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To What End?

Posted by M. C. on February 10, 2022

That is the problem with closed regimes like we have in Washington. No one can see inside to figure out what is happening. Everyone inside sees everyone outside as a possible enemy, so no one talks candidly about what is happening. Everything operates inside of a black box. No one sees in and no one sees out. To the outside the world, the regime looks increasingly paranoid and dangerous. Eventually, it burns through its legitimacy and we arrive at a Ceausescu moment.

by thezman

Note: For those in need of some audio stimulation, my appearance on Cotto & Gottfried is now up on iTunes. It is mostly about the state of conservatism.

It has been noted many times now that people in the West have to read American media the same way they used to read the Soviet media. Most of what we get from mainstream sources is the natural propaganda one expects from the toadies and bootlickers that follow every authoritarian regime. Other pieces are planted by regime elements for reasons that are not always obvious. As with Kremlinology a generation ago, regime-ology is something of sport now.

For example, the regime keeps planting these stories about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine in their favorites outlets. A few days ago this entirely made up report was sprinkled all over regime media. It painted a grim picture of the attack that we are told was happening any minute. Of course, the White House comes out every day and tells the stenographers in the press pool that the Russians will invade Ukraine as soon as tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes.

Today we have the latest regime scare story written by one of the zombies at their favorite outlet. The point of this story is to embarrass French President Emmanuel Macron who is trying to work out a deal with the Russians. He has been meeting with the parties the last two weeks to put an end to the situation. Unlike the Washington regime, Europe has no interest in war over Ukraine. The Europeans can read a map and they are not insane.

For a long time, it was assumed that the reason for the war drums from Washington was due to so many pols being on the Ukrainian payroll. We know the Biden family has been taking bribes from Ukraine for over a decade. That was one of those interesting stories that arose from the second impeachment of Trump. This tiny little corrupt country in Eurasia had a lot of friends in both political parties. The best sort of friends, the kind that can be bought and will stay bought.

That may be part of it, but it is clear that the Ukrainians have no desire to be the battleground in a new Cold War. For their part, the Russians have made clear they will never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. This should be an easy demand to meet, as no one in NATO, other than the Washington regime, wants Ukraine in NATO. Everyone in Europe understands the reality of Ukraine. It is a hyper corrupt kleptocracy that would be better off turned into a federalized neutral zone.

The other aspect of this is that the stories about the Russian military buildup appear to be mostly fake. The Russians are free to conduct exercises in their own land, which is what they have been doing thus far. They have not been sending weapons or “advisers” to the friendly militias operating in Ukraine. The CIA has been conducting covert operations with friendly militias for a decade now. In other words, this whole thing is one long running color revolution.

That raises the obvious question. If no one in Europe wants a war over Ukraine and the Ukrainians are not interested in a war, what is really going on here? One option is the permanent foreign policy establishment is infested with paranoids who wake in the middle of the night to the sound of hoofbeats. That has been an amusing line for years, but it would be a terrifying reality. Is the Ukraine mess really the result of deranged fanatics operating in the Washington foreign policy establishment?

Another less terrifying option is energy. The one thread that ties the foreign policy misadventures of the last thirty years together is energy. Russia has partnered with Iran and Syria because of energy. If they can control of natural gas out of the Middle East into Europe, that gives them leverage. Nord Stream 2 is a regular topic for the regime media, so it is fair to assume that the regime is worried about it. In this context, Ukraine is just a convenient cat’s paw in a larger geopolitical game.

What the regime is hoping for is an invasion of Ukraine that would then force the Europeans, especially the Germans, to kill Nord Stream 2. The Russians would remain the primary supplier of natural gas to Europe, but they would not become the exclusive supplier of energy. If Nord Stream 2 comes online Washington loses most of its leverage over Europe with regards to Russia. This is why they are so committed to this narrative about a Russian invasion. It has to happen.

The problem with this scenario is that it is too late to kill Nord Stream 2. The pipeline is complete and filled with gas. The last step in the project is for Germany to start using the gas and pay the Russians for it. No sane person can imagine a scenario in which this project is shut down. Even an invasion of Ukraine by Russia would only delay the opening of the pipeline. The Germans want the gas, the Russians want to sell it to them, so that deal will be consummated no matter what.

One interesting side bar to this is that the regime is certain they can jawbone the Russians into invading Ukraine. They also seem to think they can convince the world that a war is imminent. It is one of those examples where the regime reveals how disconnected they are from reality. Exactly no one seems to be falling for this disinformation campaign, especially the Russians. Yet the regime keeps running these stories in their media as if they are working.

As was the case with Kremlinology, we are left with our best guesses as to why the Washington regime is hyper-aggressive toward Russia. It could simply be cultural momentum within the foreign policy establishment. No one inside the regime knows why they have to talk about Russia as the great villain. It has just been the way it has always been. No one questions it, so the cultural inertia inside the system just keeps pushing the political class into confrontation with Russia.

