Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): During a speech at the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism.
There are back channel talks going on and what Stoltenberg says here is to soften the blow of a pending negotiated peace where NATO is going to have to make major concessions to Russia . The war has actually empowered Russia and it is in no mood to take any more crap from the West. Putin warned when negotiations broke down there could be "military consequences"-- and he is known as somebody who does not bluff.
The tragedy of this war is that it had to happen before the criminal dumb ass West could be forced to the negotiating table.
I consider this war a war crime. There should be tribunals but these will never happen. NATO deliberately plotted the destruction of Ukraine. From 2014 to 2022 it was preparing the Ukraine military for war against Russia. Zelensky was groomed for 3 years preparing him for his wicked role in this fiasco. He was elected president in 2019on the promise of peace. In April of 2022 he tried to open peace negotiations but British prime minister Boris Johnson was dispatched to Kiev to stop them.
Stoltenberg is a traitor to Europe but apparently most Europeans as gullible as they are don't see him as such.
SNAFU .... Situation Normal All Fucked Up( a popular military acronym)
I keep asking myself where is the outrage? It appears we are incapable of it.
Stoltenberg is a traitor to his own country of Norway.
It’s not only that at NATO he has put his own country in the crossfire and at risk of being ravaged on the frontline of conflict. But also as prime minster of Norway, he took a country that was previously a peacemaker and made them join in committing war crimes in Libya and Afghanistan.
It is also interesting to note that as a young activist he was opposed to the existence of NATO. ...Interesting how time, money, and power destroy so many souls.
“….Interesting how time, money, and power destroy so many souls….”
Not it’s not that. Those were his undercover days: a journalist recently let it slip that Slotenberg has long been an “asset”, going back to preicsely those days. He was reporting back on who was who in the anti-war movement in the youth ranks of the Norwegian labour party. So basically helping them compile dossiers on future political figures int he country, and figure out who was not bought into the war machine ideology.
Also as prime minister of Norway he very thoroughly cleaned out all actiual leftists from the Norwegian labour party and installed Støre the current prime minister as head of the party. Støre is heir of a billionaire family and a former member of the Norwegian conservative party.
He has been hard at work for Langley for many decades. And obviously then “rewarded” with the NATO head of propaganda job, Of course he is not in charge. of NATO. The Pentagon is.
People have been so thoroughly propagandized and hypnotized that they will do and believe anything the government (media) tells them to believe. If you think about it, that is an amazing feat of conditioning, one I never thought would have been possible among Western free-thinking people.
Among the great revelations now is how heavily we have been bombarded by lies and propaganda over so many decades . We have also been seduced by so many weapons of mass distraction, political and social illiteracy, and ignorance of basic history-- so easily erased by our failing systems of education, the corporate infiltration of our universities and plain old apathy . Our bubbles of affluence are breeding grounds for complacency and despotism.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, Robert, and Joe, above. The conditioning happens throughout our lives starting when we are born. It pervades our culture. It takes work (reading, listening, discussing, and observing) throughout our lives to develop the skepticism needed to acknowledge that other realities are possible besides the one fed on a daily basis.
Its called the "Stockholm Syndrome" where people are hostage for so long they internalize the values of their captors. Canadians are really de facto Americans but we don't like to acknowledge our colonization and the high price we pay for it.
Well I beg to disagree, they are just as brainwashed by the stupid media as in the US (the red scare and the yellow peril is still burned on the harddrives of the people in addition to many other things that are simply LIES). It is 'grumbling' in the underground, but only if people are hungry and cannot afford anything anymore there will be riots ... (people are still living the 'good life' that is DETERIORATING quickly ... we will see ...)
Yes, thank you, VERY WELL said! I really hope this lunacy ends soon - all this pain and trauma that was created by this totally unnecessary war (the a...holes refused to 'at least' talk with Mr Putin - what ever happened to diplomacy?? How will they ever trust the West again - see f.i. the fake Minsk Agreements). Well regarding war crime - totally agree, but the only thing they want is drag Mr Putin to the ICC, which is simply ridiculous (there are so many worthy candidates) ... Yes and a Hurrah to SNAFU!
"Stoltenberg is a traitor to Europe but apparently most Europeans as gullible as they are don't see him as such." ....
.... I beg to differ. THE TRUTH is never in a rush ... as Russia's COMPOSURE - which has nothing to do with the individuals involved - has shown. Being steadfast based on your convictions aiming for THE TRUTH - without rushing to conclusions >>>> actions has never failed.
Jens Stoltenberg, gets CAUGHT - saying the quiet parts OUT LOUD.
Sure, it's only confirming what the reality-based-community already KNEW ... But it's nice to hear reality being acknowledged for a change.
Not only was the invasion of Ukraine PROVOKED... It was DELIBERATELY PROVOKED, by the rulers of the Empire, in DC, London and Brussels.
Just as the US was prepared to fight a Nuclear war, over Soviet Missiles in Cuba, just minutes from DC... So too, are the Russians ready to fight - to prevent the US from placing Nukes just minutes from Moscow.
It's sort of like then Ambassador Burns put it, in his famous email on the universal political orientation in Russia, across ALL political tendencies, on NATO Expansion into Ukraine and Georgia (thank you WikiLeaks) ... "Nyet means NYET!". If only the Monoparty's NeoCon Death Cult had listened.
Not only DELIBERATELY PROVOKED but planned, war gamed and funded for decades before the war actually started. The US MIC has had its sights set on Russia for many decades, the US inner circle thought they had won with Yeltsin and the fall of the USSR and they had until Putin came back to power. The war is a long brewing hatred of Russia in material form.
" The war is a long brewing hatred of Russia in material form." ...
... I believe it goes back even further - millennia - and has its roots much deeper than "hatred of Russia" as it is only the LATEST MATERIAL PROXY on which THE HUMAN MIND vying for the conquest of LIFE itself - THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN - by BELIEVING in the fairy tale from THE GARDEN OF EDEN, where EVE convinced ADAM about LIFE being nothing but MATERIAL - ignoring that "IN BEGINNING WAS THE WORD ...." .... Roots in the very "spirit" that despises REALITY - THE TRUTH about ALL EXISTENCE - by continuing to believe in the above mentioned fairy tale of THE MATERIAL and therefore by extension having to amass constantly more "resources" - the latter being a fairy tale in and of itself - in an ETERNAL SELF-SUSTAINING CREATION having its beginnings in THE MIND itself...
... everyone to his own taste ... but certainly looking at the "carrot in front of one's nose" ONLY is quite a fallacious approach in MY OPINION to the vastness of EXISTENCE ... but still better HONEST with limited scope than BOASTFUL based on a BIG (SELF)-DECEPTION!
13Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 14But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 15And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.
Western War propaganda has a long history. My father who fought and was injured in WW1 told me as WW2 was looming not to believe the war propaganda he had about how evil the Germans were in doing things like ripping babies out of their mothers and dashing on the ground ;or raping nuns and then killing them etc etc. So when the second chapter WW2 arrived I was more sceptical and long after the war had ended I managed to research some of the English war propaganda I had been subjected to. And found like my father before me truth is the first causality of capitalism's wars .Same thing when I was conscripted into. the royal air force and told we were bombing North Korea because they were evil. George Orwell would have been pleased to see how accurate 1984 is.
As a registered agnostic I really appreciate the sentiment of this good Lord's Ten Commandments❗ Thank you for posting it, and I hope you don't mind my having printed a copy for future use👍,
🎭Sorry for the belated response...I missed the notice of your reply😴
My thought regarding your possibly minding something pertaining to my future intention to "use" the list, was not due to any misperception that your attribution did not defray any thought of plagiarization on your part⁉
By the way, I rather enjoyed you tack on the BRICS subject further ⬇this thread; particularly your referencing of the work and opinions of Andrew Korybko and Elvira Naibullina.
