Category Archives: BCND – BackChannels News Day

FNS: Morning Lies

13 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share

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FNS=Fast News Share and Quick Comments.

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Russia said the capture of Soledar was “important for the continuation of successful offensive operations in the Donetsk region.” It added that “establishing control over Soledar makes it possible to cut off the supply routes for Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut.”

The significance of Soledar in military terms is minimal. However, its capture would allow Russian forces, and especially the Wagner mercenary group, to turn their focus on nearby Bakhmut, which has been a target since the summer.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-1-13-23/index.html

Soledar represents at best a Pyrrhic victory for Wagner as any concentration of force and development of feeding lines is certain to be met with an aggressive Ukrainian military response.

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Dudley, 35, was reported missing last year by authorities in Lansing, Michigan. A spokesman for his family said Dudley had traveled to Europe to backpack, had gone to Poland for a music festival and at some point crossed into Kaliningrad and was detained in April, 2022.

https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2023/01/12/russia-releases-us-navy-veteran-who-crossed-border/?utm_campaign=dfn-ebb&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sailthru&SToverlay=2002c2d9-c344-4bbb-8610-e5794efcfa7d

Backpacker Taylor Dudley’s compass and map skills may have been rusty at the time, imho. In any case, no ballyhoo, no need for a swap, just nine months of diplomacy by a veteran in such negotiations, Bill Richardson, former governor (D) of New Mexico. Richardson had a counterpart in Ara Abramyan, a counterpart in negotiating prisoners associated with Russia out of foreign prisons.

Portent?

Possibly, Russia will try begging American patience over the war in Ukraine, and so friendly and quiet a return–never mind the nine months Dudley spent detained–may lend its little bit of color to the larger and more nefarious picture of #PutinFullTonto and a Moscow fully berserk in Ukraine and elsewhere and beyond the pale of humanity.

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President Biden, facing a special counsel investigation amid new revelations of classified documents in his possession after the vice presidency, suddenly confronts a ballooning political problem that threatens to hamstring his agenda and blunt the momentum he hoped to seize at the halfway mark of his term.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/12/biden-trump-classified-documents-politics/

Really?

On January 24, 2020, the Foreign Agents Registration Act unit of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice received from Christopher M. Kise, now the lawyer representing Donald John Trump in his defense in relation to the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s holding documents stamped as Top Secret/Secure Compartmented Information (TS/SCI), FARA registration #6787. In the form, Kise had listed as his principle Reinaldo Munoz Pedroza, the Attorney General of Venezuela appointed by the dictator Nicolas Maduro. At that time, Pedrozo had been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for undermining democracy in Venezuela and related election interference.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/09/19/trump-lawyer-christopher-m-kise-registered-foreign-agent/

Has–or had–President Biden a Registered Foreign Agent potentially (and directly) selling out American Democracy via the Maduro-Putin relationship?

One doubts it.

Only Trump has demanded personal fealty over loyalty to the Constitution from powerful Federal subordinates, e.g., and from the git-go, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/i-expect-loyalty-trump-told-comey-according-to-written-testimony/2017/06/07/46413298-4bab-11e7-a186-60c031eab644_story.html .

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Soledar?

Wagner mercenaries have at most captured a salt mine and may now position themselves for greater wholesale slaughter.

Dudley?

It’s good to have him back in the U.S.A.

Biden’s TSI/SC?

Biden’s President, current, sworn to uphold the Constitution and refreshingly authentic about it. The “oops” in a locked garage? Investigation will have to resolve how that classified data got left there and–always the most important question–why.

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“You may have chosen us, but we utterly reject and condemn you”

15 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Australia, BCND - BackChannels News Day, New Zealand, Regions, South Pacific

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What changed the course of history on “9/11” and inspired the “New Nationalism” may have come full circle with today’s coordinated attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Forty-nine worshipers dead, 20 injured in hails of bullets by the will of a handful of white folk defending . . . what, exactly?

Once again, someone’s medieval worldview erupts from the past to bathe the modern world in fire and blood.

