31 Comments

Russia controls our elections. Russia secretly zaps our diplomats with brain-beams. Russia places bounties on US troops. Russia has an armada of tanks ready to overrun eastern Europe. Why does all this seem familiar. . . oh yes, I have read '60s era comic books in which the USSR was always a handy-dandy off-the-shelf supervillain.

Expand full comment

What was started by Truman as an intelligence clearinghouse for the president has metastisized into the dog-wagging mess it is today -- an unelected and unaccountable government unto itself.

Congress? They no longer oversee, debate, or declare war as is their constitutional function and duty.

The press? What happened there? What was once a tug at Walter Cronkite's elbow is now a spook replacing him in the anchor chair. And while Assange rots, vacuous career climbers who couldn't break a story if their lives depended on it scream as one for more censorship.

The corruption of our institutions is widespread and ongoing. We can not measure our freedom by the number of cans of dog food in aisle 5. As a nation we are deeply in trouble.

When will enough Americans say "Enough!"?

Expand full comment

All this war talk is just great for the corporate war machine. We can always follow the money in this broke-ass culture.

Expand full comment

In an ironic twist, on this day 3 years ago...Max Blumenthal of the Gray Zone did a video, asking members of Congress if the US should meddle in Venezuela. The responses were predictably laughable (bad) from both political parties (an AOC appearance in which she doesn't answer is a particularly disgusting moment).

The continued march to Redbait and McCarthyite every dissenter of Western propaganda makes this entire situation potentially more grave. Not just for citizens of Ukraine, but Russia, and all entangled countries, as well.

Expand full comment

I want folks to consider the consequences of all the lies being told about this propaganda.

I responded to an article that tightly parallels what Caitlin has posted here. https://www.opednews.com/articles/Worthless-Centrist-and-L-by-Rob-Kall-Media_Media-Blackout_Media-CNN_Media-Collusion-220128-206.html

My comment does not address the consequences for the American Public, but I think if you're interested you might discover a lot in the exchanges made on this article. Basically, the "American Century" is over. If you think the Oligarchy has been ripping you off before, it is going to get much, much worse.

I hope Caitlin will look up some Michael Hudson, Scott Ritter, Pepe Escobar, Aaron Mate, and Max Blumenthal articles. China is taking advantage here. Germany is being gouged.

And this Michael Hudson interview is just chilling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7eAbbVMr_4&t=3s

------ My Comment -------------

Putin isn't going to run over any country. It is going to destroy Ukraine as an economic entity and then withdraw, leaving the mess to the USA and the IMF. He -may- annex the Donbas.

Aircraft Carriers have been obsolete for over a decade now. Russia's Hypersonic missiles will destroy themin the opening seconds of whatever war happens. You mean the F-35 that keeps crashing and is already rusting away? The Russians use very different air tactics than the USA. The air battle is not a one-on-one event.

Battles between masses of tanks are a thing of the past. An anti-tank missile with a 10Km range will wipe out all those M1A1's before they get off the airstrip.

As far as NATO preparing for war with Russia, you might want to ask Scott Ritter what he thinks, rather than a liar like Stanley McCrystal or General BetrayUs.

Russia has been preparing for this possibility for more than a year. It has repeatedly shown a capability to rapidly mobilize 100,000-plus combat-ready forces in short order. NATO has shown an ability to mobilize 30,000 after six-to-nine-months of extensive preparations.

Scott Ritter again.

In short, there is no viable military option, and Biden knows this.

I'll let you look for your own links to Danny Sjurson's take down of Petraus.

The USA couldn't win in Vietnam, couldn't keep power in Nicaragua (where the Chinese are going to build a sea level canal), couldn't suppress Cuba, couldn't stop Venezuela, has pushed Iran into the arms of the Silk Road and alliances with Russia and China.

Yes, war with NATO will be costly for Russia, but it will hit the USA even worse. Our allies (except for the UK and that absolutely stupid move called Brexit) are abandoning us.

Expand full comment

Some accounts that I've read, from Ukrainian sources, no less, have been saying Russia has been wanting to invade Ukraine since about this century's beginning, or before. US Secretary of State, A. Blinken has been screeching it since early November, last year. Yet, a funny thing, no "invasion", no, "the sky is falling", just Russian troops doing their thing within Russian borders. With assurances from that Ol' Rascal Putin himself, and, his foreign minister saying "no invasion". He doesn't want Ukraine joining NATO, neither do I. NATO should have been disbanded in '91 with the Cold War ending and some real peace...

...But no! Imperialism and its nasty partner globalization became all the rage and has now destroyed any chance of saving itself in an all-out, self-destructive race to use all the resources up and eventually implode.

The non-stop rattling of swords distracts the homies from seeing their own loss of freedoms as totalitarian Big Pharma and Washington further demand ever more compliance with ridiculousness. Freedom is now in our real-view mirror and objects aren't closer than they appear; they are further away, floating off into a Sunset of no return. Peace, The Ol' Hippy

Expand full comment

Caitlin, love your style!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Caitlin. You are a hero for me .

Expand full comment

Ho Chi Minh was once asked if he was worried that the US might invade N. Vietnam. He said that would be like flies conquering more fly paper. Putin knows that and has no interest in placing troops where the people don't want them.

Expand full comment

they just wanna suck all the oxygen in the room. boycott and non-participation/contribution is the best action. and keep producing new and alternative realities for them to have to respond to. beat them in their own dirty game.

Expand full comment

I'm late to reading and commenting on this, but now that I've gotten around to it, I'm curious if True North Centre is a good source of news concerning Canada.