Thank you. But he had to grow in wisdom through four years of blood and mud surrounded by the dead and the dying. He volunteered as a 17 year old posing as a 18year old and four years later he came out of it as a deafened and disillusion (but not bitter) man having turned 21 near to Armistice day (11/11/ 1918) in the trenches -the then age of the beginning of manhood.
It's so true, isn't it? It's of limited good to extend the average person's lifespan by a dozen years if all the extra years are being tacked on to the end of childhood and adults are for all practical purposes kids until they're 30 anyway!
I was born in 1969. I didn't know much at 18 myself, but thanks largely to parents who grew up with very little, including a laconic and properly suspicious Midwestern dad (who served in the Air Force), I learned growing up that if you wanted something you had better be ready to work for it, and if you wanted to keep it you had better be prepared to defend it yourself and not rely on state actors. Or something like that.
I'd have been the same puddle of neuroses a lot of today/s nascent adults are had I been born in 2005. I never thought until c. 2020 I would express gratitude to have been born as EARLY as I was in the grand scheme. I honestly don't want to see 50 more years of this shit even if I somehow maintained perfect health.
"Anyone who speaks out against US foreign policy relating to Russia online is always immediately accused of 'parroting Kremlin narratives' by empire apologists mindlessly regurgitating what they’ve been told to believe by outlets like The Washington Post."
The dipshit-brush paints even more broadly than that. I was called a Putin stooge for criticizing Tammy Duckworth for yoking domestic disaster relief to yet more Ukraine largesse, and was told I must have loved GW Bush, yappety yackedy yada. So dumb it was almost brilliant, because what do you tell people with no clue that they're the ones who have moved (of course I hated Bush, for the same reasons I hate the Empire now) and that their brains have been hijacked and their politics subsumed by propaganda-fueled tribalistic infernos?
The nuttiest thing is that I were in fact "pro-Putin," why shouldn't I be able to say so in the United States? According to our media, this is a war between Ukraine and Russia. Some brief research tells me there is no good reason for me as an American to root for either country; our online twerps treat the whole thing as a sporting event anyway with their Twitter flags, so why shouldn't I? Or what if I want Russia to decisively win so the whole thing ends and the U.S. can't send any more money to that shitty boondoggle? What if I just decided I like Putin's shiny head and posture while riding horses more than Zelenskyy's gruff-dipshit vibe? What if I point out that the U.S. has invaded far more countries than Russia under Putin has, and with far less provocation (as in, virtually zero)?
If I did this, and I'm considering it, it would generate a torrent of scorn from my supposed longtime allies. And if I were to ask them EXACTLY what they were angry about -- precisely why I need to invest myself in being in favor of a white-nationalist-goon government instead of whatever Putin is running? None would have a cogent answer. None would be able to articulate having been battered into that position and being weaponized to attack anyone who challenges it.
And there are people who not only hated Bush and Iraq but know its main proponents later admitted they lied AND that the same people (like David Frum) are on TV pushing this Ukraine shit in the same way? The Cheneys are good people now?
I cannot fathom the degree of mind control the media-censorship conglomerate-mafia has managed to exert. I never would have thought so much bullshit would be embraced so eagerly by so many (sorry JFK, or Joe Biden, or whomever I'm paraphrasing). Caitlin's work helps remind me others are not only seeing this but are awhirl in trying to process it.
It sucks being clever, doesn't it? Being objective, somehow enables an ability to remember the past much more clearly than folks with less RAM in their grey matter.
Objectivity also negates the immediate reaction of an emotional response to a situation. So where most people go: 'Putin stooge!' and get angry and insulting about a geopolitical phenomenon they can in any case not change, the clever ones sit around and gather facts. These facts then get organised over time - Iraq 1989, 2003, Afghanistan, 2012 Libya, Yemen, Syria...horrible stuff. Old culture and livelihoods destroyed. Refugees created. And yet, the plot works every time because the masses don't think and unfortunately never will.
At least we have these niche group hangouts on the internet - makes it a bit more bearable to know that there are a few people that think alike. Too few.
Gotta love those Ukraine flags! They tell you immediately what kind of stooge you are dealing with. I have been trying to come up with the best way to confront this problem and I believe I have found a good starting point. The very first thing is to make every effort to make the person you are in conversation with feel that they are one of the population! Always stick to "We" in every way possible then once they finally can agree on "We" turn the conversation to what would happen if you had this idea or belief what if it was you who had a doubt how would you be treated? You would be treated as "We" are being treated! We are all under attack and until everyone realises that they will win.
My "brilliant" architect SIL never heard of Victoria Nuland...oh and Russia bad/Putin evil...blah blah blah. Blank stares when trying to discuss Ukrainian Nazis or the 2014 coup, or the broken peace deals...oh and JFK Jr is just an anti vaxxer. But NPR is so UNBIASED!
This proxy war has gifted American sheep the opportunity to wake up and smell the bullshit.
When a superpower taunts and mocks and belittles and provokes a former superpower, that is righteous. When the recipient of the superpower’s audacious behavior responds defensively, that is aggression! Nowhere in any court of law, anywhere on the planet can such utter nonsense be upheld or ruled acceptable.
This divide in the American society where a ludicrous narrative can be swallowed is a microcosm of the pretentious American Experiment.
Most people that I know believe that the first European immigrants didn’t arrive with a thought of adapting to the indigenous population, but saw that power and violence and killing could eventually force the indigenous people to adapt to the new arrivals...or die.
But very few people that I know believe that the American government is wrong to take that same mindset in its interactions with other governments. So the genocide of our founders gives our leaders license to follow no international laws, engage in murder and theft and occupation and dictatorship, and such license is extended to no other nation.
This fallacious patriotism is a great test for our age of social media. Of course the SM is dominated by the false narratives of the imperial power, but whereas those narratives were previously largely uncontested, now they are forced to adapt to the truth, and the acts of censorship, eliminating platforms for communication, smearing truth tellers, is ample evidence that speech isn’t free, and it never was!
So anybody who cares about waking up the American sheep can support the truth tellers that are making the imperialists nervous. Small contributions for many folks can keep a lot of good people doing good work.
Everything you need to see and hear is out there, there are no conspiracy theories. Everything is happening in plain sight and we keep being told not to believe our own eyes. Our natural instincts and sensors are being blunted and confused by awful people on power trips.
“Because the US intelligence and military leaders are looking at the war in Ukraine through this prism, the analysts and their managers, for the most part, face enormous pressure to conclude that Russia is a feckless and incompetent near-peer adversary and cannot last.
I continue to believe that the assumptions about Russia’s alleged failure is ignoring the contravening narrative:
The Russian economy is robust and healthy despite Western sanctions.
Russia’s political influence in the world is growing, not shrinking. BRICS is a case in point.
Russia is inflicting enormous casualties on Ukraine’s military and decimating infrastructure critical to the Ukrainian military campaign.
Russia’s defense industry has ramped up to levels of production that the West cannot match.
Russia’s seemingly unlimited access to natural resources, energy and rare earth minerals strengthens Russia’s military position in the world.
Russia enjoys a massive technological advantage over NATO in terms of electronic warfare, air defense systems, mine laying vehicles and hypersonic missiles.
Russian leaders and their people genuinely believe they face an existential threat from the West.
Ukraine is totally dependent on the West to provide money and weapons to continue to fight.”?
