By claiming credit for Ukraine’s most visible military successes, we diminish the achievements of that country’s own forces.
By bragging publicly that we helped engineer the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, we taunt Russian President Vladimir Putin. We provoke him into retaliating in kind against us, thereby raising the possibility of a wider U.S.-Russia war that could escalate into World War III.
The US goal of imposing a crushing defeat of Russian aggression is secondary to our far more vital interest in avoiding a U.S.-Russia war.
Last week, sources leaked to The New York Times that, in Ukraine’s targeting and killing of Russian generals and the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, U.S. intelligence played an indispensable role.
Apparently, our intel people identified and located for the Ukrainian forces what became the targets of their deadly attacks.
Why US intelligence would do this seems inexplicable.
By claiming credit for Ukraine’s most visible military successes, we diminish the achievements of that country’s own forces.
By bragging publicly that we helped engineer the killing of Russian generals and the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, we taunt Russian President Vladimir Putin. We provoke him into retaliating in kind against us, thereby raising the possibility of a wider U.S.-Russia war that could escalate into World War III.
Moreover, US boasting like this plays right into Putin’s narrative that Russia is facing and fighting in Ukraine a U.S.-led alliance that is out to crush Russia.
Indeed, why are we going beyond assistance to the Ukrainians in defending themselves, into making this American’s war?
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Poland following her visit to Kyiv, she virtually embraced the idea of the Ukraine-Russia war as now being America’s war, declaring, “America stands with Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine until victory is won.”
Accompanying Pelosi to Kyiv was a delegation of House Democrats, one of whom, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, echoed Pelosi in Poland:
“The United States of America is in this to win.”
Their visit followed that of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who came out of Kyiv and declared the US strategic goals in Ukraine’s war:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kind of things it has done in invading Ukraine.”
When did Washington reporters became qualified to serve as Grand Inquisitors for Democracy, casting judgment on every politician and proposal? Most reporters have the same level of intellectual curiosity as the average lottery ticket buyer. Reporters react to the word “bipartisan” like cocaine addicts desperate for another political virtue signal.
Prominent journalists are calling for the media to champion a “pro-democracy” bias in how they portray politicians and government agencies. But tub-thumping for democracy — or at least for politicians who claim to be pro-democracy — is a poor substitute for exposing the proliferation of government abuses. Freedom will be the victim if journalists grasp a new pretext to portray government as a trustworthy savior.The press should vigorously investigate and expose federal crimes regardless of who is president. [Click to Tweet]
In January, Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon called for a “pro-democracy media,” vigorously describing “long-standing Republican tactics such as aggressive gerrymandering as … dangers to democracy.” Bacon frets because “gun-shy editors” fail to denounce Republican “radicalism” in banner headlines. Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan declared, “That American democracy is teetering is unquestionable” due to pro-Trump Republicans, requiring a “new pro-democracy emphasis” to be “articulated clearly — and fearlessly — to readers and viewers.” Post columnist Brian Klaas admits that “the media adopting a pro-democracy bias … effectively means being pro-Democratic [Party],” but there is no alternative except to “unequivocally and unapologetically condemn” Republicans.
What could possibly go wrong from journalists pretending that only one political party threatens Americans’ rights and liberties? Demonizing one political party tacitly saints their opponents. But both Republicans and Democrats have a long record of unleashing federal agencies and ignoring the subsequent constitutional carnage.
Urging the media to become “pro-democracy” is reminiscent of a corporation that is almost bankrupt and gambles everything on a desperate “Hail Mary” pass. A June 2021 survey by the Reuters Institute reported that only 29 percent of Americans trusted the news media — the lowest rating of any of the 46 nations surveyed. A Gallup poll last year revealed that “86 percent of Americans believed the media was politically biased.” Practically the only folks who don’t recognize the bias are the people who share the media’s slant.
The media-Democrat alliance
How does “pro-democracy” reporting work in practice? Journalists provide readers with a catechism specifying correct beliefs rather than providing facts by which citizens can reach their own conclusions. But the Washington press corps was aptly described decades ago as “stenographers with amnesia.” The political “philosophy” of most reporters does not go beyond “Orange Man Bad.”
