You cannot stay on the war narrative dictated by the White House and NATO. The confrontation of the West with Russia and China is a choice of economics ... preserving American hegemony and wealth of the oligarchs.

Putin's war is bringing millions to the brink of starvation.

The EU continues to support food security worldwide.

Today we are further increasing our food assistance by €210 million.

This brings our investments to make food systems stronger close to €8 billion until 2024.

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) November 14, 2022

'Sapere aude'

How very similar is the attitude today to expand US hegemony to inflict serious damages on the adversaries ... savages and mercenaries of evil empires. May American exceptionalism be victorious.

Official Website U.S. Government -- Indian Wars Campaigns

Miami, January 1790 - August 1795. In the late 1780's a confederacy of hostile Indians, chiefly Miamis, in the northern part of present-day Ohio and Indiana restricted settlement largely to the Ohio Valley. Three separate expeditions were required to remove this obstacle to expansion.

Late in 1790 a force of 320 Regulars and 1,000 Kentucky and Pennsylvania militiamen under Brig. Gen. Josiah Harmar moved north from Fort Washington (Cincinnati) and was badly defeated in two separate engagements on 18 and 22 October 1790 in the vicinity of present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana. Congress then commissioned Governor Arthur St. Clair of the Northwest Territory as a major general, and he collected a force of about 2,000 men consisting of two regiments of Regulars (300 men each), 800 levies, and 600 militiamen. This force advanced slowly north from Fort Washington in September 1791, building a road and forts as it progressed. On the night of 3 - 4 November 1791 some 1,000 Indians surrounded 1,400 of St. Clair's men (one Regular regiment was in the rear) near the headwaters of the Wabash. The force was routed, and St. Clair, having lost 637 killed and 263 wounded, returned to Fort Washington.

Congress reacted to these disasters by doubling the authorized strength of the Regular Army in 1792 and appointing Anthony Wayne to succeed St. Clair. Maj. Gen. Wayne joined his troops near Pittsburgh in June 1792 and reorganized his Regulars to form a "Legion" composed of four sub-legions, each a "combat team" consisting of two battalions of infantry, a battalion of rifles, a troop of dragoons, and a company of artillery. After intensive training the Legion moved to Fort Washington in the spring of 1793 where it joined a force of mounted riflemen, Kentucky levies.

Early in October 1793, after peace negotiations had failed, Wayne's troops advanced slowly along St. Clair's route toward Fort Miami, a new British post on the present site of Toledo. They built fortifications along the way and wintered at Greenville. In the spring of 1794 a detachment of 150 men under Capt. Alexander Gibson was sent to the site of St. Clair's defeat where they built Fort Recovery. At the end of June, more than 1,000 warriors assaulted this fort for ten days, but the Indians were effectively beaten and forced to retreat. Wayne moved forward in July with a force of some 3,000 men, including 1,400 levies from Kentucky, paused to build Fort Defiance at the junction of the Glaize and Maumee, and resumed pursuit of the Indians on 15 August. At Fallen Timbers, an area near Fort Miami where a tornado had uprooted trees, the Indians made a stand. On 20 August 1794 the Indians were thoroughly defeated in a two-hour fight that was characterized by Wayne's excellent tactics and the able performance of his well-trained troops. Wayne's men destroyed the Indian villages, including some within sight of the British guns of Fort Miami.

Jay's Treaty (1794) resulted in the evacuation of frontier posts by the British. By the Treaty of Greenville, 3 August 1795, the western tribes of the region ceded their lands in southern and eastern Ohio, and the way was opened for rapid settlement of the Northwest Territory.

On 15 December 1890, bureau police killed Sitting Bull, a leader in the Ghost Dance movement, while trying to arrest him. Government attention then focused on Big Foot and his band of a few hundred Ghost Dance followers. The 7th Cavalry found him on 28 December and escorted him and his people to the Army camp at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. On the morning of 29 December, an effort to disarm the band led to a shot being fired. It may have been an accidental discharge as a soldier tried to confiscate a weapon, but whatever the source, it led immediately to heavy and indiscriminate firing from soldiers and some return fire from the Lakota. In the ensuing action, many Lakota men, women and children sought to escape via ravines that cut through the area. The soldiers also employed artillery despite the presence of numerous noncombatants. The main firing lasted about an hour, though intermittent shots rang out into the afternoon. When it was over, more than two hundred Lakota (perhaps as many as three hundred), including women and children, were dead. Army casualties totaled 25 killed and 39 wounded, some of whom likely were hit by friendly fire in the confused situation. A few small skirmishes ensued in the region, but by mid-January the violence was over. The Army conducted an investigation of the incident but never determined culpability.

@BooMan there were some prolific writers ... one of them wrote under pseudonym Ghostdancer ...

