Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
The world is facing catastrophe, and there is no awareness. For years I and Stephen Cohen, while he was still alive, advised that Washington’s provocations of Russia, including those of its NATO puppet states, were misguided and counter-productive. Even prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was open for the Soviet Union to become a cooperating member of the West. The Russian population had a favorable attitude toward the West and looked forward to Russia’s incorporation into the Western world.
The Reagan administration and Reagan’s successor, the George H. W. Bush administration were open to this idea. President Bush’s Secretary of State Jim Baker affirmed that he promised there would be no movement of NATO east to Soviet borders if Gorbachev permitted the reunification of Germany, which set the stage for the freedom of the Soviet Union’s Eastern European empire.
The Clinton regime, under the influence of Neoconservatives, violated America’s word on the grounds that it was verbal and not in writing and therefore did not count. The Clinton regime not only overthrew Yugoslavia and broke it into pieces while turning a historic part of Serbia over to Muslims, but also moved NATO to Russia’s border. At the time with the Soviet collapse in 1991 Russia was too weak to do anything about it as the Yeltsin government was Washington’s puppet.
At the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin, Yeltsin’s successor, declared that Russia did not accept Washington’s unipolar world in which Washington ruled, and that Russia would follow its, not Washington’s interest. Putin’s declaration of independence was more or less ignored at the time, because Washington was involved in its wars in the Middle East for Israel’s benefit.
But as time passed Washington realized that Russia was off the reservation, and that something had to be done about it.
The Sochi Olympics provided an opportunity. The Kremlin thought that a successful Olympics held by Russia would boost Russia’s standing with the West. Instead, US, UK, and German officials boycotted the Sochi Olympics, during the proceedings of which while Putin was inattentive the US overthrew the Russian-friendly government of Ukraine, formerly a part of Russia for centuries.
The Nazi, anti-Russian government that Washington installed in Ukraine began physically abusing the Russian population of former Russian provinces that Soviet rulers had incorporated into the Soviet Ukrainian province. Crimea, a part of Russia since the 1700s, was attached to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956, and the Donbass was attached to Ukraine by earlier Soviet rulers. At the time Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country, the Soviet Union.
Ukraine’s independence was secured by Washington after the Soviet collapse in 1991 when President Gorbachev was arrested by hardline communist party members who thought, correctly in retrospect, that he was liberalizing too much too quickly and giving too much away to Washington without enforceable guarantees.
Crimea is the location of the Russian Black Sea Naval base under long-term Russian lease from Ukraine since Ukraine’s independence. Putin was sufficiently alert to comprehend that the new American puppet government in Ukraine would cancel the lease, thus depriving Russia access to the Black Sea and through the sea to the Mediterranean.
The population of Crimea voted by 97% to be reunited with Russia, and so did the Russians who populate the Donbass. Putin accepted Crimea’s request, but refused Donbass’ request.
What was the reason for this decision by Putin, a decision that has led to the ever-widening war in Ukraine eight years later?
The best explanation is that Putin let Western propaganda make his decision. If Putin took back Donbass in addition to Crimea, which he had to take or lose Russia’s warm water naval base, it would confirm Western propaganda’s claim that Putin intended to restore the Soviet Empire. Why Putin thought Western propaganda should limit Russia’s behavior in its own interest, instead of the West’s interests, suggests a Putin who has one foot in the West and one foot in Russian nationalism.
The Donbass Russians were suffering horribly at the hands of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis that Washington had installed in Kiev. Putin understood that he had to do something. The something he decided on assumed Western good will that did not exist. Putin came up with the “Minsk Agreement,” a scheme to keep Donbass in Ukraine, but protect the residents with some forms of autonomy, such as their own police force, that would protect the Russian population from neo-Nazi persecution.
Putin got Ukraine and the Donbass republics to sign the Minsk agreement, and he got Germany and France to guarantee the agreement. But Washington forbid Ukraine from complying with the agreement and France and Germany from enforcing it.
Putin wasted eight years trying to sell his agreement that obviously never had any prospect considering Washington’s obvious intentions to use Ukraine to cause maximum trouble for Russia. Why was Putin unable to see this?
The danger with Putin’s “limited military operation” and its go-slow policy is that it provides the West with time to gather its forces and to gain the initiative. Despite Putin’s “red line,” the US and Europe send weapons to Ukraine.
As there was no effective Russian response to provocations, despite declared “red lines,” next training for Ukrainian troops was provided. Then intelligence and targeting information. Then longer distance weapons that can reach strategic Russian targets. Then the attack on the Crimea bridge, the Nord Stream Pipelines, and now a plot for a dirty bomb, to be used as an excuse for US intervention with troops deployed in Romania and the destruction of a dam that would destroy the Russian city of Kherson and leave elite Russian special forces soldiers isolated and subject to Ukrainian capture, which would be a tremendous propaganda victory for the West.
