Links — 16 Feb 2022 AM

Moon of Alabama ("Putin" punks the West?)
Happy 'Russian Invasion' Day

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/02/russian-invasion-day.html

TASS (Russian state media)
Kremlin points to high probability of Kiev unleashing military attack on Donbass
https://tass.com/world/1404271

China blasts inflated war hype by US, notes harm to Ukraine’s socio-economic stability
https://tass.com/world/1404223

Disinformation around Ukraine outnumbered fakes on Syria — diplomat [Maria Zakharova]
https://tass.com/politics/1404605

Russia doesn’t take statements by NATO chief seriously any longer — MFA

https://tass.com/politics/1404677

Sputnik International (Russian state-sponsored media)
Donbass Republic's Intel Says Ukrainian Army Continues to Prepare for Combat Actions

https://sputniknews.com/20220216/donbass-republics-intel-says-ukrainian-army-continues-to-prepare-for-combat-actions-1093074421.html

Zero Hedge (contesting control of the Med)
Hypersonic-Equipped Russian Fighters Land In Syria Ahead Of Mediterranean Drills
Tyler Durden

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hypersonic-equipped-russian-fighters-land-syria-ahead-mediterranean-drills

RT (dollar hegemony threatened and with it US geopolitical hegemony? May not hold entirely from an MMT POV but US elites seems to think this way, which operationalizes it.)
The reason the US wants war in Ukraine is ultimately all about the dollar

Thomas J. Penn

https://www.rt.com/news/549450-dollar-dominance-russia-invade-ukraine/

Although COVID-19 primarily spreads via respiratory droplets that are released when a person coughs or sneezes, researchers have found that it can be transmitted by aerosol particles that linger in the air, especially in closed settings.
The new tool consists of a portable collector designed to suck in ambient air and shake out aerosol droplets consisting of fine particles that can carry the novel coronavirus, mix with the air and be inhaled.

ECNS (Chinese state media news service)

New tool tests for virus traces in air
China Daily
http://www.ecns.cn/news/2022-02-16/detail-ihavsivh2525184.shtml

Without the consent of the Afghan people, the US willfully disposes of assets that belong to the Afghan people, even keeping them as its own. This is no different from the conduct of bandits. This latest example has once again laid bare that the "rules-based order" the US claims to champion is not the kind of rules and order to defend the weak and uphold justice, but to maintain its own hegemony.
As the culprit of the Afghan crisis, the US should not exacerbate the suffering of the Afghan people. It should unfreeze their assets, lift unilateral sanctions on Afghanistan as soon as possible, and assume its due responsibility to ease the humanitarian crisis in the country....

US' so-called 'rules-based order' is to maintain its own power and hegemony: FM spokesperson [Wang Wenb…

http://www.ecns.cn/photo/2022-02-16/detail-ihavsivh2525251.shtml

Of the country’s reserves, $7 billion were “parked” in U.S. financial institutions. This is normal procedure for developing countries, with the, now in retrospect, very ironic purpose of keeping funds in a secure place. Watching this latest Biden debacle, Central Banks of multiple countries are now surely contemplating pulling their monies out of U.S. financial institutions to protect them against arbitrary dictatorial disposal....

Responsible Statecraft — Quincy Institute (asserting imperial perogative?)

Biden’s $7 billion Afghan heist

Cheryl Benard, Medea Benjamin and Masuda Sultan

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/14/bidens-7-billion-afghan-heist/

The message: Here are the grannies, little kids, and (attractive) young women manning the front lines of democracy against Russian reaction and revanchism.

What Americans and British reporters didn’t report: The training was offered by the Azov Battalion, which has its base in Mariupol. Our own FBI describes Azov as a “paramilitary unit…known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and the use of Nazi symbolism” and alleges it “participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white-supremacy organizations.” (Defenders of Azov counter that it’s a regular unit, merely “rooted in a volunteer battalion formed by the leadership of a neo-Nazi group,” as if that’s much better than the FBI account.)

In the ABC segment, you could just see Azov’s SS-inspired insignia on the arm of one of the uniformed men training granny. Otherwise, Anglophone media kept mum. It fell to internet sleuths to point out the connection for Brits and Americans. This, even though outlets on the Continent had no trouble straightforwardly reporting the neo-Nazi link. Euro News, for example, ran the story under the headline: “Ukraine Far-Right Group Offers Training to Civilians.”

The American Conservative

The Nazis [in Eastern Europe] Globalist Liberals Prefer To Ignore

Sohrab Ahmari

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-nazis-globalist-liberals-prefer-to-ignore/