There is a completely crazed article by Simon Tisdall in the Guardian – worryingly its “most shared” – calling for “direct, in-country military support” by western powers in Ukraine against Russia.
While Tisdall outlines well the many catastrophic and wide-reaching effects of the Ukraine war, including tangents such as its effect on climate change, he fails completely to acknowledge the rather more obviously catastrophic possibility that direct western military intervention in Ukraine will lead to full scale nuclear war.
But strangely that is not what I find most wrong-headed in Tisdall’s article. What I find culpably unbalanced is this paragraph:
The broader, negative political impact of the war, should it rage on indefinitely, is almost incalculable. The UN’s future as an authoritative global forum, lawmaker and peacekeeper is in jeopardy, as more than 200 former officials warned Guterres last week. At risk, too, is the credibility of the international court of justice, whose injunction to withdraw was scorned by Putin, and the entire system of war crimes prosecutions.
It is as though the illegal invasion of Iraq had never happened, and had not already dealt the severe blow to the moral authority of the United Nations that helps enable Putin’s actions now. And Why is defiance by Putin of the International Court of Justice a severe blow to its credibility, but British refusal to obey its instruction to return the Chagos islands to the survivors of the British genocide there apparently was not a severe blow?
Putin is merely following British and American example. The failure of liberals like Tisdall (whom I generally respect) to acknowledge this I find infuriating. I condemn the invasion of Ukraine and I have no hesitation in calling Putin a war criminal. However for precisely the same reasons so are Bush and Blair. It astonishes me how very few people in the media are prepared, in the current emergency, to acknowledge this. That is perhaps understandable if not readily excusable. But to claim like Tisdall that Putin’s actions are somehow unique and precedent-setting goes beyond omission to active propaganda and lying.
I am returned from holiday with the family, much refreshed, and have decided to revert to the idea that not every article on this website needs to be long form or profound. Shorter, snappier pieces like this to fill the gaps between highly worked articles are also useful to keep brain cells sparking and conversation flowing.
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Alastair Crooke has an interesting article on some US politicians wanting to escalate in Ukraine, the Neo-Cons etc with Trump warning against it……
“Would this be enough? Dark voices are advising not. They want ‘boots on the ground’. They even talk of tactical nukes. They argue that Biden has nothing to lose by ‘going big’, especially if the GOP are persuaded to become accomplices. Indeed, it might just save him from ignominy, they urge. U.S. military insiders already point out that the arms supply will not ‘turn around’ the war. A ‘lost war’ must be avoided going into November at all costs”.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/04/25/the-dynamics-of-escalation-standing-with-ukraine/
“It doesn’t make sense that Russia and Ukraine aren’t sitting down and working out some kind of an agreement. If they don’t do it soon, there will be nothing left but death, destruction, and carnage. This is a war that never should have happened, but it did. The solution can never be as good as it would have been before the shooting started, but there is a solution, and it should be figured out now—not later—when everyone will be DEAD!”, Trump said.
And The UK ..With the UK Media of course ( The Observer / Guardian ) Pushing for WWIII.. Tobias Elwood wants Direct NATO intervention in the Black Sea..
Details best explained By Jimmy Dore –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGp8bOnRLh8
And The US Openly admitting now that they Want Putin Removed ..as Blinken meets Zelensky in an unannounced visit to Ukraine…
“The strategy that we’ve put in place — massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts — is having real results. The bottom line is this: We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.”
— Consortium News, April 25
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/25/us-makes-it-clear-its-aim-is-to-weaken-russia/?
Yes we want to regime change Russia and put our cronies in after assassinating Putin. The next “cunning plan” Boldrick is to land a naval force in Oddessa according to Elwood. This is Boys Own cartoon stuff. Meanwhile civilians on mass report how they were used as human shields in Maryupol and Ukrainian soldiers in Donbas face enialation.
The obsession with removing Putin in western capitals is unhealthy.
Who do they think is going to come in his place anyway? Have they heard some of the hardline statements coming from his potential likely successors?
It won’t be Alexei Navalny, riding through Moscow on a white horse to rapturous cheers. Like some Russian version of Juan Guaidó.
Even Russian neutrals, people who may deplore Putin’s excessively long, corrupting stay in power, won’t want some western backed stooge in his place. They experienced Yeltsin’s chaotic drunken antics, they won’t want a repeat of that humiliation.
Many Russians hold the view Putin is probably the only person capable of managing a country the size of Russia. Hence his enduring and somewhat baffling (to western citizens) popularity.
They just don’t understand that Mr Putin is the “good cop”. Should he leave the scene for any reason, his replacement is stone-cold certain to be MUCH, MUCH tougher on the West.
They might even find themselves “talking to Shoigu” right up front, instead of in the worst case.
Why not land at Yevpatoria in Crimea and re-run the whole Crimean War, complete with new glorious blunders?
> land a naval force in Oddessa
You state that as fact; but there is no NATO naval force in the Black Sea, and warships are banned from passing through the Dardanelles. Your “cunning plan” is just made-up.
“This is Boys Own cartoon stuff.”
Only one side has sent in assassination squads to remove a head of state, Putin targeting Zelensky. That’s perfectly fine, but the West simply stating they would like to see Putin gone is unacceptable? Seriously? You guys are so … Well, I know you shouldn’t question the mental state of your adversaries, but you guys do make it hard.
What people really want and need is more participatory democracy and more direct representation. I still believe that the desire for these things was the impetus behind the popular vote for Brexit rather than, as the Liberal press would have it, racism, empty patriotic jingoism and a malign sort of nationalism.
You are right, except we do not have any democracy, but an oligarchy. The people decide nothing! I know I don’t!
Nothing encapsulates the Guardian’s descent into MoD mouthpiece more than this guy replacing Seamus Milne as its main geopolitical commentator. Tisdall has stated repeatedly now that the most sensible response to this Ukraine conflict is a charge toward nuclear annihilation. And he has not been fired for it. You would not find a more frightening western chauvinist at a St George’s Day lock-in in a pub full of Chelsea fans. Certainly you would not find one who is more knowingly dishonest. That is today’s insanely imperialist Guardian.
I remember a brute called Bruce Anderson backing the torture and murder of alleged terrorist suspects’ families to extract information from them. The Indie, back in that day, seems to have quietly told him to get lost. Would it now?
I don’t remember Bruce, so I had a gander at Wikipedia, sure enough the torture advocacy was mentioned, and then removed by Philip Cross, the missing piece is:
Bruce Anderson has been an advocate of [[torture]] in [[ticking time bomb scenario]]s, even before the [[September 11 attacks|9/11 terrorist attacks]] brought the question to greater public prominence. In February 2010 he wrote a column for ”The Independent”, arguing that the British government would have not just the right, but the duty, to torture if there was a ticking bomb, and that they should torture children if they believed that doing so would yield information that would avert a terrorist attack:
The link is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Anderson_(columnist)
You need to look at the revisions to find the removed piece.
I remember reading the original piece in the Indie. I remember my shock and disgust. Philip Cross is a dead giveaway – a sure sign that Wikipedia is in the business of selling the western narrative. Protecting the reputation of a beast like that should be beneath him, but it was (covert) imperial policy all right, so any open acknowledgement of it happening must be expunged from the record.
Why the Russian Federation began a military intervention in the Ukraine!
A brief history of Nazis, NATO and Ukraine
To understand the current conflict, it is important to recall that Russians and Ukrainians once lived in relative harmony, when they were both part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was founded on the principle of the self-determination of nations. This was violently interrupted in 1941, when the Nazis invaded the USSR, taking over much of Ukraine.
According to John-Paul Himka, a quarter of all victims of the Holocaust lived in Ukraine, and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists collaborated with the Nazis in carrying out their horrendous deeds. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia—UPA) participated in this genocidal rampage: “OUN militias were key actors in the anti-Jewish violence of summer 1941; OUN recruited for and infiltrated police formations that provided indispensable manpower for the Germans’ mobile killing units; and in 1943, thousands of these policemen deserted from German service to join the OUN-led nationalist insurgency, during which UPA killed Jews who had managed to survive the major liquidations of 1942.” According to Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, “the OUN played a significant part in the extermination of the Jews and other ‘undesirables,’ often performing the dirty work of the German Einsatzkommando extermination squads (eg the killing of children), and continuing after the war under American sponsorship.”
