I completely agree that Ukraine is a peripheral area for the US, yet core for Russia. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya were also peripheral areas for the US (and the USSR). Given a rational, or even realpolitik perspective it makes one scratch one's head and wonder why the US is engaging in these areas. However, it does make sense, horrifying sense, if you view this through the perspective of US Messianc Global Manifest Destiny. Oh, they call it the "Rules Based Order" or some other anodyne term, but the reality speaks for itself.
The problem is the US is up against its own peak empire, both economically, and militarily. Even more problematic, unlike the 19th. century version of Manifest Destiny, the US is not clearing out vastly overmatched Native Americans or Mexicans, they are up against nuclear armed nations in areas that matter very much to them.
From Dresden to Tokyo to Hiroshima to Vietnam and Libya, the US is indeed the preeminent leader of terror bombing. The US government can get away with it because it is easy to convince many Americans that our bombing is good, even when it is a nuclear attack on a defenseless civilian city. As long as it is easy to talk Americans into accepting the horrendous, this will continue.
I agree. "The U.S. should and must wage diplomacy with the kind of fervor that it usually reserves for war." Unfortunately, there is absolutely no indication that the National Security State agrees with you. Let's face some facts. This proxy war has been in the making for at least 25 years when the father of neocon ideology, Zbigniew Brzezinski, laid out the strategy way back in 1997 in The Grand Chessboard. Here is an excerpt from the capsule summary by David Hendrickson that you can find on the Foreign Affairs website: "The heart of the book is the ambitious strategy it prescribes for extending the Euro-Atlantic community eastward to Ukraine and lending vigorous support to the newly independent republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus." As Brzezinski put it: “It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of challenging America. Ukraine is the critical state, insofar as Russia’s future evolution is concerned. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire." Every administration since the publication of that book, regardless of party, has faithfully executed this strategy. This policy is baked into the National Security apparatus no matter who happens to be sitting in the Oval Office because the neocons are in full and unchallenged control and have been since Brzezinksi published his weighty tome. The National Security State is addicted to the idea of permanent US global hegemony and has shown itself incapable of giving up the "unipolar moment." It refuses to consider a peaceful transition to a multipolar world order based on the United Nations and codified international law. Thus, the neocons keep holding on to the fictitious "rules based order" to justify everything they do. It's totally bogus, but agreeing to anything different than the status quo is anathema to them. Why? Because the status quo allows it to dominate the Western Hemisphere unchallenged, thanks to the Monroe Doctrine, as well as to have over 800+ military bases and installations around the world, most of which are surrounding and encircling Russia and China. Last time I checked I could not find any Russian or Chinese military installations anywhere near US borders. The last president who tried to challenge the National Security State and talk about genuine peace was JFK, and for daring to do so, he was assassinated. The message was sent loud and clear: If you dare to challenge the National Security State and our efforts to ensure permanent global hegemony, we will take you down.
The facts are painful, I agree, especially since we are subjected to a daily indoctrination of lies, obfuscation and deception. But as the saying goes, the truth will set you free.
You wouldn't expect anything different from a British empire army old fart in 1998, would you? The problem is even younger and not just british farts hold the same worldview now... Anyway, even them, I don't think they expected Ukraine to win on the battlefield; it is clear that the only sensible plan was provoking Putin and Russia into attacking and smash them with economic blockades and sanctions until a humiliating retreat would follow, the hungered Russian population would do the right thing and a Yeltsin-like puppet would give us and the oligarchs the 90s again. Unfortunately for us (and for me, I wish I can have the 90s back...), not so much unfortunately for the Russians, this "plan" didn't work and we are where we are... trying to figure a way out that doesn't destroy the planet, doesn't destroy the West, economically and militarly, and not finding it.
When Bush 2 "won" the election years ago, I remember being concerned about voting machines. How could people vote for that moron? I thought, how do we know these machines are legit? Then I forgot about it. Disengaged completely from politics out of disgust and disappointment. Then Trump came along, I forgot everything I once knew, and supported Democrats again. I laughed at Republicans' concerns about the machines in 2020.
