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THE PENTAGON PAPERS ARE THE DEATH RATTLE OF THE EMPEROR, NOT YET OF THE EMPIRE

By John Helmer, Moscow
  @bears_with [1]

The sound out of Washington from the Pentagon Papers is what is known in the medical profession as a death rattle. This is what happens when an emperor makes a lethal or suicidal mistake; dies at the hands of his  praetorian guard;  and is replaced by the military candidate.

In ancient Rome   the process started with the murder of the Emperor Caligula (lead image, left) and his replacement by Claudius from  41 to 54 AD. As Claudius predicted, it would get worse.  From 238 AD there were fourteen “barracks emperors” in just thirty-three years. After that there were ghost emperors – the real power was in the Roman army. But the power of the army was shrinking smaller and smaller geographically as it ran out of arms to extract tribute and enforce its tax-paying protectorate until ultimately it could not protect itself.  

The history means the empire doesn’t die quite as quickly as the emperor.

What the Pentagon Papers mean is that that the US is heading for military rule. An incumbent or a  candidate without the endorsement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff cannot win or keep his power. This form of military rule is not so much to save the empire from the Russians in Europe and the Chinese in Asia – the US Army, Navy and Air Force are already losing both of those wars. They have leaked their warnings to a hapless boy at an airbase on Cape Cod in order to cut their losses and save themselves to fight another day.

Accordingly, the Pentagon Papers signal the start of their fight to the end of the caligulists at the State Department like Antony Blinken (right) and Victoria Nuland (centre), and the so-called neocon (horse for president)  faction in the Democratic Party.

This also means that the alternative US military voices whom you see on Youtube – Colonel Douglas McGregor, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, Major Scott Ritter and also CIA veterans like Philip Giraldi, Larry Johnson, and Ray McGovern – they too are trying to save the US empire. They aren’t pro-Russian or pro-Chinese. They don’t want to see the US forces defeated so comprehensively that none of the allies will agree to pay the bill to be protected.

Watch Shaffer [2] tell Andrew Napolitano on Friday, April 14 [3],  what you have been hearing on air in War of the Worlds [4] and in print for much longer.  Shaffer insists he and his intelligence community colleagues, in military uniform and at the CIA, know everything about Russia from the raw intelligence they have been gathering.  This is a mistake of fact and a folly of judgement. It’s exceptionalism reworked to a fresh purpose.

Top: Andrew Napolitano interviews Tony Shaffer, April 14, 2023 [3].  Bottom: Official photograph of the JCS, December 2020 -- Mark Milley is second from left, Charles Brown third from right. No photograph of Milley and Brown closer together has been found on the JCS website [5] or in media publication.

That’s the purpose of the Pentagon Papers which General Mark Milley, retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)  and General Charles Brown, the US Air Force (USAF) chief of staff and candidate successor to Milley, have been trying to achieve since an operation to leak the highest classified JCS documents on the war in Ukraine was started through the Air Force chain of command from its top to its bottom last December. This operation did not strike target until April – the slowest guided missile firing in USAF history.  

Napolitano has been a trial litigator and a court judge in New Jersey [6],   so he knows how to ask a forensic question to get an answer at the courtroom standard — the balance of probabilities for civil crimes, beyond reasonable doubt for homicide. Here are Napolitano’s questions for Shaffer:

Napolitano and Shaffer have missed the difference between the batch of ten Ukraine war papers first reported nationally in the New York Times on April 6, and the CIA papers which have followed in their dozens.  

Russian officials didn’t miss this significance. But in their public response they have limited themselves to saying there is nothing new, not already published, about the CIA releases.  “The fact that the United States has been spying on various heads of state, especially in European capitals, for a long time now, has come up repeatedly, causing various scandalous situations,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said [7].   About the CIA reports of Russian military staff conflicts, also repeating Russian media reporting and public debate,  Peskov added [8]: “I’m doubting… the author’s understanding of the essence of what is happening inside Russia.”  

“There has been no need to read leaks or articles on this,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova added on April 12 [9].  “It is clear that NATO, the United States and Great Britain are not just deeply involved, but are directly conducting and managing the destabilisation of the situation in this region through the Kiev regime. Nobody is hiding this. Relevant statements are made every day. They say they are not a party to the conflict. But they have never hidden any information about their involvement. On the contrary, this has been endlessly ‘elevated’,  assigned a special historical role, and called ‘their mission.’ There is nothing more to expect or analyse. Nuances or additional facts may appear, but hardly anyone on the planet has any doubt that the collective West, headed by the US and Great Britain, are behind this.  Regarding surveillance, I will not comment on planted stories and anonymous sources. It is useless and counterproductive. The fact is that this is not news either. Surveillance is a fact, first of all, on their allies, those who trust them. Did someone not know this? If so, it means that people are not following the agenda.”  

Listen to the broadcast [10].

For the discussion of the role of Germany in the war against Russia, Heinrich Bücker (Buecker) leads in the second and third segments. According to a Berlin district court judge in January, Buecker is one of the leading voices in Germany today threatening “public order”.

In a summary judgement, without hearing courtroom evidence, Judge Tobias Pollman said Buecker’s  criminal offence came under Section 140 of the Criminal Code [11] and had consisted of “publicly approving a crime of aggression (Section 138 of the International Criminal Code [12])  in a manner likely to disturb the public peace at a meeting.” Pollmann charged Buecker of approving in his speech “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in violation of international law, the illegality of which you knew.”  

Read Buecker’s full speech, translated into English, here [13]:  

Left: the speech on June 22, 2022, at the Soviet Memorial in Berlin’s Treptow Park on the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union; read this report of the case here [14]. Right, Heinrich Buecker at the Coop Anti-War Café in Berlin; follow the website [15].  The Restaurant Guru [16] says: “Try nicely cooked berliner. Guests visit COOP Anti-War cafe bar to taste good coffee. The well-trained staff works hard, stays positive and makes this place great. The fast service is something these restaurateurs care about. The homey decor and cool atmosphere let clients feel relaxed here.”  

On warfare by the Germans and Americans, it was the English soldier Spike Milligan who said in one of his war memoirs that the Americans had become the new Germans. He died before this war reveals that, led in Berlin by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the Germans have now become the new Americans. From his grave in Winchelsea, Milligan [17]is still talkative on the subject of warfighting and the false bravado it can cause among caligulists and praetorians alike.