minion, lackey, cohort, flunky, underling, henchman, hitman, hype man, hanger-on, crony, legion, acolyte, pressure group, clique 跟班, 同伙, 狗腿子, 团伙, 走狗, 舔狗, 帮凶, 打手, ragtag 乌合之众 (one's folks): I. The Oppo Find X is a feature-packed, premium smartphone with all the bells and whistles to ensure it fits in with the best phones from Apple, Samsung and co (and Co. 这一类的, 诸如此类的. [kəʊ] used as part of the titles of businesses to designate the partner or partners not named. II. and other people: K. Branagh and co. achieved great success in a very short time. You use and co. after someone's name to mean the group of people associated with that person. [informal] Wayne Hussey and Co. will be playing two live sets each evening. ). and the like 这一类的, 诸如此类的 (one's cohort, the likes of 诸如此类的人, 这样的人) If you mention particular things or people and then add and the like, you are indicating that there are other similar things or people that can be included in what you are saying. If you mention particular things or people and then add and the like, you are indicating that there are other similar things or people that can be included in what you are saying. Many students are also keeping fit through jogging, aerobics, weight training, and the like. Many students are also keeping fit through jogging, aerobics, weight training, and the like. hanger-on 跟班, 巴结, 逢迎之人 Someone who hangs on, or sticks to, a person, place, or service. someone who spends time with a powerful, rich, or famous person in order to get some personal advantage. If you describe someone as a hanger-on, you are critical of them because they are trying to be friendly with a richer or more important person, especially in order to gain an advantage for themselves. This is where the young stars and their hangers-on 奴才们 come to party. clique [klik] 团伙, 帮派 ( faction, clan, mob, cabal, mob, gang ) [disapproval] a small group of people who seem unfriendly to other people. If you describe a group of people as a clique, you mean that they spend a lot of time together and seem unfriendly towards people who are not in the group. cabal [kəˈbæl] 团伙, 小集团 (group think 集体思维, 团体思维) [disapproval] a small group of people who secretly work together to get power for themselves. If you refer to a group of politicians or other people as a cabal, you are criticizing them because they meet and decide things secretly. He had been chosen by a cabal of fellow senators. ...a secret government cabal. mob noun. I. A mob is a large, disorganized, and often violent crowd of people. Bottles and cans were hurled on the terraces by the mob. The inspectors watched a growing mob of demonstrators gathering. II. [disapproval] People sometimes use the mob to refer in a disapproving way to the majority of people in a country or place, especially when these people are behaving in a violent or uncontrolled way. If they continue like this, there is a danger of the mob taking over. They have been exercising what amounts to mob rule. III. You can refer to the people involved in organized crime as the Mob. ...casinos that the Mob had operated. It was a Mob killing. verb. If you say that someone is being mobbed by a crowd of people, you mean that the people are trying to talk to them or get near them in an enthusiastic or threatening way. Her car was mobbed by the media. They found themselves being mobbed in the street for autographs. underling 手下 (含贬义) ( subordinate [səˈbɔː(r)dɪnət] 下属) [disapproval] You refer to someone as an underling when they are inferior in rank or status to someone else and take orders from them. You use this word to show that you do not respect someone. Every underling feared him. ...underlings who do the dirty work. minion 狗腿子, 跟班的, 听吆喝的 [literary, disapproval] If you refer to someone's minions, you are referring to people who have to do what that person tells them to do, especially unimportant or boring tasks. an unimportant person who has to do what a more powerful person tells them to do She delegated the job to one of her minions. lackey [læki] 狗腿子 跟班的, 属下 [disapproval] a servant or someone who behaves like one by obeying someone else's orders or by doing unpleasant work for them: He treats us all like his lackeys. If you describe someone as a lackey, you are critical of them because they follow someone's orders completely, without ever questioning them. I'm not staying as a paid lackey to act as your yes-man. flunky = flunkey 走狗, 舔狗 I. someone who is always eager to please or obey more powerful people. A sycophant; a servant or hanger-on who is kept for their loyalty or muscle rather than their intellect. If you refer to someone as a flunky, you disapprove of the fact that they associate themselves with someone who is powerful and carry out small, unimportant jobs for them in the hope of being rewarded. II. someone who does unimportant work. "Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary flunky 希拉里的走狗 who lost big. flunk I. [intransitive/ transitive] to fail a test or a course in school. John flunked math. II. [transitive] to give a student a failing grade. Unsatisfied with Fred's progress, the teacher flunked him. flunk out to have to leave a school because your work is not satisfactory. flunk out of: Marie has flunked out of college. 3. cohort [ˈkoʊˌhɔrt] I. A person's cohorts are their friends, supporters, or associates. a friend or supporter, especially of someone you do not like. Drake and his cohorts were not pleased with my appointment. II. A cohort of people is a group who have something in common. Cohort is used especially when a group is being looked at as a whole for statistical purposes. Tests were carried out on the entire cohort of eight-year-olds at primary school. She speaks for a whole cohort of young Japanese writers. a group of people that share one or more characteristics Our inaugural cohort of students graduated in August, 2010. The model was tested in a cohort of 1,123 patients. cavort 调情, 调戏 [kəˈvɔrt] to play, dance, or have fun with someone, especially in a sexual way. He was seen cavorting with two scantily clad women. cohort [ˈkoʊˌhɔrt] I. [disapproval] a friend or supporter, especially of someone you do not like. A person's cohorts are their friends, supporters, or associates. Drake and his cohorts were not pleased with my appointment. II. a group of people that share one or more characteristics. A cohort of people is a group who have something in common. Cohort is used especially when a group is being looked at as a whole for statistical purposes. Tests were carried out on the entire cohort of eight-year-olds at primary school. She speaks for a whole cohort of young Japanese writers. Our inaugural cohort of students graduated in August, 2010. The model was tested in a cohort of 1,123 patientt. 