The problem Russia faces is that, short of a nuclear strike, there is nothing Russia can do that so much as mildly inconveniences the decisionmakers in the West, or even their puppets in Kiev.
YES, that is what I am afraid of: more and more escalation - what will Mr Putin (who certainly has is own warmongers and warhawks to deal with) do? I am not looking forward to a totally destroyed poisoned Europe and I do not believe that you can 'win a nuclear war' (as the WSJ said months ago ... 'We should show that ...'). I want to repeat an advice of Col. MacGregor: Make Peace You Fools!
You might consider looking into the use of the "Depleted Uranium" weapons being provided to the Ukrainian military by NATO member nations with regards to the possibility of a future "totally destroyed poisoned Europe"⁉
I know all that, but thanks! THIS is a WarCrime ... anybody seen these horrible pix of children in Basra?? (not to talk about the soldiers that were exposed to it, with which I mean 'our good guys' ... sorry that is mean, but the US has no conscription anymore, so it is 'sort of' voluntary ... what I really mean is: WAR IS A CRIME)
Indeed Ms. Elisabeth, starting wars is criminal behavior. My reply to you was a failed attempt to address the specific innuendo you offered regarding the hypothetical "destroyed poisoned Europe" that might result from Mr. Putin and his "warmongers and warhawks" initiating the use of nuclear weaponry. Beings you "know all that" do forgive my intrusion into your unobstructed and intellectually focused space🧘♀️.
No intrusion ... Peace!! Who started most wars or conflicts or ... the US (and next come the colonialists ...) - I am an Austrian citizen and do not want to live my country destroyed (I lived thru the Cold War with the NATO threat of the use of tactical nukes ... so my motto was then: better red than dead). Best to you!
If you read Andrew Korybko and the like, or for that matter, Elvira Naibullina (head of the Russian Central Bank), you may note that all are much more subdued on what BRICS is and what it is intended to and can accomplish.
Agreed, but better to start somewhere than to bemoan the current situation and do nothing about it. Likening it to a war situation: the Western powers are pretty darn well entrenched in their World Bank, IMF, SWIFT systems, and they do weaponize them.
Tough years ahead, but certainly preferable to a nuclear exchange, wouldn't you agree?
I'm certainly not one of those that dismiss the clout Western powers/countries/institutions have. Russia and China are definitely not in the seat of power. Otherwise we would be writing in Cyrillic/Mandarin... :)
(This is an assessment of the general state of the BRICS, which I posted a few days ago.)
All the BRICS realize the danger posed by the US Empire and are opposed to it, but they fall into two general blocs as to how they play the global situation:
1. China, Russia, and now Iran are in a bloc of declared Empire enemies. They share an interest in working together to directly oppose the Empire.
2. The others, led by India and Brazil, are nominally "neutral" (or in the case of Saudi Arabia, still nominally an Empire "ally"). While having long-term incentives to work with the enemies bloc to ensure that they are free from control of (and possible punishment by) the Empire, this bloc does have incentives to advance its short-term interests by playing between the Empire and the Enemies. This will make the work of the BRICS as a unified force to oppose the global hegemony of the Empire a task requiring careful diplomacy.
A particular area in which we can observe this difficulty is in the formation of financial systems outside those controlled by the Empire. After seeing what was done to Russia, every BRIC nation (and any others currently outside the Empire) have been put on notice that they need to take action to develop systems that protect themselves from the possibility of having the same happen to them. But the pseudo-neutral nations need to advance carefully to avoid being placed in the Enemies bloc before they are ready to fully defend their interests against the Empire.
Stoltenberg would have to make that admission -or go down in history as a fool or charlatan. But he likely opines that in spite of that background, Russia still didn't have the moral right to embark on denazification of Ukraine, if he even believes Nazis were running the show in that corrupt country.
I knew of Frankie's version first but Edwin Starr's committed vocal on the original is superb. The 12 inch of Frankie's banging Two Tribes is very prescient and still gives me goose bumps like the first time I heard it (apologies if you boycott youtube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnh7x8aU26g
Amen, Caitlin, with a few caveats. Stoltenberg is telling only a partial truth here. There is far more in the way of ‘provocation’ than just Ukraine joining NATO. At the risk of being accused of ‘parroting Kremlin narratives’- which I am not; any duplication of these truths by Putin or other members of the Russian government is simply evidence that Putin and/or the Russian government is telling the truth. With that out of the way, off we go:
1. The putsch regime in Kiev came to power by and through the decades long efforts of the US Empire to bring Ukraine into the empire. Nuland has openly bragged about how much money the US has spent over DECADES to bring about the atrocity which is the government of Ukraine since 2014. It conspired with the Nazis who largely inhabit western Ukraine to get it done.
2. Nuland and the US ‘ambassador’ to Ukraine (who now holds that post in Athens; God help the Greeks) were caught on a taped telephone conversation before the coup was over picking the people who were going to be in charge of the putsch regime. Lo and behold, they were precisely the US tools who were put in charge. Quelle surpris! Not.
3. Immediately, the new regime abandoned its constitutional commitment to neutrality, and banned the Russian language in the entire country, including Donetsk and Lugansk, which is the only language the vast majority of the residents there speak.
4. Crimea is a special case. The ban on Russian applied there as well. But, 20 years plus earlier, its residents voted in a referendum to remain in the Russian Federation. Ukraine paid no attention, and marched in. Russia had been too weakened to help Crimea resist, but retained its key port in Sevastopol, by some sort of arrangement with the Ukrainian government.
4. It was clear that said arrangement was going to go away, creating for Russia an immediate existential threat- the takeover of the Black Sea and Russia’s only reliable warm-water port- by the US Empire. So, at the invitation of the vast majority of people in Crimea, Russia took military action to make certain that did not occur.
5. This made Nuland & Company hopping mad, as this was the primary initial goal of installing the putsch regime. The 2d referendum held in Crimea, unsurprisingly, turned out exactly the way the first one did 20 years earlier.
6. Incidentally, although I have not seen any comments on this before, the fact that the putsch took place at the exact same time as the Winter Olympics in Sochi could not have been accidental. The fact that Russia held them was owlshit stupid, but the fact that they have been held at all anywhere- summer and winter- ever since world championships in all of the events in the Games became routine is owlshit stupid.
7. To the extent that the Nazi militias in Ukraine were not already trying to commit obvious genocide on the Russian people living in Donetsk and Lugansk, those efforts began in earnest immediately.
8. An agreement was made to establish a federal structure in the ‘new’ Ukraine that would guarantee that the people in Donetsk and Lugansk would be allowed to live in peace and use their own language. That agreement was agreed with France and Germany as guarantors. It was not paid the least attention by the putsch regime. The people of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence, and asked to become a part of the Russian Federation.
9. Putin refused, continuing his, as he has as much as admitted, pointless ‘diplomacy’ with the Empire. It took the public statements of Germany and France that their participation in the agreement above referenced was entirely in bad faith- after the war began in earnest- to convince him how foolish he had been.
10. However, Putin and Lavrov continued to beat that dead horse until it became clear that the Ukrainian army, led now by the Nazis with whom the US for so long supported, was on the verge of a major offensive to de-Russianize the two breakaway provinces. This was after 9 years of efforts to do the same thing that resulted in at least 11,000 deaths of the residents there, and untold devastation.
11. The Russian army began to move closer to Ukraine in response, prompting the U.S. to start predicting an ‘invasion’.
12. At the same time, the Russian Duma, under significant pressure from their constituents to finally DO SOMETHING, passed overwhelmingly what we call legislation that had the twofold purpose of recognizing the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and heeding their desperate requests for help, and Putin finally approved it.
