The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington D.C. – 4 April 1949

Today’s NATO does not reflect its stated mission. Today’s NATO members do not desire peace but encourage conflict. The actions and dialog of NATO member countries after Ukraine fired a surface-to-air missile that landed on Polish soil that killed two Polish citizens exposed the new NATO as an alliance of vindictive and bellicose Russiaphobics.

1) “The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.”

Polish President Andrzej Duda said (November 15th) that Poland does not know who fired the missile but noted that it was “most likely produced in Russia.” A spokesperson for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “a Russian-made missile fell, killing two citizens of the Republic of Poland.” The Russian-made missile verbiage acts to implicate Russia as the perpetrator of the missile launch.

2) “They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and the preservation of peace and security.”

Members, mostly former Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe, expressed justification for invoking Article 4 of the NATO alliance. An action that would surely increase a NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine and possible global nuclear annihilation. The motive of these newer members of NATO appears to be finding a mechanism to justify NATO intervention in Ukraine.

According to Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations weapons inspector, the airspace over Ukraine is one of the most highly monitored worldwide. Everything over Ukraine gets registered in real time on a NATO display in headquarters throughout Europe – including Poland. The missile, no doubt, was tracked by NATO from launching to impact on Polish soil. False flag or a foolish mistake, NATO members knew that Ukraine fired the errant surface-to-air missile. 

3) “They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.”

This action provoked NATO members to discuss invoking Article 4 of the NATO Charter. Article 4 would extend NATO air defense into Ukrainian air space and establishment a no-fly zone enforced by NATO aircraft. Article 4 has justified every combat deployment of NATO since its inception, from Serbia to Libya, to Afghanistan. 

4) “They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area.”

Officials in member governments: 

Poland summoned the Russian ambassador to protest and declared that it would increase its military readiness while contemplating the activation of Article 4 

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda twitted, “every inch of NATO territory must be defended!” 

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala twitted: “If Poland confirms that the missiles also hit its territory, this will be a further escalation by Russia. We stand firmly behind our EU and NATO ally.” 

Estonia’s Foreign Minister declared via Twitter, “We are consulting closely with Poland and other allies. Estonia is ready to defend every inch of NATO territory.” 

NATO is not what most Americans believe it to be. It does not reflect its stated objectives and is the driving force in the Ukraine-Russian War. Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount warned, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” 

The Citadel

According to President Biden, Washington is a citadel. Citadel is a very peculiar choice of words. I am confused because according to dictionary definitions, citadels are buildings associated with war, used to protect during battles.

If Washington is a fortress, a castle where people can shelter, who is on the inside? Who are on the outside? Is Washington hunkering down for war? Or is there a war that we are not aware of?

Inside the Citadel

The man that promised to heal and come together appears not to be offering the other cheek. No, he is in full battle gear, ready for the mega MAGA onslaught. Joe, no doubt, did not write the speech he just read it. That is what the Presidency has become, the mouthpiece for the Executive Branch.

Lurking behind the Republican and Democrat parties is the real power in Washington. This power is not political party based. It is an inherited power metastasized in layers of bureaucratic sediment. One does not earn this power one inherits it. It gets passed from family member to family member. You can read it in their resumes; same Ivy League schools, think tanks; private clubs, vacation homes, inter-family marriages. It is an oligarchy U.S. style.

Most refer to it as the Deep State, but that definition does not do justice. It is a uni-party bureaucratic machine. It includes an ensemble of indoctrinated political hacks, parasitical. Included but not limited are politicians, corporate CEOs, bankers, Wall Street, military brass, expert elites, and status quo authorities.

They slide in and out of the citadel of democracy from the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), Big Pharma, Big Tech, the Education Cathedral, and Wall Street. They feed from the public troth provided by us taxpayers. These non-elected bureaucrats devour our sovereignty and wealth with no remorse. Some of their tactics include kickbacks, corporate welfare, foreign lobbies, insider trading, and pay-to-play schemes. These are the vermin that occupy the citadel.

Outside The Citadel

We are the skeptics that question their propaganda, misinformation, and mal-information. We are the conspiracy theorists, right-wing nuts, racists, science deniers, Putin puppets, Trump idiots, or any other derogatory connotation they invent. When people revolt against the status quo, they go into full panic mode. We saw it up close when they upgraded the January 6th protest to a full-blown insurrection. The first insurrection in world history in which the participants forgot to bring weapons.

