In Russia, sanctions have taken a bite out of the Russian economy, but interviews and data suggest they cannot fulfill the West's strategic motives for imposing them.
Russia will eat grass before it eats anymore Western, read US empire shit. Russia has tried to be a part of the west for thirty years; read Lavrov or Putin; they've given up. China needs ~10 more years to catch up on transport aircraft and the highest digital technology but right now there's almost nothing Russia can't source cheaper and better value than anything in the west. China gets shit done, real shit like infrastructure. The west can't do anything on time, on or below budget. Yes, the transition will be painful but at the end lies better times. Russia is a perfect partner for the vassal States of Europe but for irrational political reasons has chosen to remain a vassal state of a declining empire. Russia is also a perfect fit for China and neither of them need western style over substance and garbage like McDonald's, rap and juvenile entertainment and money engineering over real engineering. Sad, it didn't need to be this way.
Agree with your assessment completely. I have followed very closely the deep state geopolitical/economic plans since Carter & the evil brezinski! Finally red pilled 100% by Bush/Iraq war! Before that by Clinton/Yugoslavia. These people have driven the US into the ground in every way possible! A culture of vulgarity has replaced civil discourse/ fear/ignorance/stupidity/hubris/
War criminals define many in population & most of US/nato leadership. They are a menace to all!
Totally agree, I have come to the same conclusion. The U.S. foreign policy establishment is a menace to the world. The sanctions on Russia are sanctions on the working class globally. As if the faux pandemic wasn't enough, this action by the U.S. and Brussels is another nail in the coffin of working people. Now expect the emergence of a multi polar world and a decline in the hegemony of the dollar. This essay was written late March and since then the Ruble has rallied, Russian stock market is up. Ukraine is simply a pawn for the neo con/libs (whatever) to try to take down Russia. They do not give a hoot about Ukrainian citizens. And Zelenskyy? A total clown.
And now it is the permanent neocons impressing their minority will on 33 million US citizens. Their 2% ethnic component of the overall US population having this disproportionate amount of power is not only disturbing and a grave danger to world peace, but a moral outrage and travesty as well. Just look at the upper echelon of Biden's minders to see the extent of the infiltration by those with first fealty to Israel, stated or not.
And that Blinken and Nuland, direct descendants of the Ukrainian Pale of Settlement, are carrying and focusing the neocon raging hatred of Russia so prejudicially and biased from the start, in the name of the US people's interests supposedly based on objective communications and social intercourse, are totally disqualified.
For them presuming to be "diplomats" representing the 98% of U.S. non-Jewish Zionists' interests from the get-go is absolutely ludicrous and tragic. Just witness what their pet peeve policies have wrought upon the ethnic Russians of the LDR over the past eight years.
Madeline Albright, another of that 2% tribe who found the highest halls of power to her liking, said it best of her half million dead Iraqi babies when she exposed her evil interior thoughts with a blithe "We felt it (the dead babies) was worth it."
How fucking EVIL does it have to get before it's called what it is!!
Nuland had only 15,000 under her belt up until February 23, but her sentiments are so very obviously the same. 15,000 and counting now, add to the Donbass dead, dead Ukrainian and Russian soldiers.
You'll never see Fat Bobby(Kagan) and Dumpy Vickie's kids facing the consequences of their actions. Not unless the Russians bomb Brussels where these two carpetbaggers have set up their poisonous snake shop.
He wasn't the only one. The FBI used to be famous for compromising politicans; no doubt; they're still doing it. The CIA is doing the same domestically even though it's illegal.
Who cares who gets elected if you have blackmail files on them?
"Hoover spent his career amassing and expanding his power, and his secret formula was to trade in secrets. Every person had his or her secret, he believed, and having knowledge of-and using-those secrets was the currency of his realm. ''Hoover didn`t trust anyone he didn`t have something on,'' an aide later acknowledged. ''He`s got files on everybody, damn it,'' Richard Nixon said of the man who bragged-with reason-that he had made Nixon president of the United States." - https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-09-08-9103070622-story.html
Once again, the Biden administration has neglected to account for the long-term and unintended consequences of their decisions. We've seen it time and time again with domestic policy and now with international policy. This is what happens when you run a country based on Twitter feedback rather than a deep understanding of the reality of the situation.
agree. the ideologues running the WH- Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland, don't care about the economic consequences on us or on the rest of the world. They are globalists dn don't give crap about nations and citizens. They are completely blinded by ideology, same as the ideologues forcing wokism on us.
