (79.4 mmt), Russia (70.7 mmt) the whole EU (126.3 mmt) - so divide by respective population size China 0.74 tons per person, USA 0.23 tpp, Russia 0.47 tpp, EU 0.28 tpp and you have a very clear idea of the two things you need most for war.

Steel and diesel.

Also for farming food, infrastructure development, transportation if you were to have peace and happy citizens.

It doesn't matter how much money you print as stimulus without cheap energy your economy just won't bounce back.

Obviously it's not just oil but coal, natural gas and uranium as well.

I don't think the USA and EU policy makers thought this through properly...the more energy spent on war, the faster the demise. Austerity of note ahead.

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Jo Waller's avatar

They have not thought it through. They are thinking with their white supremacist patriarchal parts not their brains.

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PFC Billy's avatar

@Remsomm

See this article from the mid 1960s, explains what resources the USA needs but does not have sufficient reserves of- And who we are going to take what we need from.

Heather Dean, "Scarce Resources: The Dynamics of American Imperialism"

I found a PDF of her article here:

https://www.nefp.online/imperialism

Article:

https://www.nefp.online/_files/ugd/63d11a_136d0855070647ba803e05cea0bc4c83.pdf

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Remsomm's avatar

Thanks Billy Masterson, nice read. Quite prophetic in a sense regarding China and Russia rising.

I liked this bit:

"Imagine a situation in which pro-Peking Communist Parties controlled all overseas sources of raw materials for America's steel industry."

It just so happens it's rare earth minerals :) not manganese and that the Chinese are dominating the steel industry, dwarfing their nearest competitor - India.

Hilarious.

I find both Russia and China very patient in withholding access.

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Lux Aeterna's avatar

Methinks Dilbert Goc(k)torow suits him pretty well, it's a fine name for an expertute! ;)

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Frances Leader's avatar

Excellent musical choice. Highly relevant.

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Julian Macfarlane's avatar

Love the Who!

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Truth Seeking Missile's avatar

Our Orange Rabbi will simply ditch America and move to Tel Aviv to live like a king. When? Who knows. His decision will be made impulsively as always. But he will leave America, a nation in shambles. Most won't miss him. Won't it be fun to watch how the MAGAs respond? Their hillbilly preachers will go stark raving mad. Trolling evangelicals every Sunday might become sport.

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Crush Limbraw's avatar

May I simplify? DaUS = NOT-America = DSOS - which is short for DaSynagogue of Satan....whadat? Read - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/search?q=DaSynagogue+of+Satan&max-results=20&by-date=false&m=1 - those are headnotes to articles which essentially lay out the history of how America was infiltrated by foreign agents - while we slept, of course - and they are now in control of all our institutions. There's a lot to read there, but the bottom line is - we are not a sovereign nation anymore - we are, for all intents and purposes a vassal of DSOS!

Now as to Trump - maybe he knows this:

https://www.unz.com/runz/how-israel-killed-the-kennedys/

"An additional major area of concern for Israeli officials may have involved the efforts of the Kennedy Administration to sharply restrict the activities of pro-Israel political lobbies. During his 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy had met in New York City with a group of wealthy Israel advocates, led by financier Abraham Feinberg, and they had offered enormous financial support in exchange for a controlling influence in Middle Eastern policy. Kennedy managed to fob them off with vague assurances, but he considered the incident so troubling that the next morning he sought out journalist Charles Bartlett, one of his closest friends, and expressed his outrage that American foreign policy might fall under the control of partisans of a foreign power, promising that if he became president, he would rectify that situation. And indeed, once he had installed his brother Robert as Attorney General, the latter initiated a major legal effort to force pro-Israel groups to register themselves as foreign agents, which would have drastically reduced their power and influence. But after JFK’s death, this project was quickly abandoned, and as part of the settlement, the leading pro-Israel lobby merely agreed to reconstitute itself as AIPAC."

So - why not slow down our grandstanding and 'exspurting' - and see WTF actually plays out in the next few months and years, eh?

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J Huizinga's avatar

Anyone old enough to remember JFK’s assassination has lived through high noon in America. And, yes, the takedown, gradual as it was, by DSOS, is nearing its apotheosis. With DJT in office, my fear — above all — is the loss of freedom of speech, through a likely effort to back HR 6696, force it to the Senate, with his signature to follow.

DJT will shortly call for funds to expand prison construction. That’ll be the tip-off that we can never write the word “Jew” again except in fealty to our masters.

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Crush Limbraw's avatar

Over the last 20 years, I have come from believing freedom of speech is holy writ to Vox Day's conclusions:

https://voxday.net/2024/02/11/free-speech-is-blasphemy/

The only reason the concept of “free speech” was created as an ersatz human right during the Enlightenment was to permit secret satanists to blaspheme against Jesus Christ despite the many laws of Christendom that forbade them to do so.

