iraq's oil reserves and they were discussing it before the war, even began declassified documents states that the british government was encouraged to start preliminary work to ensure you pay companies are well placed to pick up contracts in the aftermath of the war by way of specific follow up we should convene a meeting with b, p, shell, and other appropriate u. k. companies, whether together or separately to explore ideas and tap into the expertise we would need to handle this carefully and assure it was confidential to avoid charges of oil motivations. so preliminary work to ensure you k companies well place to pick up contracts in the after mouth. this is all in the public domain. it's been 20 years. and so no one has been held accountable. a country was destroyed at presidents was basically assassinated. and those who did it aren't behind bars. no, but lecturing others on war and peace. the bad guys got away. unbelievable.

artie continues its coverage of the legacy, the u. s. left and iraq after the unprovoked invasion later throughout the day. stay tuned. at this hour, american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from great with and freedom with

ah ah ah ah ah hello and welcome to cross stock were all things are considered i'm peter lavelle slowly, but surely, legacy media support of the west warren russia is changing. ukraine is not winning

and hardly likely to win in the end. propaganda is at times powerful but hard. cold facts eventually trump fables written by the elite mediocre scribes cross sucking ukraine and propaganda. i'm joined by my guess, ryan christian in franklin. he is founder, an editor of the last american, but back up on an host of the daily wrap up in paris. we have rachel marson. she is a syndicated column. this an rti contributor. and here in moscow we have pepe escobar. he is an independent geopolitical analyst, an author specializing in eurasia, or a cross hoc rules and the fact that means he can jump any time you want. and i would appreciate, i want to go to rachel 1st in paris. i want to get everybody's take on the, the, the downing of a drone over the black sea and the reaction, both governments, russian and american to that fact because it's very interesting that they've gotten

to a certain threshold. and then both of kind of moved back. rachel, what do you think? yeah, i think we're looking at a p. r battle for hearts and minds throughout this entire thing. and there's a lot of talk of potential false flag falls, flags could escalate, could it deescalate conflict? i think ultimately it's just going to keep following its course. and there's going to be these little incidents here or there. and nobody really, as you mentioned, peter has an interesting escalating any more, but it does allow for each party to jackie for position. and that's all to me what we're seeing with this as incident as well. i'm a ryan, i'm really glad that rachel mentioned the word propaganda cuz she is absolutely right because this is what it is been most of the time coming from the west. so we have this doubting of the drone, but the, even the, um, the, the least thoughtful people in the west. no, not many, 5 would they didn't. no one is that it's been shot down. it was down to. okay. i think that shows a little equivocation, like we're seeing in the washington post,

like we're seeing in the new york times. there's a equivocation going on right now. now i don't know if that is part of a false flag itself. we can't tell, but there's certainly a shift going on. ryan, i definitely share her concern regarding the, the false flags the topic in general and it just in this entire sphere. personally, i see this more as agreeing with the general topic. this is kind of jockeying for position are really just playing the p r game. ultimately, i think that we play this game. we see this game back and forth where the u. s. government seems to feel that they can operate in any field, anywhere dest, you know, and just claim the international waters discussion. but if russia does the same in any, even even remotely in the same way in reverse, in any kind of area close to the western hemisphere, it becomes some sort of act of war and framed that way. and so we just see this game, this p r, game, back and forth. and we know when we've been reported or heard the reports about how this actually went down about dumping the fuel and how they responded. i, your point about downing, i think, is really important,

that ultimately they want people to misinterpret how this went down, because then they can play that better for ok. it's going to go to peppy, basically pepe the same question to you. because, you know what the russians are basically saying is that, don't send anymore drugs over the black. see we, you know, what's going to happen here. and i think that, you know, there's going to be these, these elements in the us are going to say, yeah, but if we send another one, it will probably get harassed as well. i mean, it's a very clear signal without creating a major incident. go ahead, pepe on this thing is going to go on forever. now it's a false flag that to the end of time didn't keep provo, it's pro cation, of course, and publications in the black sea and publications near crimea. the, the m t 9 repo was go. we manger vocation and according to my best intel information,

