Two By Scott Ritter
I want to start the day with two items by Scott Ritter which, while not exactly news, document the moral bankruptcy of US foreign policy. And, after all, foreign policy is ultimately an extension of domestic policy. If most Americans pay little to no attention to foreign policy, or gullibly swallow the propaganda narratives presented in the MSM, what does this say about the shape of our democracy? Was this not one of the fears of the Founding Fathers as they set out on this great experiment—government of the people, by the people, for the people—that a self interested elite would gain control over the levers of power and entangle America in foreign adventures that would corrupt the moral basis of our republic? So …
First, a two minute video excerpt of an interview with Scott Ritter, who explains what the US war against Syria has involved—the training and arming of radical jihadis. Note what Ritter argues: Jihadis have flocked to Syria precisely to obtain the US military training (and weapons) that will stand them in good stead everywhere Jihad is waged. Think of all the abuses, the genocide against Middle East Christians and other minorities. It’s all US sponsored. Sponsored in the best bipartisan Deep State tradition—Dems and GOPers hand in hand.
In that context, consider the complaints of the Nigerian government that already weaponry that was supposed to be destined for Ukraine has been diverted to the brutal Boko Haram movement. “Supposed” means—I suppose—that’s the official story. On the other hand, how can we be sure? Why were controls not put in place to make sure the weapons of war arrived where we were told they were going? Who besides Rand Paul has spoken out? Food for thought:
The second item is an article that details the devious “diplomacy”—war by words—that the collective West waged against Russia after the US led coup of 2014 against the duly elected Ukrainian government. This tweet-plus-video provides the context for Ritter’s article and frames the question—If now, why not then, and what next?
Security guarantees are precisely what Russia has been seeking since the aggressive NATO eastward expansion in 1997. Putin has made it clear for years that Russia has no option but to respond to ensure its security and sovereignty, given the aggressive nature of the NATO moves and the global warfare that US led NATO has engaged in. All that culminated, for Russia, with the 2014 US overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Even then, Russia engaged—in apparent good faith—in the diplomatic process that led to the Minsk accords. The Minsk protocols, of course, were ignored by Ukraine with the support of NATO, in the face of Russian protests.
Now, statements from Western leaders like Angela Merkel make it clear that the Minsk talks were no more than a subterfuge for arming Ukraine to the point that it could engage in open war against Russia. War was always the object. Putin now recognizes this reality and admits that he was duped by the West at Minsk. How likely is it, then, that Russia will be fooled by Macron’s latest claim that the West is now ready to offer “security guarantees” to Russia? The contemptuous Russian dismissal of these underhanded offers suggests that Russia no longer trusts the collective West—at all.
Excerpts:
Merkel Reveals West’s Duplicity
War, it seems, was the only option Russia’s opponents had ever considered.
While the so-called “collective west” (the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and the G7) continue to claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an act of “unprovoked aggression,” the reality is far different: Russia had been duped into believing there was a diplomatic solution to the violence that had broken out in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 U.S.-backed Maidan coup in Kiev.
Instead, Ukraine and its Western partners were simply buying time until NATO could build a Ukrainian military capable of capturing the Donbass in its entirety, as well as evicting Russia from Crimea.
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By holding off on NATO membership, and later by pushing for the Minsk accords, Merkel believed she was buying Ukraine time so that it could better resist a Russian attack, just as Chamberlain believed he was buying the U.K. and France time to gather their strength against Hitler’s Germany
The takeaway from this retrospection is astounding. Forget, for a moment, the fact that Merkel was comparing the threat posed by Hitler’s Nazi regime to that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and focus instead in on the fact that Merkel knew that inviting Ukraine into NATO would trigger a Russian military response.
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War, it seems, was the only option Russia’s opponents had ever considered.
Merkel’s comments parallel those made in June by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to several western media outlets. “Our goal,” Poroshenko declared, “was to, first, stop the threat, or at least to delay the war — to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create powerful armed forces.” Poroshenko made it clear that Ukraine had not come to the negotiating table on the Minsk Accords in good faith.
This is a realization that Putin has come to as well. …, Putin acknowledged that it was a mistake to agree to the Minsk accords, and that the Donbass problem should have been resolved by force of arms at that time, especially given the mandate he had been handed by the Russian Duma regarding authorization to use Russian military forces in “Ukraine,” not just Crimea.
Putin’s belated realization should send shivers down the spine of all those in the West who operate on the misconception that there can now somehow be a negotiated settlement to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Wriggling out of the developing disaster of our attempt to destroy Russia will not be easy. Russia no longer has any incentive to make things easy for the collective West. Its entire incentive is to demand a security structure—not verbal “guarantees”—that will last and will cement in place what Russia believes is important. This, Russia obviously believes, is now possible.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to peel Eurasian client states away from the US and to build up a Eurasia centric alternative to the West’s US Rules Based Order—which continues to unravel. The latest stunning development features both India and Pakistan filling their energy needs from the same source:
In short, the Biden/Neocon regime is achieving everything it set out to avoid: strengthening Russia, destroying Ukraine and their own free for all corruption hub, pushing Russia and China into each other's arms, creating a whole new multipolar world, and weakening the dollar hegemony that has ruled since WW2. Victoria Nuland was unavailable for comment this morning.