As matters now stand, we have a situation where Putin’s method of warfare constrains his own forces and not his enemies. The latest indications are that Putin and the Russian high command are willing for the initiative to remain in the hands of their Western enemies. The Kremlin reacts to the moves of its enemy. If Ukraine with US and UK help blow the Dniper Dam and flood Kherson, then, and only then, perhaps, maybe, Russia will blow the dam that will win them the war by cutting a large chunk of Ukraine off from Ukraine. Apparently, the Kremlin hasn’t addressed the question why Russia accepts casualties and the appearance of humiliating defeats when Russia can easily win the war in one day.
Washington’s provocations mount, and Putin’s response is not a show of force but a plea for negotiations and offers to supply Russia’s NATO enemies with energy. Little wonder Washington escalates the conflict.
The lack of decisive action by Russia has allowed Washington to put humanity on the road to Armageddon. Washington and its NATO puppets have lost their fear of Russia, and the provocations will continue. As Putin has not defended any Russian declared red lines, Washington believes he has none. Putin does not even defend Syria, a country he rescued from Washington’s conquest, from Israeli attacks.
Patience is a virtue in a leader, but Putin’s patience is seen by many in Washington as a lack of resolution. If this interpretation of Putin’s patience turns out to be a mistake, Washington will cross a red line that will bring us into the Armageddon period of human history.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/10/24/the-ever-widening-war-becomes-wider/
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/10/24/breaking-news-rushing-toward-armageddon/
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/10/23/the-ever-widening-war-6/
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/10/22/the-ever-widening-war-5/
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“The Clinton regime, under the influence of Neoconservatives”
Those he listed as his heroes are the neoconservatives. Even as he types he’s explaining his neoconservative approach to how Putin should of conducted himself in the face of the war mongering, lying west i.e. Washington.
If I encounter an angry territorial Bear in the woods, I don’t walk up and kick it in the balls as my first line of defense.
So what, then, should be Putin’s course of action? who is NOT a “neoconservative” OR communist?
One gets the feeling that there is a great Deep Shekels ruse unfolding, wherein the US is violently broken up, much like the Soviet Union post 1991, whereupon the scurrilous oligarchs slither out of the shadows to feed on the remaining resources, and the old Wall Street Bitch PCR is merely playing his part.
Oy vey!
Oy vey! Cool it with that anti-semitism. I’m guessing the midterms and 2024 might be national flashpoints for something like what you’re describing. I’m anxiously awaiting to see how much overt cheating happens this time and if feckless republicans will actually do anything about it.
It’s clear to me, with the democrats openly running a mental patient for senate in Pennsylvania, they give zero cares about optics at this point. The MSM is in full damage control mode this morning running editorials about Fetterman’s performance.
Whatever people think about the mean Orange Man, he did get the media to unmask itself and drop all pretenses of objectivity and fairness.
truth is truth, bruh…nothing anti-about it. Orange man was a Deep Shekel tool, too , like all the rest.
Flash, I’m liking the term ” Deep Shekels”. Really ties it together.
I bought one of these from a dealer in Israel a few years ago.
That’s a Rothschild, founder of Israel on the obverse.
The Braveheart said men don’t follow titles. He said they follow courage.
Well, what most men, women too, follow, is shekels, by whatever name those bits of metal & paper with titles carved & printed on them go by.
Who counterfeits the shekel-titles, & drops that trash from helo’s, most couldn’t care less.
Imagine all the hard sonsabitchslapped “men” in all the security details surrounding all the counterfeiters in the world. They ain’t following those paychecks around for their courage. Or because they possess courage themselves.
“Power” is just thin plastic veneer over coin of the human realm corruption.
It’s the leftist pathetic parasitic deep state treasonous creation by the Clinton/Bush & Obama implants in the state department the DOJ and every other alphabet agencies all bleeding the nation into bankruptcy.
Americans have lost 40% of their retirement investments since the 2020 theft of the presidency and it continues .
These leftist baffoons only know hate America & Americans first and prosecute them and use them as cannon fodder for the next big war cover up !
That’s what they do !
False Flag is Imminent !
We’re all in this together… reeeeee
That’s one of the reasons most of the rest of the world hates the US. The US will have very few allies during WWWIII.
All the no win wars from the early ’50’s Korean war onward to Afghanistan has been an utter failure and other countries don’t trus the U.S. and know we can’t win anything.
God does.
Bannon calls them war criminals. It should no longer be seen as D vs R. It is Nationalist Populists vs Globalists. The Three Stooges here are all Globalists.
It’s about time we realize the R’s and D’s are mere puppets and money grubbers who think they are part of the winning crowd the people who bought their souls for a few shekels, positions, minutes of fame but who are now extorting them with the pictures and videos they have of them engaged in all kinds of perversion and debauchery.