Indeed, in the postwar era, the U.S. government discreetly integrated an alarming number of Nazi collaborators into a veritable international network of anti-communist fascists. By 1952, John Loftus estimates that there were “hundreds if not thousands of important Nazi collaborators from Byelorussia, the Ukraine, the Baltic states, and the Balkans” who had been brought to the United States (and many more had been operationalized around the world). The US Counter Intelligence Core (CIC) ran operation Anyface to protect the fascist leader of the OUN–the renowned Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera–from being brought to justice by the Soviets. Bandera’s chief of the national security service (SB), Mykola Lebed, was “the highest ranking Ukrainian Nazi to ever enter the United States.” CIA covert operations chief Frank Wisner admitted in 1951 there were “at least twenty former or active members of the SB of OUN/Bandera in the United States.”
The US intelligence services worked closely with several organizations of former Nazi collaborators like these in order to run extensive sabotage, terror and assassination campaigns against the USSR. In 1951, Wisner estimated that “over 35,000 members of the Russian secret police (MVD-MKGB) have been killed by OUN-UPA since the end of the last war.”
> Russians and Ukrainians once lived in relative harmony, when they were both part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
You seem to have omitted to mention the Holodomor famine in the 1930s, imposed by Uncle Joe, in which millions of Ukrainians died. It’s hardly surprising that some Ukrainians collaborated with the one country that had any prospect of getting Russians out of Ukraine.
Holodomor is just a Ukrainian name for the Soviet-wide famine. Much of it was caused by the kulaks destroying their own crops and farms rather than allowing them to be collectivised. Ukrainian kulaks killed Ukrainian peasants. Far right extremism has a longer history than either the famine or German occupation. And if Russia was the problem why was one of Bandera’s first victims a Pole?
There is zero evidence to support the ‘Holmodor’. There was a well documented hoax in the 30s initiated by William Randolph Hearst, that was completely discredited at the time. Photos from which are still regurgitated every time someone mentions the ‘Holmodor’.
Terrible famine’s did however routinely occur in the last years of the Russian Empire and during the early years of the Soviet Union, but the mortality rate from these was no higher in the Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet Union.
Yes the photos Hearst published were actually from the Crimean War, supplied by a fraudster and ex-con who was not even in Ukraine at the time he claimed to have witnessed the famine. The photos are still regurgitated as you say by humanitarians with much less interest in the famine Churchill deliberately inflicted on Bengalis a decade later, let alone the one Britain inflicted on the Irish explicitly in the name of liberal free-market values. (Ireland still being the only country in the world with a smaller population than it had 200 years ago).
How quickly do you think many things would change if politicians pontificating in support of punitive government action against similar administrative executive operations elsewhere foreign were to be prime targets for permanent removal from live media shows/daily 0day news channels ….. rather than it being strangely accepted that innocent civilians instead will most likely have to suffer as a result of such inflammatory rhetoric or ineffective negotiation as they would presume to pimp/pump and dump on mainstream media feeds for others to assume they have no other choice than to accept as an unavoidable truth to follow and not question?
Never in the field of human conflict was so much suffered by so many because of so few ….. although the paradox is, such has forever been the case, has it not?
Methinks wherever and whenever trialed and trailed and adopted it would a very rapid Great Global Game Changer and a great many things would be fundamentally different with every chance of things being a great deal better than things are today and appear to be heading to in the near future.
I don’t think things were any better when our rulers led their troops into battle.
“administrative executive operations”
What does that mean, in English?
Excuse me if your intent was satire, and I missed it.
The failure of our ‘Western Civilisation’ (sounds like a good idea said Gandhi – implying we should try and make it a reality) is now complete.
When we applaud today Germany announcing tanks being sent to Ukraine to fight Russia !
As the Second World War generation dies off – if they haven’t already after being accelerated by the Covid – so does the fond folk memories of Russian Allies. The great meetings between Roosevelt and Stalin, the boozy wino Winnie in Yalta agreeing to keep Russia spending itself to survive the Nazis and actually agains all odds doing so!
The Artic convoys are one thing but the 20 millions Soviet victims dwarf everything. As Putin said don’t forget who beat the Nazis and who stormed Berlin.
Our petty losses on the DDay beaches being a last minute show of sacrifice once the battle of Kursk in 43 had broken the Panzers and German Armies and retreat was their only option.
Surrender was Germans only option but they chose disaster.
The same choice is available to today’s Nazis in Ukraine and they too are being forced to choose disaster.
They also are equally a proxy army funded by the Western Oligarchs and directed by its military generals and mercenaries to have another go at cracking the Russian egg.
China is speaking explicitly now. Nothing is reported of the leaders and diplomats of these countries in our media. There is no pretence of letting readers and viewers make up their own minds. The Earth must remain flat because we may rush to the edge and unbalance it if we believed it wasn’t!
Over turning all their palaces and plans.
Germany sending tanks to Ukraine to fight Russians would have that ‘greatest generation’ whirling in their war graves never mind us who remember that if it hadn’t been for Russians and Soviets, Hitler and his backers – many US oligarchs- would have achieved their ends.
” the 20 millions Soviet victims dwarf everything. As Putin said don’t forget who beat the Nazis and who stormed Berlin. “
Yes you’d have thought that having been the victim of illegal aggression Russia would know better than to force it on another country. Russian and German forces fought tenaciously against overwhelming odds to defend their respective homelands; another lesson lost on President Putin.
“Yes you’d have thought that having been the victim of illegal aggression Russia would know better”
By the looks of it, they do know better! Why wait for the enemy to setup their forces and attack when you can swoop in and avoid becoming the victim again? I’m sure numbers were run, with this being a better outcome. Thankfully it’s not a circus run by us armchair generals.
«Yes you’d have thought that having been the victim of illegal aggression Russia would know better than to force it on another country. Russian and German forces fought tenaciously against overwhelming odds to defend their respective homelands»
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas
“3,393 civilians killed (349 in 2016–2021)
13,100–13,300 killed; 29,500–33,500 wounded overall
414,798 Ukrainians internally displaced; 925,500 fled abroad”
Donald Trump mentioned whilst president that the USA had a new ‘super dooper’ weapon. The Moskova was hit by some kind of super dooper weapon which was able to evade all electronic surveillance. Ukraine does not have any super dooper weapons. Team USA is therefore already in the fight. Yesterday’s Guardian disclosed that the USA is trying to degrade and undermine Russia. So not even trying to hide its role. There is therefore already ‘ direct, in-country military support’.
Is Tisdall really crazed? I very much doubt it. Is Paul Mason crazed? nope. Why are there so many Twitter commentators cheer leading for direct intervention. The $60, 000 dollar question is what is going on. IMHO that is the big question!!
Something has changed. They’re far more blasé about the risks of WW3 and what we believe to be M.A.D.
President Reagan was talking about Star Wars in 1986 – a laser (particle beam) anti-ICBM system – it was seen as prohibitively expensive at the time. To give it its official title, the Strategic Defense Initiative research started in 1984.
Remember Trump’s much ballyhooed US Space Force?
Pure conjecture here, but in 2022 it seems ‘highly likely’ some such system has quietly been put in place. I wonder about the expedited 42,000 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites Elon Musk is launching, a DoD tracking grid array? it seems hideously expensive project to be purely an internet initiative; delivering what is a relatively poor bandwidth service to remote areas.
That is to say should WW3 start, the US may well already be shielded from Russian ICBMs while Europe gets annihilated with shorter range nuclear payload capable Russian Iskander systems, based as close as Kaliningrad – Europe sacrificed while the US is protected. If so, then Europe putting its eggs in US dominated NATO basket and not being solely responsible for its own defence is a massive strategic mistake. America first, might literally be the case in the event of the outbreak of a wider war.
