Charles Heberle visited Russia as a CCI delegate in 2015, the year that CCI (comprised of only one person by then, Sharon Tennison) resumed its original mission of bringing Russian and American citizens together in peace and friendship. It was not his first experience in the country – far from it. In the early 2000’s Charles was recruited by the Russian government to “teach democracy” in a country that had, by the admission of its own experts, experienced nothing but authoritarian governmental control for 1000 years. Moving to democracy, as they were and are intent on doing, created some challenges.

With a solid knowledge of American history, Russians were curious to learn how a relatively small group of 17th century Europeans managed to get themselves out from under monarchial control, come to a virtually unexplored continent and, over the next 120 years (from the time of their arrival until the American Revolution) teach themselves how to govern themselves via a form of direct democracy that was, and still is, unique. Put in that perspective, Americans today should be as amazed, impressed and curious as the Russians.

I met Charles a few weeks ago in a coffee house in Portland, Maine, where we spent a fascinating afternoon (for me!) while he described his background (helicopter pilot, Vietnam, career in the army, ‘retirement’ career in international organizations) and his eight years in Russia implementing his program, “You the PEOPLE.” It was an enormous undertaking covering the Republic of Karelia and centered in its capital, Petrozavodsk. If you haven’t seen it yet, please watch the video interview with Charles made by Mel Van Dusen, another 2015 CCI delegate, to catch the flavor of the complexity of that program.

One thing that struck me as Charles described how he guided the Russians to learn the art of democracy was that we, modern Americans watching our shining example become tarnished by hatred and corruption, could stand to take a lesson from the Russians; perhaps it’s time we (re)learned democracy, too?

As always, we look forward to your thoughts and feedback.

Paula, Center for Citizen Initiatives

YouTube link here to interview with Charles Heberle.

By Jeff Childers, Substack, 8/15/24

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal dished up a steaming pile of deep-state horse hockey, an ‘exclusive’ with the wild and (literally) unbelievable headline, “A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage. But wait, it immediately got even better. The sub-headline claimed, “Private businessmen funded the shoestring operation, which was overseen by a top general; President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried unsuccessfully to call it off.”

Let’s check and see how well you guys have been following along. Take a quick test to predict where this article is going. Choose one of the following forecasts:

A. [_] The article was sourced from credible, verifiable individuals known to exist who were in positions to have personal knowledge about what happened; OR…

B. [_] The article was sourced only from loosely-identified, anonymous informants.

If you didn’t pick ‘B’, stay after class for a remedial reading assignment.

Now let’s use this piece of high fantasy as a guide for how to spot articles pre-written for media by the Operation Mockingbird department of some squiddly organization bearing an obscure three-letter acronym. This story might be the most obvious example to date; it’s like they aren’t even really trying anymore.

Ready? Let’s crack some cephalopods.

The Journal’s tall tale began with a tell: it described the story to follow as an “outlandish” —unbelievable— scheme, concocted in a bar using alcohol-muddied thinking. How relatable! Who among us hasn’t concocted wildly dangerous sabotage schemes after throwing back a few? In other words, it knew the story was a whopper and would be hard to swallow.

Prepare to throw the old canard, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” right out the window. Who needs evidence?

Here’s the Journal’s generic description of the highly-technical operation, with one key sentence highlighted. Think about that sentence while you’re reading the rest:

Haha, they couldn’t resist smuggling a little diversity into their fabulous fiction (“one was a woman”). Women can blow up pipelines too. And they even added a laugh track! But let’s focus back on that leading sentence: “Now, for the first time, the outlines of the real story can be told.”

Can be told. That sentence was a mistake made in haste. It wasn’t written by any independent WSJ journalist. The line implied some outside force or authority always stopped the story from being told before. But now, it has granted permission. The article never explained who or what that authority was. It raises murky questions that linger like octopus ink:

Who stopped the story from being told?

Why did they stop the story about ‘private businessmen’ being told?

Why did this invisible authority decide now the story could be told?