4. fawn over = fawn on 卑躬屈漆, 巴结, 奉承 showing disapproval to be extremely nice to someone more important than you because you want them to like you or give you something. If you say that someone fawns over a powerful or rich person, you disapprove of them because they flatter that person and like to be with him or her. People fawn over you when you're famous. Nauseatingly fawning journalism that's all it is. fawn adj. Fawn is a pale yellowish-brown colour. ...a light fawn coat. noun. young deer. fawner [ˈfɔːnə] a person who gives a servile display of exaggerated flattery or affection. "the consummate fawner was able to sway a president with false deference 虚假的, 虚情假意的逢迎, 假的敬畏". consummate adj. USA [ˈkɒnsəmət] UK [ˈkɒnsjumət] adj. I. 技艺高超的, 技艺超群的. showing great skill at doing something. accomplished or supremely skilled. a consummate artist. very skillful; highly expert. a life of consummate happiness. He's a consummate athlete/gentleman/liar. a consummate liar. She is a consummate politician. It was a demanding part that Collins played with consummate ease. II. (prenominal) (intensifier) consummate 完全的, 十足的 happiness. a consummate 语气助词 加强语气的 fool. vocabulary: Consummate means complete, finished, or masterful. If you refer to someone as a consummate chef, then you are saying he is the ultimate chef. If you say someone is a consummate jerk, then you are saying he is the ultimate jerk. Consummate can be used to describe something good or bad: consummate joy, a consummate liar. To consummate means to bring something to completion, but it often refers specifically to making a marriage complete by having sexual relations. consummate verb. USA: [ˈkɒnsəmeɪt] UK: [ˈkɒnsjʊmeɪt] I. to make a marriage legal by having sex for the first time. If two people consummate a marriage or relationship, they make it complete by having sex. They consummated their passion only after many hesitations and delays. ...the morning after the consummation of their marriage. a. to have sex for the first time in a relationship. II. to complete something, especially a business deal or agreement. To consummate an agreement means to complete it. There have been several close calls, but no one has been able to consummate a deal. legion [liːdʒən] I. A legion is a large group of soldiers who form one section of an army. He joined the French Foreign Legion. The last of the Roman legions left Britain in AD 410. II. A legion of people or things is a great number of them. The band has legions of fans. His delightful sense of humour won him a legion of friends. ...a legion of stories about noisy neighbours. III. If you say that things of a particular kind are legion, you mean that there are a great number of them. Ellie's problems are legion. The number of women who become pregnant after adopting children is legion. crony 亲信 [ˈkroʊni] [informal, disapproval] You can refer to friends that someone spends a lot of time with as their cronies, especially when you disapprove of them. He played a round of golf with his business cronies. minder I. 保镖 (A heavy is a large strong man who is employed to protect a person or place, often by using violence. They had employed heavies to evict shop squatters from neighbouring sites. ). A minder is a person whose job is to protect someone, especially someone famous. II. A minder is the same as a childminder 保姆. stooge I. 跑腿的. 打手. someone who is used by someone else to do a difficult or unpleasant job. If you refer to someone as a stooge, you are criticizing them because they are used by someone else to do unpleasant or dishonest tasks. He has vehemently rejected claims that he is a government stooge. The latter had for decades acted largely as a stooge for the party leaders. II. a straight man (an entertainer whose job is to say or do things that allow another entertainer to be funny). school I. 训练自己. 控制自己. to make yourself do something difficult. He had schooled himself to be friendly even to the rudest customers. a. if you school your features 镇定下来, 强自镇定下来, you make yourself look calm even though you do not feel calm. II. to rebuke and correct someone publicly. Donald Trump Jr schooled on Twitter after Halloween 'socialism' tweet [headline]. III. If you school someone in something, you train or educate them to have a certain skill, type of behaviour, or way of thinking. Many mothers schooled their daughters in the myth of female inferiority. He is schooled to spot trouble. She's been schooling her kids herself. ...a cross-cultural study with Indian children, both schooled and unschooled, and American children. IV. If you school a horse, you train it so that it can be ridden in races or competitions. She bought him as a £1,000 colt of six months and schooled him. 5. yes-man a person who agrees with everything their employer, leader, etc. says in order to please them. 6. acolyte [ˈækəˌlaɪt] 副手, 帮手 I. An acolyte is a follower or assistant of an important person. Richard Brome, an acolyte of Ben Jonson's, wrote 'The Jovial Crew' in 1641. To his acolytes, he is known simply as 'the Boss'. II. An acolyte is someone who assists a priest in performing certain religious services. When the barge reached the shrine, acolytes removed the pall. apostle (disciple) I. The apostles were the followers of Jesus Christ who went from place to place telling people about him and trying to persuade them to become Christians. ...the twelve apostles. II. An apostle of a particular philosophy, policy, or cause is someone who strongly believes in it and works hard to promote it. Her mother was a dedicated apostle of healthy eating. pressure group = advocacy groups = interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups 游说团, 说客团, 施加压力的人, 施压的人 an organized group of people who try to persuade people and influence political decisions about a particular issue. a group that tries to influence public policy in the interest of a particular cause. "an environmental pressure group". wiki: Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups or pressure groups use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy. They play an important role in the development of political and social systems. 