https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-balloon-obsession-attempt-prevent-detente-china/5807504?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
America’s Balloon Obsession Is an Attempt to Prevent Detente with China
For the last several days, the mainstream propaganda machine
diverted its attention from the mandatory “evil Russia” narrative and
focused on 24/7 coverage of a weather balloon. Although the media frenzy
was part of the “evil China” narrative, this one is not as omnipresent
as that about Russia, at least not yet. The rather bizarre overfocus on
such a trivial matter still has its propaganda purpose, as the “spy
balloon”, while insignificant at a glance, fulfilled an important
geopolitical goal for the United States.
First, the idea that a superpower such as China needs weather
balloons to effectively spy on the US is quite laughable, as the Asian
giant has more than enough surveillance satellites for that purpose,
both military and civilian, to say nothing of its intelligence services
and other means of collecting information. Second, weather balloons are
simply too obvious and, thus, too (geo)politically sensitive to be used
for that purpose, not to mention they’re not exactly the most steerable
aircraft and are also quite slow, meaning they take quite a lot of time
to reach the desired location.
Eventually, the US Air Force sent its much-touted F-22 fighter jets
to shoot down the balloon. The coverage of the shootdown was quite
embarrassing, to say the least, as the F-22 “Raptor” is an extremely
expensive aircraft and it made no sense to use it for such a trivial
matter. The jet that costs $334 million apiece and nearly $70,000 per
flight hour fired a nearly half a million dollar missile to down a
weather balloon, but the media presented it as if the target was no less
than an alien spacecraft invading the US. There are now even photos of an F-22 with the balloon painted on it as its first air-to-air kill.
The balloon was also presented as some pinnacle of Chinese
technology, despite the fact that Beijing operates satellites,
hypersonic surveillance drones and other truly high-end technologies,
some of which even the US itself lacks. Additionally, according to the
US, China suddenly decided to send a weather balloon to spy on America’s
“Minuteman 3” ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) silos right
after it invited the US Secretary of States Anthony Blinken to visit Beijing.
Worse yet, it supposedly did so on the eve of the visit, despite
China’s insistence that Blinken also meets President Xi Jinping.
Such diplomatic and (geo)political absurdity can hardly be expected
from China, as it simply makes no sense for Beijing to try and make yet another peaceful overture toward the US
only to sabotage its own efforts by sending a “spy balloon” over the
most obvious spy target in the continental US. Even the Pentagon
confirmed that “it had been tracking the balloon for quite some time”
and that “it wasn’t the first time such an incident occurred”. So,
again, the question is, why did the US military decide to go public with
the “spy balloon” story at this exact moment? The fact that Anthony
Blinken announced he is postponing his visit to China is quite
indicative of America’s goal in this case.
China insists that the weather balloon is indeed just that – a
weather balloon that has drifted too far from its course and ended up in
US airspace. The Washington Post quoted national security experts who confirmed this
and stated that “the craft appears to share characteristics with
high-altitude balloons used by developed countries around the world for
weather forecasting.” The Pentagon itself also confirmed this and stated
that “the payload wouldn’t offer much in the way of surveillance that
China couldn’t collect through spy satellites” and that “the balloon
posed no serious physical or intelligence threat”.
Again, this begs the question as to why the Pentagon even made the
public announcement and why the US corporate and state-run media decided
to go for such bizarre coverage. It’s simply impossible not to connect
the story to the deteriorating US-China relations and the fact that
Washington DC is doing everything in its power (bar direct war, for now,
at least) to make sure the relationship between the two global powers
stays on the collision course. Blinken’s visit, as previously mentioned
initiated by Beijing, could have been a crucial step toward some form of
detente between the US and China.
However, with an “evil Chinese spy balloon flying over American ICBM
silos” Washington DC has a “perfect” (in reality, ludicrous) excuse to
continue its incessant escalation with the Asian giant. The continuous
US belligerence can only be explained by the fact that Washington DC is
simply afraid to let China develop peacefully, since American political
elites are perfectly aware that they are falling behind the Asian giant
in virtually every metric, be it economy, technology, military, etc.
It’s the only viable explanation for such a sudden obsession with a
weather balloon.
....
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/02/10/my-sources-corroborate-sy-hershs-nord-stream-report-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
My Sources Corroborate Sy Hersh’s Nord Stream Report: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
My sources corroborate Seymour Hersh’s report that the US was behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. (My sources are logic, common sense, and public statements by US government officials.)
