(NOTE — The following is a comment posted by one of my readers, Mr. Allan Mountain. I am blessed that so many of you provide incisive, well researched comments. One of my retired CIA colleagues told me the other day how impressed he is by the quality of the comments on this blog. I thank you all.)
Given situation that has unfolded it is hard to fault Russia strategy and tactics now, nonetheless I think the Russians gravely underestimated the criminal psychosis that has gripped the Western globalist hegemons and as consequence made big mistake by not going in much harder much earlier way back even before Feb 2014. But that mistake I suspect was made in good faith and a rather naïve belief that there was some grain of common sense in the leadership of the Anglo-American-EU-NATO leadership.
Let’s consider the wider historic context and much longer and sordid history and how the Anglo-American gang funded and created conditions for all the great wars of last century, as well as setting up and funding the Bolshevik Revolution – refer the brilliant research and writing of Antony C Sutton https://www.antonysutton.com/
Most people who read articles posted on Sonar21 will know that in 1990 agreement was brokered between Gorbachev / USSR government and George Bush / James Baker / American government and West German government by which the West faithfully promised not to extend borders of NATO towards Russia but under Clinton they broke that promise and began extending NATO borders towards Russia. What was most astonishing was how Gorbachev government never got that agreement put into writing and somehow most curiously they relied on handshake promise (which, however one tries to look at it, was incredibly naïve given the prior horror that the Western nations had inflicted on Russia and USSR).
Given my prior years of reading and researching the real history, as opposed to official fictions, way back then in 1990 I was assuming that the Russians would never fall for the promises made by West – and that they were playing an even more sophisticated subterfuge by pretending to believe the West and go along with dismantling Warsaw so as to buy themselves time to better prepare for what they knew must eventually unfold based on the long history of constant attacks from Western imperial powers to smash Russia and gain control of the heartland and effective control of the Eurasian landmass (as Sir Halford Mackinder stated was necessary prerequisite for total world dominion).
I was shocked beyond belief when the Russians allowed that drunken criminal traitor Yeltsin to act out the western-choreographed theater of jumping up on the tank in Moscow with western media news and TV cameras filming him ostensibly saving Russia from the staged communist coup and allowing him to be subsequently ensconced as President of Russia – after which Yeltsin, in service of his western handlers, gave the Harvard economists / Marc Rich / Jeffrey Sachs gang carte blanche to implement so-called free market reforms and privatization, which they named ‘Shock Therapy’ and which resulted in the rape of Russia and the establishment of a seriously corrupt oligarchy resulting in ten million or more Russians starving to death or drinking themselves to death before they starved. I was never able to conceive that the Russians would have allowed themselves to be tripped down that hole – but they did.
Fortunately for Russia and the world, Putin managed to adroitly maneuver his way into the Presidency (which I understand – I may be wrong – necessitated him having to sign off on full immunity for Yeltsin’s betrayal of Russia). And to his credit, afterwards Putin tried everything in his power to join forces with America and the rest of the world so as to bring about a much greater peaceful and co-operative world – but as equal partners able to decide their own respective sovereign futures.
Nevertheless, in hindsight, which is always so easy for armchair critiquing, I think Putin and the Russians even then continued to vastly underestimate the Western globalist hegemons and their truly pernicious ambitions to own the world along with everything and everybody in it. I think (emphasis on ‘I think’ because I may well be wrong which I will get to) Putin took far too long to fully appreciate the extent of the criminal psychopathy of the real power as represented by the Anglo-American-EU governments.
I recently heard on a video discussion from one of the better-informed American commentators (exact source I cannot recall nor have I been able to easily find verification of this so this may or may not be true and perhaps someone who knows can verify in reply) that the Russian military did enter Ukraine / Donbass immediately post Maidan coup. The report I listened to stated it was due to that quick intervention in 2014 that prompted the West to conduct urgent brokering of Minsk Agreement, which as we now know from Angela Merkel was brokered purely as deceptive cover to give the West time to arm and train a much greater Ukrainian army in order to wage war against Russia.
Following directly below is very recent 11min presentation by Mark Sleboda about the massive amounts of weapons and tanks the West poured into Ukraine post Minsk agreement – it is truly mind-boggling – most of which the Russians have recently destroyed.
Ukraine’s Three Armies
28 Jan 2023 11min presentation by Mark Sleboda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jU87sJ8p-c&ab_channel=TheRealPolitickwithMarkSleboda
So I believe that Russia was far too trusting and should never have allowed themselves to be deceived by the treacherous Western powers and that they should have gone hard out way back immediately after the 2014 Maidan Coup which would have obviated any chance for the West to betray them and arm Ukraine the way did. Nevertheless, I concede that subsequent to this massive arming of Ukraine that the Russian strategy and tactics can be argued as the best means of dealing with the threat whilst avoiding too many Russian servicemen dying and avoiding as much as possible unnecessary Ukrainian civilian deaths and casualties.
But (in hypothetical world) had I been making the decisions for Russia long before 2014, I would have been better prepared for the western treachery that precedent history informed was certain to come. And especially immediately after Maidan I would have pulled out all stops to go full on to smash the Nazi filth in Ukraine – I would never have believed or trusted the West, especially Germany, to honour their promise to ensure Kiev government honour the Minsk Agreement and thereafter to arm and prepare Ukraine for war.
However – I may be wrong on all the assumptions above, in so far as perhaps Putin and the Russians may have other deeper secret sources of information that they are basing their decisions on and they may therefore be way ahead in the great global chess game (as I suspect could be the case) i.e. perhaps the Russians have always known that full blown war with Anglo-American-ruled Western bloc was inevitable and that the criminally insane psychopaths who own and run our western governments would never ever stop until they had finally destroyed and broken up the Russian Federation to own and control it all (which they thought they were on verge of achieving under Yeltsin treachery). And if that is the case then the Russians are playing the perfect game, because they know it can only end in massive horrendous war and yes with nukes flying (there is no question in my mind that the Strangelove Anglo-American-EU psychos are that insane and more).
So that would explain the slowly slowly approach by which the Russians are carefully destroying Ukraine military capabilities while they are learning everything they need to learn and know as they closely watch and monitor every move the west is making in Ukraine and as they get to learn about all the West’s weapons capabilities on the battlefield – as they hope beyond hope that when in desperation the West does launch a NATO-led response into Ukraine through Poland and other borders like Moldova that they can quickly destroy them and hope that the West will not in their madness resort to nukes in their last ditch final vain attempt to destroy Russia – hence the Russians are building and positioning huge forces and waiting for that moment to come, while they are slowly but surely destroying the Ukrainian army.
If and when Angle-American-NATO psychos put boots on the ground in Ukraine, as I think is highly probable now (never underestimating the extent of their insanity and boundless pursuit of power) then we will witness the complete annihilation of America and UK and western Europe – not that there will be much left standing in such event – it will all be terrifyingly swift and sudden.
I do think this is, above all other scenarios, the scenario that the Russians have to be considering as the most likely final outcome of this madness – and although they are doing everything they can to avoid it the Russians are preparing with much greater finesse including ramping up on all fronts not least in industrial munitions capacity.
Whatever unfolds from here it is becoming increasingly difficult to see or believe that the globalist criminals will ever come to their senses and negotiate any sensible outcome that works for all nations which can only ever come about with agreement to enable a shared-power multipolar world with sovereign nations having self-autonomy.
Col MacGregor’s latest article on Zero Hedge is informative:
Macgregor: This Time It’s Different
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/macgregor-time-its-different
and this brief video discussion provides good accurate insight into the real FDR and his actions leading up to Pearl Harbour – I post this for the stark similarities pertaining to current dynamics unfolding between USA and China
Douglas Macgregor – Prepared for an all-out War.
19min YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuE9YSprxiM&ab_channel=Campaign23s
In that presentation MacGregor relates how a couple of historians contacted him and walked him through all the sordid details as to how FDR goaded Japan into attacking USA, by his directives to US military and Navy to keep intruding into Japanese territorial waters and many other provocations not least blockading sea lanes to prevent Japan from receiving shipments of oil – Japan being totally dependent on seaborne oil imports. Note the parallels with American policies and actions in seas just off Taiwan and China today – it is almost exact same with the only difference this is China not Japan, and if America and West are struggling with industrial arms production to support Ukrainian Army needs and are unable to keep up with Russian production then they will be in for a very sickening shock if they manage to tip China over the edge and prompt a war with China as China’s manufacturing capacities dwarfs everything in America and combined West – as you all well know.
And last but not least – to confirm the arrogant insanity and direction of American command posing as intelligent military strategists – check this report on Zero Hedge 30 Jan, regarding a memo that General Mike (Strangelove) Minihan sent to his officers in Air Mobility Command:
Air Force General Tells His Officers ‘War With China’ Only 2 Years Away
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/air-force-general-tells-his-officers-war-china-only-2-years-away
I always feared what would happen when the American (NATO) war machine finally met an immovable force. I always knew they would double down, rather than retreat/negotiate. We are witnessing a battle where one side must lose, and that side will not be Russia.
For the US/NATO, it’s either resorting to using nuclear weapons or accepting defeat. Sadly, for some of those in charge, both options represent the “end of the world”, and this is what I always feared the most.
Before cricising Jeffrey Sachs regarding Russia, one should note that he had proposed identical policies for, and towards, both Poland and Russia, but that the attitutes of Western finance towards Poland and Russia had been quite different leading to different outcomes in the mentioned countries:
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/fjjjfsjzw8m9brcxglfwz5yjyhmrx4
Au contraire…one should take every opportunity to criticize Jeffery Sachs.
He’s changed hi tune and learned from the mistakes he was involved in. His recommendations worked fine in Poland, he did expect the same for Russia. He also is appropriately skeptical of the mRNA “jabs” that were never intended to eradicate the virus.
What are your specific criticisms?
Jeffrey Sachs is an economic killer! A nation state assassin! A hardened neoliberal like the Chicago boys who has only done shit throughout his life. And when everything goes wrong like brags, it’s never your fault! But if anyone knows of a Jeffrey success story? Poland? An industrial subsidiary from Germany with low wages? Where if everything went well with the economy why would they elect two nationalists like the Kaczyński brothers? Who buried Poland even more. Let’s see if it doesn’t blow up after this war! On the other hand, I myself find it very interesting to hear about the conflict and the enlargement of NATO. I even recommended it here. Who wants a war when they’re bleeding a pig?
https://fpif.org/jeffrey_sachss_metamorphosis_from_neoliberal_shock_trooper_to_bleeding_heart_hits_a_snag/
I totally agree he is a Keynesian print to prosperity. Putin did more for Russian economy than Sachs consultancy. That’s his great sin he was successful in adopting free market principles while restraining the oligarchs. By the way Jeff don’t we have anti trust laws in the United States? We don’t have any laws enforced in the United States it’s a corrupt sewer with intellectual posers everywhere.
An economic policy that was forced on Russia by Sachs et al which resulted in 10 million Russians dying. It is not a criticism – it is a fact.
OK maybe one might argue in defence of Sachs that, along with hordes of equally dumbed-down economists who were immersed in Keynesian tripe and long-ago discredited linear modelling of economies during their informative university education (brain-washing) were simply doing what they had been trained to do, and so he was merely an unwitting accomplice to and perpetrator of what cannot be understood as anything but mass murder to appease the greed of the western financial / Wall St and City elites along with the ex communist bosses who flipped overnight when they were offered entry to the big club of oligarch billionaires and who profited so enormously by their betrayal of Russia and the Russian people.
Nevertheless, it does seem that at least Sachs has recently had the good grace to acknowledge he made a huge mistake in the part he played. Which begs the question how sincere is that regret? Is it genuine or more of a Pontius Pilate PR public hand-wringing to deflect the criticisms that are justifiably leveled at him and at that whole shabby criminal gang of financial pirates who conduct their monopoly program under the banner of ‘free market enterprise’ to underpin real freedom and democracy.
Perhaps you should read the longer version of his account of his Russia mission. He sounds sincere to me:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130316035403/http:/jeffsachs.org/2012/03/what-i-did-in-russia/
He’s a Keynesian. Print to prosperity. I believe he was involved with Clinton’s and the rape of Russia in the 90s. Some great economist. His consultancy is based on naivety because all he is done is academic. Outcomes matter. You printed into infinity on stupid ideas, military, service and tech. Where’s the beef ( manufacturing). Micheal Hudson is great I would listen to him before anyone.
In the case of Foreign Policy in that era he and his banker ilk are responsible for Putin. Unlike Jeff , Putin actually built back Russian Federation ( without western help). This is his great sin he was successful and Russia adopted more free market principles. Yes he controlled the oligarchs. By the way do we not have anti trust laws in USA for a reason?
They just don’t have western bankers fleecing them. I have listen to him but he is super naive in most matters.
History is replete with examples of small free trade zones established by outsiders which are designed to empty nearby large nations of taxes, resources and profits. Everyone gathers there to trade or setup shop. And the benefits trickle down to the small populace.
Eg, Hong Kong, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore etc.
It even works on midsize countries like South Korea, Japan etc. But try applying the same policies on large landmass and population countries it only ends in disaster.
Slight signs of economic distress all those foreign companies fold up shop and move to next cheapest destination or consolidated in their home countries waiting for opening up of another cheaper location.
Over last four years I personally know at least three multinationals who closed large factories and offices in Poland or reduced them by 90% or less.
Don’t know how many more companies have done similar actions and what happens when conflict starts?
Sounds like you are getting more pessimistic about the current situation, Larry.
I can see how having complete imbeciles, controlled / owned by a group of total maniacs of a certain small but utterly genocidal ethnic group, being in power in the West can lead one to being pessimistic. One would only hope that when choosing between living with lost power (but living), or dying from a nuclear blast (fast) or its aftermath (slow), these people would choose the latter and not the former.
Of course, that assumes that this ethnic group has any semblance of safety instinct left in them and that it is not completely overpowered by their Satanic nature and visceral hatred of Russians and Christians.
Putin did know all along that the world situation will get to the brink. And he prepared Russia’s population for this when he said a few years ago:
1) “If they start a nuclear war, as martyrs, we [Russians] will go to heaven, and they will burn in hell”, and
2) “Why do we need a World if Russia is not in it?”
Given people in Russia have always been a lot (a LOT) less materialistic and lot closer to God, people are not afraid of dying provided they were on God’s side when they did.
The question is if everyone in so called West (ZOG controlled and brainwashed or not) who are willing to do the same fully realizing the Satan cannot wait for their arrival…
We’ll all learn in the next few years.
“Putin did know all along that the world situation will get to the brink. And he prepared Russia’s population for this when he said a few years ago:
1) “If they start a nuclear war, as martyrs, we [Russians] will go to heaven, and they will burn in hell”, and
2) “Why do we need a World if Russia is not in it?” ”
I remember when Putin made those comment. He let the world know then what the outcome would be and that Russia and Russians understood the price.
Those two statements should be printed on the front page of every newspaper in Europe and the U.S. for at least a week so the populations of those countries can fully understand their impending destruction when it happens…and know they let their leaders usher in that destruction.
The only positive part about this level of destruction is it does tend to destroy the evil, and those that remain do tend to build a better world. Let us hope on the next reconstruction we will have at least grown enough spiritually and as a humanity that we do not make the same mistakes again.
Larry didn’t write this article, he explained in the paragraph below the picture that it was written by Mr. Allan Mountain.
The Russians have a historical tradition of martyrdom. It’s one of many little manifestations of cooperative ethnocentrism one can observe in a real country. We do not, but we will. New nations are born from the corpses of empires and old nations reborn, long submerged under imperial dominion.
Russians aren’t ethnocentric. They’re literally the opposite of ethnocentric: there are over 190 different ethnic groups in Russia. This includes Turks (a huge variety), Mongols, Inuit, Manchus, ethnic Chinese and Koreans, Slavs, Cossacks, Tatars, Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Shamanists/Animists, and of course all the various ethnic groups that inhabit the Caucasus and surrounding regions, e.g. Armenians.
Also, the only possible way there is a war against China over Taiwan is if the US is stupid enough to provoke one by encouraging separatists on the island to declare independence. For any number of reasons that neocon pipe-dream will remain an impossibility, not least of which is how the current war in Ukraine is playing out in the eyes of the Taiwanese public: a recent VoA poll found that nearly 60% of the Taiwanese public finds the US “untrustworthy.” Additionally, somewhere around half of Taiwanese support eventual (and peaceful) reunification with China; the Taiwanese naval forces would find it utterly impossible to free the island from a Chinese blockade and embargo (and the US navy would be mostly useless in such an event, as well); and the Chinese simply do not want to violently invade and annex Taiwan.
