Rice, Gates, Graham, Biden, the whole lot of them including Zelensky are a bunch of psychopaths. They're pushing a neocon agenda and their ultimate goal is to oust Putin and weaken Russia, and these creeps with their bull sh*t want to claim their agenda is noble. They may rationalize what they do, as they did with our wars in the Middle East, which killed millions, destroyed whole countries, where they were even more barbaric in their onslaughts. It is unfortunate that the media is so complicit in blinding Americans to how disgusting we can be. Ollie North from the last post by Mate rationalized his killer position by saying the war in Ukraine is giving people back home jobs making weapons. I hope there is a hell and a pitch fork waiting for each of them, and there are many who are pushing the same agenda.
neo-con is a cover story. it is everybody in the power equation in the US who have their hands in the M-I-C cookie jar, and they are ALL down with war. There is only the Uniparty left here and no doubt elsewhere in The Garden.
Your comment is obscure, a vague statement not substantiated by anything. Your negation of the role of the neocons says everything. Waxing poetic doesn't help either. If you want to try and pull the wool over someone's eyes, try it with a dummy.
My goodness, the ad hominem animus. How obscure can my comment have been, and wouldn't an inquiry be better than an accusation of some sort? Let me explain. The idea of the Uniparty is now common currency in the USA on left and right . Neo-con lost its meaning when neo-liberal became identical to it. I am a Republican who has given up on the GOP doing anything for its voters' concerns. Both are ignorant about foreign policy and believe the world outside our club and this big island is desperate to have the US subsume their identities and set up military bases on their territory. Neo-con, neo-liberal. It is one and the same thing -- of course, you are entirely free to object and I shall not try to isolate you internationally. And where is my poetry? Not that I mind the "slur"! Could it be the reference to The Garden -- if that is what you are talking about, it is not my idea (I would never call the EU and NATO a garden!), it is Mr. Borrell's poetry.
Norma, neocon and neoliberalism are not one and the same. Neoliberalism references economic policies, which basically wants the economy to be in the hands of the private sector, as opposed to the government, free market capitalism and that kind of stuff. I'm no expert on economics, only know there is a difference between these two words. Neocons are very much alive and active in the Biden administration and continue their mission. Look it up. Or, https://www.greanvillepost.com/2022/10/11/jefrey-sachs-ukraine-is-the-latest-neocon-disaster/
I love Sachs. He's right on many things and was present to witness the corruption that accompanied America's meddling in Russia's business. As for the Garden, many people outside the American/EU nexus do indeed make frequent reference to that offensive term that describes an ideal west, not the one that now exists for warmaking. It was roundly condemned in many parts of the world as the racist slur it was. The term is used, as I did, with sarcasm. Just not on the American "news" programs.
Aaron makes an astute observation when he states: "Rather than seeing Ukraine’s war-ravaged, Russian-occupied, Western-dependent condition as a reason to seek a negotiated end, Rice and Gates in fact regard diplomacy as an outcome to avoid." Indeed, Western diplomacy seems to be an oxymoron these days, overtaken by the trifecta of stupidity, cupidity, and hubris, leading to much suffering.
yes, liars and proud of it! My personal belief is that Merkel admitted this to pull the rug out from under the sissy Scholz, who has the GALL to talk about "negotiating an end" to the war. Ms. East Germany would rather keep the door open to WWIII in the belief that THIS TIME Germany will win. As long as the US will do the fighting for Germany. (And to that: good luck, Ms. Merkel. We use other countries, not the reverse.)
We know what kind of blowback supporting Osama bin Laden and other like-minded fanatics in their campaign against "Soviet aggression" in Afghanistan generated. One shutters to think what will come of supporting the Nazis in Ukraine, regardless of whether they win or lose!
Kiev regime has be recently pushing the argument that since 85% of Ukrainians want to continue the war, they are doing so. Although that may be true at the beguiling of the ‘22 escalations, I doubt that numbers they are stating are from an independent pooling agencies.
