What we do see is that Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and even using them to kill more Ukrainians. What irony. Also, what kinds of opportunities will be provided to terrorists, with thousands of tons of deadly high-tech weapons floating around Europe?
Apr 25 – “War is a racket, wrote US Maj. General Smedley Butler in 1935. He explained: “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
Gen. Butler’s observation describes the US/NATO response to the Ukraine war perfectly.
The propaganda continues to portray the war in Ukraine as that of an unprovoked Goliath out to decimate an innocent David unless we in the US and NATO contribute massive amounts of military equipment to Ukraine to defeat Russia. As is always the case with propaganda, this version of events is manipulated to bring an emotional response to the benefit of special interests.
One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that ‘s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”
He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The US has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.
By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.
Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the US and other western NATO countries.
While many who sympathize with Ukraine are cheering, this multi-billion dollar weapons package will make little difference. As former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report last week, “I can say with absolute certainty that even if this aid makes it to the battlefield, it will have zero impact on the battle. And Joe Biden knows it.”
What we do see is that Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and even using them to kill more Ukrainians. What irony. Also, what kinds of opportunities will be provided to terrorists, with thousands of tons of deadly high-tech weapons floating around Europe? Washington has admitted that it has no way of tracking the weapons it is sending to Ukraine and no way to keep them out of the hands of the bad guys.
War is a racket, to be sure. The US has been meddling in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War, going so far as overthrowing the government in 2014 and planting the seeds of the war we are witnessing today. The only way out of a hole is to stop digging. Don’t expect that any time soon. War is too profitable.
Why does the U.S. government insist on prolonging and exacerbating this conflict? I think Rockwell is right: War profiteers in Washington, D.C., WANT a war with Russia. In the first place, there has never been a war that DC’s ensconced War Party didn’t love—and helped instigate.
In the second place, Joe Biden and the rest of those criminals inside the Beltway know that the U.S. economy is in a “bad and badder” spiral—and they know that they are responsible for it. War is the perfect distraction that will turn the attention of the American people away from their own economic woes caused by their own political leaders and give them a foreign “monster” to hate.
We should call the Ukraine conflict Covid-22, because the same propagandists that created the phony Covid-19 narrative have now created the phony Ukraine narrative.
All rational Americans agree that we shouldn’t get involved in the Russia-Ukraine War. The neocon warmongers with brain dead Biden as their figurehead want to destroy Russia, and they are willing to risk nuclear war to do it. But this doesn’t negate what I’ve just said. These monsters are anything but rational. But speaking of monsters leads to another question. Everybody knows John Quincy Adams’s line: “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” Is this the reason we should stay out of the Ukraine war? Is Putin a monster, bringing death and destruction to innocent people, but someone whose actions we have to ignore because it’s too dangerous to act against him? People who say this don’t get what’s happening. Putin is a rational statesman, with legitimate security interests and the supposed hero Zelensky is a dubious character.
Why do people think otherwise? One reason is the charges of Russian atrocities in Bucha. These charges are just that “charges”. Fake atrocity claims have often been a way to inflame people to support war, and the Bucha accusations are the latest example. Christopher Roche, who isn’t pro-Putin, explains why we shouldn’t fall for it: “The reports and photographs showing an apparent massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, are truly terrible. They are reminiscent of the atrocities used to galvanize Western opinion during Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, when the Srebrenica Massacre and the Siege of Sarajevo were seared into Western consciousness.
Of course, pictures do not always tell the whole story. For example, to determine whether a war crime took place we must know who did the killing, why, and how. After all, the United States killed many thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, frequently by accident, in the course of those wars. Few in the United States or Europe would call those actions war crimes. This all became apparent after the United States exonerated itself for the annihilation of an Afghan family via a missile strike during the withdrawal of U.S. forces last summer. Oops.
If civilians were shot and purposefully killed in Bucha, it undoubtedly would be a war crime and a terrible thing. But there are credible reasons to believe the so-called Bucha Massacre was not the doing of the Russian Forces, but rather of the Ukrainians—either local militia or SBU or some combination thereof—as part of brutal reprisals against ‘saboteurs’ and ‘Russian collaborators.’
First, this fits with a pattern of Ukrainian forces violating the rules of war, as evidenced by numerous videos showing the shooting of prisoners, torturing civilians, and the like. Unlike the still photos in Bucha, these videos show the actions themselves, as well as the perpetrators, which even the New York Times recently acknowledged.
