BY JOHN DERBYSHIRE

 

 

My opening music on Radio Derb this week was a snippet of the great Vladimir Horowitz playing the last movement of Mussorgsky’s piano suite “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Horowitz, generally regarded as the greatest concert pianist of the last century, was born in Kyiv, capital of Ukraine. It was inspired by, duh, pictures the composer saw at an exhibition in 1874. The particular picture that inspired this tenth movement of the suite was a sketch the artist had done for a monumental new city gate the authorities wanted to build for Kyiv. As it happened, the gate was never actually built. But we still have the music.

This is a war within Western civilization.

Last week, after perusing some well-informed commentary from Russia experts, I came down on the side predicting that Putin would invade. Well, he did.

So now the questions are:

• Why did he?
• How will it play out?
• What effect will it have on us in the U.S.A.?

Why did he?

Three likely answers: 1) Putin wants to “gather the Russian lands” in the sense Solzhenitsyn expressed thirty years ago: bringing the three Slavic republics—Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine—along with Kazakhstan all together in a unitary state.

Belarus, as far as I can gather, is already there—just a Russian puppet state. Ukraine has been more resistant; hence this current assault. Kazakhstan is big, resource-rich, and moderately Russified—twenty percent ethnic Russian, mostly up along the border with Russia, says Wikipedia.

Likely answer 2): Putin wants to recreate the U.S.S.R., the collapse of which he once called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” [Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, April 25, 2005]

That would be a more serious matter for the U.S.A. The U.S.S.R. included the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. They are all now in NATO; so under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, if Putin were to attack them, we’d be obliged to join in defending them.

Those of us who’ve been arguing for years that the U.S.A. should get out of NATOhave been fond of posing rhetorical questions like: “What proportion of U.S. voters are willing to see our soldiers die fighting for Lithuania?” and “Why is defending Lithuania’s border with Belarus more important than defending our own southern border?”

If Putin is bent on recreating the U.S.S.R., these questions may not be merely rhetorical much longer.

Likely answer 3) Putin he wants to recreate the 19th-century Russian Empire.

That would certainly be in accord with Putin’s Great-Russian nationalism. It would, however, mean re-occupying Poland. I seriously doubt Putin is contemplating that.

There is also the possibility that Putin’s ambition is actually less than to gather up the Russian lands.

If you look at a map of Ukraine, it’s divided into two pretty equal parts, the east and the west, by the river Dniepr.

 

Read more:

https://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/could-ukraine-be-partitioned-can-russia-survive-exclusion-from-eurovision-song-contest/

 

 

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LIKELY answer 4: Putin does not want NATO on Russia's door steps... End of story.

See: 

defending the heartland...

 

 

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In the night of 25 to 26 February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a ceasefire proposal to Russia via the Chinese Embassy in Kiev.

The Kremlin immediately informed him of its terms: 

•  arrest of all Nazis (special military adviser Dmitro Yarosh, Azov Battalion, etc.), 
•  removal of all street names and monuments glorifying Nazi collaborators during World War II (Stepan Bandera, etc.), 
•  surrender of weapons.

Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine bears no relation to the narrative reflected in the Atlanticist media. As in every war, the mainstream media is addicted to deception and disinformation.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article215848.html

 

NOTE RUSSIA SHOULD PREVAIL in Ukraine, unless the West launch WW3... PUTIN IS PREPARED THAT THE WESTERN HISTORY WILL REMEMBER HIM AS A THUG. HE COULD NOT CARE LESS, HE WILL HAVE SAVED THE "HEARTLAND" FROM AMERICAN HEGEMONY... WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND the enemy of Russia: the USA and us by default.

 

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Ukraine: The Propaganda Wars

 

 

written by daniel mcadams

 

 

 

The media and the war machine (or do I repeat myself?) want us to take sides in the Russo/Ukraine war. To those of us with long histories in military conflicts in which the US foreign policy establishment, media, and military have an interest, the terms are always framed as white hats and black hats - and you had better choose a side! 

"Are you on the side of FREEDOM or are you a puppet of [insert Hitler proxy here]?"

You must take a side. (In fact you must choose the side the Beltway blob wants you to choose).

The US government never fights in the self-interest of the elites. It only fights (directly and by proxy) for the freedom and liberation of others. If you doubt that you are un-American. History started when they tell you it started. Never mind about the past or how US intervention created the circumstances that led to whatever horrible outcome we witness.