But now the Democrats are unwavering in support of Joe Biden, whom most of the country hates.
There are smart people leading the Dems who know Biden is incredibly unpopular. Yes, some Dem voters are deluded. But the party strategists know that Biden is very unpopular.
Yet the party doubles down on him running in 2024.
It makes me wonder how much of those shreds of "democracy" are actually in our control. Makes me wonder about the voting machines again.
Side note, I'm leaning towards full support of Russia's "invasion". If they hadn't done it, eastern "Ukrainians" (ethnic Russians) would continue to be terrorized and murdered by Zelensky’s (US-controlled) government. What other diplomatic routes did Russia have left? What are you supposed to do when the system is rigged against you? Make another statement that everybody ignores? It's hard for me to reconcile my antiwar beliefs with the need to defend innocent eastern Ukrainians.
An excellent essay with the analogy of the tigers, but presumably the tigers, trained and fed as they are, do feel threatened as do cornered nations. Cornered nations that have nuclear weapons have a reset button that equalizes even the greatest superpower when used. We now have two nations that effectively run our foreign policy in their respective theaters: Ukraine and Israel. We just had the puppets-for-the-lobby vote that "Israel is not an apartheid state" in Congress with only 9 holdouts for the truth that all the world knows.
Regarding the use of military power by the US, what strikes me is how gratuitous it has been. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in total in Afghanistan and Iraq, having nothing to do with US national security. Unlike in history with empires of occupation and on-the-spot garrisons that held territory, we shun that concept, instead wanting victory by economic domination with the whole world on our system even more than it is now. This is why China is seen as such a threat - they definitely DO offer competition to an all-dollar-planet. My fear is the US will continue to erroneously act as if military action can achieve economic hegemony.
General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley was the Commander-in-Chief of NATO's forces in Northern Europe. As such he would be expected to defend NATO expansion. Those of us who don't work for NATO are free to think about the question from a different perspective. Even up to the point where we might think that after the fall of the Soviet Union there really was no purpose for NATO at all. But of course the senior management of NATO would vehemently disagree. It's their jobs on the line after all.
First, I acknowledge that my view here won't be popular. Second, I understand psychologically why Farrar-Hockley used the tiger metaphor, though it's a bit facile and a lot arrogant. Third, I don't defend the appalling, destructive things the U.S. has done around the world; the supplying of cluster munitions to Ukraine being just the latest in a long series of egregious sins.
All that said, the tiger analogy simply doesn't hold. The circus tiger is where he is through no fault of his own. He's there against his will, and by the very nature of being caged, is treated cruelly. He has every right to bite. Before he was captured, he didn't roam his habitat, seizing other territories and subjugating all the creatures to his control.
After WWII, the Soviet Union, by contrast, took control of much of eastern Europe, either directly or by proxy, in frequently brutal ways, ruthlessly putting down any opposition. NATO, of course, was formed to counter the pervasive Soviet military presence in middle and Eastern Europe post-WWII. My point being that eastern Europe has been leery of Russia even after the Soviet Union collapsed, particularly since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. If Russia felt that the hardening and multiplying of NATO countries was threatening, perhaps it should have considered its own past conduct. In any case, its attack on Ukraine 15-odd months ago was purely an offensive move, most un-tiger-like. And we've seen how the situation has devolved since then, with various countries, the U.S. prominently among them, seizing any opportunities the invasion has presented.
In sum, comparing Russia to a tiger is not only inaccurate, it's insulting to tigers. No animal acts with the deliberate viciousness and greed that humans and their nations display on a daily basis.
On the contrary, my claim is based on the evidence the entire world saw: Russia made the first move. It invaded, crossing into sovereign Ukraine territory. Russia fired the first shot. How is that not an offensive move?
Come on Denise, since World War II the US military has killed or helped kill some 20-million people, overthrown at least 36-governments, interfered in at least 86-foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50-foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over-30 countries.
Russia has long been in US crosshairs to add to this shameful list in their unending drive for World hegemony.
