by anthony freda, bless him
The original piece at RT concerning this madness was almost funny, given, well…McCain and Kiev. (briefly): “You really couldn’t make it up, could you? Serial warmonger and unsuccessful US Presidential candidate Senator John McCain has been offered a post as an advisor to Ukraine’s ‘Chocolate King’ President Petro Poroshenko. He was supposed to join other neocon rejects such as Georgia’s fugitive ex-President (and famous tie-eater) Mikhail Saakashvili and the ex-Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. McCain has declined the offer, having tweeted quite positively about it earlier, but the very fact that the offer was made in the first place puts into question just how committed Kiev is to the Minsk II peace process.” No, I won’t bring the song he’d covered so barbarically, but he’d originally glowed that he’d have to ask about Senate rules “and all that stuff”. But whoa, Nellie; this morning I’d read about this alarming new law that the Rada had just passed; it had been offered by our friend Yats, in favor, out of favor, now: in like Flynn again (perhaps he’s the chameleon-esque Ahmed Chalabi of Ukraine). ‘Kiev to allow foreign armed forces in Ukraine, incl. ‘potential carriers of nukes’
Servicemen of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army attend an opening ceremony of joint military exercise “Fearless Guardian 2015” at the International Peacekeeping Security Center near the village of Starychy western Ukraine, April 20, 2015
“The Ukrainian parliament has adopted amendments to state law allowing “admission of the armed forces of other states on the territory of Ukraine.” The possible hosting of foreign weapons of mass destruction is also mentioned in the documents. Amendments to Ukrainian law were adopted on Thursday by the Verkhovna Rada, receiving a majority of 240 votes (the required minimum being 226). The bill was submitted to the parliament in May by PM Arseny Yatsenyuk. It focuses on the provision of “international peacekeeping and security” assistance to Ukraine at its request.” But wait for it… “Peacekeeping missions are to be deployed “on the basis of decision of the UN and/or the EU,” the bill published on the parliament’s official website says.” FM Lavrov was measured in response: ”There are no madmen in the EU’ to send peacekeepers to Ukraine.’ And who could help but chortle aloud at this comical thinking?: “In a comparative table, published among the accompanying documents to the bill, “potential carriers of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction are permitted under international agreement with Ukraine for short-term accommodation,” with Kiev providing proper control during the period that such forces were stationed there.” It’s good to hear that implementation of the new law won’t ‘require additional expenditures from the State Budget of Ukraine.” (see Michael Hudson for how important that is; because: Operation Vulture.) But holy hell, and hang on to your hats! wsws.org is reporting on an Associated Press piece from June 4: ‘US officials consider nuclear strikes against Russia’, by Niles Williamson “US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is meeting today at the headquarters of the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany with two dozen US military commanders and European diplomats to discuss how to escalate their economic and military campaign against Russia. They will assess the impact of current economic sanctions, as well as NATO’s strategy of exploiting the crisis in eastern Ukraine to deploy ever-greater numbers of troops and military equipment to Eastern Europe, threatening Russia with war. A US defense official told Reuters that the main purpose of the meeting was to “assess and strategize on how the United States and key allies should think about heightened tensions with Russia over the past year.” The official also said Carter was open to providing the Ukrainian regime with lethal weapons, a proposal which had been put forward earlier in the year. Most provocatively, a report published by the Associated Press yesterday reports that the Pentagon has been actively considering the use of nuclear missiles against military targets inside Russia, in response to what it alleges are violations of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Russia denies US claims that it has violated the INF by flight-testing ground-launched cruise missiles with a prohibited range.’ Major sabre rattling? One might hope so, but consider the horrific dangers: “Nuclear warmongering by US officials immensely heightens the danger of all-out war erupting accidentally, amid escalating military tensions and strategic uncertainty. NATO forces are deploying for military exercises all around Russia, from the Arctic and Baltic Seas to Eastern Europe and the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Regional militaries are all on hair-trigger alerts. US officials threatening Russia cannot know how the Kremlin will react to such threats. With Moscow concerned about the danger of a sudden NATO strike, Russia is ever more likely to respond to perceived signs of NATO military action by launching its missiles, fearing that otherwise the missiles will be destroyed on the ground. The danger of miscalculations and miscommunications leading to all-out war is immensely heightened.” War in the Donbass has increased the past two days, especially in Marinka, west of Donetsk; both ‘sides’’ blame the other. The G-7 is meeting this weekend in Brussels, and the key topic is of course: What to do about…Russia and Crimea. As an added treat du jour, via an interview with the lovely Stephen Harper, the AP is reporting: ‘A Putin-led Russia should not be allowed back in the G7, Harper vows; the G7 suspended Russia last year following the annexation of Crimea, but has not ruled out allowing it back’ Yes, regime change is likely the only answer, Stephen. Speaking of showing how buff and overly-prepared NATO is, and exhibiting belligerence toward the Great Bear: https://twitter.com/NATODepSpox/status/606437083109048320 https://twitter.com/NATOSource/status/604318825211924480 Given that I was unable to find the original AP piece for some time, I’d almost bailed on writing it. But I finally did; hours later, RT posted the link that none of the other websites giving this news had. Odd-bodkins, that. Mind you, there are some who claim to believe that at least ‘they’ can survive ‘a limited nuclear war (whatever that is). But the dirty fuckin’ hippies have always had it right…
There’s just one thing I got to know, Can you tell me please, who won? Say, can I have some of your purple berries? Yes, I’ve been eating them for six or seven weeks now, Haven’t got sick once. Prob’ly keep us both alive…
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
‘the russians aren’t coming!‘ putin:
“Speaking to the paper on the eve of his visit to Italy, Putin stressed that one should not take the ongoing “Russian aggression” scaremongering in the West seriously, as a global military conflict is unimaginable in the modern world.
“I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid,” Putin said.
Certain countries could be deliberately nurturing such fears, he added, saying that hypothetically the US could need an external threat to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. “Iran is clearly not very scary or big enough” for this, Putin noted with irony.”
oh, dear: LOOK; there they are in stuttgart! the ship of state is listing, seems about capsize!
DoDay! The Crashitocracy simply must be expunged.
Otherwise, it’s our epitaph.
great mix tape. yep, the dfh’s were right. the sad truth most USians are down with the new cold war, and few give a good goddam about police brutality and extra-judicial killings. until they are on the receiving end…that’s just how it will be.
the ptb know how to keep those who serve and protect their masters, and their master’s property…doing it, this ain’t new, but it shows again how long it’s been going on.
I put this link in the open category because of its humor but it really deserves to be here as well. Jonathan Winters just cracked me up in the movie I referenced, and Putin has a great one-liner in this one.
http://rt.com/news/265399-putin-nato-europe-ukraine-italy/
Everyone in the Us of A should watch “The Russians are Coming”. Blessings on all who made that movie happen.
ha; i’d put in my first comment upstream. he and lavrov responded with elegant excellence. yikes, i can’t even remember if i’ve seen that movie.
this is all so insane. the Empire/nato are just forcing the russians to up their defensive capabilities (although they say they’re not), not to mention that is was obama who’d chosen to withdraw from the ABM treaty, and rejected putin’s plan to revive it among The Three: russia, the US, and europe.
oh, yes, and we know how *accidents* can happen when tensions are running so high. nuclear madness…
I apologize, wendye. The Saker has the complete interview, and they translate it a bit differently than rt – no mention of ‘one night stand’ though the comparison of a lover vs. his mistress is adroitly argued.
http://thesaker.is/vladimir-putin-interview-to-the-italian-newspaper-il-corriere-della-sera/
I think you would enjoy the movie. It’s also very child friendly.
apologize for doubling the link pleasure or the length of that interview, lol? oy, glad you brought a salient point.
smart of him to head to the milan expo, as he tries to peel off more euro nations from a unanimous vote on further sanctions, though.
but oh, yes: Operation #baltops is cruising along in the baltic (hint, hint: putin), including b-52 bombers aloft, and new unmanned planes.
on edit: has it been raining.raining.raining on you the past couple days? here, yes; even the burned menefee mountain is greenin’ up. greenish on the ground with black spikes of burned trees; pretty in an odd sort of way.
remember: we are paying for all this stuff.