As Vox Day says: "That’s how easy it will be to rein in the satanists in the post-WWIII world, now that the falseness of the “free speech” rhetoric has finally been fully revealed. There is no such thing as free speech, the only disputable element is who defines what speech is permissible and what is not.

Free speech is the inversion of a factual observation by Martin Luther, who said that a man’s thoughts are free precisely because they remain unspoken, unheard, and therefore unknown to anyone but God." - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2024/06/russia-1-pride-0-vox-popoli.html?m=0 - free speech, like free trade, was always DaDevil's tool to undermine a nation's survival.

Much more in DaLimbraw Library - just word search it. I'm convinced that eventually the Israeli Synagogue of Satan's welcome will wear out as more Americans come to see that reality - what goes around....comes around!

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J Huizinga's avatar

That may have elements of truth historically and in intellectual history, but that’s not what I’m discussing.

Surely you’re not suggesting that “speech” be limited to only mental thoughts.

Your posts are by legal definition “speech” and, if the trend continues which it likely will, can be shut down.

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Crush Limbraw's avatar

Day's context is the historical route that DaEnlightenment used to undermine Christendom - a means to infuse satanic culture into Western Civilization - I describe it as converging Christianity into churchianity - an outward appearance without its soul - by inverting Christian foundations into a fraudulent, but nice sounding surface rhetoric without substance. Freedom of speech never happened - just like a lot of other 'holy writs' we were indoctrinated to believe - and it never will. Trump’s present actions will be a blip in history - in fact, it will speed the breakdown of DSOS control - truth has its own paths to victory.

Just today - Vox Day commented on Clown World’s inversion of Western Civilization - https://crushlimbraw.blogspot.com/2025/03/there-are-not-two-wests-vox-popoli.html?m=0 - I've been following him now for years. If you haven't......it should be a treat if you start. Be sure to read his entire post.

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Tom Welsh's avatar

The Duran guys have chosen a difficult - sometimes impossible - role. They are trying to be "analysts" while keeping up rapid-fire commentary every single day, weekends included. I have seen a few comments asking Alexander, in particular, to make his talks shorter. He could probably cut off several minutes if he just stopped remarking, "Just saying" every few minutes.

I value Alexander's opinion, and Alex's style, but I take John Helmer far more seriously. He actually is "the man who knows too much about Russia". I loved his talk the other day with Nima and Ray McGovern. My confidence was boosted by Ray and John's obvious respect for one another. Once Ray made a comment that got John laughing outright - something I don't think I've ever seen before. He seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

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Salt Lick's avatar

Trump started out wanting out of Ukraine, but now he wants something out of Ukraine to remember it by. Much like he now wants Gaza or Greenland. It's curated personal imperialism driving the "piece process."

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Jo Waller's avatar

Trump never wanted out of Ukraine, he wanted to get elected.

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the suck of sorrow's avatar

The United States has a field of influence that is dissipating by the day. Yet two seemingly bright guys name Alex seem trapped within. I actually expect my fellow Americans to smell the coffee before those two.

In the line of crazy, do others marvel like me in that no reporting of War Plansgate asks why bombing the Houthis is a good idea?

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Occam's avatar

Not sure I see the confidence of Putin like you describe. There's a distinct piece that is Russia working very carefully not to piss off the Americans. And who can blame them, with the empire being a bit unpredictable these days and all.

But I'd certainly cite VVP as a statesman, unlike the western coalition of bloodthirsty jackals.

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PFC Billy's avatar

Getting quite tired of Donald Trump continuing to be proven full of shit about his pre election claims re: making meaningful changes to US foreign policy.

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charles leone's avatar

Trumps' primary inner circle at this moment seems to be Baron Trump and Jared Kushner, his Mideast Settler/Property Developer.

Trump, the Magician weaponizes distraction with rabbits, using carrots and sticks (sanctions, tariffs, land grabs etc.), while a tidal wave of economic shocks are building to a climax.

Trump wants the USA to be the "last man standing" amid the rubble after bombing any nation or critic who will not submit.

Thank God for the Resistance!

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Jack Sprat's avatar

Each day this war continues it is the JewSA that chooses to continue it. For the JewSA its an existential thing, its not an existential thing for the USA. For the USA it's a cuck thing that is determed by how long they can tolerate being Jew cucks that are laughed at by the world.

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Assumption Based Media's avatar

Putin is a young economic world leader. Klaus said he was pleased with their talks. As Russia pumps out MRNA vaccines for cancers and US funds MRNA based therapeutics it should be obvious to all the global order is in session. Too much weight is placed on these political leaders as if they are making the decisions. The play is in act. Nation state stories are for the masses.

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