Second, Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelenskyy has given numerous speeches calling for the punishment of ‘saboteurs’ and ‘traitors,’ saying the war will ultimately end with the ‘de-Russification’ of Ukraine. These are tough words, which clearly would tend to inflame and encourage the more extremist elements.
Three, the atmosphere in Ukraine is ripe for war crimes. While U.S. Second Amendment supporters were understandably heartened by the Ukrainian government’s weapons giveaway, some of those weapons ended up in the hands of criminals and undisciplined characters. This was not a mere oversight; Ukraine deliberately freed prisoners with combat experience in order to allow them to fight. One would not expect this group to be scrupulous adherents to the laws of war.
What then is the strategy that government in Kiev and its overlords in Washington DC are following? Why has the Ukraine not given up? Why didn’t it continue to negotiate with the Russian side?
Is their hope that their daily over the top ‘Russia is losing’ propaganda will create enough political momentum for a large scale NATO intervention?
Russian and Donbas forces have cleared the city of Mariupol except for the giant metallurgic complex of Azovstal which is held by some estimated 4,000 men, including many from the fascist Azov battalion.
On Sunday Russia opened corridors across the front line and asked for those forces to surrender. However the Zelensky government ordered them to stay and to continue to bind Russian forces which otherwise could be used elsewhere:
Russia had given the Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol until Sunday morning to lay down their weapons or be “eliminated.” On Sunday, the forces at the plant ignored the deadline, and Ukrainian officials vowed that they would not surrender. In response, the Russian assault intensified, with missiles and bombs hitting the city and new attacks occurring near the plant, according to the Ukrainian military. … Ukrainian officials said on Sunday that the struggle was not over for Mariupol, which for two months has tied up Russian troops and resources that are badly needed elsewhere.
The Azovstal complex is a 2 by 2 miles industrial area. It can be surrounded and controlled by a relatively small force. Those within the area no longer have heavy artillery ammunition and presumably little other supplies. The Russian forces can see and bomb anything that moves on the open ground and can otherwise sit back and wait their enemies out.
I do not believe that holding on to Azovstal will significantly delay the upcoming second phase of the Russian operation which will surround and destroy the Ukrainian army on the Donbas front.
The Russian military has two huge advantage over the Ukrainian forces in the east. One is of course its air superiority. The other is the unimpeded supply line which allows it to get as much heavy artillery ammunition, fuel and food to its forces as it needs.
Without fuel the Ukrainian army can not move and without constant supply, especially of large amounts of artillery munitions, it can not counter Russian artillery which will be in heavy use against it.
This pictures of a former Ukrainian position show the devastating result of such a situation. bigger
Nearly all of the Ukrainian ammunition and fuel supplies have been bombed and destroyed. What is trickling in through its western borders has difficulties to reach the eastern front and is anyway not enough to supply an actively fighting and maneuvering army.
On April 16 Russia shot down a Ukrainian military transport plane that was bringing ‘western’ weapons to Odessa. Today it destroyed another ammunition depot near Lviv were ‘western’ weapons are crossing the border into Ukraine. Some bits of fuel allegedly still reach the Ukraine through trains from Moldova. But that is far from enough.
Since the beginning of the war, the number of gas stations in Ukraine has decreased three times, and private fuel consumption has decreased by about the same amount, said Sergey Kuyun, director of the A-95 consulting group.
“According to our estimates, a third of the total number of gas stations is operating, this is about 2.5 thousand stations, before the war there were 7.5 thousand. Of course, the main reason is the lack of fuel. Consumption has also decreased three times compared to the pre-war level,” he said at a closed briefing at the Media Center in Lviv on Monday.
At the same time, Kuyun noted that traders or network owners are forced to provide their most strategic and powerful facilities, located mainly in regional centers or on main routes, while peripheral stations are forced to stand idle, although there are also a lot of consumers there.
According to him, the shortage of fuel became especially aggravated after the shutdown of the Kremenchug Oil Refinery as a result of a missile attack by Russian invaders. … On April 2, the Russian invaders destroyed the infrastructure of the Kremenchug oil refinery with their shelling, and it stopped working.
The damage done daily to the Ukrainian military and military industry is huge. One can get a sense of it when one reads through the briefings of the Russian defense ministry. From today’s morning brief (here in full as some have difficulties accessing the site):
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said on the weekend talk shows that it’s time to start talking about sending US troops to directly fight Russia in Ukraine. Thus to defend Ukraine’s borders, this member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee openly calls for that launch of what would be WWIII. Coons is joined by plenty of Republican Members calling for direct conflict with Russia, including disgraced neocon Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Also today: Fauci spills the beans on lockdowns and MSNBC spills the beans on its view of the role of media in a “free” society…
@ 28:50MSNBC on Musk in media: He is trying to control what people think, that’s our job!
