Listen to a reading of this article:

The International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America has released a statement opposing the US government’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, saying the billions being funneled into the military-industrial complex “at a time when ordinary Americans are struggling to pay for housing, groceries, and fuel” is “a slap in the face for working people.” The statement advocates a negotiated settlement for peace, saying continuing to pour weapons into the country will “needlessly prolong the war, resulting in more civilian deaths” and that it “risks escalating and widening the war – up to and including nuclear war.”

In response to this entirely reasonable and moderate position, the DSA is currently being raked over the coals with accusations of Kremlin loyalty and facilitation of murder and bloodshed by blue-checkmarked narrative managers on Twitter. This is because the only acceptable positions for anyone of significant influence to have about this war range from supporting continuing current proxy warfare operations to initiating a direct hot war between NATO and Russia.

That’s how narrow the permissible spectrum of debate has been shrunk regarding this conflict: status quo hawkish to omnicidal hawkish. Anything outside that spectrum gets framed as radical extremism. As Noam Chomsky said: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

This spectrum of debate has been shrunk on the one hand by imperial spinmeisters continually hammering home the message that any support for de-escalation and diplomatic solutions is “appeasement” and indicative of Russian sympathies, and on the other by hawkish pundits and politicians pushing for the most freakishly aggressive responses to this war possible. By forbidding the spectrum of acceptable debate to move toward peace while shoving it as hard as possible in the direction of warmongering extremism, imperial narrative managers have successfully created an Overton window wherein the only debate permitted is over how directly and forcefully Russia should be confronted, with calls for peace now falling far outside that window.

Which is a problem, because both direct NATO hot war with Russia and continuing along the empire’s current course of action in Ukraine are stupid. Direct conflict between nuclear powers likely means a very fast and very radioactive third world war, and the status quo proxy warfare approach isn’t stopping Russia as more and more territory is taken in the east in cool defiance of western claims that Ukraine is bravely vanquishing its evil invaders. Biden administration officials have told the press that they doubt Ukraine will even be able to reclaim the territory it has lost already. Unless and until something significant changes, Ukraine has no apparent path to victory in this war anytime soon.

In short, there is no exit strategy to this proxy war. There are no plans in place to deliver Putin a swift defeat, and the Biden administration remains steadfastly dismissive of even the slightest gestures toward diplomacy with Moscow. Boris Johnson has reportedly been buzzing around admonishing Ukraine’s President Zelensky, France’s President Macron and who knows who else not to work toward peace in Ukraine. The doors to ending this war quickly by either winning it or negotiating a peace settlement are both bolted shut, all but guaranteeing a long and bloody slog.

Which as it turns out suits Washington just fine. Biden administration officials have stated that the goal is to use the Ukraine war to “weaken” Russia, and the US already has an established pattern of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires as we saw in both Afghanistan and Syria. Continuing to pour weapons and military intelligence into Ukraine while working to cut Russia off from the world stands no chance of ending the war in a timely manner, but it does stand a pretty good chance of bleeding and weakening Moscow.

And since this is the course of action that has been taken by the empire, we can only assume that this is its desired outcome: not victory, not peace, but a long and gruelling war.

One of the major recurring criticisms of the Iraq invasion was that Bush rushed into it without an exit strategy, without a plan for ending the war once it had been started. This proxy war with Russia not only lacks a strategy for ending the war, it apparently only has strategies for not ending the war. No exit strategy is the strategy.

Whenever you point out the insanity of this approach you’ll get useful idiots of the empire objecting that by criticizing US proxy warfare and supporting a negotiated settlement you are guilty of “appeasement” and exactly the same as Neville Chamberlain, because the only argument empire apologists ever have is to compare every US-targeted government to Nazi Germany.

According to these propaganda-addled empire automatons, having the story of not compromising with Putin-Hitler and not committing the sin of “appeasement” is worth sacrificing everyone in the entire nation of Ukraine for. They will happily throw every Ukrainian life into the gears of this war while they sit safe at home eating Funyuns and tweeting, just so they can have that “we didn’t compromise with Putin” story hanging on their mental mantlepiece.