13. At that point, as the Ukrainians were beginning their version of the final solution of the ‘Russian problem’ in Ukraine, Russia ‘invaded’.
14. It is critical to realize that there are huge numbers of people in Russia who think of themselves as Russian who have lots of relations among people who think of themselves as Russian who live in Ukraine. The disinformation manufactured by Nuland & Co. that ordinary Russians cared not a fig about any of this, that it was all ‘Putin’ could not be further from the truth.
15. Ukraine couldn’t keep the lights on without the continuous funneling of cash for that purpose coming from the Empire. It is, for all practical purposes, a part of NATO now. Or, if you prefer, a NATO stooge.
16. Scandinavia had become neoliberal tools of the Empire a while back. It’s official embrace of the Empire had been unofficial for a while; in some cases, a long while. Very little has changed, if you look at it through any Russian eyes.
17. The importance of Ukraine’s push to join NATO means little, in and of itself. It is critical to Russia because of what it signaled- the beginning of the long-held Empire fantasy of destroying Russia. Not just effecting ‘regime change’ as in Putin being gone, but the breakup of the Russian Federation itself, dividing the spoils (so the pathetic Western Europeans hope) with them. I’ve seen the maps these lunatics drew up in places where official US military policy is set forth and discussed. PUBLICLY. This is no secret. A commitment from Ukraine not to join NATO would have signaled to Russia that the Empire was at least considering backing away. Even then, it took the impending slaughter on an industrial scale of its compatriots in Ukraine for Russia to finally do what it did in Crimea 8 years earlier. By then, it was clear that the risks posed to it and its people were as existential as the loss of access to the Black Sea would have been in 2014.
I have nothing but the highest regard for Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky. They have been leaders in fighting for Justice for, combined, well over 100 years. However, I respectfully disagree with them when they say, though the ‘invasion’ was massively provoked, that it was unjustified. If there has ever been a ‘justified’ use of military force, this was it. And, because of the sequence of events described above, there is more than a fig leaf’s evidence that it wasn’t an invasion at all. It was an intervention on behalf of two independent republics that were in extremis and at their long-pending requests.
That went a little longer than I imagined it might. But, as always, well done, Caitlin.
I respectfully agree with your substantive analysis in most part and your regardful opinion of Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, and Caitlin Johnstone, as far as their respective atavistic pursuits of humane justice is concerned. Your excellent synopsis, in my opinion too brief👀, avoided addressing some of the "alternative facts" that opposing narratives, like those of creatures like "Victoria Nuland & Company" and their stenographers in the corporate media, have injected into the current public misunderstanding of the circumstances that your narrative portends to explain. For instance, NATO member's serious violations of international treaties that endanger national border integrity🤷♂️😴; One of the very international war-crimes Putin is accused of committing⁉
Anyway, thank you for using your voice of reason; to few do in this time of petty social political avarice and petulant malignant narcissism❗
it's very similar to the UK where criticising the state of Israel is routinely labelled as anti-semitism with the direct aim of shutting down criticism
And in the US. And the Jews who no longer support Israel’s savagery against the Palestinians have become “self-hating Jews”, a horrendously abusive term that IMHO is a lot worse than calling goyim ‘antisemitic’. And the so-called ‘evangelicals’ in the US, who are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY anti-semites? They are all just fine with the Israeli propagandists because they are 100% behind Israel. Why is this so? For tactical reasons. In what passes for their minds, Israel and their support of it will start a chain of events that will result in Armageddon, during which EVERY JEW and so many others will be given a choice between conversion to their idea of Christianity, accompanied by eternal life in the company of Jesus, or refusal to do so, which will result in immediate death and eternity in the bowels of hell.
If Lewis Carroll and Jonathan Swift were alive today, their heads would explode. And the times THEY lived in were AWFUL.
I just did a search of the NYT and was surprised not to find any mention of Stoltenberg’s statement. Just kidding. ;>) The Times and other western propaganda rags know what to print and what not to print without being told.
The situation is actually a little worse, a little more brazen than described - because admitting a new member to NATO is expected to positively affect the overall security of the alliance. One of the criteria for NATO admission is that doing so would materially enhance the security of NATO as a whole.
Would it be considered an enhancement of NATO security for the admission of a new member to be promised, in writing, to kick off at a minimum a major regional conflict, with the very real possibility that the entire alliance would be dragged into it? I don't see how any reasoning individual would think so. Yet NATO went ahead with it, snickering the whole time because they were 'making Moscow fume' and throwing up ridiculous canards that implied anyone could join NATO if they wished. Russia itself proposed joining NATO, more than once, and was not only soundly rebuffed, it was made clear that no such accommodation would ever be made. I don't doubt that if the west realized its dream of breaking Russia up into 'manageable' ethnic republics, it would be pleased to admit those to NATO one by one. But the whole country as an undivided entity? Never.
The admission of Ukraine not only would not materially enhance NATO security, it guaranteed a war of unknown magnitude with a nuclear power that has not lost a war in recent memory, a country that reacted violently to measures intended to broaden the influence of NATO in its constituent republics as recently as 2008. On that occasion, frantic diplomatic measures had to be employed to prevent the pursuit of fleeing Georgians taking the advancing Russian forces to the gates of Tbilisi itself. Yet the chucklers and mockers in the west apparently learned nothing.
Perhaps the process of acquired wisdom has deteriorated in the west to the extent that it will take an event like a major world land war fought across the breadth and length of Europe, with damage and devastation that cannot now be realistically imagined to reawaken it. It'd be nice if those who keep beckoning it onward were the first killed, but they never are.
There are back channel talks going on and what Stoltenberg says here is to soften the blow of a pending negotiated peace where NATO is going to have to make major concessions to Russia . The war has actually empowered Russia and it is in no mood to take any more crap from the West. Putin warned when negotiations broke down there could be "military consequences"-- and he is known as somebody who does not bluff.
The tragedy of this war is that it had to happen before the criminal dumb ass West could be forced to the negotiating table.
I consider this war a war crime. There should be tribunals but these will never happen. NATO deliberately plotted the destruction of Ukraine. From 2014 to 2022 it was preparing the Ukraine military for war against Russia. Zelensky was groomed for 3 years preparing him for his wicked role in this fiasco. He was elected president in 2019on the promise of peace. In April of 2022 he tried to open peace negotiations but British prime minister Boris Johnson was dispatched to Kiev to stop them.
Stoltenberg is a traitor to Europe but apparently most Europeans as gullible as they are don't see him as such.
SNAFU .... Situation Normal All Fucked Up( a popular military acronym)
I keep asking myself where is the outrage? It appears we are incapable of it.
Stoltenberg is a traitor to his own country of Norway.
It’s not only that at NATO he has put his own country in the crossfire and at risk of being ravaged on the frontline of conflict. But also as prime minster of Norway, he took a country that was previously a peacemaker and made them join in committing war crimes in Libya and Afghanistan.
Its disgusting. He is the new Quisling.
It is also interesting to note that as a young activist he was opposed to the existence of NATO. ...Interesting how time, money, and power destroy so many souls.
Quisling of course was hung for his crimes.
“….Interesting how time, money, and power destroy so many souls….”
Not it’s not that. Those were his undercover days: a journalist recently let it slip that Slotenberg has long been an “asset”, going back to preicsely those days. He was reporting back on who was who in the anti-war movement in the youth ranks of the Norwegian labour party. So basically helping them compile dossiers on future political figures int he country, and figure out who was not bought into the war machine ideology.
Also as prime minister of Norway he very thoroughly cleaned out all actiual leftists from the Norwegian labour party and installed Støre the current prime minister as head of the party. Støre is heir of a billionaire family and a former member of the Norwegian conservative party.