Many journalists love to slap a halo over politicians and then bask in the reflective glow. In 2020 and 2021, many of the top media outlets hailed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for being far more repressive with his COVID policies than President Donald Trump advocated. A laudatory New Yorker profile, entitled “Andrew Cuomo, King of New York,” explained that Cuomo and his aides saw the battle over COVID policy as “between people who believe government can be a force for good and those who think otherwise.” For many liberals and much of the nation’s media, placing people under house arrest, padlocking schools, bankrupting business, and causing two million people to lose their jobs vindicated government as “a force for good.”
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace declared that Cuomo is “everything Trump isn’t: honest, direct, brave.” Entertainment Weekly hailed Cuomo as “the hero that America never realized it needed until he was on our television screens every night.” As National Review noted, local reporters failed to ask questions on his nursing home edict (which forced nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients) “for months, as the governor held his much-praised daily press briefings about the pandemic. There were literally hundreds of hours of Cuomo press conferences in the first half of 2020 where not a single question was asked about nursing homes.”
Those confused by how free speech threatens democracy should remember that for neoconservatives and many progressives democracy means allowing the people to choose between two largely identical supporters of the welfare-warfare state.
Disinformation Governance Board – Sounds like an FDR New Deal program
May 9 – Any doubt that many progressives have abandoned their commitment to free speech was erased by the hysterical reaction to Elon Musk’s effort to purchase Twitter and return the company to its roots as a free speech zone. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and “woke” neocon Max Boot fretted that Musk’s commitment to free speech threatens democracy. Those confused by how free speech threatens democracy should remember that for neoconservatives and many progressives democracy means allowing the people to choose between two largely identical supporters of the welfare-warfare state. In this version of “democracy,” those whose views are outside the welfare-warfare mainstream — such as libertarians — are marginalized.
More ominous than the griping of ex-government officials and pundits was the threat of prominent Democratic politicians to haul Musk before Congress. These politicians likely want an opportunity to smear Musk and other supporters of free speech as promoters of hate and Russian (and/or Chinese) disinformation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin and other Senate Democrats, none of whom seem to have read the First Amendment, are also investigating whether it would be “appropriate” for Congress to force tech companies to “moderate” content on their platforms.
President Biden is not waiting for legislation to ramp up the attack on free speech. His administration has created the Disinformation Governance Board located in the Department of Homeland Security. The board’s purpose is to coordinate government and private sector efforts to combat “disinformation,” with a focus on Russia. The focus on Russia is not surprising since “Russian disinformation” has joined racism and sexism as a go-to justification to smear and silence those whose views (and factual information) contradict the political and media establishment’s “party line.”
Biden’s choice to head the Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, is a spreader of disinformation herself. In 2020, for example, Jankowicz parroted the lie that Russia created the damning materials found on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. Jankowicz’s résumé also includes stints as an advisor to the Ukraine government and a manager of National Democratic Institute programs in Russia and Belarus. Jankowicz’s background suggests she will never call any lie peddled by the US war party “disinformation.”
The Disinformation Governance Board may not directly censor social media. However, by “encouraging” tech companies desperate to maintain good relations with the federal government to remove “unapproved” opinions from their platforms, it can achieve the same results. This is why anyone who values free speech, which should include everyone who cherishes liberty, should not fall for the claim that tech companies’ behavior is nothing to be concerned about since it does not involve government censorship.
Sadly, some misguided conservatives have joined progressives in promoting legislation imposing new regulations on big tech. Increased regulation will only empower Nina Jankowicz and her ilk to further pressure tech companies to restrict free speech. It will also hurt consumers by reducing the ability to find affordable goods and services online. The only way to protect free speech on the internet is to make online platforms truly private through a complete separation of tech and state.
The drive to censor is driven by the woke mob and authoritarian establishment’s fear that their policies could not maintain majority support if forced to compete in a free market of ideas. This shows that even enemies of liberty sense that the days of the welfare-warfare state are numbered.