We live in a kakistocracy (a society ruled by its worse elements: psychopaths, megalomaniacs and perverts) and the consequences are going to be disastrous for humanity, real humans I mean.
You forgot one.
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Blaming Russia for what the US has done, just like a good neoconservative.
PCR is completely clueless.
With each moment that passes all mortals move closer to their day of reckoning.
So PCR is back on the “Putin is stupid and I know better…” mode. The guy could be a pancake he flips so much.
PCR is actually right. Russia should’ve gone into Ukulele with overwhelming force and taken out Rabbi St. Zelensky and the rest of the puppet “government” on Day One. Instead, it’s turned into a complete fking shit show by giving these fuckers the time and space to cause problems.
Send him to the District of Cabbala where he can entertain Congress by playing piano with his pecker again.
Aren’t the uke’s AP’s friends then? Oh wait, Slav ‘s aren’t white, right?
Well neither Biden or Putin have much life left at their ages either way, both are demented, just in different ways, So I can see the articles point. They want to go out with a bang, and it looks like a really big one too.
Well neither Biden or Putin have much life left at their ages either way, both are demented, just in different ways, So I can see the articles point. They want to go out with a bang, and it looks like a really big one too
Armageddon. Right. Armageddon is the last battle on earth before the Millennial Kingdom. All on earth save the hidden remnant who shall repopulate the earth die and go to hell; the Rapture already history at the 7th trumpet. In reality, the next war is the 4th seal war, Re 6:8, wherein 1/4th the earth die. That’s about 2 with a ‘B’. This is the war the American frogs are now starting.
Rapture must occur by R6:17.
“In 1492” Catastropher “Columbus sailed the ocean blue …”
“Structure and Form
‘In 1492’ (Columbus sailed the ocean blue) is a fourteen stanza poem that is made up of couplets or sets of two lines. These are all perfectly rhymed, meaning they follow a pattern of AABBCC, and so on. The lines also contain four sets of two beats, for a total of eight syllables per line. Repetition, an important literary device, is one of the reasons that this poem has such a solid rhyme scheme and feeling of rhythm.”
Perfectly rhymed. A’s, B’s, & C’s for all the good little F students – & repetition ain’t only important to literary deviousness.
(F is the first initial in FUBAR. & BAR is the legal profession/institution; also the first three letters in “barbarous.”)
“Poem Analysis” is the site.
But first, top of the page, the necessary disclaimer, presents the woke bonafides for all the sleepyheads & those pretending to be asleep ~ might that (w)hole area be called poeMANalysis? ~
(((“Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more…
… And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!”)))
“‘In 1492’ (Columbus sailed the ocean blue) is a poem written about an idealized vision of American history, specifically the moment that Columbus “discovered” the New World, what he thought was India. Within this piece, readers will come upon familiar phrases, like the first two lines, as well as some that try to work around the brutal and cruel aspects of this period in time.”
https://poemanalysis.com/in-1492-columbus-sailed-the-ocean-blue/
I think I’m gonna reroute my trip
I wonder if anybody’d think I’d flipped
If I went to L.A., via Omaha ♪♫♪
Or if I went to Catastropher via Castratsopher? Took balls to sail the ocean blue in ’92?
OK
But do those descended ovaries append suspended from the man actually ~ as opposed to merely literally (devious repetition, ya’ll) ~ when they roll about in the pockets of Queens & Kings & Greed?
Does Bill Gates, sale’ing to the New World of Orderers (same as the old world of orderers) have ocean blue balls?
Does any order-following German-the-good-abc-student have balls, perhaps the shape & color of gold stars? (whole lotta ouch goin on – & no wonder.)
You be the judge.
Just know judge thy name & purpose is mirror & ball’s bearings will reflect from whence the soundness of the roundness comes.
The hollow ones all sound like “nevermore” cuz they actually never was.
And a lot of those can’t get all the way back to never was fast enough.
(Not exhaustive, but any who are “voted” for & any who “vote” can’t wait for the disenfranchisement from these hallowed halls of hollow balls.)
And, as useful ‘as is’ is Pallas, picture pallid P as a tramp stamp. That’ll put “chamber door” into wide-awake perspective.
As the last living team member of the 19 man mission who C & C’ed the op in the Dry Tortugas in 1962 I thank you for clarifying our current dilemma in Ukraine. All the libs & most of the so-called “informed” have no idea.
Nailed it! Every American should be required to read this article. It is a great summary of how US arrived at the current situation with Russia. The US govt has been manipulating governments, ally and enemy, since ww2. Putin has said no more manipulating Russia but even he has the willingness to negotiate a solution, Washington has not….so far as we know. Maybe something is going on back channel wise. I hope so. For people who do not buy what is in the article see FLASH comment below. His summary is about as clear as it gets!