He has been hard at work for Langley for many decades. And obviously then “rewarded” with the NATO head of propaganda job, Of course he is not in charge. of NATO. The Pentagon is.
“It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. ”
― G.K. Chesterton
People have been so thoroughly propagandized and hypnotized that they will do and believe anything the government (media) tells them to believe. If you think about it, that is an amazing feat of conditioning, one I never thought would have been possible among Western free-thinking people.
Among the great revelations now is how heavily we have been bombarded by lies and propaganda over so many decades . We have also been seduced by so many weapons of mass distraction, political and social illiteracy, and ignorance of basic history-- so easily erased by our failing systems of education, the corporate infiltration of our universities and plain old apathy . Our bubbles of affluence are breeding grounds for complacency and despotism.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, Robert, and Joe, above. The conditioning happens throughout our lives starting when we are born. It pervades our culture. It takes work (reading, listening, discussing, and observing) throughout our lives to develop the skepticism needed to acknowledge that other realities are possible besides the one fed on a daily basis.
"Stoltenberg is a traitor to Europe but apparently most Europeans as gullible as they are don't see him as such."
Europeans like being slaves.
Its called the "Stockholm Syndrome" where people are hostage for so long they internalize the values of their captors. Canadians are really de facto Americans but we don't like to acknowledge our colonization and the high price we pay for it.
Well I beg to disagree, they are just as brainwashed by the stupid media as in the US (the red scare and the yellow peril is still burned on the harddrives of the people in addition to many other things that are simply LIES). It is 'grumbling' in the underground, but only if people are hungry and cannot afford anything anymore there will be riots ... (people are still living the 'good life' that is DETERIORATING quickly ... we will see ...)
Yes, thank you, VERY WELL said! I really hope this lunacy ends soon - all this pain and trauma that was created by this totally unnecessary war (the a...holes refused to 'at least' talk with Mr Putin - what ever happened to diplomacy?? How will they ever trust the West again - see f.i. the fake Minsk Agreements). Well regarding war crime - totally agree, but the only thing they want is drag Mr Putin to the ICC, which is simply ridiculous (there are so many worthy candidates) ... Yes and a Hurrah to SNAFU!
Nato is literally made up of Nazis from Hitler's chief of staff to a bunch of others. Here is the link https://www.dispropaganda.com/single-post/2019/04/04/NATOs-secret-Nazi-past
"Stoltenberg is a traitor to Europe but apparently most Europeans as gullible as they are don't see him as such." ....
.... I beg to differ. THE TRUTH is never in a rush ... as Russia's COMPOSURE - which has nothing to do with the individuals involved - has shown. Being steadfast based on your convictions aiming for THE TRUTH - without rushing to conclusions >>>> actions has never failed.
👍
Jens Stoltenberg, gets CAUGHT - saying the quiet parts OUT LOUD.
Sure, it's only confirming what the reality-based-community already KNEW ... But it's nice to hear reality being acknowledged for a change.
Not only was the invasion of Ukraine PROVOKED... It was DELIBERATELY PROVOKED, by the rulers of the Empire, in DC, London and Brussels.
Just as the US was prepared to fight a Nuclear war, over Soviet Missiles in Cuba, just minutes from DC... So too, are the Russians ready to fight - to prevent the US from placing Nukes just minutes from Moscow.
It's sort of like then Ambassador Burns put it, in his famous email on the universal political orientation in Russia, across ALL political tendencies, on NATO Expansion into Ukraine and Georgia (thank you WikiLeaks) ... "Nyet means NYET!". If only the Monoparty's NeoCon Death Cult had listened.
Not only DELIBERATELY PROVOKED but planned, war gamed and funded for decades before the war actually started. The US MIC has had its sights set on Russia for many decades, the US inner circle thought they had won with Yeltsin and the fall of the USSR and they had until Putin came back to power. The war is a long brewing hatred of Russia in material form.
" The war is a long brewing hatred of Russia in material form." ...
... I believe it goes back even further - millennia - and has its roots much deeper than "hatred of Russia" as it is only the LATEST MATERIAL PROXY on which THE HUMAN MIND vying for the conquest of LIFE itself - THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN - by BELIEVING in the fairy tale from THE GARDEN OF EDEN, where EVE convinced ADAM about LIFE being nothing but MATERIAL - ignoring that "IN BEGINNING WAS THE WORD ...." .... Roots in the very "spirit" that despises REALITY - THE TRUTH about ALL EXISTENCE - by continuing to believe in the above mentioned fairy tale of THE MATERIAL and therefore by extension having to amass constantly more "resources" - the latter being a fairy tale in and of itself - in an ETERNAL SELF-SUSTAINING CREATION having its beginnings in THE MIND itself...
for my part I will stick with what has happened during my life for reference, anything else is just asking someone else to think for me.
... everyone to his own taste ... but certainly looking at the "carrot in front of one's nose" ONLY is quite a fallacious approach in MY OPINION to the vastness of EXISTENCE ... but still better HONEST with limited scope than BOASTFUL based on a BIG (SELF)-DECEPTION!
13Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 14But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. 15And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.
Matt 19, 13-15
Western War propaganda has a long history. My father who fought and was injured in WW1 told me as WW2 was looming not to believe the war propaganda he had about how evil the Germans were in doing things like ripping babies out of their mothers and dashing on the ground ;or raping nuns and then killing them etc etc. So when the second chapter WW2 arrived I was more sceptical and long after the war had ended I managed to research some of the English war propaganda I had been subjected to. And found like my father before me truth is the first causality of capitalism's wars .Same thing when I was conscripted into. the royal air force and told we were bombing North Korea because they were evil. George Orwell would have been pleased to see how accurate 1984 is.
Lord Posonby's Ten Commandments of War Propaganda:
1. We don’t want war, we are only defending ourselves.
2. Our adversary is solely responsible for this war.
3. Our adversary’s leader is inherently evil and resembles the devil.
4. We are defending a noble cause, not our particular interests.
5. The enemy is purposefully committing atrocities; if we are making mistakes this happens without intention.
6. The enemy makes use of illegal weapons.
7. We suffer few losses, the enemy’s losses are considerable.
8. Recognized intellectuals and artists support our cause.
9. Our cause is sacred.
10. Whoever casts doubt on our propaganda helps the enemy and is a traitor.
@ Feral Finster✔🎯
As a registered agnostic I really appreciate the sentiment of this good Lord's Ten Commandments❗ Thank you for posting it, and I hope you don't mind my having printed a copy for future use👍,
As Usual,
EA☠
How could I mind? It's not even my original work.
🎭Sorry for the belated response...I missed the notice of your reply😴
My thought regarding your possibly minding something pertaining to my future intention to "use" the list, was not due to any misperception that your attribution did not defray any thought of plagiarization on your part⁉
As Usual,
EA😎
No worries. Cats have no use for intellectual property, anyway.
Hmmm❔ 🐱👤or🐱👓
By the way, I rather enjoyed you tack on the BRICS subject further ⬇this thread; particularly your referencing of the work and opinions of Andrew Korybko and Elvira Naibullina.
As Usual,
EA💲🗑
Sounds like your father was a wise man indeed. I'm sorry either of you ever had to take part in a war.
Thank you. But he had to grow in wisdom through four years of blood and mud surrounded by the dead and the dying. He volunteered as a 17 year old posing as a 18year old and four years later he came out of it as a deafened and disillusion (but not bitter) man having turned 21 near to Armistice day (11/11/ 1918) in the trenches -the then age of the beginning of manhood.
