The Crazy SOB Actually Did it!

[ralfy]

No matter how one tries to excuse pooty if he intended his act to benefit russia he is a grossly inept and unfit leader, certainly not one fit to lead a nation with a nuclear arsenal of any size.

Rather than benefit Russia his actions have harmed it terribly, the sanctions have crippled much of its economy and industry, their military has been humiliated and decimated,  they're a pariah state and a laughing stock on the world stage.

His act lead Russia to disaster and his inability to forsee the results mark him unfit to lead a boy scout troop let alone a failed state with a nuclear arsenal. No amount of America bashing,  west blaming and citing events of 50-100 years past can his pooty's failing abd his exposure as a leader who can only think in terms of force, violence and murder as solutions to issues.

How could a ''world leader'' be so inept as to not for see obvious negative reactions to his act?  By being a despot who value loyalty to himself as the only virtue in those around him, who surrounds himself with ruthless yes men who only tell him he's right, by crushing or murdering anyone who tries to tell him disagreeable truths while rewarding his sycophants with license to steal the nation's wealth for praising his every decision as genius.

These are the results of allowing a ruthless, homocidial,  psychopathic narcissist into power.

Indianasmith was right when he said that the blood of all who have died in this catastrophe are on poots hands, yes even the two poles who died when a ukranian intercept missile struck Poland accidentally.

That's what I mean: what you say about Putin is true. And what Chomsky says about U.S. Presidents is also true:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXtgq0Nhsc

But between Russia and the U.S., one has over 700 military bases and installations worldwide and enforces what it wants on dozens of countries, many even far away from it.

If you had such an expensive military, how do you explain to your constituents that you need to spend more when there have been no conflicts immediately threatening your country for decades?

Can you see the connections between that and what happened to Ukraine and the color revolutions and NATO expansion?

[ralfy]

Ukraine is not exactly what we would call a Jeffersonian democracy either

Kennan made a similar point decades ago. Not just Russia but even China and many other countries are not Western.

Ironically, Gaub got something right: Russians will not promote liberalism and even "the post-modern life" not because they are about violence and death but because they belong to cultures that also promote traditionalism, authority, and nationalism. The latter is even connected to non-interference, especially given a weak economy.

That's why the same things can even be seen in not only China but in various Asian countries.

The counterview is similar to that of Bush's "either you're with the U.S. or you're with the terrorists," or even Reagan's "evil empire": either you promote freedom and democracy or you're a tyrant. And if you're the latter, then you must be taken down. In short, we'll force you to be free.

[ralfy]

A Russian official has admitted to severe shortages facing their troops confessing they had a lack of socks (particularly dangerous at this time of year), doctors, communications and intelligence. Such admissions while rare, have been coming out increasingly often.

The UK is sending Sea King helicopters to give Ukraine a search and rescue facility. That particular platform while old was a good one and I was sorry to see them go out of service. Hopefully, they will continue their previous role and save many more lives within the golden hour.

Russia has a per capita GDP of around $12k. That's good enough to meet basic needs but not to support a large military force. Thast's why lack of material should not be surprising.

The West, meaning, can rely on the fact that the dollar is a reserve currency, which is why the U.S., which is deep in debt, can create even more and give it to Ukraine while more Americans complain about homelessness.

[ralfy]

Russia has had communication problems since ww2 where they suffered severe shortages of radios in planes and tanks. I guess some things never change.

GDP growth has been middling since 2010, with an ave. below 5 pct. That plus the 7-pct ave. for the previous decade isn't enough to fully develop economically. They'll need another decade with a 7-pct rate, similar to that of China, in order to do so.

The catch is that they can do that if BRICS and emerging markets can maintain bilateral trade, economic blocs independent of OECD, etc. But I don't think G7 wants that.

[lester1/2jr]

RALFY - just curious: do you think the current unrest in China is CIA backed and so forth? over the COVID measures

[Allhallowsday]

                         

[ralfy]

RALFY - just curious: do you think the current unrest in China is CIA backed and so forth? over the COVID measures

I don't think so. Some interesting points from one foreigner:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1597170690830237696

The tweets are threaded here for ease of reading:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1597170690830237696.html

His points:

Western media and pundits want to show these these riots and protests are unusual. It turns out that China has hundreds of protests each year.

Western media and pundits want to portray Chinese as docile. In reality, they are like Westerners, if not even more confrontational. Several in the thread give a few examples. Here's one:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1514774863512162310

In several cases, they are more confrontational than the average Westerner.

Western media want to refer to the social credit score as one means of control. Apparently, there is none. If any, it's similar to credit scores in Western countries.

