Tag Archives: Ukraine

‘Let Them Kill as Many as Possible’ – United States Policy Toward Russia and its Neighbors, by Brian Terrell

Posted on March 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Being an enemy of the U.S. is tough, but being it’s friend is no picnic, either, especially if you get roped into fighting one of its wars. From Brian Terrell at antiwar.com:

In April 1941, four years before he was to become President and eight months before the United States entered World War II, Senator Harry Truman of Missouri reacted to the news that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.” Truman was not called out as a cynic when he spoke these words from the floor of the Senate. On the contrary, when he died in 1972, Truman’s obituary in The New York Times cited this statement as establishing his “reputation for decisiveness and courage.” “This basic attitude,” gushed The Times, “prepared him to adopt from the start of his Presidency, a firm policy,” an attitude that prepared him to order the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with “no qualms.” Truman’s same basic “let them kill as many as possible” attitude also informed the postwar doctrine that bears his name, along with the establishment of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, both of which he is credited with founding.

A February 25 op-ed in The Los Angeles Times by Jeff Rogg, “The CIA has backed Ukrainian insurgents before- Let’s learn from those mistakes,” cites a CIA program to train Ukrainian nationalists as insurgents to fight the Russians that began in 2015 and compares it with a similar effort by Truman’s CIA in Ukraine that began in 1949. By 1950, one year in, “U.S. officers involved in the program knew they were fighting a losing battle…In the first U.S.-backed insurgency, according to top secret documents later declassified, American officials intended to use the Ukrainians as a proxy force to bleed the Soviet Union.” This op-ed cites John Ranelagh, a historian of the CIA, who argued that the program “demonstrated a cold ruthlessness” because the Ukrainian resistance had no hope of success, and so “America was in effect encouraging Ukrainians to go to their deaths.”

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Americans Who Cowered Under Government Oppression For 2 Years Urge Ukrainians To Die For Freedom

Posted on March 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

From The Babylon Bee:

https://babylonbee.com/news/americans-who-cowered-under-government-oppression-for-2-years-urge-ukrainians-to-die-for-freedom

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Ukraine Learns The Value Of An Armed Citizenry, But Far Too Late, by Brandon Smith

Posted on March 3, 2022 | 2 comments

The Second Amendment is the most important amendment in the Bill of Rights. Ukraine is demonstrating why. From Brandon Smith at alt-market.com:

In all the world the US as a nation is utterly unique in its tradition of citizen rights to self defense. There is no other protection written into any constitution anywhere that is as solid and unapologetic as the 2nd Amendment. Whenever I end up in a debate with a gun control advocate from another country that wants to “educate me” on the level of firearms ownership overseas I have to laugh because these people just don’t get it.

There are many countries where some guns are allowed to be owned by the public, but in every case this is treated as a PRIVILEGE which the government can give and take away anytime it pleases. Only in America is gun ownership an individual right regardless of what the government and the so called “majority” likes or dislikes. The government’s opinions on personal firearms are meaningless. The majority’s opinions on gun rights are meaningless. I own guns because natural law and the constitution says I have an inborn right to self defense. And, if someone wants to take those weapons from me they better be prepared to die in the process.

This is not an attitude shared by most of the rest of the world because most of the world has never fought and defeated a global power to achieve independence. This experience of freedom is not written into their cultural subconscious. In fact, most nations have lived under one level of authoritarianism or another for centuries. Many people inherently want freedom, but very few people have ever risked everything to get it and succeeded.

The only time you will see a mass awakening in favor of public self defense in these places is when a country faces an existential threat, then suddenly people start to question why they are completely disarmed and helpless.

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The Consequences of Humiliating Russia, by Michael Brenner

Posted on March 1, 2022 | 1 comment

Surprise, surprise, the humiliated want revenge. From Michael Brenner at consortiumnews.com:

Russia’s actions in Ukraine are to a great extent the culmination of the numerous humiliations that the West has inflicted on Russia over the past 30 years,  writes Michael Brenner.