No wonder the price of US corn reached a 10-year high in mid-April, as exports from Russia and Ukraine, major sources, are now blocked by sanction and war. Aside from the energy-inefficient use of US corn for biodiesel supply, the latest Biden ethanol initiative will add to the growing food crisis while doing nothing to lower US gasoline prices.
It’s beginning to look like some bad actors are deliberately taking steps to guarantee a coming global food crisis. Every measure that the Biden Administration strategists have been making to “control energy inflation” is damaging the supply or inflating the price of natural gas, oil and coal to the global economy. This is having a huge impact on fertilizer prices and food production. That began well before Ukraine. Now reports are circulating that Biden’s people have intervened to block the freight rail shipping of fertilizer at the most critical time for spring planting. By this autumn the effects will be explosive.
With the crucial time for USA spring planting at its critical phase, CF Industries of Deerfield, Illinois, the largest US supplier of nitrogen fertilizers as well as a vital diesel engine additive, issued a press release stating that, “On Friday, April 8, 2022, Union Pacific informed CF Industries without advance notice that it was mandating certain shippers to reduce the volume of private cars on its railroad effective immediately.” Union Pacific is one of only four major rail companies that together carry some 80% of all US agriculture rail freight. The CF company CEO, Tony Will stated, “The timing of this action by Union Pacific could not come at a worse time for farmers. Not only will fertilizer be delayed by these shipping restrictions, but additional fertilizer needed to complete spring applications may be unable to reach farmers at all. By placing this arbitrary restriction on just a handful of shippers, Union Pacific is jeopardizing farmers’ harvests and increasing the cost of food for consumers.” CF has made urgent appeals to the Biden Administration for remedy, so far with no positive action.
Direct sabotage
CF Industries noted that they were one of only thirty companies subject to the severe measure, which is indefinite. They ship via Union Pacific rail lines primarily from its Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana and its Port Neal Complex in Iowa, to serve key farm states including Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and California. The ban will affect nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), as well as diesel exhaust fluid, DEF (called AdBlue in Europe). DEF is an emissions control product required for diesel trucks today. Without it engines cannot run. It is made from urea. CF Industries is the largest producer of urea, UAN and DEF in North America, and its Donaldsonville Complex is the largest single production facility for the products in North America.
At the same time, the Biden gang has announced a fake remedy for record high gasoline pump prices. Washington announced the EPA will allow a 50% increase in corn-based biodiesel and ethanol fuel mix for the summer. On April 12 the Secretary of Agriculture announced a “bold” initiative by the US Administration to increase the use of domestically-grown corn-ethanol biofuels. Secretary Tom Vilsack claimed the measure would “reduce energy prices and tackle rising consumer prices caused by Putin’s Price Hike (sic) by tapping into a strong and bright future for the biofuel industry, in cars and trucks and the rail, marine, and aviation sectors and supporting use of €15 fuel this summer.”
Only the capitalized “Putin Price Hike” is not a result of Russian actions, but of Washington Green Energy decisions to phase out oil and gas.
The number one lie that modernity can tell you about yourself is that your decisions do not matter. Every moment, of every day, allows you an unlimited number of decisions. They matter deeply, as those actions show who you are and what you are made of. They also set the course for who you one day will become.
2.) Thinking no one is watching you
You are always being watched, by friend and foe alike. The overwhelming mass of people around you have no idea who to follow, so they are constantly looking for cues to help them figure that out. When you do as everyone else, you do not provide such cues. When you behave differently, you do provide those cues, but they will watch cautiously to see how you fare. Even strangers are watching you, talking about you, and evaluating you for long-term leadership potential. Imagine how much more those closest to you are paying attention.
3.) Telling yourself the lie that you do it for your kids
Your kids need to see a parental figure with bravery. Ideally, that is the dad leading, with the mom joining along. When you do not give them that, you promise them a complex set of problems that they will one day need to resolve. They will develop bravery late in life, if at all. They will under-develop in the many ways that the children of absent fathers do. When you fail to act like the protector and leader in the family, even if you are physically present, your words mean next to nothing, for you signal to them exactly what your actions show — they have a male in their lives, but he is no man, and he is hardly deserving of the term dad.