A confluence of circumstances has come together to create a “perfect storm” for global food production, and now that “perfect storm” is about to get even worse. For months I warned that this crisis was coming, and in recent weeks I have been documenting how dire conditions have already become all over the globe. The head of the UN World Food Program is warning that this is going to be the worst worldwide food crisis since World War II, and even Joe Biden is admitting that the approaching food shortages “are going to be real”. Unfortunately, there have been some new developments which threaten to significantly escalate things.
In recent days, the number of newly confirmed COVID cases in China has soared to record highs, and Chinese authorities have responded to this with unprecedented lockdowns.
Nearly 400 million people across 45 cities in China are under full or partial lockdown as part of China’s strict zero-Covid policy. Together they represent 40%, or $7.2 trillion, of annual gross domestic product for the world’s second-largest economy, according to data from Nomura Holdings.
Analysts are ringing warning bells, but say investors aren’t properly assessing how serious the global economic fallout might be from these prolonged isolation orders.
Chinese lockdowns are a lot more brutal than lockdowns in the western world.
I have never seen anything like that before, and these lockdowns will continue as long as COVID keeps spreading.
To put this in perspective, the number of people that are currently locked down in China is greater than the total population of the United States.
Needless to say, these lockdowns are bringing the Chinese economy to a grinding halt, and that is going to affect the entire planet. At the Port of Shanghai, activity “is essentially at a standstill”…
The Port of Shanghai, which handled over 20% of Chinese freight traffic in 2021, is essentially at a standstill. Food supplies stuck in shipping containers without access to refrigeration are rotting.
This is an enormous problem for those of us in the western world, because our stores are normally filled with goods that have been made in China.
And this even extends to our food supply. For example, we send giant mountains of apples to China where they are processed and sent back to us as apple juice.
We need to hope that the lockdowns in China end soon, because if that does not happen it will likely create tremendous shortages all over the planet.
Meanwhile, the fertilizer crisis in the United States is about to get even worse.
Previously, I have written about how the skyrocketing cost of fertilizer is going to cause massive problems for many U.S. farmers, and now many of those farmers may not be able to get the fertilizer that they need at all due to “railroad-mandated shipping reductions”. The following comes directly from a notice released by CF Industries…
CF Industries Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CF), a leading global manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products, today informed customers it serves by Union Pacific rail lines that railroad-mandated shipping reductions would result in nitrogen fertilizer shipment delays during the spring application season and that it would be unable to accept new rail sales involving Union Pacific for the foreseeable future. The Company understands that it is one of only 30 companies to face these restrictions.
CF Industries ships to customers via Union Pacific rail lines primarily from its Donaldsonville Complex in Louisiana and its Port Neal Complex in Iowa. The rail lines serve key agricultural areas such as Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and California. Products that will be affected include nitrogen fertilizers such as urea and urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) as well as diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), an emissions control product required for diesel trucks. 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.
According to Politico, the Biden Administration is considering sending a cabinet-level official – and possibly even Biden or Harris – to Ukraine as a show of solidarity with Kiev. As such a move would include a sizable US military guard, there is incredible risk with near-zero gain in such a symbolic move. Also today: Enjoying that inflation? Biden’s sending ANOTHER near-billion dollars to Ukraine! Finally, US increasing targeting intel sharing with Ukraine – including in Crimea! Escalation on top of escalation.
You might think the number of COVID vaccines a person has taken has nothing to do with their support for NATO military intervention in Ukraine… UNLESS something else is going on. Could it be the same people susceptible to media fear propaganda about COVID are just as taken in by the propaganda that says the US should be involved militarily in Ukraine? Sparked by some info from his recent Daily Bell article called ‘Oceania Had Always Been at War With Eurasia’: Corporate Media Shifts Public Enemy #1 Overnight, Ben Bartee and I discuss this in today’s video: https://www.thedailybell.com/all-arti…
More savvy regimes have always known that nuclear arms bring independence from Washington. It’s why the French pursued their own nuclear program not controlled by the US or by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. France wanted to make its own decisions. Both India and Pakistan did not want to take orders from the US in South Asia. And they both obtained their own nuclear arsenals.
