Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone: Issue #246 - The Gray Zone Dots
Gray Zone is a profitable place to act for the unscrupulous, cunning and seditious elements. Succumbing to them is highly likely unless one can collect the dots and connect them. Its about the dots!
Image by Thomas G. from Pixabay
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
[State of the Union Address January 11 1962]” ― John F. Kennedy
The most critical strategy that most aggressors with a long term vision follow is to play the gray zone tactics. If they want to attack, they will ensure that the attack remains under the threshold in terms of appearances so the victimized population cannot respond back. When spin and compliant media is added to the mix, then the threshold can be increased.
For example, under normal circumstances, if the media was honest, Shaheen Bagh and Singhu border happenings would have counted as seditious and anarchist violent actions. Ordinarily, under honest media, the tone, content, and the nature of the actions would be toned down. Some aggression would be ensconced in a lot of niceties.
But when the media is compliant and spin is effective, the threshold of attack can be raised. As was done in those two circumstances.
Playing within the Gray Zone is where most adversaries prefer to be in and use to the hilt. It is important to recognize that. As also that whether weapons are used or information, it is a relentless war and the guard cannot be let down. As we will find out in terms of some of the actors of the recent events.
Frank Hoffman, the leading expert on Hybrid warfare describes this type of activity as:
“Any adversary that simultaneously employes a tailored mix of conventional weapons, irregular tactics, terrorism, and criminal behavior in the same time and battlespace to obtain their political objectives.” (Source)
Hoffman has also critiqued this definition because it does not fully account for other actions that are as lethal. Use of NGOs and Information falsification via compliant media.
Orange Revolution (or Помаранчева революція) took place in Ukraine from November 2004 to January 2005. The Ukrainian capital Kiev was the main Ground Zero for major protests, demonstrations, Civil disobedience, sit-ins, and strikes organized by the opposition. In October 2004, the Ukrainian Presidential election was between Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko. Both won almost equal votes and therefore, there was a run-off in November. According to reports, there were charges of corruption and Russia favored and backed Yanukovych, who won the runoff.
This started a set of protests called the Orange Revolution. Who was behind this revolution? As per a paper from the US Naval Postgraduate School, the players who pumped in money to generate these protests included:
US Government provided $143.47 million, which included $34.11 million for ‘democracy assistance’
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) pumped in $1.475 to organizations
The Organizations which were funded by USAID included Development Associates and Freedom House (FH is a U.S. government-funded non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights)
George Soros’ Rennaisance Foundation, which spent $1.65 million ‘leading up to the election’
Essentially, the Ukrainian theater was a battle between US forces from the Gray Zone and the Russian forces pushed by Kremlin. Both sides may want to take the high road, but at the end of it, it was just a geopolitical battle where NGOs were used as fronts, as Hoffman has said.
George Soros, as is now known, been instrumental in driving down and playing in currency speculative trades in the context of many countries. England, Thailand, Malaysia are well-known examples where he made money by intervening to short the currencies after a sustained set of actions to make that happen.
Financier Mr. George Soros led an attack on the Thai baht that drove the currency to an 11-year low against the US dollar last month and prompted Thailand to impose currency controls and raise interest rates, a Thai central banker said. (Source)
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused George Soros of ruining Malaysia's economy with "massive currency speculation". Soros claims to have been a buyer of the ringgit during its fall, having sold it short in 1997. (Source)
How Soros actually “broke” the Bank of England is less well known. Pressures on the pound on September 16, 1992, forced England to withdraw the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Georges Soros’s heavy shorting of the currency in response to Britain’s upping of its exchange rates soon led the British government to withdraw from the ERM as it began to be clear that it was losing billions of dollars trying to buoy its currency artificially. Soros made a profit of $1 billion, earning him the reputation as the premier currency speculator in the world. (Source)
In fact, in 2016, when there was a run on the Chinese renminbi, and the Chinese Government had to make a massive intervention using $700 billion of its foreign reserves. At that time, George Soros had suggested that he was betting against the Asian currencies while going long on the US Treasuries.
The Chinese had warned Soros by name.
George Soros, the man who broke the Bank of England and, according to some, helped precipitate the Asian financial crisis has been warned off going to "war on the renminbi" by Beijing. The warning, on the front page of China's Communist Party mouthpiece, comes as Beijing is struggling to stem capital flight and support its currency, in part through massive intervention that has scythed its foreign reserves by about $700 billion over the past 18 months to $3.3 trillion. "Soros's war on the renminbi and the Hong Kong dollar cannot possibly succeed — about this there can be no doubt," read a front-page opinion piece by a commerce ministry researcher in the overseas edition of the People's Daily headlined "Declaring war on China's currency? Ha ha". (Source)
Last year he announced a USD 1 billion fund to “start a global university to fight authoritarian governments and climate change.”
