Brief Reference: Wagner Group in Africa

Tags

, ,

State capture is a particularly nefarious form of systemic corruption, which has defined certain African countries in recent years. It entails private individuals gaining such a profound influence over senior officials that state institutions prioritise the welfare of those private interests over the public good.

There is a triangular pattern to such arrangements. The external partners and the colluding political actors profit handsomely – while the public foots the bill.

Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.

In the inverted and upside-down Moscovian underworld inhabited by criminals, mercenaries, and warlords, life’s rich with looted diamonds and gold and other of Africa’s natural resources commandeered by force — well, gentleman’s agreements up top — and worked by slaves. “Working” with impunity, Wagner operations have been associated with disinformation campaigns, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rapes, and accounts of torture.

Topside, as it were, Russia has been able to leverage Wagner power in weakened states into concessions, commercial contracts, and access to airbases and ports.

Apart from selling arms and natural resources, Russia may not know how to make money in ways above board and transparent, but it knows how to steal all that it wants. In mafia fashion, even the reference “Wagner Group” has submerged into enshadowed networks.


he Wagner Group is one of the most well-known and prolific PMCs in the world. Nevertheless, exact details about the group are difficult to confirm, with its organizational structure remaining deliberately obscure. The Wagner Group does not officially exist, with the name instead applied to an overlapping network of businesses and private military forces that are believed to enjoy the implicit but unrecognized support of the Russian state (Foreign Policy, 6 July 2021).1

In recent years, the Wagner Group has actively engaged in conflicts across multiple countries in Africa and the Middle East, including Syria, Libya, Mozambique, and CAR. Reports also suggest that they have engaged in activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Sudan (Africanews, 22 March 2022), with operations in up to 30 countries across the world (Center for Strategic & International Studies, September 2020).

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.

BackChannels scrapes up the outside story, lol, as it sees the world through Windows–but what a world is now online for gathering in the research of extraordinary journalists and institutions and having at hand a broad and thorough impression of challenges to civility, democracy, law, and peace worldwide. Here with this short patch of reference related to Russia’s hybrid aggression in the cause of immense theft–no ethical, human, or moral cost is too high for plundering states and suborning the dictators who had thought they were in charge–comes a display of transnational crime breathtaking in its depravity and scope.

If only Africans knew what was being done to them with Moscow’s endorsement for Moscow’s pleasure.

Reference: Wagner Group in Africa

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.

Clarke, Colin P. “How Russia’s Wagner Group is Fueling Terrorism in Africa.” Foreign Policy, January 25, 2023.

Clarke, Colin P. “Russian Mercenaries are Destabilizing Africa.” The New York Times, January 31, 2023.

Ehl, David. “More than mercenaries: Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa.” DW, February 28, 2023.

Fasanotti, Saini. “Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, commercial concessions, rights violations, and counterinsurgency failure.” Brookings, February 8, 2022.

Katz, Brian, Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, Nicholas Harrington. “Moscow’s Mercenary Wars.” Center for Strategic & International Studies.” September 2020.

Mackinnon, Amy. “Russia’s Wagner Group Doesn’t Actually Exist.” Foreign Policy, July 6, 2021.

Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.

Skrdlik, Josef. “Report: Wagner Mercenaries Profit from Central Africa’s Blood Diamonds.” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), December 7, 2022.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Sanctions Russian Proxy Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization.” Press Release. January 26, 2023.

Walsh, Declan. “Putin’s Shadow Soldiers: How Wagner Group Is Expanding in Africa.” The New York Times, May 31, 2022.

Addendum to Reference from May 22, 2023

Burke, Jason. “Russian mercenaries behind slaughter of 500 in Mali village, UN report finds.” The Guardian, May 20, 2023.

–33–

(Soviet Era Russian) Heroic Realism

Tags

, , ,

***

The search string, “Soviet Era Heroic Realism” yielded the second image–it helps to knowingly guess what one is after–which has the caption, “Post World War Two Russian Post–Young builders of Communism, go forth toward the new heights.”

We know how that worked out, and Stalin, at least in atrocious facsimile, appears to be with us yet.