I’ll suggest we weren’t meant to know about the outside authority. It slipped into the article by accident, as the writer struggled to explain the story’s timing. That was an unintended gift, but it wasn’t necessary to understand the game.

The article continued by claiming that President Zelensky initially approved Operation Vodka, but the CIA “found out about it,” asked the former comedian to stand down, and Zelensky complied, ordering the saboteurs to stop. But former commander-in-chief Zaluzhniy —since fired and given a sweet, immunity-laden ambassadorship— went ahead anyway.

How exactly did CIC Zaluzhniy get involved with these ‘private businessmen?’ How did the CIA find out about the plot (the article says Dutch intelligence told them, but how did the Dutch know)? Why was Zelensky involved in the first place? Was it an official military op or not?

Both Zelensky and Zaluzhniy denied the story. So our belief must rest only on the Journal’s anonymous sources, composed of “four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot.” The WSJ never sourced any of the alleged “private businessmen” (and woman!). It sounds like Operation Vodka included a lot more than “private businessmen,” but the article never stretched to connect that dot.

Think critically. How did these ‘senior officials’ learn of the supposedly private operation? Even more importantly, why would they would disclose it? Why would they disclose it to a newspaper? Why now? The Journal never said.

In whom do we readers place our trust? The named sources who denied the story? Or the Journal’s inky anonymous informants, who don’t even match the profile of the inebriated private businesspeople it claims planned the attack? Is this story just a massive appeal to the Journal’s credibility? You can trust us, because.

Enter the German connection. Based on “no evidence” (see for yourself) they issued a warrant for a Ukrainian dive instructor in June:

No admissible evidence? Is this the same Journal that for years stubbornly insisted there was “no evidence” Ivermectin successfully treated covid infections? Now, apparently, “no evidence” is just fine when assigning blame for one of the most geopolitically significant stories in our lifetimes.

Arrest warrants are usually public information. Knowing who is supposed to be arrested is generally helpful for catching them. Pose for the mugshot! But the story never disclosed the alleged “Ukrainian dive instructor’s” identity. He could be any old octopus, for all we know.

Not only were the Journal’s claims completely unverifiable by actual humans, but the Journal even insisted verification would be impossible:

Uh-huh. So … how does the WSJ know there is no paper trail? Is it plausible every junior bureaucrat would meekly accept a verbal approval for a massive war crime, without even wanting an email for the file? Did the conspirators never ever discuss the plan and its complicated logistics in any text messages, emails, DMs, Word documents, or even a spreadsheet?

The remainder of Journal’s article was packed with convoluted, mind-numbing details and speculations that would be inadmissible in county court. But there was an even bigger hole in the story. Again, think critically.

If the Journal just broke an explosive exclusive resulting from terrific, Pulitzer-level investigative reporting, where are those details? Where is the Journal’s triumphant narrative about how it broke the story of a lifetime and solved a war crime that the World’s governments have been unable to crack?

As to how the Journal pulled off this exclusive, there was nothing but radio silence. No paper trail. Just the inky water left behind.

Here’s what the Journal’s “Exclusive Investigation” amounted to: Anonymous informants, implausibly precise and highly technical operations (by civilians!), unnamed perps, critical internal contradictions, vague and convenient claims that evidence does not exist, denials by named sources, lack of source transparency, unexplained timing, and an invisible investigation.

Great work, Wall Street Journal. By “great “work,” I mean deplorable hackery. So this article could only have been yet another spectral fairy tale planted by the subterranean security state. But why? And why now? What we’ve learned in the past about these kinds of fantastic one-off stories, which quickly sink into the Baltic without a geopolitical ripple, is that they were intended to discipline Ukraine, by showing the deep state’s whip hand.

What are they trying to force a recalcitrant Zelensky to do now?

Oh well. A least now the story “can be told.” Thanks for letting us know, I guess. We live in a time of media malfeasance and control beyond any nightmarish, tentacular villain Orwell could possibly have dreamed up following a drunken oyster-eating contest. Stay frosty.