I doubt that there is 85% of population of Ukraine, that remained in the Kiev controlled parts, that is not supporting negotiations. By now, this tragedy must have affected everyone that the country, as surely everyone know someone who was drafted and never returned, or that they are missing for months. I believe their NATO masters are telling them to push that lie, as it will make it very hard to push, for the war at their homes, that Ukrainians themselves want ended.
It is the ordinary Ukrainian working class who is paying the price for this proxy war. Their towns and homes are being destroyed and their citizens are being killed. This is the fault of the U.S. and NATO, whose fantasies of Empire lead to nothing but death. I am sorry for the Ukrainian workers (but not for the supporters of Stepan Bandera). The Kiev government has been attacking the Donbass since 2014 and now has got its big brother, NATO, to help it do so more effectively. But Russia is a bigger brother, as Kiev is now learning.
There has never been a different outcome than war. This is what NATO planned from the collapse of the USSR. It seems even GWH Bush was, as Angela Merkel, totally dishonest. The only fools here were the Russians who BELIEVED the USG b.s. I can testify that the Russians in the brightest ranks saw no "evil" in USG endeavors. The Americans threw away their leadership through stupidity and greed. How sad.
As fantastic as your investigative journalism has been over the years it's a huge bonus to have candid commentary and wit as substitute for Jimmy Dore.. huge shoes you fill beautifully!
“The German and France-brokered Minsk process, Petro argues, were “good faith efforts to bring the hostilities to an end, at least to accomplish a ceasefire from which then further negotiations could be pursued.” The main obstacle, in Petro’s view, came from Ukraine’s far-right Ukrainian nationalists and their allies in Washington, “who basically dismissed the Minsk accords as a non-starter,” and unrealistically sought Ukraine’s complete recapture not only of the Donbas but Crimea as well.”
Well, maybe the French and Germans were pushed around by the US (actually, this is a near certainty) but they did sign the accords and were supposed to pressure the Ukrainians to abide by the Minsk accords. They were co-signatories as was the UN. But they did NOTHING to advance the accords. Nothing. So maybe they did sign in good faith but they did nothing to honor their signatures. More good faith efforts like this will sink any chance of diplomacy ever as the signatories signatures are worth nothing whatsoever. The French and/or the Germans could have prevented this war by simply doing what they agreed to do. They didnt. They are as responsible for this disaster as the US, maybe more.
Given that Angela Merkel herself has recently admitted that the Minsk Accords were merely used to buy Ukraine time to build up its military strength, it is unlikely that Germany (or France, for that matter) were engaged in "good faith efforts". It's a reasonable conclusion that both nations were yielding to a Washington-written script; but regardless, as you well note, they share culpability for this disaster.
Equally tragically, there is almost no significant opposition in Germany even among once-progressive parties.
I agree with you, and I don't know why Obama is not held accountable for the coup in Ukraine he supported in 2014, leaving greedy, Biden behind. Everyone lets him slide. Mention Libya, and Clinton, Rice and Summer's names pop up and they should, but why isn't Obama held accountable? They destroyed a country that was doing well, but the fear of the dinar, and Gaddafi's growing influence in North Africa set them on a spree of death and destruction. Clinton can laugh about Gaddafi's death, sodomized by a sword, and those are not her only sins, but she can run for president in 2016, and people go into a frenzy of madness because Trump won, oh, good god.
Great comment! Also, please don't forget the role that Samantha Power played in the Libya war crime. She of the mendacious "Humanitarian Intervention" rationale. Like Susan Rice, Samatha Power now enjoys a prominent role in the Biden administration.
I think a recent commenter recently characterized the US as a criminal enterprise posing as a government. I could not agree more.