If
Putin and senior Russian officials had said what Biden and senior US
officials have been saying about how much they hate the Nord Stream
pipelines and how great it is that they were bombed, every member of the
western political/media class would blame Russia for the bombing, and
we would never hear the end of it.
Russia
would stand nothing to gain by bombing its own pipeline whose gas flow
it could control on its own end, while US officials are openly
acknowledging that the US benefits from it directly. It’s just so silly
how imperial spinmeisters are falling all over themselves to dismiss a
claim they all privately know is true because it’s so glaringly obvious.
The
Nord Stream sabotage is like what 9/11 would look like if before 9/11
you had top US officials saying “Yeah we’re definitely going to bring an
end to the World Trade Center” and then after 9/11 they were saying
“It’s good that the World Trade Center was destroyed because it advances
our interests.” The compilations of evidence we’ve
been seeing that the US was behind this attack look a lot like the
evidence compiled by 9/11 conspiracy analysts, except the evidence is
way stronger and US officials are pretty much saying they did it in
plain English.
It’s just a basic fact that conspiracies happen.
Powerful people do conspire with each other, and they are often able to
keep their conspiring secret for a very long time. It
really is a cruel joke how our rulers hide their actions behind thick
veils of government secrecy, punish anyone who tries to look behind
those veils with harsh prison sentences, and then have the gall to smear
those who try to form theories about what they’re doing behind those
veils as “conspiracy theorists”.
Just something to keep in mind as the mad narrative management scramble to brand Sy Hersh a “conspiracy theorist” continues.
❖
The
empire has been frantically ramping up propaganda and censorship
because its “great power competition” against Russia and China is going
to require economic warfare, massive military spending, and nuclear
brinkmanship that no one would consent to without lots of manipulation.
Economic
warfare, exploded military spending and nuclear brinkmanship all
harm/threaten the interests of the rank-and-file public. Nobody’s going
to consent to being made poorer and less safe over some global power
struggle that doesn’t benefit them without being manipulated to.
That’s
why the media have been acting so weird lately, that’s why dissident
voices are getting harder and harder to find online, and that’s the
purpose of the new “fact-checking” industry and other forms of narrative
control. Controlling the narrative is growing more crucial.
It
would never occur to a normal person that China needs to be made to
submit to US interests and that economic sacrifices must be made to
attain this goal which make their wallet lighter, for example. That’s
the kind of change you can only get consent for if you manufacture that
consent. The fact that the empire’s “great power competition” happens to
be occurring at the same time as widespread access to the internet
means that drastic measures must be made to ensure the empire’s
information dominance so it can march the public into playing along with
this agenda.
❖
So
many Americans in my social media notifications bought fully into the
shrieking hysteria about a fucking balloon the other day. Doesn’t bode
well for how critically they’ll be thinking once the anti-China
propaganda campaign really gets going.
❖
Still
blows my mind how the empire can rob Americans blind, keep them poor,
deprive them of all normal social safety nets, oppress them, exploit
them, throw them into the largest prison system on earth, work them into
the ground, and then convince them to be angry at China.
❖
All
major US foreign policy maneuvers in today’s world are ultimately about
preventing China from becoming an obstacle to US planetary rule. That’s
all its shenanigans with Russia, Iran etc are ultimately about, and
it’s what Ukraine is about too. If you don’t see this, you’re not seeing anything.
If
you say you oppose US foreign policy toward Russia but not toward
China, then you don’t really oppose US foreign policy toward Russia,
because it’s the same foreign policy. They’re just two aspects of the
same one agenda.
❖
Rank-and-file Australians are so pathetically aligned with US interests in their opinions because we have the most concentrated media ownership in the western world — a huge amount of it by Murdoch, who has been intimately intertwined with US government agencies for many decades.
❖
A
sizeable percentage of the people who shriek at me for criticizing US
foreign policy are Bernie Sanders progressives and self-described
“anarchists”. Very few of the people who think of themselves as fighting
the power and opposing tyranny actually do.
❖
The
best measure of character for a journalist, analyst or commentator is
whether they spend their time punching up or punching down. Are they
always throwing shots at the world’s top power structure, or are they
punching at weaker governments, other commentators, “tankies”,
marginalized groups, etc?
