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A Republican senator who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee stated on a Tuesday Fox News appearance that he strongly supports keeping US military action on the table if Russia invades Ukraine, up to and including a first-use nuclear attack.
“I would not rule out military action,” Senator Roger Wicker told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. “I think we start making a mistake when we take options off the table. So I would hope the president keeps that option on the table.”
“What does military action mean, senator?” Cavuto asked.
“Well, military action could mean that we standoff with our ships in the Black Sea and we rain destruction on Russian military capability,” the senator replied. “It could mean that. It could mean that we participate – and I would not rule that out – I would not rule out American troops on the ground. You know we don’t rule out first-use nuclear action. We don’t think it will happen. But there’s certain things in negotiations – if you’re going to be tough – that you don’t take off the table.”
Wicker emphasized that his position was entirely bipartisan.
“To the extent that you’ve had Democrats on the show right before me saying that we should be tougher, I support that and I appreciate that,” Wicker said. “I think they represent the fear that we have, the realization that we have in the Congress, that losing a free democratic Ukraine to Russian invasion would be a game-changer for a free Europe.”
Top Biden administration diplomat and neoconservative Ukraine coup plotter Victoria Nuland didn’t go quite as far, but did assert that a perceived attack on Ukraine would see Russia financially cut off from the entire world.
“What we are talking about would amount to essentially isolating Russia completely from the global financial system, with all the fallout that would entail for Russian businesses, for the Russian people, for their ability to work and travel and trade,” Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.
It remains to be seen whether tensions between NATO powers and Moscow over Ukraine will improve or get worse after a two-hour talk between President Biden and President Putin on Tuesday, but it is already abundantly clear that we are as usual being aggressively deceived about the situation. As the Moon of Alabama blog explained the other day, the narrative that Russia is poised for an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is flimsy at best, and could easily be designed to frame Russia as the aggressor should a future attack on rebel-held territories in eastern Ukraine by US, NATO and Ukrainian forces cross one of Putin’s red lines and provoke a military response from Moscow.
Whatever’s happening, hawks in the US political/media class keep trying to amp the public up for a direct military confrontation between nuclear superpowers.
“If Russia invades a non-NATO partner vital to US-led operations in Iraq/Afghanistan, whose integrity we guaranteed in 1994 and defense we materially support, so soon after the abandonment of our allies in Kabul, the damage done to US credibility and hegemony will be immeasurable,” tweeted MSNBC’s Noah Rothman in contribution to the Ukraine controversy.
If Russia invades a non-NATO partner vital to US-led operations in Iraq/Afghanistan, whose integrity we guaranteed in 1994 and defense we materially support, so soon after the abandonment of our allies in Kabul, the damage done to US credibility and hegemony will be immeasurable.
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) December 7, 2021
There’s a lot going on in that post, like the ridiculous claim that Ukraine played a “vital” role in US-led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bizarre suggestion that Washington guaranteed it would militarily defend Ukraine’s integrity in 1994. But what’s most interesting is Rothman’s refreshingly honest admission that if the hawks get their way in the event of a Ukraine conflict, people’s sons and daughters would be sent to kill and die in a war over something as stupid as “US credibility and hegemony.”
Indeed, all US wars in recent memory have been over US hegemony. When they occur they are always portrayed as heroic acts of defense against evil hostile aggressors; self-defense, defense of human rights, defending freedom and democracy, defending populations which can’t defend themselves, etc. In the imperial doctrine of the US political/media class, the empire never attacks, it only “defends”.
But if you break down the underlying causes of those military interventions they always boil down to preserving US unipolar hegemony, i.e. undisputed planetary domination. It’s not an accident that US military interventionism is consistently most concentrated in areas of high geostrategic value, focused on maintaining the ability to control the world’s crucial resources and shipping lanes, militarily surrounding disobedient governments, and continually expanding the ability to quickly launch devastating attacks on any population which acts against the will of the empire.
