MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘NATO’

Battle for Eurasia

Posted by M. C. on January 2, 2023

Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.

So now at the start of a new year, the world faces a precarious predicament in Europe orchestrated by officials in Washington. They and their deluded European collaborators have a helluva nerve placing the entire world at risk to indulge their egos. Diplomacy is out the window. Ideologues are in the saddle.

http://www.patrickfoydossier.com/New-Entries/Entries/2023/1/battle-for-eurasia.html

Dear Friends + Interlocutors,

The Russo-Ukraine war, starting date either 2014 or 2022, is the culmination of NATO’s eastward march which began in the 1990s. The conflict did not spring from out of the blue, which is the impression you might get from the mainstream media. 

But why, one wonders, did NATO enlarge east in the first place? This policy decision was predicated on somebody’s dubious assumption that Russia remained an enduring enemy of the U.S. and Europe, even after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

If you bought that premise, then Russia still needed to be contained and checkmated by military power. In any case, certain Neocon characters in Washington were eager to prolong the Cold War no matter what. This time around they could lord it over Russia in a unipolar world created by the crack-up of the Soviet Union.

Note what the dean of Sovietologists, George Kennan, stated in At Century’s Ending: Refections, 1982-1995:

Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.

The unchallenged assumption—or was it just a pretense?!—that Russia remained an enemy of “the West” is without factual foundation. It was little more than a Neocon-Neoliberal wet dream to justify the prerogatives of American geostrategic primacy.

The U.S. and NATO won the Cold War, or at any rate were left standing, when communism imploded on the streets of Moscow and in the eastern bloc. No mystery. Russians and Eastern Europeans wanted a better life like everybody else. Karl Marx and the USSR were not up to the task.

The Soviet Union had vanished, almost overnight. The Warsaw Pact disbanded soon thereafter. Moscow was now anti-communist. Russia was reverting to its pre-Bolshevik, pro-Orthodox Christian status, a European state within the eastern outskirts of Europe. This renaissance scenario was what Vladimir Putin had in mind going forward when Yeltsin passed the baton to him in 1999.

Not surprisingly, Putin wanted to recoup Russia’s great power standing, reform and expand its wrecked economy, and cooperate with Europe in every way possible. He needed western Europe to resuscitate Russia. And Europe needed Russia’s raw materials, especially petroleum and natural gas. It looked to be exactly what it was: a win-win relationship based upon mutual self-interest.

But then Putin, like Yeltsin before him, could not help but observe NATO’s puzzling march east—which finally ended at Russia’s doorsteps. Why? What did Washington expect Moscow to conclude from this odd development? How would it react? Was it a deliberate provocation?

Remember that Washington had promised, after the unification of Germany in the early 1990s, that NATO—a military alliance controlled from Washington—would not move eastward one inch. But that promise was repeatedly broken, even in the face of strong protests and red-line warnings from Moscow.

See the rest here

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After the Zelensky Spectacle – Let the Partition Begin! – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2022

You could see it as they continuously leapt to their feet and energetically slapped their hands together upon the slightest inanity emanating form the well of the House. That’s because not only is this war not about freedom and human rights, nor even the rule of law, border integrity or the rules of a peaceful, stable international order.

https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2022/12/22/after-the-zelensky-spectacle-let-the-partition-begin/

by David Stockman

The spectacle in the US Capitol Building last night was downright retch-worthy. And we are not actually referring to the detestable little warmongering clown who preened at the podium in a sweatshirt and cargo pants, offering endless lies and hideously false promises about why American taxpayers and consumers are being bled to death in a pointless and unnecessary war.

No, we are referring to the pathetic gaggle of Representatives and Senators who applauded relentlessly and uproariously in response to the casuistry of the tinny poseur who stood before them, albeit one who should have never been granted that august platform in the first place.

After all, the mountebank who leads the rapidly decaying remnant of a nation that was never built to last anyway has been able to bring the world to the brink of economic catastrophe and even nuclear war for one reason alone: Namely, because the bipartisan duopoly on Capitol Hill has shoveled gargantuan sums of money into Ukraine and Washington’s proxy war on Russia with mindless negligence.

And on that score the numbers tell you all you need to know. To date, Washington has authorized $65 billion of economic and military aid, with other NATO nation’s throwing-in $32 billion additional. On top of that, the pending Omnibus Abomination will authorize $45 billion more, which Zelensky has already implied is not nearly enough.

