Tag Archives: Victoria Nuland

Give War A Chance, by Matt Taibbi

Being a neocon means never having to say you’re sorry—certainly not for your multitudinous blunders, and not even for those blunders’ innocent dead.  From Matt Taibbi at taibbi.substack.com:

More and more, we’re told outright war isn’t just necessary and right, but the thing that will solve America’s existential problems

Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan, neoconservative writer and husband to Deputy Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, wrote a piece called “The Price of Hegemony” in Foreign Affairs last week that was fascinating. If I’d written his opening, people would denounce me as a Putin-concubine:

Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’s inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading.

Just as Pearl Harbor was the consequence of U.S. efforts to blunt Japanese expansion on the Asian mainland, and just as the 9/11 attacks were partly a response to the United States’ dominant presence in the Middle East after the first Gulf War, so Russian decisions have been a response to the expanding post–Cold War hegemony of the United States and its allies in Europe.

Kagan went on to make an argument straight out of Dr. Strangelove. Instead of doing what some critics want and focusing on “improving the well-being of Americans,” the U.S. government is instead properly recognizing the responsibility that comes with being a superpower. So, while Russia’s invasion may indeed have been a foreseeable consequence of a decision to expand our hegemonic reach, now that we’re here, there’s only one option left. Total commitment:

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Why Are We Funding This? By Tucker Carlson

Ukraine Biolab Watchtower, by Robert W. Malone, MD, MS

Now that Victoria Nuland let the cat out of the bag—there are U.S. sponsored biolabs in Ukraine—there will be no getting the cat back in. The next step is meaningful disclosure about what’s actually in those labs. From Robert W. Malone, MD, MS at rwmalonemd.substack.com:

“No reason to get excited”

The thief, he kindly spoke

“There are many here among us

Who feel that life is but a joke

But you and I, we’ve been through that

And this is not our fate

So let us not talk falsely now

The hour is getting late”

Buckle up. This is going to be a long one, but I think the topic deserves a deep dive.

What a mess. Are there any grownups in the house?  This is what happens in a world in which no one trusts anyone anymore, integrity is treated as an obsolete concept, both information and legacy media have become weaponized to such an extent that what passes for official reality becomes just a funhouse hall of mirrors, and the experience, intellect and maturity of those entrusted to manage these matters is just not up to the task.

Yesterday I published a substack article titled “All Along the Watchtower”, which posed the question “Would the Russian invasion of Ukraine be justified if it were for biodefense?”.

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The US Is Culpable in Today’s Ukraine Crisis, by Liam Cosgrove

The backstory of the U.S.’s involvement in Ukraine, particularly it regime change in 2014. From Liam Cosgrove at unz.com:

Many know this story, but I’d like to summarize it as succinctly as possible, using only primary and establishment media sources in hopes that this article may be persuasive and shareable to friends/family of all politics. The goal is not to distract from Ukrainian suffering but to inform US citizens of how their leaders often engage in harmful foreign policy so that we may refrain from electing such leaders in the future.

Brief Background

Throughout 2012 and most of 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had been in negotiations with the European Union on the terms of a political/trade agreement involving a sizeable loan, lowering of tariffs, and a goal to “promote gradual convergence on foreign and security matters with the aim of Ukraine’s ever-deeper involvement in the European security area” (direct quote from the agreement). Putin has stated, numerous times over several decades, his concerns about Western military forces creeping closer to Russia’s border. The Ukranians asked for $160 billion to offset trade restrictions that Russia would likely implement as a result of the deal. The EU could only offer $828 million. Russia then offered Ukraine a $15 billion loan and to cut Russian natural gas prices by almost a third. Yanukovych canceled negotiations with the EU and accepted Putin’s offer. Considering the Russian loan was nearly 20 times greater than the EU loan and the agreement eliminated the possibility of Russian sanctions while leaving EU relations largely unchanged, this was a rational decision by Yanukovych. To quote Reuters, “the unwillingness of the EU and International Monetary Fund to be flexible in their demands of Ukraine also had an effect, making them less attractive partners.”

