Putin didn't lock me at home for months on end and try and get me fired for not taking a needle in my arm. Putin never called me racist. Putin never tried to push groomer propaganda in the schools. Putin didn't turn the food supply into a chemical warfare vector.
My mother spent her last years in a "retirement community". She was a member of a book review club. One week, they were asked to select the one living person they would like to have lunch with. Her selection? Vladimir Putin. "Why would you want to have lunch with that monster?" A: "I would like to hear the other side of the story."
One of the many pernicious aspects of life is that history is written by the winners.
Anti-Putinism is a requirement to work in the media-gov’t-educational complex. In the past 20 years, any of the Putin-is-an-evil-killer narratives that I’ve followed up always turns out to be speculative slander or outright bullshit. We are ruled by evil people.
Fun fact ~ Russia bans gmo crops.. most of NATO plants Monsanto-Gates patent protected, chemically intensive abominations and energy waste aftermarket cash cow.
From 1997 to 2011 my primary focus was tracking the politics, legislation, science and spin surrounding gmo crops. Central to that is Monsanto - Rockefeller - Gates cabal. New York Times has been the biggest pusher of Monsanto shills on its OpEd pages twice yearly I. Henry Miller the poster boy for Biotech propaganda.
"Henry Miller Dropped by Forbes for Monsanto Ghostwriting Scandal"
Best sources for full history & true grass roots are GMWatch - Organic Consumers and its partner leading Court & FOIA wars - US Right to Know USRTK launched w 2014 Oregon Prop 38 gmo labeling campaign. Similar time GMOFreeUSA began... full disclosure dear old friend founder Diana Reeves led boycott of Kellogg's and endless effective campaigns... some of the best graphics and nicely done education in pure foods movement.
How sweet thank you! Not an angel by a long shot but enough time trying to share truth to keep me from any dark side eternity may hold. Pretty sure record longevity isn't on my list beyond what's typical for women in our big Irish clan. Specifically I'd love to go like Aunt Kitty who was an epic baker with insatiable sweet tooth. She was warned by doctors from age 50 that her sweetfilled lifestyle would kill her with a heart attack. So it did on the porch swing with half eaten pecan pie on her lap at age 97. :~)
To be honest Putin did similar atrocities to the Russians. Vaxx mandates, lockdowns etc. Both sides are creepy. The real frontline runs between the ruling 'elite' and the huge majority of we, the people.
We need to starve the elite out. Opt out from the parts of the economy they exert control onto. I know it's very hard. - we became very dependent however I am not aware of alternative paths to counter them.
In Russia we have a saying: the severity of Russian law is mitigated by the lack of the need to enforce it. In northwestern Russia, where I live, the lockdown lasted 43 days. In reality, after a week, people were living as usual. And one could buy a certificate of vaccination for about fifty bucks. That's what I and a lot of my friends did.
No, they didn’t but it’s because we (Russians) are non-compliant. The lockdowns, vax passports etc were stopped so that the authorities don’t look foolish with no one following their rules. As a Russian in a Silicon Valley I have the “best” of both worlds. And with kids attending the German School I just have it all… 😂
No can do. Need an alternative elite to emerge first. Then install them instead. Still a crap shoot - they might be no better or even worse than the current one.
I'm inclined to forgive him that. When your enemy is busy making a catastrophic propaganda mistake such as "we're extremely racist and therefore bad and illegitimate", there's no reason not to agree with them.
The parallels between Canada and the United States is bizarre. The Liberals here talk EXACTLY like the Democrats in the USA. And both are indeed hostile to the people while claiming to be on their side. NOTHING can be further from the truth. My God, there isn't a group the ideologues in the Democrat and Liberal parties aren't ready to demonize and dehumanize in the name of their agenda. They attacked truckers, the unvaccinated, people who challenged the Covid lies and narratives, and parents who question critical race theory in education to name a few. Now it's ok to 'protest' at the homes of Supreme Court Justices'. But protest lockdowns and they want to send the FBI or RCMP to your house. And what the heck is an 'ultra-MAGA'?
And they continue to espouse policies that directly hurt minorities. Be it abortion without limits, decisions that exacerbate inflation, climate change taxes, restrictions and lockdowns, you name it, the unhinged quacks and radicals pushed it. Not a week doesn't go by Justin that little trouble-making delinquent isn't out dividing people.
US is fighting this war to the last Ukrainian and to the last US taxpayer dime (for the enrichment of the warmonger class and satisfaction of the 'intelligence community')
Trump represented an interruption of the U.S. alignment with the WEF/NWO. That is why they spent 4 years trying so hard to destroy him. When that didn't work they had to 'steal' the 2020 election. Everything including C19 was designed to destroy Western democracies and to unleash the great reset. The real battle for freedom lies in the complete defeat of these neoliberal fascists now in control.
Similar to lockdowns, Russian sanctions are another oligarchic attack on the working class. Whether their propaganda claims we are at war with covid or Russia, the victims of their disastrous policies is not a freak coincidence.
Agreed...from cutting off construction of a pipeline, to stopping southern border wall construction, to vax mandates, the USG is indeed warring against its citizens.
Recent Babylon Bee has a picture of a toddler dressed as camouflage combat soldier standing beside nearly empty shelves of baby formula.. caption reads American babies impersonating Ukraine soldiers in hopes of getting $40 million in aid.
while I don't doubt that this could happen, the above article's only source for the claim is that one tweet containing a tightly-cropped photo with no other context. shared by a politician.
anyone have any other sources? I'm in the mood to go down a rabbit hole.
Especially in this era of easy content creation it's verifiable source or gtfo w hearsay for me.. always open to possibilities.. truth is often stranger than fiction but unverified, meh.
No. She has indicated that there has been a virtual industry for years teaching mexicans how to use babies to get into the US. Babies are a golden ticket. So many are now being used to get people in (with the wicked democrat insurrectionists helping), they need the formula to keep the babies alive. They will take babies in with one person, then the baby is taken back and resold to the next.
I fully believe a substantial portion of those billions will return to the US as campaign donations and similar. That's effectively the purpose of all foreign aid they shove through in peace times, so why would this be any different?
I wonder if billions are going toward mercenary operations. Similar to Fauci denying gain of function while fudning gain of function. The US is not at war with Russia, we are just funding and equipping mercenaries to fight Russia that just happen to be American. Would not be surprising.
A substantial portion of the $40 billion will be going directly into the accounts of Kolomoisky and his client Zelensky, Tymoshenko, et al., ad nauseam.
The military industrial complex has an even tighter grip on the ruling class than big pharma. With big pharma, republicans offer an option to vote our way out of covidian insanity. With our war in Ukraine, DC does not even pretend voters have a choice.
Yeah Big Pharma had it's chance to go after the public purse with the vaccines now it's military industrial's turn. All this "aid" being sent is just going to be turned around and used to buy Western made armaments.
We might not have the power to stop it, but it is well within everyone's power to refuse to support it. Insofar as the drooling class' power is derived from the perceived consent of the governed (or rather, managed), withdrawal of that support and vocal expressions of contempt and disdain will at the very least make the clowns' jobs much more difficult.
When it becomes clear that Russia is not only not losing the war, but that the demoralized and deindustrialized West cannot defeat Russia either via a proxy or in a direct confrontation, that's when the real fun begins.
Imagine a drunk who picks a fight at the bar and gets stomped. Clearly, he can't beat the guy at the bar. So what does he do?
He goes home and beats his wife and kids.
To be clear: in this analogy, we're the wife and kids.
I see so many speak of what the US is doing as ‘keeping our troops from going over there’ but isn’t what we’re doing antagonizing so that eventually, our troops will end up there anyways? I can see the politicians now: “well we tried keeping our citizens out of it. Oh well, go over there to die for nothing because we say so.”