A pound Of Flesh, per peon.
yes, per peon. as an aside, i’ve been watching those whose lives are now about to become dedicated to electoral politics, especially presidential. bernie sanders seems to be the savior alternative to hillary (reading ‘proggie/liberal’ women at some of the websites like ‘the nation’ is mind-numbingly sickening).
but back to bernie: he is drawing incredible accolades for his stand against the tpp, for: free college, universal health care, financial ‘equality’, anti-corporatism,goddess knows what…but speaks not a word against: capitalism or the military budget. well, and speaks not about police brutality, labor peons, or the #blackLivesmatter movement, mass incarceration, yada yada. bernie is a capitalist ‘reformer’, a *democratic socialist*…not a socialist.
well, in a word: Pffttttttt.
Bernie regularly asks questions about the results of capitalism: “Why do we have such staggering and rapidly increasing inequality?”, “When is enough enough?”, “Why do kids go to bed hungry in the ‘richest’ country on earth?”. Any viable answer to these must involve the Immorality of Capitalism as the central organizing principle of society.
Bernie has called for the breakup of the big banks and other SDIs. He has stated that US veterans didn’t [mean to] go to war to create this slide into oligarchy. He clearly calls our system of corporate controlled government oligarchy, over and over again. The translation to capitalism is left as an exercise for the voter.
I think the American people are smart enough to figure out what the news rubs in our face everyday. The question is not whther Bernie will support Hillary, it is whether the Democratic Party will stave off the insurgency he is trying to instigate. There is no better chance at an honest and successful peaceful uprising anywhere in our future. I for one will take a half a loaf of fresh bread over the shiploads of rotten spam that are always on offer.
Check out the weather report InTheseTimes and the Wisconsin straw poll to see which way the wind is blowing.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/17948/bernie_sanders_democrats
http://www.democraticunderground.com/128012101
as to your WI straw poll results, paul street offered this, including the WI union rebellion against the loss of collective bargaining rights:
“Let us never forget the shut-down of the great early 2011 Wisconsin Rebellion as union and political leaders moved to channel the remarkable populist social movement energies that had emerged in response to the right wing Teapublican Governor Scott Walker’s assault on public sector workers’ collective bargaining rights into a doomed and ridiculous campaign to recall Walker and replace him with a hapless and dismal Democrat (Tommy Barrett) who Walker had already trounced. It is one of recent history’s classic textbook studies in the Democratic Party’s ability to move workers and citizens off the “urgent task” by shutting down social movements with candidate-centered major party politics. It is a monument – one among many, to be sure – to Zinn’s “election madness.” Walker, by the way, is now a top dark-horse candidate to seriously challenge Jeb Bush as the Republican presidential nominee for 2016.
Second, there’s the deepened sense of popular powerlessness that will be engendered when Sanders is defeated, as he almost certainly will be given the giant financial expense of presidential politics and the inevitable and powerful bias of elite campaign donors and “mainstream” (corporate) media against any candidate who calls himself a socialist (however vague and mild that candidate’s usage of that term may be) and runs against the over-concentration of wealth. The fact that Sanders will campaign on behalf of policies that most US citizens actually support but will lose will fuel the deadly illusion that progressive, social-democratic policies lack majority support and further a sense of futility and isolation among progressive activists. And that is not positively correlated with meaningful popular action of any kind, outside or inside the reigning US elections racket. Quite the opposite. That’s worse than “little, if any good.” It’s harmful for progressive causes and people.”
for myownself, i became anti-capitalist for two reasons. i’d watched and written about the step by step failure of financial reform post 2008, and saw the obama white house eject anything that reigned in wall street. i also learned about the inherent evils of capitalism by reporting on the various side meetings to the ‘global’ climate change meetings at which the indigenous of the global south were not permitted *officially*.
they showed me clearly that liberal fixes to climate change were simply bogus, and allowed corporations to run amok with programs like REDD that were likely designed to be fatally flawed.
here’s one i seem to have transplanted to this site, as our archives from my.fdl seem to have been erased for the most part:
https://cafe-babylon.net/2013/05/04/green-capitalism-and-the-peoples-summit-at-rio20/
depending on which Dem rebecca solnit backs during the primaries, i’d expect her to make another lote plea to the ‘rancid left’ (purists). but i reckon i won’t switch my affiliation back to D just to vote for BS in the primary. and please understand that i don’t disrespect your reasoning, lemoyne. likely i hold a rather unorthodox/minority point of view.