Results of 2010 election in which Yanukovych (written Janukovych) won by a slim majority almost entirely on the South-Eastern vote – Ukrainian political division falls on geographic lines.
Results of 2010 election in which Yanukovych (written Janukovych) won by a slim majority almost entirely on the South-Eastern vote – Ukrainian political division falls on geographic lines.

The decision to cancel the EU agreement, which was not a unilateral decision by Yanukovych but a valid vote by Ukranian Parliament, was met with protests in the North-Western Capital Kiev, led by prominent members of Yanukovych’s opposition party, which quickly turned violent. Western Ukranians were understandably upset after the one-year-long negotiations fell through. By January 20, 2014, the BBC reportedUkraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych has agreed to negotiate with pro-EU protesters and opposition leaders after violent clashes in the capital Kiev.” Days later, in an attempt to quell the uprising, Yanukovych offered1 two opposition leaders key positions in his administration – prime minister to Arseniy Yatsenyuk and deputy prime minister for humanitarian affairs to Vitali Klitschko. When they declined, he repealed anti-protest laws and agreed to accelerate the presidential elections (which were due in about one year) to allow the people an opportunity to vote sooner.

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Sunbeams From Cucumbers: The View From the Khanate of Kaganstan, by Patrick Armstrong

Like so many people in Washington, the US would be better off if power couple Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland had never ventured into the nation’s capital; they’ve done far more harm than good. From Patrick Armstrong at strategic-culture.org:

“Putin’s disinformation campaigns” are so clever that they use real information, Patrick Armstrong writes.

We now have the complete set, so to speak. The Khans of the Khanate of Kaganstan have both spoken. The husband in A Superpower, Like It or Not and the wife in Pinning Down Putin: How a Confident America Should Deal With Russia; he, so to speak, is the theorist and she the practitioner. She, Victoria Nuland, is back in power as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is, of course, infamous for the leaked phonecall during the Maidan putsch. He, Robert Kagan, is one of the founders of the – what now has to be seen as ill-named – Project for the New American Century.

I mentioned Kagan’s piece in an earlier essay and found it remarkable for two things – the flat learning curve it displays and its atmosphere of desperation. PNAC was started in a time of optimism about American power: it was the hyperpower and nothing was impossible for it. Its role in the world should be, Kagan confidently wrote in 1996, “Benevolent global hegemony”. Washington should be the world HQ:

superpower, love it!

A quarter century later his message is:

superpower, endure it.

Quite a difference. Today “there is no escape from global responsibility… the task of maintaining a world order is unending and fraught with costs but preferable to the alternative”.

Kagan is at a loss to explain his difference in tone, or, more likely, he’s unaware of it. The reason, however, is quite easy to understand – failure. Washington followed the neocons’ advice into disaster: it’s been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for two decades and it’s losing. The forever wars have come home: its economy is fading, its politics are shattered, its debt load is stunning, its social harmony is eroding. It’s not at the top of the hill any more. Brzezinski warned that a Russia-China alliance would be the greatest threat to U.S. predominance but thought it could be averted by skilful diplomacy. Well, as it turned out, U.S. actions (the word “diplomacy” is hardly applicable) drove Moscow and Beijing together and the strong domestic base that they all took for granted is crumbling. And, to a large extent, it has been the neocons, the wars they encouraged, the exceptionalism they displayed, the arrogance they embodied, that has created this state of affairs. Kagan should look in the mirror if he wants to know why Americans’ perception of superpower status changed from exultant opportunity to dreary duty.

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The Destructive Plan Behind the Biden Russia Agenda, by F. William Engdahl

Victoria Nuland of Ukrainian coup fame is the embodiment of the Biden’s administration hostility towards Russia. From F. William Engdahl at journal-neo.org:

NUL23111

The new Biden Administration has from day one made it clear it will adopt a hostile and aggressive policy against the Russian Federation of Vladimir Putin. The policy behind this stance has nothing to do with any foul deeds Putin’s Russia may or may not have committed against the West. It has nothing to do with absurd allegations that Putin had pro-US dissident Alexei Navalny poisoned with the ultra-deadly Novichok nerve agent. In has to do with a far deeper agenda of the globalist Powers That Be. That agenda is what is being advanced now.

