In his most recent substack, Michael Tracy—just recently returned from Poland where he was attempting to document US involvement in the Russia - Ukraine conflict or special operation, depending on your point of view—summarizes the US strategy in its proxy war against Russia. What becomes immediately apparent, upon reflection, is that the US doesn’t really have a Plan B—something prudent aggressors should have. I dunno whether Sun Tzu said that, but is seems like something he would have said. Instead, the Zhou regime appears to be stuck on Plan A, which is to bleed Russia by prolonging the conflict and encouraging Ukrainians to evolve the conflict into an Afghan style “insurgency”—as opposed, presumably, to a J6 style “insurgency.”
"So, that’s Plan A, and it appears to be the only plan the US has—no exit strategy that would be plausibly superior to the Zhou gang’s Afghan exit strategy has been identified, yet they’re manifestly courting monetary and economic disaster through blowback from the sanctions."
Thus proving the wisdom of that great military strategist, The Joker, who famously said...
"Nobody panics when everything is going according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying"
Which also hearkens back to that interview with the Ukrainian fellow you posted who predicted war with Russia. I doubt he expected that UKR would defeat the Russian army all by its lonesome, WE were supposed to come in and do that, and then they's have NATO membership. For Ukraine, war with Russia was more feature than bug.
Everything is going according to Plan, guys. It's just that the Plan has gone off the rails.
Just a brief comment on the Dems urging “ diplomacy” to end the war…such a quaint term, back in the day we had “ diplomats” who studied their portfolios, did their homework, learned a foreign language or two in order to communicate (?!) at the local level…all this is gone, and Mark would know this very well from his career…wiped out by the inevitable ignorance and hubris of Empire. Attached is a great read which, over the last 5-6 paragraphs, paints a shocking picture of what such stupidity and vanity have cost the US in terms of real life intelligence and facts on the ground…and the resulting catastrophes that followed:
Are these people smart? World domination? Biden can't dominate his bodily functions, and that is who they chose to be our Feuhrer? Stick to a little graft and control of Washington and you might manage to perpetuate the regime. World War III? Antifa won't fight and we citizens aren't interested. Maybe Putin will arrange for regime change here, but I don't think he will pick Hillary, and certainly not Trump!
Dont be distracted by the Sock Puppet. He is an empty front, a sock puppet to draw your attention from the ones controlling him. Those people are deadly serious and far more dangerous.
They would be much more dangerous if they had hired a charismatic actor who inspires confidence for the West Wing role, and taken steps to unite the country after a questionable election. Not content with persecuting the opposition, they have managed to mess up just about everything they have touched. They have opted to force their agenda down our throats, like it or not. A recent poll showed that most Democrats wouldn't even defend the homeland, and most Republicans were not interested in fighting foreign wars. What ever happened to winning the hearts and minds of the American people?
We seem to be coming at this from different perspectives, perle. I don't believe there is truly any such thing as Democrats or Republicans. Or, maybe the better way to phrase it is that Democrats and Republicans are just names of different mafia families but all part of the same racket. So understanding why these gangsters do anything requires getting inside a criminal mind and seeing things from a racketeering perspective. Politics as such is just the veneer they put on to keep the People distracted and deceived about the true nature of the country we inhabit. For my whole 50-odd years i actually believed i lived in a representative republic w two parties who competed for votes and were at least somewhat responsive to voters. I don't know whether that ever was true but it sure isn't true now. We are mere serfs, the marks for con men who aim to keep us subjugated or worse. Would i die for this criminal government? Would you? If you want to continue seeing the world abd the US through 1980s lenses, go ahead. It makes you easier to rule.
Mark, on a slightly different note, and please forgive this. I would be interested in your comments on the Hunter Biden situation. Is it possible that the tactic is to indict him and thus make him “immune” to any republican investigation post-election? And this is why the NYT, etc. Is suddenly chatting about him?
There's nothing about being under indictment that prevents him from responding--he's not immune to being asked questions and, since the indictment is a public document, the scope of the indictment will be known. He can always take the Fifth, but unlike at a trial that's open to interpretation before the jury of public opinion, and the public can draw their own conclusions. Moreover, a Congressional investigation can obtain lots of the relevant docs and expose it to the public. Which is a longer way of saying, I doubt that's what's going on.