Dec. 31, 1999: Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, right, leaving Kremlin the day he resigned; Vladimir Putin, second left and Aleksandr Voloshin next to Yeltsin. (Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The Mafia is not known for its creative use of language beyond terms like “hitman,” “go to the mattresses,” “living with the fishes” and suchlike. There are, though, a few pithy sayings that carry enduring wisdom. One concerns honor and revenge: “If you are going to humiliate someone publicly in a really crass manner, make sure that he doesn’t survive to take his inevitable revenge.” Violate it at your peril.

That enduring truth has been demonstrated by Russia’s actions in the Ukraine which, to a great extent, are the culmination of the numerous humiliations that the West, under American instigation, has inflicted on Russia’s rulers and the country as a whole over the past 30 years.

They have been treated as a sinner sentenced to accept the role of a penitent who, clad in sackcloth, marked with ashes, is expected to appear among the nations with head bowed forever. No right to have its own interests, its own security concerns or even its own opinions.

Few in the West questioned the viability of such a prescription for a country of 160 million, territorially the biggest in the world, possessing vast resources of critical value to other industrial nations, technologically sophisticated and custodian of 3,000 + nuclear weapons. No mafia don would have been that obtuse. But our rulers are cut from a different cloth even if their strut and conceit often matches that of the capos.

This is not to say that Russia’s political class has been bent on revenge for a decade or two – like France after its humiliation by Prussia in 1871, like Germany after its humiliation in 1918-1919, or like “Bennie from the Bronx” beaten up in front of his girlfriend by Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way.

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Zelensky’s Saakashvili Moment, by Daniel McAdams

Posted on March 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

Daniel McAdams is refreshingly straightforward about the situation in Ukraine. From McAdams at ronpaulinstitute.org:

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In 2008 as then-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili realized that his attack on Russian peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia had elicited a Russian military response that ended up with the Russian army practically knocking on his door in Tbilisi, he infamously appeared on a BBC interview voraciously chewing his necktie. It demonstrated to the world that the plucky US-educated leader who dared take on the Russian bear for the sake of “democracy” was in fact an unhinged and unstable figure (installed into power by the US-led “Rose Revolution”) who found himself losing it upon realization that he was over his head and the US cavalry were not coming to liberate him.

During the course of the 2008 Russian intervention in Georgia, Saakashvili made increasingly outlandish and unhinged claims, including that:

– “Georgia’s ports and airports will be taken under the control of the U.S. Defense Department.”

– “Russia has lost more airplanes than in any conflict of this scale since 1939.”

And, as reported by Moon of Alabama at the time:

‘What I expected specifically from America was to secure our airport and to secure our seaports,’ he went on, concluding that the American presence would do so. ‘The main thing now is that the Georgian Tbilisi airport will be permanently under control.’

All of these claims and many more were increasingly and laughably proven totally untrue. A Caucasian Comical Ali. And then, finally, when the hard reality smacked up against his wild claims, he tucked in to his tie.

Ukraine’s comedian-president Zelensky seems to be careening down that same path.

Perhaps Putin is the apotheosis of evil after all, and everyone who dares challenge this modern-day golem is destined for madness.

Or maybe not.

Whatever the case, Zelensky is sounding a bit unhinged of late. 

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Trading Losses in Ukraine, by Ted Snider

Posted on March 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

The biggest losers will be the people of Ukraine, who have been treated like pawns by all concerned. From Ted Snider at antiwar.com:

There are no winners in war. War is the abandonment of reason, the abandonment of dialogue, the abandonment of compassion and hope. It is the abandonment of everything that makes us human.

In the war in Ukraine, there will be no winners. Everyone will lose.

The biggest burden of loss will be on the people of Ukraine. People who have been used and who have been caught in a struggle between great powers. It is the people of Ukraine who are terrified and dying.