7. sidekick 助手, 跟班, 副手 Someone's sidekick is a person who accompanies them and helps them, and who you consider to be less intelligent or less important than the other person. His sons, brother and nephews were his armed sidekicks. ...a dim-witted sidekick. 8. henchman 帮凶, 打手 If you refer to someone as another person's henchman, you mean that they work for or support the other person, especially by doing unpleasant, violent, or dishonest things on their behalf. a supporter of a powerful person, especially one who is willing to behave in an immoral or violent way. No men were arrested at the scene, but the police managed to arrest a lady called María Teresa Quintana Rodríguez, sister of one of Constanzo's lovers and henchmen. A hitman 杀手 is a man who is hired by someone in order to kill another person. The gangsters drove Kilroy through the back streets of the city and past an industrial area. The number of bars and vendor stands in the street began to thin out as they drove Kilroy through a highway in the city's outskirts. A henchman 打手, 杀手, or "hencher", is a loyal employee, supporter, or aide to some powerful figure engaged in nefarious ( nefarious [nɪˈfeəriəs] 邪恶的 evil, or dishonest. If you describe an activity as nefarious, you mean that it is wicked and immoral. Why make a whole village prisoner if it was not to some nefarious purpose? ) or criminal enterprises. A henchman is typically relatively unimportant in the organization, a minion, whose value lies primarily in their unquestioning loyalty to their leader. The term henchman is often used derisively (even comically) to refer to an individual of low status who lacks any moral compass of their own. Height Man (hype man) ( stooge 跟班的, 吆喝声的) A height man is a friend of some sort, who will always back you up in any situation, to emphasize everything you do so as to make you seem better than you are. To heighten you. As he schooled 教育, 教训 the challenger, his height man was right there cheering him on and talking as much smack as possible. 9. riffraff 下层人 an insulting word for people who are considered to belong to a low social and economic group and are thought not to know how to behave correctly in social situations. If you refer to a group of people as riff-raff, you disapprove of them because you think they are not respectable. 10. ragtag 乌合之众 If you want to say that a group of people or an organization is badly organized and not very respectable, you can describe it as a ragtag group or organization. We started out with a little rag-tag team of 30 people. rudderless [ˈrʌdələs] 群龙无首的, 乌合之众. 无所依的, 无可依赖的, 没有依靠的, 无头苍蝇似的, 无依无靠, 不知所措的 ( rudder I. a flat piece of wood or other material at the back of a boat or airplane that is moved to change the direction of travel. A rudder is a device for steering a boat. It consists of a vertical piece of wood or metal at the back of the boat. II. An aeroplane's rudder is a vertical piece of metal at the back which is used to make the plane turn to the right or to the left. ) (of an organization) without anyone in control and therefore unable to take decisions. A country or a person that is rudderless does not have a clear aim or a strong leader to follow. The country was politically rudderless 群龙无首的, 不知所从的 for almost three months. ...a feeling in the country that the Government was drifting rudderless. "[Harry] had become very close to Kate, who helped to fill some of the emotional void in his life," she wrote. "Harry felt detached, lonely, and 'rudderless', and according to a friend, he dreaded Sunday nights." She said Harry would suffer "really bad spells of loneliness" "I think he was worried he was going to be left on the shelf. He told me he hated being alone, especially on Sunday nights.". 11. hoi polloi [hɔɪ pəlɔɪ] 下层人士 If someone refers to the hoi polloi, they are referring in a humorous or rather rude way to ordinary people, in contrast to rich, well-educated, or upper-class people. Monstrously inflated costs are designed to keep the hoi polloi at bay. 12. accomplices 从犯, 犯罪同伙 [əˈkʌmplɪs] someone who helps another person to do something illegal or wrong. She's serving life for acting as an accomplice to murder. accessory [əkˈsesəri] 帮凶 I. [usually plural] additional objects, equipment, decorations etc that make something more useful or attractive. The book offers advice on choosing fabrics, furniture, and accessories. car/kitchen/computer accessories. II. a small thing such as a piece of jewellery or a pair of shoes that you wear with clothes to give them more style. III. legal someone who helps a criminal, for example by hiding them from the police. An accessory before the fact helps before the crime. An accessory after the fact helps after the crime. accessory to: He was sentenced for being an accessory to the murder. (a) party to something 一员, 一份子, 参与了, 卷入了, 从犯, 知情犯 get involved in, be associated with, be a participant in, concern yourself with or in. involved in a particular activity, especially something criminal or dishonest. I felt certain she was a party to his deception. "He insisted he had not been a party to the attack.". Abettor [[ əˈbetər] ] 同案犯 ( = accomplice [əˈkʌmplɪs], accessory 从犯) (someone who helps another person commit a crime If no principal offender is identified then a suspect cannot be convicted as an aider or abettor. abet [əˈbet] I. to help or encourage someone to do something immoral or illegal. If one person abets another, they help or encourage them to do something criminal or wrong. Abet is often used in the legal expression ' aid and abet'. His wife was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for aiding and abetting him. II. [journalism, or formal, disapproval] To abet something, especially something bad or undesirable, means to make it possible. The media have also abetted the feeling of unreality. aid and abet [əˈbet] to help someone to commit a crime. He was charged with aiding and abetting a wanted criminal. instigate [ˈɪnstɪˌɡeɪt] 惹事, 找事, 肇事 to make something start, especially an official process. Someone who instigates an event causes it to happen. Jenkinson instigated a refurbishment of the old gallery. The violence over the last forty-eight hours was instigated by ex-members of the secret police. The leaders of the two factions instigated peace