4.) Thinking you have no power
Well, if you can be convinced of your impotency in life, then you assure yourself impotency in life. That much is certain. Little more needs to be done to neutralize you as a threat. Any man worth his salt is always seen as some type of threat to all men around him, even family, even close friends. You can get comfortable with another man, you can trust another man, but there is always some level of edge to that man, leaving you a little uncertain. When he parts with that, he has shown that he has parted with his power.
5.) Thinking “It’s just a mask”
The mask represents so much more. Everyone around you knows that. They know it either consciously or subconsciously, but they know it, and you are broadcasting that nonsense to them when you comply with the mask. You tell them you have no boundaries, and there is so much else you will comply with. The man mentioned above who keeps his edge — his unpredictability — is an asset that others can find comfort in, because he will stick his neck out to stand by his values. If you cross his boundaries, you may find an unpredictable and unpleasant response. Maybe his actions can feel prickly and unpredictable, but his firm boundaries and his resolute defense of his values is so very predictable and reassuring.
The man who wears the mask, on the other hand, cannot be one who provides true comfort to others around him, for he has no boundaries. He provides the comfort that an old naugahyde couch offers — at once squishy and worn out — but he does not provide the comfort that others can find in the presence of a man who has come into his own and lives by his values.
This seems paradoxical for some, especially in this era — the edgy man who will get out of line when his boundaries are crossed, is more comforting than the comfortable naugahyde couch of a man, who never gets out of line, no matter what — but that is the reality.
6.) Trusting the wrong people
Many masked men believe the news media. The news media was once deserving of the term “Fourth Estate,” for they were an independent entity, separate from the established interests in society. Not here. Not now. They are mere shills for the status quo. Anyone who told you to mask up deserves for you to never listen to them again. Others were wise enough to at least not believe the media. But they did even worse in a way — they believed their bosses, their family members, their neighbors, and their doctors who fell for this, precisely because they believed the media, all the while assuring you that they followed “the science.” Not only were you gullible enough for them to lie to you, but you were so errant in your ways as to not ask them for the alleged proof of science they assured you they were following. If you would have, you would never have worn a mask. There is simply no legitimate science backing up any masking policy.
7.) Surrounding yourself with the wrong people
They say you are the sum of the five people you surround yourself with most. I tend to agree with that. Surrounding yourself with those smarter than you, holds you to a higher standard. Surrounding yourself with those richer than you, holds you to a higher standard. Surrounding yourself with those braver than you, holds you to a higher standard. Surrounding yourself with those dumber, poorer, or more cowardly than you is a great way to go through life with lower standards and talking about the things low standard people talk about with each other.
8.) Letting life knock you down
A man who would put on a mask without being held down and forcibly masked by at least eight guys, is no man I want to be around. To that man, I say: I have looked you in the eyes. Life has gotten the best of you. I get it. That is no reason to live another day that way. Just say no to the mask.
P.S. If you know someone like this, do yourself a favor and do him a favor — leave a print out of this email laying around, and leave that print out sticking out of a copy of the book Face Masks in One Lesson. (Linked here) () It is time to help our loved ones move on from the deceitful past.
P.P.S. If you want more daily writing like this, sign up at www.RealStevo.com.
After hounding the US and other NATO members for weeks about his need for heavy weapons to defend against Russia’s ongoing “special military operation”, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, appears to have been granted his wish. The US Congress, on April 28, passed legislation that breathed life into a World War II-era law that would allow the US to quickly supply weapons to Ukraine on loan.
By a vote of 417 to 10, the House of Representatives sent the revised 80-year-old law to the desk of President Joe Biden, where he is expected to sign it (the US Senate had earlier passed the legislation unanimously.)
“Passage of that act enabled Great Britain and Winston Churchill to keep fighting and to survive the fascist Nazi bombardment until the United States could enter the war,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland who has been at the forefront of anti-Russian legislation over the years. “President Zelensky has said that Ukraine needs weapons to sustain themselves, and President Biden has answered that call.”