That is the problem with closed regimes like we have in Washington. No one can see inside to figure out what is happening. Everyone inside sees everyone outside as a possible enemy, so no one talks candidly about what is happening. Everything operates inside of a black box. No one sees in and no one sees out. To the outside the world, the regime looks increasingly paranoid and dangerous. Eventually, it burns through its legitimacy and we arrive at a Ceausescu moment.

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Setting Up Crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine

Posted by M. C. on February 9, 2022

Despite crocodile tears that U.S. officials will openly shed for the people of Ukraine, the truth is that U.S. officials couldn’t care one whit how many of them are killed, injured, or maimed in such an invasion, any more than they were concerned about the people of Afghanistan who were killed, injured, and maimed after U.S. officials succeeded in goading the Soviets to invade Afghanistan or, for that matter, after the Pentagon and the CIA invaded and occupied the country in 2001.

Setting Up Crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine

by Jacob G. Hornberger

As I have watched how the U.S. national-security establishment has set up its latest crisis, this one in Ukraine, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how it set up a similar crisis in Afghanistan in 1979. 

Back then, the goal of U.S. national-security state officials was to goad the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan. U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski put it succinctly when he told President Carter, “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”

What he meant by that was the opportunity of getting Soviet soldiers killed, maimed, and injured for no good reason, just as the Pentagon and the CIA did to tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Additionally, the Soviet Union would have to waste large sums of taxpayer money, just as the U.S. government also did in Vietnam.

To goad the Soviets into invading Afghanistan, U.S. officials began supporting the anti-Soviet resistance that was committed to removing a pro-Soviet regime from power. U.S. officials figured that faced with the possibility that Afghanistan might end up with a pro-U.S. regime, the Soviets would have no choice but to invade.

The scheme worked brilliantly. The Soviets invaded on December 24, 1979, and for the next decade were bogged down in a guerrilla war, much like the United States was when it invaded Vietnam and, for that matter, when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. In the process, many Soviet soldiers were killed, maimed, and injured, just as U.S. officials hoped they would be. Moreover, the war helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union, which ultimately led to its dismantling. 

Needless to say, U.S. national-security state officials were ecstatic over what they had accomplished. As Brzezinski gloated, “We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” 

Of course, the U.S. government played the innocent and portrayed the Soviet Union as a horrible aggressor. The following year, the U.S. government boycotted the Summer Olympics in Russia to protest Soviet aggression in Afghanistan.

When asked in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998 whether he regretted any of this, Brzezinski was shocked that anyone would even ask such a question. He responded, “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”

The interviewer then asked, “And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?” Brezinski responded, “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Of course, that interview was conducted prior to the blowback of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. I can’t help but wonder whether Brzezinski would have considered his scheme to be worth it in light of what those attacks did to America.

The irony is that the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1989 also brought a sudden and surprising end to the U.S. national-security state’s Cold War racket, which was guaranteeing them a perpetual flow of ever-increasing amounts of U.S. taxpayer money into the coffers of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA. 

That was when U.S. officials went into the Middle East and began poking hornets’ nests, which succeeded in producing terrorist blowback. That’s when we got the “war on terrorism,” which replaced the “war on communism.” That guaranteed the continuous flow of ever-increasing amounts of U.S. taxpayer money into the pockets of the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and the entire “defense” industry. 

But U.S. officials weren’t about to let go of the Russians so easily. Rather than dismantle NATO, which was nothing more than a Cold War dinosaur, they used the organization to gobble up former members of the Warsaw Pact, with the aim of stationing U.S. troops, missiles, and tanks closer and closer to Russia’s borders. The scheme ultimately called for NATO to absorb Ukraine, which would mean that the Pentagon and the CIA would be able to install their missiles, tanks, and troops on Russia’s border. 

Thus, their latest scheme has placed Russia in the position of choosing between invading Ukraine, which would thereby prevent the Pentagon and the CIA from installing their troops, missiles, and tanks on Russia’s border versus letting NATO absorb Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon and the CIA to install their troops, missiles, and tanks on Russia’s border.

If Russia invades, there is no doubt that the U.S. national-security establishment will, once again, play the innocent and cry out against those aggressive Russians. And make no mistake about it: Despite crocodile tears that U.S. officials will openly shed for the people of Ukraine, the truth is that U.S. officials couldn’t care one whit how many of them are killed, injured, or maimed in such an invasion, any more than they were concerned about the people of Afghanistan who were killed, injured, and maimed after U.S. officials succeeded in goading the Soviets to invade Afghanistan or, for that matter, after the Pentagon and the CIA invaded and occupied the country in 2001. The people of Ukraine are as much pawns in the evil machinations of the U.S. national-security establishment as the people of Afghanistan.