Still, that’s $142 billion and counting, which in turn has no possibility of enabling the Ukrainian victory that Zelensky promised. And that’s also 91% of Ukraine’s 2020 prewar GDP of $156 billion, and an order of magnitude more than the under $100 billion GDP that is left before Russia’s impending winter offensive finishes it off completely.

Stated differently, these war-besotted fools are enabling the absolute destruction of the cities, towns, villages, countryside and economy of what was the world’s 30th largest polity, even as its soldiers and citizens on both sides of the front lines are being slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands.

Yet contrary to Zelensky’s deceitful rhetoric there is nothing at stake of importance to either humanity or the security of the “free world” or most especially the safety and liberty of the American homeland. Absolutely nothing at all – -and that includes all of the War Party’s cant, robotically repeated by Zelensky last night, about the rule of law, the sovereignty of borders and the freedom of the peoples of Ukraine and their neighbors.

As we have repeatedly documented, this is not a Russian invasion but a civil war in the “borderlands” territory  (i.e. “Ukraine” in Russian) that prior to the communist tyranny of the Soviet Union was always a vassal and sometimes integral part of greater Russia. The present civil war, in fact, was instigated in 2014 by the illegitimate government installed in Kiev after Washington’s coup d’ tat against the duly elected and Russian-friendly president.

This Washington managed “regime change”, in turn, set the regions of the artificial state of Ukraine against each other based on long-standing differences of language, religion, ethnicity and economics, among others. And when the Russian speaking populations of Crimea, the Donbas and the Black Sea coastal areas sought separation owing to fears of repression by the Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi politicians who took control of the government in Kiev, the latter brought the bloody violence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the overtly neo-Nazi Azov Brigade, down upon them.

That is to say, the Kiev instigated civil war against the Russian speaking populations of the east and south had been raging for eight years before Putin finally responded to their pleas for overt military assistance; and also after upwards of 14,000 separatist military and civilian personal had been killed by Kiev’s violent onslaught against what was purported to be its own population.

It also came 14 years after Putin had insisted (at the 2007 Munich Security Conference) that Ukrainian ascension to NATO and the emplacement of nuclear missiles within minutes from Moscow was a red line that could not be crossed, yet which action was virtually certain by February 2020.

Finally, the “invasion” also came after 10 days of massively stepped-up Ukrainian artillery attacks on the Donbas, which by every signal of military action and logistics implied that a Kiev “invasion” of the separatist republics was imminent.

See the rest here

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NATO Chief Voices Fear Of War With Russia While US Greenlights Drone Strikes On Russian Territory

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2022

https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/nato-chief-voices-fear-of-war-with?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

Caitlin Johnstone

In what Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp describes as “a rare acknowledgment of the dangers of backing Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged a fear of something going “horribly wrong” and leading to a hot war between the nuclear-armed alliance and Russia.

In an article titled “‘I fear a full-blown war between the West and Russia’, Nato chief warns,” The Telegraph writes the following:

“I fear that the war in Ukraine will get out of control, and spread into a major war between Nato and Russia,” said Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, responding to a question about his greatest fears for the winter in an interview.

He told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Friday that he was confident such a scenario could be avoided but that the threat was there.

“If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” he added.

NATO Chief Says Full-Blown War With Russia Is a ‘Real Possibility’ Jens Stoltenberg warns things can go ‘horribly wrong’ by Dave DeCamp @DecampDave #NATO #RussiaUkraineWar #UkraineRussiaWar #Russia #Ukraine news.antiwar.com/2022/12/11/nat…

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9:06 PM ∙ Dec 11, 2022


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And things absolutely can go horribly wrong when dealing with an increasingly aggressive standoff between nuclear superpowers, as we have seen from history. The last cold war saw many nuclear close calls as a result of technical malfunctions and misunderstandings, including an incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the only thing which prevented a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine from deploying its weapon on the US military was one officer refusing to go along with two others who were giving the orders to fire.

We got a taste of this horror once again last month in the long minutes following erroneous reports that Russia had launched missiles at NATO member Poland. The fact that cooler heads have prevailed up until this point does not mean that nuclear brinkmanship is safe, anymore than a game of Russian roulette not ending after the first couple of trigger pulls would mean that Russian roulette is safe to play.

So Stoltenberg is correct to be afraid. There absolutely are too many things that can go horribly wrong in such a standoff, and there are simply too many unpredictable moving parts for anyone to feel confident that this will not happen.

