Pretend-O-Rama
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Bill Totten
Jan 30, 2023, 7:59:20 AM1/30/23
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Pretend-O-Rama
Not only is there no threat from Russia that is independent of American policy, but it is also the expansion of Nato to "meet the threat from Russia" that creates the very threat that expansion was supposed to meet.
- Alistair Crooke
https://kunstler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Kunstler-Logo-2-res72-final-e1372906270122.png
by James Howard Kunstler
https://kunstler.com (January 27 2022)
For your reading pleasure on Mondays and Fridays
I doubt that many Americans - even the masses sunk in vaccine smuggery and obsessive Trump-o-phobia - believe that America's Ukraine project is working out for us. Of course, to even begin thinking about this debacle, you must at least suspect that our government is lying about virtually everything it has its hand in. Name something it is not lying about, I dare you.
So, what is the Ukraine project about? To use that sad-ass country as a vector to disable and destroy Russia. You can't overstate the stupidity of that objective. And why did we want to do that? Because ... reasons. Oh? And what were they? Well, Russia was ... there. Oh? And what was it doing? Trying to take over the world? Uh, no. It was actually just trying to be a normal European nation again after its traumatic 75-year-long experiment with communism, which ended in 1991.
And then, after that, coming along pretty well under Mr Putin. Did I say that? Yes, I did, because it is a fact. Russia wrote new private property laws, made commerce legal again, and allowed its citizens to do business. Russia wasn't threatening any other nations, most particularly not its former province, Ukraine. It had even invited Ukraine to be a sovereign member of its trade association, the customs union, with a bunch of other regional states who had rational interests in good regional relations. That's what set off the maniacs at the US State Department - under Secretary John Kerry, aka the haircut-in-search-of-a-brain - who, in 2014, decided to overthrow Ukraine's government.
The project since then has been to use the US-controlled Ukraine government to antagonize Russia and, finally, to draw Russia into a military operation intended, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said more than once, "to weaken Russia". Well, everything we've done there, from eight years of shelling the Donbas, to kicking Russia out of the West's banking system, to pouring billions of US dollars into Ukraine's corrupt government, has only strengthened Russia internally, earned the approbation of many other nations who object to US interference in their regions, and steered poor Ukraine into the graveyard of failed states.
We are losing this unnecessary proxy war about as steadily as possible, and actually making Russia look good in the process. Russia could have ended the war in five minutes by turning Kiev into an ashtray, but it spent the first eight months of the operation trying to avoid busting up Ukraine's infrastructure, so as not to turn it into a failed state (that would present new and worse problems). Mr Putin made many overtures to negotiate an end to the conflict, all rejected by Ukraine, the US, and its Nato "partners".
So, now Russia is grinding on the ground to reduce Ukraine's ability to continue making war by systematically killing the troops Ukraine foolishly throws into the battle line and destroying Ukraine's heavy weapons. Ukraine is about out of its own soldiers and weapons. Russia is maneuvering to roll over what's left there and put an end to these pointless and needless hostilities. Contrary to US propaganda, Russia has no ambition to conquer Nato territory. Rather its aim is to restore order to a corner of the world that has been its legitimate sphere of influence for centuries - and more than once been used as a doormat for European armies to invade Russia.
Apparently, we can't allow Russia to clean up this mess we made - or we pretend that we can't, even though it's happening anyway, whether we like it or not. So now, the US promises to send thirty-one M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. A bold move, you think? Not exactly. By the time these tanks get anywhere in the vicinity of Ukraine, this war is likely to be over. Never mind the difficult business of training the few remaining eligible Ukrainian men between sixteen and sixty how to operate the tanks, training maintenance crews, and delivering inventories of spare parts - you see where this is going - not to mention the certainty that the Russians will simply blow them up as fast as they appear on the premises. Anyway, a measly thirty-one tanks that can barely be operated is meaningless compared to hundreds of T-72s backed by newer T-14 tanks the Russians can muster from just over their border with Ukraine.
The tank proffer is, sad to say (for the dignity of our country), a joke, kind of a last feeble pretense before the whole thing ends in ignominy for the "Joe Biden" team - whoever that actually is. The repercussions are liable to be ugly for our country, not necessarily in terms of more military trouble in other lands (which we probably lack the capacity to engage in now), but something more personal: the collapse of the dollar as the world's reserve currency and a vicious loss of purchasing power here at home. That would provoke a situation worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, and that's probably where things are going.
The Ukraine misadventure will disappear from America's collective consciousness in a New York minute, and a Fourth Turning jamboree of serious domestic political disorder will commence in short order. If you think "Joe Biden's" term in office has been a disaster so far, just wait. You ain't seen nothing yet.
* * * * *
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for
investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more
visit: Kunstler.com/vaulted
Support this blog by visiting
https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler
And thanks to all my Patrons for your support
Click for Autographed Copies from Battenkill Books:
https://www.battenkillbooks.com/product/living-long-emergency-global-crisis-failure-futurists-and-early-adapters-who-are-showing-us
Click to order from Amazon:
https://amzn.to/36ce8gx
To get mail alerts when new content is published, enter your Email Address at the place indicated at the URL below:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/pretend-o-rama/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/01/30/pretend-o-rama-2/
Not only is there no threat from Russia that is independent of American policy, but it is also the expansion of Nato to "meet the threat from Russia" that creates the very threat that expansion was supposed to meet.
