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It's flattering when someone like the Pope confirms what I have been saying for years
World War III has been declared – Pope Francis
The pontiff has lamented military conflicts across the globe and said
the Russia-Ukraine crisis may have been “provoked”
© Getty Images / Milos Bicanski
Pope Francis has suggested that World War III is already in progress, as evidenced by “intertwined elements” at work in the Russia-Ukraine crisis and other conflicts across the globe.
“A few years ago, it occurred to me to say that we are experiencing a third world war fought piecemeal,” the head of the Catholic Church said in a May 19 interview with Jesuit media outlets that was published on Tuesday. “Today, for me, World War III has been declared.”
Francis noted that while the fighting in Ukraine “pricks our sensibilities more,” wars also are ongoing in such places as northern Nigeria and Myanmar, “and nobody cares.” He added, “The world is at war. This is something that should give us pause for thought.”
What is happening to humanity that has had three world wars in a century ... ? You have to think that in a century there have been three world wars, with all the arms trade behind it.
Acknowledging criticism for his failure to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin and his past comments suggesting that NATO expansion onto Russia’s doorstep might have provoked the crisis, the pontiff denied being “pro-Putin.” He said such a claim would be “simplistic and erroneous.”
“I am simply against turning a complex situation into a distinction between good guys and bad guys, without considering the roots and self-interests, which are very complex,” he said. “While we witness the ferocity and cruelty of Russian troops, we should not forget the problems and seek to solve them.”
Asked how the Jesuit editors should report on the Eastern European conflict in a way that contributes to a peaceful future, Francis replied, “We have to get away from the common mindset of Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood was good, and the wolf was the bad guy. Here, there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in the abstract. Something global is emerging, with elements that are closely intertwined with each other.”
He also cautioned against focusing only on the “brutality and ferocity” of the conflict. “The danger is that we only see this, which is monstrous, and miss the whole drama that is unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps somehow either provoked or not prevented. I also note the interest in testing and selling weapons. It is very sad, but at the end of the day, that is what is at stake.”
Francis praised the heroism of the Ukrainian people in defending their country, but he pointed to outside interests putting them in peril. “What is before our eyes is a situation of world war, global interests, arms sales, and geopolitical appropriation, which is martyring a heroic people,” he said.
The pontiff reiterated his concern, first made public in an interview last month, that NATO may have instigated Moscow’s military offensive against Kiev. He recalled a conversation with a head of state, whom he identified only as “a wise man,” a couple of months before the fighting began. “He told me that he was very concerned about the way NATO was acting. I asked him why, and he said, ‘They are barking at the gates of Russia, and they don't understand that the Russians are imperial and they will not allow any foreign power to approach them.’”
Francis also warned that after many of Ukraine's Western backers “opened their hearts” to the women and children fleeing the country in the early days of the conflict, support for its refugees is already “cooling down.” He added, “Who will take care of these women? We need to look beyond the concrete action of the moment and see how we will support them so that they don’t fall into human trafficking or end up being used, because the vultures are already circling.”
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NATO pledges more heavy weapons for Ukraine
The bloc is unwilling to fight Russia directly and treats Kiev as a proxy, Dutch PM admits
Ukraine must get more NATO heavy weapons, the military bloc’s head said on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting of the US-led ‘contact group’ to discuss the logistics of that undertaking. NATO is trying to adapt to the “constantly changing” demands from Kiev, according to the US envoy to the alliance.
“Ukraine should have more heavy weapons and NATO allies and partners have provided heavy weapons ... and they are also stepping up,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday in The Hague, where he met with leaders of seven member countries ahead of the NATO summit scheduled for the end of June.
“In terms of weaponry, we stand united here that it is crucial for Russia to lose the war,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who hosted the meeting. “And as we cannot have a direct confrontation between NATO troops and Russia, what we need to do is make sure that Ukraine can fight that war, that it has access to all the necessary weaponry.”
That way, NATO countries get to make kazillions of Euros with none of the casualties. And Zelensky thinks they are doing him a favour. He must have shares in weapons manufacturers.