See the rest here

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NATO Exists To Solve The Problems Created By NATO’s Existence

Posted by M. C. on December 3, 2022

We’re at the most dangerous point in humanity’s abusive relationship with US unipolar domination, for the same reason the most dangerous point in a battered wife’s life is right when she’s trying to escape. The empire is willing to do terrible and risky things to retain control. “If I can’t have you no one can” is a line that can be said to a wife, or to the world.

Tell me again, what does the NA in NATO stand for?

Caitlin Johnstone

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/nato-exists-to-solve-the-problems?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

NATO has doubled down on its determination to eventually add Ukraine to its membership, renewing its 2008 commitment to that goal in a meeting between the foreign ministers of the alliance in Bucharest, Romania this past Tuesday.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes:

The Romanian city was where NATO initially made the promise to Ukraine back in 2008, and at the time, US officials acknowledged that attempting to bring the country into the alliance could spark a war in the region.

“We made the decision in Bucharest in 2008 at the summit,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. “I was there … representing Norway as Prime Minister. I remember very well the decisions. We stand by those decisions. NATO’s door is open.”

In a joint statement, the NATO foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, said that they “reaffirm” the decisions that were made at the 2008 Bucharest summit.

Antiwar.com @Antiwarcom

NATO Doubles Down on Pledge to Eventually Admit Ukraine NATO foreign ministers are holding a summit in Bucharest, where the alliance first made the promise in 2008 by Dave DeCamp @DecampDave #NATO #Ukraine #Russia news.antiwar.com/2022/11/29/nat…

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7:39 PM ∙ Nov 29, 2022


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It has become fashionable among the mainstream western commentariat to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansion, but as recently explained by Philippe Lemoine for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, that’s a completely false narrative that requires snipping past comments made by Putin out of the context in which they were made. Many western experts warned for years in advance that NATO expansion would lead to a conflict like the one we’re seeing today, and they were of course correct.

See the rest here

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Exhibit A on Why NATO Should Never Have Expanded

Posted by M. C. on December 2, 2022

https://rumble.com/v1ybuou-exhibit-a-on-why-nato-should-never-have-expanded.html

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Which Way Will the Cat Jump?

Posted by M. C. on November 17, 2022

Defense One is a deplorable propaganda outlet for the U.S. military-industrial-security complex. Defense One promotes conflicts and see “threats” all over the planet for Uncle Sam to confront. 

http://www.patrickfoydossier.com/New-Entries/Entries/2022/11/which-way-will-the-cat-jump.html

Is politics nothing but the art of deliberately lying?—Voltaire

Dear Friends + Interlocutors,

The website Defense One sent a flash notification yesterday that a Russian projectile had landed in Poland. Defense One is a deplorable propaganda outlet for the U.S. military-industrial-security complex. Defense One promotes conflicts and see “threats” all over the planet for Uncle Sam to confront. 

Why? It’s good for business. That motivation seeps through everywhere, especially in the ads. One weapon system after another. So let’s go! Article 5 of the NATO treaty is in play! A NATO member has been attacked! Washington to the rescue! 

Well, no, wait just a moment. Defense One sounds a note of caution, all of a sudden, now that an actual member of NATO could be directly, not indirectly, mixed up in the contrived Ukraine conflict. For Washington, the implications are mind boggling.

Actually, under a strict interpretation of the rules of war, Russia would be justified in attacking Poland, not to mention the U.S., for supplying enormous quantities of arms and ammunition to the regime in Ukraine. This is the same corrupt regime, or iteration of it, that the 2014 Washington-instigated coup installed in Kiev.

This successful regime-change project was orchestrated by the Obama functionary and Dick Cheney protégé named Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland. Since then, NATO-supplied Kiev has relentlessly attacked Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, that is, the Donbas, and to a lesser extent, Russian Crimea.

Finally, that bogeyman President Vladimir Putin decided he had had enough, and launched his “special military operation” in February 2022 to rescue the Russian population. Washington was quietly delighted. 

The White House and “the West”, as it is still graciously called, branded the operation “unprovoked and unjustified” among other things.

Putin naïvely hoped that “the West” would regard his then-limited intervention in Ukraine as an example of the UN “responsibility to protect” concept, famously touted by Obama adviser, NSC member, UN Ambassador and Harvard Professor, Samantha Power.

That hope was in vain. What is good for the goose is not good for the gander. From Putin’s perspective, RtoP the Russian population is precisely what he was doing, all doors to diplomacy (Minsk I and II) having been slammed shut by Washington. Biden and his inner circle know this and are responsible for it.