I don't see that working out very well for them. On the one hand, the Pentagon is having a recruiting problem, which is remarkable given the state of the economy. There seem to be multiple causes: the abysmal physical health of the American population puts limits on the total size of the recruiting pool; while amongst those who can pass the minimal physical standards, there's a lot more reluctance to serve after several years of racial abuse by the US ruling class, to say nothing of the military vaccine mandates, and the hit American military prestige took in Afghanistan.
Of course there's always the draft, but forcing large numbers of young men into uniform who are already predisposed to hate you is not, as a general principle, a good way to form an effective fighting force.
I'm legitimately concerned in another direction: I see the remaining population that IS willing to sign up being actively indoctrinated to view the public as "threats to the Constitution, domestic" and to reply to dissent as insurrection (the DNC's new favorite word).
Or, he goes home, gets his gun and rounds a few mates, and gets back to the bar, finds the guy(s) what stomped him and shoots them.
Might not even need a gun, just wait outside off the corner, behing the wheel of a car and then run the ones what stomped him over.
I'm not so sure Russia is losing, despite casualties. Look at the Winter War: the finns killed soviet troops at a 20:1 ratio, and Finland still had to sue for peace. And guess who's going to have to foot the bill to rebuild Ukraine? Won't Russia, will be the EU, and Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations of Europe, so you can guess how well that'll go. Just look at the billions of euros Italy has received to shore up Venice these ten years or so. Have they even started doing any actual work at all?
It is fully possible to win wars by losing battles. It's equally possible to lose wars by winning battles - ask Pyrrhus.
In that analogy I'm the family dog that runs out the back door and lives a scrappy but adventuresome life on the streets teamed up with a pitbull and a beagle that knows how to open Dumpsters.
Tales From the Great Reset: Inside a Ukraine Propaganda Brainstorming Session
- Ukrainian propaganda needs a Great Reset. I secretly sat in on a Ukrainian propaganda brainstorming session with Goebbelsky's new team as they try to come up with new ideas for starting World War III!
We have a generation of ‘leaders’ and populations who have never gone through or fought in a war (or lived in the aftermath) that threatened their Country/way of life. Our recent wars have been faraway TV/Video wars.
So cheering on ‘plucky’ Ukraine and hissing and booing Putin like a cartoon villain as if it’s a TV reality show is such fun… and infantile.
But most seriously, we have a generation of politicians in governments who simply do not/cannot consider cost and consequences of any of their actions beyond the immediate 24 hour news cycle. And worse. I am entirely convinced they just do not care about their citizens because moral hazard applies, and anyway they are intellectually and morally corrupt hypocrites.
Here in UK, energy companies are reporting record numbers of customers defaulting on their bill payments, in the US there is a serious shortage of baby formula, but what is top priority? Sending billions (from where, we’re broke?) to Ukraine, climate change and on-line censorship to prevent ‘Disinformation’ like the article above that dares, DARES! question ‘the narrative’ and shine a light on the hypocrisy and dangers.
Well, after the hygiene-themed authoritarianism and fear of contamination by the impure, I suppose invading Russia is the next logical step. "The second time as farce" indeed...
But seriously: at least in the United States, Covid fanatics always had a creepy fondness for (glib) military metaphors and wartime historical examples. There's been a clear segue from Covid hysteria to Russia war fever, even beyond "Current Thing" fashion-chasing . One gets the sense of a prior psychological and emotional impulse simply finding a convenient outlet.
Perhaps if I were smarter, I'd be able to exploit those emotional impulses, but instead I make futile efforts to get people to stop and think things through.
Also worth pointing out is that Russia's 'slow' progress is a necessary adjunct of the care they're taking to minimize civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure.
Now contrast that with the American way of war, which is to bomb everything until you're just making the rubble bounce, then send in the troops to mop up whatever's left.
That's an understandable impulse. Russians and Ukrainians are brother peoples, and there are a lot of direct family ties across that border. No one wants to kill their cousin.
There have been quite a few surrenders (e.g. Mariopol, Snake Island), but it seems the Ukie officer cadre is quite willing to execute draftees for "cowardice". To say nothing of the sociopaths in Azov.
Then there's Bucha, which the lying press tried to pin on Russia but really looks a lot more like Azov engaging in mass retaliation against a civilian population who failed to resist Russian liberation with sufficient enthusiasm.
Sadly it's more or less a civil war in places, especially in East Ukraine. The war then becomes personal - and even more cruel and vicious than war with strangers, -where it's nothing personal.
In a civil war all the years of pent up hatred come to the fore and the consequences even more unpredictable.
It’s true that there is much shared family lineage in Ukraine in general, but the gradient of self-identified pure Ukrainians and of nutjob nationalist political movements and paramilitaries rises sharply the further one moves towards Poland.
Ukraine was never even a country. It was manufactured into a country by forcing together a couple rival provinces. Not unlike the mess we & the UK made of much of the mideast.
-->"but that’s different, Saddam was a brutal dictator..." So the US and regime media simply change the name to insert the new bogeyman. Good guys and bad guys. Lather, rinse, repeat.
In keeping with the 'every war is World War II' theme of the OP, Saddam was of course the worst Hitler that ever Hitlered. Except for Bushitler, who to the left, was definitely worse than Hitler. That is, until Assad became the worst Hitler. Or wait, no, Trump was the Hitlerist of all Hitlers, even worse than the OG Hitler. Oh wait my bad it's Putin whose Hitlering out-Hitlers every previous Hitler's comparatively low-energy Hitlering.
From this we can conclude that the historical trajectory is a time loop ever circling back to WWII, but with this time loop functioning as a sort of particle accelerator or, if you will, a Hitler accelerator, with the goal of reaching the Hiterlularity in which Hitlerishness will exponentially and asymptotically approach perfect identity with the Platonic form of Hitler Ultima.
That's clearly much more logical than the alternative explanation, which is that we are ruled by mawkish gerontocrats whose unimaginative midwit minds are unable to come up with any propaganda more compelling than 'everyone we don't like is Hitler'.
Because Putin saw how we deal with whoever we label as 'dictator' in Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, etc. he'll never let it happen in Russia. So be prepared to deal with NUCLEAR WWIII
Yes and that is why Iran is keen to have nuclear weapons - and genius Biden will facilitate that because he is not a strategic thinker. It will motivate Israel to stop it… again… and who knows where that might lead.
May 12, 2022·edited May 12, 2022Liked by eugyppius
The ones that think Russia is losing insist the goal was to seize all of Ukraine. These people strictly, the Alex Berenson types, are diehard readers of western propaganda. Because that's the only place where that objective was ever stated. In the west. Russia has been extremely clear, precise, and consistent in their stated objectives.
If they capture and hold Donbas, and they almost definitely will, then they have achieved the only objective that Ukraine has not conceded yet. It seems like prolonging the war will cost Kherson+ as well considering it is strategically important for water supply in Crimea, it makes sense. There won't be many internal stressors after. The people won't be fighting a geurilla war for decades after making it "worse than the new Afghanistan" as Berenson claims. Frankly, the idea of Ukraine barely exists in the east, and the idea that Donbas is part of Ukraine barely exists in the central and western parts of the country. Spend enough time in the Ukrainian community and this becomes evidently clear.
It is strange seeing so many skeptics on covid, like Alex Berenson, believe everything coming out of the corporate media when it comes to Ukraine. At this point I believe nothing the media is telling me.
Berenson's Marvel movie framing of Ukraine and Russia to his readers reminds me of Trump still promoting the shots at his rallies. Tone deaf beyond credulity.