Good article. Biden is beating the war drums! We are headed toward WWIII with the goal since the 2014 CIA backed color revolution in Ukraine being to depose Putin, then Xi as George Soros recently stated. The neocons in both parties are playing with fire instead of negotiating. Putin's demands are reasonable.--comply with Minsk agreement. Ukraine remains neutral, end Ukrainian/neo Nazi war (trained by CIA) against Donbas which are all ethnic Russians and allow them to be independent. Quit listening to George Soros. This is leading to world war and the destruction of the global economy. Write your Congressional representatives!
Excellent analysis, but the stated strategic objectives are rarely the actual strategic objectives of any nations foreign policy.
Sanctions have rarely if ever successfully led to regime change.
Like this author concluded, sanctions may actually force Russia to double down on military success in the Ukraine - which would then justify US presence and involvement in another prolonged war, this time in a new region of geopolitical significance, thus finally completing Obama‘s pivot to Asia announced a decade ago.
Seen through this lens, the sanctions are achieving exactly their intended (though surreptitious) effect.
It will be difficult for Zelensky to negotiate peace with Putin because he has no ability to remove sanctions. In order to offset what will probably be permanent sanctions, Zelensky would have to give away half his country and of course he won`t do that. Ruling class warmongers are in charge and have locked in the Russia-Ukraine war. Europeans are too humble and meek and their bankers are too corrupt to oppose the sanctions. Warmongers worked for years to provoke the war and they won`t have it snatched away from them.
> Sanctions have rarely if ever successfully led to regime change.
It appears the last round since 2014 forced Russia to be more self-reliant. They developed some technologies they relied upon the West for. I.E., the advanced composite materials - used to make aircraft wings.
Without meaning to dismiss all the claims in the article, some of the more central claims seem weak to me, if not outright inconsistent with the realities on the ground.
First, Russian military rhetoric has recently started to shift towards a radically less ambitious and aggressive set of objectives, from “demilitarization” and “denazification” (apparently to include the Jewish head of state), scaled back to shoring up gains in the Donbass region. It’s hard to read this as anything other than capitulation to battlefield losses and Western economic pressures.
Second, I find it impossible to credit domestic opinion polling on support for the war - er, “special military operation” - at a time when civilians are being jailed by the hundreds under repressive speech control laws directed at exactly this issue. When we see 7 year old children being locked up for laying flowers and signs in front of a building, and journalists facing 15 years in prison for waving signs around, who in their right mind is going to express antipathy towards the war to anyone, much less an organ of state-controlled media?
So like I said, I don’t mean to dismiss the greater point here, and I think there’s more than a little merit to engaging in a long-overdue reexamination of heavy-handed coercive foreign policy, but this article seemed to rest pretty heavily on what I saw as weak support above.
"First, Russian military rhetoric has recently started to shift towards a radically less ambitious and aggressive set of objectives, from “demilitarization” and “denazification” (apparently to include the Jewish head of state), scaled back to shoring up gains in the Donbass region. It’s hard to read this as anything other than capitulation to battlefield losses and Western economic pressures."
I read this differently. Russia seems to be more pragmatic than Ukraine and its western supporters. It would be folly for Russia to want to conquer the entirety of Ukraine. But it is overwhelmingly likely that they will be successful in attaining their professed objective of "liberating" all of Donbas.
Your comments about Nazis and the Jewish head of state seem rather shallow. The Nazis have evolved from predominantly anti-Semitic to anti-Russian. Quoting Pepe Escobar,
"What happened since Maidan is that the CIA kept a laser focus on inciting Russian hatred by whatever fringe groups it could instrumentalize. So Ukraine is not a case of 'white nationalism' – to put it mildly – but of anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism, for all practical purposes manifested via Nazi-style salutes and Nazi-style symbols."
...with some Romani and gay bashing thrown in for good measure.
Does anyone think that if this follows the path the US wants these people won't just decide to cleanse their country of any and all "undesirables" they find?
That they're going to go back to their homes and just hang around not being white supremacists?
“DeNazification” is crushing the hard core nationalists who worship Bandera and who do the dirty work for the Kiev regime. The regime used them in Mariupol in 2014 and they held it since then. So destroying them in Mariupol serves this goal, and also providers the land link from Rostov to Crimean. It also gives control of a huge iron plant to Russia and denies Ukraine access to the Sea of Azov. “Mission Accomplished “.