How many more lives are such people prepared to feed into an unwinnable war which the west knowingly provoked? How many more of other people’s children are they prepared to sacrifice? How long does the bloodshed need to drag on before their “no appeasement” story loses value to them? How long until people wake up from their propaganda-induced comas and realize we’ve been manipulated into supporting a proxy war which benefits ordinary people in no real way, and in fact impoverishes us and threatens our very lives?

There is no morally consistent argument for continuing this proxy war in the way it has been going. If you actually value life and peace, the only way out is through negotiation and compromise. I point this out not because I believe it will happen, but to hopefully help a few more people open their eyes to the fact that we are being deceived.

_________________

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51 responses to “This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy”

  1. Ewiak Ryszard Avatar
    Ewiak Ryszard

    For now we can sleep in peace, but it won’t always be like this. Let me remind you of a passage from the prophetic Book of Daniel: “And both these kings [Great Britain and Russia. In 1882 British troops occupied Egypt. Great Britain then took the role of “the king of the south”. Around the same time, Russia expanded its influence in the region, which previously belonged to Seleucus I Nicator, and took the role of “the king of the north”], their hearts (will be) to do mischief, and at one table (they) will speak a lie; but it will not succeed. Indeed yet (the) completion to (the) appointed time [then the sign of Jesus will be fulfilled (global nuclear war)]. And [the king of the north] will go back (to) his land with great wealth [1945. This detail indicated that after the previous victories Hitler will attack the Soviet Union and will fight to the bitter end]; and his heart (will be) against the holy covenant [Soviet Union introduced state atheism and believers were repressed]; and will act; and go back to his own land [1991-1993. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The troops from the Soviet military bases returned to their country]. At the appointed time [he] will return back [Russian troops will return to where they were previously stationed. It also means military actions, a major crisis, plus the break-up of the EU and NATO], and will enter into the south [because of ethnic conflict (Matthew 24:7)], but it will not be as the former or as the latter [these current and subsequent military actions will not develop into a global nuclear war. This war will only begin after the return of the “king of the north”], then the dwellers of coastlands of Kittim [the distant West] will come against him, and (he) will break down [mentally], and will go back.” (11:27-30a) This will be a mutual slaughter and world war not only by name. And the great power sword will 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) Because of the use of these terrible weapons there will be significant tremors along the length and breadth of the regions [of strategic importance] and famines, and pestilences. Some ancient manuscripts contain the words “and frosts”. The Aramaic Peshitta: “and will be great frosts”. (Luke 21:11) 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). 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) It won’t be Armageddon. “But all these things are a beginning of birth-pains.” (Matthew 24:8, DLNT)

  2. What is that symbol behind Zelenski?

  3. “Continuing to pour weapons and military intelligence into Ukraine … does stand a pretty good chance of bleeding and weakening Moscow.”
    ~
    “…Angloid political elites don’t want this war to end until they’re satisfied enough Russians are killed to kneecap Russia as a rival—no matter how many dead Ukrainians it takes to do so.” (Mark Ames’ tweet).
    ~
    The Zionist neocons’ goal is to destroy Russia, break it up and loot its assets, as it has done with all wars for Israel. They already pirated Russia’s sovereign wealth >$300 billion, just as they stole Afghanistan’s, just as they stole Venezuela’s and Libya’s gold, and just as they are now stealing Syria’s oil. The US government is captive to the world’s largest organized crime syndicate— thieves and mass-murderers hell-bent on dominating the entire world. Russia has now ended this massive criminal enterprise.
    ~
    The neocons are simply too incompetent and too lost in their kool-aid delusion of world domination to grasp that reality. Every step US/NATO has taken to bleed Russia has boomeranged. This has become ZATO’s own quagmire; its own hyper-leveraged economy is collapsing; its propaganda is unraveling; it has isolated itself from the majority of the world, and its dreams of world dominion are vaporizing.
    ~
    Read Pablo Escobar: “Russia and China haven’t even started to ratchet up the pain dial”
    ~

    …[W]hen President Putin addresses the collective West in front of Duma leaders and heads of political parties, it does feel like a comet striking an inert planet. It’s not even a case of “lost in translation”. “They” simply aren’t equipped to get it.
    ~
    The “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” part was at least formulated to be understood even by simpletons:
    ~
    [Putin] “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield, well, what can I say, let them try. We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian – this is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people. But it looks like it’s all coming to this. But everyone should know that, by and large, we haven’t really started anything yet.”

