Any Human Language?

Last time I checked, Russia's official language, Russian, is a human language. That means you can  translate it, learn it, use it and comprehend it on this planet of ours. That is what usually assumed by Russians, especially at the top political level, which is a level of Russia's President or Minister of Foreign Affairs. Top shelf interpreters work there and they bear personal responsibility for precision with which words from and to Russian officials are translated. Well, EU "diplomacy" (I have no idea what is this) and "elites" evidently have issues with understanding a rather important human language, such as Russian, since they still do not get the message. When Russia's President tells them directly that: "... love is impossible if it is declared only by one side. It must be mutual", he expects EU to understand that he, being highly cultured and well-behaved statesman, is telling EU to go fuck itself until their attitude changes. OK, that's Putin. Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov, however, is a man who can turn the heat up a notch and that is why his famous meme is... well, famous. 

EU's high commissioner for whatever passes there for diplomacy, Josep Borrell, is in Moscow now, expressing his worries about:

The EU's foreign affairs chief has said relations with Russia are at their lowest level because of Alexei Navalny's poisoning and subsequent imprisonment. Josep Borrell was speaking during a three-day visit to Moscow ahead of talks with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said he was ready to discuss "any topic".

Well, he got his audience with Lavrov who, basically, repeated what Putin said but in a more direct form. Speaking about EU as non-agreement capable, Lavrov stated:

"Поэтому мы свою жизнь выстраиваем, исходя из того, что Евросоюз является ненадежным партнером, по крайней мере на данном этапе."

Translation: because of that, we build our life out of consideration that EU is not reliable partner, at least at this stage. 

After that Russia declared persons non-Grata and kicked out three diplomats from Poland, Sweden and Germany, who were especially active in fomenting trouble inside Russia around Navalny. I don't know in what language should Russia talk to EU for EU to understand that, as Lavrov stated, Russia doesn't really care about EU's internal decisions and nobody in Moscow, in reality, gives a shit how Borrell "assesses" EU-Russia's relations. Who knows, maybe Lavrov has to go to 11 and openly state to these cretins that they should go and fuck themselves, literally. Evidently they still don't get the message. EU does not have a subjectivity in international relations, it is an object which is there to dance to Washington's tune. Russians are fully aware of that and that is why Russia is turning away from EU. Including being somewhat reluctant, for now, to let go of Nord Stream 2 for purely geopolitical, not economic reasons as Ischenko thinks, a view which I share. I also completely agree with his assessment, that abandoning NS 2 for Russia is merely an inconvenience, for Germany--it is a catastrophe.  In what language, then, do you communicate with a bunch of cretins? Obviously, they do not understand human language. 

To underscore the absence of intelligent life in EU, I will leave this link (in Russian) and you can easily translate TASS reporting using Google translate tool. They don't even understand that most of Russia laughs at them. As you can see from this EU graph, the trend in economic relations was pronounced already by 2019. Russia simply started importing less from EU. 

Even when adjusted for Covid-19, it is clear that imports from EU to Russia will continue to decline in mid to long-term. As some people in Russia suggest: what about trading Navalny for Assange? That could be a really good deal, especially since politically Navalny is dead, especially after his disgraceful behavior in court today, while his "org" was effectively dismantled and there are many sad people in MI-6 and CIA today because of that. As strategic truism states, don't try to make strong plays with a weak hand. But then again, do they even understand a human language, any human language. 

 

ADDENDUM: What is wrong with these people? 

President Joe Biden has dusted off an old story about how he came under fire while visiting Iraq, more than a decade after he admitted the claim was somewhat exaggerated. ‘Where’s the MSM outrage?’ social media users have asked.While addressing US State Department staff on Thursday, Biden hailed the diplomats for showing “great personal courage,” which the new US president has purportedly seen first-hand. "I’ve been with some of you when we’ve been shot at," he told the audience. It’s unclear what Biden meant by the passing remark, and the White House has not elaborated on the statement.

What's the deal here with stolen valor pandemic of which I wrote before. It is becoming nauseating with US politicians telling fairy tales of their "courage under fire". 

 

I Might As Well.

