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https://www.globalresearch.ca/dr-strangelove-no-longer-satire/5810801

Dr. Strangelove Is No Longer Satire

Expansion of U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine makes nuclear war more conceivable

“We are fighting a war against Russia,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Council of Europe on January 24. The next day German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to send high-powered tanks to Ukraine, in a major escalation of the conflict.

“Germany has really stepped up,” Biden said, “and the chancellor has been a strong, strong voice for unity…and for the level of effort we’re going to continue.”

Biden said nothing about destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines last September, considered by many as a direct attack on its European “ally.” Other voices were not so united. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic commented at the Council of Europe meeting that “The German FM said we must be united because we are at war with Russia. I did not know that. Maybe Germany is at war with Russia again, then good luck to them, maybe it will turn out better than 70 years ago.”

World-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs declared on January 25 that

“We are at the brink of a disaster…first and foremost because of the United States which is a major provocateur of this war, and a major threat to peace.” He made an impassioned plea to “get us off this reckless war between Russia and NATO, which is escalating by the day. The Doomsday Clock was moved to 90 seconds to midnight at the same time as the U.S. and Germany agreed to send new highly advanced tanks to Ukraine, in a guaranteed reckless escalation that brings us closer to nuclear war.”

Sachs said the conflict goes back more than 30 years to 1990, when the U.S. began to “pursue its unipolar agenda, moving its systems further east, with the idea of surrounding Russia.”

“Passing Germany the Poisoned Chalice”

A leader of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), Sevim Dagdelen said “This is obviously about passing Germany the poisoned chalice. Berlin is to be sent into the line of fire, to conclusively destroy German-Russian relations and turn them into open war for others’ benefit.” Dagdelen is the spokesperson for her party in the German Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Dagdelen’s view echoes economist Michael Hudson, who says the U.S. war against Russia is actually waged against Europe, to keep the European Union (EU) subordinated to U.S. capital. Hudson says the sanctions against Russia and China aim to prevent America’s allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China, to “keep them firmly within America’s own economic orbit.” European industry has been shutting down recently as energy prices soar due to sanctions.

The German Left Party leader said delivering German tanks to Ukraine would “entail the greatest security threat to face the German population since the Second World War.” She added that “many Russians, especially those who lost loved ones in [WWII]…will see in these weapons a renewed German military campaign against their country.”

A large majority of Germans and other Europeans share these concerns. In a recent poll by Project Europe, more than two-thirds of respondents in the 27 countries of the EU think the conflict is “worrisome.”

Across Europe, more than 80% want negotiations, not continued war, the poll said. European public opinion reflects the impact of sanctions against Russia, which have had a “boomerang” effect, with skyrocketing inflation leading to near-depression conditions. Street protests and strikes across Europe have had an impact, as people pressure their leaders to stop doing Washington’s bidding.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Washington’s loudest “poodle” in London, was toppled by the crisis, along with Italy’s ex-Prime Minister Mario Draghi; and French President Macron lost his majority in the French National Assembly.

In the United States, people are more divided: A survey completed in late November by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found the U.S. public split 48% to 47% on whether Washington should “support Ukraine as long as it takes,” or “urge Ukraine to settle for peace as soon as possible.”

It is a changing trend: The percentage supporting “as long as it takes” went down ten points from 58% in July; and the “settle for peace” percentage rose from 38% in the same period. During that time there were anti-war protests in dozens of cities and towns across the country. More recently the protests intensified—spreading to more than 90 localities, as major national coalitions joined forces around Martin Luther King’s birthday weekend.

Mission Creep: How the U.S. Role Has Escalated

A January 28 article in Responsible Statecraft by Branko Marcetic says “NATO and the United States are creeping closer to the catastrophic scenario President Joe Biden said ‘we must strive to prevent’ — direct conflict between the United States and Russia….NATO arms transfers have now escalated well beyond what governments had worried just months ago could draw the alliance into direct war with Russia, with the U.S. and European governments now sending armored vehicles and…preparing to send tanks.”

The article adds that,

“[d]espite stressing at the start of the war that ‘our forces are not and will not be engaged in the conflict,’ current and former intelligence officials…[said] ‘there is a much larger presence of both CIA and U.S. special operations personnel’ in Ukraine than there was when Russia invaded, conducting ‘clandestine American operations’ in the country that ‘are now far more extensive.’”