I share your frustration. Reagan was called by some, "Teflon Ron", for the lack of any accountability for some pretty seriously bad things. And then there was "Slick Willie". But Democrats generally, and the portion of media and institutions that largely reflect that party's messages, have given Obama a pass on some of the most murderously egregious actions and decisions. And that extends to his VP and cabinet as well. Thus only 'radicals' have ever lamented Clinton's sick cackle and lust for war; Biden's role in approving the 2014 coup that destabilized Ukraine and set up the war; his interference with a criminal investigation in Ukraine that saw his unqualified, corrupt son rewarded with a sinecure on the Burisma Board; their using his position for profit, etc. ; all these go unnoticed by most of the partisans and the electorate in general.
I was raised as a Catholic, constantly reminded of the threat of hell. Now I sometimes wish I could believe in it and trust that the perpetrators of all the above and like horrors would receive justice.
I don't believe in hell either, not anymore, but it you sell your soul, for money and power you can't get into heaven, and I hope that's not a fairy tale too.
My last episode quotes extensively from your last article, Aaron, along with Glenn Greenwald, Matt Ehret and James Corbett. It attempts to answer the question I posted on your last thread:
"What I continue to struggle with is whether the Ukraine conflict and Great Reset are at odds or coordinated? And who would those coordinators be? The US strategy of weakening Russia could be used against the US, if the purpose of a third player was to run the US out of money, ammunition and weapons, using Russia as a proxy. The vaccine mandates have also resulted in fewer US military personnel from expulsion for refusal to get the shot or from death or disability among the rest. In the same way that Churchill enabled WWII so that Germany and Russia would bleed each other dry, is there another power that wants NATO and Russia to do the same? And who? The City of London? Davos? China? The Deep State? Or do all these roads ultimately lead to Rothschilds?"
He says "it's obvious that the conflict, started as a limited territorial war and escalating to a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, has become a world war."
He believes that "Putin made a big mistake early on, which is [that] on the eve of the war [everyone saw Ukraine] not as a fledgling democracy, but as a society in decay and a “failed state” in the making. [...] I think the Kremlin's calculation was that this decaying society...
... would crumble at the first shock. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope."
He says he agrees with Mearsheimer's analysis of the conflict: "Mearsheimer tells us that Ukraine, whose army had been overtaken by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of the NATO, and that the Russians had...
... announced that they would never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. From their point of view, the Russians are therefore in a war that is defensive and preventive. Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because...
...since this is an existential question for them, the harder it would be, the harder they would strike. The analysis seems to hold true."
He however has some criticism for Mearsheimer:
"Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one 'game' of power among others. After Vietnam...
...Iraq and Afghanistan, what's one more debacle? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: 'We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us'. Nothing would be existential for America.
Insufficient analysis which today leads Biden to proceed mindlessly. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the 'economic power'...
...of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.
If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained, backed by China, American monetary and financial controls of the world...
...would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund their huge trade deficit for nothing. This war has therefore become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. This is why we...
... are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other."
He firmly believes the US is in decline but sees it as bad news for the autonomy of vassal states:
"I have just read a book by S. Jaishankar, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs (The India Way), published just before the war, who sees American weakness, who knows that the...
...confrontation between China and the US will have no winner but will give space to a country like India, and to many others. I add: but not to Europeans. Everywhere we see the weakening of the US, but not in Europe and Japan because one of the effects of the retraction of...
I (re-)subscribed. Thanks, Aaron. Given the overwhelming flood of pro-war propaganda emanating from the DC neocons and their minions in Europe, and the complete subservience of the main stream press to their dictates, it is vitally important that independent journalists like yourself continue to expose the lies and shine light on what has really been going on. And of course, the Ukraine war that they intentionally provoked is just part of a broader historical context of U.S. imperialism. Proxy wars are just the most recent manifestation of the broader agenda to subjugate all nations to the Imperial mandate - bow to U.S. petrodollar hegemony or else suffer continual warfare until they do.
Even the so-called 'allies' are merely vassal states.. enjoying a slightly less harsh treatment, and rewards to the oligarchs who will keep them subservient. Washington will allow those so allied to keep some semblance of independence and self-governance, though they will not escape the privations and instabilities that continual war spending, and blowback from these wars, will produce.