In any event, Defense One is back-peddling fast on Article 5. Perfectly understandable. Things are going swimmingly for the Neocons and Neoliberals in Washington. This war, this quagmire, on Russia’s border is a godsend for them.

Washington and its NATO chums get to supply Kiev with limitless amounts of arms and ordinance in their quest to destabilize Russia via open-ended war and economic sanctions, while concurrently they remain untouchable from retaliation. Article 5 might wreck that scenario.

See the rest here

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First Strike: The US and the World’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Policy – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on November 7, 2022

The Nuclear Family-A Short Series

The updated Nuclear Posture Review makes it clear that it is the US that has the most dangerous nuclear policy in the world. China has recommitted to its no first strike policy. India has always had a no first strike policy. Russia does not. But it confines its nuclear employment policy to defending only Russian territory. Only the US reserves the right to a first strike policy and the right to extend its nuclear umbrella beyond its territory to the territory of its allies and partners.

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2022/11/06/irst-strike-the-us-and-the-worlds-most-dangerous-nuclear-policy/

by Ted Snider 

On October 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would not use nuclear weapons; on the same day, US President Joe Biden said he would.

Two days earlier, at talks being held between the US, Japan and South Korea, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman explained that the “ironclad” US commitment to defending Japan and South Korea meant that the US “will use the full range of U.S. defense capabilities to defend our allies, including nuclear, conventional and missile defense capabilities.”

That line is striking and dangerous. It means that the US first strike policy would be triggered, not only by an attack on the US, but by an attack on US allies: and not just its NATO allies.

The line is striking, but Sherman was just articulating official US policy. The 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review states that “The United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” The US also insists that it “has never adopted a “no first use” policy.”

The US nuclear policy has three shocking features: the first strike policy means it would be willing to initiate a nuclear war by striking first, it would do so even when faced by a non-nuclear conventional threat even though it has the largest and most capable conventional forces in the world, and it would do so to defend not only itself but also its allies and even its “partners.”

There had been great hope that the US would repeal its first strike policy. At the recent UN General Assembly First Committee session on October 19, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, Li Song, declared that “China has solemnly committed to no first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances, and not using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones unconditionally.” 

In a 2020 article in Foreign Affairs written during the presidential campaign, Biden had promised that he would take “steps to demonstrate our commitment to reducing the role of nuclear weapons.” He said that “the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal should be deterring – and, if necessary, retaliating against – a nuclear attack,” and promised that “As president, I will work to put that belief into practice.”

But he didn’t. On October 27, the same day Wendy Sherman was explaining that the US would use nuclear weapons to defend Japan and South Korea, the Department of Defense released the long delayed 2022 Nuclear Posture Review. The updated review continues to state “The United States affirms that its nuclear forces deter all forms of strategic attack. They serve to deter nuclear employment of any scale directed against the US homeland or the territory of Allies and partners. …”

It preserves the conclusion “that nuclear weapons are required to deter not only nuclear attack, but also a narrow range of other high consequence, strategic-level attacks.”

The Nuclear Posture Review says that “the fundamental role of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our Allies, and partners. The United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its Allies or partners.”

The Nuclear Posture Review than clearly states that “We conducted a thorough review of a broad range of options for nuclear declaratory policy – including both No First Use and Sole Purpose policies – and concluded that those approaches would result in unacceptable levels of risk. …”

The most recent Nuclear Posture Review, then, specifically preserves a first strike policy as well as insisting upon the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of a non-nuclear threat and the right to use nuclear weapons to protect, not only its own territory, but the territory of its allies and even its partners.

See the rest here

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NATO Set To Attack Tiraspol?

Posted by M. C. on November 2, 2022

NATO, on the other hand, seems to have misinterpreted patience for weakness. If the geniuses of “NATO” send in the 101st Airborne Division and a Mechanized Infantry Brigade to Odessa, they will learn the hard way that the propaganda about Russian losses in Ukraine was wrong.  But I hope they don’t do it.  Both Odessa and Tiraspol are ancient and beautiful cities. It would be a terrible tragedy to see them leveled like Mariupol was.

By David Sant for the Saker blog

Gonzalo Lira recently posted two soliloquies which were both accusatory and predictive about NATO’s apparent motivations and likely near-term kinetic military objectives. He concluded that after detonating a “dirty bomb” on Ukrainian territory, the USA and NATO would use the opportunity as an excuse to move the 101st Airborne Division from Romania into Odessa.

13:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBMKIe5d0M&ab_channel=GonzaloLira%E2%80%94Again

and

15:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meBMKIe5d0M&ab_channel=GonzaloLira%E2%80%94Again

both may be sped up 1.5x-1.73x

While I think his big picture thinking is generally correct, I disagree with Mr. Lira on the mission of the 101st Airborne Division in the scenario he described.

Many years ago I was an officer in the National Guard sister Brigade to the 101st. Both Brigades are “air assault light infantry,” which was developed in the Vietnam War with the 7th Air Cavalry Division. “We Were Soldiers Once and Young,” tells that story.

Though the 101st is called “airborne” in reference to its World War II days, today its soldiers are not trained to jump out of airplanes; the 82nd Airborne Division does that.

The 101st deploys using UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. Each division in the brigade has an aviation battalion with three companies of Blackhawk helicopters. Their primary combat mission is to secure a bridgehead.

When deploying, an air assault infantry battalion goes to a designated pickup zone, and a company of Blackhawks comes in to ferry them to the landing zone. Although they are trained to rappel out of the helicopters in a hot Landing Zone, in practice the helicopters usually land, and the troops jump out. It is much faster and safer. Two minutes later the chopper is back in the air and goes back for another squad at the pickup zone. Thus it might take the better part of an hour with two or three round trips to move an entire infantry battalion from the PZ to the LZ, longer if the distance is longer.

While an air assault infantry brigade can move 105 mm light artillery pieces via helicopter, the main supply and logistics assets of the brigade must follow the main force on the ground in trucks. Therefore, unlike the 82nd Airborne Division, or the Rangers, both of which are designed to jump into areas far behind enemy lines, an air assault brigade like the 101st is limited in how far it can leapfrog ahead of its support assets.

If NATO desires to fortify Odessa against the Russian advance, or use Odessa as a base to engage Russian forces near Nikolaev, they have a serious logistical problem. Supply lines from Poland on main Ukrainian highways or railroads must travel 700 kilometers to reach Odessa.

Figure 1: These routes are vulnerable to Russian air power and cruise missiles which have hit targets as far West as Lviv.

The shortest supply lines to Odessa for NATO would be from Romania, which has two segments of border with Ukraine. However, the best paved route would be through Moldova, which is not a member of NATO. Romania has state of the art NATO air defense batteries which can cover most of the route to Odesssa. Therefore, assuming they are effective against Russian cruise missiles, which may be a bad assumption, it would be safer to supply forces in Odessa from Romania than from Poland.

Figure 2 shows two possible approaches to Odessa from Romanian territory.

The NATO base in Cincu ( 45°54’49.15″N 24°48’21.25″E ), Romania is about 450 km from Odessa, which is too far for Blackhawks to make a round trip without mid-air refueling or using a FARP. It is more likely that an Assembly Area would be used near the Romanian city of Huşi.

The 101st cannot advance quickly to Odessa from the south, because there are practically no roads, and then Dniester Bay has to be crossed to get to Odessa. There is only one bridge over that bay, which is right on the coast, within range of Russian missiles, and far from the air defense umbrella in Romania. While possibly an avenue of attack, it would be almost impossible to defend that bridge from Russian cruise missiles.

Transnistria, with its Russian base at Tiraspol, is located directly in-between Romania and Odessa. This presents a problem for any NATO intentions for Odessa.

See the rest here

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US Accelerates Plan to Deploy Upgraded Nukes to Europe

Posted by M. C. on October 27, 2022

The US wants to replace its nuclear bombs in Europe with an updated version of the B61-12 on a faster timeline

I sure feel safer. How about you?

by Dave DeCamp

antiwar.com

The US has accelerated plans to deploy an upgraded version of its primary nuclear gravity bomb to Europe amid heightened tensions with Russia over the potential use of nuclear weapons.

A cable obtained by Politico reveals that US officials told NATO allies in Brussels this month that they will send an upgraded version of the B61-12 air-dropped gravity bomb to Europe by December. The upgraded bomb was originally set to arrive in Europe next spring.

The plan involves replacing older weapons with upgraded bombs at US storage facilities in Europe. The US keeps about 100 nuclear warheads at air bases in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Turkey.

The upgrade to the B61-12 replaces non-nuclear components to make it more accurate. The upgrade is also designed so it can be carried by all US and allied bombers and fighter jets, unlike older versions of the bomb.