Regarding Trump’s depiction, I have commented via Twitter (on Brigitte Gabriel’s feed) already this morning on Moscow’s Trojan Horse–he’s about that large too–in the Grand Old Party (of Greed), and here will relay the cannon fire in plain text and in a manner more easily accessed–>

***

Independently judge his character-https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/;

Consider his attacks on our Free Press-https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/23/fake-news-genuine-fake-news-the-real-fake-news-get-your-fake-news-here/;

Look at his closest advisors-https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/02/07/janus-notes-trumps-arrival-and-perhaps-departure-manafort-to-kise/

#PolitCrims; follow the money-https://conflict-backchannels.com/2021/10/09/trumps-america-in-retrospect-russian-real-estate-entanglements/;

Note how he does business-https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/10/10/trump-corruption-narcotics-russia-a-glance/

***

Don the Con’s base or cult would in their own self-interest do well to recall his track record as an American businessman: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/09/27/djt-the-success-at-failing-two-tweets/.

***

The #GOP’s greatest issue?

Too many in the GOP appear to have stopped working for the United States of America and with fealty to the nation’s Constitution and the laws that have flowed from it and informed #Americans as a coherent and cohesive national community absolutely breathtaking in its compassion, inclusiveness, and vision. While some #Democrats have gone in for petulant historical exhumations and quests for restoration, the whole plus moderate and modern #Republicans have chosen–to judge by the last election–the more traditional American way forward, i.e., by elections fair, free, and secure and with affairs conducted honestly, openly, and with integrity.

“Trump is doing what he has always done. He walks to the line of openly calling for violence and stops just before making overt directives,” Kurt Braddock, an American University professor who studies far-right extremism and the ways in which communication and propaganda contribute to political violence, told Insider.

“In many ways, the implications are the same. His supporters who are looking for an excuse to turn to violence will see this as his implicit approval,” Braddock added.

Haltiwanger, John. “Terrorism experts say Trump’s ‘dangerous’ rhetoric offers his extreme followers ‘an excuse’ for violence if he’s indicted.” Business Insider, March 24, 2023.

Related Online

Bradner, Eric and Kate Sullivan. “Trump baselessly rails against ‘prosecutorial misconduct’ at Waco rlaly as investigations loom.” CNN Politics, March 26, 2023.

Haberman, Maggie, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum. “Trump, Escalating Attacks, Raises Specter of Violence if He Is Charged.” The New York Times, March 24, 2023.

Haltiwanger, John. “Terrorism experts say Trump’s ‘dangerous’ rhetoric offers his extreme followers ‘an excuse’ for violence if he’s indicted.” Business Insider, March 24, 2023.

Guasco, Michael. “The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History.” Smithsonian Magazine, September 13, 2017.

Oppenheim, James S. “Anthropolitical Psychology.” BackChannels. The page supports a number of URL avenues for further exploration of Donald Trump’s autocratic mentality and the too easily led disposition of his followers.

Oppenheim, James S. “Trump and the Question of Insurrection.” BackChannels, January 9, 2021.

Smith, David. “Trump describes 2024 election as ‘the final battle’ from podium in Waco.” The Guardian, March 25, 2023.

Subramaniam, Tara and Daniel Dale. “Fact check: Trump repeats false claims during rally in Waco, Texas.” CNN Politics, March 26, 2023.

Practically an Afterthought on Donal Trump’s Anti-Democratic Authoritarian Narcissistic Mentality


–33–

Russian Authority Lies to Russians

Tags

, , , , ,

Russians must live with the deepest fear of dictatorship and its ancillary authorities.



America’s finest revolutionary slogan: “Question Authority”.

And make sure it answers–and express judgment through free and fair elections.

Have faith in the Not-Fake-News-At-All of the Fourth Estate.

Reconsider the value of lying against the value of simple old fashioned #Honesty and #Integrity.

#ModernEuropeans and #ModernAmericans should wish to live in a #ModernWorld with all of the benefits of integrated complex sophisticated and sensitive systems and not in the world of chaos, fear of government, personal separation, political impotence, and #FeudalMedievalSlaughter.

Would that Russians had the courage to share so #Modern a desire and requisite for peace and prosperity–and what Russians choose to submit to and tolerate, including their own enslavement, would seem how Russians choose to live.