And those who think such a thing couldn’t be kept secret, need only watch UK TV programmes about the US ‘s early rocket (post WW2) and nuclear atom bomb research, it was a very small circle of people who knew, and strictly need to know.
Goose.
Lot’s of guff from the USA and the likes of Lockheed Martin about Laser weapons.
Let’s not forget that Lasers (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) are beams of collimated light. They are not particle beams, just photon beams and their power diminishes with distance following the inverse square law and atmospheric conditions.
In short, IMO, a Laser is never going to be a really effective weapon – it’s too expensive, too big and depends on targets not having adequate defenses (eg, reflective coatings). Missiles are cheaper and more effective.
They need only alter the course to effectively neutralise such a threat. The older ICBMs follow projectile motion or ballistic trajectory to a set target.
I don’t claim to possess any specialist knowledge about whether such interception capability exists. Tbh, I’m not particularly interested in these hideous weapons.
But logically, it does follow that if something was seriously researched as possible in the 1980s, it seems it’d be whole lot easier to implement today, giving tech advances and lowered launch costs. Musk’s SpaceX has lowered space costs significantly and already won DoD contracts eg. for the Falcon heavy – heavy-lift vehicle, for future military satellites.
star wars doesn’t work too easy to game the system–mirved warheads, decoys, etc.. just because something was researched in the 80’s doesn’t mean it’s realistic–see Men Who Stare at Goats. just more expensive military scams that don’t work.
Avoiding propaganda and war porn has been keeping me somewhat silent but I must address the issues raised by Goose,Stevie Boy, pretzelattack. More to add rather than detract any points made for it is important to realise that modern technological advances force change in the way war is fought. Sadly what remains the same is many inncocent people are unnecessarily harmed.
Stevie Boy is quite correct in that laser weapons are limited by the laws of physics and a atmospheric practical system is unlikely.
They may find a role against exo-atmospheric bodies where it might be a cheaper solution over the standard kinetic weapon approach.
Missile systems to defend against a missile attack really do not work. The Americans would like you to believe their PATRIOT system works, but it really is not proven against serious threats. It may be possible to track a 10 tonne missile at 50,000 feet (hint: very difficult), being able to guess where it is targeted is a problem. Even more of an issue is what you do when it decides to drop on target at near vertical incidence at Mach 5 or more. Most moern systems have some form of terminal guidance to improve accuracy. You may be lucky to have a near-miss with a missile (unlikely to be able to hit it with a hittile) but then you have a problem with supersonic debris being spread over a wide area creating a much larger destruction zone. I think burgers of major cities would take a dim view of such an approach.
This is why you see European countries fighting amongst themsleves to get NATO approved strike (or offensive) weapon systems – nobody mentioned defensive systems.
As for Starlink, have a think about the problem the USA has at the present time with their current satellite remote weapon systems. Latency in the hundreds of milliseconds and resolution of the systems are quite poor by modern standards. High quality video is not available on a long haul multiple satellite link, hence the issues surrounding being able to defintely identify human beings getting out of cars (or carrying video cameras in a street) etc.
The Starlink system effectively solves this by providing low latency (10 -20msec) and sufficient bandwidth to provide high quality multi-spectral remote views in real-time. The low latency allows control of a semi-autonomous drone so that the joystick jockeys in the UK/US/Germany to play their video games from a comfy seat.
So the modern land battlefield becomes one of low level (up to say 5,000ft) helicopter style drones for surveillance and target identification which managed locally, Then medium level strike drones (30,000ft) for interdict, or, battlefield targeted strikes (tanks, artillery, fuel depots) and then you have the high level missile strikes (bunkers, buildings etc) which usually arrive at or very near vertical incidence. The two latter cases are usually controlled by a remote team well beyond the battlefield.
Will you be sure that in the near future when you connect to your Metaverse shoot ’em up video console that you will be playing a game?
Who will win the war to eradicate the planet of humans? Nature or humans themselves?
The US’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system has a claimed hit probability for one of its interceptors against an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile of slightly more than 50%. However, this is highly likely to be a significant exaggeration designed to get more Federal funding – and even if it isn’t, it would only apply to missiles coming from North Korea which can be accurately tracked from shortly after launch. Most Russian ICBMs are much more difficult to track at an early stage as they are launched from either submarines or mobile land-based launchers. At present, the GBMD has less than 100 interceptors, which are based only in California & Alaska, compared to the hundreds of ICBMs in working order possessed by both Russia & China.
Nope, the only super weapon involved was cunning, and US provided positioning data. On the night in question the Moskva was weathering 7ft seas; an old ‘Soviet’-era vessel, its primary radar was of an older 180° sweep variety. Whilst the Moskva’s radar was engaged in tracking a drone in one direction the two Neptune anti-ship missiles came in on the blindside, undetected, or detected too late by the ship’s close-in weapons because of the swell.
> The Moskova was hit by some kind of super dooper weapon which was able to evade all electronic surveillance. Ukraine does not have any super dooper weapons.
The Moskva was hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles, from the acccounts I’ve seen. That missile was designed in Ukraine, while it was still part of the CCCP, and it’s made in Ukraine. It’s not new, and it’s not from the USA.
The Neptune isn’t “able to avoid all electronic surveillance”; the story is that the Moskva’s electronic defences were distracted by a drone, that preceded the arrival of the missiles.
Can you call someone a war criminal if you are almost assured that war criminals, and there are a few to choose from, will not be brought to court due to people like Tisdall?
when did Tisdall argue that Blair is a lying war criminal?
Please do not mention Tony Blair, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Korea, Vietnam or Western war crimes. Didn’t you know they don’t matter? It never happened…
“It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States [and of Israel and the UK – TW] have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis”.
— Harold Pinter, Nobel Lecture December 7, 2005.
Needless to say, Mr Pinter’s savagely incisive speech was completely ignored. It, too, never happened.
Looks like someone is trying to create chaos in the pro-russian Transnisteria republic (bordering the southwestern part of Ukraine)
Yesterday someone fired a missile into the government building and today someone bombed 2 communication masts!
https://tass.com/world/1443155
I would bet ukrainian forces are behind this.
Cornered rats.
They may want the ammo dump.
They may hope for an escalation.
Whoever did it – was special forces of some Western belligerent.
French are reported deployed as well as SAS and probably the rest of the Nato types and mercenaries.
The politicians are now openly saying ‘we are at war with Russia’ when upto now it has been ‘we were just worried about our little Nazis in Ukraine getting mullered even though we have trained supplied and commanded them since 2014 – but they did it all by their plucky own Nazi selves’
I noted very early on in this that Putin and Co were very clear it was not War but a Special Operation.
If War is what is wanted by nato it will have to be the one declaring it.
At which point it’s ‘we are a defensive organisation of three little pigs’ goes beyond its useable date.
At which point the SCO and therefore China and their very recent treaty reaffirmation is of ‘Good neighbourliness’ of mutual security cuts in.
All of this is known – we are as I have also discerned through Covid – being led into a purdahed existence, cut off from 85% of humanity, cut off from all these resources an cheap products.
We are having our financial security and savings wilfully destroyed through inflation and interest rates and be deprived of all products from China and the SCO.
Btw anybody else remember the HK Color attempt ? Remember these Uke Nazis showing up there?
Think the Chinese will not have forgotten.
Time to consider where to move to for the last 20 years of my useful life on Earth – it’s going to become Soviet grim here.
That new super dooper weapon I guess is a submarine launched autonomous underwater killer drone. ?? Both sides have their new weapons. The US wants to bog Russia down in an insurgency using Ukrainians and mercenaries attacking on key sites. Russia will win land battles, and I guess take all the southern porst including Oddessa. Everything Scott Ritter and Douglas Macgregor predicted. A world at War everywhere !
Ritter and Macgregor both predicted that the war would be over by now.
From the Wikipedia article on the Crimean War:
“The Russians evacuated Wallachia and Moldavia in late July 1854. Therefore, the immediate cause of war had now been withdrawn, and the war might have then ended.[79] However, war fever among the public in both Britain and France had been whipped up by the press in both countries to the degree that politicians found it untenable to propose immediately ending the war.”