talks.), is a legal term implying one who instigates, encourages or assists another to commit an offence. An abettor differs from an accessory 从犯 in that he must be present at the commission of the crime; in addition they are equally guilty as they knowingly and voluntarily assist in the commission of that crime. All abettors (with certain exceptions) are principals, and, in the absence of specific statutory provision to the contrary, are punishable to the same extent as the actual perpetrator of the offence. A person may in certain cases be convicted as an abettor in the commission of an offence in which he or she could not be a principal, e.g. a woman or boy under fourteen years of age in aiding rape, or a solvent person in aiding and abetting a bankrupt to commit offences against the bankruptcy laws. More recently, an abettor is generally known as an accomplice 同案犯. 13. partners in crime 犯罪同伙, 同案犯, 一丘之貉 I. Fig. persons who cooperate in committing a crime or a deception. (Usually an exaggeration.) The sales manager and the used-car salesmen are nothing but partners in crime. II. persons who cooperate in some legal task. The legal department and payroll are partners in crime as far as the average worker is concerned. 14. pawn verb. If you pawn something that you own, you leave it with a pawnbroker, who gives you money for it and who can sell it if you do not pay back the money before a certain time. He is contemplating pawning his watch. noun. I. In chess, a pawn is the smallest and least valuable playing piece. Each player has eight pawns at the start of the game. II. If you say that someone is using you as a pawn 棋子, you mean that they are using you for their own advantage. It looks as though he is being used as a political pawn by the President. They are the pawns in the power game played by their unseen captors.
乌克兰战争: While a no-fly zone remains off the table for the time being, NATO leaders are hoping for an extended war of attrition, consequences be damned. And arms dealers are having a field day, with stocks in top defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman surged by 20% during the first week of the conflict. As former special advisor to the Secretary of Defense Col. Douglas Macgregor told The Grayzone, "it looks more and more as though Ukrainians are almost incidental ( If one thing is incidental to another, it is less important than the other thing or is not a major part of it. The playing of music proved to be incidental to the main business of the evening. You should also include incidental costs such as taxis and accommodation. ) to the operation in the sense that they are there to impale themselves on the Russian army and die in great numbers, because the real goal of this entire thing is the destruction of the Russian state and Vladimir Putin." This March, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas commented, "I think what you're hearing from all of us — and it's a real mindset change — we're talking about potentially a long war… Think about this less as a classic war. Afghanistan went on [for] two decades… this could be another frozen struggle, and it could wax and wane ( wax (月圆) and wane (月缺) 月圆月缺, 此消彼长 undergo alternate increases and decreases. If something waxes and wanes, it first increases and then decreases over a period of time. Portugal and Spain had possessed vast empires that waxed and waned. "green sentiment has waxed and waned". ), but this could be part of the new normal." 2. coporate media = big media = mainstream media. The Afghan option has been advocated for Ukraine by some of the most prominent figures among the US foreign policy establishment, and particularly those on the Democratic side of the aisle. "It didn't end well for the Russians…but the fact is, that a very motivated, and then funded, and armed insurgency basically drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. I think that is the model that people are now looking toward," former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared during a February 28 interview with MSNBC. Clinton waxed nostalgic ( When "wax" doesn't mean giving a protective coating to a surface, it means "become." To wax nostalgic is to become nostalgic. You have the right meaning for "nostalgic." To wax is to grow in quantity or intensity. The moon waxes, then wanes (decreases.) You may be nostalgic for old friends, but you may wax nostalgic (get even more so) as you look at photographs or tell stories. wax eloquent/lyrical/emotional If you say that someone, for example, waxes lyrical or waxes indignant about a subject, you mean that they talk about it in an enthusiastic or indignant way. He waxed lyrical about the skills and commitment of his employees. Tom sat himself down and waxed eloquent about all the advantages of the new plan. quagmire [ˈkwæɡˌmaɪr] I. a situation that is so difficult or complicated that you cannot make much progress. A quagmire is a difficult, complicated, or unpleasant situation which is not easy to avoid or escape from. His people had fallen further and further into a quagmire of confusion. We have no intention of being drawn into a political quagmire 泥潭. II. mainly literary an area of very wet land that is too soft to walk on. A quagmire is a soft, wet area of land which your feet sink into if you try to walk across it. Rain had turned the grass into a quagmire. be/become mired (down) in sth to be involved in a difficult situation, especially for a long period of time: The peace talks are mired in bureaucracy. be/get bogged down to be/become so involved in something difficult or complicated that you cannot do anything else: Let's not get bogged down with individual complaints. Try not to get too bogged down in the details. ) over the campaign to arm and train the Afghan mujahideen in a bid to suck the Soviet Union into a "Vietnamese quagmire." If Western government can "keep the Ukrainian, both their military and their citizen volunteer soldiers supplied, that can continue to stymie Russia," she added. Next, Clinton pointed to the dirty war in Syria, where the CIA's Timber Sycamore program funneled weapons to the so-called "moderate rebels" of the Free Syrian Army, creating what mainstream US analyst Sam Heller called "weapons farms for larger Islamist and jihadist factions, including Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate." "It took years to finally defeat