    “They should have understood that they have already lost from the very beginning of our special military operation, because its beginning means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the World Order in the American way. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world – a world based not on selfish rules invented by someone for themselves, behind which there is nothing but the desire for hegemony, not on hypocritical double-standards, but on international law, on the true sovereignty of peoples and civilizations, on their will to live their historical destiny, their values and traditions and build cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality. And we must understand that this process can no longer be stopped.”(emphasis added)

    A case can be made that Putin and Russia’s Security Council are implementing a tactical trifecta that has reduced the collective West to an amorphous bunch of bio headless chickens.
    ~
    http://thesaker.is/russia-and-china-havent-even-started-to-ratchet-up-the-pain-dial/

  4. Who thinks Russia will restart the pipeline after the maintenance period. I sure wouldnt. Russia will make these embargos so painful, europe will implode. The exit strategy is to continue on until the pain becomes unbearable, then declare victory.

    1. EU industry collapses, a new BMW can’t be had for any price, Europeans shiver in cold homes this winter, and bread is in short supply. We’ll see how much resolve the West maintains in order to ‘teach Putin a lesson’ when the shiite hits the fan.

  5. Ted Christian Avatar
    Ted Christian

    Speaking of Overton windows, anybody else remember back when a majority of the American public finally turned against the Iraq war yet it was still fringe to oppose it? Yes, we were the fringe majority which, unfortunately, still wasn’t crazy enough.

    I don’t think the war will be nearly as open ended as the empire would like. Hopefully their hissy fitting won’t go nuclear. So are Zelensky and his mistress supposed to commit suicide in a bunker or what?

    1. Zelensky (and a … significant other?) will be shot and strung up by piano wire Mussolini style I suspect, only not by anti-Nazi partisans, but by his own confidants.
      “It would happen this way …”
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evfQ5QCRyeo
      Actually, if I was bookin’ it, I’d make it a pick-em that Big Z survives this shindig. Hell, he might even be given command of the future rump state formerly know as Ukraine.
      Neither side being able to afford to not have a man of such middling qualities in charge their “vital interests in the region.”
      In fact, Zelensky might turn out to be the first world leader that is openly, a Double Puppet.

      1. Between the US, the Russians, and the Azov people, Z might even have a shot at triple puppet. If he’s ever hung in the streets somebody needs to have the Pinocchio song playing.

  6. The empire makes a big show about being concerned about Ukrainian lives, but the actual policy is as callous and indifferent as you get. Yet people are fooled by it. The same was true in Afghanistan in 1979. The U.S. actively manipulated the Soviets to invade.

  7. When President Biden lands in Saudi Arabia it will be the first visit by a U.S. president since American intelligence agencies assessed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman approved the operation that resulted in the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

    Mohammad bin Salman will be greeted by Biden and recognized by him for their common war against journalism such as Biden now fights in the prosecution of Julian Assange.

    In their private meeting Biden and Mohammad bin Salman can affirm the brutal but necessary means required to control the press, as in the words of US Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois.

    https://fair.org/home/dick-durbin-wants-to-stop-you-from-being-a-journalist/

    Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.), writing in the Chicago Sun-Times (“It’s Time to Say Who’s a Real Reporter,” 6/26/13), says it’s time to stop letting just anyone call themselves a journalist.

    Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech. But when it comes to freedom of the press, I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive.

    By this he means, basically, that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press probably don’t apply to you:

    Not every blogger, tweeter or Facebook user is a “journalist.” While social media allows tens of millions of people to share information publicly, it does not entitle them to special legal protections to ignore requests for documents or information from grand juries, judges or other law enforcement personnel.