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British Government Laundered Fake U.S. ‘Intelligence’ On Ukraine

Posted by M. C. on February 8, 2022

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/01/british-government-laundered-fake-us-intelligence-on-ukraine.html

Washington Post via MSN – January 23 2022

U.K. accuses Russia of scheming to install a pro-Kremlin government in Ukraine
by Paul Sonne, John Hudson, Shane Harris

The British government on Saturday accused Russia of organizing a plot to install a pro-Moscow government in Ukraine, as the Kremlin masses troops and materiel near the Ukrainian border in what Western officials fear is an impending military assault on the neighboring nation.

The U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office gave relatively little information about the intelligence unveiled Saturday other than to say that the Russian government was considering trying to make a Russia-leaning former member of Ukraine’s parliament, Yevhen Murayev, the country’s new leader.

“The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement, calling on Russia to de-escalate and pursue a path of diplomacy.

“As the U.K. and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs,” Truss said.

British authorities also said they had information showing how Russia’s intelligence services maintain links with numerous former Ukrainian politicians. Some of those former Ukrainian politicians are in contact with Russian intelligence officers planning the attack on Ukraine, the British government said.

Washington Post via MSN – January 29 2022

U.S. and allies debate the intelligence on how quickly Putin will order an invasion of Ukraine — or whether he will at all
by Shane Harris, John Hudson, Ellen Nakashima

Last week, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss publicly accused Russia of organizing a plot to install a pro-Moscow government led by a former member of Ukraine’s parliament.

The intelligence underlying that revelation, which also linked some former Ukrainian politicians to Russian intelligence officers involved in planning for an attack on Ukraine, was collected and declassified by the United States, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The Biden administration asked the British government, which vetted the intelligence and was confident in its accuracy, to publicly expose the Russian plotting, the people said.

U.S. intelligence has assessed that Putin has underestimated how costly an invasion could be in Russian lives lost and in the devastating effects of sanctions on Russia’s economy, according to officials familiar with the information.

Intelligence analysts also have concluded that Putin is being misinformed by his own circle of advisers, who appear unwilling to confront him with the full consequences of military action.

Not only came the fake ‘intelligence’ from the U.S. instead of the UK, it was also totally sucked from a thumb. As is the alleged ‘intelligence assessment’ about a misinformed Putin.

If you want to know how an ‘invasion’ of Ukraine by Russia would look like read

Ukraine and Russian escalation dominance: A Fiction

at the Saker’s site. Yes, it is a fiction. The ‘rules of targeting’ by Russia would realistically be less harsh than NATO’s. But the time frame of a some five days long war, mostly by stand-off missiles, seems quite realistic to me.

Oh, by the way, for me as a German the best paragraph in the later WaPo piece is this one:

For its part, Germany also remains skeptical of an imminent Russian invasion. At this stage, Berlin sees no indication that Russia will move into Ukraine immediately, a senior German official said. Evidence that Moscow plans to act quickly may exist, but if the United States possesses it, it hasn’t shared it with the Germans, the official added.

U.S. ‘intelligence’. 

What a joke.

Posted by b on January 30, 2022

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What Putin Wants

Posted by M. C. on February 7, 2022

The answer is “Yes”, it does. In fact, Russia has become the biggest obstacle to Washington’s ambitious plan to project power across Central Asia in order to capitalize off the region’s explosive growth. Putin has foiled that strategy by strengthening the Russian economy and rebuilding the nations defenses. Keep in mind, the globalist plan for Russia was to create a fragmented, federalized system that opened its vast resources to foreign exploitation while weakening the center of political power in Moscow. Here’s how foreign policy expert Zbigniew Brzezinski summed it up in an article titled “A Geostrategy for Eurasia”:

By Mike Whitney
The Unz Review

“I’m convinced that we have reached the decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security. And we must proceed by searching for a reasonable balance between the interests of all participants in the international dialogue.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, Munich Security Conference, 2007

How much do you know about the crisis in Ukraine? See if you can answer these 7 questions.

Question 1– Does the Biden administration’s push to bring Ukraine into NATO violate agreements the US has signed previously?

1–Yes

2–No

The answer is “Yes”. In Istanbul (1999) and in Astana (2010), the US and the other 56 countries in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) signed documents “that contained interrelated principles to ensure the indivisibility of security.”

What does that mean?

It means that parties to the agreement must refrain from any action that could affect the security interests of the other members. It means that parties cannot put military bases and missile sites in locations that pose a threat to other members. It means that parties must refrain from using their respective territories to carry out or assist armed aggression against other members. It means that parties are prohibited from acting in a manner that runs counter to the principles laid out in the treaty. It means that Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO if its membership poses a threat to Russian security.

Is any of this hard to understand?

No, it is perfectly clear.

So, when NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg claims that “every nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements”, he is being deliberately misleading. Stoltenberg knows that both NATO and the United States agreed that they “would NOT strengthen their own security at the expense of the security of others.” He also knows that NATO and the US are legally obligated to act in accordance with the agreements they signed in the past.