“DeMilitarization” is destroying the military capability of Ukraine. Funny how we see no reports of Ukrainian losses - men, equipment, planes, air defenses —, so one may infer that it is bad news for Ukraine. In addition Russia is ruining the Ukrainian economy and about 10% of the population has fled. The economy feeds the military so the hit on the economy and population helps to demilitarize Ukraine.
And just imagine - Zelensky had a gumption to complain that public and private pronouncements from US/NATO were completely different. While the former were encouraging NATO membership, the latter were that it would never happen.
Get out of the Western propaganda bubble, controlled by 7 global media organizations and the security services (so many ex security services people are employed by the media its hard to tell the difference these days!). Russia is acting in its usual methodical way with a core logic, destroy the core of the Ukrainian armed forces including the Nazi/Extreme Nationalist part and the cities will give in without having to destroy them. Unlike the US, Russia has an exit strategy - a functioning Ukraine without mass destruction with the Banderites etc. removed and a friend of Russia.
Western analysts don't understand this because they are used to destroying the nations they go into, then wonder why the local population hate them. In Ukraine outside of the South East core services, water, electricity, phones etc. are working. To do things right takes time, but try comparing the civilian casualties in Ukraine to those in Iraq - the difference is of an order of magnitude or more.
I think that's an understatement. The goal, in my opinion, is to keep the war going at all costs in order to weaken Russia (and strengthen defense industry profits). The purpose of permanent sanctions is to make it difficult or impossible for Zelensky and Putin to negotiate a truce. No matter what Zelensky offers in concessions, Putin will continue the war unless the sanctions are removed. The bankers, the warmongers and the ruling class will not allow sanctions to be removed. War is profitable, peace is not profitable. Profits and power are the objectives of warmongers, not some greater good.
Zelensky will be skinned alive if he was to negotiate anything at all not dictated by the war cabal in DC! Zelensky is not a free man & Ukrainians are being used as fodder to try & weaken Russia!
"at a time when civilians are being jailed by the hundreds under repressive speech control laws directed at exactly this issue" You mean by the Capitol Police? Those civilians?
Nazis are elbow-deep in the ass of Ukraine and the OP seems blissfully unaware of that fact. Prominent Nazis leaders are in key positions in the Ukrainian government, including the head of national law enforcement.
Read that again: the head of ALL law enforcement agencies in Ukraine.
Seems familiar, no?
While I don't believe Moscow's claim that this war is mostly to fight Nazis, it is indeed one of the reasons, and a valid one.
"Me" has been consuming to much US/NATO/NGO propaganda if they can't see the actual Nazis in their midst.
Zelensky is an ACTOR. He's not a statesman, or even a politician. He's playing a role and he's a plant.
Just reading the lines on his script for the US Deep State.
Referring to him as anything other than a trained monkey is disingenuous to the extreme, and it's no coincidence that his mug is all over the corporate news begging for more weapons and aid.
It's a production and it's based on nothing more than the whims of greedy globalists.
"if one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs, explained the late Gary Allen. "Communism is not a movement of the downtrodden masses but of the economic elite"
"The Davos set, through Biden, Blinken and NATO is intentionally trying to destroy the world economy so no one needs Russian energy while killing off millions more useless eaters"- Tom Luongo
Well said. I read Allen’s book (None Dare Call it Conspiracy) when I was a young man—35 years ago! Although I do not necessarily agree with every conclusion he reached, I do agree with his general thesis that communism is essentially a philosophical and political movement created and funded by ultra wealthy bankers as a means to control the masses, quite the opposite of its common understanding. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” or Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” make similar arguments, but from an economic or philosophical perspective, respectively.
China exploits it`s trade partners. Just look at North Korea - it`s right on the Chinese border, has most of its trade with China and as a result is has the poorest people in the world, literally starving half the time. The North Korean elites are probably the wealthiest elites in the world however. Chinese pay off the elites to fuck over the country, same everywhere.
NATO persists in order to maintain the appearance of hostilities, creating the necessity for aggressive actions like the Ukraine invasion. "Sides" only exist because people keep choosing sides. It becomes a self fulfilling prophesy and disasters like Ukraine are the inevitable result, with border areas like Ukraine becoming inevitable victims of the mutual aggression. Peace always begins by one side backing down. The west has the economic and military strength that we are not at significant risk, unless we clumsily stumble into nuclear warfare. There is no downside from unilateral reduction of hostilities, and enormous upside.