    1. Mohammad bin Salman is shamed for killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, while Biden continues the slow murder of Julian Assange for the “crime” of journalism.

  8. Biden’s new world order is the same great reset that WEF is advocating on behalf of trillionaires ahead of the western currencies collapse.
    Drop everything and come work more for a handful of manipulative mass murderers. Because they are better than Putler.

  9. peter mcloughlin Avatar
    peter mcloughlin

    The course of current global events and the pattern of history shows humanity is moving towards WW III. Why so? Well, every war in history has been about power. But power is an illusion, it cannot deliver its promise: permanent, unending victory. Yet everybody (or most) pursue it, in denial of this truth. Every empire has eventually faced the conflict it was trying to avoid – its own collapse. The logic allies to nuclear war as well. Humanity stands of the precipice, blindly about to step over.
    https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/

  10. The leader of the free world has become the master of the ghost shake.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV837yGXdmI
    There is distinct possibility we may look back on the Joe Biden Presidency with a great degree of fondness, and that is a scary fucking thing to think upon.
    This sucker is going down fast. Faster than I expected actually, and I’ve been of the opinion for more than a decade, that my country had no chances whatsoever to make it out to the year 2030 in any recognizable form.
    I no longer consider this an opinion, as I believe it’s clear we are already there. We are … unrecognizable. We have become a make-believe country that does only, make-believe things.
    The only question remaining, can the rest of the nation-states of this planet cooperate enough to stave off not only the Great Filter test that is bearing down upon all of them, but do it while the make-believe country, still very much in the middle of it all, attempts to make this near impossibile task a frivilous waste of time.
    Time better spent perhaps, contemplating our relatively short stay in this universe.
    Note: Life on planet Earth better hope that modern China is as good at meeting it’s 1,000 year objectives as it is at shattering – by ever widing margins – the lofty expectations of it’s 5 and 10 year plans.
    Managed de-growth, at the global scale, is the only way out of the Great Filter trap, and that will require brilliantly targeted goals and plans. And China is the best at this, in fact, the best of all time.
    But, they are only one nation among many, and the goals they are presently meeting earlier – and earlier! – than expected are precisely the opposite of the ones that are required.
    Just another reason I am not feeling sanguine about carbon based life and it’s prospects.
    At least as far as this quadrant of the universe is concerned.

    1. I’m largely in agreement with your assessment but not your pessimism. If I did not believe in what let’s call higher powers, active in this world, I’d be right where you and many others are. It’s only those powers IMHO that give us a shot at getting through this. What awaits is either utter disaster or something bordering on the miraculous. No use to argue about this. Time will tell.

      1. Assessing tomorrow with today’s data is always a mistake. It’s like assessing the commercial and geopolitical perspectives of the Europeans in 1491 with the Ottomans “cancelling” them from the Mediterranean, the Silk Road and all traditional commerce with Asia.

        1. “Assessing tomorrow with today’s data is always a mistake.”
          And my argument is that our flat out decades long refusal to assess tomorrow using today’s data is the reason our extinction has become nearly unavoidable.
          Besides, what other data could you use, other than today’s, as tomorrow’s hasn’t arrived yet?
          And yesterday’s data, if we were to add that into the assessment mix, is part of today’s, is it not?
          Lmao … Don’t worry Pascal. Life Will Always Find a Way! How do I know this? Because several thousand people have told me it is so, and not once, in all these years, have I encountered a single soul that agrees with me, that this is not necessarily the case.
          “Reason is the enemy of faith.” Boy don’t I know it.

