Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ The war is not going well for Kyiv, and it would be unreasonable to expect that to change. As a vastly superior military force overwhelms the US client state, reality is in the process of crashing down hard in the face of western liberals who bought into the
Max Blumenthal expressed it as " the US is willing to fight this war to the last Ukrainian." Proxy war is always useful to the empire, even if it does risk nuclear winter.
Missing from most of the historical discussions is the "East of the Oder" mentality, that is Europe to the west of the Oder River (current Germany-Poland border) have long looked with disdain on the Slavic untermenschen (sub-humans) to the east of the Oder, including the Balkans. A now-deceased friend who grew up on the Adriatic coast of Mussolini's Italy once expressed it this way. When he was a little kid during WWII, he and his friends would collectively urinate into the Adriatic, imagining themselves "pissing on Albania" to the east across the sea. The Ukrainian Nazis, who were seen by their German counterparts as especially intense devotees of Fascism were likely motivated partly by a determination to rise above that sub-human status by proving their Aryan creds through their Fascist violence against Jews, Romani and anyone else they deemed lacking pure Aryan credentials. Ignore this history at your peril; it underpins this entire fiasco.
What we all have to get through our skulls is that Ukraine is not Russia's enemy, NATO is. That's why this won't end there. As soon as the operation in Ukraine becomes a matter of mopping up pockets of resistance and instituting anti-insurgency measures, Russia will probably go on a peace offensive. I expect that it will re-present the security guarantees treaty it proposed in December, which, thanks to what is in effect a Western news black out, few in the West are aware even of. Russia should make clear to the entire world that all that is required to end hostilities is to give ALL Europeans security, Russians included, by returning NATO militaries to their 1997 dispositions. No one in Europe felt insecure then, so why should returning their militaries to those positions make anyone feel insecure now? With the world’s attention focused on Russia, it will be much harder for Western media to keep Russia’s terms from their populaces. This will allow anti-war people as well as those in pain from the economic consequences of the sanctions war to focus their protests/resistance where it belongs: on creating a new security structure in Europe acceptable to all. The only other condition Russia should insist on is the removal of all sanctions, which, as I understand it, are in any case illegal under international law unless approved by the UN Security Council.
Charlie said to Edgar, "All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you." Yes, and Germany's destruction at the end of WW II was a result of the weakness and disunity of the German people, right? If they had only had the iron will of their leader, they could have won.
I must confess, I misunderstood the stupidity and hubris of Western leaders. I thought they would secretly agree to dismantle the dual-use launchers in Poland and Romania, as Kennedy promised Khrushchev re Turkish missiles. Instead, they gave Russia no choice other than to "de-militarize and de-nazify" Ukraine, mistakenly believing that sanctions would damage Russia more than the Empire. But high energy and food prices will be far more damaging to Europe than Russia, and even the US will feel much discomfort. Russia, China and Iran will emerge from this stronger, with the tacit support of both India and Pakistan and resentment against the Empire bubbling up in the rest of the world.
Had Ukraine attacked Donbas in 2017-18, Russia and China might not have been ready, and the Donbas would have been forced to confront the Ukrainian army with more minimal Russian support. The result might have been stalemate similar to 2014-15, but there has been considerable buildup on both sides in the past 5 years. Donbas was no longer able to stand on its own, and the Empire was able to force full involvement of the Russian military, which is now much stronger than it was in 2017, as well as less distracted by Syria. Western military leaders are aware that Russian weapons are more than they can handle, but diplomats and leaders are too arrogant to recognized that Russia is also much stronger economically and more self-reliant. This will be one more disaster for the Empire.
My hope is that imperial military leaders understand that WW III is suicide, and that the people of the Empire will rise up non-violently and overthrow their corrupt, stupid political leaders when the economic consequences are fel. With any luck, we'll see the disintegration of the EU and a return to federalism of the US.
In "olden-speak", Zelensky would have been called a Useful Idiot.
Is it better to have military aggression off our own people with Ukraine in place of Afghanistan?
Those trigger-happy murder machines that our military pumps out like an assembly line need something on which to vent. Since the Affie screw, our armed forces have had nobody to shoot, leaving us dissident voices extra vulnerable to scrutiny.
Thanks for putting so much into this. My opinion is simple: the US wanted this war and systematically engineered it from at least 2014, hoping to crack Russia. Now they have it, and everybody loses, but Russia will survive and when the economic dust settles, the US dream of world hegemony will have disappeared and the dominant economy will be what Russia, China, India, and the rest of the "global south" determine it will be. That is, unless there is a nuclear holocaust, which is a distinct possibility. The recent discussion at ConsortiumNews with Mark Sleboda and Scott Ritter makes this clear, as far as I'm concerned. The global propaganda war is entirely fabricated by CIA and MI6, they say, which is the most mind-boggling thing of all.