We witnessed the critics of the Covid lockdown called killers as the social justice-compliant herd was allowed to riot and loot because it was for a good cause. Those that refused to be injected with a Government funded, RNA experimental drug vaccine were fired simply for refusing to submit to an untested vaccine forced upon them, and their lives changed.

Today as the threat of a nuclear war is bantered about, they expect us to believe their Ukraine narrative. They claim that a peaceful rule-based democracy was innocent of provoking a Russian invasion. It is a false narrative. The Ukraine government forces had declared war on the Donbas and Luhansk separatists. The Ukrainian military forces had murdered 13,000, mostly ethnic Russians, and were building up to invade before the Russians pre-empted.

Peace in Ukraine, they lied. Washington has been working hard to scuttle peace talks to prolong a proxy war aimed at weakening Russia and the regime of Putin. They continue to support a war that produces the death of innocent civilians and the destruction of a country. Their support includes the billions of dollars transferred from the earnings of the U.S. to the MIC coffers. It means nothing to these lunatics. Why would it? It is the same money that pays their salaries.

The War

Written words, audio, and video publications that questioned or challenged the government narratives around COVID-19, the Afghanistan withdrawal, Ukraine funding, and elections get canceled. They construct oxymoronic word salads to hide the reality of their clampdown. The Intercept recently reported that the 2001 Patriot Act ushered in a new government-approved level of censorship. Their intelligence agencies began coordinating, with social media platforms, to shut down speech.

For over 20 years, government agencies have been monitoring and censoring U.S. citizens. The United States has lost its status as a republic. It is a security state. Led by those inside the citadel, those that lie, censor, spy, and deceive all for our protection? The Citadel Mentality prospers in Washington. Those on the inside are at war with anyone that questions or criticizes their narratives.

The World has two camps: 1.) the U.S. and the NATO-centered West, and 2.) the emerging Eurasian coalition: a Cold War exists between a U.S.-dollar-centered economy and a multipolar, multi-currency world centered in Eurasia, primarily Russia and China, with Germany caught in the middle. Germany has been receptive to U.S. financing, technology, oil, and food exports and has followed U.S. policy dutifully. The Dylan song titled: The-Times-They-Are-A-Changing sums up the German dilemma.

Washington calls it a battle between democracy and autocracy, the Orwellian translation of democracy is all its allied Western oligarchies that are subservient to the U.S. hijacked economic plan. Governments that make decisions compelled by U.S. persuasion; and become enslaved by Wall Street, the International Monetary Fund, and World Bank. 

Autocracies are those countries resisting a financial takeover. These countries promote their domestic economic growth and living standards, keeping finance and banking as sovereign entities. Many of these autocracies have raised living standards by avoiding the financial centers under U.S. control.

Germany, the European most advanced industrial nation, is also the country that has suffered the most from this conflict. German industry depends upon Russian gas, oil, and metals. Nord-Stream 1, and Nord-Stream 2 pipelines, were built to supply Germany with lower-priced Russian gas. However, under the rules of the New Cold War, Germany was instructed to cut itself off from Russian gas. The 26 September 2022 explosion eliminated any choice. 

The recently discovered, It’s Done, text message from the U.K. ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss iPhone to U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken, sent minutes after the explosions, suggests collusion that harmed Germany. For their hardship, Blinken encouraged Germany to replace low-priced Russian pipeline gas with high-priced U.S. LNG gas. A direction that would require Germany to spend over $5 billion to increase port capacity to handle LNG tankers. 

U.S.-led Anti-Russian sanctions have been, in reality, anti-German sanctions. The German industry has been rendered uncompetitive. Bankruptcies will spread, employment will decline, and increased depression and falling living standards seem imminent. Germany eventually will not subordinate its industry and living standards in favor of U.S. self-interest. Germany has voluntarily gone along with imposed sanctions on Russia. 

There comes a time when nations will act in their interest. Otherwise, they will be satellite countries, not in control of their fate. Berlin is broke: “An era of headwinds is beginning for Germany – difficult, difficult years are coming for us. Germany is in the deepest crisis since reunification.” The EU is fragile and unable to help Kyiv anymore without harming its population. The EU countries are on the verge of a catastrophic energy crisis. 