Some journalists like Steve Portnoy of CBS seem unable to grasp that escalations that might lead to nuclear war are a bad thing. The journalist seemed incredulous last week when asking White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki why the United States has not started a full-on war with Moscow. Psaki’s position—with which any reasonable person could agree—was that it is not in the interest of Americans “to be in a war with Russia.”
Washington’s reluctance to go to war might seem odd for anyone who has paid attention to American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. After all, for more than thirty years, Washington has been enthusiastic when presented with opportunities to start wars with many countries—including the civilians who live there. Iraq has been a target twice. Washington made war on Afghanistan for more than twenty years. The US launched repeated bombing campaigns against Serbia and was happy to help bomb Libya. The US regime pushed for full-scale war with Syria, and ultimately executed a small-scale invasion. US troops are in Syria to this day. Iran has long been a target, and starting a war with Iran has long been a given, with John McCain once singing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.” But now even the White House admits war with Russia is not in the interests of “the American people.”
In the past, when the United States regime accused other regimes of war crimes and aggression, that meant regime change and war. It usually means widespread bombing campaigns against that “rogue” state’s cities, and it often even means military occupation. But now we see Washington accusing Moscow of very similar crimes, and yet no regime change is on the table.
Don’t think that foreign states haven’t noticed the abrupt change in enthusiasm over war when it comes to nuclear-armed Russia. The contrast between the US’s aversion to war with Russia and the US’s enthusiasm toward regime change in nonnuclear states, sends a clear message: states with nuclear arms won’t be targeted for regime change.
Why Regime Change Means Nuclear War
Yes, to some extent the opposition to war with Russia is due to Russia’s abilities in terms of conventional warfare. Moscow’s conventional defensive military capabilities far surpass anything that might have been used against US forces in countries like Iraq, Iran, and Syria. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Moscow’s military budget in 2020 was $66 billion. It was $12 billion in Iran during the same period. Both of these cases pale in comparison to the US’s gargantuan $700 billion–plus budget. But Russia’s conventional military can nonetheless inflict enough damage on US forces in a conventional war to the point of making such a war politically costly to prowar policymakers in the United States. But current military spending isn’t the whole story. Long-term war-making capability matters also. The total industrial capacity of the United States—thanks to remaining latent nineteenth-century laissez-faire liberalism—is vastly larger than anything the far more socialist state of Russia could possibly muster.
The reason the administration is minimizing even provocations of Russia, however, is Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. Like the United States, Moscow controls more than five thousand nuclear warheads, and more than enough are deliverable with ICBMs.
Preventing populations from asking who benefits from a protracted proxy war, and who pays the price, is paramount. A closed propaganda system achieves that.
The Google logo seen on a cellphone with a background saying ‘censored’. (Photo by Guillaume Payen/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.
On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.
But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”
So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.
What makes this outburst of Western censorship so notable — and what is at least partially driving it — is that there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources, ones which loyally and unquestioningly mimic claims from the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukrainian officials.
As The Washington Postacknowledged when reporting Big Tech’s “unprecedented” banning of RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources of news: “In the first four days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, viewership of more than a dozen Russian state-backed propaganda channels on YouTube spiked to unusually high levels.”
Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Timesarticle from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.
Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation. The “Russians With Attitude” Twitter account became popular in part because they sometimes criticized Russia, in part because they were more careful with facts and viral claims that most U.S. corporate media outlets, and in part because there is such a paucity of outlets that are willing to offer any information that undercuts what the U.S. Government and NATO want you to believe about the war.
Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.
It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrativecontracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.
But one question lingers: why is there so much urgency about silencing the small pockets of dissenting voices about the war in Ukraine? This war has united the establishment wings of both parties and virtually the entire corporate media with a lockstep consensus not seen since the days and weeks after the 9/11 attack. One can count on both hands the number of prominent political and media figures who have been willing to dissent even minimally from that bipartisan Washington consensus — dissent that instantly provokes vilification in the form of attacks on one’s patriotism and loyalties. Why is there such fear of allowing these isolated and demonized voices to be heard at all?
The answer seems clear. The benefits from this war for multiple key Washington power centers cannot be overstated. The billions of dollars in aid and weapons being sent by the U.S. to Ukraine are flying so fast and with such seeming randomness that it is difficult to track. “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine,” Reuters said on February 26; “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine,” announced The New York Times on March 16; on March 30, NBC’s headline read: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”; on Tuesday, Reuters announced: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say.” By design, these gigantic numbers have long ago lost any meaning and provoke barely a peep of questioning let alone objection.
