Yesterday’s colloquy between Scott and me began with strong endorsement of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin clear “NO” to proposals for a “No-Fly-Zone-Light” over Ukraine. Scott spells out in some detail what all that would mean.
What are the chances of a false-flag chemical weapon attack blaming Russia? Was Blinken into a smoke-and-mirrors routine Wednesday, when he warned:
“We believe that Moscow may be setting the stage to use a chemical weapon and then falsely blame Ukraine to justify escalating its attacks.”
Worthy of note here, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu issued an extraordinarily specific warning of what may be in store — and who Moscow might believe responsible — in a major speech on Dec. 21:
The presence of over 120 members of US private military companies in Avdeyevka and Priazovskoye, Donetsk Region, has been proved reliably. They are setting up firing positions in residential houses and social facilities and are preparing the Ukrainian special operations forces and far-right armed groups for active hostilities. Unidentified chemical warfare agents have been delivered to Avdeyevka and Krasny Liman for the purpose of provocations. … [Emphasis in bold added.]
Scott puts in context the revelations regarding what Victoria Nuland (who herself shares a lot of the responsibility for the crisis in Ukraine) called “Biological Research Facilities”. “This stinks to high heaven”, says Scott — and it surely does.
Last, but hardly least, China was discussed while the Chinese were giving their official readout from the telephone call yesterday that Biden had requested. Was Biden told he could use personal diplomacy to drive a wedge between China and Russia?! Or was this simply a cynical attempt by Blinken and fellow geniuses to tar China with the brush used for Russian invaders? Or both?
Sorry, Tony; that horse galloped out of the barn a year ago. Remember? The arrogantly naive “exceptional” attitude you and Jake Sullivan showed your Chinese counterparts in Anchorage a year ago could not have better designed to put them off? Whether this was intentional or just dumb doesn’t matter at this point. The Chinese still consider you “not qualified” to talk to them that way — or to prod President Biden to do the same.
While Scott and I were talking, the NY Times swallowed hard and issued this initial report of the Chinese readout:
According to a readout of the phone call between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi released by Chinese state media, the Chinese leader expressed opposition to the broad sanctions imposed on Russia, warning they could trigger crises in the global economy. He referenced a Chinese saying, “Let he who tied the bell on the tiger take it off,” an idiom that he has used before to convey that the responsibility for solving a problem should fall on the person who created it. In the call, Mr. Xi did not suggest that China could play a role in ending the war.
Finally, Scott expressed the view that, although the Russians have faced unexpectedly strong opposition from a Ukrainian army now trained and led by NATO standards, Russian victory on the ground is inevitable.
Who’s running the show in Washington on Ukraine? Why was Zelensky invited before Congress to appeal for the kind of help President Joe Biden had already ruled out, lest it lead to war with Russia? And why was Biden told to tell that reporter Putin is a “war criminal”?
Are the neocons getting desperate? The outlines of a deal to stop the fighting are already visible, including neutrality for Ukraine and no NATO membership. These need to be put down in writing. Other hurdles (Crimea, Donets, Lugansk) are not insuperable. First and foremost, a ceasefire is needed.
Instead of encouraging Zelensky to make a deal, the Victoria Nulands of this world (and her proteges like Gilbert and Sullivan — sorry, I mean Blinken (who writes the script) and Sullivan (who composes the music) are taking advantage of Zelensky’s formidable acting abilities, with the inevitable result that thousands more Ukrainians will die/be wounded unless a ceasefire comes soon.
The U.S. learned a bitter lesson from the Hungarian revolution in 1956, when Radio Free Europe encouraged unarmed Hungarians to fight off Soviet tanks (hinting that the U.S. would help) — in other words, encouraged them to fight till the last Hungarian. When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, my duties in Germany included liaison with Radio Free Europe to which I passed along guidance from Washington.
RFE management, although highly sympathetic to the Czechs and Slovaks, carefully avoided the kind of incendiary rhetoric used in 1956, thus sparing countless Czechs and Slovaks from becoming dead Davids before the tanks of the Goliath named Brezhnev.
I have not had time to closely monitor what kind of message RFE is giving Ukrainians these days but — not surprisingly — with RFE’s meretricious emphasis on Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion, I think it is a safe bet we are back to the example of 1956, this time fighting till the last Ukrainian.
We also touched on the role of the neo-Nazi Azov brigade; also the important role of China.
Please stay tuned for our next posting — Scott Ritter and I on The Critical Hour yesterday.
Toward the end of a March 8 interview on The Critical Hour, I opted to address an important issue that has not been given the attention it deserves; namely, the reality that the pervasive attention given to the violence in Ukraine carries a huge “Opportunity Cost”.
Economists use the term to refer to missed opportunities — like earmarking millions of dollars for don’t-care weapons, when the dollars could be used for health-care or day-care — what Dr. King called “programs of social uplift”. Recall that a year before he was murdered, King warned that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death”.