Some thinkers write that this is likely the end of NATO. Possibly, but I can't build up too much hope at least not at the immediate time. But it should be clear, from Washington's desperate moves- including its willingness to increase national debt to unsustainable levels - that the Empire's managers are themselves seeing the possible end of their reign over the Earth.
I understand that this term is used over and over -- but I maintain that what differences existed (and the neocons ALSO want the private sector to control the economy) have been eclipsed as all have been coopted by the M-I-C, the media, the political parties. Look at our policies: where is the dissent against war? Nowhere to be seen outside a handful of people courageous enough to SAY "enough." The differences have been erased by money for whatever purposes these people need money -- keep a newspaper afloat? a tv station? fill a campaign coffer? pay for "embedding with the troops"? This is not just an American phenomenon, it is in Europe as well -- take a look at the Greens in Europe. As I say, Green and Peace are oxymorons.
I am so sick of hearing how we have to murder hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the world (in proxy wars) so "we" don't have to die ourselves." I could certainly forgive the rest of the world for thinking perhaps the time has come for OUR side of the world to start falling under the bombs we are so generous with when the goal is killing off others. We of the "collective west" are nothing but Murder, Inc. and Dialing for Bombs. I used to be a great patriot, rah-rah nationalist. But 30 years of war proves the inanity of that proposition. Our government cares as much about us as it does about those people we're gunning for. Not at all.
Rice, Gates, Graham, Biden, the whole lot of them including Zelensky are a bunch of psychopaths. They're pushing a neocon agenda and their ultimate goal is to oust Putin and weaken Russia, and these creeps with their bull sh*t want to claim their agenda is noble. They may rationalize what they do, as they did with our wars in the Middle East, which killed millions, destroyed whole countries, where they were even more barbaric in their onslaughts. It is unfortunate that the media is so complicit in blinding Americans to how disgusting we can be. Ollie North from the last post by Mate rationalized his killer position by saying the war in Ukraine is giving people back home jobs making weapons. I hope there is a hell and a pitch fork waiting for each of them, and there are many who are pushing the same agenda.
neo-con is a cover story. it is everybody in the power equation in the US who have their hands in the M-I-C cookie jar, and they are ALL down with war. There is only the Uniparty left here and no doubt elsewhere in The Garden.
Your comment is obscure, a vague statement not substantiated by anything. Your negation of the role of the neocons says everything. Waxing poetic doesn't help either. If you want to try and pull the wool over someone's eyes, try it with a dummy.
My goodness, the ad hominem animus. How obscure can my comment have been, and wouldn't an inquiry be better than an accusation of some sort? Let me explain. The idea of the Uniparty is now common currency in the USA on left and right . Neo-con lost its meaning when neo-liberal became identical to it. I am a Republican who has given up on the GOP doing anything for its voters' concerns. Both are ignorant about foreign policy and believe the world outside our club and this big island is desperate to have the US subsume their identities and set up military bases on their territory. Neo-con, neo-liberal. It is one and the same thing -- of course, you are entirely free to object and I shall not try to isolate you internationally. And where is my poetry? Not that I mind the "slur"! Could it be the reference to The Garden -- if that is what you are talking about, it is not my idea (I would never call the EU and NATO a garden!), it is Mr. Borrell's poetry.
Norma, neocon and neoliberalism are not one and the same. Neoliberalism references economic policies, which basically wants the economy to be in the hands of the private sector, as opposed to the government, free market capitalism and that kind of stuff. I'm no expert on economics, only know there is a difference between these two words. Neocons are very much alive and active in the Biden administration and continue their mission. Look it up. Or, https://www.greanvillepost.com/2022/10/11/jefrey-sachs-ukraine-is-the-latest-neocon-disaster/
No one's talking about your Garden.