Responsible Statecraft cites a January 18 report in the New York Times that U.S. officials are “strongly considering giving Ukraine the green light to attack Crimea, even while acknowledging the risk of nuclear retaliation that such a move would carry. Fears of such an escalation ‘have dimmed,’ U.S. officials told the paper.”

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov is quoted in Newsweek saying that “We have repeatedly warned the U.S. about the consequences that may follow if the U.S. continues to flood Ukraine with weapons. It effectively puts itself in a state close to what can be described as a party to the conflict.”

A “Spanner in the Works”

German Left Party leader Dagdelen says “we must do all we can to put a spanner in the works” – that is, do something that prevents this plan from succeeding (Cambridge Dictionary explanation). “If the German tanks are delivered, the door will be open for more weapons. Calls for combat aircraft have already been voiced…The next thing will be missiles, followed, when that does not work either, by our own soldiers. But a gambler’s mentality, which responds to losses by raising the stakes and eventually betting everything on one play, is a bad guide for any society.”

Dagdelen adds:

“The tank deliveries are today what war loans were in 1914. They lead directly to participation in the war. They cannot be considered in isolation from their purpose—that is, victory in NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. But consideration must also be given to the Russian response. In the end, after all, Western tanks would practically invoke the use of nuclear weapons—against Germany first…

“Why is it in Washington’s interest to send the Germans, of all people, into Russia’s line of fire?…Germany, it appears, is supposed to draw Russia’s counterfire…The United States would thus have achieved one of its long-term strategic objectives, namely to prevent cooperation between Germany and Russia forever.”

It is a reminder of the September 26 explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, which can be seen as a guarantee, at least for now, that Europe cannot depend on Russian gas. All evidence about who did this has disappeared. But months before, Biden assured reporters the U.S. “has the capacity” to do it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to ordinary Germans during his visit to Volgograd—formerly Stalingrad—on February 2, the 80^th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s historic and decisive 1943 victory against Nazi Germany in the Battle of Stalingrad. Russia’s official news agency Tass reported that Putin said “they remember it in Germany, that German anti-fascists became the first victims of the German fascism, Nazism. And it is very good that such memory remains in ordinary citizens. Unfortunately, modern elites seem to be losing it.”

He noted that an “ordinary citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany treats Russia and the heroes that defeated Nazism with respect.”

The RAND Corporation, which functions as the Pentagon’s planning agency, released a January 2023 study entitled “Avoiding a Long War,” which concludes that “the consequences of a long war—ranging from persistent elevated escalation risks to economic damage—far outweigh the possible benefits.”

This is not the view of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who declared on January 5 that

“weapons are, in fact, the way to peace.”

Victoria Nuland, along with her bosses, Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, tend to see things more like Stoltenberg than their RAND advisers. “They don’t see the world the way sane people do,” commented Margaret Kimberley, of Black Agenda Report, in a February 1 article. “They have made the Ukraine conflict an existential crisis, and then decide they have no choice but to engage in dangerous actions…The idea of peaceful coexistence is anathema to Nuland, Biden, and Blinken. Blown up pipelines are seen as proof of victory to people who thought they could make dangerous and irrational obsessions come true.”

“Dr. Strangelove Is No Longer Satire”

Roger D. Harris, of the U.S. Peace Council and the SanctionsKill campaign, says “The world was fortunate that the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with both sides willing to seek accommodation rather than victory. In contrast, the currently raging and indeed escalatingUkraine War could be the prelude to World War III because neither side appears to have an exit strategy; one by choice, the other because its back is to the wall.”

“The U.S.’s intent,” Harris further wrote, “is victory by ‘overextending and unbalancing’ Russia,” as a 2019 RAND paper suggested. Harris cites analyst Rick Sterling that “this was the playbook for the U.S. to provoke Russia into the current conflict. Bombers have been repositioned within striking range of key Russian strategic targets, additional tactical nuclear weapons deployed, and U.S./NATO war exercises have been held on Russia’s borders.”

Harris adds that “Now the prevailing propaganda from Washington is that nuclear war can be ‘won.’ Dr. Strangelove is no longer satire. This planning to fight a nuclear war as if it were not an existential threat is institutionalized insanity.”

He cites Robert Kagan, spouse of U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, asking: “Can America learn to use its power?” He says Kagan “argues in favor of a vigorous nuclear confrontation with Russia on the grounds that Putin will most likely back down.”