it was down by electronic war for the russians are masters of electronics warfare. not nobody's better than them in the world. so this, this is probably the real story and, but nobody is interested in spinning the real story and all the for the america in terms of loss of face. it's even worse than the 5 the seen a yeah. so with the shop explosives. ok, well of course he's making reference to the, the north stream disruption and the noise stream pipelines here. but rachel, i mean, i guess you, you're the one that started out with the, this kind of the, this is more of a propaganda more than anything else. also the we keep hearing about talk of the new ukrainian offensive is do you think that this drone story plays into that is that to show you know, how aggressive the russians are and how much we have to help our ukranian friends? i mean, is there any connection here? because like i said, the pages are the main stream media, they're beginning to doubt the administration. go ahead. rachel. i don't know if

these people are that intelligent or sophisticated to tell you the truth. i mean, the best they could come up with was this, with this drawn story was that, you know, there is a russian jack involved and it basically with to fuel on this american drone and thereby harassing it. it's just, it's just kind of ridiculous. and the fact that we're even talking about this when, you know, every single time there's an incident involving international aerospace and a russian jet that gets a little too close to alaska when you know, rushes right there or anything like that. you know, russian jazz ends up close to europe in international airspace. somehow it becomes a topic and a kind of have to wonder why it is you're absolutely right because you know, ryan big. it's interesting that we have this incident here which complains to the advantage of all parties involved because of its interpretation. but we have inside the united states with the presidential election coming up. and we had carl tucker

carlson over at fox news. do a kind of a straw poll of republicans that are running or may potentially run. and the verdict is, in a most republican voters, and most of the candidates that are in are, could run our, our, against this war. it's, it's biden's war. and, you know, you can, you can show the other russians is there as aggressive as you may be. but at the same time, there is no appetite because this is an elite war, and that's what the has been packaged as, as it is a process, a package of propaganda. people are not interested in this conflict. ryan, i wholeheartedly agree. and i think that's been something we can see in the united states long before this war. i think this is an especially propagandized war, and i think it's, it's, it's been politicized to would agree that the, that we haven't seen in a while. but ultimately, you look before this, you can see any pull from either left or right and seeing that most americans don't want more war of any kind. and it's always,

that's why they have to package it politically and sell it to people. and that's why it ultimately became this larger concept about, do it for the world, or do it for freedom and take it on the chin because putin's causing everything. and it is irrational neither, you know, understanding americans don't want this. it paints the picture that we're not really represented by our government today. yeah, i absolutely agree. you know, in pepe, you're the one in the program that's already mentioned, crimea. and if we go back to the, the illegal transfer power in the coo and 2014, that's what victoria knew and wanted. she wasn't interested in kim, she was interested in crimea. and this is why we get all of this talk from the administration and nato, that it, the, at the very least crimea has to be demilitarized. so it's very interesting that has nothing to do with a political settlement. that talking about it, a geopolitical a settlement that the west is interested in. i thought it was very interesting. it has to be demilitarized, they already see what they want to accomplish, which they won't go ahead. pepe particular effect is much more serious because the

sick counselor, ukraine, encounter of offensive. if it happens, let's say around the end of april or may or june d objective is to cut off crimea from applied strong, very few telegram military channels. russian specialists and some of them are really, really alarmed that this is a strong possibly going to throw every sink that they ever seen, that nato hass against that the russian forces to cut off crimea from, from russia. so if this happens in terms of once again, p r, operation and propaganda war, it would be a massive win for the nato stun space. so i hope the ministry of defense is seriously pay attention to it. and according to some very, very good military analysts than reports us on the ground. they are not so sure.

well, rachel, that's exactly the point. you know, you can get when you get reporting from the ground is very, very much in a divergence, away from what we keep hearing from the zalinski people from nato itself. i mean, even stilton berg says, you know, the russians are winning on the, in logistics. well, that's what war is his logistics. go ahead. rachel? yeah, well i mean, i've been spending some time recently, obviously in europe in paris here and in germany recently i covered some protests at the ramstein nato and us air base where they launched operation drone operations, notably into africa for example. and protests is there. we're saying, look, i mean, what's going on in ukraine is just light years away from the problems that we have at home. and yes, they feel badly for everybody involved in, in both countries who are impacted by all of this. but, you know, who's actually thinking about the interests of germans, the interest of french people. i mean,