So, what option does Chancellor Olaf Scholz have? Three simple words, Go To China, and that is what they did. Scholz and company went to Beijing. Essentially to begin preparatory steps for working out a peace deal with Russia. A Chinese messenger released, “Olaf Scholz, accompanied on this trip by German industrialists who control Germany and are not going to sit back watching themselves destroyed.”

Berlin and Moscow have kept a communication back channel open via business interlocutors. The Germans would benefit from the Chinese BRI trade/connectivity terminal planned for Germany’s Ruhr Valley. If the Scholz trip is successful, Germany, China, and Russia may ally to weaken the U.S. control in Europe. Is this trip the start of a process of eventually replacing the U.S. with China as a key ally? 

Will Washington accept that it is longer the World’s unipolar power? Will it continually overplay its hand, mistreat its allies, and pushes its targets and victims together?

Decolonizing Russia

In May of 2022, the Atlantic published a Casey Michel article, Decolonize Russia. Why Ukraine? The answer is in his sub-title, “To avoid more senseless bloodshed, the Kremlin must lose what empire it still retains.” Empires and hubris, go figure. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/russia-putin-colonization-ukraine-chechnya/639428/ 

Michel accuses Russia of being the last European empire that has resisted decolonization. He writes that Russia will ceaselessly expand and colonize unless stopped by the West. The Ukrainian War is part of the project to end Russian colonization and Putin’s attempt to reconquer regions it views as its rightful possessions. The Washington narrative is that Russia must be decimated and partitioned. If Putin could be toppled and replaced, then Russia could be divided into smaller statelets open to western oil giants, mining corporations, and global transnationalism.

Ghost of the Past

A game plan predicated on the strategic disasters of bellicose gurus like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Dick Chaney leads to war. By the way, the guys that gave us the Afghanistan debacle and the Iraq War have never passed up an opportunity to engage in war.  

After the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said, “We could get an authoritarian regime [in Russia] still,” he warned during the meeting. “I am concerned that a year or so from now, if it all goes sour, how we can answer that we did not do more.” According to Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates, Cheney “wanted to see the dismantlement not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world.”

In “A Geostrategy for Eurasia,” Brzezinski wrote, “given (Russia’s) size and diversity, a decentralized political system and free-market economics would be most likely to unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russia’s vast natural resources. A loosely confederated Russia — composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic — would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with its neighbors. Each of the confederated entitles would be able to tap its local creative potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow’s heavy bureaucratic hand. A decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization.” 

So when Russian President Vladimir Putin states that “the Western goal is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our nation. They are openly stating that, since they managed to break up the Soviet Union in 1991, now it’s time to split Russia into many separate regions that will be at each other’s throats,” he is citing history.

Why Ukraine?

Washington needs a more humble Russia that will assume its role, in the new order, as a Gas and Mining Corporation.

Next – Why Taiwan?

Stay tuned, after Russia, on to China. According to Michel, China “currently oversees the largest concentration-camp system the world has seen since the Holocaust, dedicated to eliminating Uyghurs as a distinct nation.” It does not stop with these scribes of Washington disguised as journalists.

Most Americans believe that Democracy is the God of Everything Good, the right way, the only way, the way God intended. Our Democracy is not an enlightened form of government. It does not represent the pinnacle of civilization. It’s the product of a propaganda campaign that began in the early 1900s.

Walter Lippmann wrote the people in a democracy are a bewildered herd of interested spectators, malleable and hopelessly ill-informed. Democracy manipulates the bewildered herd into believing they are in control of their government.

The Vietnam war briefly changed the American political landscape. In the 1960s, there was an increase in citizens participating in marches, protests, and demonstrations. They believed in a government by the people and for the people. They rejected, despised, and disobeyed those running the country for their financial and political advantage.

However, in 1975, The Trilateral Commission, a US-based think tank, published “The Crisis of Democracy.” This publication would reverse the enlightened political landscape from an educated, involved society back to the bewildered herd.

Lead writer, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington wrote that “the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to existing systems of authority, public and private. In one form or another, it manifested itself in the family, the university, business, public and private associations, politics, the governmental bureaucracy, and the military services.”