A few weeks ago, BackChannels counseled turning around together for a good look at the world as it once was with the intent of leaving that world to be read about by some future generation. While that may be on the way — it would be a good thing — today’s “White-On-Green” attack in New Zealand reminds that extremism is deeply cloistered, medieval, narrow-visioned, paranoid, and suffocating.

For live updates: https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/new-zealand-christchurch-shooting-intl/index.html

Suspected Christchurch terrorist Bernton Tarrant apparently vowed to kill Muslims a day before the attack – and was praised after the heinous act by his followers on social media.

An anonymous user thought to be Tarrant wrote on notorious right-wing blogging website 8Chan on Thursday: ‘I will carry out an attack against the invaders, and will even live stream the attack via Facebook.’ 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6812241/I-carry-attack-against-invaders-Christchurch-shooters-social-media-post.html

To address how the world got to this ugly place in time, BackChannels suggests starting with Zawahiri’s visit to Russia. And then move on to about here with President Trump threatening democracy in the United States with intimidation.

In an interview with Breitbart News Trump said that his supporters are “tough” and that it would be “very bad” for people to cross them.

“I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay?” Trump said. “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/03/conservative-destroys-tyrant-trump-over-threats-of-violence-from-supporters/ – 3/14/2019

The President’s few words, unfortunately timed, already have been linked to the Christchurch attacks as the kind of rhetoric attending the motivation for them.

On the other hand —

Extremist talk may be the glowering chest bumping between medieval-minded throwbacks that needs must prove each their case for the medieval prize of subscription.

There’s nothing fake about the Israeli video covering anti-Semitic speech in mosques in the United States. The synagogues, however, aren’t going to play that game, nor will the vast body of American churches whose attractions rest on their contribution to the civility of their communities rather than their encouragement of barbarous will will.

–33–

Good Morning, India and Pakistan

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Asia, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Fast News Share, India, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan

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Start with the cassus beli on this long journey backward to barbaric feudalism and wars founded in religious animosity and contempt.


(SRINAGAR, India) — The death toll from a car bombing on a paramilitary convoy in Indian-controlled Kashmir has climbed to 41, becoming the single deadliest attack in the divided region’s volatile history, security officials said Friday.
A local Kashmiri militant rammed an explosive-laden van into the convoy along a key highway Thursday. In addition to the dead, the attack wounded nearly two dozen other soldiers, India’s paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force spokesman Sanjay Sharma said.

http://time.com/5529661/soldiers-kashmir-car-bomb/ – 2/15/2019

Related page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BackChannels/

Related Online: BBC: “India Pakistan: Kashmir fighting sees Indian aircraft downed.” February 27, 2019 6:40 EST | “IAF strikes in Pakistan live updatesw: IAF shot down Pakistani fighter aircraft; one Indian pilot missing in action, MEA says.” The Times of India, February 27, 2019.

If you have news from Kashmir, either side, feel welcome to share it with BackChannel’s editor via the contact page.

–33–

Nigeria: Troubled Elections

23 Saturday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Also in Media, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Nigeria, Politics, Regions

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Mash-up.

Feed from mobile phones —

In the news —

Related for Background: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/431071-high-stakes-in-nigerias-elections-for-impoverished-citizenry-and-us

Related Online: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/23/africa/nigeria-elections-blasts-intl/index.html ; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-6736961/Delays-threats-attacks-fail-deter-Nigerian-voters.html .

Official appeal on Twitter for Nigerian election incident reports —

And the election parade, as it were, from a so-far calm point of observation.

The world may be still a mystery online: where’s the action? 🙂 What’s coming off it in social media? What could do with authentication but for which the blogger’s desktop is rather out of the loop (for not being there)?

“They just burnt our votes!”

— APC Thugs With Help Of Securities Destroying Ballot Materials In PDP Strongholds.

This is how Buhari hopes to remain in power. Disenfranchisement, intimidation and burning of the Votes of thousands of voters in PDP Strongholds. – Hope For Nigeria (on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefornigeria/ ).

The peaceful change of power by fair and free elections marks democracies, but what are these between states that year after year as corrupt and despotic beneath a veneer of civil democratic governance?