Romanian President Klaus Johannis, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Belgian PM Alexander De Croo, Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Portuguese PM Antonio Costa, and Latvian PM Krisjanis Karins also attended the meeting in the Netherlands. Stoltenberg previously visited Sweden and Finland, which have applied to join NATO but will most likely not be formally invited to the June 29-30 summit in Madrid, due to Turkish objections.
Meanwhile, US Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith was reported as saying that NATO countries are trying to adapt to Kiev’s demands for additional weapons, which are constantly changing.
According to the Pentagon, initial efforts to supply Ukraine focused on portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, but are now shifting to tanks and heavy artillery due to the nature of the current fighting in Donbass.
Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has said that Kiev urgently needs 1,000 howitzers, 300 multiple-launch rocket systems, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles, and 1,000 drones.
While the US has pledged only four HIMARS rocket launchers, the Pentagon’s policy chief, Colin Kahl, on Tuesday revealed that they would be supplied with heavy guided missiles, with a range of 70 kilometers.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has arrived in Brussels, where he will chair the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group to discuss how to best supply Kiev. According to an unnamed US official quoted by the Pentagon’s news release, “Ukrainians know themselves best what they’re dealing with, and we actively seek their information on the battlefield conditions.”
“Generally, we take their assessment as reliable and valid,” the official added.
Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered Minsk Protocol was designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.
Of course, to say this they have to ignore the 28 or more bio-labs working in the country, financed by the Pentagon. No other country has dozens of bio-labs.
Cheerleader of NATO wars spotted in Ukraine
Bernard-Henri Levy’s presence in Odessa should give pause to those
who still believe NATO is not involved in Ukraine
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
Bernard-Henri Lévy. © Getty Images / Franco Origlia
French intellectual and philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy (commonly referred to as “BHL”), has an odd propensity for appearing alongside western proxy fighters in war zones. And new reports now place him on the ground amid the conflict in Ukraine.
The day after the February 24 launch of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, France 2, the main state-owned television network, hosted a debate featuring, on one side, former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, perhaps best known worldwide for his role during the run up to the Iraq war in 2003. Back then, he served as the foreign minister and represented France’s opposition to the American efforts under then president Jacques Chirac at the United Nations Security Council.
After then US Secretary of State Colin Powell made his now infamous speech imploring the international community to back an invasion of Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein’s use of weapons of mass destruction, De Villepin argued in favor of inspections.
“Given this context, the use of force is not justified at this time. There is an alternative to war: Disarming Iraq via inspections. Moreover, premature recourse to the military option would be fraught with risks,” he said.
History has now proven him correct in his assessment.
De Villepin’s call for prudence and avoidance of military escalation in Ukraine was loaded with historical lessons learned. “Military interventions never yield the expected results,” recalled the former French prime minister. “History has taught us this in Libya, Iraq and the Sahel.”
On the other side of the France 2 debate table was BHL, who has a rather interesting relationship to some of the conflicts evoked by De Villepin. “[Russian President Vladimir Putin] launched this crazy war, without reason, against a people who had done nothing to him,” replied the philosopher.
It seems that in BHL’s world, wars start like magic with a need to protect completely innocent parties that just happen to be on NATO’s side, and not because of covert shenanigans that predate them — something that BHL should certainly know about.
During the NATO-backed war in Yugoslavia — the war in Europe that those commenting on the current situation in Ukraine seem to forget — BHL, who just happened to be hanging out in the region, overtly backed the NATO proxy, then Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović, who, his opponents believed, was a Muslim fundmentalist. Izetbegović was allegedly used by western forces to helm Islamist fighters against Serbia and ultimately carve out a zone of influence and military control in the Balkans. Later, in a 2019 tweet, BHL referred to the al-Qaeda-linked Izetbegović as “one of the great, luminous figures of the 20th century.”