Some confusing counter facts. Russia did try to take all of Ukraine in a poorly executed multi-prong attack. Some suggest it was because the effort to settle the Donbas issue was not going well thus an attempt to take over the government. That failed and the accumulated forces were sent into the Donbas thinking the larger force could get the job done. The area has been in dispute since it was settled ~ early 1900's. There still are many with heavy Ukrainian ties and prefer to stay in Ukraine as opposed to be annexed to Russia. While the Ukraine E-W tensions are real, they need to be resolved by Ukrainians since the 1991 agreement. That agreement was reaffirmed in 1994 when Ukraine gave nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange of security promises now being broken.
Few know what the Russian tolerance for death and destruction will allow. The Russians have lost a lot of troops so far along with a lot of equipment. How long this war continues depends on what losses both sides can tolerate. Both nations are now in bad shape as a result and both will require a lot of rebuilding once this ends. I doubt the Donbas can be secured for Russia as long as the Ukrainians are supported by the West in what is becoming a proxy with many more resources in the West. But how do the Russians extract themselves with dignity?
Thinking Russia tried to take Ukraine with 1/10 of their forces mobilized is funny. I guess you are just ignoring all recent Russian military history. And the fact you think they want to extract with dignity tells me you are reading too much western propaganda.
As for the E-W comment... What a novel thing this idea that a country's borders are more important than what is happening in it. I suppose everything the government has done in the last 2 years was fine because we just need to vote better. Weak men make hard times. All I can say to that.
Looking at https://factsanddetails.com/russia/Government_Military_Crime/sub9_5b/entry-5205.html#chapter-6, I don't see material Russian forces at war. Whether they actually have many more troops ready to deploy is questionable. They certainly are using mercenaries a lot which has to be expensive and suggests even lower training standards. I do hope a way can be found for the inevitable withdrawal. They are burning up assets at an astounding rate; it's an open question if they have the ability to meet logistical demands.
Up to Ukraine to resolve internal disputes. A lot of Donbas citizens prefer Ukrainian management and law.
Mercenaries from Chechnya or Syria or the private Wagner Group have been employed by Russia, my comment. Mercenaries fight for money. Those anti-Ukraine Donbas citizens fight for their beliefs but I'm not sure why given nobody really wants to be under Moscow rule. Perhaps they wish a Donbas nation, I can't say but they are too few with limited resources to effectively govern as independent.
When I realized that the powers that be want this war, no matter what we do, and will convince the masses once again that this that they are doing is good, I realized that it’s important to continue to speak out, but not let it get to my soul. This is what it’s like, awake, to once again watch my fellow humans march right into madness.
I have skin in this game, my only son is in Poland with the UK army, so forgive me for speaking my mind here.
Who the he'll do the U.S. Government think they are!?! THEY along with western govts have been a major cause of this by letting Ukraine flirt with NATO for years. What did they expect Putin to do on his border?
Now they send $50 billion to support Ukraine. Money they don't have - either borrowed or newly printed.
Meanwhile, your US currency is SHOT! Your country is BANKRUPT! You can never pay back the $$ TRILLIONS you owe - yet your stupid POWER MAD government still thinks it can rule the whole MF world.
I truly pity the ordinary American citizen who is hostage to this INSANITY - Putin has NUKES! This is NOT a game!
And somehow by brilliant beautiful boy is directly caught up in it!
I absolutely agree. Right now its American treasure financed by the full faith and credit of the (shrinking) American middle class. We feel the effects every day of the irresponsible use of the printing presses. Next, the US War machine will step up the push for American blood. Like you, American parents and grandparents will once again fear for the lives of our young citizenry.
War is BIG business and a great opportunity for the stinking rich to get even richer. As usual it will be the poor soldier boys, who took probably the only chance they had to escape and make something of themselves, who will pay the ultimate price.
Last time I checked no one in your U.S. govt had any of their kids in service... But all those big politico and military high-ups with their fancy big toys will want to use them to justify their existence. I fear they won't be happy until they've finally blown us all to kingdom come!
Maybe the west should have kept the promise made to Russia on NATO containment. But no, we continue to poke and prod the bear on his back porch and then wonder why he is so angry and frustrated. Russia is not our enemy. We should trade with them and create a mutually beneficial relationship. American foreign policy is ridiculous and incredibly short sighted. Bad things are coming soon across the globe. Get rural, get prepared and get serious about it.
The animus towards Russia passeth understanding. The USSR was another matter, especially after its post-WWII expansion. Berlin blockade, Hungary, etc. But, the USSR has been dead for a generation. What is the big problem now? I can see that a certain amount of it has to be a follow on to "Russiagate". But, they got Trump out. Mission Accomplished.
Is it just the MIC drumming up business?
A second world country invades a third world country. On the other side of the world. Happens all the time. Why do we care?
It is a European problem. They are constantly telling us how inept we are. With more than a little justification. Fine--show us how it is done. We will hold your coat.
Yeah I agree. The Soviets disappeared 30 years ago. I've always had a lot of respect for the ex-Warsaw states who resisted both the Nazis and the Bolshevicks but Poland needs to get over itself and tone down the beligerance.
I agree with everything you have written. There has been painfully little introspection among Western commentators over our role in creating this catastrophe, or indeed any real attempt to even understand its antecedents.
But I would nuance the discussion with a key - though obvious - point: Whatever the antecedents, it was Putin and his generals who invaded another sovereign nation. They started a war, and doing so almost always opens a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences and unpredictable outcomes.
This is not to say the West couldn't be doing better, nor is it to excuse the West's atrocities in Iraq, or the double standards in supporting Saudi's brutal campaign in Yemen.
But one cannot escape the reality that Putin is a detestable unscrupulous character, and that we would be much better off were we not dependent on his fossil fuels.
Without our interference, there wouldn't be a sovereign country Ukraine.
Having created an artificial sovereign Ukraine, we tried fomenting a color revolution to overthrow its Russia-friendly leader.
Failing that, we funded a coup & selected their "leader", as decided by Victoria Nuland & her neocon, armchair warmongering dh Kagan.
Nuland proceeded to spend $8B of our tax $$ funding & training real Stephan Bandera Nazis so they could launch 8 years of artillery attacks on the former Russian provinces Yeltsin "gave" to make Ukraine. Also cut off water supply, torture civilians, etc.
Not to mention, Russia claims to have evidence there was a direct attack planned on Russia to begin early March.
I would argue that the war began in 2014 and Russia chose now to escalate. Even the shellings of Donbass had been steadily increasing in mid February. It is not as if all of Ukraine was a peace loving territory and the Russians invaded. Russia, whether or not one agrees with their actions, was certainly more justified than the US ever eas for invading Iraq or Syria.
I sort of half agree with you. Certainly what has been happening in Donbass is and has been alarming for some time.
But whatever the balance of responsibility for the decade-long crisis in these breakaway regions, that is not the same as rolling in with tanks. Putin clearly took this to another, far worse, level.
Again, whether or not this is more or less justified than the US/UK invasion of Iraq is another question. I would tend here to agree with you, but I still maintain it's important not to allow that as a reason to temper the condemnation of Putin's regime. In other words: by all means, put Bush and Blair in a smaller prison cell. But still put Putin in a prison cell.
While I deplore the war, I deplore even more the actions of the US government who could easily have used their influence to force Zelensky and friends to comply with the Minsk accords. Republican congressman Crenshaw commented yesterday that “Yeah, because investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea. You should feel the same,” Given that sentiment it is pretty clear that the US purposely baited Putin and wanted this war. The US would have continued to up the ante undoubtedly until the conflict escalated into a full blown war in Donbass. Do you have any thoughts as to what else Russia could have done?
It's a good question. Was there a better way for Putin to handle the obvious provocations he faced, and in particular to provide a measured response to human rights violations against ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine?
I can't help but think there must have been. After all, Russia is larger and better resourced than Ukraine. And just because the West baited Putin into a war, doesn't mean he had to take the bait.
You're uninformed about the issues. Marc is certainly correct that the war started in 2014. Were it not for the Anglo/American EuroMaidan coup there would have been no escalation.