Naturally, Russia is challenging Washington on this matter. Here’s what Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a press conference last week:

“Today, we are sending an official request to our colleagues in the countries of the Alliance and the OSCE via the Foreign Ministry with a pressing request to explain how they intend to fulfill the commitment not to strengthen their security at the expense of security of the others… This will really undermine relations with the Russian Federation as it will be a gross violation of obligations taken by the presidents of the US and other member states of the alliance.”

And here’s a similar quote from Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov on Tuesday:

“The United States concentrates on the right of states to choose alliances, enshrined in the declarations of the Istanbul (1999) and Astana (2010) OSCE Summits. At the same time, it ignores the fact that these particular documents condition this right on the obligation not to strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others. The main problem is that NATO countries are strengthening their security by weakening Russia. We do not agree with such an approach.” (Tass)

Bottom line: The US and NATO are shrugging off their obligations to achieve their geopolitical objectives. Not surprisingly,
no one in the western media has reported on this issue even though there is incontrovertible evidence supporting the Russian position.

Question 2– The Biden administration has been pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to exaggerate the likelihood of a Russian invasion in order to fuel public hysteria and intensify Russia hatred?

1– True

2– False

This is “True”. On Thursday, senior Ukrainian officials told CNN that a call between Zelensky and Biden “did not go well.” They said Biden claimed “that a Russian attack may be imminent, saying that an invasion was now virtually certain.” Zelensky, however refuted the claim saying that the threat from Russia remains ‘dangerous but ambiguous,’ and “it is not certain that an attack will take place.”

“Do we have tanks on the streets?” Zelensky asked. “No. When you read media, you get the image that we have troops in the city, people fleeing … That’s not the case.”

The Ukrainian president also urged Biden to “calm down the messaging…. We do not see an escalation greater than” last year. He later added that “he was taking the danger in stride.”

Zelensky’s attempts to downplay the hyperbolic reports in the media, confirm that the current “crisis atmosphere” is largely an invention of the western media. In this way, the coverage is very similar to the fabricated “Russiagate” hoax.

Question 3– Ukraine has been in a state of crisis since the US-backed coup in 2014. Have the warring parties settled on a way to end the conflict?

1– Yes

2– No

The answer is “Yes”, they have. The Minsk Agreement was signed in February, 2015. Regrettably, the Ukrainian government has made no attempt to comply with the treaty’s terms.

“The signing was preceded by the summit of leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany who agreed to a package of measures to alleviate the war in the Donbas.” In other words, everyone agreed that these measures would end the fighting and bring the conflict to a close.

Both sides agreed to a ceasefire, a withdraw of troops and military equipment from the war-zone, and to recognize the de-facto autonomy (aka- “special status”) of the Donbass region. This would be followed by general disarmament and a reestablishing of Ukrainian control over its Russian border.

Over the years, Putin has called repeatedly for Minsk to be fully implemented, but Kiev has stubbornly refused. Even though the Ukrainian government has signed the agreement, they are determined to intensify hostilities and prolong the war.

On Wednesday, February 2, Ukrainian authorities once again demonstrated their opposition to the agreed settlement. According to reports in the Russian media:

“Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba …ruled out providing special status and veto power to Donbass…

“No Ukrainian region will have a right power for national state decisions. This is set in stone! There will be no special status, as Russia imagines it, no voting power,” he said.” (Tass News Service)

Keep in mind, there is no Minsk Agreement without the “special status” provision which amounts to de facto autonomy conferred on the Russian-speaking people of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Special status is the glue that holds the agreement together as it assures the people of those provinces that they won’t be arbitrarily and viciously persecuted by hostile elements in the government. So, when the Foreign Minister rules out special status, he is, in effect, removing the cornerstone upon which the entire treaty rests.

Was the Ukranian FM’s statement crafted by officials in the US State Department?

Probably. After all, a unified, prosperous Ukraine at peace with its neighbors does not jibe with Washington’s imperial ambitions. What the Biden​ administration wants is a splintered, bankrupt failed state riven by ethnic animosities that can be easily manipulated by political outsiders who see Ukraine as an essential part of their geopolitical strategy.

Washington does not seek an end to the hostilities. Washington wants to perpetuate the status quo.

Question 4– Did Putin expect the US and NATO to seriously address Russia’s security concerns?

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A war with Russia would be unlike anything the US and NATO have ever experienced — RT Op-ed

Posted by M. C. on February 6, 2022

This is what a war with Russia would look like. It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/548322-war-russia-us-nato/

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. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.

“Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today,” he noted. “Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict.”

Putin continued, “Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not.”

But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox “screaming from the top of the hen house that he’s scared of the chickens,” adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine “should not be reported as a statement of fact.”

Psaki’s comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the “de-occupation” of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy – “[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula,” Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a “military adversary”, and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine’s membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO’s Article 5 – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the ‘umbrella’ of NATO protection, with ‘battlegroups’ like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a ‘trip-wire’ force, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to “kill Russians.”

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

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Where Is Congress on Ukraine’s Membership in NATO? – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on February 4, 2022

What amazes me is that American parents of children who are 17 years of age to 24 years of age are so blasé about all this.