Huntington concluded that the US suffered from an excess of Democracy. “The effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires apathy and noninvolvement.” He stated that the crisis of Democracy stemmed from a society that was becoming educated and participating. The solution would be less critical thought-based education. The newly engineered authoritative Democracy would have the appearance of freedom but not the substance.

The irony of more ignorance to save our Democracy went unnoticed. It became apparent that it was at risk when students learned things that government did not want them to. The Commission was concerned with schools and universities that were not doing their job of “properly indoctrinating the young” and that “we have to have more moderation in democracy”. The path forward was clear the public school system and the universities would indoctrinate the young people in America. Public Education changed.

Today social engineers work Democracy to the bone. They use the media and all tools available to keep the herd ignorant and superstitious. Schools do their part, and our multi-party electoral system is a beauty contest between two pre-selected candidates. Call It Democracy

JFK’s Blueprint For Peace: Repurposed from his 1963 Commencement Speech At American University

I am talking about genuine peace, the peace that makes life on earth worth living. The kind that enables men and nations to grow hope and to build a better life for their children, not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Although he referred to it as a baseless and incredible accusation, he perfectly described the American foreign policy imperialists, especially since 1990, with political aims to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries to achieve world domination using aggressive wars

War makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be disastrous to the globe and generations yet unborn.

The expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired to keep the peace only destroys and never create is not the only means of assuring peace. Peace should be the product and the rational end of rational men.

World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor. They only have to live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. The tide of time and events will often bring changes in the relations between countries and neighbors. Peace is dynamic, not static it changes to meet the challenge of each new generation. Peace is a process–a way of solving problems.

No government or social system is so evil that we accuse its people of lacking in virtue. We can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements–in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture, and acts of courage.

The people of the US and Russia have many traits in common, abhorrence of war being one. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. No nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Russian people did in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and farms were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland–a loss equivalent to the devastation of this country east of Chicago.

All nations must be encouraged to adopt a more enlightened attitude toward peace. The US must reexamine its attitude because it is essential to World peace. And every thoughtful citizen who despairs war and wishes to bring peace should begin by looking inward. They should examine their attitude toward peace, their rivals, the course of the cold war, freedom, and peace.

Government leaders should increase their understanding, contact, and communication with Russia. Maybe a direct line between Moscow and Washington. Avoid dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of actions that occur at a time of crisis.

Peace with Russia does not play well in Washington. It was hazardous to JFK’s life.

Putin of Course

Impartial and trustworthy experts like former CIA director John Brennan claimed that “Russia certainly is the most likely suspect,” and NATO think tanker Alexander Vershbow says Putin blew up his own pipelines instead of simply closing a valve because he wanted to show the world that he is a “madman.” The Richard Nixon strategy? I miss Tricky Dick. 

Caitlin Johnstone (http//caitlinjohnstone.com) has the best anti-Putin strategy: “If Putin is a gibbering, irrational lunatic who enjoys blowing up his own stuff for no reason other than to act crazy, surely if we just stand back and leave him to his own devices, he will soon turn the Russian Federation into a steaming pile of rubble.”

Associated Press published the following. “The Kremlin and Russian state media are aggressively pushing a baseless conspiracy theory blaming the United States for damage to natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in what analysts said Friday is another effort to split the U.S. and its European allies.” Those that have heating fuel and those that do not? Non-fuel-producing nations must be dependent upon someone’s energy. Russia accounted for over 39 percent of all extra-EU gas imports in 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201743/russian-gas-dependence-in-europe-by-country/ 

At a recent press conference, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponization of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.” Does dependence on NATO weapons advance any country’s imperial design?

President Biden and his Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, have warned that if Russia invaded Ukraine, the Nord Stream 2 would be shut down. Idle threat? Fulfilled promise? Coincidence? Nah!

Who did it? Putin, of course. Let’s wait for him to explode Russia. 

On April 2, 1967, at New York City Riverside Church, Martin Luther King delivered an address titled “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence.” In that speech, he stepped beyond his allowable terrain to attack US militarism, the day that I believe sealed his fate. A year later, MLK was executed on a Memphis balcony. The 1960s version of the State’s cancel culture.