This is the best measure of character
because consistently throwing punches at the very top is the least
effective way to rise in influence and build a brand, because those who
facilitate the interests of the powerful will be uplifted and amplified
by the establishment power structure while those who work against those
interests will not be. Someone who’s only ever punching up as high as
possible — never down or laterally — is more likely to be in it for
nobler reasons than fame and fortune.
This is also a good way to
evaluate your own character. Are you always punching up as high as your
arms can reach? Or are you getting lost in sectarianism, social media
drama, or power-serving attacks on parts of the rank-and-file public?
How high are your fists going? It’s a good habit to check in on this
from time to time.
....
https://stephenlendman.org/2023/02/08/worst-ever-state-of-the-union-in-us-history/
Worst Ever State of the Union in US History
With lines scripted for him to recite via teleprompter, crib notes,
and an earpiece for instructions, the fake Biden mumbled and bumbled
through the regime’s Tuesday state of the union (SOTU) address for 72
painful-to-hear minutes.
It came at a time when undemocratic Dems are waging war at home on
Americans targeted for elimination by kill shots and abroad against
militarily, morally and ethically superior Russia — what risks
humanity-destroying nuclear war if push things too far.
The fake Biden is an embarrassment to what leadership is supposed to
be, what’s absent with undemocratic Dems in charge — especially with an
imposter, a detached from reality buffoon in the White House.
This year’s SOTU came at a time of hegemon USA’s war against invented
enemy Russia, a must-win conflict it’s losing to a superior foe.
Throughout the post-WW II period, the empire of lies and
mass-deception always picked fights with militarily inferior nations
free from its control — until overstepping by challenging Russia
belligerently in support of Nazi-infested Ukraine, a major strategic
blunder for which it’s paying dearly.
Separately in response to international community calls for the Biden
regime to aid rescue work in earthquake-devastated northern Syria by
lifting illegally imposed sanctions, interventionist Blinken’s so-called
spokesman, Price, showed contempt for its people in need by the
following perversion of reality remarks, saying:
“It would be…counterproductive for us to reach out to a government”
on the US target list for regime change for not subordinating its
sovereignty and rights of its people to a higher power in Washington.
And this perversion of reality from Price, falsely claiming that the
empire of lies and forever wars on invented enemies provided “more
humanitarian assistance to the people of Syria than any other country
(sic)” — a bald-faced Big Lie by a regime waging all-out war on nations
free from its diabolical control.
Following Obama/Biden regime aggression against Syria in 2011, the
empire of lies continued waging war on the country and its people by hot
and other means.
At this time, hegemon USA illegally controls about one-third of
Syrian territory, including its oil-rich areas and most fertile
agricultural land.
Hegemon USA’s so-called 2020 Caesar Act is all about wanting 17
million Syrians starved into submission for failure of Damascus to bend
to the will of the empire of lies and forever wars.
At the time of its enactment into US law, Syrian envoy to Russia,
Riyad Haddad, explained that threatened US sanctions under the measure
“not only target Syria, they directly or indirectly jeopardize all its
allies and are also aimed against Persian Gulf countries, so that none
of these countries dares to invest in” the Syrian Arab Republic.
“And each party that will say it wants to invest, must get permission from the US.”
The measure is similar to US state terror and illegal sanctions war
on Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and other
countries free from its control, what aims to inflict enormous harm on
their people.
At this time, US hostility toward sovereign independent nations is a
sideshow compared to its aggression against Russia, what poses an
ominous risk of humanity-destroying nuclear war.
As in virtually all his public remarks, the fake Biden’s SOTU trampled on truth by a litany of pre-scripted bald-faced Big Lies.
It’s how the empire of lies operates on the world stage, treating truth and full disclosure of major issues as mortal enemies.
On March 11, 2022, the fake Biden called tanks to Nazi-infested Ukraine “WW III.”
Launched preemptively by the empire of lies against nonthreatening
Russia, it’s been raging long before the fake Biden “announc(ed) that
(hegemon USA) will be sending ‘Abram’ tanks to Ukrain(ian)” Nazis days
earlier.
Will F-16 or other US warplanes follow — for Russia to target and destroy in flight?
The Russian Federation controls Ukrainian airspace and offshore waters.
Its high-precision hypersonic missiles can target and destroy anything threatening its security.