Plus ça change…
Fascinating reminder of a forgotten history. Thanks for posting. Can you write a letter to the Guardian or Times with this information for their readers? Or write to your MP pointing out that almost all wars are avoidable and / or retrievable, that war is a choice on BOTH sides.
Pears Morgaine, Scott Ritter made that prediction of a quick Russian victory, to which you keep referring, on the first day of the invasion.
You employ his falsified prediction, made on the basis of very little information, as though it invalidates his commentary on events in progress, about which much more is known.
For how long do you plan to keep wasting space with this sophistry?
The still available interview is dated 28th February, four days in. Ritter confidently explained how the Russians were moving at ‘lightning speed’ and were well advanced in the process of surrounding Kyiv. Now according to him this is not the way the Russians wage war, preferring a ‘slow and steady’ approach. In this and his most recent ‘analysis’ he’s predicted that Ukraine will be defeated ‘inside of a week’.
He’s been consistently wrong and totally lacks credibility.
Pears Morgaine,
On 4 April,
[ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/04/each-of-us-is-striving-to-process-the-truth-of-the-disaster-in-ukraine/comment-page-2/#comment-1016028 ]
you directed me to a video interview of Ritter by Richard Medhurst featuring the “quick Russian victory” claim (at around the 23 minute mark, as you helpfully indicated)
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDXMRlWO79U ],
which is a copy of this video
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GkmdCaBECs ]
and which shows an upload date of 24 February.
Ritter’s interviewer, Robert Medhurst (who only days earlier was scoffing at the idea of an invasion), mentioned that the invasion had started two days previously. Ritter went onto describe how the Russians were moving at ‘lightning speed’ and that paratroopers would soon be dropping on Kyiv,and Odesa, how it was all over for the Ukrainian army and predicting that it’d all be over in a week etc etc. Now two months on he’s telling us with great authority that that’s not the way the Russians wage war; despite the fact that they only took 12 days to subdue Georgia! This slow and steady approach doesn’t minimise casualties, civilian or otherwise, quite the reverse and no one keeps a war going longer than they need to. It’s expensive in cash and blood. Ritter really hasn’t got a clue and is making it up as he goes along.
Transnistria is pro-Russian so who stands to gain from them joining the war?
Okay, General Morgaine. You have joined the Russian command.
Congratulations on your new post. Your first assignment is to work out where the supply lines run, to reinforce/resupply the Transdnistrian front.
Better get out some crayons and a map!
There are already 1,500 Russian troops in Transnistria although I don’t know what equipment they have. The only way they can be reinforced or resupplied would be by air through Ukrainian airspace, the shortest route being from the south. Doable although not without risk.
In 2006 the Transdenitrian people in a population of 500k voted to be under the ‘ care ‘of Russia.
Considering that Russia paid their pensions and provided them with free energy supplies then maybe that is no surprise.
I would ask all people who are watching/viewing the whole terrible debacle of this war ( it really is not winnable in the Ukranian sense)
and just say that: the US does not want a ceasefire/agreement.
There is a TV screen for the schmucks who are shown one thing whilst another thing is happening behind the scenes ( mainly the ongoing capitalist system – which carries on come what may whilst Ukranians suffer.
The US has skin in the game to the Ukranians that they can win – they can’t and when they should be sueing for peace the Ynaks are bending Zelensky’s ear to continue the ‘winnable ‘war.
The US will tell them what no doubt they told the ”legitimate ‘ government of Afghanistan before they legged it.
There are many countries other countries should no trust but the US is beyond comper on the League of Trust.
My advice to all is: Never be friend of the
I do not know whether to laugh or cry when reading this update from Colonel Cassad on the Donbass situation, which reflects a reality far from the cynical posturing and lies of the politicians and journalists, against all of whom whom I call for a plague.
4. Marinka.
There is no significant progress in the village, as before, positional battles are going on near the waste heap.
I don’t see the justification for sneering at Mr. Tisdall’s Guardian article simply because he has said some odd things in the past. Past performance is no indication of future performance as they say.
He is not a hack that appears on my radar anyway, never noticed him.
That said, I have read the article a few times. One thing stuck out, that is his apparent shock at the demise of “the international rules-based order”, I would like to know where he, and many here, have been since the end of WW2….. and no, I wasn’t born till after Hitler was barbecued in the bunker either.
“The international rules-based order” has been absent most of the time. Ever since the Israeli state ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homeland if you look closely. The only “rules-based order” that worked was the $US.
And still most around here can do no more than bitch at one side or the other, when what is needed is a united voice for a cease fire followed by peace negotiations.
The arms industries are making hay whilst this sun shines, and all the gravediggers are getting is lots of overtime…_
The problem with “The international rules-based order” is that it is the aggressors who make the rules and change them when it suits.
As with the international situation and specifically, for Mr Murray and Scotland, you can never win playing by the rules when it is your enemies that make the rules.
If you read it several times you’d have noticed the suggestion that Putin’s invasion is more atrocious than anything committed by western leaders and his demand that NATO directly attack Russia.
“The Guardian reported that, according to 18 European experts, the civilians in Bucha were killed by artillery fire.”
No, the report says that dozens were killed by artillery fire.
‘US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was asked about the German decision to supply Ukraine with 50 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks – a major policy shift for Berlin.
Austin said it was a “significant move” as “those systems will provide real capability for Ukraine”.
He predicted Germany will look for ways to continue to be “relevant” and provide “good capability” to the Ukrainians as they continue to fight Russian forces.’
We’ve got other people supposedly on the left cheering on this flow of arms.
Peter Tatchell and Paul Mason to name but two. Mason berates those on the left wanting a quick end to hostilities as closet Putin supporters, frequently labelling them ‘Tankies’ – a reference to those who supported Stalin rolling the tanks into Eastern Europe.
Is it so wrong not to want Ukrainians to be in a brutal fight to the death? This ‘no guts, no glory’ mentality is fine for those sat at safe distance.
Wonder what the likes of Tisdall and Mason’s war cries would sound like as they charged into battle?
You are totally right, logically and morally. There is nothing wrong with wishing to stop the war and if that requires yielding to reality, so be it. It might be helpful fro remind all those warmongers and purveyors of Churchillian rhetoric that the great man himself had to yield to reality in Yalta, when the reality of Stalin’s occupation of half of Europe had to be swallowed whole, like the proverbial dead rat. It was just 45 years later, two generations, a blink in history, that all that pain was reversed in these subjugated countries, with the fall of the Soviet Union. Today’s pain of accepting that Russia has, in reality, already won this war, again won’t be for ever, when not to accept this reality is the danger of WW3 and nuclear armageddon. To protract this war is OUR CHOICE when there is a sane alternative. Putin is 70 and many in the Western media are already suggesting he’s mortally unwell, in which case why make Putin an eternal monster, he’s as ephemeral as any of us.
A year or two ago many in the Western media were suggesting that Kim Jong-un was dead, dying, mortally unwell, and so on, but that’s how you sell newspapers.
Mason and Tatchell have clearly lost the plot.
Here’s Erich Vad, former German Brigadier General of German Army & Security Advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel:
“We are doing a lot of war rhetoric at the moment – out of good intentions. But the road to hell is always paved with good intentions. We have to think about the ongoing war between Russia & Ukraine from the end. If we don’t want WWIII, sooner or later we have to get out of this military escalation logic & start negotiations.”
And Harald Kujat, Chief of Defence of the Bundeswehr from 2000-2002 and Chairman of the NATO Military Com-mittee from 2002–2005:
“I agree with Brigadier General Vad on every single point. The train of lemmings has started moving – politics is on a war course.” (https://lnkd.in/dbJV6JiQ of 12 April 2022)
Source: https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/zeit-fragen/eins/ganze_Ausgaben/2022/CC_20220426_09.pdf.
Presumably, the ‘infallible’ military and political experts Mason and Tatchell would also regard these two experienced military men as mere “tankies.”
In regards the German equipment. Anyone with any practical experience and nous understands this equipment is going to make less than zero impact in terms of its stated objective.