- Alistair Crooke
https://kunstler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Kunstler-Logo-2-res72-final-e1372906270122.png
by James Howard Kunstler
https://kunstler.com (January 27 2022)
For your reading pleasure on Mondays and Fridays
I doubt that many Americans - even the masses sunk in vaccine smuggery and obsessive Trump-o-phobia - believe that America's Ukraine project is working out for us. Of course, to even begin thinking about this debacle, you must at least suspect that our government is lying about virtually everything it has its hand in. Name something it is not lying about, I dare you.
So, what is the Ukraine project about? To use that sad-ass country as a vector to disable and destroy Russia. You can't overstate the stupidity of that objective. And why did we want to do that? Because ... reasons. Oh? And what were they? Well, Russia was ... there. Oh? And what was it doing? Trying to take over the world? Uh, no. It was actually just trying to be a normal European nation again after its traumatic 75-year-long experiment with communism, which ended in 1991.
And then, after that, coming along pretty well under Mr Putin. Did I say that? Yes, I did, because it is a fact. Russia wrote new private property laws, made commerce legal again, and allowed its citizens to do business. Russia wasn't threatening any other nations, most particularly not its former province, Ukraine. It had even invited Ukraine to be a sovereign member of its trade association, the customs union, with a bunch of other regional states who had rational interests in good regional relations. That's what set off the maniacs at the US State Department - under Secretary John Kerry, aka the haircut-in-search-of-a-brain - who, in 2014, decided to overthrow Ukraine's government.
The project since then has been to use the US-controlled Ukraine government to antagonize Russia and, finally, to draw Russia into a military operation intended, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said more than once, "to weaken Russia". Well, everything we've done there, from eight years of shelling the Donbas, to kicking Russia out of the West's banking system, to pouring billions of US dollars into Ukraine's corrupt government, has only strengthened Russia internally, earned the approbation of many other nations who object to US interference in their regions, and steered poor Ukraine into the graveyard of failed states.
We are losing this unnecessary proxy war about as steadily as possible, and actually making Russia look good in the process. Russia could have ended the war in five minutes by turning Kiev into an ashtray, but it spent the first eight months of the operation trying to avoid busting up Ukraine's infrastructure, so as not to turn it into a failed state (that would present new and worse problems). Mr Putin made many overtures to negotiate an end to the conflict, all rejected by Ukraine, the US, and its Nato "partners".
So, now Russia is grinding on the ground to reduce Ukraine's ability to continue making war by systematically killing the troops Ukraine foolishly throws into the battle line and destroying Ukraine's heavy weapons. Ukraine is about out of its own soldiers and weapons. Russia is maneuvering to roll over what's left there and put an end to these pointless and needless hostilities. Contrary to US propaganda, Russia has no ambition to conquer Nato territory. Rather its aim is to restore order to a corner of the world that has been its legitimate sphere of influence for centuries - and more than once been used as a doormat for European armies to invade Russia.
Apparently, we can't allow Russia to clean up this mess we made - or we pretend that we can't, even though it's happening anyway, whether we like it or not. So now, the US promises to send thirty-one M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. A bold move, you think? Not exactly. By the time these tanks get anywhere in the vicinity of Ukraine, this war is likely to be over. Never mind the difficult business of training the few remaining eligible Ukrainian men between sixteen and sixty how to operate the tanks, training maintenance crews, and delivering inventories of spare parts - you see where this is going - not to mention the certainty that the Russians will simply blow them up as fast as they appear on the premises. Anyway, a measly thirty-one tanks that can barely be operated is meaningless compared to hundreds of T-72s backed by newer T-14 tanks the Russians can muster from just over their border with Ukraine.
The tank proffer is, sad to say (for the dignity of our country), a joke, kind of a last feeble pretense before the whole thing ends in ignominy for the "Joe Biden" team - whoever that actually is. The repercussions are liable to be ugly for our country, not necessarily in terms of more military trouble in other lands (which we probably lack the capacity to engage in now), but something more personal: the collapse of the dollar as the world's reserve currency and a vicious loss of purchasing power here at home. That would provoke a situation worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, and that's probably where things are going.
The Ukraine misadventure will disappear from America's collective consciousness in a New York minute, and a Fourth Turning jamboree of serious domestic political disorder will commence in short order. If you think "Joe Biden's" term in office has been a disaster so far, just wait. You ain't seen nothing yet.
* * * * *
This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for
investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more
visit: Kunstler.com/vaulted
Support this blog by visiting
https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler
And thanks to all my Patrons for your support
Click for Autographed Copies from Battenkill Books:
https://www.battenkillbooks.com/product/living-long-emergency-global-crisis-failure-futurists-and-early-adapters-who-are-showing-us
Click to order from Amazon:
https://amzn.to/36ce8gx
To get mail alerts when new content is published, enter your Email Address at the place indicated at the URL below:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/pretend-o-rama/
TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
the appropriate link at the top or bottom of https://billtotten.wpcomstaging.com/2023/01/30/pretend-o-rama-2/
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