I think it’s more likely that the economically depressed Nato States want to ‘privatise’ Russian commodities to benefit their oligarchs and political elites.
Considering the unscrupulous characters sitting in Westminster, NATO member States who broke international law in the Balkans and Libya, I’m cheering for Russia to send every Neo-Nazi to Bandera.
You and I clearly have quite different values. I will never cheer for a brutal military offensive, or for the death of people whom God made in His image. Not matter how unscrupulous the characters sitting in Westminster or elsewhere.
My values saw family die fighting Nazis and Italian fascists in North Africa and Italy. So far it seems to me that Russia has been valuing civilian life more than the Ukrainian State or their Neo-Nazi thugs who use civilians as human shields and behave like ISIS.
As a kid in the 70s, I chuckled when Iran's Ayatollah Khomenei used to refer to the United States as "The Great Satan." Now I think he was a prescient fellow.
Thanks for joining. Although I cannot yet see the connection, I strongly feel that there is one, between this war and the clot shot. We have fallen down the Rabbit hole, the Mad Hatter is in charge, the Cheshire cat is laughing on the sidelines, while the Queen of Hearts is shouting "off with their heads" at anyone who thinks it is lunacy. Not exactly the world that I had anticipated in my dotage.
So much in this post to comment on, so little space. I'll confine myself to this: "press narratives of Russian war crimes are a monumental hypocrisy. They proceed from the American empire, which since World War II has demonstrated ruthless, near-total indifference to the civilian victims of their air campaigns."
This is the neo-cons' war, aided and abetted (and maybe orchestrated) by the CIA. The CIA are perennial "bad actors" dating back to their metamorphosis from the OSS of World War II.
The Ukranian "actors" are not blameless in all this. The Azov contingent is the remnant of the Ukranian subsidiary of the Nazi Schutstaffel (SS) that was never disbanded and tried for war crimes, as Nazi SS were everywhere else. Because this Azov version was virulently anti-Russian, the CIA was willing to look the other way and let them continue. There are pictures of Ukraine's national hero Stepan Bandera (to whom a statue stands in Kyiv) in his shiny SS uniform during WW-II. Zelenskyy is their puppet.
The future looks grim, with the probability if open international war peaking between 2024 and 2027. For all intents and purposes, we're in 1936-37 right now ... lots of talk and concern, none taken really seriously, but moving inexorably forward. Bad mojo a-comin' ...
great piece. it's astounding how dismissive the average american (forget about the media) is of the possible catastrophic outcome of the way we are handling this mess.
The only rational argumant I have heard to support western involvement in dragging this war out is the (supposed) havoc it is wreaking on the Russian-China "friendship". Although I am sure this plays a distance second fiddle to arms interest etc.
I have come to the conclusion that the west - spearheaded by Americas oligarchy - just looks to capitalise on and/or manufacture giant crisis situations, and then build vast corporate-government platforms on which to transfer public money into private hands.
Afghanistan was nothing if not a huge money laundering scam.
Covid is/was the same.
Now we have Ukraine.
Afghanistan and the complinat pro vax populations didnt have nuclear warheads though, so this could end badly. Being nuked probably wont be high on bureaucratic modellers rick calculations yet.
This is probably the most sane commentary I have read thus far. It occurs to me, however, that this war may not have been the war that either the United States or Russia expected or wanted. I remember in the early days when both the US and Russia seemed to expect Ukraine to quickly capitulate. This was evidenced by the odd behavior of Russian troops around Kiev and by the United States' offer to set Zelensky up in Poland with a government in exile. There was also the United States' open admission that its plan for Ukraine was to support it in a "long insurgency" against the Russian occupiers. Then the Ukrainian propaganda blitzkrieg began, kicked off by Zelensky's ridiculous 'I don't need a ride, I need ammunition' soundbite, which was so transparently manipulative and stupid it could only have been aimed at credulous producers and consumers of western media.
From then on, it has been Ukraine calling the shots, first pleading and then demanding more and more weapons and "aid" and finally threatening the west like a boorish, petulant child when they don't get what they want quickly enough. It is puzzling to consider how Ukraine came to wield such power over the west. Surely it can't be the case that Ukraine is so beloved by its European confreres that they are willing to commit economic suicide out of sheer goodwill toward it. Six months ago Ukraine was not even a blip on the US media screen and now we are decimating our economy supposedly out of a mere paternalistic instinct to protect a fledgling 'democracy' thousands of miles away. Perhaps hatred of Russia, ginned up by Democratic conspiracy theories over the last six or seven years can explain some of it, but by no means all of it.
I wonder if the explanation for the sudden and enormous power wielded by Ukraine has anything to do with the fact that the American President, along with many of his fellow oligarchs, is severely compromised by dealings in Ukraine over the years? Remember when he bragged about getting the prosecuting attorney who was investigating the energy company his son was working for fired? Let us not forget that Ukraine has long been known as the most corrupt country in Europe, and a well known haven for money laundering. The Biden family members, along with the families of other Democratic elites, have many direct ties to Ukraine. Then there is the fact of the many bio labs discovered in Ukraine and their respective ties back to the US. How much dirt does Ukraine have on our globalist overlords I wonder? These people stick together, and all of them likely have access to spacious, well stocked bomb shelters, should things get too hot above ground. Perhaps this is why we are now on our way to WWIII or, God forbid, a nuclear holocaust.
As an American citizen, I strongly believe my government is at war WITH ME.
feels the same here in Germany.
The short list is the list of Western countries that are not ruled by a hostile managerial elite. I believe that list currently has 0 entries.
Excluding Trudeau of course. He's a man of the people.
Just like his father Fidel.
Welcome to 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy and Life Has Never Been Better (Tales From the Great Reset)
- Welcome to the year 2030. Thanks to the Great Reset, you will own nothing and you will be happy - just like Ida in her city...
https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/2030-i-own-nothing-no-privacy-life-never-better
Putin didn't lock me at home for months on end and try and get me fired for not taking a needle in my arm. Putin never called me racist. Putin never tried to push groomer propaganda in the schools. Putin didn't turn the food supply into a chemical warfare vector.
My mother spent her last years in a "retirement community". She was a member of a book review club. One week, they were asked to select the one living person they would like to have lunch with. Her selection? Vladimir Putin. "Why would you want to have lunch with that monster?" A: "I would like to hear the other side of the story."
One of the many pernicious aspects of life is that history is written by the winners.
Anti-Putinism is a requirement to work in the media-gov’t-educational complex. In the past 20 years, any of the Putin-is-an-evil-killer narratives that I’ve followed up always turns out to be speculative slander or outright bullshit. We are ruled by evil people.
Fun fact ~ Russia bans gmo crops.. most of NATO plants Monsanto-Gates patent protected, chemically intensive abominations and energy waste aftermarket cash cow.
Hmmm..
From 1997 to 2011 my primary focus was tracking the politics, legislation, science and spin surrounding gmo crops. Central to that is Monsanto - Rockefeller - Gates cabal. New York Times has been the biggest pusher of Monsanto shills on its OpEd pages twice yearly I. Henry Miller the poster boy for Biotech propaganda.
"Henry Miller Dropped by Forbes for Monsanto Ghostwriting Scandal"
https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/henry-i-miller/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Henry_I._Miller
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/myth-makers-m
Best sources for full history & true grass roots are GMWatch - Organic Consumers and its partner leading Court & FOIA wars - US Right to Know USRTK launched w 2014 Oregon Prop 38 gmo labeling campaign. Similar time GMOFreeUSA began... full disclosure dear old friend founder Diana Reeves led boycott of Kellogg's and endless effective campaigns... some of the best graphics and nicely done education in pure foods movement.
https://gmofreeusa.org/
https://www.gmwatch.org/en/about
https://www.organicconsumers.org/about-oca
https://usrtk.org/about/
How sweet thank you! Not an angel by a long shot but enough time trying to share truth to keep me from any dark side eternity may hold. Pretty sure record longevity isn't on my list beyond what's typical for women in our big Irish clan. Specifically I'd love to go like Aunt Kitty who was an epic baker with insatiable sweet tooth. She was warned by doctors from age 50 that her sweetfilled lifestyle would kill her with a heart attack. So it did on the porch swing with half eaten pecan pie on her lap at age 97. :~)
To be honest Putin did similar atrocities to the Russians. Vaxx mandates, lockdowns etc. Both sides are creepy. The real frontline runs between the ruling 'elite' and the huge majority of we, the people.