Earlier writing @BooMan ...

Ode to Ghostdancers Way

Mitakuye oyasin! | by ghostdancer way | May 13, 2008 |

'Sapere aude'

Earlier today I read the military strategy pronounced by NATO Secretary General in Finland last June ... follows below. It thought dawned on me from a history of endless Westerns I watched in the late fifties and sixties. The feeling I got, what drives American expansionism and feeling of superiority today with a military organization like NATO. Where does it end ... in the speech of Jens Stoltenberg a total defeat of the enemy. Cutting though the bull$hit of war propaganda and some niceties.

'Sapere aude'

Speech by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Kultaranta talks in Finland | 12 Jun. 2022 |

The last time I visited Finland, we - and that was actually last fall - you and I, we discussed how to strengthen the close partnership between NATO and Finland. But I did not imagine that the next time I was going to visit Finland you would have applied for a membership in our Alliance. 

What caused this dramatic change was President Putin's war against Ukraine, which has shattered peace in Europe. It is really a game changer. Not just for European security, but also for the global order.

We may have been shocked by Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. 
But we should not be surprised. 
NATO shared intelligence and warned about a potential invasion for months.
It is part of a pattern. 


• The destruction of Grozny.   
• The attack against Georgia.  
• The illegal annexation of Crimea.
• The bombing of Aleppo.

And now, this cruel war against a peaceful neighbour. 
NATO is not part of the war. 🤥🤥

In response to the war, NATO has two fundamental tasks. 
One is to provide support to our close partner Ukraine.
To uphold its right of self-defence, a right enshrined in the UN Charter.
We have done that actually for many years.
And since the invasion, we have significantly stepped up our support to Ukraine, and so has Finland, including with military, economic and humanitarian aid.

Our aim is to ensure that Ukraine prevails, as a sovereign and democratic state in Europe.

The other task for NATO is to prevent the war from escalating. NATO's main responsibility is to protect our people. That is why we are strengthening our defence, especially in the east of the Alliance, on land, at sea, and in the air. This is deterrence. Not to provoke, but to prevent a conflict. And to preserve peace.

[NATO Stoltenberg earned 🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥 - Oui]
....
Türkiye is an important Ally, with a strategic location, playing a key role in the Black Sea, bordering Syria and Iraq, vital for our fight against ISIS.
Türkiye is also the NATO Ally that has suffered more terrorist attacks, including at the hands of the PKK.

We are now working together, in a constructive spirit, to find a united way forward.
I therefore welcome the contacts you, Sauli, have with President Erdoğan.
I also remain in close dialogue you, Sweden, and with our Ally Türkiye.

All Allies agree that NATO's door is open, that enlargement has been an historic success, and that we must continue to stand together as we face the greatest security crisis in a generation.

....
SAULI NIINISTÖ [Finnish President]: But nevertheless, if we talk about world order, we see a large scale, and Russia behaving like it does. Do you see that Russia is just by itself? I mean, surely, having a warfare against Ukraine, but in its thinking that the world should somehow be changed. And I think if that would be the case, it must be taken very seriously?

JENS STOLTENBERG [NATO Secretary General]: My answer to that question is fundamentally, yes, they want another world order. They don't want a world order, which we have agreed to in many different documents, agreements and institutions. And perhaps the starting point of that world order was enshrined in the Helsinki Final Act - the Final Act that is very close to all things, of course, which actually stated some basic rules on how to behave and how to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations, in Europe in particular. We all know that, of course, we can discuss borders and the historic reasons for those different borders in Europe and elsewhere in the world. But we agreed there, and we have agreed again and again that these borders should be the fundament for how we work together and how to find solutions by diplomatic means together. Another key principle in the Helsinki Final Act, and again, repeated again and again in many other documents, was the right for every nation to choose its own path, including what kind of security arrangements they wanted to be part of. So then to say that this is a provocation and a threat that countries like the Baltic countries or now then Finland and Sweden apply for NATO membership is, by itself, contradicting the basic principles in the Helsinki Final Act. And I will always, or often, use an example that if you accept that big powers can say that if small powers or small nations do something they don't like, that's a threat, and they can use power to hinder that to happen. Well, I'm very glad that that was not the case back in 1949 when Norway applied for membership, or actually Norway was a founding member, but, actually, the capitals in the major countries like Washington, London, Paris actually said, well - Norway at that time was the only country bordering Russia or the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union didn't like that - but these capitals US, UK, France and the others, they said, `Well, it's for Norway to decide and accepted our membership of the Alliance. So, yes, when a country like Russia, or President Putin, so clearly contest and violates those principles, not only in words but also in deeds, by using brute military force, because the whole invasion of Ukraine is violating the world order I believe in, where we respect the sovereignty, the integrity and the free decisions of independent countries, then I think the only answer to your question is that, yes, they want a different world order. And I regret that, because I have to be honest that I remember the years after the end of the Cold War, and I also remember working with President Putin as Prime Minister of Norway, that I believed it was possible to actually get Russia on board, to make Russia part of a new order where we actually work together, where we trust each other and we were able to overcome the grievances and hatred from the past. I'm not able to tell exactly when I changed my mind. But of course, after the illegal annexation of Crimea, many things changed. And then it became even worse after the annexation now. So, well, then, our responsibility is to ensure that he doesn't succeed. But also, as I said, that this war doesn't escalate and become a full-fledged war. And that is not an easy task. It's a difficult task, an important task, and we can return to that later on, I guess. But how to reconcile the need to be strong and firm but without ending up in escalating is one of the big challenges we face as NATO, but, of course, also in close partnership with Finland as a future member.