Nor will the Chinese need to, since now they can simply gesture towards what is currently happening in Ukraine and the Western European economies and respond to any Taiwanese protests with a placid “You have seen how your American partners will treat you–do you really think that cooperation between our peoples could possibly be worse than that?”
China is well aware that all it needs to do, now, is sit back and let the Western (and western-allied) economies take the massive, massive hit that’s going to inevitably land while it quietly chugs along with its OBOR and Russian-linked technological and cultural progress and prosperity.
So every time you hear or read one of these idiot US generals yammering on about how China will soon attack and invade Taiwan, dismiss the fool like the booze-addled buffoon s/he so clearly is.
He also said to hit first and hit hard – once you determine the fight to be unavoidable. You dont`t have years.
Putin certainly is advised about the nature of the tribe, unfortunately, I believe, that he trusts some of them, that are doing the advising. An other deal down the drain…
What do I expect from the offspring of satan? More of the same. They are chosen – you see. They can do no wrong.
Look at Hiroshima today:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5300/5495174561_aaeef580c6_b.jpg
Nagasaki:
https://www.japanrailpassnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Nagasaki-Japan-skyline-at-dusk.jpg
Detroit, not Mariupol:
https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/getmedia/6ba81a89-02b6-4f4a-9bee-6ff06503c353/original-2_1.aspx
There is a more horrible weapon, than nukes…
The problem with the western elite is they have convinced themselves that after a nuclear holicaust they will be among the survivors.Others will die not themselves.
Sometimes when you have lost a struggle against an established liar, you just have to let them make open promises.
Nato on the doorstep of Russia (and the evil use of Nazis and innocent Ukrainians as proxies) is not simply because the “not a step further” promise was broken.
The Key facts are US is at end of empire stage, China is at beginning of empire stage, and Russia, which saw all this coming a long way off, got seriously armed up with both Quality and Quantity to ensure that US could never threaten Russia militarily.
That US has pushed Ukraine to do that is simply US stupidity. Other than perhaps intervening in a US election to get Trump re-elected, I don’t see how Russia could have avoided this situation. It is a US fin de siècle crisis.
We are so screwed….
Is that a kraken? and only the Anglosphere would publish it.
Why would anyone want to be friends with japan in the thirties ?
After so many massacres in china then the invasion of indochina.
fdr just brought it on.
Cthulhu.
I believe that is the Great Lord Cthulhu, who lies dead and dreaming in R’lyeh, but shall return one day.
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”
We forgot to mention the “think tank”: University of Miskatonic
To Another Steve:
Yes your point is taken. You are right. Japan was conducting terrible atrocities in China and needed to be stopped. No question.
The only reason I copied link to Macgregor relating how FDR goaded Japan to attack was to show the similarity with what USA is doing in seas off China and Taiwan along with other provocations; notwithstanding China is not in any way committing any atrocities anywhere (quite the reverse with their roll out of One Belt Road programs across Eurasia).
I also was trying to highlight the devious and pernicious subterfuge that FDR and his cronies conducted by stationing the Pacific fleet in Hawaii exactly at that time, when its real base was in coast of California, where it should have been anchored then, and thereby FDR and his government willingly and knowingly sacrificed approx 3,000 Americans. I think there could have been a better more honest way of stopping Japan back then e.g. by never having enabled them to become such a murderous fascist power in the first place.
Further, few people are aware of British involvement in making Japan the power it was back then – for purpose of smashing China especially. NOTE what is happening right now with America urging Japan to rearm for the coming war with China – history is more like repeating than rhyming I suggest.
It was Britain which funded, and with its naval engineers, helped Japan build its massive aircraft carrier fleets which were built in a port of China (name I cannot recall now) in the 1930s. One part of the empire funded and set it all up.
Recall also the truly wicked genocide that Britain and American accomplices unleashed on China to empty its huge silver reserves into their coffers after Britain had suffered huge economic collapse after the collapse of the East India Company bubble – what is referred to as the Opium Wars. They have always planned to crush and dominate China just as they have always planned to crush and own Russia and every other nation on earth.
Japan was then the proxy as Ukraine is today, but like Germany under Hitler they became so powerful so quickly by conquest, that they thought they could throw off the tyrant yoke of the Anglo-American Empire that had actually organized events to cultivate the fascist takeovers of Japan and Germany (most notably Versailles Treaty in Germany’s case) and then in the 1930s funded and supported the economic growth of Japan and Germany in the first place.
Had there ever been any desire for a peaceful multi-polar world back in those days, then the power behind the Anglo-American Empire would never have armed Japan to the teeth the way it was with help of Britain in the 1930s.
The real interests of our side have never been about freedom and democracy. It has only ever been about a faux pretense of democracy by which citizens get to vote for a ‘democratically-elected dictatorship’ i.e. one of two sides of the same political coin organized to ensure the theater would never disrupt the agenda.
And we have to put our hands up and acknowledge the part we the people have played in enabling the program, however ignorantly or not we have acquiesced to the agenda because it made our lives so wonderfully comfortable in the process – albeit the agenda during those so-called golden years was extremely well-hidden and disguised by the theatrics and the propaganda that had us all so enthralled and distracted with the ever-growing abundance of fancy fast cars and yachts and toys of every entertaining description, all of which was in no small part enabled and funded by the rape of resources and the virtual imposition of slave labour regimes in all the remote then ‘way-out-of-sight’ third world poor nations which were so rich in all the natural resources our side needed to conduct the imperial military adventures and heroic conquests of the great empire, which far too many people who enjoyed the benefits of the empire were only too willing to believe was being conducted to bring freedom and democracy and Christian society to all the heathen nations who were simply too ignorant and unwilling to get off their butts and make a better society for themselves.
Now the Shock Therapy is being unleashed on us – yet still far too few people can see what is unfolding before their befuddled eyes, as they are herded into the Neoliberal / Neocon pens of penury and debt-slavery.
Think Weimar hyperinflationary collapse and how that prepped the minds of the German people to embrace what was soon thereafter presented to them as the great leap forward to prosperity and freedom and with ingeniously choreographed theatrics of the torchlight parades and the Teutonic Knights riding so triumphantly and glorious in the light of the burning torches.
One has to wonder if there might be some karmic poetic justice in what is unfolding right now as we in the west begin to reap what we have sown.
I also was trying to highlight the devious and pernicious subterfuge that FDR and his cronies conducted by stationing the Pacific fleet in Hawaii exactly at that time, when its real base was in coast of California, where it should have been anchored then, and thereby FDR and his government willingly and knowingly sacrificed approx 3,000 Americans.
Not only that, but Britain was decoding Japanese wartime signals in realtime, including specific instructions to attack Pearl Harbour. Churchill personally notified FDR in advance of those messages. FDR was lusting after an excuse to bring the US into the war, and deliberately sacrificed Pearl Harbour to realise that aim. That is long established and incontrovertible.
No. This is BS. the naval code used by the Japanese for the PH attack had not been deciphered.
Red code was deciphered but not purple code. The message of attack from diamond head radio to conus was delayed 7 hours not due to time zone either
“which I understand – I may be wrong – necessitated him having to sign off on full immunity for Yeltsin’s betrayal of Russia”
According to some reliable sources Putin is loyal to a fault to the ones who “made” him so that’d explain he protected B.Y. from a trial.
He extended that loyalty to Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Yumasheva who… ahem… dug deep into Russia’s state coffers when Dad was at the Kremlin : some say she looted 235 million dollars during the sordid 90’s.
The reason why “Putin is loyal to a fault” to people, to whom he made promises is NOT because they “made” him. If anything, everyone in Russia believes his coming was pre-ordained.
Putin keeps all his promises (to everyone!) because he is a man of principle and law “to a fault” — if he, Putin, makes a promise, even to a criminal and lowlife like Yeltsin, he will keep the promise regardless how the political situation changes.
Unlike the Western “politicians” (aka whores). They are all like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” who to Richard Gere’s question “What’s your name” says “What would you like it to be?!”. That’s the biggest difference between Putin and Western whores in power. Putin ALWAYS keeps his promise, regardless to whom he made it.
And Western “politicians” NEVER keep their promises, verbal, written or otherwise. You can bet your life on it.
And that’s yet another reason why majority of the World is with Russia. Russia’s word is as solid as a Rock. West’s word as slimy, foul, and soft as loose stool excrements.
…and the World knows it.
Very well said and deadly accurate. The loss of ethics and morals in the West is a disgrace to all of us. And I notice that virtually all honest journalists reporting on this war have significant respect and admiration for Putin for the very reasons you mentioned.
Through all the fog of chronic drunkenness, manipulation by outside actors and corruption, Boris Yeltsin was not indifferent to the fate of the Russian nation.
He paid ONE service to them ultimately and a great one and that service has to be acknowledged.
He can’t burn in hell after he did that.
Thanks for the history lessons we weren’t taught in school. It appears as always special interests need a threat make profits. If organic I could accept it but it’s not that at all. It’s constant false narratives serving as truth. As for the progress in making peace I have seen none in my 52 years of life as American. Constant conflict covert and overt. As for war with China it’s beyond stupid unless you were able to get in a Time Machine and replace all the stupid outsourcing of manufacturing that happened the last 30 plus years.
This is a very well written and very thoughtful piece. I humbly agree with it in its entirety. NATO will not back down. What I’ve been saying all along – any peace agreement would merely represent an opportunity for NATO to regroup and work up a new plan to attack Russia. This only ends two ways; 1. WW3 2. The populations of NATO force their governments to stop the madness, even if it means civil strife and bloodshed.
Yes, Russia misjudged and should have put a foot down in 2014 (or sooner). IMO, they should have done a blitz on Ukraine last February before NATO had a chance to react (reaction includes getting its information operation into full swing) and then they should have immediately starting calling-up reservists and increasing conscription rates. But they didn’t and now that is all water under the bridge.
As I just replied in agreement to a smart commenter on the previous post, Russia is now walking a tightrope. Go too slow, and risk NATO intervention thwarting completion of the SMO. Go too fast and over-commit to the immediate task of crushing the Kiev without reserves to deal with NATO’s next move. Russia’s initial mistakes have put them in this bad spot (rock/hard place). Russia’s only insurance at this point would be to have North Korea and China agree to join a multi-theater war (maybe Turkey and Iran too as side shows) so that NATO would be totally overwhelmed. This wider war would be triggered by some pre-agreed upon crazy move by NATO that threatened to defeat Russia, or at least cause them serious damage. However, even that insurance plan assumes that NATO wouldn’t just go nuclear when they realize that capitulation is the only other option (because we know that peace and mutually beneficial economic arrangements are not only not on the table, but aren’t even in the galaxy as far as the leadership of the west is concerned – at least I see no evidence they would ever go that route).
Again, at the end of the day, either the people of NATO countries deal with their maniac leadership, or we’re all toast.
” … either the people of NATO countries deal with their maniac leadership, or we’re all toast.”
Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism asked a question recently, and I paraphrase, “What if the US Deep State instructed their lackeys in the media that they were letting go of the Ukraine and moving on to more important issues, and they should too.”
“Would anyone even then note the sudden absence of Ukraine from the list of things they should be concerned about?”
I’m not sure of the answer, but I’m leaning toward, probably not.
One of the reasons I wish Russia would stop toying with their helpless mouse. The longer it lives, the more attached westerners will become to the terrible plight of the poor little thing.
And the harder it will be for them to let it go.
*And yes, I am aware, the helpless mouse is more like a hard-to-kill sewer rat that has been indoctrinated into the ways of the Nazi, but I don’t think the average westerner perceives the difference.
I keep hoping that the people of the NATO countries will put an end to this insane project of attacking Russia. It seems bizzarre to me that Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden, countries with long and successful traditions of neutrality, are now planning to abandon that.
Equally, the Baltic countries and Poland have successfully managed relations with Russia for three decades and are now talking up war. The problem it seems to me lies with the leadership and the controlled media, less with the people.
In the US, it is more and more appearing that the “fourth branch,” the intelligence services, have been quietly in charge of all other branches of the US government for decades. Do these tentacles extend into the governments of formerly sane European nations?
Yes indeed Emily, it was a big shock that Switzerland joined in enforcing the sanctions on Russia.
Here is why that move by Switzerland is, more any other thing, indicative of the deadly threat that Russia poses to the US dollar hegemony that underpins the rule of the Western financial banker elite (i.e those old family banker dynasties that stretch back to Venice and beyond).
Young rising superstar of the financial commentary world, Zoltan Pozsar, has sent recently sent shock waves through the western financial world by his predictions.
Pozsar in one of his recent widely read reports described how the world is now shifting to a multipolar order “being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state).
Refer:
https://thedeepdive.ca/zoltan-pozsar-g7-investors-should-worry-about-gold-backed-renminbi-eclipsing-dollars-commodity-encumbrance/
However based on the analysis of older, wiser and more erudite experts on this subject it seems almost certain fait accompli that Russia, along with cooperating BRIC partners, are going to shift to an honest hard currency money system backed by gold and silver with the currency transactions being conducted on blockchain digital platform. This program is being led by the brilliant Russian Sergei Glazyev.
Sergei Galzyev bio:
https://eec.eaeunion.org/en/comission/member/glazev-sergey-yurevich/
Following directly below is American Professor of economics Vince Lanci’s latest pronouncements on the issue in which he explains why a basket of commodities cannot adequately serve to back a sound reliable money system because of the volatility that is inherent in all commodities when unexpected market events can cause dramatic swings in the prices of such commodities such as oil, copper, wheat etc. Sound hard money requires stable backing and only gold can fulfil that function (as has been proven for over 5,000 years now – in spite of the last several decades of fiat financial chicanery and prestidigitation during which time the master bankers have created wonderful theatre discrediting gold as being reliable store and measure of true wealth).
Vince Lanci: What Happens To Silver As Gold Gets Re-monetized
25min YouTube presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acb0ZvC2fdQ&ab_channel=ArcadiaEconomics
British economist, stockbroker / trader and one time CEO of UK bank Alasdair Macleod is also worth following in respect of the rather complex reasons why only gold and silver can and will again be restored to their centuries old and well-established rightful place as the only real money capable of restoring property and peace to the world.
And here is one of Alasdair Macleod’s latest articles highlighting Russian moves in this direction being led by the brilliant Sergei Glazyev
Russia’s intentions are clarifying
https://www.goldmoney.com/research/russia-s-intentions-are-clarifying
the first two paragraphs from the article as follows:
We have confirmation from the highest sources that Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are considering using gold for pan-Asian trade settlements, fully replacing dollars and euros.
In an article written for Vedomosti, a Moscow-based Russian newspaper published on 27 December, Sergey Glazyev, a prominent economic adviser to Vladimir Putin who is heading up the Eurasian Economic Union committee charged with devising a replacement for dollars in trade settlements sent a very clear signal to that effect. It appears he will drop earlier plans to design a new commodity-linked trade currency because it has been superseded.
So coming back to the reason why Switzerland chose to enforce sanctions against Russia – it has to be because the real power behind the Swiss banking industry realize that if Russia and the BRICS succeed in establishing gold backed honest money system (and they will) then the big game of funneling trillions through their banking system and the Bank of International Settlements and clipping the ticket on the oceans of dark money flows is over.
Switzerland would stop at nothing to preserve the current criminal banking financial system that has had the world in its grasp for far to long.
At long last the Russians are going to set things back in proper natural order and after this hellish trauma will set the world free from the Shylocks. Assuming the Strangeloves do not push the red button in their desperate madness.
“Let’s consider the wider historic context and much longer and sordid history and how the Anglo-American gang funded and created conditions for all the great wars of last century, ”
Thanks Larry for showing alternate points of view.
Proud and relieved to be part of the Anglosphere.
I replied to someone else earlier that attributed this to Larry, but that comment hasn’t made it through yet…
I said earlier “Larry didn’t write this article, he explained in the paragraph below the picture that it was written by Mr. Allan Mountain.”
I also agree this is a well thought out article!
I believe that is not a kraken, but the Great Lord Cthulhu, who lies dead and dreaming in R’lyeh, but shall return one day.
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”
I remember listening to a podcast where Robert Barnes argued that Americans are fundamentally pacifist. He made a compelling case that the American electorate punishes warmongers without fail.
I think this is why the US deep state always resorts to fabricating pretexts in order to justify war. Their purpose is to not to deceive the enemy but the US electorate.