we have my coal right now who according to the telegraph today or yesterday, was saying that, you know, there's an issue with you wanting to band together and by ammunition altogether and finance it. and there's a big fight right now because that in the you, because france and michael want to have that production in france. so in other words, they want to kind of use it to bolster, use this conflict and the proper propagation of the conflict to bolster their military industrial complex like the u. s. is which doesn't really give them very much incentive to tamp things down or to head to the negotiating table when they're still kind of jockeying for position in order to get it to get some kind of benefit out of all this. meanwhile, you know, they're talking about increasing french defense production as a result of all this and having it funded by you tax money. essentially. meanwhile, french bakeries are struggling to keep the baguette alive. so there's like years

away from the everyday concerns of the average european at this point. yeah. well it's all about priorities and the average citizen, they're the lowest found the totem pole here, or i'm going to jump in here. we're going to go to a short break, and after that job break, we'll continue our discussion on ukraine and propaganda state was harvey. ah who is the aggressor to day? i'm authorizing the disco strong sanctions. to day russia is the country with the most sanctions imposed against it. and number those constantly growing figure which of the problem was of course renewed as we speak on the billing is pretty much the mind. the we're, we're sure we're banding all in ports of russian oil and gas,

new g i g of hope with the little middleware. or did you have regarding joe, by imposing these sanctions on russia, jo has destroyed the american economy. so there's your boomerang self. ah, welcome back to cross talk. we're all things are considered. i'm peter bell. to remind you we're discussing ukraine and propaganda. ah. okay, let's go back to to ryan in franklin, you know, in, in the larger picture of what's going on here. we were getting the outlines of what the west is trying to, jackie ford, leased up push zalinski and his people to do and basically have an offensive get it

tried to reach out to retrieve as much re occupies much land as you can. and then we'll sit down and talk, you know, what the biggest problem with that, ryan is. what if the russian so want to talk? well, there's a lot of dynamics to that that, that, that point it really, it people often discuss and nobody wants to negotiate the barrel of a gun. and that's how the u. s. very, as far as i can tell, kind of ubiquitously and everything they do foreign policy operate where it's ultimately we demand something and if you don't comply with that, nothing else is going to be discussed. we see that going on with syria right now in regards to just rebuilding syria. no, we won't even allow them to get their lives back until we get a saw that a power. that's how this tends to go. so i don't, i mean, nobody would expect russia from this position to actually engage with the negotiation with somebody is not negotiating honestly. but i do think that this is about driving this to a position that benefits the west of the specific in the united states at the expense of ukraine. and i think everybody who's looking at this honestly can see that. and, and speaking of the people in regard to france or, you know,

any well where else we're discussing this dynamic thinking, premier, like, think about the hypocrisy of argue when you're doing this for the people. and then taking back of territory that, that voted to not be part of who grant exactly obvious reasons. it's incredible it's, it's really amazing that you bring that up because, you know, and they, and they had referenda before 2014 people should be knowledgeable about that. that mean for ever since ukraine became independent, they've been wanting to leave ukraine and they finally got their opportunity when there was a cool. let me go back to rachel. you know, rachel, you know, one of the fundamental themes that i've been pushing on this program ever since the conflict started is that we already know what the russian position is on and ending to the conflict they told the world on december 17th, 2021 about their security demands. okay. those security demands have not changed. okay. so there's no reason to wonder what the russian position in the russian position came before the conflict even started. go ahead. rachel?

yeah, i think the big question is, what is the western position? because for example, here in france, present a menu and my co initially wanted negotiations and now it's ukraine has to win on the battlefield. that seems to be the line. seems like all these western countries are fighting with each other to see who can get closest to zalinski. it's like they're playing a game of musical chairs and they don't want the music stopped to stop right now. but when it eventually does, and all this is over, they're all going to fight to be the guy who's not on a chair, but is on zalinski lap as he sits in the chair, they want to be that guy. so they, they're buying time so that they can all jockey with one another until to see who can get the best outcome when all this is over. that seems to be what it's about. but what's really interesting, as well as in terms of being able to trust the west when it comes to negotiations, that's pretty complicated. i mean, just look recently at the black sea grain deal, which was everybody was up in arms about the fact that grain can get out of ukraine