One used to wonder how the "good Germans" could fall for a little twerp like Hitler. We are seeing exactly that mass phenomenon right now, all around us: Putin is Hitler; Zelensky is a hero. If the world survives this (and the pending climate disaster), people will be wondering the same thing about us -- I mean THEM, the fucking idiots.
I posted a version of this to Russell Brand's channel in response to his interview w/Yanis Varoufakis: Whoever Putin is, and I'm pretty sure he is not who the MSSM says he is, he is challenging US hegemony and the current unipolar world. NATO should have been dissolved after WW2. Its moment is passed. Putin is no worse than US leadership. I'm not just talking about Biden, for as we can all see he is a pathetic tool, similar in some ways to the actor Zelensky (cf Reagan, Trump might be better comparisons). Look behind the curtain. When you hear the words "we are fighting for freedom and democracy" substitute "corporate capitalism and rentier finance" for clarity and you will find Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas, General Dynamics, JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway, etc, etc. If the leadership of Ukraine had acceded in the first 24 hours after Chernobyl was taken, and the two minis were declared independent , the war on Ukraine would have been over. The US has been provoking Russia for some time. The Minsk accords have been violated repeatedly. Russia does not want the largest nuclear power plant in the world on its border. How hard is that to understand? It is not directly targeting civilians, but strategically targeting US sponsored military installations (Yes, kids, this is where our tax dollars are going, military spending is why we cannot have nice things like #Medicare4All). It is the Ukrainian fascists that are preventing the people from utilizing the humanitarian corridors that Russia offered, so Svoboda can give them rifles and use them as human shields. Germany will be the real loser. Without Nord Stream 2, it will be a very cold winter indeed, and Germany, which hasn't been paying its NATO "dues" will be forced to purchase expensive obsolete US weapons to prop up the US economy. The winner, as in the Iraq War, will be China whose immense pipeline thru Mongolia now in its earliest stages will create a market for Russian oil, completely bypassing the EU. Meanwhile the US with a fiat currency and no manufacturing to speak of will continue to collapse from the inside. I, for one, am looking forward to the day when the US will no longer rule the world, and China's stated goal of a multipolar world will come into being. But time is running out with environmental and social collapse accelerating.
Any belief that Ukraine's Western fortified military is capable of triumphing over Russia is as pitiful as America's stated belief that the inept forces we trained and then left behind in Afghanistan could fend off the Taliban. It is inhumane to the victims left behind in Ukraine to convince them otherwise.
Whatever impelled Zelensky to believe the West would fight a conventional war in Ukraine's behalf? That would signal WW III, and as foolhardy as is the West and deluded its leaders, Ukraine just isn't the right cause. The West operates by stealth, by fly-by drone, by remote control - unless there's oil or precious metals to be had. And why didn't Zelensky eliminate the neoNazi presence, at least in the military and government? Is he completely unable to put himself in Russia's shoes, just for a moment? The saddest aspect of this sad situation is that two great nations with a common history are completely alienated. And so tight is the noose around this alienation orchestrated by the West that parts of the "free speech supporting" West are "forbidding" the reading of Dostoevsky: what next, the indictment in absentia of Mussorgsky, (The Great Gate of Kiev) and all the Russian composers? If this isn't insanity, insanity is redundant.
This, in my opinion, is all designed to 1) crash the dollar and destroy what is left of the economy, as per the wishes of the Great Reset crew and 2) transfer world hegemony away from the US towards China and Russia with Jerusalem as the capital of the new Eurasian Superstate.
Putin knows this. He is playing his role perfectly. The sanctions that have been placed on him will hurt the West just as much as it will hurt him. They are all owned by the same bankster billionaires.
Clearly the 2014 US coup against democratically elected Ukraine government, Russia-gate immense hoax concocted by Deep State and St. Obama, Biden and Hillary, and NATO expansion into Ukraine are VERY closely connected and are key components of the US bipartisan War party strategy for world dominance.
The same lying team and key psychopathic players. Remember militaristic bipartisan funeral of John McCain.
I think you may be giving too much intelligent credit to the US, and assuming too much strength for them. Putin shows again and again how much smarter, calmer and better at chess than the US. I think everything is changed now and the US has lost its hegemonic dominance. This action against Russia will, I believe, only push Russia, China and other non US conforming nations to create their own economic and security systems without the west that much faster. I think the US and Europe will in the long run be the big losers in this game, and will ultimately suffer far worse than the Russians now will be.
Max Blumenthal expressed it as " the US is willing to fight this war to the last Ukrainian." Proxy war is always useful to the empire, even if it does risk nuclear winter.