Over time the pretext fabrication technique has become routine and systematic. It consists of four steps:
1. Poke the dog in the eye, again and again and again.
2. Dog bites.
3. Slap your forehead and exclaim: “Oh no! A rabid dog!”
4. Shoot the dog.
Every single US war is preceded by this four step template. What the author describes with regard to Japan was and is routine, and will continue to be.
personally i do not think mr putin or the russian general staff have been blindsided by the west even the slightest……at least since mr putins 2007 munich speech. it has been a straight line from that speech that russia has been working and creating weapons using new physical principles the kremlin understood would be needed to thwart the western goal of finishing what they started under yeltsin. mr. putin said as much many times over the intervening years since 2007 if anyone bothered to listen, no one in the west did. from an economic perspective russia sold off virtually all their us bond holdings long before the war began, another big tell they expected what has come to pass. was anyone in the west paying any attention? very little of what russia has accomplished against the west was prepared or achieved in deep secrecy. putin has been forthright for over a decade and no one paid him the slightest heed or respect.
there is a proverb applicable to the west’s dilemma as russia finishes off ukraine revealing NATO to be weak and irrelevant and its main backer washington ….all hat no cattle.
the proverb goes like this………..if you know how the story begins the end will come as no surprise.
Good point. The West regarded his conciliatory talk as a sign of weakness and were too busy feeling smug about it to pay attention to what Putin was actually doing
“Own research” thus … well.
My enthusiasm is limited.
But what the heck.
People believe what they want to believe … say the Russians. And therefore they are simply right …
What is that old truism? Oh yeah, hindsight is 20/20
Few Americans are aware of Roosevelt’s plan for war on Japan. The most aggressive was JB 355 that was secretly funded in August 1941 to send dozens of American bombers to China, painted with Chinese insignia, to bomb strategic targets in Japan. President Roosevelt approved this plan despite objections by General George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Marshall slow-walked this plan and the bombers weren’t ready in China before Pearl Harbor.
Here is a short video about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ktXiojMMRY
Americans sought peace unlike the idealogue communists.
It was was of course after the Russian Communists so nobly entered the cause after their fascist h*tler partners Germany had attacked Poland.
See Poland.
Stalin’s partner Nazi Germany? Do you have any idea what Hitler spent 20 years saying about Russia and Stalin? Partners? Try skimming Mein Kampf and stop talking nonsense! And then study Russia’s post-WWI industrial backwardness and Russia’s war with Poland to see if it sheds any light! Fanaticism has never been a good academic adviser.
si “gli americani cercavano la pace” e la stanno ancora cercando : da 200 anni…
attenzione che non arrivi “La Pax Aeterna”
The imperial Japanese were horrible and were invading countries, like China, prior to Pear Harbor. They were hell bent on expansionism via war. I’m not buying into any of this revisionist history, anti-America hating blaming the USA for the Pacific War. The Japs were going to do it no matter what and, again, had already started. They were barbarians. Good on the US for sending bombers to China. The US was in the position re; Japan that Russia was re; Ukrainian. Too many people here just want to paint the US as the source of all evil in the world. Nations have been attacking each other for centuries – heck, millennia – before there was a US. That includes the stupid Europeans.
Should add that the skewed psychology of the America haters has US troops as “war criminals” for fighting in Vietnam, but Japanese invading Vietnam? Huh? what? They did that? Well er um America made them do it!”
Rotten clowns.
Hoorah! My country right or wrong! USA!USA!
The trailer trash, war criminal analyst strikes again.
Look, the Japs invaded PI immediately after Pearl Harbor. An operation like that takes a long time to plan and prepare. Even a halfwit should be able to see that the Japs were intent on a war conquest regardless of US policy. They attacked PH to damage the US fleet so they’d have time and space to complete their conquests.
We don’t need to speculate. We can read internal Japanese communications as well as the retrospective words of surviving leadership that describe exactly what the zeitgeist was in Japan pre-PH. They were all about empire and war.
MacGregor has bought into an urban myth/conspiracy theory.
It isn’t revisionist, I have known about FDR since I was a kid in the 60’s. Yes the Japs were bad. It is just history that is covered up, mostly. Both Wilson and FDR ran on peace platforms, and had to maneuver behind the scenes to get us into war. Once Hitler attacked Stalin the big push to get in was on, which was silly, Hitler had no chance in a two front war, Stalin thought he was bluffing.
It’s a waste of time engaging with newdill as he’s a rabid flag waving trailer park dwelling moron that can’t see the truth. He has been sucking the dick of the US govt. since birth and can’t let go of his fantasies.
To him the USA is a bastion of peace and goodwill. He ignores the evil that resides there and has done so for more than two centuries.
These trailer trash sheep truly believe they are the greatest and ignore the $9.00 wages, the millions of homeless and unemployed, tens of millions with no health care, rampant crime, insurmountable social divisions, sub-standard housing, poisoned air, poisoned water, and poisoned minds.
The shithole referred to as the USA truly is a third world country with some attributes of the first world. And newdill represents the lowest of the low, an uneducated boor that tells us he’s an analyst, and thinks he knows all there is to know about history.
Basically newdill, his war criminal son, and others like them are nothing but useful idiots to the criminals in charge.
Agree with you ‘grr says’
The Big Difference Between China and USA and its Fast-Failing western allies
The following two documentaries are excellent – they show what can only be rationally understood as one of the greatest triumphs in human history i.e. the economic miraculous turnaround of China which was enabled by the visionary governance under Deng Xiaoping during his term from December 1978 to November 1989 as the paramount leader of the Peoples Republic of China (emphasis on ‘paramount leader’ which is their correct title given to the supreme leader) and then the continuity of policies established by Deng by his successors Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and the now equally brilliant and capable Xi Jinping.
How Deng Xiaoping Changed China Forever | China: The Miraculous Transformation | TRACKS
51min YouTube documentary – TRULY REMARKABLE
refer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvgCRPzSwq0&ab_channel=TRACKS
China’s war on poverty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuaJGPZCBYU&ab_channel=CGTN
1hr YouTube documentary produced by American Robert Kuhn who has been studying and reporting on China’s rapid development for over 30 years which he eloquently describes in the introduction – this explains why China has been so rigorous in its efforts to establish a governance system capable of enabling real democratic development at grass-roots village level while at the same time enabling ways of means of obviating and rooting out corruption – a truly monumental scientific approach that necessitates strict reporting and documentation of all activity.
I follow several American and Europeans who have lived in Hong Kong and China and what they detail in their online commentaries is the total opposite of all the misinformation and propaganda that we are immersed in New Zealand and the other Western nations that are descending into economic ruin and poverty in an almost inverse ratio to the rapidly developing and increasingly wealthy development of China and its neighbouring Asian nations which are slowly but surely distancing themselves from and releasing themselves from the impositions of the Anglo-American and EU yoke.
So why are the Chinese leaders still so inclined to maintaining a highly disciplined and rigorous regime? It is because of their well-justified fears of the consequences of ever taking their hands off the reins and allowing the tyranny of dumbed-down mobs and a consumer-addicted population to erupt (under the support and guidance of the Soros NGOs and the nation-ruining National Endowment for Democracy) i.e. like the consumer-addicted dumbed-down mobs that prevail in the Anglo-American / EU bloc of nations the populations of which have been stripped of any ability to engage in any critical thinking.
China, Russia and the BRICS have seen enough of the diabolical mess we have made of our nations in the Anglo-American bloc and they are determined to never follow us down this path of economic and social destruction; the very worst effects of which we are yet to realize, but can no longer escape the consequences of, and which will become all too painfully apparent in the very near future as we descend further into the abyss of our own making.
NO WAY is China, Russia and the other aligned BRIC nations going to become ensnared in our madness; and absent the criminally-insane hegemons who rule over us (through their wholly-owned puppet government regimes) crying ‘havoc’ and letting loose the dogs of all-out war (which, based on their past and most recent behaviour, has to be rated as a reasonably high probability) then China and the BRICS will continue to developed co-operatively through all the new cooperative institutions like the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) – the results of which are most noticeable with the recent extraordinary developments which China has been developing in partnership with nations across the world through their One Belt Road Initiative especially across the Asian land masses
And in response to nations trying to move and cooperatively create a peaceful prosperous world we get this:
The US is scrambling to invest more in Asia to counter China’s ‘Belt and Road’ mega-project. Here’s what China’s plan to connect the world through infrastructure is like.
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-belt-and-road-china-infrastructure-project-2018-1
that article above claims New Zealand is a partner in the One Belt Road Initiative which surprised me but I guess even the clowns in NZ government can see the writing on the wall and can understand the benefits of needing to be part of this project – notwithstanding the way things are developing I expect that America and the other Five Eyes partners will soon enough demand NZ remove itself for participating in the OBR Initiative.
By the way America will fail miserably in trying to counter China’s developing relationships with all the nations in Asia who can see their future is with China BRICS group especially given all of the years they have been exploited and screwed by USA. China / BRICS model is the complete reverse – based on partnership and trust.
The near miraculous economic turn-around of China was largely assisted by the US, who’s official policy it was to bring China into the modern world. The hope was that by becoming economically tied to the US, China would adopt a more capitalist and open society, friendly to the US. The Chinese’s own efforts included mass executions. Opium addicts? Convict them, line them up and shoot them in the back of head. I have seen the film of such mass executions myself (smuggled out of China).
It is you who is horribly misinformed and ignorant of the relevant history – and yes, who is some kind of malcontent hating on the US.
I suppose you also agree with “grr” that US military are all war criminals. Well fuck you too. I hope you aren’t an American. You don’t deserve to be one.
Dude, Do you seriously think I don’t know who Smedley Butler is? That I haven’t read his book?
This is what I’m talking about. You’re living in a world in your own mind, populated with straw men of your own imagination’s creation.
Yes notwithstanding all the ideological fighting of the thirties, Stalin believed in the non-aggression pact with Germany so he was not expecting Germany to attack Russia any time soon. Barbarossa took him off guard.
My understanding of that is, the Russian leaders tend to think global politics as a serious real thing based on real interests. They fail to take into account (sufficiently) the ideological component in its ability to drive the policy of a big country and derail it. For instance before Barbarossa, I suspect the Bolshevik leadership took the Hitlerian Ostraum dreams as a political fantasy of no big consequence, because “obviously” Germany couldn’t wipe out the Slavs. This nightmare became real only in the course of the following war.
The same miscalculation may well have occurred in the 2010′ decade : the Russophobia campaign in the West through the Salisbury story followed by the long “Russia stole the US election” folktale all this had a purpose and a clearly threatening one in order to shape the public opinion, but I don’t think the leadership in Russia at the time perceived the extent of the menace. In their public comments they always downplayed the Russophobic stories as unserious political bickering inside the US etc. political arena. The Russian leadership have regarded the West as partners until they were forced to reconsider this in early 2022. The solid (but misleading) reason behind this miscalculation is that the partnership “obviously” was beneficial to the West. Yes it was, but the West had intended all along to take control of Russia, plunder her resources, partition her territory and so further. This process had begun in the 1990′ and the West has not been able to realize yet that the scheme had now failed. That’s why they are demonizing Putin so much.
For them only to realize the appalling facts (they won’t admit it publicly) it is taking a whole painful new process : militarily on the field, economically in their different countries, and in global politics.
I have an obscure book I downloaded from kindle (searching for free history texts) It is by a British diplomat who worked in Japan publishe around 1920 . In it he warns that Japan is not what it appears to be as in the millitary is in charge. He provides a Japnese government intelligence report that lays out a strategy for the invasion of Chinese Manchuria and agressive conquest to secure resources and imperial hedgomony htroughout the Asia pacific. It is very detailed . It was presented as essential to Japans future and the impetous of its argument was that a(1915-) the Imperial European powers being mired in the first world war Japan had the best chance of millitary success .
Someone hesitated and the percieved oppertunity was missed. Japan did not hesitate oppertunity presented itself again. The British sphere of influence and naval power in east Asia had waned between the wars. The United States had no real strategic presence. I assume the Japanese did not take the US as a serious millitary threat or rival in the Asia Pacific. This would explain the attack on Pearl Harbour perhaps? The Japanese assumed the US was not serious about intefering to the benefit of the British Empire.Surely the US would have no real problem with a Japanes empire. Perhaps the Japanese interpreted US actions leading up to Pearl Harbour as a a political sop to the British with no real intention to get involved.
Its late I havent time to provide the details of the author and book to which I refer so my apologies for this omission. Talk is easy, work is hard.
Yes. Japan was controlled by war lords/Samurai in the 1920’s – 40’s. They were hell bent on war and empire building. The US did not drive them into it. Like I said, that is revisionist history born of the myth of the US as the root of all evil in the world; a childish perspective that denies the universality of human nature – like other governments can and do have imperial ambitions.
The USA is being painted with paint of their own manufacture!
No. That “paint” is not unique to the US. All nations play these power games; or try to.
The socialists, anarchists, foreign agents and motley crew of malcontents here hating on America do so because they are either paid or, mostly, are simply butt sore and, therefore, talking smack, because America was the best at the game for the better part of the 20th century and their (the butt sores’) socialists experiments in Russia, pissant Latin American and elsewhere failed – and the MENA and European nations (+ the UK) failed because they were weak, and bubbling, tinhorn, fiefdoms who killed each other like rabid animals for centuries (there was only peace in Europe after America came to have a measure of control over it). They know all of that and can’t face it. Their inferiority causes them to deflect onto the USA.
The malcontents are actually a special class in their America hating and associated history revisionism. These are people with troubled personal lives who want to vent anger at a system as opposed to themselves, where the blame really belongs. So they target America because America is strong and runs the show. Conversely, they personally identify with the “underdog” (i.e.weaklings).
However, credit where credit is due. All of these losers introduced their cancerous ideologies and negativism to America and it’s been slowing sickening the country from the 1960s to date, when it is approaching terminal status.
It’s one thing for patriotic Americans to be critical of the scum that is taking over the country – and another thing, entirely, for enemies, slackers and malcontents, internal and external, to join in and rejoice over aforementioned scum driving the country to ruin.
The revisionist history that has the US responsible for the ills of the world is just another form of “wokeness” – and replete with the same cartoon level stupidity. In fact, it is exactly a key component of woke “thought”.
I’m pretty sure that the new American revolutions isn’t a socialist or woke revolution.
Eric Newell thank you so much for the great belly laugh.
I will not bother trying to argue the facts which clearly elude you, because as Mark Twain so brilliantly advised, “Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”.
The level of your intelligence is exposed and highlighted by your resorting to street-level name-calling which is most on display with this laughable rant:
“The socialists, anarchists, foreign agents and motley crew of malcontents here hating on America do so because they are either paid or, mostly, are simply butt sore and, therefore, talking smack”
I think you need to pull the morphine analgesic suppositories out and stop the classic psychological projection of your own sad sorry state of butt-sore and brain-dead derangement.
Actually Eric I should have refrained from engaging in name-calling directed at you which was prompted by your rant.
But please for heavens sakes take a deep breathe when it comes to others points of view and consider the lesser-known and more accurate history.
None of us are American haters. I along with many others you might regard as butt-sore, smack-talking socialists, anarchists, foreign agents and motley crew of malcontents are not American haters.
We hate what has become of an America that is now clearly being controlled by seriously dark forces who have no allegiance to America or any other nation. They are internationalist globalists hellbent on world dominion who have wrecked America – literally wrecked it in every way, financially, morally and culturally.
Just look at the appalling levels of homelessness, drug addiction and crime – especially crime of the type that is being perpetrated in the highest office by the likes of recent heads of state in America (mere minions in the real power hierarchy nevertheless).
I grieve for the suffering that so many millions of Americans are having to endure under this pernicious regime that is being passed off as democratic government by the people for the people; and I truly hope soon that there will be a nation-changing and world-changing revolution of consciousness – an awakening in the American people as to badly they are being screwed, and by whom, that will prompt the American people to rise up in unison and one accord and reclaim their sovereignty and restore a thriving prosperous and peaceful nation.
I hope and pray that the American people will once again remember and act on the great farewell speech of George Washington when he admonished the newly independent American people to avoid ‘foreign entanglements’.
This from the from the United States Department of State Office of the Historian
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/washington-farewell
Washington exhorted Americans to set aside their violent likes and dislikes of foreign nations, lest they be controlled by their passions: “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.” Washington’s remarks have served as an inspiration for American isolationism, and his advice against joining a permanent alliance was heeded for more than a century and a half.
What is so hard to understand about that?
Why all the recent foreign wars America has embarked on, most of which have been launched under now well-proven false pretexts like ‘Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction’ which have been bleeding America to the bone (literally) with so many unnecessary deaths and seriously maimed and mind-shattered veterans who have been thrown under the bus and so many of whom are now living destitute and homeless in America – not to mention the hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent people slaughtered across the Middle East and Afghanistan?
You do know who started and funded Al Qaeda don’t you?
I could go but I think that covers it enough.
I will not bother detailing all the historic records of just how powerful British interests are in directing American policies – but if you are not well informed in the subject then I suggest you so some more research and reading this is one of many great sources for historic truths
https://canadianpatriot.org/
We all need stop slanging off at those whose opinions might challenge our own – we need to start looking more closely at the real source of the problems.