....
JENS STOLTENBERG: So first to the question of whether peace is possible. Yes, peace is possible. The question is what kind of peace? Because if Ukraine withdraw its forces and stop fighting, then Ukraine will cease to exist as an independent, sovereign nation in Europe. If President Putin stops fighting, then we'll have peace. So the dilemma is, of course, that peace is always possible. Surrender can provide peace. But as we have seen, the Ukrainians, they don't accept peace at any price. They are actually willing to pay a very high price for their independence. And again, Finland is a country that really knows the price for peace and also the price for independence and being a sovereign nation. And it's not for me to judge how high price the Ukrainians should be willing to pay. I mean, we pay a price because we provide support, we see the economic effects of the economic sanctions. But there is no doubt, as you said Sauli, that the highest price is paid by Ukrainians every day. And therefore it's for them to judge, not for me, what is the price they are willing to pay, for peace and for independence? So, that's, in a way, the moral dilemma. Peace is possible, but the question, how much are you willing to forsake to pay for getting that peace? The absolute best way to achieve peace in Ukraine is for President Putin to end this senseless war. We have to remember, every morning, every day, every hour during the day, there is one man, one nation that is responsible for that - and that is President Putin. Then we have difficult dilemmas, difficult choices, but it is President Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine that has created those dilemmas. And they can be solved by .... from his side by ending the war. Then, one more thing on this, is that as President Zelensky has stated many times, this war will end at the negotiating table. The question is what kind of position will the Ukrainians have when they negotiate a solution? Our responsibility is to make that position as strong as possible. We know that there is a very close link between what you can achieve at the negotiating table and your position at the battlefield. So our military support to them is a way to strengthen their hand at the negotiating table when they, hopefully soon, will sit there and negotiate the peace agreement. So that was `peace is possible' - that's not the question anyway, the question is: what price are you willing to pay for peace? How much territory? How much independence? How much sovereignty? How much freedom? How much democracy are you willing to sacrifice for peace? And that's a very difficult moral dilemma. And it's for those who are paying the highest price to make that judgement. Our responsibility is to support them. Then, on escalation, I think it's extremely important that we remember there is a danger of escalation. Also, as you said this morning, a horizontal escalation, we always see a kind of vertical escalation - more fighting, more suffering, heavier weapons in Ukraine - but escalation beyond Ukraine. And NATO has been very aware of this risk since the beginning, actually before the invasion, because we have to remember that when the invasion came, we were very prepared. In one way, we have been prepared for this eventuality since 2014, with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the Cold War, with the battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance, more defence spending, higher readiness, new command structure and all that. And then it was, actually, when we met, I remember we met, we discussed the possibility of an invasion of Ukraine. We had very precise intelligence on the nation. Russia absolutely denied. We had the meeting in the NATO-Russia Council in January, I think it was, where that was the last serious effort from our side to find a negotiated way out of this. Russia said, `We have no plans whatsoever to invade.' They actually sent out pictures, days beforehand, showing some battle tanks moving over this bridge [...] the strait between Azov and the Black Sea, saying that they were actually withdrawing their forces. Then they invaded. And then, that morning, we activated NATO's defence plans and deployed significant additional troops, because we were prepared, and now we have 40,000 NATO troops in the eastern part of the Alliance. Why did we do that? To prevent escalation

SAULI NIINISTÖ: Okay. Yes. Making peace is not an easy task. I think that we, like I reminded you, told you about, the Second World War and the Finnish position when we had to make the peace. But nevertheless, losing Karelia, Petsamo too, but specifically Karelia, well Finns actually, I guess, never have forgotten it, and it took decades that people had in their minds all the time that a very, very wrong thing was done to Finland and Finnish people. So from that basis, I guess we understand that it is very difficult for Ukraine after all these victims, after all this fighting, to give up their land, not even partly. So that makes it difficult. But seeing that Russia would lose all its holdings is not maybe at all, at this point, foreseeable, who knows? But all this tells that gaining peace is absolutely difficult.