The civilizational narcissism associated with Islam in Nigeria, mostly in the north, has an incumbent Muslim president (Buhari) who has packed the top tier of his military and police services with Muslim officers, and the Christian communities know as much. Between widespread poverty and religious animus and the prospect of Islamic tyranny, the thugs seem to come out to ensure their side remains superior in political power, and generally speaking that has been the Muslim side.

Related on BackChannels on Islamic Civilizational Narcissism (published in 2012): https://conflict-backchannels.com/2012/10/19/mobarak-haider-blasphemy-and-civilization-three-youtube-clips/

–33–

Coffee First, Communicating Next, Brunch Later

20 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in Also in Media, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share

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Welcome to BC’s morning.


— For the past five months, Swedish television SVT has had access to a large quantity of classified documents detailing Danske Bank’s dealings with Swedbank. There were a large number of transactions between the banks’ clients between 2007 and 2015.

The analysis reveals that 50 of Swedbank’s customers that show several risk indicators of suspected money laundering have funneled a total of USD 5.8 billion through the bank.

https://www.svt.se/special/swedbank/english/

Related 58-minute program: “Uppdrag granskning: Sasong 20 – Swedbank and the money laundering” (English subtitles) — and BC’s going to watch it.

Do companies love misery together?

Swedbank’s woeful story has a companion and near neighbor: Danske Bank (“Danske Bank pulls out of Russia, Baltics after money-laundering backlash”, Reuters, February 19, 2019).

Little — or lesser — birdies (BackChannels, aloft on small wings and little nourishment refers to itself) have been known to tweet first thing in the morning.

Not only in America these days (does Macron tweet?), but even one tweet among millions of followers . . . wow . . . .

BackChannels wrote about Reflexive Control and the “New Nationalism” many, many moons ago — and here’s that term today on the cover of Foreign Affairs: “The New Nationalism” (March / April 2019 magazine — the online series URL has the embedded date of “19-02-12).

Reheat the coffee; warm up a slice of caramel cake; watch that Swedbank documentary — what can a poor boy to do but to play online as a street fighting — c’mon you Phantoms of the Soviet! — ham?

“Mick” 1969

Right spirit, but (oy) what a long, strange trip . . .

–33–

Sudan Protests: Bashir’s Sadistic Dictatorship Paints Its Own Picture

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Regions, Sudan

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Dictators may have just two options when challenged: accept safe harbor, if available, step down, and try to appreciate (and survive) the “golden years”. (In BackChannels memory, Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf is the only General and President to have done that, and he today lives in exile — and declining health — in London; Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has been recently removed from power by his former bodyguard, Emmerson Manangagwa — of course there’s more to that story — who may protect the old man while getting hands and head around the disaster left him by the former dictator).

The other is to suppress the revolution.

Beatings. Secret detention centers. Held without charges. Torture.

“Ghost Houses”.

“Disappeared”.

“The Fridge”.

The gangs conveyed by white Toyota pick-up trucks as depicted in the above video may be known as “Shadow Battalions”.

The ISS article suggested for any protest to bring about change in Sudan, it would have to dislodge the government’s power base in the army and security apparatus, as well as the ruling coalition and the Islamic movement.

As former vice president Ali Osman Taha has said, “the authorities have full shadow battalions ready to sacrifice their lives to defend the regime”.

https://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/will-sudans-ongoing-protests-finally-unseat-bashirs-regime-18907844 – 1/27/2019 Bold added.

Omar al-Bashir must make clear the depths of the sadism he will indulge in his quest to remain in power by intimidating all who oppose his stay.

Aside: one BackChannels source has reported the use of shotgun bird shot aimed at faces to take out eyes.

The same sadism that once served Moscow (and may again serve it) at Lubyanka Prison appears repeated in the Soviet / Post-Soviet sphere of influence. Also infamous for murder and torture: Evin Prison, Iran; Sednaya Prison, Syria.

Now we have the “Ghost Houses” of Sudan.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Security forces arrested 14 professors who were gathering to protest outside Khartoum University on Tuesday, witnesses said, as anti-government demonstrations neared the end of their eighth week.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-protests/sudan-security-arrests-professors-as-protests-rage-on-witnesses-idUSKCN1Q11UR – 2/13/2019

Where are those 14 professors?