OK, I might as well put my 2 pennies in on the issue of today Assange's arrest in UK. It was expected and Assange is not the first, nor the last whistle-blower who got screwed by government agencies for providing crucial disclosures on government operations. I already had a word on him a while ago, I will reiterate:

He is a very bright fellow, you know, in iPhone-7, or whatever is hip currently, way. Book smart? Probably, again in a Idiot's Guide to C++ or Java kinda way. And, of course, Julian Assange never completed his programming degree but still managed to obtain a global notoriety through his Wikileaks service and his public activity, which, in the end, brought him to the position he is in right now--that is being a prisoner in Ecuador's Embassy in London. Evidently this, somehow, qualified him in the eyes of many to pass judgements on some key geostrategic and political issues.

For a person who decides to provide classified information, even if it discloses evil intentions of government, for a general public one has to be slightly more than just celebrity to handle own noble intentions. Assange is primarily a celebrity and not a very bright one, I may add.  For people even remotely acquainted with history and military and intelligence operations, however, WikiLeaks information was and is not something which could have been defined as eye-opening. In fact, it was a "nothing new" affair. In other words it was known to anyone with a half-brain. For "lefty" products of Western hamster universe of office plankton, however, Assange is a "hero". He may well be the one, after all, but I personally still have to face the fact that classified information is called classified for a reason, and while US government and political establishment, in many of their manifestations, are evil, nobody, in any government, ever condoned leaking of classified data, and for the purpose of preventing such leaks any serious nation has a well-developed network of counter-intelligence services who operate on a legal foundation of, putting it in layman's lingo, "you leak, you get locked". Russia, US, Germany, China, India and Lesotho (well, I am not 100% positive about Lesotho)--all operate on this principle. I know, I held a very high level of clearance and I knew what may happen and did happen when those rules were violated.

Edward Snowden, obviously, was aware of this paradigm and, as an actual holder of high level clearance in CIA and intelligence professional he knew what he was getting into, and now look at him--he is obviously doing better, way better, than Assange, while living in Moscow and being secured from extradition to the USA. So, what's the lesson of Assange's saga? Very simple--be professional in what you are doing, especially when crossing the red line of the law. People like Assange are not exactly professionals--they are celebrities by definition and have views of the outside world that of celebrities or, being frank, very close to those of modern office plankton defined by ignorance of true complexities of modern world and forces at play in the world of espionage and classified information. So, while I am sympathetic to Assange's plight and see the value in his activity, Assange, for me at least, will remain one of those examples of how not to do what he was doing. This is if to assume that no higher level game was played in which Assange was merely a pawn. But this is yet to be learned, if ever. So, let's wish Assange luck in getting, possibly, but probably not, Presidential pardon--after all, he and WikiLeaks did help Trump get elected.   

UPDATE: No comments are required here, everything speaks for itself--crying out loud shame, but expected nonetheless:

US President Donald Trump, who said he loved WikiLeaks during his election campaign, tried to distance himself from the arrest of Julian Assange, which was carried out by Britain on the request of the US.Speaking to journalists in the Oval Office on Thursday, hours after the arrest of Assange in London, Trump said:

I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing. 

UPDATE 2 from 04/12/19: Russian language is needed. But here is Alexandr Asafov speaking to Pravda on Assange and speaking about what I spoke here in this post. Practically the same. He also thinks, in softer terms, that Assange made a mistake. 
 
Why Assange decided not to go to Russia? I have an opinion but it changes absolutely nothing at this stage. 

Julian Assange As A Prognosticator.

He is a very bright fellow, you know, in iPhone-7, or whatever is hip currently, way. Book smart? Probably, again in a Idiot's Guide to C++ or Java kinda way. And, of course, Julian Assange never completed his programming degree but still managed to obtain a global notoriety through his Wikileaks service and his public activity, which, in the end, brought him to the position he is in right now--that is being a prisoner in Ecuador's Embassy in London. Evidently this, somehow, qualified him in the eyes of many to pass judgements on some key geostrategic and political issues. Such as this: My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment,” said Assange. “Banks, intelligence, arms companies, foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and the journalists themselves.