Russia is in much the same position as the world's populations against covid tyranny -- no upside to compliance, enormous downside, so resistance becomes entrenched. The same people demanding covid submission are also demanding Russian submission. The Russia reaction is just a distraction by western tyrants to delay the rebellion against their internal oppressions. Western tyranny remains the primary threat to civilization.
“When I asked Herr Wedekind, the baker, why he had believed in National Socialism, he said, “Because it promised to solve the unemployment problem. And it did. But I never imagined what it would lead to. Nobody did.” I thought I had struck pay dirt, and I said, “What do you mean, ‘what it would lead to,’ Herr Wedekind?” “War,” he said. “Nobody ever imagined it would lead to war.”
― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
'biden' can't even solve the "unemployment problem". Nor does he need to, as everyone today is totally focussed on destroying Russia.
While sanctions against Russia are having an immediate effect, they will fail in the long-term. Sanctions only work against countries dependent on imports, as the Japanese were for oil prior to World War II - and see where they got us. As it is, support for Ukraine is limited to the countries associated with the former Great Britain along with Japan. The rest of the world flat out does not care. As for China and Russia, they share the same continent and Russia is the bridge between Asia and Europe. No other country has such a strategic location. The United States, on the other hand, is separated from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and from Asia by the Pacific. (Yep, Alaska is only 40 miles from Siberia.) There is potential for real problems if Biden keeps up his saber rattling and pulling of strings.
Sanctions won't force Russia to withdraw, sanctions will simply hasten the demise of the petrodollar. And once the petrodollar is no more, Americans are in for a world of hurt.
To me, the real question is: Is Biden SO bought that he's doing this on purpose, or is it just more administration incompetence?
Very nicely balanced op-ed. Through this whole ordeal recently and longer term I am still waiting for someone to prepare a cogent op-ed framed from a land and resources perspective (I am an ecologist and see things through the lens of the naked ape scrapping for resources). Look at Russia's land mass (holy shit it is huge). More critically, look at Siberia and Canada being the world's bread baskets as desertification engulfs the current North American and Eastern Europe/Asia breadbaskets. Why the fuck would the Kremlin not just patiently wait out the next 30 years when even half of the China mainland will lose its food production capability and the whole of Europe and Central Asia is beholden to Russia's for its Siberian breadbasket. We all know the answer - we are all part of the ratrace to fill our coffers to whatever extent is needed ($70k is the "happiness" number for U.S. incomes) to relieve our little minds of just some of the uncertainty that is an existential part of our weird thought processes combining a lizard brain and some level of functioning gray matter. Just for good measure I will throw into the mix a rant that "ecological illiteracy" has been a fact of human civilizations since settled agriculture began.
Russia will eat grass before it eats anymore Western, read US empire shit. Russia has tried to be a part of the west for thirty years; read Lavrov or Putin; they've given up. China needs ~10 more years to catch up on transport aircraft and the highest digital technology but right now there's almost nothing Russia can't source cheaper and better value than anything in the west. China gets shit done, real shit like infrastructure. The west can't do anything on time, on or below budget. Yes, the transition will be painful but at the end lies better times. Russia is a perfect partner for the vassal States of Europe but for irrational political reasons has chosen to remain a vassal state of a declining empire. Russia is also a perfect fit for China and neither of them need western style over substance and garbage like McDonald's, rap and juvenile entertainment and money engineering over real engineering. Sad, it didn't need to be this way.
Agree with your assessment completely. I have followed very closely the deep state geopolitical/economic plans since Carter & the evil brezinski! Finally red pilled 100% by Bush/Iraq war! Before that by Clinton/Yugoslavia. These people have driven the US into the ground in every way possible! A culture of vulgarity has replaced civil discourse/ fear/ignorance/stupidity/hubris/
War criminals define many in population & most of US/nato leadership. They are a menace to all!
Totally agree, I have come to the same conclusion. The U.S. foreign policy establishment is a menace to the world. The sanctions on Russia are sanctions on the working class globally. As if the faux pandemic wasn't enough, this action by the U.S. and Brussels is another nail in the coffin of working people. Now expect the emergence of a multi polar world and a decline in the hegemony of the dollar. This essay was written late March and since then the Ruble has rallied, Russian stock market is up. Ukraine is simply a pawn for the neo con/libs (whatever) to try to take down Russia. They do not give a hoot about Ukrainian citizens. And Zelenskyy? A total clown.