That’s the real reason you’re hearing so much hysterical shrieking about China lately, as well as governments which cooperate with it like Russia. It’s got nothing to do with Ukraine or Taiwan or election meddling or human rights concerns in Xinjiang, it’s because China is the head of a rising bloc of non-empire-aligned governments which threatens US hegemony. It’s because Russia and China have been getting closer and closer after western empire managers predicted the exact opposite would occur.
We are living in a geopolitical watershed moment.
As the US-NATO-EU imperial bloc escalates its new cold war on China and Russia, Beijing and Moscow are on the verge of creating an official alliance – militarily, economically, and politically https://t.co/0fnnDS1ZeE
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) December 1, 2021
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last month that she’d “heard for years that Russia would become more willing to move toward the west, more willing to engage in a positive way with Europe, the UK, the US, because of problems on its border, because of the rise of China.” But that’s not what occurred.
“We haven’t seen that,” Clinton said. “Instead what we’ve seen is a concerted effort by Putin maybe to hug China more.”
Had the predictions of US empire architects proved correct, the Russia-China tandem described in 2017 by Gilbert Doctorow would never have come to be, and China would have been far weaker and far more vulnerable to US subversion as a result. All the panicked consent-manufacturing you’ve been seeing from empire managers these last few years is due to the frantic need to course-correct after those forecasts fell flat.
As Noam Chomsky recently observed, the real “threat” China poses is that it cannot be bullied into complying with the will of the US empire.
“The U.S. will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated the way Europe can be, that does not follow U.S. orders the way Europe does but pursues its own course. That is the threat,” Chomsky told Democracy Now last month.
Whatever your opinions on Chomsky at this point in his life, you cannot deny that he is correct here. Beltway empire managers determined after the fall of the Soviet Union that the US must prevent the rise of another rival superpower at all cost, and all the attempts you are seeing to undermine China and its geostrategic support system are simply the effects of that resolution playing out exactly as intended.
"What exactly is the 'China threat'? The 'China threat' is China's existence. The US will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated. That does not follow US orders but pursues its own course."
–Noam Chomsky slams Biden's hostile foreign policy towards China pic.twitter.com/AebcMZjFJU— No Cold War (@NoColdWar) November 23, 2021
But what are the consequences of that resolution? What does it mean when history’s first ever unipolar planetary hegemon must maintain that unipolar hegemony even if it means risking a third world war against an alliance of nuclear-armed nations? What does it mean when the decline of an empire meets with the imperial doctrine that planetary domination must be held in place by any means necessary, and when we now have US senators talking on national television about launching a nuclear first strike on Russia if it invades a nation hardly any Americans could even find on a map?
It means the world has gotten a lot less safe.
The main argument you’ll hear from those who support the continued existence of a US-led world order is that if it wasn’t Washington ruling the world it would be Beijing or Moscow, which is just silly “If I don’t steal it someone else will steal it” nonsense that isn’t substantiated by facts. The planet never had a unipolar hegemon until three decades ago; there’s nothing inscribed upon the fabric of reality which says there needs to be one, and all the evidence coming from Beijing and Moscow is that those governments want a multipolar world, not to dominate a unipolar one. Besides, it’s not like the US has been making global domination look sexy during that time by rapidly burning itself out and teetering on the brink of collapse.
The other main argument you’ll hear in favor of US unipolar hegemony is the claim of “Pax Americana“; that it makes the world a more peaceful place. But, again, how true is that if US unipolar hegemony must be held in place by endless violence and is now forcing humanity toward a world war between powerful nuclear-armed nations?
EXCLUSIVE: Twenty years after 9/11, compelling statistical data suggests that the true death toll of the 'War on Terror' is a staggering *6 million people*: which is likely a conservative estimate. I breakdown the data for @BylineTimes https://t.co/YTV6IoZ3ic
— Dr Nafeez Ahmed FRSA (@NafeezAhmed) September 15, 2021
After all, “Pax Americana” has already killed millions of people and displaced tens of millions in US wars of geostrategic domination just since the turn of this century. The US-backed assault on Yemen alone will have killed 377,000 people by the end of this year, and the horrors show no sign of stopping. Unilateral starvation sanctions on disobedient populations are deliberately murdering civilians around the world. And now, no longer able to make due with simply smashing weaker nations, we are being fed the usual “defense” propaganda about Ukraine and Taiwan to gin up support for world war in the nuclear age.