The Mother of All Opportunity Costs
Spiritual death is bad enough. What about physical death? Most human beings would deplore any agonizing physical death — by starvation, for example. And most humans care about what’s in store for children and grandchildren. An exceedingly selfish minority may care only about THEIR children and grandchildren. Sorry, folks; on climate change we are all in this together — that is, unless you are above 70 and don’t give a rat’s patootie about ANY children.
By the “Mother of All Opportunity Costs” I refer, of course, to the abject failure of us adults to stave off or even substantially attenuate the faster-than-anyone-expected doom of global warming, while we go on blithely filling the pockets of war profiteers with our taxes. That’s what ALL coming generations (including the one-percenters who live in gated communities) are doomed to experience, if we continue to let our attention be focused almost exclusively on things like the East-West power struggle centering on Ukraine. (This assumes that nuclear war/nuclear winter, by design or miscalculation, does not come first.)
Fresh in my mind was the priority attention she sensibly gave to the existential issue of climate change a year ago. Several days after she oversaw last year’s threat briefing, Haines showed she was capable of broader thinking. Here’s what she said in a major speech on April 22:
“Climate change knows no boundaries, respects no national borders, and cannot be addressed by any one nation on its own. We must work together on the challenge before us. … working with my colleagues across every department and agency in the United States, including state, local and tribal authorities, we intend to make this a whole-of-government effort – working not just to protect American national security but to protect human security around the world.”
The following day, eager for the slightest sign that some senior official had her/his head screwed on right, I sent this tweet:
Sanity from Intel Director Avril Haines: “Climate change can't be addressed by one nation on its own.” Dare she add that lies re threat from Russia/China & HUGE carbon imprint from military, are major obstacles? Does “Threat Briefing" point to new honesty? https://t.co/INFRPVpr7D
Sadly, even if Haines had the courage of her convictions and brought her concerns to the White House, there is virtually no chance they would have any impact on Pentagon decisions. The Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank (MICIMATT) complex rules.
This Year
This year we saw no such outspokenness from National Intelligence Director Haines or her minions. The 2022 threat briefing relegates this quintessential issue to page 21 (of 30), on which this tepid “insight” sums things up:
“The combination of environmental degradation, rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and other climate effects is likely to lead to an array of human challenges such as food and water insecurity and threats to human health.”
Pope Francis Gives It a Try
Most Popes are reluctant to call a spade a spade. Pope Francis is different. But, alas, to quote Josef Stalin’s famous question — “How many divisions does the Pope have?” — the answer is fewer even than Avril Haines has. (Besides, the Vatican is often excellent with rhetoric, but woefully deficient in getting the faithful to implement it.)
Francis did give it his best shot in a speech before both houses of Congress on Sept. 24, 2015, when he made bold to say:
“The main problem is the blood-soaked arms traders.”
Members of House and Senate rose as one to applaud. To those who know how the system works, the enthusiasm of those congress-people, who profiteer on tension and war, was giving hypocrisy itself a bad name. In my mind’s eye, I could see them checking their pockets to make sure the most recent checks from Lockheed and Raytheon had not slipped out with all the clapping. It was the “C” in MICIMATT on display.
Add a Lack of Trust to Avarice
If we are to meet the challenge of climate change identified by Director Haines, it cannot be addressed by any one nation on its own. As she noted, “we must work together not just to protect American national security but to protect human security around the world.” The sad news today is this requires a modicum of trust.
It was a given that the MICIMATT would do all it could to thwart anything that might jeopardize its ability to profiteer on tension and war. But what about the “lightening flashes of trust”?
At Putin’s press conference immediately following the June 16 summit, he was asked if he had reached “a new level of trust with the U.S. president”. In answer, Putin quoted Leo Tolstoy:
“Tolstoy once said, there is no happiness in life, only lightening flashes (зарницы) of it — cherish them. I believe that in this situation some kind of family trust is not possible. However, it seems to me we have seen “lightening flashes” of it (“зарницы” промелькнули).
Two weeks earlier, Putin had pointed to the political pressures any U.S. president faces in trying to carve out a less acrimonious relationship with Russia. He asserted that “to a certain extent, Russian-American relations have become hostage to internal political processes in the United States itself.” (Emphasis added.)
Putin added:
“I hope it ends someday. I mean the fundamental interests in the field of at least security, strategic stability and the reduction of weapons dangerous for the whole world are still more important than the current domestic political situation in the United States itself.”
Trust is Gone; Are Chemicals Ahead?
Clearly, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic sanctions imposed on it have begun a new chapter in East-West relations (with its most significant feature so far being China’s support for Putin). We now should report signs of the worst — from both sides — if only in an asttempt to head it off.
Gilbert Doctorow, and astute analyst of Russia, warned on his blog today that it is “highly likely” the United States is about to carry out a ‘false flag’ operation in Ukraine in which it will accuse the Russians of using chemical weapons. (See: https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/03/13/false-flag-chemical-attack-in-ukraine-a-coming-attraction/ ). This, of course, is a terrifying prospect, but Establishment media in the West do seem to be laying the groundwork for it.