And now it is the permanent neocons impressing their minority will on 33 million US citizens. Their 2% ethnic component of the overall US population having this disproportionate amount of power is not only disturbing and a grave danger to world peace, but a moral outrage and travesty as well. Just look at the upper echelon of Biden's minders to see the extent of the infiltration by those with first fealty to Israel, stated or not.
And that Blinken and Nuland, direct descendants of the Ukrainian Pale of Settlement, are carrying and focusing the neocon raging hatred of Russia so prejudicially and biased from the start, in the name of the US people's interests supposedly based on objective communications and social intercourse, are totally disqualified.
For them presuming to be "diplomats" representing the 98% of U.S. non-Jewish Zionists' interests from the get-go is absolutely ludicrous and tragic. Just witness what their pet peeve policies have wrought upon the ethnic Russians of the LDR over the past eight years.
Madeline Albright, another of that 2% tribe who found the highest halls of power to her liking, said it best of her half million dead Iraqi babies when she exposed her evil interior thoughts with a blithe "We felt it (the dead babies) was worth it."
How fucking EVIL does it have to get before it's called what it is!!
Nuland had only 15,000 under her belt up until February 23, but her sentiments are so very obviously the same. 15,000 and counting now, add to the Donbass dead, dead Ukrainian and Russian soldiers.
You'll never see Fat Bobby(Kagan) and Dumpy Vickie's kids facing the consequences of their actions. Not unless the Russians bomb Brussels where these two carpetbaggers have set up their poisonous snake shop.
"...garbage like McDonald's, rap and juvenile entertainment..." You omitted "social media".
I stand corrected and and a gargantuan omission it was. Me bad!
EU leaders, like anyone anywhere with power, are blackmailed or bribed by Western intelligence agencies. Epstein was Mossad.
He wasn't the only one. The FBI used to be famous for compromising politicans; no doubt; they're still doing it. The CIA is doing the same domestically even though it's illegal.
Agreed!
Who cares who gets elected if you have blackmail files on them?
"Hoover spent his career amassing and expanding his power, and his secret formula was to trade in secrets. Every person had his or her secret, he believed, and having knowledge of-and using-those secrets was the currency of his realm. ''Hoover didn`t trust anyone he didn`t have something on,'' an aide later acknowledged. ''He`s got files on everybody, damn it,'' Richard Nixon said of the man who bragged-with reason-that he had made Nixon president of the United States." - https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-09-08-9103070622-story.html
Well stated!
Once again, the Biden administration has neglected to account for the long-term and unintended consequences of their decisions. We've seen it time and time again with domestic policy and now with international policy. This is what happens when you run a country based on Twitter feedback rather than a deep understanding of the reality of the situation.
agree. the ideologues running the WH- Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland, don't care about the economic consequences on us or on the rest of the world. They are globalists dn don't give crap about nations and citizens. They are completely blinded by ideology, same as the ideologues forcing wokism on us.
Playing God- hubris
the sequel to it is nemesis.
For better or worse, rightly or wrongly, Russia sees the war in Ukraine as an existential struggle.
Biden’s remarks yesterday, although quickly walked back by Blinken and the other court eunuchs, merely confirmed this.
The Ruling American Intelligence State did lie and vilify them for 5 years of President Trump collusion hoaxes...
...funding and maintaining 20-30 Bioweapons labs
If you have Bioweapons to create defenses against Bioweapons, you still have Bioweapon facilities...
What remarks did he have yesterday?
Biden says Putin cannot ‘remain in power’ as he warns of ‘long fight’
Thanks. I suppose I should have waited to read the next article from Glenn :)
Only "the West" has imposed sanctions on Russia. It really bodes poorly for the West's relations with the rest of the world, not just China.
"the West' is only 10% of the world population. It's an extremely influential 10%, but the numbers game doesn't look good for them.
An extremely but decreasingly influential 10% . . .
Good article. Biden is beating the war drums! We are headed toward WWIII with the goal since the 2014 CIA backed color revolution in Ukraine being to depose Putin, then Xi as George Soros recently stated. The neocons in both parties are playing with fire instead of negotiating. Putin's demands are reasonable.--comply with Minsk agreement. Ukraine remains neutral, end Ukrainian/neo Nazi war (trained by CIA) against Donbas which are all ethnic Russians and allow them to be independent. Quit listening to George Soros. This is leading to world war and the destruction of the global economy. Write your Congressional representatives!