He pointed out how the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had transformed into what King labeled the “giant triplets” of racism, materialism, and militarism. He called out the hypocritical US government’s commitment to peace even though it had become “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” That has not changed. I would argue that the post-9/11 “Global War on Terror” solidified the number top spot.

The Washington war party and the Congressional bipartisan are again in the driver’s seat. They are unembarrassed by its failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. These policymakers have rediscovered the prospect of a “New Cold War.” A vehicle to enable the United States to relive the glory days of Korea and Vietnam, a nuclear arms race, and the CIA’s worldwide abominations.

Russian aggression in Ukraine has silenced critical analysis of the embarrassing debacle of the US withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021. Also, overnight the media diverted the “Covid crisis” to the “Ukrainian crisis.” The deceptive Russian threat has replaced any honest and critical discourse on Washington’s atrocities. A task that the state media completed in one news cycle and accomplished before people understood what was perpetrated upon them.

War hawks and the summer humanitarians are seizing that opportunity to encourage the United States to undertake massive investments in military forces for Ukrainian combat. Their cavalier willingness to confront Russian adversaries at risk of direct US war is remarkable. The Ukraine War will prove a disaster for all except the weapons manufacturers that feast on the world’s largest military budget.

In his Riverside Church speech, he said, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” King called for “a radical revolution of values,” in which “we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.”

Is it too late?

NATO Must Go

If I were to attend a peace rally against the military debacle happening in Ukraine, I would arm myself with two signs. The first sign would say, “NA-TO MUST GO”. The other would read, “DE-NATO-IZE EUROPE”. I believe the NATO military alliance is at the crux of this conflict and many others.

The North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) was signed on April 4, 1949. In 1950, just over a year later, at the start of the Korean War, NATO became involved in the military operation of a war in Asia. Why? Simple, to contain a Soviet ally, North Korea. From its inception, NATO has been an alliance to contain Soviets/Russians in Europe and worldwide.

Senator Robert Taft

Sen. Robert Taft spoke on why he voted against creating NATO. He called the treaty “a program by which we arm all these nations against Russia” He continued, “It thus becomes an offensive and defensive military alliance against Russia. I believe our foreign policy should be aimed primarily at security and peace, and I believe such an alliance is more likely to produce war than peace.”

Taft went on to describe what he believed to be a Russian take on a NATO build-up in western Europe, “Russia sees itself ringed about gradually by so-called defensive arms from Norway and Denmark to Turkey and Greece, it may form a different opinion. It may decide that the arming of western Europe, regardless of its present purpose, looks to an attack upon Russia.“

Taft’s prediction did not consider the Russian response to a NATO expansion into eastern Europe. Today former Warsaw Pact nations like the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, have been brought into NATO along with Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia was admitted into NATO. The ring that Mr. Taft spoke of has tightened. NATO is now on parts of the Russian border.

George F. Kennan – Former Ambassador to Russia

Former ambassador to Russia and architect of the Cold War George F. Kennan said, “What bothers me is how superficial and ill-informed the whole Senate …” ”I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.” NATO was a Cold War military alliance against our adversaries, the Soviet Union, not the people that removed them.

William Burns – Former Ambassador to Russia

Former US Ambassador to Russia William J. Burns, who is now CIA director, admitted in a classified 2008 cable that NATO expansion to Ukraine crosses Russian security redlines. In that State Department cable titled “Nyet Means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines”, Burns cautioned the issue of NATO membership for Ukraine. Burns predicted that Ukraine “could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”

Last week Putin explained the reality of Senator Taft’s prediction. “For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but the very existence of our state and its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.”

For 30 years, Russia has not on wavered on this redline warning. It is not a surprise that Putin followed through on the message. However, idiots like NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg continues to incite war expansion. Statements like; “deploying parts of its combat-ready response force and would continue to send weapons to Ukraine, including air defenses” reeks of war posting.

“Russia is actually challenging core values for security and demanding that NATO should withdraw all forces and infrastructure from almost half of our members. And they have stated that if we don’t meet their demands, there will be “military-technical consequences.” Stoltenberg out of context quotes is rhetoric designed to incite the misinformed.

Because Stoltenberg fails to mention is that NATO expansion poses an existential threat to Russia by placing missile sites, military bases, and combat troops on its border. He also fails to mention that NATO expansion violates an agreement (all NATO members are signatories) stipulating that all parties will refrain from any action that could affect the security interests of the other members.

Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson

How many wars will it take before we listen to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson? Washington advised against permanent alliances, and Jefferson called for devotion to “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

Congressman Ron Paul

In 2008, from the House Floor, Congressman Ron Paul said that “NATO should be disbanded, not expanded.” Washington, Jefferson, Taft, Kennan, Burns, and Paul cannot all be wrong. NATO MUST GO!

War! – Who is it Good For?

Mutual aid, invasion, military operation, call it what you would like. It does not matter innocent civilian victims are killed, maimed, and lives destroyed by armed conflict. Why? Because central governments are evil. It does not matter if they are democracies, monarchs, fascists, dictatorial or socialist they are part of an evil, psychopathic society.

They are not good at balancing budgets, providing health care, education, fighting pandemics, and maintaining infrastructure. However, they are great at starting violent, bloody, and destructive wars. Then when they fail like Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, they double down on a new one. This year, the Ukraine model might be the last ever. (nuclear war)

What purpose does war serve? To claim more servants to tax. To rally more of those sunshine patriots that cheer as the naive sign up to kill or be killed? The military-industrial complex needs to sell more armament and weapons to keep profits high. Is it just a cheap production of a new network series? After all, it has all the necessary plots; murder, international intrigue, heroes, villains, real special effects, and it has a corporation willing to sponsor it. Maybe it is as simple as determining the biggest bully on the block.

War – A Spectator Sport?

It is not a sporting event where people act like fans and choose a team to root. No, it is more like a cock fight where you root for the death of one roster over the life of another. The point is that the event is inhumane. Most of us are disgusted by the event and stay away. We do not pick a rooster to patronize, lionize or supply weapons.

Unlike governments, we do not attend or scour the earth in pursuit of cock fights. So, why do I see media personalities, Hollywood celebrities, neighbors, family, and friends picking sides? Does it matter who is killing who? Diplomacy stops the killing.

Can You Say – Diplomacy?

Diplomacy is a series of concessions to gain a purpose, a give and take process. Biden has said that Ukraine will not be approved for membership into NATO. And back in 2015, the US officially recognized the Minsk Agreement for the autonomy of the Donbas as part of a peace process. Obama, Trump, and Biden never pressured the Ukrainian leaders to enforce the Minsk agreement. Nor have they ever taken steps to stop NATO expansion into eastern Europe. In reality, they voted to approve NATO membership for Eastern European nations.

Presidential candidate Biden promised a presidency of diplomacy. He has failed. NATO expansion to the east has long been one of the Russian concerns. Biden blew a diplomatic action that would have stopped Russian troops from rolling across the Ukrainian border.

Putin’s Birdseye View

Putin, a former KGB colonel, came to power in 1999 after the disastrous rule of Boris Yeltsin. That same year, Putin watched as America conducted a 78-day bombing campaign on Serbia, the Balkan nation that had historically been a protectorate of Russia. Also that year, three former Warsaw Pact nations, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, were brought into NATO. Then in 2004, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, and Bulgaria were admitted into NATO. Three of those counties were former republics of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

What boogyman are US arms and the NATO alliance protecting these countries? The answer is Russia and Putin would be stupid not to realize that. Last Monday, Putin said that during a Clinton visit to Moscow in 2000. He had asked Bill Clinton about the prospects of Russia joining NATO. Putin would not reveal the actual response but pointed out subsequent US policies like “support of the terrorists in North Caucusus, ignoring Russian demands and concerns, withdrawing from the arms limitation treaties, and so on.”

Last week, Putin said that for eight years, he had tried to bring peace to the Ukraine situation in a way that would keep the breakaway republics as part of Ukraine. Consequently, he has no alternative but to announce Russian recognition of the two republics. He signed mutual aid treaties with both republics. The Russian mutual aid package began by demanding Kyiv immediate stoppage of all hostilities. Otherwise, Putin added, all responsibility for a possible continuation of the bloodshed will be on the consciousness of the regime ruling in Ukraine.

With no response from the Ukrainian military, a Russian version of Shock and Awe ensued. Russian forces decapitated Ukrainian missiles and everything that supported the Ukrainian military forces. They hit the HQ of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stationed in Donbas. This blow to the Ukrainian General Staff severed control of all its troops.