  11. Cheap raw materials produce expensive consumer goods. Always. As long as the ruling class has monopoly production of our basic needs–food, clothing, shelter, education, medical treatment. transportation, energy–they will let you commit treason with words. Words are brittle, easily forgotten, rarely understood. So we can go on and on about injustice, but we go to the corporate outlets and spend next years salaries for rubbish-expensive rubbish. Ukraine, Russia, vast resources needed to sell you toilet paper and bubblegum. You buy, they sell. And you really never get to see or know what the nazis in charge are actually doing each day. They are lining up resources to manufacture what you haven’t an iota of an idea about producing yourself, or locally. Took time to arrange. Do you know that GMO’s are part of an eugenics experiment? Do you know the nazis at Rockefeller Institutes have developed vaccines that make you sterile? They brag about having ethnic specific bio-warfare agents. Read Engdahl’s book, Seeds of Destruction, for the details. So, also 99% of mainstream news is propaganda! Pure, convincing lies. We are on a new page in our history novel. Biowrfare is cheaper than nuclear warfare, way cheaper. Pathogens can be distributed worldwide in hours as covid has shown us.

    1. Lol Nazis with their biowarfare may meet their demise when the discover their own mixed blood heritage, or when their biowarfare mutates and kills them or their family.

  12. https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/anything-but-lies
    I don’t recall how many billions of dollars of US stuff was left in Afghanistan for reuse by the new rulers, but it seemed that leaving it mostly intact was like a ransom-payment to do the evacuations at the last minute.
    There has long been black-market diversion of NATO military supplies to Ukraine, since 2014, when the buildup to fight Russia began. Now it is an established criminal enterprise. This article says that the black–market weapons are largely going to Odesa, then south along the black sea coast until the go west to Albania, where the criminal enterprise includes the intelligence services. Direct sales to Russia on the battlefield are happening, with cash payments and Russian citizenship for participants. The cash payments are made considerably smaller, but will buy an apartment in Moscow, for instance.
    On the radio wave of the Ukrainian units, Russian negotiators persuade the artillerymen and tankers to advance to the indicated points and surrender with their equipment. In exchange – Russian documents, freedom and some money. The brought “Caesar”, “HIMARS” or PzH 2000 is considered sufficient proof of loyalty that the military who surrendered with it would avoid filtration and prisoner camps. With new documents, they start a new life somewhere in a cozy Ural city far from the front line, and even send money in bitcoins to their families so that they can go to them.
    Prices vary and are discussed, for 2 “Caesars” the Russians gave 120,000, although their Ukrainian “partners” desperately bargained and asked for 2 million. However, freedom and Russian passports are also a significant part of the fee … But one PzH 2000 self-propelled gun, according to various sources, cost the Russians more than $ 100,000.
    http://thesaker.is/arms-for-victory-over-russia-no-for-their-resale/

    Military Summary has consistently provided high accuracy updates of theUkraine war. The report of an intact HIMARS launcher and intact missiles being sold to Russian forces by Ukrainians for somewhat over $1 million starts at 17:39. https://rumble.com/v1c1d1r-ukraine.-military-summary-and-analysis-12.07.2022.html
    https://rumble.com/v1c1d1r-ukraine.-military-summary-and-analysis-12.07.2022.html

  13. In the heat of a meaningful debate about war suddenly one voice echoed after “you are all individuals”, “you are all different” –

    “Men will literally become the richest person on Earth and try to escape their sociopathic daddy trauma by flying to Mars instead of going to therapy.”

    1. One last tip from someone who had seem many terrible outcomes when fueling hate towards men and women. You have daughters. You should choose more carefully the words you use to express your contempt and despise to men. You might end up one having to see your daughters being the victims of people you hate and is provoking in a dally basis. It is sad because it is just an evidence that you lack a lot of qualities to be a reference for something better for men and women living and sharing the same world.

    2. “Men will literally become the richest person on Earth and try to escape their sociopathic daddy trauma by flying to Mars instead of going to therapy.”
      Bullseye! That nails it perfectly. Pascal once said that “all of man’s problems stem from his inability to sit alone in a room for any length of time.”
      Being on Mars, if man ever gets there, won’t change anything because he carries this existential frustration in his very soul. And getting rid of it precisely requires to sit alone in a room consistently.
      So let’s face it: if man ever gets to Mars, that planet will also be run by sociopaths who will exterminate each other in a nuclear war unless a fraction finds a way to move to Jupiter first.
      At least it’s made of gas, so they won’t have the problems we’re experiencing right now – and gaslighting will be strengst verboten on penalty of blowing up the whole shebang!