The western media have been screaming that Russia is about to invade Ukraine any minute now for years on end. The narratives we’re being fed about Taiwan are blatantly propagandistic. All they’re doing is brainwashing the public into consenting to aggressions which are so dangerous that, all by themselves, they completely invalidate the argument that US unipolar hegemony makes the world safer or more peaceful.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no reason nations can’t just cooperate with each other for the common good instead of waving armageddon weapons around over the ideas held by a few idiots about the need to dominate an entire planet. There’s no reason the US needs to imperil us all with these insane unipolarist aggressions, and everyone should stop supporting it in doing so.
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37 responses to “US Hegemony Doesn’t Make The World More Peaceful, It Makes It More Dangerous”
The disciples asked Jesus an interesting question: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall begin to be fulfilled?” (Mark 13:4, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition) He answered: “But ye will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not disturbed; for all [these things] must take place, but it is not yet the fulfillment [of the sign].” (Matthew 24:6) The global nuclear war, (this will be the fulfillment of the sign of Jesus), will start with an ethnic conflict: “For nation will rise against nation”, like as in 2008 in Georgia. (Matthew 24:7)
In the Book of Daniel we read: “At the appointed time (the king of the north) will return back [it also means the break-up of the EU and NATO. Many countries of the former Eastern block will return to a military alliance with Russia], and will enter into the south [this will be the beginning of the global nuclear war. (Revelation 6:4) The detonator will be the ethnic conflict to the south of Russia’s borders (Matthew 24:7)], but it will not be as the former [Georgia – 2008] or as the latter [Ukraine], for the dwellers of coastlands of Kittim [the distant West, to be precise – Americans] will come against him, and (he) will broke down [mentally], and will go back.” (11:29, 30a)
This time it will be a world war not only by name. This will be a mutual slaughter. The “great power sword sword” will also be used. (Revelation 6:4) Jesus characterized him in this way: “A frightening things both and extraordinary (related to unusual phenomena) from sky powerful will be.” (Luke 21:11) Some ancient manuscripts contain the words “and frosts”. The Aramaic Peshitta: “and will be great frosts”. We call this today “nuclear winter”. In Mark 13:8 there are also words of Jesus: “and disorders” (in the sense of confusion and chaos). The Aramaic Peshitta: “and confusion” (on the state of public order). There will be also significant tremors along the length and breadth of the regions, food shortages and epidemics as a result of using this weapon. Jesus stated: “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matthew 24:8) But is there any point in speeding it all up?
This is a great article. My opinion: NATO should be defunded and dissolved. It is a cold war dinosaur that serves only to aggravate those nations that the USA should be doing its best to get along with. That’s right, Russia should be our number one ally.
Then the USA could begin its unilateral nuclear disarmament, which, by the way, is our only possibility for avoiding the unprecedented disaster of a global nuclear war.
Gore Vidal began explaining all this stuff to the American public back in the 1960’s! You know, that the MIC & CIA run this country through a single War Party in the Congress, made up of both R’s & D’s, for the benefit of a small coterie of oligarchs.
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I understand that the American (and now most of the international) media are owned and operated by that same faction of oligarchs, so do not look for any truth or useful information beyond warmongering propaganda there. What I am appalled at is the complete surrender of the academic community–the historians, political scientists, journalists and similar ilk–to a form of hegemony over research and scholarship in our most esteemed institutions of higher education. If they are researching the truth, they are sure not teaching it to our children. The professors have either been bought and paid for just like the politicians or they have been 99.9% cowed into supporting the revisionist history and interpretations of current events demanded by the deep state and its shadowy string pullers with all the money in the world and an unslaked thirst for more.