Sounding detached from reality and delusional, the fake Biden ignored reality about more monster than nation-state USA.
He ignored how Russia is outgunning, outmaneuvering, outwitting and
defeating Nazi-infested Ukraine and the empire of lies at the same time.
And at a time of perpetual wars by hot and/or other means on invented
enemies, soaring inflation and deepening economic weakness, the fake
Biden pretended that Americans never had things better than since
undemocratic Dems usurped power in 2020 by brazen election rigging.
And once again he ignored that what’s called covid is seasonal flu
renamed, that kill shots are designed to destroy health, that democracy
in the US/West exists in fantasy form alone — the real thing not
tolerated at home or abroad.
What he called “the great American story” is a humanity-destroying monster.
Tucker Carlson is an exception to dominant fourth estate rubbish.
Commenting on the fake Biden’s Tuesday night SOTU before delivered, he said:
“(I)t would take a lot of brass to stand up on live television and
claim that the (empire of lies and forever wars) is better off than it
was when you took over” when reality is worlds apart different.
As long as undemocratic Dems run things, the ominous risk of nuclear war will threaten humanity’s survival.
Carlson correctly expected not “a single honest word” from the White House imposter in his SOTU address.
Instead of truth and full disclosure, he recited a litany of bald-faced Big Lies about all things domestic and geopolitical.
He didn’t run for president.
He was installed unelected to serve wealth, power and privileged
interests exclusively at the expense of peace and beneficial social
change.
At the same time, the regime he represents is waging war on Russia and losing badly to its military and tactical superiority.
On the home front, real inflation as calculated pre-1990 is 16.2%.
Most jobs created are rotten part-time ones paying poverty or sub-poverty wages with few or no benefits.
What the fake Biden called “near record low unemployment for Black and Hispanic workers” is pure fiction.
At a time when the nation’s industrial base operates in low-wage
countries, he lied claiming that the empire of lies “created 800,000
good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years (sic).”
He compounded his Big Lie by falsely claiming that “we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs (sic).”
He turned truth on its head and trampled on it by falsely blaming
Russia for made-in-the-USA inflation, a fake pandemic and perpetual
war-making on invented enemies.
Virtually every positive claim he made was a bald-faced Big Lie — reflecting his detachment from reality.
The empire of lies and perpetual wars on invented enemies is
declining because of its imperial arrogance, its endless wars against
invented enemies, and unwillingness to change its wicked ways.
The fake Biden is symbolic of hegemon USA’s nonexistent
exceptionalism, its illusory moral superiority and fantasy military
supremacy.
It’s the same dynamic that doomed other empires in world history.
The long ago founded US republic no longer exists, replaced by the
imperial state and ruinous military Keynesianism while vital homeland
needs go begging.
China, Russia and other independent nations are rising in preeminence
on the world stage at a time of hegemon USA’s fall from grace with no
prospect of turning things around.
The nation I grew up in long ago no longer exists.
A humanity-destroying monster replaced it.
If not effectively challenged and changed, US-launched nuclear war may kill us all.
A Final Comment
The fake Biden lied and mass-deceived by pretending to represent “all Americans.”
He was installed unelected to wage perpetual wars by hot and/or other
means on invented enemies to serve wealth, power and privileged
interests exclusively.
The regime he represents is an unparalleled menace to humanity at home and worldwide.
As long as it’s empowered, we’re more greatly endangered than ever
before in world history because of its contempt for peace in favor of
perpetual war-making on invented enemies.
Many feel that to be a politician is to be dishonest. (“How do you tell when [ a politician] is lying?…Thei lips are moving.”, goes the not-so-funny joke.) In very many if not the vast majority of cases that may be true. Obama was certainly more clever in his deceits, continuing perhaps to this day to snow the Party faithful. But Biden, more the bumpkin, is certainly unabashed in saying whatever his handlers want him to say. It’s just so demoralizing that we even come to take such dishonesty for granted now. "
....
http://endoftheamericandream.com/another-conspiracy-theory-has-been-proven-true-and-it-brings-us-even-closer-to-nuclear-war/
Another “Conspiracy Theory” Has Been Proven True, And It Brings Us Even Closer To Nuclear War
We now know who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us. The corporate media tried very hard to convince us that the Russians were behind the sabotage when it originally happened, but that didn’t make any sense at all. It took 15 years to build the Nord Stream pipelines, and the total cost ultimately surpassed 20 billion dollars. So why would the Russians blow up pipelines that they had invested so much to construct and that were so critical to their own national economy? Sadly, many Americans unquestionably believed the narrative that was being pushed by the Biden administration, but now we have learned that it was the Biden administration that was actually behind the attack.