–33–

#GOP: #NoConscience, #NoShame

Tags

, , ,


Alluded to in the above tweet–>

#ModernAmericans should not be waking up to a daily feed of vitriol for and against #DJT who has proven himself time and again aligned with Moscow (video: “Helsinki Moment”), dependent on Russian wealth for bailouts or profits, incapable of running a straight show, and apparently bereft of such human basics as conscience, ethics, integrity, and normal moral principles and values (take the URLs as suggests: the themes are the thing and may be easily and exhaustively researched online).

–33–

GOP Incitement with all of its feudal-medieval invective and inversion

Tags

, , , , ,

#GOP Incitement with all of its feudal-medieval invective and inversion.

Authoritarian psychology and its related #CorruptionGreedKompromatIgnorance could not be better displayed than by American politicians Donald John Trump and Lauren Boebert, two souls lost in the realm of messianic delusions of grandeur, with the former having achieved some gold bespattered grandeur in wealth and the latter so on the warpath for Jesus she would overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America (PDF) as the apex of her achievement of power. Both #MaligNarcs (and possibly #PolitCrims as well) share the signal of just how much more monstrous each would become if enabled, i.e., the Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation.

Related Online

Blumberg, Peter. “Insurrection? Sedition? Incitement? A Legal Guide to the Capitol Riot.” The Washington Post, June 10, 2022.

Richer, Alanna Durkin and Lindsay Whitehurst. “EXPLAINER: The seditious-conspiracy charges in Jan. 6 trial.” The Free Speech Center, Middle Tennessee State University, January 20, 2023.

Schafer, Stephen. “Criminology: The Concept of the Political Criminal.” The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, 62:3, 380-387. Northwestern University School of Law, 1971.

Wikipedia. “Political Crime”; “Sedition”; “Treason”.


As America’s Grand Old Party Now of Greed appears to be following Moscow’s playbook, I may remind all of what Moscow has come to mean to the Democratic Open Societies–the Free Worlds–of our Earth–>

It looks like I left out #Criminality #HybridWarfare, #HypersonicMissiles, #Hypocrisy, and #TacticalNukes. Well . . . next chance.

Posted to YouTube March 20, 2023.

–33–

FTAC: A Note on Archaic Dimensions in Leadership

Tags

, , , ,

Posted by Vote Common Good to YouTube, March 1, 2023.

We humans support about 4,300 religions and 7,000 living language cultures around the world, and representatives of most are here in the United States beneath the magnificent umbrella of a working secular democratic republic as designed by the Founding Fathers.

Americans true to that spirit have the freedom to worship as each sees fit.

Some like Lauren Boebert flat out lie or live in their own delusions with insufficient confrontation or insight.

Two terms I have found helpful with relation to observing fascistic religious extremism: “Civilizational Narcissism”, Mobarak Haider’s term related to his view of the Taliban in Taliban: Tip of a Holy Iceberg, and “Malignant Narcissism“, which may be regarded as the political interpretation of “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” much characterized by “messianic delusions of grandeur” and represented by autocratic personalities worldwide.

Around the web (Twitter, lol, sometimes here on FB), I’ve been using #MaligNarcs and #PolitCrims to signal these archaic dimensions in leadership.

Christian Fanaticism, Christian Violence

The above mash-up, most appropriate for this day in the America (or #Jan6), has come off Alejandro Amenábar’s film Agora, as fine an exploration of the tension between faith and reason and between the lust for power and the imposing of a delusional, narcissistic, and sadist will on others possessed of more quiet, certain, and thoughtful virtues.

Related Online

AFP. “‘God Put You in Power’: Russian Orthodox Leader Tells Putin on 70th Birthday.” The Moscow Times, October 7, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “KGB FSB ROC M-O-N-E-Y”. BackChannels, January 18, 2023.

*

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who faces a primary election Tuesday, says she is “tired” of the U.S. separation of church and state, a long-standing concept stemming from a “stinking letter” penned by one of the Founding Fathers.

Speaking at a religious service Sunday in Colorado, she told worshipers: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.”

Suliman, Adela and Timothy Bella. “GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’.” The Washington Post, June 28, 2022.

*

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. 1776. Source as noted at URL.