In any event, I wouldn’t bother with sending a letter to President Biden or your congressman to express your opposition to NATO’s absorption of Ukraine. You would only be wasting your time. You would be better off sending your letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff

https://www.fff.org/2022/02/02/where-is-congress-on-ukraines-membership-in-nato/

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Given all those pious pro-democracy pronouncements by U.S. officials, I’d like to ask what might be considered a discomforting question: Where is the U.S. Congress when it comes to deciding whether Ukraine becomes a member of NATO?

The answer to that question might be even more discomforting than the question itself: In a country that purports to be a representative democracy, Congress has no role in making that decision.

And yet, the issue of whether Ukraine joins NATO necessarily involves the lives of American citizens. That’s because if someone attacks Ukraine after it becomes a NATO member, the U.S. government is is duty-bound to enter the war on behalf of Ukraine. That means that as soon as Ukraine joins NATO, the lives of American soldiers are automatically pledged to Ukraine’s defense.

Given that Ukraine’s membership automatically embroils the United States in such a war, why doesn’t the U.S. Congress have a role in determining whether Ukraine becomes a NATO member or not? Shouldn’t the elected representatives of the people be involved in any decision that involves war?

Indeed, where does the declaration-of-war requirement provided in the Constitution fit into all this? Our ancestors called into existence a system in which the United States could not go to war without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Yet, obviously someone has figured out a clever way to avoid that constitutional requirement. As a practical matter, the NATO system trumps that constitutional protection. As soon as Ukraine is attacked, the United States is automatically at war, declaration of war or not.

What amazes me is that American parents of children who are 17 years of age to 24 years of age are so blasé about all this. Wouldn’t you think that they would be organizing protests against Ukraine membership, given that it is the lives of their children that are being pledged for the defense of Ukraine? From what I read, most people can’t identify Ukraine’s location on a map. I’m willing to bet that most Americans also don’t personally know any Ukrainians. 

Let’s say, for example, that Ukraine joins NATO and then Russia invades Ukraine. The United States is now duty-bound to wage war against Russia. In the event of such a war, it is a certainty that the Pentagon will issue an order for conscription, this time for both young men and young women. Those young people will be ordered to report to a military facility and trained to fight, kill, and die. Such a war would necessarily entail lots of casualties. 

How can the parents of children in that draft age group be so blasé about the situation? Do they really place a higher value on Ukraine than they do the lives of their own children? That’s hard to believe. And yet, where are the organized protests against admitting Ukraine into NATO?

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the same principle applies to all the other nations in NATO, including the former Warsaw Pact countries. By absorbing them into NATO, the lives of young American citizens have been pledged to come automatically to their defense in the event they are attacked, without any congressional participation in the matter. 

So, if it’s not Congress is who making the decision on when the country goes to war, who is making that decision? Once again, the answer is discomforting. My hunch is that many Americans don’t want to hear it. The answer is the Pentagon. The generals are the ones running the federal government, at least when it comes to foreign affairs. 

The scheme works like this: Ostensibly, NATO bureaucrats from the existing member nations decide who will become a new NATO member. As a practical matter, however, it is the Pentagon calling the shots, given that U.S. officials provide the lion’s share of the money to fund this Cold War dinosaur. Thus, if the Pentagon decides that it wants to admit a new member into NATO, such as Ukraine, all the other NATO bureaucrats immediately fall into line and support the decision. 

One of the most insightful books that has been written in the recent years is National Security and Double Government by Michael Glennon. Any American who isn’t afraid to confront reality about what is going on in America owes it to himself to read this book. Glennon’s thesis is a discomforting one. He says that it is the national-security segment of the government — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — that is actually running the government and that the other parts of the government are simply serving in support. Glennon is a professor of law at Tufts University and has served as counsel to various congressional committees. 

An ominous aspect to all this is that in the 1950s and 1960s, when the president, the Congress, and the judiciary were still in charge of the federal government, there was nothing the Pentagon and the CIA wanted more than a war with Russia. One can only wonder whether that Cold War mindset still holds sway today.

In any event, I wouldn’t bother with sending a letter to President Biden or your congressman to express your opposition to NATO’s absorption of Ukraine. You would only be wasting your time. You would be better off sending your letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

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The Blackwater Is in Donbass with the Azov Battalion – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2022

https://www.globalresearch.ca/blackwater-donbass-azov-battalion/5768869

By Manlio Dinucci

he phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Zelensky “did not go well”, CNN headlines: while “Biden warned that a Russian invasion is practically certain in February, when the frozen ground makes it possible for tanks to pass through”, Zelensky “asked Biden to lower his tone, arguing that the Russian threat is still ambiguous”. As the Ukrainian president himself takes a more cautious stance, Ukrainian armed forces are massing in the Donbass near the area of Donetsk and Lugansk inhabited by Russian populations.