The problem is too many people think this is some sort of video game. The first problem is the logistics of getting the equipment to site. Good luck with that as the only option available is rail – and most if not all of the links are no longer available. Sure, repairs can be made. As can re-destroying those repairs or simply destroying this kit in transit before it gets anywhere near being deployed.
Unless of course you intend to try getting it to site by air. Good luck with that option.
But let’s just suspend reality and suppose you can get them on site. What then? You need trained people to operate them. You also need trained people to train others how to operate them. Do these exist in sufficient numbers to be effective? How long will it take to train them? (Spoiler: A lot longer than this conflict is going to last.)
What about maintenance and spare parts and the logistics chain and trained personnel required to carry out that function? Same questions apply.
Then there exists the not insignificant practical matter of integrating this kit into existing systems on the battlefield. With so many domestic (Ukrainian) and outside (Western) systems being deployed into the area (much of it like this German kit very old in weapons systems terms) not everything will be compatible. Different munitions requiring training which has not occurred and the logistics of getting the right munitions to the right systems would be difficult in peace time. In the chaos which exists, it’s a non starter.
The logistics, the training, the integration with other systems arriving peicemeal, if at all, and a plethora of other practical considerations means this is just another cynical exercise aimed not at making any practical difference but at Western civilian audiences as yet another aspect of the unprecedented propaganda war taking place.
The arms companies will be richer than ever as old kit like this is shipped out to be destroyed in transit – and those making the decisions to send this know this – before ever it gets near deployment. Meaning newer more modern replacement – at newer (read higher) prices for Western taxpayers.
All told, it is estimated the U.S. and the European Union have funneled over $5 billion into Ukraine in the name of “defense”. Biden announced another $800 million in military support last week which will include heavy artillery capable of hitting Russian territory. That brings the total U.S. military supply to Ukraine since Biden took office in early 2021 to nearly $4 billion.
The amount of money funneled via the CIA to the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan over a period of ten years in the 80s was less than this. Yet the G7 are committing to a further $50 billion.
Meanwhile, people across the 15% of the planet which self-identifies as The Free World/International Community are struggling to make ends meet. Homelessness, poverty, inflation, unemployment and similar metrics are increasing. Decades, not years, of austerity have turned much of the West, including Britain, into third world hellholes. Infrastructure is crumbling, particularly in the USA, maintenance is non existent, and energy prices are through the roof not just for domestic consumers but also food growers who British Farmers Groups report ceased growing in January because gas heating and fertiliser makes the effort uneconomic. All as a result of incompetence and virtue signalling.
Incompetence as a result of both the UK and Europe going into the winter period with the lowest gas reserves on record and virtue signalling by relying on buying gas on the spot market rather than secure contracts from Russia which saw prices rise from $600 in early 2021 to above $2,000 by the end of the year. Speculators were laughing all the way to the bank for this largess.
Just wait till those food shortages start hitting in a few months when gas prices go up again and there are shortages of diesel fuel. (Check out road haulage freight in the UK, most of it requires diesel. Go figure.) Then we will see how effective the propaganda is.
Meanwhile, the US, insistent on Europe imposing economically suicidal sanctions on themselves by not buying Russian oil, had no qualms in early April this year in buying that same Russian oil and selling it back to the European elite leadership mugs at a profit for US oil corporations. Again, Go figure.
The populations of Europe and the US can starve and freeze because “we” (WTF is WE here) can’t afford to look after our own populations but we can give $50 billion and more to a bunch of far-right neo-Nazi thugs so that the lobbyists, who sponsor our bought-and-paid-for politicians and media hacks, can dismember another country and plunder its resources because Makinder’s heartland must be controlled – like the rest of the 85% of the planet which is not part of “The International Community.”
I’m with you all the way, Ron Soak, and I have eluded my support for General Vlad’s clear statements to the facts Germany must recognise to my sis who works at the home office. as much as it pains me to contact her at all.
We seem to be applauding and cheering ourselves on in Europe as we walk the plank to oblivion.
I have it from a good source who works in Bacton, that we have profited from the gas hike for the last six month, selling our gas dearly to the EU spot market, whilst charging our UK customers the higher prices.
They operating a paradise for speculators.
I can’t speak for German equipment, Ron, but I’d imagine it’s pretty much like most British military kit, i.e. designed to be idiot-proof (which is not entirely surprising when you consider the academic background of your typical infantry & armoured corps grunts). I don’t think it will take long to train anyone with a modicum of intelligence how to use most of it – e.g. like modern cameras, the NLAW anti-tank weapons are really just a case of point & click – the fancy electronics does the rest.*
The Gepard anti-aircraft systems are self-propelled, so if necessary they don’t need to be transported by rail or air – and they’ll be in pretty good nick as they were originally going to be used at the Qatar World Cup (I hope this doesn’t mean that Houthi drones are going to be dropping all sorts on Harry Kane & Co come November). They also use standard NATO flak ammo – so no real supply problems there. What the Ukrainians really want, however, are self-propelled heavy howitzers like M109’s or AS-90’s. The US funnelled over $1 trillion to Afghanistan (or at least to corporations that had interests there) in the name of ‘nation-building’ – $50 billion is chump change for them.
Parts of Chapeltown & South Leeds are pretty rough, but I wouldn’t go quite as far as describing them as ‘third-world hellholes’ – and if people there could stay off the stones for five minutes, they’d be lovely. In a few months’ time, governments in the West will likely just borrow more money to give to people & firms so that they can pay their energy bills. What do you think happened during the pandemic? It makes sense for them to borrow now while interest rates are low and inflation is high. Governments are basically being paid to borrow money.
* That said, I did see a vid on Twitter a while back of someone in Mariupol (probably Azov but could have been a marine) firing one from the second floor of a building onto a Ruskie BMP only around 40 feet away, meaning that the missile didn’t have time to arm itself properly – so that was a waste of £25 grand of UK taxpayers’ money.
At least when it comes to battles in Eastern Ukraine, the chances of these rather large weapons getting there must be tiny. Russia, with its satellites, missiles and planes, will blow them up first. We hear wailing in our “news” that Russia is bombing “railway stations”. They are doubtless cutting the transport links that could be used to bring in weapons. But those who fail to think as they listen to the propaganda assume that the West is doing something more significant than merely enriching arms makers.
Actually those Gepard tanks are completely useless, anti-aircraft cannons on a tank chassis. 50 years old and outdated. Now it’s guided missiles for shooting down aircraft, not cannons. The same is true of all the weapons being sent – it’s all old junk pulled out of the reserves, and then talked up as a war-changing weapon which will handily defeat the entire Russian army.
I’d imagine that a Gepard will be able to make a mess of a low-flying Ruskie helicopter, Laguerre – and, if the IR jammers on their Kamovs etc are actually in working order, might be needed instead of heat-seeking missiles. I’ve actually been slighly astonished at just how many Ruskie helis the Ukies have managed to shoot down with MANPADS, having been under the impression that the Ruskies in Afghanistan managed to eventually evade the Mujahideen’s Stingers simply by attaching baffles to their heli exhausts.
Another advocate for death and destruction.
Ukraine can strike Russia with British arms – UK
Armed Forces Minister James Heappey dismissed warnings of nuclear war and gave Ukraine permission to use UK weapons inside Russia
https://www.rt.com/news/554550-heappey-british-weapons-russia/
What is so appealing with death for these people?
You’d best direct that question at the man in the Kremlin who started this.
At this juncture I don’t give a rats who started it, I just want it stopped now, I’ll leave the historians to write the play…_
Joe Biden is in the Whitehouse not the Kermlin – an easy mistake to make in the West.