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The last honest academic in this country to try to speak truth to this modern bulldozer of fascistic power was Stephen F. Cohen who allegedly passed away earlier this year. Perhaps the coroner should have checked his system for some of that “novochuk” that the CIA & MI6 are purportedly finding all over creation and trying to illogically pin on the Russians.
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Really, if our university students were being taught the truth about their past as Americans and what’s planned for their future by the “experts” in the universities who are supposed to know these things (rather than spouting a bunch of jingoistic propaganda–it is their job to be the torchbearers of our civilisation!) they’d be in the streets protesting for something beyond a blatantly racist agenda that is destined to divide this country ever more and irrevocably.
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They’d want to know why, for example, Washington, which is on the opposite side of the planet, thinks it gets to call the shots in a country full of ethnic Russians immediately adjacent to Russia, which was always part of Russia for a thousand years, but which fought in WWII for Hitler and seeks to repress those Russian citizens whilst prancing around in throwback Nazi uniforms (i.e., Ukraine) and yet Russia itself should have no say in the matter.
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None of that stands up to reason or any system of morality. Washington is clearly not just wrong, but being an abominable bully about it all. It offers no legitimate solutions and all of its “contributions” to the crisis precipitated by the coup d’etat it fomented in 2014 have been transparently obstructionist and downright evil–absolutely destructive to the people who live there, though quite generous to themselves. The Biden family has made out like bandits by exploitation of the cretins who run Ukraine’s energy industry, and the bigger fish amongst the American aristocracy have clear intentions of vivasecting Russian assets and natural resources when they “win” this grand new world war they seem to have planned to restock their inventories.
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Their grand scheme is totally transparent. Just extrapolate the plotted curves for world resources, production and requirements of the human race for food, water, shelter, medicines, energy, raw materials and other necessities of life. All these curves start to go a cropper after mid-century and catastrophically crash by the end of the century. Only Russia will have any noteworthy reserves left. The American plutocrats want them. They want them now before they are substantially developed by Russia and China. For this you, your children and grandchildren must patriotically die for the USA (the latest New Rome!), though don’t try to see it anymore in your Chevrolet–you won’t be able to afford the vehicle and its batteries won’t get you far outside of your local town.
When Russia entered Syria in 2015 they turned 400 THOUSAND ZIO/US/NATO created and sponsored ISIS terrorists into FERTILIZER !
All the ZIO/US/NATO could do was watch !
Taliban marched straight to Kabul in a WEEK !
Maduro is STILL President of Venezuela !
You people have NO idea what is going on in this hybrid war !
The ZIO/US/NATO militaries are ALL piss and wind – Russia has ALL the answers and can disable anything the ZIO/US/NATO has !
There will NOT be a WAR !
WW111 has been run and WON !
It was fought in Syria – Syria is now LIBERATED and four hundred THOUSAND ISIS are exterminated – as it should be !
ZIO/US/NATO have nothing left but rhetoric !
The C19 planned-demic tells me otherwise. WW3 is still plodding along, since the Korean War at least. In fact, C19 shows that it’s heating up. Cult like recruitment (of targeted populations/ethnic groups) is a large part of contemporary wars. Slow, invisible infiltration. Then there’s real, time delayed, bio-warfare and chemical.
Could it be that the senator is just a ‘wicker’ man (pun appropriate), to be sacrificed on the altar of profits for the MIC?
As the only senator to vote against an amendment agreeing that climate change is real, and having been given an A+ from the NRA, the senator from Mississippi obviously has, as we say in Australia, ‘a kangaroo loose in the top paddock’
“In Belgium, a country of 11 million people, 300 million doses of anti-depressants are prescribed each year.”
Extrapolate to remainder of The West
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CRo-ieBEw-8
Dont worry. We will be ok. Just Duck and cover.
https://youtu.be/IKqXu-5jw60
So the USG can deploy troops wherever it wants, but Russia must not deploy its own within its own country. Wow! These guys think the world is a brothel and the entire population is its whores.