Legendary journalist Seymour Hersh has just published an extremely detailed article entitled “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline” in which he lays out precisely what happened. If you are not familiar with Hersh, the following is some good background information about him from Wikipedia…
As you can see, Hersh is not just another journalist.
He was winning awards long before many of you were even born.
And he would never go ahead with a story like this unless his source was rock solid.
According to Hersh’s source, the plan to blow up the pipelines came from a task force that was originally formed in December 2021…
Apparently Sullivan made it quite clear that the task force was supposed to “come up with a plan for the destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines”, and it was also quite clear that Sullivan was “delivering on the desires of the President”…
For the past two years, I have been repeatedly warning my readers that Jake Sullivan is a big time warmonger.
So it is not exactly a shock that he was directly involved in this decision.
According to Hersh’s source, those that were a part of this task force definitely understood that blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines would be “an act of war”…
So now that the fact that we have committed an “act of war” against Russia has been revealed for the whole world to see, how will the Russians respond?
Will they choose to strike back in some way?
Thanks to the foolishness of our leaders in Washington, we are now closer to nuclear war than ever before.
At the time when this attack was first being considered, there were a few officials from the CIA and the State Department that were warning about what would happen if the truth was ever revealed…
Now the truth has finally come out, and there will be very serious consequences.
Ultimately, Sullivan’s working group settled on a plan that involved the planting of underwater explosives.
And apparently those underwater explosives were put into place during the BALTOPS22 military exercises in June 2022…
There was concern that it would be obvious that the U.S. was behind the attack if they were set off too quickly after the BALTOPS22 military exercises concluded.
So the explosives just sat on the pipelines until they were finally remotely detonated in late September…
When asked about Hersh’s bombshell story, the White House responded by calling it “completely and utterly false”…
But what else can they do?
If the Biden administration admits the truth, it is likely that Biden will be impeached.
Needless to say, the Russians were exceedingly interested in this report, and they are demanding answers…
If the Russians had attacked us in such a way, the American people would be crying out for revenge.
And rightfully so.
The recklessness of our leaders has pushed us to the brink of nuclear war, and as I discussed in a previous article, the United States is definitely not prepared for such a conflict.
Sadly, most Americans don’t even realize what is going on.
Elon Musk was quite correct when he observed that “most are oblivious to the danger”…
But over in Russia the story is completely different.
The Russians believe that they are now engaged in an existential conflict with the United States, and there is constant talk about the possibility of nuclear war on Russian television.
When it finally happens, nobody will be able to say that they weren’t warned.
Over the past two years, I have been relentlessly warning my readers that Joe Biden and his all-star team of warmongers were going to push things way too far.
Now the truth about the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines has finally come out, and nothing will ever be the same after this.
....
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/02/06/more-evidence-that-the-west-sabotaged-peace-in-ukraine/
More Evidence That The West Sabotaged Peace In Ukraine
Days after the war in Ukraine began it was reported by The New York Times that “President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to mediate negotiations in Jerusalem between Ukraine and Russia.” In a recent interview, Bennett made some very interesting comments about what happened during those negotiations in the early days of the war.
In a new article titled “Former Israeli PM Bennett Says US ‘Blocked’ His Attempts at a Russia-Ukraine Peace Deal,” Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following:
Bennett says the concessions each side was prepared to make included the renunciation of future NATO membership for Ukraine, and on Russia’s end dropping the goals of “denazification” and Ukrainian disarmament. As DeCamp notes, this matches up with an Axios report from early March that “According to Israeli officials, Putin’s proposal is difficult for Zelensky to accept but not as extreme as they anticipated. They said the proposal doesn’t include regime change in Kyiv and allows Ukraine to keep its sovereignty.”
Bennett is about as unsavory a character as exists in the world today, but Israel’s complicated relationship with this war lends itself to the occasional release of information not fully in alignment with the official imperial line. And his comments here only add to a pile of information that’s been coming out for months which says the same thing, not just regarding the sabotage of peace talks in March but in April as well.