'Sapere aude'

Dutch News item this evening ... blaming Russia for Nord Stream explosions ... spreading NATO disinformation, fear and war rhetoric. Military be damned.

Norway has raised the alert of the army. Russia can target its oil rigs | Kjaerra |

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre pointed out that due to heavy military losses in Ukraine, the Russian regime is resorting to "other" means, including suicide missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure.

According to him, this shows that the Kremlin is under increasing pressure and does not hesitate to threaten to use nuclear weapons and blame the West. "We see clear signs that Russia wants to divert attention from the battlefield. The regime has a clear desire to create discord and unrest in Western countries that support Ukraine's struggle for freedom," he declared.

According to him, events such as sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea or an attempt to paralyze rail transport in Germany and various intelligence and influence operations create fear, although it is not yet possible to say who is obviously behind it. them. .

Drones on oil rigs

He recalled the arrest of a man in Tromsø, suspected of having worked for Russian intelligence, or recent incidents of mysterious drones around Norwegian airports and oil and gas facilities.

According to experts, the strategically important export of Norwegian raw materials to Europe can currently become yet another target for Russian hybrid business.

Security analyst Thomas S. Warrick z the prestigious American Atlantic Council believes that Russia may have long ago engaged in a hybrid war against Norway and by extension Northern Europe, including Germany, in order to take full advantage of the energy crisis in the coming winter.

According to Warrick, who worked in the counter-terrorism division of the US Department of the Interior, this is the most likely explanation for the combination of two recent events - the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline and the many reported cases of drones in Norwegian oil and gas platforms at sea a week earlier, but which did not receive much publicity.

He warned that the West, including the United States, must therefore now initiate immediate countermeasures aimed at defending Norwegian and Northern European energy infrastructure against a possible "hybrid winter war" that could break the support of Kyiv's Western allies.

He called the drone flights particularly worrying. Remember that unidentified unmanned machines have been observed at six offshore facilities of Norway's largest oil and gas producer Equinor and at three facilities operated by other companies.

'Sapere aude'

#环球时报Editorial: We hope the conclusion of this meeting will become a new starting point for broader communication between China and the US, as well as a starting point for the two to seek pragmatic cooperation through communication. [_link] pic.twitter.com/mFrjA47LLQ

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) November 14, 2022

For ole times' sake ...

Vice President Biden's Travel to China, Mongolia, and Japan, August 16-24, 2011

While in China, the Vice President met with Vice President Xi and other Chinese leaders, including President Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao, to consult on a broad range of bilateral, regional, and global issues.  The Vice President also visited the city of Chengdu, in China's Southwest.

'Sapere aude'

[_link]

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) November 12, 2022

As far as I have seen, there are no negotiations in any form occurring  ... there were contacts between top CIA and FSB In Turkiye and by phone between top militarily brass in the Pentagon and Kremlin. The White House is adverse to negotiations or diplomacy and only willing to engage in surrender talks.

The grain deal needs renewal through negotiations ... initiative of a UN representative.

'Sapere aude'

The news that the top US military officer is advocating diplomacy with Russia is a teachable moment for @USProgressives and their allies, who couldn't handle a neocon meltdown over their pro-diplomacy letter. Try a little courage next time.

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) November 11, 2022

The Pullout From Kherson -- Si tacuisses, ...| MofA |

'Sapere aude'

China's State Councilor & FM #WangYi said that the meeting between Chinese President #XiJinping and US President #JoeBiden achieved the expected goals of in-depth communication, drawing the red line & preventing conflict, pointing out the clear direction for #China-#US relations. pic.twitter.com/enXebcafgK

— Zhang Heqing张和清 (@zhang_heqing) November 15, 2022

'Sapere aude'

"positive changes have taken place in #Australia-#China relations,and will continue to adhere to the one-China policy, properly handle specific issues in a responsible manner." quote from #Australian FM speaking on the phone with FM #Wangyi pic.twitter.com/msg0G0S2IP

— du ping 杜萍 (@dupingCHN) November 9, 2022

'Sapere aude'

🇷🇺 🇨🇳 Lavrov takes a few seconds to poke fun at yesterday's fake rumors of his hospitalization in Bali, as he meets with dear friend Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. pic.twitter.com/WxYiUqJDnK

— 🅿🅴🅰🅲🅴🆃🅷🆁🆄 🅳🅴🆅🅴🅻🅾🅿🅼🅴🅽🆃 🇷🇺🇨🇳 (@apocalypse0s) November 15, 2022

Most media manage to censor statements by Russian leaders ...

'Sapere aude'

Mexico's planned GM corn ban 'deep concern' for US | BBC News |

'Sapere aude'