We need to starve the elite out. Opt out from the parts of the economy they exert control onto. I know it's very hard. - we became very dependent however I am not aware of alternative paths to counter them.
In Russia we have a saying: the severity of Russian law is mitigated by the lack of the need to enforce it. In northwestern Russia, where I live, the lockdown lasted 43 days. In reality, after a week, people were living as usual. And one could buy a certificate of vaccination for about fifty bucks. That's what I and a lot of my friends did.
You might like some of my RUSSIAsteria meme + some alternative news posts - see the list of RUSSIAsteria posts at the bottom of my latest one: https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/russiasteria-putin-invades-ukraine-memes-may13 ;)
Did Russia’s lockdowns last anywhere near as long as they did in the UK, Germany, Los Angeles, NYC, etc.?
No, they didn’t but it’s because we (Russians) are non-compliant. The lockdowns, vax passports etc were stopped so that the authorities don’t look foolish with no one following their rules. As a Russian in a Silicon Valley I have the “best” of both worlds. And with kids attending the German School I just have it all… 😂
You might like some of my RUSSIAsteria meme + some alternative news posts - see the list of RUSSIAsteria posts at the bottom of my latest one: https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/russiasteria-putin-invades-ukraine-memes-may13 ;)
he is an american living in Moscow and writes interesting stuff: https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/russia-and-the-who-relationship-status?s=r
>We need to starve the elite out
No can do. Need an alternative elite to emerge first. Then install them instead. Still a crap shoot - they might be no better or even worse than the current one.
“No Viet Cong ever called me nigger”
Same principle.
Putin also forbid Western anti-white advertising. Yes indeed, the West are in fact the the real racists.
I'm inclined to forgive him that. When your enemy is busy making a catastrophic propaganda mistake such as "we're extremely racist and therefore bad and illegitimate", there's no reason not to agree with them.
The parallels between Canada and the United States is bizarre. The Liberals here talk EXACTLY like the Democrats in the USA. And both are indeed hostile to the people while claiming to be on their side. NOTHING can be further from the truth. My God, there isn't a group the ideologues in the Democrat and Liberal parties aren't ready to demonize and dehumanize in the name of their agenda. They attacked truckers, the unvaccinated, people who challenged the Covid lies and narratives, and parents who question critical race theory in education to name a few. Now it's ok to 'protest' at the homes of Supreme Court Justices'. But protest lockdowns and they want to send the FBI or RCMP to your house. And what the heck is an 'ultra-MAGA'?
And they continue to espouse policies that directly hurt minorities. Be it abortion without limits, decisions that exacerbate inflation, climate change taxes, restrictions and lockdowns, you name it, the unhinged quacks and radicals pushed it. Not a week doesn't go by Justin that little trouble-making delinquent isn't out dividing people.
Just who exactly are the extremists anyway?
A little respect please. The prime minister of Canada should at least be addressed with an honorific, so we can address him as: Monsewer Turdeau.
US is fighting this war to the last Ukrainian and to the last US taxpayer dime (for the enrichment of the warmonger class and satisfaction of the 'intelligence community')
Trump represented an interruption of the U.S. alignment with the WEF/NWO. That is why they spent 4 years trying so hard to destroy him. When that didn't work they had to 'steal' the 2020 election. Everything including C19 was designed to destroy Western democracies and to unleash the great reset. The real battle for freedom lies in the complete defeat of these neoliberal fascists now in control.
"I have rules that I live by. The first is that I believe nothing that my government tells me."
...G. Carlin.
Similar to lockdowns, Russian sanctions are another oligarchic attack on the working class. Whether their propaganda claims we are at war with covid or Russia, the victims of their disastrous policies is not a freak coincidence.
Agreed...from cutting off construction of a pipeline, to stopping southern border wall construction, to vax mandates, the USG is indeed warring against its citizens.
That being the case, is it possible this "war" is just one more big psyop to distract from the forced starvation that is underway?
As a conservative Canadian, I can sympathize.
Couldn’t agree more, stuck in Canada.
Agree
They are. Try to open a business of any kind, and see what happens.
Yep. And has been for a while.
Recent Babylon Bee has a picture of a toddler dressed as camouflage combat soldier standing beside nearly empty shelves of baby formula.. caption reads American babies impersonating Ukraine soldiers in hopes of getting $40 million in aid.
A Mexican friend of mine, now a US Citizen, told me she's been seeing photos of pallets of baby formula being delivered to the Mexican - US boarder.
I think that we all know that these crises are entirely manufactured and organised to specifically hurt a particular group of people.
US.
Oh, interesting. Where are the photos? Should be easy to share those in this digital age.
while I don't doubt that this could happen, the above article's only source for the claim is that one tweet containing a tightly-cropped photo with no other context. shared by a politician.
anyone have any other sources? I'm in the mood to go down a rabbit hole.
"Never atribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence"
so far the Fed's idiotic monetary policies have been my go-to explanation for things of this sort.
The caravans have been getting infant aid for years already. This is nothing new.
It's new if formula is no longer available in stores AND being sent to foreigners at the border.
Especially in this era of easy content creation it's verifiable source or gtfo w hearsay for me.. always open to possibilities.. truth is often stranger than fiction but unverified, meh.
No. She has indicated that there has been a virtual industry for years teaching mexicans how to use babies to get into the US. Babies are a golden ticket. So many are now being used to get people in (with the wicked democrat insurrectionists helping), they need the formula to keep the babies alive. They will take babies in with one person, then the baby is taken back and resold to the next.
I fully believe a substantial portion of those billions will return to the US as campaign donations and similar. That's effectively the purpose of all foreign aid they shove through in peace times, so why would this be any different?
I wonder if billions are going toward mercenary operations. Similar to Fauci denying gain of function while fudning gain of function. The US is not at war with Russia, we are just funding and equipping mercenaries to fight Russia that just happen to be American. Would not be surprising.
Billions will be going to the oligarchs funding the nationalist paramilitaries themselves. This is what they do, no exceptions ever.
Exactly. The proper description is money laundering.
A substantial portion of the $40 billion will be going directly into the accounts of Kolomoisky and his client Zelensky, Tymoshenko, et al., ad nauseam.
The military industrial complex has an even tighter grip on the ruling class than big pharma. With big pharma, republicans offer an option to vote our way out of covidian insanity. With our war in Ukraine, DC does not even pretend voters have a choice.
Yeah Big Pharma had it's chance to go after the public purse with the vaccines now it's military industrial's turn. All this "aid" being sent is just going to be turned around and used to buy Western made armaments.
George Floyd murals in Afghanistan. The globalist empire is run by lunatics.
We might not have the power to stop it, but it is well within everyone's power to refuse to support it. Insofar as the drooling class' power is derived from the perceived consent of the governed (or rather, managed), withdrawal of that support and vocal expressions of contempt and disdain will at the very least make the clowns' jobs much more difficult.
Wars making the US less safe and worse off??
This sounds like a job for Nina Jankowicz!
When it becomes clear that Russia is not only not losing the war, but that the demoralized and deindustrialized West cannot defeat Russia either via a proxy or in a direct confrontation, that's when the real fun begins.