Fucking shitty imperialists!
America’s socialists generally don’t believe that China is about to invade Taiwan or that Russia is about to invade Ukraine. I think America just needs more socialists.
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/06/gene-sharp-cold-war-intellectual-marcie-smith
Well, well. As soon as revolution gets talked about, the Gene Sharp type of false flagger shows up. The link above is to an excellent article from Jacobin which perfectly describes what Sharp and all these pacifists are all about.
Pacifist=bullshitter
A libertarian revolution is a contradiction in terms. We need a revolution against capitalism. This will be violent.
Do not get involved in any kind of political action with risk of getting hurt, until you know what it really is. Is it called by a legitimate authority? Are the goals clearly articulated?
If not, stay clear.
Now, watch the little puke try to start a ‘have the last word’ with me.
Would love to see Senator Wicker or any of his colleagues back up the tough talk by being on one of those ships in the Black Sea when they “rain down destruction on Russian military capabilities”. I sure hope the Senator can swim!!
It’s so depressing and troubling to read Caitlin’s stuff these days. I don’t watch TV so I wasn’t aware of QUITE how utterly, clinically, criminally insane the US “leadership” class is–and she claims much of the US public is ready to go along with this insanity. That quote from the Republican, about not taking a nuclear first strike on Russia off the table, over a faked-up excuse for a war (aren’t they all?)–in a sane world he’d be relieved of his seat and medical professionals would deal with him. This sort of thing really has me questioning reality. Surely this is a fictional, artifical universe and the writers are getting jaded with credible plotlines!
We can’t HANDLE the truth? Marie Jana Korbelová, Hills, Biden, Neera, Kerry, Victoria Nuland, Obama, Harris, Mayo Pete… are ALL just itching for mutual assured distractions. Cui bono?
“I think we are making a mistake when we take options off the table” too, Senator Wicker.
Like the option of diplomatic talks and the option of detente.
Victoria Nuland: “What we are talking about would amount to essentially isolating Russia completely from the global financial system…”
She pretends the USofA has the power to command the banksters to ostracise Russia from the global financial system. The reality is that the banksters are the organ grinders and she is the monkey. Many believe as I do that some of those with Khazarian heritage have gradually acquired the keys to the money system by way of inside knowledge and unbridled usury. Ukraine, & in particular Crimea, is viewed as Khazarian land and they are lusting for it back with nuclear menaces. All a part of the long game with the ultimate prizes now in view.
America dropped the last nuke on foreign soil. They will also drop the next one as well.
“US hegemony doesn’t make the world more peaceful, it makes it more dangerous.”
This is understood by everybody except the US hegemony, which cares only for power and control.
Thanks for saying that. I thought about saying it, too.
Dear Caitlin,
xxx
What we’re seeing develop in the Ukraine is no < a rehashing of the Cuban Missile Crisis–except this x the action is in Russia's backyard and the U.S. Government is both far less stable and far less able to carry out its threats–an extremely dangerous combo of factors.
xxx
Russia has a truck-mounted missile launcher that can take out an aircraft carrier with two shots. I'm fearful of what'll happen if the U.S. decides to amplify its presence in the Black Sea. Can you say "asking for it" or "sitting ducks"?
xxx
Best,
Horror/thriller author S.A. Hogan
Russia will take what it wants when it wants it.
No, it’s the US which does that.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was also US, Hustlers in Turkey. IRBM & supersonic bombers in Europe & Asia, a ginormous SLBM nuclear submarine fleet and of course; we’d 1064 ICBMs while they had unescorted Bear bombers. So, yeah, a single guy on a Russian sub (outa Севастопольская военно-морская база, Balaklava) saved us all, by refusing to launch a nuke-tipped torpedo?
yes, the cuban missile crisis was mostly on the US. people still glorify JFK over it.