According to reports from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, obscured by our mainstream which only talks about the Russian deployment, Ukrainian Army and National Guard units, amounting to about 150 thousand men, are positioned here. They are armed and trained, and thus effectively commanded, by US-NATO military advisers and instructors.

From 1991 to 2014, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the U.S. provided Ukraine with $4 billion in military assistance, which was added to by over $2.5 billion after 2014, plus over a billion provided by the NATO Trust Fund in which Italy also participates. This is only part of the military investments made by the major NATO powers in Ukraine. Great Britain, for example, concluded various military agreements with Kiev, investing among other things 1.7 billion pounds in the strengthening of Ukraine’s naval capabilities: this program provides for the arming of Ukrainian ships with British missiles, the joint production of 8 fast missile launchers, the construction of naval bases on the Black Sea and also on the Sea of Azov between Ukraine, Crimea and Russia. In this framework, Ukrainian military spending, which in 2014 was equivalent to 3% of GDP, increased to 6% in 2022, corresponding to more than $ 11 billion.

In addition to the US-NATO military investments in Ukraine, there is the $10 billion plan being implemented by Erik Prince, founder of the private US military company Blackwater, now renamed Academy, which has been supplying mercenaries to the CIA, Pentagon and State Department for covert operations (including torture and assassinations), earning billions of dollars. Erik Prince’s plan, revealed by a Time magazine investigation, is to create a private army in Ukraine through a partnership between the Lancaster 6 company, with which Prince has supplied mercenaries in the Middle East and Africa, and the main Ukrainian intelligence office controlled by the CIA. It is not known, of course, what would be the tasks of the private army created in Ukraine by the founder of Blackwater, certainly with funding from the CIA. However, it can be expected that it would conduct covert operations in Europe, Russia and other regions from its base in Ukraine.

Against this background, it is particularly alarming that the Russian Defense Minister Shoigu denounced that in the Donetsk region there are “private US military companies that are preparing a provocation with the use of unknown chemicals”. It could be the spark that causes the detonation of a war in the heart of Europe: a chemical attack against Ukrainian civilians in Donbass, immediately attributed to the Russians of Donetsk and Lugansk, which would be attacked by the preponderant Ukrainian forces already deployed in the region, to force Russia to intervene militarily in their defense.

In the front line, ready to slaughter the Russians in the Donbass, is the Azov battalion, promoted to a special forces regiment, trained and armed by the US and NATO, distinguished for its ferocity in attacks on the Russian populations of Ukraine. The Azov, which recruits neo-Nazis from all over Europe under its flag traced from that of SS Das Reich, is commanded by its founder Andrey Biletsky, promoted to colonel. It is not only a military unit, but an ideological and political movement, of which Biletsky is the charismatic leader, especially for the youth organization that is educated to hate the Russians with his book “The Words of the White Führer”.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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What I Would Have Said to Newsy

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2022

Dear Friends:

I got cancelled.

It’s not for anything I said, but for what I might have said. I might have told the truth about the Biden Administration’s insane push to war over Ukraine to an American audience steeped in mainstream media gaslighting. I might have mentioned that there is zero US national interest in who governs Ukraine. This crook or that one…who cares?

Let me back up a bit. Earlier today I got a message from the gentleman who helps us out with media bookings. A nationwide news outlet is looking for someone to do six minutes live on Russian President Putin’s remarks about the US response to a Russian security proposal, he wrote. Was I interested?

Washington and its obedient lapdog press have been pushing war with Russia over Ukraine for weeks and I thought I might be able to provide just a couple of gentle counter-points to the narrative. While Newsy, the requester, is not a network I was familiar with, it is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, which is a billion dollar media organization. So I said “yes.”

The hit time was coming up. I set up the camera and the lighting and changed out of my gym clothes. And waited.

And waited.

At the last minute a call came in from our PR guy. He sounded a bit apologetic. “Well, here’s the thing, they said they don’t want anything ‘political’ so they are cancelling the segment.”

“Are they cancelling the story, or just cancelling me as a guest?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “all the news outlets are being really weird right now about the Russia thing and they don’t seem interested in a ‘pro-freedom’ message.”

Shocker! (Not).

That exchange was a fascinating bit of insight into how the media manipulates the message rather than provides information for the consumer. They don’t tell you what’s going on: they tell you what to think about what is going on.

So somewhere in that approximately ten minutes between my accepting the media request and the cancellation some alarm bells must have gone off somewhere. “We CAN’T have anyone like THAT on our network! They’re the WRONG type of people!”

So Americans will never hear anyone tell them that the “massing Russian troops” are actually inside of Russia’s borders. And that the real “massing” is US and UK governments sending massive weapons shipments to Ukraine. Another half-billion dollars in weapons – including missiles – was approved by the US government, and US and UK military are on the ground helping train Ukrainians how best to use those weapons to kill Russians.

No one will ever tell their viewers that it is absurdly unlikely that the Russian military will launch an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine because it would make absolutely no sense. One does not need be a Putin apologist to recognize that Russian foreign policy is far more conservative than the endless interventionism that characterizes US foreign policy.

