Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
So, now we are threatening to start World War Three because Russia is trying to control the chaos in a failed state on its border — a state that our own government spooks provoked into failure? The last time I checked, there was a list of countries that the USA had sent troops, armed ships, and aircraft into recently, and for reasons similar to Russia’s in Crimea: the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, none of them even anywhere close to American soil. I don’t remember Russia threatening confrontations with the USA over these adventures.
The phones at the White House and the congressional offices ought to be ringing off the hook with angry US citizens objecting to the posturing of our elected officials. There ought to be crowds with bobbing placards in Farragut Square reminding the occupant of 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue how ridiculous this makes us look.
The saber-rattlers at The New York Times were sounding like the promoters of a World Wrestling Federation stunt Monday morning when they said in a Page One story:
“The Russian occupation of Crimea has challenged Mr. Obama as has no other international crisis, and at its heart, the advice seemed to pose the same question: Is Mr. Obama tough enough to take on the former K.G.B. colonel in the Kremlin?”
Are they out of their chicken-hawk minds over there? It sounds like a ploy out of the old Eric Berne playbook: Let’s You and Him Fight. What the USA and its European factotums ought to do is mind their own business and stop issuing idle threats. They set the scene for the Ukrainian melt-down by trying to tilt the government their way, financing a pro-Euroland revolt, only to see their sponsored proxy dissidents give way to a claque of armed neo-Nazis, whose first official act was to outlaw the use of the Russian language in a country with millions of long-established Russian-speakers. This is apart, of course, from the fact Ukraine had been until very recently a province of Russia’s former Soviet empire.
Secretary of State John Kerry — a haircut in search of a brain — is winging to Kiev tomorrow to pretend that the USA has a direct interest in what happens there. Since US behavior is so patently hypocritical, it raises the pretty basic question: what are our motives? I don’t think they amount to anything more than international grandstanding — based on the delusion that we have the power and the right to control everything on the planet, which is based, in turn, on our current mood of extreme insecurity as our own ongoing spate of bad choices sets the table for a banquet of consequences.
America can’t even manage its own affairs. We ignore our own gathering energy crisis, telling ourselves the fairy tale that shale oil will allow us to keep driving to WalMart forever. We paper over all of our financial degeneracy and wink at financial criminals. Our infrastructure is falling apart. We’re constructing an edifice of surveillance and social control that would make the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels turn green in his grave with envy while we squander our dwindling political capital on stupid gender confusion battles.
The Russians, on the other hand, have every right to protect their interests along their own border, to protect the persons and property of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, not long ago, were citizens of a greater Russia, to discourage neo-Nazi activity in their back-yard, and most of all to try to stabilize a region that has little history and experience with independence. They also have to contend with the bankruptcy of Ukraine, which may be the principal cause of its current crack-up. Ukraine is deep in hock to Russia, but also to a network of Western banks, and it remains to be seen whether the failure of these linked obligations will lead to contagion throughout the global financial system. It only takes one additional falling snowflake to push a snow-field into criticality.
Welcome to the era of failed states. We’ve already seen plenty of action around the world and we’re going to see more as resource and capital scarcities drive down standards of living and lower the trust horizon. The world is not going in the direction that Tom Friedman and the globalists thought. Anything organized at the giant scale is now in trouble, nation-states in particular. The USA is not immune to this trend, whatever we imagine about ourselves for now.
Kunstler , it is amazing to watch people who are usually foolish becoming wiser day by day.If he is not careful one day he is going to wake up a conservative / libertarian.
When even joo liberals like Kunst are no longer under Obama’s spell, there may be some hope. Like anyone with a brain, he is siding with Russia, for obvious reasons, like it’s none of our business. Obama and Kerry are pushing a string up Mr. Everest, and everyone in the world is grimacing and wretching at their efforts. I have to say, I’m pleased as the NYTimes and liberal progressives go down in flames over this conflict. Couldn’t have happened to worse bunch of pathetic fucking warmongering assholes.
…and the history books will say that Oreo started WW3 because he had to to prove that he was a real man.
Not too surprising that Kunstler is no longer under Obama’s spell. He at least makes a point to engage his brain and come to conclusions based on the facts as he sees them. So, although on several points, it is easy to disagree with him and call him a liberal, realize that he is closer to the folks here than the folks in the MSM.
But you know, when you think of the egos involved here – and how those egos view being snubbed…..scary shit is a real possibility.
JK stated. “Sec. of State, (Ketchup) Kerry, a haircut in seach of a brain”. Too funny!
I hope Kerry takes John MCCain with him to the Ukraine, so we have real boots on the ground.
The U.S. is so clueless that we walk around with our foot in our mouths 90% of the time. Putin is telling the nazi trash in the western Ukraine do not mess with the Russians in the eastern Ukraine, or you will suffer a Georgian moment. Putin Monroe Doctrine, “Don’t fuck with Mother Russia”.
The banksters are calling our foreign policy shots (in those instances where Mossad isn’t) so – “Follow the Money”. It’s not clear to me where any substantial $$ are involved here so best guess would seem to be “p&p (preening and posturing) for pr – a shadowplay to mask actions elsewhere (Syria/Iran?). One thing for sure, JHK apparently grows more disillusioned with Obongo every week – but I wouldn’t count on any “conversion” to a truly libertarian view. BC-LR to all
I can’t wait to see what the ‘unintended consequences’ of this adventure turn out to be. They’re already starting to pile up. No wonder the markets are getting hammered and gold rocketing.
Just returned from the gas station where I found there was actually a wait to pay $3.93 a gallon for regular unleaded here in SoCal. Seems to me many of us plebes can sense the shit about to hit the fan. These D.C. bastards want a war, whether we agree or not.
Ousted Ukraine President Yanukovich Has Asked Putin To Use Military Force In Ukraine
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/03/2014 15:55 -0500
The headlines are getting hot and heavy now. Just out from Bloomberg:
•UKRAINE CRISIS ‘BREEDING VERY SERIOUS RISKS FOR RUSSIA’:CHURKIN
•RADICAL EXTREMISTS TRYING TO TAKE CONTROL IN UKRAINE: CHURKIN
And Reuters with the punchline from Reuters:
•RUSSIAN U.N. ENVOY CHURKIN SAYS UKRAINE’S OUSTED PRESIDENT YANUKOVICH HAS SENT LETTER TO PUTIN ASKING HIM TO USE RUSSIAN MILITARY FORCE IN UKRAINE
What will Putin do if he still believes, as he has said, Yanukl to be the proper president of the Ukraine?
Ukraine imposes up to 10k fine for dual citizenship. With US/ NATO having their back, it seems Kiev is itching for a fight.
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-dual-citizenship-jail-572/
Scuse moi. That is up to 10 years in jail. Dunno about the fines.
President Vladimir Putin on Monday observed a military exercise held in the Leningrad Region, as part of a surprise inspection to test the combat readiness of troops and ammunition of the Western and Central military districts. More than 1,800 servicemen, 30 tanks, some 20 airborne combat vehicles, five planes and 80 helicopters were involved in the exercise. It tested the military’s performance through drills in combat operations and liquidation of a presumed adversary; landing operations by paratroopers on guided parachutes and landing of tactical airborne troops for the isolation of a military operations zone; and the neutralization of an artillery unit or a logistics supply battalion.