Rascal Nick: some not insignificant part of the motivation, at least so it seems to me, is that the Dems (implicitly including their uniparty comrades) haven't been able to achieve any of their political mission absent one or another manufactured mass chaos and crisis mode since early 2017, and the facts on the ground wrt to the virus were making it impossible to continue such a mode based mainly on the virus much longer. (And I've mentioned before that one critical component in all this seems pretty clearly to be that they can't stay in power if they can't censor like crazy, and they can't get away with censoring like crazy outside of mass chaos and crisis mode.)
So the Russia-Ukraine thing seamlessly segued them from one crisis mode to the next.
I'm not suggesting the other factors suggested here don't obtain - I'm sure they do. But the never-ending need for never-ending crisis is a never-ending factor in all they do ... in my humble opinion and all that.
Although to be fair, the DC crooks have gotten quite a bit of their mad plans implemented since SPOTUS' day one, cancelling the Keystone pipeline, opening the border completely, a radical new Justice, all under the radar for the most part. That's the odd part. They could get 80% of their evil implemented quietly in massive spending bills yet they prefer to operate in unending crises. Makes me think the crises have a different purpose altogether.
True, but 80% isn't enough, for starters. And then there are these pesky things called 'elections.' If they just implement their 80% in massive spending bills yet allow an atmosphere of calm and relaxation, not only will the masses of voters *desire* to vote them out at the next elections (as in 2020), but they will actually get to successfully *act* on that desire because those in power won't even be able to use crisis mode to massively rig and cheat in the elections and win anyway through all the fraud.
That was a mouthful, I know, but I'm just saying that whatever the list of things they may be able to achieve outside of crisis mode, winning at the next elections is nowhere on that list.
"I believe the crises serve the primary purpose of keeping people in a high stress state, which makes people unhealthy and much easier to control."
Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes!
"This has worked wonders for them in Dem controlled cities for decades. That’s why they aren’t 'tough on crime' anymore. The crime keeps people scared, sick, and poor. And if you keep your slaves like that, they will never revolt or leave the plantation. "
"One of economic historian Bob Higgs's outstanding contributions is the 'ratchet effect.' During a crisis, the size and scope of government grow tremendously. After the crisis subsides, government shrinks, but not to the precrisis level. In consequence, leviathan expands over the decades, leaping from one crisis to the next."
Over the last 60 years, at least, it has ever been thus.
"So, that’s Plan A, and it appears to be the only plan the US has—no exit strategy that would be plausibly superior to the Zhou gang’s Afghan exit strategy has been identified, yet they’re manifestly courting monetary and economic disaster through blowback from the sanctions."
Thus proving the wisdom of that great military strategist, The Joker, who famously said...
"Nobody panics when everything is going according to plan, even if the plan is horrifying"
Which also hearkens back to that interview with the Ukrainian fellow you posted who predicted war with Russia. I doubt he expected that UKR would defeat the Russian army all by its lonesome, WE were supposed to come in and do that, and then they's have NATO membership. For Ukraine, war with Russia was more feature than bug.
Everything is going according to Plan, guys. It's just that the Plan has gone off the rails.
Just a brief comment on the Dems urging “ diplomacy” to end the war…such a quaint term, back in the day we had “ diplomats” who studied their portfolios, did their homework, learned a foreign language or two in order to communicate (?!) at the local level…all this is gone, and Mark would know this very well from his career…wiped out by the inevitable ignorance and hubris of Empire. Attached is a great read which, over the last 5-6 paragraphs, paints a shocking picture of what such stupidity and vanity have cost the US in terms of real life intelligence and facts on the ground…and the resulting catastrophes that followed:
https://unherd.com/2022/03/how-the-cia-failed-ukraine/
Are these people smart? World domination? Biden can't dominate his bodily functions, and that is who they chose to be our Feuhrer? Stick to a little graft and control of Washington and you might manage to perpetuate the regime. World War III? Antifa won't fight and we citizens aren't interested. Maybe Putin will arrange for regime change here, but I don't think he will pick Hillary, and certainly not Trump!
Dont be distracted by the Sock Puppet. He is an empty front, a sock puppet to draw your attention from the ones controlling him. Those people are deadly serious and far more dangerous.
They would be much more dangerous if they had hired a charismatic actor who inspires confidence for the West Wing role, and taken steps to unite the country after a questionable election. Not content with persecuting the opposition, they have managed to mess up just about everything they have touched. They have opted to force their agenda down our throats, like it or not. A recent poll showed that most Democrats wouldn't even defend the homeland, and most Republicans were not interested in fighting foreign wars. What ever happened to winning the hearts and minds of the American people?