The first shot in this current conflict to depose Putin was fired in the 2014 uprising that saw the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich forced to flee the country. The result of an anti-constitutional armed coup orchestrated by the United States and supported by Washington’s European allies.
Then the US State Department replacing him with their hand-picked mob of Neo-Nazi's led by the anti-Russian oligarch dictator Poroshenko.
I will let James Howard Kunstler fill in next what happened after Poroshenko was replaced by the comedian Zelensky...
"Mighty America and redoubtable Europe conned the former comedian to thinking that if he went along with a genius scheme to ruin Russia and knock off Putin, his sad-sack country would be transformed into something like Ukro-Disneyworld, while he, Mr. Z, would be lionized and made rich beyond his wildest imaginings. His backup was the greatest hegemonic power the world has ever seen.
The poor schlemiel fell for it. He let NATO (that is, the USA) set-up, equip, and train the largest army in Europe, including battalions of bad-ass, hard-core Ukro-Nazis — who had previously been so useful in the American-sponsored 2014 Maidan “color revolution.”
Mr. Z followed the US State Department’s orders to rain down artillery on Russian-speakers who lived in his own eastern provinces. Killing 14,000 civilians. He formally applied for membership in the NATO club. His country received billions of US dollars without audit oversight, just screaming to be creamed off by Ukraine’s corrupt leadership.
Thus, Western Civilization kicked off Europe’s biggest hot war since the 1940s. So, in Feb 2022, Mr. Putin had enough of the monkey business on his “front porch” and sent in a clean-up crew. The US neo-cons were ready to feed countless Ukrainian troops into a meat grinder that would, theoretically, exhaust the will and resources of Russia and yield countless benefits reinforcing the US's dominant position in the world. It's hapless NATO “partners” went along with the program; despite being asked to commit economic suicide. Anyway, they didn’t need that filthy Russian natural gas.
Meanwhile, the citizens of the US were groomed to perfection by the US propaganda in the media screaming “Russia, Russia, Russia,” at the behest of opinion-leader Hillary Clinton, a wannabe president. The news media demanded crucifixion for her opponent, Mr. Trump, who had idly tossed out the heinous idea that the USA and Russia could cultivate a friendly relationship.
After a year-plus of America’s genius scheme to maintain world dominance it has all gone to custard. Russia is winning the "war" and constructing a geo-economic framework for trade that will not be subject to the pranks of USA-led Western. And US taxpayers are baulking at seeing any more of their tax dollars stolen to go to the corrupt Ukrainians. 30% of their weapons being sold on the black-market.
And Mr. Zelensky is hiding, flitting from one country to another the past month begging for money. Because the game is drawing to a close and Mr. Z may find himself fatally unpopular back on the home front. He has managed to send upward of a hundred-thousand young Ukrainian men to their deaths in the meat-grinder, and perhaps a million more have hightailed it for other countries. Ukraine will now be a land of mostly women, children, and old folks — with just enough surviving soldiers left looking to hunt down the comedian who turned Ukraine into another one of history’s sick jokes"
That Russia fired the first shot is evidence free.
Russia clearly had lots of provocation. Above I show Jeffrey Sachs' timeline of the events in Ukraine. Unlike so much of the western media, his timeline DOESN'T start on Feb. 24, 2022.
American mainstream media starts with the conclusion (we are good/justified, the Russians are bad) and work backward, filling in only the information that supports their conclusion. Anyone who looks to them for an education or for basic information will be sorely disappointed. BTW Sachs was a guest on theduran a few days ago and he was very good.
I completely agree that Ukraine is a peripheral area for the US, yet core for Russia. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya were also peripheral areas for the US (and the USSR). Given a rational, or even realpolitik perspective it makes one scratch one's head and wonder why the US is engaging in these areas. However, it does make sense, horrifying sense, if you view this through the perspective of US Messianc Global Manifest Destiny. Oh, they call it the "Rules Based Order" or some other anodyne term, but the reality speaks for itself.