Western media imply that Chinese are forced to follow the CCP. One Harvard study involved Western experts doing ground studies (and if that's Harvard, then it's likely a very carefully constructed survey and as accurate as possible), and to their surprise discovered that the CCP has a 93-pct approval rating. After careful analysis, they found out that Chinese vote for the CCP not because they're Communists but because the CCP has ensured high economic growth. To wit,

The average economic growth rate of China for the last few decades has been around 7 pct per annum, one of the highest in Asia and many times higher than that of countries like the U.S. From what I remember, the U.S. has a middling rate, around 2-3 pct, and similar to that of North Korea (!). Surprisingly, Cuba, even with a trade embargo imposed by the U.S., saw its economy quadruple in size in two decades (from $25 billion to $100 billion from 1998 to 2018), which I think is equivalent to a 10-pct growth rate (!).

The economic growth rate of China is so successful that it literally negated four failed programs before the 1980s, which led to the death of 40 million of its people, to one where over 800 million people were lifted out of poverty. That's almost three times the population of the U.S. And they did it in only around two decades.

Next, Western media imply that the Chinese don't know what's going on in their country. According to Bertrand, they do. They will protest/riot for various reasons, and the authorities will compromise or give in around half of the time.

In conclusion, contrary to what CNN, BBC, DW, etc., will portray, the Chinese are not as docile as many believe, and the CCP not exactly in full control. The former vote only for the latter because the latter ensures high economic growth. The latter stays in power because they ensure that.

In which case, I don't think the CIA or even the U.S. government are involved. In fact, I don't think they're strong enough to even interfere in countries like Russia. However, they can target weaker countries, like the Philippines, Thailand, and Ukraine. And they did. They succeeded in the first but that has now been negated with the victories and high approval ratings of the likes of Duterte and Marcos, failed in the second, and succeeded temporarily in the third until the big bad bear barged in.

[ralfy]

From 2018:

"How and why the U.S. Government Perpetrated the 2014 Coup in Ukraine"

Clearly, Victoria Nuland, U.S. President Barack Obama's central agent overseeing the coup, at least during the month of February 2014 when it climaxed, was crucial not only in overthrowing the existing Ukrainian Government, but in selecting and installing its rabidly anti-Russian replacement. The 27 January 2014 phone-conversation between her and America's Ambassador in Ukraine, Jeffrey Pyatt was a particularly seminal event, and it was uploaded to youtube on 4 February 2014. I have discussed elsewhere that call and its significance. Nuland there and then abandoned the EU's hope for a still democratic but less corrupt future government for Ukraine, and Nuland famously said, on that call "f**k the EU," and she instructed Pyatt to choose instead the rabidly anti-Russian, and far-right, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. This key event occurred 24 days before Ukraine's President Victor Yanukovych was overthrown on February 20th, and 30 days before the new person to head Ukraine's Government, Yatsenyuk, became officially appointed to rule the now clearly fascist country. He won that official designation on February 26th. However, this was only a formality: Obama's agent had already chosen him, on January 27th.

A video news report about the issue:

"F*** the EU: Alleged audio of US diplomat Victoria Nuland swearing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2XNN0Yt6D8

An interview with journalist Robert Parry: "Did the U.S. Carry Out a Ukrainian Coup?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p84KzkdKZb4

Related:

"'This is a war of propaganda': John Pilger on Ukraine and Assange | Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9pEotvlW-s

"Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Policy & 'West's False Narrative' Stoking Tensions with Russia, China"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmOePNsNFw0

My summary:

The U.S. has been engaged in demonizing both Russia and China since the late 1990s, and used NATO expansion to put pressure on Russia and increased military expansion in Asia to do the same on China.

The reason: both countries were growing stronger economically, together with other countries trading with them, and they were beginning to act independently of the U.S. dollar and its desired economic policies, which is continued dependence on the dollar.

Thus, following Reagan's "evil empire" narrative, the West concocted the story that both countries want to replace the U.S. In addition, it also used media to show that both countries are evil, undemocratic, are against freedom, are tyrannical, and so on.

Its own foreign policy experts and former officials, like George Kennan, warned it that if this continued, it will cause both countries to lash back, and it may even antagonize other countries.

So far, their fears are founded. Russia has struck, but has occupied only parts of Ukraine where Russians dominate. As Parry points out, Ukraine and Russia are much closer than many believe, i.e., they are literally part of the same culture, and that if Russia attacks it will not do it the same way as the U.S. did to Afghanistan and Iraq because it would be like attacking a brother. At the same time, a full-scale invasion would earn the ire of other countries.