Whether Russia will “back down” or not is debatable. But back in December 2021, Russian initiatives might have prevented hostilities and made the region more secure with a reduced likelihood of war. Following are the proposals Russia made then:

• Russia and the U.S. shall not use the territory of other countries to prepare or conduct attacks against the other.
• Neither party shall deploy short- or intermediate-range missiles abroad or in areas where these weapons could reach targets inside the other’s territory.
• Neither party shall deploy nuclear weapons abroad, and any such weapons already deployed must be returned.
• Both parties shall eliminate any infrastructure for deploying nuclear weapons outside their own territories.
• Neither party shall conduct military exercises with scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.
• Neither party shall train military or civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons.

When these measures were proposed by Russia in December 2021, they were considered “non-starters” by the U.S. Now the question is whether there is anyone in Washington, D.C., who could convince the Biden administration to reconsider. That is what Jeffrey Sachs is demanding.

Events in Munich and Moscow since Blinken’s late January ‘trial balloon’ clarify that the U.S. is really offering nothing for peace. Instead it continues to escalate the war while attempting to project blame onto both Russia and China.

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/10-steps-edge-abyss/5810780

10 Steps to the Edge of the Abyss

At this moment, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock now stands at only 90 seconds before midnight. Thus, as we move closer and closer to a nuclear World War 3, why not identify the major steps that took us to this dangerously slippery road? Who knows, perhaps this exercise could help to bring some perspective to those who are pushing us into oblivion. They have families and children too. Sometimes even the greatest villains have the moment of repentance.

Here is my take of the ten such major events in the chronological order and those responsible for them:

1. 1998 – Beginning of NATO expansion – Bill Clinton

Many prominent former US government officials, members of Congress, diplomats, and foreign policy experts have objected to this expansion. “We’ll be back on a hair-trigger,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, during the debates in the Senate. Moynihan continued: “We’re talking about nuclear war. It is a curiously ironic outcome that at the end of the Cold War we might face a nuclear Armageddon.”

Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), while calling Moynihan “the single most erudite and informed person in the Senate,” said he disagreed with him, and pushed for NATO’s expansion.

2.  2004 – Abrogation of ABM treaty – George W. Bush

This is what Bush said in November 2001 following Putin’s support for the Afghan operation a month earlier:

“A lot of people never really dreamt that an American President and a Russian President could have established the friendship …. to establish a new spirit of cooperation and trust so that we can work together to make the world more peaceful….I brought him to my ranch because, as the good people in this part of the world know, that you only usually invite your friends into your house…. a new style of leader, a reformer, a man who loves his country as much as I love mine…. a man who is going to make a huge difference in making the world more peaceful, by working closely with the United States.”

What a spirit of sanity from a man who would oversee a disastrous two terms in office which included the war in Iraq and an abrogation of one of the most strategic anti-nuclear war treaties.

3.  2008 – Push to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO – George W. Bush again

As Professor John Mearshimer stated in New Yorker “I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand.”

4.  2014 – Western backed and US coordinated Coup in Ukraine sets up the cornerstone of the current crisis – overseen by the duo of Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland

After two decades of eastward NATO expansion, this crisis was triggered by the West’s attempt to replace the democratically-elected President Yanukovich and his administration who were against Ukraine joining NATO with the new anti-Russia team that will be for it.

5.  2015 – Minsk Peace Accords are supported by the UN Security Council but sabotaged by the US, EU, and Ukraine – Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the EU leadership.

As was discovered years later, the premise of the accords was designed as a dishonest fraud to buy time to arm Ukraine and prepare for the future war with Russia.

6. 2016 – Russia is accused of hacking DNC files – Hillary Clinton and the Deep State

According to former chief NSA security official William Binney, and many other intelligence professionals, substantial evidence has come to light indicating that the DNC hack was probably an inside job that was perpetrated by Democrats within the committee.

7. 2017 – Russiagate scandal is unleashed to derail Trump’s Presidency – Hillary Clinton and the Deep State.

All Russiagate traces lead to Clintonites, who paid Perkins Coie to hire the Beltway smear-specialists of Fusion GPS to draw up and promote the British spy Christopher Steele’s fake allegations.

8. 2018 – Russia is accused of executing operation Hunter’s “Laptop from Hell” – Joe Biden and Deep State

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Hunter Biden’s laptop was not Russian disinformation but a “domestic disinformation campaign for political reasons” which in Ratcliffe’s words “is a disgrace.” Joe Biden, his administration,  media, and 51 ex-national security officials,  lied about this. They included former Obama CIA Director John Brennan, former Obama DNI James Clapper, and former CIA director, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, among others.