Then, in March 2011, ahead of the NATO invasion of Libya, which led to an overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi that October, BHL was spotted in Libya meeting with “Libyan rebels,” footage of which can be seen in BHL’s documentary, “The Oath of Tobruk.” It would be easy to chalk up Levy’s presence among the western-backed proxy fighters ahead of Gaddafi’s ultimate demise at their hands as just journalistic interest or intellectual curiosity. But that theory is betrayed by French reports of an activist role at the highest level of the French government.
BHL succeeded in bringing three members of the future Libyan government in waiting to meet with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace on March 10, 2011 — seven months before Gaddafi’s demise, according to Le Figaro. The newspaper also reported that BHL, who met with then US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, at a Paris hotel and noted an American disinterest in military intervention, subsequently took to French airwaves to pressure Sarkozy into having the French take the lead in the invasion by telling the French audience that, “If Gaddafi takes Benghazi, the huge French flag flying on the Corniche will literally be spattered with the blood of the massacred Libyans.” Four days after the media appearance, NATO began its military intervention in Libya.
In 2012, as the NATO-led invasion of yet another country, Syria, raged in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad with “Syrian rebels” backed by CIA and Pentagon covert programs, BHL took to the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival with both Libyan and Syrian rebels, to symbolize “the passing of the torch of Liberty,” according to Le Point magazine. Just a few months later, BHL was calling for France to also send weapons to the western’s proxy “rebels” to fight the Syrian army, specifically, “cannons, anti-aircraft missiles, defensive weapons, for Aleppo, Homs and the rest of Free Syria.”
Then, in February 2013, BHL wrote on his blog, “La Règle du Jeu,” praising then French president Francois Hollande for launching French military operations in Mali, which were ultimately an unsurprising result of the destabilization of Libya caused by the earlier French-led, NATO-backed invasion cheered by BHL himself. “For the first time, in Mali and Libya, force was put at the explicit service of freedom and justice; for the first time – since Valmy! – there is a desired link … between the exercise by France of its power and the defense of values that go beyond it.” In defense of the “values” of leaving countries in tatters for years after hopelessly destabilizing them because their leaders refuse to kowtow to the agenda of Washington and its allies, apparently.
And now, BHL — symbolic of a certain caviar leftist that sells wars and invasions of benefit to the military industrial complex from the lofty perch of humanitarianism — wants action in Ukraine. And after calling for it prominently via French mainstream media, he is hanging out in Odessa — coincidentally, just in time for the launch of the new “Ukraine fighters”, once again doing NATO’s dirty work, but this time comprised of foreign and domestic western-armed warriors, both regular troops and irregular combatants, cheered from the sidelines by the west against Russian troops.
A regular and welcome fixture all over English and foreign western establishment media from America to Europe, BHL tends to show up wherever there’s armed conflict between interests of the western establishment intent on clinging to the current unipolar world order, against those more representative of a more competitive multipolar alternative. His very presence in Odessa should give pause to anyone who still honestly believes that NATO isn’t a directly involved player, using Ukraine as a platform for its ongoing fight against a new and emerging world order over which it risks losing control.
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Lara Logan Sheds Light on Ukraine and Its History
with Globalists (VIDEO)
Lara refers to another journalist who, unfortunately, is never named. But her brief summary of his work is worth listening to. I will attempt to find out who she referred to.
By Joe Hoft
Published March 20, 2022 at 7:30am
Lara Logan was on with Cowboy Logic and dropped some bombs on Ukraine in her assessment of all that was going on there. The Conservative Treehouse brought this video to our attention.
In this short interview segment, Lara Logan outlines her brutally honest perspective on why Ukraine is ultimately so important to people in power within the DC system.
Logan shares on Cowboy Logic the following:
I encourage everybody to look at the work of a journalist, an American journalist in Ukraine who has been there for years and years and years and has done extraordinary work trying to uncover how Ukraine is at the center of this cult of globalists. How it is a center of money laundering for the oligarchs and their allies in the United States. How it is at the center of Russia collusion and the whole false narrative. How it was amazingly a Ukrainian dossier, right, that put Paul Manafort behind bars…
We’ve been reporting for years that some key US politicians were all making money in Ukraine.
Please go to The Gateway Pundit to watch the video.
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