i spent two or three decades running campaigns for dems, and am now srsly disenchanted that any o the good ones can get elected; nor do i believe that once elected, they don’t automatically turn into ‘other people’. come to think of it, the same thing happened to school board and town board members i almost single-handedly helped get elected.
while the ‘in these times’ author makes a few good points, i’m not convinced, although i see electoral politics as a serious dead end. and of course it matters that he’s already said that he’ll bow to the queen eventually, and that he’s voted with the dems 98% of the time. i do admire your belief that he could bring a ‘peaceful uprising’, but he isn’t appealing to the Rabble class that i’m counting on. let me offer a few critiques, at least two quote howard zinn’s beliefs of what people power a true socio-political revolution can be inspired by:
‘The Sanders Syndrome Hits Home Court’ by paul street
‘A Contribution to the Critique of the Sanders Campaign’ at workers action
and this piece from the socialist worker, via Z.
and here i was hoping you might stop by to comment on the empire v. the bear. ;-)
a few fun new additions (and THD would love the irony of this first one):
‘Putin intends to undermine NATO!!!!‘ – Jt. Chiefs Chairman Dempsey
joe biden tells der spiegel: ‘Biden says Europeans questioning Russia sanctions ‘inappropriate, annoying‘’
People who spent their formative years in the Cold War US foreign policy and military have difficulty adjusting. Mutually Assured Destruction seemed so stable compared to now. Irony, yes. Putin is talking about a trade area between Lisbon and Vladivostok as the Eurobanks and IMF are about to light the match to blow up the European Union through Greece default or exit from the Euro and UK Eurosceptic withdrawal from the EU.
The Putin visit shows that he would like to provide Italy some options and Russia-Greece dialogue over a pipeline seeks to provide Greece (and Turkey) options.
When Putin and Lavrov rescued the Obama administration from walking into a war in Syrian over the chemical weapons issue, the Obama administration briefly explored that relationship until the the hawks in Congress started hinting about hamstringing DoD legislation. That was the point at which Nuland and Pyatt got their coup greenlighted. What is apparent is that there is a struggle between the liberal interventionists and the hardrock anti-Russian neocons. Sometimes rhetoric signals policy and sometimes it signals “I’ve got these crazies and they are problems.” Would that we knew what US official statements are actually saying to Russian counterparts instead of the US media war-hype.
IMO, the US has painted itself into a corner on Ukraine exactly at the time that the EU has painted itself into a corner on Greece. And everyone seems to be doubling down.
The US is engaged in brinksmanship in the Baltic and in the South China Sea trying to divert the SCO into a more military posture that would justify a new war footing (cold or otherwise). And more military expenditures to try to goose the US economy. (March of Folly)
The nuclear weapons stuff is IMO overblown as a change. Neither the US nor Russia did anything after the Cold War but stand down from 24/7 active alert status and reduction of nuclear weapons to 4800 warheads each. Under SALT II, the US and Russia reduced the number of active warheads to 2104 for the US and 1600 for Russia (the difference negotiated differences in delivery means between the countries; US weapons depend more on multiple independent re-entry vehicles on single launch vehicles and cruise missiles compared to Russia). The nature of nuclear deterrence depends on the credibility of madman actions; both sides still have like multiple launch plans in place conditioned on certain situations. It is only the lead-up time of crisis that is different from the constant alert during the Cold War.
One is concerned whether so many of the old hands are gone that the decision structure might be more open to the idea of actually using nuclear weapons for intimidation instead of deterrence. Part of the modernization is to improve safety and reliability against accidents. Other parts are rumored to try to seek some sort of advantage from the existing SALT II numbers of weapons. The way to step back from nuclear weapons would be to move to an allowance of 300 weapons and conclude and agreement under which China, India, France, UK, Pakistan, and Israel join the arms reduction conversation. Not seeing US policymakers lining up to advocate that yet.
Other than feinting against Republican attacks on being soft, I cannot understand exactly what the Obama foreign policy team thinks it is up to and what it seeks to accomplish by January 2017.
And now, you might be able to add Turkey to the mix of nations like Greece and Italy that are NATO members who might seek a different policy towards Russia. It’s not clear how the repudiation of Erdogan will play out.