If it hadn’t been for JFK, who was gradually coming to see the light before they killed him, we wouldn’t have survived that crisis and still be here, able to talk about it and him.
no, if it hadn’t been for JFK who escalated when the USSR did the exact same thing in Cuba that we did earlier in Turkey, there would have been no crisis to start with. this myth of the warmonger JFK as a shining light of peace is as pernicious and false as that of Obama, but Obama didn’t take the world to the brink like JFK did.
we ended up withdrawing the missles iirc as the Russians backed off supplying them to Cuba. it was all bs anyway, those missles didn’t pose more of a threat than we already faced. it was all in service of maintaining US hegemony, and JFK was always on board with that.
Yep! Funny how easily we all fall for whatever fantasy we’re gavaged, like starved baby peeps. Think, I’d just posted how a bunch of us boomers, simultaneously had recurring dreams of a Rooski sub, being depth- charged, WELL before we’d learned of Vasili Arkhipov?
I watched a documentary about that guy–a real hero who never got any credit, in fact he was vilified when he got back to the USSR. His widow participated in a ceremony honoring him, but this guy should be viewed not as a hero of the USSR or of the Americans he refused to attack, but as a global hero who stopped what could have been WW III.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war
Vasili Arkhipov. Every city in a sane world would raise a monument to this man.
Caitlin, your grasp of international affairs is masterful. When do I get to meet you?
Aw, get off it, eh? What are you going to do, kiss her feet?
Cait is not saying anything which has not been widely said for at least twenty years. Even doughheads like me have been trying to draw people’s attention to it for over a decade.
She has been pretty good at drawing people’s attention to certain Ideas which they have clearly not encountered before. A lot of them seem astonished by it, hence the hero worship.
However, I think we need to go a bit deeper than “the US empire must collapse.”
PS. You may notice about me, I really hate idol worship.
Ha ha yes I am a little bit smitten, I must admit. She churns out consistently good analysis, a bit turgid but always worth the read. I like my geo-historico-politics a little simpler but Cait is home-grown from my own town of origin so I plead guilty to a bit of worshipfulness.
Deepest State Memo released by a whistleblower: “We will continue to keep everything on the table as Russia is provoked into invading Ukraine. True, they may do this as defense. But, we will rain destruction, even first-use nuclear action, as planned many years ahead. What represents the fear that we have is that they will pull back, thus thwarting the anticipated mushroom clouds. Of course, we are the hostile aggressors. Yet, by the time we are done, we will be able to write into history any version of which we choose.”
https://seaclearly.com/2020/10/26/i-was-raised-in-babylon
But, but, but, if we survive a world war with Russia, will I have to disavow my ancestors? And, with China, will I have to dispose of all my Asian artifacts and furniture?
Seriously, the problem we face, here in the States, is that the government thinks that we the people are stupid and will accept and swallow any propaganda sent our way. The sad part of that is that they are, to a major degree, correct about the majority. It’s little different than the lemmings believing all the lies of the political party for which they have registered. In both situations, there are those who recognize how absurd these ‘suggestions’ are, but also how dangerous, when coming from certain military and/or political mouths.
While I do not agree, one bit, with the actions of January 6th, I do realize that something must be done. I’ve been saying for years that the current political, social and economic systems are obsolete, corrupt and corrupted (like software gone bad that is beyond repair) – and that we must somehow find a way to trash the system and replace it with a radically new and different system that combines the three and that, first and foremost, sees to the needs of the people, not to the desires of the warmongers and oligarchs.
If climate change doesn’t do us in first, the current system – if permitted to flourish and grow – will do us all in and destroy any future we hope that our children and grandchildren might have.
Watch How to Start a Revolution DVD documentary and read From Dictatorship to Democracy the book by Dr Gene Sharp.
We the people are not just stupid enough to swallow the most hilariously false propaganda, but smugly certain of our oh-so-savvy imperviousness to it. This has been the point of all the post-secondary conformity training that assures cube-dwellers they are “information workers” rather than useless interchangeable drones.
However, everybody knows that being tortured to death by the US is a lot more fun than by China because the Americans are the good guys (TM).
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/542459-cia-detention-program-afghanistan/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email