Two long form commentaries. Douglas Macgregor is interviewed by Trish Wood HERE. It’s always great to listen to Macgregor for more than sound byte length discussion. Macgregor is talking about the Nordstream sabotage and about the politics behind the entire misbegotten war on Russia.
The lunatics truly are running the asylum, I’m running out of adjectives to describe the people in charge! Idiotic-check. Inept-check. Devoid of any sense or knowledge of history-check. No concept of diplomacy-check. Way in over their heads-check. No idea of what strategic thinking is-check.
Unaware that there won’t be any winners in a nuclear confrontation-check.
1) Who in the world talked Trump into Pompeo and Bolton? Let's somehow make sure that person is nowhere near Trump in the future and that Trump is properly advised to hire only those who agree with his foreign policy.
2) I believe Luongo is most correct in his point "Schoolyard bullies like Bolton, Truss and Nuland believe every provocation vs. Russia removes options from Putin's game board. Leave him w/ only military options to then claim the moral high ground when he strikes back, hiding behind Ukraine's justifiable anger." Not much of any other explanation makes sense at this point (but then again, what makes sense anymore?). They are attacking what they see as the Putin problem in a scattershot manner hoping a silver bullet will hit.
3) I think the "radical Ukrainian" powers that be are now only motivated by money and their own survival. They know Ukraine will fall to Russia (de facto if not de jure) and they are planning to be out of the country by then, courtesy of their patrons.
4) Make sure to listen to MacGregor's interview. It is solid gold for two reasons: 1. It is an extensive overview of Ukraine and associated issues in simple prose intended for and completely understandable by a general audience - it should be shared widely; 2. The anecdotes he shares about his grandfather's views on WWI and his family's discussion about Vietnam. These say a lot about his views of war and his integrity. They can be found toward but before the 1:00 mark.
In an interview of Macgregor I heard this morning he said Russian columns were backed up all the way from Minsk (capital of Belarus) to Western Russia. IOW, vast amounts of military hardware and personnel waiting to go.
Yep. I believe Macgregor said he thinks once the ground freezes, Putin is going to take off the gloves. And it's at that point the echo chambers of the West are likely going to be shattered, running face-first into cold reality.
I pray this is wrong, because if the Ukrainian military is facing obliteration, the clowns in charge of NATO are likely to get more directly involved using air support and ground troops, at which point we might well all die in the nuclear apocalypse.
There should have been a non-stop effort to get the two parties to a cease-fire- this should have been ongoing since February since it is the practical and moral thing to do. Rather than that, though, the West has done nothing but forced an escalation in the conflict. I don't see that ending now, and considering our clown leadership's inability to understand the sunk-cost fallacy, they will be likely to double down on the stupidity, even if they don't want Armageddon.
"a non-stop effort to get the two parties to a cease-fire" would have totally undermined the entire purpose of this long planned war--to involve Russia in an Afghanistan style quagmire that would lead to regime change in Moscow and the dismemberment of Russia. That has been the policy of the Interagency pretty much since the end of the Cold War. So, OF COURSE the West has done everything it could to keep this going. The Neocons thought they could just print the money to support Ukraine. Even now they hope against hope that Russia will blink.
Add to that recklessness the Dutch govt announcing they are to compel purchases of 600 farms because they want the land. They've claimed a nitrogen emergency but it's really because they want to build housing for immigrants. The Dutch might rise up due to this - maybe.
The lunatics truly are running the asylum, I’m running out of adjectives to describe the people in charge! Idiotic-check. Inept-check. Devoid of any sense or knowledge of history-check. No concept of diplomacy-check. Way in over their heads-check. No idea of what strategic thinking is-check.
Unaware that there won’t be any winners in a nuclear confrontation-check.
Random thoughts:
1) Who in the world talked Trump into Pompeo and Bolton? Let's somehow make sure that person is nowhere near Trump in the future and that Trump is properly advised to hire only those who agree with his foreign policy.
2) I believe Luongo is most correct in his point "Schoolyard bullies like Bolton, Truss and Nuland believe every provocation vs. Russia removes options from Putin's game board. Leave him w/ only military options to then claim the moral high ground when he strikes back, hiding behind Ukraine's justifiable anger." Not much of any other explanation makes sense at this point (but then again, what makes sense anymore?). They are attacking what they see as the Putin problem in a scattershot manner hoping a silver bullet will hit.
3) I think the "radical Ukrainian" powers that be are now only motivated by money and their own survival. They know Ukraine will fall to Russia (de facto if not de jure) and they are planning to be out of the country by then, courtesy of their patrons.
4) Make sure to listen to MacGregor's interview. It is solid gold for two reasons: 1. It is an extensive overview of Ukraine and associated issues in simple prose intended for and completely understandable by a general audience - it should be shared widely; 2. The anecdotes he shares about his grandfather's views on WWI and his family's discussion about Vietnam. These say a lot about his views of war and his integrity. They can be found toward but before the 1:00 mark.
In an interview of Macgregor I heard this morning he said Russian columns were backed up all the way from Minsk (capital of Belarus) to Western Russia. IOW, vast amounts of military hardware and personnel waiting to go.
Yep. I believe Macgregor said he thinks once the ground freezes, Putin is going to take off the gloves. And it's at that point the echo chambers of the West are likely going to be shattered, running face-first into cold reality.
I pray this is wrong, because if the Ukrainian military is facing obliteration, the clowns in charge of NATO are likely to get more directly involved using air support and ground troops, at which point we might well all die in the nuclear apocalypse.
https://dossier.substack.com/p/why-zelenskys-world-war-iii-gambit
Why Zelensky’s World War III gambit will fail
None of the major parties involved in this conflict want nuclear armageddon via WWIII.
There should have been a non-stop effort to get the two parties to a cease-fire- this should have been ongoing since February since it is the practical and moral thing to do. Rather than that, though, the West has done nothing but forced an escalation in the conflict. I don't see that ending now, and considering our clown leadership's inability to understand the sunk-cost fallacy, they will be likely to double down on the stupidity, even if they don't want Armageddon.
"a non-stop effort to get the two parties to a cease-fire" would have totally undermined the entire purpose of this long planned war--to involve Russia in an Afghanistan style quagmire that would lead to regime change in Moscow and the dismemberment of Russia. That has been the policy of the Interagency pretty much since the end of the Cold War. So, OF COURSE the West has done everything it could to keep this going. The Neocons thought they could just print the money to support Ukraine. Even now they hope against hope that Russia will blink.
I am less worried about what they want than what their utter incompetence seems to be leading us.
Threadreader version:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579201324713152512.html
Add to that recklessness the Dutch govt announcing they are to compel purchases of 600 farms because they want the land. They've claimed a nitrogen emergency but it's really because they want to build housing for immigrants. The Dutch might rise up due to this - maybe.