Well, in related news--the sky is blue and the water is wet. If repeating, however justified (and I underscore this), cliche passes in Assange's world as "analysis", then how does a real deal, a genuine article, so to speak, look like? Obviously, if Assange thinks that dumping gigabytes of e-mails, which is nothing more than raw data which is as far from knowledge as it could be, makes him qualified for making a grandiose statements on internal US policies, I have to ask a question--how about this really interesting turn of events which happened a week before Assange gave his views? Last time I checked, Federal Bureau Of Investigations, which is not only Law Enforcement organization but also a serious intelligence agency, while not being "for Donald Trump", certainly, is not "behind Hillary Clinton" either. And FBI does matter in US internal politics a helluva deal more than Assange can possibly imagine. So, can we please deduct FBI (the rumor has it that some pretty high positioned agents within FBI do care about integrity) from the list which Assange's "analysis" produced. Again, the rumor has it that Clinton can even be indicted. Yes, Mr. Assange, we know that US media are corrupted to the core, they are also utterly incompetent but isn't it strange, that despite all this unprecedented volume of sewage poured on Trump he is still not only in the race but, actually, leads HRC. Does it tell us anything? Evidently great "analyst" Assange is not aware that good ole' USA does not consist of "banks, intelligence and arms companies" only. US also consists of very many people who are decent down to earth folks who do believe that their voice must count. Majority of the US, once one leaves premises of "hip" places such as Silicon Valley, NYC or SF and gets into the neck of the woods, where real people live, it becomes very clear why Trump has such an enormous support. Yes, including very many people in said banks, armed forces, intelligence agencies and arms companies. But then again, as a programmer, I doubt Mr. Assange knows distinction between information and knowledge.

Israel Shamir wrote a wonderful piece at Unz Review titled "I Envy You", which starts with this: I envy you, American citizens. I do not care about your military might, nor for your supreme currency, the US dollar. I envy your chance to deal on 11/8 a decisive blow to the rule of the Masters of Discourse. Though the Masters control the entirety of world media, and they decide what people may think and say from Canada to Hong Kong, only you, American citizens, can defeat them. This is a great chance, a unique opportunity not to be missed. I can only subscribe to every word in this excellent piece. 

But back to Assange and his celebrity status. It is this status which allows many people, even not very educated (and by education I don't mean formal degrees only) such as Assange to pass judgement on things they have no clue about. In his interview to NYT couple of months ago, Assange paraded his ignorance of world affairs, geopolitics, economics and military in the most profound ways. While making correct statements on "neo McCarthyist hysteria", he produced this:“Any serious analyst understands that China and the United States are the only real games in town,” he said. “China has ten times the population of Russia, seven times the GDP. Russia has the GDP of Italy. Of course, within its own neck of the woods, countries in between Russia and China, the Caucasus and so on, of course, Russia is very significant to them. On the world stage, Russia’s a bit player.”

     

Here he repeats this beaten to death cliche about Russia's GDP being that of: Italy, Australia, Netherlands, Albania.... etc. One can fill in this array any way one wants. I wrote about these idiotic and ignorant comparisons a number of times. Somehow the fact that Russia's GDP (PPP) is almost twice that of Italy's escaped Mr. Assange, but then again, no surprises here. What is the most troublesome is the fact that Assange doesn't know how GDPs "convert" themselves into the national might and why Indonesia, whose GDP is very roughly in the vicinity of Russia's (3.027 vs 3.745 trillion) remains merely an important regional nation (plus most populous Muslim state), while Russia is a global player capable to shape world events and in this case Russia is "not punching above her weight" (another beaten to death cliche), unlike US, but stays entirely within her weight category, which historically was and remains heavy. I do sympathize with Assange's activity somewhat, in the end, he and his organization, did a lot of good in helping to open the eyes of many people globally on the scale of the corruption and evil which resides within political system which self-proclaims itself being holier than thou. But that is the limit to which Mr. Assange should confine his "analytical" activities since, while often doing a good deed, he remains quite arrogantly ignorant on many key global issues and makes statements whose veracity doesn't stand a chance against overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary. After all, the term hacker has "hack" as it root and that who Julian Assange is. In the end, even "serious analysts", using Assange's lingo, had to admit that they basically know shit about the world outside. As Correlli Barnett wrote in one of his seminal works:

 

But then again, Barnett, being one of the most brilliant historians of the 20th century, I am sure, is not on Assange's reading list, after all, does Barnett know C++? 

It is 4 days before elections, unlike anything US had in the last 70+ years. Too much is at stake. 

                                  VOTE TRUMP!