You rant about the Woke movement. I like you despise that mind-destroying and culture-destroying trash.
But step back and ask yourself this.
Where did Wokism begin? Where is the main centre of Woke culture originating from today? Where did all the recent seriously sick perversity originate and get spread out to the rest of the Woke Anglo-American-EU sick nations?
How many weird biologically illogical genders are young kids across America being taught about at schools? How has it ever possibly come about that the ugliest transvestites are allowed to perform the sickest and most degenerate sex acts in front of young children in America? That’s right – in America. How did that ever happen?? These are critical facts and questions that must be acknowledged and addressed.
Get this
BE WARNED THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED or anyone who is unable to listen to filthy language being sung with the most lurid performance by the ugliest of creatures – straight from the pits of hell and presented at a Texas restaurant lunch to adults who have taken their young children along with them.
https://twitter.com/SaraGonzalesTX/status/1582398497185099776
Please NOTE: this behaviour is tracking identically to the 1920s Weimar Germany collapse and the identical sick perversions that were imposed on Germany during that financial and social collapse which eventually resulted in literally countless numbers of parents selling their young boys and girls for sex – this perversity is sadly all too often overlooked in the dreadful history that led to WW11 https://historycollection.com/17-reasons-why-germanys-weimar-republic-was-a-party-lovers-paradise/9/ – same happened post WW1 in the 1920-21 famine and collapse in Russia that preceded the Bolshevik Revolution. This is nothing new – it is as old as every failing decadent empire in its last death throes and all that is unfolding is by design – it is all out of the same playbook written by the same demonic forces.
How has it ever been possible that this has been allowed to get to this point of such sickening degeneracy?? What have we all been thinking and doing to have allowed this to happen on our watch?
This by the way – for those who have not been paying attention – is what Putin has spoken about on more than a few occasions in several of his public speeches to the Russian people and to the wider world. Putin and the Russians will never allow or countenance this in Russia and it is one of the reasons, amongst several other equally justified causes, for the Russian resistance to Anglo-American-EU takeover of Ukraine and why WE / OUR NATIONS are vilifying Putin and the Russians and doing all in our power to destroy Russia no less as we are so effectively destroying our own children and the chances of their ever having a decent future.
If any of you doubt that Russian position then please read and take careful note of what Putin says in his 2022 Valdai speech – he categorically states, albeit in different words, that the Russian people will never ever tolerate this sick perversity being forced on Russia by the Woke Western proselytizers of this sickness that has its modern roots in America – and which America is mandating that our nations have to fall in with this agenda (in case you have not noticed).
Putin’s Speech at Valdai 2022:
“The World After Hegemony: Justice and Security for All”
https://www.clearnfo.com/full-text-of-putin-speech-and-answers-at-valdai-discussion-club/
Nor will China or any of the BRICS nations tolerate this type of perverse sickness that is actually being lauded as wonderful now freedoms to be imposed on the youth of America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some EU nations.
And I’ll guarantee the Russians are not destroying their air forces and military with the insane policies that are driving American military personnel selection
Rachel Levine, openly transgender health official, sworn in as four-star admiral in Public Health Service
refer:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/19/levine-transgender-four-star-admiral-public-health-service/
Enough; I have made my point and I apologize for stooping to name calling directed at your rant Eric which I think nevertheless was unwarranted and uncalled for.
Allan Mountain,
Well here you are contributing to Larry’s content and Larry is clearly a mercenary war criminal, right?. He contracted (aids and abetts), for money nonetheless, to work with SOF, who are all war criminals. Scott Ritter? Douglas MacGregor? I don’t know why readers pay attention to war criminals like that.
Your little sensitivities are offended? You don’t like name calling? You’re all about facts? But you’re ok smearing everyone who served in the armed forces US as war criminals and, of course, the US is the sole source of evil in the world? Ok. You’ll have to excuse me if I dismiss you as a random, clueless pseudo-intellectual jackass.
Well done Eric in further response to your name-calling rants.
So now you reckon Larry Johnson, Scott Ritter and Col Macgregor are all war criminals simply because they are calling out the truth?
I rest the case
You really have no shame in the way you are so willing to expose your mindless imbecility.
You epitomize that sad sorry bunch of Nazi low-life who are so incapable of any rational thought as you love strutting in military uniforms, poking your chest out trying to impress people with how tough you are.
You Eric are the perfect robot stock for feeding the military machine in order to wage genocidal wars against mostly defenceless goat-herders armed only with AK-47s and a few shoulder-fired rockets – who still kick your pathetic butt-sore backsides – most notably the retreat in Afghanistan – and the like of idiots like you did not even have the brains to destroy the tens of billions of weapons and tanks and other valuable machinery you left behind in your frantic panic to flee Afghanistan, which let’s face it is 101 basic first thing all armies have always done when retreating so as not to leave it in good working order for the enemy.
And how did it work out in Iraq and Syria and Libya – big successes there right?
If fools like you ever think you can take on Russia and / or China then the world will get to see who the real operators are. But that won’t happen will it? NO types like you will continue making problems everywhere and then carry on setting up and funding your proxies to do all the dying. The most that types like you are ever going to succeed in doing is bleating, whining and name-calling, hiding from the truth, and then in desperation, cowering is some bunker pushing the big red button from way around the other side of the world.
Go figure – I mean other readers Go Figure – not you Eric because you cannot figure the most fundamental basics. DUH.
Alan Mountain – I am being sarcastic about Ritter, MacGregor, Larry, etc being “war criminals”. Perhaps you are not up to speed on the source of my “rant” (as you call it). Your new buddy “grr” has referred to anyone who has served in the US military, multiple times on multiple threads, as a “war criminal”. That includes me and my son. Grr goes so far as to wish some kind of horrible death on us, followed by an eternity burning in Hell – simply for serving [the Empire of Lies, of course].
Perhaps you are not aware of the knee jerk reactions if anyone suggests maybe Russia and China are not pure virgins when it comes to empire and oppression – with the US as the source of all evil in the world. This is a catechism for many – a majority? – of commenters here.
I am all over the comments, including long before the site became popular, stating the US has been hijacked by some weird, perverted, evil forces that are driving us to ruin, that Russia is justified in its invasion of Ukraine and that Russia will be victorious if they don’t make any more big mistakes, but the west might go psycho and end up nuclear after their combat boots on the ground are wiped out.
I have earned the ire of some commenters b/c I will call out that the US, as originally conceived, is the most free and best society ever, that Russia and China have had a terrible track record on quality of life and human rights in the 20th century, that Russia made mistakes in the SMO. Too many people are incapable of nuance and holding opposing, but valid, outlooks. Like Russia, as the Soviet Union, was pretty bad and attempted to expand its ideology all over the globe as aggressively as the US.
Now as for your ideas about “who funded Al Qaeda”, etc. Yes, the US funded Bin Laden when he was fighting the Russian in Afghanistan (and the Russians lost big time btw). So what? Bin Laden himself funded AQ more than the US did, as did other Saudi/Gulfie sources. You don’t know that? I’m seeing the usual US as sole source of evil in the world threads in your words.
Eric Newell you are so lost in your ranting madness you clearly are unable to read and understand the clearest most basic unambiguous English-American language.
Please point out and copy text of anything I have written that has smeared everyone who served in the US armed forces as war criminals. I have never done so.
Nevertheless I have questioned and disparaged many of the war hawks in the higher command like General Mike (Strangelove) Minihan – and I have questioned and still do question their sanity as well in obeying orders many of which are clearly criminal as they have contravened international law and UN Charter as documented by international jurists – most notable if which has been use of the horrific and international use of cluster bombs dropped when the USA carpet bombed Laos with cluster bombs Vietnam war,
Check this for the record
https://www.legaciesofwar.org/legacies-library
Over 270 million cluster bombs were dropped on Laos during the American Secret War in Laos ; up to 80 million did not detonate. Over 5 decades on, 1% of these munitions have been destroyed. More than half of all confirmed cluster munitions casualties in the world have occurred in Laos.
From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than 2.5M tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing sorties—equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. The bombings were part of the American Secret War in Laos to support the Royal Lao Government against the Pathet Lao and to interdict traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The bombings destroyed many villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of Laotian civilians during the nine-year period.
and the USA dropped cluster bombs in Yugoslavia in 1990 and other places in recent times
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C5%A1_cluster_bombing
The Convention bans the use, production, trade, and stockpiling of cluster bombs. It also requires States parties to provide victim assistance and to clear contaminated areas (has never happened in Laos – USA just wiped its hands to the ongoing years of cluster bombs still today killing and blowing the legs and arms of thousands of innocent poor villagers, women and children which has and continues to be so devastating on the population of Laos that the biggest industry and export business of Lao is (wait of it) exporting prosthetic limbs because they had to establish factories to make due to the ongoing massive daily demand for them.
and for the record – just to ensure even a dummy like you Eric can understand the significance of those war crimes, following is as explanation of what cluster bombs are
A cluster munition (or cluster bomb) is a container filled with small explosive bombs called “sub-munitions.” This container may be a shell, rocket, missile, or other device. Dropped from an aircraft or fired from the ground, it opens in the air and releases the sub-munitions. This scatters a carpet of bombs over a large area without any degree of accuracy. Learn more about how cluster bombs work.
My real complaint and everything I have ever put out there is about the low-life parasites much higher up who give all the orders to launch the wars. Mind you I am highly sceptical about people who would join US military or any other military force in the Western bloc today, not least because of all the recent forced jabs and all the gender nonsense, putting aside the fact that the US military and its western allies in NATO have not fought one righteous war going back to Korea; and never since then have they ever conclusively won any all-out victory in spite of the fact that the oppositions were at such comparative great disadvantage in terms of weapons, funding and logistics support.
In fact I have feel great sorrow and sadness for all the many young and very well-intentioned American youth who join up either because they have been so brain-washed through all their early years about how the great America is keeping the world safe for freedom and democracy, while American citizens freedoms have and continue to be slowly stripped from them (in case you have not noticed) – along with all the other brainwashing they have been immersed in from their earliest informative years being feed big blockbuster Hollywood war movies that the likes of Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone act in portraying the selfless heroes fighting the forces of evil which has all those young impressionable American youth fantasizing about themselves going overseas to fight the evil enemy and come home big heroes with medals on their chests and big secure futures in the military OR even more sadly a large number of new enlistees are Afro-American or Latino youth who come from the poorest areas of American towns and cities where they have been born in poverty and near zero chances of ever rising out of the misery so they see military service as being their only way out and a huge opportunity to improve their lives, or in some cases learn to use deadly weapons and learn how to kill so they can become somebody in the drug-dealing gang world after they have served their time.
I have no issue with most military people. My issue is with the political low-life who give them the orders they cannot refuse; and the even much more powerful lower-life who own and control them and who profit so richly from all the wars.
You need to read the great book written by the late great Major General Smedley Butler ‘War is a Racket’ which is the best of all books about what is really behind all the wars HINT it is not about freedom and democracy, not even close.
Here are a couple of quotes from Major General Smedley’s great book as follows:
There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket
“To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. 1. We must take the profit out of war. 2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. 3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.”
and link to Smedley’s book ‘War is a Racket’ with lots more great quotes from Butler
READ IT
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/115545.Smedley_D_Butler
Also, it is you, Alan Mountain, that need to take a deep breath. You are not addressing me, you are addressing a straw man. Go through this blog and read my comments; my actual comments – not the ones you have imagined in your fevered head which is some trailer trash moron my country right or wrong type; you and “grr” both. Btw, I like the trailer trash thing. Way to present yourselves as snobby elites. Humility much?
The name “Newell” has nothing to do with my name. You’re not as clever as you think. The name is Newhill. It is my middle name and old family name on my mother’s side. One of my mother’s family (Ball) led this country to victory against the British and was the first President.
Europeans have been killing each other since there was a Europe. Muslims were a violent expansionist empire and AQ and other groups are a reflection of that tradition. The Russians erected the iron curtain and tried to spread their influence all over the globe. The Chinese were a horrible murderous oppressive series of regimes in the 20th century. There are no innocent people or nations. I will not abide by those pointing to the US as uniquely evil in the world.
Yes, the US is becoming akin to Sodom. But that doesn’t mean we get to revise history. Things can be part this and part that. Black and white thinking is what gets us not trouble.
If the ultimate goals of the communist party and the fascist globalist are the same… totalitarian States controlling all aspects of it’s citizens lives…but the primary basic only difference is who controls the means of production….State or Bankers…..then as we watch the west collapse from within right now…from primary leftist agitation and policy… The destruction of the family… religion… Divisive race policies/affirmative action… destructive immigration policies…. militant feminism and infanticide…destruction of academia….all pushed by subversive elements financed for decades by the Soviet Internationalist movements….to do this very thing. Several KGB defectors spoke of this Asymmetric warfare operation with it’s long view goals. When the USSR collapsed the torch was passed onto Soros and ilk who finance the same leftist groups. The barbarians are the gate literally…the Southern gate. The narrative is pushing the idea Russia is cornered and dangerous…perhaps resorting to the unthinkable…but this is projection…it’s the West and in particular the United States that is dying a death from a thousand cuts.
The primary defence perfected by the Russian State over many centuries is swapping space for time..a strategy most smaller European States could not do because of geography…it has evolved in conjunction with the brutal climate to impart a Patience that most European States cannot relate to… Stalin signed the pact with Germany to gain time for logistical reasons…. Putin knew exactly what was coming but could not intervene conventionally during the destruction of Yugoslavia nor intervene at Maidan….but he did intervene brilliantly in the matter of Sevastopol and Syria. The initial tactics against Ukraine..other than being abit velvet glovish would have worked if not for British/NATO intervention and the outrageous promise of weapons up to and including Atomic if needed…oh and a billion dollars to kill off half of his non chosen countrymen. I believe the logistical preparations for this conflict was initiated even before Maidan…maybe even Georgia. So in short I don’t think the Russians actually caught off guard by the disingenuous Western Bankers/NATO and perhaps they even helped destroyed the West with a Trojan leftist horse
There seems to be a growing ironic prescient when that phrase “the American Century” was coined. No one would have believed that it would also mean the exact time it would actually last. As history has shown repeatedly, no Empire goes quietly into the night. There always needs to be one last gasp believing the Empire can survive using what it has left at its disposal and that is its military might. We are living in a dangerous time on this world right now where one decision by that 1% of US/UK led Western Globalist Elite will mean the end for all on earth. I say this because past Empires did not possess the kind of destructive technology we have today. Only the Empire collapsed, not the entire world.
UK seems wanting to LARP Tokaimura accident…
rt . com/news/570752-uk-nuclear-submarine-glue/
Some very cost-efficient workers fix submarine nuclear reactor with superglue
=====
Allegedly, the leaked Kiev regime plans for Donbass/Crimea ethnocide of year ago.
https://t.me/hackberegini/1220
https://telegra.ph/Zamysel-nastupatelnoj-operacii-VSU-01-31
Or it crumbles under the weight of all it’s contradictions. Same as the Habsburg empire at the end of WWI.
What lights are still green in the US today ? Economy ? Production ? Education ? Health ? Politic ? Faith ? None ?
The USA/UK is a bully. When bullies are fearlessly confronted, as Russia is doing, they invariably back down. There will not be a nuclear war. The USA/UK will find an excuse to explain their failure, probably by blaming the clown. “We gave him everything he wanted, money, weapons, trainers, but he was so incompetent he threw it all away.” They will find a way to cut their losses and crawl away.
1. “(Russia) relied on handshake promise (which, however one tries to look at it, was incredibly naïve given the prior horror that the Western nations had inflicted on Russia and USSR)”.
2. Yet Minsk 1 and 2 were written agreements.
3. Like all contracts, they are only as good as the honor and decency of the signing parties.
I don’t believe Russia, and most recently Putin, were naive in any way. Russia knew the West, and especially the U.S. were and are a bunch of bare-faced LIARS and DECEIVERS. Full stop.
From 2014 until 2022 Ukraine was not the only party rebuilding. Russia was not stripping her military assets and engaging in foolish skirmishes all over the world. Russia quietly and without fanfare rebuilt and modernized her military and country.
Want to know how the U.S. gets out of Ukraine? Same as Afghanistan. And U.S. Media will wipe it from memory, just like the Covid criminal scam.
“[…] in desperation the West launches a NATO-led response into Ukraine through Poland and other borders like Moldova.”
A possible, horrifying development that Poland, I am sure, would nevertheless welcome. You see, all commentators here should now be aware of what a famous Polish politician once said about Poles. They, he claims, hate Russia more than they love Poland. If you can believe it! If you don’t, then challenge me and I will find this quote and the politician’s name.