The Congressional action comes on the heels of President Biden approving an additional $33 billion in military aid on top of the nearly $3 billion already provided to Ukraine since the start of the conflict with Russia. While much of the earlier weapons shipments focused on light weaponry such as anti-tank missiles and man-portable air defense systems, the new support package places an emphasis on heavy weaponry, such as howitzers and armored fighting vehicles, which Ukraine needs to replace equipment destroyed or damaged in battle.
Beware of what you wish for.
General Omar Bradley, a famous American military commander during World War II who knew more than a thing or two about killing Nazis, is attributed with saying“amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.” For every piece of heavy equipment that the Ukrainian military is about to receive as part of this massive infusion of military aid provided by the US there is attached the unspoken yet critical reality of the issue of maintenance and sustainability. Simply put, if its broke, you can’t use it. And military equipment breaks – frequently – especially when subjected to the strains and stress of unending modern combat.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
This week, I was invited to speak on the Mel K Show in order to shed some light on the strategic roots of the Pentagon’s global bioweapons complex running 320+ biolabs across the world.
How did this opaque and dangerous network grow out of the 2001 Anthrax attacks which began on Sept. 18, 2001 and the earlier Dark Winter exercises? How is this connected to the absorption of General Hiro Ishii’s Unit 731 bio terror network into Fort Detrick after WWII? How were plans for a post-war age of win-win cooperation sabotaged by the same machine that funded and directed the rise of fascism both prior to and even during WWII?
During the interview, a sober assessment of the growth of the US full spectrum “containment” policy encircling both Russia and China, and the various US military satraps of the Pacific whose sovereignty is in name only. Among those military colonies, we discuss South Korean, Japan, Taiwan, Guam and even increasingly the Philippines.
Other questions addressed: How have WWII nazi collaborators in Japan been glorified as national heroes in Japan, just as they have in Ukraine? How has Ukraine become the “Ukraine of the Pacific”, how has Hong Kong become the CIA of the Pacific? What asymmetric, economic and biowarfare techniques have been deployed by the Anglo-American oligarchy against both Chinese, Russian and American people? And finally, what can we do about this?
The crewed fighter will also control robotic wingmen, each of which will cost more than an F-35.
The U.S. Air Force is bracing the public—and Congress—for the highly anticipated Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter and the sticker shock wave the world’s first sixth-generation jet will leave in its wake. The NGAD fighter, set to begin replacing the F-22 Raptor in 2030, will cost “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars,” easily two or three times the cost of the F-35. The fighter is being optimized for the Asia Pacific theater and will be accompanied into battle by robotic sidekicks.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, in remarks reported by Defense News, told lawmakers that the crewed version of the NGAD fighter jet would cost “multiple” hundreds of millions of dollars. NGAD includes both crewed and uncrewed fighters; the uncrewed version would cost no more than half as much as the crewed version.
A per-unit cost of $200 million would easily make crewed NGAD fighters the most expensive fighter jet of all time. And to be clear, Kendall’s statement leaves plenty of room for the jet to actually cost in excess of $300 million. For context, the F-35A costs $77 million, while the new, updated F-15EX Super Eagle costs $80 million. If a crewed NGAD costs $300 million and the uncrewed version $150 million, that same pot of money could buy nearly six F-35As.
NGAD is a fundamentally different aircraft than the F-35A. The F-35A was designed in the 1990s as an economical replacement for several fighters, including the F/A-18C, AV-8B Harrier, F-16, and A-10 Thunderbolt. The F-35 was designed to fulfill multiple missions, including traditional fighter air-to-air roles, air-to-ground strike roles, and close air support. The new fighter is better compared to—and will replace—the F-22A Raptor, the world’s first fifth-generation fighter, designed purely for the air superiority mission.
Countries are in an economic arms race to surpass competitors by accelerating levels of human capital. It is crucial that schools and universities not only graduate students with relevant certificates but also people with the appropriate skills to make a useful contribution to the knowledge economy. The failure of employees to maximize value by applying their skills will result in businesses becoming saddled with liabilities because an inefficient employee is an expense.
Indeed, human capital is a key ingredient for achieving growth, but we should appreciate that human capital is conduced by an intricate interplay of social traits. Being a student entails challenges of completing difficult assignments and graduating on time, so naturally, there is a selection for people who are higher in conscientiousness and patience. Possessing the potential to succeed in school and business is irrelevant when a work ethic is nonexistent.