As expected, the same West that kept dangling the NATO and EU membership carrot and kept manipulating Ukraine (note Nuland's implicit point that Ukraine owes the U.S. for aid rendered) has helped only by providing even more aid. Meanwhile, many countries want to remain neutral, while the West hopes that they will cave and side with the U.S., just like the western side of Ukraine.

[ralfy]

I think the NYT article referred to the Truman doctrine. Here's one article that talks about in relation to Ukraine:

"From Greece to Ukraine: 75 years of the Truman Doctrine"

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/16/uyno-j16.html

The bulk of the short speech that followed is forgotten. Truman's remarks are memorable only for a line that came near the end, when the president announced what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine: "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

In short, it is the basis of neoconservatism: the U.S. is exceptional, i.e., not only the greatest country in the world but above all faults. Even if it commits any, it is excused because it acts in favor of freedom for everyone. With that, it has the right to use its military and foreign or economic policies to control countries to ensure that freedom.

The results of that doctrine:

In the special dictionary of American foreign policy words mean their opposite. The "free people" discovered by Truman and the 13 presidents who have followed turn out to comprise a most inglorious list: Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal; Marcos in the Philippines and Suharto in Indonesia; Syngman Rhee in South Korea and Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam; the Shah Pahlavi in Iran and the House of Saud on the Arabian Peninsula; Batista in Cuba and "Papa Doc" Duvalier in Haiti; Mobutu in Zaire and Mubarak in Egypt; the bloody juntas of South America and the apartheid regime of South Africa; the Contras in Nicaragua and Bin Laden's Mujahedeen in Afghanistan; the terrorists of the Al Nusra Front in Syria and the KLA drug cartel in Kosovo. One could go on and on.

In short, it turns out that the U.S. ensures freedom to others but only because it gives the U.S. advantages, such as access to natural resources, cheap labor, strategic areas to set up military installations, and so on. In various cases, they ironically lead to less freedom for those affected.

This explains why the country supported or worked with anyone, from China as a major trading partner to right-wing dictatorships to secret arms deals with Iran to fostering Islamic terrorists and South American death squads, and so on. It is part of realpolitik and pragmatic ethics: do what is in the best interests of the U.S. If it just so happens that others gain from the same, then they're lucky.

How does it work for Ukraine? The article only refers to it as a proxy war. Previous articles shared in this thread should fill in details on that.

[ralfy]

Here's one to consider in light of the reference to proxy wars, especially earlier references to the CIA. For some reason, expert opinion was sought but none was given. This might help, but it's notable because it reveals that the issue started even earlier than 2014:

"Ukraine: The CIA's 75-year-old Proxy"

https://mronline.org/2022/09/14/ukraine/

Looking back, the U.S. under Truman began the policy of turning enemies (Germany, Japan) into friends and friends (the important war-time alliance with the USSR) into enemies. The CIA, established in 1947, was the main clandestine instrument of this policy, working closely with the neo-Nazi Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to carry out acts to sabotage, divide and destabilize the Soviet state.

Later, there is an interesting reference to U.S. foreign policies and Neo-Nazism:

As in the past, U.S. foreign policy is prepared to accommodate such sectors within its circle of allies. On December 16, 2021, a draft resolution of the UN General Assembly was listed as "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."

Alan MacLeod shares the results in a series of maps, with some interesting asides which also give color to a country that's even stranger than Russia:

https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1596605772766793728



Notably, the U.S., together with Ukraine, voted against resolutions to combat neo-Nazism and its various forms. Weirder still is the point that various Western European countries abstained.

The asides are that the U.S. also voted against resolutions making access to food as a right, the rights of people with disabilities, and even the rights of children. This should not be surprising if one sees the Truman doctrine as essentially a facade for maintaining control of the global economy.

The rest of the issue concerning modern Ukraine is explained in detail, from collusion with ultra-nationalists to NATO enlargement to the propaganda war.

Hopefully, this will in showing how the CIA is involved, although I might be able to offer more in the future.

[ralfy]

Several times the term "neconservative" was mentioned, but it was at least once defined and explained in greater detail, especially in light of the military-industrial complex. If you remember the latter point, it was first raised by economist Jeffrey Sachs, who appears prominently in the first post I made in this thread. Sachs has a brief article explaining his views here, although you may also consider the video interview shared earlier:

"Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster"

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/m6rb2a5tskpcxzesjk8hhzf96zh7w7

The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement.  The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons.  As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles.     