Accusations of a Russian invasion are blaring across mainstream media. Is Putin using recognition of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent republics as an excuse to bolster his peacekeeping forces, or has Russia initiated an invasion? It appears Russian armed forces are doing what Putin defined as a “special military operation (…) aimed at demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine”. I assume his declaration to demilitarize includes neutralizing oppositional military forces. No matter what the excuse, crossing over the border is wrong.

The western media is not asking, Why does Putin feel it necessary to make this move at this particular time? He believes that the Ukrainian government that came to power after the 2014 coup is illegitimate, corrupt, and is a threat to Russia. The U.S.-sponsored coup ousted an elected leader that was very popular in the Donbas.

Ukraine History – Pre-Maidan 2014 Coup

In the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner. Later that year, as a result of the Orange Revolution, he was removed from power.

Yanukovych returned to power in 2006 as prime minister in the Alliance of National Unity until snap elections in September 2007 curtailed his power once again. Amid the 2008–09 Ukrainian financial crisis, the Ukrainian economy plunged by 15%, Russia briefly stopped gas supplies to Ukraine in 2006 and 2009.

In 2010, Ukraine needed an experienced leader. Ukrainians elected Viktor Yanukovych president once again with 48% of the votes. It is important to note much of his support came from eastern Ukraine, especially the Donbas provinces.

Maidan Coup

In November 2013, Viktor Yanukovych began moving away from the European Union partnership and chose closer ties with the Russian Federation partnership offer. The European Union and supporters were incensed, protesters went to the streets. The path to the Euro-maidan coup chartered. Fringe groups sided with the pro-European Union protestors. Yanukovych felt threatened enough to flee to Russia. In February of 2014, Ukraine Parliament voted to remove him as president once again and set an election for May to select his replacement.

During the Euromaidan coup, pro-Yanukovych and anti-Maidan protesters took to the streets in the Donbas. They occupied the Donetsk regional state administration (RSA) building for six days. Their protests involved violent clashes between pro-Maidan and anti-Maidan protesters in Donetsk. Separatist groups seizures control over police stations and government buildings in Donetsk and other cities in the Oblast.

Post-Maidan

Ukrainian transitional president Oleksandr Turchynov launched a full-scale anti-terror military operation to reclaim the Donbas buildings. Ukrainian forces made a series of attacks into the Donbas against the rebels. The Ukrainian government forces blockaded cities throughout the Donbas and continued their anti-terror operation. In April, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts held referendums to determine their future status. The results established two new republics, Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Meanwhile, Petro Poroshenko, running on a pro-European Union platform, won over fifty percent of the presidential vote, therefore not requiring a run-off election. His policies angered the Donbas: he opposed the constitutional protection of Russian as a recognized language in ethnic Russian regions; he intensified Ukrainian nationalism; supported decommunization; and administrative decentralization. All measures further infuriated ethnic Russians living in the Donbas opposed.

Poroshenko immediately launched a War on Terror against Russian-speaking separatists in the Donbas. The civil war has dragged on for years, claiming up to 15,000 lives. His newly installed government empowered neo-Nazi militias and ultra-nationalist factions of the coup. He did little to rebuff western Ukrainian stereotypical beliefs that easterners in the Donbas are a thug culture, a Soviet cesspool, and backward.

Ukraine Today

Today Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian, has been serving as the president of Ukraine since 2019. Zelinsky promised to end the Ukrainian conflict with Russia as part of his presidential campaign. His attempt to engage in dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his promises to end the war in Donbas have all failed. These squandered promises have resulted in Russian military forces rolling across the Ukraine border.

Ukraine is not a western democracy. I would call it a coup-ocracy controlled by mafioso-type parties, gangs, special interest groups, and US puppets. It is a country that savory characters leverage their power and influence for selfish returns. Ukraine is so unstable that a coup could break out over the weather.

I do not know what the Donbas offers that makes it war-worthy. I do know that after the 2014 coup removed their popularly elected president, Donetsk and Lugansk voted to leave Ukraine. It is called a secession. In a democratic world, some might even call it a declaration for independence. However, in an indentured world, the masters will battle for their property. Remember Abe?