"the then age of the beginning of manhood"
It's so true, isn't it? It's of limited good to extend the average person's lifespan by a dozen years if all the extra years are being tacked on to the end of childhood and adults are for all practical purposes kids until they're 30 anyway!
I was born in 1969. I didn't know much at 18 myself, but thanks largely to parents who grew up with very little, including a laconic and properly suspicious Midwestern dad (who served in the Air Force), I learned growing up that if you wanted something you had better be ready to work for it, and if you wanted to keep it you had better be prepared to defend it yourself and not rely on state actors. Or something like that.
I'd have been the same puddle of neuroses a lot of today/s nascent adults are had I been born in 2005. I never thought until c. 2020 I would express gratitude to have been born as EARLY as I was in the grand scheme. I honestly don't want to see 50 more years of this shit even if I somehow maintained perfect health.
Did your father revise his views after he read Mein Kampf?
"Anyone who speaks out against US foreign policy relating to Russia online is always immediately accused of 'parroting Kremlin narratives' by empire apologists mindlessly regurgitating what they’ve been told to believe by outlets like The Washington Post."
The dipshit-brush paints even more broadly than that. I was called a Putin stooge for criticizing Tammy Duckworth for yoking domestic disaster relief to yet more Ukraine largesse, and was told I must have loved GW Bush, yappety yackedy yada. So dumb it was almost brilliant, because what do you tell people with no clue that they're the ones who have moved (of course I hated Bush, for the same reasons I hate the Empire now) and that their brains have been hijacked and their politics subsumed by propaganda-fueled tribalistic infernos?
I hear you Kevin. It's crazy that one can't express a non-mainstream opinion without being looked at as crazy.
The nuttiest thing is that I were in fact "pro-Putin," why shouldn't I be able to say so in the United States? According to our media, this is a war between Ukraine and Russia. Some brief research tells me there is no good reason for me as an American to root for either country; our online twerps treat the whole thing as a sporting event anyway with their Twitter flags, so why shouldn't I? Or what if I want Russia to decisively win so the whole thing ends and the U.S. can't send any more money to that shitty boondoggle? What if I just decided I like Putin's shiny head and posture while riding horses more than Zelenskyy's gruff-dipshit vibe? What if I point out that the U.S. has invaded far more countries than Russia under Putin has, and with far less provocation (as in, virtually zero)?
If I did this, and I'm considering it, it would generate a torrent of scorn from my supposed longtime allies. And if I were to ask them EXACTLY what they were angry about -- precisely why I need to invest myself in being in favor of a white-nationalist-goon government instead of whatever Putin is running? None would have a cogent answer. None would be able to articulate having been battered into that position and being weaponized to attack anyone who challenges it.
And there are people who not only hated Bush and Iraq but know its main proponents later admitted they lied AND that the same people (like David Frum) are on TV pushing this Ukraine shit in the same way? The Cheneys are good people now?
I cannot fathom the degree of mind control the media-censorship conglomerate-mafia has managed to exert. I never would have thought so much bullshit would be embraced so eagerly by so many (sorry JFK, or Joe Biden, or whomever I'm paraphrasing). Caitlin's work helps remind me others are not only seeing this but are awhirl in trying to process it.
It sucks being clever, doesn't it? Being objective, somehow enables an ability to remember the past much more clearly than folks with less RAM in their grey matter.
Objectivity also negates the immediate reaction of an emotional response to a situation. So where most people go: 'Putin stooge!' and get angry and insulting about a geopolitical phenomenon they can in any case not change, the clever ones sit around and gather facts. These facts then get organised over time - Iraq 1989, 2003, Afghanistan, 2012 Libya, Yemen, Syria...horrible stuff. Old culture and livelihoods destroyed. Refugees created. And yet, the plot works every time because the masses don't think and unfortunately never will.
At least we have these niche group hangouts on the internet - makes it a bit more bearable to know that there are a few people that think alike. Too few.
Gotta love those Ukraine flags! They tell you immediately what kind of stooge you are dealing with. I have been trying to come up with the best way to confront this problem and I believe I have found a good starting point. The very first thing is to make every effort to make the person you are in conversation with feel that they are one of the population! Always stick to "We" in every way possible then once they finally can agree on "We" turn the conversation to what would happen if you had this idea or belief what if it was you who had a doubt how would you be treated? You would be treated as "We" are being treated! We are all under attack and until everyone realises that they will win.
My "brilliant" architect SIL never heard of Victoria Nuland...oh and Russia bad/Putin evil...blah blah blah. Blank stares when trying to discuss Ukrainian Nazis or the 2014 coup, or the broken peace deals...oh and JFK Jr is just an anti vaxxer. But NPR is so UNBIASED!
I wonder how long before the word 'nuance' disappears from the dictionary.
It won't disappear, as long as it proves useful to excuse away bad behavior in favored people.
Bill Clinton = nuanced.
War in Ukraine = you're making apologies for dictators. ZOMG.
Right...how about "discussions"
I just love how that works! It gets me every time I hear such crazy things.
Trump Derangement Syndrome drove everyone who stayed a Democrat into an authoritarian cult. The party on the left has become the party on the right.
Caitlin is in the unenviable position of trying to stem a tidal wave of corrupted journalism with but few that stand with her.
Keep pushing and Posting!
Thank you Caitlin🙏
This proxy war has gifted American sheep the opportunity to wake up and smell the bullshit.
When a superpower taunts and mocks and belittles and provokes a former superpower, that is righteous. When the recipient of the superpower’s audacious behavior responds defensively, that is aggression! Nowhere in any court of law, anywhere on the planet can such utter nonsense be upheld or ruled acceptable.
This divide in the American society where a ludicrous narrative can be swallowed is a microcosm of the pretentious American Experiment.
Most people that I know believe that the first European immigrants didn’t arrive with a thought of adapting to the indigenous population, but saw that power and violence and killing could eventually force the indigenous people to adapt to the new arrivals...or die.
But very few people that I know believe that the American government is wrong to take that same mindset in its interactions with other governments. So the genocide of our founders gives our leaders license to follow no international laws, engage in murder and theft and occupation and dictatorship, and such license is extended to no other nation.
This fallacious patriotism is a great test for our age of social media. Of course the SM is dominated by the false narratives of the imperial power, but whereas those narratives were previously largely uncontested, now they are forced to adapt to the truth, and the acts of censorship, eliminating platforms for communication, smearing truth tellers, is ample evidence that speech isn’t free, and it never was!
So anybody who cares about waking up the American sheep can support the truth tellers that are making the imperialists nervous. Small contributions for many folks can keep a lot of good people doing good work.
Everything you need to see and hear is out there, there are no conspiracy theories. Everything is happening in plain sight and we keep being told not to believe our own eyes. Our natural instincts and sensors are being blunted and confused by awful people on power trips.
There is a pandemic of “Not Sees”.
From someone who 'knows'?
“Because the US intelligence and military leaders are looking at the war in Ukraine through this prism, the analysts and their managers, for the most part, face enormous pressure to conclude that Russia is a feckless and incompetent near-peer adversary and cannot last.
I continue to believe that the assumptions about Russia’s alleged failure is ignoring the contravening narrative:
The Russian economy is robust and healthy despite Western sanctions.
Russia’s political influence in the world is growing, not shrinking. BRICS is a case in point.
Russia is inflicting enormous casualties on Ukraine’s military and decimating infrastructure critical to the Ukrainian military campaign.
Russia’s defense industry has ramped up to levels of production that the West cannot match.
Russia’s seemingly unlimited access to natural resources, energy and rare earth minerals strengthens Russia’s military position in the world.