  14. Yes and this is why gasoline (oil) prices are high – it’s POTUS-acknowledged US policy. & coming on the back of all the covid response-induced & -imposed impacts on the economy, employment, small businesses, supply chains, food prices, etc. Is it any wonder inflation & interest rates quickly ramped up??? Or there’s talk of recession coming??? Washington DC’s priorities are transparent. It’s all self inflicted!

    The Overton Window is exactly what we get in a nation of polarized tribes trying to out shout, out sound bite, censor, finger point, evade, marginalize, deny, weaponize, & demonize anything and everything which doesn’t comply. It’s the same elections behavior we get from the buffoons offered to us in the ballot box, who deploy the same tactics to get elected.

  15. 9 Signs you are living under a non-nuclear WW3.
    1) Massive propaganda shifting your perception about what is going on;
    2) EU-UK-US and allies are delivering into Ukraine massive shipments of weaponry not seen in volume since WW2;
    3) EU-UK-US are shifting internal resources – billions of dollars – to keep the military industrial complex producing weapons;
    4) Scarcity in supermarkets, overpriced products to shut down internal demand, high inflation;
    5) State propaganda massively fueling hate towards Russia-China and anyone not happy living under the world order ruled base leaded by the US empire;
    6) No diplomatic attempts to solve peacefully anything at all;
    7) Any dissident impacting the official narrative is shut down;
    8) Political parties become just one echoing the dictator’s words;
    9) Obey, comply or get out.

  16. As far as I can tell the INSANE Oligarchs ruling the U.S., who are ADDICTS for MORE Money, Power & Control have a grand plan to control the entire world, impoverish the people so we will do whatever they say and to kill off as many of us as needed in the process so that if they leave the planet for a while and come back the can keep living into some insane dystopian future.

    These people have done a shit job with the money, control and power they currently have AND THEY WANT IT ALL! Reminds me of the girl from the Willie Wonka movie… alternative ending.. she got control of the factory and blew up the world…. the end.

  17. You may be interested to note that I recently found an article (it has not been removed and scrubbed), that stated that the Russians were capturing so many of the weapons being sent to Ukraine that they are translating the manuals into Russian so the Russian troops can use them. I have not been able to re-find the post, but then my internet skills are very limited.

    1. Ukrainians are also selling them US weapons on the black market.

  18. “Most Darwinians now agree that human intelligence developed so luxuriantly because it was needed for amateur psychologising: for deceiving, manipulating, detecting deception, resisting manipulation and generally outmaneuvring. That, not logic, is what people are good at.”

    1. True, when Socrates taught athenian youth logic and critical thinking, he was accused and sentenced for ” corrupting the youth”.

      1. “I suspect that they put Socrates to death because there is something terribly unattractive, alienating, and nonhuman in thinking with too much clarity.” Taleb

        Socrates was a supporter of women’s rights in his questioning of why a person’s genitalia could disqualify them from training horses.

        This argument made to men of that Age (and of others to this day) who would hold that being female was in itself a sexual deviation.