Pears, there is in your intellectual intransigence something almost painful to observe. Indeed, Putin and Russia have been the agency of this war but it actually started in 1992 when Ukraine became independent, and the neocons in the US and in Europe could not accept that Russia, the rump survivor of the the USSR’s dissolution, had a right to exist as a rival power. Russia cannot be forgiven for existing and the US and NATO has aggressively and consistently done everything it can to undermine Russia’s security and right to the peaceful or unthreatening status of its own borders. The 2014 Maidan revolution, supported by a $5 billion investment by the US in Ukraine was the final straw. The re-annexation of Crimea was a rational and I believe humane response to the needs of the Crimean citizenry who overwhelmingly did not want to be part of the corrupt US support Ukrainian state. The continued attacks on the Donbas and the refusal of Ukraine to meet its Minsk agreement, and its continued intransigence in regard to joining NATO, again supported by insane neocons such as Victoria Nuland, are the direct cause of this war. We know what they think, the “Project for the New American Century” is the US’s version of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, a continued global hegemony by military might, economic warfare and diplomatic treachery. These neocons are, I say again, insane, and will, if unchecked, bring the world to ruin. But Victoria Nuland is still there, actually in charge of the US and NATO’s actions in Ukraine; she is the personification of malignant thinking. Their actions in regard to sanctions and the war are not going to plan, and like quacks, they will only double down on a treatment that isn’t working, Liz Truss has actually said we’re going to double down, she too is insane. If we escape without the entire UK being lit up like a candle by the end of this year…….
Hunter Biden’s links to Ukraine are equally fascinating and troubling too, but the US and UK media refuse to dig into them, or even acknowledge it exists. Instead setting almost impossibly high barrier tests for authentication of the stuff on that ‘laptop from hell’.
The private pictures of Hunter himself and the other business related documents are not enough apparently? Some of the stuff has been authenticated by those named in said business dealings.
Just remember, the same people dismissing the laptop as unauthenticated, accepted the Trump kompromat ‘pee tape’ hearsay, without so much as a pause for thought. News media had endless air time for Russiagate hearsay, and no far-fetched rumour was seen as of too dubious origin to run with for the likes of CNN, Rachel Maddow et al.
Then they wonder why trust in western mainstream media is at an all time low.
Russia is operating behind Ukrainian lines (obviously – they have invaded Ukrainian territory).
Russia has clearly been having logistical difficulties; it would only make sense for Ukraine to do all it can to exacerbate those difficulties, by attacking Russia’s supply lines – which necessarily are in Russian territory. I don’t see why Ukraine should not attack Russian territory, when Russia is flattening Ukrainian cities.
Okay. So. First and foremost we need to keep an eye on a key player: Victoria Nuland, who came to my notice when she expressed concern that Russia had secured an American biological warfare lab. She was worried Russia might use America’s biological weapons… It turns out they’re are 26 of these labs in Ukraine, and that Biden junior is a player in this.
https://www.salon.com/2021/01/19/who-is-victoria-nuland-a-really-bad-idea-as-a-key-player-in-bidens-foreign-policy-team/
Chapter and Verse:
http://dilyana.bg/documents-expose-us-biological-experiments-on-allied-soldiers-in-ukraine-and-georgia/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8VIp1tbzWw
Next is the war chest budget which will go directly to companies which make these weapons of death. The US has unloaded a significant portion of its stockpile to the Home Guard in Ukraine, and the professional advisers who are training the Ukrainians in their use. Also Russia has allegedly lost at least 17 senior Generals who were leading from the front.
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/4/15/pentagon_russia_ukraine_800_million_arms
And of course they are funding the Metabiota labs
https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/apr/01/facts-behind-russian-right-wing-narratives-claimin/
Tell me the following is not too true to be dismissed as fake news and a most unlikely scenario …..
amanfromMars 1 Tue 26 Apr 17:19 [2204261719] ……. asks on https://forums.theregister.com/forum/2/2022/04/26/army_microsoft_headset/
The Bigger Picture Show …… and gravely to be regarded
Such monies are not necessarily clearly wasted, for the mind-numbing generous sums are granted to give the impression that the economy is booming and the dollar is driving growth rather than propping up a collapsing ponzi system of zombie businesses dependent upon warrior conflicts to inflict debt and destruction upon others for Uncle Sam to appear as a errant saviour and gallant white knight galloping to international rescue. It’s the American Dream Way.
Is Ukraine expected to pay for all the weapons and aid it is apparently being gifted by concerned foreigners or is it a loan shark operation ….. whenever it has no profitable industry nor national reserve pots of money of its own available and its own destroyed infrastructure is yet to be rebuilt first if the displaced population is ever to return home and make a living?
Whether it is admitted to be the Grand Master Plan or not, and it is nothing new for it has been practised before many time, is Ukraine forever to be crushingly indebted to the Western allies and fully reliant upon their submitting to their whims for all future help?
Do you choose to ignore what President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961) warned y’all about was gravely to be regarded ……. the establishment of a “military-industrial complex.”?
Has history not taught you any valuable lessons at all?
There’s at least four pertinent impertinent questions more than just Ukrainians would likely wish to be comprehensively answered ….. with a quite a few others desperately hoping that they be not asked such leading questions.
[ Mod: Sockpuppet – ‘Joe‘ (aka ‘Nick’, ‘Fairness’, ‘RealityIsNotPleasant’, etc.).
The adoption of multiple identities is not allowed. Please use a consistent name and email address. ]
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Three obvious facts: 1. The US has encouraged Zelenskyy not to enter meaningful peace negotiations. 2. The US is ramping up the supply of weapons to Ukraine. 3. This is a US v. Russia war, fought via proxy.
Deduction from these facts: The USA is unconcerned about the possibility of escalation to a significant nuclear exchange.
It follows that US strategists believe that they can win a nuclear war against Russia.
This is not as absurd as it may appear. In the chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIA had ample opportunity to acquire “assets” (agents) in the Russian military and intelligence communities (government employees in the former Soviet Union weren’t getting paid – and they had to feed their families somehow). In other words, the Russian military and government is probably riddled with CIA agents. We do not know how much sabotage of Russian nuclear weapons they have accomplished, or how many trojans and viruses they have planted in Russian computer-control systems. We can be sure they have accomplished some of this.
Furthermore, Washington probably does not care if a few European cities get nuked, as long as Russia gets totally destroyed and no American city gets nuked.
So I think I understand the American perspective. What I don’t get is why 90% of Europe is going along with it.
“What I don’t get is why 90% of Europe is going along with it.” ….. propaganda dear boy, state propaganda.
Good post. Thanks…_
It’s not just propaganda. Why do you think so many of our senior politicians end up with well-paid sinecures in US corporations?
Money, actually, dear boy. Washington pays European political leaders, who then become its employees.
Nothing demeaning about that, of course. Everything in Washington is, and always has been, for sale. And I do mean everything.
Your last sentence is absolutely key. Much of the rest is perfectly believable until we question why Europe is so keen to get involved , after all the risks to Europe are vastly greater than the instigators (usa).
Something doesn’t add up and I cannot think of a feasible answer.
.. to digger.
Propaganda? For the plebs yes.
But not on a governmental scale ,? Why are they so keen to suck up to usa?
The UN Secretary General does not get the gig without the nod from USofA. He’s just had a meeting with Lavrov and both gave a press conference. I watched the un edited full version on CGTN. He laid out the ‘US’ case ignoring Minsk, saying there are Russian troops in Ukraine and no Ukrainian troops in Russia. Lavrov, again went through the sequence of events in detail which no one wants to hear. The Secretary General also said he had no power to set up an independent body to investigate the alleged war crimes ! Surprise surprise. The OPCS being knobbled ages ago. No doubt the false flags will keep coming in a hope by the war mongers to get the Ruskies using the Banderites and the media. They just can’t get it in their thick ignorant heads that the Russian population live the history of their great patriotic war and sacrifice, as if it happened yesterday and know ever detail and have pictures of their family members who died or starved at the hands of the Nazis. The May Victory Day celebrations next month will be the most emotionally supported since 1945 ! Putin is more popular now then ever.
To Dave kemp :
I saw a hypothesis as to “why” on one of the Russian forums (Aftershock). The author speculated that it were the old elites who saw a chance to expropriate the political and economy power back from the “low-born” capitalists.
On number #1, it is very similar to what happend in 2008.
Joe Biden’s Ukraine Policy: A Repeat of George W. Bush in Georgia?