Russia enjoys a massive technological advantage over NATO in terms of electronic warfare, air defense systems, mine laying vehicles and hypersonic missiles.
Russian leaders and their people genuinely believe they face an existential threat from the West.
Ukraine is totally dependent on the West to provide money and weapons to continue to fight.”?
https://sonar21.com/u-s-intelligence-community-sending-mixed-messages-on-ukraine/#comment-153879
The problem Russia faces is that, short of a nuclear strike, there is nothing Russia can do that so much as mildly inconveniences the decisionmakers in the West, or even their puppets in Kiev.
Therefore, the West will continue to escalate.
YES, that is what I am afraid of: more and more escalation - what will Mr Putin (who certainly has is own warmongers and warhawks to deal with) do? I am not looking forward to a totally destroyed poisoned Europe and I do not believe that you can 'win a nuclear war' (as the WSJ said months ago ... 'We should show that ...'). I want to repeat an advice of Col. MacGregor: Make Peace You Fools!
@ Elisabeth👀
You might consider looking into the use of the "Depleted Uranium" weapons being provided to the Ukrainian military by NATO member nations with regards to the possibility of a future "totally destroyed poisoned Europe"⁉
As Usual,
EA☠
I know all that, but thanks! THIS is a WarCrime ... anybody seen these horrible pix of children in Basra?? (not to talk about the soldiers that were exposed to it, with which I mean 'our good guys' ... sorry that is mean, but the US has no conscription anymore, so it is 'sort of' voluntary ... what I really mean is: WAR IS A CRIME)
@ Elisabeth🎭
Indeed Ms. Elisabeth, starting wars is criminal behavior. My reply to you was a failed attempt to address the specific innuendo you offered regarding the hypothetical "destroyed poisoned Europe" that might result from Mr. Putin and his "warmongers and warhawks" initiating the use of nuclear weaponry. Beings you "know all that" do forgive my intrusion into your unobstructed and intellectually focused space🧘♀️.
But thanks to you as well.👍
As Usual,
EA☠
No intrusion ... Peace!! Who started most wars or conflicts or ... the US (and next come the colonialists ...) - I am an Austrian citizen and do not want to live my country destroyed (I lived thru the Cold War with the NATO threat of the use of tactical nukes ... so my motto was then: better red than dead). Best to you!
Russia is doing the following:
- strengthening direct cooperation ties with China,their neighbour, huge energy investment projects
- diplomatically strengthening ties around the globe and punting mutual benefit, unlike US
- slowly but surely getting all the main oil producing countries on their side, BRICS+ 38% of world production
-clobbering together a finacial alternative to the SWIFT payment system, backed by bullion
- cleverly leveraging Turkey out of NATO, just wait and see
- degrading US influence in Africa
- successfully managing a war on a 1000km frontline, to the great chagrin of the masters of Jens Stoltenberg and Joe Biden
- making sure they militarise the arctic sphere before you-know-who thinks it belongs to them
Geopolitical changes take time and huge patience and loads of work. You can't 'swing the vote' if you don't offer an alternative to the status quo.
If you have time listen to the Valdai Discussion Club. It's to the point, unlike Western discussions.
If you read Andrew Korybko and the like, or for that matter, Elvira Naibullina (head of the Russian Central Bank), you may note that all are much more subdued on what BRICS is and what it is intended to and can accomplish.
Agreed, but better to start somewhere than to bemoan the current situation and do nothing about it. Likening it to a war situation: the Western powers are pretty darn well entrenched in their World Bank, IMF, SWIFT systems, and they do weaponize them.
Tough years ahead, but certainly preferable to a nuclear exchange, wouldn't you agree?
I'm certainly not one of those that dismiss the clout Western powers/countries/institutions have. Russia and China are definitely not in the seat of power. Otherwise we would be writing in Cyrillic/Mandarin... :)
Now I agree that something must be done.
I question whether the BRICS leadership really has the stomach to do it.
(This is an assessment of the general state of the BRICS, which I posted a few days ago.)
All the BRICS realize the danger posed by the US Empire and are opposed to it, but they fall into two general blocs as to how they play the global situation:
1. China, Russia, and now Iran are in a bloc of declared Empire enemies. They share an interest in working together to directly oppose the Empire.
2. The others, led by India and Brazil, are nominally "neutral" (or in the case of Saudi Arabia, still nominally an Empire "ally"). While having long-term incentives to work with the enemies bloc to ensure that they are free from control of (and possible punishment by) the Empire, this bloc does have incentives to advance its short-term interests by playing between the Empire and the Enemies. This will make the work of the BRICS as a unified force to oppose the global hegemony of the Empire a task requiring careful diplomacy.
A particular area in which we can observe this difficulty is in the formation of financial systems outside those controlled by the Empire. After seeing what was done to Russia, every BRIC nation (and any others currently outside the Empire) have been put on notice that they need to take action to develop systems that protect themselves from the possibility of having the same happen to them. But the pseudo-neutral nations need to advance carefully to avoid being placed in the Enemies bloc before they are ready to fully defend their interests against the Empire.
Stoltenberg would have to make that admission -or go down in history as a fool or charlatan. But he likely opines that in spite of that background, Russia still didn't have the moral right to embark on denazification of Ukraine, if he even believes Nazis were running the show in that corrupt country.
He's the warmonger not Putin. NATO needs to be disbanded.
'NATO! what is it good for? Absolutely nothing (apart from war mongering and making lots of money for Raytheon)'
I see what you did there. 😉FGTH had a couple of awesome covers/songs. War, Two Tribes, The Power of Love...
But, maybe you referred to the original? Oops. Oh well, funny all the same...
I knew of Frankie's version first but Edwin Starr's committed vocal on the original is superb. The 12 inch of Frankie's banging Two Tribes is very prescient and still gives me goose bumps like the first time I heard it (apologies if you boycott youtube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnh7x8aU26g
Yes, we should concentrate on that: NATO the war monger.
hmm, psychopaths are loosing it!....
Amen, Caitlin, with a few caveats. Stoltenberg is telling only a partial truth here. There is far more in the way of ‘provocation’ than just Ukraine joining NATO. At the risk of being accused of ‘parroting Kremlin narratives’- which I am not; any duplication of these truths by Putin or other members of the Russian government is simply evidence that Putin and/or the Russian government is telling the truth. With that out of the way, off we go:
1. The putsch regime in Kiev came to power by and through the decades long efforts of the US Empire to bring Ukraine into the empire. Nuland has openly bragged about how much money the US has spent over DECADES to bring about the atrocity which is the government of Ukraine since 2014. It conspired with the Nazis who largely inhabit western Ukraine to get it done.
2. Nuland and the US ‘ambassador’ to Ukraine (who now holds that post in Athens; God help the Greeks) were caught on a taped telephone conversation before the coup was over picking the people who were going to be in charge of the putsch regime. Lo and behold, they were precisely the US tools who were put in charge. Quelle surpris! Not.
3. Immediately, the new regime abandoned its constitutional commitment to neutrality, and banned the Russian language in the entire country, including Donetsk and Lugansk, which is the only language the vast majority of the residents there speak.
4. Crimea is a special case. The ban on Russian applied there as well. But, 20 years plus earlier, its residents voted in a referendum to remain in the Russian Federation. Ukraine paid no attention, and marched in. Russia had been too weakened to help Crimea resist, but retained its key port in Sevastopol, by some sort of arrangement with the Ukrainian government.
4. It was clear that said arrangement was going to go away, creating for Russia an immediate existential threat- the takeover of the Black Sea and Russia’s only reliable warm-water port- by the US Empire. So, at the invitation of the vast majority of people in Crimea, Russia took military action to make certain that did not occur.