What are their names?

What are their fields?

How are they doing?

Related:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/activists-sudan-police-arrest-14-academics-in-protests/2019/02/13/52e291ac-2f95-11e9-8781-763619f12cb4_story.html – 2/13/2019

Human Rights Watch, February 11, 2019
Al Jaeera, February 10, 2019

–33–

Venezuela: Military Mafia-Borne Political Absolutism v Democratic Distribution of Power and Rule-of-Law

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, foreign aid, International Development, Political Psychology, Politics, South America, Venezuela

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Background / Motivation: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-cuba-helped-make-venezuela-a-mafia-state (June 2, 2018) & https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/drug-trafficking-venezuelan-regime-cartel-of-the-sun/ (May 17, 2018).

Here’s a shocker:

Faucon, Benoit and Summer Said. “OPEC Pursues Formal Pact With Russia.” The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2019.

The “Grand Game” may be over, but the war between the Medieval of Mind and the Modern Possessed of Conscience and Empathy, the foundations of Democratic Humanism and the above-board distribution of power supporting the best reasoned rule-of-law has just begun.

Iran and other producers have opposed a tighter partnership, fearing it could be dominated by Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to officials in the cartel. Riyadh and Moscow are the world’s top two oil exporters. A Russian Energy Ministry spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-pursues-formal-pact-with-russia-11549394604 (2/6/2019)

At times, it seems the world is a cesspool or a snake pit — or both.

While Moscow grabs all the energy reserves it can get, Washington boasts of North American Energy Independence. Man oh man, for now, that’s a neener of the first order.

Meanwhile down in President Maduro’s malaria-supporting Venezuela (2014), the Military has been given its two options — Mad Maduro or Good Guy Guaido — and the defections are climbing furiously out of the dictator’s morass.

(The story, what with Bloomberg’s “Tic-Toc” and much else in the Mainstream Media fray, has been moving too fast for BackChannels normally placid quasi-academic treatment, bibliography and all. Inline reference and plain old bald URL’s suit in the making of points).

Just so you know, Putin’s recent purchase of a part of Venezuela’s oil resources is part of his (Moscow’s) 49 percent stake in CITGO.

And what does Putin really want: a world beset and bloodied by a revanche in feudal absolutism wandering around intoxicated by supporting and conflicting medieval worldviews.

How does that look?

Have a glance at Syria — or Yemen.

So as we say in America, here comes the cavalry — or at least the food wagon.

Balushi would have done Maduro justice: “We don’t need no stinking humanitarian aid!”

Venezuela’s President on deck appears less proud about extensions of Yankee democratic good will while altogether more practical:

Posted to YouTube January 1, 2019.

BackChannels will not beat the majors, but it may yet make some points. Herewith, three videos posted on YouTube within the last 24 hours –>

That last: political criminals!

For other glorious examples of Soviet Communist and post-Soviet socialist era success and the success of other feudal elites propped up by their mafia and military, BackChannels suggests spending time online involved with Syria — political disaster of the 21st Century! — and Zimbabwe (with Robert Mugabe gone, the state appears on the cusp of positive / responsible change).

BackChannels has heard Venezuela describe as ” a dictatorship of corrupt soldiers who traffic with oil, drugs and weapons. They have kidnapped the country. Maduro does not dare confront them and has been kidnapped in the government palace pretending to be president.”

Perhaps Venezuela’s now defecting soldiery will put a stop to her suffering at the hands of military and political criminals.

–33–

Bloody Bashir’s Troubles: An Angry and Hungry Sudan Narrows Its Eyes

29 Saturday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Also in Media, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology

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See tweet further on in this piece for the original.

The Sudanese have only to look toward Syria to know how bad revolution before a tyrant may become. While the spectacle of the Syrian Tragedy may have been expected to quell enthusiasm for a similarly motivated revolution in Sudan, it appears to BackChannels at this hour that caught between starvation and a tyrant, the Sudanese motivation — and perhaps the motivation of the military as well — may grow the violence and the level of direct threat encountered by President(-for-Life) Omar al-Bashir.