I love Sachs. He's right on many things and was present to witness the corruption that accompanied America's meddling in Russia's business. As for the Garden, many people outside the American/EU nexus do indeed make frequent reference to that offensive term that describes an ideal west, not the one that now exists for warmaking. It was roundly condemned in many parts of the world as the racist slur it was. The term is used, as I did, with sarcasm. Just not on the American "news" programs.
I really, really like Sachs too. He maintains a professionalism and I like that. As far as the Garden, now I get you.
Former French Prime Minister Francois Hollande recently confirmed Merkel's remarks that the Minsk agreements were to stall for time so that Ukraine could build up its military forces: https://kyivindependent.com/national/hollande-there-will-only-be-a-way-out-of-the-conflict-when-russia-fails-on-the-ground
(I haven't seen this mentioned in the US media)
Aaron makes an astute observation when he states: "Rather than seeing Ukraine’s war-ravaged, Russian-occupied, Western-dependent condition as a reason to seek a negotiated end, Rice and Gates in fact regard diplomacy as an outcome to avoid." Indeed, Western diplomacy seems to be an oxymoron these days, overtaken by the trifecta of stupidity, cupidity, and hubris, leading to much suffering.
yes, liars and proud of it! My personal belief is that Merkel admitted this to pull the rug out from under the sissy Scholz, who has the GALL to talk about "negotiating an end" to the war. Ms. East Germany would rather keep the door open to WWIII in the belief that THIS TIME Germany will win. As long as the US will do the fighting for Germany. (And to that: good luck, Ms. Merkel. We use other countries, not the reverse.)
We know what kind of blowback supporting Osama bin Laden and other like-minded fanatics in their campaign against "Soviet aggression" in Afghanistan generated. One shutters to think what will come of supporting the Nazis in Ukraine, regardless of whether they win or lose!
Aaron Maté right on target and I appreciate that he looked at both sides of the Angela Merkel issue
Kiev regime has be recently pushing the argument that since 85% of Ukrainians want to continue the war, they are doing so. Although that may be true at the beguiling of the ‘22 escalations, I doubt that numbers they are stating are from an independent pooling agencies.
I doubt that there is 85% of population of Ukraine, that remained in the Kiev controlled parts, that is not supporting negotiations. By now, this tragedy must have affected everyone that the country, as surely everyone know someone who was drafted and never returned, or that they are missing for months. I believe their NATO masters are telling them to push that lie, as it will make it very hard to push, for the war at their homes, that Ukrainians themselves want ended.
It is the ordinary Ukrainian working class who is paying the price for this proxy war. Their towns and homes are being destroyed and their citizens are being killed. This is the fault of the U.S. and NATO, whose fantasies of Empire lead to nothing but death. I am sorry for the Ukrainian workers (but not for the supporters of Stepan Bandera). The Kiev government has been attacking the Donbass since 2014 and now has got its big brother, NATO, to help it do so more effectively. But Russia is a bigger brother, as Kiev is now learning.
There has never been a different outcome than war. This is what NATO planned from the collapse of the USSR. It seems even GWH Bush was, as Angela Merkel, totally dishonest. The only fools here were the Russians who BELIEVED the USG b.s. I can testify that the Russians in the brightest ranks saw no "evil" in USG endeavors. The Americans threw away their leadership through stupidity and greed. How sad.
As fantastic as your investigative journalism has been over the years it's a huge bonus to have candid commentary and wit as substitute for Jimmy Dore.. huge shoes you fill beautifully!
“The German and France-brokered Minsk process, Petro argues, were “good faith efforts to bring the hostilities to an end, at least to accomplish a ceasefire from which then further negotiations could be pursued.” The main obstacle, in Petro’s view, came from Ukraine’s far-right Ukrainian nationalists and their allies in Washington, “who basically dismissed the Minsk accords as a non-starter,” and unrealistically sought Ukraine’s complete recapture not only of the Donbas but Crimea as well.”