Excellent analysis, but the stated strategic objectives are rarely the actual strategic objectives of any nations foreign policy.
Sanctions have rarely if ever successfully led to regime change.
Like this author concluded, sanctions may actually force Russia to double down on military success in the Ukraine - which would then justify US presence and involvement in another prolonged war, this time in a new region of geopolitical significance, thus finally completing Obama‘s pivot to Asia announced a decade ago.
Seen through this lens, the sanctions are achieving exactly their intended (though surreptitious) effect.
It will be difficult for Zelensky to negotiate peace with Putin because he has no ability to remove sanctions. In order to offset what will probably be permanent sanctions, Zelensky would have to give away half his country and of course he won`t do that. Ruling class warmongers are in charge and have locked in the Russia-Ukraine war. Europeans are too humble and meek and their bankers are too corrupt to oppose the sanctions. Warmongers worked for years to provoke the war and they won`t have it snatched away from them.
> Sanctions have rarely if ever successfully led to regime change.
It appears the last round since 2014 forced Russia to be more self-reliant. They developed some technologies they relied upon the West for. I.E., the advanced composite materials - used to make aircraft wings.
Without meaning to dismiss all the claims in the article, some of the more central claims seem weak to me, if not outright inconsistent with the realities on the ground.
First, Russian military rhetoric has recently started to shift towards a radically less ambitious and aggressive set of objectives, from “demilitarization” and “denazification” (apparently to include the Jewish head of state), scaled back to shoring up gains in the Donbass region. It’s hard to read this as anything other than capitulation to battlefield losses and Western economic pressures.
Second, I find it impossible to credit domestic opinion polling on support for the war - er, “special military operation” - at a time when civilians are being jailed by the hundreds under repressive speech control laws directed at exactly this issue. When we see 7 year old children being locked up for laying flowers and signs in front of a building, and journalists facing 15 years in prison for waving signs around, who in their right mind is going to express antipathy towards the war to anyone, much less an organ of state-controlled media?
So like I said, I don’t mean to dismiss the greater point here, and I think there’s more than a little merit to engaging in a long-overdue reexamination of heavy-handed coercive foreign policy, but this article seemed to rest pretty heavily on what I saw as weak support above.
"First, Russian military rhetoric has recently started to shift towards a radically less ambitious and aggressive set of objectives, from “demilitarization” and “denazification” (apparently to include the Jewish head of state), scaled back to shoring up gains in the Donbass region. It’s hard to read this as anything other than capitulation to battlefield losses and Western economic pressures."
I read this differently. Russia seems to be more pragmatic than Ukraine and its western supporters. It would be folly for Russia to want to conquer the entirety of Ukraine. But it is overwhelmingly likely that they will be successful in attaining their professed objective of "liberating" all of Donbas.
Your comments about Nazis and the Jewish head of state seem rather shallow. The Nazis have evolved from predominantly anti-Semitic to anti-Russian. Quoting Pepe Escobar,
"What happened since Maidan is that the CIA kept a laser focus on inciting Russian hatred by whatever fringe groups it could instrumentalize. So Ukraine is not a case of 'white nationalism' – to put it mildly – but of anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism, for all practical purposes manifested via Nazi-style salutes and Nazi-style symbols."
...with some Romani and gay bashing thrown in for good measure.
Does anyone think that if this follows the path the US wants these people won't just decide to cleanse their country of any and all "undesirables" they find?
That they're going to go back to their homes and just hang around not being white supremacists?
har har har. Droll.
“DeNazification” is crushing the hard core nationalists who worship Bandera and who do the dirty work for the Kiev regime. The regime used them in Mariupol in 2014 and they held it since then. So destroying them in Mariupol serves this goal, and also providers the land link from Rostov to Crimean. It also gives control of a huge iron plant to Russia and denies Ukraine access to the Sea of Azov. “Mission Accomplished “.
“DeMilitarization” is destroying the military capability of Ukraine. Funny how we see no reports of Ukrainian losses - men, equipment, planes, air defenses —, so one may infer that it is bad news for Ukraine. In addition Russia is ruining the Ukrainian economy and about 10% of the population has fled. The economy feeds the military so the hit on the economy and population helps to demilitarize Ukraine.