By Scott Ritter, Consortium News, 7/29/24

As America wrestles with the question of who will emerge victorious from the three-ring circus that is the 2024 Presidential election, there is increasing talk about the existential nature of this election and the role played by the two primary candidates — the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris, and her challenger, the Republican Party nominee, Donald Trump — in taking the nation to the brink when it comes to the future of American democracy as an institution.

The choices couldn’t be starker — the living embodiment of “DEI establishment politician” (Harris) versus the textbook definition of a “populist political outsider” (Trump).

In many ways, the rhetoric about the critical nature of the 2024 Presidential race isn’t exaggerated — in terms of sustained political viability, the stakes couldn’t get any higher.

A Harris victory would effectively end the MAGA movement, since it is largely a populist exercise built around the cult of personality that has surrounded Donald Trump, whom most people agree is running his last political race.

A Trump victory, however, would project into the political mainstream his running mate, J.D. Vance, who would be given the opportunity to claim the MAGA throne in 2028, setting up the potential for a 12-year MAGA run which could very well spell the end of establishment politics in America as we know it.

America has gone through numerous presidential contests in its 248-year history in which the essence of the nation could be said to be at stake.

The first of these took place in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in a race that literally decided the future of the United States by ending the conservative Federalist hold on political power and replacing it with the more progressive Democrat-Republican party.

Andrew Jackson’s 1824 victory over John Quincy Adams saw the reemergence of the Federalist ideology in the form of the new Democratic Party prevail over Adams and the Republicans in an election that served as the foundation for the emergence of the two-party system that dominates American politics until today.

And the 1860 election, won by Abraham Lincoln, literally carried with it life or death decisions which propelled America into a Civil War. It is the only American election which can genuinely be described as existential in terms of its consequences.

The point to be made here is that no matter what anyone says about 2024, while the future direction of American politics, and the societal issues thus manifested, will be decided in November, the existential fate of the United States is not on the line.

Neither is the fate of “American democracy.”

All Existence Is at Stake

The 2024 presidential race, however, does directly impact the existential survival of the United States, the American people, and indeed the entire world, but not because of its outcome.

The harsh reality is that regardless of who among the two major candidates wins in November, American policy vis-à-vis Russia, especially when it comes to nuclear posture and arms control, is hard-wired to achieve the same result.

And it is this result that seals the fate of all humanity unless a way can be found to prompt a critical re-think of the underlying policies that produce the anticipated outcome.

A future Harris administration is on track to continue a policy which commits to the strategic defeat of Russia, the lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in Europe, the termination of the last remaining arms control treaty (New START) in February 2026, and the re-deployment of intermediate-range missiles into Europe, also in 2026.

Trump, meanwhile, has proffered rhetoric which has led many to believe he would end the conflict in Ukraine, and thereby open the door for better relations with Russia.

The ‘Perfect Call’

But this policy is predicated on the concept of the “perfect phone call” between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin where the Russian leader accedes to American-dictated terms regarding Ukraine which would fall far short of Russia’s stated goals.

Trump has made it clear that if Putin fails to bend the knee on Ukraine, he will then flood Ukraine with weapons —basically the Biden policy of strategically defeating the Russians on steroids. It was Trump who pulled out of the INF treaty in 2019, and as such put in motion the policy direction which has U.S. INF weapons returning to Europe in 2026.

And Trump is not a fan of arms control treaties, so the notion that he would save New START or replace it with a new treaty vehicle is mooted by reality.

No matter who wins among the two major candidates in November, the United States is on track for a major existential crisis with Russia in Europe sometime in 2026. The re-introduction of INF-capable systems by the U.S. will trigger a similar deployment by Russia of nuclear-capable INF systems targeting Europe.

Back in the 1980’s, the deployment of INF systems by the U.S. and Russia had created an inherently destabilizing situation where one mistake could have set off a nuclear war.

The experience of Able Archer ’83, a NATO command and control exercise that took place in the fall of 1983, bears witness to this reality. The Soviets interpreted the exercise as being a cover for a nuclear first-strike by NATO and put its nuclear forces on high alert.