“The Biden administration is in grave danger of replicating George W. Bush’s disastrous policy of encouraging Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, to believe that his country was a valued U.S. ally and that the United States and NATO would come to Georgia’s rescue if it became embroiled in an armed conflict with Russia. Saakashvili had every reason to conclude that he had Washington’s unwavering support. The Bush administration had provided millions of dollars in weaponry to Tbilisi, and even trained Georgian troops.”
https://www.cato.org/commentary/joe-bidens-ukraine-policy-repeat-george-w-bush-georgia#
> Saakashvili had every reason to conclude that he had Washington’s unwavering support.
Not true. Saakashvili was trying to bounce NATO into sending forces to his country, which was never on the cards. Zelyinsky has tried the same trick.
LogicalAnalyst,
While I am not personally convinced by your sketched argument that the US is genuinely playing nuclear chicken and thinks it can “win” a nuclear exchange with Russia, I do share your astonishment…
“What I don’t get is why 90% of Europe is going along with it”
…given the clear and certain downsides of this war for Europe, leaving aside the potential for a nuclear exchange. Watching the downfall of Nord Stream 2 alone was like watching somebody reluctantly, but intentionally, blow off their own foot with a shotgun.
Wolfgang Streeck seems to have some cogent explanations for why European leaders have handed “power of attorney” to the US for dealing with Russia.
I’m still trying to digest how it all adds up to the zombie-apocalypse bloc discipline on display, but Streeck is a talented expositor.
As Fred Dagg said earlier in the comments, there is no voting our way out of this. Look at the choice the French just had, between Le Pen and Macron, FFS. That’s your ‘democracy’ right there – a former Rothschild banker NWO stooge or Marine bloody Le Pen. We’re no better off here. Under FPTP it’s either Heil Starmer or the imbecilic Johnson (or some other equally shite candidate, if he’s gone by then).
I will not vote again, as eventually it dawned on me that doing so only lends legitimacy to the system. The system which, like all power hierarchies, rewards traits such as psychopathy and obedience (see also the Marr-Chomsky youtube classic mentioned earlier by Peter). This inevitably leads to what we have now, i.e. a world run by governments / corporations all headed by psychopaths. The propaganda is absolutely crucial. It’s their most powerful weapon. To think of it as ‘just’ propaganda is to woefully underestimate what’s happening. It’s all about manipulation of perception. They could not get away with their crimes without the wash of propaganda normalizing it all (see also Nazi Germany).
The answer? IDK. All we can ‘do’ is refuse to believe the avalanche of lies spewing out of every TV and radio channel (and online). Sometimes the truth is difficult to know for certain (e.g. JFK’s assassination (probably CIA), twin towers (probably terrorists (including CIA))), but if you read around a bit it becomes clearer that MSM news (TV, papers etc.) is just lying on an industrial scale. There are many good journalists, like John Pilger, Julian Assange (of course), Craig, Jonathan Cook etc. Although Jonathan Cook still persists in believing in a big distinction between ‘left’ and ‘right’, when the real one is between good and evil.
Why is Europe seemingly doing the bidding of the US? Because it’s all part of the same Globalist cabal. Yes, the conspiracy theories were correct.
In sum: lying, evil, psychopaths control the world and everything in it. The system, like the governments, corporations and bureaucracies that comprise it, ‘thinks’ differently to any one individual. It will prevent any attempt to act against it. There is no peaceful way to change this situation, but at least we can recognise it.
«Why is Europe seemingly doing the bidding of the US?»
Because all european counties were defeated in WW2, and the most important ones were occupied by the USA.
And the european countries elites have not failed to noticed that the USA smashed into pieces the USSR only 30 years ago and installed there for quite a few years a “sponsored” government, and have been quite successful at turning eastern european countries into protectorates too.
It is not exactly a choice. The only choice is how far to submit because there are some margins of flexibility, and get whatever benefits may be had.
Otherwise it is “lie back and think of the Pentagon”.
“And the european countries elites have not failed to notice that the USA smashed into pieces the USSR only 30 years ago […]”
I don’t disagree with your general drift here, but this part reminds me of how Jack Matlock (penultimate US ambassador to the Soviet Union) took pains (when speaking at University of Edinburgh on 15 June 2015) to distinguish three related events that nowadays get conflated (frequently in triumphalist rhetoric, but not only there):
He makes these distinctions at the 8:20 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa2qk9t5NMA&t=8m20s
With respect to the forces that drove event 3 (dissolution of USSR), Putin’s remarks on recognition of the Donbass republics discuss this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220222233712/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828
I don’t claim expertise on any aspect of the Soviet Union’s demise, but these sources suggest that it was not a matter of “USA smashing it into pieces”.
*Cough* Sweden, Switzerland & Ireland were not “defeated in WW2”.
The Putin fans on Mr. Murray’s site should check their facts before posting.
All pretty cosy with Germany , weren’t they ?
I thought I had deleted that post? It was kinda unfinished and I was playing with the HTML tags to get them right and wanted to see if I was on the right track.
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I only listen to the radio whilst i’m in the car driving, and i’m noticing, more frequently the US warhawk generals are getting more airtime and they can hardly contain their perverse fantasy which has long festered in the dark regions of their mind… They sense the big opportunity for an all out war with Russia is imminent… Completely possessed by a twisted force inside the human psyche, which is hell bent on collective suicide.. Oh for the collective flowering of our beautiful heart intelligence… Just in the nick of time.
Man has the potential to become divine in nature, or lower than the animals… Can’t remember who said words to that effect.. May have been Buddha… Few are prepared to fully embrace the darkness inside, so as to discover true love.. Preferring to go along with the hard wired default mode of ‘projecting hatred onto the perceived other.’
Somebody rewrite the programme.. The algorithms have gotten out of control and are truly deranged.
If you don’t think that “active propaganda and lying” is the normal mode of discourse for the western (and other) media, then I can’t think where you’ve been living for the whole of your life, Craig.
So many ‘experts’ rushing to patronise Craig, without considering what he has actually written.
You would expect Tisdall and the Guardian to pretend this is an exceptional crime by the Russians. Dishonest propaganda is the Guardian’s stock in trade. That they have no scruples should not shock anybody who has witnessed their behaviour over the last half decade in particular.
What is alarming is the number of people still buying this obvious MSM lie that the invasion of Ukraine is somehow an exceptional crime. After all, most British adults lived through and are fully aware of the criminal destructions of Iraq and Libya, of Britain’s ongoing role in the catastrophe in Yemen, of Biden’s deliberate starvation of millions of Afghans, of the ceaseless expansion of NATO through Eastern Europe, etc.
It is alarming because it illustrates vividly that most people are willing to wipe their minds completely clean of all this knowledge and allow them to be filled afresh with the narratives of self-serving career liars. Propagandists whom they ought to have noticed by now have no humanitarian concern until it can be weaponised to their advantage. Unfortunately most people obstinately refuse to notice that and instead think it is a sign of high intelligence to parrot whatever they hear posh people saying on the news.
The last few weeks have been a disheartening eye-opener for anyone who had been telling themselves the public are becoming less susceptible to establishment bullshit.
“What is alarming is the number of people still buying this obvious MSM lie that the invasion of Ukraine is somehow an exceptional crime”.
It’s mostly common or garden racism. People who didn’t give a toss if millions of Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Libyans, Somalis, Sudanis, or Syrians were killed get seriously freaked out by “blond, blue-eyed Europeans” getting the same treatment. especially if they seem middle class.
We’re Europeans, Christians, Whites! by M. K. Bhadrakumar (Indian Punchline, 1 Mar 2022)
“It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed”
— Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze
“This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan…This is a relatively civilised, relatively European city”
— CBS foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata
“What’s compelling is looking at them, the way they are dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people. These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from the Middle East…or North Africa. They look like any European family that you’d live next door to.”
— Peter Dobbie, Al Jazeera news presenter.
“We are in the 21st century, we are in a European city and we have cruise missile fire as though we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, can you imagine!?”
“They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts… War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.”
— Daniel Hannan
“The unthinkable has happened…This is not a developing, third world nation; this is Europe!”