  19. “No exit strategy is the strategy.”
    The problem with the “no exit strategy” strategy is the pace of the Russian mop up operation in the Donbass seems to be accelerating at an “alarming rate!”
    Lmao …
    In my opinion, what is happening is the West has forced Russia to become a sovereign nation-state (mostly against their will), and much to the Russian’s surprise, they’re finding out there are benefits to be had by being one, and they’re starting to embrace the concept.
    They like being the Russian Federation!
    Again, lmao! Talk about a neo-liberal backlash! The stupid Western neo-liberals forced the less stupid Eastern neo-liberals to become something else.
    Forget this Ukraine scrap, it’s long been over, whatever the Russians want there they will take, the real question is, does Russia want to destroy the West? I think they can all by themselves, just by cutting oil and gas, and if that proves ever so slightly beyond their capabilities, they certainly could align with a China or Saudi Arabia with the intention of burning to a crisp our marshmellow economies.
    And do it in a fortnight.
    The risk to them if they do this is, of course, that we will nuke them. And that is the question I have been asking for more 20 years, started asking it with the abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by the Bush administration is 2001, actually, as the US follows the only path available to it and descends into total madness, a descent that is now, in my opinion, fully complete, and proceeds to then implode upon itself, will it go it down without a fight?
    Possibly, for the simple reason that the US no longer exists, that would be the argument, the country formerly known as the United States is incabable of making such world ending decisions due to “sovereignty issues,” and the forces that are now in charge of the place would never go the mutual nuclear annihilation root because they are not suicidal.
    They want to continue raking profits till a bitter end that exists in a theoretically more distant future.
    In other words, fuck the children and grandchildren, as long as the bitter end arrives beyond their natural profit generating lifespans, well, that’s just fine and dandy.
    A standard argument, run into it hundreds of times over the years, and it makes some sense. It is … logical.
    But it all rests on the idea that the Pentagon has been wholly bought and sold, along with the rest of the nation.
    So, if there is reason for hope, it rests in the idea that the Armed Forces of the United States will not only accept inevitable defeat, of the abject and total kind, but will collapse gently into that good night along with the nation-state it once so proudly served.*
    *At least according to them. And in their defense, the USAF can claim, and rightfully so I think, that they never have been fully in charge, so whatever destiny await us, it is not their fault.
    Now whether the “never been in charge” claim will still be able to be made in a not to distant future, well, I for one, highly doubt it.

  20. subcomandante Felix Avatar
    subcomandante Felix

    You assume that the U.S. wants to end this war, which from the perspective of the merchants of death would be very bad for business. The Empire of Lies only wants to sow chaos, conflict and violence and could care less about winning, especially when the losers are the Ukrainian people, who they are encouraging to fight to the last man, woman and child. The last war that the U.S. actually wanted to win, was WWII and the longer this proxy war goes on the better.

    What I don’t get is why the Ukrainian people, including its feckless left, are fighting to preserve a neo-fascist regime that came to power through a NATO backed bloody coup. A regime whose security and military are controlled by neo-Nazi white supremacist nationalists who overthrew a constitutionally elected neutral government, started a civil war and have for eight years waged a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Russian speaking Ukrainians who chose to not be part of their little 4th Reich (what about their sovereignty?).

    1. “You assume that the U.S. wants to end this war”

      Who is this “You” you speak of ?

    2. The real question is will the US and NATO implode economically and socially before WW3 can break out.

    3. The US worked so hard to create this war, they are not about to end it any time soon. They are proud of their deviltry. To kill to no good purpose is so human! More fun than shooting live animals as targets. And, if you can make mass kills, rendering the victims to hamburger, well, what beats that?
      ~
      Best case scenario, most of Europe, whether they like it or not, is turned into a de facto buffer zone between Russia and the top dogs of the West (Britain, France, Holland, Westernmost Germany–the original Nato). The rest (Poland, Eastern Germany, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Czechia, the Balkans, etc–essentially the “Intermarium,” and including a rump Ukraine) are the main shooting gallery. Nobody can push far past it in either direction for a de facto frozen conflict. If we are lucky that holds until hostilities peter out sometime after mid-century. Poland and the Baltics should not complain, they will have got exactly what they wished for. Idiots.
      ~
      If we are less fortunate and Washington starts lobbing nukes on actual Russian territory, Putin’s successors return the favor and American cities, military and infrastructure are wiped out along with most of the population. Same fate for European Russia. Enter the next hot (radioactive) ice age and die-back of the human species to a critical bottleneck population which leads either to complete extinction or an actual quantum leap in its biological evolution (probably both in our
      “Many Worlds” quantum reality). If you believe those in contact with the “Greys” who purport to be our descendants from the future, the later is actual future history.
      ~
      This should make some feel quite sympatico with Jesus and the suicidal sacrifice his father arranged for him, as they’ll be dying to usher in a new order for a new human species. Ugly little gnomes, but smart as a whip and coldly practical. I think all those glowing orbs that are now practically ubiquitous floating around (see ’em all the time in Florida) are here to transmit the live broadcast of our demise back to the future on whatever tech has replaced live streaming–universal telepathy, if I am not mistaken.
      ~
      Well, que sera, sera.