5. This made Nuland & Company hopping mad, as this was the primary initial goal of installing the putsch regime. The 2d referendum held in Crimea, unsurprisingly, turned out exactly the way the first one did 20 years earlier.
6. Incidentally, although I have not seen any comments on this before, the fact that the putsch took place at the exact same time as the Winter Olympics in Sochi could not have been accidental. The fact that Russia held them was owlshit stupid, but the fact that they have been held at all anywhere- summer and winter- ever since world championships in all of the events in the Games became routine is owlshit stupid.
7. To the extent that the Nazi militias in Ukraine were not already trying to commit obvious genocide on the Russian people living in Donetsk and Lugansk, those efforts began in earnest immediately.
8. An agreement was made to establish a federal structure in the ‘new’ Ukraine that would guarantee that the people in Donetsk and Lugansk would be allowed to live in peace and use their own language. That agreement was agreed with France and Germany as guarantors. It was not paid the least attention by the putsch regime. The people of Donetsk and Lugansk declared their independence, and asked to become a part of the Russian Federation.
9. Putin refused, continuing his, as he has as much as admitted, pointless ‘diplomacy’ with the Empire. It took the public statements of Germany and France that their participation in the agreement above referenced was entirely in bad faith- after the war began in earnest- to convince him how foolish he had been.
10. However, Putin and Lavrov continued to beat that dead horse until it became clear that the Ukrainian army, led now by the Nazis with whom the US for so long supported, was on the verge of a major offensive to de-Russianize the two breakaway provinces. This was after 9 years of efforts to do the same thing that resulted in at least 11,000 deaths of the residents there, and untold devastation.
11. The Russian army began to move closer to Ukraine in response, prompting the U.S. to start predicting an ‘invasion’.
12. At the same time, the Russian Duma, under significant pressure from their constituents to finally DO SOMETHING, passed overwhelmingly what we call legislation that had the twofold purpose of recognizing the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and heeding their desperate requests for help, and Putin finally approved it.
13. At that point, as the Ukrainians were beginning their version of the final solution of the ‘Russian problem’ in Ukraine, Russia ‘invaded’.
14. It is critical to realize that there are huge numbers of people in Russia who think of themselves as Russian who have lots of relations among people who think of themselves as Russian who live in Ukraine. The disinformation manufactured by Nuland & Co. that ordinary Russians cared not a fig about any of this, that it was all ‘Putin’ could not be further from the truth.
15. Ukraine couldn’t keep the lights on without the continuous funneling of cash for that purpose coming from the Empire. It is, for all practical purposes, a part of NATO now. Or, if you prefer, a NATO stooge.
16. Scandinavia had become neoliberal tools of the Empire a while back. It’s official embrace of the Empire had been unofficial for a while; in some cases, a long while. Very little has changed, if you look at it through any Russian eyes.
17. The importance of Ukraine’s push to join NATO means little, in and of itself. It is critical to Russia because of what it signaled- the beginning of the long-held Empire fantasy of destroying Russia. Not just effecting ‘regime change’ as in Putin being gone, but the breakup of the Russian Federation itself, dividing the spoils (so the pathetic Western Europeans hope) with them. I’ve seen the maps these lunatics drew up in places where official US military policy is set forth and discussed. PUBLICLY. This is no secret. A commitment from Ukraine not to join NATO would have signaled to Russia that the Empire was at least considering backing away. Even then, it took the impending slaughter on an industrial scale of its compatriots in Ukraine for Russia to finally do what it did in Crimea 8 years earlier. By then, it was clear that the risks posed to it and its people were as existential as the loss of access to the Black Sea would have been in 2014.
I have nothing but the highest regard for Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky. They have been leaders in fighting for Justice for, combined, well over 100 years. However, I respectfully disagree with them when they say, though the ‘invasion’ was massively provoked, that it was unjustified. If there has ever been a ‘justified’ use of military force, this was it. And, because of the sequence of events described above, there is more than a fig leaf’s evidence that it wasn’t an invasion at all. It was an intervention on behalf of two independent republics that were in extremis and at their long-pending requests.
That went a little longer than I imagined it might. But, as always, well done, Caitlin.
@ Andrew Thomas🎯
I respectfully agree with your substantive analysis in most part and your regardful opinion of Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, and Caitlin Johnstone, as far as their respective atavistic pursuits of humane justice is concerned. Your excellent synopsis, in my opinion too brief👀, avoided addressing some of the "alternative facts" that opposing narratives, like those of creatures like "Victoria Nuland & Company" and their stenographers in the corporate media, have injected into the current public misunderstanding of the circumstances that your narrative portends to explain. For instance, NATO member's serious violations of international treaties that endanger national border integrity🤷♂️😴; One of the very international war-crimes Putin is accused of committing⁉
Anyway, thank you for using your voice of reason; to few do in this time of petty social political avarice and petulant malignant narcissism❗
As Usual,
EA☠
Thank you. Very kind words, and I greatly appreciate them.
it's very similar to the UK where criticising the state of Israel is routinely labelled as anti-semitism with the direct aim of shutting down criticism
And in the US. And the Jews who no longer support Israel’s savagery against the Palestinians have become “self-hating Jews”, a horrendously abusive term that IMHO is a lot worse than calling goyim ‘antisemitic’. And the so-called ‘evangelicals’ in the US, who are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY anti-semites? They are all just fine with the Israeli propagandists because they are 100% behind Israel. Why is this so? For tactical reasons. In what passes for their minds, Israel and their support of it will start a chain of events that will result in Armageddon, during which EVERY JEW and so many others will be given a choice between conversion to their idea of Christianity, accompanied by eternal life in the company of Jesus, or refusal to do so, which will result in immediate death and eternity in the bowels of hell.
If Lewis Carroll and Jonathan Swift were alive today, their heads would explode. And the times THEY lived in were AWFUL.
I just did a search of the NYT and was surprised not to find any mention of Stoltenberg’s statement. Just kidding. ;>) The Times and other western propaganda rags know what to print and what not to print without being told.
The situation is actually a little worse, a little more brazen than described - because admitting a new member to NATO is expected to positively affect the overall security of the alliance. One of the criteria for NATO admission is that doing so would materially enhance the security of NATO as a whole.
Would it be considered an enhancement of NATO security for the admission of a new member to be promised, in writing, to kick off at a minimum a major regional conflict, with the very real possibility that the entire alliance would be dragged into it? I don't see how any reasoning individual would think so. Yet NATO went ahead with it, snickering the whole time because they were 'making Moscow fume' and throwing up ridiculous canards that implied anyone could join NATO if they wished. Russia itself proposed joining NATO, more than once, and was not only soundly rebuffed, it was made clear that no such accommodation would ever be made. I don't doubt that if the west realized its dream of breaking Russia up into 'manageable' ethnic republics, it would be pleased to admit those to NATO one by one. But the whole country as an undivided entity? Never.
The admission of Ukraine not only would not materially enhance NATO security, it guaranteed a war of unknown magnitude with a nuclear power that has not lost a war in recent memory, a country that reacted violently to measures intended to broaden the influence of NATO in its constituent republics as recently as 2008. On that occasion, frantic diplomatic measures had to be employed to prevent the pursuit of fleeing Georgians taking the advancing Russian forces to the gates of Tbilisi itself. Yet the chucklers and mockers in the west apparently learned nothing.
Perhaps the process of acquired wisdom has deteriorated in the west to the extent that it will take an event like a major world land war fought across the breadth and length of Europe, with damage and devastation that cannot now be realistically imagined to reawaken it. It'd be nice if those who keep beckoning it onward were the first killed, but they never are.