Imagine a drunk who picks a fight at the bar and gets stomped. Clearly, he can't beat the guy at the bar. So what does he do?
He goes home and beats his wife and kids.
To be clear: in this analogy, we're the wife and kids.
Gonna shill for my fren Rolo's substack here:
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/
He's an /ourguy/ with a ringside seat for the action, with some unique insight into the internal politics and culture of Russia. Mebbe you like.
I see so many speak of what the US is doing as ‘keeping our troops from going over there’ but isn’t what we’re doing antagonizing so that eventually, our troops will end up there anyways? I can see the politicians now: “well we tried keeping our citizens out of it. Oh well, go over there to die for nothing because we say so.”
I don't see that working out very well for them. On the one hand, the Pentagon is having a recruiting problem, which is remarkable given the state of the economy. There seem to be multiple causes: the abysmal physical health of the American population puts limits on the total size of the recruiting pool; while amongst those who can pass the minimal physical standards, there's a lot more reluctance to serve after several years of racial abuse by the US ruling class, to say nothing of the military vaccine mandates, and the hit American military prestige took in Afghanistan.
Of course there's always the draft, but forcing large numbers of young men into uniform who are already predisposed to hate you is not, as a general principle, a good way to form an effective fighting force.
I'm legitimately concerned in another direction: I see the remaining population that IS willing to sign up being actively indoctrinated to view the public as "threats to the Constitution, domestic" and to reply to dissent as insurrection (the DNC's new favorite word).
agree
With WARMONGERS in both Republican and democrat ranks, that's the most likely scenario
Or, he goes home, gets his gun and rounds a few mates, and gets back to the bar, finds the guy(s) what stomped him and shoots them.
Might not even need a gun, just wait outside off the corner, behing the wheel of a car and then run the ones what stomped him over.
I'm not so sure Russia is losing, despite casualties. Look at the Winter War: the finns killed soviet troops at a 20:1 ratio, and Finland still had to sue for peace. And guess who's going to have to foot the bill to rebuild Ukraine? Won't Russia, will be the EU, and Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations of Europe, so you can guess how well that'll go. Just look at the billions of euros Italy has received to shore up Venice these ten years or so. Have they even started doing any actual work at all?
It is fully possible to win wars by losing battles. It's equally possible to lose wars by winning battles - ask Pyrrhus.
In that analogy I'm the family dog that runs out the back door and lives a scrappy but adventuresome life on the streets teamed up with a pitbull and a beagle that knows how to open Dumpsters.
Very good analogy
Tales From the Great Reset: Inside a Ukraine Propaganda Brainstorming Session
- Ukrainian propaganda needs a Great Reset. I secretly sat in on a Ukrainian propaganda brainstorming session with Goebbelsky's new team as they try to come up with new ideas for starting World War III!
https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/great-reset-tales-ukraine-propaganda
We have a generation of ‘leaders’ and populations who have never gone through or fought in a war (or lived in the aftermath) that threatened their Country/way of life. Our recent wars have been faraway TV/Video wars.
So cheering on ‘plucky’ Ukraine and hissing and booing Putin like a cartoon villain as if it’s a TV reality show is such fun… and infantile.
But most seriously, we have a generation of politicians in governments who simply do not/cannot consider cost and consequences of any of their actions beyond the immediate 24 hour news cycle. And worse. I am entirely convinced they just do not care about their citizens because moral hazard applies, and anyway they are intellectually and morally corrupt hypocrites.
Here in UK, energy companies are reporting record numbers of customers defaulting on their bill payments, in the US there is a serious shortage of baby formula, but what is top priority? Sending billions (from where, we’re broke?) to Ukraine, climate change and on-line censorship to prevent ‘Disinformation’ like the article above that dares, DARES! question ‘the narrative’ and shine a light on the hypocrisy and dangers.
The continuing quest to one up Orwell's imagination.
Well, after the hygiene-themed authoritarianism and fear of contamination by the impure, I suppose invading Russia is the next logical step. "The second time as farce" indeed...
But seriously: at least in the United States, Covid fanatics always had a creepy fondness for (glib) military metaphors and wartime historical examples. There's been a clear segue from Covid hysteria to Russia war fever, even beyond "Current Thing" fashion-chasing . One gets the sense of a prior psychological and emotional impulse simply finding a convenient outlet.
Perhaps if I were smarter, I'd be able to exploit those emotional impulses, but instead I make futile efforts to get people to stop and think things through.
‘What’s happening in the Ukraine is nothing compared to the brutal shock and awe tactics that killed hundred of thousands of ordinary people in Iraq.’
But… but… but that’s different, Saddam was a brutal dictator - so what we supported him two decades earlier when he invaded and went to war with Iran.
Also worth pointing out is that Russia's 'slow' progress is a necessary adjunct of the care they're taking to minimize civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure.
Now contrast that with the American way of war, which is to bomb everything until you're just making the rubble bounce, then send in the troops to mop up whatever's left.
Then leave and let somebody else clear up the mess.
yeah, they clearly expected substantial surrenders – many western analysts also thought Ukraine would quickly collapse.
That's an understandable impulse. Russians and Ukrainians are brother peoples, and there are a lot of direct family ties across that border. No one wants to kill their cousin.
There have been quite a few surrenders (e.g. Mariopol, Snake Island), but it seems the Ukie officer cadre is quite willing to execute draftees for "cowardice". To say nothing of the sociopaths in Azov.
Then there's Bucha, which the lying press tried to pin on Russia but really looks a lot more like Azov engaging in mass retaliation against a civilian population who failed to resist Russian liberation with sufficient enthusiasm.
Sadly it's more or less a civil war in places, especially in East Ukraine. The war then becomes personal - and even more cruel and vicious than war with strangers, -where it's nothing personal.
In a civil war all the years of pent up hatred come to the fore and the consequences even more unpredictable.
It’s true that there is much shared family lineage in Ukraine in general, but the gradient of self-identified pure Ukrainians and of nutjob nationalist political movements and paramilitaries rises sharply the further one moves towards Poland.
Ukraine was never even a country. It was manufactured into a country by forcing together a couple rival provinces. Not unlike the mess we & the UK made of much of the mideast.
-->"but that’s different, Saddam was a brutal dictator..." So the US and regime media simply change the name to insert the new bogeyman. Good guys and bad guys. Lather, rinse, repeat.
In keeping with the 'every war is World War II' theme of the OP, Saddam was of course the worst Hitler that ever Hitlered. Except for Bushitler, who to the left, was definitely worse than Hitler. That is, until Assad became the worst Hitler. Or wait, no, Trump was the Hitlerist of all Hitlers, even worse than the OG Hitler. Oh wait my bad it's Putin whose Hitlering out-Hitlers every previous Hitler's comparatively low-energy Hitlering.
From this we can conclude that the historical trajectory is a time loop ever circling back to WWII, but with this time loop functioning as a sort of particle accelerator or, if you will, a Hitler accelerator, with the goal of reaching the Hiterlularity in which Hitlerishness will exponentially and asymptotically approach perfect identity with the Platonic form of Hitler Ultima.
That's clearly much more logical than the alternative explanation, which is that we are ruled by mawkish gerontocrats whose unimaginative midwit minds are unable to come up with any propaganda more compelling than 'everyone we don't like is Hitler'.
I mean, when you have a brutal dictator, it IS perfectly justified to murder hundreds of thousands of his people.
All Countries now have dictators murdering hundreds of thousands of their people. Pfizer is helping.
Because Putin saw how we deal with whoever we label as 'dictator' in Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, etc. he'll never let it happen in Russia. So be prepared to deal with NUCLEAR WWIII
Yes and that is why Iran is keen to have nuclear weapons - and genius Biden will facilitate that because he is not a strategic thinker. It will motivate Israel to stop it… again… and who knows where that might lead.