Don't forget the objective of keeping Ukraine out of NATO and vice versa, which may already have been achieved.
And just imagine - Zelensky had a gumption to complain that public and private pronouncements from US/NATO were completely different. While the former were encouraging NATO membership, the latter were that it would never happen.
Get out of the Western propaganda bubble, controlled by 7 global media organizations and the security services (so many ex security services people are employed by the media its hard to tell the difference these days!). Russia is acting in its usual methodical way with a core logic, destroy the core of the Ukrainian armed forces including the Nazi/Extreme Nationalist part and the cities will give in without having to destroy them. Unlike the US, Russia has an exit strategy - a functioning Ukraine without mass destruction with the Banderites etc. removed and a friend of Russia.
Western analysts don't understand this because they are used to destroying the nations they go into, then wonder why the local population hate them. In Ukraine outside of the South East core services, water, electricity, phones etc. are working. To do things right takes time, but try comparing the civilian casualties in Ukraine to those in Iraq - the difference is of an order of magnitude or more.
"heavy-handed coercive foreign policy"
I think that's an understatement. The goal, in my opinion, is to keep the war going at all costs in order to weaken Russia (and strengthen defense industry profits). The purpose of permanent sanctions is to make it difficult or impossible for Zelensky and Putin to negotiate a truce. No matter what Zelensky offers in concessions, Putin will continue the war unless the sanctions are removed. The bankers, the warmongers and the ruling class will not allow sanctions to be removed. War is profitable, peace is not profitable. Profits and power are the objectives of warmongers, not some greater good.
Zelensky will be skinned alive if he was to negotiate anything at all not dictated by the war cabal in DC! Zelensky is not a free man & Ukrainians are being used as fodder to try & weaken Russia!
"at a time when civilians are being jailed by the hundreds under repressive speech control laws directed at exactly this issue" You mean by the Capitol Police? Those civilians?
The Nazis of Ukraine have made it clear that their support of the Ukrainian government is but a temporary tactical alliance.
If and when the separatists are dealt with, they intend to turn their guns on the government.
Nazis are elbow-deep in the ass of Ukraine and the OP seems blissfully unaware of that fact. Prominent Nazis leaders are in key positions in the Ukrainian government, including the head of national law enforcement.
Read that again: the head of ALL law enforcement agencies in Ukraine.
Seems familiar, no?
While I don't believe Moscow's claim that this war is mostly to fight Nazis, it is indeed one of the reasons, and a valid one.
"Me" has been consuming to much US/NATO/NGO propaganda if they can't see the actual Nazis in their midst.
Zelensky is an ACTOR. He's not a statesman, or even a politician. He's playing a role and he's a plant.
Just reading the lines on his script for the US Deep State.
Referring to him as anything other than a trained monkey is disingenuous to the extreme, and it's no coincidence that his mug is all over the corporate news begging for more weapons and aid.
It's a production and it's based on nothing more than the whims of greedy globalists.
the Ruble has been recovering from it's low and is currently only down about 17% from Feb 24
Amazing what happens when you peg it to gold and demand payment for oil in not-dollars.
I imagine that China will chip away at Russia’s independence next…bribing all their public officials like they have in America…
The Ruling American Intelligence State prefers the Chinese model of Communism over the Russian model…
…apparently more Intelligence State operatives get filthy rich with the Chinese brand of Communism
The Chinese have wisely bought off our leaders and elites. They are rapidly buying up our farmland. We will surrender without a shot
They will not be able to hide if private island as they hope...
Nikita? Is that you?
Do you think Russia has a "Communist" government?
Russia is run by an authoritarian bolstered by Oligarchs. Like us😎
Makes sense...so America Elite want that Communism...
"if one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs, explained the late Gary Allen. "Communism is not a movement of the downtrodden masses but of the economic elite"
"The Davos set, through Biden, Blinken and NATO is intentionally trying to destroy the world economy so no one needs Russian energy while killing off millions more useless eaters"- Tom Luongo
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/thomas-luongo/nato-and-russia-whistling-past-each-others-graveyards/
Well said. I read Allen’s book (None Dare Call it Conspiracy) when I was a young man—35 years ago! Although I do not necessarily agree with every conclusion he reached, I do agree with his general thesis that communism is essentially a philosophical and political movement created and funded by ultra wealthy bankers as a means to control the masses, quite the opposite of its common understanding. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” or Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” make similar arguments, but from an economic or philosophical perspective, respectively.