Syria in terms of the insurgencies, the democratic forces as well as others who battled the Russians, the Syrians, and the Iranians," Clinton said. As a no-longer official voice of the Democratic foreign policy establishment, Hillary Clinton is able to speak with more candor 更敢说 than the current US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on the objectives of the liberal interventionist clique to which they both belong. In a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Blinken insisted that should Russian President Vladimir Putin try to "enforce such a puppet regime 傀儡政权 by keeping Russian forces in Ukraine, it will be a long, bloody, drawn-out mess through which Russia will continue to suffer grievously." Biden too has hinted at efforts to stoke a long-term insurgency in the country, vowing that Russia "will pay a continuing high price over the long run," though "it's going to take time." Unlike the proxy wars in Syria and Afghanistan, where Western-backed jihadist foreign fighters took up their crusade in hopes of establishing a medieval Islamic caliphate, the champions of the "holy war" in Ukraine look to the country's more recent history of Nazism as their call to arms. "An American military inspection team visited the Azov Battalion on the front lines of the Ukrainian civil war to discuss logistics and deepening cooperation," The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal wrote in 2018. "Images of the encounter showed American army officers poring over ( pore over 研究, 细读 to read or study (something) very carefully He pored over the map for hours. ) maps with their Ukrainian counterparts, palling around and ignoring the Nazi-inspired Wolfangel patches emblazoned on their sleeves." According to the Yahoo News report, the CIA has trained fighters over the course of multiple weeks in "camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like 'cover and move,' intelligence and other areas." Veterans from Western countries bored of the mundanities 枯燥无味 of civilian life are flocking over. As one former Canadian veteran billed as "one of the world's deadliest snipers" put it, "a week ago I was still programming stuff. Now I'm grabbing anti-tank missiles in a warehouse to kill people." While many veterans have flocked over to Ukraine to escape post-service ennui ( [ɑnˈwi] a feeling of being bored and having no interest in anything. ) they are now finding themselves confronted by a far more existential ( I. Existential means relating to human existence and experience. Existential questions requiring religious answers still persist. II. You use existential to describe fear, anxiety, and other feelings 生死攸关的 that are caused by thinking about human existence and death. an existential danger threatens the very existence of something. The existential threat of climate change has given rise to many new security worries. Europe is in the midst of an existential crisis, but it cannot and will not fail. 'What if there's nothing left at all?' he cries, lost in some intense existential angst. relating to human existence and experience existential angst/despair. ) mental malady ( [ˈmælədi] I. A malady is an illness or disease. He was stricken at twenty-one with a crippling malady. II. In written English, people sometimes use maladies to refer to serious problems in a society or situation. a serious problem within a society or organization When apartheid is over the maladies will linger on. ...the maladies of love. ): dread in the face of the enemy's total air dominance 制空权 for the first time of their military careers. "I had been mortared before and thought that was pretty gnarly ( gnarly [ˈnɑrli] I. American informal complicated and difficult to deal with. gnarly problems. II. American informal old-fashioned very good and exciting. III. gnarled gnarly roots. IV. risky, extreme and radical The surfer really hit that gnarly wave! gnarled I. A gnarled tree is twisted and strangely shaped because it is old. ...a large and beautiful garden full of ancient gnarled trees. II. A person who is gnarled looks very old because their skin has lines on it or their body is bent. If someone has gnarled hands, their hands are twisted as a result of old age or illness. ...gnarled old men. His hands were gnarled with arthritis. )… but being absolutely defenseless and in the open with three aircraft just shitting all over you with such heavy ordinance was a whole new level of helplessness," the Redditor said. Within less than a week since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the United States and NATO have rushed 17,000 anti-tank weapons into the country in the course. A whopping 70 percent of the $350 million in lethal aid approved by the Biden Administration on February 26 was delivered in just five days. The Wall Street Journal has described the response as "one of the largest and fastest arms transfers in history," and "a supply operation with few historical parallels." So who is receiving those weapons, and what will they do with them if the conflict continues indefinitely? That question is clearly not on the minds of NATO officials hungry for escalation. While the arms continue to flow unabated 不停歇的( If something continues unabated, it continues without any reduction in intensity or amount. The fighting has continued unabated for over 24 hours. ...his unabated enthusiasm for cinema.), a "senior Ukrainian military official" told the outlet that "there were now no major equipment shortages among his troops." Despite this, Zelensky continues to claim that the aid is "insufficient." And while the prospect of an Afghan-style insurgency dims in Ukraine, with Russian forces seizing strategic cities and severing supply lines to their adversaries, the arms manufactures that fund think tanks and politicians from Washington to London are making the most of the opportunity. "We're going to have to backfill ( 回填 to refill an excavated trench, esp (in archaeology) at the end of an investigation. ) some of [the arms shipments to Ukraine] ourselves," an arms industry lobbyist told The Hill on March 15, "so that will force the Pentagon to buy more from some of the defense companies." NATO states pour weapons into Ukraine to ratchet up the violence. At least 32 countries have sent direct military aid to Ukraine this year.