The problem is the US is up against its own peak empire, both economically, and militarily. Even more problematic, unlike the 19th. century version of Manifest Destiny, the US is not clearing out vastly overmatched Native Americans or Mexicans, they are up against nuclear armed nations in areas that matter very much to them.
Danger! Consequences ahead.
From Dresden to Tokyo to Hiroshima to Vietnam and Libya, the US is indeed the preeminent leader of terror bombing. The US government can get away with it because it is easy to convince many Americans that our bombing is good, even when it is a nuclear attack on a defenseless civilian city. As long as it is easy to talk Americans into accepting the horrendous, this will continue.
I agree. "The U.S. should and must wage diplomacy with the kind of fervor that it usually reserves for war." Unfortunately, there is absolutely no indication that the National Security State agrees with you. Let's face some facts. This proxy war has been in the making for at least 25 years when the father of neocon ideology, Zbigniew Brzezinski, laid out the strategy way back in 1997 in The Grand Chessboard. Here is an excerpt from the capsule summary by David Hendrickson that you can find on the Foreign Affairs website: "The heart of the book is the ambitious strategy it prescribes for extending the Euro-Atlantic community eastward to Ukraine and lending vigorous support to the newly independent republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus." As Brzezinski put it: “It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of challenging America. Ukraine is the critical state, insofar as Russia’s future evolution is concerned. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire." Every administration since the publication of that book, regardless of party, has faithfully executed this strategy. This policy is baked into the National Security apparatus no matter who happens to be sitting in the Oval Office because the neocons are in full and unchallenged control and have been since Brzezinksi published his weighty tome. The National Security State is addicted to the idea of permanent US global hegemony and has shown itself incapable of giving up the "unipolar moment." It refuses to consider a peaceful transition to a multipolar world order based on the United Nations and codified international law. Thus, the neocons keep holding on to the fictitious "rules based order" to justify everything they do. It's totally bogus, but agreeing to anything different than the status quo is anathema to them. Why? Because the status quo allows it to dominate the Western Hemisphere unchallenged, thanks to the Monroe Doctrine, as well as to have over 800+ military bases and installations around the world, most of which are surrounding and encircling Russia and China. Last time I checked I could not find any Russian or Chinese military installations anywhere near US borders. The last president who tried to challenge the National Security State and talk about genuine peace was JFK, and for daring to do so, he was assassinated. The message was sent loud and clear: If you dare to challenge the National Security State and our efforts to ensure permanent global hegemony, we will take you down.
Charlie, you're depressing me here because so much of what you say is true.
The facts are painful, I agree, especially since we are subjected to a daily indoctrination of lies, obfuscation and deception. But as the saying goes, the truth will set you free.
The truth is painful, Charlie. It hurts! It makes me angry! I'm not "free"! :-)
We are the school shooters of the planet
You wouldn't expect anything different from a British empire army old fart in 1998, would you? The problem is even younger and not just british farts hold the same worldview now... Anyway, even them, I don't think they expected Ukraine to win on the battlefield; it is clear that the only sensible plan was provoking Putin and Russia into attacking and smash them with economic blockades and sanctions until a humiliating retreat would follow, the hungered Russian population would do the right thing and a Yeltsin-like puppet would give us and the oligarchs the 90s again. Unfortunately for us (and for me, I wish I can have the 90s back...), not so much unfortunately for the Russians, this "plan" didn't work and we are where we are... trying to figure a way out that doesn't destroy the planet, doesn't destroy the West, economically and militarly, and not finding it.
When Bush 2 "won" the election years ago, I remember being concerned about voting machines. How could people vote for that moron? I thought, how do we know these machines are legit? Then I forgot about it. Disengaged completely from politics out of disgust and disappointment. Then Trump came along, I forgot everything I once knew, and supported Democrats again. I laughed at Republicans' concerns about the machines in 2020.
But now the Democrats are unwavering in support of Joe Biden, whom most of the country hates.
There are smart people leading the Dems who know Biden is incredibly unpopular. Yes, some Dem voters are deluded. But the party strategists know that Biden is very unpopular.