Missing from most of the historical discussions is the "East of the Oder" mentality, that is Europe to the west of the Oder River (current Germany-Poland border) have long looked with disdain on the Slavic untermenschen (sub-humans) to the east of the Oder, including the Balkans. A now-deceased friend who grew up on the Adriatic coast of Mussolini's Italy once expressed it this way. When he was a little kid during WWII, he and his friends would collectively urinate into the Adriatic, imagining themselves "pissing on Albania" to the east across the sea. The Ukrainian Nazis, who were seen by their German counterparts as especially intense devotees of Fascism were likely motivated partly by a determination to rise above that sub-human status by proving their Aryan creds through their Fascist violence against Jews, Romani and anyone else they deemed lacking pure Aryan credentials. Ignore this history at your peril; it underpins this entire fiasco.
What we all have to get through our skulls is that Ukraine is not Russia's enemy, NATO is. That's why this won't end there. As soon as the operation in Ukraine becomes a matter of mopping up pockets of resistance and instituting anti-insurgency measures, Russia will probably go on a peace offensive. I expect that it will re-present the security guarantees treaty it proposed in December, which, thanks to what is in effect a Western news black out, few in the West are aware even of. Russia should make clear to the entire world that all that is required to end hostilities is to give ALL Europeans security, Russians included, by returning NATO militaries to their 1997 dispositions. No one in Europe felt insecure then, so why should returning their militaries to those positions make anyone feel insecure now? With the world’s attention focused on Russia, it will be much harder for Western media to keep Russia’s terms from their populaces. This will allow anti-war people as well as those in pain from the economic consequences of the sanctions war to focus their protests/resistance where it belongs: on creating a new security structure in Europe acceptable to all. The only other condition Russia should insist on is the removal of all sanctions, which, as I understand it, are in any case illegal under international law unless approved by the UN Security Council.
More civilians have been killed by American bombing in Laos in the last 10 years than died in the Ukraine conflict.
Charlie said to Edgar, "All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you." Yes, and Germany's destruction at the end of WW II was a result of the weakness and disunity of the German people, right? If they had only had the iron will of their leader, they could have won.
I must confess, I misunderstood the stupidity and hubris of Western leaders. I thought they would secretly agree to dismantle the dual-use launchers in Poland and Romania, as Kennedy promised Khrushchev re Turkish missiles. Instead, they gave Russia no choice other than to "de-militarize and de-nazify" Ukraine, mistakenly believing that sanctions would damage Russia more than the Empire. But high energy and food prices will be far more damaging to Europe than Russia, and even the US will feel much discomfort. Russia, China and Iran will emerge from this stronger, with the tacit support of both India and Pakistan and resentment against the Empire bubbling up in the rest of the world.
Had Ukraine attacked Donbas in 2017-18, Russia and China might not have been ready, and the Donbas would have been forced to confront the Ukrainian army with more minimal Russian support. The result might have been stalemate similar to 2014-15, but there has been considerable buildup on both sides in the past 5 years. Donbas was no longer able to stand on its own, and the Empire was able to force full involvement of the Russian military, which is now much stronger than it was in 2017, as well as less distracted by Syria. Western military leaders are aware that Russian weapons are more than they can handle, but diplomats and leaders are too arrogant to recognized that Russia is also much stronger economically and more self-reliant. This will be one more disaster for the Empire.
My hope is that imperial military leaders understand that WW III is suicide, and that the people of the Empire will rise up non-violently and overthrow their corrupt, stupid political leaders when the economic consequences are fel. With any luck, we'll see the disintegration of the EU and a return to federalism of the US.
Once again, nailed it.
In "olden-speak", Zelensky would have been called a Useful Idiot.
Is it better to have military aggression off our own people with Ukraine in place of Afghanistan?
Those trigger-happy murder machines that our military pumps out like an assembly line need something on which to vent. Since the Affie screw, our armed forces have had nobody to shoot, leaving us dissident voices extra vulnerable to scrutiny.
Thanks for putting so much into this. My opinion is simple: the US wanted this war and systematically engineered it from at least 2014, hoping to crack Russia. Now they have it, and everybody loses, but Russia will survive and when the economic dust settles, the US dream of world hegemony will have disappeared and the dominant economy will be what Russia, China, India, and the rest of the "global south" determine it will be. That is, unless there is a nuclear holocaust, which is a distinct possibility. The recent discussion at ConsortiumNews with Mark Sleboda and Scott Ritter makes this clear, as far as I'm concerned. The global propaganda war is entirely fabricated by CIA and MI6, they say, which is the most mind-boggling thing of all.