“It’s an important question. We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing…We’re talking about Europeans.”
“To put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine…These are Christians, they’re white. They’re very similar [to us]”.
— Kelly Cobiella, NBC News Correspondent, explaining why Poland, which was hesitant to take in refugees from West Asia and North Africa, is now accepting refugees.
Exactly!
But Tom, if you found the sight of starving white people with bloated bellies lining the streets of Edinburgh more emotionally jarring than black people lining the streets of an impoverished third world country, would that really mean you were racist?
Tom
I agree racism is a factor. More significant though I think is that Ukrainians are victims of an approved enemy of our political and media class. In that narrow class that monopolises public opinion there is total unanimity that Russia has committed an exceptional crime. That’s enough for most people to forget the past two decades of barbarism and also the barbarism the UK and US are responsible for in Yemen and Afghanistan right now. There’s little to no evidence unfortunately that when the media and politicians sing from the same hymn sheet these propaganda blitzes do not work. That means they’ll keep on coming.
– “I agree racism is a factor. More significant though I think is that Ukrainians are victims of an approved enemy of our political and media class.”
But these are inseparable. The racism is institutionalised, which is why Russia is officially an enemy. Big place, Russia; it goes a lot further east than Ukraine does. Anyway, here’s some racism from the telly:
https://twitter.com/Citizen_Adnan/status/1499688164805337090
Hello Craig.
Glad you back…refreshed.
Was looking forward to the rest of your article(s) about your time inside. Though I can well understand if you don’t wish to traverse that further.
Best wishes.
Michael
Interesting that Ukraine keep achieving these attacks inside Russia, I am sure these attacks are aided by western intelligence services.
Drone shot down near large Russian city – governor
https://www.rt.com/russia/554590-drone-voronezh-ukraine-border/
Fire engulfs Russian ammunition depot near Ukraine
“A series of explosions have rocked an ammunition depot south of the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border, a day after several villages in the same region came under attacks which have been blamed on Kiev’s forces.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/554585-belgorod-ammunition-depot-fire-explosions/
Truss to recommend sending warplanes to Ukraine?
My god , and she may well be a shout for next PM?
Jeezo
Warplanes !!!
What planes would these be ?
Do Ukrainian pilots exist to fly them ?
What air fields would they use ?
Can they be refueled in country ?
Can Truss identify Ukraine on a map ?
More utter BS from the plastic, Maggie wannabe – why is this moron tolerated ?
Why is it OK for the Putin regime to have combat aircraft but not for Ukraine?
Would you have opposed arming the Spanish Republic against the Fascists in 1936-9?
or The Palestinians, Yemenis or even Saddam Hussein (Oh I forgot! We did arm him, and sold him his chemical weapons).
Just identifying the hypocrisy and virtue signalling of the UK government.
Wouldn’t you be more proud of the UK government if they said, “we support diplomacy and therefore are not arming this conflict” ?
For more see: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/politico-germany-approves-tank-sales-to-ukraine-bowing-to-pressure.html#more
BTW, The Ukrainians are the fascists …
“Would you have opposed arming the Spanish Republic against the Fascists in 1936-9?”
The UK government did.
She has gone bonkers: to train a pilot used to Migs and Suchoys to fly her western, over-engineered, over-complicated, 35B’s, our trainers – our boys and girls – have been flying high-altitude manoeuvres over my head for the last two days; she is really off her trolley.
These fighter jets are not that easy to fly, and for her to suggest it, means that Washington is writing her agenda. Ms Truss should be fired before she crosses fingers on both hands.
Parliament should be outraged at the warmonger in their midst. What a useless, daft wench.
Brits have gone absolutely stark raving bonkers
They cannot be serious, can they?????
.
Truss is 100% serious. She’s thick as ***t but playing to the far right nutters.
She is pitching herself as a cross between Thatcher and Atilla the nun..
And now Truss seek to do the same with Taiwan
UK advocates arming Taiwan
British FM Liz Truss says a “Global NATO” needs to arm Taiwan, like Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/news/554646-liz-truss-nato-ukraine-taiwan/
I have a blackout on reading the Guardian for all the reasons expressed I many of the posts here, but I decided to follow the link to the Tisdall article to understand the post and comments better. Reading it confirms my decision to keep well away from this nonsense. I can see why Craig describes it as “crazed” as the long and short of it is the Dr Strangelove idea that it would be better to have World War 3 sooner than later so that we can all sleep easy in our beds once again and get on with our normal lives. Dragging the war out, which might allow Russia to win, will create permanent instability and Ukraine might never become that freedom loving peaceful democracy to which it, and its partners with their shared values, aspire. Sheer phantasy thinking. No history, no context, no recognition of Russian intent or strategy. He is possibly right in thinking that the “West” has not worked out what it wants from its drip-drip approach other than to put Russia in its place. But I have yet to hear any of its benighted politicians say what they think “victory” (as if there could be one) on either side would look like. I have no doubt that “victory” for Russia is no more or less than the achievement of its stated objectives but modified by the turn of events: a smaller Ukraine with the loss of the Donbass with security from the “one nation, one party, one leader” Ukraine brand of nationalism and Ukraine neutrality along with countries such as Moldova acting as NATO buffers. The rest of Ukraine can then be left to continue its special relationship with USA and the rest of its marionets.
Have Europeans not yet twigged that the clear out-and-out winner of this ghastly and unnecessary war is The USA?
FX dealers worked it out a long time ago, the Euro is collapsing against the $.
Saddam Hussein agreed to sell oil to Europe for euros. Hm. Gaddafi agreed to sell oil for euros. Hm. Saudi sells via dollars, but its supplies are getting low. Iran is the main prize. You might have heard Bush junior singing that Beach Boys classic Barbara Ann, with a minor change to the lyrics. I believe that Biden had been ready to go for the main prize until he understood the deal which has protected national borders since Kissinger established the agreement in which Putin promised to protect Israel if Iran attacked it and vice versa.
Biden then turned his attention to Plan B, the demolition of Ukraine, realising that the main prize is Russian oil and gas, and that getting all that out of the hands of Russian oligarchs and into the hands of American oligarchies would be a fine business opportunity. Encouraging Russia to depleting its stockpiles of weapons before moving on to a full scale attack on the historic and cultural centres of Russia would appear to be floated on the warmongering Brits and Europeans. It would seem that War and Peace is blacklisted now, along with classical music and ballet which Russia has provided to the world.
Note that Germany is forbidden to buy Russian gas for euros. Victoria Nuland’s “F*** Europe” comment might be worth noting. Bush told Blair “You’re either with us or you’re against us”. The mighty dollar rules okay. And the question of whether NATO is an Alliance or an Occupying force has not been tested.
The assumption is that if Russia ceases to exist as a functioning country the oil will fall into ‘our’ hands as it has in Iraq and Libya. And the effort to get women and children out of Ukraine was put into action with notable efficiency, compassion, and to universal acclaim. The US would have obliterated the country by now. Putin still appears to have the concept of a potentially functioning country in future, without US intrusion, even with hand to hand fighting in the towns and villages still continuing
Nicely worded in this article….
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/4/27/alfred_mccoy_ukraine_russia_sanctions_reparations?utm_source=Democracy+Now
“We speak with historian Alfred McCoy about how the Russian invasion of Ukraine could possibly end. McCoy argues the European Union is essentially funding the war by buying energy from Russia, and says sanctions will not deter Russian President Putin from war so long as his economy continues supplying energy for the world. McCoy says the European Court of Human Rights should instead force the EU to start deducting a portion of regular natural gas payments to Russia and reroute this money to a Ukraine compensation fund. Russia’s loss of energy income could incentivize Putin to roll back the invasion, says McCoy. His latest piece for TomDispatch is headlined “How to End the War in Ukraine: A Solution Beyond Sanctions.”
Putin has cut off oil and gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria thereby solving the conundrum for Europe…
The Senate Committee’s report into the investigation of the Biden’s involvement in Ukraine. It beggars belief that we are all cheering this on
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ukraine%20Report_FINAL.pdf