One blogger, Martha Leah Nangalama, has already picked up on a Middle East Monitor post reporting today Bashir’s evacuation from a mosque.

Of particular and peculiar interest in that story may be the bonding expressed between dictatorships

In Ankara, deputy chairperson of the ruling Justice and Development party Cevdet Yilmaz also expressed support for Al-Bashir’s government after a meeting with the Sudanese ambassador on Wednesday

“We support the legitimate government of Sudan. Turkey has faced similar ploys many times,” Yilmaz said, adding that Turkey is confident that the government is sensitive to the demands of the Sudanese people and would avoid violence.

Although Erdogan’s Turkey exploits NATO for its military defense from Russian aggression in that dimension, it has effectively destroyed democracy in the state and bonded with Russia — or leveraged itself — with the “Turkish Stream” energy project. Basically for the Turks, liberal democracy and freedom have died in their homeland, and they have become part of an increasingly family-run business masquerading some as a sultanate.

DW has placed emphasis on “anger over dictatorship, not bread” in its handling of the story:

“In most of Sudan’s almost 170 cities and big towns, someone has been shot. In some of them, more than 15 people have been shot. The shooting is happening through unofficial types of militia that the regime is using,” says Khansaa Al Kaarib, a Sudanese human rights lawyer and activist.

“For 30 years, this is what the Sudanese people have been getting from Bashir: Killing, killing, killing and more killing. People are simply fed up with this and they want to change this regime. They want to get out of the perception of a people lying under an ICC-wanted criminal, as soon as possible.”

Syria Redux?

The Sudanese story has had a similar start with a modest protest driven by hunger — i.e., economic protest with ecological variables in play — met by escalating means of repression, including live fire that taken or produced martyrs that in turn have become the focus of additional protests.

Ukraine potential?

For Sudanese now active in shutting down Bashir’s goverment and replacing with a government more modern, responsive, and responsible, here is the voice from that other protest against continued (and Russian) feudal political absolutism as once represented by the corrupt and thuggish Viktor Yanukovych:

Posted to YouTube, February 10, 2014.

BackChannels awaits the Sudanese version: “I am Sudanese, and we have tired of the war criminal in Khartoum . . . .

Related on the Web

Abadian, Ramin Hossein. “Bread revolution in Sudan.” MEHR News Agency, December 26, 2018.

Awsat, Asharq and Ahmed Younes. “Sudan’s Bashir Secretly Visits Damascus to Revive Ties.” December 17, 2018.

DW. “Anger over dictatorship, not bread, fueling Sudan uprising.” December 29, 2018.

El- Affendi, Abdelwahab. “Sudan protests: How did we get here?” Al Jazeera, December 28, 2018.

Elmileik, Aya. “What prompted the protests in Sudan: Protests that started over the rising costs of bread and fuel have now widened with calls for the overthrow of al-Bashir.” Al Jazeera, December 26, 2018.

Ibrahim, Omar. “why are the Protests in Sudan Important for Egypt?” Egyptian Streets, December 27, 2018.

Keeley, Gregory. “Keeley: Russia Reminded Us It’s Time to Kick Turkey Out of NATO.” The Daily Caller, December 28, 2018.

Middle East Monitor. “SUDAN: Bashir evacuated from mosque as protests continue.” Martha Leah Nangalama, December 29, 2018.

Reuters. “Sudanese Security Forces Use Tear Gas to Disperse Anti-Government Protesters.” U.S. News and World Report, December 28, 2018.

Sudan Tribune. “Sudanese professionals call for new anti-government protests on 31 December.” December 29, 2018.

Posted to YouTube December 29, 2018.

Channel 4’s retelling has a biblical sound to it: “Beatings. Mass arrests. Teargassing . . . .”

Sadly, BackChannels may be able to add the additional seven plagues to what has most recently been ascribed to the less than beloved dictator Omar al-Bashir.

“Death squads” have been given mention as well.

Six more plagues to go.

And God is Greater.

–33–