At the UN this week, not all were convinced — notably China — by the U.S. delegate’s attempt to rebut Russian claims of more nefarious activities at the “biological research facilities” in Ukraine mentioned by Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland Tuesday. What better way to detract attention from those labs, and in the process perhaps even thwart any investigation of the evidence Moscow says is possesses? With Establishment media buy-in (a given) the diversion would be a slam dunk, so to speak.
And so, if you hear reports of a Russian chemical attack in or near Ukraine, well, kick the tires.
Of interest in this regard is the unusually detailed warning/prediction that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu included in his formal State of the Armed Forces speech to Putin and senior generals/admirals on Dec. 21, 2021 (See: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67402 )
“ … The presence of over 120 members of US private military companies in Avdeyevka and Priazovskoye, Donetsk Region, has been proved reliably. They are setting up firing positions in residential houses and social facilities and are preparing the Ukrainian special operations forces and far-right armed groups for active hostilities. Unidentified chemical warfare agents have been delivered to Avdeyevka and Krasny Liman for the purpose of provocations. …” [Emphasis added.]
Robert Scheer and I covered a lot of ground on Russia, Ukraine, U.S., China, and Europe yesterday for his Scheer Intelligence podcast. After seeing the March 2 salon at which John Mearsheimer and I spoke, Scheer asked me, in effect, to do a follow-up on some of the key issues discussed.
The YouTube video of that salon has already gotten over 700,000 hits. (See: https://raymcgovern.com/2022/03/06/starring-nuland-pyatt-in-their-own-words/ , which embeds the more polished video of that salon and includes the intercepted conversation between Victoria Nuland and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, as they plotted, en clair, the Feb. 22, 2014 coup in Kyiv.) Thanks to YouTube, which posted that conversation, news of the upcoming coup — including the key dramatis personnae — were publicly available 18 days before the coup itself.
Watching the YouTube video of that salon, Robert Scheer was particularly struck by former senior Pentagon adviser/MIT physics professor Ted Postol’s alarming remarks during the Q&A. (As if still more strategic uncertainty were needed today!), Ted reminded us that the Russian early warning system cannot immediately detect the firing of ballistic missiles wherever they are — on land or sea.
I was happy to be able to note for Scheer’s podcast listeners that the Committee for the Republic has invited Ted Postol to lead a salon on Ukraine and Nuclear Risk on March 17 at 7:00 PM Eastern. The Committee’s salons are free and open to all.
CrowdStrike testified on Dec 5, 2017 it had no forensic evidence that Russia hacked DNC emails. Schiff hid that until May 7, 2020 when he had to release. https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/sh21.pdf In just 7 months the NYT will have matched Schiff’s record for silence.
Some readers may be among the 300,000-plus, who have already watched Wednesday’s salon featuring universally respected (until Wednesday, at least) professor John Mearsheimer and me — with Q&A input from Amb. Jack Matlock, physics professor/former Pentagon adviser Ted Postol, Susan Eisenhower, et al. The salon was sponsored by the Committee on the Republic.
A technical glitch prevented me from including a short, highly revealing intercepted conversation between then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Victoria Nuland and the de-rigueur deferential/submissive U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt.
Hearing Is Believing
In a word, you have to hear them plotting the coup (over an open telephone) to believe how confident they were that their coup plans would land “jelly-side up”, as Pyatt put it. (The conversation was posted on YouTube on Feb. 4, 2014; the coup came 18 days later.)
The good news is that the folks at Consortium News have been kind enough to insert the Nuland-Pyatt conversation into the original video (while smoothing out smaller glitches), and have just posted their edited version on YouTube. See minutes 24:40 to 29:00 of:
‘Jelly-Side Up’; And Biden Ready to Make Coup ‘Stick’
Hear Ambassador Pyatt reassure Nuland (his superior), “We could land jelly side up on this one.”
And hear Nuland say she has word from Joe Biden adviser Jake Sullivan that Vice President Biden is willing to lend his gravitas as VP “to get the details to stick” (Minutes 28:49 to 28:56).
Where Are They Now?
Victoria Nuland: Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (number 3 at State)
Geoffrey Pyatt: U.S. Ambassador to Greece
Jake Sullivan: Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
Joe Biden: President of the United States of America
John Mearsheimer: Still universally respected by those able to think amid hysteria
This just in from a cousin in Co. Tipperary, courtesy of his deceased wife who hung it in a prominent place on the wall. Just decades ago, she herself might have been hanged on the wall by a vicious Empire in its last throes.
The Nothing People
They do not lie; they just neglect to tell the truth.
They do not take; they simply cannot bring themselves to give.
They do not steal; they scavenge.
They will not rock the boat; but did you ever see them pull an oar?
They will not pull you down; they’ll simply let you pull them up, and let that pull you down.
They do not hurt you; they merely will not help you.
They do not hate you; they merely cannot love you.
They will not burn you; they’ll only fiddle when you burn.
They are the nothing people; the sins-of-omission folk;
the neither-good-nor-bad- and-therefore-worse.
Because the good at least keep busy trying, and the bad try just as hard,
both have that character that comes from caring, action and conviction.
So give me every time an honest sinner, or even a Saint.
But, God and Satan, get together, and protect me from the nothing people.