British intelligence operative's involvement in Ukraine crisis signals false flag attacks ahead: Shadowy UK intel figure Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was at the forefront of chemical weapons deceptions in Syria. Now in Ukraine, he's up to his old tricks 重操旧业 again. With Washington and its NATO allies forced to watch from the sidelines as Russia's military advances across Eastern Ukraine and encircles Kiev, US and British officials have resorted to a troubling tactic that could trigger a massive escalation. Following similar claims by his Secretary of State and ambassador the United Nations, US President Joseph Biden has declared that Russia will pay a "severe price" if it uses chemical weapons in Ukraine. The warnings emanating from the Biden administration contain chilling echoes of those issued by the administration of President Barack Obama throughout the US-led dirty war on Syria. Almost as soon as Obama implemented his ill-fated "red line" policy vowing an American military response if the Syrian army attacked the Western-backed opposition with chemical weapons, Al Qaeda-aligned 支持的 opposition factions came forth with claims of mass casualty sarin and chlorine bombings of civilians. The result was a series of US-UK missile strikes on Damascus and a prolonged crisis that nearly triggered the kind of disastrous regime change war that had destabilized Iraq and Libya. In each major chemical weapons event, signs of staging and deception by the armed Syrian opposition were present. As a former US ambassador in the Middle East told journalist Charles Glass, "The 'red line' was an open invitation to a false-flag operation." Elements 痕迹 of deception were especially clear in the April 7, 2018 incident in the city of Douma, when an anti-government militia on the brink of defeat claimed civilians had been massacred in a chlorine attack by the Syrian army. Veteran inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found no evidence that the Syrian army had carried out any such attack, however, suggesting the entire incident had been staged to trigger Western intervention. Their report was subsequently censored by organization management, and the inspectors were subjected to a campaign of smears and intimidation. Throughout the Syrian conflict, a self-proclaimed "chemical warrior" named Hamish de Bretton-Gordon was intimately involved in numerous chemical weapons deceptions that sustained the war and ratcheted up pressure for Western military intervention. This February 24, just moments after Russia's military entered Ukraine, de Bretton-Gordon surfaced again in British media to claim that Russia was preparing a chemical attack on Ukrainian civilians. He has since demanded that Ukrainians be provided with a guide he wrote called, "How To Survive A Chemical Attack." So who is de Bretton-Gordon, and does his sudden reappearance as an expert voice on the Russia-Ukraine war signal a return to the dangerous US-UK red line policy? Following months of fevered speculation about an impending Russian invasion of Ukraine, when it finally came to pass ( happen; occur. to happen: It came to pass that their love for each other grew and grew. "it came to pass that she had two sons". ) on the early morning of February 24th, most were caught entirely by surprise. Media outlets and pundits scrambled to 乱成一团的, 争先恐后的 get their stories straight, while Western leaders rushed to construct a cohesive 'response'. By contrast, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a British army veteran identified by UK media as a "former spy," was in no such muddle. Within just three hours, he had a fiery op-ed prepared for The Guardian, demanding the US and Europe "show their steel in the face of Putin's aggression." Warning that Vladimir Putin was "much more willing to face off with NATO" than before, de Bretton-Gordon charged that the West "stood back and watched in Syria," and "it must not do the same in Ukraine." "Syria shows what happens when you turn a blind eye and are too heavily influenced by peaceniks ( If you describe someone as a peacenik, you mean that they are strongly opposed to war. a member of a pacifist movement. "an exchange of issues from the peaceniks to the environmentalists". )," de Bretton-Gordon fulminated ( fulminate [ˈfʊlmɪˌneɪt] to speak or write angrily about something. If you fulminate against someone or something, you criticize them angrily. They all fulminated against the new curriculum. ...fulminations against the government. ). "Those of us involved in interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 30 years…we look at Syria and know we should have done better. That knowledge should inform our response to Putin's aggression now." In reality, Washington and its allies did not stand back and watch in Syria; it waged a decade-long proxy war employing jihadist paramilitaries and airstrikes on Damascus, then occupied oil-producing portions of the country and subjected its citizens to crippling sanctions, which to this day deprive them of food, electricity and vital medical supplies. Of all people, de Bretton-Gordon – whose Twitter profile once identified him as a member of 77th Brigade, the British Army's official psychological warfare division – is uniquely placed to know of these horrors. After all, he played a pivotal role in promoting and extending the dirty war through the management of information surrounding chemical weapons incidents. As The Grayzone has revealed, the involvement of de Bretton-Gordon in the Syrian conflict dates back to at least 2013, when by his own admission he was engaged in a covert effort to smuggle soil samples out of the opposition-occupied areas. This work would have inevitably placed him in extremely close quarters with jihadist elements (Jihadism is a neologism ( [niˈɑləˌdʒɪzəm] a new word or expression, or an existing word used with a new meaning. A neologism is a new word or expression in a language, or a new meaning for an existing word or expression. Some neologisms become widely used and enter the language. ) which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam." Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Western journalists adopted the term in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks of 2001. Since then, it has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of jihad.) raking in Western funding while benefiting from NATO training and weapons. Contemporary media reports reveal the UK's MI6 was engaged in a sample-gathering effort in the country at the very time de Bretton-Gordon was inside Syria, strongly suggesting his linkage to the foreign intelligence agency. One article makes abundantly clear the purpose of the soil-sample exercise was to push the US into intervening by proving government culpability(If someone or their conduct is culpable, they are responsible for something wrong or bad that has happened. Their decision to do nothing makes them culpable. ...manslaughter resulting from culpable negligence. He added there was clear culpability on the part of the government. ) for alleged chemical weapons attacks. Other forms of evidence were also collected on-the-ground by de Bretton-Gordon, and provided to a number of official investigations into chemical attacks. In at least one instance – an OPCW/UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) probe into a purported chemical strike in Talmenes, April 2014 – videos submitted by CBRN Taskforce, a shady organization he founded in Aleppo, were found to show clear signs of falsification. De Bretton-Gordon threw his chemical weapons expertise into further doubt when he told British media that any common refrigerator could be transformed into a chemical weapon, falsely claiming that R22 refrigerant cylinders contained material for improvised 临时制造的 ( made or said without previous preparation an improvised skit. improvise [ˈɪmprəˌvaɪz] I. intransitive to do something without preparing it first, often because the situation does not allow you to prepare. She'd forgotten her carefully written speech, but knew she could easily improvise. II. intransitive/transitive if a performer in a play or a group of musicians improvises, they invent words or musical notes without preparing them or learning them before. The last two scenes were completely improvised. III. transitive 因地制宜. 因陋就简 to make something from whatever is available, although it is not what you normally use. We used old shirts to improvise dressings for their wounds. ) chlorine bombs. "Somebody could go to a waste site where people chuck away fridges [in the UK] and get a whole bunch of those things and blow them up," the supposed arms specialist claimed. De Bretton Gordon has gone as far as claiming to a British tabloid that Russia could deploy missiles and hand grenades containing the highly deadly Soviet-era chemical agent Novichok "in any future war with the West." Such absurd commentary and subterfuge ( subterfuge [ˈsʌbtə(r)ˌfjuːdʒ] 坑蒙拐骗 the use of lies and tricks. Subterfuge is a trick or a dishonest way of getting what you want. An indirect or deceptive device or stratagem; a blind. Refers especially to war and diplomatics. Overt subterfuge in a region nearly caused a minor accident. It was clear that they must have obtained the information by subterfuge. Most people can see right through that type of subterfuge. The party has predictably rejected the proposals as a subterfuge. vocabulary: If you want to surprise your mom with a sweatshirt, but don't know her size, it might take an act of subterfuge, like going through her closet, to find it out. Subterfuge is the use of tricky actions to hide or get something. It's pronounced "SUB-ter-fyooj." As a countable noun, a subterfuge is a tricky action or device: She employed a very clever subterfuge to get the information she needed. Subterfuge is from French, from Old French suterfuge, from Late Latin subterfugium, from Latin subterfugere "to escape," from subter "secretly, under" plus fugere "to flee." ) has done nothing to dent de Bretton-Gordon‘s credibility, however. His mainstream profile has only grown over time, with outlets invariably presenting him as a courageous human rights defender risking his life to train local doctors and rescue workers. On more than one occasion, however, de Bretton-Gordon has directly involved Western journalists in MI6's soil gathering efforts. For instance, during a 2014 podcast interview with Wilton Park, an NGO funded by the UK Foreign Office, de Bretton-Gordon boasted of his responsibility for a story in the Times of London alleging a Syrian chemical attack in the town of Sheikh al-Maqsood. "In March last year there was a reported sarin attack in Sheikh al-Maqsood and I helped the Times – chap called Anthony Lloyd who very sadly got shot two weeks ago – to cover this story and tried to get samples to the UK for analysis … I won't go into the details of that," he recalled. Then-Prime Minister David Cameron invoked 引用 ( evoke VS revoke VS invoke: evoke [ɪˈvoʊk] 让人想起 to bring a particular emotion, idea, or memory into your mind. To evoke a particular memory, idea, emotion, or response means to cause it to occur. ...the scene evoking 激起回忆 memories of those old movies. A sense of period was evoked by complementing pictures with appropriate furniture. The recent flood evoked memories of the great flood of 1972. invoke I. 祭出. 抬出. 搬出. to use a law or rule in order to achieve something. If you invoke a law, you state that you are taking a particular action because that law allows or tells you to. The judge invoked an international law that protects refugees. The president invoked the Taft-Hartley law to force the strikers to return to work. In extreme situations, the police chief may invoke emergency powers. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has invoked legislation that gives his government sweeping powers to fight a growing number of "illegal and dangerous" blockades across the country. The first prime minister to invoke the Emergencies Act, Trudeau said the measures would be time-limited 有时间限制的 and only apply to specific geographic regions. "We are not preventing the right of people to protest legally," he said, adding that the military would not be deployed. "The act is to be used sparingly and as a last resort." Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens to a question from a reporter after announcing the Emergencies Act will be invoked to deal with protests on Monday, February 14, 2022 in Ottawa. Trudeau says he has invoked the Emergencies Act to bring to an end antigovernment blockades he describes as illegal and not about peaceful protest. II. to mention a law, principle, or idea in order to support an argument or to explain an action. If you invoke something such as a principle, a saying, or a famous person 引用, 以...为例, 拿...