Accelerating the deployment of the upgraded nukes amid the current tensions would do little but stoke tensions with Moscow. Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, described the plan as “odd.”

“They have been saying we don’t respond to this situation with nuclear weapons. I don’t think they want to go down that one,” Kristensen told Politico.

The revelation of the plan comes as both Russia and NATO are conducting nuclear exercises. President Biden recently said the risk of nuclear “armageddon” is at its highest since the end of the Cold War, but his administration has shown no interest in pursuing diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine or ease tensions with Moscow.

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Only Adult Children Still Believe U.S. Propaganda

Posted by M. C. on October 1, 2022

When President Kennedy, deeply chastened by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, spoke about real peace and democracy at American University on June 10, 1963, he was the last American leader to recognize that international relations had to undergo a radical change, especially in the nuclear age.  Demonizing other countries had to give way to dialogue and mutual respect.  He said:

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

Five months later the CIA made sure his voice was stilled.  Such sentiments have been verboten ever since.

http://edwardcurtin.com/only-adult-children-still-believe-u-s-propaganda/

Edward Curtin

It should now be quite clear to any reasonable person that the Biden administration is hell-bent on destroying Russia and will risk nuclear war in doing so.  It has already started World War III with its use of Ukraine to light the final match.  The problem is that reasonable people are in very short supply, and, as Ray McGovern recently wrote in “Brainwashed for War with Russia,” the Biden administration and their media lackeys

… will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China …. Most Americans are just as taken in by the media as they were 20 years ago, when they were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They simply took it on faith. Nor did the guilty media express remorse – or a modicum of embarrassment.

Many good writers – all of whom are banned from mainstream media – have  made clear why the corporate media propaganda about the US/NATO war against Russia via Ukraine is false and egregiously dangerous.  The government of the U.S.A. is led by morons in the demonic grip of the “The U.S. Should Rule the World” ideology.  It is nothing new.

I don’t wish to debate the facts, for that is a fool’s game created to suggest there is something to debate.  For the evidence is clear, except to the public in the grip of propaganda-induced ignorance or those elites who never learned from the ancient Greek goddess Nemesis that dark Furies will destroy those who in their hubris push the limits.  The Biden administration has already done that, while President Biden mutters inanities as if he were a mafia boss wandering the streets in his pajamas and slippers.  The recent sabotaging of Nord Stream 2 is another example of the treacherous road we are traveling, as Diana Johnstone makes clear in her recent article, “Omerta in the Gangster War.”

For years, the U.S.- run NATO has moved military forces and bases into countries encircling Russia. This includes weapons that can very quickly be converted to nuclear use. This, as I’ve pointed out before, is tantamount to Russia doing the same in Mexico and Canada, and let’s add Cuba as well.  We know what the U.S. response would be, but when President Putin and his government objected and said this is a betrayal of previous agreements, he was dismissed as if he were a child making things up.

In 2014, when the U.S. engineered a coup in Ukraine, bringing into power neo-Nazi elements, and Russia protested this coup on its western border, Washington mocked such concerns. Every time Russia has complained about such provocative moves, the U.S. has dismissed them as inconsequential.

For years the U.S. has supported the Ukrainian killing of the Russian speaking peoples of eastern Ukraine, and finally, when Ukraine had amassed forces to invade the Donbas region, the Russian government had had enough and sent troops into the region to defend this area.  Thus the hypocritical West played at outrage that what they had created was finally backfiring.  Russia was cast as the guilty party for invading Ukraine.  And now a full-fledged U.S. war against Russia is out in the open and it will become more dangerous as it continues.  Nuclear annihilation becomes a very real possibility as the Biden administration continues to push the envelope.

There will be no end to the war in Ukraine because the U.S. is intent on doing everything in its power to try to bring Russia to its knees.  It is madness on its face, but then insane people are in charge. In this process, everyone is expendable, friends, foes, and anyone who stands in its way, including the U.S.’s supposed European allies whose leaders seem intent on destroying their own countries.

Perhaps ironically – but I think not, as a knowledge of history confirms – the volte-face of the American liberal class with its promotion of the new Cold War, censorship, the CIA, and FBI and the so-called progressive Democratic politicians in the U.S congress, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, embracing and voting for war with Russia via Ukraine, should be no great surprise. These people, and their Republican counterparts, with rare exceptions here and there, live on desolation row and flip when so ordered.  But “nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row,” in Dylan’s words, because it’s the social disease we inhabit, and like fish in water, many know nothing else.

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