to poor countries. well, look what's happening to it. i mean, i'm a turkish president, an error to one. he said that 44 percent of that green right now is going to europe . the top 3 countries that are getting it in. but 46 percent of it is going to china. turkey which are obviously. busy portals to africa and asia, but it's also going to spain and it's being used to feed livestock. i mean spin, makes enough grain or has enough grain for itself more than enough grain for itself . so doesn't need it to feed its people, but it's be used to fatten up pigs so that europe can benefit from that commercially. so i mean, all this talk about, oh, we need to get food out of the region and poor russia are rushes blocking this effort. i mean, ultimately, at this point it's, it has nothing to do with what they initially said. i mean, it is like backing up a food bank and ultimately going home and shoving it all in your fridge, but say, rachel is absolutely a 100 percent right here. okay. and you know, in the,

in the way that i go back to right here, ryan, they, they never anticipated any of these things here. oh, the sanctions. russia will be crushed. the war will be over. there will be regime change in russia. they have such a simplistic view of it all, but when it started getting tough, sanctions boomerang on europe and on the world when we were talking about food security and whatnot. and then on the military front, millet, the nato is never designed to fight a war like this not to appear. ok, not appear conventional power like russia. i mean, i'm every single stage, every single step. nobody in the west thought this through clearly go ahead. ryan. i would agree that it's clumsy and i think that's just kind of a common theme with a lot of the foreign policy today, but i would police put forward the kind of the possibility that they did think this would happen. that the argument, i mean really taking a step back to understand what sanctions are even written down in their own documentation. what they're intended to do is drive people to

a point of desperation to where they accept whatever the solution is. we see this with foreign policy all over the place right now. argue americans are under the same focus of u. s. foreign policy kind of concept we're, we're being driven to a point of desperation. but so the idea being that, that they expected europe to be in this position because ultimately we see this being a, this isn't just a, i mean, you could even try overlap to the great reset kind of direction for a lot of things. but that's a different conversation. the point is, i think they knew, ignored stream attack and so on. we put europe in his point of desperation to make them more rely on the united states when you see this good. aren't rachel? you know, right? just came up with an interesting theory and i think it can work with mine as well. as i did that, there was a plan, a russia with sanctions, would destroy the country, all the arms that nato would give. ukraine would solve their problem, but it didn't work now the plan bent plan b, because you brought it up, is that, you know, let the will, will it take european markets, i will make sure get more arms sales because all these countries with this spending

more money on arms and you know, we kind of walk away, we didn't get everything we wanted, but we did get a strategic advantage of having europe completely under the thumb of the united states. lot of people in the us will be happy with that outcome. rachel? well, german business associations are rein the alarm right now over the fact that businesses are moving like industrial businesses in notably in germany, but also from other european countries are moving to the united states. why? because biden's inflation reduction act, which is supposed to be a climate change act, but it's really just disguised protectionism. it basically gives brakes to green companies, of which germany has many because it kind of bank that whole economy on all the, on all that before it decided to, you know, cut itself off from das and ultimately realized it didn't work. but i mean, the germany has a lot of green businesses and what they don't have right now. it's very much energy

. i mean, like i said, i was in germany recently, and i decided to go for a swim at a private pool. and good luck trying to find a public pool near the french border that was even open because energy costs are so high. but um, i mean i had to swim in a freezing cold pool because even private business that charges 23 arrows for an entry didn't really want to heat the pool that much. so i mean, that gives you a just a taste. i wasn't even there for very long, but already i had a taste for how bad things are now. imagine if you're german industry and you're having to use just a massive amount of energy to produce things or what are you going to do when you're strapped for energy because your country basically come off its own energy supply. are you going to stay stick around to see how bad things get or are you going to be seduced by this offer of, you know, lots of energy and tax breaks over in the us? well, guess what? they're choosing. rachel, you're absolutely right. i mean, this is a, you know, it's really amazing them. this is what america does to its friends. okay. what do

you think it does to its enemies? it's an extraordinary there. you know, betsy ryan with the, the, the, the amazing outcome about this is that this really is a, it seems to me that, that we have de facto now to globalization is going on right now. the united states, as it's out wise in europe. he has japan, australia, and then the rest is going to go to russia in china, and there's no going back here now. i mean, the russians, i don't see why they would rebuild that pipeline so the americans can blow it up again. know there's plenty of countries and asia that want this energy, you know, why? because germany became a very prosperous country off of cheap energy. everybody else wants to do the same thing. the, the west can go its own way. and good riddance, okay, if you're blowing up pipelines like this, go ahead. ryan. i completely agree. i think that the policies were seeing it really in a global way, but you could spearheaded by a few what u. s. government being one of them is this, you know, e s g mindset of doing things for this kind of work. green, you know,