Roman Dmowski, one of the founders of independent Poland. In 1930 he wrote about Ukraine:
There is no human force capable of preventing Ukraine, detached from Russia and transformed into an independent state, from becoming a gathering place of swindlers all over the world, who today are very cramped in their own countries, capitalists and seekers of capital, industry organizers, technicians and merchants, speculators and schemers. , cutthroats and organizers of all kinds of prostitution: Germans, French, Belgians, Italians, English and Americans would be helped by local or nearby Russians, Poles, Armenians, Greeks, and finally the most numerous and important Jews of all. A whole kind of League of Nations would gather here… (…) All these elements, with the participation of the more clever, more proficient in business Ukrainians, would create a leading stratum, the country’s elite. However, it would be a special elite, because probably no country could boast such a rich collection of international scumbags. (…) Ukraine would become an ulcer on the body of Europe; and people dreaming of creating a cultured, healthy and strong Ukrainian nation, maturing in their own state, would find that instead of their own state, they have an international enterprise, and instead of healthy development, a rapid progress of decay and decay. (…) (…) In order for Ukraine to be occupied by the enemy, this enemy must be Poland and Romania.
Bravo! Dmowski it is.
Very good piece. As to why things have seemed to move so slowly, my sense is that the timing is driven by the development of the military to the superior state we now see. Putin would not have been able to muster much of a response ten or twenty years ago, and it would have ended badly. He methodically built up Russia’s defensive capability to keep that running ahead of any action.
Now we see the results. They are hammering the crap out of Ukraine and the US/NATO stockpiles are dwindling, and will be exhausted when China goes after Taiwan. Ironic role reversal here, as the west is in the predicament Russia was in back in the 90’s. Oligarchs bleeding the system putting up a phony charade of a military while running off with the cash.
Putin also has worked effectively on the economic side, making Russia self-sufficient on the one hand, and not reliant on the US controlled SWIFT system on the other. This guy is sharp and methodical, and willing to take time and play the long game. The whole process is another example of the “first slowly, then quickly” scenario. As others here have pointed out, NATO brought checkers to a chess game. The western 2 minute pop culture where we can’t focus on anything much longer than that has infiltrated all aspects of society, including the military, as the whole bureaucratic mess is populated with people who grew up with Sesame Street. Most Russians grew up with real life.
I do believe we are now at a point where there will be no negotiation on Russia’s part, as they learned the hard way negotiating with psychopaths doesn’t work. The fact they’re refurbishing bomb shelters also indicates they know they’re dealing with psychopaths and anything can happen. I strongly believe they won’t back down, as they see the bigger picture here, and it remains to be seen whether the west is prepared to lose its dominance, or everything, as that will be the stark choice we face.
Russia has been a slow boil, but it’s a big pot and a lot has been going on under the lids that the world hasn’t seen. They are now ready to assert themselves, and prepared to back it up, whereas they weren’t back in 2014 when they started supporting the militias in their own stalling tactic, one that bought them time, and helped focus them on what lay ahead.
I agree the quality of comments in this blog, column, is very high. Larry and his respected counterparts including the Duran, the New Atlas, Scott Ritter, Col MacGregor, Andrey Martyanov, Eva Bartlett, Patrick Lancaster, Graham Phillps, Caitlin Johnstone, John Helmer and many others are the only individuals who are keeping us, the citizens of the West, connected with reality and not doubting our own sanity. The West has become a cesspool of lies and deceit, it’s destroyed much of what ia good about society in its relentless pursuit of money and power. There are many among us who are saddened and ashamed this is what our countries have become. It’s not the vision my ancestors fought and died for in the two World Wars. Yet those wars were also lies, and they destroyed so many lives of the Russian and Europeans as well as those of thier allies who fought and died for their causes. Today, I see Russia as the oppressed, the Russian people as the bullied ones just wanting to live in peace and save their way of life, keeping far away from the corrupt and wicked ways of the West. And for those reasons I feel the empathy, respect and support for them by so many commenters (and journalists) on this site.
“…and this brief video discussion provides good accurate insight into the real FDR and his actions leading up to Pearl Harbour…”
I highly recommend the book ‘Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace’ published in 1953 edited by the revisionist historian Harry Elmer Barnes in collaboration with other well known historians. The inside flap of the dust jacket says it all:
“This book deals in frank and fearless fashion with the most ominous turning point in American and world history. This has involved the abandonment of the traditional balance-of-power policy in world affairs and of the American principles of neutrality and noninvolvement in the power politics and internecine quarrels of the Old World. In place of these historic traditions and practices there has appeared a policy of interventionism and global meddling which tends to transform every border quarrel in to a world war and threatens to extinguish what remains of the civilization which has been built up over the centuries.”
And this prophetic comment from William R. Matthews, Editor, Arizona Daily Star, from the introduction to chapter 10 of the above book:
“I charge that the articulate publicists of our country, by their semi-hysterical words in print and speech in which they champion extremes of diplomatic and military policy, are driving us rapidly into a war of unlimited and unattainable objectives which will bring on a gigantic catastrophe of ruin and revolution at home and abroad…
By articulate publicists I mean those speakers and writers ranging from editors, novelists, magazine writers, columnists, dramatists, radio writers, lecturers, college professors, and educators, to senators and other elected officials, cabinet members, political leaders, and presidents. When what they write and talk about becomes a united theme of agreement, action follows as certainly as butter follows the churning of cream…
After fighting two world wars within a generation to defend democracy and freedom, with no result other than to see those ideals recede throughout the world, we shall be blind if we do not understand that a third world war, fought for equally unlimited and unattainable objectives, will end in one of the great catastrophes of history. For us to imagine that we can fight such a war without exhausting ourselves and much of the good faith required for the functioning of a democracy is to indulge in the same wishful thinking that has twice proved our political undoing.”
These wise words have gone unheeded and have been blacked out by the very persons tasked with keeping the peace. Instead these very persons have brought us to the brink of WW3.
I believe the Russians always knew who they were dealing with. Especially after the NATO role in the Yugoslav crisis.
Given the economic catastrophe following the dissolution of the USSR, time was needed to get back on one’s feet, both economically and militarily. Allies had to be found and alliances had to formed. As the “west” held the levers of financial power, and thus the power of coercion, all actions had to be covert.
Twenty or so years on, Russia is in a place where the conditions are, while not ideal, suited to stand up to NATO expansion. Of course, the hubris of the western elites was of immense help in the Russian endeavor. I believe they were counting on that.
Have you ever been married? Have you ever went thru a divorce? You want to believe. You also can’t imagine someone is that crazy. That manipulative. That fucking evil. That you slept with that harridan. That was Putin. He is a very logical man. And I think, not a very imaginative man. There is no way Ukraine wins. Look at the size of the countries. So, what is the logical decision? Shit. Surrender and cut a deal. This is a no brainer. And he is watching the EU and USA self-destruct in front of him. Crazed Russian haters aside, no one believes Putin wants that. He wants to sell oil. He wants his people to be fat and happy. He never thought this would turn into this. But he realizes now. Everyone believes our Hollywood propaganda. We’re the good guys right? 100 years of movies will tell you that. Even people overseas believe it because of the movies. But now Putin understands. Evil walks. And it is the US government. I could have told him that as a US Army veteran. I believed the movies. I did things that haunt me to this day. We ain’t the fucking good guys. And here is the real news. We never were.
“We ain’t the fucking good guys. And here is the real news. We never were.”
Well said Curt. Be careful, you have probably caused newdill and his fellow flag waving bar buddies to have conniptions.
I agree GRR Newhill is a bot shill for the deep state always glamorizing the real enemies of the world.
HAHAHA I can see Newdill foaming at the mouth, having apoplectic fit
In one his latest rants to my responses to his lunacy he calls you and me buddies
GRR I do not have clue who you are – nevertheless I like you comments – especially how how you wind Newdill up like a crazy Tonka toy soldier
Newdill could be oiling up some machinery right now, spitting and cussing and swearing revenge on all of us heathen commies
good complimentary article demonstrating the longer term view of Russia, China and inherent NATO/US weakness:
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/01/31/trials-and-tribulations-of-the-collective-west/
Key quote:
‘The trick is that NATO’s escalation overdrive, as it happens, is somewhat controlled by the Russian General Staff, which is always calculating which optimal maneuvers will consume NATO’s military hardware faster. Call it a Russian version of the popular axiom “frog in a boiling pot doesn’t realize it’s being cooked until it croaks.”’
I believe the unstated Russian goal is destruction of NATO, and they are doing just that. They patiently lined their ducks up and moved when ready.
I am always cautious about estimations that one’s side (or one’s opponents) are playing “4-D chess.” Particularly in infinitely complex systems like military/strategic matters.
Its quite straightforward IMHO. in 1991, Russians re-discovered they are fundamentally “western” and “Christian.” Indeed, most Russians therefore had an unfounded faith and naive belief in “the West,” particularly the USA. Putin, for his part, also generally believed his interlocutors in the West were also “Christian” (they are not – they are neo-Marxist).
At the same time, Putin realized Russia was weak. Russia was forced to accept situations like Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, NATO enlargement – because it would be unwise to act too hastily while one was weak. One assumes they have spent the last 15 years fixing this.
So very simply, both things inform Russia’s actions – maintain some hope in the sanity of the West, but do not act rashly. Unfortunately, almost no hope in the sanity and morality of the West is now gone.
Worse than lacking morality is the US government doesn’t represent it’s people anymore. It’s in thrall to global (mainly US) corporations at every level from FDA approving a non-time-tested vax to war making all over. People in USA and especially around the world see this shit show – eloquently highlighted by Mr. Smith’s “monsters to destroy” article here, and they want no part of it.
Basically we lost our “soft power” enjoyed since inception.
I can think of two reasons why Gorbachev was content with a handshake on not expanding NATO. First, he believed the Perestroika Deception strategy would work, and as he stated once, the EU is a soviet in which case it didn’t matter to an internationalist communist which soviet controlled Eastern Europe. Putin isn’t a communist, apparently, and unlike Stalin who stripped Russia bare building the world’s greatest offensive military in the hope of conquering Europe at the end of WW2, (thank God Hitler realized the trap he had walked into, if too late to save himself, he gave the western allies time so save half of Europe) he is a Russian patriot. Funny how all the CIA types ignore the analysis’s of two of the highest ranking Soviet intelligence defectors.
Are you uneducated or deliberately trolling? Since your IP address is 70.41.184.129 I must assume you are the latter.
There are many fanatical brainless who believe what this madman wrote. The EU itself passed an infamous resolution that says Russia provoked WWII. For freaks like this. For whom Russia cannot have security concerns. It has never been invaded! And you’ve never heard of Piłsudski’s Intermarium either!
No, Mr. Johnson, I am neither. Did you read ‘The Perestroika Deception’ by Golitsyn? He was supposedly the highest ranking Soviet intelligence agent to defect. Thatcher said, after the fact, ‘I don’t think we were deceived.’ Obviously she was not sure. But it certainly would explain why the US foreign policy establishment expanded NATO eastward. I am not saying it was the correct decision. As for Stalin stripping Russia to build a greater military than the rest of the world combined, read Suvorov’s ‘The Chief Culprit.’ Educate yourself a little. You don’t have to agree with these Soviet intelligence officers, but you ought to know what they have to say. Thank you for your consideration)) That’s a Hunger Games quote, lol
You need to catch up with the 21st Century. The world of Golitsyn ceased to exist in 1991. New Russia. Eastern Orthodox Church thrives. No pedophiles. Can’t say as much for the Vatican version of Christianity.
That’s mostly correct, but I was speaking of what may have informed Gorbachev’s actions back then. Between the oligarchs ripping off the country and Putin rejecting communism, as he says, the plan failed. I converted to Orthodoxy myself a few years ago. But on the negative side, Russians tell me their church is not very good at taking care of the poor, but very good at demanding money from the people. So I think there is still work to do there in the recovery from the communist mindset of depending on the state. Once in a while you hear of a priest being caught with his fly open, but Orthodoxy does not seem to have near the problems of either Rome or Protestants. I think we are mostly in agreement on the current situation. I have briefly discussed the war on christianity by our neocon foreign policy establishment with Colonel Macgregor, and we seem to see things the same way. Again, thank you for your time.
BETRAYAL and BROKEN PROMISES: WHERE WILL IT LEAD? by Allan Mountain
my comment – unless something changes fast; this song sums it up; its a classic
i think we have been on this road since 1789 (interesting date in history) ; just took along time in getting to this point
Chris Rea – The Road To Hell 1989 Full Version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUdQfnshJ4
regards,
ralph
I recommend reading “Avoiding a long war” by the RAND Corporation in which among other things they point out:
1. Prolonging the war in Ukraine would no longer be beneficial for the US as it would be forced to send in its tanks and planes with the risk that they would be destroyed by the Russians.
2. The destruction of European armaments will force Europe to rearm itself with armaments from the American military industry with huge profits for the US.
3. The Eurasian union, which is the main American strategy, has already been broken. “Germany and Russia must never be together”.
4. European energy dependence on the US has been achieved by breaking the gas connection through NS 1 and NS 2.
5. Now the interest is to reignite the conflict with China using Taiwan as a pretext.
Moral of the story: “being an enemy of the US is dangerous; being its friend is lethal”. Poor ukrainians, “to the last one”
S’agissant de Eltsine, il convient de ne pas oublier que c’est lui qui a préparé et finalement accompli la RUPTURE de la Russie d’avec l’URSS … Car n’oublions JAMAIS que la Russie historique a été la PREMIERE VICTIME de l’URSS bolchevique puis communiste puisque, outre le fait qu’elle ait porté à bout de bras toutes les autres “républiques socialistes soviétiques”, elle a perdu maints territoires russes ou russophones … au Kazakhstan mais SURTOUT dans les pays baltes et … en UKRAINE (la Novorossya … la Malorossya … la Crimée) … Oh … bien sûr … j’imagine bien que Eltsine a perpétré cette RUPTURE bien moins par patriotisme russe que par ambition personnelle et VOLONTE de détruire Gorbatchev, son ENNEMI personnel … Ce qui le prouve, c’est l’acte TERRIBLE du 08 décembre 1991 à Minsk (DEJA !) par lequel Eltsine pour la Russie, Khravtchouk pour l’Ukraine et Chouchkevitch pour la Biélorussie, DETRUISANT définitivement l’URSS, se sont partagés les dépouilles de la Russie historique … SANS organiser une rectification des frontières (tout particulièrement s’agissant de la RSS d’Ukraine … On peut en mesurer les funestes conséquences, depuis …
S’agissant de Poutine, il ne faut SURTOTU PAS oublier qu’arrivant au Pouvoir en 1999 en tant que Premier ministre puis en 2000 comme Président de la Russie, il a hérité d’une Russie plongée dans un état CATASTROPHIQUE (on peut comparer cet état avec la période dite du “Temps des troubles” – 1595-1619 -) … Dès lors, il a dû passer les huit années de sa première présidence à relever une Russie RUINEE par 73 années de communisme (des DIZAINES de MILLIONS de morts des deux guerres mondiales, de la guerre civile de 1917-22, des DEUX Terreurs staliniennes puis de la période de “glaciation” de Brejnev) … 10 années de “libéralisme “économique” PUR et DUR au cours desquelles les oligarques JUDEO-russes alliés aux Occidentaux ont littéralement PILLE la nation et le peuple russes jusqu’à la moelle de leurs os … Quelle autre nation au Monde aurait pu SURVIVRE à de pareilles calamités …
Ce faisant, Poutine a essayé sincèrement de se rapprocher de l’Occident mais … n’en a recueilli qu’ARROGANCE, MEPRIS et Volonté évident d’abaisser A JAMAIS la Russie … D’où le fameux discours d’avertissement de Munich en 2007 … répondant à l’avancée de l’OTAN vers les frontières russes aux premières “révolutions colorées” de Géorgie et d’Ukraine … La guerre de Géorgie a constitué sa première réponse (il était alors Premier ministre sous la Présidence de “l’occidentaliste” Medvedev mais c’est lui, assurément, qui dirigeait tout en sous-main … Remarquons qu’alors, les Russes, ayant DETRUIT le potentiel militaire géorgien (et HUMILIE une première fois les Etats-Unis !) se sont arrêtés devant Tbilissi …
La réplique étatsunienne a été la seconde “révolution colorée” de Maidan … Aussitôt, Poutine, redevenu Président, a prononcé l’annexion DEMOCRATIQUE de la Crimée, empêchant dès lors l’OTAN – c’est-à-dire les Etats-Unis ! – de faire une “OPA” sur Sébastopol … ce qui aurait constitué une CATASTROPHE pour la Russie … D’où … le premier “sanctionnisme” dont la Russie a mis DEUX ans pour le dominer … Voilà pourquoi, à mon sens, elle a souscrit els “accords de Minsk 1 et 2 … mettant fin à la première guerre du Donbass … lors que les russophones remportaient la Victoire … En outre, il a de manière inattendue et remarquable tenu tête dès octobre 2015 à la coalition étatsuno-Otano-occidentale qui espérait faire à la Syrie ce qu’elle avait fait à l’Irak et à la Libye …
OUI, par la FORFAITURE de “Minsk” fomentée par Merkel, Hollande et Porochenko, l’Ukraine a pu se réarmer … mais … la Russie AUSSI !! On le voit en des armements dont PERSONNE, en Occident – et SURTOUT PAS aux Etats-Unis – ne croyait la Russie capable … C’est bien pourquoi je me demande si Poutine n’a pas accepté de paraître “NAÏF” … lors qu’à l’exemple de Frédéric le Grand lors de trois guerres de Silésie (1740-42 … 1744-46 et 1756-63), il préparait par les ARMES la reconquête de la Novorossya (Donbass, sud-est et sud de l’Ukraine … jusqu’à Odessa … issue des frontières ILLEGALES de 1922) et peut-être aussi de la Malorossya (tout particulièrement Kharkov et la rive gauche du Dniepr) …
L’Avenir dira QUI a raison … Mais, assurément, la Russie NE CEDERA JAMAIS PLUS ces terres historiquement RUSSES depuis plus de TROIS siècles (traités de Pereiaslav de 1654 et 1659 et traité de Paix perpétuelle – !!! – de 1686) … quand les Etats-Unis N’EXISTAIENT PAS encore !!!