When a (likely US-backed) coup was launched in strategically critical Kazakhstan last month, Putin responded to a request for military assistance from its CSTO ally and sent peacekeepers. They were gone within a week. Compare that to the 20 year US occupation of Afghanistan and the near-20 year US military presence in Iraq. And let’s not talk about the continued illegal US military presence on sovereign Syrian territory.

We’ve got at least 750 military bases overseas…how many do the Russians have?

Biden last Friday told Ukrainian President Zelensky to “take cover” because the Russians were about to “sack Kiev” any minute. No one even asked: what would they do with it once they owned it? Who wants Kiev? Even Zelensky had to tell Biden to take his meds. Of course it was a bogus tip. Nothing happened.

No Newsy viewer will hear anyone draw this analogy: What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if an extremely hostile Mexico, which not long ago had an anti-US regime in power and armed to the hilt by China, hosted Chinese troops training Mexicans how to re-take California and Texas? Washington wouldn’t move a couple of troops around inside the US?

And if they did, would it be “aggression”?

No one will hear anyone pointing out that the Biden Administration – with plenty of hawkish Republicans in tow – is pursuing a policy that is in no way in America’s national interest, that in no way makes any sense, and that could very well backfire and get millions of people killed for nothing. No one will hear anyone tell them the truth: there are few things that matter less to the US and its security than who governs Ukraine.

“Ah,” I told our PR person, “I see how it is. It’s just like the run-up to war with Iraq, when the media didn’t want to have anyone on air saying that Saddam didn’t have WMDs and that attacking Iraq would be a foolish disaster.”

“Yep,” he said.

That way they can all in unison assure us when it all goes to hell that “nobody could have guessed it would turn out that way!”

This is the US media in a nutshell.

As an ironic postscript, no sooner had I pressed my shirt and prepped for my aborted Newsy appearance than I got a call from RT in Moscow eager to hear my take on the exact topic originally requested by Newsy. I would have told both outlets the same thing, but here in “free press” USA they didn’t want Americans to hear it.

Approved positions only. Freedom!
Sincerely yours,

Daniel McAdams
Executive Director
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

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NATO —Strategic Asset or Liability? – LewRockwell LewRockwell.com

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2022

Perhaps, instead of adding new nations on whose behalf we will go to war with a great power like Russia, we consider reducing the roster of NATO and restricting the number of nations for whom we must fight to those nations that are vital to our security and bring added strength to the alliance.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/02/patrick-j-buchanan/nato-strategic-asset-or-liability/

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Is the territorial integrity of Ukraine a cause worth America’s fighting a war with Russia?

No, it is not. And this is why President Joe Biden has declared that the U.S. will not become militarily involved should Russia invade Ukraine.

Biden is saying that, no matter our sentiments, our vital interests dictate staying out of a Russia-Ukraine war.

But why then does Secretary of State Antony Blinken continue to insist there is an “open door” for Ukraine to NATO membership — when that would require us to do what U.S. vital interests dictate we not do: fight a war with Russia for Ukraine?

NATO’s “open door policy” is based on Article 10, which declares that NATO members, “may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State … to accede to this Treaty.”

Moreover, membership is open to “any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Note that NATO admission requires “unanimous” consent of all 30 present members.

Blinken has often stated this as U.S. policy: “From our prospective, NATO’s door is open and remains open, and that is our commitment.”

What Blinken is saying is this: While America will not fight for Ukraine today, America remains open to Ukraine’s accession to NATO, in which event we would have to fight for Ukraine tomorrow, were it attacked by Russia.

What the U.S. needs to do is to say with clarity that while Ukraine is free to apply to NATO, NATO is free to veto that application, and the enlargement of NATO beyond its present eastern frontiers is over, done.

In this crisis, we need to recall how and why NATO was created.

In 1949, the year China fell to Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin exploded an atom bomb, we formed NATO as a defensive alliance to prevent a Russian drive west, from the Elbe to the Rhine to the Channel.

Of the original 12 members of NATO, the U.S. and Canada were on the western side of the Atlantic. Iceland and the U.K. were islands in the Atlantic. France and Portugal were on the Atlantic’s eastern shore.

Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg were astride the avenue of attack the Red Army would have to take to reach the Channel.

Norway was the lone original NATO nation that shared a border with the USSR itself. Italy was the 12th member.

Clearly, this was a defensive alliance to prevent a Soviet invasion of Western Europe such as Hitler had executed in the spring of 1940, when Nazi Germany overran Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France, and threw the British off the continent at Dunkirk.

Nations that joined NATO during the Cold War were Greece and Turkey in 1952, Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982.

But, with the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the overthrow of Soviet Communism, and the breakup of the USSR into 15 nations by 1991, NATO, its goal — the defense of Central and Western Europe — achieved, its job done, did not go out of business.

Instead, NATO added 14 new members and moved almost 1,000 miles east, into Russia’s front yard and then onto Russia’s front porch.

