What's Up In The Deep State?

After returning from our excursion yesterday I spent several hours listening to disturbing videos about the current state of the Anglo-Zionist Empire’s war on Russia. This morning Larry Johnson ably summarizes the concerns that many are now voicing with his title piece:

THE WEST IS LOSING IT, MAYBE IT IS TIME FOR “HIGH HOPES”

“Hope” has been a regular theme here lately. Here’s an excerpt from Larry’s piece that gives a snapshot of what’s so disturbing about the latest developments—quoting Izvestia:

Biden is the Master of Disaster. So, what else is new Captain Obvious? The Biden Administration is sending alarming mixed signals about its policy towards using U.S. supplied missiles to strike targets inside Russia. I know for a fact that some key people in the Russian media are confused. I received the following inquiry from a reporter with Izvestia:

Today at a regular briefing, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said the White House policy has not changed and they insist that Ukraine can succeed using weapons within its borders without striking Russian territory. Later, Politico published an article citing an anonymous source as saying that Biden secretly authorized the Ukrainians to strike Russia with the provided weapons.

What does all this mean? Why such disunity and different positions? How can such a decision be evaluated at all?

My reply was simply, “they are incompetent.” The visible chaos in the Biden Administration might be entertaining if this was a Monty Python sketch, or an old Saturday Night Live bit with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. But it isn’t. These clowns are playing with genuine nuclear fire.

I guess if Sabrina Singh had confirmed the “secret” authorization to Ukraine it wouldn’t be “secret” any more. Is Politico’s source correct? Maybe not, but that speculation isn’t actually reassuring—certainly not to the Russians—for two reasons: First, the source would probably represent those within the bowels of the Deep State who are, um, deeply worried about the state of policy and decision making in the Empire, and second, the US has lied to Russia so many times already that Putin has no reason any longer to believe what he may be told by the US.

Larry goes on to sketch out a hypothetical in which the US uses military force against Mexico to stop the flow of drugs and people across our border. Russia responds by providing Mexico with missiles capable of striking targets like Austin, San Antonio, Albuquerque and Phoenix. And Mexico proceeds to start using those missiles to do exactly that. Larry then asks: “What do you think the American people would demand as a response? Leave Russia alone?”

Those are exactly the issues that the guys I was listening to yesterday brought up—Danny Davis (How to Start a War with Russia), Jeffrey Sachs (How Dangerous To Threaten Nukes), Scott Ritter (WE'RE GOING TO DESTROY THE WORLD IF WE GO TO NUCLEAR WAR). To a man they voiced extreme concern over American long range drone strikes against Russia early warning radar systems—systems whose sole use is to warn Russia against incoming ICBMs, not for use against relatively piddly missiles launched from Ukraine. The threat that America could attempt to blind Russia to an ICBM first nuclear strike as a prelude to an actual such attack has gone beyond the theoretical stage. This is exactly the preliminary step Russia would expect, and this preliminary step itself invites a preemptive Russian strike. Indeed, the word on the interwebs is that Russian ASAT weapons are “stalking” our satellites. This is why Larry says “These clowns are playing with genuine nuclear fire.” And in the meantime, who are the Russians to believe? Sabrina Singh? Politico? Zhou himself—no, wait, we’re told that Zhou refuses to speak directly to Putin. Burns, the factotum who currently heads the CIA?

To a man these same guys pointed out that the US is doing—and has been doing for a long time—things to Russia that we would never tolerate Russia doing to us—as in Larry’s hypothetical. This is not the time to be sending mixed signals. Davis, notably, played a video of Putin addressing Russians. At a certain point, Putin—in his voice and in his body language—turns very stern and serious. He was telling Russians they need to be ready for anything, mobilized as a nation. Which mirrors what Chas Freeman was saying about Russia’s seeming lack of harsh rhetorical response to the attacks on the early warning radar sites—the relative silence should be taken as a warning sign that Russia has moved beyond talk to active planning.

Then, with all this going on, Denmark—right, Denmark—chose yesterday to announce that it would, indeed, supply F-16s to Ukraine. Putin has long since stated explicitly that, since F-16s are nuclear capable, all F-16s would be treated as presenting a nuclear threat. Putin has also stated that Western nations will not be immune from retaliation. Should Putin assume that Denmark made this announcement without consulting with the nation that manufactures F-16s, so it can all be discounted? All credible experts agree that the West is in no position to wage a conventional war, which leaves us with …

What’s going on? Is this a Neocon attempt to bully Putin into a ceasefire, using the threat of a nuclear attack? The other days, in a comment, I argued in support of this possibility that the Neocons, having falsely presented the American war against Russia as great moral crusade against a modern day Hitler, are not in a position to negotiate with Russia—only to bully. Putin shows absolutely no inclination to respond to bullying, as John Mearsheimer and others have pointed out. In fact, Russia has been busily getting all its ducks in a row, lining up closer military relations with China, etc. To this point Russia has exercised extraordinary restraint to extreme provocations, but at some point Putin will need to respond.

This is all very worrying.

A few notes re the videos linked above. In some ways the Davis one is the best, the most focused. Sachs is good on the diplomatic aspects. Ritter engages in a long rant, but in the second half is informative regarding the mentality of nuclear strategic thinking and the history of past agreements and broken promises.