It is not a mystery who is benefiting from this orgy of military spending. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that “the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight U.S. weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years.” Among those participating in this meeting about the need to increase weapons manufacturing to feed the proxy war in Ukraine is Raytheon, which is fortunate to have retired General Lloyd Austin as Defense Secretary, a position to which he ascended from the Raytheon Board of Directors. It is virtually impossible to imagine an event more favorable to the weapons manufacturer industry than this war in Ukraine:
Demand for weapons has shot up after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 spurred U.S. and allied weapons transfers to Ukraine. Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. . .
Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting. . . . The White House said last week that it has provided more than $1.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, including over 5,000 Javelins and more than 1,400 Stingers.
This permanent power faction is far from the only one to be reaping benefits from the war in Ukraine and to have its fortunes depend upon prolonging the war as long as possible. The union of the U.S. security state, Democratic Party neocons, and their media allies has not been riding this high since the glory days of 2002. One of MSNBC’s most vocal DNC boosters, Chris Hayes, gushed that the war in Ukraine has revitalized faith and trust in the CIA and intelligence community more than any event in recent memory — deservedly so, he said: “The last few weeks have been like the Iraq War in reverse for US intelligence.” One can barely read a mainstream newspaper or watch a corporate news outlet without seeing the nation’s most bloodthirsty warmongering band of neocons — David Frum, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Wesley Clark, Anne Applebaum, Adam Kinzinger — being celebrated as wise experts and heroic warriors for freedom.
This war has been very good indeed for the permanent Washington political and media class. And although it was taboo for weeks to say so, it is now beyond clear that the only goal that the U.S. and its allies have when it comes to the war in Ukraine is to keep it dragging on for as long as possible. Not only are there no serious American diplomatic efforts to end the war, but the goal is to ensure that does not happen. They are now saying that explicitly, and it is not hard to understand why.
The benefits from endless quagmire in Ukraine are as immense as they are obvious. The military budget skyrockets. Punishment is imposed on the arch-nemesis of the Democratic Party — Russia and Putin — while they are bogged down in a war from which Ukrainians suffer most. The citizenry unites behind their leaders and is distracted …
A prominent central banker warned that the US’s continual weaponization of the dollar demonstrates a need for the global community to find something new.
This call came not from the Bank of Russia or the Bank of China, but the Bank of England—one of Washington’s closest allies.
Over a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, the military conflict has remained a regional conflict. While Russia has been able to fortify its claim in eastern Ukraine and has made advances in the south, recent counteroffenses by the Ukrainians have pushed Vladimir Putin’s military away from Kyiv. Meanwhile, allegations of war crimes committed by Russian forces during the conflict have given Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy new ammo in his campaign to increase pressure from the international community against the Russian Federation.
The situation on the ground has fueled a narrative popular in America and Europe that Putin vastly underestimated the difficulty of conflict with Ukraine and that the Russian regime is suffering from the “authoritarian trap” of government bureaucrats prioritizing placating their president over accurately reporting the state of Russia’s military affairs. While any degree to which Russian military failures push the countries to a ceasefire is a cause of celebration, overestimating Russian weakness could serve to undermine peace negotiations. Hopefully, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s analysis of this conflict is better than it has been in other situations in recent history.
Putin’s aspirations, however, go well beyond territorial conquest in former Soviet nations. At its core, the aim of the Russian regime is to challenge the post–Cold War order of a unipolar America-dominated global order.
On that front, Russia’s actions—and the West’s response—have now sparked a global conflict.
Since the 1970s, the dollar has been as vital a tool for American global supremacy as any military weapon. America’s war on terror not only transformed the Middle East into the main theater of US foreign policy but fueled Washington’s desire to militarize the American financial sector. What began as debanking al-Qaeda conspirators evolved into the primary tool used against rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea. In recent years, Western nations have also wielded these tools against domestic political dissidents.
In response to Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, America and the West have responded with some of the most extreme sanctions yet deployed. While these measures have forced severe financial pain on Russian oligarchs, who had become used to a certain quality of life outside of their homeland, Russia’s own counteroffensive is revealing the limits to Washington’s favorite weapons.
Global demand for Russian energy, food, and other vital resources has allowed Putin’s regime to provide support to the ruble by demanding purchases be made in Russia’s currency—Putin’s investments in various European “green” causes were well made. The result has been the value of the ruble returning to its postwar standing and stabilizing a financial sector bearing the brunt of Western sanctions.
MCViewPoint 