Ryman, Hana M. and J. Mark Alcorn. “Establishment Clause (Separation of Church and State).” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. 2009.

United States of America. The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription. Original as inscribed by Jacob Shallus. National Archives.

–33–

National Security and Drowned Tweets: The Way Twitter Works

Tags

, , ,

#Corruption should have been #CorruptionGreedKompromat.

#ModernAmericans may have a choice right this moment between a “hollowed-out democracy”–a democracy in superficial appearance only–or an authentic democracy, for the above-mentioned hash tag might get at the truth. Our #UnitedStatesOfAmerica just hasn’t been herself lately, and as one must know that Corruption is the Cancer of States, there might be an answer having to do with it.

Where are America’s sworn counterintelligence professionals on the possibility that we might have been compromised by our own tendencies with money and pleasure?

I’ve posed the question.

Has anyone answers?

*

I’ve noticed with my most cogent tweets embedded with BackChannels URLs that . . . no one picks up. For the qualities, which are very good, very few eyes seem to see https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ on the Post-Soviet or Cold War Era, 1992-2022 or, on the Orange AntiChrist (#OrangeAntiChrist) https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/10/10/trump-corruption-narcotics-russia-a-glance/ .

#WTF indeed.

Probably, if not “shadow banning”, the numbers in other twitterati simply swamp individual expression or voice. Individually, we no longer matter, and collectively, we don’t seem to count.

Related Online

Published here October 9, 2021.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1163931/jeffrey-epstein-boasted-putin-millionaire-secrets/ – Jeffrey Epstein visits Putin.

There’s hardly point in chatyping since my most of my posts, including the above mentioned, convey reference that leads to more reference.

#ModernAmerican #RealAmericans and, for each of us, all our old friends who really believed in democracy in support of rational, responsible, and responsive governance, some way of coming together, of organizing, of being together, would be helpful.

–33–

#HavanaSyndrome Havana Syndrome – A Small Disagreement with ‘Findings’

Tags

,

I had caught a glimpse of a now truncated Wikipedia page for the Navy’s first and foremost Science and Technology organization prior to the establishment of the Office of Naval Research, i.e., Office of Scientific Research and Development, so there’s no point now in putting in the URL as a response to the search term “psycho-acoustic research, conscientious objectors” would no longer be found there. That Orwellian absence will, of course, thin support for the contention to nothing.

Almost.

Since when has tinnitus ever been associated with Covid?

And just like that, all of a sudden?

And since when has any “mass psychosis” been associated with unusual experiences of sound?

Oaths of Office

Government officials and military officers in the United States of America take a very special oath of office in their commitments to public service at the executive level. It is an oath not to any agency or person but a pledge to defend the Constitution of the nation itself. Implicit in that pledge is the promise to defend democracy, dignity, freedom, and humanity itself in a structured way envisioned by the Founding Fathers. It seems a long way from those 18th Century visionaries to ourselves now mired in division and suspicious of government, but there is this moment (must I take a screenshot?) on the public page of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence a statement about Truth: “We seek the truth; speak truth to power; and obtain, analyze, and provide intelligence objectively.”

So says the DNI, whom one might remind of Cromwell’s dictum, ““Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”–Lord Acton to Bishop Creighton, 1877.

I would press for further review, and in secret if needs be, of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of Naval Research in relation to what has come to be called and puzzled as “Havana Syndrome”.

This morning, I tweeted the following to investigative journalists Michael Isikoff and John Hudson who have recently published on the topic in Yahoo News and The Washington Post.

I wish not to see Americans enslaved — yet another medical mystery! — by a phenomenon as yet unproven to have any basis in biology (oh, well, maybe that will show up tomorrow in new “research”).

My friends who have had tinnitus have associated it with loud music; others have perhaps had some damage related to combat or some macho hours or years at the firing range, and we all do age and may experience some hearing loss, but this seems different and the findings dissatisfying.

Three of the Morning’s Tweets

1.

2.

3.

The intrepid may wish to check on Kent Taylor’s stay in Bermuda. I thought I had read that somewhere but can’t find my source online–and not too much into this issue, I hadn’t saved it address. In any case, at the time of his travail, the phenomenon was not so widespread nor so variously described.

–33–