But everyone else will lose too. The US will lose, Russia will lose and NATO will lose. The geopolitical battlefield will look very different when this war is over.

The US Will Lose

What will happen and how this will end still belongs to an unknown future. Ukraine and Russia have both expressed a willingness to talk. The details are developing and fuzzy. Ukraine seems to be willing to discuss neutrality; Russia seems to be willing to negotiate prior to surrender. Russia’s conditions seem to be an agreement by Ukraine to be neutral, to abandon NATO membership and to reject US and NATO weapons in their territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly replied that “We are not afraid to talk to Russia. We are not afraid to say everything about security guarantees for our state. We are not afraid to talk about neutral status. We are not in NATO now … We need to talk about the end of this invasion. We need to talk about a ceasefire.”

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Ukraine In The Membrane, by Good Citizen

Posted on March 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

If wars were won by propaganda, narratives, commentator invective, and posting flags on social media, Ukraine’s army would be in Moscow by now. From Good Citizen at thegoodcitizen.substack.com:

Crazy insane, got no brain.
“Break a leg. You’re a natural. We got your back.”

Insane In Ukraine
President Volodymyr Zelensky is as much a puppet dictator of a dysfunctional Oligarchy installed through elections by global managers as Joe Biden is a puppet President of a dysfunctional Corporatocracy installed through elections by global managers. You cannot talk about either without being slandered a “conspiracy theorist”. The discerning mind knows there are no more conspiracy theories. The phrase itself was invented as a misinformation tool by the CIA to smear those who asked too many inconvenient questions after they assassinated a President in 1963 right in front of Abraham Zapruder’s camera and the world. No matter how many holes there are in a prepared narrative, including obvious coups, assassinations and lately western fixed elections, one is just supposed to shut up and not believe their lying eyes. Now we are told to shut up and believe Ukraine is a “democracy” fighting to defend “liberal values” and Zelensky is a brave leader defying evil aggression.

The hero worship of Zelensky making the rounds on the propaganda outlets and being amplified on attention networks is the stuff of legend. War is always just propaganda. The servants of power in the Ukrainian Borg, and the war hawks in both parties and their echoes of the blue check brigade across the west want people to believe a hypothetical “western liberal” future wouldn’t be a near first in that poor vassal state, but never mind the facts, in the fog of war propaganda it’s a time for emotions only.

The comic’s performances have been spectacular feats of western manipulation, guilting countries like Germany and Sweden to send more weapons that will likely require a thank-you card from Putin. The comic continues to engineer attention network mobs to pile on the increase of sanctions that will hurt the mobs more than Russians. He’s definitely still a comic, but he’s now also a dangerous lunatic who wants to bring the whole world down with his corrupt regime. With the western corporate-state media propagandists manipulating the Ukrainian Borg who are incessantly cheering him on, this will not end well. The comic’s demands become more insane by the day.

We call on all civilized countries to impose an embargo on Russian oil products, ban Russian citizens from entering your territory and disconnect Russia from SWIFT. We call on NATO, Europe, the United States to close the sky over Ukraine.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, Politics, Propaganda, War

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Putin the Apostate, by Matt Taibbi

Posted on March 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

Once upon a time Vladimir Putin was the U.S. establishment’s fair-haired boy. From Matt Taibbi at taibbi.substack.com:

We thought he would be our bastard. Then, he became his own bastard.

The president of the Council of Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, made an extraordinary statement over the weekend. “Just days ago much of the world was focused on the unwanted prospect of regime change in Ukraine,” he tweeted. “Now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.” Senior Brookings Institute fellow Benjamin Wittes was even more explicit:

Twitter avatar for @benjaminwittesBenjamin Wittes @benjaminwittes

Regime change: Russia.

February 27th 2022

184 Retweets

For anyone expecting me to be outraged about this — I am, after all, almost daily denounced as a Putin-lover and apologist, so surely I must want the Great Leader to stay in power forever — I have to disappoint. If Vladimir Putin were captured tomorrow and fired into space, I wouldn’t bat an eye.