9.  2021 – Rejection of Russia’s proposals for the mutual security guarantees – Joe Biden

President Biden didn’t accept Vladimir Putin’s proposals that included a provision denying Ukraine’s entrance into the NATO.  There were additional items for negotiation which could lead to the exit from crisis but Biden decided otherwise.

10. 2022 – Destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines – Joe Biden

According to many experts, and the famous Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh who got firsthand information from an insider whistleblower, this destruction was done on the direct order from Biden. He denies it but if you had to choose between constantly lying Joe and the most respected American journalist with a high professional reputation who would you believe?

2023 – Here we are – On the Edge of the Abyss.

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https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/03/were-losing-our-anti-war-heroes-right-when-we-need-them-most/

We’re Losing Our Anti-War Heroes Right When We Need Them Most

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
~ Greek proverb

The heroic whistleblower and peace activist Daniel Ellsberg is dying.

In an open letter to his friends and supporters, Ellsberg announced that two weeks ago he learned that he has inoperable pancreatic cancer with a prognosis of three to six months. The letter is beautiful and inspiring, but it’s also as heart-rending as anything you’ll ever read, largely because within it Ellsberg makes it abundantly clear that he has extremely urgent concerns about the world he will soon be leaving behind.

“As I write, ‘modernization’ of nuclear weapons is ongoing in all nine states that possess them (the US most of all),” Ellsberg writes. “Russia is making monstrous threats to initiate nuclear war to maintain its control over Crimea and the Donbas – like the dozens of equally illegitimate first-use threats that the US government has made in the past to maintain its military presence in South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam, and (with the complicity of every member state then in NATO ) West Berlin. The current risk of nuclear war, over Ukraine, is as great as the world has ever seen.”

Ellsberg writes of the “scientific near-consensus” that a nuclear war between the US and Russia would cause a nuclear winter that ends most life on earth, and mourns the fact that this understanding has had no bearing on the behavior of the world’s major nuclear powers.

“There’s tons more to say about Ukraine and nuclear policy, of course, and you’ll be hearing from me as long as I’m here,” he writes.

But Ellsberg will not be here long. And I personally find this to be a very dear loss, for reasons that go much further than the death of one man.

At 91 years of age it is entirely unreasonable of me to resent the exit of Daniel Ellsberg from this stage at this time; the man is no spring chicken, and he’s done more good with one lifetime than thousands of us lesser souls combined. And yet still I find myself objecting: “Why now? Damn it, why now?”

Right when the threat of nuclear war is, as Ellsberg says, “as great as the world has ever seen,” we lose what is probably the most famous and influential voice dedicated to opposing the madness of governments stockpiling armageddon weapons and brandishing them at each other in ways that imperil us all. Right at the moment when a powerful anti-war movement is more urgently needed than at any point in human history, we lose one of the greatest peace activists that has ever lived.

And Ellsberg is just the latest voice we’re losing on this front right when we needed them the most. Stephen Cohen, the renowned scholar and expert on US-Russia relations, died of cancer in 2020 after spending his final years warning urgently about the dangerous escalations the west was waging against Moscow. Consortium News founder Robert Parry died in 2018, also of cancer, and also after spending years warning of the dangerous waters that western brinkmanship with Russia was dragging the world into.

(Fuck cancer, by the way.)

And with each new loss I find the same objection coming up: “Why now? Damn it, why now?”

And of course when I settle down and get real honest with myself, I know that the source of my argument with reality is not an objection to the fact that everyone has their time and that sometimes elderly men get cancer. No, when I am really honest with myself, I know that the real source of my objection is that I know these losses mean an increase in my own responsibility. Because every time we lose a giant in the fight against imperial omnicide, that means the rest of us need to step up and fight that much harder.

Ultimately my argument isn’t with mortality, or with cancer, or with Daniel Ellsberg, Stephen Cohen or Bob Parry. My argument, when I am really honest with myself, is with my own fear of going on fighting this battle without those titans at my side.

But that’s reality. The loss of our anti-war heroes does not afford us the luxury of collapsing in grief and defeat, because it means those of us who remain here have all got to step up, and step into some very big shoes. The loss of the Ellsbergs, Cohens and Parrys of this world means nothing other than the need for more Ellsbergs, Cohens and Parrys. And there’s no one who can step into those giant shoes but us.

Thank you for your service, Daniel Ellsberg. You are a beautiful and courageous soul who has lived a beautiful and courageous life. May your remaining days be your best and brightest. Go in peace knowing that we will carry on the fight.