Merci. Je suis d’accord avec vous 100%.
“how FDR goaded Japan into attacking USA, by his directives to US military and Navy to keep intruding into Japanese territorial waters and many other provocations not least blockading sea lanes to prevent Japan from receiving shipments of oil – Japan being totally dependent on seaborne oil imports. Note the parallels with American policies and actions in seas just off Taiwan and China today”
Huh??? It’s China who is constantly intruding into Taiwan’s waters and airspace, not the US those of China.
Ah… even the US espouses officially a one China policy . Therefore it’s a bit hard to understand why or how China could ” intrude” on waters that are hers to begin with. But US Navy vessels in that area are most certainly intruding. And, if they keep playing this game, those American carrier battle groups will soon be sinking rather than intruding in those same waters.
Taiwan is China Antonio, please do keep up with the rest of the class.
LOL. No, USA doesn’t follow a One China policy, and even if it did, it would not change the fact that Taiwan is an independent state, and never was part of the PRC. You should learn some history instead of simply following what the PRC says because you like communism. Saying that Taiwan is part of the PRC is as stupid as saying that west Ukraine is part of DPR and LPR.
Both the communists and the nationalists defeated the previous China regime. After that, they fought between themselves until a stalemate was achieved, the result of which was that the communists ruled in mainland China and the nationalists ruled in Taiwan. None of them have any right to whole China.
Antonio … the U.S. and the rest of the world recognize Taiwan as being a part of China. That is simply…a fact. Another fact, Taiwain never fought for their independence from China, the island is still a part of China. The sea between the two still is managed by China. Taiwan would have financial ruin if what they produced were no longer sent to China. Taiwan would have even worse financial ruin if China ceased exports to Taiwan. Any turmoil you see in Taiwan is caused by the U.S. NGO groups.
Some advice Lou.When you argue with a fool He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.”Sam Clemmons”
> the U.S. and the rest of the world recognize Taiwan as being a part of China
False. if the US “recognized” the ROC as part of the PRC, the US would not bother arming the ROC for defense against the PRC. It might be accurate to say that Henry Kissinger believes the ROC to be part of the PRC, but Henry Kissinger does not speak for the US.
The UN Charter recognizes (like the US Declaration of Independence) the right of self determination, which has been exercised by the people of Donetsk and Lugansk; and exercised by the people of Taiwan.
The PRC has no moral claim to rule the people of Taiwan.
Nonetheless, throughout history, strong tribes/countries have commonly imposed their will on weaker ones. Also the geographic position of Taiwan makes it effectively impossible for other countries to render it adequate aid to maintain its independence should the CCCP decide to invade.
Consequently, other parties should refrain from encouraging the start of a war which Taiwan almost certainly cannot win — though it might do a great deal of harm to the PRC in fighting such an invasion.
Intellectual integrity requires one recognize that should the CCCP invade Taiwan, it almost certainly will win — but that doing so will be immoral and repeating behavior for which many of us criticize the US.
Excoriating the US for such behavior but saying it is OK for China is just hypocritical.
Imagine if China’s Navy ship began insisting on rights of navigation between Catalina Island and the coast of LA and sailed their ships there on frequent basis, just as US Navy ships frequently persist in sailing between China and Taiwan. OK Catalina is approx. 22 mile off coast of California whereas Taiwan Strait, also called Formosa Strait, is 100 miles (160 km) wide at its narrowest point, lying between the coast of China’s Fukien province and the island of Taiwan (Formosa).
America would never tolerate it.
When Nixon and Kissinger visited China and established friendly relations so American capitalists could offshore American industry enabling them to extract massive profits from the cheap labour (virtual slave labour force) they agreed and signed agreement that as far as USA policy went Taiwan was part of China and would remain part of One China.
Here at link below is an accurate account of the real history which can be corroborated by numerous western sources as well if you care to take the time to do the searching you can also find a photostat copy of this agreement Nixon and Kissinger and USA Government made with China
Nixon’s historic trip and the Taiwan question
https://asianews.network/nixons-historic-trip-and-the-taiwan-question/
following three paragraphs from the article link above:
It is noteworthy that Nixon unequivocally agreed that “Taiwan is a part of China”. This position is “acknowledged” in US versions of the three US-China communiques.
Also, in 1998, Bill Clinton became the first (not the last) president to declare that, “We don’t support independence for Taiwan, or ‘two Chinas,’ or ‘one Taiwan, one China’.” When criticized, he explained that he was reiterating a longstanding policy.
Besides, Nixon not only promised to support “any peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue”, but also asserted on Feb 23, 1972, that he was serious about the matter.
And here is the official position still right now today of American Policy regarding Taiwan and China from the website of the US State Department where it clearly states the official position of America is that Taiwan is still part of and belongs to China.
the following paragraph is copied from the US Department of State website:
The United States approach to Taiwan has remained consistent across decades and administrations. The United States has a longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three U.S.-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances. We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.
What is not to see or understand on this issue? – and why, if China is willing to let Taiwan stay just as it is and run its own affairs, as it has stated on numerous occasions, is it any business of any current American politicians to keep publicly urging Taiwan to declare independence from China in spite of those public calls being contrary to state US Government policy as so unequivocally stated on US Department of State website??
China has stated many times it is happy for Taiwan to be autonomous and govern their own affairs, but that they will never allow Taiwan to declare independence from China and become a separate nation (not least being because Taiwan has huge historical significance to the Chinese people).
In response to the constant call by so many American political leaders for Taiwan to declare it is an independent nation state, China has declared that is the big red line that cannot ever be crossed and the moment there is any such attempt to do so China will invade Taiwan – and absent America launching a preemptive nuclear assault on China there is nothing America will be able to do to stop China invading Taiwan – the day America tries to take on China in a conventional war is the day that the Pacific carrier fleets go to the bottom of the Pacific in a barrage of unstoppable hypersonic missiles.
This is the identical to what transpired between Ukraine and Russia. Russia stated on numerous occasions prior to 24 February 2022 that it was happy for Ukraine to remain neutral and trade with whichever nation it wanted to trade with. but it would never allow Ukraine to join EU and NATO.
It was not until four days before Feb 24 (when Russian troops went into the Donbass ) that Nancy Pelosi gave a speech on Feb 20 in Europe that Ukraine must be allowed to become member of EU and NATO and then only two days later on Feb 22 Zelensky pronounced that Ukraine planned to arm itself with nuclear bombs
And people wonder why Russia finally realized that unless they moved fast then much more dire threats would soon appear right on their border.
Again, imagine of Russia and Mexico entered into a security treaty and Russia began installing missile batteries inside Mexico on the border with USA.
Please stop looking at the world through those star spangled, red white and blue spectacles and basing all of your assumptions on CNN puke they pass off as news – ditto all the other MSM propaganda organizations that pretend to be objective new outlets.
re USA Government position on Taiwan and One China Policy
I see in reply/comment above to Antonio that I omitted including link to US Department of State reference
the following paragraph is copied from the US Department of State website:
U.S. Relations With Taiwan
May 28, 2022
https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-taiwan/
The United States approach to Taiwan has remained consistent across decades and administrations. The United States has a longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three U.S.-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances. We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.
There it is.
There can be no doubt or equivocation.
USA Government still maintains position that Taiwan is in fact part of One China – in spite of all the misinformation being propagated by the globalist New World Order champions.
If all the flag-waving cheerleaders cheering on American aggression against China were in fact so eager, desirous and willing to fight for a world where real freedom and democracy rules, then they should be doing the basic homework like reading what US Government policy actually is and then asking how and why it is that the likes of retiring (YAH!!) Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts in Congress and Senate are doing all they can to bring about conflict with China by constantly encouraging Taiwan to declare itself to be an independent nation state separate from China when they know that will most definitely result in China launching massive invasion force into Taiwan (as China has stated that they will most assuredly do).
Hey Allan…nice read !
Zerohedge (ZH) is one of my daily “go to’s” along with Sonar21…I like ZH because it often provides economic analysis that even dense old soldiers like me can understand…Economics is after all the US’ primary instrument of national power–for now anyway.
NATO was not originally intended to be an offensive organization and in my opinion lost its relevance after the Soviet Union collapse. Unfortunately, US policy makers and political elites took that collapse as a queue to turn NATO into an offensive organization by virtue of assimilating as many former Warsaw Pact member nations as possible. Let’s face it…the US never got over the Cold War and it never forgave Russia–I kinda get that–though the Cold War was “cold” thousands lost their lives (on both sides) during that decades long war.
The US just plain sucks at diplomacy and foreign policy…my theory is that the Country is an infant at those games compared to say like Russia, China, Iran (Persia), Turkey (Ottoman Empire) who have been practicing war and diplomacy for hundreds or even thousands of years. What’s worse–as you so astutely point out–is that US diplomacy cannot be trusted at all and I think much of the world is figuring that out.
Therein lies the pickle…the US (and NATO) cannot be seen by the rest of the world to lose yet another war (even though that’s the likely result). Losing the proxy war in the Ukraine may not be the nail in the hegemon’s coffin but as Churchill said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Smarter minds than me can argue if that quote is applicable to US global hegemon decline but for my part it resonates!
Thank you Vallhalla Rising – you make excellent comment. You are far from being a dense old soldier – more like an astute wise old warrior. Like you, I check Zero Hedge every day for its economic columns.
You will resonate with and appreciate this latest post by Alasdair MacLeod – link directly below. MacLeod has an encyclopaedic exhaustive knowledge of monetary history and geopolitics – although I do occasionally have to reread and scratch my head to figure out exact meaning of what MacLeod writes as he does sometimes tend to phrase complex issues in language more suited to higher level academic circles with many more years than I have had in this field – and on occasion I have to do some searching online relating to terms or acronyms he might use, which has nevertheless been good education for me).
This is outstanding insight from Alasdair MacLeod
A tale of two worlds
https://www.goldmoney.com/research/a-tale-of-two-worlds
MacLeod’s articles published on Gold Money website are also usually always published the same day on King World News which posts exact same article, but often Eric King likes to change heading for what he considers to be better emphasis of content, as is the case this time with Eric King headlining it as:
Chess Master Putin Is Moving Closer To Destroying The US Dollar
February 02, 2023
https://kingworldnews.com/chess-master-putin-is-moving-closer-to-destroying-the-us-dollar/
As with Zero Hedge I check King World News every day because they publish comments and articles by some great financial analysts and seriously successful (wealthy) investors many of whom have had years in the industry and all of whom are ‘sound money gold and silver advocates’.
(Never mind about some of the irrelevant photos Eric King heads some articles with i.e. photo shots of beautiful young erotic-looking women)
Again as usual you are on Target, on Glide path Larry with some additional thoughts. All of the things you have stated about the current idiots running both the DOD and DOS are true and possible, but I believe are still not going to happen for a little bit……couple 3 or 4 years. There WILL be a war using nucs in the future, that is a fact. But I believe not just around the corner. All of these current globalist loving idiots are waiting for something, what?…..a Leader. And when he is thrust-ed out of the shadows of where he was born they will ALL line up in support of his plan. The current Ukieville conflict will move outside the coloring book lines very soon via Vlad’s military movements and victories. The West will make the pivot move to extend the lines to color in and do this until the New Leader ‘s time is here……6 to 14 months. Then the next phase of Bio-operations is green lighted for start up. Then there will be a sort of peace for a short time, before all hell breaks loose. Then is when nuclear usage will be planned and used. The current warfare in Ukieville is just a small warm up of the bigger plan. So as the small brained and moral cowards of this current US Leadership play and plan on their play books, Russ will fold up what remains of the eastern Uke military power and draw down the war to a wait and see operation, having competed the SMO’s stated objectives. BTW the Good guys win, but that is for another day to discuss. Keep up the writing Larry, it’s not all falling on blinded eyes and deaf ears, just takes time for the really good wine and whisky to age. Cheers.
Thank you Larry for posting this author here. It was indeed an excellent article with plenty of insight.
I have long thought Russia plays the “long game”, much the same as China. I originally questioned why Putin did not push further in 2014 in the Donbass region but have since seen it as a part of the long game. Putin and his advisors have held back and this has permitted the Western powers to show its true colors. Permitted the Ukraine neo-nazi groups to be exposed, permitted the bio-labs to be exposed, permitted the corruption to be exposed and permitted the deceitful actions Zelensky, Poroshenko, Macron, Merkel, and Hollende to be exposed.
Holding back permitted the U.S. and Europe to show how lawless they are when they seized the sovereign foreign holdings and the private foreign holdings of Russia and Russians. That action alone sent shock waves to many non-western countries that had to have asked themselves if the U.S. and Europe would do the same to them should there be any disagreements. America, European, NATO, and UN leaders have shown they cannot be trusted. The IAEA and Amnesty International have shown that they are as equally bias to the support of the Western powers and as untrustworthy as the previously named groups.
Prior to all of this, Russia has ushered in the multi-polar world with BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative, creating a SWIFT alternative, encouraging payments in the “coin of the realm”, encouraging increased ties with India, China, South America, the Middle East and Indo-Pac nations.
The Western powers see their impending collapse and are now in extreme fear of what they see as being inevitable. Still, these Western powers will not give up easy and will go down fighting. My fear is they will take it all down with them, I expect that their kind of evil is willing to do just that.
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I sense that Putin may be working behind the scene with other, unseen political and military leaders of the West. Perhaps what we are seeing is a well designed and in-progress plan to deconstruct the “old guard” and usher in a better way of governing that is devoid of the need for financial gains through the plunder of nations.
I just don t get why all sofá commentators like you still enjoy living in the west?
Many of us grew up when there was some semblance of freedom and opportunity, and along the way have been raising concerns about the direction taken by those who run things. Even now, the focus is on working to fix things, which first requires and honest assessment of the situation. You seem to imply that we should run away like those who come here, rather than stand and fight to make things better. While things are pretty good here still, the trajectory has been downhill for decades. As the old proverb goes, it’s not where you are, but where your headed that counts. Like driving, the time to hit the breaks is before the collision, not after.
And if a person were to tuck tail and run, where to perchance? Who will remain to fight to get a properly functioning society back, where we have decent, common values, a sense of community, and of belonging to something worthwhile. We are not “enjoying” living here, but rather taking up our responsibilities to be good citizens and make things better.
Well said. Thank you.
Things are pretty good in the US. The US haters can’t see that because they’re perpetual – perhaps even professional – malcontents.
But yeah, we’re heading for a crash and need to stand up and do something before it’s too late.
Who but you said anything about enjoying living in the West?
It’s likely better than living in the “east” just for now. But, of course, times change, things may change, etc — *in the future*. So yes, it’s possible it can go either way…
mac,You don’t get it because you are an asshole.WElove our country, we hate our government.
Sorry Mac i meant PeterMu.
I would not follow orders to attack another country when my superiors support critical race theory, that men can have babies and man boy sex is ok.
I wonder how much of NATO’s rank and file think that way.
Apart from the fact that Gorbachëv was a quisling who disarmed the USSR at a time when Soviet armament technology in the shape of missiles was already beginning to pull ahead of the west, what makes anyone think the American Empire would honour its own signature on an agreement? Who abrogated the AMB treaty or the INFD treaty? Who ignored the UN to attack Iraq?
You are so right Biswapriya
Another appalling history of broken promise and betrayals. One is hard pressed to find any agreement or promise made by America to any nation or people which they have not broken.