The objective reality is that Putin is correct. Good-faith implementation of Minsk-II will stabilize the situation in Ukraine. The Baltics and Ukraine (and Belarus) add to European stability to the extent that they are Finlandized buffers for now between Russia and the Atlantic Community nations. Infrastructure connections and trade over time will reduce the conflicts that lead to war. The objective reality is that the US would do better partnering with that vision than trying to disrupt it, aiding in restoring and extending infrastructure instead of continuing to destroy it or creating conditions that destroy it.
What is striking is the difference between the calm tone in Putin’s interviews and the aggressive tone in US statements. Hoping that the Europeans force an end to the sanctions on Russia and a turn toward restoring the European economy as the western terminus of trade from the Far East.
thanks for the informative comment, thd. i did think you’d laugh at dempsey’s willfully clueless ‘accusation’ against putin.
i guess i hadn’t thought that these bellicose statements from ash carter, scher, and breedlove were do much ‘media hype’ as their schoolyard bully immaturity driven by their fear of the shifting winds of geopolitics. plenty of anti-chinese agitprop afoot, as well.
this is very interesting among many other items you see: ” Sometimes rhetoric signals policy and sometimes it signals “I’ve got these crazies and they are problems.” i confess i hadn’t known/remembered that after putin saved the US’s bacon over attacking syria that obama had signaled some rapprochement with russia, but i’ll take your word for it.
these do seem to be those ‘interesting times’ once again, given all of the new financial alliances that also have defense alliances as at least a subtext. but i like that you see the new silk roads and pipelines as an operating ‘force’ while the EU may be blowing itself up with its hard-assism toward greece and intractability on russian sanctions. last i read from the g-7, all the language was still about ‘keeping them in place until minsk II, yada yada’, US wanting moar, moar, but…this time ‘crimea’ came into the verbiage, not simply ‘hands off ukraine’.
but already folks are writing about the ‘new maidan’ protests over austerity, so that’ll be interesting to watch. and the degree to which the west ‘helps’ kiev militarily (or admits it), won’t it?
but speaking of kids pretending to be adults: samantha power and susan rice are exactly that to me.
https://share.america.gov/truth-about-russias-attacks-in-ukraine/
and wow; one can read those osce reports differently…
Dempsey should know that NATO has lacked a purpose since the day Boris Yeltsin took power in Russia.
http://www.unz.com/article/the-geopolitics-of-american-global-decline/
A long read that presents an overview of Mackinder’s heartland/rimland geopolitics as a means of analyzing US decline and China’s actions in the New Silk Road and naval development. If you are already over-Mackindered, scan the section on China or just look at the maps.
In politics, narrative shapes the reality to a certain extent. If both sides believe Mackinder, they will strategically act in accordance with Mackinder’s recommendations, which will make his analysis self-fulfilling.
The article reminded me of the extent to which developing dual-use infrastructure strengthens a country and its economy in peacetime and provides a strategic advantage in wartime compared to strictly military infrastructure. Eisenhower’s big strategic investment was the Interstate “nation defense highway” system. The biggie on the horizon is shifting military energy use from fossil fuels to something else and something available domestically or locally on deployment; the big ships of the navy mostly are nuclear, which has its own environmental and geopolitical problems. High-speed, low-cost rail can move military logistics and troops faster and with less cost for land powers. Those trapped in Mackinder’s view as sea powers will have to up the technology for massively deploying logistics and troops across oceans. Airlifts are fast but limited in the quantities of logistics and troops that can be moved quickly. Naval vessels can move large quantities but are slow.
The flaw in Mackinder’s theory is its first assumption–that world domination is the purpose of diplomacy and foreign policy. Those who act out of Mackinder’s narrative “for defense” get sucked into repurposing their national security for world domination. And that sucks out so many resources and creates counter-powers that then seek world domination for themselves that the arms races eventually destroy the very power that is being sought and does not bring the peace, prosperity, and glory the delusion offered. Political integration through force always seems to be self-destructive and more rapidly so than other forms of political integration.
i am an un-kindered virgin. thank you for the cliff’s notes for now. i’m on a brief break from garden transplanting, tryin’ to beat the next five days of rain (beautiful rain!) forecast.
more as i can; i forgot to ask one question from your first thoughts.