In his speech and a follow-up question and answer session, Soros covered a wide-range of issues, including the “overheated” U.S. economy, the dominance of Facebook Inc. and the autocratic rule of Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump, who he called a “con man and the ultimate narcissist.” (Source)
One wonders if the so-called “nationalist governments” is a euphemism for “governments that don’t bend to covert gray zone operations” which currency speculators like Soros can profit off of?
The Gray Zones
What is the gray zone and what types of actions are involved in that?
Here is a good explanation of it.
The Gray Zone battlezone is a constant struggle that is relentless. The first step to handling it is to sensitize the population with the understanding that they are in the battle zone, as invisible as it may seem.
Then, the “dots” need to be collected. Only the dots which are collected can be joined. Missing dots could mean missing the plot!
And, that is why you see the NGOs, the media persons, and the “activists” who are front soldiers of the adversaries in these Gray Zone battles always trying to question the dots. Specifically the critical ones. So, they can quash the collection of it out of embarrassment or pressure and then not be able to connect them for a comprehensive enough picture.
The “Greta Thunberg Toolkit” was one such “dot.”
Arrested activist Disha Ravi made the toolkit detailing digital support for the farmers’ protest against the three farm laws in collaboration with Nikita Jacob and Shantanu, Delhi Police said on Monday and claimed that Ravi revealed the information while she was questioned in Bengaluru after her arrest. (Source)
Rather, it was a “super dot” that brought together many dots into a rather interesting though disturbing picture.
Learnings share by the police yesterday showed some startling things.
Pieter Friedrich, associated with ISI operative, is the key name mentioned by Police in toolkit conspiracy.
On 11th January Nikita and Shantanu attended a Zoom meeting organized by the Poetic Justice Foundation in which modalities were chalked out: Prem Nath, Jt CP (Cyber Cell), Delhi Police (Source)
We have got a reply from Google on some of the questions regarding the Toolkit Doc: Delhi Police (Source)
A woman named Puneet who is based in Canada connected these people to the Pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation: Delhi Police (Source)
Disha deleted the WhatsApp group which she created to spread the 'toolkit': Delhi Police (Source)
Disha Ravi sent 'toolkit' document to Greta Thunberg through Telegram app, says Delhi Police (Source)
A team reached Mumbai and conducted searches at her (Nikita Jacob) residence on 11th Feb. She and her associates Shantanu & Disha had created the doc. The email account created by Shantanu is the owner of this doc & all others are its editors - Prem Nath, Jt CP Cyber Cell, Delhi Police (Source)
The rest of the actors have been discussed a lot elsewhere. But one guy - Peter Friedrich has been a rather unknown commodity.
So who is he?
For this, we will have to delve into the remarkable report from the Disinfo Lab titled “The Un-ending war: From Proxy War to Info-War against India.”
In the 1980s, a little-known terrorist Bhajan Singh Bhinder alias Iqbal Choudhary who said he was from Malaysia but was operating out of the US wanted to fund large-scale terror operations in Punjab. He teamed up with Lal Singh to send weapons to India. Lal Singh was caught at the Dadar Railway station and the plot was busted.
The conspiracy against India called K-2 (Kashmir-Khalistan) was hatched in Lahore led by Jamaat-e-Islami and Pakistani establishment including the uncle of the current minister (joker) Fawad Chaudhary.
Bhinder tried again in 1992 to send weapons to India but even that got busted. So in the new millennia, he shifted his attention from weapons to information as the tool for war.
In 2006-07, he identified a young Christian Missionary Pieter Freidrich to do hid bidding. The guy who was willing to work as a ‘security guard” was made the chief activist.
To provide credibility to Pieter, a number of institutions and organizations were formed in the US – prominent being Organization for Indian Minorities (OFMI) in 2007. OFMI was purportedly set up for the cause of minorities in India –but had no Indian or even Indian-origin minority in it. Pieter was also given prominent space in another similar organization Sikh Information Center (SIC), which was working for Khalistani agenda. (Source)
After a lot of trial-and-error, they worked to provide him the cover. Books under his name, articles in the compliant “news portals” and amplifying things via established influencers.