I do live here after all and really ought to know more about what this country is doing, but since I'm not going to take Canadian establishment media any more seriously than American establishment media because of crap like the above (wow, Russia made all those truckers do that, just like they reportedly made BLM angry enough to protest the killings of black people, according to US media--I guess any time there's a protest about anything, it's a Russian plot instead of the people involved genuinely having grievances about what's being done by those they are protesting and being mad enough to protest without a foreign power prodding them. Incredible! As in, literally lacking credibility), and since Jacobin is hit and miss and was employing Ana Kasparian last I checked, and since David Doel has sucked for many years, there's only one Canadian journalist I trust right now: Aaron Mate. And since Aaron's specialty is foreign policy, he rarely reports on, say, Justin Trudeau green-lighting a pipeline on First Nations (Canadian way of saying "Native Americans") land. I do pick up some of these stories via Twitter, and sometimes someone who mostly covers the US will write a piece or do a video about it, but I still don't know as much as I ought to.

Expand full comment

On the RAND corporation, and the costs and benefits of demonizing Russia, spring 2019

"Overextending and Unbalancing Russia

Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options"

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html

Expand full comment

It's funny to see Garry Kasparov's face standing at the front of the article, and without a comment. Kasparov was the World Chess Champion for a great number of years, a Soviet and then Russian citizen of minority extraction, and a long term critic of much Russian policy.

CNN apparently plays on the aura of chess as an intellectual activity and a Russian activity.

Kasparov himself is an impressive genius, and were this information about chess, it would likely be wonderful. However, none of that gives him any special inside information about American politics or Russian military buildup, though surely he could tell us things about the culture generally, much as could any other educated native.

I do not know that CNN shouldn't interview Kasparov, but I see no evidence that they usually go to chess players for their information. Have they asked what Vladimir Kramnik's opinions are here? Have they interviewed Nepomniatchi or Karjakin or Daniil Dubov? These are also Russians and people whose chess shows them to be fabulously clever. It might also be reasonable to interview Vassily Ivanchuk, an outstanding player from the Ukraine. Of course, Kasparov has also had some political involvement. But there are other Russians involved in politics, and involved right now. What efforts has CNN made to contact them?

Since the qualifications of a chessplayer to discuss politics are not otherwise sought by CNN, and since Kasparov's inclinations are known, this looks like they are cherry-picking their "evidence:" Mr. Kasparov was chosen because his opinions were convenient to CNN.

So CNN's cheerleading appears on yet another count disingenuous even if Kasparov himself might be speaking from the heart, and only incorrect. We have long seen Russian and Eastern European expats excuse American transgressions, much as American communists in the '30s refused to acknowledge Stalin's horrific violence. Either way, this makes for poor reason to brave nuclear arms or shoot up yet another country.

Expand full comment

Combine this reddit post with the analysis of Scott Ritter and Pepe Escobar, I'm kind of thinking "The American Century" is OVER. NPR had a show this AM about China "tricking" African nations into infrastructure loans that would solely benefit China. Funny thing that they never mentioned the USA loans that did exactly the same thing.

From Reddit by u/chakokat.

Hypersonic weapons.

Hypersonic weapons such as Russia's 3M22 Zircon fly so fast and low -- at speeds of up to Mach 6 and at a low atmospheric-ballistic trajectory -- that they can penetrate traditional anti-missile defense systems.

The missile flies with an advanced fuel that the Russians say gives it a range of up to 1,000 kilometers. And it's so fast that the air pressure in front of the weapon forms a plasma cloud as it moves, absorbing radio waves and making it practically invisible to active radar systems.

U.S. Aegis missile interceptor systems require 8-10 seconds of reaction time to intercept incoming attacks. In those 8-10 seconds, the Russian Zircon missiles will already have traveled 20 kilometers, and the interceptor missiles do not fly fast enough to catch up.

According to Popular Mechanics, even if a U.S. ship were to detect a Zircon missile from 100 miles away, it would have only one minute to do something about it.

In order to intercept a Russian Zircon missile, the U.S. would either need to intercept it at launch or fly an object into its path.

Russia's shift to hypersonic weapons is likely a means of contending with American superiority in size, technology and sheer number of aircraft carriers. The U.S. Navy intends to maintain a force of 12 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

By contrast, Russia has one -- and it deploys with a tugboat in case its engine breaks down.

While at sea, any of Russia's 15 Buyan-class corvettes will be able to carry up to 25 Zircon hypersonic missiles. It would take fewer than a half-dozen of those missiles to sink even the most advanced American aircraft carrier, such as the USS Gerald R. Ford.

Some say that innovations like the Zircon are moving the development of military technology away from aircraft carrier-based systems, calling for the U.S. Navy to reconsider the role of the carrier entirely.

https://www.military.com/equipment/weapons/why-russias-hypersonic-missiles-cant-be-seen-radar.html

Also

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/russia-test-fires-new-hypersonic-missile-from-submarine/

A prospective Russian hypersonic missile has been successfully test-fired from a nuclear submarine for the first time, the military says.

The Russian Defense Ministry says the Zircon missile was launched from the Severodvinsk submarine and hit a designated mock target in the Barents Sea.

The launch marks Zircon’s first launch from a submarine. It previously has been repeatedly test-fired from a navy frigate, most recently in July.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Zircon will be capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). Putin has emphasized that its deployment will significantly boost Russian military capability.

Officials say Zircon’s tests are to be completed later this year and it will be commissioned by the Russian navy in 2022.

Also:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/belgorod-russias-stealth-submarine-has-navy-really-confused-190480

Expand full comment

CBC: the unintentionally interpretive comedy network

Expand full comment