      1. Well… all things are not the same. Let’s hope we get atomically exterminated by the good guys (TM)!

  21. This tragic conflict isn’t just about the Ukraine. The sooner we take cognizance of this fact the better it will be to see clearly what it is that’s unfolding. Its a war to possibly end future wars around the globe as it has been the case for the last 100 years. It is a serious lesson for all, the West especially, to come to our senses that aggressive expansionist and imperialist wars cannot just be waged willi-nilly from now on .

    1. “Its a war to possibly end future wars around the globe”

      Yes, radiation sickness makes long wars less likely and less possible.

      The vicious minorities pushing for the end of wars by this means should feel very uneasy that the people at their back might wake up from their trances.

  22. Is this war about killing Russia or killing the west. Seems to me the NATO empire is moving us rapidly toward nuclear war with Russia. With their hypersonic missiles and what appears to be much more up to date and superior nuclear force, I ask: is the Biden administration insance, stupid, or in bed with China and/or the post-human globalist WEF to destroy all nation states and any pretense of freedom, and subjugate what is left of the world under a global tyranny while reducing the world’s population by 90%?

    1. I’m afraid we are ruled by geriatrics who don’t think far into the future, but are obsessed with stories from their old history books.

      1. People whose lives are already statistically closer to their ends should not be trusted by the younger people still seeking their future lives.

  23. Given that the American administration has admitted that this is about keeping Russia at constant war, as long as it is not Americans getting decimated, why is Ukraine still going along with it? For what possible reason would Zelensky want to be in the middle of the never ending war between Russia and America/Nato? How can he believe Ukraine can win against Russia while, at the same time, knowing that the U.S. does not want the war to end?

    1. Well, you don’t need a majority of the people to control them.
      The Ukraine nazis are willing to be extremely violent, which most people aren’t. Therefore their wellfed conviction, that it is their duty to remove anything russian from the face of the earth is enough to drag everyone with them.
      They openly threatened Selenskiy to kill him if he didn’t comply, and they control large parts of the military.
      And like this all seemingly go into one direction, just because noone wants to get shot for no gain.

      1. … and/or tortured as well as their families and friends…

  24. Rarely is Caitlin behind the curve, but she is when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine. Although in some sense no war can be won, war being nothing but a failure and tragedy from beginning to end, in the purely military sense, this Ukrainian conflict is being decisively won by Russia. Period. Same with the economic war that accompanies it, is an essential part of it. Same, arguably, with the culture war between the less awoke East and the more awoke West. I wonder whether continual immersion in Western propaganda, even, as in Caitlin’s case, only to deconstruct it, doesn’t sometimes allow enough of it to seep into even the clearest, most courageous mind. Right now, The Saker has a couple of lead articles that provide the appropriate corrective to this understated post.

    1. “Although in some sense no war can be won”

      True there are only winners who have lost less than other losers.

      Everybody really loses, some worse than others who can still breath the words “I win” without fear of being slapped down by the dead.

  25. Even though I reside in the US, I can observe that this war is weakening Americans. Dumb strategy, if there is one.
    Some in the US used to say Putin is unhinged and is just improvising.
    So the smart dudes decided to copy the style they think is Putin’s.
    Do it is Putin vs. Like-Putin, wonder who wins?

    1. Plus the sanctions are a real threat both to the dollar and the euro. If the yuan and the ruble go on affirming themselves, will people go on converting their funds into currencies that might get them frozen on a whim of the “rules-based democracies” (aka I me mine tyrannies) or prefer others that don’t present such threats but large opportunities instead on a Eurasian continent sheltering two thirds of the world population (5,3 billion – minus 400 million if you subtract the Europeans), with a 3,7% per capita growth rate in the last decade in East Asia and 5,2% in South Asia as opposed to 1,4% in North America and 1% in the Eurozone?

  26. eXCELLENT ARTICLE. oUR FEET OF CLAY EXTEND TOWARD THE THIGHS. TOM

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