Well, maybe the French and Germans were pushed around by the US (actually, this is a near certainty) but they did sign the accords and were supposed to pressure the Ukrainians to abide by the Minsk accords. They were co-signatories as was the UN. But they did NOTHING to advance the accords. Nothing. So maybe they did sign in good faith but they did nothing to honor their signatures. More good faith efforts like this will sink any chance of diplomacy ever as the signatories signatures are worth nothing whatsoever. The French and/or the Germans could have prevented this war by simply doing what they agreed to do. They didnt. They are as responsible for this disaster as the US, maybe more.
Given that Angela Merkel herself has recently admitted that the Minsk Accords were merely used to buy Ukraine time to build up its military strength, it is unlikely that Germany (or France, for that matter) were engaged in "good faith efforts". It's a reasonable conclusion that both nations were yielding to a Washington-written script; but regardless, as you well note, they share culpability for this disaster.
Equally tragically, there is almost no significant opposition in Germany even among once-progressive parties.
I agree with you, and I don't know why Obama is not held accountable for the coup in Ukraine he supported in 2014, leaving greedy, Biden behind. Everyone lets him slide. Mention Libya, and Clinton, Rice and Summer's names pop up and they should, but why isn't Obama held accountable? They destroyed a country that was doing well, but the fear of the dinar, and Gaddafi's growing influence in North Africa set them on a spree of death and destruction. Clinton can laugh about Gaddafi's death, sodomized by a sword, and those are not her only sins, but she can run for president in 2016, and people go into a frenzy of madness because Trump won, oh, good god.
Great comment! Also, please don't forget the role that Samantha Power played in the Libya war crime. She of the mendacious "Humanitarian Intervention" rationale. Like Susan Rice, Samatha Power now enjoys a prominent role in the Biden administration.
I think a recent commenter recently characterized the US as a criminal enterprise posing as a government. I could not agree more.
Rice also was in on that war also. Gaddafi was someone who preached against racism, now there are slave markets.
I share your frustration. Reagan was called by some, "Teflon Ron", for the lack of any accountability for some pretty seriously bad things. And then there was "Slick Willie". But Democrats generally, and the portion of media and institutions that largely reflect that party's messages, have given Obama a pass on some of the most murderously egregious actions and decisions. And that extends to his VP and cabinet as well. Thus only 'radicals' have ever lamented Clinton's sick cackle and lust for war; Biden's role in approving the 2014 coup that destabilized Ukraine and set up the war; his interference with a criminal investigation in Ukraine that saw his unqualified, corrupt son rewarded with a sinecure on the Burisma Board; their using his position for profit, etc. ; all these go unnoticed by most of the partisans and the electorate in general.
I was raised as a Catholic, constantly reminded of the threat of hell. Now I sometimes wish I could believe in it and trust that the perpetrators of all the above and like horrors would receive justice.
I don't believe in hell either, not anymore, but it you sell your soul, for money and power you can't get into heaven, and I hope that's not a fairy tale too.
My last episode quotes extensively from your last article, Aaron, along with Glenn Greenwald, Matt Ehret and James Corbett. It attempts to answer the question I posted on your last thread:
"What I continue to struggle with is whether the Ukraine conflict and Great Reset are at odds or coordinated? And who would those coordinators be? The US strategy of weakening Russia could be used against the US, if the purpose of a third player was to run the US out of money, ammunition and weapons, using Russia as a proxy. The vaccine mandates have also resulted in fewer US military personnel from expulsion for refusal to get the shot or from death or disability among the rest. In the same way that Churchill enabled WWII so that Germany and Russia would bleed each other dry, is there another power that wants NATO and Russia to do the same? And who? The City of London? Davos? China? The Deep State? Or do all these roads ultimately lead to Rothschilds?"
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-reset-and-ukraine-same-or-different
Arnaud Bertrand translation of key points of French article.
Emmanuel Todd, one of the greatest French intellectuals today, claims that the "Third World War has started."