There was no room for error — one miscalculation or misjudgment could have led to a Soviet decision to pre-empt what it believed to be an imminent NATO nuclear attack, thereby triggering a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

The INF treaty, signed in 1987, removed these destabilizing weapons from Europe. But now that treaty is no more, and the weapons that brought Europe and the world to the brink of destruction in the 1980’s are returning to a European continent where notions of peaceful coexistence with Russia have been replaced with rhetoric promoting the inevitability of conflict.

When one combines the existence of a policy objective (the strategic defeat of Russia) which, when coupled with a policy of supporting a Ukrainian victory over Russia predicated on Ukraine regaining physical control over Crimea and the four territories of Novorossiya (New Russia — Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Lugansk), one already has a recipe for disaster.

This policy, if successful, would automatically trigger a Russian nuclear response, since doctrinally nuclear weapons would be used to respond to any non-nuclear scenario where the existential survival of Russia is at stake. (The loss of Crimea and the New Territories is like the United States losing Texas, California, or New York — a literal existential situation.)

Add to this the end of arms control as we know it come February 2026, when the New START treaty expires. The Biden administration has declared that it will seek to add new nuclear weapons “without limitation” once the New START caps on deployed weapons expires — the literal definition of an arms race out of control.

One can only imagine that Russia would be compelled to match this rearmament activity.

INFs Again in Europe

And finally, the recent agreement by the U.S. and Germany to redeploy intermediate-range missiles on European soil in 2026, and Russia’s decision to match this action by building and deploying its own intermediate-range missiles, recreates the very situational instability which threatened regional and world security back in the 1980’s.

When one examines these factors in their aggregate, the inescapable conclusion is that Europe will be faced with an existential crisis which could come to a head as early as the summer of 2026.

The potential for the use of nuclear weapons, either by design or accident, is real, creating a situation that exceeds the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of the risk of a nuclear war by an order of magnitude or more.

While a future nuclear conflict would very likely start in Europe, it will be virtually impossible to contain the use of nuclear weapons on the European continent. Any use of nuclear weapons against Russian soil, or the territory of its ally, Belarus, would trigger a general Russian nuclear response which would lead to a general, global-killing nuclear war.

The question Americans confront today is what to do about this existential threat to their very survival.

The answer put forward here is to empower your vote in the coming presidential election by tying it not to a person or party, but rather a policy.

In short, empower your vote by pledging it to the candidate who will commit to prioritizing peace over war, and who pledges to make the prevention of nuclear war, not the promotion of nuclear weapons, the cornerstone of his or her national security policy.

Don’t give your vote away by committing to a candidate at this early stage — when you do this, you no longer matter, as the candidates will simply turn their attention to those uncommitted voters in an effort to win them over.

Make the candidates earn your vote by linking it to a policy posture that reflects your core values.

And this election, your core value should be exclusively centered on promoting peace and preventing nuclear war.

Such a policy posture would be built upon four basic pillars.

1. Immediately end the current declaratory policy of the United States which articulates the strategic defeat of Russia as a primary U.S. objective and replace it with a policy statement which makes peaceful coexistence with Russia the strategic goal of U.S. foreign and national security policy.

Such a policy redirection would include, by necessity, the goal of rethinking European security frameworks which respect the legitimate national security concerns of Russia and Europe, and would incorporate the necessity of a neutral Ukraine.

2. A freeze on the re-deployment of INF-capable weapons systems into Europe, matched by a Russian agreement not to re-introduce INF-capable weapons into its arsenal, with the goal of turning this freeze into a formal agreement that would be finalized in treaty form.

3. A commitment to engage with Russia on the negotiation and implementation of a new strategic arms control treaty which seeks equitable cuts in the strategic nuclear arsenals of both nations, a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons each side can retain in storage, and which incorporates limits on ballistic missile defense.

4. A general commitment to work with Russia to pursue verifiable and sustainable nuclear arms reduction globally using multi-lateral negotiations.