okay, i finished informative as all giddy-up piece (pant, pant), and for one thing, have a new understanding of the breadth of the term “geopolitical” than i had before. i don’t get this, though:
the “Harry Truman, in contrast, overcame national ambivalence to commit “America to the shaping of a new international order,” a policy wisely followed by the next 12 presidents.” (wisely for the US Imperium?) oh, and by the way, yves smith has mccoy’s piece at her site, too. likely it’s caused a lively discussion, eh? ;-)
i hope i can remember to take the time to read the link to zbig’s ‘operaiton cyclone’
‘global hawk drones’; oy, i hadn’t know they had those capabilities.
the high speed rail facts and figures were supremely interesting; compare them to the US and wince, but holy hell, china has spent a lot of money on (as you say) ‘dual-use infrastructure’.
oh, goodness; now we’re gettin’ down to it; i’ll paste some in for those who haven’t the time to read mcCoy’s long and excellent essay.
“Finally, Beijing has only recently revealed a deftly designed strategy for neutralizing the military forces Washington has arrayed around the continent’s perimeter. In April, President Xi Jinping announced construction of that massive road-rail-pipeline corridor direct from western China to its new port at Gwadar, Pakistan, creating the logistics for future naval deployments in the energy-rich Arabian Sea.
In May, Beijing escalated its claim to exclusive control over the South China Sea, expanding Longpo Naval Base on Hainan Island for the region’s first nuclear submarine facility, accelerating its dredging to create three new atolls that could become military airfields in the disputed Spratley Islands, and formally warning off U.S. Navy overflights. By building the infrastructure for military bases in the South China and Arabian seas, Beijing is forging the future capacity to surgically and strategically impair U.S. military containment.
“In a decade or two, should the need arise, China will be ready to surgically slice through Washington’s continental encirclement at a few strategic points without having to confront the full global might of the U.S. military, potentially rendering the vast American armada of carriers, cruisers, drones, fighters, and submarines redundant.”
i’d been thinking to mention a few things on which his piece gave short shrift, but…kapow! the ending has left me a bit breathless. but now we know why the south china sea’ is of prime importance to NATO. thank you.
and thank you for your final paragraph especially. race to the top militarily means race to the bottom for the rabble, and creates a very fraught realpolitik. interesting times ++.
The nuclear missile command of the Pentagon, is always planning for nuclear war. That is their job. Same for any other country that has nuclear weapons.
So this is just to frighten people, and cause trouble. That appears to be this person’s job.
you may be right, mark, but as it was both Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Joe Skewers and policy aid to ash carter, robert scher who’d said it outright, i tended to believe they mean it. again, some of these folks actually believe i) that nuclear war is survivable for ‘them’, and ii) have zero idea about what it might mean to make a nuclear strike on weapon systems, especially nuclear ones. they give me the absolute shivers.
i wondered if one section of thd’s comment was meant to indicate that with multiple redundancies, an ‘accident’ was unlikely to happen. but then, the DoD just sent live anthrax to what, 51 facilities in 19 states or something? Oh, but don’t worry: plenty of safeguards were in place…
‘G7 to impose more sanctions on Russia if Ukraine conflict continues‘
(kiev will make certain it does) no mention of ‘crimea’ again.
“Investigative journalist Tony Gosling told RT that it seems Western politicians are being driven by the US into the anti-Russian rhetoric.
“This is our old Cold War talk, that is really driven by the Americans, and it certainly does not represent the views of European people or business, which is a bit worrying,” he said.
While this policy may serve the interests of US and UK elites, it isn’t to the benefit of most European countries, political commentator Caleb Maupin told RT.
“Germany and many other countries throughout Europe are basically being forced to work against their own interests in order to help the United States,” Maupin said.
Russia sanctions seem to have hit the EU countries harder than the US. On Sunday, Cameron said Europe had to stay united to keep sanctions on Russia in place despite the pain they have caused.”
ah, shared sacrifice.
I agree with you. There have been quite a few of near miss nuclear wars.
And probably insane people in power who think “its worth it”
You start to wonder if the President has any power, or in this case, maybe he just doesn’t care. Obama appears to be disconnected from reality.
my guess is that i’ve forgotten most of the near *known* misses, but i’d guess there are more *unknown to the public* ones.
i have no idea who obama is, nor how he fits in with the vast complex of capitalist hegemonic military goals and hubris. but were he unhappy with it, he could have chosen not to run for a second term, yes? and think: his 2 legacies (by choice, lies, and corruption) will be obamaDontCare and perhaps…fast track for corporate almost global rule.