In May of last year Ukrainian media reported that then-British prime minister Boris Johnson had flown to Kyiv the previous month to pass on the message on behalf of the western empire that “Putin is a war criminal, he should be pressured, not negotiated with,” and that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”
In April of last year, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that “there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia gets weaker.” Shortly thereafter, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the goal in Ukraine is “to see Russia weakened.”
A September Foreign Affairs report by Fiona Hill asserts that in April of last year a peace deal had been in the works between Moscow and Kyiv, which would presumably have been the agreement that Johnson et al were able to sabotage:
In March of last year Bloomberg’s Niall Ferguson reported that sources in the US and UK governments had told him the real goal of western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order “bleed Putin” and achieve regime change in Moscow. Ferguson wrote that he has reached the conclusion that “the U.S. intends to keep this war going,” and says he has other sources to corroborate this:
All this taken together heavily substantiates the claim made by Vladimir Putin this past September that Russia and Ukraine had been on the cusp of peace shortly after the start of the war, but western powers ordered Kyiv to “wreck” the negotitations.
“After the start of the special military operation, in particular after the Istanbul talks, Kyiv representatives voiced quite a positive response to our proposals,” Putin said. “These proposals concerned above all ensuring Russia’s security and interests. But a peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kyiv was actually ordered to wreck all these agreements.”
Month after month it’s been reported that US diplomats have been steadfastly refusing to engage in diplomacy with Russia to help bring an end to this war, an inexcusable rejection that would only make sense if the US wants this war to continue. And comments from US officials continually make it clear that this is the case.
In March of last year President Biden himself acknowledged what the real game is here with an open call for regime change, saying of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” Statements from the Biden administration in fact indicate that they expect this war to drag on for a long time, making it abundantly clear that a swift end to minimize the death and destruction is not just uninteresting but undesirable for the US empire.
US officials are becoming more and more open about the fact that they see this war as something that serves their strategic objectives, which would of course contradict the official narrative that the western empire did not want this war and the infantile fiction that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked”. Recent examples of this would include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s speech ahead of Zelensky’s visit to Washington in December.
“President Zelensky is an inspiring leader,” McConnell said in his speech ahead of the Ukrainian president’s visit to Washington. “But the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests. Helping equip our friends in Eastern Europe to win this war is also a direct investment in reducing Vladimir Putin’s future capabilities to menace America, threaten our allies, and contest our core interests.”
In May of last year Congressman Dan Crenshaw said on Twitter that “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea.”
Indeed, a report by the empire-funded Center for European Policy Analysis titled “It’s Costing Peanuts for the US to Defeat Russia” asserts that the “US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment.”
In May of last year US Senator Joe Manchin said at the World Economic Forum that he opposes any kind of peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, preferring instead to use the conflict to hurt Russian interests and hopefully remove Putin.
“I am totally committed, as one person, to seeing Ukraine to the end with a win, not basically with some kind of a treaty; I don’t think that is where we are and where we should be,” Manchin said.
“I mean basically moving Putin back to Russia and hopefully getting rid of Putin,” Manchin added when asked what he meant by a win for Ukraine.
“I believe strongly that I have never seen, and the people I talk strategically have never seen, an opportunity more than this, to do what needs to be done,” Manchin later added.
Then you’ve got US officials telling the press that they plan to use this war to hurt Russia’s fossil fuel interests, “with the long-term goal of destroying the country’s central role in the global energy economy” according to The New York Times. You’ve also got the fact that the US State Department can’t stop talking about how great it is that Russia’s Nord Stream Pipelines were sabotaged in September of last year, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying the Nord Stream bombing “offers tremendous strategic opportunity” and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland saying the Biden administration is “very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”
The US empire is getting everything it wants out of this proxy war. That’s why it knowingly provoked this war, that’s why it repeatedly sabotaged the outbreak of peace after the war broke out, and that’s why this proxy war has no exit strategy. The empire is getting everything it wants from this war, so why wouldn’t it do everything in its power to obstruct peace?
I mean, besides the obvious unforgivable depravity of it all, of course. The empire has always been fine with cracking a few hundred thousand human eggs in order to cook the imperial omelette. It is unfathomably, unforgivably evil, though, and it should outrage everyone.