The ones that think Russia is losing insist the goal was to seize all of Ukraine. These people strictly, the Alex Berenson types, are diehard readers of western propaganda. Because that's the only place where that objective was ever stated. In the west. Russia has been extremely clear, precise, and consistent in their stated objectives.
If they capture and hold Donbas, and they almost definitely will, then they have achieved the only objective that Ukraine has not conceded yet. It seems like prolonging the war will cost Kherson+ as well considering it is strategically important for water supply in Crimea, it makes sense. There won't be many internal stressors after. The people won't be fighting a geurilla war for decades after making it "worse than the new Afghanistan" as Berenson claims. Frankly, the idea of Ukraine barely exists in the east, and the idea that Donbas is part of Ukraine barely exists in the central and western parts of the country. Spend enough time in the Ukrainian community and this becomes evidently clear.
It is strange seeing so many skeptics on covid, like Alex Berenson, believe everything coming out of the corporate media when it comes to Ukraine. At this point I believe nothing the media is telling me.
Berenson's Marvel movie framing of Ukraine and Russia to his readers reminds me of Trump still promoting the shots at his rallies. Tone deaf beyond credulity.
Like girls from TX trailer parks, once a blue check, always a blue check ;)
The new map of Ukraine will be the red in this map: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7eaeb737-54f2-443d-8274-0effdd81b67d_600x733.jpeg
Its at the bottom of my latest RUSSIAsteria post: https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/russiasteria-putin-invades-ukraine-memes-may13
Ukraine, Hungry etc might even want to grab some of the red etc for "humanitarian purposes..."
Some confusing counter facts. Russia did try to take all of Ukraine in a poorly executed multi-prong attack. Some suggest it was because the effort to settle the Donbas issue was not going well thus an attempt to take over the government. That failed and the accumulated forces were sent into the Donbas thinking the larger force could get the job done. The area has been in dispute since it was settled ~ early 1900's. There still are many with heavy Ukrainian ties and prefer to stay in Ukraine as opposed to be annexed to Russia. While the Ukraine E-W tensions are real, they need to be resolved by Ukrainians since the 1991 agreement. That agreement was reaffirmed in 1994 when Ukraine gave nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange of security promises now being broken.
Few know what the Russian tolerance for death and destruction will allow. The Russians have lost a lot of troops so far along with a lot of equipment. How long this war continues depends on what losses both sides can tolerate. Both nations are now in bad shape as a result and both will require a lot of rebuilding once this ends. I doubt the Donbas can be secured for Russia as long as the Ukrainians are supported by the West in what is becoming a proxy with many more resources in the West. But how do the Russians extract themselves with dignity?
Thinking Russia tried to take Ukraine with 1/10 of their forces mobilized is funny. I guess you are just ignoring all recent Russian military history. And the fact you think they want to extract with dignity tells me you are reading too much western propaganda.
As for the E-W comment... What a novel thing this idea that a country's borders are more important than what is happening in it. I suppose everything the government has done in the last 2 years was fine because we just need to vote better. Weak men make hard times. All I can say to that.
Looking at https://factsanddetails.com/russia/Government_Military_Crime/sub9_5b/entry-5205.html#chapter-6, I don't see material Russian forces at war. Whether they actually have many more troops ready to deploy is questionable. They certainly are using mercenaries a lot which has to be expensive and suggests even lower training standards. I do hope a way can be found for the inevitable withdrawal. They are burning up assets at an astounding rate; it's an open question if they have the ability to meet logistical demands.
Up to Ukraine to resolve internal disputes. A lot of Donbas citizens prefer Ukrainian management and law.
The people you think are mercenaries ARE Donbas citizens
Mercenaries from Chechnya or Syria or the private Wagner Group have been employed by Russia, my comment. Mercenaries fight for money. Those anti-Ukraine Donbas citizens fight for their beliefs but I'm not sure why given nobody really wants to be under Moscow rule. Perhaps they wish a Donbas nation, I can't say but they are too few with limited resources to effectively govern as independent.
When I realized that the powers that be want this war, no matter what we do, and will convince the masses once again that this that they are doing is good, I realized that it’s important to continue to speak out, but not let it get to my soul. This is what it’s like, awake, to once again watch my fellow humans march right into madness.
I have skin in this game, my only son is in Poland with the UK army, so forgive me for speaking my mind here.
Who the he'll do the U.S. Government think they are!?! THEY along with western govts have been a major cause of this by letting Ukraine flirt with NATO for years. What did they expect Putin to do on his border?
Now they send $50 billion to support Ukraine. Money they don't have - either borrowed or newly printed.
Meanwhile, your US currency is SHOT! Your country is BANKRUPT! You can never pay back the $$ TRILLIONS you owe - yet your stupid POWER MAD government still thinks it can rule the whole MF world.
I truly pity the ordinary American citizen who is hostage to this INSANITY - Putin has NUKES! This is NOT a game!
And somehow by brilliant beautiful boy is directly caught up in it!
As one of such hostages... 👏👏👏
I absolutely agree. Right now its American treasure financed by the full faith and credit of the (shrinking) American middle class. We feel the effects every day of the irresponsible use of the printing presses. Next, the US War machine will step up the push for American blood. Like you, American parents and grandparents will once again fear for the lives of our young citizenry.
War is BIG business and a great opportunity for the stinking rich to get even richer. As usual it will be the poor soldier boys, who took probably the only chance they had to escape and make something of themselves, who will pay the ultimate price.
Last time I checked no one in your U.S. govt had any of their kids in service... But all those big politico and military high-ups with their fancy big toys will want to use them to justify their existence. I fear they won't be happy until they've finally blown us all to kingdom come!
Maybe the west should have kept the promise made to Russia on NATO containment. But no, we continue to poke and prod the bear on his back porch and then wonder why he is so angry and frustrated. Russia is not our enemy. We should trade with them and create a mutually beneficial relationship. American foreign policy is ridiculous and incredibly short sighted. Bad things are coming soon across the globe. Get rural, get prepared and get serious about it.
The animus towards Russia passeth understanding. The USSR was another matter, especially after its post-WWII expansion. Berlin blockade, Hungary, etc. But, the USSR has been dead for a generation. What is the big problem now? I can see that a certain amount of it has to be a follow on to "Russiagate". But, they got Trump out. Mission Accomplished.
Is it just the MIC drumming up business?
A second world country invades a third world country. On the other side of the world. Happens all the time. Why do we care?
It is a European problem. They are constantly telling us how inept we are. With more than a little justification. Fine--show us how it is done. We will hold your coat.
Yeah I agree. The Soviets disappeared 30 years ago. I've always had a lot of respect for the ex-Warsaw states who resisted both the Nazis and the Bolshevicks but Poland needs to get over itself and tone down the beligerance.
I agree with everything you have written. There has been painfully little introspection among Western commentators over our role in creating this catastrophe, or indeed any real attempt to even understand its antecedents.
But I would nuance the discussion with a key - though obvious - point: Whatever the antecedents, it was Putin and his generals who invaded another sovereign nation. They started a war, and doing so almost always opens a Pandora's Box of unintended consequences and unpredictable outcomes.
This is not to say the West couldn't be doing better, nor is it to excuse the West's atrocities in Iraq, or the double standards in supporting Saudi's brutal campaign in Yemen.
But one cannot escape the reality that Putin is a detestable unscrupulous character, and that we would be much better off were we not dependent on his fossil fuels.
Without our interference, there wouldn't be a sovereign country Ukraine.
Having created an artificial sovereign Ukraine, we tried fomenting a color revolution to overthrow its Russia-friendly leader.
Failing that, we funded a coup & selected their "leader", as decided by Victoria Nuland & her neocon, armchair warmongering dh Kagan.
Nuland proceeded to spend $8B of our tax $$ funding & training real Stephan Bandera Nazis so they could launch 8 years of artillery attacks on the former Russian provinces Yeltsin "gave" to make Ukraine. Also cut off water supply, torture civilians, etc.