The Iraqis would greet us as liberators, we were told. They will love our bombs. Likewise the Libyans once their leader is knife-raped to death. And then of course the Syrians once our al-Qaeda "moderate" head-choppers are put in charge. The rest of the world is so so grateful that the omniscient Washington foreign policy elites can choose their fate for them. Surely they are too foolish to decide for themselves!

Ironically, as the US government and its obedient media were hysterically telling us we must demand Russian blood for their attack on a Ukraine that had not attacked them first, the US government that same day bombed a Somalia that had not attacked it first. And let's not even talk about the horrific Saudi genocide (with full US support) in Yemen.

With one voice the US media, political elites, and brainwashed sheeple scream out: "You can't just go and attack a country that hasn't attacked you!!!" And the people of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and yes even Afghanistan scratch their heads in wonder at the ignorance, hypocrisy, and cynicism.

Like an alcoholic may occasionally get a moment of clarity, a politician may sometimes get a moment of honesty. California US Congressman and lead "Russiagate" conspiracy theorist Adam Schiff, spilled the beans in a 2020 speech:

 

US chauvinism & warmongering is so ingrained that @AdamSchiff can openly declare, in Jan 2020, that US uses Ukraine to “fight Russia over there,” and our elites applaud. Fast forward two years later when Russia fights back, and the same circle is outraged. pic.twitter.com/6B4QVFSZvV

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 26, 2022

 

The US uses Ukraine to fight Russia, but then when Russia fights back we have to pour all our vodka into the street and launch WWIII.

The US military-industrial-media-Congressional complex that is behind this disastrous policy knows well, however, that war brings bigger dividends:

 

Biden’s anti-war coalition of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman sends $350 million in love weapons for NATO’s nonviolent war against Russia and the Azov battalion’s pacifist-style shelling of the Donbas. https://t.co/sYntONlss2

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) February 26, 2022

 

 

This is not a WHATABOUT column, however. It's just to point out how manipulated Americans are by the unholy partnership between government, Washington parasitical elites, and the media.

Perhaps the only thing worse are the third-tier flunkies who do their bidding in international organizations.

Yesterday NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO countries were going to send more weapons to Ukraine. Brilliant! Bureaucrats, especially stupid ones, always double down then their policies are shown to be failures.

As one report quoted the failed Swedish politico/NATO chief: 

 

'We see rhetoric, the messages, which is strongly indicating that the aim is to remove the democratically-elected government in Kiev,' he announced after a meeting with NATO leaders.

 

What? NATO must send weapons to Ukraine because Russia is attempting to remove its democratically-elected government? How dare they! Don't they know that's OUR job?

Here's the side we should be on in Ukraine and everywhere else: non-intervention in the affairs of others. Today's Ukraine nightmare is the product of a US foreign policy that overthrew not one, but two elected Ukrainian governments because the people chose a president that Washington's pampered elites didn't like.

As I wrote in an article yesterday, one thing we can take with us from Russia actually doing what it long said it would do if Ukraine was armed by hostile governments and pulled toward NATO membership is that:

 

Whether America and the EU like it or not, the era of 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality' is well and truly over. Its end is not to be mourned but to be celebrated. The only pro-America foreign policy is non-intervention in the affairs of others.

 

Yes, this is a good thing and it should be celebrated. Don't worry - it's not un-patriotic to applaud an authentically pro-America foreign policy! Now is the time to demand a change in how things are done. It does not weaken the US to decide to not meddle in the affairs of others. On the contrary, we are strengthened by shrugging off the burden of (very badly) running the rest of the globe.

Unless anyone believes we are stronger by burning one trillion dollars for the US military empire each and every year.

Let's ask the truckers and the waiters and the welders of America how they like billions of their hard-earned  dollars laundered to the ultra-rich Beltway elites through corrupt regimes abroad. Foreign aid is falsely perceived as a plate of rice and beans to a motherless child in a war-torn hellhole. The reality is that foreign aid is that which re-models all the bathrooms in million dollars mansions in McLean VA and its evil environs.

Gold plated Beltway toilets. The ignoble flotsam of the corrupt US empire.

 

 

Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

 READ MORE:http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/february/26/ukraine-the-propaganda-wars/   READ FROM TOP.   FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It seems that RT had been taken out of the internet connection to Australia for a few minutes... Who knows....

 

 

• EU to ban RT and Sputnik

• Turkey restricts Russian Navy access

• US claims Russia is ‘manufacturing threats’

• EU closes skies to Russian aircraft

• Ukraine vows not to surrender

• Ukraine releases convicts to fight Russia

• Germany to hike defense spending, buy new weapons

 

 

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