The Cabinet choices of Joe Biden reveal much. His key foreign policy picks–Tony Blinken as Secretary of State and Victoria Nuland as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Bill Burns as CIA head; Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor ; Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence—all are from the Obama-Biden Administration and all have worked closely together. As well, all see Russia, not China, as the prime security threat to the United States’ global hegemony.

As candidate, Joe Biden stated this often. His key foreign policy choices underscore that the focus with the Biden Administration, regardless how fit Biden himself is, will shift from the China threats to that of Putin’s Russia. Biden’s CIA head, Bill Burns, is a former Ambassador to Moscow and was Deputy Secretary of State during the Obama CIA coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. Notably, when Burns left State in November 2014 he was succeeded by Tony Blinken, now Secretary of State. Blinken reportedly formulated the US State Department response to Russia’s Crimea annexation.

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The Unwelcome Return of the Real Purveyors of Violence, by Ron Paul

The media talk about the fake coup January 6, but not the many real coups in foreign lands which which Biden administration have been involved. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

With the mainstream media still obsessing about the January 6th “violent coup attempt” at the US Capitol Building, the incoming Biden Administration looks to be chock full of actual purveyors of violent coups. Don’t look to the mainstream media to report on this, however. Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous farce at the Capitol as if it were the equivalent of 9/11 have been involved for decades in planning and executing real coups overseas. In their real coups, many thousands of civilians have died.

Take returning Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, for example. More than anyone else she is the face of the US-led violent coup against a democratically-elected government in Ukraine in 2014. Nuland not only passed out snacks to the coup leaders, she was caught on a phone call actually plotting the coup right down to who would take power once the smoke cleared.

Unlike the fake Capitol “coup,” this was a real overthrow. Unlike the buffalo horn-wearing joke who desecrated the “sacred” Senate chamber, the Ukraine coup had real armed insurrectionists with a real plan to overthrow the government. Eventually, with the help of incoming Assistant Secretary of State Nuland, they succeeded – after thousands of civilians were killed.

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The War Party’s Death Couple: How Kagan + Nuland Peddle Neocon Aggression, by Michael S. Rozeff

The neocons: often in error, never in doubt. From Michael S. Rozeff at LewRockwell.com, via davidstockman’scontracorner.com:

Why is Victoria Nuland reliably confrontational and antagonistic toward Russia? Why does she push power, force, and military might to the forefront in Ukraine? Why does she risk war with Russia? Why does she even care about Russia’s relations with Ukraine enough to inject the U.S. government into their affairs and conflicts?

Her philosophy is the same as her husband’s, Robert Kagan. One article calls them “THE ULTIMATE AMERICAN POWER COUPLE“. It says “Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan fell in love ‘talking about democracy and the role of America in the world’ on one of their first dates. It’s a shared passion that hasn’t faded over time.” Presumably that inner quote is from one or both of them.

For a brief profile of Robert Kagan’s ideas, shared by Victoria Nuland, see here. That article contains some criticism of their positions coming from the academic side. It is enough to know that Kagan supports Hillary Clinton in foreign policy and that she appointed Nuland to see that in foreign policy Americans at the moment have no major party presidential choice except more of the same.

Kagan and Nuland advocate U.S. activism and intervention throughout the world. Kagan has always endorsed more and more and more U.S. commitments worldwide. In September, 2003, he endorsed “a ‘generational commitment’ to bringing political and economic reform to the long-neglected Middle East–a commitment not unlike that which we made to rebuild Europe after the Second World War.” (The phrase “generational commitment’ is Condoleezza Rice’s.) The article’s title is “Do what it takes in Iraq”, which is never enough to suit Kagan. This is one of his excuses for why the policies of war and might that he advocates have failed. The U.S. doesn’t try hard enough to suit him. The U.S. tried very, very hard in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, however. It still did not produce what Kagan and Kristol glowingly wanted in any of these countries and in Libya: “American ideals and American interests converge in such a project, that a more democratic Middle East will both improve the lives of long-suffering peoples and enhance America’s national security.” The very opposite has resulted!

The projection of American power and might into these lands has not produced what Kagan and Kristol forecasted would be the result.

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-war-partys-death-couple-how-kagan-nuland-peddle-neocon-aggression/

To continue reading: The War Party’s Death Couple