The neocon movement emerged in the 1970s around a group of public intellectuals, several of whom were influenced by University of Chicago political scientist Leo Strauss and Yale University classicist Donald Kagan.  Neocon leaders included Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Kagan (son of Donald), Frederick Kagan (son of Donald), Victoria Nuland (wife of Robert), Elliott Abrams, and Kimberley Allen Kagan (wife of Frederick).

You should find some of these names familiar as they are mentioned in earlier video reports and articles.

The interesting thing to consider is Leo Strauss. The documentarist Adam Curtis explains his views prominently in various features, notable The Power of Nightmares. Those who enjoy connecting the docts will enjoy this one:

"The Power of Nightmares"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares

The film compares the rise of the neoconservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, drawing comparisons between their origins, and remarking on similarities between the two groups. More controversially, it argues that radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organisation, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is a myth, or noble lie, perpetrated by leaders of many countries—and particularly neoconservatives in the U.S.—in a renewed attempt to unite and inspire their people after the ultimate failure of utopian ideas.

It's a very weird combination: American thinkers who wanted to return to what they thought was a traditional past of values in reaction to rising decadence, and Islamicists in Egypt who wanted the same! I wonder if something similar can be seen in the current crisis.

[ralfy]

In relation to that, here's something weird: the U.S. questioning support for Ukraine because the latter is perceived as corrupt. It's like the pot calling the kettle black.

"As Questions Mount About Corruption In Ukraine, The Neocon Narrative Is Unraveling"

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/20/as-questions-mount-about-corruption-in-ukraine-the-neocon-narrative-is-unraveling/

Spartz also issued a letter asking the Biden administration to brief Congress on Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, widely considered to be the second most powerful person in Ukraine. Spartz said Yermak, a former media lawyer and movie producer with close ties to Russia, "raises many concerns with a variety of people in the United States and internationally." She also noted Yermak's appointment of Oleh Tatarov, who served as the head of the main investigative department of the Interior Ministry under former President Viktor Yanukovych. Recall that Yanukovych's tenure was marked by stupendous levels of corruption and ended when he fled to Russia during the Euromaidan revolution in February 2014.

Tatarov, though, stayed in Ukraine and was appointed by Zelensky as his deputy chief of staff in August 2020. That December, he was charged with bribery by Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), but the case was dropped after then-Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova twice replaced the prosecutors in charge and then pulled the case from the NABU and gave it to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which dropped the charges.

Finally, a brief article from Parry, who was featured earlier and passed away last 2018. The article is from 2014, and has notable references to "crazy SOB" Putin cooperating with "always the good guy" Obama:

"Neocons and the Ukraine Coup"

https://truthout.org/articles/neocons-and-the-ukraine-coup/

Even now, key U.S. diplomats are more attuned to hard-line positions than to promoting peace. The latest example is Ukraine where U.S. diplomats, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, are celebrating the overthrow of an elected pro-Russian government.

Occurring during the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the coup in Ukraine dealt an embarrassing black eye to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had offended neocon sensibilities by quietly cooperating with Obama to reduce tensions over Iran and Syria, where the neocons favored military options.

[ralfy]

Last point for today, from the notable Intercept:

"No, Russia Didn't Get Its Propaganda From John Mearsheimer"

https://theintercept.com/2022/03/06/russia-john-mearsheimer-propaganda/

By referring to Applebaum's response to Mearsheimer, it reveals one fascinating point about U.S. politics: there is very little difference between liberal and conservative, as they both promote neoconservatism and neoliberalism. In this case, we have a neoconservative writer featured prominently in a liberal magazine, criticizing an expert on this issue who was featured in the magazine of a neoliberal organization. Go figure.

It started when Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs — the equivalent to the U.S. State Department — did something unusual: It tweeted out an endorsement of a 2014 article in Foreign Affairs — the publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, probably the most influential American think tank on U.S. foreign policy. The piece was by John Mearsheimer, a professor in the political science department at the University of Chicago and a prominent member of the "realist" school of foreign policy thought. You can understand why the Russian government liked it, because it was called "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault."

This led to a response from Anne Applebaum, a neoconservative journalist who's currently a staff writer at The Atlantic. "Now wondering if the Russians didn't actually get their narrative from Mearshimer et al.," she wrote. "Moscow needed to say West was responsible for Russian invasions (Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine), and not their own greed and imperialism. American academics provided the narrative."

What's notable, though, is the graphic at the end of the article. It implies that both the U.S. and Russian governments are playing a propaganda game, and both "normal" Americans and Russians are affected.

[Allhallowsday]

[Morpheus, the unwoke.]

Amen!