Yet the party doubles down on him running in 2024.
It makes me wonder how much of those shreds of "democracy" are actually in our control. Makes me wonder about the voting machines again.
Side note, I'm leaning towards full support of Russia's "invasion". If they hadn't done it, eastern "Ukrainians" (ethnic Russians) would continue to be terrorized and murdered by Zelensky’s (US-controlled) government. What other diplomatic routes did Russia have left? What are you supposed to do when the system is rigged against you? Make another statement that everybody ignores? It's hard for me to reconcile my antiwar beliefs with the need to defend innocent eastern Ukrainians.
An excellent essay with the analogy of the tigers, but presumably the tigers, trained and fed as they are, do feel threatened as do cornered nations. Cornered nations that have nuclear weapons have a reset button that equalizes even the greatest superpower when used. We now have two nations that effectively run our foreign policy in their respective theaters: Ukraine and Israel. We just had the puppets-for-the-lobby vote that "Israel is not an apartheid state" in Congress with only 9 holdouts for the truth that all the world knows.
Regarding the use of military power by the US, what strikes me is how gratuitous it has been. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in total in Afghanistan and Iraq, having nothing to do with US national security. Unlike in history with empires of occupation and on-the-spot garrisons that held territory, we shun that concept, instead wanting victory by economic domination with the whole world on our system even more than it is now. This is why China is seen as such a threat - they definitely DO offer competition to an all-dollar-planet. My fear is the US will continue to erroneously act as if military action can achieve economic hegemony.
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/history-of-war-in-ukraine
The above is Sachs' timeline of the war in Ukraine. Well worth the read.
General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley was the Commander-in-Chief of NATO's forces in Northern Europe. As such he would be expected to defend NATO expansion. Those of us who don't work for NATO are free to think about the question from a different perspective. Even up to the point where we might think that after the fall of the Soviet Union there really was no purpose for NATO at all. But of course the senior management of NATO would vehemently disagree. It's their jobs on the line after all.
First, I acknowledge that my view here won't be popular. Second, I understand psychologically why Farrar-Hockley used the tiger metaphor, though it's a bit facile and a lot arrogant. Third, I don't defend the appalling, destructive things the U.S. has done around the world; the supplying of cluster munitions to Ukraine being just the latest in a long series of egregious sins.
All that said, the tiger analogy simply doesn't hold. The circus tiger is where he is through no fault of his own. He's there against his will, and by the very nature of being caged, is treated cruelly. He has every right to bite. Before he was captured, he didn't roam his habitat, seizing other territories and subjugating all the creatures to his control.
After WWII, the Soviet Union, by contrast, took control of much of eastern Europe, either directly or by proxy, in frequently brutal ways, ruthlessly putting down any opposition. NATO, of course, was formed to counter the pervasive Soviet military presence in middle and Eastern Europe post-WWII. My point being that eastern Europe has been leery of Russia even after the Soviet Union collapsed, particularly since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. If Russia felt that the hardening and multiplying of NATO countries was threatening, perhaps it should have considered its own past conduct. In any case, its attack on Ukraine 15-odd months ago was purely an offensive move, most un-tiger-like. And we've seen how the situation has devolved since then, with various countries, the U.S. prominently among them, seizing any opportunities the invasion has presented.
In sum, comparing Russia to a tiger is not only inaccurate, it's insulting to tigers. No animal acts with the deliberate viciousness and greed that humans and their nations display on a daily basis.
"In any case, its attack on Ukraine 15-odd months ago was purely an offensive move"
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, Denise
On the contrary, my claim is based on the evidence the entire world saw: Russia made the first move. It invaded, crossing into sovereign Ukraine territory. Russia fired the first shot. How is that not an offensive move?
Come on Denise, since World War II the US military has killed or helped kill some 20-million people, overthrown at least 36-governments, interfered in at least 86-foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50-foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over-30 countries.
Russia has long been in US crosshairs to add to this shameful list in their unending drive for World hegemony.