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1613930072855171073
He says "it's obvious that the conflict, started as a limited territorial war and escalating to a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, has become a world war."
He believes that "Putin made a big mistake early on, which is [that] on the eve of the war [everyone saw Ukraine] not as a fledgling democracy, but as a society in decay and a “failed state” in the making. [...] I think the Kremlin's calculation was that this decaying society...
... would crumble at the first shock. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope."
He says he agrees with Mearsheimer's analysis of the conflict: "Mearsheimer tells us that Ukraine, whose army had been overtaken by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of the NATO, and that the Russians had...
... announced that they would never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. From their point of view, the Russians are therefore in a war that is defensive and preventive. Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because...
...since this is an existential question for them, the harder it would be, the harder they would strike. The analysis seems to hold true."
He however has some criticism for Mearsheimer:
"Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one 'game' of power among others. After Vietnam...
...Iraq and Afghanistan, what's one more debacle? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: 'We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us'. Nothing would be existential for America.
Insufficient analysis which today leads Biden to proceed mindlessly. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the 'economic power'...
...of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.
If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained, backed by China, American monetary and financial controls of the world...
...would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund their huge trade deficit for nothing. This war has therefore become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. This is why we...
... are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other."
He firmly believes the US is in decline but sees it as bad news for the autonomy of vassal states:
"I have just read a book by S. Jaishankar, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs (The India Way), published just before the war, who sees American weakness, who knows that the...
...confrontation between China and the US will have no winner but will give space to a country like India, and to many others. I add: but not to Europeans. Everywhere we see the weakening of the US, but not in Europe and Japan because one of the effects of the retraction of...
Thanks for your good reporting and writing, Aaron.
I (re-)subscribed. Thanks, Aaron. Given the overwhelming flood of pro-war propaganda emanating from the DC neocons and their minions in Europe, and the complete subservience of the main stream press to their dictates, it is vitally important that independent journalists like yourself continue to expose the lies and shine light on what has really been going on. And of course, the Ukraine war that they intentionally provoked is just part of a broader historical context of U.S. imperialism. Proxy wars are just the most recent manifestation of the broader agenda to subjugate all nations to the Imperial mandate - bow to U.S. petrodollar hegemony or else suffer continual warfare until they do.
Even the so-called 'allies' are merely vassal states.. enjoying a slightly less harsh treatment, and rewards to the oligarchs who will keep them subservient. Washington will allow those so allied to keep some semblance of independence and self-governance, though they will not escape the privations and instabilities that continual war spending, and blowback from these wars, will produce.
Some thinkers write that this is likely the end of NATO. Possibly, but I can't build up too much hope at least not at the immediate time. But it should be clear, from Washington's desperate moves- including its willingness to increase national debt to unsustainable levels - that the Empire's managers are themselves seeing the possible end of their reign over the Earth.
I understand that this term is used over and over -- but I maintain that what differences existed (and the neocons ALSO want the private sector to control the economy) have been eclipsed as all have been coopted by the M-I-C, the media, the political parties. Look at our policies: where is the dissent against war? Nowhere to be seen outside a handful of people courageous enough to SAY "enough." The differences have been erased by money for whatever purposes these people need money -- keep a newspaper afloat? a tv station? fill a campaign coffer? pay for "embedding with the troops"? This is not just an American phenomenon, it is in Europe as well -- take a look at the Greens in Europe. As I say, Green and Peace are oxymorons.
I am so sick of hearing how we have to murder hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the world (in proxy wars) so "we" don't have to die ourselves." I could certainly forgive the rest of the world for thinking perhaps the time has come for OUR side of the world to start falling under the bombs we are so generous with when the goal is killing off others. We of the "collective west" are nothing but Murder, Inc. and Dialing for Bombs. I used to be a great patriot, rah-rah nationalist. But 30 years of war proves the inanity of that proposition. Our government cares as much about us as it does about those people we're gunning for. Not at all.