为证据, you refer to them in order to support your argument. He invoked memories of Britain's near-disastrous disarmament in the 1930s. They invoked principles of international law to claim ownership of the sunken ship. III. to mention the name of someone who is well known or well respected in order to support an argument. Jiang invoked 引用 Deng's name 58 times in his two-and-a-half-hour speech. IV. to make someone feel a particular emotion or see a particular image in their minds. If something such as a piece of music invokes a feeling or an image, it causes someone to have the feeling or to see the image. Many people consider this use to be incorrect. The music invoked the wide open spaces of the prairies. Popular art invoked the image of a happy and contented family. The situation was invoking 引起, 引发 fears of another Vietnam-type entanglement. V. 召唤. to ask for help from someone who is stronger or more powerful, especially a god. If someone invokes a god, they ask the god for help or forgiveness. The great magicians of old always invoked their gods with sacrifice. VI. 招魂. to make the spirits of dead people appear by using magic powers. revoke 废掉, 废黜, 废除, 作废 to officially say that something is no longer legal, for example a law or a document. When people in authority revoke something such as a licence, a law, or an agreement, they cancel it. The government revoked her license to operate migrant labor crews. The Montserrat government announced its revocation of 311 banking licences. After the third accident, her driver's license was revoked. The EU is demanding that Canada revoke the legislation. ) the Sheikh al-Maqsood incident to increase pressure on Damascus, citing "the picture as described to me by the Joint Intelligence Committee" as the basis for his assertion of a chemical attack against the town by the Syrian army. Throughout the dirty war on Syria, de Bretton-Gordon routinely cropped up ( If something crops up, it appears or happens, usually unexpectedly. His name has cropped up at every selection meeting this season. Problems will crop up and hit you before you are ready. a. to happen suddenly or unexpectedly. Ben had to go back to work – a problem's cropped up. b. if a name or subject crops up, someone mentions it. Alice's name keeps cropping up in our conversations. ) in the media attributing 归罪于, 遣罪于, 怪罪 gas attacks and war crimes to Syrian and Russian forces, and fear-mongered about their implications for future conflicts with the West. The latter role is one de Bretton-Gordon has enthusiastically resumed throughout the war in Ukraine, aggressively hyping the threat to Western countries. His messaging has tracked seamlessly with that of the US government, which initiated a program months before Russia's military operation to prepare Ukraine's security sector for an impending 即将发生的, 马上要发生的 ( An impending event is one that is going to happen very soon. an impending event or situation, especially an unpleasant one, is one that will happen very soon. He was unaware of the impending disaster. the impending elections. On the morning of the expedition I awoke with a feeling of impending disaster. He'd spoken to Simon that morning of his impending marriage. ) weapons of mass destruction attack. Months before war, US trains Ukrainians in the threat of "targeted weapons of mass destruction attacks". Back in May 2021, the State Department announced that Washington had conducted a "virtual training exercise" with "partners" in Kiev, including domestic security services, law enforcement, and first responders, to "identify, respond to, and investigate assassinations involving weapons of mass destruction," due to "recent events in Europe" highlighting "the real threat of government-sanctioned, targeted weapons of mass destruction attacks." Along the way, Ukrainians were tutored in "[identifying] the medical symptoms that indicate WMD material use, the attack cycle involved in WMD assassination attempts, and the specific measures that enable safe and secure detection and response to WMD incidents." Quite why this instruction was given at this particular time is unclear, as was the "recent events in Europe" to which the press release referred. Perhaps the State Department was alluding to the alleged novichok poisoning of the Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny in August 2020. On what grounds that failed assassination necessitated a grand, multi-agency training exercise in dealing with "targeted WMD attacks" is anyone's guess. Whatever the purpose of the US training program was, Ukrainian security personnel can now claim they have the training to identify the precise "medical symptoms that indicate WMD material." This is significant, because ever since the conflict began, Kiev has exhibited an endless enthusiasm for lying, having distorted or even outright concocted events and facts whole-cloth ( out of whole cloth 全盘编造, 完全编造 US and Canadian informal entirely without a factual basis. ) to advance its objectives on countless occasions. The most dangerous claims advanced by Ukrainian propagandists have been reinforced by the supposed authority of de Bretton-Gordon, who has argued that Russian chemical strikes were absolutely inevitable, based his prediction on his opinion that Moscow "has no morals or scruples." The self-styled chemical weapons expert has even cautioned that Putin could deploy nuclear weapons or create a pandemic "more deadly than Covid" with an Ebola weapon. He has further speculated that Russian forces may unleash a deadly virus seized from one of several Pentagon-funded biolabs in Ukraine, then blame it on the US. In a typical media appearance, on March 10th, de Bretton Gordon told London's LBC radio show that "nothing is off the table at this stage." Among the horrors he forecast was the use of white phosphorous "to set towns and cities on fire." Justifying his certainty, de Bretton-Gordon forcefully asserted, "the only way to take a large city or town ultimately is to use chemical weapons." He pointed to Syria to prove his point – but without referencing his own pivotal role in escalating that conflict through the manipulation of evidence and scientifically bereft fear-mongering in the media. Now, de Bretton-Gordon has resurfaced at the center of the aggressive push for escalation with a nuclear armed Russia. If his role in Syria is any guide, a series of cynical deceptions could be on the way.