One used to wonder how the "good Germans" could fall for a little twerp like Hitler. We are seeing exactly that mass phenomenon right now, all around us: Putin is Hitler; Zelensky is a hero. If the world survives this (and the pending climate disaster), people will be wondering the same thing about us -- I mean THEM, the fucking idiots.
I’ve read a lot of articles but none that connect the dots as well as this one.
I posted a version of this to Russell Brand's channel in response to his interview w/Yanis Varoufakis: Whoever Putin is, and I'm pretty sure he is not who the MSSM says he is, he is challenging US hegemony and the current unipolar world. NATO should have been dissolved after WW2. Its moment is passed. Putin is no worse than US leadership. I'm not just talking about Biden, for as we can all see he is a pathetic tool, similar in some ways to the actor Zelensky (cf Reagan, Trump might be better comparisons). Look behind the curtain. When you hear the words "we are fighting for freedom and democracy" substitute "corporate capitalism and rentier finance" for clarity and you will find Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas, General Dynamics, JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway, etc, etc. If the leadership of Ukraine had acceded in the first 24 hours after Chernobyl was taken, and the two minis were declared independent , the war on Ukraine would have been over. The US has been provoking Russia for some time. The Minsk accords have been violated repeatedly. Russia does not want the largest nuclear power plant in the world on its border. How hard is that to understand? It is not directly targeting civilians, but strategically targeting US sponsored military installations (Yes, kids, this is where our tax dollars are going, military spending is why we cannot have nice things like #Medicare4All). It is the Ukrainian fascists that are preventing the people from utilizing the humanitarian corridors that Russia offered, so Svoboda can give them rifles and use them as human shields. Germany will be the real loser. Without Nord Stream 2, it will be a very cold winter indeed, and Germany, which hasn't been paying its NATO "dues" will be forced to purchase expensive obsolete US weapons to prop up the US economy. The winner, as in the Iraq War, will be China whose immense pipeline thru Mongolia now in its earliest stages will create a market for Russian oil, completely bypassing the EU. Meanwhile the US with a fiat currency and no manufacturing to speak of will continue to collapse from the inside. I, for one, am looking forward to the day when the US will no longer rule the world, and China's stated goal of a multipolar world will come into being. But time is running out with environmental and social collapse accelerating.
Any belief that Ukraine's Western fortified military is capable of triumphing over Russia is as pitiful as America's stated belief that the inept forces we trained and then left behind in Afghanistan could fend off the Taliban. It is inhumane to the victims left behind in Ukraine to convince them otherwise.
Whatever impelled Zelensky to believe the West would fight a conventional war in Ukraine's behalf? That would signal WW III, and as foolhardy as is the West and deluded its leaders, Ukraine just isn't the right cause. The West operates by stealth, by fly-by drone, by remote control - unless there's oil or precious metals to be had. And why didn't Zelensky eliminate the neoNazi presence, at least in the military and government? Is he completely unable to put himself in Russia's shoes, just for a moment? The saddest aspect of this sad situation is that two great nations with a common history are completely alienated. And so tight is the noose around this alienation orchestrated by the West that parts of the "free speech supporting" West are "forbidding" the reading of Dostoevsky: what next, the indictment in absentia of Mussorgsky, (The Great Gate of Kiev) and all the Russian composers? If this isn't insanity, insanity is redundant.
It is inadvisable to start playing a game with others who could give a whit about you and comedy has limits just like Russian patience.
Applauding you Caitlin... as usual you hit the nail on the head!
This, in my opinion, is all designed to 1) crash the dollar and destroy what is left of the economy, as per the wishes of the Great Reset crew and 2) transfer world hegemony away from the US towards China and Russia with Jerusalem as the capital of the new Eurasian Superstate.
Putin knows this. He is playing his role perfectly. The sanctions that have been placed on him will hurt the West just as much as it will hurt him. They are all owned by the same bankster billionaires.
Brilliant and thank you !!
Clearly the 2014 US coup against democratically elected Ukraine government, Russia-gate immense hoax concocted by Deep State and St. Obama, Biden and Hillary, and NATO expansion into Ukraine are VERY closely connected and are key components of the US bipartisan War party strategy for world dominance.
The same lying team and key psychopathic players. Remember militaristic bipartisan funeral of John McCain.
I think you may be giving too much intelligent credit to the US, and assuming too much strength for them. Putin shows again and again how much smarter, calmer and better at chess than the US. I think everything is changed now and the US has lost its hegemonic dominance. This action against Russia will, I believe, only push Russia, China and other non US conforming nations to create their own economic and security systems without the west that much faster. I think the US and Europe will in the long run be the big losers in this game, and will ultimately suffer far worse than the Russians now will be.