I will be working with Gerald Celente, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Garland Nixon, Wilmur Leon, Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampil, Jeff Norman, Danny Haiphong, and many others to put together an event, Operation DAWN, on September 28, 2024.

The goal of this event will be to get as many American citizens as possible to tie their vote to the policy posture spelled out above, and then to leverage these commitments in a way that compels all candidates for the presidency to articulate policies that meet this criterion.

In doing so, the voter would be fighting for a chance to save democracy by making his or her vote count, save America and the world by creating the possibility to avert nuclear conflict, all by making the candidates for presidency earn their vote, as opposed to simply giving it away.

Operation DAWN is still in the preliminary planning stages. More details will be published here as the planning progresses.

By James Carden, The American Conservative, 8/15/24

As the Kursk offensive heads into its second week, Ukrainian forces now claim to control nearly 30 Russian villages comprising 1,000 square miles of Russian territory. In a meeting with security advisers at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin directed his ire at Ukraine’s sponsors, claiming, “The West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians.” The Kursk offensive marks a significant escalation in the two-and-a-half-year-long conflict. 

So, what are some of the broader implications of the Kursk offensive? 

A few observations:

1. The Kursk offensive highlights, among other things, the inherent risk of what I would call “non-allied allyship.” Washington has no treaty of alliance with Ukraine, yet the Biden administration persists in acting as though Ukraine is not just a treaty ally—it acts as though Ukraine’s survival in the form it took for three short decades (1992–2022) is essential to the national security of the United States. Washington’s granting of non-allied allyship to Ukraine has led Kiev to act in ways that are detrimental to its own survival—including through Kiev’s refusal to implement agreed-upon provisions of the Minsk Accords, which, if implemented, would probably have demonstrated to the Russians that waging a war of choice was unnecessary.
2. The Kursk offensive also shows, once again, that the idea that “if the Russians are not stopped in Ukraine they will go on to conquer Eastern Europe” is patently absurd. Russia could not conquer Kiev in 2022 and has been fighting a costly war of attrition even since. 
3. Russia remains, however, the world’s leading tactical nuclear power, and as such Ukraine’s raid on Kursk puts it and its military and financial backers, including the US and NATO member states, at risk for retaliation.
4. Despite the success of the incursion and the loss of prestige suffered by Russia, it is important to remember that, on balance, Ukraine is losing the war. According to a new report in the Financial Times, “The amount of territory captured by Russian troops since early May is nearly double that which Ukraine’s military won back at heavy cost in terms of lives and military materiel with its summer offensive a year ago.”
5. The decision by President Volodomyr Zelensky to bring the war to Russia—while no doubt viscerally satisfying to Ukraine and its many supporters here in Washington—will also demonstrate to Moscow that it has no one with whom to negotiate in Kiev and that the decapitation of the Ukrainian military and political leadership is a necessary precondition to achieving their ultimate war aim, namely, Ukrainian neutrality. Kursk is surely a morale boost to Ukraine and an embarrassment for Russia. It will also likely prolong the war. 
6. The incursion into Russia shows once again that President Joe Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan, far from being too cautious—as a number of high profile neocons have alleged— are, instead, facilitating Kiev’s journey up the escalatory ladder. It is a journey to an unknown destination. 
7. Ukraine would not have been able to pull the offensive off without the approval and material support from Washington. As such, the U.S. and Europe are seen as complicit in this highly symbolic attack on Kursk, which is, after all, the site of the largest tank battle in history. The 1943 battle against the Nazis cost the Russians an estimated 800,000 casualties. The conclusion now being drawn in Moscow as they once again face German tanks on their territory is not difficult to surmise. 

In the end, the administration has not been honest about what is actually at stake in Ukraine. Now would be an opportune time for the president or the current vice president to articulate, and without recourse to received ideas such as those about defending “democracy,” why Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the matter of who governs a handful of Eastern Ukrainian provinces is worth risking a war with Russia. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do believe it is, they ought to explain why—perhaps during prime time at next week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

YouTube link here.