Check this (there are many more than these)
Article published on Government Executive website titled:
‘It’s not just Trump. The US has always broken its treaties, pacts and promises’
https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2018/05/its-not-just-trump-us-has-always-broken-its-treaties-pacts-and-promises/148179/
and that is not even the half of it.
Then of course there were all those treaties (somewhere between 300 to 400 treaties or more) that America signed with Native American tribes during the years of late 1700s to 1871 – everyone of which they broke.
If American Government has excelled at one thing more than any other it has been in its proclivity to break its promises, agreements and treaties.
Ditto Britain.
And that is why this current situation in Ukraine so worrying. Just how will it ever be possible for Russia, China and BRICS to ever sit down and negotiate any sensible path forward with America and its Western lackey allies?
It is hard to imagine any way forward that will not end in all-out war between the BRICS and the West – and for those who have not been paying attention it is becoming all too painfully clear who will win that war.
Does anyone in the Western leadership have any idea of the cancerous rot that they have cultivated in the arena of public trust and geopolitical diplomatic relations? I fear not as they keep the pedal of Western treachery, destruction and collapse hard to the floor of destiny.
American / Western leadership has become so asinine it can no longer be distinguished from surreal satirical cartoons like Monty Python and that great British TV comedy series “Yes Minister”.
Why do people think that RU elites (Putin and alike) did not know what is going on and were tricked on every corner?
I think they knew exactly what is going on, and just were abiding time, pretending to be stupid and scared in order to prepare as best as they could for the upcoming clash.
I think that even USSR breakup was orchestrated by RU elites in order to appear as week as possible and in order to fool the enemy, because so many things happened just the way they needed them – for example, to get all nuclear weapons under their umbrella, or election of Putin who then managed to tame oligarhs (which means that levers to do that were probably ready/existing even before oligarhs were introduced, otherwise, you would have oligarhs problem like in UKR that would successfully break country apart into feudal fiefdoms.
What was the most important part of that plan in my opinion was to show to their own people without doubt that hate is against whole country+it’s people and not just leadership/ideology, and once they succeeded in doing so, their second goal was to be as ready as possible since they knew that if they planned it badly, it could easily backfire at them and maybe even really cause a real defeat – like for example if they couldn’t feed their people or make enough armaments/munition, etc…
– Did their plan go badly in some aspects? Sure, every plan does.
– Did their plan adapt as it was going? Sure, every plan does.
– Were they this time better prepared then any other time in their history? Yes, of course, because against Napoleon, WWI and WWII (and many previous events), they were far worse prepared and their casualties were enormous, while this time they are really keeping them at a very low level comparing to the total level of gain.
(P.S. I have accidentally wrote this comment on another thread, please delete it there…)
It really is not that complicated: Ukraine is the break up of Germany and Russia.
The “deep state” (Peter Dale Scott) or whatever one wants to refer to the Nazi international (breakaway civilization) deeply embedded inside US institutions including intelligence like Continuity of Government (CoG) and the British-controlled Senior Executive Service (SES) will never under any circumstances allow German technological capacity to merge with Russian resources like oil and gas.
This is an extension of the Morgenthau (Roosevelt’s secretary of the treasury) plan to deindustrialize Germany as punishment for WWII. This was the long arm of Jewish vengeance and was stopped by more stable rationally thinking people in Washington at the time. James Forrestal was one of them and he likely paid for his opposition with his life. The Nazi international based in the US demolished the Nord Stream pipelines to prevent Germany from accessing Russian natural gas. The US has now forced Germany to buy liquified natural gas from the US at far greater prices.
Now the US has forced Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine where the Russian military have developed weapon systems efficient and destructive enough to locate then destroy these Leopard tanks. The US will then force Germans to purchase Abrams tanks.
Any German national leader who opposes this will be removed with a car bomb.
Economic sanctions: The US Treasury is a Jewish preserve in the treasury department has used this weapon where 40 percent fo the world’s population are under sanctions. Absolutely no one in the US has the ability to reject Jewish hegemony re: these people want to place a bust of Ukraine’s Zelensky in the US Congressional Building.
The US State Department under the Jewish lackey Antony Blinken is leading the US (America) to doom and no one is challenging this fact. These arrogant people are bringing about the very opposite of what they are working to achieve or intended. They have destroyed the US dollar.
The most powerful segment of the US empire is Jewish hegemony. They demonstrate this daily in the New York Times telling the American people who are oblivious to all this that “Ukraine is winning the war.” It is not always Jews involved in this cunning subterfuge but the point is powerful Jews including oligarchs are leading this.
Putin’s assessment of the United States as “The Empire Lies” was just as pointed, direct, true, and self-evident, as former President Donald Trump referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and parts of Africa as “shithole” countries. Putin’s assessment of the United States resonated around the world, just as Trump’s did.
It won’t be long before the United States finds itself in that category too, of being both a “shithole country” and a failed state. If the United States isn’t already there.
How long before the United States (and the west), goes from supplying tanks and jets to the Ukraine, to the inevitably of supplying the NATO troops, trained in all the aspects of operating these advanced military systems?
In the United States and on YouTube, we’ve been watching this churning of Abrams and Bradley Fighting Vehicles on railroad flat beds, stretching for miles, for months now. We now have the answer to everybody’s question: “Where are these going?”
Remember, Zelinsky wants the United States to add nuclear weapons to his shopping list. We are almost there. A lot closer than we were even a year ago.
As the escalation proceeds towards its inevitable end, we may see this conflict reach the shores of the United States. This sucker could go nuclear.
Viewed historically, logically, and dispassionately, the truth is bullies only stop their attacks, their reign of terror, when somebody punches them in the face. The bigger the bully, the bigger the punch. For the United States, this can only happen with a direct attack upon Washington, DC.
As has been said: “The chicken shit falls from the top down.” You start with the shitholes at the top. You start with the United States. The head bully. The head hegemon.
One thing is certain. All this must end.
I think Putin has been preparing on the down low since 2007 Munich Security Conference and they mocked Russia’s concerns. Literally laughed at him bringing up promises of no NATO expansion. Russia needed 18 years to repair the prior 18 years explaining his tepid response to Ukrainian Coup, and constant shelling of Donbass ethnic Russian Ukrainians for another 8 years on top of that. That’s why Russia can fire virtually unlimited missiles and artillery shells. I agree Russia’s positioning is to wreck NATO should they be foolish enough to enter – I don’t agree they will. Military won’t allow it because they know they are screwed. They have all the data for now until Russia takes out all their ISR and they can’t fight without that.
Knowledgeable and well presented…he should be invited back to post.
All i know for certain about Russians in Donbas 2014 is that there were voulenters there and a lot of Serbs and other that came to defend Russians in the ukraine.
https://voenhronika.ru/publ/vojna_na_ukraine/60-1-1
Here you will find videos from the start of the war and until today(new videos every day)
They are in Russian, the few youtube vids are auto translatable but the rest no sub.
There is written summary “where/when/what” to each vid + short written report on everything.
Yandex translate is the best Ru-En translater imho.
Per
I guess that’s another site to add to my daily watch list.
I think much of the problem has to do with the UK. They never got over losing the 3 colonies.
And under Cecil Rhodes set out to recapture Empire though playing a very long game of subterfuge and Diplomacy.
Thereby recapturing and controlling US Foreign Policy along with Canada’s. This was accomplished during the WW2.
Anyway Professor Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University laid it out very well in his book “The Anglo American Establishment”
Very much enjoying the reading the very intellectual debate, and the back and forth with manners and courtesy.
Anyways give the good Prof. a read. He educated most of the US Diplomatic Corp. His course was required to enter US Diplomatic Service.
He had access to much hidden material.
https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Carroll_Quigley_-_The_Anglo_American_Establishment-2.pdf
For whatever it may be worth, Putin in retrospect has acknowledged that there were Russian missteps in 2014.
The rumors are false that Russia’s army invaded the Donbass in 2014. The western powers desperately sought proof of a Russian invasion without success. Ukraine made many false accusations. Russia’s support appears to have been limited to material aid, intelligence and some Russian volunteers who had military training who assisted out of their personal volition.
There was a plan for a foreign invasion of Ukraine in 2014, but the invaders would have been NATO troops. The intended false flag justification for the invasion was the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17. The plot fell apart mainly because of two events. First, Russia’s air traffic control asked Ukraine’s air traffic control to redirect the flight to a different waypoint. Ukraine’s air traffic controller apparently was not a participant in the false flag plot, and the request was granted. Flight MH17 was blown up within a few seconds of receiving the instruction to change its course. The result was the aircraft could not fall on territory controlled by Ukraine as planned. Losing complete control of the debris means also some loss of control over the narrative. The second event that shut down the invasion was the courageous actions of a few unarmed Malaysian soldiers who received the black boxes from the Donbass militia and refused to hand the black boxes over to Ukraine’s SBU who were and are puppets of the CIA. Malaysia should have put the black boxes in a diplomatic pouch and return them to Malaysia, but that’s another story.
At the time (mid July 2014) the momentum of the fighting was with the militia. The leaders of Germany, The Netherlands and Australia lost their nerve to send troops because the false flag operation was bungled so badly. Without NATO assistance Ukraine would have suffered a major defeat. Hence the Minsk negotiations.
Russia had decisions to make in 2014. Would they react militarily to the provocation? Or would they think through the alternatives, get prepared, and then act at a time, place and manner of their choosing? There is a difference between acting and reacting.
I’m not comfortable with the idea that Russia was or is deceived or naive. It is difficult to grasp the mindset of an eastern people who have been the object of a thousand years of abuse from the west. They think and act based on their standards and values, not ours.
You have just jogged me memory Sam, I remember now seeing documents proving that the lickspittles in Australia had planned on sending troops to Ukraine back then.
Sam
I am an Australian. We, the public, have been kept in the dark about a lot of what was going on re MH17. The narrative management has been truly extraordinary and is somewhat sinister.
The Malaysian stuff is suggestive. The Malaysian PM was brought down by media leaks over a financial scandal in 2015. The timing may well be entirely coincidental or there may have been some connection to intrigue over the tragedy in Ukraine or the subsequent cover-up.
Are you able to provide some references perhaps that I might be able to chase up?
“If and when Angle-American-NATO psychos put boots on the ground in Ukraine, as I think is highly probable now (never underestimating the extent of their insanity and boundless pursuit of power) then we will witness the complete annihilation of America and UK and western Europe – not that there will be much left standing in such event – it will all be terrifyingly swift and sudden.”
Great article. I have not shared the opinion that Putin has been a trusting naive fool plying for Western “acceptance”, and this article reflects a very diligent, well thought out, well planned, building alliances, “end game” for UK/US.
How it ends, I’ve no crystal ball, except that financially for the West, I think it will be worse than the collapsed Soviet Union was for millions of Russians.
I agree with a lot in general. In fact, until the turn of the century, there could not be many doubts. Including how Russia was bled to London and NY. Which is also what justifies that Russia was not prepared for war in 2014. When it was already under economic sanctions. Yet I agree that Putin believed until very late that he could be a partner of the US! As after the war in Chechnya, it even lent Russian bases to the US in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.
Where I disagree is that Germany today is being blackmailed to the core. Germany never thought it was losing the Baltic gas pipelines. Otherwise he would not have built them. And there were many Millions! Germany is not just the corrupt Ursula in the EU or the Baerbock doll of the WEF or the high finance doll at the Elysee! And Merkl lied when he now came to say that he always saw the Minsk agreements as a fraud. At the same time as Hollande with the NATO guidelines to try to humiliate and unbalance Putin in Moscow. Merkl had told Der Spiegel a month earlier that he did not do more for peace in Donbass in 2021 because after leaving the Chancellery he no longer had political strength. You don’t have to know Merkl to think she orchestrated a war. On top of that with Russia?! Merkl was rushed in 2015 to sign the Minsk accords with Putin to save thousands of NATO troops trapped in Donbass. And Russia in 2015 was also interested in slowing down the war! It was not Germany that boycotted the Minsk agreements. And sooner than many think it will re-establish relations with Russia and China. With whom Merkl signed the trade agreement with in the rotating EU presidency. China is the EU’s biggest economic partner – a US construction like NATO! What the US never forgave Merkl! A vassal doesn’t behave like that. And then he said that Europe had to learn to build its own future!
I also agree that the first goal of the US was to disconnect Germany from China and the second was to try to overthrow Putin in order to disconnect Russia from China and go back to looting Russia’s resources. Destroy the current Euroasian economic bloc worth several US GDP. So far it has only succeeded in disconnecting Germany from Russian energy. Which is possible to replenish very quickly through the hub in Turkey! And yes, this war today is as existential for the US as it is for Russia. Still, he won’t put his boots on the ground on the border with Russia. Who doesn’t want all of Ukraine either, as I’ve also heard! Russia west of the Dnieper wants what it has always wanted. A buffer zone! My biggest doubt today is Odessa. Or rather, the Black Sea. Russia needs security for the Black Sea Fleet. But this does not oblige to take Odessa. We’ll see.
Errata: I also agree that the first goal of the US was to disconnect Germany from RUSSIA.
P.S. And just add a point. Since Rumsfeld, the US in Europe favored relations with the new Europe to the detriment of the old Europe. But everything can change after a war of course. For me, the US, with this war, has just signed the exit from Europe as it has already signed the exit from the Middle East. Two geostrategic stages that were once very important for an Empire that prided itself on controlling all oceans and all terrestrial plates. Plates where there are very important natural resources. With the loss of influence that is already visible in South America…
Looks like der Biden has approved sending long range missiles to Ukraine, or so it is being reported. Looks like Ukraine is still being run by a combination idiots, those smoking weed, and those that are simply suicidal.
With comments like the below..
“Ukrainian intelligence chief Kirill Budanov vowed on Tuesday that “until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will be problems inside Russia.” He also said Kiev aims to retake Crimea by this summer.”
https://www.rt.com/news/570784-us-glsdb-rockets-ukraine/
Russia will certainly move sooner than later and will destroy all Ukrainian leadership and any remaining military. As far as agreements and terms go, I am pretty certain Russia will carry out their agreement to de-nazify and de-militarize Ukraine. Even though Russia signed nothing…they will keep their word on this matter.
I have been thinking about the way the west treated Russia and Putin not just this past couple of years, but since he started to put the Russian house on order and clipped the wings of high flying Russian Oligarchs. I personally think it is naive on our part to think that Russians / Putin were deceived by the west. Since he knew the treachery of the west even before he came to power he played his cards very intelligently may be at times pretending to be the westerner’s partner. We all know what happened to Sadam or any other leader if they crossed the West.
Talking about the Maidan and 2014/2015 Minsk agreements I am sure that Putin knew that the west was playing for time. At the same time his own economy was not in a great shape. The western propogonda of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and subsequent sanctions made Putin realize that he got to cultivate the raising Asian giants of China/India. So he made the gas deal with China and cultivated strategic partnership with India by providing the air defense and other military equipments. Before he launched the Special Military Operations he travelled to China/India and held consultations with the leaders of those countries. He made numerous trips to Iran and even met with the Ayatollah.
He cultivated these relationships and the results are evident. In spite of the enormous pressure put by the western leaders on India to stop the trading with Russia and follow the sanctions, India refused to follow the suit. Once in a while India might say a word or two about the war but on the whole wouldn’t budge an inch on its economic relationship with Russia. In the early stages of war last year there was huge procession and priligrimages of Western leaders to India to cazole and may be threaten also. But all that effort was for nothing. This shows the diplomatic acumen of Putin and his adminstration. This definitely doesn’t speak of naivette. Thanks
IMHO, Russia is playing balance game between war, economy and stability.
Not everything went as planned, but the same can be said about NATO countries as well. US already fired its biggest weapon… it’s called sanctions + SWIFT ban.
Nukes aren’t real weapon in modern world. They are deterrent and they are getting the job done or NATO would be doing a lot more than sending weapons, ammunition and info. Sending all these enormous resources to support giant corrupt entity is not a dream scenario for NATO.
The biggest win for Russia would be if it can survive this economically and achieve independence from US financial system. Of course it needs to be accompanied by some military success as well. For US it would be like going back to square one and facing Russia and China, but without industrial sector and having wrecked Europe as an ally.
And o yes, Mr.Johnson, I don’t know a dam thing about ip addresses, so what was that all about? I am from Idaho, not CA or CO, if that is any help. Some of the chain store sites seem to ‘think’ I am from those places, that’s why we call it AI, I guess))
Russia’s sanction proof new trade route.
This is really going to kill off the USD and the EU/UK.
Putin just did a huge end run on USA and Europe.
No Russian trade will have to pass through the EU at all.
Straight by rail and boat to India, or China through Iran.
