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Putin's Game Plan Predicted by John McCain in Resurfaced 2014 Clip
Awarning issued by the late U.S. Senator John McCain—nearly a decade ago—about Vladimir Putin's intentions in Ukraine has gone viral.
The clip shows the former GOP lawmaker for Arizona and one-time Republican presidential nominee taking a swipe at American reluctance to help Ukraine for fear of provoking the Russian leader.
"There's nothing that provokes Vladimir Putin more than weakness," he told the BBC program on September 10, 2014, over six months after Russia had illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
McCain told the BBC that Putin's strategy was to "separate eastern Ukraine" and "perhaps" create a land bridge between Russia and Crimea as he criticized the lack of weapons given to Kyiv.
"We would not send weapons to the Ukrainians when they were begging for them. We wouldn't even give them intelligence because we didn't want to 'provoke Vladimir Putin,'" he said.
McCain, who died in 2018, had been critical of the U.S. handling of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, following Moscow's claim that a referendum in 2014 had sealed Crimea's Russian status, which is disputed internationally.
In 2015, McCain told CBS, "I'm ashamed of my country," as he pushed then-President Barack Obama for more weapons to help Kyiv.
While not committing U.S. troops on the ground, the administration of President Joe Biden is the biggest international donor of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine against Russian aggression, including around $50 billion in support, including weapons systems that have made a big difference to Kyiv's forces.
"By showing weakness, we provoke Vladimir Putin. We have to understand Vladimir Putin's ambitions are the restoration of the old Russian Empire," McCain said in the 2014 interview.
When challenged that Putin had never stated he wanted the east of Ukraine to be incorporated into Russian territory, McCain responded that Putin sought a "Novorossiya" or "New Russia" in reference to some regions of Ukraine.
This showed that "he wants Eastern Ukraine—he wants to make sure he keeps Crimea, and he would like to see—if he can get away with it—Moldova and the Baltics as well—that's what he wants to see restored."
The BBC clip, which, as of Tuesday morning, had more than 1.1 million views, was praised by social media users for its prescience.
"Back in 2014, John McCain fully predicted Putin's next moves," tweeted user Maksym Borodin. "John McCain got it," tweeted Paul Massaro, senior policy advisor at U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"John McCain predicted Putin's 2022 playbook back in 2014," tweeted another user, while the journalist and author John Sweeney wrote, "John McCain nails Putin."
The journalist Euan MacDonald tweeted: "John McCain had Putin sussed (that's why the Kremlin hated him so). If only more U.S. republicans were of the late senator's caliber."
Newsweek has contacted for comment the McCain Institute, the Arizona State University think tank founded in 2012 which is named after the late senator.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-mccain-twitter-2014-clip-russia-ukraine-1770823
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Google releases free software for smaller websites to moderate terrorist content
Google has released new free software meant to give smaller companies tools to take down terrorist content as the search engine fends off pressure from European regulators.
Jigsaw, an entity within the Big Tech giant dedicated to cybersecurity and geopolitical issues, released the software in partnership with the UN-based Tech Against Terrorism initiative. The free software will help websites identify terrorist content, as identified by a Big Tech partnership, that is spread through comments and third-party links and alert human moderators so they can remove content expediently. This new software arrives as lawmakers from the European Union and the United Kingdom increase legal pressure on Big Tech to actively remove the content.
"There are a lot of websites that just don't have any people to do the enforcement. It is a really labor-intensive thing to even build the algorithms [and] then you need all those human reviewers," Jigsaw CEO Yasmin Green told the Financial Times.
Green also said that the software is becoming increasingly necessary as companies such as Facebook and YouTube tighten their content moderation standards. "I have noticed a big shift in the [leading] platforms becoming much more effective at moderating, and that pushes terrorist content and Covid hoax claims to [other sites]."
The content will be identified via a database provided by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a partnership founded by Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube in 2017.
Google's move comes after the EU passed the Digital Services Act in May, which was aimed at holding platforms accountable for spreading hate speech and extremist content. Companies such as Google and Facebook argued that the bill would be detrimental to smaller tech companies since they lack the resources required to moderate appropriately.
Google is not the only one releasing software to help combat terrorism-oriented content. Meta released an open-source program on Dec. 13 that will help platforms identify if a post contains known terrorist content.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/google-tools-anti-terrorism-moderation-smaller-sites
Mexican Human Smuggler Busted with Five Migrants in Arizona near Border
Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a Mexican national after finding him with five smuggled migrants on December 27. The incident began as Nogales police officers initiated a traffic stop on the suspected human smuggler’s SUV and called Border Patrol for assistance.
The agent conducted an immigration interview and identified the driver as a Mexican citizen. The Mexican man allegedly attempted to smuggle five migrants into the U.S. interior. Agents arrested the alleged human smuggler and transported the migrants to the station for processing.
Over the Christmas weekend, Ajo Station agents apprehended two large migrant groups near Lukeville, Arizona. The 166 migrants came to Arizona from six different countries, Chief Modlin tweeted.
During the month of December, Tucson Sector agents apprehended more than 22,000 migrants, according to an unofficial Border Patrol report reviewed by Breitbart Texas. Agents in the Yuma Sector to the west and the El Paso Sector to the east apprehended 31,000 and 56,000 respectively.
Between the three contiguous sectors, agents apprehended more than 109,000 migrants in December.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/01/03/mexican-human-smuggler-busted-with-five-migrants-in-arizona-near-border/