Not to mention, Russia claims to have evidence there was a direct attack planned on Russia to begin early March.
Don't think the Ukrainians would agree with what you assert. A bit of Russian propaganda repeated.
I would argue that the war began in 2014 and Russia chose now to escalate. Even the shellings of Donbass had been steadily increasing in mid February. It is not as if all of Ukraine was a peace loving territory and the Russians invaded. Russia, whether or not one agrees with their actions, was certainly more justified than the US ever eas for invading Iraq or Syria.
I sort of half agree with you. Certainly what has been happening in Donbass is and has been alarming for some time.
But whatever the balance of responsibility for the decade-long crisis in these breakaway regions, that is not the same as rolling in with tanks. Putin clearly took this to another, far worse, level.
Again, whether or not this is more or less justified than the US/UK invasion of Iraq is another question. I would tend here to agree with you, but I still maintain it's important not to allow that as a reason to temper the condemnation of Putin's regime. In other words: by all means, put Bush and Blair in a smaller prison cell. But still put Putin in a prison cell.
While I deplore the war, I deplore even more the actions of the US government who could easily have used their influence to force Zelensky and friends to comply with the Minsk accords. Republican congressman Crenshaw commented yesterday that “Yeah, because investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea. You should feel the same,” Given that sentiment it is pretty clear that the US purposely baited Putin and wanted this war. The US would have continued to up the ante undoubtedly until the conflict escalated into a full blown war in Donbass. Do you have any thoughts as to what else Russia could have done?
It's a good question. Was there a better way for Putin to handle the obvious provocations he faced, and in particular to provide a measured response to human rights violations against ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine?
I can't help but think there must have been. After all, Russia is larger and better resourced than Ukraine. And just because the West baited Putin into a war, doesn't mean he had to take the bait.
I agree with you - possibly Putin believed the West would raise the ante enough that Donbass or even Crimea would be lost.
You're uninformed about the issues. Marc is certainly correct that the war started in 2014. Were it not for the Anglo/American EuroMaidan coup there would have been no escalation.
http://thesaker.is/two-months-of-operation-z/
At the risk of engaging in semantics, I simply don't believe that the US/EU activity qualifies as 'war'. Provocation? Certainly. But war? No.
I think it’s more likely that the economically depressed Nato States want to ‘privatise’ Russian commodities to benefit their oligarchs and political elites.
Without 'our' role, there would be no war in Ukraine. We made the coup, we trained, armed and urged Ukrainian fascists
Ukraine hasn't been a sovereign nation for over 100 years.
Considering the unscrupulous characters sitting in Westminster, NATO member States who broke international law in the Balkans and Libya, I’m cheering for Russia to send every Neo-Nazi to Bandera.
You and I clearly have quite different values. I will never cheer for a brutal military offensive, or for the death of people whom God made in His image. Not matter how unscrupulous the characters sitting in Westminster or elsewhere.
My values saw family die fighting Nazis and Italian fascists in North Africa and Italy. So far it seems to me that Russia has been valuing civilian life more than the Ukrainian State or their Neo-Nazi thugs who use civilians as human shields and behave like ISIS.
Great essay.
As a kid in the 70s, I chuckled when Iran's Ayatollah Khomenei used to refer to the United States as "The Great Satan." Now I think he was a prescient fellow.
Thanks for joining. Although I cannot yet see the connection, I strongly feel that there is one, between this war and the clot shot. We have fallen down the Rabbit hole, the Mad Hatter is in charge, the Cheshire cat is laughing on the sidelines, while the Queen of Hearts is shouting "off with their heads" at anyone who thinks it is lunacy. Not exactly the world that I had anticipated in my dotage.
So much in this post to comment on, so little space. I'll confine myself to this: "press narratives of Russian war crimes are a monumental hypocrisy. They proceed from the American empire, which since World War II has demonstrated ruthless, near-total indifference to the civilian victims of their air campaigns."
This is the neo-cons' war, aided and abetted (and maybe orchestrated) by the CIA. The CIA are perennial "bad actors" dating back to their metamorphosis from the OSS of World War II.
The Ukranian "actors" are not blameless in all this. The Azov contingent is the remnant of the Ukranian subsidiary of the Nazi Schutstaffel (SS) that was never disbanded and tried for war crimes, as Nazi SS were everywhere else. Because this Azov version was virulently anti-Russian, the CIA was willing to look the other way and let them continue. There are pictures of Ukraine's national hero Stepan Bandera (to whom a statue stands in Kyiv) in his shiny SS uniform during WW-II. Zelenskyy is their puppet.
The future looks grim, with the probability if open international war peaking between 2024 and 2027. For all intents and purposes, we're in 1936-37 right now ... lots of talk and concern, none taken really seriously, but moving inexorably forward. Bad mojo a-comin' ...
great piece. it's astounding how dismissive the average american (forget about the media) is of the possible catastrophic outcome of the way we are handling this mess.
The only rational argumant I have heard to support western involvement in dragging this war out is the (supposed) havoc it is wreaking on the Russian-China "friendship". Although I am sure this plays a distance second fiddle to arms interest etc.
I have come to the conclusion that the west - spearheaded by Americas oligarchy - just looks to capitalise on and/or manufacture giant crisis situations, and then build vast corporate-government platforms on which to transfer public money into private hands.
Afghanistan was nothing if not a huge money laundering scam.
Covid is/was the same.
Now we have Ukraine.
Afghanistan and the complinat pro vax populations didnt have nuclear warheads though, so this could end badly. Being nuked probably wont be high on bureaucratic modellers rick calculations yet.
This is probably the most sane commentary I have read thus far. It occurs to me, however, that this war may not have been the war that either the United States or Russia expected or wanted. I remember in the early days when both the US and Russia seemed to expect Ukraine to quickly capitulate. This was evidenced by the odd behavior of Russian troops around Kiev and by the United States' offer to set Zelensky up in Poland with a government in exile. There was also the United States' open admission that its plan for Ukraine was to support it in a "long insurgency" against the Russian occupiers. Then the Ukrainian propaganda blitzkrieg began, kicked off by Zelensky's ridiculous 'I don't need a ride, I need ammunition' soundbite, which was so transparently manipulative and stupid it could only have been aimed at credulous producers and consumers of western media.
From then on, it has been Ukraine calling the shots, first pleading and then demanding more and more weapons and "aid" and finally threatening the west like a boorish, petulant child when they don't get what they want quickly enough. It is puzzling to consider how Ukraine came to wield such power over the west. Surely it can't be the case that Ukraine is so beloved by its European confreres that they are willing to commit economic suicide out of sheer goodwill toward it. Six months ago Ukraine was not even a blip on the US media screen and now we are decimating our economy supposedly out of a mere paternalistic instinct to protect a fledgling 'democracy' thousands of miles away. Perhaps hatred of Russia, ginned up by Democratic conspiracy theories over the last six or seven years can explain some of it, but by no means all of it.
I wonder if the explanation for the sudden and enormous power wielded by Ukraine has anything to do with the fact that the American President, along with many of his fellow oligarchs, is severely compromised by dealings in Ukraine over the years? Remember when he bragged about getting the prosecuting attorney who was investigating the energy company his son was working for fired? Let us not forget that Ukraine has long been known as the most corrupt country in Europe, and a well known haven for money laundering. The Biden family members, along with the families of other Democratic elites, have many direct ties to Ukraine. Then there is the fact of the many bio labs discovered in Ukraine and their respective ties back to the US. How much dirt does Ukraine have on our globalist overlords I wonder? These people stick together, and all of them likely have access to spacious, well stocked bomb shelters, should things get too hot above ground. Perhaps this is why we are now on our way to WWIII or, God forbid, a nuclear holocaust.