Primarily because life is challenging, work ethic builds resilience; hence people who are easily perturbed by difficulties will easily quit and never actualize their potential. In school and in business, we are compelled to navigate hostile environments by managing complicated personalities. Without grit, entrepreneurs are bound to fail, since on the path to success they will encounter naysayers and bureaucrats aiming to derail their progress. If prospective entrepreneurs were intimidated by regulations, then we would not be enjoying the fruits of their labor.
Likewise, students contend with arrogant lecturers, incompetent peers, and mindless administrators. But when success is the only option, one must literally overcome the storm. People with laser focus are undaunted by the obstacles because they can conceptualize the long-term outcomes of their labor. On the other hand, since traits that induce performance are not equally distributed, obviously some people will be deficient in social skills that enable success.
Another harrowing reality is that due to the unequal distribution of success-inducing traits, some characteristics are more abundant in certain countries relative to others. East Asians, Americans, and Germans are known for an insane work ethic that’s not replicated in most places. Although there is a resurgence of interest in the relationship between culture and economic development, economists rarely identify culture as a direct barrier to the acquisition of human capital.
Researchers have observed differences in how people value time by classifying countries as having either a clock culture or an event culture. In the latter, people are unlikely to place a premium on time, whereas in the former, there is greater reverence for time rather than celebrating the event. Event cultures are usually less productive than time cultures, since time cultures minimize waste by using time efficiently.
The case of Jamaica adroitly illustrates how culture retards development. For instance, in Jamaica there is so little respect for time that people have created the concept of Jamaican time, thereby indicating that attendants should budget for tardiness.
In his interview with Dave Smith, Colonel MacGregor yearns for “the kind of country that we were a hundred years ago, which in most cases, was interested in intervening to end conflicts, not with military power, but to offer its services as an objective partner, as someone who could bring two sides together and avoid a larger more destructive conflict“ Does this sound like isolationism and lack of compassion for our fellow man?
Libertarians, liberty-wing Republicans, and other opponents of nondefensive wars are popularly misconceived as having an “every man for himself” approach to both economics and foreign policy. Of course, this is patently false in both cases, but this piece will focus on clarifying the latter.
Local Libertarian activist Roy Minet, who has also written about the former, touched on the popular myth of isolationism in his 2014 LNParticle: “Apparently, they call anyone who doesn’t support their various military interventions around the globe an isolationist.” I made this same point in my 2017 piece about how the isolationist label helped kill Ron Paul’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. This conflation of noninterventionism with “isolationism” continues to squelch and distort the message of antiwar voices … which is particularly relevant given the current events in Ukraine.
The Libertarian National Committee recently sent out a mailer titled “No War with Russia.” It warns of the danger of entangling alliances and lays out a brief history of Russia and the US’s precarious relationship and the role the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has played in it. The prescription is noninterventionism because “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
A recent article on mises.org further explains how the state, along with its media allies, exhibits a pattern of concocting crises to perpetuate the power of this hammer: “What defines our present condition is how the moral panics are used to rally a civilian army that revels in the demise of the nonconforming opposition…. The Russia-Ukraine War is an easy lightning rod that the government and established centers of power in society can use to demonize Americans who hold the wrong view.”
This “wrong view” is often merely a more nuanced and contextualized view of the situation than what is found in mainstream legacy media. “The answer for why Americans pine for more war is probably complicated, but it’s clear that they generally hold simplistic views of the situation over there.”
Perhaps it is people’s resignation to the idea that the history and context of the conflict are too complicated to grasp that leads them to accept the simplistic narrative they are fed. Consequently, popular virtue signaling seems to be centered around criticism of Vladimir Putin and conceding nothing to him (even if this comes at the expense of Ukrainians themselves). But noninterventionism takes the sensible position that Putin is not our leader and that thus Americans can’t hold him accountable for bad behavior. Conversely, if we at least acknowledge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s role in provoking this conflict, we can work toward holding our own leaders accountable and press them to create a more diplomacy-friendly atmosphere.
MCViewPoint 