"A Bodyguard of Lies"
by Jim Rickards
"Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason?
Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
- Sir John Harington
"The all-important midterm elections are just one week away. I’ve said a lot about them, and will have more to say about them in the days to come. But today, I want to talk about something even more important: truth vs. official lies. More specifically, I want to talk about truth and propaganda. It’s said that truth is the first casualty of war. And Churchill once said that in wartime, truth is so precious that it needs to be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies. That’s why propaganda plays such a large role in modern warfare.
The fact is wars are conducted in part through lies and propaganda. For example, in the early days of World War I, the British cut the undersea communications cables that ran from Germany to the U.S. The British wanted to control the flow of information and issue what we call today “misinformation.” And so they created inflammatory accounts of German atrocities to sway public opinion, like German soldiers skewering Belgian babies on bayonets. While there will always be individual acts of atrocity in wartime, these reports were largely propaganda.
Here in the U.S. itself, President Wilson had special police forces who arrested anyone reporting negative news on the progress of the war. Sound familiar? It’s like the social media companies today canceling or censoring anyone who reports that the vaccines don’t work or masks don’t work. The media call it “misinformation” (even though it’s scientifically valid) and move on. The same is true with the war in Ukraine. The propaganda machine kicked into overdrive early on.
Bodyguard of Lies: The CIA and MI6 leaked a steady stream of anti-Russian lies to prop up morale. These lies were reprinted in warmonger media outlets like The Washington Post, The New York Times and NBC News. That means it’s almost impossible for U.S. citizens to get the real story through mainstream media outlets. Still, there is some honest reporting going in if you know where to find it. You just have to filter the sources and find those with good pipelines of information (including inside the government) who do not have a hidden agenda and are willing to speak the truth.
It’s not necessary to rely on Russian sources (the Russians are certainly not above propaganda, although they’re generally more truthful than the U.S. media, believe it or not). There are excellent analyses to be found among Swiss sources, German experts who are not in favor of the war and some on-the-ground reporting from the front lines on specialist websites.
Get Ready for the Russian Counteroffensive: Some of the best sources are found among retired U.S. military officers who are experts on warfare, still have good contacts inside the military and intelligence communities, and who consider the war in Ukraine to be highly detrimental to U.S. national security and the economy.
One top commentator who fits this description is Colonel (Ret.) Douglas Macgregor, who wrote a recent commentary about the war. Macgregor points out that Russia is preparing for a full-scale counterattack to roll-back recent Ukrainian gains near the Donbas and Kherson. The Russians have been consolidating their positions. resupplying, mobilizing troops, and preparing for winter warfare at which they excel. It’s just a matter of waiting for the ground to freeze so trucks and armor can maneuver without getting bogged down. The attack could come as early as November or December at the latest. Yet, that is not Macgregor’s main concern.
Is the 101st Airborne Division Being Used as Bait?: His fear is that the U.S. will double down in the face of this attack and deploy U.S. troops to the battle. The Pentagon recently deployed units of the 101st Airborne Division to Romania, just miles from its border with Ukraine. Airborne forces are generally light infantry that lack the firepower of, say, armored units or mechanized infantry. But if these forces did get directly involved in the fighting, heavier reinforcements would be on the way. From there, it could be a short step to nuclear war with Russia.
To some, that might sound unrealistic or even paranoid. They’ll say it’s just scare-mongering. But this is a legitimate possibility, and there’s a real chance of it happening. The fact is, we’ve been on the path of escalation with Russia since 2008 and the tempo of escalation has accelerated since the war began in February. All experts on nuclear warfighting agree that if a nuclear war begins, it will be the result of escalation to the point that one side feels it is cornered and has no choice but to use nukes. That point is getting closer by the day. Macgregor calls on Congress to stop the White House, but he’s not optimistic that’ll happen.
Nuclear War? It’s Not the End of the World: The possibility of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia is a shocking development after thirty years, during which nuclear weapons and nuclear war between superpowers were almost forgotten.
What is as disconcerting is the fact that the discussion of nuclear war is casual, almost flippant, and carries none of the seriousness with which the topic was formerly addressed. It also carries no comprehension of the existential consequences and sheer horror that the use of nuclear weapons entails. It’s almost as if the warmongers in and around the White House were playing a game of chicken without realizing the other driver had no intention of changing course.
Now the U.S. elites have started psychological operations (psyops) aimed at Putin with nuclear weapons as the bait. They claim that Putin has threatened to use tactical weapons in Ukraine and possibly other parts of Eastern and Central Europe.
That’s a lie; Putin never said that. When asked, both Putin and Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev said that if attacked, Russia would defend itself by all means necessary, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. That’s not news. That has been Russian or Soviet policy since the early 1950s. It has also been U.S. policy since then. Neither side has ever renounced the first use of nuclear weapons.
Putin’s expected answer to a question posed has been turned into a threat he never made. This is U.S. and UK propaganda at its worst (and most dangerous). This lie about Putin’s intentions quickly morphed into another psyop about a “false flag” operation. That’s when you stage an attack disguised to look like an attack by your enemy in order to justify your own “retaliation,” which you were planning all along. Recently, the narrative that Putin would use nukes or conduct a false flag operation morphed into a related narrative that Putin would use a “dirty bomb.”
He Said, He Said: In effect, Putin would detonate a dirty bomb and then blame the Ukrainians and Americans. A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon, but it does employ radioactive material wrapped around conventional explosives. When detonated, the radioactive material is dispersed and can poison or kill any people or livestock in the area. Not to be outdone, the Russians countered by saying the U.S. or Ukraine would conduct the false flag by detonating a dirty bomb and then blaming the Russians as an excuse to escalate Western involvement in Ukraine.
At this point, we have both sides warning the other side will conduct a false flag with a dirty bomb in order to justify their own pre-planned escalation. If a dirty bomb does go off, each side will blame the other and the truth will be a casualty of war. Meanwhile, a senior Russian foreign ministry official has warned that U.S. satellites, which have been providing critical targeting information to Ukraine’s armed forces, may be “legitimate” targets of Russian forces. How would the U.S. respond if Russia starts taking out its satellites? We may soon find out."
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