Isn’t that the “narrative” regarding Russia’s governance...
I guess subconsciously it's all about red-baiting, as if the Cold War never ended.
China exploits it`s trade partners. Just look at North Korea - it`s right on the Chinese border, has most of its trade with China and as a result is has the poorest people in the world, literally starving half the time. The North Korean elites are probably the wealthiest elites in the world however. Chinese pay off the elites to fuck over the country, same everywhere.
NATO persists in order to maintain the appearance of hostilities, creating the necessity for aggressive actions like the Ukraine invasion. "Sides" only exist because people keep choosing sides. It becomes a self fulfilling prophesy and disasters like Ukraine are the inevitable result, with border areas like Ukraine becoming inevitable victims of the mutual aggression. Peace always begins by one side backing down. The west has the economic and military strength that we are not at significant risk, unless we clumsily stumble into nuclear warfare. There is no downside from unilateral reduction of hostilities, and enormous upside.
Russia is in much the same position as the world's populations against covid tyranny -- no upside to compliance, enormous downside, so resistance becomes entrenched. The same people demanding covid submission are also demanding Russian submission. The Russia reaction is just a distraction by western tyrants to delay the rebellion against their internal oppressions. Western tyranny remains the primary threat to civilization.
Right-on, David.
How many of those lusting for war ON Russia will feel the same when Russian sun bombs start impacting in America?
Because that's the end game.
"At least !PTUIN! will never interfere in another American election!!" - some stupid warmonger
hahaha it's just so based and idiotic
Great article. Much better than the jingoistic, Neo-liberal war parade in Foreign Policy magazine.
“When I asked Herr Wedekind, the baker, why he had believed in National Socialism, he said, “Because it promised to solve the unemployment problem. And it did. But I never imagined what it would lead to. Nobody did.” I thought I had struck pay dirt, and I said, “What do you mean, ‘what it would lead to,’ Herr Wedekind?” “War,” he said. “Nobody ever imagined it would lead to war.”
― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
'biden' can't even solve the "unemployment problem". Nor does he need to, as everyone today is totally focussed on destroying Russia.
Good times!
While sanctions against Russia are having an immediate effect, they will fail in the long-term. Sanctions only work against countries dependent on imports, as the Japanese were for oil prior to World War II - and see where they got us. As it is, support for Ukraine is limited to the countries associated with the former Great Britain along with Japan. The rest of the world flat out does not care. As for China and Russia, they share the same continent and Russia is the bridge between Asia and Europe. No other country has such a strategic location. The United States, on the other hand, is separated from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and from Asia by the Pacific. (Yep, Alaska is only 40 miles from Siberia.) There is potential for real problems if Biden keeps up his saber rattling and pulling of strings.
Sanctions won't force Russia to withdraw, sanctions will simply hasten the demise of the petrodollar. And once the petrodollar is no more, Americans are in for a world of hurt.
To me, the real question is: Is Biden SO bought that he's doing this on purpose, or is it just more administration incompetence?
Green ideology wants higher gas prices. It also wanted COVID-lockdowns, now rebranded as car-free Sundays plus three weekdays of remote work. https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/get-ready-to-stop-driving-on-sundays
Here's the article I wrote about it
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/now-that-were-done-pretending-hunters
Very nicely balanced op-ed. Through this whole ordeal recently and longer term I am still waiting for someone to prepare a cogent op-ed framed from a land and resources perspective (I am an ecologist and see things through the lens of the naked ape scrapping for resources). Look at Russia's land mass (holy shit it is huge). More critically, look at Siberia and Canada being the world's bread baskets as desertification engulfs the current North American and Eastern Europe/Asia breadbaskets. Why the fuck would the Kremlin not just patiently wait out the next 30 years when even half of the China mainland will lose its food production capability and the whole of Europe and Central Asia is beholden to Russia's for its Siberian breadbasket. We all know the answer - we are all part of the ratrace to fill our coffers to whatever extent is needed ($70k is the "happiness" number for U.S. incomes) to relieve our little minds of just some of the uncertainty that is an existential part of our weird thought processes combining a lizard brain and some level of functioning gray matter. Just for good measure I will throw into the mix a rant that "ecological illiteracy" has been a fact of human civilizations since settled agriculture began.