You can easily see what this guy is targeting. Disinfo lab shares the 4 agenda items of this duo - Bhinder-Friedrich.
Targeting idea of India – non-violence & Mahatma Gandhi – replacing it with an alternate image of ‘fascist India’;
Targeting India’s territorial integrity – working towards K-2 design;
Targeting India’s interests abroad by working against Indian origin American politicians; and
Whitewashing Pakistan’s sins – clean chit to Pakistan (ISI) in Kabul Gurudwara Bombings & questioning Pulwama attack.
It is instructive to check the map of Friedrich’s verified followers on Twitter. The who’s-who of Indian Left. (Source)
So when this guy Pieter Friedrich comes along embedded into the whole Greta Thunberg Toolkit scandal, you know where the whole planning started off from.
More importantly, do you see how the Breaking India ecosystem is created and amplified?
Try that with the pro-India activists and see how many out there back you up?
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) - fight for future of currency
We have been discussing the NewGen financial system in our past newsletters, specifically in the context of the Indian government’s decisions. Here is a very informative video on this topic.
market corner: 10 quick bytes
NPCI’s Bharat BillPay, en route to a billion transactions, is set to be the next payments disruption - more
British economy suffers worst annual slump since the Great Frost of 1709 - more
IT industry to grow by 2.3% in FY21 despite the dip in tech spends: Nasscom - more
Times Network, India’s premium broadcast network, has announced a strategic partnership with Airtel TV to launch zoOm in Nigeria - more
PM Modi’s 59-minute MSME loan approval: 2.23 lakh applications sanctioned by PSBs; 93% disbursed so far - more
India smartphone market declines 1.7% in CY2020 after years of growth - more
Premji Invest, Mirae Asset, others put $75M in lending startup KreditBee - more
A consortium, led by Asset Reconstruction Co. (ARCIL) and US distressed debt fund Avenue Capital, has agreed to buy the assets of Reliance Home Finance Limited (RHFL) for ₹1,800 crore - more
RBI announces Operation Twist worth Rs10,000 crore - more
Govt to divest 20% in National Fertilizers Limited - more
nota bene
LeT Operatives Arrested: Police on Monday said that they arrested two associates of terror outfits during an operation in Budgam. According to the police, the arrested persons were affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen (TuM). A police spokesman said a police team, along with 53 Rashtriya Rifles, arrested two associates of proscribed terror outfits LeT and TuM. (Source)
Blockchain City: In the Nevada desert, a cryptocurrency magnate hopes to turn dreams of a futuristic “smart city” into reality. To do that, he’s asking the state to let companies like his form local governments on land they own, which would grant them power over everything from schools to law enforcement. Jeffrey Berns, CEO of Nevada-based Blockchains LLC, envisions a city where people not only purchase goods and services with digital currency but also log their entire online footprint — financial statements, medical records, and personal data — on the blockchain. (Source)
Ramanujan Machine: A new artificially intelligent "mathematician" known as the Ramanujan Machine can potentially reveal hidden relationships between numbers. Hadad and his colleagues at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa wanted to see if they could use machine learning for something more fundamental. The researchers reported their results on Feb. 3 in the journal Nature. They have also set up a website, RamanujanMachine.com, to share the conjectures the algorithms generate and to collect attempted proofs from anyone who'd like to take a stab at discovering a new theorem. Users can also download the code to run their own searches for conjectures, or let the machine use their spare processing space on their own computers to look on its own. (Source)
Stonehenge mystery: Stonehenge was originally built in Wales before the stone circle was dismantled and rebuilt 175 miles away in Wiltshire, researchers claim. It is already established that the 5,000-year-old monument in Salisbury contains bluestones brought from a Welsh hillside. However, new research suggests that they were recycled from a dismantled circle called Waun Mawn in the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire. (Source)
‘Snitch’-fest: As federal authorities crackdown on the far right after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the movement’s leaders have found new sources of suspicion: each other. In the Trumpist “America First” movement and the far-right paramilitary group the Proud Boys, alliances are fracturing as extremists brand each other as potential informants. Now racist live-streamers are accusing their former comrades of attempting to turn over followers to law enforcement, while Proud Boys chapters are splintering from the national organization over similar fears. (Source)
video corner: Kali Yuga
It is a simple video but very powerful. We need this type of creativity in India. It shows what needs to be shown and without a word spoken it brings down the leftist facade!
Today’s ONLINE PAPER: Check out today’s “The Drishtikone Daily” edition. - THE DRISHTIKONE DAILY
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