We seem to be coming at this from different perspectives, perle. I don't believe there is truly any such thing as Democrats or Republicans. Or, maybe the better way to phrase it is that Democrats and Republicans are just names of different mafia families but all part of the same racket. So understanding why these gangsters do anything requires getting inside a criminal mind and seeing things from a racketeering perspective. Politics as such is just the veneer they put on to keep the People distracted and deceived about the true nature of the country we inhabit. For my whole 50-odd years i actually believed i lived in a representative republic w two parties who competed for votes and were at least somewhat responsive to voters. I don't know whether that ever was true but it sure isn't true now. We are mere serfs, the marks for con men who aim to keep us subjugated or worse. Would i die for this criminal government? Would you? If you want to continue seeing the world abd the US through 1980s lenses, go ahead. It makes you easier to rule.
A wag on Althouse's blog wrote this about about the Biden war plans:
"If you don't know what you are doing, neither does your enemy."
-Sun Biden
LOL
Mark, on a slightly different note, and please forgive this. I would be interested in your comments on the Hunter Biden situation. Is it possible that the tactic is to indict him and thus make him “immune” to any republican investigation post-election? And this is why the NYT, etc. Is suddenly chatting about him?
Interesting theory.
Sort of like taking one for the team, but in this case the “family”. Even if the republicans call him, he cannot comment as he is under indictment.
There's nothing about being under indictment that prevents him from responding--he's not immune to being asked questions and, since the indictment is a public document, the scope of the indictment will be known. He can always take the Fifth, but unlike at a trial that's open to interpretation before the jury of public opinion, and the public can draw their own conclusions. Moreover, a Congressional investigation can obtain lots of the relevant docs and expose it to the public. Which is a longer way of saying, I doubt that's what's going on.
As always w GOPe, the operative word is "can" and "could." Do and Did never occur to them.
https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/biden-stumbles-toward-war-russians?s=r
Rascal Nick: some not insignificant part of the motivation, at least so it seems to me, is that the Dems (implicitly including their uniparty comrades) haven't been able to achieve any of their political mission absent one or another manufactured mass chaos and crisis mode since early 2017, and the facts on the ground wrt to the virus were making it impossible to continue such a mode based mainly on the virus much longer. (And I've mentioned before that one critical component in all this seems pretty clearly to be that they can't stay in power if they can't censor like crazy, and they can't get away with censoring like crazy outside of mass chaos and crisis mode.)
So the Russia-Ukraine thing seamlessly segued them from one crisis mode to the next.
I'm not suggesting the other factors suggested here don't obtain - I'm sure they do. But the never-ending need for never-ending crisis is a never-ending factor in all they do ... in my humble opinion and all that.
Although to be fair, the DC crooks have gotten quite a bit of their mad plans implemented since SPOTUS' day one, cancelling the Keystone pipeline, opening the border completely, a radical new Justice, all under the radar for the most part. That's the odd part. They could get 80% of their evil implemented quietly in massive spending bills yet they prefer to operate in unending crises. Makes me think the crises have a different purpose altogether.
True, but 80% isn't enough, for starters. And then there are these pesky things called 'elections.' If they just implement their 80% in massive spending bills yet allow an atmosphere of calm and relaxation, not only will the masses of voters *desire* to vote them out at the next elections (as in 2020), but they will actually get to successfully *act* on that desire because those in power won't even be able to use crisis mode to massively rig and cheat in the elections and win anyway through all the fraud.
That was a mouthful, I know, but I'm just saying that whatever the list of things they may be able to achieve outside of crisis mode, winning at the next elections is nowhere on that list.
"I believe the crises serve the primary purpose of keeping people in a high stress state, which makes people unhealthy and much easier to control."
Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes!
"This has worked wonders for them in Dem controlled cities for decades. That’s why they aren’t 'tough on crime' anymore. The crime keeps people scared, sick, and poor. And if you keep your slaves like that, they will never revolt or leave the plantation. "
My same reply as above.
They know this issue is a loser:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dem-coalition-urges-biden-stop-escalating-over-ukraine-maximize-diplomacy-instead
However, I don't think it's just a political ploy. This is their long held dream for world dominion.
Indeed. Robert Higgs lays out the concept well in his 1987 "Crisis and Leviathan."
Robert Murphy encapsulates it well at mises.org/library/fed-and-ratchet-effect :
"One of economic historian Bob Higgs's outstanding contributions is the 'ratchet effect.' During a crisis, the size and scope of government grow tremendously. After the crisis subsides, government shrinks, but not to the precrisis level. In consequence, leviathan expands over the decades, leaping from one crisis to the next."
Over the last 60 years, at least, it has ever been thus.