sustainable development, goal direction. but the, in the inherit hypocrisy on it shows that they don't even care about these things. at the core, i mean, you have the u. k and the united states arguing that nuclear weapons, gas, all these things that are like the core, the crux of what environmental us. think of the problem there. labeling as e s g compliant because well they use them to fight for freedom which allows them to fight for, you know, a bottle of law like you can see how they can abstractly argue that the, the biggest polluters in the planet are allowed to keep doing these things, and you can see the same gang played with, you know, it's the same concept. we're ultimately germany should be accepting this reality because it's better for the world standing. and that's not even the truth. right? and so, and in the point about germany and, and the, or rather, the company's going over the united states. that i think again, the point about the foreknowledge, or rather the doing this for that exact purpose is driving these companies. there is a byproduct, but i argue it was something that they foresaw, right? so that they're abusing their own allies and to your point, you know, think about it, what they're doing, they're enemies,

it's obvious. they don't care about anybody. nothing is sacred to the u. s. government, as far as i'm concerned in the hours they work with you here. rachel, what i mean? yeah. that the i have as i would ask you a question, but it's a question i've been asking for almost a year and a half. why does your go along with is again, impoverishment. okay. i mean, europe was about security and prosperity. it's about neither now. yeah, because everything's ideological. i mean, why and big question is why in february of last year 2022 was german chance are all i shall standing in a podium right beside joe biden. yeah. when and this is prior to the conflict in ukraine, really going hot and popping off, but why didn't he just stand there? when somebody in the press corps asked, you know, what would you do? what's gonna happen with nord stream to if russia goes into ukraine and biden said, there will be ignored stream to on will make sure that and all i've shown just

stood there just stood then again, why? i mean, right? you just stood there like he had nothing to say. didn't interject. excuse me. what? right. like you think that a european leader a be like, pardon me, and french president amendment my call, went to bob, went over to the white house last december to try to bag, which is never good position to be in bag. the democrats and republicans on the white house. you please, please, please don't move forward with your climate act and your protectionist act, which risks cutting off european products from your market? and basically he was told, well, we'll see what we can do, but other things, but sorry, that's just the way it's going to be. that's the way. always good. you know. and so we what came home and he said big victory. yeah. and he, and he said big 3, we're, we're gonna, they promise to keep talking. okay, well that's the how europeans it. okay. and that's why in this program we were referred to him as sergeant schultz, my chancellor, filled. and i'd like to tell everybody we lost peppy, a technical problem,

we'll have him back soon. i want to thank my guess, i'm in franklin pears and in moscow. and i want to thank our viewers for watching us. here are the see an exam, remember process rules. oh ah, no, it's not so good to remember. you leave a message for me. come now. i've done. it does not bring me to marry marie, i'm dissolved as you get me enough. so i'm deb renaissance. i got you going to say thank you. i make a fan or his assistant even. you are pretty. she said she did you. so she didn't, she actually awful the morning bono and you said so 2 guys could chun number? no, i mean she is equal full his assistant that we neil on p facility. but that meant katie ma'am said softer dead girl. eat when you bruno or we can extend to people. i

had been, i was only come i passed since one it is was what's your best care? cisco's were shabby and won't care, vetted as one of his one is the last 2 days from the sick. one mean call naval, can you call name big don't exist. a numeric id she never show to digest. cuz city dick group full lead from alpha mana, to hope what i'm sick. i felt a mix about was all the talk said you put on the saw says what you did about he veg, hello to of the she will oh mm hm.

mm ah, a new era for russian chinese relations. this concerns shooting things. first trip after reelection, we to moscow later this month, also on the program. i didn't see any issue with normalization relationship, close investment. saudi arabia confirms it could very quickly start invest in, in iran, calling a breakthrough after chinese broken agreements of restoring diplomatic ties between the 2 states. and we continue our special coverage of the grim legacy left by the disgust us led war in iraq.