The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined in 1999. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became NATO nations in 2004. Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020.

Understandably, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked himself: To what end, and for what beneficent purpose, was this doubling in size of an alliance that was formed to contain us, and, if necessary, fight a war against Mother Russia?

Alliances, which involve war guarantees, commitments to fight in defense of the allied nations, invariably carry costs and risks as well as rewards and benefits in terms of strengthened security.

But when we brought Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into NATO, what benefits in added strength did we receive to justify the provocation this would be to Russia, and the risk it might entail if Moscow objected and, one fine day, walked back into these Baltic states?

If we will not fight for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the second largest nation in Europe with a population of over 40 million people, why would we go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia over Estonia, a tiny and almost indefensible nation with a population of 1.3 million?

Besides Ukraine, two nations have been considering membership in NATO: Finland and Georgia. Accession of either would put NATO on yet another border of Russia, with the usual U.S. bases and forces.

While this would enrage Russia, how would it make us stronger?

Perhaps, instead of adding new nations on whose behalf we will go to war with a great power like Russia, we consider reducing the roster of NATO and restricting the number of nations for whom we must fight to those nations that are vital to our security and bring added strength to the alliance.

Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever See his website.

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Washington Thinks US Borders End At Neptune: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on January 30, 2022

If the narrative you just repeated is the same as what the TV and the US State Department are saying, and you haven’t researched opposing perspectives on that narrative, you haven’t done any actual research at all. You’re just a mindless automaton acting out your programming.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/01/28/washington-thinks-us-borders-end-at-neptune-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

author: Caitlin Johnstone

Yep. Just hanging around, killing time, waiting to find out whether the US is going to start World War 3 now or a little later on.

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Washington: Russia’s gonna invade Ukraine.

Moscow: We’re not gonna invade Ukraine.

Kyiv: Yeah Russia’s not gonna invade Ukraine.

Washington: Russia’s definitely about to invade Ukraine.

Entirety of western media: RUSSIA 100% CERTAIN TO INVADE UKRAINE ANY SECOND NOW

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Both Moscow and Kyiv agree that there wil be no unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. Washington keeps insisting that if there’s a war Russia will be the aggressor, but in reality all that has to happen for there not to be a Ukraine war is for US/NATO powers not to start one.

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It’s actually a bit enraging to see western elites kicking around people’s emotions and personal psychology like a motherfucking hacky sack with bullshit propaganda all the time just to make money for the military-industrial complex and advance some dopey geostrategic agendas in Eurasia.

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Biden says “everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard.” Jen Psaki says Eastern Europe is “our eastern flank”. The US government firmly believes its territorial borders extend to the outer planets in our solar system.

.@PressSec: “We have a sacred obligation to support the security of our eastern flank countries…It’s important to remember who the aggressor is here…it is Russia who has tens of thousands of troops on the border of Ukraine. They have the power to deescalate.” pic.twitter.com/Rtzy0RJ8h3

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 24, 2022

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NATO is bad, actually.

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The US government is the most evil and destructive regime on this planet and you should want its leadership to be ineffectual and its agendas to fail.

I’ve never encountered anyone who can refute my claim that the US is quantifiably the most evil and destructive government in today’s world. They try, but they generally weren’t even aware of the facts that I use to make my case until I show them to them. This says so much about the power of US propaganda.

Hardly any westerners are aware that the US government has spent the 21st century slaughtering millions in wars of aggression, or that it’s circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and working to destroy any nation which disobeys its dictates. This stuff should be the first thing anyone learns when they’re beginning to research international conflicts and global power dynamics. Instead it’s like this obscure esoteric secret that’s hidden from them while they’re fed an IV drip of propaganda about Russia and China.

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If you’re a leftwardly-inclined politically active person in the western world, you will eventually discover that many of the figures you were initially drawn to are terrible on imperialism and militarism. How you respond to this discovery says a lot about your character.

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Whenever someone regurgitates a western propaganda narrative, ask them what articles they’ve read disputing that narrative. If they say “none” (or more commonly “What articles dispute this??”, which means the same thing), they’ve admitted to having no idea what they’re talking about. And at that point they’ve already lost the argument, because they just admitted they’ve done no real research into whether or not their claim is actually true. They just told you they’re blindly regurgitating television narratives without bothering to check if they’re factual.

If the narrative you just repeated is the same as what the TV and the US State Department are saying, and you haven’t researched opposing perspectives on that narrative, you haven’t done any actual research at all. You’re just a mindless automaton acting out your programming.

After this has been established, you can go ahead and say they’re done. If they keep going I sometimes say “If I had just admitted to doing zero meaningful research into whether or not the claim I just made is true, I personally would shut the fuck up about it.”

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The old model of slavery came with bad PR and you had to feed and house your slaves. The new model of slavery has great PR, you don’t even have to pay them enough to house themselves, plus it’s easy to profit from the way the slaves are always forced into debt with interest.

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