And it is already being used.
No wonder there is desperation and fear in the west.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russias-sanction-proof-trade-corridor-india-frustrates-neocons
It occurs to me, looking at what Zelensky is ordering up, that maybe he is a truly consummate actor. That maybe he is a plant from some shadow organization, whose task it is to ensure that Ukraine is destroyed as a military and political and economic thing. By doubling and tripling down in Bakhmut and Soledad and many other places, funneling men and materiel into ever deepening pits, by drawing in ever more of the Empire’s resources, he could be seen as almost intentionally losing the confrontation, to the significant advantage of Russia and the non-Golden Billions. The consistent seeming foolishness of pouring reserves into hopeless battles and the rising invitation to open-checkbook debilitation of the NATO beast look an awful lot like a clandestine intent to pull the temple down on his head — though I bet he hopes to sneak out, exit stage left, as it crumbles.
Of course the Lords of Creation no doubt have some deeper, more nefarious intention, to kill off vast numbers of “useless eaters” to let them inherit (on the death of the unfortunate current inhabitants) what they think might then be a garden of earthly delights, likely looking for a model to the magnificent triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights
Or maybe there’s no intention to all this except the working out of a plenipotent death wish.
Thanks for the re-post of Mr. Mountain’s interesting and passionate commentary.
One point I’d like to make tho, is that in 2014 Russia’s economy was not nearly ready to withstand the super sanctions that would have been issued by the psycho western govs, if she had gone into ukraine overtly to smash the neo-nazi formations. Crimea was a special case in that Russian military bases were already present there so they were able to provide security for the referendums on re-joining Russia, to take place.
In all the talk about what Russia shoulda’ / coulda’ done in 2014, I haven’t yet heard mention that Russia was facing 2 fronts at the time: Ukraine and Syria.
It is doubtful that they could have moved in force on both fronts simultaneously, so they opted for snatching Crimea off NATO’s fork and Syria off the US’ fork using an extreme economy of force strategy in both cases. Both of those moves had to take the very different Turkey of 2014/5 into account.
Taking Crimea wiped out NATO’s Ukraine strategy, forcing them to come in by land in any future conflict, while Syria wiped out America’s Arab Spring / ISIS strategy, breaking the US’ stranglehold on the M. East’s political elites and boosting their future ally Iran’s standing as a strong and reliable partner for the future.
Critically, both of those served to help nudge Turkey, first towards neutrality and then to cooperation. As Turkey occupies a geo-strategically critical bit of geography, the importance of that can’t be overstated.
Talking about promises made in International Law.
On 9 February 1990, in order to appease Gorbachev’s concerns, Baker declared:
Not only for the Soviet Union but also for other European countries, it is important to have guarantees that if the United States maintains its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not one inch of NATO’s current military jurisdiction will spread eastward.
Promises were thus made simply because the West had no alternative, to obtain the USSR’s approval; and without promises Germany would not have been reunified. Gorbachev accepted German reunification only because he had received assurances from President George H.W. Bush and James Baker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, her successor John Major and their Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, President François Mitterrand, but also from CIA Director Robert Gates and Manfred Wörner, then Secretary General of NATO.
Thus, on 17 May 1990, in a speech in Brussels, Manfred Wörner, NATO Secretary-General, declared:
The fact that we are prepared not to deploy a NATO army beyond German territory gives the Soviet Union a solid guarantee of security.
Now, in international law, a “promise” is a valid unilateral act that must be respected (“promissio est servanda“). Those who deny this today are simply individuals who do not know the value of a given word.
It’s not worth going to court. They already said that the promise was made to the USSR and the President of the USSR! And neither of them are here anymore. Serious people are like that!
Well…it is actually in the court of Ukraine now and it appears the Russians are winning their “case”. The west is now learning what happens when they break a promise. What will these European counties do in the future? Continue to encroach on Russian borders with NATO weapons? I doubt it.
As for the Court, true! As for European countries? Those who are already suffering more than Russia? In a war that, despite the VSU’s defeat seems clear, still no one knows where it will end! Even in nuclear Hell. In Poland there are already billboards to recruit tankers! This war belongs to the US and was prepared well in advance. This is the biggest war after World War II that even the cinema has portrayed for over 50 years! And it better never leave Ukraine because it could turn into a war much bigger than World War II! Ukraine is not Georgia! The disinformation campaign alone took years to mount for sure. With some pieces in various European governments and especially in the EU, which brings together the sovereignty of almost 30 countries through Treaties and, above all, through European cohesion funds that no country can dispense with once budgeted!
Europe was completely dragged into this war by the US! Only Europe per si would never start a war against Russia! And I’m talking about what the US today calls old Europe! Where the spell of propaganda is already starting to break among the population with rising prices! I even say more, despite what many think of Merkl today, because of what she came to say about the Minsk agreements, this German involvement in Ukraine would never happen with Merkl! Unless the blackmail that is being exercised on Sholz – which I also cannot guess, I can only imagine – who cannot even tell the Germans who sabotaged the gas pipelines for their own safety, in Scholz’s own words (?!) is of such dimension that no Chancellor could resist. Which I highly doubt. And Merkl was never exactly a solid political rock! On the contrary, it always took years to make a strategic decision. Which in my opinion, the US for many years does not know what it is! Or as Baud says, thinks it’s the sum of tactics. But I’ve never seen Merkl bow to the US like Sholz! In short, it was just to make it clear that this war was never a war of Europe against Russia! But a US war that dragged Europe! To destroy it as we speak. As they say now!
Excerpt from The Hidden Truth About the War in Ukraine by Jacques Baud
Western efforts to legitimate this far-right coup in Kiev led to hide the opposition in the southern part of the country. In order to present this revolution as democratic, the real “hand of the West” was cleverly masked by the imaginary “hand of Russia.” This is how the myth of a Russian military intervention was created. Allegations about a Russian military presence were definitely false, an event the chief of the Ukrainian Security service (SBU) confessed in 2015 that there were no Russian units in Donbass.
To make things worse, Ukraine didn’t gain legitimacy through the way it handled the rebellion. In 2014-2015, poorly advised by NATO military, Ukraine waged a war that could only lead to its defeat: it considered the populations of Donbass and Crimea as enemy foreign forces and made no attempt to win the “hearts and minds” of the autonomists. Instead, its strategy has been to punish the people even further. Bank services were stopped, economic relations with the autonomous regions were simply cut, and Crimea didn’t receive drinking water anymore.
This is why there are so many civilian victims in the Donbass, and why the Russian population still stands in majority behind its government today. The 14,000 victims of the conflict tend to be attributed to the “Russian invaders” and the so-called “separatists.” However, according to the United Nations—more than 80% of civilian casualties are the result of Ukrainian shelling. As we can see, the Ukrainian government is massacring its own people with the help, funding and advice of the military of NATO, the countries of the European Union, which defends its values.
In May 2014, the violent repression of protests prompted the population of some areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine to hold referendums for Self-Determination in the Donetsk People’s Republic (approved by 89%) and in the Lugansk People’s Republic (approved by 96%). Although Western media keeps calling them referendums of “independence,” they are referendums of “self-determination” or “autonomy” (самостоятельность). Until February 2022, our media consistently talked about “separatists” and “separatist republics.” In reality, as stated in the Minsk Agreement, these self-proclaimed republics didn’t seek “independence,” but an “autonomy” within Ukraine, with the ability to use their own language and their own customs.
This site will give you information to determine if your question below can be answered.
I recently heard on a video discussion from one of the better-informed American commentators (exact source I cannot recall, nor have I been able to easily find verification of this so this may or may not be true and perhaps someone who knows can verify in reply) that the Russian military did enter Ukraine / Donbass immediately post Maidan coup.
This site will give you the information you ask.
https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/254-rebels-without-cause-russias-proxies-eastern-ukraine
Just look up Rebels without a cause: Russia Proxies in Eastern Ukraine.
I found that crisisgroup article quite biased, and it omits some key facts, IMO.
Russia didn’t have hypersonics in 2014. I think that people don’t fully realise what a game changer they are. Prior to them, it was a nuclear game of chicken. Now, Russia has a weapon that the enemy has no way of stopping and that can destroy all the enemy’s command-and-control w/o going nuclear. It means that Russia can respond to every escalation by the West and if the game goes nuclear eventually, the West is certain to be annihilated. It makes a world of difference.
Why is Russia going at the pace it is going? B/c in spite of all, the Russian people still have ambiguous feelings towards their Ukrainian neighbours. In the eyes of the Russian people, what has to be done has to be done but the end doesn’t justify the means.
Whenever I hear that Russia made a strategic mistake – believed, showed naivety, should have shown determination earlier, etc. – I feel that the commentators-interpreters are wrong.
I have already mentioned, but I can repeat again and again: Trust in the West ended in 1999-2000 with the bombing of Belgrade and the death of the Kursk submarine. On this wave, Putin came to power, it served as the narrative of all his further activities, and an undeclared war with the West began with this.
All further games of political diplomacy and patience for bites, injections, cuts – time to accumulate strength.
I agree.
I find it amazing how quickly all the critics of Putin’s response forget the economic war, which was actually the biggest threat and which Russia has now won convincingly.
That was not preordained. Putin and other Russian officials knew that once a kinetic war started, the West would start a massive economic war against Russia.
He has spent 20 years or so working to make Russia resilient against such an attack. He may have believed the Russian economy was now strong enough to withstand such an attack but could not be certain since it depended, to a significant degree, on the actions of other countries, particularly China and India.
He acted extremely prudently to offer protection to the Donbass Russians, at a time forced by the Kiev regime and US, while avoiding over-extending Russia. Once the economic attack was clearly beaten, he ramped up the military commitment.
Certainly in 2014 and earlier the combination of economic strength and military strength was less in Russia’s favor than in 2022. While much of the improved balance for Russia was due to the utter incompetence of the Western kakocracy, who have been weakening the West, a great deal is due to the economic and military improvement deliberately and consistently pursed by Russia.
Exactly, which is why Putin seized the opportunity after 911 to offer the US full support such as overflights to supply the Afghan war effort. He then told the Russian military and economic leadership with this historical windfall, we have seven years clear sailing to bring Russia to sufficient strength to make a NATO invasion as too high a price for the West.
In 2007, Putin gave his historical speech at the Munich Security Conference and drew a line in the sand.
A martial artist is always at the ready. The secret to the warrior mentality is to see Politics as War by other means.
Happiness is when you are understood.
There are very few parts of this supposedly insightful commentary that I find credible.
1) If Russia was not prepared – why did Russia spin up 2 new offensive formations, accelerate new weapons development like hypersonic missiles and Poseidon, and revamp/prepare their military for literally 2 decades before the start of the SMO? Note Putn specifically warned that Russia was going to start doing this in 2007.
2) The author makes the presumption that Russia had only a straight line plan, but provides no evidence.
In a real war, shit happens – also called “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. In the Ukraine case – certainly mistakes were made because everyone makes mistakes in war, all the time. The difference between professionals and amateurs is planning for contingencies and ability to adapt.
It is 100% clear that Russia has both and moral courage on top of it.
3) Moral courage matters. The withdrawal from Kherson city was highly criticized because civilian amateurs don’t want to give any ground, and Twitter warriors believe appearance is more important than actual accomplishment of military and sovereign objectives. Was that withdrawal half-assed? Clearly not given NATO and Ukraine’s extreme disappointment over how easily/efficiently the withdrawal was accomplished.
4) The author then concludes with short sighted and amateurish statements of how he “never would have trusted the West”.
Bubba, the point of exposing Western hypocrisy was never whether Russia believed it or not.
The point was to show the rest of the world, that the West are a bunch of lying bastards.
Russia has successfully done so – whatever Twitter warrior morons think.
The rest of the world is NOT supporting Western sanctions; NOT signed on to UN resolutions that actually involve action as opposed to words; NOT signed on anymore to the US financial stranglehold over international finance. That’s a pretty nice trifecta – and one which was very unlikely to have happened had Russia acted earlier as Stelkovian idiots believe.
A little entertainment. Watch to the end. Sums up where its been and where we are at.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/EJ8XkPbXnImm/
I have an obscure book I downloaded from kindle (searching for free history texts) It is by a British diplomat who worked in Japan publishe around 1920 . In it he warns that Japan is not what it appears to be as in the millitary is in charge. He provides a Japnese government intelligence report that lays out a strategy for the invasion of Chinese Manchuria and agressive conquest to secure resources and imperial hedgomony htroughout the Asia pacific. It is very detailed . It was presented as essential to Japans future and the impetous of its argument was that a(1915-) the Imperial European powers being mired in the first world war Japan had the best chance of millitary success .
Someone hesitated and the percieved oppertunity was missed. Japan did not hesitate oppertunity presented itself again. The British sphere of influence and naval power in east Asia had waned between the wars. The United States had no real strategic presence. I assume the Japanese did not take the US as a serious millitary threat or rival in the Asia Pacific. This would explain the attack on Pearl Harbour perhaps? The Japanese assumed the US was not serious about intefering to the benefit of the British Empire.Surely the US would have no real problem with a Japanes empire. Perhaps the Japanese interpreted US actions leading up to Pearl Harbour as a a political sop to the British with no real intention to get involved.
Its late I havent time to provide the details of the author and book to which I refer so my apologies for this omission. Talk is easy, work is hard.
I suggest reading Day of Deceit and the McCollum memo.
Your writing above is a transcription of the Western narrative about the Pacific part of WW2 – but the actions and planning covered in the book in executing the 8 points outlined in the McCollum plan – which was overtly a plan to bring the US into World War 2 by provoking an attack by Japan – hopefully should help you gain some nuance into what really happened.
Note I am not saying Japan was all light and good – it had its own imperialist ambitions in the Western Pacific. The real world, however, is not black and white nor good vs. evil – it is more generally our bastards vs. their bastards.
However, the type of machinations embodied in the McCollum memo are exactly what such as “cookies” Nuland executed in Ukraine…
Trouble is, nowadays it is “our bastards” vs us.
my humble opinion or assumption: I am now more optimistic. Because two days ago it occurred to me that the result would be known by March/April.
NATO is making a lot of noise before its defeat, which is already clearly visible.
On the strategy and tactics of the Russians. They are damn good chess players and mathematicians, good pragmatists, have a strong thread of patience and are far from simply going over corpses for their goals. Characteristics that we hardly find in the so-called value west.
In February/March 2022 German memes appeared: What happens if Putin shows up in Berlin? Gasoline is getting cheaper, the streets are getting cleaner and crime is being fought more effectively.
The Nuland Project wants to destroy the last nation on earth with Christian values. Russia must die for the Talmudic Vengence of Nudelman, Blinken, Sherman, Wofiwitz, Strauss etc.
The Gay Disco must be imposed on the world with our tax money and our lives.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49426724
Yes, your information is correct, about Russia fighting back in Donbas in 2014.
One could say that Putin was overly optimistic in his diligence to convince the Western Oligarchs that there is plenty for everyone. However, it would be inaccurate to say that Putin was naive. If he was naive, then why did he enter Syria?
Let us review what the Syrian conflict was about. Here is the background, Iran and Qatar border on each end of one of the largest Gas fields. Smartly, they decided to partner on the field instead of competing. Iran signed an agreement with Iraq and Syria to build a pipeline with Russia’s engineering into Europe via Turkeye. The US refused Iran the income (or hinddenly for anyone to supply Europe with gas), and KSA didn’t wish to loose transit fees from a pipeline running through KSA to Syria, or so it thought. So Assad was approached by the Saudis to renege on his agreement with Iran (being an Arab and not a Persian), Assad refused. That’s when embassador Robert Stephen Ford was seen in Hama with his armed guards fanning the flames of the victims of Hafez alAssad massacre of their parents in 1982. There were numerous accounts of rooftop snipers, similar to Maidan, shooting at police. It is interesting to note that Ford was a deciple of John Negroponte, our man behind the Death Squads of Central America and later in Iraq around 2005. See https://constantinereport.com/the-history-of-americas-death-squads/
With alQaeda, ME death squads, Syria was attacked by the badly researched fake Islamic khalifate or CIA Syrian death squads financed by KSA, trained and recruited in Jordan and treated for battle wounds in Israel.
Putin realized he needed to help Syria stop the death squads before they reach Russia’s neighbors and later move into Russia. You all know the rest of the story. It is worth it to say that Putin used Syria to test his new weapons.
Putin is a strategist and an Eastern minded one at that. While the West maneuvers Chess pieces for a final show of attrition, Putin denies his opponents venues of movement. Putin plays Go, not Chess. So do the Chinese. I am optimistic we will not have a war with China. Western thinking is based on using Taiwan as a base. Most probably, China is on the way to peacefully unifying Taiwan with the mainland, hence denying the US a move onto Taiwan.