I would like to point out that we already tried regime change in Russia. I remember, because I was there. And, thanks to a lot of lurid history that’s being scrubbed now with furious intensity, it ended with Vladimir Putin in power. Not as an accident, or as the face of a populist revolt against Western influence — that came later — but precisely because we made a long series of intentional decisions to help put him there.

Once, Putin’s KGB past, far from being seen as a negative, was viewed with relief by the American diplomatic community, which had been exhausted by the organizational incompetence of our vodka-soaked first partner, Boris Yeltsin. Putin by contrast was “a man we can do business with,” a “liberal, humane, and decent European” of “alert, controlled poise” and “well-briefed acuity,” who was open to anything, even Russia joining NATO. “I don’t see why not,” Putin said. “I would not rule out such a possibility.”

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Morality, Politics, Propaganda, War

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Report: Everyone Who Adds Ukrainian Flag To Profile Pic To Receive Nobel Peace Prize

Posted on February 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

From The Babylon Bee:

NORWAY—In thrilling news for supporters of Ukraine on the internet, the Nobel Committee has announced that everyone who has bravely added a Ukrainian flag to their social media profile will now be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Every year we scour the world for heroic leaders and freedom fighters who have contributed to the cause of peace,” said committee member Bjørn Jørgensen. “Well today, those heroes are all of you—the unsung heroes of social media who have taken the time to add a Ukrainian flag icon to your profile pic. This is the kind of thing that stops dictators like Putin in their tracks.”

According to the Nobel Committee website, internet users will have until March 1st to add a cute little Ukraine flag to any one of their social media profiles and qualify to receive a peace prize medal in the mail. Those who do not provide their shipping address will instead receive a cool little Nobel Prize NFT instead. Awesome!

“Today, the Ukrainian people thank the social media users around the world for standing with us,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while chomping a cigar and loading his belt-fed automatic weapon with more ammo. “We wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

UPDATE: According to sources, the committee is now reconsidering this idea after problematic podcaster Joe Rogan added the flag to his profile pic.

https://babylonbee.com/news/report-everyone-who-adds-ukrainian-flag-to-profile-pic-to-receive-nobel-peace-prize

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Putin’s Nuclear Threat, by Scott Ritter

Posted on February 28, 2022 | 2 comments

One simple fact seems to elude western policymakers and media: Putin and his government are genuinely afraid of Russia being attacked by the U.S. and NATO. From Scott Ritter at consortiumnews.com:

Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (U.N. Photo/Cia Pak)

Vladimir Putin is a madman. He’s lost it. At least that is what the leaders of the West would like you to believe. According to their narrative, Putin — isolated, alone, confused, and angry at the unfolding military disaster Russia was undergoing in Ukraine — lashed out, ostensibly threatening the entire world with nuclear annihilation.

In a meeting with his top generals on Sunday, the beleaguered Russian president announced, “I order the defense minister and the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces to put the deterrence forces of the Russian army into a special mode of combat service.”

The reason for this action, Putin noted, centered on the fact that, “Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country” in relation to the ongoing situation in Ukraine.

The “deterrence forces” Putin spoke of refers to Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

What made the Russian president’s words resonate even more was that last Thursday, when announcing the commencement of Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine, Putin declared that “no one should have any doubts that a direct attack on our country will lead to the destruction and horrible consequences for any potential aggressor.” He emphasized that Russia is “one of the most potent nuclear powers and also has a certain edge in a range of state-of-the-art weapons.”

When Putin issued that threat, The Washington Post described it as “empty, a mere baring of fangs.” The Pentagon, involved as it was in its own review of U.S. nuclear posture designed to address threats such as this, seemed non-plussed, with an anonymous official noting that U.S. policy makers “don’t see an increased threat in that regard.”

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