Posted by “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
” (George Santayana)
I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
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A little history … infiltration by Soviet Union to recruit British “Toffs” attending Cambridge University
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1,495,363 views Aug 11, 2021 #dwdocumentary #documentary #berlinwall
For one group, at least, the erection of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961 was a stroke of luck. Over the following decades, the Wall would be the lifeblood of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi. By the time the Wall fell, in 1989, thousands of Stasi agents were employed with a single goal: to make the Wall insurmountable. The film tells the story of this existentially symbiotic relationship from the perspective of the Stasi under its notorious leader Erich Mielke. It’s the first time this most sensitive chapter of East Germany’s history has been told in such an exemplary and coherent way: including the deaths that took place at the Wall, and the cover-up and concealment of many of those murders. We learn about the arrests and imprisonment of tens of thousands of refugees, as well as the Stasi’s elaborate construction of tunnels and underground listening stations to track down tunnel diggers. From the billion-dollar business of selling GDR prisoners to West Germany, to the “filtering” of Western traffic at border crossings to recruit unofficial collaborators, Mielke’s specialists were everywhere. We see how Mielke’s power grew, as the Wall and the border system were perfected, and how the walling-in of the population created more and more work for the Stasi. The Wall became the Stasi’s main field of activity, and its daily bread. The fall of the Wall brought an abrupt end to both East Germany and its security apparatus. An irony of history is that, on November 9, 1989, it was a Stasi man who opened the first barrier on Bornholmer Strasse and thus initiated the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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Poignant:
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29th August 2023
Russian human rights activist who had been granted refugee status by the UK was arrested in Italy on holiday. The Italians planned to send him back to Russia. It was only after the UNHCR intervened that Italy backed off. Shame on Italy.
28th August 2023
This position by
on Russia/Ukraine is either profoundly stupid or seriously evil. There’s no other plausible explanation
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Marc Thiessen &
@marcthiessen
Aug 28
This by @VivekGRamaswamy is criminally stupid: “I will accept Russian control of the occupied territories and pledge to block Ukraine’s candidacy for NATO in exchange for Russia exiting its military alliance with China. I will end sanctions and bring Russia back into the world… Show more
28th August 2023
Yet another item on the list of actions against Russia that were discarded as unhelpful or impossible that are finally being done to isolate Putin’s mafia terror state. Had they only been done years ago, how many lives saved? What “restraint” today will be regretted next year?
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Iuliia Mendel
@IuliiaMendel
29th August 2023
Putin is out of G20. Lavrov again will make a visit instead of the Russian president. It means the international law can work and Putin gets more and more restricted as a war criminal.
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29th August 2023
Ukrainian T-84U Oplot in service with the 14th Mechanized Brigade
29th August 2023
FSB HELICOPTER CRASHED A helicopter owned by the intelligence service crashed, killing all three of Putin’s henchmen on board.
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29th August 2023
“It’s Daddy!” Little girl’s father sacrificed his life so she could grow up under a peaceful sky. We will never forget!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1696462931578274301
29th August 2023
Wanted war criminal Igor Girkin is kept in jail until September 18. The Moscow court recognized the lawful arrest of Girkin on suspicion of extremism. An appeal by his lawyers against the arrest and to release him was denied.
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29th August 2023
Yet another case of this fascinating Russian fixation with Perfidious Albion as the source of all its woes… https://spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-kremlin-sees-britain-as-the-ultimate-bogeyman/
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Francis Scarr
@francis_scarr
28th August 2023
It was only a matter of time before Russian state TV blamed the UK for the death of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin “I am in no doubt that this has the signature of the British on it!” declares Ihor Markov, a former pro-Russian MP in Ukraine, now living in Russia
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28th August 2023
Replying to
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s son Ian Brzezinski has it exactly right: “Ukraine needs NATO membership.”
previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Policy.
Ukraine needs NATO membership, not an ‘Israel model’
Granting NATO membership to Ukraine is critical to ensuring it wins the war against Russia quickly and decisively.
Michael Beckley explains how the United States and China became enduring rivals, or countries that have singled each other out for intense security competition—and why, once underway, such rivalries are extremely difficult to end.
29th August 2023
The cause of the deadly crash is believed to be a “technical malfunction,” state-run news agencies reported.
29th August 2023
The outlet said it obtained an unpublished decree from 2006 awarding the Medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” I class to Yevgeny Prigozhin.
29th August 2023
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has said he is on friendly terms with Russia’s ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and rejected accusations that he was meeting with the Russian diplomat to report to him: https://vk.cc/cqvzCU
·28th August 2023
Washington hamstrung in formulating viable security guarantees for Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported on 29 august: https://vk.cc/cqvpbT
29th August 2023
Vladimir Putin has never brought up the subject of anti-Russian sanctions with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron or the leaders of other countries that introduced these restrictions, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told: https://vk.cc/cqvfUj
29th August 2023
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expects to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in September, before the 78th session of the UN General Assembly begins on September 19, a political source in Ankara told TASS: https://vk.cc/cquVPR
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And for those who fail to realise what happened in 2014
Olena Halushka @OlenaHalushka
On August 24, 2014, russian monsters held a so called “Ukr POWs parade” in Donetsk. The crowd around was swearing and throwing trast at the exhausted hostages. This was a war crime and violation of Geneva conventions. The world had been too blind to russian atrocities so long
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Who Watches the Watchers? 