The first shot in this current conflict to depose Putin was fired in the 2014 uprising that saw the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich forced to flee the country. The result of an anti-constitutional armed coup orchestrated by the United States and supported by Washington’s European allies.
Then the US State Department replacing him with their hand-picked mob of Neo-Nazi's led by the anti-Russian oligarch dictator Poroshenko.
I will let James Howard Kunstler fill in next what happened after Poroshenko was replaced by the comedian Zelensky...
"Mighty America and redoubtable Europe conned the former comedian to thinking that if he went along with a genius scheme to ruin Russia and knock off Putin, his sad-sack country would be transformed into something like Ukro-Disneyworld, while he, Mr. Z, would be lionized and made rich beyond his wildest imaginings. His backup was the greatest hegemonic power the world has ever seen.
The poor schlemiel fell for it. He let NATO (that is, the USA) set-up, equip, and train the largest army in Europe, including battalions of bad-ass, hard-core Ukro-Nazis — who had previously been so useful in the American-sponsored 2014 Maidan “color revolution.”
Mr. Z followed the US State Department’s orders to rain down artillery on Russian-speakers who lived in his own eastern provinces. Killing 14,000 civilians. He formally applied for membership in the NATO club. His country received billions of US dollars without audit oversight, just screaming to be creamed off by Ukraine’s corrupt leadership.
Thus, Western Civilization kicked off Europe’s biggest hot war since the 1940s. So, in Feb 2022, Mr. Putin had enough of the monkey business on his “front porch” and sent in a clean-up crew. The US neo-cons were ready to feed countless Ukrainian troops into a meat grinder that would, theoretically, exhaust the will and resources of Russia and yield countless benefits reinforcing the US's dominant position in the world. It's hapless NATO “partners” went along with the program; despite being asked to commit economic suicide. Anyway, they didn’t need that filthy Russian natural gas.
Meanwhile, the citizens of the US were groomed to perfection by the US propaganda in the media screaming “Russia, Russia, Russia,” at the behest of opinion-leader Hillary Clinton, a wannabe president. The news media demanded crucifixion for her opponent, Mr. Trump, who had idly tossed out the heinous idea that the USA and Russia could cultivate a friendly relationship.
After a year-plus of America’s genius scheme to maintain world dominance it has all gone to custard. Russia is winning the "war" and constructing a geo-economic framework for trade that will not be subject to the pranks of USA-led Western. And US taxpayers are baulking at seeing any more of their tax dollars stolen to go to the corrupt Ukrainians. 30% of their weapons being sold on the black-market.
And Mr. Zelensky is hiding, flitting from one country to another the past month begging for money. Because the game is drawing to a close and Mr. Z may find himself fatally unpopular back on the home front. He has managed to send upward of a hundred-thousand young Ukrainian men to their deaths in the meat-grinder, and perhaps a million more have hightailed it for other countries. Ukraine will now be a land of mostly women, children, and old folks — with just enough surviving soldiers left looking to hunt down the comedian who turned Ukraine into another one of history’s sick jokes"
That Russia fired the first shot is evidence free.
Russia clearly had lots of provocation. Above I show Jeffrey Sachs' timeline of the events in Ukraine. Unlike so much of the western media, his timeline DOESN'T start on Feb. 24, 2022.
Thanks for posting that Alex.
Sachs is 100% on the money with his analysis.
The claim that Russia's attack on Ukraine 15-odd months ago was purely an offensive move, most un-tiger-like, is not supported by the facts.
But you will never see Jeffrey Sachs' opinion allowed to be on American media outlets.
American mainstream media starts with the conclusion (we are good/justified, the Russians are bad) and work backward, filling in only the information that supports their conclusion. Anyone who looks to them for an education or for basic information will be sorely disappointed. BTW Sachs was a guest on theduran a few days ago and he was very good.
The only solution is a Trump/RFK jr Presidency.
I'm changing my mind about the real possibility of viable 3rd party Bill, after watching yesterday's Congressional censorship hearing.
The question is, will the world survive another 18-months of the US Democratic Party lunacy?